Phantom Purloiners, page 16
Noonan started to say something, but the egress officer waved him off.
“Now that fifty thousand acres have problems. This is Wyoming, and nothing is simple here. First off, that fifty thousand is not in a big square. Even way out in the Badlands, a lot of people own property in the area. There were homesteads, mining claims, easements, rights, and frontier roads. So the fifty thousand acres has a border that snakes around existing land claims. Then there are access routes to lands and mines that people may or may not be using now but could in the future. You can’t close off those roadways even if no one has used them in a century, and some of those roadways run through the Nimerigar acreage. Then there are critical habitat acreages and historical structures, which may or may not be out there, and archaeological sites, which may or may not be out there—all of which require special county, state, and federal permits to build on, much less cross. Then there are dump sites, some with very hazardous waste that need to be cleaned up before construction can begin, graves—white and Indian—along with crime scenes from cold cases, which may or may not be discovered today, tomorrow or a year from now. Sure, the Nimerigar got fifty thousand acres, but getting to use those acres is not a slam dunk.”
Noonan shook his head as if to clear it. “So, it’s not as simple as just extending a pipeline to Buckle Bunny Lake and stringing wires to the Wyoming power grid.”
The egress officer laughed. “You’re thinking logically, and land ownership is not logical, rational, reasonable, or planned. We are talking one hundred and fifty years of people staking land and making claims—some of which are extinct, and others which are still active—on paper. This is not a simple matter. Since we are playing a mind game here, let’s get the most obvious possibilities out of the way. Remember, we’re just playing mind games here. Real-life land issues are a lot more convoluted.”
“I’ll take what I can get,” Noonan said smiling. “And keep the words short and simple so someone like me can understand what you are talking about.”
The egress officer laughed. “I’ll try. Land issues get very complicated very fast. So, let’s pretend it was the good old days. That was before 1976. Prior to 1976 you could homestead in a lot of areas in Wyoming. What that meant was that you could claim 160 acres of land as yours if you improved it and lived on it for five years. If the Nimerigar had received their land in the good old days, they could have gotten three or four members of the organization to homestead land in long rectangles that stretched from the fifty thousand acres they have all the way to Buckle Bunny Lake. There are 43,560 square feet per acre so one hundred and sixty acres has about seven million square feet. If your homestead was, say, one hundred yards wide, just enough to accommodate a water pipeline, a road, and a transmission corridor, you could include about thirteen running miles of homestead. Four l-o-n-g homesteads could have reached Buckle Bunny Lake—that is, as long as the land was being worked and someone was living on it for five years.”
“But that all changed in 1976?”
“Right. In 1976 Congress passed what is known as the BLM Organic Act, which ended homesteading. After 1976, we, the BLM, that is, could sell federal land at market value. True, badlands are not very valuable because they are, well, badlands. But by 1976 people had been homesteading in Wyoming for almost a century. Then Wyoming became a state in 1890, and the State of Wyoming had a hand in land sales and status. Then . . .”
“Did statehood make it simpler?”
“Not a chance. See, you are thinking about land as someplace where you grow crops and build a cabin or a sod hut. People have been playing fast and loose with land status for a century and half. Mining operations claimed land and then made roads across the badlands to their claims. No one told them no, so they just did it. Then homesteaders used the roads. Some of those roads are still in use; others are abandoned.”
“By abandoned, do you mean the ownership went back to the federal government?”
“That’s another yes and no. Mining companies bought each other out. So the Smith Mine in 1870 might have been sold to the Jones Company in 1890. Then the Jones Company was bought by the Harris Company who combined with the Whitford Company that was bought out by the Union Pacific. The original mining claim is thus active in the sense that someone owns it, which means the road is still active.”
“But if any one of those companies went bankrupt then the land and roadway went back to the federal government?”
“Not really. A lot of so-called federal land became state land in 1890 when Wyoming became a state. And some state land became county land. It’s not simple.”
“But the roads could be used for pipelines and transmission lines?”
“Not an easy question to answer. Most of the roads you are talking about, no. An access road, or what we call an egress road”—he waved his hand in the air of his office—“has a specific definition. It can only be used for a road, and that road cannot be any wider than its original use. So, no, you cannot take a two-rut road and turn it into a football-field-wide road and run a water pipeline from Buckle Bunny Lake.”
“How could you get a pipeline from Buckle Bunny Lake to the Nimerigar land?”
“An easy question with a complicated answer. Water pipelines are expensive, so they have to be built in a straight line. Well, sort of. Wyoming does have earthquakes, so the water pipeline is not going to be solid and straight as an arrow. So, to have the water pipeline make an almost beeline to Nimerigar land, about fifty miles, it would have to cross a lot of private land. Every foot of that private land would need an easement of some kind, but that would be very hard to do.”
“Why?”
“An easement means reasonable access. You can’t build a road to your property through someone else’s cornfield. That’s not reasonable. So you’d have to claim the right to an access road across land that’s vacant even though it’s owned by someone. This makes it sound very simple but it’s not. Now multiply the problems a pipeline would face by the number of owners of land between Buckle Bunny Lake and Nimerigar land, and you can see there are real problems.”
