Treasure Trove Permits

[gollum]

Hey Blazer,

It actually applies very well! I think Keifer said it best. The Feds should not have bitten off more than they could chew. Either fund the FS well enough to do the job they want done, or make the land public. Your fight isn't with the FS. It's with the Feds who took all that land and made it Wilderness Areas.

As Scott stated in his post, he would be MORE than happy for you to call attention to this with the Feds. Remember, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Politicians want to do what their constituents want (or at least appear so). In the mid 1990s, Clinton understood that the American Public wanted to stop industry from destroying our Public Lands, so he added imensely to the size of many of our National Parks and Forests. It was great press, and made him a shiny apple in the eyes of the Tree Hugging Crowd. Did Slick Willie properly fund the Forest Service so they could fulfill the laws already on the books regarding boundaries and mineral reports? Doesn't sound like it according to the Chief Archaeologist for one of our National Forests!?! Bush cares not for our wilderness areas (other than oil drilling access for his buddies). Think he is going to up the funding for the Forest Service to do their job properly while the US is operating at a huge deficit, and he is allocating a couple of BILLION DOLLARS per MONTH for actions in Iraq? I highly doubt the US Forest Service is a very high priority for him.

If you could get enough people to call, email, and write to their representatives, angrily explaining why proper funding for the US Forest Service is as important as the war in Iraq, then you may get some of the things you wanted done. Look how well it worked for the Mexican Border! NOBODY and I mean NOBODY wanted to do anything about our porous Southern Border. The Democrats want open borders so we can help out the needy of the world, while Republicans want open borders so we can exploit all the cheap labor. It wasn't until Talk Radio got everybody fired up about the subject, and everybody started calling and threatening their Representatives Jobs', that anybody other than Tom Tancredo and Dana Rohrbacher did anything about it. Now do you see the relationship between my post and the subject at hand?

You can yell at Scott all day long, but it is a fact of life, that he can't do any more than he can do, with what he's got. You get enough people to yell at the Feds, and they can give him more money to do the jobs they want him to do.

Best,

Mike

 

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[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

No "Christmas" gollum ?? coward! CHRISTMAS CHRISTMAS CHRISTMAS !

Great scot, lets give SCOTT a merry CHRISTMAS! not scotch him personally.

Tropical Tramp

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

Merry CHRISTMAS SCOTT & all of my friends in here. I sent this from Guadalcanal in 1942.

Tropical Tramp

 

[DEMON]

nice post mrs. please don't shoot scott just getting to like him

 

[JScottWood]

First, let me get a few things out of the way.

Hey Mike,

Thanks for the support, buddy! I can see that you understand what we’ve been going through. If I ever get my hands on the guy who coined the phrase “do more with less” I’m going to kill him. Slowly. And Painfully. Because I won’t have the funding or personnel necessary to do it quickly and humanely.

Your overtime analogy was a good one. The only people in the FS who get OT are fire fighters (which nobody begrudges) and clerks (which we have been steadily getting rid of for the last decade). I belong to a class of employees labeled “exempt.” When I first heard that, I thought it meant that we were something elite and got to avoid certain kinds of unsavory work; after all, that class is made up of all the professionals and ‘ologists. Imagine my surprise when I found out that it meant that we were exempt from overtime… The problem is that there actually are a lot of people in the FS that believe in what we are doing and end up donating a lot of time to try to get the job done (fool that I am, I generally end up donating anywhere from one to two months a year). That used to work, but not any more; there simply aren’t enough of us.

Jose,

Now that’s what I call a Christmas card! Thanks.

Beth and Demon,

Thanks for not wanting to shoot me! Curiously enough, the last time anybody shot at me it was in the Superstition Wilderness (as opposed to over the Superstition Wilderness). And thanks, Beth, for the excellent discussion of unfunded mandates, the Forest Service way of life.

OK, between Mike and Beth I think that Blazer’s issues have been pretty well covered, but there are a couple of things he said that I would still like to straighten out/clarify before, hopefully, we can let this Wilderness thing go.

Blazer said: <<Sec 1. of the Wilderness Act clearly states that “No appropriation shall be available for the payment of expenses or salaries for the administration of the National Wilderness Preservation System as a separate unit nor shall any appropriations be available for the purpose of managing or administering areas solely because they are included within the National Wilderness Preservation System”.>> and then went on to say that he understood this to mean “that it is the Forest Service’s responsibility to fulfill the requirements mandated by Congress in order to maintain the status of a designated Wilderness Area using the annual budget provided by the Congress for salaries, equipment and buildings provided in that budget.”

