Tag Archives: blm

Gold, Preaching, Things that have Chapped My Hide

Ammon Bundy is, and militias in general are, bad for America.

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Not quite two years removed from Cliven Bundy’s moronic and dramatic showdown with the BLM (who were repo-ing his cattle for millions of dollars in unpaid fees, fines, and court ordered punitive damages) we find Cliven’s son Ammon forcing another showdown with government agents.  This time over some ranchers who did bad things and got busted for it.

ammon and hate groups
Ammon Bundy and some known white supremacists at a press conference earlier this month.

You have probably seen it splashed across your newsfeeds and made fun on of mercilessly on the late night comedy shows, but what does the showdown at a bathroom/gift shop at a remote wildlife refuge/bird sanctuary in the most desolate and sparsely populated region in the lower 48 have to do with anything (a well-sourced historical brief on the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge)?  Well, I am going to explain it to you.

In 2001 Lincoln Hammond, Jr., 73, and his son, Steven Dwight Hammond, 46 were illegally hunting on protected federal land.  After making several kills of protected wildlife, “Steven Hammond handed out “Strike Anywhere” matches with instructions that they be lit and dropped on the ground because they were going to “light up the whole country on fire.”  One witness testified that he barely escaped the eight to ten foot high flames caused by the arson.” According to court documents in the case.  Later, in 2006, the Hammonds then began a backfire in the Malheur Wildlife Refuge despite being told that there were BLM fire crews battling the fires in the path of the winds of any backfires and were explicitly informed not to do so.  Their problem was that those same BLM crews also bore witness to their crime

The Hammonds were convicted of arson on federal lands and given a short sentence.  The Federal Prosecutor in the case appealed the sentence because arson on federal lands carries a congressionally mandated 5-year sentence.  Upon appeal the 9th Circuit Court resentenced the Hammonds to 5 years minus time served.  The Hammonds were to report to prison on January 4th of 2016 and have done so… So why all the militia dudes in Oregon?

Now home to more racists than birders, for now...
Now home to more racists than birders, for now…

The militia dudes are there because they are angry about something but they have no clue as to what that something is and are using the Hammonds as an excuse to express their anger.  They claim that the Hammonds have been set up by the BLM so the federal government can take their land (which has a bearing of truth since it can happen if the Hammonds fail to pay some $200,000 in outstanding restitution owed for their criminal violations; the ranch is collateral on this fine).  The conspiracy surrounding this ranges from: “Those whacko liberal environmentalists don’t want anyone to eat beef!” to “Obama owes our Chinese creditors and Hammond ranch is rich in diamonds, gold, uranium, and natural gas so he is giving it to them.” Pretty much all of this is beyond moronic.

As all of you who are familiar with this blog know, I am an expert on laws regarding access to federal lands; I kind of have to be when my livelihood depends upon it.

First, nope, there is no natural gas in this region since there is no shale to be found.

Second, gold is found in about four locations all about 15-30 miles from the Hammond Ranch and all of it is in miniscule recreational quantities. (You’ll remember that I detailed this geologically boring region this past summer: “This stretch of Oregon is the absolute worst.  One giant, salty, flat, treeless, sun-baked, wasteland.  Everywhere along the route is half-finished ideas, and crumbling dreams.  Broken trailers here, roofless barns there…  Anyone thinking of living in this uninhabitable hell-scape needs to just fill their tank and drive until it runs out of gas.  Wherever you end up will be better than here.”)

Third, Uranium is so ubiquitous as to not even be interesting to anyone who needs it.  I can hop into my truck and drive to Nevada and claim a few million tons of yellow cake uranium ore out of the desert on already existing federal lands.  No one needs to steal the Hammonds land to gain access to significant uranium lodes.

