February 17, 2012 from NPR http://www.npr.org/2012/02/17/147002637/big-bucks-attract-high-school-grads-to-mining
by Jessica Robinson Listen to the Story
Morning Edition [3 min 35 sec]
Nick Geranios/AP
The Lucky Friday Mine in Idaho’s Silver Valley, shown in 2007, was temporarily shut down in January while it complies with safety regulations, according to the mine’s operator, Hecla Mining.
This spring, some high school grads in Idaho, Montana, Alaska and Nevada may see some good job prospects.
The recent spike in metal prices, combined with a shortage of miners, means mining companies are hiring. So some teens are opting not to go to college, and instead are heading underground.
Some of them, in the first six, eight months, their salaries absolutely crush mine.
- Don Kotschevar, shop teacher
But these high-paying jobs also come at a high cost.
An Educator Questions His Own Path
Don Kotschevar teaches high school in the small town of Mullan in north Idaho’s remote Silver Valley. He is the assistant principal, basketball coach and shop teacher. Lately, Kotschevar has been questioning his own career path. He watches his students parlay the skills he teaches them in this industrial mechanics class into lucrative mining jobs.
"Some of them, in the first six, eight months, their salaries absolutely crush mine," Kotschevar says. Entry-level mine jobs can pay $50,000 a year. Kotschevar has been thinking he could get a similar offer from local mine bosses.
"You know, I’ve got nine more years, so I can get my retirement here, and then when I retire I’ll probably go to see if they’ll hire me. Hopefully I won’t be too old," he says. "I’ve been in teaching — I need to have a retirement plan."
The recent spike in metal prices, combined with a shortage of miners, means mining companies are hiring. So some teens are opting not to go to college, and instead are heading underground. A miner is shown at work in Newmont Mining’s Leeville mine near Carlin, Nev.
The price of silver ore coming out of north Idaho suddenly makes that possible. After a long bust, this boom has mining companies wooing workers.
Kotschevar’s son, Hunter, is one of those being courted by local mines. Hunter is in his father’s shop class, too. It’s a small town.
"Crew bosses, they said that they can get me jobs for, like, the summer when I turn 18, but I don’t want to risk it," Hunter says. "The cave-ins and everything kind of scared me."
High-Paying Jobs, High Cost
Hunter is talking about a pair of fatalities last year at the Lucky Friday Mine just a mile from his high school. Because of the risks, mining companies are offering incentives. Many people’s paychecks have remained stagnant — or disappeared — in this area over the past few years. But mining salaries have risen. The average mine worker in the Silver Valley now makes $70,000 — some make six figures.
Denver-based Newmont Mining Corp. was one of three mining companies that held recruitment fairs on the same day last month in Idaho’s Silver Valley. Nick Tompkins is the director for talent acquisition at the company. "We’ve had quite a few people come through to talk to us, and we’re very interested in talking to as many more as we can," Tompkins says.
A recent report commissioned by the mining industry found that a decade-long bust in metal prices led to a lost generation of miners. As the old-timers retire, their ranks will need to be filled by young workers. Brandon Farmin, 19, is one of those kids.
Every day in school, when I’d be sitting in class, sitting at a desk, listening to some teacher rambling on about something I wouldn’t listen to, my big thing was that I could be making money right now.
- Brandon Farmin
"Every day in school, when I’d be sitting in class, sitting at a desk, listening to some teacher ramble on about something I wouldn’t listen to, my big thing was that I could be making money right now," Farmin says.
Farmin graduated from high school last year and went straight to work in the mine. Now, he has cuts on his arms and a few blackened fingernails. He knows it’s dangerous. "Nothing gives down there," he says. "The only thing that’s going to give is your body."
Farmin made a deal with his grandmother: After a few years in the mine, he’ll go to college. But giving up this job will be hard. Farmin just bought a new snowmobile, and he says when his high school friends come home from college, they’re broke.
"Askin’ mom and dad for money and stuff — that sucks. I’d hate that," Farmin says. "And then, like, a lot of them keep asking me how much I make. They’ll be telling me how much they’re going to be making, and I’m like, yeah, you’re going to have a ways to go to catch up to me."
Of course, that will depend on his body holding up and the price of silver staying high
Feb. 20, 2012, 3:06 p.m. PST
Baker City Herald
BAKER CITY, Ore. (AP) — A Nevada company thinks high gold prices can help it make money by working over the leavings of a Baker County mining operation from the first half of the 20th century.
Ironside Mining Inc. of Elko figures the giant Sumpter Dredge had captured only 40 percent of the gold when it was shut down in 1954, the Baker City Herald reported (http://bit.ly/zRW79d ).
