Thank you for considering my input.

As a member of the State Agency Work Group, I am concerned with the limited time and access the citizens have to essential information and interaction with experts in the categories included in the Press Pause, proposed, statement of task. That interaction would inform the public and committee members on important issues, and would help the committee members respond to documents and statements made by the NAS committee working on the gold mining issue. 

HB2213 https://law.lis.virginia.gov/uncodifiedacts/2021/session2/chapter423/ tasked the study groups with reporting no later than December 1, 2022, and this group didn’t have a first meeting for 7 months after the stated Summer of 2021 start time. Work plan details here

Does the meeting schedule include extra meetings to make up for lost time?

Potentially affected community members were the driving force behind HB2213. 

How will they be effectively notified and included in these presentations?:

 —---  local news outlets, TV PSAs and postings on affected counties’ websites, etc?

Environmental impacts and other technical aspects affecting  stakeholders are intrinsic to this bill. By assigning nearly all of the real work to the NAS track, which allows for stakeholder involvement in an extremely limited fashion, important stakeholder perspectives will be omitted from the NAS component’s findings. 

For example, I was unable to access the NAS Town Hall. It took several outreach attempts  that finally enabled me to give my comment at a later NAS session. The president of Friends of Buckingham also was unable to gain access and never did submit her comment.

Local perspectives and insights from communities and organizations on the ground who would be impacted by industrial gold mining—should it occur in Virginia—are the most important and unique addition that this state agency component can offer. 

Please be sure to effectively include them.