Banner Mountain Homeowners Association Est. 1984

As we are all well aware, we live in a forest that has not had a significant burn in many years. We must learn to live with long term fire danger as best we can while preserving our environment. To create the best chance for you and your home to survive a fire, BOTH defensible space AND fire resistant construction / retrofitting is required. We cannot emphasize enough how crucial it is that our entire community participate in making our area more fire safe. We will either live together or burn together. To see what we have been doing about Fire Safety and for community resources dedicated to helping us prevent a serious fire and survive if one occurs, click here

Download the new Banner Mtn Emergency Preparedness Guide click here.

Current Status: Due to significant community involvement, on May 27 the Nevada County Planning Commission reversed an earlier indication, and voted 4-1 to deny Blue Lead Mine a vested right to mine. The decision can be appealed within 10 days so stay tuned. This mine is located at the bottom of Red Dog Rd, close to Greenhorn Creek and You Bet. While this is just outside the border of the Banner Mountain Homeowners Association, the Board is greatly concerned about a number of issues that this situation could create. More details are available on the web page dedicated to the Blue Lead.

Current Status: Due to the overwhelming number of negative comments, including ours, on the IMM DEIR, the lead agency, the city of Grass Valley, has ordered that a revised DEIR must be submitted leading to another public comment period. Timing is unknown at this point since Emgold currently has no money to continue this ill-advised effort. If they get more funding, estimates range from 6 to 12 months to revise the DEIR depending on the number and types of additional studies being done. When we learn more we will let you know.

Background: There is currently a proposal before the Grass Valley planning commission and City Council to reopen the Idaho Maryland Mine, which borders our community at the intersection of Idaho Maryland Rd and Brunswick Rd. The BMHA board has voted to oppose the reopening of the IMM. We have studied this project in detail, evaluating both the DEIR and the comments that have been submitted relative to the DEIR. Based on all the information available, we feel that the impacts of the mine on our community will be significant and negative. In addition we have been unable to devise a project configuration that we feel is feasible and which would remove these impacts. For complete and detailed information on this project go to the CLAIM-GV web site.
There are numerous issues surrounding this mega project but the two that should be of most concern to us is dewatering of the existing mine and increased traffic and pollution. We discuss these and other issues in detail in the article here. In a couple of sentences, dewatering of the mine presents a real risk to our residents who have wells for their water supply. Water runs downhill and no one knows how the fractures in the rock on Banner Mountain are interconnected and which ones lead to the mine. If the mine is dewatered some of the water uphill on Banner Mountain may flow down and take its place. As more water is pumped out of the mine, wells many miles away could be drained dry. The DEIR was released on Oct 30, 2008 and the response period closed on Jan 20, 2009. To read the BMHA respone click here. For more on the mine and its issues click here. To peruse all the DEIR responses go to CLAIM-GV where they are posted online.