Federal Land
To anyone who grew up on the east coast, the scale of federal land ownership in the west is shocking. Alex Tabarrok posts a map and a proposal:
Does a sale of western lands mean reducing national parkland? No, first much of the land isn’t parkland. Second, I propose a deal. The government should sell some of its most valuable land in the west and use some of the proceeds to buy low-price land in the Great Plains.
The western Great Plains are emptying of people. Some 322 of the 443 Plains counties have lost population since 1930 and a majority have lost population since 1990.
Now is the time for the Federal government to sell high-priced land in the West, use some of the proceeds to deal with current problems and use some of the proceeds to buy low-priced land in the Plains creating the world’s largest nature park, The Buffalo Commons.
Granting that much of that western land isn’t parkland, and that some of it is valuable, it’s not clear to me how much of it is both valuable and not a natural park. Outside of Clark and Washoe counties, Nevada is basically worthless desert and at the moment Clark County is badly overbuilt and full of foreclosed properties, vacants, and half-built projects. Still, it’d be worth looking at something like this in greater detail and seeing if there are any plausible options in this regard. Population is growing in many of these heavily federal states and population is shrinking in the plains and it does make a lot more sense for the federal government to concentrate its land holdings in places where people don’t want to live.
137 Responses to “Federal Land”
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November 14th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Land use is a mess. The leases are too cheap and no one has an incentive to invest. I’m pretty convinced that if the federal government offered to give BLM land to ranchers, they wouldn’t take it–they prefer the current setup, where the lease costs less than maintaining productivity at a constant level.
But I don’t really know.
November 14th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Why not just sell the land and use the money for, say, a stimulus program? Why would the federal government want to own worthless land in the Great Plains?
November 14th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Yes, but can you imagine the amount of sprawl around Las Vegas, Phoenix, and other Western cities if there were even more land available? Retaining ownership but leasing use rights for mining and logging seems to be working okay (at least from my seat in NY), and it’s playing an admittedly minor part in reducing the even faster development of sprawling western cities, so I don’t see a real urgency for change. And this way we’re still able to dictate land uses while reaping some benefit.
November 14th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Aren’t we facing a host of water rights and water scarcity issues in the American southwest already? I would be very careful about the extent and type of encouragement I gave to people relocating there. Separately, if population is already growing and land is scarce in that region, isn’t that a good thing? It implies increasing population densities.
November 14th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Get the NRA on board and this would work. This is America. The phrase hunting in a nature park seems normal.
November 14th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
It’s not just parks, there’s a lot of designated wilderness, forests and BLM land there.
Trading beautiful deserts and mountain ranges for over-farmed, washed out prairie wouldn’t be worth the paltry profit the government would reap from this deal.
This idea stinks to hell.
November 14th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
How can you say Nevada outside Clark and Washoe Counties is worthless? It’s good enough for brothels…
November 14th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
BTW- interesting to see oil and timber interests pushing their agenda as a “buffalo park” now.
November 14th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
I’m not sure selling western lands is the way to do it, but I really would like to see the Buffalo Commons come to be. Too many Steves, the land in the Great Plains is worth little now to people. However, if a huge chunk of it were put together and turned into a wild place where buffalo (and other animals) could roam the plains again, well, then it wouldn’t be so worthless anymore. Click through the link. It’s worth a read.
On the other hand, I’m not sure how worthless the land on the plains really is. A lot of it’s being farmed for (heavily subsidized) corn.
November 14th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
how about the gov’t just buy cheap land in the plains and lease the land to those who are willing to invest in wind power. The FG could lease the land at a cheaper rate than the farmers who currently lease the land out to wind farmers.
November 14th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
I’d say the idea of essentially reducing the price of land in arid areas is fucking brilliant.
November 14th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Yep Alex is either mendacious or ignorant here. Most of that land is federal forest land. So while not technically a park it amounts to the same. But hey striping the land of all its trees would be great!
November 14th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Why that stark dividing line between Montana-North Dakota all the way down to New Mexico-Texas in federal land ownership? What happened? It cannot be time of statehood, since California and Oregon have high federal land ownership as well, while Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas don’t. Why is this?
November 14th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
A better map of Federal Land holdings in the US can be found from the folks at Radical Cartography:
http://www.radicalcartography.net/?federalland
Shows you what agencies hold that land. BLM is by far the biggest landholder.
November 14th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
What SAO said. Saying that most of this land isn’t national parkland just seems to scream “HEY, I have absolutely no idea what federal land is, why the federal government owns it, or what it does with it!!”
The idea that the government could even sell a lot of land here and buy a bunch of land there seems equally as ignorant. Who’s going to buy worthless swaths of desert, and why?
Most of the land that would actually be worth anything is being managed by the federal government to balance use with conservation. Now, I certainly know places in CA where one could argue the government isn’t doing a very good job balancing these concerns, but up and selling the land would be the the worst sort of solution — if indeed that word could even be applied.
And then there’s the water rights question, as Mark mentioned, which is already facing a tragedy of the commons situation in the west (not to mention other parts of the country). The very last thing we should want is a decrease in federal authority here.
There are all to many places in the west where the federal government is the only thing standing between our natural resources and thoughtless development and consumption.
Stinks to hell indeed.
November 14th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
In Colorado, there is a lot of federal forest land surrounding the ski areas that would be extremely valuable to private developers.
This would solve 2 problems: it would raise revenue and allegedly add housing for locals.
Local developers argue that selling off that land would help reduce the cost of housing in these areas. Housing costs are extremely high. And it causes many social problems. Immigrant labor often over crowd small old condos; teacher, police etc… have to commute long distances, air pollution is increased by all of the commuting.
These problems compounded by the fact that there are second homes sitting empty 90% of the time.
