Public Lands for the People (PLP) is proud to announce that suction dredging is being resumed in most parts of California in a form that bypasses most of the bureaucracy of the CA Fish & Wildlife and the CA Water Board! Last year, PLP published its strategy for a path to the legal resumption of suction dredging work in 2021. By exploring this path, we have made a fairly significant breakthrough. Our researchers, who helped provide the winning arguments to PLP members in the Federal Court decisions Godfrey and Osterbrink CA, decided it`s time to disclose to the public the fundamental reasons why these decisions were won in our favor while all other well-meaning miners failed in court challenges. Mr. Godfrey and Mr. Osterbrink both deserve praise for standing up and successfully fighting experts from the CA Regional Water Quality Control Board (EPA), CA Dept. of Fish & Wildlife, and Forest Service to help us pave the way for the legal resumption of suction dredging in California. The substance of this pathway revolves around how federal and state law defines pollutants and releases as well as the intended activity. PLP is preparing to release materials that the CA Water Quality Control Board and the CA Fish & Wildlife Service may not want you to know. These online documents (take 4 steps and a few minutes) as well as a simple guide that can be very effective when people follow the guide and seriously adhere to the documents and principles described on the map. These documents and guidelines are not only an effective deterrent against citations, but also a goldmine of legal research that has so far eluded many.

Thanks to the support of our PLP member and donors, our trips to Washington DC have given us insight into the environmental agency data we are now ready to share with our members. “Suction dredging ruthlessly tears rivers apart, threatens our waterways and harms endangered salmon,” said Jonathan Evans, legal director of environmental health at the Centre for Biological Diversity. “In this time of drought and climate change, we cannot afford to have California`s waterways destroyed by a small group of amateur miners.” UPDATE AUGUST 2009: California`s governor passed a new law banning all suction dredging in California until a study by the Department of Fisheries and Game is completed to determine whether dredging is harmful to fish populations. We consider this new restriction to be completely unnecessary and based on seriously erroneous information provided by biased sources. Several lawsuits are underway from various groups that are trying to overturn this unnecessary law. For more information on how to protect our rights as citizens, please contact: Public Lands for the People of www.plp2.org To watch a video about the recent illegal removal of suction dredging, click here. SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — In response to an emergency request from a coalition of tribal, conservation and fishing groups, California officials have filled a gap in the state`s ban on suction dredging.

This will protect water quality, wildlife and fisheries from destructive forms of recreational mining. Suction dredging is an environmentally harmful mining practice that has been banned in California since 2009, but since early this spring, miners have made modifications to the equipment of suction excavators to take advantage of what they perceived as a “loophole” in the ban. The damage caused by suction dredging is well documented by scientists and government agencies. It damages the state`s water supply by suspending toxic mercury, sediment and heavy metals. The National Water Resources Control Board and the Environmental Protection Agency have called for an end to suction dredging because of its significant impact on water quality and wildlife from mercury pollution. We will show the public how to use a suction shovel responsibly and legally for recovery purposes. Suction dredging requires a floating motor and pump attached to a pipe that the miner uses to suck up gravel and gold sediment from the river floor. The extracted material flows through a lock box, where the heavier gold is sorted and the remaining gravel and sediment return to the river. But the lock drain also contains toxic mercury from historic mining operations.

Two scientific studies conducted by federal and state authorities for suction dredging mining on the South Yuba River and the U.S. South Fork River show that suction dredging mining releases small particles of toxic mercury downstream in quantities that are dangerous to humans. California`s ban on the use of suction dredges to extract gold from rivers is legal and will not be overturned by a 19th-century federal law that allows mining on the state, the California Supreme Court ruled Monday.