OCR Text |
Show GUEST EDITORIAL The Public's Roads The long-awaited Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument Monu-ment Final EIS and Management Plan was released to a select group of individuals at Ruby's Inn on July 23, 1999. The rest of us waited until this week to view the document and just as Kate Cannon (the Park-Service-trained BLM Monument Manager) Man-ager) stated in the July 1999 National Geographic Article on the Monument, the BLM did in fact "...Keep it Difficult to Access." How did they do it? By eliminating hundreds of RS2477 County Roads (over 1000 miles) with the Jerry Meredith statement state-ment "the federal government does not recognize RS2477 roads until adjudicated either administratively or judicially," which translated means, we are taking your historical and supposedly protected access to the 15,000 acres of private land, to your grazing allotments, to your utilities, and your mineral rights, to your wood cutting areas to your grandfather's and your hunting areas, to all. but those 1 16,000 acres of land that the federal government gov-ernment will allow you access via a vehicle. No it ain't fair and it ain't right, and I along with thousands of other residents in Kane and Garfield Counties and throughout this country firmly believe that it isn't legal. I have been following the RS2477 Road issue these past few months very carefully and at the request of the Roads Committee for People for the USA, I spoke at a public meeting sponsored by the Color Country Chapter of PFUSA held in the Kanab High School on July 28. The meeting was on the RS2477 road debate and the issue surrounding the Moquith Mountain and Skutumpah and Burr Trail lawsuit. It was a standing-room-only audience of over 800 who came to convince our county commissioners that they would rather fight the federal government for the county roads than sign them away. They also came to learn the facts about RS2477 roads which I consider is one of the most critical issues facing Kane County citizens since the passage of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA). My 20 plus years of working for the BLM as a Lands and (See EDITORIAL on page 4-A) GUEST EDITORIAL From page 2-A Realty Specialist dealing specifically with FLPMA and RS2477 ROW's hopefully qualifies me to comment. First let me state that no one person has all the answers to the RS2477 road issue. As a former federal employee I am standing up to what I believe is a clear breach of the law and the public trust. Some managers in the BLM have stated that it is their job to support the administration in power by following what most would consider is an extreme environmental agenda that tramples tram-ples the rights of many of the users of the public lands. When I became a federal employee, I raised my hand to the square and promised to defend the Constitution and the laws of this nation, not the particular political party in office. I have never swayed from this position. RS2477 has become a legal issue that will not be resolved without the input of the judiciary. Some are trying to simplify and boil down the issues to a few short sentences in an editorial or letter to the editor when, in fact, years of effort, court cases, Congressional involvement and legal wrangling have yet to clearly define the matter at hand. In trying to explain the difference between an RS2477 right of way and a Title V FLPMA right of way I would use the following fol-lowing scenario: Let's say that your great-great-grandfather came to this area and homesteaded a piece of land in 1866 and received a deed to that property after having met all the requirements require-ments of the law to put the land to beneficial use. The land continued to be used, improved, maintained, and passed on from generation to generation without incident for 133 years until it was passed on to you. Then in 1999, a federal "Authorized Officer" from the BLM came to your home and said something like this: "I noticed that you have a nice piece of land here that you own and use. We have just created a National Monument surrounding this property and we have determined that there could be a problem with your deeds and the original homestead claim, with your property survey and with the access to your property." (You are of course upset.) The officer goes on to explain. "We think, however, that we may in fact have a way to help you. If you will give up what-ever what-ever title or patent you have to this land we will give you a lease (at no cost to you) that we guarantee will exist in perpetuity (forever). Now we don't really want to force this on you but you are aware I am sure that the politics in Washington D.C. really favor the environmental agenda and with the lobbying ef-(See ef-(See EDITORIAL on page 5-A) GUEST EDITORIAL From page 4-A forts by these groups we have no choice in the matter. As I said, we are not going to force you to take this new lease on your property, but remember, if you don't give up some of your rights to this property, the environmental groups will probably sue us and you in court. We will most likely have to side with them, because that's the nature of this administration in Washington. Wash-ington. "You know of course that you really don't have any more rights to use the public lands around you than any other American Ameri-can living in New Jersey or Florida. You just happen to live in the middle of the nation's playground and when the public comes to see it, you have to let them. After all, even though you, your grandfather, and your greatgrandfather great-grandfather have lived in this area before it was even a State in these United States and before the BLM was even heard of, you know that the future of Utah is not in cattle grazing, mining and timber, and other resource-oriented industries. You must know the future of Utah and particularly Kane County is in tourism and information-gathering. "We can get all the minerals and timber and. food we want from our neighbors to the north and south. Let them work and use all their resources and of course they don't have near the environmental en-vironmental restrictions we do so we can exploit them and get it much cheaper. "So what do you think? A long court battle that even if you win, you will be broke financially and you will probably lose your property anyway, or this new lease? And by the way, I know this is a little hard to stomach so we are going to throw in some money to boot to help jump start your local