SB 670 (WIGGINS)

Dear Assembly Member:

or

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger:

Please vote no on SB 670 (Wiggins)

  • The EIR-update, ordered by the courts, and subsequently funded by the State, is now underway.

  • The Department of Fish & Game just issued a Decision stating that existing biological information does not justify imposition of Emergency Regulations upon suction dredgers.

  • Suction Dredge Mining has not caused the decline of the salmon population along the California Coast. None of the reports on the decline of the Salmon population issued blame upon suction dredge mining.

  • The 1994 EIR found that suction dredging under existing regulations provide positive impacts; among other things, creating additional salmon spawning habitat by loosening concretized river gravels. Salmon runs are on the upswing in the Klamath River.

  • There is no scientific evidence to support shutting down a legal and legitimate industry across the State of California before an update of the existing the EIR is completed, particularly when prior studies fail to demonstrate any link between local salmon populations and suction dredge mining.

  • Suction dredge mining is already limited in California to a short season that keeps the miners out of the rivers and streams when salmon redds are present (where the eggs are deposited). There is no suction dredging allowed when salmon are spawning. There is no suction dredging allowed on the Sacramento River, where salmon populations are presently in decline.

  • A moratorium on suction dredge gold mining in California will violate the private property rights of thousands of Californians who have federal mining claims along the rivers and streams, and will likely result in very significant “takings” liability against the State.

  • The average small scale dredge-miner spends thousands of dollars per month when mining. Much of this money is spent in local, rural economies like Siskiyou County where mining is popular. Tax revenues generated from expenditures such as fuel, groceries, camping, and mining supplies, means that rural counties and the State of California benefit as well.

 
Dave Mack

“This is probably our last chance to kill a suction dredge moratorium in California!”

 

 

Dear Fellow Gold Prospector,

Assembly Bill 1789 (includes anti-suction dredge provisions) will be attached to the full California budget bill which will be voted upon by the California legislature sometime within the next few weeks.

target=”_blank”>Here is a short summary from Pete Conaty. Here is a letter to the California governor which our attorney has already written on our behalf. Here is a more complete explanation of our strategy on how to defeat this harmful attack upon our industry, and how you can help.

We need your immediate help in sending a letter, fax or email to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, asking him to please veto the harmful anti-dredging language included within AB 1789.

We must either kill this rider right now, or there is a good chance that suction dredging permits will be adversely affected in California next season!

Here is a ready-made message (email, fax or letter) in opposition to AB 1789. It is better if you just use this sample to write your own message. But if you do not have time to do that, please at least copy the text from our sample message over to create your own fax, letter or email to the Governor.

If you don’t know how to copy and paste material off the Internet, please click here.

To make certain your message actually makes it to the Governor’s desk and the other lawmakers, our lobbyists are asking that you direct them to one of the following addresses:

Pete Conaty & Associates
1107 9th Street, Suite 530
Sacramento, CA 95814

Or Fax your message to: (916) 492-8957

Or email your message to: pconaty@sbcglobal.net

Our lobbyists will make certain that your message is hand delivered to the Governor’s office and other key locations!

Important: Even though you send your message to our lobbyists, the heading of the message should be addressed to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger as shown in our sample message.

This is probably our last chance; please help us kill this harmful legislation now!

Very important: You must include your own return postal address on whatever letter, fax or email that you send to the Governor. That is the only way that he can recognize and weigh the importance of your communication!

Thank you very much for your help in this very important matter!

Dave McCracken

 

The New 49’ers27 Davis Road, Happy Camp, CA 96039 (530) 493-2012

www.goldgold.com

 
Dave Mack

“We killed Assembly Bill 1032!”

Please make a donation to our Legal Fund.

I’m sure most of you have already heard that Governor Schwarzenegger has vetoed Assembly Bill 1032. This is a very big win for gold prospectors everywhere!

It was a very close race all the way to the finish line on this very harmful legislation; it could have gone either way at the last minute. Our lobbyist told me that the 1000+ emails and faxes that you guys (and gals) generated for our side during the last few days may have been what tipped the balance in our favor.

For those of you who responded to our Action Alerts, I thank you very much!

That’s another very big win for our side!

I will follow with a more detailed report (from our lobbyist) in the upcoming newsletter. Then we can put this business behind us and get on with some exciting gold prospecting activity!!

I hope you guys are following the gold prices; they are going up, up, up! Hooray for us!!

