If the project proceeds, Barrick Gold, the world's largest gold mining company, will blast a massive 900-acre, 2,000 foot deep open pit mine on Mount Tenabo, a sacred place for the Shoshone. Barrick will first "dewater" the mountain, sucking all the groundwater out, and then extract gold using the destructive cyanide heap-leaching method. In total, the mine would permanently destroy 6,800 acres on and around Mount Tenabo, over 90 percent of which is public land, according to the Shoshone coalition.
In approving the mine project, the Bureau of Land Management ignored its own scientific findings, including a report that described Mt. Tenabo as "literally a life-giver" that is "the tallest mountain in the area - the most likely to capture snow and generate water to grow pin'on and nourish life."
Opponents estimate the mine's wastes will include 1,577 million tons of waste rock, 53 million tons of tailings material and 112 million tons of spent heap leach material.
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