Hello everyone,

This past week was a busy one concerning the Karuk litigation against the Department of Fish & Game (DFG).

On very short notice, we got the word out last weekend that the Siskiyou County Supervisors would vote Tuesday morning (3 January) on a Resolution speaking out against the way DFG and the Karuks have settled the litigation behind closed doors (deciding upon further restrictions to prospectors). Timing required the Resolution to be taken up without delay; so that if it were passed, the Resolution could be included within the court filings that we will submit this next week. We feel it strengthens our position to have a County government providing the Court with a formal condemnation of this solution that the Karuks and DFG have come up with.

I was impressed and relieved that so many prospectors turned up for the Supervisor's meeting in Yreka on Tuesday, and I'm sure the Supervisors were also impressed. Some came from hundreds of miles away. Quite a few prospectors from Oregon came down to give us support. As a result, the Supervisor's hearing room was packed, with prospectors trailing out into the hallway.

Ultimately, the Supervisors unanimously passed a Resolution demanding that DFG follow the correct due-process in making any changes to the suction dredge regulations. They authorized Marcia Armstrong, who is the Chair-person for the Supervisors, to encourage the Superior Court Judge (in the litigation) to not endorse the Settlement Agreement between the Karuk's and DFG and Order DFG to follow the public process as it is supposed to do. The Resolution also authorized Ms. Armstrong to contact our State Lawmakers and the Governor to request their assistance in getting DFG to follow due process.

From the Supervisor's meeting, 49'er Mike and I spent two long days traveling to and from Sacramento to meet with one of the attorneys that is representing DFG in the ongoing litigation. Through earlier discussion with our own attorneys, DFG had agreed to allow us access to the documents concerning suction dredging, other than what they consider as privileged and exempt from discovery.

When we arrived at the Resources Department in Sacramento, they had already arranged a room where Mike and I could review the documents, and we were met by around 10 full file boxes of material. Big job!! Mike started at one end, I started at the other, and we met somewhere in the middle. We ended up taking copies of just under 500 pages. This was all copied again for our own files, and then we forwarded everything we received over to our attorneys.

While doing discovery in Sacramento, we were shocked in two ways:

1) The attorney representing DFG told us that the new restrictions to suction dredging are not being adopted pursuant to any of the emergency provisions contained within the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) (which would require some formal biological justification). He told us that the regulatory changes are simply being adopted pursuant to a Stipulated Agreement with the Karuk Tribe of California in the ongoing litigation. Just that; nothing more! In other words, DFG believes it has the authority to completely shortcut the full CEQA process by changing our regulations behind closed doors in a quiet settlement with the Karuks. Wow!!

We should all start asking ourselves why anyone should bother going through the whole public process in the first place, if a State agency can simply trade it all off behind closed doors with an extremist group that files a lawsuit?

2) Then the attorney representing DFG told Mike and I that because of the ongoing litigation, most recent documents concerning suction dredging in the DFG files would be withheld from our view under some kind of expanded attorney-client privilege. Therefore, they are refusing to make any of the biological information available to us that supports the reasons why they have restricted dredging seasons or eliminated the activity altogether on some waterways!

Can you believe that?

The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and the California Administrative Procedures Act (APA) require State agencies to adopt or modify regulations through a fair and open process, whereby everyone who is interested in the outcome may participate in the process, and whereby the agency is required by law to carefully consider all relevant material brought forward by the public and finally adopt regulations which resolve perceived problems in such a manner that creates the least amount of difficulty upon those persons who will be affected by the regulations. The process is especially designed to prevent extremist groups from hijacking the system. The documents in the DFG files clearly show the CEQA process was followed when our suction dredge regulations were adopted in 1994. The extremist groups were present. But their concerns were weighed against ours, and final decisions were based upon science which was available for everyone to see.

For lack of being able to come up with a more accurate characterization, I am referring to this present situation as a reverse-CEQA. Here, we have DFG and the Karuk Tribe secretly going behind closed doors and working out how they are going to modify our suction dredge regulations. And now, they are refusing to give us any of the biological information (if it even exists) that they have used to justify the modifications! This is exactly what CEQA was meant to prevent; a case where an extremist group has completely hijacked the system!

Our attorneys are working on it. Our briefing papers to the Court are due in on this upcoming Tuesday (10 January). Then I suspect both DFG and the Karuks will respond with their own briefs. Then we will probably reply.

It is going to be interesting to see how both the Karuks and DFG will try to convince the Court that the miners have no right to intervene in the litigation. Stay tuned, because we will be posting the briefs as soon as we have them!

Meanwhile, once again, I am putting out a request for legal donations. To date, we have brought in around $3,000 since this thing started. I want to express my sincere thanks to everyone who has contributed!

The bills for December legal work will be arriving at any time. My guess is that we will need to raise more money just to pay those. Our attorneys did a lot of work for us last month! This month's work by our attorneys is really going to run the costs up, because of the exchange of briefs just starting this week, and because of the Court hearing on the 26th.

You guys know that gulping feeling you get when you are spending more money than you have? That's the way I am starting to feel!

The law is on our side in this matter. Winning is mainly going to be about raising money to pay the specialists on our side to make good presentations to the persons who will ultimately decide the outcome.

You know, if we could just get a $10 donation from every person signed up on this forum, we would be in great shape at the moment!

Thanks for whatever you can do.

Dave Mack