Doc. # 2008-
Issue/Agenda Committee Meeting
Cayuga Lake Watershed Network
November 11, 2008
Finger Lakes Land Trust, 202 E. Court Street, Ithaca

Present:Ruth Richardson (chair), John Mawdsley, Keith Tidball & Brian Boerman

Agenda items:

1. Update on 2008 programs (LFF, Report Card)

2. Looking forward to 2009 programs - how will the issues committee role be different with "advocating" in our mission? Do we need to recruit more experts/establish subcommittees?

3. The Phosphorus data and modeling: how do we want to disseminate (spring conference? articles?)

4. The Aurelius Shale drilling - effects on water quality; do we want to touch this one?

5. Scheduling monthly meetings

6. Other business

MINUTES:

1. Updates on 2008 programs: LFF: four awards this year (2 wineries, 1 dairy, 1 beef/grass-fed beef). There was supposed to be follow up press; to Keith’s knowledge only one rerun seen in the newspapers. NEED press release to Ag publications (Program Committee? Dan?).

For 2009: should NOW be advertising. The “selection committee” in the past years has had to do a lot more of the programming. The LFF program is mature enough that it makes sense to simply hand it off to others (program?) to run but with input from the issues committee where needed. The selection committee could then be exactly that rather than a subcommittee of the issues that runs the program. If Dan Carrion were to take on organizing/admin of LFF, he would be the program manager but the Program committee should provide oversight. The issues would be available for advice and questions.

Report Card: Keith gave an update on the class progress (Keith is the third instructor of the class along with Ed Mills & Rich Stedman). The students are steering more toward a “Dashboard” format than a “report Card” format. They are borrowing a format from an Australian group and modifying it for the Cayuga Lake watershed. The indicators are divided into several categories: water quality; social wellbeing; landscape; others. The class meets Thurs 11-1 in 1105 Bradfield and the issues committee members were encouraged to attend the next meeting (at the time of recording of these minutes the meeting had occurred; John Mawdsley, Ruth Richardson, & Keith attended).

2. 2009 programs/Issues:
Programs:
a. Report Card/Dashboard. We should take what product the students work up and continue with it. If students interested again next semester, great. Even if not, we should look into getting funding for getting measures of indicators.
b. Lake Friendly Farms (this could, as mentioned about, be largely run outside the issues committee)
c. Spring & Fall Conference. Spring should be on P-data (models & monitoring). Fall conference topics to be determined.
d. Engagement of North/central lake communities.

Issues:
Keith argued that all of our priority issues for 2009 fall under one general topic of “Indicators & monitoring”. There are three subcategories:
a. Report Card – what to measure; how to get community involvement
b. Monitoring & citizen support on the North/central ends of the watershed.
c. Dissemination of existing data/results

3. P-data. It was agreed that the models/monitoring related to Phosphorus should be the theme of the Spring Conferecnes. This includes Roxy’s monitoring data, Doug Haith’s model & Todd Walter’s model.

4 Marcellus Shale. Ruth pointed out that the gas drilling issues around the Marcellus Shale (which includes some lands in the southeast corner of the watershed) might not be unrelated to water issues since the process of hydrofracturing (frac’ing) consumes up to 1 million gallons of water. More information is needed (how much land in the watershed is affected; what happens to the water) before we make any judgment on whether this might be an issue of any concern.

5. Monthly meetings: will be on the second Tuesdays of the month (the same evening as the Board Meetings). Meetings will begin at 5:30 and will, like the board meetings, move around the watershed. The next meeting will be 5:30 pm on 12/9 at Keith’s home and citizens around the Canoga subwatershed. will be invited to discuss watershed issues.