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: NEXT  MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE MEETING:  TUESDAY MARCH 4, 2008

 

Date:  Monday, January 14, 2008 

Time:  1:00 pm

Location:  Plumas Corporation Office

Members:  Chair- Joe Hoffman   (not present)

            Vice Chair- Todd Hillaire 

            Project & Design Chair – VACANT Ryan Nupen new chair

            Finance Chair– Dennis Heiman

            Monitoring Chair– Kevin Pond

            Others-Dan Martynn, John Kolb, Holly George (not present), Mark Steffek  

Staff:   Jim Wilcox, Terry Benoit, Leslie Mink, Gia Martynn, Jessica Albietz , new staff is Americorps Member Kara Rockett

Others present: John Hafen, Brian Morris

  1. Review/Approve minutes from December 2007 meeting; approved. 

Review/Approve January ‘08 Agenda, additionally discussed items included below

Accept Nominations for 2008 Management Committee Chair members – Ryan Nupen accepted nomination for Project & Design Chair.  No one accepted nomination for Vice Chair.

The question of some agencies’ attendance at meetings was brought up.  Reasons may be other priorities, changing personnel, not funded by agency to be there.  A letter was sent to agencies 2 yrs ago addressing this.  Also will address in this years annual report to agencies.  The Mgmt Committee is needed to guide the staff as many more projects are being addressed by the CRM now.  The question is whether or not the Mgmt Committee needs to meet as often as it does.  More detailed agenda would help agency people know whether or not they need to be at a particular mtg.  At each mtg we can decide if we need next month’s mtg or not.  Also list action items on each agenda.

 

  1. Committee Reports

Finance- Dennis Heiman

    1. DOC Watershed Coordinator Grant Proposal - for CRM and RCD’s.  Mark did the RCD grants.  Sierra Institute also submitted an app.  Fall 2008 is expected date for monies available from those grants.
    2. Prop 50 – Brian – grant agreement should be in place by end of Feb. and we can begin to charge to it.  The county has all info they need from Plumas Corp.  Projects are Last Chance II, FRLT on Heart K, and Maddalena Ranch, Plumas NF projects (about 30), Sierra Valley Groundwater District, and Upper Middle Fork Modeling Project by Lev Kavvas, QCSD wetlands complex for last treatment.
    3. USDA Conservation innovation grants – Dan –  demonstrate innovative technologies to improve WQ, etc. with ag land uses.  $20MM available nationwide, grant can be up to $1MM and needs a 50% match.  Deadline is Feb 20.  Good possibility for Last Chance II, since Prop 50 only partially funded that project.  Ed Burton state Con is impressed with CRM projects, and is trying to set a date with the Regional Tech Center to look at our projects this spring.  Pit RCD got an Innovation Grant to remove juniper.  Tom Escate wrote the grant.
    4. Strategic Opportunity Grants (SOG) - from the Sierra Conservancy.  John & Corinne Matley requested from Jim that Rowland Creek be treated as well, like the CalFed Last Chance project.  The family now agrees that they would like Meadowview restored as well.  Neighbors on the Ramelli Ranch are also interested.  Goodwin Ranch also interested in treating Dotta Canyon.  We would like to put together another SOG to do the design and CEQA/NEPA work for those projects.  Then we would apply to the Sierra Nevada Conserancy for the project construction as well.  Call it an eastside opportunity grant.  SNC requires CEQA/NEPA to be done before they will consider a proposal.  If the SNC requests comments on their process, we would suggest that they allow CEQA/NEPA in the construction grant apps.  All SNC grants should go to Brian and Rose before being submitted.
    5.  RAC looks like its not going to be funded this year, but there’s a possibility that it may be funded as only a one year continuation ramping down version.
    6.  Urban Streams – we were looking forward to applying to Urban Streams for Spanish Cr, which was supposedly coming out in fall 2007.  Phone machines said that there’s no money, and next round likely no sooner than summer 2008.
    7. Todd mentioned the IRWM (which is most of the watershed money available) monies are also being squeezed, and so they may not have an RFP out this year; pending budget approval in July.  The first round is supposedly for planning, and Plumas County’s IRWMP plan needs to be updated before we can apply for IRWMP implementation money.

 

