Okanogan Co. landowners concerned about future of land


Whitney Ward and KREM.com February 07, 2016


OKANOGAN CO., Wash. – Evidence of the summer's catastrophic wildfires can still be seen across Okanogan County. Landowners across the county are sharing some of the same frustrations as the militia group connected to the controversial standoff at an Oregon wildlife refuge.

Landowners are frustrated over land use practices, ranging from grazing to timber harvesting.

Landowners said they have been talking for years about how land use practices in the area need to change. They said the extreme wildfire risk in the county will not change until the state does a better job of managing the land.

“I think most of the people in agriculture that have cattle, understand the roots of what happened there,” said Rod Haeberle.

Haeberle said Ammon Bundy and his fellow occupiers at the wildlife refuge in Oregon finally got attention for what Western ranchers have been saying for years. Haeberle added that neglect and over-regulation is eroding the backbone of American agriculture and is making it more susceptible to devastating wildfires.

READ: Okanogan crews almost on their own to fight wildfires

Nicole Kuchenbuch and her family have been cattle ranching public and private land outside of Conconully for decades. For the last several years, they have been the first line of defense against the biggest wildfires in state history.

“We actually pay to use state and federal grounds, and within those contracts, we are legally required to be the first responders in a fire scenario,” said Kuchenbuch.

Kuchenbuch said it has become a losing battle over the years.

“For the last four generations, we’ve seen a steady decline in the health of the forest,” said Kuchenbuch. “Over the years of non-logging up there, what we’ve got is trees that are growing so densely, they’re not healthy trees.”

Kuchenbuch said that when fire comes through the area, their heavy fuel load causes it to become a catastrophic fire.

Many in Okanogan County said during last year’s catastrophic fire, state and federal firefighters used back burning to try and control the spread, even on private property.

Scott Vejraska lost almost 300,000 acres to the wildfire.

“120,000 of that was back-burn. We didn’t ask to be back-burned. Even on my private property on Omak Mountain. They showed up. I told them not to and they did it anyways,” said Vejraska.

Vejraska said at the point, fire is fire. It had tremendous impact on his family and countless others across the region.

“We understand there’s a way of controlling it, and sometimes, that’s a back-burn. But when you don’t have enough resources, and you light another fire, there’s nowhere to go. It’s just going to keep going,” said Vejraska.

Haeberle said the fires grew and grew. Some of the set backfires were as large as the fire.

Landowners said the worst part of the whole situation is there is no way of recouping those losses, like timber, even for a fire that was technically started at the hands of the government.

“It never gets recovered. That’s half of the sad story. The rest of the story is, in the years ensuing, because it never gets cleaned up and removed. It’s very ready to burn again. It will pile up like toothpicks and the next time it burns, if you think first fire was bad, wait until you see the next one,” said Haeberle.

Okanogan County is the biggest county in Washington. More than 80 percent of the public land is either state or federally managed.

County Commissioner Sheilah Kennedy said it is the 20 percent private land owners burdened with maintaining it.

“That, right there, pretty much points out how much pressure is on the private individuals to be able to carry the weight,” said Kennedy.

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, for example, has been billed more than $1.5 million since 2012 for county land it has acquired. The payments are supposed to compensate for removing it from the county’s tax base.

Kennedy said, through a loophole in legislative language, the department has paid less than a third of that. She said that alone is a million dollar shortfall taken away from critical services like fire protection.

“Huge impact to our budget. And as county commissioners, we are trying to figure out how we provide essential services that we’re required to provide, and yet, one of our land owners that owns more than 300,000 plus acres are not carrying their weight,” said Kennedy.

Kennedy agreed that to truly minimize the wildfire risk in the county, the government has to start doing more.

Otherwise, many property owners said they will continue to face the same problems with every new fire season.

“My family lost 100 percent of our private property. We lost all of our grazing land, all of our fences. Forty miles of fencing,” said Kuchenbuch. “The biggest unknown is that this isn’t over for us. Fire recovery, on a ranch, goes for years. We can’t just turn cattle back out this spring.”

Kuchenbuch said they will probably have to leave the area to find new pastures. She said she believes the harder it becomes for farmers and ranchers to use local land, the less likely it is they will be able to stay in business.


“In the meantime, America has lost producers of viable food,” said Kuchenbuch. “The issue is not just about ranchers. This is about all agriculturalists. If we squeeze out all agriculturalists, we need not be shortsighted. They will outsource our food.”

Kuchenbuch said that will have an even greater impact than the last two years of Washington wildfires combined.

“I think food could become the oil of the next century, if we’re not careful,” said Kuchenbuch.

Rod Haeberle said, “When people get hungry, they’re going to wonder where their famers went. And it’s going to be a little too late.”

But you can't tell the liberals and millennials that... I've tried..

They think Ranchers and folks who work the land are freeloading, land stealing, government supported, thief's and the country would be better without them...

