Weak Economy Challenges Montana Legacy Project
The purchase of 500 square miles of Plum Creek Timber lands is one of the most important land deals in Montana history, but the real estate economy is not cooperating.
By Travis Koch, 7-29-09
When The Nature Conservancy and the Trust for Public Lands announced in June of 2008 their commitment to purchase 500 square miles of Plum Creek Timber Company lands in the state of Montana for more than $500 million, they knew that many challenges awaited them.
What they didn’t anticipate was a severe global recession.
Now, in the midst of an economic downturn that has been particularly unkind to the real estate and financial markets, The Nature Conservancy and the Trust for Public Lands are struggling to find the money to complete the massive deal, known as the Montana Legacy Project. The federal government has ponied up its share - $250 million – and about two-thirds of the acreage has already been purchased from Plum Creek. But The Nature Conservancy and the Trust for Public Lands need to find buyers for the portion of the lands that they bought on credit – and still need to raise the money to fund the final phase of the project.
Supporters continue to praise the Montana Legacy Project as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to transfer private lands into public ownership. The conservation groups say they’ll ultimately find the money they need. But the dramatic shift in the real estate market has renewed criticism that the Legacy Project partners—The Nature Conservancy, the Trust for Public Lands, the U.S. Forest Service, the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation and the Department of Fish Wildlife and Parks – are paying too much for logging-scarred landscapes. And a year after the deal was announced, there are not only financial hurdles still to clear, but political and bureaucratic ones as well.
The Project, To Date
The original contract called for the purchase of 320,000 acres for $510 million, but it has since been modified, with 13,000 acres north of Libby dropped due to asbestos contamination and some other small parcels added or subtracted as the process moved forward. Now The Nature Conservancy and the Trust for Public Lands are committed to purchasing 312,000 acres scattered across western Montana for $490 million. The deadline for completing the purchase is December 2010.
The transaction was divided into three phases and spread out over two and half years. The first phase - 130,000 acres with a $150 million price tag - was funded by The Nature Conservancy through a combination of internal and external loans, and was completed on schedule in December 2008. But the Nature Conservancy ultimately needs to sell the lands – either to the state or to developers or conservation buyers – to pay back the loans, and in the meantime has to shoulder a heavy interest burden.
The second large chunk of land - 112,000 acres - was purchased in February of this year using $250 million from Qualified Conservation Forestry Bonds, the federal funding source that Senator Max Baucus successfully worked to include in the 2008 Farm bill. Those lands will be transferred to the U.S. Forest Service in April of 2010.
“That source of funding was great for us,” said Caroline Byrd, the Western Montana Program Director for The Nature Conservancy. “It was really an innovative new tool, and we need those tools.”
Funding for the third and final purchase – 70,000 acres of prime land located in the Mill Creek area and around Seeley and Swan lakes – is not yet secure.
“We’re looking under every stone we can turn over,” Byrd said.
Part of the remaining money may come from the state. This spring, the Montana state legislature approved the sale of $21 million of general obligation bonds, which the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation (DNRC) has committed to using to purchase 26,000 acres from the Legacy Project when the funds become available in two years.
A potential complication, though, is a provision in the bill that prohibits the state from increasing its overall in land holdings. That means the state must sell as much land as it buys - and the state, like everyone else, faces a very weak market for such sales. While the state has room for the 26,000 acres, it may not be able to make room for more, despite its declared intentions.
What’s an Acre of Forestland Worth?
A key question in all these current and future transactions, of course, is what the land is actually worth.
Over the years, Plum Creek Timber (and other timber companies from which Plum Creek acquired the land) heavily logged many of the sections that are included in project. Some of the areas were burned off in recent fires.
Matthew Koehler of the Wild West Institute, a fierce critic of all things Plum Creek, described the Legacy Project as “a color-coded map of the most depleted land in the state.”
A visit to some Legacy Project lands west of Lolo - in Township 11 North Range 23 West, to be precise – illustrates the issue. The property is in a checkerboard pattern, intermixed with federal land—a remnant of the vast land grants the federal government gave to railroad companies in the late nineteenth century. (Plum Creek was originally a subsidiary of the Burlington Northern Railroad).
On a bare hillside on one of the sections, there are straight walls of mature trees on all four sides of the 640-acre section and a web of sandy, weed-infested roads cut into the sides of the mountains. Two-foot tall trees are scattered over the open areas, giving the appearance of a miniature model forest. These sections were logged about 10 years ago.
