Tag: mining law of 1872

Updates From The Western Mining Alliance

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AMRA FUNDS LEGAL EFFORT
Many thanks to AMRA and AMRA members for contributing $3,000 to paying off our current legal bills. This brings us really close to being zero balance with the lawyers.
AMRA has repeatedly funded the right effort at the right time including contributing substantially to the Rinehart case, the Oregon case and our San Bernardino litigation.
Our thanks also to Motherlode Gold Hounds for helping
fund the Rinehart amicus brief.
SIERRA FUND AND LAKE COMBIE TO GET ANOTHER $6.1 MILLION
Based on the astounding success of being able to recover mercury ( 2 grams total) at the cost of $1 million per gram Governor Brown announced another healthy heaping of graft to be bestowed on the project. You can read the article here. https://yubanet.com/regional/governors-budget-includes-funding-to-improve-waterquality-and-water-storage-at-combie-reservoir/
WATER BOARD HEARINGS
We’re done with the Water Board hearings. We’ve provided them with a lot of information
and references which we hope they’ll read. Ultimately this is a political decision, not a science decision. If it was based on science we’d be confident of the outcome. We have continued to work with the Water Board through the public input period and we are trying
to schedule separate briefings to the directors of the Water Board. We hope to have this
meeting sometime in April. Thanks to everyone who took the time to attend, and present.
LEGAL SAN BERNARDINO HEARINGS PUSHED BACK AGAIN
Trial date is: July 12th, 2017
Environmentalists Push for Washington Ban
Yet another front in the dredging war is opened with environmentalists pushing for a California style dredging ban. You can read the article here. https://www.wateronline.com/doc/lawsuit-launched-rivers-salmon-from-destructive-suction-dredge-mining-0001
Pacific Legal Foundation submits Rinehart petition on time
On February 10th Pacific Legal submitted the petition for the U.S. Supreme Court to review the California Supreme Court decision in Rinehart.
WMA Preparing Amicus Brief in Support of Petition.
Thanks to everyone who provided supporting material for the Amicus brief in support of the Rinehart petition. Our brief is due on 10 March, we should have a draft of it this week.
Submit for Section 404 Permits Now
If you hope to dredge legally this summer then you should be requesting your Section 404 Clean Water Act permits from the Army Corps of Engineers. We have posted some samples on our web page, but each permit request must be specific to that operation. According to California Senate Bill 637 three permits are required. First you must obtain a federal Clean Water Act permit, this is the Section 404 permit. Secondly you must obtain a state water quality permit or waiver. The state, once you have a Section 404 permit, can issue a Section 401 certification, but only after you have obtained your federal permit. Finally, you must obtain a Fish and Game permit. Although it’s a long process, you are guaranteed to not
have a permit if you don’t submit.

~ February Newsletter ~ Public Lands For The People ~

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Hello Folks,

Here we are in a new year with a new government settling into place in Washington DC, and a new set of challenges in front of us. Yes, it is great that our new President is pro-American business and willing to do what he can (which is a lot!), to Make America Great Again, But ‘We The People’ still need to do our part and be actively involved in the process. You can’t sit back and expect that everyone else will get it done. We The People have spoken and We The People must act on our convictions. It’s time to stay involved, write letters to your Congressmen and Senators and make phone calls. A hand written letter is worth thousands of form letters! There are still fights in progress such as the Eagle Mountain land annex where the National Park Service is working hand in hand with BLM to take 22,000 acres of mineral rich land into the National Park to be locked away. Get involved and write letters. The comment period closes Feb. 16th  Eagle Mountain National Park Land Annex Comments Page. Even in a national emergency where our enemies refuse to sell us any rare earth minerals that are crucial to our national defense, once locked in the National Park, the minerals may as well not exist. Even if the land could be moved back into Public Domain, it would takes years to develop the mines so as to be useful in the defense of our nation.

We have an update to our dredge lawsuits here in California. It appears Judge Ochoa has for the second time cancelled the upcoming hearing on the CEQA and “one subject” motions, this time pushing the hearing out to July 12, 2017.