However, selling off land around these areas to create more mountain town sprawl is not a solution.
November 14th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
On reflection, this may simply be agricultural use vs. non-agricultural use. Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas have/had most of their area under agricultural use, and California and Oregon don’t. Still interesting that private entities acquired all that land in Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas but didn’t in California and Oregon. You’d think that private interests would grab agricultural/ranching land the same way as forest land. Seemingly not the case. Why is this?
November 14th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
I know you hate the environment with a fiery passion, Matt, but really–what kind of sick individual would call the desert worthless?
November 14th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Suburbs, however, really are worthless.
November 14th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Why that stark dividing line between Montana-North Dakota all the way down to New Mexico-Texas in federal land ownership?
Good question! It’s a little-known fact that the Federal land ownership in a state is in a fixed proportion to that state’s squareness. States with wiggly outlines have less Federal land. If the borders of Western states are changed to make them wigglier, the Fed is obligated to sell off a portion of its holdings to keep the ratio correct.
November 14th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
I already knew about this in general terms, so the only thing that surprises me is Nevada. 84.3 percent? Jesus Christ. And one of its two major population centers is really close to the capital of California? (”Really close” on a Western scale, at least.) Why did so much empty space no one wants become an independent state at all?
… basically, according to Wikipedia, because Lincoln wanted another free state to secure his reelection. Oh well. As electability-motivated decisions by Republican incumbents go, that was far from the worst in American history.
November 14th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
This discussion is an impressive example of East Coast parochialism in action.
November 14th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Read “Beyond the 100th Meridian” by Wallace Stegner.
The Mountain, Basin & Range West was too dry to be settled by the usual 1-family, 100 acre homesteads. In fact, so was much of the Great Plains, as we found out too late to prevent the Dust Bowl.
John Wesley Powell saw that the lands in the West were mostly unsuitable unsuitable for colonizing by 160-acre homestead farms. He foresaw the need for irrigation and the proper use of natural resources for the national good. As head of the U.S. Geological Survey, he mapped and identified the scarce water resources of the West, and had great influence on policy, leading to intensive Federal land management, and the Bureau of Reclamation. His Despite the flaws of this system, it still appears to be the only sensible way to manage much of the Western lands.
As to Nevada, it has no water at all, and should in a rational world start losing population. There is no reason to encourage more people to move there by making more land available, as there is no water to support them.
I would like to see the Buffalo Commons however.
November 14th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Look at the Radical Cartography map linked above. You’ll see that the Federally owned land starts at the Rocky Mountains. In the older states, you see that the good agricultural land in the coastal valleys of California, Oregon, and Washington are all white – i.e. privately owned.
Basically, the land grant system for the plains worked well in some areas, but didn’t make a lot of sense for vast swaths of the west, so they changed it. Not a bad call.
November 14th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
The fact that people in the western/ empty states only can live on a much smaller percentage of the land means that the land mass difference between the red and blue states is vastly (pun?) different than what we’ve been led to believe.
The land should stay with the feds and the land differences should be reported more accurately.
November 14th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Al Peck, thank for suggesting “Beyond the 100th Meridian” by Wallace Stegner. I’ll take a look. Still not clear to me why temperate mountain forests in WA or OR are owned differently than the same sort of landscape in the East. But I’m willing to learn.
November 14th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
What makes most western public lands “valuable” is the fact that the federal government subsidizes economic activity on these lands, whether it’s tourism, outdoor recreation, mining, oil & gas development, ranching or logging.
Offer to sell, a la the “Sagebrush Rebellion” in the 1980s, and you’ll find no buyers. The only exception is small parcels near urban areas like Las Vegas.
November 14th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Ugh. Matt, maybe you should gave Richard Pombo (R-Defeated) a call. I’m sure he’d be all on board with this.
This discussion is an impressive example of East Coast parochialism in action.
Agreed. Matt, before you publish a post, or form an opinion on ANYTHING west of the Mississippi, could you please move out here for six months, so you can have an idea of what the fuck it is you’re actually talking about?
November 14th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
And one of (Nevada’s) two major population centers is really close to the capital of California? (”Really close” on a Western scale, at least.)
Well, Reno is 132 miles from Sacramento, according to Google. In decent weather that’s a 2-hour drive. I don’t know if that counts as “really close” or not. But it’s not that close in practical terms. There’s a huge frickin’ mountain range in between them, so during the winter months its sometimes literally impossible to drive from Sacramento to Reno. If the roads are all open it could still take 6 or 8 hours.
November 14th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Some of the commenters on Tabarock’s post are spot on. Here in the deserts of the southwest, much of these lands are federal land because they simply aren’t worth much to anybody. They tend to be remote and inhospitable. The places that do hold some value tend to do so only under lease from the government (mining, ranching, etc), or as public recreation use areas (camping, offroading, hunting, etc) and viability for such endeavors would suffer or disappear under private ownership. Basically, nobody wants this land all that much, and it’s value tends to be greater as a public good than an individual holding.
November 14th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
I wouldn’t confuse sparsely populated land with economically useless land. It was always my understanding that the Great Plains was losing population because of increasing agricultural productivity, not because land was increasingly unused.
November 14th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
It would be nice to have historical land use data by state. Lots of declining agricultural land use in the East is the abandonment of grazing land and competition from agriculture further to the West. What is agricultural land use (including grazing?) doing in the Plains and the West?
November 14th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Worthless land is in the eye of the beholder. Every stupid shit like this comes up, the right wing nut jobs out here gain another 5 percent in the polls. And the land out here is only cheap by comparison to places where it is priced by the square foot. Even the worst pasturage in Montana goes for more than $100,000 per sq. mi. Hayland and top pastures easily double that. Farmland starts at a half million per sq. mi. and Iowa corn land is worth six times that. Now multiply that by 60,000 sq. mi. each for North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas and Nebraska.
