Public Land

More Details Emerge on the Crested Butte Mountain Resort Sale

Posted on December 10, 2008 by Eric OKeefe

Last Friday’s sale of Colorado’s Crested Butte Ski Resort, part of a three-ski-area package acquired by CNL Lifestyle Properties from Triple Peaks LLC for $132 million, marks the second change in ownership for the Gunnison County landmark in less than five years.…

Tagged with: American Skiing Company, CNL Lifestyle Properties, Colorado, Crested Butte, Diane Mueller, Gunnison County, Okemo, Steamboat Springs, Sunapee, Tim Mueller, Triple Peaks LLC
Posted in Eric OKeefe, Feature, Golf, News Desk, Public Land, Recreation, Regional News, Residential Property, Topics, West

Resilient Montanans Rally Around Timber

Posted on December 9, 2008 by Eric OKeefe

Worthwhile read in the New York Times today by Kirk Johnson for the National Desk. The focus of the article is less about timber or timberland as an investment and more about the Montana logging communities whose lifeblood has been altered by…

Tagged with: Forest Service, Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, Pyramid Mountain Lumber, Smurfit-Stone, USFS, Wood Resources International
Posted in Eric OKeefe, Feature, Federal Policy, News Desk, Public Land, Regional News, Timber, Topics, West

U.S. Sugar Approves Sale of 180,000 Acres in the Everglades for $1.34 Billion

Posted on December 8, 2008 by Eric OKeefe

Today U.S. Sugar announced that its board of directors had approved the sale/leaseback of 180,000 acres to the South Florida Water Management District for $1.34 billion ($7,444 per acre). The transaction ranks as one of the largest of 2008 and…

Tagged with: Broward County, Charlie Crist, Dade County, Eric Oâ€™Keefe, Everglades, Florida Everglades, Gov. Charlie Crist, Lake Okeechobee, Martin County, Palm Beach County, U.S. Sugar
Posted in Eric OKeefe, Farming, Feature, News Desk, Public Land, Recreation, Regional News, South, Topics, Water

Interior Department to Allow Firearms in Parks and Refuges

Posted on December 7, 2008 by Eric OKeefe

On Friday the Interior Department ruled that Americans will be able to carry concealed weapons in some federal parks and wildlife refuges. The announcement overturns a decades-old Reagan Administration regulation that required all guns brought into national parks and wildlife…

Tagged with: BLM, Bureau of Land Management, Bush Administration, firearms, Interior Department, National Park Service, NPS, U.S. Forest Service, USFS
Posted in Eric OKeefe, Feature, Federal Policy, News Desk, Public Land, Recreation, Topics

Pinon Canyon: “One Colossal Land Grab”

Posted on December 1, 2008 by Land Report Editors

Folks in Southern Colorado don’t trust the Army. And with good reason. In 1983, when the Department of Defense established the 500-square-mile Pinon Canon Maneuver Site (PCMS), the Army acquired almost half the 285,000 acres by using eminent domain. It…

Tagged with: Charlie Goodnight, Comanche National Grasslands, Dave Foster, Defense Authorization Act, Department of Defense, DoD, Doug Lamborn, Fort Carson, Gustav Schmiege, Jim Herrell, Joel Hefley, John Salazar, Ken Salazar, Kennie Gyurman, Lon Robertson, Mack Louden, Marilyn Musgrave, Pinon Canon Maneuver Site, The Nature Conservancy, US Army, Wayne Allard
Posted in 2008 Fall, Cattle, Farming, Feature, Federal Policy, Gustav Schmiege, Magazine, News Desk, Public Land, Topics, Trey Garrison, West

Potential for Massive Wildfires Next Summer in the West

Posted on November 21, 2008 by Eric OKeefe

The great plague that is the pine beetle infestation has now destroyed millions of acres of timber across the western U.S. and into Canada. The extent of this calamity is so enormous that last month we covered the devastation at…

Tagged with: bark beetle, beetle kill, forest fires, Forest Service, Jim Robbins, The New York Times, USFS, wildfires
Posted in Conservation, Eric OKeefe, Feature, News Desk, Public Land, Recreation, Regional News, Timber, Topics, West

Federal Reserve Bullish on Great Plains

Posted on November 20, 2008 by Eric OKeefe

Farmland in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Wyoming, and parts of New Mexico jumped 20 percent in the third quarter of 2008, according to a report released by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City this week. Here are some of the…

Tagged with: cropland, energy policy, Eric O'Keefe, ethanol, farmland, farmland values, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, weak dollar
Posted in Cattle, Eric OKeefe, Farming, Feature, Great Plains, News Desk, Public Land, Regional News, Southwest

Florida Renegotiates Largest U.S. Land Purchase of 2008

Posted on November 12, 2008 by Eric OKeefe

The $1.75 billion purchase by the state of Florida of 187,000 acres in the Everglades belonging to U.S. Sugar has been renegotiated and substantially bettered. The state will no longer take title to the company’s high-tech mill, its citrus processing plant,…

Tagged with: Charlie Crist, Everglades, Florida Everglades, Lake Okeechobee, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, The Everglades: River of Grass, U.S. Sugar
Posted in Conservation, Eric OKeefe, Farming, Feature, News Desk, Public Land, Recreation, Regional News, South, Topics, Water

Pinon Canyon: A Closer Look

Posted on September 8, 2008 by Land Report Editors

For more than a year The Land Report has been tracking the largest proposed seizure of private property by the federal government in modern history: the Battle for Pinon Canyon. It pits ranchers in southeast Colorado against an opponent that’s not used to losing…

Tagged with: Colorado, Department of Defense, eminent domain, Fort Carson, Mack Louden, Pinon Canyon, Trey Garrison
Posted in Cattle, Feature, Federal Policy, News Desk, Public Land, Trey Garrison, West

Florida to Pay $1.75 Billion for 187,000 Acres in the Everglades

Posted on June 24, 2008 by Eric OKeefe

In a massive deal announced earlier today, the State of Florida will acquire almost 300 square miles of the Everglades in and around the south end of Lake Okeechobee from U.S. Sugar Corp. for $1.75 billion ($9,000+ per acre).