"If we left it unchecked it would be a big deal. The 51,000-acre Uwharrie National Forest banned suction dredging about five years ago.
Last spring, LandTrust posted its property to keep out prospectors, igniting a firestorm of protest, Walser said. "What we have seen is a steady increase both in the number of people and in the equipment investment and the time they're spending out there." "There's always a couple of people down there on the weekends, suction dredging," said Jason Walser, executive director of LandTrust for Central North Carolina, a Salisbury conservation group that owns 1,300 acres along the Uwharrie. But increased pressure from enthusiasts has raised concern on the Uwharrie River, which flows through the gold-rich heart of the Piedmont about 50 miles east of Charlotte. North Carolina requires no permits for recreational prospecting.
California placed a moratorium on the practice in 2009 because of its damage to spawning salmon. That's a problem for anything living on the bottom, including mussels, fish eggs and aquatic insects, which can be killed by the machines or smothered in stirred-up sediment. The devices work like underwater vacuum cleaners, sucking gravel and dirt into sluice boxes that catch any gold and dump other material back into the river. As the price of gold mounts, some weekend prospectors have turned to machines called suction dredges.
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