Rise Gold Corp. announced that the Board of Supervisors of Nevada County voted to adopt a resolution rejecting the Company's vested rights petition to operate Idaho-Maryland Mine . To establish a vested right, California law requires the Company to show by a preponderance of the evidence that mining was occurring at IM Mine at the time that Nevada County first required a use permit in 1954.

The Resolution held that "the petitioner failed to present sufficient evidence to support an affirmative conclusion regarding the scope of petitioner's alleged vested right. The Company presented approximately 2,000 pages of documents to demonstrate that the Mine was in production through 1956, including aerial photographs, maps, production flow sheets, lists of reagents used, gold production records, lists of equipment, exploration results, first-hand accounts of miners working at the mine, and annual reports. Vested rights are protected under the constitutions of both the United States and California.

Once the Company established that it has a vested right, the seminal case on vested rights in California, Hansen Brothers, requires that any opponent prove by clear and convincing evidence that the constitutionally-protected right has been abandoned.bandonment may be shown only by proving both (1) An intention to abandon; and (2) an overt act, or failure to act, which carries the implication the owner does not claim or retain any interest in the right to the nonconforming use." The Resolution held that "under Hansen, there must be an objective manifestation of an intent to mine," which is clearly the opposite legal standard. The Resolution concluded further that "the subsequent owners understood that no vested right existed because they all requested permission via use permits for each of the uses." California case law clearly demonstrates that applying for a use permit does not negate a vested right, which runs with the land and is protected by the Constitution. David Watkinson, CEO of Emgold Mining Corp., which spent over twenty years developing the Mine, testified that Emgold's development plan exceeded historical production and therefore was ineligible for a vested right.