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Critics take aim at fed land liquidation

B-T parcels tagged for possible sale are crucial moose winter range.

By Rebecca Huntington

Conservationists, hunters and anglers are calling a Bush administration proposal to sell $800 million of federal land, some on the Bridger-Teton National Forest, bad policy and a loss of public treasures.

The plan unveiled last week identified 880 acres near Bondurant for investigation as part of the nationwide series of sales. The plan is to raise money for the federal budget by liquidating lands considered difficult or expensive to manage.

The administration plan has been widely criticized and earned derision in Teton County this week as well.

“We’re setting this bad precedent that if we get into financial trouble, we’re going to sell off our public lands,” said Armond Acri, a Jackson hunter and board member of the Wyoming Wildlife Federation. “If every generation sells off 5 percent, eventually we’re not going to have anything left.”

At the moment, the Bush administration is proposing selling less than half of 1 percent of the 193-million-acre national forest system to pay for rural schools and roads – a worthy investment in America’s future, according to proponents.

Nonetheless, those lands could have wildlife and public access values that should be assessed, Acri said. But Acri and Franz Camenzind, executive director of the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, said the public could be hard-pressed to review the 300,000 acres earmarked for sale since the administration has scheduled only a 30-day public review and comment period.

Although only 880 acres have been selected for sale on the Bridger-Teton, Acri said he hunts around the region and would like to look at other forests. The land sale list includes a total of 17,659 acres in Wyoming.

Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal said Monday that his staff has not had time to review the list, but he’s “increasingly skeptical about fire-sale land proposals.”

Likewise, Acri said this is the third proposal in six months from the Washington Beltway to sell public lands. The other two proposals came from congressmen – one to pay for Hurricane Katrina and another to prop up the mining industry.

Opponents, particularly sportsmen, squelched both proposals, which Acri said should have sent a clear signal to the Bush administration that the public wants its lands to stay in public hands.

Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey, who directs U.S. forest policy, defended the program as a way to pay for important programs in a tight budget year. Moreover, he stressed that the sell-off would not amount to a net loss in national forest since the Forest Service annually acquires about 100,000 acres. Rey said that while 300,000 acres have been proposed for sale, officials estimated only 150,000 to 200,000 acres would need to be sold to raise the $800 million.

Loss of open space, ecological benefits

Critics responded that the program could still result in the loss of valuable open space. U.S. Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth has identified “loss of open space” as one of the four biggest threats to the nation’s forest.

The 880 acres along the Hoback River, about 3 miles southeast of Bondurant, encompass valuable wildlife habitat, according to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. The entire 880 acres fall within designated crucial winter range for moose.

In addition, a 50-acre parcel that straddles the Hoback River borders the McNeel Feed Ground, where the state feeds elk on private land. The Forest Service has restricted human travel on that parcel to protect wildlife on crucial big game winter ranges, according to a forest winter travel map. Game and Fish maps also show a mule deer migration route running in between the 830-acre and 50-acre parcels slated for sale.

Additionally, 830 acres dubbed Dry Island have more ecological value than its name might imply, according to Game and Fish habitat biologist Steve Kilpatrick. The hump of sagebrush surrounded by willows represents an “ecotone” where two habitat types – sagebrush and riparian – come together, he said. Such edge habitats are particularly valuable to wildlife, he said.

Selling just the sagebrush hump could radiate impacts from people, homes and pets into the riparian zone surrounding Dry Island, Kilpatrick said. Game and Fish has identified riparian habitat as the most valuable type in the state because it supports the most diverse range of species.

“From a habitat perspective, it would be nice to conduct an evaluation of the habitat values of those areas before we mark them for disposal,” Kilpatrick said.

That’s precisely the concern of critics, who say a Washington, D.C., dollar-driven quota system might pressure agencies to rush land sales to meet quotas and overlook local values.

“[The proposal] turns its back on locally driven arrangements that have enhanced open space,” said John Leshy, a former Interior Department solicitor under President Clinton and law professor at the University of California, Hastings.

Bridger-Teton officials had previously eyed the 880 acres as land that could be swapped out of public ownership for a more valuable private inholding elsewhere on the forest. Such an exchange would help simplify forest boundaries since the Forest Service says it has no legal access to manage the 880 acres, which is surrounded by private land but adjacent to other Forest Service property at three points.

Gaining an inholding in exchange would prevent private development in the middle of the forest. Selling the land to pay for rural schools and roads, as proposed, would take a parcel out of the land exchange toolbox.

Michael Schrotz, who works on land trades for the Bridger-Teton, said he had to identify parcels for sale on short notice and limited the proposal to national forest that lacks federal access. He did not contest that the public could reach the parcels by “corner hopping,” crossing to the federal land at one of the three points where it is contiguous to other Forest Service property.

Although forest officials have tried to swap or acquire land to improve access to the 800-plus acres, neighboring landowners haven’t been interested, he said Tuesday.

Since the federal government cannot access the land to manage it or promote public access, Schrotz questioned its value.

“It really becomes a backyard of these landowners,” Schrotz said.

As for Rey’s criteria of disposing of “hard-to-manage” lands, Bridger-Teton officials said the only management that occurs on these parcels is policing a boundary, which they can’t access, and replacing boundary markers on occasion. Schrotz and other officials could not point to any higher cost to the Bridger-Teton of those activities.

People bring ‘all the bad habits’ to land

While the land might not have much public access benefit, critics of the sale suggested that just leaving lands undeveloped is a benefit.

“Once you start selling little spots in the middle of other public property, you get people coming in with all the bad habits,” said Jerry Conley, former director of the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. Conley participated Tuesday in a teleconference sponsored by the Wilderness Society, which opposes the sales.

The Bondurant area, for example, falls on the southern edge of what the federal government has designated suitable grizzly habitat. More home-owners in the area could mean more improperly stored attractants, such as trash, bird seed and pet food, which could attract grizzlies or black bears to the neighborhood. The Bridger-Teton parcels are among the few lands proposed for sale in the Greater Yellowstone Area.

Conley stressed that even the smallest parcels can serve as doorways for public access to much larger tracts. “Are we really ready to start selling off the most precious assets this country has?” he asked. “The sportsmen are going to come down with a unanimous, ‘No!’”