Land Exchange Update
Western Land Exchange Project
Seattle, Washington
Research, Advocacy, and Outreach
for Land Exchange Policy Reform
June 1999
COURT HALTS LOGGING
ON LAND TRADED TO
WEYERHAEUSER
By Rachael Paschal, President,
Western Land Exchange Project
Testament to the destruction wrought by the
Weyerhaeuser Corporation, Huckleberry Mountain
is wasted with clearcuts and roads that have
brought the Green River watershed to the very
edge of ecological collapse. But a recent decision
from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has afforded
Huckleberry Mountain a temporary reprieve.
In 1996 Weyerhaeuser (Weyco) and the Forest
Service (USFS) entered into an extraordinary deal.
In exchange for 4,300 acres of the last remaining
native forest on Huckleberry Mountain in the Mt.
Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, the public was
traded about 30,000 acres of corporate lands,
consisting mostly of clearcuts, young plantations,
and high-elevation “rocks and ice.”
Pilchuck Audubon Society, Huckleberry Mountain
Protection Society, and the Muckleshoot Indian
Tribe opposed the trade, and sued in federal court.
After losing there, attorneys David Vogel and Greg
O’Leary appealed to the Ninth Circuit.
In oral argument held in Seattle in March, three
appellate judges severely questioned USFS
attorneys about the adequacy of the environmental
analysis. The judges appeared incredulous when
Weyco’s attorney argued that the appeal was moot
because deeds had already been exchanged and
Weyerhaeuser had “destroyed” ten percent of the
land. (Weyco later stated that it had received
permits to log that amount, but had only logged 3
percent).
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Vol.3, No. 2
The landmark May 19, 1999 opinion in Muckleshoot
Indian Tribe, et al. v. U.S. Forest Service held with
the plaintiffs, stating that the decision to approve
the Huckleberry trade was flawed and must be
returned for further analysis. The decision
unequivocally established that federal agencies
must conduct a more comprehensive review of land
exchange proposals under the National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The Court also
addressed impacts to cultural resources—a pivotal
issue for the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, to whom
Huckleberry Mountain is of great historic and
spiritual importance.
Destruction of an ancient Indian trail
The trade gave Weyco a lengthy section of the
17.5-mile Huckleberry Divide Trail, an important
ancestral transportation route of the Muckleshoot
Indian Tribe. The trail is protected under the
National Historic Preservation Act, yet Weyco’s
logging would plainly destroy it. The Court rejected
the mitigation plan, which entailed photographing
and mapping the trail it prior to its destruction.
The Court remanded, suggesting that deed
restrictions (such as easement or covenant) would
provide more appropriate protections.
Cumulative effects
The Court also remanded on two NEPA issues.
NEPA requires agencies to analyze the cumulative
effects of a project in conjunction with past,
present, and future projects in the same area.
In this case, the analysis would have to look at the
1984 Alpine Lakes Land Exchange, which
transferred several thousand acres in the Green
River out of federal ownership, as well as Plum
Creek Timber Company’s upcoming I-90 Land
Exchange, trading public lands in the same
watershed. The USFS had argued that the I-90
Exchange was too speculative to warrant
Land Exchange Update
June 1999
consideration, but the Court noted that the trade
was announced five months before the Huckleberry
decision was approved.
The Court found that the cumulative effects
analysis was “very general and one-sided,” that it
“failed to evaluate the near term impacts of
Weyerhaeuser’s logging of old growth timber in any
meaningful fashion,” and that the “Forest Service
abused its discretion” in ignoring the impacts of
other exchanges.
New alternatives: restrictions or purchase
The Court ruled that the agency did not fulfill its
duty under NEPA to consider an adequate range of
alternatives for the project.
Lands traded on both sides of the Huckleberry swap
fall within the “checkerboard” of alternating public
and corporate-held lands created by the Northern
Pacific Railroad land grant of the 1800s. The
purpose of the exchange was to “consolidate land
ownership patterns where consistent land
management applies across large blocks of land.”
But the EIS considered only three options—the
required “no-action” alternative and two very
similar exchange scenarios.
The Court upheld plaintiffs’ argument that the
agency should have considered at least two other
alternatives. The first—deed restrictions on the
land traded to Weyco requiring more protective
logging standards—had been eliminated from
analysis by the USFS because it would decrease
Weyco’s incentive to trade. The Court pointed out
that land exchange regulations promulgated under
the Federal Land Policy and Management Act
(FLPMA) specifically direct agencies to reserve
rights on public exchange lands where necessary to
protect the public interest. The Court was troubled
that the USFS failed to consider this alternative,
which is “more consistent with its basic policy
objectives” than the alternative that was approved.
A second new alternative would involve outright
purchase of the Weyco lands using the federal Land
and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), specifically
earmarked for public land purchases. The USFS did
not analyze this option, arguing that the availability
of LWCF funds was too speculative to consider.
The Court found that LWCF purchase was in fact a
reasonable alternative and should have been
analyzed.
2
Logging is stopped
The Ninth Circuit ordered an immediate halt to
logging and other activities on the exchanged
lands. The vast majority of the forest traded to
Weyerhaeuser still stands. Now, the USFS is
charged with conducting a new analysis to address
the deficiencies in the 1996 EIS. Clearly, this will
affect the configuration of the Huckleberry
exchange, but it also raises the possibility that the
trade might be reversed.
It would be difficult to overstate the potential
impact of the Huckleberry decision on federal land
exchange policy. Agencies must now consider new
alternatives, better enabling the public to weigh the
effects of swapping land unencumbered to private
interests. The decision also affirms the right of the
courts under FLPMA to review whether a land
exchange serves the public interest. The Ninth
Circuit’s decision clearly demonstrates that land
exchanges must be held to a higher standard.
We owe a debt of gratitude to Pilchuck Audubon,
Huckleberry Mountain Protection Society, and the
Muckleshoot Indian Tribe. Their controversial and
difficult battle pays tribute to Huckleberry Mountain
and to all public lands sacrificed under misguided
land exchange policies.
For background on the Huckleberry Land Exchange, see
past issues of Land Exchange Update, posted on our web
site at www.westlx.org. The Ninth Circuit decision can
also be read from a link on our “press room” web page.
CROWN PACIFIC SETTLES
Photo: Kathie Durbin
Think we should give them some more trees?
Land Exchange Update
June 1999
 CROWN PACIFIC SETTLES
TO BLOCK FURTHER LITIGATION
In a move to block further court challenges against
its land exchange with the US Forest Service,
