FACILITY MASTER PLAN

FOR THE

BIGHORN NATIONAL FOREST

October 2002

Chapter 2: Past, Present, & Future

Reviewing the Past and Projecting the Future

Numerous discussions with the Forest Leadership Team, District Staffs, and facility users took place during the Facility Master Planning process. Information from the current Forest Revision process, and past and current workloads were also reviewed. Using this information, a vision for the Forest was projected using anticipated trends for the next 20 years. Anticipated workforce expectations were identified to the extent possible, keeping in mind fluxes can occur in any particular budget cycle.

Planning Assumptions were then established from these trends. A new organizational chart was completed and seasonal employee numbers were estimated. From this point, facility alternatives were put together for any site for which it was warranted. Finally, decision criteria were created in order to evaluate these alternatives. The next step - selecting the preferred alternative - will be done at a later time, using the decision criteria mentioned along with a Preliminary Project Analysis.

Purpose and Procedure

The Need for a FMP

A Facility Master Plan (FMP) is a guidance document for overall Forest planning and programming for Fire, Administrative and Other (FA&O) facility related actions to support existing and future work requirements. The FMP is required to be updated every 10 years by FSM 7312.1, with guidance from FSH 7309.11, Sec. 22. The last FMP done for the Bighorn was in 1990. Since that time the Forest has experienced a significant reorganization as well as some major shifts in the focus of resource areas and workloads. However, these Forest needs and the chronological manual requirement are not the only reasons to develop a current FMP. Facility management has been receiving recent focus as an important National and Regional issue. Clear National and Regional direction regarding administrative facilities exists and is driving the need to develop a current Facility Master Plan.

The Procedure:

• Review of Forest Service Directives to determine FMP requirements.
  
  
• Review of all Administrative Sites, along with associated buildings and utilities.
  
  
• Review of previous FMP dated September 1990.
  
  
• Meeting with each District to review FMP process, and get input as far as District facility needs and wants.
  
  
• Discussion with each Program Manager and review of recent Monitoring & Evaluation reports to estimate future trends in programs.
  
  
• Review of recent work completed on the current revision of the Forest Plan.
  
  
• Creating a vision for the next 20 years and determining trends.
  
  
• Listing Planning Assumptions that came out of the projected trends.
  
  
• Developing Alternatives along with Decision Criteria that will be used to select the preferred Alternative.
  
  
• Preparation of a Draft FMP, and presentation to Forest Leadership Team (FLT) for review and comment.
  
  
• Submission of first draft FMP to Regional Office for Review (February, 2001).
  
  
• Submission of a second draft FMP to the Regional Office for Review (February, 2002).
  
  
• Submission of Final Draft FMP to the Regional Office and presentation to Regional Directors (October, 2002).

Current Management Direction

National Facilities Management Direction

Forest Service facilities provide resource program support and public service by providing work and meeting space, storage and repair areas, visitor information, operational bases, communications sites, utility support, and employee housing. The benefits of adequate facilities include: job satisfaction (productivity, recruitment, and overall employee well-being), a healthy and safe environment for employees and the visiting public, effective use of space, service to the public, interpretation and preservation of significant historic buildings, protection of investments, and ability to meet key administrative initiatives.

For years, Forest Service units have explored creative alternatives to facility management when facilities have not met our needs or management standards. Continued reduction in working budgets and personnel levels, including the need to reduce fixed costs, indicates that the Forest Service must actively manage facility assets.

In 1999 a National Facilities Team authored a National Facilities Management Strategy. Out of this strategy came an implementation plan detailing specific actions that the FS should take to aid in improving overall facilities management. Several of the more significant actions included:

• Develop an implementation proposal to establish a Working Capital Fund for managing Forest Service facilities.
  
  
• Research how to obtain legislative authority to explore options for partnering with state, local, and other federal agencies, along with non-profit entities.
  
  
• Research options to utilize a portion of carryover funds nationally to purchase, construct, or replace Forest Service FA&O and Research Facilities.
  
  
• Use INFRA more effectively by standardizing input instructions, use for more than just an upward reporting tool, and validating and ensuring data is updated and correct.
  
  
• Determine if QMQM collections can be used for construction and reconstruction of facilities.
  
  
• Identify products and tools which will aid in incorporation of the concepts of sustainability into the decision process of deferred maintenance, construction, and replacement of facilities.
  
  
• Utilize the Built Environment Image Guide to improve the quality of Forest Service Facilities.

Regional Facilities Management Direction

Concurrent with the National Direction, the Rocky Mountain Region (R2) convened a Facility Advisory Committee (FAC) to develop goals for management of the facilities within the Region. Key components of the goals and resulting Regional strategy included:

• R2 will update the FMP every 3 years or when leasing, construction, or disposal activities are planned.
  
