00:00:04 Speaker 1: Smell us now, lady, welcome to Meat Eater Trivia Podcast. Oh, welcome to Meet Eater Radio Live. It's eleven am, Montana time, and you're back in the Meat Eater studio. Joining me. I'm your host, by the way, Joining me today, Brody Anderson, hold Seth, Morris Aldi, lots of energy, Keep it up, guys, Corey Calkins and Phil is running this whole gig as you are ready. No, Today, we have a very special Meat Eater Radio Live where we're focusing on a near and dear to all of our hearts, which is public lands. We're gonna talk about state lands and federal lands and get a general idea of what the heck is going on out there in this crazy world. We are going to check in with an EXBLM a recently XBLM the Body Still Warm Folks, BLM rangeland ecologist to talk about layoffs. Then we're gonna talk with our buddy David Wilms, who is our go to legal source for all things public lands. Then we're gonna have some fun with a hot tip off, and finally we're gonna wrap up with another guest who is the CEO of Floating Island International International Bruce Kanya, who is going to talk us about talk to us about methane, specifically in regards to the ice house explosion that we covered on the Meat Eater dot com. First, before we get into all of this, uh, I guess we're gonna call this like cal unleashed. I just want to like set the stage on on what we're tackling. 00:02:16 Speaker 2: I actually made a drop for this, if that's true. Yeah, I don't know if you're gonna like it or not, but. 00:02:23 Speaker 3: Oh yeah, perfect? 00:02:31 Speaker 2: Whoa what was that at the end? That was system of a down. That's that's kind of kind of a deep cut. The ones hit me up. 00:02:38 Speaker 4: I was sitting in my office and heard film making this, and I was just like, you know what, just just Fill. 00:02:43 Speaker 3: Doing his thing in there. I'm not gonna be worried. 00:02:46 Speaker 2: I gave Chili a warning, but not Seth. I probably should have given the whole office of warning. 00:02:50 Speaker 1: So, you know, the Mountain Tough Fitness guys used to be like my next door neighbor where I lived before they moved into their their new facility. And I'm gonna early riser right, And I had to tell those guys I'm like, you know, if you guys didn't play that type of music, I'd probably come over and work out right. I'm like, hey, you do like BBC News or something like that. Yeah, So we've been listening to a lot of a lot of feedback and tip of the hat here there are people who read the comments on the YouTube channel and read it and all the other places including email that you send in. So we recently did a it's a State of the Union type of podcast that we always do with TRCP. We have a new president's CEO at TRCP, Joel Peterson, who's a fine human. And the timing the news cycle right now is very very fast paced, so anytime you put something out, you risk it being dated by the time it actually really right. The gap between the recording time and the release time, a lot of things can happen. And we were in a spot where we were i'd say we were like kind of speculating on if there would be any more federal layoffs at the time of recording, and by the time that recording came out, there had been a lot of federal layoffs. So we want to tackle that head on today and I'll just tell you right now, Public lands, access to public lands, access to public wildlife. Those are absolutely core to meat eater, to everybody who works here, and they just shouldn't be screwed with man. And we're gonna get into this deeper with our first guest, but there's no slippage in those values here. And we cared deeply about the stewards of the land who often sacrifice at low pay and very little thanks to go out there and clear trails and clean up you know, government houses, those nice square government houses with the little pebble walls, they do a lot more than that. And the drop toilets, yes, a lot more than that. So hopefully we'll get into more of that, I would say, and fellows please chime in here that I don't think it's unfair to say that there's like a general attack on public lands right now, and it is widespread. Well, it's coming from both the state side of things and the federal side of things. And the only kind of disclaimer I would put in there is, like public lands as we know them so right now, with the layoffs that just recently went through, like the group of people that those layoffs affected in Bureau of Land Management, US Forest Service land that we use heavily here in Montana and throughout the West. Those are the folks that are are doing the trail maintenance and the general cleanup that you see like covered in the news, Like the it ticks me off that, Like the scariest thing that some of these news outlets can come up with is like, so don't be surprised if there's trash at your campground when you show up. 00:06:25 Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean there's also habitat work going on, research going on, Like it trickles down to every facet of hunting and fishing, right, like everything, and other forms of outdoor recreation that are important too. I mean, look like camping, rafting, what whatever like there right affects everyone. 00:06:46 Speaker 1: Yeah, Like you're off road vehicle, the stamp that you get like that goes directly to trails and campground maintenance. Yeah right, it's it's probably be a little beefed if you're an ATV or single track writer and those trails aren't maintained and your campgrounds are don't have to worry about trash blowing around because you're not gonna be able to get into one. Period. So without further ado, I think and like we want to get into how you can wade into this this situation here. Certainly at the state level, you have every right and ability to contact all of your lawmakers, from the governor to your state representatives, to your congressional representatives. And if you're concerned about this stuff, you absolutely should be writing in right. Like in the West, I'll tell you that small town economies are greatly impacted by USDA for a Service Bureau of Wreck BLM employees. 00:07:59 Speaker 5: That shouldn't be about the West, though, no, you know, because back east there are millions of people that live within spitting distance of national forest, national parks, you know, all kinds of federally managed land. So it's it's not just a Western issue. 00:08:14 Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you can absolutely agree, like we're based on having your cake and eat it too. Here in America, Okay, you can agree on some things our elected officials are doing and be diametrically opposed to other things that they are doing. And that is absolutely okay. In fact, it's completely normal. So when you call your elected representatives, when you hold their feet to the fire, you can say, hey, I love what you're doing over here, keep it up. However, what you're doing over here has giant negative impacts that you don't even understand, and you need to stop or you need to change the pace at which you're pushing this stuff. 00:08:59 Speaker 5: So, yeah, how'd your day go yesterday? 00:09:05 Speaker 1: Cal Oh, that's a good question. Yeah. So we did a rally for public lands at the Montana State Capital, Helena, Montana. I always like to point out when I go up there, that behind Capitol Hill in Helena is a chunk of BLM and my grandpa, he grew grew up there at the base of that BLM chunk, and that was his last trap line. Nice was on that chunk of BLM up above the capitol. Big crowd there, Yeah, it was allowed crowd, you know. Unfortunately we didn't see a whole lot of lawmakers in the room, but I guarantee you they could hear us. So we had some really killer speakers and just a really good show of support for our public lands here in Montana, both state and federally managed. So that was really cool. And Gang, I gotta tell you, like showing up physically and being in these places when there's a call is really really important. I mean, it makes a big impact. It's a very hard thing to ignore. I told the crowd yesterday that if I was a anti public lands representative, I'd be scared shitless of being in that room. Like, I mean, you're talking about some dedicated people and you look in their eyes and you just know this stuff's important and you shouldn't mess with it. 00:10:30 Speaker 6: Yep. 00:10:31 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:10:33 Speaker 1: Hard to replace that. So are you guys ready to get to our first interview here? 00:10:39 Speaker 7: Sure? 00:10:39 Speaker 6: All right? 00:10:40 Speaker 1: So Ryan Schroeder is a fella that I've met a handful of times over the years and real interesting story. But he caught old doctor Randa Williams attention the other day because he posted on on Instagram about being laid off, and I think it's a story worth hearing. So we'd like to get Ryan. Well, there he is, there, I am. 00:11:08 Speaker 8: Can you see me, guys? 00:11:09 Speaker 1: Yeah, we got you. 00:11:11 Speaker 8: Awesome. Good to see you, guys. Thanks for thanks for having me on. I really appreciate the time and and your willingness to talk about this, so thank you. 00:11:18 Speaker 1: Where are you at? 00:11:20 Speaker 8: I am in Mancus, Colorado, So just between Cortes and Durango right now, Yeah, far southwest Colorado. Earn round. I think hunting units seventy two, seventy one and seventy one to one. So for those of Colorado folks, I know you brody, so I'll do my best just a time or two. Yeah, so, yeah, thank you guys for having me on. 00:11:44 Speaker 1: What's the population of Mancus, Colorado? 