The Bureau of Land Management on Thursday released a long-awaited draft plan that will steer the management of some 3.6 million acres of public lands and 3.7 million acres of federal mineral estate in southwestern Wyoming, including the vast Red Desert, the prized hunting grounds of the Greater Little Mountain Area and several ungulate migration corridors.
While Gov. Mark Gordon expressed disapproval of the plan’s “preferred alternative,” conservation groups cheered the publication of a document that will have major implications on future management.
The release of the Rock Springs Field Office Draft Resource Management Plan and associated draft environmental impact statement kicks off a 90-day public comment period. The public can submit input Friday through Nov. 16.
The planning area includes portions of Lincoln, Sweetwater, Uinta, Sublette and Fremont counties in Wyoming — encompassing everything from sand dunes to sagebrush ecosystems, badlands and wrinkled mountains. At more than 1,000 pages, the draft document is broken into two volumes, including appendices. The draft presents four alternatives and addresses everything from mineral development to renewable energy, outdoor recreation, wild horses and special designations.
Timely comments on the draft will help the agency formulate and hone the plan as it advances, according to an executive summary penned by Wyoming BLM Director Andy Archuleta. “We are particularly interested in comments concerning the adequacy and accuracy of the proposed alternatives,” he wrote about the four options the document lays out.
“Definitely a long time coming, and I am thrilled that it’s out,” said Wyoming BLM Deputy State Director of Communications Brad Purdy, adding that the public comment period this triggered is a crucial phase of the management planning process.
“We really want to encourage folks, not just the general public but our partners, the State of Wyoming, all of our co-operators, industry, conservation groups, to go and take a good hard look at that RMP and provide some comments,” he said. “It’s important to the bureau, and of course to Wyoming.”
How we got here
The office’s most recent resource management plan was signed in 1997. The current rewrite began in 2011. The process has entailed years of inventories, public outreach and stakeholder meetings, but has also been beset with delays. Rock Springs Field Manager Kimberlee Foster told WyoFile the office was on track to release it in spring 2019.
Several factors slowed the process, Purdy said, including litigation over wild horses brought by the Rock Springs Grazing Association as well as a separate and ongoing process regarding sage grouse habitat.
“These were some of the things that held up the RMP, sage grouse and horses,” Purdy said. “We pulled those out and then we were able to get some traction and get [the draft] put together.”
The draft includes four alternatives for managing the field office’s vast resources:
- Alternative A is the “no action” alternative, which would be a continuation of the existing 1997 Green River Resource Management Plan. That plan balances protection of resource values with the use and development of resources.
- Alternative B emphasizes resource conservation with constraints on resource uses and is the “Agency Preferred Alternative.”
- Alternative C emphasizes resource use and of the four, proposes the least restrictive management actions for energy and commodity development.
- Alternative D sits somewhere in the middle of B and C — it’s less restrictive on resource use than Alternative B while also having a greater conservation focus than Alternative C.
Frustration, cautious optimism
The release elicited cheers and consternation around the state.
Gordon is unhappy with the preferred alternative, according to a press release from his office, and specifically a provision proposing more than 1.5 million acres specially designated as Areas of Critical Environmental Concern.
ACECs are used to protect important historical, cultural and scenic values or other natural resources, according to the BLM. Currently some 286,000 acres of the Rock Springs Field Office lands are designated ACECs, according to the document. Alternative C, in contrast to B, proposes zero acres designated as ACECs.
“Upon first glance, I am extremely disappointed, yet not surprised, by the redirection this Administration is taking with this draft,” Gordon said in a Thursday statement. “Over a decade’s worth of work from Wyoming’s cooperating agencies, local stakeholders, and impacted industries seems to have fallen on the deaf ears of the federal BLM and its imperious agenda.”
The preferred alternative, Alternative B, “conserves the most land area for physical, biological, and cultural resources,” according to the draft BLM document. “Alternative B emphasizes the improvement and protection of habitat for wildlife and sensitive plant and animal species, improvement of riparian areas, and implementation of management actions that improve water quality and enhance protection of cultural resources.”
Gordon intends to review the draft with a “fine-tooth comb” in order to protect the interests of the state, he said.
Representatives of the Greater Little Mountain Coalition, meanwhile, have long advocated a proposal that conserves the area’s hunting, fishing and recreational opportunities for future generations while supporting responsible energy development.
“We are excited for the Rock Springs Field Office to release this draft plan and we look forward to making sure that the Greater Little Mountain Coalition’s vision for balanced multiple use management is carried forward into the final plan,” Corey Fisher, Trout Unlimited’s public lands policy director, said in a statement.
The BLM will hold public meetings on the draft environmental impact statement in Rock Springs, Lyman and Big Piney — though dates have not been announced.
The most recent meeting was an open house in 2016. Scoping meetings were held in several locations in 2011.
Following the comment period, the agency will address public input, release a final environmental impact statement and issue a final decision, Purdy said. The final document will guide the field office’s land management for at least 10 years.
