Water and Arsenic: which came first?

I again wish to ask if anyone knows how the regulators establish acceptable water arsenic levels. It is well to question their motives. However, I would also like to challenge the science behind their assumptions – if there is any.

Are the current Water Board members any different than the California politicians, along with governor Pete Wilson, back in 1996 when they all screwed fellow Californians?

Some companies, especially Enron, had an agenda to prosper at the expense of residents back then and our representatives paved the way for the financial raping that soon followed the State’s deregulation of Electricity rates. The total dollar amount of the heist perpetrated against California residents that was set-up by the legislature totaled $70 billion. Have we forgotten that already?

How did deregulation come about? Quite simply, by the lobbying by energy companies of State officials. Who wrote those complicated new rules that few understood when signed into law? Of course, it was the highwaymen who were encouraged in some manner or another to aid in this robbery: the rule makers, State employees.

Now we have established in the State rules and regulations concerning our environment. The dirty side of environmental interpretations and rules is they can be used to take more money from us, in this case owners of the Sixteen to One. It is a fact that there is no global warming but still it is referred to everyday as being the gospel truth. It’s just like the phony Water Board interpretation of water standard rules that is now being attempted to reach into our pockets, again, just like when Al Gore tried to be instrumental in convincing U.S. lawmakers to pass a carbon tax. Gore was icing over a pile of dog crap and trying to sell it as a birthday cake. As was mentioned earlier here, 31,000 scientists opposed the idea of global warming which sent Gore into hiding.

The Water Board should be investigated by Federal regulators concerning manipulative and gestapo tactics to rob Original Sixteen to One owners concerning water matters. Just like the complicated rules of electricity deregulation facilitated all the stealing from residents, so again, here comes the State. Too often though our country’s history private interests have stolen from citizens with the assistance of elected representatives and their back-up staff of appointees running various agencies. These appointees really don’t have an independent hand, they take their orders from the person who appointed them. Wouldn’t that sound reasonable?

In California energy costs were stable until Enron started experimenting through manipulation of energy flows and on how much money they could steal from us. Sound familiar?

California’s new degegulation rules were written in great complexity. Who do you think wrote those rules? Really, it was the energy companies, especially Enron. How much money do you think it cost Enron to convince the State to see it their way? Who took the benefits?

Kanaka Creek that passes through Original Sixteen to One’s property has no increased incidence of arsenic. The folks at the company are environmentalists. So what’s the problem with the Central Water Board? The problem is they are enforcers. Their salaries are supported by the numbers of tickets they write. If this isn’t the most egregious example of conflict of interest then I suppose you could call Bernie Madoff a saint.

Lawmakers, in some cases, are just a bunch of financial hoodlums. They use their entrusteed power to enrich themselves at the expense of the people who put them in office.

I believe that if the State Attorney’s office can’t get $1,000,000 out of the company then they’ll go after shareholders and access them. Every shareholders needs to address this issue with their State representatives. People, we are being attacked. This is not the time for complacency.

By the way, Californians never got rebates from the over charges back in the late 90’s because all the evidence against the power companies, especially Enron, was conveniently destroyed during the time of the 9/11 attacks when Building #7 that housed those important documents was methodically imploded. Yes, I say methodically imploded.

Answer to Dave I’s questions on the Water and Arsenic topic (March 5&6)

The weather forecasters blew this storm! I left Alleghany about 1pm to Oroville. Big snow was floating down. The drive back was fun. There was zero visibility while passing through clouds. Rain slapped my truck. Off and on it snowed. What was very strange and different with the weather was its unpredictability as I climbed and dipped in elevation. The changes were sudden even while driving thirty MPH. Fortunately, from Dobbins, across Bullards Bar, to highway 49 and onto Alleghany I saw no cars. Oh, those forecasters said to see clearing around 11am. They were wrong.

