Boots, Pick, and Keyboard: Memoirs of a Progressive Geologist in the Mining Industry

By Ronald L Crouse P E

I was in charge of slope stability for Newmont's Carlin operations. One of my geologists told me about minor movement of some prisms on the east highwall of the Blue Star pit. Mine operations had been using the area at the base of the highwall as a parking area for their haul trucks. After several weeks of monitoring, the prism movement rate had accelerated. When the acceleration got to a point where we thought the wall would soon fail, we notified operations to move the haul trucks. A few days later, about a million tons of rock collapsed onto the area where the haul trucks had been parked.

Every Friday, the Elko Daily Free Press had an editorial section, in which they wrote incendiary articles on public land management issues, which were at the center of the "sagebrush rebellion". After about a year of living there, I began to write my own letters to the editor, in which I countered their right-wing lies, thirteen of which were published. After publication of those letters, I discovered that virtually everyone in Elko knew my name. I heard, "You're that guy who writes those letters to the editor " more than a few times afterwards. During my next annual review, I was told that my political advocacy could/would affect my ability to be promoted. I was genuinely angered by what had been written in my review, so I decided to leave Newmont as soon as I could...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1977223877
• ISBN13: 9781977223876
• Release Date: April 2020
• Publisher: Outskirts Press
• Length: 312 Pages
• Weight: 1.12 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"