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Dustin Bleizeffer

Field Notes


Bonnie Hofbauer; 27 years at the Wyoming Outdoor Council

Posted on by Dustin Bleizeffer

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Since 1991, Bonnie Hofbauer has served as the beating heart of the Wyoming Outdoor Council. As office manager she’s kept computers, phones, copiers, and databases humming in tune — from the days when there was only one box-like Mac computer in the office to the age of smartphones. But it’s her personal touch that’s really helped keep the Outdoor Council functioning as a collective of people coming together for a common cause.

This month we bid Bonnie a bittersweet farewell as she retires after 27 years of service. She’s worked with seven different executive directors; dozens of staff, members of the board of directors, volunteers, interns; and hundreds of the Outdoor Council’s members and friends. These are the relationships that make a successful organization, and Bonnie has been at the center of them all.

I sat down with Bonnie before she left to try to get a sense of her experience at WOC. Here she is, in her own words.

How did you arrive at the Outdoor Council?

I was working at a pizza joint in Lander, and Steff Kessler came in with a friend. They had pizzas and they had beers, and neither one of them had any money. I didn’t know either one of them, but I said, ‘Well, that’s fine. I’ve got tips. I can pay your tab and you can come in some time and pay me back.’ And they did come in and pay me back. I didn’t know Steff at all then.

Dan Heilig and I were both working at NOLS, and we’d heard that the Wyoming Outdoor Council was moving from Cheyenne to Lander. We talked to each other and said, ‘Boy, that’s pretty neat.’ We were excited that they were coming to town. We didn’t know what that meant, exactly, at the time. But we were excited for it to come to Lander.

At NOLS I volunteered to manage recycling, which was done by the Wyoming Outdoor Council. And so we’d have recycling meetings at the WOC office, and Steff Kessler was the executive director at that time. … WOC worked on environmental and conservation issues, and we were excited about that. Steff invited me to apply.

What were some of the big issues then?

The biggest issue came in 1992, and that was the monitored retrievable storage for spent [nuclear] fuel rods. That got me roiling because I remember in 7th grade learning the half-life of nuclear waste, and I thought, ‘Oh my god, how could they possibly consider doing that?’ I was real upset about that, and that was true for a lot of folks in town, too. I couldn’t walk anywhere in town without people coming up to me and saying, ‘Oh my god, what can we do?’ I’d direct them to all of the meetings we were having at that time.

We used to get death threats on our answering machine. It was just so totally wild, because we’d have all of these meetings, and the industry reps were just astounding. They were all dressed up real spiffy and all very uptight. It was just a weird time. And when Governor [Mike] Sullivan announced we were not going to do that, oh my goodness. Steff, Dan, and I were all in the office and we hugged and we were all just so happy. Steff became my hero then because she just held their feet to the fire the whole time, and she just did such a good job with that.

There was one time that Steff couldn’t attend the meeting, and I felt so strongly about it I went up and told them what my concerns were, at the podium and the microphone. And that’s something that I just don’t do. I just decided I had to say something about it. And then years later, Barb Oakleaf, who served on the board, said she’d seen me at that meeting and that prompted her to get involved with the Wyoming Outdoor Council, and she got on the board. I remember, she said, ‘Never underestimate your ability to be the right person, at the right time, in the right place, with the right voice to make a difference.’ She said that me standing up there and saying what I did about spent fuel rods, that that made her get more involved. And that’s such a powerful statement, because that applies to anybody. You never know who you’re going to reach, and that’s why this work is so important.

What are some fun stories you can tell?

There’s a lot of stories I won’t tell, of course. And they’re probably some of the funniest ones. [But there was the time when the Outdoor Council’s web address got bought up by a Russian porn site.] It was horrifying to find that out. Just horrifying. A BLM guy calls up one day and says, ‘Gosh, we realize you need money, but really, a porn site?’ And we thought, ‘Really? What are you talking about?’ Because we could not see the site from here in our office.

Who are some of the people you’ve worked with while at WOC?

Oh gosh, there’s been so many. But that’s the thing that I like about being here for so long, because all of the staff and board and members and volunteers and interns that I’ve met through these doors have been wonderful people all the way around. In fact, there’s one gal, a member from the Bronx, we’re kind of pen pals, and we’ve been pen pals for 16 years. I wrote her a letter and told her I was going to be leaving, so she wanted to make sure to get my home address and my phone, and she gave me her phone number and we’re going to start calling.

I’ve gone through a whole lot of people — seven executive directors. I can’t even start counting how many people: interns and staff and volunteers and all of that. But I’ve worked with a gob of people, and I try to help them out with their jobs and keeping an even keel and a good working atmosphere here in the office.

Tom Bell is the guy behind this. Tom was great, he was just great for getting everybody going. And he’d get so spittin’ mad over the issues, especially climate change. And he’d be spittin’ mad over his laptop because he kind of came to the computer world at a later date. And he’d get so doggone mad at me about his computer. Tom and I had a great relationship. I just really enjoyed Tom, such a great person. And I spent a lot of time with him toward the end. I’d go over and he’d tell me war stories, and we’d laugh together and we’d cry together, and just … we’ve got to keep the fight going for Tom. Tom is the key person who brought us all together, and he’s just so far reaching. He wouldn’t quit. He’d be a thorn in somebody’s side until he got some results.

How have things changed in terms of discourse around conservation work?

I know in the past people — staff and some board members — thought we might be losing our bite or something because we’re more collaborative and that sort of thing. But, you know, I think WOC has more respect, mainly for our 50 years. And there’s nothing without collaboration and working with people. I think if you’re going to fly off the handle at every little thing, I don’t think you get people’s attention that way — or you get the wrong kind of attention. I like our collaborative approach, and we’re not sue-happy by any means. We kind of use that as the last tool in the toolbox. I like the direction WOC is going.

What are your plans for now?

My husband Phil and I are  going to take a break. We are going to go quail hunting down in Arizona, take three weeks and camp out. We have two rescue bird dogs. And then from there we’re just going to see how it goes, because we don’t know.


We’re going to miss you, Bonnie!

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It’s impossible to express what Bonnie means to us here at the Outdoor Council. “She has been the glue that has kept WOC together as a family for so long,” Steff Kessler said. “She took a personal interest in our members and staying in touch with former board and staff, and sheparded our membership with love and attention. She’s got a great sense of humor and is always the grounded one when the rest of the office is going nuts.  

“I remember once how she came into my office when I was executive director in the ‘90s and told me I had to chill more,” Kessler continued. “She reminded me that right after I’d taken a trip to Africa the year before I had a more mellow attitude and had attributed it to the Kenyan hakuna matata attitude there. The next year Bonnie was sternly telling me ‘You need to get that  hakuna matata attitude back!’

