volume 24 number 2 april / may 2012 dredging doesn’t harm ... · benefit salmon and other species...

Dredging doesn’t harm fish, experts say

HITTING SOME PLAYDIRT!

Photo by Brad JonesThere was never a dull moment for GPAA Outing participant Andy Green at Vein Mountain LDMA Camp near Marion, North Carolina.

By BRAD JONESGPAA Editor/Content Director

Suction dredge mining does not harm fish and can actually improve fish habitat, scientists say.

Claudia Wise and Joseph Greene, worked for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for more than 30 years. Wise is a retired physical sci-entist and Greene is a retired research

biologist.Both scientists have done extensive

research on the issue and cannot find any evidence to substantiate claims made by environmental activists that suction dredging harms fish or fish habitat.

They say suction dredging can benefit salmon and other species of

fish by improving habitat in rivers and streams.

The science of dredging“Any negative effects of suction

dredging on fish or fish habitat are in-significant. The benefits definitely out-weigh any of the negative effects in any of the studies I’ve ever seen,” Wise

said in recent interview.In almost every study, the environ-

mental impact of suction dredge min-ing on fish — including salmon — and fish habitat has been proven to be “less than significant,” Greene said.

Dredging improves fish habitat by creating pockets in the bottoms of riverbeds and streambeds. These depressions are ideal places for fish,

Paul platform missing plank on public lands

By BRAD JONESGPAA Editor / Content Director

Constitutional purist Ron Paul may be getting his share of the limelight in the Republican primary election, but he has left a lot of miners in the dark with his policy on who would control public lands.

According to campaign organizer Mike Benoit in San Diego, Paul wants to abolish five departments of the federal government — including the Internal

Revenue Service — and cut more than $1 trillion out of the federal budget in the first year.

“It’s actually quite feasible when you look at all these agen-cies; they’re being operated out-side of constitutional authority ... We are slaves to the Internal Rev-enue Service, ” Benoit said.

One of those federal departments is the Depart-ment of Interior, which would include the elimina-tion of federal agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management and the United States Forest Service among others, he said.

Paul is also a firm believer in private property rights and wants to take public lands now controlled by the federal government and put them back in the hands of individual states, according to Benoit.

“Ron Paul would like to see all these fed-eral lands returned to state jurisdiction. There is

A NEWS ANALYSIS

■ Gold Show Mania ��3■ Miners Market ��26-27■ Mining Guide Updates ��13-16■ Chapters Corner �� 24■ Upcoming Events�� 28NEW FULL COLOR MINING GUIDECheck out page 2 for details on what this exciting new edition has to offer members!

Miners’ rights advocates forge new allianceBy SARAH REIJONENFor the GPAA

Miners often get a bad rap in the press, but the Western Mining Alliance hopes to change the knuck-le-dragging, frog-and-fish-slaying portrait of miners and gold prospectors often drawn by the media.

“In the first paragraph of every piece I read on mining, the story talks about how mining releases mercury and kills fish,” said Rick Solinsky, one of the founders of the WMA. “We’re just getting kicked in the teeth week after week.”

Not only do the media and extreme environmen-talists think miners are harming the environment, but they think gold miners lack the voice, gumption and knowledge to rise up and challenge false notions, he said.

“Our opposition thinks there are a bunch of Nean-derthals who are gold miners,” Solinsky said.

The moratorium on suction dredging in California brought Solinsky, Eric Maksymyk and Craig Lindsay together to form the WMA.

An outside party, who has requested to remain

* DREDGING, Page 7

* PLP, Page 9 * WMA, Page 23

www.goldprospectors.org

INDEX

Mike Benoit

PLP: 2012 campaign serves up mixed bag of election promises

THE SCIENCE — AND POLITICS — OF DREDGING

➤

Volume 24 Number 2 April / May 2012

Pick & Shovel Gazette April / May 20122

Pick & Shovel Gazette

Volume 24, Number 2April / May 2012

Published by theGold Prospectors Association of America

43445 Business Park Drive, Suite 113Temecula, California 92590

1-800-551-9707 • (951) 699-4749FAX (951) 699-4062

www�goldprospectors�org

FounderGeorge Massie

CEOTom Massie

PresidentBrandon Johnson

Director of OperationsDominic Ricci

Editor / Content DirectorBrad Jones

[email protected]

Creative DirectorMarjorie Deacon

[email protected]

Editor / Art DirectorCarla Celeste Bivin

Expeditions, Mining Guide, Claims & Outings Director

Blake Harmon

AdvertisingJames Bond

1-800-640-0814 [email protected]

Chapters / Trade Show ManagerGary Sturgill

[email protected]

Event Manager - ExpeditionsAmber White

LDMA AdministratorSharina Davis

Member Services ManagerJinny Iodice

Sheriffs challenge federal agenciesOATH KEEPERS EXPOSE ABUSE OF POWER BY BLM, U.S. FOREST SERVICE

By RUSS BALBIRONAFor the GPAA

More than 100 county sheriffs from around the country are banded together to remember their sworn oaths to stand for the Constitution and fight back against federal agencies they say have overstepped the bounds of their author-ity.

Sheriff Rich-ard Mack and the County Sheriff Peace Officer As-sociation held the first ever Consti-tutional Sheriffs Convention at the Tuscany Hotel & Casino in Las Ve-gas at the end of

January. More than 100 county sher-iffs representing 35 states attended the two-day event.

Created as a venue to unite sheriffs in their efforts of upholding and de-fending the United States Constitution, the goal of the conference was to in-crease participants understanding and awareness regarding the power of their constitutional authority and their duty to serve and protect the people.

“I think the best thing that came out of the convention was we had a little bit of training and education involving constitutional rights, Articles of Con-federation, the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights,” said Sheriff Jon Lopey of Siskiyou County, Calif.

“We were reminded that as public servants we serve the people. We serve at the pleasure of our citizens. We were also reminded of our obligation to serve the people and to scrutinize the policies or programs that could be in violation of the Constitution and the rights of our citizens,” Lopey said

“It was a good gathering and pro-vided sheriffs the ability to look at their positions and responsibilities in ways that have typically been just law enforcement in the past and realize our roles and responsibilities go far beyond just enforcing the laws. It’s guarantee-ing freedom and protecting people’s liberties,” said Sheriff Gregory Hag-wood of Plumas County, Calif.

Sheriffs who chose to attend the conference heard expert speakers and presentations on such subjects as the

Bill of Rights, 2nd Amendment, 10th Amendment, nullification and state sovereignty, property rights, Agenda 21, and the National Defense Authori-zation Act of 2012.

Oath Keepers founder, Stewart Rhodes, spoke of NDAA 2012 in an interview with Revolution Radio’s Terry Dodd. He described NDAA 2012 as “the United States version of King George III’s Intolerable Acts,” and called it “the most dangerous law in American history.”

Beyond his speech topic, Rhodes conjectured that the convention was a good thing as it allowed the sheriffs to see that they were not alone and other sheriffs were experiencing the same things they were.

“One of the things domestic en-emies of our constitution like to do is make you think you’re all by yourself,” said Rhodes.

Lopey agreed.“Another thing that was a great

plus ... sheriffs got together and found we all have commonality in the issues we’re facing; especially the sheriffs that have a lot of public land like Siski-you County,” Lopey said.

“There were sheriffs from all over

the country who are experiencing some of the same difficulties when it comes to dealing with some federal entities,” Hagwood said.

Famed Maricopa County Sheriff, Joe Arpaio, was the keynote speaker at the closing of this historic gathering of some of the finest sheriffs and peace officers this country could provide.

Many sheriffs in the Pacific North-west have been dealing with federal agencies they argue are overstepping

their bounds of authority; namely the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management.

These sheriffs are standing up to these federal agencies and doing so at great risk, often putting their careers on the line.

“Sheriff Gil Gilbertson (Josephine County, OR) and Sheriff Glenn Palmer (Grant County, OR), had a recent meet-ing with federal agencies and were ac-tually threatened by these agencies,” said Lopey.

Lopey’s Siskiyou County is com-prised of approximately 65 percent public lands. And, like many other sheriffs in the Pacific Northwest, he is being beseeched by reports from citizens that some federal agencies are overstepping their authority.

“I want to make it clear that it isn’t all federal and state agencies, but some federal and state agencies. Sometimes they enact regulatory provisions that they haven’t properly coordinated with local officials and citizens,” Lopey said.

“Some of these regulatory acts could potentially adversely impact public safety and also undermine the economy and a lot of our counties or destitute absolutely destitute.”

In the early 1980s, Siskiyou County had 22 lumber mills; all of which pro-vided much needed jobs and afforded the people of Siskiyou County the abil-ity to provide for their families. Siski-you County currently has only two re-maining lumber mills, he said.

“Let’s just say the enforcement of some of these provisions have rendered my county economically destitute. In our county and many other counties you look at what has made us great: the timber industry, ranching, farming, mining, and recreation. A lot of those industries are being taken away from us; literally destroyed by some of these regulatory provisions that sometimes in my opinion have very questionable constitutional authority and justifica-tion,” Lopey said.

While sitting in on high level meet-ings with federally employed biolo-gists, Lopey said he was told: ‘Well, you just don’t understand what’s going on. This is critical habitat for the en-dangered species.’

But Lopey begs to differ.

Sheriff Gil Gilbertson

* OATH KEEPERS, Page 12

We were reminded that as public servants we serve the people� We serve at the pleasure of our citizens� We were also reminded of our obligation to serve the people and to scrutinize the poli-cies or programs that could be in violation of the Constitution and the rights of our citizens�

— Sheriff Jon Lopey

““

Pick & Shovel GazetteApril / May 2012 3

Gold show mania hits fever pitchGPAA reaches out to more members with 20 showsBy BRAD JONESGPAA Editor/ Content Director

With seven Gold & Treasure Shows down and 13 more shows set for the rest of this year, the GPAA’s gold show crews are once again all revved up and ready to roll.

Mesa, ArizonaThe show in Mesa, Ariz. was a phenomenal

success on all levels — record attendance of 2,921, vendor participation, wide variety of displays — including gold, gems and other finds, such as relics and historical artifacts and products — as well as more mining and prospecting equipment.

Besides these improvements, this year’s shows are better organized, said GPAA Director of Operations Dominic Ricci.

Ultimately, showgoers are learning more about gold prospecting and having more fun.

“We had 150 brand new members come and join the GPAA. We saw younger people and kids. To me, that’s the beauty of it — seeing all these kids wanting to join,” Ricci said.

“We had numerous people sign up for Alaska, because they know it is filling up fast this year,” he said.

And, of course, more avid GPAA members joined the Lost Dutchman’s Mining Association.

“There were panning and mucking contests, and you had local chapters out there teaching people how to pan,” he said.

“The new GPAA merchandise is as good as ... well, gold,” Ricci said, “and popular among showgoers.”

“Our new “Property of GPAA” and “Property of LDMA” shirts were selling like hotcakes and we trotted out our new 11-inch pan, the Gold Catcher II. Attendees really loved that.”

Albuquerque, New MexicoAlthough there was a smaller crowd in Albuquer-

que, the participants were excited to see the Gold & Treasure show return following a seven-year absence in New Mexico.

Still, more than 1,285 people attended the Albuquerque show.

“They were so happy to have us there,” Ricci said, adding that the GPAA unveiled its yet-to-be named gold scoop.

“It’s our GPAA prospecting scoop with a whole new look. It has teeth; it scrapes and people were ex-cited about that. There are a lot of people who love to metal detect in New Mexico. They loved the scoop as well as the Gold Catcher II pan and the apparel we had,” he said.

And, vendors were happy to report heavy traffic and brisk sales.

One of the vendors, Travis Brown of Pro Gold Prospecting, bought about 50 raffle tickets from Pub-lic Lands for the People and was including free raffle tickets for his new customers at the show.

“Showgoers loved it because they were winning prizes left and right,” Ricci said.

“It was helping PLP and supporting land rights. That started other vendors running over to the PLP booth to do the same thing — knowing that money goes to a good cause,” he said.

At the end of the weekend, the show in Albuquer-que proved to be a great success with lots of smiles left on the faces of attendees.

“It tells us that we need to go back to Albuquerque and not wait seven years,” Ricci said.

Gold Fever host Tom Massie and his wife, Cindy, were both at the Mesa show, mingling with fans and autographing gold pans, photos and other merchan-dise.

Kia Massie, who is often featured on Gold

Fever with Tom, attended the show in Albuquerque and signed her fair share of merchandise as well.

“She’s very popular among Gold Fever fans,” Ric-ci said, adding fans were coming to her in droves with hats and pans to autograph.”

Though still a little road-weary, “I’m ecstatic,” Ricci said, adding that momentum and excitement are building for the next shows on the calendar.

This year, attendees will notice more people from GPAA’s headquarters, in Temecula, Calif. will be at the shows, Ricci said.

“We want more of the staff meeting the members and seeing what goes on the at the Gold & Treasure Shows. It’s an opportunity for James Smoltz in the shipping department and Young Choe in invento-ry control to get out to meet the members; they get excited about it. It’s not just another gold show; they are actually part of it and on the road with the Gold & Treasure Show crew. It’s a whole new perspective,” Ricci said.

“To me, it’s about bringing the office family out to meet the rest of the family — our members,” he said.

Las Vegas, NevadaOn the heels of four block-buster shows in March,

the Gold & Treasure Show crew heads to fabulous Las Vegas. The Vegas show is always, well ... fabulous. Not just because of the wonderful locale, but of the magnitude of the show itself. The Vegas show is also greatly anticipated because it coincides with other annual GPAA and Lost Dutchman’s Mining Associa-tion events.

Here’s what’s happening in Las Vegas this year:

■ GPAA Chapter Summit■ LDMA Dinner■ LDMA Caretakers Summit■ Vendor Appreciation Dinner

“It’s just going to be better than ever,” Ricci said.This year, the Vegas show, like the first shows of

this year, will be noticeably more organized and better structured, not only for the large number of vendors but for attendees, he said.

Photo by Chuck JohnsonGPAA President Brandon Johnson and Director of Operations Dominic Ricci share the benefits of GPAA membership with attendees at the Gold & Treasure show in Pomona, Calif. in January.

* GOLD SHOWS, Page 17

To me, it’s about bringing the office family out to meet the rest of the family — our members� — Dominic Ricci

GPAA Director of Operations

“

“


Readers responded to a front page story in the February/March Pick & Shovel Gazette,“Sheriffs take stand against U.S. Forest Ser-vice.” Here’s what you said:

Don Dorman: Needed badly. We can’t keep letting them run rampant without authority or over-site.

Rashall Kohnke Wiscarson: I wish there were more like him! I hope he knows how much I ap-preciate what he is doing for me, my son and all fellow prospectors and outdoorsmen!

Gold Prospectors Associa-tion of America: Rashall, Good news! There are more like him:

http://oathkeepers.orgRashall Kohnke Wiscarson:

Thank you so much for that link to oath keepers! I don’t feel like there is only a small handful of people who care about what is try-ing to be taken away from us anymore! I now have hope that my grandchil-dren’s children will be able to see and participate in the won-derful places I have gone to prospect and hunt!

Paul J. Rogers: Wonder what sheriffs’ union they belong to. We should support their efforts.

James Bledsoe: It’s good someone is standing up to Big Brother and supporting the little guy.

Michael Mitchell: We want our land back!

Wanda Maher: All the little guys need to help. The more there are, the more they have to lis-ten. That’s what is so great about the Internet; you can get all your friends to help. It’s going to take

everyone. They work for us — not the other way around.

Readers responded to a news story, “Rafters have more nega-tive effects than suction dredgers” published in the Mountain Demo-crat. Here’s what you said:

Gold Prospec-tors Association of America: ALL outdoors and land rights groups need to stick together before we are ALL thrown under the bus!

Kris Wosepka: The EPA is a leftist controlled government entity that needs to be scrapped. Frivolous lawsuits from environ-mental terrorists should be thrown out of court, and the bill sent to them. It’s time to take back our country and responsibly develop our resources.

Gerard Welch: @Kris this is a state issue. Don’t muddle the water and try to understand what we are fighting. Rants are worth-less! Take the country forward, not back. EPA is federal and [in]

California the state banned dredg-ing with the backing of Indian tribes and others. You can’t fight what you do not understand.

Jason Fuls: People should understand their rights better as Americans, know the laws and rights you have on public lands.

Harold Egner: The gover-ment should understand and

push for the people’s rights. We would then be a lot better group

to control, eh?

Readers “liked” a photo post-ed by Franm Powell that boasted the caption: “I like to look at it be-fore bed.”

Doc Woodbones: Can’t blame you for that!

Gold Prospectors Asso-ciation of America: And before breakfast, at lunch and after din-ner. Ha! ha! ha!

Frank Powell: And while I sleep even ... but the nuggets get a little bigger and shine a little brighter, which is nice.

Gold Prospectors Associa-tion of America: Golden dreams, Frank. :) That’s a lot of color!

forum

A s the 2012 election approaches, it’s time to take action and ask political leaders tough questions about where they stand

on the Mining Law of 1872 and your right to prospect for gold, metal detect and hunt for bur-ied treasure on public lands.

And, like always, there is no time like the present to take action. Draft a letter, send an email, make a phone call to your local elected officials and prospective candidates. Let them where you stand.

For those who ask, ‘What does this have to do prospecting?’ remember who started the GPAA. George ‘Buzzard’ Massie, the founder of the GPAA and LDMA, was a firm be-liever in both the rights of the individual to pros-pect and mine on public lands. While one could argue that public lands are state owned and there-fore collective, there are individual rights accord-ed to you as a miner on those lands by the Mining Law of 1872. Don’t let them slip away!

Like Massie said in A Voice for Land and Country GPAA commercial that recently aired on the Outdoor Channel: “We’ve got some darn fine Congressmen, but you gotta figure out which ones they are. Me and you together are gonna figure it out ... and if we can’t figure it out, we’ll vote the bugger out and try somebody else anyways!”

Those are some plain and simple words of wisdom to carry with you until November. Mass-ie was a believer in the Constitution and the Fifth Amendment rights — life, liberty and property.

“I’ve got some more truths to lay on you. Thomas Jefferson said when you allow a govern-ment to take control over an individual’s proper-ty, then that government has control over his will. You’re not exempt to this folks. If you ever hope to own any property in this country, then you bet-ter jealously support the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution with ol’ Buzzard and the rest of us gold miners,” Massie said to his viewers.

As a prospector, you should be concerned about the loss of your rights, more restrictions and the abuse of power by the Department of In-terior, Bureau of Land Management and the Unit-ed States Forest Service on public lands. Stand up and fight for your California neighbors who are being overrun by misinformed and brainwashed do-gooders intent on banning suction dredging because they think it harms fish. Know the facts: Dredging DOES NOT harm fish and let the politi-cians know it.

