We all need to spread this far and wide

[Oakview2]

It needs to be seen by all miners, John Q pulbic. It exposes these green groups for exactly what they are. TV, radio, facebook, blogs, chatrooms whatever.

On December 12th the Western Mining Alliance received the
final report on the Department of Interior’s investigation into the
activities of Dr. Charles Alpers of the US Geological Survey.
In response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) filed by
the WMA, and a follow on request for an official investigation the
Department of Interior published the results of their investigation.
Dr. Charles Alpers, of the US Geological Survey (USGS) was
the lead mercury researcher for the water quality section of the
2011 Suction Dredging Environmental Impact Report (EIR). He
was responsible for collecting the data, and preparing the analysis
for the California Suction Dredging Environmental Impact Report
which concluded suction dredges were linked to high
methylmercury levels in wildlife.
He further stated there was only one year of testing data to
rely on.
In 2013 the WMA submitted a FOIA requesting all data
related to sampling of mercury on the South Yuba River, the same
location the suction dredge study took place. The information we
received proved over five years of data existed from research
funded by the Bureau of Land Management, and conducted by –
Dr. Charles Alpers.
When we evaluated all of the data we found there was natural
variability from year to year in mercury levels in wildlife, and the
levels of mercury in insects appeared to be directly linked to the
size of the spring flood. When we viewed all of the data there was
no linkage between mercury levels and dredging activity which
was in direct contradiction to Dr. Alpers’ findings.
The WMA submitted a request for an official investigation
alleging scientific misconduct over the withholding of the data set.
We met with the Department of Interior in June and discussed our
concerns.
Last week the Department of Interior provided us with their
report and it provides some stunning revelations.
The lead mercury researcher on the suction dredging EIR was
also a donor and member of The Sierra Fund. The Sierra Fund is
the organization which claims responsibility for developing the
legislation which banned suction dredging. They have publically
admitted they are opposed to suction dredging and they claimed
credit for writing the legislation which resulted in SB 670, the initial dredging ban.

 

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[fowledup]

Here is a rather lengthy but very informative video on Mercury and it's relationship with Selenium This is a new vidoe released this past month. The WMA website has or had a written version by the same Dr. Ralston being interviewed in the video.- Enjoy and educate yourself don't be a sheeple!

 

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[Prospector70]

Sierra Club and Sierra Club Foundation Accused of Tax Law Violations | Watts Up With That?

Scheisters, do enough digging and you will find greed and corruption. Pockets are lined all the way to the people we have entrusted with enforcing our law and protecting our rights to mine for minerals.
Bottom line is the Sierra Fund is a giant corporation making millions or billions off the backs of the taxpayers and raping the land while they do so.
The bird is the word.

I thought they were of the same stripe:
Established in 1960, Sierra Club Foundation (Foundation) is a California nonprofit corporation, organized as a charitable organization under the Internal Revenue Code. Operating as a separate entity from the Sierra Club, the Foundation's mission is to administer and disburse donated funds for broad charitable and environmental purposes.

 

[fowledup]

http://www.sierrafund.org/tsf-tours/

Notice the supplemental piece of equipment to their high dollar Super Duper Mercury extraction machine - a freakin Spiral Concentrator. Look at the enthusiasm on the faces of the big wigs you can just feel their sense of anticipation waiting for the mercury to flow out of the concentrator. Sheesh- How many decades will it take to process 200,00 tons of material with that? Reminds me of the Monks make the sand Mandalas one grain at a time.

Yes sir, they are indeed the absolute most qualified people for the task at hand! They're gonna have the Sierra's squeaky clean in no time at all!

Take a gander half way down the page:
"TSF is excited to lead two upcoming tours as part of our bi-annual conference entitled “Reclaiming the Sierra 2015: The New Gold Rush.”
Got that right!

 

[azblackbird]

A wise person would get all the necessary certifications to play their game, and then contract their services to the greenies. Just imagine being one of the select few "certified" miners able to go out and dredge unimpeded with the blessings of the Sierra Club and the environmental regulators to boot. Sounds like somebody in CA is missing the boat.

