We Won!

Today (June 16th), Alameda Superior Court Judge Sabraw issued a written Order denying Motions from both the Karuk Tribe and Department of Fish & Game (DFG) to enter a Judgment affirming the Stipulated Agreement which would have shortened or eliminated important suction dredge seasons in Siskiyou County, California!

We have devoted a special page to this litigation that can be found on our web site.

Judge Sabraw’s written Decision found that “…the Stipulated Judgment proposed by the Plaintiff and Department is contrary to law and public policy, and denies the motion on those grounds as well.” The Judge’s Decision accepted important arguments made by our attorneys,ruling that “The injunction would essentially operate as promulgation of new regulations on suction dredging, without such regulations having been subjected, as required by law, to the public notice and hearing requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act and the California Administrative Procedures Act.”

According to Department of Fish & Game (DFG) officials in both the Redding and Eureka offices earlier this week, DFG had not intended to enforce the 2006 amended suction dredge regulations upon gold dredgers this season unless the judge endorsed their Stipulated Agreement.

DFG wardens have been telling dredgers along the Scott and Klamath Rivers during this past week that they may dredge according to the original 2005 dredge regulations, as long as they possess a valid 2006 dredging permit. Several people are already dredging. The wardens have checked them for 2006 permits, and have told them they would be allowed 24 hours to conform to the amended regulations in the event that the judge endorsed them. As the Judge has decided that the Stipulated Agreement was contrary to law, we are assuming that the amended regulations are now void. Our attorneys will be contacting DFG attorneys early next week about withdrawing the amended regulations altogether to avoid further confusion.

I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has contributed to this magnificent effort. Together, we have won another very important victory! We should all pause for a moment and take a deep breath. Whew!

Our attorneys did a really good job on this. But it never would have happened without all the help that we received from you guys (and gals) and multiple other prospecting organizations who have contributed to the effort!

Hooray for our side!

First week-end Group Project starts the season off the right Way!

We launched our first week-end Group Mining Project this past week at K-11, about 20 miles upstream on the Klamath River from Happy Camp. The Project went really well, as we were able to return to a place where the high-banking was really good in the mid-1990's. But we were not able to return there since the big flood of 1997 buried it under a lot of sand. This year's flood in January washed most of that sand away.

The gold we found there this past weekend consisted mostly of sizable flakes. We recovered one gold nugget. Most of the gold was lying right on the surface of a brown hard-packed layer

As the Klamath River is still running abnormally high for this time of the year, we used one of the Club's large rubber rafts to ferry participants back and forth across. For those of you that receive the electronic version of this newsletter, the following video sequence captures our adventure from when we started on Sunday morning, through most of the final clean-up on Sunday afternoon. Check out the gold as we processed the final concentrates through the Gold Extractor:

Project, 10 June 06

There are a lot of visible places along the Klamath River where the large storm in January exposed streambeds in areas which have not previously been accessible to our hand-mining acivities. This opens up some excellent high-banking opportunities this season! Some of these areas are adjoining areas where we have done very well in the past. As just two examples, the following video segments show a newly-exposed area on the Seattle Creek Canyon Claim and another at the Schutts Gulch Claim.

Seattle Canyon

Schutts Gulch

Legal Fund Raiser Drawing!

To keep our legal defenses moving ahead in a responsible manner, we continue to need help in the way of legal donations. Please help if you can. Even if it is only $10, each contribution helps us keep good lawyers on our side! Believe me when I say that the most stressful part of defending our industry is in raising enough money to pay the lawyers!

To encourage our supporters to contribute, we are collaborating with Public Lands for the People (PLP) in a prize drawing. This drawing has already accumulated a bunch of great prizes, including:

Proline 4" Dredge with T-80 Compressor--- $3,000 +

Whites GMT "E" Series Metal Detector--- $799

MineLab X-Terra Metal Detector--- $699

Ounce of gold--- $600

Arizona Desert Gold Dry-washer with Echo Blower--- $575

Deluxe Prospecting Kit--- $400

Gold Cradle Rocker Box--- $385

8.12 Pennyweight gold nugget--- $350

Pioneer Blue Bowl Set--- $200;

Armadillo Mining Shop Gift Certificate for $150;

Dry Wash'n Guard Auto Detail Kit--- $120

More prizes are likely to be added.

