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Home My Public Portal About2018.08.23 Tamara NagodaFrom:Shay Tyler To:Anette Spickard Cc:BessieJo Wagner Subject:FW: Midas Gold partnership Date:Wednesday, August 08, 2018 8:42:40 AM Anette, I am going to defer to you or BessieJo for a response to this person. I will print it and put it in the Council members mailboxes. Shay From: Tamara Nagoda <tnagoda@gmail.com> Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2018 6:58 PM To: Shay Tyler <styler@mccall.id.us> Subject: Midas Gold partnership I have some concerns about the Midas Gold proposed partnership. I read the July 26 agenda and partnership agreement and was surprised by the lack of details. I'm currently researching Midas Gold and their Stibnite project. Once I have a better idea of the extent of the project I may contact you again with any environmental concerns. Right now, my concerns are more related to the partnership itself. Is the company proposing to employ a significant number of McCall residents? This is not clear in the partnership agreement. If so, where will these employees live? The city already has a dearth of resident housing. Businesses within the city limits are struggling to find employees due to the housing situation. How will Midas Gold contribute to this issue? Will they employ out-of-state people who will take hotel rooms and other accommodations from our established tourism industry? Midas states that they will be starting a foundation to be funded with some cash (I could not find an amount) and some stock. Midas Gold stock has not performed well at all over the last few years. I also wonder how tying foundation money to the company's profits might pose a conflict of interest for the city. Aside from that concern, does our city need an additional foundation to fund community projects? There are already many non-profit organizations in the community that fund area resources. Lastly, how will the Stibnite project affect our traffic and city streets? Will there be large trucks and equipment coming through our town? If so, who will pay to improve our roads? Will these concerns by addressed in the agreement? Overall, it's unclear to me why the city feels it's necessary to partner with Midas Gold at all. Please share my concerns with the council or let me know how best to communicate with them. Thanks! Tamara Nagoda, M.S., CCC-SLP Speech-Language Pathologist 208.867.8111 City of McCall City Council Mayor Jackie Aymon Council Pres Bob Giles Council Mem Colby Nielsen Council Mem Melanie Holmes Council Mem Thomas Sowers Re: Midas Gold Idaho Community Agreement 16Aug 18 I would encourage your endorsement of The City of McCall Community Agreement with Midas Gold Idaho. The restoration of the Stibnite mining site is critical to the sustainability of the Salmon River. Past strong weather has lead to the disruption of the River. Blow Creek is a prime example, if not for the pit a major mess would have occurred. Today the pit is almost full, nothing to stop tailing, old disturbed grounds, or landslides from getting in the River. Midas Gold Idaho has filed a Plan of Restoration and Operation. In this plan are liners for tailings, restoration of Meadow Creek, restoration of Blow Creek and its wet lands, planting of thousands of trees and restoring fish runs to both creeks. None of these measures are possible without private monies. Federal dollars, special interest group dollars, etc. have not been forth coming to restore the site. Common practice is to have a place at the table when an offer is made to be a part of the restoration. It is a lot easier and informative to be a part then to be on the outside. We strongly encourage you to consider the positives of being a member of the Community Agreement. We were at the heart of developing the community agreements. Locals, drafting the agreements over a year's time, which reflected local wishes and goals. Thank You for your time and service Scotty Davenport Valley County Cc Anette Spickard City Manager Council members I was present at the Council meeting where Midas Gold requested your support of an ongoing conversation regarding the Community Partnership Agreements. I also heard concerns from the audience that do not speak to the purpose of this agreement. This document is being drafted by the America’s Best Community (ABC) steering committee. During the past 18 month we have been working on a template where we hold and partner with large businesses moving into our area to address and mitigate changes to our region. Midas is the 1st company that we are working with but shouldn’t be the last for certain. We have drafted the Partnership Agreement to reflect our shared values in the regional community of the West Central Mountains and potential impacts that need addressed. As you can see from the document this is not about the approval nor oversight of the Midas Gold project. The Forest Service through the NEPA process will address and control aspects of the mine and oversight of all regulatory processes. This document holds business and in this case Midas Gold accountable to help provide a forum for continual conversation between the community and the company. It allows for each community to provide a voice for concerns, positive information and future needs that arise from a large business moving into our area. It allows our regional community to help manage change in a sustainable, accountable fashion. I urge you to join others in becoming a signatory on this document so that we all have a shared voice in the future impacts to our community. Sherry Maupin 376 Verita McCall ID 0c� _risztd0 (1,4 ), 14A d rvo /0-Lrri fry e b (5,75o4 m 5,0)(21,i, (1.9A. rl('i1J _Q -_ --- °Thi y�a506a/ (if' Cu-id .,� uiac- Sc)\b av0 SCa/IAv74,10,0 9-0 A.,-1/0-kosb yo(ke r-evr-v-Duo-D c15-v <IN C�o coy V ?"' 