Idaho Mining & Conservation with John Robison

John Robinson your back sir. How are you? I'm fantastic. Thanks so much for hosting me again.

Yeah. Yeah. The first conversation was fantastic. I was super excited for the second

start. I went to Regans and hung out like I've driven through it. Yeah. But hung out for the

first time yesterday, went up and Roy Aiken's very kindly invited me up. He's a, you know,

five time city councilman, a guy, the whole thing, took me, uh, drift boating. Yeah. Yeah.

Steelhead fishing caught my first steelhead ever. That's it. It was wild. I was like, dude,

it was cold. Yeah. Oney degrees on the water. He had these heaters on the boat. Yeah. And he

was heating up a basket of these flat rocks. I was like, what are you doing with the rocks? He's

like, put them in your hands. And I grabbed him like, oh, that's so nice. Thank you, Lord,

baby Jesus. Like freezing. But so great. Then I got to connect with a bunch of people. One is

this guy who, uh, essentially revamped the entire EMS paramedic thing like which is incredible.

Yeah. Even past a, uh, uh, paramedic district, which is crazy. Like that's wild. Right.

Um, or excuse me, an ambulance district. Yeah. That was great. Um, spoke with a K through 12,

or excuse me, a pre K school teacher there. She's super cool. The way that she talks about

the kids and the community. Incredible. Also a, uh, just, uh, restaurant tour hospitality

business over there. Super, dude, she had this line. Kim, Kim, Qing Queenie,

her name, Kim's line is we might be trashy, but we're not full of trash.

Oh my god. Um, Riggins has, as Roy was telling me, he's like, they have this very interesting

relationship with the mining community. Right. You know, like they're down, uh, downstream from

a lot of things, hard rock mining and those, those areas. It's a big thing. Talk to me about mining

in that area. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so, uh, just to go, go back, uh, you've got this amazing history of

mining all along the salmon river. And if you, uh, go, uh, float the main salmon river or the

middle fork, you'll find in the guidebook and history books, you know, all these incredible,

uh, pioneers who are out there, you know, just a hard scrubber existence. These are tough people.

And, uh, and, you know, working their claims, doing all this stuff. And, uh, and it really is

an incredible part of the, the culture and lore out there of the, the mining in the, uh, particularly

in that area upstream of the salmon river. Of course, now we know that there were some impacts

of some of this stuff. Um, but it really is an interesting, interesting place to go check out.

Now, of course, there's actually, I think the, um, they've estimated 500,000 abandoned

mines across the west. So some of the stuff is actually, um, uh, stuff that's cool to check on

other places. You don't, like, don't go in the mine shaft. Like, don't take your kids exploring

in the mine shaft. But you've got this interesting legacy. It's a rich history, but also you've got

some issues with some of these mines, you know, some of them are stabilized and fine. You know,

you can check them out other places. They're actually, um, they didn't estimate the USGS

didn't estimate. And we're looking at about, um, anywhere from 30 to 70 billion dollars,

if you wanted to clean up some of the stuff. Um, and part of it is, you know, physical

hazards like falling down the mine shaft, either are chemical hazards. Um, and this is what's

interesting where it's not obvious to the eye. So, um, we've got our coffee right here. Um,

and I'm blessed to drop. So one thing is, uh, about the, the old mining is you're basically

following these veins, right? Or looking for nuggets. So things you can actually see, um,

a lot of those places got, got played out. Okay. The, the ore pinched out. That's it. Um, but

there's still, um, or the vein pinched out, but there's still, um, some ore or some, uh,

gold or what are you looking for disseminated in the rocks. It's very, very low grade, though.

So you could actually pick up a rock that's, you know, you know, high quality or, or it's, uh, uh,

uh, you know, mining grade, but you can't actually see it because it's microscopic. And so you can

find a porofino, right? Yeah, like, you find grade gold. That's like powder, like, it's like flour.

And this is even finer than that. So this is stuff that's super fine. So what do you have to do

is basically, it's like your coffee beans. Uh, what do you have to do to get your coffee? Oh,

grind them up. Grind them up. Same thing with the sword. You can go out and you can pound it. No,

no gold gold comes out. But if you grind it up, then, um, and actually sprinkle cyanide through

it, right? That can actually, uh, uh, adheres to the gold and then you can extract it. So, uh,

you've gotten your mercury for some of these processes, cyanide, all these things. And again,

naturally occurring elements within the earth, right? Well, well, the cyanide and, uh, um,

is something that you bring on site. Interesting. And the mercury sometimes something you bring

on site or they use to bring out site before they do better. But now what, what, actually,

there were a lot of practices from years of old that were pretty scared. Remember, like,

bloodletting, you know, what I always find interesting about mining is that there's like,

what technology, um, or industry do we have, like, these relics that exist in real time that we

reference when we're conceptualizing? Like, if you think about mining, it's like, oh, well,

there's like the old smelter or like we have these stories of, you know, like in Kellogg,

there's like really rough, like terrible situation across the street from like an online

tree school. That was like the 20s or something, right? Well, actually, some of the stuff,

what's interesting is that the, um, uh, the issue in Silver Valley, that was in 1974 when they

had the smelter there and the pollution control bag burned up in a fire, but they kept losing it

in 1974. We still have Idaho conservation like members who were there at the time who remember

that and actually who are involved in the cleanup and think about this. So one of the things where

you've got, you know, basically blanket of the town is an epidemic of lead poisoning in kids,

the cleanup involved ribbing up school yards and trying to bear, and yards had to be buried.

And, you know, you go there now, looks clean, but the mining waste, it doesn't go away. Um,

in fact, it got washed on river and a lot of this is, you know, historic mining and stuff from

the 70s. So there are tundra swans that migrate through and they stop by the river there, you know,

every year on the migration run and in, uh, uh, 2022, 300 swans, tundra swans died on the spot,

not like they, they, you know, ate something and then like three years later, they died early.

