If, by some miracle, politicians made it to heaven, I bet you a few fly rods they’d start working deals to develop the “underutilized land.”
The current fervor for developing every parcel of land in the West is as absurd—and sacrilegious—as that statement. There’s a pervasive attitude amongst state legislatures, particularly in Utah, that seems to think that every valley in the Mountain West is underutilized if it’s not covered edge-to-edge in high-density housing.
Of course, to your face, these politicians tell you that you won’t lose hunting and fishing access. You won’t lose the ability to carry on the heritage of those who cared for this land before us. What’s truly awful is I think these politicians are telling the truth, because I doubt they view a pay-to-play recreation system as “losing your hunting and fishing access.” After all, who doesn’t have a lobbyist or two in their pocket that’ll float you down the Green or the Madison whenever it strikes your fancy?
Mike Lee is the current ringleader of this movement, and I’m not sure why he’s so determined to sell public lands. He claims it’s all about “restoring management to the states” and “letting those closest to the land manage it.”
I don’t disagree with those claims on their face. I’m as frustrated and distrustful of the federal government as everyone else is. And I’ve watched the Forest Service, in particular, make awful management decisions that have directly led to the destruction of some great trout streams.
One case that comes immediately to mind is the Pole Creek Fire in Utah back in 2018. It burned almost 100,000 acres, but it was detected when it was only a few acres. It smoldered for weeks while forest officials “let it burn” instead of putting it out during a historically dry summer. A half-dozen trout streams haven’t been the same since, thanks largely to mudslides and floods that have decimated fish and aquatic insect populations.
There’s also a canyon road that was destroyed by a mudslide in the spring of 2019—a direct result of the Pole Creek Fire—that still hasn’t been rebuilt, because the Forest Service can’t be bothered to work on it.
But here’s the rub that Lee and others of his ilk don’t understand—as frustrating as the feds are, that land is still public. I can still hunt, hike, and walk on it. The second it goes up for sale, we can kiss our recreation rights goodbye.
Another example, also from Utah: the Lower Provo River. The first few miles below Deer Creek Dam provide the best fishing, and even though the land along the river was privately owned, there were fishing easements that allowed anglers reasonable access to the water. Utah’s laws give ownership of the river bottom to landowners, similar to Wyoming and Colorado.
A few years ago, an out-of-state developer bought an RV park that had sprung up alongside the river. It has since turned into a “resort” and that developer has posted no-trespassing signs for miles. You can still access that portion of the Provo to fish, so long as you pay the resort a $50 trespass fee.
Now, that landowner had the right to do what he wants with his land. I’m not sure about the legality of locking anglers out, especially when there were existing easements that allowed fishing since at least the ’70s, but I’m no lawyer. But it’s his land, and he can do with it as he pleases.
But that’s a microcosm of what will happen across every piece of desirable land that gets sold if people like Mike Lee get their way. There won’t be any “management” for recreation. Not when developers will pay top-dollar for a great view and the chance to build multi-million dollar “ranches.” And not when those developers are more than just “good friends” with our politicians.
I don’t know about you, but the first thing I think of when I see the vast sagebrush plains or the grass-filled valleys here in the Rockies isn’t Gee, that’d look a lot better with a few thousand houses on it. Instead, I remark on how lucky I am to live where I do, and that we have so much incredible land preserved for our recreation.
There doesn’t need to be endless development out here. Wide open spaces are best left as just that—wide open.
Spencer, thank you. But this is getting old for me. You and everyone else is scared to death to call a spade a spade. It’s the Republican Party that is doing this shit. Mike Lee is a Republican. And so are all the people who want to sell our public lands to the billionaires. And the people who are fighting back in Congress are ALL the Democrats. I don’t give a flying fart if Republican fly fishermen get hurt little butts from hearing the truth.