Don't Mess With The IRS

The purpose of this post is to remind you that this is the week during which you need to submit comments to the U.S. Forest Service on the issue of mining gravel at Theodore Roosevelt’s Elkhorn Ranch site. Comments should be submitted to Ron Jablonski at the address below (I listed the wrong address and contact person in an earlier blog,which I have since corrected). You can read the short scoping document for background on the issue here. For more background, you can also read my earlier blog posts on this by clicking here, here, or here.

I should mention there has been some progress in fighting this issue. Last week, the State Historic Preservation Board nominated the site for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places. Sometime in the next 2-3 months, that listing should become official. It doesn’t necessarily protect the area from gravel mining, but surely calls a lot more attention to it. Also last week, the Theodore Roosevelt Association,the Congressionally-chartered keeper of all things Theodore Roosevelt (and whose membership includes most current descendents of Theodore Roosevelt), agreed to submit comments to the Forest Service opposing the mining of the property, as did the Friends of the Elkhorn Ranch, the prestigious group whose members I listed for you here a couple weeks ago. I’ll try to get copies of their comments as soon as they are available and share them with you.

Meanwhile, just in case you need a little inspiration, I’m sharing with you below my own comments which I am sending in today. Please join me. We need all the help we can get.

Ronald W. Jablonski, Jr., District Ranger

Medora Ranger District

99 23rd Ave. West, Suite B

Dickinson, North Dakota 58601.

October 31, 2011

Dear Mr. Jablonski,

I am writing to submit comments on the scoping document posted on your website dated October 5, 2011, regarding the mining of surface minerals (gravel) by Ms. Peggy Braunberger on the Elkhorn Ranchlands site.

I am also enclosing copies of three blog posts from The Prairie Blog which I would like to submit as comments for the record as well.

First, let me say I am extremely disappointed that the Forest Service did not take steps to secure ownership of the surface minerals for the Elkhorn Ranchlands when these lands were acquired. They minerals were clearly available, and the comments by the Forest Service later that you were “willing to take the risk” that they would be developed shows an apparent casual disregard for the long term future of this place.

Second, although it is only a sidebar to the current issue, I urge you to complete a management plan for these lands. Four years ought to be long enough to get that done.

Now, matters at hand.

• I urge you to take all possible steps to limit surface mineral development here. I don’t need to remind you how significant a site this is to all Americans and that it has been nominated for the National Register of Historic Places.

• Earlier, I asked one of your staff, Sherri Schwenke, a question about needing approval from other mineral owners before mining can start. I have not had a reply to that question. I’d certainly like to know, and others would as well, I think, whether one mineral owner can proceed to remove minerals without the approval from other mineral owners with whom they share the mineral ownership. I would like to be reassured that you have fully checked that legal matter before extraction begins.

• As you may know, the deadly mineral erionite has been found in many gravel deposits in western North Dakota. I hope before you allow mineral extraction that this gravel will be tested for erionite, and the results of those tests made public. As a public agency, I’d think you have a responsibility to warn the public if deadly minerals are being removed from your property, and where they are going.

• The person who initially bought these minerals from the Connells, Mr. Lothspeich, has stated publicly that he has transferred the ownership to his girlfriend “for tax purposes.” In spite of that, he continues to talk as if he owns these minerals himself. Consider the following quotes from various newspapers attributed to Mr. Lothspeich:

“I’m not blinking. I’m going to get my gravel or write me a check.”

“I’ll negotiate with anybody, but I’ll also mine at the drop of a hat,” he said.

Lothspeich said he is open to selling the surface rights, which include “coal, scoria, uranium, sand, gravel, the whole works,” to anyone who gives him $2.5 million. “If those tree-huggers want to write me a check, that’s OK too.”

“They’re (the Forest Service) jacking me around because they know I’ve got them over a barrel.”

