{"id":29673,"date":"2013-06-12T10:34:31","date_gmt":"2013-06-12T17:34:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev-clm-blog.pantheonsite.io\/?p=29673"},"modified":"2013-06-12T10:34:31","modified_gmt":"2013-06-12T17:34:31","slug":"29673","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/?p=29673","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Through the first four weeks of this internship I have been constantly comparing this summer to my past summer as a CLM intern.\u00a0 A little background: last summer I lived in Cedarville, CA at the Surprise Field Office (The name comes from the Surprise Valley, where Cedarville, resides).\u00a0 Cedarville is an amazing place, unlike anywhere I\u2019ve ever been before.\u00a0 Coming from the Northeast, it was quite a transition.\u00a0 There are about 550 people in Cedarville, and less than a thousand in the whole valley.\u00a0 The closest town of any significance is Alturas (~2,500 pop.).\u00a0 Other than that it was Reno, Redding, or Klamath Falls, which were about 3 hours away.\u00a0 Needless to say, the area was isolated.\u00a0 This was both a challenge and a reward.\u00a0 The Surprise Valley really is the western experience, and if you like recreating outdoors, it was a great place as well.\u00a0 Botanically, the area was very challenging for me to get used to.\u00a0 Where were the trees?!? However, despite these challenges, I learned a lot about myself, living in a small ranching town, and the land management field.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Coming back for a second year has so far proved to be a great decision.\u00a0 Not only have I been able to contribute to my new field office in a way like never before (because of my past CLM internship), but I am also constantly becoming exposed to new land management challenges that were virtually nonexistent in the Surprise Field Office.\u00a0 A major focus for this office is oil and gas leasing, specifically coal bed natural gas.\u00a0 Because of this, the office is much bigger than I am used to (2-3 times bigger).\u00a0 It also means there is a whole host of associated environmental impacts.\u00a0 Although I probably won\u2019t be directly involved with this part of the field office, I am trying to learn from others in the field office of the impacts of coal bed natural gas and its mitigation efforts.\u00a0 Fossil fuels and fracking are both \u201chot words\u201d in today\u2019s media, and I hope to educate myself on the issues and educate others with this firsthand experience.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Another issue which I wasn\u2019t exposed to last year was the fragmented ownership of the area.\u00a0 Surprise Field Office, although located in California, has most of its resource area in Nevada.\u00a0 Nevada\u2019s land area is 67% BLM, and the Surprise resource area was mostly BLM.\u00a0 Here surface ownership is mostly private and in many cases BLM is a minority land owner.\u00a0 Therefore, many times we have to call landowners many days in advance to obtain permission to cross their land.\u00a0 This adds an extra element of planning into our work.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Botanically, there are many of the same species.\u00a0 Others from the West may say the areas are very different; however, coming from the East, these two areas look very similar compared to where I grew up.\u00a0 It has been nice to build on this botanical knowledge.\u00a0 Where last year I was overwhelmed by the amount of new species, this year I am able to take my time learning new species and identify ones I already know.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Buffalo and the surrounding area are gorgeous.\u00a0 The Bighorn Mountains to the West look like an excellent playground, and the rolling hills of the basin are truly spectacular.\u00a0 Although many say Buffalo is a small town (~4,500), it looks like New York City compared to Cedarville, and there always seems like there\u2019s something to do.\u00a0 I\u2019m very lucky to be in a great place with a job I love!<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Through the first four weeks of this internship I have been constantly comparing this summer to my past summer as a CLM intern.\u00a0 A little background: last summer I lived in Cedarville, CA at the Surprise Field Office (The name … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1749,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29673"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1749"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29673"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29768,"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29673\/revisions\/29768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.clminternship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}