| You can blame it on the
media, but as far as this news service has seen, no
politicians or local leaders have yet publicly announced
support for President Bush's proposal to sell more than
300,000
acres of forest service land to fund a rural schools
program. Agency officials have been cordial to the media,
answering questions and providing information, including
maps and lists of proposed sale parcels. But the idea
hasn't seemed to strike a positive chord with Westerners
in any official capacity.
It's not that the problem of funding rural schools isn't an important one; it's President Bush's proposed method of funding them that has so many people angry and insulted.
The tradition in the West has always been to fund public schools and roads in rural counties, especially counties that have a large percentage of federal public land, through federal programs based on federal lands. For a long time, timber harvesting on our forests was the main source of income, along with a Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) program, which aimed to compensate counties for property taxes they otherwise wouldn't receive from public land.
Today, logging revenues have dwindled, and PILT money seems to diminish with each passing year. But county schools' need for funding isn't dwindling, and in some situations, the need is growing. Thus: President Bush's proposal to sell some public lands to make up the missing dollars. His goal is to raise $800 million over the next five years, or an average of $2,667 per acre, through the land sales.
In Montana,
the proposed auction includes 135 separate tracts ranging
in size from less than an acre on the Custer National
Forest to 600 acres, also on the Custer. The parcels
are spread out over 10 forests and cover 14,000 acres
total.
Land sale proposals in Idaho cover 11
forests and almost 26,000 acres.
In Wyoming,
the proposals top off at close to 17,000 acres and are
from the Black Hills and Medicine Bow National Forests,
along with a large chunk from the Thunder Basin National
Grassland.
Colorado
perhaps stands to lose the most in the Rocky Mountain
West, with about 21,500 acres on the potential auction
block from 11 different forests.
There are 6,000 acres in Utah proposed for sale in 47 different parcels, many of them in remote canyons and along creeks. The 1,000 acres slated for sale in Arizona are all in parcels no larger than 36 acres and, in New Mexico, the proposals total almost 7,500 acres and range from 40 acres to 640 acres.
Local Forest Service officials were responsible for creating the maps of proposed sale areas. It's unclear, though, as to the criteria they used to determine which parcels should be proposed for the sale. But it is safe say that the parcels run the gamut in their size and character.
For example, in Montana, there is a 40-acre plot in the Crazy Mountains surrounded by private land that have no legal access, along with a 160-acre plot that provides recreation access along Big Creek.
In Colorado, in addition to the numerous large plots surrounded by private land, the proposal includes several plots at the base of some of the state's famed 14ers -- the peaks taller than 14,000 feet.
The Forest Service, along with the other
federal and state land management agencies, has used
land sales and acquisitions for years to improve its
portfolio of lands. Officials may sell one parcel to buy
another that has more conservation value. Sometimes
these land sales also include a commercial element,
such as when a ski resort offers the Forest Service
a certain parcel of land valuable as habitat in exchange
for land that is valuable to its commercial operation.
Controversial as they may be, there is always a stated purpose behind these sales. But the criticism of this proposal stems from the idea that these lands would be sold simply for cash, likely to the highest bidder.
Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer was quoted in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle as saying that the idea is "wrongheaded" and compared it to a rancher who sells off his land to buy new tractors and trucks, living beyond his means until he is broke. "It's a damn poor way to run a ranch and it's a way worse way to run a government," said Schweitzer.
As well, as many note, once the land is gone from the federal coffers, it's gone. The lands would probably end up with commercial developers, who would like to use it for what some, including Daniel Kemmis, in his adjoining column, propose the federal government should keep it and use it for – to make money.
That could mean these tracts of land might end up in the hands of miners, energy drillers or home builders, even those tracts tucked in between private property or next to nothing in particular. Now little more than open space, some argue that they provide a value in their own right.
And that brings us to another great debate in the West.
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