Minutes of April 4, 2007 Watershed Council Meeting:
Muddy Creek Watershed Landowner Meeting
Alpine Community Center
The Watershed Council hosted a community meeting at Alpine Community Center to ask local landowners to help guide conservation activities in the Muddy Creek watershed. The meeting included a discussion of current local resource concerns and recent efforts and new opportunities to conserve the unique ecological values of the Muddy Creek watershed. Guest speaker, Steve Smith, Biologist for the Willamette Valley National Wildlife Refuge Complex, presented "Conservation Strategies in Muddy Creek Watershed". Karen Fleck Harding presented a slide show of local conservation projects and a variety of assistance programs. Landowners were asked to share their concerns and interests in voluntary conservation efforts.

Summary of landowner comments:

Conservation Approaches:
•Take a subbasin approach in the Muddy.
•Habitat conservation that supports farming practices.
•Community-based approaches
•Explore opportunities for grass seed growers.
•Identify agricultural practices that promote conservation.
•Ecosystem market place - what is it?
•Increase awareness of all the incentives.
•Learn more about the Forest Resource Trust Program.
•Need a "connected" restoration approach.

Wildlife Habitat:
•Loss of Oregon White Oak
•Need to create corridors - connections between habitat areas
Stream Flow/Floodplain function
•Stream flow is a concern
•Drainage and infiltration - increase understanding of natural function and beneficial practices.

Other Concerns:
•Why are butterflies important?
•Land use planning is important to maintaining a rural character.
•Presentations about endangered species puts people on edge.
•Let the farmers farm - "farms keep it rural".
•Presentations need to highlight beneficial agricultural practices.
•Define watersheds.
•Agriculture gets a bad rap.
•Farmland conservation is important to conservation.
•Increase local agricultural production.
•More information about local food production.
•Quality of life is a conservation incentive.
•Need to identify conflicts and develop resolutions.
•Don't take an all or nothing approach - each give a little for the overall connected benefit - linked systems that each give a little toward the overall goal.
•Conservation can be a burden on agriculture and forestry.
•Need to hold up what the farmers are doing as a value and contribution to conservation.
•Need ways to bridge "cultural" gaps
•How can rural landowners communicate their alliance with farmers?
•Regulations are too cumbersome - landowners shy away from incentive programs.
•Alpine sewer system needs attention

Tours:
•Farm tours, Refuge tour
•Dave Schmedding welcomes a tour to his place.