[Vision2020] Nils, on water and mines Part One

Fri Jan 13 08:57:26 PST 2006

James

Thoise are indeed the exact same locations.  Simplot and AP Green both mined 
to produce fire clay for making furnace liners and other materials for the 
steel and the aluminum industry.  The economic downturn in those indiustries 
in the US were what caused both companies to pull out of mines that had been 
in operation for close to five decades.

The deposits of the area are nto mined out, they have hardly been touched.

And yes, there are things that modern mineral companies can do and are doing 
to see that fine sediments suspended in water are removed.  The operations 
at Simplot and AP Green were extremely inefficient, which is to be expected 
considering they were built half a century ago.

As an example, Simplot lost almost half of its clay to process and then 
threw out all of its quartz and feldspar into tailings.  The quartz and 
feldspar that Simplot got rid of is currently worth more than the calue of 
all the clay that they extracted over the 50 year life of their operation.  
That gives the opportunity to clean up any mess that Simplot left behind and 
amke money doing so.

Jack Hammond, there in Troy still operates the old AP Green pit in Helmer 
and that is where Mike Wendt current gets his clay.  If you go up on Mike's 
website you can see the kinds of reclamation that are done and compare that 
to what you know Simplot did.  Leaving the ground productive after mining is 
part of the requirements for operations in the 21st Century, but it was not 
when the old timers were moving earth.

Phil Nisbet

>From: "Reynolds, James" <jreynold at vetmed.wsu.edu>
>To: "Phil Nisbet" <pcnisbet1 at hotmail.com>,<vision2020 at moscow.com>
>Subject: RE: [Vision2020] Nils, on water and mines Part One
>Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2006 07:52:30 -0800
>
>
>I was sad to see Simplot shut down the operation near Bovill. You are 
>talking of the fire-brick plant and is this the same material from which 
>the potting type clays would be quarried? Didn't simplot sell out those 
>holdings to Potlatch? The wells are still in place?
>
>I used to use the claypit ponds to trains my Labradors....What is the 
>suspended sediment and can that be remedied?
>
>One thing for certain is that Bovill could use a boost in its economy!
>
>James Reynolds
>Moscow
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com] 
>On Behalf Of Phil Nisbet
>Sent: Friday, January 13, 2006 7:36 AM
>To: vision2020 at moscow.com
>Subject: [Vision2020] Nils, on water and mines Part One
>
>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.
> >
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