Fourth, the rock here is just flood basalts.  Flood basalts are pretty much the most mineralogically undeveloped igneous rock on the planet.  If you’re lucky you will find some peridot (but not likely) and that is about it.  This means there is no Lamproite or Kimberlite from which one can get diamonds.  There are no diamond-bearing rocks in Oregon.  Period.  If there were diamonds in Oregon I would have staked claims there a long time ago (since I am the only person with commercial diamond claims in the lower 48, I am definitely the expert on this).

Fifth, it has been illegal for the federal government to sell public lands to mining interests since 1994 when it was found out that the feds sold some $50 billion (in today’s commodity prices) in mineral rights of ultra-rare beryllium to Brush-Wellman (now Materion) for $26,487.

Sixth, it is illegal for a foreign national or corporation to stake a claim on federal lands in the United States of America.  The only way for a non-citizen to stake a claim on federal land is for said resident alien to be a legal resident who has declared their intention to becoming a citizen of the United States.

Now that we have debunked all of these conspiracies, what is it that Ammon Bundy and his militia dudes are so bent out of shape about that they have taken over a visitors center and gift shop in the dead of winter?  As far as I can tell the Bundy-klan object to the feds owning land at all.  They do not believe the federal government should own any land of any kind.  Why? Beats me, federal lands are what this nation’s wealth is built on and for some reason the rightwing has been trying in recent years to liquidate our federal lands anyway they can.

racism with guns
Rance Harris on the left with some other “patriots” earlier this year during a standoff with the BLM at the Sugar Pine Mine in Oregon.

Now lets look into the types of people who arm themselves and take over a bathroom outpost in the middle of nowhere when it is basically the most awful time of year to be there, or just like to join militias in general: these militias are comprised of men like Ryan Payne who claims to be a former Army Ranger, but who isnt; or Brian Cavalier who serves as Ammon Bundy’s personal body guard and who claims to be a former Marine and war veteran but isn’t either of those things (but is a convicted criminal).

Others who heed the call to militant action include or white supremacists and members of the Neo-Nazis and Aryan Brotherhood such as Rance Harris, a member of the “Oath Keepers” (a right wing paramilitary outfit who as a group made a show of force during the Bundy Ranch fiasco and who posed a threat to BLM employees this past Summer at the Sugar Pine Mine in Oregon), whose arms and hands are covered in racist and Nazi tattoos (a friend of mine identified him from a news photo as a known white supremacist and I managed to hunt down his Facebook page and yup, a groovy heil Hitler “88” tattoo on his knuckles).

In general unregulated militias are largely populated by white supremacists and grew at previously unseen levels when Obama was elected president (Cavalier also has swastika tattoos on his eyelids, by the way [classy]).

racist piece of shit
Rance Harris with his “88” tattoo on his knuckles which stands for “Heil Hitler” as the letter ‘H’ is the 8th letter of the alphabet.

These men claim they want the US government to give their lands over to someone, but whom?  This I don’t know.  What I do know is that many of the men in this movement are also members of groups who advocate race wars, secession from the government, sedition, and outright revolution against our democracy.  These people are the worst of our society and I hope they become lily white frozen hate-cicles  on the plains of the Oregon Outback.

Beryl, Ghost Towns, Things that have Chapped My Hide

Don’t sell out your country, literally.

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Congress want to sell off all the land owned by the federal government.  Up yours, Congress!

Map of Federal Lands
This map shows just where our lands are.

The largest landholder in the United States are the very citizens of the United States.  We own, at last check, 28% of all the landmass of the entire nation.  That’s about 636 million acres or just shy of 1 million square miles of land.  If you look at a map of the United States showing federally owned and controlled lands you will see that said ownership is disproportionally distributed to the Western states starting at the Rockies on over to the Pacific.  There are some big reasons for this:

1) None of this land was originally granted to individuals via the King of England.  Most of the borders of East Coast states are the way they are because they were originally land grants to individuals from the King of England.

2) Mountains are hard to settle.  Mountains have resources but it also sucks to try and live there if all the technology you have at the time is a mule and a shovel.  When the original homesteading was taking place during the Western expansion of the mid 19th century people didn’t homestead the mountains simply because its hard to farm a mountain.

