Dave Bese's Blog

The Selling of America

20th Jan 2008

Recently, on the October NM trip; I had planned on meandering back home by hitting several mineral
sites in Utah. Well, if it's anywhere near a city or town; forget it! The present administration has been selling off BLM lands, and many of the places are now in private hands; fenced off with those ugly 'You Don't Want To Be Here!'
signs. South of Marysvale; you can see the mines from the road; there is even a National Forest access road bisecting private lands, but don't think about crossing a fence!

The Tintic mining district is famous. The dumps come right to the edge of the road . . .and are posted
Don't stop, even to look cause the eyes are watching. Tintic itself is fenced off as they are using draglines now; even the lower dumps have small excavators used to repossess the dump materials.

Even some remote areas are not immune from this. After traveling many miles of gravel to get to Lyn
UT, hoping to hit Ingham Pass (kyanite); I was again met with fences and signs blocking off the road.
Right next to a typical redneck assortment of small ranch buildings.

You can bet with our current administration's policies; the buyers had there 'connections'

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Comments

Gee Dave, you sound a bit bitter. Perhaps if you had done some research prior to your trip, you would have had a more enjoyable time. I really doubt that any of the lands you mentioned were removed from public domain in the last few years. I would be willing to bet that patents were issued prior to 1900 for most of those areas. Perhaps your anger would be better pointed at the administrations of Harrison or Cleveland and not Bush's.

Another novel idea you might consider, how about asking for permission to collect? I know, you apparently think that you have some "right" to visit and collect at a locality and if someone denies it, they are probably just out to screw you over.

And finally, just what does the typical "redneck assortment of small ranch buildings" look like? If your going to run around making rude comments, hinting at back room deals, and judging people by the appearance of their property, you are not likely to get permission to collect.

By they way, I have collected at both the Marysvale and Tintic districts. By showing a bit of respect and asking for permission, I was well received at both areas.

Chris Tucker
22nd Jan 2008 5:53am

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