Nov 17th, 1999 MRC Minutes

Location: Bayview Senior Center

Time: 4-6PM

Attendees: Don Meehan (DM), Mike Gallion (MG), George Lundgren (GL), Jan Holmes (JH), Matt Klope (MK), Tom Campbell (TC), Roger Bublitz (RB), Howard Garrett (HG), Dick Toft (DT), Linda Sue Schoenharl (LSS), Gary Wood (GW), Tom Shaughnessy (TS), Jeff Tate (JT), Keith Higman (KH), Joan Drinkwin (JD), Julie Buktenia (JB), Tom Roehl (TR) - bolded are Voting MRC members.

Welcome - at 4:05pm

Minutes of last meeting

The minutes of 11-3-99 were moved to be accepted and seconded without changes.

Working together

Don expressed his frustration of last meeting and apologized to the group for his lack of patience. He expressed the need for the group to have a strategy that allowed all members to have a chance to provide input and suggested that he take a much tighter grip on the flow of the meeting. With the use of a rather large gavel loaned to him by Mike Gallion he informed the group that each person wanting to speak had to be recognized by the chair and that prior to coming back to that speaker others would have a chance for input. Each recognized speaker was given 1 minute to say their piece.

Later in the meeting a discussion focused on the overload of e-mails. It was decided that committees working on specific projects would utilize email to the fullest extent to fine tune the development of their project and prior to presentation at an MRC meeting they committee would send out to the group a preliminary draft of their work.

The group was still very interested in seeing learning opportunities members had learned about shared with the entire group at any time.

LSS made a point of the need to not let the old ways of committee work restrict moving on to newer methods consistent with our new age technology.

Review of NWSC Strait Talk Workshop

Each participant attending the Strait Talk workshop on Nov 5 and 6 briefly shared their impressions of it. Key points being made were: Excellent workshop, quality speakers, lots of technical data shared, great opportunity to interact with other county MRC members, and a need to have more of these kinds of training.

Review of the Benchmarks

Don asked if people had reviewed the benchmarks as outline in the Murray/Metcalf Report to the Convenors. About 25% had done so. Don then read the specific ones related to county level MRC's.

Grants:

Eelgrass

Don began this agenda item by asking the group if they were on board with the overall concept of the eel grass proposal. There was full consensus on this to move into a review of the proposal's detail.

GW was selected to present the latest eel grass proposal. The proposal team consisted of GW, JH, JT, MK and DM with major input from TR and minor input from a few other members. Using a large map of Island County he shared with the group the process and interaction the grant team had with Jim Norris related to the selection of sites and the technology for monitoring each site.

TR suggested that Clinton needed to be added to the list of sites to monitor. This was agreed upon by the grant team.

Following discussion of the proposal TR moved (2nd by LSS) to have the grants committee finalize the details of the proposal, authorize DM to draft a letter to the NWSC submitting the proposal and to take the proposal to the Board of Island County Commissioners for their approval. The vote was unanimous.

JB shared a concept she had related to the work of the WRAC (lead entity for Salmon Recovery). Basically she wanted the eel grass proposal to be presented as a multiphase project. Wherein the WRAC would adopt it as a part of their recommended projects to the SURF board in Olympia. It was agreed by the committee to do this and that phase 2 and 3 would deal with collecting data on other sites noted in the eel grass proposal and with public outreach and citizen monitoring respectively. In addition, it was agreed that phase 1 (basic eel grass [five site] proposal) would be submitted to Sea Grant. This followed on from information that GW shared with the group about the Sea Grant RFP. Julie said she would get her information about format and forms to GW ASAP since the WRAC was meeting soon and their list of projects was due to the SURF board January 1, 2000.

Ships Naturalist

Don tabled this item since he had not heard from Jefferson County. He did point out that he had just heard from the San Juan MRC that had voted to fully support the proposal.

