Sorry, I deal in a world of accroynms with my dealings with the feds.....

ESH stands for Essential Salmon Habitat.  It is not only spawning habitat, it includes rearing waters.  Most of the time the fry will leave the waters they were born in and go into side streams to grow.

I expect the Portland and Medford/Ashland members of the legislature to come up with a way to kill motorized mining in the waters that will remain open for now during the next session. 

This one also includes any motorized mining within 100 yards of closed waters that disturbs vegetation that may impact water quality.

Just offering my .02 cents about this whole thing with the tightening of rules on "dredging" This is nothing more than a big PR issue and the liberal activists know better how to win at this game. I really believe that we need to attack it in a different manner and stop calling the activity "dredging". The connotation does not support the PR game. Down here in Florida, the serious guys that do treasure salvaging, call themselves Underwater Archeologist's and get the necessary credentials. It is really hard to disparage their activities if they take this approach. Look up the definition of dredging in the NOAA website as it includes this..."  Dredging is also performed to reduce the exposure of fish, wildlife, and people to contaminants and to prevent the spread of contaminants to other areas of the water body. This environmental dredging is often necessary because sediments in and around cities and industrial areas are frequently contaminated with a variety of pollutants."..... Ok well we need to use this understanding as the means to create legitimate organizations dedicated to this purpose only. And oh....by the way....yes GOLD will be a by-product of this activity. Individuals wanting to "dredge" are certified members of the organization able to operate on their own, but under the protection of the "organization". By using the same mantra of the regulating agencies, the chances of denials of permits would be far greater lessened, and more likely approved. These are the methods that the liberal conservationists use to play the government, going with the flow, gradually getting a foothold, within the regulating system. There is no reason why we cannot do that either.

While I agree with you, getting motorized recreation users banded  together, and I mean OHV, motorcycle, gold mining, and anyone else that uses motorized anything on public and state land is like trying to herd canarys with cats, and keep them both in line.

We tried here in Oregon many years ago to get all types of users into one group to be heard.  We included all motorized as well as mountain bike and horses.  It went nowhere, because all of them said the same thing, they aren't after my recreation, only yours.

I really have my doubts that any kind of organization will be formed to fight it and other closures except by the small body directly affected at the time, so there are not enough voices hollering to make any change for our side.  It is just like trying to change congress, everyone likes their person and keeps sending it back, it is the rest of the idiots that are the problem, so they all end up going back for the most part........I've been doing this since 1976 and am getting tired and old, and not making any headway.

Very informative post Ben....gee now we even have to be worried about how we speak too....I never gave two hoots about small time miner versus prospector or rec miner. But I see now that somehow it does matter. One of the biggest jokes is how they actually get open land protected for certain species that don't even inhabit a certain land, just for the sake of that land could possibly be "habitat" for that species "if" it did live in that area.  

A sub-part of the Moratorium is that dredging will not be allowed in 303D listed River even if they do not have salmon or bull trout habitat. Sadly this includes the Burnt River below Unity dam to the Snake River.