By Lynn Boulton

How much harm to the environment comes with gold exploration? To see the impacts, take a tour of two of the gold exploration projects on the Nevada side of the Bodie Hills where work has started: Spring Peak and Sawtooth Ridge. These are two out of the five gold exploration projects underway in the Eastern Sierra. The other gold exploration projects are Bald Peak on the Nevada side of the Dry Lakes Plateau in the Bodie Hills, Long Valley at Hot Creek just outside of Mammoth Lakes, and Mojave Precious Metals at Conglomerate Mesa on the way to Saline Valley from the Highway 190. The Range of Light Group has been working on documenting the harms of exploratory drilling at these sites throughout the year.

Gold exploration is not harmless. It involves clearing the land for many drill pads, creating new roads to them, and widening existing roads. These projects are on public land. Other gold/silver exploration projects were started this year in other places in Nevada. These gold/silver exploration projects could eventually become open pit gold mines where the impacts to the environment are much, much worse.