U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: Additional Flexibility Needed to Deal with Farmlands Received from the Department of Agriculture
Released: 2007-09-18T00:00:00

Letter

Background

The National Wildlife Refuge System provides habitat for more than 5,000 species of birds, mammals, and fish, and these refuges protect unique wildlife habitats and species. Under the National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act of 1966, as amended, the Service is responsible for managing each refuge to fulfill the mission of the system as a whole, as well as to fulfill the specific purposes for which the individual refuge was established. Therefore, refuges often have additional conservation goals tailored to a specific purpose, such as protecting the habitat of particular endangered or threatened species. Individual refuges may consist of contiguous tracts of land—ranging from less than 1 acre to more than 19 million acres—or separate tracts of land scattered over one or more states. Each refuge may encompass land that is (1) completely federally owned; (2) primarily federally owned, with isolated tracts of nonfederal land; or (3) in a few refuges, primarily nonfederally owned, with isolated tracts of federal land. Each refuge is managed by a refuge manager and other refuge staff, including biologists, law enforcement officers, and other specialized staff. One of the Service’s eight regional offices oversees the activities of each refuge; each region reports to Service headquarters in Washington, D.C. (see fig. 1).

The Service has a process for adding lands to the refuge system: it may acquire land by purchasing the land itself or purchasing interests in the land, by accepting donations of land from nonfederal entities, by accepting land transfers from other federal agencies, or by requesting a transfer of land from the public domain into the refuge system. The Service can also exchange tracts of land with nonfederal entities, such as state agencies or private landowners, although the tracts of land must be comparably valued. With few exceptions, all lands that become part of the refuge system continue to be included in the system until otherwise specified by an act of Congress. Typically, when evaluating lands for inclusion in the refuge system, the Service conducts an assessment of the land, which includes an in-depth biological evaluation and opportunities for public participation and also requires approval by the Service Director or one of the regional directors. The Service keeps an inventory of acquired lands, or interests in lands, in a centralized database maintained by realty offices in Service headquarters and regions.

The Service has also added lands to the refuge system through the partnership it developed with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency to help it implement provisions of the 1985 Farm Bill and subsequent legislation. Even before the 1985 Farm Bill was passed, the Farm Service Agency had an affirmative responsibility to protect any of its inventory properties that had wetland or floodplain values. Two executive orders issued in 1977 called on all federal agencies to minimize the destruction, loss, or degradation of wetlands and to restore and preserve the natural and beneficial values supported by floodplains. In carrying out their responsibilities, including acquiring, managing, and disposing of federal lands, federal agencies were to preserve and enhance the natural and beneficial values of wetlands. The 1985 Farm Bill and subsequent legislation provided the Farm Service Agency the authority to protect any of its land that contained wetlands and floodplains, in addition to other important resources. Specifically, the Farm Service Agency had the authority to place perpetual conservation easements on inventory properties that contained important resources or to transfer lands in fee simple to other entities, such as federal, state, or local government agencies. Since the 1985 Farm Bill was enacted, subsequent legislation substantially changed the amount and type of lands available for protection. Notably, the 1990 and 1996 Farm Bills restricted the agency’s authority to establish easements under the program. For example, the 1990 Farm Bill limited authorized easements on certain parcels of lands to no more than 20 percent of the parcel available for agricultural production. The 1996 Farm Bill removed these restrictions but imposed strict procedural requirements for establishing an easement. Table 1 summarizes the major executive orders and legislation affecting the protection of farmlands.

In establishing easements, the Farm Service Agency generally used boilerplate language that it developed in coordination with the Service. Largely, it placed very restrictive easements on those portions of the property that contained important resources. Easement restrictions prevented the landowner from developing the land, conducting agricultural practices, altering the vegetation or hydrology of the land in any way, or otherwise disturbing the land. In some cases, if the purpose of the easement was to protect a floodplain, then less-restrictive easement language was used. On these easements, most agricultural practices were allowed, and the landowner was restricted primarily from developing the land.

In delineating easement boundaries on a property, the Farm Service Agency generally established easement areas embedded within noneasement farmland because the agency was protecting only those portions of the property encompassing important resources. For example, on a 150-acre farm, an easement might have protected only the 23 acres that constituted a buffer to a stream running through the property. Or if several wetlands were identified on a 320-acre field, only those wetlands, possibly along with a buffer, might have received protection, while the remainder of the field could still have been farmed (see fig. 2). As a result, easement areas might consist of multiple, noncontiguous parcels on the larger farm property.

The Service Has Received at Least 1,400 Farmlands Covering 132,000 Acres, but the Actual Number Is Unknown

The Service’s records indicate that it has received at least 1,400 easement and fee-simple farmlands from the Farm Service Agency since 1986, but the actual number is unknown. According to its records, the Service is responsible for managing over 132,000 acres of mostly small farmlands scattered across 38 states. In addition, we identified farmlands besides those in the Service’s centralized database or reported to us by the regional offices. Consequently, we conclude that the figures we report represent a conservative estimate for the total amount of the Service’s farmlands.

Since 1986, the Service Has Received Mostly Small Farmlands Scattered across 38 States

According to its records, the Service has received at least 1,400 farmlands from the Farm Service Agency. About 90 percent of the lands are privately owned, with easements on them; the Service owns the remaining 10 percent in fee simple. The farmlands cover more than 132,000 acres and range in size from less than 1 acre to more than 2,200 acres. Most of the farmlands, however, are small. Specifically, more than half the farmlands are smaller than 50 acres, and only about 1 percent are larger than 1,000 acres (see table 2).

Farmlands owned by the Service in fee simple are generally larger than farmlands with easements. While more than 60 percent of its fee-simple lands are larger than 100 acres, less than 20 percent of the easement lands exceed 100 acres. Accordingly, in terms of acreage, the Service owns about 37,000 acres (28 percent) of its farmlands in fee simple, and nearly 95,000 acres (72 percent) are in the form of easements. The Service’s farmlands are scattered across more than 500 counties in 38 states within the continental United States, with the highest concentration of farmlands located in the Midwest (see fig. 3).

