When the Klondike stampeders came to the Yukon a century ago, they set up their sluices anywhere they pleased and began digging up the creeks in search of gold.

Today it's not that easy. Placer miners, governments and environmental agencies have established a system to allow mining without destroying other resources like fish. It's a better approach, but it takes more time, says Al Kapty, chair of the Yukon Placer Committee.

"Nobody goes out there on a whim. You have to be pretty serious about placer mining to go through the process, because it could take up to two years."

Under regulations that govern placer mining in the territory, a placer operation requires a water licence from the Yukon Territory Water Board. "Some of the conditions set in the water licence depend on the classification of the stream where the miner wants to work", Kapty explains.

In the Yukon Placer Authorization, all Yukon streams and lakes fall into five groupings. Most of them are Type V, or unclassified, which means that the level of protection they require has not yet been determined. An application to put a placer mine on a Type V stream triggers the process that determines how the stream will be classified.

"Streams are classified according to their use by fish", Kapty explains. "The lower the number, the higher the ranking and the higher the protection level. Type I covers the most highly-protected streams, where salmon spawn."

A miner wouldn't be allowed to mine in the bed of a Type I stream or discharge waste water into the stream. In a Type II stream, which salmonids (or salmon-like fish) use for purposes other than spawning, a small level of discharge might be permitted. In some cases, the miner could even move the stream for mining purposes, but only after providing a "compensatory channel" identical in quality to the original channel.

Type III streams, used by freshwater fish, are less highly protected because the fish are generally better able to adapt to new habitat, Kapty says.

Type IV streams either have no fish at all, fish of no significant commercial or cultural value, or fish that are widespread enough that the streams do not contribute to biodiversity. As an example, Kapty says, the stream might be blocked by a waterfall. Or it might be populated by an extremely common species like grayling. Or the stream's fish habitat might have been destroyed long ago, during the early days of placer mining.

Even on Type IV streams, mining can no longer go ahead at the expense of fish. To get a water licence, miners must now develop a mining plan that includes fish habitat restoration or compensation. Compensation means providing a diversion channel while the main stream is mined, and restoring the stream bed so that it is fully usable by fish once mining is finished.

Classifying a new stream could take months, Kapty says. If little is known about the stream's fish, personnel from the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans have to wait until open-water season and test it at times of peak use by fish. They then prepare a written rationale for classifying the stream. Once a year, in the spring, the Yukon Placer Committee recommends a block amendment to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans in order to classify streams surveyed in the past year, Kapty says.

"Once a miner knows the classification, then he can proceed with his application to the Water Board for a water licence", he says, ";but that might be a couple of years after he first applied to the Placer Committee."

Although the modern process makes setting up a mine more difficult than it was in the past, Kapty says, the idea behind the process is to help both fish and placer miners. While the process protects fish and fish habitat from damage due to mining operations, it also gives placer miners the certainty of knowing that their operations have met all legal standards and that the rules won't change unexpectedly.

The goal, says Kapty, is to keep both placer mining and the fishery as viable industries for the Yukon's future.

For more information about placer mining regulation in the Yukon, contact the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development or the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Whitehorse. For an overview of the industry's history and relationship to the environment, see the Yukon State of the Environment Report, available from Environment Canada in Whitehorse.