Valley residents apprehensive over potential BLM land sales
"People in positions of responsibility—the county and the
city, including Mike Simpson—should be sensitive to maintaining open spaces, so the
allure of the Wood River Valley isn’t degraded."
-Robert Kahn, Hulen Meadows Homeowners’ Association
treasurer
By GREG STAHL
Express Staff Writer
Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson will join Hulen Meadows residents Tuesday
afternoon to discuss the potentially shaky future of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands
in the Wood River Valley.
The meeting is scheduled for 1:15 p.m. at the Hulen Meadows pond on the
Big Wood River. All local residents are welcome to attend.
The BLM’s Shoshone Field Office is in the process of amending its
land use master plans in an effort to consolidate the massive management area into a more
tractable resource. The result will be called the land tenure adjustment program.
The drafting process, which will probably slate Wood River Valley BLM
parcels as areas "potentially suitable for trade or sale," could be complete by
2001, Debbie Kovar, Shoshone Field Office realty specialist, said.
What’s more, President Clinton signed into law two weeks ago a bill
that may spur the agency to sell lands at an unprecedented pace.
The Federal Land Transaction Facilitation Act will allow the BLM to take a
20 percent cut of proceeds from sales of land the agency’s local land plans have
designated as appropriate for private or local government use.
Such sales could result in the Wood River Valley upon conclusion of the
Shoshone Field Office’s new land designations. Remaining revenues would fund
purchases of private parcels in federally protected areas.
The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., has a provision
encouraging the BLM to sell a total of about 3.3 million acres of land the agency owns
throughout the West.
The law expires in 2010.
The Shoshone Field Office oversees management of 1.8 million acres of BLM
land on the Snake River Plain.
An isolated portion of BLM land north of Ketchum is the northernmost
section.
Enhanced manageability of the vast, fragmented acreage is one of the top
concerns addressed in the Shoshone Field Office’s new management plan.
A draft of the new land tenure adjustment program targets BLM-managed land
in the Wood River Valley for "zone three" designation—meaning the areas
would be lands that are potentially suitable for sale or trade.
All of the Wood River Valley, areas east to Carey and west to Fairfield
and north of the Timmerman and Picabo hills, are proposed to carry zone three
designations.
The reclassification project has ruffled some locals, who fear that a land
sale or trade of popular BLM-managed sites—like the Hulen Meadows pond or the Sun
Peak Picnic Area—will be imminent upon the plan’s completion.
Shoshone Field Office manager Bill Baker said, however, he’s
"not going to sell off Blaine County."
On Friday he hadn’t yet seen a copy of the new Federal Land
Transaction Facilitation Act, and he said he wouldn’t speculate on how it might
affect Blaine County or the pending land tenure adjustment program. He did say he
doesn’t plan to get rid of large portions of the BLM’s land holdings in Blaine
County.
"Blaine County doesn’t want to get rid of any land…I know
that. Everybody knows that," he said. "There’s no way I’m getting rid
of that pond."
The Hulen Meadows Homeowners’ Association is hoping for the best
while working to fight off the worst of possible outcomes.
A letter from homeowners’ association treasurer Robert Kahn refers to
the yet-to-be-completed plan as a "proposed land sale."
But Baker said protesters are putting the cart before the horse. Sales and
trades won’t even be possibilities until the land tenure adjustment program is
adopted next year.
Baker plans to be at the Tuesday gathering at the Hulen Meadows pond.
Regardless of the outcomes of the new land management adjustments, Baker
said the BLM will try to make sure the Sun Peak Picnic area and Hulen Meadows pond, along
with other key BLM-owned sites in the Wood River Valley, remain in public ownership.
He offered the following potential solutions for the pond and Sun Peak:
· The land could remain under BLM ownership but be leased to either
the city of Ketchum or to Blaine County.
· Or the land could be sold to Ketchum or the county.
Such scenarios would be preferred to selling the land into the hands of
private developers, he said.
Though the BLM is interested in not having to manage isolated holdings
surrounded by private land in the Wood River Valley, Baker cautioned that the land tenure
adjustment program is not yet in place, and that it will dictate much of the future of BLM
holdings in Blaine County.
Further, he said, the BLM would have to jump through a series of hoops
based on federal environmental law before trades or sales could take place.
Kahn is still concerned.
For him, it’s a matter of the Wood River Valley’s finite public
lands and opens spaces and the prospect of losing more of them.
"We’re losing our open space, and that’s one of the
[reasons] why people come to this area," he said. "People in positions of
responsibility—the county and the city, [and] Mike Simpson—should be sensitive
to maintaining open spaces, so the allure of the Wood River Valley isn’t
degraded."
Kahn also said the new federal law concerns him.
"The chance to fatten the BLM budget via sales of expensive Wood
River Valley land will be too enticing to ignore," he said. "Our immediate open
spaces will be compromised for improvement in other areas of the state where most valley
residents may only occasionally, or never, visit.
"Once it’s sold and developed, it’s gone forever."
