Posted on 05/23/2002 8:39:43 AM PDT by countrydummy
Bush administration to reopen to mining area considered for national monument
MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) -- The Bush administration will open most of the 1.2 million acres of federal land in southwestern Oregon to mining claims, drawing the ire of environmentalists who say the action threatens salmon and steelhead protected by the Endangered Species Act.
The area covers about 90 percent of the 1.2 million acres of Siskiyou National Forest and 152,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management land. In the waning days of the Clinton administration, then-Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt had imposed a two-year moratorium on new mining claims on the land; the Bush administration canceled that ban Tuesday.
The decision was praised by small-scale gold miners who at one point helped fuel the southern Oregon economy. But today gold mining is primarily done by hobbyists who use suction dredges in streambeds.
Babbitt has lamented that he did not have time to fully consider a proposal from environmentalists to create a Siskiyou Wild Rivers National Monument in the watersheds of the Illinois and Rogue rivers.
Babbitt said at the time that he hoped the moratorium would encourage debate over the monument proposal.
Bureau of Land Management spokeswoman Karen Gillespie said the change was made after reviewing the mining suspension against the Medford District's 1995 Resource Management Plan.
New mining claims will continue to be prohibited in environmentally sensitive areas, such as streams that offer significant habitat for salmon and steelhead. Officials planned to continue barring claims on about 117,000 acres of the federal land.
But Dominick DellaSala, director of the World Wildlife Fund's Klamath/Siskiyou Program, said the change still threatens salmon and the ecosystem as a whole.
"This is not a good day for salmon,'' he said. "This is a marginal area for mining. A few flecks of gold is not worth more than the irreplaceable natural resources or salmon in the Siskiyou wild rivers.''
Environmental activist Dave Willis of Lincoln said the change in rules didn't allow for public input.
"This is the installment of the Bush administration's program to cut, drill, dig, stomp and chomp our public lands,'' he said.
Illinois Valley miner Ron Smith, vice president of the local chapter of the People for the USA, said his group has been lobbying to remove the temporary ban.
"Any kind of a ban on new mining claims is totally unnecessary,'' he said. "Most of the mining done here is small mom-and-pop mining.''
AP-ES-05-23-02 0331EDT
Bush to Goofball Enviros: "Thpfffffffffft."
That totally depends on who's getting the gold. I'd take the gold over the salmon anyday. There are millions of salmon. they are not endangered in any way. You can even go to the grocery store and buy them already canned!
The only problem with this is that Bush, while he has made a good start by reopening the lands, needs to continue the whole program and sell the lands off to private landholders
God Save America (Please)
The salmon and steelhead population in that area is doing great.
The area covers about 90 percent of the 1.2 million acres of Siskiyou National Forest and 152,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management land. In the waning days of the Clinton administration, then-Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt had imposed a two-year moratorium on new mining claims on the land; the Bush administration canceled that ban Tuesday.
Removing all vile humans from this 1.2 million + acres has been the ultimate goal of all of the Elite Enviral Nazis. It would be the corner stone of their Druid Cathedral in America. Only the elite could live in it and go there to fish, hike, ride their enviro friendly kayaks down stream and to take pictures.
Then, they would have extended it down into Kali just above Eureka and east into the Klamath Falls area. Then, they would go north to the Bandon Area and east on both sides of the Umpqua River to Crater Lake and then to Klamath Falls.
They started working on Rural Cleansing of this area decades ago with the spotted owl enviral nazi rural cleansing movement. The latest actions were the aborted Rural Cleansing of the Klamath Falls Basin and recently the Klamath and Trinity riversheds down west to the Pacific Ocean.
These vile elite enviral Nazis want no humans in these areas except their elite and their illegal alien grunt workers. Ashland, Or. would be where most of the elites enviral nazis would live with Andy Kerr, their High Druid Priest. Medford, Or. would become an urban hellhole center for illegal alien grunt labor. They need the illegal alien grunt labor to clean their homes, tend their gardens and help fight forest fires.
Only the Enviral Elites would be allowed to fish for their religious Icons, salmon and steelhead.
I had several 4 to 6 hour fly fishing trips last year with consistent 12 big trout/day (catch and release).
Some of the best fishing is to find one of these dredge holes, get up stream and cast your fly upstream and let it drift over the edge. A 24 inch native rainbow or steelhead? that shoots out of the bottom of the dredge hole and strikes your fly is great. I will fish the dredge holes over riffles any day.
The only problem is that the water in the Yuba is so clear that you can't read how deep the water is in these holes. A member of our fly club misread one and slipped into one that was about 12' deep. He went down and got caught in the river's flow and barely escaped from drowning. He remember my personal tale and what to do and not to do and saved himself. He lost his rod, reel, line and some other gear. He is up fishing today, and I would have been with him except for an appointment to sell off some of my old gear.
Boink the environmentalists!!
I doubt if Boink is severe enough punishment for the crimes against innocent Americans committed by the Enviral Nazis since the 1970's to their latest, blocking the drilling of oil in ANWR as per their Opecker masters via Mullah Shorty Da$$hole.
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