tiCalifornia’s gold rush
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 16, 1980
‘Recreational miners’head out to the deserts and rivers
United Press International
/ BONSALL, Calif. —The Califor
nia gold rush is on once again,
i] Skyrocketing gold prices have pro
duced the “recreational miner’’ — a
new breed of prospector that would
baffle the burro-and-sourdough
prospector of the Old West.
With an ounce of gold now selling
for more than $650, the small, at one
time almost worthless amounts of
fine gold dust an amateur can pan out
of gravel, are now valuable.
Residents of western states are
joining the search by the thousands.
Often, they are middle class families
out to find enough gold in the deserts
or mountain rivers to pay for a vaca
tion or weekend camping trip.
George Massie, president of the
Gold Prospectors Association of
America, said that two years ago the
association consisted of about 40,000
members. But last month the mem
bership jumped to 52,000, and it cur
rently stands at 65,000, he said.
“With the price of gold going up
the way it is, everybody and his
brother wants to get into recreational
mining,” Massie said.
The association is made up of
“mostly weekend people,” said Dave
Troesh, 33, a former drugstore man
ager who knew nothing about pros
pecting when he took it up as a hobby
18 months ago. The native Califor
nian said he now lives on the gold he
pans from the Stanislaus River near
Sonoma.
“I’m not making a great living,” he
said, “but I do well enough to get
along. ”
But he won’t say how much is
“well enough.”
The prospectors and miners are
reluctant to talk about how much
money they make.
“Not if you’re going to put my
name in the paper where the tax peo
ple can read it,” said one. “You’ll
never get a straight answer on that
one from anybody,’’ answered
another.
Jerry Keene, head of Keene En
gineering of Northridge, Calif, said,
“Without mentioning names, I know
of a guy in northern California who
began working at it full time, and I
hear he’s getting about 10 ounces a
day.”
Keene, who claims his company is
the largest maker and distributor of
portable mining equipment in the
world, added that at today’s prices,
that’s more than $6,000 a day.
Whatever the prospectors and
miners make, Keene and others in
his business have found a bonanza
supplying them with everything
from maps and $2 gold pans to $4,000
power dredges.
The best equipped amateur gold
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SAFEWAY | and a little bit more
seekers use the small power dredges
to suck up river gravel for sifting. In
California, they need a $5 license
from the state Department of Fish
and Game. The department issued
5,208 permits in 1979, an increase of
1,450 from 1978.
Keene said, “Our business is pri
marily recreational mining, and
we’ve been running about $2 million
to $3 million a year. Now I’m looking
at $1 million a month.
“Business doubles by the month. I
moved into a larger factory five years
ago. Now I’m running two shifts a
day, six days a week, and we’ll be
operating 24 hours a day later this
month.”
W.G. Scotti of San Francisco Min
ing and Lapidary said he sold about
two dozen small power dredges in
January and is now back ordered up
to eight weeks.
Fake nurse
caught in
El Paso
United Press International
EL PASO, — A woman posing as a
nurse has been making money by
giving immunizations of stolen polio
vaccine to school children, author
ities say.
An invesitigation began after the
school nurse in Canutillo, a suburb
west of El Paso, became suspicious
when a student presented a vaccina
tion record bearing a doctor’s signa
ture stamp instead of a real signa
ture.
“She contacted a health depart
ment nurse who contacted the head
department nurse and they got the
child’s mother and found out she got
the shots from this woman,” Dr. Ber
nard Rosenbloom, director of the El
Paso City-County Health Depart
ment, said Monday.
“In checking into this, we found
she’d worked at three or four medical
places in El Paso and was discharged
from each place. Allegedly after she
left, they found things missing —
immunizations, vaccines, this sort of
thing.
“She’s been passing herself off as a
nurse, and,, ^iyipg jfiimunizstiop^/
Stat,e .PepafL.
ment of Health and State Board of
Medical Examiners will determine
whether to charge the woman with
practicing medicine without a
license, Rosenbloom added.
Reagan
low on
money
United Press International
LOS ANGELES — Ronald
Reagan has only $4 million of his $18
million budget left for his drive for
the Republican presidential nomina
tion but his campaign treasurer feels
it will be enough to cover the re
maining primaries and the July con
vention.
“We have to be cautious,” treasur
er Bay Buchanan said in an interview
Monday.
“But the budget has quite a bit of
flexibility. We know that $4 million
is enough to cover the next four
months and to cover the conven
tion,” she said.
Reagan spent the day at three
private fund raisers in Los Angeles
before meeting with volunteers at
his Inglewood headquarters. On
Tuesday, he heads for Indiana and
the start of a four-day, four-state
campaign trip.
Under the direction of ousted
campaign manager Johrt Sears, fired
by Reagan the day of the New
Hampshire primary, the campaign
ate up by Feb. 26 more than two-
thirds of the federal limit of about
$17.5 million allowed for primaries.
New campaign manager William
Casey then instituted a series of cost
saving steps.
About 80 people left the campaign
either because they weren’t needed
after the early primaries or they were
fired. In other reductions, staffers
making more than $15,000 took a 50
percent cut in salary above that
amount. There have been reductions
in purchases of broadcast advertising
and political mailings and telephone
banks.
“We’re the strong frontrunner, so
there is not the need to spend the
money as if we re behind,” said
Buchanan.
There also are fewer staffers
traveling with Reagan and those who
do now double up in hotel rooms.
Buchanan estimated that staff re
ductions have saved about $250,000
a month.
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