No, they died on the spot from lead poisoning. And so this is kind of the extent of how long

lasting some of these issues can be. And when you go back to the, uh, the, or the crush up to get

the stuff you want. Sure. You also, these are mineralized areas because Idaho is like this cool

mining state and we've got all these cool mountains and all these places. Sure. Sure. There's

a bunch of stuff in there that you don't really want. So there's also lead cadmium zinc,

a whole host of nasties. So if you actually go and you look at a map of hazardous waste sites

in Idaho, from the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, you look there and you go, oh, here's

an X on the spot. And it's like, oh, it's an old mine. Oh, here's an X. It's an old mine. Here's

an X moment. But some of the stuff is still happening today. And even modern mining still,

we've changed some of the practices, but the policies haven't changed as much. So there was a

survey that was done back just in 2017 of modern state of the art gold mines that went through

the full NIPA, the whole EPA, all these things. And they found that in 76% of those mines,

there was water contamination that was problematic that no one had predicted. And so you still have

leaching that's happening from sites, pipeline failures. We have now this great technology of

liners that are intended to keep this stuff from being mobilized. But things happen. They're

ponds for cyanide, for example, where we're going to design a pond. It's going to be great.

Keep the cyanide there. Birds still get in and die. That's going to be a problem. Or elk or

things like that that was happening not that long ago. And then they had one mine up in the mountains

where they thought it was all solid and iced over because it's up in the mountains. And then the water

levels change, they could be down the cyanide. The ice breaks into jagged shards and punctures the

liner. And then the cyanide drains out into the creek. We also had issues where you've got

things like, you know, one of the things with all the stuff is once you grind the stuff up,

and it's either the ore that you want or it's the waste rock that you have to get through.

That stuff ever likes to marvel at the hole in the ground, right? And you know, imagine

they're driving these giant trucks because these trucks are cool. It's amazing feats of technology,

turning mountains inside out. But the stuff that gets mobilized, even inadvertently,

doesn't tend to stay there. There are up in Canada, up in British Columbia. There's a number of

coal mines up there. And these are modern state-of-the-art mines.

Creek runs through. It picks up selenium from there. Goes into the flows into the Elk River and

the Cootney River and the fish today in the Elk River have holes in their faces. They're missing

gill plates in some areas right below the mines. And that goes flows out of Canada into Montana

through Lake Cucanusa and then into the Cootney River into Idaho. And the Idaho Department of

Environmental Quality is doing a great job of monitoring this stuff and saying, actually,

there are there's too much selenium in the system. It's not safe for the fish. It's pretty

dilute by what time it gets down there. But it's still there. And this is 300 miles down river.

So what happens at mines doesn't tend to stay there. And in Nevada, there's a bunch of

gold mines there. And they're doing the best they can with, you know, all types of features.

Well, the pollution control measures. Well, my friend of mine was fishing in salmon falls

creek for wildlife. And there's this little notice that says, don't eat the fish or be very careful

about how much portions you have in there. It's like, why there's no industry near here? What's

going on? And it turns out there was mercury coming from the smelting process because

mercury is embedded in the ore. Mercury was coming up and drifting across raining down kind

of a downwinders syndrome. And is it like contemporary smelting? Yeah. Yeah. In in Nevada.

In Nevada. And so what happened was we're like, wait a minute. We were like, there was a big

pushback against a coal fire power plant in twin falls because it's like, we don't want to blanket

our kids in mercury and all of these things. And it turns out there was over 100 times the

amount of mercury coming across the border into Idaho than that coal fire power plant.

So what happened is, you know, everyone was missing this. And so that or conservation links

that, hey, something's missing here and reported it. And the mine companies double checked their

numbers and said, oh, actually, you're right. Actually, we are admitting mercury more than we thought.

And they put scrubbers in. And so that is being addressed. And what's really exciting though

is that that technology is getting exported to other countries. And so, you know, one of the

scrubbers. Yeah, the scrubbers. So one of the things that's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So

first off. So mining is a tricky. It appears to me. It's like, this is a really tricky problem.

Yeah. Because we have contemporary practices. And you're and I think it's very easy to point out

anywhere, be it with medicine, be it with mining, be it with, you know, car technology. It doesn't matter.

It's like, okay, this is the best we have right now. And in the absence of just

absolutely halting consumption of these things, it's like, okay, but like where are we going to

get this? And what's the best best way to get it, right? And like that's this really tricky thing.

And obviously you have problems that are perhaps contemporary problem in Nevada, right? Or something

going on in Canada. It's like, okay, we still like everything in this room is a product of

mining, right? So yeah, right. You drove here. Like we're recording off all the things. So it's

kind of like, okay, we we can look at these problems. But like, what's the real solution here?

Because if we're not stopping the consumption of these things, if it and and if we like, I just

had John shirts on. Yeah. Representative John shirts, excuse me. And we were talking about

he's his family's comes from the land production industry. And he's talking about tariffs

with, you know, New Zealand, Australian lamb. And he's like, why are we doing this? Like, why

are we shipping stuff halfway across the world to like get, you know, your rack of lamb produce

all this great lamb here? You know, these things. And the local lamb producers have been hammered

by out of country lamb producers by Australia and New Zealand, right? And he drew a parallel to

resources, critical minerals and whatnot. And he's like, and we're adding critical minerals to

the list. I think silver just got added as a critical mineral. And these are these are minerals

that to be designated as a critical mineral, it has to both be that we absolutely need it for

economic or defensive capacity. And we cannot produce it at the scale we need it, right? And China

owns like 30 of our 55 or something ridiculous. So it like in hearing these things is like, okay,

like so we shouldn't have mercury. Totally agree. Okay, that thing froze over there. Like that

was bad. Like, okay, get something worth not going to be. So like, so like work the pro is

that the position that you feel is appropriate, which is, okay, we need these things. So let's work

the problems. Or are you more of like, eh, let's let somebody else work the problems. No, I think

is a great question. And this is actually one of the most exciting times to be alive. I agree.

