Great Basin National Park Finishes Two SNPLMA Projects

By Ben Roberts, Chief of Natural Resource Management, Great Basin National Park. First published in The Midden*, Vol. 15, No. 1, Summer 2015.*

Snake Creek, one of the streams in the Bonneville cutthroat trout project. NPS photo.

In spring 2015, Great Basin National Park closed out two projects funded by the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act (SNPLMA).

What SNPLMA is

Enacted in October 1998, SNPLMA lets the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) sell public land inside a set boundary around Las Vegas. The proceeds go to:

• Nevada's General Education Fund (5%);
• the Southern Nevada Water Authority (10%);
• a special account for the Secretary of the Interior, for:
• • parks, trails and natural areas
  • capital improvements
  • conservation initiatives
  • the Multi-Species Habitat Conservation Plan
  • environmentally sensitive land purchases
  • hazardous fuels reduction and wildfire prevention
  • the Eastern Nevada Landscape Restoration Project
  • Lake Tahoe restoration

Project 1: Bonneville cutthroat trout

Round 11 funded Nevada's 2006 Conservation Agreement and Conservation Strategy for Bonneville cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarki utah), meant to keep the fish from being listed under the Endangered Species Act. The park, BLM, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service and Nevada Department of Wildlife met its goals:

1. manage for at least 14 conservation populations in Nevada;
2. remove the threats that might justify listing.

The 14 populations, as of December 2014:

Plus: a new population was found in Willard Creek, and another was to be restored in Silver Creek in summer 2015.

Project 2: Sagebrush steppe and aspen, South Snake Range

Also a Round 11 project, with the BLM's Schell field office (Ely District), it served SNPLMA's Goal 2: conserve and restore the outdoor environment by protecting natural and cultural resources and improving recreation.

The fuels work met Sub-objective 2.4.1: reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire.

Sources

Based on "Two SNPLMA Projects Finished," by Ben Roberts, The Midden — Great Basin National Park, Vol. 15, No. 1, Summer 2015, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain.