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Show Mm offffoffs piregiTQii flO ff08G Doim&D 8DQ0 were usually granted two school sections per township. town-ship. Later, some states, namely Arizona, New Mexico Mexi-co and Utah were granted four sections in each township. town-ship. It was also Federal policy that no land could be transferred trans-ferred until it had been surveyed. sur-veyed. But before surveys coud be completed, some sections due the states had been claimed by private interests in-terests or had been reserved reserv-ed for a federal purpose such as National Forests, National Na-tional Parks, Indian Reservations, Reser-vations, Military etc. In order to compensate states were allowed to select other public land ( in lieu lands) to compensate for base land lost because of delays In Federal surveys and federal reservations. It is these 'in lieu lands' that are covered cov-ered by the announcement. .Over the years most states have completed their selections of federal land. Certain western states still have land outstanding. The bulk of selections remain with the States ofUtah.Cali-fornia ofUtah.Cali-fornia and Arizona, but small amounts are still due other states. Basic elements of the new program include: increased flexibility for states to pool their base lands in order to seek better federal lands to select simpler and more equitable procedures for equalizing the values of the state base lands and the sleeted federal lands; more open procedures enabling states to select mineral lands; and establishment of this program as a higher priority for the BLM than ever before. States with remaining indemnity in-demnity selectsion are: Utah 227,400 acres; Arizona-194,000 Arizona-194,000 acres; California -115,000 acres;Idaho - 27,000 acres; Montana - 27,000 acres; Colorado - 11,600 ac; South Dakota - 1,250 acres; Wyoming - 1,100 acres. Utah, Arizona and California Califor-nia still have some remaining re-maining school sections in 'unsurveyed townships. Secretary of the Interior Cecil D. Andrus announced a new comprehensive program pro-gram to break the deadlock over conveyance of Federal lands to eight western states having entitlements under individual statehood acts. Involved are approximately approxi-mately 600,000 acres of land due some states including Arizona, California, Colorado, Colo-rado, Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming, under terms of ther individual indi-vidual statehood acts. This remaining land will be the last state selections in a program that has seen more than 77 million acres transferred trans-ferred to state jurisdiction. Frank Gregg, Director of BLM said 'Treat state land entitlements as a debt owed to the states by the Federal Government, and to treat the satisfaction of that debt as a positive and high priority Bureau objective." He also pointed out 'that I have every expectation that this new program will resolve the problems which have hindered hinder-ed prior BLM and state efforts ef-forts because it has been worked out In close consultation consul-tation with Western Governors Govern-ors and Land Commissioners.' Commission-ers.' As new states were formed. form-ed. Congress granted specific specif-ic sections (640 acres) of land In each township (23,-040 (23,-040 acres) to states through Individual statehood acts in support of the common schooos. In the early part of our national hlstory,states |