Minutes of the Marys River Watershed Council Meeting
February 4, 2004

The meeting began at 7:05 pm with brief introductions of the attendees.

Reports from the various committees followed:

1.  Outreach & Education : Next meeting will be Feb.10, 5pm at the Benton Co. SWCD office. Topic: Planning for the solstice celebration at Tyee Winery
2. Water Quality Monitoring: Their grant was approved for funding! A meeting will be held at a later date
3. Land, Air & Water Use: Focusing attention on 3 areas now:
   a) upcoming permit modifications for air quality 
   b) Desler project in Philomath and 
   c) tracking potential funding
4. Fish Passage: Next meeting will be Thursday, Feb.12, 4pm at the District Office. Chuck Knoll discussed future and completed plans for culvert replacement and fish passage improvement utilizing cutting-edge technology to pinpoint these places on two impressive maps;
5. Steering Committee: Met in December, but not in January. The emphasis of the MRWC is now moving from planning activities to the action stage, and this is very exciting. A second topic discussed was the " Plan of Study for the Marys River and Associated Ecosystem " submitted to the City of Philomath in December.

Sandra Coveny presented the Coordinator's Report. She has been elected by the Willamette Basin Coordinators as the main contact person for this group, which puts her on the rules advisory committee for OWEB's granting process. She also informed us that there is a new OWEB coordinator. She updated us on funding opportunities, successes and failures.

Our speaker for the evening was Liz Dent, who worked with each of the subcommittees of the MRWC for a year to track their goals, objectives and accomplishments. The end result was a very professional Action Plan, which will be a "living document" and incorporate changes as we wish. This Action Plan is available from Sandra on CD's if so requested. Liz discussed each committee's objectives and progress in turn. The Plan's final chapter, entitled "maintenance and restoration planning", attempts to identify and prioritize activities in the MR watershed that will maintain or improve watershed conditions and meet stated restoration goals. This process involved 1) creating maps 2) validating them 3)monitoring trends and effectiveness. A Marys River Watershed Restoration Screening Map was presented and she discussed guiding principles. Meeting adjourned after a question/answer period, at 8:45.