July 28, 2009 -- Oakland, CA – Yesterday, the Alameda County Superior Court approved an injunction creating a moratorium on the issuance of suction dredge mining permits in California. The moratorium will be in effect until a claim filed by taxpayers asserting that Californians’ tax dollars are being used to illegally subsidize suction dredge mining is resolved.
 
“It is morally reprehensible and illegal for California Fish and Game to continue to use tax dollars to subsidize the destruction of our salmon fisheries, especially so in the midst of a budget crisis,” said Glen Spain, representing the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA), a major commercial fishermen’s organization which is a litigant in the case. “It is great that the judge decided that the merits of our case warrant an injunction.”
 
Suction dredges are powered by gas or diesel engines that are mounted on floating pontoons in the river. Attached to the engine is a powerful vacuum hose which the dredger uses to suction up the gravel and sand (sediment) from the bottom of the river. The material passes through a sluice box where heavier gold particles can settle into a series of riffles. The rest of the gravel is simply dumped back into the river. Often this reintroduces mercury left over from historic mining operations to the water column, threatening communities downstream and getting into the human food chain. Depending on size, location and density of these machines they can turn a clear running mountain stream into a murky watercourse unfit for swimming. 
 
In 2005 the Karuk Tribe sued Fish and Game for allowing the practice of suction dredge mining to occur in areas known to be critical habitat for endangered and at-risk species such as Coho salmon, Pacific lamprey, and green sturgeon. At the time, Fish and Game officials submitted declarations to the Court admitting that suction dredge mining under its current regulations violates CEQA and Fish and Game Code §§5653 and 5653.9 (the statues which authorize the Department to issue permits for suction dredging under certain conditions) because the activity causes deleterious harm to fish – including endangered fish, such as the Coho salmon.
 
The 2005 suit ended in a court order in 2006 directing Fish and Game to conduct a CEQA environmental impacts review and amend its regulations by June 20, 2008.  Fish and Game has yet to even initiate this process, essentially ignoring the prior Court Order. 
 
Less than half of the costs of issuing roughly 3,000 dredging mining permits each year is actually collected from permit fees.  The rest is subsidized by California taxpayers, including Tribal, commercial and recreational fishermen who depend on healthy salmon runs for their livelihood or their businesses.
 
According to Craig Tucker, plaintiff in the suit and spokesman for the Karuk Tribe, “While legislators are cutting basic programs for our children and elders in an effort to balance the budget, DFG is subsidizing hobby mining. Miners should not be allowed to mine in critical fish habitats and they should pay their own way if they mine at all.”
 
Specifically, the current lawsuit charges that the suction dredge program violates: (1) the previous court Order; (2) CEQA, for failure to conduct a subsequent or supplemental EIR in order to provide protections for endangered and threatened fish listed since 1994; and (3) Fish and Game Code §§5653 and 5653.9, for failure to promulgate regulations in compliance with CEQA and for issuing permits when it has already determined that the activity causes deleterious harm to fish. 
 
Further arguments in the case have yet to be scheduled. 
 
Supporters of reasonable dredge mining restrictions stress that the court ordered moratorium does not mean that a recently passed bill, SB 670, is no longer needed. 
 
SB 670 was introduced by Northcoast Senator Pat Wiggins and passed both houses of the legislature with a greater than 2/3 majority earlier this summer. SB 670 would definitively place a moratorium on issuance of dredge mining permits pending completion of a full CEQA review and revision of the rules governing where and when mining can take place. The plaintiffs in the court case note that the court ordered moratorium has nothing to do with a science based re-evaluation of dredge mining rules, but is an argument over California Fish and Game’s budgetary proceses.  Fish advocates stress that both processes – the litigation and the legislation – should both move forward on their individual merits.
 
SB 670 has been sent to the Governor for consideration and a decision to sign or veto SB 670 is expected within the next 10 days.  Many Tribes, conservation groups along with , commercial and recreational fishermen and groups are urging the Governor to sign SB 670 to bring some legal and administrative certainty to this process.
 
Groups who are Plaintiffs in the lawsuit, include the Karuk Tribe, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Association, Institute for Fisheries Resources, the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, Klamath Riverkeeper, Friends of the River and the Center for Biological Diversity, as well as several individual California taxpayers.  They are represented in the case by the Environmental Law Foundation.

For more information:
Craig Tucker, Litigant and Spokesman, Karuk Tribe, cell 916-207-8294
Glen Spain, PCFFA, 541-689-2000