Kane County Wins First RS 2477 Road

by Morgan Skinner
KCSG News Kcsg Television

(L-R) Kane County Commissioners Mark Habbeshaw, Daniel Hulet, Doug Heaton with State Representative Mike Noel (R-Kanab) next to recently erected RS2477 road sign on Skutumpah road. (Kane County photo)

(Salt Lake City, UT) - Kane County has achieved what is believed to be the first concession in Utah of the federal government agreeing to grant rights-of-way to a disputed road that crosses federal land.

The court stipulated change allows the county to assert control and access over 27 miles of the 33-mile Skutumpah road, a road leading to Cannonville within boundaries of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

The victory comes as a result of a stipulation made by Department of Justice attorneys that could pave the way to resolve such disputes through negotiation, rather than litigation.

State Representative Mike Noel (R-Kanab) said this shows that the process can be simple and easy if the federal government cooperates in cases like these where you have roads that are easily determined to be the roads used and maintained within the county.

RS 2477 public highway rights-of-way were granted to states and counties from 1866 to 1976 to facilitate the settlement of the West. The Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 repealed the statute but established "RS 2477" roads were grandfathered as valid existing rights-of-way.

In 1997, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt directed his department agencies to ignore RS 2477 rights-of-way prompting controversy and conflict. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), an agency of the Department of Interior, closed and/or restricted numerous county roads across the West claiming that RS 2477 rights must be “determined” before the agency would validate existing rights-of-way. Since then the Department of Interior has avoided validating any RS 2477 road rights-of-ways.

For the last two years in federal court, the Department of Interior has denied Kane County had any rights-of-way to the Skutumpah Road. It informed the public, however, that Kane County should maintain it.

Kane County petitioned the court for an expedited hearing to validate the county's rights-of-way because of failure by BLM to maintain the Skutumpah road resulting in public safety hazards along the roadway.

In Monday's stipulation, the Department of Interior validated Kane County's rights-of-way for most of Skutumpah road. The court order stipulated Kane County has the jurisdiction to properly maintain, repair and manage the Skutumpah road as it has historically done.

Kane County filed a motion for summary judgment on July 22, 2010 with the court quieting title to Kane County’s RS 2477 public highway rights-of-way for eight roads which include:

1. The Mill Creek road, designated as Kane County road K4400 and including segments known as the Tenny Creek road K4410 and the Oak Canyon road K4405;

2. The Bald Knoll road, designated as Kane County road K3935;

3. The Skutumpah road, designated as Kane County road K5000;

4. The Sand Dune road, designated as Kane County road K1000;

5. The Hancock road, designated as Kane County road K1100;

6. The Swallow Park/Park Wash road, designated as Kane County road K4360.

7. The North Swag road, designated as Kane County road K4370; and

8. The Nipple Lake road, designated as Kane County road K4290.

These roads have long been Kane County public thoroughfares, the petition said, and continue to provide needed access from private and public lands to cities, schools, stores, places of employment, and recreational areas within Kane County. Where these eight roads cross public lands, the rights-of-way were granted by Congress through RS 2477. RS 2477 was an express grant of rights-of-way, the filing states.

Attorneys for Kane County, Janna B. Custer and Shawn T. Welch, said in their filing that the undisputed facts demonstrate Kane County’s acceptance of the express grant for the eight roads by showing at least ten years of continuous public use prior to October 21, 1976. The undisputed facts also demonstrate Kane County’s acceptance of the express grant through designation of these roads as Class B – County General Highways and/or Kane County’s improvement, maintenance, or repair of these roads at Kane County’s and the State of Utah’s expense.

Monday's concession by the federal government was prompted by the dangerous conditions of the unmaintained Skutumpah road which the Department of Justice attorney’s claim Kane County hasn't fully documented as used and maintained prior to October 21, 1976. Six-miles of Skutumpah road remain in dispute.

NPS Uses FLTFA to Acquire Inholding Property

Posted by Jackie Skaggs
Public Affairs
Grand Teton National Park



Grand Teton National Park Superintendent Mary Gibson Scott announced today that the National Park Service (NPS) recently completed the acquisition of a key inholding property located on the Moose-Wilson Road, approximately five miles south of park headquarters. This acquisition was made possible through funding provided under the Federal Land Transaction Facilitation Act (FLTFA) of 2000. The 1.4-acre tract was identified as a top priority for acquisition, in part because it lies within an area that provides important habitat for a diversity of wildlife species.

