Posted on 01/05/2016 9:55:31 PM PST by knarf
Well, well, well ....
follow the money.the chicoms want the land for solar.
The government will always gets what it wants even if it has to follow you around all day to find you guilty of something, because everyone is guilty of SOMETHING.
All of the lefties calling for the Bundy’s blood will be out there protesting the open pit copper mine the FedMob plans to lease the land for. All of them totally bonehead oblivious that they helped bring it about.
The solar is the beard. They want the oil, gold, diamonds or uranium the lands contain.
Do a search for the study listed in the article. If you download or just open the study in your browser, you will find that the area covered by the study does not coincide with the Hammond Ranch, and is fact is several miles away. While it may be true that the Hammond Ranch sits atop an area with mineral potential, the study cited does not prove that.
I guess I’m getting tired. I don’t see a study mentioned in the article. At any rate, mining operations can be big and use a lot of land other than what sits right on top of the ore.
That doesn't mean there are no minerals on the Hammond Ranch, it just means the study does not support the conclusion that there are with the data given.
Ok got it.Didnt know about that.thanks
Sorry, didn’t know you meant the survey. Unfortunately opening that pdf just locked up my browser and wouldn’t open. I’ll take your word for it.
Is there any doubt that BLM is trying to grab the Hammond’s land?
The following article from Oct., 2015 has lots of information. Mr. Maupin, in the following excerpt, was an expert witness for the first trial and talked about preventive land burns, and how they used to be done with private and BLM coordination, which is what the Hammonds did in at least one case. Maupin used to work for the Feds.
http://www.thefencepost.com/news/18847695-113/two-members-of-oregons-hammond-family-to-serve
EXCERPT:
Why the Hammonds?
“The story is like an onion, you just keep peeling back the layers,” Maupin said.
In an effort to stave off what they feared was a pending Clinton/Babbitt monument designation in 2000, a group of ranchers on the scenic Steens Mountain worked with Oregon Representative Greg Walden, a republican, to draft and enact the Steens Mountain Cooperative Management and Protection Act that would prevent such a deed. The ranchers agreed to work with special interest “environmental” groups like the aggressive Oregon Natural Desert Association and others to protect the higher-than 10,000 foot breathtaking peak.
A number of ranchers at the top of the mountain traded their BLM permits and private property for land on the valley floor, allowing the anti-grazing groups to create a 170,000 acre wilderness, with almost 100,000 acres being “cow-free.”
“The last holdouts on that cow-free wilderness were the Hammonds,” explained Maupin. And because the Hammonds have large chunks of private property in the heart of the cooperative management area, they carried a target on their backs.
“It’s become more and more obvious over the years that that the BLM and the wildlife refuge want that ranch. It would tie in with what they have,” said Inglis.
The Hammonds also lost their ability to water cattle on one BLM permit when refuge personnel drained a watering hole that the Hammonds had always used.
End excerpt.
None whatsoever. The Hammonds aren't the first, by any measure, either. The Federal Land grab has been going for decades, inholdings in National Forests back east were targeted using similar tactics (closing roads, etc.), and the whole 'control the water, control the land' thing has been a common theme out west.
Environmental organizations are often working in league with the official agencies, bringing suit against landowners, suing the BLM and other agencies when they don't get their way and getting funding, then back on the attack. I could tell about trying to drill an oil well and the hoops involved on a Federal Lease, but that is another story.
Looking at the map, the Feds surround the Hammond place, and there is no doubt in my mind with forcing out other ranchers in the area and then making right of first refusal part of the sentencing arrangements that the BLM wants those tracts.
Yep, they’ve done it to hundreds of ranchers and farmers that no one has ever heard of.
Whatever the reason, and there may be many, the BLM people are out to take the land away. It may be so simple as wildlife preferring to be on active rangeland with good water and browse rather than the mangy remnants of land gone to seed.
Anyone who has looked at the dead and dried crap on CRP acreage has little doubt that the critters would prefer active fields to eat.
“...has little doubt that the critters would prefer active fields to eat.”
In another article, one of the Hammond’s neighbors did a study of the wildlife (birds mainly?) that frequented the private property versus the “wildlife refuge”. Something like a 6 to 1 ratio with most of the birds on the private property.
Now, think about that. That'd be just the sort of thing to pi$$ off some tight a$$ed wildlife management area manager. Remember, that sort of vindictive anger (envy) does not have to be rational, it only has to exist and be directed at those who are doing a better job without trying to, using, of course, the full weight and power of the United States Government and all the possibly applicable rules and regulations thereof.
A similar thing was found to be true in the Nevada desert around the Bundy’s ranch. It was found that the Desert Tortoise did much better on land that cattle grazed than where they didn’t. On a preserve set up just for the tortoises they were all dying out.
I think the turtles ate the cow poop. No cows, no turtles.
I have a cousin that ranched in NE Oregon for awhile (married the rancher). He said the BLM kicked them off the land so they could “improve” the trout streams. The ranchers that used the open range told the “experts” that they were going to screw it all up.
Well, the BLM kicked the cows out, and their workers and volunteers spent a couple of years cleaning up the two streams in the area by getting rid of old trees and stuff that was clogging up the streams.
A few more years went by and the trout population had gone down. The streams were eroding and silting up. Turns out all the natural crap like logs and stumps helps keep the flows down and provides habitat. The cows walking through keeps the sediment kicked up and not depositing. (Of course that seems like common sense - which the ranchers had!)
So the BLM spent a few more years hauling in logs and stumps and crap, and let the cows run on the land again!
In my neck of the woods that is huge business - taking creeks that had been straightend out to enhance flood control 40 years ago and rerouting them back to their more natural state with lots of crooks and crannies, and lots of huge logs and stumps to enhance salmon habitat.
One they just completed took 6 years from design to completion and $11.53 million dollars. For only 3,000 feet long!!!???
http://www.redmond-reporter.com/news/305479661.html#
The amount of land gobbled up by all governments SHOULD piss people off but they are too immersed in keeping their own property values high by limiting the supply. I can’t stand the thought of “open land” by government fiat.
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