3) The desert doesn’t grow crops.  Try as we might, salty soils with no rain don’t grow food.  So, like the mountains, the deserts of the Southwest were not homesteaded.

This is OK, though.  Thanks to the 1872 Mining Act citizens of the United States are allowed access to federal lands.  It is here where we fish, hunt, hike, camp, rock hound/prospect, hold music festivals, and just enjoy the splendor of nature.  This is why camping and hiking in the west is so much better than camping and hiking in the East.  Unlike the East coast we aren’t trespassing anywhere to get to all the good spots.

As America moved West people staked mining claims, temporary renewable rights to minerals found in a particular location.  As these mining claims grew into operational mines we would see temporary, tough-to-live-in, boom towns pop up around them.  As the mineral resources waned so did the towns (leaving behind my beloved ghost towns).  Only in the rare instance, when a mine may produce valuable ore for years to come, could the claim owner petition the US government for a deed to the land and assume ownership of said real property.  The US government would then charge the company or person a nominal fee to buy the land from the Feds.  This was known as a “patented mining claim”.

This system of obtaining real property was allowed up until 1994 when the Brush Wellman Corporation (now known as Materion), submitted a land patent application to assume somewhere near 4 square miles of land.  This chunk of real estate contained somewhere in the neighborhood of (in today’s dollars) $50-150 billion dollars in beryllium.  Essentially 90% of the of the world’s supply of this extremely rare, extremely useful, and extremely valuable metal.  How much did Brush Wellman pay for tens of billions of dollars in minerals owned by you and me? About $41,000 (in today’s dollars).  When the American people found out about how hosed we got on the land deal a roar echoed through Congress and a moratorium was established.  Since 1994 no one has been allowed to patent a mining claim staked on federal lands.

Fast forward twenty years and I give the you 114th Congress.  These people truly suck.  The Republicans enjoy a large majority in the House and control the Senate.  They accomplished this thanks to the gerrymandering of districts by Republican controlled state legislatures.  Thus, Republicans control the House despite losing the general election by 1.37 million votes.  What is one of the major things the 114th Congress want to do with their ill-gotten majority?  Sell everything we own.

It is starting small.  Essentially, Congress thinks that by turning all control of current Federal lands over to the states in which these lands are found then it will be easier for oil and gas, mining, and logging companies to then grease the palms of state legislatures to purchase vast quantities of state lands.  The states do not have the resources to manage these lands as evidence by my own state (Washington) relinquishing control of dozens of state parks to city governments.  If states do not have the budgets to manage the lands they have now, how are they going to manage the tens of millions of acres of new land they suddenly have thrust upon them by the federal government?

The ploy is simple, Congress wants to sell your lands to corporations who donate heavily to their campaigns.  if we allow them to do this, we’re screwed.  Why?

Here is why: The 1872 Mining Act allows us access to federal lands.  If the lands are no longer federal our outdoor activities will no longer be protected by this Act.  There is a moratorium on selling federal lands, but there is no moratorium on selling state lands.  Congress is out to screw us over, and the moment we have a president in the White House who agrees with them and refuses to veto their sly moves, we boned.

Tell Congress to back off and leave our lands alone!

Congress wants to sell off our lands
What Congress wants…
Things that have Chapped My Hide

Cliven Bundy is an Idiot and Anyone who Supports him is an Asshole.

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I try to keep this blog about the science of the Earth, and the adventure of discovery, but sometimes something just chaps my hide so much I have to get a little preachy.  That ‘something’?  A grand selfish asshole name Cliven Bundy. A greedy Rancher who has been stealing from the taxpayers for decades while pocketing millions in profits.

As an economic geologist I must follow certain laws when prospecting and staking claims on federal land.  These laws require enforcement, and the lands require maintenance.  For both myself and the public who owns the land to benefit, I am charged nominal fees to preserve the mineral rights to the claims I stake.  My incentive to pay for these fees is that the government will protect my rights to the minerals, and if I don’t pay the fees my rights to the land are revoked and someone else then has the right to stake a claim where mine once was.

