United States v. Ned N. Richardson and Dorothy M. Richardson, Husband and Wife

Some form of poetic justice may lie in the fact that this action arose in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in the State of Washington, named for a man who was in the vanguard of conservationists and environmentalists.

In 1970 the appellants, Ned and Dorothy Richardson, filed notices of location for six mining claims in the Wind River Ranger District. The claims were situated at the confluence of Slide Creek and the East Fork of the Lewis River, an area reforested after a destructive fire some forty years ago. The area was heavily used by campers and fishermen.

Appellants explored and prospected their claims by use of heavy equipment (a bulldozer and a backhoe) and by blasting. Surface disturbance by bulldozing of three separate areas affected approximately 1.6 acres. Two trenches were excavated, one approximately 75 feet by 65 feet by twelve feet deep; the other approximately 300 feet by 100 feet by 15 feet deep. From the early days of these activities forest rangers remonstrated with the Richardsons respecting the excessive and unnecessary surface and environmental damage caused by their methods of prospecting and suggested core drilling as an alternative, but the…