Permit me!

Winter in South Dakota equals “down time” for prospectors, at least physical prospecting!  Now we want to be clear, we still get out there and sample, have been known to haul ore home to sluice on a nice day, have even panned (brrrrrrrr) in some icy creeks!

There’s a lot to be said for research and it’s a great (warm) way to spend those winter months.  That is how we usually while away the months of January and February; researching and pinpointing prospects for the spring season.  We lined up a block of great claims in the Central Hills before the real winter hit, so if you're interested you might want to contact us now.  Our website, http://www.blackhillsgoldmines.com/ has all of our contact information for some very good, historically proven nugget claims. 

This year, however, we are immersed in what is a large-scale project for us, called a small scale placer mining permit.  We think we’re doing pretty well, but time is the real test!

A friend of ours was discussing placer mining with an individual who works for the U.S. Forest Service.  The word we got back is the focus of our discussion today.

Anyone who knows anything about gold prospecting in the Black Hills is aware that South Dakota law does not allow mechanized mining without a permit.  There are a lot of prospectors who “fudge” a little on the issue; that is not the focus of this discussion.

The feedback from the U.S. Forest Service is disturbing;  loaders, backhoes, tractors stockpiling ore for sluicing.  The Forest Service staff has encountered a lot of this, from what we are hearing, and is forced to remind them they need a mining permit for mechanized mining.  These parties then show up at the ranger station expecting to fill out a form and be handed a permit!

Now if that was all it took to have a mining permit, ourselves, our family and friends would all have pockets literally lined with gold and no worry about retirement!

So let’s talk a little about the permitting process.  There are two elements to a small mining permit on an unpatented claim:  the state (in our case South Dakota) and the U.S. Forest Service.  Both entities have to be involved in the permitting process, each on their own timetable.

We started with a phone call to South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).  They recommended a draft of the “Request for Determination of Special, Exceptional, Critical or Unique Lands”.  Let me state here that the staff member we talked to was cordial, informative and very helpful.  The reason for the draft was it does not start the 60-day review process and allowed us feedback on the draft application before submitting by certified mail to various agencies. 

We prepared that application, a six-page document, and submitted it to DENR.  We were very pleased that it took only one week for the reply.  Two items on our application needed modification.  We are extremely pleased about that… both our efforts and a heartfelt thank you for the efforts of a family member who is a PE mining engineer consulting with a mining attorney on some of the more critical elements of the mining plan.

The letter from DENR also reminded us that “the process to obtain an approved Plan of Operations from the Forest Service could take up to two years” and encouraged us to get that process started.

So we’re on our way, getting ready to submit a Request for Determination of Special, Exceptional, Critical or Unique Lands to all entities required while coordinating submittal of a Plan of Operations to the U.S. Forest Service.

Whewww… so much for filling out a form and being handed a permit!  We have up to 60 days to wait before we can even file for a permit! That’s okay, because we need that 60 days for permit preparation.

We expect to learn a lot throughout this process.  It’s been a study just to get the applications all going in the right direction at the right time and to the right agencies! A legitimate estimate of time involved would be about 100 hours to this point; another 100 hours devoted in the upcoming weeks.  We still have, after those hours, several more application forms, advertising, hearings and inspections!

You can read along with us through the process, and/or we would be happy to consult on our specific experience in the permitting process with interested parties.  We could save you several hundred hours with what we’ve accomplished so far, so we would suggest that only serious applicants request consulting, a fee-based service.

Our whole emphasis here is to make it clear what we have stated before; do it the right way!  Sure, we could sit around and bemoan the fact that it’s a relatively complex process, but that process will help filter out a lot of (dare we say it!) amateurs who have no respect for the forest, environment and Mother Nature in general!  We applaud that effort.