That isn’t what it means at all. It means that Congress did not set aside any money specifically to manage any wilderness as a separate entity apart from the administrative units in which they are located, in this case, the National Forest. In other words, funds for managing Wilderness have to come out of the appropriated funds for the entire Forest and are therefore subject to the budget prioritization process.

He followed this up with “The Laws mandated by Congress are NOT optional based on funding!” Well, having worked for the Government for 30 years, you could have fooled me! As Beth so eloquently noted, “unfunded mandates” have become the norm in Congress. Just about every law directing any Federal land management activity over the last 30 years has been stymied by this. In fact, many of these “mandates” have a clause in their enabling legislation that says “nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize the expenditure of funds beyond those already allocated to the Agency (or words to that effect).” Nice, huh?

Blazer said that he has a problem with the way that the Federal Government “take public land especially public land where there might be a Treasure Trove involved, and place it under some type of "Protected Land" (Wilderness Area or Military Base etc) in order to make a Federal Claim to anything that might be there.” I kind of get the feeling that others feel a little the same way, but there may be a slight misunderstanding about what designations like Wilderness really mean when it comes to land status.

The land currently designated as the Tonto National Forest, including the Superstition Wilderness, has been Federal property from the time that we signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 when we got it from Mexico. Parts of the Tonto National Forest were designated as Forest Reserve as early as 1898 and it became a National Forest in 1905 with some parts being added in 1908. The Superstition Wilderness was designated by the Forest Service as a Primitive Area in 1939 and a Wilderness in 1940; it became part of the National Wilderness Preservation System in 1964. It was “protected land” long before that, long before any American ever prospected in it and long before anyone ever started looking for treasure troves there. We’ve never had to do anything “make a Federal claim to anything;” whatever’s out there has been Federal property for the last 158 years.

He said that “The initial Mineral Survey performed in the Superstition Mountains to verify that there was no mineable mineral in them was carefully done so as not to find any mineable minerals,if you know what I mean.”
While that is a nice sarcastic remark, it simply isn’t true. But if he won’t believe that one, there are plenty of other geological studies of the Superstitions that say the same thing – no mineralization, no locatable minerals. Go to any bookstore. The western part of the range is nothing but an eroded volcanic caldera blanketed with dacitic ash. Typical of such formations, there is mineralization around the edges, evidence for which is plentiful at Goldfield, the old tungsten/manganese (sorry, I forget which) mines near Burns Ranch, and the silver and copper mining districts centered on Rogers’ Trough and Silver King/Superior – all of which are outside the Wilderness. All of these mines were originally developed prior to the designation of the Forest; if there was anything locatable inside the area we now call wilderness, there was nothing to stop anybody from claiming and developing it at that time. Nobody ever did; gold mines up the wazoo at Goldfield, nothing in the adjacent caldera.

He said “People have been bringing placer gold out of La Barge canyon, Tortilla Creek and Peter's canyon for 50 years or more.” And “There IS gold out there. There is lots of gold. The Government knows this and is doing everything they can to prevent anyone from finding it's source! There is also the possibility of one or more very large Treasure Troves to be found out there, and the government wants to be sure that if there are, and anyone ever finds one or more of them, the government will get it all!”

First of all, those “placer gold” stories are apochryphal. Have you seen any of it, Blazer? Has anyone other than the people who claim to have found it? Assertion is not evidence. There’s a story going around that Chuck Kenworthy took $13.5 M in gold out of the Superstitions, but we surveyed every one of his claim areas. Do you have any idea how much waste rock that would produce or how big a hole? Guess what? Didn’t happen.

Second, didn’t I specify in an earlier post the provisions in the treasure trove process that allow the finder to keep some portion of any trove that he/she might find? Not all of it, of course – since it is already Government property in the first place by virtue of having been abandoned on Federal land – but some portion. You can quibble over the percentage, but you can’t say that the Fed takes it all.

