Thursday, June 15, 2006

BC land-owners vulnerable to prospecting miners

It appears that mining rights to much of BC's land has been bought up - thanks, at least in part, to the provincial government's online staking system. According to Kendyl Salcito in The Tyee, this system:
allows anyone with internet access and $25 to acquire a miner's license and then, at $0.17 an acre, buy mineral rights to land. It doesn't matter whether that land belongs to a neighbour, the Crown, or the "miner" himself. Once you own the mineral rights, you are free to "explore" your claims, wander the property, "poke at a few rocks," in the words of MP Tom Christensen. And once you decide to start drilling and digging, even the landowner's dwelling and buildings are at risk.

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