00:11:47 Speaker 8: Oh gosh? Are we including cattle in that population too? Or and meal deer? Oh gosh? I think Mancas is right about eighteen hundred folks. Last I checked. One. Yeah, I just moved well plus two now I just moved here back in December from from Missoula. Actually, so saw you guys have me? Did your live when you came last year? 00:12:06 Speaker 3: Oh? 00:12:06 Speaker 6: Thank you? 00:12:07 Speaker 1: Uh so, let's just get down to it. What what made you go down the path of being a parasite on the government payroll? 00:12:17 Speaker 6: Geez? 00:12:18 Speaker 8: Yeah, Well to correct first, I see in the news. Yeah I supposedly. Yeah, so I was. I don't know the right tensing to use, uh because I was fired. I've never been fired before, but was fired on Tuesday. But I was a arrangeling management specialist, not arrangelment to collegists. Those are two different job series titles uh for the Bureau of Land Management uh here based out of the Trace Rios Field office uh here in Dolores, Colorado. 00:12:47 Speaker 1: That's three rivers south. 00:12:51 Speaker 8: I got, yeah, I guess see, but yeah, so uh yeah, Arrangeling Management specialist out of the Trace Rios Field Office, but also had duties with the Canyon of the Ancient National Monument. So that's just north of Cortes, Colorado. And so yeah, gosh, we're to start why I got interested in wanting to work for the federal government and the Bureau of Land Management in particular. You know, I always wanted to serve my country. When I was in high school. I wanted to end up wanting to be in the Marine Corps or the army, but I ended up being medically denied when I was getting out of high school and wanted to go down that path, but still like was interested in agriculture, habitat, hunting, fishing, et cetera. And so went to school at Purdue University, did kind of a generic natural resource environmental sciences degree, but got specialized in soils and vegetation things like that, and I got introduced to hunting out So I grew up in Indiana, so you know, corn, soybeans, agriculture, thickets with trees with good white tail populations, and frog ponds for fishing. But I had a friend of my dad's friend had a group on a ranch out by Reid Point, Montana, and took me out there hunting when I was like eight ten years I think ten years old and killed my first year out there, and I was like, oh, I can see further than like around the next cornfield and stuff. So that always was trickling in the back of my mind. And in high school went out hunting around Laramie and Wheatland, Wyoming a lot for pronghorn. That's twenty thirteen pron corn up there behind me out of Wheatland area, and yeah, I was just like, wait, people manage this stuff? Like I don't know, like do people do anything with this or can Like it's not like roe crop bag. I don't know, what do you do other than ranchet and how does that work? So doing work at Purdue University, got introduced with a couple of land trusts with habitat work on restoring prairies and oak savannahs. Then got a chance to work for the US four Service and the Bighorn National Forest out of Buffalo, Wyoming as a range tech as a seasonal position twenty sixteen twenty seventeen. I thought it was chaos in twenty sixteen or twenty seventeen getting back to work with them, but that got me just so induced, like this is range. Range is at the top of the stove. Range is habitat work, is livestock is wildlife? Is this nexus of agriculture, conservation and wildlife issues figuring out how to plants and soils and water and animals interact on the landscape. How can we manage it to achieve the objectives that we want out on the ground and do good habitat work to be able to have all these different things out on the ground and do all these different you know, recreation, hunting, fishing, hiking, and also other extractive uses like livestock raising is an extractive use. You've got mining, oil and gas exploration, et cetera. And so I ended up doing my masters at Colorado State University doing work funded by the Bureau of Land Management and the US four Service in western Colorado up by Grand Junction and a couple of the National conservation areas over there, as well as up north of Hayden, Colorado, northwest of Steamboat Springs, in a beautiful area that I'm not going to say the name of it. 00:16:22 Speaker 3: Don't say it. 00:16:24 Speaker 8: You know what, you know what I'm talking about. Teddy Roosevelt was there. But yeah, so working in beautiful landscapes with amazing people who cared about stewardship of our public resources. Because, like I said, I grewup Indiana, I was surrounded by private land and got exposed to, you know, all the lands that were lands and resources that we all own as Americans. And just like, oh man, these people do cool work and are doing good, important work to steward our lands. And so did my masters at Colorado State. Then want got funding from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service to do a PhD. Started it down in New Mexico State University in twenty twenty, working on the Hornaut Experimental Range down there, as well as working with the NRCS to develop a tool on the web soil survey. It's a soil interpretation to help us better restore rangelands through active seating and rangeland seating activities. And so been in academia. I've been in school for eleven years and working with agencies to get out and do work on the grounds. Like I don't want to be an academy. I don't want to be on my computer as much as I have in the past so many years, and my interactions with our public land stewards and the private people that we work with or that public lands stewards work with, just maybe want to get in to do that hands on on the ground work, not being here as like, oh, I'm here the government to tell you what to do. I am here to help you solve problems, help us steward our nation natural heritage for current generations and for the future from this multiple multiple use mission that the different agencies have from Federal Lands Policy Management Act FLIPMA. And yes, that's having those skills, that knowledge in rangelantcology, soils, vegetation, et cetera. 00:18:25 Speaker 1: And when you talk about range land right like that that term is particular to grazing allotments. It's not like range land for dr and L you're out there exactly. Yeah, like that NRCS funded Receding project that's to put more grass on the ground for cattle, for private enterprise for that. 00:18:49 Speaker 8: But also just for keeping our lands and soils healthy, for keeping our soils where they're supposed to be and managing for the watershed resource managing for all these different resource ranges such an inner dispinary program and that yeah, our mission or our project area program, area and range has been for first and foremost because of the Tailor Grazing Act that was passing nineteen thirty four to help solve some of the issues that had happened from the eighteen hundreds and westward expansion and the overgrazing of just open range. We now have grays back in thirty four nineteen thirty four, soon enough to be twenty thirty four, geez, but to at least permit and authorize and have terms and conditions set out for private citizens to through a reg regulated way, graze domestic livestock, whether that be cattle or sheep. Primarily in my field off in the field office I've been working with, was primarily cattle. Was primarily cattle. Was to get produce food and fiber for the American people on our public rangelands. But do it in a responsible, a balanced way to do to look at other resources and make sure that we minimize conflict, mitigate and minimize negative environmental impact of this of this of this primary use that's you guys have talked about before within multiple use missions of grazing as as one of those primary tenants of a authorized use or a use on public lands. But it's so much more than just grazing and keeping grass on for cattle. It's for soil health, it's for wildlife habitat. I mean we we are here to advocate or we were. I don't know what the tends to use because I was fired so recently terminated, and if not laid off, I was a termination is how it is written in my termination letter. And can you I'm sorry rying to interrupt you there, but you know we're hearing the terms terminated. 00:20:55 Speaker 1: Layoff, furloughed. What's the difference between terminated and. 00:20:59 Speaker 8: Furlough So furloughed is so, say, March fourteenth, Pie day, we've got coming up, the continuing resolution that we're currently acting under ends And so say if I was still if I were to be furloughed, I would still be on paper an employee of the Bureau of Land Management. And anybody who working for the FAIL government who is not a essential employee as designated as such, would be not able to work, not permitted to work. Can't touch a dang thing. Your government phone, your email account, et cetera. But then once funding would be restored, they would be paid for you know what they did for. They would be paid and still stay on with the agency that they're working for. I, as of Tuesday, February the eighteenth, was terminated after less than sixty days of being with the Bureau of Land Management here in Colorado. I by the end of the day on Tuesday, like two hours after I got the notice from my supervisor, I lost access to a work email, I lost access to my work phone. I had to turn all of my badges and everything back in. I was the letter was actually dated for February the fourteenth, everything out, like everybody, like a lot of the other people who were terminated in this way. So and I was terminated because I was a probationary employee. I had less than a year in service. I had started with it started on December thirtieth, twenty twenty four, and after finishing. 