Blog Archives

Trump hands National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to a Texas wealth manager

7/31/2025

Kevin Lilly, a wealth manager with no conservation experience, now has a prominent role at the Department of the Interior. That means Lilly is now in charge of the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, despite no background in conservation or land management. Very quietly appointed by Trump, Lilly’s “acting” title means that under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, his job is a temporary appointment, as he has not been confirmed by the Senate.

The Department of the Interior initially declined to confirm Lilly worked for the agency at all. “We don’t have comment on personnel,” spokesperson Elizabeth Peace wrote in an email to SFGATE on July 17. An Arizona radio station mentioned Lilly’s title in a news story about wildfires on July 19; Peace later confirmed Lilly’s title with SFGATE on July 28.

The role is responsible for programs that use, manage and conserve natural resources, including fish, wildlife, recreation and the national park system. Lilly is also expected to identify policy needs and initiate legislation.
Lilly’s professional background has primarily been in the financial services and investment banking industries. He worked for Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs before founding Avalon Advisors in 2001, the “largest privately owned wealth management firm in Texas,” according to the university.
Lilly has served in political appointee positions before, including as a regent of the Texas State University System. In 2017, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott appointed Lilly as the chairman of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, which regulates alcoholic beverages in the state.

The previous assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks during the Biden administration was Shannon Estenoz, the former chief operating officer of the Everglades Foundation. She came to the position with 24 years of experience working on conservation topics. A news release at the time said her priorities were “to strengthen local economies, tackle the climate crisis, ensure equitable access to the outdoors, and protect and conserve public lands and wildlife.”

Park service and public land advocates said they are concerned about the lack of transparency around Lilly’s position, and at least some advocates are claiming that Lilly’s work may not be legal. “Without an official Secretarial Order by Burgum, all actions taken by Lilly in his current role would be illegal,” said Jayson O’Neill, a spokesperson for Save Our Parks, a recently launched campaign to expose threats to national parks and other public lands. .

- by Kylie Mohr
Big Sky Country Contributing Parks EditorKylie Mohr is the Big Sky Country contributing parks editor at SFGATE, covering Glacier, Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks from her home in Montana. She’s an award-winning freelance journalist and correspondent for the magazine High Country News, where her work focuses on wildfire, wildlife and wild places in the West. Her bylines include the Atlantic, National Geographic, Outside, Vox, Business Insider, Grist and more. She’s traipsed through the tundra banding snowy owls, climbed to the top of a 300-foot-tall tree and become a wildland firefighter for her stories. Send story tips or comments to [email protected].

To see the complete article and photos in SFGate, CLICK HERE.

Placer County agrees to extend the county's oversight of the Bear River Access area

7/30/2025

Placer County will continue managing day-use services at the Bear River Fishing Access Area for the next five years following a unanimous vote by the Board of Supervisors on July 22. The revised agreement replaces the county’s previous two-year deal, which expired earlier this year, and allows for an automatic one-year extension.

The board approved a new agreement with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) that outlines continued county support for patrol, trash removal and restroom maintenance at the 250-acre site, a popular recreation destination in Colfax. The Bear River Fishing Access Area was previously a campground but was renamed in 2023 when it became a day-use area.

The area includes more than three miles of trails and is frequently used for hiking, swimming, fishing and rafting.

The county currently patrols the site three days a week, though the new agreement only requires a minimum of two days of service.

During the Board of Supervisors meeting, multiple residents spoke during public comment in support of renewing the agreement. Placer County Parks Administrator Erika Seward presented the agreement to the supervisors, highlighting the previous relationship between the county and CDFW.
Several community members gave the agreement their support, stressing the necessity of the recreation area. Otis Wallen, who is a neighbor to the day-use area, said it's a vital community resource and has improved since being decommissioned as a campground.

“As a neighbor, I'm very active there. I ride a bicycle down there at either dawn or dusk, four or five times a week, and on hot days, I go swimming,” Wallen said in his public comment. “It has really shifted to a wholesome day-use area. Previous to that, I often called 911 and reported fire, abuse, altercations, noises, all kinds of stuff. I haven't had to do that. It has really made a big difference.”
Wallen pointed out there are no public pools for use in the Colfax area, meaning if the Bear River Access Area is lost, kids would have to go to Dutch Flat or Auburn.

