BLM’s Colorado chief in new post

An interim state director will head the Colorado state office of the Bureau of Land Management after July 10, when the current director, Ruth Welch, moves to a new position in the Bureau of Reclamation. Welch was reassigned to become director of policy and administration for the national office of the Bureau of Reclamation, which is in Denver. Welch’s three-and-half-year tenure at the BLM office in Lakewood “certainly wasn’t long enough,” she said in an interview on Thursday. “I will truly miss being out on the ground and leading an exceptional group of people” in the agency, which administers about 8.4 million acres in Colorado. Officials with the BLM headquarters in Washington, D.C., didn’t comment on the process they will use to replace Welch. President Donald Trump has yet to appoint a national BLM chief. One organization, the West Slope Colorado Oil and Gas Association, said a change of direction for the Colorado BLM is in order. Trump’s “vision for America’s role in the global energy trade can only be manifested when U.S. energy resources are unlocked,” said David Ludlam, executive director of the gas association. “With the Mancos shale, Colorado’s BLM will play a role in providing future energy supplies both domestically and overseas.” Club 20, the Western Slope lobbying and promotional organization, plans to help find a new director who “has a good knowledge and understanding of the state and is open to working with local communities to develop solutions that are in their best interests, not the one-size-fits-all approach that we often see out of Washington, D.C.,” Club 20 Executive Director Christian Reece said...more