The average purchase price of the Legacy Project lands is $1570 an acre, and that’s far above what a section like this would be worth as timberland. But as conservation habitat … well, what is the value of healthy habitat? How do you place a price on the preservation of wildlife corridors? And what is the value of recreational lands?
The environmental groups and the Forest Service are convinced that their long-term value is very high indeed; a few decades from now, no one will care whether the price per acre was a few hundred dollars more or less.
Debbie Austin, Supervisor of the Lolo National Forest, is one who isn’t worried about the present appearance of the land. “I look at what this land is going to look like in 100 years,” she said. “100 years from now it’ll all be reforested.” The Lolo National Forest will get about 67,000 acres from the project.
“It’s an amazing landscape that needs time to come back,” added Chris Bryant.
But there is also the question of precedent. Plum Creek still holds more than 800,000 acres of land in Montana. Since Plum Creek converted to a Real Estate Investment Trust in 1999, more of its real estate is being put on the market. If it were to put another chunk of clear-cut land up for sale, it’s not clear whether the state or a conservation buyer could match the price paid by the Montana Legacy Project.
The state of Montana, moreover, uses its land holdings to generate revenue for public education. It cannot invest large sums of money in land that won’t produce timber for 40 or 50 years.
Price, though, may not be the most important question in considering whether the project is a good deal for Montana. At an informational meeting last month at the Seeley Lake Community Hall, a dozen residents sat in an open room while Bryant, who does community outreach for The Nature Conservancy, answered questions about the local impact of the Legacy Project. The question that comes up at every meeting is, “Will we still have the same access to the land we’ve been using for generations?”
Plum Creek has long allowed the public to hunt, fish, camp and gather firewood on its land, so long as people didn’t mess with the trees. The Nature Conservancy plans to maintain the same level of accessibility while they hold the land, but whoever acquires the land in the end will manage it according to their own plan.
Debbie Austin said that there were no plans to reduce access on the lands the Forest Service acquired but she did say the Forest Service doesn’t intend to maintain the web of logging roads that cover Plum Creek’s land.
Bryant said most of the community members he talks with favor eventual state ownership of Legacy Project lands. Under state ownership, land would be managed by elected officials whose decisions are subject to public desires for access and use, which could be a good thing for locals, who believe that federal and private land management plans might be less responsive to local interests.
How the ultimate owners of the land choose to manage it will likely be the biggest factor in shaping the legacy of the Legacy Project. Despite all the financial and other challenges, the political and ecological importance of the project makes it likely that The Nature Conservancy will find a way to get it completed.
And how it plays out will be watched closely across the West, as the fate of other railroad legacy lands in the region hangs in a similar balance.
[End of article]Baucus shoulda got Haliburton to do the deal. Woulda save some dough.
The deal was not for Montana. Get that out of your head. The deal was for Plum Creek, a former BNSF, Northern Pacific RR entity. And would have included Milwauke Line lands as well, I believe, as well as Great Northern lands.
The agreed upon price was triple to six times what TNC has sold land for since then. Why should they care, because they were a part of the fix. The "fix" is to funnel money to PCT. TPL and TNC were just doing their thing, with a healthy cut of the sales price for every acre. They cry alligator tears. This is a rigged Senate Finance committee deal by senior member Baucus. It is a pork deal for Montana, done with the TNC, which was recently run by former Treasury Sec and GoldmanSachs CEO Paulson. It is a business deal cloaked in conservation. You get the pig, minus the hams, for whole pig prices. Lucky Montana. Lucky USFS.
If this were a business deal wholly in the private sector, the US Attorney would be investigating the us of US funds to run the scam.
Montana was like the little kid who got the paper sack full of horse shit for his birthday from a mean father, and the kid spent the rest of the day hunting for the horse. Montana is hunting for the horse, having been given the sack of logged over PCT ground at developer prices.
Right on Bairbait. I said from the beginning this was a colosso scam. Baucus supposedly loaned 500 million from the 2008 Farm Program. You know, hide the football trick. I don't know why the public buys into these scams. On top of it all Plum Cr will have the capability to subdivide most of their Missoula Co properties with no zoning because they own the majority of private property in that county. Plum Cr REIT with no restrictions. WOW
Comment By Montucky, 7-30-09While it's true that the public has access to the Plum Creek lands, it is not true that there is access to their roads. At least in the area where I live, the Plum Creek roads that were open years ago are now closed and gated off; therefore it doesn't matter whether the USFS maintains the roads or not.
