I promised to put in my 2 cents on this ruling. I'm not your lawyer and you shouldn't take any of this to be legal advice. I'll be basing all my comments on the facts. If you are offended by factual comments you might want to pass this by.
First it's very important to understand that the appeals court
did not rule that federal mining laws preempt state regulations. What that appeals court did rule was that the lower court in Rinehart needs to consider the possibility that federal mining acts could preempt state dredge regulations to ensure that Brandon's rights were not violated by the dredge moratorium. There is a big difference between those two concepts.
Judge Ochoa, as the appeals court instructed, did consider the possibility of federal preemption in deciding one of the complaints in the combined cases. He ruled that on that single issue the State dredging regulation scheme was an obstruction of the federal intent. Judge Ochoa didn't, and couldn't, decide that for all times in all courts. His ruling only applies to the combined cases and only to the single complaint. There is a lot more to the combined cases than the preemption issue so that dog and pony show still has several more acts to play before it's over.
I think some people have gotten the incorrect idea that the 49ers, WMA or PLP somehow caused this win. The simple fact is that they had nothing to do with the preemption ruling. Brandon Rinehart brought the issue to the appeals court and that was the decision that caused Judge Ochoa to reach his decision.
Please note that Judge Ochoa ruled on the law after the parties had already agreed on the facts. Importantly he relied on the California Granite Rock decision rather than leaving his venue and relying on Spearfish or one of the other foreign judicial notices.
Judge Ochoa made sure his decision was sound and would not be easy to overturn on appeal in the state court system. Despite the sloppiness of both the dredgers complaint and the State's defense Judge Ochoa has kept the court proceedings direct, clean and on track.
It should be noted that it was Judge Ochoa that elicited the critical testimony by the State that they could not anticipate an end date for the moratorium. All his hints to the dredgers fell on deaf ears so he took the bull by the horns himself. It was the most important issue that was lost in all the distracting multiple complaints and lawyer conferences and motions.
My conclusions:
Brandon Rinehart and Judge Ochoa handed you this win. More than likely, in my opinion, all the other complaints in the consolidated dredging cases will be lost. Most were silly distractions from the beginning. Consolidating the cases had no advantage to anyone but the lawyer's billings.
If the Rinehart retrial is successful for Brandon and the verdict is upheld on appeal you will then have court precedence to rely on. Until then any dumazz can go dredging, get cited, argue takings or some other stupid defense and get a judgement against them that will give ammo to the opposition.
Dredge if you want, it's never been unlawful, but please be prepared to stand up like Brandon did and take the money and time hits to argue the single issue of federal preemption. Otherwise you are the fly in the soup and might just derail the whole train. If you really want this thing over and settled help Brandon succeed. His case has always been your best chance.
The consolidated cases will drag on until one side or the other gives up or the Judge gets tired of the nonsense. That will likely be after Brandon's upcoming win.
Any settlement agreement on the dredging regulations will be challenged by the greenies and probably a significant number of dredgers. It may take years to come up with workable dredging regulations. That dance will continue until the greenies all move to Colorado or the economy gets so bad the logic of letting people add gold and money to the economy overcomes the stupidity of the "mining is bad" nonsense taught in California schools and media.
Learn from this experience. There is no advantage to bringing multiple suits with many lawyers. A single winnable defense by a single committed individual will take down the State quicker and cheaper than all the lawyers and organizations in the State. It was always about the right to mine without undue interference. If you want it over and settled keep it simple.
There are Judges with agendas and some decisions are made incorrectly. That is rare but it does happen. The vast majority of cases lost by miners are due to poorly argued cases resulting from poorly understood laws and court procedures. Blaming crooked judges or wasting time and money arguing the same bogus theories over and over again doesn't lead to wins. Stop blaming the system - learn the laws - educate yourself and prosper!
And last but certainly not least please understand:
Brandon Rinehart is the miner's hero. He is the one man that took the ticket, argued the single issue that mattered and won. Learn from that and sing his name in your miner's songs.
Heavy Pans
A) The Department has conducted an on-site <----- BSinspection and approved a larger nozzle size inwriting; the maximum inside diameter of the intake
Yeah, we have (some) regulations but these are for the placer/hard rock operations only. Still the Mineral authorities trying to organize the messy Small miners activities : trying to convince small miners with the new methods/tools to use instead of the dangerous and ineffective methods they are using now. Some progress is made, new wet jaw crushers/mills instead of the dusty 
older ones. Spread of use of retorts to limit the health problems with the extensive use of mercury and moving away processing plants away from near populated areas. There is much more to be done, but the positive thing is , it is for the small miners improvements .
