Chautauqua Lake and Watershed Management Alliance
Minutes of the Board of Directors – Work Session
Thursday, June 13, 2019
4:30 p.m. at BWB Building
Directors Present: Jim Andrews, Pierre Chagnon, Bruce Erickson, Mike LaTone, Dave Shepherd and Rob Yates. Mary Laumer observed via phone but did not participate in any board actions.
Absent: George Borrello & Ted McCague
Staff in Attendance: Erin Brickley – Alliance Executive Director, Randall Perry – Alliance Project Manager.
____________________________________________________________________________________
I. Call to Order:
P. Chagnon called the work session meeting of the Chautauqua Lake and Watershed Management Alliance (Alliance) to order at 4:30 pm. It was noted for the record that there was a quorum (6 of 9) present.
II. Approval of Minutes:
B. Erickson made a motion to accept the minutes of the 5/9/19 Board Meeting, seconded by J. Andrews. The motion was approved unanimously.
III. Approve CWC Time Extension Request on “Starve the Algae-Save the Lake” Program Grant:
E. Brickley advised that she had met with J. Jablonski and C. Quadri from CWC per their request to discuss a time extension on a portion of their $40k grant that the Alliance board decisioned 6/14/18 after utilizing the MCA scoring prioritization tool. Per the grant agreement, the timeframe was defined as 6/2018-6/2019. CWC also provided a written summary of their extension request dated 6/7/19 asking for an extension through 12/31/19. This, as well as other supporting documentation was shared with the Alliance board via email 6/11/19. J. Andrews made a motion to approve the extension, seconded by B. Erickson. The motion passed unanimously.
IV. Update on Alliance led 3rd Party Monitoring of 2019 Herbicide Treatment in Partnership with County:
E. Brickley gave a brief overview of monitoring efforts to date and reviewed the Sampling & Observation Plan that the staff had worked on with Princeton Hydro (PH) to develop and finalized in May, now that the pre, during, and post treatment sampling has been completed. It was noted that the Sampling & Observation Plan had not been previously publicized to maintain the integrity of the observation locations until all sampling was done. A revised version of this plan which will include noting any changes to the original plan due to conditions in the field will be captured in the final report, due to the Alliance from PH August 2019.
V. Update on Status of Alliance Municipal Grants for 2019 Herbicide Treatments:
E. Brickley advised that she had received some copies of partial invoices from SOLitude to the respective municipalities and inquiries from some of the municipalities as to the process to receive their funds from the Alliance. Municipal members have been advised that once a summary of all final expenses and all funding sources has been provided to the Alliance, we will send out a simple grant agreement. Once the grant agreements are signed and returned, we can disburse funding.
VI. Update on Anticipated 2019 NYS CFA Grant Submissions:
E. Brickley advised that we will be assisting on four state grant applications for this year’s NYS Consolidated Funding Application window, due at the end of July. The first will be in partnership with the County and sourced from the recently completed Mayville-Chautauqua Stormwater Management Study Report (May 2019) for a county complex green infrastructure retrofit. Also sourced from this stormwater study, the Alliance will be partnering with the Town of Chautauqua and the Village of Mayville to apply for state funding assistance for a new salt/sand storage barn. In addition, the Alliance will partner with the County and North Chautauqua Lake Sewer District to apply for funding of an Inflow and Infiltration study. The Alliance is also partnering with the Town of Ellery, Soil & Water, and the County for a grant application that would fund installation of a sediment trap approximately 1500 feet upstream of the mouth of Bemus Creek to reduce the sediment load that causes shallow water conditions at the mouth of the tributary and also carries nutrient load.
VII. Review Cost Quotes on MMS Printing:
E. Brickley reviewed costs to print paper copies of the MMS. After discussion it was agreed to only print three which would be considered office copies that directors could access as needed. B. Erickson made motion to approve cost for three copies, seconded by R. Yates. The motion passed unanimously. It was also discussed to have staff present summary modules of the Watershed Plan and MMS periodically in the coming year.
VIII. Discussion of Tabled Ad-Hoc Committee Recommendations:
D. Shepherd, who was a participant in the ad-hoc committee last year, commented that time has now passed since the two recommendations were made (1. add two at-large director positions & 2. creation of new committee structures) and circumstances have been evolving. P. Chagnon commented that when we reached out for nominations in May, there were not enough nominees to have filled additional slots and passively that may indicate there is not a need and E. Brickley commented that when directors went outbound to members early in 2019, there were mixed opinions on the addition. After further discussion, B. Erickson made a motion that we not move forward on the addition of two more at-large director positions, seconded by D. Shepherd. The motion was approved unanimously. The second portion of the ad-hoc committee recommendation to have an expanded committee structure that would include creation of a Watershed Management Committee, Data Analysis Committee and Lake Management Committee was discussed. It was determined that we would move forward with the Lake Management Committee for now and that it would involve two co-chairs from both in-lake management approaches. They are to work together in coming months and then come back to the full board to share how they would envision this committee working and possible participants. D. Shepherd made a motion to move forward with the start of a Lake Management Committee to be co-chaired by B. Erickson and M. LaTone, seconded by B. Erickson. The motion was approved unanimously.
IX. Adjourn:
B. Erickson motioned to adjourn, seconded by P. Chagnon at 5:57pm. The motion was approved unanimously.