Now That the Eberts Ranch Has Been Acquired By The… [Derived Headline]

Now that the Eberts Ranch has been acquired by the U.S. Forest Service, it might seem that the long struggle to protect Theodore Roosevelt’s Elkhorn Ranch is over. Not quite.

The 5,200-acre Blacktail Creek Ranch (aka the Eberts Ranch) now belongs to the people of the United States, to be supervised by the U.S. Forest Service. That’s the province of Dave Pieper and Dakota Prairie Grasslands. Pieper has pledged to keep the Eberts acreage open to traditional uses, which include grazing, oil development and recreation. The ranch includes the 5,200 acres recently acquired, and the 18,000-plus acres already owned by the U.S. Forest Service that were leased by the Eberts family.

Ranchers in the valley routinely own some property (including their ranch headquarters) and lease additional acreage from the public domain. This is the wonderful legacy of the Bankhead-Jones Act of 1937. When the ranches of the American West were in a state of economic and environmental collapse during the Dust Bowl years, the federal government purchased large portions of bankrupt ranches and leased the acreage back to the ranchers at highly advantageous rates so long as the ranchers agreed to permit modest federal supervision of grazing practices. What could be more generous or more fair?

The “greater” Elkhorn Ranch is of immense historical importance and it deserves to be treated as a unique, not routine, property. It’s former President Roosevelt’s second home (after Sagamore Hill on Long Island). It’s where he ceased to be a New York dude and became a small-d democrat. It’s where he recovered from the death of his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee. It’s where he wrote part of one of his best books, “Hunting Trips of a Ranchman.” It’s where he began to formulate some of the conservation policies that he would implement as the 26th president of the United States. It’s where one of American history’s most important men was renewed, and in some sense reborn.

It’s a special place that deserves a special future.

The Medora Grazing Association would like the Eberts acreage, one parcel of the 290,000 acres of National Grasslands in Billings County, simply to be divvied out to area ranchers for traditional grazing purposes. This makes a kind of sense. The two traditional economic “uses” of the Badlands have been grazing and mineral extraction. In other words, it’s cattle and oil country. If Dakota Prairie Grasslands is serious about continuing to support traditional uses of the land, why not fill the vacuum left by the departure of the Eberts family by letting other ranchers lease the grass?

Such an outcome would not be the worst thing that ever happened. But there is a much better use for the land in question, and it would be a terrible mistake not to take advantage of this historic moment on this historic property to take public grazing in North Dakota to the next level of thoughtful conservation and wise management. Instead of simply parceling the acreage out and letting it slip below the public radar, Pieper would like to turn the Eberts- Elkhorn acreage into a grassbank. The grassbank idea is relatively new (1990s), which is the main reason some people find it threatening.

A grassbank is an acreage where grass is banked (like a grass savings account) for use in extraordinary circumstances. Instead of merely parceling the Eberts Ranch out for routine grazing, the grassbank would be available to ranchers throughout the region in times of drought, or after devastating fires, or while individual ranchers rest part of their lease acreage to restore creeks or rehabilitate stressed pastures. A grassbank can provide habitat for stressed or endangered species and for wildlife restoration on public lands. A grassbank also is a kind of grassland experiment station where new practices can be tested for the good of the entire region, with limited economic liability to any individual grazer. A grassbank is a kind of grass co-op or a grass safety valve. It doesn’t diminish rancher access to the public lands. In fact, it may have the effect of increasing access (and productivity) through the intelligent incorporation of new stewardship practices.

In other words, Pieper does not want to lock up the Eberts- Elkhorn Ranch. He wants to graze it, but in the most sensible and enlightened possible way, not for the benefit of the few, but for the general benefit of all of the ranchers in the Little Missouri River Valley.

The ranchers’ concern is that the Eberts-Elkhorn deal increases federal control in the Little Missouri River Valley, that it effectively reduces the number of cattle in Billings County, that it is just a hint of a large long-term and hidden agenda to diminish or destroy the ranch industry and transform the Badlands into something else. These are legitimate concerns that must be addressed in the most respectful and honest way. It will take time.

None of us can know what the Little Missouri River Valley will look like in 100 or even 50 years. We can surely expect greatly increased oil and gas extraction – together with a labyrinth of new roads, low-water crossings, and a noisy and ugly industrial infrastructure. We can expect subdivisions and other “Aspenization” and “Telluride” effects in the valley, particularly south of Medora. We can expect the replacement of traditional family ranches with highly-capitalized vanity and hobby ranches, where all the buildings, fences and vehicles gleam while a few cattle are grazed by tenants or overseers for tax purposes and for show. We can expect paved roads along both sides of the river deep into what we now regard as the Little Missouri outback. We can expect dramatically less public access to the public lands thanks to clever and subtle blocking mechanisms set up by wealthy (and often enough, absentee) landowners.

In my opinion, it is in everyone’s interest to preserve the existing family ranching community in the Little Missouri River Valley. If the traditional ranchers ebb away and the designer-wear faux ranchers take over, it will be one of the greatest social disasters in North Dakota history and one of the greatest blows to the state’s unique character. To prevent this from happening we are going to have to cooperate in an unprecedented way. We are going to need extraordinary leadership from the governor, our congressional delegation, the Billings, Slope and McKenzie county commissions, local, state and national conservation groups, and enlightened citizens. We’re going to have to come together and talk it through, no matter how difficult that is, and put aside some of our differences. The goal is to conserve family ranches on thriving public lands where the energy industry has ample access, but not at the expense of the aesthetic grandeur or the long-term integrity of the place, and where a range of recreationists will not only be tolerated but welcomed as the natural allies of an enlightened cattle industry.

Pieper’s proposed Elkhorn grassbank in no way threatens that vision or the existing ranch community. Just the opposite. At the Elkhorn grassbank, the future can be envisioned, discussed and experimented with in a place once occupied by one of America’s most visionary – but extremely pragmatic conservationists.

(Clay Jenkinson is the Theodore Roosevelt scholar-in-residence at Dickinson State University. He lives in Bismarck. Contact Jenkinson at jeffysage@aol.com.) We own the Eberts/Elkhorn Ranch; now, what shall we do with it?

(c) 2007 Bismarck Tribune. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.