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Spring 2015  

Building Trust is a quarterly e-newsletter designed to provide trust land managers with current news, tools, publications, and other information pertaining to state trust land issues in the West. Please forward to other interested colleagues and stakeholders.

 

   

Superstition Vistas
In This Issue
Utah Public Lands Initiative
WSLCA Royalty Working Group Conference
Quick Hits
Recent Publications
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Utah Public Lands Initiative 

The Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration (SITLA) is participating in a large negotiation led by Utah Congressman Rob Bishop who is seeking to resolve long-standing disputes over wilderness and economic development in eastern Utah. Congressman Bishop's Public Lands Initiative (PLI) has brought together eight Utah counties, multiple land users, environmental NGOs, Indian tribes, and the public to try to reach broad agreement over future land use. Over two million acres of wilderness, national conservation areas, or other designations could be created as a result of PLI.

 

SITLA's role in the negotiations is to identify state trust lands with wilderness character or other environmental resources for transfer to the federal government in exchange for federal lands more suited to transfer to Utah's school trust for economic development. Lands acquired by SITLA would in many cases also support economic development in rural counties, an important goal of PLI.


As to be expected with a discussion of this complexity, various issues remain outstanding, and no perfect solution exists for all parties. If a general consensus is reached, federal legislation to implement the PLI would be introduced later this year.

Oregon Greater Sage-Grouse Planning Nears Completion

State-owned rangelands in eastern Oregon are habitat for Greater Sage-Grouse, the subject of a new CCAA.

Once found in most sagebrush habitats east of the Cascades, in 2010 the Greater sage-grouse were listed as a candidate species for conservation by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). Since then private and public entities have discussed how to protect the sage-grouse to avoid listing. In Oregon, losses to wildfire and invasion of annual grasses are the most significant threats to the species.

The Oregon Department of State Lands' (DSL) eastern region staff has been working with the USFWS to develop a Candidate Conservation Agreement with Assurances (CCAA) to cover state-owned rangelands.  

This voluntary agreement promotes grazing practices to reduce or eliminate threats to sage-grouse on DSL-managed lands while contributing to the economic sustainability of the state's trust lands and the state's lessees. A CCAA ensures that landowners may maintain grazing and other agricultural uses on their land if an Endangered Species Act listing does occur.


The state's draft CCAA and accompanying Environmental Assessment finished a 30-day public review period in the Federal Register on May 11. The CCAA should be ready for final signatures by the end of May. Read more.

WSLCA Royalty Working Group Conference

The Western States Land Commissioners Association Royalty Working Group, a subcommittee of the Subsurface Lands Committee, met in April to discuss leasing and royalty tracking. Forty-five state and affiliate members attended the conference and participated in approximately 10 hours of continuing professional education. All the conference materials are available on the WSLCA website; click here and select "2015" under Past Conferences.

Quick Hits

Arizona

On April 22, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey appointed Lisa Atkins as the new State Land Commissioner. More online.  

Real estate rebound in Arizona results in Arizona State Land Department generating over $76 million on three state trust land auctions: 58 acres in Scottsdale, 49 acres in Phoenix, and 47 acres in Lake Havasu City were leased for residential development. View the February 2 and April 21 ASLD press releases.
Idaho
Various grass roots organizations support both sides of the state vs federal land management question. Read more in the Idaho Statesman.
Idaho Land Board finalizes its Greater Sage-Grouse Conservation Plan and will prepare to implement and monitor the conservation measures. Read the IDL press release.
IDL models new oil and gas laws on other states with mature oil and gas industries. Read the IDL press release.
State and federal entities work with The Nature Conservancy to acquire a conservation easement to protect a working forest and wildlife habitat in perpetuity in northern Idaho. Learn more.
Minnesota
Draft purchase and land exchange project between Minnesota School Trust Lands (MSTL) and the U.S. Forest Service could resolve decades-long land management issues created by isolated state trust lands within the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. The issue still remains controversial as the lands MSTL would receive lie within the Superior National Forest and are used for outdoor recreation and are areas of high biological diversity. Two takes on the issue: one from Timberjay; and the other from Scenic Range News Forum. 
New Mexico
New Mexico to increase grazing fees on state trust lands. Read more.
New Mexico State Land Office gathers public input on the SunZia transmission line in Luna and Socorro Counties. Read more in the Deming Headlight and in the El Defensor Chieftain.
NMSLO continues agreements with private landowners and the Department of Fish and Game to provide outdoor recreational enthusiasts with access to private land in exchange for closing state trust lands. Read more.
House Bill 3474, introduced in March, offers a solution for the future of Elliott State Forest that would create a trust lands transfer commission. Meanwhile, Senate Bill 806 requires the Department of State Lands to keep the Elliott and generate $40 million in revenue from timber harvests. View the Portland Tribune article and the Oregonian article. 

The Department of State Lands keeps stakeholders up-to-date with the Elliott State Forest Alternatives Project. You can find project status reports as well as the history of the project.

Utah

SITLA and preservation and environmental groups succeeded in persuading BLM to remove acreage with potential impact to archeological sites around Alkali Ridge and Montezuma Canyon from its quarterly oil and gas auction. Read more.

Salt Lake Tribune illustrates how a rare desert plant is caught between a rock and a hard place in nature and in new lawsuit.
Washington

The DNR will purchase 1,720 acres of forestland on the Olympic Peninsula that will be managed under the Habitat Conservation Plan as habitat and a working forest. Read more about this effort.

Two DNR authorized transfers of state trust land will conserve almost 3,000 acres for habitat and low-impact recreation and add $7 million to the State's school construction account.

 

Recent Publications

Conserving State Trust Lands: Strategies for the Intermountain West - published by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.   

 

Managing the West, serving the future  - the spring 2015 WSLCA Newsletter.

 

Divided Lands: State vs. Federal Management in the West - published by the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC). PERC is a nonprofit institute that employs Free Market Environmentalism in its approach to environmental problems. This working paper is not peer-reviewed.

 

The Future of Federal-State Land Exchanges - published by the the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law. This research paper is not peer-reviewed.

Upcoming Events
Conference Name
Date
 WSLCA Summer 2015July 19-25, 2015; Moab, UT

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About Building Trust
Building Trust is a quarterly e-newsletter published by Western Lands and Communities, a joint venture of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and Sonoran Institute. The mission of Western Lands and Communities state trust lands program is to assist western state trust land managers in enhancing the value of the trust for its beneficiaries by broadening the range of land-use information, tools, and policy options available to managers and diverse stakeholders for the long-term sustainable management of state trust lands.

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