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"It's a beautiful country: rolling hills of windswept sagebrush broken by pastures, framed by verdant moraines that lead up to glacial lakes and glittering peaks. This palace of unspoiled beauty is the largest swatch of unprotected federal land left in the Lower 48."

"This is a way to buy local support for wilderness," says Janine Blaeloch, director of Western Lands Project, a Seattle-based nonprofit that monitors federal land use.

"From the top of Jerry Peak one can see for miles in every direction: great rocky slabs that make up the Pioneers and the Boulders to the south and the spiny White Clouds to the west. Giant fields of talus roll perpendicular to drainages and elusive springs dotted on mountain meadows reflect the sky."

A Chronicle of
Oxymoronic Reality

Development Paves the Way for Wilderness in Central Idaho

"Since 1972, approximately 65 million taxpayer dollars ($7.5 million in 2005 alone) have been wisely spent to purchase land or acquire scenic easements on private land parcels within the SNRA to prevent subdivisions and commercial developments. … Privatization of prime SNRA lands is a totally inappropriate means to an end to achieve wilderness designation,"
—Scott Phillips on behalf of more than a dozen retired Forest Service employees in an op-ed. in the Idaho Statesman, June 25, 2005 on threats to the Sawtooth National Recreation Area.

Written and Photographed by Eric Segalstad
for Headwaters News
May 18, 2006

Trotting up the steep ridge, each step takes me farther away from parking tickets, computer crashes, annoying ring tones and the after-work crowd at the grocery store.

I'm scouring the mountaintops, hoping to get a glimpse of Jerry Peak. All I see are rolling knolls covered with mountain brome grass, sagebrush and the occasional patch of old growth whitebark pine. Established trails are nonexistent in this magnificent sanctuary, and the least taxing route is only obvious to those able to read the contours and vegetation.

This breathtaking country, not far from Ketchum, Idaho, could be close to federal protection as a 301,500-acre wilderness area known as the Boulder-White Cloud Mountains. After six years on the drafting table, Congressman Mike Simpson's (R-ID), Central Idaho Economic Development and Recreation Act (CIEDRA) is written, fine-tuned and ready to meet the scrutinizing eyes of Richard Pombo (R-CA), leader of the House Resources Committee. The Committee heard CIEDRA October 27, 2005, but the bill must pass through both the House and the Senate before the President can make it law—time the bill's opponents, who find the cost of designation excessive, intend to spend well.

From the inception of the Wilderness Act in 1964 to 1980, Congress passed Idaho wilderness and scenic river bills every four years or so. In the 26 years since then, wilderness bills in Idaho haven't come very far.

Nationally, recent additions to the wilderness preservation system are scant compared to the past: 2.5 million acres included since 1995, increasing the 106 million-acre system by 2.4 percent. The last major addition was California's 7.9 million-acre statewide wilderness bill that established 70 new areas in 1994.

Given this meager legislative activity, CIEDRA is a major opportunity for many wilderness advocates, especially in Idaho. But despite the possible establishments of new wilderness, far from all wilderness advocates support it. The bill sports several contested components, such as motorized corridors and an economic development package for the surrounding areas. Perhaps the most contentious component of CIEDRA concerns federal land transfers to Custer County and its four sparsely populated communities: Stanley, Clayton, Challis and Mackay. The 4,925-acre county is slightly smaller than Connecticut, and the 2000 census counted only 4,342 residents.

It's a beautiful country: rolling hills of windswept sagebrush broken by pastures, framed by verdant moraines that lead up to glacial lakes and glittering peaks. This palace of unspoiled beauty is the largest swatch of unprotected federal land left in the Lower 48.

The Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service manage 93 percent of the county. Large-scale exploitation of natural resources is quickly becoming a memory of the past and local governments are struggling to maintain the necessary tax base to pay for basic municipal services.

Simpson hopes CIEDRA will alleviate some of that pressure, and he consciously plays land transfers as attractive bargaining chips for wilderness. If CIEDRA passes, Custer County and its incorporated cities plan on auctioning off plots to developers. Therein lies the controversy. What the bill call transfers, a substantial group of agitated residents and various non-profits label giveaways. Three plots totaling 162 acres in and adjacent to Stanley have stirred up the most furor.

Local government, hungry for a cash influx and an expanded tax base, is in favor of the transfer, while opposing organizations and residents fall back on two arguments.

