Gold Dredging: How it works, and myths debunked!

Suction dredging suffers from the stereotypes of the 1800's mining practices, particularly the ones that were extremely destructive, but also ones that are not representative of what is done in today's world. It is the author's wish to set the record straight on something that is so important to so many Americans. It is not just about gold or money. It is about the great outdoors, and our rights to live happily doing the things which we enjoy. It is about freedom.

No longer do you see the giant monitors blasting away entire mountains into sluice boxes, nor are there bucket line dredges marching up a creek bottom processing every last cubic yard of material it can reach. No longer do miners add mercury behind the riffles of their sluice boxes to trap the flour gold. Technology has rendered these time tested methods obsolete and inefficient.

Instead, they are replaced by the weekend prospector searching for Gold, with shovel, pan and sluice. The more advanced prospector will take along a suction dredge, consisting of a grizzly to screen off the larger rocks, the sluice box to trap all the heavy materials, as well as the hoses and small engine that operate with the pump.

It is the goal of this author to clear up the myths surrounding gold dredging, inasmuch as many of them are not founded on a factual basis, and are used for the sole purpose of shutting down harmless pursuits of happiness, and in many cases, the livelihood that many families depend on.

First, I will explain what gold dredging is. Dredging involves the use of high pressure stream of water that is drawn from the stream, and injected backwards up the hose the suction nozzle is attached to. This causes a venturi effect, causing suction pulling water and surrounding gravels up into the header box of the sluice, where the material is screened over a grizzly, and the gold and heavy materials are trapped in the riffles and carpeting of the sluice. The tailings are discharged from the end of the sluice back into the stream, which consist mostly of clean sand, gravel, and larger rocks.

As the dredger excavates towards bedrock, where some 97% of the gold rests upon, a hole can grow to several feet across, and several feet down. Depending on the depth of the stream, the dredger may be wearing a wetsuit and using a hookah system for breathing which is fed from an air-compressor running off the dredge's engine. At the end of the day, the dredge is cleaned up, and the concentrates can then be panned out. Over the course of a few days, the stream naturally washes the tailings down stream and starts reclaiming the hole that was dredged out. In the spring, it is impossible to identify previous dredging sites as all traces are naturally reclaimed and filled in. But let me stop there, and begin with some of the myths that miseducated and uninformed people tend to throw at the recreational and small scale miners in regards to the environment.

1. Gold dredging pollutes the environment.

Answer: Many dredges will not even use a whole gallon of gas in an entire day. You probably burn more fuel in your golf carts putting around the green in a few weekends than a dredger will use in an entire season. In addition to this, regulations strictly prohibit the fueling of dredges within the wetted perimeter of the stream and in some cases, within a certain distance of the high water line, and any defective and leaking equipment likewise is forbidden from entering the waterway. I have been to many dredging sites and boat launches and will testify from firsthand observation, there were far more spills at boat launches than I have ever seen at a dredging site.

However, the issue isn't just about emissions and chemical pollution either. There are concerns with the actual excavation process. Some people worry about fish being sucked through a dredge, and others worry about the sediments entering the water from dredging. I will take this time to explain some facts about dredging when it comes to this issue.

Fish do not come near a person who is in the water, not to mention something that is humming and vibrating on the surface. However, it is theoretically possible a fish COULD somehow get into a dredge nozzle. If this happened, which I have never seen or heard of a single case of this, it would be sucked through the nozzle, and because it is not heavier than the sand and gravel, it would be washed out the sluice back into the stream, living happily ever after. Because the water and gravel being sucked through the nozzle does not go through any moving equipment directly, there is no opportunity for the fish to be chopped up and spit out. I have heard of people claiming otherwise, and thought I better say something about how ridiculous this is.

And then you have the discharged material from the dredge which people claim dirty up the water. There are some very important points I want to make regarding this. Almost all areas that have a low flow of water that allow deep layers of silt and sediment to build up are not good areas to dredge in, because the moment the stream slows down, that is where all the gold is going to be deposited anyways. The areas that are dredged have gravels that are clean, and not prone to the buildup of silt and sediment. As a result, when it is dredged, all materials discharged dissipate within a few dozen yards down stream, and most of the time, you will not see any muddy water being discharged. That which is discharged is insignificant when spring runoff is considered and overall there is a negligible impact on turbidity.

Further, I have witnessed many occasions where I have had schools of fish eagerly waiting in the discharge of my sluice. I often wondered why, and it was when I seen all kinds of grubs and worms in several scoops of gravel that I realized they were getting a free meal. Dredging turns up the gravel, releasing what may have built up, allowing the gravels to be cleaned, and result basically in aerating the gravel and feeding the fish. If the discharge were indeed harmful to the fish, they would not be in the middle of it, and never have I seen any fish die as a result of a dredging or sluicing operation.

