Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2010-10-14 KRSMA Board MinutesKENAI RIVER Special Management Area "Working together for the river" Kenai River Special Management Area Advisory Board Meeting Agenda Thursday, October 14, 2010 5:30 p.m. Gilman River Center CALL TO ORDER A, Roll Call; B. Minutes Approval C, Agenda Changes and Approval II. Public Comments /Presentations Doug Whittaker— Kenai River User Study James King Division's Direction III. REPORTS A. Agency and Government Reports a. State Parks Sinclair, Russell b, DEC- Stevens c. ADF &G- Vania/ Begich/ d. USF &WS- Schmidt e. USFS /Chugach- Skibo f. City of Kenai- Ogle g. City of Soldotna- Micciche h. Kenai Peninsula Borough- Carey B. Committee Reports a, President's Report b. Guide Advisory c. Habitat d, River Use e. Permits f. Legislative /Government Activities g. Board Development h, Agenda /Board Structure /Housekeeping IV. OLD BUSINESS A. Board Seat Nominations V. NEW BUSINESS VI. CORRESPONDENCE VII. PUBLIC COMMENT VIII. ADJOURNMENT A. Board Comments B, Date /Agenda of Next Meeting November 11, 2010 at 5:30 p.m. RECEIVED OCT 6 2010 KENAI CITY CLERK Kenai Area Office, PO Box 1247, Soldotna, AK 99669, 907 262 -5581 Kenai Peninsula Borough, 144 N. Binkley, Soldotna, AK 99669 907 262 -4441 Gilman River Center 514 Funny River Road, Soldotna, AK 99669, 907 260 -4882 Alaska Division of Parks and Outdoor Recreation, Department atural Resources, in cooperation with the Kenai Peninsula Borough KE1'AldYER CALL TO ORDER Kenai River Special Management Area Advisory Board Minutes Gilman River Center Thursday, September 9, 2010 A. Members Present: Joe Connors, Ted Wellman, Brenda Trefon, Carol Padgett, James Czarnezki, Terri Carter, David Carey, Peter Micciche, Wayne Ogle, Janet Schmidt, Bobbie Jo Skibbo, Jack Sinclair, Tim Stevens. B. The Minutes for May 13, 2010 were approved as written. C. The Agenda for September 9, 2010 was approved as written, II. Public Comments /Presentations REPORTS A. Agency and Government Reports a. State Parks —Pam Russell, distributed the 2010 Commercial Operators Trends and Numbers and the Additional Statistics information. The numbers for the 2010 season reflect a decline of 22 guides from 2009. In 2010 there were 316 fishing guides, which is the lowest number in 16 years or since 1995. In other areas such as non fishing, resident or non resident the numbers have seen very little change. A reminder letter will be sent to all the guides that have not taken the guide academy course and also to some of the companies that may be hiring new employees for the upcoming season. There are approximately 66 guides left that need to take the course before May 2011 or they will be unable to register for the 2011 Kenai River guides season. Carol Padgett stated she has been receiving feedback about when the classes are offered and wondered if there was a way to offer more classes in the spring to help accommodate the non resident who need to take the course. Joe Connors stated that it is difficult to have the instructors teaching the course in May because many of the instructors are guides and their work season has started. The statistics show that 80% percent of the guides have taken the course. Tim Stevens asked if the class size has a limit or can it be increased. Jack Sinciair stated that the max is 25. Jack Sinclair reported that it was a busy season even with the light fishing. There was an extra ranger on staff during the month of July and the Coast Guard patrolled with park rangers for two weeks on the river. A meeting took place with Kenai Peninsula Borough, state parks and other area residents about the problems that have been occurring at Rapids Avenue by Bings Landing State Recreation Site. Some of the main issues were parking, trespassing and safety. It is going to take a huge concerted effort by the borough, the legislature and several state agencies to fix the problems. There is a huge demand for parking there, with anglers encroaching on private property and illegally parking in fire lanes. State Parks has funding for some bank restoration and the trail rerouting, but not enough to fix the overall problems. Joe asks who would need to submit a proposal to the legislation to help fix this problem. Jack said it would probably need to originate from the legislature at this time. b. DEC- Tim Stevens, in June DEC submitted their integrated water body report; it is a biannual report to EPA about the conditions of the state waters. In that report DEC notified EPA that they moved the Kenai River from 4B water which was one that was impaired with plan to fix the impaired status to a category 2 meaning the standard for that pollutant which is hydrocarbons have been met at this time. Second, DEC had awarded two grants for the Kenai River to the Kenai Watershed Forum; one was to finance their hydrocarbon sampling of the Kenai once in July and once in April. The second grant is for the third year of turbidity monitoring in the lower Kenai River to help establish natural conditions. Carol Padget ask why the third year of turbidity study. Tim stated that DEC needs a minimum of two years and one of those two years was a high water year. They did not want the data to be skewed, so they thought a third year would be beneficial in establishing the data. Kenai River Special Management Area Advisory Board Minutes September 9, 2010 Page 1 of 4 f. City of Kenai, Wayne Ogle- Things were not dull in Kenai this year. The