Now to those answers:
The claim is against Origsix as an incorporation and Michael Miller as an individual. Both are named as defendants. The theory to prosecute was determined by either the water agency or its lawyer. For some reason it was transferred to the State AG to file and prosecute. The paper filing is speculation, an irresponsible and wild twist of rules of the court. If naming Miller as culpable for the reasons alleged was proposed from some jerk-ass lawyer, it would trigger my forceful denial and a counter suit against the corrupted lawyer. Well, it is just as repulsive when the highest law office in California and not some jerk-ass lawyer does it; however, the AG lawyers in this case will claim absolute immunity. I don’t see how the water board lawyers could make the same claim.

Perjured statements, violating rules of Californian courtrooms, misleading with malice and foresight a sitting judge from obeying the legislated rules for the courts of California used to be against the law. Court people know this but few either care or care enough to stop the behavior. The problem and solution to stop abusive behavior rest with the same people: men and women, boys and girls, guys and gals with a license to practice law. But, I digress from answering Dave’s question.

The beneficiaries of this prosecution are stated in the allegation as “the public”, which means you, me, our neighbors, your family and friends, and everyone between Oregon and Mexico and Nevada and the Pacific Ocean. Do you know anyone who meets this description? That means additionally that the beneficiaries will benefit from killing the company, mine and me? If some are found, let’s learn what are the benefits they will receive?

The AG representative interviewed tried to separate MMM as the president and MMM without that job, which I requested prior to the deposition. Neither the company nor I have money to get a copy of the deposition. By law I asked to read her record when she transcribed it. I’ll take down some notes and give you a report.

The company wrote the water agency a proposal to settle the disagreement with the best management practices and best outcome for the People of California and gave it to the deputy attorney general prosecuting the case. Who in our government decides is a mystery to me. Is it the client? The central water board? The State water board? Either water agency staff? The bevy of agents working for the California Attorney General’ office?

Who are the employees of the the State Water Boards working for, themselves or the people?

As the State falls deeper and deeper into a federally supported unprecedented bankruptcy mode, it seems to be business as usual at the Central Water Board, subsidizing payroll checks for their mortgages, hopefully, from the collection of fines and penalties. Now with the blessings of Jerry Brown, an action is being brought against the mines’s ownership.

We are not the first to be subjected to unreasonable requests from the Board. Barrick Gold’s subsidiary, Homestake Mines, was brought in by them for being liable for the discharges of mercury into Sulphur Creek in Colusa County. The Board’s rule book says that a passive migration constitutes a discharge that would make an owner or former owner responsible for clean-up.

Well boyz, you better go back to square one and start working forward from 1888 because you guys failed to consider the “real facts.” Which is par for their course at the Board because they also ignored Jason Burke’s submitted facts, as the responsible mining engineer, when they, again ignored, the truth.

On Sulphur Creek near the Elgin Mine is where the suspected discharge has been entering the waterway. Never mind, this is a past quicksilver mining area. Poor Barrick Gold had to send in one of their represenatives to state they only did minor exploration work and were never mining and were never owners. Seems like with all the guys at the State agency they could have figured this out for themselves. Did they think that a large company like Barrick was going to fall for some elementary school minded scheme to do someone else’s possible clean-up work from over 100 years ago? Sorry boyz, go talk to any remnants left from the old California Onyx Company who was on the property back in 1888 or try and discover with a little research who operated the quicksilver mines back then.

Or since you guys like to put the screws to past producing gold mines for your needed money, why not try and figure out who now owns the old Clyde Mine in Colusa County?

Since the Water Board went after Barrick Gold why don’t they show their brass balls again and go after some pharmaceutical companies who make all the chemicals that are ending up in our water supply and reducing everyone’s immune system who drinks from the municipal system.

In an interview on kingworldnews.com the top trends forecaster in the world, Mr. Gerald Celente has stated that a new health hazzard has already arrived and he has labeled it the “Black Plague.”

Isn’t it interesting that while water boards exist in California that people like Gerald Celente say that our water quality is on the decline. What society is headed for, if people continue drinking chemically tainted water from drugs, in a complete immune system breakdown where bacteria and viruses will just shorten everyone’s life.

Mr. Celente says, I’m not an imbecile and I don’t believe for one minute what these white-coated scientist type actor types on TV say when they state that the small amount of chemicals in water won’t effect your health.

