New Mining Claim Patent Issued

[Clay Diggins]

Congratulations to our fellow miners in Oregon!

The patent for the Garden Spot placer mining claim was finally issued.

Some hard working miners now have their own 50 acres of private land in the Siskyou National Forest and BLM managed lands.

The final cert was awarded in 1990 so it only took the BLM 25 years to get that stamp to the ink pad, stamp and sign the Patent and mail it out. Our fine employees at work!

ORMC86146 is now closed and private patented mineral property. The beauty is the proud "new" owners live on Galice Creek.

Barry

[goldbrick]

The link is broken.

Congrats to the miners.

[Clay Diggins]

Whoops! Seems like BLM isn't liking the attention. I took the link out for now. PM me if you would like to see the Serial Register page or just look up ORMC86146 on the LR2000.

[delnorter]

This is great Barry. I worked on the required land survey for one of the last ones granted here in northern California before the moratorium went into effect.

A tremendous amount of time and effort is needed to accomplish patenting of a claim. In this case the time is incredible. Congratulations to these folks, what perseverance and patience.

Mike

[LipCa]

So.... now they have to deal with state mining regulations/laws. (assuming that they are going to mine).

[Steve Herschbach]

Perfect example of how they do not need to change or repeal laws they do not like anymore. Just issue a "moratorium". That word used to mean "temporary".

Well, good on them! I wonder who else is still in the endless process? Sooner or later they will all be done, if they are not already.

[Clay Diggins]

I seem to recall there are about 24 more to go Steve.

 

The funding moratorium goes away when Congress fails to vote to approve the next one. Every budget vote brings that possibility.

 

Mike, I'd like to hear more about that Mineral Survey you worked on. Mineral Surveys are still possible despite the moratorium and the BLM still processes that portion of the paperwork. Unfortunately certified Mineral Surveyors are getting older. The last Mineral Surveyor Examination graduates were passed in 1986 so even the "new" ones are getting near retirement.

 

I'm surprised more claim owners don't complete their proof to patent. When Congress lifts the moratorium the wise claim owner would be prepared to submit their application in my opinion.

[jasong]

How can we be such strong proponents of mining public minerals granted by public law and at the same time be supporters of transferring those minerals into private domain forever? The two concepts are in direct conflict with each other. Not to mention there are miners alive right now that weren't even born in 1990...why should their public minerals and land be distributed via lottery according to birth-order? 

 

Patenting public land was a concept from a different era when the country's population was not much larger than the Los Angeles or NYC metro areas. When most of the west was unsettled and the government wanted to emcourage development, when many western states weren't even states yet but territories.

 

I fully support the moratorium myself, probably the only miner who will say so publicly too. Mining as we know it is unsustainable otherwise.

[Clay Diggins]

Here's my take on the value and place of mineral patents.

 

First the facts:

 

The minerals belong to the claim locator, or his successors and assigns, whether it's kept as a perfected mining claim or patented as private land.

 

As far as the public is concerned it's a difference without a distinction.

 

There is no requirement to patent a mining claim just as there is no requirement to mine an unpatented mining claim.

 

The ownership of the minerals is in the locator once the claim is perfected. The only long term difference is you would have nowhere to live if there had been no patents granted for the private land you now live on.

_________________________

 

Now the opinion with supporting facts:

 

There seems to be a vast misunderstanding of just what a patent grant is these days. I guess we could blame public education for not making it clear in their curriculum that the public lands are not owned by the government.

 

The public lands are held in trust, by Congress, for the people. They have already been bought and paid for with the sweat and blood of our ancestors. The people of the nation own the public lands collectively and the express intent of those owners has always been to distribute those lands to the citizens willing to develop them for the collective good of the nation.

 

This nation was impoverished until the multiple gold and silver discoveries were made in the 1840's and 1850's. There was no national coinage, the coin of the realm was the Spanish dolar or piece of eight. We didn't have enough gold and silver of our own to mint coins for general circulation. Mining made this country wealthy, not cotton, not pork bellies and not Microsoft.