“How much state and federal land is there between Buckle Bunny Lake and Nimerigar land?”
“A lot. But it’s in swatches. Access across state and federal lands is almost a guarantee unless there is critical game habitat or some historically significant acres. We wouldn’t know that until the plans for the pipeline are presented. But most businesses can work around the restrictions. It’s expensive but not hard. The big problem with any pipeline is crossing private land. The Nimerigar are private citizens, so the right of eminent domain cannot be used.”
“You mean a court cannot order the private landowner to give up part of his land for the pipeline.”
“Basically, yes. It’s more complicated, but, as you said, to keep it simple, yes.”
“OK, how about power lines?”
“Same basic problem as with the waterline. The only real difference is that the power lines can snake their way across the badlands.”
“Then there’s the access road to Nimerigar land. That’s being used now. Can it be expanded for more traffic?”
“Not unless the landowner, in this case the Stupinigi Corporation, sells them the land. Without a transfer of land, the road is as wide as it can be as an access road. The only way it can be expanded is to buy the land on both sides of the road and then do the expansion.”
“How about flying people onto the land? If they cannot arrive by access road, can gamblers be flown in?”
The egress officer laughed. “More of that Nimerigar pipe dream. Sure, you could fly in gamblers. There’s enough space on Nimerigar land to have an airport. But don’t forget, running an airport will require water and power. Then there’s the problem of fuel for the planes. It’s not reasonable to fly it in. It has to come over the road, and that road is not built for fuel trucks. Keep in mind the only road into Nimerigar land, from either direction, is basically two ruts. Even if you put down asphalt, it’s still one car wide.”
“So a casino is not possible?”
“I didn’t say that. The idea was bandied about long before the Nimerigar got their fifty thousand acres. There are a lot of gamblers who don’t want to fly to Las Vegas or Atlantic City. They want to drive. Right now Wyoming only allows gambling on horse and dog races—and charitable Bingo games and the like, which is why most people believe the Nimerigar wanted their land. It’s Indian land, and a casino on Indian land anywhere in the United States is legal. The Nimerigar have been wheeling and dealing with a New York photovoltaic company that would solve the power problem. At least initially.”
Noonan was taken by surprise. “Why only initially?”
“Economies of scale. The smallest photovoltaic operation, if that’s what they are called, will produce more power than the casino can use. So what are they going to do with the excess power? The traditional answer is to wheel it—that is, put it into the power-line grid. Then extra power in Wyoming, say, could be wheeled into Colorado where the population is larger. But you cannot wheel power if you cannot connect to the electrical power grid.”
“Why not use the water pipeline corridor?”
“You could if there was a water pipeline corridor. The same with the road. If the roadway was wider, you might be able to run the power lines down the right-of-way.”
“But the road is as wide as it is going to get.”
“You said it. I didn’t.”
“So the chances of a casino are pretty slim.”
The egress officer smiled. “This is Wyoming, and anything is possible. The key to the success of a casino is a land corridor giving the land access to water coming in and power going out. But to have that access, you need to have land ownership or egress rights of the corridor acreage. As far as we,”—again he waved his hand around the office—“are concerned, we’ll sell the corridor acreage on federal lands at market rate, which is very low. And the State of Wyoming will do the same for state land. But that won’t get you squat unless you have bought out the corridor acreage across the private land. And when it comes to Buckle Bunny Lake, the nearest reasonable supply of water, the land around the lake and back about five miles was claimed and improved long ago.”
“Same for the road?”
“Same for the road,” the egress officer agreed. “The only difference is that the land for the road is owned by one entity, the Stupinigi Corporation. Then it’s just a matter of price. But that only gives you the road, not the water or the power corridors.”
“Where’s the State of Wyoming in all of this?”
“As far as the State of Wyoming is concerned, you’re a day late and a dollar short. The man you’d want to talk to is Darby O’Reilly. He’s the land man for the State of Wyoming. He just finished computerizing the entire land picture of private and state land in Wyoming so it would mesh with our lands, the federal lands. Now you can just pull up land status of any square foot of private, country, or state land and see who owns it.”
“Why am I day late?”
“The ceremony for the completion of the computerization was yesterday. O’Reilly got a certificate of merit and left for vacation. You’ll have to wait for him to get back.”
And, again, that distant bell in the deep recesses of Noonan’s cerebral cortex clanged. This time a bit louder.
“Tell me about buying land,” Noonan said with a smile.
The egress officer smiled back. “Thinking of buying a few acres? Got lots of wolf-spider habitat available.”
“Is it on the ocean?”
The egress officer laughed. “Give global warming a thousand years, and, yeah, it’ll be on the coastline.” Then he got serious. “Generally speaking, and keeping it as simple as possible, there are there kinds of land in this area: federal, state, and private. We are the custodian of the federal lands. Again, keeping it simple, there are two types of federal lands: land you can buy and land you cannot buy. You cannot buy national-park land, for instance, or critical habitat. Other types of land, you can buy. It’s called over-the-counter land, and you just come in and put in an order for land. If we can sell it, we sell it at market value.”
