Calif. takes step to close gold mining loophole

[Hefty1]

IT NEVER FRICKIN ENDS!


Calif. takes step to close gold mining loophole
The Associated Press

Published: Friday, Jun. 7, 2013 - 3:40 pm

GRANTS PASS, Ore. -- California officials are taking steps to close a loophole that has allowed gold miners to continue using suction dredges on salmon streams despite a state moratorium.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife said Friday it is proposing an emergency rule to amend the definition of a suction dredge so that miners can no longer split the equipment in two to keep working.
The dredges amount to giant vacuum cleaners that suck gravel from stream bottoms and settle out the gold.
The action comes at the urging of Indian tribes and conservation groups upset that miners have gotten around a moratorium put in place by the Legislature.
Dave McCracken of the New 49ers gold mining group in Happy Camp says they will fight the change.

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Diving for Pleasure and Treasure - Grab it through Amazon!

[Alex Burke]

Salmon stream lol the dramatic wording is so misleading, I've never seen a salmon gold prospecting lol. Trout sometimes but they just leave or watch me struggling away trying to find a flake. They imply we use a giant vacuum to suck fish up.

 

[Hefty1]

[h=1]Tribes and environmentalists petition to close dredge mining 'loophole'; miners say moratorium on dredging hurts community in Northern California river dispute[/h]Grant Scott-Goforth/The Times-Standardtimes-standard.com/
Posted: 03/29/2013 02:19:04 AM PDT
March 29, 2013 5:2 PM GMTUpdated: 03/29/2013 10:02:53 AM PDT







In the latest Northern California river mining dispute, tribes and environmentalists have petitioned the state Department of Fish and Wildlife to tighten its moratorium on suction dredge mining.
A dredge, as defined by Fish and Wildlife code, consists of three main parts: a hose, motor and sluice box. A sluice box sifts through the silt sucked from the river bed, separating gold from gravel and mud. Since the 2009 moratorium took effect, miners have found ways to modify their equipment so that it fits within the letter of the law.
”This is a purely semantic trick intended to disguise the fact that they are still in violation of the statute,” reads a petition on behalf of a group that includes the Karuk Tribe, Klamath Riverkeeper, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations and others. “These miners simply reconfigure their dredge operations specifically to evade the very narrow (and arbitrary) regulatory definition of 'suction dredging' as requiring a sluice box.”
Miners say the practice is not as harmful as it seems and that Fish and Game is fine with it. Mining advocacy group the New 49'ers runs a website with a section titled “Underwater Suction Mining in California Without the Use of a 'Suction Dredge!'” which includes instructions and several diagrams showing how dredges can be modified to comply with the moratorium. The website recommends removing the sluice box and pumping the silt into a box or

