The record-union., 1896-01-18

The Anti-Debris Association has sent
the following protest to the members of
Congress:
Office Of the Anti-pebris Association
of California.
SACRAMENTO, January IA, 1896.
Dear Sir: The Anti~Debris Associa-
tion Of California, composed of the rich
and populous counties of the Sacra-
n1ento Valley, and banded together for
protection from damages by hydraulic
mining, earnestly protest against the
passage Of any bill by Congress aiding
or attempting to aid in the resumption
of hydraulic mining in this State.
l.
To those who are familiar with this
class of mining, with the terrible injury
/. has done to the navigable rivers OF
California, and to the thousands of
acres of fertile soil adjoining their
banks, no word of caution or protest
would be necessary.
1t is a class of mining adapted only
to rude and uninhabited country, and
it cannot be carried on without the de-
struction of the navigable streams of
the State. This system of mining has
been interdicted by the courts both
State and Federal, and a perusal OF
these reports will show that the courts
have declared it deeply injurious to
agriculture, to navigation and to pri-
vate property rights.
Let US see how the courts of the
United States regard tits evil
Judge Sawyer, in the case of Wood
ruff VS.. North Bloomfield g Sawyer,
44D, after an exhaustive trial, and after
full opportunity on all sides of being
heard, spoke as follows;
Formerly, before hydraulic mining
operations commenced, the Yuba River
ran through this part of it's course in a
deep channel, with gravelly bottom,
from 300 to 400 feet wide on an average,
with steep banks from 10 to 20 feet
high, at low water, on either side
From the top of the hanks, on either
side, extended a strip of bottom lands
OF rich, black, alluvial soil, on an aver
age a mile and half wide, upon which
were situated some of the finest or
chards and vineyards in the State Be-
yond this first bottom was a second bot
tom, which extended some distance to
the ridge of higher lands, the whole con-
stituting basin between the higher
lands on either side, of from a mile and
a half to three miles wide. Not only has
the channel Of the river through these
been filled up to a depth of twenty-five
feet and upward, but this entire strip of
bottom land has been buried with sand
and debris many feet deep, from ridge
to ridge Of high land, and utterly ruined
for farming and other purposes to
which it was before devoted, and it has
consequently been abandoned for such
uses. .
The lands thus already buried and
destroyed are over $4,000 acres. or
twenty-five square miles, or, taking the
average width, a tract from the foot
hills of Marysville, twelve miles long
along the river by two miles wide The
filling in the river bed is generally
twenty-five feet or more, and, at its
immediate junction with the Feather
River at Marysvilie, is about twenty
feet-Some witnesses make it more
where it forms a bar across Feather
River"
Speaking Of the magnificent Sacra-
mento River, a stream affording. if safe
from injury by hydraulic mining, $50
ersing the Sacramento Valley and emp
tying into the San Francisco Bay, the
Circuit Court says:
In the Sacramento River a. similar
rise in its bed has taken place from
similar causes. During the first twenty
years of mining, from 1S49 to 1869. the
low-water plane in the river at Sac
ramento was raised two and nine
fGr he
Of hydraulic mining, from 1869 to
1879 the rise in this plane was doub-
led. 1t has been raised fully six feet
from 1S49 to 1881"
The court quotes the language of
Colonel Mendell of the United States
Corps of Engineers in his report to the
United States Government:
AS a consequence of the elevation of
the bed, the tidal influence which, in
1919 extended at least as high as the
mouth of the Feather twenty five miles
above Sacramento and was quite two
feet at Sacramento, is now no longer
noticeable above Heacock's shoals. nine
miles below Sacramento. The tide with
in the past thirty years rose on these
shoals as much as three feet
The court again says:
"The beds of the river have not only
been filed and raised for several feet.
but the channels have been largely con-
tracted in width So, also, from similar
causes, the shoal water in Suisun. San
Pablo and San Francisco Bays, and in
the straits of Carquinez, have largely
increased, and the navigable chan
nels of these waters have been consider
ably and materially affected
Colonel Menden of the United States
Corps of Engineers says. and his Ian
guage is quoted by the Circuit Court Of
the United States:
''The preservation of river beds and
routes of drainage requires that effect
i've restraint be imposed upon mining
detritus. Otherwise. these drainage
lines may be expected to suffer the fate
which overlook their. prototypes, the
Pliocene Rivers, which were obliterated
by enormous deposits brought down by
their own currents"
An examination Of the cases OF the
People vs.. Gold Run, 66 Cal 13S, and
Hardt vs.. Liberty Hill, II Sawyer, Gil,
viii show, to some extent, the amount
OF injury produced by the gigantic
curse OF hydraulic mining, as demon
strated by unimpeachable evidence in
open court.