I was recently one of about 130 people who attended a local meeting hosted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service concerning the federal government’s land-conservation proposal called the “California Foothills Legacy Area.”
As reported, that plan could affect about half of San Benito County’s total acreage – nearly 500,000 acres locally and 3.4 million statewide. The objective is to have the federal government buy easements that will set aside rangeland deemed as crucial habitat for threatened and endangered species.
I have no cattle or kangaroo rats in this fight; I don’t own any of the land under consideration. I spend time sitting in front of a TV or laptop, not out on the range. However, I hate to see anyone go into a deal they might not understand, especially with the federal government that employed 31,797 practicing lawyers in 2009, according to the Office of Personnel Management.
The federal government is probably rolling out this plan now because they see an opportunity to buy up easements at low prices with the demise of California’s popular Williamson Act and its associated payments. The Williamson Act was designed to preserve agricultural and open-space land in danger of premature conversion to urban uses.
There appears to be funds available for the foothill legacy project in spite of the national economic crisis. The only unprotected endangered species remaining is the rapidly disappearing Homo sapiens americanus. That’s also the one species they are willing to let evolve into a lower form, the Homo sapiens penuriosus.
The big laugh came when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service representative insisted the funding would not come from tax money. It is true that the Land Water Conservation Fund would pay for the easements using money put aside from offshore oil and gas drilling revenues. That’s not income tax money, but it’s certainly tax money – the cost to the energy companies is passed to the consumer, which is a backdoor tax. For instance, it could be used to pay some of the national debt. Washington is technicality oriented. Ranchers are just practical people – to them government revenues are all tax money.
Another issue was mineral rights. If an easement is sold the landowner or other holder would retain their mineral rights. They just have to figure out how to get the minerals out without disturbing the surface, the habitat or the critters residing there – a neat trick if you can pull it off.
The easements were required to be “in perpetuity.” Perpetuity means forever – and forever is a very long time. It was obvious that some in the audience either missed that part or had trouble with this lawyer word. The briefing could have said that the easement was forever, but forever is a cold-water-in-the-face wakeup word unlikely to be misunderstood.
Since the government wants to control the land, why don’t they just buy it? The reason is that with an easement, the owner remains, but it effectively gives the government control of the land for a fraction of purchase price – and they will have it forever.
The biggest problem was that the briefing, comments, and answers provided by the representatives have no force of law. The only things that count are the provisions of the actual easement agreements. I’m sure boilerplate agreements are available, but no samples were provided.
Those who are interested will certainly need their own lawyer to sort out the details of an agreement that will stay in force forever; perhaps two or more lawyers would be better.Â
