Help needed for natural resource plan

If you have an interest in what happens on Crook County’s federal public lands, your help is needed to assist in creating a natural resource management plan. The document will serve as a basis for the county to communicate its needs and desires when it comes to public lands, but a steering committee is needed to make it happen.

“We’re working with Crook County to do their natural resource management plan,” says range scientist Bree Burton of Jackson-based Y2 Consultants.

”We’re looking for a steering committee to help put together the plan – representatives from the community.”

The steering committee will play an integral role in putting the document together, Burton says.

“They will be the ones putting together the plan. As a consultant, we will be writing the plan based on the recommendations from the steering committee so they will be the ones representing the different resources throughout the plan, editing the plan, creating policy statements,” she explains.

“They’re kind of the glue that keeps it all together.”

According to Burton, the committee should be made up of around eight to ten members who represent different perspectives on natural resources. Members should come from such industries as ranching, tourism and energy, as well as agencies such as Weed & Pest and business interests such as outfitters.

In other words, if you have interest in and knowledge of the natural resources within Crook County, your voice could be of benefit to the committee.

“There is an application process. Anyone can fill out the application and then the commissioners will be the ones to have the final decision on who is on that steering committee,” Burton says.

Committee members must be residents of Crook County or represent a business or entity location within the county. Chosen members will be asked to serve until the plan is finished, which is expected to take approximately eight to 12 months.

“In terms of commitment, there will be approximately two in-person meetings. The first one will be on April 8 and the next we will schedule as we start developing the plan more,” says Burton.

“Then there will probably be a commitment to monthly teleconference calls that will be probably about an hour. As we get more towards the final of the plan, there may be a few more calls to fix edits here and ask questions there.”

Committee members will also provide feedback on questions and emails and will seek additional individuals with professional expertise associated with their area of concern to provide technical information for the document.

Once finished, the plan will include a resource assessment for the county at the current time. It will also provide objectives in terms of what the county wants to achieve on its public lands, which can be used when working with public land agencies such as BLM and the U.S. Forest Service.

“If the county has a plan, the agencies have to look at the plan and make sure they’re in conformance with the plan, and if they are not then they have to give an explanation as to why whatever action they are taking is outside the county’s stance on something,” says Burton.

The document that will be created over the course of this year will be an update to the existing plan, which was published in around 2014. Money has been set aside at the state level for each county to update or create a natural resource management plan.

The state has also provided a template to make sure certain resources are addressed, says Burton, so the county’s older plan will need to be reworked to ensure it fits the new format.

Applications to join the steering committee are due by March 27. Contact the County Clerk’s Office for an application form.