As always, I look forward to your comments and was glad to see that E&MJ attended the permitting session at the 2019 American Exploration & Mining Association meeting. I also presented at that conference and the theme was “the luck of the draw;” that is, the amount of trouble one might have depends greatly upon who one draws as a district ranger, forest supervisor, even the regional forester. In my case I drew a mean spirited, dishonest, Forest Supervisor.
I have just passed my sixth season of trying to permit a simple small-miner/recreational type of placer operation in a historic placer mining district that will disturb no more that 1 acre, including access. I discussed all the hoops I had to go through to obtain my POO permit only to have him bring in a temporary district ranger to deny my route. Totally dishonest, in my view.
President Trump is doing his best to drain the swamp but we are still dealing with public land management directives and officials from the Obama administration, and he cannot drain it fast enough (by getting rid of these mean-spirited malcontents).
They are so obsessed with preservation that they cannot accept that we have to develop minerals where they are, and the same geologic forces that created our landscapes concomitantly created mineral deposits. We once had a public lands management philosophy that accepted this, and until we again have that in place, the public land wars that started during the Carter administration will continue.
Keep up the good work.
Andy Johnson
Butte, Montana