As far as the price paid in this deal, I agree that it was exorbitant and I think it should be investigated. Authorizing the payment of those prices for that land I believe constitutes a betrayal of public trust, recalling the phrase "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark." (Or Montana)
Just what We need , More privite land being own by the government and non profit groups ! NO TAXES ARE NOW BEING PAID ON THE LANDS , so now the county and the schools loose out on moneys
Comment By rscott, 7-30-09The comment policy encourages "robust and lively" discussion, but apparently does not require accuracy of information. Commentors should form opinions based upon facts, not just what they believe.
Comment By Dan, 7-30-09I will second rscott, Milwaukee and Great Northern lands? Nope.
Comment By Dave Skinner, 7-30-09Having "cruised" MLP and PCL, myself, I'd say the picture along with this is fairly representative of the majority of the Montana "Legacy" Project lands, and further of the ability of these lands to pay off the purchase price in the DISTANT future....
Bottom line here is, yes, it was overbought...big time. Huge. While there MIGHT be a limited pool of amenity buyers not concerned with return, that really isn't much of a market before or after the recession, especially when one considers that MLP land is, mostly not buildable or livable and therefore not Premium Real Estate.
As for institutional buyers, the REIT's, let's face it, but no REIT is going to pay more for this ground than it is worth, which ain't much.
So, that leaves the gummint as buyer of last resort. TNC/TPL et al have always been willing to "pay" more than real value, for two reasons.
One, it's not their money. Max Baucus directed the IRS to issue a regulatory memo issuing a $250 million tax credit to "qualified" entities that don't pay taxes, a credit that could be assigned to others, I suppose, and therefore was as good as cash.
Two, it's other people's money. Conservation easements get most of their worth from federal tax credits. Taxpayers support those credits by making them up, or more likely, our grandkids are getting hooked with the debt. The trusts are able to offer credits to "conservation buyers" who first, pay the purchase price that makes the trust fiscally whole (or more), and then use the credit to write down their own liabilities, making the effective purchase price much lower.
MLP intended to sell at top dollar, issue the credits for taxpayers to pay, all while controlling the end uses on the land for all time. Getting what you want for free? No WONDER the trusts spend so much money saying how wonderful they are.
But here's the deal. Now that TNC and TPL are holding the bag for a stupid buy they fully intended to dump onto innocent taxpayers, they are going to run moaning to Max Baucus and any other gullible moron crying for a bailout.
The bitter fact is that most of MLP is, and will remain, conservation ground forever. It will always grow trees and provide habitat because that's what it is best for. There is no rational economic or environmental reason to buy these lands for "conservation" and pay a premium to do so. I'm sure PCL fully knew that, so I must question their business ethics...but then, large corporations have no ethics, only interests. And it looks to me like large NONPROFIT corporations are devoid of ethics as well.
This deal is about to eat TNC's lunch, and I am sick of buying their lunch for them.
And by the way...Upper Lochsa and Palouse? Same principle of government as the buyer at stupid prices, different guy, different day.
Ahh
old skin head and bear breath as usual are the first to comment.
I wont bother here becuase anyone they disagree they insult and call an eco-terrorist.
you two also back down from a fight when confronted with FACTS and not just your stubborn opinions.
Plum Creek is the shadiest, most corrupt timber comapny around.
This year they sold numerous lots around Moosehead Lake in northern Maine despite promises they would never sub-divide their land. These lots are in Lynx and Moose habitat on the largest lake in the state, despite extre local opposition to their plans. Plum Creek's treachery was not as well known in Maine and now they're paying the price. Dont trust any project they're involved in.
Tracker: maybe Skinner and bear bait are the only ones who looked for comparables, and found the Nature Conservancy had sold 90,000 acres in NY, with the trees still on it, and a logging permit, to a Danish hedge fund for $350 an acre...or a little less. So six times the money to PCT and TPL sounds a little much. It is too much. It is now a deal killer. Greed got PCT. Baucus was the facilitator. Using other people's money. PCT watched Blixeth profit and thought they could, too. Wrong. Too many people watching today.
I was wrong about the Milwaukee line. They bought their R/W, from whomever, and probably a lot of it Northern Pacific RR. I am not wrong that the Southern Pacific was not a player in Montana checkerboard lands. http://www.landgrant.org will put you into a short story on railroad lands grants, which is pretty good history. A pretty good chunk of Western private timberland originated in the railroad land grants. Which was the plan. Sell the land to raise the money to build the railroad. When you have little money and vast tracts of public lands, that was a wise way to populate those lands, and connect the coasts for economic and defense purposes. The checkerboard was done so that the private interests would build roads on and through public lands , the Feds getting their land roaded on the cheap, as per congressional intent.
