Many Mining Claim Closures

[Coffeeguyzz]

GM,

Yeah, my idea has been done by others before with varying degrees of success,  from what I've been told.

It is essentially reversing the tracing method of the old timers by starting at the downhill part of their diggings, and detecting downwards in an ever widening arc.  

There are pocket diggings all over the place (initial recovery success largely unknown).

Lottsa persistence and effort might be the key, as in all worthwhile endeavors.

[Clay Diggins]

I'm working on the mining claim updates today. Land Matters Members will be receiving their detailed reports and maps throughout this week.

Preliminary results are truly astonishing. More than 47,000 claims were closed by the BLM in the last two weeks. I'll provide more info as I sort out this mess.

[WesD]

Thanks Clay!

[Swegin]

I wonder if the out of date Maintenance Fee Waiver Certification has anything to do with it?  I'm thinking folks didn't want to pay so they didn't file with the out of date form.

 

[Clay Diggins]

2 hours ago, Swegin said:

I wonder if the out of date Maintenance Fee Waiver Certification has anything to do with it?  I'm thinking folks didn't want to pay so they didn't file with the out of date form.

It could have. I'm looking into that. I'm not seeing a lot of dropped Small Miners but there is more number crunching to go.

I doubt the Small Miners will make much impact on the total of closed claims. Small Miner Waiver claims are only about 1.3% of all mining claims.

I am seeing a lot of claims closed that have their fees paid and are current. I'm not having a lot of confidence in the BLM system at this point.

[Clay Diggins]

After checking though the recent claim closures MANY MANY of these "CLOSED" mining claims are in fact current on their fees and filings and likely should not have had their case files closed. For example in Nevada 4,074 of the 19,683 closed mining claims have their fees marked as being paid in the BLM database. It appears most of the closed claims in South Dakota were in fact paid on time. Something went wrong somewhere in the BLM closures.

The BLM seems to be aware of this problem as they have been correcting the incorrect "CLOSED" status on quite a few claims earlier this week. That may be because the claim owners notified the BLM of the error. If you have mining claims it might be a good idea to see if your claims ended up closed by mistake and notify the BLM.

This particular MLRS update is really messed up. As far as we can tell as many as half of the closed claims in some states were closed in error. This isn't the first time this has happened with the MLRS. In mid April and again in July of this year the BLM was unable to produce a database copy due to an ongoing problem.  In 2022 an error was made that eliminated nearly 11% of all claims by mistake.

When these type of errors happen it really messes things up for our users. In this case if we were to update the Land Matters Mining Claims maps with the new data thousands of active claims would no longer be shown on the map. This is the type of mistake that will lead to many claim disputes. For that reason Land Matters will not be updating their online Mining Claim maps until these mistakes are corrected by the BLM.

For claim owners I would strongly suggest you check your current claim status on the BLM serial register page. If your claim has been marked CLOSED in error contact the BLM and have them correct their case files.

For prospectors who encounter claims marked as "CLOSED" on the claim's Serial Register Page look to the Next Payment Due Date in the upper left and the most recent date under "MAINTENANCE FEE PAYMENT" in the action list further down the first page. If the Next Payment Due Date is 9/04/24 or the MAINTENANCE FEE PAYMENT is dated 2023 there is a very good chance the claim was closed in error.

Every claim on the Land Matters maps has a link directly to the current Serial Register page at the BLM.

I would also advise that the current online BLM MLRS map has all these closed claims incorrectly classified. Please don't rely on that mapping. It is incorrect.

I'll keep this thread updated as we learn more.

Barry

[Coffeeguyzz]

Mr. Diggins,

I appreciate the work that you are doing and the fact that you are keeping us updated in these matters.