Using a dredge in Australia for recreational prospecting is illegal - information and questions

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Joined
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Hi all, I may have an opportunity to buy a second hand dredge, 5hp honda pump, flotation etc, needs a new/repaired sluice apparently, my question, are they legal to use in Qld?
 
Any Dredge in Australia is totally illegal, don't buy it or run the risk of very very hefty fines.
Stat safe.
Cheers
Brad.....
 
Not quite correct.
In the Mareeba mining district, the use of an eductor dredge is legal if the user is the holder of a registered mining tenure...
I have a 5 inch here, and ol' mate up the road has an 8".....pain in the arse, hard work....

Other than that, yeah, get caught using one and you could 'lose' your prospecting equipment....Think about it...
Car, trailer, the lot! etc etc etc!!
 
Well the Dredge will not be coming home with me! After reading many posts on different forums and what not, I am not going to put myself in ANY position to bring attention to small time prospectors like us..

Besides its against the law!

Cheers all
 
Powered Drudging maybe illegal and yes there maybe a risk of being caught.
But let's face the facts some people are GREEDY and the risk is very minimal.
Who police's the use of dredges ?

Spotted 2 Grabs using a drudge in the creek at ophir/national park. I took a couple of photos and some video footage.
Reported it to;
Police . They said "so what, What do you want us to do"
National Parks . They said "not our problem, ask waterways"
Waterways. They said "not our problem, ask fisheries"
Fisheries. They said "If they are fishing we can do something, otherwise try national Parks or ophir trust or heritage maybe"
I'm not going to say what the ophir trust said.
Heritage council " Can't help, Goodbye"

So if you are Greedy grub Ophir is a good place use a drudge with minimal risk.

I do not own a drudge and i do not condone the use of them. Grubs who do are stealing every other prospectors gold.
:(
 
I thought they were still legal in Victoria ?

As far as being caught goes people have to remember that councils , DPI , and other govt departments have access to high resolution satellite cameras ( or the pro version of google earth depending who they are )

I dont know if they can log in to it any time they want or have to request permission , but i know it is extremely high quality imaging , nothing like we get with google earth , so if you think nobody will see you out in the bush then think again.

not worth it in my opinion , you just have to put up with the old slow methods we are permitted to use now.
 
Hi Digging Holes,
Forward the info and copies of the pictures the he relevant district office for the Department of natural resources and mines (or equivenant in your state)or EPA.

Gold Miner is right, they are illegal unless you have an approved mining tenamure with a plan of opperations approved by the Environmental Protection Agentcy (EPA) for the use of a dredge.

Check with the mines department in your State or Territory.
 
Dollypot hasn't clocked up 10 posts yet so he won't be able to view the private message.
 
can anyone explain to me why dredging was banned, i got told eons ago that it was because the rivers were full of heavy metals and dredging continually stirs these metals up. is this correct or not
cheers

bisho
 
Not sure, but i was told the reason was small simple dredges like we would use open the door to more industrial models like the old time miners used which tore up the base of the river, caused serious erosion issues and just made a massive mess in general, i may be wrong though, maybe someone else here may have a more definitive answer lol
 
It might be because a fishexpertarian suggested that dredges might destroy fish spawn or sperm , whatever those little white floaties are.

He could be right if it was occuring in fish breeding season

but if that's the reason then why not say " no dredging in fish breeding season "

I dont think dredges would damage the little snails or mosquito larvae would they ?

guessing those would get spat straight back out the other end

what other little ecosystems are there on the bottom of the average river ?

turbidity might concern EPA folks but thats easily fixed by having the dredge discharging in to the sluice which is set up on the river bank so the sediment settles out and you would get 90 % clean water running back in to the river

there are ways to clean it up if thats the concern

whatever physical problem exists , there will be an engineering solution to it.
 
first of all there was groups of ppl doing this with no respect for there surroundings, as i am shore there where plenty out there that practised it to the way it should of been done.
The government of the day stated!

Harmfull to fish frogs and aquatic life!
Causes in stream and bank erosion of stream channel
Increases turbidity, ( Muddy Water ).
Remobilses mercury.
Noise pollution.
Serious conflicts with other outdoor activities.
Causes significant silting of streams.

some of the foke that talk about it are either on one side of the fence or the other
some say it removes the led and mercury others say it it only stirs it up and brings it back to the surface

if you want to have an argument
bring up this topic around prospectors,
if ppl didn't leave mess and destroy everything and made no trace that they where there, then it might not of been banned
other country's are following suite and banning it also,


hope this helps you out a little

Kane
 
My guess would be to fold.

First up would be the silting, heavy metal problem and secondary would be the harm it does to the micro organisms that live in and around rocks. Pretty much everything that lives in the water starts off where we would dredge.

We only need to see the mess prospectors leave now with un filled holes and dug out banks etc to realise how bad it would be if a dredge was used.
 
I'd like some opinions from experienced people.
Is siphon or gravity dredging illegal in Australia. Particularly NSW where I live.
In the video below is an example of this type of dredging.
I have a mate who has seen on a neighbours property a siphon type dredge that feeds the water and gravel into a sluice .
My uninformed opinion is that it would be illegal. It does similar damage to a mechanical dredge?
This is in an area with known gold deposits.
Not that I want to use this method. Just curious.
There is no mechanical pump, just the siphon action like the video. But it's fed into the sluice.

Thanks for you're thoughts

Rod

[video=480,360]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLyL5fTbnes[/video]
 

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