The drawing will take place on 21 December, 2006. Tickets only cost $1 each, or you can get 12 tickets for a $10 donation. The girls in our office will fill out tickets in your name accordingly when your donations are received, and see that your tickets are included in the drawing.

Contributions can be mailed to The New 49’er Legal Fund, P.O. Box 47, Happy Camp, CA 96039.

Planning For 2006 Season

We are gearing up for an excellent mining season! Our Group Dredging Projects now have an 8-inch dredge, two 6-inch dredges and two 5-inch dredges available to us as we need them. This should allow us to break some gold production records in the upcoming season!

Week-long Mining Projects are filling up fast with advanced reservations. We can only allow a limited number of people on these events. I believe the July and August Projects are nearly full. So if you are thinking about it, I suggest you do not wait too long to make contact with our office in Happy Camp: (530) 493-2012:

Schedule of Events

Web Master Specials

I am very happy to announce that the Gold Extractor is now back in production! This latest model is more streamlined and better looking than the earlier version. I personally performed trials on the prototype several weeks ago, and it recovered just as well as the original model that I personally use in my own operations. Gold recovery could not be improved; because when set up properly, the Gold Extractor will not lose a single speck of gold. This is the best device I know of for processing the concentrates from a sluice or suction dredge.

Please click on this Special Offer for more details.

Help Wanted

We still need some help with several projects around the office this summer and are in need of a few handymen (persons) to give us a hand. We are prepared to trade membership credit for your participation if you might have some time.

If any of you out there might have a week or two of free time, please contact me through the office at (530) 493-2012, or you can email me at dcmccra@attglobal.net.

Web Site Expansion

Jason, myself and several others have devoted hundreds of hours of work during the past several months to a very substantial web site expansion that will be coming soon. I can't say anything more about it at the moment. Please stay tuned in, though, for important coming attractions!

"This is really an exciting project, I can't wait to tell you all about it. Watch your email for a special announcement in the comming weeks."
Jason, Web Master...

Reminder to Register

This is a reminder to please register your presence on Club properties with the office in Happy Camp, even if you must call in on the phone to let us know where you will be. This helps us with our annual assessment work requirements, and it also makes it easier to find you in the event of an emergency.

Phasing out Hard-copy Newsletters as We Can

If you are a fully-paid or an Associate Member and have an email address, please let the office know that you would like to receive a link to this newsletter by email. The electronic version is much better, because it is in full color and links to video segments. The video segments go a long way to putting viewers right where the action is happening! It also saves the Club postage money if we don't have to send your newsletter in the mail. Thanks for this!

Prospecting Store

We are in the process of renovating and stocking our prospecting store in Happy Camp. During the meanwhile, I suggest that you do not plan on our store being able to meet your prospecting needs before August of this season.

Longtime member and supporter, Mike Higbee, recently bought Armadillo Mining Supplies in Grant's Pass, Oregon. Armadillo is about 1 ½ hours to the north of Happy Camp. There is no sales tax collected on purchases made up there. I am aware that Mike placed some very substantial orders from his suppliers to stock up Armadillo to meet the equipment needs from our members for this season. Armadillo can be reached by calling (541) 476-7316 or by going to their web site.

There is also American Prospector's Supply in Medford, Oregon - which is about 2 hours from Happy Camp. They are also big supporters of our Club. They can be reached by calling (541) 282-0901 or clicking on their web site.

More New Mining Properties

As this newsletter is going to print, we are busy finalizing arrangements to make several miles of new mining property available to our members this season. They look good! I hope to have maps and details ready before the July newsletter, which will be out in about 3 weeks!

Weekly Potlucks have Started

We are now doing weekly potluck dinners at the Happy Camp Lions hall at 6:30 PM every Saturday evening. All members and your guests are invited to attend. Please bring a dish to contribute to the meal, along with whatever it is that you like to drink.

It looks to me like we are going to have a great season!

Dave McCracken
General Manager