Clarification: The Wyoming Department of Education contacted SweetwaterNOW Wednesday (8/28/2024) to dispute the reporting of this article, having issue with the article’s headline not being accurate, not using the full press release and misrepresenting it in the article, the article referring to the 1.3 million acres figure they present as erroneous, and raising issue with the sentence about the WDE not responding prior to publication. The Wyoming Department of Education demanded a full retraction of this article, as well as a correction. The following paragraphs address those issues:

Article Headline: The headline was drafted using BLM spokesperson Brad Purdy’s comment about Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder’s statement not being accurate. As Purdy is the one calling the statement ‘not accurate,’ the headline is not misleading.

Not Using the Full Press Release: The Wyoming Department of Education says the article misrepresents Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder’s statement by not using the text of the full release. SweetwaterNOW believes its readers are best served when it isn’t simply copying and pasting the full text of a press release that is clearly intended to influence the opinions of SweetwaterNOW’s readership. While every word of the release was not used in the article, we believe the main ideas of the Wyoming Department of Education’s press release were presented accurately, as well as the full quotes provided by Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder. A full screenshot of the press release can be seen below.

1.3 Million Acres: The Wyoming Department of Education says it calculated its 1.3 million by adding the amount of acres proposed for both Wilderness Study Areas and Areas of Critical Environmental Concern and says comments about this figure being wrong are inaccurate. The department provided SweetwaterNOW with a document outlining its math.

As noted in the image above, the WDE added land amounts from the Areas of Critical Environmental Concern, Wilderness Study Areas, and Management Areas and Other Features tables, amounting to 1,312,919 acres of land. However, Degenfelder’s statement attributes that amount to only Wilderness Study Areas and Areas of Critical Environmental Concern. The actual amount of land for those two designations is 1,163,095 acres.

Exact wording from Degenfelder’s statement: “Yesterday the Bureau of Land Management released its proposed Resource Management Plan (RMP) for the Rock Springs Field Office. The plan includes 3.6 million acres in southwest Wyoming. Of that total, over 1.3 million acres, or over 36% will be designated Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC) and Wilderness Study Areas (WSA).“

The WDE’s Response to Not Issuing a Comment Before Publication: SweetwaterNOW contacted Linda Finnerty, the chief communications officer for the Wyoming Department of Education, Monday (8/26/2024) for comment regarding this article, specifically questioning how the department reached its 1.3 million acre figure and why the department decided to comment on the Rock Springs RMP. Finnerty requested the questions be sent via email and said they would be answered the following morning. That email was sent Monday evening and SweetwaterNOW did not receive a response, with Finnerty later saying the email was delivered to her spam folder and she was unaware of its existence until Wednesday (8/28/24). The article was posted Tuesday afternoon after what was believed to be an adequate amount of time for Finnerty and the department to respond. While the author of this article could, and in hindsight should, have reached out a second time, the same is true for Finnerty and the WDE. Finnerty demonstrated she possesses the author’s contact information when attempting to call him the morning after the article was published.

SweetwaterNOW will not issue a correction nor retract this article.

ROCK SPRINGS – Amongst the growing number of people making statements on the Bureau of Land Management’s recently-released proposed Rock Springs Resource Management Plan and Final Environmental Impact Statement, at least one is being called inaccurate by the BLM.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder issued a public statement about the Rock Springs RMP late Friday evening, erroneously claiming 36% of land administered by the Rock Springs Field Office, roughly 1.3 million acres, will be designated an Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC) or a Wilderness Study Area (WSA). 

“The Biden Administration continues to destroy education funding in the state of Wyoming with the proposed Rock Springs RMP,” Degenfelder said. “Not only does this plan make it impossible to produce minerals on these federal lands, but also on hundreds of thousands of acres of adjacent and intertwined state land, and it circumvents Congressional approval in order to do so. I will do anything necessary to protect our students and the citizens of Wyoming from this federal overreach.”

Degenfelder, a member of the Wyoming Board of Land Commissioners, is helping negotiate a deal regarding the Kelly state land parcel in Teton County with the National Park Service and BLM. 

