Pocatello Field Office

The BLM's Pocatello Field Office manages just under 600,000 acres of public lands. Located in scenic country along the Utah/Idaho/Wyoming border, this is a wonderful place to visit or work. The area's unique land pattern lends itself to numerous challenges. With several tracts of BLM-managed lands located next to various communities, this office has an active fuels program, which focuses on reducing fire activity in the wildland urban interface. Extensive fuels projects are also implemented to enhance aspen rejuvenation and support local wildlife.

Pocatello has a large customer base when it comes to rangeland management. With 450 allotments and 387 permittees and very few range staff, time and people are limited. The checkerboard land status creates significant challenges for management. Primary concerns include: small allotments with limited access, grazing within sage-grouse habitat and a high number of grazing permit and lease transfers with a small staff. 

An active forestry program is also managed out of the this office that includes over 166,000 forested acres. Approximately 16 forestry projects are in some form of completion or initiation in this area.

This office is situated in the heart of America’s largest remaining phosphate deposit – the western phosphate field.  The leasing and mine oversight program is BLM’s largest and most complex non-energy leasable minerals program. Southeast Idaho open-pit phosphate mines supply about 22 percent of the Nation’s and 4 percent of the world’s phosphate.

Pocatello also manages the beautiful Blackfoot river and deals with the complex issues of managing isolated tracts of BLM managed lands through a wide geographic area.