I gather from some of the other things he and others have said that some (a few? a lot?) of you think that people should be allowed to prospect in the Superstitions to find all this gold Blazer says we are hiding because the Wilderness Act says that’s OK. Forgive me if I don’t take sides here, but I do want to go back to something that I mentioned earlier – it’s been closed to mineral entry (not the same thing as the “patent moratorium,” which is a whole other topic I’d rather not get caught up in at the moment).

Now I can see where some folks might see this as evidence of a Federal conspiracy, so there will probably be people out there who won’t believe me when I tell why we did that. The reason was simple – people had been prospecting it for decades, digging and blasting holes all over the place, destroying archaeological sites, and harassing recreationists. We closed it to mineral entry not because it was full of gold but because 100 years of prospecting had shown that it wasn’t but that fact did not stop people from tearing the place up looking for it. When Anglos first started settling in Arizona Territory it only took a couple of years for a relative handful of prospectors to find and develop nearly every gold mine ever discovered in the Bradshaw Mountains. Does it seem reasonable that anyone should expect to find gold in a place of about the same size that has had hundreds, if not thousands, of people looking all over it for a century without finding anything?

Anyway, it’s late and I’ve said about all that I can coherently say about this at 3 AM. If anybody wants to pursue this topic with the FS, I would suggest that you might want to talk to someone in wilderness management at the Regional or Washington Office. I can give you names and addresses if you’d like (but not now, since I’m not in my office).

Cheers,
Scott

 

[Blazer]

Scott,

First I would like to thank you for your pleasant and professional response to my irate and argumentative ramblings!

I believe I have made it clear that my frustration is not with you personally. Right from the start and I have tried to keep that thought in mind as I vent my frustrations with the federal government. Looking back at some of my own words, even I can see that I have lost sight of that a time or two and I appreciate you overlooking that.

Yes Scott, I have seen some of the gold that was brought out of the areas I mentioned that placer has been recovered in. I even have some of it in a bottle sitting in front of me on my desk as I type. I can testify to where that came from because I pulled it out of the ground myself.

To take it a step further I can quote from an article by Jim Hatt on another website http://www.desertusa.com/ldm-1/peralta.html where he states that a Land and Mineral Officer (Larry Soehlig) for the Tonto National Forest verified that a man named Bilbrey found a depost of gold in the Wilderness Area "in sufficient quantity to validate the filing of a mining claim"

QUOTED FROM MR HATT'S ARTICLE

"On March 10, 1983, Michael Bilbrey, then 32 years old and already a thirteen-year veteran in the search for the Lost Dutchman Mine, filed a mining claim, LD8, in an area where he believed that the Peralta Stone Maps led to. In an article in The Arizona Republic on Tuesday, February 1, 1983, Charles Kelly reported that Bilbrey stated he had assay reports on samples taken from his claim that showed a gold content in sufficient quantity to validate the filing of a mining claim. In the same article, Larry Soehlig, a Lands and Mineral Officer for the Tonto National Forest, is quoted as saying, “Based on what Mr. Bilbrey’s proposed he’d like to do, there’s probably enough (gold) there to let him continue with that little (mining) process.” Michael Bilbrey did find gold there."

Even if you choose not to believe what I have said about the placer I have found in La barge Canyon a short distance downstream for Squaw Box, how can you dispute the verification of the presence of gold in quantity sufficient to warrent a valid mining claim made be Mr. Soehlig?

Regarding the Superstitions always having been a "protected" area. If this is true in the sense you present it, why was it necessary to add to the protection afforded by the Wilderness Act? The way you guys have been fencing off the National Forest and increasing the restrictions in it, there is becomming less and less difference between a Wilderness Area and a National Forest every year anyway.

I still insist that since the government failed to fulfill the requirements for a designated Wilderness Area within the time alloted by the Wilderness Act (because of the lack of funding or whatever), results in the invalidation of the inclusion of the Supertition Mountain range into the protection of the Wilderness Act and I will continue to harp on this until the government meets the requirements or redesignates the Superstitions as just a part of the Tonto National Forest as it should be.

Are you aware that a person can enter Tortilla Creek at Tortilla Flat and follow it all the way to where it ends in the area of Tortilla Pass about a mile north of the J.F. Ranch and never see a boundary fence or posting that you are entering a Wilderness Area?