I prefer Alternative A because it has been in effect and has proven to allow the allow the recreation and grazing aspects of the land without the over-powering rules and regulations of the BLM. The BLM does not have the best interests of the people of Wyoming or the inter-mountain west when it comes up with overly restrictive uses for the land. The BLM should listen to the users of the land and not the clueless interests from the eastern United States wo would lock the people out of the area.
I prefer Alternative A – hopefully our state representatives & the BLM will listen to the public and demonstrate that they will protect our public lands excess to get out & enjoy our public lands in the way that we have for generations– not everyone including the disabled and elderly can hike for miles -access needs to be allowed & protected
After reading some of the comments I am disappointed in the outlook of some individuals. I have heard all of the climate change/land management arguments and preserving wildlife is a priority for me. That being said I would much rather see a gas well in the desert then acres of wind mills. I would much rather be able to travel through the desert on a two track road and enjoy the scenery than know its out there and have very little access to it. I would rather have a well paying job to provide for my family than be moving because of lack of work. Affordable energy has built our nation and our state to what it is today. I love both. It would ignorant to ignore what we have and the freedom that comes with it. It is good to have two different voices in an argument, lets not listen to only one side when we form our opinions
Take a look at Gordon’s campaign contributors and that will tell you all you need to know on who “owns” him
Hell he opposed the land swap on the North Platte that is a huge benefit for public land users in the start, but not the socialist rancher that carries the day at the capitol !
ACEC’s are a decent conservation tool for the BLM at a local level, but they are
not a substitute for Congressional Wilderness designations.
There are numerous areas in the Rock Springs district that are deserving of Wilderness protection that an ACEC is not a substitute.
Alternative c is common sense approach to management, let’s not lock up the resources in this area.
god forbid we save a single acre from development in this state
This is great news for conservationist . So glad to hear this .
Guv Gordon’s auto-reactionary response to the BLM plan is totally typical of the delusional Wyoming leadership dogma we have witnessed unbroken for decades . To Wit: what is monetarily expeditious for energy , mineral , and livestock producers is always what’s best for Wyoming-at-large ( when we’re not preoccupied with deficit subsidization of the rest of agriculture’s hopelessly uneconomical business models). It is regrettable that Wyoming leadership in the executive and legislative branches long ago quit doing their own critical thinking and somehow lost the ability to even percieve the reality around them. I attribute that to Wyoming’s inability to look ahead even five years’ time , but having no problem looking backwards 133 years to Day 1 of statehood , then planting their policy boots at the midpoint of that timeline, roughly in 1956.
Isn’t it time Wyoming admits it is a failed state and should maybe consider moving forward into the 21st century from the Eisenhower era ? Fossil thinking and fossil fuels no longer sustain us.
Thank you for your comments. Couldn’t have said it any better.
Wyoming has had blinders on for over a century ignoring the ever-changing needs of its citizens and the way the world functions. Wyoming is the new Nursing Home (we continually “age” in population) for the country so it’s no wonder we lose bright minds who otherwise might move here to re-shape our state into a thriving economy not based on dismal and subsidized agricultural and mineral businesses.
Perfectly said Dewey, “Fossil thinking and fossil fuels no longer sustain us”.
It took 25 years to write this plan about the Red Desert, an issue that has been in real Wyomingites mind actively since 1949, the year I was born in Wyoming. In all that time, the BLM has taken a very small step. The ranchers and resource exploiters are “unhappy” although none of them cares about Wyoming history or culture at all. The value of Wyoming as a place is not based on its ability to make a profit for those people. None of them were born here, and we will be happy to see them get lost. Wyoming is the last of the real west, and we should definitely listen to the real original inhabitants, the Shoshone, in this case.
Well multiple use is the best approach but a focus on mineral extraction isn’t. I have lived in Wyo all my life but never seen an armed guard(blm) running around checking rock hounders pockets in gas fields. That is why I would rather support conservation of the land. I have seen the devastation of what oul and gas have done to areas i loved as a child in sublette county. Relying simply on mineral extraction for job developement in wyoming has and always has been a poor way to manage the economy. The value of the vast open land for future generations is a better resource than boom bust cyles that leave communities in shambles. The value is the land as is, not covered with industrial developement and will be the greatest long term resource for the state.
Thank goodness for any environmental protection. I am from Texas but have lived In both Colorado and Wyomimg for years. My family arrived in texas in 1836 and my great great ggf fought in the Revolurion at the Battle of San Jacinton to free Texas annually.
I have been following this since 2011 from the beginning and have prayed that the Red Desert Region would be protected. For some reason folks from Wyoming think THAT THEY OWN Wyoming. They don’t, esp Public owned land. It belongs to me too and the nation. But If that were true then i should be able to kick everybody out of Texas that arent from there and stop the 80,000 Californians from moving there.
Cultural resource protections across the Red Desert are of critical importance not only to local and varied Native tribes but for historic AMERICAN preservation from the first Wyoming citizens. Gov. Gordon’s annoyance with BLM’s preferred alternative and the recent call for expanded ACECs speaks volumes of the state’s non-cooperative relationship with the Wind River tribes. “When will we ever learn?”
Very intelligently said.