{"id":1312492,"date":"2019-07-16T17:26:55","date_gmt":"2019-07-16T23:26:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/?p=984086"},"modified":"2019-07-16T17:26:55","modified_gmt":"2019-07-16T23:26:55","slug":"what-the-blm-hq-move-out-west-really-means-for-garfield-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/what-the-blm-hq-move-out-west-really-means-for-garfield-county\/","title":{"rendered":"What the BLM HQ move out West really means for Garfield County"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
An autumn aerial view of the Thompson Divide region on BLM land west of Carbondale, overlooking the Lake Ridge Lakes.<\/strong>
Photo courtesy EcoFlight<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Many elected officials lauded the Bureau of Land Management\u2019s plan to move 249 employees to western states, including 85 to Colorado.<\/p>\n

But just 27 positions will move to Grand Junction, which will be the new headquarters for the director\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

Having the BLM closer to the lands they manage will be a benefit to Garfield County and the rest of the West, County Commissioner John Martin said. The BLM manages nearly a third of the land in Garfield County. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey have a closer ear now,\u201d Martin said of the move.<\/p>\n

It will still be the federal government, but Martin said the officials will no longer be able to hide behind the distance between D.C. and the western lands they manage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re more on the front lines. I think we\u2019ll see efficiencies as well as better relationships,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Garfield County has supported the relocation of BLM headquarters to Grand Junction since<\/a> former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke started discussing the idea in February 2018.<\/p>\n

The vast majority of the BLM\u2019s workforce of nearly 9,500 employees already works in the field.<\/p>\n

The bulk of BLM positions coming to Colorado will be located on the Front Range, to give the headquarters in Grand Junction some distance, Joe Balash, BLM assistant secretary for lands and minerals, said on a Tuesday conference call with reporters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe decided on Grand Junction, at least in part because we wanted the headquarters to stand alone, not overshadow the state offices,\u201d Balash said. The BLM\u2019s state offices are already located in Denver.<\/p>\n

After the move, which officials hope to complete by late 2020, the D.C. office will have a staff of around 60 people for congressional relations and budget issues.<\/p>\n

A big reason for the realignment was a disparity between where the work was being done, and where the decisions were being made, officials said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFully 46 percent of [senior executive officials], nearly half, are located here in D.C.,\u201d Balash said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it comes to the business of the BLM, it gets done on the public lands, with the people who use public lands, and those are all out in the West,\u201d Balash said.<\/p>\n

Many of the positions that will be relocated to western states are unfilled, and the BLM will advertise the openings in the new locations, Balash said.<\/p>\n

Critics of the realignment say it will weaken the institutional knowledge concentrated around Washington, D.C., and hampers Congress\u2019 oversight of the department.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe BLM officials based in Washington are here to work directly with Congress and their federal colleagues, and that function is going to take a permanent hit if this move goes forward,\u201d said Rep. Ra\u00fal Grijalva (D-Ariz.), chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe agency will lose a lot of good people because of this move, and I suspect that\u2019s the administration\u2019s real goal here,\u201d Grijalva said.<\/p>\n

Grijalva also noted that Interior Secretary David Bernhardt grew up in Rifle.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis administration has been handing over public lands to fossil fuel companies at record speed, and this move is part of that agenda. Putting BLM headquarters down the road from Secretary Bernhardt\u2019s hometown just makes it easier for special interests to walk in the door demanding favors without congressional oversight or accountability,\u201d Grijalva said.<\/p>\n

Erin Riccio, Western Slope field organizer with Conservation Colorado, indicated that the move wouldn\u2019t make much of a difference for environmental issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re excited that the BLM is coming to Grand Junction. But regardless of where the BLM calls home, Coloradans want a fair public process with a more comprehensive lands management focus than the \u2018energy dominance\u2019 agenda of the Trump administration and [Colorado Sen. Cory] Gardner,\u201d Riccio said.<\/p>\n

The planned move does have bipartisan support, including from Colorado\u2019s Democratic governor, Jared Polis.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are thrilled to welcome the Bureau of Land Management and their employees to the great state of Colorado. As I stated to Secretary Bernhardt many times, Grand Junction is the perfect location for the BLM because of community support, location closer to the land BLM manages, and the positive impact it will have on our western Colorado economy,\u201d Polis said in a statement issued Monday when the news was first announced by Sen. Gardner.<\/p>\n

tphippen@postindependent.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An autumn aerial view of the Thompson Divide region on BLM land west of Carbondale, overlooking the Lake Ridge Lakes.Photo courtesy EcoFlight Many elected officials lauded the Bureau of Land Management\u2019s plan to move 249 employees to western states, including 85 to Colorado. But just 27 positions will move to Grand Junction, which will be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1312492","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-20 20:04:38","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1312492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312492\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1312492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1312492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1312492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}