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On a late September weekday, Scott Kosiba was hard at work in his office in downtown Pinedale. He was on a Zoom call for All Trails staff – it’s the go-to app used by hikers.
“Can I jump in one more time? Really quick,” Kosiba unmuted himself.
All Trails is working with forests across the country to map trails. Notably, no one from western Wyoming’s Bridger-Teton National Forest Service (BTNF) is on the call. They don’t have to be. Because Kosiba is there.
He heads up Friends of the Bridger-Teton. It’s essentially the nonprofit arm of the forest. And today, Kosiba is getting everyone on the same page.
“Be aware that the Forest Service is about to get its knees cut out from under it financially,” he said. “We’re going to see impacts that the agency has frankly not seen before.”
Caitlin Tan
/
Wyoming Public Media
That’s because the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) is likely facing hundreds of millions of dollars in budget cuts from Congress. The specifics are unclear because lawmakers are still clashing over the national budget, which the USFS is folded into. But the numbers being floated are daunting enough that the USFS suspended temporary seasonal hiring, which is thousands of jobs.
“You will likely see much fewer trails being maintained next year,” Kosiba said to the All Trails staff. “A tremendous loss of seasonal staff.”
That’s a hard pill to swallow, especially for the BTNF. It’s the third largest U.S. Forest in the lower 48.
“We’re almost acre for acre the size of the state of Connecticut,” Kosiba said after the Zoom call. “And the Forest Service is chronically understaffed. They’re under capacity.”
So five years ago, before the current looming budget cuts, the BTNF turned to the nonprofit ‘Friends’ group for help picking up the slack. This model of a nonprofit working shoulder to shoulder with a federal agency is quite common in the national park world, but a relatively novel concept for forests.
And it could be a key model for forests going forward.
Caitlin Tan
/
Wyoming Public Media
“We’re able to do collectively, far more than the agency (USFS) is able to do,” said Kosiba. “Both because of funding constraints, capacity on their staff…”
And bureaucratic limitations. There are very specific rules for how taxpayer money is used, but it’s not always cost effective.
Take, for example, the smelly business of pumping public toilets.
On a crisp fall morning, Rhett Jones got his equipment ready to pump some BTNF campground toilets, north of Pinedale.
“It’s going to be loud. So be aware,” Jones warned, as the giant diesel truck and hose suction mechanism fired up.
He manages his family’s business, Snake River Sanitation out of Blackfoot, Idaho. This is his eighth year servicing BTNF toilets.
“A lot of trash bags get thrown in here, loaded with stuff – bottles, cans, chew cans,” Jones said as he cleaned out the vaults that hold everything that goes down the pit toilets.
He siphoned about 2,000 pounds of waste into the tanks on his truck. It’s part of an annual process.
Caitlin Tan
/
Wyoming Public Media
“It’s not a sexy part of keeping access for the public, but it is so, so important,” Kosiba said, as toilet-pumping sounds roared through the fall-colored forest behind him.
Kosiba also showed up on this day, because it’s one of his nonprofit’s biggest wins.
About a year and a half ago, the BTNF toilets were almost locked. The federal government started bidding out these contracts per region, rather than per forest. A larger Boise company got the job, edging out smaller businesses like Snake River Sanitation.
While it was cheaper as a whole for the region, it wasn’t for the BTNF. That’s because the Boise company didn’t have permission to dump waste in towns like Pinedale or Jackson. So that meant pumping one or two toilets and driving back to Boise to dump. So on and so forth, for 62 toilets.
“This was absolutely a crisis situation,” Kosiba remembered.
The total cost was $80,000 from the BTNF’s recreation budget. Kosiba said that would’ve bankrupted it.
“We’re talking no trails cleared. We’re talking no campground hosts,” Kosiba said.
The forest’s hands were bureaucratically tied.
So the nonprofit stepped in. They kept the contract with Snake River Sanitation, which is allowed to dump locally. It cost about a third less. The toilets stayed open and clean, which Jones showed off on this recent fall day.
Caitlin Tan
/
Wyoming Public Media
“See these old fly nests that were in the corners? We’ve knocked them out, sprayed them down – your window sills, everything,” Jones said after cleaning the interiors of the toilets with a mix of Pine-Sol and high pressure wash.
The end result? Very fresh, non-smelly toilets.
Aside from maintaining these facilities, there’s a never-ending list for keeping up 3.4 million acres of the BTNF.
“It exceeds our capacity pretty quickly,” said Mary Cernicek, BTNF’s public affairs officer.
She said the nonprofit has also helped with fundraising, which a federal agency can’t do. But perhaps one of the larger lifts is managing over 40 volunteers.
“That’s a lot of people, a lot of time and a lot of considerations,” Cernicek said. “Like, does the work fit the volunteers’ skill and ability level? Do I have the protective equipment [for them] to go out and do it? And now I have to round up all the tools that we would need to do said project.”
So handing that off to the nonprofit is a huge help. And with the right guidance, the volunteers have become dependable horsepower. Kosiba said they help spread information on things like bear-proof food storage, and even put out abandoned campfires – over 600 since 2021.
Caitlin Tan
/
Wyoming Public Media
“We’re no longer just the Bridger-Teton National Forest trying to go at it alone,” Cernicek said. “It’s helped us overall with improvements to the end-user – to the visitor of the Bridger Teton.”
Cernicek went so far as to say the nonprofit is BTNF’s “one constant.” She was tight-lipped about looming budget cuts, but she said Kosiba’s group will be key for keeping the forest going.
This is why Kosiba signed on for this job in the first place. He loves public lands. That is evident just from his office. On the shelves were hundreds of outdoor books, big game antlers and a map of the Rocky Mountains.
Kosiba showed a newer addition to the office.
“I actually just found this when I was hiking the other day. You know what it is?” he said.
It was an old bison horn sheath – the outer covering of their horns. A bison, likely from many, many years ago, shed the sheath. Kosiba found it while hiking on the BTNF.
Caitlin Tan
/
Wyoming Public Media
But he won’t be doing much hiking now.
He’s scrambling to grow the Friends of the Bridger Teton’s relatively meager budget of $1.5 million. It’ll need to be significantly larger to accommodate any impacts from USFS budget shortfalls – like helping with public access to places similar to where Kosiba found that bison sheath, or keeping toilets open and clean, or even helping purchase big ticket items that are essential for daily tasks, like horses and trailers.
“It is astounding that a nonprofit has to exist to help fund and help support a federal land management agency,” Kosiba said.
And neither Kosiba, nor the forest, see that ending soon. In fact, Kosiba said he’s heard from other forests around Wyoming, and even the country, that are interested in recreating this model. They need the help, too.
“That is the reality that we live in,” Kosiba said.
Meanwhile, D.C. lawmakers have until Dec. 20 to hash out a budget, leaving the forest in limbo.
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