Kootenai Environmental Alliance has big plans for 2014.

At Thursday's open meeting, executive director Adrienne Cronebaugh described several of the upcoming and continual programs on the nonprofit conservation organization's schedule for the year.

The newest project, Cronebaugh said, will be a $1,000 Morgan Environmental Education grant to be awarded to one Coeur d'Alene School District K-12 teacher. Recognizing the limited funds available to teachers for environmental education activities, KEA will award the money to the teacher judged to best instill in students a heightened sense of environmental responsibility.

Keeping a close watch on Kootenai County land use code developments is also high on KEA's list.

"We want to preserve the rural character of our area," Cronebaugh said. "We don't want to have large industrial facilities built in the middle of our rural areas. The land use code will ultimately decide what growth will look like and we want to see appropriate commercial and non-commercial land use."

The issue of shoreline protection, she said, is another key piece of KEA's 2014 plans.

"Our focus is on the protection of the watershed. What's being done in rewriting the code is going to address what is currently a 25-foot, no-disturbance setback on the lake.

"It's being written right now and KEA is working for an expanded natural vegetative buffer. We'd like to see it be in line with that of our neighbors in Bonner County and Spokane. Bonner has a 40-foot setback for lakes, and Spokane's buffers and setbacks go up to 200 feet. We just want them to see what's happening around them. The current 25-foot buffer has been neither effective nor enforced."

Another program KEA volunteers will be hard at work on in 2014 is Community Roots, an ongoing project that includes ensuring that surplus produce from local gardens and farms makes it to community food banks instead of being discarded.

"When the farmers markets are over, our volunteers roll up on bikes and pick up the unsold produce to redistribute," Cronebaugh said. "They love us there."

Information: www.kealliance.org.