Steering committee appointed for natural resource plan

In mid-March, Jackson-based Y2 Consultants put out a call on behalf of the Crook County Commissioners for volunteers to serve on a steering committee that will assist in creating a natural resource management plan for the county. The commissioners have now appointed six people to serve on that committee.

The committee will consist of Wanda Burget, Spencer Cherry, Andrew Litzel, Jeffery Smith II, Ronald Vore and Skip Waters. The decision to appoint these names was unanimous.

The steering committee will assist as representatives from the community in creating a plan that will serve as a basis for the county to communicate its needs and desires when it comes to public lands.

“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,” said Bree Burton, Y2 Consultants.

Committee members will serve until the plan is finished, which is expected to take approximately eight to 12 months. As well as attending regular teleconference meetings, they 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.

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