(bold emphasis mine)

• In spite of those quotes (and many others in various other publications—this is just a representative sample), he admits he no longer owns the minerals, and your own scoping documents list Peggy Braunberger, apparently his girlfriend, as the applicant. What’s up with that? I hope you are dealing directly with this girlfriend and not him, if it is true he has no ownership. I also hope you will warn both of them of the consequences of cheating the IRS, and I hope that you will make the IRS, one of your fellow government agencies, aware of these shenanigans so they can watch the tax returns of Mr. Lothspeich and his girlfriend carefully. She should also be warned that people go to the pokey for dodging taxes, or being an accomplice to someone dodging taxes.

Those are my formal comments, but I strongly urge you to consider my earlier writings on the Prairie Blog on this the subject, in much more depth, as official comments as well.

Respectfully,

Jim Fuglie

Weekenders

SURPRISE! LOOKS LIKE KEVIN’S IN

Kevin Cramer lives, eats, breathes and sleeps politics. So you just knew it had to happen. Kevin said in the paper today he might just run for Congress in 2012.

All Kevin has ever wanted is to go to Washington, D.C. as a Senator or Congressman (I wrote about this back in February). I’ve always thought he was the most politically ambitious of any of the state’s current office-holders. But Cramer’s fellow Public Service Commission Brian Kalk has been proving me wrong.

Timeline for 2011:

January 13 – Brian Kalk announces he’s forming an exploratory committee for to run against Senator Kent Conrad for the U.S. Senate in 2012.

January 19 – Kent Conrad announces he won’t seek re-election in 2012.

February 5 – Kalk launches Facebook page and Kalk for Senate website

April 30 – Kalk formally announces for U. S. Senate

May 11 – Forum reporter Teri Finneman announces on her blog that Representative Rick Berg will give up his U.S. House seat to run for the U. S. Senate.

May 16 – Just a little over four months into his first term in the U.S. House, Berg announces he’ll run for the U.S. Senate in 2012

May 20 – Kalk announces he’s abandoning his U.S. Senate race to run for the House instead. (I’m not sure if Kevin was on vacation on May 17, 18 and 19, or what, but he missed his chance to get into the House race, because Kalk didn’t waste any time making his move away from a contest with Berg for the Senate nomination. On his website, in a video posted May 27, Kalk says “Once it became apparent that Congressman Berg was getting into the (Senate) race, I had a groundswell of grass roots supporters urging me to consider switching to the Congressional race. And so I’ve always prided myself on listening to the grass roots (you can gag here if you want to) and I really, I could see we both have very passionate supporters, so I could see a highly contested race (yeah, right), and I was not willing to risk a divided party in the fall . . .”)

Now it’s October, just a few months before the Republican State Convention, and Cramer has to make his move if he’s going to. And it looks like he’s going to. In today’s Bismarck Tribune, Cramer says the odds are 50-50 that he’ll challenge Kalk and Betty Grande (my choice, incidentally—I am thinking about sending her money) for the nomination, in spite of the fact it looks pretty unseemly that two of the three Public Service Commissioners are going after the same job. One wonders who’s going to be around doing the work of the Public Service Commission while two-thirds of its members are out campaigning. And one also wonders what the atmosphere is going to be like at the PSC office. Don’t suppose the two of them will be doing much traveling together.

Bottom line is, you’ve got two guys who ran for, and were elected to, the Public Service Commission, and now neither one of the wants to complete his term. One of these days that ambition and opportunism is going to catch up with the Republican Party.

LOOKS LIKE CORY’S OUT

Kudos to Cory Fong, by the way. His much-rumored campaign for Congress has been set on the back burner, much to the disappointment of a lot of moderate Republicans not excited about the three conservatives likely to be in the race, Kalk, Cramer and Betty Grande. Cory’s going to finish his term. But his time will come. The Tax Commissioner’s office has been a real stepping stone, unlike the PSC (the only Public Service Commissioner I can think of who ever got elected to anything else is Dale Sandstrom, who sits on the North Dakota Supreme Court). In fact, if Heidi Heitkamp finally decides to run for the U.S. Senate, that would mean that every North Dakota Tax Commissioner since 1966 except Bob Hanson has run for Federal office. Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan, obviously, got elected. Rick Clayburgh tried and failed against Earl Pomeroy. Don’t bet against Cory Fong in the future, though.