The most common purpose for establishing easements or accepting fee- simple ownership was to protect wetlands. Specifically, the results of our survey show that about 80 percent of the farmlands were received to protect wetlands. Farmlands were also received for other conservation purposes, such as protection of riparian zones; floodplains; or the habitats of endangered or threatened species, including the bald eagle and San Joaquin kit fox.

The majority of the farmlands were acquired between 1986 and the mid- 1990s; acquisitions over the past 10 years have been minimal (see fig. 4). According to Farm Service Agency officials, acquisitions have declined because significantly fewer farm properties have entered the Farm Service Agency’s inventory since the mid-1990s. This is largely a result of the improving farm economy and additional financing options farmers now have besides loan foreclosure, according to the officials. Also, the restrictions included in the 1990 and 1996 Farm Bills significantly reduced the type of inventory farmlands available for protection.

About half the farmlands reported here are included in the Service’s centralized database. We learned about the remaining half of the farmlands from three regional realty offices. These regions, for various administrative reasons, have not entered their records into the database, according to Service officials. For example, in one region most easements were not entered into the database because final legal reviews had not been completed.

The Service’s Farmland Records Are Incomplete

We identified farmlands that were not in the Service’s centralized database or reported to us by the regional realty offices and therefore conclude that the Service has an incomplete account of its farmlands. Specifically, through our site visits and contacts with refuge managers, we found multiple instances in which individual refuge offices had files for farmland easements that were not otherwise reported in the centralized database or by the regional realty office. For example, one refuge manager we spoke with said he was responsible for 29 additional farmlands not included in the centralized database or reported to us by the regional realty office. These farmlands equate to over 80 percent (more than 900 acres) of the farmlands that this refuge is responsible for managing. In other instances, the Service had made a recommendation to the Farm Service Agency to establish an easement, but the refuge office lacked a final deed confirming the easement’s establishment. As a result, some questions exist as to whether the Service had received management responsibility for an easement that was established on the land. At one of the refuge offices we visited, for example, we identified 31 potential, or unconfirmed, easements in addition to 5 confirmed easements, comprising over 1,500 acres, that had not been reported to us. The refuge office’s files for the 31 unconfirmed easements contained documentation, such as maps and records of site visits, but did not contain a final deed to confirm that the easement was official. Farm Service Agency and Service officials we spoke with in this state explained that the Farm Service Agency did not generally send a copy of the final deed to the Service when an easement was established. Thus, for these 31 unconfirmed farmlands, it is probable that an easement was established and the Service received management responsibility, but a copy of the final deed was simply not included in the file.

Because of the Service’s incomplete records, even the refuge offices may be unaware of all of the farmlands that they are in fact responsible for managing. For example, in one region, a realty official told us that a landowner had recently called the Service with a concern about an easement on his land. The Service, however, was unaware that it was responsible for managing the easement because it had no record of the farmland. After the call from the landowner, the Service confirmed that an easement had been established on the property by reviewing records at the courthouse in the county in which the farmland is located. In contrast, we identified a couple of instances where the refuge office maintained a file for a farmland, or assumed it was responsible for managing a farmland, when in fact the Service never received management responsibility, or an easement had not been established.

The Service Is Generally Not Managing the Majority of Its Farmlands

The Service is generally not managing the majority of its farmlands. Management activities the refuge offices are responsible for include regularly inspecting their farmlands to check for violations; taking enforcement actions on violations; maintaining contact with the landowners of easement lands; conducting limited maintenance activities including marking easement boundaries; and, in some cases, doing ecological restoration. Overall, however, we found that most refuge offices are carrying out these management activities on a very limited basis. Several factors affect the extent to which refuge offices devote management attention to their farmlands. First, devoting significant management attention to many of the farmlands has not been a priority because refuge officials do not believe that the lands contribute significantly to the refuges’ goals or mission. Second, management of easement lands may be difficult because of uncertainty surrounding the scope and extent of the easements. Third, the Service is operating with constrained resources and declining refuge staff and therefore the staff are not able to complete all the activities they believe are necessary to manage the farmlands. In some instances, however, we identified farmlands that the refuges are actively managing, largely because the lands more closely align with the refuges’ goals.

The Service Performs Limited to No Management Activities on Most of Its Farmlands

The Service’s refuge offices have carried out very limited management activities on the majority of their farmlands. Through site visits to five refuge offices and our survey of the refuge offices’ management of their farmlands (which covered 2002 through 2006), we found that most management activities, including inspections, contacts with landowners, and maintenance and restoration activities, are carried out on only a very limited basis. For an estimated 91 percent of farmlands, the refuge managers believe that over the past 5 years they were able to accomplish only half or less than half of the activities they believed were necessary to manage these lands. In general, we also found that the Service’s fee-simple farmlands tend to receive more management attention, particularly inspections and completed restoration work, than its easement lands.

While Service guidance calls for each farmland to be inspected at least once every year, very few farmlands are inspected annually. On-the-ground inspections are important to determine whether the landowners are complying with easement restrictions and to check for violations. From our survey, however, we estimate that only 13 percent of the farmlands, on average, have been annually inspected (see fig. 5). Additionally, on almost one-third of the farmlands, refuge managers did not believe (and were unable to provide documentation to show) that the farmlands had been visited by refuge staff at any point over the 10-year period from 1997 through 2006.

Because the majority of farmlands are rarely inspected, refuge officials may not know the extent to which violations may be taking place on their farmlands. The farmlands, or the interests in them, are government property, so the Service may take civil or criminal action against violators for the destruction of government property. Through our survey, we found that of the properties that were inspected at least once in the last 5 years, the most recent inspection found violations on 26 percent of the farmlands. Common violations included some agricultural practices such as grazing or haying, trespassing, dumping trash, hunting illegally, or removing signs (see fig. 6). At four of the five refuges we visited, we identified a violation on at least one easement land. For example, we visited one easement where the landowner had recently cleared much of the natural vegetation with a bulldozer and burned the land; at a different site, we saw where the landowner had built a driveway and shed through the middle of the easement area. At still another refuge, the refuge manager stated that of the 34 easement lands he has personally visited in the last 3 years, 90 to 95 percent exhibit some kind of violation, most of which degrade the ecological value of the land. At the fifth refuge, violations appeared to be present on a few farmlands, but we could not confirm them because of a lack of clear easement boundaries.