And if you want to talk about pollution... You have no room to talk. Have you ever wondered about the things people throw in the streams? The cans, bottles, even the fishing tackle and mercury left over from the oldtimers? Well, guess what! Dredgers have been removing all these pollutants that they encounter for years! And it doesn't cost the taxpayers any money! Imagine that, a group of people who HAVE FUN cleaning up the environment without the government needing to set up a superfund cleanup! I have recovered many pounds of mercury, lead, and dozens of fishing lures and hundreds of rounds of lead projectiles from the gravels of the streams I work. But if the regulations get too literal about putting everything back the way it was when I get done mining, as they are already heading that way, wouldn't it be a shame if I had to put all those pollutants back in the stream? And wouldn't it be a shame if I had to stop mining and never clean the stream up in the first place?

2. Gold miners are greedy.

Answer: If we were greedy we wouldn't be doing honest work. If you spend a day packing a dredge into a remote canyon and a few days in the water pushing the nozzle around, and another day packing it out, there are easier ways to be greedy. You can ask every miner out there, 99/100 will tell you it is the love and passion of the activity that drives them, not the financial gain, because most of us prospectors never really see a financial gain. It is all about our freedom to enjoy the great outdoors, the last shreds of our mining heritage, and to relive the old days of gold mining. If you think we are greedy to be out chasing gold, you need to take a number two shovel, and go spend a few hours digging in the streams, and then weigh what you find and see how much you made, and then decide how honest a man that this work makes you into. If you want the truth of the matter, Robert W. Service hit the nail right on the head when he wrote the "Spell of the Yukon", the full version of the poem can be found at www.robertwservice.com, but the last paragraph which I will quote follows:

There's gold, and it's haunting and haunting;
It's luring me on as of old;
Yet it isn't the gold that I'm wanting
So much as just finding the gold.
It's the great, big, broad land 'way up yonder,
It's the forests where silence has lease;
It's the beauty that thrills me with wonder,
It's the stillness that fills me with peace.

3. Gold miner's don't protect the environment.

Answer: I have yet to see a prospector who hasn't packed their own trash out of the woods, and I have yet to see one that has failed to pack other peoples trash out as well. The golden rule that all the prospectors I know follow is, if you find garbage, take it with you. On the other hand, I have seen many self- professed environmentalists not even bother to pick up a can or a bottle. I'm not trying to go on the offensive here, but we prospectors have been attacked an awful lot and I want the record to be set straight. Almost all prospectors go above and beyond the state's environmental requirements, which in some states are flat out ridiculous, but still, we do everything in our power to not anger the powers that be and respect the laws and regulations. Almost all of us fill our holes back in, and put the boulders back where they belong when we are done. Our reputation is important to us.

4.Gold dredging introduces contaminants into the stream.

Answer: Hmmmm... You know, a dredge only processes material that already exists in the stream bed. It goes in with a clean sluice, and comes out with concentrates taken from the stream. Nowhere is new "material" or "contaminants" generated by the act of dredging, and in fact, it removes contaminants from the stream as stated earlier, the lead, mercury and other things found in the stream

gravels.

5. Gold mining kills fish.

Answer: I'm not saying it has never happened, but there is no way that operating a dredge has killed any fish. At the worst, they might possibly be sucked through nozzle and discharged. By law, the water intake that goes into the pump, is required to have a screen on it sufficiently small holes to where not even a minnow can be sucked in. I would also point out, how many fish has fishing killed? If you live in say, California, ask the best fisherman you know what the best streams for big fish are down there... Then look up the mining history of that stream. You will find that the streams regularly mined by suction dredges often have the best fishing. This is because dredging cleans the gravels, and clean gravels are better for fish to spawn in. The laws prohibit dredging during times when fish are in fact spawning, so if dredging is responsible for killing off fish spawns, then it is illegally done anyways.

The summary of what I am pointing out is this:

All dredging does is move material from one spot in the stream and put it in another spot, taking out heavy metals in the process. Nothing is directly or indirectly harmed. After a few hours of a dredge hole being abandoned, you will see it starting to cave back in... And sometimes the process is aided by people rolling the boulders back into the hole that were removed during the dredging. When heavy rains or spring runoff hit, the tailings are washed down stream along with the rest of the materials that nature washes away. Nothing happens in the course of dredging that nature doesn't do itself. For one thing, if dredging did kill fish, think of what spring runoff must surely do to them with all that mud and debris! But no, the fish were made to survive the spring runoff! Dredging does not require government funding and it is effective at cleaning up pollution that otherwise would cost taxpayers billions to do. There is a small army of prospectors that hit the streams, and over time, the amount of trash and mercury removed are astounding! All we ask for our work is the gold that we find, and to be allowed to continue prospecting for the sake of prospecting.

By the act of dredging, we remove contaminants that leach into the waterway that potentially can cause problems resulting in healthier environment for our fish, as well as for those who rely on our waterways for drinking water. We remove garbage that serve to trap and injure fish as well, such as lost fishing tackle and etc. I also want to point out, by keeping the gravels aerated, aquatic plants are allowed to thrive, which in turn allows fish to thrive as well. If you doubt that dredging allows streams to be improved in their quality and condition, then I suggest you compare streams that are actively dredged to ones that are not allowed to be dredged.