“The proposed RMP is especially disappointing given the federal government’s current push to purchase even more Wyoming land at an extremely low price. For this reason, we must stand up to the federal government trying to bully us into deals that are bad for Wyoming. If this RMP is what they are willing to do to our state and way of life, they don’t deserve another net acre- ever,” said Degenfelder.

According to the BLM, those figures and Degenfelder’s take aren’t correct.

“That is not accurate. The proposed RMP amendment in the Final EIS has 936,193 acres proposed as ACECs,” Brad Purdy, a spokesman for the BLM said.

Julia Stuble, the Wyoming State Director for The Wilderness Society said the state can fund its schools while protecting its iconic landscapes while calling for people to look at the facts behind the BLM’s proposal.

“We can protect the Wyoming way of life and provide high-quality education. That will require rethinking funding for schools and our cities and towns. For southwest Wyoming, there’s an opportunity to figure out the right blend of landscape protections and mineral extraction through the Rock Springs plan,” Stuble said. “Local communities are strongly proposing to conserve places like the Northern Red Desert, Big Sandy Foothills, and Little Mountain, which do not have significant mineral potential. In the proposed plan, places with significant mineral deposits remain available for mining and drilling. However, different ways of thinking about how we fund public services is necessary and will require all of us calling on our Wyoming leaders to use accurate information to find solutions.

Stuble said ensuring the facts are presented to the public is the responsibility of multiple groups, including organizations like hers to provide information to their memberships, elected officials willing to speak the truth about a topic, and journalists willing to share factual information with their audiences.

“It takes a village,” she said.

Degenfelder’s office did not respond to a request for comment prior to publication.

ACECs and Special Recreation Areas
The BLM created a fact sheet summary of what the RMP proposes. Overall, the proposal shifts from a mainly conservation-based alternative to a management alternative that strikes a balance between conservation and use. 

According to the BLM, an ACEC is an area of public land where special management is needed to protect important resources of unique landscapes. There are currently 10 ACECs recognized within the current RMP and last year’s draft would have recognized 16. That number has decreased to 12 ACECs in the current proposal, spanning 936,193 acres. The BLM notes Gov. Mark Gordon’s RMP task force failed to reach a consensus opposing or supporting the 10 ACECs in the Red Desert area. According to the Wilderness Society Only 2.8% of the ACEC lands have medium to high oil and gas potential and no ACECs were proposed in the trona patch west of Green River or where significant coal deposits exist.

The new proposal also adds Special Recreation Management Areas (SRMA) that were not included in the initial draft RMP last year. Those areas being proposed are the Killpecker Sand Dunes OHV Open Play Area, the Continental Divide Scenic Trail SRMA, the continental Divide Snowmobile Trail SRMA, The Wind River Front SRMA and the Little Mountain SRMA.

The management for Little Mountain in particular was met with applause from groups that helped design the preferred management of the area, including the Muley Fanatics Foundation. Restrictions to mineral development and acts to conserve the hunting, fishing and recreational opportunities in Little Mountain were supported by Gordon’s task force and residents within Sweetwater County.

Mineral Exploration and Grazing
For trona, the new proposal only adds an additional closure over the initial proposal, the South Wind River ACEC, which the BLM said will protect habitat, clean air, cultural resources and the area known as the Golden Triangle. 

With oil and gas development, the proposed FEIS closes 30% of lands under the Rock Springs Field Office administration to development. The preferred alternative in last year’s draft RMP would have closed 61%. The proposed RMP adds a closure to the Sweetwater County Growth Management Area, the Little Mountain ACEC and groundwater recharge areas for McKinnon and Superior. Overall, about 1 million acres within Rock Springs Field Office jurisdiction are already leased for oil and gas production. Coal development has similar restrictions under the new proposal, with closures on development proposed on those same areas.

Only 2,515 out of 3.6 million acres is closed off to grazing and the new proposal removes seasonal restrictions on grazing within parturition areas for big game. The new proposal also allows grazing in all special management areas.