DOWNFALL OF DREDGING IN CALIF: THE BEGINNING

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Fullpan

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May 6, 2012
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For those of you wondering how dredging got banned in Calif. - here is the field study that "broke the camel's back. The Sierra Fund
and other Waco's latched onto this in order to put the dredgers out of business. A year or so later the laws were rammed through
the legislature. Note: Dave McCracken (new 49ers) was major participant, thinking that dredging would be praised for removing 98 %
of mercury - he was hijacked, bamboozled, and the conclusions reached were the exact opposite of what he expected. Its both
informative and sad reading:

http://yubawatershedinstitute.org/documents/HumbugCreekFieldWork.pdf

Needless to say, instead of praising dredgers for removing 98 % of free liquid mercury, enviros attacked the dredgers for "re-mobilizing" the 2 % lost in the tailings. Also, Dave Mack never got to show the recovery percentages of dredges, as he was lead to believe would happen during this field test.

Here is link to the follow-up conclusions for you heavy readers with no lives, lol:

http://ca.water.usgs.gov/mercury/southYuba.html#keyfindings
 

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Just goes to show ya that if ya wanna win in court, you need megabucks to "influence" the lawyers and judges and politicians to move their loyalty to your side. If they don't like the current laws and regulations on mining, then they will draft up some new ones that they do like and change them as they see fit if they overlooked something on the first draft. :BangHead:
 

Seems like there is a lot more to the story than that Fullpan.

Maybe Hoser will fill us in on the missing facts? You out there John? Put your pants on first we wouldn't want any "moons" showing. :BangHead:
 

yes clay - there's much more involved but the fact that the Sierra Fund used this in their schmoozing parties with legislators, was the tipping point imo.
 

The fate of dredging was sealed to the graveyard in 1994 when Plop,Crack, GPAAAAA and mothers load killed the PERMENENT DREDGE COMMITTE through obstructionism and jerrymandering. We had a place in the system and they gave us dozens of openings,PAID projects to prove the righteousness of dredging to reopen impacted gravels areas,remove mercury and remove trash from the waters of the state. BUT nuttn' but lies,refusal to even discuss openings and on and on for days on end. Throw in the last stand in the capitol when Steinburg sliced and diced the 3 idjets who made a backroom deal to limit to 20 minutes the FATE OF DREDGING because of their insipid hoax of a presentation-still have the cd-(1)we have 4 cows,1,800 people and 2 ducks(2) plus prove we do sumthin wrong to (3)dipsey doodles incoherant meandering the 1872 mining laws. MASSACRE IN THE SENATE sealed the fate. Throw in the bloody fact that some ignorant folks MANDATE RECREATION MINING IS WHAT WE DO--as seen in the last hearing where the judge poopooed the idea of a honest to goodness real miner. YAAAA great job by the 95% of doing nuttn' crew-dredging-exactly same same as hydro blasting, draglines and bucket dredging is dead man with a pile a regs thrown in for fun so you can do nuttn' like real mining anymore. NOW cancer from the klamath killed dredging/all mining in oregon and EPA attacked closed much of Idaho as the anti mining hysteria cancer spreads it's tenacious tentacles into the very fabric of the american peoples psyche-that's all folks.....fade to black as all the kings horses and all the kings men ain't a goner ever pick up them pieces again. All else now just mo'pocket pickn' to get the last meat off the rotting carcas of what was once a mighty industry...sic sic sic............John
 

not only in the USA. it is spreading into cental america, costa rica passing many anti mining laws honduas is putting into effect new laws, rumors that many south amercan countrys also. getting to be a worldwide problem.

bill/cr
 

Thanks calnatv bill-costa rica, and hoser for your info - I started this thread to kind of wrap things up into a bundle for any new members who were curious as to what happened to a multi-million dollar industry. I should have said in the title ..."THE BEGINNING OF THE END GAME" The field study, with the involvement of the BLM, USGS,
and the STATE WATER RESOURCES BOARD is a little known aspect of the whole conspiracy. Any other significant links to this disaster are welcome - the idea being to get it all down in one place for future reference (the massive EIRs are just too large to post imo) (the court battles as well).
 

Thanks for posting benny - I started to open but too many MB's. At least its here now. The second link I have already stored - its worth saying that within 5 pages, the authors admit to changing the whole purpose of the field study. Instead of proving that dredges are the most economical way of cleaning mercury from rivers (FREE !), they said, in effect, dredges are harmful. And so it goes...
 

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What a mess. I suspect that the leaders of Sierra Fund, et al, have a different agenda than of their followers. Those rivers could be free of mercury for centuries. What they propose it much like building a park over a landfill full of toxic waste.
 

obama already beat you to it! he baned EVERYTHING and if it aint banned, itll be taxed to death! mid really like to thank our socalled "representatives" for this blundering .............................messup! i didnt want to cuss!
 

Does anyone have good links explaining the salmon side of this fiasco? Wouldn't hurt to include to get a full picture of what's going on.
 

The green agenda is in full swing especially here in california, environmentalism is a huge movement also, you have to realize that these government agency's are all about conservation and environmentalism ( JUST LOOK AT THERE WEBSITES ), they are not for mining activities they've turned against us and it would have happened with or without the Klamath episode so dont be ignorant, its been going on before 1994, making rivers wild and scenic . Merced River was protected under the Wild & Scenic Rivers Act in 1992, for instance .
I definitely felt that no state judge was going to be in our favor, he's not going to fight against the entity that gave him his license to judge, please...
Enviromental groups have gotten powerful, every where, they're very very involved in behind the scenes and we are not, so there yuh go.
 

This is NOT "JUST" a California thing! Its in all states. i see it here in Missouri and other midwest states. and a lot of it is brought on by us,the very people that dont want it BUT cant keep our mouths shut, esspecislly on the net where the enviromentalwacos read and copy for the courts to use against us!i guess we will never learn! RECREATIONAL my azzzzzzzzz!
 

I remember back in '90, when I lived in Forest Hill, Ca, the Spotted Owl decision went down and they shut down the sawmill and all the truck carrying giant Cedars down the hill stopped. People were enraged!

The timber guys were having their trees spiked, and being shot at, and kayakers were floating down the rivers and blowing holes in dredges. If they saw a miners truck parked on a high canyon road, they would push it off the cliff! I was recovering from injuries at the time, homeless, and living in my camper shell, hanging out with Shaky Jim Kelly at his magic bus behind the cafe in Forest Hill, going out and lookin for gold, and watching him and Judge Diefendorfer run gold thru the gold wheels. That, and hangin out at Pioneer Mining listening to all the good ole boys stories.

I heard years later, that Jim and a few others had a drift mine cave in on them and they died. Sad!
 

I'm too lazy to find all the history about the spotted owl thing. How did the loggers lose ?
 

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