But also we're at this fault line in terms of environmental protections and increasing awareness

and the need, oh, we need stuff. Like we need to have more of this stuff, particularly like things

like, you know, cobalt or anything. Anything you have to do with battery technology. Exactly. We are

just, we need so much of it. So we're looking at if we're going to, I know if you

track the snowpack this year, except for, you know, it's pretty level. It's a little rough.

But if we want to get a handle on stable as in the climate, we're going to have to mine more.

Like we're going to have to have, you know, whatever the mineral disorder is right now.

Instead of critical minerals, I almost call them like trending minerals because this is the hot

topic right now. And then, well, it's not that actually the technology's moved on. Oh, here's the

hot topic. Yeah, the technology's moved on. Like gold, for example, it's listed as a critical mineral.

There is, you know, more than enough, most of it's used for jewelry. There's more

enough in production. You could have, I think a reference to another previous episode and I

looked this up, but you could have like a thousand pounds of like cell phones and a thousand pounds

of, you know, mining ore with gold in it. And there'd be a hundred times more gold in the cell phones.

Like, so the actual Colorado School of Minds, it does the stuff. So if we're looking at, you know,

battery minerals, let's just say, and you can actually, we can probably get 90% of our needs

from looking at old waste dumps and things like that. And there's a, and so what's interesting is

we're trying to figure out how do we actually learn from the lessons of the past, not stop everything

down, not so things down. But we have to acknowledge that mining has impacts. And I know that some people

think like we've solved all the problems. Like this is, you know, that was the days of the past.

We've all, we, no one's doing like the silver valley stuff again, but it's still going on. We

still have leaks, spills. There are still issues with bonding. There's all these types of things.

So the question is, how do we do it responsibly? And, and right now, so how do we do that? Well,

if it's like, I put John Robinson in charge of mine. Yeah. Could you produce an absolute accident-free

environment where nothing ever bad happened? Because by the way, John Robinson and Matt Todd were

born. Okay, sorry about that. Yeah. So good. So good. Could, is there a method to produce like,

like, you're a parent, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It's a hot damn mess.

Right. And I care more about being a dad. Yeah. Then I care about anything. Top dad. And

top dad, dude. And I, I screw up stuff all the time. You're like, okay, that's a mess.

Right. Like, okay, you shouldn't have that or like, oh, you let that one get by. You know,

and again, I'm trying my best. My three boys are monsters. But my point is that I,

what, what I hear a lot of people say. And again, I don't like, I don't like the idea of anybody

getting hurt or damage by my consumer need. Now mind you, it's happening way worse in other

countries where we lie on a lot of things, right? Like if we need to get cobalt from Africa,

instead of, you know, I don't know, Black Crow Creek, whatever that was. Blackbird Creek. Blackbird.

There was, with your law, there's going to be a lot more human suffering in Africa than there

was going to be at the Jervoir mine. Now mind you, do I want anybody suffering from the Jervoir mine?

No, I don't. I'm just trying to struggle with like, we can go through these lists of like,

all of these terrible things. But two questions come to mind, which is, is there, is the alternative

to what we do better? And I think the answer is no. I mean, like, if you look at, right,

should we be reliant on China that gets contracts with people and like the co, like the Congo? No,

that's probably not a good idea. And then, okay, what is it that we do that we encourage and keep

moving forward with this that produces something that we're like, okay, John and Matt both have

cell phones and we don't feel terrible about having cell phones. In fact, we're proud because we

know where it's sourced from. So I love knowing where my, my, you know, lamb burger came from.

Like, yeah, oh, it's, it's came from this ranch around the corner. I love that. I love

what is he river lamb shout out. And I love knowing, hey, this, this, this, my two by fours,

you know, came from Idaho for sure. I was involved in, you know, helping develop that vegetation

restoration project. There's a real cool sense of pride with that. And so one of the things though,

if you're looking way back, you know, we talk about modern mining, all these great things.

And kind of like, do you like Star Trek? It's kind of like that. I love this. And they've

solved all the problems and all these things like pollution, overpopulation, wars, all stuff.

That's in the 23rd century. The fundamental Klingons, the Romulans, they didn't solve the wars.

On earth, on earth. They're going off as the federation, right? Now we're counting on the federation.

That's what we're talking about. Okay. But mining is still mired in the 18th century or 17th century.

Look at that mining law of 1872. So all our modern mining is still premised on the basis of the 1872

mining law, which puts mining law. That is the law of the land. No, I understand that. I don't

understand what you're saying. So the mining law of 1872 is what governs modern mining. Okay.

Right. And it puts mining as the number one use on public lands. And so you have a water supply.

You have a recreation area, you have whatever. Mining comes in into trump card. And it was

designed with a purpose of developing the West. Dr. We had 34 million people. How do we say that

it's the law of the land if we have like NEPA? Yeah. NEPA wasn't there in 1872. Right. And so

they're like, Hey man, we don't agree with us. You can't do this. So it's not that like mining

trumps everything because we have all of these other checks and balances. Mining kind of does. So

you have to go through the NEPA process. Sure. But mining gets a pass. So NEPA would say we're going

to go ahead and do this. Mining gets a pass. It has. So if you go look at some of these

positive things. Okay. So mining doesn't have to have to actually listen to the NEPA process.