GOING FOR ALL THE DOUGH

Speaking of Cory Fong, what’s up with he and Sen. Dwight Cook weighing in on the effort to collect sales taxes from Internet companies sending stuff to North Dakota? Like we have a money shortage here these days? Hey, guys, do you want ALL the money?

THE CASE FOR SINGLE-MEMBER HOUSE DISTRICTS

Here’s my suggestion to the Legislative Redistricting Committee, which meets in a couple weeks to draw new District lines. They’ll never listen to me, but I think it’s the solution to the ever-growing size of rural legislative districts in North Dakota. I’d cut the number of Senate Districts to 40, from the current 47. 40 is plenty of Senators. The Senate Districts would be bigger than they are now, but that problem gets solved by creating single-member House Districts. You do that by cutting each Senate District in half and electing one House member from each geographical half of the district. In reality, this creates 80 House Districts, which brings representation much closer to home in rural areas than now. House members represent about 14,000 people under the current scenario of 47 districts. With 80 House members representing single-member districts, each would represent about 8,500. Without creating more government, which the conservatives are whining about right now. In fact, according to Legislative Council estimates, it would save about $7 million of taxpayers‘ dollars. Win-win.

WHO’S REPRESENTING THE NEWCOMERS?

There’s one more issue the Legislature is going to have to deal with relative to reapportionment of Legislative Districts: the huge increase in population in western North Dakota. The federal census for North Dakota, done in 2010, was outdated the day it was completed. There are probably 10 or 20 or 30 thousand more people out west than there were a year and a half ago, and they are being under-represented to the point where somebody is probably going to bring a lawsuit if the Legislature doesn’t deal with the problem. And that’ll be a mess. I’m old enough to remember the endless lawsuits of the 1960’s and 1970’s over reapportionment. It took most of a decade to finally get it right. So they might as well address it right now.

Your Comments Welcome . . . And Necessary

Late Tuesday, the U.S. Forest Service posted the scoping documents for the “Elkhorn Gravel Pit” on its website. The documents tell you what Roger Lothspeich, who owns half the surface minerals on the Elkhorn Ranchlands, plans to do to this historic site. As I’ve noted in the three previous blog posts on this issue, citizens are invited to submit comments on the project until November 4. Then over a period of several months the Forest Service will issue its findings on the project and likely approve the project. And gravel pits will start emerging across the river from the Elkhorn Ranch.

If TR were sitting on his veranda in his rocking chair, as he did many times during his life in the Bad Lands, he’d be able to watch the whole process—the bulldozers pushing away and piling up the topsoil, the scoop shovels hoisting buckets of gravel into the big dump trucks, the trucks heading down the road in a cloud of dust, the excess gravel being piled high on the rim of the Little Missouri River valley waiting for the next truck. Surely this was not what the Friends of the Elkhorn Ranch, or the National Park Service, or the U.S. Forest Service, envisioned four years ago when the dedication ceremony was held for the acquisition of the lands across from Roosevelt’s cabin.

You can join the effort to stop this travesty. Please go to this website. The scoping documents are right there on the home page. Read the short two-page summary. Look at the maps. And then tell the Forest Service what you think of this scheme, cooked up by some jackass in Montana, who thinks he’s got one helluva game going on here.

Here are the instructions from the Forest Service for commenting:

Your comments, including your name and address, will be considered part of the public record on this proposed action and will be available for public inspection. Comments submitted anonymously will be accepted and considered regarding this project. If you need more information on submitting comments anonymously, please contact us or refer to 36 CFR 215 and 7 CFR 1.27(d).

