BY: STAFF

Despite a lull in oil and gas activity in Wyoming in recent months, PAW vice president Cheryl Sorensen and the Public Lands Committee has plenty to do.

She said she will continue to focus on gaining access to public lands, ESA issues, and reclamation.

The importance of RMP revisions “We are focusing on what chang-

es we will see within the BLM with all the changes in Washington within the Department of Interior. We expect to see new rules and policy on Sage-Grouse and other items.

PAW is a leader in working to pre- vent Endangered Species Act (ESA) list- ings. This continues to be a big focus for our committee. Another large project or focus is Reclamation; we are working a lot on this issue. We have two new Re- source Management Plans revisions that have begun within the last year; the Big Horn Basin RMP and the Powder River Basin RMP. These will keep our commit- tee busy as well.”

Stay engaged

With all the changes within De- partment of Interior (DOI) Sorensen is seeing changes within BLM and other regulatory agencies and there is also a push to have more species listed as Endangered. “Our committee workload has expanded tremendously and we have to continued to pay attention and work these issues,” she said. “If we sit back and become unengaged, when things pick up back in the field you may not know what environment you will be working in.”

Focus on reclamation

PAW will host its Second Annual Reclamation Workshop, after a sell-out crowd at the December 2008 gathering. “This year we look forward to having an informational agenda. Governor Dave Freudenthal is slated to speak and we are going to have Steve Ferrell the new direc- tor of Wyoming Game and Fish as well as BLM, University of Wyoming will be on the agenda again, and then great infor- mation from top notch Reclamation con- tractors, companies, etc. I would suggest that our Oil and Gas companies attend, from the decision makers to the guys out on the field, encourage your reclamation contractors to attend as they will see new regulatory information and new science. We also expect quite a bit of staff from Conservation Districts, BLM offices, and other regulatory agencies. The Reclama- tion conference is open to anyone, not just PAW members,” she added.

Sorensen also noted that due to the large amount of committee activity go- ing on a special Public Lands Commit- tee meeting on October 8th in Casper at the McMurry Training Center has been scheduled. “We will have a committee meeting starting at 8 am that day; at 10 am we will have a series of lectures rang- ing from dealing with an ESA listing to how the Utah lease sales can affect Wyo- ming.”