“I’ve spent a lot of time with Bonnie — had beers together at the Lander Bar, we ate bear stew together, and I was part of the women’s swimming group with her. She builds community around her wherever she goes, and it feels like we’re saying goodbye to a big part of our WOC hearth and home.”

Dan Heilig, another former executive director and longtime staffer, said it’s difficult to describe Bonnie’s contribution to the Outdoor Council. “She is and has been for all those years steady, passionate, funny, flexible, committed, hard working, courageous, dedicated, witty, understanding, rock solid, reasonable. I think maybe she’s a saint, or perhaps even a god — like a Viking goddess.”

Our current director Lisa McGee said she will miss Bonnie’s steady presence, her kindness, her vast knowledge of our membership, and her sense of humor. Bonnie is an avid knitter, and Lisa said she’ll also miss comparing notes on projects they’re both working on. “We wish Bonnie and Phil the very best in their retirement and time together. It is with such deep affection and gratitude that we say goodbye for now to Bonnie.”

We want to hear your stories!

If you’re one of the hundreds of people who has had the pleasure to work with Bonnie during the past 27 years and have a story or memory to share, we want to hear from you! Just post in the comments section below. Bonnie’s already gone hunting, but we’ll make sure she sees your thoughts!

 

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Field Notes


WOC is Working for Clean Water

Posted on by Dustin Bleizeffer

Ever splash in a backcountry stream or dip your face in an alpine pool to cool off after a strenuous hike?

Ever wonder who’s in charge of making sure those waters are clean — or how those decisions are made?

Right now, we have an opportunity to weigh in on a comprehensive review of Wyoming’s water quality standards, and to urge the Department of Environmental Quality to adopt the most protective standards available to protect water-based recreation, human health, and aquatic life.

Pushing for a more open review of water quality rules

Every three years, as required by the Clean Water Act, the DEQ reviews the standards that govern the quality of Wyoming’s surface waters. Often, the agency will propose changes that will provide increased protection for streams and lakes. But it sometimes proposes changes that may result in weakening water quality standards, which could significantly threaten human health and fisheries.

In its current review, the DEQ is considering a number of important changes to the existing standards, including a completely new classification system that will assign different levels of protection depending on uses of the water, and revising criteria for temporary exceedances of pollution limits intended to protect public health. It is also considering allowing for increased water temperatures caused by human activity, and changing the definitions of “primary” and “secondary” recreational use.

On October 12th we weighed in on the DEQ’s “Initial Scoping” document, which outlined several important changes to the water quality standards being considered (read our comments here). Although the initial scoping period is closed, we encourage you to contact the DEQ if you have concerns you’d like to share. We’ll also let you know when the formal comment period opens, and how to weigh in then.

“The triennial review process is wonky, and can be difficult for the average person to engage in,” Outdoor Council Senior Conservation Advocate Dan Heilig said. “But it’s a tremendously important opportunity to guide how our state protects water quality for recreation, fisheries and public health. There needs to be more outreach to the general public, and particularly to those in the outdoor recreation community.”

The most important thing for you to stress in your comments is how important clean water is to you.

A sweeping downgrade for Wyoming waters

One of the issues we’re tracking is how the state categorizes waterways for recreational use, which determines allowable levels of E. coli, a bacteria that can make people seriously ill.

You might remember that in 2016 the DEQ reclassified — or downgraded — 87,775 miles of streams to allow for a 500 percent increase in allowable levels of E. coli. These so-called “low flow” stream segments, flowing below six cubic feet per second, were assumed by DEQ to be too small for recreational use — such as swimming, dunking or “child’s play” — where water might be ingested.

The assumption was incorrect, so we fought back. But the DEQ had dug in its heels, and refused to recognize that primary contact recreation takes place on all kinds of surface waters, particularly on public lands where recreational use is high. Wyoming is the only state in the nation to use the Categorical Use Attainability Analysis for Recreation model to conduct such a statewide downgrade, rather than a segment-by-segment process based on actual field-collected data.

The DEQ’s model was far too sweeping: it effectively deemed 80 percent of Wyoming’s waterways — including many small streams where people are known to splash and dunk — unsuitable for primary contact recreation. It also didn’t prioritize robust public outreach to recreational users and others who would be most impacted by the changes.

Additionally, while the choice to use the UAA model to reclassify waterways helped save DEQ time and resources, it was also a model that put the huge burden of determining which streams should not be downgraded onto the public.

WOC provides missing information

This past summer, our legal intern, Rob Kutchin, a student at UC Berkeley’s School of Law, worked with Heilig to review the DEQ’s statewide downgrade. They found numerous streams around the state that, according to the DEQ’s own definition of “primary contact recreation,” should have retained the highest water quality standards. Instead, these streams — many near established recreation sites — had been downgraded.

For example, under the DEQ’s faulty model, just three dispersed campsites in all of Fremont County retained the stronger standard. In fact, there are more than 30 such campsites off Lander’s Loop Road alone, all of which should have received protection as sites for primary contact recreation. Perhaps most troubling, the DEQ lowered water quality protection on streams near the Fremont County Youth Camp, which is visited by hundreds of children each summer.

The Outdoor Council alerted the DEQ to more than 75 recreation sites overlooked by the model. Another group alerted DEQ about an additional 63 Forest Service trailheads the agency missed in its data collection efforts.

“We thought this would be an easy ask,” Heilig said. “Our hope was that the DEQ would quickly correct these types of obvious errors. Instead, it rejected all of this information and said it would not accept data-based corrections to its location modeling.”

In other words, the DEQ used incomplete datasets to erroneously downgrade water quality standards for thousands of stream miles, then said it would only accept site-specific evidence collected in the field — requiring stringent criteria — before considering corrections to the model.

The DEQ’s comprehensive review is especially important as we keep pushing to protect these waterways — because it’s an opportunity for the recreation standards themselves to be revised, upward or downward.

We expect Wyoming DEQ will publish its proposed revisions to the water quality standards sometime within the next few months. Meantime, we’ve asked DEQ to hold public hearings and conduct additional outreach about its triennial review in Lander and Jackson, communities where outdoor recreation is a significant driver of local economies and central to quality of life. We’ll keep you posted. Stay tuned for details on how to comment.

A bad idea for Badwater Creek

Just as we were going to press, we learned about a proposal being advanced by the DEQ to permit higher levels of industrial pollutants in central Wyoming’s Badwater Creek. Aethon Energy says it needs to dispose of an estimated 1 million barrels per day of toxic “produced water” from its proposed drilling expansion in the Moneta Divide natural gas field. The company wants to discharge the waste into Badwater Creek, which flows directly into Boysen Reservoir, the main feature at Boysen State Park. Boysen feeds into the Wind River, a designated Class I “outstanding resource water” in Wind River Canyon, upstream of Thermopolis. Allowing this kind of industrial disposal into Badwater Creek could present dire threats to fisheries and human health throughout a watershed central to rural economies and lifestyles for a major portion of the state.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency raised concerns with the proposal and ask the DEQ to provide more data about the potential impacts. We will keep a close eye on the matter as it moves forward, so stay tuned.

