When I was at the Arizona Republic, I constantly pushed for the paper to investigate the rash of land swaps that had moved public lands into the hands of developers with minimal oversight or even mention. What got my attention was the damage done by forest fires to "cabins" in the High Country, which were really subdivisions — much of them on what had been National Forests when I was a boy.
In addition to the cost of the fires, heavily borne by taxpayers, these rural subdivisions siphon off water, require new taxpayer-funded roads and add to the congestion and environmental stress on what was once a lovely rural-wild part of the West.
Nothing was done, but other newspapers have probed the shady practice. And the politicians caught up in it include the incorruptable, "maverick senator from Arizona." The Washington Post reports today:
Sen. John McCain championed legislation that will let an Arizona rancher trade remote
grassland and ponderosa pine forest here for acres of valuable
federally owned property that is ready for development, a land swap
that now stands to directly benefit one of his top presidential
campaign fundraisers.
It’s not the first time the usually worshipful national press has had to report such activities about its favorite. There’s also the Don Diamond affair. Of course the disgraced Rep. Rick Renzi faces criminal charges arising from a land swap. Business as usual in Arizona as the state’s beauty, and the public’s lands, are sold for dross.