Idaho gold mining with a green twist

On Friday, gold miners near Placerville were finishing hauling to their mill nearly 200,000 tons of ore and waste rock that had been left when the Boise Basin’s first wave of mining ended in 1938.

The processing, essentially a large, efficient sluice box that washes away lighter rock, uses no chemicals. The wash station and crusher don’t cause water quality problems in part because no arsenic and heavy metals are present.

While environmental groups are fighting to stop the CuMo molybdenum mine and the Atlanta Gold mines because of concerns about the Boise River, Gold Hill is recovering thousands of ounces of gold from a historic mining area less than 30 miles from Boise. The Idaho Conservation League watched the permitting that was necessary and did not oppose any of them.