"One thing I can say is this. There has never been a single documented case of a dredge killing a fish, directly or indirectly...not one."


Don't know what you can documented, but any damn fool can see that dredging has indeed caused major riparian damage in the past. Have you ever seen the Klondike River?

Bonaro-
As often is the case with fish issues the devil is in the details.

There is little disagreement in the literature regarding impacts from dredge type activities that eggs and the young fry before emerging from the gravel are at risk during dredging activities. While the mortality of the egg/fry will vary depending on the situation some (in some cases 100%) will die.

The rub is that here in the PNW and north Puget Sound especially with multiple species with diverse spawning times there can be eggs in the gravel for most of the year (and in some cases all year round).

Just one example would be in the Skagit basin where steelhead (and resident rainbows) spawn from early March into July. Spring Chinook begin spawning in August and September, the other races of Chinook and salmon species can be found spawning from September into March.
With the fry from the spawning steelhead still coming out of the gravel into September it should be clear that there is potential to kill fish or their eggs year-round.

The TU project you referenced in previous post was in Colorado which to my knowledge have not salmon (except kokanee in few isolated areas) so the time window for work would be much wider than some areas here in Washington. As I said the devil is in the details.

curt

The Skagit is permit only for dredging. No dredging allowed without a permit.

Dave - To answer your question, yes, I have seen the Klondike river and I have dredged in the Alaska interior on the Fortymile river.
I'm glad you made an example out of the Klondike, it's a great opportunity for me to dispel a common myth about modern dredging.

Below is a pic of a Klondike gold dredge, It is about 150' long and 40' wide. I chose this pic because it has a good viewing angle, most bucketline dredges were actually twice this size. On the front is a continuous chain of buckets on a submersible boom (think giant chainsaw) that scoop up the bottom. The gravel is processed inside the building and dumped out the back via a conveyor up to an additional 150' long. They literally moved every bit of gravel in the entire valley and left miles of tailing piles in their path. I do not know of a single one still in operation in the north America. The last one shut down over 50 years ago.




This is a photo of a gold dredge exactly like mine. It has a 5" intake hose and is the largest allowed in this state and is larger than what most washington dredgers use. The dredge and all of it's associated gear will fit easily into the back of my shortbed pickup.




You are correct that "any damn fool" can see the "major riparian damage" of The huge bucketline dredges that have worked in the Klondike but certainly "any damn fool" can see the difference in the scale of the work being done by modern small scale mining dredges compared to the commercial operations of a century ago.

Back in those pioneer days logging practice was clearcut and burn and no replant. Fishing was sometimes done with poisons or dynamite. Times have changed and all industries have modernized their practices and machines, mining is no exception.

Bonaro

If you want to be taken seriously you can't make statements such as saying a dredge never killed a fish.

Of course they did. Do modern ones kills as many? Of course they don't. But I remain opposed to digging up streambeds in areas where salmonids live.

You should know that a dredger asking for love on a fishing forum is bound to be about as popular as a bait salesman at a flyfishing convention.

You have made your point. Thanks for the info.

Smalma, you are correct and I agree, dredging up eggs is bad for the eggs. Our Gold and Fish pamphlet is our rule book. It was crafted by WDFW with fish and habitat protection begin the main priority. We worked with then to help for common sense rules and it was a good collaboration. Our work windows are specifically designed to avoid the spawning times of fish and this is determined on a stream by stream basis. We typically are in the water after all eggs have hatched. There are many streams that have endangered bull trout or golden trout that are closed completely. Again, WDFW took the lead in determining what safe timing would be.

We are after gold and gold tends to collect in the deep rocky runs, boulder patches and low pressure areas downstream of obstructions like large boulders. The natural spanning areas tend to be the slower gravelly areas. Gold does not collect here and the gravel tends to run very deep...we don't even look here for gold.

Most mountain streams where gold is found do not support anadromous fish like salmon and steelhead.

Maybe you can explain something to me...
How can dredging be harmful to spawning fish or eggs during times when fish are not spawning and eggs are not laid....but ... during spring runoff when eggs are in the gravel, they seem to survive just fine?
The following pic shows typical spring runoff. Every particle of gravel smaller than a baseball is in motion in this river. How can eggs survive this but a dredge can kill thousands?
I truly would appreciate an explanation because I cant make sense of it.



Regarding the TU project in Colorado. Assuming there are no anadromous fish and we are only talking about trout. Does this mean running a loader up and down the river and digging in the water with an excavator have a lessor impact than a gold dredge?

Dave,
Just so we are clear, I could not care less about your love and this is not a popularity contest. Do you honestly think I, as a lone dredger could walk into a hardcore fish forum and not have some crap thrown at me? Dang, you should give me props just for being brave.
I am trying to open your mind to the possibility of facts other than those you have jumped to conclusion upon.

