Shotgun-toting enviro-cops raid Alaskan gold miners to check water cleanliness

“Imagine coming up to your diggings, only to see agents swarming over it like ants, wearing full body armor... all packing side arms,” said one miner.

CHICKEN, AK — A group of gold miners working in the remote Alaskan wilderness were shocked when they saw eight members of a well-armed gang emerge from the forest pointing shotguns at them. The gang was wearing body armor and claimed to be the police. Why were these shotgun-toting men swarming their job site? A water cleanliness check.

“Imagine coming up to your diggings, only to see agents swarming over it like ants, wearing full body armor, with jackets that say POLICE emblazoned on them, and all packing side arms,” said miner C.R. “Dick” Hammond to the Alaska Dispatch.

“How would you have felt?” Hammond asked. “You would be wondering, ‘My God, what have I done now?’”

The armed agents were a part of the Alaska Environmental Crimes Task Force, representing as many as 10 state and federal agencies, including the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). They purportedly were searching for violations of Section 404 of the Clean Water Act. The incident occurred the week of August 19, 2013.

Alaska Governor Sean Parnell said he would order an investigation of the incident, adding, “this level of intrusion and intimidation of Alaskans is absolutely unacceptable.”

The EPA justified the aggressiveness of the raid with the excuse that the Alaskan wilderness was home to rampant “drug and human trafficking.” Keep in mind, the town of Chicken itself has only 17 permanent residents, an nobody had ever heard of any drug or human trafficking in their remote outpost.

The EPA went on to claim that they received the tip about the trafficking from the Alaskan State Troopers. But the spokeswoman for the state troopers “told the newspaper that it did not advise EPA officials to conduct the raid, adding that no evidence exists to believe those crimes are occurring,” reported Fox News.

“Their explanation — that there are concerns with the area of rampant drug trafficking and human trafficking going on — sounds wholly concocted to me,” U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski told the Alaska Dispatch. “This seems to have been a heavy-handed and heavy-armor approach. Why was it so confrontational? The EPA really didn’t have any good answers for this.”

Why must every trip in the field be a paramilitary excursion? If water cleanliness is a legitimate function of government, why must it be a federal matter? And what prompted this raid? Is it not appropriate to wait for a complaint, or tangible reason to begin an investigation, before sending in an team just to perform a “check”?

UPDATE: (9/14/2013) The tiny town of Chicken saw some high-profile activity this week, as a town hall meeting was called to discuss the incident, attended by Governor Sean Parnell, congressional aides, federal bureaucrats from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and the Alaska Deputy Director for the EPA, Ken Fisher. The meeting was attended by 40 people — more than twice the population of the remote mining outpost.

Angry residents tore into the federal bureaucrats over their excessive enforcement tactics.

“There is nothing casual or consensual about eight armed men who come running into camp, and head straight for your sluice box,” said David Likins, an area gold miner.

“I thought they were starting World War III,” said miner Linda Kile, her voice quivering.

Some pointed out that charging into a gold miner’s claim with guns drawn could be perceived as a robbery. But the EPA boss credited his men anyway.

“We believe there were no problems because of the actions of our trained and professional officers,” said Ken Fisher, spurring the crowd into rowdy laughter.