The Wyoming Outdoor Council asks for your help in telling Governor Mead that new dams, particularly two suggested on the Upper Green River, are not the answer to water security in Wyoming and should not be a part of the final Wyoming Water Strategy.

• Warren Bridge Dam Permitting would be an initiative to begin the permitting and planning stage for a large dam on the Upper Green River near the Warren Bridge. The structure would be capable of 50,000 to over 150,000 acre-feet of capacity.
• Green River Lakes Reservoir would be an initiative to begin the exploratory agreement and planning phase for a large dam and reservoir, likely in excess of 200,000 acre-feet in capacity, on the Upper Green River near or inside the National Forest Boundary.

The Outdoor Council believes more secure water supplies will come with proactive management decisions that stem from access to good information and lead to greater water conservation and resource protection. Construction of new dams does not fit within that framework.

New dams on the Upper Green would negatively impact fish and wildlife populations, destroy riparian areas, impede necessary fish passage, block a crucial wildlife migration corridor, and degrade the river downstream of them. Dams would additionally encroach upon valuable livestock grazing lands and popular hunting and fishing grounds.

Impacts to Wild and Scenic Qualities

The upper 41 miles of the Green River (from its source above Green River Lakes to the Forest boundary) have been determined by the Forest Service to have “outstandingly remarkable values” for designation as a Wild and Scenic River (USFS, Wild and Scenic River Eligibility Evaluation, Bridger-Teton National Forest). Building a dam near or above the Forest Boundary would degrade this quality.

Fisheries Habitat

Significant impacts would occur to fisheries habitat from flooded riparian areas, increased water temperatures, and decreased dissolved oxygen levels. Higher water temperatures pave the way for toxic events such as algal blooms, which further drive down dissolved oxygen levels as the organic matter decomposes, that ultimately result in “dead zones” where fish and other aquatic life cannot survive.

Migration Corridor

Especially notable, is that the river corridor of the Upper Green provides a regionally important migration route for wildlife, particularly for pronghorn that winter in the Upper Green River Basin and migrate north toward Jackson for the summertime (USFS, Wild and Scenic River Eligibility Evaluation, Bridger-Teton National Forest). The path that the pronghorn take along the Upper Green River travels through both suggested dam sights and is part of one of the longest large mammal migration corridors in North America. The section where the Green River Lakes Reservoir would be located is known as “the funnel” of the migration corridor. This is where a narrow water gap was created by the Green River and where pronghorn numbering in the hundreds must travel each spring in order to make their way further north. Damming this area would impose yet another obstacle, a likely impassible one, for a vital migration route already threatened by oil and gas development further south in the Upper Green River Basin. If this happens, pronghorn will likely disappear from valuable places such as the scenic Grand Teton National Park (“Pronghorn Migration on The Path of the Pronghorn,” Wildlife Conservation Society).

Downstream Impacts

Additionally, downstream from either of these suggested dams, the Green River itself as well as other existing dams would continue to see impacts.  Dams are finite structures and cannot function in perpetuity. As the river velocity decreases approaching a dam, sediment and debris naturally carried by the river are dropped resulting in siltation at the mouth of the reservoir. Siltation is an inevitable occurrence and will eventually fill the reservoirs behind the dam. Siltation can happen more quickly in areas with more debris and sand for the river to carry, further decreasing the lifespan of a dam.

When debris is trapped behind a dam, siltation is not the only problem. Riverbeds downstream become stripped of the organic materials that would normally flow into and through them. Trapped debris can no longer create wildlife and water insect habitat in the river corridor nor enrich soils along the riverbank. With fewer structural materials such as logs and rocks to slow the river in places, a stripped stream bed results in enhanced erosion of the downstream river channel. In turn, unnaturally high erosion can result in excessive sediment loads traveling downstream to be stopped behind the next dam and contributing to siltation there. As you can see, the impacts of dams are increased not just to rivers, but other infrastructure too as more dams are placed along a river channel.

Significant impacts to fish and wildlife and further degradation of the already imperiled larger Colorado River Basin are not the solutions to our water concerns. In fact, they will likely only exacerbate them. Please help us deliver this message by August 4th, 2014 and ask Governor Mead not to pursue dams on the Upper Green River.

For questions please contact Amber Wilson, Environmental Quality Coordinator at amber@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org or 307-332-7031 (ext. 20)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 26, 2014

Media Contacts:
Julia Stuble, Wyoming Outdoor Council, 307-332-7031 x11, julia@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org
Scott Kane, Lander resident, Owner, Creative Energies, 307-349-4052, scott@CEsolar.com

BLM Issues Balanced Plan for the Wind River Basin

LANDER — The Bureau of Land Management issued its new long-term land-use plan for the Lander Valley and Wind River Basin on June 26 — and the Wyoming Outdoor Council believes it is one of the most balanced plans yet created in Wyoming.

The new land-use plan will guide management of 2.4 million acres of federal surface and 2.8 million acres of federal mineral estate for the next 15 to 20 years.

The plan encompasses the Sweetwater Watershed — which contains some of the last intact sections of the Oregon, Mormon, and California National Historic Trails — as well as the Upper Wind River Valley, which is popular for recreation and is one of nation’s richest wildlife areas.

“This vast expanse of land is home to a varied and complicated mix of important resources, including extraordinary wildlife values, wide open viewsheds, valuable cultural landscapes, wild spaces, and extractable energy resources,” said Julia Stuble with the Wyoming Outdoor Council. “The BLM has worked extraordinarily hard and has collaborated with a broad range of stakeholders to find an appropriate balance between use and protection of these resources.”

