Minutes
September 6, 2006
Members Present: Laura Arnold, Ron Henrickson, David Loyd, Mary Masters, Kit Rawson, Howie Rosenfeld, Jonathan White
Absent: Mike Ahrenius, Michael Durland, Terrie Klinger, Skeet Lowe, Ken Sebens, Joy Sevier, Jim Slocomb, Tina Whitman
Staff: Jody Kennedy, Helen Venada
Guests: Hilary Culverwell, Steve Hussey, Susan Key, Claudia Mills, Rowann Tallmon,
Jacques White
Presenter: Fayette Krause, The Nature Conservancy
Chair Kit Rawson called the non-quorum meeting to order at 8:30 a.m. in the Community Room at Islanders Bank Annex, Friday Harbor.
Citizen comments:
Rowann Tallmon said that today’s on-line newspaper, sanjuanislander.com, reports on the creosote log tagging project recently completed by the WSU Beachwatchers, under the guidance of Lisa Kaufman from DNR. Using DNR survey forms, the volunteers tagged 296 logs at Jackson Beach on San Juan Island and will next survey South Beach. An October clean-up of the logs will focus on Jaeckels Lagoon and Jackson Beach as priorities.
Hilary Culverwell announced a Call for Abstracts for the Georgia Basin Puget Sound Research Conference to be held in Vancouver, B.C. on March 26-29, 2007. She said that scientists and social scientists are invited to submit their abstracts by November 1st. More information is available at http://www.researchconference.org.
Jonathan White said there will be a gathering at Coffelt farm on Orcas Island this Saturday as part of the Campaign to Save Turtleback Mountain. A partnership of the Trust for Public Land, the SJC Land Bank, and the San Juan Preservation Trust is raising funds to purchase the property. All are invited to partake of the fine food and entertainment. More information is available at http://www.saveturtleback.com. David Loyd added that the Turtleback Mountain issue demonstrates the huge terrestrial influence on the marine environment.
David said that 17 people from the Waldron Island community recently participated in a workshop at UW Friday Harbor Labs where they learned to identify plankton. He noted that no baseline exists now and that there will likely be monthly beach surveys at least on Waldron Island. Molly Jacobs is the lead from FHL.
Steve Hussey introduced himself as new SJC Conservation District staff. Steve is working on water quality and quantity issues and is a member of the SJC Stormwater Utility Steering Committee as well as the SJC long-range septic committee. He is also experienced in low impact development and will focus on educating property owners to reduce their environmental impacts through the use of raingardens, swales, and other LID techniques. Steve said that Brian Cornelius, also new to SJCCD, is a farm planner and Ron Zee is the new Director. He said that the emphasis of the District is changing to take a more proactive role in water issues. The District is also becoming more involved with other agencies and organizations in an attempt to avoid duplication of efforts and a sharing of resources. Laura proposed that future MRC agenda time be set for SJCCD to present updates.
Minutes:
Kit indicated that the draft minutes of the 8/16/06 meeting need to be corrected, with consensus by members present, to reflect the following: that Terrie Klinger’s emailed comments were discussed but not included in the ranking decision and that the motion should read that all five proposals (for Round 7 Salmon Recovery funding) be moved forward in order of the day’s ranking. The revised minutes will be reviewed for adoption at the next full quorum meeting.
MSA Update:
Kit reported that Ken Sebens has student, Molly Jacobs, putting together a database and has requested that the MRC consider contributing to the funding.
Kit said that the interview team evaluated the proposals for the MSA planner contract at length and came to the unanimous decision to recommend Triangle Associates; the position is funded through June, 2007. Ron said that there are issues with this recommendation due to perceived conflict of interest and appearance of conflict of interest because of Jody Kennedy’s association with Triangle. The contract cannot move forward until this issue is resolved; Ron will meet with the MRC Executive Subcommittee on September 11th at the CDPD conference room following the Tidal Power meeting to discuss the issue. Ron suggested the short-term solution of re-advertising the position. Kit emphasized that the interview team took all measures possible to separate Jody out of the process and to evaluate the two proposals carefully.
MRC Budget/Coordinator’s position:
Ron reported that he incorporated into his draft budget to the County Administrator the MRC recommendation to make the MRC Coordinator and Lead Entity Coordinator positions both full-time county employees. Ron does not know if the Administrator, Pete Rose, has passed on the draft budget to the County Council and he doesn’t expect a decision until the end of the year. He also presented alternative recommendations to Pete. There is no authority to move ahead on the issue at this time. Discussion followed and Howie noted that in the Town of Friday Harbor’s budgeting process, the Administrator makes the recommendations but the Council also gets the list of what requests were made. Ron said he does not know how to fill the position and requests feedback on the job description today; union classification will occur the last week in November. The okay to advertise the position needs to come from the Administrator. Jody said that she will continue her Coordinator job part-time until December 22nd at the latest.
Jacques White said that airline tickets have already been purchased for the facilitator of the 5-S workshop scheduled for September 22nd. He made the procedural suggestion that Jody be directed to focus on workshop preparation now; workshop follow-up will not be as timely or effective without the MSA Planner position being filled, he added. The core planning team will meet today to develop objectives; Ron agreed to also attend.