Unpopulated doesn’t mean empty and it certainly doesn’t mean unused. Buying up the Great Plains states makes about as much sense as proposing to use the abundant unused office space in New York to stable livestock. After all, nobody wants it, so it must be worthless.
November 14th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
For what it’s worth, from my parochial Eastern perspective, I know hedge fund partners who have been agricultural land out in the plain states for the last five years, in anticipation of the coming economic collapse. The land is easy lease out and there are family connections.
November 14th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Right. The rural areas of the plains are losing population because agriculture is both more productive and far less labor intensive than it used to be.
The Iowa corn-growing farm land is a great case. That’s some of the most valuable farm land in the country, and the most productive. Yet the number of people required to farm it has gone down and down and down over the years.
November 14th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
A lot of the government land out west is either desert or mountain ranges. People can’t live there and it’s not suitable for agriculture. This is unlike Kansas or Nebraska where one part of the state is the same in climate and topography from every other part. I would like to see them install solar panel farms out in the remote desert areas as part of a new energy program.
November 14th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
I’m willing to study the issue, but let’s move very carefully. If you encourage more development, you will encourage more water usage. We already have less water than we need in many places. More people will be a big problem. So I’d use this criteria: If there’s some national forest land with enough water to support it’s own development, and that water can’t be transported anywhere else, and nobody already owns that water, then let’s consider it. Otherwise: No Way!. I doubt there’s any such land, but I’m willing to try.
Matt, you need to learn about water. Before I moved to Colorado, I had no idea what a water lawyer was. “Why would you argue over water?” I thought. Now I know. That’s pretty much the only thing we argue over out here. When something you really need becomes really scarce, it becomes the biggest issue. Even if this plan were possible, it will involve decades of legal battles over the water rights. And trust me, we have plenty of lawyers to fight those battles. And we’ll train more if we don’t.
November 14th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Seems to me as though ‘worthless desert’ could be transformed into ‘valuable solar (and wind) energy producing regions’ with a little help (i.e. federal funding and investment in long haul transmission line infrastructure).
November 14th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
“worthless desert”?
It’s plain you haven’t read Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire, Matt, one of the great books about the American West. Read Abbey and you will never think about the desert in the same way again. Abbey and Wallace Stegner BTW were both awed by the exploits and reports of the great explorer of the Colorado River, John Wesley Powell.
November 14th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Yes, the Federal government owns much of the West, but that’s largely because no one wants to live there. Yes, the West is growing, but that growth tends to be concentrated in specific metropolitain regions. Federal lands surrounding those growing metro areas have been sold off (see the Southern Nevada Public Lands Act) for development. The rest of the West tends to be dry and remote, without adaquate access to sustainable water resources, and prone to wild fires. Basically, not a place where people should live. In fact, the West really shouldn’t have that many people. It’s growth has been subsidized for decades by the Federal government in an ecologically inadvisable way. The fact is, the West doens’t have the resources to sustain the population that it already has. The well-watered East has subsidized massive public works projects over many decades to make the parched West habitable, and to what benefit? Also, those wildfires that you hear about every year all accross the West, well they’ve been happening out there for millenia, and they’re not going to stop anytime soon. Yet the government keeps spending money (about a billion dollars every year) trying to stop a natural, and necessary environmental process in the name of saving the homes of people too stupid to realize that they live in the West’s version of a flood plain. Lastly, I think you misunderstand what Federal ownership of Western lands effectively means. Most of that land is open for business. People live on it, work on it, drill for oil on it, graze their cattle on it, ride their ATV’s on it, harvest timber on it, plany crops on it, go hunting on it, build wind farms on it. Only a relatively small portion of that land is actually set aside as parkland, where uses are severly restricted. Those places tend to be areas of ecological wonder and beauty, the kind of places that make America unique. If you’ve been out there recently you might be suprised at how many foreign tourists come to see our most famous national parks. They’re our version of the Eifel tower, and I think we should be proud of that. Lastly, let me say this. As a blogger who is so concerned about sustainable and smart development, you should be against the rapid development of the West. Just as it makes no sense for America’s major urban areas to be so devoid of reliable public transport, it makes no sense that the West should be opened up to wide scale development. It doesn’t have the resources for it. The West is one of America’s treasures, precisely because it is so underdeveloped. While there are no wild parts of America left, the West still evokes that sense of nature’s gradeur that stirs the soul to wonder. It’s part of our heritage, part of who we are, a reminder of how new this Country is, and how we had to hard we had to work to build it.
November 14th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Well, Reno is 132 miles from Sacramento, according to Google. In decent weather that’s a 2-hour drive. I don’t know if that counts as “really close” or not. But it’s not that close in practical terms.
Yeah, a 2-hour drive is why I added that “in Western terms” caveat. Compared to the distance between Albuquerque and Las Cruces, the two largest cities in New Mexico, for example, (222 miles), 132 miles isn’t that much. I plead guilty about not knowing about the mountain range, though. Duh.
And the land out here is only cheap by comparison to places where it is priced by the square foot. Even the worst pasturage in Montana…
How much does the desert go for? (In Nevada, for example. I mean, “even the worst pasturage” still leaves out a lot of land.)
November 14th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
The Homestead Act.
November 14th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
They could sell Camp Pendleton and settle the national debt. Problem solved.
November 14th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Matt, sorry – but this idea is pretty stupid.
As someone who endured many childhood summers in the back of the family station wagon, arguing with my brother as he encroached on my space – I saw much of “flyover country”.
And there is no way you can call the unspoiled mountains, forests, and deserts of this country “worthless.”
Close your laptop and look out the airplane window the next time you fly to west.
November 14th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Does anybody know how these statistics compare to other industrialized nations?