Crown Pacific, L.P. has offered a settlement that
would protect about 3,000 acres of old growth in
the Deschutes National Forest in central Oregon.
In October 1998, the timber company and the
Forest Service were sued by the Western Land
Exchange Project, Sierra Club Juniper Group,
Central Oregon Forest Issues Committee, and Wild
Wilderness. Plaintiffs are represented by Carrie
Stilwell of Western Environmental Law Center in
Eugene.
Among the central issues brought by plaintiffs was
the net loss to the public of 3,000 to 3,500 acres of
old growth. In a mid-April decision, Federal District
Court Judge Helen Frye decided in Crown’s favor.
Despite this victory, Crown quickly offered a
settlement in order to fend off further appeals.
Crown proposed a “special management area”
(SMA) on 3,040 acres of the public land the
company would receive in the trade. The SMA
would be managed to create habitat for old-growth
dependent species including the northern goshawk
and the white-headed woodpecker, both indicator
species for old-growth Ponderosa pine habitat.
Old-growth Ponderosa pine is one of the most
endangered plant communities in the world, and it
is estimated to have been reduced to about 3
percent of its original range in the Deschutes
National Forest.
Plaintiffs called off negotiations in late April when
Crown’s offer went from vague to worse and the
company refused to accept input. In a statement
issued to the press, Sierra Club spokesperson
Sandy Lonsdale said, “What they originally offered
! ! ! !
We wish to acknowledge the invaluable help (in its myriad forms) of David Vogel, Sharon Gilpin
and John Bodin, Sandy Lonsdale, Andy Ryan, Steve Huddleston, Tim Lillebo, Tom Squires, Stevie
Staples, Ray Ziarno, the Heartwood clan, Tim Greyhavens and Jen Clanahan, Dave Bahr and Dan
Stotter, John Loftus, Stuart Lewin, and Judi Brawer and all the folks at American Wildlands.
3
was a long-term conservation plan, but this is more
like a quick-liquidation logging plan.”
Crown reopened negotiations soon after. Plaintiffs
changed the boundaries of the proposed SMA,
removing much of the trashed land the company
was offering and adding several hundred acres
more of intact old growth.
The land will be put into a 100-year conservation
easement granted to the Deschutes Basin Land
Trust (DBLT). The SMA will be managed under
prescriptions to be developed by Bill Hopkins, area
ecologist for the Forest Service and the
acknowledged expert on eastside old growth.
Hopkins will create the prescriptions without input
from Crown Pacific, but plaintiff groups and the
DBLT will be allowed to review the plans. All trees
of 21 inches or greater diameter at breast height
will be retained, and pre-commercial thinning and
prescribed fire may be used in some areas. Crown
Pacific will manage the land according to Hopkins’
prescriptions and will pay DBLT to monitor its
activities.
Two years ago, the plaintiffs and other citizens’
groups and asked the Forest Service to put
restrictions on the trade to limit logging on the
public land going to Crown Pacific, and not to trade
any old-growth forest to the company. But the
agency refused to ask Crown for any concessions.
Western Land Exchange Project director Janine
Blaeloch expressed bitterness toward the agency
for its failure to protect the public’s interests.
“The Forest Service generally goes along with
whatever timber companies want. We’re the ones
who ended up having to negotiate to save some
trees while the Forest Service did nothing.”
! ! !
 Massive Idaho land trade withdrawn
as public gets wise
Company spokesperson Darrel Olson insisted in the
In early March the Western Land Exchange Project press that CLE would adhere to a full public
learned from an anonymous source that Clearwater
Land Exchange (CLE), an Orofino, Idaho-based land involvement process and environmental review for
exchange facilitator, was cooking up a 2 million the exchange, but there is widespread suspicion
acre land swap. that the company plans to take its swap to
Congress, where these processes could be waived
The trade would involve public and private land in order to get the deal done. The office of Senator
throughout that state, including lands managed by Larry (No-Net-Gain-of-Public-Lands) Craig
the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Forest disclaimed knowledge of the plan, but commented
Service, Idaho Department of Fish & Game, and favorably on the idea.
scattered private land holdings.
The Spokesman-Review received several letters
The company began planning its mega-deal about from an outraged public, and the formerly secret
five years ago, and quietly started shopping the trade was the subject of radio talk shows in Boise.
idea to conservation and hunting groups last year. As the controversy reached a fevered pitch, CLE
issued a press release stating they were
The catch is, neither the BLM nor the Forest Service withdrawing their exchange concept due to
were consulted about the plan. It wasn’t until the “premature exposure.”
Idaho Spokesman-Review broke the news in a
series of articles that federal agency officials It is assumed that CLE will return with some new
learned of the scheme. One BLM official expressed incarnation of the mega-swap, and as public
anger at the secrecy and stated that his agency opinion turns more strongly against land trades, it
would have no interest in doing a deal with CLE. is likely that the company will seek a legislative fix.
Whether agency opposition
CLE has engineered dozens of "See, the thing about Idaho is: everything would be strong enough to
land swaps in Idaho and other is always worse than you imagined it quash the deal remains to be
western states. Individuals would be, and there are always some seen.
involved in the company are things which are worse than you imagined
also associated with other they could be, and on top of it all The Spokesman-Review articles
business concerns—Olson Land everything is always getting worse than it on CLE and its plans can be
Company, Clearwater Real already is, including the things which viewed on our new “Press
Estate, and Snake River Land Room” web page:
appear to be getting better."
Exchange—that facilitate land http://www.westlx.org/press.htm.
deals.
Erik Ryberg
In its defense, the company
In Oregon, a
touts its record of “win-win” land trades. These THREE million acre swap…
include:
For almost two years, the Western Land Exchange
The Upper Priest Lake Exchange, in which a Project and others have been tracking the slow
grove of ancient cedars Plum Creek Timber progress of a planned swap in Oregon that could
Company sold to a Clearwater associate for eventually involve the entire Umpqua watershed,
$1.5 million was traded to the Forest Service 6 an area covering 3 million acres.
years later at a value of $8.7 million.
Beginning in 1997, Seneca Jones Timber Co.,
The Channeled Scablands exchange in northeast Weyerhaeuser, and International Paper conducted a
Washington State, wherein the BLM traded study for a series of exchanges that would trade
10,000 acres of scattered timber parcels streamside private holdings for public forest lands
(including rare old-growth Ponderosa pine) for in the basin. The timber companies assert they
40,000 acres of overgrazed private lands. should be given lands they can log because of
restrictions on their environmentally-sensitive
holdings.