00:22:42 Speaker 1: Yeah, sorry, I mean, you're you're a highly educated, dude, motivated guide going you know, learning a lot. You got a lot of credentials behind you. I mean, far more than I ever will if I'm being frank, But they're just. 00:22:55 Speaker 8: They're just they're just letters and it's just experienced. So it's a school of hard knocks and whatever. 00:23:01 Speaker 1: So I mean, you're you're going to find another gig, another job. 00:23:04 Speaker 8: I hope. 00:23:05 Speaker 6: Yeah. 00:23:06 Speaker 8: I want to be reinstated. I want to get like I'm trying to appeal this to get reinstated because the reason that they used in my termination letter is like apparently my skills and qualifications do not meet the needs of the department. Is what it is, how it is stated in my termination letter. 00:23:27 Speaker 5: What Ryan can I like, I don't know if you can speculate or not, but what would what do you see like high level? Like easy to explain the impact of not having range managers on the land. 00:23:42 Speaker 8: So yeah, gosh, that's a big question, high level. So our primary focus in the range group is to use science and the law to administer grazing permits on public lands, so working with private citizens, like I said, and private ranches to raise livestock on public rangelands. And there's a whole set of terms and conditions and a whole process administrative process that that goes through to make sure that we go through the NEPA process, the National Environmental Policy Act, for it is a proposed action on public lands and could have environmental impacts. So we bring in wildlife managers, recreation folks, hydrology, et cetera. Whenever we go through and we renew fully process a grazing permit. And that's so to be able to adapt to whatever the conditions are out on the ground. These permits renew are supposed to be renewed every ten years or whenever a permittees basely expires. And so where there's also an opportunity an option based upon I think a law passed in the nineties that we are legally we where the BLM is sorry, BLM is legally obligated to authorize or to an issue grazing permits, and so there's is a way to just renew the prop renew the renew the permit without changing anything, which is all well and good. But what if that land's not meeting land health standards. 00:25:09 Speaker 5: That's kind of what I was getting at, Like, is there a situation in which this would result in not only degraded yes, raising conditions for cattle, but also degraded wildlife habitat re mule, deer, an elk and sage grouse and b like on and on and on. 00:25:26 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:25:27 Speaker 8: So like for example, we were bit, I'm sorry, I'm getting fired up here. I'll calm down. I wonder why I'm fired up? So we in my office, so was myself and another new range management specialist who he had just started in October but had come over after two years within being a range management specialist in Nevada, and we were working up addition to our permanent range technician prioritization plans to go do land health assessments and figure out and develop a prioritization strategy for the grazing permits that are expiring this year, to renew them and fully process as many of them as we could, but also do that, you know, no change in termining conditions where it made sense. We have a two because the person who I fill it or was hired for, retired a year or two ago. It took the office at least a year and a half to fill my position. And there's a year, there's two years worth of backlogs of land health assessments and grazing permit renewals that we were getting geared up to do this year. It was going to be forty thirty more days or more days in the field, bringing out also our wildlife folks, our hydrology people, et cetera, in our this interdisciplinary team that we have to have out in the field to look at land health. Is grazing a cause of if land health standards are not being met if not great? If so, how can that change be mitigated? And go through that that need the National Environmental Policy Act process. It is down to one person, one one range and management specialist and one range technician to try to fill that bat that two years worth of backlog. I mean it with three of us. It was going to be a daunting task with two of them. And I don't like they are the next ones on the chopping block because we hear that this is not the end of what is to come well and. 00:27:28 Speaker 1: Like to point out like the other side of this is is the quote unquote consumer right, Like folks want those grazing leases badly because they're the cheapest grazing lease you can possibly get. Right, it's like a dollar to thirty five per au m. 00:27:44 Speaker 8: It's the one thing that has not changed with inflation and has not changed since nineteen ninety six. About as old as I am, I'll be uh I was born ninety five. 00:27:51 Speaker 5: So there's a lot of people in this country getting their steaks from that land, so to speak, you know what I mean, Yeah. 00:27:58 Speaker 8: Yes, sir, and not just beef burgers, but venison, elk, everything. And so we were working up. We had new direction as of October to start prioritizing grazing permit renewals, fully processed renewals, and gunnis and sage grouse habitat because here over in Canyon of the Ancient National Monument and up north at Disappointment Valley Naturita Area, there's a lot of there's gunnis and sage grouse habitat and grazing permits in those areas that we were given direction from from the last minute, or we were given direction from to begin prioritizing catching up with land health assessments, grazing permit renewals to be able to adaptively manage grazing permits. Helped work with the private permittees to adaptively manage to make sure that those species are not further imperiled by what's happening out on the ground. 00:28:55 Speaker 1: And so it's interesting, I mean, every program that you've mentioned has been at minimum put on funding freeze and RCS is you know that really if you looked at at NRCS it it wouldn't be disingenuous to call it the largest conservation program in the world, not just the United States or North America, but like the world. And that's something that that helps out people on the private side of the fence tremendously, just like we talked about grazers right here. So we got to get going just out of curiosity. And if you're not willing to share this, it's a little bit like looking at you with your pants down. But what what were you getting paid as a new rangeland specialist? 00:29:45 Speaker 8: Yeah, so I was brought in as a GS eleven step one, brand new federal employee. I was making about seventy three thousand. If I would have seventy three thousand dollars annually would have been my salary. 00:30:00 Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, so, and and what what's next next for you? 00:30:07 Speaker 3: Rabid season? 00:30:08 Speaker 8: It's wrap rabbit season. Here's wrapping up. 00:30:11 Speaker 6: You know. 00:30:11 Speaker 8: I've been trying to figure out when to get use some of the little leave that I had accrued over my short less than sixty days to figure out when to go down to hunt my Havelina tag down in southern New Mexico. I think I might be able to do a little bit more planning to go down and hunt that tag after that. I just I want to get reinstated. I want to appeal this. I don't think this is right. I'm worried about the mission of I mean, if I get, if I get, if I don't get rehired, so be it. 00:30:44 Speaker 3: Keep fighting, man, I worry you guys. 00:30:47 Speaker 8: Keep fighting to hold the line. This is it, we need it, This is important, and this is not the end of it. And things need to People need to know what is happening out on the ground. It's not just trash, it's not just whatever. 00:31:04 Speaker 3: It is. 00:31:04 Speaker 8: Our habitat, our public resource, our natural heritage at risk for a mission that is supposedly changing that is not due to the public's will, at least not being played out in a public process right now. And I worry about what has to come next for my for my co workers, if they're going to if more people are going to get laid off like they're already on a skeleton crew. What's going to happen if more people get get terminated, or people lose faith in the agency. And and go what does that mean for the next That's what worries me. I I'll be okay, I think I don't know what this sets up for the future of our public resources and our natural and national heritage in our stewardship of these lands. 