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Prospectors
Sarina Finkelstein
With the price at an all-time-high of $1400+/oz, the miners here — victims of recent layoffs, veterans, retirees and freelancers — are dependent on the income they derive from prospecting.
SB 670, passed August 6, 2009. banned suction dredging — the most productive method for prespecting gold — pending an already delayed review of it’s enviromental impact. This law has decimated the gold prospecting community, forcing miners to seek alternative forms of economic relief, shuttering mining supply stores and reducing peripheral support to tourist business in The Golden State — drastically impacting the state’s economy and interstate commerce.
These photographs examine the irony of these prospectors, alongside images of gold souvenir shops, business and streets named of celebrate California’s gold mining history.