Locals Helped Hammer Out a Plan for Responsible Energy Development on Public Lands in Colorado

November 13, 2017

The process checks a couple of boxes for decision-makers who want less top-down policy-making and fewer hurdles for development, but the future of the plan is uncertain

Park County is a small, rural Colorado county that finds its identity in the outdoors. Ranching, hunting, fishing, camping, and a rural way of life bring people to live and work in South Park. Home to world-class fishing waters, including several miles of the South Platte River’s Gold Medal “dream stream,” South Park attracts anglers from all over the country. The 1,000-square mile South Park valley also provides phenomenal habitat for elk, mule deer, pronghorns, bighorn sheep, and many other game animals. State and BLM land in the Reinecker Ridge area supports more than 1,000 wintering elk from three different herds. These elk attract thousands of hunters to Colorado, boosting the outdoor recreation economy that generated more than $17.7 million in economic activity from hunting and fishing in 2007, and supported 207 jobs in Park County alone.

It’s no wonder that the local community cares about how this land is managed.

There’s a good chance that over the next 20 years Park County will be targeted by the oil and gas industry for development. This is why the community—including sportsmen, small businesses, agricultural producers, and other local stakeholders—has been heavily involved in the BLM’s planning process for the last seven years. We want to find a balance between a complete shutdown of extractive industries and irresponsible oil and gas drilling, which some worry will lead to long-term litigation and significant deterioration of big game habitat, greatly hampering our hunting opportunities. Surely, we can continue forward with this responsible and balanced approach that will serve the community and our fish and wildlife resources.

See It to Believe It

Last week, I led a field tour of the area for Senator Gardner’s staff, and I was joined by two of the three Park County commissioners, the CPW Area Wildlife Manager, a local cattle rancher, and representatives from the Colorado Wildlife Federation, Trout Unlimited, and the National Wildlife Federation. As locals, we wanted to showcase all of the land’s many benefits. As stakeholders who have been engaged in the BLM planning process since day one, we wanted to make clear that we wouldn’t be happy to see all our efforts come to nothing.

The South Park plan could be a model to follow, with a coalition of the willing coming together, regardless of ideology, to hammer out a plan that will allow for extraction of the oil and gas we all depend on without jeopardizing the traditional use of the land that makes South Park the community that it is. Compromises on things like phased development, when and where to apply seasonal closures for big game, and using science to determine proper mitigation and restoration techniques are already in place. Landowner, cattle rancher, and local advocate for the plan, Terry O’Neill stated “I often hear from Park County residents how deeply appreciative of these efforts they are.” Now, it is time for our representatives to stand up and show support for this locally vetted plan as it moves up the chain to decision-makers in D.C.

Field tour participants pictured on location at the James Mark Jones State Wildlife Area. From left to right: Lew Carpenter, National Wildlife Federation; Tyler Baskfield, Trout Unlimited; Samantha Gunther, Senator Corey Gardner’s office; Mark Lamb, Colorado Parks and Wildlife; Mark Dowaliby, Park County; Terry O’Neill, Park County resident. Cover photo of the author fishing on the South Platte River in the Charlie Meyers State Wildlife Area by Amber Hooper.

If the current administration has been vocal about anything, it’s the need for local stakeholders to be involved in shaping the policies that affect them and their livelihoods. This planning process in South Park is a textbook example of that. Our decision-makers are also committed to streamlining development, and having local support up front is a great way to give certainty to industry, too—as long as they’re willing to come to the table.

We’re hopeful that the vision and management direction decided on by South Park’s stakeholders moves forward as intended, and potentially serves as a great example for how to get things done elsewhere. This is an open call to decision-makers across the country to step up and do what’s right for America through comprehensive, responsible, and locally-driven energy development planning. As sportsmen and women, we’re counting on your leadership and commitment to solutions that make sense for the long-term health of our economy, public lands, and hunting and fishing traditions.

