By Jon Marvel, executive director

Western Watersheds Project
Hailey, Idaho

On March 16, 2006, the Idaho State Senate adopted by a vote of 34-1 Senate Joint Memorial No. 120. Eleven days later on March 27, 2006, the Idaho House of Representatives adopted the same Joint Memorial by a vote of 64-0 with six members excused or absent.

This kind of unanimity on any topic in the Idaho Legislature is a very rare experience, and typically only happens when partisanship is suspended by a clear and overriding agreement that the best interests of all citizens of our state could only be served by an overwhelming show of support on the part of our legislators.

The event that brought about this near unanimity of legislative support was overwhelming public opposition to a Bush administration proposal to sell to the highest bidder more than 23,000 acres of National Forest public land located in Elmore County northeast of Mountain Home.

In response Senate Joint Memorial No. 120 states:

“NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the members of the Second Regular Session of the Fifty-eighth Idaho legislature, the Senate and the House of Representatives concurring therein, that we are opposed to any proposals which lead to a significant sale of federal land located in the State of Idaho.”

On August 3, 2006, Idaho's U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo dropped into the Congressional hopper his Owyhee Initiative Implementation Act of 2006 (S.3794) that provides for a complicated set of actions including the designation of Wilderness, and Wild and Scenic Rivers in Owyhee County. In return Owyhee County and a very few ranchers have demanded and received a number of unprecedented federal hand-outs approved by Sen. Crapo and endorsed by Gov. Jim Risch that will greatly reduce public involvement in the management of public lands in Owyhee County.

One of those extraordinary handouts was not revealed until a meeting in Boise on Aug. 29 when a document entitled Land Exchanges And Acquisitions was made public. That document revealed for the first time that more than 75,000 acres of public land in Owyhee County could be privatized to a handful of Owyhee County ranchers for about 2,600 acres of their private land for which the ranchers, themselves, have been allowed to provide a value per acre that may well exceed any market value by factors ranging up to twenty times.

Unlike the now-dead Bush administration proposal to sell Forest Service public land to the high bidder to help finance rural public schools, the Crapo proposal would privatize up to 75,000 acres of public land for as little as one–twentieth of their market value and with no restrictions on the potential future subdivision and development of those lands.

My inquiries to Sen. Crapo’s staff seeking clarification of this heart-stopping giveaway of public lands have not been answered to date, and coverage by Idaho’s newspapers and television news has been minimal as if this effective theft of public lands is already a done-deal.

I wonder if the Idaho Legislature would now decide that their recent nearly unanimous opposition to “a significant sale of federal lands located in the State of Idaho” should have excepted any proposal from Idaho’s junior U.S. Senator; or would the legislature reaffirm the clear will of the people of Idaho to oppose any and all privatizing of our public lands.

I would ask every concerned Idaho citizen to send a letter or email to our senior Sen. Larry Craig (larry_craig@craig.senate.gov) expressing clear and absolute opposition to Sen. Crapo's and Owyhee County’s attempt to privatize 75,000 acres of public lands that is three times the Bush administration’s idea of what they thought they could get away with selling public lands in Idaho.

The Idaho Legislature would expect no less.