Bundy Ranch type standoff brewing in Southern Oregon between miners and BLM

The miners from the Galice Mining District have been arguing over who has the rights to the minerals in the ground around Galice Creek


by Locked And Loaded | April 14, 2015


For the past several years, the miners from the Galice Mining District, about 3o minutes west of Grants Pass, Oregon, have been arguing over who has the rights to the minerals in the ground around Galice Creek. The Galice mining district is compiled of a number of claims, owners and miners and has been in continuous operation since the early 1870’s, which makes it one of the longest running operations in the US. This specific operation predates the BLM bureaucracy by many decades in fact.

The area in question has produced in excess of 10 million ounces of gold since its conception, and geologists estimate that only 10% of the gold in the ground has been removed, which makes this area highly sought after by any standard. It is said that children find gold with their hands in the creeks to this day.

BLM has made several attempts to disband the operation of the sugar pine mine through multiple unsubstantiated stop orders and now a cease and desist order. The owners of this mine have spend tens of thousands of dollars to date requesting documents, researching the claims of the BLM,and preliminary attorney fees. The sugar pine has made requests to produce the official rulings that show they are in violation which have gone unanswered. They simple reason given by the BLM is that “they say so”. The BLM claims that the mine has no surface rights to the area and in turn says that all structures and equipment need to be removed. The BLM also claims that this violation is grounds for the operation to cease and tunnels filled in. The mine predates more recent rulings about surface rights so the sugar pine feels that the new ruling is not applicable to this specific situation.

Late last week, BLM officials accompanied by Josephine County Sheriff deputies issues a cease and desist order to the district without any official ruling by the courts. Specifically, the issue is not even scheduled to be heard in court until later in the year. The order has given the mine until April 25th to remove all equipment, buildings and supplies from the location. Local BLM officials have threatened to burn the buildings down if they are not removed by the date.

The owners of the sugar pine have stated that they will fully disobey the order as they claim that it is illegal and invalid. A call for assistance to the Oath Keeper’s has been made and there is no intention to leave the area by the deadline.

This issue has far reaching implications. The outcome from this issue and the court ruling to come will effect all of America. The issue at hand is not just about the Galice Miners and the gold in the ground, but more about what the government says you can do with the ground in your control. These miners have the rights to the minerals in the ground and the government wants that changed. What comes next could effect every American. What if your backyard has a specific mineral that the government values. By any means, can come in and tell you that you can not grow your broccoli on your land because it absorbs this “special” mineral? The bigger picture would effect farmers. What if gold, oil, or something like uranium was found under a farmer’s corn crop. Does the government have the right to those minerals and have the ability to over ride your use of your own land? This issue will have the ability dictate the future use of our public and private lands.

This could get interesting. I'd like to know how the BLM thinks the minerals are theirs, but I can't find any documentation anywhere.

Onward and upward,
airforce

Great. How did Infowars come up with that original
story?

Onward and upward,
airforce

If that is what I think it is, there are going to be dozens of separate individual mining claims, and then a few organizations which operate contracts on pooled mining claims. I would get reports from multiple sources before coming to any conclusions on the situation.

A good friend of mine owns and maintains a longstanding claim on large portions of Oregon beaches as part of an industrial mineral claim. It is just a paper asset, but in theory gives us the right to camp there indefinitely, but we never tried it.

I've found several conflicting reports...More than one person claiming to be onsite and backing up the original story.

UPDATE:


UPDATE, SHERIFF ISSUES PRESS RELEASE: OREGON GOLD MINING STAND OFF WITH BLM…

The Josephine County Sheriff’s Department has released a statement regarding this incident:

“Sheriff Daniel in an attempt to mediate this conflict has contacted and met with the Coordinator of the Oath Keepers and the Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Bureau of Land Management out of Eugene. This was done to ensure the claim owner’s right to due process and avoid confrontation in the region.

Read the full report here.

http://agenda21radio.com/?p=16435

*************************************************

Oath Keepers
of Josephine County, OR

http://oathkeepersjoco.com/

Josephine County has had militias of one kind or another for decades, most of which get pretty well infiltrated by informants who report through local law enforcement, but will express open hostility to feds. Thus, there are vast pockets of "good ol boy country" where gun laws don't apply and they had openly campaigned for the likes of Ross Perot and Bo Gritz, but if they perceive someone as an "outsider" or just see an opportunity in profit from feeding someone to the feds, they will, but the snitch thing is somewhat of a recent development.