00:31:58 Speaker 1: It's hard to hear man. I think. I appreciate you coming on. I appreciate you guys asking tremendously, and we'll keep sending you good thoughts and hope you do get reinstated. You know, it's a good example of what's going on right now. Things are moving really fast. Uh And and I think at the end of the day, people just need to understand that no matter how you voted, the vote's over right. What matters is what you do from now forward every single day. And it's absolutely absolutely okay and within your power to say, hey, this particular thing I do not agree with. Right, So thanks a bunch, Ryan, and keep me posting. Hopefully we'll have you back on with some good news at some point. 00:32:48 Speaker 7: Well. 00:32:48 Speaker 8: See, like I said, I'm speaking into personal capacity right now. 00:32:53 Speaker 6: Once. 00:32:53 Speaker 8: If I were to get brought back on, I have to run it by my soup. Yeah, shit, you guys have me on Brodie Seth. Good meeting you, guys. 00:33:02 Speaker 3: Philby, thank you. 00:33:06 Speaker 1: You know, I hate asking a fellow how much he makes, but when you're in a town of eighteen hundred people, that's a that's a significant salary to remove out of that economy. 00:33:17 Speaker 5: Sure, yeah, and I mean there's more to it than that, even you know. 00:33:23 Speaker 1: Oh absolutely. 00:33:27 Speaker 6: So. 00:33:28 Speaker 1: Running a little bit behind schedule, but we're gonna get to the hard facts of the law with David Wilms, who's our very next guest. He forgot his hair jail today. 00:33:41 Speaker 7: I did, No, it's I've got lots of it in Yeah, I'm just glad. 00:33:47 Speaker 3: I'm just glad I have hair. 00:33:49 Speaker 1: So David, if it's all right with you, I'd love to just get an update on what the heck's going on with the Utah lawsuit and then go from there and just kind of talk about where this land transfer sell off movement is. I can give you some feedback on the Montana side of things, but I know Wyoming, where you are a resident, has some stuff in motion, and I think starting with Utah would be a great, great place. 00:34:22 Speaker 7: Sure, I'm happy to do that, and thanks for having me on. I appreciate it so last time I was with you guys, the Utah lawsuit was still active, right, meaning they had this case before the United States Supreme Court. They were asking for the Supreme Court to accept jurisdiction of the case, and we were talking, we were speculating what might happen. Well, in January, the United States Supreme Court, in a twelve word order, declined to accept jurisdiction of the case, which all that really means is they said, it doesn't warrant us taking on what's called original jurisdiction. It doesn't warrant us taking the case. Yet they didn't say that there was no case there. They didn't say that they might not hear it again in the future. They just said, in twelve words, not now. 00:35:14 Speaker 6: Case. 00:35:15 Speaker 7: We declined to exercise jurisdiction. So because of that, that case goes away. But the way I've described this to people to use a bit of a football analogy, which might be a little late now that we've passed the Super Bowl, but I think it works, was that Utah threw their Hail Mary on the first play of the game, right, instead of the last play of the game, meaning they took a run at the Supreme Court knowing very well that the likelihood of the court accepting the case was exceptionally low. And all that means now is if they want this lawsuit to proceed to go forward, they're going to have to file it and go through the normal course and procedure, which means filing it in federal district court, which is what we really expect will probably happen in the coming months, weeks, months, don't know how long it'll take, but would fully expect that that at some point we'll see a new lawsuit filed in federal district court and then we're just operating under the playbook. 00:36:14 Speaker 6: Now. 00:36:14 Speaker 7: Now the game's happening, Like to use that football analogy, right, we had the we had the hail Mary, it dropped in complete in the end zone, and now they're going to the playbook and they're playing the game. And that's what I would expect would happen going forward, is we'll probably see a new lawsuit filed in federal district court and then we'll have to go through the normal process of emotions to dismiss motions for some rejudgment and you know, all the things that come with with litigation. 00:36:41 Speaker 1: And is there there any expected timeline on them supplying that to the lower court, and. 00:36:50 Speaker 7: They can really do it whenever they want. When I say it could be weeks or months, I mean it really can be any time. I don't think I've seen anything publicly indicating when that might come. It's just when they're ready. 00:37:02 Speaker 6: They'll have to you know. 00:37:03 Speaker 7: I suspect they learned some things, and they floated some legal theories. 00:37:08 Speaker 6: Uh. 00:37:08 Speaker 7: And I think some of those legal theories, folks were able to poke some holes in uh and you know, in that Supreme Court filing, And so I could see them going back and making some changes to that complaint and maybe pleading this case a little bit differently. I don't know what I mean. The end result would be asking for roughly the same thing I suspect, but the legal arguments to get there might they might tweak those a little bit. So it just depends on how long it takes for them to do that and uh and and when they decide that timing is right for them to refile. 00:37:39 Speaker 4: Dave, is there any former. 00:37:42 Speaker 5: Former examples of these kind of cases where we can like kind of base what we think should happen in the next round, not necessarily what will but what should based on what's happened in the past. 00:37:59 Speaker 7: You mean, like, sorry to ask it another way, but you mean like an attempt to get to the to the Supreme Court that being denied. 00:38:08 Speaker 5: Or in a federal district court just another an example of another lawsuit like this that turned out a certain way. Or is this just like who knows what's going to happen? 00:38:21 Speaker 7: I like, I view this as a I mean, you don't know what's going to happen. Although I would say that there's a lot of federal case law out there talking about the ability of the federal government to own and manage federal lands, Like there's two hundred years of precedent out there that Utah is going to somehow have to explain away. And I think we talked about it before. What the narrow angle they were taking was, which is you know that that despite this two hundred years of precedent, it was all those cases we're doing was confirming that the federal government could manage and manage those lands elusively. But that maybe there it didn't actually address the question of could they hold on to those lands in perpetuity? And so that that's the narrow question they're trying to force into the discussion. But man, there's a lot of case law out there talking about the federal government having the absolute authority to manage public lands and to own public lands. Well, it's tough. It's going to be a tough case. 00:39:26 Speaker 1: One one good thing that I see here is when these things come up, they kind of boil over and they become so in the past, so socially unacceptable to mess with these big chunks of federally managed public lands that are managed on behalf of all of us and and they're America's playground. Plus it's where a lot of Americans make their living, both in the private sector and in the public sector. We're seeing efforts in several states, states that have joined the lawsuit on behalf of Utah, and bills being introduced in different legislative sessions. And to me, like the positive there is being able to say, like, oh, that's the person that we need to have a good conversation with because they are going to be on the wrong side of history. So I kind of like when this stuff pops up in a way because it flushes out folks with bad ideas. 00:40:41 Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, I think you're right I also think there's the timing of this discussion is perfect. So I don't know if you've talked about this or seen this, but yesterday Colorado College released a Conservation in the West pole. They do this poll every year and it's there. They're pulling voters in the West, particularly the Inner Mountain West, on a host of conservation issues, and one of the questions that they were asked was about transfer of lands to from states or from the federal government to states, and sixty seven percent of respondents oppose that across the West in the aggregate, and in Utah it's fifty seven percent. So even in Utah that's leading the charge on this. Now, fifty seven percent of the voters doesn't matter political party oppose transfer. And so to your point of these bills coming up in state and you know, seeing who's sponsoring them, who's behind the bills, I think that matters because the public doesn't want to see this happen. This data is, you know, just like I said, just released yesterday, which confirms you know, the poll from last year, in the poll from the year before, and you can go back and look at poles over time, it's pretty consistent. The public doesn't want to see federal lands transferred. There's a there's an accountability piece here, an opportunity and educational opportunity, and accountability opportunity in the states. 00:42:07 Speaker 1: And who's who holds people accountable? 00:42:09 Speaker 7: Voters? 00:42:10 Speaker 6: You've got it. 00:42:11 Speaker 1: That's right, that's right. So what's happening in Wyoming, David? 