Conglomerate Mesa, a wild refuge for Joshua Trees and the Inyo Rock Daisy in the Inyo Mountains of California, is being threatened by a gold mining exploration. A Candian-based mining company, K2 Gold and Mojave Precious Metals have proposed building miles of new roads into the Mesa, situating 30 drill sites and drilling 120 bore holes, each up to a 1000 feet deep. 

In addition, K2 Gold and a number of other private actors have been claiming vast tracks of land on the Mesa, in anticipation of selling the project to a larger mining company who would build a open pit, heap leach gold mine.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), who is charged with the responsibility of caring for this land, is considering the mining company’s proposal and is requesting comments from the public on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement.

This is your opportunity to make your voice heard and tell the BLM to Protect Conglomerate Mesa!

Some important points you can mention in your comment letter are:

• Conglomerate Mesa is a refuge for the Western Joshua Tree and deserves to be protected. As climate change makes conditions uninhabitable throughout much of its current range, this high elevation Joshua Tree woodland will be one of the places that will help the species to survive.
• Conglomerate Mesa is the only place in the world where the Inyo Rock Daisy exists and mineral exploration could harm the habitat of this species which is listed as threatened under the California Endangered Species Act.
• Building roads to access drill sites will do damage which with take decades to restore.
• The project intends to use between 2.9 million and 22 million gallons of water from a source in Darwin, CA. In a desert landscape with limited water this extracting could place a undue burden on local springs and aquifers.