 

[Goldwasher]

That would be rude and unfair to the rest of the miners

 

[bubba2996]

Also wouldnt go with me but i thought about it....getting paid to go mining...no sir they did it dirty and i wouldnt want my name involved with the filth. I would rather figure out a way to fight them and beat them down, one would think we could prove their unethical lying ways and their conflict of interest of dr alpers

 

[azblackbird]

That would be rude and unfair to the rest of the miners

There are people who make things happen, those who watch what happens, and those who wonder what happened. Where do you fit in?

 

[fowledup]

A wise person would get all the necessary certifications to play their game, and then contract their services to the greenies. Just imagine being one of the select few "certified" miners able to go out and dredge unimpeded with the blessings of the Sierra Club and the environmental regulators to boot. Sounds like somebody in CA is missing the boat.

There in lies the crux of the manner, the thought and ability is there, but the reality is they have positioned themselves politically and legally at this point to be the only game in town. Food for thought-they lobbied the politicians, applied for tax payer funded grants, subsequently receiving millions to prove the concept, which everyone that matters politically and financially is convinced they've done. So if it's all about cleaning up our environment and not about the money. Where and who is the oversight? There is none, they have an open ended ticket, with no competition or performance insentive. Why not open it up for competitive bid, do what can be done to boost a failing economy. Why was that not a stipulation of proof of concept for the grant? How about an appeal to common sense and work with the largest work force in the nation proven capable of completing the task- The independent small scale miner. They haven't overlooked us instead they have flat ought sought to remove and annihilate us. It's not jealousy or bitterness about their involvement with the dredging moratorium. Remove the Mining equation completely, it will still be just as wrong. John Q. Public is still getting duped on the use of his tax money. I keep thinking that if enough information is presented about the screwed up crap that is being pulled on us, sooner or later folks will get PO'd enough to start doing something about it.

 

[spaghettigold]

now i don,t live in the us and can tell only from my perspective here in europe ,where certifications and enviromental impact studys became standard.
When you need to spend a fortune only to have all these studys(often without guarantee to get permission enyway)..then" the dream" is dead .And it,s a nice way to keep the small small.Also a nice way to create good payed jobs for those who do the studys. This for example http://www.holcim-sued.de/holcimcms/uploads/DEUB/Rheingold_mini.pdf is in germany,Swis based though. The biggest building materials company in the world.Theyre dredge works 140 tons of minus 1/8 inch material per hour.They also claim to work the gold out only as By-product,sell it is as bio-gold,cause it,s only gained by washing/gravity,exactly what we do, in form of coins to the double goldprice.Same where i gravity dredge ,with enviromental pretences they forbidd everything than handmethods,while a few meters away big gravel plants company dig holes,you can see from the moon. it,s a big club and you....

 

[spaghettigold]

maybe wma should get the certifications

 

[kayakpat]

Just look to the eastern rivers, what a mess of pollution, rivers orange, full of lead and mercury, and pre EPA rivers even had aught on fire. Thank God they have been spending the last 30 years cleaning up the mess. Even so everybody's water needs to be treated. The truth and facts ARE important

I love seeing hysterical conspiracy mongers as much as the next guy, but please look at what some of you are writing. Good gods!

The mercury in the area came from gold miners: it did not magically appear along the rivers and stream beds by an act of the gods. The burning of coal, which dumps mercury, spreads that mercury everywhere down wind---- not along streams, which is one of the many reasons why we know where the mercury came from: miners.

Dredging in some areas removes some of the sequestered mercury into the water: as much as rain does.

The land we mine belongs to everyone, not just us miners; the water we use belongs to everyone, not just us miners. When we work a mine, we are doing so on land that belongs to everyone: we do not have the right to poison the water.

Why is that not obvious?

Scientists merely stated the facts: they did not make any political opinions on the subject; they did not further any sinister Oh My Gods There's A Black Man In The White House agenda. The scientists merely pointed out the fact that everyone's properly (water) is being poisoned by some of us miners.

If you object about what the scientists have stated, write a paper on the subject and submit it to a science journal for peer review and publication: correct the flaws you believe the scientists made.

