Another bad idea for the badlands

By Jim Fuglie

Okay, here I go again, warning (whining? complaining?) about another threat to the North Dakota badlands. Sorry. Please put up with me for a few hundred more words.

Now, some folks I don’t think want to put a landing strip for their personal private airplanes out in a pasture, on public lands, in the middle of the badlands, far away from any town, and close up against Theodore Roosevelt’s ranch, which is now a national park.

Some background.

Long ago — I’m not sure when, but I’d guess in the 1950s — a rancher who owned a pretty good sized chunk of land in the North Dakota badlands just across the Little Missouri River from the Elkhorn Ranch, about 25 miles north of Medora, decided to put in a grass airstrip so that he and his flying rancher buddies could land their small planes there, or friends could come to visit. That’s all I know about the origin of the now-abandoned airstrip.

The ranch was later sold to the Eberts family, who have since sold it (more about them in a minute). They say they never used the airstrip and just abandoned it — used it for a pasture for their cattle. Now some folks from a group called the Recreational Aviation Foundation (RAF) — which is headquartered in Montana, but equipped with a spokesman here in North Dakota who knows the area — want to “rebuild” the airstrip so they can land their small planes there and spend some time in the badlands.

Rebuilding just really means clearing the area of grass and brush and shrub trees and filling in the badger holes so it’s safe to fly in there with their Cessnas and Pipers. Oh, and laying painted rocks alongside the runway so they can find it. The group says it would be great for them to land their planes, get out and unload their camping or hiking gear, and explore and enjoy the area.

I’m skeptical. I think they’ve got more up their sleeves. I just can’t figure out what it is. It’s surely not about flying in to visit the Elkhorn Ranch, because that Theodore Roosevelt National Park site is more than four miles away on the other side of the Little Missouri State Scenic River. And if they fly in, they won’t have a car, so it’s going to be pretty hard to get anywhere. An eight-mile round trip hike on a hot summer day is quite a feat in the North Dakota badlands. I guess they could cool off by swimming across the river.

The RAF proposal, released by the U.S Forest Service (which now owns the land and is being asked to approve the project), says the group wants to fence off an area about a single acre in size beside the strip as a “plane parking/camping area.” For perspective, an acre is about three fourths of the size of a football field. Not much of a campground: no water, no electricity, no bathroom and not a tree in sight to provide privacy for pooping on the ground. Well, maybe they’ll haul one of those pretty green Jiffy Buffs out there…But somehow, that doesn’t strike me as the kind of “campground” people who own airplanes would like to use. That’s why I’m skeptical.

Now, a bit of history. This isn’t the first controversy surrounding the Eberts property. The three Eberts brothers who jointly owned the 5,000 acre ranch have always been conservation minded. About 25 years ago, the Billings County Commission notified them that the county was going to take the road through their ranch using eminent domain, widen it, and build a bridge across the river right at their ranch headquarters, exiting the river beside the Elkhorn Ranch site on the other side: a freeway for the oil field. One county commissioner said it might be used by a thousand trucks a day.

There was a lot of public outrage and the family went to court to stop the county and won when Judge Ron Hilden ruled in their favor. But not for long. The county appealed to the North Dakota Supreme Court and won. But the county didn’t get going on that project for a while, and things took a different turn. The brothers decided they’d had enough. And since the ranch was right across the river from the Elkhorn, they tried to sell it to the National Park Service which owned the Elkhorn site.

That didn’t work, so they tried to sell it to the State of North Dakota, which also owned land across the river, adjacent to the national park land. Well, that didn’t work either because the North Dakota Legislature refused to provide money for the purchase.

So a group of national conservation organizations led by the late Lowell Baier, then president of the Boone and Crockett Club, ran a national fundraising campaign and raised about $7 million, bought the ranch and gave it to the U.S. Forest Service, which maintains ownership today as part of the million-acre Dakota Prairie Grasslands. It’s now known as The Elkhorn Ranchlands, because it was once part of Roosevelt’s ranching operation in the 1880s. The Forest Service leased the grazing rights to local ranchers. And there hasn’t been much news about the place until this pilot group decided to rebuild the airstrip. That’s raised the hackles of conservationists who think it is a pretty bad idea.

I agree with them.

In March, the U.S. Forest Service’s North Dakota office sent out a notice that they had received the RAF’s application to revive the airstrip. The group wants to lease about 4.5 acres for the landing and parking/camping areas.

Well.

Because the local staff of the Forest Service has a pretty good stewardship ethic — and knowing that this involved a significant change to some of their land, and might not be agreeable to everyone — they asked for public comments before making a decision. The deadline for comments has passed. I haven’t seen the comments yet, but I hope there were a bunch of opponents. But Shannon Straight, executive director of the Badlands Conservation Alliance, the group that has become the leading voice for protection of sensitive areas of the badlands, shared his letter with me. He said his board and members oppose the proposal.

“This proposal raises serious concerns about the long-term health of the Badlands landscape, the integrity of wildlife habitat, and the quality of recreation experiences that many people depend upon,” he wrote, “The North Dakota Badlands are a rare and fragile environment. Designating plane parking and associated camping infrastructure in this area would introduce a level of disturbance that is inconsistent with protecting the diverse landscape that makes this region unique. Increased aviation use in a remote area risks fragmenting habitat and disrupting migration patterns, particularly for sensitive species such as bighorn sheep and other wildlife that rely on quiet, undisturbed terrain.”

Dave Pieper, who was director of the Forest Service here when the land was given to him to manage, and has since retired, also says it’s a bad idea.

“There are some roads and oil wells on the property but for the most part it’s an undeveloped landscape that provides solitude and tranquility,” Dave said. “Noise from aircraft will not only disturb wildlife, particularly bighorn sheep within identified critical habitat, but also visitors who make the long trek to visit and experience this quiet landscape. Noisy aircraft flying overhead and landing and taking off is simply not a compatible use of these lands.”

Well said, Shannon and Dave. I hope they listen. Meanwhile, I’ll keep an eye on the Forest Service response and decision and let you know what happens next.

Editor’s note: Need more Fuglie? Check out theprairieblog.com/.