Once at the center of what Texas officials termed a federal land grab, a hotly disputed strip of property along the North Texas border might pass from the hands of the Bureau of Land Management someday.
U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry said there are indications the BLM might dispose of federal land along the Red River boundary between Oklahoma and Wichita, Clay and Wilbarger counties.
“It may be that there’s a way to deal with the surface and the mineral rights that makes everybody happy,” Wichita Falls’ congressman said.
“Then you don’t have that threat of the government confiscating land that you pay taxes on,” Thornberry said.
Local landowners and the BLM have been locked in a battle over border property along 116 miles of the Red River for years. A federal lawsuit settled Nov. 8, 2017, was a step toward resolution.
Yet property owners who paid taxes and passed land down through generations still face the prospect of losing acreage.
Overseer of lands for federally recognized tribes, the BLM asserts ownership of a narrow strip along the southern half of the Red River. Apache, Comanche and Kiowa interests are involved.
The agency hasn’t been able to pinpoint its share of borderlands to the satisfaction of others, and the lawsuit settlement required the BLM to disavow its border surveys claiming privately held land. Texas officials such as Gov. Greg Abbott have accused the agency of making a federal land grab.
During a visit earlier this month to Wichita Falls, Thornberry said the BLM might dispose of the federal land because it can’t do anything with it. That’s a concern agency officials have previously expressed, he said.
“This is such a narrow little strip of sand and so difficult to reach that there’s no way they can really manage it for recreation or for any other purpose,” Thornberry said.
The BLM issued a statement Thursday neither confirming nor denying the possibility of jettisoning the land.
"The BLM has always and continues to be interested in resolving issues in the Red River area,” said Derrick Henry, BLM spokesman for New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas.
“We will continue to work with all stakeholders and hope that our discussions will lead to positive solutions," Henry, based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, said.
He said he could not release any further information.
The BLM is working on a Resource Management Plan for the area and might include disposal of the federal land at issue when they finish it, according to Thornberry staff.
Thornberry said he thinks the agency should release the property, but the BLM hasn’t decided for sure.
A survey is key to moving forward, he said.
“You’ve got to do a survey before you can even approach that,” the Republican from Clarendon said.
The $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill that President Trump signed into law March 23 included funding a $1 million survey of the 116 miles in question along the border.
Thornberry said he is concerned another administration might have a different viewpoint from President Trump’s, and the same issues will arise again for the private property owners.
The survey will determine borders and make it possible going forward to adjust for the meandering river, he said.
“There won’t be this question of, ‘Oh, you may think you own it, but it’s really mine,’ ” Thornberry said.
BLM’s estimates as to how much land is at stake has varied from 90,000 to 30,000 acres -- the latest available.
Either way, private property owners stand to lose hundreds of acres along the river from Doan’s Crossing in Wilbarger County through Wichita and Clay counties to the tiny community of Stanfield about 15 miles northeast of Henrietta.
The lawsuit agreement requires using gradient boundaries in a method set by a 1923 Supreme Court case, as well as allowing the natural flow of the Red River to determine borders.
The Supreme Court case developed the gradient boundary method to determine the Red River boundary between Oklahoma and Texas. The boundary rests midway between the edge of a normal flow of water in the river and the south cut bank roughly speaking.
“Part of the challenge is since there has never been a survey, there’s not a starting point from which to base the natural changes that may occur over time in the river,” Thornberry said.
The survey will establish the boundary even if a flood or some occurrence changes the river, he said.
“You can follow that water law doctrine to determine if the state line moves this way or it moves that way,” he said.