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LETTERS AND INFOR MATION ON PROSPECTING IN MARYLAND DIRECT FROM DNR

Posted by paul conroy on January 5, 2016 at 5:30pm

these will be all the letters I have received on this , I hope this will answer anyone's questions on this issue. and sorry for the length of it but wanted them all in here.  I WOULD SUGGEST TO COPY AND PRINT THIS TO HAVE WITH YOU WHILE OUT IN MARYLAND JUST IN CASE!!

we are allowed to prospect using detectors, sluice, high bankers and dredges. but permission and land usage has to be given by the property owners.


On Sun, Jan 3, 2016 at 12:37 AM, Paul C <paulconroy68@yahoo.com> wrote:
good evening Mrs/Ms Hoerger,

I have been trying to find some information for recreational prospecting in Maryland and the laws governing its equipment that can or cant be used as well as its policies. now I have gone thru the natural resource police website, dcnr, epa , and several other government agency websites and several dozen private/group websites. and unfortunately I cant not find information on this topic that is reliable or it just is not there. if you could be so kind could you please point me into the right direction to try to receive the correct information on this issue; it would be greatly appreciated. for there is too many misnomers out there and I would like to get it straight from the horses mouth so to speak to make sure that there would be no problem enjoying this hobby, the outdoors, and time together spent with the friendship that goes along with this. for you will find many of us are great stewards of the areas we visit, for not only do we go prospecting but we also hunt, fish, go camping, etc. in the same areas, and many of us live in this same area or have friends that do.

sincerely,

Paul J Conroy Sr 172 David Lane Somerset,P.A. 15501 814-443-1193 PaulConroy68@yahoo.com
Mr. Conroy,
I have received your inquiry and will determine who within DNR would be the best contact for the information you want.  I will be back in touch with you when I have identified the appropriate point of contact.

LT Colonel Robert K. (Ken) Ziegler, Jr.
Acting Superintendent
Maryland Natural Resources Police
580 Taylor Ave.
Annapolis, MD 21401
410-260-8887 Office
443-510-3069 Cell

Good Morning Mr. Conroy,

I am unaware if the State of Maryland has laws governing this activity whether it be on private or State-owned lands.  I will check with my colleagues at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources to see if this activity is permitted on public lands, and if so, what restrictions, if any exist.
I hope to get this information to you as soon as I can.  Stay tuned.  

Take care!
Lisa
Sincerely,
Lisa A. Hoerger
Regulations and Mapping Coordinator
Critical Area Commission for the
  Chesapeake and Atlantic Coastal Bays
1804 West Street, Suite 100
Annapolis, Maryland 21401
(410) 260-3478
Mr. Conroy,
So far I have contacted three State agencies for information about recreational prospecting.  The Maryland Department of the Environment (Mining Division), the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (Parks), and the Maryland Geological Survey.
The Maryland Park Service has responded with the following information:
Recreational prospecting is not allowed. Most of "collecting of things" requires a permit. A Minimal Impact Use Agreement is used as a "permit" to allow for scientific research. Exceptions to the permit requirement are very minor things like kids picking blackberries or collecting leaves/acorns for personal use. They would work directly with the Park Manager for authorization.
As soon as I receive feedback from the other agencies, I will pass along that information.  
In the meantime, you may be interested in looking at the Maryland Geological Survey's website,  http://www.mgs.md.gov/.  It includes a wealth of information about Maryland's geological resources.
Lisa 

Sincerely,
Lisa A. Hoerger
Regulations and Mapping Coordinator
Critical Area Commission for the
  Chesapeake and Atlantic Coastal Bays
1804 West Street, Suite 100
Annapolis, Maryland 21401
(410) 260-3478
Mr.  Conroy,
 
Here is the response from the Maryland  Geological Survey. 
 
Dear Ms. Hoerger:
 
Maryland law prohibits the collection, destruction, and/or disturbance of all natural resourcesr (flora, fauna, rocks, minerals, soils, caves, archeological/historical sites and artifacts) on State owned lands: State parks, protected environmental areas, and wildlife refuges  There are additional State laws pertaining to caves and archeological sites in the State.  There are no State laws governing recreational collecting on privately owned lands other than trespassing laws.  Arrangements to collect on private property are made between the landowner and the collector.
 