Celente further states that important nutients are being washed away by unused chemicals that our bodies release thus entering the water eventually again which is as deadly as a nuclear blast. When crops are irrigated these same present chemicals just keep continuously being reintroduced into any living thing. The more time elapsed the bigger the build up and the greater is the continuing breakdown of your immune system.

It seems eventually that when the government of California falls apart so, too, will the highly over-paid tunnel visioned employees of the Central Water Board be sent packing as well.

Here is a copy of the letter I recently wrote the Sacramento Bee.

To The Sacramento Bee

Dear Editor, March 5, 2010

It is official “Moon Beam Brown” is in the run for Governor of California. He is leaving the Attorney General office where he has had a hand in letting the Indian tribes win their case to stop Gold dredging in our state by failing to defend the position of the Fish and Game. Also he won the case against the gold miners in federal court in their constitutional challenge against the State of California, for destroying the right of the miner to dredge for gold as a granted right per the 1872 mining law. He is also supporting government law suit litigation against existing mines for huge sums of money to bankrupt these existing mines to gain control of the resources. This is done by his support of the Water quality control board regulators. He knows how to get more money for the state with out raising taxes, He will just sue you for every thing you got. To enslave the bankrupt people of California to this debt they owe the state.
It was the gold of California that built this state, it is still a viable resource to continue in providing wealth, jobs, and the economic stimulus to turn our state back into the black. It was one of our states major resources that saved us in the last depression. So many people were mining for gold at the beginning of world war II, that the president of the United State shut it down to get folks to join the service to fight the war.
I think Jerry Brown is beholding to the Sierra Club and the Indian tribes for advancing there environmental concerns over the well being of our economy and our human survival.

Thank you

Sincerely
Dave I

What a surprise to see this old topic get a fresh entry. It started over eight years ago. It is an example of “living history”. And you readers are proof that some “living histories” are truly worth keeping alive or “living”.

I’m on my own time now. It is approaching the teens outside in Alleghany. Burr. This morning my thermometer sat at 18 degrees. This is California cold even at 4450 feet. I am on my own time, a distinction I made to the Attorney General, when he deposed me on March 3, in Sacramento. Once again that old Sixteen to One mining company and I find us defending ourselves from crime. After all, the AG has chosen to convict me along with the mine of awful crimes. Seems like we were here seven years ago, only Gayle Filter and his gang of lawyers who perjured the judicial system or worse, violated California laws for lawyers and took the role that is presently coming from the Attorney General. I wrote the former AG and asked him to investigate these lawbreakers. No investigation was forthcoming. Prosecute them should have been forthcoming. What ever happened to Gayle? That issue is dead.

This issue is alive.
Who will investigate decisions by the directors and management of the Water Board?
The Attorney General represents the water board and claims attorney/client privilege between himself and his client. How does this work in a transparent government?

The truth is what you say in a deposition, if you honor the judicial systems run by our States and the Federal Government. If a deposed person has no respect for the court system, say whatever makes for victory. Advice should you be deposed: Understand the question before you answer. Do not speculate. Stay on point with the question. Avoid responding to ambiguous questions. And answer truthfully. I raised my right hand and affirmed the administered oath, from this point on, to speak truthfully.

When I opened the Ideal Time for Facts topic tonight (because it was an entry I had not read), my mind felt a desire to reread the first entry dealing with the subjects of water and arsenic. Water and Arsenic: which came first? Is the topic that Rick wrote and initiated in December 2001. Please do the same and read it; go to the second page and scroll down to the entry that set this topic in motion. It is a great “living history”. You may want to continue the chronology of this topic right back to today.

I’ll be back in this topic later.

Everything is poisonous, nothing is poisonous, it is all a matter of dose. -Bernard

How does the EPA decide how low water arsenic levels should be? It must be below the toxic level, but how did they decide just how low?
Is it the legal level different for the creek versus the mine?

I need your help in keeping the Sixteen to One mine operating because of draconian measures regarding water. The following should introduce you to one of the red herrings that has and will continue to damage our society. The article is longer than expected.