It has to be informed by it. But the four service can't say no. In fact, if you have something

let's say we're doing a timber sale or let's say we're doing a campground. Oh, here's a sensitive

area for, you know, fish. Sure. And you go, Okay, you can, you know, you have to like do what you

can and not substantively impair the fish. Great. With mining though, he says, Hey, here's the

mining. There's some fish over here and you go, Okay, you can try to protect the fish as long

as you don't substantially impair the mining operation. It flips the coin. Mining gets first use.

The other thing is in terms of promoting trying to get, you know, Western settlers out there

mining on public land pays no royalty to the taxpayers. So you have let's say 18 billion dollar

gold mine up there. Sure. Taxpayers get zero amount of that public resource that's under the ground.

If you look at oil and gas, there's a 10% 80% royalties. Some of that goes to pretty good things

in terms of a band in mine cleanup, a band in coal mine cleanup or doing things for the community.

So if I were to start, you know, with a mining plan, I would also say, Hey, let's take a look at

reforming the mining in love 1872, giving local communities a voice in determining where these

projects go, not just the mining companies. And also, let's get a royalty to pay for the

abandoned mine cleanup. Now what's exciting, man, some questions. Yeah. Okay. So first off, they

they have to bond and have a cleanup plan in place right now, right? They do. And that bond is,

you say, well, that is not a public process. That's a negotiation between the mining company and the

Forest Service or BLN. And it includes everything going perfectly according to plan. And so,

but yeah, what I'm saying is, so the answer is yes. Now the process by which they determine the

amount and everything, okay, that's that's fine. But ultimately, it's kind of a negotiation and

not often get wrong. Yeah, I got you. Yeah. What I'm saying is they're, you're saying like, we

should get royalties to pay for this cleanup. And what I'm pointing out, yeah, yeah, there is a

mechanism that he already prefronted prefronted. I got you. I gotcha. I also want to ask you about

the fish again. You're saying, look, you can, what it is with mining is you can say, I want to restore

or protect the fish, but only if I don't disturb the mining. Is that for an existing operation or

is that like I have a mine or I would like to start a mine? Yeah. And they're a fish here. And

everybody comes to table. And I'm like, well, I'm going to go get this gold and people are like,

wait, you're going to screw up the fish. And then everybody with a mine that's not an operation

that's just being like at their time to get a permanent prospecting. And they're like, yeah,

we don't care about the fish. They get to do anything they want. And if you even want to mess with

the fish, you just got to get out of their way. And that is a fundamental part of the permitting

process of mining. Because that's what it sounds like I said. This is largely correct. There's a

little nuance where you can't force the fish to extinction. You can't push it all the way over

the edge. That's where fish and wildlife service or the nor fisheries will come in and say,

actually, we're going to call a jeopardy finding. And they're going to throw in a different alternative.

And say you've got to live more of a buffer. I think what is. So the first thing I would do,

in terms of the John Roberts and Bettock mining business, I think there's some examples where

the policies, frankly, are not going to develop the best minds if you just follow the natural policies.

What is exciting, though, is talking to individual mining companies who are going above and beyond.

And so this is where, okay, right now, this is a critical mineral. It gets a fast pass,

you know, NEPA. They're changing NEPA right now. So there's no comment periods on a final

environmental impact statement. You get your shot at the very beginning, but it's not at the end.

So this is the new trend. But that's not going to pass the social license standard over time.

These are public lands. The public has to have a say. And the public has had a really good track record

of improving minds that had serious flaws. And public pointed out, and the forest service and

mining company said, okay, we're going to do things differently. So the public process is key.

If you have the royalty issue is, if you're taking something from public lands,

you know, let's try to actually make sure that we're not building the taxpayers, not subsidizing it,

even more. So let's say we've got, and that the, those could go toward a, you know, a ban on

mine cleaning up in other areas. There was a, so essentially saying, hey, I want to mine some silver

over here. Yeah. And you're like, all right, you can do that. Yeah. But you remember that company

from the 60s way over there? Yeah. That can do this. But you got to go clean up that junk that they

did over there. You know, what I'd say is you actually have a fund. And then there's a community

prioritize, which one goes there. This is what they do in other industries is they have this

abandoned mine clean up fund. And actually the, and so there's there's a mechanism in place to do

this. What's interesting though is we really have to pay close attention to the bonding. And so

it's not just a redacted like, you know, a sheet of all that calculations. There was the summit

ville mine in Colorado. And it was bonded like seven and a half million dollars for this open

pit sign that he bleached mine like, okay, that's that's a lot of money. Like $7.5 million.

Well, wait, wait, when was this? $1.5 million doesn't buy you a couple of houses. This is back

in the 90s. And then, uh, it's like the 30-ish years ago. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And then turns out

the, uh, uh, money company with bankrupt that aside I'd spill clean up costs is over $200 million

now. And so, uh, the bonding is really important to get right. And that's where there have been

another example since in the last 30 years I can Idaho where the bonding was insufficient. So,

if you look at the Atlanta gold mine up in Atlanta, I don't know. And that's a super cool town.

You got to check it out. Amazing mining history. I have a buddy who has house. Yeah, you got to check it.

It's amazing. Isn't it like also the highest population of felons in that area? I do not know. I

don't know. Low. I don't know. I don't know. You got to check it. I could be totally well. And it's

a gateway to the wilderness. It's amazing. Okay. So the mining thing up there, the forest service,

there's an old, uh, a bunch of old historic addits and mine shafts up there. Really interesting

history. Uh, uh, and then back in, uh, uh, uh, the, this is actually the late 90s. And then in

early 2000s, mining company said, Hey, we want to go out there and explore some more. Great.

