Guest on GPAA Claims and Leases
Your active GPAA Membership benefits include spouse or significant other and all children under the age of 18 residing within the household.
As a GPAA Member and to preserve your GPAA Membership benefits, you may invite up to 4 guests while you are prospecting on a GPAA claim or lease. Your family members and guest must be accompanied by you as the primary GPAA Member and understand that as a family member or nonmember they cannot return to the site without you.
Your guests are limited to gold panning, or they may assist you in limited prospecting and must help in the federally required reclamation. Guests are not allowed to operate their own equipment or any members additional equipment.
GPAA Code of Ethics.
GPAA Code of Ethics must be adhered to by all GPAA Member and their guest.
These Code of Ethics have been in place since 1970. Please follow this link to GPAA Code of Ethics. https://www.goldprospectors.org/Forum/aft/7665
Prospecting and Mining on Private Lands outside of your GPAA - LDMA Membership must only be done with the express written consent of the landowner. Failure to have permission constitutes trespassing.
Federal and State Regulations
The Federal agencies BLM and USFS have federal regulations and policies in place for all federally managed public lands.
States are required to meet federal regulations and in cases of proven environmental impact and water quality concerns they may with federal approval exceed federal regulations.
The GPAA Claims Department is on all federal and state regulations mailings and when we have updated information, the information is included in this section.
It is however essential that members contact the regions federal and state offices prior to prospecting in areas where they are unaware of current regulations. Regulations can change with federal and state delays in informing claim owners.
ALASKA:
Prospecting on private (patented) lands requires permission from the land owner prior to any such activities.
United States Forest Service & BLM:
Prospecting (other than panning) on National Forest lands and or BLM lands may require a Notice of Intent or a formal Plan of Operation. Check with the District Ranger for specific regulations and guidelines. District office locations may be obtained from the National Forest Supervisor's Office and/or BLM:
USFS Region 10: Alaska State BLM Office:
PO Box 21628 222 W 7th Avenue #13
Juneau, AK 99802-1628 Anchorage, AK 99513
Phone: 907-586-8806 Phone: 907-271-5960
In most cases, only the use of gold pans, shovels, pry bars, picks, and manually fed sluice boxes and rocker boxes are allowed in streams on public lands without a permit or authorization. In Chugach and Kenai Peninsula State Parks, (the only state parks which are presently open to any recreational mining activity) an individual is limited to one gold pan, one shovel, and one sluice box which is three (3) feet or less in length and fifteen (15) inches in width.
In national parks and preserves, only surface sampling with a hand-held gold pan is allowed. No digging tools are allowed. Regardless of land status, the use of motorized earth-moving equipment, hydraulic mining either by gravity or mechanical methods, or the use of chemicals is not permitted by recreational miners.
Suction dredges with a suction hose diameter of four inches or less and sixteen horsepower or less may be used under certain conditions in national forests and on BLM lands. Check with the managing agency. If you are using a dredge of any size, you must check with the Alaska Department of Fish & Game, Sportfish Division. Streams may be restricted because anadromous fish use them for migration, spawning, and/ rearing. Some streams are restricted during certain times of the year. The list of streams is quite long, and you must know which stream you are interested in working before requesting a permit. On any land in Alaska, a suction dredge with a nozzle diameter greater than six inches or a motor with more than sixteen horsepower or which processes more than 220 cubic yards/day requires a tri-agency permit which can be obtained from the Alaska Division of Mining. Suction dredges with a suction hose diameter greater than four inches require that a “Notice of Intent” be filed with the district manager.