Representative has concerns about Red Desert RMP

As goes the Red Desert, so goes the rest of the country.

This is the concern of Representative Bob Davis (R - Baggs) of House District 47. Davis’ district, while encompassing most of Carbon County, also includes portions of Sweetwater County which is included in the Red Desert. Since it was released in August of this year, the draft resource management plan from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for the Red Desert has been the center of controversy and debate.

Conservation groups have praised the plan. The Muley Fanatics Foundation said “the draft honors years of hard work by the citizens and elected officials of southwestern Wyoming and would protect the most sensitive fish and wildlife habitat within the Greater Little Mountain Area. Others—such as Governor Mark Gordon—have criticized it as “insincere and impractical.” Davis is another elected official critical of the draft resource management plan.

“The BLM, according to their mission from Congress, is supposed to manage the public lands for a variety of uses such as energy development, livestock grazing, recreation, timber harvest and ensuring the natural, cultural and historical resources are maintained for the present and future use,” said Davis. “They’re to do this by maximizing the opportunities for commercial, recreational and conservation activities.”

More than a decade in the process, the draft would replace the current resource management plan which was effective in 1997. Meanwhile, the work on the draft plan has been ongoing since 2011. The plan would decide the fate of 3.6 million acres of federal land across multiple counties as the Red Desert includes portions of Lincoln, Sweetwater, Uinta, Sublette and Fremont counties. Included in the plan are four alternatives ranging from no action to more restrictive actions.

• Alternative A is the “no action” alternative, a continuation of the existing 1997 Green River Resource Management Plan.
• Alternative B is the “agency preferred alternative” and emphasizes resource conservation with constraints placed on resource uses.
• Alternative C emphasizes resource use and proposes the least restrictive actions for both energy and commodity development.
• Alternative D is a little bit of B and C, less restrictive than Alternative B with a greater focus on conservation than Alternative C.

“When they were developing that plan according to what has been testified before different committees in the state of Wyoming, they spent about 40 hours on Alternative B and then they spent six years on Alternative D. When the (Biden) administration came out with its preferred alternative, they went with B, the one that was most restrictive and least visited,” said Davis. “To me, that just doesn’t make any sense.”

Included in the restrictions which would be enacted under Alternative B includes the reduction of 7,600 animal unit months in agricultural grazing leases in the Red Desert. According to an article from WyoFile (“Misinformation, hysteria dominate response to BLMs plan for SW Wyoming,” September 28, 2023) approximately 8,576 acres of 3.6 million—or 0.2%—would be unavailable for grazing livestock. Most of the acreage which would be removed from livestock grazing are located within the Red Creek Badlands and the grazing permittee that hold the allotment for Red Creek hasn’t run livestock voluntarily in the area for nearly 30 years reported WyoFile.

This, said Davis, is an example of BLM needing to trust the “boots on the ground” when it comes to conservation and preservation.

“Your stewards of the ground are your people out there on the ground. These are the ranchers scratching a living off the ground out there and they see what’s going on. They know when there’s issues. Most of your ranchers, as far as their AUM (Animal Unit Months), reduce their herds by sometimes up to 50%, so they were taking action in order to preserve that resource without the BLM telling them,” said Davis. “They’re using the common sense approach and I think that’s what we need to look at. Do we need someone to tell us what we already know?”

In addition to grazing concerns, other concerns about the draft resource management plan center around the amount of road closures included within Alternative B, the BLMs preferred option. A handout from the Rock Springs BLM Field Office provided by Davis to the Saratoga Sun reads that approximately 4,500 miles of routes would be closed to all use and more than 10,000 miles would be removed from the transportation network and allowed to return to the natural condition. According to the same article from WyoFile, BLM said those figures were included in error.

For Davis, the road closures present two major concerns with one being the term “natural condition.”

“It needs to be defined, and by whom is the question, what the natural state of the land is. Just like what we’re currently going through with climate change or global warming,” said Davis. “We’ve only been around for a little bit as human beings. What are we looking at as far as their definition of a natural state? Is that no water development? No grazing, which precludes wildland fires?”

The other concern, Davis said, is the limits such road closures would place on recreational uses in the Red Desert.

“More than 4.1 million people went through Yellowstone this year to see what Wyoming has to offer,” said Davis. “With this particular alternative, we’re removing the ability to see and experience the Red Desert.”

While the draft resource management plan originally had a comment deadline of November 17, the BLM recently extended the deadline for another 60 days, pushing it back to January 17, 2024. For Davis, this is a step in the right direction.

“It helps,” said Davis. “It gives us a chance to look at these alternatives and the direction this RMP wants to take.”

Despite the extended deadline, Davis still has strong feelings about the BLM’s preference for Alternative B. The representative believes going with the most restrictive alternative is a “slap in the face” of the other agencies which participate with the BLM in other conservation and resource management plans in Wyoming.

“You can look around Carbon County and there’s not many of us businesses or people in Carbon County that don’t have an interaction with the federal grounds here,” said Davis. “I think, collaboratively, we can come up with the right direction for the state of Wyoming to go. There’s wiggle room in Alternative D to address these concerns.”

Davis said while he may be holding out hope that BLM and the Biden Administration might reconsider their stance, he isn’t holding his breath.

“Until we see what the final draft is and the record of decision, there’s so many unanswered questions,” said Davis. “Is this the blueprint for what is to come forth in our lives? That’s the big question.”