Posted on 02/09/2006 12:35:03 PM PST by george76
With budgets getting tighter every year, the U.S. Forest Service plans to raise up to $800 million in much-needed cash by selling off 200,000 acres of land across the country...
The proposed land sale would be authorized under a Congressional amendment to the 2,000 Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act.
The law is intended to help rural communities that have seen National Forest logging-based revenue drop as timber cutting dwindled across the country.
The list is based in part on land ownership adjustment analyses that designate lands suitable for disposal.
Most of the lands to be sold are parcels completely surrounded by private land or difficult to manage because they are surrounded on three sides by private land...
Newton said the Dillon District is reviewing the three chunks of land to make sure they meet the criteria for sale, but said they had been previously identified for disposal.
Forest Service officials in Washington, D.C. said a detailed list of the parcels would be made available by the end of the week.
None of the parcels are in wilderness or other protected areas...
The national forest system encompasses about 193 million acres nationwide, and the agency doesn't expect a net loss of lands due to other ongoing acquisition programs.
Since 1990, the agency has added about 2 million acres of land...
(Excerpt) Read more at summitdaily.com ...
...and throw in New Jersey, too.
The FS land was put into reservations to preserve watershed and to protect the timber for use. It belonged to the Federal government, in large part, being managed by what is now the BLM but was the GLO.
The BLM lands were basically, for the most part, lands that the GLO couldn't sell.
The recreational use and value of the FS lands came later, but are not a part of their originating act.
FYI, for the most part, all land beyond the original colonies was owned first by the US government and then sold; this is not a new thing.
Somehow, though, I have a feeling that there is going to be much bad feeling about this land sale (mostly because local people are going to be concerned that they will lose revenues, and potentially access, and that non-locals will be fighting because they don't want any of the public lands going private, where they have less sayso over how those lands get used. I wouldn't be surprised if they end up not doing it.
As you know, but some others may not remember...
The Federal Government has been selling land since George Washinton was President.
The "North West" was often given to soldiers as partial payment for their services from 1776 to 1784.
We now call that land Ohio, Indiana...
Thomas Jefferson's Lousiana Purchase was paid for, in part, by land sales in Missouri, Kansas, Iowa...
The same in California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Arizonia...after James K. Polk was President.
Lincoln sold land in Oklahoma...
The list goes on.
Good news! The less land the forrest service owns, the less harm they can do managing it! :)
and the agency doesn't expect a net loss of lands due to other ongoing acquisition programs.
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Aquisitions? From whom?
If I remember correctly, just 15 percent of Nevada is privately owned.
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I believe the number was closer to 10%.
I have no problem with the sale. Such a little percent is being proporsed.
1% of Alaska is privately owned. Maybe that estimate is a little high.
My opinion...
No one manages the land better than a private person, rancher, farmer...
They need to be responsible if they are to pass the land to the next generation.
A farmer or rancher has to be environmentally friendly to keep the land productive.
A healthly soil means a future for the family farmer for the generations to come.
They bought 2,000,000 acres recently from American citizens.
Now, they are proposing to sell 10 percent.
The net might be a gain of 1,800,000 acres.
Selling the states lands might be useful.
Often, drug dealers use government lands for drug growing and/or manufacturing.
Meth labs and/or pot farms are often placed on "government" lands.
A private citizens would care more than anyone...and protect that envirnoment from the drug dealers "pollution."
Plus some of the money from the sales goes to local, rural schools.
Let us near from the DUmmies who hate local, rural schools.
I looked at the article last night and notided it talked about land sales in Colorado. Today I see I need to register to read it, which I do not do. Hard to say what the feds will do around here....
Siskiyou County has almost 63% of its land base in federally managed lands (USFS, BLM, USFWS refuges.) There is not enough of a private tax basis to adequately fund essential community services. The federal ownership also precludes any expansion of communities so that development could occur and increase the tax base. When the Forests were reserved, Congress recognized that and passed a law that 25% of the revenue that came from federal lands would go to the counties for schools and roads.
When the Northwest Forest Plan went into effect (northern spotted owl and salmon,) the forests were shut down from timber harvest. Back in the 1950s, we had 50 sawmills, now we have zero - just one plywood mill (peeler/corer) and one door moulding mill.
The Secure Schools and Communities Act was passed by Congress to backfill the counties for this lost revenue. The Act sunsets this year. In Siskiyou County, we will lose slightly under $4 million in revenue for schools, half of our road department's operating budget and the funding for our general county fire (Amador Plan) and search and rescue services. It will be a huge and immediate crisis.
The Act is up for reauthorization. The President wants to renew for five years, but decrease the amount of payment to zero. Then the County will go back to its 25% of whatever harvest is allowed, which has been almost none.
I was told today that 33,000 of those acres slated for disposal are in the Klamath and Shasta Trinity National Forests. Sale would release them into private ownership and back on the private tax roles. I understand that most are along the I-5 corridor. I haven't seen the list, so I don't know how I feel about it. They gave me the URL today: http://www.fs.fed.us/land/staff/spd.html
Thanks for the link. The KNF is selling alot. A cursory check of the list showed scattered parcels near Callahan, also the scattered parcels north of Fort Jones in the Rattlesnake, Patterson and McAdams Crk areas. I also see there scattered parcels around copco lake on the list. Parcels on I-5 in south county would be the Shasta NF. Which I didn't check. Looks like there will be lots of work for me this year if this indeed moves forward.
Is this a proposal, or did congress already pass this?
Tell that to another federal agency, the Tennessee Valley Authority, which is currently selling off land to developers, land it TOOK from families here decades ago.
Why do they need the same number of schools in these areas when the mill have shut down and the jobs have gone. Haven't the people there moved on to greener pastures by now?
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