Arsenic is a semi-metal element in the periodic table. It is odorless and tasteless. It enters drinking water supplies from natural deposits in the earth or from agricultural and industrial practices. Arsenic is a semi-metal element in the periodic table. It is odorless and tasteless. It enters drinking water supplies from natural deposits in the earth or from agricultural and industrial practices. Arsenic appears in three allotropic forms: yellow, black and gray; the stable form is a silver-gray, brittle crystalline solid. The silver gray is indigenous to the Sierra Nevada Mountain range and Alleghany. It is insoluble.

On January 22, 2001 EPA adopted a new standard for arsenic in drinking water at 10 parts per billion (ppb), replacing the old standard of 50 ppb. The rule became effective on February 22, 2002. The date by which systems must comply with the new 10 ppb standard is January 23, 2006. There are no scientific studies proving that Americans have suffered or will suffer health problems at the old levels.

Most ingested soluble inorganic arsenic is absorbed, whereas insoluble forms pass through the gastrointestinal tract with negligible absorption. Most ingested soluble inorganic arsenic is absorbed, whereas insoluble forms pass through the gastrointestinal tract with negligible absorption. The average American adult takes in 50 milligrams of arsenic each day, with 80% of it coming from meat, fish and poultry. Some wines also contain arsenic due to pesticides used in farming.

The average concentration in the human adult is about 20mg.
The health effects of any toxic substance are related to the amount of exposure, also known as the dose. The greater the dose the more severe the effects. Some chemicals can cause toxicity at very low doses and so it is important to be able to understand how these very small amounts are described. It is especially important to understand how low doses compare to one another and what they represent when compared to amounts of more familiar substances.
Parts per million (ppm), parts per billion (ppb), and parts per trillion (ppt), are the most commonly used terms to describe very small amounts of contaminants in our environment. But what do these terms represent? They are measures of concentration, the amount of one material in a larger amount of another material; for example, the weight of a toxic chemical in a certain weight of food. They are expressed as concentrations rather than total amounts so we can easily compare a variety of different environmental situations.
An example might help illustrate the part per … idea. If you divide a pie equally into 10 pieces, then each piece would be a part per ten; for example, one-tenth of the total pie. If, instead, you cut this pie into a million pieces, then each piece would be very small and would represent a millionth of the total pie or one part per million of the original pie. If you cut each of these million minute pieces into a thousand little pieces, then each of these new pieces would be one part per billion of the original pie. To give you an idea of how little this would be, a pinch of salt in ten tons of potato chips is also one part (salt) per billion parts (chips).
In this example, the pieces of the pie were made up of the same material as the whole. However, if there was a contaminant in the pie at a level of one part per billion, one of these invisible pieces of pie would be made up of the contaminant and the other 999,999,999 pieces would be pure pie. Similarly, one part per billion of an impurity in water represents a tiny fraction of the total amount of water. One part per billion is the equivalent of one drop of impurity in 500 barrels of water.

Stick with me a little longer. It’s important because California’s water regulators must not be aware of the mathematical conversions of the earth’s natural element (arsenic) and how dosage relates to potential health issues. The public is even more lost than the busy bureaucrats in Sacramento and Washington D.C., who rarely get outside their safe and comfortable desks to face man’s health issues with a sense of reality. The Sixteen to One has suffered and continues to suffer from the ignorance of people entrusted by you and me to do good work for the benefit of the public. We put our hard earned income in an envelope and send it to Sacramento or Washington D.C. as a tribute (called taxes) for the privilege of living in this great state and country. We expect something of value in return. The Central Valley Regional Water Agency and its federal counterparts are not giving the public value for their use of our tax dollars.

I need your help in keeping the Sixteen to One mine operating because of draconian measures regarding water.

Sometimes, instead of using the part per … terminology, concentrations are reported in weight units; such as the weight of the impurity compared to the weight of the total. The metric system is the most convenient way to express this since metric units go by steps of ten, hundred and thousand.

