Mineral rights showdown at Badlands ranch

A Montana man who wants to mine gravel on the Badlands ranch where Theodore Roosevelt once ran his cattle is comparing his dispute with the U.S. Forest Service to an Old West stare-down. He says he won't blink. "If they want me out of the picture, pay me $2.5 million and I'll go back to Montana and they'll never here from me again," Roger Lothspeich said. "Or I'm going to mine that ranch for decades and decades to come." Lothspeich, 50, of Miles City, Mont., claims he owns half the mineral and gravel rights beneath the 5,200-acre ranch in western North Dakota. He said his portion of the subsurface rights represents about $10 million in high-grade gravel that can be sold to the government and oil companies for road building. The Forest Service purchased the ranch, next to Theodore Roosevelt's Elkhorn Ranch site, from brothers Kenneth, Allan and Dennis Eberts and their families in 2007. It cost $5.3 million, with $4.8 million coming from the federal government and $500,000 from conservation groups. The purchase did not include mineral rights. The Ebertses had bought the ranch and half the mineral rights from the Connell family in 1993 for $800,000. Lothspeich, who grew up near the ranch before moving to Montana, bought the other half of the mineral rights about a year ago, knowing the government had not obtained them in the Eberts deal. Byron Connell, of Scottsbluff, Neb., said the Forest Service never gave him a formal offer for the mineral rights. "They had a middle man call me and he offered some ridiculous price," Connell said. "After that, I never heard from them again." Connell calls it a joke and says it's typical of government. "Nobody did their homework on this," Connell said. "Now, everybody is ducking and diving at the Forest Service and trying to save face."...AP