personal use fishery was a success with the highest revenue in the history of the dip net fishery season. This is in part due to the raise in fees. The revenue is used for police and other services, such as bathrooms and dumpsters. The good news is there were not a lot of problems. For a three -week crunch everyone seems to buck up and get along. More fencing went in on the south beach of the Kenai River; there is one area that is not fenced because of tidal influence. On the north beach side the city has extended the fence approximately 100 feet for which they negotiated with the private land owner to put the fence in that area The City is ready to put permanent outhouses at the end of Kenai Avenue along the beach on the North side to replace the existing bathrooms. A bridge will be put it across Meeks Creek after freeze up Bobbie Jo asked if there were fish cleaning tables available at the dip net fishery. The City of Kenai does provide fish cleaning tables at the dip net fishery. There is a volunteer beach cleaning group that has the beach clean up pretty much taken care of by the end of the dip net fishery. Terri Carter asked about the enforcement of regulations in the area and who is responsible for that Wayne responded that any time he was down in the boat launch area, he would ask pointed question of people with out -of -state plates. The City of Kenai enforces laws on the beach, but does not enforce fish and game regulations. Tom Vania and Robert Begich both from Fish and m were both down at boat launch enforcing regulation and citing people. Begich and Game City of Soldotna, Peter Micciche- the city is getting ready to start construction on Soldotna Creek Park September 15, with a new parking lot, landscaping, and revegetation of the area. There has been some heavy use of the park this year with the new playground, additional fishing, festivals and the bathrooms are now permanent which has helped to eliminate pressure of surprises along the bank, The city had a good year with revenue. The overall 10 percent decrease this year has had very little effect on the economy There have been some complaints from citizens about the inaccurate King salmon counts by the Department of Fish and Game. The city of Soldotna teamed up with Paul Gray and created a video to see if they could spread out some of the July impact by giving people outside some of the other activities that are available outside the July 7 to July 30 King salmon period in the area h. Kenai Peninsula Borough, Dave Carey, the first phase of the KPB 21.18 is completed. There were two areas that were controversial; they are the angle of the slope and the grandfather rights. These were put aside and wit be put before us this year. There is a phase two of the more technical area and we would appreciate everyone's participation. There was an anticipation of some money for a grant for helping with the second phase of 21.18, but that money was not received, which leaves some budget issues but 21.18 is still moving forward. Dave reported as a member of the beluga whale stakeholders group, the federal body which had a meeting in the spring and plans another meeting this winter. Proposals for the $800,000 grant from NOAH to the borough should be out the third week in September. We made a commitment to share the proposal with all the user groups before it goes out for input. Regarding the Kasilof River: there was a good meeting with agencies to talk about the issues earlier this summer. There is a collective will to help fix the issue. There has not been one agency identified that Kenai River Special Management Area Advisory Board Minutes September 9, 2010 Page 2 of 4 g c. ADF &G -Tom Vania, not present. d. USF &WS, -Janet Schmidt -The Refuge had a successful year, the campgrounds were full. Staff for the summer season went from nine to 90 for the 2010 season. At this time the refuge is regraveiing the Russian River parking lot area starting September 9 and should be completed before the snow arrives. e. USFS /Chugach- Bobbie Jo Skibo, The Russian River season was pretty slow. There were no major incidents and there were no known bears shot in defense of life or property. There was an article in the Anchorage Daily news highlighting why the Russian River had such a successful year with human and bear interaction. It is believed that education played a huge role in that process, Stream Watch had 65 volunteers for the 2010 season. Bobbie Jo with her staff patrolled much of the Russian River area with very little people interaction. Most of the violations were food storage tickets and fishing violation. A bear wounded by a bigger boar around the falls area has still been seen in the area. There were two orphan baby bears sighted, not sure where the sow went. They were captured and sent to the Anchorage Zoo. One issue that was noted at the Russian River is that Kenai River dip netters were using the Russian River for flaying there personal use caught fish. People were using Sportsman's, the bridge in Cooper Landing and the Russian River ferry cleaning tables to clean large quantities of fish. In regard to the Collaborate Public Process, the forest service in partnership with The Russian River coordination group which is the interagency group has secured the funds to hire a facilitator from the Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution to help the group go through a process from September 2010 to November 2011 to look at