Forest service. Okay. Sounds good. It's going to be like $30,000 or $40,000 bond. Okay. Great. You

just, you know, just had to go out there explore. Yeah. And then turns out they, they changed the

internal plumbing of the mountain and a lot more arsenic started coming out there. And now it's

like, uh, millions of dollars of cleanup cost. And that's on us. Um, right now the arsenic is,

uh, uh, flowing down. And there's a little mini treatment center that, uh, they were forced to put

in, uh, and, uh, but it's not big enough. And so we still have this other issue with a modern,

this, and this went through NEPA. The EPA was involved in stuff. They still miss the mark. So

bonding is something to pay really close attention to. Uh, and, uh, and the other thing, the

practice is, you know, we talk about, you know, things are improving and there's, you know,

amazing space age liners. Still, the mechanics are pretty, pretty basic in that you're going to

crush, crush go here. You leak cyanide through. Uh, there's a bunch of mines in, uh, in Montana,

the, uh, 1990s. So you had the, uh, the, uh, uh, the, uh, Zortman Landisky, the BLMINE,

Kindle Mine, Golden Sunlight, open pitside, I've heaps of each mines, classic things. And, um,

they all failed all contaminated water. And in 1998, the citizens of Montana passed a resolution.

Yeah, but John, you're, you're aggregating, yeah, horror stories from across the country. Like,

if we aggregated murder stories from across country, I'd never leave my house. And I'd be like,

barricade down. So what I'm saying is, like, if we are going to continue consuming

things. And if we acknowledge that in our current iteration of, of manufacturing and consumption,

you and I are responsible, I think for like 60 slaves each, and you're like across the world.

Right. That's bad. Okay. So in our current iteration of consumption, you and I are culpable

with the horrific humanitarian cost of what we're doing because we outsource the dirty work we

don't like. Right. And we keep, you know, like Idaho pristine and, you know, anyway. So if we

are going to do, so you're saying, like, look, maybe bonds should be more, right? Because when you

bring up the Atlanta gold operations, like, okay, they went through the process. And whoever

was in charge of the bond in that moment, they, they missed the mark. Yeah. And, but the company

itself is like, look, you tell me what you guys want us to pay. They're like, pay us 50 grand.

It's like, okay, here's your check. I'm going to go, whatever, something happened.

Kind of went bankrupt. They're kind of not in business anymore. But well, well,

many companies do, right? So like, okay, you go through this process. And the person that,

obviously, the person in charge of the bond is now more informed as far as so like, okay, maybe

more robust bonds. That's not a bad idea. Not a bad idea. And there's a couple more things. So

one is there's some certain areas that you look at, like given the, like we talked about the

issues of cyanide and montane. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. There's a cyanide mine,

just open, an open pit cyanide heap, each mine, that's in expiration phase, just this side

at the headwaters and the centenoids, headwaters, the eastern snake river plain aquifer. And that's

called the Kilgore mine. So we're like, it's illegal, you know, just 20 miles far the north. It's

legal here. There's concerns about that. Certainly, there's some places that the first thing is

that are a little too special to mine in terms of if you're going to be worried about, you know,

things leaving the site and flowing downstream. So I think you've heard about the Kilgore mine.

That's a big concern. Sure. You know, Stibnite where we have issues with that.

You know, I talked to the water users. Yeah. They don't worry about the Kilgore mine at all.

Okay. And we have like Idaho rivers united and other people that are like, or maybe, no,

excuse me. Yeah, I don't know where there's none. Yeah. I spoke with Sydney Anderson from that

gray conversation. Yeah. And I was like, oh, my gosh. So I called some people. I'm like,

hey, are you guys worried about this? I was like, no. So I'm like, that's curious. So it's like

you have this person saying you should be like screaming hair on fire. This is terrible. And then

you have people that are deeply vested in water sources in the state. Like, no, I think that if

once the the impacts play out or the impacts get get analyzed, I think people will start paying

more attention. But so there are places that are just certain to special that we'd probably

should take off the mining. In fact, Thunder Mountain Gold did exactly that. And they said, hey,

Eric Jones, yes, we keep digging here. But you know what? It's kind of kind of best things up.

Like, we're good. We're going to make, you know, do this. We're going to have social license.

We're going to, you know, not keep digging, digging a hole here. We're good. And it was a great

success story. And they're off into better places. So that was a great success story. The other

honor to Thunder Mountain Gold. Yeah, it was and you should check it out. It's an amazing place

up there. We were really excited. This is where you've been to cover this a lot about the Ido

Coal Vault project with Surevoix. And in fact, we worked with them through the whole process,

permitting process, suggesting alternatives. It's underground. It's an existing disturbed site.

And yes, there's going to be some impacts, but it's underground and they created like triple

redundant water capture systems in case there's any leakage. And they had a bond up front for

water treatment and perpetuity. Should it be needed? Now the bond went from like 44 million

dollars down to 20 million dollars somewhere in the negotiations, but whatever they have a bond

in place. And they, you know, they deemed it sufficient with the forest service. But that was one

we actually were excited to see. And we actually, I think the only conservation group at the

ribbon cutting for the mine. And the other thing that happened. I think that all right, Peter of

law. Yeah. Well, here's the thing. What's interesting is we have had to be cleared on the jaw

rod just to close the loop. Yeah. The reason that did not go forward is because China,

huh? Our adversary is like, okay, if the United States finds a reliable source of cobalt,

right, they will not have to come hat and hand to us. So what we're going to do is we're going to

flood the United States market with cobalt under the cost of production on our end. We're going to

crash the cobalt market in the United States. That will cause your water go out of business and say,

okay, we needed at least $100 an ounce or whatever it is. And now it's down at 75. We can't turn a

profit. We've put in all of this effort. We put in all these millions of dollars. We have to

abandon this project now. They abandon it. The price of cobalt goes back up. And this is the

type of manipulation that our international adversaries engage in every single day in pursuit of

keeping us hostage for critical minerals that they have. This is very disappointing. One of the

very disappointing. They were like quite disappointed. And we had actually given an award of

excellence to a mining company years ago back in the 90s. And it was like their state of the

art, knocking out a problem, turns out that acid mine drainage on site that was unexpected and was

contaminating the stream. It was like, oh, so maybe awards aren't the best thing to give because

doing how things could like fall apart. This is why I never take a side. I never take a position.

