Forest Service to sell land only to select group of ranchers
Source: In-Forum, by James MacPherson
June 14, 2007
In a deal to appease up to 40 western North Dakota ranchers, the U.S. Forest Service quietly agreed to sell them 5,200 acres to offset the amount of land the agency gained from its purchase of a historic Badlands ranch. Real estate agents question whether it's legal, saying the sale should be open to everyone.
The decision to sell federal land in Billings County - and only to ranchers there - is not the same pitch the Forest Service made when it sought to buy the 5,200-acre site adjacent to Theodore Roosevelt's Elkhorn Ranch site, where the former president ranched more than a century ago.
The Forest Service had said it would balance the $5.3 million acquisition of the historic Blacktail Creek Ranch by selling 5,200 acres of the 1.2 million acres it owns throughout the state.
Terry Clement, owner of West Plains Realty in Dickinson, said selling just to Billings County ranchers could be illegal.
"It doesn't sound like legally they can do that - I would think that they would have to open it up for everybody because it is public land," he said.
Clement said the land likely would fetch between $250 to $370 an acre - possibly as much as four times that if it were sold to buyers beyond the local ranchers.
Legislation is being crafted by Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., that would allow the sale only to ranchers in Billings County, a Forest Service official said.
Dorgan did not return telephone calls from The Associated Press on Tuesday and Wednesday seeking comment.
"It has evolved," Dave Pieper, a Forest Service supervisor in Bismarck, said of the land sale. "We were looking at the entire Forest Service estate in North Dakota, but then it got narrowed to Billings County.
"The legislation authorizes us to convey the land to a very, very specific group of people," Pieper said.
Pieper said no public hearings were held on the proposed land sale. The location of the equal number of parcels to be traded were not identified in the contract between the government and the Blacktail Creek Ranch's former owners, brothers Kenneth, Allan and Dennis Eberts and their families. The federal government now has the title to the ranch.
Pieper said selling federal acres in the county to outside buyers could hurt the livelihood of ranchers who lease the land for grazing. He also said the agency does not want to increase its own holdings in Billings County, where it already owns 290,000 acres.
"We just don't want to do any irreparable economic harm to the ranchers," Pieper said. "We have to try to achieve a balance - if we put 20 to 30 ranchers out of business, that would be a cost to North Dakota."
Clement doubts that's the case.
"A hundred or two hundred acres is not going to affect a rancher," he said.
Jim Arthaud, chairman of the Billings County Commission, said county residents always have understood that an equal number of federal acres would be sold in Billings County to offset the purchase of the Blacktail Creek Ranch.
He said it was promised to appease county residents.
"The people of this community, this county and this commission don't think that this ranch should have ever been bought in the first place - it's a total waste of taxpayers' dollars," Arthaud said. "We fought this tooth and nail - that land needed to stay in commodity production."
Arthaud said county officials believed the land sales were to be done before the Forest Service purchased the ranch in April.
"That ranch was not to be bought until an equal number of acres were conveyed," Arthaud said. "It's been a goof-ball process from the get-go."
Dorgan said in a statement in February 2006 that the Forest Service had agreed to divest 5,150 acres of land it owns "in North Dakota" and "prior to the purchase" of the Blacktail Creek Ranch. Dorgan said at that time that the provision was a factor in his support of the deal.
Pieper said the Forest Service land has not been sold because there is no legislation yet to authorize it.
"We thought that we would have legislation prior to the acquisition (of the ranch)," he said.
The Forest Service has tentatively identified about 10,000 acres of federal land in Billings County that could be used in the land swap, Pieper said. About 40 ranchers in the county would be eligible to buy the land, he said.
The parcels will be offered to ranchers who already lease the land for grazing, until the 5,200-acre requirement is met, Pieper said. Ranchers who refuse to buy the land will continue to be allowed to lease it.
"The idea here is to work with those base property owners who presently have the privilege to graze those lands," Pieper said. "They would have the first right of refusal, and if they decided not to purchase it, we would move on down the list and status quo would prevail."
The parcels range in size from about 80 acres to more than 300, and most of the land has been grazed or farmed, he said.
"We're primarily looking at rolling prairie, not 'badlands'-type land that could be characterized as relatively isolated and small," Pieper said. "We're looking at lands, primarily, that can be characterized as having nonnative vegetation."
The Forest service could get "some pretty good money out of it if they took some time selling it," Clement said.
"I don't think it was ever the idea to recoup dollars," Pieper said. "That was never the issue."
Pieper said the land in Billings County likely would be offered for sale in the fall, once the legislation is passed.
Appraisals will be done on the parcels, which will be sold at market value, he said.
Don Schmeling, a real estate agent with Continental Real Estate in Dickinson, said the land likely would draw much interest if it were advertised for sale to anyone - and it would likely fetch much more money for the Forest Service, to offset the purchase of the historic ranch.
"I have mixed emotions because it is a good opportunity for ranchers," Schmeling said. "I'm sure the public would like to own it - Badlands property does not come up for sale very often. There are a lot of people who would like to own the land just for hunting."