a five years plan to work on Bear and Human interaction on the Russian River, The Kenai River Clean up is September 11, 2010 with the Alaska Fly fisherman association; it will include the Upper River all the way down to Skilak Lake. B. Committee Reports a. President's Report Members of the board welcome back for another year and thank you for all of your time and effort. One issue before us is board membership. There are six positions that are currently open and we need to get some more applications in. The application period has been extended to the 24 of September. Please encourage people to apply. Over the years the board has been able to keep a balance with the people who serve. Commit yourself and if you serve on the board you need to serve on a least one committee if not two committees. IV. OLD BUSINESS can provide the leadership to get anything accomplished. The borough requested the governor to identify one agency that will take the leadership role in getting the problems resolved. The commissioner has offered the borough the ownership of Ninilchik harbor. With a chunk of money to run it and the borough has turned it down. Rapids Avenue residents for years has been putting up with a big distortion of the quality of life that they have every right to enjoy. Some of the problems are when people believe that they have the right to go any where and do anything. Ted commented that the area has been a problem for a long time; could the area be dosed down to fishing? Dave said that is being proposed and that people still will do anything to get down there. State Parks proposed to the Design and Construction group is to bring a road across from the Bing's Landing area so no one has to come down through the subdivision area. Create a parking area and move the latrines closer to the area. In order to close the access area you have to show you are created another access area. There would be no access from Rapids Avenue. b. Guide Advisory did not meet. c. Habitat discussed the symposium and drafted a letter to support the continued KPB 21.18 process d. River Use did not meet. e. Permits did not meet. f. Legislative /Government Activities did not meet. Dave gave some suggestion that the board or this committee would like to look at. Regulation or statutory changes that could help this body. Is this body interested in Kasilof area and some possible regulatory changes that could be made'? Every year we talk about enforcement could an impact for more funding be made in Juneau. This could be a year to use the resources of the board. Prioritize what areas need improvement. g. Board Development State Parks will distribute another media release for more applicants for the Board member. It would be ideal to have three applications for each seat that is open. The deadline has been extended to September 24, 2010. h. Agenda /Board Structure /Housekeeping did not meet. Reconvene the meeting starting In October. V. NEW BUSINESS A. Distribution of Draft 2009 KR User Impact Study- Everyone can have a hardcopy of the study and we also have them on disk that contains seven addendums for review. This is a draft that is for public review for thirty days and final document will be available in October. VI. CORRESPONDENCE -The letter that went out to HEA members e -mail poll. It went out with the majority consent to HEA board. Ten clearly wanted It and one requested reconsideration before we forwarded the letter. VII. PUBLIC COMMENT -Niki Pereira. Rapids Avenue resident, Bing's Landing Subdivision. We are residents of the Rapids avenue area Niki email address is niklnukna gci.net. Niki has a couple of questions, one is how can this area be called accessible? How does the public access the area? Many users trespass, going through the orange fence putting up lawn chairs, campers. The intent of the area was to be a boat launch for the community. This area was not established to create more access to the river. Any day in July there are 30 to 80 cars parked along the road. There is no enforcement. How can we consider this an access area? More parking would give people more access. The State Troopers have stated that they would no longer respond to Bings landing for problems. State troopers do not need to enforce anything. Nobody wants to take responsibility. How do we entertain putting in more parking? Kenai River Special Management Area Advisory Board Minutes September 9, 2010 Page 3 of 4 Jack responded that this is an 80 foot access easement for public use. There is only one fishing closure just below the boat launch, downstream from that the bank and the river is open to legal fishing. VIII. ADJOURNMENT A. Board Comments Bobbie Jo will help co -chair the River Use committee. Dave said people join groups for two reasons: because they are very upset or something they want done. He invited those attending to consider this and perhaps apply for a seat on the board. Jack announced the 40`" anniversary posters; each board member may have one poster each James Cz. Interns at the Kenai watershed forum developed a video on the sewage treatment plant. Ted the last meeting been there 15 years, sitting in the audience. We don't have more authority, still advisory and push away by politics. Should the structure of this body be changed to have more authority? Ted believes it should, B. Date /Agenda of Next Meeting October 14, 2010 5:30 p.m. Kenai River Special Management Area Advisory Board Minutes- September 9, 2010 Page 4 of 4