Who owns the west?

Eagle Picher Minerals Inc

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Eagle Picher Minerals Inc is one of 92,125 beneficiaries of a 132-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. Eagle Picher Minerals Inc owns the minerals under an estimated 4,878 acres of claimed land, gained title to an estimated 189 acres of lands previously owned by the public, and has submitted mining plans and notices that encompass 1,214 acres of BLM-managed land, not including the acreages of mines they may operate on Forest Service land. giving Eagle Picher Minerals Inc more total land holdings (claims and patents) than over 99.5% of all other mining interests.

Headquarters

PO Box 12130
Reno, NV 89510

Partners Include

Massoud M Moezzi, Catherine Tweedt, Lola K Brown

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

 ClaimsPatentsMining Plans & Notices
Number240 3 9
Estimated Acreage4,878 189 1,214
States
11111111
11111111
11111111

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Source: EWG analysis of US BLM data.

Examples of Mines

These mines are owned by Eagle Picher Minerals Inc, its subsidiaries, or its parent company.

Name of MineLocation of MineMine StatusMetal MinedMap Link
McCoy Cove Gold MineLander County, NVOpenSilver oresmap
Colado MinePershing County, NVOpenMetal ores, NEC-
Kettle River Mill SiteFerry County, WAClosedGoldmap
K-2 Mine SiteFerry County, WAClosedGoldmap

Source: EWG analysis.

 

Claims

Like all U.S. claimholders, Eagle Picher Minerals Inc 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. Eagle Picher Minerals Inc pays no royalties to the federal government for metals and minerals mined from this land.

For Eagle Picher Minerals Inc:

Claims by State.

StateNumber of ClaimsEstimated AcreageDate(s)
Nevada 962,1631953 - 2001
Oregon 801,4351979 - 2001
California 641,2801994
U.S. Total 2404,8781953 - 2001

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Source: EWG analysis of US BLM data.


Patents

Eagle Picher Minerals Inc is one of 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, Eagle Picher Minerals Inc 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 Eagle Picher Minerals Inc:

Patents by State.

StateNumber of PatentsEstimated AcreageDate(s)
Arizona 31891933 - 1951
U.S. Total 31891933 - 1951

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Source: EWG analysis of US BLM data.


Mining Plans & Notices on BLM Land

Eagle Picher Minerals Inc is one of the 3,323 mine operators in the U.S. with mining plans and notices on BLM land 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. Eagle Picher Minerals Inc 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. The government frequently fails to promptly close out records for plans and notices no longer active. 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 Eagle Picher Minerals Inc 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 Eagle Picher Minerals Inc:

Plans and Notices on BLM land by State.

StateNumber of Plans and Notices on BLM landEstimated AcreageDate(s)
Oregon 28111985 - 1986
Nevada 74031986 - 2002
U.S. Total 91,2141985 - 2002

Find these features on the map.

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.