Mining Claims not yet updated at BLM

[clay]

The beginning of the Federal mining year is September 1st of each year. That's the date all mining claims owners need to have either paid a maintenance fee or filed a small miners waiver. If they don't meet the deadline or submit all the proper fees and forms their claims will be marked CLOSED in the BLM case files.

Even though the final date is September 1st the BLM takes a lot of time updating their records. Generally most claimants that didn't file anything will be closed by January but the Small Miners claims are often not updated until the following year beginning in January.

This is the time of year to watch for good mining lands to open up to claim. The closures dribble in in chunks throughout these months. Each BLM State Office sets their own priorities and deadlines internally so some States get their claims updated quickly - others take forever. This year Utah completed updating virtually all of their claims files in September yet California traditionally runs nearly a year behind.

At Land Matters we track the progress on these claims updates. The most recent closures are reported to Claims Advantage members twice monthly. Those member get an interactive list of of the recently closed claims listed by state. It's not possible to get this list from the LR2000 because all closed claims actions are backdated to their effective date, usually September 1st.

Here is a look at how many claims have not updated to 2016 in the BLM databases and have not been closed. These claims are the ones that might still be closed by the BLM but have yet to be determined. Many of these claims are Small Miners status that won't be settled out until January or February of next year, many are in adjudication and many are claims the BLM State office just hasn't gotten around to updating.

This chart is from November 1st. There hasn't been a lot of change in those numbers with the exception of Idaho. As Claims Advantage members know Idaho has since CLOSED 1,474 claims, opening up another 29,000 acres of land to claiming.