Steering Committee meeting minutes
15 February 2006

Present: Sandra Coveny, Gordon Cumming, Karen Fleck-Harding, Tom Murphy, Janine Salwasser, Curt Seeliger (recorder)
Absent: Tom Bedell, Gary Blanchard, Liz Dent, Jim Fairchild, Debbie Johnson

Agenda:
Invasives Workshop update
Summer Celebration update
Education and Outreach Committee update
Newton Creek - update & approval to submit grant apps
Healthy Waters Institute update
Cardwell Hills update
Capacity Building
Letter of support for Greenberry Irrigation District/Corvallis cooperation
Philomath City Council and flow study

Invasives Workshop
Speakers have been secured: Mellisa Ferry, Small Farms Extension agent, will talk about weed biology; Vern Holm, Coordinator for the Upper Willamette Weed Management Partnership and Glenn Miller of ODA, will talk about weed control, calibration of backpack sprayers and the proper use of weed wrenches. A panel of experts may be assembled for Q&A, and Tanya Siemens and Sam Chan may be involved as well.
A variety of seed-eating insects, collected from outlying areas (possibly by Philomath High school students), may be available for participants to take for their own use. These insects may not be native, but are not new to the region. They specialize in seed predation over a narrow range of host taxa.
A very nicely designed invitation was drafted and approved for sending to targeted landowners, pending removal of an apostrophe from "Marys". Benton SWCD has agreed to cover printing costs. There are enough free copies of "Invasive Weed Identification and Management" that we will not have to purchase any. It was suggested that resources from this workshop be put on our website for general reference, as it is very useful. The cost will be $10 per household.

Tyee Event
Another very nice draft poster was distributed for criticism. Minor word changes were suggested, as was adding a second color, such as red, if it does not greatly increase printing costs over black and white.
Thus far Tyee and Intabas have been secured for the event. Wild Hog in the Woods may be there as well. An open-mic story session was suggested, focusing on the history of life in the watershed.
Gifts and silent auction items are being solicited. Some local businesses will be approached for sponsorship, e.g. Hewlett Packard, Samaritan Health Services, Citizens Bank, State Farm Insurance, Country Companies Insurance, Starker Forest and Peak Sports. It was suggested that sponsorship would be for $250 minimum donation of cash or in-kind services, but also that Citizens Bank might be approached for $2-5,000 since we bank with them. These sponsorships would be used to offset event costs, so that gate receipts could be put toward future E&O activities.

Education and Outreach update
Jana Seeliger will be attending CISPUS, cost to be reimbursed by OWEB. No other attendee from the Council will attend.

Newton Creek and Healthy Waters Institute
ODFW staff walked a reach from the dam up to West Hills Rd and found good trout habitat throughout; maps of the area (source?) suggest that habitat extends far beyond 20th. This project has educational potential for elementary through high school students, and may be a catalyst for community ownership and involvement in future restorations.
Oregon Trout is giving us several waders for the Philomath students to use while checking fish traps.
There are three grant sources which are applicable, one due March 1. The Steering Committee approved applying for these 3 grants: USFWS & National Fish & Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) Native Fish Habitat Initiative; Nat. Assoc of Counties & NFWF/ Five Star Restoration Program; OWEB Restoration Grant

The Steering Committee liked the approach of the small dam removal project as an education project and outreach catalyst--a "local ownership/community support-building" project that can later extend to the upper reaches of Newton Creek for a full sub-basin approach. Since we will need to coordinate our efforts on Rock Creek fish passage with the Corvallis Watershed Stewardship Committee's work on a management plan which is in progress now, we could focus on fish passage in Newton Creek subbasin first with Rock Creek still on the radar for later.

[Addendum: Due to the email discussion about this section of the draft minutes, the following statement written by Sandra Coveny is added as clarification:
Rock Creek remains a high priority for the watershed council. However, we need to consider shifting our approach to our work in this sub-watershed given the new information about the City of Corvallis's impending stewardship planning process. We only recently learned of their efforts, after we already started the process of convening interested parties to help identify fish passage barrier removal planning for Rock Creek last fall. It seems now that the best way to realize our goals for Rock Creek is to participate in the city of Corvallis' Watershed Stewardship planning process for Rock Creek. We can bring our ideas and opportunities into this forum. By participating in this process we have the opportunity to ensure that critical fish habitat needs are part of their plan, as well as represent the "whole watershed" approach to subbasin planning. Participating in this way may makes it more likely that we meet our end goal of improved fish passage and watershed health in rock creek through a collaborative process including all partners. We could bring a lot to the table given the information we already have, and given our long-time interest in this important sub-watershed of the Marys River Watershed.]

Cardwell Hills
Sixteen landowners want management plans, and another is applying for an OWEB small grant. Sandra met with Steve Smith (USFWS), Jerry Davis and Annabelle Jaramillo about working with Benton County HCP, and surveying for seven RTE species of interest in the county, and possibly offering conservation easement money.

[I missed the legally discussion that followed. Tom and others might want to add some notes here, or not.]

Capacity Building
Sandra is looking at a possible grant, in cooperation with other watershed councils, for 3-5 years to develop stable funding.
Sandra is also looking into River Network membership to provide insurance and legal support, as well as other benefits. Cost is $100/year. Gordon shared his personal experience with the value returned from being a part of the River Network membership. SC wanted more information so that we could make a decision as to whether to apply at our next meeting.

Letter of support for Greenberry Irrigation District/Corvallis cooperation
There are some concerns that need to addressed in the feasibility/environmental study, including mixing Willamette water into Muddy Creek may introduce exotic species or waste materials released from upstream industry and impact on flow in the Muddy.
We agreed that the letter of support should state that the concept and the collaborative process should be commended, we should point out the many possible positive economic and environmental effects, and that we support a feasibility analysis and environmental study.

Philomath City Council and flow study
The recent statement at the last Philomath City Council meeting that they are awaiting the results of our flow study was surprising as we'd not yet agreed to do this. After talking directly with Randy Kugler, we will develop a response for the official record.

March Council Meeting Presentation
Tom Kaye will present information about the County's HCP

April Council Meeting Discussion
We may want to use the April Council Meeting "Dialog" to focus on the discussion and identification of prominent issues, opportunies and high level projects for each of the watershed's subbasins. An opportunity map of the watershed should be created with a mylar overlay, to facilitate tracking of various activities. This information can then be used by the Council and Steering Committee to discuss relative priorities and partnership opportunities.

Miscellaneous
The LIF innovative fund grant, for coordination of food labels, was approved.

We made a last-minute application to the Benton County Foundation to fund purchase of QuickBooks. TechSoup.org was also brought up as a possible source of low cost software for non-profits.

The Philomath Botany class with Institute for Applied Ecology may be able to raise lupine seedlings for local restoration efforts.

The OWEB grants for restoration and technical assistance will be due April 24.
The procedure for OKing grant applications was discussed. We need to review our process for approving grant proposals. It is agreed that the Steering Committee is always involved, as are any relevant committee(s) . It was also suggested that we should develop a set of questions to apply to each grant application. Tom Murphy will look in his files for the review process we had adopted last year and bring it to the next month's steering committee meeting.