well the wdfw has slammed the gold dredge miner with absolutely absurd work windows. from months to weeks and at times the rivers are either frozen or the areas are covered in many feet of snow. which is like telling the orchards to only harvest at nite and pick apples in march... or you can only dig clams at high tide...pretty silly but read on...
we (the miners) have been fighting this for what seems ages and for all the good it did for hundreds of us to testify we might have done better talkin to a wall. the state refuses to use established science and and studies by the corp of engineers stating that you really cant screw upo a river with a 5" or smaller dredge. we have recovered many tons of lost lead (yours) and many many pounds of lost mercury from the old time bad mining practices.
we make strange bedfellows you fisherman and us miners, our dredges loosen up compacted stream gravels that enhance spawning areas there are many videos of fish feeding off the stuff that comes off the sluice on a dredge. one study although not quite scientific, they ran a standard hot dog through the suction hose through a gold dredge over a hundred times and it was unscathed another shows a trout swimming up the nozzle going throiugh the derdghe and coming back for more rides through the hose.
we remove toxic lead sinkers (tons of them) that you guys lost. yet they (wdfw) single out us miners as a danger to the fish redds (fish nests) yet allow you fisherman to tromp all over the riverbanks and say nothing... go figger. another absurd aspect they used is that we changed the water temp enuff to endanger the fish eggs, so if our 5 hp pumps can do that your several hundred HP jet drives must be a flaoting slaughter house/waterheater
well this is all about to change. we think you fisherman should have to pay the $130 for the new fish and gold pamphlet and the new dredge fee ($700) or more and file a an HPA permit, (you are hydraulicly changing the river by standing in it Partially damming it, at least thats what they tell us) every time you change fishing spot... yup thats what we will have to do.... and since youz guyz are the only polluter/fish killers, well we saved a seat for you. our seat turned out to be the electric chair and yours is plugged into the same socket. we are sensible conservationists we love the outdoors except we make a (or made) a living off it. the greenies will cuddle up next to ya, throw some cash around then strangle you with the same hand that they fed you with.
a suit against the state for discrimination is more than likely in the works and if we go down you can put money on the fact that all you will be able to do with a river is look at it

read all the good news here
page 136 explains the new fees.



http://apps.leg.wa.gov/do...0AMC%20CONF%20H3658.1.pdf

thanx for reading my rant