One line claims developing the plots will threaten crucial elk habitat and prevent migrating steelhead trout that come 900 miles away from the Pacific from spawning in the Salmon.

The other asserts that giving away plots, some bought and protected under the Sawtooth National Recreation Area, and therefore owned by all Americans, is indisputably wrong. Ironically, factions involved in negotiations say the battle is over, while those not willing to budge an acre, like Janine Blaeloch of Western Lands Project, flatly states "Oh, it hasn't even begun."

But Blaeloch and others already have their hands full battling Pombo's recent initiatives. The chairman of the House Resources Committee proposed last Fall to close and sell 15 National Parks — approximately 23 percent of the total park system acreage — to drillers and private developers. Another initiative from Pombo's desk, an energy bill, could open production of 10.4 billion barrels of oil in the northern coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. The money raised from disposing federal land, he suggests, is for relief work and costs of rebuilding in wake of natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina.

The land transfers in CIEDRA, although microscopic in comparison, are meant to nurture the economic well being of Custer County. Unlike Blaine County, its wealthy neighbor to the south and home to Sun Valley, Custer's economy is a stew of ranching, retirement, government jobs and tourism. The old pillars of resource extraction continue to lose significance, according to a 2003 study by the Sonoran Institute. But there are hopes for a brighter future. Research indicates that communities surrounded by areas of immense natural beauty can gain from them. Blaine County was much like Custer until 1936 when Sun Valley fired up its lifts and became the country's first all-inclusive ski resort.

Stanley and Challis have benefited somewhat from being gateways to Sawtooth National Recreation Area (established in 1972) and the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness (created 1980). But even with 1.7 million visitors per year and a 2.5 percent citywide sales tax, Stanley finds itself without the means to have its own high school.

Visitors bring with them a substantial influx of cash to the area, but it's not enough to pay for adequate municipal services in a large and sparsely populated county.

Gynii Gilliam, the economic development director for north Custer and Lemhi counties, is excited about the transfers, but she also has reservations. The problem, as she sees it, is the lag time between enactment, when land is transferred and visitors presumably come in larger numbers, and sale. "We're fighting for direct appropriations upfront, because emergency needs will grow." Her logic is simple: as more visitors come to the wilderness, demand for public services such as police, upkeep of roads, fire crews and emergency care will increase rapidly — services the community is responsible to fund.

The appropriations are commonly known as PILT, an acronym for Payment In Lieu of Taxes — the federal ointment preferred by groups who oppose the giveaways on principle. PILT is handed out to help local governments offset lack of property taxes due to nontaxable federal lands within county lines. In fiscal 2005, Custer County received $390,504 according to data from the U.S. Department of the Interior.

"This is a way to buy local support for wilderness," says Janine Blaeloch, director of Western Lands Project, a Seattle-based nonprofit that monitors federal land use.

A recent paper titled "Quid Pro Quo Wilderness," co-authored by Blaeloch and Katie Fite of the Western Watersheds Project, argues that we're witnessing a new and dangerous trend of trading or giving away public lands for a pittance in return for wilderness legislation.

Oregon's Steens Mountains bill from 1999 was perhaps the first of these deals. Ranchers traded 18,000 acres for inclusion in the wilderness in exchange for 104,000 acres of public lands. In addition, the bill guaranteed them $5 million in cash and made the BLM financially responsible for all fencing and water development projects the ranchers deemed necessary on their new ranges.

One of the key players in the Steens Mountain legislation was Lindsay Slater, legislative director for Rep. Greg Walden, (R-Ore.). Slater is today Simpson's chief of staff.

In Clark County, Nev., a 450,000-acre wilderness bill included auctioning 22,000 acres of federal land near Las Vegas to real estate developers. The 2002 bill also included a controversial land exchange, granting the construction of a new road to cut travel time for commuters.

George Nickas, executive director for the nonprofit Wilderness Watch, is saddened by that fact that environmentalists help make these bills reality through negotiations with other interest groups. "These are diminished visions of what these places could be," he says. Wilderness Watch is a national organization based out of Missoula, Mont., that focuses on the preservation and stewardship of areas within the wilderness and scenic river systems.

Nickas characterizes negotiations surrounding the bills as "backdoor political games" focused on "what can I [as a user group] get out of it?"
View south from Jerry Peak on a frosty September morning toward the Pioneer Mountains. The haze is from a 40,000-acre forest fire raging 35 miles to the west.

