There is no mystery. Mining districts are an understanding of what miners did for themselves.
Disappointingly, Kirby, knowledgeable as he is, long ago abandoning the purpose of Jefferson Mining District, cannot yet be of any substantive aid or insight in these matters as applicable to the actual needs of the producer today; It isn't about just forming another mining district.
As explained above. If there is a list of things to do to establishing a mining district, You get there by:
1) Study;
2) Contemplation of what was found from diligent study as applicable to the needs today;
3) Applying the conclusions derived from what is found from that due diligence.
Jefferson Mining District is validated by its Assembly, not on how many other mining districts might exist. In fact, in light of the ongoing oppression which no others have been able to rectify, in fact mucking things up worse, the lesser amount of capable districts highlights the need, purpose, and propriety of Jefferson Mining District and the unique insight of its Assembly.
Study will show, mining districts come by the Authority of the mineral estate grantee, not how many mining districts exist. And acknowledged so by Congress in the Mining Law, being an other local government, Jefferson Mining District coordinates, 43 USC 1712, in a capacity not available to mere associations or conservancies; The distinction identified prior regarding South West Oregon Mining Association and Jefferson Mining District.
A more thorough understanding of the laws, customs, and traditions must be had when considering forming a mining district which study will prove out, such as that Conservancies are not established or organized like mining districts nor by similar Authority. Conservancies and other such corporations or associations do not have governmental Jurisdiction or Authority and come only by the privilege extended by state law. These types of entities do not Coordinate. Not being governments, they may only participate in a collaborative capacity as a Cooperating Agency. Jefferson Mining District is forbidden by its establishment of being and cannot be a Cooperating Agency for purposes of Coordination, as the BLM just confirmed in a recent communication. And even then, if so, in Coordination a conservancy's authority would not be overpowering, but only so much as to insure a land use plan was consistent with the law and man's environment or prioritizing for productive uses.
The law requires a balance between the natural environment and man's environment, both existing in the term Environment, tipping in favor of man's environment. The reason why the “enviro” sympathizing collaborators are having their way, in part, and despite a couple of other nasty things JMD has uncovered within the judiciary and agencies, is Producers haven't in any pervasive way engaged the law to put “enviros”, who aggressively push the nature environmental consideration part, into the proper balance favoring man's environment, or the productive priorities Congress disposed the land to, reference US v. New Mexico, 1978,
http://www.jeffersonminingdistrict.com/mining-law/Cases/US_v_New_Mexico_1978.pdf
In the balance provided in the law for the Environment, that half-part known as man's environment, producers or production, have not until Jefferson Mining District brought the law to the scale of justice, as it were, to assure the scale didn't tip in favor of the other half-part of the environmental consideration, the natural environment, what amounts to mainly non-valuable, though lawfully considerable, aesthetics uses, or as both parts are to be balanced, required in the NEPA. Because, in most cases, there has been nothing put on the side of the scale by the producers, or patentees, such as the land disposal laws are obligated, which would balance in favor of man's environment, without any thing on that side of the scale of justice representing man's environment, the aesthetic interest can "win" by a mere Spotted Owl feather placed on the other platter. But read the Swanson 2013 Case to see this matter of law fact:
Mining Law & Mining Rights Learning Center that man's environment, productive uses, when the sheet of paper containing the law recognizing the priority for productive, sustained yield at capacity, use is placed on the scale, such required in the O & C Act, the balance cannot tip in favor of but weighs against the natural environment. And not a feather, as before, neither the entire population of Spotted Owls placed on the scale can weigh heavier than the obligation to productive uses fulfilled by Congress the law evidences the land, be it public land or as miners Claim public domain, is disposed to; See Swanson, denial of intervenor, for spotted owl, or endangered species interests.
Why is it no attorney knows or asserts this prevailing productive use requirement in law, rather, making the granted exclusive enjoyment and the already lawful use of property an issue, a question, or subject to administrative oversight, the grantee an environmental criminal? Where is the authority to convert, pervert, the congressional order disposing that the land is lawfully used as disposed? Why is it mineral estate grantees are not, where forced to, making administrative records of this fact of the prevailing title and priority of productive disposal and lawful use, not subject to agency or 3rd party criminalization?
Once you see this dynamic, and this is one of the important purposes of Jefferson Mining District to restore, you may begin to appreciate what has been happening to the productive uses, such as mining. You'll understand the remedy, as in the Swanson Case, production of Timber, how to address the “enviro” problem. And once that is appreciated, and these matters are addressed pursuant to these factors, lawsuits, such as are being mishandled in California and elsewhere, will be seen to be nothing more than futile administrative exercises to unlawful compromise. The miners, too ignorant to understand, those professing mining law and legal expertise are simply mining the miners because the miners do not study to understand enough to take matters into their own hands, asserting the laws available to protect themselves.
