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(meteorobs) Re: Meteorite recovery legislation?

Hello Ed,

>Your not going to get much sympathy with your
proposal 
> from the scientific community or others that are 
> interested in the study of meteorites.  What Rob 
> and [Dave] propose should be considered a criminal 
> act and legislation should be put in place to
prevent
> this.

Okay, Ed, you can lower the flag now.  If you take a
look around, you'll notice that the "community" isn't
closing ranks behind you and rallying around the flag.
And the reason isn't because you're a Canadian
petitioning for U.S. legislation, either.  It's
because the U.S. community is painfully aware that it
is the CURRENT laws that are causing most of the
problems.

So, allow me to educate.  
For example, particularly here in California, the
majority of public land is now in some form of
restriction, i.e. Wilderness, Wildlife Preserve,
Monument, Nat. Recreation Area, etc.   If it wasn't
before, it certainly is now, against the law to remove
any rocks, let alone "antiquities", from these lands. 
So, until the current environmental restrictions are
relaxed, the only permissable LEGAL method of
meteorite recovery is to take a photograph of the
find, send the photograph to the Smithsonian and
notify them that you have found one of their
meteorites, and await further instructions.

Unfortunately, the Smithsonian Inst. isn't funded to
operate a field meteorite recovery team.  Unlike
Canada which has a formal Meteorite Recovery Program
(thanks to MIAC), U.S. field researchers have to
independently petition for a local relaxation of
environmental restrictions in order to recover a
meteorite from, what is now, a majority of the public
lands.  

Personally, I would like to see the formation of an
officially recognized Meteorite Recovery Team here in
the U.S., much like the program that is being
conducted in Canada.  In fact, I have already
volunteered my services to the Smithsonian Inst., but
along with liability issues, there are many
bureaucratic and environmental roadblocks that must be
overcome.  What with a new Administration and a new
Secretary of Interior in D.C., maybe progress can now
be made in this direction.

Bob Verish

P.S. - I will make only one more post re: this OT
subject, and it will show that, aside from the already
mentioned "perceived" problems, the main threat to
unfettered access to meteorites for researchers is -
the attitude that "meteorites are a national
treasure", where what was formerly a meteoroid
orbiting the Sun one day, is the next day "a countries
national heritage!"?

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 15:45:32 -0800
From: "Matson, Robert" <ROBERT.D.MATSON@saic.com>
Subject: (meteorobs) Meteorite recovery legislation?

Hi Ed,

>Your not going to get much sympathy with your
proposal 
> from the scientific community or others that are 
> interested in the study of meteorites.  What Robert 
> and [Dave] propose should be considered a criminal 
> act and legislation should be put in place to
prevent
> this.

Your comments suggest that you don't know the whole
story here.
All responsible meteorite "hunters", "discoverers",
whatever you want to call them, make their finds
available to the scientific community.  No science is
lost -- on the contrary, if it weren't for the hard
work of these people, the scientific community would
have only a fraction of the meteoritic material that
they currently do.  The Smithsonian isn't expending
the resources to recover meteorites in the United
States -- hunters, prospectors, farmers and field
investigators are.  Is it too much to ask that these
individuals should get some reward/compensation for
their efforts?

The government's actions with respect to the Old Woman
meteorite probably have done them and scientists more
harm than good in the long run.  There's no telling
how many meteorites sit in private hands -- unknown
and unstudied -- due to the fear of outright
confiscation.
In the rare case of unextractable finds, recommending
legislative action to FORCE the transfer of location
information from finder to government is frankly quite
absurd, and completely unenforcable.  What you propose
would simply encourage people to lie about find
locations (which is valuable information in and of 
itself), and would ultimately drive the meteorite
recovery community underground, to the detriment of
everyone -- especially the scientists.

Respectfully,
Rob Matson
------------------------------





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