Nevada Gold Mines has announced plans to sell the Long Canyon Mine in northeast Nevada. Both the Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Reservation and a coalition of citizens’ conservation and public accountability groups (Great Basin Resource Watch, Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club Toiyabe Chapter, Wild Horse Education, Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada) filed formal water protests against the water allocation applications by NGM.
The applications would have allowed the mine to pump on average 45,000 acre-feet per year for 20 or more years removing over 300 billion gallons of water from the deep aquifer.
The pumping campaign would affect springs and wetlands in the region including the Johnson Springs Wetland Complex, comprising 88 springs with combined total long-term average flow of 1,715 gallons per minute causing harm to species of wildlife, including sage grouse, endangered relict dace, and numerous game species such as mule deer, pronghorn and elk.
Long Canyon Mine was approved in 2015 and has been operational since 2016. The gold mine stripped away the hillside on the east side of the Pequop Mountains above Johnson Springs and is now in care and maintenance mode.
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