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Background: The Oregon Standoff and Federal Lands Acquisition
Many here are likely following the prosecution of the Hammond family in Eastern Oregon, and the subsequent occupation of the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) by out-of-state militia members. There’s plenty of background on the legal and other proceedings available, from one side or the other. What I couldn’t find is a map to give some context to the events that have ensnared the Hammonds. So I set out to find one, and the results shed some light on the Western Federal lands issue.
Here are the current boundaries of the southern portion of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Oregon:
The town of Burns and the NWR headquarters are off-screen to the north (see the inset on the left). So just where is the Hammond ranch? Interestingly, a query to Google Maps returns a pointer to the occupied headquarters building. However, a dig into real estate listings finds Hammond Ranch Road — where I presume the Ranch is — roughly between the Benson Pond and Krumbo Reservoir shown on the map above. Here’s a Google Earth screen snap of the area:
It’s a reasonable bet that the center-pivot irrigation areas shown are the center of the Hammond ranch operation.
The red lines? That’s the interesting part. I got that by downloading the Fish and Wildlife Service’s Approved Acquisition Dataset and converting it to Google’s KML format. That’s the land they either own already, or have their eyes on. Compare the Google Earth snap to the NWR map, and you can see that the Hammond’s operation is already largely surrounded by the refuge territory, which includes almost all the surface water in the area. The acquisition map takes in the remainder of the surface water features. Note that the Hammond family was forced to grant the Federal government a right of first refusal on any sale of their property in a previous settlement.
Other than the partisan political implications, the Hammond case is drawing attention as an example of the Federal occupation of Western lands. Harney County is a good example, with 75 percent of the land under government ownership. Over half of Oregon is still owned by the Federal government (see Table 1 of this PDF), and that is actually low for Western states. While the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has slowly disposed of its holdings, the Fish & Wildlife Service, National Park Service, and US Forest Service have increased their holdings (see Table 3 at link above). Some of that growth is apparently happening through pressure or overt coercion on landowners.
How close is this story to you? You can find out. The FWS’ 2016 land acquisition budget is here. I have posted my KML conversion of the acquisition dataset as a Google Drive download. (Warning, it’s over 100 MB.) If you have Google Earth installed, you should be able to add this as a “Places” overlay. It’s a large dataset, so Google Earth will slog a bit, but once you zero in on your location, it should be fine.
Published in General
My family owns land in the middle of a massive Federal holding in Idaho. The Feds do everything they possibly can to convince us to sell – every nasty, obnoxious, hostile tactic you can imagine.
In my childhood home, “FEDS” was an obscenity.
Wow this is great geo-spacial work. Thanks.
Out of curiosity, where in Idaho? (I’m an Idahoan, located in the Treasure Valley.)
My great uncle was known as Buckskin Bill. See.
This is a great post. Thank you. The Hammonds have been brutally treated by the Feds. On one of your links I found this gem of information, which undoes the idea that refuge land is better for wildlife than private property that is actively used:
A private group in Alabama raises funds to buy privately owned wetlands and turn those over to the government for conservation. Bureaucrats aren’t the only ones to blame for the expanse of “public” lands off limits to the public.
This is a fascinating post, and I was dumbfounded to learn from your link to table 1 that the Federal government owns 89 percent of Nevada. I’m not sure how I made it to my age completely unaware of that. How much of that is used by the military?
My understanding is that the Hammonds are holdouts who won’t sell their land to the government. The whole thing really springs from that problem. These people have been tormented terribly by the government. These sorts of abuses are the sparks that eventually light the fires of rebellion.
According to some sources, the wetlands exist only because of the irrigation systems created by early ranchers in that area. Migrating birds were attracted to the improvement, then the government took it over.
A lot in Southern Nevada–hence the fascination with Area 51 and the attempt to use Yucca Mountain to dump radioactive waste:
I’m sympathetic, so this isn’t an attempt to be contentious. Due to conflicting reports, I’m confused about the arson–it was a crime, correct? I know the sentence imposed was controversial, but where is the line to be drawn between civil disobedience and willful violation of the law? My general feeling is that highlighting and curbing federal abuses in this area is a “hearts and minds” issue in terms of winning over uneducated Easterners (such as myself), and perhaps there are better ways to go about it than arson and armed occupation.
A wildlife refuge is paid for by fishing and hunting tags and licenses and by excise tax on guns, ammo and fishing equipment. So when you say FED, I tend to think in terms of sportsmen owning it.