2 Responses to “Locals Helped Hammer Out a Plan for Responsible Energy Development on Public Lands in Colorado”

Mark November 20, 2017

Park County is “the back forty” for Denver metro and CO Springs metro areas. It is a residential suburb of Breckenridge/Summit County. It consists of the endless flats of South Park @ 9K elev., fringed by high country including 2 Wilderness Areas. It’s principal export is water, bound for Denver. There is very little agricultural irrigation in Park County. Instead the waters of the South Platte basin are stored in 3 reservoirs, to be used by homes and businesses in the Denver area.

Which begs the first question to be asked of all extractive industry in the American West: Where will the water necessary to develop drilling come from? Colorado’s Eastern Slope of the Rockies’ water is so oversubscribed, massive tunnels and pumps bring water from the Western Slope, under the Continental Divide, to water golf courses and flush toilets in Denver, etc. That “stolen” west slope water would have gone to AZ and CA after making snow for ski areas and irrigating Grand Valley vineyards, Paonia fruit and Olathe sweet corn.

Park County government is more oriented toward multiple uses and recreation on public lands than many other rural CO counties. As such, it is well suited to incorporate the lessons learned from neighboring urban counties. I applaud the current commitments by county legislators; to collaborate. and to look decades into the future. Which bodes well for public land users in Park County.

November 20, 2017 at 9:14 pm

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Bob OConnor October 5, 2018

Estimates of three trillion cubic feet of gases are currently inventoried inside Park County. The republican party has embraced “President” Trump. Unless the Dems take back both houses of congress, there will be little for state and local governments to do (except lose decisions and money in federal courts) to stop drilling and pipelines.
About 40% of the gas in the Niobrara Frmn. Is CO2 and that may now be released at the wellhead. “Were will the water come from?” is one of the least of Park County’s problems.

October 5, 2018 at 10:28 pm

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by: Dani Dagan

posted in: Habitat and Clean Water

November 9, 2017

Farm Runoff and Why It Stinks for Sportsmen and Fish

Does it seem like you’re reading more and more headlines about algal blooms, dead zones, and water crises across our country? Here’s why

Water is always moving. The Lake Erie waters dripping off a just-landed walleye contain billions upon billions of molecules that traveled untold miles over time, picking up all kinds of chemical hitchhikers, which include nutrients—nitrogen and phosphorus—from farm fertilizer. The word “nutrient” is often associated with positive effects on human health, but they can become dangerous pollutants in our watersheds.

In 2016, the Environmental Protection Agency released a memo renewing a single call to action: reduce nutrient pollution. Why? Because it “remains one of the greatest challenges to our nation’s water quality and presents a growing threat to public health and local economies.” In other words, nutrient pollution makes our water toxic to drink and costs communities millions of dollars to treat.

Nutrient pollution comes from many sources, including storm runoff from cities, but a lot of it drains into our water via poorly managed agricultural land. Nutrients in fertilizers make farms more productive, but when rain washes over those fields, nutrients can pollute entire watersheds. The Des Moines Water Works lawsuit, which was perhaps the biggest legal action on water quality in decades, specifically addressed pollution caused by nitrogen, one of the major components of fertilizer. The downstream impacts are bad for human health, sportfish, waterfowl, and even your Labrador retriever.

While the nutrients themselves can be toxic, the effects of added nitrogen and phosphorus can ripple out with devastating effects. Nutrient pollution leads to algal blooms, which decimate fish and wildlife populations not only near the agricultural lands where nutrients are sourced, but also downstream at some of the best freshwater fishing, saltwater fishing, and hunting spots—on both private and public lands and waters.

That’s why sportsmen and women should care deeply about this problem and work with landowners to support solutions.

What’s Feeding the Beast

Nutrients facilitate algae growth, just like fertilizer on a farm facilitates crop growth, and the algae need little else to survive. While there is typically more than enough light and water to keep algae reproducing, the presence, or lack, of nutrients in water is the limiting factor keeping algae populations in check. Reduce nutrients and growth stops. Add them, and growth explodes uninhibited.

