It sure isn’t like it used to be.

[elder-miner]

I can assure you, finding, then acquiring / owning a small scale (50 - 100 YPD) placer gold deposit worthy of profitable mining, is a rare thing. To do so involves a considerable handful skills, patience, tenacity, research of historically productive gold mining districts, land title examination, mapping, GPS skills, surveying, prospecting, sampling & most often a considerable amount of luck. You are blessed more than most in life if you ever find one placer deposit worthy of mining on a 50 to 100 YDP scale.

Once found, then acquired, the difficulties expand exponentially. Because you have to both permit and fund the potential mining operation. Assuming the placer deposit is acquired by location of an unpatented mining claim on USFS or BLM administered lands. Permitting requires the skills of a strategist, negotiator, diplomat, being knowledgeable in pertinent Acts of Congress, environmental law, associated statutory law, case law, pertinent Code of Federal Regulations, USFS-BLM Manuals, Directives and various federal court injunctions.

Permitting requires someone with the both the knowledge and patience to weave their way through an almost impenetrable mountain size maze of lengthy bureaucratic regulatory red tape on both the Federal & State levels. You will have to deal with USFS or BLM & State regulators, permitting specialists, engineers, geologists, botanists, biologists, hydrologists, archeologists, water rights adjudicators, reclamation bond estimators, ESA - NEPA coordinators, ARA - SOPA publication of public notice, public comment, appeal procedural specialists, to only mention a few of the many.

It sure isn’t like it used to be.

[Hoser John]

sic sic sic and SMARA sure is a byatch to work with---John

[elder-miner]

Yep .......once bigger or over 1 acre & 1000 yards, CA - SMARA applies;

SMARA § 2714. This chapter does not apply to any of the following activities: (4) (d) Prospecting for, or the extraction of, minerals for commercial purposes where the removal of overburden or mineral product total less than 1,000 cubic yards in any one location, and the total surface area disturbed is less than one acre.

http://www.conservation.ca.gov/omr/ab_3098_list/Documents/Statutes%20and%20Regs%20Revised%2010-19-12.pdf

To bad CA doesn't apply that to suction dredging in CA

Like everything else in CA mining Reg's, they have it bass akwards.

Or, just plain stupid - like current Dredging Ban

Below is a link to Idaho placer mining BMP's

http://www.idl.idaho.gov/bureau/minerals/bmp_manual1992/bmp_index.htm

[Hoser John]

All states falling to dredge ban/extreme restrictions as bureauratz jump on the bandwagon as all now buyable legally. Sic sic sic country thinks everything made of minerals is produced by magic pixies at Home Depot-John

[El Dorado]

Awe come on guys, the gooberment is there to help us in all their glorious zillions of freedom reducing regs.......

[Hoser John]