4
The USFS and BLM supervised the study, partially
funded by the public, with a 15-member policy
committee that includes 9 industry or pro-industry
representatives and 4 conservationists. The study
has been peer-reviewed by several Northwest
forest scientists, who expressed concerns regarding
the compatibility of the exchange with the goals of
the Northwest Forest Plan.
The project is currently being managed by the
World Forestry Center in Portland. Members of
WFC’s board of directors have included Steve
Rogel, CEO of Weyerhaeuser, and Oregon State
University John Byrne, who has also served on the
boards of Burlington Northern Railroad, Plum Creek
Management Company, and Burlington Resources.
While the proponents recently told the Western
Land Exchange Project they have not discussed
legislation for the exchange, it is feared that a
trade this large, into which so much has been
invested, will inevitably end up in a bill or an
appropriations rider. Oregon Senators Wyden and
Smith and Representative DeFazio are said to favor
the exchange.
If you would like a copy of the study and/or peer
review for the Umpqua Land Exchange Project,
write to the World Forestry Center, 4033 SW
Canyon Road, Portland, OR 97221.
Forest Service examines self, finds
no problem
At the request of the Western Land Exchange
Project, the Forest
Service has conducted a “They call me biased when they’re
review of the appraisals reviewing their own work instead of
for two Northwest land bringing in independent experts?”
exchanges and affirmed
its own previous Roy Keene to Seattle Times
findings.
In August 1998, WLXP requested a National Office
review of the appraisals for the Huckleberry, Crown
Pacific, and I-90 exchanges. In a March 8, 1999
letter, the agency said that it had found no
“technical” problems with the Huckleberry or Crown
swaps, and would issue an opinion on the I-90
exchange when appraisals were complete.
5
The Western Land Exchange Project, Pilchuck
Audubon Society, and Oregon timber appraiser Roy
Keene had expressed doubts about the fairness of
the Huckleberry land valuations since early 1997.
These doubts were confirmed when a September
1998 Seattle Times investigative story showed that
the methodology used in that appraisal favored
Weyerhaeuser, the private party, to the tune of
about $10 million.
The agency’s Chief Appraiser, Paul Tittman,
conducted a review of some aspects of the
valuation, then asked the appraiser who had
worked on the project to respond to criticisms of
the values. The appraiser not only defended his
own work, but added a lengthy analysis of Roy
Keene’s environmentally-oriented affiliations in
order to prove Keene’s bias.
The Western Land Exchange Project has submitted
a Freedom of Information Act request for all
internal Forest Service documents related to the
appraisal review.
Utah exchanges under
audit
The Department of the Interior Inspector General is
currently conducting an audit of land swaps in St.
George, Utah, where a confounding number of
trades are being implemented.
In order to set aside designated habitat for the
desert tortoise (a federally-listed
threatened species), the BLM is
consolidating public ownership in the
Washington County Habitat
Conservation Area near St. George.
To acquire those lands, the agency
has made or proposed numerous
trades with private landowners within
the HCA.
The exact number of transactions is hard to
determine—many of them overlap or have been
implemented in phases, so that it is difficult to tell
where one ends and another begins. Two years
ago, WLXP was told that about 16 land swaps were
expected to be completed by 2000.
Land Exchange Update
June 1999
St. George… an unholy mess
The Western Land Exchange Project became aware
of the St. George situation in late 1997. One
project, the Spilsbury Exchange, proposed the
trade of 2200 acres of public land for 183 private
acres within the HCA.
While trades must be for equal value rather than
equal acreage, we questioned public lands in the
swap being assigned one-twelfth the value of
private land, as it appeared that public lands were
ripe for development. On the other hand, private
holdings were described as steep slopes and
“volcanic cinder cones.”
Jim Doyle owns Environmental Land Technology, a
company with which the government is making
several exchanges. Doyle is trading to the BLM
lands he bought within the HCA for about 50 times
his original purchase price.
In 1988, the Utah legislature passed a measure
that allowed Doyle to buy state school lands for
about $326/acre, a fraction of their known market
value. A 1993 lawsuit filed by the Utah Board of
Education found the act unconstitutional, and a
settlement with Doyle resulted in his having to
partially reimburse the schools.
Now Doyle is trading his land to the public at a
value of about $15,000 per acre. Even accounting
for his payments to the state, he stands to make a
$27 million profit.
Former WLXP Program Coordinator Beth Fries
conducted in-depth research on the St. George
trades and came upon a morass of questionable
practices that BLM coordinators were unable to
explain.
It is typical of these exchanges for the public to
trade many times the amount of land offered by
private interests, yet there is scant justification for
the discrepancies in land value the Bureau uses to
justify this.
Some trades involved “pooling,” a practice wherein
exchanges are accomplished in phases that make
them virtually impossible to track, and parties
“owe” each other land from uneven exchanges.
6
Agency makes its own law
Normally, lands containing endangered species
habitat are assigned lower value than lands without
development restriction, but St. George landowners
protested this long-established practice because it
lowered their land values. In 1996, Congress
passed a law that allowed the restrictions to be
ignored in the valuation for one trade, but the
agency has carried that policy over into all St.
George transactions.
Conversations with BLM personnel concerned about
the exchanges have confirmed that wildly lopsided
land values are benefiting private parties. One
veteran BLM staffer has described these trades as
the “worst of the worst.”
Fish & Wildlife Service
joins the ranks
A recent report by the US Department of Interior
Office of Inspector General (OIG) finds that the Fish
& Wildlife Service (FWS) is having problems with its
land acquisition program.
According to the report, in 62 land purchases FWS
overpaid landowners $603,000 due to acreage
miscalculations; used outdated appraisals to
determine land values; and paid $438,680 in
unjustified costs to non-profit organizations
facilitating land purchases.
The agency also acquired properties containing
environmental contaminants that will bring
$700,000 in clean-up costs.
Thirteen of 14 land exchanges reviewed were
conducted properly, but one exchange involved the
agency’s selling timber within a wildlife refuge in
order to obtain funds to augment the exchange.
You can retrieve audit reports from the Department
of Interior Inspector General’s web page:
http://www.oig.doi.gov/
The Department of Agriculture, which oversees the
Forest Service, also has an OIG web site where you
can find audit reports for land exchanges done by
that agency: http://www.usda.gov/oig/
Land Exchange Update
June 1999

