Opinion ID: 1210694
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY.Streams and Mining in the Siskiyou National Forest

Text: The Siskiyou National Forest contains streams and rivers that provide habitat for several fish species, including coho and chinook salmon and steelhead trout. Several of these species, including coho salmon, have been listed as threatened or at risk under the Endangered Species Act. See, e.g., 70 Fed.Reg. 37160, 3170-71 (June 28, 2005). Many of these same waterways have also been subject to gold mining claims since the mid-1800s. Currently, gold miners work the streams and rivers within the forest with suction dredges, machines that separate gold from streambed material using a gasoline-powered motor that draws streambed material up through a flexible, two-to-four-inch intake hose and then discharges the material back into the stream bed. The co-existence of protected fish species and mining operations in streams and rivers raises concern because suction dredges are a popular method of mining the waterways within the forest, yet may cause harm to endangered fish. [2]