November 14th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
As there is so much prarie land available, wouldn’t it be possible for dairy cows and meat(?) cows to raised on pastures?
November 14th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
They could sell Camp Pendleton and settle the national debt. Problem solved.
Now that is a good point. On the West Coast, the military owns tons of prime beachfront real estate. Some of it is necessary for naval defense purposes, but a lot of it — like Camp Pendleton — is not. This land is worth billions, even if you only allowed development on a tiny fraction of it and preserved the rest as parkland.
November 14th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Please explain the logic behind the assertion that it would make “a lot more sense for the federal government to concentrate its land holdings in places where people don’t want to live.” Is this self-evident?
November 14th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
I haven’t been able to find a reference lately, but I read once that Nixon put the national parks up as collateral when he abolished the gold standard. A lot of the federal lands have mineral deposits, some oil or coal, and/or trees. Drilling in the reserve might service the national debt.
November 14th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
What’s the water-supply future of those western states?
I keep thinking of the flood plains in the Mid-West and aqueducts or something. It seems so wasteful.
Then again, I catch my shower water and use it to water plants.
November 14th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
I’m for this idea, but only if we do a little rewilding at the same time.
Slate article
I’d pay to see a pride of lions take down a bison.
November 14th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Simon Schama’s documentary on water rights, land use and the different models of development seems apposite here. I hope an American network shows it soon.
November 14th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
I’ll pitch in my 0.02 as another born westerner. Selling off vast tracts of western Federal lands is a great way to encourage:
- added urban/exurban sprawl
- mine tailing piles
- forest clear cuts
- habitat reduction
- strain of surface and aquifer water supplies
November 14th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
As someone who endured many childhood summers in the back of the family station wagon, arguing with my brother as he encroached on my space – I saw much of “flyover country”.
I can still hear my Dad’s voice, decades later: “I’m going to draw a line down the middle of the seat. If your Mom or I see even one finger go across that line, I’m stopping the car!”
November 14th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
What Zach said, in spades.
November 14th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
They could sell Camp Pendleton and settle the national debt.
For me, a son of Orange County, an example of a really, really bad idea. The added crush of people along the coastal corridor would finish cooking our goose. Water, power, transport in and out of the area, what’s left of coastal habitat and estuaries… it just boggles the mind.
November 14th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
This is unlike Kansas or Nebraska where one part of the state is the same in climate and topography from every other part
My goodness, is this ever wrong. Eastern Kansas and Nebraska are productive farmland. Western Kansas and Nebraska are near-desert. Same with the Dakotas, Oklahoma, and Texas.
See the posts above citing Stegner’s “Beyond the Hundredth Meridian.” The significance of the hundredth meridian, which runs right through these states, is that it is approximately the line west of which there is too little rainfall to support traditional cultivation.
November 14th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
But, while we’re at it, lets just go totally Gold Coast on the whole enchilada, and sell off the Cleveland National Forest, too.
November 14th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
How about we turn a big chunk of the Nevada desert into the largest solar power farm on the planet?
November 14th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Instead of jaunting off to Switzerland, maybe Matt could spend a week in the West and learn a thing or two about his own fucking country.
Complete idiocy.
November 14th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
For me, a son of Orange County, an example of a really, really bad idea. The added crush of people along the coastal corridor would finish cooking our goose.
But Campe Pendleton already has a shit-ton of people — 100,000, Wikipedia says. And they’re always blowing shit up. If the govt sells they could include conditions that any development would be less harmful to the environment than the Marines already are.
November 14th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
“What’s the water-supply future of those western states?”
Umm, not good. Most people tend to think about Global Warming in terms of temperature, but not out here. Here, it’s the same old issue: water. Our snowpack will be really f***ed by global warming. Our water will flood us when we don’t need it, and not be there when we do need it. And it will take a long time to build to the reservoirs we need to cope with it. The issue is the timing of the melt.
“Then again, I catch my shower water and use it to water plants.’
Good for you. More people should do that. I don’t, but I can’t keep a plant alive, anyway. Except for my cacti, but they don’t use much water. I’m lucky if I can remember to water them three times a year. But they seem to be okay with that.
November 14th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Is there some huge demand for housing on top of nuclear testing sites that I have never heard of?
November 14th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Another term for “government-owned land” is “public land.” This where we non-Dick Cheneys recreate. It has massive value on its own, and in its availability to us to hunt, fish, hike, bike, camp or ride horseback, among other things. It’s a big part of what makes this country so freaking great, imo — lots of land accessible to us people who earn a lot less than a DC blogger. Really shitty ideal — though not a new one. W and others of his ilk have long been floating it.
November 14th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
The Midwest is only fertile when you add enough petroleum-based fertilizers and toxins to cause huge dead zones in the gulf every summer with the nitrogen run-off. Industrial mono-cropping is not sustainable.
With the flooding in the midwest, and the drought and fires in the West, maybe we need a water pipeline project. Environmentally, neither the midwest nor the west is really doing all that well. They don’t make much of a swap, unless you plan on radically changing land use.
November 14th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
But Campe Pendleton already has a shit-ton of people — 100,000, Wikipedia says. And they’re always blowing shit up. If the govt sells they could include conditions that any development would be less harmful to the environment than the Marines already are.
100k people during the workday. Most live off base. Most of those on-base are in barracks. They don’t use live ordinance outside of the small arms firing ranges. During a big maneuver, you may have a 1000 Marines up in the hills for a day or two. Short of turning the whole thing into a park, the USMC is probably about the lowest impact user one could find.
The Marines depend on Pendleton for the ability to practice air and amphibious maneuvers. It’s adjacent to one of the two major instrumented Naval exercise ranges. If they can’t do it there, the NIMBY factor is going to rear its ugly head just about anywhere else.
