"“If an easement exists (for road 645), we haven’t found it yet,” district ranger Jake Strohmeyer said. "
No they should not. If they can arrange and equal landswap that would be one thing. If the owner is unwilling to negotiate, then the Gov should eminent domain an easement to the public land.They have a ton of land all over the place in Idaho, Montana, etc.
This drives me crazy. They can block access to so many public areas because the public land is land locked inside there private land. That makes that land NOT PUBLIC!
Government should sell inaccessible public lands and put it toward a public land fund. Idaho state buys leases and also buys land outright for the public to use.
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No they should not. If they can arrange and equal landswap that would be one thing. If the owner is unwilling to negotiate, then the Gov should eminent domain an easement to the public land.
#5 Its still public land. You just must access through private to get there. And cant trespass.
"“If an easement exists (for road 645), we haven’t found it yet,” district ranger Jake Strohmeyer said. "
B-b-but that would be socialism! Just kidding. I agree 100% with you, not to seize all their land, just a right-of-way. Precedents in common law go back a long ways. ID has a great thing going, I'd hate to see them lose it. It was an unpleasant surprise moving from ID where access to vast swaths of public land was easy to Bozman where it's a lot more difficult.
When you can buy a United States Senator your not worried about fighting off a prescribed easement via litigation.
I think it should be noted that an easement wasn't apparent on the last gate they put up, but after some digging, there was an easement on that particular road and the gate was in fact illegal. NOTHING was done of course. So why not try it again? Just keep closing off roads since there is no punishment for closing off public access. Some easements might be found, some might not, but either way its a win/win for the Wilks brothers. They don't have to do any of the research and they might just score themselves some of the public's land in the process.
There needs to be major fines for blocking access to public land. Just as severe (if not more severe) as trespassing.