Because I'm like, that sounds good, but that might be wrong. I know. So, but in retrospect,

probably not the best idea to their credit, the company has is captioned the water and they have

a water treatment plant and they bonded for it. But they should have done this before. But they

figured out. So one of the things is the economics, you know, the mining company is going to say,

okay, here's a, here's an economic deposit, right? And so the economics, you know, hopefully you

will work out. So you have to have the economics there. You also have to make sure that

the economics aren't going to mess up other things. And so, for example, Idaho, you know,

rich mining history, it's, you know, and everything in the room here except the water there's

is from a mine. Sure. But it really contributes just like a 1% of Idaho's economy. You look at

recreation and you look at agriculture, both of those are aligned on clean water. We talk a lot

about critical minerals. And yes, we've got all these battery minerals, all the times. What else

is going to be even more critical in the coming years, decades, and centuries is clean drinking water.

And so you want to make sure you don't mess it up. Right. That's why I call the water users. It's

like, are you worried about this? And when the water users, the group that is most concerned with water

consistency and utilization within say they're like, yeah, no, we're not that worried about it.

And then you can talk to the water users in Montana, too, and see, see about that. But I would

care only about Idaho. I don't. I only know Idaho people. That's who I talk to.

So one of the things is you've got to get the economics to make sure it doesn't, you know,

impair other things. So the Stibnet Gold project, for example, there was a local group that

didn't economic study said, hey, it's going to be, and if everything goes according to plan,

there'll be a bump, right? But if there's a problem at the mind, say there's a bump, what does that

mean? Like economic benefit? Yeah, if there's an economic benefit, like, yeah, we can have some

benefits. But if there's an issue with, you know, something goes wrong, like in some other mines,

then it could actually have a net decrease in economics because, you know,

there's issues that can go downstream. When this is back in the day before times, when there is a

A, and you've been to the site, when there's a blowout up there at Blowout Creek, the debris flow

went down Blowout Creek to Meadow Creek, to the Eastbrook Southbrook Salmon, to the Southbrook

Salmon, to the main Salmon, and it was visible in Riggins. And so just one of these things to

think about, if things go wrong, they tend to get expensive and they tend to go far. And that's

one of these things you want to make sure that economically not doing bad things, you want to make

and it pays for itself, right? And that's where it's like a reform of 1872 could be good

for royalties. Then your royalty is just addressing a bond. No, no, no, no. There's other

things just taxpayer. So if you get the oil and gas, that goes to a fund to back to the treasury.

And there's, you know, it does good stuff for society. So, oh, so you're saying, like, look,

with these large scale industries, like, like if you have an oil operation in, I don't know,

anywhere, it doesn't matter. Like there used to be oiled therex all over Southern California,

because there's like a big blotter there of oil or whatever. And what you're saying is if you're

if you're Chevron and you're pumping oil, you're paying some royalties back to the United States

because you're extracting right source from the ground. And it would be nice if the mining

industry had a similar kind of a mechanism. And timber companies do it. You want to cut down a tree,

your timber company, it gives something back. And ideally that pays for other restoration work and

helps go to the community. All good stuff. Okay. So bond and then some some royalty, you know,

distribution and and ability for the public to say actually here, not here. If you look at

ecologically, there are, it would be awesome. If these, you know, let's look at the Congo, for

example, it would be awesome. If Jerval comes online, starts producing and those areas shut down,

right? Okay, we're going to bring this online and that shutting down. Well, I just have a source

of cobalt. Yeah. It's hard. I'm not going to stop. We're not going to stop what's going on in

Africa. If you have warlords in Africa, Jerval could start a mine here. It doesn't mean the warlords

would be warlords in Africa. That's the prop where if you have, for example, what it means is I won't

be participating in the warlord lifestyle. It'd be nice to track that to, you know, how you can

track sustainably harvested wood and bite my lamb and beef. It's hard to track you to a molecule

of cobalt or a bit of cobalt. So you want to have a molecule sure, man. And but like if Apple's

like, hey, man, we need a bunch of cobalt to make a source of, let's say 100 percent. I can't

track a molecule, but it's really easy to understand. Okay, where'd you get the steel? Yeah,

I got it from Michigan, whatever versus China. So the other thing that companies you're doing,

and this is stuff that that companies are doing of the own evolution because it's the right thing

to do. So this is what kind of rigs me hope, where you have companies that, you know, are doing

things better. It might not be perfect. There might be some, might break some eggs. But let's make

sure they don't break the eggs at the, you know, in our water supply, right? Like not that.

Right. So I do a cobalt project. One of the things that was helpful was the mine manager back

in the day was like, hey, I know you're worried about water pollution. I do it conservationally.

And this is a thing because we've had, you know, you know, lots of issues with this. We know

just want to, you know, my parents are living at the bottom of the creek here. They just moved

there down there. And so like, that's a good, good guarantee that you're going to take very good

care of this place because, you know, they had, they're invested in it. They can outsource this.

The other thing that's helpful is just wait until you're saying, have people's parents move

into the creek. It's like, I'm not, well, what I'm saying is, you know, they can't just,

they have a personalistic and investment and making sure that the mine is clean.