November 14th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Good points. I could be wrong about the necessity of putting Camp Pendleton where it is. But I do know that large-scale intense development is impossible on the California coast. The Coastal Commission just doesn’t allow it. Low-scale development might be higher impact than the base, but it’s not going to destroy the coast. And it would be worth billions to the federal government. I suppose coastal land is always precious, but it seems like the coast between Orange County and San Diego is particularly valuable as private-sector real estate.
November 14th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
But Campe Pendleton already has a shit-ton of people — 100,000, Wikipedia says.
If it were sold off to private developers, it would easily house another million or two.
As it is the U.S. Marine Corps is responsible for the biggest preserved chunk of preserved Southern California environment.
Also, add me to the many voices saying, “Matt, how about learning a little about the West before proposing to sell it?”
I’ll be happy to give you a tour around the Southern California deserts if you come out here. I can show you lots of urbanism in L.A., too.
November 14th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
This is a ridiculous map, too, because it doesn’t include STATE preserves.
In New York State alone, the Adirondaks are about the size of Rhode Island and Connecticut combined. They’re a state preserve. There’s the whole Catskill watershed, too, which is enormous.
That’s publicly held land, just held by another entity. Stupid map.
November 14th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Jesus, who is this guy, the second coming of James Watt?
No, don’t sell it to “solve” a short term fiscal problem and certainly don’t throw it to the developer wolves. Start managing it intelligently.
Period.
November 14th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
I’ll third the 100th Meridian.
People think the plains are flat, but often fail to realize that eastern Nebraska is only 840 feet above sea level while western Nebraska is 5,000 feet above sea level. Things get arid real fast when you start climbing that much.
Also, as someone who was taken on many a family roadtrip, as much as I despised the drives as a child, nothing gives you a sense of how truly large and diverse the geography of this country is like driving across it.
November 14th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
The argument to sell western lands for revenue has been around for a long time. Proceeds from federal land sales have been used to finance higher education–hence “land grant universities” established through the sale of western lands to raise money for agricultural colleges primarily in west and midwest.
The Reagan Administration under James Watt proposed a massive sell off of public lands that did not get very far.
Federal land holdings in the west are very complicated. It is often in a checkerboard pattern, and the government may or may not have retained rights to the subsurface (mineral) estate. Public lands often serve as defacto green spaces in many areas. Land holdings are not consolidated, but scattered all over most states. Public lands often have existing uses that would be hard to sort out–mining claims under the 1872 Mining Law; Oil, Gas, and Coal leases under the Mineral Leasing Act and other acts are just two examples.
The lands also frequently have high value recreational uses, and can serve as protected areas for such things as threatened and endangered species, archeological and paleontological resources, and wildlife habitat.
Selling them would be a real nightmare. Just ask James Watt.
November 14th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
“Worthless desert” according to whom?
Worthy enough for there to be more than 60 Wilderness Areas in Nevada, and for Rep. Shelley Berkeley to propose setting aside another 362,000 acres as the Gold Butte National Conservation Area.
Maybe you should take a trip to Nevada and hike the desert with someone who understands it.
Or, have you not read, “The Monkey Wrench Gang”?
November 14th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
I find two things interesting about this discussion.
First, those of us in the West are in agreement that Matt has no idea what he’s talking about. No surprise, he doesn’t live here. But that’s always been a problem for us in the West. East Coast solutions don’t work here.
Second, Those of us in the West aren’t really talking the same talk. I’m posting from a Colorado perspective and won’t touch the California issues. And those talking about California won’t really touch the Colorado issues. There really isn’t a consistent issue in the West. We face these issues differently. And these issues are very complex, which is why we only really understand the local ones. And why we’re all smart enough to stick to what we know.
November 14th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
If it (Camp Pendtleton) were sold off to private developers, it would easily house another million or two.
As I said before, given the political realities, I highly doubt that. The CA Coastal Commission isn’t going to allow another city the size of San Diego to pop up right next to the existing city of San Diego. You’d probably see some resorts, some private homes, some public beaches, some nature preserves. But overall, low-scale development. And almost all of the actual coastline would have to be publicly accessible, so no gated communities, etc. That’s the whole point of the Coastal Act and the Coastal Commission.
November 14th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
I suppose coastal land is always precious, but it seems like the coast between Orange County and San Diego is particularly valuable as private-sector real estate.
Yeah, to a handful of developers and people wealthy enough to buy coastal land. The rest of us just get the sprawl, the crowded freeways, the pollution…
Consider the possibility that there are some things more important than increasing government revenues. Once the coast is developed, it’s developed for ever.
November 14th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
I lived in North Dakota for 3 years. MHD is correct. The land is more productive now than it’s ever been, it just doesn’t take nearly as many people to farm it as it once did. There has been some controversy in recent years about range land west of the Missouri being taken out of production and converted to hunting preserves, but most of the state (especially east of the Missouri) is still cultivated.
November 14th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
I’d love to see where the water to support a greater Pendelton Metroplex might come from. Solar desalination, anyone?
November 14th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
“How about we turn a big chunk of the Nevada desert into the largest solar power farm on the planet?”
Sounds great, but what’s the water impact? Hopefully and probably minimal. But we need to ask that question first. And not dig until we have an answer. You must understand this: a shovel doesn’t get put into the ground around here until everyone knows whose water is getting f***ed with. And our lawyers will ensure that’s the case. But if it looks good and there’s money to be made, we’ll do it. But we’ll damn well argue over it first. You don’t touch ground here until everyone is sufficiently pissed off and moderately satisfied.