Sheeeish. And people call *ME* paranoid.... :-)

 

[azblackbird]

maybe wma should get the certifications

Now you're on the right track. If you CA guys want to dredge and mine, you really need to beat the greenies at their own game. There is no reason whatsoever that some of you guys couldn't pool your resources and become an EPA approved company, or organization that would be certified to apply and receive grant money to recover mercury from the many gold bearing rivers and streams. I guarantee you that there are some individuals who are being backed by some savvy mining oriented investment groups who are seriously looking to play that game!

I took a look at some of the videos and at their recovery methods and in my opinion they're a joke, but then again what else would you expect from a bunch of academics and government types.

 

[Goldwasher]

There are people who make things happen, those who watch what happens, and those who wonder what happened. Where do you fit in?

I don't think you understood my point. And as mentioned I would just feel dirty taking part in a system that would cut out fair opportunity to others. Especially when we have a granted right to mine. It would be akin to giving up and joining the other side. I have no desire to get to do something exclusively that others don't. It would just feed the system and doesn't seem right. Fact is the the system is/was in place for us smart Ca. guys to mine and it is being threatened isn't it I don't want to create a new system.

 

[azblackbird]

Fact is the the system is/was in place for us smart Ca. guys to mine and it is being threatened isn't it I don't want to create a new system.

Years ago when all the asbestos and lead paint BS was coming to light, a good buddy of mine was a demolition expert. He was wondering why he wasn't getting a lot of the jobs he was bidding on. He saw that many of the jobs he was bidding on were being given to those that had all these new fangled government certifications to handle asbestos, lead, and other so-called toxic materials deemed unhealthy for the sheep. He promptly got certified and even went one step further and got approved by the EPA to set up a waste disposal site. In one years time, he became a multi-millionaire all just from demolishing a couple of the old asbestos laden public schools in our county, and then hauling away the waste. He easily underbid the other demo companies only because they didn't have anywhere to go with the waste on a local level, and would have had to spend many thousands of dollars getting permits and paying to transport the waste out of state. My buddy only had to truck it a few miles to his own back yard.

Like I said... you can make things happen, watch what happens, or you can wonder what the hell happened! My buddy played their game, played by their rules, and he made things happen!

 

[Goldwasher]

Years ago when all the asbestos and lead paint BS was coming to light, a good buddy of mine was a demolition expert. He was wondering why he wasn't getting a lot of the jobs he was bidding on. He saw that many of the jobs he was bidding on were being given to those that had all these new fangled government certifications to handle asbestos, lead, and other so-called toxic materials deemed unhealthy for the sheep. He promptly got certified and even went one step further and got approved by the EPA to set up a waste disposal site. In one years time, he became a multi-millionaire all just from demolishing a couple of the old asbestos laden public schools in our county, and then hauling away the waste. He easily underbid the other demo companies only because they didn't have anywhere to go with the waste on a local level, and would have had to spend many thousands of dollars getting permits and paying to transport the waste out of state. My buddy only had to truck it a few miles to his own back yard.

Like I said... you can make things happen, watch what happens, or you can wonder what the hell happened! My buddy played their game, played by their rules, and he made things happen!

