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LEWISTON, Idaho (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency may open the Clearwater River's South Fork to limited mining next year, and officials say they won't take action to stop dredge mining currently under way.
Forest Service Supervisor Cheryl Probert said the agency is working through an environmental analysis process to authorize suction dredge mining that's already taking place, the Lewiston Tribune reported (http://bit.ly/1JR3JrR ).
"The Forest Service is not going to take any physical action like pulling their dredges out of the water," Probert said. "Our emphasis is really on working through the environmental analysis process to be able to authorize, with mitigation and a plan of operation, suction dredge mining on the South Fork."
An appeals court decision and an Idaho permit established by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2013 created a process for dredge miners looking to operate in areas where protected fish live.
Threatened bull trout and steelhead live in South Fork. Notices of noncompliance were sent to area dredge miners, but they say their operations are authorized by the Mining Act of 1872 and permits from the Idaho Water Resources Board.
The forest service sent notices of noncompliance to the miners, which several did not accept.
"If they had the authority, they would have come back the next day with law enforcement officers, cited and arrested us - they didn't," said Shannon Poe, president of Coulterville, California-based American Mining Rights Association.
Poe said he'd mined in the area last summer and threatened a lawsuit in response to a letter from the EPA.
"When you push back and have the law on your side, they have no defense," Poe said. The fear and intimidation tactics they use work on most people. They kept most suction dredge miners out of the water last year and this year."
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Information from: Lewiston Tribune, http://www.lmtribune.com
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