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BREAKING....

Lol is this supposed to be some kind of threat to drop your unimpeachable knowledge on the thread? Why not spare the hilarious arrogance routine and go ahead and participate in the discussion, if you have something so earth-shattering (again, no pun intended!) to add? I'm guessing that "turning mountains into dust on a daily basis" also has no negative impact? :icon_thumleft:

In other news my F350 diesel pickup, four S680 combines the size of houses, a gaggle of tractors, spray rigs, pickups, semi trucks and other equipment don't pollute the air, the nitrogen and other chemicals I apply on my corn fields every year will never make it into the drinking water and the Atrazine,etc I use for weed control doesn't have any negative impact on insects, pheasants and deer. After all it's such a low concentration...just a few measly parts per billion; everything in moderation, I say!

Thanks for helping me clear my conscience; I'm permanently suspending my efforts to transition to organic and biodynamic methods - it's a hell of a lot cheaper to do it "the old fashioned way!" It seems that some people will say and do anything to justify their own version of reality.
 

First of all, I was being nice and asking if the other members here wanted my input. Many of them have learned a great deal from me.

Second, as you said your an amateur biologist. I am a degreed professional well on my way to a Masters Degree in Environmental Science. I know far, far more about this than you do and it is a pile of crap.

Go read up on substrate armoring, interspatial siltation, stream scour, land subsidence, and a whole host of other environmental factors before you start spouting crap.

If dredging causes so much damage, the explain to me exactly how things survive flooding when rocks, trees, and everything else survives when if you listen closely enough you can hear the rocks banging together in a flood.

And as far as the mercury bogeyman? I put that issue to bed a long time ago. The cure for mercury poisoning is selenium and vice versa. There was a study a long time ago where rats were given 60 times the lethal doses of both selenium and mercury at the same time. They survived just fine with no ill effects.

As far as land subsidence, you need to do some reading on it. It has been found that with out the very sediments in the water, that the eco freaks use to stop everything, land sinks as it compacts. Wanna guess what is really happening in Loiusianna?

There is a wealth of information posted under my user name. Search and read.
 

HHM. You seem to be torn between the desire to propagate in a commercial way and the damage that you believe you are doing to the environment. Destruction of the environment is not a good thing but not for the environment's sake but for humans sake. The environment ( earth ) was full of caustic and hazardous places and situations before humans arrived and will be so after we are gone. The point then is to save the humans from being gone and that is not going to happen. The Earth is going to shake humans off of it like a like a dog shaking off water. The Earth will go on its natural pand nothing we ever did will be apparent after time has elapsed.
 

Thanks for sharing your take; at first glance your opinion seems much the same as the other pro-mining positions I have read before. The ultimate conclusion always seems to be that dredging activities never produce negative impacts and, in fact, do a great deal of good for the environment and it's inhabitants. I guess I'm not convinced.

It reminds me of the conversations I have with my fellow farmers...no amount of diesel exhaust, chemical dumping, genetic modification, etc. is ever harmful. Of course they can say this with absolute certainty because they are entirely objective and without bias, and know more about chemistry, biology and hydrology than the academic eco nuts at the USDA and EPA, who can't set their own bias aside in their quest to get more funding and to punish hard-working farmers who are just trying to make a living. In the end, they're entirely off the hook and any attempts to suggest that harmful impacts result from their chosen practices are simply brushed aside.

"You know, all that diesel exhaust actually acts as condensation nuclei in the atmosphere and produces more rain...without our so-called pollution, we'd find ourselves in a drought! Fire up the tractors and let 'em run boys!"
 

goldenmojo said:
HHM. You seem to be torn between the desire to propagate in a commercial way and the damage that you believe you are doing to the environment. Destruction of the environment is not a good thing but not for the environment's sake but for humans sake. The environment ( earth ) was full of caustic and hazardous places and situations before humans arrived and will be so after we are gone. The point then is to save the humans from being gone and that is not going to happen. The Earth is going to shake humans off of it like a like a dog shaking off water. The Earth will go on its natural pand nothing we ever did will be apparent after time has elapsed.
Click to expand...

Ok, so that leaves us...where, exactly? We're all going to be gone eventually so it should be a total free for all in the meantime? I understand and agree that the earth was not some pristine utopia before human beings and that ultimately, human beings will cease to exist on the earth...whether through our own actions or those on an epic scale beyond our control. I suppose I cannot agree that this justifies the destruction of the environment while we are still here.

