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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2004-12-09 KRSMA Board PacketK MAI RIVER Special Managemen4 Brea "Working togefher...lor the river" a©e~~oa~ o caa~ Kenai River Special Management Area Advisory hoard *** Meeting Agenda**x Thursday, December 9, 2004 5:30 p.rn. Kenai River Center I. CALL TO ORDER A. Roll Call B. Approval of 11/18/04 minutes C. Agenda Changes and Approval II. PUBLIC COMMENT III. NEW BUSINESS A. Update on Boating Safety Program-Bill Berkhalm B. Update on Mixing Zones -Suzanne Fisler IV. OLD BUSINESS A. Kenai River Working Group Update- Ted Wellman/Joe Connors B. Coal Setting foc Board in 2004-OS • Potential topics: o additional lands addition in the upper Kenai River o Hydrocarbots/ouY6oard motor issues C. Kenai River Center Update, Suzanne Fisler V. PLBIdC COMMENT VI. ADJOU'I2NMENT A. Board Conm~ents B. Date/Agenda ofNext Meeting .. C'_: r G Kenai Area Oftice, Box 1247, Soldotna, AK 996fi9, Soldotna 2625581 Kenai Peninsula Borough, Box 850, Soldotna, AK 99669, Soldotna 2624441 Alaska Division o! Parks ano Outtloor Recrealioq Department of Natural Resources, in cooperation with the Kenai Peninsula Borough. Kenai River Special Management Area Advisory Board Thursday, November 7.8, 2004 5:30 p.m. Kenai River Center I. CALL TO ORDER A. Ro11 Call Members Present: Joe Connors, Ted Wellman, David Westerman, Ken Lancaster, Jeff Ding, Pete Sprague, Linda Snow, Suzanne Fisler as Acting KA Superintendent, Donne Slemons via teleconference Members Absent: Rick Wood, Richard Hahn, Paul Shadura, Roland Maw (resigned), Tom Vania, Robin West, Bill Shuster B. Approval of 9/23/04 and 10/14/04 minutes The mimrtes of both meetings were approved as written. C. Agenda Changes and Approval. The agenda was approved with an additional item under Old Business: Commercial L`se Committee Report by Joe Connors. Also Jim Freehone fiom DEC will be moved up on the agenda. IL PUBLIC COMMENT III. NEW BUSINESS A. KWF Summer Water Testing Program, Robert Ruffner RoberC said there is really nothing new to report for this summer. The data collected this summer is very similar to the data of the past 4-5 years. Water quality standards for hydrocarbons are exceeded in the lower river when there are a large number of boats at the end of July and that did happen again this year. The main purpose for doing the work This summer was to answer a couple of outstanding questions from the public. The first question was regarding river mile 10 and the exceedances there. Some folks questioned whether this same exceedance could be found in the river below river mile 10. The data collected was from the Kenai City pier, which catches all the dipnet fishery and captures all the upstream fishery. The only area that the data showed in excess was at the very end of the river at mile 1.5. None were seen at Cunningham. The secondcommonly asked question was are there any effects from the tide? We' sampled 3 sites every`3 hours fore 48 hours to see if there were hydrocarbons coming down and beingpushed back up. The data collected did not show an effect. Robert did note there was a lot of water in river this year. This year DNR and F&G helped correlate the numbers of 2 vs 4 stroke boats on the river. As a summary on a Saturday from Cunningham Park to the Soldotna bridge 60% of the boats are 4 stroke and on Sunday 45% are 4 stroke. Ken asked if the study would contimie in 2005. Robert said some sort of sampling would probably be done. But he said the picture has been painted well enough with the data so far. His board of directors is saying it is time to move on. Ted asked if there was any other monitoring done beside hydrocarbons. Robert said they did monitor for fecal coliform. The area that consistently pops up is around Cunningham Park. The concern there is whether there is something going on coming from septic tanks Testing at the Kenai River Keys area shows negative coliform. B. Board Vacancies Suzanne said DNR has only received an application from Floyd Heimbuch. She said Denny Denbrock asked for an application earlier this week. She will contact him. She asked for the board's approval to submit these two applications. The board agreed. All voted in favor Co submit the applications to the Commissioner's office. C. Board Reorganization-bylaw approval Suzanne stated the Bylaws were sent to all board members before the October meeting. She asked if there were any changes that needed to be made. The board members present had no changes to be made and a motion to approve them was made with unanimous consent. The Bylaws will be sent to the Commissioner's office for approval. Ken then asked the board members to vote for President and Vice President of the, board... A motion was made by Ted Welhnan to continue with Ken Lancaster as President and Robin West as Vice President. All present voted unanimously. Kenai River Special Management Area Advisory Board November 18, 2004 Page 2 of 7 D. Gotil Setting for Board in 2004-OS • Potential topics: o additional lands addition in the upper Kenai River Ken said. the upper river lands. additions would be a challenge to discuss: Ted agreed but acid there should be more lands added in the upper river. Ken suggested Suzanne, Chris