U.S. Loses in Land Deals, Auditors Say

The federal government has lost millions of dollars from land exchanges, often buying land for more than it is worth and giving up land for less than its market value, congressional auditors reported Wednesday.

The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, recommended that lawmakers halt land exchanges by the government’s two principal land agencies--the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service--because the swaps often do not serve the public interest.

Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez) called the GAO findings “very disturbing” and sought a moratorium on such exchanges of land.

Agriculture Department undersecretary Jim Lyons, who oversees the Forest Service, called the criticism “overstated” and the suggested trade ban “ludicrous.”

Among the land exchanges scrutinized for the GAO report was a deal between the BLM and a private company that is seeking to build the nation’s largest garbage dump just outside the borders of Joshua Tree National Park.

To build the controversial dump, which has faced repeated legal challenges over the past decade because of concerns about its environmental impact on the pristine desert park, the developers needed 3,500 acres of adjacent public land. The BLM traded that land to the developers for 10 parcels of private land, which were supposed to provide crucial habitat for the threatened desert tortoise, the endangered pup fish and other sensitive species. But all 10 parcels are bisected by a rail line that will be used to carry 20,000 tons of garbage a day to the dump.

In another deal, the government traded federal land in the booming Las Vegas valley to developers for an assortment of private parcels, including the 46-acre “Zephyr Cove” estate on Lake Tahoe, Nevada. A combination of clever legal tactics on the part of the developers and clumsy federal oversight led the Forest Service to mistakenly sign away its rights to a 10,000-square-foot mansion and other buildings on the newly acquired land, government investigators found.