While the U.S. Senate scrapped plans to sell off federal public lands as part of its budget reconciliation bill negotiations, advocates warn the fight over public lands isn’t over.
More than 790,000 acres of land in Wyoming, heavily concentrated in the eastern half of the state, have been flagged for potential sale or disposal by the Bureau of Land Management, and they can be found in a new interactive map released this by onX and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.
Across the U.S. West, more than 6 million acres of public lands across 17 states were identified, with Wyoming ranking third behind Nevada and New Mexico.
While there’s no guarantee the public lands will be put up for sale — and some have been on the disposal list for decades — they’ve been identified in BLM land use plans over the years as eligible for potential disposal or sale.
Compiling the data into an easy-to-use tool helps bring transparency to information that was previously difficult to track down because it was often buried in government documents, according to Lisa Nichols, a spokesperson for onX, the Missoula, Montana-based developer of mapping apps.
“We thought, ‘Now that we have this information, wouldn’t it be interesting to the public at-large?’” she said.
No Guarantee Of Sales
While it’s difficult to predict what the BLM may choose to do with these lands, the budget reconciliation process highlighted how there’s “renewed interest among certain lawmakers to sell off public lands,” Nichols said. “We know they’re dusting off these maps and looking at these maps.”
Being flagged by the BLM doesn’t suggest an imminent risk to public lands, as some parcels were marked for potential sale or disposal more than 40 years ago, Nichols noted.
Still, people may be surprised to find that the list includes public lands that they have a strong opinion about and would be sad if the land was sold or disposed of, Nichols said. Once the map was completed, many onX employees found places where they regularly hunt, hike or otherwise recreate.
“Those types of anecdotes made us see that these parcels do have value,” Nichols said.
BLM Data
The map released by onX and the TRCP was created using publicly available geographic information system (GIS) data from 160 BLM Resource Management Plans (RMPs).
But the BLM doesn’t independently verify this data and information, according to Allegra Keenoo, a public affairs specialist in the BLM’s Wyoming state office.
Instead, Keenoo referred people to the BLM’s website and a webmapper linked within that includes information about the lands marked for potential disposal or sale. She added that updates to the RMPs that identify public lands eligible for disposal typically happen every five to 10 years.
By bringing a different layer of transparency to this information, Nichols said the onX map may encourage some people to voice their opposition to the sale of certain parcels of land. She advised that people engage with their local BLM office.
And if the BLM does decide to proceed with the sale of public lands, in the past there has been an opportunity for the public to weigh in during a comment period, Nichols said. “There’s still a long runway ahead on these parcels if the BLM is going to follow standard procedures.”
