"There are about 80 such wilderness study areas remaining in Nevada out of about 120 originally designated as such. Unable to craft one statewide bill to resolve how the lands should be managed has led to a strategy of doing so on a county-by-county basis."

(Note: This is another language deception -- The Wildlands Project is being sold again to those readers, voters, etc., that don't yet understand that checkerboarding is like 'incrementalization' and 'mosaicing:' they all mean that the intent is to get big blocks of land out of your hands and under their control.)

December 20, 2003

By Jerry Blair, Associate Editor

Elko Daily Free Press

Elko, Nevada

http://www.elkodaily.com

To submit a Letter to the Editor: editor@elkodaily.com

Lovelock, Nevada - A proposed format for selling hundreds of thousands of acres of land in Pershing County could prove to be the model for consolidating "checkerboard lands" throughout northern Nevada, including Elko County. But, it's far from certain whether the checkerboard land consolidation plan being put forward by Nevada Land and Resource Co. -- the largest single landowner in the state of Nevada -- and Pershing County will succeed. While the company and the county have garnered the support of the Nevada Legislature, which passed a joint resolution backing a proposal to convey about 330,000 acres of land now owned by NLRC to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, federal legislation must be enacted to make it a reality.

This map of the Lovelock area shows the distinct checkerboard pattern of private and federally managed land across northern Nevada. The state's largest private landowner is looking for ways to consolidate the ownership pattern. (NLRC map)

"You never really know what's going to happen in Washington, D.C." said Don Pattalock, chief geologist for NLRC, during a public presentation this month in Lovelock.

The stakes for everyone involved are high.

For NLRC, which owns in excess of 1.1 million acres in northern Nevada, consolidating its land holdings might be the only reasonable method of finding a way to market the lion's share of that property.

For Lovelock and other rural northern Nevada communities, having developable land put up for auction along the region's principal transportation arteries, including the Interstate Highway 80 corridor, could be the means of ensuring a viable economic future.

The proposed consolidation would work this way: About 330,000 acres of checkerboard land in Pershing County would be conveyed to the BLM; the county would get about 2,000 acres for immediate development; and the Lovelock Meadows Water District another 2,000 acres for wellhead protection and tank locations.

In return, NLRC would get fair market value for the lands conveyed, whether through a cash payment or on a ledger account that could be used only at public auctions of federal lands in Nevada.

In addition, the NLRC would give Pershing County 20 years of ad valorem taxes on the property being conveyed to the BLM and the county to ensure a stable source of tax dollars while the land is being auctioned off to private buyers.

There are other provisions to see that grazing permits and a multiple-use concept for the management of public lands in the county be maintained and that at least 50,000 of the 330,000 acres being sold to the BLM would be put up for auction over the next 20 years.

The BLM would benefit, according to the proposal, because the agency would be able to more efficiently manage public lands without the problem of alternating parcels of privately owned parcels. Also, the BLM would be in a better position to maintain historic sites such as the California Emigrant Trail and other environmentally sensitive lands that NLRC now controls.

The net result of the consolidation will be more private land, according to Pattalock.

"It's misleading to think of this just as a sale" of NLRC land to the BLM, Pattalock said. "There will be more developable property to come out of this to be used and developed."

Jo Simpson, chief of the BLM Office of Communications in Nevada, said BLM is aware of the initiative by NLRC and Pershing County, but the bureau will have no position until a bill is actually drafted in Congress.

Planning process

Pershing County has appointed a working committee to review the county's 'master plan' while it continues to work with NLRC on the consolidation.

The company began working with the county about four years ago on the plan, but the county commissioners didn't appoint a committee until this February.

In March, the county passed a resolution endorsing checkerboard land consolidation. The Legislature, with the support of Sen. Dean Rhoads, R-Tuscarora, threw its backing behind a plan in the form of a joint resolution during this year's session.

The final step will be to have federal legislation drafted permitting the consolidation.

Pattalock said the entire Nevada congressional delegation has been contacted and the goal is to have a bill make it through Congress before the end of the 2004 session.

According to Pattalock, U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada, has made it clear that environmental concerns must be taken into account during the planning process.

That has led to the approach of trying to get groups such as the Nevada Wilderness Coalition, Wilderness Society, Friends of Nevada Wilderness and the Sierra Club on board.

Pattalock said Reid's office indicated the senator wants to do as few land bills in the county as possible, which is one reason to see that the environmentalist community is involved.

One advantage could be streamlining the National Environmental Policy Act process. Going through the NEPA process can take months or years to complete as the government determines whether there are environmentally sensitive or threatened species that could lead to restrictions of how the property is used.

Pattalock said NEPA would still be required anytime the BLM disposed of public land, but it should not be as much of a problem because most of the property involved is agricultural land.

Once that process has been completed, however, and the land is put out for auction, there should be no more delay, he said.

According to an aide in Reid's Washington, D.C., office, the senator is supportive of a proposal that would help Pershing County "maximize economic opportunities" by consolidating the checkerboard lands, which are seen as "an untenable land-management pattern."

But Reid's office also is looking at including wilderness study areas in the land bill.

The study areas, designated by Congress, are managed by the BLM as wilderness until a final determination is made.

There are about 80 such wilderness study areas remaining in Nevada out of about 120 originally designated as such. Unable to craft one statewide bill to resolve how the lands should be managed has led to a strategy of doing so on a county-by-county basis.

Only Clark County, however, has had a final disposition of its wilderness study areas, while White Pine and Lincoln counties are in the midst having theirs reviewed. It's because of the slow pace at which these areas are dealt with -- and the potential for controversy inherent in any public lands bill -- that the congressional delegation would prefer bundling the two issues together.

Copyright 2003, The Elko Daily Free Press. 

http://www.elkodaily.com/articles/2003/12/20/news/local/news2.txt