For example, a milligram is a thousandth of a gram and a gram is a thousandth of a kilogram. Thus, a milligram is a thousandth of a thousandth, or a millionth of a kilogram. A milligram is one part per million of a kilogram thus, one part per million (ppm) is the same as one milligram per kilogram. Just as part per million is abbreviated as ppm, a milligram per kilogram has its own abbreviation — mg/kg. Using our abbreviations, one ppm equals one mg/kg.
Kilograms and milligrams are units of weight so they don’t apply to volumes of liquids or gases. Instead of a kilogram, the unit of liquid volume most commonly used is the liter. A liter of water weighs one kilogram. If the contaminant is a solid, it is measured in milligrams. Thus, one part per million of a solid in a liquid can be written as a milligram per liter and abbreviated mg/l.
These are the most common units that are encountered. However, with the ability to detect even smaller amounts of contaminants, the terms part per billion and part per trillion are becoming more common.

In the metric weight system, a microgram is a thousandth of a milligram. Since a milligram is a millionth of a kilogram, and the microgram is a thousand times smaller, it is equivalent to a billionth of a kilogram. Microgram is abbreviated ug. Thus, a part per billion of solid measure is equal to a ug/kg. Similarly, a part per billion of a solid in a liquid is equal to a ug/l.

We can compare metric weight quantities to the quantities we are most accustomed to using. A kilogram is equal to about two pounds. Thus, a milligram is less than a millionth of a pound. Looked at another way, it would take about five thousand milligrams (5000 mg) to make up one teaspoonful of a solid (such as salt). The unit of liquid volume, the liter, is very close to a quart. Thus, a milligram per liter is about the same as a milligram per quart.

The math of the ppm, ppb,mg/l pounds, quartz, kilograms and liters is a lot to deal with; however I gave it a try and came up (using the potato example above) that one person drinking 2-L/day of water would spend 13 years before he ingested that pinch of salt. Should society be spending time, money and compromising productive mining by claiming that arsenic in the Sierra Nevada Mountain range is harmful and requires oppressive monitoring?

I need your help in enlightening the public about this subject because the water agencies are deaf, dumb and blind.

Rick

It sounds that the Water Board is just like so many other government agencies, full of ignorance and leaning towards complete stupidity. Or, is it about white envelopes being exchanged under tables???

Check out the jsmineset.com website tonight concerning a major newspaper in London running the headline, Geithner Enriches Speculators In “Sham Bank” Bail-Outs and the enjoining article.

The deeper you dig the messier it gets.

As promised, here’s Ron’s report. The original has many beautiful and purposeful pictures. Unable to post photos on FORUM.
.
Hydropower Pre-feasibility Study

Prepared for Original Sixteen to One Mine, INC

February 2009
Prepared by RON OTT

INTRODUCTION

This pre-feasibility investigation was conducted to determine if waterpower could be used to generate environmentally clean energy that would offset the amount of energy and thus cost provided to the Sixteen to One Mine (16 to 1) via Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E). Sources and amounts of water available for hydropower generation were measured (Flow). The available water drop or pressure head (Head) was estimated from topographic maps. Amounts of energy that could be generated were estimated and amounts of energy and cost that the mine uses was estimated to determine the potential cost savings. Estimates were then made on the cost of the project and finally the contract and interconnection requirements were instigated with PG&E.

FLOW
Flows were measured at the Main Spring four times over the course of the year using a 5 gallon bucket and stop watch. The combined flows of the white and black pipes as they entered the collection tank follow:

Date Flow (cubic feet per Second –cfs)
9/21/07 0.21
2/8/2008 0.28
3/21/2008 0.20
11/26/2008 0.25
Average 0.24 cfs

Flows were also estimated and measured from other springs and seeps in the area around the Main Spring. Theses estimated follows are shown in the table below.

Date Gold Crown Culvert Gold Crown Upper Pond Lower Dam Spring Culvert
9/21/2007 0.13 0.28 0.13
2/8/2008 0.10 0.22 0.10
3/21/2008 0.14 0.31 0.14
11/26/2008 0.11 0.23 0.11
Average 0.12 0.26 0.12.

Flow summary:
Main Spring 0.24 cfs
Other springs and seeps 0.50 cfs
Total: 0.74 cfs

HEAD
The available pressure head was calculated as the difference in the water surface elevation where the water enters the penstock and the centerline elevation of the nozzle at the turbine. Then the friction loss in the penstock was subtracted.

