GAO Blasts Plum Creek Forest Service Backroom Deal

On Friday, October 10, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a detailed letter taking the Forest Service and Plum Creek to task for their backroom dealings to renegotiate thousands of miles of road rights-of-way to allow for residential development on Plum Creek Lands.

These rights-of-way were originally granted beginning in the 1960s, for timber harvest purposes.  But Plum Creek Timber Company, the nation's largest private industrial timberland holder with more than 8 million acres nationwide, became a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) in 1999, and since then, they've decided that they could make more money selling land than selling logs.  While the real estate market may not be particularly hot right now, the lack of clear road easements for real estate development was definitely putting a kink in Plum Creek's long term plans.  

Fortunately for them, at least at the time, they found a friendly ear in Mark Rey, the Undersecretary of Agriculture in charge of the Forest Service.  Thus began the secret negotiations mentioned above, and eventually made public in April 2008.  Because of the profound impact this easement renegotiation would have on checkerboard lands in the wildland urban interface in Montana, US Senator John Tester requested that the GAO conduct an investigation into the legality of the renegotiation. The letter released on Friday, October 10 provides an initial response to that request, but does not constitute a legal finding.  The letter provides an excellent history of the situation, and the footnotes in particular provide strong legal arguments against the renegotiation.  

Here's the concluding paragraph, which definitely makes the tone of the letter clear (FRTA = Forest Roads and Trails Act of 1964):

"The draft easement amendment would establish USDA's position that all FRTA easements across the west meeting the template language provide for access as stated in the amendment. USDA has thus far foregone the opportunity to analyze alternatives for addressing this highly complicated matter in a systematic public way, whether by carrying out an analysis under NEPA or doing so in some other fashion. USDA's approach has also deprived it of the opportunity to obtain the public's views on a matter of intense public interest in a manner that might meaningfully inform the agency's decision, as well as the opportunity to allay public confusion over the agency's current FRTA easement management policies."

While the GAO letter is not a formal legal opinion, it seems clear from the above paragraph that they have serious concerns over the agency's failure to conduct a National Environmental Policy Act analysis on this process.

For another review of the PCTC/FS process and the GAO letter, see this article (10-11-08) in the Missoulian.

Stay tuned to Wildlands CPR's website to keep up to date on this story, which definitely affects rights of way issues nationally, not just in Montana.