Music Valley Mine info session being held at Copper Mountain College on Wednesday (7/15)
An information session on the Music Valley Mine is taking place this Wednesday at Copper Mountain College from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. The information session is being put on by representatives from the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) who have been actively trying to stop mining by the same Australian Company in the Mojave National Preserve. I talked with California Desert Program Manager Mason Osgood and California Desert Associate Director Chance Wilcox from the NPCA to get some background on the project.
Mason Osgood: “We first heard of these claims in a press release from Dateline Resources earlier this year that they staked around 20,000 acres of claims. Mining claims are range in size from one acre to 30 acres… so it’s quite a large area. It’s primarily in an area called Music Valley or Pinto Mountains, as we can call it, and if you want to situate yourself driving towards the Josh Tree National Park entrance gate from Twentynine Palms, the mountains just to your left is the area of Music Valley.
“It’s a really unique area. It’s currently managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and has a conservation designation called an ACEC, which is an area of critical environmental concern. It’s prime desert tortoise habitat, and the landscape is closely connected to the national park. It really serves as a contiguous extension of some of the ecological values that we see in Joshua Tree National Park.”
Chance Wilcox: “This is not Dateline’s first foray in the Mojave Desert at all… and it’s another reason why I think that the community of Twentynine Palms and the Morongo Basin as a whole should be really concerned is what we’ve seen this company get away with in the Mojave Desert for rare earth elements.
“Their first kind of American project is that they purchased Coliseum Mine, which is located inside Mojave National Preserve and is managed by the Park Service. The mine predates the California Desert Protection Act that established Mojave National Preserve as a park site. The mine had been in reclamation, which is the term for when we put a mine back into the earth. Dateline Resources purchased it in 2021 and just started doing whatever they wanted.
“What we see is this company all of a sudden is like ‘we can get away with whatever we want on public lands… ;et’s try another venture.’ And we see them all of a sudden staking 20,000 acres of claims on the doorstep of Joshua Tree National Park.”
The information session will give more background on the possible mining operation, with staked claims that stretch into Riverside County and as far east as Wonder Valley. It’s taking place on Wednesday (7/15) from 5:30 to 7:30 at the Copper Mountain College’s Bell Center located at 6156 Copper Mountain Road in Joshua Tree.
You can listen to the full interview with the NPCA right here: