Permits For Sluice Boxes?

[beatup]

the social nazis will never stop they want to control every aspect of what you do and make you pay for the right to do so.

[AussieMatt]

I thought Australia was over the top with the banning of dredging for prospecting & near impossible to even get approval on your own lease. It's heavily regulated here just to clear out shipping channels etc. 

Permits for river sluices/gold panning is just ridiculous. 

[mn90403]

Is Vermont subject to a mining law like that of 1872? 

Let's keep the one that protects us in the West.

Mitchel

[Clay Diggins]

The Supreme Court has ruled twice in the last 15 years that instream sediment is neither a point source or pollution under the Clean Water Act. Instream sediments are not a subject of the Clean Water Act.

Those who would lead you to believe otherwise, including the EPA, are pulling the wool over your eyes. Anyone who applies for a permit for instream dredging, sluicing or panning based on the Clean Water Act is throwing their money away on a fantasy.

States do, in some circumstances, have a right to control water quality. That's not a bad thing.  But when they attempt to classify instream sediments as pollution or a point source based on the Clean Water Act they are basing their actions on non existent federal law.