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HomeMy WebLinkAboutChapter 11 - Mineral ResourcesChapter 11: Geology Final Draft August 8, 2005 Butte County General Plan Background Report 1 CHAPTER 11: MINERAL RESOURCES TABLE OF CONTENTS 11.1 INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................................................................2 11.2 GENERAL GEOLOGIC SETTING OF BUTTE COUNTY...........................................................................2 11.3 MINERAL RESOURCES...................................................................................................................................3 REGIONAL OVERVIEW ...............................................................................................................................................3 MINERAL RESOURCES: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE ....................................................................................................3 MINING IN BUTTE COUNTY .......................................................................................................................................4 MINERAL RESOURCES: EXISTING POLICIES ...............................................................................................................7 MINERAL RESOURCES: PRESENT MINING ACTIVITIES ...............................................................................................9 MINERAL RESOURCES: POTENTIAL .........................................................................................................................10 Rock Resources..................................................................................................................................................10 Gold Resources..................................................................................................................................................11 Soil Resources....................................................................................................................................................12 LIST OF TABLES TABLE 11-1 ACTIVE MINES IN BUTTE COUNTY ...........................................................................................................10 LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE 11-1: MINING ACTIVITIES..................................................................................................................................6 Chapter 11: Geology Final Draft August 8, 2005 Butte County General Plan Background Report 2 11.1 INTRODUCTION The topography of Butte County varies dramatically from the gentle flatlands of the Sacramento River Valley in the western part of the county to the rugged foothills of the Sierra Nevada in the eastern portion of the county. This diversity on the surface of the land expresses the complexity of the geology underneath it. That complexity determines the location of mineral resources. It also determines other factors, such as how various geologic hazards may threaten life and property, groundwater supplies, climate, flooding hazards, and others that are described in other chapters of this document. 11.2 GENERAL GEOLOGIC SETTING OF BUTTE COUNTY The western portion of Butte County is part of the Great Valley geomorphic province. The Great Valley province is the geologic term for the Central Valley of California, which is drained by the Sacramento River in the North and the San Joaquin River in the south. The Central Valley extends nearly 500 miles north and south, and averages about 40 miles in width between the Coast Ranges on the west and the Sierra Nevada and Cascades on the east. Geologically, the Great Valley province is characterized by great thicknesses of generally flat-lying sedimentary rocks overlain by soils that were deposited by floods or runoff. These deposits are called “alluvium.” In Butte County the soils range in thickness from a few inches near the foothills to more than 200 feet near the Sacramento River. Also, the sedimentary rocks of the Great Valley province are relatively flat and dip gently west to southwest with only minor faults and folds that run parallel to the structural trend of the valley and the Sierra Nevada. Much of the eastern portion of Butte County is part of the Sierra Nevada geomorphic province. The Sierra foothills in Butte County are rather complex geologically, and contain a wide variety of igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks. The metamorphic base rocks of the Sierra Nevada have been subjected to intense folding and faulting which has produced an area of steeply eastwardly dipping, northwesterly striking bedrock series through the center of the Sierra. These bedrock series are bounded on both the west and east sides by zones of active or potentially active faults. In eastern Butte County, granites have been pushed into these metamorphic rocks in a process called “intrusion.” The contacts between the intruded granites and the older metamorphic rocks are usually marked by faults. The northernmost part of Butte County, near Jonesville, is part of the Cascade Range geomorphic province. This geomorphic province is characterized by major volcanoes, including Mount Lassen. Lava flows and other volcanic deposits compose most of the surface materials in this province. Each of these areas has a distinct geologic history. The eastern half of Butte County lies in that part of the Sierra Nevada that is comprised of strongly deformed and metamorphosed rocks of Paleozoic age intruded by a granitic batholith of Mesozoic age. Large clumps of granite rock that lay under the earth