Feds Evict Families from National Forest and Burn Their Homes


President Obama presided over a period of time when the federal government expanded its land ownership more than at any other time in U.S. history.  His tenure was punctuated by a vast extra-Constitutional overreach by the federal government whose far-reaching implications have affected even the Arctic regions of Alaska.

But twenty-five years ago, he was not the president.  Nor was he responsible for the travesty of a handful of families from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan that has affected them irreversibly.

The families who owned cabins in the dense wooded and mountainous region of the Ontonagon River were not aware were not aware when they first built the cabins that they would become permanent homes for generations of their children.  Nor could they have predicted that the Upper Peninsula Power Company (UPPCO) that leased the land to them would end up abandoning their utilities in the region and sell the land back to the state of Michigan.

Once the federal government’s Parks Service purchased the land, they issued 25-year eviction notices to these families.  That was under President George Bush, Sr. (41).

Hoping that the feds would just forget the deal over the course of a quarter-century, they went on with their lives.  When the anniversary finally arrived this March, they could not have known their feelings when the rangers knocked on their doors.

As the deadline approached, efforts by local politicians to sway the Forest Service failed.  A resolution was passed last year in the state Senate calling on the agency to grant exemptions to the families, partly based on the roughly $45,000 in total taxes and fees that cash-strapped local municipalities stood to lose from all of the camp owners each year, and partly based on the 15,570 single-family cabins currently permitted on National Forest System lands throughout the country under the Recreation Residence Program.  Why not, they argued, add these mere 155 people to that number?

It didn’t work.

“It’s just not right,” said state Sen. Tom Casperson, R-Escanaba, the sponsor of the resolution.  He argued that the trails leading into the woods were provided and maintained by camp owners, and with those trails soon to be gone, only the most adventurous hikers would ever make it this far into the woods, thus defeating the Forest Service’s stated purpose of opening the land for everyone.

“They said it’s for all of us so we can enjoy it, and then they turn around and block things off, which means you and I can’t go out there.”

This is a reference to the fact that the roads that lead to all the camps are to be blockaded or completely destroyed in order to disallow any passage to or from the cabins.

When rangers stood outside the cabins to order the residents to clear out, they were asked why they were doing this.  Their answer was laughable.

One ranger claimed that the presence of the cabins impeded the enjoyment of hikers and travelers in the area.  When they were confronted with the fact that “no hikers” ever wandered that far into the predominantly inaccessible mountainous regions, the answer was silence.

Casperson said he has brought the issue to the attention of federal officials both inside and outside the Forest Service, with no luck.  “The clock has ticked down here,” he said.  “I think if the right people were aware of it and the appropriate people stood up it could be changed, but it’s getting late.  Once these people tear these things down, it’s over.”

Petitions by the score and even a full-length documentary entitled “Up a River” was not enough to halt the shuttering and eventual end of the camps.

As of the writing of this article, 100% of the cabins have been burned to the ground and the roads accessing them permanently blocked or destroyed.

Yet another example of a bloated federal government with the power to destroy American lives and livelihoods without recompense. Yes, this land was leased, but the government is simply acting on autopilot here. If matters were able to be taken on a case by case basis, which is impossible for ‘the machine’, the situation would likely have turned out differently.

Source:  Detroit Free Press



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