Land exchange practice comes under heavy fire

Jeff Schweers

Thursday, June 20, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

The local head of a federal agency under fire for allegedly losing millions of tax dollars through land exchanges defended the practice, just as Congress was gearing up to investigate the office.

Utah Rep. James Hansen, chairman of a House Resources subcommittee, called for hearings in July into the Las Vegas Bureau of Land Management office "because this issue is not only important to Nevada, but the entire West."

The hearings were requested by Rep. John Ensign, R-Nev., after a draft report by the Interior Department's inspector general revealed that as much as $12.2 million was lost in four Nevada land exchanges.

"This draft audit report has opened a Pandora's box, and I have a sneaky suspicion we've only touched the tip of the iceberg," Ensign said.

BLM District Manager Mike Dwyer, who has seen a copy of the draft report, disputed the findings and defended the practice of land exchanges as beneficial to Southern Nevadans.

The report argues that the local BLM office cost taxpayers money by not selling the land competitively, but Dwyer said Nevadans gain more through exchanges because the money raised from competitive sales would go directly to the U.S. Treasury.

"We could do competitive sales, but Southern Nevada would definitely not benefit," Dwyer said.

Land exchanges are intended to bring pristine wilderness and valuable habitat under the protection of the federal government in exchange for public lands more suitable for development.

The internal audit focuses on four land exchanges conducted between 1993 and 1995. Two involve the Arizona-based Olympic Group Inc., one involves the American Land Conservancy of San Francisco, and the fourth involves land in Tonopah the BLM wanted for office space.

Dwyer said the report doesn't balance what the public gains through land exchanges, such as the protection of land in the Spring Mountains for recreational use.

Southern Nevada has become the focus of land exchanges -- with 20,000 acres of government land available in the Las Vegas Valley, Dwyer said.

"There is no place in the country like Las Vegas where so much public land is in and around a city that's growing so fast," Dwyer said.