Minutes of January 4, 2006 Watershed Council Meeting:
The new year came in with a new circular seating arrangement of the attendees, who, after the meeting began at 7:12, introduced themselves briefly.
Next we had Committee Reports:
Outreach and Education: In their Dec. 14th meeting, had not only MRWC members but BSWCD members attend. The planned June fundraiser at Tyee Winery was discussed, and also an idea about possibly having a fundraiser in alternate years at Bellfountain Park with an excursion to Hull Oaks Lumber mill. See our website for a schedule of speakers for this year and for the date of the upcoming invasive species workshop.
Water Quality/Quantity: Thom Whittier provided us with stream flow websites for the Marys River and Willamette Basin. The hydrograph at Bellfountain Rd gauging Station has a new address which is: http://waterdata.usgs.gov/or/nwis/uv?site_no=14171000. There is also a site by the Weather service: http://ahps2.wrh.noaa.gov/ahps2/hydrograph.php?wfo=pqr&gage=phio3&view=l,l,l,l,l,l,l. The Weather Service flow plots for the Marys and Willamette Rivers are also available, showing 10-day graphs of river stages and include "flood stage" heights.
Land,Air, & Water: didn't meet, but there is a draft prospectus for a proposed wetland bank on land that is currently in grass seed production near Finley Wildlife Refuge. It doesn't involve withdrawals from the river. Comments are due by Jan. 22nd, and what appears to be omitted is any mention of how maintenance will be operated and funded. It was also noted in the Gazette-Times that the Water Resources Dept. gave preliminary approval to Philomath's water-right transfer, which did not involve a change in the point of diversion (i.e. they will have to build a pipeline to the old diversion point). Deadline for comments is Jan.26th. Discussion followed regarding the importance of returning water used for irrigation in cooling stream temperatures, based on information from other parts of the Northwest (Milton-Freewater).
Steering: Met on Dec.13th, and it was unanimously decided by the committee, and by tonight's Council, that Liz Dent will give a year's trial period to the split position as Co-Chair with Janine Salwasser. Curt Seeliger has also agreed to join the Steering Committee and was unanimously (and gratefully), confirmed by the Council. The committee set a series of goals for the MRWC to achieve this year: l) Cardwell Hills project; 2)fish passage; 3)assess Muddy Creek possibility for a similar project to Cardwell Hills; 4)water quality/quantity monitoring and 5)education and outreach. Steering committee members plan to actively work with individual committees.
Fish Passage: This committee didn't meet, but there will be a meeting in January to continue talks about Rock Creek and Oak Creek passages for cutthroat trout. Other groups, like ODFW, will work with us.
Coordinator's report: Sandra presented our thanks, and a beautifully carved wood plaque to Bill Pearcy, for his decade of tenure on the Steering committee. She has revamped her status report listing her activities by topics. Activities included in this 2 page single-spaced report are too numerous to list separately, but cover grant writing, meetings, project development and outreach, as well as "capacity building/function for organization", which involves meeting with OSU's director of Foundation Relations to go over foundation opportunities for the council, as well as join projects between OSU and the council. This is a new pursuit for us.
Outreach and Education Coordinator's Report: Karen Fleck Harding mentioned that the next Outreach and Education committee meeting is Jan.11th, at Noon at the BSWCD office. She reported her work on Healthy Waters Institute. The Cardwell Hill project will hold its next meeting on Jan.24th at the Wren Community Center (Kings Valley Hwy). She is also working to set up an Invasive Species workshop (no date yet). Our fundraising pre-proposal to the Benton County Cultural Trust was successful and we were asked to submit a full proposal. Videos and publications to borrow were available on a rear table.
Special Items of interest: Mark Taratoot asked us to consider the City of Corvallis' request for a letter of support for putting wastewater effluent on land, such as the 7,500 acres of the Greenberry Irrigation district. In light of the upcoming TMDL's for the Willamette River, especially for temperature, various ways of reducing effluent temperature were considered, and putting treated wastewater on the land may ultimately improve in-stream temperatures as it filters through the ground. There was unanimous support for providing a letter to the City stating the watershed council's support.
Speaker for the evening: Sam Fox was a member of the team hired by Karen Bennett at the USFS to prepare a management plan for Lower Drift Creek (of the Alsea River Watershed). Although only a 2nd year graduate student at U.of O., his presentation was very organized and polished. Joking that ducks and beavers have to work together, he tried to indicate parallels with our Cardwell Hills Restoration efforts, but also noted the differences in among other things, the density of human inhabitants. Steve Trask was the project manager for this effort at the mouth of Drift Creek, a significant and large drainage close to the coast. Efficiency was a goal of the project. Sam gave us a human history on the keystone pieces of property involved. For his talk he focused on freshwater wetlands and oxbow portions of the project as examples. The goal was to restore the linkages across the landscape. He pointed out the importance of local expertise contributed by landowners and long-term residents. Management options were considered and final recommendations were made. This project was salmon centric, and considered human access, and vegetation communities. This was a very short-term project, from Jan. through June, with a team of 4 or 5 students, with a low operating budget, but with strong leaders who personally believed in the importance of the project, and enthusiastic students, these projects were successful. Questions/answers followed and the meeting adjourned at 9 pm.