Castle Valley hazard mitigation committee revises scoring, pares plan items and sets three near-term priorities

Castle Valley’s Hazard Mitigation Committee met Aug. 26 to revise the town’s draft hazard mitigation actions, clarify how the committee will score the potential benefits and costs of strategies, and assign near-term priority projects for follow-up.

The committee spent the meeting reviewing its risk-assessment scale and individual mitigation strategies. Members agreed to simplify and clarify rating labels — replacing the label “political viability” with “public support,” adding percentage guidance to the “potential benefit to population” metric, and adding responsible entities for each mitigation action — and to re-evaluate many item scores to make them more project-specific.

Why it matters: the committee is updating the town’s hazard mitigation plan so the town can show a documented, evidence-based evaluation of mitigation options (a requirement for state and federal hazard‑mitigation processes). The revisions also determine which projects the small, volunteer committee and the town should try to complete within the next five years and which ideas remain longer‑term or largely aspirational.

Key outcomes and directions

- Change to scoring labels and presentation: Committee members agreed to call the former “political viability” measure “public support” and to add a percentage scale to the “potential benefit to town population” field so readers can see roughly what share of residents are likely to benefit from each strategy. Members also asked staff to insert each item’s numeric legend directly into the mitigation table (so reviewers need not flip to a separate legend). The group did not change underlying item content during this meeting — the work was largely reformatting, labeling, and re-scoring.

- Removal of item 11 (structure inspections): The committee agreed to remove mitigation strategy #11, which described a voluntary structure inspection service by the fire department requested by property owners. Committee members characterized that activity as owner-initiated and outside the scope of the town’s mitigation plan; the group confirmed the deletion during the meeting.

- Priority projects and near-term actions: The committee identified three priority projects to move toward implementation and to show measurable progress in the plan timeline: 1) Secure permissions and MOUs to work on drainage problems on adjacent Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands affecting ingress, egress and drainages adjacent to the town. The committee asked staff to narrow the scope to specific drainages and access routes and to return cost/time estimates; a preliminary estimate of staff time to document permissions was discussed (Georgia Connor estimated roughly 10–40 hours to start outreach and documentation), while committee members cautioned that full permitting and cultural surveys could be multi‑year tasks and that doing the entire set of drainages would be a major, multi‑phase undertaking. 2) Develop and test an emergency messaging system (options discussed included expanding the town’s web and social media resources, testing low-power wide-area “LoRa” mesh options, adding sirens, and coordinating radio/County alert systems). The group directed staff to prepare a scope for a pilot test (members discussed a ballpark pilot size used in earlier internal notes, e.g., ~20 devices or similar) so the committee can evaluate costs and effectiveness; the county’s recent radio-system migration and the availability of some town radios were also discussed as part of feasibility. 3) Evaluate and scope backup power for the town building (options include battery backup and/or a propane generator and solar + battery). Committee members asked staff to obtain realistic cost ranges (discussed ranges included inexpensive solutions up to tens of thousands of dollars depending on scale; participants gave a working order of magnitude of ~$5,000–$50,000 for robust solutions and noted single projects could vary substantially).

- Timeline and consultant review: The committee set a target to tidy the draft plan so the town’s consultant, Mason, can review it before the committee’s September meeting. Members asked staff to return more specific project descriptions, a narrowed scope for BLM work, and estimated costs or time requirements by a near-term internal deadline (participants referenced completing drafts by around Sept. 10 so Mason can review ahead of the next meeting).

Substantive discussion highlights

- Re-scoring and ranges: Committee members repeatedly emphasized that the existing scores were broad and often needed item-specific re-evaluation. They discussed using point ranges for items where uncertainty remained, but noted that ranges increase the data‑entry burden and can complicate subsequent editing. The committee favored clearer single-value scores where practicable and asked staff to document the reasoning behind each score in a way that a first-time reader can follow.

- Fire-related mitigations and water access: Several longer discussions focused on fire mitigation measures (fuels reduction, firebreaks, cisterns and wells, access to private water supplies during fires). Members noted Rocky Mountain Power’s responsibility to clear vegetation immediately around power poles and debated whether to treat that work as a town responsibility or as something to coordinate with the utility. Committee members also reviewed cistern placement and access logistics (committee members referenced 2,000-gallon cisterns in the discussion) and noted that costs and logistics for water connections and possible compensation to private landowners remain unresolved.

- Drainage, culverts and BLM coordination: Committee members repeatedly returned to drainage problems on public land adjacent to the town and the need to secure permission or MOUs to conduct mitigation or maintenance on BLM-managed drainages. Members discussed recent private contractor activity in some upper drainages, permitting and cultural‑resource survey needs, and whether to pursue only high‑priority egress/ingress routes rather than a broad, long‑range effort.

- Communications and radios: The committee discussed multiple notification strategies: sirens, radio coordination (the county completed a radio migration two years ago), mesh networks, and the county alert system. Members reported the town has several handheld radios (committee members noted roughly six to seven handheld units and several mobile units were in the town’s inventory) but that the town has not yet migrated to the county’s new system and may have missed an earlier equipment‑distribution opportunity.

- Cost realism and aspirational items: Members repeatedly stressed the difference between policy/education items (low cost, high public support) and large capital projects (high cost, low short-term feasibility). For example, building a new community water system or large catchment infrastructure was discussed as technically possible but not realistic to fund or deliver in the short term; committee members characterized those items as “potential strategies” to be retained in the plan for documentation rather than prioritized for immediate implementation.

What the committee asked staff to deliver next

- A redraft of the mitigation table with the updated wording (“public support”), percentage guidance for potential population benefit, and explicit responsible entities for each mitigation item. - A narrowed, prioritized scope and map for the BLM-related drainage permission work, including a realistic estimate of staff hours and any anticipated permitting steps by Sept. 10 so the committee can present a specific priority project to Mason. - A scoped pilot plan and rough cost estimate for testing an emergency messaging system and options for integrating local radios and county alerting. - A summary of options and cost ranges for providing backup power at the town building (battery vs. generator vs. hybrid).

Committee attendance and participation

The committee opened the meeting by listing the on-site attendees: Jasmine Duncan (chairing the meeting), Georgia Connor, Colleen Thompson, Egmont Connor and Ron Drake; the clerk was present at the anchor site and several participants joined by Zoom. Discussion was substantive and iterative: the group reworked scores and wording, agreed to delete one mitigation line, and set several follow-up assignments to produce more detailed scopes and cost estimates.

Looking ahead

The committee intends to have a redrafted mitigation table and clarified priority project scopes prepared so consultant review can occur before the committee’s next regular meeting in September. The committee emphasized documenting assumptions behind scores and explicitly recording responsible agencies, both to improve transparency for reviewers and to create clear follow-up assignments for implementation.