Judge Delays Environmentalists' Bid to Halt Trinity County Mine
By Don Thompson, Associated Press
October 9, 2004

SACRAMENTO (AP) A federal judge has delayed an emergency bid by environmental groups to block mining along a popular creek west of Weaverville in Trinity County.

The groups filed two lawsuits against an exploratory mining pit in Shasta-Trinity National Forest after logging of the one-acre site had already begun Thursday. Critics say the acre contains nine old-growth trees suitable as spotted owl habitat.

Nearly two-dozen members of the Canyon Creek Coalition who went to the site Friday intending to chain themselves to the remaining trees won a promise of no more logging until a meeting Monday. They may then discuss forming a conservation conservancy to buy the mining claim, said Jimmy Curran, whose family helped organize the opposition.

``Half of all the visitors to the Trinity Alps (Wilderness) go right by that area,'' Curran said. ``We're country bumpkins up here trying to protect a quality of life.''

Cullen Thomas, a geologist with mining company Master Petroleum Inc., said the company agreed to delay activities until meeting with neighbors.

``We'd like to resolve this thing in a very friendly manner,'' Thomas said. But, ``We're miners and we've got a right to do what we're trying to do. They're environmentalists and they hate to see a tree cut down.''

Thomas, 78, said he and other company principals have health and family issues and would an entertain a buyout offer, ``but I don't know that they've got the money. There's a lot of gold under there.''

The U.S. Forest Service approved the exploratory pit under an 1872 mining law to see if there is enough gold to justify 23 acres of open pit mines proposed for the area.

Only the one-acre pit was approved after it was determined there would be no significant environmental damage, said Bill Branham, planning officer in the Forest Service's Weaverville district. The service would conduct an environmental review before it approved any larger development project, he said.

The company has been operating on nearby private land for six years, and is now proposing a multiyear operation to mine as much as 1.5 million tons of soil and gravel on public land.

Environmental groups and Indian tribes say the project would harm endangered salmon and owls, drain water from the Trinity-Klamath watershed, and discourage tourism and recreation.

``It's just right down-creek from the most popular trail in the Trinity Alps,'' said Scott Greacen of the Environmental Protection Information Center, one of the groups filing suit Friday.

Requests for temporary restraining orders by EPIC and the North Coast Environmental Center were delayed until Tuesday following Friday's hearing, to give Master Petroleum time to respond.

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