“What’s the market value of badlands land?” Noonan asked.
“Pretty cheap. People and companies do not buy land to use. At least not right away. It’s bought for long-term possibilities.”
“How many people have been buying land from BLM in the Washakie area lately?”
The BLM egress man smiled. “Getting in on the casino craze, are you?”
“So there has been an uptick in land sales in the Washakie area?”
“Depends on what you mean by area. Near Washakie, yes, but just one company: Stupinigi Corporation. But it has been a pastiche of properties. Yes, near Washakie but a lot of other areas as well. About three years ago, the Stupinigi Corporation bought out an East Coast investment conglomerate that owned large chunks of land in the Washakie area.”
“Anywhere near the Nimerigar land?”
“Bordering it, as a matter of fact. About the same time. But there’s not a link, if that’s what you are implying. Actually, there is, but it is a negative one.”
“How’s that?”
“As the Nimerigar land was being selected”—the egress man stalled for a moment—“selected means you are choosing the land you want to buy, and then you do a title search to see if someone else owns it. Just because it’s in the middle of nowhere does not mean no one ones it. Anyway, as the Nimerigar were selecting their land, Stupinigi bought out the East Coast conglomerate of all its Wyoming land. It was worth next to nothing, so the conglomerate was willing to sell.”
“But with a casino going in, the land could be worth a lot more,” Noonan said.
“Not really. The casino is years away, and the East Coast conglomerate has been holding onto the acreage for a century. It was land that had been through a number of corporations before the First World War and then went belly-up. It was originally part of the Laramie Consolidate Syndicate that was a gold mine in the 1890s. When the mine went dry, the Syndicate just walked away. It didn’t pay taxes, and the land went to the State of Wyoming.”
“Why the State of Wyoming?” Noonan asked. “It was originally federal land, wasn’t it?”
“Yup,” the egress officer said. “Once federal land is sold, it does not come back to the feds. The Syndicate bought the land, and when the company went bust, it didn’t pay its land tax, and the State of Wyoming foreclosed.”
“So Stupinigi bought the land from the State of Wyoming?”
The egress officer just laughed. “Nothing is simple in land in Wyoming. No, the Stupinigi Corporation did not buy the land. Some other company a long ago bought. For a song. Then that company went bankrupt and was bought by another company that went belly-up to company after company until the Second World War when the mine reopened. The war ended, and the company went under. And another corporation bought the mine and land for a song.”
“How many times did the land get bought before the Stupinigi Corporation bought it?”
“Many. How many, I don’t know, but you can go over to the State of Wyoming land office and ask. Like I said before, if you had asked yesterday the main man would have been there, Darby O’Reilly, but he’s on vacation.”
“So the land went through a number of owners before the Stupinigi Corporation ended up with it. That was three years ago?”
“Give or take. We”—he raised the index finger of his left hand—“got involved when the Nimerigar land was conveyed, er, given to the Indians. The second—and I do mean the second—the Nimerigar land was transferred, Old Man Three Trees who was the face of the Nimerigar at the time, rolled a bulldozer from Indian land over Cannibal Pass to the interstate and into Washakie. A lot of people complained to us, but there was nothing we could do. The roadway was access and has been access for a century. Old Man Three Trees knew what he was doing.”
“Was the Stupinigi corporation upset?”
“Yeah. It had just bought the land from that East Coast group. It was the first time we had heard of them. They’ve got a lot of land out there, all badlands. They got access themselves: the old Laramie Consolidated land; at the very least the old railroad bed runs all the way to the outskirts of Colter. A lotta land that’s not worth much.”
“Does the land the Stupinigi Corporation bought extend into Colter?”
“No. All the land around Colter was taken long ago. It intersects with the rural highway about ten miles out of town. It used to be a railroad corridor, so it goes all the way to where the mainline railroad still is. But all the tracks are gone. It’s just open land.”
“Any water there?”
“Not a drop.”
“Power lines?”
“Local ones. Low power to someone who doesn’t know power.”
“How far is the intersection of the Stupinigi land to the Wyoming power grid?”
“What you mean is, could the Stupinigi land be used for a transmission line from the Nimerigar land to the high-transmission wires.”
“You read me like a book.”
“A few miles but the intervening land is all private.”
‘You guys are way ahead of me.”
“No,” the egress officer said. “It’s just that we’ve seen all kinds of schemes and scams.”
“I’m sure you have,” Noonan responded as he looked at his notebook. “You said that a lot companies acquired what became the Stupinigi land over the years. Where could I get a list?
“State Archives. They’re open. You probably drove past them on your way here. Ask them for their corporate index. The active corporations are online. The older ones are on microfilm.
Again, and louder, the bell.
The State of Wyoming Historical Archives and Records Center was easy to find, and the staff was ecstatic to see Noonan.
“You’re here!”
“You know who I am?” Noonan was surprised.
