Legislature to consider massive land trade for training range

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah lawmakers are being asked to throw their support behind a massive land exchange that would allow the military’s Utah Test and Training Range to significantly expand its geographic footprint in the West Desert.

A joint resolution introduced Tuesday in the Utah House was reviewed Wednesday afternoon in an emergency board of trustees' meeting of the School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration, which is poised to swap land with the Bureau of Land Management. At the board meeting, members unanimously approved a motion supporting the exchange proposal detailed in the pending resolution before lawmakers.

HJR22, sponsored by Rep. Doug Sagers, R-Tooele, describes the state Legislature's approval of the deal, which is required by law should any state land transaction be at play with the federal government involving more than 10,000 acres.

SITLA deputy director Kim Christy said the proposed trade, which would have to be endorsed by Congress, is a good deal for school trust lands that will not only generate revenue for schoolkids, but help the bottom line of multiple rural counties.

“It is important to recognize that this will clearly position us to put more money into the school funds but it will also assist the counties in their efforts to improve economic development as well,” Christy said.

SITLA manages Utah’s 3.3 million acres of school trust lands, generating revenue through oil, gas and mineral leases, rents, and royalties; real estate development and sales; and surface estate sales, leases and easements.

Under the proposal, the school trust lands administration would give up approximately 68,057 acres of its land and 10,280 acres of severed mineral interests in exchange for 90,556 acres of BLM land and mineral interests.

Because SITLA is picking up more acreage in the deal, Christy said the trade would also have some Washington County high-value property counted in the transaction. The property is undevelopable because it is part of the desert tortoise conservation area.

Additionally, an ancillary component of the deal would have SITLA relinquish scattered parcels that have been "captured" for years in the Cedar Mountains Wilderness, lands that also have been off the revenue-generating table.

The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance has been watching that component of the transaction and waiting for Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, to unveil the Utah Test and Training Range land swap, which is slated to be incorporated into the National Defense Authorization Act for 2015 as an amendment.

The Utah Test and Training Range, already the nation's largest supersonic restricted airspace in the continental United States, includes 2,624 square miles of ground owned by the U.S. Air Force.

A proposed expansion that also involves an "administrative" transfer of 625,000 acres of BLM land to the Department of Defense would extend the training range boundaries south into Juab County's northern Snake Valley near the Fish Springs mountain range and east of Callao. Under the deal, the BLM would still manage and own the land, and existing uses such as grazing and recreation would be honored.

Christy said the trade, if completed, will allow SITLA to consolidate some of its land holdings — always a good thing in the administration's view.

"What we are excited about is that it is an opportunity for us to consolidate scattered school (land) sections that right now have low economic potential into land parcels with a much better potential to generate long-term revenue for the trust,” he said.

Because of the scattered nature of school trust lands and their proximity to federal acreage owned by the Bureau of Land Management, it isn’t uncommon for some of SITLA’s potential revenue opportunities to go unrealized because of access issues or the parcels on their own aren’t big enough to develop.

As an example, Christy said there is a chunk of land called the Milford block that has “great potential” for potash development.

“There has been an access issue that has been quite critical with federal ownership," he said. "If we acquire it, it will help to minimize complications. We have worked very, very closely with our lessees on our existing lands and those lands targeted for development. It has been a very good relationship.”

Christy said SITLA will acquire land from the federal government in Box Elder, Tooele, Juab, Millard and Beaver counties. From Juab County south, the parcels identified for acquisition were selected for their value for mineral development, while northern parcels have value for their industrial or residential development appeal.

Last fiscal year, SITLA experienced near-record revenues of $139 million. Money deposited in the Permanent School Fund reached a new milestone of $1 billion in 2011, and on Wednesday, school trust land officials announced it has now reached the $2 billion mark.

State Treasurer Richard Ellis oversees the investment of the funds, with $300 million distributed to schools within the past decade.

Kevin Carter, SITLA's director, said the percentage of growth within the fund over the past 20 years eclipses all other states. Email: amyjoi@deseretnews.com Twitter: amyjoi16

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