FAIRHOPE, Ala. — The Fairhope Environmental Advisory Board decided Wednesday to provide its input to the committee working on a recommendation to the City Council on how to develop a strategic plan for the community.

“The City Council is trying to put together a strategic plan, but the environment is not mentioned,” said Jim Horner, chairman of the environmental advisory group, referring to a press account about the proposed strategic planning process for the city. “I think there ought to be an environmental component of any strategic plan.”

As one of the group’s projects since its reorganization last year, it has been developing an environmental mission statement that it will suggest the council adopt in order to address environmental concerns during official decision-making and action.

“It is important to get (the environmental mission statement) into this strategic planning process,” said committee member Lisa Adams, who is drafting the language of the mission statement for the environmental group’s approval.

The group (FEAB) agreed to provide its draft mission statement to the next meeting of the city’s Strategic Planning Process Committee. That committee meets at 3 p.m., Tuesday, May 27, at the James P. Nix Center.

That committee was formed by the City Council in April to make a recommendation to the council on how the city should develop a strategic plan.

Fairhope does not currently have a strategic plan.

“We will also talk at the next meeting (of our group) about how to present it to the council,” Horner said, referring to the draft environmental mission statement.

FEAB was established by ordinance in 2001, and its mission is set out in the City Code as follows: “(1) To provide policy advice on environmental matters to the city council;

(2) To provide public information about environmental matters by way of news articles, speeches, presentations, educational seminars, etc., but only with the approval of the council; (3) To study such environmental issues as may be suggested by city officials, board members, city staff, and the public; and (4) To focus its activities and recommendations on local environmental concerns, to identify achievable goals that reflect overall community concerns, and to provide long-term economically feasible solutions to improve our environment. In making its decisions, one (1) principle the board will apply will be the principle of sustainability. Until otherwise defined by the city, the term “sustainability” means the ability to meet the needs of the present without sacrificing the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

Members of the environmental advisory board also reported on several other projects at the Wednesday meeting, including plans to improve city parks, to protect the city’s gullies and to institute a new waste oil recycling program for the city.

Horner said the group would make a report and recommend that the council move forward on the waste oil program in the near future, probably during a council work session this summer. He said it would be modeled after the program in Daphne. He said the initial cost would be approximately $3,000 to pay for pick-up stations and containers in the city. Ken Eslava, assistant public works director, said the city had a new truck that could be used to haul the waste oil (used cooking grease) to the Daphne recycling facility, which has agreed to accept it from Fairhope.

Eslava said Daphne’s program has reduced by 60 percent clogs in the sewer caused by cooking oil and waste grease.

“The beauty of this is that for a low investment we can start the program,” Horner said.