The Vulcan Corporation is a giant company that operates many types of businesses that produce goods extracted from the Earth. It's a long established good old boys club that lists its products and its green policies proudly on their websites. Like a giant octopus, the camoflage it uses is well developed. There is an inky screen it uses to escape most attention and danger. It has many tentacles and is ruthless in pursuit of its prey.
California is well known as a state that is hard to do business in. It is common to hear companies complain of the difficulties of regulations and permits required to operate businesses. Especially ones that product dust and leave pollution in the ground water. Mining is expensive in terms of permits and insurance.
It's been said that there is no such thing as an honest business man: they will reluctantly be honest about the profits and methods they use, as the risk of both the competetion and the tax collector are ever present. Its good business to minimize taxation and permit costs.
In a state that is allegedly overly active about regulations, the truth is that there are key things in the supply chain that are not regulated at all. Homeowners sometimes find out after they buy a house with a clean inspection report that the roof leaks. They investigate and quickly find out that there are no standards or licensing requirements for home inspections in California. This allows real estate agents to conduct their business with reports from " inspections " that serve nothing more than to facilitate the transaction. The transaction is always the imperitive for both businessmen and tax collectors.
Companies like The Vulcan Corporation have their similar exploitation. They do not pay their far share of taxes nor pull permits for what is likely their most profitable byproduct because it is completely unregulated.
The lack of regulation and proper oversight is circumstantial evidence that somewhere along the lines the wheels are being greased.
Gold and other metals are sluiced out of these gravel beds: in every single known location where historic gold mining happened the Vulcan Corporation has set up massive " aggregate plants " that process millions of tons of gravel that is sold at a profit.
Completely undeclared and undocumented is the products these operations yield as a byproduct.
Truckloads of gold, literally, taken illegally out of them thar hills. There is more gold in the ground that was left behind then was ever pulled out by the old time prospectors, and there is no way this Corporation would get permits to operate a strip mine at the mouth of the Azusa Canyon that produced gold.
But innocent gravel used for building and road purposes? that's easily permitable.
They are able to get started in areas favorable to the underlying goal, which is the unregulated and unregistered processing of byproduct.
" I knew of a man in the San Joaquin Valley of California (near Fresno) who set up equipment in several gravel pits up and down the valley from Sacramento southward. He would place large washer boxes in the existing gravel classifying equipment and catch the fine gold as the river rocks and gravel moved through the system. I understand he would find 20 to 50 ounces a month depending on the location and output of the gravel pit. I know from first hand experience that most of the sand and gravel pits in this area of California do their own recovery of fine gold, and many make as much on the gold as they do on the sand and gravel. "
Many of the locations in San Diego and elsewhere they operate are not involved in any obvious way with this massive scheme. They are callous in the apparent disregard for complaints from townspeople nearby about dust and noise, but otherwise operate large settling ponds and processing pits in unsuspecting areas like Black Mountain in San Diego, near the 15 and 56 without much notice.
Other areas, the plunder is much more brazen. Like the area around Fish Canyon at the mouth of Azuza canyon where they are grotesqely strip mining the hillside and using these ill gotten gains to, one can speculate, bribe the right hands at the right intervales to keep this organized scheme off the radar of most of the residents.
One can find many links to now deleted web pages about court battles and town meetings regarding this area. The company does all this, claiming to be producing building materials, but the real cash cow is the byproduct of the areas they work in. The residents complaining about dust, noise from blasting and loss of access to hiking trails
Information about the tin and copper deposits around Vulcan Corps Corona California " aggregate " plant.
https://thediggings.com/mines/18678
San Diego lawsuits:
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp2/106/1010/2510758/
Gravel prospecting: https://www.treasurenet.com/threads/prospecting-in-gravel-pits.33577/
