Showing its concern for the state’s ailing fisheries, the California Senate passed SB 670 with a 31-8 bipartisan vote. Senator Patricia Wiggins (D-Santa Rosa) introduced the bill that places a moratorium on recreational suction dredge mining until a scientific review of the mining practice is completed and new rules protecting fisheries, water quality and public health are in effect.
The bill was widely supported by dozens of Tribes, conservation organizations, and commercial fishermen.
Before becoming law, it must now pass a vote in the Assembly and be signed by the Governor.
Speaking against it was North State Senator Sam Aanestad (R- Grass Valley), who argued that the bill amounted to a "taking of property rights."
Also in Sacramento to register her opinion on the matter was Siskiyou County Supervisor Marcia Armstrong.
In the floor debate, Senator Wiggins asserted that California’s salmon fishermen were out of work while a small group of miners continued to practice a hobby that destroyed salmon habitat.
In response to Aanestad’s property rights claims, Senator Wiggins pointed out that SB 670 takes no one’s property and miners can still mine using other mining techniques that are less environmentally destructive.
According to Wiggins, California’s taxpayers heavily subsidize the state’s suction dredge permit program through the California Department of Fish and Game, and that the state spends $1.25 million more per year on the permit program than it receives in permit fees, amounting to a $400 subsidy for each of the 3,200 miners that obtain permits.
Scott Harding, executive director of Klamath Riverkeeper said, “It’s good to see California stop spending taxpayer money on a mining program that puts a few flakes of gold in 3,000 hobby miners’ pockets while harming fisheries and those who depend upon clean, healthy rivers. California is experiencing a fiscal crisis and a fisheries emergency. SB 670 helps to solve both these problems at once.”
What is Suction
Dredge Mining?
Suction dredge mining takes place directly in river and stream channels using a floating, gas-powered vacuum coupled to a sluice box. The miner, sometimes with the aid of SCUBA gear, vacuums sediment, gravel and small rocks from the river bottom. This material is then run through a mechanized sluice on the floating platform. Gold flakes are separated from the sediment, which is spit back into the river in long, murky plumes.
Supervisors support
suction dredge mining
At a Jan. 20 Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors meeting, the board unanimously voted to support suction dredge mining, as a temporary closure to the practice were then being threatened by the California Department of Fish and Game.
The resolution presented at that meeting states, “(The board) believes that careful consideration [and studies] of the positive and negative impacts asserted to arise from suction dredge mining… should be completed … prior to any revisions to the existing suction dredge mining regulations…”
At that meeting, Supervisor Armstrong stated, “Some studies even show that suction dredge mining actually helps create better conditions for salmon.”
According to the Klamath Riverkeeper, suction dredging represents a chronic and unnatural disturbance to the river and is known to harm fisheries, aquatic habitat and degrade water quality.
Recreational mining businesses and prospecting clubs, such as the New 49’ers in Happy Camp, bring hundreds of suction dredgers to the Klamath and its tributaries each year.
Yreka, Calif. —
