This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2006, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
BOULDER - It's time for Gary Haws to pack up and leave - and this time the feds mean it.
For six years, the Bureau of Land Management has been trying to evict the recalcitrant resident from 2.5 acres of BLM turf in Boulder in southern Utah's Garfield County.
But Haws hasn't budged.
Now, armed with a fresh federal court order, BLM officers and U.S. Marshals have until Dec. 3 to remove Haws, a mobile home and other structures from the parcel.
Melody Rydalch, a U.S. District Court spokeswoman in Salt Lake City, said negotiations are continuing with Haws, whose son, Ryan, now lives in a yellow mobile home on the disputed property with his wife, Shea, and sons Oakley, 6, and Ryker, 2.
"We're working to put together a plan to have the [mobile home] moved," Rydalch said. "Everyone involved wants to bring about a peaceful resolution."
But, she added, the time has come to resolve the drawn-out dispute.
The whole uproar has Ryan Haws baffled.
"Something is wrong and mixed up," he said. "I can't afford to move it [the mobile home]. I don't know what I'm going to do. I'd maybe consider buying it [the land] if the price was reasonable."
The younger Haws is a rancher and bought the mobile home from his father in 1999. Back in 1976, Gary Haws had plopped the double-wide home on property he thought was his. But a 1984 BLM survey showed that the home, driveway and front yard sit partly on federal land adjacent to 90 acres the family owns.
Ryan Haws said his father, who did not return phone calls seeking an interview, relied on a fence line - which he thought divided the federal land from property Ryan's great-great-grandfather, John "Frank" Haws, homesteaded in the early 1900s - to place the mobile home.
Ryan Haws said he has not been contacted by the U.S. Marshals Service or other law-enforcement officials about the trespass, but he did receive a copy of U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart's Oct. 20 order, and a BLM official has contacted his wife.
"I'd like them to contact me," said Ryan Haws, who notes he obtained title insurance for the home. "How could I do that if I didn't own the land?"
The house sits a block off State Route 12, where it is surrounded by sandstone formations dotted with juniper and pine trees. The front yard sports a patch of lawn with a swing set next to a driveway, where the family parks a small station wagon and a big red pickup.
"We're not trying to steal their land," Shea Haws said. "I don't know why they're trying to steal ours."
BLM spokesman Larry Crutchfield said officials learned only recently that the son had bought the mobile home. So they are working to determine if previous settlement offers made to Gary Haws can be extended to his son as well.
The BLM offered the 2.5 acres to Gary Haws for $21,000, a price that included costs for mitigating some cultural resources on the property. The government also allowed him to stay on the land for nine years through a temporary permit that cost $150 a year. Haws did not pay for three of those years.
Negotiations crumbled when Haws did not respond to court requests. The government then filed a civil complaint in 1999.
Crutchfield maintains the BLM has made every effort to reach a deal with Haws, but has run out of options.
"In Utah or Montana or anywhere else, when there is a record of someone unintentionally living in a home on public land, the government will consider all avenues that least impact the family," he said. "This is a sensitive issue no matter where you are."
Crutchfield said the BLM rarely has to evict residents from agency land and that such cases almost never drag on this long.
"Usually we deal with a rancher who has overextended his permitted months for a grazing allotment," he said. "Most are inadvertent because of something like bad weather and are resolved with a simple phone call."
Robert Cochran, a Boulder rancher who once employed Gary Haws, said he thought the matter had been resolved several years ago.
"I'm not against the BLM, but they seem to be taking a hard-line approach," Cochran said. "It seems the dispute could easily be settled with a simple boundary adjustment."
Boulder resident Mark Austin said that Ryan Haws is well-liked in the community and enjoys its support.
"If they [federal officers] come after him," Austin said, "there's not a single person who would not be standing there to keep them out."
Squatter Squabble Timeline
* Gary Haws sets a double-wide mobile home on land he thinks is his in 1976.
* A survey in 1984 discovers the home and other improvements sit partly on 2.5 acres of BLM land and adjacent to 90 acres Haws owns.
* The BLM determines by 1985 that the 2.5 acres can be sold, provided Haws pays an archaeologist to record American Indian sites on the property.
* Land-sale negotiations cease in 1987 after the National Wildlife Federation sues in an unrelated case, stalling all BLM land sales.
* The government allows Haws to stay on the land under temporary permit for nine years at $150 a year. He pays for all but three of those years.
* Negotiations resume in 1996 to resolve the dispute, but officials find Haws failed to perform the required mitigation.
* The government files a trespass complaint against Haws in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City. Haws is given two options: Buy the land for about $21,000 or remove the mobile home and restore the property.
* By February 2000, Haws' lawyer cannot get his client to negotiate, so he bows out.
* U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart in November 2000 orders Haws and his structures off the property and requires that he restore the land.
* On Oct. 20, 2006, Stewart orders the U.S. Marshals Service and BLM law-enforcement officers to remove Haws and the structures within 45 days. The government later learns that Haws' son has bought the mobile home and explores whether to begin negotiating a possible land sale with him.
- Mark Havnes