## Facts

- Maurice Tanner owned the surface estate of land patented under the Stock Raising Homestead Act (SRHA), under which the United States reserved “all the coal and other minerals.”
- Tanner removed and mined humate from the property.
- Humate was described as material derived from weathered coal and related formations, with commercial uses including soil conditioning and drilling-mud additive.
- The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) treated humate as a mineral material within the federally reserved mineral estate and required federal authorization for its extraction.
- BLM issued a decision finding Tanner’s humate removal was unauthorized extraction of federally owned mineral materials and constituted mineral trespass.
- Tanner appealed to the Interior Board of Land Appeals (IBLA), arguing humate was an organic, soil-like substance analogous to peat and therefore not a reserved “mineral.”

## Issues

1. Whether humate on SRHA lands falls within the federal reservation of “coal and other minerals,” making it part of the federal mineral estate rather than the surface estate.
2. Whether a surface owner may remove humate without federal authorization, or whether such removal constitutes mineral trespass.
3. Whether humate’s asserted organic character and comparison to peat exclude it from the SRHA mineral reservation.

## Decision

- The IBLA affirmed BLM’s decision.
- The IBLA held humate is a reserved mineral within the SRHA reservation of “coal and other minerals,” given its association with and derivation from coal-related strata and its commercial exploitation.
- The IBLA concluded Tanner, as surface owner, had no right to extract humate without federal authorization.
- The IBLA sustained the finding that Tanner’s extraction constituted unauthorized removal of federally owned mineral materials (mineral trespass).

## Legal Principles

- Under SRHA split estates, substances classified as reserved “coal and other minerals” belong to the United States, and surface ownership does not confer a right to extract them.
- A substance may be treated as a reserved mineral based on its geologic source and commercial use, even if it has organic or soil-like characteristics.
- Extraction of federally reserved mineral materials by a surface owner without authorization constitutes mineral trespass.
- Consistent agency classification and long-standing administrative treatment of a substance as a mineral material may be given substantial weight in determining ownership and trespass under the SRHA reservation.

## Conclusion

The IBLA determined that humate on SRHA patented lands is a federally reserved mineral and that a surface owner’s unpermitted extraction is mineral trespass, affirming BLM’s enforcement action against Tanner.


Maurice Tanner, 141 I.B.L.A. 373 (1997)