DENVER (AP) — U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s plan for a major realignment to put more of his department’s decision-makers in the field has a fundamental flaw in the eyes of some who spent their careers making those decisions: They’re already out there.

Eleven former Interior Department officials with decades of experience in both Washington and in local offices told The Associated Press the agency already has a well-established system for decentralized decision-making.

“Ninety percent-plus of the decisions that get made get made at the local level,” said Scott Florence, who retired after 38 years with the Bureau of Land Management, the Interior Department’s second-largest branch.

The problem, some said, is that over the past few years, an increasing number of decisions that should have been made locally were ultimately decided in Washington because of political pressure, under both Democratic and Republican administrations.

And since 91.5 percent of the department’s workforce of about 70,000 is already based outside the Washington area, most of the former interior employees said they doubted pushing more employees out of Washington would improve things.

Zinke has made the overhaul of the Interior Department — which manages 780,000 square miles of public lands, mostly in the West — a signature mission since taking over the agency a year ago. He says it would streamline bureaucracy and lead to better decisions made closer to the field.

Parts of his realignment proposal have run into resistance from some politicians from both parties, particularly in the West, who fear it will disrupt relationships between state and federal officials. That criticism echoes a 2015 letter sent to leaders of the Bureau of Land Management, objecting to a far more modest proposal to combine the bureau offices in New Mexico and Arizona.

The letter from 13 members of Congress — including Zinke, then a Republican congressman representing his home state of Montana — also expressed fear the proposal was part of a larger plan to create more multistate offices in the bureau.

“We believe this is a poor model and should be abandoned,” the lawmakers wrote.

The Interior Department eventually dropped the idea in the face of opposition from both Democrats and Republicans.

Interior Department spokeswoman Heather Smith said Zinke’s reorganization proposal, which includes appointing 13 new regional directors , is different than the attempted merger of the two offices in 2015.

State-federal relationships would be strengthened under his proposal because governors and other officials could contact regional officials, she said.

“More decisions and authority will be at the regional level, with fewer decisions kicked up to Washington, so the ability of governors to reach key decision makers will be enhanced by the secretary’s proposal,” she said.

The 11 former Interior Department officials who spoke with the AP came mostly from the Bureau of Land Management but also the National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service. Their job experiences ranged from park ranger to director of the Fish and Wildlife Service. Each spoke on the record.

Their opinions on Zinke’s proposal ranged from skepticism to strong opposition, and all said they knew of no former Interior Department employees who supported it. But one of the 11 — Dan Ashe, the former Fish and Wildlife Service director — said reorganizations are almost always unpopular.

Some worried moving more career employees with field experience out of Washington would make things worse.

“By having those people there, they at least have some influence on the decisions that are being made in Washington,” said Mike Ferguson, a wildlife biologist who became the Bureau of Land Management’s top financial officer before he retired.

“If you move them west, you break that link, but the decisions are still going to be made in Washington,” he said.

Some said the problem with the department’s current structure is that a growing number of local decisions are being made in Washington by political appointees for political reasons. The trend has continued under both Republican and Democratic administrations, they said.

Washington officials once dictated to Interior Department workers in Idaho what kind of vegetation they could plant after a wildfire on federal land, said Steve Ellis, who retired in 2016 as deputy director of the Bureau of Land Management.

“That is a field-level decision,” he said. “But it became very political,” probably because the livestock industry wanted a specific kind of grass for cattle.

Swift said the former employees have the same concerns as Zinke about decisions being made in Washington, not locally.

But restructuring the agency and moving employees aren’t the solution, Ferguson said.

“It’s not a matter of changing the organization. It’s a matter of allowing the employees in the organization to do the job that they were hired to do,” he said.

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Follow Dan Elliott at http://twitter.com/DanElliottAP. His work can be found at https://apnews.com/search/dan%20elliott.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — A proposal to collect a fee at Yellowstone National Park to fund wildlife conservation efforts in the states surrounding the park has passed the Wyoming House of Representatives.

