SALT LAKE CITY — A new court filing reveals that Bureau of Land Management offices here in Utah may soon be shrinking amid another effort by the Trump administration to reduce the federal workforce.
The U.S. Department of the Interior is looking to do a reduction in force, or “RIF”, that could cut around 2,000 jobs nationwide.
That would include 93 workers here at BLM’s Utah offices.
“When you have a full functioning force of BLM employees, you know your natural assets are being managed,” said Patrick Shea, a Utah native who served as the national director of BLM during the Clinton Administration.
He’s seen the weight these jobs carry, particularly in western states.
“Over 43% of Nevada is managed by BLM,” Shea said. “In Utah, it’s about 20%.”
As it stands, the RIF notice shows 783 people with BLM Utah covering about 22.5 million acres of public land.
“This is not some far-off bureaucracy that some people like to rally against,” said Steve Bloch, the legal director for Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA). “These are people who we know. If you spend time on public lands, if you do business on public lands - these are the public servants you work with.”
The firings would decrease that force by about 12 percent — a detrimental reduction in the eyes of SUWA.
“It only stands to reason that the service we expect to see on the land is going to suffer,” Bloch said.
Shea says it could take a toll on anything from mineral rights and mining claims to critical firefighting and mitigation efforts.
You may even notice it in your tourism experiences, with Shea adding that “the public pays the price.”
“Visitor sites, toilets might not be clean,” said Shea. “Water sources visitors want to use may not be functioning.”
As such, Bloch called on our state leaders and congressional delegation to stand up for federal workers in this difficult moment.
“I think these people and the American public and Utahns need more than their statements of sympathy,” said Bloch.
The cuts are also set to impact BLM’s National Operations Center in Denver, as well as several other federal agencies in areas across the country.
We’ve reached out to media contacts at BLM Utah for comment on this developing situation but have not yet heard back.
The full documents can be viewed below:
