Perils Of The Pelton Wheel Part Two

Posted on November 24, 2013 by RL CRABB

This entry was posted in History, Local. Bookmark the permalink.

12 Responses to Perils Of The Pelton Wheel Part Two

Chris Peterson says:

November 24, 2013 at 7:49 am

I remember, as a kid, my family was taken to the Empire Mine estate by a real estate agent because Dad was looking for a bigger house, and the Empire House was for sale for $139,000!!! $139,000!!!! For the house and the 13 acres around it!!!

Mom didn’t like the kitchen, and Dad didn’t know how he’d heat the place. It’s a good thing we didn’t buy it, because they would have had to remodel the heck out of it. But wow! I could imagine growing up in the incredible home, playing games all day on the grounds.

The State bought it two years later for $2 million. That would have been a pretty good return on investment.

As an aside; it speaks to the history of the community when, “Meet you at the mine after school”, was a phrase often heard at Jr. High.

Reply
- rl crabb says:
  
  November 24, 2013 at 12:04 pm
  
  Usually, “meet you at the mine” meant that there was going to be a fight after school. I wonder if our newer residents realize that the roadbed of the freeway was constructed from the rock pile that used to be the Golden Center Mine? Yes, there used to be a mine right in the middle of town. And I wonder how many remember that Cresswell’s (where the highway 20 interchange/overpass is located) was a junked car yard? Betcha there’s a goldmine of toxic waste under there somewhere, but in those days they just covered it rather than cleaning it up.
  And I always find it amusing how entities like the Sierra Fund run around telling people that the asbestos in the dust we breathe and mercury in the waterways will kill us unless we give them lots of money to clean it up. Our generation used to wallow in the stuff, and yet I don’t recall that many of us died of cancer or asthma because of it. Pretty much the same for all us kids who grew up in homes that were full of cigarette (second hand) smoke from the Pall Malls and Lucky Strikes our parents chain-smoked.
  
  Reply
- Dai Meagher, CPA says:
  
  November 24, 2013 at 8:32 pm
  
  Wow, I love that house. And the grounds are like a paradise for any kid. But $139K was a lot of money back then.
  
  Reply
Ben Emery says:

November 24, 2013 at 9:34 pm

Bob,
I bet a whole lot more people got sick than you realize but your overall point I agree. Political Correctness has gone way overboard, it is what I call “New Age Parenting”.

http://www.pbs.org/pov/libbymontana/

Reply
- rl crabb says:
  
  November 25, 2013 at 12:07 am
  
  My point is that my generation, those of us who grew up here, didn’t appear to suffer ill effects from our environment. We would have been the prime candidates, especially because no one really bothered with trying to “protect” us. I never knew any of my classmates who got cancer and I don’t remember any of them with asthma or breathing difficulties.
  I’m not saying cleaning up the environment is a bad thing. (The Magenta Creek project being a good example among many.) But asbestos is a part of that environment, and unless someone decides to ship every pebble of serpentine to a toxic waste site, it’s a fool’s errand. You’d have to rip up most of the state.
  And political correctness has truly gone amuck in California. Whether it’s some nitwit in the legislature who thinks serpentine is not suitable for the state rock, or overly sensitive people who think Negro Creek is somehow offensive, or that the monitor in Calanan Park looks too much like a gun and will scare tourists.
  Our history is what it is. Don’t try to whitewash it.
  
  Reply
  - Steve Frisch says:
    
    November 25, 2013 at 7:55 am
    
    We really did not know about many of the dangers of toxic exposure in the 1950’s and 1960’s, although scientists did and society failed to protect us from them. Now we know about bioaccumulation; we know about the link between mercury and impaired neurological function; we know about the link between lead exposure and cognitive disfunction; we know about the link between asbestos exposure and lung cancer.
    
    Since all it takes to protect ourselves from these toxins, and protect future generations from the accumulation of toxins in the environment, is changing practices to account for the risk, I can’t see why we would not do it.
    
