Latest / The MeatEater Podcast / Locked Out

Transcript

Locked Out · The MeatEater Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: This is me eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: bug bitten and in my case, underwear listening podcast. You
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: can't predict anything. You're telling me. You're telling me nine
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: point five two nine point five to million acres of
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: American ground, public publicly owned American ground is inaccessible. The
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: people who like to hunting fish and walk around landlocked landlocked.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: If you added up all the acreage I own, that's
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: four point to five six million times the acres I own.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: It's a big chunk of land. Dude. Yeah, Uh, how
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: do you put it in terms of how do you
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: put it in terms of like, you know, everybody, when
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: everyone's trying to make something seem big, they compared to
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Rhode Island. Right, if you want to make something small,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: you compare it to Texas. But you guys don't even
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: need to do the Rhode Island comparison. New Hampshire in
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Connecticut right to state combo. Still it's still the dinky
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: states in the East. But still nine point five two
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: million acres of landlocked land in America. Well, isn't yellow
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: still like two million acres. It's a way of putting it.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: It's like five times that size five Yellowstone National Parks
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: owned by the American people but not accessible to the public,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: and most of them are BLM land. It's mostly BLM
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: and it's like a Western deal, right, But there's not
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: a lot of landlocked land in the East. Not that
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: what listen, Easterners do not now because this is gonna
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: because we're talking about your ground, your dirt here. It's
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: just far away from your house, I'm sure. But it's
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: in the West. Well, that's what we looked at. I mean,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: the majority of it is. But I'm sure there's landlocked
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: lands across the nation that we just have them looked at.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: Can you guys introduce yourselves? Go ahead, John, all right, Sure.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: I'm Joel Webster. I'm the Western Lands Director with Theodore
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Roosevelt Conservation Partnership TRCP. I'm based in Montana. I grew
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: up out West and I work across the West on
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: public land issues, so habitat conservation, but also access. I'm
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Eric stick Freedom, the founder of on x. We make
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: a GPS app that helps people get outdoors and stay
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: safe and stay legal and stay frustrated when they're looking
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: at and when they're looking at landlocked land. Being like dude,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: but it's right there. I just can't get to it.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: No matter how I finagle my way around, I can't
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: them that get to it. We're gonna define landlocked playing
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: a minute here, okay, And I'm Lisa Nichols. I'm one
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: of the g I S supervisors at on X, and
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: explain g i S geographic information systems or geographic information
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: science UM basically compiling data that has a location component
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: into a system so that you can make maps from
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: it or run analyzes like this. Okay, And then Mark
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Kenny from Wire to Hunt's here, Sir, Mark Gills is
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: on a daily basis. I don't know about daily basis.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Being in Michigan, you do it a lot. You're just
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: dealing with the R day. Why are you? Why are
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: you trying to knock me down? You gotta be like
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: hourly bro. I was dealing with this like two weeks
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: ago on my white Tail hunt Montana and then this
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: weekend chasing ELK. I wasn't dealing with this all the time,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: but I was looking at a couple of situations like
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: that on my map using my Onyx maps all weekend.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: So yeah, very we're we're very well aware of the
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: issue and then jay as poodless, well get anything you
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: want to hell here still here after all these years,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: So define landlocked man? Like I I think I feel
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: like everybody's cann know because one of my favorite things
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: to talk about is uh, I like to talk about
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: corner happened, how it's right kind of right behind not recommended?
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Well yeah yeah yeah the day I defind I like
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: my two favorite subjects lately would be like different names
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: for how one loads chew and then um things that
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: make Turkey's gobble, and then corner happened is right up
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: there with it. But but we're we'll get into corner happened.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Maybe who wants to take on what a landlocked land is? Okay?
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: So um For this analysis, we were just looking at
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: places where public roads do not provide access to pieces
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: of public land. So certainly there's opportunities to fly into
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: places with helicopters. There's opportunities to access places um by water.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: When you say public roads, public roads or trails or anything,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: well just for this was public roads. Yeah, there's certainly
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: places where you could hike in. You know that a
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: landowner would allow you to cross their land, or that
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: there's an established trail and there's a trailhead outside of
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: the land. But for this purpose, for the purpose of
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: this analysis, we were just looking at access from roads. Uh, quickly,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: what happens that number? If you turn it into that
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: you can walk in across public land. It's just not
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: um something that we could really capture with the data.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: What do you call NASH what do you call designated wilderness?
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: You can't walk, you can't drive on it. It's not landlocked.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: We explain the direct indirect analysis. So yeah, so UM,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: we kind of broke it down into two different categories.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: So the direct access component would be like if you
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: had a public road that would cross or intersect a
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: peace of public land or actually skirt alongside next to
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: the public land where you could park your vehicle, get
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: out and get right onto the public land without crossing
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: any sort of private property. UM, that's direct access. And
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: then the indirect access component was if you could access um,
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: a piece of public land through another accessible land, so
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: like if you could take BLM to get to force
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: service or vice versa. UM, then then we considered that
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: indirect access and that's not counted in this figure. UM.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: So yeah, if if you could access it indirectly. It's
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: not part of this number. It's not part of the
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: nine million. And I think trail access across private land
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: to public land with established permanent easements, which we'll get into,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: that's pretty rare. That's rare. It's pretty rare. Yeah, I
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: got you. But Steve to like to your point of
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: can you walk across it? Yeah, if there's a road
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: that touches any piece of that public land, and it's
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: a huge chunk of public land, we considered it accessible
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: as long as there was a public road touching it.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Anywhere you could walk across, anywhere there might be trails.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: But yeah, it's it was considered in the will, not
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: considered in the number of of land law. A million
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: acre parcel with one roil to the corner that would
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: be considered accessible. So it's not that you need to
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: be able to drive across, but you can get to it,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: that's right. Um. So I think actually, if you wanted
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: to look at accessibility um in terms of like terrain right, Um,
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Like there could be a giant piece of land that
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: has an access point on one side of it and
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: the other side of it's very difficult to access. Um
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: that by is you know that's pretty inaccessible, but that
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: was not counted to this report. So I think you
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: can actually argue that there's a lot more land than
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: this that isn't accessible if you wanted to change the definition.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: But we had to create a definition. So that's what
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: we did. Can we talk from it, uh? Can we
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: talk from it? Just to help people understand what we're
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: talking about the Dirty Hills situation, because here you have like,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: unless it's a better case, unless there's a better case study,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: do you guys not like that one because it's so sticky?
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: I think it's great virchel. Okay, So there is a
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: place in Montana known as the Dirty Hills, which five
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: years ago, ten years ago, whatever it was, no one
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: knew what the Dirty Hills were. But they've become an emblem, right,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: they become like symbolic of landlocked lands in general. Where
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: you have a acre two acre chunk of ground that
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: has really good hunting on it, has a lot of
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: elk on it, surrounded by lands owned by uh two individuals.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: I think there's a pair of brothers the own lands
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: surrounding this thing. There's no public access to it, and
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: what kind of makes it one of the reasons that
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: makes it kind of sticky and and interesting is that
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: at some point in time people started saying, well, Okay,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: if I can't access it by walking in or driving in,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna find a way to start accessing it with aircraft.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: So some number of people, maybe thirty to sixty people
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: a year, have begun flying in on helicopters or flying
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: in on fixed wing aircraft and landing on old roads
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: to go and hunt this land locked area. And I
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: think on one hand they're making a statement is that fair?
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: And no one hand, they just want to get some
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: good hunting. There's a lot of good hunting. I think
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: it's almost like, um, it's not even civil disobedience, because
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: it's not disobedient. It's like exercising of one's rights to
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: fly in to the Dirty Hills. The way this gets
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: even more interesting as a as a case study, is
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: that the same people that own the Dirty Hills own
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: a bunch more properties, including a property that is has
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: the potential to block vehicular access to fifty tho acres
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: of public land. And some years ago they proposed to
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: the Bureau of Land Management. They came and said, I'll
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: tell you what I'll give you one of my ranches
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: which will open up roaded access to fifty thousand acres
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: of public land in exchange for the two thousand, five
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: hundred acres of public land you own in the middle
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: of my ranch. And the BLM wasn't able to take
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: the deal. I must pay some big balls on that ranch.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: Well some so when when this ranch that allows the
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: access to the fifty acres, when they enrolled themselves in
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: a public access program, eight hundred public users signed up
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: to access through that ranch. So eight hundred public users
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: use that ranch to access the Bullwhacker Creek drainage, and
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: around thirty people hunt this Dirty Hills section. So there
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: was like competing interests for some people saying it's not
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: a fair swap, the hunting opportunities aren't equal, or it's
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: not a fair swap for whatever. But anyways, the BLM,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: I think not because they were interested. Because of cost
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: and manpower and other issues with with roads and whatnot,
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: they were not able to to seriously entertain the deal.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: While are you guys giving knowing glances, Well, I think
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: the reason that deal wasn't entertained is because there was
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: so much backlash from from Montana sportsman in Central Montana.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: You mean the thirty guys that like hunting Dirfy Hills. No,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: I mean there was significant blowback from that proposal. What
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: was the I only see the real quick. I only like,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: without knowing the particulars, it seemed like at the surface level,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: for what I explained, it seems like an enticing deal.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: But I haven't dug into it. What makes it not enticing?
