California Bill Banning Recreational Suction Dredge Mining Passes Assembly Water, Parks, and Wildlife Committee with 11-0 Vote
Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
California Bill Banning Recreational Suction Dredge Mining Passes Assembly Water, Parks, and Wildlife Committee with 11-0 Vote
Senator Wiggins’ SB 670 Would Place Moratorium On Suction Dredging Until Scientific Review and New Protections Are In Effect
Suction dredge operating in the clear water of the Salmon River (a Klamath tributary). Murky sediment plumes cloud the river for long distances downstream.
SB 670 contains an urgency clause that allows it to go into effect immediately upon the governor’s signing. It will go next to the Appropriations Committee then on to a full vote in the Assembly soon. Dozens of Tribes, conservation organizations, and commercial fishermen support the bill.
California’s taxpayers heavily subsidize the state’s suction dredge permit program through the California Department of Fish and Game. The state spends $1.25 million more per year on the permit program than it receives in permit fees, amounting to a $400 subsidy for each of the 3,200 miners that obtain permits.
Scott Harding, Executive Director of Klamath Riverkeeper said, “It is heartening to see such strong support for SB 670 in both the Senate and Assembly. This bill helps address the dramatic decline of California’s fisheries and promotes equality by no longer allowing a small group of hobby miners to harm the state’s important commercial fisheries and tourism economies that rely on clean, healthy rivers.”
Suction dredge mining takes place directly in river and stream channels using a floating, gas-powered vacuum coupled to a sluice box. The miner, sometimes with the aid of SCUBA gear, vacuums sediment, gravel, and small rocks from the river bottom. This material is then run through a mechanized sluice on the floating platform. Gold flakes are separated from the sediment, which is spit back into the river in long, murky plumes.
Suction dredging represents a chronic and unnatural disturbance to the river and is known to harm fisheries, aquatic habitat, and degrade water quality. It can stir up leftover mercury pollution from historical mining activity and reintroduce it into the food chain, creating a public health problem. Depending on size, location and density of these machines they can turn a clear running mountain stream into a murky watercourse unfit for swimming and destroy salmon spawning habitat.
Recreational mining businesses and prospecting clubs, such as the New 49’ers in Happy Camp, CA, bring hundreds of suction dredgers to the Klamath and its tributaries each year. California’s regulations of the mining practice are more lax than in other states, making it a popular destination for hobby miners. At times, ten or more suction dredges can be found in one river mile on the Klamath and several hundred dredges are estimated to be operating within the watershed at one time.
Klamath Riverkeeper has supported SB 670 and is also a co-plaintiff in a pending lawsuit against California Department of Fish and Game over their suction dredge mining program. “We have multiple avenues to seek a ban on this harmful mining practice until it can be scientifically evaluated and properly regulated. Today’s committee passage of SB 670 is the another step toward a legislative solution to this critical issue,” says Harding.
About:
Klamath Riverkeeper is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to restoring the Klamath River and its tributaries, fisheries, and communities. Klamath Riverkeeper has offices in Orleans, California and Ashland, Oregon. For more information please visit www.klamathriver.org. For photos of suction dredging on the Klamath, please email scott@klamathriver.org .
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Tags: California Conservation
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I am a recreation miner that has bought gear from bass pro shops that I needed. Can I send it back?
The ban on dredging affects your buisness “again.”
Do you think dredging goes on when salmon are spawning?
Do you think 3,500 dredgers spread out over the entire state of California are killing off the salmon ?
Would someone please present scientific evidence that recreational dredging for 3 months out of the year has harmed one salmon. Yet the same story with the same lies is told over and over and over. That is really the height of ignorance.
Will you take back my stuff I bought from you. I never bought a salmon lure or ever caught one salmon.
The fisherman are still in denial about what happened to the atlantic cod.
If “anti mining” people would have thought they could also have blamed 3500 dredgers, that spend a weekend dredging, for the cod demise they would have. They wouldn’t have had any trouble finding ignorant politicians, to legislate vodoo, to allow the responsible parties to think “it wasn’t me”. How many salmon have been knowingly taken by fishing? Its the cod story all over again and people that have issues with mining, even though its regulated to death,without complaint from us are using the salmon and fisherman to further their anti mining agenda. The Indians will use the the fisherman to get rid of the miners and then the indians will toss the fisherman under the bus too. They complained they dont have salmon to feed their family but they are willing to share the salmon with fisherman if they would unite with them against mining. You figure it out . And yes I Darrell Griner am half native american that cant work his claim while my native bretheran still fish salmon and you get to watch!
darrell griner