Fight back against leftist hedge fund billion-aire George Soros who is backing environmen-tal extremist groups and betting on the collapse of the Western economic system — capitalism. Question the motives of the Occupy Wall Street movement? Do these kids even know what they are protesting? On one hand, they say they op-pose capitalism, but do they understand the alter-natives? Perhaps, John Lennon, put it best in an earlier time of civil unrest during the ’60s in the Beatles’ song, Revolution:

You say you got a real solutionWell, you knowWe’d all love to see the plan

— BRAD JONES GPAA Editor / Content Director

The Buzzard had it right all along, folks

OPINION

Brad Jones

Readers support sheriffs in land rights battle

www.facebook.com/GoldProspectors • www.facebook.com/GoldFeverTVwww.facebook.com/AlaskanTheSeries


By DIANNA BLAZO

Oregon’s Curry County has one of the highest rates of unemployment in the state — and people, including chil-dren, who go to bed hungry. These are the facts and they will only continue to get worse until we do something about it.

The saddest part of this is that there is a way to alleviate some of these problems. The county is a rich mineral-bearing area. A short distance north of Brookings and the Chetco River on the mouth of the Rogue River is a small town named Gold Beach, so named be-cause in the late 1800s the beach sands were so rich in gold that a miner could recover several ounces of fine gold in one day.

Further north is an area also noted for gold and platinum. Just south is a small creek that at one time was called Diamond Creek. You got it! Diamonds were occasionally found there.

As well as many gold claims, there were several gold mines — Frazier Mine, Golden Eagle Mine, and Young Mine — to name a few.

Borax was actively mined here for several years. Chromium is also present in this area. (I have heard rumors of a fresh find of chromium close by here). Cinnabar, a naturally occurring form of mercury, is found in this area. In the last century, lead and silver were mined in the Chetco River area.

Besides minerals, we also have a wealth of America’s largest natural re-source — trees. We have pine, fir, oak, madrone, redwood and other timber.

Prospecting and mining for many different kinds of precious metals is part of our heritage. So is the harvest of trees, which were used to build the homes for all the immigrants that moved here to fulfill their America dream.

Yet, the government, in its infinite wisdom, decided to shut down the tim-ber industry. Nobody can forget about the fiasco over the Northern Spotted Owl, which could only nest in old-growth trees.

So, we closed the forests to protect one species of owl and put hundreds of people out of work. Businesses closed and people moved away. Our children, the next generation, will leave when they are out of school to find jobs.

Our government also takes it upon themselves to close roads and block off access to our beautiful area. This not only affects the lumberjacks, it affects people who hunt, fish, pick mushrooms and prospect. All of this is an additional income for many people, some in the way of food for their tables and others to sell to pay bills and stay off the gov-ernment dole.

Radical environmentalists and the federal government, in the form of the Bureau of Land management, the Unit-ed States Forest Service, Environmental Protection Agency and the Oregon state Department of Environmental Quality and other bureaucracies are doing ev-erything they can to shut us out.

These are our lands! — you know — We the People! The 10th amendment grants us the rights of exploration, de-

velopment and settlement of our western lands. These are lands that the gold min-ers helped to settle and populate. People moved to this area to find their fortunes, whether is was in mining, timber, fish-ing, farming or ranching. The use of our lands helped to create the state of Or-egon. This is our history, our heritage.

But, the feds, with help from the extreme environmentalists, are actively working to take away these basic free-doms — the right to liberty and the pur-suit of happiness. They have succeeded, for now, in California and they now they have Oregon and the Chetco River in their sights.

Polluted politicsThe BLM, U.S. Forest Service, and

the EPA recently held an impromptu meeting to hear feedback from the pub-lic about closing the Chetco River to further mineral exploration.

The only public invited was the Democratic Party. While not all Demo-crats are environmental extremists, the majority of left-wing liberals back the radical green activists. Local Democrats even printed out a letter to their support-ers, telling them what to say and can-celled their October meeting to stack the deck at this meeting.

If miners had been given the same courtesy of advance notification, it would have been a more balanced meet-ing. Instead, this meeting was a sham! They had already enacted the legisla-tion that closed off the majority of the Chetco River watershed to mineral ex-ploration.

If you are lucky enough to already have a claim, hold on to it tight. I have a feeling that the radical environmental-ist lobbyists will find a way to force the feds to take it from you.

Congress U.S. Congressman Peter DeFazio

D-Ore., is a senior member of the House Committee on Natural Resources. De-Fazio is proposing to open the forests to harvest. Great idea! This area is in dire straits and needs that income. How-ever, it is the carrot-and-stick approach or maybe smoke and mirrors. To allow the cutting of our trees to support our people, he wants to steal 58,000 acres of Rogue River drainage area.

The Rogue River is another great gold-bearing river and is 25 miles north of the Chetco River. This includes over 93 miles of streams and rivers, all gold-bearing areas. On top of this, according to his proposed bill HR 3436, he wants a quarter-mile buffer zone on either side of all waterways. Add to this his idea of making it a Wild and Scenic River and it will be closed down to prospecting.

Enough is enough!

What about the fish?We must fight back against the

feds and the environmental extremists. These radicals have convinced much of the public that mining and small-scale suction dredge mining is destroying fish and habitat. Nothing is further from the truth. As all dredgers know, we do more

Pick & Shovel well read by membersDear Editor,

The Pick & Shovel Gazette is the most sought after and read paper by all members — LDMA and GPAA. And, if anyone thinks some of the GPAA [mem-bers] don’t know about the magazine [Gold Prospectors], you’d be sadly wrong.

All I ever hear about is this little paper. Most of the time, it is ‘Where is my Gazette?’

I have been called at home by mem-bers and asked if I have received mine, yet. Yeah, I gave my phone number out to a few. Sometimes, I have been asked by members as I was heading out to a dig a hole if I had the new Pick & Shovel, and they asked me if I would let them borrow it.

‘Uh-uh,’ I think to myself.Then, I tell them, ‘When I’m done

reading it, I’ll leave it at the clubhouse.’As I walk past them, I hear them

saying ‘I’m calling California!’Yeah, we’re hooked!The little tidbits we get from the

Gazette articles about other members playing in the dirt prospecting ... Man, it just makes some of us want to grab our stuff and head to our hidey holes and do a little diggin’ ourselves ... and stories on new mining claims ... and new min-ing tools! Bonus!

So, tell all those who work on the Pick & Shovel I say ‘Thanks!’ and keep them coming.

P.S. Gold Prospectors Magazine is pretty good, too. No disrespect.

Vance SimpsonLDMA member

Thomasville, Georgia

First-time reader joins the GPAA Dear Editor,

A few days ago, a neighbor of mine lent me his copy of the Pick & Shovel Gazette as a result of a conversation we had been having.

Today, I joined your organization as a member of the GPAA. I am incred-ibly impressed with the articles on both the Rim of the Valley project as well as UN Agenda 21. These issues are tremen-dously important and are being totally ignored by the so-called mainstream media. How ironic that a special interest publication would sound the alarm for all! And, how very vital is your dissemi-nation of these important facts.

Keep up the good work. It is my sin-cere pleasure to take up the fight with you.

Scott D’AngeloNew GPAA member

Lake Arrowhead, California

Pick & Shovel should be available online Dear Editor,

I wish all of the Pick & Shovel Ga-zette issues were available to down-load. When traveling, I don’t have a lot of extra space to take all of my unread copies of the Pick & Shovel Gazette or Gold Prospectors Magazine, so being able to have them available on one of my portable devices is great.

Please consider doing this on a reg-ular basis. I am sure there is an easy way to make sure that only members are allowed to download these files. For example, require everyone to enter their name and GPAA member number before being allowed to download the Pick & Shovel Gazette or Gold Pros-pectors Magazine. After all, this is the way of the future, so why shouldn’t GPAA jump on board?

David JensenGPAA Life Member

Environmental extremists killing jobs, economy in Oregon&opinion

lettersThank you for UN Agenda 21 articleDear Editor,

Thank You for the wonderful article “UN Agenda 21“

We here in Coos County have just discovered that we are under mass at-tack and the federal land grab is on and in full swing. Last year, we lost some four million acres with the stroke of the pen as a National Monument (to what I’m not sure).

Now, the grab is for private property along the Coquille River ... Much of the land they wish to take is only marsh during the winter flood, being the local joke of the “Lake of Coquille” during the winter. What is really happening is unbelievable. Much of the land under the control of BLM is now closed with locked gates to protect the roads. Our roads, most of which are built using pri-vate money to harvest the timber.

Christopher LongGPAA member

North Bend ProspectorsMyrtle Point, Oregon

To submit your letter to the editor, please email Editor / Content Director for the GPAA, Brad Jones — content@goldprospectors�org� Please include your first name and last name, city/town, state, whether you are a GPAA or LDMA member and any other pertinent infor-mation, such as prospecting clubs to which you may belong� Please include your phone number for verification� Your phone number will NOT be published� * JOBS, Page 15


FROM GPAA STAFF REPORTS

T EMECULA, CA — With all the recent media attention about skyrocketing gold prices and

new reality TV shows about gold min-ing in Alaska, you would think pros-pecting is some kind of new fad.

It isn’t.Gold prospecting has been going

on in Alaska since the Klondike Gold Rush more than a century ago, long be-fore Alaska officially became a state in 1959.

The GPAA’s Alaska Gold Expedi-tion has been escorting prospectors to the gold-laden beaches of Nome for de-cades. And, as part of its 30th anniver-sary celebration, GPAA’s Alaska Gold Expedition will host the grand opening of its newest prospecting camp, Creo-sus, this coming summer.

GPAA Claims, Outings & Expedi-tions Director Blake Harmon said dis-cussions about development of Creo-sus began in 2009.

The idea to expand on Creosus in-cluded several satellite camps to be built along the Cripple River for ad-ditional prospecting opportunities, but as the demand for space on the Alaska Gold Expedition increased, the original plans for Creosus grew into develop-ment of a larger more permanent camp, Harmon said.

While still providing basic ameni-ties, Creosus offers a rustic experience

with an emphasis on remote prospect-ing. The camp is located five miles in-land from GPAA’s main Cripple River Camp on the upper portion of the river.

Because it is centrally located on the 2,300 acre property between all six GPAA camps in Nome, Creosus appeals to the adventure-seeking pros-pector. The camp is most suited for pri-mary methods of prospecting including crevicing, highbanking, sluicing and metal detecting.

The GPAA has appointed two sets of caretakers for the Creosus Camp. Caretakers Bob and Sara Alberts and Dave and Mary Phillips have been very involved in the planning of the new camp and are excited about the grand opening of Creosus next summer, Har-mon said.

“Both sets of caretakers have been extremely loyal to the GPAA’s Alaska Expedition, and are prepared to make Creosus a successful trip for each of our participants” Harmon said.

Creosus Camp amenities consist of

a chow hall where participants come to enjoy their meals, six-person cabins (also known as “hooches”) equipped with potbelly wood-burning stoves for heating, hot shower facilities, outhous-es, ATV rentals and supplies.

GPAA Event Manager Amber White said Creosus will be open for six weeks during the 2012 Alaska Gold Expedition. Current plans are to oper-ate Creosus from July 7, 2012 until Au-gust 19, 2012.

“So far, our first year at Creosus is shaping up to be very successful,” White said.

“We’ve been flooded with inqui-ries and reservations for Creosus and are coming very close to hitting maxi-mum capacity for several camp weeks. I know the participants will be very pleased with their overall experience at Creosus — just as they are with Cripple River. And, it will continue to thrive as the sixth addition to the Alaska Gold Expedition,” she said.

Photo by Dominic RicciMike the Fox oversees daily operations at GPAA’s Creosus prospecting camp.


especially salmon, to spawn when there are limited natural areas of loose gravel, called refugia.

“It’s a pool of water within the river you might say. If it is three feet deep, it’s considered refugia, which is a de-pression in the river bottom that is un-der the main currents where fish prefer to rest in cooler water, lots of times at the mouth of a tributary,” she said.

“There are so many benefits to it,” said Wise, explaining that the gravels in many rivers and streams have be-come so compacted over the years that the fish cannot always find a natural place to spawn.

Because suction dredgers break up or loosen the gravels and create small pockets in the bottoms of streams, it often creates manmade refugia, where none had previously existed. While op-ponents of suction dredging argue that fresh dredge tailings (gravels), are not as stable as natural gravel beds, they are better than nothing where natural gravels don’t exist, Wise said.

“However, the salmon are smart enough to recognize the difference be-tween natural and manmade refugia,” Greene said.

If there is no suitable place to spawn, the fish will spawn anyway.

“The eggs will just be floating down river and be eaten by any preda-tor that would eat them. They have to get through the gravel to build that nest.” he said.

After dredge tailings have settled for a year, they become more stable and more attractive to salmon.

“By the next year, you’ve got great spawning gravel,” Wise said.

So, adding more refugia means salmon have more places to spawn which helps to increase salmon popu-lations.

Even one redd (nest of salmon eggs) can contain thousands of salmon eggs, she said.

“One egg mass is thousands of fish. With one egg mass you’ve made a big difference in some rivers,” she said.

Politics of dredgingEven though most environmental

activists are aware that suction dredg-ers are not allowed in the water during spawning season, they still use it as

propaganda.“That’s totally bogus. The oppo-

nents know that we DO NOT dredge during spawning season ... That’s what the environmentalists use as their ham-mer. You can see it over and over in their writings that we are killing all the salmon and sucking up the eggs. It’s just an absolute lie.”

So, why are environmental extrem-ists so down on dredging?

Both Greene and Wise contend that the push by environmental activists such as the Sierra Fund, local Friends of the River groups, and some native American tribes has nothing to do with science and everything to do with poli-tics and profits.

Wise said many radical environ-mentalist groups get government grants to research environmental issues that eventually lead to more bans, restric-tions, regulations and even lawsuits against the government.

“Part of it is money. If they don’t have an issue that they can spread to their membership and government, then they don’t have wages,” Wise said. “Most of those clubs don’t do habitat restoration — they sue. That’s their whole mandate to sue the govern-ment.”

And, how are they able to use tax-payer dollars to sue the government for more taxpayer dollars?

While they may not directly sue the government, they use the funds to draft environmental reports which are then handed off to other groups to sue the government, she said.

“Part of the Endangered Species Act says that they have to allow funds to hold these agencies’ feet to the fire ...These people sue and they don’t even have to have their own money on the line,” Wise said.

Follow the money trailIn fact, there is so much money in-

volved, that new environmental groups seem to be springing up everywhere. One example is Friends of the River.

On the surface, Friends of the River groups seem to be local, but they are far from it, Wise said.

“There’s so many of them. I mean, it’s a good way to make money. There’s lots of money so they are popping up all over the place. We’ve got friends of every river. They can apply for grant money. They can sue agencies. They

can be the stakeholder in places they don’t even live. It’s like a franchise. So, they’ve got a Friends of the River for every little tributary … It’s a business; they’re out there making money.”

Groups like the Sierra Fund, Green-peace and World Wildlife Fund are do-ing the same thing — making money — but on a larger scale, she said.

Hedge fund billionaire George Soros, founder of Earthjustice con-tributes millions of dollars to various environmental groups. Infamous for betting against the value of U.S. dol-lar among other currencies, Soros has also predicted the collapse of the West-ern economy. He is known for lavish funding of big-government, global-ist causes and left-wing organizations such as www.moveon.org.

The payoffsIn recent times, part of doing busi-

ness, means appeasing environmental groups whether that means siding with them or paying them off, Wise said.

“Big mining companies, energy companies and drilling companies are paying them off. They are giving mil-lions to environmental activists to stop them from suing,” she said.

Because environmental groups have amassed so much money, and the big companies have appeased them in one way or another, environmental ac-tivists have resorted to suing smaller companies that don’t have the money to pay them off, Wise said.

“There’s a whole environmental economy and it just keeps getting big-ger and bigger and bigger. It’s huge and they are feeding off of each other. It’s a feeding frenzy, A lot of these environ-mental groups’ CEOs make $250,000 to $1.5 million [a year]. Why wouldn’t you find another issue?” she said.

“You have to question whether it is politically driven; they are looking at politics more than science.”

Conservation groupsThen, there are other so-called

conservation groups such as Trout Un-limited, which have smaller groups af-filiated with them, like Oregon Trout. They are taking a stance against suction dredge miners out of good-intentioned ignorance, Wise said.

While Oregon Trout has a vested interest in fishing, its members are throwing miners under the bus and sid-

ing with the environmentalists in an effort to appease them, not realizing that they could be targeted next, she explained.

Wise pointed out the irony of the fishermen going out to catch — and not always release — fish and then blaming suction dredgers for killing fish. Even more hypocritical is the fact that suction dredging is not permitted during spawning season, but fishing is allowed.

“Salmon fishermen fish when the salmon are spawning so there are redds present. When the fishermen walk out into the water to cast, they are stepping on redds. They catch salmon on their way upstream to spawn. They are there at their most critical time. They do so much more damage — not just fishing and killing fish, which is their whole reason for being there.”

“If they [fishermen] weren’t siding with the environmental activists, the environmental activists would be try-ing to shut down fishing, so they are saving their own butts. That’s what they’re doing,” she said. “Fishermen are off limits, because a lot of the envi-ronmentalists are also fishermen.”

Wise is convinced that if the envi-ronmental activists succeed in banning small-scale mining, fishermen will be the next logical target.

Environmental groups have to jus-tify their own existence and will invent targets so they can keep getting grants and collect membership fees, she said.

“Fishermen are next,” Wise said. adding that Sierra Fund’s Carrie Mono-han has already targeted anglers.

“There are a lot of fishermen who just listen to what the environmental-ists say — how bad mining is — and spread the same misinformation. And, they believe mining is bad,” Wise said.

More proof that miners are getting the shaft is that boats and personal wa-tercraft cause far more damage than dredging, but are allowed and are not under attack by the green lobby.

“Jet boats do way more damage than a dredge. A suction dredge is all in one area, whereas a jet boat runs up and down the river and the waves are rushing up against the banks eroding the riverbanks and they scare the fish. They do way more damage and there are studies that show that,” she said.

* DREDGING Continued from Page 1

* DREDGING, Page 11

Two retired EPA scientists say war on suction dredging is purely political Submitted photosRetired EPA scientist Claudia Wise is an avid gold prospector based in Oregon. Wise says suction dredging benefits salmon by creating refugia.


By BRAD JONESGPAA Editor / Content Director

When Georgia State Director Gene Adams got his first taste of gold fever, he wasn’t a prospector — he was a contractor.

Adams was hauling sand for his stucco and plaster business in north At-lanta.

“I was hauling sand and these sand trucks up on the Chattahoochee River would let me go up in there and get this black sand,” Adams said.

“Back in the ’70s, I had it assayed and it assayed out at an ounce-and-a-half [of gold] a ton. It didn’t mean much to me back then. I wasn’t pros-pecting at the time because I had my business to run. I had 15 to 20 people working for me at the time,” he said.

Adams later learned how to use a highbanker and he and his son-in-law panned out the gold. While he didn’t say how much gold he got from the black sand, one thing is for certain — Adams wasn’t willing to part with it. And, more than 40 years later, he still isn’t.

“I kept it. That was the first gold I got,” he said. “It was worth $80 to $100 [an ounce] back then.”

Years later, while he was on vaca-tion in Alaska with his wife, Betty, he saw GPAA founder George ‘Buzzard’ Massie and that seemed to bring out his inner-prospector.

