Federal Government Land: How much does it own?

[quant]

I am not posting this to make a political statement, but to show the percentage of land in each state owned by the federal government. The percentages on the map are a bit high (the map uses 2004 data) because some land was sold off. Therefore, more recent data is included below.

Unfortunately, an interactive map does not exist displaying the governmental agencies responsible for ski areas, proposed areas, proposed and existing connecting corridors of ski areas, and the often-used backcountry terrain.

Should the federal government sell off some of the lands it owns, or maintain all of it for the public good? That is debatable. What we can see is that a lot of the land west of the Continental Divide is owned by the federal government.

Federal land ownership by state (as of 2013)
State Federal land acreage Total state acreage Percentage of federal land
Alabama 844,026 32,678,400 2.6%
Alaska 223,803,098 365,481,600 61.2%
Arizona 28,064,307 72,688,000 38.6%
Arkansas 3,151,685 33,599,360 9.4%
California 45,864,800 100,206,720 45.8%
Colorado 23,870,652 66,485,760 35.9%
Connecticut 8,752 3,135,360 0.3%
Delaware 29,864 1,265,920 2.4%
Florida 4,599,919 34,721,280 13.2%
Georgia 1,474,225 37,295,360 4.0%
Hawaii 820,725 4,105,600 20.0%
Idaho 32,621,631 52,933,120 61.6%
Illinois 411,387 35,795,200 1.1%
Indiana 384,365 23,158,400 1.7%
Iowa 122,076 35,860,480 0.3%
Kansas 272,987 52,510,720 0.5%
Kentucky 1,094,036 25,512,320 4.3%
Louisiana 1,325,780 28,867,840 4.6%
Maine 211,125 19,847,680 1.1%
Maryland 197,894 6,319,360 3.1%
Massachusetts 61,802 5,034,880 1.2%
Michigan 3,633,323 36,492,160 10.0%
Minnesota 3,491,586 51,205,760 6.8%
Mississippi 1,546,433 30,222,720 5.1%
Missouri 1,635,122 44,248,320 3.7%
Montana 27,003,251 93,271,040 29.0%
Nebraska 546,759 49,031,680 1.1%
Nevada 59,681,502 70,264,320 84.9%
New Hampshire 798,718 5,768,960 13.8%
New Jersey 179,374 4,813,440 3.7%
New Mexico 26,981,490 77,766,400 34.7%
New York 104,590 30,680,960 0.3%
North Carolina 2,429,341 31,402,880 7.7%
North Dakota 1,736,611 44,452,480 3.9%
Ohio 305,641 26,222,080 1.2%
Oklahoma 701,365 44,087,680 1.6%
Oregon 32,614,185 61,598,720 52.9%
Pennsylvania 617,339 28,804,480 2.1%
Rhode Island 5,157 677,120 0.8%
South Carolina 846,420 19,374,080 4.4%
South Dakota 2,642,601 48,881,920 5.4%
Tennessee 1,273,175 26,727,680 4.8%
Texas 2,998,280 168,217,600 1.8%
Utah 34,202,920 52,696,960 64.9%
Vermont 464,644 5,936,640 7.8%
Virginia 2,514,596 25,496,320 9.9%
Washington 12,176,293 42,693,760 28.5%
West Virginia 1,133,587 15,410,560 7.4%
Wisconsin 1,793,100 35,011,200 5.1%
Wyoming 30,013,219 62,343,040 48.1%
United States total 623,313,931 2,271,343,360 27.4%
Source: U.S. Congressional Research Service, "Federal Land Ownership: Overview and Data"

 

[Philpug]

Not a general skiing discussion, moving to Chez Ziggy.

 

[scott43]

You know where it's going to go ultimately!!

 

[Muleski]

It's pretty interesting.

Maine, for example, shows at 1.1%. The state is bigger than most realize, and the perception of vast rugged wilderness is huge. Almost all of that property is provably owned. Much of it Timberland. Much now owned by various non profit conservation groups.

Now....tied to skiing....Saddleback just recently went under agreement, having been on the market for at least four years. There are many opinions as to whether the latest owners will succeed, or are over the top ambitious. Plenty of optimists and naysayers. We'll know what the final price was soon enough. It was not much. Somewhere either side of $10Mil {and hopefully much less}.

The deal includes about 7000 acres of spectacular Northern woods. The Appalachian Trail passes right over the summit of the mountain, above the ski area. I don't know what the acreage of the ski area is....probabaly 10% of the total.

I know that not long ago, when there were NO buyers at the table {it ultimately sold to an Australian developer with zero ski experience}, that there are a few Western ski resort owners considering buying it, closing it down, and working out a land swap for USFS land that they needed for their businesses.