Formerly known as the Hartgrave property, this land parcel originally consisted of approximately 4.4 acres. The property became available for purchase in 1995; however, the NPS was unable to acquire it at that time due to a lack of available federal funds. Gerald T. Halpin bought the property in order to protect it from potential development until the NPS could obtain funds for acquisition. In October of 2005, the NPS obtained Land and Water Conservation Funds to purchase approximately three acres of the Hartgrave property, leaving 1.4 acres in private ownership. FLTFA funds allowed the NPS to purchase the remaining privately-held acreage.

FLTFA offers land management agencies in the Department of the Interior and the Department of Agriculture a “vehicle” by which private lands within areas administered by these agencies can be purchased from willing sellers. FLTFA funds are generated through the sale of public lands that are administered by the Bureau of Land Management and identified for disposal in land use plans. FLTFA provides a more efficient, streamlined process for land sales, and consequently benefits the nation’s public lands; it also helps to promote consolidation of ownership of public and private lands in a manner that allows for better overall resource management and protection. This federal authority for land transactions is scheduled to expire in July of 2010 unless extended by Congress.

Feds Buy Western Lands with High Conservation Values

Environment News Service

WASHINGTON, DC, September 11, 2007 (ENS) - A piece of property located within the Idaho Snake River Area of Critical Environmental Concern is among the first to be purchased from a willing seller under a new law that established a fund to allow federal agencies to buy lands for the American people.

The Bureau of Land Management, BLM, is buying the Idaho land and also properties within or adjacent to California's Coachella Valley Fringe-Toed Lizard Area of Critical Environmental Concern; the North Platte River Special Recreation Management Area in Wyoming; and the El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail in New Mexico.

These purchases are part of a larger federal land acquisition program that is now underway. BLM and three other federal land-management agencies are in the process of acquiring 19 parcels of land in seven Western states with $18 million from a special land conservation fund.

The fund, established by Congress under a law passed in 2000, authorizes the purchase of private "inholdings" from willing sellers in the Western states whose acreage is surrounded by or located next to certain lands under the management of the U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service as well as the BLM.

"The $18 million to be used for these land purchases will bring into public ownership 19 properties with extraordinary natural, scenic, recreational, or historical values," said Deputy Interior Secretary Lynn Scarlett. "These purchases promote conservation while helping ensure efficient and effective public lands management."

The first of their kind to occur under the Federal Land Transaction Facilitation Act, FLTFA, of 2000, the purcases are funded from completed sales of other federal lands.

Under this law, the BLM is authorized to sell fragmented or isolated parcels of public land that are difficult to manage, as well as lands that may have residential or commercial value, and then use the proceeds to support land conservation purposes.

"The benefits of this sale authority law are clear," said Scarlett, who noted that FLTFA is set to expire in 2010.

"I urge Congress to support this administration’s proposal to extend the law from 2010 to 2018 so that more Americans may benefit from these type of land acquisitions," she said.

Of the 19 land parcels, covering about 9,000 acres, the BLM is acquiring 10 parcels covering 3,200 acres at a combined cost of about $10 million.

The Forest Service, National Park Service, and Fish and Wildlife Service are buying the other nine parcels, covering 5,800 acres, at a combined cost of about $8 million.

The properties to be acquired are located within national parks, national wildlife refuges, national forests, national monuments, national wild and scenic river corridors, national historic trail corridors, and areas of critical environmental concern.

The remaining 15 properties are located in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico, Oregon, and Wyoming.

All of the remaining parcels to be purchased are at various stages of negotiation with private landowners, and, Scarlett says that "because of privacy concerns," they cannot be further identified until the acquisitions have been completed.

Government Patching Up Public Lands

By JOHN HEILPRIN, AP Writer
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government is buying 9,000 acres in seven Western states, the first such purchases under a 2000 law intended to help land managers patch up fragmented national parks, forests, refuges and other public lands.

Among the 19 places being purchased for $18 million from private landowners are lands around the Coachella Valley in California, the North Platte River in Wyoming, the Santa Fe River in New Mexico and the Snake River in Idaho. Other states where the government is buying lands under this program are Arizona, Colorado and Oregon.

The lands will be added to those overseen by the Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service, all part of the Interior Department, and by the Forest Service, part of the Agriculture Department.

Officials say the purchases also will help protect bighorn sheep, desert tortoises and other species, along with recreation and cultural resources like hiking trails and prehistoric rock paintings.

"What we're increasingly trying to do is to create unfragmented landscapes, and this will help do that," Deputy Interior Secretary Lynn Scarlett said in an interview Friday.