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: I you know, I'm not claiming to be an expert
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: on a sort of ball whacker deal. I do know
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: that there was an alternative route proposed, um, you know
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: to access those blm lands we've wanted off canoes. Yeah,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: and you can also get in there if you walk
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: along ways from a different direction. I just know that
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: there's some folks that are pretty passionate about the dirties
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: and they'd love to hunt it. Um you know, some
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: pretty good all cutting and then there's some big bowls
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: on that ranch around there, and so aircraft. I think
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: part of it too is that, um there was a
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: big you know, legal fight over and now we'll get
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: into Eastman's probably later, but um, you know, there was
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: a route that crossed that ranch that was open to
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: the public and then the Wilkes brothers who owned that
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: piece of property closed it. There was some litigation over
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: that that went to court, and um, the sportsman's community
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: lost people who are involved in that. And so as
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: a result that that route was closed. And so I
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: also think that there's UM a little bit of a
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: taste in people's mouths. Yeah, I got you. There's another one, um,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: just to give it people another example of what we're
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: talking about. We're talking about struggles over landlocked lands. There's
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: a ranch in Colorado where Joel, you and I have
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: been there. Why are you give an annoying lands? But
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: we're good, Okay. There's a ranch called the High Lonesome
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Ranch who's in a big legal piss and match with
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: the county in this case where there's a county road
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: that accesses public lands and they're in a protracted legal
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: battle where where the county gets outspent the county or
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: you know, they put forty dollars in the legal fees
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: and it's not I don't know if it's sustainable. They
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: keep getting outspent. But they're saying, hey, man, that's our road.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: That's an open road. The ranch has a gated They
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: say no, it's not open. We got a gate across
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: it to prevent to prevent people from accessing big chunks
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: of public land. So the point being, these are like
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: battles that are being waited. There's like battles being waged
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: around public land access all the time. And I know
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: that you're not coming out of saying that everything should
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: turn into a fight, because there's a lot of situations
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: where these things can be resolved with willing sellers, willing buyers,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: there's public money available. I don't want to act like
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: it's all the contentious and nasty and people suing each other,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: but I'm just trying to raise the idea that there
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: are little battles in the war over public land access
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: that do turn ugly and contentious. And I think those
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: battles are becoming more common as we see a shift
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: in ownership patterns across the West, with you know, new
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: people moving in with a lot of money who aren't
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: from there that maybe don't you know, traditionally a lot
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: of these places are open um. You know, just by
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: knocking on the door helping somebody out on their ranch
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: or whatever, you get access to go hunt their property.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: And that's changed, and so as a result, there's more
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: and more conflict, and um, I think, you know, I
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: think what's going on in Colorado, I think what's happened
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: in the Crazy Mountains. Um, it's just emblematic of what's
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: happening in today's world. And I think the intent of
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: this project we're working on and then we put together
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: here that was really focused on cooperative solutions that bring
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: people together to help solve this problem prevent that from
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: happening in the first place. Can you give me a
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: quick rundown and anyone on if you had to say,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: like generally, what allowed um lands to become landlocked? Like
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: what were the mechanisms in place that it seems like
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: a really weird oversight, Right, Well, I think it just
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: happened by the nature of the West and how the
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: West was settled. Um, there's a whole you know, bunch
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: of laws that are tied to I mean, I'll start
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: out with the Homestead Act, right, which in eighteen sixty
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: two was the first one, and there were several where, uh,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: you know, settlers are coming out um from the east
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: and coming out here and getting their hundred and sixty
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: acres and they're gonna make a go at it. But
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: that was when you like stake the claim. That's right.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of movies on that, um, and you
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: know that that that's where it all began. But then
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: you know, there were the railroad land grants where there
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: are these individual um attempts by Congress to get these
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: railroads to these specific areas where, um, if a company
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: went and built a railroad, they get alternating sections, so
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: a checkerboard checkerboarded style landscape. UM, you know, alternating sections
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: will be given to that railroad across the lands. If
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: you'd have a you know, one section zoned by the
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: federal government or the General Land Office at the time,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: and then the other section zoned by that railroad. And
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: they allowed him to be corner to corner, corner to corner.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: And I know you guys have talked a lot about
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: the access. So there that's like you can, I mean
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: there you can like vividly see the problem. Yeah. And
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: there's other crazy stuff too, like during the depression, and um,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: there's this one thing, this one law that was called
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: the Bankhead Jones Farm Tenant Act, which I find really interesting.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: It was past the seven and what it did is
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: it bought a bunch of like um, you know, failed
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: farms back from private landowners in places where it just
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: wasn't suitable for farming. People had gone and homestead of
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: that land. It was rough and rocky, and they probably
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: used it pretty hard and it just wasn't proving. And
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: so the federal government actually went and bought that land back,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: and that went back. Originally all went to them, the
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: four Service, but some of them ended up going to
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: the BLM. And if you look at like the Dakota
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: Grasslands and in North Dakota and South Dakota like that
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: that bad lands country, which is really great meldeer hunting. UM.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: You look at like the high line in Montana, and
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: then also the lowest town like some of that breaks
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: country right or right right right around it anyway. Um.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: And then also down in Wyoming and uh in New
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: Mexico and Colorado, there's just eleven million acres went went
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: back to the federalist state that were private, right. And
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: this is all happening and disjointed, and so as long
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: as they're surrounding neighbors stayed solvent. That piece of land
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: in the middle became federally owned but not federally accessible,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: that's right, that's right. And then there's like you know
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: the notorious Oregon in California sort of railroad scheme where um,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: there were like three point seven million acres made available
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: um for a railroad company that would build a railroad
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: across western Oregon again in a checkerboard pattern, and then
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: they were required to uh sell that land as settlers
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: for a hundred and sixty acre chunks for two dollars
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: and fifty cents an acre. But they found it about
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: all that stuff. Man, what's that at that price? All right,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: I'll take it. I'll take it. And I think they
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: felt the same way because they wanted to turn into
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: timber companies, and so instead of giving it to settlers,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: they figured out a scheme to turn it into timber
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: companies so they could cut a bunch of trees and
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: make a bunch of money and just to have like
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: ghost individuals purchases. Yeah, they go down to the bar,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: I think, and get somebody to help them to come
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: in and buy that land for two lany cents an acre,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: and then they get it from him for the same price. Probably,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: I don't know what they'd give them an exchange for it.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: I'm sure there was some compensation, but then they just
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: accumulated these you know, mass holding to land and then
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: you know that county people went to jail for it.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: And then in nineteen sixteen, two point eight million acres
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: of that land came back to the General Land Office,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: which eventually became BLM Land Oregon. In California, lands in
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: like a southwest and northern California, And if you look
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: at that on the map, it's a mess and that
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: stuff want to be in a messy and inexcestible messy. Yeah,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: And some of it's accessible because there's a lot of
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: timber production in that country where you've got a lot
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: of timber roads, and so they kind of cut in
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: and out of the checkerboard patterns. So not all checkerboard
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: lands are inaccessible, right, especially like in timber country where
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: oftentimes a four service will own a road easeman across
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: that private land onto their own section, and as a result,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: that access is sort of maintained to some of those
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: sections where those roads exist, but not all. And we're
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: talking about a lot more. When we say a section,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: we're talking about a square mile. So like if you
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: live in one of the many states that has townships.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: Your township is six by six, so six so thirty
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: six square miles is a township. A square mile is
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: only six hundred forty acres. But what's the biggest chunk
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: of landlocked land in the country. The biggest one that
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: we found was twenty two thousand, two hundred and sixty
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: four acres in southern Wyoming. Twenty two thousand acres in
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: one chunk, it's like thirty five square miles. So, without
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: getting into names, does the dude who owns some of
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: this is he just like man, um, I really like
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: this set up where basically you have access to a
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: lot of land, you have no tax burden. I'm sure
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: some dudes are, oh they got yeah. Yeah. Some people
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: gotta hate that this is a conversation that's going on
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: right now. They gotta be like, man, I just want
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: to keep quiet, enjoy my two acres of land that
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: I don't pay taxes on. There are like five to
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: twenty acre parcels all over the place that have no
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: permanent legal public access And doesn't mean that some of
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: them are acre pieces just all over the place. There's
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: tons of them. I see where you got it broken
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: out by state where California has almost a half million,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: but then Wyoming far and away three million acres in
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: Wyoming's landlocked. It's not something you want to win at, dude.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: It's incredible. So how um this has always been the
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: case because like one was Bankhead Jones. Again, it was
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: in thirty seven, Okay, So we started making our problems
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: around the time they were caught in big railroads like
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: the Northern Pacific and stuff. Eighteen sixty two with the
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: homestead X when it really started and people begin to
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: accumulate chunks of land, and they were just I mean,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: if you look at you know, if you a few
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: hunt right you you're trying to figure out, like where's
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: that topography where I can go kill Amelie Buck or
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: whatever in eastern Montana or eastern you know, Wyoming, and
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: you're looking Often times that public land is like following
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: a like a little break of a of a stream,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: or it's in some bad lands or some coolies where
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: it's just not good farmland or ranch land. And so
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: a lot of these guys were they were settling the
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: prime land and Nevada, they were settling, you know, the
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: right parian areas where the water was. That's the only
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: place there's water, and they're leaving the uplands in public. Um.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: The railroad stuff is a real mess in in Nevada,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: but um, you know, in places like eastern Montana and Wyoming,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: like it was really about, you know, how is which
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: land is most suitable for for farming and ranching and
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: the rest was left public and it's rough, it's rough country.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: And so these guys would you know, some people would
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: be really good at accumulating land and these giant ranches
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: and they just ended up, you know, having these public
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: parcels inside their estates. And it wasn't it wasn't inadvertent,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: but it happened. So what is your um and why
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: do you guys explain how TRCP and on X worked
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: together to compile information and what the goal of it was.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: But what was the thing that initiated the conversation in
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: the first place. Well, Julie, you can tell your story
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: what you learned from being in d C. Okay, okay,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: it is um. Yeah. So one of the things that
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: happened at the beginning of this administration under the Secretary
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: Ryan Zinki of the Department of the Interior is he
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: issued a series of secretarial orders, which are like directives
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: to the different bureaus of the Department of the Interior.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: And so you've got like the U. S. Fish and
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: Wildlife Service and National Park Service. In the Bureau of
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: Land Management the BLM, you know, the largest public land
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: management agency in the country. They administered two million acres
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: and and through these orders, there a couple of them
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: where he directed the bureaus to identify places where access
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: is limited or non existent and opportunities to make those
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: lands accessible. Really, yeah, it's good stuff. That's good stuff.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: And um, what what did they what do they have
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: in mind there? Because was it looking for ways to
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: spend Land and Water Conservation Fund money or Yeah, I
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: think they recognize that, you know, public assets access is
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: a huge issue for the hunting and fishing community, and
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: I think they wanted to do something that was beneficial
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: for the hunting and fishing community tied to access. And
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: this is a pretty logical place to go. But what
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: surprised me a little bit is is knowing that it
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: was gonna be that it was going to be received,
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: it was almost inevitably going to be received as adversarial
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: to private landowners. Doesn't need to be I mean, I
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: think this is all about being respectful to private property
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: owners and and focusing on cooperative and voluntary agreements, not
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: forcing anybody to do anything with you, like eminent domain
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: or whatever. This is all about willing buyer willing seller
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: type arrangements, you know. I think the secretary you know,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: and I'll give him credit for this. He has been
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: ever since he was in Congress, he's been pretty clear
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: about his support from land and water conservation, phone, he
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: has been pretty good on access um and so I
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: think on those issues like this is sort of a
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: natural fit for him. I um. But one of the
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: things we noticed, and I noticed just you know, I
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: know West, I'm from West. I've been using on access technology,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: you know, first with my handheld GPS down with my
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: smartphone for years. And just like a lot of folks
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: who live out here and hunt a lot on public land,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: I've learned how to navigate public lands using that phone.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: And you didn't know how to use a map in
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: the old days. Well, I think it's pretty different when
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: that's that's why this this is gonna hear me out.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: That's why I hate on X because it used to
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: be that you had to have special secret e skills
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: to find how to get into places now anyone. So
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: it's like how I hated the Internet because I was
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: good in the library and then all of a sudden