We just finished our most productive season ever in The New 49’ers, with plenty of golden adventure — a lot which has already been edited into exciting video segments. We will include those in upcoming newsletters.

For the moment, though, let’s all just breathe a sigh of relief and give ourselves some well-deserved pats on the backs for overcoming that awful legislation.

Whew; that was a close one!

Here follows Governor Schwarzenegger’s veto message:

To the Members of the California State Assembly:

I am returning Assembly Bill 1032 without my signature.

The purpose of this bill is to protect fish and wildlife from the potential deleterious effects of suction dredge mining. Although I appreciate the author’s intent and the need to protect our fish, wildlife, and water resources, this bill is unnecessary.

Current law gives the Department of Fish and Game (Department) the necessary authority to protect fish and wildlife resources from suction dredge mining. It has promulgated regulations and issues permits for this activity. Permits for suction dredge mining must ensure that these operations are not deleterious to fish and allow the Department to specify the type and size of equipment to be used. In its regulations, the Department may also designate specific waters or areas that are closed to dredging.

It is unclear why this bill specifically targets a number of specific waterways for closure or further restrictions. The listed waterways represent only a small fraction of the waters in our State where suction dredging is occurring. The benefit or protection from such a minor closure is negligible and supports the notion that scientific environmental review should precede such decisions.

Sincerely,

Arnold Schwarzenegger

 
Dave Mack

“Here is my comment letter to the State Water Resources Control Board…”

 

State Water Resources Control Board
Division of Water Quality
P.O. Box 100 Sacramento, California 95812-0100
Fax: 916-341-5620 email: commentletters@waterboards.ca.gov

6 June 2007

Dear Sirs,

My name is Dave McCracken. I manage The New 49’ers Prospecting Organization in northern California, where our members have access to over 60 miles of mining claims along the Scott, Salmon and Klamath Rivers, and some of their creek tributaries in Siskiyou County. We have around 1,300 active members, some who use suction dredges under permit from the Department of Fish and Game (DFG).

As I have been actively managing this program for the past 23 years, I have had plenty of opportunity to observe the impact upon water quality from the effects of suction dredging. My personal observation has been when any visual impact can be seen at all, the impact is small and localized. This observation has been similarly reflected by numerous studies and published reports on this subject. For example, a report on the water quality cumulative effects of placer mining on the Chugach National Forest, Alaska found:

“The results from water quality sampling do not indicate any strong cumulative effects from multiple placer mining operations within the sampled drainages.” “Several suction dredges probably operated simultaneously on the same drainage, but did not affect water quality as evidenced by above and below water sample results. In the recreational mining area of Resurrection Creek, five and six dredges would be operating and not produce any water quality changes (Huber and Blanchet, 1992).

I was operating a 12-inch dredge under Special Permit along the Klamath River during the early 1990’s. As part of that Special Permit process, DFG biologists visited the area where I was dredging and conducted turbidity sampling above my dredge and around 200 feet below my dredge. They were not able to determine any increase in turbidity. Therefore, my Special Permit to operate the 12-inch dredge was approved for as long as I continued to apply for it. These observations were consistent with other published information on this subject:

Thomas (1985), using a dredge with a 2.5-inch diameter nozzle on Gold Creek, Montana, found that suspended sediment levels returned to ambient levels 100 feet below the dredge. Gold Creek is a relatively undisturbed third order stream with flows of 14 cubic feet per second. A turbidity tail from a 5-inch (12.7 cm) dredge on Clear Creek, California was observable for only 200 feet downstream. Water velocity at the site was about 1 foot per second (Lewis, 1962).


Turbidity below a 2.5 inch suction dredge in two Idaho streams was nearly undetectable even though fine sediment, less than 0.5 mm in diameter, made up 13 to 18 percent, by weight, of substrate in the two streams (Griffith and Andrews, 1981).


Hassler (1986) noted “…during dredging, suspended sediment and turbidity were high immediately below the dredge, but diminished rapidly within distance downstream.” He measured 20.5 NTU 4 meters below a 5-inch dredge that dropped off to 3.4 NTU 49 meters below the dredge. Turbidity from a 4-inch dredge dropped from 5.6 NTU 4 meters below to 2.9 NTU 49 meters below with 0.9 NTU above. He further noted “…water quality was impacted only during the actual operation of the dredge…since a full day of mining by most Canyon Creek operators included only 2 to 4 hours of dredge running time, water quality was impacted for a short time.” Also “…the water quality of Canyon Creek was very good and only affected by suction dredging near the dredge when it was operated.”