Using elevations from topographic maps, altimeters, and Google Earth, the upstream water surface at the spring was estimated at elevation 4,420 feet and the elevation of the nozzle at the power house would be 3,804 feet. The difference or gross head is approximately 616 feet.

To determine the approximate friction loss in the 2,400 foot penstock, the penstock was assumed to be 8 inches in diameter and made of steel. With a flow of 1 cfs the head loss in the penstock would be approximately 15 feet.

Therefore, the Net Head available to the turbine is approximately 600 feet.

power
The power kW (kilowatts) available from any flow and net head combination can be calculated by:

kW = (Q * H / 11.815 )(Eff)

Where:
kW = kilowatts (kW)
Q = Flow (cfs)
H = Net Head (feet)
11.815 = conversion factor
Eff = overall efficiency from water to power at the meter (assumed 85%)

The following table gives examples of the approximate energy that could be produced with various size turbines that ran year round (assume 5 % down time for maintenance):

Water Source Flow (cfs) kW kWhrs/Year
Main Spring only 0.24 11.3 94,000
All springs and seeps 0.74 31.9 266,000
If full water right developed* 1.0 43.2 360,000
* It would most likely require storage to utilize the full water right of 1 cfs

PG&E CONTRACT
In June 2008, 16:1 and PG&E executed a 20 year “Small Renewable Generator Power Purchase Agreement” for PG&E to purchase power from 16:1. The maximum rate to PG&E cannot exceed 50 kW and the generated power would be used to offset the power requirements of the Mine first. Any access power that the mine does not use would be purchased by PG&E at $0.0967/kWhr in 2009 escalating to $0.119/kWhr in 2020. There are factors used to adjust these rates daily depending on the season and time of day. They range from 2.037 for super peak in the summer down to .656 for night in the spring months.

In the summer 2006 the mine purchased power from PG&E at the following rates:

Summer 2006 $/kWhr Total Cost for 2006 year
Peak 0.31618 $8,906
Partial Peak 0.15738 $14,021
Off-Peak 0.09511 $11,279
Total $34,206

The optimum operation strategy would be to store the water in a small reservoir and run the hydroplant at full capacity to offset the super peak and peak energy purchases from PG&E.
If the hydroplant is run with little mining operations and no storage reservoir, the maximum revenue generated from PG&E would be approximately:

Water Source Revenue $/year
Main Spring only $9,000
All springs and seeps $27,000
If full water right developed $36,000

Given varying mine energy requirements, an operations study should be conducted to determine the size of reservoir in order to optimize the revenue.
COST
The major cost to the project will be the penstock and the turbine. Two preliminary budget estimates were received. One United States and one overseas manufacture. Both were around $50,000 for the turbine, switchgear, and spare parts.

A price quote was received from Normac, Inc of Rancho Cordova for 2400 feet of 8” to 4” HDPE pipe. The quote for the pipe and fittings was $58,000.

Total Estimated cost for the Project is shown in the follow table:

Item Cost $
Diversion and water collections structure $10,000
Penstock HDPE pipe , 2400 feet $58,000
Penstock installation and restraints $10,000
Turbine and Switchgear $50,000
Powerhouse construction $15,000
Electrical to connection point $5,000
PG&E requirements for hookup $10,000
Misc. equipment and fittings $5,000
Total estimate $163,000

NEXT STEPS

1. Get interconnection study completed by PG&E. This will determine the cost of any special facilities or insurance required to connect
2. Survey the project to determine elevations, lengths and alignment
3. Look into spring development
4. Run optimization study to determine size and location of small reservoir in concert with future mining operations and size of turbine
5. Prepare conceptual drawings
6. Prepare final feasibility study
7. Obtain exemption from FERC
8. Obtain final quotes and schedule of equipment
9. Order equipment
10. Construction
11. Install new PG&E meter
12. Register Project with the Western Region Electricity Generation Information System (WREGIS)
13. Test facility and commence operation.

What a surprise I just got from Oakrockranch. It’s your comments and the gift of your thoughts, which are of value. I was just hoping for a fresh idea!
Ron Ott’s report arrived by email, which I will somehow get into this topic. I mirror emf with a sincere thank you. Running this old gold mine can get emotional sometimes…like now.

