Lichtenegger: Knowing Your Missouri State Departments: Department of Natural Resources

One of my many duties as a State Representative is to help my constituents with issues whose solution comes via a Missouri State Department. For example, if you are being harassed by telemarketers when you’ve already signed up to be on the “No Calls” list, or say you’re having an issue with your electric company that you’ve tried unsuccessfully to resolve. These are the types of issues my office can help you with when you call or email me.

However, having general information available on hand regarding services and resources from various state departments also can be quite useful.

Therefore I am producing a Capitol Report series called Knowing Your Missouri State Departments. It will contain such information as department divisions; contact number for specific information, complaints or resources; services, publications and links; and general description of each divisions’ offerings.

My objective is to benefit you via familiarity with each department’s general set up. Please remember this will be general information; you still need to call my office if you have a specific unresolved need or issue. For example, a constituent called the office after several unsuccessful attempts to file his unemployment claim electronically. He made several calls to the Employment Security office, still without needed results. Not long after we took his information, we were able to resolve the issue and by the end of the day he was signed up to receive the much need funds.

I will begin the series today with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources since it is the season of outdoor activities in and around our state parks. This three-part presentation will be divided into section 1.1 = An overview of the Department and its website; 1.2 = State Parks & Historic Sites; and 1.3 = Helps & Resources.

#1 Department of Natural Resources (DNR)

#1.1 Department Overview

You should be able to single-left-click the flow chart below and copy-paste it into a word-processor page such as MS Word or Works so that you can enlarge it to a readable size. As you can see from this organizational flow chart DNR has five main divisions four of which fall into one of these three categories: Energy, Land and Water.

The bottom section of the DNR Home webpage [http://www.dnr.mo.gov has links to each of these main divisions along with topic-links such as Drinking Water and Historic Preservation.

The other sections of the DNR website include the topmost area (left below) where you can link to get information such as find a state park near you, file for a needed permit and view job opportunities with DNR. The mid-section (right below) is ever-changing with recent news such as river flooding in the state and blogs (write-ins) about MO environmental and geological notes.

During one of these “too-hot-to-be-outdoors” days, stay inside and get to know the DNR website! Next week the Capitol Report will explore State Parks and Historic Sites through the DNR State Parks Division.