Contact: Ernie Blazar 202.224.7627 Shana Stribling 202.224.0309
Monday, June 2, 2003

U.S. Senator Kit Bond and Southwest Missouri Congressman Roy Blunt have teamed up to sponsor legislation in the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House to protect property rights of landowners bordering Mark Twain National Forest near Table Rock Lake. The legislation would settle once and for all a land boundary dispute between private landowners in Stone and Barry Counties and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and Army Corps of Engineers.

Recent land surveys by the USFS found significant differences in surveys conducted decades ago by the Army Corps of Engineers. As a result, property lines adjoining federal lands have moved. Under the Blunt-Bond bill, property owners would be held harmless in boundary disputes where new federal land surveys have moved boundary stakes 80 or more feet in some cases.

“The Forest Service has been effectively shaving off substantial sections of private property that adjoins federal lands,” House Majority Whip Blunt said. “A fight with the federal government over a boundary line can be an uphill battle. Our legislation would maintain the original property line and hand the title of the disputed land to the private landowner. The federal government already owns a third of the nation’s land, and inaccuracies in federally conducted surveys should never force landowners to forfeit their property.”

"Honest land-owners purchased their property in good faith based upon old surveys that no one had reason to question at the time," said Bond. "It was just plain wrong for the federal government to try and punish them now that we have new and more accurate surveys in hand. This legislation will stop the federal government from trying to claim that private property. Barry and Stone County landowners who have been living with the threat of federal seizure of their land can now breathe more easily. The protection they always thought they had will soon be written into the law of the land."

The USFS’s “Restoration of Original Corners” program uses new technology to locate lost boundary corners and lines originally plotted in the mid-1880s. The new land survey found variances with Army Corps surveys that were conducted for the construction of Table Rock Lake and used for decades to determine property lines around the reservoir in Stone and Barry Counties.

Don Ayers and Dana Waters of Shell Knob currently are fighting the new land surveys that took substantial pieces of their land. Mrs. Waters brought the issue to the attention of Blunt’s staff nearly two years ago. She said, “The people from the National Forest Service just showed up one day and began moving markers and cutting down trees. They moved one end of a section line marker 30 feet and the other end by 60 feet. They confiscated 2.5 acres of my land.” Mrs. Waters owns about 18 acres of land in Stone County on Table Rock Lake.

Don Ayers, who purchased his 10.5-acre tract from Mrs. Waters, tells a similar story. “The survey crew showed up unannounced one day. When they finished, the boundary with the National Forest Service had been moved 30 feet. That strip of land includes my driveway, a third of my garage and my shed.” Ayers estimated his loss at about a half-acre. “The Forest Service did offer to let me buy back my land from them,” he explained. The boundary dispute between Ayers, Waters and the National Forest Service is still pending. Ayers added, “This is a matter of fairness.” Ayers took the problem to Bond’s staff.

The legislation proposed by Bond and Blunt follows more than a year of talks with the USFS and the Corps of Engineers to find an administrative solution. The two lawmakers determined only an act of Congress would resolve the problem. The measure sets a process for dealing with disputed boundaries in Barry and Stone Counties with the Department of Agriculture. A landowner would notify the Secretary of Agriculture of a disputed boundary. If the Secretary determines the boundary conflict is the result of a reliance on a previous land survey, the land in dispute can be returned to the property owner. The property owner can be reimbursed for “reasonable out-of-pocket survey costs necessary to establish a claim.”