(Forum Post, February, 11, 2006)

Hi Guys,

The judge’s Order granting Intervention status to miners in the litigation concerning our California dredging regulations was made final on 9 February. This allows us to participate in the ongoing litigation.

We have created a special page on our web site that includes explanations and the most important documents concerning this case.

The judge’s Order also ruled that since the miners are new Parties within the litigation, it would be improper for her to rule on an earlier motion to endorse the Stipulated Agreement between the Karuks and DFG to resolve the litigation. While she said that she would entertain a new motion about this, she made it clear that the Karuks and DFG would be required to prove that the Stipulated Agreement is just, is not contrary to public policy, and does not incorporate an erroneous rule of law.

We feel very strongly that the proposed Stipulated Agreement does not meet any of these requirements.

As we anticipate that the Karuks and DFG will motion the Court to accept their Agreement, our attorneys are already preparing for our response. We have begun by serving both the Karuks and DFG with formal Discovery demands. As you may recall, up until now, both DFG and the Karuks have refused to provide us with the biological data which supports their Agreement. Now that we are Parties to the litigation, it seems reasonable that they should be required to allow us access to the information which supports their positions.

DFG’s position in the litigation, by the way, is that pre-existing regulations have afforded adequate protection for the Coho salmon. So it is going to be interesting to establish how they are justifying a decision to reduce our dredging seasons. There was some dialog in the hearing last week that perhaps both the Karuks and DFG will try and block our Discovery demands. So we may have to go around with them in court just to get at the specific information they are using to justify their positions in this litigation.

As hard as it is to believe, DFG has taken the position that they ought to be able to reduce our seasons in a secret agreement with the Karuks without ever having to justify the reasons to anyone. What’s wrong with that picture?

There have been several questions and comments posted on the various forums about DFG telling dredgers on the phone that they intend to enforce the new regulations upon miners even if the judge in this case does not endorse the Stipulated Agreement. I suggest that people should not become too alarmed by these statements. The State does not hove the power to enforce regulations which have not been adopted pursuant to the California Administrative Procedures Act (APA) and California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

These regulatory changes certainly were not adopted pursuant to APA and CEQA. That is a big part of our objections in front of the Court.

In the present litigation, DFG’s position is that they can skirt around the provisions of CEQA by making a court settlement, even though they are arguing in court that they have already been affording adequate protections to fish without making a settlement agreement with the Karuks.

CEQA was implemented to prevent arbitrary and capricious actions from State officials, while providing reasonable protections for the environment.

We don’t really see how DFG can expect to have it both ways: (1) Argue that they have been protecting the fish just fine under the pre-existing regulations; and, (2) Argue that they have the right to reduce our dredging seasons to afford additional protection to settle the unproven allegations made by the Karuks.

No matter what story DFG is telling the public right now about what they plan to do, my best guess is that if the judge will not endorse the Stipulated Agreement, DFG will be forced to withdraw its regulatory changes as we see them today. Likely, they will have to begin a new CEQA process to address any perceived needs (if any) for changes to our regulations. Anything short of that would probably not hold up to our challenges in court.

Let’s just take things one step at a time. The first step was to gain Party status in the litigation. We have done that. The next step is to challenge any attempt to reduce our dredging seasons that does not follow the lawful process in California. We are working on that now. Then we will challenge any attempt by DFG to enforce regulations which have not been adopted pursuant to the laws. But I doubt the 3rd step will be necessary.

Meanwhile, since the dredging season is still a long way off, I suggest you guys hold off on buying a 2006 dredging permit in California until we see how all this is going to settle out. There is still plenty of time.

Hang tough, you guys. I believe the law is on our side on this one.

All the best,

Dave Mack

Forum post, 30 March 2006

Hello everyone,

I’m sorry my report on this has taken so long, but I have been reluctant to comment beyond what was reported last week until I could obtain an actual copy of the Amended Stipulation which was submitted to the Court by the Karuks and Department of Fish & Game (DFG).

The hearing that was scheduled last week (23 March) only allowed an hour for all interested persons to present verbal arguments. The Karuks and DFG showed up at the hearing with a “new deal” in the form of an “Amended Stipulation,” which commits DFG to begin a new rule-making process under CEQA within 120 days (4 months). The injunction would expire in one year plus 120 days (unless extended by the Court) with the expectation of having new rules in place by that time. This is referring to the very same or more restrictive regulations which DFG has issued pursuant to the earlier Stipulated Agreement.

My own interpretation of this is that they are basically asking the judge to impose an injunction until DFG undergoes a formal process under CEQA that imposes an equal or greater amount of restriction upon suction dredging as what presently exists within the modified regulations. This solution is a total violation of the CEQA process, because it imposes a mandate upon DFG to arrive at a final outcome, regardless of the science or other factors which DFG is required to consider during a proper CEQA action. What is the use of going through a public process in the first place to examine the science and develop the most reasonable solutions, if DFG and the Karuks have already agreed to what the outcome is going to be? That is backwards!

DFG argued in the hearing that they have met discovery requirements to the miners, because they have allowed us access to all existing information in their files, other than anything having to do with the ongoing litigation. Our attorneys reminded the judge that it is discovery concerning the ongoing litigation which DFG is refusing to provide. They are insisting upon keeping a secret of how they are justifying further restrictive changes upon our industry!

DFG also argued that the miners are really not hurt by the new dredging restrictions, because there are many other places where we can go to prospect for gold. In turn, we argued that land owners and miners who own mineral rights within the affected area will be adversely affected by the changed regulations.

