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Arizona State Land Dept. Archiving caches


Cog&Gil

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If you were to enter State land in Arizona to remove an archived cache as the Arizona State Land Dept. is requesting according to geocaching information, it would be unlawful to do so on State land unless you had a permit. Many geocachers do not have a permit!!

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An interesting note that has just come to light concerning this is that according to the assistant director of the department, he stated that they have not contacted GS and told them to archive any caches other than the notification that was sent a year or so ago for no new caches. They were just sitting on things until final decisions were made. No final decisions have been made to date (at least not published). The question is why did GS direct the reviewers to archive the ASTL caches?

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I am moving this thread of regional interest from the Geocaching Topics forum to the West and Southwest forum.

 

IMO, this is a big enough deal to be in the full topic forum. Half a state is being archived..

 

I agree, this could turn out to be a "bigie", not just in Arizona.

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I am moving this thread of regional interest from the Geocaching Topics forum to the West and Southwest forum.

 

IMO, this is a big enough deal to be in the full topic forum. Half a state is being archived..

 

I agree, this could turn out to be a "bigie", not just in Arizona.

 

Yep, this is CRAZY - affects huge chunks of AZ, emailed the AZ Land Department... public use of public lands - we even pay for a permit and probably take better care of the resources than most in other "sporting activities"! Where did this originate - anyone know? Time to mount a reply!!!

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BTW, AZ geocachers better do some digging and investigation. There may be a hidden agenda to some of this. In part, the state may be planning something that involved profit. It may only be some areas but the policy has to be there and done across the state to not appear as favoritism.

 

Maybe another case of cutting the nose off despite the face with GS's geotour and geo-trails.

Edited by TheWeatherWarrior
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Does anyone know if anyone is working with or has attempted working with the Arizona State Land Department in order to resolve this issue? Also, does anyone know how many caches we lost statewide? By our count there were 998 within a 30 mile radius of our home that were archived.

Arizona has lost way over 9,000 caches just today. I have went to great lengths to set up 35 traditional archived notifications that covers every inch of Arizona!! Currently I have received over 9,000 notifications of traditional caches being archived. Of course there is way more than that when you bring into consideration that they have been archiving caches for 5 days straight and that there are more cache types besides just traditional caches. It's at least 9,000 archived but i am guessing its more like 15 thousand caches archived now. Probably even more. That should give you an idea.

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I took a trip out to Arizona from New York last month and found about 61 caches. I first heard about this when I received notification that a TB I dropped was in a cache now archived and that I should report it missing. I took a look at my "found" list which covered Phoenix, Sierra Vista and Tucson. What a shame, since I didn't go anywhere on the "wrong" side of a fence for any of them. My found list now has more red than an episode of Game of Thrones!! What a massacre!

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Agree that this should be talked about more than a regional discussion. The Oso mudslide in Washington was a regional thing but was discussed nationally. This issue is big enough it should be discussed at a bigger level. I know in Washington its being discussed in a different place.

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I still don't know why caches NOT in State Land are being archived?

 

http://coord.info/GC45W8A

Per the site, it IS State Trust land: http://www.azland.gov/webapps/parcel/

 

*spoken as an outsider, just doing some web research*

 

Thank you for the link. Looks like A LOT of caches will be affected (Az trust land in blue). Eegads. Like everyone else says...this is much bigger than a regional Az thing...

 

ed55c5e99d85327ae9542550b65b3fb6_zps63215cc6.jpg

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Just got off the phone with the Assistant Director of Natural Resources for the Arizona State Land Department. He said that the commissioner held a meeting recently in which it was reaffirmed that Geocaching is not allowed on State Trust Land. I think all us Geocachers need to band together an petition the Arizona State Land Department to reconsider Geocaching.

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10000 caches is more than a regional issue. Considering the sheer amount of geocachers who spend half of the year here from all over the states and Canada this is much bigger than that. Shame on you Keystone.

Even though there are far reaching effects of this issue, this discussion is truly a regional issue that is specific to Arizona. In the future please refrain from negatively calling out moderators who are actually doing a great job of moderating the discussions in the forums.

 

If someone would like to start a thread in the general discussions forums about more global perspectives in dealing with land manager issues in general, that would be okay. Please remember to keep all conversation constructive and respectful.

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Here is the e-mail response I got from the Assistant Director of Natural Resources Division:

 

Dear Mr. Anderson:

 

The Arizona State Land Department (Department) is responding to your telephone inquiry of April 22, 2014.

