WRIA 14 PLANNING UNIT MEETING

 

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

2:30-4:30 p.m.

Shelton Civic Center

Shelton, WA

 

 

Meeting Summary

 

Attendance:

Government Members Present:

Jeanne Kinney, Thurston County

Phil Wiatrak, Dept. of Ecology

John Konovsky Squaxin Tribe

Dick Wilson, Mason County PUD # 1

Theresa Parsons, City of Shelton

Bob Fink, Allan Borden & Lynda Ring-Erickson, Mason Co.

 

Government Members Absent:

none

 

 

Other Planning Unit Members Present:

 

Drew Noble, Water Purveyors

Bob Simmons & Emily Piper, WSU Co-op Extension

Constance Ibsen, LHCWIC

Ric Byrd & Al Frey, Port of Shelton

 

Others Present:

 

Chris Kulczyk, Shelton HS

Stephanie Kenny, Mason Co. Health Dept.

Chad Stussy, WDFW

Jim D’Aboy, Cosmopolitan Engineering

Steve Nelson, SLR Consulting

Susan Gulick, Technical Project Mgr/Facilitator

 

 

1.      Presentation by Cosmopolitan Engineering and SLR on the Storage Grant Project

q      Steve Nelson of SLR gave an overview of the project status.

q      Steve also distributed a copy of a new technical memorandum on their assessment of the Johns Prairie site.

q      The PU has asked the consultants to test two sites: Sanderson Field and Johns Prairie.

q      The Port is concerned about allowing testing of the Johns Prairie site because they do not have excess water for a pump test.  They have an agreement with Ecology that requires them to conserve water.  They would only agree to this test if the water used was not “counted” as part of their agreement with Ecology

q      Phil will follow up with Ecology.  The Port, Ecology and the Tribe will meet to try to resolve this issue.

q      It will be more cost-effective to conduct the tests simultaneously.  Steve will send a calculation of the increased costs of doing the tests separately.  The PU will need to decide how long to wait for resolution of the Johns Prairie issues.

q      It appears very likely that the Regional Task Force will select the Sanderson Field site in their initial report.  However, Jim did not think it would be a problem to add the results of the Johns Prairie site later.

q      Task 1 of the contract with is complete; Tasks 2-4 are in progress.  The consultants would like an extension until June 30th.  The Planning Unit agreed.  Mason County will ask Ecology for a no-cost extension on the grant; it does not appear that the contract between the City and the consultants needs to be amended.

q      The PU authorized SLR to do a presentation on this study at the State Hydrogeology Symposium so long as it is only covering the information already presented to the PU.  The PU does not want any information presented that has not already been presented to the PU.

 

2.      Public Involvement in Watershed Plan Formulation  

q      Bob Simmons presented a brief list of public involvement activities that could be conducted by WSU.  The tasks are consistent with those that were discussed at the last Planning Unit meeting.

q      The tasks do not include money for evaluation (which is costly).  However, WSU can provide information on some basic indicators (e.g. how many hits on the website, how many news letters distributed, etc.). 

q      The PU likes the idea of doing one public meeting in conjunction with a briefing of elected officials.

q      WSU is currently funded through June 30th.  The PU would need to allocate an additional $5,000 to fund these activities through the end of 2005.  This will be discussed by the PU at a future meeting when they can review the entire budget.

 

3.      Watershed Plan

q      There will be a Planning Unit retreat on Wed. March 23rd from 10 am - 4 pm.  The purpose of the retreat will be to develop options for consideration in the watershed plan.  Nancy Riccio, the consultant who is writing the plan, will be present.

q      Emily will check on the availability of the Pan Handle facility. PU members may need to bring a brown-bag lunch.

 

4.      Port Request to be a Governmental Member  

q      The Port of Shelton has requested to be reclassified as a “governmental member” of the Planning Unit.

q      The PU discussed that the terms in the MOU were misleading; it would be more accurate to call the groups “initiating governments” and “other Planning Unit members” rather than “Governmental members” and “Non-governmental members”.

q      The key difference between the two groups is that the Plan can only be adopted with unanimous consent of the governmental members (or initiating governments) and a majority vote of the non-governmental (other) PU members. 

q      It was asked whether the MOU would have to be revised and re-signed by all the initiating governments or whether this change could be made by a vote of the PU.  The answer is not clear. 

q      The PU will discuss this further at a future meeting.

 

5.      Project Applications for Funds from the Terry Husseman Account

q      The Planning Unit supports the following applications:

o       Hammersly Inlet intensive O&M (Mason County)

o       Remote sensing to measure evapo-transpiration rates (Tribe)

o       Re-vegetation of County Parks (Mason County)

q      Applications must be prepared and given to Phil by March 7th.

 

6.      Upcoming Meetings

q      The next Technical Committee meeting will be on Wednesday, March 9th from 10-12 at the Shelton Civic Center.

q      The next Planning Unit meeting will be on Wednesday, March 23rd from 2:30-4:30 at the Shelton Civic Center.