Toxins

Before last week I was completely unaware that toxins and mining go hand and hand. Well considering that I live basically in mining country, Nevada County, I am worried what I have been exposed to and what could possibly happen to my health. Fortunately I do not have kids yet, although, a lot of my friends do. This is a major concern in our area and should be looked into so everyone is aware about health hazards that it could cause. If communities are going to decide to mine they need to figure out a place to store or transport the toxins so they are not polluting living communities. However, is that even possible? Where is a there a piece of land that no species and humans could not be contaminated by the toxins? I believe that the worst thing for our community would be to re-open the Idaho Maryland mine that has been discussed for quite some time now. There is no for sure method that can guarantee that toxins will not pollute our area, therefore, until that is established the area should be cleaned up from the damage that has already been done.

By talking to many people in our community, most are unaware of the damage that mining has done and continuing to do. I think to gain most peoples attention about toxin damage, people would have to be hospitalized or worse, death. Personally I believe it doesn’t matter the level of toxicity of an area because if there is even a low level of toxins it still can effect the environment over a period of time. I am dumb founded on what we would do if we attempted to clean up mine waste. In all honesty I don’t believe there is anywhere on earth to store toxins that are created from mining. It doesn’t matter where the waist goes it is going to contaminate whatever area it is store. It’s an up hill battle. The only sure way to not add anymore toxins to our environment is to not mine. The only other option that we have is to find an alternative, more environmental friendly way to mine for gold, mercury, ect.

Gary Noy The Sierra Nevada Mountain

The story behind the Sierra Nevada Mountains is history that I was not taught in school and was very enlightened on this subject. I’ve been up to the Sierra Nevada Mountains many times; however, I was unaware that they reached as far as Sacramento. The truth is though, I never have been very interested in history but to learn about how things came to be the way they are is very intriguing and draws my interest. I was also unaware how the mines had ultimately hurt our environment and are still seeing the effects today. I’ve grown up around the rivers and have always drunk the water, by accident or intentional, and eaten the fish that us kids worked so hard to catch. I guess we were lucky that the toxicity in them was not high enough, if any, to harm us. I am very surprised that my parents didn’t know more about this area since they’ve lived here for so long because if they knew what I know now I would have probably never went to the river. When you learn about the gold rush in school you only here about the tons of riches that everyone gained from it. It is scary to me to see how much of our water resource that we depend on comes from the Sierra Mountains. If our main water supply is tainted it severely cause problems for the numerous counties that it has always served. I’m curious to find out why more people aren’t aware of this issue. I very much enjoyed Gary Noy’s lecture on the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the impact of some aspects like mining, transportation, tourism, and the overall history of them. I now have a different outlook on the history of the gold rush.

Mike Thornton "Mining Toxic Legacy"

When our guest speaker, Mike Thornton, went more in depth with the effects and the basics about mining put me into more of a panic because where I live. I live in Grass Valley and when he said that they were thinking about re-opening the mine off Idaho Maryland I was blown away. After all of the damage that mining does to the environment, our culture, and everyone’s health, I don’t understand how they could consider it. We have a wonderful area up here and would love to keep it that way but with a re-opening of a mine would only ruin that distant dream. The fact that throughout California there are 47,000 abandoned mines and 87 percent of them have present toxic hazards is a very unsettling feeling. On the other hand, I was fathomed by how much gold was still left in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and can’t blame those who are for re-opening of gold mines, but, with the price of gold lower then what it costs to extract it gives hope to those that just want to restore history for how it was. I was the most surprised to find out that they mined for mercury, which was a major reason for the contamination in the foothills, on the coast and transported it to mine for gold. So at the same time where destroying out mountain range we were impacting the coastal region for one cause. I enjoyed his lecture as well because it went more in depth to the effects on the environment and shed light on what we need to be aware of.

Well for starters I’ve always been an animal activist in the sense that I foster home for over thirty animals for animal save but as far as wildlife species I’ve only had the pleasure of assisting a few. The question of how do we choose the species we need to conserve is a puzzled one. My first instinct would be to conserve the ones that are the closest to extinction although that isn’t always the right choice. Another choice would be to divert our attention to the species that quickest one to repopulate but there again is that the right line of thinking. After reading about conservation of species I understand now that the right way to go about conservation is based on their instrumental value. This theory makes the most sense. Every species is involved in the food chain or contribute to many types of resources so instrumental value helps distinguish more valuable animals then others. Their usefulness as it contributes to the form of economic and ecological service is how biologist determines a value of a species. Although all animal contribute to the biodiversity of our planet but some can not be replaced in that they provide treatments for diseases and supply a variety of food crop. I still feel that all animals are equal in my sees even including spiders and bugs but not from a scientific perspective.

I believe most people focus on the cute and cuddly animals and do not focus on the ones we don’t see in zoos or don’t have a likeable factor. The ones that go unnoticed tend to be the ones that are in the most danger of extinction. We all know that Polar Bears, Siberian tigers, and Panda Bears are all on the verge of extinction due to the environmental changes and illegal poachers. The cute furry creatures are the ones that are featured by the different organizations that try to fund conservation; however, do you ever see a picture of a snake that is threatened and say hey I want to save that species? I think we probably ignore the animals that are not cute and cuddly but also forget to mention all the plants that are facing extinction. Sad but true.

If biodiversity did not exist everything would be the same. We know that we need to focus on saving as many species as possible because if they had no purpose on this planet they would of never existed at all. They all exist as part of our ecological balance and nature usually tends to balance itself out until man comes in and speeds up the process. Although in the past the earth has wiped out its entire species as a natural part of the ecological system but times have changed and the human race now exists. Maybe some species are supposed to be extinct forever but not at the vas rate it is growing. I don’t believe that it is good for the environment for cloned animals be the replacing factor of the rapidly reducing animal population.

I do not believe that we should eradicate introduced species because that is how our nation began to form which eventually became 98 percent of the United States food supply. Can we all look at life and imagine it without cows, wheat, or corn as part of our week to week eating habits? It has been proven that many introduced species are important to the environment and help us survive day to day. On the other hand, unintended introduced species can be detrimental to certain habitats and species such as introducing new diseases that can destroy all these things as whole. We should give attention to some introduced species and work on conserving them as well because some of them are necessary to our life on this planet. There are both good and bad side effects when introducing a new species.

If we would all learn to conserve our use for all resources it might help slow down the extinction process and possibly reverse some. Some how we need to make it harder for people to illegally hunt and extract species but that is a distant vision. Poachers are all over the world are only out for one thing profit. Most high end poachers that make the most impact on the environment are usually in undeveloped countries and how can one try to convince another when eating one percent, if that, of what we eat daily to do the right thing when they are just trying to survive? We need to find a successful solution to the balance between human needs and the needs of wildlife before we wont have a problem to solve.