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An enormous monitor — an outsized water cannon — is a menacing artifact that greets visitors at Malakoff Diggins State Park.
It's a relic of the hydraulic mining era, which saw tons upon tons of earth blown away from Sierra Nevada mountainsides with highly pressurized water pumped through the monitors and flushed down the Yuba River, causing environmental havoc downstream and spurring some of the earliest environmental laws recorded in the United States. Malakoff Diggins State Park was established in 1965.
That the monitor stands in the park just east of North San Juan, and its rangers and volunteers are so forthright about explaining its ecological history to guests, is part of what attracted a British researcher to Malakoff as a study site for a world heritage project.
Gareth Hoskins, a researcher with the Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences at Aberystwyth University in the United Kingdom, is one in a chorus of voices calling for the park to remain open, as it is slated for closure this September by the State of California.
The state is closing 70 of its 278 state parks in an effort to save $33 million over the next two years.
Hoskins recently visited Malakoff Diggins for Humbug Days in early June as the second in a three-park tour. He also visited the Big Pit, a massive coal mine in Wales, and is headed to the Big Hole diamond mine in Kimberly, South Africa.
Both of those sites, like Malakoff, are historically significant because they are monuments to ecological disasters, he said.
“The intention with the research is to advocate for a more serious engagement with the industrial past,” Hoskins said in an e-mail to The Union. “Rather than simply celebrating technological achievement or our power over nature, we want to use the evidence left behind by industry to encourage people to think through the (necessary?) trade-offs associated with economic development.”
Of the three sites studied, Malakoff paints the most honest picture of its past, from its exhibits to its employees, he said.
“It's far in advance of the other two in the ways it portrays its past,” Hoskins said. “The way the rangers talk about it... their message about Malakoff is how we deferred the cost of our wealth.”
Malakoff Diggins and its 3,200 acres was the largest hydraulic mining operation in California in the 1870s and early 1880s. Miners used water to blast away at hillsides above the Yuba River, jarring loose gold buried in the mountains. The process led to catastrophe downstream, U.S. Circuit Court Judge Lorenzo Sawyer wrote in an 1884 decision.
Debris from the mines was deposited “Into the river itself, whence it is carried down by the current into the Feather and Sacramento rivers, filling up their channels and injuring their navigations; and sometimes by overflowing and covering the neighboring lands with debris,” Sawyer wrote.
Farmers downstream complained the mine tailings caused their fields to flood. Sawyer's decision to ban the practice of hydraulic mining as a result of the miners at Malakoff Diggins is viewed as a landmark decision, setting what many view as America's first environmental law.
“In some ways Malakoff is much more important than places like Yosemite and Yellowstone,” Hoskins said. “Looking at the way historians write about it... you get a real sense of the awe and astonishment people got when they saw the diggings. They write about it as if it was an alien landscape.”
After Hoskins visits South Africa, he intends to make presentations to heritage bodies like California State Parks and UNESCO on the importance of ecological parks, in addition to writing a book on his research. It's his hope that Malakoff can stay open.
“It's a really important park,” he said.
Some local politicians and lawmakers are working to save Malakoff Diggins from closure. According to the state parks department, just more than 13,000 visitors — including 5,934 campers — traveled to Malakoff in 2008-09.
Nevada County Supervisors Ted Owens and Hank Weston have been working with state parks officials to point out there currently is no good plan to close the park to secure it from vandals, they said during Tuesday's Board of Supervisors meeting.
Assemblyman Dan Logue (R-Linda), who said he proposed to his wife at Malakoff, is looking at legislation to allow local jurisdictions to take over the state park in an effort to keep it open.
To contact Staff Writer Kyle Magin, e-mail kmagin@theunion.com or call (530) 477-4239.
It's a relic of the hydraulic mining era, which saw tons upon tons of earth blown away from Sierra Nevada mountainsides with highly pressurized water pumped through the monitors and flushed down the Yuba River, causing environmental havoc downstream and spurring some of the earliest environmental laws recorded in the United States. Malakoff Diggins State Park was established in 1965.
That the monitor stands in the park just east of North San Juan, and its rangers and volunteers are so forthright about explaining its ecological history to guests, is part of what attracted a British researcher to Malakoff as a study site for a world heritage project.
Gareth Hoskins, a researcher with the Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences at Aberystwyth University in the United Kingdom, is one in a chorus of voices calling for the park to remain open, as it is slated for closure this September by the State of California.
The state is closing 70 of its 278 state parks in an effort to save $33 million over the next two years.
Hoskins recently visited Malakoff Diggins for Humbug Days in early June as the second in a three-park tour. He also visited the Big Pit, a massive coal mine in Wales, and is headed to the Big Hole diamond mine in Kimberly, South Africa.
Both of those sites, like Malakoff, are historically significant because they are monuments to ecological disasters, he said.
“The intention with the research is to advocate for a more serious engagement with the industrial past,” Hoskins said in an e-mail to The Union. “Rather than simply celebrating technological achievement or our power over nature, we want to use the evidence left behind by industry to encourage people to think through the (necessary?) trade-offs associated with economic development.”
Of the three sites studied, Malakoff paints the most honest picture of its past, from its exhibits to its employees, he said.
“It's far in advance of the other two in the ways it portrays its past,” Hoskins said. “The way the rangers talk about it... their message about Malakoff is how we deferred the cost of our wealth.”
Malakoff Diggins and its 3,200 acres was the largest hydraulic mining operation in California in the 1870s and early 1880s. Miners used water to blast away at hillsides above the Yuba River, jarring loose gold buried in the mountains. The process led to catastrophe downstream, U.S. Circuit Court Judge Lorenzo Sawyer wrote in an 1884 decision.
Debris from the mines was deposited “Into the river itself, whence it is carried down by the current into the Feather and Sacramento rivers, filling up their channels and injuring their navigations; and sometimes by overflowing and covering the neighboring lands with debris,” Sawyer wrote.
Farmers downstream complained the mine tailings caused their fields to flood. Sawyer's decision to ban the practice of hydraulic mining as a result of the miners at Malakoff Diggins is viewed as a landmark decision, setting what many view as America's first environmental law.
“In some ways Malakoff is much more important than places like Yosemite and Yellowstone,” Hoskins said. “Looking at the way historians write about it... you get a real sense of the awe and astonishment people got when they saw the diggings. They write about it as if it was an alien landscape.”
After Hoskins visits South Africa, he intends to make presentations to heritage bodies like California State Parks and UNESCO on the importance of ecological parks, in addition to writing a book on his research. It's his hope that Malakoff can stay open.
“It's a really important park,” he said.
Some local politicians and lawmakers are working to save Malakoff Diggins from closure. According to the state parks department, just more than 13,000 visitors — including 5,934 campers — traveled to Malakoff in 2008-09.
Nevada County Supervisors Ted Owens and Hank Weston have been working with state parks officials to point out there currently is no good plan to close the park to secure it from vandals, they said during Tuesday's Board of Supervisors meeting.
Assemblyman Dan Logue (R-Linda), who said he proposed to his wife at Malakoff, is looking at legislation to allow local jurisdictions to take over the state park in an effort to keep it open.
To contact Staff Writer Kyle Magin, e-mail kmagin@theunion.com or call (530) 477-4239.
