7/28/11
The current moratorium on suction dredging in California's rivers and streams was extended another five years Tuesday, when Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill that prohibits the controversial gold mining technique through June 2016.
Environmentalists called the bill – AB 120 – a victory for dwindling fisheries populations and taxpayers alike. In a statement released yesterday from the Center for Biological Diversity, Toxics and Endangered Species Campaign Director Jonathan Evans said the practice was harmful to animal life and damaging to historic Native American resources.
“This sensible law protects wildlife and waterways from toxic mercury and safeguards our cultural heritage,” Evans said in the statement. “California can’t afford to subsidize toxic mining that hurts our wildlife and our water.”
In addition to extending the current ban until new environmental regulations are adopted, AB 120 requires the California Department of Fish and Game to implement a new fee structure for dredging permits. Under the existing program, revenue generated by individual permit sales only amounted to $200,000, a fraction of the roughly $2 million needed to enforce the dredging, said Environmental Program Manager Mark Stopher.
Assuming the language in the bill can mesh with current restrictions from the California Environmental Quality Act, Stopher said fees would likely go up significantly before suction dredging took place again. Under the bill, the department cannot issue permits until they “fully mitigate all identified significant environmental impacts.”
“There are several different important areas for us to evaluate, one of them is the language of the bill,” Stopher said, adding that any movement by the department to establish new regulations will likely be hindered by a lack of available resources.
To date, Stopher said the department has spent more than $1.3 million of the $1.5 million allocated by the state to draft an Environmental Impact Report. Additional work on the project is currently on hold until meetings can be held to address the issue next week.
“Since there is no clear guidance on this yet, it's going to be pushed back a bit,” he said. “It's hard to imagine how you can conduct suction dredge mining and have no impacts at all.”
But mining supply shops like the Concord-based Gold Pan California continue to defend the practice, which involves handheld devices similar to vacuums that suck up sediment from the river bottom and deposit the material into sluice boxes above. Supporters, including Sen. Ted Gaines, R-Roseville, say the dredging brings in thousands of dollars to mining towns dependent on tourism dollars to survive, and represents an integral part of the state's history.
Environmental groups, meanwhile, say suction dredging is damaging to fisheries already on the decline. Craig Tucker, a spokesman for the Karuk Indian Tribe in Northern California, said the bill was a “big victory” for both fish populations and communities that rely on them.
“But it's also a victory for taxpayers,” said Tucker, adding that after a budget that included cuts to a variety of services was passed last month, people can take solace in the fact they will no longer have to subsidize dredging.
