California Bans Gas Dredges
By Jeff Barnard, Associated Press
August 6, 2009

HAPPY CAMP, Calif. — Small-scale miners still drawn to California to chase dreams of striking it rich will have to find their gold nuggets the old-fashioned way for awhile, with shovels and pans.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill Thursday in Sacramento calling an immediate moratorium throughout the state on suction dredge mining until an environmental review determines how much harm the practice is doing to struggling salmon runs.

The method was used by modern-day 49ers in wetsuits to glean the last flecks of gold from river bottoms.

The bill is a major victory for the Karuk Tribe, whose members were overrun by the original Gold Rush of the 1850s and have been trying to rein in a new swarm of hobby miners as part of their campaign to restore salmon runs at the center of their culture.

"Our original intent was not to shut down dredging statewide," said Craig Tucker, hired by the Karuk to lead their campaign to restore salmon to the Klamath River. "But because the new 49ers and these mining clubs fought us so hard, we had little alternative but to challenge the rules."

They were joined by other tribes, California salmon fishermen and environmental groups in pressing the bill authored by Sen. Patricia Wiggins, D-Santa Rosa.

The California Department of Fish and Game last updated the rules in 1994 but have yet to revise them in compliance with a 2005 lawsuit brought by the Karuk and their allies.

An injunction revised last month ordered the department to stop selling new dredging permits until the environmental review is completed. The legislation brings an immediate halt. Fish and Game spokeswoman Kirsten Macintyre said the study should be done by summer 2011.

Besides altering the shape of the river and stirring up silt, there is evidence dredging can release toxic mercury locked in the riverbed, which can harm young salmon and lamprey, a jawless eel-like fish that is food for salmon as well as the Karuk, scientists say.

"We offered up a compromise awhile back with some of the gold-mining folks out there," said tribal member Bob Goodwin, who still fishes the Klamath with the traditional nets tied to Douglas fir poles. "They kind of had us backed into a corner. We kept pressing. We're very happy with the outcome."

The state this year issued 3,500 dredge mining permits to people from around the country. Many are held by the 2,000 members of the New 49ers gold mining club based in Happy Camp, an economically struggling, former timber town on the Klamath River in Northern California.

Dave McCracken, a former Navy seal who founded the New 49ers and assembled mining claims covering some 60 miles of the Klamath River and its tributaries, said he and the members will have to be content with panning and other techniques until the review is completed.

"For commercial activity, dredging is what gains you access to high-grade gold deposits at the bottom of the river," he said. "It's the only way to get at them. It's going to be tough to make money at it."

When miners killed Karuk people and destroyed their villages in the 1850s, the survivors faded into the hills, where they eked out a living hunting deer, fishing for salmon and even panning a little gold to buy flour for frybread.

A century and a half later, members of the Karuk Tribe have mixed feelings about the fight. Many harbor bitter memories of stories told by their grandparents of the miners destroying villages and washing down whole hillsides with giant hydraulic nozzles to get at the gold mixed in with the quartz and serpentine that color the rocks blue-green, gray and white.

"We just barely made it through that experience," said Florence Conrad, a member of the tribal council, while sitting at a picnic table at Katimiin, the place her grandparents taught her was the center of the world.

It was near the site that stories say Coyote tricked two women into releasing the salmon they had dammed up in their house. Tribe fishermen still net salmon at Ishi Pishi Falls, though the numbers have dwindled to a few dozen.

The moratorium came as remodeling contractor Matt Lauer, 37, of Portage, Wis., and Aaron Webb, 38, of Rapids, Wis., who recently sold a knife sharpening business, were getting ready to go home after their first taste of the thrill of finding raw gold.

Immersed in the river in their wetsuits, prying out rocks to get the dredge hose down to the bedrock where the gold is lodged, they regularly find themselves looking at each other and smiling at the idea of having fun and making money at the same time.

"It's an adventure," said Webb.

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Moratorium on Gold Dredging Permits in California
By Jeff Barnard, Associated Press
July 28, 2009

The California Department of Fish and Game has stopped issuing permits for gold miners to use suction dredges in rivers until it develops new rules to protect salmon.