News from
all over the place
Plum Creek deal nearing completion
WASHINGTON STATE- The Interstate-90 exchange
between Plum Creek Timber Company (PCTC) and
the U.S. Forest Service is moving toward
completion. The trade was authorized in a rider
Senator Slade Gorton attached to last year’s
Omnibus Appropriations bill. (See previous issues
of Land Exchange Update at www.westlx.org).
The original proposal would have traded about
40,000 acres of public land for about 60,000 acres
of PCTC holdings, but appraisal of the land and
timber has resulted in a reduction to about 50,000
acres of PCTC land and 15,800 acres of national
forest.
The legislation does not waive citizen rights to
appeal or judicial challenge, but orders that the
exchange will occur on July 17, 1999. The final
environmental impact statement and Record of
Decision are scheduled for release on July 3,
providing only 14 days for public review unless the
parties agree to delay the trade.
The Pacific Crest Biodiversity Project (PCBP) and
other groups are campaigning to save key areas in
the Gifford Pinchot National Forest slated for trade
to PCTC.
For more information on the Gifford Pinchot
campaign, see PCBP’s web site at www.pcbp.org.
More development subsidies for Nevada
WASHINGTON, D.C.- In our last issue, we
discussed the Southern Nevada Public Lands
Management Act, allowing the BLM to sell about
27,000 acres it manages in the Las Vegas Valley.
The bill allocated 15 percent of the sale proceeds to
local government for water supply infrastructure
and schools, with the remaining proceeds to be
used by the BLM to purchase environmentally
sensitive lands around Nevada.
This year, Nevada Senator Harry Reid has
introduced a similar bill, S. 719, that would allocate
50 percent of BLM land sales proceeds to local
government. The government is ordered to
7
purchase lands at a market value that disregards
endangered species habitat, greatly inflating the
land values and subsidizing private landowners.
Virginia land exchange falls through
CATAWBA, VIRGINIA- A land trade in the Jefferson
National Forest has fallen through due to a dispute
over land values.
The Turner Land Exchange would have entailed the
trade of 170 private acres at the top of North
Mountain for about 130 acres of public land with
high development potential. Catawba resident
Cathy Lucas led the strong local opposition to the
trade on the basis of the environmental and
cultural resource impacts of privatizing the Forest
Service land.
Last February, the USFS national office reviewed
the exchange at the request of the Western Land
Exchange Project. At issue were skewed land
values, inadequate justification for acquisition of
the private parcel, and questionable conduct by
agency staff. Negotiations between the private
owner and the USFS failed to bring agreement on
land values, and the trade was abandoned.
Trade would put landfill near national park
EAGLE MOUNTAIN, CALIFORNIA- Since 1986,
citizens have been fighting a land exchange
proposal that would trade 3,481 acres managed by
the BLM to Kaiser Ventures, which plans to operate
a landfill on a site surrounded on three sides by
Joshua Tree National Park. Citizens for the
Chuckwalla Valley and the National Parks
Conservation Association have challenged both the
BLM exchange and the state’s environmental
analysis for the project. They have secured two
court victories against the state based on the
inadequacy of the environmental impact report.
The landfill would accommodate 10,000 tons of
garbage per day. Freight trains transporting the
garbage would cut through the Chuckwalla Bench,
where the federal government has been purchasing
land for protection of the threatened desert
tortoise.
Recently, administrative protests filed against the
BLM’s land trade were dismissed by the agency,
and opponents have filed an appeal with the
Interior Board of Land Appeals.
Land Exchange Update
June 1999
 THE AWFUL TRUTH
BEGINS TO DAWN
“You sense there’s an iron curtain coming down on using
public lands as exchange parcels…There’s fierce resistance to
giving up more public lands…”
Bill Brown, executive vice president, Plum Creek Timber
Company
“We’ve had general discussions with several national forests
[about doing more exchanges], and somewhere along the line
we’ve said, ‘Ah, let’s just forget it.’ ”
Ted Young, corporate forester, Crown Pacific
“If we’d have known [sic] it was going to take 12 years, we
never would have gone down this path.”
Frank Mendizabel, Weyerhaeuser Company spokesman,
referring to the Huckleberry exchange
Lincoln County consists of nearly 100 percent federally
controlled land. It is also just north of Clark County,
home to Las Vegas, where the fastest-growing city in the
U.S. has been expanding largely through exchanges and
outright sales of BLM land.
On the other side of the scheme, the fertile farmland of
the Carson Valley has recently come under increased
development pressure, and the trade would ostensibly
address this problem through acquisition of conservation
easements.
Unfortunately, the plan is fraught with problems:
1) Conservation easements on the Carson River may be
hard to come by, and if some landowners balk, as
expected, the BLM will achieve only fragmented
protection.