The measure, which also applies to neighboring Grand Teton National Park, was approved Tuesday and now heads to the state Senate for more debate.

Proponents say the idea is to generate money for Wyoming, Montana and Idaho to deal with issues like wildlife collisions, disease and migration routes.

The Wyoming resolution does not specify how the fee would be assessed or what the amount would be.

Since only the federal government can impose fees in national parks, the resolution seeks to start a conversation about the idea between the three states and the U.S. Interior Department and the National Park Service.

Do anglers prefer more trout or larger trout? Idaho Fish and Game is answering that question by providing both in 2018 and beyond.

Fish and Game will stock more rainbow trout throughout the state than in recent years thanks to the 2017 license and tag fee increase, and many trout will be bigger.

“Our hatchery managers were proactive and ordered more eggs last summer because they wanted to get more trout in the pipeline for this spring,” said Gary Byrne, Fish and Game’s fish production manager.

Stocking plans for 2018 call for about 123,000 more “catchable” rainbow trout (8 to 11 inches) and 41,000 more 12 to 14-inch trout commonly known as “magnums.” Then in 2019, anglers will get 56,000 more catchables and 180,000 more larger trout compared to 2017 numbers. The 2019 stocking plan will provide the basis for subsequent future years.

The challenge of growing larger “magnum” trout is it takes more food and more time, so it will require extra months to get those larger trout ready to stock, but “a higher proportion of them are going to end up on angler’s hook,” Byrne said.

Fish and Game’s research has shown trout in the 12-inch range can be more cost-effective in some waters if you factor that they’re caught at a higher frequency than the smaller fish. So basically, anglers catch more of those trout, and they’re bigger.

Not only that, in Idaho’s productive lakes and reservoirs, those 12-inch fish will continue to grow after being stocked, and growth rates of an inch per month are common during the prime growing months, which means there will be more trophy-sized trout swimming in Idaho.

“In bodies of water where they can carry over through winter, we should see lots of bigger fish,” Byrne said.

That doesn’t mean all trout stocked will be the larger fish. Depending on the body of water, smaller “catchables” can also be caught at high rates, such as in community ponds, or other waters with high fishing pressure that leads to most of the fish getting caught. Fish and Game stocks trout so anglers can catch them. The fish are sterile, so incapable of reproducing.

Fish and Game stocks trout year round in some waters at low elevations with mild climates, then stocking starts ramping up throughout the state in the spring, which is followed by major stockings prior to peak angling times, such as spring and summer holidays. You can see where stockings take place on Fish and Game’s stocking report page.

Fisheries managers also stock a variety of fish beyond rainbow trout. For example, many of the kokanee salmon caught by anglers in large lakes and reservoirs are stocked as fingerlings. Same goes for high mountain lakes, which typically get an influx of fingerlings on a rotating basis every few years. Those stocking numbers will remain consistent.

Managers also occasionally stock brown trout, westslope cutthroat trout, Lahontan cutthroat, tiger trout (a brown/brook hybrid), and rainbow-cutthroat hybrids in waters around the state, but in much smaller quantities than rainbow trout.

ISLAND PARK — Since the beginning of the year, there have been multiple snowmobile fatalities in Fremont County, and officials are stressing safety measures for anybody traveling into the backcountry. 

These fatalities include Idaho Falls resident Adam Wayne Andersen on Jan. 10, Raymond John Moe of Missoula, Montana, on Jan. 20, and Wayne R. Halverson, a Wishek, North Dakota, resident who died on Saturday.

There’s also been a fourth fatality in East Idaho, Troy Leishman of Idaho Falls, which occurred in eastern Bonneville County near the Palisades Reservoir last week.

Anderson, Moe, and Leishman’s cause of death were all avalanches, while Halverson died of his injuries after crashing into a tree on his way from Last Chance to Ponds Lodge in Island Park.

