Trout Clout Alert: Urge Governor Brown to Regulate Suction-Dredge Mining
Trout Clout Alert: Urge Governor Brown to Regulate Suction-Dredge Mining
We need your help to ensure Governor Brown signs AB120 into law. Here’s why:
Suction Dredge Mining Threatens California’s Streams & Rivers
Suction dredge operations use gas powered pumps to suck up water and gravel through a hose to sort out gold.
As Dr. Peter Moyle points out, suction dredge operations can harm fish, especially endangered steelhead and salmon. Impacts include disturbance of spawning gravels, directly sucking small fish and invertebrates through the pump, and resuspending mercury — trapped in the gravel from past mining operations — back into streams.
AB120 will help control these negative impacts to steelhead and salmon by requiring that Fish and Game adopt and implement regulations that mitigate all significant water quality, wildlife and cultural/historical impacts.
You can see CalTrout’s comments on the recently released Environmental Impact Report on suction dredging here.
Suction Dredge Mining Costs Taxpayers Money
It costs the state far more to administer the suction dredge mining program than permit fees bring in; AB120 requires Fish & Game to adopt a fee structure that pays for the agency’s cost of administering and enforcing mining regulations.
If AB120 is signed into law — and Fish and Game fails to meet these two requirements — the agency is prohibited from adopting regulations or issuing mining permits for five years.
Click here to tell Governor Brown to sign A.B. 120 — protecting our rivers, streams and drinking water from this destructive mining practice.
4 Comments
http://miningrights.org/joe-green.html
Mark Stopher
California Department of Fish and Game
601 Locust Street
Redding, CA 96001 dfgsuctiondredge@dfg.ca.gov
28 April 2011
RE: Comments regarding SEIR and Proposed Regulations for suction dredge mining in California in Favor of Maintaining Current 1994
Dear Sir:
Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to comment on the California Department of Fish & Game’s (DFG) Suction Dredge Permitting Program Subsequent Environmental Impact Report (SEIR) and Proposed Regulations.
I, Claudia Wise, and Joseph Greene are retired U.S. EPA Scientists and invited members of the CDFG SEIR Public Advisory Committee. During the PAC meetings we presented two science based PowerPoint presentations to the committee “Selenium Antagonism to Mercury, Does Methylmercury Cause Significant Harm to Fish or Human Health?” and “Turbidity and the Effect of Scale”.
Claudia Wise is a retired Physical Scientist previously employed at the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, Corvallis Environmental Research Laboratory, Corvallis, OR. I have 29 years experience in chemical and biological instrumentation methods. I spent 8 years with the Western Fish Toxicology Station coauthoring journal articles dealing with bioaccumulation in Invertebrates and Fish exposed to chemical toxiciants. I have contributed to many projects and coauthored numerous journal articles for the Watershed Ecology, Terrestrial, Ecotoxicology and Freshwater Branches where I researched toxicity in soil and the effects of toxicants on plant growth. At the time of my retirement, I was with the Watershed Ecology Stable Isotope Research Facility. I am a recipient of the United States Environmental Protection Agency Bronze Medal for Commendable Service.
Joseph Greene has over 30 years of national and international professional experience including consulting, research, and teaching for industry and government regulatory agencies. Activities included project management, contract administration, experimental design, preparation of research reports and technical documents, laboratory supervision, statistical analysis of data, computer simulation, development and application of biological methods, and performance of algal growth potential and aquatic and terrestrial toxicity tests.
Consulting experience included assessment of nutrient pollution in freshwater canals and rivers, assessment of heavy metals toxicity from mining activities and paint stripping, investigation of toxicity and bioaccumulation in soils at military facilities, evaluation of water soluble and soil toxicants at Superfund sites, and assessment of algal toxicity from textile dyes.
Research activities included establishment of an ecotoxicology laboratory, development of a biological-chemical-physical protocol for measuring potential toxicity of construction materials, development of internationally standardized test methods (aquatic algae, aquatic macroinvertebrate, terrestrial plant and terrestrial invertebrate), chairman of testing committees for ASTM and Standard Methods, platform chairman of several international symposiums, workshops, and congresses, and invited speaker to numerous national and international professional scientific meetings.
Teaching experience included a number of short courses and workshops on performance of algal growth potential and interpretation of results across the nation, a workshop on environmental analysis techniques in Europe, a workshop on complex problems with point and non-point sources of water contamination for the US Department of the Interior, and an environmental engineering graduate seminar on toxicity testing for environmental engineering applications.
Government agencies experience included project management, experimental design, hands-on research, data analysis, and report writing.
Since retirement both of us have participated, as a team, to defend the rights of small scale suction dredging using science to establish the “Less Than Significant effects of the practice. Joseph Greene primarily investigated biological effects and Claudia Wise investigated water quality effects. Post USEPA experience includes a Preliminary Klamath River Water Quality Survey examining surface water temperatures.
These are the groups that wrote ab 120 section 12 and are trying to destroy our industry. This will close the rest of the gold mining stores, manufacturers cause a downturn in business for the companies who supply raw materials to the manufacturers. It will also economically hurt the small towns we spend our recreational dollars in.
Allison Harvey auburn rancheria, Steve Evans friends of the river , Cal trout, and the sierra club.
It is narrow minded people like this that caused my business to be shut down with SB670, my daughter, son inlaw and two grandchildren to lose their house. They want to blame the new 49ers for all of this but the truth is the kayruk indians goal is to use the non native choho salmon to drive out the white man. They want to make it so you will not even be able to fish on “their”river.
They think they own the river but by law the rivers high water to high water mark cannot be private property.
These U tube videos are from former kayruk councilmen. In it they mention Craig Tucker spokesmen. At the SB670 hearings I watched in the hallway as he threatened one of the tribesmen for supporting dredging.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWHiJiSRJT0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af9-dvn4XY0
NO this is not about racism, it is about Special interest groups spending millions of dollars getting their legislation passed in Sacramento.
The process for the EIR is already near completion and we do not need another 5 years added causing additional loss of tax payers dollars. This bill is an economic loss for the state and will add 2 to 3 thousand people to the unemployment line. You Mr and Mrs taxpayer will be footing the bill.
“As Dr. Peter Moyle points out, suction dredge operations can harm fish.”
NO, what hes has stated in his works is that suction operations MAY harm fish, he says MAY instead of DOES or CAN because ther is no evidence indicating that it does.
“It costs the state far more to administer the suction dredge mining program than permit fees bring in”
Governor Brown, when AG, testified that the program was fully funded by permit fees.
This legislation is nonsense. This is typical of the New Age, Liberal, Progressive ideas that permeate and stifle California. Ive laid on the Klamath river bottom dredging and had trout swim right up and lay next to me. And silt has not been proven to be detrimental to fish or spawning.
Im sure the Karuk tribe and their EnviroNazi buddies from SanFrancisco will persuade Governor Moonbeam to pass this lousy legislation. Funny how Pacific rainstorms cloud the Klamath far more than an army of dredges EVER could. Those yearly floods move boulders the size of cars.
Meanwhilst, where is the outrage over the Karuk netting and spearing netfulls of fish? Hmm?
Now, my $$$ goes to Oregon, where I dredge the Rogue. Wish I could come back to CA…