I suspect that may have changed in more recent years with the establishment of a federal courthouse and the attendant DOJ offices in new facilities in Grant's Pass. I met a pawn shop owner a while back who explained to me that when the feds rolled in with an actual courthouse and more local offices, undercover sting operations stepped up immediately, since the informant network was already in place. They burned him on a deal where some guy had pawned a hunting rifle then failed a background check to get it back.

Then to make things right with the family, he did the background check and everything to give the rifle back to the guy's brother, telling him that any in family transfer should be none of his business. The two brothers then apparently had informed to their local law enforcement contacts, then the local contacts officially washed their hands of the case and handed it off to the BATF. The two brothers were back in the shop several times with hidden recording devices and eventually elicited an acknowledgement from the shop owner that the rifle went back to the prohibited brother after it left the shop.

I am also looking at maps of that area, and noticing it is roughly in the same general zone as the 2002 "Biscuit fire" where one of the "higher level" fire officials told me during a question and answer session that he was entirely willing to burn out "those wierdos and survivalists living in the back woods". In fact, when I disagreed with that, asserting that we were wanting to go there and fight fires, not guard roads from people who wanted to save their property, I got kicked off the deployment.

Something someone has brought up gets to be a common denominator in these selective business law enforcement and other corrupt issues in that part of the state is that a lot is done through the Masonic lodges and Grange halls there, which are in some shady way the defacto sub-government of those areas. I think in an underneath sort of way, you are going to find that someone is full of hate on the independent mining operations for some really petty reason, like they don't like someone using a road or living in someone's favorite hunting spot. It would be some smallish elite group which has for years regarded those chunks of BLM land to be their own and have probably worked to fight against privatization or development in the past.

When I did gun shows down around that area in the early 2000s, the people scraping a living there were telling me that with Gold at $300/oz, they still needed food stamps, welfare and or retirement income to survive, but it was like having a suppliment. They said if Gold ever broke over $500 a month, they could support themselves and it would be worthwhile. Below that, they either needed other sources of income or would leave the gold claims when there was better employment somewhere, thus returning to the gold claims when they became unemployed again.

The local gold dealers and pawn shop owners never paid spot, not even for gold bullion. Prices as low as 10% of spot in small towns, to no higher than 70% of spot, for bullion, then even lower for nuggets and dust. I did a heck of a lot of business at the Roseburg gun show giving full spot value for bullion gold in barter for merchandise at the regular asking prices. My dad actually lived off that gold for a couple years back when I was in jail and he had been forced to retire early.

There are certain locals who want things to stay under their control, with any kind of financial success to be carefully rationed out. That's the core of their hatred for the gold mining operations, not environmental concerns, that's why you will find out upon digging deeper a lot of those "interests" who are anti-mining are among the same people who logged out the old growth forests, then all of a sudden adopt eco-values when someone else figures out how to make a living out in the BLM lands.

From the Blaze:

Another Showdown? Armed Members of Oath Keepers Group Preparing for Standoff Against BLM

Apr. 15, 2015 3:15pm Zach Noble


The owners have been mining there for a century.

The Bureau of Land Management is trying to step in and assert control.

Now the armed citizens of the Oath Keepers are streaming in to take a stand against the government.


It’s a gathering reminiscent of the showdown last year between the BLM and Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy — though with plenty of differences.

The developing standoff is centered around the Sugar Pine Mining Claim in the Galice Mining District in southwestern Oregon, where KDRV-TV reported Oath Keepers are gathering to defend mining claims from the BLM.
Image via Google Maps

Image via Google Maps

The Raw Story reported that the government had given the miners a deadline of April 25 to get their equipment off the land — and the miners don’t intend to comply.

According to the miners, fighting back against the BLM is expensive but the miners believe the law is firmly on their side, writing in a statement:

This case is headed in a direction that presents what is probably a once-in-a-generation prime opportunity to strike at the heart of the very surface management authority of the [Department of the Interior] and USDA and to restore the “as patent” rights of every mining claim owner in the United States by striking down the actual source of that intrusive authority.

The Sugar Pine claim was established in 1876, the Shasta Lantern noted, making it one of America’s oldest claims.

The miners contend the BLM lacks authority there since Congress set aside the Galice Mining District as a “local governing body for and by miners,” granting them “the right to create and enforce local rules and regulations” provided they did not conflict with U.S. law.

The miners also say the BLM hasn’t produced evidence that the Interior Department had severed its rights under the 1955 Surface Resources Act, the only way the miners could lose their exclusive rights to the well-established claim, the Raw Story noted.

