Law Enforcement

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT

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2007 Statement by the Director, Law Enforcement

William Woody,
Director of Law Enforcement and Security

In 2007, Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Rangers and Agents continued to serve their mission of protecting the public lands, the resources found on these lands, and the visitors who enjoy the various and unique recreational opportunities available on the public lands. There are 180 uniformed BLM Rangers and 96 BLM Agents stationed in the western United States. Their case loads, visitor contacts, law enforcement partnerships, and work with local communities were all commendable efforts that collectively served our mission this year.

Click here to download the FY07 Year End Review (PDF).

Law Enforcement

The daily workloads of Rangers and Agents may include investigating complaints involving the destruction and theft of cultural and paleontological resources; marijuana cultivation; OHV issues; oil and gas issues, including spills or theft; effects of illegal immigration and smuggling on public lands; illegal dumping; wildland fires; wild horse and burro killings and theft; livestock trespass; forest, cactus, and rock thefts; and guiding, outfitting, and subsistence hunting issues.

Rangers and Agents work closely with BLM resource managers, with duties that include managing 16,000 miles of multipleuse trails, 13 National and Historic trails (covering 5,500 miles), 38 Wild and Scenic Rivers, 69 million acres of forests and woodlands, 790 Wilderness and Wilderness Study Areas covering 21 million acres, 271,000 archaeological and historical sites, 333,000 mining claims, 70,000 producing oil and gas wells, and 37,000 wild horses and burros, and monitoring 93,000 rights-of-way.

Another ever-growing challenge to managing the public lands can be seen in recently conducted surveys showing there are now roughly 60 million people who enjoyed recreational opportunities on the 258 million acres of land managed by the BLM. And today, there are 4,136 communities with a population of just over 23 million people who live within 30 minutes of BLM-managed lands.

The Rangers and Agents of the Bureau of Land Management are proud to represent the law enforcement community and serve the American people, and we thank you for your support.

Keith L. Aller, Deputy Director

This past year provided another year of opportunities and challenges for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Office of Law Enforcement and Security (OLES). The OLES formed a Marijuana Investigative Support Team (MIST) to help combat the spread of Drug Trafficking Organization (DTO) marijuana cultivation. MIST members were selected from our Special Agent ranks and charged with supporting marijuana investigations mainly in California, Oregon, and Washington. The MIST went through a rigorous training cycle and deployments including several multiagency operations in California. Violence increased this past year in association with marijuana growers. Several incidents involving threats to public land users and armed confrontations with law enforcement highlighted the serious nature of this issue on public lands. The members of the MIST made many personal sacrifices to support the mission and I thank them and recognize their sense of public service.

Our Special Agents have been fully engaged in all aspects of our other resource protection mandates, as well as the marijuana cultivation issue. Special Agents in the BLM have opened several new, extremely complex cases involving everything from wild horse and burro issues to paleontological and archaeological vandalism and thefts. I hope we can report several significant successful prosecutions in these areas next year. As for cases opened in previous years, Special Agents participated in major cases with our Federal partners in the investigation of domestic terrorism organizations that led to significant convictions and sentences in Federal courts in Oregon. BLM Special Agent investigations led to convictions of 20 years for marijuana cultivators in Federal court in California. These are not allinclusive of our efforts, but highlight the great work our agents do in the field every day.

Agents also answered the call to work details in various parts of the BLM to supplement uniformed Ranger activities, in addition to their investigative workloads.

As managers and leaders of the law enforcement program, we are faced with issues that require us to take a long-term strategic look at what is best for our law enforcement program. Like most Federal agencies, the BLM is faced with large numbers of senior-level employees who will be eligible to retire within the next 3 to 5 years. The BLM law enforcement program is also facing this challenge, and we have identified a process whereby emerging leaders can be identified and trained. This process includes job shadowing and leadership skills development rather than solely supervisory training. An additional facet to this issue is the recruitment, training, and retention of a vigorous and diverse workforce that will be ready to step into higher levels of responsibility as leadership positions are filled. The BLM law enforcement organization needs to take advantage of several options in hiring authorities to accomplish this goal. We plan to be aggressive in recruitment and retention options.

This is a snapshot of our challenges from an operational and management perspective. We are confident that we will meet these challenges, as we always have.

In closing, I express my true appreciation for the work that our Rangers and Special Agents do every day under trying circumstances. Good job, Everyone!