Clean Streams Concept:

Clean Streams

In the year 2000 Resources Coalition came to the conclusion that small scale prospecting has several good benefits such as removing lead and mercury from our waterways. Miners for years have been removing this material, yet what to do with it?

We started a process to teach miners that the lead should be collected and mercury separated out and stored in a safe place. This mercury, which is often naturally occurring, is common throughout the west and miners used it in 1900 to collect gold. Today we are not only teaching the concept of removing the mercury yet in 2002 we worked with the State of Oregon for mercury collection at a point at the DEF rally outside Roseburg Oregon. This was a major success with pounds of mercury being turned in.

Our goal is to have a similar process here in the State of Washington and use the wealth of the prospecting community to collect mercury and remove it safely to collection sites within the state.

To this end we created a 3-minute video on prospecting collecting mercury and turning it in, this video is available through us for a nominal shipping and handling fee.

Beyond just lead and mercury, for years miners have been up keeping their claims clean by removing trash. Resources Coalition and the clubs have been pushing cleanup along our waterways to help preserve our clean pristine forests. This is our “Clean Stream Concept” leave what we have a little better each time we use it.

Educating

There is a saying in the prospecting community “if it can’t be grown it must be mined.” Today people are often overwhelmed by information some of which is accurate while others have only their agenda in mind.

We at Resources Coalition recognize that mining in some quarters has a bad name from what is the perceived history of mining. The wholesale ripping apart of mountainsides with the use of water monitors, the dumping of dangerous chemicals with a disregard of effects in the ecosystem.

This may have been true at the turn of the 20^th century, yet one can’t help but look what mining did for our country and how we as a nation benefited from the great mining push of the 1850’s. The major cities of the west were built on mining - San Francisco, Seattle, Denver and many others. The wealth found underground drove the railroads to push through to the west. This force also fueled our economy, which built us into the greatest country in the world. The very standard of living we enjoy today is derived from our past and to separate the two is at best foolishness. Without the wealth we extracted from the ground this country would be like most of the third world countries; very poor and people would not have the time to think about the bigger questions of life as we do today.

So when you hear the cry that mining is bad for the environment and we are killing this or that remember the truth is mining built our country which has created a standard of living that allows for the esoterical questions to come to the top This interim permitted the development of a more ecologically friendly way of living.

We at Resources Coalition say our history is very important to where we are and to preserve and protect the rights that brought the wealth is a celebration of our countries greatness. The American Indian knows the value of celebrating the traditions by using them and this is why we must protect and encourage others to celebrate the great heritage of mining. There is much more to mining than most people realize and even taking into account the bad, there are many benefits to what the prospector and miner do.

Small-scale mineral recovery

When the small-scale miner moves out into gold bearing streams looking for gold he brings along equipment that helps keep the stream in good health. The dredge, which has become one of the most efficient tools at recovering gold or other precious minerals, also helps breathe life back into streams by breaking up hardpan which often happens in today’s water channels. This layer prevents oxygen from getting into the gravel strata under the hardpan and makes fish breeding almost impossible; by breaking up this hardpan fish breeding is enhanced.

The breaking up of this allows gravels to be cleaned and new life such as invertebrates to move back and re-colonize. This process also allows food to be freed and that's often why dredgers see fish in the hole where they are working. The clean gravel returned, becomes excellent gravel for spawning in for fish and this helps the cycle of life. The heavy metals that the modern day dredge remove is also a big benefit to the ecology of any river or stream. Lead and mercury are removed very efficiently by today’s dredges and between man’s introduction of lead back into the streams and natural occurring deposits.

This efficiency led Resources Coalition to organize a collection point at the 2003 DEF rally in Oregon, which resulted in pounds of mercury being turned in. Through modern prospecting methods streams can benefit from our presence and the people speaking out on the evils of prospecting lack information on the overall benefits of the craft.

Sluicing and panning are the basics for any prospector today, their impact is not measurable and has less impact then a fisherman wadding with boots in the water. What one has to consider is when and what type of fish are present in the gravels and prospectors do agree on this control. Yet for the panning and sluicing materials collected for this activity most or all are located above water line to the stream high water mark, making this a for good year around use.

We at Resources Coalition are committed to educate the public and bring the great heritage that our country was formed on, the right to pursue their dreams in as much freedom as possible.

Working with WDFW

The course Resources Coalition has taken over the last five years shows the problems we face in clear view. Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife (WDFW) put out its present regulation and license in a 1999 book, called the Gold & Fish Book, which has drawn considerable fire from the prospecting community.

The Gold & Fish book angered the prospecting community so that leaders within the community formed the Resources Coalition as an organization devoted to educating the public and regulators to the value of prospecting and small-scale mineral recovery. Merle Stout first President thought that the organization should encompass more then our issues because of the nature of regulation, denying access to public land use. Also the private lands are threatened by the same processes, which made for more of an outreach to a larger community at risk.

Yet our focus has been clear - to bring about change in our present regulatory concepts through education and this process has been indeed very hard for the following reasons.

WDFW should rule based upon best science, yet the Science does not appear to be there especially with small-scale prospecting. There are studies on many aspects of mining yet to find a comprehensive science on 8 inch or less size dredge is lacking.

Pat Chapman of WDFW put in a summery of public meetings concerning the 1999 Gold & Fish book; I quote “Miners number one criticism is “Where is the Science?” This question is still on the table five years latter and numerous attempts to secure the studies used to make decisions has not turned up a validation of the departments work. They can’t point to the studies that make their positions reasonable and we can’t find in all our research the studies that support as stringent a code as found in the present Gold & Fish license.

This leads Resources Coalition to believe that WDFW is running the process on a Philosophical position not on Science. This is not what is best for the fish, but rather resembles a philosophical position of “what man does is bad” and the solution is to limit man’s use of our natural resources to better the overall quality of life.

I attended a prospecting club presentation with a WDFW biologist who clearly stated the following:

What man does is often incremental in nature and nature itself has a hard time adjusting to man’s interference. From the small dredge hole you may put into the river to channeling a stream to prevent flooding is something we must limit for Mother Nature can’t overcome this continues attack on natural process.

This philosophical determination of course has some science yet to attach it to all activity is the problem. You can especially see this in making the designation that “hatchery” fish are somehow inferior to natural stream bread “wild” salmon. When the courts ruled last year that they couldn’t make the distinction this sent a new wave through regulating community and the extreme element started talking about time to stop hatchery production. Now Resources Coalition does not say this is the position of WDFW, yet looking at the surface we see the same type of thinking within the department among some.

You can see that we are in need of education and a process of working together either joint studies or real serious dialog on the Science that we are using. We hope the NW Miners Rally can play a key point in this process, yet this remands to be seen. Indications are the bureaucracy will not use the rally to learn except in a limited way and to actual pursue a serious study on a small piece of river between the competing philosophical approaches will not happen this year.

So 2005 will be a pivotal year with WDFW committed to turn out new book on regulating us and we in turn doing everything in our power to educate. The one thing we would like to see is more open dialog between the prospector and the regulator and get what science there is on the table. Determine the good and the bad and make it work.