Take Action for Sustainable Huron

To ensure the long-term well-being of Huron County, the County’s planning and development department will lead a process to create a sustainable community plan and implementation model. The main steps will include assembling the necessary financial and human resources; establishing a 12- to 20-member Sustainable Huron Steering Committee; and identifying 2-year, 5-year, and 10-year deliverables with performance measures. Already, the County has taken the first step by creating a background document, “Take Action for Sustainable Huron,” during a consultation involving some 60 community groups representing every major sector: agricultural, manufacturing, tourism, non-profit, social, health, municipal, and environmental, among others. With the Take Action report as the primer, Huron County will take advantage of its strong tradition of “planning with the public” to create a strong Sustainable Community Plan that also integrates the plans and projects of its nine constituent municipalities. It is intended to establish an assessment tool to examine the intended environmental results of pipeline projects such as reducing carbon footprints by reducing power consumption, decreasing single vehicle usage, and increasing forestry coverage. The process is expected to be a model suitable for the use of similarly dispersed rural areas in which appropriate leadership is offered at the county level of government.

(Project description from original funding application)