Walking and biking trails development is taking shape in Harrison County to bring more outdoor recreational opportunities to residents and tourists in the county, with some of the projects’ completion dates culminating in 2019.

A Harrison County Trails steering committee meeting was held on Feb. 6 at 7 p.m. at the Harrison County Conservation Board Headquarters at Willow Lake Recreation Area near Woodbine.

Scott Nelson, HCCB Director, and Jeremy Butrick, Harrison County GIS Coordinator, hosted the meeting.

Nelson reviewed the work done in the past year, including three public input sessions, which led to priority trail maps that were then color-coded to illustrate the priorities and the surface, whether hard or soft.

“More and more people came together and said that these are the spots where trails make sense,” Nelson said of the highest priority trails. “We classified them into two different pieces, a hard trail and a soft trail.”

Hard surface trails are either paved or graveled, according to Nelson, while soft surface trails are earthen.

“The goal is to, with the encouragement of the National Park Service, have the Board of Supervisors approve and adopt those into their master plan,” Nelson added. “The Board of Supervisors did; they approved them.”