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SPOKESMAN-REVIEW
IDAHO LAND BROKER WITHDRAWS
PROPOSAL
CLEARWATER LAND EXCHANGE SAYS
REPORTS LEFT PUBLIC WITH WRONG
IMPRESSION
Wednesday, March 31, 1999
Section: MAIN NEWS
Edition: SPOKANE
Page: A1
BYLINE: By Ken Olsen Staff writer
Memo: Ken Olsen can be reached at (208) 765-7130 or by e-mail at
keno@spokesman.com.

Land dealers are withdrawing their proposal for a 2-million-acre exchange of federal,
state and private acreage in Idaho, saying recent publicity has given people the
wrong impression about the swap.

The exchange - which could have become the largest in the West - was revealed in
news reports just two weeks ago. Clearwater Land Exchange of Orofino, Idaho, has
been contemplating the swap for the past five years as a way to consolidate federal
and state lands, trade acreage to the agriculture and logging industries and eliminate
private inholdings on public land.
``The Spokesman-Review recently prematurely published several stories on an Idaho
land-exchange idea that had been in the thinking and discussion stage for some time,''
Darrel Olson of Clearwater Land Exchange said in a prepared statement. ``That's
our fault. We talked about an idea before we had really fleshed it out and before we
had explained our vision of the concept of an Idaho exchange, permitting folks to
evaluate its real merit.''

People were wrongly left with the impression the proposal was quite far along, Olson
contended. ``Therefore, we have determined that it is in everyone's best interest to
take the idea off of the table.''

Olson was not available for questions. The company said the statement would be its
only comment on its plans to redraft details of the land swap. But there are
indications that federal Bureau of Land Management opposition was a major factor.

Clearwater Land's announcement came a day after BLM officials had expressed
anger at not having been told of the proposal even though the land trade would
involve selling, trading or transferring management of all BLM land in North Idaho.

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Over the past three years, ``I've been around some of (Clearwater's) folks on a
one-on-one basis on different occasions in different towns and there has never been
a comment made to me,'' said Fritz Rennebaum, manager of BLM lands in North
and central Idaho. Meanwhile, Forest Service, congressional staffers, Idaho state
Land Board members and some environmental groups were given presentations on
the plan.

``I feel that anyone who has such a large endeavor in mind should come to all the
parties involved and ask them to share in their vision,'' Rennebaum said Tuesday.
``So it certainly doesn't make me unhappy for them to withdraw it at this time.''

The BLM staunchly opposes having Clearwater Land engineer a trade, Rennebaum
added, because the agency believes it can make swaps that benefit the public for less
cost.

Earlier this week, Clearwater Land said it simply hadn't had time to pitch the plan to
the BLM.

People tracking the exchange welcomed its demise but question the motivation for
withdrawing the proposal.

``If they were working on it for three to five years, (news coverage) was not
premature, it was too late,'' said Janine Blaeloch of the Western Land Exchange
Project, which opposes trades. ``It probably points to their working up a proposal
that was not going to benefit the public interest, but was a land deal that was going to
make them a lot of money.

``There's no reason to keep this hidden unless there's something about this
Clearwater doesn't want the public to know.''

Even environmentalists who saw some merit in the proposal said the spectre of
secrecy was deadly.

``I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt in having good intentions,'' said
John McCarthy of the Idaho Conservation League, who was briefed on the plan last
summer. ``These are good guys. But I think with something this big and this sketchy,
people viewed it with a lot of skepticism.''

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