Reply to - Quest for Gold destroying aquatic life article

[ncclaymaker]

I'm certainly glad that the reporter, Bruce Henderson is a great fan of fiction or as Walter Winchell said, "never let the facts get in the way of a good story". Mr. Henderson has failed to "follow the money" in California. Dredgers have been removing record amounts of mercury from their sluices. The amounts started to look attractive, so they banned all dredging to study the dredges effects on aquatic life and mercury removal. They awarded the study to a single company. Mercury in California streams are estimated to be at least 2,5 to 3 million pounds. This was the amount that is estimated lost from sluices that were charged with the metal to recover the fine gold particles.

What are some of the facts that you chose to ignore are aeration of the water, removal of mercury from our watershed resources, lifting putrefying matter from the streambed, relocating a small amount of sand and gravel. The horror story of macerating fish eggs, mussels and small aquatic life is rediculous. They simple are sucked up into a large 3" to 4" hose and 10' - 15' later they are expelled onto a sluice for a short ride, before being returned to the stream. The way that you describe the event one would believe that they are send through the pump to be mascerated.

North Carolina has already destroyed its' fine rivers with dams that have truly poisoned our rivers, instead of letting nature "flush the toilet" every spring. Our rivers are polluted with a rotting toxic detritus that kills our fish, aquatic mammals and life year after year. My point in case... the front page of the Raleigh News and Observer, November 1, 2011, above your article (Extinct snail article). Who would have thought.

Unfortunately, the purveyors of "facts" left your story replete with pseudoscience and a hidden agenda. These are the same folks that sued the U.S. Forestry Service from doing controlled burns, so we could experience the beauty of uncontrolled burns, where the forest fires raged on. See the result below from feel-good psuedo-ecologist.

As they said in the 60's - check your source.


Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/11/01/1610604/quest-for-gold-destroying-marine.html#ixzz1cbgWnUMQ

 

[Armchair prospector]

A preconceived idea from those on the sidelines that have never had the prospect losing there job or cutback in work schedule. It is easy for those that don't prospect to make those that do the
"bad". God put gold in the hills for us to find. It is not for the lazy. As for dams, if there were none, most would die of thirst, as the population grows we need to store water for the summer months, when it does not rain, especially here in CA.. Reporters like this don't live in the real world, and don't think times ever get difficult. They must think all gold miners are rich, or they are just jealous of the fact that there are those who can be self sufficient. If a guy like that would just spend a day prospecting, he would get a completely different idea of what he was spewing about.

 

[Gramps43]

I just posted this in reply to a post concerning this subject:

The first thing I have to say is "BULL CRAP" this subject has been hashed out here in the west for decades and the Salmon are still running up the rivers in great amounts. The biggest problem we have with the Anadromous fishery is the foreign trawlers taking unrestricted amounts of all fishes not just the Salmon & Steelhead. Here in Oregon we have a specified time period for suction dredging in between the hatch of the summer run and the spawn of the fall run which protects the fish. BTW in all the videos of dredging I have seen not even one small fish has been sucked up, the dredge nozzle is in the gravel and mud and the small fish are keeping their distance and feeding on morsels kicked up by the dredger.

Now as to mussels, I don't know how many of you have seen the video out a hit piece done by a TV station in CA but they had a very young fella who purported himself as a Kurak Tribe biologist showing the TV twinkies dead mussels and saying that the dredgers had done it. I don't know where he got his diploma but this was straight from stupid, the mussels were several feet from the waters edge attached to a rock in a dry part of the river bed. It was obvious the water level had fallen as it was summer and rivers, being the sneaky-snakey things that they are, do that in the summer.

Most mussels that I have seen attach themselves to large rocks along the edge of the river and should be out of the area of interest of a dredger. Now if a dredger of questionable mental acuity is simply smashing mussels just for the fun out it then he should by all means be removed from the river. But to tag all dredgers as "mussel murderers" is a demented dream of a mentally immature mind.

Yes the dredge does return rocks, silt and little water creatures in various stages of dead and alive. The rocks fall off the end of the dredge and pile up but the dredge tender, the person topside, oh did I mention nobody with half a brain goes dredging alone it's not safe, with either a rake or shovel redistributes the area. Now here in the PNW those small rocks that are now cleaned and loosely laying on the river bottom are easily moved about by the Salmon and Steelhead to make their redds (nets), the eggs after fertilization drop down between those loose rocks where they are protected from predators. Even after they hatch the fry have lots of nooks and crannies to hide in until they've put on some size. Oh that plume that extends out from the dredge yes it does contain silt which will settle out some yards down river but if you compare it to the silt in a rain swollen river it's piddlie. As to the remains of the river bugs and such well the local fish pop. is partying down.

As for the scientific community that are against dredging they have an agenda that is driven in a lot of cases by the organizations they belong to and if thoroughly questioned you find they really don't have empirical data backing up their claims. The scientists on the other side do have quite a bit of data that backs the dredgers claims of no harm no foul. One of these scientific types is Joseph C. Greene a retired USEPA biologist, that’s right folks he worked for the very people who are trying to shut us down (all types of prospecting) so he knows that what the other side is spouting is pure "BULL CRAP."

I suggest you go the prospectorsunite/shutterfly.com site, join, it's free and then check in their files section, you will find plenty of ammo to shot down the enviros.

Good hunting to all whether it be MD, panning, sluicing or dredging.

Gramps