Keeping public lands in public hands

The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.

~John Muir

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Growing up, it is safe to say that I was a little averse to the outdoors. I was more content to be inside either playing video games or tying up my parents’ phone line browsing the internet. I was not the biggest fan of hunting or fishing and I rarely, if ever, went on a hike. In high school, the only reason I was excited for the Snowy Range to open was because it made it quicker to get to Laramie.

That considered, it was likely a surprise to many that I married my wife, Telitha. What could a geek who prefers the digital world have in common with a barrel racer who savored the outdoors? Muppets and zombies for starters, but that’s a column for another time. The longer Telitha and I are together, and the older Jareth gets, the more I have begun to realize that I really missed out on what our Valley has to offer!

Despite living here for as long as I have, I had never been to the Indian Bathtubs outside Riverside until just a few years ago. It’s now one of my favorite places to go because it offers an amazing view of Encampment and the rock formations are absolutely breathtaking. Jareth absolutely loves it as well as it gives him a chance to run around like a mountain goat and give both myself and Telitha heart attacks.

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Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.

~John Muir

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The weekend of March 24, I took my first hike along the Encampment River Trail starting from Oddfellow’s Park just outside Encampment along with family and friends. We have decided that, weather permitting, we will spend every Saturday taking a hike in areas that are currently accessible. It also tends to work out for me in weight training as I spend at least half the hike with Jareth on my shoulders.

Walking along the trail I found myself absolutely amazed by the beauty that I had been missing out on for so long. I didn’t take nearly as many photos as I would have hoped. I found myself stopping often to look at the vibrant patches of lichen as they soaked up the water from the melting snow or getting a close look at drops of water hanging onto the edges of leaves before descending to the ground.

As spring progresses and leads into summer, I am looking forward to being able to access more trails. The last trail I remember hiking was Green Mountain Falls and that was nearly six years ago. I should have asked to go with my friends, Tom and Sheila, on their hikes when they still lived in the area.

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Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity.

~John Muir

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Wyoming is truly a beautiful place. My father once told me that Wyoming has everything you could possibly need: amazing mountain ranges, seemingly infinite plains, beautiful deserts, lush forests and serene lakes. He is not wrong and I am grateful that we have these public lands available to us so that we can take time out of our busy lives to reconnect with nature. I hope that this natural beauty is still around for my son, and any other children I may have, as well as any grandchildren that may come.

I currently have my doubts, however, that this will be possible. In 1920, congress passed the Mineral Leasing Act which gave the Department of the Interior (DOI) the authority to lease public lands for the development of resources like coal, petroleum and natural gas. According to the The Hill, a political newspaper and website, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced in February that they had brought in nearly $360 million for the federal government through these leases.

President Trump announced in December 2017 that he was reducing the acreage previously set aside for two national monuments in the state of Utah. According to National Geographic, Bears Ears National Monument was reduced from 1.35 million acres to just over two thousand acres—a reduction of 85 percent—and split into two separate monuments. Grand Staircase/Escalante, which was originally 1.88 million acres, was reduced by 46 percent to slightly more than one million acres spread across three locations.

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We have become great because of the lavish use of our resources. But the time has come to inquire seriously what will happen when our forests are gone, when the coal, the iron, the oil, and the gas are exhausted, when the soils have still further impoverished and washed into the streams, polluting the rivers, denuding the fields and obstructing navigation.

~ President Theodore Roosevelt

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Along with the President’s reduction of these two national monuments, there is also Ryan Zinke, the Secretary of the Interior, and his proposed “Public Land Infrastructure Fund.” Under this plan, revenue raised from the leasing of public lands would be used towards deferred maintenance on infrastructure within national parks.

Zinke is confident that he can generate up to $18 billion using this fund, though others are doubtful especially considering that the only time the DOI was able to generate that number was in 2008 when the price of oil was $140 a barrel, but is now $65 a barrel.

That may very well mean more and more public lands are placed on the auction block for energy developers if Zinke hopes to reach that revenue goal. If we are opening up public lands to energy developers for the improvement of infrastructure, what’s the point? What are we preserving for future generations?

Will the DOI lease out sections of the Encampment River Trail, Indian Bathtubs or other nearby public lands to energy developers? It’s improbable, but not impossible. Especially as we strive to break our “dependence on foreign oil.”

We choose to live out here because we enjoy the beauty of nature. Many of us may not get the chance to venture into the forests and along the rivers, but we do enjoy the scenic views as we travel along the highway from one destination to another. I would like to see these places preserved and I’m sure you would, too. So, what can we do?

For starters, we need to be vigilant about how our representatives are, well, representing us on the state and national level. Any attempt to lease public lands or privatize them should be scrutinized very carefully because those lands belong to the public.

Finally, make sure your voice is heard by our representatives whether it’s a phone call, a fax, a letter or an email. At the end of the day, they work for us and public lands are the public’s property.

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What a country chooses to save is what a country chooses to say about itself.

~ Mollie Beattie,

Director, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

 

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