i have a crazy idea looking for input

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perish01

Greenie
Jun 30, 2012
10
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Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
ok all having read and reread the laws for dredging in California. whats to stop some one from working the coastal out lets of the gold country rivers? looking at the lr 2000 sight the entire coast of California should be open to claiming, and working the ocean side would keep any dredging free of the regs as that do not cover the ocean .so im looking for input from the community as to the feasibility of this crazy idea .looking at the historical claims data there were some claims that were in the water. looking forward to ideas from every one .
 

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I grew up in the Sacramento delta area, probably a lot of gold there just under an extraordinary amount of silt and peat. I really have no idea but I would think you would have to dredge up to a hundred feet just to maybe find bedrock??
 

Go up to Oregon while you still can. I hear the SW beaches are prospected more than CA, with better results. TTC
 

thanks for all the input as to working the delta i think that you are right. im thinking that working the out flow areas of some of the major gold country rivers would possibly have some good color .
as to working in Oregon are you referring to some of the beaches that are right at the border with California.
 

You think that's a crazy idea? Sounds more like innovative thinking to me. Now for the really crazy thinking... the other day I had the science channel on while I was working on a computer project and they were talking about how the Dutch are expanding the harbor in Rotterdam. Now we all know that the Dutch are masters of reclaiming land from the sea as they've been doing it for centuries. Well for this project they're using suction dredges on a massive scale. The pickup heads are about the size of a VW Bug have a 300 ft reach and can fill the holds of the ships in a couple of hours. Now if you could get your hands on one of those ships and park it off Nome, you'd be moving more earth in a day than the entire Nome fleet could move in the entire season! Even at half the size of the Dutch ships you'd be able to reach areas that no excavator or diver could get to. Now how is THAT for a crazy idea?
 

goldenIrishman said:
You think that's a crazy idea? Sounds more like innovative thinking to me. Now for the really crazy thinking... the other day I had the science channel on while I was working on a computer project and they were talking about how the Dutch are expanding the harbor in Rotterdam. Now we all know that the Dutch are masters of reclaiming land from the sea as they've been doing it for centuries. Well for this project they're using suction dredges on a massive scale. The pickup heads are about the size of a VW Bug have a 300 ft reach and can fill the holds of the ships in a couple of hours. Now if you could get your hands on one of those ships and park it off Nome, you'd be moving more earth in a day than the entire Nome fleet could move in the entire season! Even at half the size of the Dutch ships you'd be able to reach areas that no excavator or diver could get to. Now how is THAT for a crazy idea?
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I love it! Imagine the giant sluice boxes hanging off the back of the ship.... wow
 

i think that would an awesome idea now where to get investors hummmmmm :icon_thumright:
 

Interesting idea. I have also been planning some "digging", but if its tidelands area, I think that is covered by separate regulations, but havent found the answer to that yet. Or maybe every tideland area has its own regulations.
 

Well considering what I've seen brought in by some of the "Larger" operations in Nome on a good day I'd like to have just a days haul that could be had using one of those dutch ships! I seem to remember hearing that the further out and the deeper you go the larger the gold is.

I've looked at the ocean charts for that entire area and you can go quite a ways off shore and still be within "Reach" of the suction head of one of those monsters! Now add sluices large enough to handle what the dredge brings up in an hour and you're set. You might need a backhoe on deck for the clean-outs though... ;)

As to investors... I'm not even sure what it would cost to build/rent/lease a ship like that so there is no telling what kind of capitol would be needed to get it setup and running. They mentioned the cost of each ship (the Dutch are using a half dozen or so for this little project) and other than the fact it was more than I could ever come up with I don't remember what the price tag was per ship. If they can afford to run a half dozen of them, the sales at the "coffee houses" in Amsterdam must be really good!
 

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You gold guys are crazy. But it does sound like good idea. You could probably suck out a mother lode a day?
 

Unless you are going way out, coastal waters are under the auspices of the moratorium. I believe this includes language that covers all California waterways. That includes its ocean territorial waters. So dredging would still be out of bounds...
 

oakview this is the section that makes me think that it might be legal quoted from sb-1018 (b) Notwithstanding Section 5653, the use of any vacuum or suction dredge equipment in any river, stream, or lake of this state is prohibited until the director certifies to the Secretary of State that all of the following have occurred:
the regs are very clear in where is banned like a crazy idea thank for the in put all really helping to form this idea :hello2:
 

Try seven hundred feet! And you would hit the water table at a very shallow depth, and deal with smelly muck and clay, and flood out!

I did hear of a guy dredging a drainage ditch in Elk Grove, and he got seven oz. of gold!
 

I am sure the river inlets in N. Cal and SW Oregon are loaded with gold just off the coast. The huge waves in that area would be a bear to overcome tho. I would look for bedrock just off shore and follow that, and do it at low tide. Why not scuba dive and test it out?

Some day, the big commercial boys will be mining that. Unless the enviro nuts stop them, which is probable.
I can imagine huge amounts of gold on the bottom of SF Bay, and in the Delta, along with a lot of mercury.

That's it! Call it a mercury recovery plan!
 

The ship size even at half the size would have issue with the draft. Nome is very shallow.
 

Many shipping lanes have already been dredged for draft clearance. There was A huge operation just outside the golden gate that was documented on tv. They were dredging sediment from the bay. My guess is that the gold that far out would be very fine as the widening and slowing nature of the delta would capture most gold.
 

wow thread back from the dead cool i think every one has the wrong areas in mind in thinking farther north i live in the bay area there is no way of mining off the cost of sf you cant even pan on the sf beaches so im going north
so i should be running a setup this spring off the coast dredge is built and just getting diving set up ready still looking for a boat but making head way and yes the gold is very fine but theirs a good amount of color per pan and the places in checking are open to claiming so all is going the right way

ps if any one has blue water boat on the cheep pleas pm me thanks
 

Didn't the navy dredge sf bay for "mercury and lead" recently? I think I remember reading about it recently. I bet they pulled piles of gold out of there...


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Ocean Beach, south of the Cliff House San Francisco has gold, there are pictures of miners using a surf beach box <--- (don't remember what they were calling them)
which is a large and wide box open at both ends and lays in the surf and use;s the wave action going back and forth, see if i can fine a picture
 

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