Purchasing Federal Land

[1_pointer]

In full disclosure, I was a BLM Range Con for 8 years, so yes I know the process.

Do you do a seperate EA for all of these allotments or lump a bunch into one? I'd lump them to cut down on the work load and even lump them all into one or a few decisions based upon protest/appeal history for that area. Just some thoughts.

Also, when you refer to a "land health survey" are you talking Interpreting Indicators of Rangeland Health? Just curious. Unless you have state policy that states otherwise, IIRH is not required for a permit renewal, just a Rangeland Health Standards determination. But in looking at some of the MT Standards I can see why you would use IIRH for the determinations. How do you guys show that you are or are not meeting the Air Quality Standard?

The office I worked in mostly sage grouse habitat, so I can fully appreciate the workload increase! Is this a DC directive? I'd be interested in hearing what is required in these habitat assessments.

 

[SWMontana1]

I was just curious about the potential to purchase small pieces of land from the feds (BLM,NFS, etc.). Is it possible? Is it difficult? The idea would be to buy an acre or two to build a small cabin-like outpost surrounded by public land. What would it cost?

This is a joke, right? You want to buy an acre or two right smack in the middle of public BLM, NFS, or state land? HA.... just stupid. If they are going to sell sections or try to get rid of them, you can bet they won't be trying to do so an acre or two at a time, or exclusively selling just an acre in the middle of that public land. WOW.

 

[Horn Seeker]

1,
I am fisheries and riparian specialist, but will ask our range con about the possibility of grouping allotments into a single EA. Sounds like a decent idea.

I "think" we are talking about IIRH... Then again, maybe we are just making a rangeland health determinination?? I'll see. I participate in completing the PFC surveys and helping the range con or tech in completing veg transects and soil conditions. Then I also assist the wildlife bio, who is overwhelmed with RMP work right now, in determining any impacts on various wildlife resources.

The new Sage grouse workload is a DC memorandum. Just came out a few weeks ago. The FWS is going to make a ruling on sage grouse early 2014 and the BLM is making sure we are doing anything we can to keep them off the list. We are just now delving into everything we are going to have to do, but it includes some things like: inventorying all range developments and what impacts they may have on sage grouse and habitat (fences, reservoirs, tanks); what habitat exists and what condition it is in (this one is the sticky one. We dont have any sage grouse habitat surveys, so IF it ends up a requirement (there's some wierd language in the MOU) we are going to have to conduct veg surveys in each community type in the allotment to determine what sage grouse habitat is there and what condition it is in. It'll create jobs...thats for sure. I am getting my fingers into anything sage grouse I can hoping it will give me the experience I need to land one of these new positions! (I"m a term biological tech right now, have been for many years...would like to get a perm bio job).

Where were you out of as a range con?

 

[1_pointer]

Again thanks for the info! A lot of folks scoff at the idea of lumping allotments into a single EA, but we found that it was very helpful. My only suggestion would be to issue seperate decisions for each allotment off of the one EA. This is beneficial in case you get an appeal, as one allotment would not hold up the processing of all the allotments analyzed in the EA. For these small allotments, I would do a quasi-programatic EA every year and renew them all under one EA for that year. That said, if you get too tied up in other work I wouldn't worry too much about getting those small allotments fully processed until they quit approving the Appropriations Act Rider. That's a good/easy way to buy some more time.

I don't know if the guidance is different in MT, but in UT where I worked we found it a bit more efficient to make the EA the Rangeland Health Standards Determination. This helps with the timeline you are held to in making changes if some of the standards aren't being met as you can analyze the changes you are implementing in order to move towards the standard in the same document that you made the standards determination.

Those inventories, depending on the methods they state you should use, can eat up a lot of man hours! We were doing some using the Ecological Site Inventory method due to a settlement agreement and we were lucky to get more than 50K acres done a year. Lots of work, but good, fun work! I just hope they don't end up contracting that work out, as my experience with contractors for doing inventory or NEPA was less than impressive. Even more so, as I can see the listing determination ending up in litigation either way the FWS rules and I am more comfortable defending/explaining data I collected rather than a report given to me by someone else. I think you are on the right track about getting involved with anything regarding sage grouse as I think it will drive alot of what the BLM does for a long time. Good luck on getting that PFT status! Hopefully, I can convince my wife I need to apply for one of these new jobs if they are in some place she wouldn't mind being. 'Course about anywhere there is sagegrouse is better than where I'm at now...

I worked in the Salt Lake Field Office in Utah.

PS- If you can't tell I really enjoy this kind of stuff and miss working on it greatly. Just getting to discuss it is fun for me.

 

[mtmiller]

Sounds like you are a little familiar with the process so I'll tell ya one more thing that just upped the work load. We've got a new Sage Grouse directive that is basically telling us we have to do a LOT of habitat assesments for sage grouse to include in our EA's... probably 50% of our allotments are in sage grouse core habitat... we dont have near the staff to deal with this.

Now worries Ernie, new grazing fees were announced. Money will be rolling in to pay staff.

http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/info/newsroom/2012/january/NR_01_31_2012.html

 

[mtmiller]

PS- If you can't tell I really enjoy this kind of stuff and miss working on it greatly. Just getting to discuss it is fun for me.

Tyler, here is some fun reading.

http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/info/re...ns/national_instruction/2012/IM_2012-044.html

If nothing else, skim through the Tech Guideance (attachment 1).

Fun stuff.

 

[1_pointer]

Thanks for the info! One bad thing about these types of guidance is that they leave enough 'wiggle room' so as to allow for local conditions and input to drive the process (good), but that also leaves up the interpretations for argument in an appeal (problematic).

 

[Horn Seeker]

Under that order, the grazing fee cannot fall below $1.35 per AUM, and any increase or decrease cannot exceed 25 percent of the previous year’s level.

Sweet, if we raised it 25% every year for hte next 15 yrs we'd be near the current private AUM rate!

I'll pass your ideas to our range con. He's a good guy thats fairly new and fairly open minded and adaptable...also very interested in efficiency and getting this program squared away.

Yes...I'd LOVE to be out doing those veg/habitat surveys every day!

 

[Horn Seeker]

but that also leaves up the interpretations for argument in an appeal (problematic).

Uh huh. Thats what we've been talking about in the office.