Contact: Dan Heilig, dan@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org

 

Field Notes


Member Profile: Katie Hogarty & Bryon Lee

Posted on by Dustin Bleizeffer

Time outside is important to Wyoming Outdoor Council members Katie Hogarty and Bryon Lee — whether it’s just sitting (without a cell phone) at Sweetwater Rocks and taking in the smells and sounds, walking their dog in the open space next to their Laramie home, or celebrating a wedding anniversary with a backpacking trip in Wyoming’s high country.

“Wyoming has connected me so deeply in my soul to a place,” Katie said recently, noting that while that may sound hokey, it’s true.

Katie and Bryon have been active Outdoor Council members for nearly a decade. “Wyoming is all about relationships,” Katie said. “You can inspire people [here]. I see the Outdoor Council do that all the time. You have a diverse board and a diverse group of supporters. You are able to inspire actions through thoughtful research and thoughtful approaches.”

Bryon agrees. “The importance of the work you all do — it inspires people to act, and act with future generations in mind,” he said.

Katie, a former policy analyst for Gov. Dave Freudenthal, is the Laramie program director for Wyoming Climb and a member of the Wyoming State Bar. She also serves on the Board of Equal Justice Wyoming and volunteers with Wyoming Public Radio. Bryon is a Laramie school counselor who’s active in Big Brothers, Big Sisters.

They lead busy professional lives, to be sure. But they also carve out plenty of time for outdoor activities. In fact, they spent much of this past July outside — starting with a Fourth of July hike up Medicine Bow Peak. Later that month, Bryon joined 350 other cyclists for the Tour de Wyoming ride along portions of the Red Desert to Hoback mule deer migration corridor (and donned WOC-sponsored felt antlers in honor of the “herd”) before meeting up with Katie in Jackson to go backpacking.

Katie and Bryon see the state’s outdoors and vast, intact wildlife habitats as central to Wyoming’s identity. They frequently respond to WOC calls to action because they recognize that sound information paired with a personal message to a decision maker or agency staffer can make all the difference when it comes to protecting the places they love to fish, bike, and hike.

But their support of conservation and the Outdoor Council’s efforts doesn’t end there. Bryon has made it a habit to give gift memberships to nieces and nephews for birthdays and other occasions — a great opportunity to discuss the importance of Wyoming’s environmental health and outdoor heritage with a younger generation.

“We may not see the smiles on the faces of future generations who will benefit from the work that the Outdoor Council does today,” Bryon said. “To be willing to step up and take on this cause, it’s extremely important.”

One Outdoor Council honor eludes Bryon, however. He still hasn’t earned a spot in one of our calendars showcasing photos of Wyoming. “One of my lifetime goals is to get a picture in the calendar,” he said. “Every year I take a shot, and say this is the one!”

 

Field Notes


Wyoming must stand up to feds to save mule deer

Posted on by Dustin Bleizeffer

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The U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s reckless oil and gas leasing actions may be the death warrant for a prized mule deer herd that relies on the renowned 150-mile Red Desert to Hoback migration corridor in western Wyoming — the longest big game migration measured in North America.

Wyoming’s political leaders and wildlife officials can avert this crisis, but there is little time left to take action. The next lease sale is Sept. 18.

“That we still have some of the most intact big game corridors in the world is a rarity worth protecting,” Wyoming Outdoor Council Executive Director Lisa McGee said. “It’s time for Wyoming to stand up for our wildlife.”

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Oil and gas development takes priority over all other uses and values for public lands under President Trump’s energy dominance mandate — drawing a target on Wyoming where much of the surface and underground mineral estate is owned by all Americans and managed by the federal government.

In a rush to implement the mandate and limit options for the public to have a say in future land management, the BLM has tripled the size of its quarterly oil and gas lease sales across the West. More than 1 million federal mineral acres across Wyoming are up for grabs in the Third- and Fourth Quarter oil and gas lease sales. Just a small fraction of those acres overlap the migration corridor and threaten its functionality.

The Outdoor Council and other organizations have asked the BLM to defer these leases, along with others in crucial wintering habitat statewide — a necessary action that does not impede an industry that already has filed 10,000 applications to drill across the state.

So far, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department seems satisfied with the BLM’s claim that “lease notices” attached to these parcels will “mitigate” impacts. But this assertion is incorrect.

Unlike formal lease stipulations, which are legally enforceable modifications to the terms and conditions of a standard BLM oil and gas lease, the notices proposed by BLM provide no authority to halt or significantly modify operations if necessary to protect migrating wildlife. State officials recently appeared to affirm this reality when the Wyoming Office of State Lands and Investments insisted that legally enforceable “lease stipulations” must be in place before offering oil and gas leases on state lands in the corridor. Such science-based stipulations should apply to federal leasing in the same corridor as well. Wyoming’s national preeminence in mule deer migration research positions us with the best expertise to craft these important stipulations.

So far, the BLM has been deaf to these arguments, as well as objections from Wyoming residents who value healthy wildlife populations, and the American people who own these public lands. However, the BLM has shown that it is willing to listen to two voices of influence: Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead and the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.

At the governor’s request earlier this summer, the BLM agreed to withdraw three oil and gas lease parcels from the migration corridor, as well as sensitive habitats in the Greater Little Mountain Area where the state and feds previously had agreed to hold off from leasing.

Both Sweetwater and Teton counties, home to the southern and northern ends of the Red Desert to Hoback migration corridor, have asked the BLM to defer all leasing in the corridor for the irreversible damage it would do to wildlife and the local outdoor recreation and tourism economy. They need Gov. Mead and the Wyoming Game and Fish Department to reinforce and carry their message. Respecting local governments is a mantra of this administration, yet it now rings hollow. The BLM has ignored these counties altogether.

Dan Heilig, the Outdoor Council’s senior conservation advocate, wrote to Wyoming Game and Fish Director Scott Talbott urging him to take action and to use the agency’s influence to insist that the BLM defer Third- and Fourth Quarter leases for sale in the corridor.

“Our big game herds are world-renowned and contribute to our collective sense of pride and quality of life we share in Wyoming,” Heilig wrote in the August 21 letter. “Surely the state can and should advise against sales that risk the future of our mule deer population.”

For more information, read our fact sheet about the issue and how you can effectively advocate for protecting big game migrations in Wyoming. Also, read the Outdoor Council’s August letter to Wyoming Game and Fish Department Director Scott Talbott, urging the agency to stand up to federal overreach to protect Wyoming’s migrating wildlife.