 

Even today this country is third in the world in the production of mined minerals. Not much has changed about the effects of mining on our wealth in those 160 years since we discovered our own world class mineral deposits.

 

Not much except since the 1980's the Mining Acts that rewarded those who risked their lives and fortunes have had a good portion of the incentive to continue mining wealth from the ground removed. Mining has been stymied by those who believe it's unfair for miners to be rewarded for enriching this nation and it's people. Add in micromanagement by a misdirected populace and the threat to mining is clearly cultural.

 

Since that change of public perception of historical fact has caused our present desires to override our present, and historical, need to produce real wealth we now are faced with paying the price to have others mine for us.

 

Only the claim owner perceives the loss of the promise of a reward of patent for his risk and labor. The public is happy as long as they get their metals and minerals from somewhere.

 

Removing the promise of a patent at the end of the long road of proving a valuable mineral deposit affects the independent miner far more than the big mining companies. It's been decades since mining companies saw a financial advantage to a patent over simple claim maintenance fees.

 

Big mining companies now work large, low grade deposits with purpose built corporations that are dismantled, along with any future liabilities, once a deposit is worked out and reclaimed enough to recover their bonds. They have no incentive to patent those worked out deposits. If they need to return with new technology to mine again in the future they need only relocate with a new corporation - unless an independent miner has obtained a patent in the meantime.

 

Once you understand that fact of business you might better understand just why there is a moratorium on the funding for mineral patent processing. It has nothing to do with fairness or justice and everything to do with perceived investor value.

 

Greed is the driving force behind these changes. That greed is not the traditional reward of a patent to a hard working miner. That greed is in the endless calls of the "investor" for greater stock values rather than reliable dividends from a well managed mining business.

 

Why that greed has been bred into finance in this country is another rant for a different forum. Suffice it to say I believe abusing the right to a patent with a moratorium on processing those patents is a direct affront to the industriousness and courage of individual miners.

[jasong]

I can't get behind the concept that a patent is a "reward" to individuals or mining companies for their hard work, as you are saying. Mining is a business, selling the minerals at a profit is the reward as with any other business. If the minerals can't be profitably extracted on their own then that business should fail. The public and the government should not subsidize or reward business for simply doing their job. If they don't want to do it without a reward, let someone else.

 

In any event, the mission of the BLM is "to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations." The latter part highlighted because it seems to be forgotten so often... Patenting is clearly a direct hit to future generations since their public resources and land are being allocated before they even have a chance to prospect them themselves (or be born).

 

I wrote out a bunch of math here to make a point, but I feel it would just make eyes glaze so I'll just state it outright: the total population of the USA exceeds the total available amount of public land that could be patented or even claimed.

 

There is only enough BLM land to give approximately 12 million people one 20 acre patented (or unpatented) parcel. That means only like 4% of US citizens could file for a claim if everyone sought to do so, and 96% of us would be left with nothing. Further, there are 700 million total acres of mineral estate if you include private lands, state lands, etc and that bumps it up to what, maybe 10% of citizens could file for a mineral claim before it's literally all gone? Of course you can't patent without surface rights, but I'm just showing a point here and using the extremes.

 

There has been a lot of talk about mining "rights" here and other places lately. But has anyone considered the issue that a "right" is something which is granted to ALL people. How can it be a right when only a small minority of people could enjoy that right? And the more people exercise that "right" the more they restrict other's from having the same "right". Patenting does just this though and it's not necessary like production of minerals is. From this line of thought, I don't think anyone could defend patenting as written into law, it's not sustainable as I said earlier, it doesn't make logical sense.

 

*side note: my estimations are in fact grossly inflated given the fact that a huge amount of land in states like WY, NV, UT, etc are of little to no mineral character other than occasionally evaporites, clays, or gravels. The actual number of people who could make patentable claims would be probably 1% or less of the total population I think. Exponential population growth notwithstanding...we'll be doubled up in another 50 years compounding this problem.