“I was interested in prospecting be-fore that, but I hadn’t really gone after dredging and maybe had an ounce of gold in all my time,” he said.

It wasn’t until 1993, three years into his retirement, that Adams decided to join GPAA, a local chapter and the Lost Dutchman’s Mining Association.

Betty had worked for Delta Air-lines, which meant that she and Gene were able to travel frequently to places like Hawaii, Aruba, Mexico — and Alaska.

“We would take a trip up there be-cause we fly for free. We was up in Alaska and we happened to see the show come on. We got the number, copied it down and called.”

Unfortunately, the couple was on short vacation in Alaska and didn’t get

a chance to visit GPAA’s Cripple River Camp near Nome.

“We was just there on vacation; we didn’t get out to any of the gold camps,” he said.

But, later that year, Adams did get a chance to meet George “Buzzard” Massie, before he passed away in 1993.

“He was at the Loud Mine the sum-mer before he died and he was up at the gold show in Marietta [Georgia] the fall before he died about Christmas that year,”Adams said.

“I just loved talking to him ... I stood there over the potbelly stove up at the Loud Mine and listened to him for a long time while he was talking and it was just a pleasure to hear him talk.”

Now listed on the state director’s list as W. Gene Adams, he goes by Gene.

“The W is for William, but they call me by my middle name.”

Adams is currently trying to form a new local chapter in Fayetteville, Georgia.

“I need to start one up now at Fay-etteville where I’m at,” he said, adding that he once belonged to a chapter in western Georgia.

“It was West Georgia and they dis-solved, so I don’t belong to a GPAA

chapter right now.” He later became the Claims Com-

mittee Chairman after serving as an as-sistant.

“Time flies, you know,” he said.He and Betty have been married

since 1952. “Nearly 60 years!” he said proud-

ly, adding “It costs too much money to change women, you know.”

Adams, now 80, is still going strong and has passed down the prospecting tradition to his grandson, Sam Brown.

“He was about nine at that time.

I put him on the nozzle and I tend the dredge.”

He still goes dredging on the Chat-tahoochee River.

“I like to be outdoors. I just don’t like to be in the house, but of course I’m having to slow down a bit,” Adams said.

My granddaughter and grandson — he has been in the service now several years and she is at college — I used to carry them out camping when they was 8 to 10 years old. We went up to Vein Mountain, the Loud Mine and out to Villa Rica. It was close to the house here. And, before they opened up the property in the Buchanan, we’d go up to Villa Rica and pan for gold,” he said.

Besides gold prospecting, Adams

has been a deer hunter, rabbit hunter and fisherman,

“I deer hunt some ... the last deer I killed, a couple years ago, was out my bathroom window. I still had my paja-mas on. My grandson come over and we cut it up and had it packaged before dark. I killed a deer with a bow and ar-row when I was 70 years old.”

What Adams likes most about the GPAA is the camaraderie, he said.

“Oh, I just love talking to people, I was just talking to a fellah last night for 10 to 20 minutes and he is a newcomer from the eastern part of the state. He is going to join.”

Adams enjoys teaching greenhorns how to find gold.

“Yessir, that is just a pleasure and I’ve got a three-inch dredge, highbank-ers and pans,” he said.

Adams also enjoys going to meet-ings and sharing his knowledge of prospecting and mining

“I like to go talk to the people and get them interested in it and tell them what I know. Just looking for [gold]. I was up at Dahlonega a while back and met some awful nice fellahs up there. One of them was a surveyor for the county and he just knew everybody and all the land around there. It’s just a pleasure to meet these people,” he said.

And, like other sourdoughs, he en-joys watching greenhorns find their first color.

“I’ve taught several people and seen them find their first flake of gold and they get excited. I’m into treasure hunting too, the Civil War stuff around here and the Indian’s Trail of Tears left from here and the Spanish was in here in the 1500s and no telling what is in these rivers and banks where the Span-ish traveled up and down here.

Like many other old-timers in Georgia, Adams has his share of lost treasure stories.

“You read all kind of tales about Stone Mountain, there was 15 wagon loads of gold that the Spanish had. The Indians massacred them and they don’t know where the gold is. It’s listed in the books,” he said.

Though Adams has not yet found

Hauling black sand leads to gold fever

GEORGIA STATE DIRECTOR’S REPORT

Submitted photoProspecting in Georgia..

* STATE DIRECTOR, Page 20


absolutely no reason why the federal government should own anything more than what is necessary to carry out its constitutional function,” Benoit said in a recent interview.

“When the Founding Fathers set up this country, the states owned all of the territory ... but as more states came aboard, the federal government started taking on a bigger and bigger piece of the pie. When California was admit-ted to the Union, they had to give up 50 percent of the land to the federal government and Arizona was about 75 percent. Ron Paul has a philosophy of limited government. All this property should be privately owned by citizens in one way or the other, or communities and the states next, but the federal gov-ernment should be the last one owning these large swaths of land,” he said.

Even though Public Lands for the People has waged many legal battles with the BLM and U.S. Forest Service to fight for the rights of prospectors and miners, PLP President Jerry Hobbs said he is disappointed to learn Pauls stance on selling off public lands.

Hobbs said that while he respects Ron Paul and supports many of his platforms, the idea of handing over all public lands to individual states is not one of them.

“I think a lot of the guy, except for his foreign policy. But, now this!” Hobbs said.

Mining Law of 1872When it comes to supporting the

federal Mining Law of 1872, Paul has essentially come up empty-handed. Transferring ownership to the states would create too much uncertainty over whether the rights accorded to miners under the current law would apply to each state, Hobbs said.

“Federal mining laws don’t apply to state lands. State land is public as well. The problem is you don’t get to use it without permission. There are no state lands open to prospecting or mining. You can’t file a claim on state land. They are far more restrictive. They might not even recognize min-ing rights. I’m sure they wouldn’t,” he said.

But one thing is for certain — Ron Paul needs to dig a little deeper on the issue of mining laws and how fiercely miners and outdoor groups in the West-ern States want to keep public lands open to the public, Hobbs said.

While all the constitutional rheto-ric may sound solid on the surface, how these platforms would be imple-mented remains on shaky ground and could leave miners between a rock and a harder place than they are already.

Because state regulations on public lands is already more restrictive than federal lands, Hobbs said the idea of giving more power to the states doesn’t bode well for the future of mining.

“He’s a constitutionalist. I don’t think he fully understands the ramifi-cations of taking property rights away from people,” he said.

“People who understand the con-stitution are who he is relying on, but there are so damn few people who un-derstand the constitution or even think about it.”

Public versus private landsWhen asked where Paul stands on

the Mining Law of 1872, a federal law that gives all Americans the right to go out and stake a mining claim on public lands, Benoit said public lands should ideally be sold to private owners.

“They are called public lands be-cause they belong to the federal gov-ernment. The states could very well is-sue these same kinds of jurisdictional claims. In fact, the states, according to the original constitution, were set up to dealt with everything to do with life, liberty and property. The federal gov-ernment was just supposed to deal with issues that were foreign to state juris-diction,” Benoit said.

“There is always a danger when a government has control over any land. You’re always in danger of them prohibiting access and taking it to the point where it used to be free for public use. Then, they start charging for it and eventually they will charge so much that access is almost prohibitive,” he said.

“Regardless of which level of government owns public land, there is always the threat of losing access. They’ll try to start charging you to go to county parks and start charging you for permits to visit county parks, espe-cially when they are starving for rev-enue,” he said.

He suggested that the outdoor groups and organizations such as of-froaders and GPAA should buy their own land, rather than rely on access to public lands.

“The ideal way would be if private organizations would end up buying these swaths of land. [The GPAA] could end up buying large swaths of land and run it and operate it yourselves and set your own rules,” he said.

While the GPAA has bought prop-erties under the Lost Dutchman’s Min-ing Association, buying land is expen-sive and that doesn’t guarantee you can do whatever you want on the land. Be-sides, what happens to the individual prospector who does not own land and does not belong to a club, but still wants to go pan for gold on the weekend?

“The states are strapped for cash and I’d like to see them start selling some of these lands to whatever groups want them for their own uses — people who want to go offroading, for exam-ple. When it’s privately owned some-body takes care of it,” Benoit said.

“Ideally, all the property along riv-erbeds would be privately owned, be-cause when its privately owned, it’s taken care of. You still have the gov-ernment coming in and trying to limit your use, but you have more control when it’s privately owned,” he said.

Paul and property rightsUnder Paul’s philosophy on prop-

erty rights, national parks would also be handed over to the states.

“They would become state parks. There’s no reason why the states can’t manage these parks as well as Wash-ington. This idea that parks in Califor-nia have to be managed by bureaucrats 3,000 miles away is actually pretty ridiculous. We certainly can manage these parks within the state of Cali-fornia or in the County of San Diego or whatever county they happen to lie

* PLP, Page 14

* PLP Continued from Page 1


Scent of gold at new Manitoba mineBy MICHAEL FOSTERFor the GPAA

About 150 miles from Winnipeg, Manitoba, you’ll find a gold mine that has been yielding shiny metals for de-cades. All told, 1.5 million ounces have come from the mines near the sleepy Canadian town of Bissett, where a pop-ulation of around 160 lives alongside the large and placid Rice Lake.

That lake, just north of the Mani-toba/Minnesota border, has been a bit more active in recent years, as gold prospectors have come looking to claim their stake in a new Manitoban rush. Larger-scale operators are also inter-ested in harvesting the Earth near this tranquil lake.

San Gold, an emerging Canadian gold producer and mining company, has been exploring the region for some time. Following a long tradition, the company is working along a trend that has been yielding gold to previous min-ers, but it hopes to go much deeper. Last December, the company announced that it had discovered a substantial de-posit, prompting excitement amidst the company and its investors.

An exploratory drilling operation led the company to announce that it had discovered “one of the richest gold deposits ever discovered in Manitoba” amidst a stretch of 1,640 feet of gold concentrated at around 12-110 grams per tonne. The discovery, which was announced last December, caused the company’s stock to jump over 40 per-

cent, and it’s still climbing amidst hopes that the newest find will pan out fast.

The discovery was made at the com-pany’s Rice Lake operations, which now has a milling capacity of 1,500 tons per day. The company believes that its in-place systems will be able to process the gold deposits in short time.

The Rice Lake mine is one of two mining operations currently underway for the gold mining firm. The group is

also working on the Shoreline Basalt, also near Bissett. This strip of land to the north and east of Rice Lake has al-ready yielded promising results, thanks to exploratory drilling in 2010. The company discovered eight major de-posits in the area after exploratory drill-ing, and has already begun extracting gold from three of them.

Between the Shoreline Basalt and the new strip, known as the Rice Lake

shaft, is a thick strip of intermediate volcanic rock, but just south of that is a chunk of rock much larger than the Shoreline Basalt, which may yield a million ounces if speculative drilling is any indication of the future. Already, the Rice Lake shaft has produced over 1.5 million ounces since 1932, although the mine has not been in continuous op-eration. San Gold has good reason to hope that its new operations will add to that figure, after exploratory drilling ex-posed a number of previously untapped deposits at the site.

The company has been working on the mine for quite a while. Since 2005, San Gold Corporation has been working at the Rice Lake projects after purchas-ing the rights to the mine at Rice Lake from Harmony Gold Mining Company, a South Africa-based company that had already invested $30 million into the project. Another company, Rea Gold Corporation, had invested $90 million in the project previously. San Gold bought the rights to the mine for $7.5 million.

Now, that investment may begin to pay off, thanks to the promising good news. Time will tell if Manitoba will see a renaissance of gold mining, but Bissett may be a lot less sleepy very soon.

Michael Foster is a freelance business journalist based in New York City� He can be reached at michaelryanfoster@gmail�com�


The green extremeBecause it seems as though the en-

tire Western world has bowed down to a new religion of environmental extrem-ism, even the scientific community has been reluctant to challenge the green faithful.

Not only does the scientific commu-nity have blinders on, but it has attracted activists with an agenda, Wise said.

“Joe and I get really frustrated at times, because we’ve researched this whole area. Between us, we know so much about suction dredging and its ef-fect on the environment and will give them pages and pages of reference that supports what we say, but [they say] we’re cherry picking,” she said.

“And they’re not? Spouting off stuff that they don’t even have a reference for? They ignore the science. We have references and peer review journal ar-ticles. We could not find a single paper that showed any harm — or significant harm — to the environment.”

Change in EPA doctrineWise, who is a gold prospector and

member of the GPAA, was a scientist first.

“When I was young, I went pan-ning, but I didn’t have anyone to show me how. I just went up in the hills around the Blue River area in Oregon,” she said.

Her father was a scientist for the U.S. Forest Service, which she says has taken on a left-wing agenda over the years.

“Now, they don’t even want to see best management practices. They want to have this pristine area that is better than is was naturally, probably. In a lot of cases, I‘ve seen that,” she said.

“I think it’s just been an infiltra-tion of a lot of these activists that must benefit somehow from it. The scientists benefit from grant money. They can spend their whole career on a subject as long as they give the right answer.”

Wise said she first began noticing a shift in EPA philosophy about the same time the media hype over what was known then as global warming.

“The 1990s was when I really start-ed noticing it ... If we didn’t get the right answer, we weren’t allowed to publish it,” said Wise, who conducted studies and research for the EPA for 32

years, before retiring in 2006.

Global warming theoryWise cited an example of one study

that involved studying the effects of UVB rays on plants.

Essentially, the EPA was trying to prove that the hole in the atmosphere and thinning ozone layer was produc-ing more UVB rays and that ultimately the effect was harmful to plants, Wise explained.

“You can’t start science with a an-swer already,” she said.

Much to the surprise of the EPA, the rice plants that were exposed to more intense UVB not only grew larger, but they produced more rice than plants not exposed to UVB rays, Wise said.

“Not only did the biomass of the plants increase, the plants grew larger and the production of rice was higher,” she said.

“The plants liked it. Well, that didn’t produce the answer that they wanted to hear. They wanted us to tell them it was harmful. On this UVB study, we were told to stop work and not publish any-thing ... None of that information has been published to my knowledge,” she said.

Wise accused the government of pushing the EPA for predetermined results to help sway other countries to sign the Kyoto Protocol which set the stage for all the hype over global warming, which has since been down-graded to climate change and is even called climategate by skeptics.

“So we were asked to design a study and look at different levels of UVB and what the effects on the en-vironment would be. And, when they didn’t get the answer they wanted, they cancelled our project,” she said.

According to Wise, the study lasted for about three years.

When asked why she didn’t go to the media and expose the truth about what was happening, Wise said she not only feared for her job, but didn’t re-alize what was happening at the EPA until much later.

“At the time, I was pretty naïve,” she said. “That last program we worked in was global warming.”

Indoctrination Part of the problem with battling

the extreme environmental activism is that the younger generations have been raised on the global warming theory and have been indoctrinated into the Al Gore school of thought.

“They don’t question it. That stuff is so deeply ingrained,” she said.

“These instructors have been told what they need to teach. It’s alright to put them on the spot. It’s alright not to believe what they say,” Wise said.

“I was in global warming for eight years and we never found anything that pointed to global warming being man-made, excluding the model the United Nations put out.

“The EPA came out last year and said CO2 causes global warming. We never proved that and we never even did a study that proved that,” she said.

“We did studies that were already based on the premises that there was global climate change caused by man,” she said.

Wise rejects the notion that man-kind is causing global warming.

“No , I don’t believe it’s true. I be-lieve there is a variation in climate.”

Salmon and ocean conditionsGreene concurred with Wise that

since the ’90s, scientists have been under pressure to support the global


* DREDGING, Page 19

Photo by Avery RathburnSalmon circle a dredge hole at the mouth of the Scott River before it joins the Klamath River in Oregon.

Photo by James ButlerSalmon spawning in dredge tailings on the Yuba River, just below Englebright Dam.

Illustration by Jerry King


“We are a poor county and our people are suffering. The ranchers and farmers are some of the hardest work-ing people I’ve ever seen and then you have these bureaucrats coming in and in some cases trying to push people around and try to tell me I don’t under-stand?” he said.

“Citizens have the right to earn a living and when you shut the forests down because you think that harvesting timber is going to have an adverse af-fect against the [Northern] spotted owl ... this whole issue is lopsided because most of the consideration has been giv-en to fish, rocks, trees and birds — not to the people.”

Many of these policies are enacted at the state level or on the federal level in Washington D.C., where the bureau-crats are far removed and shielded from the devastating economical effect they have on the daily life of these commu-nities, Lopey said.

“Do you think the bureaucrats at these higher levels understand the eco-nomic conditions in Siskiyou County. Do you think they understand the tradi-tions, the way of life, how we survive? Do you think they even care? I don’t think so,” said Lopey with more than just a hint of disgust in his voice.

“Mining is another issue. There are laws on the books for well over a hundred years that allow for harvesting of valuable minerals. Gold mining has always been a very important part of the culture, traditions and actually the economic vitality of Siskiyou County. There have been in some cases inexpli-cable shutdowns of forest service roads and access issues,” he said.

“Look, I’m not an anti-government guy; I question the implementation of some of these regulations because there are special interests groups that literal-ly want to turn Siskiyou County into a nature preserve,” Lopey continued.

“Ranchers, farmers, and most min-ers are people that love the outdoors and we want to preserve the environ-ment. Most of us wouldn’t live here if we didn’t love the outdoors.”

Lopey said his motivation for get-ting more involved and joining Oath Keepers is to protect freedom.

“We want America to be the Amer-ica that we grew up in and I want my kids and my grandchildren to enjoy this country like I have,” he said.

“A lot of great men and women fought for the freedoms we have and unless we fight for the freedoms we have and hold our elected officials ac-countable, we’re not going to have the same America we grew up in. I can tell you categorically that rural America is under attack and we’ve got to stand up for the rights of our citizens and do the right thing.”

Hagwood’s description of what is taking place in Plumas County rever-berated much the same.

“The [U.S.] Forest Service has un-dertaken what they call rulemaking, but what they are doing is fundamentally changing the public’s access to public lands. In doing so, they’ve added a num-ber of very punitive and enforcement measures to restrict people’s access to federal property ... They’re interfering with people’s ability to exercise private

property rights,” Hagwood said.“I’ve made it very clear that the

sheriff’s office in Plumas County will not be participating in any of those measures that limit people’s access to public lands,” he said.

Hagwood mocked the pettiness of the U.S. Forest Service for issuing parking tickets in the forest.

“They’ve instituted a one vehicle length parking limit, where you can-not park your vehicle any more than one vehicle length off what they’ve designated as the road. So when people are out hunting or gathering firewood, U.S. Forest Service law enforcement officers and their resource officers are out there with tape measures running around measuring the length of ve-hicles to see if they have parked more than the length of that vehicle off of what they’ve designated as the road-way,” Hagwood said.

“They’re engaging in punitive mea-sures against people who are not doing anything inherently wrong, whatsoever. It’s absolutely unnecessary and it’s an overreach of their authority.”

When asked about the many actions U.S. Forest Service and BLM are taking against the people who are attempting to work or play on public lands, Hag-wood said, “I see it as a measured at-tempt to slowly and surely keep people off of public lands.”