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: they made information just available to everyone, and I'm like, man,
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: now I lost my advantage and on X. Yeah, it
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: lets you get to walk around and look at the
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: landscape and understand it in a large scale sense easily.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: That's fair. It makes you Yeah, I'm joking about not
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: like it. I'm just saying, like it was like when
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: we used to drive around with like stacks of maps
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: trying to put these complex puzzles together of how to
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: get into these hard to reach places. It's just at
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: your fingertips. Some of them are hard though, Like I
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: just know going in some of these places where you
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: had a lot of private and you had these small
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: slivers of public, and you're trying to figure out, like
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: how do I line it up with my map and
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: my odometer and figure how I can hit that hundred
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: yards shot where that public land hits that public road
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: where I know I can get on there. And you
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: get there and there's no survey markers, there's no fence
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: and delineate it and I'm just like, I'm not gonna risk.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: We would bail. We would bail all the time on
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: missions like that, because the minute you hit a fence
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: that doesn't like line up with your understanding. I don't
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: like to hunt looking over my shoulder. So when we
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: used to try to do things off paper, um, it
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: didn't give you the certainty because we had this conversation
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: there day where we're using on x LK hunting and
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: we're showing a property boundary and the fence. In the
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: old days, I would have viewed this fence as being
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: inviable right a line fence clearly not on the line.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: And then the more you look at it more, you
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: can see that they ran the fence just in what
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: looked like good suitable place to run defense. But the
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: fence didn't conform at all to the property line. And
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: the old days would to be like, well, the fence
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: knows better than me, and I would have just let
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: the fence win the argument. And now you kind of
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: look and there's another way to there's like, you know,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: there's an extra data point to put in there when
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: you're trying to figure out where you're at. I don't
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: want to sidetrack too much. Are you guys are one
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: of the few that actually knew how to use those
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: paper maps to to do those things. That's why we
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: wanted to That's one of the reasons we went to
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: the Department of the Interior and to d C too
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: educate them on how hunters and the public are actually
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: using technology to help access any type of public land
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: and if it's accessible, the public is finding a way
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: to access even in the case of air flight in
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: the dirty Hills, they if it's accessible by some legal means,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: they're going to get there, so because they know about it.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: When you are evaluating acquisition and disposal of public land,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: make sure you take access into consideration. That was one
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: of the big things that Jewel wanted to make sure
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: everybody understood in DC. I also didn't want them to
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: only be looking at putting in new trailheads with big
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: parking lots and toilets, like developed facilities that are really costly.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: And I think you look back to like, you know
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: what you think about the way that the public access
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: is public lands. Right, we drive up to the trailhead,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: we park our car, I go used to pit toilet.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: We might have a picnic there and then you can
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: hike in on the trail, right. And I think there's
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: a lot of people who still think that that's how
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: everybody accesses public lands. And that's that's a good point,
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: because we even use the term trailhead in the absence
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: of trailheads, it's kind of means sort of like where
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: I started to walk. Yeah, yeah, And and one of
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: the things that we were I was really worried about
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: in particular, are just you know, you got folks back
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: in d C. They're looking at how to provide access
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: right and they've got this big chunk at two million
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: acres of public land UM, and they're gonna be very
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: likely trying to figure out how to create another access
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: point on that instead of thinking about what about this
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: five thousand acre chunk over here UM that has awesome
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: hunting UM opportunities potentially UM, but it's lower profile, it's
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: not a sexy but it's really UM purposefully important And
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: and that's something that I think this project feeds into
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: in terms of this report UM, but also that visit
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: is just really trying to help direct their work. We're
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: really trying to help them focus on the fact that
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: they should be looking at these smaller chunks that you know,
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, heck, five ten square miles, if you could
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: buy forty acres to tie that to a road or
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: buy buy an easement, you could open that up to
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: the public. It's not that expensive. It's pretty actually pretty inexpensive.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: And that's a huge amount of land you just opened
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: up for everybody to go use and doesn't require a
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: toilet and a parking area and you know, maintenance and
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: all that. So basically like advising on how to get
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: kind of more bang for the buck on public access,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: that's right, but also to not ignore these lands either,
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: which I think historically people haven't been looking at them
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: because this technology didn't exist. People thought that they couldn't
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: be accessed, and so people have been ignoring them for
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: a really long time. And that's changed in recent years
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: and we're we're trying to help drive that change. So
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: what was the moment when what was the moment when
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: when like a nonprofit and a tech company decided to
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: like come together around an idea. Well, we had I
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: guess that was late seventeen. As a company, we had
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: defined for ourselves a company purpose to give back to
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: access related causes. Because that's why what's what made our
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: company what we are today. We we show people where
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: you can go in the outdoors, so we wanted to
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: give back to that, so we defined a company purpose
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: for getting back to access related causes. Starting started to
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: look around. And that's when by who knows what, higher
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: power Jewel shows up on her doorstep and says, hey,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: I've got this problem. You would you mind coming to
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: d C and talking about how technology helps people access
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: these public lands in eastern Montana and random But but
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: at that point you hadn't started to put together all
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: the information, right, So because we made that, we started
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: to can this presentation for d C and then we're like, oh, Joel,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: we were talking about, let's let's present like a use
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: case of eastern Montana how many landlocked public lands that
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: there are, so we can give them an idea of
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: the scale of the issue. And we did that and like, well,
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: now we got LDBCF coming up, why don't we do
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: a full analysis and I get the whole picture of
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: the western landlocked public lands? So is this analysis more
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: exhausted than anything that the FEDS have put together? If
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: I haven't seen anything else like it? And part of
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: the reason I think this happened is because the FEDS
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: have expressed and interest in this, Like we've been done
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: and sat with not only with the Interior officials about
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: this at the Department of the Interior, we sat down
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: with Beer of Land Management staff and and they're like,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: we've been directed to figure out, you know, where these
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: inaccessible lands are, and we're trying to figure out exactly
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: what we're gonna do here, and we're just looking at
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: each other like, well, maybe we can help with this.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: Well I don't think they necessarily can, because our team
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: has done a ton more to actually look at the
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: public lands compare them with the parcel data, and they
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: will We'll use those BLM data sets that say this
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: is public, this is private, and they'll have all these
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: errors in it, and we compare that with the tax
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: records and it says there's an owner that you say
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: this is BLM land, but there's actually an owner on it,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: so there's a conflict there, and we determine that actually
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: it is privately owned. So we actually have done that
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: across the West, across a lot of the US to
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: make the most accurate picture of land ownership, which our
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: customers really love. Ninety three is BLM land landlocked acreage
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: belongs to BLM. That's right. So that's what you're primarily
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: having a conversation with. And I think there's certainly other
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: access challenges with Forest Service land. But because of the
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: way that, like the Forest Service was established, right with
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: these forest reserves of people like Theodore Roosevelt setting them aside,
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: or the refuge system or the parks, right, those are
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: identified areas of importance that were set aside a long
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: time ago because people are like these are special be
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: a M lands kind of happened by accident in a way,
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: although I have to admit there, like some of my
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: favorite hunting and fishing countries, I love them. I love
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: them like I love I really like them because I
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: feel that I'm BLM land. You get the greatest sense
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: of sort of the greatest sense of kind of freedom
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: and also the greatest sense of in a weird way
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: oftentimes like an exclusivity where there's just always like BLM
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: kind of like HIGHI holes out there, you know, like
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: not very visited places. I think that that you know,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: the national forces by the mirror fact of being national
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: forests generates some amount of user awareness, but there's just
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: like some BLM lands, you get out there and you
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: just feel like you could sit there a month and
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: nothing's gonna change. You know. They're also great for a
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Western style hunting and if you like to sit behind
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: a spotter and glass things up from a mile away. Now,
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: am I correct? This is just federal lands you guys
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: looked at. That's right. Do we have any idea of
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: what the quantity of state lands might be their land
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: left because I've run across a lot of that too.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: That's a good question. Yeah, So we just were looking
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: at federal lands because UM, state and local land have
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: so many different uses. So there's a lot of times
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: where state lands are to generate revenue for the state.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: Same thing with you know, municipal lands county and city
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: lands UM and so they might not the state and
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: municipal lands might actually not be for public use UM.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: And so in order to do this sort of standardized
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: analysis across all thirteen states, we we just limited it
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: to UM the federal land for the output. But if
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: there was a way to cross state land that was
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: open to access federal land, we did include UM, or
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: rather we didn't include that in the total landlocked acreage
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: figures and it's just a time thing. I mean, r
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: g AS teams mainly focused on creating accurate landownership and
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: updating landownership. So I had sprung this on him after
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: the whole years plan was out there, and they graciously
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: took it on and did a great job and put
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: an extra time to make it happen. And it's that
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: if you had to guess where is state land at,
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: if you had to take a wild stab at the
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: total for all I got, God, I have percented, like, Okay,
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: here's here's what I like to do. Tell me that
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: you'd be surprised if it was less than X and
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: surprised if it was more than X. Why. I have
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: no idea how to answer that. I told you, if
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: I told you, you know what, there's only one section
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: of landlocked state land in the American West, would that
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: surprise you that that's not true? Okay? If I told
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: you there is a billion acres, So we're getting closer. Now,
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: Let's say I came to you and said, a hundred
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: thousand acres of state land, it's only a hundred thousand
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: acres across these all thirteen states. Hundred thousand acres I
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: think still be higher than so it's a sizeable. I
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: think it's pretty high. I mean, if you look at
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: the way that the states for granted land, they received
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: two sections per township, and so they're like randomly situated
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: in the landscape. I think I saw and I'm I'm
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: pulling from memory here, so it might be slightly off
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: on the acreage, but I think Montana that d NRC
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: did an evaluation and they found one point two million
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: acres in the state of Montana state lands were landlocked.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: Uh yeah, And I mean you think about it, You've
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: got you've got these you know, these these sections, right
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: and and it was at sixteen and thirty six. Is
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: that I think the two sections that of every township
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: were given to the states and UM as a result
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: of that, like they're just randomly placed on the landscape,
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: and oftentimes they'll be in holdings right on National forest
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: or BLM land, but oftentimes two they're just stuck right
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: in our and some of them are inside national parks too. UM.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: And so it's kind of a mess. And I know that,
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: UM there's certain states that are working on trying to
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: address that issue, but it's the whole again, historical way
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: in which the lands are allocated has resulted in this situation.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: When I started whitetail hunting in Montana a few years
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: ago on public land, I was trying to find spots
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: like this, some decent public land. I was in a
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: river valley where there's much state land. Found some stuff
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: that looked like it had road access to it. I
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: was really excited. Showed up there and there's no trespassing
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: signs on the roads that come right off the main
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: county road, like ten yards in and so confusingly, this
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: show's public land on the map. I was looking at
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: a paper map at this point. I'm like, this shirt
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: looks like public So I wasn't sure. They called local
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: game war ner, whatever official it was, whatever office. I
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: can't remember who I called. But turns out that neighbor,
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: a rancher through there, bought the railroad line that runs
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: right along the side of that blocked all the road
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: access to this. Several state parcels that were right there
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: along the road, but just a five yard wide railroad
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: or ten yard wide past Eastman or whatever that. When
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: we were verifying some of these parcels, you know, one
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: of the things, um that Lisa and her team did
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: is they they flagged about sixty parcels that were big
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: they had what they called questionable access and so there
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: were like identified two tracks crossing ranches onto these public
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: parcels and we weren't sure whether or not they had
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: access or not. And so um she handed that over
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: to the TRCP team and we put this out to
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: our field reps, who then reached out to like the
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: BLM and for A service lands and realty specialists, and
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: they reached out to the county recorders and we're trying
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: to figure out whether or not there were Eastmans to
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: these parcels and it was actually, um, pretty astounding how
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: few there were. Um. But one of the things we
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: found was also these these crazy railroad lines like running
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: through these parcels that separated them and stuff, and it's
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: just like, what's going on here? And I wasn't I
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: didn't I wasn't aware that they actually owned that land.
