Ecological Gold Mining

Coalition for Green Gold
if it ain't green, it ain't gold

Ecological Mining,
Certification & The Mining NGO
3 articles by Brian Hill

Ecological mining is a good example of our changing world view because it combines industry and environmental perspectives. Many of us are beginning to realize that it is futile to use our sciences and technologies to exploit and attempt to control nature.

Instead, we are beginning to understand that our sciences should help us to restore ecological imbalances and to complement natural processes. Mining is usually seen as an industry which exploits and destroys nature. But, by integrating mining and ecosystem management a new approach is created: Namely, a technology which can contribute to the restoration and balance of natural processes at the same time that it produces new wealth. Through the combination of mining and stewardship of nature, the gridlock between environmentalism and industry is transformed into a new approach which permits both to flourish as one.

In-stream, placer mining is commonly referred to as dredge mining. It is the processing of alluvial gravel, usually through the use of water and gravity separation to collect gold and other valuable metals. The popular form of placer mining today is suction dredge mining, and it is most often done in gold bearing waterways by small, independent miners who very often seek the freedom and tranquillity of life in nature.

We dredgers work underwater, on the bottoms of streams and rivers. Our dredges have suction hoses that are 4-8 inches in diameter and up to 50 feet long. These machines are like underwater vacuum cleaners that suck up gravel and water. The gold and heavy metals are collected by gravity in the sluice box which is on the surface of the river or stream. Then the gravel flows out the end of the box and back into the stream.

By spending summers underwater with the fish and the rocks we get to know quite a bit about the life and composition of the waterway. It is an exciting and beautiful place to work. The fish become our friends after a few days working in the same area. They come very close to feed on the little critters that our dredging disturbs.

Valuable metals are most often the heaviest metals in nature so they are found on the bottom of the waterways, close to bedrock. Hence, the placer miner or dredger must move most of the sand, gravel, rocks and boulders in the waterway in order to recover these metals.

Thanks to modern science and technology it is possible for the miner to deposit the processed gravel (the tailings) in ways that are best suited for the aquatic biosystem.

Ecological mining, therefore, can simultaneously restore degraded waterways and collect valuable minerals.

This new generation of river miners wants to help the fish and aquatic life but lack the scientific knowledge that university trained specialists have. By combining the two previously contradictory fields of mining and ecosystem stewardship the miner can improve the waterways he or she works in and earn money at the same time.

For example, one of the greatest problems with our waterways, as I understand it, is over sedimentation. It is possible for the miner to separate sediment from river gravel and pump the detrimental sediment above the flood plane while mining is taking place. This is a new technology and one that needs more input from the scientific community in order to perfect it.

Another critical problem with the health of our waterways is water temperature. Streams with good intra-gravel flow have cool water. When water runs through the gravel it cools itself.

So by removing the sediment which prevents intra-gravel flows the water temperature is lowered. Sediment removal lowers the water temperature, deepens the river, provides new spawning beds, aerates and filters the water and allows for an efficient recovery valuable minerals and soils. The miner can process the over(c)sedimented river gravel, remove the detrimental sediment and leave a healthy waterway.

As a part of normal mining the suction dredge miner can restore pools filled with sediment, construct permanent rock weirs on bedrock, remove heavy toxic metals like mercury, rip rap banks of streams and rivers which are threatened by undercutting and remove barriers preventing fish from reaching their spawning grounds.

If the miner can learn from the scientists what needs to be done to restore and maintain healthy waterways, the independent miner can use his/her experiential knowledge of streams and rivers to provide the most cost effective techniques for river restoration while mining is taking place.

We believe that by joining together the experience of the miners and the training of university scientists we will have enough vision to strategically plan an in-river program which will restore our waterways at minimal costs.

Please note that this explanation is only for suction dredge mining. In order to develop/apply ecological mining techniques to other types of mining, specialists from each type of mining will present detailed analyses and techniques, many of which have yet to be developed.

For purposes of setting up mining certification standards, let us begin with mining practices which we are dealing with at the moment and bring in other types of mining once we have dealt with the mining situations at hand.

