have run into several thousand dollars, and, frankly, we don't have that kind of money. If we are forced to go through the administrative procedures and the hearings and the court suits clear to the Supreme Court, I am satisfied that we would just lose. We feel that we are right; we feel that the interpretation of the law that because buildings are common, therefore, building stone is common, is just not fair; that the mining laws, particularly on chemical grade limestone, which travertine certainly is, the highest and purest form of calcium carbonate ever discovered, that we do and should have a valid mining claim. Now, I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you, to explain our position in this, and to do my little bit of griping about the treatment we have had. We feel that this entire procedure and this entire business should actually go back to legislation, that Congress should determine the intent of the act when it was passed and to, perhaps, set the guidelines for the administration of this law. We have no quarrel whatsoever with the multiple-use concept, but the interference of the normal mining laws and the interference that does not allow a person economically to develop the natural resources of this land, we feel, are wrong, and I am not a lawyer, I can't quote the law, which is going to be done and has been, to you, but we hope that this committee will give this problem serious consideration and will identify "common varieties" and allow the mining laws to operate in a normal, legitimate manner. I thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to you, and that will be the extent of my remarks. Senator GRUENING. Well, Mr. Ahern, we are very thankful to you for a very illuminating and interesting comment, and I am going to suggest, as I have to other witnesses, that you and your attorney, Mr. Anderson, make similar proposals or amendments, clarifications of the law in writing, so that the committee may consider them and incorporate them in whatever legislation may seem desirable and beneficial in our legislation proposal. Now, we have here, a document which I take it to be Mr. Anderson's presentation? Mr. MALONEY. He will be the next witness, Mr. Chairman. Senator GRUENING. This is an 18-page statement and it is now pretty close to 1 o'clock, and I suspect that we had bettter recess until after lunch because it will take Mr. Anderson, I assume, somewhat longer than the time we have, so I suggest we stand in recess until 2:30 this afternoon. (Whereupon the hearing recessed at 12:55 p.m., m.d.s.t., Friday, June 18, 1965, to reconvene at 2:30 p.m.) AFTERNOON SESSION Senator GRUENING. The subcommittee will come to order. Mr. Ahern, we interrupted your testimony at the conclusion of our morning session, so we would be glad to have you add anything further that you care to, although it seems to the members of the subcommittee that your testimony was very effective and very complete and very useful. We would not like to cut anybody off, so if you have anything to add which occurred to you during the lunch hour that did not occur to you before I wish you would present it now. STATEMENT OF JACK AHERN-Continued Mr. AHERN. Thank you very much, Senator. things to add. Yes, I do have two The illogical approach of the value of mineral under the administrative determination of Public Law 167, I think, should be brought out. We are producing stones from a valuable mineral deposit that have a market value, a wholesale market value, f.o.b. the quarries, of anywhere from $25 to $100 per ton. Now, if we had the money and could put in a crushing plant we could produce the mineral filler which I showed you in the little jars that will sell from $8 to $10 or $12 a ton and it would be an uncommon variety and locatable under the purview of the law. Now, it seems that we are being penalized because we have not, to this time, been able to make enough money to secure it, to go into that type of business. So, in the endeavor to make a successful business of this, to be able to utilize the full potential of the quarries and to be able to produce these products that are not a common use, we are going to have under their ruling they are going to take the claim away from us. Senator GRUENING. In other words, you would be treated better by the Federal Government if you could make more money; is that it? Mr. AHERN. If we had more money to invest so that we could produce a cheaper product. Senator GRUENING. Yes. Mr. AHERN. This, to me, is illogical. Senator METCALF. Can you make that powdered product and at the same time cut these slabs of building stone? Mr. AHERN. Yes, sir. The logical way to operate a quarry is to go into the quarry and produce the blocks, the large, massive material that can be sawed into the slabs that are so desirable for unusual building construction, and from that you will get scrap pieces that are not suitable for sawing, and some of these are broken up with machinery into split-face, modular size stones, similar to this [indicating], and from that you get scrap. You get all kinds of scrap in producing and developing a quarry, and this scrap or waste material can