The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has released the final impact statement on the proposed management plan for the Rock Springs area in southwest Wyoming. The plan balances conservation with resource development, the agency said.
The two-volume final environmental impact statement (FEIS) blends all four alternatives initially proposed last year by BLM to update the Rock Springs Resource Management Plan (RMP) on the agency’s 3.6 million acres. The RMP had not been updated since 1997, and in August 2023, a draft impact statement was released proposing a range of either maintaining the status quo, emphasizing conservation with 1.6 million acres of areas of critical environmental concern (ACEC), or prioritizing energy and mineral development.
During the public comment period, BLM said it received over 35,000 comments, including those from a task force appointed by Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon (R) with several recommendations. The FEIS and proposed RMP incorporated the received feedback and made revisions from the initial draft. These include:
• The preferred alternative in the draft RMP proposed 16 ACEC designations spanning over 1.6 million acres. The proposed RMP reduces this to 12 ACEC designations, covering 936,193 acres. It designates the Little Mountain ACEC and establishes a Little Mountain Special Recreation Management Area. It also maintains existing ACECs in the Red Desert, expands the Steamboat ACEC and designates the South Wind River ACEC. BLM did not include ACEC designations for Cedar Canyon or Monument Valley.
• The draft EIS proposed a seasonal grazing restriction in designated parturition areas for big game to protect birthing elk and mule deer. However, the proposed management plan removes this restriction, permitting grazing in all special management areas. As a result, 2,515 acres out of approximately 3.6 million acres remain closed to grazing.
• Regarding energy and mineral development, the draft plan proposed to close 61% of acres to oil and gas development, but the proposed RMP reduces it to 30%. Coal leasing closures in the proposed management plan primarily focus on resource concerns, targeting areas such as the Sweetwater County Growth Management Area, the Little Mountain ACEC and the Superior and McKinnon groundwater recharge areas.
• In the draft EIS, the BLM suggested establishing and protecting a 10-mile-wide corridor for all National Historic and Scenic Trails, including those eligible for designation but not yet recognized. However, the proposed RMP now limits these corridor protections to only congressionally designated trails and permits certain developments within the corridors, provided that mitigation efforts can minimize impacts on the trails.
Mixed reactions
Lawmakers criticized the proposed plan, calling it a land grab and a failure to meet the goal of multiple uses on public land. Environmentalists said it’s a step in the right direction but doesn’t go far enough.
“The BLM’s recently announced Rock Springs Resource Management Plan is only the latest in a series of land grabs that punishes Wyoming and the entire West,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) said. “Locking up lands in southwestern Wyoming will deliver a seismic blow to Wyoming’s economy, devastating our communities and further emboldening unelected bureaucrats in Washington to prioritize political pandering over the economic and environmental stability of the region.”
Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) criticized the RMP, saying that it hinders responsible natural resource development and threatens Wyoming’s economy and way of life. He acknowledged the efforts of those in Wyoming who worked to improve the original proposal but argued that the final plan still imposes significant challenges to the state’s natural resource management.
“The Biden-Harris administration is pushing Wyoming off an economic cliff with nothing more than a tattered parachute,” Barrasso said.
In a statement, Gordon expressed disappointment that the FEIS fails to meet Wyoming’s expectations for multiple-use public land management.
“Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the FEIS for the proposed Rock Springs RMP does not meet Wyoming’s expectations of durable, multiple use of public lands,” Gordon said. “Much work is left to ensure the BLM is staying within the bounds of state and county policies, as well as federal law. Additionally, we await further information to see how this RMP overlaps with the announcement of the sage-grouse management plan amendment and BLM implementation of their recent Public Lands Rule.”
Gordon said his office would thoroughly review the proposed management plan, file a protest where the task force’s comments were ignored, and highlight decisions inconsistent with Wyoming law.
Julia Stuble, Wyoming state director for The Wilderness Society, said the plan balances meeting local infrastructure and energy needs while fulfilling the responsibility to preserve lands for future generations and safeguard Wyoming’s way of life. However, she noted there are still some concerns with the plan.
“The Rock Springs RMP doesn’t adequately protect stopover and highly used portions of big game migration corridors and we believe the Red Desert to Hoback corridor deserves greater recognition,” Stubble said. “While the plan would largely disallow oil and gas and mining in the Northern Red Desert and Big Sandy Foothills, the entirety of these landscapes should be off-limits. But overall, the plan represents a step toward more holistic and thoughtful management of these public lands.”
A 30-day protest period and the concurrent 60-day governor’s consistency review began on Aug. 23. — Charles Wallace, WLJ contributing editor