William Waters, an Auburn-area resident since 1949, voiced his support for the agreement in the public comment section as well, saying, “You already have people lined up. We have two land trusts. We have two community groups that are working on trails out there. You want people there, using this, loving this, volunteering for it, and we are ready to do it now.”

Others inquired about finding ways to put up interpretive signage and changing the road name from Campground Road to make it clear there was no overnight access in the area, but that was not part of the original agreement and will have to be revisited by CDFW. “I certainly am optimistic we could work with CDFW on interpretive signs, and especially given the great support in the community to help raise money for such things,” said Placer County Supervisor Cindy Gustafson.

With the agreement officially approved, county officials say the focus now turns to maintaining the site's cleanliness, safety and accessibility throughout the busy summer season and beyond.

To see the County Bear River webpage:
https://www.placer.ca.gov/5951/Bear-River-Fishing-Access

To see the complete article and photos in The Union newspaper, CLICK HERE.

Eroding protections for public lands - it's not what voters want - Reuters

7/28/2025

For the complete article, more photos and graphs, CLICK HERE for Rueters article.

Trump policies reshape the role of federally owned land against the tide of U.S. public opinion

The U.S. Congress has passed hundreds of laws protecting federal public lands over the past century through bipartisan efforts and with the support of local governments.
Now, Trump’s administration and some Republican lawmakers in Congress are pushing policies and legislation that upend these protections. Plans to open nearly 59 million acres of national forest land to road construction and mandate lease sales for drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge prioritize energy extraction over conservation. Public lands managed by the federal government stretch across the United States but are concentrated in the West.

At first, the lands were used mainly for their resources, to build railroads and for settlement. Starting in the 1860s and then particularly in the following several decades, the U.S. government began protecting lands for their scenic beauty and maintaining them for the public to enjoy.

Since then, the United States has “decided to hold and add to the federal lands, keep them in federal ownership and maintain them primarily for open space and long-term cultural and environmental benefits,” said John Leshy, author of the book “Our Common Ground: A History of America’s Public Lands.”

“It is the country, through its political system, deciding that we want to preserve some things for future generations,” Leshy said.

There are about 640 million acres (259 million hectares) of federally managed land in the United States, making up 28% of the country. That is almost the combined area of Alaska, California and Texas, the three largest U.S. states. Most of this land is managed by four federal agencies, each with its own mission.

Public lands have balanced a variety of uses from drilling for oil and gas, mining for various minerals and logging to conservation and recreation. Each use is meant to serve the public good. But as the U.S. government has changed over time, what it considers “good” also has changed.

“One of the big developments in the last 30 or 40 years is how they have all, regardless of agency, been managed more and more alike: primarily for conservation and recreation,” said Leshy.

Tiny towns cradled between high peaks and alongside winding rivers rely on public lands to sustain their economies. Unlike the biggest U.S. cities, these towns are not an attraction so much as a point of departure – a gateway to the outdoors.

The fastest-growing rural towns are surrounded by public lands that people use for hiking, skiing, biking, fishing and hunting. The $1.2 trillion outdoor recreation industry funnels money into rural towns that have few other options for growth.

Megan Lawson, an economist at Headwaters Economics, a nonprofit organization that researches community development and land management strategy, said the amount of federal land is indicative of the type of economy in these communities. “These are all being driven by federal lands as an amenity: retirement, outdoor recreation, tourism,” Lawson said.

The outdoor recreation economy extends beyond national parks and ski resorts. The Bureau of Land Management, which manages roughly 38% of federal public land, has said that more than 82 million people, about 10 times the population of New York City, visited its lands for recreational purposes in 2023.

“The money they spent on fishing licenses, gear, gas, food, lodging and local taxes injects billions of dollars into state and local economies every year,” Bill Groffy, the agency’s acting director, said in a statement to Reuters.

