In an echo of nugget-chasers past, a new gold rush
is under way on some Northern California rivers —
one that's generating a wealth of controversy.
Wildlife proponents say the mining endangers
salmon in the rivers, prompting a lawsuit by a
local tribe of Native Americans and questions
about whether the waterways can support both fish
and miners.
At the center of the debate is a gold-ferreting
technique far removed from the quaint days of
panning. Suction-dredge mining makes it possible
for prospectors to scour large and remote
stretches of river. Gold hunters use a roaring
engine mounted on pontoons to suck gravel and
sediment from river bottoms into a sluice box
where the ore settles.
The New 49'ers, a sport mining club based in Happy
Camp, Calif., sell gold-mining leases that bring
enthusiasts, and dredging equipment, to remote
reaches of the Klamath River and its cleanest,
coldest tributary, the Salmon River. The club says
its membership is growing fast.
But its marketing success may also be the club's
undoing. The dispute reached a critical stage
earlier this year when Joyce Thompson, then U.S.
Forest Service district ranger in Orleans,
northeast of Eureka, declared most of the Salmon
River off-limits to mining pending an
environmental review. The Karuk tribe — the
state's second largest — weighed in Oct. 7 with a
lawsuit against the Forest Service for not
enforcing Thompson's order.
"There's a boom in this suction-dredge mining on
streams in many areas of the West, and
essentially, the Forest Service has taken the
position that they will not regulate it," says
Roger Flynn, an attorney for the Karuks and the
Western Mining Action Project in Colorado. "This
lawsuit will hopefully stop that illegal position
of the Forest Service."
Matt Mathes, a regional press spokesman for the
Forest Service, said the agency doesn't comment on
ongoing lawsuits. "However, the supervisors of the
Six Rivers National Forest and Klamath National
Forest will meet this winter to establish a more
uniform permitting process for gold suction
dredging," says Mathes.
To dig up the gold, wet-suited miners wade or swim
with a hose that sucks holes upward of 8 feet
across and 5 feet deep. Their equipment floats on
a rig about the size of a whitewater raft.
The lure for prospectors is basic, according to
the New 49'ers' president and founder, Dave
McCracken. Finding gold "hits you where you live,"
he says. "It's a combination of greed and
exhilaration and euphoria."
His group sells access to unpatented mining claims
owned by individuals along 60 miles of the Klamath
and its tributaries. Unpatented claims grant the
holder mineral rights to what is otherwise public
land. The New 49'ers then lease those claims out
to club members, who pay $3,500 for a lifetime
membership.
The New 49'ers declined to comment on the lawsuit.
But proponents say their hobby may help fish by
stirring up nutrients. Mining holes are covered up
when winter rains bring down sediment and gravel
from the mountains, they say.
Sam Stroich, program coordinator for the Klamath
Forest Alliance, a local environmental group, says
the Salmon River may be the last refuge in the
Klamath Basin for salmon as well as green sturgeon
and lamprey.
"People are putting a lot of energy and money into
restoring the Klamath River basin…. If you don't
protect the fish, there won't be any fish to
repopulate that habitat."
Some Forest Service documents back up
environmentalists' claims. In July, Thompson wrote
that suction dredging and other mining on the
Salmon and Klamath rivers "were likely to cause
significant resource disturbance."
Suction dredges may trap young fish of several
species, Thompson argued, while excavation may
harm spawning habitat. The Karuks and others in
the community say they want a chance to analyze
the mining's environmental effects in a public
forum.
"The New 49'ers are threatening the tribe by
threatening the resources that the tribe depends
on," says Leaf Hillman, the Karuks' vice chairman.
"The point of the lawsuit is to make those federal
and state agencies who have mandatory authority
under the law do what they need to be doing in
terms of regulating this essentially unregulated
industry."