Approximately 70 percent of Plu-mas County is federal land and the majority of these regulatory provisions have a huge impact on the populace of Plumas County.

Both Hagwood and Lopey agree that sheriffs whose counties have ma-jor tracts of federal land seem to have more issues with these federal agencies overstepping their bounds of authority. However, Hagwood warned the more metropolitan counties.

“A lot of what they are doing up here is because they are claiming an endangered red-legged yellow spotted frog or something. What happens when they find one down in your area and start denying access to some of your residential neighborhoods? You need to understand that just because it’s not affecting you right now, doesn’t mean that they won’t come up with some-thing later that will,” he said.

The sheriffs are calling on all Amer-icans to stand up and voice their outrage and disappointment at what is happen-ing in their own backyards, he said.

Hagwood summed it up best:“I would encourage your readers to

support your officials at the local state and federal level who understand the true role and the limited powers that the federal government was designed for and support those elected officials who are doing their best to guarantee your freedoms and safeguard your liberties. Attend meetings, become in-volved become educated. Do it reason-ably, do it civilly, do it professionally ... but do it!”

Russ Balbirona is a freelance writer and treasure hunter based in Wisconsin� He can be reached at treasurebone@gmail�com

GET RESULTS!

1-800-640-0814

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* OATH KEEPERS Continued from Page 2


Are you ready to receive your copy of the 2012 edition of the GPAA Mining Guide? This guide will feature updates to all of the information associated with our membership claim

and lease properties. Updates include information like current phone numbers and websites for field offices of Federal, State and local agen-cies, corrections and additions of GPS coordinates and directions and greater detail to local claim conditions provided by members on gold recovery, access and weather.

Information updates to the new guide incorporate new treasure hunting stories and references for well known lost treasures waiting to be discovered. These new stories are great opportunities of exploration to the adventurous prospector and treasure hunter, whether you are just getting into it or are an experienced collector. Find out what treasure awaits with the 2012 edition of the GPAA Mining Guide.

This guide will also feature details on the thousands of acres of new claims and leases offered and featured in recent issues of the Pick & Shovel in full color. Properties have been added all over the country and for the first time these properties will be included with GPS coordinates and turn-by-turn directions to help you get to the claim and identify claim boundaries.

Receive your copy of the 2012 edition of the GPAA Mining Guide, along with all the other benefits of membership like the Gold Prospectors Magazine and the GPAA Pick & Shovel Gazette. As al-ways, your membership includes access to hundreds of properties all over the country. Renew your membership today with a multi-year membership so you don’t miss out on everything being a GPAA mem-ber has to offer. Membership prices are likely to increase, so call today or renew your membership online at www.goldprospectors.org. There has never been a better time to get involved with the GPAA and find your share of gold and treasure.

2012 edition of Mining Guide coming soonBy BRANDON JOHNSONGPAA President

We need your feedback! If you’ve visited a claim, please visit us online at www.goldprospectors.org and fill out the Mining Report.

PICK & SHOVELPICK & SHOVELDECEMBER 2011/ JANUARY 2012 9

MINING

GUIDE

Arizonaq AZ-11: FORLORN CLOSED TOMEMBERS (BOLD RED LETTERS)Removed from the guide.

Californiaq CA: TAYLORS 13 - Best access isat the NW corner where the creekcrosses the Road.

q CA: NANCYS GOLD, New direc-tions, East-bound I-80 to Forresthill Rd.Turn Right on to Mosquito Ridge Rd,Park on opposite side of bridge. Claimhas very limited parking.

Utahq UTAH: CRIMSON DOVE 1-3,Take exit 17 off of Hwy 70.

GPAA MiningGuide Updates

MINING GUIDE UPDATES & EQUIPMENT LEGEND

Sluice box

These updates are organized by state and page number (ie. CA-27) and go overany changes to directions, claim status (Open/Closed), contact information andany other useful information that updates the Mining Guide.

Power sluice/Highbanker

Dredge

Pan

Drywasher

Metal Detector

H NEW MINING CLAIMS FOR GPAA AND LDMA MEMBERS ONLY H

H THIS SPACE RESERVED FOR NEW GPAA MINING CLAIMS MAPS H


within,” Benoit said.

Land grabsBenoit said huge government land

grabs, wouldn’t be an issue under Paul’s plan.

Referring to a proposed 13-million acre land grab under Secretary of the In-terior Ken Salazar, Benoit said the land grabs wouldn’t happen because all the land would be privately owned.

“It’s the same problem. You’ve got federal bureaucrats in Washington tell-ing you how to use it. If they say [public lands] are available for public use, but then turn around and say it’s not avail-able for this particular thing or that par-ticular thing, then it’s a lie and it’s not really available for our use,” he said.

“You’ve got a better shot if it’s coun-ty owned or state owned ... It’s much harder when it’s Washington. Whatever level of government it is, they try to re-strict use one way or another.

“The idea that it’s government and it’s public and is going to be available for everyone at a cheaper rate does not work. They end up just prohibiting in-stead of facilitating your ability to use this land,” he said.

Domestic Mining“Ron Paul’s stance not only on

domestic mining, but on the environ-mental issues is private property owner-ship rights. In other words, if you own the property and you are not harming anybody else, then you should be left alone. If you are fouling somebody’s else’s air or property or in a river with water going downstream and you’re causing damage, the proper recourse is in a court of law,” Benoit said.

Any property owner who feels harmed by another property owner can go to court and seek restitution or dam-ages, he said.

Preventative measures “But when you put up these envi-

ronmental so-called preventative laws,

they drive jobs overseas. Pollution will drive businesses into Mexico, but guess what? They pollute more there and the pollution doesn’t recognize the border and comes across into our airspace,” he said.

“They are counter-productive; they violate our rights; they drive our busi-nesses overseas,” Benoit said.

“The true answer is the respect of private property rights — getting more of this property in the hands of private owners,” he said.

“The whole idea of preventative measures just doesn’t work … we are just being crushed by all of this.”

Hobbs agrees that preventative mea-sures are harmful and rulemaking by federal agencies, such as the BLM or U.S. Forest Service, leaves too much power in the hands of local bureaucra-cies who can sidestep Congress.

“Things have become too regulato-ry. There is a constant drive to put more burden on the public. It creates job secu-rity for these agencies,” he said.

Hobbs also added that some of the

science used to back up claims made by extreme environmentalist groups is badly flawed.

“The science is terrible. There is very little fact in science today the way I see it and I’m sure it’s true. They never come out with a conclusion; it’s always a speculation — could be, might be, pos-si-bly. They never say “is.”

Endangered Species ActWhen asked what position the Ron

Paul camp has taken on the Endangered Species Act, Benoit said private land-owners having more control of their own property would be a first step in controlling rampant misuse of the law.

It is no secret that the Endangered Species Act has been used by envi-ronmental extremists, whether it is the Northern Spotted Owl or the yellow-legged frog or even weeds to prevent outdoor use, restrict industry and devel-opment and kill jobs.

“That’s another example of how they restrict the use you’re going to have and this is exactly what they can do on pub-

lic lands — and they even encroach on private land,” Benoit said.

“You’re supposed to have prop-erty rights in this country. If you’ve got a certain species that happens to be endangered on your property … if they are so worried about that, then they need to get some pri-vate funds and get whatever crit-ter that’s in danger and go set up a private reserve for them instead of prohibiting your use of your own property and your right to live the way you want to live instead of a rat or some other species. It could be a bald eagle. Well, people allow them to take these birds and have private reserves and further their existence ... Those groups with good intentions can provide sanc-tuaries and help these endangered species.

“The buffalo were destroyed because they were considered to be nobody’s property. The Indians weren’t considered to have owned them. There was no protection of private property then,” he said.

Hobbs said the Endangered Species Act is being misinterpreted and misused by environmental ex-tremists to shut down primary in-dustry such as mining and logging operations and other activities.

“One of the most dangerous laws in our country is the Endan-gered Species Act. It puts animals, birds and plants before human life,” Hobbs said.

Climate changeClimate change, formerly

known as the global warming theory, has also been a tool that environmentalists use to heighten fears and hysteria in order to win support for environmental extrem-ist causes.

Not surprisingly, Ron Paul’s ideas of how to handle environ-mental controversies go back to property rights.

“Ron Paul’s viewpoint is that the earth is constantly — and has for millions and billions of years — been engaged in climate chang-es. We’ve had a cooling of the

* PLP, Page 18

* PLP Continued from Page 9

PICK & SHOVELPICK & SHOVEL DECEMBER 2011/ JANUARY 201210

By BLAKE HARMONClaims, Outings & Expeditions

Gold is on the rise once again and isnow priced well beyond the $1,700-per -ounce mark with silver at $35.

Unfortunately, these numbers coupledwith a renewed interest in gold prospectingand small-scale mining has also led to anincreased problem with claim jumpers. Ihave run into at least a half-dozen peoplewho were prospecting on GPAA claimsand were not members.

This brings up a question that is askedoften by members: ‘What should I do if Ifind non-members prospecting or miningon a club claim?’ The answer to that ques-tion is quite easy, but is partially dependanton your comfort level. There are someclaim jumpers who know the law and therisks and choose to take their chances.However, the vast majority of people claimjump because they are misinformed or ig-

norant of the law. Actually, I didn’t evenknow what a mining claim was back whenI first joined the GPAA as a member, letalone the fact that digging on them wascommitting a federal crime.

As a GPAA member, you are under noobligation to say or do anything you aren’tcomfortable with if you see a non-memberprospecting on a club claim. But, if you’relike me you and don’t like the idea of peo-ple freely accessing a claim while you arepaying to be there, here are some basicguidelines you might want to follow whenapproaching people you meet on a claim.

The first thing I do when I see some-body working on a GPAA claim is greetthem, introduce myself and ask them ifthey’re having a good time. I also ask ifthey have had any luck in their prospecting.Asking these questions breaks the ice andopens the door for further conversation.Then, I usually enter into a casual prospect-ing conversation and ask them how long

they’ve been a GPAA member. In mostcases, they are members, which is obvi-ously no problem. Those who are not mem-bers, I handle a bit differently. I welcomethem to the claim and inform them they’reprospecting on a private mining claim thatis only available to members of a clubcalled Gold Prospectors Association ofAmerica. I usually tell them a little bit aboutthe GPAA and how to become a member. Iinvite them to enjoy the rest of their day onthe claim as my guest. I tell them if theywould like to return to the claim, they willneed to join.

In many cases, I also let them know thatmost good gold-bearing areas are underclaim by someone and that it would be intheir best interest to research the land onwhich they plan to prospect, because manymining claim owners are not as forgivingwhen it comes to the crime of mineral tres-pass. In some cases, less than friendly claimowners have been known to introduce their

friends, Smith & Wesson, to the unsuspect-ing intruders — even on first warning!Under the law, individuals caught claimjumping could face either misdemeanor orfelony charges, depending upon the sever-ity of the act.

At the GPAA, we have and will con-tinue to maintain a good-natured, yet strictpolicy regarding claim jumpers. If you en-counter a non-member on club claim andfeels it merits our attention, please contactthe GPAA Claims Department with asmany details as possible at 1-800-551-9707or email us at [email protected] do not expect you to put yourself indanger, so if you feel uncomfortable withthe idea of asking someone whether or notthey are a GPAA member, simply don’t.But, talking to fellow prospectors on clubclaims can be a great way to make newfriends and help to grow the GPAA andlocal chapters. The bottom line is that it’sup to you to decide.

How to handle non-members on GPAA claims

fishing line that I would find in my sluiceevery time I did a cleanup. It bothered methat all these foreign objects, especiallythe lead had been left in the river by somecareless fisherman. As a former angler, Iknow the occasional snag happens to thebest of us. Sometimes, there is no way toget out to where the line gets snaggedbecause of the depth or speed of the river,but just the thought of leaving lead andtangled up fishing line in the water, wasenough to make me sick. I always picturethat sad Indian on horseback looking overthe trash that someone had left behind asa tear ran down his cheek! Whenever Iwas able to dredge it up, it always mademe feel good because I knew I was clean-ing up the river. The other thing that Icame across occasionally was mercury-coated gold caught by my sluice andduring cleanup and panning. This alsomade me feel proud for pulling this out ofour waterways.

You’d be surprised at all the junk thatI would dredge up — square nails, to tincans, old hinges and various other arti-facts from days gone by. All of theseforeign objects came with me, out of theriver and either disposed of properly orsaved in my “old relics” collection. Thisis what really irks me about radical envi-ronmentalists. If they would only listen tothe scientific proof about suction dredg-ing, they would know that it’s notharmful to the environment, fish or theother indigenous creatures that inhabitstreams and rivers. All EnvironmentalImpact Studies performed by the state orfederal government agencies have proventhis repeatedly. I guess, they just keepsaying the same propaganda until they getthe answers they want. So far, all theykeep getting are the facts: Dredging hasno negative effect on the environment!

Well, I’m convinced they’ll continueto waste taxpayers’ money to conductmore worthless studies. I wonder whythey never mention all the good thingsresponsible dredgers are doing?

Gary Goldberg is a GPAA member, PLPboard member and an advocate for miners’’rights. He can be reached at [email protected].

* FEVER RISES Continued from Page 5




to improve the quality of fish habitat than any other single group. We don’t destroy fish habitat or fish runs. In fact, some studies indicate that dredging ac-tually improves fish habitat.

Oregon has a great fishing season of salmon and steelhead. The heavy winter rains — often five inches a day — push the silt out to the ocean and that is the signal for the salmon to enter the river. In fact, salmon fishing is not allowed until there has been enough rain to raise the level of water. The salmon enter the river to spawn. The females (hens) find an area to their liking and then, using her tail fin, fans out a shallow depression (a redd) in which to lay her eggs. A male will then swim over the redd and deposit his milt. The hen then swims up to the top area of her redd and again fans the river bottom, raising silt to drift over and cover her eggs. The salmon enter the silted water and even then create more silt to protect their eggs. When the rains hit, the water is so murky and full of silt, you could almost walk across it. (Salmonoids love the dirty water). It is full of trees, branches, trash, run off from roads and who knows what was washed out of the woods? (Think what bears do in the woods)!

The Chetco River is the source of drinking water in two communi-ties in Oregon. The water filtration system works great and no one has to drink dirty, muddy water, but the environmental lobbyists have convinced the public that the few dredgers in the summer are contam-inating the water, making it unfit for human consumption.

Suction dredging in Oregon is regulated federally by the Mining Law of 1866 and 1872. Mining laws and the appropriate federal agency governing the lands where the min-ing will occur. (The mining laws have been upheld in federal court many times over the last 150 years and mining is also heavily regulated by state agencies.)

Suction dredge rules are in place to ensure that clean water is protect-ed. In Oregon, it is regulated by the DEQ. In water work times are gov-erned by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to ensure suction dredge mining does not occur dur-ing the sensitive early life stages of fish.

In most of the rivers and streams in the Western United States, small-scale gold suction dredging occurs for less than four months out of each year. No suction dredging occurs during spawning season as so many of these irrationally emotional, mis-lead and lied to letter writers repeat time and again.

Furthermore, small-scale suc-tion dredging seldom occurs in lo-cations on a river or stream where salmonoid would spawn in the win-ter months. Salmonoids are hatched and growing by the time a dredging season comes around. Proven sci-entifically, the fry grow faster and stronger in silted water. The silted water contains churned up food and minerals to encourage healthier en-vironment for the fish.

Dredgers remove more contam-

inants than any other single group. We remove lead and steel weights, fishing line, old nails, even natural mercury that builds up over time.

I believe most miners are conser-vationists. We spend more time in and under the water than any one else does. Many of us also fish and hunt. Do we want a polluted environment to live in? No, we don’t. Yet, the environmental extremists are telling people that we are destroying the environment and fish habitat.

How many of us have seen all the fish enjoying our dredge holes? How about snakes, salamanders, and cray-fish? How about the deer and the bears that come to the deeper pockets of cool water in the heat of the summer?

I guess they didn’t hear the environ-mentalists’ story of us destroying their homes. There are even a few mid-west-ern states that are dredging deep pock-ets in their rivers to help insure the sur-vival of native species during summer droughts. In fact, DEQ has hired dredg-ers to help clean up hot spots of mercury

that was in the silt of rivers. But that’s not quite what these radicals want you to hear, is it?

I’m a hunter, fisherman, prospector and voter! I am tired of the vocal few trying to rule over the many — the mis-guided and manipulated population fool-ish enough to believe the environmental extremists and their propaganda.

It’s time to wake up! Is it too late to keep our freedoms? What will it take for all of you to wise up and see what the ex-treme environmentalists are taking away from us?

Who will teach and show the our children how to pan for gold or to catch a fish or hunt for deer?

If we take much longer, we will be too old, or too dead, to help educate these upcoming generations. Maybe they will never give us back our lands. They can herd us into compounds and keep us out of the woods and off the land that be-longs to us — We, the People.

It is happening now and it is get-ting worse rapidly. Read United Na-tions Agenda 21 and be afraid. Stand

up. Speak out. Do something!! Don’t let your government take away any more of your freedoms.

Get out and vote! Talk to people. Spread the word. If your politician of choice is against mining, vote them out. Against the second amendment? Vote them out! Against the 10th amendment? Vote them out! Against the Constitution? Vote them out! No more of the vocal few ruling over silent majority.

This fight of ours, to keep our consti-tutional freedoms, will not be easy, nor will it be cheap. We must find and elect the right people to Congress. They will be the ones speaking for all of us. The radical environmental groups pay many, expensive lawyers. We need to raise the legal funds fight back in the courts.

This is America’s, and our, last chance. We cannot let the environmental extremists win this fight.

We can and must stop this usurpation of our public lands, before it is too late.

Dianna Blazzo is a GPAA member, a long-time gold prospector and advocate of the small-scale mining community�

* JOBS Continued from Page 5

“The state may get to regulate, but theyhave to be reasonable regulations,” saidJerry Hobbs, President of Public Lands forthe People, Inc. “They can’t prohibit, whichthey are not doing, but for the average guya $1,120.00 application permit fee is pro-hibitive.”

“What happened is that the DFGturned the regulatory responsibility processover to the California [Regional] WaterQuality Control Board,” Hobbs said.“There isn’t a law forbidding highbanking[federally or in California] and now they[SWRCB] are going to tackle it as an addi-tion of a pollutant.”

The addition of a pollutant to a watersystem is key to whether or not the EPA andthe SWRCB have regulatory jurisdictionover specific mining activity.

Suction dredging and highbankingwithin the normal high water mark of ariver channel does not add a pollutant to thewater system, according to Hobbs.

“… because they [miners and prospec-tors] are in the river channel, they can’t addanything that isn’t already there,” he said.

The Hobbs assertion is buttressed byU.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra DayO’Connor’s majority opinion in SouthFlorida Water Management District v. Miccosukee Tribe of Indians et al. JusticeO’Connor likened a water system to a potof soup. She reasoned that, “If one takes aladle of soup from a pot, lifts it above thepot, and pours it back into the pot, one hasnot ‘added’ soup or anything else to thepot.”

The SWRCB regulations make no dis-tinction between mining and prospecting.The regulations only speak to the depositof water, the deposit of waste material andthe use of water. The SWRCB regulationseither ignore prospecting or lump it in withmining.