The notion that every modern dredge kills fish is a baseless exaggeration. Yes, they CAN kill fish but when used in the right place and time they do not....fact

What I am telling you is that there have been 100's of millions of $ spent studying and researching the effects of dredging. Most of this was performed by the people that hate us and they were only looking for ammo to shoot us down. NOT ONE STUDY exists that shows a fish was killed by a dredge when that dredge was operated according to existing State habitat protection guidelines. Just like fishing, when you don't follow the rules, anything can happen. You cannot judge the entire user group by the lawbreakers.

If you know different please show me proof and I will publicly apologize to you.

You don't have to like dredging, that is not why I am on here. I just would hope that you make your choices based on fact. There are a few on here that understand and support mining but there are hundreds of others reading that just aren't sure or are opposed because of all the bad press the liberal side has churned out. I am offering the mining perspective of this in a respectful and professional way...this is not a bad thing

I think that jet sleds and drift boats that drag anchor to slow down their drift are more damaging to eggs than small dredges. Dredges work in rocky areas with lots of boulders and the sleds and drift boats drag anchor in the gravel bottoms where the redds are.

Maybe it's death by a thousand cuts ??

Dave, Smalma, and Bonaro, it is good to see both sides of this argument, maybe we can all learn something. This reminds me of the Hood River issue (or is it the Sandy) and ongoing wild/hatchery issues. When the wild group go to work talking about the issue, you never hear of the Nisqually River Steelhead that have not recovered after 20 + years of complete protection.

Prior to reading this thread, I had no idea anything called suction dredging was happening on our rivers and streams. I fish quite a bit, and in many places, and I've yet to encounter anyone engaging in said activity (which leads me to believe it's not a major challenge to ESA species' survival), but now that I know what this is and how it works, I do have some thoughts (in case anyone is interested).

Seems the dredgers (and the regulars on the board who typically condemn ANY new government regulation, so oppose it on principle) think this proposed legislation is unwarranted. Meanwhile, although nobody (original poster aside) seems to be overly concerned about the relative impact of the activity in question, others have suggested there is reason to believe the practice of suction dredging has potential to do meaningful harm to stream beds and, subsequently, salmon and steelhead stocks.

Those opposed to tighter regulations argue that dredge mining is already sufficiently regulated and that the practice can actually benefit fish habitat. I'll stop short of saying such claims are ridiculous, but I have yet to observe an activity involving disturbance of a riverbed being a net benefit to fish productivity, so I am skeptical of those claims, to say the least.

For example, on the one hand, one poster said the dredging takes place in deep pools that are not suitable spawning water. Then, the perhaps slanted article from the gold prospecting association claimed that dredging can create new spawning habitat by forming gravel deposits where none existed before. These points are clearly contradictory, as a spawning bed created in a deep pool would never be deemed suitable by any spawning salmon or steelhead. At least as concerns this argument, either dredging does occur in spawning areas, or else there is no habitat benefit to dredging.

The mercury removal argument is compelling, and if that is indeed a benefit dredging provides, I think that's kind of cool. Not being familiar enough with the process to know how or whether the mercury that gets dredged up is actually removed from the substrate permanently, I have a suspicion it simply goes back into the river when the stuff the miners are after is filtered out of the sluice, and I therefore have doubts this is a real, net benefit. I'd be interested to know more about this if someone can enlighten me.

The argument that killing fish while mining is no worse than harvesting fish by hook and line is weak at best (in my opinion). Without a doubt, we walk a fine line when we, as sport fishers, claim to be fish advocates while fishing in the presence of depleted or endangered stocks, but most of us are good stewards of the environment and do only a limited amount of harm to the resource. Guys dragging anchors to slow their drifts through flats should be slapped sensible, but that's not a majority of the boating contingent. Sport fishers are limited to a defined number of harvestable fish, and mortality on release of additional fish is relatively low. Furthermore, their impact is accounted for in fisheries planning, and the fish they harvest are (in theory, anyway) allocated as part of an allowable impact. (Certainly, the effectiveness of planned harvest impacts is up for debate, but that's not what this thread is about.) Fish killed in mining operations are not accounted for in any harvest model I've ever seen, so any number of mortalities presents a danger. I think it also bears mention that sport harvested fish get eaten, and there is a social value in killing fish for that purpose. Killing them incidentally and with no opportunity to utilize the resource is wasteful.

I agree that responsible suction dredging (done with the intent to avoid contact with spawning redds or usable habitat) should kill very few, if any, fish. My concern is that many of the people doing the mining aren't likely to know how to go about doing that, and they're less likely to care if they have reason to believe that a piece of spawning water lies over a significant deposit of gold.

