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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2012-04-12 KRSMA Board PacketKenai River Special Management Area Advisory Board "' Meeting Agenda"` Thursday, April 12, 2012 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 Janette Cadieux / Deb Carlson — Cooper Landing Walkable Community Project Presentation III. REPORTS A. Agency and Government Reports a. State Parks —Jack Sinclair b. DEC -Tim Stevens c. ADF &G- Toni Vania/ Robert Begich d. USF &WS- Janet Schmidt / Andy Loranger e. USFS /Chugach- Bobbie Jo Kolodziejski f. City of Kenai- Sean Wedemeyer g. City of Soldotna- Peter Micciche h. Kenai Peninsula Borough- Brent Johnson B. Committee Reports a. President's Report b. Guide Advisory c. Habitat d. River Use e. Legislative /Government Activities f. Board Development g. Agenda /Board Structure /Housekeeping IV. OLD BUSINESS V. NEW BUSINESS DEC Turbidity Presentation Request Letter VI. CORRESPONDENCE Commissioner's response to the board's letter requesting the reinstatement of the Kenai River Park Ranger position VII. PUBLIC COMMENT VIII. ADJOURNMENT A. Board Comments B. Date /Agenda of Next Meeting May 10, 2012 at 5:30 p.m. 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 ENt Kenai River Special Management Area Advisory Board Meeting Minutes Gilman River Center Thursday, March 08, 2012, 5:30 p.m. CALL TO ORDER A. Members Present: David Carey, Jack Sinclair, Tim Stevens, Bruce King, Ricky Gease, Andy Szczesny, Brenda Trefon, Bobbie Jo Kolodziejski (via conf phone] Kyle Kornelis, Brent Johnson, and Jason Pawluk. B. The Minutes from the February 9, 2012 were approved as written. C. Agenda was approved as written. II. Public Comments /Presentations 111. REPORTS A. Agency and Government Reports a. State Parks, Jack Sinclair, Buccaneer Energy company has pulled out of all State Park land at this time. They are no longer operating or purp cing proposing to operate any of the exploration or seismic work on State Park lands. At the next meeting, I will bring a detailed deferred maintenance list. Our director went to Juneau and made 42 different contacts;; he has done well. Right now there are three3 park ranger positions that are being considered throughout the state to be restored. One is the Olson anus Pond, ap innear Fairbanks, our Kenai River ranger, and a Kachemak Bay ranger. - ttThey may get into the budget, but it all comes down to what the Governor agrees on. Looking for a new contractor for the Anchor River Recreation Area, it's on the web right now as a request for proposals; it's going out for bid on a contract for another 7 years. Our Anchor River SRA Tractor Launch, it is under a new operator, Todd Barman; unfortunately, tractor launch fees will go up again this year. We have a new Kenai River Ranger, Jason Okuly; he is at the Academy right now, down in Sitka. b. DEC, Tim Stevens, unfortunately we did not get our peered review report of our Kenai River Turbidity Report. It was due to us at the end of February. Our contractor has had some difficulties with the peer reviewers getting it in on time. We are hoping to have it in by the end of March. We are hoping to go out to public notice with our integrated report here this month and trying to meet with commissioner, to get his go ahead. The AQWA grants closed on the 21st of February. We received two applications for the Kenai River. One was from the City of Kenai, who is going to partner with the Kenai Watershed Forum to monitor the beaches during July and August for bacteria. The other was from the Kenai Watershed Forum, a 2 -year grant where they would do water quality monitoring on the Kenai River, twice a year, once in April and once in July. We should have some kind of notification of whether they got selected or not in the next week or two. c. ADF&G, Jason Pawluk, a press release came out today for the Soldotna Creek Drainage Invasive Northern Pike Control for public scoping meetings. We have three dates on the press release, two on a week day, Thursday March 22, 2012 and one on March 24, 2012 at the Environmental Education Center building at the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge Headquarters. The department has contracted USKH, a multi - discipline design firm, to facilitate the public meetings. We are encouraging the public to show up. The timeline for this is, this fall we are doing Stormy Lake in September. We plan to do the public meeting scoping this year and do pike control a year later, 2013. It will probably be a multi -year event. d. USF&WS, Janet Schmidt / Andy Loranger, was -were not present. e. USFS /Chugach, Bobbie Jo Kolodziejski, gearing up for the season. We have the Streamwatch program and the expansion of that being successfully implemented. Kenai