  
• Transition from a Regional TIN to state TINs, and finally total elimination of the Leasing TIN.
  
  
• Identification of a Quarters Maintenance (QMQM) "emergency" utilization level to ensure efficient use of this authority. Currently, the Region has a QMQM authority balance that is increasing each year. The authority may need to be changed to reduce balances.
  
  
• Develop a Regional strategy for the management of regional facilities. Issue Regional policy on implementation of the strategy for administrative facilities (offices, housing, and service / storage).
  
  
• Develop Regional standards for the quality of space to be provided.
  
  
• Seek out opportunities to use Recreation Fee Demo tools.
  
  
• Manage facility costs in partnership with workload and budgets. Provide for efficient and effective management of facilities.
  
  
• Support changes to the national and regional criteria that reward downsizing in the number and size of structures.

After the FAC presented their proposed strategy to the Regional Leadership team, a letter directing all the Forests in Region 2 to update their Facility Master Plans was sent in December of 1999.

Bighorn National Forest Facilities Management Direction

The Bighorn NF started the current master planning effort early in 2000. It was important to set some guiding principles at the beginning of the effort to help provide some structure to the development of the Facility Master Plan.

First, an overall vision of the Forest for the next 10-20 years was needed. To determine this, trends were looked at and planning assumptions were established. At this point, alternatives were created for those offices that were not locked into a certain situation or location (i.e. long-term lease, no other reasonable location alternatives, etc.)

Decision criteria were then created in order to evaluate these alternatives. This Facility Master Plan does not address the selection of alternatives. The addition of more alternatives and their evaluation will be done at a later date. The documentation of this process will become a part of the FMP record.

Several planning assumptions were also used to create short-term goals and long-term strategies for the facilities program. The goals are things the forest needs to do in order to bring it into compliance with directives. These strategies guide program operations on a day-to-day and year-to-year basis. Strategies address such items as project prioritization & selection, and routine facility maintenance.

Reorganization in the 1990's

Many organizational changes have taken place since the last FMP was developed 12 years ago. In 1990 there were 5 Ranger Districts and the Supervisor's Office. On the northwest side of the forest were the Medicine Wheel District Office in Lovell and the Paintrock District Office in Greybull, 30 miles south of Lovell. On the southwest side of the forest was the Tensleep District Office in Worland and on the southeast side was the Buffalo District Office in Buffalo. Worland and Buffalo are 100 miles apart. On the northeast side of the forest, the Tongue District Office was co-located with the Supervisor's Office in Sheridan, 35 miles north of Buffalo.

In the mid 90's, as budgets were declining, it became necessary to critically look at all parts of the Forest's program of work. One of these areas was overhead. A big part of this was looking at where costs could be reduced in the facilities area, and one of the ways this was done was by combining district offices. After establishing alternatives and selection criteria, the decision was made to reduce the total number of district offices from 5 down to 3 by combining 4 of the offices into 2. This enabled the Forest to reduce costs by eliminating one lease, and reducing support services overhead. By the late 1990's, the co-location had been completed. Currently the forest has 3 main offices, all of which are leased.

The Medicine Wheel and Paintrock offices were combined into the existing leased office in Lovell. The Forest owns the former Greybull office, so there was no lease cost reduction in this case. However the cost of support personnel was reduced and the cost to bring the Greybull office up to standard would have been significant. The Greybull facility is still being used partly by the district as a storage and workshop facility and partly by the Wyoming Hotshot Crew Leaders as office space. The dorm building for the 20-person Wyoming Hotshot crew is located at the Greybull compound.

The Tensleep office was eliminated and was combined with the Buffalo office. This eliminated the need for a leased office in Worland. One position was kept in Worland to cover dispatch and customer service, and is located in a BLM office.

The administrative facilities on the forest have remained essentially unchanged. These are mainly Ranger Stations and Work Centers on the mountain.

Current Bighorn NF Physical & Organizational Characteristics

Bighorn National Forest encompasses 1.1 million acres in the Bighorn Mountains of North-Central Wyoming. The forest is fairly contiguous, and runs roughly in a northwest-southeast direction approximately 80 miles long by 25 miles wide following the Bighorn Mountain Range. The elevations of the towns that skirt the forest vary from 3,800 to 4,600 ft. The elevations of the main Work Centers on the mountain vary from 7,300 ft. (Hunter) to 8,800 ft. (Porcupine).