The mining district has produced more than 10 million ounces of gold, the Lantern reported, and geologists estimate there could be 90 million more ounces waiting to be extracted.

Oath Keepers are coming from far and wide to defend the miners, saying their move is quintessentially American.

“That’s what being an American’s all about,” said Blaine Cooper, an Arizona State Militia member driving to Oregon, in a video posted to YouTube. “We don’t allow our neighbor to be enslaved or beaten or tortured by government jackboots because they want to steal our land and our resources to keep us under their thumb.”

https://youtu.be/zo8JOaAdUT4

The BLM is contending that the miners’ documents are outdated and that since the mine’s ownership has changed hands since the 1870s, the miners’ claim has not been grandfathered-in as the miners maintain.

“We’ve sent them those letters,” the BLM’s Jim Whittington told KDRV. “They also have the right to appeal our notice, that it requires either a plan of operation or notice, and some informal contacts with their lawyer…it sounds like they may appeal. So if they appeal, that starts another administrative appeal process.”

Watch KDRV’s report below:

https://youtu.be/R8UK-5_eZS4

—

Follow Zach Noble (@thezachnoble) on Twitter

"The documents are outdated"....Sounds hauntingly similar to the arguments made by government mouthpieces when their functionaries are clearly violating anything in the Bill of Rights.

I call that shit "selective constitutionalism". It goes to the heart of the problem of even using the term "constitutionalism" because really, the main jist of that document was just a determination letter on how the "powers that be" were going to divide up post-revolutionary America among their elected, appointed and inherited governing bodies. They were dragged kicking and screaming into agreeing to the Bill of Rights AFTER it all began to unravel due to every abuse you could imagine.

Tension Between BLM and Mining Operation, Oath Keepers Set Up Camp

It's finally made the "mainstream" press.

Onward and upward,
airforce

Oathkeepers and the "no felons welcome" crowd are taking ownership of the issue.

There is money in this one, more than what is at Bundy, and more than one mining claim under dispute. I say we need our own boots on the ground guys before pouring a lot into saving financially successful miners from financially motivated BLM predators and then going broke because of it.

The mining claim area is a heck of a good candidate for an autonomous zone where people can earn their keep at the mines and then take turns with a local security oriented militia operation but I am a little lost on the logic of diminishing my own preps, supplies and operational capability to help people make a grand a day operating mines.

This is where the professional to semi-pro security outfits willing and capable of tangling with the government can really pull ahead in a situation without taking on any sort of "terrorist" label, since everyone understand business and economics on the level that someone is trying to save legitimate successful business from someone who is just corruptly trying to use force of government to force something out of business.

No private security outfit would get anywhere close to it. Both security officers and security agencies are licensed by the state, and no insurance company would cover them for that sort of operation. And if they accept money in return for providing security without the required licenses and insurance, they will really screw themselves. this is where something like Oathkeepers or some other militia group is a necessity.

Onward and upward,
airforce

A financial Armageddon is coming to the US. $200T in debt and there a 11 major countries that have entered into a non-US reserve currency trading arrangement.

We've seen $12T added to the direct debt since Nancy P became House Speaker in 2008, almost all of it without a budget ever being passed by Congress and signed by the President. If the US dollar loses its reserve status, our dollars will be worthless. What will be sold to pay the debt?

Clinton signed away our Water (Great Lakes, Rivers, etc.) to join the WTO. EPA has been regulating water to the point of runoff from parking lots for the past few years. The US government turned off water flowing to SO Cal to save the Delta Smelt and they only found 3 females and 2 males in a recent evaluation of the species. They drained reservoirs sending water to the ocean to improve fisheries. They stopped building reservoirs in the 1970's in CA. CA is out of stored water. Do you see any parallels?

What else is on US Land?? Mining. Water. Grazing rights. Coal. Natural Gas. Oil. Timber. Harbors. Beach Front Property.

Executive Orders, Government Agency Police, Keystone Pipeline, Solar Power, GM, Chrysler, Bank Bailouts, Bergdahl, Bin Lauden, Destruction of Evidence by a Secretary of State, Perjury and Contempt of Congress by the AG, Fast & Furious, Iran getting a nuke, disregard or cooling of alliances; Ukraine, Israel, Australia, Iraq, Yemen, Egypt, Georgia and Saudi Arabia; Syria, Libya, Benghazi, Lebanon, Iran, Turkey, 2008 economic collapse, announcing the Cuba is no longer on the terror list because they haven't done anything for the past 6 months. Militarization of the IRS (BATF, DOJ, EPA, FBI, Alphabet Soup agencies) to subvert an election, forfeiture laws, Drone Strikes of American Citizens without due process, illegal immigration, minimization of health issues having entered the US through illegal immigration, Ferguson, Bundy, etc. Where did that $700M disappear to in 2009? Add 100 more of your own.