Two years ago Slater told the Salt Lake Tribune "stand alone wilderness is done. The trend seems to be toward legislation based on compromise among various interests."

The Boulder-White Clouds bill is the latest quid pro quo wilderness according to Blaeloch, but she suggests an alternative to handing out free federal land.

"I'd rather see the government give them money," she says. "The very Congress that's screaming about the economic slump these communities are in is not giving them [enough] PILT."

Gilliam sees it differently. "Stanley needs employee housing. We're like Jackson [Wyoming] and Ketchum — surrounded by so much federal land that the people who work here can't afford to live here. The land exchange will hopefully change that, but I have some concerns about it, too. Conservationists buy up land for conservation easements, which I think is great, but as an economic development advisor, I see it reducing our tax base even further."

Idaho offers conditional tax credits to land owners who enter into conservation agreements or donate conservation easements to non-profit organizations. Income tax credits are awarded in exchange for improving habitat for wildlife and endangered plants. Half of eligible expenditures, such as removing barriers to fish passage or construction of ponds for waterfowl, are reimbursed. The limit is currently $2,000 per landowner for the tax year, although a case review can net the owner additional credits.

In 1999, the Forest Service paid $2.3 million for a 160-acre conservation easement from WOMAC Land and Cattle Company in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area. The easement reduced a 20-unit subdivision to three units, but without a plan for wildlife improvement, this particular easement wasn't awarded tax credits.

The deal was one of the first brokered by the Sawtooth Society, a nonprofit created in 1997 to oversee policies in the Sawtooth National Recreational Area.

"Our aim and mission is to protect the SNRA and particularly open space," says Bob Hayes, the organization's executive director. On the phone he has the weathered voice of an old rancher. Hayes has spent his entire life living in the Stanley Basin and trudging around the towering Sawtooths. He understands the complexities of the issue: SNRA must remain more or less intact, Stanley lacks affordable housing, and wilderness protection of the Boulder-White Clouds is on the agenda.

In the first draft of CIEDRA — Simpson called it a framework — land transfers numbered some 16,000 acres, an undisclosed amount of which came from the SNRA. It seemed Simpson's office spelled out the number without considering from where the acres came. The high acreage was unacceptable to most except city and county officials who dreamed of a healthy tax base supported by an avalanche of new residents.

"Simpson tested the public mind-set with the framework," Hayes says. The Sawtooth Society and others told Simpson they couldn't give him their support for CIEDRA, and the acreages evaporated in the subsequent drafts like morning dew on the basin's alfalfa. "It's been a give-and-take process and Congressman Simpson has responded accordingly," Hayes says.

A majority of the Society's members now accept the 162 acres slated for transfers. "The impacts on the SNRA are minimal. Our view is give them what they [City of Stanley and Custer County] need, but with deed restrictions," Hayes says. "We are very sympathetic to the people who get heartburn over this, and at one point we did, too, but given the political realities, we believe this is the best way to save the SNRA." Far from everyone concurs.

"These guys are smoking some funny stuff," says Scott Phillips, facilitator for a group of 13 SNRA retirees who like himself are ardently opposed to any transfers. "Simpson, ICL [Idaho Conservation League], Hayes and a few others have been sitting in backdoor meetings and invented their own little reality world. Taxpayers have already spent nearly 60 million dollars over a 35 year-period by purchasing tracts to protect additional SNRA land. Amazing progress has been made. CIEDRA intends to do the diametrically opposite [by transferring three tracts for development] and ignores public law 92-400 [the law that established the SNRA in 1972]. It's arrogance on the part of Simpson to even propose such a thing [land transfers]."

The group Phillips represents has so far published two op-eds in five local and statewide newspapers, and plans to publish a third.

"The Forest Service has spent nearly $58 million [figure from 2004] since the SNRA was established to protect the valley floors — and scenic vistas considered to be among the most beautiful in the mountain West," read the group's op-ed from August. "CIEDRA would reverse one of the very purposes for creating the Sawtooth NRA—protecting the Sawtooth Valley and Stanley Basin from development."

A plan for the plots
Negotiations among Stanley, Custer, the Forest Service and the Sawtooth Society resulted in a solution acceptable to those involved. The current, and presumably final, version of CIEDRA places deed restrictions on the plots. "They're modeled after the Forest Service restrictions set forth in the SNRA. They are very tight, very strict, prescriptive and designed to make sure the use of that land is consistent with the use in the area," Hayes says. The restrictions control height, setbacks, maximum square-footage, types of houses and more. In addition, a special committee made up of three Stanley-area residents and a representative each from Stanley and Custer, must agree on proposed developments before bulldozers can start gnawing the sagebrush and alfalfa.