The forest is divided into 3 districts: Medicine Wheel / Paintrock District (MWPR) on the northwest side; Tongue District on the northeast side; and the Powder River District on the southern third. The districts intersect in the middle of the 189,000-acre Cloud Peak Wilderness, which is located in the south-central part of the forest.

The MWPR district has three main Work Centers - Shell Ranger Station, Porcupine Ranger Station, and Greybull Work Center. Shell and Porcupine are closed during the winter, since both of the roads that access them are snowed shut. Greybull Work Center is located outside the Forest boundary in the town of Greybull. The Wyoming Hot Shot Fire Crew is also located at this site.

The Powder River district also has two main Work Centers - Tyrrell and Hunter. Tyrrell is closed during the winter, again due to closed roads. Hunter is the only Work Center on the mountain accessible by car during the winter.

And finally, Tongue district has three Work Centers, Burgess and Sheridan being the larger ones, and Big Goose, the small one. Sheridan is the only one open in the winter.

Currently, the forest has 3 major offices. On the northwest side of the forest, the Medicine Wheel / Paintrock Districts are co-located in a leased office in Lovell. Lovell is the largest town in Big Horn County, the county seat of which is Basin, about 50 miles to the south. On the northeast side of the forest, the Supervisor's Office and Tongue District are co-located in a leased office in Sheridan, which is the largest city and county seat of Sheridan County. Finally, on the southeast side, the Powder River district is co-located with the BLM in a leased office in Buffalo.

The most recent (2002) Forest-wide organization chart shows 100 Permanent Seasonal (PS) and Permanent Full-Time (PFT) employees. The PS employees normally work a schedule of 18/8 (18 pay periods on, 8 off) or 13/13 (13 on, 13 off). Due to unknowns in the fire-funding situation, this number will likely fluctuate. Following are the number of permanent employees shown on the organization chart at each District and S.O.

• Supervisor's Office: 43
  
  
• Medicine Wheel / Paintrock District: 18
  
  
• Powder River District: 20
  
  
• Tongue District: 19
  
  
• Forest-Wide Summer Seasonals: 143 (in 2001)

Due to the extreme winter conditions in the Bighorn Mountains, the majority of the fieldwork takes place in the summer. This necessitates a large summer seasonal workforce. The number and especially the location of seasonal employees fluctuates from year to year. One specific example is the 8-person Road Maintenance Crew. They rotate around the forest every three years, one year per district. See Table C-1 for expected seasonal workforce with anticipated administrative site maximums.

Leased Offices

Supervisor's Office / Tongue District - Sheridan, WY

In 2000, the lease expired on the S.O./Tongue office building in Sheridan. The forest went through a bid process to acquire a new lease, and after the selection process, it was decided to move into a new leased building. Construction was completed in the summer of 2000, and the building was occupied. The lease expires in 2015.

Powder River District - Buffalo, WY

In 1997, the Buffalo district office co-located with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Buffalo. This was to be a 20-year lease. However since 1997, the BLM has experienced significant expansion. Therefore in 2001, the forest began negotiating with the current lessor and the BLM to determine what to do about office space. It was agreed that the BLM would take over the entire building, and the lessor would build a new building on the same property for the Forest Service. Construction will begin in the fall of 2002 and should be completed in 2003. This lease will run through 2022.

Medicine Wheel / Paintrock Districts - Lovell, WY

The Lovell office has a lease that will expire in 2004. There is an option to extend the lease for an additional 5 years. The forest will recommend that the lease be extended. This will allow some time to begin looking at other options. These could include anything from requesting bids for another lease to co-locating with the National Park Service. Initial discussions with the Park Service regarding co-location have already been scheduled. Another option could be to construct a forest owned facility with money received from the sale of buildings recommended for disposal, if conveyance legislation permits this.

Vision & Trends

The first step in preparing a new Facility Master Plan is to review the current situation. Before planning the future of the Bighorn's Administrative Facilities, it is important to review, in a comprehensive way, some projected trends along with statistics regarding the existing facilities.

Looking into the future and forecasting trends that affect our mission delivery is a vital part of facility master planning. Through various discussions held with members of the Forest Plan Revision Team, the Forest Leadership Team, and the Districts, a long-term vision of the Bighorn NF began to develop. This can be expressed through several types of trends: demographic; program area; physical; financial; and others.

Below is a summary of the trends identified.

WORKFORCE, DEMOGRAPHIC, ECONOMIC, USE, & GENERAL TRENDS

• The emphasis on the Bighorn NF is shifting more towards recreation and less from other resources.
  
  
• There is a trend towards making use of vacant buildings for alternative uses. For example, a building not on this list (Muddy Guard Cabin) is used by the recreation shop as a rental cabin. The fire towers are currently being pursued as rentals.
  
