| Federal land is ‘in trust for American citizens in perpetuity’. That means that in different years different generations will need or want different uses for the land that may seem counter intuitive, but there’s a method to the madness The EPA does not currently require 100% hazmat clean up of any offshore properties due to cost prohibitive clean up and lack of shipping and storage of contaminated topsoil …so islands are used for live fire ranges and given varying degrees of warm fuzzy land designations like ‘wild life refuge’ because they are not usually fit for human inhabitants and it costs money the more upkeep/stewardship an area needs …ie the most basic upkeep is fire suppression But because it’s federal land any entity that can challenge successfully for an activity permit can arrange ‘incidental takes’ and do permitted activities Unfortunately well-meaning eco non profits use their status to do ‘discreet land conveyance’ under the auspices of ‘creating wild life corridors’ … it’s a quick and dirty way of getting land owners who wouldn’t normally want to sell to the government but will sell to an eco non profit, who simply conveys the land back to the government anyway, while parcel swapping like trading cards to make ‘wild life corridors’ that often don’t work as intended. The government can’t currently afford the stewardship cost of all the lands that gets conveyed back, so counter intuitive uses are in effect to help pay …that’s how an island that can seem pristine can become a wild life refuge with degrees of hazmat-contaminated topsoil that gets target practice bombing on Tuesdays As for the historical artifacts, historical artifacts are managed via Section 106 of permitting, there are protocols of prioritizing artifacts so that we save what we can but build over if needed, otherwise we’d never get anything done if every burial ground was forbidden to use in perpetuity What usually makes headlines is when certain tribes complain about the Section 106 permitting, especially if it’s a national utility such as a fuel pipeline. National utilities get higher priority that allows for a ‘streamlined’ version of Section 106 permitting, much to the chagrin of people who don’t know or understand or use their citizen rights, responsibilities, and privileges to learn or change the process. As for military bases they are huge economic boosters for towns that have them, ergo when their mission changes, or when a different platform gets a higher priority and the bases close some towns try to fund raise to keep them open, but it’s rarely successful more than a few years. The bases may sit in various stages of disrepair for years before being refurbished for a different mission by the federal government or conveyed back to state/local government and re-purposed. |