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The Bureau of Land Management released its proposed final management plan for southwest Wyoming on Thursday. BLM's draft plan released last year led to intense opposition and misinformation, and Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon convened a task force to provide feedback to the agency.
The final plan released Thursday incorporates that feedback, along with 30,000 public comments submitted to BLM. The management plan enhances public access for hunting, fishing, and recreation, while allowing oil and gas drilling, energy transmission lines, and trona mining on more than 70 percent of the acres covered by the management plan. It also designates nearly one million acres as areas of critical environmental concern (ACECs), as required by federal law. The plan does not close any roads or trails to off-highway vehicles.
Areas where BLM specifically honored the wishes of local citizens and stakeholders include Greater Little Mountain, where BLM is proposing to limit oil and gas development and other industrial activities to provide access for hunting and fishing and conserve key fish and wildlife values.
Despite this, Governor Gordon immediately complained that the plan “does not meet Wyoming’s expectations of durable, multiple use of public lands,” and pledged to file a protest before the management plan is finalized.
Wyoming conservation groups, by contrast, were cautiously supportive. The Wyoming Outdoor Council and The Wilderness Society praised the plan overall, but raised concerns about protection for big game species and migration corridors.
Center for Western Priorities Policy Director Rachael Hamby told WyoFile that “this is what responsible planning looks like. In any situation where the BLM or any management agency is trying to balance so many different uses and resources and values, no one’s going to get everything that they want.”
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Tribal elders have died in this process of bringing our Bahsahwahbee campaign to the Administration. Our Tribal leaders and membership put everything they had into it. If our calls continue to go unanswered, what are we to make of this Administration that would abandon 3 Tribal nations who simply wanted a nationally significant place of serial massacres and religious gathering to be preserved and commemorated?”