(The Oregonian, May 17, 1999) 2) Preliminary information indicates that the public land
is being so undervalued and the private parcels so
overvalued that the public would trade 16,000 acres
Land trust pushing Nevada of land for a mere 2,000 acres of easements.
project 3) Acquisition along the Carson is not targeted in the
BLM’s plans for the area, so the exchange would
American Lands Conservancy (ALC), already in trouble
require a shift in Bureau priorities. The BLM would
for questionable practices in Nevada land exchanges, is
have to amend its Resource Management Plan, which
at it again.
identifies lands to be “disposed of” and acquired.
Conservation-oriented BLM staff are concerned that
Last year, the USDA Inspector General (IG) investigated
other projects—such as riparian restoration on lands
an exchange between the non-profit land trust and the
already owned by the public— will be shunted aside
Forest Service in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest
for the uncertain benefits of Carson Valley
and questioned several aspects of the organization’s
acquisition.
work. These included heavy-handed negotiations with
agency staff that led to inflated appraisals of private land
4) The feasibility study for the project showed several
and cost taxpayers $7 million. The scandal also cost a
irregularities in the process, including naming ALC as
Forest Supervisor his job.
the easement grantee.
The IG discovered that ALC’s Nevada land exchange
5) The project calls for the BLM to hand over control of
proposals have a way of rising to the top of the priority
the conservation easements to Douglas County,
list. ALC director Harriet Burgess is generally known for
under which it is feared that actual protection of the
her ability to get her way through political pressure, a
river lands would be conveniently forgotten.
phenomenon confirmed to us by numerous staff in the
Forest Service and BLM. Despite ALC’s worsening
6) Some BLM staff believe the project is being driven
reputation, both agencies have told the Western Land
entirely by ALC, and there is strong evidence that
Exchange Project that they see no reason to stop dealing
BLM managers are favoring the proposal solely
with the organization.
because of that organization’s political clout.
Concerned observers in Nevada recently drew our
If you wish to obtain information about the Carson Valley
attention to a new ALC proposal, the Carson Valley Lands
project, contact Ely Field Manager Gene Kolkman (775-
Project. The project would trade BLM-managed land in
289-1900) or Carson City Field Manager John Singlaub
Lincoln County (north of Las Vegas) for conservation
(775-885-6000).
easements (i.e., not land) in the Carson Valley south of
Reno.

