Blm Mining Claims

@pipeworx/blm-mining-claims

US federal mining claims from the Bureau of Land Management's Mineral and Land Records System (MLRS): claims near a point or inside a box, one claim by case serial number, and claim counts by type and status around a site. Each result has the case serial, claim name, lode/placer/mill-site/tunnel-site type, status, recorded acres, the PLSS legal land description and a link to the MLRS case record.

Part of Pipeworx — an MCP gateway connecting AI agents to 1763+ live data sources. This is an independent, unofficial integration — not affiliated with, endorsed by, or published by the upstream provider.

Tools

• blm_claims_near(latitude, longitude, radius_km?, status?, claim_type?, limit?, after_object_id?): claims within a radius (max 50 km) of a point, with the total count in the radius. Each page is sorted by distance. Use it to see who has staked ground around a lithium, gold or uranium deposit.
• blm_claims_in_bbox(min_lat, min_lon, max_lat, max_lon, status?, claim_type?, limit?, after_object_id?): the same for a bounding box of up to 2° on a side.
• blm_claims_case(case_id): one case by MLRS serial (NV101474832) or legacy serial (NMC1018964). Returns type, status, acres, patented/excluded/conveyed flags, the parsed PLSS legal land description (meridian, township, range, section, aliquot part), the mapped bounding box, BLM's mapping-quality log and the MLRS link.
• blm_claims_summary(latitude, longitude, radius_km?, status?): counts and total recorded acres by claim type and status within a radius.

status accepts open (default: every case not closed, including Active, Filed, Under Review and On Appeal), active (disposition exactly Active), closed or all. claim_type accepts lode, placer, mill_site or tunnel_site.

Auth

Keyless.

Data sources

• https://gis.blm.gov/nlsdb/rest/services/Mining_Claims/MiningClaims/MapServer: BLM MLRS mining-claim case layer (ArcGIS MapServer). Layer 0 holds every case, layer 1 holds cases that are not closed, and layer 2 holds closed cases. Each call queries the service live.
• https://mlrs.blm.gov/: the MLRS case record that mlrs_case_url opens.

Things the next person would otherwise rediscover:

• The geometry is not the staked boundary. BLM maps each case's recorded Legal Land Description onto the PLSS cadastral grid, so a 20-acre lode claim appears as the aliquot part(s) it was recorded in. The QLTY score says how well the mapping worked. geometry_basis turns it into words: direct PLSS match, calculated, section-only, county-only, no geometry, or hand-edited by BLM.
• The layer has no location date, claimant names or claimant count. Those fields exist only in the MLRS case record. The tools say so in fields_not_in_layer rather than returning nulls.
• No as-of date is published. The service carries no editingInfo or documentInfo date, so data_as_of is the time of the live query and data_as_of_basis says that.
• orderByFields is very slow: 30–60 s against about 5 s without it, measured 2026-10-08. Rows come back in OBJECTID order, so paging uses an OBJECTID cursor (after_object_id → next_after_object_id).
• resultOffset is off by one on spatial queries. Offset 0 returns one row short, and offset k starts at row k−1. Paging by offset would repeat or skip a claim, which is why this pack uses the cursor instead.
• BLM_PROD capitalization varies (Lode Claim and LODE CLAIM both occur), so type filters match on UPPER(BLM_PROD) LIKE 'LODE CLAIM%', which also includes the "– National Park" variants.

Quick Start

Add to your MCP client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, etc.):

{  "mcpServers": {    "blm-mining-claims": {      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/blm-mining-claims/mcp"    }  }}

What this endpoint actually serves

tools/list at https://gateway.pipeworx.io/blm-mining-claims/mcp returns the tools in the table above plus the shared Pipeworx meta-tools — ask_pipeworx, discover_tools, search_within, remember/recall and the rest of the gateway-wide set. So the tool count you see is larger than this table: a single-pack endpoint currently lists roughly 30 shared tools alongside the pack's own. The connection's initialize response states its exact scope, and is the authoritative answer for a given day.

This is deliberate, not multiplexing by accident. The meta-tools are what let a scoped connection answer a question this pack does not cover — via ask_pipeworx, which routes across the whole catalog — without you adding a second MCP server. There is currently no way to mount a pack endpoint without them; if the extra schemas cost you more context than the routing is worth, connect to the full gateway once rather than to several pack endpoints.

Or connect to the full Pipeworx gateway to get every pack's tools listed directly, instead of just this one's:

{  "mcpServers": {    "pipeworx": {      "url": "https://gateway.pipeworx.io/mcp"    }  }}

Both URLs reach the same gateway and the same 1763+ data sources. The only difference is which pack's tools are listed directly; ask_pipeworx reaches all of them from either one.

No MCP client? Call it over HTTP

curl -X POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/blm_claims_near \  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \  -d '{"latitude":41.71,"longitude":-118.06,"radius_km":10,"limit":5}'

No account needed for the first calls. Inspect any tool: GET https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/blm_claims_near. Find one: POST https://gateway.pipeworx.io/v1/tools/search_packs with {"query":"..."}.

Standalone (no gateway account)

This package also runs as a local stdio MCP server — no Pipeworx account, no gateway round-trip:

{  "mcpServers": {    "blm-mining-claims": {      "command": "npx",      "args": ["-y", "@pipeworx/mcp-blm-mining-claims"]    }  }}

Or run it directly to confirm it starts:

npx -y @pipeworx/mcp-blm-mining-claims

It speaks MCP over stdin/stdout and answers initialize/tools/list/tools/call for only this pack's tools — none of the shared meta-tools the gateway connection above adds. Same source, same tools, no ask_pipeworx routing.

Using with ask_pipeworx

Instead of calling tools directly, you can ask questions in plain English — this works on the pack endpoint above as well as on the full gateway:

ask_pipeworx({ question: "your question about Blm Mining Claims data" })

The gateway picks the right tool and fills the arguments automatically.

More

• Docs and guides
• pipeworx.io

License

MIT