then be picked up and run through a crushing plant where it can be screened and ground and so forth. Then you will come up with the material that can be used in an animal feed supplement, as mineral fillers for industry, and so forth. There are some 20 industries that use them. However, the price that you can get for the scrap material is much lower than you get for the better slab stone that can be produced. It seems illogical to me to think that because it is a product that is cheaper on the market-that is, less expensiveit makes it uncommon, and the better, more expensive products are common, and therefore, not locatable that is their ruling. Now, we intend to go ahead with our operations up there and to utilize to the fullest extent all of the product in this mountain. We hope to be able to, in addition to the saw plant that we have recently developed and started, put in a crushing plant and produce these different products. This is being done in other places and it is being done with travertine, so if we do this we will have a quarry operation that will be similar to a packinghouse. The only thing we won't use is the squeal of the machinery, so this is our plan and we hope to go through with it. Now, there is one other thing that I think ought to be brought out at this hearing. Park County, Mont., has been declared a distressed area, and the economy of the county is in pretty tough shape, really. The tourist industry is the primary industry, then the cattle industry and so forth. Gardiner, Mont., is a seasonal area because of its proximity to Yellowstone Park. It is at the north gate of the park, and the tourist business is carried on there about 5 months out of the year. Our payroll is about the only payroll in town that is a year-round thing. It is quite important to the economy of the area and if we can get sufficient financing and can establish this business, we are going to grow and be that much better for this area. We have employed over the past 41⁄2 years anywhere from 5 to 20 people. Presently we have 20 people on our payroll. We think we are doing a real service to the area to expend our time and our efforts in developing the travertine quarries. I wanted to point out these two things, because I think this is all a part of the overall picture of the development of the natural resources of the United States and in particular the State of Montana. Gentlemen, that is all I have to offer. Mr. Anderson, who will follow me, will carry on from there. Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you. Senator GRUENING. Thank you very much, Mr. Ahern. Mr. Anderson, will you come forward? Mr. Anderson is the attorney for the Montana Travertine Quarries, Bozeman, Mont., and we have here a statement, an 18-page statement, and we will be very happy to have you summarize it and give us the highlights, and the entire statement may be included in the record. STATEMENT OF MCKINLEY ANDERSON, ATTORNEY FOR MONTANA TRAVERTINE QUARRIES Mr. ANDERSON. Thank you very much, Senator Gruening, Senator Metcalf, and Mr. French. My name is McKinley Anderson. I am an attorney from Bozeman, Mont., also attorney for the Montana Travertine Quarries. As such, I have prepared here a brief which lists the facts which Mr. Ahern has covered in his brief statement. However, there are some statements that I feel should also be brought out that are factual, and I wish to quote from the geological report on travertine deposits near Gardiner, Mont., Park County, prepared by Carl E. A. Berg, Billings, Mont., for the Northern Pacific Railway, May 31, 1933. On page 19, it is stated: The Calcite Products Co. of Springdale, Mont., removes some stone from this quarry for preparation as chicken grit, and the broken and checked condition was probably due to the shooting at that time. This indicates a use of this product as an animal feed supplement * * *. Also, on the map that we have given to the committee, it says: About 23 years ago— and this we are speaking of is 1933. a cut 52 feet wide was started in a northeasterly direction at the edge of the travertine outcrop in the northern portion of the southwest quarter, southeast quarter of section 15 (SWSE1⁄4, sec. 15) presumably with the intention of taking out travertine which was to be used in the manufacture of cement. Now, the proceedings that Mr. Ahern mentioned were held in August of 1964, were held in my office in Bozeman, Mont., and as a result of that meeting, in Case No. Montana 1748 of the Department of Interior, Bureau of Land Management, United States of America v. Montana Travertine Quarries, Mr. Parker, counsel for the Forest Service and I arrived at what we would call under the Administrative Procedure Act and the Federal rules a pretrial order. Agreements were all reached except for the contentions of the contestant, the United States of America, and our contentions as the claimant. The contestant says: 1. No discovery of valuable minerals sufficient to support a location has been made present or within the limits of said claim. 2. That the land within the limits of said claim are nonmineral in character. 