If you have any questions about this project or wish to submit oral comments, contact Mark Sexton, the project team leader, at (701) 227-7824. Your email comments can be submitted on the internet to, comments-northern-dakota-prairie-medora@fs.fed.us. Please direct your written comments to Ronald W. Jablonski, Jr., District Ranger, Medora Ranger District, 99 23rd Ave. West, Suite B, Dickinson, North Dakota 58601.

If you choose, you may also go ahead and contact Roger Lothspeich directly by calling him at home, (406) 234-2465. Or send him a letter at 3711 Batchelor Street, Miles City, Montana, 59301. Or you can e-mail him at info@rmcmilescity.com. Let him know what you think of his plans. I’m sure he’ll be happy to hear from you. He loves attention.

Here's A 'Who's Who' List For You

Take a look at the list of names below. They are the members of the Advisory Council of the Friends of the Elkhorn Ranch, the organization formed in 2007 which helped gain public ownership of the former Eberts Ranch, now the Elkhorn Ranchlands, which is threatened by gravel mining by the surface mineral owners.

Theodore Roosevelt, IV Honorary Chair, Trustee, Theodore Roosevelt Association

Simon Roosevelt, New York, Trustee, Theodore Roosevelt Association and Director, TR Medora Foundation

Tweed Roosevelt, Massachusetts, Vice Chair, Theodore Roosevelt Association

Lowell E. Baier, Maryland, Executive Vice President, Boone and Crockett Club, Trustee, Theodore Roosevelt Association

Barbara Berryman Brandt, New York, Chair, Theodore Roosevelt Association

Governor John Hoeven, North Dakota

Andrew L. Hoxsey, California, Chairman, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation

Bill Kiefer, North Dakota, Principal, Financial Advantage Investment Services, Board Member of the Torstenson Wildlife Center

Robert Model, Wyoming, Chairman, Boone and Crockett Club

Edmund Morris, New York, Biographer and Historian

Gale A. Norton, Colorado, Former Secretary of the Interior

R. Max Peterson, Virginia, Chief Emeritus, USDA Forest Service

Edward T. Schafer, North Dakota, Former Governor

General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, Florida, US Army Retired

Alan K. Simpson, Wyoming, Former Senator

Russell Train, Washington, D.C., Chairman Emeritus, World Wildlife Fund and Former Director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality

Keith Trego, North Dakota, Executive Director, North Dakota Natural Resources Trust

John Turner, Wyoming, Former Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, and Former Director, US Fish and Wildlife Service

Rebecca W. Watson, Colorado, Former Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management U.S., Department of the Interior

Don Young, Alaska, Congressman

Whew! Quite a list of luminaries, not? Roosevelts, governors, liberals, conservatives, hunters, fishermen, cabinet officers and congressmen. Norman Schwartzkopf! Edmund Morris! If I had a problem, these are people I’d like on my side.

Take a look at the list of organizations below. These are the conservation groups who formally backed the Forest Service’s plan to acquire the Eberts Ranch in 2007. According to Lowell Baier, the executive vice president of the Boone and Crocket Club, who led the private sector effort behind the acquisition, these groups represent about 40 million people.

Boone and Crockett Club.

Bear Trust International.

Bowhunting Preservation Alliance.

Campfire Club of America.

Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation.

Dallas Safari Club.

Ducks Unlimited.

Foundation for North American Wild Sheep.

Houston Safari Club.

International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies.

Izaak Walton League of America.

National Rifle Association.

National Shooting Sports Foundation.

National Trappers Association.

National Wild Turkey Federation.

North American Bear Foundation.

North American Grouse Partnership.

Orion, The Hunters Institute.

Pheasants Forever.

Pope and Young Club.

Quality Deer Management Association.

Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation.

Lowell Baier put that list together as well. He did his job well. He’s got just about every hunting and fishing organization in America, along with all our state Game and Fish Departments. If I had a problem, these are organizations I’d like on my side. They (well, their members) all carry guns! Lowell and I will be visiting about this in the next few days, looking for a strategy.