8
Land Exchange Update
June 1999
 WLXP welcomes new
board members
Land Exchange Update is published by the Western Land
We’re honored to have three new additions to our board
Exchange Project, a non-profit charitable
of directors.
organization conducting research, outreach, and
Vice president Chuck Pezeshki is an associate advocacy for the reform of federal land exchange
professor of mechanical engineering at Washington policy.
State University, author of "Wild to the Last:
Environmental Conflict in the Clearwater" (WSU Western Land Exchange Project
Press, 1998), and founder of the Clearwater P.O. Box 95545
Biodiversity Project. He is a frequent contributor to Seattle, WA 98145-2545
various periodicals across the West on phone 206.325.3503; fax 206.325.3515
environmental issues. He is currently working on a e-mail:blaeloch@westlx.org;cunningham@westlx.org
photographic and text essay on the Lewis and Clark web: http://www.westlx.org
Trail in the Clearwater Country.
Board of Directors:
Sandy Lonsdale is a freelance journalist and Rachael Paschal, President
photographer, chairs the Sierra Club’s Juniper Dr. Charles Pezeshki, Vice President
Group, and focuses his activism on grazing, forests, Bonnie Phillips, Secretary
mining, and water. Sandy recently completed a Martin L. Rand, Treasurer
photo-inventory of Oregon’s High Desert wildlands Marianne Dugan, At-Large
for an upcoming exploration guidebook. He is a Sandy Lonsdale, At-Large
27-year resident of Bend, Oregon.
Staff:
Marianne Dugan was an attorney and associate Janine Blaeloch, Director
director with the Western Environmental Law Joseph Cunningham, Program Coordinator
Center, where she litigated two major land
exchange cases. She now works in private practice Our new “Press Room” web page allows you to
in Eugene, Oregon in the area of personal injury keep up with recent newspaper coverage of the
and consumer protection law. Marianne earned a land exchange issue.
JD with certificates in environmental and
ocean/coastal law as well as a Masters Degree in http://www.westlx.org/press.htm
environmental studies from the University of
Oregon.

