| Doc. # 2007-83
Issue/Agenda Committee
Cayuga Lake Watershed Network
November 29, 2007 Minutes
Shaw Law Offices, Ithaca NY
Present: Brian Boerman, Josh Hornesky, John Mawdsley,
Roxy Johnston, Sharon Anderson, Chuck Kroll
1. Items from the Floor - All
· Discussion of the Opinion piece in the 11/28/07 Ithaca
Journal relative to monitoring. Roxy suggested/”challenged”
the CLWN to write more articles to the Journal in regard to monitoring,
function of the CLWN, mission statement, IO monitoring plan etc.
Become a more active voice.
2. GAP Analysis - Sharon
· USGS work being done that models stream habitat potential
by fish species. Of interest to the committee for its use as a biological
indicator of stream health, that could be used in a report card
format. It would also be useful if we choose to get more involved
with restoration efforts. This information/software is NOT currently
publicly available.
3. Salmon Creek - Sharon
· $2000 in funding procured to engage the Community Dispute
Resolution Center to study Ag practices/public tensions in the Salmon
Creek Watershed. Questions remain about who is paying for Sharon’s
time while working on this community conflict.
4. Decade Two Vison - Sharon and John
· A thought provoking discussion of a previous meeting of
the Decade Two committee. The Issues Committee picked up this sentiment
by suggesting that a narrower and deeper look at the most critical
issues facing the lake may be more effective in producing action
than 4 topics for 1 year. The committee believes 1 or 2 topics needs
to be key objectives that would require multi-year studies.
5. Plan of Work 2007/2008 – ALL
· Weeds and Invasive – Monies are secured and an informative
guide will be going out to a subset of lakeshore property owners.
Discussion the idea of getting funds to hire weed harvesting at
key locations in the lake. Seneca and Cayuga County Soil and Water
Conservation Districts harvest at the north end of the lake. We
have not tried to influence where or when they harvest.
· Modeling and Monitoring - Work with the GWLF model is in
the third and final year of funding. The real question in front
of the committee is weather or not the we agree on the accuracy
of the model enough to make it public. C. Kroll suggests that more
data needs to be driven into the model to improve results. B. Boerman
is uncomfortable that there is has been little ground truthing of
the model findings and suggests it is not released to the public
without questions being resolved. There is interest in visiting
a large size Dairy Operation in the Salmon Creek watershed to view
storm water treatment systems and evaluate non-point source potential
for sediment and phosphorus from a farmstead.
· Storm Water – A well supported funded program requiring
little action by this committee. It is believed that as this committee
narrows its focus, this topic will exist easily w/o the committee’s
activity.
· Report Card for Cayuga Lake – Much discussion about
this topic. Fueled by the Decade Two discussion the issues committee
is ready to put more energy behind this goal for 2008. Sharon has
an upcoming meeting to enlisted CU Science and Policy students to
work on the project in 2008. Ed Mills is the advisor here. It is
possible the student focus could be limited to the developing the
criteria that the Watershed Network use for scoring. The committee
believes some items that need to make up the scorecard include;
Biological indicators – i.e. fish, mussels, algae or macro
invertebrates. The GWLF model and the DEC Priority Waterbody List
were also suggested as report card criteria.
Next meeting: 12/20 or 1/3/08
Suggested agenda items
-2008 Issues/budget for items.
Submitted by,
Brian Boerman, Chair
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