John, Russ,
Dredging is alive and well in the state of Virginia, bad info posted by Charlotte49er/Brian, he sometimes post crap/his own rumors that he misinterprets from other postings on other subjects
, I have many friends in Virginia and I can assure you dredging is alive and safe for now in Virginia, some of those friends worked very hard around 6 years ago to get the dredging laws to what they are today and you can use up to a 4" dredge in Virginia, before their actions there were no laws covering dredging for gold in the state of Virginia which is why they acted to get laws passed to protect and clarify dredging in Virginia, they won't let dredging go in Virginia without a battle and they stay on top of all that is going on, even with what is now happening in Tennessee and offering their help if needed to get the ban there lifted, those Virginia boys don't play around when it comes to prospecting within their state and the Virginia prospectors police these laws themselves whenever they see someone breaking them!!!
That being said there is a impromptu dredging ban in Tennessee, impromptu meaning that the ban is coming from an agency that is using a law concerning introducing pollution into streams to ban dredging, which we all know that dredging doesn't introduce pollution into a stream, the gold prospectors of Tennessee are trying to get their $h!t together (if they can stop fighting among themselves as to who did what that started all of this
) to form a fight to get the ban lifted.
This all started with a couple of dredgers in a rural stream, though they are from Tennessee they were not local to this rural stream and were dredging very near local people swimming, they were asked to move further up stream as to not be so close to the other users of this stream, they were even invited by other dredgers upstream who has developed a good relation with the locals to come up and dredge in their area as they were finding good color, instead of moving they seemed to think they had every right to be where they were and got into an argument with the locals instead and started cussing them
, the locals then called the Sheriff, who then call the water control agency, who then warned the dredgers to no avail, the water control agency then was called back to the scene with orders from his superior that "ALL gold prospecting is now banned in all streams and rivers in Tennessee", any violators would be cited and face a fine of $2500, since then gold prospecting with non-motorized equipment has been taken off the banned list and is allowed.
At this time the ban is not "Official" in the sense that a law has been passed to ban dredging, but the agency is using existing law for pollution without any backing at this time from the law makers/Representatives of the people of Tennessee, so time will tell if they can legally ban dredging using this law or if they will pass a new law to ban dredging.
So basically this all started with some idiots only wanting to do what they wanted to do without any concern for other users of a stream or any other gold prospectors, sound familiar John???
Sometimes our own members of the prospecting community tends to be our worst opponents!!!!
Skip
Skip P.
God, Family, Friends, and Gold!!!