00:42:17 Speaker 6: What isn't happening in Wyoming? Geez? 00:42:21 Speaker 7: So I could talk about a couple of the things. So there was a bill and this one or sorry, excuse excuse me, a joint resolution, and this one actually died recently, but it it made it pretty far on the Senate side, which proposed transferring all federal lands in the state to the state, including Grand Teton National Park, so everything except Yellowstone and that that did ultimately die in the Senate on second or third reading, and I think it was, I mean, it was a narrow, narrow margin. Then you have a couple of others. There's been a bill there to this one I believe is still alive, and it would require if you're a private landowner, you own your own property and you want to sell that property, and the buyer that's interested in that property is the federal government under this bill, the state legislature would have to approve that sale. You could not sell your private land to the federal government without the state legislature's approval. And that bill, to my understanding, is still alive, and it's rooted in this concept of the state wanting to have a no net gain of federal lands in the state. And then there's one other thing I'd mentioned in state and this one's not a bill, and this one's pretty quiet, And this is like I mentioned this because it's something I think people should be aware of because it could happen in any number of states. But I'm sure you've talked about this before on your podcasts, and I'm sure listeners know. There was a parcel of land in Grand Teton National Park that was owned by the state of Wyoming that late last year was sold to the Park Service for one hundred million dollars six hundred and forty acres section that was bordered on I think it was on two sides by the Park Service, one side by the National Elk Refuge and one side by the National Forest. So it was just transferred to the federal government, which was a great deal for Wyoming to get one hundred million dollars out of it, and it was a great deal for the Park Service to ensure that that land wouldn't be sold or subdivided or developed. Now the state wants to package that one hundred million dollars and an additional I can't remember the exact number, forty eight or fifty million from a sale that occurred about ten years ago of another parcel in the park and they want to put a proposal on. In fact, I think they may have already submitted the proposal to the Bureau of Land Management to purchase ten thousand acres of BLM land in northeast Wyoming with that money. I think that's pretty quiet. I don't think there have been there's been a lot of press about that, and it's a It's something I note because there is a process under the Federal Land Policy Management Act for transferring federal lands or selling federal lands if it's in the national interest, and I suspect there's going to be a pitch that this sale would be considered in the national interest. It's an acreage that's large enough that it would require notification to Congress, but I don't think it requires approval of Congress. It's one of those where you provide a notification to Congress and if Congress, if one chamber of Congress doesn't oppose within thirty days to the transaction, then they can move forward with it. Now, there are other things that have to happen. They've got to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act, probably have to do an EIS, it could be environmental impact statement. It could be years before that happens. But it's an example of using existing processes and something kind of behind the scenes to affect like pretty significant land transfers. 00:46:02 Speaker 1: And I think I think that's something that everybody needs to be aware of, Like land transfers, sales of publicly managed ground, they do occur and then they have for a long time and and sometimes there's some gains as well, But everybody needs to be aware that that they can weigh in on those. They have a vested interest in saying, whoa that doesn't work for me, or this does in in the can frame it. 00:46:31 Speaker 5: In a way that's not it's not like a seizure, right Like it's kind of like willing seller willing buyer type thing. Like they can frame it that way, and you know, it's harder to fight that I think. 00:46:43 Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely absolutely. You want me to hit you with some Montana stuff, David, Yeah. 00:46:49 Speaker 7: And then I might punt it right back to you to answer it. 00:46:54 Speaker 1: Well, I mean things that I think people should know about. Right So, as we talk there, the debate on land transfer is I'm sorry, Brody's got party in his pants over here. The debate on land transfer always edges towards well, the state state will manage it better, and I kind of kick that back and say, well, it's not actually about management. The fear is that the state will have to sell these lands if they were to actually get ownership of them, for a bunch of reasons. Most most of them are would be just tackling any sort of budget deficits that would come up in the future. So right now, in the state of Montana, we had a and I feel strongly that most of our politicians really know that land transfer, land sell off, reducing public land, public access is not something that's going to get you elected. But we did see a you know, a Montana state funded i e. The taxpayer funded program get put into place this year that would assess all state lands and identify lands to sell. And then right now we have what is it, HB three seventy nine, House Built three seventy nine, which would essentially just streamline the process of selling state lands. And then most recently, and this kind of goes into the social side of things, like our governor was just quoted in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that is very land transfer privatization adjacent. But just the fact that he's quoted in there makes me nervous, right, And and it's this I this conglomeration of state lands and federally public federally managed public lands are the same. And and in a lot of ways, it's like apples to comb quats, right, Like we're we're not in the same ballpark where they're they're very different. And then on top of that, we have a bill that hasn't seen the light of day yet, but I think it is one of those things that hasn't quite gotten out into the light because they're afraid of the social repercussions. 00:49:33 Speaker 5: Rep. 00:49:33 Speaker 1: Tommy Millet of Marion, Montana has LC two nine one two, which is a draft, but it would be supporting Utah's lawsuit, So straight up support of land transfer going through the Montana State legislature, which hasn't been there. Uh, we haven't seen it yet. But all of this to say, on the federal side of things, we're dealing with some very challenging times regarding our public lands and that those challenges are going to have repercussions in the way that we experience public lands. Right now, the same stuff that we've been talking about bathrooms, campgrounds, road maintenance, trail maintenance. Down to Ryan that we just talked to is like, it's possible that our range land that create you know, tall grass, makes fat cattle, but it also makes you know, awesome horn growth on big g narley, mule deer bucks. Right, it's possible that just that soil and range land could be affected, like down down to that level. At the state level, we're seeing movement to acquire, slash dispose of public land. What's your sense of the landscape right now? 00:51:06 Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean you summed it up pretty well. There's I would say, some antagonistic behavior in various states. Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona are right at the top of the list. From you know, the state level pursuing policies that would encourage federal land transfer. I think you also have to look to what's going on in DC as well, the things that have happened or the things that haven't happened yet but could. And it's sort of a This would be a call to say, hey, keep your eyes out for some of this stuff. You might have heard. You know, everybody's probably seen news reports about, you know, reconciliation and what it looks like for pursuing the president's policy agenda and getting through this reconciliation process and getting tax cut made permanent. I'll use that example because that's the one that's directly correlated here. You know, they had the twenty seventeen tax cuts during his first presidency, and he wants to wants to make those permanent and maybe add some additional cuts. And when you have tax cuts, you have to be able to pay for that lost revenue. You have to offset that revenue. And one of the ideas that I've seen floated around is using this you know, I think somebody estimated two hundred trillion dollar asset that is our federal lands, using some of those to help offset the like selling those to offset the tax cuts. I'll make it in there. But those conversations are certainly happening behind closed doors. 00:52:46 Speaker 5: Well, there's precedent for that at the state level. Right like that, there are plenty of states that don't have any state owned public land because they sold them all to. 00:53:00 Speaker 1: Every single state has less state land than they started with. 00:53:03 Speaker 5: Right and they use that to do whatever fund the government. So it's almost like taking that to the national level, right. 