|
Whose paradise is it? A drive to
designate a scenic stretch of Humboldt as wilderness runs into
landowners who cherish their piece of heaven
April 24, 2005 By David Whitney [email protected] or 202-383-0004
Sacramento Bee Washington Bureau
Sacramento, California
To submit a Letter to the Editor: [email protected]
Shelter Cove, California - From the 4,088-foot summit of King Peak, the grade drops precipitously through the deep canyon separating Rattlesnake and Miller ridges and, within a couple of rugged miles, opens onto the wide coastal plain of Big Flat. This is the centerpiece of the King Range National Conservation Area, the largest and wildest portion of California coast that the federal government owns.
Pending federal legislation would turn much of the western slope into
a wilderness area, where the only equipment allowed for public access
is a backpack and hiking boots.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which has
been gobbling up private property for decades to make this
happen, says the King Range in Humboldt
County would instantly become the "crown jewel" of the
agency's wilderness holdings.
Big Flat, with the towering mountains behind and its south-facing
beach popular with surfers, is where the jewel dazzles most
brilliantly.
But this will not be wilderness in the same sense many Californians
have come to think of the word, and for some users, it won't be a
wilderness experience at all.
At Big Flat, the solitude and serenity are pierced by airplanes
landing at a private retreat of people long associated with environmental
causes.
"There's been controversy there for a lot of years -- a lot of
years," said the author of the wilderness bill, Rep. Mike
Thompson, D-St. Helena.
Tucked above the high-tide mark is what amounts to a small
resort used by surfers and environmentalists.
It was built in the 1980s from the ruins of an old farm.
Meanwhile, other private property owners, facing varying
degrees of bureaucratic pressure, sold out to Uncle Sam or, in two
instances, had their lands condemned.
BLM officials said they didn't exactly look the other way while a
dilapidated cabin and barn were transformed into the exclusive
retreat.
In a 1999 report to Thompson, the BLM said it continued negotiations
with Big Flat owners under a "tolerated
noncompliance position."
But since then nothing much has happened.
"We haven't been as assertive or aggressive as perhaps the law
allows," conceded BLM spokeswoman Jan Bedrosian.
Humboldt County property records show that the Big Flat
property is owned by Nelson Swartley, whose family has long
been affiliated with the Sierra Club.
One nearby landowner is Mark Harris, an Arcata lawyer.
Harris was a lead lawyer in the fight to stop Pacific Lumber Co. from
logging redwood forests in the Headwaters area.
Repeated calls to Swartley and his longtime attorney were not
returned.
Harris said that rather than detracting
from the wilderness character of the area, Big Flat's owners have
worked to keep it clean and safe by flying out injured hikers and
hauling out garbage left by hikers and surfers.
Like others, Harris flies his private plane to the coastal
retreat, touching down on BLM property that one day could be
part of the federal wilderness.
Many people who live in this area, especially the few remaining
property owners in the proposed wilderness area, are opposed to the
wilderness bill, saying it would deny access to the old and the infirm
and create a federal preserve for use only by those strong enough to
backpack in.
Unlike most of the property owners, Harris supports the wilderness
bill -- but with some reservations.
He wonders what new protections
it can bring since the land already is tightly managed.
"Within reason, wilderness is a great concept," Harris said.
"I come from the environmental world. But I am also very, very
aware that the King Range is different."
Although Harris earned a national reputation fighting Pacific
Lumber over logging on its private lands, when it comes to his own
land in the King Range, he argues strongly for development rights
that the BLM says disappeared when Congress enacted the King Range
National Conservation Act in 1970.
"The ability to develop an
ecologically friendly and compatible dwelling clearly falls within a
reasonable property use," Harris insisted.
The King Range is indeed a different kind of wilderness.
When Congress enacted the conservation act, after years of debate, the
area included 30,000 acres of federal lands and 24,000 of private
property.
Roads cut across mountains and ridges.
Cars could drive all along the beach at low tide.
Logging was done on lands owned by timber companies.
There were ranches and ranchers, now all gone.
The conservation area's boundaries were expanded in 1976 with the
enactment of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, which also
directed the BLM to study its real estate for possible wilderness
additions.