As I am sure that you aware, environmental interests have been trying to eliminate suction dredging from California’s waterways for a long time. During recent years, they have been making noise about the possibility that the localized increased turbidity behind some suction dredges may contribute to raising water temperatures in the overall waterway. With concern over this possibility, we hired two qualified fish biologists (both retired from the EPA) two years ago to perform water temperature testing upstream and downstream of active dredging operations along the Klamath River. They tested in numerous locations, and were not able to find any measurable increase in water temperature behind operating dredges. Although, in some cases, they did discover cooler water within the dredge holes, and cooler water within the discharges from the dredges which were sucking up the cooler water (probably ground water) from the dredge holes. Similar results were acknowledged by published material on this subject:

Dredge mining had little, if any, impact on water temperature (Hassler, T.J., W.L. Somer and G.R. Stern, 1986). In addition, the Oregon Siskiyou Dredge Study (SNF, 2001) states, “There is no evidence that suction dredging affects stream temperature.”

I was personally directly involved with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) process during 1993 and 1994 (and again in 1997), when existing State-wide suction dredge regulations were adopted by California. I recall that the State Water Resources Control Board enacted a State-wide exemption at that time for persons operating suction dredges in conformance with Section 5653 suction dredge regulations. As I recall, this exemption was issued to simplify the permitting process for suction dredgers (many who visit from out of state and only suction dredge during a brief holiday or vacation), and also to not burden the State Water Resources Control Board or its Regional offices with applications from thousands of (very) small-scale gold miners who have a negligible impact, if any, upon water quality. This was somewhat reflected in the environmental Impact Statement (EIS) which was published by DFG at that time:

Suction dredging causes less than significant effects to water quality. (CDFG, 1997).

“Suction dredges, powered by internal combustion engines of various sizes, operate while floating on the surface of streams and rivers. As such, oil and gas may leak or spill onto the water’s surface. There have not been any observed or reported cases of harm to plant or wildlife as a result of oil or gas spills associated with suction dredging” (CDFG, 1997).

The impact of turbidities on water quality caused by suction dredging can vary considerably depending on many factors. Factors which appear to influence the degree and impact of turbidity include the amount and type of fines (fine sediment) in the substrate, the size and number of suction dredges relative to stream flow and reach of stream, and background turbidities (CDFG, 1997).

“Effects from elevated levels of turbidity and suspended sediment normally associated with suction dredging as regulated in the past in California appear to be less than significant with regard to impacts to fish and other river resources because of the level of turbidity created and the short distance downstream of a suction dredge where turbidity levels return to normal” (CDFG, 1997).

As far as I know, the most comprehensive study to date concerning how water quality is affected by suction dredging was contracted by the EPA to analyze of the effects on mining in the Fortymile River in Alaska. The report stated:

“This report describes the results of our research during 1997 and 1998 into the effects of commercial suction dredging on the water quality, habitat, and biota of the Fortymile River. The focus of our work on the Fortymile in 1997 was on an 8-inch suction dredge (Site 1), located on the mainstem At Site 1, dredge operation had no discernable effect on alkalinity, hardness, or specific conductance of water in the Fortymile. Of the factors we measured, the primary effects of suction dredging on water chemistry of the Fortymile River were increased turbidity, total filterable solids, and copper and zinc concentrations downstream of the dredge. These variables returned to upstream levels within 80-160 m downstream of the dredge. The results from this sampling revealed a relatively intense, but localized, decline in water clarity during the time the dredge was operating” (Prussian, A.M., T.V. Royer and G.W. Minshall, 1999).

“The data collected for this study help establish regional background geochemical values for the waters in the Fortymile River system. As seen in the chemical and turbidity data any variations in water quality due to the suction dredging activity fall within the natural variations in water quality” (Prussian, A.M., T.V. Royer and G.W. Minshall, 1999).

While I acknowledge that the possibility exists that a suction dredger could encounter an occasional patch of particularly-silty streambed, while dredging in a smaller-sized waterway, which could cause detectable increased turbidity levels some extended distance downstream, this would be a rare anomaly which seldom occurs. My guess is that our adversaries in the environmental community will grasp at these very rare occurrences to push their own agenda — which we all know has less to do with the health of fish, than it does about trying to rid America’s public lands of productive activity.

