Looking for “Sierra Club Desert Committee,” I find this page which has a list of unrestored open-pit mines in the California desert. With this photo:
is this accompanying text:
Molycor[p] Mine, San Bernardino County
Another non-gold open pit mine. They mine “rare earths” near Clark Mountain by Mountain Pass off I-15. In addition to the pit hazard, Molycor has released radioactive waste into nearby Ivanpah Dry Lake.
For those of you just joining us, I spent the summer breathing the dust off Ivanpah Dry Lake. I knew about the mine: it’s hard to miss. But I hadn’t heard about the radwaste dumping. A bit more Googling brings us to Great Basin Resource Watch, which says:
In 1977, a major pipeline break spilled more than 2 million gallons of radioactive water onto public land on the Ivanpah Playa. Yet San Bernadino County recently approved Molycorp’s request to expand the mine and the company is in the process of getting the necessary operating permits. GBMW and other groups have appealed the county’s decision.
I head back there on Wednesday.
Whee.
Who cares, though, it’s just the desert. Nothing’s there. Sigh.
Sick.
=v= Not to worry. Nukular anything and everything is the new pushing-the-outside-of-the-box-of-envelopes paradigm-shifting fresh new approach to saving us all from global warming, ya heard?
One of my godparents died of cancer, and the other of a rare blood disorder. They both spent decades exploring the backcountry of the Southwest. I have trouble shaking the idea that the two things are connected, when I read about things like this.