Neighbors and supporters of the Kings River were alarmed last summer by months-long exploratory drilling for a limestone quarry on 600 acres of steep land near Keels Creek and the Kings River. The property was purchased by WPS Eureka, owned by Matt Mills, Dexter, Mo., also the owner of Legacy Mining and a principal with the investment group Sixty West. The 600 acres was split into three Limited Liability Companies and owners of all three LLCs have placed conservation easements on the properties that would prevent a quarry development.
Hoot the new year has been great!” Mills wrote in an email. “Just keeping you in the loop now that two of the groups that purchased my interest placed conservation easements on parcels with Scott Smith from The Barn Group. I’m pretty sure the third parcel was conserved as well, but I’ve not been in touch with that group. Sounds like the residents should be pleased that no mining will occur on those parcels!”
Concerns were raised earlier about land surrounding Ozark Southern Stone near Elk Ranch north of Eureka Springs being placed in a conservation easement with Atlantic Coastal Conservancy. Residents questioned why a local land trust wasn’t used that would have more familiarity with the unique characteristics of karst terrain.
Christopher Fischer, who lives near Keels Creek and was involved in public meetings about the proposed quarry activities, said the sale by the Sixty West investment group to new investors and the filing of these new easements with an unfamiliar land trust has occurred without reaching out to the community.
“So, we’ll have to hope this is truly good news in the long run,” Fischer said. “Taking a quick look at the conservation easements is certainly more enjoyable than wondering about the ‘Notice of Intent to Quarry’ this area was so concerned about. The terms in these documents appear to offer strong retention of the existing conditions, to limit uses to agreeable forms of recreation, and to augment the preservation of adjoining habitat areas by the Nature Conservancy.”
The Legacy Mining proposal raised great concern among residents that a quarry in the sieve-like karst topography could disrupt their wells, harm Keel’s Creek and the Kings River, disrupt springs, reduce property values and damage the narrow, winding Rockhouse Road with large amounts of truck traffic. In June 2019 the company was cited with violating the Clean Water Act by failing to control runoff from road building or widening activities. eureka.news/drilling-company-cited-with-violating-clean-water-act/.
Scott Smith, president and chairman of Georgia-based The Barn Group Land Trust (TBGLT), said the opportunity to preserve the land and its conservation values in the Kings River Watershed was presented to them. They found the land to contain “significant conservation value for wildlife, watershed protection, scenic beauty from the surrounding landscape, and carbon sequestration, among other ecological functions. This type of land should be preserved whenever possible. It represents the quality of land we seek to conserve.”
Smith said TBGLT has no plans for the property except ensuring that the terms and limitations of the conservation easement are maintained that protects the conservation values of the property are maintained.
“We do not own the land and do not have ‘plans’ or management designs for it,” Smith said in an email. “We will simply attempt to ensure that the ecological functions and values that benefit the Kings River Watershed are preserved. Any recreational development, including a hunting preserve and structures, are up to the landowner and subject to the limitations of the conservation easement.”
Asked if TBGLT intends to work with the neighboring Kings River Preserve owned by The Nature Conservancy and if the TBGLT plans to meet with neighboring residents, Smith said TNC and neighboring residents are free to contact the landowner.
“We are not the landowner and only have rights to ensure the enforcement of the conservation easement,” he said. “We cannot speak for nor negotiate for the landowner.”
The company’s website indicates that Smith’s experience is as a salesman. The website said the company as a professional ecological staff.
Owners of the third LLC on the property, Keels Creek Property LLC, chose the Southern Conservancy Trust, also based in Georgia, to manage the conservation easement. Katie Pace Quattlebaum, executive director of the Southern Conservation Trust, said they hold the conservation easement on 211 acres of the former Legacy Mining property. She said they work in seven states and are very familiar with issues such as the karst geology and invasive species in the area.
“We have a number of biologists,” Quattlebaum said. “We were working with the owners of this property with multiple other properties, so it made sense to continue to work with us. As the easement holder, we work with the landowner. We are required to make sure they follow the rules of the conservation easement. We will be down at least twice a year to make sure the conservation values are being supported. We are basically making sure they are not developing the property. The property has a bat cave on it and all kinds of things. This particular conservation easement prohibits development, including mining, and works to preserve high-quality habitat.”
Was it ever about a quarry?
At a public meeting July 12, 2019, about 75 people voiced concerns about the negative impacts from quarrying in the karst terrain. At an earlier meeting of local residents, a neighboring landowner told people to not worry about it because workers at the site had told him that there was never any intention to develop the property as a quarry. Instead, the drilling was being done to establish the value of limestone assets in order to hyperinflate the value of the property before it was sold for syndicated conservation tax easements.
The Independent wrote about concerns about syndicated conservation easements in a June 12, 2019, article, “Billion-dollar tax loophole or a tool for conservation? (eureka.news/billion-dollar-tax-loophole-or-a-tool-for-conservation/)
The Land Trust Alliance, a non-profit national organization of land trusts, says “inflated easement appraisals can undermine the viability of the tax benefits for conservation easements and the credibility of the voluntary land conservation effort.”
Quattlebaum said that how syndicated conservation easements are structured are based a lot on the landowner.
“Our job as a land trust is to protect land with high-quality habitat,” Quattlebaum said. “This property would not have been protected if it wasn’t done in that manner. It is a beautiful property and we are happy to protect it.”
The non-profit investigative news organization www.propublica.org has written extensively about syndicated conservation tax easements. The most recent, a story by Peter Elkind published Jan. 3, was titled, “The IRS tried to crack down on rich people using an abusive tax deduction. It hasn’t gone well. (https://www.propublica.org/article/the-irs-tried-to-crack-down-on-rich-people-using-an-abusive-tax-deduction-it-hasnt-gone-so-well.)
“In March 2019, the IRS added a scheme to its annual ‘Dirty Dozen’ list of ‘the worst of the worst tax scams’,” Elkind wrote. “That same scheme was targeted, just weeks earlier, when the U.S. Department of Justice filed a fraud lawsuit against a handful of promoters allegedly responsible for generating more than $2 billion in improper tax write-offs. And the Senate Finance Committee has been investigating that very same racket, recently demanding thousands of pages of documents from six promoters. Lawmakers from both parties have introduced legislation to halt the same practice.
“The scheme they’re all trying to kill is what’s called a ‘syndicated conservation easement,’ which the IRS calls ‘abusive’ and says has resulted in bogus deductions for the rich that have cost the U.S. Treasury billions in revenues.”