Hey Mike – I’ll send you $500 with the hopes you can get this idea pushed further down the road and off the ground someday. As you know I’m not a shareholder, but truly admire your wisdom, passion, commitment and tenacity. My interests are simply human, with the belief that something grand will come of your efforts. Maybe I’ll even get a chance for a tour of the underground operations the next time I visit. All the best!

How about this article in the Sacramento Bee!!
January 3, 2009
Headline: “Kern inmates forced to use tainted water”.

Here’s the scoop. Kern Valley State Prison opened in 2005 with local water registering higher in arsenic than the new federal limits. The government shelved a $629,000 filtration system and did not notify the staff and inmates. “Its not that major of an issue,” said Kelly Harrington, the prison’s new warden. The administrators say the health hazard from arsenic (from chemicals used in industry and farming) is insignificant and they will get around to it in the next few years. The prison’s chief medical officer, Dr. Sherry Lopez, said there was no immediate danger from the lockup’s water, based on an email from a poison-control expert who said arsenic is “much more a regulatory problem than a public health problem.”

Oxygen is a poison; plain water can kill, so can chocolate, meat, vitamins A-B-D and E. It’s all about dosage, the amount and time line of ingestion. Let’s hope this new and fresh look at America and ourselves will examine the utterly false and misleading claims of arsenic, especially natural elemental arsenic as dangerous enough to waste millions of our precious dollars.

The following article was published in an obscure magazine, World Wide Drilling Resource in April, 2004.

Hard Water ‘Stops Heart Attacks’
Story from BBC News

Drinking hard water may protect against heart disease, researchers have claimed.
Researchers from the Geographical Survey of Finland looked at 19,000 men who had suffered heart attacks.
They found for every unit increase in water hardness, there was a 1% decrease in the risk of having a further attack.
Writing in the journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, the researchers said the findings explained regional variations in heart attack rates.
They said the differences of up to 40% between areas could not be explained solely by lifestyle or genetic factors.
Mineral levels
The team looked at men aged between 35 and 74, who had had an initial heart attack in the years 1983, 1988, and 1993. They also examined national geological survey data on water hardness and trace elements, divided up into 10 by 10 kilometer grids.
Professor Jeremy Pearson, British Heart Foundation said, “It is not implausible that water hardness might affect disease rates.”
Hard water is any water, which contains an appreciable quantity of dissolved minerals. The researchers looked at measurement levels of calcium, magnesium, fluoride, iron, copper, zinc, nitrate and aluminum from almost 12500 groundwater samples.
They suggest higher fluoride levels were protective, with every one milligram of fluoride per liter of household drinking water was associated with a 3% decrease in the risk of a heart attack.
But for every microgram of iron per liter, risk increased by an average of 4%, and for every microgram of copper per liter of water, it increased by 10%.
Writing in the Journal of epidemiology and Community Health, the researchers, led by Dr. Anne Kousa, said, “The large geographical variations and changes in the incidence of heart attacks in Finland cannot be explained by individual lifestyle or genetic factors alone. Environmental exposures must also contribute to the development of the disease.”
Small effect
Professor Jeremy Pearson, Associate Medical Director at the British Heart Foundation, told BBC News Online: “There have been several studies going back more than 35 years examining the relationship between incidence of coronary heart disease and hardness of local water supplies, with inconsistent results.
“It is not implausible that water hardness might affect disease rates, since it relates to the levels of trace elements that may be important for nutrition. However, the contribution of drinking water to the total intake of these elements is usually low.”
He added: “This study concludes that the incidence of acute myocardial infarction is significantly lower in areas of the country where water is harder.
“However, it is clear that any effect that there might be is small by comparison with the well-known major risk factors, such as poor diet, physical inactivity, smoking and high alcohol intake.” END OF ARTICLE

I wonder if the sellers of bottle water are behind the misinformation about drinking water that puts fear in the minds of the mindless. Scoop reports that the mine will eliminate the low levels of dissolved arsenic (an important naturally occurring element on earth) from Kanaka Creek? The fish, plants, and insects in that drainage are as healthy as any in the California mountains. I bet the Rockies too. I say…don’t do it. Leave it alone. How can this BS be stopped? About the miners’ prayers for the old miners and their women, I like it.