I'm not overly excited about this issue, and I am fully aware that sport fishing has real impacts, but I think the proposed regulations are fair and a good idea. The bill doesn't outlaw suction dredging (except in designated waters which, in many cases, are similarly restricted for sport fishing). Rather, it implements fees for doing the same; fees that COULD be used to pay for additional enforcement, which would not only minimize the potential harm associated with this sort of mining, but would also improve enforcement of fishing rules designed to protect endangered fish. I think a lot of government regulations are excessively costly and counterproductive, but I don't feel that way about this one. My attitude may change if this legislation passes and the revenues collected go to the pork barrels instead of enforcement, but....

The new Facebook page is going well. (Thanks for asking, Dan.) It's called Fish Not Gold for those who'd like to visit. And it contains links to peer-reviewed scientific studies of the adverse effects of suction dredging of our streams as well as abuses by the miners who proclaim themselves "stewards of the land." I've said my piece in this forum more than once and I'm not going to try to refute anecdotal "evidence" based on someone's personal experience, which is inherently limited. Again, take a look at the extensive scientific studies done by, to take just one example, the Oregon Chapter of the American Fisheries Society. Other fisheries scientists have performed data-based studies (reviewed by other expert scientists before publication) that show the "do-no-harm" claims of the suction dredgers are questionable at best or outright false and deceptive. There are links to such studies on the Fish and Gold Facebook page. And please do not try to claim that the biased opinions (rants, actually) of those two gold prospectors who are retired EPA employees trump the peer-reviewed science we have on our side. You guys can't refute these scientific studies so you rely on anecdotes and personal experience, which is supposed to negate everything to the contrary.

Smelt - The Facebook page you started is a biased tool for propaganda and I would not say it's going well since the only posts are cut and paste by the same 3 people. I have commented on it along with many others with questions, talking points and scientific reports that support dredging. Each and every comment in support of dredging has been removed and the poster banned. I find it disturbing how you immediately move to silence the voice of anyone that opposes you. Even in your previous post here you tell us what is true and also tell us to ignore the opposing opinions. Are you really that afraid of people making an informed independent decision?

You attempt to discredit the reports by two PhD scientists because they are also gold dredgers....but you want us to believe your pro-fishing reports and you are a fisherman...shouldn't you be discredited for the same reason?

I find your narrow mindedness laughable.

That's okay: you haven't hurt my feelings with your personal abuse.

What IS laughable is your preposterous statement on this board from 2/24:

"One thing I can say is this. There has never been a single documented case of a dredge killing a fish, directly or indirectly...not one."

What about fish EGGS? Since you say you've been dredging for thirty years (as if that's supposed to assure us of your competence and expertise on the biological effects of dredging!), I'd think that you've personally destroyed many, many thousands of fish eggs. (Please assure me that's only a figment of my soft-headed liberal imagination.) But by your logic, I suppose, those eggs wouldn't count as fish since they haven't hatched.

One more thing. A few minutes ago you replied to me as follows:

"You attempt to discredit the reports by two PhD scientists because they are also gold dredgers....but you want us to believe your pro-fishing reports and you are a fisherman...shouldn't you be discredited for the same reason?"

I am referring to independent peer-reviewed studies of the adverse effects of dredging on fish by scientists (not by ME -- can't you read?). I didn't write those studies! SCIENTISTS with expertise in the biology of fish wrote them. Those studies are not my personal opinion. Your ex-EPA dredgers were experts in toxicology and physical chemistry, NOT the biology of fish. Their political ranting about evil Al Gore and his "brainwashing" campaign as well as the global warming "conspiracy" (by golly, the greatest conspiracy in all history!) shows that they are kooks as well. Incidentally, I've got a PhD too, but that doesn't automatically make me competent to do a valid scientific study of an issue involving the biology of fish. That's why I read (and respect) what fisheries biologists who have actually studied dredging have said in reports reviewed by other fisheries biologists before publication. Your gold prospector-toxicoligist-chemist duo have never had a paper on suction dredging reviewed by fisheries biologists and published in a professional journal. That's because their field is not fisheries science. In that field, they are simply hacks with an agenda. That agenda (to find dredging not just harmless but, yes indeed, actually helpful to fish!) means their writings are just exercises in smoke-blowing. That's why their pro-dredging propaganda appears only in friendly miner forums. (For those interested in a detailed exposure of their bogus claims and supposed expertise, read a few pages of http://www.cascwild.org/western-mining-alliance-and-brain-surgery-by-dentists/

As for banning you and other dredging fanatics from the Fish Not Gold Facebook page: why would we want your pro-dredging crap trashing up the page, which presents the science behind our position? I might add that I've been banned from the Facebook page of the Washington Mining Prospectors Association. Put up your own Facebook page to rebut us with your anecdotes and your thirty years of invaluable personal experience as a dredger, which obviously trumps all the fisheries scientists who've actually studied dredging.