 

The Department manages approximately 9.2 million acres of State owned Trust land within Arizona. This land was granted to the State of Arizona under the provisions of the federal Arizona New Mexico Enabling Act that provided for Arizona’s statehood in 1912. This land is held in Trust and managed to earn revenues for the State’s public schools (K-12) and 13 other public institutions (see attached).

 

The Trust’s beneficiaries receive revenue from leasing, selling or using the State’s Trust land and its resources. Pursuant to law, all uses of Trust land must benefit the Trust. The Trust land is not managed for the general public’s use. While public use of the Trust land is not prohibited, use is regulated to comply with the State’s Enabling Act, the Arizona Constitution and state law to protect the land, its resources and to ensure compensation to the beneficiaries.

 

All recreational uses of State land, other than hunting or fishing with a valid hunting or fishing license must be authorized by a recreational use permit issued by the Department.

 

A Trust land Recreational Use Permit does not permit target shooting, paintball, airsoft, recreational flying, vehicular rock hopping, geocaching, sand railing, fireworks, or congregating in groups larger than 19 people. Visiting prehistoric and historic cultural or archaeological sites, metal detecting, collecting or removing natural products (rocks, stone, soil, fossils, mineral specimens, cacti, saguaro or cholla skeletons, plants (live or dead), or firewood for home use, are all prohibited. A Recreational Use Permit does not authorize use of non-state lands such as military, federal, tribal, or private lands. Recreational users are asked to take no natural products from the Trust land and leave no foreign objects. Activities involving disturbing the soil/cultural resources and traveling off existing trails and roads are prohibited.

 

To be clear, per federal and state law, all uses of Trust land must be permitted and must benefit the Trust; a fact that distinguishes Trust land from public land, such as state or county parks or national forests. Parks, National Forests, and lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management are public lands and are managed as such. State Trust lands are not public lands.

 

May we refer you to those lands where geocaching is permitted, i.e. land administered by the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and Arizona State Parks.

 

We appreciate your concerns and hope this answers your questions.

 

Sincerely,

 

John Schneeman, AICP, CFM

Assistant Director

Natural Resources Division

Arizona State Land Department

1616 West Adams

Phoenix, Arizona 85007

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10000 caches is more than a regional issue.

 

For the record, I show 4412 caches archived in Arizona as the result of the State Land Trust's request.

Just for the record that isn't true because i have 9,000 different notifications of caches that were archived within the last day or so. all which were archived by geocaching HQ or owners of caches that were going to be archived. these were caches archived in Arizona. i highly doubt that every cache was archived twice. i know this because i have notifications covering every inch of Arizona. That just covers traditional caches though.

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Just for the record that isn't true because i have 9,000 different notifications of caches that were archived within the last day or so. all which were archived by geocaching HQ or owners of caches that were going to be archived. these were caches archived in Arizona. i highly doubt that every cache was archived twice. i know this because i have notifications covering every inch of Arizona. That just covers traditional caches though.

 

Your counting is off or you are receiving duplicate notices, then. The number is 4412. Even when taking in the entire world, there have not been 9000 archivals in the past 4 days.

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Just for the record that isn't true because i have 9,000 different notifications of caches that were archived within the last day or so. all which were archived by geocaching HQ or owners of caches that were going to be archived. these were caches archived in Arizona. i highly doubt that every cache was archived twice. i know this because i have notifications covering every inch of Arizona. That just covers traditional caches though.

 

Your counting is off or you are receiving duplicate notices, then. The number is 4412. Even when taking in the entire world, there have not been 9000 archivals in the past 4 days.

perhaps. Is there going to be more caches archived in Arizona though?? i am still having archived logs coming in from owners, who say there archiving there caches because they think are on state land trust property and want to archive them before geocaching headquarters does.

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perhaps. Is there going to be more caches archived in Arizona though??

 

Not from us. We responded to the land manager request and that is now complete. Now we are turning our attention toward developing a collaborative relationship with the Arizona State Land Trust. Currently we're actively investigating the decision making process and the appeal process to once again allow geocaching on Arizona State Trust Lands.

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Just for the record that isn't true because i have 9,000 different notifications of caches that were archived within the last day or so. all which were archived by geocaching HQ or owners of caches that were going to be archived. these were caches archived in Arizona. i highly doubt that every cache was archived twice. i know this because i have notifications covering every inch of Arizona. That just covers traditional caches though.

