The more detailed statement of task produced by the Press Pause Coalition makes the most sense for this committee. It would inform the public and committee members on important issues, and would help the committee members respond to documents and statements made by the NASEM committee working on the gold mining issue. I would also like the stakeholder committee to hear from experts who are not working for the mining industry.

Members of the State Agency Component:

We appreciate the opportunity to comment to the state agency component of the work group studying gold mining in the Commonwealth. The Buckingham County Democratic Committee submits the following recommendations related to the state agency component (SAC) statement of task. 

As time constraints  and stakeholder involvement are of the essence we support the draft statement of task presented by the Press Pause Coalition:  Importantly, enabling stakeholders to interact with well-respected experts in the fields required in the  various topics to be covered in HB2213.

Potentially affected community members were the driving force behind HB2213. 

 Interested stakeholders, including potentially affected community members, care immensely about the technical aspects and must be allowed to affect all investigations mandated by HB2213 (e.g., environmental impacts of gold mining and the inadequacy of Virginia’s current regulations). Environmental impacts and other technical aspects affecting  stakeholders are intrinsic to this bill. By assigning 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. 

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. 

Again, thank you for the opportunity to comment on the state agency component of the work group assembled to study gold mining in the Commonwealth. 

Sincerely,

Maggie Snoddy

Secretary

BCDC

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.

March 23, 2022

Members of the State Agency Component:

Thank you for the opportunity to provide comment to the “state agency component of the work group assembled to study gold mining in the Commonwealth.” The following comments reflect the opinions of the 11 undersigned organizations and are focused on recommendations we hope the state agency component (“SAC”) will seriously consider as it finalizes its statement of task.

First, we would like to express our concern with the late hour at which the SAC work is beginning. With only months left before the deadline, there is now little time to clarify the work of the SAC and develop a process by which stakeholders can meaningfully engage with the work of the NAS and influence the final report to the General Assembly.

Additionally, we are disappointed that the work group established by the passage of HB2213 (2021 Special Session I of the General Assembly) has been unnecessarily bifurcated, both in terms of members and roles.  HB2213 plainly indicates the General Assembly’s intention that the gold study include community perspectives, not segregate those community perspectives into an alternative component. Indeed, potentially affected community members were the driving force behind HB2213.

The state, however, seems to have lost sight of this chief aim—ensuring interested stakeholders are able to meaningfully participate in all aspects of inquiries mandated by HB2213. Instead, the state has segregated the work: (A) the NAS committee of experts, which studies and handles the “technical aspects” of the bill; and (B) the SAC, which handles the “other” aspects of the bill, chiefly stakeholder involvement.

Importantly, in defining the scope of the NAS work, the state and/or NAS decided that NAS would tackle all of the investigations required in HB2213, while articulating no substantive scope of work for stakeholders participating in the SAC. The effect is that the NAS committee will do all of the investigative work, deliberate on the issues, make its findings, and write the report to the General Assembly. Nearly all of this work will be done independent of meaningful involvement by stakeholders.  Then, the SAC, on a parallel track, as drafted by the state, “will host meetings in and around Buckingham County in an attempt to gather as much local input as possible.” This approach does not provide a real mechanism for local stakeholders’ perspectives to influence the results of the final report.

This rigid separation of the “technical work” and the “stakeholder work” misses the point of the bill. Interested stakeholders, including potentially affected community members, care immensely about the technical aspects and must be allowed to affect all investigations mandated by HB2213 (e.g., environmental impacts of gold mining and the inadequacy of Virginia’s current regulations). In other words, stakeholder involvement is not an “other” aspect of the bill that can be handled separately from discussion of environmental impacts and other technical aspects; stakeholder involvement is baked into the entirety of the bill. By assigning 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 and, at best, will simply be tacked on to the SAC’s perspectives at the end of the process. This might check the box of some stakeholder involvement, but it does not satisfy the mandates of HB2213.

To satisfy the mandates of HB2213, the state must connect these two tracks of work so stakeholders have a meaningful role in the entire process. And, because time is running out, it is critically important for the state to act very quickly to define the unique and consequential role played by community members participating in the SAC. 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. Therefore, we submit the following recommendations for the state agency component statement of task.

1. Minimize Bifurcation. Given the above-mentioned bifurcation of the NAS component and the state agency component of the gold study work group, we encourage all members of each component to attend and follow the substance of both. Materials, content, comments and more should be shared among both components of the work group. Each component will benefit from the other. Their work should not be done in silos.

2. Center Community Stakeholders’ Voices. Perspectives from stakeholders named in HB2213 who are participating in the SAC should be centered throughout the entire gold study.  Representatives from the Virginia Council on Environmental Justice, potentially affected communities, residents of Native American communities, and environmental organizations should be acknowledged as valuable and as offering unique insights – their perspectives should be central, not peripheral, to the work.