November 14th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
stefan@28 said:
In the Pacific Northwest, anyway, the general pattern is that the most valuable timber land – lowland temperate forests where Douglas Firs grow like weeds – are in private ownership, just like the east. Timber companies – Weyerhauser, Plum Creek, and others – own lots and lots of this kind of land in OR and WA. Broadly, the federal lands are much less productive; they’re higher, steeper, and drier. In the nineteenth century, what’s now federal land probably looked totally worthless – it was hard to get to, and there were more than enough trees, minerals, and the like that were more accessible.
November 14th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
The federal government should have sold Nevada land two years ago — but only for cash, none of these no money down mortgages.
November 14th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
“Solar desalination, anyone?”
They better have a lot of money to pay for that. It’s feasible, but super expensive. If there were an easy solution to water issues, we’d have found it. But we will go there. Eventually, we will have no other choice.
November 14th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
I assume that dot in Connecticut is the aggregate footprint of 169 post offices, plus 2 social security buildings and a federal courthouse.
November 14th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
The market value of Sheldon Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands corporation is down 95%. Las Vegas’s recent growth was a product of the Housing Bubble in California (Californians got home equity loans, drove to Vegas, blew them). Nobody is going to be wanting to pay good prices for desert 50 or 100 miles outside Las Vegas for a long time. The federal government missed its big chance to unload worthless Nevada land.
November 14th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
The CA Coastal Commission only has jurisdiction over a narrow strip of land along the coast through Camp Pendleton. There’s plenty of developable land inland of the Coastal Commission strip.
November 14th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
This is a ridiculous map, too, because it doesn’t include STATE preserves
What anonymiss said. I live in NJ now and there’s a state forest in practically every county, even some with a view of Manhattan. And just about every year there’s something on the ballot about preserving more natural spaces – gets approved every time.
November 14th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
“The federal government should have sold Nevada land two years ago”
The Federal government doesn’t have a team of water lawyers that can go against Nevada’s team. Trying to win that battle is like trying to win the Super Bowl with a high school team. Watt tried it, and we’ve learned from that. Want to try again? We’re ready, are you?
November 14th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
This idea is also stupid because it seems to be premised on the idea that the government doesn’t get any kind of income from these holdings, which is, of course, false. Now, the government has a long history of “selling” resources far too cheaply, but that’s fixable through policy changes; for example, repealing the 1872 mining law that requires sales of mineral rights for pocket change.
November 14th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
I love the idea of the buffalo commons. Among other cool things, it could involve reintroducing cheetahs back into North America. You could go on a safari in Kansas, and see big cats taking down antelopes. Awesome. Besides I think tourism might be a little better than it is for Wichita currently.
November 14th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
It seems that every time I venture here Matt has another crazy idea that might seem great to an Easterner but wholly ignores the geography of the West. (High speed rail along the coast from SF to Portland anyone?)
You really, really can’t imagine the effect of 14,000 foot mountain ranges and areas with 5-10 inches of rainfall a year unless you see the land firsthand. I’d also contribute to a fund to rent an RV for Matt so he can tour the West.
The significance of the 100th Meridian has been explained above. But as I think it was Bernard de Voto said, the West begins where the average annual rainfall drops below 20 inches a year. Or something like that. Even in the Bay Area the average is only 20 inches a year. And “average” is only a mathematical concept, not something that happens most of the time. Rather, we swing between wet and dry years, sometimes like right now very dry. So, yes, water is the key to understanding the West. The water in most states is all already spoken for, in some cases twice over. And global warming will result in less rainfall in the southwest (but more in the northwest). So more development out here is really impractical.
But this land (especially the desert) isn’t worthless. Maybe fragile, but not worthless. Most of it is indescribably beautiful. And it affords real solitude. We call it the Wide Open West–the WOW. Go take a look, Matt.
November 14th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Might have known- another “brilliant” idea from the same blog that brings us so many mindfarts from Tyler Cowen.
Aren’t economists great! All they need to know is how to manipulate some numbers, and hey presto! they’re creating billions and trillions in new wealth simply through the powers of their incredible intellects.
In reality, of course, the state and federally owned lands act as a buffer on the most destructive urges of pathological capitalism practiced on privately owned lands. In my own county the state ended up with over 50,000 acres after gyppo loggers clearcut the land and left without paying their taxes. The land is now managed as state forest on a sustainable basis. In other parts of the county state, federal, and private lands have been managed sustainably as part of an agreement to make sure timber would be available to keep a local mill in operation.
Time for Tabarrok to haul out another chart showing how “inefficient” it would be for him to actually learn anything when he’s playing in his sandbox of numbers. It’s his ignorance, not the scale of federal land ownership, that’s shocking.
November 14th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
@71 anonymiss:
Well, yes and no. The Adirondacks are a unique situation. Only about 43% of the Adirondack Park is owned by New York State. The rest is in private hands and is home to about 130,000 permanent residents and a lot of private commercial activity. So it’s a very different animal from the federal holdings in the West. I don’t think there are any public land holdings in the East that are remotely comparable in scale to the federal lands in the West.
November 14th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water water
November 14th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
The water in most states is all already spoken for, in some cases twice over. And global warming will result in less rainfall in the southwest (but more in the northwest). So more development out here is really impractical.
Phoenix, which is in the middle of the desert, is growing like crazy, and water doesn’t seem to be a significant obstacle to that growth. Conservation and new technology seem to outstrip limits on supply. If all else fails, they could build more giant canal systems to bring water from wetter but less populated parts of the country.
November 14th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
Only about 43% of the Adirondack Park is owned by New York State. The rest is in private hands and is home to about 130,000 permanent residents and a lot of private commercial activity. So it’s a very different animal from the federal holdings in the West.
Actually, permanent residents and a lot of private commercial activity make it very much like the a lot of the federal holdings in the west. (Ok, well, maybe semi-permanent)
November 14th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Phoenix, which is in the middle of the desert, is growing like crazy, and water doesn’t seem to be a significant obstacle to that growth.