 

Your counting is off or you are receiving duplicate notices, then. The number is 4412. Even when taking in the entire world, there have not been 9000 archivals in the past 4 days.

 

Regardless, whether it's 4,412 caches or 9,000 caches it's still a significant number of caches that have disappeared.

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Just for the record that isn't true because i have 9,000 different notifications of caches that were archived within the last day or so. all which were archived by geocaching HQ or owners of caches that were going to be archived. these were caches archived in Arizona. i highly doubt that every cache was archived twice. i know this because i have notifications covering every inch of Arizona. That just covers traditional caches though.

 

Your counting is off or you are receiving duplicate notices, then. The number is 4412. Even when taking in the entire world, there have not been 9000 archivals in the past 4 days.

 

Regardless, whether it's 4,412 caches or 9,000 caches it's still a significant number of caches that have disappeared.

Not disappeared, the listings have been removed at the request of the land manager.

This is a good example of how we can either kick, scream and cry or act like the adults most of us are and decide to respect the land manager and work with them to get caching approved.

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Per this Arizona Geocaching Statistics page, there were 32432 active caches in Arizona as of April 10, 2014.

 

Per Geocaching.com's Search Results page for Arizona, as of the time of this posting there are 28036 active caches in Arizona. The difference between those numbers, 4370, supports Moun10Bike's reported number. (The variance can be explained by ordinary course publications and archivals.)

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perhaps. Is there going to be more caches archived in Arizona though??

 

Not from us. We responded to the land manager request and that is now complete. Now we are turning our attention toward developing a collaborative relationship with the Arizona State Land Trust. Currently we're actively investigating the decision making process and the appeal process to once again allow geocaching on Arizona State Trust Lands.

I am so glad to hear this.

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Here is the e-mail response I got from the Assistant Director of Natural Resources Division:

 

Dear Mr. Anderson:

 

The Arizona State Land Department (Department) is responding to your telephone inquiry of April 22, 2014.

 

The Department manages approximately 9.2 million acres of State owned Trust land within Arizona. This land was granted to the State of Arizona under the provisions of the federal Arizona New Mexico Enabling Act that provided for Arizona’s statehood in 1912. This land is held in Trust and managed to earn revenues for the State’s public schools (K-12) and 13 other public institutions (see attached).

 

The Trust’s beneficiaries receive revenue from leasing, selling or using the State’s Trust land and its resources. Pursuant to law, all uses of Trust land must benefit the Trust. The Trust land is not managed for the general public’s use. While public use of the Trust land is not prohibited, use is regulated to comply with the State’s Enabling Act, the Arizona Constitution and state law to protect the land, its resources and to ensure compensation to the beneficiaries.

 

All recreational uses of State land, other than hunting or fishing with a valid hunting or fishing license must be authorized by a recreational use permit issued by the Department.

 

A Trust land Recreational Use Permit does not permit target shooting, paintball, airsoft, recreational flying, vehicular rock hopping, geocaching, sand railing, fireworks, or congregating in groups larger than 19 people. Visiting prehistoric and historic cultural or archaeological sites, metal detecting, collecting or removing natural products (rocks, stone, soil, fossils, mineral specimens, cacti, saguaro or cholla skeletons, plants (live or dead), or firewood for home use, are all prohibited. A Recreational Use Permit does not authorize use of non-state lands such as military, federal, tribal, or private lands. Recreational users are asked to take no natural products from the Trust land and leave no foreign objects. Activities involving disturbing the soil/cultural resources and traveling off existing trails and roads are prohibited.

 

To be clear, per federal and state law, all uses of Trust land must be permitted and must benefit the Trust; a fact that distinguishes Trust land from public land, such as state or county parks or national forests. Parks, National Forests, and lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management are public lands and are managed as such. State Trust lands are not public lands.

 

May we refer you to those lands where geocaching is permitted, i.e. land administered by the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and Arizona State Parks.

 

We appreciate your concerns and hope this answers your questions.

 

Sincerely,

 

John Schneeman, AICP, CFM

Assistant Director

Natural Resources Division

Arizona State Land Department

1616 West Adams

Phoenix, Arizona 85007

 

So from what I gather this is all about money? Really? WT-heck?

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Not to be overly critical, but this reads to me like a large number of caches placed in violation of the requirement that the CO obtain prior permission from the property owner or controlling agency. IMO, at least, these caches should have been archived by Groundspeak when the issue was brought to their attention, whether the state agency made a formal request or not.

