They don’t do a lot of mining in California any more. The Golden State was founded on gold and built on oil. Neither hold the place in the California economy that they once did.

There’s a mine in the desert called Mountain Pass that’s been in the news lately. The company that owns the mine just got a gob of money from the Defense Department and another gob from Apple to supply rare earths for magnets. Rare earths are hot these days and Mountain Pass is the only rare earth mine in the USA.

And there’s a mine I just learned about called Blue Moon. It’s outside of Madera in the Mariposa County foothills. They pulled out a lot of zinc and copper from the mine during WWII but it’s been inactive since. A new company (Blue Moon Metals) is re-starting the mine and hoping to produce zinc and copper.

Blue Moon Mine is what they call a “brownfield” project. It uses existing infrastructure on a previously-worked site that may have pollution and contamination issues. A “greenfield” project is one that starts from scratch.

Mines are good for the economy but bad for the environment. It doesn’t have to be that way. We have the skills and knowledge today to mine in a responsible way. And if we mine at home right here in California maybe we’ll be able to provide the proper oversight.