Members of Halverson’s party performed CPR until Fremont County’s EMT arrived, but efforts to revive him failed. He was pronounced dead at 8:27 p.m. Saturday.

“Some years we don’t have any (fatalities),” Fremont County Sheriff Len Humphries said. “This year with three is a high. I don’t think we’ve ever had that many before.”

Justin Liebert, head of Fremont County Search and Rescue, said that this year has been the worst that he’s seen in seven years in terms of snow conditions, and it’s been one of the worst in his career for fatalities.

When questioned about what’s caused so many fatalities this year, Liebert said that early on in the winter season, snowmobilers had safe snow. But rain and hail have created different layers in the snow, making it more unstable.

“As the snowflakes fall on top of each other, they’re like puzzle pieces where they lock into each other, and they settle on top of each other,” Liebert said. “That’s what makes its strength, but when you’ve got a snowflake that’s a round ball, like a BB, there’s no way of locking that in.”

Unfortunately, the conditions haven’t been improving.

“And then when you get a ton of snow on top of that already unstable snow, they just don’t sew themselves together,” Liebert said.

Liebert said that backcountry travelers are always at risk of triggering an avalanche and that the best way to avoid it is to stay on the trails. 

“Know the country you’re going into,” he said. “There’s a lot of trails up in Fremont County. I know that’s not what they want, but when conditions are bad, stick to the trails. Ride the flat country. Ride the meadows. Stay off the hillside.”

There will likely be far fewer obstacles on the trails as well, making it much safer than the backcountry.

Another possible cause of the rise in fatalities that Humphries mentioned was that more people are riding in the area due to a lack of snowfall in other states and other counties in Idaho.

“I would say that a lot of areas did not have much snow this year for snowmobile riding and so we’ve seen an influx of people coming to ride here that normally wouldn’t,” Humphries said.

ISLAND PARK—A man died after hitting a tree while riding a snowmobile on Saturday, Feb. 24. 

According to a news release from the Fremont County Sheriff’s Department, the rider had lost control of his snow mobile while riding on the snowmobile trail between Last Chance and Ponds lodge near the Chick Creek trail. The incident happened around 7:30 in the evening. 

The rider was pronounced dead at the scene. The name of the rider and additional details will be released following notification of family by authorities.

The Fremont County Sheriff’s Department and Fremont County EMS responded to the incident.

Inside the spacious new lodge at Crystal Hot Springs, the long hallway leading to the locker rooms and pools is lined with historic photos of the resort and pictures of visitors over the years.

There are also dozens of images of other hot springs around the country and the world – a testament to General Manager Adam Nelson’s lifelong fascination with geothermal features.

“I love entertaining people and I love hot springs,” said Nelson, a native of Mantua who joined Crystal Hot Springs about 10 years ago and has been working ever since to raise the profile of the resort. “This is a good fit for me. It combines two things I love.”

Nelson has been leading the charge on a major revamping project at Crystal Hot Springs, which has operated almost continuously as a public hot springs resort since 1901. Over the past year and a half, crews have been working on a $1.5 million renovation, building the new lodge and another pool with a prominent cave/waterfall feature to add to the offerings.

The new pool greets visitors as soon as they walk out the door to the swimming area with a view of a cave feature about 30 feet long and 12 feet high. Made of Styrofoam encased in concrete, the cave has water running over the top of it, creating a shower-waterfall effect over the cave entrance.

The area where the new pool is located was previously a grassy lawn, with the large pool to the west and smaller pools to the east. The new pool allows people to go from one end of the swimming area to the other without having to spend as much time in the often-frigid open air.

Friends Kathy Carpenter and Jan Okey made the drive north from Riverdale last Friday to enjoy the unseasonably warm weather and see what all the fuss was about with the renovations.

“It’s very family oriented,” Carpenter said of the new pool and cave feature. “You can sit on the bottom, and kids can wade around. I love the shower feature.”

