Alaska voters put mining over fish

http://newsminer.com/news/2008/aug/27/alaska-voters-put-mining-over-fish/

Artifact Amnesty draws collectors and curious

11/08/2006

by Liz Daube

A new push to get the public interested in Florida’s historical sites and artifacts is trying to unite archaeologists and collectors – groups that have long argued over who owns remnants of the past.

Saturday, about 50 people gathered for “Artifact Amnesty Day” at Camp Milton, a site on Jacksonville’s Westside that became a historic preserve in September. Many local artifact collectors showed up to let experts document their finds, which ranged from pewter underwear buttons to bullets with bite marks.

The photographs will be used for displays in the park’s planned museum, according to Shorty Robbins, chief of park development for the City. The “amnesty” title of the event was meant to draw in collectors – letting them know their artifacts wouldn’t be reclaimed and they wouldn’t be judged for taking them in the first place, according to Sarah Miller, the archaeologist who organized the event with the Parks Department. As director of the new northeast center of the Florida Public Archaeology Network, Miller is part of a statewide effort to renew interest in local archaeology.

Miller said the event was a success – 30 items were donated to the camp and 100 more were photographed – but she was told the word “amnesty” offended rather than assured most collectors.

“The issue of who owns the past is very complicated,” said Miller. “It would not be appropriate for us (archaeologists) to host an artifact show ... Archaeologists say it’s ethically wrong (to take artifacts) any time on any land. If you remove the artifact from the context, it loses its value.”

Now that Camp Milton has a government-recognized historic status, it’s illegal to take artifacts from the site. Before September, however, Milton was a popular spot for local collectors to search for – and take home – items like Civil War-era bullets and pocket knives.

The amnesty day was supposed to get those collectors to share those items with archaeologists, but some declined to come because of the event’s name, according to County Court Judge Gary Flower, a longtime artifact hunter and researcher who attended the event. He said some people found the term to be “provocative” because “it presupposes you have done something wrong.“

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Travis considers reversing metal-detector ban
Enthusiasts say they're being unfairly picked on.

After an outcry from metal-detector enthusiasts, Travis County may reverse its recent ban on the devices in county parks.

At last week's Commissioners Court meeting, members of the Austin Metal Detecting Club said they are being unfairly blamed for the looting of archaeological items.

"I'm concerned we're being singled out as the culprits," Scott Hegel said. "We're just an easy target because we carry metal detectors with us."

But reopening the parks to metal detecting could put undiscovered archaeological sites at risk, cost money to regulate and even be against state law, representatives from several government agencies said.

Mark Denton of the Texas Historical Commission's archaeology division said most people who use metal detectors are responsible.

"But the fact of the matter is, there are some people with intentions of collecting objects and destroying cultural resources on public lands," he said.

The county commissioners banned metal detectors in June. County Judge Sam Biscoe, chairman of the Commissioners Court, and Commissioner Gerald Daugherty said that when they did so, they thought they were just following an innocuous staff recommendation embedded in a larger set of rules curtailing drinking in county parks.

"I didn't know there was more than maybe one person who did it," Biscoe said.

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Dear Washington Fish & Wildlife Commissioners:

I would like to address the Commission on the current Washington Gold and Fish pamphlet for suction dredging in your state. This pamphlet can and may cause a serious problem for Washington State in the future because it is prohibitory by its own nature but I will address that in my later comments.

First, I will address the proposed regulations that the Washington miners have prepared for the Commission as early as last year. The miners have worked very hard and diligently to prepare a set of regulations that they feel are fair to the environment, other users and themselves. It has been a four year project for the miners and they have created a set of regulations with others in mind and have used the best and most reliable science known to mankind. The miners have created a document that would cost the state of Washington more than $250,000 to duplicate. And for their efforts they should be rewarded by excepting their work as it is, it is as professional as any I have seen.

Most of the studies were done to find harm from suction dredging to the fisheries and their surrounding environment. If you read these studies the scientist were not able to find the harm that had been asserted, but found in most if not all of the studies that suction dredging was less than significant or in many case beneficial to its surrounding environments.

These small scale miners are also good responsible citizens, they are watchful of forest fires, helping others in distress, carry out more trash than they carried in and are cautious with their environment. They are concerned about the environment as much or more as the guy next door.

Studies show that people that come from out of state to suction dredge average spending     $ 3,600 a month in the state they are visiting, we feel that most states benefit economically by their presence. When the regulations are friendly more people come from out of state as the signatures on the miners petition shows. I personally have been to Washington 3 of the last 4 years and would love to spend summer there suction dredging .

These are the people who remove Mercury, Lead and other types of trash from your rivers. These are the people that help clean gravel's for better Salmon spawning and these are the people who pay taxes to keep your fine state solvent. These in most case are law abiding citizens.

In turn it is the responsibility of the state to obey the laws as well. It is not enough for an agency like the Washington Fish and Wild Life to assert harm from the suction dredgers it must be proven and the regulations must be reasonable, not just to the state but reasonable to the miners as well.

The Mining Law of 1872 is a grant from Congress and is not a discretionary act for agency's to impose their will. The state must be reasonable if the are to regulate the mining community. When the present Gold and Fish Pamphlet regulates the mining community by making the regulations so strict that the grant from Congress is a hollow promise, this is a problem and could come back and haunt the state in the form of lawsuits like South Dakota Mining ass. vs Lawrence County. Hopefully this can all be remedied in this process.

I have not had the opportunity to speak to the Commission but have talked to the Washington miners and they have assured me that they feel that the commission appears to be more than fair, that many of the legislators also appear to be in their corner.  .

Thank You for your time and Good Luck to all of you

Jerry Hobbs

President
Public Lands for the People
7194 Conejo Dr.
San Bernardino, Ca. 92404
909-889-3039