New fees/elimination of small miners waiver proposed by BLM

[Hoser John]

Posted Yesterday, 10:29 AM


The BLM has proposed eliminating the SMALL MINER'S WAIVER for those of us who own ten (10) or fewer mining claims. This could be extremely costly and we are the only ones who can stop this. Here is the wording that I have cut-n-pasted from the BLM's information: "The proposal also increases the annual maintenance fees under the General Mining Law of 1872 and eliminates the fee exemption for miners holding ten or fewer mining claims." So, what we need to do is contact our members of congress and specifically ask that this be removed from the BLM budget. Get everyone you know who wants to save the small mining community to do the same. Explain why you are doing so. Write original letters, send them to your representative's district offices AND to their offices in DC. Call them if you can. This has to be stopped and only we can do it. The more it costs to hang onto our legitimate claims the less they are worth. While most of us cannot operate our claims full time, we should be able to keep them without paying more and more in fees. The small miner's waiver was created to protect the "little guy" and now the BLM is trying to get rid of it so we must protect ourselves and our most powerful weapon is the written and spoken word - directly to our elected officials.
Here is a link to the BLM budget https://www.doi.gov/…/appr…/2016/highlights/upload/BH007.pdf