---

Advertisement

---

onto the riverbank for sifting.
”It's no longer a dredge,” said Rich Krimm, director of internal affairs for the New 49'ers. Krimm, who lives in the east San Francisco Bay Area but spends eight to 10 months “on the river” in Northern California, said Fish and Wildlife told the New 49'ers that removing the sluice box from a typical suction dredger would be legal.
”It doesn't fit within the intent of the moratorium,” Krimm said, adding that the group has “talked to a couple of the different wardens and they said as long as the components are kept separate, have at it.”
Fish and Wildlife senior policy advisor Mark Stopher confirmed that removing the sluice box appeared to exclude the machine from the moratorium, though he said it wasn't as simple as his department giving miners the go-ahead.
”That's always been what a suction dredge has been,” he said. “It's consistent with our previous regulations. Nobody in the past had tried to use some kind of device with a vacuum hose and a water pump without a sluice. And, of course, why would they?”
Stopher said the sluice was the most efficient way to sift for gold.
”It's hard to say if this will be a popular method,” he said. “We know of one miner who has used this method. That's not to say other miners might have, and we just haven't seen them.”
Environmental groups say the practice damages habitat for sensitive fish and frogs and releases mercury into waterways.
”This is not the lawless 'wild west,'” Glen Spain, of Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, said in a press release. “There is no miners' 'right' to pollute the public's waters, no 'right' to destroy salmon habitat and salmon fishing industry jobs, no 'right' for gold miners to suction up stream beds with no limits. The idea that they can dodge all state water and fisheries protection regulations with semantic tricks like this is ridiculous.”
Karuk Tribe Klamath Coordinator Craig Tucker said dredging uncovers mercury, a heavy metal that worked its way to the bottom of riverbeds after being left behind by the 19th century Gold Rush.
”It's relatively benign if it's buried down there in its elemental form,” Tucker said.
Dredging reintroduces that mercury when it vacuums the bottom of the riverbed searching for gold. Mercury not caught in a dredge's sluice box is dispersed like a fine mist back into the water, Tucker said, where it becomes methylated and dangerous to humans.
Krimm downplayed environmental harm caused by dredging and related an anecdote where a fisherman came to him asking where he had recently dredged.
”Because that is a perfect place to fish,” Krimm said the man told him.
Tucker said that may be true -- in the short-term.
”That's because every micro-invertebrate in the gravel is being spewed into the water column,” Tucker said. “That's like taking all of the food in the river and spewing it into the water in a few hours.”
Tucker said suction dredge mining disrupts the particular gravel where salmon prefer to spawn.
”You're rearranging the bottom of the river,” he said. “It's not good spawning habitat.”
Krimm said miners are open to some environmental regulations, such as limiting the size of a suction nozzle and dredging during limited times of the year.
”I know the miners do a lot of cleanup out there,” he said. “If you ask us to do something and it's reasonable, we're going to do it.”
He suggested there could be balance between the “hard-core miner” and the “extreme environmentalist,” though he wasn't particularly optimistic about that occurring.
”We've been battling with the states for a long, long time,” he said. “There's probably a lack of leadership to stay neutral from the standpoint of the different state agencies.”
The New 49'ers suffered a blow when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled earlier this month to let a court of appeals ruling stand. That ruling stated the U.S. Forest Service must consult biologists from other agencies before allowing miners to do anything that might harm salmon protected by the Endangered Species Act.
The Karuk Tribe had sued the Forest Service after a district ranger allowed the New 49'ers to mine the Klamath River without first consulting the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Service.
Krimm said miners bring much-needed income to stores, gas stations and RV parks that have suffered as a result of the moratorium.
”They've taken a tremendous beating,” he said.
Tucker said the state issued about 3,000 suction dredge mining permits before the moratorium.
According to Fish and Game statistics, 1.8 million fishing licenses were purchased in 2012.
”Fishing by far is a bigger factor in California's economy, and that's what we should be protecting,” Tucker said.
Krimm painted miners as the underdogs in the fight. “There are people out there who try to make a living. They work that gravel bar every day -- they weren't well-to-do. Miners don't have federal backing like the environmentalists do to pay for attorneys.”
”What the miners are doing now is illegal and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife is a willing accomplice to the crime,” Karuk Tribe Department of Natural Resources Director Leaf Hillman said in a press release.
Stopher said Fish and Wildlife Director Charlton Bonham, with input from the department's scientists and legal counsel, has 30 days from the March 20 petition date to make a decision on whether to remove the loophole.
”Petitioners have raised some points that we need to pretty carefully think about,” Stopher said.
Grant Scott-Goforth can be reached at 441-0514 or [email protected].

Copyright 2012 Eureka Times-Standard. All rights reserved.

 

[Oakview2]

1.8 million fisherman dumping lead into the waterways, their two stroke motors spewing oil into the with the focus of every one of them is to kill as many fish as the state will allow, and we are hard on fish. Go figure...

 

[Sample Pan Dan]

And again all BS, no more silt there than the last trickle Mother Nature gave us...

 

[Hoser John]

F'M' all

 

[Oakview2]

"F'M' all

"




Times one hundred million and feed them beans, save some for the pallbearers.

 

[goldenIrishman]

I love how they say that we miners are releasing Mercury into the environment when in fact we're taking it out of the rivers and streams, along with lead and a lot of other trash. It would be so nice for them to get their facts straight BEFORE they start rolling the presses. I'm thinking that someone should start filing suites against the papers that run these kinds of articles without checking their facts. They're slandering all of us and doing damage to a form of recreation that actually helps the fish and other aquatic life.

