Suction Dredge Mining Essentially Dead Due to State Budget Cuts

A moratorium on the suction dredge mining was enacted in California while Fish & Game developed new regulations for the practice, but all that seems to have been thrown out the window by California’s legislature, which seems to continued the moratorium indefinitely because the program costs far more to administer than it raises.

From a Karuk Tribal press release:

“California is in the midst of an historic financial crisis. Taxpayers can no longer afford to subsidize this environmentally destructive hobby,” said Leaf Hillman, Director of the Karuk Tribe Department of Natural Resources.

The move by the budget committees still has to be approved as part of the overall state budget, but reversing the proposal would require lawmakers to fight for budget increases to fund a dredge mining permit and enforcement program while they are at the same time faced with deep cuts to education, healthcare for the elderly, and law enforcement.

According to the Department of Fish and Game’s own Environmental Impact Report, the dredging program raises $373,000 a year in permit fees, but under the newly proposed regulations would spend over $1.8 million in administration and enforcement. This fails to include the cost of defending the program from lawsuits filed by Tribes, taxpayers, and fishermen.

Although the Department’s draft Environmental Impact Report found that dredging has “significant and unavoidable” impacts to water quality due to the reintroduction of mercury to the food chain, the Department claimed it had no authority to regulate the practice on those grounds. The Karuk Tribe along with a host of fishing, environmental, and Tribal groups argue that the Department’s proposed regulations would fail to protect struggling runs of salmon, steelhead, and numerous other fish species while violating clean water laws.

Yow. Going to be some unhappy miners in California.

It’s a heated issue, at least in my experience; a suction mining thread was one of only two ever shut down on the Underground after I received a slew of angry/threatening/incoherent emails.

See you on the river, Tom Chandler.