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Bill to ban suction dredging is a move backward ... nevertheless a poor man's wisdom is despised and his words are not heard. Ecc. 9:16.
Izzy Martin, CEO of the Sierra Fund, based in Nevada City, says that suction dredging disturbs fish habitat and puts species, such as coho salmon and green sturgeon, at risk. She testified at a hearing. Where does she get all this wisdom?
In rebuttal to her statement, nobody has asked me to testify at any hearings to give my testimony in my 30-odd years of gold dredging on the Yuba below Englebright Dam.
There is quite a situation here that all the powers-that-be ignore and is the real culprit. The shot rock migrating down in recent floods from the spoil dump below Englebright and the ice water from the bottom of 600-foot-high Bullard's Bar Dam. This has turned the ecology upside down — not suction dredging.
More than 150,000 cubic yards of shot rock litters the gravel bars that the chinook salmon and steelhead used to spawn in. The whole ecology of the lower Yuba is in a perpetual winter state. The summer temperature bell curve is a flat 50 degrees. Why do the environmentalists ignore this temperature pollution?
The lower Yuba is dead. The 20-degree water temperature drop has eliminated various species of critters that bloomed during the summer months that trout, bass, frogs, water snakes fed on. But that's all gone since 1970 when Bullard's Bar Dam went online, which has done nothing to enhance the so-called aquatic resources that Fish and Game has been trying to convince me of for more than 30 years.
In another article supporting my testimony, Mike Leslie says, “Suction dredging actually benefits the river and improves habitat for the fish and other organisms ... by removing harmful mercury.”
I can attest to that. Mercury is in the gravel. It is an inert heavy liquid metal that aualgamates with gold. That's why the 49ers used it in their wood sluice boxes. Gold dredgers suck it up and is captured in the more engineered metal sluice boxes.
There are those who try to get you to believe that somehow gold dredging “stirs up” the mercury. That is just another myth they perpetrated to justify their attempt to ban gold dredging. It's totally ludicrous that mercury gets “dislodged” and becomes methylmercury and a health risk to humans. Sort of like cow-belching causing global warming.
Yeah, when I'm dredging, there is a virtual feeding frenzy going on below my dredge, and, not only that, I create much-needed spawning gravel for the salmon. Gold dredging is also highly localized, since winter floods wipe away all traces of it.
Back in December 1999, I put forth a proposal to the Yuba County Board of Supervisors to remove some 150,000 cubic yards of alien shot rock and restore the salmon spawning habitat. They endorsed my proposal and in 2000 the Yuba County water agency sent a marine biologist from Jones & Stokes to do a field report of my Placer mining/dredging.
They concurred that my mining activity provides suitable gravel for the spawning salmon. No adverse effects were reported. Still, Fish and Game ignored the report and endorsement. It didn't fit their agenda. All they wanted was increased flows and colder water.
From what I see, mining law passed by Congress in 1872 is being ignored by the powers-that-be, because it doesn't fit their agenda. In violation of our constitutional rights, they are turning us gold dredgers into outlaws with all their fraudulent, draconian regulations. They haven't a clue what they are talking about.
Has Martin ever put on a wet suit, weight belt and hooks gear and done any dredging? The green sturgeon and coho salmon has to do with the Klamath River. So, what's that got to do with the Yuba River? Are the fish supposed to jump over the dams into the upper Yuba River tributaries?
Little do they know that during the late 1800s, millions of cubic yards of hydraulic debris, called tailings, silted up the Yuba River 40-60 feet deep. Yet, the old-timers could tell you that you could walk across the Yuba on the backs of the spawning salmon.
Today, what with all these stupid regulations, there is hardly a handful of salmon that can make it up the Yuba River anymore. I was told by Fish and Game back in 2005 that the Legislature closed the Yuba River to gold dredging back in 1994. Yet the salmon population dropped precipitously in 2006. So you see what a lot of good that did.
Then, Martin gets on her soap box and spews out pre-digested dogma and false science to another group of know-nothing environmentalists. I wonder if they realize how many mining supply stores would go out of business if suction dredging is banned?
It says, “statewide 3,500 dredge permits are issued annually.” Well, if 10 percent were in Nevada County, 350 gold dredgers can make quite a groundswell at the Board of Supervisors meeting.
Think about it. Fish come and go where the food source is. What Martin says disturbs me. Nevada County is not user-friendly.
