Cache Creek Being Shut Down

S

Sluiceguy42

Jr. Member
Jun 1, 2014
46
13
Primary Interest:
Prospecting
Cache creek colorado is one of the few places you can prospect and pan for free. Randy, the camp host is a really nice guy, who helps anyone he can and teaches them how to pan or sluice. His dog was taken by the BLM for biting a guy that was giving him trouble. The next day, he was removed from his duties for no plain reason. Rumors that the BLM was going to shut down the prospecting area and divert the stream illegaly were confirmed.
Signs all over the camp warn prospectors not to hurt the boreal toad, which lives in high elevation watershed areas such as cache creek. If the water was diverted the boreal toads that were warned so agressivly not to hurt, will be all be wiped out in cache creek. Not only will the BLM hypocryticly kill the toads, the area will be shut down to recreational prospecting, and hurt the small buisinesses that rely on tourism for there livelyhood. Make your voice be heard and call the BLM, so that cache creek will remain open to recreational prospecting.
I will be at Cache Creek for four more days so I won't be able to respond to any comments. Thanks for your support.
 

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I wish the Staste would take it over. the BLM is getting way out of hand,....
 

Sluiceguy ,welcome to the party. The ham hands of athority
 

who profits from the water being diverted? follow the money, that's who's getting the land taken away from the people. it's all for profit nothing more.
 

Just Agenda 21 getting kicked up a notch,nothing to see here folks please move a long.
 

Thanks for the heads up Sluiceguy42. :thumbsup:

Where did you get the information that Cache Creek was being shutdown? There's nothing in the management plan about closing to prospectors, in fact they have plans for more settling ponds. No public notices that I can find.

You wrote:

Rumors that the BLM was going to shut down the prospecting area and divert the stream illegaly were confirmed.
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Who confirmed the rumors? Where can we see the new plan? Hard to stop something if we don't know what we are up against.

Heavy Pans
 

While it sounds like something that BLM would do, where is the paper trail? Clay usually has his ear to the ground and gets better info than most people on here. Roumor Control is never what you want to go by if you want the straight story. Get the facts!

I am also wondering where in the BLMs charter it gives them the powers of "Animal Control" Something like that is usually left to the respective counties. Then again this is BLM we're talking about here so I wouldn't be surprised if they once again over stepped their authority. Time for the American people to haul back on the reins hard and get those animals under control.
 

The water was diverted by the owner of a mine upstream of the Cache creek area...last year. They have the right to do this and I'm sure there is a financial motivation as speculated :)

Nothing to do with BLM heavihandedness or Agenda21 or whatever.

Anyway, people are still giving good reports on the gold there....oops I mean, there's no gold and no water there folks, go home now LOL
 

Nothing to do with BLM heavihandedness or Agenda21 or whatever.
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Wanna bet,if Agenda 21 ever becomes rule of law nobody will be doing any prospecting period.
 

I don't know about "other" states but here in Missouri, it is against the law to divert water from its natural course. also in housing areas, the water shed is designed to go a certain direction and you as a homeowner cant divert this water on to another persons land. it would seem that this would be a general rule for all? how does Colorados laws pertaining to water divertion read?? some follow up might be good for all of us to know before it gets going to far!
 

Thanks for clearing that up Kevin. I was aware of the upstream mining project so your explanation certainly fits the facts.

Miners have prior water rights to the "acquired" BLM Cache Creek property. The Cache Creek property was bought by the BLM from private property owners in 2002 or thereabouts. It has not been Public Land in anyone's lifetime and is not public land today. It is federally purchased land managed by the BLM.

In the Eastern States water rights are based on riparian rights (ownership of the water passing through private land) and real estate zoning laws. The Eastern States were developed on agriculture use and property values.

In the Western States water rights are based on "first in time - first in right", "prior beneficial use" and to a much lesser extent riparian rights. The Western States were developed on ranching and mining.

The biggest reason for the differences in water rights from East to West was the different cultures needed to survive on the land and the passage of the 1866 Law titled "An Act granting the Right of Way to Ditch and Canal Owners over the Public Lands, and for other Purposes". That law is better known as the 1866 Mining Act. It's the basis in law for your mining, water, and public travel rights to this day.

As you can see the BLM is a latecomer to this game. The Cache Creek property has few, if any, water rights superior to it's neighbors. I'm sure the mining project that diverted the water was entirely within it's prior established rights to use their water as they wished as long as the use was "beneficial". If it was not I assure you the greenies would have had a field day chasing their mining plans in court.

The mining acts are the basis for much of the freedoms you enjoy today. The use of water for mining and ranching in the west was essential to the development of this nation. Free travel by the right of the public way made western travel across the vast public lands possible. The Mining Acts are also the legal framework that made it possible for you to live today in a prosperous country. Cheap high protein meats (ranching) and great physical money wealth - gold and silver (mining) could not have been possible without the legal structure provided by the mining acts.

Things are very different in the Eastern states than in the west. If the real estate and agriculture laws in the east had been applied to the west you would still be using Spanish silver for your money and eating turnips for dinner. Chicken every third Sunday. :laughing7:

As you can see none of this has anything to do with Agenda 21, frogs, dogs or BLM overreach.

Heavy Pans
 

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Not to hijack the thread,
Funny you say eating turnips there Clay, we eat alot of those guys here in the desert they are one of the easier grown crops in this heat.
We have to grow us a garden or no fresh stuff, they cost moneys and hard rock mining these days we aint affording to many trips to the fresh veg isle.

I will tell you guys this much we are in our last days of free mining and being able to find the ounces it takes to live !
Heres a fresh pickins for ya guess its turnip muligan tonight with chicken bullion cube for meat flavor.
GT.............
View attachment 1031915
 

Nice explanation of western water rights and also the cache creek property. That same purchased status is why it can't be claimed.
 

Kinda bumping again but here is an update.
Kevin, you said the stream was diverted last year or so, but that was illegally done. Where it was diverted was on the private property of a former army colonel, I cant think of his name. It was diverted by a guy named Dave. When Randy the host was kicked out of his position, guess who became the new host? Dave did. While Randy was out all day helping the newbies I only saw Dave twice. His dogs are out of control, and is he very unfriendly.
The stream luckily has not been diverted yet.
Another thing you can do is call the BLM and complain about the new host Dave, and that Randy actually did his job and should be made host again.
And to clear up the mine diversion, while i was there, I gathered that the diversion did not affect the placer area, or was fixed. If the mine on lost canyon road is the one you are taking about, it is for sale now, so shouldn't have anything to do with anything.
 

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Oh good, thanks for sharing the update!
 

To somewhat relate to authority trying to keep us from mining, last night after a trip to the beginnings of Clear Creek we stopped in Whiskeytown park and panned one of the other little creeks in there.
While panning we were stopped by a Ranger who snuck up on us, he told us that we were not allowed to keep the gold from anywhere in the park and that we had to throw it back in if we found it.

Those are NOT the rules, the rules very boldly say that all gold found can be kept but not for profit.

The thing is, more and more Park Rangers are telling people this. I had heard the story from a lot of people, but this was a first to happen to me.

We didn't catch his name because his tag was turned but little good it would do to complain about that.

Remember folks, I have been detained twice in this park for NOTHING and released and have been stopped about a dozen times this summer alone.
This year is by far the worst in their pursuit to harass law abiding citizens with proper permits to be in the park and pan.

I follow as my Father taught me, pack it in, pack it out, see others trash, pack it out too.
"Leave it better than you found it."

They don't care though, its all about Money, Power and Land Ownership.

The cancer is spreading.
 

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