Hobbs said the SWRCB does not havejurisdiction over a highbanking operationif the discharged water and waste materialare deposited such that the discharge waterdoes not flow into a body of water. Nor dothey have jurisdiction on water and materialdeposited out of the confines of the riverchannel.

“The Forest Service is responsible out-side the bounds of the normal high watermark,” he said.

The regulations state: “You cannotbegin mining until the Regional WaterBoard approves your Report of Waste Dis-charge and notifies you that either your per-mit has been issued or that a permit is notrequired because the discharge will not cre-ate or threaten to create a condition of pol-lution or nuisance.” Inherent in any permitsystem is the possibility that the permit willbe denied.

“Miners have always had the rights touse the resources [water]…” explainedHarn.

In addition to the $1,120.00 permit ap-plication fee, the miner and prospectormust also pay a $50.00 fee to exercise hismining water rights on riparian land or paya like amount to obtain a water permit onnon-riparian land.

The required $50 water use fees areprobably not prohibitive to a mining oper-ation on a claim, depending upon the dura-tion and conditions of the permits.

The highbanker, in Hobbs’ view, isprincipally a prospecting tool used in thesearch for a quantifiable discovery justify-

ing the filing of a mining claim. Thus, theprospector moves his physical location fre-quently in search of a discovery.

All use of public land leaves a footprintof some nature, including mining. Substan-tial damage to the environment is a legiti-mate cause for government regulation. Thequestion becomes one of degree.

Keene Engineering is a manufacturerof popular highbankers, and Pat Keenestated that highbanking miners andprospectors are using hand tools and notmechanized earth moving equipment. Hesaid, “…surface disturbance as a result ofhighbanking is de minimis.”

“Unless there is some damage thatthey can show, there is no need for the newregulations. There is no harm from high-banking, especially … within the highwater mark,” Hobbs said.

Referring to the SWRCB regulations,Harn said: “They try and reach and grab asmany rights away from the miners as theycan and hope that nobody will fight it.”

The government is, “… attempting totake the peoples’ rights away concerning

public land and to eliminate mining on anyscale,” Keene added.

Perhaps there is some attempt on thegovernment’s part to usurp the people’srights. If not, why would the SWRCB ig-nore both basic mining rights and estab-lished procedures to implement newregulations?

As Harn said, the SWRCB did not solicit public comment on the proposedregulations as required by the CaliforniaAdministrative Procedure Act.

The cumulative new highbanking reg-ulations are prohibitive for both mining ona claim and prospecting due to both costand bureaucratic delay. The delay inhibitsthe prospector from exploring for new sitesand the claim miner from expeditiously ex-ercising his landowner rights. The require-ments are therefore a violation of theminer’s and prospector’s rights to mine,prospect and use of the water. It is to theprospector that the new regulations are themost prohibitive.

The SWRCB regulations put the Stateof California at odds with mining rights

guaranteed in the federal Mining Law of1872.

It is safe to assume that many willabandon their highbanking prospecting andmining activities out of fear of being sub-ject to $25,000 fines per day. If that is notintimidation, as Hobbs, Harn and Keenehave pointed out, what is?

Modern day miners and prospectorsrepresent a dwindling long line of Ameri-cans whose spirit and toil is directly linkedto the historical development of this nation.

The three mining experts quoted hereinbelieve that California’s disenfranchise-ment of the miners and prospectors statu-tory mining rights is symptomatic of theburgeoning restrictions on American free-doms throughout the land. Each expertvoiced in their own words a concern thattoday’s situation is emblematic of the de-cline of America toward a socialist statelead by the vanguard of radical environ-mentalism.

Paul Coambs is the membership chairman forPublic Lands for the People. He can be reached [email protected]

PICK & SHOVELPICK & SHOVELDECEMBER 2011/ JANUARY 2012 11

* HIGHBANKINGContinued from Page 6




By MICHAEL FOSTERFor the GPAA

The stock market was flat for 2011, bonds are becoming increasingly risky as municipalities, states, and whole countries flirt with default, and cash becomes worthless as prices continue to soar. So where is a good place to put your wealth? It’s obvious: gold.

The shiny metal was a steady and reliable performer in 2011, when its value jumped by about 30 percent in the open market relative to USD, al-though that's nothing compared to the 168 percent jump in value gold has seen over the past five years. Gold has become such an appealing investment that hedge funds and commodities bro-kers have looked with increasing inter-

est at the metal while they’ve seen mas-sive fluctuations in other commodities. Some investments have been devastat-ing. Natural gas, for example, is near its 10-year low thanks to surplus supplies.

Now, gold is starting to appeal to a major investor of a different stripe: central banks. At the end of 2011, the World Gold Council noticed that total gold purchases at central banks had doubled from the previous quarter and had grown by as much as seven times from the prior year, amidst concerns about the value of other holdings, such as cash. This is a particularly worrying development as central banks are the ones in charge with just how much cash a nation prints.

As most know, the more cash that a central bank prints, the higher infla-

tion is, and the more valuable gold is when compared to national currencies, since they are no longer tied to a gold standard. The fact that central banks are buying more gold may suggest that they expect higher inflation to come as they continue to inject more currency into the global markets.

Of course, central banks have al-ready injected eyewatering amounts of cash into the economies in the past three years. In August 2008, the amount of U.S. cash in the economy $843.24 bil-lion. By October, that number jumped past the $1 trillion mark only to hit the $2 trillion mark in December 2010.

Currently, about $2.61 trillion in American cash is floating in the econo-my, with that number slated to increase as the Federal Reserve aims to stimu-

late the economy by providing ultra-low interest loans to the big banks.

While currencies are weakening, precious metals have been on a bull run. Gold has rallied after a slight dip, and is set to rise further as investors and private individuals look to find some safety from continued economic concerns. Central banks are no excep-tion, and they have been flocking to buy real, physical gold by the ton. In the third quarter of 2011, central banks bought nearly 150 tons of the stuff. For the same time in 2010, central banks bought just 22.6 tons.

While some banks have publicly admitted that they are on a gold buying spree, many have not. The World Gold Council has lifted the veil of secrecy on some of these purchases in a pub-

lic statement. The WGC estimated that Russia bought 15 tons, Bo-livia bought 14 tons, and Thailand bought 25 tons. That leaves nearly 100 tons unaccounted for, leaving analysts struggling to understand what the huge jump in gold buying means for the global economy.

What this means for the value of gold is obvious: it’s going to go up.

However, the Federal Reserve isn’t telling private individuals to follow central banks and buy gold bars. Instead, the American central bank is hinting that gold might be overpriced in a move that would inspire investors to sell off the precious metal. In January of this year, the Fed said that it expected inflation to be unusually low in the near future, at just two pecent. This would mean that gold would underperform relative to currency, motivating investors to leave the shiny metal.

If that's the advice that the Fed-eral Reserve wants individuals to take, it isn’t the advice that central banks are taking on board.

At least from the central banks perspective, gold is increasingly becoming a safe haven as econom-ic woes continue to hit Europe and once powerful China is showing signs of failure. The Asian giant has seen home prices drop for five straight months in what appears to be the beginning of a bursting bubble. While the country's manu-facturing economy remains robust, skyrocketing inflation has squeezed Chinese workers, who make on av-erage less than $400 a month.

Continued economic worries in Europe and Asia, as well as stubbornly high unemployment in America thanks to a neverending onslaught of layoffs, is making gold seem all the more attractive, while climbing prices is making it a bigger draw to hedge against nonstop inflation. It makes sense for central banks to increase their gold purchases, even if they aren’t willing to admit it in public.

Michael Foster is a freelance business journalist based in New York City�

Central banks turning to goldGold investments increase as fear of inflation looms

By AMBER WHITEGPAA Event Manager

The GPAA Gold & Treasure ShowCircuit took its final bow for the 2011season in Onalaska, WI. After nine showsthis year, the gold show vendors and staffhave “packed in their jobs” and are nowworking on finalizing details for the 2012season. Here is a brief recap of the 2011season:

n El Paso, TX — Almost south of theborder, this location was brand new to theGold Show Circuit and hand-picked byTom Massie himself!

n Mesa, AZ — Jam packed withsnow birds and locals. Never a slowdownfrom open to close! Tom Massie evenoffered a second Alaska Gold Expedition

on Saturday. Two grand prizes!n Pomona, CA — Central for South-

ern California, we packed them in andsold a record level of new GPAA member-

ships. Can’t wait to hit it next year and doit all over again.

n Redding, CA — After a few yearswe made it back to Redding. Rain, snow

and even flocks of Canadian Honkers(Geese) couldn’t hold people back fromattending. Vendors were selling out!

n Puyallup, WA & Salem, OR –Tried and true locations, Puyallup andSalem are always amazing shows fromthe local support and great weather to theaccommodating venues, and of course ourenthusiastic and loyal attendees!

n Las Vegas, NV — Las Vegas isalways full of entertainment and goodfun! This year we added a brand newdynamic with the Chapter Summit! Wehope everyone had a great time and tookhome a lot of valuable information!

n Fletcher, NC — After two years ofabsence from North Carolina, GPAA trav-eled to Fletcher to revisit the home of theoriginal Gold Rush. We were greeted bysome of the happiest and most friendlymembers and supporters we have ever hadthe pleasure of working with!

n Onalaska, WI — Onalaska, WIwent out with a bang — literally! Interna-tional Explorations joined us for the veryfirst time and really raised the bar of enter-tainment! Their Pirate and his trusty“Betsy” an authentic cannon that can beheard for over five miles, were really ahoot!

We sincerely thank all of our volun-teers who dedicate their time to assist inthe show operations, our family ofvendors who always present the best prod-ucts and believe in what the shows have tooffer, and without further ado, our alwaysloyal followers and supporters. We hopethat everyone has made plans to join us atone or many of our 20 Gold & TreasureShows scheduled for 2012! See you inJanuary!

2012 GOLD & TREASURE SHOWS

Plan ahead to attend a Gold & Treas-ure Show nearest you. GPAA hasexpanded the Gold & Treasure ShowCircuit to an unparalleled 20 shows andpre-registration is now open for the first12 shows in the spring circuit!

By registering online, you will receiveFREE admission for both event days atthe gold show of your choice, separateVIP check in upon arrival, exclusivecoupons and offers from GPAA &Exhibiting Vendors, and details surround-ing the show you chose.

From January to May, the GPAA willbe visiting 12 locations to host our high-demand Gold & Treasure Shows. Newlocations to our schedule include RedBluff, CA, Albuquerque, NM, Spokane,WA, Boise, ID, Salt Lake City, UT, andReno/Sparks, NV! With all of these newlocations, we certainly hope to you seeyou there! Remember, there are still eightremaining shows to be announced as partof our Fall Circuit! Be sure to keep an eyeout for more locations near you! Visitwww.GoldandTreasureShow.com to pre-register with as many emails as you wantand receive one FREE admission peremail you register!

“Like” us on Facebook and keep up todate with GPAA events around thecountry:

www.facebook.com/Gold Prospectors

Amber White is the Event Manager for theGold Prospectors Association of America. She canbe reached at [email protected]

2011 Gold & Treasure Show season endsPICK & SHOVELPICK & SHOVEL DECEMBER 2011/ JANUARY 201212

Photo by Brad Jones

Tom Massie presents a prize to a winner at the Las Vegas Gold & Treasure Show in April.

Plan ahead to attendthe 2012 gold shows




Educational themeWith an increased emphasis on

teaching people how to find gold, attendees are leaving the shows with a better understanding of what gold prospecting is all about.

“Showgoers are seeing a greater selection of booths and merchandise and the vendors are taking on a more active role in teaching people how to prospect for gold, gems and buried trea-sure,” Ricci said.

“In Albuquerque, we had a doc-tor who was showing people how to extract minerals out of glass,” Ricci said. “Can you believe that with today’s gold prices you can extract as much as $170 from a beer bottle?”

“You have people like Rob Gore-ham of 49er Mining Supplies teaching about basic prospecting and Paul Clark teaching how to prospect in the desert. They are filling up the lecture halls,” he said.

Chapters & Tradeshow Manager for GPAA, Gary Sturgill, said newcomers to the world of prospecting will come away from the shows with a lot more knowledge and a probably even a little gold fever.

“If you know nothing, you’ll be educated by the time you leave if you take advantage of what we have to of-fer,” Sturgill said.

“You should definitely have a good idea how to find gold. And, one thing we always tell new members is that they should join a local GPAA chapter in their area. It’s free to join a chap-ter and they’re going to take you under their wing show you where to go and how to do it,” he said.

Vendors booked solidMuch if not all of the vendor space

for many of the spring Gold & Treasure shows has been sold out, Sturgill said.

“Vegas is sold out — wall to wall and front to back,” Sturgill said. “It should definitely make for a great show.”

Vendors have seen improvements made to the show this year and are all jumping on board, Sturgill said.

Members are happyAs far as what showgoers are saying

at the show, the five words that Sturgill hears most often are ‘Where do I sign up?’, he said.

Sturgill attributes at least some of the high attendance figures at the shows to record-high gold prices, but it’s more than that, he said.

“They like the new Pick & Shovel and they say it just keeps getting better and better every issue, they like what’s going on with Gold Prospectors Maga-zine; it’s more interesting and informa-tive. And, they really like the new Alas-kan series,” he said.

As far as Gold Fever, the most com-mon questions from fans is ‘When is

Tom coming to shoot a show near us?’, Sturgill said.

“This country is big, so he’ll get there eventually is what I tell ’em.”

Overall, GPAA and LDMA mem-bers are glad they attended the shows, Sturgill said.

“Those who come out to the shows like what we’re doing. They like the new presentation of the show and the new booth setup. They like that the hall is packed with vendors, displays and products. Their is no dead space and the vendors are happy because they are selling products and equipment,” he said.

Pre-registrationFree admittance for showgoers who

pre-register online has also been popu-lar and another reason why attendance at the shows has skyrocketed, Sturgill said.

“At Mesa we had more than 1,000 pre-registered attendees,” he said.

To pre-register for the Las Ve-gas Gold & Treasure Show and other shows, go to:

www.goldandtreasureshows.com

Future gold shows “At the shows, I’ve got a lot more

people coming up to me and asking us to come to where they’re at because they’re driving so far to get to the shows; they’re giving me information about the hall, how to contact the hall and that’s a good thing,” Sturgill said.

“If they really want a show in their area, find a place that has a minimum area of 20,000 sq.-ft and costs less than $6,000 for the weekend and I’ll look into it,” he said.

Brad Jones is the Editor / Content Director for Gold Prospectors Association of America, the Pick & Shovel Gazette and Gold Prospectors Magazine� He can be reached at bjones@gold-prospectors�org

* GOLD SHOWS Continued from Page 3

Photo by Brad JonesA crowd of showgoers gathers for major prize draws, including the Alaska Gold Expedition trip, at last year’s Gold & Treasure Show in Las Vegas.

Photo by Brad JonesAbove: Mike Pung demonstrates the Gold Cube at last year’s Gold & Treasure Show in Las Vegas. Below: A participant checks her pan for gold in the speed-panning contest. Left: A young showgoer learns how to pan for gold.


planet; we’ve had ice ages and tropical warming periods. So, the science that suggests humankind is causing this is, well, suspect at best,” Benoit said.

Studies show that the amount of air pollution caused during the Indus-trial Revolution and early part of the 20th century was vastly greater than the amount of pollutants being emitted to-day, he said.

“There was actually a cooling trend happening during that period. Now, it’s the chicken and the egg. These scien-tists say that we have increased CO2 (carbon dioxide) which causes global warming, but global warming causes increased CO2. So, which one is the cause and which one is the effect?”

Often it comes down to necessary evils for existence on the planet. The most obvious example is the sun; it causes solar radiation, but we need it to heat the planet, Benoit added.

Pollution Regardless of which theory people

believe, less pollution is better for ev-eryone, Benoit suggested.

“It doesn’t give any of us the right or the excuse to pollute someone else’s space. If we are throwing out pollution in the air that is harmful to humans or life, then that should be dealt with. You harm somebody, you pay a price — but not in the sense that well, it might harm someone or it might cause global warming so we’re going to do some-thing about it,” Benoit said.

“These preventative laws apply to the United States and not to the rest of the world. It drives business out of our country and makes our survival actu-ally worse,” he said.

Environmental lawsuitsWhat is Ron Paul’s position on en-

vironmental activists using the same tax dollars they get from the government to sue the government which pays off for environmental activists and lawyers, but costs tax payers millions, if not bil-lions of dollars.

Benoit compared the environmental activist lobby to government-funded cancer research and welfare programs.

“They are getting money to do the research; they are not getting money to find the cure. So, they are going to continue to lobby to get more money to do research so they can make mon-ey, but their interest is not in finding a cure because if they do, then their job is gone.”

“It’s the same thing with any gov-ernment program. You can take a fed-eral government welfare program and they are going to use those dollars to look for more clients to get on welfare,” he said.

Limited government“Getting the lands out of the hands

of the federal government stops these environmental lobbyists from going to Washington,” Benoit said.

Although, environmental lobbyists would continue to push for their politi-cal agenda in state capitols, they would not be able to affect the whole country at once.

“When they get to Washington, then they affect the entire country and we all

lose in the whole country. If they win in California, we lose in California. But, if they win in California, the people in Nevada — they don’t lose. So, that’s why we want to control all of this — to be as close to you and I owning the property as possible,” Benoit said.

UN Agenda 21 With all the environmental hype

and controversy surrounding United Nations Agenda 21, it’s inevitable that the issue of foreign control over U.S. soil would surface.

Ron Paul’s campaign for limited government does not stop in Washing-ton; it continues to the United Nations headquarters.

With recent concerns about United Nations Agenda 21 which aims to re-strict human access, land use and pri-vate property ownership in rural and wildernesss areas, Ron Paul’s solution is for the U.S. to withdraw from United Nations, Benoit said.

“Close it out. Wipe it out,” he said to the applause of campaign workers. “Ron Paul would pull us out of the United Nations. The United Nations is the root for all of this.”

Hobbs believes that the amount of influence the United Nations has had over land use practices over the past 20 years is unconstitutional and he couldn’t be more pleased with Paul’s disdain for the UN.

“Pulling out of the UN is a plus in his favor. There is no question about it. Reagan did it to a certain degree from UNESCO. We need to become more autonomous, more independent than we are. The present administration is just driving us toward more dependency — not only on an individual level, but as a country,” Hobbs said.

The gold standardRon Paul has been criticized and

called a ‘kook’ because he wants to get back to the gold standard, but that’s re-ally from people who are totally igno-rant, Benoit said.

“That’s a hard one for people to grasp,” he said.

“Somebody sent me an email mock-ing him for that and I said, “What are you for? The paper standard?’ and he couldn’t reply to that.

“That’s what we’re on now is a paper standard. That means we don’t have any backing to our money what-soever. It’s printing press paper and so they create it out of thin air. That’s what creates the boom and bust cycles in the economy. That’s what created the boom in the housing market and the bust that followed,” he said. Keeping this print-ing press moving is going to destroy our dollar. It’s happened in other places in the last century,” he said.