Dredges are normally associated with deepening river channels, but versions were used in mining in the Sumpter Valley in Eastern Oregon to dig rock that was processed with water to separate the ore from the rock, which became the tailings.
The 2.5-million-pound Sumpter Dredge went into operation in 1913. It has been partially restored during the past 15 years and is the centerpiece of a state heritage area about 30 miles southwest of Baker City. The area attracts about 40,000 visitors per year.
The county owns nearly 1,600 acres in the tailings, piles of rock and gravel interspersed with clumps of trees and ponds that are habitat for waterfowl and other species. The federal government owns 100 acres, and 450 acres are in private hands.
Ironside asked the county for a long-term lease.
"The project would start off small and ramp up over a period of three to four years to a full-blown commercial placer operation that would generate significant amounts of revenue for Baker County," Ironside said in a report to the county government.
Depending on the price of gold and the length of the mining season, Ironside said, the county could reap more than $1 million a year once a full-scale plant goes into operation.
The company said it could dig pits this spring to test the ore, build a pilot plant by fall and have one plant in operation by 2014. It envisions several plants and 15 to 20 years of work.
Ironside said its process would re-sort the tailings and leave coarse rock below a top layer of granular sand and soil suitable for farming or pastures.
County commissioners said the operation would entail what one called "a lot of planning issues" but they were interested in the development and the jobs it could bring.
"It would be nice to have the gold out," said Commissioner Carl Stiff.
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Information from: Baker City Herald, http://www.bakercityherald.com/
Excavating a basement using professional machinery is nothing new but doing it with radio controlled (RC) scaled models is something unheard of. Welcome to the little big world of Joe, from Saskatchewan, Canada.
For the past 7 years (!), Joe has been digging out his basement at an average annual rate of 8 to 9 cubic feet using nothing more than RC tractors and trucks!
 And we’re talking about the whole nine yards here – he starts by transporting the excavator on an RC truck to the basement, unloads it, digs and uses other trucks to transfer the dirt up to the ground through a spiral ramp! He even has a miniature rock crusher!
"I feel quite fortunate to have stumbled onto this basement excavation idea, it’s been a great past time to date dreaming up new ideas to tackle different projects along the way," Joe wrote on the Scale4x4rc forums where he also posted pictures and videos of his feat.
"It’s been a great hobby thus far, dreaming up – building all sorts of different minature equipment from kits or from scratch for this "mining" project. If it wasn’t for this mining project I probably would have lost of interest in this hobby by now b/c once the models are built – the novelty of how they work & perform would wear off with no task to be accomplished them," he notes in another post.
Take a look at the pictures Joe posted on the forum as well as a sample of the videos he’s recorded over the years after the break, and then head over to the comments area for your thoughts.
*Corrections: A previous version of this article said Joe had been working on the project since 1997. Joe came in contact with Carscoop and told us that he was practicing the hobby of radio controlled models since 1996, but began the basement project in June of 2005
Update! If you want to know more about Joe and how this hobby came to be, click here to read his story
Story References: Scale4x4rc via Houston-Imports
Where are we headed as soon as the ice breaks in the Tri-Cities area in Washington: Palouse Falls
Hike Tri-Cities: Palouse Falls
Palouse Falls is an awesome geologic feature out in the middle of nowhere northeast of Pasco. To get to the trailhead, take Highway 395 north from Pasco. Go about 32 miles and exit right at Connell. Turn right at the stop sign onto highway 260. Go about 24 miles, past Kahlotus, turn right on Highway 261 (watch for signs to Palouse Falls). Go 8.7 miles to the Palouse Falls turn-off on the left. Go about 2 miles on the gravel road to the park.
Reposted from The Oregonian
 Andrew Bentz and Andy Gaudielle of Calico Resources USA stand atop an estimated 425,000 ounces of gold in the bowels of Grassy Mountain south of Vale. The company hopes to win over environmentalists and get permission to sink mine shafts into the mountain to claim the rich lode, which geologists say could include an additional 500,000 ounces of gold. ONTARIO — Sprawling Malheur County could soon be in the spotlight as a mining hub — or a battleground ofuranium and gold mining interests vs. environmentalists trying to protect its lonesome sagebrush landscape.
Australian-owned Oregon Energy LLC hopes to mine 18 million pounds of yellowcake uranium from the southeastern Oregon high desert 10 miles west of McDermitt near the Oregon-Nevada boundary. The go-ahead to mine the so-called Aurora uranium deposit could bring up to 250 construction jobs to the county, followed by 150 mining jobs.
Meanwhile, Calico Resources USA Corp., a subsidiary of a Vancouver, B.C., company, may seek permits this month to chemically extract microscopic gold from a high desert butte south of Vale called Grassy Mountain, a project likely to create another 100 jobs.