Just read any of their comments on articles about this, or Bundy, or Hammonds...they are completely deluded..

You try to explain ranching to them,

they think ranchers should only use their deeded land..

You try to explain Open Range..

They think you are lying..

You try to explain grazing fees and rights,

they say ranchers are cheating "Them"..

You try to explain how all this ties into the price of the food they eat..

It is over their heads..

Some will even say they don't care, the are vegans..

stupid stupid people..

Living among them for quite a while, I even run in to veterans with that attitude.

It is why I was pushing for and trying to build the autonomous zone network.

Oh, and fuck Okanogan county. If they got a problem with the Feds then too fucking bad, they made their choices on who to deal with and respect while treating us the way they did.

When Strat was losing status in the militia movement and being abandoned by most of his old crew, we were cutting fire brakes, trimming trees, cutting out underbrush and setting up water tanks to fight fires out on the mountain. Strat had distributed two way radios (which I paid for) for area fire watch, put a bunch of work into a bulldozer for clearing fire brakes and we constantly patrolled the mountain every fire season.

Two small crews from eastern Washington put in efforts on that and came up with fire hoses and water totes which we (mainly they) worked with Strat to pre-position on the hillsides so they should gravity feed water to hotspots around the Diaxaris project and keep roads open for firefighting vehicles should they need to get through the area to other properties up the road, including county owned timber land which we fully respected and protected for free. Those same guys were ambushed by looters after Strat got arrested and told by the looters that the looters were there with the blessings of the Jones family which was in the process of selling the Diaxaris project land out from under us.

Their reason for selling? A chemical waste disposal outfit wanted the land and was getting EPA approval to put some sort of open pit sewage pond in the field where a local rancher had previously been running cattle and growing hay.

We all know the story of what happened to Strat in 2015, and the constant hassle and interference I have had in the recovery of my property. In fact a lot of what is stuck out there was firefighting and disaster survival stuff since the Feds long since lost interest after not finding any dope lab or, stolen vehicle chop shop, militia bomb factory or whatever else they had been told to expect by the liars who wanted Strat and his wife in jail while they robbed us.

Okanagon is like Harney county and many others across amerika. It's run by a good ol boys club and their cheerleading 'townies' who support it because they know which side their bread is buttered on. While, the common working people are left with no voice and no means of effective opposition to the local mafia party machine.

The virus just keeps spreading.

Rebellion in California

The dissidents from the northern counties who want to secede from the Golden State are “a bunch of Bible-thumpin’, gun-totin’, wild-eyed pistol-wavers.” And that’s how one of their supporters describes them. Welcome to the State of Jefferson.

http://interactive.nydailynews.com/...cessionists-california-gun-totin-rebels/

With all due respect, the problem on Okanogan goes to the core when even the backwoods people were lying to me about what went down in July. The town people who see more of the local government seem more receptive to the message that there is a corrupt local government.

When I could afford it I used to would go to the barter faires up in Okanogan county every year for my vacation. Some folks thought it was weird that I would go camping for fun after working all year in an RV campground. I haven't been to a BF since 2008 or 09 near as I can remember. In spring of 2010 I got hit by arthritis and can't do much of anything now.

For many years there was a Barter Faire 10 miles up the road from Northport WA. The folks who put it on ran 3 faires a year, spring summer and fall. I don't know for sure what county Northport is in. I recall a big stink at a faire around IDK 2004 maybe. The local persecuting attorney got real uppity and effectively shutdown the barter faire up there. Those BFs brought in tourist dollars buying gas ice groceries as the BFs were WELL ATTENDED. One faire I went to was estimated to have 10,000 folks camped up there. I was there and had a dandy time. They even had water onsite. Tonasket AIN'T GOT WATER. Ya gotta bring your own or buy it by the gallon.

I support farming and ranchers. For the last 40+years I've lived in a farming fishing and logging area. I'm getting pissed off. Time for me to mosey.

I remember reading about a barter faire case in a federal law library. The Feds had a problem with pot smoking hippies and "facilitation" of untaxed and unregulated economic activity.

They described the coupon exchanges at the entrance to be a tax evasion scheme. It seems like the Feds were going after them on the tail end of the large scale Rave parties of the 1990s.

Okanogan is a pretty tight knit community when it comes to anybody they consider "outsiders". They also have some large, pervasive and very intact posse type groups who are very eager to play the junior Deputy role through the local Sheriffs office.

They tend to think highly of themselves and don't take kindly to being called the swarm robbers and robbery crime facilitators which they are.

In areas like that, tight knit informal networks will decide who gets what, who is allowed to earn anything, which families keep status and which are the sharecropper/serf class. Any business activity which upsets that delicate local balance will definitely upset them and they will make moves to criminalize and stop it. Once they establish federal connections, it's not about money, it's about the power to decide who gets money and who doesn't.