Okey appreciated the easy access to the pool.

“It’s very senior-adult friendly,” she said. “I have bad knees, so I like that it’s easy to get in and out of.”

The new lodge features high ceilings and a more spacious, accommodating feel, but the old lodge isn’t going away. It will remain standing and be converted into a sauna, a project Nelson hopes will be done in time for next winter.

With a gregarious personality and quick wit, Nelson is a natural entertainer. He worked at Disneyworld for awhile and has been known to moonlight as a stand-up comic, and brings the same mentality to his job running Crystal Hot Springs. He jokes with employees and guests alike while making his way around the grounds.

“We’re living the philosophy that every day’s a party, and everyone is our guest,” he said.

Nelson credits a team of about 70 employees, most of them part-time, for a big upswing in business in recent years.

“The parking lot will be full this weekend,” he said. “It’s not uncommon for us to see 2,000 people on a busy Saturday.”

By the same token, people who have watched Crystal Hot Springs become a thriving business since Nelson showed up say it’s no coincidence.

“The clientele has quadrupled since he got here,” said Dave Sorenson, who has been soaking in the springs for two decades and works there part-time.

Gesturing toward the new lodge and pool, Sorenson added that “none of this would be here if he hadn’t shown up.”

Nelson said most visitors to the springs come from outside of Box Elder County. Many come from the Wasatch Front, as well as from around the country and the world. Tourists are an important part of the business, as many who fly into Salt Lake City and board tour buses headed for Yellowstone National Park will stop there along the way.

Nelson’s love of hot springs has taken him to more of them than he can count, and he is quick to recite several facts and figures about Crystal that make it unique: It’s one of only a handful of places in the world where a large hot spring and cold spring emerge within 50 feet of each other. The two springs combined spout more than 3,300 gallons of water per minute. The dissolved mineral content of the water is higher than any other developed spring in the world.

“This one is different. It’s almost unreal,” Nelson said. “You can really feel the minerals.”

He said RV camping used to account for nearly half of Crystal Hot Springs’ business, but now represents only about 6 percent. Under his guidance, the resort has put its energy and focus back into the pools and the soaking experience – capitalizing on what makes it unique in the first place.

To show off its new digs and celebrate its resurgence, Crystal Hot Springs is hosting a grand opening event this Saturday, Feb. 17 at the resort, 8215 N. Hwy. 38 in Honeyville. The public is invited, as are some 250 former employees whom Nelson has invited back to share in the success they helped create.

“It’s a reflection of the whole staff and a lot of hard work by a lot of people,” he said.

KALISPELL, Mont. (AP) — A search effort for missing Montana skier will intensify this weekend with additional crews joining the effort in the backcountry near Whitefish Mountain Resort.

Flathead County Sheriff Chuck Curry says the 25-person search party was expected to double on Saturday with the addition of search and rescue crews from Lewis and Clark and Gallatin counties.

Curry tells the Daily Inter Lake that crews are conducting a “methodical, tree-by-tree” search in a one-half to two-thirds square mile area where 62-year-old Columbia Falls physician Jonathan Torgerson was last seen on Feb. 17.

Curry says the search was expected to continue through the weekend, but a winter storm forecast for Saturday could bring another foot of snow to the mountains. About a foot of snow fell the night Torgerson was reported missing.

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Information from: Daily Inter Lake, http://www.dailyinterlake.com

Two cases of broken fences and bison walking free from Yellowstone National Park’s bison trap this winter have been a disruption of the status quo.

The first incident, when 52 bull bison escaped through two layers of broken fence in January, erased the possibility that those bison might eventually be transferred to a tribal reservation, which officials say was likely to happen sometime this year.

But the second illegal release of Yellowstone bison, which came sometime late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning, was quickly nullified, as many of the bison returned to the corrals and park staff captured hundreds more shortly after the fence was repaired.