There is national attention on this plan because the lands in question are home to significant numbers of Greater sage-grouse, a species that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service considers a candidate for Endangered Species Act protections.

“We have to remember that this plan is just one piece of a very large puzzle when it comes to conserving sage-grouse,” Stuble said. “Other field offices in Wyoming—and, perhaps more importantly, other states—will have to step up in strong and creative ways if we are going to avoid an endangered species listing for sage-grouse. There is a lot of work to be done to ensure that, range wide, sage-grouse populations remain viable and healthy.”

Stuble said that in this landscape, many of the important values overlap, and protecting one or more of these values has the effect of protecting others, including sage-grouse.

“We’re lucky in this case, for example, that by preserving the national historic trails corridor, we’re also protecting some of the best sage-grouse habitat in the planning area,” Stuble said. “In other plans and in other states, land managers will almost certainly have to focus more specifically on sage-grouse conservation.”

And it’s important to remember that this is just a framework for management, Stuble said. Its success will only be as good as its implementation.

Scott Kane is the owner of Creative Energies in Lander, a distributed renewable energy firm.

“Outdoor recreation, hunting and the beauty of the landscape are important to the local economy and our quality of life here,” Kane said. “Those are really the big reasons why a lot of us choose to live and work here—and definitely why tourists come to visit. This plan is good because it looks out for those values, which bodes well for the future.”

The plan is a testament to the fact that economic vitality and environmental responsibility can coexist, Kane said.

Notably, this new plan also includes the first application of a “master leasing plan,” this one for the remarkable Beaver Rim area. These landscape-scale analyses—as opposed to the more traditional piecemeal approach—allow for a holistic vision for where leasing is appropriate and where it is not.

“By protecting our public lands and encouraging responsible energy development, we only strengthen local economies,” Kane said.

In addition to the Sweetwater Watershed, decisions in the new plan will affect public lands on the Lander Front of the Wind River Range, lands in the Dubois area, the Bridger Mountains, the Gas Hills, Beaver Rim, and the northern edge of the Great Divide Basin.

The plan outlines the agency’s big-picture approach to managing historic trails, scenic values, wildlife habitats, hunting, tourism, and a variety of outdoor recreation opportunities. It also provides a blueprint for activities such as livestock grazing and minerals development.

Some highlights from the plan include:

• Protection for crucial wildlife habitats and important recreation areas surrounding Dubois—all of the federal oil and gas estate in this area is now unavailable for oil and gas leasing.
• More than 1 million acres across the field office are now protected from surface use for oil and gas development.
• Protection for the Red Canyon and Lander Slope—this landscape is now closed to mineral prospecting and claims, closed to phosphate leasing, and designated as “no surface occupancy” for oil and gas development.
• Industry received a designated development area for streamlined oil and gas development in the Lysite and Moneta area.
• Industrial development is now precluded on the surface of nearly a half million acres of the Sweetwater Watershed to protect the historical setting of the National Historic Trails.
• A master leasing plan for the Beaver Rim area, which protects wildlife habitat while allowing responsible oil and gas development.
• Protections for sage-grouse, crucial winter range, and historical values in the Atlantic City-Hudson area.
• Well-placed rights-of-way for above ground transmission and pipeline corridors that will facilitate enhanced oil recovery projects in other parts of Wyoming.
• Important viewshed protections for the public lands in the Bridger Mountains.

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Submit your best Wyoming Photos for inclusion in the Wyoming Outdoor Council’s 2015 calendar!

Submission deadline is Friday, September 19, 2014

This year’s theme: My Wyoming

Do you have great shots of your Wyoming—your favorite places to go, see wildlife, hunt, fish, float, spend time alone or with friends and family? If so, get them published in the Wyoming Outdoor Council’s 2015 calendar.

Previous calendars have included photographs by some of Wyoming’s best professional photographers, as well as some of its most gifted amateur shooters.

Here are some great shots from our 2014 calendar, “Celebrating the Red Desert:”

(Click any of the images for a larger gallery).

[envira-gallery id="7763"]
[envira-gallery slug="sample-2014-calendar-images"]

Photo credits from top to bottom are: Dave Showalter, Scott Copeland Images, Scott Copeland Images, Rick Allen, Scott Copeland Images, and Gary Wilmot.

Contest Rules

• Photographs must be taken in Wyoming and can include landscapes, lifestyles, wildlife, and people.
• All photos must be submitted in digital form by email or online file sharing tool, mailed on a CD or DVD, or hand delivered on a CD, DVD, or flash drive.
• Photos can only be published if available in a high-quality, relatively high-resolution, digital format.
• Please include your name, address, city, state, zip code, daytime phone number, email address, and description of your photo including where the photo was taken.

Intellectual Property:  Your entry to the contest constitutes your agreement to allow your entered photographs, as well as your name and the place the photograph was taken, to be published in the Wyoming Outdoor Council’s 2015 calendar and on the Wyoming Outdoor Council’s website to promote the annual photo contest. Photograph entries constitute permission to use the images in this manner with credit to the photographer without monetary compensation. Entrants retain ownership and all other rights to future use of the photographs they enter. Use of the entered photos in any other fashion or in any other publications will only occur with permission from the entrant.

TO SUBMIT PHOTOS, PLEASE EMAIL OR MAIL TO CHRIS MERRILL:

chris@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org

Wyoming Outdoor Council

262 Lincoln Street

Lander, WY 82520