The following is a story of an engineer named Eric Siegfried, a Montana man who caught public officials in almost unimaginable levels of incompetence and waste. It is also a cautionary tale about the way extreme misallocations of resources are the predictable outcome of America's current form of land use governance, which systematically severs control over certain resources from anyone equipped to use them rationally and effectively.

The Engineer Who Caught the Government's Mistake

Multiple articles in the New York Times have recently reported on the findings of a group of private hunters and wilderness enthusiasts who have brought attention to millions of acres that nobody previously knew existed. A Times article published in February reported that, "Across America, 15 million acres of state and federal land is surrounded by private land, with no legal entry by road or trail. If this so-called landlocked land was one contiguous piece, it would form the largest national park in the country, nearly the size of Vermont, New Hampshire and Connecticut combined." And, "Most of these inaccessible public lands are in the West, and, until recently, their existence was largely unknown."

The land was only discovered, according to another recent Times article, because of a smartphone app called OnX. "OnX was born when Eric Siegfried, a mechanical engineer and part-time hunting guide in Montana, decided to make a Google Maps for the wilderness," the Times reports.