I guess I will now have to find out how and why the Milwaukee line owned the missing part of Mt. St. Helens in Washington state, the part the blew all over the world. Or at the least, a part of it.
wow that was fast..
do you just wait by your computer for responses bear breath?
I'm well aware the nature conservancy is owned by foreign interests, paticuarlly in holland and denmark. It's sad the way they fool gullible enviros. Go tell them bear breath
I really dont care about these endless arguments any more when there are more important battles to be waged.
'The federal government has ponied-up it's share...'
...WHO's share???
C'mon, Travis, why's it so blamingly difficult for you to just say, 'more than OUR share'...? Editor's got your tongue? and your poetic license? Your nicely done rag is not a Weekly Congressional Report - it's a magazine! (something you put 'shells' in - where're yours?)
bearbait, Southern Pacific? Great Northern? Milwaukee? When you cite something as a fact and it is a story that I am a little more than familiar with, as in the railroad land grants, I automatically question the rest of your authoritative statements. However, you are correct about the original intent of the railroad land grants. Which brings us to the nut of the problem facing us. There is a great photo taken by Kurt Wilson on the cover of Dick Manning's book that shows the condition of the railroad land grant timber lands in the Swan Valley. The land's value as productive timber lands isn't the right question, it has no timber value and won't be productive timber lands for decades to come. The better question - How do we correct a Congressional mistake that is over a century old? That, my friend, is the question of the day.
Comment By Dave Skinner, 7-31-09Dan,
One does not correct a century old "mistake" by making an even BIGGER mistake. Ya know, two wrongs don't equal right...
I'll further question whether land grants were a mistake. Clearly, the barons abused the process, but Congress did an equally-shameful job of responding to their shenanigans.
Further, without railroads and transportation, the West would never have happened. As a Westerner, I'm glad it did. I'm glad I'm an American and not a Japanese or a Russian or a Brit or even a Canuck.
Plum Creek has had its way, as has Weyco and whatnot. They have pretty much squeezed the turnip. The private sector certainly sees that.
So why the heck does it make any sense at all for our esteemed elected brainiacs to put taxpayers on the hook paying gold prices for lead? It doesn't. To wrap such idiocy in a "conservation" wrapper unduly rewards bad behavior and has major consequences down the road.
Dave, I agree the railroad lands were a necessity for the economic, social and political development of the West. Much of our history wouldnt have happened without the railroad land grants. My question is the scope of the grants and the amount of lands involved. We are now faced with checkerboard ownership and the problems that result. Recall years ago when the Missoula Ranger District stopped timber operations on FS lands in the entire Lolo Creek drainage due to the excessive Plum Creek cuts. We are faced with timber management problems, road issues and even development of subdivisions in places we never imagined. The reality is Plum Creek Timber is now Plum Creek REIT and the lands will be sold. So how do we approach the problem? I agree this probably isnt the best approach but doing nothing and letting PC REIT dictate the future isnt the best approach either.
Comment By bearbait, 8-01-09Eminent domain. Just eminent domain the sections that would control access. And then just allow foot traffic or timber harvest beyond that point. The USFS calls it "administrative access." If the USFS can block you from using their road for commercial purposes, the State of Montana certainly may be able to. It is just the states and counties have not been interested. So maybe the public employee retirement funds from someplace like California would be looking to purchase cutting rights to timberland, or large insurance companies. The timberland investment, due to public stock ownership demands, does not work for a lumbering interest ownership, but works for insurance companies and pension funds, who have no vast public value to their stock based on timber earnings. No Amalgamated Sugar buying the Medford Corp., and then liquidation of the assets to make the quick profit and then years of benign neglect.
The twenty year profit models all have the REIT timber companies making more money for investors than the vertically integrated companies. It is about stock value, dividends paid. The Weyerhaeuser family needs money for great grandchildren's adventures, so Potlach timberlands become an REIT to pay annual earnings to the family that owns the preferred stock and the REIT shares. Economics. Eminent Domain is a measure to ensure the public right (their checkerboarded lands) is protected.
Dan,
There are folks working on it.
Keep in mind that the threat of subdivision is much smaller than is commonly perceived. The market for boondocks, slicked off trophy forest estates is actually pretty small.
Buyers want infrastructure and amenities. Most of this ground has no infrastructure and little in the amenity column, either. It's fire-prone, too.
PCL is going to hold onto its amenity lands and sell them when and where it makes market sense. But the vast bulk of it is best as working forest. And working forest has the amenities that most Montanans like, hunting ground and "get-out-of-town" lookabout territory.
With the Forest Service being pretty much a nonstarter in the recreation column thanks to G bears and whatnot, the biggest hunks of true multiple-use opportunity for Montanans is on PCL ground. It's been a decent social bargain as well as a source of employment. The "deal" was -- We know we stole these lands, but we'll let you play on them as long as you don't mess with our trees or our right to chop them.
The best option is to think what comes after a REIT. Trust me, it is most emphatically not the federal government, nor is it federally subsidized single-issue preservation groups such as TNC and TPL. I mean, don't you want these lands managed of, by, and for Montanans? Hmmm?
skin
just look at northern maine if you want to see montana's future with "working forest"
To say the USFS doesn['t provide recreation becuase of grizzlies is laughable.
Most montanans dont like "working forest" thats not why people live in MT or whats its known for ...its known for it's wild country.
Your "multiple use" crowd has the vast majority of USFS and other lands roaded and develped. Leave alone the last wild areas.
skin
by the way I know your just a mouth piece for John Stokes and other right wing extremists. If anyone is destroying America and it's wildlands it's you nutters. Look at what happened to flathead county with all your demands against any zoning or regualtion of any kind, oh wait I must be acting like a "eco-facist" as you so eloquently put it.
Trackless,
I guess I was initially correct as to the nature of your indisposition, which your following posts have made obvious.
If you can't come up with anything more than mindless, anonymous slaggery, I suggest you move back to wherever you're from, where there might be a mental health program capable of meeting your needs.
Just calling em like I see em
not interested in having a conversation with you skin; i've seen your posts from long ago, dont try to hide who you are or your true intentions or beliefs. It's sad such nutters like you beleive you know whats best for Montana.
Call me crazy but i'm not the one who believes Grizzly Bears are preventing wreckreation acess on FS lands. Look at the Flathead and Kootenai national forests. Some of the most roaded, and chopped up forests of all and your guys still whine and complain about acess. Anyone who beleives there being "locked out" of those areas needs to learn to read a map. At the very back of importance is the survival of Grizzly bears in MT, but oh their existence should'nt stand in the way of skin off-roading on his favorite mud track. "Multiple Use" groups are on the decline in MT becuase people are finially starting to see it's really "exclusive use" by off-roaders.
Working forest favored by Montanan's thats the craziest thing i've ever heard.
tracker, Have you talked to fish and feathers or usf circus, they are shutting down another 57 roads in Lincoln county in 2009. Most of the people around here don't want your input,or your Cali. ideas !!!!
Comment By Tracker5646, 8-03-09Huh Good
Lincoln county do you know how many roads are in the Kootenai.
There are places where it's miles of roads per square mile.
Cali. ideas? California has is about to become over 15% wilderness.
All the local economies benefit form the W designation. Lincoln county benefits from the Cabinet Mtn. wilderness area. 33$ per acre. There are parts of the Lassen national forest where there are over 7 miles of roads per square mile. So do you want the endless, unmaintainable roads part of CA or the wilderness areas.
You want a ridiculous amount of roads so you can drive up every drianage, ride over every pass and peentrate every dark canyon with wreckreation despite what it does to the forest and all it's creatures.
To be upset about some 50 roads closing is laughable.
The Grizzly bears might die but you guys dont care about anything as much as roads.
What a bunch of lazy crybabies
It is I who dont want to hear from you nutters any more
It really is sad the way you wing nuts want to destroy some of our last, pristine public lands.
No wonder parts of Montana have a bad reputation for brewing right wing extremism and utter illogical, selfish nut cases.
By the way Montana is only 3.5% wilderness.
So will you not be "locked out" if MT were only 1% wilderness.
SOUNDS like some people like grizzly's more then people , Oh don't forget about wolves. If you people want the griz so bad I say take put them in your areas. If you live in ny take some up there. if you live in southern cali. please take some. If you live in Missoula , Please take some.
They are not doing me any good!!
Tracker , its people like you that have destroyed the lands in the other states. and now you want to LOCK UP all the land in N.W. Mt.
Here's your sign Welcome To Montana , NOW GO HOME !!!
Huh doe
the Cabinet-Yaak grizzly population is the most endangered on the continent. There are roughly 15-45 bears left that are genetically isolated requiring the USFS to introduce beras from the flathead nf. The bears cant migrate to the cabinets from the flathead like they used to becuase their habitat is destroyed.
