ALRA: Chattoog W&S River Comment Questionnaire 1/20

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Land Rights Network
American Land Rights Association
http://www.landrights.org

Urgent Action Required – FS Comment Deadline January 20th
Chattooga Wild & Scenic River Comment Questionnaire

Action Items:

-----A. Please forward this message to your e-mail list.

-----B. Please fill out the Comment Questionnaire below and send it
by e-mail, fax or US Mail to the listed address of the US Forest
Service.

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E-mail and Fax Deadline Monday, January 24, 2011,
US Mail Deadline January 20, 2011

Chattooga Wild & Scenic River Comment Questionnaire

Comments For The Record –U.S. Forest Service –
Chattooga W & S River Management Plan

To: U.S. Forest Service, Chattooga W & S River Management Planning
Process

Below are my concerns and comments regarding the Chattooga W & S
River.

These are my comments regarding the Chattooga W & S River. Please
include them in the official record of the Chattooga W & S River
Management Plan. Please consider a photocopy as valid as the
original.

Signature ________________________________

Print Your Name ______________________________

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Dear Private Property, Federal lands and Multiple-Use Advocate:

Subject: Inholders and Landowners beware!

Any landowner or permittee within a Forest, Park or Wild and Scenic
River should take notice of how the USFS is managing the Chattooga
Wild and Scenic River.

A rogue access lobby has been pressuring the Forest Service to ignore
property rights and ownership boundaries when setting recreational
policy for the Wild and Scenic Chattooga River. If land management
agencies can ignore property boundaries and land rights in order to
placate special-interest-lobbies along the Chattooga, they can easily
ignore your rights no matter where your property is located

Wild and Scenic Managing agencies are required to document property
boundaries and the effects their management policy would have on
public or adjacent private lands.

Whether public trespass or nuisance, land management agencies cannot
simply establish a public recreational policy that will have a
detrimental impact on private landowners; these indirect impacts must
be transparently documented under the National Environmental Policy
Act (NEPA).

Comments supporting property rights need to be heard by the Forest
Service before January 24th. Please post your comments by e-mail to:
comments-southern-francismarion-sumter@fs.fed.us

You may also fax your comments to (803) 561-4004

Hard copy comments may be mailed to the Chattooga Planning Team, U.S.
Forest Service, 4931 Broad River Road, Columbia, S.C. 29212.

Below is a Comment Questionnaire for you to fill out and send back to
the Forest Service.

In the next section you will see a series of statements about the
Chattooga W & S River that American Land Rights agrees with, but you
don’t have to. Please mark them with your opinion. You may write in
additional comments or cross out comments you don’t agree with.

This Comment Questionnaire is about getting your comments. The Forest
Service wants to know what you think. It is critical that you write
your responses to the statements with your opinion and not what you
think we would want you to write. You are free to disagree with
American Land Rights.

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-----Please circle or otherwise mark your answer and return by
e-mail, fax or by US Mail. Your personal comments make this document
more valuable. So be sure to fill in using your own words the blank
space below where the Agree-Disagree statements are listed below. You
can borrow from the statements to write in your own statements.

Please take a moment to write the USFS and ask them to: (You may
modify these comments in any way.)

1) The Forest Service should document the direct and indirect affects
that unlimited recreation would have on both public and private lands
along the Chattooga River as required by the National Environmental
Policy Act (NEPA). USFS policy should not encourage trespassing.

*Agree…..Disagree…..No Opinion*

2) The Forest Service should recognize the boundaries between private
and public lands, especially those already documented to Congress
during the Wild and Scenic Designation process.

*Agree…..Disagree…..No Opinion*

3) The Forest Service should work with Landowner when setting
management policy; they should not simply ignore private property
rights. Vague references to private lands are insufficient.

* Agree…..Disagree…..No Opinion*

4) The USFS should either avoid including private lands within
designated Forests, and Wild and Scenic Rivers, or clarify that
designation does not affect property rights. Special land designation
that imply public use of private lands are unconstitutional.

*Agree…..Disagree…..No Opinion*

5) Ask the USFS to avoid being pressured by self-serving special
interest lobbies seeking to turn private lands into their own
playgrounds at the expense of taxpaying landowners.

*Agree…..Disagree…..No Opinion*

(Your written comments here below are essential if you want the US
Forest Service to really pay attention to this document. You may
borrow or expand on the statements above and write them in below.)

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(If needed, use additional sheets or attach a personal letter)
To validate your comments please fill in completely (PRINT or TYPE)
and be sure to sign.
Signature_________________________________
Name____________________________________________
E-Mail_______________________________ Fax ___________________ Phone
____________________
Address_______________________________ Town______________________
State_____ Zip____________
Please do not fail to send this testimony questionnaire even if you
receive it late. It will often be accepted.

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E-mail and Fax Deadline Monday, January 24, 2011,
Send it even if you receive it late.

The Full Story:

The Rust family moved to the headwaters of the Chattooga in 1946,
after the Tennessee Valley Authority (“TVA”) condemned their
family home in nearby Swain County, North Carolina. The Swain county
property was over a mile from the then-proposed lake, but was
ostensibly taken for the “public purpose” associated with a
hydroelectric project. However, the TVA did not need, nor ever used,
the condemned property for the hydro project. Instead, the condemned
property was placed under Forest Service management, some of which
has been used for land swaps to facilitate private development and
recreation interests on and above Lake Fontana.

Sixty years later a recreational access lobby are once again
attempting to turn the family home into a recreation playground. This
time it is the family’s property in Jackson County, North Carolina,
which the lobby desires. The family continues steadfastly to resist a
similar fate befalling the Chattooga property (and the current family
home of 65 years) that occurred with its prior property in Swain
County. In 1971 the property was declared ‘Wild and Scenic’ and
the property became an in-holding within the ‘declared’ corridor.


The USFS documented that public access to the property would require
trespassing and recognizes the property as being privately owned.

However, the kayak-access-lobby has sued the USFS in Federal Court
for not ‘protecting’ their ability to trespass onto private lands
that had the unfortunate fate of being declared ‘Wild and Scenic’.
Instead of working with landowners who themselves are protecting the
property, the USFS have put up little defense to these rogue access
lobbyists.

At great expense, the landowners have been forced to enjoin the
lawsuit to protect their interests, but the USFS remain complicit in
the access lobbies aggressive attack on private property rights.

Inholders across the country beware or this new roadmap being
established in the federal courts. Government agencies need not take
initiative toward eminent domain proceedings, they can simply remain
complicit in litigation by recreational access lobby groups pushing
for condemnation of private property.

The Wild and Scenic River Act limits condemnation of private property
and does not open private lands to public recreation. However, it does
not keep the judiciary from entertaining lawsuits presented by
fanatical recreational access groups.

The new road against property rights is becoming clear. First have
property of interest designated Wild and Scenic under the guise of
not effecting private lands. Second establish recreation as a
designation value that the land managing agency must ‘protect’.
Third, have a recreational access lobby sue the complicit agency for
not ‘protecting’ recreational ‘desire’ to access that private
land. Finally, use the Judiciary to force the agency to ‘protect’
public access to private property.

How might this new land grab technique affect your property rights?

If the purpose of these special designations is public access, these
designations are certainly against the fifth amendment rights
protected under the constitution.

If you know of others who would like to receive these alerts, reply
to alra@pacifier.com with their e-mail addresses.

Please forward this message as widely as possible. This is a historic
issue.

It is incredibly important for you to forward this message. By
forwarding the message, you can help get millions of copies of this
critically important e-mail distributed. Thank you in advance for
your help.

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