The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Alpine Loop now under Gunnison Field Office jurisdiction
by Olivia Lueckemeyer
Due to a discrepancy in workloads, the Bureau of Land Management has reorganized its districts within Colorado to more evenly allocate resources and responsibility. As a result, the Gunnison County Field Office, formerly of the Southwest District, will now join the new Rocky Mountain District.
“We look at this as a positive change,” Gunnison field manager Elijah Waters explained to the county commissioners at a June 7 meeting. “This will give us additional staff and resources.”
The change, spearheaded by state director Ruth Welch, was implemented after she noticed an inordinate amount of responsibility being assigned to certain districts. Up until now, the Colorado BLM has been made up of the Northwest, Southwest and Front Range Districts, each of which were comprised of regional field offices.
Now, the Royal Gorge Field Office and the San Luis Field Office, which previously comprised the Front Range District, will join the Gunnison Field Office to form the new Rocky Mountain District.
“Currently, the Northwest District is larger than the Southwest and Front Range Districts combined,” a BLM PSA stated. “Through the realignment, BLM Colorado can create a better balance of field offices, acres managed, and resources and employees between the districts.”
The Gunnison Field Office is responsible for the management and stewardship of more than 600,000 acres of public land in the upper Gunnison River Basin of southwestern Colorado. As a result of the redistricting, the Gunnison Field Office will now also be responsible for the Alpine Loop—a byway that travels through Ouray, Lake City and Silverton—adding 50,000 acres to its territory.
“There was a lot of split management of the Alpine Loop up until now,” Waters said. “It has taken additional coordination, which will now all be done within one field office.”
Two additional staff members have been relocated to the Gunnison Field Office to accommodate the expansion, and according to Waters, a reallocation of the budget model will also take place in the near future. The change also consolidates all of the abandoned mine workload into one district, allowing the BLM to pool resources.
The institution of the Rocky Mountain District will effectively take place on October 2, or the beginning of the next fiscal year. The district will be headquartered in Cañon City, and the Gunnison Field Office will continue to operate out of its current location.