until they were exposed by erosion, called plutons, probably of Cretaceous or earlier age, intrude the metamorphic rock with mineralization that often shows along the veins and seams of gold-bearing quartz that intruded the fissures and joints of the granitic rock. Chapter 11: Geology Final Draft August 8, 2005 Butte County General Plan Background Report 3 From the beginning of the Cretaceous period, the upthrust rocks of the eastern half of Butte County were eroded, and the resulting rock and silt flowed down into the Sacramento Valley. In the western half of the county the rocks of the Central Valley are primarily flat-lying Cretaceous, Eocene, and younger formations, consisting of shale, sandstone, conglomerate, and volcanic rock that overlap the older metamorphic series. Older alluvial deposits occur as nearly flat plain deposits in the western portion of the county on the floor of the Sacramento Valley. The older alluvium consists of moderately consolidated clay, silt, and sand. Alluvium covers much of the valley floor and also occurs along many of the ancient, inactive streambeds and as the present stream channels that drain into the valley from the mountains to the east. These deposits are loose, unconsolidated, and consist of a mixture of boulders, gravel, sand, and lesser amounts of silt, and can range from 10 to 50 feet in thickness. Intermixed with the rock debris are often remnants of gold that was deposited in the mountains to the east and eroded away as the mountains thrust upward. 11.3 MINERAL RESOURCES The following section provides an overview of mineral and soil resources in Butte County that are managed by County government. Regional Overview The majority of the area’s sand and gravel deposits occur in two regions, along the Sacramento River and within a band running from north to south down the center of the county. Gravel in the Sacramento River is no longer extensively mined, due to environmental constraints and the difficulty of working in an area with a high water table. The county’s central “gravel belt” comprises the transitional region where sediments washed down from the Sierra Nevadas into the slower moving rivers of the flat valley. This is the region in Butte County where gravel mining is most active. In the past, these residual gravel deposits were mined for their gold content. However, today they are mined for their gravel and sand, to be used in combination with portland cement or asphalt compounds in construction and road building. Sand and gravel deposits are also mined for silica, used in the production of cleansers, abrasives, and toothpaste. In California sand and gravel has an economic value many times larger than that of all other minerals mined statewide, including gold. However, gold mining has played a larger role in the history of the state, and it remains an important part of mining in Butte County. The gold found in Butte County is often mined with sand and gravel operations. However, there are many historic gold mines located in the eastern part of the county that are operating, and many more that have yet to be discovered or are not economically feasible to operate. Mineral Resources: Historical Perspective From a historical perspective, gold and gravel have played an important role in the development of Butte County. Although it is the gold that originally attracted people to the Sierra foothill region of Butte County, the economic value and widespread use of sand and gravel today is more Chapter 11: Geology Final Draft August 8, 2005 Butte County General Plan Background Report 4 important and of greater value than gold mining. Gold can be traced back to the old Tertiary river beds and the quartz veins formed in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the primary source of all gold in the region. Therefore, where gravel deposits exist, there is a high probability of finding placer gold. Mining activities carried out during California’s Gold Rush days were conducted with little or no regard for the environment. Mountains and streams were altered by hydraulic mining and manual labor. Some of the most productive Tertiary channel deposits of gold in the state have been found in Butte County, including the Magalia, Cherokee, and Bangor-Wyandotte districts. The largest true nugget of native gold in California was the Willard, Dogtown, or Magalia nugget found in Magalia in 1859, weighing 54 pounds troy. Famous gold mining regions of Butte County include: Bangor, Bidwell Bar, Butte Creek, Cherokee, Clipper Mills, Concow, Forbestown, Honcut, Inskip, Kimshew, Magalia, Morris Ravine, Oroville, Wyandotte, and Yankee Hill. These communities originally sprang up around gold mining. Many of these historic gold regions are now mining the residual sand and gravel resources, with the extraction of gold as a secondary operation. Mining in Butte County Mining activities in Butte County focus on three industries: sand and gravel, stone, and gold. Table 11-1 contains a list of active mines in the county. Figure 11-1 shows mining activities in Butte County. Although other mineral resources have been or are extracted in Butte County, sand and gravel, stone, and gold play the greatest role in the county’s economy. Aggregate resources are used extensively in all types of construction: residential, commercial and industrial, roads and highways, dams, and bridges. As of 2003 the California Geological Survey has not conducted a study to determine the amount of demand for aggregate resources in Butte County. However, a general rule is that the demand for aggregate resources will essentially parallel a