Phoenix is at the edge of it’s water resources right now. At any moment, Los Angeles could swoop in, buy thousands of acres of land, and start sucking Phoenix dry. So could Las Vegas. Worry, worry, worry.
November 14th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Spent the first 25 years of my life living in and around Ohio, last nearly-30 years in Phoenix (typical Rust Belt to Sun Belt job move).
I’ll cut Matt some slack — I don’t think he’s being nearly as Eastern-biased myopic as some of you rugged-individual Westerners claim.
As long as it keeps snowing in the Colorado Rockies (source of about a third of our water, via the long-ass canal called the Central Arizona Project, courtesy of mostly Back East tax dollars — thanks redistributionist John McCain!) and in Arizona’s White Mountains (source of the other two thirds, also courtesy of Back East tax dollars spent on dam projects decades ago) we have plenty of water for the greater Phoenix area. For now.
Could global warming make this unsustainable? Certainly. If we don’t make the changes that must be made to drastically reduce greenhouse gases, it’s almost a certainty.
But it’s the same for SoCal, with a population many times that of AZ. All their water comes from snowmelt out of the Sierras, brought hundreds of miles via Back East-paid for water projects. Relatively few will care if Phoenix is massively-depoulating due to lack of water if LA is doing the same.
Oh, and a Buffalo Commons is a wonderful idea for the High Plains. How we actually get there I have no idea.
November 14th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
Weren’t they gonna bring back the dinosaurs to that place?
(Not the dinosaurs Linus. I think what you’re referring to is someone’s idea to repopulate the Great Plains with large game such as those who lived there tens of thousands of years ago. Lions, for instance, and giraffes.)
I see.
November 14th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
But it’s the same for SoCal,
Actually, the L.A. Department of Water and Power is getting really serious about water conservation measures on new construction now. Essentially they are saying that the only way that they’ll be able to have adequate water supplies to accommodate growth is through serious water conservation measures — waterless urinals, individual metering of water usage in multi-family units, drought-tolerant landscaping, etc. At a recent meeting I was at between the DWP and a developer (I’m with the City Planning department), they emphasized to the developer that they weren’t talking about a 20 – 30% reduction, but the pursuit of all feasible measures.
The problems are reduced snowpack from the Sierras, reduced water available from the Sacramento Delta, etc.
The good news is that the City is using about as much water today with a million more residents as it did 20 years ago. So conservation efforts are making a difference, but they need to do more.
November 14th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
I was an attorney at the Department of Interior from 1981-1986.
Federally “owned” land falls into a number of categories. “Public Land” is mostly land that the Federal government “owns” as an incident of sovereignty, some of it is reversionary land that came back to the Federal Government after the terms of a land grant (usually railroads) were not fulfilled. This is managed by the Bureau of Land Management.
“Acquired” land is land the Federal Government bought. Mostly this is managed by the General Services Administration.
“Forests” are mostly “public lands” that are managed by the Department of Agriculture (theoretically for harvesting forests, but there is a lot of forest in BLM managed Public Lands and a lot of scrub brush in the “forests”.
“Parks” are lands set aside and managed by the Park Service. Wildlife refuges are managed by the Fish and Wildlife Service. There aer also Monuments, conservation areas and various others.
“Indian” trust lands are “owned” by Indian Tribes and managed in “trust” by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Realistically, out of all the above, the only ones that can be sold are Public Lands and Acquired Lands. Acquired Lands get sold pretty readily when they are no longer needed. Public Lands are very hard to sell. Most of them are lands that after a century of homesteading, federal grants to states, creation of parks, grants to railroads, etc still remain in federal ownership. There is a reason; they tend to be dry, rocky, mountainous, inaccessible, not suitable for agriculture, etc.
When I was at Interior we would hold annual auctions to sell land in Clark County Nevada to put money into buying land around Lake Tahoe. Much of what we put up for sale never even got any bidders.
Any time the federal government starts to sell land it usually gets clobbered by a variety of interest groups, not the least of which are environmentalists.
I don’t know where the heck you are going to find this high priced land.
November 14th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
@97 Brian:
Point taken. But the distinction between private land development in the Adirondacks and mining and ranching leases in the West is significant.
Even if you add state and federal holdings together, the percentage of public land ownership in the East is still far lower than in the West:
Public Land Ownership by State
New York ranks 10th in terms of total state and federal land ownership, but the top 9 are all in the West, and New York’s 37% pales in comparison to Alaska’s 89%, Nevada’s 81%, and Utah’s 70%. And I’d argue that state ownership is a lot different in its political and economic impact than ownership by distant overlords in Washington, DC.
November 14th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
Yep, here goes Matt again, looking out his big urban window in the East and wondering, in addition to his dumb ‘popular vote’ canard, what else makes sense when one can’t see beyond their thumb (or at least across the metropolis on the Eastern seaboard?)
I’m tiring of these arguments. Poorly researched, myopic, and makes me wonder if all the other arguments and philosophies Matt espouses and presents are equally poorly thought out.
November 14th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
Correction: the chart I cited counts private land within state park boundaries in New York as state-owned. A 13% public ownership figure I’ve seen cited elsewhere is probably more accurate, which would still rank NY ahead of any other Eastern state.
November 14th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
Phoenix is at the edge of it’s water resources right now.
From the City of Phoenix Water Department’s website:
November 14th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
I commend Matt for his continued interest in Western land use and water issues, and hope he reads all the comments, which are pretty educational.
In the West, “Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting”.
Mixner says:
“Phoenix, which is in the middle of the desert, is growing like crazy, and water doesn’t seem to be a significant obstacle to that growth…If all else fails, they could build more giant canal systems to bring water from wetter but less populated parts of the country.”