Lastly, Dan, would you care to comment on why Idaho, Oregon, and California have restricted or banned suction dredging? Maybe those states have been taken over by tree-hugging liberals (or communists)? Or have the fisheries managers there been duped by a grand anti-dredging conspiracy that your gang is unmasking?

FleaFlickr2 - for not knowing about dredging you have made some very good and reasonable conclusions...just a few comments

Mercury - The Left likes to say that pioneer miners are the ones that put the mercury in the rivers in the early days of mining. Truth is that HG is expensive and dumping it in a river to try and get it to stick to the gold is a extremely inefficient way of mining. Gold is found in rivers that run through mineralized regions. In addition to gold you can find naturally occurring silver, copper iron AND mercury. I am sure there were some accidental spills but almost all the HG in our rivers is naturally occurring, not from mining. This is proven because some rivers that have no gold values are contaminated by HG. A gold dredge will capture anything that is heavier than the surrounding gravel. I dredged the south Umpqua river in Oregon a few years ago for one week. I came home with a little under 1.5 oz. of gold about 25 pounds of sinkers and bullets. I also got about an ounce of HG and I did not bother tracking all the steel. I sell the HG and gold and I melt down the sinkers to make bullets. Nothing is thrown back in the river

Mining vs. fishing - the point I was trying to was that our regulations and practices are designed to not kill any fish and killing fish is what fish is what fishermen are allowed to do. No matter how a fish was killed or what was done with it afterwards does not change the fact that the fish is dead.

Fees - I was working with the committee that helped create the first Gold and Fish book. At that time the miners offered to pay a reasonable permit fee. The WDFW declined to apply a fee because the administration would cost more than the revenue received. The fee proposed by this new bill is $150 for anyone who wants to do any kind of prospecting, including just a pan and shovel. This is very unreasonable..

Lastly - I am obviously strongly pro-mining but I work hard to promote legal activities and the use of best practices. There is no reason why mining and fishing cannot co-exist and still have a healthy resource...IF both parties pursue their sport legally.

Dan/Bonaro,

I would imagine that dreging is only allowed to happen prior to any spawning. Is that correct?

Dredgers are supposed to work inside the work windows specified in the Fish and Gold pamphlet and those windows were calculated to avoid the spawning periods of fish. But dredgers can and often do apply for exceptions to those work windows (so-called Hydraulic Project Approvals or HPAs), and these are routinely granted. In fact, based on our count of HPAs issued by the WDFW from 2009 to September 2013 (we have obtained them from the WDFW), more than 1,000 were issued in that short time period. (As I recall, the exact number was 1,019.) The HPAs carry detailed provisions for how this "exceptional" dredging is to be carried out to avoid or minimize damage, but the WDFW has NO ability to actually monitor those projects for compliance. And these HPAs, which, once again, are exceptions to the specified work windows, can be issued for a period of years. And there is no charge or license needed to get an HPA, so the WDFW has no funds to monitor the work. That's an obvious problem. What the dredgers fear most is an outright ban on dredging; almost as bad, in their view, is a system that exposes their dredging projects to actual monitoring for compliance with the rules by the WDFW. The dredgers don't want anyone actually inspecting their sandboxes.

I watched a suction dredge in action last summer in liberty. I was surprised how many fingerling trout would congregate down stream of the operation. They were feeding on the aquatic life stirred up by the dredging. I wonder what effect the dredging has on the bugs? They have been sluicing that stream for more than 100 years and it is still loaded with trout.

Smelt, how many HPA's for dredging were allowed within the spawning period for salmon in that 4 year period. Be specific.

Fair question, but getting an answer won't be easy. The set of HPAs (a little more than 1,000 issued from 2009 to September 2013) we received from the WDFW were just loaded on a CD, one after another. They weren't categorized in any useful or usable way at all, for example, by location. Just to get a simple count required going through all of them in sequence. It was quite laborious, as you can imagine. This also shows, by the way, that the WDFW has no ability at present to track what is going on with these HPA projects, which are exceptions to the work windows specified in the Fish and Gold pamphlet. I'll see what we can do about refining the data because the answer to your question would be useful to know. It's probably going to take some time due to the totally unsorted nature of the HPA dump we were given.

What would you say is the salmon spawning season -- August to December? What about spring chinook, though? Should they be disregarded for the sake of simplicity? I'm looking for ideas here to make analysis of the data feasible.