6
Monday, November 28, 1977
University Daily Kansan
Park ...
From page one
the last of the tallgrass prairie had been turned into cropland years earlier.
HOWEVER, THE RANCH families opposed to the park have said that the area's flinty soil is enough to prevent the grasslands from disappearing.
Park opponents, including many ranchers and powerful farm organizations in the state, operate as a corporation known as the Kansas Grassroots Association. Inc. Formed in 722, the organization has actively opposed against the creation of a national park.
The ranchers' basic argument is this: They have said they preserved the land because it was in their native territory to continue using it for grazing because their livelihoods depend on it. They have argued that loss of the land for grazing would damage the internal part of the Kansas cattle heritage.
AT LEAST PARTIAL credit for the defeat of Winn's past bills could go to the Grassroots Association and the strong opposition to the park from ranchers and landowners in the affected areas. They have done their lobbying well.
In 1975, the Kansas House of Representatives passed, by a healthy margin, a resolution opposing the creation of a prairie national park in Kansas. So long as while the resolution is in effect, ranchers have said, they have little to worry about.
So far, powerful state farm organizations such as the Farm Bureau and the Kansas Livestock Association have taken active roles in helping farmers be eloquent spokesmen for the ranchers.
"RANCHERS HAVE MANAGED these lands for decades," says John Wiechman, a Farm Bureau field representative for this area. "They've learned how to preserve it."
The Douglas County Farm Bureau, like many others in the state, is now circulating petitions against the park for the Grassroots Association. More than 1,200 signatures have been added to it since August. The Douglas County Farm Bureau resolution that asks the National Park Service and Congress to cease efforts to create a prairie park.
A major stumbling block to passage of the bill is the opposition by Rep. Kojubitz, R-Kan., whose congressional district includes much land in the Flint Hills area. Skubitz is the ranking minority member of the House, and he has a group that will first consider the bill, which is now in subcommittee. He has become a powerful backer of the ranchers.
IN THE MINDS of the park proponents, the creation of a national park would go far beyond the preservation of the native bluestem, Indian and switch grasses. They hope to re-establish the ecosystem that was present in the Flint Hills area where the Kansas Indians lived there during the 18th and 19th centuries. That would involve
bringing in several species of animals that have since disappeared.
To maintain control of the sources of streams to prevent contamination in the area, an acreage smaller than the 187,000 outlined in Winn's bill is unacceptable, says Raymond Hall, professor emeritus of systematics and ecology at the University Kansas. Even without stream control, STP covers 40,000 acres is a minimum for the park.
"WHEN WE TALK about the prairie, we're not just talking about grass," Hall said. "We're talking about the animals and everything else there."
STP hopes to re-establish some endangered or threatened species of animals in the tallgrass park. Animals that likely would be brought into the area include bison, elk, ibex, wool wolf and prairie dog. All are native to the Flint Hills area.
To minimize threats to ranchers' herds is to build a fence. Any damage would be built ground in the park, Stouffs said.
Because of that, and the possibility that enclosed tallgull soon would be trampled if too many tourists were admitted, a tallgull park probably would be placed in the natural area category of the National Park Service, he added.
THAT WOULD IDENTIFY the park as a unique ecological unit, Stough said, and access could be limited so that grasses would not be harmed. It would work much like the system now enforced in the Everglades in Florida.
The idea of an enclosed area is distasteful to many ranchers, who fear the effects of "imported" animals on their own herds. They also are concerned about possible diseases and the dangers of controlled within the parkland to destroy brush.
The days of overgrazing and mismanagement of the prairie land in the Flint Hills area are over, according to Jim Carney, a former manager of the Kansas Grassroots Association. He said ranchers today were educated about proper range management and conservation through high school Future Farmers of America internships, 41 club centers and county extension offices.
MOST PLOWABLE LAND in the Flint Hills area, especially in the bottomlands, is the Tahoe River.
What remains is unpleasant and thus permanent, Hess said.
Stough said, "In their (the ranchers)' frame of reference, they're managing the land very well. They don't see the larger picture that focuses on preserving an area to a point where it would be a benchmark for all time."
