Sad news

[Burnie]

Wife called her aunt today. They have worked the same ground all their lives and retired two years ago to a new house up on hill overlooking the farm. Two of thier sons became farmers, one taking over the old place and two weeks ago bought another block. The family are real down to earth people, giving a lot of time to the community. They are top farmers with a swag of crop and landcare awards. Two nights ago they went to a landholders meeting and were told that the mines are moving in and taking over the whole valley and all thier land is to be resumed. I don't really want to start to rant here, can't think of anything to say. It's just so sad.

 

[Anonymous-0]

Yes it is sad. Like the rest of our country I am sure greed prevails there as well. All the conservation programs in the world cant slow down greed. Around here millionaires grab everything that is or will be any developable or may hold gravel. Preserving ag land and woodlands has been set up on the forget about it shelf.

 

[Mark]

well.......if you sell the mineral rights, sooner or later you can expect the owners of said rights to come claim them....that"s why they bought them.

everybody should this book: Night Comes to the Cumberlands by Harry Caudill

He tells of how the folks in the mountains of eastern Kentucky sold the timber and mineral rights back in the late 1800"s and early 1900"s thinking nobody would ever come for it...because there were no roads.....well, they got a sad surprise. They watched virgin timber...oaks 7 to 10 feet thick sawed down and floated down the Big Sandy river.......then came the miners and the people were set off their own land.

Is it greed? on whose part? If you sell, you get your 30 pieces of silver today and reap the consequences maybe many years later.

 

[Anonymous-0]

Same thing happens in NW Wisconsin,DNR condemns the land for "WILDLIFE HABITAT" and once they get ahold of it the good woods and timber get clear cut. They get the revenue and the sportsmen get twenty years of brush so thick you cant hunt it or even fall down in it. DNR in my mind means DARN NEAR RUSSIA. Sorry , just needed to rant a little also.

 

[Bob Kerr]

I live in west central Indiana and there are a lot of strip mines here. There is one just a mile south of me. At least around here, they will pay you for your house and improvements, and I hear they do pay well, more than you would get on the open market. BUT I do know what you are talking about. it really sucks to see a family like that who really cares about the place get taken off the ol homestead. The mines do reclaim and around here they seem to do I better job of it than I thought they would, some mines are put back into farmland a year after the coal is out. Black beauty mine in Farmersburg IN has acres of hay ground, wheat, soybeans, and I am sure there is corn too. That mine is on the move south and they have one of the largest draglines in the world. boy that thing sure moves the earth and doesn"t take long to go a mile or two. The mines here have wiped out a lot of good farmland, great woods over the years. The mines that ran back in the late 1800 and early 1900s just left the spoil banks sitting and the only thing that land is good for now is ponds and fishing cabins. There are 1000s of acres around here in Sullivan, Vigo and Clay countys that were just left by those old mines. Now that is sad!

 

[Anonymous-0]

Just a question, is "resumed" some legal term? I've heard of "subsumed" (sp?) but that would be mines underground. Or is it a previously closed strip mine is being re-opened (i.e. "resumed")?

Sucks -- one reason I support Nuclear power is it has a far smaller environmental and occupational safety footprint then coal & oil exploitation has. If we, like France, were getting 76% of our power from Nuclear I'm pretty sure we'd see a heck of a lot less strip mining going on, or situations with the trapped miners we have in Utah right now.

 

[LBH]

I am not an attorney but i do own a small farm. my understanding of the law is that if you don"t own the mineral rights but own the land that they can"t force you off your land to surface mine. Now they can come and underground your mine without your permission but that is it. I don"t own all the mineral rights on my property. some how down the line in history before i bought it someone family member had sold their share before i bought the farm. I only own like 50% of the mineral rights. Just with an attorney is my opinion.

 

[LBH]

I meant to say consult with an attorney. But i can't type for some reason today......

 

[Anonymous-0]

I'm with you. 12 years,Nuclear Power Plant Outage Carpenter, Retired,11/99 ,still no Cancer regardless what all the Doomsayers Promote.JC

 

[Anonymous-0]

we have the nature conv here in ky they are using taxpayer funds to destroy 1000s of acres for wildlife yet the only thing they produce are fleas ticks lice chiggers and snakes just the varmits politicians are use to

 

[Gene Davis (Ga.)]

I retired from the kaolin mining industry in central Georgia after 30 years. We did open strip mining and reclaimed out land almost as fast as we finished removing the product from the land. The product we produced is for paper fillers and coating to make it glossy and the ink to print on it well. Georgia law requires a reclamation bond of X amount of dollars for each acre mined. Then an acre has to be reclaimed to get another acre permitted for more mining. We usually reclaimed our land as soon as we finished the block in the pit. we had a crew that did this almost full time and then if the land owner wanted it planted in trees, made into a fish pond, pasture or farm land it was done. Each strata of earth was placed in a different pile so it could be returned cin the correct order as removed. We even made one mine into a large recration area with a lake, swimming areas, clubhouse and tennis courts, the whole nine yards. We also had a group whose job was to deal with buying or leasing the land if the people wanted to sell it or maybe just the mineral rights. In the 30 years I was there I know of maybe half dozen or less cases where there were serious disputes over land. The company tried to pay fair value and then if the mineral rights were all the company got, then the owner got a royalty check for the mineral in the unprocessed state and some of the land drew royalty payments for 20+ years before any mining and when the option was brought to use the owner was paid for the crop or what ever was planted on it. By the way the company was E.C.C. International. A totally British owned company.

 

[Burnie]

Thanks for all the replies. Feeling better today. Our land laws are a bit different in Australia. You are not entitled to the mineral rights on your land and the state government has the right to take away, ie resume, your land for a number of purposes. These include, railways, roads, pipelines, dams and mines. This system is a throw-back from the days of British rule. Land owners are paid fair market value and compensation and the land is reclaimed after mining. As indicated by Gene's post it is in everybody's best interest if the company does the right thing. I guess the thing here is that it came out of the blue and very suddenly. The company aren't providing much detail at this stage, especially re timescales so it's a bit hard for people to plan. I'm not really against progress, but when your own people are involved, it hits you.