Nope. Phoenix drinks three rivers dry and sucks the straw of the Colorado also, pumps groundwater, and recycles wastewater. It could conceivably keep growing, but it will require severe conservation. Global warming is already having an impact. The Colorado is apparently a diminishing resource. We are in a long drought that may never end. The cost of a canal from the Columbia River might not exceed the bank bailout, but could come close. What I’m afraid of is all the people from SW deserts will move to Oregon, like I did.
These vast empty Western lands are NOT worthless, to the contrary, they are our crown jewels. We must not sell them.
As to Oregon, the Willamette Valley (lots of rainfall) was developed in many little traditional farms and is mostly in private hands. But it’s a small part of the total. The Coast Range, Cascades, and eastern deserts have large patches of national forest, BLM land, state forest, and Indian Trust lands. Also large swathes of private timber land.
Cheers to all, and don’t bash Matt too much.
November 14th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
Nope. Phoenix drinks three rivers dry [blah, blah, blah]
Ah, right. We should certainly reject the information from the Phoenix Water Department on the basis of a bunch of unsubstantiated assertions by some guy called Al Peck.
November 14th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
People think the plains are flat, but often fail to realize that eastern Nebraska is only 840 feet above sea level while western Nebraska is 5,000 feet above sea level.
Incidentally, that whole slope is made up of stuff that has eroded off the Rockies. Geology is cool.
November 14th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Mixner, don’t you think the Phoenix Water Dept is going to be unreasonably optimistic about the state of water in Phoenix, just like the CA High-Speed Rail Authority is unreasonably optimistic about the logistics of high-speed rail in California?
November 14th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
Mixner, don’t you think the Phoenix Water Dept is going to be unreasonably optimistic about the state of water in Phoenix
No. If anything, I think they would have an incentive to be unduly pessimistic about it, to try and get support for more funding and projects. But if you have what you consider to be reputable sources that dispute the PWD’s basic description of the situation, I’d like to see it.
November 14th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Ah, right. We should certainly reject the information from the Phoenix Water Department on the basis of a bunch of unsubstantiated assertions by some guy called Al Peck.
The Phoenix District’s “100 years of planning” got their nuts into a vice. They figured that the climate of the early and middle 20th century was the baseline. According to the commies at the National Academy of Sciences (PDF Report), they figured wrong, and that all of the techno-fixes and conservation measures on deck aren’t going to change the fact that they’re getting a lot more customers sucking on a fixed or declining supply.
November 14th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
…and, if anyone in AZ, CA, or NV seriously thinks that they can just stick a straw in the Columbia or Mississippi River Basins to fix their problem is high.
November 14th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
No. 28 above,
The reason Oregon temperate forests have the strange ownership pattern they do (and I’m probably not getting this straight) has to do with reassignment of the land granted to a railroad (Oregon Coastal or California or something) that failed. There was a law passed (I think in the thirties) that broke up that land in very peculiar private/public parcels, sort of like a checkerboard pattern. And further laws since then have complicated things. It’s not logical, it’s historically contingent, but probably impossible to change very easily.
November 14th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
If anything, I think they would have an incentive to be unduly pessimistic about it, to try and get support for more funding and projects.
The LADWP was unduly optimistic until earlier this year, once their new general manager (H. David Nahai) took over and started looking at things realistically. In the Planning Department we knew water resources were scarce, but we had trouble asking for water conservation measures because the DWP kept saying they had adequate resources. Under new management, they acknowledged that that’s not the case.
November 14th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
cmholm,
The Phoenix District’s “100 years of planning” got their nuts into a vice. They figured that the climate of the early and middle 20th century was the baseline. According to the commies at the National Academy of Sciences (PDF Report), they figured wrong,
I see nothing in that report that is inconsistent with the PWD’s assessment. Perhaps you could be more specific.
November 14th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Apparently, the City of Phoenix and the State of Arizona don’t have any problem making grim predictions of water shortages when they think they’re warranted. That’s how they got the feds to cough up billions of dollars for the canal systems of the Salt River Project and Central Arizona Project, which bring water hundreds of miles to Phoenix and Tucson.
November 15th, 2008 at 11:04 am
Good Lord, I think this is the worst idea I’ve ever seen on this blog. Just because a land isn’t managed by the National Park Service doesn’t mean that it is not worth managing and maintaining for the public and for ecological consevation. Selling off beautiful, isolated National Forest Land so it can be strip mined and clear cut in order to buy a bunch of flat boring prarie in the Midwest? Uh, no thanks.
November 15th, 2008 at 11:49 am
Matt, I was wondering if you were going to acknowledge any of the criticism and issues brought up in the comments here, or if every couple of weeks or so you were going to blithely go ahead and tout your “eminently reasonable” plan for funding the federal government (or, at least, a plan to buy a bunch of prairie) by selling off Western BLM and USFS land without so much as a hint that there might be some problems with it?
November 19th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Anyone interested in the Buffalo Commons should go to my Rutgers website, policy.rutgers.edu/faculty/popper. The Buffalo Commons idea originated with me and my wife Deborah Popper, a geographer at the City University of New York/College of Staten Island and Princeton University. I chair the board of the Great Plains Restoration Council, gprc.org, the only group devoted to creating the Buffalo Commons. The idea has no particular link to the Sagebrush Rebellion idea of selling off the federal lands. Best wishes,
Frank Popper
Rutgers and Princeton Universities
fpopper@rci.rutgers.edu, fpopper@princeton.edu
December 8th, 2008 at 1:42 am
PINETOP — In order to meet ongoing Mexican wolf reintroduction project objectives, a pair of wolves will soon be placed in a temporary holding pen in preparation for their release in eastern Arizona. Arizona Game and Fish
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