Lithium

[Colorado Cowboy]

I was drinking my morning coffee and watching the news on CNN when they did a segment on the new Lithium deposits in the geothermal area at the southeast part of the Salto Sea i California.

In the 50's my Dad and some of his hunting buddies bought 160 acres for a duck hunting club right in this area. The geothermal steam pots were just PITA because of the smell and mud. My Dad sold his share in the early 80's and bought some more land for another hunting club, but he kept the mineral rights which he leased out. This morning's segment featured Hudson Ranch Energy that has the lease. They produce electricity in their geothermal steam energy plant and I receive monthly royalty payments. They have known about the Lithium for years and are now getting ready to start extracting it from the steam brine. They tell me that the royalties will be a lot more than I get for the electricity.

It's too bad my Dad didn't live long enough to see the royalties. Thanks too Dad our family has some nice income!

 

[El Serio]

Mineral rights seem like something you should always hold on to. You never know when they might become valuable

 

[Colorado Cowboy]

.....and water rights!

 

[JimP]

I look at all the mines and mining rights that my dad and his partners owned only to let them go back to the government. The last time that I was at a mine site that he and his partners had in Nevada I saw that they were looking for the wrong thing, instead of gold and silver they should of paid attention to the oil that was under the claim that is now in someones else's name.

When my dad passed away I took a shoe box full of stock certificates down to a broker only to find that most would make a interesting wallpaper in a room.

 

[Rich M]

I couldnt see buying land without the mineral and water rights.

 

[JimP]

I couldnt see buying land without the mineral and water rights.

Anymore trying to purchase the mineral rights with the land is next to impossible. Water rights on the other hand can be purchased at very high prices here in the west.

I remember on another forum where a member purchased 40 acres in Wyoming with a nice stream running through it. He had plans on damming it up and having a nice pond and irrigating his land with the water. I mentioned to him that he had better check on the water rights that he has with the 40 acres, he figured that since there was a stream running through his property that he had all the water that he could want.

He didn't believe me when I told him that all the water rights in that stream were likely already owned by someone and that all he had rights to were the rights to drill a well and us it for culinary only. I thought I heard him yelling all the way from the east cost when he found out that he didn't own that water in the stream.

 

[kidoggy]

when this house of cards falls none of it will matter.

 

[Rich M]

Anymore trying to purchase the mineral rights with the land is next to impossible. Water rights on the other hand can be purchased at very high prices here in the west.

I remember on another forum where a member purchased 40 acres in Wyoming with a nice stream running through it. He had plans on damming it up and having a nice pond and irrigating his land with the water. I mentioned to him that he had better check on the water rights that he has with the 40 acres, he figured that since there was a stream running through his property that he had all the water that he could want.

He didn't believe me when I told him that all the water rights in that stream were likely already owned by someone and that all he had rights to were the rights to drill a well and us it for culinary only. I thought I heard him yelling all the way from the east cost when he found out that he didn't own that water in the stream.

I remember some guy in Oregon getting arrested or fined for building a pond. Made me realize than that the water rules are diff out west - we have year round streams and rivers and such, you guys don't.

I'd expect the land prices to reflect the lack of mineral & water rights, and maybe they do?

@kidoggy - house of cards will be up for our lifetimes anyway. There has always been doom & gloom stuff but somehow the train keeps chugging down the tracks.

 

[JimP]

I talked to a would be western hunter one year as he was scouting on paper maps and Google Earth. He figured that every blue line on the map was water and that he would have zero problems finding animals as long as he stuck to the streams along with not needing to bring any extra water with him for his camp.

He was quite surprised when I told him that those blue lines very seldom held water and if they did it was only during a good runoff year.

People also don't realize that there were wars fought out west here for the water between different ranchers and farmers. In some areas water is more valuable than any mineral that you might find on your land. Right now there is a fight going on about the Colorado River water, with California, Arizona, and Nevada wanting all that they can get and to hell with the upper basin states of Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado. But then quite a bit of the water that should flow into the Colorado from Utah now flows to the Wasatch Front through tunnels and diversions. Same with Colorado where quite a bit of it flows to the front range cities of Denver, Boulder, Colorado Springs and surrounding cities. Even the rain water that falls on my homes roof belongs to someone as soon as it hits the structure or ground. They passed a law a few years ago that allows me around 50 gallons of rainwater a year.

There was a landowner who purchased a "ranchett" south of Leadville who only had culinary water. He planted fruit trees and was going down into a canyon to collect water in 55 gallon drums to take back to his property, that is until he got caught. He got nailed with some major fines and penalties, the least of which was watching his fruit trees die.

 

[tim]

I remember some guy in Oregon getting arrested or fined for building a pond. Made me realize than that the water rules are diff out west - we have year round streams and rivers and such, you guys don't.

This is a joke right?

 

[Rich M]

This is a joke right?

Runoff is a big deal in some areas.

https://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/2013/04/eagle_point_man_sentenced_to_9.html