 

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Field Notes


Energy Dominance: Wyoming is ground zero for ‘energy dominance’ mandate

Posted on by Dustin Bleizeffer

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A new “energy dominance” policy has made Wyoming ground zero for the Trump administration’s anti-regulatory, top-down mandate to promote energy extraction over all other uses on our public lands. And it’s affecting every aspect of the Wyoming Outdoor Council’s work.

Nearly half of Wyoming’s surface acreage is public land (Bureau of Land Management, national forests and parks) and the feds own and manage minerals underlying millions of additional acres of private land. During past administrations, the federal government has often served as a check on the oil and gas and mining industries’ wishes to forego a necessary balance of multiple uses. Now, the industry’s wish list is the federal mandate — and a strategy of systematically shutting the public out of decisions affecting our public lands is the new normal.

“Well established democratic processes — such as the ability to comment on proposed federal actions — are viewed by the Trump administration as impediments. This policy of ‘energy dominance’ seeks to remove those impediments,” Outdoor Council Senior Conservation Advocate Dan Heilig said. “These are our public lands, and we’re being shut out — project by project and policy by policy.”

Consider a few of the actions the administration has taken in the last year and a half that stem directly from an energy dominance policy:

• Issued an executive order in March 2017 calling for a review of all federal actions that could hinder the exploitation of energy resources and infrastructure, and immediately revoking many Obama-era measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions and protect against climate change.

• Removed regulations designed to improve the safety of hydraulic fracturing, as well as regulations seeking to reduce emissions and leaks of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.

• Rescinded the BLM’s oil and gas leasing reforms.

• Convinced Congress to scrap the BLM’s “planning rule,” designed to increase citizen participation in land-management decisions.

• Issued guidance to federal agencies to “streamline” environmental reviews by imposing arbitrary page limits and timelines.

• Scaled back science-based protections in West-wide Greater sage-grouse conservation plans that protect habitat for some 350 wildlife and plant species.

• Offered oil and gas lease parcels in critical wildlife habitats, popular recreation areas, and culturally and historically important landscapes.

Fighting to Keep the Public in Public Lands


Among the hallmarks of the National Environmental Policy Act — our country’s bedrock environmental law — are its requirements for federal agencies to notify and respond to the public about actions affecting the air we breathe, the water we depend on, and the landscapes and wildlife that define our quality of life. These requirements are fundamental to ensuring that the public has a say in what happens to our shared resources.

Since January 2017, however, we’ve seen federal agencies give shorter notice for oil and gas lease sales and shorten the length of time the public can comment on actions related to energy development and the management of our public lands.

Conservation organizations and citizens alike have also found it more difficult to ensure that our comments are even being considered. This year the BLM reported it couldn’t account for tens of thousands of missing public comments submitted in response to the Trump administration’s revised sage-grouse management plan.

Even federal employees who live in Wyoming confide their frustration that the democratic institutions that have long ensured public participation in federal policies are now being whittled away. These civil servants say they are relying on the public’s persistence and continued engagement.

Add to this Rep. Liz Cheney’s tellingly titled “Removing Barriers to Energy Independence Act” (HR 6087) to slap exorbitant fees on citizens who wish to protest oil and gas lease sales, and Sen. John Barrasso’s ONSHORE Act (S 2319) that would give authority to states to approve applications to drill on federal public lands, and it’s clear there’s a concerted effort to aid energy companies and remove the public from public lands management processes.

“We’re seeing policies coming out of Washington, D.C., to benefit the oil and gas industry,” Heilig said. “And their primary strategy? Putting up barriers to meaningful public input in agency decision making.”

What Energy Dominance Looks Like in Wyoming


Today, the BLM is ignoring past agreements with the state and offering lease parcels throughout southwestern Wyoming — including many inside critical wildlife habitats in the Greater Little Mountain area, in sage-grouse core areas, and in parts of the Northern Red Desert that have long been understood to be off limits to oil and gas development.

Even Interior Sec. Ryan Zinke’s overture to sportsmen — an executive order “to enhance and improve the quality of big-game winter range and migration corridor habitat on federal lands” — rang hollow. No sooner had Zinke signed the order than the Interior’s BLM proposed oil and gas lease parcels for sale inside the Red Desert to Hoback migration corridor — the longest mule deer migration ever recorded.

Although Gov. Matt Mead has urged the BLM to reconsider leasing in Little Mountain and the Red Desert to Hoback corridor, he and other elected leaders in Wyoming support many aspects of an energy dominance policy — which influences the actions of our state agencies. For example, the state’s wildlife and environmental quality officials are often reluctant to hold the line — or even weigh in — on efforts to roll back detailed, science-based wildlife stipulations and air quality measures carefully crafted under previous administrations. This is particularly concerning to those who live and hunt in eastern Wyoming, where the 5,000-well Converse County Oil and Gas Project (and other big drilling projects) are slated for approval within the next year.

And in July, Wyoming’s Office of State Lands and Investments offered dozens of oil and gas lease parcels in the Northern Red Desert — home to crucial winter habitat for big game, national historic pioneer trails, wilderness study areas, North America’s largest sand dune complex, and dozens of other historic, cultural, and natural resources. One parcel was even situated in the shadow of the iconic Boar’s Tusk.

These federal actions and policy changes are coming fast and furious. And they complicate nearly every aspect of our program work. Read on to learn what the Outdoor Council is doing to address these challenges and why we need your help.

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The Energy Dominance Mandate at Work: WOC’s Response

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Problem: Rollback of BLM rule to protect air quality and curb greenhouse gases.

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Solution We Seek: BLM keeps its good rule and Wyoming adopts strong statewide guidance.

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In 2015 the BLM finalized rules to limit the venting and flaring of natural gas, and required inspections of leaky equipment for new oil and gas wells. Because the pollutant is also the product for sale, not wasting it makes sound financial sense. Many companies, such as ExxonMobil, agree.

An industry trade group and three states, including Wyoming, sued. We joined public health organizations, conservation groups, and the states of New Mexico and California to intervene in defense of the rule — and successfully stopped the attempt to delay the rule’s implementation.

End of story? Not quite. Under the new administration, the BLM turned 180 degrees and attempted to rescind its rule. We joined partners to successfully challenge this unlawful move and demand that the BLM follow the legally required steps to repeal an established rule. The BLM’s new rule (which we expect will indeed scrap nearly all of the good elements of the 2015 rule) will be announced any day.

In this case, there’s also a state-level solution. For years we’ve urged Wyoming’s Department of Environmental Quality to issue its own guidance requiring companies to regularly inspect and fix leaky infrastructure in all new oil and gas fields. Wyoming does have such a requirement — but it pertains only to wells in the Upper Green River Basin. Late this summer we were happy to learn that Wyoming DEQ finally proposed guidance to apply these best practices statewide, and we’re working to make sure the measure is adopted and implemented.

We also want to see Wyoming lawmakers remove the severance tax exemption for flared natural gas, which would generate real revenue for counties and local governments.