Nothing short of complete prohibition of all productive activity can guarantee that an occasional anomaly might not occur. This is true of any regulated activity. We would not want to see the Statewide exemption for suction dredgers un-renewed just because of the possibility of a rare anomaly. There are several reasons to pause and consider:

1) The occurrence of excess turbidity by suction dredgers is so rare, there is no evidence that we are aware of that even suggests that those rare occurrences have ever harmed a single fish or other aquatic species.

2) The burdensome and expensive requirement for suction dredgers to acquire a water quality permit would all but eliminate the activity in the State of California. DFG is already charging out-of-state visitors $167.25 for an annual suction dredge permit. That’s already a lot of money to spend on a permit for someone who is only going to visit for a few days or a week or two. I know, because I am in the business of trying to bring visitors to California. And I can tell you that many who would otherwise come here are already discouraged from coming because of the cost of the existing suction dredge permit.

Adding a burdensome water quality permit to the process will also discourage most Californians who presently enjoy the activity of suction dredging.

Gold prospecting has been a productive activity in California since before we were even a State. And while I acknowledge that some of the earlier practices were harmful to the environment, suction dredging today is carefully regulated by DFG and other agencies to ensure that the overall impacts do not create any measurable negative impact.

With this in mind, I encourage you to please weigh the negatives against the positives when you make a decision concerning a renewal of your state-wide exemption for suction dredgers. While I understand that economic consequences not your first concern, good leadership and responsibility to Californians require State agencies to take an honest look at the costs and benefits of the various policies which are being considered.

In this case, if you choose to not renew the state-wide water quality exemption for suction dredgers, I can nearly guarantee that you will eliminate an entire industry in this State; an industry which does a great deal to help support many rural communities; an industry that generates millions upon millions of dollars in income for California — and would continue to do so for the foreseeable future. We hope you will carefully consider what will be gained before you destroy our industry!

Thank you very much for considering my comments.

Sincerely,

Dave McCracken
General Manager, The New 49’ers

 

 
Dave Mack

“Your comments are needed!”

 

The California State Water Resources Board is requesting comments from the public regarding the effects of suction dredge mining on water quality. Based upon the comments, the Water Board will assess the available information to evaluate a possible further course of action. You can link to the Water Board’s Notice here.

This is a very important matter to the future of our industry. The outcome of this will either help or hurt gold dredgers in California!

We believe that some of the most productive input prospectors can provide to the Water Board are the conclusions from multiple studies which have already proven that suction dredge activity within existing California regulations does not create any significant negative impact upon water quality.

To help with this, a very qualified fish biologist has taken the time to compile for us many of the important conclusions into a report which you can copy from. Those conclusions can be found here.

The Water Board’s Notice requests comments to be sent by email to the following address: commentletters@waterboards.ca.gov Comments are being accepted until 12 PM on June 22. The subject line of your email should read, “Comment Letter – Suction Dredge Mining

Please take a moment to send in your comments on behalf of suction dredgers. Because I can guarantee that our adversaries will be submitting material with the hope of shutting us down!

Please don’t copy all of the conclusions into your comments. It is better to just copy those sections which give support to the arguments which you personally want to make. It is good if you make your own arguments, and then copy over the citations which reinforce your position. This way, everyone is not just sending in the very same report!

Note: The citations which you want to copy are the ones that include the source of the information inside parenthesis. Here’s an example: Dredge mining had little, if any, impact on water temperature (Hassler, T.J., W.L. Somer and G.R. Stern, 1986).

The citations in the report will carry weight, because they originate from published results. If you don’t know how to copy and paste material off the Internet, please click here.

As an example, here is a copy of the comments which I personally sent in. They relay some of my own experiences concerning water quality, and they use some of the compiled citations to reinforce my view.

Important: You must include your name and address on your comments! Comments are generally not accepted by anonymous persons! Please keep your comments civilized, and please keep them focused upon the subject of how dredging affects water quality. That is the only thing they will consider in these comments!

The open hearing on this matter is scheduled for 10 AM on 12 June at the Resources Building, First Floor Auditorium, 1416 9th Street in Sacramento. Being there is not as important as sending in written comments, but it would be a good thing to have a big showing of support at the hearing if you can make it!

The main thing is to please draft some comments and send them in!

Thank you very much for your help in this matter!

Dave McCracken The New 49’ers

The New 49’ers27 Davis Road, Happy Camp, CA 96039 (530) 493-2012

www.goldgold.com

 
Dave Mack

“This is the current status of the ongoing EIR process on suction dredging in California.”

This was a section of Dave’s March newsletter, which can be found here.

