Santa Fe Gold’s Proposal To Open A Gold Mine Near Santa Fe, New Mexico
In June, Santa Fe Gold announced plans to open a two billion dollar gold mine just south of my home city of Santa Fe, New Mexico in the Ortiz Mountains. They sent out thousands of glossy brochures to citizens with the headline: “Continuing a Legacy, Setting A New Standard For Mining.”
The document opens to an old black and white photo of long bearded white prospectors. Perhaps the reader is supposed to imagine that these small scale miners digging holes in the 1800s is somehow analogous to their project which will create a crater over a thousand feet deep and tailings five stories high, possibly stretching a mile across the landscape shown above.
The site is located near the historic village of Madrid, an area already impacted by past mining. The mine would need at least seventy million gallons of water yearly, heavily impacting our bio-region which is in one of the worst recorded droughts in 120 years. According to the 2010 Mining Task Report, Madrid’s well, which was drilled in 1984 and flows from the Ortiz, is dropping fifteen feet a year and may have less than ten years of production left.
Yet water is only one of many issues. The mine is on the Turquoise Trail, a National Scenic Byway and one of the most beautiful regions in the entire state. Each year, tens of thousands of tourists drive the trail, stopping at local villages that are heavily dependent on tourism.
Just south Madrid, which has a main street comprised of art galleries and cafes, there would be thunderous machinery crushing rock, pollution, dust clouds and a massive amount of trucks moving earth. Recently, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) thoroughly considered these issues when it rejected a small gravel pit in the neighboring San Pedro Mountains, just two miles south of the Ortiz.
Destruction of Water Resources From Copper Mining
Though Santa Fe Gold proposes to mine gold without chemicals, 2.7 million pounds of copper will also be extracted from ore, and this will most likely require chemical leaching.
The administration of our pro-mining Republican Governor Martinez has just passed copper mining rules which exempt some groundwater from the standards established by the New Mexico Water Quality Act. Waste containing sulfuric acid, arsenic and mercury can now legally leach into groundwater, which is already occurring at the Chino Mine in Southern New Mexico
At the Cunningham mining site on the south side of the Ortiz, which has similar geology to the proposed mining site, acid drainage remains an ongoing issue requiring continual remediation. Our initial technical studies have determined the high likelihood of acid mining drainage from tailings at the new proposed mine.
This being the case, extensive surface and underwater pollution from heavy metals could over the long term destroy aquifers that communities around the mining site depend upon to survive. The mine could potentially also poison surface water in the surrounding arroyos that feed the Rio Grande River for decades to come. These activities could be entirely legal under the Martinez Administration’s newly passed copper pit rule.
In addition, because the current site has been mined in the past, there could be significant mercury in the soil, which could add to the environmental contamination. The issue of mercury contamination has not yet been assessed.
The Promise of Jobs?
Santa Fe Gold tries to make what seems to be a compelling economic argument. Yet, ripping out a mountain’s gold filled heart will require massive machinery, electricity and petrol sourced from outside Santa Fe County. Large-scale mining is a highly mechanized sector that requires specialized skills. Santa Fe Gold’s four current mining projects employ just seventy-one people.
A letter in their brochure explains that they are seeking to implement a local hiring preference” which does not assure local hiring preference or local jobs. Employment generated by a few of our excellent small local businesses, such as Agua Fria Nursery, Positive Energy and Collected Works may well provide more jobs in Santa Fe than this two billion dollar mine.
Part of Santa Fe Gold’s marketing strategy is to portray itself as a local company. In fact, they have merged, or are very close to merging, with International Goldfields Ltd, an Australian company with operations in Brazil, Australia and West Africa. It may well be that International Goldfields, not Santa Fe Gold, will mine the Ortiz should the project be approved. With multinational mining giants, the real wealth is always exported to shareholders.
The Land
In New Mexico, as in other western states, surface rights and underground mining rights often have split ownership. Some of surface rights of the mining area are owned by a working ranch family since 1965. The land is also of great cultural significance to the neighboring Native American Pueblos. Documented numerous archaeological sites include petroglyphs and field houses from ancient Native cultures.
Plus, there are two hundred and eighty-five vertebrate species known to live in the Santa Fe Botanical Reserve and Galisteo Basin, adjacent to the mining area, including collared lizards, whiptails, corn snakes, cougar, deer, and fox. Among the eighty species of birds, you can find rock wren, say’s phoebe, blue grosbeak, Swainson’s hawk and prairie falcon, There are also at least seven species of bats.
Other rich mineral deposits exist in and around the Ortiz Mountains. Approval could set an onerous precedent, which would allow smaller mining operations which have previously been blocked to be permitted. Within a few years, this exquisite high desert bio-region could be transformed into a mining sacrifice zone.
Sustainable Growth?
Santa Fe Gold Corp, like many mining companies today, tries to portray their project as a sustainable project. In fact, it will most likely be a boom and bust proposition completely contrary to community generated Santa Fe County’s Sustainable Growth Management Plan, which states: “All levels of County decision-making must consider sustainability, conservation of resources, energy and green development policies to ensure that resources are available to sustain future generations.”
This is why jewelers supporting Fair Jewelry Action and Ethical Metalsmiths; the Turquoise Trail Preservation Trust, as well as businesses, nonprofits, environmental organizations and concerned citizens from New Mexico and around the entire world are currently organizing the initial phases to vigorously oppose Santa Fe Gold attempt to mine the Ortiz Mountains.
To keep informed, like us on Facebook: Stop Santa Fe Gold
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Marc Choyt is President of Reflective Images, a Santa Fe New Mexico jewelry company, and Director of Fair Jewelry Action, USA. He was an honoree for New Mexico’s Sustainable Leadership Award in 2012. His company produces ethically made recycled and fair trade wedding and engagement rings.