  
• Winter recreation use is expected to increase over the next few years, possibly requiring an increase in the winter seasonal workforce, and/or facilities.
  
  
• Summer seasonal workforce will increase slightly, but location of workforce moves around the Forest from year to year.
  
  
• Increase in fire funding will increase summer seasonal use significantly. This began in FY01, and might necessitate a potential increase in PFTs in the future.
  
  
• Due mainly to increased fire workforce, the Forest is very short on available seasonal housing. For numbers on available housing and trailer pads, and for numbers on expected seasonal workforce, see Appendix A.
  
  
• The Forest recommends that most of the FS owned dwellings located outside the Forest Boundary in communities surrounding the Forest are disposable. The Forest would prefer to find a way to sell or exchange these buildings, and use this money to address facility needs on the Forest.
  
  
• The forest will continue to maintain multiple use management.
  
  
• The energy boom & bust cycle is likely to continue. Because of this, population projections are hard, if not impossible to accurately quantify.
  
  
• There is more urbanization of the east side of the Big Horn Mountains than on the west side. The housing market on the east side is currently booming, while on the west side it has been declining for several years. This urbanization trend will continue, and is likely due to the different economic bases on each side of the mountain.
  
  
• Water supply/use demand will increase on the east side.
  
  
• There will be a continued difference in values between local and non-local forest users. In general, local users tend to support more of a multiple use management of the Forest. Non-locals, however, especially the vocal ones, lean more towards a "minimal use" philosophy of the Forest.
  
  
• The majority of forest users are drive-thru. In other words, they are traveling, for example to and from Yellowstone National Park or the Black Hills & Mount Rushmore, and their drive takes them through the Big Horn Mountains. However there are an increasing number of return visitors to the Forest.
  
  
• The average age of Forest users is increasing. Therefore, it can be expected that activities on the Forest will change as well.

PHYSICAL & FINANCIAL TRENDS

• Out of the 119 owned buildings on the Bighorn NF, 66 (58%) are smaller than 500 sq. ft., and 42 (37%) are smaller than 100 sq. ft. (Chart A-1)
  
  
• Out of the 119 owned buildings on the Bighorn NF, 95 (83%) are older than 30 years old, and 66 (58%) are older than 50 years old. (Chart A-2)
  
  
• Of the 42,110 sq. ft. designated on the Forest as housing & quarters, 9,148 sq. ft. is currently unavailable for use as seasonal housing. This is due to the buildings being rented out to Permanent Employees, or because the building is currently unfit for housing. (Graph A-1)
  
  
• All of the major offices (Districts and Supervisor's Office) are leased. The annual leasing cost of these facilities, along with associated storage is $260,000. (Table B-2)
  
  
• Some of the Ranger Stations have a collection of many small storage buildings, due in part to inefficiency of storage areas, and the need for larger, more efficient storage buildings. (Tables A-2, A-3)
  
  
• Seasonal housing at most of the work centers is lacking. And one in particular, Burgess Ranger Station, is very short of space. (Tables A-4, A-5, A-6, A-7))
  
  
• Many of the buildings on the Bighorn NF have Deferred Maintenance Costs that far exceed the building's capitalized value. (Table B-1)

For the Physical Statistics, see Appendix A. For Financial Statistics, see Appendix B. Appendix C contains the Organization Chart. Site Plans and District Maps can be found in Appendix D. Finally, the List of Buildings Recommended for Disposal and our Priority List of Projects are in Appendix E.

Planning Assumptions

From the Forest vision and expected trends, the following planning assumptions have been developed to use as sideboards during the Facility Master Planning process. These were also developed from other sources. Some came out of the district consolidation process in the mid 90's. During this process, facilities needs were assessed forest-wide. Alternatives were developed, and the decision was made to combine 4 districts into 2 leased offices.

Other assumptions were established during meetings with the Forest Leadership Team in this round of Facility Master Planning. A list and an explanation of these planning assumptions follow below.

PERMANENT & SEASONAL EMPLOYEE ORGANIZATION

It is anticipated that as we fill all of the new permanent fire positions, the number of permanent employees will level off at a higher number than today. Since the majority of our fieldwork is accomplished with the help of seasonal employees, it is expected that this workforce will remain steady or increase slightly to match the permanent workforce trend.

BUDGETS WILL CONTINUE SLIGHT BUT STEADY GROWTH

This is an area that is very difficult to project. However it is expected that budgets will continue slightly upward, if only to match inflation.

