The Big Questions-2009

Contact FullName: Larry McQuay
Contact Title:
Contact Organization: Lucky Gal Exploration and Mining
Contact HomePhone: 250-632-3821
Contact Email: lynxlmc@hotmail.com
Issue-to-post: What rights does a B.C. Placer Miner have, with regards to
all the new Treaties and Negtiations that are going, on throughout the
Province?
Do these rights extend to further taxation and royalties by first nations,
and how can the "average" Placer miner, conduct his business, with all the
constant changes, going on in these politically uncertain times?
Where do we stand?
date-of-posting: 09/10/09
 

MTO Double dipping
Mineral Titles Online is double dipping. This injustice is being slapped on fraction claim holders.

          For example consider the following real situation case illustrated in the following MTO map:

 

*   The fraction holder is overlapping two legacy claims. The overlapped areas are being paid for twice. Once by the legacy claims holder and once by the fraction holder. This is an injustice by MTO foisted on the public is it supposed to be serving.

*   When a claim is struck it covers a definite area. Some of it may be barren ground but that is for the claim holder to sample and find out. Anyways certain areas that can be barren ground are needed for trails, temporary camp, tailings, water supply and such if mining should go ahead. This is all part of getting a claim. The point is that the whole area of the claim that claim fees are being paid on is available for prospecting/mining.

*   This isn’t, at present, the case with the fraction claim holder. She is paying for the whole area of the claim but only has available for prospecting/mining the area that does overlap other legacy claims, parks etc.

Our government’s MTO department could easily remedy this injustice. If you look at the  MTO map above you can see that the fraction can easily be outlined using MTO polygon markup tools. Then the polygon can be selected and it’s area in square meters shown. This divided by 10,000 gives the hectare area of the fraction.

MTO has spent thousands of taxpayer’s dollars setting up their fine website; for a few dollars more they could add a line in the work reports for fraction holders to put in the area of their fraction. Since our annual fees are so many dollars per hectare the fraction holder would only pay for area they have available for prospecting/mining and MTO would reflect fairer governance.

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California supports suction dredging mining activity,Oct.07

I am pleased to announce that Governor Schwarzenegger has vetoed
Assembly Bill 1032. This is a very big win for gold prospectors
everywhere!

It was a very close race all the way to the finish line on this very
harmful legislation; it could have gone either way at the last minute.
Our lobbyist told me that the 1000+ emails and faxes that you guys
(and gals) generated for our side during the last few days may have
been what tipped the balance in our favor.

For those of you who responded to our Action Alerts, I thank you
very much!

That's another very big win for our side!

I will follow with a more detailed report (from our lobbyist) in the
upcoming newsletter. Then we can put this business behind us and get
on with some exciting gold prospecting activity!!

I hope you guys are following the gold prices; they are going
up, up, up! Hooray for us!!

We just finished our most productive season ever in The New 49'ers,
with lots of golden adventure -- a lot which has already been edited
into exciting video segments. We will include those in upcoming
newsletters.

For the moment, though, let's all just breathe a sigh of relief and
give ourselves some well-deserved pats on the backs for overcoming
that awful legislation.

Whew; that was a close one!

Here follows Governor Schwarzenegger's veto message:

...........................
To the Members of the California State Assembly:

I am returning Assembly Bill 1032 without my signature.

The purpose of this bill is to protect fish and wildlife from the
potential deleterious effects of suction dredge mining. Although
I appreciate the author's intent and the need to protect our fish,
wildlife, and water resources, this bill is unnecessary.

Current law gives the Department of Fish and Game (Department) the
necessary authority to protect fish and wildlife resources from
suction dredge mining. It has promulgated regulations and issues
permits for this activity. Permits for suction dredge mining must
ensure that these operations are not deleterious to fish and allow
the Department to specify the type and size of equipment to be used.
In its regulations, the Department may also designate specific waters
or areas that are closed to dredging.

It is unclear why this bill specifically targets a number of
specific waterways for closure or further restrictions.
The listed waterways represent only a small fraction of the waters
in our State where suction dredging is occurring. The benefit or
protection from such a minor closure is negligible and supports the
notion that scientific environmental review should precede such
decisions.

Sincerely,

Arnold Schwarzenegger
...................................

Fundraising help for Oregon Miners
1.Click for attached fundraising report .Note use your browser back button to get back to this page

Onerous permitting

(June/05) In Oregon State south of the International Boundary the governance is attempting to shove some unjust dredging permitting down the throats of placer miners looking to work the paystreaks in the goldbearing streams. Since many Canucks also mine recreationally both sides of the international boundary this can be restrictive to us as well. The Washington State Resource Coalition there is passively resisting these unjust regulations.

Assessment work troubles
(2005) An issue with Ministry of Energy Mines and Resources when applying assessment work to cells that overlap the owner's legacy claim when the owner has staked a grid cell overlapping part of his legacy claim

Estate claims

Dear Sir,

The following letter might be of interest to members of your group.

Some of you, like myself, might be approaching that time of life when
you are designated a "senior citizen" aka "old fart ". If so, it is time
to think about protecting your mineral claims, if you want them passed along
in your estate. DO NOT assume that the MTO will protect them!
Section 35 (2) of the Mineral Tenure Act states clearly that mineral titles of
the deceased shall not forfeit and vest in the government for one year from the due date.
(thus giving a one year extension, so that those managing your estate
have time to do work, file reports, transfer,or sell the claims.)
This does not happen!

Apparently MTO can decide to give the one year extension only to claims
with "imminent due dates" (whatever that means....1 month , 2 months , 6 months, 1week??? )
As a result, your estate managers will be asked to file work reports,
or make payment, on claims they have held only briefly.

Do not presume your executors will know what to do . Because your FMC dies with you,
it cannot be used by your executors. Set up someone in advance with FMC and BCeID
and make sure they understand the online system. If MTO creates an estate account with an FMC
insist that they grant a BCeID with it ,so that your executors can access your claims.

Remember ,if you hold many claims, or large claims, that payment in lieu of work
gets expensive, so leave funds and instructions for your estate managers
so they can handle your claims. Leave clear instructions as to which claims
should be kept, lapsed, sold etc. Do not assume that your loved ones
will have the same interest that you have in your properties.

In short, prepare now, and protect your rights and estate.

I write this letter based on our recent experiences following the unexpected death
of a family member.
If you have questions or comments please email jmorris@hitecprint.com

Jim Morris