Too many questions...

　

Mother’s Day dawned bright and beautiful, and it didn’t surprise our children and grandchildren that “grandma” wanted to spend the day sluicing! Temps were in the 70s, the creek water was warm enough to pan a little and bench gravels dry enough to classify… who could ask for more!

We re-visit some points made during the several hour on-site Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) inspection. Discussion digressed to various topics as we walked the claim boundaries and pointed out historic mining activity and the resulting impact.

One discussion regarded a permit awarded to an individual who had secured permission from a placer claimholder only to be denied access by a lode claimholder -- whew!! We have emphasized this point several times… you cannot locate a placer claim over someone else’s lode claim, and vice versa. What we can see from our research (no names were mentioned) is that the placer claimholder gave permission when the lode claimholder was the first claim filed.

So if our research is accurate, the placer claim was invalid to start with!

The real issue was that blasting was part of the permit application, which infringes on the lode claimholder’s rights.  If you contemplate blasting, you're stepping across the line from placer to lode.

The final question in our minds would be, was lode proven? Our information was that the permit applicant had assayed the material to be removed (interest was in landscaping rock) and no minerals were found. Is this a valid lode claim to start with?

What a complicated mess! Too many questions; too few answers.

It was brought up again that persons are buying mining claims and trying to pursue real estate rights… a mining claim gives you rights only to the minerals, not the land! I guess I’ll just repeat this every time I blog…

Another issue discussed was mechanized mining without pursuit of the permit process. “Call us (DENR) and report it whenever you see illegal activity,” we were advised. Dredging was mentioned as evident on Iron/Deer Creek below our claim. There was also some discussion of grievances resulting from larger than usual disturbance and the resulting liability to the claimholder. We usually prefer the personal approach, as we do with claimjunpers… so we’ll have to think a little on that one.

That also brings us back to placer over lode claims… nobody that we can see has the right to placer mine on the claim adjacent to us. Do you recall a blog about the placer claimant re-locating over an existing lode claim? The lode claim doesn’t allow placer activity; the placer claim is invalid!

There’s plenty to think about here… let us know your thoughts!