March 21, 2005
All Hail BLM's Mighty Kiosk
Today's Tri-Cities Herald (free reg. req.) appropriately takes to task the Spokane office of the federal Bureau of Land Management, for not maintaining public access to public lands. A property owner has blocked the private road leading into the Juniper Dunes Wilderness Area in southeastern Washington. It is a large reserve offering camping, hiking, horseback-riding, off-road vehicle areas, wildflowers, stargazing and high desert terrain dotted with Western Juniper. Instead of permanently securing access to this public resource via eminent domain, the BLM has put up an outdoor informational kiosk explaining to visitors why they can't enter right now. The Herald opines:
....failure to do something meaningful about closure of a prize national recreational resource indicates BLM simply does not understand the magnitude of either its irresponsible inaction or the great wrong done to would-be visitors to Juniper Dunes. In answer to this infringement on public rights, BLM is providing a kiosk....An access road through the private land should be obtained by exercising the government's condemnation rights and the owner paid for the inconvenience and seizure of his property. Problem solved.
Or so you'd think. The BLM maintains numerous public recreation sites in Washington state. Will kiosks be the new default option whenever access issues arise? Maybe for spring break, I'll just stay on this side of the mountains.
Posted by Matt Rosenberg at March 21, 2005
12:45 PM | Email This
1. The property owner should sell them a daily access permit. I dunno, what would Ron Sims do?
2. I'm going to say, good for the property owners. Not in limiting access to public lands, but standing up for their own property rights. It's a simular issue with KC limiting the rights of KC citizens with land. The BLM is doing the right thing, I think. They just need to be patient, work with the owners in getting a good solution without excersizing extreme actions. Although, I would post the property owners names and addresses on the web so that if you want to go to the public land, you just need to call up the property owners and as permission to cross their land. I would think after enough phone calls and letters, they would understand that people do have a desire to get to the public lands.
3. Nothing would enrage a private owner worse than Mikey's genius suggestion of deluging the owner with unlimited calls by would-be invaders.
Sure, "people do have a desire to get to the public lands", but if the public was so stupid as to acquire 17,000 acres without access, it's not up to private road owners to repair the deficiency.
If a 17,000 acre development were proposed a block down the street from Mikey, wouldn't he be likely to make the first objection to it at the land use hearing, on account of the suddenly increased traffic? Not to mention noise, dust, glare and increased Republicans in the neighborhood.
Let the BLM solve its own access problem, and let it provide generous 'mitigation' to the local owners for all that increased traffic and loss of privacy.
4. I would be scared to death having anyone cross any amount of land or having free access to any land that I own for any reason. Lawyers, the legal system and people that are not responsible for their own actions have made the simple (and once common) act of allowing people to cross lands that you own an extremely risky proposition. One mistake on their part and you have lost what you have worked so hard to gain in life. The simplest way to avoid litigation in cases like this is block access and post no trespassing signs...is it fair? No. Is it reality? Yes.
The landowner should be concerned about a lawsuit because if someone hurt themselves on his "unimproved" access road he will have to spend thousand of dollars to defend himself and face the possibility of severe financial penalties that far outweigh the benefit of a simple act of kindness.
The state needs to supply their own legal access to these areas, do not blame the landowner, do not post his phone number, do not harrass him, change the laws if you do not like it. Never condemm someone for protecting what is his against the increasing litigation our society is so well known for.
Call The BLM, call your representatives don't blame the landowner.
5. I think it's already well established that Ron Sims prefers the land to be off-limits. Heck, the private landowner's should be too.
6. You don't understand. This is PUBLIC land. That means no one can go on it. It belongs to BLM. Haven't you all heard of Roadless Areas? Haven't you heard that the enviros and feds are shutting down all federal lands and adjacent private land holdings?
Are you so busy with the election and the vote count, you are forgetting what other issues are active, especially in natural resources, issues like attempts to shut down farming, ranching, fishing, logging.... and so on.
7. This is what eminent domain is for. Condemn the access, pay a fair price for it, and move on.
8. It is the land owner's property and that landowner's perogative if the landowner chooses to allow other people to cross their privately owned land.
Conservatives advocating taking away private land owner's property? What's next, the GOP intervening in private decisions between legally married spouses? Err they did that this morning.
9. The government abuses its eminent domain privilege for ridiculous things so often, it certainly seems odd that they're not using it here in a pretty clear-cut example of where it would be appropriate.
10. Doc Benton wrote:
"This is what eminent domain is for. Condemn the access, pay a fair price for it, and move on."
Exactly, Doc. The property owner is paid, his liability concerns are erased, and the public again has access to these public lands, which without access, represent a tremendous waste of a major recreational resource in Eastern Washington.
11. "This is what eminent domain is for. Condemn the access, pay a fair price for it, and move on."
Exactly, Doc. The property owner is paid, his liability concerns are erased, and the public again has access to these public lands, which without access, represent a tremendous waste of a major recreational resource in Eastern Washington.
Yes and Yes. Not obtainging access is basically giving public lands to the adjacent property owners.
12. FGB: Conservatives advocating taking away private land owner's property?
Eminent Domain has been used by some local governments for dubious reasons lately (e.g. acquiring land for business complexes). This conservative sees no compelling reason to advocate taking a private road from someone simply to have a place to recreate in. There has to be a better solution than government confiscation in this case.
