BLM set to open Colorado plateau to gas drilling despite broad opposition
Bureau of Land Management
Posted inNovember 26, 2007: Beetle Warfare
Betting on the house
In Las Vegas, the BLM puts cheap land on the table for affordable housing
Posted inArticles
Public lands precedent?
Recently, the Utah Bureau of Land Management cancelled an oil and gas lease sale, citing the need to further study the impact of drilling on wildlife habitat. Conservationists think the cancellation – the first in over 25 years – sets a national precedent for protecting wildlife habitat from energy leasing. But the BLM disagrees and […]
Posted inArticles
Free range
Livestock foraging on 160 million acres of public lands could roam more freely than ever, thanks to a recent policy change at the Bureau of Land Management. On Aug. 14, the BLM granted eight new “categorical exclusions,” designed to speed up the approval process for a slew of activities on public lands, including grazing, logging, […]
Posted inArticles
A dustup over weed control
They race across the West covering 2,300 acres each day, devouring an area the size of twenty Wal-Mart superstores every minute. They reduce habitat for wildlife, dry up water tables and intensify the threat of wildfires on 35 million acres of public land. As the area covered by invasive plants grows, so does the amount […]
Posted inWotr
The decline of logging is now killing
If the connection between logging and closing libraries isn’t clear to you, then you don’t live in Oregon. Here, the connection is the stuff of crisis, the subject of daily news stories and of increasingly desperate political maneuvering. It is a crisis that reveals much about changing expectations and attitudes concerning government services, taxes and […]
Posted inMarch 19, 2007: The Silence of the Bees
Driven to fight
A retired BLM special agent finds herself battling the very agency she once worked for
Posted inAugust 21, 2006: The Lure of the Lawn
Clearing a path for power
Plans for power lines and pipelines would make it easier to tap the West’s energy boom
Posted inNovember 14, 2005: Back On Track
The Latest Bounce
Assistant Secretary of the Interior Rebecca Watson, who oversaw the Bureau of Land Management and the Interior Department’s mining and oil and gas operations, resigned on Oct. 28. On Watson’s watch, the BLM dramatically increased the number of oil and gas drilling permits it issues. But Interior Secretary Gale Norton also commended Watson for her […]
Posted inOctober 31, 2005: The Public Lands' Big Cash Crop
The Latest Bounce
The Department of Labor has denied a whistleblower’s complaint that the BLM fired him in retaliation for exposing violations of federal law in a mine-cleanup project in Yerington, Nev. (HCN, 12/20/04: Conscientious Objectors). Earle Dixon supervised the cleanup of the abandoned copper mine for the BLM, and repeatedly complained publicly about inadequate efforts to deal […]
Posted inOctober 31, 2005: The Public Lands' Big Cash Crop
Will the BLM Web site shutdown ever end?
During the past six months, most Bureau of Land Management Web sites have been unavailable to the public: The agency has disconnected them for the fourth time in five years while officials attend to security concerns. The most recent shutdown resulted from an ongoing class-action lawsuit brought by Elouise Cobell on behalf of 500,000 Indians. […]
Posted inOctober 17, 2005: The Ghosts of Yosemite
The Latest Bounce
The Bureau of Land Management recently approved a mining company’s plans to explore for gold near South Pass, Wyo., a major historic point on the Emigrant Trail (HCN, 5/16/05: Gold mining proposed in historic South Pass area). Fremont Gold will dig 200 10-by-20-foot test pits about five miles from the pass. If the company finds […]
Posted inApril 4, 2005: Calling It Quits
Rock jocks fight a mining company
Land swap would undo a presidential order for land protection
Posted inFebruary 7, 2005: The Asphalt Graveyard
Locals flush proposed kitty litter mine
A recent court ruling could give local communities more control over mining projects on federal land. On Dec. 30, a Nevada district court judge ruled that Washoe County has the authority to deny a company’s proposal to mine clay for cat litter near the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony. In 1999, the Chicago-based Oil-Dri Corporation announced plans […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 2005: The Asphalt Graveyard
‘Redneck liberal’ defends a hard-to-love landscape
“I want to see people enjoy this country the way it was meant to be enjoyed, the way God created it,” says Tim Faber, speaking about Montana’s arid, rough-hewn Missouri River Breaks. “It’s a place like no other place in the world.” Faber grew up on a cattle ranch in the Bear’s Paw Mountains east […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 2005: Written in the Rings
Wyoming wildlife faces twin threats
Drill rigs and houses gobble habitat and sever migration routes
Posted inAugust 30, 2004: How Long Will it Flow?
Interior encourages BLM land sales
Selling public lands will let Western cities sprawl into new territory
Posted inAugust 16, 2004: Journey of Rediscovery
Follow-up
Tired of hearing about the 33,000 salmon and steelhead that died in the Klamath River two summers ago? According to the California Department of Fish and Game, those numbers were off: Based on a two-year study of the fish kill, which was believed to be the largest in the Pacific Northwest, the agency has found […]
Posted inAugust 2, 2004: The Greening of the Plains
Follow-up
For the first time since 1993, the Bureau of Land Management has revised its fees for mining claims (HCN, 3/8/93: Mining reform may hit paydirt in 1993). Now, to mine or drill a claim on BLM land, users will have to pay a $30 one-time claim fee, plus $125 per year — unless they’re “small […]
Posted inJuly 19, 2004: They're Here: Global Warming's Unlikely Harbingers
BLM gags an archaeologist to get out the gas
Critics say a slew of new projects could endanger Indian rock art and ruins