Sincerely,
 
 
D.W. Shelton
MGS
 
 
 

On Mon, Jan 4, 2016 at 12:08 PM, Lisa Hoerger -DNR-<lisa.hoerger@maryland.gov> wrote:
Dale,
 
I received an email inquiry from a customer about recreational prospecting in Maryland.
 
Do you know if there are any laws or regulations about this activity on State lands?  
 
Any other information you have would be great.
 
Thank you!
 
Lisa

Sincerely,
 
Lisa A. Hoerger
Regulations and Mapping Coordinator
Critical Area Commission for the
  Chesapeake and Atlantic Coastal Bays

Hello Mr. Conroy,

I have received your inquiry about prospecting in Maryland’s State Parks and am answering on behalf of Lt. Col. Robert Ziegler of the Natural Resources Police. The information regarding your request can be found on the following link

http://dnr2.maryland.gov/Publiclands/Pages/MetalDetecting.aspx

Beyond the regulatory piece of the answer listed in the link above, the spirit of the law is that these regulations are intended to help us protect and preserve the natural resources of the State Parks, so that future generations will find places that reflect nature in its most original and intact form. 

The policy covers the use of metal detectors in our parks. Some parks do allow metal detecting on site (beach parks) during specific seasons and hours. Each State Park will address the specific use of metal detectors on their websites. The following link will provide you with a map of all Maryland State Parks.

http://dnr2.maryland.gov/Publiclands/Pages/parkmap.aspx

 

We hope that you can continue to enjoy our Parks in the New Year and please let me know if I can answer any more of your questions. Thank you for taking the time to check on our policy. 

 

Regards,

Ranger Alison Woodfield

Maryland Park Service
580 Taylor Avenue E-3
Annapolis, Maryland 21401
410-260-8167
Lisa/Mr. Conroy-
You would not need any approvals from the MDE Mining Program but you would need permission from the property owner (in a State Park that would be DNR).  If the disturbance is minimal that should cover you otherwise you might need a waterway construction permit though the MDE Wetlands and waterways Program but from your description that seems unlikely.  
Thank you for your inquiry and happy prospecting!

On Tue, Jan 5, 2016 at 8:44 AM, Lisa Hoerger -DNR- <lisa.hoerger@maryland.gov> wrote:
Molly,
Here is the response from Mr. Conroy concerning what he wants to prospect.  I'm not sure if MDE's regulations cover this type as opposed to more commercial operations.  I did correspond with DNR as far as what is permitted in the parks and they said this activity is not allowed, although DNR does give our special use permits on a case by case basis for educational purposes (school children collected acorns, leaves, etc.)
If you know of any information that is relevant to this activity, let me know.
Thank you very much!
Lisa

Sincerely,
Lisa A. Hoerger
Regulations and Mapping Coordinator
Critical Area Commission for the
  Chesapeake and Atlantic Coastal Bays
1804 West Street, Suite 100
Annapolis, Maryland 21401
Thank you!  I am waiting on a response from the Maryland Department of the Environment.  Once we determine if your type of activity is regulated then I can point you in the right direction.
Lisa

Sincerely,
Lisa A. Hoerger
Regulations and Mapping Coordinator
Critical Area Commission for the
  Chesapeake and Atlantic Coastal Bays
1804 West Street, Suite 100
Annapolis, Maryland 21401
(410) 260-3478
Thank you Molly for your quick response.
Mr. Conroy, 
If you still wish to pursue State lands, you can find contact information on the Department of Natural Resources website at
Lisa

Sincerely,
Lisa A. Hoerger
Regulations and Mapping Coordinator
Critical Area Commission for the
  Chesapeake and Atlantic Coastal Bays
1804 West Street, Suite 100
Annapolis, Maryland 21401
(410) 260-3478
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Lemonade

Posted by Bucket on September 26, 2011 at 7:18pm

     Last week fed ex stopped by the shop with a box for me, aahh yes my Sandy has arrived!! Come to poppa my lil’ friend!! In the previous weeks leading up to this purchase I was pondering how little time I have to hone my detecting skills, between home and work there just wasn’t any time left for detecting, meanwhile reading in the forums about Terry in New York just killing it up there with his beach detector. Now I don’t know how he ended up stuck up in NY but him being from Arizona that’s just got to be brutal. What I do know is that Terry knows lemonade, in the beginning you could tell his spirit was a bit down, he wasn’t even on the forums for a while…then he started squeezing the lemons, got himself a Tesoro Sandshark and started working the beaches, with a good degree of success I might add, then his normal posts came rolling in to the forums accompanied by some photo’s and some youtube video’s, yep… ol’ Terry was back!!

