Opponents of the Idaho Maryland Mine proposal are gearing up to oppose a last-minute legal gambit by the owners of the property. At the Nevada County Supervisors meeting, a couple of weeks ago, County Counsel Kit Elliott stated that she expected Rise Gold to file a so-called vested rights petition. Laurie Oberholtzer, with the Community Environmental Advocates Foundation, says the biggest challenge for Rise Gold is to prove that mining activities have been ongoing continuously since before the current use permit requirements were enacted…

click to listen to Laurie Oberholtzer

The move comes as the Board of Supervisors was scheduled to hold final hearings on the project in early October, or nearly five months since the Planning Commission rejected the proposal. Elliott indicated that the vested rights issue will likely postpone those hearings, perhaps until early next year. Oberholtzer says Rise Gold’s attorney also filed a similar petition in 2010 for another company…

click to listen to Laurie Oberholtzer

Oberholtzer also notes that Rise Gold CEO Benjamin Moss is scheduled to be sentenced on a pollution conviction on September 26th, which would have been about a week before the Board hearings. That was in reference to another mine that went bankrupt in Canada.