We Need Your Help: Imminent Threat to Conglomerate Mesa

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The Threat We’ve Been Watching For is Here.

A Canadian mining company, K2 Gold, recently took over the Conglomerate Mesa gold exploration plan. Although helicopter access at seven drill sites is currently permitted, K2 clearly has bigger plans. They have now proposed drilling 30 additional sites and the construction of a new road into this pristine roadless desert gem. If K2’s plan is realized, then the next step to developing an open-pit cyanide heap-leach mine will have been completed. There is no way to truly recover the land once these roads are plowed into Conglomerate Mesa. We need your help to make sure this does not happen. 

Watch K2’s CEO, Steve Swatton, talk about this mining project in this YouTube video.

There’s Too Much At Stake.

Conglomerate Mesa is a treasured landscape located right along the western boundary of Death Valley National Park. There are many reasons why Conglomerate Mesa should be protected:

• These are ancestral lands sacred to the Paiute and Shoshone tribes of the Payahuunadu (Owens Valley). These tribes still harvest pinyon nuts on the Mesa.
• It is an oasis for a number of sensitive and rare desert plants that thrive there, these include the Joshua Tree, and a handful of newly discovered endemic species.
• Many species of wildlife make the Mesa their home, including mule deer, mountain lion, coyote, raptors, and many rodents, birds, and reptiles.
• It provides a uniquely complete fossil record that is key to unraveling the evolution of the continental edge of the southwestern United States.
• Conglomerate Mesa is designated as California Desert National Conservation Land (CDNCL) and protected by the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan (DRECP). How the environmental community responds to this threat will send a strong message to the federal agencies and will  set a precedent for all future mining projects on CDNCL and DRECP land.

We need your help to raise $20,000 to protect Conglomerate Mesa. 

To make sure K2 does not secure permission to drastically expand drilling and devastate the Mesa with roads, we need to demonstrate to BLM that the Mesa instead deserves protection from such exploitation. This will require us to hire scientists, lawyers and other professionals. We need $20,000 to secure effective help.

Once the BLM reviews K2’s proposed expanded plan, they will allow the opportunity for public comment. In the coming months, the BLM needs to hear from us that this project is opposed by the public. Conglomerate Mesa should be protected, not exploited. When the comment period opens, we will call on you to help us submit comments. In the meantime, please help us by making a meaningful donation today.

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Sincerely,

Bryan Hatchell
Desert Lands Organizer