Justin Laycock, Greys River District Ranger, and Brett Storey, representing the Greys River Collaborative are gearing up for more work regional work on the Bridger-Teton National Forest.

“The Greys River Collaborative is a group of local citizens that have an interest and some expertise in and around the forest, working sort of as an extension of the Greys River Ranger District,” explained Storey in an interview with SVI Media. “Justin and I work together on what the collaborative can do that makes sense to help offset all of the items that Justin has to worry about. And then we have a variety of people that are part of it and have expertise, whether it’s in timber sales or recreation or anything else to do with the forest.”

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He said the group focuses on current work in the Bridger-Teton, while planning for future projects.

“The Greys River Collaborative helps bring everybody to the table and get something done hopefully a little faster.”

Both Laycock and Storey asked for patience as the projects are developed.

“I think we’re trying to be making strides and we’re coming together now,” Storey added. “So, hopefully in the next several years, you’ll see many projects.”

Storey has approximately 20 years of experience working on projects in five different forests.

“My largest project was a 28,000 acre project, the French Meadows Project, which helped protect a reservoir near Lake Tahoe on the American River. We were fortunate and won the Region 5 Project of the Year Award for our partnership with the Forest Service,” he said. “It was the first time they had ever gone out to work with industry and allowed them to actually run the project from the beginning of the planning all the way through the implementations.”

Storey continues to work another 25,000 acre project in a neighbnor forest.

Laycock acknowledged the  district’s work with the collaborative for several years.

“We’ve been working on a 10-year vegetation plan for the forest with the collaborative. This is a collaborative idea that came to the forest and instead of a five-year plan, we extended that to 10 years for vegetation treatments.  Initially,  it was timber sales and we added in vegetation treatments as well,” Laycock explained. “The purpose of that 10-year plan is so we can plan and offer and show industry what we’re planning and what we’re going to be offering.”

He continued, “The beauty of that is that we’re able to offer a more consistent product and industry can plan around that and hopefully be able to sustain the operation that we have going on with timber industry and wood products.”

The district and the collaborative have been reaching out to industry. “Now as part of that 10-year plan, we’ve been working closely with industry and trying  to understand what their needs are. And we’ve put together several meetings where we’ve got them together to try to hear them,” he said. ”We have this 10-year plan. Now we want to see if that’s going to match the needs of the industry and the purchasers.”

Reviewing the plans, have led meetings with industry that included both the district and collaborative. “We had one meeting with everybody all together in a group  with all of those in the area that are interested in wood products. And then we kind of went out and visited each one of those individually on site at the mills,” Laycock said. “And, it was really good. We got some really valuable information that we’re going to be able to use to make some adjustments to our 10-year plan and we’re offering that product which they’re most interested in.”

He added, “We’ve also been looking at offering a variety of different timber products. Some of those might be firewood. We’ve been looking at some root wads, some chipboard, post and pole operations, wood pellets as some examples of expanding just from the traditional saw logs that go through the mill. These are the types of things that people are interested in and we’ll be making those adjustments as we’re working with industry and our plan lines up with their plan.”

Storey noted that industry has sought assistance with various projects. “Well, first of all, I have to say the industry reached out to myself and Rich Stem who also joined us. We aren’t with the Forest Service and they appreciated how much the Bridger-Teton is trying to make adjustments or recalibrate, as Justin said,” explained Storey. They’re very excited about it. So that excites me, too, because that’ll get us into more projects and into more sales; into more jobs.”

Storey noted the state is helping and he commended the work of Wyoming State Forester Kelly Norris

“The state’s going to come in with their Good Neighbor Authority Foresters, and they’re going to be supporting the collaborative and Justin,” Storey said. “We’ve got several projects that need forester support because of the lack of funding from the current administration to have enough foresters out there. I think it’s going work great because they’re going to provide another avenue.”

He added, “The Forest Service can only hold so many sales. And, now with the state stepping in, they’re going to be involved in both, championing these projects, but also putting them up for sale, giving more opportunities to that industry that we just talked to.

Storey noted, “And then the other leg is the county. I’m excited about it. I’ve had some really good discussions with the commissioners and their chief of staff about how we get Lincoln County involved, and not just in the Greys, but the idea is if we can get a master stewardship agreement with the Forest Service, we can do it in the Greys River District, and we can do it in the Kemmerer District, where the county can support more of the sales.

He added, “They might take on the smaller sales, but that’ll get a good balance to everything that needs to go on to protect everyone here and protect these beautiful forests.”

The master stewardship agreement allows an agency takes on the responsibilities, the fiscal and the operational responsibilities of any one or more projects. “So they effectively become another arm for the Forest Service. The other way is the Good Neighbor Authority, which the state has and they do the same thing,” Storey advised. “They sign an agreement that states they will take on the operational and financial responsibility.”

Storey has experience working with Master Stewardship Agreements in other national forests.

Laycock is pleased with the opportunities coming from the county and state.

“We’ve been ramping up our timber production for several years,” he said. “We’re expanding it and the environment is right.  There’s several things coming together in our favor to be able to do more with the collaborative and the partnerships that we have involved with this, with the state and the county.”

“We have some planning that we need to finish up in the next several months and over the summer, a little bit of field work, but we have some timber sales that are going to be offered through the state coming up here shortly,” Laycock added. “By the end of this field season, we’ll have another timber sale ready to go up in the Little Greys area, and we’re going to be working closely with the state and the county, and we’ve found out, and we know this, that we can do more when we  work together.”

Storey concluded, “For me, the collaborative really has two missions. One is to support the current projects that are being planned and implemented, which I think we’re aggressively doing. But then the second part is, what’s the future? We have a lot of citizens that are in the collaborative that have been here. They understand about recreation, about wildlife, about timber, and really it’s those ideas that will help Justin and his crew look for the next 5-10 years. And I think that’s just as important as what’s going on now.”