Posted on 04/11/2014 6:43:06 AM PDT by xzins
BYERS, Texas (RFD-TV) Most people think the border between Texas and Oklahoma is the Red River. Unfortunately, it’s a little more complicated than that, especially along the part of the river where Tommy Henderson and his family ranch. Henderson lost a lawsuit 30 years ago that moved part of the northern Texas border over a mile to the south.
The Bureau of Land Management [BLM] took 140 acres of his property and didn’t pay him one cent.
Now, they want to use his case as precedent to seize land along a 116-mile stretch of the river.
“They’re wanting to take the boundaries that the courts placed here and extend those east and west to the forks of the river north of Vernon and east to the 98th Meridian which is about 20 miles east of us,” Henderson explained.
BLM, which oversees public land in the United States, claims this land never belonged to Texas.
The Texas landowners who have lived and cared for that land for hundreds of years beg to differ.
BLM plans on taking the land anyway. Property owners will be forced to spend money on lawsuits to keep what is theirs.
For many, that property has been in their family for generations.
"How can BLM come in and say, "Hey, this isn't yours." Even though it’s patented from the state, you've always paid taxes on it. Our family has paid taxes for over 100 years on this place. We've got a deed to it. But yet they walked in and said it wasn't ours," said Henderson.
Ever since the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, there has been controversy over where Oklahoma ends and Texas begins.
In layman’s terms the boundary is the vegetation line on the south side of the Red River.
Over time the river moves. This movement north toward Oklahoma is the sticking point.
The sandy soils erode in a process called accretion, which wipes out the bank. So the property line follows the river.
BLM claims that the river moved by another process called avulsion. With avulsion, the land may be changed by flood or currents, but the property line isn’t. So BLM claims that when the river moved back north the property line stayed put.
It doesn’t help that Oklahoma defines avulsion differently than Texas and the U.S.
“Originally, here the river was out there where it is now and it eroded and accreted up to here, and then it eroded and accreted back. Well, their interpretation is that it eroded up to here but avulsed back. So when you listen to them it is always erosion to the south because the property line follows it then, but it’s always avulsion when it goes north. So the boundary can move south but it can never move back north," said Henderson.
About 90,000 acres could be seized by BLM, disappearing across a new state line. If they are allowed to take the land, it could also affect farmers and ranchers down river like Scott Carpenter, who ranches north of Nocona.
BLM couldn’t take his land, but there would be nothing to stop his neighbor across the river from claiming some of Scott’s property belongs to him. That is just one of the reasons Carpenter wants to help.
"We have numerous places that have been in our family for over a hundred of years, and you hate to see land that people’s worked hard for would lose,” said Carpenter. “As producers we are always on a defense. We have to make decisions to try to help ourselves to help one another."
Both ranchers have been in contact with U.S. Congressman Mac Thornberry, who is working to help stop the land grab. Henderson’s land probably won’t be affected this time, but he’s hoping what happened to him won’t happen to his fellow landowners.
This report is from our partners at the Texas Farm Bureau.
http://www.agweb.com/blog/grazing_the_net/red_river_range_war/
Red River Range War
Apr 10, 2014
What is it with the BLM this spring? Nevada rancher Clive Bundy's 30-year tussle with BLM came to head this week, and now the BLM has stepped into the middle of the Red River to void the deeds held by some farmers on land they've paid taxes on for decades. The Red River has long been considered the border between Texas and Oklahoma, but over time the river moves. The BLM wants to use a 30-year-old case they won against one Texas rancher as precedent to seize more land along a 116-mile stretch of the river. Property owners say they'll be forced to spend large sums of money in what could be a lengthy legal process. The dispute may involve 90,000 acres.
Red River Range War
Apr 10, 2014
What is it with the BLM this spring? Nevada rancher Clive Bundy's 30-year tussle with BLM came to head this week, and now the BLM has stepped into the middle of the Red River to void the deeds held by some farmers on land they've paid taxes on for decades. The Red River has long been considered the border between Texas and Oklahoma, but over time the river moves. The BLM wants to use a 30-year-old case they won against one Texas rancher as precedent to seize more land along a 116-mile stretch of the river. Property owners say they'll be forced to spend large sums of money in what could be a lengthy legal process. The dispute may involve 90,000 acres.
Its a chance to attack normal working Americans.
They must be destroyed for the ‘revolution’ to succeed.
‘Just part of a grander plan to control the food supply. First the EPA is persecuting people who have holding ponds on their land stating that they are not allowed to collect rainwater and now this
Oh...so NOW...the land doesn't belong to Texas. Not a hundred years ago, not 75 years ago, not 50 years ago. But NOW.
These people are just BEGGING for another civil war. By God they just may get what they want.
They will lose.
Ruby Ridge Pt. III
Engineered to draw attention away from Obama’s long string of boondoggles and failures.
Obama may get pushed around by Putin but he will show the world the federal government can still push defenceless American Citizens around.
In order to for the powder keg to go off, someone has to light to fuse. They need to keep pushing till they reach that critical mass. People are slowing starting to wake up and openingly question government: Connecticut, New York, Nevada and now this makes its way into the open.
I seriously believe there is a purpose to this, and lines will need to be drawn in the sand.
Were they squating, like you know who said, defending the BLM on the Bundy attack?
Sounds like the BLM thinks so.
Sounds like the BLM is in the land taking business.
Is there oil on that land...read something about that really being the issue in Nevada.
We should just merge all 57 states into one: 0bamaville.
I don’t get it. Even if the land is now Oklahoma and not Texas, why doesn’t he simply own land in Oklahoma? How does it suddenly become BLM land?
It doesn’t help matters that the author doesn’t know a thing about geology. Accretion is the opposite of erosion.
Same here. Seems like it would go to either the guy on one side of the river or the guy on the other side of the river....but somehow BLM thinks it goes to them. And a flippin' court AGREED with them in at least one case.
Which just goes to prove: the deck's stacked.
I wouldn’t think they’d want to divide their efforts, but on the other hand, they may be seeking to divide the response of the Oathkeepers, etc.
I don’t know how the court reached that verdict. Iowa has a little plot of land west of the Missouri River. The river moved east, but the Iowans didn’t, so it stayed part of Iowa.
And, iirc, the court told Kentucky that the Ohio shore of the Ohio River is Ohio even if the river does move.
What it does do is give the Fed what they think is “ownership” of the actual shoreline for 116 miles on one side or the other. Since water is the issue in dry times, they will control ACCESS to the water. You gotta go through what they see as their land to get to the water.
And, rest assured, since the movement of rivers is a geologic phenomenon that takes place everywhere, if they get away with it here, they will do it everywhere.
And suddenly access land to even get to water will belong to the Fed in all of America.
Rivers, creeks, streams, lakes, springs.
You name it.
Um, no. He ain’t pushing defenseless Texans around. We can defend ourselves. I guarantee it.
ping!
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