Progress on EIR:

The one thing that will allow us all the put our suction dredges back in the California waterways is completion of the EIR!

It is so important that the job must be done right. This is because anti-mining activists are also attacking us within the ongoing EIR process. They are trying to show that suction dredging creates really bad impacts, when it actually does not.

During the past several weeks, DFG has organized several formal meetings where interested parties (concerning suction dredging) have been able to meet and discuss the various issues which need to be worked out. The third and final of these meetings took place on 11 March. The New 49’ers, along with several other organizations within our industry, has very qualified representatives at these meetings. Anti-mining activists are also well represented in the process. There are specialists involved which represent all sides of the issues.

Through the discussions and other public input so far concerning suction dredging, the subject of mercury appears to be one of the most important and contentious issues so far.

While the authorities have proven that normal suction dredges recover 98% of the mercury that is sucked up into our sluice boxes, anti-mining activists are taking strong issue with the potential loss of 2% becoming a water quality violation. Yes; I know; you would think that the various government agencies and environmental organizations would be happy with a 98% rate of mercury recovery at no cost to the taxpayers. But nearly all of the focus remains upon the potential 2% loss of mercury which would have already been in the stream or river in the first place!

I personally have been involved with several federal projects during the past few years to help figure out how to recover 100% of the mercury (zero loss) when trying to remove mercury from submerged waste sites where hundreds or thousands of pounds of mercury were lost from historical gold mines.

During 2008, we developed a closed circuit dredging devise that is able to trap all of the sediments and all of the water used to create suction-power at the nozzle. We tested the system with assistance from the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Geological Service, actually proving that by recirculating the same water over and over gain to dredge contaminated waste material (from the South Yuba River in California), we were able to capture and concentrate 100% of the finest particles of mercury that would presumably be lost from a normal suction dredge. The project was quite successful!

However, anti-mining activists have now taken the mercury concentration levels within our closed system (which was used for hours within a known waste site) to try and prove their case that suction dredgers are discharging high levels of mercury into active waterways all across the State. It never ceases to amaze me how low our enemies will stoop to try and get rid of us! Here, we were doing a really good thing by developing equipment that will help clean up serious waste sites. And anti-mining activists are trying to misuse the data to create a negative reflection upon all suction dredgers.

So I have personally invested quite a lot of time in trying to straighten this all out within the ongoing EIR process concerning normal dredging activity outside of hazardous waste sites. You can find my work on this subject on our web site. I highly recommend this as excellent reading if you want to get a feel for what we are really up against.

The New 49’ers27 Davis Road, Happy Camp, CA 96039 (530) 493-2012 www.goldgold.com

 
Dave Mack

“Here is some further explaination of the Karuk Tribe Lawsuit against the California DFG to change dredging regulations…”

(Forum post dated 16 March, 2006)

Hello everyone,

For those of you who are not aware, this is about some ongoing litigation in which the Karuk Tribe has been suing the California Department of Fish & Game (DFG) for issuing suction dredge permits which allow dredging in Coho salmon habitat in northern California. There is a special page dedicated to this ongoing litigation on our web site.

To resolve the litigation, the Karuks and DFG have agreed to a Stipulated Settlement which eliminates suction dredging on some waterways and reduces our dredging seasons on others. The regulatory changes are very substantial; especially to people owning mining claims or private property along the waterways which would be closed to dredging by the Settlement.

As the lawsuit was quietly filed in Alameda County last May, which is hundreds of miles away from the affected areas, and no notification was ever given to anyone within the mining community from either DFG or the Karuks, we did not even become aware of the ongoing litigation until after DFG began implementing modified dredge regulations pursuant to their settlement with the Karuk Tribe.

As soon as we became aware of the ongoing litigation, our organization (New 49’ers) took the lead in representing the mining interests of our members, and we motioned the Alameda Superior Court to Intervene in the litigation. Luckily, the Court had not yet endorsed the Stipulated Settlement, even though DFG had already changed our suction dredge regulations to conform to the Agreement.

Over very strong objections voiced by DFG and the Karuk Tribe (arguing that miners had no rights in the matter), the Court granted us Intervention status on February 9th of this year.

Subsequently, both the Karuks and DFG have made two important motions in the case:

1) They have motioned the Court to formally endorse their Settlement Agreement which changes our dredge regulations without any public input, no formal hearing or any biological justification.

2) They have motioned to Court for Protective Orders against our discovery demands for the biological justifications supporting their decision to further restrict or eliminate dredge seasons.