3. That the material within the limits of the claims are not a valuable mineral deposit under section 3 of the act of July 23, 1955. 4. That the minerals, if any, located under the claims are not an uncommon variety of stone under Public Law 167 and that minerals located upon said lands are a common variety of stone as it is used for a building stone. Those were the contentions set out by the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management; also they add, and I think this is the most serious point of law that can be brought out at this hearing: 5. That section 161 of title 30, United States Code, is repealed by implication by Public Law 167. To these contentions, of course, we have made the proper denials and claim that we have found a valuable mineral resource, and the mere fact that we used this first as a building stone and do not have enough money to put in a crusher to produce agricultural, industrial, and chemical products from our calcium carbonate really denies us the right to file a valid claim, but, nothwithstanding that, we believe that the law, as I have set out in the brief on page 6 provides as follows: Any person authorized to enter lands under the mining laws of the United States may enter lands that are chiefly valuable for building stone under the provisions of the law in relation to placer mineral claims. Lands reserved for the benefit of the public schools or donated to any States shall not be subject to entry under this section. Nothing contained in this section shall be construed to repeal section 471 of title 16 relating to the establishment of national forests. We believe that we have a right, under this section, title 30, section 161, United States Code, to enter upon any land and locate a building stone and quarry for the purpose of producing building slate. This law has not been repealed by Public Law 167 and it is a well-known rule of law that repeals by implication are not favored in the law. But, to go on, title 30, section 601, which is referred to as Public Law 167, states: The Secretary, under such rules and regulations as he may prescribe, may dispose of mineral materials (including, but not limited to, common varieties of the following and for the purposes of this discussion I have just set out the word "stone" as it appears in the statute *** on public lands of the United States *** if the disposal of such mineral *** and then the three requirements to be made: *** (1) is not otherwise expressly authorized by law *** and the United States mining laws ***. We feel that building stone, under section 161 of title 30, United States Code, is expressly authorized by law; it is not expressly prohibited by the law of the United States and it would not be objectionable to the public interest. We feel that under these two sections, which are under the Department of Interior and the Department of Agriculture are in conflict and have to be construed together to give both of them effect. It further provides under title 30, section 611, United States Code: No deposit of common varieties of * * * stone *** shall be deemed a valuable mineral deposit within the meaning of the mining laws of the United States so as to give effective validity to any mining claim hereafter located under such mining laws ***. Now, what was the intent of Congress in passing this law? In the hearings before the Subcommittee on Mines and Mining of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, House of Representatives, 85th Congress, held on January 31 and February 1, 1957, on page 63, is stated as follows: Mr. Thompson was questioning Mr. Crafts, and Mr. Thompson said: Will you tell me what the purpose of this act is, then? Mr. Crafts replied: The purpose of this act is to determine upon what claims the United States will have the right to manage the vegetative surface resources. Now, I wish to point out here, and as a matter for the committee, that this hearing was limited to section 5, and was not concerned with section 3; however, it goes on, and Mr. Thompson further questions Mr. Crafts: Mr. THOMPSON. I have a feeling here that we are applying sort of a hidden screw; that the purpose of this act is to prevent, No. 1, location of the mining claims in the future for the purposes of acquiring a homesite, acquiring grazing privileges on them, or use of timber. Is that correct? Mr. CRAFTS. I would say so. Mr. THOMPSON. Then the purpose of this legislation with regard to those who have already been located under the mining laws is to take away that right to the use of the surface, is it not? Mr. CRAFTS. The use of the vegetative surface resources except as they need them for the claim. We have no argument with this law, and believe that the purposes of this multiuse law have prevented the acts of Congress and have corrected them which they were set out to do▬▬ Senator GRUENING. Mr. Anderson, let me interrupt you one moment? Mr. ANDERSON. Yes, sir. Senator GRUENING. Do you happen to know whether that was Representative Thompson? Mr. ANDERSON. Yes, it was. From Wyoming, sir. Senator GRUENING. Oh, Keith Thompson from Wyoming? Mr. ANDERSON. Yes, sir, Keith Thompson. And I think Senator Metcalf was at the hearing. |