If you know any of these people, or if you are a member of any of these organizations, please contact them, send them a copy of the Bismarck Tribune story and ask them to send comments on the gravel mining scheme I wrote about in earlier posts, here, and here.

As of Tuesday morning, the scoping documents for this project were still not on the Forest Service’s web site. If you would like copies of them, I can forward to you an e-mail I received from the Forest Service that has them attached. Just send me an e-mail at jimfuglie@hotmail.com. If they get posted, I will update my blog to include the web address so you can read them for yourself.

It is important that the Forest Service get a lot of comments opposing this scheme. If not, they will say “Well, apparently no one is concerned about this, so let the draglines rip and roar. Grab that gravel, Roger.”

I’m still talking to people trying to find out what can really be done besides protesting. Is there money to buy out Lothspeich, as distasteful as that sounds to me? Would the organizations and individuals posted above pony up some more money to buy back the minerals? Is there federal money for the Forest Service to buy back the minerals? If not, as I said before, we’re probably just gonna have to sit down in front of the dozer.

Here’s how to send comments:

Paula Johnston
USDA Forest Service –Dakota Prairie Grasslands
240 W. Century Avenue
Bismarck, ND 58503

Or e-mail them to: comments-northern-dakota-prairie@fs.fed.us.

Stupid and Ugly

Continuing with our discussion of the Seven Deadly Sins. Our revisionist group identified two more, pretty much unanimously, that should be submitted for ratification: Stupid, and Ugly.

Stupid, not in the sense of being born with diminished intellectual capabilities, but doing or saying things that just don't make any sense to anyone, and should not have been done or said. Kind of like Tiger woods crashing his SUV into a tree and then telling the world he had been sleeping with women all over America. Both really stupid things to do.

Ugly, not in the sense of being born with unattractive personal physical characteristics, but more like an outcome that is just totally unacceptable, generally as a result of a really stupid act. Like the kind of baseball played by the Boston Red Sox in September of 2011, or the football played by the Minnesota Vikings so far this year. Really ugly baseball. And really ugly football.

You get the drift. Pretty obvious, and dreadful, sins.

Meanwhile, matters at hand. Gravel mining at the Elkhorn Ranch site.

Like most controversial stories, the story of Roger Lothspeich's in-your-face scheme to mine gravel across the river from the Elkhorn Ranch site has more than one side. We agreed in a post earlier this week that one side of the story is the sin of being an asshole. Now, I submit, one of the other sides (there are several to this story) is the failure of the U.S. Forest Service to buy the minerals that Lothspeich now owns and plans to develop. That would involve the sins of stupid and ugly.

Stupid: "Forest Service district supervisor Ron Jablonski said the agency never made a formal offer for the mineral rights to the Ebertses or the Connells. 'We thought at the time that the land was a good purchase for taxpayers,' Jablonski said. 'We had no idea that something like this would come up. We knew the potential was there, but we were willing to take the risk.'" -- Associated Press, August 2009.

Ugly: If Lothspeich has his way, there will be mining operations directly across from the Theodore Roosevelt Elkhorn Cabin site for years and years to come as a result of the Forest Service's willingness to "take the risk."

More stupid: Arriving in the mail at our house on Thursday was a letter from the Forest Service that starts: “The Forest Service has received an Operating Plan (OP) from Ms. Peggy Braunberger, to mine gravel. Approval of the OP by the Forest Service is subject to terms and conditions that will provide for adequate protection and utilization of National Forest System (NFS) land and resources. The approved OP would permit the construction of the Elkhorn Gravel Pit (gravel pit) and use of existing roads to access the gravel pit and haul gravel.”

Braunberger is Lothspeich's girlfriend. He said earlier that he had transferred ownership to her for "tax purposes"--meaning his lawyer has found a way for him to avoid paying some taxes.

