Thank you for the links to local media, MEG. This helps the proper information to get out there.
As an elected official of the Galice Mining District and also someone who is close to the mine owners, I am in a position to answer Clay Diggins' questions.
Though my time is precious at the moment (for obvious reasons), I am going to relate the following details in the name of transparency to address Clay's questions.
The Sugar Pine South Extension (ORMC20079) is indeed a Post-55 claim. This claim was a 1975 relocation of an original 1892 location by then Sugar Pine owner, John Bolt, who was a very prominent pioneer and mine owner in the Applegate and Waldo districts until his death in 1899. Bolt located the ground on the assumption that the ore body was growing increasingly richer with depth, which later proved to be correct. Despite this, little work appears to have been done until the ownership of the mine passed to William Dowell in 1903, who began sinking a winze on the main vein. Despite striking rich very ore at depth, Dowell also encountered considerable issues with water and was forced to reconsider the winze. While undertaking a large sampling program in that #3 mine level (called the Blacksmith), which included extending the adit (where he struck running ground because he was actually close to coming out the other side of Sugar Pine Butte), he also began driving an exploratory #4 adit on the South Extension claim to penetrate the ore body at the point of the winze. This #4 adit never amounted to much more than a coyote hole extending back 20 or so feet, as Dowell's sampling program also proved that substantial ore also existed between the #2 and #3 levels. Needless to say, Dowell abandoned his #4 tunnel project and proceeded to raise up on the ore body instead. That #4 level is located close to the boundary line between the Sugar Pine and South Extension claims and is pretty much as Dowell left it 105 years ago. Ultimately, little more than the most basic of prospecting has ever been conducted on the South Extension claim and the claim was held largely for the reason that Bolt filed it originally. It was subsequently "picked off" during the validity due to there being no visible vein the #4 adit. It was subsequently relocated by a previous owner in 1975 who sought to add that claim back the mine group. The original situation on that claim (held to preserve future work at depth) has actually continued to the modern day, in that even the work done by the current owners is limited to taking samples by rock hammer for assay. In fact, they have specifically avoided doing more than basic prospecting on the South Extension simply because of its Post-55 status. Needless to say, the source of the so-called "violations" are not on the South Extension claim.
Most of the so-called "violations" that BLM speaks of in their two notices to the owners are actually centered on the Sugar Pine Lode (located 1876) and the Black Jack (located 1900), which also contain the majority of the mine group's historical workings.
As for the BLM notices themselves, these will be released on the mine's official site:
Sugar Pine Mine - Galice Mining District, Josephine County, Oregon
The issue at the moment is that we do not have enough volunteers to go around to get that done as fast as we'd like, but what else is new?