As an aside, after all these years of compromise, the people supporting attorneys, who, under critical analysis do not actually protect the property, but offer it up as sacrifice to the earth goddess, have to cover their bad decisions. To cover for their bad decisions they have to obstruct, or worse convolute, and worse yet, obscure through 3-ring circus hoop jumping, administrative proceedings agreeing to accept some sort of environmental criminalization justifying the need to compromise. Then agreeing to be an environmental criminal, see the Granite Rock case, requiring “compromise”, because of voluntary application to otherwise inapplicable environmental rules, denying the very law which they ought to have used to protect themselves, they wonder where their rights and property went. It's not a grant they say, the Act of Congress must be compromised. The compromise the best we can do. But by what lawful Authority is this servitude imposed? No one says.
Then, having to justify the expense of losing to self-inflicted compromise, abandoning the law and the lawful use of the property and appurtenant rights, we hear condemnation of or indifference to any one, such as Jefferson Mining District, or those of its Assembly, drawing a hard line in the grants in law exposing the ongoing failures and unsuccessful, expensive, protracted litigations of the legal experts. And no one else seems to notice that it profits an attorney little, being paid handsomely by each word, to advance summary proceedings through presentation of title under the law of possession, 30 USC 53, and the laws or obligations protecting the granted property. And so, the legal torture continues all the while it is promoted the miner cannot be legally tortured by regulation. Is it that difficult to understand, requiring the penetrating brilliance of a “legal expert”, that if grantees are not mining, for ANY reason, that interference is prohibitive in an unlawful takings, 5th Amendment violating sort of way, not subject to agency negotiation?
Congressional disposal of the enjoyment and use of the soil is not negotiable; Not even for environmental concerns. Given a patent adds little to a mineral estate grantee's possession, there being no reservation for state regulation authority in the Act of Congress granting the mineral estate disposal, the State is obligated to the terms of congressional disposal and does not have the jurisdiction or authority to negotiate further, or to diminish the granted property without invoking takings implications. And neither does an attorney or judge, members of the same BAR ASS., a mere association, as a conservancy; neither do the mining associations have any power to condition an Act of Congress or negotiate for other property owners. As well, the Governments have no power to change that obligation which Congress fulfilled, but do have an obligation to protect the disposals, the stated enjoyment and use, the right of appropriation, to the fullest extent expressed in the granting act.
As long as the congressional disposal of the mineral estate, its intention and fulfillment, is not the foundation of the assertion of rights sought to be protected from encroachment, and rather acceptance, despite the absence of expressed reservation for any limitations or future 3rd party or State infringement in the terms of the granting acts, any "expert" “legal” representative, as has been explained to them now going on near 10 years, agreeing government agencies can impose a permit or regulation, the grantee volunteering being an environmental criminal, for instance, or any miner ignorantly giving up control of his land where applying for and receiving a permit or license will have abandoned their prevailing property and rights in favor of the volunteered regulatory obligation. What the grantee does in applying for a permit is cede to the government agency a commercial class regulatory jurisdiction and authority what was disposed by grant Act of Congress is a producer class privately held mineral possession. What the grantee can expect is the “legal” takings of their property, without remedy, and continued or delayed by the same "expert" “legal” representatives and a complicit BAR ASS., system only too happy to exploit soil disposal law ignorance and continue to mine the miners, deprive them of property, rights, and remedies, and to advance a foreign agenda contrary to law; Despite an abiding duty in judges to do justice in Law.
The attributes appurtenant this agenda and these environmental programs is to attack a lawful way of life, and law of the soil, and Americans, at the least the notion of what that might be. Though the property owner can give that part of the property up voluntarily, such as by application to some regulatory oversight, absent this, any delay by the courts or allowance of delay by an attorney, to fail to fulfill the unlimited grant of certain minerals of the mineral estate to the Claimant, or to protect it from trespass, rather to prefer an environmental or other servitude or compromise not expressly intended by Congress, is an immediate and irreparable harm and representative incompetence, fiduciary breach. Any obstruction to that property, or to the summary and plenary remedy to protect it, by any officer of the court, including attorneys and judges, is theft by extortion under color of authority, and is a felony, reference ORS 164.075. But don't expect criminals of this sort to agree. And do expect delay and obfuscation, because time and words are money and control to the criminal syndicate over the property, rights, remedies and granted livelihood of the ignorant grantee. Is it any wonder then that “before the organization of any of the Western Territories, a system of miners' laws had been established, the outlines of which have been the basis of all subsequent legislation” and that “In some districts lawyers were, by these laws, forbidden to reside or practice”? – Mining Rights In the Western States and Territories, 1903.
http://www.jeffersonminingdistrict.com/mining-law/Miningrightsinthewesternstatesandterritories.pdf
Or as members of SWOMA and Jefferson Mining District assemblymen just heard State of Utah representative and attorney Ken Ivory say at a recent "Solution Revolution" meeting, admitting, if we hadn't already known it, paraphrasing, – “Attorneys don't know about this land disposal law. We are going to have to retrain them and in Utah we have appropriated money to do so.” – . . . Think about that. The attorneys don't know about this, “a system of miners' laws had been established, the outlines of which have been the basis of all subsequent legislation.”- Mining Rights 1903, of which Congress adopted. Experience proves, this is a universal truth. Attorneys don't actually know about this land disposal law. And we pay attorneys for this “expertise”? How much better the judges know then under this disability, even if not influenced by a pervading hostile agenda, such as Sustainable Development?