Closing 57 roads on the heavily roaded Kootenai NF does not kill any humans nor does it displace them or terminate employment in any way. I happen to care a lot about humans in fact I donate a substancial portion of my income to OXFAM to help feed truly hungry people around the world.
Typical right wing nutter response; anything that does not put human joy riding abuse over all other issues and creatures is eco-facist talk.
Huh doe
how have I destroyed the land in other states?
I have seen the destruction caused by others like you in other states. I dont want to see NW MT end up like those places.
You want MT to become merely the last best place to log old growth or just like every other place.
Lock up all the land? The Kootenai is millions of acres and has only 90,000 acres as wilderness. Shutting down 57 roads that the tax payers and fs are unwilling to maintain anymore is a good thing for the forest and the county. If you shut down one road in NW MT then you have all these wing nuts like doe crying about how all the land is being locked up.
How is it locked up? Are there not hundreds of other roads in the Kootenai providing acess to the vast majority of the forest?
"They're not doing me any good"-doe on grizzly bears
So the great bears that have not attacked anyone deserve to die so you can ride your little 4 wheeler throughout the entire public forest, regardless of what others or the rest of the world thinks.
Does anything have intrisic value doe?
I'd welcome the Griz in the Selway Bitteroot outside Missoula, if they're not still hiding out up there already.
Sorry Dave but I disagree. The threat of subdivision is greater than you are acknowledging. Its here, its real. I've been hiking, fishing, hunting, picking huckleberries and generally enjoying the Seeley Swan for over 25 years. There are entire sections where I used to hunt on Plum Creek timber lands that are now private property, including riparian areas of incredible wildlife habitat that have gates and no trespassing signs. I just spent the weekend picking hucks in the Swan and noticed that new power lines to subdivisions are being trenched up the valley to former Plum Creek lands, in addition, Sotheby's Auction has more signs than ever before. I am thinking about the future of the Seeley Swan after the REIT and public ownership is an option that has to be considered. There might be better roads to get to post-REIT ownership but we need to get there.
Comment By horst, 8-04-09Just a reminder that homo sapiens is like green mold--once it is ensconced on a corner--it will soon cover the entire slice of bread.
Comment By Tracker5646, 8-04-09From the Spokane Review
Ninch
Close these roads to ALL motor vehicles. Americans have gotten very lazy and too often prefer to plant their big butts on an ATV instead of hiking… often interfering with those who do choose to go on foot (or horse) or who backcountry ski in the winter. Also, it is only in contemporary times that people think they should be able to drive directly to their “recreational” destination. BTW: Lots of fires caused by vehicles themselves and the clueless people they carry.
Additionally, huckleberries (as well as other plants like mushrooms, etc.) have become huge money-making commercial businesses and “favorite” spots now look like clear cuts after greedy “entrepreneurs” visit. They strip everything, e.g. cutting huckleberry plant branches or using stupid machines because they are too lazy to actually “pick” the berries. Nothing left for families who search for indigenous foods as part of their outdoor recreation. And nothing left for bears who also eat huckleberries.
BTW: Anyone who cannot tell the difference between black bears and grizzlies, should not be allowed to hunt. Anyone who is “petrified” by bears should stay home. And elk hunters should be made to leave their kill for the bear, rather than be given carte blanche approval for “self-defense.”
P.S. As a backcountry hiker I have had way too many bad experiences with lazy stupid humans, and only good memorable experiences with my very few encounters with bears. In fact it has been only humans who have threatened me or put my life in danger (with motor vehicles). Bears have tended to avoid my presence, except the one time that a bear and I were at opposite ends of a very large huckleberry patch.
Dan,
I hear yah. I'm in shock at the Martian landings around here, too. And literally ballistic over Whitefish Hills, inasmuch as the yuppie scum there have forced the closure of the most consistently fantabulous long range rifle range in Montana, if not the entire nation.
Sure, Seeley is popular, but why?
Only 40 miles from the ILS airport at Missoula. Snow caps all around. University nearby for "culture."
And it has certainly not escaped my notice that PCL is still holding onto the smoked ground between Fawn and down the Placid valley. The fire improved the viewshed, dats why.
But the Thompson and Fisher and Niarada country all pretty much look the same. Except fewer trees these days. And PCL's sales rate compared to what they have on offer has not been that fast.
I did an analysis of the big easement sold on the T/F. Even if PCL had concentrated all their Montana sales there, they would still be 40 years out on what they realized up front with the CE.
