This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
A decades-old quarrel about the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge has landed in court.
The Utah Division of Forestry, Fire & State Lands is suing the U.S. Interior Department, along with its agencies, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management, in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City on the question of where state land ends and federal land begins at the 83-year-old refuge on the Great Salt Lake.
"We don't have any interest in disturbing the refuge," explained Mike Anderson, an assistant attorney general, who noted the case — involving about half the sanctuary's 74,000 acres — is separate from the take-back-federal-lands movement sweeping Utah.
Anderson said state attorneys have been negotiating with their federal counterparts for years about the refuge. Included in the court papers is a 2000 letter from then-Attorney General Jan Graham's office to then-Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, threatening a suit over the boundaries.
"Presently the United States occupies and manages lands below the meander line in derogation of the state's right to do so, the most notable example being the continued occupation of major portions of the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge," said the letter from Stephen G. Boyden, an assistant attorney general. "The state claims ownership to all lands below the meander line purportedly held in the name of the United States or its successors in interest."
The suit also mentions a 2007 bill passed by the Utah Legislature repealing statutes from 1927 and 1929 that gave the federal government authority to use state lands as a bird refuge.
Questions about ownership of the lake even went in 1976 to the U.S. Supreme Court, where justices determined the lake bedwas owned by the state, but competing claims over parts of the refuge persisted.
Anderson said the lawsuit is intended to prod the federal government to move forward on some combination of money or a land swap.
"We had a few near deals with the federal government," he said, "that have fallen through over the last 10 years."
A management agreement for the state lands in the refuge had been in place for three years when it expired nearly a year ago.
The U.S. attorney's office said Tuesday it had not seen the lawsuit and had no comment.
The refuge is located on the northern arm of the Great Salt Lake. Its marshes serve as a freshwater oasis in the desert for millions of birds migrating north and south.
Twitter: @judyfutah