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Problem: Federal and state oil and gas lease parcels are being offered for sale in some of the most iconic places and most crucial winter big game habitat in the Northern Red Desert.

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Solution We Seek: The BLM and the state agree to withdraw and no longer offer oil and gas leases in special places and important habitats.

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In July, the Wyoming Office of State Lands and Investments offered dozens of oil and gas lease parcels for auction throughout the state, including 34 parcels in the Red Desert — in remote areas with no roads or infrastructure to accommodate development. The parcels are in or near designated National Historic Trails, BLM Wilderness Study Areas, and critical big game and sage-grouse habitat.

Wyoming’s July lease auction demonstrates the influence of an energy dominance policy on state actions. Once federal lease parcels are offered in undeveloped areas — such as the Northern Red Desert — operators are motivated to nominate neighboring state parcels to shore up congruent lands for development.

The Outdoor Council led an effort asking the state to withdraw the 34 lease parcels identified as a threat to wildlife, cultural, and natural resources. The state withdrew only one it had slated for sale — the iconic Boar’s Tusk. Twenty-one of the state parcels received bids in July. We led another campaign to urge the OSLI board of commissioners not to authorize their sale. Our efforts prompted dozens of residents to testify to the wildlife, cultural, and economic values that would be degraded if drilling in this landscape is allowed.

There is a better way!​ ​We’re reminding state leaders that an exchange of these isolated state parcels for BLM lands elsewhere that are more conducive to development would provide a better guarantee of revenue while protecting this landscape.

We continue to monitor leasing actions by both the state and the federal government throughout Wyoming, and remain ready to defend against shortsighted policies coming out of D.C.

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Problem: Proposed oil and gas leases threaten sensitive habitat in the longest mule deer migration corridor.

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Solution We Seek: The BLM does not offer oil and gas lease parcels here.

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Every spring, thousands of mule deer make a 150-mile trek between their winter range in the Red Desert and lush habitat farther north. In the fall, often with fawns, they retrace their steps south.

This February, Interior Sec. Ryan Zinke issued an order to “improve habitat quality” in migration corridors. We applauded the move. But then the BLM announced it would offer multiple parcels inside the Red Desert to Hoback corridor for oil and gas leasing.

That’s a problem. We reminded Sec. Zinke and the Wyoming State BLM office that science shows drilling in vital habitats like migration corridors is harmful to wildlife, and we urged them to pull the parcels before the fall lease sales. We also helped a coalition of sportsmen and conservation partners do the same. And, after thanking Gov. Matt Mead for his initial support of this special corridor, we asked him to be even more vocal in its defense.

We’re also making sure citizens are aware of the problem, and that they know how to help fix it. Participants at our annual Run the Red event and the Tour de Wyoming bike ride — which both intersect with the corridor — were eager to contact Gov. Mead and speak out in its defense. We provided postcards for participants to submit comments to Gov. Mead, and, thanks to the generosity of a WOC member, we provided felt antlers which cyclists donned in a show of solidarity with the migrating deer.

In early August, BLM agreed to defer nearly 5,000 surface acres from potential oil and gas developments that intersect this vital corridor. Although this isn’t everything we asked for, it’s a good start. Thanks to all of you who let Gov. Mead and Sec. Zinke know that Wyoming’s wildlife habitat is worth defending! We’ll keep pushing to protect this and other special corridors.

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Field Notes


Your voice makes a difference in wave of leasing actions

Posted on by Dustin Bleizeffer

This summer we asked you to weigh in on several oil and gas leasing actions that would degrade wildlife habitat and other special landscapes in Wyoming. You responded by submitting comments and letting officials know that some places just aren’t right for development. Thank you! Because of your quick action, we have a few successes to report.

But first some context.

In western states, U.S. Bureau of Land Management lease sales are growing exponentially in size. This year, the number of federal acres offered for oil and gas development in Wyoming ballooned from 170,509 in the first quarter to a whopping 700,000 acres in the fourth.

“I’ve never seen a lease sale in Wyoming of that size, ever. Seems like it’s a firesale,” Outdoor Council Senior Conservation Advocate Dan Heilig said.

Following the president’s “energy dominance” directive, the BLM is also offering shorter timeframes for the public to review and respond to lease sales, while also ignoring its previous commitments to not lease in areas undergoing planning revisions. This has led to leases being sold in areas that have less than adequate protection.

And the public isn’t even getting a fair return. Many lease parcels offered in these sensitive areas are selling for the federal minimum of $2 per acre, whereas parcels in developed areas “in play” can go for $3,200 per acre.

This year, the number of federal acres offered for oil and gas development in Wyoming ballooned from 170,509 in the first quarter to a whopping 700,000 acres in the fourth. (Wyoming BLM)

“It’s not benefiting the public treasury,” Heilig said. “They’re not getting the best value per acre for these parcels.”

According to a July 2018 article by Reveal, “Some energy experts say the Trump administration is trying to lease lots of federal land that oil companies don’t even want. Of the 11.9 million acres offered by the administration in 2017, 792,823 [acres] received bids, considerably less than the 921,240 acres out of 1.9 million under the Obama administration in 2016.”

The sale of a lease parcel conveys a legal right to develop. Because neither the state nor the federal government is carefully analyzing where it sells, or allows citizens time to comment, the public stands to lose.

Back in 2012, citizens rallied to help purchase and retire nearly 60,000 acres of oil and gas leases in the Upper Hoback of the Wyoming Range. These were leases originally bought on the cheap, which citizens then spent $8.75 million to purchase and retire. Today’s wave of federal leasing poses similarly costly threats far into the future, whether leases must be bought out in some places, or development robs the public of productive wildlife habitat and outdoor and tourism dollars.

Your voice matters

In the July Wyoming state lease sale your emails, letters, and phone calls to state officials helped result in a handful of lease parcels being pulled — one at the foot of Boar’s Tusk. This is fantastic news. Unfortunately, the State Board of Land Commissioners approved the sale of nearly two dozen other parcels that we and many partners opposed.

This shortsighted lease sale not only threatens critical wildlife habitat and rare cultural resources in the Red Desert, it also highlights several deficiencies in the state leasing process. First, the state’s public notice for oil and gas lease sales is woefully inadequate. The state allowed only 30 days for the public to review 187 proposed leases statewide. Second, although the public may access and comment on proposed lease sales, the state provides no formal avenue to do so.

With your help we will continue to push officials to resolve these deficiencies. And, recognizing that Wyoming’s constitution prioritizes uses of state lands to generate revenue for Wyoming schools, we’ll also keep touting a better alternative to leasing special state landscapes for energy development: exchanging those lands for BLM parcels better suited to industrial development.

On the federal front

The state’s July lease sale precedes two federal oil and gas lease sales that also include parcels in sensitive areas, such as Greater sage-grouse core areas, crucial winter range, and the Red Desert to Hoback mule deer migration corridor.

So far, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department has been reluctant to weigh in on recent federal leasing actions with its own expertise. We continue to urge the state to guide federal agencies on matters best understood by expert biologists citing the best available science.

The state has so far failed to note that federal stipulations attached to oil and gas lease parcels don’t take into consideration 15 years of published research by wildlife biologist Hall Sawyer. The research shows such stipulations do not adequately protect wildlife from oil and gas development.

Rather than keeping its foot on the gas pedal, the BLM needs to hit the brakes on oil and gas leasing in and near migration corridors. The agency needs to take time to adhere to the best available science and to amend existing stipulations to ensure protections actually work as intended.

This year we also asked you to submit comments on BLM oil and gas lease sales, and many of you responded. Thanks to your advocacy and the urging of Gov. Matt Mead, the BLM agreed to defer the sale of nearly 5,000 surface acres of federal lease parcels that intersect with the Red Desert to Hoback mule deer migration corridor. This is a good start to defending this corridor, and it showed the BLM that Wyoming citizens are resolute in protecting the state’s critical wildlife habitat.

Thank you for staying engaged and helping us keep the promise that we owe to future generations.

— Read the Wyoming BLM Third Quarter oil and gas lease sale protest letter filed (August 11, 2018) by Wyoming Outdoor Council, National Audubon Society, The Wilderness Society, and Wyoming Wilderness Association.

 

Field Notes


Ranchers rally for wilderness, against motorized use, on Copper Mountain

Posted on by Dustin Bleizeffer

There isn’t much traffic on Birdseye Pass Road just outside Shoshoni in north-central Wyoming, despite the fact that it carves around the southern and eastern borders of the Copper Mountain Wilderness Study Area — a place that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management proclaims has “outstanding” potential for “primitive and unconfined recreation.”

Traffic will pick up in September when hunters begin scouting the area for deer and elk. Meantime, there’s always the occasional out-of-town vehicle that’ll stray from county road to private. These drivers often avoid stopping to visit with a local rancher who pulls over for a quick hello, and to maybe offer some advice.

[learn_more caption=”What are Wilderness Study Areas?”] Wilderness Study Areas originated from the Federal Lands Policy and Management Act of 1976 which required the identification of federal lands with “wilderness characteristics.” As such, lands are either recommended for wilderness or a host of other potential designations. Only Congress has the authority to make the designation based on the recommendations of the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service. In Wyoming, there are 42 BLM WSAs. (Source: Wyoming Public Lands Initiative) [/learn_more]

“We call ‘em Lookie-Lous,” Garrett Herbst says as he grinds pickup and loaded horse trailer up this road toward the family’s old homestead. They’re mostly harmless and well-intentioned, the 31-year-old fourth generation rancher adds. There’s a common perception that ranchers are unapproachable, and maybe even downright grouchy toward the average person looking to recreate among the patchwork of public and private land in Wyoming.

Herbst says that’s a perception ranchers need to try to change, for their own survival.

“We gotta take just a little time to visit, and help people know where they can be and do it right. That’s the type of thing we need to encourage, or eventually — ranchers are kind of a dying breed as it is — people are going to make it harder for ranchers if we don’t start helping them enjoy what’s around us.”

Garrett Herbst prepares for a ride through the northern portion of the Copper Mountain Wilderness Study Area where his family grazes cattle in the summer. For four generations, the Herbst family has packed in salt for wintering horses and summer cattle. (photo: Dustin Bleizeffer)

The Herbst family, and many ranchers like them, depend on grazing allotments on public lands. The Herbsts, for example, have grazed cattle here every summer for 100 years. Ranchers know these public landscapes better than most, yet Garrett Herbst worries they risk alienating themselves from other public land users when it comes to land management planning for the future.

Those risks are at play right now for the Copper Mountain Wilderness Study Area and 42 other WSAs in Wyoming currently under consideration for permanent land management changes. For the past two years a handful of counties have taken part in the Wyoming Public Lands Initiative, an effort to find broad-based consensus on the future management of WSAs as the basis for congressional legislation to move all or some of the WSAs in Wyoming from a temporary status to a mix of wilderness and other management priorities.

[learn_more caption=”What is the Wyoming Public Lands Initiative?”] The Wyoming Public Lands Initiative is a voluntary, collaborative process led by counties regarding the future management of Wilderness Study Areas in the state. The goal is to find local stakeholder consensus for how each Wilderness Study Area is managed, and to send those recommendations to Congress for potential new legislation guiding the permanent management of the WSAs. (Source: Wyoming Public Lands Initiative)[/learn_more]

Existing grazing allotments in the WSAs — such as the Herbsts’ in the northern portion of Copper Mountain — are grandfathered in the existing plans, and won’t be revoked. But a wide range of new uses are under consideration, including off-road vehicle use and new motorized vehicle trail systems.

Rock crawlers in a roadless area?

There’s no water to fish here, but a scramble to any hilltop provides stunning views of a desert-like plains to the south, Boysen Reservoir and the Absaroka Range to the west.

Copper Mountain offers a wealth of geologic and cultural resources, and challenging terrain for hikers and backpackers. There are rockfaces to climb and deep gullies rumored to hide ancient cedars. Garrett complains there’s too many mountain lions and rattlesnakes to his liking in this dry sagebrush- and juniper-covered landscape. But it provides critical refuge for the deer and elk that move into the northern and eastern parts of Copper Mountain to survive especially harsh winters, earning a portion of the WSA critical winter range habitat protections.

It’s all of these qualities, after all, that earned Copper Mountain the designation of Wilderness Study Area decades ago. This is a place that is remarkably untouched and wild. There are no roads. Anyone is free to come here and enjoy a sense of solitude — by foot or by hoof. It’s the landscape people think of when they imagine Wyoming. But the Herbsts fear these qualities may one day be lost.

There’s a lot for people to enjoy on Copper Mountain where the BLM Wilderness Study Area spans 6,858 acres of hilly, rocky terrain wedged between the Wind River Canyon to the west and the rest of Copper Mountain to the east, nestled at the southwestern edge of the Bighorn Mountain Range. On a horseback tour of the area in June, Garrett Herbst and his father Tom Herbst spotted tepee rings and mountain bluebirds darting over steep slopes speckled with budding Indian Paintbrush. (photo: Dustin Bleizeffer)

So far, the Fremont County Public Lands Committee still implicitly includes the “bottom-third” portion of the Copper Mountain WSA — just 2,000 roadless acres among 2.1 million BLM acres across the larger north-central portion of the state — in its recommendation for a motorized use study. Garrett, his father Tom Herbst, and many other locals worry that recommending such a study may be interpreted as a mandate to accommodate off-road vehicles — ATVs and even “rock crawlers” specifically designed to maw and mount rocky crags and other rugged but sensitive terrain.