Mining history
Gold: Mining once was a major part of Oregon’s economy and the most sought-after mineral was gold. Since its discovery in Oregon in the mid-1800s, miners have wrested an estimated 5.5 million ounces of gold from the state’s streams and underground “hardrock” mines. At today’s prices, that gold would bring about $1,616 per ounce. Half to two-thirds was found in northeastern Oregon. Baker County and Josephine County have had the most active claims.
Uranium: Uranium was first discovered in Oregon in the 1930s and a small amount was mined on Bear Creek Butte, 40 miles southeast of Bend, in 1960. The White King and Lucky Lass mines near Lakeview came later and there are known deposits of uranium in Baker, Clackamas, Crook, Curry, Harney, Jackson, Lake, Malheur, Polk and Union counties.
The proposals will be the first real test of the 1991 chemical processing mining law passed by the Legislature in response to a debate over mining’s future in Oregon, said environmentalist Larry Tuttle. The law ushered in tough new bonding requirements to weed out marginal operators and guarantee environmental cleanup.
 An open-pit uranium mine is proposed on this high desert site in southeastern Oregon's Malheur County -- the same ground where the old Bretz Mercury Mine (shown here) once stood. Uranium, mercury, silver, gold and other heavy metals often are found in the same areas, geologists say. Mercury was discovered here in 1931, and state mining records show that 152,000 tons of ore were mined in 1937. More mining took place during the 1940s and '50s, and at one point the Bretz was one of the largest high-grade mercury mines in the nation. Approval of the Grassy Mountain project could trigger a deluge of new chemical mining in Malheur County. Up to a dozen gold deposits similar to Grassy Mountain dot the high desert between the Snake River town of Huntington and Jordan Valley.
The county, sparsely populated with only 31,313 people, could use new jobs, said County Commissioner Dan Joyce. Its unemployment rate in November was 10.3 percent, compared with 9.1 percent for Oregon and 8.6 percent for the nation.
Mining companies have passed up the county in the past because of Oregon’s environmentally conscious reputation, Joyce said. But this time, the sluggish local and state economies, higher mineral prices and technological advances in mining and cleanup could open a door to mining, he said.
“I’m thinking people are a lot hungrier now than they were,” Joyce said.
Uranium mine plan
Oregon Energy’s proposal calls for extracting ore from a mile-long, 600-foot wide, 250-foot deep open pit 10 miles west of McDermitt and 3 miles north of the Oregon-Nevada border. The mine, adjoining the former Bretz Mercury Mine, a contaminated open-pit site from the 1960s, would cost $200 million to develop and uranium extraction could continue for up to 20 years, said Oregon Energy President Lachlan Reynolds.
Plans call for the ore to be crushed and mixed with an acid solution in enclosed vats to leach out the uranium, he said. The acid would bond with the uranium and when dry become a sand-like powder called uranium oxide concentrate, or yellowcake. Yellowcake would bring $52 per pound and could fuel nuclear reactors or be processed into weapons.
Tuttle, spokesman for the Portland-based Center for Environmental Equity, foresees environmental problems.
The likelihood of sulfuric acid being used in processing the ore means it could remain in the mine tailings after milling, he said. The snag is that sulfuric acid tends to continuously leach out heavy metals that occur naturally in waste rock and tailings, contaminating ground water.
“Just because you are through with the processing, years later you still have the issue with that interaction,” he said.
But probably the biggest environmental hurdle for the Aurora mine would be the release of mercury, Tuttle said. “The whole Owyhee Reservoir has been affected by naturally occurring background mercury,” and uranium mining could release more, he said.
Gold mine proposal
Environmental considerations first thrust Grassy Mountain into the consciousness of Oregonians in the late 1980s and early ’90s when Newmont Gold Co. proposed introducing Nevada-style open-pit cyanide heap-leach gold mining there.
Low gold prices ultimately prompted Newmont to write off its $33.8 million investment and abandon plans to mine Grassy Mountain in 1995, but only after the site came to symbolize the conflict between economic development and environmental activism in eastern Oregon.
Calico Resources would take a dramatically different approach, said Andrew Bentz of Ontario, spokesman for Calico. The company proposes to sink an 850-foot underground shaft or tunnel to remove 1,000 tons of ore per day from Grassy Mountain, he said.
The operation expects to remove at least 425,000 ounces of gold from the mountain. The company’s investment and exploration costs probably will total $100 million before mining begins, said Calico project manager Andy Gaudielle.
Mineral-bearing rock would be milled for microscopic gold in a closed chemical process that wouldn’t include the bird-attracting open settling ponds of diluted cyanide that worried Newmont’s opponents, said Bentz, a retired Malheur County sheriff.