The same can be said for federal range land.  Article IV, Section 3, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution states:

The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State.

Basically, the feds reserve the right to tell us what we are, and are not, allowed to do on federal land.  This dates back to when the original thirteen colonies ceded the Western expanse of their territories to the federal government all the way to the Mississippi River.  This is further supported by the fact that the 5th and 14th Amendments outlay how the government can even tell you what you can and can’t do on your own land (think “due process”, “zoning regulations”, and “eminent domain”).

In 1909 the National Forest started charging ranchers grazing fees.  Later in 1934 the Bureau of Land Management followed suit.  The purpose was two fold: To stop the rapid degradation of federally owned lands, and to stop the perpetual anguish of range wars.  Without federal involvement ranchers were killing each other over who could graze their cattle where.  When the feds started charging for grazing that established a regulatory process that controlled whose cattle could graze when and where.  The federal lands improved in quality, and cowboys stopped dying stupid deaths.

For those of you unfamiliar with Cliven Bundy, he is an itchy little butthole who has become the selfish, greedy hero of Neo-Nazi affiliated militia assholes all over America.  When Bundy asked a bunch of them to show up in camouflage and jackboots to threaten federal officers who were mandated by the courts to confiscate Bundy’s cattle, the militia fools were glad to carpool for the first time in their lives.  You see, Bundy has been grazing his cattle on Federal land for decades and not paying his legally required grazing fees.  Fees that amount to $1.35 per head of cattle per month.  In essence Bundy is supposed to pay the Bureau of Land Management about $18.90 to feed each one of his head of cattle over the lifespan of said cattle.  $18.90 to feed an entire 1500lbs animal over the course of its life; an animal that Bundy will then sell for more than $2,000.  Bundy has never paid for grazing.  He refuses.  He owes the government at least $300,000 in back fees and another $1 million in taxes (over which a time Bundy has sold some $30,000,000+ in cattle all fattened on taxpayer-owned land).

Add to this, Bundy has been grazing his cattle on protected land illegally.  Land that is supposed to be free from cattle in order to protect the endangered desert tortoise.  What an asshole!

Assholes that like to wear pretend uniforms.
Cliven Bundy speaks to a bunch of fat, racist idiots in camouflage. America!

Bundy claims that his family has been grazing on the land for 140 years and has a special right to the range, but in the last 115 years there is no record of the Bundy clan ever paying a damned cent to the feds for grazing on our land.  People lose the rights to mineral claims all the time even though a mine may have been in the family for generations.  If they haven’t paid the BLM the $140 a year per claim it costs to maintain their rights to the minerals they will be shit out of luck when someone else poaches their claim out from under them.  Cliven Bundy has no legal precedent, the federal government does.

The feds have managed to repossess some of Bundy’s illegal herd, but have run into a problem when a bunch of fat dip shits in camo carrying assault rifles impeded federal agents from carting away the rest of the lawbreaker’s herd.  At this point in time the feds have backed down not wanting any bloodshed.  I say screw them.  Establish the Rule of Law and have the FBI go full Waco on this greedy piece of shit and his idiot followers.  I have no problem with a bunch of racist militia members losing at a game of war with the federal government.  Cliven Bundy is stealing from the American tax payers and making millions off of it.  If these morons want to lay their lives down for him then so be it.  Let them stand as an example of what happens when you steal from the taxpayers.

Grazing fees are no different than property taxes, or paying the license tabs on your car.  If you aren’t willing to pay, you don’t get to play.  It just pisses me off to no end when some greedy sack of crap breaks the law and a bunch of jerks with machine guns jump to his defense.  I hope they all end up in prison.

Diamonds, Trip Report

We Got the Band Back Together.