Let us then begin with small to medium size placer miners. Standards for this class of miners can include;

1. No sediment or toxics should be added to the ecosystem where mining is taking place.

2. Degraded habitat should be improved in the process of mining

By Brian Hill of Institute for Cultural Ecology
(from speech presented to the California Forestry Conference, Healdsburg, June 2, 1993
published in Popular Mining, #58, October 1993, pp.32-33

Ecological Mining and Certification

Following the rapid social change events of the 1960s, the Western World View, particularly in relation to Nature, began to shift rapidly. Prior to the 60’s and probably going all the way back to the origin of the Nation-State, Western culture was opposed to nature.
Pre-60’s Western Man saw nature as something to be exploited, controlled, dominated and competed for. Nature was seen as an inexhaustible treasure chest of sustenance and wealth.

The New Culture which emerged following the 1960s began to shift the Western world view. In fact, and as a good illustration of dialectics, the New Culture’s world view began to see humans’ relationship with nature reciprocal, rather than competitive - a 180 degree shift of world view. Harmony took the place of opposition. New Culture members began to see themselves as part of mother nature rather than lords of nature.

The re-introduction of organic farming is an example of how the New Culture is attempting to establish a reciprocal relationship with nature. Restoration Forestry and Forest Stewardship practices are our attempt to fit into nature instead of dominating, controlling and exploiting her.

Mining is the third basic resource industry. In the late 70’s in Trinity County northern California some of the new generation of small gold miners began to talk of ecological mining, bioregional mining, restoration mining, reclamation mining and re-inhabitory mining. This revitalized small mining culture was shifting its industrial practices to conform with the newly emerging world view.

Below is a more specific description of ecological mining practices to date. What seems to be important to mention first, however, is the recognition that there is no standard concept or policy of how to transform the traditionally exploitative natural resource mining industry to one which restores and compliments nature. How can the mining industry have a reciprocal relationship with nature, is the question we must answer and is a major goal of the new Coalition for GreenGold.

Therefore, I would like to mention that it may be appropriate to form an NGO whose mission is to develop consensus on over-all concepts, models and practices for certifying that the three basic natural resource industries - mining, agriculture and forestry - and their subsidiaries are economically and environmentally balanced.

Some have already discussed a model for certification that would begin with a consensus of grass roots NGOs using the best science, local experience and indigenous knowledge, and be implemented by local NGOs in each bioregion. There could indeed be a global union of bioregional cultures. After all, a good certification system could mean global balance.

The United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development meetings in New York in the Spring of 2000 would be an excellent forum to introduce a proposal for a coalition of NGOs to consense on certification practices for natural resource industries.

For more info about CSD 2000 or the Coalition for Green Gold, please contact Brian Hill or Ruth Rosenhek

Certification & Mining NGO
Ecological Mining is not an oxymoron; it is a process of transforming traditional Western mining technology so that it will restore and help nature instead of exploiting her as minerals are collected.

For example, many streams and rivers are over-sedimented due to dams, farming, road building, logging and previous mining practices.

Placer miners that mine in present rivers and streams have the ability to restore degraded waterways in the process of extracting gold and other heavy metals. Sediment can be pumped out of the waterway, stream hydrology can be restored.

Dammed rivers do not have the annual flushing flows which make possible the migration of sediment to the ocean. Dammed rivers are hence unhealthy.

With properly designed mining operations, today’s river dredger can mechanically remove the sediment much like nature did prior to dams. The gold and other minerals can pay for this river restoration and stewardship.

The Coalition for Green Gold believes that gold should be certified as being ecologically mined if it is mined in such a fashion as to have, at worst, zero negative impact and most often a positive impact on local ecosystems and human communities.

CGG would like to see the Ecological mining NGO that was proposed to NGOs at the UN CSD meetings several years ago develop consensus on this concept and then create specific certification standards and practices which local NGOs could adhere to any where in the world.

Brian Hill, Director
Institute for Cultural Ecology
400 Hill Street
San Francisco, CA 94114
Email: bhill@igc.org

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