Government data details massive land giveaway.
For years the full scope of the hardrock mining industry's claims to America's public lands has been hidden in an obscure 12-Gigabyte database called Land and Mineral Records 2000 (LR2000), housed in a government data center in Denver, Colorado. In raw form the data are a string of codes in lengthy text files. EWG researchers used sophisticated mapping and data tools to synthesize these 125 million data records into a detailed analysis showing, literally, who owns the American West, tract by tract, company by company, and nation by nation.