Like Oakview said... 1.8 million fisherman dumping lead into the waterways, their two stroke motors spewing oil into the water with the focus of every one of them is to kill as many fish as the state will allow, and we are hard on fish.

 

[dredgeman]

The June 7 paperwork is on the top of the cdfw suction dredging website. It takes the old definition of a dredge and strikes out the motor, or gravel suction. Basically you can use a pan. For Now

The Forest is starting new definitions also. Mechanical device. Sluice, shovel or anything that is a mechanical process.

 

[Hefty1]

[h=1]Suction Dredge Permitting Program[/h]Page updated 6/7/2013
[h=2]Proposed Emergency Regulatory Action[/h]The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) is proposing an emergency rulemaking action under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) to amend an existing regulation defining "suction dredging" and the "use of any vacuum or suction dredge equipment" for purposes of Fish and Game Code section 5653. The emergency action as proposed will amend California Code of Regulations, Title 14, Division 1, Subdivision 1, Chapter 8, section 228, subdivision (a). Consistent with the APA, CDFW provided notice of the proposed emergency rulemaking on June 7, 2013.
The documents prepared by CDFW as part of the required notice for the emergency action can be viewed or downloaded by clicking on the following links:

• Notice of Proposed Emergency Regulatory Action
• Text of Specific Regulatory Language to be Adopted
• Statement of Emergency and Information Digest

 

[dredgeman]

Thanks Hef

I was trying to get it up. but I had the pdf version

 

[dredgeman]

If we read the text carefully. it prevents sucking from a river. This will effectively stop any type of water pumping on any river. No power sluice , high banking, or anything with a motor.

 

[dredgeman]

with some of the other definitions in the works you will not be able to use anything but your hands and pans BS again. Statewide.

Ten Day Comment window.

 

[Hefty1]

Proposed Emergency Regulatory Action

Not set in stone yet.

 

[GrizzlyGremlin]

What??!! The government wants to totally control its people?? Cmon now thats ridiculous. Were not a socialist republic... Oh wait yes we are. Strap up men. Lets see how they enforce laws with thousands of barrels pointing their direction. Its coming, call me a traitor or rabble rouser all you want. We will have to physically FIGHT to stay free.

 

[goldenIrishman]

This is what you get when the people are afraid of their government instead of it being the other way around. I say "VOTE THEM ALL OUT"

Any person in public office that is not following the will of the people should be charged and tried for contempt as well as theft of public funds. WE are paying them to follow our will and if they don't... Just Choot EM!!!!

 

[Sample Pan Dan]

This is the watershed feading the east fork of th San Gabriel river... And they think WE are damaging the environment!

 

[dredgeman]

Yes it is a PROPOSED regulatory change

But so was the dredging regs. How did that work out even with comments.

The cdfw can close the loophole for 180 days as an emergency before they have to have a public hearing. CDFW already has the info to the legislature with the fee request.

 

[2cmorau]

I guess until we use the same tactics as the left wing brown shirts environmental groups have been doing, were not going to get anywhere, the truth just does not seem to work
it's against the law to scr4eam fire in a theater, Right? (So if a court can prove that you incite imminent lawlessness by falsely shouting "fire" in a crowded theater, it can convict you. If you incite an unlawful riot, your speech is "brigaded" with illegal action, and you will have broken the law. But merely falsely shouting "fire" does not break the law, even if it risks others’ safety.) hummm

http://civil-liberties.yoexpert.com/civil-liberties-general/is-it-legal-to-shout-%22fire%22-in-a-crowded-theater-19421.html


so writing your reps and telling them that the State/Izzy use of same equip with less efficiency on the Combie Res is not going to work, Then what?

"I am extremely disappointed," Feinstein said Thursday in a statement. "The National Park Service's review process has been flawed from the beginning with false and misleading science, which was also used in the Environmental Impact Statement. The secretary's decision effectively puts this historic California oyster farm out of business. As a result, the farm will be forced to cease operations and 30 Californians will lose their jobs."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/U-S-evicting-Point-Reyes-oyster-farmer-4077624.php#ixzz2UbzwfBlE

SO LETS QOUTE HER

 

[panner59]

So Dam Sick Of This State! Time to take it back and feed them to the fish!!