Time to rein in outlaw mining operations

Local gold miner Clifford Tracy has again been convicted of illegal mining, leaving behind trashed forests, degraded salmon habitat and reduced water quality on public lands - and likely handing taxpayers another sizeable cleanup bill.

This time it was Galice Creek that paid the price for Mr. Tracy's greed. A crystal clear cold-water tributary to the Wild and Scenic Rogue River, Galice Creek provides fantastic salmon and steelhead habitat. Unfortunately that habitat is rendered worthless when Mr. Tracy is dumping a mile-and-a-half-long sediment plume into it from his creekside mining pit on BLM lands. Mr. Tracy didn't even own this Galice Creek mining claim, yet he asserted an absolute right to excavate a hillside and dump muddy wastewater into public waters. In his view, laws simply don't apply to miners.

The last time Mr. Tracy was convicted of illegal mining it was for destroying streamside forests, diverting an entire creek into his settling pond, and excavating large mining pits down to bedrock on public lands along Sucker Creek in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest. As with the illegal Galice Creek mining, he contended that his actions were above the law and that he could do whatever he wished to lands that belong to all Americans.

The damage his mining did to Sucker Creek came on the heels of significant efforts by sportsmen, conservation organizations and the Forest Service to restore valuable fish habitat in this key watershed for salmon recovery. The watershed restoration work that so many Oregonians had banded together to accomplish was undone by one man's selfishness and refusal to play by the rules.

The substantial investments made by taxpayers and volunteers to improve water quality and fish habitat in Sucker Creek were the collateral damage of Mr. Tracy's gold fever. Not only did Mr. Tracy pay no royalties to the American public for the gold that he illegally dug from Sucker Creek, he left us holding a $20,000 tab to clean up the mess he left on Forest Service lands.

If you are waiting for responsible mining associations to distance themselves from the outlaw actions of irresponsible public lands miners such as Mr. Tracy you will be disappointed. Not one local public lands mining organization is willing to say that miners should follow the law of the land. Their view is that public lands exist solely to fatten their wallets.

Not only do local mining associations condone illegal public lands mining, they often support the use of violence and threats to further their agenda. Earlier this year, when miner Eugene Spears was on trial for shooting a four-wheel-drive enthusiast who was visiting a publicly owned Forest Service road near a mining claim, many members of the Southwest Oregon Mining Association showed up at the courthouse in support of this violence against other forest users.

After Mr. Spears was convicted by a jury of his peers, a commentary on the Oregon Gold Hunters website stated that "this court ruling teaches us all one thing, next time this sort of thing happens shoot all offending persons present and bury them out in the middle of the desert."

Two important pillars of American democracy are that no one is above the law and that we settle our political differences through debate and elections rather than through threats and violence. Some in the local public lands mining community have made it clear that they will not respect those American values. It is time for responsible miners to make their voices heard by telling the radical fringe that trashing public lands and supporting criminals is hurting their cause in the court of public opinion.

George Sexton serves as the conservation director for the Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center based in Grants Pass and Ashland.