The critters that we love—fish, ducks, and more—thrive in conditions with low levels of algae. When we add fertilizer to the equation, everything gets out of whack, and resulting algal blooms become a big, big problem. Here’s why:

How nutrient pollution impacts fish and waterfowl. Up arrows indicate an increase in amount or population, and down arrows indicate a decrease.

First, and most simply, some types of algae are toxic if consumed by fish, wildlife, and humans. When these toxic algae bloom, they can create dire scenarios for public health. This has led to states of emergency in cities and towns across the country, including parts of Florida, the Great Lakes, and Utah. In 2014, half a million residents of Toledo, Ohio, were banned from drinking the city’s water, or using it to cook or brush their teeth, for three days. Similarly, algal blooms are also toxic for fish, wildlife, and pets (including your bird dog) and can cause massive die-offs.

Second, algal blooms lead to a depletion of oxygen. As algae dies it decomposes, and the business of decomposition requires a lot of oxygen. All that oxygen consumption leads to hypoxia, the absence of dissolved oxygen in water, which causes sportfish such as trout and salmon to literally suffocate. This is what’s happening in the Gulf of Mexico and Chesapeake Bay dead zones.

Third, mats of algae block sunlight from entering the water, harming aquatic plants by limiting their ability to convert sunlight into energy. This causes vegetation to disappear from wetland and coastal areas, removing an important food source for fish and waterfowl and a source of oxygen that is urgently needed in water where algae are decomposing.

All of this is to say that when you read or hear about clean water initiatives, you should be as concerned as you would about a threat to your public access, because toxic water means losing opportunities to hunt and fish. And when you think about conservation, remember that watersheds often start on private lands and that landowner conservation practices—like restoring wetlands, maintaining stream buffers, and planting cover crops—are critical to maintaining healthy fish and wildlife habitat.

Farm Bill Solutions

The Farm Bill supports some of the most successful programs for improving water quality and reducing harmful nutrient runoff from private lands. For example, the Regional Conservation Partnership Program was introduced in the 2014 Farm Bill partly to allow landowners to partner with organizations to improve soil, water, and wildlife habitat conditions. Click here to learn more about the farm bill conservation programs that help landowners improve water quality downstream.

This was originally posted October 12, 2016, and has been updated.

by: Kristyn Brady

posted in: Habitat and Clean Water

November 7, 2017

Lindsey Elliott Wants Everyone to Tell More Complex, Emotional Hunting Stories

Part Two in our series of conversations with women who are helping to shine a spotlight on habitat, access, and funding issues that impact hunting and fishing

Perhaps one of the best things to come out of recent threats to public lands has been a new kind of alliance between hunters, anglers, and other people who enjoy the outdoors, like skiers, hikers, bikers, climbers, and paddlers. Lindsey Elliott considers herself originally from this second group, but as an enthusiastic newcomer to hunting—she went on her first big game hunt last year—she’s become a very willing ambassador for our sports, especially with devotees of her business Wylder Goods, a built-by-women-for-women outdoor gear retailer she co-founded with her friend Jainee Dial in April 2016.

We talked to Lindsey about how she got interested in hunting—it involves her collecting roadkill, more on that later—and why she believes in weaving conservation stories into the marketing of a business that relies on the outdoors.

TRCP: We first got to know you at the Outdoor Retailer show this summer, where you were on a panel about hunting and public lands with our president and CEO Whit Fosburgh. He said you had a really unique journey to discovering your love of hunting—can you share it with us?

ELLIOTT: Yeah, I was sort of the token beginner hunter on that panel, which was great because it’s such an interesting time to be joining the hunting community—there’s this bipartisan wave of support for public lands, and meanwhile women are increasingly getting into hunting as the overall number of hunters is declining. It’s part of why I’m motivated to share my story.

I don’t come from a hook-and-bullet background. I mean, I fished as a kid and I’ve gotten into flyfishing as an adult, but I don’t have any family members who hunt. I’d really never fired a high-powered rifle until last year.