One way the Service can help prevent violations is by maintaining regular contact with landowners and ensuring that landowners, particularly new landowners, clearly understand the easement terms; yet despite Service guidance to this effect, refuge managers rarely keep up with such contacts. For instance, only 13 of the 51 refuge managers we surveyed reported that they tracked land ownership changes on their easement lands—for example, by checking land sales records at county courthouses—and only 11 reported that they notified new landowners about the easement on their property. Several refuge managers said that farmlands changed ownership frequently, making it difficult for them to keep up with the current landowners for all their easement lands. For example, one refuge manager stated that at least 70 percent of his 80 easement lands had changed ownership in the past several years. Compounding these difficulties, if a landowner divides and sells a portion of the farmland covered by an easement, the Service must then track all landowners to ensure that all portions of the easement area are in compliance. Through our survey, we found that multiple ownerships under one easement are fairly common; in one case, eight current landowners had a portion of a single easement on their property.

Additionally, refuge offices have conducted very little maintenance on their farmlands. On the basis of our survey, we estimate that approximately 22 percent of the Service’s farmlands have received maintenance over the past 5 years. While limited maintenance activities are required, particularly on easement lands, certain basic activities are called for. Specifically, Service guidance calls for all farmland boundaries to be marked, or posted, in a manner that is clear to landowners and the refuge officials responsible for managing them. During our site visits, however, we found that the farmlands were often not posted. At two of the refuges we visited, none of the easements were posted. At the other three refuges, while some farmlands had a few postings, others did not. In some cases, we also found that important fencing had not been installed or maintained. For example, we visited one easement that was being improperly grazed because the fencing that had been put up years ago was no longer able to keep cattle from entering and grazing the easement land.

Similarly, refuge offices have completed only limited restoration activities on their farmlands. When the farmlands were initially received from the Farm Service Agency, the Service expected that restoring wetlands, planting uplands, and other rehabilitation would be an important component of the program, and in some cases a significant early investment was made to restore some lands. From our survey, however, we estimate that over the last 5 years, about 9 percent of the farmlands have had restoration work done, such as planting trees or altering water flow. Overall, since the farmlands were initially received by the Service, refuge officials whom we surveyed were aware of restoration work on only 24 percent of their farmlands. Service officials in one region told us that although considerable funding was initially made available for restoration projects, subsequent funding has not kept pace with restoration or maintenance needs. For example, one of the refuge managers in that region said that his office was given, on average, more than $225,000 per year for restoration over the first 5 years of receiving farmlands from the Farm Service Agency. This funding enabled completion of all necessary restoration projects initially, he said, but later funding to maintain the projects was not provided. In contrast, a number of refuge managers said that restoration work is unnecessary on some farmlands because the lands adequately achieve the conservation purpose for which they were acquired if they are simply left in their natural state.

Several Factors Affect the Extent of the Service’s Management Activities

We found that several factors affect the extent to which the Service’s refuge offices conduct management activities on their farmlands. First, managing the farmlands has not been a high priority because refuge officials do not believe that the lands contribute significantly to the refuges’ goals or mission, because they are too small, isolated, and distant. While the size of the farmlands varies considerably—of the more than 1,400 farmlands nationwide, size ranges from less than 1 acre to more than 2,200 acres—over 75 percent of the farmlands are less than 100 acres. Several refuge managers commented that they consider 100 acres a minimum size to support ecological viability, especially given the lands’ fragmented nature. Often the farmlands are fragmented among active agricultural lands, have little or no connectivity to other wildlife habitat, or are widely scattered over a vast area. The farmlands are also often located many miles from the managing refuge office. At one refuge we visited, for example, the office is responsible for managing more than 100 scattered farmlands, many of which are located more than 60 miles away (see fig. 7).

Through our survey, we estimate that about 83 percent of the Service’s farmlands are located an hour or more away from their respective refuges, making it difficult for managers to visit them (see table 3). From a statistical analysis of our survey results, we found that both larger farmlands and those that are closer to the managing refuge were significantly more likely to have been inspected in the past 2 years than smaller or more distant farmlands.

Further, because managing the farmlands has not been a high priority, the lands may not be achieving the conservation purpose for which they were acquired. For example, we visited one farmland where an easement had been acquired for wetland purposes, but over time, the area had been filled in and become overgrown with dense vegetation and trees. The refuge manager said that in that state, the land exhibited no wetland characteristics and thus provided no value to any waterfowl species. He said it would take a significant amount of restoration work and subsequent continued maintenance to restore and sustain any wetland values on the land. We found that refuge managers believe that about 23 percent of the farmlands are currently meeting their conservation purpose to a great or very great extent. We also noted instances where the Service’s assessment determined that the land did not contain important resources worthy of protecting, and the Service therefore did not request an easement on the land; the Farm Service Agency nevertheless established an easement on the land and named the Service the easement manager. In still other cases, the specific acres protected did not match the areas the Service had identified as containing important resources. For example, we reviewed one case where the Service received a farmland in fee simple and also received an additional parcel of land containing a potentially contaminated concrete building left over from former farming operations.

