shootbrownelk
Well-known member
Thanks Buzz, It's pretty clear how much you appreciate BLM & National forest lands. Keep up the good work!
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Just south of the sleepy northeast Washington towns of Usk and Cusick, the Crossroads Cafe sits at a fork in the road where two state highways merge. It’s where a handful of locals gather every morning. They say they’re only in it for the coffee, but they linger for a few hours to talk about politics and reminisce about the days when this region boomed with industrial jobs and active sawmills.
It was a time when Lloyd Hastings said he felt the most free. But now, he said, “You gotta have a permit to carry a gold pan on federal land. How silly. Who came up with that?”
Hastings believes that once land is deemed public, it’s held in trust for public use, then the public should be allowed to do what they want on it.
“They definitely should have a say on it, but they aren’t being asked anything,” Hastings said. “It’s just everything they say is being poked down their necks.”
Opinions differ among the group, but nearly all of them agree tight budgets have much to do with what they see as mismanagement and declining forest health.
“It’s been mismanaged so badly for so many years, that it’s going to take a lot of natural occurrences for it to ever get back to where it ought to be,” Hastings said.
I don't think you need a permit to carry a pan on federal lands. You may need permission to do it on private lands and private claims, but not federal lands. A sluice and all that jazz might be different, but not a pan.
Just a reminder. You don't need to comment on every thread/post.