While riding horseback through the “bottom-third,” Tom Herbst noted that the reason there are no roads here is because the terrain is too hilly and the soils are too delicate. A track carved by motorized wheels — even a groomed trail — would cause erosion, likely leading to another route that encourages even more erosion.

The Herbsts’ grazing allotment is situated on the northern end of the Copper Mountain WSA, which comes with the WSA-wide restriction of no motorized use. For four generations, they’ve packed in salt for wintering horses and summer cattle, and they’ve packed in materials to maintain fences and to coax spare mountain spring watering holes. That’s how it’s been done for generations — even before the WSA guidelines were established decades ago.

Opening the area to off-road vehicles would damage every quality that earned Copper Mountain its wilderness study designation in the first place, the Herbsts say. They want the Copper Mountain WSA to be excluded from any recommendation for an ORV suitability study, and they’ve gathered more than 200 signatures from others — mostly locals — who agree.

Copper Mountain grazers like the Herbsts don’t want to see the roadless area opened to motorized use. For generations, the family has packed in salt for wintering horses and summer cattle, because the landscape isn’t suited for motorized vehicles. (photo: Dustin Bleizeffer)

“It’s not good for hunters, not good for hikers, not good for wildlife. It’s only good for the ORV user,” Tom Herbst said. “Here’s the other thing for ranchers: conservation is critical in an arid area like this. If we don’t kind of conserve it, we don’t have grazing. We’ve got to take care of it.”

As Garrett and Tom find allies among the ranching community and initiate conversations to elevate suitable recreation opportunities at Copper Mountain — such as climbing, birding, and hiking — they feel the Fremont County advisory committee hasn’t taken their wishes, concerns, and local knowledge into account.

Are public lands committees listening to the public?

The Wyoming Public Lands Initiative set out to resolve the temporary status of WSAs — in limbo for nearly three decades. Each county with a WSA was encouraged but not required to participate. The initiative recognized that a consensus set of recommendations created by a broad coalition of stakeholders stands the best chance of support for congressional legislation.

WPLI’s charter states that “County WPLI Advisory Committees will be expected to encompass a broad cross-section of public lands stakeholders.” The initiative’s Principles and Guidelines state that Public Lands Committees “allow for public comment opportunities at all of the committee’s meetings” — a charge that participating committees have honored; most provided multiple opportunities, and even online comment submissions.

But the guidelines do not say how public comments are to be considered by the committees, or integrated into the committees’ final recommendations.

Neil Long is a climber who lives in Casper in neighboring Natrona County. He’s among many local climbers who frequently scale granite walls inside the four WSAs that comprise the Sweetwater Rocks complex far south of Copper Mountain. Neil and many of his fellow climbers have read through committee meeting minutes and reached out to members of the Fremont County Public Lands Committee to share their input. Neil shares the same concern as the Copper Mountain ranchers — that the committee appears to listen, but then doesn’t seem to incorporate broad public agreement into its decisions.

“I reached out and got responses ranging from no response and neutral response, and that public opinion isn’t going to persuade some [committee] members,” Neil said.

Like the Herbsts, Todd Humphreys works a grazing allotment in the Copper Mountain WSA, carrying on a 90 year family tradition. In that time there have been dustups about land use, he said, but things have worked nicely the past few decades among local ranchers, the Bureau of Land Management, and the public under the WSA designation. Humphreys says he shares the view that ranchers need to be partners with land managers and the general public that wants to enjoy the wild, roadless area.

“We have to learn how to share this,” Humphreys said. “Other people need to enjoy this too — the people who appreciate it.”

Copper Mountain grazer Tom Herbst said his family and the general public have benefited from the “wilderness” protections applied to the area for the past three decades. “I think the benefit of wilderness is it creates more respect for the land,” he said. (photo: Dustin Bleizeffer)

Humphreys acknowledged public land grazers sometimes butt heads with the BLM in some areas, but it’s working out on Copper Mountain. “The Wilderness Study Area is no problem with us,” he said. “Even if it’s [permanently] made a wilderness area, we can work with that, and we can work with the BLM. We just don’t want motorized vehicles in there with trails and trash.”

Humphreys attended several Fremont County Public Lands Initiative committee meetings, wrote comments, and helped organize with other locals, and said he appreciates the task and the manner in which the committee has worked.

“But when it came down to recommendations for this area, it seems like they protected other [WSAs in Fremont and Natrona counties] but backed off of Copper Mountain. I think there are some interests there who are not concerned with Copper Mountain, and they blocked everything we tried to conserve.”

Two committee members refused to support the draft recommendation, in part because of concerns over the potential for motorized access to areas like Copper Mountain. But it’s unclear whether the Copper Mountain ranchers will be heard as recommendations move from committee to the county commission and perhaps to Congress.

“All 325 million people in the United States have the right to be on public ground. Now it’s just a matter of how are we going to use certain parts of it?” Garrett Herbst said. “Because certain places may be suitable for certain activities. Other places — especially like we feel about this — there’s absolutely no motorized trails. Why destroy this little piece?”

Over the next few months, committees around Wyoming will seek public input as they work to finalize sets of recommendations for this and other public landscapes. You can follow the progress here at wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org, and on our Facebook page.


NOTE: This is the first of a 3-part series about the Wyoming Public Lands Initiative, now in its final stages of approving recommendations to send to Congress.

 

 

Field Notes


Oil and gas lease sales threaten Wyoming’s Red Desert

Posted on by Dustin Bleizeffer

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[Updated July 24, 2018] We need your help to protect the heart of Wyoming’s wild public lands — the Red Desert! In Wyoming’s most recent state lands oil and gas lease sale, 21 parcels located in the fragile, beautiful Red Desert received bids, and are now under threat of development. The final decision to move forward with these lease purchases will be made by the State Board of Land Commissioners — comprised of Wyoming’s top elected officials, including Governor Matt Mead — on August 9. If oil and gas development is allowed on these 21 parcels, countless invaluable resources will be harmed, including crucial winter habitat for big game, historic pioneer trails, stunning volcanic rock formations, North America’s largest sand dune complex and dozens of other historic, cultural and natural resources.

The state oil and gas lease parcels that dot the Red Desert map, if authorized, would allow for industrial development that could forever harm the entire landscape at an incalculable cost to Wyoming’s wildlife, cultural heritage and outdoor recreation economies. The July state lease sale precedes two federal oil and gas lease sales in September and December that also include parcels in sensitive areas, such as the Red Desert-to-Hoback big game migration corridor. This means the state, if it moves forward with authorization, will only multiply the threat posed by the Trump administration’s “energy dominance” mandate for public landscapes in Wyoming.