Second, managing easement lands may be difficult because of uncertainty surrounding the easements’ scope and extent. For instance, because legal surveys often were not completed on the farmlands when the easements were first established, precise boundaries may not be available. Few of the property files we reviewed on our site visits contained evidence that the land had been legally surveyed to establish precise boundaries. Through our survey, we found that about 49 percent of the farmlands’ boundaries were clear to refuge managers. The lack of clear boundaries has made it difficult for some refuge officials to identify the location of all their easement lands and has also made it difficult to identify violations, such as farming encroachment or removal of vegetation, and to enforce restrictions. For example, we visited an easement where the refuge manager said the landowner moved the easement posting a few feet every year so as to expand his farming operations onto the easement land. Because the easement had not been legally surveyed, however, the refuge manager said it would be very difficult to insist that the farmer move the posting back to its original boundaries. The refuge manager said he was not even sure where the posting should officially be, given the lack of clear boundaries. In addition to unclear boundaries, some easement restrictions have been difficult for refuge managers to fully interpret and, in some cases, enforce. At one of the refuge offices we visited, for example, the refuge manager explained that while the easement allows “normal farming practices,” it also prohibits altering the land’s hydrology. He said that one of the easement landowners used farming equipment to level his land. According to the refuge manager, this leveling did alter the hydrology but could also be considered part of “normal farming practices.” Thus, what constitutes a violation may sometimes be unclear because of ambiguity in the language of some easement restrictions.

Third, the Service is operating with constrained resources and declining refuge staff, and therefore the refuge offices are not able to complete all the activities they believe are necessary to manage the farmlands. Over the past several years, refuge staff have been reduced significantly, and the Service plans to further reduce the refuges’ workforce in the next 3 years under current workforce-planning efforts aimed at cutting expenses. Currently, nearly 200 refuges are unstaffed, with this number likely to increase in the future. Senior headquarters and regional officials explained that the refuges have done what they can to manage their farmlands, given the limited resources they have at their disposal. For an estimated 88 percent of farmlands, the refuge managers believe that they have not had enough resources to manage their farmlands over the past 5 years. A number of refuge officials also specifically cited the lack of law enforcement capabilities as a resource constraint. At two of the refuges we visited, the offices did not have any kind of permanent law enforcement staff; at two others, the law enforcement officer split his time between refuge offices. Several managers pointed out that they simply would not have the law enforcement capability to spend significant time taking enforcement actions for violations on farmlands. Our survey results suggest that the number of farmlands any one refuge office is responsible for varies greatly (from 1 to over 100) and that the more farmlands a refuge office is responsible for, the less likely the office is to have inspected a property in the past 2 years.

Farmlands That Align Closely with Refuges’ Goals Receive More Management Attention

While the Service is generally not managing the majority of its farmlands, in some instances we identified farmlands that refuge offices are devoting significant management attention to, largely because these farmlands more closely align with the refuges’ goals. Service officials explained that farmlands that are or have the potential to be more ecologically valuable generally receive more attention than those with less potential. For example, the Service’s largest documented farmland is a fee-simple acquisition 2,263 acres in size. When this land was acquired by the Service, it was severely degraded by agricultural practices. At present, however, because of significant restoration work done by refuge staff, the land encompasses over 1,000 acres of native hardwood trees and abundant, varied wildlife, including significant populations of marsh and water birds, shorebirds, and other waterfowl. Although the land is located more than an hour away from the refuge office responsible for managing it, the refuge manager said that refuge staff visit the property multiple times per year for restoration and maintenance activities. Funding was allocated for restoration of this farmland before fiscal year 2002, but since then, the refuge office has used routine refuge operations-and-maintenance funding to manage it.

In other instances, farmlands are located in areas the refuge offices are already focusing on, and these lands therefore receive more management attention. For example, we visited one refuge office responsible for managing a 606-acre easement adjacent to the refuge boundary that provided a critical connection between the refuge and a river running through the area. On this easement, the Service developed a management plan to maintain and enhance wetland ecosystems, riparian zones, and wildlife habitats while also allowing limited grazing on certain portions of the land. In the last few years, the refuge office received grant funding to conduct restoration work to increase the wetlands and address channelization and erosion problems. Currently, two landowners each own a parcel of the easement, and according to the refuge manager, they have both supported the refuge’s efforts to restore the land. Overall, he suggested, the situation is a good example of how Farm Service Agency easement lands can successfully contribute to the mission of the National Wildlife Refuge System.

In another instance, we visited a farmland of 361 acres owned in fee simple by the Service that, because of its location, was turned into the headquarters of a wetland management district. In this district, the Service is working to acquire more wetland and upland habitat for waterfowl, migratory birds, and other wildlife. The Service conducted wetlands restoration work on the property and turned the old, dilapidated farmhouse into the refuge office (see fig. 8). Fishing access, a nature trail, and other environmental education activities now complement the farmland’s restored wetlands.

The Service Has Limited Alternatives for Managing Its Farmlands

Since the Service first started receiving farmlands from the Farm Service Agency more than two decades ago, it has had limited alternatives for managing them because the lands became part of the National Wildlife Refuge System. The alternatives include (1) resetting refuge priorities to ensure that farmlands are given management attention, (2) requesting additional resources, and (3) paying little or no management attention to the farmlands. Generally, when a farmland has significantly contributed to the goals and mission of the responsible refuge, the Service has either adjusted its refuge priorities to ensure farmland management or found the resources necessary to actively manage the property. These instances have been rare, however. For most farmlands, the Service has chosen the third alternative—paying little or no management attention to its farmlands— and it is unlikely to increase its management attention. Refuge officials we spoke with said that they were unlikely to raise the priority of farmland management activities in the future unless additional refuge funding was provided or regional or national officials directed them to do so. They explained that because of the nature of the farmlands, it simply does not make sense to reset refuge priorities to increase management attention to them. Refuge managers said that they would also be highly unlikely to ask for additional resources to manage farmlands, except in rare instances, because of the continuing shortfall in resources to complete even their core refuge activities, such as protecting critical habitat. Service headquarters and regional officials agreed that as staff and budgets continue to be downsized, further management attention to the farmlands is unlikely. By paying little or no management attention to its farmlands, however, the Service risks allowing habitats to be degraded; violations to go unchecked; and, in some cases, government property to be damaged.

