My name is Thuta Maung. I am a current student at Montgomery College in Maryland. I am writing this comment with the hope that my comment will somehow someway help the community. I believe Virginia should not focus on mining gold. As with any mining industry, gold mining comes with great environmental risks. Regulations in Virginia are not ready for gold mining. Gold mining should be strictly regulated to minimize environmental damage.

Chemical runoff from unregulated gold mining affects the communities negatively. Those cannot be easily cleaned or reversed. I believe it is better to stop the risk than to allow it. We can make money somewhere else. We cannot undo the environmental damage.