Watershed Forum did receive a grant this year to support the expansion, which was with the sustainable salmon fund. Next year, we hear they are not going to receive the funding for of this type of work, so we are going to we- are- gFxng -to -be looking for new ways at-a -way to fund our volunteer coordinator. If you have any leads or ideas please let me or Robert Ruffner know. We are going to implement the Streamwatch program like we did last year. if the funding goes through, we are developing a visitor's guide for the lower river and the different sites the stream watch operates on. We are working on a sign that could go at each stream watch site. We are hoping to work with new technology, QR codes, you can click your smart phone on and it takes you to a Kenai River Special Management Area Advisory Board Minutes — March 8, 2012 Page 1 of 2 website for more information. We are also going to have public service announcements, with radio ads going out to talk about some of those key messages about Streamwatch. One that is kind of interesting is the felt sole wader's message. We want to make sure we are getting the right information out. Starting to think about how we are going to educate people. The last thing, the Russian River 5 -year Action Plan to Decrease Human Bear Conflict is in draft form and we have a meeting on April 3rd, 2012, to try to get it to the final version and then onward to the Commissioner of Fish and Game, the Regional Forester of the Forest Service, and then the Regional Director of Fish and Wildlife Service. f. City of Kenai, Sean Wedemeyer, was not present. g. City of Soldotna, Kyle Kornelis, new fish cleaning station at Centennial Park has been approved and the council did appropriate funds for it. h. Kenai Peninsula Borough, Brent Johnson wrote a resolution in support of park ranger position. B. Committee Reports a. President's Report, was not present. Guide Advisory, did not meet. c. Habitat, Bruce King, met again today, talked about turbidity issues. Talked about timelines for potential listing, whether the Kenai is impaired or not. It's a complicated process, in a nutshell, DEC would recommend to EPA a potential listing normally by April 1. So essentially, because the turbidity report produced by the Kenai Watershed Forum is undergoing peer review, they won't make that deadline. That report to EPA occurs every 2 years. Barring some action in between, then it would be put into the integrated report in 2014. However, the turbidity report, peer review will be completed essentially by the end of the month, at about the time the peer review document will be completed, there is a comment period opening on the integrated report that will be submitted, which doesn't include the Kenai. To the best of our knowledge, the first time that DEC will start the discussions to determine whether there is an impairment decision for the Kenai River; will occur sometime between this summer and the end of the fiscal year. For the board, if we want to get involved in this discussion, itwe -will put off until this fall. In the interim, for the April meeting, we would like to present a letter to the board for their consideration to send to DEC so that we formally request that they bring us up to speed on the timeline and the results of the report after we reconvene in the fall. We would like for someone from DEC to update us on everything that has occurred over the course of the summer. For May, the habitat committee will be coming to the full board with a packet we have prepared, that essentially is a frequently asked questions section summary of information that we have learned, the timeline, the appropriate regulations that govem water quality standards, and a list of potential options from a habitat perspective. We will have the packet ready for the May meeting. With any luck, we will have the final peer review report available for members of the board. d. River Use, Bruce King, we had a short meeting, going to have habitat committee discuss turbidity issues. The other thing we discussed was methods for reducing use on the river. The one thing that we are going to attempt to do is get a good understanding of what parks is going to be able to do this summer in terms of moving us down the road of understanding what crowding means on the Kenai River. -tire cd c.rd c roa Growl i ng -on -the- Kenai: e. Legislative /Government Activities, nothing to report. f. Board Development, nothing to report. g. Agenda /Board Structure /Housekeeping, nothing to report. IV. OLD BUSINESS V. NEW BUSINESS VI. CORRESPONDENCE VII. PUBLIC COMMENT VIII. ADJOURNMENT A. Board Comments B. Date /Agenda of Next Meeting April 12, 2012 at 5:30 p.m. Kenai River Special Management Area Advisory Board Minutes — March S, 2012 Page 2 of 2