NORS answer to TVA permit ban

[RJinTennessee]

These are important questions. Each state owns the beds and banks of the navigable rivers within their boundaries, holding these strips of land in trust for public navigation, recreation, and fishing. The public easement to walk upon these strips of land (or pass over them in boats) in connection with these activities is supported by federal law, but the actual taking of objects, such as sand, gravel, gold nuggets, and artifacts, is regulated by state law, which varies state by state. For example, states typically allow small-scale, recreational gold panning and dredging, using small motorized dredges up to a certain size, without charging people for the gold they may find.
When a government dam-building agency such as TVA builds a project, it typically gets the state government to sign documents giving it jurisdiction over the lands and waters involved in the project. However, such documents do not eliminate public rights on the lands and waters involved--the law is that the public trust in rivers can never be lost. If Tennessee law allows you to do metal detecting in riverbeds, TVA may be overstepping its authority with a blanket prohibition on metal detecting. Generally, TVA lakes or reservoirs are still parts of public rivers, since they simply widen existing rivers that the state owns in trust for the public and cannot relinquish.
However, TVA can still fine you or arrest you based on their notions of their own authority--various government agencies fine or arrest people in unlawful ways quite frequently. If they do, it's up to you to fight it in court, which usually requires a lawyer and costs a lot. Therefore, the better way for people to deal with government agencies, in recreational disputes such as this, is usually through elected representatives. Since your dispute involves both state and federal law, call and visit the local offices of both your state legislators and your federal representative and senators. See which staff members, at which offices, are willing to ask TVA to change its metal-detecting policy, on the grounds that it appears to overstep TVA authority, by eliminating a public right that state law allows.
TVA may reply that it does indeed have this authority, and has reasons to impose it. However, that is when you need to hold your ground, by asking the staff person you are working with to insist on a TVA change of policy that will stop interfering with your legal right to use metal detectors on these public lands.
You can use anything from the NOR website in your dialog with these people. Within a few weeks NOR will have a complete e-book about public rights on rivers, citing many U.S.Supreme Court decisions and other law that supports these public rights in perpetuity. The new e-book will be prominently announced on the NOR home page.
Your contribution will help NOR continue to defend public rights on rivers against encroachment by certain government agencies and landowners.
We look forward to your further posts about this issue.
~Team NOR

 

[Tom_in_CA]

A few questions:

a) what is "NOR", and what is their website link?

b) what is the background behind this answer from this entity "NOR"? I mean, what question(s) precipitated this? To know the question they were answering (in its context and way of wording) would help to shed light on the answer they're giving (helps to know the question posed to them).

Just generally leally speaking, I notice these statements from "NOR":

"When a government dam-building agency such as TVA builds a project, it typically gets the state government to sign documents giving it jurisdiction over the lands and waters involved in the project."

Ok, from the first statement, we can infer that TVA has some granted level of authority. Stands to reason. If they manage the lands afterall. How can you manage something, if you have utterly no authority to do anything? So of COURSE they have "authority" there to do their jobs.

And that leads us to the 2nd quote:

"TVA may reply that it does indeed have this authority, and has reasons to impose it."

Well gee, that's easy for them! In fact, that's easy for ANY entity to do. No matter how innocuous a sandbox somewhere may be. All that some pencil pusher has to do, is cite any number of wonderful things. Like holes, cultural heritage, etc.....

Why oh why oh why did someone, way-back-when, ever get the idea to have this rule IN THE FIRST PLACE? This rule that you now "must fight"? Does anyone know the genesis of this? When did it first come into being (since certainly TVA 's origins must predate the advent of metal detectors, right?). What lead to someone there thinking they needed to make a rule? The knee-jerk reaction to this question, when it concerns turfed parks, is "someone must've left holes", right? But in this case, how could that be? Isn't this just lake and river shores? (hardly "turf", eh?) So what led to this, in the first place??

 

[BootyHunter]

A few questions:

a) what is "NOR", and what is their website link?

b) what is the background behind this answer from this entity "NOR"? I mean, what question(s) precipitated this? To know the question they were answering (in its context and way of wording) would help to shed light on the answer they're giving (helps to know the question posed to them).

Just generally leally speaking, I notice these statements from "NOR":

"When a government dam-building agency such as TVA builds a project, it typically gets the state government to sign documents giving it jurisdiction over the lands and waters involved in the project."

