Wildlife habitat value is pretty hard to quantify but if leaving these lands as such results in less revenue to the trust, wouldn't that be in direct conflict with the trust mandate? So what is a good solution to maintain the trust mandate but then protect the area?
That's the tough question, BRI. A question that groups have been working on for years, and working especially hard for the last two or three years.
Most thought a good solution would be to let the state land board trade out of these lands to lands that could produce similar royalty revenue, without the negative impacts that could happen to wildlife values.
This surprise deal, struck without knowledge of many groups who have spent years working on a good solution, pretty much put and end to that idea. Maybe it could be resurrected, but unlikely.
Had this been done in the light of full disclosure and not some dark room deal, it probably would have a different outcome as far as reaction from the groups who had invested so much time on finding alternatives.
Trust is not gained when groups are working in full public openness, striving to accomodate all sides on a very difficult agreement, and then a state agency strikes a deal to negotiate with a private company in complete confidentiality, and one day those hunting groups open a newspaper to find out a deal was struck without public comment and completely negating the work these hunting groups had invested. No other way to state that - just stinks of backroom palm greasing.
For me, when any group or any state agency thinks they need to operate in darkness when public resources are at stake, my "BS" meter maxes out. If it is a public asset, public policy, and public interest at stake, it needs to be done in the open. For those on a state committee to do that, seems like bad business. You are their to represent the public, so it seems you should have nothing to hide from the public.
And as much as some will defend the record of Anadarko, and I am glad Anadarko has a track record that leaves a positive impression, the mere fact that they asked for (and received) complete secrecy, does nothing to give me comfort that they don't have something they wanted kept quiet. Such secrecy inherently raises my suspicions, especially when requested on a topic where all sides know that large amounts of effort are being invested by hunting groups to try find a better alternative.
I guess time will tell. Will Anadarko be a shining example of who energy can be extracted in areas with extremely high wildlife values? I hope so.
Will they Anadarko the poster child for all that is wrong with the way energy companies have excelled at influencing state and Federal agencies to accomodate their interests at the expense of the public interest? I hope not.
Regardless of how Anadarko operates in this exploration, this kind of deal is the poster child of why I do not want states taking over Federal public lands in the west. This example is in Utah - a terrible example of how a state agency should operate when representing the interest of their citizens.
Utah also has legislation demanding that Federal lands be conveyed to the state. Really, with this kind of a track record of how the state is going to represent their citizens?
Colorado has a similar effort afoot to take over Federal lands in CO. For those who don't know or aren't aware, in Colorado, you cannot hunt state lands unless the state has leased the hunting/access rights. Imagine if all the Federal lands in CO went to the state of CO. All that public land we now have would only be accessible if the budget-strained agency of Colorado Parks and Wildlife could lease back all the hunting/access rights from the state land board. How much hunting access you suppose would be lost in that state take over of public lands?
And now, in Montana, we have the legislature funding a study and survey that leads exactly down the same path. I might lose this bet, but I will bet anyone and everyone a DQ Blizzard that in the 2015 legislative session, a Montana legislator, surely one of the fringe operators, will use that study and survey to support their effort to follow UT and CO in demanding Federal lands be turned over to the state.
