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Show Garn bill will attack red tape in land disputes Senator Jake Garn (R-Utah) voiced support for legislation which he says will eliminate "the mountain of Bureaucratic red tape that is making it impossible to settle simple boundary disputes" over private lands adjacent to national forests. Garn is supporting a Senate bill to amend the exchange provisions of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, which he said is "one of the the most inflexible public laws on the books today." The bill, S. 705, recently was passed unanimously by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and will now be coasidered by the full Senate. The legislation would eliminate the "ridiculous 35-step procedure," required for transferring small parcels of public lands formerly thought to be private because of inaccurate federal and private surveys, title searches or land descriptions, Garn said. The Utah senator said "in most instances, the problem with the provision centers around trespass cases involving small parcels of land where private improvments have been made on public lands or in cases where federal agencies have improved roads and public facilities on adjacent private lands." The bill would allow U.S. Forest Service officials and private landowners to solve most of the disputes without going through long, costly legal proceedings, Garn said. More than 60,000 such trespasses or boundary disputes between the Forest Service and private landowners presently exist, most of them are in the West, Garn noted. One of these disputes involves a Duchesne County ranch, the Defa Ranch near the town of Hanna. The 160-acre ranch, originally acquired through the Homestead Act, is surrounded by the Ashley National Forest. Because of the removal of boundary markers due to flooding and other natural events, an accurate property line description was never fully determined by the Forest Service. Garn said. As a result, fences, cabins and other improvements were inadvertantly constructed slightly withing the National Forest boundary. At the same time, the Forest Service contemplated the construction of a public road through Defa property without obtaining an easement. Garn said the lands were resurveyed in the mid-1970's and the trespass violations were discovered. Garn said his office has veen working with Alfonzo Defa and the Forest Service for over three years trying to conduct a land exchange under the current law. "This exchange and others like it will never take place unless we pass legislation to eliminate all the burdensome and time-consuming time-consuming procedures." |