I used to work in environmental education, and we’d show the kids things like primitive skills and basic firemaking. One day I found a dead fox on the side of the road—it had this really beautiful coat and it wasn’t mangled or anything, so I had an expert help me use it for a skinning demonstration. She did about half the job and talked me through the rest, and it ended up being this really incredible experience for me where I sort of felt like I was out of my body watching my hands move as if they knew where to go. I realized it didn’t matter whether I thought I could or couldn’t do it—it was biologically engrained in me.

That sort of lit a spark, and for the next eight years or so I just wanted more and more experiences like that. I got a collection permit to use other critters to teach my students, whether it was about feather design or what scavengers eat. I learned how to tan hides (not very well, because it’s super hard), and I just became the person everyone called when they had dead animals! I was like the roadkill queen of my community, which was pretty funny.

Then I moved to Utah, and one of my friends here has been hunting for 25 years. His walls are covered in beautiful taxidermy mounts and skulls, and we’d eat these wonderful meals with wild game and I’d ask him about the stories behind all of it. He finally asked if I wanted to come along on a hunt and see for myself, so I got an apprentice hunter license.

I thought I’d just shadow him for the season, but then I got a tag and started training with a rifle, and since I wasn’t half bad it seemed like I could really go for it. Everything just kept lining up. By early fall, I’d spent about eight months reading a lot about hunting and sort of testing the conversation in my peer group, just exploring the idea. But now I really wanted to do this! I sincerely hoped I’d get the opportunity to shoot a deer—and I did.

It was a beautiful process, and one that I immediately felt aligned with. Since then, cooking that meat for friends has even deepened the spirituality of the experience. I was sure I’d know in an instant if hunting was going to be for me, and every part of my first hunt just confirmed that this is something I’m going to pursue for the rest of my life.

TRCP: You made a great point about this being a very big moment for public lands and maybe an opportunity for some non-traditional partnerships around conservation. But do you think that women who hunt are accepted by your customers who are adventure athletes? Is that a dated stereotype that there is mistrust between the two groups?

ELLIOTT: Coming from the climbing and biking side, I’ll say that it felt like a big risk a year ago to step out and start talking about hunting on the Wylder platform, because it can be such a divisive topic. But I have been so surprised at how interested outdoorswomen have been in my process and the stories that I’m sharing. Every time that I bring it up on social media, I get responses from a handful of women who say Thank you for sharing this, or I really want to get into this someday, or I just asked my dad if he would take me hunting for the first time. So, I do notice that there’s more genuine interest than I thought there was in a group where I was pretty concerned about broaching the conversation. That’s exciting.

TRCP: You created Wylder because you saw a need to better serve women interested in outdoor gear made for them. Do you think the industry is evolving, and where do you think other women have an opportunity to help make a change?

ELLIOTT: The hunting industry does seem to be turning a corner, even in the short amount of time I’ve been paying attention, especially with Sitka’s women’s line coming out and there being more of an accurate representation of women in hunting magazines and videos.

Where I’m personally motivated is changing the style of storytelling, and I think that women should be a part of that: Let’s tell more complex, emotional stories about hunting, because there’s so much more to it than what a grip-and-grin photo shows you. You have this incredible moment of fear and anguish—I mean, I was buckling at the knees just watching from afar as my deer collapsed to the ground—and of course there’s a moment of relief that you finally got there, and you can eventually smile at some point for a photo. But I think a lot of that gets left out, and it could shift the public perception of what it means to be a hunter.

TRCP: Wylder is a certified B Corp, a for-profit company that uses the power of business as a force for good. Why is that important to you?

ELLIOTT: For us, it was part of the original conception of Wylder and really the only way we saw ourselves getting involved in business in the first place. We partner with four non-profits, donate two percent of our sales profit to them, and dedicate a quarter of our marketing to their calls to action and campaigns. Part of our goal is infusing learning and advocacy into the narrative of our online community so people feel less like visitors to wild places and more like part of the ecosystem. When I first learned about B Corps, it just struck me that we could start a business in a place where we are personally connected, where there’s a need in the market, and we can use it as the engine for driving attention toward the good work that we want to see happen in the world. It has been the biggest surprise in my career to end up doing what I’m doing.