The moratorium announced Tuesday stems from an injunction out of Alameda County Superior Court barring the department from spending state general funds to issue the permits after it missed a June 2008 deadline to develop new rules protecting threatened and endangered salmon.

Department spokeswoman Kirsten Macintyre said that rulemaking process has now begun.

Meanwhile, a bill that would go even farther and stop suction dredge mining until a scientific review is conducted is awaiting the governor's signature.

The injunction stems from continuing efforts by the Karuk Tribe, salmon fishermen and conservationists to force Fish and Game to enforce regulations barring suction dredge mining where it harms fish.

"It is morally reprehensible and illegal for California Fish and Game to continue to use tax dollars to subsidize the destruction of our salmon fisheries, especially so in the midst of a budget crisis," said Glen Spain of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, which represents California salmon fishermen and was a plaintiff in the latest lawsuit.

Since 1994, state regulations have barred suction dredge mining unless it can be shown it does not harm fish. About 3,500 permits are issued each year.

A 2005 lawsuit from the Karuk tribe argued that the department was violating that regulation, and a judge ordered Fish and Game to conduct an environmental review and write new rules, if necessary, to protect fish listed as threatened or endangered by June 20, 2008. But it was not done.

Arguing there was no line item in their budget concerning the mining permits, the department did not stop issuing them after the injunction was originally issued July 10. The moratorium was imposed after Judge Frank Roesch told the department that the injunction covered any expenditure of state funds, including turning on the office lights, in conjunction with the permits.

Telephone calls and an e-mail to the New 49'ers gold mining club in Happy Camp, Calif., and a telephone call to their attorney in Portland, Ore., were not immediately returned.

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Suction Dredging Limited by Court
Klamath Riverkeeper Press Release
July 14, 2009

In a stunning double victory for river advocates and fishing groups, suction dredge mining has been shut down this week both by California courts and the State Legislature. On Friday, a California Superior Court decision granted an injunction immediately halting use of general fund monies to process and issue suction dredging permits. Yesterday, SB 670 – a bill that imposes a moratorium on suction dredging pending scientific reviews and a new rulemaking process – passed the Legislature on a Senate concurrence vote of 28-7 and will now head to the Governor’s desk with broad bi-partisan support.

“This is great news for California’s budget and California’s rivers. The courts and the Legislature agree it’s time to end subsidies for destructive suction dredge mining in the middle of an economic and fisheries crisis,” said Scott Harding with Klamath Riverkeeper. “Governor Schwarzenegger, it’s your turn,” added Harding, noting that the two-thirds majority win in the Legislature means the “urgency” bill will go into effect immediately after the Governor’s signs it.

“Halting the suction dredging program will put over $1 million back in the General Fund,” added Harding. The state spends $1.25 million more per year on the suction dredge mining permit program than it receives in permit fees, amounting to a $400 subsidy for each of the 3,200 miners that obtain permits.

The practice of suction dredging has been shown to disrupt spawning beds, force fish into areas of dangerously warm water, muddy river water, alter the course of stream channels, and hurt or kill aquatic organisms living in the river bottom. At times, ten or more suction dredges can be found in one river mile on the Klamath.

This week’s court injunction prohibits the California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG) from spending any of the State of California’s General Fund on issuing suction dredge permits while the program is inadequately regulated. The injunction effectively halts suction dredging until CDFG completes an existing court-ordered revision of its suction dredge regulations. CDFG has previously admitted in court that its current suction dredge mining regulations violate the California Environmental Quality Act and Fish and Game Codes 5653 and 5653.9, but a defiant CDFG Director Donald Koch has thus far failed to bring the program into compliance with state law.

A coalition of seven fishing and conservation groups, including Klamath Riverkeeper, filed for the injunction on June 9th. Senate Bill 670 was sponsored by Senator Pat Wiggins with broad grassroots support from river advocacy and salmon industry groups across California.

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, and as defined under the provisions of "fair use", any copyrighted material herein is distributed without profit or payment for non-profit research and for educational use by our membership.