I believe we have a right to live, create, destroy and do our thing...but the better informed and more honest we are with ourselves about our choices and their impacts, the better are our chances to arrive at a balance that increaases the chance that we won't disappear in our own lifetime or that of the children and grandchildren we love. It seems some people simply want to "get while the gettin's good" regardless of the consequences - that's fine, but at least be honest with yourselves. When you choose to engage in an activity like mining, your choices DO have an impact...sometimes these impacts are considered negative by others who have a stake in the outcome. So don't seem so surprised when there are attempts to reign in your laissez-faire approach...and as I have said, I believe a lot of the more excessive and unnecessary regulations could be eliminated if miners were willing to take a hard look in the mirror, acknowledge the negative impacts of our activity and self regulate. We lose a lot of credibility with reasonable folks when some of us insist that this is all no more harmful to the environment than a Sunday walk in the park.
 

https://youtu.be/xmpGL6LKo2w

Just a little aside on Mercury. Cody uses it in a lot of his experiments. Touches it without gloves all the time. Submerged his arm in like a huge tub of it to pull out a gold bar if I remember right. Point is, he handles mercury on a far more regular basis than almost anyone who isn't using mercury in their job. He has some great video's on the element.

His viewers, the "typical public" begged him to get tested for mercury poisoning because he was exposing himself to the element so much in his experiments. Test results? Low to Normal levels of the element in his blood.

No one is saying go get a canister of mercury and pour yourself a shot.

I think much of the misinformation and mercury scare comes from the need to scare CHILDREN. Kids are idiots when they are little and definitely WILL eat or drink liquid mercury. Just like they eat lead paint chips. Pretty sure the last time I came into contact with mercury was in a grade school science class where a thermometer broke and the teacher acted like our faces would melt if we touched it. I'm sure there are plenty of adults who still think that, because that's the same level of exposure they also had to mercury. Touch it and you die!
 

No I don't believe it should be a total free for all. There is no such thing as free. Everything has a price or a consequence. As for the amount of mining I do there is little to no impact. If you multiplied it a million times there would be more impact but not much. The deal is there is not going to be a million times more episodes of the type of mining I do. Yet some government entities have enacted rules to reduce my exposure under the guise of harm. In my state a lot of people claim to be for the environment but will not do even the simplest things. I drive a full sized pickup and it gets about 16 mpg in town. That's 16 mpg if I ease off the line and keep my foot out of it. I see most people who because they have a small fuel efficient car, any make or model goes here fly off the line at the stoplight and use lead foot acceleration in every aspect of there driving. If I drove that way I would get 5 mpg. It is great that they bought fuel efficient cars but the true benefit to all would be if they would ease up on the pedal. Multiple that by 30 million cars in this state and the savings in multiple areas would be huge. A great many of the people I would guess would not like to see me mining in any capacity.
 

www.treasurenet.com/forums/gold-pro...roposed-regulations-redding-california-3.html

Scroll down to post #33 and read. My tablet won't let me post a link to a PDF for some reason today.

Ever wonder why more research like this isn't done? Because it supports our position. This area was chosen due to the fact that it was widely believed the impacts would be far reaching and devastating. This study proved them wrong.

If a stream bed can recover this quickly in the Arctic with the limited food supply there under those conditions then how quickly would the stream bed recover in more "hospitable" conditions? At minimum, the recovery time is cut in half.
 

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goldenmojo said:
No I don't believe it should be a total free for all. There is no such thing as free. Everything has a price or a consequence. As for the amount of mining I do there is little to no impact. If you multiplied it a million times there would be more impact but not much. The deal is there is not going to be a million times more episodes of the type of mining I do. Yet some government entities have enacted rules to reduce my exposure under the guise of harm. In my state a lot of people claim to be for the environment but will not do even the simplest things. I drive a full sized pickup and it gets about 16 mpg in town. That's 16 mpg if I ease off the line and keep my foot out of it. I see most people who because they have a small fuel efficient car, any make or model goes here fly off the line at the stoplight and use lead foot acceleration in every aspect of there driving. If I drove that way I would get 5 mpg. It is great that they bought fuel efficient cars but the true benefit to all would be if they would ease up on the pedal. Multiple that by 30 million cars in this state and the savings in multiple areas would be huge. A great many of the people I would guess would not like to see me mining in any capacity.
Click to expand...

