We want to thank the Medford Mail Tribune for trying to interject some reason and fact into the reporting over the Sugar Pine Mine controversy. The paper's editorial - The rule of law vs. armed confrontation - on Sunday, April 19th tries to tamp down the rhetoric. It also points out what few (if any) media sources have—that the Sugar Pine mining claim is federal public land, managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The Mail Tribune writes:
What Barclay, Bundy and their Oath Keeper supporters refuse to acknowledge is that the land they are exploiting for personal gain belongs to the public, not to them. The federal government, which manages that land on behalf of the American people, allows certain private activities, including mining and grazing, but under specific laws and regulations.We say "trying to interject reason" because one of the two comments includes this statement:
So how is it the BLM can make a decision on their own without going to court over it? It would be like someone showing up at the door to your house and saying you have to tear the house down and remove everything from it within two weeks, because they said so. Would you tear your house down and remove everything from the property before you even went to court over it, for the first time?The commenter is repeating what one of the co-owners of the Sugar Pine Mine is telling the media, and anyone who will listen. But his framing of the issue is incorrect. The structures that are under contention are on a federal mining claim (ORMC 20078), located on public lands, and as such are subject to federal regulation. They are not on private property.
Because all federal mining claims have to be registered, you can get the legal description and other information for the Sugar Pine mining claim on the BLM's LR 2000 online data base.
The 1872 Mining Law gives mining companies incredible privileges. They can extract minerals from lands belonging to all of us for free. In other words, they don't even have to pay royalty. The mining often destroys the land or leaves an incredible mess, which the public then has to clean up. Most of the EPA's toxic superfund sites are abandoned mines. See for example the Formosa Mine in Douglas County.
But while those privileges include in some cases occupancy of federal public lands, the occupancy has to be incidental to mining and approved through a mining plan of operation, otherwise it's considered trespass. Without following the regulations, it would be like you or me, going out onto the National Forest, finding a beautiful spot on a lovely creek, locating a mining claim and building a summer cabin on it.
Click here for a summary of the BLM's surface use and occupancy rules here and the BLM's complete occupancy regulations here.
The argument over the Sugar Pine mining claim is not a matter of the federal government taking someone's private property or home. It's a matter of whether the federal government (BLM) can regulate activities on lands belonging to the American Public. And as noted in the Medford Mail Tribune, the BLM's notice of non-compliance to the is subject to appeal and due process.