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: I figured they just you known, their tracks on top
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: of it. But yeah, it's kind of crazy. So what
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: was the process of compiling all the information and who
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: did you decide? Who do you decide then to present
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: it to? Uh? So you know, one of the advantages
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: that we had coming into this UM. You know, as
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: on X we we already had a lot of this
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: data compiled for our products. So, like Eric was saying, UM,
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: you know, we could have just used the public land
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: data sets directly from the public agencies, but those are
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: typically generalized boundaries, and so to really drill down to
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: the scale of analysis, we had to use data that
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: had already been reconciled with the private parcel data UM.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: So we already had that done UM. So that gave
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: us a finer scale to work with. And then UM,
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: you know, the second step was to really define landlocked.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: As we said, you know, there's certainly places where you
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: can access it from water, from the air, from hiking in.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: But in order to really address this large scale thirteen
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: state area western half of the United States practically, UM,
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: we had to we had to normalize what we were
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: going to call accessible UM and and so that's when
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: we decided to just look at road access. And then
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: from there we had to decide what was a public
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: road versus a private road. But there's no national data
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: set for public versus private road. Most road data sets
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: that are available UM are classified according to um, you know,
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: whether it's an interstate highway, a county road, or surface
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: type pavement versus dirt versus gravel. So there's no classification
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: in these data sets. So UM our in house road
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: data expert sort of advise that we do. We define
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: a public road as anything that's maintained at the county
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: level or higher, and then some for service road classifications.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: So once we pulled that data, we were able to
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: look at UM, you know, a road right of way
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: standard width, and then we we looked at where those
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: UM road right of ways crossed the public lands, and
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: then we were able to factor in UM through using
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: the magics of g I S the indirect access as well.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: And then anything that essentially uh the road right of
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: way across the public land, we gave it a flag.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: So every single record of public land got a flag
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: as either landlocked or not landlocked. And then we had
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: a script that or you know, an algorithm that would
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: add all that up by state and by agency, and
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: that's how we came up with these numbers. When you
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: when you guys were doing this, were you doing it
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: because you wanted to make the public aware of the
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: magnitude I'll call it a problem. I don't know if
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: you use that word you want to make the public
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: aware of the magnitude of the problem, or you're doing
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: it because you felt that it would be useful for
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: land management agencies too have all this at their fingertips. Both.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: It's also trying to help get the land Trust to
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: to help them address the issue. But um, I mean,
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: I think the tool to solve this problem, at least
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: in terms of voluntary means of people working together, there
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: is a land and Water Conservation Fund which uses none
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: of you've talked about this on the show, but whole
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: lunch man, Yeah, uses that revenue. Talk about it more,
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: all right, real quick uses revenue from offshore oil and
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: gas development. Um. And then there's basically there's a Congress
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: it's a federal program where it's been around since nine
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: and every yearllion dollars go from offshore oil and gas
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: receipts and go into a trust fund. Back up on
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: that a little bit, because offshore stuff is owned. Offshore
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: oil leases are are federal oil EIAs. Is that they're
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: not individually owned, that's right, and they have to pay
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: their energy companies at the point pay royalties on those
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: the US government and the Land and Water Conservation Fund
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: like earmarks, gets a portion of those. And in every county,
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: now here's a not western thing. Every single county in
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: the United States of America has had a land and
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: water conservation project baseball fields, municipal swimming pools, boat launches
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: on up to you know, major major access points in
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: the in the large parcels of previously landlocked stuff. It's
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: like the key I mean, it is the key driver
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: for public access. That's right, everything recreation, and like half
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: of it goes to the states and local governments and
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: half of it goes to federal programs for the most
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: part in recent years. Um, I want to talk about
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: talking loans around this subject real quick, get into what's
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: going on with it. Yeah. Sure. So the program UM
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: is currently scheduled to expire on September thirties. So I
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: imagine bout time this show airs, UM, this program will
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: have expired, the authorization will be gone because they throw
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: a little it's meant to like initially it was funded,
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: it had like decades, right, twenty five years, Yeah, and
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: then then they kind of like through like a lifeline.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah I got and no one can even explain why
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: it's controversial. Well, it's it's like the one thing that
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: like senators seem to agree on. It's not anymore so
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: on sept Um Chairman Bishop, Rob Bishop, you had on
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: your show. Um, you know he helped. He worked out
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: a deal with Democrats with Khovan that committee and they
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: moved a bill out of committee. That's great. Um, it's clean.
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: It uh actually increases funding for access acquisition. Um, it's
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: a fantastic bill. And I know you know he was
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: on your show and he floated the idea. It was interesting,
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: the Land and Water Conservation Fund dollars should be used
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: to train oil field engineers. He's done the right thing
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: here and I want to give him credit for that
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, and that part of it didn't make
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: it in there. That's right. And um they did. They
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: did right by Sportsman too by increasing the access allocation.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: And let me explain something real quick. UM. So LBCF
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: has been around since nineteen This is one of things
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: we discovered this project. Um, but it wasn't until you know,
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: two thousand twelve that they actually specifically started to specifically
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: direct money to public access. And so what we found
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: is is when we're putting this report together, we wanted
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: to find some like great case studies right and of
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: public access being opened up with l WCF, they've only
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: been funding the public access piece of it for six years.
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: And so while there's some good checkerboard consolidation projects that
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: are from a long time ago, these isolated parcels, so
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: these chunks like to the checkerboard of the checkerboards on
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: the landscape, the isolated parcels are like these individual pieces
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: that everyone knows about. When we talked about checkerboards, are
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: you nervous about that, Yannes, I think we should hit
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: it real quick ahead. You haven't done anything. I'm just
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: over here making sure the red light is still on
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: and look at it at least every five seconds. It's
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: gonna do a guest appear. Imagine to do a guest
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: appearance and explain a checkerboarded what we mean when we
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: say it's all when you come back. I was like,
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: how'd you like that new area? And you go, oh, dude,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: it's all checkerboarded in less than sixty seconds. That's my goal.
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: So imagine you're looking at the wall with a big
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: map on it and then transposed checkerboard on there. And
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: let's just say that all the black spots are private,
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: all the red spots are public well, and and that
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: sort of in most states. And you guys correct me
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: if I'm wrong, but I don't think it's really been defined.
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: In most states. You can't go from red to red.
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: You can't hop on that corner. So that's what we
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: mean by checkerboarded. Only step in the red places, but
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: you can't cross you you can't corner hop. You can't
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: corner hop. You can't bring your foot over any black either,
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: even if you're only setting it down in the red,
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: because the lines are infinitely thin, and all kinds of
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: other issues. Um, And you can only step foot in
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: the red if there's a public road that goes and
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: touches it. And to even enter the red piece that
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: has to have a public road. Is that anything that's
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: been broke? Is that an access idea that's been broached
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: at all? They trying to get that access corner corner.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: I think you're beating your head against the wall. They
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: floated to the idea in a number of places, a
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: number of states. It's it's uneasy. It's uneasy. People will
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: be a number of states people have been cited for it,
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: challenged it. It hasn't been solved to really anyone's satisfaction.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: I wonder how much more how much of this landlocked
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: land could be solved for simply by allowing stepping from
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: corner corner, which seems like reasonable public I would say that, well,
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: with the bulk of it, I would say a large
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: portion of it. You'd be surprised. Maybe he can plug
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: that outgum really real quick, and I'll give you two figures.
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: We've had that question a few times, just saying like,
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: if we just changed the policy on corner crossing, exactly
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: how many acres would that open up? And um, you
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: know that's certainly a data challenge right there. Challenge. Yeah,
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: it's a data challenge, mean challenging. Uh yeah, I mean
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: there's places where the corners aren't actually being represented by corners, uh,
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: in the actual data sets. And so um, you know
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: when you look at it, you know, like your human
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: eye can kind of see that it looks like a corner,
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: but if you zoom way way way way way way
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: in the data itself is not actually meeting at a
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: precise corner. And so in order to define that, it
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: would it would. I mean, it's it can be done.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: It's just a matter of like, do we have the
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: time to really assign someone to every to to explore
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: every section. Yeah, you're trying to capture things with broad strokes.
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: Although although I think she's pointing to the one place
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: where you can legally cross some corners where they do overlap. Yeah,
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: I mean the edges of the surveys. Yeah, if you're
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: a real if you're a real student of the map.
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: So like some surveyors screwed up and now you could
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: do it. Well, you when they did those township range sections,
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: but Earth isn't square, so they put all these squares
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: on there. Occasionally they had to do this correction where
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: there's either a gap or an overlap. When there's an overlap.
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: Once you guys published like a state by state guide,
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: they because you would hate us. This is an onex
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: pro tap right here. Wow, that's that's good. I've seen
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: in both ways. But yeah, in Colorado, RA used to guide,
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: we had that exactly. I just kept like coming up
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: to this corner that we thought was the corner, and
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: then we realized that it was actually an overlap of
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: ten ft And the next thing you know, we were
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: just gliding over that. I think. I think if you
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: can show the map and how it overlaps, that's the law.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: What I think that I don't even want you guys
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: to win on this because it's gonna be the kind
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: of thing that makes you give knowing glances to each other.