In turn, we filed our final brief a few days ago opposing the Stipulated Agreement and reaffirming our need to acquire biological data which supports both the Karuk and DFG positions within the litigation. To date, the Karuks have only made general allegations concerning potential harm from suction dredging, and DFG has taken the position that the pre-existing suction dredging regulations provided adequate protection to fish. There is no evidence in the record showing any harm to any fish from suction dredging under the pre-existing regulations. Therefore, we believe it is very unreasonable for DFG to enter into a private agreement with the Karuks to impose further restrictions upon suction dredge miners! Under these circumstances, our demands for the biological information which DFG and the Karuks are relying upon seem more than justified.

Both the Karuks and DFG have argued in this case that they should be allowed to reduce or eliminate our dredging seasons in a private agreement amongst themselves, without ever having to provide any biological justification to anyone, not even the court. They have presented the Court with case law to support their position which basically states that Parties in civil litigation have the right to make any private agreement amongst themselves, as long as the parties agree.

In turn, we are making the argument that the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) mandates that agencies of the State are required to follow a very structured public process before it may adopt regulatory changes for an industry, and that this is not something the State has authority to trade off in a Settlement Agreement with an anti-industry group. We also argue that the case law which the Karuks and DFG rely upon does not allow two parties in litigation to settle their dispute by trading off rights or property which belong to others.

I believe these are the last filings in this case before the judge will decide what to do about these two issues. The hearing is scheduled for 9:00 AM on 23 March at Alameda County Superior Court, Department 512, Hayward Hall of Justice, 24405 Amador Street, Hayward, California.

Once again, we have done our absolute best to represent the interests of small-scale miners. Now we must see how the judge will decide. I encourage as many miners and prospectors as possible to be present during the hearing next week. Please be there if you can!

As I have said before, winning these days is mainly about raising money to pay the best attorneys we can afford.

The law is on our side. But we are up against very practiced and respected environmental law firms. Winning means having practiced and experienced attorneys on our own side who know how to make arguments which the judge will give careful consideration to. Anything short of that lessens the chance of preserving our rights. This is the way important matters are resolved in America today. To play the game, we need to be right in there alongside the best of them making our position heard. I hope you guys are in agreement with this strategy.

I want to express my sincere thanks to those of you who have responded to my requests for financial donations to help pay the attorneys that have been helping us with this case. Thank you! The need is a continuing one, so I encourage you to please keep the flow coming our way. In turn, we will do our absolute best to hold the line for our side.

Let’s keep our collective fingers crossed for a favorable decision on the 23rd!

All the best,

Dave Mack

 

 
Dave Mack

“Here is some further explaination of the Karuk Tribe Lawsuit against the California DFG to change dredging regulations…”

Forum post, 30 March 2006

Hello everyone,

I’m sorry my report on this has taken so long, but I have been reluctant to comment beyond what was reported last week until I could obtain an actual copy of the Amended Stipulation which was submitted to the Court by the Karuks and Department of Fish & Game (DFG).

The hearing that was scheduled last week (23 March) only allowed an hour for all interested persons to present verbal arguments. The Karuks and DFG showed up at the hearing with a “new deal” in the form of an “Amended Stipulation,” which commits DFG to begin a new rule-making process under CEQA within 120 days (4 months). The injunction would expire in one year plus 120 days (unless extended by the Court) with the expectation of having new rules in place by that time. This is referring to the very same or more restrictive regulations which DFG has issued pursuant to the earlier Stipulated Agreement.

My own interpretation of this is that they are basically asking the judge to impose an injunction until DFG undergoes a formal process under CEQA that imposes an equal or greater amount of restriction upon suction dredging as what presently exists within the modified regulations. This solution is a total violation of the CEQA process, because it imposes a mandate upon DFG to arrive at a final outcome, regardless of the science or other factors which DFG is required to consider during a proper CEQA action. What is the use of going through a public process in the first place to examine the science and develop the most reasonable solutions, if DFG and the Karuks have already agreed to what the outcome is going to be? That is backwards!

DFG argued in the hearing that they have met discovery requirements to the miners, because they have allowed us access to all existing information in their files, other than anything having to do with the ongoing litigation. Our attorneys reminded the judge that it is discovery concerning the ongoing litigation which DFG is refusing to provide. They are insisting upon keeping a secret of how they are justifying further restrictive changes upon our industry!