“The Russian Ruble was destroyed overnight because of printing press money and it happened in Argentina. And, of course, everyone knows about the German wheelbarrows back in 1924,” he said.

In 1924, after the First World War but prior to the Second World War, the economy in Germany was ailing so badly that it would take a wheelbarrow full of paper Deutschmark bills to buy to a single loaf of bread.

“That’s what they are doing now by having paper [money] backed by absolutely nothing,” Benoit said. Hav-ing it backed by something limits how much they can put the printing press to work — backed by gold, backed by silver, backed by something that can’t be easily debauched where you can’t be defrauded.

“When the printing presses are turned loose, all of us are defrauded on the value of our money,” he said.

“That’s the kind of inflation we’re living under and suffering under,” he said. “Having no backing to the cur-rency, just destroys the value of all of it ... You can’t have banks just printing this stuff out of thin air, loaning it to us and we go proudly to the window and mortage our houses and farms with the stuff they just printed out of thin air.

Collectivism soup“Imagine a community where ev-

erybody put into a caldron of soup — the ingredients and all good stuff that makes a healthy soup,” he said.

Sooner or later, less and less people contribute ingredients to the soup and there isn’t enough soup to feed every-one, Benoit said.

“Then the government says, ‘Let’s just pour all this water in the soup and then there will be enough soup for everybody,’ Well, there’s not enough nourishment for everybody. They may have volume, but then we start getting hungry. That’s what they are doing in society by printing this money. That’s just pouring water into the soup. We don’t have enough ingredients in the soup, so they are printing this money and creating the illusion that everything is fine and the soup is good. That’s what always happens when you use printing press money.”

California’s suction dredge banThe suction dredge mining ban has

caused a lot headaches for prospectors and miners and hurt the small-scale mining industry and suppliers.

The PLP and other mining groups have opposed the ban and are ques-tioning how a state government such as California can override the federal Mining Law of 1872. Under the Con-stitution, federal law is supposed to su-percede state law.

Hobbs has accused the state gov-ernment of hiding behind state agencies such as the California Department of Fish and Game, withholding funding for Environmental Impact Studies and essentially using whatever means pos-sible to skirt the law.

Benoit said the Paul campaign wants to cut through the bureaucracies for a much freer society. But the ques-tion then becomes, ‘Free for who? Only

those who can afford to own land?’Still, Paul’s campaign platform is

that selling off public lands is the best option.

“Right now it belongs to everybody in the collective. When the government owns it, only the bureaucrats who make the rules and regulations own it. They say it’s public land, but only if you get them to agree that you can use will you be able to use it,” Benoit said.

“We’ve got a culture in government now where they are just prohibiting everything. If something happens and they want to stop it from happening again, they write a law prohibiting it. Pretty much all our activities are pro-hibited and we can’t do anything with-out permission. It’s a systemic problem that we have.

“There are all these things that are going wrong. You’ve got a situation where both levels of government are engaged in violating people’s rights instead of protecting our rights and se-curing our rights. That’s kind of an epi-demic in our system. Originally, they started off with the purpose of secur-ing our rights. State governments were supposed to deal with that issue and the federal government was supposed to deal with issues that were foreign to the state. They have totally lost their way and what their purpose actually is,” Benoit said.

“With dredging, you have a state government that is violating our rights when the federal government had set it up initially to protect our rights. Some-times it happens both ways. It’s a sys-temic problem and a lack of respect for private property ownership. We’ve got 200 years of government building to the point where they don’t respect our pri-vate property anymore. You need a per-mit for everything on your property.”

The “green” economy The Obama administration’s push

for green jobs, green cars and a green economy seems to being run by ex-tremists and plagued with corruption and scams.

“It goes back to people who think — and in a lot of cases rich and pow-erful bankster gangsters of the world — They will set up things and make rules. That is the natural order of any organization to grow and that is the nat-ural order of government — to grow... It’s about controlling us all and putting us into a collective like beehives and ants. We’ve lost our self-determinism,” Benoit said.

“What we’re dealing with today is the collectivism ... That is not the sys-tem the United States was founded on. It was based on individualism. Look at the candidates that the system marches out for us to vote for,” he said.

“Ron Paul is an anomaly. There is no longer any individualism … He is the only guy talking about liberty. Ron Paul is a liberator. I’m hoping Ameri-ca will wake up to that and reject this idea of collectivism. They created these problems and we want them to get out of our way.”

Benoit has announced that he is running for U.S. Congress in South-ern California’s District 52 as an Inde-pendent under the campaign slogan of Life — Liberty — Property.

Brad Jones is the Editor / Content Director for Gold Prospectors Association of America�

The Gold Prospectors Association of America is a non-partisan organization formed to promote the heritage of the North America prospector, small-scale miner and protect the rights of the public to access public lands� The GPAA does not endorse political candidates� The purpose of this article is to inform our members and the public about land rights as they pertain to prospecting, mining and outdoor recreational use and to generate open discussion about the environmental and governmental polices that affect them�

EDITOR’S NOTE* PLP Continued from Page 14


warming theory.“I have a big study on the effects

of ocean conditions on salmon. And, the reason the salmon populations are declining is only partially from the de-teriorating conditions in the river. It’s caused by the warming of the ocean.

But what Greene found is that even though the ocean is warming in one area it is cooling or is cooler in other areas and the salmon are migrating to those areas.

“What you find is that before the ’80s the salmon populations started increasing off the coast of British Co-lumbia and Alaska. A lot of them are dying and even starving from the con-ditions in the ocean. You have a huge die-off and salmon spend 76 percent of their lives in the ocean,” he said.

“The charts show the salmon take up north is going through the roof while it’s dropping back here (Ore-gon). It all coincides with all the tem-perature oscillations going on in the ocean. It’s not global warming; it’s just natural cycles.”

Theoretically, in five or 10 years from now, the trend could be reversed where there are more salmon in Oregon and Washington and less in British Columbia and Alaska, he said.

“The environmentalists know this. They know it’s a fact. I mean, there is no secret to it at all, but they choose to ignore it because it doesn’t support their premise and they want us out of the water.,” he said.

“Scientists have become advo-cates for certain agendas. They have become believers and crusaders, for-getting that science moves forward and makes progress by skepticism rather than by the preservation of some status quo or some consensus position,” he said.

Media coverage Both Wise and Greene concur that

most, if not all, the media coverage of the suction dredging debate has been

one-sided in favor of environmental extremist groups.

“It’s pure laziness in journalism. They are selling something and they are making money from this issue also. It’s part of the whole environmental economy. There are a lot of people who will read environmental hype and controversy. Sensationalism — that’s what they’re doing. They’re not even looking at the facts. They’re just tak-ing what the environmentalists say and that’s their headline. It’s definitely un-fair and unbalanced.”

Wise said she often gets irritated with the way some news reporters cov-er the issues.

“I don’t have the answer for ev-erything, but they like to play the

‘gotcha’ game if you don’t have the right answer for them. They’re trying to sell papers.”

Like Wise, Greene believes the mainstream media has been irrespon-sible in its coverage of environmental issues with the faulty assumption that everything green must be good without questioning motives.

“In every single case, they do not do it. They just take the information and repeat it as if it’s gospel.”

“That’s very typical. That’s what we’re up against. We can’t find an honest or understanding journalist anywhere. There are very, very few of them. They are extremely rare. Even the ones who seem to try still get it half wrong.”

Greene is convinced it’s more than just shoddy journalism, but an in-doctrination of young journalists that teaches them not to question environ-mental activism. It is the same kind of self-censorship that led to coining of the phrase political correctness, which also surfaced in the ’90s.

“I happen to believe that they have an agenda — especially the young ones, because they are coming out of the schools that way,” he said.

“We were actually seeing that at

the EPA with the new hires and PhDs. They were just these avid environ-mentalists. Everything is wrong and they’re right!”

“So, as a research scientist, the first thing you do is build a comprehensive library. There was not a lot of material out there and all of it showed that the effects of suction dredge mining are minimal, quickly reversible and local. I’ve not found anything different from that,” Greene said.

Suction dredging debateGreene has seen all three sides

of the suction dredging debate — as a scientist, an environmentalist and a suction dredge miner.

“I was a scientist first,” Greene said.

As a young man, Greene began scuba diving back in the ’60s after reading diving magazines.

“I was so poor, my first scuba div-ing tanks were old fire extinguishers. I couldn’t even afford to buy my own scuba diving outfit,” he recalled.

Later, scuba diving led to suction dredging. He and his children started with an inner tube.

Greene was environmentally con-scious back then and still is today.

He remembers being especially concerned about high levels of phos-phorous in laundry detergent that were causing large algae blooms and turning some affected rivers “pea-soup green.” He even belonged to the Sierra Club.

“I was a good environmentalist,” he said.

When he first heard claims that suction dredging was harmful to fish, he was disappointed, realizing that to stay in good conscience he may be faced with giving up his gold pros-pecting hobby.

To be sure, he began to study the facts about suction dredging’s effects on the environment and eventually found the activist’s claims to be un-substantiated.

Even though he had bought into the environmentalist school of thought, he began to question the science. The

more he learned about activists and their agenda, the more he began back-ing away from them.

“There are a lot of people who ac-tually believe that mankind does not belong out in nature; that it’s only for the wildlife. There is some blend of all this weirdness. And, the worst part is we have millions of good-hearted, honest, concerned citizens who — I don’t want to call them lazy — but who are misinformed ... They are trust-ing these environmental organizations and they are being bamboozled by a bunch of thieves,” Greene said.

If the conclusion of his study had found that suction dredging was harm-ful, which it didn’t, he said he would not have continued dredging.

“In my own case, I wouldn’t be a miner,” he said.

Since then, he has tried to convince others in the scientific community that much of the so-called science behind some of the activists’ claims is flawed or simply doesn’t exist. But, Greene said most scientists are apathetic to his concerns.

“I have all sorts of friends who are scientists and they don’t care; If you hired them as a consultant they would,” Greene said.

“Suction dredge mining in waters is the most environmentally safe, best method of mining. The most common myth is that suction dredging harms the environment. Even some miners don’t believe that suction dredging benefits fish. They are just as brainwashed. I’ve heard miners say it. It’s frustrat-ing to me. The old saying about a lie told often enough becomes the truth is exactly what’s been happening to us in small-scale mining,” he said.

Like the salmon, Greene and Wise are swimming upstream against all odds, but they believe strongly in their convictions.

Brad Jones is the Editor / Content Director for the Gold Prospectors Association of America, He can be reached at bjones@ goldprospectors�org�

Submitted photoRetired EPA scientist Joe Greene, a GPAA member and avid gold prospector, does some suction dredge mining in Oregon. As a research biologist, Greene says suction dredging does not harm fish or fish habitat.


Joe Greene


Judge orders U.S. Forest Service to scrap feesBy SARAH REIJONENFor the GPAA

Four years ago, four Tucson, Ariz. residents began a battle against For-est Service fees at Mt. Lemmon in the Coronado National Forest.

A ninth circuit Court of Appeals judge sided with those four residents on Feb. 9, finding certain Forest Ser-vice fees illegal based on the language of the Federal Lands Recreation En-hancement Act. This act prohibits the United States Forest Service, Bureau of Land Mangement and Bureau of Reclamation from charging patrons a fee to park or picnic along roads or trailsides; visit undeveloped backcoun-try; pass through federal recreation lands without using facilities; camp in parts of the forest where no facilities or services are available or use overlooks or scenic pullouts.

“The statute is abundantly clear that a standard amenity recreation fee cannot, under any circumstances, be charged for those activities,” Judge Robert W. Gettleman wrote for the unanimous three-judge panel involved in this decision.

The lawsuit charged that the U.S. Forest Service was attempting to skirt the law by designating Mt. Lemmon a High Impact Recreation Area. Even before this hearing the Forest Service was instructed to review its HIRA des-ignations upon a recommendation of downscaling from the Washington of-fice. This case puts nails in the coffin of HIRA-based fees and language.

“The Forest Service fails to distin-guish — as the statute does — between someone who glides into a paved park-

ing space and sits at a picnic table enjoying a feast of caviar and cham-pagne, and someone who parks on the side of the highway, sits on a pile of gravel, and eats an old baloney [bolo-gna] sandwich while the cars whizz by. The agency collects the same fee from both types of picnickers,” Gettleman stated.

But in accordance with law, that is unacceptable. Not only is this ruling applicable to Forest Service HIRAs, but it covers all standard amenity fees charged by the BLM and Bureau of Reclamation, as well. The bottom line is that no fees can be charged for par-ticipating in any of the exempted ac-

tivities if patrons are not using the fa-cilities or services available.

“Consider what would happen if a restaurant-goer inspected his bill and noticed an unexpected charge. If told that the fee was for 10 bottles of wine that the patron’s group neither ordered nor drank, the patron would rightly be outraged. He would not find much sol-ace in a waiter’s explanation that the wine cellar contained 10 bottles, which the patron could have ordered if he wished,” Gettleman stated.

While the ruling is based on an Ari-zona case, it sets precedent throughout the entire Ninth Circuit, which includes Washington, Oregon, Montana, Idaho,

California, Nevada, Alaska and Ha-waii. After the mandate, which takes 60 days, the ruling will become effec-tive and could have subsequent impact on pass programs such as the Adven-ture Pass in California; the Northwest Forest Pass in Washington and Oregon and the Red Rocks Pass in Arizona. These programs currently require a pass to park at trailheads and travel through forests whether amenities or services were used.

“Everyone is entitled to enter national forests without paying a cent,” according to Gettleman.

Sarah Reijonen is a GPAA member and freelance writer based in California�

any of the lost treasures he has read about, he’s not done searching.

He is a fan of Ernest Andrews’ book, Georgia’s Fabulous Treasure Hoards.

“I’m seeking those out one at a time and I’m going through the book and picking one out. I’m working on one right down here close to the house now where the owner sold 100 slaves at $1,700 apiece and don’t anybody know where the money is.”

According to legend, the man bur-ied the money.

“There was no banks back then. He died, but he buried it and he never did tell anybody where he buried it. Me and a buddy, we located the cemetery, but it had changed names and he researched it and now I gotta go back in there and find out who owns the land behind there now where the house was.

“I met the author of the book before he died and personally he wrote out some more stuff for me in long hand on the yellow pages, three more places to go. Yessir, that’s right. Like I said, everybody kinda likes me.”

Adams also likes to go swingin’ with his metal detectors from time to time.

“Yessir, I’ve got a couple of them but I’d rather use dousing rods than metal detectors. Out in the streams

at Buchanan, me and my partner we would locate the streaks of gold and that’s where we dredged. Don’t tell Tom [Massie] about that now, because he don’t believe in it,” he said with a chuckle.

And, if you’ve got some time to set a spell around the campfire, Adams has got a few ghost stories to share.

“If you get back to the Loud Mine, just up to the north of Cleveland, Geor-gia, I can tell you some stories about some ghosts. My second cousins own the house now and this fellah came back from California and brought a

woman with him and all she wanted to do was live in a big white house and raise boys. He built her that big white house up on Pillars and Packs ... and that house is haunted too.

One of the reasons Adams became state director is that he has been a true outdoorsman all his life and knows the land like the back of his hand.

I’ve got a cabin up in Hiawassee, Georgia now — just up over the moun-tain from Cleveland,” he said.

“I‘ve been from north to south and east to west and I know the properties all over the state,” he said.

With no public lands east of the Mississippi River, Adams said pros-pecting is limited mostly to public property.

“We can only use a pan and shovel in all these national forests and that was taken away for awhile.” he said,

“The ‘Old Prospector‘, Craig Red-dick, got that restored. He gave me the biggest part of the credit, but I did go up to see the forest ranger we was talk-ing to and they finally lifted that, but I didn’t know they had put a morato-rium on the pan and shovel. I had some people up there on some national forest land and I didn’t know anything about it. It was a couple of years ago. Craig Reddick wrote and fought and called, I guess he made 200 telephone calls. They lifted the moratorium, it was put on by the head of the national forest and they just lifted it.

Adams said he is always mindful of where he is prospecting and not to tres-pass on private land and hasn’t been hassled much by the authorities.

“I was wanting to do some dredging and I went down to the state board of whatever it is and they said as long as the river keepers didn’t report us, they wasn’t going to even look at us. Dredg-ing isn’t going to muddy up a hundred-yard wide river. I think I’ve seen one more dredge down there on the Chat-tahoochee where I’ve been. I’ve only found a few flakes, not enough to amount to anything but it was a great day out there,” he said.

Adams said he still likes to get out to GPAA Outings when he can.

“I get out to Loud Mine when I get a chance to. I haven’t missed many of them and I used to go to the ones up at Vein Mountain. I went up to Oconee; they had two outings up there, the first and last, all in one,” he said with a chuckle.”

Despite the high price of gold, Adams said many people he talks to are just not inclined to go dig for it. But, no bother, that leaves more gold for the people who do.

“They just say, ‘If you find it, we’ll help you haul it out of there. “They don’t want to dig and pan for it.”

Brad Jones is the Editor / Content Director for Gold Prospectors Association of America�

Submitted photoGeorgia State Director Gene Adams

Judge Robert W. Gettleman has ordered the U.S. Forest Service to scrap fees. “Everyone is entitled to enter national forests without paying a red cent,” he says.

* STATE DIRECTOR Continued from Page 8


Chapter Summit set for April 20 in Las VegasBy BRAD JONESGPAA Editor / Content Director

The Gold Prospectors Association of America is calling all elected local chapter officials to attend the second of-ficial Chapter Summit in Las Vegas this spring.

The summit will be held the day before the Las Vegas Gold & Treasure Show at the South Point Hotel & Ca-sino, April 21-22.

Dominic Ricci, GPAA Director of Operations, is currently planning the all-day conference, which is slated for Friday, April 20, preceding the weekend show.

“The summit will run in conjunc-tion with our largest gold show because a lot of our members like to coordinate their own vacation plans while they are in Las Vegas,” he said.

“It is a great opportunity for local chapter officials to mingle with other chapter heads to share ideas. To me, this is about getting local chapters together on the same page,” he said.

“We will show chapter officials how they can dig into the resources of the national headquarters and mine the ben-efits for their local chapters and mem-bers,” Ricci said.

“We will provide them with new information about how to structure and grow their own clubs and earn more GPAA credits and equipment,” he said.

Besides state directors and elected board members, Ricci said the GPAA is also making a concerted effort to reach out to any GPAA members who want to

start new chapters or are seriously con-sidering running for an elected office at an existing chapter.

“I am encouraging any members who are looking at running for elected positions and members that are hoping to form new chapters to attend the sum-mit,” Ricci said.

The national conference is open to all state directors, chapter board mem-bers and elected officers that are regis-tered with the GPAA national office.

The GPAA is extending that invita-tion to any registered member who has a genuine interest in becoming an elected official and is endorsed by his or her lo-cal chapter president or who can verify that they are serious about forming a new chapter.

The Chapter Summit will provide a wealth of resources to GPAA clubs who want to form new chapters, Ricci said.

“We have a whole support program to help them get started. I especially want to encourage those members,” he said.

