Gold Essay ⋆ Environment Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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Gold is a yellowish, soft, transition metal with the atomic number of 79 and an elemental symbol of Au. Gold has had enormous social and economic significance worldwide. Gold has been the standard for many currencies. The majority of the world’s gold comes from South Africa, while two-thirds of gold consumed in the United States comes from Nevada and South Dakota.

So-called gold rushes occurred across the western United States and Canada throughout the second half of the 19th century. These mass migrations produced enormous social and environmental consequences. By far the most famous was the California Gold Rush (1848-58), which drew gold-seekers from Mexico, China, Germany, and many other nations of the world. About 125 million troy ounces of gold were extracted, a value of more than $50 billion by today’s standards. Although there was much wealth to be made, mining was a dangerous activity. It is estimated that up to 30 percent of miners died of disease, accidents, or violence.

Social, political, and environmental impacts of the California Gold Rush include the systematic genocide of American Indians, mass worldwide and internal immigration, California statehood (1850), the devastation of river ecosystems with hydraulic mining, the contamination of waterways with mercury, and the growth of major cities including San Francisco (whose population exploded from 1,000 residents in 1848 to 20,000 just two years later). In 1852, at the height of California Gold Rush, 20,000 of the 67,000 immigrants were from China. By 1880, Chinese constituted 22 percent of California’s mining population, making them the largest single nationality engaged in gold mining. However, mortality, racially motivated violence, and the Chinese Exclusion Act reduced the Chinese population in California from 75,132 in 1880 to 45,753 in 1900.

The highest price of the California Gold Rush was paid by California Indian people. With more than 100 unique ethnic groups and several hundred politically autonomous nations, California Indians are extremely diverse. However, within two decades of the gold rush, California Indian populations plummeted by 90 percent. This period has been called the California Indian Holocaust. Indian people were killed both by individual miners and systematic, state-sponsored violence as gold mining gave way to further white settlement. In 1851 and 1852, the state of California spent $1 million per year to exterminate native peoples. California offered “Indian hunters” bounties of $5 per head. Population estimates vary, but in all accounts the genocide affected over 100,000 Indian people. Many tribes lost 90-95 percent of their populations in just a few years.

Gold was extracted using hydraulic placer mining. This technique was both highly effective and enormously destructive of the environment. Forests and hillsides were washed away as highly pressurized water flushed mud into rivers. An estimated 12 billion tons of mud and soil were washed into rivers, including thousands of acres of the best farmland in the state. The Sacramento, Yuba, and other rivers of the Sierra Nevada were so overloaded with silt that they could not carry normal rainfall, resulting in severe flooding. Farmers and city residents launched a campaign against hydraulic mining. After a significant political struggle, hydraulic mining was outlawed in California in 1884.

Because of its value and its continued usefulness in computers, aircraft, and communications technology, among others, gold continues to be harvested and traded today. While a significant proportion of gold is mined by small operators (perhaps onequarter), contemporary gold mining occurs in large scale mining operations, run by prominent multinational companies. Beyond the difficult and dangerous labor conditions associated with production, environmental concerns include the disposal of “overburden,” the mineral material through which the mine is dug. Another related problem is the disposal and management of cyanide used to dissolve and extract the mineral from the surrounding rock, which can potentially leach into soil and groundwater, presenting a risk for drinking water and for ecosystems connected to the aquifer. Environmental regulation of mining internationally varies. The Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act in the United States is designed to address many of the environmental risks associated with gold mining, though the overall effectiveness of the act is debated.

Bibliography:

Pratap Chatterjee, “The Gold Rush Legacy: Greed, Pollution and Genocide,” Earth Island Journal (v.13/26, 1998);
Chag Lowry, , Northwest Indigenous Gold Rush History: The Indian Survivors of California’s Holocaust (Indian Teacher and Educational Personnel Program, 1999);
Carolyn Merchant, Green versus Gold: Sources in California’s Environmental History (Island Press, 1998);
Jack Norton, Genocide in Northwestern California: When Our Worlds Cried (San Francisco: Indian Historian Press, 1979);
Kevin Starr and Richard J. Orsi, Rooted in Barbarous Soil: People, Culture, and Community in Gold Rush California (University of California Press, 2000).