There weren't thousands of people already legally removing and dumping Asbestos...that had the rug pulled out from under them. After years of fighting dishonest groups working the system for financial gain at taxpayer expense. While trampling said citizens government granted rights. Your talking about a new industry prospect that your friend was smart to jump on. And a totally different situation. The fact of the matter is a person could become a prospector work and learn and make a living for himself on his own sweat equity. Their success based on their hard work and research. The reward besides monetary gain is the pride that they did something for themselves and their countrymen. That system was given to us and has been attacked by those who will resort to lies and when proven wrong they try to drain you financially to win. You suggest a system that very group would never let the sort of person a prospector is to take part in. Do you really think they have the environments longevity as their goal? There is no certification to do what you say. They would rather do a piss poor job at the taxpayers expense than have a bunch of independent contractors making a wage and supporting their families. If removal was their goal they would set up a buying system or at least mercury collection programs before they ever tried to become the entity with exclusive right to remove the mercury. What you suggest is not a solution to the problem at hand it strips your fellow citizens of a right granted them a long time ago...a right that allowed this country to become the industrial powerhouse it is. A country that for the longest time was(still is in many respects)at the forefront of state of the art mineral and resource development. What you suggest would put us even farther back than the anti-mining groups have tried to put us. There are a great many of us that could not look each other in the eye if we did what you suggest. It has nothing to do with intelligence it has to do with principal and the difference between right and wrong. You have no right to say I am doing nothing because I think becoming the enemy is not the solution. The anecdote regarding your insulation removing friend gives neither insight or clarity to the issue at hand and is wasted breath. None of us here can really tell or feel what he made happen. It was just a change in how one aspect of the demolition construction biz does what it does. You can bet however that if say ten of us were "smart" enough to do what you say thousands of people would see it and feel it and they wouldn't like us helping the state strip them of their rights. Is that something you really want to see us make happen? I don't think you really have an understanding of the situation we are in.

 

[azblackbird]

Your talking about a new industry prospect that your friend was smart to jump on.

So let me get this straight. If I was a professional dredger who lived in CA, who then became an EPA certified or accredited mercury disposal expert, with unfettered access to gold bearing streams, rivers, or reservoirs as part of my disposal contracts... you guys would shun me for being smart enough to take advantage of, or jump on a "new industry prospect"... am I reading you right?

 

[TAKODA]

I understand your point of view blackbird ..... and it has merit in a lot of situations but
I don't think this is one of them . I'll go with Washer on this ......... I'm not a big fan of
" if you can't beat them join them " anyhow . I agree with Washer in that we ain't supposed
to have to play ANY games at all in order to take of the fruit and fat of the land .
When it comes to a point they say I have to kiss their ass ......... I intend to misbehave .

 

[Oakview2]

All I know, is if you lay with pigs, your gonna smell like a pig

 

[jog]

All I know, is if you lay with pigs, your gonna smell like a pig

So you mean groups like this
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...PpYe2NBQyic7_LMeg&sig2=TMooDiZoFLKHd5St7rkozQ

 

[Goldwasher]

If I were to gain this unfettered access on a foundation of lies!!!!!!

If the conduit for this operation already exists!!!

If I was taking from my fellow citizens and cutting them out from even the chance to dredge.

If it will destroy the current mining law and the rights of use and access it grants!!!!

If these actions will have negative effect to the non- dredging aspects of the industry!!!!!

If it is one more step for the "Greenies" to control public land use!!!!!!

If it means I become one of them!!!!!

If it is based on a foundation of lies..........DID I SAY THAT ALREADY!!!!

If knowing all of this I decided to join them I would shun myself!!!!

Blackbird I don't know you your relatively new to these conversations so please take nothing personal. But, I must say again I don't think you understand the situation at hand. And was has been going on the last two decades regarding in stream mining.If we were to cave as you say we should all of the wrong doing and injustice slung our way would be justified and that would enbolden and amplify their "cause"

As the law stands now you can mine and keep what you find. Don't you think that based on the track record they will give "unfettered access" to miners based on a created baseless permit and let you reap the reward? They will most likely charge a disposal fee or something. besides do you know the construction industry all that well? People with connections will get the contracts that's how California works. And that is why the people you see running those horrible operations in those videos suck at it they are contractors not miners. We would be so far down the list it would be ridiculous.

On top of that to gain these unfettered rights of access we would TRAMPLE the property rights of thousands of people who own the property on those waterways claim owners and property owners. Is that really what you want to happen to your fellow Americans?

Being intelligent is great....being intelligent skirting the law not caring about others for the sake of financial gain is Narcissism and the core reason for all the corporate wrong doings in this country. I don't want it in the mining community.

I choose to be smart and not hypocritical where do you stand

I tried to put this in the form of more questions this time. I would like to see you address my points rather than share stories of your friends that are irrelevant to the situation.

Maybe you should scroll down several years through the forums and study up on the situation as a whole. If you still feel the way you do I will send you links to some green groups so you can start making your donations. You already want to support them