Congress established the fund in 2000 to buy private "inholdings" from people willing to sell lands to the government that are surrounded by or next to public ranges, forests, parks or refuges managed by those four agencies.

It also authorized those agencies to sell fragmented or isolated parcels that are difficult to manage or other lands close to urban areas that might be better used and valuable for residential or commercial developments.

In 2000, BLM identified 3.3 million acres that could be sold off under the program. It manages almost 260 million acres in 12 Western states — about one-eighth of the land in the United States.

BLM figures show that it has raised nearly $95 million from such sales so far, about half of it in Nevada. Of that money, 80 percent by law must be used to buy other public lands; the other 20 percent can be used for BLM administrative costs.

But the Bush administration, eyeing the possibility of $350 million in BLM land sales, has proposed amending the law to let the government use most of the money for deficit reduction, according to The Wilderness Society, an advocacy group.

Scarlett urged Congress to reauthorize the 2000 Federal Land Transaction Facilitation Act, which is set to expire in 2010.

"It allows us to actually acquire lands for the purposes that the public land agencies exist," she said. "It just uncomplicates matters for them."

Interior encourages BLM land sales

Selling public lands will let Western cities sprawl into new territory

Zachary Smith WESTERN ROUNDUP
High Country News

In a couple of years, BLM lands around fast-growing cities like St. George, Utah, could hamper growth.

More than 20 years ago, President Ronald Reagan and his advisors looked across the West’s public lands and saw dollar signs. Money was something they desperately needed in 1982, as the national deficit hit $128 billion.

So James Watt, then U.S. secretary of the Interior, and John R. Block, the secretary of Agriculture, earmarked 35 million acres, or 5 percent of the nation’s public lands (excluding Alaska), for the auction block.

The plan to privatize public lands was met with outrage and skepticism, not only from Western liberals such as Arizona Gov. Bruce Babbitt, but also from conservatives like Sen. James McClure, R-Idaho, who objected because the states were cut out of the deal.

Watt eventually withdrew Interior lands from the sale; shortly thereafter, the Forest Service’s sale lost steam, too.

However unpopular the proposed sales were, they weren’t illegal. And the idea didn’t go away. The framework for selling public lands has inched forward since the Clinton administration, and now the Interior Department wants to give it a higher priority.

The 1976 Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) required the Bureau of Land Management to identify lands that were "uneconomical to manage," or that stood in the way of a community’s development.

But the BLM lacked a strong incentive to identify such sellable lands: Under FLPMA, any money received from their sale would go directly into the U.S. Treasury, rather than into the agency’s own coffers.

Then, in 2000, Congress and the Clinton administration passed the Federal Land Transaction Facilitation Act (FLTFA), which changed how profits from BLM land sales were distributed.

Twenty percent of any land-sale revenue would go toward the BLM’s administration costs, while the other 80 percent had to be used to buy private inholdings within BLM lands that contained "exceptional resources."

The act was based on a land disposal and acquisition mechanism in the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act of 1998, which was crafted to accommodate Las Vegas’ rapid expansion onto neighboring public lands.

But FLTFA’s profit scheme applied only to sellable lands identified before July 25, 2000. At that time, the BLM estimated it had 3.3 million acres of sellable land, but thanks to better inventories, its estimate has since shrunk to as low as 330,000 acres.

From 2001 to 2003, the BLM sold almost 11,000 acres under FLTFA.

Today, cities like Phoenix, Ariz., and St. George, Utah, are butting up against public lands, and the BLM is facing a $320 million budget reduction from last year.

At the same time, the agency is chipping away at a backlog of dated land-use plans, which gives it the opportunity to identify more disposable lands. Now, politically appointed staffers at the Interior Department want to give the BLM even greater incentive to do so.

In August, Assistant Interior Secretary Lynn Scarlett, who oversees the BLM, wrote to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., asking for legislative amendments to FLTFA that would encourage the BLM to sell off more land. She has asked Congress to make the identification and selling of disposable land an ongoing process, rather than one limited to land identified before the July 2000 cutoff date.

Twenty percent of any revenue would still go to the BLM’s administrative costs, but under Scarlett’s proposal, only 60 percent of the money would go toward land acquisition. The other 20 percent would go toward "conservation enhancement projects," to fund local projects such as riparian improvement or removing invasive weeds.

Abolishing the July 2000 deadline gives the BLM "the incentive to decide to designate (new) lands as disposable," says Johanna Wald, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. Wald thinks this change could open the door for much more land to be added to the "for sale" list.