On river dredging, California is right

In clear, rippling Western rivers where salmon spawn, suction dredges bring havoc from above. Prospectors with gold-rush glimmerings float river rafts with gas-powered suction devices, vacuuming up the sediment along the river bottom and, after it's been sluiced in pursuit of flakes of gold, spit it back out.

The practice was banned in California last year and some prospectors have moved north into Oregon rivers, to the dismay of those who worry about the future of pristine Southern Oregon streams such as the Rogue. "They leave huge holes in the river where the water becomes stagnant and breeds algae," says Sen. Jason Atkinson, R-Central Point, who's spent much of his life in the outdoors. "They ruin -- destroy -- spawning habitat."

Atkinson, who recently returned to southern Oregon from a teaching trip in South Africa, says he came home to "this mess." He plans to introduce legislation banning the practice of suction dredging in Oregon.

It costs only $25 for a suction dredger to get an annual permit from Oregon's Department of Environmental Quality. As of the end of last month, more than 1,200 prospectors had done so, about a third more than last year. The permits require miners to monitor and limit water turbidity, or particulates suspended in the water. But those limits are largely self-enforced, which is to say, not enforced at all.

The prospectors are driven, no doubt, by the prolonged recession, as well as by California's ban. They have hopes of finding wealth in gold flakes -- or at least enough to eke out an income that pays for their equipment.

Many of them argue that they provide an environmental benefit when they agitate and recycle sediment from river bottoms. They cleanse the rivers, create new hollows and return the sediment, they contend. But people who most value salmon, including the Karuk tribe of northern California, say that's absurd. "Suction dredge mining is nothing more than recreational genocide," argues Karuk official Leaf Hillman.

Testimony from the engineering firm of G. Fred Lee & Associates of El Macero, Calif., found that the turbidity caused by suction dredges "can be adverse" to habitat. But further, the firm said dredging contributes to algae masses and mobilizes mercury, which threatens the health of fish and people who eat them.

In California, the issue reached a boil because declining salmon runs drove fishermen out of the rivers, in hopes of helping the stocks to regenerate. Meanwhile, the suction dredges were allowed to continue operating, infuriating fishing and environmental groups.

The practice has no place in Oregon rivers for environmental and economic reasons. Atkinson is on the right course: Since the DEQ is granting suction dredging permits so freely, the Legislature must step in to take care of the state's rivers.