State Water Resources Control Board
April 30,2003

Gentlemen, thank you for considering our disagreement with the
Central Water Control Board. Bill Walker of Walker and Associates is more qualified than I to explain the science of water at the mine. He and four staff members have visited the site about six times. The regional staff has one or two visits in the past five years. No State staff has ever inspected the mine. Walker has affirmed and expanded the company’s position, consistently expressed to both boards since 1998. The regional staff presented its board stale data, untrue facts; broad opinions as if they were facts and lost many of the test results the company sent them.

It is always difficult for oversight boards to vary from staff recommendations. You are the leaders, unencumbered by a bureaucratic regime. I ask you to adopt the Walker recommendations for monitoring at the Sixteen to One mine. To provide you the confidence to do so, I will introduce a recent New York Times essay which was also in the Sunday Forum page of the Sacramento Bee. Its title is “Ethical Awareness for Sciences and Leadership”. The values of honesty, creativity and full disclosure are the hallmarks of good science.

Mr. Lawrence Krauss writes, “Confronting misconceptions, deliberate or not, our own or others’, is probably the single most important factor driving progress in science, and in a broader sense society. Scientists must not allow nonsense to remain unconfronted, regardless of whose sensibilities we offend. Once we allow empirical truth to be blurred with impunity in one important area of human activity, we jeopardize the very basis of a healthy democracy.” He closes with, “A democracy, like science, functions best only when all actions are open to question, and when we require the highest levels of accountability.”

The record of our application and appeal is detailed; but the water issue is not complex. The baseline charts in the Walker report could have been easily compiled by the regional board staff. The charts represent scientific proof: increased monitoring is an unreasonable burden with no public benefit. I defer to Mr. Walker. END OF ORAL PRESENTATION.

The State Water Resources Control Board ignored the Walker report and stuck to its own staff recommendations. Significant changes were made to the draconian and unscientific document prepared by the lower board and its staff. I am grateful for this; however, the State Board sidestepped a real opportunity to correct a flawed document.

Oops…..Thanks for telling me about not giving the date for the State Board meeting. It is March 19, 2003. Also the word “no” was omitted from the last message, right after the sentence, “I think it is a good idea”.

I thought that it would be a good idea to relate to you an excerpt of a phone conversation I had with one of the staff engineers at the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board.

I had called at the request of the mine to try to get some information and assistance regarding the new monitoring requirements to which the 16-to-1 is now subject under their new NPDES permit.

During the course of the conversation, I asked (as I had done in front of the board) how they can justify requiring an arsenic limit that is below the background arsenic concentration of Kanaka Creek. In addition, I asked how they proposed reducing the arsenic discharge from the many abandoned mines in the watershed.

Now, there are a number of possible responses that could have been put forth by this single representative of the board. Some of them could have made sense, and some of them could have been B.S. The one that I got was downright shocking.

The response was:
It is one of the long-term goals of the regional board to eventually have every abandoned mine that is discharging water into a natural watercourse be permitted with a NPDES permit. What this means (and I asked for clarification on this) is that if anyone, from a private citizen to the federal government, owns land from which there is a discharge of water from an abandoned mine (or other point-source of pollution), that owner or some other responsible party will be required to apply for a permit to discharge. All that is necessary for this to happen is for the board to discover a mine that they didn’t know about before. How do they find out? Anyone can report it to them or to any of the agencies that the board uses to perform its investigations (DFG and local law enforcement are two examples).

What are the effects of suddenly needing to file for a NPDES permit? Essentially, you will need to perform site assesments and water sampling, develop a mitigation plan to reduce or eliminate any pollutants deemed detrimental to the natural watercourse (including turbidity, taste, odor, color, floating material, hydrocarbons, heavy metals, biological oxygen demand, pH, temperature, pesticides, and any other constituents as determined by state or federal statute).

Remember, ANY ACTIVITY THAT DISCARGES WATER TO LAND, SURFACE WATER, OR GROUND WATER is subject to this permitting process.

Good luck.