Present: Katie Richter, Heidi Koester, Bram Van Leer, Beth
Caldwell, Mike Conboy, Janet Baty,
Neal Foster, Georgia White-Epperson, Tim Marker, Jim Breck,
Lia Van Leer
Heidi called meeting to order. Quorum of at least 5 members met, no addition to the voting roster. March Meeting Minutes were approved. Only one
objection, Bram Van Leer requested that the March meeting minutes state his
opposition to the Boy Scott project if the project included the picnic table,
which he sent in writing prior to the March meeting. Since Bram did not attend the March meeting,
let the April Meeting minutes reflect Bram’s opposition to the picnic table.
Communication Report: Neal reported that
information is now on the bulletin board in the kiosk. Group reported good response by
community. Future challenge will be to
keep updating the information so it does not become stale and people stop
reading it. Neal requested that if
anyone has ideas for items to display in the kiosk to contact him.
New Business:
Bram stated that the erosion on the berm
is as bad as it was 12 years ago when it was reinforced. Regardless of what is decided upon for the
pond, Bram advocated that the committee consider the berm
erosion problem independently.
Bram also alerted the committee that he suspects goose
families are being abducted from the pond area.
Since the mid 1990’s Goose families have disappeared abruptly. It is not clear who is removing the families
or for what reason. Although geese may
have a bad reputation, it is educational to watch them raise families and the
public responds well to seeing the goslings.
Bram has tried contacting the city of
Draft: Restorative Actions for Thurston Pond
Heidi presented the draft document. Three changes were made since the email
version was sent out to the committee: final sentence of the introduction, the
table on page 3, 3rd column heading and the final paragraph topic
sentence.
The document is not meant to be a recipe for action. As amateurs we are not telling the school
district what action to take, but presenting possibilities for
consideration. We will need to decide
what to do with this document, either to approve it or go back and rework the
document and research issues more. The school district owns the land and they
will decide what can and should be done.
We can only point out issues, problems, solutions and express our
preferences.
Heidi reviewed each section of the draft:
Neal corrected use of rough fish, should be “exotic
fish”. We discussed some specifics about
rotenone. It is an organic that breaks
down quickly. It kills fish by
suffocating them; it is not a poison.
The fish die quickly. Concern was
raised about the birds that rely on the fish.
How long before we can restock with native fish species? Jim suggested that we could apply the
rotenone over the winter by breaking some ice.
This would have minimal impact on the birds’ food source.
In addition to educating the community about phosphorus run
off, we should also explain why they should not dispose of their cast-away pet
goldfish or coy in the pond.
Erosion control should include the erosion problem at Clague inlet.
Engineering approaches: Draw down or dredge
The pond is not large, so we could test the idea of a
drawdown without lots of cost by pumping the water out. On the subject of dredging, many present
expressed a personal preference to avoid dredging unless absolutely necessary
because dredging would be disruptive, costly or smelly. But Heidi felt it was important to include
this option in the document because it is the first idea that comes to people’s
minds when considering actions to improve the pond. Others agreed dredging is disruptive but
might be necessary. Document is
incomplete without this option.
Neal pointed out that even though we are amateurs, we do
have a lot of expertise on this pond. We
can make a stronger case than the draft document puts forward. Bram felt that the paper should explain in
more detail what risks and disruptions might entail from each action. For example dredging may cause a stench that
may be unacceptable to neighboring homeowners.
Or that the pond may not fill up and mud flats would be exposed. Heidi expressed that the document is not
meant to be exhaustive, but a starting point for researching particular
options. We should not spend our time
creating an end all research paper without knowing which if any of these
options will be considered.
In order to assess how detailed the document should be, Neal
asked who is the intended audience and how knowledgeable is the audience about
this subject. The document would go to
Randy Trent in the school district. He
is knowledgeable about pond issues, having decided on the scarlet pond in the
past. Neal suggested we could cite examples
from Scarlet pond in our document, Bram suggested to note the differences between
Scarlet and Thurston ponds.
We discussed the idea of submitting the entire document to
Randy Trent, or inviting him to a meeting and asking him for feedback. Perhaps some of the options we are expecting
to research further are not even feasible. We could save ourselves time and
effort. Randy could also tell us more
about what areas of the document need to be more detailed for the intended
audience. The group discussed how
assertive our document should be. Two
ideas evolved, one stating that we should advocate our preferences strongly,
and another that we should state all options more objectively, “wishy washy approach”.
Jim felt that the
document is a good start and good enough to solicit feedback via an informal
review with Randy Trent. Bram made a
motion to revise the document based on input from this meeting and emails sent
out to Heidi over the next 1 week. The
revised document would come back for approval at the May meeting. Motion seconded and approved.
Motion by Katie (?) to send out an email
asking for informal acceptance of the document, stating that you have read the
document and approve it. (my recollection is that this motion was seconded and
approved, but my written notes do not reflect this… can anyone confirm this for
the record? -Katie)
This will facilitate quick approval vote at May
meeting. In the meantime Heidi will
contact Randy and ask for advice on how to proceed.
May is the last meeting for this year. People who have
served 2 consequetive years, notify Heidi if you
would like to continue serving.
Committee must approve continued service at the May meeting. If you know people who might want to be on
the committee, invite them to attend. We
will be electing officers at the next meeting for Chair and Secretary/Treasurer.
The meeting ended with a walk through of the
Minutes by Katie Richter.
PRESCRIBED PRAIRIE BURN
Thurston Prairie was burned on Tuesday,
march 23, 2004 at 5:30 to 7:15 PM. The
prescription was submitted to the Fire Department on February 27, 2004, and a
permit was obtained for a March burn when weather and biomass conditions were
favorable. Conditions on burn day were
checked with the Natural Areas Preservation group for humidity and west wind at
(5 to 15 MPH). Phone calls produced 6
volunteers.
The Fire Department was notified by phone on the burn day
before the fire was set and after it was out.
Site preparation in advance included brush cutting and
removal of trash, especially paper, which creates a danger of spreading the
fire to other areas by blowing away.
Follow up work involved removing briars, brush limbs and unburned invasives. Copies of
the prescription and permit are available for future reference
SIGNS FOR THE TREES AND FLOWERS
Signs were renovated or replaced for trees and flowers along
the path from the bridge around the east side of the pond to the
amphitheatre The work was done by a
family of three home schoolers using a mobile work
bench for printing, wire bending and nailing.
They have offered to complete the work on another day.
WOOD CHIP GROOMING OF PATHS
Five loads of chips, (25 cu. yds.)
were delivered to two sites. (Yorktown and Prairie) by
ADOPT A TREE PROGRAM
Ten families have agreed to adopt trees in the past month,
and fifteen more families have indicated interest. Sixteen Brownie Scouts have adopted six trees
and have scheduled Monday evening, May 24th to do the work. A small number of endangered trees have been
selected for high priority attention. A
list of Adopted Trees with family names will be posted in the Kiosk
Mike Conboy, Land Steward