BLM Seeks Input

By DARYL GADBOW 
Of the Missoulian 
Dec. 4, 1996

Bureau of Land Management officials said Tuesday they don't anticipate any major obstacles in a proposed land exchange that would give the public ownership of 12,000 acres along the lower Blackfoot River.

The BLM's Missoujla office held an open house Tuesday to provide information about the proposed exchange and to gather public comments.

In return for the Blackfoot land, which was recently purchased by the Nature Conservancy from Plum Creek Timber Co., the BLM would trade a total of 22,097 acres of public land administered by the agency. Those lands are in scattered parcels in Beaverhead, Granite, Madison, Missoula, and Powell counties.

The BLM exchange would take place with the Nature Conservancy, which would then sell the BLM lands to private buyers through a third party.

Most of the land BLM plans to exchange would be sold to owners of adjacent or surrounding property, according to Jim Ledger of the BLM. In Missoula and Granite counties, he said, much of the BLM exchange land would be sold to Plum Creek.

"The exchange facilitator has already been working with Plum Creek and other timber companies and grazing lessees to purchase the land," Ledger said. "They will try to line up the adjacent landowners whenever possible.

"It's not a situation where they put it up to the highest bidder. That would be a formula for disaster, because then you put somebody else inside somebody's ranch or something, with no legal access."

Nearly all the BLM land proposed for the exchange would continue its current use after the exchange, Ledger said. So far, he added, no major concerns or objections have been raised about the exchange.

But he pointed out that most of the publicity about the exchange has focused on the Blackfoot lands to be acquired, not the land proposed for trade. That's why the BLM scheduled Tuesday's open house in Missoula, and another one at the Drummond Community Center on Thursday, from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. We want to identify issues out there we may not be aware of as we start the process of environmental assessment," Ledger said. "We wanted to see if we were missing something."

Ledger said the BLM also will continue to discuss the proposed exchange with officials of the involved counties, to address tax-base concerns, and with Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks officials about fisheries and wildlife issues.

The BLM plans to issue a draft environmental assessment on the exchange by next March. At least a 30-day public comment period will follow, with a final environmental assessment completed by May.

"If things go smoothly," Ledger said, "we hope by the middle of next summer to do the closing on the transaction." BLM seeks input on land exchange