    By the way Bob, just because you did not see the effect does not mean exposure did not have an effect. Logical fallacy 101.
    
    Reply
    - rl crabb says:
      
      November 25, 2013 at 8:33 am
      
      I have to go with my own experiences, since I was actually here. I came from two families of miners, all of whom lived long and disease-free lives. None of their children were born with any problems related to their profession.
      The only local cancer cluster that I’m aware of was those unfortunate souls who lived downhill from the county dump. Our Supes dropped the ball on that one, until the state got on their ass.
      And you’re right that simple precautions can go a long way in preventing any ill effects from our local dirt. I just believe that sometimes the danger is overstated. Nevada County is not Love Canal, or Libby, Montana.
      
      Reply
      - Steve Frisch says:
        
        November 25, 2013 at 9:02 am
        
        Well clearly Bob your anecdotal experience should prevail….this is what I meant by logical fallacy 101….anecdotal experience prevailing over years of research and peer reviewed science is kind the definition of a logical fallacy.
        
        I know you are not saying that no environmental regulation or remediation is the way to go…but the elevation of the anecdotal over the proven is kind of like asking a witch to sink.
      - Greg Goodknight says:
        
        November 25, 2013 at 1:35 pm
        
        The problem with legislation by “cancer clusters” is that cancer that is truly random will cluster.
        
        One of the first lead products to be banned were lead toothpaste tubes. Remember those handy tubes that could be rolled up as the tube emptied… and would stay rolled up?
        
        They were banned when analytic instruments became available that could detect the infinitesimal amounts of lead that made its way into the product, of which virtually all got spit out. There was no real threat to health. If you swallowed enough toothpaste to be in danger from lead you’d really have too much fluoride in your system, a dangerous substance the government does think should be in toothpaste.
        
        What a world, what a world…
  - Ben Emery says:
    
    November 26, 2013 at 7:49 am
    
    Bob,
    I gave the eulogy at my cousins funeral a couple years ago. I am the youngest of all my brothers and cousins so I was passed around to everyone to watch as a little kid. My cousin Mike used to take me for rides on his motorcycle where all I wore was a diaper while sitting on the gas tank hanging on the handlebars. I remember feeling like we were going a 1,000 miles an hour with the wind in my face. He taught me to shoot guns by the age of 6, taught me how to ride a motorcycle by 8, to drive a tractor by 10, harvester and receiver by 14, and we would go to the levees or irrigation ditches to swim ( I would get to drive). At age of 12 or younger he’d often send me to Lincoln Liquors just before lunch to buy him beer and Kool mentholated cigarettes in the truck or jeep. He would have me start them for him when he was on the harvester, the nastiest tasting things ever. One of the reasons I never have smoked anything. None of these things would be ok in today’s new age parenting politically correct world but for me they are some of things I remember most about my childhood.
    
    Reply
rl crabb says:

November 25, 2013 at 11:00 am

I suppose real life experience doesn’t count for much these days. It reminds me of the times I’ve heard enviros moan over clearcuts, about how the soil is damaged to the point that nothing will ever grow there again. You’d be hard pressed to make that claim by comparing photos of Nevada City in 1880 to those taken today, and they were much harder on the land than present day logging operations.
(And for the record, I’m not endorsing clearcuts. They are ugly and unnecessary. I’m just sayin’…)

Reply
- Chris Peterson says:
  
  November 25, 2013 at 7:54 pm
  
  My main objection to clear cutting is the forest we end up with afterward. They show it on TV here as being this rich diversity of flora and fauna when, in fact, those replants are of one particular specie that will grow to reapable size the quickest, and are totally devoid of any diversity at all. We have miles of forest up here in Oregon that looks fantastic from a distance, but up close, it’s hard to find room to walk between the trees and it’s all one stinkin’ specie.
  
  And they reap it so fast that they need the old growth because the size of log the get from these tree farms is too small for anything but off-shore chip and particle board. China doesn’t even buy our milled lumber anymore; it doesn’t fit their building designs. They mill much thicker wood than we do.
  
  Reply