MINUTES

Feather River Coordinated Resource Management Group

Management Committee Meeting

Reasonable Accommodations: In compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, if you need special assistance to participate in this meeting please contact the Feather River Coordinated Resource Management Watershed Coordinator at (530) 283-3739.

 

Upcoming Dates:  SVRCD Sustainable Ag Workshop Sept. 28th; Volunteer Thank-You Oct. 4th; Wild & Scenic Film Festival Oct. 10th; Fall Steering Committee and Tour November 6-7th; UFRW Prop 50 Stakeholder meeting November 15th –10am @ Mineral Bldg. Plumas County fairgrounds; Spanish Creek Watershed Tour postponed until Feb./March

 

Date:  Monday, September 10, 2007

Time:  1:00 pm

Location:  Plumas Corporation Office

Members:  Chair- Joe Hoffman   

            Vice Chair- Todd Hillaire 

            Project & Design Chair – vacant; need to fill this position

            Finance Chair– Dennis Heiman

            Monitoring Chair– Kevin Pond

            Others-Dan Martynn, Mark Steffek –present; John Kolb, Holly George-absent

Staff:   Terry Benoit, Gia Martynn, Jessica Albietz, Jim Wilcox and Leslie Mink-in field

Others present: John Hafen

  1. Review/Approve minutes from May 2007 meeting; Review/Approve September ‘07 Agenda

May minutes and September agenda approved

  1. Committee Reports

Finance- Dennis Heiman

    1. Prop. 50 update- County currently negotiating contract with state, still no date on when contract will be finalized; DWR/IRWMP Prop 84 funds $73mil avail to Sac Valley Region, may require County to update IRWMP??, DWR will be asking for comments before the next round, will be divided between 3 hydrologic regions (Sac Valley, N. Valley, UFRW).
    2. Title III- BOS did not award $ until August; Carbon work will be done next spring; still have not heard from the CA Climate Registry, now under Calif. Air Resources Board, on draft protocol for meadow sampling submitted last spring.
    3. RAC Title II proposals- submitted proposals for Seeliger/DePaoli project on Sulphur Creek and Sulphur-Barry Crk on both public and private. 
    4. SNC RFP- Recently released SOG grants (Category 1, <$100K; Category 2, <$50K, Category 3, >$50K, no limit) and Competitve, grants from $50K to $1mil.  Deadline for SOG Oct. 1st for review at their Oct/Nov. mtg.; Competitive apps due end of Nov- $51 mil available over next 3 years, projects must have NEPA/CEQA completed 3 wks prior to boards review of application.  Was hoping to apply for backfill for Last Chance Phase II to supplement shortfall in Prop 50 funding for project construction, but won’t have CEQA/NEPA done until 2008-09. Grant goals align well with USFS work; possible source of funding for Range Program for fencing and off-site water developments??
    5. Forest Service PWPs for 2008- will submit list to Joe and George ASAP on project assistance for ‘08
    6. Dept. of Conservation (DOC) Watershed Coordinator grant RFP coming out soon.  Accepting comments on 2004 RFP; not solely for RCD’s, available to any non-profit watershed organization; will fund 2 full-time positions for up to three years per watershed.  Our watershed is split into three: Middle Fork, North Fork, and East Branch North Fork.  CRM will research possibility of coordinating  with RCD’s on applying. RCD’s contact Mark S.

     3.    Project Updates-

a.       Reveg & Greenhouse update- USFS gave FRC $5K to do maintenance on greenhouse; college must do needed maintenance, won’t be accomplished until Jan. ’08; reveg efforts this summer successful; lots of volunteer help; used seed stripper purchased by the FR-RCD.  John Hafen helped numerous days collecting seed- Thanks, John!  Barbara Castro of DWR assisted with collection and species identification, and was a great resource.  Jessica has lined up the CCC to work on staking willows out at Red Clover in October. 

b.       CalTrans Rock (15-17,000 cu. yds. from Spanish Crk. bridge replacement)- available 2010; discussion of possibility of storing at airport for use by county, USFS, and CRM??; may be able to store on PNF lands; Joe said they are looking at sources of large rock on the forest; currently Crocker is the only good pit on the eastside.

c.       Red Clover Flows-Reports from FS in August that there were no flows below the project area at Chase Bridge; many factors contributing to this: dry year and flows coming in to the project area are less than .5 cfs; beavers moved into the project area and are backing up and spreading water out; meadow has not reached saturation.  May want to look at DWR data during the ’76-77 drought to compare.

d.       DePaoli/Seeliger project (fencing)- Submitted funding proposal to the RAC but due to fencing issue with neighboring landowner across the creek, not likely to be funded.  Have tried working with the landowner to get them to fence the cattle out of the creek, but have had little success.  Another approach may be addressing from the Ag Waiver Program regs on water quality, and affects to the entire ranching community.  Downstream landowner has shown interest with NRCS to improve stream conditions and health on Sulphur Creek. Was noted that Mohawk Creek is also just as degraded.  Stream quality vs. water quality harder case to make.

e.       Ferris Fields/Dixie/Poplar/Raap-Guidici/Little Last Chance- 2007 construction updates- Leslie and Jim just finished Ferris Fields and have started on Dixie; Jim is training Leslie on equipment operation and project construction; Terry completed maintenance work on Poplar in July, reveg efforts not real successful, will try to use CCC in the fall to replant willows, had some discussion with Soper-Wheeler to work upstream, SP has been approached to graze the meadow; Terry working on Raap-Guidici, has had problems with landowner equipment being non-operational and delaying project completion, had to contract out for an excavator and loader, should still be within budget, only completing the Raap portion of the project and rock grade control at the bottom, Guidici portion (upstream) will be constructed next year with landowner, Mike Murry’s equipment; LLC is scheduled to start in October, Jim will be helping Leslie on this project.

f.        Smith Creek landowner concerns- committee reviewed letters of concern; Decision was made to hold landowner meeting to address concerns; no further decisions until after mtg.  

g.       Spanish Crk @ Kellet’s frog issue

h.       ACOE permits

4.          Monitoring- Kevin Pond

a.       Indian Creek Modeling update

b.       Program and Project monitoring update

c.       Storm Event sampling protocol

5.          RCD Updates – Mark Steffak announced the Modoc Plateau Region of CA-RCD meeing on 9/13 @ City Hall in Susanville

6.          Other- FRCRM Education updates: Watershed Map (discuss pricing); Volunteer Thank-You; Film Fest

§         Floodplain Management Conference update (Todd)

§         UFWR Prop 50 update

§         AmeriCorp Volunteer

Meeting Adjourned at 4pm- all other agenda items tabled until next meeting.