Land Ordinance of 1785

[Fred Gedicks]

Ed Darrell wrote in part:

>Jefferson proposed a different system for Virginia which would have
done the
>same thing, and public education was at least as strong, though
rooted in a
>different system, in Massachusetts and New York.  Both the Ordinances
of 1785
>and 1787 provided for education lands, as did subsequent legislation
by the
>U.S. Congress to "dispose" of western lands.  This tradition was
continued
t>hrough all the public lands states (Messrs. McConnell and Gedicks
can no
>doubt tell us of the continuing problems in Utah, where many of those
parcels
>are today locked in National Monuments, National Forest and National
Parks
>and, consequently, not capable of producing the benefits intended
(has any
>school noticed?)).

Yes, people out here have noticed.  Each time the feds have landlocked
state trust lands by creating a park or otherwise, they have promised
to "trade out" those landlocked parcels for other federal land.
Virtually none of these promises have been fulfilled, which is why no
one out here was very excited by Clinton's promise to trade productive
federal lands for state trust lands landlocked by the recently created
Escante Monument in southern Utah.  Politicians and others who have
tried to deal with situation have told me that the current White House
hasn't a clue; they weren't even aware of the state trust lands issue
until *after* the Monument was created, when they were educated by the
outraged Utah delegation.  Folks in Utah, especially rural Utah, are
sufficiently ticked off about the situation that they have abandoned
any sort of deference toward federal lands administrators.  For
example, the state issued a permit to Conoco to drill an exploratory
well on a section of state trust land in the middle of the Monument;
nobody thinks it's a very good idea to drill for oil in the middle of
a national monument, but the law permits it, and the federal
government's recalcitrance on compensating the state for landlocked
sections suggests to those administering the lands that they have
little choice.

Lest anyone think that the Utah trust land administrators are always
on the side of the angels, more than a few administrators and
developers have enriched themselves over the years at the expense of
schoolchildren by dubious trust land transactions.

I suspect by now I'm rather way off topic for this list.

Fred Gedicks