I’ve been following BLM Director Bob Abbey’s earnest PR campaign to pacify conservatives on the subject of Secretarial Order 3310, the “Wild Lands Policy,” which was issued by interior Secretary Ken Salazar in December. The policy was immediately
attacked by Orrin Hatch and other Western politicians as an end-run by
the BLM around Congress (which alone has the power to designate
wilderness areas) and a capitulation to environmental groups.
Apocalyptic fears were raised about fragile local economies destroyed in
the wake of newly-forbidden energy production, grazing, off-road
tourism, etc. Fortunately, the specter of a power hungry bureau locking
away high swaths of rural land was quickly addressed by Abbey and
others, such as Heather Hansen in a January post in HCN‘s
“The Range” blog. They correctly note that any designation of “lands
with wilderness characteristics” will require public notification and
involvement, both at the designation stage and the land-use planning
stage. The BLM can’t simply act on its own, they note; they must consult
the public and act in accordance with existing laws and regulations,
including those set out by the National Environmental Protection Act of
1969 (NEPA).
So does the controversy end there? Will public involvement ensure
that the BLM administers its lands justly, considering human needs as
well those of non-human ecosystems?
One would hope, but for you and me
the process of contributing input is no simple matter. As I’ve written
here before,
NEPA-related documents such as environmental impact statements are
notoriously difficult for laypersons to read. This is not simply due to
their scientific jargon but to their thickets of abbreviations and
acronyms and precise but heavily nominalized and agent-less sentences.
Here’s one of my favorite examples from the BLM’s 2004 wind energy
impact statement (from the “Letter to the Reader,” which is supposed to
be one of the more accessible parts): “The purpose of the proposed plan
amendments is to facilitate preparation and consideration of potential
wind energy development ROW applications on BLM-administered lands, but
not to eliminate the need for site-specific analysis of individual
development proposals.” If you happen to think that that’s not too bad,
multiply it by hundreds of pages. Even the “Citizen’s Guide to NEPA”
concedes this readability problem; it recommends citizens “check with
local experts such as biologists or economists at a university to assist
with your review of [the document].You can also form study groups”
(23). Handy, right?
Regarding the Wild Lands Policy, there is not yet an EIS to struggle
through, and those that are produced will be accompanied by public
comment periods. Folks who support careful documentation and eventual
preservation of wild lands will get to have their say, as well as those
who prefer other uses for them. Still, Abbey’s assurances about this are
much more comforting than the language of Secretarial Order 3310
itself, which states in section 4 that “All BLM offices shall protect
these inventoried wilderness characteristics when undertaking land use
planning and when making project-level decisions by avoiding impairment
of such wilderness characteristics unless the BLM determines that
impairment of wilderness characteristics is appropriate and consistent
with applicable requirements of law and other resource management
considerations.” Got that? If not, it’s repeated with slightly altered
emphasis in section 5. The devil may be in the detail here; did you
catch what happens in between the designation stage and the subsequent
planning stage? The area with wilderness characteristics must be
“protected” by the BLM, and inappropriate “impairment” of the
characteristics must be avoided. Does this mean access will be denied or
previous uses suspended? How long will these intermediary “undertaking”
periods last? As usual, the dense, bureaucratic language obscures as
much as it reveals.
Essays in the Just West blog are not written by High Country News. The authors are solely responsible for the content.
Jackie Wheeler teaches writing and environmental rhetoric at
Arizona State University, where she is also the Associate Director of
Writing Programs. Outside academia, she’s an avid rafter, kayaker, and
horsewoman who also attempts to garden. When possible, she escapes the
Phoenix metro area for an undisclosed location in Southeastern Utah.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
