Andrus v. Charlestone Stone Products Co Inc
| Decision Date | 31 May 1978 |
| Docket Number | No. 77-380,77-380 |
| Citation | 436 U.S. 604,98 S.Ct. 2002,56 L.Ed.2d 570 |
| Parties | Cecil D. ANDRUS, Secretary of the Interior, Petitioner, v. CHARLESTONE STONE PRODUCTS CO., INC |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
The basic federal mining statute, 30 U.S.C. § 22, which derives from an 1872 law, provides that "all valuable mineral deposits in lands belonging to the United States . . . shall be free and open to exploration and purchase." Respondent, after purchasing a number of mining claims, discovered water on one of them (Claim 22) and used the water to prepare for commercial sale the sand and gravel removed from the claims. On review of unfavorable administrative decisions against respondent's claims in proceedings challenging their validity, the District Court held, inter alia, that respondent was entitled to access to Claim 22's water, and the Court of Appeals affirmed, adding sua sponte that Claim 22 itself is valid because of the water thereon. Held : Water is not a "valuable mineral" within the meaning of 30 U.S.C. § 22, and hence is not a locatable mineral thereunder. Pp. 610-617.
(a) The fact that water may be a "mineral" in the broadest sense of that word is not sufficient for a holding that a claimant has located a "valuable mineral deposit" under § 22; nor is the fact that water may be valuable or marketable enough to support a mining claim's validity based on the presence of water. In order for a claim to be valid, the substance discovered must not only be a "valuable mineral" within the dictionary definition of those words, it must also be the type of valuable mineral that the 1872 Congress intended to make the basis of a valid claim. Pp. 610-611.
(b) The relevant statutory provisions, which reflect the view that water is not a locatable mineral under the mining statutes and that private water rights on federal lands are to be governed by state and local law and custom; the history out of which such statutes arose; the decisions of the Department of the Interior construing the statutes in line with such view; and the practical problems that would arise if two overlapping systems for acquisition of private water rights were permitted, all support the conclusion that Congress did not intend water to be locatable under the federal mining law. Pp. 611-617.
553 F.2d 1209, reversed.
Under the basic f deral mining statute, which derives from an 1872 law,1 "all valuable mineral deposits in lands belonging to the United States" are declared "free and open to exploration and purchase." 30 U.S.C. § 22.2 The question presented is whether water is a "valuable mineral" as those words are used in the mining law.
A claim to federal land containing "valuable mineral deposits" may be "located" by complying with certain procedural requisites; one who locates a claim thereby gains the exclusive right to possession of the land, as well as the right to extract minerals from it. See generally 30 U.S.C. §§ 21-54; 1 American Law of Mining § 1.17 (1973). The claim at issue in this case, known as Claim 22, is one of a group of 23 claims near Las Vegas, Nev., that were located in 1942. In 1962, after respondent had purchased these claims, it discovered water on Claim 22 by drilling a well thereon. This water was used to prepare for commercial sale the sand and gravel removed from some of the 23 claims.
In 1965, the Secretary of the Interior filed a complaint with the Bureau of Land Management, seeking to have all of these claims declared invalid on the ground that the only minerals discovered on them were "common varieties" of sand and gravel, which had been expressly excluded from the definition of "valuable minerals" by a 1955 statute. § 3, 69 Stat. 368, 30 U.S.C. § 611.3 At the administrative hearing on the Secretary's complaint, the principal issue was whether the sand and gravel deposits were "valuable" prior to the effective date of the 1955 legislation, in which case the claims would be valid.4 The Administrative Law Judge concluded after hearing the evidence that respondent had established pre-1955 value only as to Claim 10. On appeals taken by both respondent and the Government, the Interior Board of Land Appeals (IBLA) affirmed the Administrative Law Judge in all respects here relevant. 9 I. B. L. A. 94 (1973).5
Respondent sought review in the United States District Court for the District of Nevada.6 The court concluded that the decisions of the Administrative Law Judge and the IBLA were not supported by the evidence and that "at least" Claims 1 through 16 were valid. App. to Pet. for Cert. 26a. The court further held "that access to Claim No. 22 must be permitted so that the water produced from the well on that claim may be made available to the operations on the valid claims." Ibid. The IBLA's decision was accordingly vacated, and the case remanded to the Department of the Interior.
On the Government's appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed. 553 F.2d 1209 (1977). It agreed with the District Court as to Claims 1 through 16 and also agreed that respondent was entitled to access to the water on Claim 22. It grounded the latter conclusion, however, 'upon a rationale other than that relied upon by the District Court," id., at 1215, a rationale that had not been briefed or argued in either the District Court or the Court of Appeals. Noting that "[s]ince early times, water has been regarded as a mineral," ibid., the appellate court stated that it could not assume "that Congress was not aware of the necessary glove of water for the hand of mining and [that] Congress impliedly intended to reserve water from those minerals allowed to be located and recovered," id., at 1216. Since the water at Claim 22 "has an intrinsic value in the desert area" and has additional value at the particular site "as a washing agent for . . . sand and gravel," the court ruled that respondent's "claim for the extraction of [Claim 22's] water is valid." Ibid.7
The difference between the District Court's and the Court of Appeals' rationales for allowing access to Claim 22 is a significant one. The District Court held only that respondent is entitled to use the water on the claim; the Court of Appeals, by contrast, held that the claim itself is valid. If the claim is indeed valid, respondent is not merely entitled to access to the water thereon, but also has exclusive possessory rights to the land and may keep others from making any use of it. By complying with certain procedures, moreover, respondent could secure a "patent" from the Government conveying fee simple title to the land. See 30 U.S.C. §§ 29, 37; 1 American Law of Mining § 1.23 (1973). See generally Union Oil Co. v. Smith, 249 U.S. 337, 348-349, 39 S.Ct. 308, 310-311, 63 L.Ed. 635 (1919). In view of the significance of the determination that a mining claim to federal land is valid, the Government sought review here of the Court of Appeals' sua sponte holding regarding Claim 22's validity. The single question presented in the petition is "[w]hether water is a locatable mineral under the mining law of 1872." Pet. for Cert. 2.