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Awake high in the hills overlooking Canon City we rolled into town and headed for the local BLM office.  The forest ranger inside called for the local BLM geologist to help me look up the claims in the area we were headed toward.  Out came a pretty young thing–she had a very familiar face.  After being the most helpful US government bureaucrat I have ever experienced I asked her about getting some maps.  The geologist asked the forest ranger and the forest ranger had one useful map but none of the topos I wanted, so she inquired if I was local and knew where a certain map shop was.  I told her no, and that I was from Seattle.  To which the geologist asked if I was from Bainbridge Island.  She was Amy Titterington. A girl in the class behind me in high school!  No wonder she looked so familiar… Duh!  She was thinking the same thing about me too.  Thanks for the help, Amy!

We left the BLM office and drove North to Denver to meet up with Aren and Erik.  It was a hot morning in the 90s and a bland drive being on the boring side of the Front Range.  We arrived in Downtown Denver in front of Aren’s Brother’s Apartment about Noon and we all got some lunch at a pub called Park & Co.  The food was good and our waitress happened to have gotten her degree from UH Manoa so everybody had a Hawaii connection.  The waitress thought our Hawaii meth jokes were hilarious.  They are.

We said adieu to Lars (Aren’s brother) and his girlfriend Echo and drove towards Ft. Collins.  We spent some time in Ft. Collins stocking up on food and gear.  Dave decided to push on ahead and set up camp before we got there while Aren, Erik, and I did some shopping.  I gave Dave my Colorado atlas and off he went.  About an hour later we followed North on US287 and then turned off on Colorado Road 80 (we drove this road last year too).  It was dirt, the we split onto an even rougher road and studied our GPS intently as we didn’t exactly know how to get there, even more so since Dave had my map.

Eventually we got to the Creedmoore Lakes Campground–I mean parking lot.  There was nothing there to indicate that it was an official campground; just a flat patch of dirt.  There was also no Dave.  Uh oh.  We set up our tent and crashed for the night right there in the parking lot.  About midnight we heard a truck coming down the road.  I jumped out of the tent thinking it was Dave finally finding us, but no, it was my cousin Sam!  We set up Sam’s tent and crashed again

In the morning we awoke and slurped on cereal and breakfast bars, when Dave finally showed up.  He drove about a hundred miles too far to the West the previous day and the dirt road he found us on was going to be his last stop before he gave up.

I decided we were going to try one of the “Lost Lakes”, a group of kimberlite pipes about five miles to our East for our first day of dredging.  The drive was green and lush, I think this part of Colorado has received a lot of rain since the fires in June.  The first couple of Lost Lakes were dry but the third one had water and that is where we set up shop.  The lake is more poop than water thanks to an endless supply of thirsty cattle that relieve and refresh themselves daily there.  It was gross.  It is gross.  It will always be gross!

With the dredge set up on the Northeastern shore of our lake I loaded up the sluice box with my petroleum jelly and Crisco concoction (diamonds are hydrophobic and love grease) and we started sucking.  It was late in the day so we did about three hours worth of mining and called her a day.  I scraped the goo off the sluice box into a pot, filled the pot with water, boiled it, and then set the pot to cool in the lake.

We decided to move camps to the lake since it’s next to our minesite and nicer than a dirt parking lot.  When we finished relocating the grease had settle in the pot and I checked our fist day’s spoils.  Diamonds!!!

We got about three carats of diamonds that first day.  Solid!  That makes up for the poo we get to muck around in.  It doesn’t take long to settle into a routine.  Throw sticks for Mud, eat food, tell fart jokes, suck some mud/poop out of the pond.  The clay in our hole has proved problematic but once we got passed it we started into actual kimberlite blue clay itself.  At the end of day three we now have about 15 carats of diamonds with several stones pushing 2 carats each!

Today was day four of mining and the pressure hose in my dredge sprung a bunch of big leaks. Into Red Feather Lakes we traveled for repair supplies, a blog post, and probably the rest of the afternoon lost to the bar and its pool tables.

I have photos but I forgot my camera back at camp so those will have to come later.  Sorry, I know many of you want to see some diamonds; soon, my friends.  Soon!