Ok, from the first statement, we can infer that TVA has some granted level of authority. Stands to reason. If they manage the lands afterall. How can you manage something, if you have utterly no authority to do anything? So of COURSE they have "authority" there to do their jobs.

And that leads us to the 2nd quote:

"TVA may reply that it does indeed have this authority, and has reasons to impose it."

Well gee, that's easy for them! In fact, that's easy for ANY entity to do. No matter how innocuous a sandbox somewhere may be. All that some pencil pusher has to do, is cite any number of wonderful things. Like holes, cultural heritage, etc.....

Why oh why oh why did someone, way-back-when, ever get the idea to have this rule IN THE FIRST PLACE? This rule that you now "must fight"? Does anyone know the genesis of this? When did it first come into being (since certainly TVA 's origins must predate the advent of metal detectors, right?). What lead to someone there thinking they needed to make a rule? The knee-jerk reaction to this question, when it concerns turfed parks, is "someone must've left holes", right? But in this case, how could that be? Isn't this just lake and river shores? (hardly "turf", eh?) So what led to this, in the first place??

Tom in CA, look up ARPA. archaeological resources protection act. That's where a lot of this TVA business comes in and they were added under that umbrella in 1979. It's serious business, you can get in deep crap by doing some pretty innocent stuff. Research some of the cases, and their outcome. So while I appreciate you're "just go ahead and hunt wherever you want it will probably be ok" and " don't ask and they won't get the idea they can tell you no" attitude, I really do, but you can lose your detector, your car and depending what line of work your in your job by something as simple as picking up an old bottle. Research this crap, it needs to be changed. OP. pm me sometime we need to get together on this as in in TN too.

 

[RJinTennessee]

This is the question I posed to NOR, as well as their information..

Hello, I am from Tennessee and I am an avid treasure hunter. I have for several years been able to hunt the waters on TVA lakes and the Tennessee River. Due to a case of someone taking Indian artifacts from the river banks, TVA now prohibits metal detector use on TVA property.

Does that include the Tennessee River? Watts Bar Lake? The other waters bordering their property? Do they have the right to fine me for searching in the water, or the riverbed when the water is down? If I stay in the water/riverbed can they have me arrested for doing so? I am totally confused.


website: http://nationalrivers.org
email: nationalrivers@gmail.com
fb: National Organization for Rivers-NOR

 

[KinTN]

Tom, as BH said, the 'no metal detecting' rule came about as a result of indian relic hunters (VERY prohibited on TVA lands and they go ape when they catch someone pocketing an arrowhead) carrying around cheap metal detectors claiming they were detecting. This is a pretty thin excuse imo, as the areas that we were permitted to detect were pretty limited even before that (swimming areas, boat launch ramps, etc) and they had a permit system in place to kinda keep the real idiots out.

It may also be a result of them laying off their entire 1st line police force (at least in TN, don't know about other states) and only having detectives with police powers now. No manpower = more rules to make it easier to keep people off "their" lands. Just like the kid in the sandbox imo.

TVA does play rough tho. I have been told that they will confiscate detectors and have done so with regularity in the past. Of course, as NOR suggests, you can always fight them in court while paying the lawyers on both sides (yours + TVA's with your tax money). SOMEday, Americans will have had enough of this gov poop and it wont be pretty.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Well, if the genesis was indian stuff (and that time-line of their reason-for-doing this can clearly be shown to be this logic), then.......... does anyone else see the disconnect here? I don't know about your indians over there, but correct me if I'm wrong, but the indians had no refined metals. Metal detectors can't find arrowheads even if they wanted to. So if indian stuff was what they were trying to protect, then banning detectors will not aid in that effort.

Therefore seems like an arbitrary rule that would be easy to fight ticket, as an over-reach of any logical rationale. Like the NOR said, you can get a ticket and claim that higher-rules (ARPA or whatever) they claimed to be following, does not *technically* forbid detecting, and thus the specific rules they dreamt up ("no metal detecting") are an over-reach of their granted authority.

But that's just me. It's easy for me to say, since I'm nowhere near there. But if I were and if I saw an good spot to detect, I would not hesitate to hit it.