Coordinator’s report:
Jody said that Councilman Kevin Ranker did a presentation at last week’s NWSC meeting in Friday Harbor on the SJC ecosystem-based management proposal. Jody said that NWSC has a pot of money for regional projects and had asked the MRCs for input on what that project would be. Jonathan said there was an interesting presentation on the Fraser River modeling project that showed water temperature distribution during certain times of the tide and well as potential oil spill impacts on different coastlines over the following 24-hour period. Jody added that the modeling proposal would factor in water quality parameters, bathymetry, and the impacts of currents, dramatic tides, and restoration projects on, for example, the Skagit River Delta estuaries and tidal areas. She said that implications for San Juan County are valuable. Discussion followed on the benefits to the County. Jody said that the modeling project is partially funded and NWSC is looking to fund the calibration piece; she will ask Andrea to give a presentation in San Juan County.
Jacques said that the modeling project could be helpful to San Juan County, important issues being the Fraser River carrying pollutants to the Islands, oil spill distribution to bays, and harm from nearshore sediment, e.g. identifying least/best place to allow bulkheads. Jody said another potential future benefit might be to incorporate some of the fish data as an overlay to the model.
Laura said she was impressed with the level of support and enthusiasm at the NWSC meeting for the vessel count study in San Juan County. Jody said there have been exciting results for the project. Jeff reported to her that the original design to take aerial photographs of boats has not been as fruitful as hoped and so he has rallied volunteers from Western to act as spotters to do the count. 1250 boats were counted in one morning last week. Jeff will report to the MRC in October. Rowann added that the Beachwatchers have been doing groundtruthing for the vessel survey.
Jody said the dive surveys in the Bottomfish Recovery Zones went well and results are being analyzed. There was interest in a possible presentation from Eric Eisenhardt in the fall.
Jody thanked Rowann and the Beachwatchers for helping to promote the MRC/MSA message at the recent County Fair.
Jody said that the subcommittees may have to step up when her position becomes half-time. She distributed copies of the list of subcommittees, their members, and their respective current projects. Both the salmon genetics project and the Class I beaches project (digitizing photographs from Wolf Bauer’s 1970s inventory) are under the Science subcommittee. Jody will give project updates at the next meeting.
NWSC Representative:
Kit said that an MRC member needs to be elected to replace Jody as the NWSC representative. He added that he hopes we will have volunteers for both the member and alternate positions, but he is willing to act as the Alternate if no one else steps up. Action will be postponed to the next meeting.
Jonathan said that he would like to interview members during this month for November’s retreat on how the MRC could be more effective as a group. There was discussion on whether to postpone the retreat until a new Coordinator is hired.
Steve said that the SJC Conservation District, in its primary public education and outreach role, can help with manpower, press releases, and technical assistance on putting presentations together.
Meeting schedule:
There was agreement that the regularly-scheduled MRC meeting of 9/20/06 will be canceled since there will be a 5-S strategies meeting on 9/22. Jody will submit notice of the meetings to the Journal and the Sounder as legal ads.
Presentation:
Fayette introduced himself as the Washington Land Steward with The Nature Conservancy. TNC is requesting MRC consideration of its proposal to restrict salmon fishing in the Yellow and Low Island MPA, and, possibly in all MPAs. He said that TNC’s document in which this issue is listed as an action item will be available within the next two months. Fayette explained that it became evident through the MPA process that there was an inability to have any restrictions regarding salmon fishing, which creates the possibility for fishers within MPAs to take rockfish. The rule says that salmon fishers can take one bottomfish as bycatch. Fayette added that taking older fish out changes the cohort and he feels the issue needs to be addressed. He added that this is an ongoing concern for Phil Green, the Yellow Island Steward who has observed rockfish being taken there. Kit agreed that targeted rockfish fishing is occurring.
Discussion followed. Kit noted that the reserves were originally set up as regulated research zones. MPAs are a creature of the UW Friday Harbor Labs, Fayette said, and his understanding is that the Labs would support such a closure. He added that there is an opportunity to propose quickly to DFW that the fishing rules reflect the suggested change. David said that a “no jigging” rule would take care of the bycatch (incidental catch) issue or, alternately, there could be a full closure as a “trial balloon” Closure, except for trolling, in other reserves was discussed. David also noted that the Yellow and Low Island MPA is close to seal haul outs.
There was consensus among members present that the MRC support the closure of salmon fishing in MPAs, at the very least for Yellow and Low Island MPA. David said that this action could be a building block but “could also be like pulling a can of peas from the bottom of the stack.” Jacques said that TNC is in favor of full closure at the Yellow and Low Island MPA, particularly since there is the benefit of having observers there. Kit noted that the whole island is carefully managed and is an educational opportunity. He raised the question of how the Labs manage their marine research preserves. Kit said that the full gamut of the issue will be a topic of discussion for the upcoming strategies meeting. Fayette said that TNC will proceed with the Yellow and Low Island closure proposal and wait to hear more from the MRC.
Jacques said that TNC is allocating $10,000, through a contract with FHL, to put out permanent plots within MPAs to establish baseline data.
Next meeting: The next regularly-scheduled MRC meeting on September 20th has been canceled.
The next MRC meeting will be Wednesday, October 4th from 8:30–10:30 AM at the Islanders Bank Community Room.
The meeting was adjourned at 10:45 a.m.
Submitted by Helen Venada