The letter is an insult to the intelligence of the taxpayers who paid to save this place, and all the organizations and businesses who contributed money to help buy it. I almost gagged when I read it. It first describes the mining operation that is going to take place, in very matter-of-fact terms, like this is nothing unusual. "The intent of Ms. Braunberger's proposal is to exercise her legal private mineral rights through the development of the gravel pit." (Never mind that she--or, rather, Lothspeich--bought those legal private mineral rights AFTER the Forest Service bought the land in which those minerals are located.)

"The Forest Service is a multiple use agency and will maintain management authority . . ." (Don't worry. Everything's fine. We do stuff like this all the time. We're in charge here.)

"Cultural, botany and wildlife surveys have been completed for the project." (I'm gonna have to get those. What will years and years of mining do to the historical value, plant life and wildlife in this most fragile area of North Dakota? This is starting to sound like Lynn Helms, our chief oil cheerleader.)

"Roads (leading to the site) will be resurfaced with gravel. There will be a temporary road constructed within the (25-acre) gravel pit for hauling purposes. The gravel pit will be mined in four phases over a two year period, pending any weather or wildlife-related delays." (Wildlife-related delays? WTF do you suppose that means?)

More Ugly: At least two years (likely longer--you can bet there will be "weather and wildlife-related delays") of dozers and loaders and trucks and dust and gravel piles and noise, just at this first site--Lothspeich has said he will mine everywhere there's gravel on this land, including, possibly, in the Little Missouri River bed. "The next gravel pit will likely be south of and much larger than the first and even closer to the Elkhorn Ranch, he (Lothspeich) said." -- Bismarck Tribune, October 6, 2011.

And then, just to reassure us this is really, really, really all right, the letter ends with two long paragraphs about how the land will be reclaimed and everything will be back to normal in short order. We won't even really be able to tell that this all took place. Yeah, right. You ever seen a successful reclamation area in the Bad Lands?

That's the gist of the letter. I received the same letter by e-mail later Thursday, from the Forest Service spokesperson who first told me that they would put information on their website for us to comment on, and then told me in the e-mail "it appears we might be having some challenges with posting the information . . ."

I'd think if they really wanted input on this from the citizenry, which they say they will take until November 4, they'd share the actual application from Ms. Braunberger, as well as their own summary of it. I'm guessing all that is public record, and would make us better informed as we submit our comments.

A couple of friends of mine suggested this is really a "black and white" issue. Lothspeich is trying to blackmail us, and the Forest Service is trying to whitewash it.

Stupid is the Forest Service's pandering letter seeking comments. Who do they think they're fooling? This is the land on which we spent four million taxpayer dollars and a million donated dollars to protect from development just four years ago. They didn’t bother to buy the minerals that went with it. But don’t worry, they say, gravel mining isn’t really all that bad. Do they think I’m stupid too? Do they think we’re all stupid?

Ugly is the feeling I get about how they have mismanaged this project. The Forest Service has owned this land for four and a half years, and there is still no management plan for the site.

Meanwhile, the Bismarck Tribune story Thursday has sparked national interest in this current crisis. The Associated Press did a follow-up story that has hit newspapers across the country. Stories have appeared on websites for CNBC, The Street, Bloomberg Business Daily, and in numerous publications around the country.

So, I repeat, I will put a link here to any information that the Forest Service puts on its website next week. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, I'm guessing their webmaster was not available to get it done Friday. But if you want to submit comments now, you can send them to:

Paula Johnston
USDA Forest Service --Dakota Prairie Grasslands
240 W. Century Avenue
Bismarck, ND 58503

Or e-mail them to: comments-northern-dakota-prairie@fs.fed.us.

You have until November 4 to comment. Please let them know how you feel.

Deadly Sins In The Bad Lands

During a recent campfire discussion among friends, we decided, only half jokingly, that it’s just possible the Seven Deadly Sins need an update. I mean, they date back to about the 6^th Century, and the world has changed a bit since then. Don’t get me too wrong here—they’re still bad things, and should be avoided, and those who commit them should probably be punished. But there are things going on that Pope Gregory just didn’t synthesize when he listed what most of us have come to agree are the original Seven Deadly Sins: Anger, Envy, Gluttony, Greed, Lust, Pride and Sloth.