It makes sense. If you could buy the 7000 acres for $7Mil {or less} and swap it all for a contiguous piece of something like 350 acres in the West.....to use for development, parking, whatever, everybody would win.

The losers would be the Western Maine economy, and the jobs and money flowing into an otherwise pretty depressed area. But looking at the land.......that is probably a deal that could have been brokered.

And it would have been a cheap deal. I'm actually very surprised that it didn't get more serious play that I believe it did. If you are a native New Englander who has not explored much of this country, to be honest, you may not have a clue. None. Federal land, the Native American Reservations in the West. Huge. No clue. I live in Massachusetts. 61K Federally owned acres on the map.

Interesting and informative map.

 

[crgildart]

I'd think the map would make more sense and fit our notions of reality more if it included state parks in addition to federal lands.

 

[Posaune]

I'd think the map would make more sense and fit our notions of reality more if it included state parks in addition to federal lands.

Not only state parks, but state lands in general. Washington shows the lowest federal land ownership in the West outside of Hawaii, but the state Department of Resources owns lots and lots of land too, which is mostly logged to create funds for school construction, though some is used for recreation and other uses. The total state owned land comes to much more than half of what the feds control, so it's a lot. Some skiing is done on state lands.

 

[Bad Bob]

A number of Western States were set-up giving 1 section of land in a Township to the Schools. That would be 1/36th of the land for school funding.

There are 2 basic types of land ownership; surface and mineral, often the minerals are worth more than the surface. Additionally most all the lands that were homesteaded after 1912 or so the Feds kept the minerals. (This what the Teapot dome scandal was all about)

My personal belief is there should be more long term surface leasing, but this can be dangerous due to the possible graft (see Teapot Dome). Just do not touch the National Parks, Wilderness areas, our great grand kids deserve these too.

 

[nemesis256]

Sell federal land? NO!!! I see federal land as national parks, forests, monuments, etc. In fact more would be better. The White Mountains in NH are overcrowded on weekends. It might help spread out the crowds if we had more. I also hear Zion is considering requiring permits just to get in the park because it's overcrowded! We need more space to play!

 

[DanoT]

We are fortunate in Canada as the federal government owns very little land, corporations and individuals own even less. The vast majority of land is owned by the provincial governments and is called Crown Land.

Almost all Crown Land in B.C. has been leased to logging companies who then pay a stumpage fee to the Province for each tree harvested. Logging companies have built hundreds of miles of private gravel roads but are allowed to lock gates to protect equipment in active logging areas only. All other Crown Land is freely accessible to individuals for camping or longer term squattig including being allowed to build temporary structures as long as timber values are not affected. So no tree cutting allowed but that is pretty much the only restriction. This means a lot of forest access is available in addition to Provincial and Federal parks.

With ski resorts, I am not sure of the details but basically the ski company supplies the sewer, water, roads etc. and then the provincial government sells the base area land to the ski co for below market value and then the ski co resells the land at a profit to hotel. condo and private home builders. The ski runs remain Crown Land and new ski runs go thru the same Provincial Forest Service logging permit approvals as the logging companies do on their tree farms.

 

[Tricia]

Sell federal land? NO!!! I see federal land as national parks, forests, monuments, etc. In fact more would be better. The White Mountains in NH are overcrowded on weekends. It might help spread out the crowds if we had more. I also hear Zion is considering requiring permits just to get in the park because it's overcrowded! We need more space to play!

I was actually going to ask if most of this national land is national parks.
I know that my life in Michigan was surrounded by US Forest Service lands which was a bounty of trails, parks and fun.
My only regret for the federal land is that I don't utilize it enough.

 

[New2]

Sell federal land? NO!!! I see federal land as national parks, forests, monuments, etc. In fact more would be better. The White Mountains in NH are overcrowded on weekends. It might help spread out the crowds if we had more. I also hear Zion is considering requiring permits just to get in the park because it's overcrowded! We need more space to play!

I was actually going to ask if most of this national land is national parks.
I know that my life in Michigan was surrounded by US Forest Service lands which was a bounty of trails, parks and fun.
My only regret for the federal land is that I don't utilize it enough.

Of that 623.3 million acres in the CRS report cited in the initial post (https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42346.pdf) it gives details on who administers it...
Bureau of Land Management: 248.3 million acres (40%)
Forest Service: 192.9 million acres (31%)
Fish & Wildlife Service: 89.1 million acres (14%)
National Park Service: 79.8 million acres (13%)
Department of Defense: 11.4 million acres (2%)
Various other agencies administer somewhere in the ballpark of 20 million federally-owned acres all told.