You know, it's like, because it's like, my kids are playing in the water down below. I want to make

sure it's not going to send a bunch of, you know, that has to down there. The other thing that

mine companies are doing some is, is we should make them all like live.

Is that what you said? Well, you know, you set up your employee housing, but you got to set it

up five miles downstream. You know, well, one of the things I have to get their water out of the

creek. This is, there's something to be said for this talk. It's crazy. I'm just like,

but I to beat to your point, if I may, yeah, I distinctly dislike the idea that there are,

like I put out this thing the other day about there's an out-of-state political action group

that's funding policies in Idaho right now, attempting to fund legislation that are 100% redundant.

They're trying to pass a resolution on something that's already illegal, and they're doing it

because if this group from Virginia, it's called the Duno Harm Group. If they can pass legislation

in Idaho, that by the way, affects nothing. It's like the things they're worried about are already

illegal in the state. They can go back to their rich donors and say, hey guys, we were able to

pass a law in Idaho. And then the donors like, okay, here's more money. So what groups do is they

use Idaho to fundraise. Now, again, that's, that's just the way this goes. It's very unfortunate,

but it's very, very common. It drives me insane. So the idea of a group coming in and utilizing

Idaho's natural resources, offering nothing to the community in return, offering nothing to the

United States in return, I really dislike that too. Like there should be benefit to the state of Idaho.

And we've got some companies that are doing that well, and this is what gives me hope where we

actually have with Idaho Colbert Project. They said, okay, we're going to, we're going to do

some kind of mitigation. We're going to do all this stuff, but we're here and we want to be good

neighbors. And so they set up a local conservation action program to help fund watershed

restoration efforts. Voluntarily, this is completely voluntary, because their kids like to fish.

This is awesome. And so even though it's your vase kind of gone away for now, this idea got

picked up over in the phosphate patch. And you know, for, and so that's a huge economic

driver in Southeast Idaho. And Simplot and Bear, right? Simplot and Bear and they have

natural phosphate. Elemental, there's part of it. And we've got this, you know, it's a,

they've had historically a lot of issues with selenium contamination. And ICO and other groups

were like, okay, we need to stop this, stop this, stop this. And finally, the companies and the EPA

work, okay, we're going to put the liners that we're going to figure this out. We're going to work

on this. And they're really making meaningful efforts to address the selenium. And you know,

they had livestock die, you know, all these things. But they started addressing these. And that

enabled the conservation groups to come, okay, let's catch our breath. Let's see what's going on

here. And like, okay, we're making progress. You know, we don't want to shut everything down. Let's

make progress. And what else can we do here? And they looked at this, this amazing river called

the Blackfoot River. And they used to host these amazing cutthroat trout that would come up from

Blackfoot Reservoir. And then due to a whole host of historic lazy issues, some mining, some

grazing, some whatever transportation roads, the fisher was just diving down. And they said, you

know, everyone here likes to fish. Everyone likes the river. They like to float the river. Like,

can we do something for the river? And so, uh, uh, trout and limited and ICL and bear and

monsanto and nutrient, uh, other companies got involved and started pooling resources. And working

with the bear lake grazing company. And together, we've restored miles of that stream. And it has been

an amazing, this is all voluntary. Um, but it was an amazing example to me to see, um, how communities

can come together because everyone loves the river, right? And we can squabble and have debates and

whatever about mining practices and liners and all the stuff. And we'll continue to do that because

we want the practice to a concede to improve. Like, let's not do that again, right? That you put

a bunch of waste rock on the liner, but then it was like a slip inside and the waste rock fell over.

Like, oh, yeah, let's not do that. Yeah, right. But we're learning. And so that type of social

license is something that I am extremely excited about and proud of. And so you look at, you know,

what makes sense economically, the mining companies do that. What makes sense, you know, socially, um,

and then ecologically. And that's the sweet spot. If you get those lined up, Jervoy did that. We

got good stuff going in the phosphate patch. We've got good conversations going with other mining

companies that you've already interviewed, um, the, uh, Integra, uh, the gentleman from Integra, uh,

and Dalamar, they have this agreement with the Shoshone Paiute tribes to talk about how are we going

to coordinate with them in advance? And that's something that not all mining companies or mining

projects have. Right. And there's a language chair, right? I'm not sure the mechanisms of it,

but they're going to help fund a, uh, a language program to teach the, um, the tribal language in

schools. And so this is a really interesting thing now. This is not being forced by, you know,

companies or by, by the state or federal policies, but mining companies are doing it because it's

the right thing to do. And it's the social license and they're leaving it better than they found it.

Not all companies are there yet. Um, some projects were probably just going to agree to disagree

on because of the location location location. Um, but this is something where the pal, the policies

are going to, you know, go up and down with different administrations. But these mining companies,

ideally, will be here, you know, in the phosphate patch for, for, you know, decades longer. And we

want them to be good neighbors. We want to be good neighbors. And, uh, it also means that some

things are a little too special. Like we're not going to try this, this here, back in, um, 1970.

Um, there was the, uh, proposed a sarco castle peak mine actually in 1968. Um, that was in this,

in the white cloud mountains. Okay. And, um, it was kind of under the radar and then some folks,

uh, fisheries biologists who's doing a survey saw them drilling up there, like, what's going on?

And it kind of blew up as a big discussion. And the government at the time, Don Samelson was like,

I'm all for it. Let's dig this molly mine. This is great. And there was a, uh, a, uh, um, kind of

upstart, um, uh, politician from or a funeral logger. Um, he said, actually, I want to run for

governor. I don't like that mine. The white clouds are pretty special. Like this is Idaho is pretty

special. And it's not all going to be mining. That was Cecil Andrus. And he won his, uh, first

governorship because of his opposition to the castle peak mine and his support for the white clouds,

the recreation, the wilderness that led to the Sawtooth National Recreation Area in 1972.

