LINCOLN — The Nebraska Environmental Trust Board accepted the resignation of the Trust’s longtime director Wednesday, and moved to adopt steps recommended in a recent state audit.

The board, which hands out $20 million a year in state lottery funds for wildlife habitat, recycling and groundwater improvement projects, has been under fire in recent months for defunding some conservation projects to redirect grant funds to purchase ethanol blender pumps.

Some conservation groups, including the recently formed Friends of the Environmental Trust organization, have complained that the Trust’s focus has veered from its original mission of funding environmental projects that otherwise wouldn’t have been funded, to promoting agriculture and economic development.

The Trust, since 1992, has awarded $349 million in grants to more than 2,400 projects across the state. The grants focus on five areas: surface water and groundwater, soil management, air quality, wildlife habitat and waste management/recycling.

Mark Brohman, who has directed the Trust since 2006, declined to comment on his reasons for resigning. Two members of the Trust Board, Mark Quandahl of Omaha and Jeff Kanger of Lincoln, declined to comment on whether Brohman was forced to resign.

The Environmental Trust Board, in recent years, has switched from supporting conservation easements — used to preserve private land — to opposing them. That reflects criticism of such easements by Gov. Pete Ricketts, who appoints the nine citizen members of the 14-member Trust Board, and appoints three of the five state agency directors who round out the panel.

Ricketts recently declined to reappoint one Trust Board member, Gerry Lauritzen of Omaha, because she supported conservation easements.

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