Those regulations come from mining's legacy of environmental damage in the state. Early miners processed gold with mercury, dumping millions of pounds of it into the watershed. Some fish still aren't safe to eat.
Hard rock mines in California don't use mercury anymore, but that's not the case in other countries.
"Gold mining around the world is heartbreaking to think about," says Izzy Martin, CEO of the Sierra Fund.
She says toxic chemicals are common in places like South America.
"There's no doubt that if we could open a mine in California that met our environmental quality act standards, it would be the cleanest, greenest gold in the world," she says.
But that doesn't mean gold mining comes without environmental risk in California, she says. Some communities are still feeling the effects of recent mining.
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