[Vision2020] Nils, on water and mines Part One

[Phil Nisbet]

Nils

That is exactly the fact finding and dialogue that we do need to have, but 
in that debate, the stereotypes need to be left at the door.

Say the word mine and instantly the devil has been invoked in Moscow.  
Frankly, it’s hard to actually discuss a topic or plan for a future when 
people are piling branches for an Auto de Fe, shouting, he's a miner, burn 
him.  I swear to goodness I weigh more than a duck.

The resources that Mike or I are talking about are not those over the top of 
the Moscow Sub-Basin or any portions of the Palouse Aquifer.  They are in 
places within Latah County that have no hydrological impact on the water 
debate here.  And if anybody is interesting in verifying that, they can 
check with John Bush or Mark Soloman.  The Groundwater and surface waters of 
Helmer and Bovill and Deary are in a separate system and a system that 
receives more water than the Moscow Sub-basin does and is currently sparsely 
used.

That is of course no excuse for any potential that any industry should waste 
water.  But it is an indication that the water budget in Bovill is not in 
the same situation of extreme draw down that occurs in Moscow.  I concur 
that a debate on how much water and how it can be conserved in Eastern Latah 
County needs to occur.  Making sure that the same over use that happened in 
the Palouse Supra-Basin does not happen below the Helmer embayment is very 
worthy of discussion.

The minerals in the Helmer Bovill area are inert.  Contact between the 
feldspar, quartz and clays of that area and the water of the area does not 
result in contamination of the water or make it unfit for human or wildlife 
consumption.  If water flowing over what is in essence granite were a 
problem in that regards, all of our water in Latah County would be a witches 
brew and unsafe to drink, since most of the area’s water is in contact with 
either the granite or sediments derived from it.

Mining in the Helmer Bovill area has been conducted for the past 100 years.  
Some of that mineral work has been with materials that did not require water 
processing and some was carried out using water.

Most of the list has been out at the Moose Creek Reservoir.  That Lake was 
built for the use of JR Simplot's clay mine immediately to the south of it.  
It should give you an idea of the amounts of water needed to carry out a 
fairly extensive clay mine.  Feldspar and quartz mine operations require 
much less water.  And the Simplot operation, which operated from 1958-1993, 
was constructed without any sort of modern water conservation.  Current clay 
or other mineral mines recycle their water, which reduces requirements for 
water to about 10% of the needs that Simplot had.

So, on the water front, the question is one of planning requirements that 
insist that operations use water wisely and that assets like the Moose Creek 
Reservoir are the result of any operational plan.

(Continued in Part two)



>From: Nils Peterson <nils_peterson at wsu.edu>
>To: <vision2020 at moscow.com>
>Subject: [Vision2020] Re: A Great Meeting
>Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2006 06:16:15 -0800
>
>Phil, you made a related post on Nov 18, to which I replied. Both are
>captured here:  http://moscowwiki.editme.com/Hwy95Hwy8Intersection  in the
>form of a proposal for where Moscow might house some of those ceramic
>artists.
>
>My follow on comment this time would be that we need to be judicious in how
>excited we get about clay mining, both from water resource impacts and from
>extractive industry perspective. A model like Wendt's that extracts clay 
>for
>its own value added production seems more appropriate, but even there one
>might find there were limits on what would seem appropriate.
>
>
>On 1/13/06 4:44 AM, "vision2020-request at moscow.com"
><vision2020-request at moscow.com> wrote:
>
> > One of the points that Mike Wendt made at the meeting is something that
> > ought to be discussed.  He noted that his on site sales of pottery from 
>his
> > out of the way shop in Lewiston, not exactly the best place for tourist
> > trade, had a cash register that in a little less than 20 years of 
>operations
> > had rung up over 3 million dollars in sales.  That is not from mass 
>produced
> > ceramics, but from true hand crafted pottery.
> >
> > Mike's materials come from right here in Latah County.  We have the raw
> > stuff from which to form a high value added art related industry in 
>Moscow's
> > backyard.  And its not common clay or low value feldspar and quartz, its
> > some of the best porcelain producing material in the world.
>
>_____________________________________________________
>  List services made available by First Step Internet,
>  serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>                http://www.fsr.net
>           mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
>¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

_________________________________________________________________
Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee® 
Security. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963