ADMINISTRATIVE SITES

Ranger Stations, Guard Stations, & Work Centers on and off the mountain will remain essential to maintaining a field presence and seasonal workforce effectiveness. Due to the long travel time from our District Offices to the Forest, these on-mountain administrative sites are vital to efficient accomplishment of work. The primary uses of these sites are quarters, storage, and equipment maintenance.

These sites are very well distributed across the Forest. One way of Facility Master Planning would be to assume there are no facilities on the forest, and then laying out the best locations for administrative sites. This process works better for forests that have a much more intermixed pattern of forest owned land and private land. This is because there are many small towns mixed in with the forest, and therefore a larger variety of possible locations for administrative sites.

The Bighorn NF on the other hand is one of the most contiguous forest in the nation, and does not have any towns located within its boundaries. There would be no economic advantage in moving locations of Work Centers. It is highly likely the Forest budget would never expand to permit this kind of action. The current sites are very well distributed across the forest and continue to serve the Forest mission well.

Therefore, the administrative sites on the mountain will remain in their existing locations for the current round of Facility Master Planning. The only alternatives that will be addressed will be the types of facilities located at existing sites, and any facility needs or excesses. These alternatives will be created and rated during the Site Development Planning process.

RE-ORGANIZATION OF DISTRICT OFFICES

From the discussions that took place in the mid 90's about locations of office buildings, alternatives were developed and one was selected. The results of this process are what can be seen on the Forest today - Three offices and two Work Centers located outside the forest boundary, and six work centers on the mountain.

For the Bighorn NF, any further combining of district offices at this time would be a detriment. The closest two offices are the Powder River District Office in Buffalo and the Tongue District / Supervisor's Office in Sheridan, at 40 miles. However this would add over 1-1/2 hours to any field workday. Therefore, there is no need to re-visit the decisions made just a few years ago. The offices are in lengthy leases, with the exception of the Medicine Wheel / Paintrock office, which is discussed in the "leased building" section. Therefore, after recent combining and co-location of District Offices, no re-organization or co-location of offices will take place in the current round of Facility Master Planning.

INCREASE IN WINTER FACILITY USE

An increase in winter impact is anticipated due in part to future restrictions of snowmobiles at nearby Yellowstone National Park. Portions of Hunter Work Center are open year-round. Currently there is some winter use at Tyrrell, but future increases are possible. Burgess Junction Visitor Center may be impacted in the future. If there is a large increase in winter use, there might be a demand for restrooms at the Visitor Center throughout the winter.

If winter use at any or all of these locations is increased, utility upgrades would be necessary, such as winterizing water lines and keeping roads plowed open.

Alternatives - Offices

From the vision, trends, & planning assumptions, alternatives were explored. The first question was to determine if alternatives were available for our administrative sites on the mountain. It was consensus that the locations of our current Ranger Stations are in if not the ideal locations, at least close to them. If you could start from scratch with no facilities, perhaps you could find slightly better locations. For example by locating Burgess and Shell adjacent to the highway, they could possibly be used year-round. But with the historic significance of most of our facilities along with budget constraints, moving them just isn't a viable option. Therefore the only reasonable alternative for these sites is the existing one.

Alternatives were then examined for our off-forest District offices. Currently the S.O. and Tongue District are co-located in Sheridan. The Powder River District Office in Buffalo is located 35 miles south of Sheridan on I-90. It would be reasonable to suggest the possibility of combining these two offices. However there are reasons this is not a very good option. For one, it would add close to 90 minutes of travel time each day for accomplishing fieldwork. The second, and perhaps most important negative impact would be the loss of a Forest Service presence in one of the communities. Buffalo is the county seat of Johnson County, while Sheridan is the seat of Sheridan County. This would eliminate our presence in any town in Johnson County. This is why the only alternative proposed for these locations is the existing one.

On the other hand, the Medicine Wheel / Paintrock District Office in Lovell has several alternatives facing it. The current lease expires in 2004, with an option to renew through 2009. Since the current lease is suitable and there are no major problems, the Forest intends to renew the lease through 2009. This will allow us time to seek out and evaluate other alternatives as the expiration of this lease approaches.

The alternatives currently being considered are:

• Lease
  
  
• Own
  
  
• Co-Locate with the National Park Service (Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area)
  
  
• Re-evaluate the Greybull Location

Once the time approaches when a decision needs to be made, these alternatives may be added to or altered.

Decision Criteria

The decision criteria that will be used to evaluate each alternative are as follows:

• Cost
  
  
• Community Impacts
  
  
• Employee Impacts
  
  
• Travel Time
  
  
• Co-Location Opportunities

Again, as the Forest approaches the decision, these may be added to or altered.