Gold Diggers Vs. CA Wilderness

MONO COUNTY, CA—The Eastern Sierras are home to prime California fishing waters, including the Walker River and lakes such as Crowley, Virginia, Lundy, Mammoth, June, Bridgeport, and Twin. But in Mono County, it’s also an area with a downward spiraling tourism economy and a bright light in the form of hundreds of untapped mining claims dating to the 19th century. With gold prices up more than 600 percent in the last decade, prospectors are sharpening their pickaxes.

According to Los Angles Times reporter, Mike Anton: “The Bodie Hills offer a window on a tug-of-war over millions of acres nationwide that are protected as wilderness study areas, public lands whose relative ecological and economic value has been argued for years.

“A bill in Congress would strip wilderness study area status from areas that have been found unsuitable for permanent protection, including some 16,000 acres of the Bodie Hills.

“More than 20 years ago, a Bureau of Land Management study noted the area’s beauty and its importance as threatened habitat for the greater sage-grouse. But it concluded that the Bodie Hills couldn’t be managed as wilderness because of hundreds of valid mining claims.

“Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is pushing for legislation that would identify “crown jewel” lands worthy of wilderness designation. Environmental groups want the Bodie Hills to be included, which wouldn’t preclude mining but would make it practically impossible.”

Billionaire Warren Buffet sums up all this gold madness beautifully, “It gets dug out of the ground … then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head.”

Read the full article after the jump.

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