South Dakota should consider partnership with BLM for shooting range

In 2016 South Dakota's Republican senior US Senator called an end to lead contamination in the watersheds that support all life in the United States, "silly." 

But like on so much public ground in the West the Black Hills National Forest and US Bureau of Land Management properties face habitat degradation fraught with lead contamination from unregulated shooting plus off-highway vehicles, grazing, mining and logging. The Victoria Lake area on Beretta Road above Rapid City is a lead Superfund site in the making after decades of unrestricted shooting.

In 2022 on BLM ground south of Lead some 700 pounds of lead were recovered from the Yellow Creek Shooting Range and in cooperation with the City of Deadwood berms were reconstructed then a vault toilet, two new shooting benches, two 50-yard pistol ranges, 100 and 200 yard rifle ranges, new target stands and shooting structures to help with noise reduction were erected.

BLM Montana/Dakotas has been saturating its Faceberg page with pleas to users to end the vandalism and "trigger trash" ruining public access. There's no telling how bad the chaos will get in western states and BLM Montana/Dakotas has been seeking a replacement for South Dakota's Field Manager based in Belle Fourche.

Nevertheless, the US Army Corps of Engineers just denied a permit for South Dakota's shooting range in Meade County because the state ignored federal environmental and cultural protection protocols. But was a facility built on BLM ground ever part of the discussion? It’s been done and being done in other states if there is a need. 

The Fall River Gun Club operates a range on state land about fifty miles south of Rapid City.

South Dakota's current Republican governor should simply end her war on the federal government and enter discussion with the Corps and BLM to build a firing range on public ground.

Early birds

Black chinned hummer.

Western tanager.

Scott's oriole.

Remanding tracts to tribes the right thing to do

Ahead of the 2023 White House Tribal Nations Summit and as part of the Cobell settlement the Interior Department's Land Buy-Back Program for Tribal Nations, some three million acres in fifteen states are being returned to Tribal trust ownership.

So, a plan by the US Bureau of Reclamation to remand some 60,000 acres on the Wind River Reservation to the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes is long overdue.

You know, the more you think about it, the more you think about this whole doctrine of discovery and what the federal government and attorneys have done to us – we've really got to stand up for ourselves, we have to protect what little we have. There should be no question that that land reverts back to the tribes. [Senior Wind River Conservation Associate Wes Martel]

The moves come as the Bureau of Land Management, US Fish and Wildlife Service and US Forest Service announce partnerships with Sweetwater County, Wyoming to soothe Republicans who feel put upon by federal agencies despite handouts like grazing for pennies a head.

Oklahoma’s creation must be taught alongside all the grim and dark history of U.S. tribal relations prior to 1907. How it is taught, of course, varies by the students’ age. But no child is too young to receive an honest, if difficult to hear, recitation of our shared history. Our public educators must also have the freedom to teach it. [Chuck Hoskin, Jr.]

On 18 April Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced protections for 4,200 acres in New Mexico for lands sacred to the Santa Ana and San Felipe Pueblos. In Arizona she signed historic agreements with the Colorado River Indian Tribes and pledged $14.5 to the Navajo, Hopi and San Carlos Apache to electrify homes.

In Colorado, Senator John Hickenlooper took fire from Republicans opposed to the creation of the Dolores River National Monument.

Republicans in Arizona and Utah are challenging Pres. Biden's authority to limit grazing permits and uranium mining on Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni — Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument and on Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments. 

In most cases President Joe Biden should simply find the money, buy out Republican welfare ranchers and remand the ground to the Nations like the Klamath Tribes have been able to do and rewild the West.

Wyoming judge sounds alarm on mounting violence

Ginned up by Donald Trump attacks against judges, poll workers, hospitals and public officials will increase in number and severity according to the US Marshals Service.

The agency, responsible for the protection of 2,700 federal judges and more than 30,000 federal prosecutors and other court personnel, has seen a sharp rise in threats related to the country’s bitter political divisions, Marshals Director Ronald Davis told Reuters in a recent interview. [Exclusive: Threats to US federal judges double since 2021, driven by politics]

In Wyoming and other western states Trump's followers are targeting Bureau of Land Management district offices as conservation gains equal ranking under the Federal Land Management Policy Act.

Wyoming Supreme Court Justice Kate Fox said that she's alarmed by the trends. She's working diligently to increase awareness, and security measures, in courthouses and communities across the Cowboy State. It's the trial court judges who have a lot more interaction and who tend to get a lot more threats of violence. [Wyoming Supreme Court Chief Justice speaks on the need for increased security as threats to judges spike]

It’s impossible to imagine a more committed insurrectionist than the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee who gleefully incites his disciples to render a bloodbath on his political enemies.

The Sublette County Attorney’s Office released a statement Mon. on the recent wolf incident. This comes after the killing and alleged torture of a wolf by local Cody Roberts in late February has received international attention. Story by @miss_ctanhttps://t.co/drPJEekUDq

— Wyoming Public Radio (@WYPublicRadio) April 23, 2024