Because these farmlands are now part of the National Wildlife Refuge System, the Service has limited options—restricted by federal law and executive orders—for relinquishing management responsibilities for unwanted farmlands or farmlands it deems not in the best interest to retain in the refuge system. Under provisions of the National Wildlife Refuge Administration Act of 1966, as amended, lands that are part of the National Wildlife Refuge System cannot be transferred or otherwise disposed of (except by exchange) unless the Secretary of the Interior determines, with the concurrence of the Migratory Bird Conservation Commission, that the land or interest in lands is no longer needed for the purposes for which the refuge system was established. Refuge lands have never been transferred or disposed of in this manner, however. In addition, the Service is required to abide by the provisions of Executive Order 11990, covering wetland protection, and Executive Order 11988, covering floodplain management, which require protection and preservation of these resources. It has also been the policy of the federal government since 1989 to achieve “no net loss” of wetlands in carrying out the government’s land management activities.

In a few isolated instances, the Service has successfully exchanged farmlands for private lands under existing authorities. According to Service officials, fee-simple farmlands were generally exchanged for private lands to acquire lands nearer existing refuges, and easement exchanges were done mainly to acquire land that was more ecologically valuable or to enable landowners to accomplish their land use objectives. Service officials told us, however, that the possibilities for further land exchanges are limited, especially for easement lands. On fee-simple lands, the main difficulty is finding private entities that are interested in obtaining the Service’s isolated parcels and also own lands the Service is interested in acquiring. For easement lands, the only parties interested in acquiring easement rights are usually the underlying landowners, and rarely do they own other lands that would make sense to exchange. In addition, for both fee-simple and easement properties, the administrative and procedural aspects of accomplishing land exchanges are often extremely costly and burdensome. For instance, we reviewed one exchange, involving an easement, that took more than 3 years to complete and required costly survey and appraisal work in addition to significant time and effort on the part of Service realty and refuge staff.

In addition to exchanges, the Service can look to third parties, such as state agencies or nonprofit organizations, to establish cooperative agreements to manage its farmlands. For example, one refuge has an agreement with a state agency to manage one of its farmlands because the land is located near a state-owned natural area. Service officials indicated that such situations are rare, however, and it is unlikely that many additional cooperative agreements will be established, given the location, size, and ecological value of the lands and the management costs to these groups—the very reasons the Service does not itself accord the lands significant management attention.

In contrast, other federal land management agencies have authorities that provide them flexibility to dispose of lands found not in their best interest to retain. These authorities may provide models for addressing farmlands that the Service determines no longer serve the purposes of the refuge system. For example, under the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act of 1998, the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management has the authority to sell or exchange public land within a specific area around Las Vegas, Nevada. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of such lands is put into a fund that is then used for a variety of purposes, including conservation initiatives and certain land acquisitions. The account is also available for the reimbursement of costs incurred by the local offices of the Bureau of Land Management in arranging sales or exchanges under this act.

Similarly, the Small Tracts Act gives the Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service the authority to sell certain small, isolated parcels of its landholdings under specific conditions. Specifically, eligible parcels may be sold if they have a market value of less than $150,000, are smaller than 40 acres, are not efficiently administered because of their location and size, and cannot be sold under any other authority. The Small Tracts Act authorizes the Forest Service to exchange lands or interests in lands of approximately equal value without need of formal appraisals. This authority can greatly facilitate land transactions where the cost of the appraisals is significant enough to diminish the likelihood of the transaction. Pending legislation would, among other provisions, increase the acreage from 40 to 100 acres.

Additionally, the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949, as amended, governs the disposal of most federal property that a federal agency no longer needs to carry out its mission, programs, and activities. Such property is reported as excess to the General Services Administration and offered first to other federal agencies for their use and then to state or local governments or to certain tax-exempt nonprofit organizations through such mechanisms as negotiated or public sales. If these entities do not wish to acquire the property, the General Services Administration can then dispose of it through a competitive sale to the public, generally via sealed bid or auction.

If the Service had authority for its farmlands similar to the above examples, it could consolidate some of its unwanted farmlands through an arrangement where it sold fee-simple farmlands or the easement rights and then directed the proceeds to the purchase of lands that were more closely aligned with the goals and mission of the refuge system. Considerations such as the time frame for allowing such sales and purchases, and whether such activities could occur on a nationwide scale or whether purchases would be limited to the states or region in which the sale took place, would be important. An advantage to such an arrangement would be that the Service could, at a minimum, offset the loss of any wetlands and floodplains. According to Service officials, however, a significant obstacle to this option would be that although farmlands owned in fee simple can have considerable market value, many of the easements have little or no tangible market value, and easement sales may therefore be difficult or impossible. Therefore, granting the Service authority specific to its farmlands similar to that granted under the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act, the Small Tracts Act, or the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act, while useful, would not likely be sufficient to address most of the Service’s unwanted farmlands.

Further, the Service recently developed a proposal to divest some of its limited-interest refuges in North Dakota. The divestiture proposal was developed to help ensure that future resources are expended on lands that support the mission and goals of the refuge system. Under the proposal, refuge lands were selected for divestiture on the basis of specific criteria, including how well the lands achieved one or more of the goals of the National Wildlife Refuge System, whether the lands met their intended purpose, whether the lands had biological integrity, and whether it was possible to restore them. This divestiture proposal would require congressional authorization for the properties recommended for divestment. The Service could expand this model and adapt the criteria to address management limitations specific to the farmlands, such as property size, distance from the refuge office, number of refuge staff available, as well as ecological considerations. Using such criteria, the Service could propose to Congress a list of specific farmlands to be divested, along with written justification outlining the Service’s judgments.

