It was starting to look like more than 150 toilets on the Bridger-Teton National Forest (BTNF) weren't going to be pumped or cleaned this year. But as of this month, it's no longer a concern.
For the past couple years, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) has had an agreement with the nonprofit Friends of the Bridger-Teton to use federal dollars to get toilets cleaned and pumped. Basically, the nonprofit has more contracting flexibility and can get the job done cheaper than the federal government can.
Typically, the group gets about $80,000 from the feds for this work. But this year, things weren't so certain.
"I had zero confidence that this was going to happen," said Scott Kosiba, executive director of Friends of the Bridger-Teton.
That's because normally it would've been squared away months ago. This year, the money was caught up in DOGE cuts and freezes. Instead of the approval being a three-step process – the BTNF writes the agreement up, the regional USFS approves or edits it, and the BTNF signs off – Kosiba said it's now a very complex, confusing process.
"The Forest Service writes the agreement, the regional office looks at it, then every agreement is sent to Washington and to DOGE for review. It gets kicked back to the regional office," he said. "There's a number of iterations back and forth between the forest, the region, Washington and DOGE. And then, if you're lucky, and it meets some of the [federal funding] exception criteria, then you're in good shape."
Kosiba said as the months ticked away this year, he was panicking about dirty toilets overflowing with human waste. Without a federal funding guarantee, he couldn't solidify the contract with the mom and pop toilet pumping business that typically does the work.
"It's a substantial contract. Just for the Pinedale area, it's $30,000 for them," Kosiba said. "That's a hit to their bottom line."
Kosiba was exploring other funding avenues but to no avail. Then, much to his surprise, he got an email this month from the federal government re-upping the agreement.
"I was driving on I-80 to Laramie," Kosiba said. "I pulled off the side of the road and signed that because I didn't know if tomorrow something would change."
Some BTNF toilets will be pumped in early season, but most will be in the fall.
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