00:53:14 Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean at the state level. The difference here is at the state level, all of these states received these parcels of land and were constitutionally obligated to maximize the revenue off of those acres, and the maximizing of the revenue off of those acres sometimes meant selling those I mean the state of Utah still has I think every six months they hold sales of state trust lands. And the idea is you maximize the revenue for your public schools and hospitals and universities. Depending on the state and the constitution, So there's this constitutional obligation that has led to the selling off of a lot of that land estate. You don't have that obligation at the federal level. It's it's it's a little bit disconcerning, uh that those that we're now talking you know, I don't I'm not going to call it mainstream. I don't think it's mainstream. I think most people, even at the federal level in Congress, oppose this idea of selling off the federal estate or transferring it. 00:54:17 Speaker 1: Well, you know what's interesting, though, David, is if you look at like Utah is a great example, Like if you look at the revenue generated. Uh, you know, Utah like taxes as most states do, right, they tax oil and gas extraction mining in a much different way than the Feds do. And like the income received through extractive industry on state land in Utah is significant. So, like you know, I don't know much about anything. My life's as much of a mass as the next person. But I don't see how it makes sense to sell off that land. Like it's like male box money to the tunes of billions of dollars. 00:55:04 Speaker 7: Well, you pointed out one one big thing, right, Like the federal government isn't required to manage public lands to generate revenue. They do generate revenue. They sell oil and gas. They have grazing leases, and your last guests, you know, highlighted the dollar thirty five and aum for grazing leases. The states are required to make money off of it, as much money as possible, which is why it costs in a lot of places one thousand percent more to graze on state land than it does on private land. Why oil and gas royalty payments to the states are higher on state land than they are on federal lands, because they're required to generate that revenue. They're not required to manage lands with multiple use in mind, including recreation and hunting and angling and conservation and all of the things that go into multiple lease management. It's different. The state systems are just different. And so if you had, if you have these transfers, they're going to be managed differently than they are currently managed under the federal system. And you know when I mean, here's one thing that I was faced with. So I used to work as you know, I used to work for the governor here in Wyoming, the prior governor, and when we were faced with, you know, questions about whether we should support public land transfers, one of the big reasons we opposed it was the cost of fighting fire would have bankrupt the state. We couldn't afford to do it. You know. It was so so unbelievably expensive and so important to our states to have and to have fire crews and equipment and everything out there combating these big wildfires. But it's like they're just different systems. And so this idea that we that we'd would use federal lands to help pay for tax cuts by selling them either to either to private landowners or to two states, you know, it's so short sighted, Like the impacts on that would would be pretty pretty catastrophic, hard even hard to describe. 00:57:08 Speaker 1: Well, yeah, and I think anybody who's trying to get a mortgage in a western state right now understands that, holy cow, this land just keeps going up and up and up. David. 00:57:20 Speaker 3: I'd love to. 00:57:21 Speaker 1: Talk to you more, but I am running this horribly over time. 00:57:25 Speaker 6: You are way behind. 00:57:26 Speaker 1: I can tell yes, yes, all right, day, Thank you so much for coming out Where where can folks way in. 00:57:36 Speaker 7: On which thing? 00:57:38 Speaker 1: On all of it? Like, if you want to be a public lands advocate right now, what's what's your top two. 00:57:46 Speaker 7: I will tell you. If you're in one of the states we talked about, Montana, Wyoming, Arizona, Utah, you reach out to your local legislator, reach out to your state representative, send notes to the governor's office. Governors have the power of the pen on the veto right. Some of these things come through if they pass, So reaching out to your local elected officials is really important on some of this stuff. On the federal level, reaching out to your delegation, your congressional delegation is going to be really important as well, especially as it gets closer and closer to this budget reconciliation process. You know there are going to be other bills, like using federal lands to build homes, like to use it for housing in places that don't have housing. That's a big debate that has to happen, but you know, keep your eyes out for that too, and contact your local representats until you tell them how you feel about that. I can tell you that Conservation of the West Poles has data about that, and most people overwhelmingly don't want to see their public lands sold through housing projects either. So elected officials are elected for a reason, right to represent you, and the only way they are representing you as if you tell them what you think. 00:59:03 Speaker 1: That's right, that's right. And I'll tell you there's nothing about the layout of Bosangelus, Montana that makes me think that the people who built this place are going to do it better. On public lamp. 00:59:16 Speaker 9: Like, I'm not going to argue with you on that, all right, Thanks a bunch, David, appreciate it, all right. 00:59:27 Speaker 1: Gig, I apologize for running so high. 00:59:29 Speaker 6: Phil. 00:59:30 Speaker 1: Do you want to do listener feedback? 00:59:31 Speaker 7: Right? 00:59:31 Speaker 2: Here's the convenient thing, cals that are you surprised that the live chat has pretty much devolved into an all out brawl? 00:59:38 Speaker 3: That's kind of toned down a little bit, But. 00:59:41 Speaker 2: You know, I would say there are some people who are level headed and just having a conversation and other people who need to get their shit together and grow up. Had I had to ban someone for name calling, so so you know. 00:59:53 Speaker 3: Don't do that. 00:59:55 Speaker 1: Man, you can't be a good advocate if you lead off by telling somebody they're a jerk, and and then you're like, but you should listen to me. Just the world doesn't work that way anyway. 01:00:05 Speaker 3: I hope it's the last time I have to do it. 01:00:07 Speaker 2: But yeah, we got a couple of let's let's do a couple of fun ones, right, Yes, we're having fun today. 01:00:13 Speaker 10: Let's see favorite February outdoor activities. Do you guys have anything specific before Turkey season gets gets going and the transition period from Caleb Tucker ice fishing. 01:00:26 Speaker 3: Yeah, it's tough, but even that's. 01:00:29 Speaker 1: Just I haven't drilled a single hole through. 01:00:31 Speaker 3: Yeah. 01:00:32 Speaker 4: I think hard to get motivated this year for some reason. 01:00:37 Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I mean the skiing is freaking fantastic period coming up, just yeah. 01:00:44 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. 01:00:45 Speaker 4: I like shooting guns a lot this time of year. 01:00:46 Speaker 6: Two. 01:00:47 Speaker 3: Make sure everything's dialed in. 01:00:50 Speaker 1: Yeah, hard to find a spot to lay down. 01:00:51 Speaker 3: That's true, that's true. 01:00:55 Speaker 2: One more cal I know you're you're a frequenter, Seth, you are too. Jordan's going to Hawaii tomorrow. He's wondering which islands, Uh, where you guys on? I'm sure you visited multiple but do you have any sort of favorite islands, favorite spots on certain islands for certain activities. 01:01:11 Speaker 1: You know, the Big Island is is big. Yeah, so there's a lot of diversity. Every every island has has diversity. But you can get into all sorts of different stuff on the Big Island and I'll tell you, nobody's gonna stop you for shooting a goat. They've got they've got plenty. 01:01:36 Speaker 4: Big islands cool because you can go from like desert to rainforest to sweating your ass to freeze in your ass. 01:01:43 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's wild place, it is, it is, it's it's really cool. You know, did get into like the axis deer. You're gonna have to get over to Lanai or Maui, which super super awesome, and certainly love the people over there. So best best way to do it is get over there, explore and and and make new friends. 01:02:10 Speaker 3: Right on. Cool, That's that's all I've got right now. Let's keep it moving. 01:02:17 Speaker 1: Sounds good, okay, keeping the fun going. 01:02:22 Speaker 3: Oh wait, we're doing hot tip hot tip hop. What's that? 01:02:32 Speaker 6: That's all enjoying it. 01:02:43 Speaker 3: That's a great one, Phil, Thank you, man. 01:02:45 Speaker 2: I don't know, philm I gotta you know, I gotta do some more modern stuff, Brodie, I can't. 01:02:48 Speaker 3: I can't do that. 01:02:49 Speaker 1: In the seventies, I learned so much. I learned so much. Like part of me knows that that's a popular somewhere. 