Over the next two decades, the BLM began
buying up property, even though the King Range act had
celebrated the mix of public and private in a common cause of land
conservation.
Construction crews were hired to obliterate roads.
Activities on private lands were closely monitored.
Robert Pietila lost his 40-acre property to condemnation after
he started to build a cabin.
Management guidelines allow property owners to rebuild only to the
extent that it exactly replaces structures on the property before the
King Range act took effect.
"I thoroughly believe the BLM has the highest paid
bandits in the country," said Pietila, who said a jury
awarded about $500,000 for land he regarded as "priceless."
According to the BLM, nearly 25,725 acres of once-private
lands became, parcel by parcel, publicly
owned, almost all from willing sellers.
Within the proposed wilderness boundaries, only a half-dozen
privately owned parcels on less than 200 acres remain.
One 80-acre parcel belongs to Mary Etter and her brother Raymond, and
includes a freshly painted two-bedroom, one-bath house overlooking the
beach. The Etters, though unhappy at the thought of selling, have
offered the property to the BLM for $5 million. King Range manager
Gary Pritchard-Peterson said the agency's appraisers figure the place
is worth no more than $1.9 million.
Linda Franklin and her husband, Bill, said they will never sell.
Linda Franklin's father, Paul Smith, built the steep, dangerously
curvy Smith-Etter road that leads over the mountain range to the coast
and the Etter and Franklin properties. A provision in the wilderness
bill added by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., guarantees them access
to that road.
The Franklins spent their honeymoon at their cabin -- three and a
half decades ago.
Though rough and spare, it is full of personal history, and they
resent every step the BLM has taken to tighten road access.
"It's obvious they don't want us here," Bill Franklin said.
"We're a thorn in their side. They'd like this all to be
wilderness."
What galls the Franklins and others is that -- while the BLM
was pressuring private owners to sell and get out -- the Big Flat
compound was being rebuilt from the ground up.
"I think they've gotten special treatment,"
Linda Franklin said.
Don Amador, an activist for the conservative Blue Ribbon Coalition
fighting the wilderness bill, agrees.
"There seems to be a double standard," Amador said.
"If you are a conservative, you get a lot of scrutiny, and if
you're an environmentalist, they look the other way. It's really at
the center of what this King Range controversy is all about."
Bedrosian, the BLM spokeswoman, said the
agency has tried to work cooperatively with private landowners,
including those at Big Flat.
"We've done our best to regulate
their use to make it as compatible as possible with our management
goals," she said. "We've worked to be good neighbors. Maybe
we should have been more aggressive, but that's history now."
In more recent years, the BLM has stepped in to limit commercial use
in Big Flat. For several years the Surfers' Medical Association flew
to the retreat, but Pritchard-Peterson, the King Range manager, said
that ended when the BLM questioned commercial activity.
But other groups still use the place, including the Sierra
Club, which pays for the use of kitchen facilities for annual
camping treks for disadvantaged inner-city youth. And when the
surfing is at its best, Big Flat airstrips are busy.
Mark Massara, the California Sierra Club's coastal director, is a
surfer and an attorney who describes Big Flat as one of his most
cherished spots on the globe.
"To the extent that our little
trips getting kids out there is able to keep them able to offer those
facilities, I just think it's a huge public service," Massara
said, adding that he doesn't think their airplanes will pose any risk
to a wilderness designation.
Tim Mahoney, a seasoned Capitol Hill lobbyist working on the
wilderness legislation, said the King Range fits a different kind of
wilderness model that is more typical to the East Coast.
Instead of pristine expanses, the King
Range is assembled wilderness, he said, land that was gently trod by
humans and now restored and wild.
"While it might be nice if it were absolutely secluded like the
Brooks Range in Alaska, it's not," Mahoney said.
"It's as secluded as we can get and protect in Northern
California."
Wilderness designation would have some practical consequences,
however.
The BLM said it would limit its discretion in land management and
[would] bar mountain bikes.
But Congressman Thompson said the larger
benefit is status.
"What you get is national
recognition that this is the crown jewel of the coast."
|