I'm afraid that this Oregon story is a lot more than Oathkeepers and militia?

Jade Helm in July... Cloward and Pivens anyone?? Where is my tinfoil?

Pretty good summary there!

Seeing the guy in The most recent video from HossUSMC, that III% guy I have seen before, not quite sure where but he seems too young to have been one of the bad guys from ten years ago.

I like the concept of friendlies controlling some gold mining operations during an economic upheaval and artificial currency collapse.

Some other stuff is going down as the government and banks continue making moves to shut down cash transactions. PayPal has recently altered he green dot money card system which had enabled certain kinds of cash to digital currency transactions. It puts barriers on even smaller levels of private long distance cash transactions. I will post a video soon about what this means.

Updates with more pics and video.

http://www.hcn.org/articles/oath-ke...bble-this-time-for-gold-miners-in-oregon

http://www.infowars.com/splc-accuse...rmed-confrontation-over-sugar-pine-mine/

Whatever the propaganada is, the Oathkeepers own this one, they were specifically invited by the people with the grievance against the government for a specific cause and purpose.

Part of me wants to go to this thing, roll in heavy with resources to help out, but my gut says "danger Will Robinson". Given the way I got treated in a few other forums, I would have concerns for my personal safety over someone thinking they are doing the world a favor by putting a bullet in my back or setting me up to get busted on the way out.

What I smell in this, and I could be wrong, is with my "history" someone would feel entitled to fuck me over for "making the deployment look bad", and use burning me as a means of currying favor with their law enforcement sponsors. Hell, a bunch of those people were posting their disownership of Charles Dyer on the SPLC website just to try and get on the better side of the far left audience that reads the SPLC articles and forums.

This is the WRAM crowd and Stewie, not the ARM and leftover Dyer followers.

To confirm what Breacher is saying, this is directly under Oathkeepers control. A couple members of my team went down to assist and are reporting back that JoCo Oathkeepers are a shit thow...a circus. They said most of the out of town guys are solid but the local guys are a joke.

Having read our guys' AAR from the weekend, the Oathkeepers' handling of the situation is worrisome. There is no discipline or organization on site. Hopefully the after action will be taken seriously by OK leadership, otherwise this situation will not turn out well.

I would have to go and see for myself what is going on.

Apparently they set up the current level of organization specifically to avoid it being a "shit show", like what they figured was going on with several elements at Bundy Ranch but there are some pretty complex ethics which have come about because of the Miller affair.

Probably best to discuss not so openly whatever the discipline issues are. As for organizational issues, from what I am reading on their website, someone there has been taking a lot of advice from previous postings here and a couple other forums. NONE of us are supervising it, but it looks like we inspired some of their policies.

Stewie is currently the best man for his particular job, as is a bunch of the OK leadership, but their role is for a very specific set of purposes at a very specific series of stages in this whole thing. Those decisions were made at the very beginning when ARM and Dyer's people spun off, but with Dyer out of the picture, I wonder what is happening.

The ARM website has been down for some time.

Many of the older websites we're familiar with have fallen by the wayside as well...replaced by the new, 'social media' type sites.

I thought I saw ARM more recently than that but it might have been a web archive. They had people showing up in live chat at 7:05AM sharp eastern time. I figured start of shift at some fusion center somewhere.

I suspect our situation here has gotten so small it does not really matter much any more.

Stewart Rhodes Interviews Oath Keepers At Sugar Pine Mine

Audio of Stewart Rhodes Interviewing Oath Keepers of Josephine County, Oregon about the Sugar Pine Mine Security Operation, protecting the miner's 5th Amendment protected right to due process of the law.

http://campaign.r20.constantcontact...ch=d7a5f920-cd60-11e3-bd 85-d4ae5275b3f6

From the sounds of it, they know the game and are playing by the rules. I can't really fault them on the way they are doing it.

Sugar Pine Mine Medical Team Helped Save Journalist's Life

An Associated Press journalist suffered a stroke while doing coverage of the Oath Keepers' Sugar Pine Mine Security Group

http://campaign.r20.constantcontact...ch=284b6180-679e-11e4-be 95-d4ae528e486a

Groups warn Oregon mine militia dispute threatens democracy

Reuters By Shelby Sebens
May 20, 2015 12:07 AM


PORTLAND, Ore. (Reuters) - A coalition of public policy advocates warned on Tuesday that a group of armed conservative activists who have been guarding a mine in southern Oregon for over a month are a sign of an emerging violent anti-government movement.

