Sweetwater County commissioners approve scoping comments on BLM Rock Springs RMP, urge firmer enforcement of protections

Sweetwater County Board of County Commissioners on Oct. 31, 2025, voted 5-0 to approve the content of draft scoping comments to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on the Rock Springs Resource Management Plan amendment and authorized Chairman Keaton to make minor grammatical or explanatory edits before final signatures.

The letter, prepared by county staff and revised by the chairman, asks the BLM state director to restore or reconsider several Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACECs), narrow large right-of-way exclusion areas and re-evaluate a broad visual resource management class the county says could limit future local road work and other county projects. Eric (county staff) told the board the scoping period began Oct. 2 and that the county’s letter summarizes issues raised at prior cooperators meetings and staff concerns about substantive changes that reopening ACEC evaluations can force across the plan.

"So what you have before you is a letter to the state director concerning our scoping comments for the amendment to the Rock Springs…