1/o v7051.9t,14- i0 v ('-,44)r`k9'4'r%1b41intecri rwb (L/rai ivaui yo5 144 "v xLJ' PI i'dcu14 1_5;_vtia,Licy) y s ockv (ply760+ la ( riro •kow► .1/5 c\A- 19v19 VaS 14 Zr04 Y.( let:v(Y1 '71A- ('1.\-111,0-4ftr .Vu° ,,kks jar Iry -PrI2A,7 4LI p0-9 cbrw cOt rxosel '_ rub �,ni��►58� I��b� `��1roU � U4� ,'a fV/Yr 1OI 'Ad�»r • z56 1/4,1bir _cro0 SP'(0,-tAA ts\* " L km Ja-3 Ua \M a, a. 14-- 1)°A \-ec f540/6 lA‘AA (tt1-0) ?fr90 ; Uo-JUo ckw ±L uaQV11 (fa '1011 OZeN- -CD/ rr 04,-)157 doe( sok) 690 c Plittati) g3 s (P.0 Bcpx ys� From:Walter Buechler and Dotty Douglas To:BessieJo Wagner Subject:Midas project Date:Thursday, August 23, 2018 10:21:41 AM Dear City Clerk, I would like to express my disapproval of the Midas project. I am very worried about the socioeconomic effects on nearby communities. I am very concerned with spillage and other water problems that virtually always occur with mining operations. The McCall area is a very precious place, clean and healthy, and we should keep it that way. Thank you. Dotty Douglas 20 E. Lake Fork Road, Lake Fork and 1192 E. Braemere Rd., Boise 208-345-0933 Sent from my iPad From:Alan Hamilton To:BessieJo Wagner Subject:Midas Gold Project Date:Thursday, August 23, 2018 2:36:50 PM Dear Mayor and City Council Members, After reading Midas’ POO (plan of operations) submitted to the Forest Service there are several areas of concern that you should be aware of as a river steward. They are: Groundwater/Surface water impacts. Metals leaching/release from sulfide bearing ores and; Acid rock drainage (ARD) from the ore, waste rock and mine tailings. Groundwater/Surface water impacts – The POO proposes 3-open pits that will extend to 1000+ feet in depth. During the life of mine this will require extensive dewatering which will result in dramatic drawdowns in the groundwater (GW) aquifer(s). The aquifer(s) or GW regime is connected to surface water (i.e. E. Fork of S. Fork of Salmon R.) and the mine dewatering has a real potential for creating declines in streamflow which negatively affects fish, habitats and dependent wildlife. The water level declines in GW can also impact water well owners in the vicinity of the mine. At a minimum, extensive characterization of the GW regime(s) should be performed to have a grasp of these potential impacts and possible mitigation methods (i.e. where will the pumped GW be conveyed to?). GW characterization should include drilling/installation of a monitoring well network with aquifer testing, water sample collection and analyses. This data should then be fed into various modeling programs such as a finite element numerical model which will graphically represent the drawdown in GW over time as well as the number of years for water levels to equilibrate to pre-mine conditions which can be on the order of decades or centuries. This doesn’t include the impacts to fish from the proposed .8-mile diversion tunnel of the E. Fork of S. Fork of Salmon R. Metals leaching/release from sulfide bearing ores – The suite of metals associated with this deposit are: antimony, arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury all of which are toxic to human health and the environment (i.e. fish killers). During mining, various wastes will be generated (i.e. tailings and waste rock) that will contain these metals and will be sources for metals contamination. Their ultimate fate (i.e. management and storage) will be critical to the potential for their release/leaching into the environment. Because the open pits will expose the ore zone(s) to ambient conditions there is a potential contaminant source to GW and surface water. As GW flows through the mine workings and emerges along pit walls it will more than likely contain high levels of these metals in a dissolved state. If this metal bearing water reaches surface water or migrates in the subsurface to a water well then human/environmental exposure is imminent. The company needs to show how these exposure pathways will be offset or eliminated. Acid rock drainage (ARD) from the ore, waste rock and mine tailings - Three of the principal ore minerals: pyrite, arsenopyrite and stibnite are sulfide bearing that generate acid when disturbed and exposed to ambient conditions(i.e. water and air). Due to this, extensive geochemical testing of the ore, waste rock and tailings should have been done. This testing comprises what is called Acid-Base Accounting. Through this process the acid generating potential of the various lithologies/materials at the proposed mine are quantified along with necessary neutralization requirements necessary to buffer the materials acidity. This is important particularly when the proposal to backfill one of the open pits (Yellow Pine) is performed and materials used will need to neutralize the acidity of GW that will migrate into the backfilled material. Another concern that doesn’t seem to be addressed is the fact that the two remaining open pits will not be backfilled and will be left as pit lakes. Pit lakes under these conditions are notorious for being toxic due to their high concentrations of dissolved metals and acidity. An example of this is a massive kill of thousands of Snow Geese in Butte, MT at the Berkeley Pit lake in Nov., 2016 (see link: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/toxic-montana-lakes-kills-hundreds-and- maybe-thousands-snow-geese-180961356/). Finally, I wanted to add that Midas is a Canadian mining company that trades as a penny stock so its financial stability going forward is definitely suspect. I also noticed that only 5-years of post-mining environmental monitoring is proposed which is minimal at best considering the decades long legacy of environmental contamination associated with metal mines throughout the northern and central Rockies. Thanks, Alan Hamilton 1046 Valley Rim Rd. 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