By ROBERT IMRIE • Associated Press Writer •

WAUSAU, Wis. (AP) – A Dane County judge has upheld a new law that bans
owners of private land enrolled in a state-managed forest program from
leasing the land for hunting. But the judge ruled a portion of the law
that immediately scrapped existing leases was unconstitutional.

The ruling affects about 3 million acres of land in a state Department
of Natural Resources program that offers huge property tax breaks in
return for making more private land accessible to the public for
recreational uses, authorities said.

DNR attorney Quinn Williams said Wednesday the agency was happy with
the decision that mostly upheld changes in the program designed to
stop abuses and close some legal loopholes. A typical hunting lease
generally runs year-to-year anyway, he said.

According to court records, the Legislature passed the managed forest
lands law in 1985, allowing landowners to enroll property for 25 or 50
years and either open it to the public for recreational activities or
close it to public access. The property tax break is less for land
that is closed.

The program was designed to better manage the lands as well as provide
hunters and other outdoor users access to more private property.

A new law effective January 2008 banned landowners from leasing land
for exclusive hunting and declared all existing leases as void, ending
a practice that had been allowed for at least 12 years.

Tigerton Lumber Co. of Tigerton, with 22,000 acres in the program and
at least 26 separate leases to hunters involving 2,800 acres, sued the
state a year ago, claiming the law was an unconstitutional taking of
their property. The company said it would cost it $644,000 in
“withdrawal fees” to pull the land from the program and continue
leasing it.

Jerry Ort Jr., a co-owner of the sawmill business, said Wednesday that
money from the leases provided “huge revenue for us” at a time when he
was laying off workers. He said the company did not intend to withdraw
from the program, and no decision had been made whether to appeal the
ruling.

Sen. Russ Decker, D-Weston, who was involved in the 2008 law change,
did not immediately return a telephone message Wednesday.

Kathy Nelson, the DNR’s forest tax section chief, said 3.04 million
acres of forest land are enrolled in the program, with about 1 million
acres signed up by industrial owners like Tigerton Lumber. She said
1.2 million acres were open to public access.

It’s unknown how many of the closed 1.8 million acres are leased to
hunters, she said.

Land closed to hunting gets a 75 percent break on property taxes,
while land left open gets a 95 percent break, Nelson said.

The DNR said that between 1987 and 2004, one acre of land was open to
the public for every 1.3 acres that was closed. However, between 2005
and 2008, when 422,000 new acres were enrolled, the ratio changed
dramatically – one acre open for every four acres closed.

It’s evidence that more landowners saw leasing as a “revenue
generator,” Nelson said.

In a 17-page ruling issued Tuesday in Madison, Circuit Judge Sarah
O’Brien ruled the managed forest program only establishes policy by
creating a voluntary program. Therefore, she said, Tigerton had “no
vested property right in leasing its lands” signed up for the tax
break for the state to illegally seize.

There has always been a limit on the amount of acreage that could be
closed, suggesting a goal of ensuring public access, O’Brien said.

But the law went too far in scrapping the existing leases, she said.

“The history of regulation of MFL (managed forest law) lands would
lead a reasonable landowner not to expect impairment of the right to
lease lands, especially not a retroactive impairment,” the judge
wrote.

The state had no vital public interest that would be “destroyed” by
letting existing leases expire on their own, O’Brien said. “It was not
necessary to make the statute retroactive, thus impairing existing
contracts, in order to fulfill the goal of the statute.”