ND Badlands section lines under attack

[brocksw]

ND folks:

North Dakota Senator John Hoeven recently introduced legislation that would force the USFS to hand over all section lines in the Grasslands(Badlands) to the state. The states intent is to build roads on those section lines. This would result in the loss of all Roadless areas, Non-Motorized Areas, and areas Suitable for Wilderness. literally taking away already difficult to find back country experiences. That gets a BIG NO from us! Click the link below to take action and let him know you DO NOT support his actions and want him to end spending millions of tax payer dollars in federal court only to develop the best public land in the state.

Take it one step further and call his office to voice your opposition! (202) 224-2551
It's a 2 minute call, you can't afford not to do both!

Take Action

Backcountry Hunters & Anglers is the voice for our wild public lands, waters and wildlife.

www.backcountryhunters.org

Copy of the legislation:

 

[nodakian]

My first question is motive--what's he trying to accomplish. I don't trust politicians, even Hoeven who seems to be fairly respectable compared to many. Who is he trying to buy? What problem is he trying to solve? What does he say is wrong with the current situation?

Second, how would this be different than a private landowner waiving his individual right to use the easement? The public would still have the right to use it, but that's no guarantee the state, or more likely counties (they have jurisdiction over section line easements) will build more roads. In fact, if as the bill acknowledges the state already has a valid right, what prevents the state from exercising it now?

How did you learn of the state's intent to build more roads?

What is going on in federal court?

Seems fishy. A solution in search of a problem. Why now? What's behind this?

 

[Scoot]

Brock, excellent post- not a single F word in that one! I agree with you on this one and think this would be a bad deal. It's tough enough to find areas that are very far from an established trail in the badlands of ND and this would make that much worse.

 

[go4thegusto]

My first question is motive--what's he trying to accomplish. I don't trust politicians, even Hoeven who seems to be fairly respectable compared to many. Who is he trying to buy? What problem is he trying to solve? What does he say is wrong with the current situation?

Second, how would this be different than a private landowner waiving his individual right to use the easement? The public would still have the right to use it, but that's no guarantee the state, or more likely counties they have jurisdiction over section line easements, will build more roads. In fact, if as the bill acknowledges the state already has a valid right, what prevents the state from exercising it now?

How did you learn of the state's intent to build more roads?

What is going on in federal court?

Seems fishy. A solution in search of a problem. Why now? What's behind this?

Drill baby, drill....follow the money!

 

[Packin_packout]

Question here from someone that has not hunted north Dakota. What is the state policy for access to state lands... for example you cannot hunt/camp on Colorado state lands. Does this break up our ability to move across the grasslands.

From a high level, if the state owns it they don't have to go through federal review process if they want to do anything... not sure how robust state review policy is.

 

[go4thegusto]

I don't trust this regime in ND to do anything right anymore. This is a state that diverted $16M of the recent pandemic Cares Act money to the oil companies so they could continue fracking. The directive was to allow the $16M for reclaiming old old well sites or to continue fracking. Yep, they choose fracking.
Covid is on fire here, people cannot pay their rent, good hard working folks are in the food bank line at Christmas etc etc and they divert that money to one more dollar of oil extraction. Unbelievable.

 

[nodakian]

Question here from someone that has not hunted north Dakota. What is the state policy for access to state lands... for example you cannot hunt/camp on Colorado state lands. Does this break up our ability to move across the grasslands.

From a high level, if the state owns it they don't have to go through federal review process if they want to do anything... not sure how robust state review policy is.

First, every section line outside a municipality or platted subdivision has a public road easement 33 feet each side of the line. This is great public policy that prevents land locked parcels and allows the public to access its lands. Counties have jurisdiction over these easements—they can build roads, force owners to remove barriers to public travel, etc. The state as an entity has very little to do with them. In fact, when the state transportation department purchases land for highways along or across section lines, it doesn’t purchase within 33 feet of section lines (which leads to some strange land management and title results).

Second, the state can decide whether to allow public access and what activities can occur on state trust lands. Hunting is generally allowed. There is no blanket policy of which I am aware. However, the public section line easement can be used to get to the state land regardless of what is allowed on the state land itself.

I just don’t know what Hoeven’s bill is trying to do. He’s no doubt in the pockets of oil interests, and while I generally favor the oil industry, there are limits to my tolerance for encroachment into what little public land remains. (Don’t get me started on the Davis Refinery near Belfield.). On the other hand, having lived in MT most of my life I’m wary of hair-on-fire single issue “conservation” advocacy groups too. I have no idea what BHA does so have no opinion about it. I just spotted some things in the OP for which I’d like some additional info and clarification before deciding on a course of action.

 

[TFrank]

Interesting thanks for the heads up

 

[brocksw]

My first question is motive--what's he trying to accomplish. I don't trust politicians, even Hoeven who seems to be fairly respectable compared to many. Who is he trying to buy? What problem is he trying to solve? What does he say is wrong with the current situation?

Second, how would this be different than a private landowner waiving his individual right to use the easement? The public would still have the right to use it, but that's no guarantee the state, or more likely counties (they have jurisdiction over section line easements) will build more roads. In fact, if as the bill acknowledges the state already has a valid right, what prevents the state from exercising it now?

How did you learn of the state's intent to build more roads?

What is going on in federal court?

Seems fishy. A solution in search of a problem. Why now? What's behind this?

