The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Discussions, an award, and recreation
By Katherine Nettles
Recently appointed Bureau of Land Management (BLM) state director Jamie Connell has been visiting field and district offices throughout the state. She visited the Gunnison field office last week on February 27 to present an award, explore local recreational areas and meet with local land management officials.
Connell presented BLM outdoor recreation planner Jim Lovelace with the peer-nominated Eric Finstick Stewardship Award, given annually to a BLM employee in recognition of their wilderness stewardship.
Lovelace was recognized for his resourcefulness in shifting the focus of a Silver Creek Trail project that was stalling from building labor intensive rock structures, to instead building timber check steps using readily available beetle-killed timber. “This year Jim secured 2,086 volunteer hours with seven partners to complete this project. A value to the agency of approximately $51,000,” wrote BLM Gunnison field office outdoor recreation planner Kristi Murphy.
Connell then took time with BLM field workers who had gathered in the Gunnison office from local stations and from as far as Salida and Silverton. She discussed her experiences working for the BLM and the U.S. Forest Service in Colorado, Montana, Idaho and Oregon, and spoke of the challenges to federal workers with limited resources to manage wild fires, public land use, forest fuels and changing weather patterns among other issues.
“There are nine million acres here that we manage. We get a lot done. But we’re still a pretty lean organization,” Connell said. She said her focus going forward will be a historically persistent loss of federal employees compared with increasing public use: “How do we manage more and more people? That issue is going to be at the forefront.”
Connell and many others then adjourned to Hartman Rocks—both on fat bikes and on Nordic skis—to explore some of the land the BLM manages, before one last stop at Palisades Restaurant in Gunnison for another gathering with local community leaders.
