The university of Texas System has substantial land holdings in west Texas, including Amazing Maze Cave and 09 Water Well.
---- Dwight via Texascavers <texascavers@texascavers.com> wrote: > Thanks Mike. You are correct in that the private ownership of caves presents > it's own set of potential problems. > > But you are not correct about land ownership in Texas. There is a LOT of > "public" ownership, especially in West Texas. Much is held by the State of > Texas, not the federal gvt. (except for the National Parks and a small > national forest). The General Land Office, Texas Parks and Wildlife, and > school disricts are the largest public land owning bureaucracies but the land > is often leased to individuals who treat it as their own private fiefdom. > That may not help much if you want access. > > DirtDoc > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Michael Queen" <jmofgu...@gmail.com> > To: "Dwight" <dirt...@comcast.net> > Cc: "TAG Net" <tag-...@hiddenworld.net>, idigca...@yahoo.com, "Cave NM" > <swrcav...@googlegroups.com>, "Cave Texas" <Texascavers@texascavers.com> > Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2017 10:19:30 AM > Subject: Re: [SWR CAVERS] Future of NSS membership > > I think it is a drastic oversimplification to suggest that private ownership > of caves necessarily makes things easier for us or safer for the caves than > agency ownership. We are still excluded from Skull Cave (Albany County, NY), > because the owners were spooked by an accident (in a separate cave owned by > different folk) back in about 1971. When a land management agency works well > things are great, as they are with private owners. However, if things go > south with private owners there is absolutely no recourse but to buy the > caves, and often the owners don't want to sell. Look at what caving in Texas > is like, with almost no public land ownership. Anyone who thinks you can just > go caving wherever and whenever one wants should think twice. So if we are > lucky enough to know the land owners we can decry ownership by public > agencies. But if we are not so lucky we should not too quickly criticize > public ownership, and we should speak out against efforts to transfer federal > lands to state o r private ownership. > > MQ _______________________________________________ Texascavers mailing list | http://texascavers.com Texascavers@texascavers.com | Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/texascavers@texascavers.com/ http://lists.texascavers.com/listinfo/texascavers
