Dredge mining without plan of operation2/22/2024 ![]() ![]() Though numerous violations of the state permit were noted last year, no citations were issued. The $10 permit ($30 for out-of-staters) limits dredge mining in the South Fork Clearwater River to July 15 to August 15. But the agency has only two largely desk-bound staff to administer hundreds of dredge permits across the entire state. In addition to obtaining the necessary federal permits, suction dredge miners are supposed to apply to the Idaho Department of Water Resources (IDWR) for a statewide stream-alteration permit akin to a fishing license. The problem is, they appear to be getting away with it. Antigovernment activists disagree with the rules and laws of this nation, but rather than working to change them, they try to intimidate the federal government-in the meantime harming clean water, fish and wildlife that belong to all of us. This illegal dredging follows an increasingly regular pattern. ![]() As a result, the miners continued their illegal dredging until the end of the season. Last summer, the Forest Service issued notices of noncompliance to a handful of miners, but the agency refused to cite the miners or require them to remove their equipment from the river. And they were openly violating the Clean Water and Endangered Species Acts by failing to secure necessary discharge permits from the Environmental Protection Agency. The miners knew they were dredging without permits required to operate on the Forest Service-administered South Fork Clearwater River. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) recently proposed to open the South Fork Clearwater River to recreational dredge mining, even as illegal miners continue to openly violate the Clean Water and Endangered Species Acts and threaten fish habitat and water quality.ĭuring the summer of 2015, dozens of out-of-state (and some Idaho) dredge miners rolled up State Hwy 14, set up camps and ran their gasoline-powered dredges in designated critical habitat for endangered fish. ![]()
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