“The leasing of these stranded state land parcels for oil and gas development is a scenario for future management conflicts,” Wyoming Outdoor Council Executive Director Lisa McGee stated in a letter to Gov. Matt Mead. “This is because some of these areas are so fragile, pristine or so easily disrupted, that a single well could significantly erode the integrity of the landscape or resource. Many of the state land parcels have no road or pipeline access — creating threats of future impacts where none exist today.”

A broad coalition of stakeholders, including Native American communities and sportsmen, is asking the Wyoming State Board of Land Commissioners to withdraw the 21 lease parcels and allow for a more measured approach to leasing in the Red Desert.

Stakeholders are mindful that Wyoming’s constitution prioritizes uses of state lands to generate revenue for Wyoming schools. The mandate can be better met without auctioning these mineral lease parcels, and instead working to exchange them for BLM parcels more suited to industrial development.

Read the Wyoming Outdoor Council’s June 2018 letter to Gov. Matt Mead.

Review our Fact Sheet for talking points and more background about the Red Desert and current leasing threats.

Join us in asking the Office of State Lands and Investments and the Wyoming State Board of Land Commissioners to withdraw the 21 state oil and gas lease parcels for sale in Wyoming’s Red Desert this month. Call or write an email, and let them know your connection to these special Wyoming places, and why you want to protect them for future generations.

To submit a comment to all five commissioners at once, go to our comment portal. Or you can submit comments to the individual commissioners:

Bridget Hill, Director, Office of State Lands and Investments
307.777.6629
bridget.hill1@wyo.gov

Matt Mead, Wyoming Governor
307.777.7434
Fill out email form

Edward Buchanan, Secretary of State
307.777.7378
SecOfState@wyo.gov

Cynthia Cloud, State Auditor
307.777.7831
SAOAdmin@wyo.gov

Mark Gordon, State Treasurer
307.777.7408
treasurer@wyo.gov

Jillian Balow, Superintendent of Public Instruction
307.777.7675
superintendent@wyo.gov

 

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This map (click to enlarge) depicts the coverage of the state oil and gas lease sale parcels we’re asking to be withdrawn.

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Field Notes


Wyoming shouldn’t put a price tag on civic engagement

Posted on by Dustin Bleizeffer

A big part of our work at the Outdoor Council involves tracking the actions our representative government makes on behalf of its citizens. Often, that includes asking for public records not readily available or published for broad public access.

Citizens have the right to know about activities that affect public health, including the water we use and air we breathe, as well as the myriad decisions that affect land and wildlife management in Wyoming. That’s why we’re taking a stand against an ill-conceived state policy to charge fees for public records requests.

The fee structure, created and promoted by the Wyoming Department of Information and Administration (A&I), misses the intent of a state law passed in 2014 to “streamline” responses to records requests. We believe that providing public records and governing transparently is not an “add-on” to the job of the government that citizens should have to pay for. It is a core duty of our state government. We already cover the cost to produce public records with our taxpayer dollars dedicated to support state agencies.

Understanding that a fee-for-access policy only serves to deter citizens from taking part in civic matters, we have joined with dozens of partners to push back against A&I’s flawed policy. At the same time, we are encouraging a broader discussion to find solutions that can help state agencies more efficiently respond to records requests.

To begin the discussion, the Outdoor Council published this op-ed in local media outlets.

We are encouraged that the legislature’s Joint Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee has agreed to take on the topic this year, and we will keep you up-to-date as the discussion progresses.

Wyoming’s fee-for-access scheme is not the only policy being pursued to distance citizens from our government’s actions. Rep. Liz Cheney has introduced a bill to slap fees on citizens who participate in BLM’s oil and gas leasing decision-making processes on public lands. An effort continues at the Wyoming Legislature to criminalize protests against so-called “critical infrastructure,” and tactics to transfer the ownership and/or management of public lands continues. These are part of a broader trend to extract citizens from our public lands heritage and to insert the Trump administration’s mandate for “energy dominance” in the West.

But we don’t have to — and must not — cede our democratic institutions and values to realize robust economies. The Wyoming-led sage grouse management plan for the West (now also under attack) is proof that bipartisan, multi-stakeholder efforts can help sustain energy, agriculture and our wildlife heritage far into the future regardless of politics. Efforts to derail robust citizen participation will fail — but only with your help.

Thank you for your continued work to help protect Wyoming’s world-class wildlife, our open spaces, clean air and water, and for joining us in demanding a government responsive to its citizens.

 

Field Notes


Sec. Zinke can’t protect critical wildlife pathways while drilling inside them

Posted on by Dustin Bleizeffer

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In a recent letter to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, we are asking him to make good on his promise to implement his own executive order to protect wildlife migration habitat by deferring oil and gas lease parcels inside a critical big game migration corridor.

A Wyoming Bureau of Land Management oil and gas lease sale scheduled for December 2018 includes several parcels in the Red Desert to Hoback big game migration corridor — the longest known mule deer migration corridor in North America. The Wyoming Game and Fish Department considers the corridor “one of the most critical mule deer migration routes in the West,” and “internationally-significant.”

Leasing inside this critical migration pathway runs counter to the very stated purposes of Secretary Zinke’s Executive Order #3362, signed February 9, 2018, which are “to enhance and improve the quality of big-game winter range and migration corridor habitat on Federal lands . . . ”

“We applaud Secretary Zinke’s focus on protecting migration corridors,”Outdoor Council Executive Director Lisa McGee said. “To ensure his executive order serves its purpose, at a minimum, oil and gas leases should not be offered within Wyoming’s Red Desert to Hoback corridor. Making sure habitat remains intact is critical.”

We join dozens of sportsmen groups in supporting Secretary Zinke’s executive order to protect migration corridors because it recognizes that “robust and sustainable elk, deer and pronghorn populations contribute greatly to the economy and well-being of communities across the West.”

In our letter to Secretary Zinke, McGee stated, “This is especially true in Wyoming where our residents know that migrations support life for thousands of animals. Without these intact pathways, our herds would be substantially smaller; corridors such as the Red Desert to Hoback allow deer to take advantage of seasonal forage and move away from areas with harsh winters.”

We earlier shared a letter with BLM Director Mary Jo Rugwell, outlining the science and protections that are needed as a minimum to protect these corridors.

McGee added, “The public land acres contained in these proposed lease parcels are small in scale compared to all the other potential BLM lands open for leasing in Wyoming; but they are large in importance for the health of this herd, and for Wyoming’s cultural and economic heritage.”

[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”1_2″][et_pb_button _builder_version=”3.1.1″ button_text=”Map of Red Desert to Hoback migration corridor” button_url=”https://staging.wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Map-of-Red-Desert-to-Hoback-Mirgration-Corridor.pdf” url_new_window=”on” /][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″][et_pb_button _builder_version=”3.1.1″ button_text=”Maps of proposed leases in migration corridor” button_url=”https://staging.wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Proposed-Leases-in-Migration-Corridor-two-maps.pdf” url_new_window=”on” /][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]