And when it comes to Mineral County specifically, of 43,000 acres "saved" by MLP, the Headwaters dorks nonetheless say that only about 3650 acres were viable as 20 acre mini-trophies. The rest will stay forest no matter who or what. So why pay RE prices for something that is not RE?
If I had foreseen the extent of the post-bubble crash, and had then warned The Nature Conservancy and the Trust for Public Land of sharp drops in land prices, I'd now be critical of their decision to buy the Montana Legacy lands at the price they promised to pay.
And that price may not be entirely so high as it seems. If we factor in the costs of saving homes that would have been built in future fire's way, the Montana Legacy Project may be priceless. Add the protection of valuable water and wildlife assets, and it may pencil out as a bargain for the century.
Foreseeing the bubble's end was actually pretty easy. For months before it popped, I'd been posting news of reckless lending standards, economists' warnings about the consequences of booms, and related economic news to a variety of lists. I had also posted specific warnings about real estate price deflation, and spoke to friends in the Missoula real estate industry about that scenario.
But I was among the very many who did not realize the full extent of what was to come. In fact, many who were in a much better position to forecast real estate price-deflation than I, the Nature Conservancy, or Trust for Public Land, were as blindsided as anyone else.
I see a game changer in the US Attorney General's wildland fire from private lands damage claims being upheld and awarded in the US District Court in Sacramento. Last year it was $102,000,000 against the Union Pacific Railroad. Section gang started a fire with a rail cutting tool while fixing a rail break. Five men on the crew, and the US Attorneys were able to show that there was no consensus in the testimony of the five that they made a conscientious and noble effort to put out the fire. The US collected damages for loss of timber at timber values in an area where no logging will ever be allowed. The US collected damages for loss of the "grandeur of the landscape." The US collected for damages to wildlife, to watersheds, to "ecosystems." For a Government that does NOT keep records of loss to fire, no timber numbers, no watershed numbers, no wildlife numbers, no ecosystem numbers, I find it disingenuous that the US was able to claim and back up their claimed dollar values. The must have some dandy forensic accountants and appraisers. And then a couple of weeks ago, they got Pacific Gas and Electric for $14,000,000 for a fire that was caused by wind toppling a yellow belly Ponderosa with a rotten center onto power lines, resulting in ignition. PGE was negligent in having a rotten tree near their right of way that could fall over and start a fire. I wonder if "wildlife tree" was in practice? So you do have to wonder if that will be a precedent for the widow of a USFS employee killed last week in Oregon by a tree falling on him while he was helping sling dope plants for helicopter removal from a Mexican dope cartel grow in a roadless area. The USFS should have had a safety officer examine every goddamned tree, so that would never have happened. And the widow won't even get a letter from Tidwell with a check in it. She can't sue the USFS. There are tort limits for Uncle Sam and none for doctors. Ever wonder how we will get affordable health care when the lawyers that make up every Presidential administration are there to protect trial lawyers' income streams?
My point is that the land has to have "loss of grandeur to the landscape" appraisals as part of an arm's length fair market sale to governments by Plum Creek. The timber no longer there has to be accounted for as a damage and loss. Same with the roads that wreak such environmental havoc and will have to be disabled, reclaimed, and put to bed. The same with inclusion of exotic plants and animals from past and future logging. It appears to me, with the "comparables" of the recent court decisions in favor of the US as to values lost to a forest fire (at a time when the US Govt has Appropriate Management Response--don't fight the fire---, and Fire for Resource Use---don't fight the fire) some smart lawyer is going to impeach the USFS testimony in cross examination with these divergent management goals and the loss of resources to someone else's fire. And that same smart lawyer will show that Baucus' price for PCT land is an egregious misplacing of the public trust, and a bad deal for taxpayers. The values of the forest untrammeled, as opposed to the lands fully exploited, have been established by precedent in the California damage claims now upheld. Forensic accounting. Plum Creek giving Montana the land would be a loser deal. If the US Attorney accounting and valuation methods are employed.
The first question asked in a guest editorial to the Eugene Register Guard about the new http://Wildfire-economics.org site, a wildfire damage reporting site recently put together in Oregon for all interested users, was from an environmental defender who asked what were the values gained from a wildfire across a landscape. The US AG's agents are assuming none, as they go after monetary damages. If there are benefits, the USFS is not testifying to them in court at this time. Hard to wear both hats at the same time. Leading to my belief that where the rubber hits the road, the Obama Administration is still pretty much dysfunctional. Can't run "clunkers for cash", even though the private side got their job done. Don't have a unified stance on wildland fire: not when they sue for damages from fire from private land burns public land, all the while not actively fighting wildland fire on other fronts "for resource benefit." The Sec of Agriculture will find more than a Vil through his sack on that one.
