Idaho

Stibnite, Grouse Creek and Atlanta Mines – Idaho

Under the antiquated 1872 Mining Law, more than 200,000 acres of public land in Idaho have been sold to private interests for either $2.50 or $5.00 per acre. The Stibnite Mine, an open-pit gold mine, has been closed for a decade but continues to contaminate local groundwater with some of the highest concentrations of arsenic in the nation, according to the U.S. Forest Service. Thirty miles to the southeast another open pit cyanide-leach gold mine, the Grouse Creek Mine, is located adjacent to the largest wilderness complex in the lower 48 states. Once heralded as a "state of the art" mine when it began operations in 1994, it closed just three years later, producing no profits and leaving behind environmental damage including cyanide releases that have caused extensive contamination of ground and surface water. Another large open pit, cyanide-leach gold mine, the Atlanta Gold Mine, has been proposed upstream of the City of Boise, which gets one-fifth of its drinking water from the Boise River, whose tributaries originate near the proposed Atlanta mine.

http://www.earthworksaction.org/cvgrousecreek.cfm

See Idaho mining images in our Gallery: http://www.ecoflight.info/gallery.html?id_cat=47