Public land under the ownership of the United States.
“The power over the disposition of such land and the minerals contained therein is in Congress and not in the states“.
(McLemore v. Express Oil Co. (1910) 158 Cal. 559, 562; Moore v. Smaw (1861) 17 Cal. 199, 218-219.)

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PUBLISHED BY THE WASHINGTON ALLIANCE OF MINERS AND PROSPECTORS
with additions by Steve Herschbach of Alaska Mining & Diving Supply.

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Could the following article explain why SB 670 was passed without proper evaluation of existing Federal Laws and peer accepted Science.?

Records show dozens of Calif. lawmakers fail to report freebies from lobbyists

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A California lawmaker and his wife were treated by the insurance industry to a two-night stay, with spa treatments, at an exclusive Pebble Beach resort.

Another received free passes to Sea World San Diego, along with Disneyland tickets. Yet another got a coveted ticket to the 2008 Holiday Bowl college football game

In each case, the lawmaker not only accepted the perks and freebies but also apparently failed to report them as required by state law, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press under the California Public Records Act.

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Amador County supervisors had words of encouragement on Tuesday for aficionados of the gold-mining practice known as suction dredging.

Suction-dredge mining, long regulated under seasonal and geographic criteria only, has been under a legislated moratorium since August, pending environmental review. The move came over concerns about the state's permitting process, particularly regarding the harm suction dredging may do to fish-spawning grounds. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger came under pressure from mining interests to veto Senate Bill 670 that installed the moratorium. The Department of Fish and Game expects the review will be finished by late summer 2011, but opponents of the legislation are still mounting pressure to suspend it. Economic arguments on behalf of subsistence miners, mining-tourism operations and manufacturers of mining equipment have figured largely into the push.

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This response letter was written by Tom Kitchar of Waldo Mining Districk, to the Attorney Generals Office for the state of Oregon. He explains in detail the US Mining Law and how it applies in situations where State laws try to prohibit Mining on Federal Lands.

This letter is a great example of how State lawmakers are misunderstanding and misinterpreting US Mining Law. In this letter Tom sets the record strait of how the Mining law need to be understood.

This letter was taken from the Public Lands for the People website.

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PLP FILED A PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION AGAINST SB 670 THE CA. DFG MORATORIUM ON SUCTION DREDGING AT 12 NOON ON JAN, 21, 2010. THE CASE WILL BE HEARD BEFORE JUDGE MORRISON C. ENGLAND IN COURT ROOM 7 OF THE FEDERAL EASTERN DISTRICT COURT ON FEB. 25, 2010 IN SACRAMENTO.

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Dispite California law SB 670, which bans all Suction Dredging on all CA Rivers and Streams, dredging is going on in the Sacramento River just above Redding Ca. The EPA is stating this very large dredge is not producing negative water quality in one of the most heavily mined areas in the North State.

So Why was Suction Dredging Banned for only Small Scale Gold Mining. Dredging is Dredging is it not? Sounds like a double standard going on in CA.

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My name is Claudia Wise; I retired in 2006 after 32 years of civil service with the U.S. EPA as a physical scientist/chemist. I have been a member of many scientific projects over the years starting my federal career in the Fish Toxicology arena and ending it with the Salmon Restoration division. I have worked on projects ranging from urban fish populations and fish avoidance testing to eelgrass habitat and global climate change. I have been and remain to be a strong proponent of protecting the environment.

On October 11, 2007 in regards to AB 1032 I wrote to you regarding another attempt by the legislature to get around a court order and unnecessarily put a large group of miners and businesses out of work with no scientific evidence to support their claims.

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The Honorable Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814
Fax: 916-558-3160

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger

PLEASE VOTE NO ON BILL 670 (anti-suction dredging legislation)

I am a research biologist. I live in Philomath, Oregon. I worked for about 32 years as a research biologist for the United States Environmental Protection Agency, starting when that agency was known as the Federal Water Quality Agency, and I retired from the E.P.A. in 2002. Among other assignments, I measured and evaluated water soluble toxicants from Superfund sites. I spent about four years during my career with the E.P.A. serving as a faculty member at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon on an intergovernmental exchange program and developed a program and a laboratory for the practice of ecotoxicology, the science of determining the toxicity of samples of effluents and other environmental contaminants by measuring the reaction of living organism assemblages to such samples. I have served as a chairman of testing committees for the American Society for Testing and Materials. I have chaired a number of international symposia, workshops, and congresses in my field as well as been an invited speaker to numerous national and international professional scientific meetings in my field.

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Given that SB 670 focus on determining “possible” environmental impacts beyond de minimis or negligible impacts of small scale suction dredging in California waterways.

Because the state of California licenses sports & commercial fishing state wide, as well as through various agencies licenses water diversion, impoundment, use for hydroelectric power production, agricultural irrigation, industrial use, & municipal use (including sewage treatment), etc.

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