Another problem I have with the northern boundary is that the government ignored the prerequisite that a Wilderness area cannot be designated in an area that has existing roads. When they drew the proposed northern boundary on the map they drew a line around the existing road that goes back to Tortilla Ranch and posted the boundary about a mile southeast of the ranch (by the way, that road was driveable at least another mile, maybe even two, back into the 5 springs area as late as 1966) then brought it back north of the ranch almost to the Apache trail. If they intended to comply with the prerequisite requirements instead of circumvententing them, they would have placed the northern boundary in the 5 springs area, and it would extend east and west to the east/west boundaries from that point!

I have also noticed that the new maps no longer show the road going back to Reavis Ranch and the exclusion of that road from the area claimed by the Wilderness Boundary. Is there a hidden agenda to errase that road and then claim it never existed and include that area into the description of the Wilderness Area too?

I do not believe that our Congressional Representatives pay a lot of attention to revisions to the Wilderness Area boundaries that are presented to them on a regular basis and do much of an evaluation of the proposals with respect to existing laws that govern them when they approve or deny them. This makes it easier for the F.S. to slip things in on them and get them approved when they should have been denied and would have been if our representatives were cognizant of of the requirements of the governing documents. That is not the end of the story. It is always possible to go back and correct mistakes once they are identified! Elected Officials are much more sensitive to public opinion than most employees of the F.S. are.

I am currently digging into the specifics of the Act of June 4, 1897 (30 Stat. 11) which is referenced in the Wilderness Act "Limitations of Use and Activities" Sec. 4. (a) (1) where it says that "Nothing in this Act shall be deemed to be in interference with the purpose for which National Forests are established as set forth in the Act of June 4, 1897....." I don't think our representatives pay much attention to this Act when they approve or deny proposed revisions to existing Wilderness Areas either. Heaven only knows what I will find to whine about in that document! I repeat, "It is always possible to go back and correct mistakes once they are identified".


Again Scott, I thank you for your pleasant and professional responses and I will make every effort (within the limits of my patience) to keep mine on the same level.

There is only one thing that I can remember Bill Clinton saying while he was our President that I agreed with; "Some things are worth getting angry about"


Blazer

 

[Keifer]

Blazer

Again you have shown that you have more than the average amount of “Savoy” for understanding federal regulations and how they can be and are abused. Keep digging, I like the kind of things you are finding and bringing to the table!

I believe like you that our elected officials are not behind the problems that you are complaining about, and they have been DUPED and misled by FS recommendations for management and control of wilderness areas. Congressional representatives often change on a regular basis but some FS employees hang on for decades until they retire and have the long range opportunity to implement hidden agendas over extended periods of time. What they cannot get passed in one session of congress may easily slide thru another when the representatives change and before the new members have time to wise up to hidden agendas. I also agree that when past errors are identified and brought to the attention of the right people, THEY CAN BE CORRECTED! It is just a matter of making our current elected officials aware of them, and you are on the right track for doing that. I would love to see an in depth investigation into what has been going on and a bunch of upper echelon Arizona FS employees transferred to manage the Nat’l Forests areas of Alaska!

Re: Gov’t misdeeds and cover-ups and conspiracies. Does anyone know why select areas of the Sup’s are blurred out on the aerial photos available at Goggle Earth? Who would have the horsepower and the will to accomplish that if not the federal Gov’t? I can understand there desire to block views of Area 51 and other sensitive military installations, but why the Superstition Mountains, unless they are afraid that someone might see something in the way of old trails or mining areas that might lead them to something the FS is trying to keep secret?

I agree with you, the northern boundrie of the Sup. Wilderness should be somewhere around the 5 springs area and run west all the way to where it intersects the Apache Trail somewhere around Gov’t Wells to be in concert with the rules and regulations in existence at the time the wilderness act was approved. Everything north of that area should be open to mining claims under the rules of the Nat’l Forest.

The existing road ended there in 1964 when the Sup’s were included in the wilderness act and as you have shown, there are know deposits of gold north of that area.

Keifer

 

[gollum]

Scott and Blazer,

I know Jim Hatt fairly well. I know that nobody has, but I will nip this possibility in the bud. He is an honest and a good guy. If he tells me something, I will take him at his word. He has never embellished the truth.

Also, I don't know any of the specifics, but there is a picture of a chunk of gold in quartz that the owner said came from the Superstitions. He didn't say exactly when or where it was found, but it was quite large, and well endowed with Au. It's possible he might have not told me the true origin of the ore, but like with Jim Hatt, I have no reason to doubt what I was told.