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Here is the e-mail response I got from the Assistant Director of Natural Resources Division:

 

Dear Mr. Anderson:

 

The Arizona State Land Department (Department) is responding to your telephone inquiry of April 22, 2014.

 

The Department manages approximately 9.2 million acres of State owned Trust land within Arizona. This land was granted to the State of Arizona under the provisions of the federal Arizona New Mexico Enabling Act that provided for Arizona’s statehood in 1912. This land is held in Trust and managed to earn revenues for the State’s public schools (K-12) and 13 other public institutions (see attached).

 

The Trust’s beneficiaries receive revenue from leasing, selling or using the State’s Trust land and its resources. Pursuant to law, all uses of Trust land must benefit the Trust. The Trust land is not managed for the general public’s use. While public use of the Trust land is not prohibited, use is regulated to comply with the State’s Enabling Act, the Arizona Constitution and state law to protect the land, its resources and to ensure compensation to the beneficiaries.

 

All recreational uses of State land, other than hunting or fishing with a valid hunting or fishing license must be authorized by a recreational use permit issued by the Department.

 

A Trust land Recreational Use Permit does not permit target shooting, paintball, airsoft, recreational flying, vehicular rock hopping, geocaching, sand railing, fireworks, or congregating in groups larger than 19 people. Visiting prehistoric and historic cultural or archaeological sites, metal detecting, collecting or removing natural products (rocks, stone, soil, fossils, mineral specimens, cacti, saguaro or cholla skeletons, plants (live or dead), or firewood for home use, are all prohibited. A Recreational Use Permit does not authorize use of non-state lands such as military, federal, tribal, or private lands. Recreational users are asked to take no natural products from the Trust land and leave no foreign objects. Activities involving disturbing the soil/cultural resources and traveling off existing trails and roads are prohibited.

 

To be clear, per federal and state law, all uses of Trust land must be permitted and must benefit the Trust; a fact that distinguishes Trust land from public land, such as state or county parks or national forests. Parks, National Forests, and lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management are public lands and are managed as such. State Trust lands are not public lands.

 

May we refer you to those lands where geocaching is permitted, i.e. land administered by the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and Arizona State Parks.

 

We appreciate your concerns and hope this answers your questions.

 

Sincerely,

 

John Schneeman, AICP, CFM

Assistant Director

Natural Resources Division

Arizona State Land Department

1616 West Adams

Phoenix, Arizona 85007

 

So from what I gather this is all about money? Really? WT-heck?

 

The bolded would be my second reason for their decision, the first being that the land manager doesn't want them. One of the ways we keep on the good side of land managers is by being will to remove caches that they don't want on their property. At least GS seems to be trying to work with them to get a policy in place.

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I don't know why this is such a surprise to Az. geocachers, as this was rumored to be a reality a year, or so, ago. ShadowAce from Tucson was responsible enough to archive his SLT caches last year and hopefully picked them up. Others refused to do so, (and ridiculed him) and will most likely have to do so, now. Yeah, it puts a little dent in the number of caches active in Az., but there's still plenty of caches on Forest Service land, BLM land, and private property. Bedsides, a lot of these caches that are being archived may not have fit in with GC's guidelines, such as permission of the property owners, having the correct permit, etc. How many caches are placed on city property (Phoenix, Scottsdale, Mesa, etc.)WITH permission to do so. Cachers for so many years now think that they have a right to place a cache just about anywhere they feel like it. I think there may be further issues with this with other state and federal agencies, due to this decision. And yes, I have seen geo-litter left behind by numerous cachers who just quit playing this game, or just don't give a crap about being responsible enough to retrieve their caches. It's going to be interesting to see how many of the State Land Trust caches are left behind by disgruntled owners.............

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10000 caches is more than a regional issue.

 

For the record, I show 4412 caches archived in Arizona as the result of the State Land Trust's request.

 

Please let me be the first to apologize for jumping on the "panic/mob mentality" band wagon and dropping my better judgement. For that I do apologize. I do stand by my original thoughts of this being a much bigger issue due to many recent reports from states that appear to be taking a similar stance on the geocaching issue. However, that doesn't excuse my finger pointing before doing my homework. Wont happen again. Thank you Moun10Bike for proving that information.

