Ask Ray Pearson what the price of gold is on any given day of the week and he'll have the answer.
"It's usually one of the first things I check in the morning," Pearson said from his office in Winnemucca, a small town on Interstate 80 about 165 miles east of Reno.
Pearson isn't a commodities trader, financial analyst or even affiliated with gold-mining operations in Northern Nevada. He's the general manager of Winners Hotel & Casino in Winnemucca.
He's also a member of the Nevada Commission on Tourism, which works to market rural Nevada to out-of-state visitors.
But the price of gold is important to Pearson and other rural Nevada tourism operations. When the price of gold is up, production increases, employment climbs and mining employees are more likely to spend their entertainment dollars in the nearest casino around.
These days, Pearson is a happy man.
"We have the best of both worlds here," Pearson said. "We're right at the intersection of I-80 and U.S. 95, so we're getting a lot of tourism off those highways from Idaho, Oregon and Washington.
"But the icing on the cake is the dynamite local economy," he said. "Life is beautiful when the mines are booming, as they are now."
At midweek, the price of gold was at $423 an ounce. In 1999, the price was around $250 an ounce and Nevada gold mining operations were laying off employees. Over the past 10 years, gold has been languishing at between $280 and $380 an ounce.
"Whenever the price of gold goes over $400 (an ounce), it's a good time for us," said Doug Hock, a spokesman for the Denver-based Newmont Mining Co.
"Generally, there's about a 13-year life cycle for a mine, but as the price of gold goes higher, it becomes more economic of us to mine," Hock said. "When the price is $425 to $450, as it has been in the last few weeks, there's more of an economic upside for us to produce."
And that's what has happened in places such as Winnemucca and Battle Mountain lately.
While the life cycle is near an end for Newmont's Lone Tree Mine near Winnemucca, the company recently acquired a production area that has been called the Phoenix project from Battle Mountain Gold. Hock said Newmont would hire 380 people for construction jobs and employ between 250 and 280 people for mineral production.
A mill and a power plant for the Phoenix project is being developed about 50 miles east of Winnemucca.
With an annual payroll of $20 million on the project, a high percentage of discretionary dollars are pouring into places such as the Winners Hotel.
Pearson told the state Gaming Control Board in a recent meeting that business was booming for him and his Winnemucca colleagues.
In a recent interview, he did not disclose financial results but said occupancy at the hotel has been in the high 90 percent range and play at the property's slots and tables has been brisk.
He said he really couldn't discern how much of the high volume was due to increased tourism efforts and how much was from increased productivity by Newmont, which has been operating in Northern Nevada for 40 years and produces around 2 million to 2.5 million ounces of gold a year.
Mining is the No. 2 industry in Nevada behind tourism. The state is the top gold producer in the nation, ranking third behind South Africa and Australia in global production. The Nevada Mining Association says 8,780 people earning an average wage of $63,059 are employed in the state, not quite twice the state average of $35,337.
The industry paid $102 million in state, county and local taxes in 2003, the most recent year statistics are available.
But not every rural community has enjoyed the success of Winnemucca.
Ben French, general manager of the Gold Country Inn in Elko, said the higher price of gold has lent stability to the community, but not growth.
"I think most of the growth that has occurred in Elko is due to people leaving California and Reno because of the high price of housing and the cost of living," French said.
"The impact (of higher gold prices) is negligible," he said. "They (Newmont and Canadian mining rivals Barrick Gold Corp. and Placer Dome Inc.) have done some ramping up and exploration, but when they ramp up here, it only means about 100 or 200 jobs."
French said the payrolls have improved, some employee bonuses are better, contracts have been restructured and the price of gold going up generally is a good thing for the community. But he said he hasn't seen the impact on the area Winnemucca has seen, attributing the new Phoenix development as the reason for the difference.
Newmont's Hock said a largely unseen benefit to rural communities occurs when the mining industry is healthy. Executives contribute to service clubs and community organizations and the company supports events.
But critics of the industry also note that the economic upside of mining comes with a price -- environmental concerns.
The Denver Post recently published a report that Newmont violated water-quality standards at Nevada's Lone Tree mine for at least four years, releasing high levels of toxic aresenic and boron into the environment.
The newspaper also said the company has created environmental problems in Indonesia, Peru and Turkey. Community protests in Peru led the company to abandon plans to expand one of the company's richest holdings in the Andes.
Hock said the criticism hasn't had a negative impact on Northern Nevada operations.
"People judge us by our actions," he said. "We're a part of the community and our kids go to the same schools there. It's incumbent upon us to be good corporate citizens and to contribute to the community."
Pearson acknowledged that there have been environmental concerns, but that Newmont's positive contributions have helped more than the negatives have taken away.
"They've helped put on seminars to boost tourism and other activities related to what they do," he said. "Their corporate trainers and marketing experts have made presentations here at minimal cost. It's better than anything we could have done on our own."
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