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Chapter 10:
LAND USE AND PROTECTION
In an ideal world, creating a wilderness park means drawing boundaries around a pristine landscape to ensure its preservation. In reality, this is not as easily accomplished. North Cascades was an amalgam of recreation areas and national park, making the singular mission of wilderness protection more complicated. Recreation areas and national parks had different purposes. In the case of the North Cascades complex, the recreation areas contained permanent residents, artificial lakes, dams, and power plants, and they also offered a variety of other uses deemed inappropriate in national parks. On the other hand, North Cascades National Park was, like all parks, intended for higher uses: preservation of nature in its original state, and human appreciation of this wilderness condition. Yet one theme connecting the management of both recreation areas and national park was the acquisition of private lands.
In the park complex, private lands came in a number of forms, from mining claims to private residences and commercial resorts. During the park complex's first decade of management, park managers set about the task of purchasing private lands, the use of which may have posed a threat to the preservation of park resources, or the acquisition of which would aid in the administration of the park complex. In the late 1970s and 1980s agency officials renewed their efforts to acquire private lands and carry the program forward. In doing so, they encountered some of their greatest controversies. These controversies stemmed from the threat of renewed mining activities in the park as well as legal challenges to the Park Service's land acquisition policies in Stehekin.
To better understand this issue, it is helpful to first look at why there was an issue over private land in the first place. Typically, as in the case of North Cascades, Congress created national parks before it secured ownership of, or cleared title to, any inholdings. Doing so prior to the establishment of a park would have been time consuming and expensive. The saving clause in the language of most, if not all, park legislation was that the creation of a park area was subject to "valid existing rights." This meant that after a park's establishment, Park Service officials set about the task of purchasing private lands, the use of which may have posed a threat to preservation. Acquisition was often a delicate process of reconciling park needs with those of private landowners. If done quickly, acquisition could keep land prices low and thus costs to the government down. If done well, acquisition could keep public perceptions of the Park Service positive, aiding in further land purchases and promoting a positive view of the agency. [1]
Inevitably there were problems. This was especially true where the interpretation of the park's legislation, particularly a park area like North Cascades and the Stehekin country, continued to be the subject of some debate well after the park act was passed. In the first place, when a parkland was created with valid existing mineral rights, conflicts surfaced between the public's interest in the parkland's preservation and the interest of the mineral claimants in mineral development. [2] In the second place, rarely did Congress appropriate enough money for the purchase of all private lands in national parks. North Cascades was not exception. Prior to the 1960s, this did not always present a problem because most parklands were carved from other federal lands and required only a transfer from one public agency to the other. In other cases, state governments might become involved in the purchase of private lands for the Park Service. Similarly, philanthropists might step forward, as in the case of Grand Teton National Park, and buy the land for and transfer ownership to the service. By the 1960s, however, Congress began creating more parks from private lands, necessitating a new approach. The old approach had been to "wait for willing sellers" unless threats to resources were imminent. The new approach was that each area's enabling legislation guided the process of land acquisition. [3]
In the 1960s and early 1970s, the Park Service's approach was similar: first the agency would buy land from willing sellers, and then acquire lands needed for park management and use through condemnation. The situation was slightly different at North Cascades, given the political controversy and compromises surrounding the creation of the park complex (in particular Lake Chelan NRA). The area's legislation instructed the Park Service to buy lands from willing sellers only and not to purchase lands unless it was to protect an area from an incompatible use. In other words, it would not use condemnation as a general tool of land acquisition.
One can gain a sense of how important land acquisition was in the new park's management by the fact that acquisition preceded the completion of most formal planning documents and the implementation of other park programs. Complications arose in this process, however, that were common throughout the park system. Congress authorized new parks faster than it authorized appropriations for land acquisition. This led to delays in land purchases and the related problem of inflated land prices -- one reason why the Park Service used up its appropriation so quickly in Stehekin. Problems also surfaced with the Park Service's treatment of private land owners. During the 1970s, some land owners charged the agency with mistreatment; its acquisition program, they contended, was forcing inholders out of parks in which they were legally allowed. In other cases, agency officials were accused of harassing land owners until they sold out. Addressing these concerns, a series of General Accounting Office (GAO) reports, including one assessing the agency's practices in Stehekin, concluded that the Park Service had purchased too much land rather than employing other forms of protection such as easements and zoning. These latter methods would have allowed private owners to remain inside park areas. [4]
The result of these controversies was a new Park Service policy toward land acquisitions. In 1979, the Carter administration required that all parks have land acquisitions plans; these set forth overall strategies for the agency's acquisition program before it began purchasing land. The plans would provide a general order for land purchases, clarify what interests would be acquired -- such as full fee or scenic easement -- and identify what were compatible and incompatible uses on private lands. In doing so, land owners would know what was an acceptable use of their lands within the larger park or recreation area setting. More than one hundred plans were produced under the new policy for existing park units, North Cascades among them, over the next several years. Still more changes to the land acquisition program came in 1981 when Secretary of the Interior James Watt took office. Watt tightened the policy on land purchases even further; he replaced the land acquisition plans with land protection plans. The main intent of these new plans was that their programs were to be cost effective to the federal government. Put another way, they needed to find other "practical" means -- whenever possible -- other than federal purchase to protect lands within park areas. What followed was the development of a more methodical process (set down in more plans) to determine that federal funds were spent to buy only the "most critical parcels." [5]
http://www.nps.gov/noca/adhi-10.htm