Federal Land Intelligence Report: 7 Data Layers for Any PLSS Section

You are researching mineral rights in Section 22, T14N R8W, Sixth Principal Meridian — Fremont County, Wyoming. You need to know whether there is an active BLM mineral lease on the parcel, whether any mining claims overlap it, what flood zone it falls in, and whether wildfire risk affects the site. Today, answering those questions means opening four or five separate federal portals: BLM MLRS for lease status, BLM LR2000 for mining claims, ONRR for production revenue, FEMA's flood map viewer for hazard zones, and the USFS Fireshed Registry for wildfire exposure. Each portal has its own search interface, its own data format, and its own way of describing location.

The Federal Land Intelligence Report collapses that workflow into one call. Send a PLSS legal description to the Township America API, and get back a structured report covering seven federal data layers — mineral leases, mining claims, production revenue, protected areas, grazing allotments, flood zones, and wildfire risk. One description in, one report out.

This is the first Township America endpoint that goes beyond coordinate conversion. Instead of just telling you where a parcel is, the Federal Land Intelligence Report tells you what is on it.

The Problem: Federal Land Data Is Scattered Across Five Portals

Landmen, title examiners, and energy developers deal with the same friction every time they evaluate a new parcel. The data they need exists — it is public, maintained by federal agencies, and updated regularly. But it lives in separate systems that were never designed to work together.

Mineral lease status sits in BLM's Mining and Land Record System (MLRS). You search by serial number or legal description, click through a portal built in the early 2000s, and export results that require manual cross-referencing against the parcel you are evaluating.

Mining claims are tracked through BLM's LR2000 database. The search interface accepts PLSS descriptions, but the output format is different from MLRS, and claims spanning multiple sections require separate queries for each one.

Production revenue — royalty payments on federal mineral leases — comes from ONRR (Office of Natural Resources Revenue). This data tells you whether a lease is actually producing and how much revenue it generates. ONRR's reporting portal is separate from BLM's systems entirely.

Protected area status is maintained by the USGS PAD-US 4.0 dataset, which catalogs every conservation area, wilderness designation, and protected land unit in the country. Checking whether a section overlaps a protected area means downloading GIS layers or using the PAD-US viewer.

Grazing allotments are managed by BLM's rangeland administration. Knowing whether an active grazing allotment covers a section matters for surface access planning and environmental review.

Flood zone classification comes from FEMA's National Flood Hazard Layer. Flood zone status affects insurance requirements, construction feasibility, and environmental risk assessments — but FEMA's map tool is address-based, not PLSS-based.

Wildfire risk is scored by the USFS Fireshed Registry, which assigns risk ratings to landscapes across the western states. For energy development and insurance underwriting, wildfire exposure is increasingly a threshold factor in site selection.

Each of these datasets answers a specific question. But pulling the answers together for a single PLSS section means logging into multiple portals, running separate searches, and manually assembling the results. For a landman evaluating 20 sections across a basin, that process takes hours.

How the Federal Land Intelligence Report Works

The report API takes one input: a PLSS legal description. It returns a structured JSON response with data from all seven federal layers.

Endpoint: GET /api/report?description={PLSS legal description}

Authentication: Pro+ subscription required.

Here is a request for Section 22, T14N R8W, Sixth Principal Meridian:

curl "https://developer.townshipamerica.com/api/report?description=T14N+R8W+Sec+22+Sixth+Principal+Meridian" \
  -H "x-api-key: your-api-key"

The response includes a summary block with the most-referenced fields and a detailed layers section with full per-layer data:

{
  "report": {
    "lease_status": "active",
    "mining_claims_count": 3,
    "flood_zone": "Zone X",
    "wildfire_risk_score": 72,
    "pad_us_designation": null
  },
  "layers": {
    "mineral_leases": { "source": "BLM MLRS", "data": [...] },
    "mining_claims": { "source": "BLM", "data": [...] },
    "production_revenue": { "source": "ONRR", "data": [...] },
    "protected_areas": { "source": "USGS PAD-US 4.0", "data": [...] },
    "grazing_allotments": { "source": "BLM", "data": [...] },
    "flood_zones": { "source": "FEMA NFHL", "data": [...] },
    "wildfire_risk": { "source": "USFS Fireshed Registry", "data": [...] }
  },
  "metadata": {
    "generated_at": "2026-05-05T10:00:00Z",
    "layers_available": 7,
    "layers_total": 7
  }
}

Every layer includes source attribution and data freshness dates, so you know exactly where each data point came from and when it was last updated.

