New Gold Rush | 1, 2, 3

Stop Mines From Sucking Nevada Dry

Nevada is sacrificing precious groundwater to its gold mines with no concern for future water needs.

According to Glenn Miller, an environmental chemist and long-time Sierra Club mining activist, when the pumps are finally shut off, the 200-mile-long Humboldt River Basin west of the Ruby Mountains could end up millions of acre-feet short of water.

Three dozen gold mines now operate in the basin, some as much as 2,000 feet deep, several hundred feet below the water table; one mine will be two-thirds as deep as Lake Tahoe. In order to keep their open pits dry, the larger mines have to pump more than 30,000 gallons a minute-about the same amount used in the entire Reno-Sparks metropolitan area. The mines discharge the water into the Humboldt, temporarily increasing the river's flow. But when the gold is exhausted and the pumps are turned off, the pits will fill, pulling away precious groundwater from elsewhere in the aquifer to form contaminated pit lakes. Flow in the Humboldt will fall, and Nevada's lifeblood will evaporate into the dry Great Basin air. According to Miller, "More than ten thousand acre-feet per year, about five percent of the annual river flow, would evaporate from these pit lakes."

State officials are refusing to plan for this loss of water, or even study the effects of permitting so many mines. Under pressure from the Sierra Club, the U.S. Geological Survey has begun a long-term study, but meanwhile the state and the Bureau of Land Management continue to allow new mines.

New Gold Rush | 1, 2, 3