Sorry for the lack of update on this issue and not responding to some of the posts. No one "quoted" or directly replied to my post so any questions slipped through the cracks without notification. My fault for not checking back in on this.

This legislative text was successfully removed from the end of year omnibus spending package....shocking considering that thing included everything under the sun. But a win nonetheless. We did find out that Hoeven ignored hundreds of emails and phone calls in opposition but faught to include this text until the last minute.

To give you some history on this issue, since this is likely not the last we'll hear about this issue, the original lawsuit goes back to 2012. There were essentially 2 parts to said lawsuit. 1 part was over section line rights of way (which you described nicely above) in the National Grasslands, and the other was a quiet title issue over specific roads in McKenzie county.

In 2017 Judge Daniel Hovland dismissed the section line rights of way portion of the lawsuit. However, last October (2020) McKenzie county was awarded 3 of 6 roads subject to the quiet title portion of the lawsuit. An important clarification is that these are "Roads", they're 2 track trails immediately south of the North Unit of the TR National Park. These roads don't lead to a bridge, they don't lead to the river, they don't lead to another main road. 1 takes you to the park boundary, the other sort of peters out in the bottom of a draw, and off the top of my head I forget where the 3rd goes (in my notes which are not on me). If I remember correctly it stops at the top of a butte and is less than a mile long. There's the possibility of an appeal but I'm not sure at this point.

Now all three of those roads are located in the Long X Roadless Complex. This area is also a non-motorized area and is also categorized as "Suitable for Wilderness". However, the lessee still maintains a permit to use said two tracks to do his thing with his cattle. That "permit" or grazing right, however you'd like to call it, would be grandfathered in, even if that area were to ever become actual capital W wilderness. So no "rights" would be lost in that scenario. It would just mean USFS staff and permit holders (likely just the rancher) have vehicular access.

These non-motorized areas are about restricting vehicular access to the public...non-motorized traffic only. There are just over 130k acres of non-motorized areas out of the 1.1 million acre Little Missouri National Grasslands. out of that 130k acres, about 39,000 acres qualify as "Suitable for Wilderness". The Long X complex represents about 11k acres chunk of that.

The impact of the quiet title decision, as it sits now....and I'm speculating a bit here so keep that in mind. Can lead to a 5k acre chunk being severed off from the Long X area. One of those "trails" in the quiet title suit, will basically serve as a dividing line that splits that chunk off. The concern is that the 5k acre chunk will no longer be considered non-motorized and will also get left out of the "Suitable for Wilderness" category when the next Land and Resource Plan revision happens. The DPG will conduct the Roadless Analysis and this chunk will no longer meet the qualifications. I'm thinking the plan revision will begin in the next 5 years or so. Now, I don't want to go down a slippery slope argument here but, there is a possibility that the next step for the county may be pursuing legal action to use the quiet title victory to improve those 3 trails, even though that's not allowed in a Roadless Area. IRA's do not allow new road construction or road improvements. This would be an improvement from a two track to a full fledged gravel road, if it were to happen. Which would drastically change that area considering it is now "Suitable for Wilderness". Imagine an area where you could go 2 or 3 miles away from the nearest road, and then showing up one fall and having 3 brand new gravel roads sitting there. You can now not get more than maybe 3/4 of a mile from the road.

Why is this a big deal? Well around 80% of the Grasslands is "roaded". Meaning in most areas vehicular access is plentiful and in many areas, its pretty difficult to get up on a high spot and not see a road within a half mile or so. So you could say there's a variety of access and a variety of environments for the hunters. There's areas with great road access, areas where you're never to far from the road, areas that don't have a special designation but you can still get a little further from the roads, maybe a mile max, and also areas where you can get a ways in there and not be bothered. The quiet title portion of the suit shrinks that number of acres where you can get away from the roads and traffic. The Section line portion, which was dismissed, threatens to destroy those areas completely.

Even though the federal court threw that section line portion of the case out. Sen. Hoeven decided to take matters into his own hands and he drafted a bill to circumvent Judge Hovland's decision. That section line issue that keeps coming back up is an effort to give access to the state for road building. It says specifically in the legislative text shown in the action alert, and is mentioned in the original lawsuit. The benefit of the section line rights of way is providing access where landlocked parcels are and to have easements for transportation. There were probably other reasons I'm not aware for its creation but as it pertains to hunting.

The grasslands isn't landlocked....its all public land and has multiple access roads that lead deep into it or to it's boundary. If the there is a landlocked parcel of grasslands (an island of USFS surrounded by private for example), and there are some of those, then the landlocked issue would be on private land, not public. The section line rights of way law would allow you to walk or drive to the USFS land. Once you're on the public land...what is the need for the section line rights of way?

The desire is to obtain that rights of way on every section in the grasslands. Since, they are already open to public foot travel and in some cases already have roads/trails....there is only one reason they want the right of way. To build more roads. These roads might be for general travel or oil and gas infrastructure. But those section lines wouldn't stop at non-motorized or "Suitable for Wilderness" boundaries. Meaning, the state/counties could then build roads wherever they want at their discretion. To save a little on an already lengthy post, we can connect the dots as to whats going to happen. It won't be less roads. It won't be more wild places. The wildest places in the Badlands (Roadless area, non-motorized areas, suitable for wilderness), will be subject to road building. Meaning the loss of all those designations. A majority of the only places in ND where you can actually have a backcountry experience will essentially be given a death sentence.