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 when both the land and the money are gone...then what will rural schools do?
Not familiar with the case you are referring to. Can you tell me more?
Are you referring to the case a few months ago where a municipality took someone's property to put up a shopping mall or something?
They bought 2,000,000 acres recently from American citizens.
Now, they are proposing to sell 200,000 acres, nationwide. These unrelated acres are inaccessable ( inholdings already surrounded by private land, etc. )
The would be a net gain of 1,800,000 acres (since 1990). Thus the public owned land is expanding, not declining.
"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."
Hopefully, the rural communities and rural schools will not die. They have been under attack for many decades.
The would be a net gain of 1,800,000 acres (since 1990). Thus the public owned land is expanding, not declining.Hopefully, the rural communities and rural schools will not die. They have been under attack for many decades.------
Be careful what you wish for, yours might be next.
forester - the disposal list is the raw list. They have not yet vetted the list for archaeological sites and other features of interest. I have asked them to identify those with mineral claims or grazing allotments. I want to make sure that those areas are either retained to protect those historic split estate uses, or that the rights to those uses are preserved upon sale. That is what happened with BLM land - they wanted to get rid of the split estate lands and wash those interests out through land ownership transfer. We worked out a right of first refusal type of agreement.
This is not the final list. The comment period will be used to vet those that are ok to sell. The hunters will oppose any sale. They are suffering from some severe access issues.
Part of this Presidential initiative is to increase timber sale targets. Because the funds will not be stable, it is likely that the USFS will contract out some of the sale prep work.
As for the comment on schools, this area of California has historically been dotted with small isolated commenuities with small schools. My kids attended a two room elementary school with 40 children. The fifth - eighth grade was in one room and K-4th in the other.
For instance, along the Klamath, towns are separated by a half an hour to an hour drive. There is a large tribal presence in some areas, and others are populated with fifth generation pioneer families that aren't budging. Yes, the school attendance has dropped a bit, but there are still young families in these communities in need of a school. Distance learning helps get expertise to some of the remote areas.
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