You all may recall that these motions were initially to be heard in January 2016, then stayed on account of the Rinehart case, then set for April 21st 2017, then cancelled at Judge Ochoa’s instance and moved to May 12th 2017. Although we are very confident that we can get the CEQA process and the 2012 regulations thrown out due to the faulty science and violations of the process by the State of California, that won’t get us back in the water dredging due to the water board permitting process lumped on by the legislature.

We do have a solution that will remove all states from regulating unreasonably on Federally managed lands and give the power back to the MMAC affiliated mining districts.

We are working feverishly to get new legislation in place that will put more teeth in the 1872 Mining Law for the miners. This must happen within the next 2 years while the Republican majority is in place. Do your part to help us Take It Back And Keep It! Renew your supporting membership in PLP and make a donation above your normal membership to help us make the extra push supporting the Mining District revival under the expert guidance of the Minerals and Mining Advisory Council! The power of the mining districts is beginning to be realized in Congress. Our advisors were in DC for the inauguration. Joe Martori, Clark Pearson and Scott Harn, all MMAC advisors are in Washington DC right now for a rigorous week of work on our behalf to get our Federal legislation through and signed by President Trump!  You can read the bill here:  House Resolution from the Minerals and Mining Advisory Council.

PLP volunteers will be set up at the big Quartzite, Arizona Gold and Mineral show Feb. 10-12, so come out and show your support! We will have gold bags for sale, a panning area, PLP T-shirts, expert prospecting advice, Challenge Cards, PLP bumper stickers  and speaking at the show. We are excited to be there! Find out all about the show here: https://quartzsitegoldshowcom.wordpress.com/

Though our membership voted in new By-Laws last year which we are now operating under, the Board Members that resigned last July are still having their charade meetings, pretending to be PLP Board Members at Keene Engineering’s office. We are saddened to announce that because of these actions, by GPAA’s request, PLP will not be allowed to set up at any of their events until GPAA is satisfied that the Board dispute has been resolved. As far as we are concerned, the dispute was resolved when the PLP Membership overwhelmingly approved the new By-Laws last fall.  We will miss so many of you we consider our friends at these shows, but will keep in touch other ways like through our newsletters, website, new shows we’ve never worked at before, and “out there” in the gold fields.

We are continuing to fight for miner’s rights, and are still Plaintiffs in the two dredging cases in San Bernardino. Your board of directors are all volunteer! Please help us help the mining community by renewing membership and making an extra donation.

Until next time, Let’s Keep Taking it Back while we Make Mining and Multiple Use Public Land Great Again!

Ron Kliewer

President

Source:  Public Lands For The People

I Am Legion …

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“And He asked him, What is they name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion; for we are many.” Mark 5:9.
“We communists are like seeds and the people are the soil. Wherever we go, we must unite with the people, take root and blossom among them.” Mao Zedong

The environmentalist attack on suction dredging is merely a symptom of the much larger illness. The environmental elitists and the intelligentsia reap the rewards while the citizens foot the bill. The environmentalists have a dream of socialism in which they control the land and the means of production, but they are paid to protect it, rather than people being paid to produce with it.

The lucrative business of endangered species provides an endless flow of money to people who are willing to study the species, but no money goes to those who lost their jobs, their land or their means to earn a living. Money flows to people whose value in the free market is exactly zero, yet they have created an industry entirely funded by taxpayers whereby they earn princely sums of money like $750 an hour for lawyers to sue the government, and $200 an hour for frog researchers. In a free economy who would pay a frog researcher even minimum wage, let alone $200 an hour? A recent six page paper which found mercury moves with each major flood cost taxpayers $50,000 per page. Yet no one blinks an eye at this.

Only your government can afford to force the taxpayers to pay this. How much did you receive last year to study endangered species, to prepare six page research papers or to sue the government? If you’re like us, it was zero.

They’re All In It Together

The interconnected web amongst environmental groups, universities, corporations and the government runs deeper than we think, or would like to think. In July of 2015 the Western Mining Alliance published an article challenging the statements on mercury of a small environmental group with deep ties in the California legislature. In the article they quoted the California Office of Occupational Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) where the OEHHA web page stated no person in California had ever been sickened from mercury in sport fish. A statement which had been on their website for two years.

