Originally Posted By: Larry B
Originally Posted By: smelt
Originally Posted By: Larry B
Originally Posted By: gvbest
Not sure a conversation with someone else without any supporting documents, numbers would be considered facts. I could make up anything and then state someone of importance told me but it don't make it credible.


Concur. At least the Gold Prospector article which the OP disparaged quoted former employees of the EPA by name. Those quotes can be checked for veracity.



"Those quotes can be checked for veracity" -- huh? I'm sure those two gold prospectors said what the article said they said, but just because their statements are printed accurately doesn't make them true. (I've gotta admit, though, that the picture of the happy salmon spawning away in the dredge hole almost had me convinced until I looked at the top of my screen again and read "Gold Prospectors Association of America.") And those two gold prospectors crap so much on the EPA, the media, enviro organizations, Al Gore, and the Sierra Club (and I've left a few of their targets out) in their "scientific" article that it makes me wonder why I should credit anything they say simply because they are former EPA employees. To me, they sound like nuts spouting junk science. They just want the freedom to find their big gold nugget at the bottom of a steelhead stream without "Big Government" telling them what they can do.


And your assertions are more credible that their assertions why? Rhetorically speaking, that is.


Since you are a skeptic (and not a lemming!), get your own data from the WDFW if you care to. But it sounds like you'll need to go to every HPA site yourself and do an inspection to be satisfied. You'll probably need a year or two to take a look at the hundreds of sites to see with your own eyes what the dredgers have or have not done to the streams they've exploited for their own gain. I concede I haven't done that myself, but I also don't need to get hit with a meteorite to know they exist. (You won't get any useful data on how the dredging sites have been left from the WDFW.)

Lastly, I'm not a talking dog for some special-interest organization like those two "scientist"-prospectors promoting the interests of the Gold-Digger Association in their absurd propaganda piece. That's one reason why you might give some credence to what I've said here. If not, so be it. At this point, I've said my piece, several times over, and have nothing further to add.

Have a nice day!