Izzy Martin, CEO of the Sierra Fund, based in Nevada City, says that suction dredging disturbs fish habitat and puts species, such as coho salmon and green sturgeon, at risk. She testified at a hearing. Where does she get all this wisdom?
In rebuttal to her statement, nobody has asked me to testify at any hearings to give my testimony in my 30-odd years of gold dredging on the Yuba below Englebright Dam.
There is quite a situation here that all the powers-that-be ignore and is the real culprit. The shot rock migrating down in recent floods from the spoil dump below Englebright and the ice water from the bottom of 600-foot-high Bullard's Bar Dam. This has turned the ecology upside down — not suction dredging.
More than 150,000 cubic yards of shot rock litters the gravel bars that the chinook salmon and steelhead used to spawn in. The whole ecology of the lower Yuba is in a perpetual winter state. The summer temperature bell curve is a flat 50 degrees. Why do the environmentalists ignore this temperature pollution?
The lower Yuba is dead. The 20-degree water temperature drop has eliminated various species of critters that bloomed during the summer months that trout, bass, frogs, water snakes fed on. But that's all gone since 1970 when Bullard's Bar Dam went online, which has done nothing to enhance the so-called aquatic resources that Fish and Game has been trying to convince me of for more than 30 years.
In another article supporting my testimony, Mike Leslie says, “Suction dredging actually benefits the river and improves habitat for the fish and other organisms ... by removing harmful mercury.”
I can attest to that. Mercury is in the gravel. It is an inert heavy liquid metal that aualgamates with gold. That's why the 49ers used it in their wood sluice boxes. Gold dredgers suck it up and is captured in the more engineered metal sluice boxes.
There are those who try to get you to believe that somehow gold dredging “stirs up” the mercury. That is just another myth they perpetrated to justify their attempt to ban gold dredging. It's totally ludicrous that mercury gets “dislodged” and becomes methylmercury and a health risk to humans. Sort of like cow-belching causing global warming.
Yeah, when I'm dredging, there is a virtual feeding frenzy going on below my dredge, and, not only that, I create much-needed spawning gravel for the salmon. Gold dredging is also highly localized, since winter floods wipe away all traces of it.
Back in December 1999, I put forth a proposal to the Yuba County Board of Supervisors to remove some 150,000 cubic yards of alien shot rock and restore the salmon spawning habitat. They endorsed my proposal and in 2000 the Yuba County water agency sent a marine biologist from Jones & Stokes to do a field report of my Placer mining/dredging.
They concurred that my mining activity provides suitable gravel for the spawning salmon. No adverse effects were reported. Still, Fish and Game ignored the report and endorsement. It didn't fit their agenda. All they wanted was increased flows and colder water.
From what I see, mining law passed by Congress in 1872 is being ignored by the powers-that-be, because it doesn't fit their agenda. In violation of our constitutional rights, they are turning us gold dredgers into outlaws with all their fraudulent, draconian regulations. They haven't a clue what they are talking about.
Has Martin ever put on a wet suit, weight belt and hooks gear and done any dredging? The green sturgeon and coho salmon has to do with the Klamath River. So, what's that got to do with the Yuba River? Are the fish supposed to jump over the dams into the upper Yuba River tributaries?
Little do they know that during the late 1800s, millions of cubic yards of hydraulic debris, called tailings, silted up the Yuba River 40-60 feet deep. Yet, the old-timers could tell you that you could walk across the Yuba on the backs of the spawning salmon.
Today, what with all these stupid regulations, there is hardly a handful of salmon that can make it up the Yuba River anymore. I was told by Fish and Game back in 2005 that the Legislature closed the Yuba River to gold dredging back in 1994. Yet the salmon population dropped precipitously in 2006. So you see what a lot of good that did.
Then, Martin gets on her soap box and spews out pre-digested dogma and false science to another group of know-nothing environmentalists. I wonder if they realize how many mining supply stores would go out of business if suction dredging is banned?
It says, “statewide 3,500 dredge permits are issued annually.” Well, if 10 percent were in Nevada County, 350 gold dredgers can make quite a groundswell at the Board of Supervisors meeting.
Think about it. Fish come and go where the food source is. What Martin says disturbs me. Nevada County is not user-friendly.
James L. Butler lives in Nevada County.