So no, most of the land is not national parks. Although some of the BLM and Forest Service-managed lands are parts of national monuments.

I think that it's kind of hopeless to aim for a single overarching policy, since the federal lands are so varied. Overcrowding in New Hampshire's White Mountains might very well be due to lack of public spaces nearby. Overcrowding at Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Zion, etc. is not because of lack of nearby public lands... there are millions of acres within a few hours' drive of each of these that do not get nearly as much visitation. Instead, it's because Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and Zion are awesome places that people really want to visit.

Another confounding factor is that the lands that would fetch enough of a sales price to really benefit the public are generally those that the public would miss most if they were sold. A little tract of desert 10 miles from the nearest paved road generally isn't going to be missed much if it's sold. But it's not going to sell for much money at all.

Unfortunately, an interactive map does not exist displaying the governmental agencies responsible for ski areas, proposed areas, proposed and existing connecting corridors of ski areas, and the often-used backcountry terrain.

Well, at least in the West (where there's so much federal land), I don't think you could make any sort of landscape-scale judgements with data like that. Generally speaking, the West still has a glut of ski areas, and the main limiting factor for new ski areas, at least, is that they're not economically feasible. If you take wilderness areas out of the equation (I really don't see public opinion reaching the point that we're willing to sell off designated wilderness areas), there really aren't strong contenders for new major ski areas on public lands in the West in the current market. The best bets would be near Denver, Salt Lake, or Tahoe... but quite a bit of the prime skiing land in those areas has already been developed, so the undeveloped areas have even more value without ski development. As for smaller ski areas, this is generally an even tighter market, and I'm not aware of anywhere in the West that really wants (and can support) a local ski hill but has been blocked by the feds.

Potential expansions to existing areas are more complex--the best potential terrain is generally already used by sidecountry/backcountry skiers. And selling off land so that a ski area can subdivide it for mini-mansions is going to upset plenty of people. But really I think you need to look at individual cases to get a clear sense. For example, a few years back there was a proposal for a major expansion at Elk Ridge, Arizona (then Williams Ski Area). There is enough demand in that case (lots of folks in Phoenix who have very limited options for day- or overnight ski trips). But the survey team found spotted owls in the proposed expansion area, and that shut it down. Sure Arizona has tons of federal land, but hundreds of thousands of acres of desert and chaparral don't change the facts that high-elevation skiable terrain is incredibly scarce, and endangered species protections limit uses. On the other hand, the Forest Service has recently OKed significant expansions at Montana Snowbowl, Ski Las Vegas, and Mount Spokane. And the BLM approved a backcountry gate at Stagecoach... so it's not like they're just blindly saying no to any proposal.

 

[pais alto]

Excellent summation there @New2PDX. One local data point I have is that the local ski area was approved for expansion by the Forest Service, into a non-wilderness area used fairly heavily by side country skiers, hikers, and with some important cultural meaning to several local Indian tribes. The public was divided, but the strength was with the opposition and after a very contentious period the expansion was cancelled. So it wasn't the feds that halted expansion.

http://www.hcn.org/issues/53/1637

 

[Posaune]

...the Forest Service has recently OKed significant expansions at Montana Snowbowl, Ski Las Vegas, and Mount Spokane.

Mount Spokane is in a Washington State Park, so the Forest Service and the feds in general are not involved.

 

[Sibhusky]

In addition to the federal land here, we also have state parks, school trust, and conservation districts of some kind. The last is what I am surrounded by, 3000 acres of logging land (Stoltze) that has a conservation easement against it and is open for public use even though technically it is privately owned. Another much larger bit (13400 acres) is also about to be put into protection owned by Weyerhauser. Usable for recreation, but can't be sold to put houses on. So, our 29% is actually an understatement.

 

[New2]

Another consideration... in the future if there's sufficient demand for more destination resorts in the West, there are already spots lined up to fill that need...

• Wasatch Peaks Ranch (Utah), across the Interstate from Snowbasin, is private land that could easily accommodate a major destination resort and is up for sale
• Whisper Ridge (Utah) is currently running as a cat- and heli-ski operation on private land. But it could easily accommodate multiple mega-resorts if demand were there.
• Lolo Pass, Montana, is still designated for a future ski development, I believe--even though the Forest Service rejected the recent attempt to build the ski area and connect it through questionably-viable terrain to a giant real estate development.
• Minarets and much of the land between Mammoth and June (California) is, I think, still designated by the Forest Service as future ski terrain
• Tribal lands include some of the strongest contenders for ski development.

So no need to go privatizing land just to try to spur destination resort development.

Mount Spokane is in a Washington State Park, so the Forest Service and the feds in general are not involved.

Yep, my bad!