GILLETTE, Wyo. — After a busy summer wildfire season slowly draws to a close, Campbell County has approved a resolution that will ensure continued access to federal disaster relief funding.
Called the Region One Regional Hazard Mitigation Plan Resolution, the document compiles emergency planning from several counties that make up Region One. Funding resolutions are divided regionally within Wyoming as opposed to being statewide. Region One includes Campbell, Crook and Johnson counties, among others.
While the resolution holds no cross-county obligations for aid, Campbell County Deputy Emergency Management Coordinator Michael Phipps explained the agreement needed renewal to allow the county to receive aid following disasters. Phipps presented the resolution to the Campbell County Commissioners on Tuesday morning.
“So basically, we have to have one in place for federal funding if we want to receive any pre- or post-disaster payment. We have one in place that is expiring, so every five years we are required to renew it and go through it.” Phipps said.
In addition to the state dividing resolutions by region, they also provide a contractor for counties and municipalities to work with during the planning process. All told, the Region One resolution is over 700 pages, so large it was unable to be added to Tuesday’s meeting agenda due to how large the document file was.
Phipps offered to portion out the county-relevant concerns within it and send it to them. Chairman Del Shelstad noted if they had relevant materials they would look into getting them posted online for the public to be able to access.
Phipps gave the Commissioners a highlight reel of what was included in the lengthy document, with the potential threats to Campbell County consisting of some usual suspects.
“No surprise, the main hazards pointed out for Campbell County is weather and wildfires. I don’t think that’s a shock to anybody,” Phipps said. “There were a couple of dams that were [assessed] in the moderate range, but they’re not a threat to anything, they’re just out in pastures.”
Many of the hazards identified in previous versions of the resolution remained the same for the current assessment, meaning that aside from the required renewal, not much was significantly changing in the resolution this time around, Phipps told commissioners.
The resolution was approved unanimously with a motion from Commissioner Bob Jordan that was seconded by Commissioner Kelley McCreery.
