Letter drafted by the Routt County Commissioners is one of several being sent to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins requesting laid-off public land managers be rehired.
Routt County is calling on President Donald Trump's Administration to reverse steep staffing cuts at the U.S. Forest Service — including 20 positions on the Routt Medicine Bow National Forest in Steamboat Springs — changes that local elected officials say are “shortsighted” and will threaten water quality, wildfire mitigation and the ability to manage recreation in the Yampa Valley.
In a draft letter addressed to newly appointed U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins obtained by The Yampa Valley Bugle, the Routt County Board of Commissioners say the Forest Service is “critically understaffed” already and that efforts of billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has caused “confusion and chaos” across the agency.
“In addition to the significant impact to the forest itself and the capacity that we have to entertain visitors and prevent forest fires and all the things, a lot of these people are pillars of our community who worked themselves into these permanent positions which are hard to get,” said Routt County Commissioner Sonja Macys on Monday. “The stories of what they are going through are dramatic, compelling and horrific.”
The draft of the commissioner’s letter directly calls out Executive Order 14210 signed on Feb. 11 which has led to 3,400 U.S. Forest Service workers across the country being laid off. The order, which put in place Musk’s DOGE, has goals to “significantly reduce the size of the federal government,” which currently includes 2.3 million workers when not including the military or postal service.
Nearly 100 of those workers were working to manage national forests in Colorado, according to The Colorado Sun. While firefighters have not been included in cuts, forest service workers tasked with mitigation and prevention duties were let go, the Sun reports.
Commissioners say at least 20 of those cuts were at the Hahns Peak/Bears Ears Ranger District, which is managed out of an office in Steamboat Springs. The Bugle was unable to independently confirm that number.
In response to questions from The Bugle on Monday, a forest service official in Steamboat Springs said they have been instructed to forward media requests to the agency’s Washington D.C. Office. The Bugle has yet to receive a response from officials in D.C. as of Tuesday morning.
Emailed questions about staffing changes at the Bureau of Land Management and National Parks Service were either referred to national offices or did not receive a response.
Nearly half of all land in Routt County is public land, with the Forest Service being the largest federal land manager locally. The Routt Medicine Bow National Forest includes 2.9 million acres of land in northern Colorado and eastern Wyoming, including half a million acres in the Hahns Peak/Bears Ears Ranger District.
Routt County Commissioner Tim Redmond said staffing and funding uncertainty has put forest health and wildfire mitigation work he has been involved with into limbo. Funding to hire a coordinator for this work seemingly disappeared as they were trying to onboard the new hire, Redmond said.
“They’re reducing the Forest Service personnel that would need to go out and to do the survey work for this work to happen,” Redmond said. “Then at the same time, our President says we need to clean up the national forests so they don’t burn, but yet he pulls the money and the personnel.”
“We’re using sledgehammers to kill flies and there is a lot of collateral damage,” he added.
Communities across Western Slope sound alarm
The Routt County letter joins others being penned to Rollins by elected officials in mountain towns across Colorado’s Western Slope, where as much as 70% of the land is public and managed by the U.S. Forest Service and other agencies. The Bugle has reviewed letters sent by Commissioners in Chaffee County, the Mayor of Aspen and Town Board of Telluride.
Margaret Bowes, the executive director of the Colorado Association of Ski Towns said she is aware of more communities that have already sent or intend to send letters to Rollins as well.
“We expect we’ll see some really direct impacts when we have fewer field staff in an agency that has been increasingly short-staffed for many years,” Bowes said. “And then there is also this thing called wildfire mitigation that we are pretty serious about in mountain towns.”
The Chaffee County letter says cuts to the agency's staff and funding will prevent the implementation of wildfire fuels reduction programs, increase the risk of wildfire from sources like unattended campfires and allow illegal use of the forest to go unchecked.
Aspen Mayor Torre wrote that staffing reductions “has the potential to be devastating” to proactive forest management approaches like prescribed burns and watershed protection, as well as road and facility maintenance.
“These are areas that contribute significantly to the economy,” Torre wrote. “Potential reduction in Forest Service permitting could shutter local businesses that rely on permits - such as outfitters and guides for fishing, skiing, and rafting trips.”
Bowes said questions that CAST members have include whether campgrounds will be able to open for the summer, who will clean toilets if they do and who would open many of the seasonal roads tourists and locals alike will use to access these recreation opportunities.
Some members of CAST have recognized the importance of the agency’s work for years by allocating funding to support staff positions. Bowes said Eagle County has spent up to $160,000 in each of the last five years to support Forest Service actions, Summit County allocates more than $500,000 to support fire watch, seasonal crews and fuels reduction programs, and Pitkin County spends up to $320,000 per year to support the Forest Service.
“We all believe that the federal government should be footing that bill, but because the Forest Service has seen budget cuts for so many years now, the counties have realized that it is in their best interest to fund some of these things — especially when it comes to wildfire mitigation,” Bowes said. “It just becomes, plain and simple, a safety issue.”
Uncertainty on the Routt National Forest
Laraine Martin, executive director of Routt County Riders, a nonprofit that advocates for increased cycling opportunities in Northwest Colorado and works closely with the Forest Service, said she is nervous that agency staff they work closely with in Steamboat Springs may be on the “chopping block.”
Depending on which positions have been cut, there could be serious implications for high-profile local projects like the Mad Rabbit Trails project as well, which received $1.6 million in funding from the city of Steamboat Springs in December and has been expected to start work this summer.
“We are hoping to make the argument that the funding is already there, if it’s a funding issue, the community has already made moves to handle it from that perspective. The question is the staffing piece and the management,” Martin said. “Just as with everything else, we have more questions than answers.”
Mad Rabbit aside, Martin said there will be other impacts on recreation in the forest if staffing cuts are maintained.
“They impact everyone’s experience out on our trail systems and in the places that we recreate,” Martin said. “I don’t know that people fully grasp how much work is being done until things and services and the availability of an experience starts to deteriorate.”
There are public safety concerns beyond the risk of wildfire as well. The Forest Service has just one law enforcement officer stationed in Steamboat Springs and often leans on the Routt County Sheriff’s Office for support in responding to calls on the forest. Routt County Manager Jay Harrington said the county typically has a contract to reimburse the county for this support, but that is in limbo as well.
Communication between local officials and their federal counterparts locally is also deteriorating, Commissioner Redmond said. Local land managers have long been meeting for a monthly breakfast, allowing officials to talk about issues without needing to go through upper management. Redmond said federal land managers have been told they can no longer attend.
“There you have the actual boots on the ground sitting there talking about the issues that are facing us locally,” Redmond said. “That has been taken away.”