Riversend,

You are correct.

I was writing from memory last night and didn't have access to old notes, but you've jogged my memory and I went looking ...

The proposed sale was not to balance the budget per se (i.e. the General Fund or operational fund) but was to raise money for schools and roads to compensate local governments in rural areas for having untaxable federal land within their borders.

Initially, the then-president proposed selling up to 300,000 acres in 32 states to raise up to $800 million to help prop up the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self Determination Act for five years.

The fund was having problems because of declining timber sales.

In Kentucky, it meant selling 4,518 acres on 47 parcels in the Daniel Boone.

The Forest Service agreed with your characterization of the property: Most of the tracts were small, isolated, difficult and expensive to manage and contained no fragile ecosystems.

But critics feared the sales would set a precedent -- when budgets are tight and revenues are depressed, sell some land -- not unlike what farmers in huge debt were forced to do with corners of their homestead.

As such proposals are wont to do, this one sparked a discussion of a range of issues related to tax policy, federal funding mechanisms, private vs. public ownership, conservation and preservation, endangered species and the purpose and benefit of wilderness areas.

There defines the relevance to this discussion of the proposed mine, I guess.

And now back to Minnesota ....

(I didn't mean to get too far afield, but I wanted to clarify after your note jogged my memory.)

thank you,

-- kypaddler

P.S. And I know nothing about a "summer homes" program, but a piece of trivia: After President Bush floated that proposal, the Forest Service's headquarters in Winchester, Ky., was inundated with phone calls from people wanting to see the tracts "to build a cabin on this property," a spokeswoman said then.

P.S.S. Regarding the "trees" in your picture, are those two yellow populars in that canoe?