Fabled Silver Gold Corp T.FCO

RE: Bashers

[pcnisbet]

I am not sure if you understand US mining law and how it effects the process of NEPA. FCO owns the mineral rights to the deposit under US Law. The USDA Forest Service can not unreasonibly deny them the right to extract their minerals. The only thing the US Forest Service can do is select an alternative, one of which can be a No Action alternative, the No being simply a signal that they have to develop a new mine plan. A No you may never mine here would be a Takings and should the USFS chose such an alternative, they would have to pay FCO for the ore deposit. In the Draft Environmental Impact Statement they will have several alternative for the development of the property. The Forest Service is who writes the document in conjunction with the other permitting agencies in a group called the Joint Review Process Team. The USFS will amend any of these plans for mining prior to putting out the Final Environmental Impact Statement and in the Record of Decision they will select their prefered alternative. The potential that they would chose the No Action alternative when they are the ones preparing the documents is next to nil. The company will have a prefered alternative, the various agencies will have a prefered alternative and the USDA Forest Service gets to pick which plan is implemented. Some plams are more expensive than others, but the cost of those plans may not be considered, only the environmental impacts of the various proposals on the cumulative impact to the resources in the drainage. The selected alternative may not be what the company desires, may cost them more money and more time to develop than they would prefer, but it will be an alternative that allows them to mine if they follow the parameters in the FEIS's selected alternative. This is why a feasibility is not completed prior to the issue of the ROD. Until that document is done, the company can not have any idea of what they will be required to do to carry out mining within the parameters of the permit. The suggestion made that a feasibility needed to be done prior to the FEIS being completed is hokum, since the ROD is what specifies what selected locations amy be used and what environmental measures have to be done, all of which cost money and all of which impact the analysis in the monetary document that a feasibility is. A final or bankable feasibility study can not be done prior to issue of the ROD because the capital costs and other features of that study can dramatically impacted by the RODs requirements. You will note that the Stockhouse ID that calls itself Rio has frequently faulted management for not having a final feasibility completed and has also suggested that the final feasibility is required to complete an EIS. This shows a remarkable lack of understanding of both the NEPA and the feasibility process. The same ID has suggested that following issue of the ROD lawsuits are possible and that the 'company' can be sued to block mining. Actually the only group who can be sued is the USDA Forest Service and the suits must allege that the EIS was improperly done and did not do the selection process correctly or did not select or prepare an adequate set of alternatives. Environmental groups do not often sue on these particular cases because they are not winnable and the cost of running a case against a Federal Agency is very costly. There is no example of a suit to block a minerals company from mining in Idaho in the past two decades.