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Magdalena Gómez knows the solution to her hometown's suffering. Like roughly 20% of the adult population in Tapia de Casariego, the 27-year-old mother of two is unemployed. She has seen many of her neighbors, desperate for work, move away from this corner of northwestern Spain in search of opportunities in bigger cities. Which is why, even though she knows that a sizeable portion of Tapia is opposed to it, Gómez supports the construction of a new mine. "We don't have anything else here," she says. "We need that gold."

There's a gold rush under way in northwestern Spain, and Tapia is just one of the places trying to figure out what to do about it. With gold prices skyrocketing, deposits that have lain untouched for decades, if not centuries, are suddenly looking awfully appealing to international mining companies. And with the Spanish economy in profound crisis, the jobs that those companies promise — even if they're not permanent — are looking just as irresistible. But as the controversy dividing the town of Tapia suggests, not everyone is convinced that the benefits are worth the risks.

Since Roman times, Asturias and Galicia have been known to contain significant ore deposits — in fact, mines from those regions provided much of the empire's gold. Yet the technical difficulties of reaching the mineral, coupled with the European Union's strict environmental regulations, had long dissuaded mining companies from extracting the precious metal. But that all changed about two years ago when three different Canadian companies started buying up prospecting rights.

"The biggest impediment was always the price of gold," says George Salamis, CEO of the Vancouver-based Edgewater Exploration, which acquired rights to three concessions of nearly 2,000 acres (810 hectares) in Corcoesto, Galicia, in 2010. "When gold was at $400 an ounce, it wasn't economically feasible to go in there. But now it's at $1600 an ounce." And when his company discovered that the deposits were much greater than expected — they now predict that it holds 1.5 million oz. — it only increased their enthusiasm.

But the new interest doesn't go in only one direction. According to Salamis, the crisis has also made the Spanish government more receptive to mining. "During the boom times, there wasn't much interest, because they had other economic options. But now Spain, and Europe in general, are seeing a way to dig themselves out of their economic woes by developing their mineral resources."

Part of that digging consists of creating new jobs in a country plagued with the highest unemployment rate in the euro zone. "When we held court with the mayor and the local citizens, the thing they kept saying to us was, 'When is Edgewater going to get serious? We need these jobs now,'" says Salamis.

Cary Pinkowski, CEO of Astur Gold, which has acquired the rights to the Tapia de Casariego mine, frequently hears the same question. The proposed mine there, which would be built outside of town in what he says is the "the largest, highest quality" gold deposit in Europe, would create an estimated 850 jobs during construction and another 500 during the life of the mine. "We've already received 3,000 résumés," Pinkowski says. "Sometimes we get 50 in a single day."

But not everyone is enthusiastic. For one thing, those jobs are not sustainable, says Tapia Mayor Manuel Jesús González, who was elected in May on a platform that included opposition to the mine. "They're not producing anything, they're extracting something. So what happens when the mine runs out and the company takes its money and goes home?" he asks. "I understand that people here need work, but the mine is a short-term solution. My job is to look at the long-term impact."

He also worries that the mine will injure the two industries — dairy farming and tourism — that Tapia depends on now. An earlier mining project, proposed by a different company, was rejected by the Asturian regional government because it would have been open pit, a cheaper means of extraction that destroys a landscape. But even Astur Gold's planned underground mine would cause environmental and economic damage, says González. "What if leaching from the mine ruins our land? We won't be able to raise livestock anymore. And no one wants to spend the summer in an industrial zone."

Both Salamis and Pinkowski counter that modern techniques and regulations prevent the sort of devastation produced by mining in earlier decades. But environmental groups share González's concerns. In Galicia, the organization Verdegaia is mounting a legal challenge to the Corcoesto project, which would combine open-pit and underground mining, "We're concerned about the damage to flora and fauna," says Nela Abella, spokeswoman for Verdegaia. "But what we're most worried about is water. Gold mines use cyanide in processing. We could have cyanide in the water table."

In Tapia, where most every blank public surface these days contains competing graffiti ("Oro No!" "Oro Si!"), the conflict between environment and economy is splitting the town. Local interest groups keep tabs on one another's Facebook followers, and Astur Gold went so far as to contract a polling company to conduct an opinion survey. It found, perhaps not surprisingly considering who commissioned it, that 74% of residents supported the mine. "We haven't had actual conflict yet," says Mayor González. "But yes, it's definitely undermining harmony here."

Magdalena Gómez laments the divisions the debate is creating. But as the daughter and granddaughter of miners, she still believes the mine is worth fighting for. "It's true that a few years ago there wouldn't have been so much support for the mine," she says. "But now it's our only chance."

• Lisa Abend / Tapia de Casariego
• Mining companies say that extracting gold will help reinvigorate the economy in northwestern Spain. Does job creation justify the environmental hazards?