A recent Interior Department Board of Lands Appeals holding stands outside the current trend of federal agencies to provide wider protection for the public lands against private commercial uses. In In Re Alfred E. Koenig, 2 ELR 30002 (October 26, 1971), the Interior Board of Land Appeals held that the mining laws of the United States give the owner of a mining claim a nonexclusive right of access to the claim across public lands. Consequently, the claim owner does not have to obtain a special use permit before constructing an access road.

In this case, the manager of the Glenwood Springs, Colorado, District of the Bureau of Land Management denied a claim owner's application for a special use permit that would allow him to continue use of an access road that he had built across public lands surrounding his claim. The district manager's decision was based on the state of Colorado's expressed intent to select the land involved.¹ The Board held that the Bureau had no authority to deny access across public lands, if the road would be kept open for public use.