Separate criminal investigations into each are ongoing, but the two incidents have raised questions about the security of the Stephens Creek Capture Facility, and the park’s top official said they’re trying to shore it up.

In an interview Friday, Yellowstone Superintendent Dan Wenk declined to offer specific details on the extra measures park officials are taking but said they are providing a higher level of security. He also said it appears they’ll have to do so into the future.

“It has just pointed out to us that we have to put a lot more funding and manpower behind securing that facility and operating that facility,” Wenk said. “And that’s what we’ll do.”

The facility, which consists of several corrals, a squeeze chute and a loading dock for cattle trailers, has been the starting point for the slaughter of bison for two decades. Last year, it became the starting point for an alternative to slaughter, one that could be used to send live bison to tribal or private lands where they can be used to start new conservation herds or join existing ones.

The alternative, quarantine, certifies bison as free of the disease brucellosis, which can cause animals to abort. About half of Yellowstone’s bison are believed to have been exposed to the disease. It’s feared by the livestock industry, and those fears limit where Yellowstone bison are allowed.

Becoming brucellosis free requires bison to live in isolation in a specific kind of corral for a certain amount of time. Once the brucellosis free status is gained, the animals can be moved more freely. They could join conservation bison herds on tribal reservations or on private lands.

In 2016, Yellowstone proposed establishing a quarantine program at the Fort Peck Indian Reservation and held onto some bison to start the program. But legal and political barriers prevented that plan and, last year, Yellowstone upgraded two corrals at Stephens Creek for quarantine. The idea was to send the bison to Fort Peck after gaining disease-free status.

Several months after the upgrades, final approval for the facility has yet to come from state and federal livestock officials. Montana state veterinarian Marty Zaluski said it’s likely to come in the next week.

Even without final approval, the January release of bison killed the nearest possibility of sending bison to Fort Peck. Yellowstone was holding 52 bulls inside the quarantine corrals for eventual transfer to Fort Peck. Despite the lack of final approval, Zaluski said those bulls “were really within about six months of being given a clean bill of health.”

Releasing them was an “irrevocable setback,” Zaluski said, because they’ve now been re-exposed to brucellosis in the eyes of livestock officials. Even if they were recaptured, they couldn’t be considered disease free.

The second release doesn’t have the same bite, but Zaluski is worried it will continue happening.

“My concern is now that it’s been done twice, potentially this is a new front for opposition to this type of conservation effort,” he said.

While many bison advocates support the idea of quarantine, some see it as the unnecessary domestication of wild animals. They also hope for a broader solution to end the slaughter of bison.

But Stephanie Adams, of the National Parks Conservation Association, said the releases “keep us stuck in this cycle of shipping all of the bison to slaughter each winter rather than looking at other alternatives.”

“If these setbacks continue to occur, we’re continuing to reduce the potential that Yellowstone bison could be used for broader conservation,” she said.

A park spokeswoman said Friday that at least 350 bison were in the trap, meaning there’s still a chance for a new cohort this year. Wenk still sees quarantine as part of the future of bison management, and he’s confident that there’s plenty of support for the idea.

“The bottom line is I think most people would like to see bison on a larger landscape,” he said. “Most people would like to see a successful program.”

Robbie Magnan, the bison program manager for the Fort Peck Tribes, said the releases have been disappointing, but it’s far from the only setback their program has faced. Despite the setbacks, he’s still confident they’ll eventually get some bison.

“I know we’re going to get them,” Magnan said. “But when is what I can’t figure out.”

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A 29-year-old Minnesota man died in a snowmobile accident north of Yellowstone National Park in Montana.

Park County officials say it appears the man was riding alone on the side of a hill above a creek near Cooke City before losing control of his sled.

KULR-TV reports three other snowmobilers found the man Thursday face down in a creek with his snowmobile on top of him. Park County officials say they don’t know when the accident occurred.

The man’s name and hometown were being withheld until family members could be notified.