          That got me to thinking …I got started in this hobby back in and around 94-95  beach detecting, and now I’ve kind of put it to the side and focused on gold prospecting, maybe Terry’s on to something and I should be too!! So there it was..sitting in front of me like the winning lottery ticket at the local SPMA door prize giveaway, my own Sandshark all wrapped up in bubble-wrap and waiting to be put together and put through its paces. I considered several models before settling on this one, nothing was based on price, it was just based on what was being said on the forums about the particular models I was considering, one high end model had folks talking about cheap dials that would break off and they were ending up replacing them with aftermarket dials (forget that!!) but there was one detector that everyone was happy with (Including Terry) and that was the Tesoro Sandshark. The Internet…when used to your advantage can be the greatest tool of them all for finding treasure!

           So now the game plan is to put this detector together and hit the beach this weekend and practice, practice, practice, needless to say 5 am is a bit too much for me so I opted for an afternoon run to a beach in Coronado,Ca. I took my 12 yr old daughter for company and to see if she would have enough attention span to work the Bounty Hunter I bought her a year ago, its hard to buy a kids style detector because they typically have a hard time swinging anything heavy and when you get a light kids version like this Bounty Hunter they typically don’t go very deep, and if a kid isn’t pulling coins out every two feet well you all know what happens... their attention span fly’s out the door, anyway when we arrived at the first beach we unpacked and found that the clouds and overcast had kept the beach fairly vacant which is perfect for us... we, or I should say (I) worked about a hundred yards with nothing but bottle caps…not good because my daughter gets her lack of attention span from ME!! So we left for another beach just down the road.

         This next beach is called “The Silver Strand” state beach and it usually charges 10 bucks to get in during the summer months and stops charging after Labor Day so I thought I was in good shape but when I arrived low and behold there was indeed a park ranger at the booth wanting ten bucks from ol’ Bucket. I told her I thought they quit charging after Labor Day and she said they charge year round now…no problem I thought to myself, I’ll just flash her my credentials (a Bucket&Boomer T-shirt) have my daughter giver her the sad eye’s and we’ll be on our way for free!! Anyway....so after getting the boot from the park ranger we were parked across the road in a residential area…for free I might add and making our way to the beach, when we got there we fired up our detectors and got to work, now being the first time I’ve ever used this detector I’m not about to slap on some hip waders and get waist deep in the hoopla (Pacific Ocean) I wanted to figure some things out first, and let me tell you that the learning curve for this particular beach detector…as is with most Tesoro’s  is very short!

              In no time I was yerking....yes "yerking" up bottle caps 10 inches down so I new I was on the right track, I worked the storm break of piled sand and in one three foot area between me and my daughter we pulled up 32 pennies, one of them being a 1927 wheat cent! At one point we were scooping pennies three at a time from their sandy graves…a bonified cache!!  (OK maybe that’s going a bit too far), and as the pennies thinned out so did my kids attention span so I was left to myself to work the rest of the storm break while she chased birds up and down the beach. As I headed south down the break I hit a nickel then a dime…at this point I’d swear I was “Loaming” as the denominations were getting bigger then I ran into a Heineken bottle cap , and another and another so I figured there should be roughly six of these screwing me up, if I can gather all six I should be clear of these little discouragers, well at around ten of em I was impressed with this guys drinking skills and knew I had a twelve pack to contend with, once I found that 12th and final cap I was happy now and I could focus on this area…sure enough..no more bottle caps and shortly thereafter I pulled up a couple dimes, a quarter and a very thin (fake) gold (colored) ring!

     The afternoon had by now, given up to the evening and it was getting dark and time to call it a day, but I was very happy with the way that this metal detector handled the beach, it was very stable, easy to use, fairly light and best of all very reasonably priced, I would actually call it a steal!!  I plan on…in the coming months regularly using this Tesoro Sandshark  and posting on its successes. Terry motivated me and now its my turn to pass it on!! So get out there all you taters at home and make your own LEMONADE !!!!!!!         Bucket

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