“We the people” is the opening phrase of our Constitution, and nothing exemplifies that phrase more than the lands we all hold in common – our Public Lands. If American citizens have a birthright it is in our National Parks, National Forests, and National Wildlife Refuges, and BLM lands. “Freedom” and “Liberty” are words that are much overused in our political debates and their basic origins have become obscured by the smoke and fire of argument. But stand at a trailhead of one of our National Forests, settle your backpack on your shoulders, or cradle your rifle/shotgun, or hoist your waders and fly rod, and the original meaning of those words will snap sharply into focus. As many have pointed out, we are a nation that tested itself against the wilderness, and that wilderness is just under the surface of our collective psyche. Even for people who don’t want to experience it directly, there is a level of visceral satisfaction in knowing that some fraction of the land that challenged our 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 or the convenience store owner in Florida has as much to say about their management as the rancher in Wyoming. Our democracy, imperfect and battered 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 the Federal lands, our lands, and turn them over to the States. Generally speaking, the Public Lands as we know them today are the last vestige of the old Public Domain as it existed in the latter half of the 19th Century. The Federal agencies that today manage the lands came into being in the early 20th Century, as a bulwark against the rampant over-grazing and excessive logging and damaging mining that was being carried out by the ancestors of those who are pushing this land-grab today. We’ve been here before. These guys bristled at regulations that prevented them from using the lands for personal or corporate profit. Periodically throughout the 1st-half of the 20th Century, these guys would slither out from under their rocks and make another go at the Public Lands, but there was never the right political climate for them to be successful. They were generally considered kooks and were often laughed out of court, if indeed, they ever got that far. Now, with the erratic and unhinged Trump in charge they’re venturing out from under those rocks again. And this time they might succeed.
Prior to Statehood, no western State ever owned an acre of land within its boundaries, and the land they own today was given to then by the Federal Government. The idea that we would be giving land “back” to the States is a lie. All the land in the west was originally obtained by the Federal government in a variety of ways, some of them quite unsavory, and became collectively known as the Public Domain. As population increased, Territories were carved out of this 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 its boundaries. This they readily did, not wanting to pay Federal tax on a bunch of land they thought of as worthless. In exchange, the Feds gifted land (two square miles out of every thirty-six) back to the States with the caveat that proceeds from management of that land be placed in a Trust to benefit schools and education. So, embedded in the constitutions of western States, is the requirement that State lands be managed for a profit.
The “land-grab legislatures” in the States 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 left with two choices: raise taxes or sell the lands. Guess which one they’ll choose. Utah, for example, has already sold over 50% of the lands it was originally allotted. Most other States have similar records.
And so, the motive behind all this stuff – get the public lands in private hands.
Most of the conflicts with Public Lands are often presented as the embattled rancher being harassed by the evil Feds (forgetting that most ranchers only survive because of Federal subsidies and other forms of 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 that are bankrolling these “sagebrush rebellions”. It is these larger corporations that stand to benefit most from owning the land and avoiding all those pesky government regulations that keep our water and air clean.
So, with that as background, let’s look to the future. What would happen if these efforts succeed?
Most of the opposition to these land “transfers” comes from recreationists, who believe that they be will shut out of, or have to pay a fee for, places they normally hunt, fish, hike, bike, photograph, climb, ski, berry pick, or enjoy solitude. And they’re right. They will. This portion of the issue is the most understandable, the most personal, and most visible. If this radical land grab is stopped, it will be by recreationists. The entire relationship between American citizens and their landscape will be forever altered.
But there is another, more far-reaching aspect of the issue that has the potential to negatively affect a lot more people – water.
The most valuable “product” to come off the Public Lands is water. The “water towers” that Greg speaks of 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 exist overwhelmingly on Public Land, particularly National Forests.
The salient fact about the American west is that it hovers just above desert status. It has often been referred to as a “semi-desert with a desert’s heart”. Precipitation in the interior west most often falls between 10 and 20 inches 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 Geologic 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 exacerbate this already tenuous situation. “Global warming” means a hotter and drier west – water will be more limited than it is now, and distributed differently. Warmer temperatures will move uphill, shrinking the area that is covered by winter snows. Evaporation will increase, meaning more loss in reservoirs at lower elevations. 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 to benefit agriculture and cities. As the recent droughts in California, perhaps the most water-engineered state, have shown, this approach has its limits. Nobody’s making more water. What we have is all we’re ever going to 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 that exist close to the climate margins like the American west, whoever controls water controls what goes on in the entire region. The way the current system works, water itself is essentially free. It flows down from the National Forests in the spring, and when it gets to the lowlands 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 source of the water over to corporations, and it becomes a different ballgame. Water could easily become a commodity and have a price put on it. Then, like access to lands to hunt and fish, the citizens of the west would be paying for something they now get for free, and the west would have lost control of its destiny.
So, you say, our system of water rights that is codified in law will save us from that. But remember who we’re dealing with. These people are slime-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 Citizens United. One of the first things the Trump Congress did was to change their own rules to say that the transfer of Public lands would no longer have to go through a cost/benefit analysis. This basically says that our Public Lands have no value in an economic sense, making them more easily “transferred.” “Corporations are people, my friend” said a former Republican presidential candidate from the west, and according to law, he was right. So in the New West, everyone 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? Would you feel comfortable competing against a lawyered-up corporation for the use of water you’ve used your whole life? Remember the corporations who will gain the most are the mining and energy industries, both water intensive operations. Set aside the pollution and seismic concerns for a moment – where’s the water for fracking going to come from?
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 past forty years, hydrologists have always had trouble defining the worth of water. We’d say, “Well it’s the most important thing we deal with, but it really has no real value.” Well, if we privatize our watersheds we’ll find out how much water is worth. And then we’ll pay for it for the rest of our lives.
Pete Bengeyfield grew up on Long Island, got a BS in Forest Management, and an MS in Forest Hydrology from West Virginia University, and moved west as soon as possible. He has worked for private industry in Washington State as well as State and Federal Government. Starting out as a hydrologist for the State of Montana, he moved to the Forest Service on the Wasatch, Idaho Panhandle and the Beaverhead National Forests. During his 26 years on the Beaverhead he was heavily involved in grazing and riparian issues. He is now retired and living in Dillon, Mt.
Pete has made it his mission to photograph as much of the west as he can. See his work at: http://www.bengeyphotos.com.