New Revelation: National Heritage Area Land Grab Encompasses 4.7 Million Acres

Previously I’ve posted on the National Heritage Area land grab by saying that it encompasses 500,000 acres of privately-owned North Dakota land (see all my previous posts here). Little did I know that number doesn’t even tell half of the tale. According to Wes Klein, District 7 Director for the North Dakota Farm Bureau who I spoke with by phone today, the law lobbied for by State Senator Tracy Potter and passed by Senator Byron Dorgan designates all the land in Mercer, Oliver, McLean, Burleigh and Morton counties.
That’s a full 4.7 million acres of land. Not all of it private, mind you, but most of it.
The original 500,000 acre number was just the portion that was to be included in the feasibility study Potter originally wanted. You know, the one the county governments were told about before Congress, at the behest of Dorgan and Potter, just went ahead and designated the whole thing without alerting the local governing entities or even the land owners.
As I posted yesterday, Senator Dorgan has put language into an interim bill (which per Klein will be confirmed, he’s confident, in October) allowing property owners to opt out of this crap sandwich. Given that this land grab apparently includes the entirety of communities like Bismarck and Mandan, I think a lot of you are going to want to do that.
Klein tells me that the Farm Bureau will have up soon an online form allowing property owners to property notify the Northern Plains Heritage Foundation (the private group that gets to manage this NHA with $10 million of our tax dollars) of the decision to opt-out. Just as soon as that is ready I will link to it.