DFG also argued that the miners are really not hurt by the new dredging restrictions, because there are many other places where we can go to prospect for gold. In turn, we argued that land owners and miners who own mineral rights within the affected area will be adversely affected by the changed regulations.

As the time allowed for this hearing was quite short, there was not enough time to fully debate the issues in front of the judge. However, the written briefs which have been submitted to the Court have exhaustively covered all sides of the issues. The key documents in the litigation can be found on the special page we have created for this on our web site.

Our lawyers argued in the hearing that the “new deal” should not be accepted by the Court for the very same reasons the earlier Stipulated Agreement should have been rejected: A State agency does [U]not[/U] have the authority to change industry regulations through a private agreement with an anti-industry group in the first place. Especially without providing [U]any[/U] factual support of its reasons to anyone!

The Court has taken everything under advisement and we assume she will issue a ruling reasonably soon. Stay tuned in, because we will put up a copy of the ruling as soon as one is issued.

I want to thank those of you who have heard my requests for financial contributions to help pay the attorneys that are working so hard for our side. I encourage you to please keep the support coming our way so that we can keep up with continuing costs of this litigation. This is going to be very important in the event we find ourselves needing to file an appeal!

Let’s all keep our fingers crossed for a positive outcome!!

All the best,

Dave Mack

 

 
Dave Mack

“Here is some further explaination of the Karuk Tribe Lawsuit against the California DFG to change dredging regulations…”

(Forum post dated 08 May, 2006)

Hello everyone,

Here follows an update even since I wrote the
May newsletter a few days ago:

The judge’s Order granting Intervention status to miners in the litigation concerning our California dredging regulations was made final on 9 February. This has allowed us to participate in the ongoing litigation. We have created a special page on our web site that includes explanations and the most important documents concerning this case.

We have also submitted a motion for the judge to reject the Stipulation which has been submitted to the Court by DFG and the Karuks to end the litigation. This target=”_blank”>Stipulation agrees to an injunction preventing DFG from issuing suction dredge permits for the Main Stem of the Salmon River, Elk Creek, Indian Creek and other waterways. The injunction also reduces the dredging season along the Klamath and Scott Rivers to 1 July through 15 September. These are substantial changes to our suction dredge regulations. DFG began implementing them in November of 2005 without so much as a single notice to the mining community or the many other people that will be adversely affected.

The judge’s most recent target=”_blank”>Order has requested supplemental briefing from all the Parties concerning how a very recent appellate decision (Trancas Property Owners Association v. City of Malibu) affects our case. In the Trancas Decision, the appellate court made several important findings that were relevant to our case. For example, the court said, “. . . whatever else it may permit, the exemption cannot be construed to empower a city council to take or agree to take, as part of a non-publicly ratified litigation settlement, action that by substantive law may not be taken without a public hearing and an opportunity for the public to be heard. As a matter of legislative intention and policy, a statute that is part of a law intended to assure public decision-making, except in narrow circumstances, may not be read to authorize circumvention and indeed violation of other laws requiring that decisions be preceded by public hearings, simply because the means and object of the violation are settlement of a lawsuit.Trancas, 41 Cal. Rptr.3d at 210. While this had to do with a city council bypassing the required public participation under the Brown Act, the very same legal theory concerning the public process requirement also applies to State agencies that are in the process of changing industry regulations.

In the present litigation, DFG’s position is that they can skirt around the provisions of the California Environmental Policy Act (CEQA) by making a court settlement, even though they are arguing in court that they have already been affording adequate protections to fish without making a settlement agreement with the Karuks.

CEQA was implemented to prevent arbitrary and capricious actions from State officials, while providing reasonable protections for the environment.

All parties have already submitted supplemental briefing to the Court. You can find target=”_blank”>ours on the special web page that I mentioned above. You can also find the target=”_blank”>Karuk and target=”_blank”>DFG supplemental briefs there. We have since target=”_blank”>replied to their supplemental briefs.

Both DFG and the Karuks are still trying to argue that a State agency has the authority to bypass its obligation to include the public by making a private settlement agreement with an anti-industry group that is suing them. Interestingly, the Karuk’s were initially suing DFG for not following the CEQA process. That has evolved into an Agreement between themselves to definitely not follow the CEQA process! We do not see how the judge could go along with this, but we will all have to wait and see what she decides.

The judge could now issue a decision any day. Stay tuned. We will let you know the result as soon as we have it!

All the best,
Dave Mack

 

 
Dave Mack

“Here is some further explaination of the Karuk Tribe Lawsuit against the California DFG to change dredging regulations…”

(Forum post dated 22 May, 2006)

Hello everyone.