We encountered a wide array of perspectives with regard to the value the farmlands bring to the refuge system, the costs of their management, and what should be done with those lands that are not significantly contributing to the refuge systems’ goals and mission. For instance, some refuge managers and regional officials we spoke with believed that the ecological value of the farmlands is not calculable—especially from a long- term viewpoint, such as 50 years hence—and therefore all the farmlands should be retained. Some refuge managers spoke of the low-risk nature of many of the farmlands—lands where threats of violations are low, where maintenance needs are minimal, and where the undisturbed natural state maintains ecological value. These types of farmlands do not require active restoration, and management, namely regular inspections and contacts with landowners, would take only minimal effort. Other headquarters, regional, and refuge officials, however, spoke of operational efficiencies in the face of continually constrained budgets. These officials were apt to suggest balancing resource constraints against the ecological value of the farmlands in comparison with the value of refuge lands; they argued that in this context, it does not make sense to expend any resources on some of the farmlands. When asked, most refuge officials were generally able to identify farmlands that they believed would not have ecological value sufficient for continued inclusion in the refuge system, even with significantly increased resources or refuge staff. Some officials were reluctant to suggest that the Service should attempt to relinquish its management responsibilities on those lands, however, for fear of opening the door to potential divestiture of other, more critical refuge lands, which could bring about a significant ecological loss to the refuge system.

Conclusions

The 1985 Farm Bill and subsequent legislation provided the Service, in partnership with the Farm Service Agency, a mechanism to protect, as part of the National Wildlife Refuge System, farmlands that encompassed wetlands or other important natural resources. The Service is now responsible for managing a significant number of both conservation easement and fee-simple farmlands across most of the continental United States. The Service does not have a complete accounting of all of its farmlands, however, so the actual scope of its responsibilities is not certain. As a result, it may be unable to accurately assess its management needs. Given the farmlands’ wide variation in size, location, and other characteristics, a complete accounting is needed to best determine how these lands should be managed in the future.

Since its first farmland acquisition more than 20 years ago, the Service has generally used the tools at its disposal to deal with these lands as best it could. We agree with the Service that its main priority, and its limited resources, should be directed at managing and sustaining its core refuge lands. However, by not conducting at least a minimum level of management activities on the farmlands it has acquired, including inspecting the lands on a regular basis, posting the lands, and ensuring that landowners are aware of restrictions, the Service could ultimately see the loss or degradation of the resources it was given the responsibility to protect. Under current law, the Service has very few alternatives for reducing or removing management responsibilities for lands received from the Farm Service Agency that are not significantly contributing to the mission and goals of the National Wildlife Refuge System. Therefore, we believe the Service needs additional flexibility to better align the farmlands it is responsible for with the goals and mission of the refuge system.

Other federal land management agencies have authorities to dispose of lands found not in their best interest to retain, and these authorities could serve as a starting point for the possible development of a legislative solution for farmlands the Service received from the Farm Service Agency. Existing authorities have largely been applied to fee-simple lands, and their applicability to easements may be limited, largely because of the relatively low market value of many of the easements. Partly for this reason, a variety of approaches may be warranted and tailored to the specific farmlands that the Service determines should no longer be included in the refuge system. In any approach the Service takes to alter its current farmland management responsibilities, to the extent possible, it should strive to maintain a conservation focus. For example, the Service could seek authority to invest the proceeds from the sale of any farmlands into conserving other lands or to offer farmlands to state agencies or nonprofits for conservation purposes. Additionally, because any federal land divestment proposal raises significant concerns, crucial variables to consider include a time limit to identify potential farmlands for divestment and narrowly limiting the scope of any divestment proposal to only those farmlands the Service identifies as unwanted.

Recommendations for Executive Action

To improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the Service’s management of its farmlands, we recommend that the Secretary of the Interior direct the Director of the Service to take the following two actions: ensure that the Service’s records for all of its farmlands are accurate and complete by reconciling regional and refuge office records and property records to determine which farmlands were transferred from the Farm Service Agency, and develop a proposal to Congress seeking the authority for additional flexibility with regard to the farmlands the Service determines may not be in the best interest to continue to include as part of the National Wildlife Refuge System.

Agency Comments

We provided copies of our draft report to the Department of the Interior and the Department of Agriculture. The Department of the Interior concurred with our recommendations and agreed to take action on both recommendations by the end of calendar year 2009. In addition, the department provided several technical clarifications, which we incorporated as appropriate. Appendix III contains the Department of the Interior’s comment letter. The Department of Agriculture provided no comments.

We are sending copies of this report to interested congressional committees, the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Director of the Service, the Administrator of the Farm Service Agency, and other interested parties. We also will make copies available to others upon request. In addition, the report will be available at no charge on the GAO Web site at http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff has any questions about this report, please contact me at (202) 512-3841 or nazzaror@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made major contributions to this report are listed in appendix IV.

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology

To examine the extent of farmland received by the Department of the Interior’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) from the Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency, we interviewed officials at and reviewed documentation from the Service’s headquarters and regional offices. Specifically, we requested all farmland acquisition data from the Service’s centralized land records system—its database for tracking lands, including interests in lands, under its control. To assess the reliability of the data we received from this database, we interviewed officials most knowledgeable about the collection and management of these data, and we reviewed relevant data controls. On the basis of our review, we concluded that the database records were sufficiently reliable for us to report on what information the database contained. We were informed by some regional realty officials, however, that the database was likely incomplete. Consequently, we contacted each regional office to determine if the offices maintained additional farmland records outside the centralized database. Three Service regions provided us with additional farmland records that were not contained in the database. We also visited and collected additional farmland records from five refuge offices in five different regions. At each site, we completed a detailed review of the available files on farmlands and compared this information with the information we received from the Service’s centralized database, regional offices, or both, as applicable. We selected the sites to visit using the data we were given from the Service’s headquarters and three regional offices to identify the refuge office responsible for managing the largest number of farmlands in each Service region. The five refuge offices we visited were Tishomingo National Wildlife Refuge near Tishomingo, Oklahoma (region 2); Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge near Saginaw, Michigan (region 3); North Mississippi Refuge Complex near Grenada, Mississippi (region 4); Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge near Seneca Falls, New York (region 5); and Modoc National Wildlife Refuge near Alturas, California (region 8). In addition, we also interviewed the Farm Service Agency officials at its headquarters and four of its state offices to determine the availability of records it may have maintained on farmlands it transferred, either in fee simple or through an easement, to the Service. We found that the Farm Service Agency generally did not maintain organized historical records of all its transfers to the Service.

