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BLM a force on the land after 22-year era of acquisitions

By Rich Landers | The Spokesman-Review • Published February 25, 2009

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Basically, the era started in 1987 with 156 acres purchased at the Lakeview Ranch near Pacific Lake north of Odessa.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management — once the runt of land management agencies in Eastern Washington — was beginning a campaign to build its stature one parcel at a time.

As the two-decade flurry of land trades, acquisitions and consolidation winds down, the agency has become a regional giant for wildlife habitat restoration and public access to shrub-steppe wild lands.

BLM has increased its Washington land holdings from about 308,000 acres in 1985 to about 445,900 acres at the end of 2008, said Mark Hatchel, the agency's realty specialist in Spokane.

In that period, the largest gains have been in Lincoln County, where BLM has expanded more than tenfold, from about 7,000 acres to 78,800 acres.

But the benefits are larger than the gains in acreage.

By acquiring an 8,000-acre ranch here and a 10,000-acre ranch there, BLM started building a real spread where fish and wildlife could be housed and managed on equal or higher terms with livestock. Hunters, hikers and mountain bikers can enter a gate and travel freely all day through the scablands without stepping off public land.

Moreover, revenue to county governments has increased as the feds assumed more ownership.

BLM was not land-poor in the '80s. However, outside of a few areas such as Yakima County, the property the agency held was fragmented and scattered around the state. Many parcels of a few hundred acres or less were surrounded by private land and virtually inaccessible.

"Most of our lands were the leftovers after all the lands were claimed under federal laws, such as the Homestead Act," Hatchel said.

BLM's long-range plan was simple: trade or sell the small isolated parcels in order to buy larger areas and consolidate ownership that's more manageable as open space for recreation and wildlife habitat.

The details were complicated.

"BLM can do one-on-one land exchanges, but if a farmer wants cash or somebody else's property, BLM can't do the multiples," said Darrel Olson who worked for 20 years as a third party through his Orofino, Idaho-based company, Clearwater Land Exchange, to facilitate the deals.