It's a convoluted conflict, but a closer look at the individual plots in question removes some of the haze.

The first parcel is 8.3 acres and sits second-to-last on Benner Street in Stanley, a small town made up of log cabins and western ranch-style houses. During the 1970s the owner envisioned a sprawling trailer park on the green alfalfa, but SNRA management wasn't thrilled with the prospect of a trailer park with an unobstructed view of the magnificent Sawtooths. Consequently, the SNRA bought the plot with taxpayer money and preserved it as open space.

"We intend to sell the land for residential development," says retiring mayor Paul Frantellizzi. CIEDRA allows four single-story homes no larger than 3,000 square-feet on the parcel. The mayor thinks the city can sell the plots for $200,000-$250,000 each. Assuming he is right, the in-town plot could raise $1 million—five times Stanley's annual budget. "I suggested we take all or a significant portion of that and create an endowment for the community to use as a rainy-day fund or use the interest for the arts, educations or other causes," Frantellizzi says.

The second plot is Valley Creek (also known as Old Sewer Ponds from the creek's past use), a 68-acre chunk that's currently open space, but contiguous to the city. Frantellizzi says the city requested Valley Creek to be deeded for municipal purposes. Suggested uses include municipal housing for fire fighters, emergency personnel and teachers, develop the natural hot springs on the property for the benefit of the community, or a tent city for summer employees. The warm months are especially busy for the community and a large contingent of mostly young people work nearby at the popular Red Fish Lake, or down in the valley as guides, cooks or ranch hands. Stanley is too small for a rental market and land too scarce for affordable housing. But Frantellizzi affirms that the city will maintain a view corridor and push developments up toward the hill—restrictions carefully laid out in CIEDRA.

The third parcel is on a bench overlooking Stanley Basin, 80-some acres deeded to the county. CIEDRA allows for up to ten parcels with single-story houses no larger than 3,500 square-feet. The deed restrictions require that the houses are western style and not visible from the nearby highways. Given the estimated value of the land, there's a good chance most of the lots will be mostly-empty second homes. "I'd rather see families move in and their kids go to our schools, but it's market-driven," Frantellizzi says.

Idaho Conservation League's central Idaho director Linn Kincannon says the group can accept the SNRA land transfers because they are a necessary part of the political effort to designate wilderness in Idaho. ICL is the leading conservation group in Idaho, a position it enjoys due to political savvy, strong leadership, healthy funding and a willingness to meet halfway, according to a Blue Ribbon Coalition staffer. "We can't throw everything we don't like out of the wilderness bill," Kincannon says. "It just won't happen, because without compromise there will be no wilderness."

David Kimpton, a retired SNRA ranger, hunter and angler, is concerned about the loss of what he calls irreplaceable wildlife habitat. That elk enjoy Valley Creek in the winter is undisputed. However, some dispute labeling the wintering grounds crucial for elk habitat.

"It's certainly true that it's elk habitat," Hayes says. "But they [Kimpton and others] haven't made a credible case that they are crucial. The reality is that at that elevation [6,400-7,000 feet] elk are all over. They do use the Valley Creek area, and I suspect that they like them because of the hot springs."

Frantellizzi says he opposes the use of the word critical since it's subjective. "We live in hundreds of thousands of acres of wilderness so that those [few] acres are critical is a little skewed. Are we going to be considerate and think about the elk? Sure, but how much damage does a house on one-eighth of an acre pressed up against the hill do?"

Not much, according to Tracey Trent, chief of the natural resource policy bureau with Idaho Fish and Game. "It's true elk winter there," he says echoing Frantellizzi. "That doesn't make them winter range." Recent mild winters and locals feeding the elk have encouraged the large mammals to stick around the area. The area's average winters of sub-zero temperatures and five feet of snow, elk seek refuge in mild drainages such as the middle fork of the Salmon and the north fork of the Payette, Trent says.

With so many user groups demanding continued, exclusive or expanded access to public lands, heated debates and direct conflicts are an unavoidable part of the legislative process. At this point in CIEDRA's legislative process, user groups who have been consulted by Simpson's staff support the bill (with a couple of for-the-record reservations), while those not consulted are against.