To examine the extent to which the Service is currently managing its farmlands, we identified and analyzed applicable laws, policies, and procedures governing the Service’s farmland management, and we interviewed officials at the Service’s headquarters, regional offices, and the five refuge offices we visited. During our site visits, we reviewed the files for each farmland in detail, including inspection records; records of landowner contacts; records of completed restoration and maintenance work; and general information about the farmland, including the easement restrictions, boundary demarcations, and other legal documentation. During these site visits, we also saw a sample of farmlands that the refuge office was responsible for managing and learned what inspection activities entailed. We also observed the condition of each farmland, whether easement signs were clearly visible, and whether there were any signs of easement violations or other problems. We also designed and conducted a survey, through structured telephone interviews, of refuge managers from across the United States about the extent to which they are managing their farmlands. We received a 100 percent response rate from the simple random sample of 98 farmlands we selected from the population of 1,423 farmland records that were provided to us by the Service’s headquarters and regional offices. Appendix II discusses our survey methodology in greater detail.

To examine the Service’s alternatives for managing its farmlands, we interviewed headquarters and regional officials from the Service’s Realty and Refuge Offices in addition to the refuge office managers contacted through our site visits and telephone survey. We also interviewed the Department of the Interior’s Office of the Solicitor. Further, we analyzed relevant federal laws and Service policies governing options for managing lands within the National Wildlife Refuge System, and we reviewed federal laws governing land management in other federal agencies, including the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management and the Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service.

We performed our work between September 2006 and July 2007 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.

Appendix II: Survey of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Farmland Management

To further examine the extent to which the Department of the Interior’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) is currently managing the farmlands it received from the Farm Service Agency, we designed and conducted a survey, through structured telephone interviews, of refuge managers from across the United States about the extent to which they are managing their farmlands. The questions were designed to obtain information on the number of farmlands each refuge is responsible for and on the nature and quantity of inspections, violations, landowner contact, maintenance, and restoration activity that occur on each farmland. In addition, the structured interviews solicited information on factors that may hinder the refuge offices’ ability to manage their farmlands. The interview questions focused primarily on management activities that took place over the 5-year period from 2002 through 2006. We selected a simple random sample of 106 farmlands from the population of 1,423 farmland records that were provided to us by the Service’s headquarters and regional offices as of February 22, 2007. After we selected our sample, we determined that 8 of the farmlands were not under the management jurisdiction of the Service, so our final sample consisted of 98 farmlands. We conducted structured telephone interviews with the 51 refuge offices responsible for managing these 98 farmlands, which included both fee- simple and easement lands located in 24 states across the nation.

We developed a structured interview guide with the assistance of a GAO survey specialist and pretested it over the telephone with refuge managers and staff from 17 refuge offices; we then revised the structured interview guide, as appropriate, on the basis of the pretest results. A second GAO survey specialist independently reviewed our interview guide to ensure that the questions followed general principles of survey research. To conduct our survey, we e-mailed each refuge manager responsible for one or more of the 98 farmlands in our sample and requested a telephone interview. We held our structured telephone interviews from March 22, 2007, through May 1, 2007, with the person whom the refuge identified as most knowledgeable about managing the farmlands in question—usually the refuge manager—along with other refuge staff familiar with sample farmlands. At the end of each telephone interview, we requested that the refuge manager send us all documentation available to support the information provided in the interview, such as records indicating when inspections or restoration activities occurred. On receiving the documentation, we compared it with the information given in the interview. Reviewing this documentation gave us additional confidence in the data we collected during our structured telephone interviews. We did not encounter any significant discrepancies between the information collected during the interviews and the documentation supplied by refuge officials.

Our interview response rate was 100 percent, and the results can be projected to the population of documented farmlands. The results cannot be projected, however, to the additional undocumented farmlands we became aware of during our audit work because data for these lands were not available at the time our random sample was chosen and were therefore not represented in our sample. Percentage estimates based on our sample have margins of error of ±10 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level unless otherwise noted. We also asked a few questions that were not specific to a sampled farmland but, rather, applied to the refuge office’s management of all its farmlands. Responses to these officewide questions cannot be projected to a population of wildlife refuges and are not presented as such. We also analyzed responses to open-ended interview questions to identify common themes and to provide context for the responses to our specific questions.

During the telephone survey, we took steps to ensure data quality. Because of the practicalities of conducting structured telephone interviews, interviewees’ responses may reflect errors; interviewees may misinterpret a question, for example. We took steps in developing and conducting the survey to reduce such errors. First, we conducted the interviews in a standardized manner to ensure that each respondent was asked the same questions, each with precise wording, and in the same order. Second, during the interviews, we annotated responses with notes about respondent’s hesitations, inconclusiveness, inconsistencies, or inability to answer the question directly or succinctly. We reviewed these notes before data analyses to ensure response accuracy. Third, for some questions, we asked respondents directly about their level of certainty regarding a response, for example, whether their response was “precise” or “approximate.” Finally, we validated responses obtained from the structured interviews with documentation from the refuges. For example, we verified such items as inspection dates, acreage amounts, and violations against the interview responses. All survey data were entered into a statistical analysis program and verified for accuracy. The results were then summarized and tabulated.

Table 4 summarizes the key questions we are reporting on that we asked during the structured interviews about the management of each sampled farmland. We also asked other questions that we do not specifically report on to supply further context for interviewees’ responses. For example, after asking whether a certain management activity had occurred, such as an inspection, we asked the respondent during which season and year the activity took place and to describe the activity.

In addition, to further analyze our survey responses, we applied certain statistical transformations to the data, which we then analyzed for statistically significant patterns. Specifically, using responses about when the farmlands were inspected with specific farmland characteristics as discussed below, we created new variables to assess correlations. During our site visits, interviews, and telephone survey, refuge managers mentioned several reasons that some farmlands are inspected while other farmlands are not. These reasons included farmland size; distance between a farmland and the refuge office; and refuge workload, including the number of other properties managed by the refuge office. To corroborate these explanations, we performed a statistical procedure known as logistic regression analysis. Logistic regression can be used to determine whether farmlands that are inspected have different characteristics, on average, from farmlands that are not inspected. We used logistic regression to assess the size and the significance of the effects of the following three factors: property size, distance to refuge office, and the number of properties managed by a refuge.

