Great Divide’s Future Now Up to the BLM
Public Comment Period Closes After Outpouring of Heartfelt Support for Conservation
by Molly Absolon
 Out in the Great Divide Country, winter is beginning to loosen its grip on the landscape. Snowdrifts, left by the howling winds and blowing snows, lie like splashes of white paint on the brown palette of early spring. There aren’t many people out and about at this time of year; it is too easy to get stuck in the mud or in an unexpected late-season blizzard. If you do venture out, you feel a sense of great peace and solitude. It’s hard to imagine the furor that the future of this country has generated over the past winter.
The Bureau of Land Management’s Rawlins Resource Management Plan for the Great Divide country was released on December 17 and the public was given 90 days, or until March 18, to comment. As expected, the plan fell far short of what concerned citizens and conservationists had hoped for. So the Wyoming Outdoor Council and its allies—Friends of the Red Desert, Biodiversity Conservation Alliance and others—have spent this past winter in a flurry of activity designed to pressure the BLM into reconsidering its position and opting for more conservation.
“Realistically, we knew the plan would favor oil and gas development,” says Tova Woyciechowicz, the Wyoming Outdoor Council’s outreach coordinator, who has been traveling across southern Wyoming meeting with citizens, elected officials and civic groups to generate support for conservation.
“But you always hope. Well, our hopes were dashed,” she says. “The plan is not balanced. If the BLM goes forward with it, we’ll lose some incredible landscape, some critical wildlife habitat, some amazing places to hunt, some important sacred sites, and some special recreation areas to industrialization. My desire to make sure that doesn’t happen is driving me.”
Woyciechowicz has been working nonstop to gain public support for conservation in the Great Divide, and to promote the Western Heritage Alternative, which was written by concerned Wyoming citizens as a balanced alternative to the BLM’s call for development. The Western Heritage Alternative proposes using improved technology to minimize the consequences of oil and gas development. These techniques include, among other things, directional drilling to reduce surface disturbance and to minimize truck traffic between wells, and regulations against well flaring to reduce emissions. The alternative also calls for working with the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone tribes to ensure their concerns about cultural sites and sacred places are respected. And it asks for protection of important wildlife habitat and wilderness-quality lands.
Community support for the Western Heritage Alternative is growing. At the public hearings, which were held in early February, 70 of a total of 82 speakers who testified said they wanted to see more conservation. Forty-six of those 70 specifically called for the BLM to adopt the Western Heritage Alternative.
The testimony at these hearings was passionate and heartfelt. Ranchers, hunters, recreationists, conservationists, and members of both the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone Tribes came from across southern and central Wyoming to push the BLM to reconsider its position.
Said Derrick Meeks, a sophomore at Wyoming Indian High School and an enrolled member of the Northern Arapaho Tribe, “The Red Desert has places where our people go to get medicine and pray. There are places out there like a pharmacy, a hospital, even a church. It wouldn’t be wise to go into a drug store and destroy medicines that will help people. It wouldn’t be right to go into a hospital or church being loud or disrespectful…”
While Harold Schultz, from Riverton, said, “I killed my first elk here. Don’t sacrifice these values on the altar of corporate greed. Protect—protect vigorously—critical wildlife habitat from accelerated and overblown development.”
In addition to promoting testimony, the Wyoming Outdoor Council worked with Friends of the Red Desert to provide expert comments on the management plan, specifically on the issues of air quality, big game, sage grouse and water. We’ve worked with civic groups and local governments to educate the public and elected officials. The Wyoming Association of Churches also has come out publicly in support of the West Heritage Alternative.
The books were shut on March 18. A week before the closure, the BLM had already received 10,000 comments. Now we wait while the BLM incorporates these comments into the Resource Management Plan and comes up with a final version.
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