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Emery County trails committee pushes for centralized volunteer coordination and reporting
Summary
Committee members praised heavy volunteer support for summer trail work but flagged duplication of effort and called for a shared intake form, better contact lists and clearer coordination to direct volunteers to high‑need sites.
Members of the Emery County trails committee on Monday emphasized the need to coordinate growing volunteer support after multiple groups completed overlapping trail‑clearing projects.
In updates, volunteers and agency staff described recent work that included hauling timbers and bolts for a canyon trail project, installing dozens of water bars and clearing fallen trees. Wayne, who reported a multi‑day project that used seven volunteers and roughly three days of work, said crews quickly completed board and bolt installation on a challenging reach.
Several speakers told the committee they had encountered duplicate efforts. One volunteer said the pipeline trail had been cleared by one group on Thursday and then another person reported the same work done by a different crew the next day. Participants urged the group to improve communication so volunteer energy is not duplicated and to ensure credit and tracking of hours.
The committee agreed to experiment with a public intake mechanism: a Google form with a QR code that would accept a trail name, short description and photos and feed a shared spreadsheet. Staff said the county and BLM already maintain a spreadsheet to track work and that a form could automate responses and reduce accidental edits.
Members discussed signing and contact practices: volunteers are encouraged to register projects on agency websites so dedicated hunter crews, Backcountry Horsemen and other volunteers can be routed to listed tasks. Casey (staff contact) agreed to gather contact information and circulate it to volunteer groups to reduce overlap.
The committee also flagged coordination topics for future meetings, including how to record volunteer hours for statewide reporting, whether work on 'roads' should be coordinated with the county road department, and how to integrate dedicated hunter crews safely into trail projects.