We estimated the effects of these three different factors on the likelihood of properties’ being inspected, using straightforward contingency-table methods (i.e., bivariate cross-tabulations) and using bivariate and multivariate logistic regression models. The three sections of table 5 show the bivariate relationships between inspection status (i.e., whether the property had been inspected in the previous 2 years) and each of the three factors: (1) property size (top section), (2) distance from the property to the managing refuge (middle section), and (3) the number of properties managed by the refuge (bottom section). When we considered each of these relationships independently (i.e., one at a time), we found that whether a property had been inspected in the preceding 2 years was significantly associated with each of the three factors: Larger properties were more likely to have been inspected in the preceding 2 years than smaller ones. Although 67 percent of the properties larger than 100 acres were inspected, only 45 percent of the properties between 11 and 100 acres in size were inspected, and only 7 percent of those properties 10 acres or smaller were inspected.

Properties that were closer to the managing refuge were more apt to have been inspected than those farther away. Eighty-four percent of the properties closer than 50 miles from the managing refuge were inspected, but only 37 percent of the properties between 50 and 100 miles from the refuge, and 27 percent of the properties farther than 100 miles from the refuge, were inspected.

Properties managed by refuges with more properties to manage were less likely to have been inspected than properties managed by refuges with fewer properties to manage. Sixty-two percent of the properties managed by refuges that managed fewer than 20 properties were inspected, while only 41 percent and 13 percent of the properties managed by refuges that managed 20 to 49 and 50 properties or more, respectively, were inspected.

While sizable confidence intervals are associated with each of these estimates of the percentage of inspected properties (see table 6), all of these bivariate associations were statistically significant (at the p = 0.05 level or better). Moreover, when we used bivariate logistic regression models to estimate these associations, we found that each association was well described by simple models that constrained the associations to be linear. To understand these models, it is helpful to consider the three right- hand columns of table 5, which show for each category of property size, distance from the refuge, and number of properties managed by the refuge the observed odds on being inspected, observed odds ratios, and odds ratios under a linear model.

The observed odds are obtained by dividing, for each group of properties, the number (or percentage) of properties inspected by the number (or percentage) of properties not inspected. For properties 10 acres or smaller, the odds on being inspected were 1/14 = 0.07, whereas for properties 11–100 acres in size and larger than 100 acres, the odds on being inspected were 26/32 = 0.81 and 12/6 = 2.00, respectively. The observed odds ratios are obtained by dividing the odds for any given category by the odds for the next lower category. In these data, we find that properties in the middle acreage category were more likely to have been inspected than those in the lowest acreage category (by a factor of 0.81/0.07 = 11.38) and that properties in the highest acreage category were more likely to have been inspected than those in the middle category (by a factor of 2.00/0.81 = 2.47). Like the percentages already mentioned, these observed odds and odds ratios, derived directly from the sample data, involve considerable error and sizable confidence intervals, and a simple linear model estimating differences among size categories fits acceptably. Under this model, the odds on being inspected were greater for properties 11 to 100 acres in size than for properties 10 acres or smaller, and greater for properties larger than 100 acres than for properties 11 to 100 acres in size, in both cases by a factor of 4.0. These ratios are shown in the right- hand column of table 5. This column also shows that the effect of distance yields a linear odds ratio of 0.31 (properties farther away than 50 to 100 miles were less likely to have been inspected than properties closer than 50 miles, by a factor of 0.31, and properties farther away than 100 miles were less likely to have been inspected than properties 50 to 100 miles away by that same factor). A similar odds ratio of 0.32 estimates the linear effect of the number of properties managed by the refuge responsible for each.

We also used multivariate logistic regression models to simultaneously estimate the effects of these three factors on the likelihood of properties’ being inspected. These models allowed us to isolate the independent effect of each factor by adjusting for the effects of the other two factors. We also used robust procedures to account for the lack of independence across the observations (i.e., properties), that is, the clustering of properties within refuges. We obtained the following results: The effect of size remained pronounced and significant even after adjusting for the effects of distance and number of other properties managed by the responsible refuge. The adjusted odds on properties’ being inspected were 3.5 times higher for properties 11 to 100 acres in size than for properties 10 acres or smaller, and they were 3.5 times higher for properties larger than 100 acres than for properties 11 to 100 acres in size. In other words, properties between 11 and 100 acres were 3.5 times more likely to be inspected than properties 10 acres or smaller. Similarly, properties larger than 100 acres were 3.5 times more likely to be inspected than properties between 11 and 100 acres.

The effect of distance remained pronounced and significant even after adjusting for the effects of size and number of properties managed. The adjusted odds on properties being inspected were lower for properties 50 to 100 miles from the responsible refuge than for properties closer than 50 miles, and lower for properties farther than 100 miles away than for properties 50 to 100 miles away, in both cases by a factor of 0.34. (Because odds ratios are symmetric, this result implies that the odds on being inspected were about 2.9 times higher for properties closer than 50 miles than for properties 50 to 100 miles away, and about 3.4 times higher for properties 50 to 100 miles away than for properties farther than 100 miles away.)

The effect of the number of properties managed was not statistically significant when size and distance were taken into account. Our sample of properties is small for detecting any but fairly sizable effects, however, especially in a multivariate context, and the net effect of number of properties, while statistically insignificant, is sizable enough to warrant further attention (the adjusted linear odds ratio is 0.54).

Appendix III: Comments from the Department of the Interior

Appendix IV: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

Staff Acknowledgments

In addition to the individual named above, Jeffery D. Malcolm, Assistant Director; Mark A. Braza; Ellen W. Chu; Richard P. Johnson; Alyssa M. Hundrup; Michael Krafve; Gretchen Snoey; and Arvin Wu make key contributions to this report. Also contributing to the report were Antoinette Capaccio, George H. Quinn Jr., Mark Ramage, Jena Y. Sinkfield, and Douglas M. Sloane.