What happened to
Agronics?
Agronics offered the most advanced nutritional system available. It’s widespread marketing demand was and still is seen around the world. To this date, no one has created such an innovative agricultural technology for increasing production while reducing inputs, increasing quality, reducing water based stress and overall plant and animal health.
It all began in 1992. Agronics had been buying the mineral base for it’s program from the Bureau of Land Management and they decided to raise the price from $.50/ton to $3.00/ton and it had to be prepaid for each year’s demand, a minimum of 5000 tons. This was based on their ownership and they did what they wanted to with the price. Interestingly, they considered it a common variety mineral which is also sand, but at 6 times the price for sand. It was a moneymaker for the BLM.
Agronics was aware that the humate had been patented by the BLM many years back. Being patentable means that the mineral is not owned by the BLM, so Agronics filed claims on the property and after having the BLM cancel the contract for sale, continued to mine on the property. They issued a trespass notice for $138,000 and fenced off the mining area.
Several years later, Agronics had to file bankruptcy and the BLM filed a claim for $138,000 in the action. Agronics contested the claim in the bankruptcy proceeding and the BLM responded by reducing the claim to $22,000 and the case went to trial. During the trial, the BLM witness said that minerals are governed by the determination of the Secretary of the Interior and that at all times, the mineral was the property of the BLM in spite of the prior patenting of the mineral in Utah. Agronics proved that the mineral was “chemically active” in the soil which is a determination that separates it from the common varieties and is based on a long term case “Bunkowski”. The court finally agreed, and told the BLM to reinstate the mining claims and to treat the mineral as locatable. This cleared the way for Agronics to continue mining and did so for a while. Then the BLM appealed the Bankruptcy court’s decision to the District Court on jurisdictional grounds only, basically saying that the Bankruptcy court could not make a mineral determination, which is absurd, when the BLM filed a claim in the court, it gave the Bankruptcy court discretion to make any decision it wanted to on any issue before.
The BLM in the meantime unilaterally had a meeting with the Interior Board of Land Appeals that is the administrative court for the BLM and this court determined that the Bankruptcy court’s decision was invalid. This is likewise absurd as the IBLA’s decisions are reviewed by US District Court which the Bankruptcy court is part of. The BLM send a letter to Agronics requiring it to remove the mining equipment from the property and Agronics replied with a suit against the BLM in Bankruptcy court asking for injunctive relief. The suit was filed on a Wednesday morning and that afternoon, the judge held a hearing at 3:30pm, and when Agronics’ attorney stood up to introduce the matter to the court, he said “We asked the court for 5 minutes of it’s time..” and the judge interrupted him saying “It didn’t take me two minutes to make a determination in this case, I am the law of the land in this case”. The US Attorney tried to fumble around and convince the judge that an administrative law body could trump a US District Court judge, and the judge interrupted him repeatedly and finally stated “Would the US Attorney allow an extension from 10 days to 3 weeks to allow a briefing schedule on preliminary injunction? The US Attorney gave up and conceded, he was now under a Temporary Restraining Order. The brief was filed on the Preliminary Injunction and it ws granted, and the Bankruptcy judge issued the Permanent Injunction was issued sua sponte (by himself) by the judge. It is very unusual for a judge to write his own order, but he did. He also wrote the appeal from his court to the District Court when the BLM appealed his decision.
The BLM suffered a permanent injunction. However, this did not keep it from violating the Bankruptcy court’s orders. It refused to reinstate the mining claims for 6 years from the date they were issued. Letters were sent to the Secretary of Interior and others in the BLM and no action resulted.
After consulting with counsel who wanted $20,000 retainer to go before the Bankruptcy judge, I decided to do it pro-se, represent myself as a mineral claimant and after a short hearing, the judge issued a Contempt Order against the BLM and reprimanded them that if they appeared on a matter similar to this again, that it would result in a personal contempt which could include jail time. He was furious. The Contempt Order is part of this document.
This was not the only action that seriously damaged Agronics. In 1992, a newly hired employee was told not to go into a silo that had trouble discharging the humate from it and he went in anyhow, and died. The following Monday, the OSHA showed up and commenced to ransack the facility. It was attempted to prevent them from enforcing the regulations, and they went to NM District Court to enforce their rules, stating that MSHA did not take jurisdiction.
What NM OSHB did over the next few weeks was a total travesty of the intent of the regulations. The attorneys and inspectors stated that they would do anything to shut down Agronics completely, and at the minimum, could damage our spring business.
They conducted 35 inspections, there were 17 hearings before the NM District Court, and I was found in Contempt and sentenced to 3 days in jail and a $1000 fine. OHSB, (the New Mexico version of OSHA) issued 10 Notices of Imminent Danger for the Agronics’ facility, the last one was for hazardous waste that prevented anyone except for properly qualified persons from entering the facility. In the meantime, a meeting was held with the Assistant Secretary of New Mexico Environment Department, OHSB, and the Hazardous Waste Bureau chief. At the beginning of the meeting, the Hazardous waste bureau chief said that the regulations did not apply to his field, did not know what the regulations were, his bureau was not aware of any issues at the site and left the meeting with the Assistant Secretary. A few minutes later, the Assistant Secretary returned to the meeting and said that if we could show that the site was not contaminated, the Notice of Imminent Danger would be lifted. This required a field technician to go and take samples and file a report that the site was or was not dangerous. The field technician went and took samples and filed a report saying that the site was not dangerous. The Notice of Imminent Danger was lifted and the site could be returned to. This was just one example of the intent of the State in attempting to over apply it’s authority because Agronics disagreed with their regulations, the application of OSHA standards to a mine site.