region’s growth rate. There are no specific studies of per-capita consumption of aggregate resources in Butte County. California Geological Survey studies in the Central Valley in the 1990s show that the rate of consumption varies between 5 and 10 tons per person, averaging about 7.5 tons per person. Butte County had an estimated population of 182,120 in 1990 and 203,171 in 2000, representing a growth rate of 11.6 percent over the decade. Therefore, assuming a demand for aggregate that roughly parallels a region’s growth rate, it is reasonable to predict a continuing high demand for aggregate resources in Butte County. The mining of aggregate and rock resources provides a regionally significant source of construction materials within a close proximity to a local need. Because sand, rock, and gravel are expensive to transport, construction and development are aided when substantial quantities of these materials exist close by. The primary economic benefit to the county from aggregate resources comes from property and sales taxes. Property taxes are set by Proposition 13 throughout the state at approximately 1 percent of a parcel’s appraised value. If the parcel contains mineral resources, the County imposes minimal additional property taxes. These taxes are assessed according to the proven reserves of minerals or in terms of the economic value of the resource in the market. Chapter 11: Geology Final Draft August 8, 2005 Butte County General Plan Background Report 5 The county also benefits from mining activity through sales taxes. A sales tax is usually levied at the general sales tax rate based on 6 percent of the total sales dollars. Of the 6 percent sales tax, only 1.25 percent is returned to the County. The remainder is kept by the State. Of the 1.25 percent that goes to the County, 0.25 percent is allotted to public transit in Butte County, leaving 1 percent for discretionary use by the County. It should also be noted that a sales tax is incurred only when a sale is made to the public, not when a raw material is sold to a producer who processes a raw material into a salable product. Butte County also benefits from jobs in mining. Although the commercial extraction of sand and gravel, hard rock, and gold are not labor intensive, it contributes to the county’s economic output. However, the number of jobs associated with mining is minimal. Based on California Employment Development Department projections from 1999 to 2006, the number of people employed in construction and mining in Butte County will rise from 2,700 to 3,600 (statistics on construction and mining are included together.) Based on the most accurate information available to date, there are 18 full-time operative mines in Butte County. Of these mines, the actual number of employees per mine is quite low, ranging from 1 to 20 employees, with an average of 7 employees per facility. 32 99 70 191 162 70 162 99 32 PARADISE OROVILLE BIGGS GRIDLEY CHICO MINING ACTIVI TIES Figure 11-1 Butte County General Plan Miles02468101 Source: Butte County Department of Development Services, 2003Legend ACTIVE MINES Base Rock and Ballast Material Base Rock and Rip Rap Gold Gravel Sand Sand and Gravel Sand and Gravel and Base Rock Lakes Date printed: June 6, 2003 Chapter 11: Geology Final Draft August 8, 2005 Butte County General Plan Background Report 7 Mineral Resources: Existing Policies Mining is often a source of controversy in local land use planning, as it has the potential to cross a wide spectrum of environmental issues. These issues range from the compatibility of mining with adjacent land uses, to its direct environmental impacts to air, water, biology, noise, geology, aesthetics, traffic, archaeology, and public safety. Many laws and regulations govern mineral exploration and extraction to protect against potential adverse environmental consequences. These laws and regulations include local controls imposed on a county-wide level, as well as state and federal regulations. The most important mineral resource policies are found in the California’s Surface Mining and Reclamation Act (SMARA). SMARA establishes a statewide policy for conservation and development of mineral lands in California. It also provides requirements for a permit and reclamation plan approval before conducting a surface mining operation. Under the Act, there is no distinction between exploration and actual mining. Activities below the threshold defined by the Act are exempt from regulation; those exceeding the threshold are regulated. These regulations require the mine operator to obtain mining permits from local county governments prior to initiating work. The Butte County Department of Development Services carries out SMARA, regulating mining activity through issuing a Conditional Use Permit, which may set out specific time limits and conditions for both exploration and mining activities. The State directs counties to apply SMARA policies to surface mining operations. These directives include policies on the conduct of surface mining operations as well as specific measures to be employed in grading, backfilling, resoiling, revegetation, soil compaction, soil erosion control, water quality and watershed control, waste disposal, and flood control. State policies do not include aspects of regulating surface mining operations that are solely of local concern, and not of statewide or regional concern, such as hours of operation, noise, dust, fencing, and aesthetics. These factors are normally administered and regulated by the local lead agency. SMARA does require that every lead agency establish, in accordance with state