3. Actively Encourage Public & Community Feedback. The SAC should seek to increase community and public awareness and actively solicit feedback specifically focused on:

1. 1. 1. environmental justice concerns of potentially impacted communities
      2. environmental and human health concerns of potentially impacted communities

Robust community feedback requires the SAC’s time and effort. Therefore, specific tactics should be identified and executed to encourage robust community participation – this will take significant cooperative effort from agency staff and community leaders participating in the SAC. Additional resources may be needed, such as environmental justice staff support from DEQ, local health department support from VDH, etc. Community concerns and impacts should be fully chronicled throughout this state agency component process and incorporated into the final written report.

As listed in one of the draft statements of task, the following presentation topics would be especially useful to educate and encourage community participation: environmental justice impacts; social impacts; economic impacts; cyanide and other chemical impacts; water pollution impacts; and tailings impacts. Advance notice, thorough advertisement, and multiple avenues for participation are critical to executing robust participation in upcoming SAC presentations.

4. Identify All Potentially Impacted Communities. It is worth highlighting that Virginia suffers from hundreds of historic abandoned gold mines. Impacts span numerous localities from Fairfax to Halifax and beyond, when looking at maps of abandoned mines in conjunction with the geologic gold-pyrite approximation. Additionally, downstream communities must be considered as well with respect to impacts from mining. We recommend the SAC take a serious look at identifying all of the potentially impacted communities from both historic and potential future mining operations, local and downstream, and name those communities in any final report produced. This investigation of mining impacts should not be narrowly focused.

5. Thoroughly Identify Deficiencies. Ultimately, the intent of HB2213 is to determine whether our current regulations and laws are sufficient to protect the public health, safety, and welfare of Virginians. The state agency component of the gold work group should be thorough in its identification of problems and concerns. The SAC does not need to resolve each and every one of these deficiencies – but it must identify them. We recognize this process as a first step of many to come to protect Virginia’s environment and public health from the historic and potential future threats of industrial gold mining.

Again, thank you for the opportunity to comment on the state agency component of the work group assembled to study gold mining in the Commonwealth. We hope our recommendations are helpful to you as you finalize your statement of task for 2022. And we stand ready to engage our staff, boards of directors, and members in the process. Please do not hesitate to call on us to support the work at hand.

Sincerely,

Tiffany Haworth, Executive Director, Dan River Basin Association

Chad Oba, President, Friends of Buckingham

Karen Forget, Executive Director, Lynnhaven River Now

Dan Holmes, Director of State Policy, Piedmont Environmental Council

Phillip Musegaas, Vice President – Programs and Litigation, Potomac Riverkeeper Network

Kristin Davis, Senior Attorney, Southern Environmental Law Center

Anne Little, Executive Director, Tree Fredericksburg

Heidi Dhivya Berthoud, President, Virginia Community Rights Network

Narissa Turner, Climate & Clean Energy Policy Manager, Virginia Conservation Network

Chris Leyen, Policy Director, Virginia League of Conservation Voters

Jeeva Abbate, Director, Yogaville Environmental Solutions

I urge you to use the comprehensive statement of task drafted by the Press Pause Coalition.  This statement of task is the best way to fully adhere to the requirements of the work group outlined and codified by HB2213, passed and signed into law in 2021.  The Press Pause Coalition’s statement of task would also provide for meaningful engagement of the public and the most thorough means of evaluating the impacts of commercial gold mining in conjunction with the NASEM committee.  Again, I ask that you use the statement of task drafted by the Press Pause Coalition. 

The Virginia Transportation Construction Alliance (VTCA) represents over 285 transportation contractors, aggregate producers, consultant engineers, suppliers and service providers who design, build, and maintain Virginia’s transportation network. VTCA’s Aggregate Producer members account for 93% of all the metal/nonmetal mineral production in the Commonwealth.  

VTCA does not currently have any members that mine gold. However, we are cognizant of any efforts that may impede the ability to access critical minerals. Typically, restrictions that are placed on one industry sector tend to carryover to related industry segments. Example – restrictions on mining gold could potentially equate to restrictions in mining other mineral, including construction aggregates.

Mined minerals are critical to everyday life. When society restricts access to mineral deposits, generally access to those resources are lost forever.

The Gold Mine Study Group should strongly consider, as they develop their Statement for Task, studying and identifying the potential positive benefits gold (or any other) mining will have on the community, society, and the economy.

The draft Statement Tasks developed by both the State Agencies and the Press Pause Coalition appear to focus only on the environmental and social concerns and governmental processes.

VTCA supports that the Gold Mine Study Work Group consider adding the social, community and economic benefits that Gold Mining in Virginia may present to weigh against any adverse impacts that arise from mining gold in the Commonwealth.  

On behalf of the non-profit environmental organization Appalachian Voices, whose membership includes many Central Virginia residents living along the Gold-Pyrite Belt, we strongly encourage the State Agency Committee to endorse the statement of task drafted by the Press Pause Coalition. 

The Press Pause Coalition’s draft statement: successfully incorporates the statement of task drafted by State Agencies, provides a panel of expert speakers, would more fully educate committee members and members of the public on the complexities of gold mining processes and related concerns, and clearly details the companion document the committee would produce.

This is the most effective path presented to the Committee for evaluating the health, environmental and regulatory concerns of large-scale gold mining. Thank you for your support of the Statement of Task suggested by the Press Pause Coalition, and for the work of all the Committee members.