An informational and community meeting was held at the Yavapai College Performing Arts Center the past Thursday, April 18 from 5:30 to 7:30 about work at the historic Senator mine. The first thing you noticed on arriving was the number of cars and the number of people milling about and chatting outside. Estimates were of 500-700 attending. The noticed nothing was security at the door.

Organized by her staff, County Commissioner Mary Mallory gave the 10- and 5-minute warnings and upon starting let everyone know to speak to their point because the meeting would keep strictly to the 7:30 end. She opened the meeting at 5:32 and after the pledge handed it over to County Manager Maury Thompson to emcee. The event can be watched online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZhgDbWlYqo&t=1019s.

The panel had representatives from Yavapai County, the state Department of Environmental Quality and the Mine Inspector and the federal Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. Each gave a description of what they do and what their experience has been with the mine project and the owning company, Gold Paradise Peak, Inc. It is obvious that the company is not particularly responsive to any government person. They have probably made it very difficult for themselves if they have any future plans for large financing from traditional lenders because of their approach to social license. The Mine Inspector gave the surprising facts that the company had only six employees two and three years ago and currently has two.

Public comment followed. People covered the full range from those comfortable with public speaking to those nervous but driven, people with a personal agenda and those simply with questions. Thompson treated people lightly, He did call out the guy at the back with the booming voice who thought the world needed his opinions and insults. Thompson asked him to come down, get in line and give his name and then his opinions. One lady did ask about scandium. Scandium is grouped with rare earths because they occur together although scandium has different properties. It has a growing market which is sometimes hindered by shortages. There is one scandium project in La Paz County. One mining engineer pointed Gold Paradise Peak people did not handle public inquiries well, the company’s website was rudimentary at best and their attempt to plug the Senator Tunnel should be checked. Comments like China bashing brought loud cheers and applause, but if you looked around you saw a significant part of the audience at the same time sitting with no response. Again, the audience included a wide range of people and opinions.

The meeting ran into overtime to allow time for Yavapai politicians Ken Bennett, Quang Nguyen and Selina Bliss to speak. Bennett and Nguyen trashed China to cheers and took swipes at Democrats. Bennett explained bill SB 1403 would have prevented foreign ownership of the Senator mine. He explained that only the lack of support from Democrats kept it from passing. He asked everyone to get friends and relatives to pressure Democrats to support it. The short two page bill can be found here: sb1403s.pdf (azleg.gov).

The meeting did not answer key parts of the narrative that the Chinese government will be open pit mining to a depth of hundreds of feet and trucking the rock thru Prescott to LA for shipment to China.

First, the corporate officers do have Chinese names and operate as a Nevada corporation. The Nevada Corporation Commission verbally confirmed that anyone in the world can form a corporation there as long as they have a Nevada Registered Agent. It then is easy from there to set up an Arizona corporate subsidiary. There are thousands of honest Nevada corporations and surely a few less pure. Does that make them Chinese government lackeys? Nobody has yet firmly identified the principals and their histories. For all the consternation has caused the community, it would be nice if someone identified the principals by name and biography, if they are Chinese nationals and their ties to the Chinese government or if they are Chinese-American citizens exercising their right to pursue economic opportunities.

Second, there is nothing in the historical record to support the presence of a huge ore body justifying open pit mining hundreds of feet deep and there is no evidence they have done any of the intensive underground work and/or drilling to discover and develop such a deposit. What is reasonably common is that in old mines there can be small pods of mineral still left over which a group can gob out for a small amount of production. When Alianza unsuccessfully tried through their Prescott office to get their side of the story, sample bags holding a few fist-sized rocks were noted at the yard gate. That sample size would be expected for a more informal company looking to find any pods of whatever size. If they were looking to develop a large deposit, one typically sees large bags with 40-60 pound samples to crush, grind and split down to get statically valid analytical results.

Third, Gold Paradise Peak has been working on a small mill building. That makes sense for a gold deposit and the size probably reflects their plans. You place the mill as close as possible to the minimize transportation costs and then you ship ounces or pounds instead of tons. So why truck big shipments of rock to LA? Nobody has answered that.

For those who like narratives that make financial sense, there are other interpretations available of what is known. The owners are certainly taking steps seen before in pump and dump mining scams. You put on a bit of a show and then when investor money arrives, you depart. It can also happen that a mathematically brilliant person makes millions on obscure Wall Street financial manipulations and then figures a genius like himself could surely be successful at something completely new like mining. On the other hand, maybe not. That activity then gets the attention of other people ready to jump into action because it fits nicely in with their personal political agendas.

Time will tell.