For teams that prefer a visual interface, the companion UI at /app/report lets you type a legal description and see the full report in your browser — no API key needed, just a Pro+ subscription.

Real-World Example: Fremont County, Wyoming

Take a concrete scenario. An oil and gas operator is evaluating federal mineral leases in the Wind River Basin. The parcel in question is Section 22, T14N R8W, Sixth Principal Meridian — Fremont County, Wyoming.

Running the Federal Land Intelligence Report for this section returns the following:

Mineral lease status: active. BLM has an active mineral lease on this section. The report includes the lease serial number, issue date, and lease type. For a landman running title on this parcel, this answers the first question: is the federal mineral estate already leased?

Mining claims: 3. Three mining claims overlap this section. The report lists each claim by serial number and claim type (lode or placer). Mining claims can affect surface access and create title complications — knowing the count before you start title work saves time.

Production revenue: available. ONRR data shows whether royalty revenue has been reported on leases in this section. Active production revenue confirms the lease is not just on paper — someone is drilling and paying royalties. This is the kind of signal that changes a title examiner's priority ranking.

Protected areas: none. The PAD-US layer shows no protected area designation for this section. No wilderness area, no national monument, no conservation easement restricting use. For energy development, this is a green light on the land status side.

Grazing allotment: active. An active BLM grazing allotment covers this section. That means cattle are running on it under a federal permit. Surface disturbance — a well pad, an access road — will require coordination with the allotment holder and BLM's rangeland management office.

Flood zone: Zone X. FEMA classifies this section as Zone X — minimal flood hazard. No special flood insurance requirements, no floodplain development restrictions.

Wildfire risk score: 72. The USFS Fireshed Registry assigns a wildfire risk score of 72 to this area. In Wyoming's semi-arid sagebrush landscape, that is a moderate-to-high rating. For operators, this means wildfire mitigation may factor into the environmental assessment and the site's insurance profile.

All seven answers from one API call. No portal-hopping, no manual assembly, no reformatting between incompatible data sources.

Who Benefits Most From the Federal Land Intelligence Report

The report is built for professionals who evaluate land before money moves.

Landmen and title examiners run title on dozens of sections per project. The report front-loads the federal encumbrance data that would otherwise require separate searches across BLM, ONRR, and FEMA. Knowing the mineral lease status and mining claim count before you start pulling the chain of title means you can prioritize the sections that matter and flag the ones with complications early.

Oil and gas operators filing APDs or evaluating new drilling programs need to know what federal interests exist on a section before they commit to a well location. An active mineral lease means the federal estate is spoken for. Mining claims mean title complications. A grazing allotment means surface coordination. The report delivers all of this in one response. For teams already using the Township America API for APD workflows, the report adds a land intelligence layer on top of the coordinate conversion they are already running.

Renewable energy siting teams evaluating BLM land for solar or wind projects need protected area status, flood zone classification, and wildfire risk before they file a right-of-way application. The BLM renewable energy permitting guide covers the SF-299 process in detail — the Federal Land Intelligence Report gives siting teams the data to screen parcels before they get that far.

Environmental consultants conducting NEPA reviews, phase I assessments, or baseline environmental surveys need flood zone and wildfire risk data for every section in a project area. The report API returns both in the same call that provides mineral and land status data.

How to Get Started

The Federal Land Intelligence Report is available on the Pro+ plan. Two ways to access it:

API endpoint: GET /api/report?description={PLSS legal description}. Add it to your existing Township America API integration — if you are already converting PLSS descriptions to coordinates, the report endpoint uses the same authentication and the same description format. The API documentation covers the full response schema, error codes, and rate limits.

Web UI: Visit townshipamerica.com/land-report, type a legal description, and see the full seven-layer report in your browser. No code required.

If you are on the free plan, Starter, or Pro, upgrade to Pro+ at townshipamerica.com/pricing to access the report. Pro+ includes the REST API, MCP server, polygon exports, and the Federal Land Intelligence Report — everything a land professional or energy team needs to go from legal description to actionable intelligence.

The data that landmen and energy developers need about federal land already exists. It has always existed. It was just spread across five different portals with five different interfaces. Now it is one call.

Try the Federal Land Intelligence Report → or see Pro+ pricing →