It's that time of year when the flowers bloom, the birds sing and California rivers are ripped apart with suction dredges!

That’s right folks, its mining season. However this year there’s a BIG difference – recreational dredge mining is illegal in California until the California Department of Fish and Game completes a revision of dredging regulations, thanks to everyone that helped pass SB670 last year, including CalTrout.

For those of you that don’t know, a suction dredge is a 10-15 foot long machine typically mounted on pontoons. The dredge is powered by a gas engine that runs a suction pump attached to a hose. The miner snorkels in the river, literally vacuuming up the river bottom (along with baby fish, baby lamprey, and apparently sometimes gold). The vacuumed material is run through a sluice box where the heavier gold particles sift out of the mix and the rest is dumped back in the river.

As you can imagine, altering the river bottom in such a manner affects spawning habitat of salmon and other fish, and the debris dumped back in to the river create sediment plumes that affect fisheries not to mention water quality. What’s worse is that the mining rush of the 1800s left a lot of mercury buried in our rivers - it was used to separate gold from ore. Dredges put this mercury back into the water column where it can become methylated and highly toxic.

So here’s the call to action: If you see folks dredging this summer – REPORT THE CRIME! Call Cal Tips at 888 DFG-CALTIP (888 334-2258). Give the time and place. Also email to Klamath Riverkeeper at: scott@klamathriver.org. Scott is keeping a log and following up with Fish and Game to demand enforcement actions.

Later this year Fish and Game will release its draft Environmental Impact Report and host public meetings to take comments. We will review the document and send around a summary highlighting any shortcomings.