BHP Billton

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BHP Billton and its subsidiaries are a few of 92,125 beneficiaries of a 131-year-old federal mining law that gives away precious metals, minerals, and even the title to the land itself for less than $10 an acre. BHP Billton and its subsidiaries own the minerals under an estimated 40,213 acres of claimed land, have gained title to an estimated 150 acres of lands previously owned by the public, and have submitted mining plans and notices that encompass 135 acres of BLM-managed land, not including the acreages of mines they may operate on Forest Service land. giving BHP Billton and its subsidiaries more total land holdings (claims and patents) than over 99.5% of all other mining interests.

Information on subsidiaries and parent companies shown here represents our best estimate of corporate structure at the time of this website release, and are drawn from various publicly available sources. Please report any noted omissions and errors to EWG with a credible source or citation. Thank you.

Overview of Ownership

Statistics on this page include the ownership of subsidiaries. View this page without subsidiary information included.

	Claims	Patents	Mining Plans & Notices
Number	2,287	3	5
Estimated Acreage	40,213	150	135
States

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Source: EWG analysis of US BLM data.

Examples of Mines

These mines are owned by BHP Billton, its subsidiaries, or its parent company.

Source: EWG analysis.

Claims

Like all U.S. claimholders, BHP Billton and its subsidiaries acquired ownership of precious metals and minerals on U.S. public land for about $2 per acre, and maintains possession of the claim with a small per-acre fee, typically $5 each year. BHP Billton pays no royalties to the federal government for metals and minerals mined from this land.

For BHP Billton and its subsidiaries:

• Ranking among U.S. claimholders: 16 for total acreage claimed of 28,405 total claimholders.
• Current claimed land holdings exceed total claimed acreage for: over 99.5% of all other claimants
• Total acres of public lands claimed: 40,213 acres

Claims by State.

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Source: EWG analysis of US BLM data.

Patents

BHP Billton and its subsidiaries are some of the 63,768 beneficiaries of a long-standing federal subsidy called "patenting" that allows mining interests to purchase public land for no more than $5 an acre. Since acquiring title to the land, BHP Billton may have mined it, sold it, leased it, or passed it on to heirs or other corporate interests. Regardless of who owns the property now, the U.S. public has lost all rights- metals, minerals, and title - on land that was once public park or forest.

For BHP Billton and its subsidiaries:

• Ranking among U.S. patent grantees for total land won: number 7,470 (along with 1,333 others) of 63,768 total patent winners.
• Land gained exceeds total patented acreage for: 86.2% of all other patent winners
• Earliest patent: 1984
• Latest patent: 1984

Patents by State.

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Source: EWG analysis of US BLM data.

Mining Plans & Notices on BLM Land

BHP Billton and its subsidiaries are some of the 3,323 mine operators on U.S. BLM lands with mining plans and notices listed as currently active in government records, operating under laws that allow mining interests to extract and sell precious metals and minerals previously held by the public. BHP Billton may also operate mines on Forest Service lands, which are not contained in the LR2000 database that is the backbone of this website. Because the government often fails to promptly close out records for mines no longer active, active mining may be completed for some of the operations represented by plans and notices in this website. But regardless of the status of mining operations on a particular site, filings of plans and notices are indicative of mining on the property - whether past, present, or planned. Mining operations led by BHP Billton may well have left behind permanent pollution. In 2001 mines generated 45 percent of all pollution in EPA's Toxic Release Reporting system while accounting for just 0.36 percent of all industrial facilities.

For BHP Billton and its subsidiaries:

• Ranking among U.S. mine operators for total land encompassed by operation plans on BLM land: 103 of 3,323 U.S. mine operators.
• Land under plans exceeds total plan areas for: 97% of all other operators (BLM-managed lands only)
• Mining plans include 3 notices for mines disturbing no more than five acres and 2 surface management plans for larger mines.

Plans and Notices on BLM land by State.

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Source: EWG analysis of US BLM data.

Source: EWG analysis of Bureau of Land Management's Land and Mineral Records 2000 (LR2000) data system. For claims, acreages are estimated based on maximum allowable size of claims. For patents, acreages are taken directly from the LR2000 database where available, and are estimated based on maximum allowable size of claim that preceded the patent where acreages are not noted in LR2000. All notices are assumed to be five acres in size, and the size of plans are calculated directly as the size of the land represented by the legal land description in the LR2000 database. The acreages we estimate through these methods would tend to overestimate the actual amount. We welcome corrections here, and would welcome a federal data management system that included the acreages involved in these important federal land transactions.