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: So I'm just talking to the honest and Mark. What
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: I think would be a good exercise, just talking to
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: honest Mark to have to to put together a sort
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: of legal defense fund. Let me back up. There's a
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: good story about when someone was trying to clarify Montana's
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: stream access law that they knew that they had a
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: way they wanted to challenge it. And rather than what
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: they challenged it with was a group of women going tubing. Right,
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: It wasn't like a guy shooting ducks where he's blasting
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: shocking off crazy directions and scaring people. It was like
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: a group of young women on a tubing trip became
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: the thing to challenge and the legal case to challenge
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: and clarify some issue around stream access law. I think
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: that it would be good marketing, honest to established the
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: legal defense fund and have someone go to a place
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: where they can they they feel that there would be
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: a chance do a corner hop and then and then
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: move it through the courts and have someone voluntarily be like,
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: I will carry this cross and if if it winds
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: up that I'm just shocked down, you can easily get
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: all of our fans and chip in a couple of bucks,
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: have bucks to start this fund and then just have
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: someone go in and just see where it leads. If
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: you really if you went to a state where it's
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: in question and just went to see, like, where does
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: it really lead? If you if you really had the
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: energy to challenge decisions and then challenge decisions and challenge
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: decisions eventually set legal precedent, and then just be interested
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: to clarify, maybe you'd be clarified in a way that
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: you would that would just reaffirm the assumption that it's illegal,
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: and then you'd be like, Okay, now we know. Back
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: to our guests, um so I think to your point
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: to Stephen like um um, it's my mom. I think
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: that's the the way this issue is ever going to
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: be solved is in a court. I don't think any
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: legislature is ever gonna have the courage to sort of
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: pick the battles on that issue. I do wonder though,
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: I think part of the reason it's never gone to
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: a state supreme court is I think most judges are
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: probably unwilling to entertain it um. And I don't know
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: how to set up that. I don't know how that
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: scenario be established, but I just would imagine. I'm not
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: taking a position on this, but I'm just sort of
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: thinking about a scenario in my head. Like if you
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: go to a corner pin, you got your on X
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: app in your hand, right, and you can you you
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: walk up, you can see the corners clearly delineated as
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: other markers on the landscape that make it so you
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: know for a fact you're stepping over that um, that
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: boundary from public land to public land, never setting foot
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: on private land um. And you were able to, you know,
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: really demonstrate that and document that and then get sited
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: for it and then you know, go to court, I
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: think a judge will throw it out um. And so
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: how do you actually get a case that's able capable
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: of going to the top. I don't I'm not don't
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: not a grounds. But he's not gonna convict somebody for that,
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: you know, Like he's not going to put you in
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: a situation to appeal it, because he's gonna say, yeah,
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: go ahead. I that is my hypothesis. We've heard that
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: from someone else, some people with some uh an attorney
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: in Wyoming was explained that he's looked and he's yet
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: to found. As much as it's illegal, I hate keep
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: talking about this, but I do like the subject. It's
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: a good one. As much as it's illegal. He's yet
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: to find someone who was actually who had who not
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: that people weren't cited, but anyone that was actually successfully prosecuted,
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: they get cited. But when they challenge it back to
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: our guess um. So I know it makes you uncomfortable
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: to say that the solution is to have black helicopters
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: flying and people kick down the doors and seize the
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: land and in hand the land back to the American people. Like,
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: that's not what we're really after here, right, that's not
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: that's not the that that's not the way to increase access.
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: Despite what social media comments might have you believed. Yes,
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: we are supporting cooperative agreements to bring people together. What
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: does one of these look like? I laid out the
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: one that didn't go anywhere. Yeah, well that would have
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: been a that would have been a hey check it out,
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: so let me can I finish my thought real quick?
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: From before? So there's these isolated chunks, right, and these
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: are like these ten thousand acre parcels, are these twenty
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: acre parcels. And they just started in directing money specifically
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: to access. And before that, when they like scored projects, right,
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: you were like, you bring a project forward, We're gonna
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: acquire this private land, make it for a service or BLM.
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: Access was not a part of the consideration. Historically. They're
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: looking at things like ecosystems and you know, threatened species
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: and clean water and so checkerboard stuff generally got in
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: because it's sort of tied into that. But these big
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: chunks I isolated, like in eastern Wyoming, they were not.
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: And so we found through our research that in places
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: like eastern Montana where the the Mile City Field Office,
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: so like it's just a big chunk of Region seven, Right,
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: everybody's heard of Region seven for meal deer um. It's
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: a pilot deer out there, and there's never been an
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: LWCF project out there on public land. Same with the
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: Miles City Field Office in in Wyoming, and so as
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: we're not even aware of any LWCF projects on those
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: public land parcels because all that money was being directed
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: to where you've got connectivity and and that stuff's really important.
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: I don't want to like disparage it at all, and
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: that stuff needs to continue to happen. Um. However, in
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: twelve they actually started directing money specifically for the purpose
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: of access, like saying meaning that you would point out
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: a thing and be like, hey, if we bought this
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: forty acre chunk that's for sale, it would open up
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: access to this three thousand acres of that would be
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: like an example of what you're talking and the money
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: has to be used for that. And so this latest
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: bill that just passed out of the House committee, UM,
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: it has up to seven million dollars annually that would
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: go just for access. And so this issue is in
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: terms of solving this problem. It's in front of us.
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: It's not something that our grandparents did, you know, like
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: the greatest generation they were restoring wildlife. I think it's
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: times that's right, that's right, and I think you know
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: it's gonna be really the next years is when we
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: open these lines up to access. And this program which
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: is going to expire on is what we need in
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: order to do it. But the car Okay, see now
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: there's a couple of balls in the air right now.
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: It's still going to expire, but the framework for an
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: agreement has been put in place. So just to put
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: that to bed. What needs to happen to get the
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: l w CF funded in perfect like max funding in
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: perpetuity being the best case scenario. Yeah, I mean, I
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: think what we need is leadership in the House and
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: in the Senate to put it up for a vote.
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: If they would put it up for a vote, it
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: would pass tomorrow, but then won't happen till after the
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: mid terms. That's right, Well, that's that is our best guess.
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's very unlikely. I mean, it seems like
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: the House of Representatives is going to be done this
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: Friday until the election, and so we're really looking at
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: the lame duck. Is the earliest time that this is
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: likely going to happen. I mean, I'd love to eat
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: my words, but um uh. And I think then at
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: that point it's gonna depend on, you know, how good
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: of a night the Democrats have. I think if they
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: do really well, um, that they're gonna be like, well,
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: let's just wait until Congress turns over and then we
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: can write our LWCF bill. And so, um, I think
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: there's there's the risk of that, right, Um, but I
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: think that there's a pretty good deal on the table,
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: and we'd like to see dedicated funding. So right now
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: they have to appropriate it every year, so appropriators actually
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: have to even though his money and the trust fund,
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: they have to every year appropriate it. We want to
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: see dedicated funding, so it's just like Social Security or Medicare,
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: where every year it just rolls over and appropriators don't
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: even have to mess with that money is in the
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: pot and we know it's there. It's not a new tax, No,
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: it's not. This has been around since sixty five. That's
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: the one people start freaking out about it. It's not
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: coming out of it's coming out of there's no problems
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: federal oil leases and it's always been that way. It's
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: just like what is being used for alright, so they're
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: not kicking doors down. Um, there's a path forward. Does
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: in your analysis, does it really seem like the best
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: solution where we should be putting all of our attention
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: is what are we doing with L WCF funds. You
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: said that again, I'm sorry. In solving and helping to
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: increase access to landlocked lands, is it that Oh? No, Uh,
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: the l w CF is just one of many ways
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: that we could begin to address this issue. Or do
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: you look at all of the tools and the tool kits,
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: so to speak, and it winds up being there's just
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: like a hammer and it's the LWC. Of Well, I
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: think the LWCF is by far and away the most
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: powerful tool and it can do the most. However, there
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: are other tools in the box. Um, there's also state potential.