As the time allowed for this hearing was quite short, there was not enough time to fully debate the issues in front of the judge. However, the written briefs which have been submitted to the Court have exhaustively covered all sides of the issues. The key documents in the litigation can be found on the special page we have created for this on our web site.

Our lawyers argued in the hearing that the “new deal” should not be accepted by the Court for the very same reasons the earlier Stipulated Agreement should have been rejected: A State agency does [U]not[/U] have the authority to change industry regulations through a private agreement with an anti-industry group in the first place. Especially without providing [U]any[/U] factual support of its reasons to anyone!

The Court has taken everything under advisement and we assume she will issue a ruling reasonably soon. Stay tuned in, because we will put up a copy of the ruling as soon as one is issued.

I want to thank those of you who have heard my requests for financial contributions to help pay the attorneys that are working so hard for our side. I encourage you to please keep the support coming our way so that we can keep up with continuing costs of this litigation. This is going to be very important in the event we find ourselves needing to file an appeal!

Let’s all keep our fingers crossed for a positive outcome!!

All the best,

Dave Mack

(Forum post dated 22 May, 2006)

Hello everyone.

There is a new development in the Karuk/DFG litigation. Walter Eason, A person with gold mining interests, filed a Motion on his own behalf to intervene in the ongoing litigation on May 12th, just last week.

We were expecting a decision from the judge at any moment concerning whether or not she would strike down the Stipulated Agreement which was negotiated by the Department of Fish & Game (DFG) and the Karuk Tribe to end the litigation. That Agreement imposes more restrictions upon our industry. A lot of miners have been waiting in the wings for the judge’s decision, because it makes the difference whether or not the dredging season opens up on the upper Klamath River on May 27th, or on July 1st.

Mr. Eason has been very supportive of our position in this litigation during the past. More recently, he has discovered a legal decision (Boisclair v. Superior Court (1990) 51 Cal 3d 1140) concerning a Superior Court’s lack of subject matter jurisdiction to decide any matter concerning Indian rights. Through correspondence with me, the attorneys who are representing miners in the litigation, and others within our industry, it is clear that Mr. Eason believes it is imperative that we immediately file a Motion to Dismiss the whole case.

We respectfully disagreed with Mr. Eason’s position for several reasons: (1) We don’t believe this case has very much to do with adjudicating Indian rights. The Karuks are suing DFG because they do not believe DFG has followed all of the provisions required by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). (2) We believe the Stipulated Agreement between DFG and the Karuks is totally illegal. We believe there is a reasonable chance the judge will agree with us about that. Since all of the arguments have been placed in front of her on this matter, and the dredging season is nearly upon us, we did not want to confuse everything by interjecting a whole new jurisdictional challenge into the process. Surely, this would delay the judge’s decision that everyone is waiting for.

Mr. Eason’s motion filed with the Court last week also requested that the Court not make any decision concerning the Stipulated Agreement until after his Intervention Motion and jurisdictional challenge is decided. Consequently, the judge decided on Friday to set a hearing date of 8 June to decide what to do about Mr. Eason’s Intervention motion. Unless I am mistaken, now we should not expect to receive any decision from the judge concerning our season until sometime after 8 June.

Before we start getting ourselves all charged up over this, I’d like to make two important points:

1) There is a lot at stake in this litigation. While our organization is doing its best to represent the interests of all small-scale miners in the litigation, it is unlikely that we can support every interest. I’m sure there must be a fair number of interests even outside of our industry that are not been adequately represented in the litigation.

It is especially important that if there is a class of miners out there who believe that we are not already adequately representing them, certainly we should allow them an opportunity to be heard. None of us should make the mistake of believing we have the only answer, or even the best answer. Who knows; perhaps Mr. Eason’s approach will be the winning argument before this is all over. And even if it isn’t, we should applaud his efforts to fight for the industry using arguments that he believes are very important. Clearly, the judge has taken Mr. Eason’s material seriously enough to allow him a hearing.

2) The Klamath River is still running at storm flows. The dams are full and letting enough water out to cause the river to run about 8 feet higher than normal summer levels. The Scott River is discharging muddy water into the Klamath, dropping underwater visibility to zero. It is like we are in the middle of a very large winter storm! Even most of the high-banking areas are underwater!

So even if the judge struck down the DFG/Karuk Agreement last week as we had hoped, most of the river is still too high and swift to dredge at the moment. I‘m not kidding; it is really running fast and turbulent! This probably is not going to change very much for at least another few weeks.

Therefore, we really have not lost anything because of this further delay in the judge’s decision.

I keep getting emails from people asking how legal the amended DFG regulations are, since they have not yet been endorsed by the court. I cannot give legal advice because I am not a licensed attorney. All I can do is express my own opinion – which is that I don’t believe the amended regulations are legal, and I don’t believe they can be enforced. Although this does not mean that the game warden will not go down and write you a ticket for dredging out of season under the amended regulations. He probably will! I’m mainly talking about what happens when you get to court. I don’t believe the court will allow DFG to prosecute a case against you for having violated a regulation that was not adopted pursuant to the legal process in the first place. Having said all that, I can tell you from long experience that it is very uncomfortable to be in trouble with the law, even when you are 100% right. Lawyers are expensive. Our organization is already plenty challenged trying to keep from falling even further behind on paying the costs of the ongoing litigation!

We all have to make our own decisions about these things. Because the river is running so high at the moment anyway, my own best advice would be to wait it out for a while longer.

Dave Mack