[Vision2020] Help prevent this land grab

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of today's (March 3, 2012) Spokesman-Review with special thanks to Gary MacFarlane.

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Guest opinion: Help prevent this land grab
Gary Macfarlane
Special to The Spokesman-Review
The late, great Ted Trueblood, an iconic Idaho outdoors writer and conservationist, led a successful charge in the 1970s and 1980s that ended the scheme to take control of public lands from American citizens and give them instead to local special interests.

He knew public lands that encompass crucial watersheds, fish and wildlife habitat and undeveloped open spaces offer inspiration and renewal, and are the birthright of all Americans. He realized that public lands are not primarily for revenue generation, and that treating them as such puts them on a slippery slope toward privatization.

Unfortunately, bad ideas never seem to die. The Clearwater, Idaho, Shoshone, Boundary and Valley county commissioners are plotting to wrest control of public lands from U.S. citizens. They want to take control of 200,000 acres of national forestland in Idaho. The ostensible reason is to generate revenue for those five counties via logging or other industrial activities. This land grab also has the support of the Latah County commissioners.

While funding for county services such as schools is an important issue that should be resolved – indeed, the same is true for public services at all governmental levels – devolving control of land owned by all Americans to local entities and special interests is the wrong step.

In any case, all counties with public lands receive a number of federal payments from U.S. taxpayers. Recently, in conjunction with the controversial Lochsa Land Exchange, the U.S. Forest Service did an analysis of federal payments that substitute for lost property tax revenues on national forestlands.

The analysis shows most North Idaho counties potentially affected by that proposed exchange would receive less tax money from forested land in private ownership than they would receive from the federal government for the same area in a national forest under public ownership. (See the Upper Lochsa Land Exchange Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement, pages 40 to 53.)

Besides, the federal commitment to county payments seems to remain strong. The E & E wire service recently reported that Republicans like Rep. Doc Hastings of Washington and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska support continuance of the federal PILT fund (payment in lieu of taxes). Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., recently said there is a bipartisan deal in the works to continue funding the Secure Rural Schools bill for another five years.

The claim that North Idaho national forests – the Idaho Panhandle, Nez Perce and Clearwater national forests (the latter two are combining) – no longer sell much timber is also false. The current volume under contract on the Clearwater and Nez Perce National Forests is the largest it has been in many years.

Given the average logging rate of the past five years, there is enough to last for eight years without the Forest Service selling another tree. The data from the latest Idaho Panhandle National Forest Plan monitoring reports available to the public (2007 to 2009) show nearly twice as much timber was sold as was cut, and the Forest Service offered much more timber than companies wanted to buy in those three years.

Furthermore, logging on the national forests in Idaho is a money-loser for the American taxpayer because the federal lands are more marginal for timber production than state and private lands. The county proposal imposes the cost of the expensive firefighting program on the federal government. The proposal also would exempt the land proposed for transfer from most environmental laws.

One example is the National Environmental Policy Act, the law that mandates public input. Don’t the county commissioners from the six Idaho counties believe in democracy and public participation?

It should also be noted that the national forest management laws and plans have far better measures to protect fisheries, soils, wildlife, recreation and watersheds than those that protect state or private land, although Forest Service implementation of such measures is far from perfect. Thus, the citizens of the United States would bear the costs of this program, in terms of dollars and environmental degradation, and would receive no benefits.

Ted Trueblood had it right when he said, “They’re fixin’ to steal your land.” Unfortunately, this proposal reinforces the stereotype that local Western governments are showing disdain for the American public while picking the pocket of the U.S. taxpayer.

The Idaho county commissions that support this outrageous idea should have the common sense and integrity to drop it like a hot potato.

Gary Macfarlane is ecosystem defense director for the Friends of the Clearwater.

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Seeya later, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Post Falls, Idaho

"If not us, who?
If not now, when?"

- Unknown

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