Early on, one of the attorneys who represented Agronics in the District Court case sent a letter to US Senator Peter V. Domenici’s office. His office contacted MSHA and asked for a review of the jurisdiction. I was contacted by the local MSHA office chief and he said that he was instructed to make a site visit and he was waiting for the NM OHSB Bureau Chief to accompany him on the visit. Several days passed and he called again saying that the Bureau Chief had not been able to go on the visit and that MSHA would do the site visit on their own with my accompaniment. This was a 10-day delay at the hands of OHSB, which is what they wanted. Some time later, there was a note sent that MSHA had reviewed the case and that the jurisdiction would be changed. This was received the day before OHSB had a court hearing in which they were going to ask for additional penalties for myself.
At the court hearing, Agronics’ counsel advised the court that Domenici’s office had sent a fax that the jurisdiction was going to be changed. OHSB attorney got up and wanted to impose a 30 day, $10,000 penalty on myself and Agronics’ attorney advised that the status quo was safe as Agronics’ had complied with all of OHSB’s requirements and that there was no reason to take any action at this time. OHSB’s attorney insisted that additional penalties were to be imposed and the judge told him to shut up and sit down. The judge vacated the hearing pending the result of the jurisdictional issues.
Some time later, MSHA called and said that they wanted me to meet them at the minesite. I went there and they handed me a notice that they had taken jurisdiction of the minesite and that in concert with OHSB, would conduct an inspection. At this point, Agronics had complied with the OHSB standards and as such, the MSHA rules were violated. MSHA issued 38 citations totaling $19,000. Additionally, MSHA issued a Notice of Imminent danger on a silo which they thought needed reinforcement. This required an engineer to come up and evaluate the stresses on it, which took 10 days and $1800 to accomplish before Agronics could resume screening operations.
During the MSHA inspection, they issued citations for the mine pit area which OHSB refused to even visit as their regulations would not have allowed mining. When asked about this in court, they said that the inspected what they thought were dangers. This means that jurisdiction allowed unsafe working areas. If they were seriously concerned about safety, they would have called MSHA in and told them that they needed to take jurisdiction because OSHA standards did not apply. Instead, they went after the headlines and press. The newspapers often called us before we actually received notices of court hearings because OHSB would fax over their notices of court actions to the newspapers before our attorneys. There were many articles and interviews with news reporters during this entire process.
After MSHA penalized Agronics for complying with OSHA standards, a court hearing before the NM District court was had and the judge asked if all of the safety issues which OHSB had were addressed by the MSHA actions, and was told that they were. The judge then made an unusual finding. He cited potential judicial liability and vacated the contempt of court order against me, and said that “OHSB never had jurisdiction at the site except where it can be shown to the court that it did”. This decimated OHSB.
However, OHSB continued to pursue the case through it’s OHSB review commission. Basically, the violations could be appealed to OHSB, but because Agronics felt that jurisdiction was the primary issue, never held a compliance meeting, never responded to OHSB’s procedural options. However, the commission heard a variety of arguments on the citations and the counsel for the commission said that it would take 5-8 weeks of hearings, an extensive finding of facts and conclusions of law to go through the hearing process. Mind you, the District Court had already determined that there was a shortage of jurisdiction in this matter, but OHSB pressed on, just like the BLM trying to override the US District Court findings.
There was a series of meetings on settling the case. Basically, Agronics settled on $44,000 worth of citations and was given 4 years to pay them. Agronics was served with notice of suit on not paying these some time later and counter sued the State for civil rights violations of wrongful jurisdiction, at which point the State agreed to drop the case if we did, and we did.
As a result of this, Agronics has the reputation of having the most number of citations in the State history, 195, with the highest penalty ever assessed, $660,000. None of the citations were ever paid and the State lost it’s OHSB Bureau Chief, several attorneys, several inspectors and was severely chastised by the federal labor department that provides funds to the state for their program. It cost the State several hundred thousands of dollars for this totally inept, egregious attempt to mangle a company with abusive application of their regulations.
As part of the obvious intent of the OHSB, when it was found that the employee who went into the silo against two superior’s warnings not to, that he had marijuana in his system, the drug test report was attempted by Agronics to introduce this into the evidence at the OHSB Commission hearings, and the State OHSB attorneys attempted to keep it out of evidence. The Commission denied their attempt and it was entered into the record, which in general, eliminates the liability of the company, but had no such effect on OHSB.
Now, throughout the several years that these proceedings occurred, there were many attorneys involved, many, many court actions, and a total legal fee cost of nearly $300,000.
In 1992, the New Mexico state legislature passed the Hard Rock Mining Act that forced existing mines to comply with newer standards of reclamation and mining activities. As part of this Act, it was necessary to get the BLM to sign off on meeting their compliance requirements, and the BLM refused to do so, even after being told by the court that the claims were valid and legal. For this reason, in the 6 years that the BLM took to reinstate the claims, not having a state permit with the Mining and Minerals Division, created a penalty each year in the amount of around $3000. There was no way to get the permit because the BLM refused to state that Agronics owned the mineral on the property, and the penalties were assessed anyhow.
Because the State Mining Permit was not securable, the NM District Court, through the same judge who almost 10 years prior to the date, issued a contempt of court order against myself and ordered the close of the mine. If I go to the site without prior notice to the State, I can be sent to jail for 90 days and a $3000 fine. This is an interesting legal situation as it is clearly unconstitutional for being such a long term of restricted activity that constitutes the same as being incarcerated under case law.
Agonics continues to work on putting financing together to over come the financial hurdles of re-opening the mining operation and resupplying the quality materials and management program necessary for high quality farming and growing. Any expression of interest in this case, the legal aspects, political or financial parts of it are welcomed and contacting the Governor of the State of New Mexico about the unavailability of the products and programs is certainly welcome.
Sincerely,
Leland T. “Tom” Taylor
President
Thermogenics Inc.
505-463-8422
linvent@aol.com