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Please Read Before Mining

Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2018 6:08 am
by Jim_Alaska
I would like to take a moment to ask our members and prospective members to please take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with club rules and guidelines. When you joined the club you were given a set of rules and guidelines to operate by. If you can’t find, or have misplaced them, you can go to the club website and find them online. Here are two sets of guidelines that you might consider printing out to take with you when mining.

Operating Guidelines

http://www.goldgold.com/operational-guidelines-for.html

Surface Mining Guidelines

http://www.goldgold.com/surface-mining- ... s-for.html


Everyone waits all winter to be able to get back to mining those special places that we dreamed about all winter. Many times in the excitement of finally arriving and our rush to get to mining we tend to overlook mundane things such as rules and guidelines.

Our club enjoys a very comfortable relationship with authorities such as U.S. Forest Service, California Dept. of Fish and Wildlife and California Water Boards simply because they know we police ourselves and operate in a responsible manner. The club strives to maintain this good relationship, which benefits all of us in the long run by not having to have each member deal with authorities on their own.

Our Internal Affairs Staff is extremely busy at this time of year and we could use all the help we can get from our members. There are things that you can do to make our job a lot easier and assure that your mining will be as enjoyable and trouble free as possible. The links to rules and guidelines I gave you above will accomplish this nicely if you take the time to go over them.

There are a few things that are in the guidelines that I would like to mention here, simply because they are the most often overlooked and are extremely important.

1. Your membership decal must be displayed on the front windshield of your vehicle
when on club claims. This includes campers and motor homes. They are free and you
can get as many as you need at the office.

This allows our Internal Affairs Staff to tell at a glance if you are a member. If there is no decal, we have to assume that you are not a member and possible claim jumper. The result is that our staff must make personal contact, no matter where you are, or how difficult it is to get to you.

2. You must register at the office if you are actively mining and keep the office informed of your mining and camping locations. This is not optional and is extremely important.
It helps with the clubs assessment work and allows us to locate you in an emergency, or if we need to contact you.

3. All members and guests must have a membership card or guest pass in their possession when mining on club properties.

4. All members that are camping on club claims must make provision for sewage and gray water to be contained until it can be disposed of in an approved dump station.
The club provides chemical toilets only in heavily used camping areas.

5. You must backfill any holes you dig before you move on to any other place. It is a lot easier to backfill as you move the hole in any one direction, that way you only have a little to backfill when you are done.

Leaving holes open can jeopardize our relationship with authorities and makes a lot of work for someone else to have to do behind you. We have had holes left open that were so big that we had to get a special volunteer crew to go fill them.

Our entire future as small-scale miners depends upon our willingness to pull together and make the effort to do things the right way. Let’s all contribute to making this a long-lasting relationship and great Club

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Rich Krimm
Director New 49'ers Internal Affairs