BLM to give state land in Hill, Chouteau counties

Bureau of Land Management officials will host an open house at their Havre field office Wednesday night to discuss the possible transfer of 16,000 acres of federal land to state control, including 2,560 acres in Hill and Chouteau counties.

“It is really just an open house to provide information to the public and seeking comment about what they see as issues with this project or this undertaking,” said Stanley Jaynes, field manager of the Havre field office.

The state has tentatively identified 2,400 acres in Chouteau County and 160 in Hill County. Jaynes said the land in question is located near Lonesome Lake west of Big Sandy in Chouteau County and east of Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation in Hill County.

Other tracts of land in Custer, Fallon, Richland and Yellowstone counties have also been identified for possible transfer by the field offices in both Billings and Miles City.

The transfer would change the tracts from being BLM land to being school trust lands. School trust lands are state-owned lands leased out for farming, grazing or natural resource development with revenue from those leases used for Montana schools, Jaynes said.

He said the proposed transfer is meant to satisfy an obligation made to the state of Montana under the Enabling Act of 1889, enacted when Montana gained statehood.

The act granted Montana, North and South Dakota and Washington sections 16 and 36 in each township for state use. However, some of that land already had been claimed in other arrangements and could not be claimed by the state.

“They may have been Indian reservations, they may have been forest service or some other designation before all those lands were claimed,” Jaynes said.

The land tentatively identified by the state will be used to compensate Montana for the $4.1 million owed to the state under the act.

How much of that land is transferred will depend on how many acres it will take to meet that obligation.

Jaynes said farming and grazing has taken place on land tentatively identified for transfer in both north-central Montana and other parts of the state.

Though they are BLM lands, the land in question near Lonesome Lake was put under the management of the Bureau of Reclamation for a water project in the 1930s and '40s that never was undertaken, Jaynes said.

Montana, through the Department of Natural Resources, filed a state Indemnity Application with the federal government in December 2015 in which the lands were identified,

Jaynes said that the federal government is now reviewing the application and will eventually complete an environmental assessment to determine if the lands in question have cultural significance, would impact endangered  species or otherwise adversely affect  the  environment.

Wednesday’s meeting will take place from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Havre office at 3990 U.S. Highway 2 West.