Gold prices go up and down, but Jim Collord knows that Nevada's mines sooner or later will play out.
Collord, an Elko resident, joined a few years ago with mining company executives and industry regulators to begin talking about ways that communities can begin to prepare for the inevitable day when the mining boom comes to an end.
The work of the group known as the Northern Nevada Partnership Group was recognized last month by the Bureau of Land Management, which honored efforts to create sustainable mineral development programs.
The Northern Nevada Partnership Group has spurred creation of community groups in Humboldt, Pershing, Lander and Elko counties in Nevada's gold belt.
In each community, Collord says, mining executives, regulators and community members are talking about ways that mining infrastructure and mining workers can be put to work after gold and silver mines play out.
About 10,000 people work directly in the mining industry in the region, the partnership group estimates, and another 30,000 jobs rely on the income generated by the industry.
Much of the 125-member group's work involves sponsorship of workshops at which issues about community futures can be brought forward.
"We're not competing with the economic development authorities," Collord says, noting that the Northern Nevada Partnership Group views itself as a vehicle to spur discussion.
The Bureau of Land Management provided training to help make those workshops productive, and major mining companies such as Newmont Gold and Barrick Gold brought managers of their mines across the region to local sessions.
Also honored by the BLM was reclamation work undertaken by Kennecott Nevada at sites near Ely, where the company operating copper mining, milling and smelting operations.
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