Claire – Table 2 in the same document says 3,019,170 acres of Nevada is owned by the DOD, so 4.3% of the state and 5% of the Federal holdings. Area 51 and Nellis AFB get the press, but 68% of Nevada is held by the BLM – one agency! If you are driving past vacant sagebrush land in the West, odds are that it’s owned by the BLM. When the Fedgov stopped selling off lands in 1976, BLM fell heir to what the homesteaders hadn’t wanted, regardless of whether it might be viable today. They do lease some of it out, but who’s going to put capital into land that can be taken back at the whim of a bureaucrat?
Fringe causes like the Bundys are played up by the MSM. Overt conflict sells, and it hides the fact that this is serious business in the West. We’re about to see the state of Utah sue the Fedgov on grounds that indefinite retention of public lands is unconstitutional.
ETA: Here’s a map that provides some context:
Credit: Big Think
Civil disobedience is willful violation of a law one considers unjust. There is no line.
This topic brings to mind the royal forests of England. As I understand it, William II made it a death penalty crime to kill a deer in the King’s forest. He was killed in a “hunting accident,” possibly as a result of his unjust rule. One of the purposes of the Magna Carta was to reduce the king’s sole rights to the forest. So, history does repeat itself, or rhyme as they say.
Point taken. Should I have said relatively passive civil disobedience and overt and active willful violations of the law?
Nope. Thoreau actively violated the law by passively refusing to pay his taxes.
You seem to be referring to the difference between “civil disobedience” and “protest”. IMHO.
The abusive appeal of their sentence was merely the capstone in a long arch of abuse. The government wants their land, and they may eventually get it, liberty and property rights be damned. If the sources are to be believed, the BLM was barricading a county road that connected parts of their property because it crossed over BLM land. When the Hammonds obtained water rights for watering their cattle, the BLM fenced them out of the water they had legal rights to and had them arrested for interfering with the fence construction. If only half the reports are true these people have suffered greatly at the hands of our government.
Northern Nevada has Fallon Naval Air Station, where the Top Gun School is. Also a big radar research installation.
Perhaps. But, in this instance, your appropriation of “actively” for a passive act strikes me as a quibble. I’ll agree to disagree in the interest of not derailing the thread.
If only the sportsmen administered it…
Seriously, there’s a major difference between water and water rights in the East and West. In the East, having surface water locked up in a wildlife preserve isn’t such a big thing. “The rain falls on the just and unjust” alike – there’s usually plenty to go around.
In the arid West, with strict seniority water rights, it makes a big difference. If the senior water rights are locked up by the FWS or BLM, it makes the surrounding sagebrush perpetually useless. Read the Hammond story again, and note how water access plays into it.
That sagebrush country was ignored by the original homesteaders, but they didn’t have things like drip irrigation and access to high-density energy sources. Keeping it off the market is an economic harm to the West.
This is hardly a new observation, BTW. This is how late 19th century cattle barons locked up enormous parts of the West. Control the water holes, and you have effective control of all the rest. Just that it’s the Fedgov doing it now, and they respond more to enviro lobbyists than to the locals.
This is beautiful and going on my prayer list.
Wildlife don’t need designated safe spaces. They’re heartier than students at our elite schools. They know where they’re likely to get shot, so they leave. That is why towns, villages, and low hunting ranches are overrun with wildlife. Moreover, they know when hunting season is about to begin and move to safe places. So wildlife management is necessary but there is no reason for the Feds to own the land, indeed often quite the contrary. Another example, the elk with strong migrating instincts left Yellowstone and gradually, over the decades, were shot. Now the home body elk descend on Jackson Hole in the winter and have to be fed.
Read Eco-Fascists, yet?
I don’t agree to that.
;-)
From what I’ve heard the arson beef resulted when the Hammonds started a backfire on their land to contain a wildfire adjacent to their property and it burned 150 acres of BLM land. Also, the prosecutor tried them for domestic terrorism but didn’t tell the jury what they were charged with or that the charge had a 5 yr mandatory minimum.
This whole thing stinks to high heaven and I believe this sort of abuse happens all the time but most folks just don’t have the means to fight the federal government.
This country is not as free as people believe.
Perhaps the difference between civil disobedience and insurrection or rebellion?
2 fires. The 2001 fire was to manage invasive species and it burned 139 acres of public land. The 2006 backfire to combat fires started by lightning strikes only burned 1 acre of public land.
It’s important to remember a point I’ve heard (I think) Mark Steyn make: doesn’t matter who is President or who has control of Congress. These federal bureaucracies will live on and thrive.
Employees of these agencies don’t get fired for actions that would land we peons in jail.
Home of the free indeed. I don’t think it’s been thus for a very long time.
As noted above, this is sounding remarkably like the late 19th century Range Wars, with the BLM in the role of Cattle Baron. Apparently Ammon Bundy sees himself as Shane.
I’m strangely comforted knowing this isn’t anything new.
I’m discomforted when I remember who actually won the Range Wars…