A father and son have been sentenced to county jail for illegal gold mining in California, with the district attorney declaring: “This is not 1849.”

​Gregory Arnoldi Jr., from Nevada City, and his father, Gregory Arnoldi Sr., from Browns Valley, constructed an illegal dirt road along Keystone Creek near Loganville in Sierra County , prosecutors say.

​An image released by the Sierra County Sheriff’s Office shows one of the two defendants driving a digger. The sheriff’s office says the vehicle was used to make alterations to a historic carriage route in order to allow passage for their truck and mining equipment.

The work resulted in rock and soil tumbling into Keystone Creek, which flows into the Yuba River , they added.

​“In this case, the defendants’ illegal mining scheme vandalized private and public property and caused significant damage to those properties and to the natural resources that make Sierra County a desirable place to live and visit, including damage to mining artifacts (sic),” Groven…