Commission to adopt natural resource plan

The county commission is set to put its stamp of approval on a new Natural Resource Management Plan next week. The plan has been developed by Y2 Consultants and is intended as a tool to allow the commission to have a substantive impact on federal decisions, plans, policies and programs.

The public comment period for the plan has now ended. According to Bree Burton of Y2 Consultants, a total of 25 comments were considered by the steering committee and commission and were incorporated as appropriate.

“There were not any significant changes in response to public comments, mostly just clarification and grammar edits, and we did add a section on the National Forest Roads and Trails Act in the transportation section,” Burton says.

A Natural Resource Management Plan is intended as a tool for a local government – in this case the Crook County Commissioners – to have an impact on federal decisions, plans, policies and programs. The plan will include an assessment of the county’s resources at the current time and will also outline what the county wants to achieve on its public lands.

This can be used when working with public land agencies such as BLM and the U.S. Forest Service and can play a key role when it comes to a local government successfully engaging as a cooperative agency or with consistency review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). It can perform the same function when coordinating under the Federal Lands Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) or National Forest Management Act (NFMA) and assists with the governor’s consistency review.

The county commissioners appointed a steering committee to work with Y2 Consultants on in April, consisting of Wanda Burget, Spencer Cherry, Andrew Litzel, Jeffery Smith II, Ronald Vore and Skip Waters. The purpose of the committee was to assist in developing the plan as representatives from the community.

The county commissioners will consider whether to adopt the plan on December 2 and 2:45 p.m. Interested members of the public are invited to attend virtually through the following link: https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/467150597.

Please use access code 467-150-597 to enter the meeting.