Best,

Mike

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

Beth come to Mexico, the state and federal gov'ts actually enourage and help the small miners since they recognize that the mineral industry is the backbone of the economy, NO manufactureing can take place without it... the US formerly did. ... However. Mexico does not have a patent process to my knowledge... But titles are issued for a period of 50 years, renewable for another.

Tropical Tramp

 

[gollum]

they recognize that the mineral industry is the backbone of the economy

Tropical Tramp

Hey Jose,

Not to change the subject, but the greater part of the "backbone" of the Mexican Economy is the 9-10 Billion Dollars per year the Mexican Citizens (legal and illegal) send home every year!

Best,

Mike

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

It helps Gollum, it helps. However it's metal production also contributes hehehe.

Tropical Tramp

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

HI BETH oro: You can now own 100%, providing you form a Mexican company and agree to abide strictly by Mexican laws, not too unusual a proposition. In effect you and the property are Mexican and under their jurisdiction, a no too unusual situation.

.However, they are not as silly or as stupid as we are, they do not change their laws to suit the gringo.

Tropical Tramp

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

AND CANADIAN --I HOPE snicker

Tropical Tramp

 

[whitt459]

enjoying this very much, please keep the post coming. whitt459

 

[gord]

AND CANADIAN --I HOPE snicker

Tropical Tramp

Where did you get the idea that there ARE any Canadian companies? They are owned by American (70+%) and European (20+%) CORPORATIONS!
Gord

 

[the blindbowman]

so any one that wants a permit can, not just post a statement like this one ! ( " under a shelving rock where the dirt was soft ,i dug a grave and buried him ") and than post a photo of the real grave site and the bones of his nephew ... like this , and prove that all the BS about find the grave site in the past was total Bs, because this is the real grave site of the nephew of the dutchman ....undisturbed ...taken the 7th of Decmeber 2006 by the blindbowman ....take a good look , thats as close as you are ever going to get to this grave site ... you should have beleaved me to start with .. now its to late ...i found this site threw perfection and hard work and i am sorry to say my 3 sites yelded nothing but going into the mts and in 3 days i found this grave site ....now i just dont feel like playing anymore ....and lol i did find the real stone house and i did get photos as well...

 

[the blindbowman]

scott let me know when i got enough evidiences to get a permit ... i guest where that site would be found with in 10ft of where it was found ...,and you havent seen nothing yet !

 

[the blindbowman]

lol you got to be jokeing , for one i was not alone when the bones were found . secound , untill a doctor tells me they are human i have no idea if this is in fact a true grave ... and i need not report all bones found unless they are proven human .by a doctor... Roy you email me again and i will report you to the mods of this .......

IMHO these are the bones or the nephew for a few common factors that can be proved , for one the place they were found . for two the type of bones and there placement . and if you look you can see that the dirt has not been detrubed at all ...

if you trolls dont stop your BS i will leave the site and just directly work with tonto national forstry and other law enforcement ....and you will not know or see any of my reseach at all ....

 

[the blindbowman]

and by the way . ask over 70 year old jim floyd that has hiked the mt for over 30 years . he was in fact with me and my brother that day in the mts when the pictures were taken .... he guided us and let us take his picture for my up comeing book ....so you are in fact wrong the pictures are not staged at all ...

 

[Oroblanco]

Where did you get the idea that there ARE any Canadian companies?

Hey! Give our northern neighbors some credit - at least where GOLD is concerned. There were at least 271 mining companies listed in the Toronto Stock Exchange last I looked, and they are very competitive! If you've ever seen their boys & girls fly past you in a helicopter as you slog your way through half-thawed muskeg on their way to stake out mining claims and beat you to it, you will know what I mean! They don't fool around, and are danged good at the game.

Thanks for the info Tropical Tramp, now to find out about forming a Mexican company, legally.... Maybe we can meet sooner rather later my friend!

If those are human remains Blindbowman it is worth reporting to the authorities - one never knows what you will find; may be just what you suspect it is, or it could be some other unfortunate. I hope you will let us know when your book is available?

Thanks Scott for posting the information on Treasure trove permits too - very helpful! If ever I should locate a trove of treasure, I now know the process of how to apply for the correct permit.

Oroblanco