 

[TNreb]

When I lived in Knoxville I bought a TVA permit which has now expired. I got it just so I could hunt some swim areas for rings. I only hunted on TVA property once so it really wasn't worth it for me. You are correct in that you can no longer hunt on TVA property. The FBI raided a civil war relic shop in Knoxville as they were trying to find the people who have been diving for relics in the river. This also was why they put the halt on things. The way I look at it is there are many other places to hunt. But I also don't like the fact that you can no longer hunt the waterways. Perhaps they will bring back the permits in the future. Since the ban I researched and found some civil war sites that are now on TVA property which would be great to hunt in the winter when the water is low. So I am now just waiting to see if the ban will ever be lifted so I can hunt these sites.

 

[BootyHunter]

When I lived in Knoxville I bought a TVA permit which has now expired. I got it just so I could hunt some swim areas for rings. I only hunted on TVA property once so it really wasn't worth it for me. You are correct in that you can no longer hunt on TVA property. The FBI raided a civil war relic shop in Knoxville as they were trying to find the people who have been diving for relics in the river. This also was why they put the halt on things. The way I look at it is there are many other places to hunt. But I also don't like the fact that you can no longer hunt the waterways. Perhaps they will bring back the permits in the future. Since the ban I researched and found some civil war sites that are now on TVA property which would be great to hunt in the winter when the water is low. So I am now just waiting to see if the ban will ever be lifted so I can hunt these sites.

Well I don't know when you were in Knoxville but for the last several years the permits were free, you simply had to fill out an application and provide a copy of your dl. The thing is none of these swim areas are located where relics are, but it sucks because once its taken away it will be nearly impossible to get it back. There's talk of the government selling TVA, I hope this happens but truth is if a private industry takes over the swim areas will prob be closed down entirely because why would they want that liability?? The TVA used to have a police force which they no longer have so I'm thinking it just got to difficult for them to enforce who had permits and who did not then the TVA employs Archie's and of course they can't stand the thought of a metal detector so they were pushing for it to be cut out anyway.

The thing is theses relics are there and just withering away with each passing year, do I think people should loot battle fields and things? Absolutely not, but if they want to "protect" these relics then they should do a site study and recover those relics to be preserved for future generations. Archie's are so quick to jump at metal detectorists as looters, well that's high and mighty talk from the Egyptian grave robbers! They have robbed graves all over the world under the moniker of archaleogical research. Most of these places they are "protecting" are not battlegrounds but just troop campsites and areas of movement where relics remain, not skeletal remains.

It's shameful that fishing is allowed at the swim areas but no longer metal detecting. I will post a picture of some of the lures and hooks I have pulled out of the swim areas when I was hunting there legally under my permit, it is scary. It's time we organize and get some of these laws changed or in the not so distant future we won't have any place to detect. Some of these md manufacturers need to wake up, get on board with us and aid us with some lobbiest of our own to protect our hobby or the md manufactures will find themselves out of business some day not to far in the future.

 

[KinTN]

Tom, its not that the relic hunters were using metal detectors to find indian relics, they were using md'ers as a prop to make it appear that they were metal detecting while they were actually arrowhead hunting by eyeball. Sorry if I didn't make that clear.

 

[jyt2017]

Private property, meaning like some ones yard, and a few other spots are real deal. No hunting means no hunting. Take cape cod national seashore. The national police force will arrest you, take your machine and tow your vehicle.

The national police force have military grade surveilence equipment, so even a midnight hunt is a risk.

With all the places that you can hunt, it is just not worth it to hunt where it is some ones job to to take your stuff and your freedom.

A few questions:

a) what is "NOR", and what is their website link?

b) what is the background behind this answer from this entity "NOR"? I mean, what question(s) precipitated this? To know the question they were answering (in its context and way of wording) would help to shed light on the answer they're giving (helps to know the question posed to them).

Just generally leally speaking, I notice these statements from "NOR":

"When a government dam-building agency such as TVA builds a project, it typically gets the state government to sign documents giving it jurisdiction over the lands and waters involved in the project."

Ok, from the first statement, we can infer that TVA has some granted level of authority. Stands to reason. If they manage the lands afterall. How can you manage something, if you have utterly no authority to do anything? So of COURSE they have "authority" there to do their jobs.

And that leads us to the 2nd quote:

"TVA may reply that it does indeed have this authority, and has reasons to impose it."

Well gee, that's easy for them! In fact, that's easy for ANY entity to do. No matter how innocuous a sandbox somewhere may be. All that some pencil pusher has to do, is cite any number of wonderful things. Like holes, cultural heritage, etc.....