There is a new development in the Karuk/DFG litigation. Walter Eason, A person with gold mining interests, filed a Motion on his own behalf to intervene in the ongoing litigation on May 12th, just last week.

We were expecting a decision from the judge at any moment concerning whether or not she would strike down the Stipulated Agreement which was negotiated by the Department of Fish & Game (DFG) and the Karuk Tribe to end the litigation. That Agreement imposes more restrictions upon our industry. A lot of miners have been waiting in the wings for the judge’s decision, because it makes the difference whether or not the dredging season opens up on the upper Klamath River on May 27th, or on July 1st.

Mr. Eason has been very supportive of our position in this litigation during the past. More recently, he has discovered a legal decision (Boisclair v. Superior Court (1990) 51 Cal 3d 1140) concerning a Superior Court’s lack of subject matter jurisdiction to decide any matter concerning Indian rights. Through correspondence with me, the attorneys who are representing miners in the litigation, and others within our industry, it is clear that Mr. Eason believes it is imperative that we immediately file a Motion to Dismiss the whole case.

We respectfully disagreed with Mr. Eason’s position for several reasons: (1) We don’t believe this case has very much to do with adjudicating Indian rights. The Karuks are suing DFG because they do not believe DFG has followed all of the provisions required by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). (2) We believe the Stipulated Agreement between DFG and the Karuks is totally illegal. We believe there is a reasonable chance the judge will agree with us about that. Since all of the arguments have been placed in front of her on this matter, and the dredging season is nearly upon us, we did not want to confuse everything by interjecting a whole new jurisdictional challenge into the process. Surely, this would delay the judge’s decision that everyone is waiting for.

Mr. Eason’s motion filed with the Court last week also requested that the Court not make any decision concerning the Stipulated Agreement until after his Intervention Motion and jurisdictional challenge is decided. Consequently, the judge decided on Friday to set a hearing date of 8 June to decide what to do about Mr. Eason’s Intervention motion. Unless I am mistaken, now we should not expect to receive any decision from the judge concerning our season until sometime after 8 June.

Before we start getting ourselves all charged up over this, I’d like to make two important points:

1) There is a lot at stake in this litigation. While our organization is doing its best to represent the interests of all small-scale miners in the litigation, it is unlikely that we can support every interest. I’m sure there must be a fair number of interests even outside of our industry that are not been adequately represented in the litigation.

It is especially important that if there is a class of miners out there who believe that we are not already adequately representing them, certainly we should allow them an opportunity to be heard. None of us should make the mistake of believing we have the only answer, or even the best answer. Who knows; perhaps Mr. Eason’s approach will be the winning argument before this is all over. And even if it isn’t, we should applaud his efforts to fight for the industry using arguments that he believes are very important. Clearly, the judge has taken Mr. Eason’s material seriously enough to allow him a hearing.

2) The Klamath River is still running at storm flows. The dams are full and letting enough water out to cause the river to run about 8 feet higher than normal summer levels. The Scott River is discharging muddy water into the Klamath, dropping underwater visibility to zero. It is like we are in the middle of a very large winter storm! Even most of the high-banking areas are underwater!

So even if the judge struck down the DFG/Karuk Agreement last week as we had hoped, most of the river is still too high and swift to dredge at the moment. I‘m not kidding; it is really running fast and turbulent! This probably is not going to change very much for at least another few weeks.

Therefore, we really have not lost anything because of this further delay in the judge’s decision.

I keep getting emails from people asking how legal the amended DFG regulations are, since they have not yet been endorsed by the court. I cannot give legal advice because I am not a licensed attorney. All I can do is express my own opinion – which is that I don’t believe the amended regulations are legal, and I don’t believe they can be enforced. Although this does not mean that the game warden will not go down and write you a ticket for dredging out of season under the amended regulations. He probably will! I’m mainly talking about what happens when you get to court. I don’t believe the court will allow DFG to prosecute a case against you for having violated a regulation that was not adopted pursuant to the legal process in the first place. Having said all that, I can tell you from long experience that it is very uncomfortable to be in trouble with the law, even when you are 100% right. Lawyers are expensive. Our organization is already plenty challenged trying to keep from falling even further behind on paying the costs of the ongoing litigation!

We all have to make our own decisions about these things. Because the river is running so high at the moment anyway, my own best advice would be to wait it out for a while longer.

Dave Mack

 

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