California's Miners Are Fighting Back
Their Fight Is Our Fight
Today, the Western Mining Alliance sent the attached letter. Please take the time to familiarize yourself with it.
The letter is addressed to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the California Natural Resources Agency, and the State Water Resources Control Board. The WMA is demanding a seat at the table. This is in response to a recent request by the Center for Biological Diversity to invoke emergency powers to ban to all mechanized mining, not just suction dredges (portable filtration systems). This is an effort to stop recent inventions made by miners to raise gold using even smaller devices.
The miners are getting a raw deal. For years now, they have been prevent from earning a living through the exercise of their lawful mining rights on the mere suspicion of harm. Here are some of the points made in the letter:
o There is "not a single documented case of any person anywhere in the State having been sickened by the consumption of fish or wildlife due to mercury contamination." [page 3] Suction dredge mining has been in existence for more than 50 years.
o Suction dredge mining has been beneficial: "suction dredge miners have removed 2.5 metric tons on mercury from the watershed over the past forty years." [page 3]
o There is no credible science to support the alarms being raised. The "science" used to suggest possible harm was based on false tests. "the Department acknowledges that the Alper's test ... was found to be flawed and the experimental design was fundamentally incorrect ..." [page 4]
o Raising sediments from the bottom of a river and redepositing them does not create pollution. The Supreme Court has already ruled "the transfer of polluted water between two parts of the same water body does not constitute a discharge of pollutants under the CWA." [page 4]
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“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an
important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society
constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country."
― Edward Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud. Quoted from Bernays' 1928 book "Propaganda"
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