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I don't know why this is such a surprise to Az. geocachers, as this was rumored to be a reality a year, or so, ago. ShadowAce from Tucson was responsible enough to archive his SLT caches last year and hopefully picked them up. Others refused to do so, (and ridiculed him) and will most likely have to do so, now. Yeah, it puts a little dent in the number of caches active in Az., but there's still plenty of caches on Forest Service land, BLM land, and private property. Bedsides, a lot of these caches that are being archived may not have fit in with GC's guidelines, such as permission of the property owners, having the correct permit, etc. How many caches are placed on city property (Phoenix, Scottsdale, Mesa, etc.)WITH permission to do so. Cachers for so many years now think that they have a right to place a cache just about anywhere they feel like it. I think there may be further issues with this with other state and federal agencies, due to this decision. And yes, I have seen geo-litter left behind by numerous cachers who just quit playing this game, or just don't give a crap about being responsible enough to retrieve their caches. It's going to be interesting to see how many of the State Land Trust caches are left behind by disgruntled owners.............

 

Which, somewhat ironically, would have a negative impact on the likelihood of other agencies allowing geocaching....

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THAT MAP IS NOT ACCURATE.

 

If GS HQ is basing the archiving on that map as the only source they are screwing a lot of cachers for no reason.

 

I call the Hotel that the above reference cache is at and the hotel said THEY own the land....NOT Arizona.

 

 

Something in all this sounds very wrong and improper information being used and I question what the agenda is here. It took me about five minutes and a phone call to conclude one cache was likely archived unnecessarily.

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As a potential geo-tourist, why would I even consider a destination that would suddenly remove, say, 4412 reasons to visit without any warning?

 

Arizona was on my to-do list (mostly due to one hider actually), but no longer. There are other places in the world where you can - get this - walk on public land without even filling out any forms or paying any fees. If anybody needs me or my tourist dollars, I'll be there instead.

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Someone who is a resident of Arizona and has time should write to Arizona and inform them ALL state, federal, local, whatever lands are public. Land use is determined by the PUBLIC not some agency with a poorly written policy and a unconstitutional habit of running things!

 

As a non-Arizona resident, it took me about 20 minutes of research and a bit of reading to conclude that the state agency is correct, in that the land in question (I'm talking about trust land in general, not that specific cache) is NOT state property, but simply held in trust by the state. They are legally required to only allow usage that provides an economic benefit to the trust, and the enabling act makes it pretty clear that by arbitrarily allowing other usage the officials would be opening themselves up to prosecution.

 

The people who placed geocaches there were both in violation of the rules of geocaching by not having land manager permission, but also the terms of their use permit (if they had one). To be perfectly honest, the state could be FAR more aggressive than simply requesting that the caches be archived, by pursuing legal measures.

 

As far as the specific cache, if you actually LOOK at the parcel map, you'll see that the area in question is shown as State Trust land that is under commercial lease. The Maricopa County Assessor's Office also shows both parcels located at 5350 Marriott Drive, Phoenix AZ as being held by the Arizona State Land Department.

 

While I'm not saying that Marriott doesn't have the right to allow a geocache on property that they hold under lease (I'm pretty certain they do) it's usually better to rely on authoritative sources before you go off the handle about something, instead of relying on the results of a phone conversation with a middle manager about something that's probably well outside of their sphere of responsibility.

Edited by revent
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I live in Az and one of my caches was archived. Which annoys me no end.

 

However since folks seem to have some misunderstandings about state trust land, let me offer what I know about it.

 

State trust land is vacant land that is owned by the state and is supposed to be sold to maximize profit for things like schools. Point is, the land is sold. In the above example of a cache that was archived for being on state trust land when the resort owns it ... That map is old. The resort had to own it to build on it. State trust land is sold to the highest bidder for development. That is how it works.

 

The map is also inaccurate to some degree in its boundaries. My cache is located on private property (a mall/outdoor shopping center) overlooking state trust land. Overlooking an osprey and bald eagle habitat. The mall has developed a trail overlooking that habitat. Its called a trail but it is a landscaped walkway that is part of the shopping mall. No one can access the state trust land because of a fence and no trespassing signs. My cache was several feet away from that on the parking lot side of the trail.

 

Geocaching used to be permitted by state trust land management. A change in leadership and now we are not permitted to cache on state trust land. A lot of cachers got yearly permits to do so. We wont be renewing our permit.

 

Im grumpy about this. I am quite fond of that cache and the location. The map does not accurately reflect state trust land and the private property owned by the mall. Because of that, my cache got archived. I wish TPTB would reconsider their action on my cache, but thats life I guess.

 

For those interested, Where Eagles Fly GC471TF.

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