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Show LEGAL ASPECTS OF MINERAL RESOURCES EXPLOITATION 753 reminiscent of the miners who had gone out to Colorado in 1859 with "Pike's Peak or Bust" signs on their wagons only to return within a few months with the signs changed to "Busted, by God!" By 1957 it was said that the Atomic Energy Commission was announcing that it had enough.386 Although these rumors were not true, production did drop off during the sixties, but it is refreshing to sense a note of optimism about uranium in current writing. James K. Groves, a Colorado lawyer who has been in the thick of things since the beginning, recently closed a comment with a refrain heard countless times in the history of American mining: "We ain't seen nothin' yet!" 387 Especially interesting are his statistics-unofficial, of course: Since that time [1947J and until June 30, 1966, there has been discovered in the United States, mined, milled and sold to the AEC, 145,379 tons of uranium oxide for an aggregate price of $2,546,126,000. Attention is directed to the difference between tons of uranium oxide, commonly called "yellow cake," and tons of ore. On an average one finds four to five pounds of uranium oxide in a ton of ore. I have been speaking of tons of uranium oxide. The price of $2,546.-126,000 paid for uranium oxide is only 614 percent of the total sum of $40,772302,784 thus far appropriated by Congress for the use of the Atomic Energy Commission. Of this uranium oxide, 141,679 tons came from privately owned mining claims and the remaining 3,682 tons came from lands leased by the AEC to private lessees. As high as 104,000 tons of contained uranium oxide were discovered in one year (1956) . At the peak of production in 1960 twenty-five privately owned uranium mills in nine western states were processing 22,000 tons of ore per day. It is estimated that until now there have been 75 million feet of exploratory and development drilling, estimated to have cost $150 million. In order that it might explore for uranium, 982 385 81 American Mercury 34 (September 1955) . 386 42 Life 23 (Feb. 18, 1957). 387 Groves, Uranium Revisited, 13 Rocky Mt. Min. L. Inst. 87, 114 (1967). See also Lewis and Rooker, Domestic Uranium Procurement-History and Problems, Land and Water Review 449 (1966). square miles of public lands were withdrawn at the request of the Atomic Energy Commission.388 During the early period of the uranium boom the Atomic Energy Commission conducted no mining operations and apparently only one milling operation. It relied upon private industry389 for exploration and development of uranium and restricted its activities to purchasing uranium ores and concentrates. Bonuses to stimulate exploration were awarded. Stop-Gap Legislation: The conflict between the location and leasing systems was the subject of congressional relief legislation in what was popularly referred to in the trade by its chapter number in the statutes, Public Law 250.390 The basic provisions of the act met with the approval of the mining industry as well as the Interior Department and the Atomic Energy Commission. Although it was intended primarily to afford relief to uranium locators on segregated land, the statute provided a procedure for validating "any mining claim" located between July 31, 1939, and January 1, 1953, if at the time of location the land was included in a permit or lease, or application or offer therefor, issued under the Leasing Act of 1920, or was known to be valuable for minerals subject to disposition under the Leasing Act. The first date was selected arbitrarily as the approximate time when vanadium development for defense purposes began on the Colorado Plateau.391 The origin of the January 1, 1953, date is not so clear. The original bill in the House used the date on which it was first introduced, March 20, 1953. This was changed with- 388 Id. at pp. 87-88. See also Annual Report, Atomic Energy Commission 1967 23-28 (1968) . 388 An interesting pictorial coverage of the mining and milling processes will be found in 42 Life 23 (Feb. 18, 1957). 390 Uranium Relief Act, 67 Stat. 539 (1953) , 30 U.S.C. § § 501-505 (1964) . 391 See United States Code Cong, and Admin. News, 83d Cong., 1st Sess. 2347 (1953) . |