At least 36 mining claims have been filed along a 30-mile stretch of the river

Idaho fly fishers and conservation groups are stepping up to back the Clearwater National Forest in challenging the rash of placer mining claims being filed for the North Fork of the Clearwater River.

Kathy Rodriguez, ranger of the North Fork District of the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest, said suction dredge mining is incompatible with a number of other uses of the river and she will ask an administrative law judge from the U.S. Department of Interior to prohibit mining there.

LINK (via: The Spokesman-Review)

Comments

[Jeff]

Are you kidding me!!! Why has everyone been trying to kill this river since they saw it????

[tofo]

you have to be ****ing kidding me.

[Idaho steel]

Kidding? Not likely.

I first saw the "claim signs" in early June of last year. At the time (and perhaps there still is,) there was some question as the the validity of said claims. The head geologist for the Clearwater region actually left a note and a business card at each of the sights, asking for the claimants to contact him... As far as I could tell, NONE of these "claims" had been worked as of November last year. What is particularly irritating is the vaguely threatening tone of the notices, all of which happen to be on public land...

I find it interesting that certain parties are attempting to claim that "the gov-ment" is trying to "take" property that doesn't belong to said parties in the first place. I'm not alone in suspecting that there is an ulterior motive at work here, particularly when these parties have quickly made it known that they're willing to "settle" with the forest service.

If these claims become active, I'm not overly concerned about river access so much as in-stream habitat damage, and the fact that most of the claim signs I witnessed are posted in many of the more popular camping spots.

The forest service was taking public comments on this issue for a while, so I don't think the mining claimants can make the argument that this is merely a capricious, unilateral act of "big government interference." We'll see how it plays out.