Mining and reclamation of Grassy Mountain would take about 12 years, unless new gold discoveries are made, he said.
Bentz believes Calico won’t face the level of environmental opposition that attended Newmont’s proposal.
Reynolds, the Oregon Energy chief, said mining companies no longer can operate in ways that caused the environmental problems of the past. Improvements in mining technology result in more efficient and environmentally responsible operations, he said.
“We will have to post substantial financial bonds to ensure that there is full reclamation of the site to an approved plan when mining ends,” Reynolds said.
Only 5 percent of the nation’s domestic-use uranium is produced within U.S. borders, although the United States takes more than 20 percent of its electricity from nuclear power plants, Reynolds said.
The most likely buyer of Aurora uranium would be a U.S. electricity utility, he said. He estimated the mine could become the source of up to 30 percent of uranium produced in the U.S.
What’s next
Public hearings will be held after the companies apply for permits to begin mining, said state geologist Vicki McConnell of Portland.
Sixty-one acres of Grassy Mountain is patented, private mining land, but substantial portions of both sites are on federal land administered by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. Both sites are remnant volcanic regions where geothermal and hydrothermal activity has pulled heavy metals and other substances close to the surface, McConnell said.
Calico hopes to begin taking gold from Grassy Mountain in five years, but the regulatory pathway is likely to be longer for the Aurora mine because uranium is involved.
In addition to the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries, the Oregon Energy Facility Siting Council, the U.S. Department of Energy and the federal Environmental Protection Agency must review the uranium mine.
BLM permits will be required for tailing piles and the use of desert roads for both the uranium and gold mining.
Oregon has a process in place to allow mining to proceed if resources can be extracted profitably and in a way that’s environmentally safe, McConnell said.
Whether that’s the case here has yet to be determined, she said. “Geologically, we know there is gold in Grassy Mountain and we know there is uranium in the McDermitt area,” she said.
 A Coastal Helicopters flight lands at a mining site near the terminus of the Herbert Glacier in Alaska JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) – Interest in gold mining in Alaska has surged, buoyed by high gold prices and the lure of a landscape that remains relatively unexplored.
Industry leaders don’t expect a gold rush, the likes of which this still-young state hasn’t seen in nearly a century, with hordes of miners looking to make their fortune. That’s because these days making it big – finding and developing a large prospect – can take years, if not decades, and billions of dollars in investment. Even recreational enthusiasts can spend hours in back-breaking labor with nothing to show for it but some golden flints.
For some, though, that’s all it takes to keep them trying their luck.
“It’s the thrill of finding that gold,” said Bill Dunlevy, who’s been prospecting for about 46 years and wears his greatest find, a 5-¼ ounce nugget, as a necklace. “When you start finding little specks of gold, definitely you want more and more.
“It is gold fever,” he said.
It’s not clear how much gold there is yet to be found in Alaska, partly because the state’s geology is still being learned. But what is known points to great potential across Alaska for a variety of metals, including gold, copper and platinum, said David Szumigala, a senior minerals geologist with the state.
Over the last 20 years or so, about 200 million ounces of gold have been discovered, he said, and there’s likely potential for at least a couple hundred million more.
That prospect, combined with gold prices nearly quadruple what they were in 2005, about $1,720 an ounce earlier this week, is driving renewed interest in searching for gold in Alaska. There’s even a reality TV show, Discovery’s “Gold Rush,” centered on the phenomenon.
Continue reading “Prices, potential spark surge of interest in Alaska gold” »
This is just a repost from Cool Tools, Ben Hanna about the Advanced Elements Inflatable Kayak. I am wondering about getting around to do work in the spring and having this in my car instead of my sit on top for coning on top of it.
The Advanced Expedition inflatable kayak has allowed me to get out on the water more often than I ever would with one of its hardshell cousins.
Because the boat fits in the trunk of my car and can be carried solo in a duffle bag, I find myself using it when the hassle of loading a more traditional kayak onto a roof rack and muscling it around would dissuade me. Using a double action pump it can be set up and ready to go in under 10 minutes, and the break down is even faster. It just deflates and folds back into its bag.
While it doesn’t track as well as a hard bottomed boat, it more than makes up for this with its incredible stability. Buoyed by two high-pressure inflatable tubes that form the 13.5 foot frame, the boat withstands moderate waves and can carry up to 400 pounds. Standard spray skirts fit and keep the inside snug and dry.
I have used it to surf waves, paddle with sea lions, and as a kayak escort for swim races. In all cases I have been able to keep up with fellow kayakers.
I highly recommend this for kayakers who want a full size boat but don’t have a garage or the space to keep one!
Ben Hanna
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