It led to protection of the border white clouds in, uh, uh, 2015. And now that, that area,

that mountain is named the Cecil Andrus, uh, wilderness. So we are recognizing that there are

places we want a mine that are appropriate in some places. You know, Thunder Mountain, let's

stop digging now. You know, castle peak. Let's keep that there. Um, Idaho State Seal has a minor

on it. Proud Minerous or heritage. It also has a river on it, running right down the middle.

And that's something that I think if we're going to be successful in the future, we have to really

be mindful of how to balance those. God bless that man. Um, I, when, when we were talking about

Riggins and you were like, Hey, you know, I heard these horrible on the river. These, uh, horrible,

I got a horrible history lesson yesterday about the relationship with that area and the tribal

people, right, and as per, normally, right, known as the Neemy poo. Yeah, right. And I didn't know

that until yesterday. It's like, now, man, this is what just some French guy started calling them

and it like stuck or something like, Oh my gosh, that's terrible. And the, uh, the nature of people

wanting something from an area and obliterating the people that were there. And it was a heart

breaking, like, here I'm trying to just fish. Like, and I'm hearing this stuff, like, I don't even

know how to reconcile this in my head. No, my, I didn't do it. You didn't do it. Right. We

happened. I happened to be born this country, you know, 43 years ago. Like I'm learning as I go, but

you know, being that we are human. And when people see things of value, it's very easy to understand.

It's like, Oh, no, like if they are not, if they don't care about this area, they don't care about

the history of the area, they don't care about the people here. And they want something.

There is a real risk that time and time again, people will just take what they want and

obliterate everything else. And that's terrible. Like it is absolutely terrible. And then I got into

my Toyota Highlander and drove home. So it's like, you know, there needs, there needs to be this

reconciliation in America of we are these ravenous consumers of everything that we have to this day

and all the technology that's coming and that's going to rely on mining, but dammit, man.

Like we also have to recognize that we can't keep taking this, you know, essentially what I've

called the coin, this mineral high ground. And it's like, well, we are morally justified and,

you know, morally defended because we don't do this here. And it's like, yeah, because the six

year old in Africa with a gun do his head is doing it. We are not morally defended because we

outsource it and we don't see it. And like we have to reconcile these things. We have to figure out

be it through voluntary action, be it through regulation, be it whatever. It's like we need to get

the things that we rely on every day sourced in America for defensive and economic reasons

and do it in the best possible because America will do it the best possible. We we we we have

you know, OSHA for crying out loud like we have a hard hats. We have, you know, age restrictions on,

you know, work. Like you can't be a six year old in a river. You know, working like we need to

figure out a way to get through. That's why I was kind of asked you were just like, okay, what's

the perfect solution then? Because like, let's just iron that out. Yeah. Let's go to every company,

do these things and we'll be happy. You know, maybe go from there. Well, I think that the the thing

with this is right now the the policies in place are shutting the public out where you have for

the integrity of mind, which could do some good things. It could be really interesting up there,

but you get one chance to comment. They're very beginning of the process. And then the then

there's the by the time they show what the impacts are going to be there's no chance to comment like,

hey, could you have moved it over here instead of here? That's all gone. But the company's like,

that's just what we're being told right now. We still want feedback. Can you just meet with

us and tell us what you like us to do? In fact, we're going to work with other folks to, you know,

try to replicate that because they know the social licenses key. I think it is like I mentioned,

like I'm knowing where my lamb burger came from. That's awesome. You know, I love knowing, you know,

hey, you know, this, this, you know, you know, piece of technology is recycled from such and such.

Right. We need to be aware of this and we can play a role in it. It doesn't all have to happen

in the same watershed, though, because one of the things is that, you know, some of these things

just don't mix like you don't want to have the open sign. I bleached just upstream over here.

But here's a place in Nevada where the groundwater or an Idaho, actually, if you look at the,

look at the back pine mine, the groundwater is like 3000 feet down or several on it. It's not an

issue. There might be other issues. We'll take a close look at it. But that's a spot where that is

far less risk than something else. We're also learning more about how to reclaim a site

the problem is when you have a site that's all ground up, you know, the stuff doesn't stay there,

the vegetation doesn't take hold. Really, it's really hard, even at its tibnet, you know, some of the,

a lot of the, the really hope auspicious, maybe it happens. I hope it does.

Vegetation stream restoration requires on trees growing up and covering the stream,

the stream shades, so it's cooling up for the fish. But there isn't a lot of soil up there.

And stuff that is there is full of arsenic, so it'll take a long time. So we just need to think

about ahead of this, about how we're going to leave it, try to leave it better. In that case,

the Forest Service looked at it and said, you know, it actually stimulates not going to be

better off ecological than it is today. They actually, there's, you know,

how so it's the end of the river in that little pool. No, if you like, I know the river goes,

but the fish aren't going anywhere. I like they can't get up that, that little, right,

and the tribe had a plan to fix that. But what's happening is the way that a sign is, you know,

and this is, this is all be, you know, a judge will tell us what you're doing this. Yeah,

let's do this. Yeah, we, we, I'm very sorry, I got to cut you. No, you gotta go, you gotta go.

Let's get around three lined up. Yeah, keep the conversation going. We'll, we'll talk about this

great. This is, I'm talking to a lot of people about how to address our conflicting moral and

consumer behaviors. And we've got some, some really hopeful examples out there. And I just touched

on them, but there's others, for example, is between mining companies and the tribes and

conservation groups working together. And it's very exciting. And there's some things that we're

really alarmed about, but also things we're excited about. And let's hear the conversation

goes from there. Let's do it, man. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for round two. We'll do this again.