I appreciate your sentiments here. In my metro Denver county, there is a big push to ban hydraulic fracking. The other day I had someone come knocking, asking that I sign a petition to that effect. I told them to come back when the petition included a similar commitment to reduce oil consumption. Got nothing but a blank stare from this brain dead housewife as she hopped into a 12 ft-long Denali to drive back to one of the gaudy 10000 ft2+ homes that now litter the hillsides.
 

goldenmojo said:
No I don't believe it should be a total free for all. There is no such thing as free. Everything has a price or a consequence. As for the amount of mining I do there is little to no impact. If you multiplied it a million times there would be more impact but not much. The deal is there is not going to be a million times more episodes of the type of mining I do. Yet some government entities have enacted rules to reduce my exposure under the guise of harm. In my state a lot of people claim to be for the environment but will not do even the simplest things. I drive a full sized pickup and it gets about 16 mpg in town. That's 16 mpg if I ease off the line and keep my foot out of it. I see most people who because they have a small fuel efficient car, any make or model goes here fly off the line at the stoplight and use lead foot acceleration in every aspect of there driving. If I drove that way I would get 5 mpg. It is great that they bought fuel efficient cars but the true benefit to all would be if they would ease up on the pedal. Multiple that by 30 million cars in this state and the savings in multiple areas would be huge. A great many of the people I would guess would not like to see me mining in any capacity.
Click to expand...

I'd love to see 16 mpg. And my truck is fuel injected. Guess I should take the lift off and drop back to stock sized tires. But if I do that, then I wouldn't be able to drag other peoples crap out of the desert.
 

HardHatMatt said:
I appreciate your sentiments here. In my metro Denver county, there is a big push to ban hydraulic fracking. The other day I had someone come knocking, asking that I sign a petition to that effect. I told them to come back when the petition included a similar commitment to reduce oil consumption. Got nothing but a blank stare from this brain dead housewife as she hopped into a 12 ft-long Denali to drive back to one of the gaudy 10000 ft2+ homes that now litter the hillsides.
Click to expand...

I have no problem with reduced oil consumption. E85, small displacement engines, and turbochargers work phenomenal together.

Just like the diesels in pickup trucks today are entirely too big. Let a 4BT Cummins run where it is most efficient and the power and fuel mileage will astound you. 400 horse, 800 ft-lbs of torque, 25+ miles to the gallon, and all out of a little 3.9l 4 cylinder diesel.

Like I said, I have no problems acknowledging impacts where there are impacts.
 

Again ..we are talking about dredging,not atomic radiation etc. We are talking about the maybe cleanest way of mining in existence,washing gravel with water..your analogies are colorful but in no relation to the dredging process.
BTW 20 cubed yards a day is not exactly what you will be able to work with what you call a "recreational dredge"
Scientific studies showed a little(de minimis) effect on certain species,but nothing they can't recover from.The fish eggs" Could" "may" "possibly maybe" be affected ,that was adressed and dredging didn't occur during spawning seasons..It was discussed and a compromise was found. What's your point?



About walking in the grass...the antihumanistic attitude of econazism shows very well in theyre attempts to outregulate humans from nature.
The freedom to walk on public ,wild grass for everybody who is able an willing to do so superceedes pretty much everything in my world.
In my own weird world it's crazy to even think about if i'm allowed to walk beside a path in the middle of public nowhere,i'm also a mushroom collector and leave predeterminate paths on a regular basis.
But if i'm not on search for funghis,i will walk on the path,because it's easier and i can avoid getting ticks.Also the other animals do it.They walk on game trails without eny regulation,just by instinct,reason ,self-determinated,by free choice cause they are of age inhabitants of the forests and because nature gave them the instinct to do so without eny agencie required.

I,m not talking about private golf courses,or tourist parks that are making money by putting nature in a pay per viev -no touch-museums with hoards of visitors to squeeze thru and milk as efficient as possible.
When did public property become nobodys property,public land use nobody's land use? When did individual freedom become the opposite of public freedom?
If all individuals are free in theyre pursuit of happiness ,the public is free,since the public is the cumulative sum of individuals.
Talking about private lands,if it's private ,it's private,we should not talk about it..if we do it's not private property enymore.
What we have here is just some stakeholders trying to have it all for themselfs and others for theyre ideologies and /or wages.


Back to dredging and the regulations.I repeat.
It was regulated before the ban and i believe biggest part of dredgers could live with the regs of the gold and fish pamphlet,but maybe its better to get Vocal with the locals,since i'm a few thousand miles away in an already doomed part of the world where states start outlawing even panning and showels become classified as "professional equipment" to be banned .
Stop them now cause they wan't stop.
In theyre new world you live in concrete city in a digitally surveilled flat,get driven by a driverless digitally surveilled car in digitally surveilled streets to your digitally surveilled workplace and nature is offlimits other than touristic zoological tours in parks. The greens in bed with big business and big grabberment ,who would have thought it.

.
 

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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 up with 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.
 

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