GPAA President Brandon Johnson, Chapters & Trade Show Manager Gary Sturgill and Ricci will speak at the Chap-ter Summit in Vegas. There will also be guest speakers from various chapters across the country.

For more information or to reg-ister for the Chapter Summit, email [email protected]

Brad Jones is the Editor / Content Director for Gold Prospectors Association of America, the Pick & Shovel Gazette and Gold Prospec-tors Magazine� He can be reached at bjones@ goldprospectors�org

Photos by Brad JonesTop: Las Vegas GPAA chapter president Deanna Costen shows her feminine side at the GPAA Chapter Summit in Las Vegas last year. Below: California State Director Nancy Roberts motivates chapters board members to reach out to the community. Left top: “Big Bob” Fredlund, Klondike” Mike LaBox and other participants take in the events at the summit. Below: Longtime LDMA member Russ Tait (left) enjoys the summit. He is a member and past president of local GPAA chapter Delta Gold Diggers of Stockton, Calif. Bottom right: Temecula Valley Prospectors President Ken Hannan talks about some of the improvements his local GPAA chapter has made at the summit.


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anonymous, saw various postings on gold mining forums; he liked what these guys had to say and brought them together to form a group of intelligent, pro-mining young guns.

The group was conceived in July 2011 and officially began charting its path a month later in Reno, Nevada. None of the men knew each other, but they had one common goal — to stay on the river.

Now that goal has grown into a grassroots movement of the small-scale mining community and their voice is being heard, Solinsky said.

“Grassroots means we want all miners involved. We want to have talk-ing points that are standardized up and down the state. We need to provide the same message. There’s no need to be confusing things,” he said.

This means standing up to legisla-tors with one unified voice as well as urging miners to speak the same lan-guage. Calling suction dredging “rec-reational” or a “hobby” negates the fact that it is a livelihood for many miners. The truth is, if gold didn’t provide monetary incentive, not as many peo-ple would be on the river, he said.

“Right now, people attacking us is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel,” said Solinsky, who has been working on building a database of the 9,000 plus claim holders in the state of California. He plans to call each and every claim holder and encourage unification.

Solinsky said making connections is vital for holding local miner meetings. Most recently, Solinsky was invited to Redding by the Shasta Prospectors to give a presentation on the dredging situation as well as the WMA’s future plans. The WMA has spread word across northern and central Califor-nia and is moving south with hopes of making contacts and scheduling meet-ings near the Los Angeles area.

Not only is the WMA looking to change the reputation of miners and unite claim holders, but it is also work-ing to educate non-miners about suc-tion dredging and other mining ac-tivities. In fact, WMA’s most recent newsletter features a fact sheet about dredging and offers up truth to some popular misconceptions, two of the most popular being: 1. Dredging harms the yellow-legged frog. 2. Dredging in-troduces toxins into the water.

Recent findings by leading yellow-legged frog researcher Roland Knapp actually reveal that non-native trout stocked by the California Department of Fish and Game are mainly respon-

sible for overtaking the frogs. As for toxins being distributed in the rivers, dredging does not add anything, but in-stead removes toxins such as mercury from rivers.

“Suction dredgers are the garbage guys of the river,” said Solinsky, who also noted that miners are the only group that consistently cleans the river without dipping into taxpayers’ pock-ets.

Distributing this kind of informa-tion to non-miners puts the WMA one step ahead, allowing them to have a proactive approach instead of the more common reactive approach. However, WMA fully supports those fighting the battles as they come.

Like the Gold Prospectors Asso-ciation of America, the WMA strongly supports Public Lands for the People founder and fellow miner Jerry Hobbs, who works tirelessly to combat unfair mining legislation.

“[Hobbs is] doing a good job and literally having bake sales to buy attor-neys,” Solinsky said.

The WMA is not a club, though it has a $25 membership fee. It welcomes anyone who is passionate about mining and wants to lend a helping hand in the fight against the misuse of science as well as the restriction of land and water use. Still, the group asks miners to get involved locally first, Solinksy said.

“Our goal is to create a hierarchy. The miner goes to the local group. Then that group goes to the larger group, then to the entire state with pressing mining issues,” he said.

The plan is to organize areas into watersheds then assign a “watershed director” to organize claim holders, keep them informed, and pass any word about disturbances. Ultimately, WMA wants to unite claim holders and provide a sense of community, Solin-sky said.

Though the WMA’s main goal is to provide advocacy for the individual miner, its focus is currently on suction dredging, especially because all three men are so passionate about this meth-od of mining and its economic bolster.

With the final Subsequent Environ-mental Impact Report pending as of press time, WMA members fear that even if suction dredging returned to the state of California in the future, there would be an accompanying hike in dredging permit prices, Solinsky said.

“Hypothetically, we’re talking about an increase in dredging per-mit pricing that could be as much as $2,000 a year. Even with a rich claim, that makes dredging unproductive,” he said. “We still have the right to mine, technically, but it won’t be economi-

cally viable and Fish and Game wants to review everything you do.”

The WMA views past legisla-tion as a bald-faced attack on miners’ rights and desperately urges everyone to join in the fight against current laws and regulations restricting suction dredging. Even though the California Department of Fish and Game’s final SEIR is inked, miners should still pro-test it and other regulations, Solinsky said. Once these final documents are released to the public the WMA and other concerned parties have 15 days to make comments on the nearly 2,000-page document.

Maksymyk, an Iraq veteran who now runs a database software compa-ny, said he was flabbergasted to return home and see his right to spend sum-mers in the California rivers had been taken away.

“What’s happened is way bigger than suction dredging,” Maksymyk said. “If they can do it to us, they can do it to anybody.”

WMA is planning to organize a

Dredging Day on the capitol lawn this summer. They would like to set up ap-proximately 15 dredges, demonstra-tions how they work and briefing legis-lators on mining-related activities.

According to Maksymyk, it’s not intended to be a protest; it’s simply an opportunity to meet legislators, show them what suction dredging is all about, and introduce them to the people their regulations are affecting.

Aside from providing advocacy for miners, WMA would like to put to-gether a history of mining in Califor-nia. The group is looking for old-time miners who have unique stories and can carry on the mining legacy.

For more information or to volunteer, contact the Western Mining Alliance:

[email protected] www.westernminingalliance.org

Sarah Reijonen is a GPAA member and freelance writer based in California�

Submitted photosTop: Rick Solinsky of the Western Mining Alliance boards a helicopter. Above: Eric Maksymyk in uniform (left) and out hiking with his daughter. Bottom: Maksymyk suction dredging.

* WMA Continued from Page 1


This issue’s featured State Director is Gene Adams of Georgia. To read the article, see page 8.

ALABAMAJohn Johnson �� 334-297-8601Mike Finlay �� 205-563-3244Scott Holland �� 334-756-3842

ALASKAJoe Demaree �� 907-283-7807Thomas Ireland�� 907-830-1221

ARIZONAFred Siekmann �� 480-947-8617Donald Savill �� 520-378-0303

CALIFORNIAPucky Junghans �� 925-672-1863Ray Wilkerson �� 760-598-6441Nancy Roberts �� 559-681-5144

COLORADOWayne Peterson �� 970-884-0227William Martsolf �� 970-858-9093

CONNECTICUTLester Kemble �� 860-228-8037

FLORIDASteve Martin �� 321-689-9424

GEORGIADave Messer �� 770-319-9276W� Gene Adams �� 678-364-1065

IOWAHoward Ron White �� 319-936-7291

IDAHORoger Monson �� 208-303-7541

INDIANAEdward Romine �� 812-736-1375

KANSASRandy DonCarlos �� 785-793-2497

KENTUCKYRaymond Marting �� 740-533-0259Steve Paine �� 951-549-9955

LOUISIANAThomas Caughlin �� 318-259-4453

MASSACHUSETTSMatt LaClaire �� 413-367-9436

MARYLANDKarl Young Sr� �� 410-658-2499

MAINEGloria Campbellton �� 207-582-2677Jack Duggins �� 207-582-9267

MICHIGAN Robert Bednarick �� 231-775-0085Jamie Wright �� 269-731-5139

MISSOURIJeff Lawrence �� 816-313-2266Tom Gabriel �� 816-532-4449

MISSISSIPPITerry Burge�� 601-798-8238

MONTANACliff Simonsen �� 406-642-3292Kevin Grasser�� 406-628-8314

NORTH CAROLINABobby Crawford �� 704-637-4987

NEW MEXICOJerry Gilbert �� 575-740-4347Larry Lovett �� 915-585-6323

NEVADATom Costen �� 702-452-1049

NEW YORKDaniel Miller �� 607-524-8401

OHIOBud Kaczor �� 440-734-4027Harold Walters �� 740-687-1184Ted VanHouten �� 740-599-6965

OKLAHOMAPaul Martin �� 405-386-4050

OREGONSteve Houston �� 541-401-1613

OREGONRobert Rasey �� 503-397-3047Robert Wedding �� 503-761-0635

PENNSYLVANIAJoseph Doren �� 814-342-2661

SOUTH CAROLINAFrank Wright Jr�� 803-407-7414

SOUTH DAKOTARandy Noll �� 605-310-2988

TENNESSEEBryon Barner �� 423-442-5829

TEXASPhillip Caffey �� 972-680-0377Derroll Ross �� 942-325-5822

UTAHVon Thompson �� 801-562-1928Michael Quinn �� 801-808-0343

WASHINGTONRobert Cunningham �� 360-961-8217Donald Kirst �� 360-457-1302

WISCONSINMike Flint �� 608-372-0694

WEST VIRGINIAArchie Morris �� 304-342-4387

WYOMINGHenry Harsha �� 307-875-4081Donald Ashley �� 307-220-8751

Your GPAA State Directors...Featured State Director

By GARY STURGILL Chapters / Trade Show Manager

It seems like every time I look at this big map of the United States on my wall here, there are more and more col-ored pushpins sticking in it.

There are five colors all denoting something:

Clear for existing chapters; �Red ones for chapters waiting to �mail postcards;Blue ones for the state directors; �Black for this year’s Gold & �Treasure Shows; Gold ones for next year’s gold �shows.

The number of clear pushpins has increased greatly over the last eight months adding new chapters to all cor-ners of my map. I can clearly see voids in the map where we can use some new chapters.

We need chapters of the GPAA in North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebras-ka, Western Iowa, Northern Oklahoma and Eastern Montana. If you live in any of these areas and want a chapter near or nearer to you give me a call and we can get one started.

It’s nice meeting the people, who I have been talking to on the phone, at the gold shows. I can now put a face to some of the names.

We are gearing up to head out in a few weeks for the Las Vegas show. I will be on the road with all of the shows this year. If you have chapter business

that will need my immediate attention, please send an email to [email protected] and I will return your email, usually on the same day.

I will be checking my mail daily. Voice mails will pile up at the office ‘till I return from the shows.

We want to welcome these new chapters to our family here at the GPAA:

Gatesville, IN �Renton, WA �Vancouver, WA �Auburn, WA �Lake City, FL �Parker, AZ �Gunnison, CO �Jacksonville, IL �Bayport, MN �Wichita, KS �San Jose, CA �Clemson, SC �Craigsville, WV �

We are waiting to send out postcards for these new chapters.

Honolulu, HI �Big Sandy, MT �Sugar Tree, TN �Brookings, OR �100 Mile House, BC �Lawrenceburg, IN �Bismarck, ND �Corryton, TN �Longview, WA �Hudson, FL �New Market, TN �

West Hatfield, MA �Creswell, OR �Albuquerque, NM �Adamstown, MD �Granville, IL �

Here is some feedback we received from Larry Robbins who started a local GPAA chapter in Reno, Nevada:

Starting a local chapter is good for the soul. You relearn that there are still strong willed, well rounded people like yourself in the world, in spite of what you read or hear in the news. Or, we are all nuts looking to get away from it all and out into nature.

Seriously though, starting a local chapter has been fun — some ups and downs, but more ups than downs. Ev-ery member that has joined the chapter has become a friend and our chapter is turning into an extended family.

When I called the GPAA asking about a local chapter in the Reno area I was asked one question, if you can call it a question. ‘So you want to start one?’

Before I could respond I was trans-ferred to Gary and away it went. Hav-ing no idea how to accomplish forming a new chapter, where to hold meetings,

how to form a corporation or how to deal with the not-so-little things, my darling wife looked at me like I had lost my mind. She had only one word for me: ‘Nuts!’

It did not take long for her to jump on board (as the saying goes) and pro-vide what she always has — support and ideas.

That brings me to the last part of this email. When in a local chapter, that is what you get from your mem-bers — support and ideas. You quick-ly learn that you are not alone as the members are ready to go and provide assistance.

It is not often that you meet a group of people that have your values, en-thusiasm and likes. It makes starting a chapter fun and exhilarating.

Larry Robbins Reno Chapter

Till next time, may all you find be nuggets.

Gary Sturgill is the Chapters & Trade Show Manager for the Gold Prospectors Association of America� He can be reached at gsturgill@goldprospectors�org�

Forming a chapter ‘good for the soul’Locations popping up all over map at GPAA national headquarters

Photo by Brad JonesGold sniffin’ dog, Chopper, takes a breather at the laid back Oconee LDMA Camp in South Carolina.

ALL IN A DAY’S WORK


If you need to change or add chapter informa-tion, please email GPAA at GPAAchapters@gold-prospectors�org or call 1-800-551-9707, Ext� 168� All changes must be submitted in writing by email or regular mail and must be requested by a current chapter officer�

ALABAMA (CRAGFORD, AL)

Ron Krueger • 205-594-4335 onkrueger@earthlink�net

(PHENIX CITY, AL) Adam Broach • 334-707-8443 adambroachphoto@gmail�com

ALASKA (KENAI, AK)

Joe DeMaree • 907-283-7808 www�gpaakenaichapter�com

ARIZONA (PARKER, AZ)

Angel Lund • 760-627-4027 (PHOENIX, AZ)

Fred Seikmann • 480-947-8617 arizonagold@cox�net

(PRESCOTT VALLEY, AZ) Bobby Shearon • 928-775-2506 nolan_akin@msn�com

(SIERRA VISTA, AZ) Tom Tierney • 520-378-3294

(SHOW LOW, AZ) Ron Ream • 928-242-2310 wmcslaz@hotmail�com

(TUCSON, AZ) David Steimle • 520-294-5074 desteimle@msn�com

ARKANSAS (FAYETTEVILLE, AR)

Dwight McDonald • 479-965-7055 www�gpaachapteroftheozarks�com

CALIFORNIA (BAKERSFIELD, CA)

Gil Angelo • 661-301-4409 gpaagil@yahoo�com

(BREA, CA) Max Maxilom • 626-488-9310 aunut2k@hotmail�com

(CHATSWORTH, CA) Pat Keene • 818-993-0411 pat@keeneeng�com

(CONCORD, CA) Brian Ramos • 408-256-1244

(FRESNO, CA) Nancy Roberts • 559-681-5144 cvprospector@cvprospectors�org

(HESPERIA, CA) Hugo Mietzner • 760-524-1822 aumojaveprospectors�org

(HIGHLAND, CA) Dale Wahlfeldt • 909-437-2765 dwahlfeldt@hotmail�com

(PASO ROBLES, CA) Henry Geiger • 618-709-6849 www�goldenvalleyprospectors�org

(REDDING, CA) J.R. Brandvold • 530-356-9389 ernestbrandvold@yahoo�com

(SACRAMENTO, CA) Jim Hutchings • 530-367-5108 jhutchings22@hotmail�com

(SAN DIEGO, CA) Chester Nowicki • 760-747-1165 CandHNow@cox�net

(SAN JOSE, CA) Mike Phillips • 408-595-9121

(STOCKTON, CA) Robert Guardiola • 209-606-0085 www�deltagolddiggers�webs�com

(TEMECULA, CA) Ken Hannan • 951-282-0179 www�gpaatvp�com

COLORADO (COLORADO SPRINGS, CO)

Ron Woods • 719-597-6104 albertawoods@msn�com

(DENVER, CO) Johnny Walker • 720-523-3386 johnny@denvergpaa�org

(DURANGO, CO) Wayne Peterson • 970-884-0227 nuggetbrain1@msn�com

(GOLDEN, CO) Joe Johnston • 303-696-6950 nuggetbrain1@msn�com

(GRAND JUNCTION, CO) Howard Martsolf • 970-523-1357 www�gjgpaa�org

(GUNNISON, CO) Bill Hart • 970-209-6970

(OLATHE, CO) Marlin Littlefield • 970-399-7557 marlinlt@skybeam�com

(RIFLE, CO) Tim Kinion • 970-618-4214

CONNECTICUT (DANIELSON, CT)

Steve Kreuser • 860-546-9978 www�nutmegprospectors�com

FLORIDA (ALFORD, FL)

Ken Parchinski • 850-866-1404 kenneth _parchinski@yahoo�com

(LAKE BUTLER, FL) John Leshuk • 904-964-4677 starkeGPAA@yahoo�com

(ORLANDO, FL) Thomas Davis • 407-625-6926 thomasdavisjr1@gmail�com

(SUWANNE, FL) Willie Willis • 386-209-1416

GEORGIA (AUGUSTA, GA)

Charles Lott • 706-631-7753 charleslott77©yahoo�com

IDAHO (POST FALLS, ID)

Clyde Hargens • 509-482-0721 hargens2©comcast�net

(IDAHO FALLS, ID) Mario Poletti • 208-785-7477 caribouidahochapter@yahoo�com

(NAMPA, ID) Cary Singleton • 208-863-3580 csingleton@intgas�com

(TWIN FALLS, ID/SNAKE R.) Brad Dey • 208-734-4502 thedore@cableone�net

ILLINOIS (ROCK ISLAND, IL)

Steven Conway • 309-786-7232 (JACKSONVILLE, IL)

Edward Long • 217-245-1465INDIANA

(CUTLER, IN) Chuck Lassiter • 574-652-2139 admin@midwestprospector�com

(FAIRLAND, IN) Todd Balting • 317-835-9426 baltingfam@hotmail�com

(GATESVILLE, IN) Thomas Smith • 812-798-7327 tjsmith@iendeavor�com

IOWA (MALCOM, IA)

Howard “Ron” White • 319-354-5241 iagpaa1@aol�com

KANSAS (WICHITA, KS)

Rick Farnsworth • 316-734-2064 info@wichitagpaa�org

KENTUCKY (LONDON, KY)

Jody Roberts • 606-877-5041 jodyroberts39@yahoo�com

LOUISIANA (ALEXANDRIA, LA)

Thomas Caughlin • 318-259-4453 caughlin36@bellsouth�net

MAINE (WINDSOR, ME)

Harry Blake • 207-929-5978 goldpnr@hotmail�com

MASSACHUSETTS (HUDSON, MA)

Matt LaClaire • 413-367-9436 mlaclaire@yahoo�com

MICHIGAN (REMUS, MI)

Warren Bennet • 517-861-9591 dozermanzo@yahoo�com

MINNESOTA (KASSON, MN)

John Wilkus • 507-835-2761 john�wilkus@gmail�com

(BAYPORT, MN) Adam McCloud • 651-235-3703

(SAUK CENTRE, MN) Greg Tamillo • 320-352-3802 gttamillo@mainstreetcom�com

MISSOURI (ST. JOSEPH, MO)