3.          Project Updates-

  1. Smith Creek concerns – how to deal with increasing urban interface.  How to deal with roadways, houses, etc.  Look with a cautious eye before proceeding.  Redundancy is a key to preventing failure.  What is CRM’s liability if there is a failure?  CRM has insurance to cover project failures.  We need to make sure that when we ask public comments, that we have time to address their concerns before  constructing.  The purpose of the TAC is to review and address technical concerns in time to address the concerns.  Possible to get NRCS money after project completion for additional work that may need to be done.  Visit Smith Cr project this spring.  More outreach may help address concerns of landowners and general public.  One point of confusion on Dave Rice’s part was he thought that the CRM were the project proponents, rather than the other landowners being the proponents.  (There were 76 landowners on the Wolf Cr project.  Leah set neighborhood phone trees to help with the communication.  One landowner came down to stop the project during construction.  Workers listened to him and moved forward.)  Excessive communication is necessary with a large number of landowners.  Better communication is a lesson learned from Smith, and we need to do it, because most channels are getting subdivided.  Prepare for more communication and possibly engineering in project budgets.  DWR can’t sign off on projects unless it spends a couple of years in their engineering dept.
  2. Little Last Chance – Kevin put in a couple of monitoring transects for grade control structures.  We worked with Ron Vanscoy to make sure that water got to downstream landowners.  Water Master job is to implement a court order.  Communicating with them may help their understanding of projects.  Ramelli NRCS contract work needs to be implemented (at least the fence) to make the match for the project.  If Ted does not continue grazing, may not need a fence.  When Kevin gets the xsec done, he will send to Leslie.  Visit this project in the spring.  Kara to help with volunteers and reveg work in ’08.
  3.  Flows and downstream water users – Jim’s presentation to Fish & Game Commission really was good, and seemed to alleviate their concerns.  Maybe taking out beaver dams may alleviate some downstream landowner concerns, even though success is very limited when removing dams.  Subsurface flows affect downstream water, and we have limited data on that, but more quantification would be better.    
  4. Grazing Mgmt in Project Areas – Concern on Guidici project that grazing was not excluded from pasture portion of project.  The fence at Guidici now includes allotment mgmt, not private land mgmt.  Need to meet with Scott Lusk every winter to ensure grazing mgmt in projects on FS land, both past, current and future.  Last year’s mtg for Ferris Fields led to better mgmt this past summer.  Kenny Wemple, the permittee was at the meeting and that seemed to help.  Wemple working with John Olafson of TU to fence out some sensitive allotment areas with temp electric fencing.  NRCS working with Fieldings with a mobile solar-powered water pump in the Meadowview allotment.  NRCS helping with replacing fence lost in the Antelope fire.
  5. Caltrans Wetland Mitigation projects – FYI Marianne McCrary from Caltrans did some work by Westwood and needed a mitigation site.  Ferris fields didn’t work, and we mentioned other projects that make work for them.  She’s looking for a mitigation site for their Westwood work.
  6. Permit Issues with ACOE- Under the newer MOA between the Corps and SHPO, their concept of avoidance changed.  We have done four Evals of Significance to see if a site is eligible for the National register of Historic Places.  The Corps is now under sanctions by SHPO.  It is affecting us as a permit applicant.  Jim plans to work with our Arch and Dan Elliott outlining what we have done to comply with Sec 106, to see if there’s a way to not get locked into the issues that are tying up our permits.  Jim can send a draft to Dennis and Todd to look at.
  7. SWRCB CEQA Clearance Requirement – There’s now a new process where the state Board processes the CEQA docs before they will clear invoices for payment.  We feel this is unnecessary redundancy.  If we were to send a letter to Barbara Evoy would be the best target and a regional board member.  We should send this working with the Sac River Watershed Group 
  8. TAC meeting date for Spanish @ Kellett’s project – this is a project where we can try and improve outreach to all surrounding landowners.  Next TAC mtg scheduled for May 5 in the morning before the Mgmt Committee mtg.

i.    Spanish Creek Tour proposed for March 4, 2008 – DATE CHANGE – to May 20 & 21 on June Steering tour.  John McMorrow has offered an easement to access the creek for gravel access and work through his property.  Discuss on the field trip.

j.   2008 Work Plan Request for DWR – CRM emails wish list before next mgmt mtg.

 

4.  Monitoring- Kevin Pond

a.       Indian Creek Modeling update – Kara to help this summer with water temp, solar radiation, volunteers are sending in samples and data.

b.      Program and Project monitoring update- next TU mtg in March 20, we can go & ask about them sampling the ponds at Red Clover.

c.       Storm Event sampling protocol – working with DWR to get to other sites, we’ll put it on wish list

d.      Reveg – mini workshop in the last week of February on growing native plants.  The upgrade should be finished by the time the class starts.

 

i.        RCD Updates – Mark talked about RC&D – RC&D was included in fed budget for ’08.  Mark put in grant for RCD’s for Watershed Coords for Feather River and Sierra Valley, and RCD’s will now be part of the Sac Valley area RCD’s instead of the Modoc Cluster areas of RCD’s.  Kristy Hoffman now working part time for the FR RCD.  Stakeholders mtg on March 5 at SV Grange on how they should direct their resources.  Maybe Terry & Leslie should go.

 

j.        UFRW Updates: This submitted by Holly George via email:  Prop 50 UFRW Irrigated Lands Program Team is planning to make project update presentations to Sierra Co Board of Supes on Jan 22nd ~10:30 and later that afternoon to the Plumas Board of Supes.  Tuesday Feb 26th, meeting in Quincy between 2-4pm to discuss results of a pathogen study done at selected sites in SV, Goodrich Creek and Bridgeport Valley; results of the forage quality and soil moisture study conducted this last irrigation season will also be shared.

 

k.      Other-

§  KVIE “Region At Risk” program on Viewfinders airs Wed., Jan. 16th @ 7pm.   Jim, Gia, and Robert Meacher interviews on the show.

THE FOLLOWING ITEWMS WERE TABLED TIL NEXT MEETING:

             FRCRM Education updates: Volunteer Thank-You; other events

§  Floodplain Management Conference (Todd)

§  UFWR Prop 50 update

§  East Bay Municipal Utility District

§  Sierra Nevada Alliance and Metropolitan Water Dist. Of So. Cal.

§  Need signatures on Prop. 40 Landowner Agreements from Dennis and Dan

 

NEXT MEETING TUE MARCH 4 (note no Feb mtg).