Washington State Miner

Tom

For those of you following the slow-motion train wreck of our ability to peacefully work our claims free of theft-under-color-of-law, first substitute SB 6448 has been passed to the Rules Committee for a second reading by executive action taken in the Senate Committee on Ways & Means at 1:30 p.m. yesterday. (See link here.)

And so it continues.

Tom

Angel Lund, a reader of this blog, sends the following:

I see that the SB 6448 is not effective until July 1, 2010.

May I suggest that everyone apply for a least 1JARPA for a HPA before then (no cost).

Also I am willing to help anyone needing help filling out their JARPA and I am willing to send copies of my JARPA applications(Slate Creek, Chiwawa River, and Blewett area) to anyone who would like one.

Please pass this along as appropriate.

Sincerely,

Angel Lund
eastwaangel@yahoo.com

Thanks to Angel for this offer of assistance with JARPAs. Let us hope also that we can prevent SB 6448 from ever becoming "effective."

Tom

As reported in an earlier post here, Substitute SB 6448 was referred to the Senate Ways & Means Committee. This committee has scheduled a public hearing on the bill for Monday, February 8, at 1:30 p.m. Unfortunately, the notice I received did not say where the meeting would be. In the past, this committee has met in Senate Hearing Rm 4 of the J.A. Cherberg Building in Olympia. The committee's phone number is 360-786-7715 for anyone who wants to and can attend this meeting to get the location.

This is very short notice which I received only minutes ago causing me to think dark thoughts as the agenda for Senate Ways & Means came out on the 5th and announced a meeting on the 8th for 3:30 p.m. with no specific bill to be discussed.

Grrr.

Tom

As reported in yesterday's post here, the Senate Natural Resources, Ocean & Recreation Committee recommended that a substitute version of SB 6448 (see posts here, here, and here on the original bill) be passed and referred to Ways & Means. This has now been done.

The substitute bill appears much as described in the Senate Bill Report discussed in yesterday's post linked above. The full text of the substitute is now available at the link here as well as at a link in the "Legislative Alerts" section of the right-hand sidebar of this page.

Although mining projects authorized under the Gold & Fish pamphlet would not (for now) require a fee, the minimum proposed fees for mineral prospecting activities not covered by the pamphlet would be $250 (application submittal fee) + $275 (permit processing fee) = $525. (See pages 14 and 15 of the bill text for details.)

In my opinion this is still a bad bill for the miners and, if passed, poised to become a worse one in future incarnations.

Tom

The Washington Division of Geology and Earth Resources has announced the availability of a large variety of geologic data via online access. For details, here is the email I received from them on this subject:

The Washington State Department of Natural Resources, Division of Geology and Earth Resources (DGER), is happy to announce that our complete series of Annual Reports (AR), Bulletins (B), Geologic Maps (GM), Information Circulars (IC), Reports of Investigations (RI), and Open File Reports (OFR) are now available online in PDF format. These join our Digital Reports (DR), Field Trip Guides (FTG), and Resource Maps (RM) series that were already available online.

All of our online publications may be accessed through our Publications List at http://www.dnr.wa.gov/Publications/ger_publications_list.pdf. Look for the blue link(s) at the end of each publication listing.

Publications are organized by series in the publications list. Some types of publications, such as geologic maps, occur in several series and may be hard to locate this way. We are developing indexes to make geologic publications easier to find. For example, we have developed a index of geologic mapping of 7.5-minute topographic quadrangles from all sources (not just DGER), which includes a graphical index on a map of Washington, a list of maps by sorted by quadrangle name, and a list of maps by author (citation). Find this index at http://www.dnr.wa.gov/Publications/ger_24k_mapping_status.pdf. Links to online publications, where known, are included. This index will be updated as we are made aware of new mapping.

Look for more DGER publications to be posted online soon!

When I clicked on the first link in the email, a .pdf file downloaded to my computer. This file is a 32 page catalog of geologic publications. Included are many out-of-print documents such as this item on page 5:

6. Geology and ore deposits of the Blewett mining district, by C. E. Weaver. 1911. 104 p., 10 pl., 1 fig. [ONLINE] Out of print

Clicking on the [ONLINE] link in the catalog listing downloads a copy of the bulletin as a .pdf file.

The second link in the email leads to an 11 page .pdf document that shows available geologic quadrangle maps and provides links, similar to those in the publications catalog, that download a copy of the associated map.

All in all, there is a tremendous amount of free information here that should prove useful to those who like to research the geology and mineral resources of an area before they go into the field.

Happy prospecting!

Tom

In an executive session at 8:00 a.m. this morning, the Senate Natural Resources, Ocean & Recreation Committee issued a majority report that a substitute version of SB 6448 (see posts here, here, and here) be passed and referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

I have not been able to find the actual text of this substitute bill but, according to the "Senate Bill Report" issued today, the proponents of this legislation have backed down on the levying of a fee for the Gold and Fish pamphlet. The pertinent statements are (emphasis added):

Exempts from the fees activities conducted under: the Family Forest Fish Passage Program; a pamphlet permit for removing and controlling noxious weeds or small scale prospecting and mining; and an approved forest practices permit. (page 2)

and

exempts from HPA fees pamphlet permits, Family Forest Fish Passage Projects, and activities conducted under an approved forest practices permit; (page 3)

Horrendous fees would apparently still apply to individual HPAs.

Even with these changes, this bill is still a camel's nose under the tent in that future circumstances could always be called upon to "justify" extending the fees to pamphlet permits in the interests of some misguided concept of "fairness."

Also of note on pages 3 and 4 of the report were names of the persons testifying on the original bill at the public hearing on January 20: in favor -- one person from the Governor's office and two from WDFW; against -- nine people (including five representing pro-mining organizations).

You can download and read this report for yourself from the links here and (less directly) here.