The death comes just over a week after a 45-year-old Canadian man died when he struck a tree near Cooke City. He had been riding his snowmobile on the side of a hill above a group of trees.

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Information from: KULR-TV, http://www.kulr8.com

BOISE — The future of Harriman State Park could be determined by upcoming votes in the Idaho House.

The issue arose in relation to House Bill 496, a bill that at first glance has nothing to do with Harriman. But the legislation interacts with the original agreement granting the park’s land to the state in a way that endangers its public status.

Rep. Joe Palmer, R-Meridian, sponsored the bill. It changes the way the directors of three state agencies — the Idaho Department of Corrections, the Idaho Transportation Department and the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation — are hired and fired. Most state department directors are hired and fired by the governor, but in those departments the directors are hired by boards, whose members are in turn appointed by the governor.

While the changes would make the appointment of state department heads more uniform, in the case of Parks and Recreation it could endanger the land that led to the creation of the department in the first place: Harriman State Park, one of the state’s most popular parks, particularly for its world-renowned fly-fishing waters. The reason the park could be endangered is that the deed granting the citizens of Idaho the land on which it sits requires a professional, apolitical department rather than one run by a political appointee.

Harriman State Park sits on land originally owned by E.H. Harriman, a 19th-Century railroad tycoon. It was deeded to the state in 1961 by Roland Harriman during the governorship of Gov. Robert Smylie.

Smylie’s son, former Rep. Steve Smylie, related the story to the committee.

The family was on vacation when Roland Harriman called the governor, saying the family was seriously considering deeding the land, then a playground for the wealthy, to the “people of the state of Idaho.” But both Smylie and Harriman wanted a professional, apolitical park service in the state.

Rick Just, president of Friends of Idaho State Parks, said Smylie had been unsuccessful in establishing such a park service, but Harriman’s land provided a big “carrot” to motivate them to create one. The Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation was founded, and Harriman wrote a deed transferring the land to the state.

That deed also contained a stick to complement the carrot Harriman had offered the Legislature. If Harriman or his descendants determine that the state of Idaho has breached its agreement to run a professional park service “whose personnel shall be on the basis of merit alone,” the ownership of the land would return to the Harriman family. The deed specifically bars the state from appealing that determination in any court anywhere.

Jodi Stiehl, president of Friends of Harriman State Park, a nonprofit group that advocates for and does volunteer work in the park, said the Harriman family is quite large, and different groups within it have different preferences. Many want the park to remain with the state. But some would prefer it be returned to the family so it can be developed or turned back into a private ranch. She said changing the status of the Parks and Recreation director could allow the faction that wants the land to return to the family to seek its return from the state.

“It’s a pretty scary thing to toy with,” Stiehl said in an interview. “… We are really trying to avoid a catastrophe.”

But there’s good reason to hope the bill will be amended to remove the threat to Harriman State Park. Several members of the committee, as well as the bill’s sponsor, said in committee they would support amending the bill to remove the Parks and Recreation director from the bill to ensure that Harriman won’t be taken from the people of the state.

The bill took a rather circuitous route through the legislative process. It was introduced by the Health and Welfare Committee earlier this month. It was then referred to the State Affairs Committee for a hearing. There, representatives debated several issues, but many noted they had received lots of calls and emails from constituents expressing concern about Harriman.

Palmer said he had no desire to endanger the park.

“I’ve been to Harriman Park,” he said. “… I would not want to risk any asset of the state of Idaho.”

But with concerns that the bill might endanger the park, a series of votes to send the bill for amendment or kill it outright deadlocked 6-6. The bill appeared to have failed.

The next day, a motion was made to revive the bill and send it for amendment on the House floor. That vote passed narrowly.

The bill currently sits in “general orders,” a position on the docket which makes it ready to be amended once the House takes up that part of the agenda. Such action could take place any day.

The bill would still need to pass a House floor vote, go through the Senate, and be signed by the governor in order to become law.