Jim Dye • 816-390-8803 diamondim@stjoelive�com

(ST. LEWIS, MO) Doug Hudson • 314-807-0618

(WELLINGTON, MO) Randy Don Carlos • 785-231-0860 mo_gpaa@hotmail�com

MONTANA (BELGRADE, MT)

Richard Kantorowicz • 406-580-4055 gpaainfo@yahoo�com

(BILLINGS, MT) Bob Rosteck • 406-453-9050 jobopathfinder@bresnan�net

(LEWISTOWN, MT) Scott Bassett • 406-366-3577 tekela159464@yahoo�com

(LINCOLN, MT) Bob Rosteck • 406-453-9050

NEVADA (LAS VEGAS, NV)

Deanna Costen • 702-452-1049 dcosten@cox�net

NEW JERSEY (CLARK, NJ)

Bill Grant • 908-644-2440 www�gpaanjchapter�org

NEW MEXICO (ALAMOGORDO, NM)

Albert Sims • 575-437-8594 butch@camacs�com

(BLUEWATER, NM) Chuck Tobias • 505-287-9788 realtinpanchuck@yahoo�com

(DEMING, NM) Russ Schumacher • 575-694-5224

NEW YORK (CORTLAND, NY)

Danny Miller • 607-524-8401 goldfanatic@hughes�net

NORTH CAROLINA (ABERDEEN, NC)

Jim Jones • 910-215-3606 bedrockjim@earthlink�net

(MATHEWS, NC) Glenn Coleman • 704-299-2808 glenncoleman43@gmail�com

(SALISBURY, NC) Bobby Crawford • 704-630-4987 brcgoldman@yahoo�com

OHIO (BELLVILLE, OH)

Larry Koprevic • 330-605-4643 gradall44@aol�com

(LUCASVILLE, OH) Raymond Marting • 740-533-0259 ramarting@mail�com

OKLAHOMA (ADA, OK)

Phil Roblin • 580-320-3424 (OKLAHOMA CITY, OK)

Mike Pung • 405-736-6282 mcwood@iglide�net

OREGON (BROWNSVILLE, OR)

Wendy Houtz • 541-990-6214 fire _frog606@yahoo�com

(KLAMATH FALLS, OR) James Simington • 541-851-0374

(NORTH BEND, OR) Bob Baldwin • 541-269-7370 bulletbobbaldwin@yahoo�com

(PORTLAND, OR) Al Lewis • 971-235-8308

(ROSEBURG, OR) Tony Walton• 541-863-6268 tkwally2010@yahoo�com

PENNSYLVANIA (GREENVILLE, PA)

Robert Smith • 330-898-7397 alleghenychapter@hotmail�com

(NEW OXFORD, PA) Gale Livelsberger • 717-817-7569 galejoe46@gmail�com

(PORT MATILDA, PA) Robert Seager • 717-935-5384 caverzig@embarqmail�com

(ST. PETERS, PA) Michael Jones • 267-895-8829 president@delawarevalleygpaa�com

SOUTH CAROLINA (LIBERTY, SC)

Alan Smith • 864-419-4150 (SENECA, SC)

Dan Crawford • 864-843-6729

(SIMPSONVILLE, SC) Wayne Schook • 864-963-0821

cmschook@yahoo�com SOUTH DAKOTA

(RAPID CITY, SD) Mike Borden • 605-209-1295 mikeandlu@rushmore�com

TENNESSEE (COKER CREEK, TN)

Chuck Pharis • 818-802-1603 chuck@pharis-video�com

(HARTSVILLE, TN) Charlie Puckett • 615-374-3490

pdezign1@yahoo�comTEXAS

(EL PASO, TX) Pete Rosh • 915-755-0295 lrpeterosh@att�net

(GRANBURY, TX) John Dennett • 817-694-6405 gpaa77@yahoo�com

(GREENVILLE, TX) Don Brisendine • 903-725-7960 donlin@etex�net

(ROUND ROCK, TX) Kevin Green • 512-310-8111 kevin@roundrockgpaa�net

(WICHITA FALLS, TX) Rodney Crow • 405-613-1215 elrod888416@hotmail�com

UTAH (CEDAR CITY, UT)

Bruce Mitchell • 435-559-4077 (SALT LAKE CITY, UT)

Doug McCart • 801-301-9931 pcsdoug@aol�com

VIRGINIA (LOUISA, VA)

Jack Wyatt • 434-728-2108 jack5gold61@yahoo�com

WASHINGTON (AUBURN, WA)

John Dawson • 253-833-2255 (EVERETT, WA)

Eras Gattshall • 425-263-2293 ecgpaa@yahoo�com

(LONGVIEW, WA) Carol Mellis • 360-636-9980

(PORT ORCHARD, WA) Lonny Meadows • 253-333-8931 wwgp�com

(RENTON, WA) Brian Kushin • 206-260-0560

(SPOKANE WA) Linda Craft • 208-448-1837 inlandnwgpaa@hotmail�com

(VANCOUVER, WA) Al Lewis • 971-235-8308 countryal@msn�com

WEST VIRGINIA (NEW HAVEN, WV)

Jim DeWeese • 304-882-2578 gpaawv@gmail�com

(NITRO, WV) Joe Smoot • 304-972-1976 gpaawv@yahoo�com

(CRAIGSVILLE, WV) Larry Board • 304-742-5097

WISCONSIN (GREENBUSH, WI)

Ronald Smith • 920-892-4092 ausmith2005@yahoo�com

(TOMAH, WI) Mike Flint • 608-372-0694 mwink12@excite�com

(WAUSAU, WI) Kurt Bublitz • 715-340-2831 lizzy101@charter�net

(RICE LAKE, WI) Tom Frank • 715-579-7111 tom150@centurytel�net

WYOMING (CASPER, WY)

Rick Messina • 307-234-0244 wooddoctor4@msn�com

(CHEYENNE, WY) Donald Ashley • 307-220-8751 don-5257@hotmail�com

(GILLETTE, WY) Bill Kocher • 307-682-7055 wmkocher5@yahoo�com

(POWELL, WY) Larry OMara • 307-899-3702

(SHERIDAN, WY) Ed Kline • 307-683-2821

Members of a local GPAA chapter near you are available to give you advice, teach tech-niques, offer demonstrations and share their ex-perience with you� Chapters host group events, outings and hold meetings� Whether with your chapter, or when you travel to another area or state, a GPAA Chapter is just a phone call away�

GPAA Outing participants Brianna (left) and Leah English try some hardrock mining at Vein Moun-tain LDMA Camp near in North Carolina.


ALASKAN PAYDIRT!Gold-bearing concentrates from working placer

claims in Fairbanks, Alaska� None Better!Call for a Free Sample!

Felix Paydirt’s Gourmet GoldToll Free (877) 775-1120www.felixpaydirt.com

0700/CNTSLY

PANNING CONCENTRATES AND GOLD NUGGETS

Gold panning gravel salted with coarse grains and nuggets� Great for practicing your panning skills� Also, have gold nuggets by the gram� For information write:

DreaMail - GPP.O. Box 1790, Fairview, NC 28730

0700/CNTSLY

QUALITY ALL NATURALGOLD BEARING CONCENTRATES

Natural gold direct from our trusted prospectors in the field� Salted and seeded concentrates,

but also some of the highest content paydirt available for gold panning needs and your enjoyment!

“Bring the Venture to Your Home!”www.GOLDpaydirt.com

0307/CNTSLY

PANNING CONCENTRATESContaining black sand and gold�

$40�00 per bag plus $4�00 shipping each bag�Quantity discounts available�

J. WammackP.O. Box 2263, Bentonville, AR 72712

1101/CNTSLY

WHEN YOU BUY A CLAIMfrom Larry Wright, he shows you howto find an ounce of gold a week with a

recycled wine bottle cork!Near Randsburg, CA.(760) 793-5718 (eve)

1201/CNTSLY

EAST AND WEST GOLD MAPSIn color� Large scale� You can see details� 8,000 deposits

from official records� The best maps for prospecting�WWW.GOLDMAPS.COM

(321) 783-45951102/CNTSLY

FREE CHECKLISTFollow these Steps to Finding & Filing

on your own FREE Gold Claim� www.goldinalaska.net

0711/CNTSLY

GOLD PANNING PAYDIRTNot More Paydirt More Gold

Visit us at www�cmjmining�comInquiries at info@cmjmining�com

Ask about our Rewards Program it’s free!0112/0612

GOLD MISERCOMPLETE PROSPECTING STORES

www�goldmiser�com566 N. Central • Quartzsite, AZ 85346

(928) 927-715034403 U.S. Highway 2 • Libby, MT 59923

(406) 293-8679FULL-LINE METAL DETECTOR DEALER.

DREDGES - HIBANKERS- DRYWASHERS.0705/CNTSLY

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GOLDNEAR: San Diego, Escondido, Julian, Santa Ana,

Riverside, Palm Springs, Indio, Los Angeles, Pasadena, Pomona, San Bernardino, Victorville,

Lancaster, Barstow, Ventura County, Johannesburg, Ridgecrest, Bakersfield, Porterville, Visalia, Fresno,

& Owens River� GO FOR IT!WWW.GOLDMAPS.COM

(321) 783-45950705/CNTSLY

WETSUITSAdult 5X thru kid sizes, neoprene boots thru size 16 in stock� We also have hoods, weight belts, suspenders,

masks, dry suits� Bring in this ad for an additional 10% discount� No sales tax in Oregon�

Sundance Divers543 NE “E” St., Grants Pass, Oregon

(541) 479-9715 • www.sundancedivers.com0908/CNTSLY

HOW TO FIND GENUINE DIAMONDS IN ARKANSAS –– DVD

www�DiamondsInAR�com$19�00 plus $5�00 S&H

M.A.P. • P. O. Box 1063Murfreesboro, AR 71958

0908/0413

STRIKE IT RICH!Great prices on great equipment to get more gold! Free shipping on Highbankers, Drywashers, Power

Sluices, Spiral Panners, Gold Cube, Trommels�www.GoldRushTradingPost.com

0709/0812

ATTENTION ARIZONA, NEVADA AND CALIFORNIA PROSPECTORS

Map 1 showing 405 California gold sites along state lines from Mexico to Death Valley is now available�

Please seeWWW.GOLDMAPS.COM/CA.HTML

(321) 783-45951109/CNTSLY

TREASURES LOCATEDat long distance� Send me your map�

Call (205) 566-9988, Robert Thomason, [email protected]

0312/0213

MINER’S MARKET

This sand pump actually really works. It has a diaphragm check valve built into the bottom cap. Thisallows you to suck gold and sand from under a rock in a stream and transport it to your bucket or sluicewithout losing any of your sample. It will suck sample out of a three foot deep hole and not lose any ofyour gold. I also have a crevice tool that goes on the end of the “Gold Trapper” and extends it a little overa foot to let you suck out cracks in bedrock or work your way through big rocks in the bottom of a hole.

100% satisfaction guaranteed or your money back.I will guarantee the workmanship and materials of the

“GOLD TRAPPER,” when used under normal use, for a year.

“Gold Trapper” with Crevice Tool/Extension..................$100.00Shipping in US..................................................................Free

Price increase due to material costs

Email: [email protected] • Phone: (970) 686-2238Make check or money order out to: Chuck Cummins

Chuck Cummins - Scientific Engineering • 31013 Weld County Road 17 • Windsor, CO 80550

“ChuCk’s Gold Trapper” ™

REVOLUTIONARY HAND DREDGEAs seen on the Outdoor Channel “Gold Fever” film 81GF

OUT OF BUSINESS


– CONCENTRATE BAGS –containing gold & gem stones� $40�00 each bag

+ $4�00 shipping each bag�B. Sullins P.O. Box 1031 Meadview, AZ 86444

(discounts on large orders) (479) 220-77540710/CNTSLY

EXCITING NEW BREAKTHROUGH!Now you CAN take it with you!

Recirculating rocker box of the 21st Century�No gas, oil or battery� Everything needed to get gold in

one easy-to-carry 20 lb� package that’s on your side and works for you�

WWW.GOLDCRADLE.COM(503)357-3697

0709/CNTSLY

ANCIENT RIVERS OF GOLDWWW.GOLDMAPS.COM/ANCIE

NT_TERTIARY_RIVERS_OF_GOLD.HTM0108/CNTSLY

ARIZONA PLACER GOLD CONCENTRATESfrom Quartzsite, Arizona� Concentrates loaded with

fines, pickers, nuggets� 5 different sizes to choose from�Email for prices [email protected]

0710/0612

MICROWAVE GOLD SMELTINGYes, you CAN smelt Gold, Silver & Scrap Jewelry in your

microwave! Kilns and kits now available� New on the market – be the first to get yours!www.MicrowaveGoldKiln.com

(208) 921-45610211/1212

GOLD MAPS / GHOST TOWNSWestern U.S. from Alaska to Colorado to Arizona.

Full Color Topographic Maps� GPS Data� 1,000’s of Gold Sites taken from official records� Placer Gold deposits

shown� Ghost Towns highlighted and have GPS data� Great for Metal Detecting and Gold panning�

www.GoldTrekMaps.com0911/CNTSLY

Baringer’s Metal Detectors13153 Hackett Rd.Kidron, OH 44636

(800) 837-9844baringers.com

0112/0412

J.W. Prospecting SuppliesHomestead Mall #603223 W. Hudson Rd.

Rogers, AR 72756(479) 466-0867

0112/0612

Thermal City Gold Mine5240 US 221 N

Union Mills, NC 28167(828) 286-3016

0112/0612

Time Capsule Detector Sales224 Station Rd.

Quakertown, PA 18951(215) 536-0796

0112/0612

The Gold Lady3582 E. Gordon Dr.

Kingman, AZ 86409email: [email protected]: thegoldladyonline.com

(928) 692-50350312/0612

Desert Flower Prospecting Supply1845 Wishing Well Dr.

Meadview, AZ 86444 (P.O. Box 1031)(479) 466-0867

0312/0612

Finders Keepers2101 E. Louisiana Dr.

Nampa, ID 83686(208) 466-9663

0312/0612

McKean Prospecting5 South Iowa, Payette, ID 83661

(208) 642-20510312/0612

Promack Treasure Hunting455 E. Main St.

Quartzsite, AZ 85359(928) 927-7750 • (877) 450-6463

0312/0612

Promack Treasure Hunting2204 Apache Trail

Apache Junction, AZ 85120(480) 983-3484 • (800) 722-6463

FAX (480) 983-32790312/0612

AA Television Repair and Metal Detectors2435 College Hills Blvd.San Angelo, TX 76094

(325) 944-7088• [email protected]/0612

Nuggetville9 Railroad St.

Canaan, CT 06018(860) 824-7548

0312/0612

Southern Skin Diver & Treasure Hunter Supply4513 5th Ave. S. Birmingham, AL 35222

(205) 595-3052www.ssdsupply.com

0312/0612

RICK RADKE MEMORIAL METAL DETECTOR HUNTSponsored by Headwater Chapter GPAA May 19,2012

GPAA Claim, Raidersburg, MT(406)222-5528

P.O. Box 11Manhattan, MT 59741

0312/0612

MINER’S MARKET


OutINgs & EvENts

SAN DIEGO COUNTY COUNCILANNUAL TAILGATE GEM SHOW

April 13 - 15, 2012 • 9 am - 5 pmAntique Gas and Steam Engine Museum

2040 N Sante Fe Ave�, Vista, CA� Free show, parking and entrance to museum� Good food, raffle, over 40

dealers with gem related items for sale� Ray Pearce (760) 726-7570

EARTH’S TREASURES WEST SEATTLE ROCK CLUB

April 21 - 22, 2012Sat. 10 am - 5 pm • Sun. 10 am - 5 pm

Alki Masonic Temple4736 40th Avenue SW, Seattle, WA

Audrey Vogelpohl • [email protected]

www.westseattlerockclub.org

GOLD AND TREASURE SHOWApril 28 - 29, 2012

Sat. 9 am - 4 pm • Sun. 9 am - 4 pmMesa County Fair Grounds

Grand Junction, CO“Put Some Gold In Your Spring Fever�”

Door and raffle prizes, panning contests, Displays & demos� Camping available�Howard Martsolf • (970) 523-1357

[email protected]

BOZEMAN GEM AND MINERAL CLUBMay 12 - 13, 2012

Sat. 10 am - 6 pm • Sun. 10 am - 4 pmGallatin County Fairgrounds

901 North Black, Bozeman, Montana� Sally Griffin • (406) 451-4362

[email protected] Dan Carter • (406) 586-4552

2012 NFMS ANNUAL GEM SHOWRock’N the Country — No Leaverites Here!

Lakeside Gem & Mineral ClubMay 18 - 20, 2012 • Fri. 10 am - 5 pmSat. 10 am - 5 pm • Sun. 10 am - 5 pm

Benton County Fairgrounds1500 South Oak, Kennewick, WA

Special exhibits, demonstrators, gems, fossils, jewelry, kid’s activities, auctions,

guest lectures and more�Dom Cataldo • [email protected]

P.O. Box 6652, Kennwick, WA 99336www.lakesidegemandmineralclub.com

AnnuAl ROCk SHOw • BiTTeRROOT GEM AND MINERAL SOCIETY

May 19 - 20, 2012Sat. 8 am - 5 pm • Sun. 8 am - 4 pm

Admission: $3 per person, $10 for a family of four or more� Jewelry, beads, specimens,

door prizes, kids table, face painting� Pancake & sausage breakfast both mornings�

Mike McConnell • (406) [email protected]

RICK RADKE MEMORIAL9TH ANNUAL METAL DETECTOR HUNT

May 19, 2012Radersberg, MT�

Sponsored by Headwater Chapter [email protected]

www.headwatersgpaa.com

19TH ANNUAL THERMAL CITY MINERS MEET

May 25 - 28, 2012Thermal City Gold Mine

5240 US 221 Hwy North, Union Mills, NC2-day Gold Dig, equipment demos, panning, dredging, gem mining, vendors, food, music

& much more� See you on the creek bank!(828) 286-3016 or www.huntforgold.com

ANNUAL ROCK, MINERAL, GEM AND JEWELRY SHOW

NORTH IDAHO MINERAL CLUBJune 2 - 3, 2012

Sat. 9 am - 5 pm • Sun. 10 am - 4 pmKootenai County Fairgrounds & Event Center

Kathleen and Government WayCoeur d’Alene, ID (2 blocks East of Hwy95)

Admission: Adults $2 under 12 free w/paid adult�Bill Johnson • (205) 765-2900

[email protected]

The Gold Prospectors Association of America invites you to list your outings and events� Please submit your outings and events by email to publications@goldprospectors�org or by mail to Gold Prospectors Association of America • At-tention: Publications Editor • P.O. Box 891509 • Temecula, California, 92589-1509� Please sub-mit at least four months before the actual event� Don’t forget to include your name and phone number for verification as well a contact name and phone number to publish and the five Ws — Who, What, Where, When, Why — and How�

We Welcome Your submissions

volume 24 number 2 april / may 2012 dredging doesn’t harm ... · benefit salmon and other species...

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