Minutes
March 16, 2005
Members Present: Laura Arnold, David Hoopes, Terrie Klinger, David Loyd, Mary Masters, Kit Rawson,
Jim Slocomb, Dennis Willows
Absent: Mike Bertrand, Brian Calvert
Guests: Kirsten Evans, Phil Green, Kari Koski, Claudia Mills, Rowann Tallmon, Tina Whitman
Chair Jim Slocomb called the meeting to order at 8:30 a.m. in the Community Room at Islanders Bank Annex, Friday Harbor.
Minutes:
The minutes of the 2/16/05 meeting were approved as read.
Election of Officers:
Jim nominated Kit Rawson to be chair and David Hoopes seconded the nomination. There were no other nominations and the vote to elect Kit as chair was unanimous. Mary Masters will remain vice-chair.
Non-agenda item:
Kari Koski requested that the MRC sign a letter of support for a grant application to fund her wildlife reserves stewardship efforts as outlined in her email. In the interest of expediency, Kari will send a draft to Jody and Kit for circulation to members. Mary pointed out that the MRC can piggyback on Kari’s outreach efforts.
Policy/Management Sub-committee report:
Kit said the sub-committee met after the last MRC meeting to work on a “Checklist for MSA Management Measures” that can provide a basis for credibility of MSA measures that might be proposed to the BOCC. He said that, in order to test the checklist, Kari and Jim each offered to work through examples of such projects, Kari on the Bottomfish Recovery Program and Jim on a study of impacts from wakes generated by vessels (copies attached).
Kit added that as a result of this exercise he revised the draft checklist slightly; copies of his second draft were distributed. He said that, based on other papers on marine management of MPA’s, there seems to be a need to state objectives and the basis for projects, to describe alternative actions, to predict measurable outcomes, and to list references; adaptive management principles are to be applied. There was discussion on further suggested changes.
Jim said that he was pleased with the extensive email dialogue among members on social impact analysis of projects; he expressed his vote of enthusiasm for the vetting process. Kari agreed that the checklist is a valuable exercise for a project proposer in that it is worthwhile to spend time on planning early in the process. Laura added that the checklist lends transparency of projects for the public and David Loyd suggested that checklist responses could provide an outline for press releases. Dennis suggested including a legal component along with a strong sociological component; he will prepare draft language. Terrie said that if there are triggers then a social impact analysis could be done; she will send her proposed addition to the sub-committee. A revised checklist will be decided upon at the next MRC meeting. Kit noted that the checklist is meant to document specific MSA marine proposals, several of which could address the same threat, that will be presented to the BOCC.
Outreach/Education Sub-committee report:
Laura, Jim, and Jody had a conversation on collecting anecdotal data with Nancy Larsen, who has been a Town of Friday Harbor and Islands historian for several years. Nancy will put together a proposal for April on what she could do within how much time. Jim said that Jody suggested that such data collection needs to be separated from public outreach meetings. The questions are what to document, whom to contact, and which potential partnerships to seek (e.g. Historical Societies on all the islands, trained Labs’ students).
David Hoopes pointed out that the process is similar to the Foxfire Program. Members are requested to document all their outreach results and their contacts for reporting to Jody.
New/Old Business:
Terrie said that the NOAA Office of Protected Resources (within NMFS) is in its scoping process for a programmatic EIS to modify its policy on acoustic harassment of marine mammals; the public comment period has been extended at least through this Friday. Terrie, who has done a reasonable amount of work on this for the Olympic Peninsula Marine Sanctuary, said that most scientists feel that the proposed alternatives are too restrictive...that is, that the status quo of the160 decibel cut-off is better than any of the proposed alternatives. Terrie said that the smattering of data being used to support different levels of noise for different species does not represent a precautionary approach. The policy will apply to U.S. operations anywhere in the world.
There was agreement that the MRC should provide comment, e.g. that the scoping is inadequate, the alternatives too narrow and the MRC would like to see a more reasonable level of alternatives, that the status quo continue to be applied where there is no data now (although new data could inform for a particular species). There was member consensus that Terrie draft a brief MRC comment letter and send it to Kit for his signature to expedite the submission.
Dennis said that he was very pleased to have been invited to join the Advisory Board of the Samish Center for Cultural and Ecological Research. He read the concept that is driving the Center: “Knowledge-based economic growth and cultural development are seen in Coast Samish traditional knowledge as a growth industry for Samish people. The rationale is that the Samish people shape the environment and should take responsibility for restoring it for future generations. In the near term, research and restoration will be more satisfying, empowering, and profitable than fishing.” Dennis added that there is a group of young students who are making themselves available in a variety of research and conservation-oriented contexts; he suggested that the MRC engage them in their MSA work.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:15 a.m., to be followed by an executive session to rank new member applicants.
Submitted by Helen Venada
