Minutes of May 2, 2007 Council Meeting:
The May 2nd meeting was held at the Walnut Blvd Fire Station and began at 7:10 with introductions and announcements.
Announcements:
-There will be an opportunity to thank our volunteers who can join us for a BBQ dinner on May 24th, 4-7:30pm. It is a jointly sponsored event with other natural resource organizations and it will be held at Jackson Plaza on the waterfront in Corvallis.
Program for the May 2nd: Our speaker was Travis Williams, executive director of the Willamette Riverkeepers, a non-profit group of the National Riverkeeper Association. The mission of the Willamette Riverkeepers is to improve the health of the river in accordance with the clean water act of 1972. He talked about some of the key issues concerning the 187 mile long river, which begins at Waldo Lake in the Cascades at 5,412 ft. His talk included numerous slides of different sections of the river. It is a dynamic system, with channel changes, and many sections of the river are used for gravel extraction and industry. Today they mostly focus on habitat restoration of the riparian to decrease river temperatures, as well as reconnecting side channels, habitat loss, and non-point source pollution. Downstream towards Portland is a major superfund site. He informed us of Portland's success in doing sewer improvements to minimize sewer overflow during winter/spring.
The Willamette River has 5,000 acres of water trail and greenway parks now along the Willamette.
River Trip on the Willamette: The MRWC and the Willamette Riverkeepers are jointly sponsoring a paddle trip on the Willamette from Peoria to Corvallis, on Saturday, June 23rd. Amy Schoener showed photos taken from this section of the river on her recent kayak trip with Sylvia Yamada and Bill Pearcy. The trip took about 3 hrs and was surprisingly picturesque!
Though there was discussion of cancelling the MRWC meetings in June and July, the June meeting will happen as regularly scheduled on June 6th at 7pm at Philomath City Hall.
Karen Fleck Harding and Sandra Coveny brought us up to date on their activities and successes.
The meeting adjourned at 8:30.