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11.03.02Land tug-of-war threatens couple's livelihood "He never got back to us." 0018u2 So the Hayses continued harvesting peaches. Then, earlier this year, Thelma and Herb Hays met with bureau officials, who asserted that the federal government owned the land and intended to use it to pile 80,000 cubic feet of dirt on it. That's enough dirt to fill five acres 10 feet deep, said Kathleen Ozga, land and recreation group chief with the bureau. The bureau needs the land as part of a collaborative federal, state and local effort to recover four endangered fish species, Ozga said. The program includes plans to install a $6.6 million stainless steel fish screen inside the Government Highline Canal. The screen is designed to keep endangered fish from swimming downstream into the fields of the Grand Valley or becoming crushed at the power plant on East Orchard Mesa. In its draft environmental assessment released in March, the bureau listed three alternative locations for the screen - at the Roller Dam, at the peach orchard; and below Cameo. Bureau officials prefer the peach orchard in part because under this option, the federal government does not need to buy additional land. It already owns the land, said Ozga. The final environmental assessment, slated for release later this year, will list the orchard location as the preferred alternative. The bureau needs the orchard to place dirt that will be excavated from a bypass canal that it will build adjacent to the existing canal. The bypass canal is also part of the fish recovery program. The bureau also needs an additional strip of land 250 feet wide to install a 36- inch buried pipe that will lead from the screen to the Colorado River, Ozga said. The pipe will enable endangered fish trapped by the screen to swim back to the river. Now, after having researched the land ownership, the Hayses concede the six acres do not belong to them and has never been in private ownership. The Hayses maintain the fish screen should be located elsewhere and they should continue to farm land that they believe should belong to them. "I feel raped," Thelma Hays said. "We paid for it. We paid taxes on it all these years. "They're threatening us. I can't believe our livelihood and comfort of living will be destroyed by our government," Thelma Hays said. In researching the land ownership, the Hayses also discovered that the bureau and the Government Highline Canal encroach onto their farm land. However, the canal's encroachment is approved under the Canal Act of 1890, and for that reason, "From our perspective, we are not trespassing onto the Hays property," Ozga said. Under federal law, the federal government can claim ownership of land the public has used over a certain time period. However, a private individual cannot do the same against federal land. A simple land trade would easily solve the dual-encroachment dilemma, Walcher said. http://www.gjsentine1.com/news/newsfdlauto/feedlnews/2002/11/03/1 036303665 .28610.6687.0805 .html Page 2 of 4 11/4/02