13. Why not negotiate something like a twenty year lease where the BLM maintains the road's integrity while absolving the owner of any or all liability claims. Unless the BLM or owner is just being a pain in the ass, surely they can come up with something both sides can agree on.
14. The landowner is a friend of mine and he has a large cattle operation and he is trying to protect his assets by closing off access of all types of four wheelers, pickups, horses, and general nuisances that disturb his ability to make a living and raise the cost of doing business by littering, wrecking his roads,vandalizing his machinery even. Bio-security is also an issue with trespassors entering feeding and watering areas of his ranch. He might be acting like a pill to some, but he moved here to get away from people who would complain about the odor of manure or the dust of milling cattle. There are other access points, but this was the easiest. This is a very fragile ecosystem and perhaps the way to deal with this is entry only with BLM permits and registrations with the land owners who neighbor the area.
15. This conservative thinks, after reading the letter on the issue written by Mr Devitt of the BLM, that the BLM is taking a sensible approach to restoring access. In the past, he states, access was by permission of a private landowner, over a private road, said road being maintained AT THE PRIVATE LANDOWNER'S EXPENSE.
At a guess, the private landowner got tired of paying to maintain his private road, which was doubtless getting trashed by the folks going to the BLM lands. I pay to maintain a private road over which the public travels, I can tell you that you get pretty sick of paying so that other people can speed, tear up your road with ATV's, dump trash out their windows, and behave in untold obnoxious ways. As a private landowner in this situation, your only recourse is to CLOSE THE ROAD to public traffic.
Negotiation worked in the past. I don't see any reason why it shouldn't work now. Looking at the map, it seems to me like it should not be difficult to secure access to this area via other roads. Before exercising emminent domain, BLM should exercise diligence to ensure that it's taking the most cost effective and least invasive approach to solving the problem. It sounds to me like the negotiations they're engaged in are a sensible part of that approach.
The entire Juniper Dunes area exists as a contiguous entity only because the BLM patiently negotiated deals to assemble that contiguous block from smaller, discontiguous parcels. If that isn't evidence that their good faith negotiations to secure access are likely to work, I don't know what is.
Before you go moaning and weeping and insisting on use of emminent domain, maybe you ought to take a few minutes, and find out WHY the landowner closed the road.
Until you do that, you can't possibly know what the situation is, and while you're free to express your opinion, it's likely to be a worthless opinion you're expressing.
16. The landowner closed the road due to liability concerns, among other things. Whatever any additional issues may be, if he is compensated for his property, then the public can have access to these expansive public lands beyond his road, once again.
The issue here is not only fair treatment of the roadowner, but also public access to existing, and highly useful, public recreational lands.
It would seem to be against the public interest to try to rationalize a continuance of this removable barrier to public access of public lands.
If there is no access to public lands, or to a certain bunch of public lands such as this, then we still have paid for them with public funds, but they have become effectively private, and the public, and taxpayers, lose.
That should frost the cookies of every fiscal conservative, and "conservationist" out there.
IMHO.
17. I also happen to know this landowner quite well, and as it shouldn't be a surprise, that the Tri-Cities Herald did not take the time to understand the issue. Liability may be a concern, but there is a substantial issue of the damage visitors are doing to his property. This is not a supervised area, nor would it be easy to supervise. If no one is willing to hear your concerns and you had the ability to stop the problem, what would you do?
18. Matt R.:
If there is no access to public lands, or to a certain bunch of public lands such as this, then we still have paid for them with public funds, but they have become effectively private, and the public, and taxpayers, lose.
That should frost the cookies of every fiscal conservative, and "conservationist" out there.
No, I would be more upset with the government taking private land without a reasonable cause. Another bad decision by the government does not make all the antecedent decisions wise and prudent, or in the best interest of all the public, including the private property owner. The government should stay out of the confiscation business when and if possible, which is usually the case.
19.
I fail to see why you or the Herald have an issue with this. As the BLM statement says this has occurred in the past, without apparent public outcry, and is being addressed as a cooperative effort with the private landholders. I feel that the BLM's statement that "It is appropriate to note that BLM does not consider the use of eminent domain, i.e., condemnation of an access route, a viable option at this time. Condemnation" is the most intelligent government stance on eminent domain that I have seen. They should be applauded for this rather than harangued, given the number of examples of government over use of eminent domain currently occurring across the US.
20.
I fail to see why you or the Herald have an issue with this. As the BLM statement says this has occurred in the past, without apparent public outcry, and is being addressed as a cooperative effort with the private landholders. I feel that the BLM's statement that "It is appropriate to note that BLM does not consider the use of eminent domain, i.e., condemnation of an access route, a viable option at this time. Condemnation" is the most intelligent government stance on eminent domain that I have seen. They should be applauded for this rather than harangued, given the number of examples of government over use of eminent domain currently occurring across the US.
21. I am a land surveying student, and from what I have learned, there is a term in law called "Laches". This doctrine provides an equitable defense to the vigilent, and not to those who slumber on their rights. If this activity of the public using the land for access has gone on for several years, and there has been no action to stop the ingress/egress, the owner has "slumbered" on his/her rights. Even if there are other access roads, there is a strong case for the public.
In my opinion, eminent domain should be executed. This power is used to acquire land for public highways, roads, and other uses that would benifit the public, and as was mentioned above, this is a good case in which eminent domain should be used.