Minutes of the Marys River Watershed Council Meeting
Wednesday, October 1, 2003

The MRWC met on Wednesday, October 1, 2003 at Philomath City Hall, Applegate Street, Philomath. 

Introductions opened the meeting at 7pm. 

Reports from 5 committees followed: 

1. Water Quality Monitoring Committee met on the OSU campus on Sept. 25, at the Memorial Union Quad. The purpose was to meet Riverwatch representatives.
2. Land, Air and Water Use Committee met and are almost finished with their action plan. They are looking for anyone with GIS skills to join them--next meeting Oct.30, OSU's Weniger Hall, room 410. They also mentioned a possible tour of the Desler property for the MRWC. 
3. Outreach and Education: small meeting last month; consensus on Action Plan.
4. Fish Passage Committee had no meeting. 
5. Steering Committee reported that the Action Plan might be finished by mid-October. They recognize that to test methodology on location, access to private property would be required and that presents problems. If the Benton SWCD arranged introductions to landowners, that might be helpful.  Sandra Coveny is looking for a coordinator to link with these projects. Financial status was also discussed. With respect to the Marys River water, it was mentioned that Philomath has sent a letter to the MRWC, dated Sept.25th, indicating a willingness to work with us on issue of concern we have. As advocates of the Marys River, we envision a 3-tier approach, with exploratory phase, plan formulation and plan implementation. At this time Sandra Coveny and/or Chuck Lane will ask for time on the City Council agenda to ask them for a resolution of support for our first phase. There was consensus by our group that this would cover scope, sources of money, types of things that should be done, and who should be involved. We had consensus on all ingredients, and it was stated that whatever we research there must be things that have meaning, and make this a public process.
6. Coordinator Report was given by Sandra Coveny. OWEB requires us to file an audit of our finances, and this costs between $2,000-3,000. We will have to do a fundraiser to cover this.

Other items of interest:

• a) Stream Restoration Seminar at OSU, 4:30-5:30 Aperson Hall, Rm.212.
• b) Outdoor School opportunities exist for volunteers to participate and teach soils, forestry , aquatic sciences.  If this is of interest to you please contact Mark Taratoot at mark.taratoot@ci.corvallis.or.us.
• c) Kids Day for Conservation, initiated by Starker Forests, involved about 20 groups including the MRWC and was attended by 800 people on Sept.13th.. There will be another one next year in Sept.

Our speaker was Steven DeGhetto, who gave us an update on Corvallis Parks Restoration Projects. With the conversion of almost 90% of oak savannah in our area by development, agriculture or invasion of exotics, oaks have declined greatly. He discussed how, working with the Nature Conservancy, Bald Hill oaks were restored on 17 acres, where the goals were to restore oak savannah and upland prairie. He indicated how important it was to have everything in place when beginning a project of this sort. He discussed the importance of treatment areas and having inventories of what are within their boundaries. Once a project is underway (such as using goats to defoliate poison oak), it is important to monitor the results. It is necessary also to think in the long term. There is often a dilemma as to how to sustain the monitoring of such on the ground projects, and he suggests partnering with different organizations and keeping in touch with them.

The meeting was adjourned at 8:28 pm.