Follow Lindsey at @lindenroams, @wyldergoods, and on the Wylder blog. If you know an amazing, inspiring sportswoman with a passion for conservation, tag us on social media and share her story. We’d love to feature more fierce females like this.

by: Rob Thornberry

posted in: Habitat and Clean Water

November 2, 2017

Could Restoration Work Revive Habitat and Job Prospects in the Rural West?

Outdoor writer and hunter’s hunter Hal Herring leads a planting crew in Idaho after a series of rangeland fires—the work will help restore wildlife habitat, but the job is a boost for locals

Hal Herring is planting sagebrush on a bluebird day in the Bennett Hills of south-central Idaho, and he is in high spirits. It is the first morning of a 10-day project to restore healthy sagebrush habitat on public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management.

The area was once critical winter range for more than 10,000 mule deer until a series of rangeland fires burned much of the habitat to ash. What once was chest-high sagebrush, bitterbrush, and native grasses is now a sea of invasive species, including cheatgrass, medusahead, and rush skeleton weed.

Herring is an awarding-winning writer for Field & Stream and High Country News and a contributor to national magazines such as The Atlantic and The Economist. He’s also a hunter’s hunter and a respected voice on public lands issues. Today, however, he is crew boss for 14 tree planters.

Arthur Martin swings a hoedad and plants an antelope bitterbrush seedling every 10 paces. It is back-breaking work that he completely enjoys.

The crew is on the ground to plant more than 100,000 seedlings as part of a cooperative effort between the BLM, Idaho Department of Fish and Game, Mule Deer Foundation, Idaho Department of Lands, and North American Grouse Partnership.

“We are trying to restore the carrying capacity of the land,” Herring says. “We are trying to give each sagebrush plant a chance to catch hold and spread seeds. It sets the stage for the area to return to sagebrush steppe, and sagebrush holds water better than invasive species. That gives the native grasses a chance to succeed, which is a benefit to wildlife and grazing livestock.”

Nearby, Herring’s crew is all smiles as they efficiently plant eight-inch sage seedlings. The process is physically demanding, yet it requires a deft touch, too. Using a hoedad—a hand-tool that’s a cousin of the more well-known Pulaski—each planter takes ten strides, scrapes away the tops of the invasive species and then drives the hoedad into the ground. If it sticks, there is enough soil to plant the seedling. If it bounces off the broken basalt flat, the planter moves to another spot and starts over.

The seedling must be planted perfectly straight up and down and without any air around the roots. If more than 50 percent of the seedlings take hold, the effort is a success. Rain or snow right after the planting is critical, but it takes several years to see the results.

There are other hunters on the crew. Some have worked almost year-round on restoration projects from seed gathering to planting. Others are graduate students, trail maintenance crew bosses, and backcountry rangers. They are drawn by good wages and the opportunity to work outdoors. Plus, they know they are making a difference.

“Deer food equals big bucks,” says Jeremy O’Day. “It’s a pretty simple equation.”

While returning the ground to a more productive state after the fires is the primary goal of the work, Herring believes it’s just as critical to highlight that restoration work creates jobs across the West. As huge fires become more repetitive, he believes restoration projects can help the wildlife and the economy.

“We all recognize that there is an enormous amount of restoration to be done,” he says. “This is an incredible opportunity to both reignite some rural Western economies and build ecological resilience for the future.”

Herring talks fast all the time, but he drops into fifth gear now to explain. He believes Western resentment of the federal government is fostered by a Congress that won’t give the federal land agencies enough money to adequately manage public lands. That fuels the feeling that nothing is getting done to benefit local economies.

He believes developing a West-wide restoration industry could break down the old argument that environmental regulations kill jobs, while providing habitat and graze for deer, elk, antelope, sage grouse, domestic sheep, and cattle.

“It is a myth that nothing gets done on federal ground, and restoration is the way of the future. It is something that helps everybody,” he says.

