Judge halts mining in Sherlock Creek

After decades of on-and-off dredging activity in the former bull trout stream, Sherlock Creek off the shadowy St. Joe River is finally getting a rest.

A U.S. District Court judge has ordered a permanent injunction against mining in the creek, which has been dredged since the ‘60s in search of gold.

Now it’s unclear whether all the gold that Eugene Weiss, 84, and his son Max Weiss screened from the creek will pay for the estimated $1.9 million the government says it will cost to repair the damage and restore the creek to one that can support threatened bull trout.

Judge Edward Lodge also ruled that the miners, including fellow defendants Bill Wikstrom and Bruce Blatherwick, no longer possess a valid mining claim in the area, and activities in the area associated with the dredging constitute trespass.

“It’s important that these claims were finally invalidated,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Deborah Ferguson, “and we were able to bring enforcement action.”

In the past, whenever Weiss was ordered to stop mining, “he would wait and lie dormant 10 years or more and then he would go back and do the same dance,” she said.

Now, the U.S. Forest Service wants to start repairing the creek, which had been damaged so badly by the dredging activity that one federal biologist in 1969 called the creek a “biological desert” below the dredging operation, according to an earlier Spokesman-Review article.

Weiss reportedly built roads across U.S. Forest Service land, installed a locked gate, and straightened and dredged the creek, which is a tributary of the St. Joe, a federally designated Wild and Scenic River.

Weiss, apparently an adept mechanic, also built an enormous piece of machinery to mine the creek, Ferguson said.

“It’s alleged to be the largest dredge in the lower 48,” Ferguson said. “He brought in pieces over the years and built it on site.”

Lodge ruled that the mining claims were invalidated in 1985, but the defendants continued their mining activity.

Weiss and his son live in Montana. Their Boise attorney could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Now, the court has ordered a schedule for removing the mining equipment that’s been left at the remote dredging site, reached by a long, narrow, unimproved road. The defendants say removal will take a year, and the government wants it done immediately.

“What the parties do agree on is the fact that the removal of the equipment will be quite difficult,” Lodge wrote in his March 31 order. And, he noted, the defendants claim to have limited resources to pay for the removal.

Lodge has asked for an accounting of the materials removed from the creek bed that were sold or otherwise used since 1986, but he has not decided whether to order the defendants to pay for the repair of the creek.

Either way, “we want to see the work done,” Ferguson said. “If the defendants prove to be insolvent the Forest Service will still attempt to get funding to get the work done.”