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: State programs or existing state programs are gonna help, you know,
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: crack at this issue as well, And so I think
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: we need to be looking at all options. But I mean,
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: you know, twenty seven million dollars every year specifically for
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: access in addition to the other projects, they're doing good
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: habitat work and benefit access by default, right, So the
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: other LBCF projects still do good things for access, they
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: just don't do it as their primary goal, and so
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: as a result that the money ends up going to
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: other places. But I mean, there's nothing, nothing even compares
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: to this, because states just don't have that kind of
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: money have you guys worked with any nonprofits, because I mean,
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: like Rocky mont Olk Foundation has opened up a lot
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: of access through acquisitions. They do great work. Yeah, they've
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: got a whole team that's dedicated, i think, to utilize
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: those LBCF funds for access. So they have a whole
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: team that looks at these projects and the are actually
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: making the acquisition because when the landowners willing or they
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: have a relationship with the landowner, they've got to act
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: on that when the landowners willing, So they have to
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: have this coffer of money to be able to act
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: on that transaction. Then over the five years will LBCF
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: gets approved or however long it takes for them to
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: go through the government process of getting the LBCF funds.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: So they do do that work. That's an army F
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: to your to your point and to your question, RMF
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: does a lot of that great work. And land local
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: land trusts would be great organizations to give to if
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: you want to see that's another way private funding. If
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: we're really passionate about this issue, like hey, pony up,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: give the Army F give to your local land trust.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: And they're doing that type of work and they're utilizing
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: LBCF when it's when they can. A very dear friend
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: of mine passed away a couple of years ago, and
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: and um his family when they resolved all of his estate,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: they use it to secure a bunch of foot access
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: along the Madison through a strategic purchase. It's really cool
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: stories like that. So it's it's interesting that the people
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: that were looking to do that, you know, what they're doing,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: like those really annoying, annoying fundraisers UM on public radio,
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: and they have what's called amplifiers, like someone who matches, Like,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: if you want to spend private dollars for public good,
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: it's a great amplifier to buy land that provides connectivity
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: to landlocked land, because you might be buying forty acres,
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: but you're really sort of you might be buying forty
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: acres as a public gesture, but you're handing the public acres.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: You know. It's just interesting when people, like when individuals
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: like you know, chip in do my part. Yeah, I'm
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: really curious to see how passionate the public is about
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: this and will they be willing to donate organizations not
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: old in holdings too, like just have been purchased over
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: the years where you'll find old structures and apple trees
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: with bears hanging on them about this time of year.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: We have these examples in the report, like beaver Tail,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: the Bearmouth Creek. That thirty month Creek is the only
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: example we found of isolated parcels being acquired with l
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: WCF funding. It's currently underway and that's UM Western Rivers
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: Conservancy who led that one. UM and uh, they've really
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: figured out how to use this access money. So that's
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: a that's an LWCF story. These are both beaver Tailed
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: Bearmouth too, which is a Montana one that's done by
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: being done by the Trust for Public Lands. But yeah,
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: they're both l WCF funded success stories that open landlocked
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: lands to the public and great success stories with cooperating
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: with landowners and getting to the table and talking about challenge.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: Do you feel that it's just gonna happen that the
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, is it like certain at this point that
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: the l w CF will get fully funded and that
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: it will have the that will have the money, the
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: earmarked money for access. Well, I think we need to
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: be diligent. I wouldn't take it for granted that it's
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: going to happen, But I think if we continue to
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: pound the table and say we must have this. I
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: think it will. When you were working on this, did
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: you ever look and have kind of like a holy
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: ship moment where you saw just some little dinky sliver
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: of land that was that was you know, like if
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: you could like buy an acre, it would have some
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: dramatic impact on access issues. It was all over the place. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: for sure, there was some places, you know, just doing
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: some quality control work after the automated process ran UM.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: You know, we're zooming in, panting around the map, kind
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: of looking at different UM landownership patterns, making sure that
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: the analysis as we ran it actually worked UM. And
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: we saw stuff that was like, oh, well there's a
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: road right there must be accessible, and zoom in use
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: you know, all the imagery that we possibly could to verify,
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: and it's like, nope, there's definitely no way to get
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: on there without going across private There was a story
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: in the in Bugle, the Old Foundation's magazine, about a
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: guy that he was going to pick up some AMMO
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: or something and had to do a long, unexpected drive
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: up in the northern part of Montana and his wife
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: picks up one of those His wife or girlfriend picks
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: up one of those like little local like wheeler dealer
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: magazines where people sell used cars and stuff out of him,
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: and she happens to find a piece of land for
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: sale while they're driving and they're not even really in
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: the market, but like, oh, that's where they go to
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: look at it, and it wound up being um and
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: it wound up being a blocker to a bunch of
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: public access. So that person UM help facilitate and fund
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: the purchase of that land, and they put in they
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: put in a little trailhead there for a BLM access.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: That's pretty awesome. Yeah, that was just like I can
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: imagine the power at your fingertips. But this is just
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: a dude driving along reading like a classified add in
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: the newspaper and identified stuff. So maybe rather than our
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: legal defense fund for the checkerboard case. That's two. I
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: think that it would be an interesting thing if um,
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: it would be an interesting thing to look at the
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: places like you recognize these places where you're kind of
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: like these like sort of wow moments of you it's
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: so close but not there, and we're able to at
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: the same time put something in place to monitor when
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: those again, like the willing seller willing buyer model, to
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: monitor when those places come up, or to make to
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: initiate making offers on those places and just see what
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: sort of public support one would get in and and
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: and driving those dollars. What does that initiation look like like?
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: So you guys brought this information to d C, right,
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: did they do anything with it? They just go, hey, thanks,
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: that was that's interesting? Or have you heard any feedback?
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: Let me answer that a little differently, I guess. Um. So,
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: what we're trying to do is provide information on where
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: these big inaccessible parcels are too people who can help
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: open them up to cooperative agreements. And one of those
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: partners obviously is the peer of land management. But there's
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: also land trusts out there, and there's people out there
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: who do this for a living, where they work with landowners.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: They sit down over coffee, they're non threatening, you know,
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: they want to like work out a deal that works
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: for that landowner as well as for the public, and
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: can help proker those deals. Those things take years, right,
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: you know, you gotta build that trust. And so that's
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: how I think we want to use this information, not
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: um not create a polarizing fight with some of these
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: landowners because as a lot of people who believe that, um,
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: you know, that it should be a right that private
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: lewners should have to let them cross their land to
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: access these public lands. I know it's not, but we
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: also don't want to you know, pour gasoline on the fire.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: And I think Scotland they have right to Rome. Yeah,
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: well there's and there's prescriptive easements here, which happened in
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: some places, but for the most part, right, I mean,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: you've got a prescriptive easement. So and this is something
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: that's you know, playing out in the Crazy Mountains right now,
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: where you've got there's not a prescriptive eassement there, but
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: you have checkerboard land, um, historic trails that have been
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: open to the public for you know, a hundred years
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: or whatever. And each state has its own set laws.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: But if you can prove, like through sort of regular
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: and continuous use and other sort of conditions in a
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: court of law that you've used that for a certain
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: period of time, then you can get directly an easement. Um.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: But it's a pretty contentious process and it definitely um
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: you know, puts people, pits people against each other because
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: you're trying to codify a sort of loose understanding. Yeah,
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: I mean there's historic use there, and there's never been
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: any effort to purchase that or sort of get a
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: donation of that use like a trail or a road.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: I mean historically right like the BLM or the Forest
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: Service you know, did and should have been UM acquiring
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: easements across private land where they actually approach the landowner,
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: they purchase that route, they get a you know whatever
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: right away sixty ft right away across that private land,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: and then in perpetuity it's recorded in that that title
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: UM or that deed or whatever that um that that's
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: a public route. And in some of these places they
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: never did that, and so people are using them for
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: a hundred years, that place changes hands and all of
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: a sudden it's like, well, we don't like you coming
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: on on our property. UM for various reasons, some of
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: them are probably legitimate, but you know, obviously people have
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: been using that for a long time, and so UM
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: it creates a lot of conflict. And that was one
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: of the things too, that you know, I think not
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: only acquisitions are important, but we need to really be
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: thinking about how we can secure access across these trails
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: and roads. Because one of the things we looked at,
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: especially when we're doing some fact checking on these big chunks,
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: and some of them have existing routes across that private
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: lane on the public and the public is currently using it,
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: but there's nothing in law that protects it. And so
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: this is we're kind of at the beginning of what
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: could be happening with access being shut down. Um and
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: the Crazy Mountains are just a symptom of what's to come.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: I think there's a potential risk with that. And and
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: so it's really important that I think there's money on
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: the table that people can you know, identify where these
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: important access areas are, where we actually have access, but
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: it's not guaranteed, and how do we maintain that access?
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: And I think buying um, you know, an easement across
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: that property is how we do that. And it's a
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: lot better approach than waiting until somebody decides I don't
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: want you anymore and want you there anymore and it
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: goes to court. I mean that's pretty ugly really and
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: um and so I mean that's something that you know,
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: we've really tried to bring attention to and something we
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: found to this project. It's actually kind of frightening. Um,
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: how a few easements. There are things that people are
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: enjoying now that could be taken away to Mars if
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: if And I don't know what the situation is, but
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: imagine there's a lot of private landowners that think that
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: those are public routes and that there is something recorded,
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: but there isn't. And if they became aware of that,
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: then um, they might close it. And so it's a
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: delicate situation. Yeah, it's frightening to think about losing acres
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: and well, and I think some of these parcels that
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: we've flagged as being large parcels, some of them have
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: some public access. But the way that we um defined
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: the landlocked is if if it requires permission from a
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: private landowner, then it's considered landlocked. And so if it's enrolled,
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: like if that private lands enrolled and like a state
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: walking access program like access Yes and Idaho or whatever
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: that that gives you access to that public land, it's
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: it's it's temporary access, right, it's not, so it's still
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: landlocked in terms of when it comes to permanent access.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: And we also found some places where there is some
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: existing public use across private land where those landowners to
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: continue to allow it, um, but there's nothing there that
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: protects it tomorrow. Do you guys feel like you'll so
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: you did this collaboration and and took this idea and
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: produce the report and have presumably raised a lot of
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: public awareness. Um, what's next? I mean is this? Did
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: you guys walk off the door now and go your
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: seven directions and never talk again? Or no, it's just
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: the start. We're continue to work with the BLM to
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: make sure they define those easements like where where are easements?
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: Where are your easements? Not and at least have a
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: data set that says these are easements, here's what we're doing,
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: and then we can combine that with our data and
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: then say, hey, we should probably look at this piece
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: right here. Who knows the landowner? Who the landowner is
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: going to be in the future, and we need to
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: maybe secure that access point. Yeah. I forgot to mention
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: the federal agencies oftentimes don't know where their easements are either. Um.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: So we're trying to get that standardiz and fixed. I
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: think one thing too, We've had a lot of interest
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: in land trust community and so um. You know, I
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: have been talking with them about some specific parcels that
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: are fairly big, but we that's one thing we're talking about.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: Two is how we can provide them with some information
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: on um you know, the some most sizeable parcels that
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: we think should be a priority for access acquisition that
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: they can then go through in screen. But like you know,
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: every parcel over so so big a size or whatever.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: Things like that we're talking about, uh at on X
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: are you guys? Is it surprising that that you in
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: some way not transitions but added on Like originally you're
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: just trying to describe the world, right, You're describing the
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: world as it is, and that led to a situation
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: where now you're trying to um provide. You know, you're
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: inviting the idea of change, right, You're you're looking like,
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: here's how it is, Here's how it could be, Here's
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: how it should be. Is that a tough decision like
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: to go in that direction? I don't think it was tough,
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: Just to my points earlier, like we want to be
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: able to give back. That's what made our business, you know,
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: showing people here's how here's where you can access, and
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: here's the public lands, here's roads across public lands you
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: can park on that road and go walking. Um, so we,
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: like you said, we show people where you can access them.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: Now it makes sense to give back to making sure
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: they keep securing those places where they can access. So
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: it's natural because you view it that, Um, it's all
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: in service of your customer. Yeah, that's it's it's all
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: in service for helping people get outdoors and have a
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: great experience. It's good that it's good that you're doing that.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: I hope it doesn't. Um, I can't see it causing
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: any trouble for you. Yeah, there's a little. I mean,
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: we have our landowners, our customers, and obviously the public
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: our customers, and we want them. We we believe in
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: the cooperation of the two groups to come together and
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: we don't want to see anything to Joe's points of
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: forced forcing landowners to do anything they don't want to do.
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: It was not really a mechanism for it anyway. I mean,
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: landowners have rights. We never heard of an eminent domain
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: project in order to give to open up some access. No,
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: but there's a lot of folks who don't know what
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: the law says and they imagine the worst. Yes, and
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: there's people that don't like to lose battles, and I
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: think that this will be the last thing I say,
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: yeah on the issue. But um, if you look at
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: you know, I read this piece and outside not long
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: I was looking at some stuff along. I think it
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: was like the Russian River. I think it's the Russian
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: that there was, you know, for everyone's memory. You could
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: canoe the river and get out on the beaches and
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: have lunch. And now that's just how it always went.
