After more than a year and a half of work, the completed Lacombe County State of the Environment Report was officially launched at Ellis Bird Farm near Lacombe Saturday.
“We’re really proud of this document,” said Lacombe County environmental coordinator Blayne West, who likened compiling the document to writing a thesis.
The report was created to provide current information on the environment in the county. The information it presents may have an impact on environment-related procedures in the future, according to Reeve Ken Wigmore.
“Through the compiling of this information, it became evident to Lacombe County that it needed to be a leader and to look within its own operation to assess how it works with and around environmental issues and needs,” he said.
“This means we may have to change our ways when it comes to building roads, moving or digging out gravel, and change the way we do things with our agricultural operations — all with the goal in mind to leave Lacombe County a better place for future generations.”
New information, as it becomes available, will be added to the document every year, Wigmore added. It will be updated and rewritten in its entirety in about five years.
Work on the document began in early 2012 with the creation of focus groups in each of the county’s seven divisions. A telephone survey was carried out with 400 county residents.
“The vision was decided by the people of Lacombe County,” said West. “People provided us with an idea of where they want to go, and all of that information is contained in this document.”
The full report is available in print at Lacombe County office, or online at www.lacombecounty.com.
Information from the report will be used to create an environmental management plan for the county.
Speaking at the launch at Ellis Bird Farm, West acknowledged county councillors, all of whom were in attendance, for their support of the report’s creation.
“These things are really important documents and we wouldn’t be able to do it unless we had the support of our community and our councillors behind us.”