It got late into the night, and we’re pretty old to be staying up late, so we never finished coming up with a whole new list. But we did agree on some things that ought to be included if a new list were ever compiled and put forth for ratification, and at the top of my list, the deadliest of the Seven Deadly Sins, as far as I am concerned, is (drum roll) . . . Being an Asshole. And I got lots of agreement from our group.

Now, we recognize some further definition and refining might be in order here, but generally, there’s really no excuse for being an asshole, by anyone’s definition, so maybe the easiest way to define it is to come up with a good example (to paraphrase Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, “I know one when I see one”). Well, today’s Bismarck Tribune provided one really good example.

Today’s Tribune carried the latest story in the ongoing saga of the gravel mineral ownership on what used to be known as the Eberts Ranch, now known as the Elkhorn Ranchlands, in western North Dakota. A bit of history:

The ranch is located across the Little Missouri River from the National Park Service’s Elkhorn Ranch Site, part of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. The Elkhorn Ranch is where Theodore Roosevelt lived in the Bad Lands. The Elkhorn Ranchlands is where he ran his cattle.

The Ranchlands were purchased about three years ago by the U.S. Forest Service for $5 million or so from the Eberts family, to preserve them from development into ranchettes. The money to buy them was raised by conservation groups interested in preserving the viewshed of the Elkhorn Ranch. The conservation groups labeled the site “The Cradle of Conservation,” since it was where Roosevelt did much of the thinking that led to his becoming the greatest conservation president in our history.

The Forest Service made a major screw-up when they bought the Eberts Ranch: they did not buy the mineral rights. How that happened is open to speculation, but a Forest Service spokesperson told an Associated Press reporter back in 2009 that the Forest Service never made a formal offer for the mineral rights. (A bit of the old-school sin of Sloth, I’d say.) A little more history:

The ranch was owned by the Connell family for many years, and sold to the Eberts family in the early 1990’s. The Eberts purchased half the “surface mineral rights,” including the gravel under the ranch land, and the Connells retained the other half. Gravel had been mined on the ranch in the past, providing a substantial amount of income to the Connells, but the Eberts family was not interested in mining the gravel. When the Eberts family sold the ranch to the Forest Service, they retained their half of the mineral interests. The Connells, meanwhile, sold their remaining half to a fellow named Roger Lothspeich, a local opportunist who grew up on a nearby ranch and knew the area well. Lothspeich is now a businessman in Miles City, Montana.

And as soon as Lothspeich got what he believed was title to the minerals he announced in a 2008 story in the Bismarck Tribune that he was going to go in and dig up the gravel. In full view of all the visitors to the National Park’s Elkhorn Ranch. You’ve seen gravel pits. Not a pretty sight.

Well, the Forest Service, while wiping the egg off its face, told Lothspeich he needed better documentation that he actually owned the surface minerals in question before he could begin mining on their land. Lothspeich set out to do that in 2009, and now has provided proof that he actually owns 27 per cent of the gravel under the ranch, according to today’s Tribune story. And he’s going after that gravel. Lothspeich says there’s $10 million worth of gravel under the ranch. He’ll sell his share for $2.5 million to someone who wants to stop him from mining it.

“If they want me out of the picture, pay me $2.5 million and I’ll go back to Montana and they’ll never hear from me again,” he told an AP reporter in 2009. “Or I’m going to mine that ranch for decades and decades to come.” (Greed?)

Today’s Tribune says Lothspeich has submitted an operating plan to the Forest Service to mine his share of the gravel from a 25-acre site about a half a mile as the crow flies from the Elkhorn Ranch, up on a plateau overlooking the ranch site. And more pits will be opened later to get at gravel reserves scattered around the ranch, possibly including the gravel in the Little Missouri River, the Tribune story says. The Forest Service is taking comments on the plan until Nov. 4 and will release a final environmental document next spring, according to the Forest Service spokesman, Roger Sexton.