Even Americans who may not seek out the wild landscapes of public lands benefit in less obvious ways. Large portions of the water supply for some of the biggest U.S. cities come from forests.
In the early 20th century, when most of the country’s national forests were first designated, a driving motivation was securing clean water sources.

The national forests situated in the eastern United States are rooted in securing water a century ago. Back then, Congress launched a program to purchase upper watersheds to preserve and enhance water supplies.

“The whole idea was: these forests are getting logged and we’re suffering floods and pollution and debris from the logging, and we want to stop it,” Leshy said. “We want to repair these forests and grow them back so that we can have water supplies protected. That’s where the eastern national forests came from.”

While about 13% of the U.S. water supply comes from national forests, this source is particularly important in the West, where it accounts for almost half of the total water supply.

Forested lands are more effective than agricultural and other developed watersheds at filtering and storing water, leading to less sediment and fewer pollutants in the water supply.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said in June that it was rescinding the 2001 Roadless Rule, which makes nearly 59 million acres (23.9 million hectares) of national forest lands available for road construction and timber harvest. The change will allow federal forest lands to be better managed for fire risk, the USDA said. The move is aligned with Trump’s goal to eliminate environmental regulations that he says are roadblocks to industry.

Despite the administration’s industrial focus, there is not a shift in general U.S. public opinion when it comes to protecting public land. The majority of Americans from both political parties disapprove of closing access to public land, according to a poll conducted in March by YouGov for the nonprofit organization Trust for Public Land.

“Public lands have tremendous bipartisan support in the state,” Lawson said in reference to her home state of Montana, about 30% of which is federal public land. “Everybody from the wilderness advocates who want public land preserved in perpetuity to the hunters and anglers to the OHV (off-highway vehicle) Jeepers. Everybody loves public lands. Access to those public lands is so integral to daily life.”

Deep budget and staffing cuts to the U.S. National Forest Service, National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management could affect their ability to effectively care for these lands at a time when they are experiencing record numbers of visitors.

Last year, national parks welcomed more than 332 million visitors, a new high, up 6 million from 2023. But, the National Park System has lost 24% of its permanent staff since Trump returned to office in January, according to the National Parks Conservation Association, a watchdog advocacy group. The association attributes much of the drop to job cuts and staff taking buyouts offered by Trump’s administration. And, the National Forest Service cut about 10% of its workforce as part of the administration’s campaign to reduce spending.

This legislation that Trump signed also rescinded funding for conservation and climate resilience projects in national parks and Bureau of Land Management land that was provided in a law signed by his predecessor Joe Biden called the Inflation Reduction Act.

Leshy said budget and staffing cuts could be a strategic move by U.S. officials who have long wanted to dispose of public land, pointing to Russell Vought, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget and a force behind the Project 2025 initiative that laid out a conservative blueprint for reshaping the U.S. government.

“I think they’ve decided, looking at the opinion polls, that it’s not popular and it’s not wise to press for outright selling off or disposing, transferring federal lands. So what they’re doing instead is hollowing out their management, is slashing their budgets and slashing the personnel,” “The aim is, ‘Let’s make federal management so bad and so dismal that it will change public opinion,’” Leshy added.

- By Ally J Levine, Soumya Karwa and Travis Hartman

Sources
Reuters reporting, Congressional Research Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, Headwaters Economics, U.S. Department of Commerce. 2023. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Regional Economic Accounts and Census Bureau, American Community Survey Office, Washington, D.C., reported by Headwaters Economics’ Economic Profile System.

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Note from Mother Lode Trails: "Normally, our website provides trail resources for our local Mother Lode community, but the drastic changes directed by Trump and the Republican-led congress taking place at the federal level over the past six months will affect much of the public land that we enjoy. This well researched article from Reuters gives us vital information to help us protect our trails and public lands."

New trailhead for hikers/bikers at Fire Station 82 for Pioneer Trail

7/17/2025

About five miles outside of Nevada City, near a congested intersection on Highway 20, mountain bicyclists and hikers now have safer access to a network of trails via a new shaded public parking area adjacent to Nevada County Consolidated Fire District’s Station 82 located at 18969 Scotts Flat Road.

