“We the People” is the opening phrase of our Constitution, and nothing exemplifies it more than the lands we all hold in common – our Public Lands. If American citizens have a birthright it is in our National Parkes, National Forests, National Wildlife Refuges, and BLM lands. “Freedom” and “Liberty” are words are much overused in our political debates, and their basic meanings have been obscured by the smoke and fire of argument. But stand at a Public Lands trailhead, settle your backpack on your shoulders, or cradle your rifle/shotgun, or hoist your waders and fly rod and the original meaning of these words will snap sharply into focus. As many have pointed out, we are a nation that has tested itself against the wilderness, and that wilderness is just beneath the surface of our collective psyche. Even for people who don’t want to experience it directly, there is some level of visceral satisfaction that the land that challenged out forefathers is still there and still accessible to anyone who wants to make the effort. These lands belong to all of us. The dot-com engineer in Silicon Valley and the convenience store owner in Florida are as much of an owner as the rancher in Wyoming. Our democracy, imperfect as it is, guarantees that.
But that could all change. Many of the legislatures in western states are trying to push a new version of an old (for them) dream. They want to take control of our Public Lands and turn them over to the States. Generally speaking the Public Lands are the last vestige of the old Public Domain as it existed in the latter half of the 19th century. The various Federal agencies that today manage these lands were created by Congress in the early 20th century as a bulwark against the rampant over-grazing, excessive logging, and damaging mining that was being carried out by the ancestors of those who are pushing this land-grab today. These guys bristled at regulations that prevented them from using the lands for personal and corporate profit. Periodically throughout the last century they would slither out from under their rocks and make another go at getting their fangs in the Public Lands, but there was never the right political climate for them to be successful. They were generally considered kooks and laughed out of court, if indeed they ever got that far. But up until now we had a functioning government. Now, with the erratic and unhinged Trump in charge, they’re venturing out from under those rocks again. And this time they might succeed.
No western state has ever owned any of the land within its boundaries. The idea that we would be giving land “back” to the states is a lie. All the land in the west was first obtained by the Federal Government in a variety of ways, (some of them unsavory) and became collectively known as The Public Domain. As population increased, Territories were carved out of the Public Domain, and when population reached a certain level, the Territories could apply for Statehood. As a requirement, the new States had to relinquish all land claims to the Public Domain within their boundaries. This they readily did, as no State wanted to pay Federal taxes on a bunch of land they thought of as worthless. In exchange, the Federal Government gifted lands back to the states (two square miles out of every thirty-six) with the caveat that the proceeds of management of those lands be put in a trust to benefit schools and education. So, embedded in the constitution of all western states is a requirement that State Lands be managed for a profit.
The “land-grab” legislatures know that they cannot come close to incurring the costs of managing these lands. Fire-fighting alone would bankrupt them. So, forced by law to make a profit for the schools, they are faced with two choices: raise taxes or sell the lands. Guess which one they’ll choose? For example, Utah has already sold more than half of the lands it was originally allotted. Most other States have similar records.
And so, the really sinister motive behind all this stuff begins to come clear – get Public Lands into private hands.
Most of these Public Lands conflicts are portrayed as the poor embattled rancher being harassed by the oppressive Feds (forgetting for the moment that ranchers only survive because of subsidies and other Federal largesse) or that environmental regulations are destroying the timber industry. Not really. The major players in today’s resource wars are the mining and energy industries, and it is they who are bankrolling these “sagebrush rebellions.” It is these larger corporations that stand to benefit the most from owning the land and avoiding all those pesky government regulations that keep our air and water clean.
So, with that as the background lets look to the future. What would happen if these efforts succeed?
Most of the opposition to these “land transfers” come from recreationists, who believe that they will be shut out of, or have to pay a fee for, places they normally hunt, fish, hike, bike, photograph, climb, ski, berrypick, or enjoy solitude. And they’re right. They will. This portion of the issue is most understandable, most personal, and most visible. The entire relationship between the citizenry and their landscape, so important to westerners, will be forever altered. If this radical land-grab is stopped, it will be by recreationists.
But there is another, more far-reaching aspect of this issue that has the potential to negatively affect a lot more people – water.
The most valuable “product” that comes off Public Lands is water. The “water towers” that Greg speaks elsewhere on this website are real. They are the only reason that life as we know it in the American west can exist at all. And, they are overwhelmingly located on Public Lands, particularly National Forests.
The salient fact about the American west is that it hovers just above desert status, often being referred to as a “semi-desert with a desert’s heart.” Precipitation in the valleys of the interior west (the only arable land) most often fall between 10″ and 20″ annually. That is, between what is considered a true desert and what is necessary for agriculture without irrigation. In 1893, John Wesley Powell, Civil War veteran, explorer of the Grand Canyon, and head of the US Geological Survey told the International Irrigation Congress that they “were piling up a heritage of conflict” because the west did not have the capability to be what they wanted it to be – a haven for Jefferson’s “yeoman farmer” and an extension of eastern agriculture. There simply was not enough water. With more demands on a limited supply, that is more true today than it was in Powell’s time.
Climate change will exaserbate this already tenuous situation. “Global warming” means a hotter and drier west – water will be more limited than it is now and will be distributed differently. Warmer temperatures will move uphill , shrinking the area covered by winter snows. Evaporation will increase, meaning more reservoir loss at lower elevation. For decades the Federal Government has engaged in a giant shell game, using an elaborate system of dams and canals to move water around the west, mostly to benefit agriculture and cities. As the recent droughts in California, easily the most water-engineered state, have shown, this approach has it’s limits. Nobody’s making more water. What we have is all we get. And in the west, what we get, we get from Public Lands.
Now, inject into this scenario private ownership of our watersheds. In areas as close to the margins as the American west, whoever controls water dictates what goes on in the entire region. The way the current system works, water itself is essentially free. In the spring it flows down from the National Forests, and when it gets to the valleys it can be put to a variety of uses by a variety of people as long as they adhere to a system of water rights prescribed by the individual states. There is no cost to any user. But turn the water over to corporations and it becomes a different ballgame. Water would become a commodity, and have a price put on it. Then like access to lands for hunting and fishing, citizens would be paying for something they now get for free, and the west would have lost control of it’s own destiny.
So, you say, our system of water rights that is codified in law would save us from that. Well, consider who you’re dealing with. These people are sleaze-balls. They have no concept of the public good. Everything has a price. Everything exists only to make a buck. Writing laws to favor their own interests is nothing to them. Reference the fact that the whole transfer of lands was started when Congress rewrote it’s own rules, in effect for decades, to say that Public Lands had no value, thereby making them easier to dispose of. “Corporations are people, my friend” said Mitt Romney, and, according to law he was right. So in the New West, everybody from the family rancher to the fish in the river will be competing with Rocky Mountain Water to see who gets to drink. Who’s going to win that?
And finally, state legislatures are far more susceptible to, shall we say, “influence” than even Congress, so rewriting a few laws won’t cause much consternation in Statehouses. Remember these are the guys who sold the lands in the first place.
When working for the Forest Service over the last forty years, hydrologists have always had trouble determining the value of water. We’d say, “Well, it’s the most important thing we deal with, but we can’t really put a value on it” But now, if we privatize our watersheds, we’ll find out very quickly how much water is worth. And then we’ll pay for it for the rest of our lives.
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