We granted certiorari, 434 U.S. 964, 98 S.Ct. 501, 54 L.Ed.2d 449 (1977), and we now reverse.
We may assume for purposes of this decision that the Court of Appeals was correct in concluding that water is a "mineral," in the broadest sense of that word, and that it is "valuable." Both of these facts are necessary to a holding that a claimant has located a "valuable mineral deposit" under the 1872 law, 30 U.S.C. § 22, but they are hardly sufficient.
This Court long ago recognized that the word "mineral," when used in an Act of Congress, cannot be given its broadest definition. In construing an Act granting certain public lands, except "mineral lands," to a railroad, the Court wrote:
Northern Pacific R. Co. v. Soderberg, 188 U.S. 526, 530, 23 S.Ct. 365, 367, 47 L.Ed. 575 (1903).
In the context of the 1872 mining law, similar conclusions must be drawn. As one court observed, if the term "mineral" in the statute were construed to encompass all substances that are conceivably mineral, "there would be justification for making mile locations on virtually every part of the earth's surface," since "a very high proportion of the substances of the earth are in that sense 'mineral.' " Rummell v. Bailey, 7 Utah 2d 137, 140, 320 P.2d 653, 655 (1958). See also Robert L. Beery, 25 I. B. L. A. 287, 294-296 (1976) (); Holman v. Utah, 41 L.D. 314, 315 (1912); 1 American Law of Mining, supra, § 2.4, p. 168.
The fact that water may be valuable or marketable similarly is not enough to support a mining claim's validity based on the presence of water. Many substances present on the land may be of value, and indeed it seems likely that land itself—especially land located just 15 miles from downtown Las Vegas, see 553 F.2d, at 1211—has, in the Court of Appeals' words, "an intrinsic value," id., at 1216. Yet the federal mining law surely was not intended to be a general real estate law; as one commentator has written, "the Congressional mandate did not sanction the disposal of federal lands under the mining laws for purposes unrelated to mining." 1 American Law...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Montara Water and Sanitary v. County of San Mateo
...to federal land are at issue, any doubts `are resolved for the Government, not against it.'" Andrus v. Charlestone Stone Products Co., Inc., 436 U.S. 604, 617, 98 S.Ct. 2002, 56 L.Ed.2d 570 (1978) (quoting Union Pacific, 353 U.S. at 116, 77 S.Ct. 685).9 Here, the airport deed explicitly bro......
-
N.C. Coastal Fisheries Reform Grp. v. Capt. Gaston LLC
..."effect ... [a] major ... alteration in established legal relationships" are discouraged. See Andrus v. Charlestone Stone Prod. Co., 436 U.S. 604, 616, 98 S.Ct. 2002, 56 L.Ed.2d 570 (1978) ; see, e.g., Alvord v. Comm'r, 277 F.2d 713, 719 (4th Cir. 1960) (explaining that the court has "refus......
-
Grand Canyon Trust v. Provencio
...Watt v. West. Nuclear, Inc. , 462 U.S. 36, 58 n.18, 103 S.Ct. 2218, 76 L.Ed.2d 400 (1983) ; Andrus v. Charlestone Stone Prod. Co. , 436 U.S. 604, 607 n.4, 98 S.Ct. 2002, 56 L.Ed.2d 570 (1978) ; United States v. Coleman , 390 U.S. 599, 602, 88 S.Ct. 1327, 20 L.Ed.2d 170 (1968) ; Best v. Humb......
-
Southern Ute Indian Tribe v. Amoco Production Co.
...The relevant legislative intent is that of the Congress that passed the disputed provision. See Andrus v. Charlestone Stone Products, Co., 436 U.S. 604, 611, 98 S.Ct. 2002, 56 L.Ed.2d 570 (1978); Watt v. Western Nuclear, Inc., 462 U.S. 36, 47, 103 S.Ct. 2218, 76 L.Ed.2d 400 (1983) (referrin......
-
Future prospects for mining and public land management: the federal 'retention-disposal' policy enters the twenty-first century.
...reasonable proximity to the claims. Charlestone Stone Prods. Co. v. Andrus, 553 F.2d 1209, 1214, (9th Cir. 1977), rev'd on other grounds, 436 U.S. 604 (1978). Limitation or termination of motorized access to bona fide mining claims may interfere with cost feasible, delivery of the minerals ......
-
Questioning the rule of capture metaphor for nineteenth century public land law: a look at R.S. 2477.
...164 U.S. 190, 202 (1898); Great Northern Ry. Co. v. United States, 315 U.S. 262, 272 (1942); Andrus v. Charlestone Stone Products Co., 436 U.S. 604, 617 (102) Ferguson Letter, supra note 89, at 2, The definition of road employed by the BLM in performing its section 603 inventory came from t......
-
Arctic equity? The Supreme Court's resolution of United States v. Alaska.
...Dam Auth., 363 U.S. at 235. (73) See Union Pac. R.R. Co., 353 U.S. at 116 (respecting railroad grants); Andrus v. Charleston Stone Prods., 436 U.S. 604, 617 (1978) (respecting mining (74) Section 6 of the Statehood Act contains a number of grant provisions, of which sections 6(e) and 6(m) a......