policy, mineral resources management policies to be incorporated in the general plan, including: 1) Recognition of the mineral classifications and information prepared by the State Geologist; 2) Management of land use that affects areas identified as being of statewide and regional significance; and 3) Emphasis on conservation and development of identified mineral resources. SMARA contains specific provisions for the classification of mineral lands by the State Geologist. Land is designated as Mineral Resource Zones (MRZ), including MRZ-1, MRZ-2, MRZ-3, or MRZ-4. The most significant designation is MRZ-2, which is a designation of mineral resources that are of regional or statewide significance. These classified lands and designated areas ultimately must be recognized by the county in its general plan in order to adopt appropriate and compatible land use designations, and to establish policies and implementation programs for the conservation and development of these resources. The county’s land use Chapter 11: Geology Final Draft August 8, 2005 Butte County General Plan Background Report 8 decisions involving areas designated as being of regional or statewide significance must be in accordance with mineral resource management policies. It must also, in balancing mineral values against alternative land uses, consider the importance of these minerals to their market region as a whole, and not just their importance to the county’s area of jurisdiction. SMARA also requires that a Reclamation Plan be prepared and approved by the county before the initiation of mining operations. The purpose of the Reclamation Plan is to ensure that mined lands are reclaimed to a condition that is readily adaptable for alternative land uses. A major goal in requiring such a plan is to optimize subsequent land use at a reasonable cost, and to avoid the legal and environmental problems created by abandoned mines. This process involves two basic steps: 1) environmental restoration of the land to a condition whereby it can be adapted to a second use, and 2) establishment of a second use for mined land (Sierra Economic Development District and Sierra Planning Organization Mining Task Force 1985). Depleted sand and gravel pits in California have been used in many ways. These uses include solid waste disposal, open space for parks, land and water recreation, spreading basins for groundwater recharge through percolation, and urban development. The State Geologist has yet to map the mineral resources in Butte County. Although aggregate resources are recognized as being regionally significant minerals, a specific map designating where these resources occur and the associated MRZ-2 zoning designation has not been prepared. In addition, a Mineral Resource Management Plan has not yet been adopted. To remedy this situation, public or private entities can petition the State Geology Board to classify specific lands that contain significant mineral deposits and that are threatened by land use incompatibilities. Alternatively, Butte County could formally request that the State Board of Geology map the entire county. Since 1996, there have been several new requests for sand and gravel operations in Butte County. A 42-acre gravel mine known as the Daimler Rock Quarry was approved in the Butte Valley area on August 10, 2000. As of 2003, the County is considering a much larger proposal located on the M&T Chico Ranch proposed by Baldwin Contracting Company, a subsidiary of KRC Holdings Inc. to mine approximately 193 acres located adjacent to Little Chico Creek, five miles southwest of Chico. This project proposes the extraction of 5.5 million cubic yards of aggregate over a twenty to thirty-year period. On March 28, 1994, the County received a Petition for Mineral Classification (DMG Open-file Report 94-01) from the State Mines and Geology Board (SMGB) for the Greenrock Quarry near Oroville (now known as Martin Marietta Materials, Table Mountain Quarry). This Petition involves approximately 320 acres of land and is considered an active mine (California Mine ID #91-04-0011). The SMGB concluded that part of this mine is classified as MRZ-2a for railroad ballast. The remainder of the property has been classified as either MRZ-2b or MRZ-1 for railroad ballast. In 2001, the California Geological Survey gave an MRZ-2a designation to a portion of the Ord Ferry Quadrangle, also known as the M&T Chico Ranch site. The property is leased by KRC Holdings and its subsidiary, Baldwin Contracting, Inc. The Survey concluded that the aggregate resources on this property exceeded a threshold value of $13.1 million dollars. Therefore the Chapter 11: Geology Final Draft August 8, 2005 Butte County General Plan Background Report 9 property could receive the MRZ-2a designation. Though the precise market value and volume of aggregate was proprietary information, the Survey’s report called the resources “significant high quality construction aggregate resources.” In accordance with Section 2762 (a) of the Surface Mining and Reclamation Act (SMARA), the SMGB has accepted the classification of the minerals described in both reports, and has transmitted the reports to the Butte County Planning Division, which is designated as the SMARA Lead Agency. In accordance with this section, the Lead Agency must, within a 12 month period of receiving the Mineral Classification Reports, establish Mineral Resource Management Policies to be incorporated in the General Plan that will serve to protect the mineral resources and mining operations from incompatible land uses that might curtail or otherwise impact mineral resource