Danelle Nance, a natural resource specialist with the BLM, is the federal government’s point person on the sagebrush restoration in south-central Idaho. She says that roughly 125,000 acres burns each year of the 4 million acres the district office oversees. But partnerships with the Mule Deer Foundation, Idaho Fish and Game, National Grouse Partnership, Pheasants Forever, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and Idaho Department of Lands help to grow restoration efforts from thousands of acres to tens of thousands of acres.

“It is incredibly important to have these partnerships. They foster interest in local communities and take on a life of their own,” she says. “Success breeds success. And Hal is right—where restoration is needed across the West, it could be a model to follow.”

Herring enjoys plugging the idea of a restoration economy, but there is much work to be done. Planters stock their bags with seedlings and head off to the horizon, “dropping trees” every 10 yards.

“Can you picture it?” Herring says, pointing to the scorched soil. “In time, this will be a functioning winter range, which benefits everybody. I can see it.”

He sees mule deer enduring winter in chest-high sage. He sees healthy sage grouse populations. And he see a healthy economy in rural communities.

by: Ed Tamson

posted in: Habitat and Clean Water

October 26, 2017

An Everglades Restoration Project Could Help Florida Recover from Hurricane Irma

Moving water south from Lake Okeechobee into the Everglades has been a goal for decades, but securing funding for and breaking ground on the project could end up helping hurricane-ravaged South Florida recover just as much as the fish habitat

While parts of Florida are steadily recovering from the devastation of Hurricane Irma’s vicious winds and storm surge, rural communities like Everglades City and Chokoloskee—home to fishing guides, marina owners, and others who make a living from the popularity of sportfishing—have a tougher road ahead. For these towns to recover, become more resilient, and continue to welcome countless anglers, there are a number of immediate and long-term challenges to overcome.

Home and Habitat Damage

Initial damage assessments concluded that more than half the houses in Everglades City were destroyed and 95 percent of area businesses were closed. Running water and electricity wasn’t available for weeks, and area sewage treatment failed, with sewage backing up into the streets. While basic utilities have been restored in the last month, many of the areas where vacationing anglers would stay and the homes where locals and guides live are still in disrepair.

Wetlands and waterways suffered, as well. Storm surge brought saltwater deep into brackish and freshwater wetlands, and streams became clogged with debris, like tree branches, sunken boats, siding, and appliances. Sewage spilled into waterways, and samples of receding floodwaters one week after the hurricane indicated the presence of more human or animal waste than the test could quantify.

All of this illustrates the need for basic infrastructure improvements to ensure that the Everglades can remain a pristine and safe place to fish, even after the next hurricane.

Restoration Must Continue

Fortunately, many experts on the ecology of the Everglades believe the system will heal itself in time, boosted by ongoing efforts to move freshwater back into the area from Lake Okeechobee. But these projects must proceed into the engineering and construction phases without delay.

Moving clean water south from the lake will help alleviate the lingering effects of this year’s tropical storm season. Heavy rains from Irma and other storms have filled Lake Okeechobee to an unsafe level, potentially stressing the dike that surrounds the lake and protects local communities. Too much freshwater in coastal estuaries, a condition that caused crippling algae blooms in the summer of 2016, is hurting fall fishing for redfish, speckled trout, and snook.

This is why the TRCP and a host of other sportfishing and conservation groups are working with Congress to expedite construction on projects to restore and protect critical habitat for fish and wildlife in South Florida.

In a letter to Senate and House leaders on October 10, a dozen groups—including the TRCP, Everglades Foundation, Snook and Gamefish Foundation, B.A.S.S., Guy Harvey Ocean Foundation, and International Gamefish Association—asked for funding to complete a water control structure that is critical to allowing water to move into affected areas. We also requested their long-term commitment to funding other approved Everglades projects.

Our hearts go out to fellow anglers and all Floridians who are rebuilding after the storm. The angling community in South Florida and beyond has responded by raising thousands of dollars to help those affected. This will help in the short term, but the long-term health of the area’s economy will depend on anglers returning to hire guides, buy ice and tackle, stay in area hotels, and eat at local restaurants. It is worth investing in infrastructure and habitat improvements to make sure that happens.