Why oh why oh why did someone, way-back-when, ever get the idea to have this rule IN THE FIRST PLACE? This rule that you now "must fight"? Does anyone know the genesis of this? When did it first come into being (since certainly TVA 's origins must predate the advent of metal detectors, right?). What lead to someone there thinking they needed to make a rule? The knee-jerk reaction to this question, when it concerns turfed parks, is "someone must've left holes", right? But in this case, how could that be? Isn't this just lake and river shores? (hardly "turf", eh?) So what led to this, in the first place??

Tom in CA, look up ARPA. archaeological resources protection act. That's where a lot of this TVA business comes in and they were added under that umbrella in 1979. It's serious business, you can get in deep crap by doing some pretty innocent stuff. Research some of the cases, and their outcome. So while I appreciate you're "just go ahead and hunt wherever you want it will probably be ok" and " don't ask and they won't get the idea they can tell you no" attitude, I really do, but you can lose your detector, your car and depending what line of work your in your job by something as simple as picking up an old bottle. Research this crap, it needs to be changed. OP. pm me sometime we need to get together on this as in in TN too.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Joeb, can you give us any examples of a metal detectorist at Cape Cod national seashore who got "arrested", and "their machine taken away" and "their vehicle towed" ? If you have any such incident to cite, I'd love to hear it.

 

[BootyHunter]

Joeb, can you give us any examples of a metal detectorist at Cape Cod national seashore who got "arrested", and "their machine taken away" and "their vehicle towed" ? If you have any such incident to cite, I'd love to hear it.

Tom, I asked you to look up ARPA violations and if you had you would have found plenty of examples of people who have been charged with it and convicted of it and given serious penalties. You obviously did not research it or you would have seen these examples for yourself. ARPA is a federal offense, it's nt just a tva thing, You go right ahead and hunt wherever you think it's ok, you may get away with it, but if you don't you will then understand what the "big deal" is.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

The question was not "has anyone ever been prosecuted under ARPA ?". Read again and you will see . The question was specifically about THIS location .

As for whether order not anyone ever got prosecuted anytime under ARPA , well sure . And so too has there no doubt been extreme examples of someone getting roughed up and thrown into jail for having a tail light out in a traffic stop.

 

[hershey1]

I hunt swimming areas often and have no problems with TVA police. Have any of the hunters talked to the TVA police at the site you would like to hunt. If not do so and tell them exactly what you would like to do. I have never heard of a detector being confiscated or vehicle taken for metal detecting. Poaching deer or hunting illegally or digging Indian artifacts maybe. The on-site TVA police has all the power where they work not the fat lady in the twin towers.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

What? you weren't arrested? Say it isn't so!! From what I'm reading here ... you should be long gone

We had a situation here in CA on a fed. beach ( that I suppose is technically also supposed to be under ARPA ). And a guy that simply didn't know any better hit it. Odd thing was .... he went for several months at any and all times of day. Yup, in front of manned lifegaurd towers, right past rangers, etc....! No one cared!

Imagine his surprise when another md'r said "I thought that beach was off-limits?". In fact, he thought they must be mistaken. Because *certainly* someone would have said something by now .... eh? He had wondered why the pickens were so good, & now he knew (because all the other md'rs had been avoiding it, doh! ). You can bet he had half a mind just too keep going , since by then it was painfully obvious no one cared .

 

[KinTN]

Hershey, talk to the long timers at SMARTS. They were the ones who origionally told me about the confiscations. Also spoke with a TVA policeman a few years ago and he said that they will and have done that.

I have also talked to local rangers/tva folks, and have received permission to hunt dry and wet TVA land under their jurisdiction. Polite and respectful pay off sometimes. I knew it was not allowed, but introduced myself, gave them my card with contact info, offered to help anyone who might lose something metallic at no charge, told them how I hunted and the tools (trowel) I used, and then asked if they ever allowed hunting in such and such area (swim areas, mostly). Had I acted like trailer trash or asserted my rights, the best I think I would have gotten is ordered off the property.


