Bridger-Teton National Forest Supervisor Kniffy Hamilton has reauthorized five state-run elk feedgrounds on U.S. Forest Service land but refused several additions to them requested by the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission.

In a final environmental impact statement released Tuesday, Hamilton reauthorized for 20 years the Dog Creek and Fish Creek feedgrounds in Teton County and the Fall Creek, Muddy Creek and Green River Lakes feedgrounds in Sublette County. Hamilton held off on a decision for the 105-acre Alkali Creek feedground, also in Teton County, which isn’t due for reauthorization until 2011.

Long-term authorizations for the feedgrounds expired in 2006, and Hamilton has granted temporary permission to the state to run the operations over the past two years. The state considers the operations essential to its elk management program as a replacement to native winter range usurped by development. They also keep elk off private lands and highways.

Conservationists have been pushing to reduce artificial feeding, however. They favor fewer elk spread out over winter range, a strategy they say would reduce disease.

Hamilton denied or delayed Game and Fish Commission requests for additions to the Fish Creek and the Patrol Cabin feedgrounds in the Gros Ventre River drainage. Commissioners asked for 27 additional acres on the Fish Creek feedground and 88 additional acres at Patrol Cabin.

Both are used by portions of the Jackson Elk Herd, part of which winters on the National Elk Refuge near Jackson.

Hamilton denied the Yellowjacket Flat addition to Patrol Cabin and delayed making a decision on the Coal Mine Draw addition until 2011. Patrol Cabin feedground is located on state land, but the additions would have been on Forest Service property.

Commissioners requested the additional acreage to reduce the impact that wolves have had on the elk behavior at the two feedgrounds, which are located northeast of Jackson. Commissioners say wolves have caused the elk to congregate at one feedground, increasing the risk of diseases like brucellosis.

“I decided not to authorize a larger area at this time because of the additional environmental effects to vegetation and wildlife habitat that would result from this proposed intensive use of [National Forest Service] land,” Hamilton said in her decision. “The Yellowjacket Flat expansion for the state-owned Patrol Cabin feedground would result in new impacts to the Gros Ventre Wilderness.”

Hamilton did allow a one-acre increase to the Muddy Creek feedground, located at the southern end of the Wind River Range. Commissioners requested the additional acre for the construction of a horse corral so workers could use horse-drawn wagons instead of tractors to feed the animals.

The final environmental impact statement is both good news and bad news for conservation groups, most of which favor the elimination of feedgrounds over five to 10 years. Scientists say the feed areas exacerbate diseases like brucellosis.

“We are pleased to see the Bridger-Teton’s concerns regarding vegetation and wildlife habitat in their EIS on elk feed grounds,” said Louise Lasley, public lands director for the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance. “The analysis acknowledged habitat degradation, and the Bridger-Teton has determined a need to look more closely at some areas of feedground impacts.”

However, Lasley said she favored a much shorter reauthorization period.

“It is a bit disappointing to have 20-year lengths for these permit authorizations,” she said. “We specifically asked for year-by-year reauthorizations as more studies continue.”

However, Lasley praised the decision to delay or deny reauthorization or additions to the Alkali, Patrol Cabin and Fish Creek feed grounds.

“The three feedgrounds in the Upper Gros Ventre that promise the greatest potential in a gradual feedground phaseout have been afforded greater scrutiny by the Bridger-Teton,” in this study she said. “Those sensitive areas – the banks of the Gros Ventre on the Fish Creek feedground, the proximity of wilderness at Alkali Creek and the large expansion onto Forest Service lands with sensitive soils – all deserve the additional scrutiny.”

Clark Allan, Game and Fish commissioner from Jackson, said he isn’t sure how officials with the Wyoming Game and Fish would react to the decision.

“I’m sure that we’re certainly glad for everything that we got,” he said. “Obviously, we want to continue the feed grounds.”

Allan did say that he is disappointed that Hamilton didn’t allow some of the the feedground expansions.

Conflicts with elk and wolves have been going on for quite a while, he said.

“The elk either wind up standing all the time on one [feed ground] or they end up running from one to the other,” he said. “There is no question that wolves cause problems with feeding in the Gros Ventre.”