Don't Mine Our Water

  Don’t Mine Our Water 

This tapestry, 5^th in the series of 13 tapestries planned for the North Columbia Schoolhouse Cultural Center, describes events between 1975 and 1997 on the San Juan Ridge. During these years there were a number of attempts at gold mining in an old Diggings near North Columbia.  The community-organized San Juan Ridge Taxpayers Association led the resistance against these mining efforts.

 Some of the proposed mines were open pit mines, one tunneled deep into the gravels.  In order to tunnel, millions of gallons of groundwater a day were pumped out to dewater the gravels.

The water well for Grizzly Hill School dried up along with many other wells in the neighborhood.  The miners dug new wells, but the new wells were many times deeper, required more expense to pump and the water was undrinkable.  Grizzly Hill School has had to buy bottled water for more than 10 years. 

Community members researched mining issues, the effects on groundwater, the creeks, the ecosystem, and the effects of dust and other types of mining pollution.  Internal coordination was by a phone tree. The Taxpayers Association raised money for experts and lawyers by holding auctions and poetry readings.   The Association coordinated with other neighborhood groups in the County, and gave testimony at public meetings.

In 2012, a new dewatering mine was proposed.    

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Stay Back Shirt

Summer 2013

Digging through a drawer full of old T-Shirts can do no harm, and as it happens, it can do much good! As we did this very thing, we found a T-Shirt related to the Measure Q campaign, and thus connected to our current tapestry, "Don't Mine Our Water". For those who are not aware, Measure Q was a campaign in the  1980's, led by my very own Grandfather, Jerry Tecklin, to create a county ordinance which would require open pit mining to stay at least 3500 feet away from housing of any kind. The slogan: Stay Back!

 

This was a large part of the campaign against the open pit mining in the 80's and it was something worth putting on the tapestry. Even though Measure Q was defeated at the ballot, it energized many neighborhood groups to fight against the mining industry.

"The 'Measure Q' paper embroidered by moi."

--Josh Tecklin