[size=x-small](eta for the non TN folks: SMARTS is the local east TN metal detecting club)[/size]

 

[BootyHunter]

What? you weren't arrested? Say it isn't so!! From what I'm reading here ... you should be long gone

We had a situation here in CA on a fed. beach ( that I suppose is technically also supposed to be under ARPA ). And a guy that simply didn't know any better hit it. Odd thing was .... he went for several months at any and all times of day. Yup, in front of manned lifegaurd towers, right past rangers, etc....! No one cared!

Imagine his surprise when another md'r said "I thought that beach was off-limits?". In fact, he thought they must be mistaken. Because *certainly* someone would have said something by now .... eh? He had wondered why the pickens were so good, & now he knew (because all the other md'rs had been avoiding it, doh! ). You can bet he had half a mind just too keep going , since by then it was painfully obvious no one cared .

Well Tom, I do personally know 3 people who were not metal detecting, but simply picking up old bottles and other relics on a river bank that was marked as a town park property not TVA property, anyway they were not "warned" or did not get any 2nd chance even though it was just a mistake. They were charged with ARPA violations and had to appear in Federal Court. They hired an attorney to represent them because they were facing a fine of $500 and 1year probation MINIUM. All 3 had jobs as public employees and the Government agency that they work for have a policy that if an employee is placed on probation for "any reason" their job is terminated. That's the reason they hired the attorney, to save their jobs.
So while you may think we are all just" scared" and "overacting" some of us have the good sense to know that not all things in this world are as they should be and their are major consequences if you violate one of these stupid rules.
Go ahead and hunt wherever you please, if a few coins and rings are worth risking your job and freedom then by all means go ahead.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Well this is an interesting answer. For one, it's not TVA property as you say (if I'm understanding you correctly). And is not metal detecting (although admittedly similar practice). It was town property (if I understand your post). And yet.... somehow ARPA was said to apply to "town" (city) property? (vs. federal domain land??).

But all those discrepancies aside (from my challenge to cite an example of the OP's particular situation HERE), let me address what you've just said:

Regarding the oft-cited things we md'rs are told are looming: "you will get arrested" and "you will get fined" and "you will go to jail" and "your equipment will get confiscated" Those fears we are to prepared for, are often-cited whenever discussion of detecting in public places comes up (sometimes for simple things like going to a city park w/o first having asked the city manager for his permission!). And as I did here, I always offer up my challenge for someone ... anyone ... to CITE such an example of those things happening. Because although it's the things we are told can happen, yet ..... very very few examples of such things happening, are ever forth-coming. So at *some* point, it would *seem* a person would have to say to themselves "really? am I really supposed to think these things are imminent?". That's why I pose the question. And 99% of the time, when I pose the question, it's exactly as I've surmised: the person making the claim knows of no such instance of anything like that ever happening!

HOWEVER: each time I pose that challenge, I am painfully aware, that ... sure enough... I'm sure there's going to be SOME example, ... SOMEWHERE, that someone can cite. Therefore I *used* to add an explanatory paragraph to my challenge. But I stopped doing so in the interest of space/text. The clarification to the challenge was along the lines of how ... yes ... I'm sure that there will be some instance of this extreme happening. But I would draw an analogy to the illustration of how so-too are there instances of a motorist being roughed up by an over-zealous cop (who wishes to make an example of the scofflaws) for nothing but a tail-light out. Yup, his car seized, arrested, fined, etc... for nothing but a tail-light out.

Or put another way: If I told you that you should not ride the subway to NY anymore "because you will get stabbed", you might say to me: That's silly, I won't get stabbed simply for taking the subway to work". Yet I bet I can show you instances of people "getting stabbed in the subway". I can show you headlines of that very thing happening. So .... how could you argue with that?

Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying we should all go detect TVA lands. By all means: if there's a real law that says "no metal detecting", by all means, obey it (especially if it's really enforced somewhere).

 

[BootyHunter]

Well you are correct Tom, I'm sure very few are caught In the act and prosecuted. It's like speeders on the highway, a whole lot more do it than get caught. Question is, Can you afford to be that one that is caught, that is prosecuted, that loses his detector, vehicle and possibly job depending on what one does for a living?? The obvious answer to me is No, I can not afford to risk losing those things. But as you have said, and I know to be true, you will probably get away with it. Looking at the risk vs reward, it just is not worth it to me but hey, To each his own. And for the record I think most of these vexacious laws are bogus crap ,they should protect Indian burial grounds and battlegrounds but they use crap like ARPA to over step their bounds.