BREAKING....

[goldhog]

Found it interesting...

House Votes to Reject EPA Stream Protection Rules

Doc

 

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[spaghettigold]

dredging with 100 miles an hour?

your principles apply to a certain point in society,but from a certain point on it becomes ridiculous,then oppression.There,s also a limit to regulation before it becomes"unsustainable" .

cheers

 

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[Mad Machinist]

I respect your position and I used to be a little closer to you on the "individual liberty trumps all" spectrum. I was a big proponent of libertarian thought, Ayn Rand Objectivsm, the Austrian School of economics, etc. Eventually I came to regard this position as impractically utopic and self-contradictory.

You can insist that you are free to do as you wish, but the trouble with this is that others are free to do as they wish, as well. In some cases, others may choose to exercise THEIR freedom in a way that restricts yours. For instance, you might insist that you are free to drive your vehicle at 100 miles an hour. However, other folks are also free to set speed limits and impose penalties on those who don't comply. In most modern civilizations, the "winner" in this struggle between our hodgepodge of individual liberties is decided by some form of "majority rules." In other words if everyone has the same freedom, those freedoms are often going to collide...and we've had to come ith some way to settle the disputes and have some measure of stability, order and civility in our daily lives.

In my opinion it's a waste of time to petulantly insist that you should be free to do anything under the sun...because at the end of the day, if there are more opposed to your so-called "freedom" than there are in favor, your claims as to the sanctity of individual liberty are nothing more than idle words. In your mind you might be free, but in reality you are most certainly subject to the will of the majority (or whatever entity has the power to regulate your activity.) When you acknowledge these practical restraints on your liberty, you realize that any advance or retreat of your personal agenda is achieved in the realm of debate, politics, etc. As inconvenient as you may find it, you're better off approaching your "opponents" with a measure of humility, cooperation and open-mindedness. In my experience, the more you dig in your heels on these matters, the more difficult it becomes for the two sides to find common ground and pursue a compromise that everyone can live with.

You have to understand 3xactly what you are dealing with here. Eco freaks see compromise as weakness. Meet them halfway on something this week, then next week your back in court again for them to take a little more. So in compromising you lose by attrition.

And no you don't always lose when you fight. If you ever get the chance, ask the BLM here how much money they had to repay me under the Equal Access to Justice Act. They typically don't mess with me too much now.

If you cannot show me evidence where there is lasting impacts from dredging, then your point is moot. We spoke loud and clear here recently as we have tried the compromise thing and this is where it got us. Many others and I have said no more and we will not only fight, we will win.

I choose to use my education to find reasonable solutions to problems instead of running around screaming doom and gloom. PPeople are caring less and less about what the eco freaks want and are starting to see threw the smoke screen. Their days are numbered.

 

[HardHatMatt]

Well, I sincerely wish you luck in your fight against unnecessarily draconian regulation and the proverbial "camel's nose under the tent." I've dealt with people who, when given an inch, want the whole mile...and it's no picnic. Sometimes you have to stand your ground when further compromise starts to become oppression - I can respect that. I hope that with your hard-earned freedom you will choose to be good stewards of the environment and respectful of reasonable folks like me who harbor no inherent ill-will toward mining and no agenda except to promote a balanced approach which honors the rights of human beings to utilize the earth and its resources, while also ensuring the well-being of the entire ecosystem and enjoyment for many generations to come. All the best!

 

[Mad Machinist]

Well, I sincerely wish you luck in your fight against unnecessarily draconian regulation and the proverbial "camel's nose under the tent." I've dealt with people who, when given an inch, want the whole mile...and it's no picnic. Sometimes you have to stand your ground when further compromise starts to become oppression - I can respect that. I hope that with your hard-earned freedom you will choose to be good stewards of the environment and respectful of reasonable folks like me who harbor no inherent ill-will toward mining and no agenda except to promote a balanced approach which honors the rights of human beings to utilize the earth and its resources, while also ensuring the well-being of the entire ecosystem and enjoyment for many generations to come. All the best!

Thank you. Stick around for awhile. There are a few of us digging hard into bioleaching. Read the link I posted on it and feel free to jump in. Maybe you'll see something we don't. For things like arsenopyrite, which has a high concentration of arsenic, it is very effective. It locks up the arsenic into an insoluble compound rendering it nontoxic and no longer an environmental problem. And it is looking not only be cheaper but more effective in dealing with arsenic based ores.

I am one of the new breed of miners. We have learned from past mistakes and will not only do things better, but we will clean up the past "toxic legacy" of mining. But we will not put up with having regulation for the sake of having regulation.

 

[Goldfleks]

I think if the rivers and streams can recover from Hydraulic Mining and the amount of sediment and silt pumped into the rivers and streams back then, they can handle a little small time dredge mining operations. I doubt most of the LNT crowd these days even know how heavily mined some of the areas they hike/explore were because nature recovers and reclaims the land.

I know for a fact the public recreational use of the land TODAY at the East Fork San Gabriel is much worse than all the holes the miners dig next to the river. All you have to do is walk the river near sundown during the summer and look at the trash and diapers and other garbage the day use people leave behind. And the former Obama administration and it's National Monument Executive Order wants to bus even more of the inner city people into the River Valley to leave their trash and graffiti behind.

You want to talk about banning activities that harm/disrupt the river. Then why are we planning on bussing in even more people to abuse the "sensitive" environment. You think a million people wading across the river in summertime doesn't disrupt sediment and agitate river bottoms. What about the trash and bottle caps tortilla bags food wrappers and dirty diapers and orange peels floating in the river. The decapitated chicken's and fruits left floating in the river by the practice of Santería (yes I'm not kidding, they sacrifice by Cattle Canyon Bridge all the time). The dams they build to create swimming holes. The added urine from day swimmers peeing in the river. Many of these people can't even be bothered to pack out their trash let alone walk a half mile up the street to use the porta potty.

And you're going to give me a hard time about wanting to wash some rocks?

Mining is a target because it's a small time community and it's easy to blame us for things like killing fish and mercury. Politicians wouldn't dare try to ban the day swimmers who trash the river. Not if they want to not get re-elected.

 

[rodoconnor]

Mining is a target primarily because it is a consumptive use of a natural resource. Look what the wackos did to the timber industry--A renewable resource !! That was the initial goal of Earth First a domestic [eco]terrorist organization founded by Dave Foreman . Their childish philosophy is alive and well .