A mere two weeks later the website was changed. The statement was gone and it was replaced with dire warnings about the hazard of pregnant women eating mercury contaminated fish. This despite the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issuing new guidance on fish consumption which recommended eating more fish. Another recent study published in the January edition of the Journal of Epidemiology showed an increase in the IQ of children whose mothers ate large amounts of fish finding the benefits to the child outweighed any perceived risk of mercury. But, these studies are ignored by the environmentalists who reap millions from studying mercury. No dire threat – no cash.

Take for example a recent front page article in USA Today highlighting some third rate research from the University of California Sanata Barbara. The Sacramento Bee and the Huffington Post screamed headlines of “Toxic Legacy of the Gold Rush.”

Did anyone bother to actually ask if it was toxic? In over 150 years not a single person has been sickened by this mercury yet suddenly it’s “toxic?”

Only Environmentalists Hold the Truth

The Singer Study, which costs taxpayers $280,000 to tell us major floods move sediment and with that sediment the mercury travels down hill, is a study in bilking the taxpayers. Why did we need to spend $280,000 for a six page paper to tell us mercury travels downhills during major floods?

When the Western Mining Alliance made this exact same argument to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the California Regional Water Quality Control Board they said we were wrong, afterall how could we know, we didn’t have PhDs. When a person gets paid over a quarter million dollars to tell them the same thing, but in less pages than we explained it, they wring their hands in worry over what will become of the valley with all this mercury.

How much mercury? About .001% moves each flood, or as the paper estimates it will take about 10,000 years for the Gold Rush era mercury to purge from the system. The leading mercury researcher in the country, Dr. Nicholas Ralston of the University of North Dakota states at those levels there is no concern, but that doesn’t make headlines nor does that position receive grant money.

The Truth is Flexible

Two weeks after the Western Mining Alliance released an article based on a California Water Board study which found all fish in gold mining areas were well below US EPA thresholds for mercury the Sacramento Bee ran a story with the headline “Study finds unsafe mercury levels in fish from Delta Watershed.” This report was actually good news, yet there is an amazing ability of the environmentalists to make lemons from lemonade. The Water Board study did find some fish in the Delta were unsafe to eat because mercury travels downhill, collects in low lying, warm areas and transforms into a harmful type of mercury which can be collected in the food chain. However, the good news was virtually all fish from areas where people fished, or swam, or boated had fish which were perfectly safe. Good news? Or the sky is falling?

Four billion dollars per year goes to environmental groups. That kind of money buys the headlines. Who decides at USA Today a six page paper from an obscue researcher is worthy of a headline? Who decides at the Sacramento Bee to report the dire warnings of unsafe fish in the Delta and ignore the vast majority of fish were perfectly safe? Four billion dollars buys a lot of propaganda. It’s clear the environmental groups aren’t doing a whole lot to save the environment such as planting trees or repairing eroding ditches, so where does the money go? It buys this kind of headlines which then prompts yet more grant money to “study the problem.”

While the leftists complain about a country run by capitalists, and the inequality of the free market, they are plotting for a system whereby they control the decision making and the power. It will be their doctrine and their ideology forced upon you. It’s a system of top down planning, sustainability and rationing where everyone is universally miserable. Well, everyone except for the planners. The lessons of the Soviet Union are completely lost on these people, they just think they can plan better.

Yet we have hope. We now know the name of our enemy and it is Legion. Like running into a nest of hornets you rarely know they’re there until you stir them up. This fight is about power, control and money – big money. This country was founded and built by people who asked only for the freedom to pursue their own lives yet now we are faced by those who wish to control your lives for you.

The environmentalists hide their money in the shadows. They twist the truth to ensure a continued stream of grant money to study problems which may not exist. It’s a racket, it’s an industry, it’s corruption and greed. It’s time to shine the light of day and watch them scurry.

Source:  Western Mining Alliance