Lawmaker: BLM Rock Springs plan still doesn’t reflect Wyoming feedback

Though more subdued than in past public events, lawmaker scrutiny Tuesday of the Bureau of Land Management’s finalized plan for management of 3.6 million acres of public lands in southwestern Wyoming made clear that state displeasure remains acute.

This comes even as the BLM’s recently released finalized plan appeared to attempt to mollify the protests of Wyoming officials who argued the original “preferred alternative” was totally out of step with state values.

In particular, a member of the Legislature’s Joint Agriculture, State and Public Lands and Water Resources Committee on Tuesday said the state task force’s recommendations were diluted by a process that failed to capture the group’s prevailing desires.

“I think there was good work that came out of the task force,” said Sen. John Kolb (R-Rock Springs), who sat on the panel. “I mean, that’s clear. However, I think it was a flawed system that worked on 100% buy-in.”

Because of one dissenting member, Kolb said, the task force process was “shanghaied by the environmental groups,” resulting in recommendations that didn’t truly represent the majority.

“One person that represented those groups blackballed the process,” Kolb said, “While we had 10 groups, 10 count them, that agreed with the position, we had one group, one person, an individual who derailed the entire process.”

Gov. Mark Gordon, who assembled the task force, was also critical of the newest BLM plan version, which he said includes only selective consideration of local input. Gordon in August pledged to file a protest — the ordinary process BLM utilizes to create changes before it issues a record of decision.

Protests will be accepted through Sept. 23.

Overdue plan and outrage

The Bureau of Land Management in August 2023 released a long-awaited draft plan that will steer management of some 3.6 million acres of public lands and 3.7 million acres of federal mineral estate in southwestern Wyoming. The Rock Springs Resource Management Plan has not been updated since 1997.

The 1,300-page, acronym-heavy document included four alternatives for how to manage a vast swath of public lands across Lincoln, Sweetwater, Uinta, Sublette and Fremont counties. The planning area encompasses everything from sand dunes to sagebrush ecosystems, badlands and wrinkled mountains. It’s home to the Northern Red Desert’s petroglyphs and major wildlife corridors. People utilize it for economic activities like trona mining and livestock grazing.

But the conservation-heavy “preferred alternative” plan caused outrage for its limits on energy extraction and expansions of protected areas — critics deplored it as an instrument that would kill the area’s economy and close much-loved areas for outdoor recreation . Several packed meetings convened last fall to discuss the plan unfolded with anger and misinformation — including bad information accidentally disseminated by the BLM itself. Some 35,000 comments poured in during the extended public comment period.

In November, Gordon announced the formation of his task force, tapping the University of Wyoming’s Ruckelshaus Institute to facilitate stakeholder conversations. The idea was to hammer out recommendations supported by all of the interests represented — everything from trona mining to oil and gas, conservation and hunting.

During three public workshops that followed, task force members heard from dozens of local residents who complained the federal direction was misguided and damaging.

Despite representing disparate interests, the 11 members reached consensus on more than 100 recommendations for the Bureau of Land Management.

The agency carefully considered those recommendations as it drafted its finalized plan, BLM Wyoming Associate State Director Kris Kirby told the agriculture committee Tuesday during an update on the process.

“Because that task force was specifically convened for this, for this management plan, and specifically convened to represent the citizens of the state of Wyoming, we took it very seriously,” Kirby said.

Changes to the proposal

BLM on Aug. 22 issued a finalized plan seeking more of a balance between landscape protection and development. Compared to the conservation draft that drew so much fire a year ago, the finalized plan:

• Reduced Areas of Critical Environmental Concern, which are used to protect important historic, cultural and scenic values, from 1.6 million acres to 935,000 acres. (Currently there are 226,000 acres of ACECs in the field office.)
• Lopped closures to fluid mineral extraction roughly in half. In draft plans, 2.19 million acres were proposed to be off-limits to drilling, but the final plans would close 1.08 million acres — leaving 70% available for development.
• Changed the approach for mule deer and pronghorn migrations, from complete protection of designated routes to management “in a manner consistent” with the state of Wyoming’s migration policy. Because of the state policy’s permissiveness of development, that means a significant reduction in protections for migrating wildlife. Oil and gas leasing would be allowed in corridors as long as there’s an “acceptable conservation plan.”
• Expanded the areas available to livestock grazing to 99.97% of the Rock Springs Field Office. The draft called for making 8,572 acres (0.2% of the field office) unavailable for grazing, but the final plan reduces that to 2,114 acres (0.005%).

In a statement following the latest release, Gordon said the task force “helped claw” the BLM plan away from the “absolutely unworkable” proposal outlined in the draft. Kolb, however, said the final task force recommendations did not fully reflect the group’s discussions.

“I just don’t think it’s representative of the totality of the conversation we had,” Kolb said.

No members of the public commented on the BLM’s update during Tuesday’s meeting.

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