Bottomfish
Tabled

NEW ITEM by Tom Roehl:

TR put forth the proposition that the committee, as part of its future work
plan, pursue the identification of bluffs along our shorelines which
threaten to deposit undesirable materials (such as high amounts of clay or
hard pan) onto our beaches should they destabilize from continued toe
erosion. Tom explained that from his experience working with Geologists
there are bluffs whose stability could be enhanced to protect the stability
of near shore habitats and beach environments and that not all bluffs should
be considered as "Feeders" of desirable matter to the shoreline systems.
Jan Holmes suggested said she's never heard of anyone thinking there was
such a thing as "poor feeder bluffs" and suggested we seek presentations to
the committee from Geologists) or other experts on the subject. Tom agreed
that we need more research and education on this issue and suggested we
include this in our discussion of our 2000 work Plan. No other action was
taken.

NEW ITEM by Don Meehan:

Don passed out a handout he had prepared on the process needed to get a grant proposal approved and to have the grant up and running. Most of the group was somewhat appalled at the amount of barriers involved. Don explained that this is normal. It was estimated that our eel grass project may not get up and running till early March 2000.
(reference MRC Proposal and Project Process.doc)

1999 Start-up Contract with DOE

Don shared with the group the DOE contract between NWSC(DOE) and Island County. He shared the budget as well and the amount remaining in the budget. He said that he had wanted to have someone taking minutes and had run into roadblocks in making that happen and that he had also wanted to have someone working the PR for the MRC.

He emphasized that the travel budget is the place most likely to provide some funds for these additional services. He was not sure how much money could be used and that it depended on the member usage of the funds. He felt we could squeeze some from that area to fund these additional services, but not sure how long that would last. The budget, he said, needed to be used for the elements of the contract and that training was part of that. Hence he felt that the group needed to have some funds to pay for speakers to come to our meetings.

The group voted to have a PR person (Ellen Slater) work with the MRC, with all final PR work to be reviewed by Don. Don suggested he would ask GW to assist in such reviews and that at the next meeting we would put together a specific review committee.

A proposal by DM to also have the PR person work on cleaning up the web page was rejected by the group. MG wanted to see the MRC have it's own website and domain name. DM and MG will work on making that happen. No decision was made about cleaning up the website.

NEW ITEMS:

JH expressed a concern about invertebrate harvesting becoming a problem. JD reinforced this issue by noting the PSAT was working with Asian groups in the lower Sound to deal with this problem. She cautioned the group not to jump to conclusions to quickly about the impact of such harvesting.

MK noted that Crescent harbor had a major loss of intertidal species over the years but that loss has been turned around once the Navy declared the area off limits. Hence, MPA's can and do work. It is worth noting that the Navy did NOT close the area due to harvesting. It was for other reasons unrelated.

TR noted shellfish seeding projects in Holmes Harbor by So Whidbey Port and Nichols Bros. Boat Builders. This project took place on the east and west end of the bay by Nichols and the Freeland Park.

GL noted that shellfish harvesting on the southern tip of Camano has been intense and yet has shown no noticeable impact on the productivity of the area.

Training Topic for next meeting

Discussion ensued about training needs and a high interest in the group to get the San Juan MRC representatives, Dr. Dennis Willows and Brian Calvert over to speak to the group. It was decided to invite them to the December 1st mtg since this was also a time the group would be addressing the year 2000 work plan. Don will contact them.

Location of next meeting

December 1, 1999 at the Monroe Landing Firehall (if available) from 4 - 6:30 (extended for our speakers)

Agenda Items for next meeting:

Presentation by San Juan MRC on the trials and tribulations of getting their MRC off the ground, instituting MPA's and other valuable lessons that can benefit a new MRC.

Work Plan 2000 - Focusing on the issues and concerns that can guide work of the committee during Y2K. Problem and Project concept sharing. Infrastructure development.

Update on Grant process

For the good the Marine Resources

Howard Garrett pointed out that a study soon to be released will show Orcas in the Sound have been highly impacted by PCBs, showing levels as high as 250 ppm in their tissues.

Adjourned at 6:15