economy. Remember, we're the federal government, we know how to spend your overpayment of income taxes and we're here to help." I realize I have taken some liberties here in this comparison but I think that you can see my point, that there is a big difference differ-ence between the ownership and use of your property in the first instance and the lease of your property in the second. The same applies to these two types of road rights-of-ways they are very different. RS2477 road rights have been accepted and recognized for almost 133 years. The law has stood the test of time, court battles, bat-tles, administrative interference by the executive branch and by the congress, yet the public continues to use, maintain and up-(See up-(See EDITORIAL on page 6-A) GUEST EDITORIAL From page 5-A grade the roads granted under this law. FLPMA (the Act that produced Title V rights-of-ways) specifically states in Title VTI of the Act that "Nothing in this Act or in any amendment made in this Act, shall be construed as terminating any valid lease, permit, per-mit, patent, right-of-way, or other use right or authorization existing ex-isting on the date of approval of this Act." The law protects the land patent (homestead) right along with RS 2477 road rights-of-ways, grazing authorizations, leases and permits in the same sentence. Remember prior to FLPMA there was no other authorization available to the BLM to grant road rights-of-ways than RS2477. There is a great deal to learn on this issue and all of us could be better educated. With access to private lands, water rights, grazing rights, recreational rec-reational rights, wood gathering rights, mineral rights, and rights that we may not even be aware of at stake, along with the threat of millions of acres of additional Wilderness designations still in the hopper, we can not give up our vested rights in these RS2477 roads. The transportation plan for the Monument released this week defines how critical the RS2477 issue is with the BLM and the environmental organizations that seem to have the only communication commu-nication line open to the agency and to the Department of the Interior in Washington. The Monument Transportation plan identifies roads that the county has maintained for years and have asserted under the authority of RS 2477 as part of what the agency needs to have for their transportation network. Apparently the BLM is in fact recognizing these previously asserted RS 2477 roads or I am at a loss as to what authority the BLM is using to recognize them? They have never been adjudicated judicially and who knows what constitutes administrative recognition? This much I do know, if we sign away our RS 2477 road rights (and that is the only way that the federal government can take them under the law), we have signed away the last bit of control we have on the vast majority of public lands in Garfield and Kane county. In closing, on another issue that should be of interest to all Garfield and Kane County resident. There is a notion out there being spread by some of the federal land managers that the residents resi-dents of Kane and Garfield county have no more ownership or rights to the public lands in our area than any other American citizen. This idea which is shared by the environmentalist community com-munity and by many of the newer breed of public land managers (those who were not around when the law they are operating under was passed) is simply not true. A review of FLPMA will quickly put this idea to rest. (See EDITORIAL on page 7-A) GUEST EDITORIAL From page 6-A FLPMA, the law that governs public land in our county, provides pro-vides much more for the local citizens in the communities where .' the public lands are located than for the non-resident. In Kane .. ', County our city park, sewer lagoons, rifle range, Big Water", , school, baseball fields, sanitary landfill, Kane Plex and other','. . public areas to name a few, which used to be federal public land and is now city, county or school board property, could only be . granted by law under the Recreation and Public Purposes Act to the citizens of Kane County or other governmental entities (Title . . II Section 212). The same holds true for Garfield County, the old landfill, the . .. rifle range, and other areas in the county were granted to the citi-zens citi-zens of the area under this act. ' . , Also in Title II Section 202(9) FLPMA requires the federal government to "...coordinate the land use inventory, planning, ..... and management activities of the federal lands with... States and Local Governments within which the lands are located." special considerations are given in Title I section 102(a)(13) of the act to: "...compensate States and local governments, for burdens ' ' created as a result of the immunity of the Federal lands from State and local taxation. Title II Section 203(f) which deals with the Sale of Public Land gives special consideration to potential purchasers of the public land in this order "...the State, local ..' government entities, adjoining landowners. Grazing rights and other rights are also given speical consid- eration to the established local residents. Both Kane and Garfield Gar-field county have long received gravel, rip-rap, and other road . ' materials form the BLM under the "free use regulations" for : county and local governments. There are other special consid- . erations to those citizens who choose to live near or are sur-rounded sur-rounded by the public lands. ' - A knowledge of the way the law was debated and developed and the compromises reached in the US Congress and Senate before it was enacted would readily inform any interested person ' that although the Public Lands can be enjoyed by all of the citi-zens citi-zens of this country and foreigners as well, the doctrine of States Rights and the right of local citizens to continue to have a voice . in the way public lands within their boundaries is utilized is also inherently provided. The fact that this administration is trying ' very hard to convince us otherwise in not a mystery to me. Af- .V ter all look at the respect they have shown for other laws of the .',' land. Michael E. Noel Kane County citizen and ", Charter Member of the Color Country Chapter of People for the USA P.S. My utmost respect for and appreciation to Louise Liston, Clair Ramsay and Maloy Dodds for their leadership : and courage in this matter and to Brian Bremner for his diligent ( , ; efforts to keep our public roads and lands open. ;.. |