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: And then like a new class of landowner came in
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: and they had an enhanced awareness of not what's happened,
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: but what they could do, and it emboldened some people
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: to be like, you know what I'm gonna like, I
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: could make a case that I can shut that down.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: And then that idea became infectious. And so you had
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: this river that had once upon a time just been
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: like and people were shocked to learn that it wasn't
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: actually this way. But someone that had the time and
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: the money could come in and begin challenging public access
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: and having some legal wins or at least clouding the
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: issue enough to create the necessary level of uncertainty to
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: push people away from using public resources. The story they
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: fought that the story they followed the specific story they
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: follow in the article, the guy winds up losing, and
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: in fact, he was chaining off a beach that was
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: not his to chain off. But it's kind of like,
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: I think that that's the way in which these things
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: get tested all the time. Is you sort of you
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: brought this thing in the crazies too. It's like always
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: been how we do it, and at some point in
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: time someone comes in and starts pushing and prying on
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: that a little bit to see where it leads, and
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: that can lead to access loss. So I think that
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: clarifying the stuff and earlier were like codifying and clarifying
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: some of these issues is probably pretty important too, just
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: to head off future dispute. That's right. And information is
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: becoming way more available every day, and so I think
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: because the Internet, that's right, damn Internet it is, which
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: is an amazing resource, but I think it also informs
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: people of things that they can do that maybe it's
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: not necessarily the interest of public access. And so um,
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: we need this money now more than ever to maintain
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: and secure and open access because I think the longer
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: we wait, the harder is going to get. Yeah, professionally,
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: where I'm at as when I look at an issue,
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: I try to be like, what's in the best interests
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: of hunters and anglers? And that's how I make a
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: lot of my decisions in life. It doesn't mean that
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: I don't understand both sides of it. It's great to have,
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: you know, it's great to have exclusivity, Like I can
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: see that, I understand, I could articulate the viewpoint, but
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: I generally look and be like, what's in the best
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: interest of, like the broad spectrum of hunters and anglers.
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: And when I look at that, when it comes to access,
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: I'm generally like, generally I believe that there should be
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: more access, enhanced access. That's my general goal in life
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: is to see that happen, realizing that within that there
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: will be some contentious moments in the unhappy people. But
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: that's generally where I'm going to lean. Um on any
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: of these case by case scenarios to come up, we
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: gonna say about all that, honest, I like it. There's
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: you good job in at checkerboard deal. Yeah. When you
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: think of the revenues brought in from the outdoor recreation
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: industry and you think of like rural communities, if you
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: can actually make trail heads and open up outdoor activities
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: for some of these public lands, and you're gonna see
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: a benefit to the community in general. And and you
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: see the numbers like seven billion with a b billion
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: dollar industry. It's getting Yeah, it's getting close to being
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: the outdoor industry is getting close to me in a
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: trillion dollar industry. It'll get there. No, yeah, absolutely, people
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: have to start paying attention to that stuff. That it's
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: a huge sustainable economic driver. That's right, and we'll being
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: able to go outside. It was economically valuable. And of
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: western hunters use public lands for their access. And you
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: think about the fact that there's some of these places
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: where you know a quarter of the lands are land locked.
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: Just think about all that missed opportunity. And also Bucks
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: is hiding out there, you know, we were talking about that.
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: It's I gonna look at that coolly on that parcel.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: I bet you got some Bucks in there. One of
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: my this is early on X days. I remember driving
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: along one time and just like happened. I was driving
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: on my buddy that passed like a couple of years ago.
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: We're driving down the road, um, and I have like
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: look out, we're going Turkey hunt at one place that
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: happened to look out and I'm looking like we're crossing
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: this kind of coolie and uh I looked out and
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: saw a turkey. I'm like, oh turkey remembers someone going
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: like it's public, just like slamming on the right because
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: like the rest of your life, you just drive baths.
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: But now you drive around that thing open on your
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: GPS orherever you got your phone. You just drive around going,
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, look at that, look at Oh. I never
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: knew that the little corner comes up and hits the road,
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: you know, off you go. Yeah, That's what we're trying
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: to make sure everybody understood is that most people probably
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: think when they think accessing public lands, they're thinking trail head,
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: They're thinking like this parking area. But that's truly not
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: the case anymore. Technology. All you gotta do is drive
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: down any road and Western United States tech the whole
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: United States. You can be driving down an interstate and
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: not realize the public lan that comes in touches there
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: that you can technically park on the side of the
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: road and start walking the knoks and crannies. Man. Yeah,
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: we've got a lot of emails from guys over the
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: years time about all the knooks and crannies they discovered
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: right in their neighborhood they didn't know about. Yeah, we
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: got a lot of emails from people are like, I
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: used my paper match when you figured this spot out,
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: and now there's more people here, but they're still happy
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: about it. I found another spot, So not a big deal.
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: And as the rest of the world has less and
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: less of this and just becomes more and more developed,
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: the more we have this stuff and save it. I mean,
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: I just think that like the economic value of it,
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: we can't even foresee what it's gonna be like in
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: a couple of generations. We look at it as a spot.
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: It's like, oh, it's Sage much Cooley where you can
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: find a big buck. I might go there two to
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: four weeks out of the year. There might be someone
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: that flies over from Japan in the middle of July
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: just to walk out there and go, this is the
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: American West, And that's pretty cool that I can just
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: walk off this road to walk into this country. And
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: that person's air flight and then the uber ride and
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: the you know, all that stuff. Just like it's yeah,
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: we just don't know how valuable it's No, that's the
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: point I'm always trying to make. What I'm talking about
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: um land habitat preservation and stuff is uh, people are
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: always asking, like we were just talking about it's a
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: trillion dollar industry, Like people are always asking that, like
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: it has to justify itself economically, that somehow wildlife habitat
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: And it's like, and I'm glad people do it because
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: it's to some people, it's the only thing they understand
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: is the only thing they understand is they got to
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: play dollars to it. So you have to play their
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: game and be like, oh, you want to talk dollars, Yeah,
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: I welcome it, dude, let's talk dollars, because there's some
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: serious dollars that play here. But on the other hand,
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: you're like, well, yeah, but it's it's not quantified, like
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: the value of it isn't quantifiable that way, but in
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: terms of if you do go and play the dollar game.
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: The things that I want up trying to express the
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: people all the time is we don't know where this
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: whole thing is headed. But when you look at globe
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: like just the global environment and global news around habitat,
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: you're not reading a lot of stories about all this
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: new habitat that's being created every day. Every day, it's
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: every day there's a net loss. Every minute of every
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: day there's an a loss. So in forecasting out the
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: value of I'm not even talking pristine of open, semi pristine,
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: publicly accessible patches of undeveloped land. You cannot anticipate what
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: that's gonna mean in one years. If you want to
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: just talk dollars and yeah, it's shallow existence to be
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: one that can only look at life through through dollar bills.
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: But there are those got any concluders yearning? No, that's it,
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenny. I'm just glad you guys did this. I mean,
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: it's it's something that to Steve's point, I don't want
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: to be knocking you down, like you said the beginning.
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: I was just dealing with this very issue two weeks ago,
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: literally trying to hunt Bucks in Montana. Had this public
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: land I want to hunt. I couldn't get to it.
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: I thought I had permission to cross the private land
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: to get to it. Then a week before the hunt
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: found out, Oh no, I can't. Now I'm scrambling what
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: happened there because the railroad deal that was three years ago.
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: So every time I hunt Montana white tails, I'm dealing
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: with this, I guess. So I had a piece of
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: landlocked public land on the Dakotas. You don't run into
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: this in the Dakotas. In this case, I didn't know,
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: just quite a bit of it though, in the western side.
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: So I go on. But yeah, so I So I
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: had found this piece of public looked great. It was
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: on the back side of some private land with with
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: food on it alfalfa fields, and I thought I could
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: access it publicly. Turns out that there's like gray areas
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: around if you can use this river to access it
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: or not. So I was like, okay, I need private
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: land permission to make sure this is Golden had that
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: permission this spring. So I was going to head back
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: out this year as a I'm Golden, gonna go on
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: for this hunt. It's gonna be great. And then the
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: week before the hunt, I called the private land just
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: a double check on it, just to be safe, and
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: he's like, oh, no, I got family coming out. When
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: You're like, remember how you were saying exactly, And so
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: now I'm um lost, I have nowhere to go. It's
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: a few days before the hunt. So I was going
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: to drive out there and use my Onyx app and
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: just drive up and down the roads, trying to look
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: at some new spots. And so much in this drainage
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: of this valley that was hunting. Almost all the public
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: land that would have white tails on it, which would
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: be along the river was landlocked. So many pieces of
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: land life public all along there, so that I'm like, okay, well,
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: I just need to start knocking on doors to try
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: to get permission to hunt the public land. And luckily
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: I stopped by the landowner's house one more time, just
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: hoping maybe something would change, and after a nice two
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: hour conversation, something did change and I did get that permission.
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: And he then says, you know what, my family isn't coming.
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: I was lying to you. I don't think it was that.
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: I think it was more so like maybe the date
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: range is off or something. And he's like, oh, yeah,
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: so and so probably won't be ou until next weekend.
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: I think I feel like, well, I haven't been there
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: and talked to him. I feel like it was way off.
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: And he was like, it's easier to just it's less
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: this frictionous a word. I don't know you have caused
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: less friction. Yeah, to be like, oh yeah, sure, go ahead.
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: Then it's like when people say to me like, hey, man,
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: in a year, do you want to go do whatever?
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: I'm I was like, yeah, man, great. Right. Then when
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: it's a month out, I'm like, oh man, what did
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: I say? How did I make that happen? I think
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: then when you were coming, he's like, no, no, my
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: cousins coming. Then he met you, He's like, this guy
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: is all right, okay, you only think that was it.
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: I don't care how it happened. I'm just glad it happened.
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: I certainly appreciate it. But I mean it was so
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: that that that big white tail Bucky got public line
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: near this place. Yeah, that's where he gets kill it. Yeah,
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: but accessed through private accessed by a river. So that's
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: a whole weird thing, but it should be. It's a
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: public river, like the stream access laws allow me to
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: walk it and fish it, but to be super safe,
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: I also had to get permission to do that because
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: I was accessing this public the other river to hunt.
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: And I've heard people saying there's some weird things around
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: that have what picked this up late? Because I've never
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: don't can you explain that if you want me to.