That’s the story to date. At first blush, it sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? The Forest Service screwed up, and a citizen is going to exercise his property rights.

Except that this guy is doing more than just exercising property rights.

He’s committing what my friends and I think is the worst of the Seven Deadly Sins (see paragraph 2).

Look at some of the things he has said over the past three years. Submitted, as Rod Serling used to say, for your consideration:

From the Bismarck Tribune, October 15, 2008:

“If they (Forest Service) want it to remain pristine, they need to get some more cash. This thing is so far from over it’s pathetic. I’ll be just completely relentless.”

From the Helena, Montana Independent Record, March 1, 2009:

“They’re (the Forest Service) jacking me around because they know I’ve got them over a barrel.” (Pride?)

Tourists coming to the area will be disappointed if he doesn’t get his ($2.5 million) asking price, Lothspeich told the Independent Record:

“These people who think they’ll come out there and see the so-called ‘cradle of conservation’ won’t see anything except a bunch of gravel pits. It won’t bother me one bit to have big open pit mines at that place.”

“I’m not blinking. I’m going to get my gravel or write me a check.” (More Greed?)

The Independent Record talked to Wayde Schafer, a North Dakota spokesman for the Sierra Club. Schafer said Lothspeich approached his group about buying the subsurface rights to the ranch. “He basically said he’d dig it up unless we gave him money. He thought for sure we’d jump at the chance to pay him $2.5 million, but I told him “that’s not what we do and good luck.’”

Lothspeich said he is open to selling the surface rights, which include “coal, scoria, uranium, sand, gravel, the whole works,” to anyone who gives him $2.5 million.

“If those tree-huggers want to write me a check, that’s OK too.”

From today’s Bismarck Tribune:

(After the first 25-acre pit is mined) The next gravel pit will be south of and much larger than the first and even closer to the Elkhorn Ranch, Lothspeich said. He said he’s still open to negotiating if some conservation group wants to buy the gravel to prevent it from being mined.

“I’ll negotiate with anybody, but I’ll also mine at the drop of a hat,” he said.

Lothspeich said the operation will be perfectly timed with a heavy demand for gravel in western North Dakota due to oil development.

“A buyer is the least of my concerns” he said. In fact, he said, the long delay in getting to this point “was nothing but a huge benefit to me,” since the price of gravel has dramatically increased.”

Well, okay, I admit I’m one of those “tree-huggers” and I don’t have $2.5 million. So here’s what I’m suggesting to all you fellow “tree-huggers” reading this:

First, we’ll talk to the Forest Service, and find out when Mr. Deadly Sinner plans to begin mining, and who he plans to get to do it. Then, we’ll just get in our cars and drive out to the Bad Lands and sit down in front of the equipment. And tell them they’re just going to have to run us over to get at that gravel.

Second, we’ll find out who Mr. Deadly Sinner plans to sell this gravel to, and we’ll put public pressure on any potential customer not to buy it. Certainly, county commissioners, the biggest users of gravel in North Dakota, won’t want to be in the middle of that. And I can’t imagine any oil company wants the publicity they’re going to get if they buy this gravel that was dug up from President Theodore Roosevelt’s ranch. In fact, a number of energy companies, including Tesoro and MDU Resources right here in North Dakota, contributed to the $5 million fund to get the land purchased in the first place. I don’t think they’re going to want to see their investment ruined by a rogue gravel pit owner from Montana. We’ll be talking to them, and asking them to talk to their fellow energy companies.

To quote Mr. Deadly Sinner, “We’ll just be relentless.”

It’s been a long time since we’ve had a good dose of civil disobedience in North Dakota. It’s warranted here.

Is civil disobedience a sin?

Probably.

But I don’t think it’s nearly as bad as being an asshole.

NOTE: I talked to a Forest Service official today, and she said the Lothspeich application which will be open for public comment will be posted on their website Friday. I’ll put the address up here as soon as she gives it to me.