Conservationists fear probe of land swaps will hurt efforts

Tuesday, Jan. 12, 1999 | 9:20 a.m.

The Agriculture Department's Inspector General's Office is investigating land exchanges within the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest and other regions.

While the probe is underway, on-going efforts to convert private land to public ownership have ground to a halt.

"It just stopped everything," said Harriet Burgess, president of the American Land Conservancy based in San Francisco.

The conservancy has brokered land exchanges that have transferred thousands of acres of private land in northern Nevada and elsewhere into public domain.

Federal officials are investigating allegations Forest Service officials accepted gifts from parties involved in land swaps. The investigation began about two years ago.

Questions have also been raised on whether proper compensation was received for public lands placed into private ownership.

Gloria Flora, Humboldt-Toiyabe supervisor, said she's hopeful the program will be back on track soon.

But in the meantime, Burgess and others fear land ideal for preservation could be lost to development.

"It's a tragedy because these opportunities come and go and once they go they're gone," Burgess said. "We have things in the pipeline that have to be finished but it's clogged big time."

Rose Strickland of the Sierra Club agreed.

"We're concerned that the Forest Service doesn't actually have a lands program right now and opportunities to acquire land are being lost," Strickland said. "You have an opportunity today but you might not have it tomorrow."

U.S. Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., an advocate for several major land exchanges in the past, said there's no question the investigation has had a chilling effect on the program.

"I think we need to come to closure with this," he told the Reno Gazette-Journal. "This inspector general's report is a cloud that hangs over us and the bureaucracy is paralyzed."

Flora said the Forest Service takes the accusations that led to the investigation seriously.

"OIG's evaluation of our actions is that we have not been getting fair market value ... and therefore someone is benefiting but it's not the American public. That's a pretty harsh indictment," she said.

"Nationwide, this has been taken very seriously by the agency."

Still, while land exchanges may have slowed, Flora said she is unaware of any major pieces of undeveloped land targeted for public acquisition that have been lost.

And she predicts the land program will be fully restored in about a year.

"We've done the best we can under the limitations but again, I see those limitations falling away," Flora said. "I think we're well on our way to reestablishing our program."