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: I've been trying to get clarification on this myself and
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: I can't. I have never heard of so I know
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: in Montana, you know, you're allowed to use you know,
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: blow the high water mark for fishing, but you're not
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: and you're allowed to use it for water fowl, honey,
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: you're not allowed to use it for big game hunting.
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: And so if you go below the below the high
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: water mark and walk up a stream to access public land,
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: it's your rifle over your shoulder. You're technically trespassing. Um.
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: There's an exception to this though that once you jump
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: out on the land, you're fine. You're not supposed to
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: cross that private land even if you're below the high
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: water mark that I have been told, though, the way
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: to get around that is to bring your fly right
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: or your fishing rod or whatever. And when you leave
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: the public land and go down um into the stream,
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: you walk with your gun packed up in your backpack
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: or whatever, and can you fish your way up the
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: stream when you get to the public land, then you
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: can lose your fishing pole and grab your gun. And
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: I'm getting uncomfortable because I feel like we're entering into
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: an area where something's not right. I've been told by
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: a game warden. I've been told by a game ward
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: And that's how you do it legal La Montana. But
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: you certainly can float down. That's one of the methods
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: that we talked about at the Department Interior. You can
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: float down the river to a piece of public lane
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: and get out. You're just talking about like being on
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: the river. Think what you're saying. Think about what you're saying.
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: We'll say, I'm on the Mississippi River, okay, and I'm
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: floating down the Mississippi River and on I mean, you
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: know wherever Mark Twain's old Stomper grounds, flowing on the
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: Mississippi River. I got private land on each side. But
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, well here I am at
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: the I'm down by the Daniel Boone National Forest, and
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: I hop out of my canoe and and go hunt
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: and be like, oh nobody. Because you've passed through land
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: in your canoe, you're now ineligible to access public property.
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: So it's a state law issue first off, So I
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: don't know what's going on down there. Um, but I
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: when I'm referring to as somebody like waiting. I I
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: don't know how that changes if you're in a boat
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: and you do not touch at the bottom. But it's
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: every state's access laws are different. Every state stream access
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: laws are different, which is why we stayed far away
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: from that. Right in Colorado, Wyoming, UM, you cannot. With
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: exception maybe a couple of counties you cannot. Um they
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: don't have a stream access law that that you know,
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: favors the public. It said, it's the landowners are in
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: control there, and so it's different in every statement. In
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: Montown states you can't set an anchor. That's the states.
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: You can't hop out of your boat, that's right. And
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: so in Montana, as I understand, if you're gonna walk
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: down the stream through private below the high water mark
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: to go big game hunting, you must fish while you're
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: doing that. I was told the same thing. I thought
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: the game ward said the same thing, and I thought
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: that was so bizarre. But yeah, I didn't want to
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: risk anything, so I just I'll just get permission. Be
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: a great episode. Steve would listen you. I don't know,
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: it's not gonna be a whole one, but listen. First off,
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: we're gonna have a thousand emails as will clarify it.
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: This this will not go unclarified because I'm really struggling
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: with what I'm hearing right now. But we will. But
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: I'm not and I'm not a certified game ward and so,
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: and you have and you haven't presented yourself. You have
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: not presented yourself as a subject matter expert on this
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: particular side particular side note that Mark Kenyon so innocently raised,
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: please verify it. Yes, yeah, and you because all you
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: just said extra safe. You're being extra safe, which is
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: always smart. Which it is not fun to hunt looking
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: over your shoulder now. But to tell you truth, it
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: was it was a little frustrating to me to have
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: to do that, you know, to see, there's this public
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: land right here, and then there's a public stream access
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: law that says I should be able to that's publicly
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: accessible via that. I could fish it, I could float it.
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: It was a little bit confusing to me why I
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: couldn't walk it. Huh yeah, So yeah, I mean it
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: is what it is. I'm glad I could get in
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: there some way and hunt it. And I appreciate the
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: private landowner very very much. Um, I appreciate the pupa
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: wind to ladies and gentlemen. Mark Kenyon word hunt yet
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: any concluders, Eric just on that point. I mean in Montana,
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: if you can put in at a fishing access that
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: you can float down and then you see a piece
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: of public land it's touching the river, you can get
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: out and hunting that. Joel agrees with that, but he's
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: just talking about you're actually walking in the riverbed. Let's
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: just to clarify that. You know, I'm with tracking. So
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: so I could have I don't know, God, please go
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: ahead like taking like a little rubber boat. Rubber boat rafted,
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: no questions asked. So I would just encourage listeners to
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: reach out to the representatives and tell them their their
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: support for LWCF. Yeah, don't you think? And then uh,
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: I would also encourage listeners if they're gonna look into
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: this a little bit more, go to Unlocking public lands
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: dot org and read through the full report, read through
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: all the assumptions. Well that's where all this is, yep,
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: Unlocking public lands dot org TRCP website And yeah, you
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: can read through the full report, read through all the assumptions,
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: and then that might answer some of the questions you're
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: attempted to throw out there. Yeah, we put it up
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: on the we put up links on the mediator dot
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: com in other places. But yeah, unlocking public lands dot org.
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: Is that right? That's right, And there's actually additional resources
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: on the website, um, where there's a few more details
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: that break it down by agency in each state, as
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: well as identifying the acre to the largest parcel in
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: each state. And Deerk's point about contacting your congressional presentatives,
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: there's an action page there, so we make it really easy.
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: You can look at those findings and then send an
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: email directly your decision makers because I think we need
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: to be continuing to point out the importance of this
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: issue and they need to reauthorize the line of Water
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: Conservation Fund and in order to get it done. Yeah,
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: when you send your message, just be like enough already exactly,
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: everyone knows where it's going. Just get it there. It's
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: expiring like this week, Yeah, pretty quick? Is that your concluder? Um,
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: I'll just say that, I mean the one highlight of
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: land Water Conservation Fund not being reauthorized permanently three years ago.
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: As I gotta work on this school project, and um,
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty excited about this I think it's it's been
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: a fun project and I just want to say thanks
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: to the Onyx team. They only make a great product,
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: but you know they're a bunch of good people too.
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: Um And hopefully this this uh, this report is you know,
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: put to use and and after LWCF is reauthorized, you
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: know we're able to start chipping away at this number. Yeah,
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: I'm knocked down to knock a couple million acres off it.
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: That's ambitious. Yeah, but I think it can be done.
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: And I think, I mean, LBCF is like the big tool, right,
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: but there's other things we can be looking at to
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: and I think we're going to continue to investigate that.
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: The image selection on the front of your report, the
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: print version, is a provocative image because it's a mug
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: who's walking through the woods. This guy's rifle, he's already
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: to hunt. He's staring at his GPS up against the
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: barbed wer fence. Is he thinking like I was gonna
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: jump and run? Or is he you know, you just
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: don't know what's going through his mind. Man. I like
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: that he's confident. He's looking at his GPS, he knows
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: exactly where that boundary is. He's like, oh, yeah, finally
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: I'm here. This is my public easement, or maybe maybe
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: there's public lands like a hundred yards away. That's what
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: I see, is him being like, oh man, no he was.
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: What he's saying is, oh man, this I saw that
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: a huge deal over there five years ago. And I
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: have my paper maps. It's actually blm across this film.
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: I could have gone and gotten out if I had
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: only known the truth. You got that was your concluder.
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: Got a concluder, just more the same. You know what
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: the concluder is. Yeah, yeah, I think I got it. Uh,
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: just let's keep the pressure on for LBCF authorized. So
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: you've come to um, you've come to admire the tool,
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: oh for sure, Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean it was
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: it was pretty cool to get to work on some
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: of these inset maps. Um. You know our our analysts
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: who really did the groundwork here, Brian Tutt. You know,
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: we we went back and forth, um, and then we
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: discussed things with Joel and Randall and uh, you know,
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: we were really drilling down into some of these areas
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: to produce these inset maps. And so yeah, it kind
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: of brings the story alive. Yeah, that's as important for
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: people to see like the little examples. If now you
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: just get lost in these huge numbers, it doesn't make sense. Yeah,
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: And I mean you can see the pretty picture and
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: you can see the pretty map, and I think it
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: together they they tell the story. And uh so I
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: would encourage people to go to the website and actually
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: take a take a peek at the report itself. I
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: got it, I got a little I'll do that. I
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: got a little anecdote for you here, just real quick
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: based on the inset maps at least I mentioned so
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: on this thirty mile Creek one, we actually found a
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: forty acre parcel that's not on the BLM maps. And
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: one of the things that we kind of uncovered this
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: project is all these emergent findings. You're like, whoa, you know, like,
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: where did that come from? And um, this is one
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: of them. So on the beaver Tailed Barmouth example, there's
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: this Department of Transportation example, and we're trying to figure out, well,
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: how our Department of Department of Transportation Montana Department of
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: Transportation lands managed. Are they open to the public or
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: they closed? Like are they managed like DNRC lands? And
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: come to find out, yes, access is the same between Montana,
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: d O T and d NRC lands unless posted otherwise. However,
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 1: and in talking with the Montana Department of Transportation, they're like, Yeah,
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: there's these parcels that we own, we bought in the
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: sixties and seventies. We don't even know we have them,
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: and and people call us now and then asking to
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: buy them, and that's when we realize we have them.
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: And and then after that, after that, we we're working
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: on this thirty mile day like, which is organ like, look,
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: there's another forty acre parcel of BLM and so I
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: don't think that problem is limited to the Montana Department
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: of Transportation. Like there are, um, you know, some errors
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: in the data. But that's one of the cool things
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: about you know, with what on accidente with their technology
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: is like looking at this county assessor stuff and comparing
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: it to private lands data, is they've actually uncovered some
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: of those parcels that aren't on your standard public land map.
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: And that was kind of a fun little thing to
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: that no one knew was BLM land. Well, I'm sure
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: somewhere in some plat book in the basement of a
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: building in Portland it's recorded as public. But when I
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: think when they probably turned it into maps, it was
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: missed and and so I'm sure that um it's recorded somewhere,
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: but you know somehow when it was public, users wouldn't
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: have way to be readily exactly exactly. So anyway, UM yeah,
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: so check this out. Go to unlocking public lands dot org.
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: Look at the findings, but also be sure and send
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: a letter to your decision makers to reauthorized the Land
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: and Water Conservation Fund. It's our most powerful public access tool.
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: So that CONNA be the last thing anybody says, I
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: couldn't let it go. I had to say. I thought
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: I'm not doing my job. I appreciate that is the
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: last thing anybody says. What Joel just said, thank you,
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: you're your sides. Would you just said ye,