01:03:02 Speaker 5: There's no part of me that. 01:03:03 Speaker 3: It's got the stink on it. 01:03:06 Speaker 1: All right, So ahead of time, we asked you amazing folks listeners watching folks watching a home to send in a hot tip off to radio at themeaeater dot com. We have some molten hot tips sent into the inbox, but we painstakingly had narrowed down to just two submissions for this week's listener Hot tip off. 01:03:29 Speaker 2: Here we go, Brampton Byer, Welcome to another hot tip off coming to you from twenty below, Minnesota. 01:03:39 Speaker 11: No deer hunter should enter the woods without a roll of toilet paper. Not only is it great for those early morning gas station burritos, but you'll find no better tool for blood trailing than a simple role. As you go, mark your blood with a piece hanging on a tree branch, throw it on the ground wherever you can see it. If you lose track of that deer, you can always look back at your bread crumbs to see their direction of travel. Not only is it's highly visible, but it's fio and agreeable. It'll be gone on the next rainstorm and you never have to go back and pick it up. You so toilet paper to help you find your next year. 01:04:10 Speaker 6: Richard Chaikowski. 01:04:15 Speaker 12: Welcome to another hot tip off. My name is Richard, coming at you with this week's hot tip. If you ever spent any amount of time outdoors in the cold, you know keeping the feet warm is always a struggle. I was a dog sled guy for four years and keeping the toes warm was always a battle. So a friend taught me this. Take a little bit of cayenne pepper and you're just gonna sprinkle some on your toes and then your socks. This is gonna act as a vaso dilator and it's gonna keep your feet warm all day. This stuff works pretty much until you wash it off. I'm not a fan of how toe warmers feeling. My boots never got into the heated socks and all that jazz. So this stuff is an awesome, cheap alternative to keep the feet warm. This whole jar cost me four dollars your first time using it. Don't go dumping a whole jar of cayenne on your feet. Just sprinkle a little bit, see how it works for you and go from there. But try this out, get out there and enjoy toasty tolls all year long. 01:05:08 Speaker 1: All right, all right, So here's the fun part. We are going to vote on who won the hot tip off. The winner is gonna get this mule tree cell cam Seth. You got a lot of experience with stuff like this. What are your thoughts here. 01:05:29 Speaker 3: With the moultries? 01:05:30 Speaker 4: Yeah, oh they're sweet. I don't use them a whole lot, But I liked, like we I've went up in Alaska just looking over things at the shack. 01:05:40 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, so you're you're like human surveillance plus anything in a. 01:05:44 Speaker 4: Lot of deer on there, and it's just cool to see what's going on up there, like when I'm not. 01:05:50 Speaker 1: Yeah right, love it. Hot commodity. So boys, we're going Cayenne pepper or TP the kind they're kind of related, which is interesting. 01:06:02 Speaker 4: Also, I couldn't tell if Richard was like messing with us or if that's like a legit, he's not. 01:06:07 Speaker 1: He threw in vasal dilator, Yeah. 01:06:09 Speaker 5: I have leg I heard about it before, but I had forgotten about it. 01:06:14 Speaker 4: I'm gonna go, Well, if that's the case, I'm gonna go with Richard because my feet freeze all the time. 01:06:20 Speaker 3: I struggle with it. 01:06:21 Speaker 5: I'm going with Richard too, because even if it doesn't keep your feet wet, you got some seasoning for your meat when you kill something in your back. 01:06:28 Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not the same could be said for the TP, Like it's not. Even if your primary focus is blood trailing, it's good to have it in there, m hm, no matter what. 01:06:39 Speaker 5: But I think Brandon's is great I was just the whole time, I was thinking, what if it's real snowy out you can't see that thing? Mm hmm yeah, but then you'd be able to see the blood in the snow anyway. 01:06:48 Speaker 3: I guess eh, there you are. You know I'm sticking with Richard. 01:06:51 Speaker 1: All right, Richard, congratulations, you edge two real tree mobile cell cam here. Congrats Seth Morris approved. 01:07:04 Speaker 4: Yeah, your fun with it, all right, gang. 01:07:08 Speaker 1: So at our last interview of the day, Bruce, it's been a long time since you logged on. I'm sure I appreciate your patience. Hopefully you don't think that this is some kind of cockamami show that has no professionalism to it. 01:07:27 Speaker 13: I think you guys are doing fine, in fact, enjoying the process here the first time with you at least. But yeah, looking forward to a visit awesome. 01:07:38 Speaker 1: What is Floating Island International? 01:07:43 Speaker 6: We? 01:07:44 Speaker 13: First of all, we're dased here in Montana outside of Billings on a place called Shepherd on the Yellowstone and go Phillies. We're an invention company. We focus around environmental service product technology, including a floating island called the Biohaven. So that's been our primary business since two thousand and five today there's maybe twelve thousand islands all over the world. 01:08:17 Speaker 1: Well, that sounds like an entire podcast on its own, so I'm going to rain myself back in here. You how did this work? Did you get in contact with us over the methane ice house explosion? 01:08:33 Speaker 6: I did. I read that article and. 01:08:37 Speaker 13: It touched me real directly, because for the last six years we've been researching aquatic methane and today we have developed a data compendium. If anybody out there wants it, would like to do background on this topic, just send me an email info at Floating Island National dot com and I'll provide it. 01:09:03 Speaker 6: The bottom line here. 01:09:05 Speaker 13: Is that if you remember back what thirty forty years ago, harmphology blooms were a rare thing. Water was in reasonable shape, although I think Cuyahoga River catching on fire stuff like that still happened. But since then we've had this incredible, incredible increase in harmphlogy blooms and other forms of aquatic vegetation that can grow explosively, mostly connected with fertilizer agriculture. 01:09:41 Speaker 6: Even but today even healthy. 01:09:43 Speaker 13: Lakes are experiencing some of these harmphology blooms, and that organic material when it does ultimately die subtled into the bottom becomes sledge. No oxygen in the sledge. That's where methane occurs. 01:09:59 Speaker 5: And just real quick, Bruce, what you're talking about is like agricultural runoff into bodies of water that bring like a load of nutrients that then create a massive explosion in a plant growth in plant growth. 01:10:19 Speaker 13: Yeah, anything organic nice that ultimately results in sludge build up on the bottom of a waterway. And typically if this occurs over in a deep water setting, it's even more likely to result in methane. The you know, you're looking at here a scene of a floating island right here at Shepherd, actually on our research reservoir called fish Fry Lake. But in that instance, the island is about three feet thick. We walk on it, we work on it. We we rigidified the top of that island, so plants aren't happening there. But if you look, you'll see a native form of fresh water sponge that did colonize the island. It's I didn't even know we had fresh water a form of sponge here in Montana, but we do. And it's a filter feeder. It's helping clarify the water. Of course, the fish love it, they love the shade all that. 01:11:27 Speaker 1: Boy, let's just get my mind into a totally different frame right now. This is awesome stuff. So in your interpretation like what happened that that day on the on the lake. 01:11:44 Speaker 13: Well, you know, well I can't be one hundred percent. There's other potential explanations. But from what I understand is that there was a surge in organic material in the form of leaves that blew into the lake, and they may have been the ultimate organic material that cycled into methane. But the with a lid of ice over the lake, that methane is it ebulates up in bubble form. 01:12:16 Speaker 6: It can collect under the ice. 01:12:18 Speaker 13: So if you open a hole in that in the wrong spot, you can have a flume of methane. 01:12:25 Speaker 6: Ebulating up through the ice. 01:12:27 Speaker 13: And if you're in a contained setting like an ice hut, and there's any kind of ignition source, all you have to be is a half of one percent methane in the atmosphere five thousand ppm you know, technically is five thousand parts per million to flash, And that may have been what happened there. I do know this that this phenomenon of methane associated with aquatic sources is the single largest source of methane occurring on the planet. Half again, more methane comes off of water, then comes from oil and gas. 01:13:09 Speaker 6: Hey both? 01:13:10 Speaker 3: Uh what. 01:13:13 Speaker 5: Like as far as ice fisherman goes like, what kind of lake body of water is something like this more likely to happen? Like I'm assuming like a large body of water with with clear water, rocky bottom, like probably not as big of a risk. 01:13:37 Speaker 6: I think you're you're right on. 01:13:40 Speaker 13: If you you know, high mountain lake or someplace as far removed from nutrient loading, you know, it would be relatively safe. You can still have, under unusual circumstances a build. 