Nevada County provided funding for the project’s development and the Fire District led the project planning and construction, aligning with the County’s vision of enhancing outdoor recreation for residents and visitors. The total cost of the project was $77,500, made possible by the Nevada County’s Outdoor Visitor Safety Fund Grant.

"Station 82 is a big win for safety, access and community. We were glad to be able to use federal pandemic dollars from our Outdoor Visitor Safety Fund to not only aid the Nevada County Consolidated Fire District but to improve safety for trail users and residents and revitalize the Highway 20 corridor," said District 1 County Supervisor Heidi Hall.

“This project reflects our ongoing commitment to supporting safe recreation and reducing hazards for both the community and first responders. The goal of this collaboration is to maximize the use of fire district-owned property in a way that provides added value to taxpayers while supporting recreational activities in the region," said Fire Chief Jason Robitaille.

The project includes trailhead signage and convenient, safe access to trails and local businesses such as the Harmony Ridge Market, 5 Mile House Restaurant and a bike shop known as Outpost Demo Center. Signage is expected to be complete in the next four months.

The new parking is well timed. This month, Tahoe National Forest announced the completion and opening of 1.2 miles of Pioneer Trail reroutes east of White Cloud campground, restoring connectivity to 15 miles of the Pioneer Trail between Lowell Hill and Harmony Ridge Market. The multi-use, non-motorized, cross country trail is an important section of the future Pines to Mines Trail that will one day connect the towns of Nevada City and Truckee.

For more information from Nevada County Recreation committee CLICK HERE.

New Supervisors at Tahoe National Forest

7/16/2025

From YubaNet.net--
U.S. Forest Service officials have selected Chris Feutrier as forest supervisor and Amber Waters as deputy forest supervisor to lead Tahoe National Forest.

Feutrier served as deputy regional forester for the Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Region and has over 20 years of experience in various roles with the agency.

Waters began her Forest Service career with the Tahoe National Forest in 2000 and served as budget director for the Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Region.

To see the complete article in Yuba Net.net CLICK HERE.

Impact of Senate Reconciliation Bill on Western States Trail

7/9/2025

From Gold Country Media:
Jul 09, 2025 7:00 AM
The map above indicates areas (in red) where the current Western States Trail crosses over BLM or Tahoe National Forest land proposed to be for sale. In total nearly 30% of the WST is impacted; meaning if the land is sold to an entity who no longer grants an easement for the trail, the trail will either be closed or significantly rerouted.

The History Expeditions webpage has important news regarding threats to the preservation efforts of the Western States Trail at https://historyexp.org/western-states-trail/ and also created the following link with the latest news on the impact of the recent U.S. Senate Reconciliation Bill and how it might impact this and future generations of Western States Trail users at https://historyexp.org/impact-senate-reconciliation-bill/.

Threat to the Western States Trail: Trump's Sovereign Wealth Fund and Public Land Sales Initiative
Read here about the imminent threat to the Western States Trail and what you can do to help protect and preserve this Sierra and American West gem.

SAVE THE WESTERN STATES TRAIL PETITION
To sign the Save the Western States Trail petition, go to:
https://historyexp.org/western-states-trail/

Pioneer Trail reroutes near White Cloud are complete and open to public use

7/4/2025

Update on public access and needed reroutes of the Pioneer Trail
The construction of 1.2 miles of trail reroutes east of Tahoe National Forest’s White Cloud Campground are now complete, restoring connectivity of approximately 15 miles of the Pioneer Trail between Lowell Hill and the Harmony Ridge Market.

The Pioneer Trail is a multi use, non-motorized, cross-country trail. It is over 20 miles long and goes from the Harmony Ridge Market to near Spaulding Lake where it ties into the Spaulding Lake Trail. Due to Caltrans’ Highway 20 Omega Curves Project, sections of the trail have been impacted by road construction. The remaining 2.3 miles of reroutes to reconnect the trail in the Lowell Hill area are planned to be completed by Fall 2026.

The Pioneer Trail is also a part of the planned Pines to Mines Trail, which once constructed, will span 72 miles and connect the communities of Truckee and Nevada City.

CLICK HERE to see the complete press release from Tahoe National Forest.