Though we expect better very soon, what Ken Ivory admits is incompetence in attorneys, and therefore judges, is masked by their expertise in mining the miner of their wealth and property due to the property owners ignorance in soil disposal law or while pretending to assert property rights when encumbering the granted property by a permit, however arguably “legal”.
This incompetence is eliminated, and the professional and official plunder stops, when the attorney understands the disposal law of the soil, including water, does not admit to compromise and judges enforce the Law; Because the governmental obligation, and therefore upon its officers, such as judges and attorneys, the duty to protect public land disposal by appropriation, though identified in other case as a grant, is bigger than a grant: “The Mining Act of 1866 was not itself a grant of water rights pursuant to federal law. Instead, as this Court observed, the Act was "`a voluntary recognition of a preexisting right of possession, constituting a valid claim to its continued use.'" United States v. Rio Grande Dam & Irrig. Co., supra, at 705. Congress intended "to recognize as valid the customary law with respect to the use of water which had grown up among the occupants of the public land under the peculiar necessities of their condition." 10 Basey v. Gallagher, 20 Wall. 670, 684 (1875). See Broder v. Water Co., supra, at 276; Jennison v. Kirk, 98 U.S. 453, 459 -461 (1879). 11 [438 U.S. 645, 657]
FindLaw | Cases and Codes
Despite this weighty Authority foundation, just referenced, the condition against mineral estate grantees won't be cleared up on its own or by thinking some expensive “legal” practitioner is going to do it for us. Though it ought not be this way, Law and those devoted to it, the existence of which is owing to property and to protect property, should have our respect where, pre-occupied by our production, special matters get beyond us to keep. But not now, not today. In fact, in just a few words, it can be shown not many even know how to use the language of the mining law correctly, let alone to its full force and effect. Or how, by their misuse of the terms, being able to identify, by the misuse, that a judge just stole the grantee's property which the attorney offered up to compromise. Besides, more money can be mined from the miners for the appeal, right?
And wasn't this predicted in the 1920's publication reciting judge Lindley, that at that time there being no mining lawyers, the last mining law judges would disappear and with them the rights of the miner? Now, you think about who has been mining whom and why we don't enjoy the law or our granted property with regard to the brutally apparent incompetent legal system that “doesn't know” the Law of the soil. One way you'll readily know a judge intends justice, or the attorney is seeking it, these will simply have you produce your title under the law of possession as federal law requires, 30 USC 53, and as quickly determine the cause, not upon environmental considerations, or upon the claim of other trespassers, such as the State or “enviros”, but upon and with respect to the intention and as grant Act of Congress disposes the soil, by highest title. And “Miner's Title” is the highest. [mis]-Handled by the “legal expert”, How's that been working for ya?
The advantage isn't by Conservancy jurisdiction, authority, or organizational prowess imposing environmental compromise that miners are “losing”. But left unused, such as has been the case until Jefferson Mining District asserted Coordination, in part remedy, to answer the ongoing felony being committed against producers under color of authority, be it state, federal, environmental, or by “legal expert”, not many appreciate the power and law that can be brought to bear to regain some measure of control now. The choice upon the miner is clear, study enough to understand to be able to summarily defend yourself, or sit on your hands and think some profiteer will do it for you . . . in the next appeal.
Jefferson Mining District is inviting participation as established by the power granted to the grantees themselves by Act of Congress, that producers keep matters in to their own hands, protecting against every trespass, as required by the laws of property.
Creating a mining district is not a list of things to do. It is an understanding of the law of the soil, the mineral estate in particular, which miners used to know like their Pick & Pan. Once you understand these from study, forming a mining district is a natural consequence of that knowledge. This is not easily explained better than as has been suggested; study will expose the direction and more importantly an intimate understanding of the Purpose in creating a mining district today.
Until then, instead of standing helpless on the sidelines thinking others are in control, the invitation is extended by Jefferson Mining District to those willing to take the bull by the horns and resolve to stop the oppression against all producers and lawful enjoyment of the soil. Whether it is to get roads opened up, or as was done in Wallowa-Whitman National Forest keeping roads and trails from being closed, or in addressing agency over-reach or addressing agency actions inconsistent with the law, or otherwise, Jefferson Mining District is established for miners to use to protect themselves in the customs and by the traditions of the miner. These attributes are not a mere state-provided privilege, such as a conservancy enjoys.
Jefferson Mining District is available to assist any miner or producer who desires to take responsibility for what was granted to or appropriated by grant Act of Congress, AKA, the “voluntary recognition of a preexisting right of possession, constituting a valid claim to its continued use.”
