Roadbuilders in MT Wilderness Strike Out

[JoseCuervo]

This one is classic, some "sportsmen" buy a Mining Claim, then they "claim" there is $$$ from Minerals, and ask the Forest Service to spend $1.7 Million to build a road into the Wilderness for them....

I am glad we have "activist" judges in the 9Th Circuit that said NO!

Appeals court upholds ruling preventing road in wilderness Area

HELENA – The owner of land and mineral rights deep in Montana’s Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness Area does not have a right to build a road through the wilderness to get to his property, a federal appeals court has ruled.


The three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a federal judge’s decision that requiring “adequate access” to private property within or surrounded by federal lands does not mean the government must allow road-building across a wilderness area.


The ruling, released Monday, comes in a case filed by the Absaroka Trust against the U.S. Forest Service.


The trust, based in Park County, obtained the 124 acres of land and mineral rights in 1999 from Jim Sievers, a former real estate developer from California.


The property is about six miles inside the wilderness area, just south of Boulder Mountain.


The trust has said a preliminary exploration suggested there were about $20 million worth of mineral deposits at the site. The trust also built a lodge on the property, which is occasionally rented to sportsmen.


The area currently is accessible only by foot, horseback or helicopter. In 2000, the Gallatin National Forest turned down the Absaroka Trust’s request for permission to build a 20-foot-wide gravel road to reach the land.


The trust appealed, contending the Forest Service was obligated to allow private landowners “adequate access” to their property and that the Forest Service was obligated to pay for the proposed road, estimated at $1.7 million.


U.S. District Judge Jack Shanstrom of Billings ruled in April 2002 that getting to the site by foot, horseback or helicopter constituted adequate access and the Forest Service had no obligation to approve the road.


Renee Coppack, a Billings attorney representing the trust, did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment Tuesday.


Environmentalists, who joined the case on the Forest Service’s behalf, called the ruling a major victory for wilderness protection.


“Our argument was a landowner who bought land deep inside a wilderness area in land that is extremely rugged and remote shouldn’t expect to drive to it,” Tim Preso, an attorney with Earth Justice, told the Bozeman Daily Chronicle on Monday. “This is a big victory for wilderness and a big setback for his road building proposal.”

 

[1_pointer]

Good and as it should be! Maybe he should have checked into that a bit before he plunked down the $$$$.

 

[Ithaca 37]

There will always be somebody trying crap like this. They'd get away with it, too, if the environmental groups weren't watching for these scams and fighting them in court.

 

[Oak]

They had "adequate access" to build a lodge on the property...I think they have adequate access to get their fat asses to the lodge.

Oak