Our gratitude to the True North, Bullitt, Kongsgaard-Goldman, Wilburforce,

and New-Land foundations and to Training Resources for the Environmental
Community for their support.
Thanks also to our new members and contributors:

Steve Doyle, Joe Cunningham, Bonnie Phillips, Rachael Paschal, Paul Swetik, Beth Menig, Jan Naragon,
Jennifer Schemm, Jill Sheldon, Craig Lorch, Stephanie Matheny, Charles Bagley, Jr., Buell & Donna
Hollister, Kootenai Environmental Alliance, the van Doornincks, Linda Campbell, David Batker,
Christopher Vondrasek, Betsy Dennis, Betsy Gaines, Beth Fries, Susan Saul, Joanne Vinton, Kris Nyrop,
Vivian Stockman, Homer & Marguerite Campbell, Joan Smith, Debra Patla, Greg Nagle, Jonathan Marvel,
Charles Couper, David Orr, Don Steuter, Mark Drake, E. M. Sterling, Vernon Bates, Ouachita Watch
League, Rebecca Rundquist, James Bicknell, Chuck Pezeshki, Dr. John Osborn, Sam Francis, Tom &
Jackie Andrewjeski, Linda Brousseau, Ann & David Bellis, Leslie Ann Rose & David Adams, Wade Higgins,
Cathleen Campbell, Mark Zyniecki, and Howard Paine.

9
Land Exchange Update
June 1999
Your support is our strength! Your membership gives us the constituency
to effect real land exchange reform.
Please complete this form and return it with your tax-deductible payment. Checks should be made payable to the Western
Land Exchange Project.

Name:________________________________________________________________

Address:______________________________________________________________

City:__________________________ State:___________ Zip:____________

Phone:___________________ Fax:________________ Email:__________________

Affiliations____________________________________________________________

regular $25________student/optional low rate $15_______contributing $100_______

Founder $500+_______

Western Land Exchange Project

PO Box 95545
Seattle, WA 98145-2545