The Flint Hills area has remained precisely that—a benchmark—while the rest of the tallgrass prairie in the Midwest has disappeared because underlying limestone and flint have made it almost impossible to plow the land.
Estimates of acreage in the Flint Hills vary from 850,000 to 7 million. The broader definition includes all of the rangeland with shallow or steeply sloping soils. Park proponents say the park would take only 10% of the tallgrass lands in Kansas.
THE CHASE SOUTH site, designated in Winn's bill, is one of three remaining sites that have been studied by the National Park Service and have met federal criteria for national parklands. One of the others is in Waubauneen County, in southeastern Oklahoma, in Oklahoma, and in Chautauqua and Cowley counties in south-central Kansas.
Winn said he hoped the recent bill would be more acceptable to landowners because of new provisions within it. For example, homeowners could continue to live on the land for 25 years and mineral rights would be retained by the owners; scenic easements would be provided; and in place of the property taxes that would be lost when park and preserve lands went off local tax rolls, they would make payments to the local governments.
HOWEVER, THE RANCHIERS don't seem to be budging in their opposition to the park. A major issue for them is that of eminent domain, or the right of the government to take private property for public use. Stough said that the government rarely reinvest in land, but that it was within its power. Most likely, if the bill passed, the land would be purchased by the government at open market value.
Hess and his family are the fifth generation that has remained on his family's land and expanded its holdings. His great-great-grandfather started the homestead in the 1500s, and Hess' home is on the site of the original homesite. He, like most other ranchers, would oppose turning over his land to the federal government.
"I DON'T THINK a lot of people realize what this land means to the ranchers who live on it," he said. "It would be like taking one of our children."
Wiechman said, "These people don't understand the pride these ranchers have in their land. Without it, they'll starve. It's their total operation. There are lots of people there whose farms have been in the family for a hundred years."
INHERENT IN many of their views is a feeling that the majority of park proponents are from Kansas City or other urban areas and understand little of Western heritage and ways. Some even STOP of using them, either circulating false information to obtain support.
Mrs. Hess said the city supporters did not understand the impact such a move would have on her.
City people can easily change to houses
City people, but farmers cannot move so
less, absease.
Wiechman was more blunt.
"How would your family feel if you had lived on one spot for a hundred years and suddenly some clown comes from back East and tells you he wants your land?" he asked.
Hess said he thought the ranchers would be more receptive to the idea of a prairie park if the government bought the land on the open market as it became available and piece the park together, instead of taking productive land out of the system.
"ANYBODY IN THE F'Int Hints could sell their land at market value tomorrow if they wanted to," he said. "The ranchers want to buy." "Don't want to be told how they have to do it."
Hess suggests that guidelines to preserve the tallgrass prairie might be enforced without the creation of a national park. A system in which land-use regulations would be enforced by local government might more accept acceptance among ranches, he said.
Stough says that from a legal pointview, it would be difficult to enact legislation to create a historical district such as Hess has in mind.
He said he doubted that it would be constitutional because it would mean telling ranchers they could use a particular field for only pasture.
STP HAS BEEN looking into the possibility of buying Flint Hills land on the open market outside the designated park boundaries to use as a trading land for property owners and to exchange. But the idea has not generated much enthusiasm among the ranchers.
One factor in rancher opposition to a park is a fear of having the Flint Hills exploited as a tourism spot. Many look to some nearby parks for recreation and scenic setups of parking lots and curio shops. They fear the same thing could happen in the Flint Hills and inadvertently destroy the prairie; despite STS assurances of securityzon measures and scenic assessments,
INSTEAD OF A PARK, the Kansas Grassroots Association favors the idea of an expanded prairie parkway through the Flint Hills. A parkway now exists and was designated as such in 1976 as a Kansas Bicentennial project. Other sites include a segment of the parkway to include adequate rest areas, observation towerers and other facilities.
But park proponents still dislike what they say is inadequate protection of a larger area. They say that the legal protection of wildlife must be based on any thing that will guarantee its preservation.
Meanwhile, the tall grasses still wave in the Kansas wind, oblivious to the half-century controversy they have caused. They were among the most important moment of a once-vast prairie in the Midwest.
About the only thing proponents and opponents can agree on is that the prairie should be preserved for its beauty and serenity. The question is how to do it.
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