November 21, 2023 |
Photo – BLM High Desert District Rock Springs Field Office- Bigfoot99 file photo
With ideas on wind energy to minimal government, Sweetwater County residents last Friday helped devise lists on how the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) should revise its controversial draft Rock Springs Resource Management Plan (RMP).
The workshops were conducted in Rock Springs by representatives from University of Wyoming’s Ruckelshaus Institute at Western Wyoming Community College. Attendees split up into different groups to analyze how the land should be managed.
The Ruckelshaus Institute collected feedback from the public who attended the afternoon event. The organization will now collate the responses and deliver them to the governor’s appointed Rock Springs RMP Task Force.
The Rock Springs Rocket Miner reported that State Representative Joshua “JT” Larson, House District 17, said, “The goal of the task force is to find a Wyoming solution that is palatable for the people who live, work and play in Sweetwater County.”
Both, ranchers and trona miners, expressed concerns that the BLM is aiming to enact strict controls that would put a strain on the economy of Sweetwater County and the livelihoods of residents.
State Representative Clark Stith, House District 48, said that if a plan from the 1990s is going to be changed, it should be based on actual data and science.
The BLM released the RMP in August. After being slammed with an intense and overwhelmingly negative response from members of the public as well as state lawmakers, the federal land agency extended the public comment period to January 17. The environmental Impact Statement covers 3.6 million acres of public lands and 3.7 million acres of Federal mineral estate in portions of Lincoln, Sweetwater, Uinta, Sublette and Fremont counties in southwest Wyoming.