The groups behind the newly formed "Ballots Not Bullets" coalition said they will seek to promote democracy over what they call militia-style extremism and will try to counter these kinds of movements nationwide.

Created by seven organizations including the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and Catholics in Alliance for Common Good, Ballots Not Bullets is a response to an ongoing legal battle between the owners of a mining claim outside the small Oregon town of Medford and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

Sugar Pine Mine co-owner Rick Barclay summoned guards from the conservative Oath Keepers activist network following a stop-work order he received in March after BLM officials said equipment found on site did not meet requirements.

The armed guards were still guarding the mine as of Tuesday, Oath Keepers spokeswoman Mary Emerick said, although she would not say how many.

The founders of Ballots Not Bullets, who say they may lobby Oregon lawmakers on the issue, describe the dispute as the latest manifestation of last year's standoff between Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and the federal government, in which the BLM sought to seize Bundy's cattle after he refused to pay grazing fees.

The federal agents backed down after an armed standoff.

"It is a rejection of any kind of democratic compromise and the endorsement of the use of weapons and violence to get your way," said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a coalition member.

Emerick said the Oath Keepers do not condone violence and require that guards be vetted and pass a background check. She said she thought critics might be basing their opinions on "other incidents around the country."

More than 100 protesters gathered at the BLM offices in Medford last month, prompting the agency to close its operations for the day.

Local community groups say some residents were scared when out-of-state guards were recruited to watch the mine.

"It seems like they're digging in and they're trying to stay," Jessica Campbell, organizer for the Rural Organizing Project, an Oregon activists group, said of the Oath Keepers.

(Reporting by Shelby Sebens; Editing by Cynthia Johnston, Daniel Wallis and Eric Beech)

The interesting thing they fail to mention is even if the armed guards weren't there, The Feds would settle it with "Armed Force" ! Removing the Guards is just Surrender to Tyranny, Nothing else ! Semper Fi

Judge's order bars enforcement in Oregon gold mine dispute

Jeff Barnard, Associated Press Published 3:59 pm, Wednesday, May 20, 2015

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — The federal government and southern Oregon gold miners have each taken a step back from tensions over a mining claim where a constitutional activist group has posted armed guards.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is holding off enforcement action. The miners have agreed not to work the claim until their appeal of the agency's decision against their operation is resolved.

The deal was affirmed Wednesday in a decision from an Interior Board of Land Appeals administrative law judge forbidding the BLM to enforce an order halting work at the mine. The judge noted the miners were not going to try to mine, and BLM did not oppose the stay.

Rick Barclay, one of the mining claim owners, says this could de-escalate tensions by removing the need for the Oath Keepers to guard the claim to assure the miners get their day in court.

"If this is indeed everything the attorney asked for, this will de-escalate the situation for the time being," Barclay said. "It many mean my guests will be going back to their daily lives."

BLM noted in a statement that the stay included provisions that the miners would refrain from "taking any action inconsistent with existing BLM regulations."

Barclay and his partner, George Backes, had called in the Oath Keepers after becoming concerned that BLM might seize their mining equipment and destroy a cabin before their appeal was heard. Barclay and Backes maintain that holders of the six claims dating to the Gold Rush never gave up surface rights to BLM, which contends it holds surface rights giving it authority over mining on the claim.

Mary Emerick, spokeswoman for the Josephine County chapter of Oath Keepers, said the stay was one condition for withdrawing the armed guards, but the group was holding off a decision until after they talked to the local sheriff.

Meanwhile, the group posted on its website that it would be marching and passing out pocket editions of the U.S. Constitution on Saturday in the Boatnik Parade in Grants Pass, a local festival celebrating powerboat races on the Rogue River.

The group has maintained a camp on private land north of Grants Pass, and armed guards dressed in camouflage at the Sugar Pine Mine on BLM land outside the historical gold mining community of Galice.

In Nevada last year, members of the Oath Keepers joined hundreds of armed supporters of Cliven Bundy in a faceoff against BLM to stop a roundup of cattle from public land where the rancher allowed his stock to graze near Bunkerville.

Federal officials accused Bundy of failing to pay more than $1 million in grazing fees over more than 20 years. Bundy says the federal government has no authority over the land.

Bureau officials backed off, and Bundy and his supporters declared victory. But Bureau of Land Management officials say they are still pursuing an administrative and legal resolution of the dispute.