So when checkerboard lands are evaluated for having or not having a dwelling in the old clear cut, is the clear cut a "loss of grandeur" that should be deducted from the sales price? Or is it a valuable fire break at the time of evaluation? Or is the viewshed enhanced, and at last there is a place from which to see the grandeur of the landscape? Should Montana get price relief for not having any timber to lose to USFS fire that trespasses on Montana or county land? They might as well claim it now, because after it burns, there is no recourse to claim damages from the USFS. However, there are compensable damages that can be levied on the State or County or private land holders if the fire originates on those lands, and burns on the Federal Estate. That alone, is reason enough for people to wake up and take an accounting of risk and reward in these United States, right now, when it comes to liability from land co-mingled with public lands. Three teams of US Attorneys out to sue for damages to public lands from private land origin fire should scare the pee-wadding out of any thinking citizen. That is LingCod Justice (lingcod teeth all point to the gut---hence once in their process, held by those teeth, there is no appeal, no escape, no future). Nowhere are they looking to pay you for fire from private lands being "fire for beneficial use." The new use is to strip you of your worldly belongings, the redistribution of your wealth. The Obama Way. What is mine is mine, and what is yours is ours. Want to Supersize that with fries, a giant drink and a Chevy?
Bearbait says "The new use is to strip you of your worldly belongings, the redistribution of your wealth. The Obama way."
Redistribution's been around since long before Obama was a boy, and nominally conservative states have long pocketed the proceeds of it. For example, for every tax dollar that liberal Massachusetts sends to Washington DC, it gets back only 85 cents, while conservative Mississippi gets back $2.02 for every tax dollar it sends.
Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, and Montana all get handouts bigger than their tax payments. But neither their liberal nor their conservative politicians dare to campaign for office on the promise that they'll put a stop to redistributing the wealth. Maybe Bearbait will start a grassroots organization to do what the pols don't dare.
Lance: Liars figure and figures lie. The states you mentioned getting more from the Feds than the Feds take in taxes is about public lands management and the lack of people due to the preponderance of public lands. You can't sit on the high horse of saying Montana gets more money from the Feds than it pays in Federal taxes, and then say the public lands "belong to all Americans." That is deceptive rhetoric. Defense spending, public lands spending, all should be evenly divided among every individual in these United States. After all, those are common benefits that are conferred on each person, and not to States.
When you compare the financial and technical income production of liberal Mass., to the resource extraction and agricultural labor force and incomes of Mississippi or Louisiana, you are comparing rural black poverty to urban white success and liberal politics of income redistribution. Barney Frank and Teddy Kennedy are decades into taking middle class money and sending to poor places, while protecting the government class and the trust puppies of the world. Kennedy redistributes YOUR money, not his. Kennedy is a life long public "servant" who has lived large on trust protected money and the public dime. He has no idea of being poor, of being hungry, and neither do the majority of his constituents, none of whom live in the rural south, or on the reservations of Montana, Arizona, Alaska.
Compare apples to apples, and not apples to sugar cane or rice and beans. Talk about how much it costs Obama to stay on Martha's Vineyard for a week, or in NYC for a weekend with his his wife. It is all on our dime and his lifestyle is costing US taxpayers tens of millions a month. Not for public duties, for private, family excursions. He is not letting the known personal restraints of being President dent his lifestyle. He knows the public has to pay the costs. And he ain't afraid to run up the bill. We are well into four years of "do as I say, not as I do," from Obama, and his defenders. It is about redistribution of money. As Obama says, "Those of us who make more can afford to pay more." Only he hasn't the permission of the majority of those who can afford to pay more. That is what the discussion is about.
The people who lose on those deals, of course, are the people who don't get a job because the "rainmaker's money" was taxed to provide for government, which will reduce the money by half to support itself, and then send the meager remainder on to someone who cannot afford to pay because they don't work, even in good times. And why should they when the US Govt sends them all they need to live a lot better than they would elsewhere in the world from minimal effort. Income parity will never happen, if only because so many are so less ambitious, so less educated, so less motivated, than those who seem to make a lot of money. And then we punish them by taking away much of what they earned. That really teaches them a lesson, doesn't it, Lance?
The Democrats need to write a book about their now principal political argument: "Eating the Seed Corn: The New Economics of the Democrat Majority".....Super size that? Fries, a MegaDrink, Universal Health Care and a Chevy? Just a few more dollars.