01:13:53 Speaker 6: Up, but a build up of methane. 01:13:56 Speaker 13: But the point is that in a eutrophic or hypereutrophic water body, that's where you're going to have a lot more of that organic build up that results in thick layers of sludge. Like we have a reservoir here not far from us where sludge deposition is over eighty feet deep. That will be a methane factory. 01:14:20 Speaker 5: That's that Like that when you get that real black, smelly mud on the bottom of a pond, or whatever, that's a problem. 01:14:29 Speaker 6: Great point. 01:14:31 Speaker 13: Methane is colorless and odorless, but it's usually accompanied by hydrogen sulfide, which is the deep swamp biogas that you most of us have experienced at some point walking in the muck or whatever. 01:14:48 Speaker 6: The So if you smell that, be alert. 01:14:51 Speaker 13: Yeah, you might very well be in a situation where lots of methane is occurring. 01:14:56 Speaker 4: So, Bruce, if I was to punch a hole in the in a lake somewhere where this could happen. Other than like the smell, is there anything else that could you know, show signs that there could be methane under the ice? Do you have a cigarette in your mouth? 01:15:14 Speaker 6: No? 01:15:14 Speaker 4: Cigarette, okay, but I'm getting ready to light my little buddy eater. 01:15:19 Speaker 13: Well, start by looking at the ice. If you see bubbles in it, big bubbles especially, then be alert to the fact that they could be that could be methane. 01:15:31 Speaker 6: Yeah. 01:15:32 Speaker 13: But and if the ice is murky and cloudy and you can't see through it, that's an indication that light isn't making its way through the ice. This methane only occurs under in the absence of oxygen. So if you've got if you're you know, just drilled the hole over a deep point in the lake and you've got a fish fire. If you can identify fish on the bottom, right against the bottom, that's a good sign that you're not anaerobic, you're not without oxygen, you're not in a methane hot spot. In fact, today there's a sonar technology that can actually work through the ice, and that would be ideal. I mean looking and verifying whether you have fish on the bottom or not before you punch a hole. Yeah, yeah, that would be the way to go. But ultimately be smart about it. Look at the eyes. Let it tell you what's going on. You've got clear ice and maybe some bubbles, but not many. 01:16:50 Speaker 6: You're probably in good shape. 01:16:52 Speaker 13: The fact that light is getting through that ice means that there's still oxygen being generated by the green algae that occurs within the water, the green fidal plank. There are good forms of LG as well as negative bunch is the message. 01:17:07 Speaker 1: There, kind of like our political discussion. Bruce, thank you so much for being on. I'll let you know and and everybody else that, uh, there is a go fundme. Uh what is it? It's a give send go set up for the family of the recent ice fishing accident Vermont Joel Shepherd and his daughters Kaylee and Emily at Give Sendgo dot com forward slash Shepherd Family. If you got a couple of bucks to push their way that that'd be great. And then Bruce also, uh, my mom's just down the road from you out there in Shepherd. So yeah, of this spring, I'm gonna come pastry in and go take. 01:17:57 Speaker 13: I'll tell you what I had my brother in law who had never caught a fish. He was here last September. He's from England, and I took him fishing with this monster big surface lur and I thought, well, yeah, it should be fun. Anyway, he gets the flame this big playground and he caught two beasts between four and five pumps in the space of an hour and a half. 01:18:22 Speaker 1: But hey, thank you so much for being on Floating Island International. If you have any questions for Bruce and want to learn more, go to Floating Island International dot com. 01:18:33 Speaker 2: Correct. 01:18:34 Speaker 13: Yep, thank you guys, thank you. 01:18:39 Speaker 3: I love that. 01:18:40 Speaker 1: That's awesome. 01:18:42 Speaker 2: Phil you want to do another round of you know, we we have gotten a lot of questions like we did get one regarding the video game stream. 01:18:51 Speaker 3: It is happening. 01:18:52 Speaker 2: I just don't have I don't have a date yet because I want to make sure that's fun for people to watch, not just fun for me. So but they keep your eyes posted. It will have than this year at some point. But thanks, thanks for catching up. A lot of people say they're gonna try the cayenne pepper trick. 01:19:07 Speaker 3: Uh today? Yeah? 01:19:11 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you should right right in before Seth dumps it on his on his feet. 01:19:15 Speaker 3: Oh yeah. 01:19:16 Speaker 2: There was a running joke about whose mustache is better, Seth's or cows. Do we have an in room consensus? 01:19:22 Speaker 1: Uh, cows is more seasoned. I think you're talking to two guys who probably don't care that much. Michael Seth is asking how trapping is going. Haven't been trapping. I like to do a lot of my trapping in the either the earlier parts of the winter or in the spring for beaver. 01:19:46 Speaker 3: Ye get going right now. 01:19:48 Speaker 4: Everything's just so frozen and covered in snow. 01:19:51 Speaker 1: It's just my hands hurt. 01:19:53 Speaker 3: Pine Martin. 01:19:53 Speaker 4: Trapping would be great right now if you had a snowmobile and you know, could get out there. But not doing much right now. 01:20:00 Speaker 2: Travis is also asking if you'll be back on the Montana Walleye Circuit anytime soon. 01:20:06 Speaker 4: I wish, I wish. If I get time this summer, I'll do some tournaments. But I just don't have I'm always gone, yeap, just gone too. 01:20:15 Speaker 1: Hard to get rid of them. Yeah, for sure, for sure. I got an update here if folks are interested in helping out some of our former federally employed stewards of the land. Old Doc Randall Williams sent me a go fundme for Rosalie, and Rosalie is was just recently laid off. She had just switched jobs in the forest Service, so she was in that probationary period even though she's been a forest service employee for a long time. But she's two months before her due date and just lost income as well as insurance. And I believe Corey and Brodie, you guys can probably talk about the importance of insurance when when mom's about to cave out. 01:21:09 Speaker 3: I wouldn't you needed not say that like insurance? 01:21:17 Speaker 5: Find another way to put that cal You've got a serious girlfriend. 01:21:21 Speaker 3: You need to take that thing seriously. 01:21:28 Speaker 1: So anyway, if you check out go fund me, there's a support Rosalie go fund me, and folks could could definitely benefit from a couple extra bucks on that one out side of that gang. Remember to come see us at pheasant Fest that's coming up here in March in Kansas City. That's the annual p f q F annual gathering. Always a really fantastic opportunity to get a bunch of people in the room and get just hit over the head with really good conservation work. I'm garn Darntea. There's gonna be a lot of NRCS farm bill talk during the pheasant Fest this year. That Friday, March fifth, I'm gonna be joining Kansas BHA out in De Soto, Kansas for just kind of a big open to the public round table, let you know about what BHA and Kansas BHA are working on. And then Sunday at Pheasant Fest, I'm joining Pheasants Forever plus the North American Grouse Partnership to talk about this incredibly awesome program regarding endangered species called the Lesser Prairie Chicken land Owner Alliance and Lesser Prairie Checking Man. Fantastic game bird that you know, the mountain men folks they used to eat, so many of them get sick of They get sick of them and now they're on the endangered species list and that happened on our watch. Lots we can be doing about that, and that goes into saving America's grass lands. Outro fellas, who I think we just need to hit it again, Like, if you're invested in your public lance that in absolutely no way puts you crossways with any administration. That's your right as an American citizen. 01:23:29 Speaker 5: Yeah, stop dwelling on whoops the results of election, and dwell on what needs to be dealt with now. 01:23:36 Speaker 3: That's right. 01:23:37 Speaker 4: Yeah, And there's a lot of folks out there like myself who like a lot of what the current administration is doing, but when it comes to their stance on federal lands, it's just like a a no go. 01:23:51 Speaker 1: Yeah, you get to say, hey, pump the brakes. Yeah, like what you're doing over here so they can keep it up. 01:23:55 Speaker 4: It's okay to like what they're doing, and it's okay to not like what they're doing. 01:23:59 Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just not okay to sit on your button do nothing if this stuff matters to you. If you do that, don't write in anymore. I hope you enjoyed the show this week. I know we covered a lot of heavy stuff, but we you know, we're right here with you. This stuff means a heck of a lot to us. I know it means a heck of a lot to you, which is why you watch these fishing and hunting oriented things. So we're gonna stay on top of it as much as we can. Please stay in touch and we will too. So thanks again. We'll talk to you next week.