production. Mineral Resources: Present Mining Activities The status of mining activities in Butte County can be identified through the information in Table 11-1. It shows a strong pattern of sand and gravel, stone, and placer gold as the predominant mining activities, with limited amounts of lode gold and chromite (previously mined). Table 11-1 describes the location, company, and status of 18 operating mines. Chapter 11: Geology Final Draft August 8, 2005 Butte County General Plan Background Report 10 TABLE 11-1 ACTIVE MINES IN BUTTE COUNTY Operator Name Mine Name Status Use Permit Number State ID #Product Baldwin Contracting Co. Inc.Pentz Pit Intermittent 78-99 91-04-0001 Sand and Gravel Duke Sherwood Contracting Inc.Lucky 7 Pit Producing 94-63 91-04-0014 Sand and Gravel Meridian Aggregates Table Mountain Quarry Producing 84-37 91-04-0011 Stone-Blast Robinson Construction Co. Inc. Vance Avenue Pit #1 and #2 Producing 77-96 92-43 91-04-0007 91-04-0021 Sand and Gravel Granite Construction Oroville Wildlife Area Pit Producing 89-58 91-04-0004 Sand and Gravel Dunstone Rock Quarry Dunstone Rock Quarry Seasonal 84-33 91-04-0019 Stone-Base Donald Zandstra Carr Mine Inactive 84-27 9104-0013 Gold - placer J. Michael Smith Blue Lead Mine Producing 81-43 91-04-0020 Gold - placer Wilder, James D.Ohio-Dix Mine Producing 83-33 91-04-0010 Gold - placer Franklin Construction Inc. Franklin Construction Comp.Active 93-01 91-04-0012 Sand and Gravel Cherokee Mines Mineral Resources, LCC Producing 93-36 91-04-0015 Silica Diamler Rock, Inc.Diamler Rock (Gunn)Producing 98-02 91-04-0028 Mathew ReadyMix Statelands Producing 86-38 91-04-0008 Anderson Brothers Corp. Pine Creek Mine/Anderson Brothers Producing 65-50 91-04-0025 Reggie Smart Pentz Aggregates Producing 80-74 None issued Butte County Public Works Almond Ave. Mine Producing Vested 91-04-0018 Bangor Rock Quarry - Site A and B Roy E. Ladd, Inc.Producing 81-105, 88-35, 88- 35A 91-04-0006 91-04-0002 Sand and Gravel Source: Butte County Department of Development Services, 2003 Mineral Resources: Potential Rock Resources There are three categories of rock resource operations in Butte County. These categories include Inchannel Resources, comprised of the Quaternary gravel present in surfacial quantities in stream channels; Offchannel Resources or Terraces, involving the removal of sands and gravels which have been overlaid by soils located adjacent to or within an active or ancient floodplain; and Hardrock Operations, consisting of the removal of consolidated rock materials from higher elevation mountains. Aggregates extracted from both in-channel and off-channel sources are used extensively in all types of construction. Raw materials are processed (washed, screened, crushed, graded, classified, etc.) and sold as road base or sub-base in loose form and in a binding mixture with Chapter 11: Geology Final Draft August 8, 2005 Butte County General Plan Background Report 11 cement or asphalt. One of the main difficulties with aggregate resources is transporting of materials to a processing facility and the transporting of the final product to its prospective market. Due to the sheer mass and weight of aggregate, transportation is expensive, and centralized processing plants are not desirable. Gravel is generally mined in proximity to its potential market. For this reason, aggregate from Butte County continues to be used primarily within the county. Hardrock operations occur primarily in areas of high topographic relief. Mining operations consist of the removal of soils and weathered overburden, followed by the extraction and processing of the hard unweathered bedrock. The rock is then crushed and sorted. The processed quarry rock is used primarily for various road materials or mixed with asphalt. Other uses include fill, drain rock, riprap, and decorative materials. The predominant use of hard rock in Butte County is for base (such as for roadways or structures) or ballast (rock used for the base material of a railroad track). The hardrock mining facilities now operating in Butte County include Bangor Rock Quarry, Table Mountain Quarry, and Dunstone Quarry. Gold Resources Gold mining in Butte County takes a variety of forms, ranging from simple one-person operations of gold panning and suction dredging to large scale commercial extraction and processing operations. The main form of gold mining in Butte County is placer mining, involving so-called placer deposits. A placer deposit is a mass of gravel, sand, or other similar material resulting from erosion of solid rock and containing particles of gold. Placer mining involves removing the surface gold bearing gravels, and either washing or chemically extracting the gold ore from the gravel. Buried placer deposits are located throughout the county and are not easily identified. Two of the county’s best known buried placer deposits include one under the city of Paradise and one under Table Mountain. Table Mountain contains a placer deposit buried under an ancient lava flow which forms the flat top of the mountain. The area of Cherokee on the northwest side of Table Mountain is the historic site of an old gold mining camp which used hydraulic blasting to wash away the mountain’s walls to get to the gold-laden gravels. With mining restrictions and a heightened environmental sensitivity, hydraulic blasting is no longer allowed. Instead, buried placer deposits are obtained through drift mining, which involves digging into the ground and tunneling horizontally to extract the gravels. The economics associated with drift mining are restrictive, as it costs 5 to 10 times more to drift mine than to use an open pit mine. A large quantity of high-quality gold is necessary in order for drift mining to be economically feasible. The second kind of gold mining is called lode mining, referring to the Mother Lode, the veins of gold embedded within subsurface rock material. Lode gold often involves open pit mines and the blasting of mountains to expose the deep veins of gold. Examples of lode gold mines in Butte County include the Gold Bank Mine (proposed), Hornet Mine (exploring), and Blue Lead Mine. The development and improvement of cyanide heap leaching methods has greatly improved gold production in the past 10 years. Use of cyanide to separate precious metals from waste rock is an old technique practiced for a century, but it has only been in the past 20 years that the method Chapter 11: Geology Final Draft August 8, 2005 Butte County General Plan Background Report 12 has been improved for use on high tonnage, low-grade deposits. There are currently no mines using heap leach processing in the county. Soil Resources Soil is not normally defined as a mineral or an aggregate. However, it is also an important earth resource. While some topsoil for fill and landscaping is mined in Butte County, soil is not mined on a large scale for this purpose. More important is soil’s ability to produce and sustain profitable food and fiber crops. Pound for pound, the crops that soil can produce are far more valuable than the actual commercial value of the soil itself. For example, Butte County’s 2001 Crop Report stated that the total value of Butte County’s agricultural production was $282,503,000. This makes Butte County’s soil an important local resource. Modern agricultural practices have shifted over the years to include the widespread use of pesticides, fertilizers, herbicides, and other chemical products. These chemicals can accumulate and cause detrimental affects to the quality of soils and groundwater. In addition, irrigation techniques, if not managed properly, can adversely affect the soil by leaching it of important nutrients and organic material. This leaching effect essentially “strips” the soil of its ability to produce crops requiring certain nutrients without the aide of soil additives. Soil leaching also occurs through repeated cultivation of the same crop. Cultivation of a crop requires the extraction of a specific combination of nutrients from the soil, and when this cultivation is repeated year after year, it has a cumulative affect on the properties of the soil. Soil reclamation activities in Butte County associated with agricultural stabilization and conservation are more oriented toward the future development of agricultural lands than existing soils problems. Since Butte County has elected not to create a Resource Conservation District, regulation and enforcement of soil-related problems or implementation of reclamation and conservation practices are left primarily up to individual property owners. Soil problems are handled by the County Agricultural Commissioner and/or the U.S. Soil Conservation Service office in Glenn County, which provides technical assistance as requested by Butte County. Also, the County’s Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Services (ASCS) and the University of California Extension Services have established erosion-reduction programs for obtaining trees for reforestation, grass seed for erosion stabilization, and the development of small reservoirs to divert livestock away from natural riparian corridors. However, these projects are not mandatory, so the responsibility to protect and restore soil resources falls on the individual land owner. A majority of the agricultural related reclamation work in Butte County involves water, specifically the use of water for rice field irrigation. The County Agricultural Commissioner and the U. S. Soil Conservation Service work with farmers to install tail-water return systems, irrigation systems that prevent the water used on a rice field from leaving the site. This system prevents water containing pesticides and herbicides from entering off-site waterways. The tail- water return system also recycles the irrigation water, thereby conserving water resources. Chapter 11: Geology Final Draft August 8, 2005 Butte County General Plan Background Report 13 The County’s role in regulating agricultural soil reclamation and conservation primarily involves implementing the 1985 California Farm Bill, commonly known as the Swap-buster/Sod buster Act. According to this act, all agricultural programs with government involvement occurring after December 31, 1985 must submit a 1026 form to the Butte County ASCS. This form asks an applicant to answer questions regarding the impacts on wetlands or highly erodible soils from future agricultural activities. The ASCS forwards the application to the Soil Conservation Service for its technical review and appraisal of the project. If the project has the potential to adversely impact wetlands or highly erodible soils (thus the name Swamp-buster/Sod buster), the Soil Conservation Service will disallow the project or work with the applicant to find appropriate mitigation measures to ensure compliance and reduce erosion rates. The drawback of this program is that it only applies to new agricultural development. Further, it only applies to projects with some form of government intervention, i.e., subsidization or financial support, and does not apply to other agricultural operations which may be involved in similar, possibly more extensive, degradation to the county’s wetlands and highly erodible soils.