Degemes and Bill Berkhahn might pick out some potential lands. Suzanne said she will tallc with Bill Berlchahn and Chris Degernes to pick out some areas that need higher levels of protection than they have now and bring those back to the board for discussion. Ken wilt talk to Sen. Wagoner for assistance. Dave suggested contacting the Cooper Landing land planning committee and invite a representative to sit in on a meeting. o Hydrocarbon/outboard motor issues IV. OLD BUSINESS A. Kenai River Center Update, Suzaime Filler Cooper Lake;Hydro - FERC Relicensng Update. Suzanne said it has been a slow moving process. There were two meetings this week with Chugach Electric. They have hired a consultant to help develop clocked-in settlement for mitigation. The consultant has a lot of expertise in working with relicensings of dams. Right now the discussions are still being made on mitigation and what those costs would be. There has not been a , onsensus of cpinior. yet cn what the mitigations will be. Suzanne said there will be a 3 day meeting in December. Soldotna Bridge Project Update no news yet. Ken said he spoke to Sen. Wagoner's office today about signing the contracC and nothing has been signed on yet. They are still working with Judy Daugherty and DOT. Suzanne said she heard there are monies in the budget for the Ftmny River Bridge. B. Kenai River Working Group Update- Joe Connors Joe said in time the Kenai River Working Group (KRWG) will be successful with the mission given; and that was to find a fair and equitable way of detersnihing an appropriate guide number for the Kenai River. A major effort was made to make stu•e the various. groupings of people of interest are included. Joe said they are getting on the same track now. Joe said it is the groups' desire to have atwo-pronged attack. After hearing Kenai River Special Management Area Advisory Board November 18, 2004 Page 3 of 7 from the people from the Limited Entry Commission and the Department of Law, and realizing it would take 3-5 years at minimum to do a limited entry, the group wants to pursue limited entry and that would be one course. The other course would be something in the meantime. This could be accomplished through DNR and Cheir existing authority along with their ability to use stipulations. ~ There istlie perceptioi-i of crowding on the Kenai River for a certain period of time each year. Along with that comes an experience by the user that is not as high quality as we should be providing. Joe said that everyone in the group is on the page that there needs to be a reduction of some sort. No number has been figured out yet. One of the thoughts would require an application process for all current grades. There would be various points for numbers of years, for how much effort you give every year in terms how many days fished per year. There is data to support this. The goal in mind is that there would be a certain niunb~er of existing guides that wouldhave a frahsferable permit. This would not be a sellable item, only transferable. That is, when someone wants to sell his or her business a transfer of the permit would be allowed. There world be a group of existing guides that would not get a transferable permit but would get a permit to allow them to continue to guide as long as that individual wanted to continue to guide. There has been one issue that has been a point of disagreement. That is existing today there are two types of guiding operations: the independent contractor, single operator and then there is the multiple boat operator. The multiple boat operator is an individual that owns the business and he provides workman's comp, insurance, etc. for the people he employs. The group feels that both of those entities heed to be taken into consideration in this process of evaluating: C. DEC Site Monitoring Update-Jim Frechione Jim provided updates on the Peninsula sites as follows: hi Cooper Landing at Hamilton's Place there was positive clean up action in 2004. Grant funds that were available for underground storage tank removal were used. They excavated 400 cubic yards of contaminated soil from the fi~e1 islands. When they replaced their tatacs in the early to mid-90s they left some contaminated soils. They were encouraged to get that soil out of the ground even though the contaminant plume was not migrating. The monitoring wells down gradient towards the river are showing clean. Will not ask Them to do anything more other than monitor the ground water. Cooks Tesoro in Sterling took advantage of the grant program also. They installed a treatment system on the property. It is similar to a pump and treaC where they are pulling ground water up and stripping the compormds off of it and then re-injecting the clean ground water: IC is serving a dual purpose in removing the dissolved phase contaminants; oxygenating the Kenai River Special Management Area Advisory Board November 18, 2004 Page 4 of 7 .water and then re-injecting it to encourage any kind of biodegradation. .This is a source areabeingtreated. There are 4 wells;.two of them are ~~~ extraction wells, two are injection wells.. It is Yoo, sogn to say yet what affect. this will. have down gradient. The down gradient, wells across the highway are -still exceeding ground ~+ater standards There are no indications that it is migrating towards the river. Sterling Zip Mart in Sterling. So far there has been 15 thousand gallons of free phase gasoline product recovered. However, the recovery rates have really dropped off recently. The environmental consultant has been asked to revise or adapt the recovery system in place and convert it into a soil vapor extraction system that would now extract the gas compounds within the ground water and the soil. They are still attacking the source and getting. as much of the free phase out of the ground and hopefully pulling out some of the vapor phase will at least stop the spreading of the ground water plume. The extent of the plume is now defined. The only drinking water impacted so far is B&D Auto. Former DOT maintenance station in Soldotna was transferred to the City of Soldotna. The City is continuing to monitor the ground water in that area. There :are iow levels of .petroleum hydrocarbon closer to the highway. The wells closest to the river still show exceedances of chloride in Che grotmd water. ,.That is from the salt piles that DOT used to have there. One of the thingsthat has recently come to DEC's attention is that DNR, has a plan to construct. a trail and elevated walkway along the river in that area. They have indicated they would like to cut back on that bank. The estimate is to take out 7,000 cubic yards of material along that bank. This would probably be good overaii for the river. The quesiion becomes what will be done with all that salted sand? River Ten~ace in Soldotna still has issues. They are continuing to inject the hydrogen releasing compound. This has been effective in breaking down the PCE in the ground water. However they have ended up with a byproduct which is also a toxic compotmd. The monitoring wells along the river have high levels of this "daughter" product of the PCE which is still a concern. DEC has entered into an agreement with USGS and conducted a joint shady of whaC can be done there to resolve the breakdown of this compound. USES is conducting lab studies. They have also been looking at bio augmentation, which would be injecting some sort of microbes that are there. The preliminary results from USGS show the microbes are not really adding much to the breakdown of it. From their studies in the lab as you take this compound from an anaerobic environment where there is no ...oxygen,. to an aerobic environment that. through some type of natural condition it is breaking down this product into non-toxic compounds. This is being done in a buffer zone between the uplands and the river. What is Kenai River Special Management Area Advisory Board November 18, 2004 Page 5 of 7 being found in the river based on the sediment samples is that there are elevated levels of this compound.. liSGS is telling DEC that based on their lab studies: the compounds should be breaking down: At River Terrace there is still a contimung somroe andit is still a problem. aim will be back with updates in a few months D. Commercial Permit committee: Toe Connors said the committee met this afternoon. Discussed were the commercial operator fees for the firture. Presently they are $500 for resident and $1500 for non-resident. Because the process did not move fast enough there will be no increase in 2005. However there will be two additional fees. The F&G Sportfish registration will be $100; and they will pay $75 fee to Parks for a boat decal if they wish to use the Kasilof, Bing's, Moose. River or Cooper Landing launches. For 2006 there needs to be a comprehensive package relative to fees. All users should be sharing in the burden of fees. This should include the public. This could be a user fee or a conservation fee. The cormnittce feels that DNR should require all commercial operators to be current in a drug testing program. This would also regtrire drift boat operators to comply. Also discussed was the Guide Board and Guide Academy. The committee reinforced the need for both of these programs. Kenai River boat rentals have seen improvement with the implementation by Parks of the checldist and the signing off of people who rent a boat. Multiple citations for the first time in many years have been issued. The committee stands firm that Parks should work within its guidelines to enforce any restrictions as stipulations provide. V. PUBhIC COMMENT VI. AD3OURNMF,NT A. Board Comments Jeff: Said he likes the 5:30 meetings! He also had a question about the recertification of Cooper Lake. Pete: Also likes the 530 board meeting time. He thanked Ken for chairing again this year. Happy Thanksgiving! Kenai River Speciat ManagemenC Area Advisory Board November 18, 2004 Page 6 of 7 Tonne: InForn2ed the board she has resigned her position at DEC. She has taken a position with DNR with the Division of Oil and Gas starting December 1st. There will contihue to be a DEC representative at future meetings but it is unlrnown who that will be yet. Ken: Thanked theboardmembers t"orbeingpart of Chris Degernes' going away gift. Ken said it was well received by Chris! B. Date/Agenda of Next Meeting Next meeting will be December 9, 2004 at 5:30 pm at the Kenai River Center. Kenai River Special Management Area Advisory Board November 18, 2004 Page 7 of 7