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Home My WebLink AboutLand & Water 02-04-03 ST. CROIX COUNTY NOTICE OF COMMITTEE MEETING TO: Clarence Malick, Chairman St. Croix County Board FROM: Art Jensen, Chairman COMMITTEE TITLE: Land & Water Conservation /Resource & Education Committee DATE: February 4, 2003 TIME: 9:00 a.m. LOCATION: Ag Center, Baldwin CALL TO ORDER ROLL CALL ADOPTION OF AGENDA DATE OF NEXT MEETING: March 4, 2003 ACTION ON PREVIOUS MINUTES NEW BUSINESS: Update - Farm Bill funding letter Subdivision Review - 10:00 a.m. Vouchers UNFINISHED BUSINESS: Staff Reports Natural Resource Management Plan - Dates schedule Municipal Waste - Regional - Update Education Activity Priority Watershed Projects Agency Reports FSA NRCS DNR RC &D West Central Area ANNOUNCEMENTS & CORRESPONDENCE POSSIBLE AGENDA ITEMS FOR NEXT MEETING: ADJOURNMENT (Agenda not necessarily presented in this order) SUBMITTED BY: Robert Heise DATE: January 21,2003 COPIES TO: COUNTY BOARD OFFICE NEWS MEDIA /NOTICE BOARD COUNTY CLERK COMMITTEE MEMBERS * ADDITIONS /CORRECTIONS /CHANGES UNOFFICIAL Convened: 9:00 a.m. Adjourned: 11:05 a.m. ST. CROIX COUNTY LAND & WATER CONSERVATION/RESOURCE & EDUCATION COMMITTEE Agricultural Service & Education Center, Baldwin, WI February 4, 2003 Members Present: Chris Bethke, Lois Burri, Jim Cody, Art Jensen, Ron Raymond Members Absent Leon Berenschot (excused) Staff Present: County Conservationist -Bob Heise; Land Specialists -Pete Kling, Kyle Kulow, Steve Olson; I & E Activities Specialist -Ruth Stern; Secretary - Arlene Lier Others Present: Steve Pernsteiner -NRCS; Bob Baczynski -DNR Meeting called to order by Chair Art Jensen. Bethke made motion to adopt agenda. Raymond seconded. Carried. Raymond made motion to approve the January 7, 2003 meeting minutes. Bethke seconded. Carried. Next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, March 4, 2003 at 9:00 a.m. UPDATE — FARM BILL FUNDING LETTER Heise commented that there was a band of recent correspondences that alerted the local Land and Water Conservation Department about the proposal from President Bush to seek congressional approval to spend $119 million dollars of NRCS conservation operations budget to support technical assistance to private lands Farm Bill Conservation Programs. In addition he is seeking another 31 million from other USDA programs. The reduction of NRCS funds will affect local Land and Water conservation in their effort to promote conservation on the land. Steve Pernsteiner, District Conservationist, NRCS explained in greater detail the program proposal. Motion by Raymond, seconded by Cody, to have Heise draft a letter to Senator Kohl and Representative Obey supporting continued funding of the Farm Bill as originally appropriated. WILDLIFE DAMAGE CLAIMS Kulow reported on the claims for Wildlife Damage. Five claims will go out this year. They are as follows: $4,950.00 to Doug Hill — Bear damage $4,909.00 to Robert Keatley — Deer damage to organic soybeans $1,950.00 to Glen Wiese — Deer damage to ornamental trees $1,150.00 to Stan Peskar — Deer damage to corn for grain $ 764.78 to Harold Frye — Deer damage to corn for grain All individuals allow hunting and are signing (or have signed) a hunting affidavit. The claims deadline to the State is March 1 2003. This meeting was held to answer any last minute questions they may have had with respect to the program. Kyle will be in touch with Cindy Blonk as soon as our 2002 claims are filed to the State. NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PLAN — DATES SCHEDULE Heise informed the committee that he has been working with Cheryl Bursik on setting up meetings for amending the Resource Management Plan. In the packet of information sent to committee members were the dates of the Citizen Advisory Committee (CAC) and the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC). There will be three meetings for each committee and the goal is to be completed by May 1, 2003. Kathy Knapp, DATCP will be present during the February 25 meeting to provide both committees information on the guidelines established in the ATCP -50 rules and the agriculture performance standards. Chairman Jensen asked Raymond to serve on the TAC and Cody to serve on the CAC. MUNICIPAL WASTE - REGIONAL - UPDATE Heise informed the committee that there was a CSCCRWPC (Central St. Croix County Regional Wastewater Planning Commission) meeting on January 22, 2003 at the village hall in Roberts. The commission requested that the "DRAFT" Request for Proposal (RFP) be sent back to the wastewater work group to narrow the scope of the project to encompass just the I -94 corridor communities. The workgroup is planned to meet February 4 2003 to discuss the RFP. VOUCHERS Reviewed vouchers. Motion by Burri, seconded by Raymond, to approve Chair Jensen's signature on the February voucher list. Carried. EDUCATION ACTIVITY Approximately 2100 students in St. Croix County participated in an educational event sponsored by the Land & Water Conservation Department during 2002. Interest in the Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring Program in St. Croix County has been high with three environmental groups, four 4 -H Clubs, and one Girl Scout organization indicating that they would be interested in monitoring the water quality in a section of a river or stream in their local community. Training for these groups will take place on Saturday, May 10 Planning is already underway for the conservation field days and stream ecology workshops that will take place with the schools this spring. Bethke and Burri will judge conservation posters prior to the LWCC meeting on March 4 The Conservation Speaking Contest (Bethke judge) will be held on March 13 and the annual Conservation Awards dinner will be held in Baldwin on March 27 Raymond left meeting at 10:20 a.m. PRIORITY WATERSHED PROJECTS Kulow reported on the Non -Point easement that is getting ready to be valued on the Dorwes property in the Kinnickinnic watershed. There are approximately 40 acres which will be eased. The Non -Point program will cover about 15.2 acres, the Kinni Land Trust will ease approximately 23 acres, and the remaining acreage from the 40 will be tied up under a CREP agreement. The easement boundaries have been staked and we will wait for a final appraisal. Hopefully, this will take place sometime in early April of this year. Olson gave an update on the Pine Lake Easements. The three easements are finalized with a media day scheduled for March 6th, at 1:00 p.m. There are now four easements on Pine Lake that protect 26% of the lakes shoreline. The three easements that were just completed are part of a lake stewardship grant from DNR. West Wisconsin Land Trust will be responsible to hold the easements. SUBDIVISION REVIEW Kling reported there were no subdivisions to review. Next month there will be three preliminaries. Planning, Zoning & Parks Committee will visit Prairie Pond Breaks, Somerset Township, to assess traffic concerns raised by adjacent property owners. He made comments on and discussed "Developer's Agreements" used in the town of Wyoming (Minnesota), progress reports, and required "as built plans ". Will work with Zoning and Highway Departments to explore the possibility of St. Croix County adopting a "developer's agreement ". DNR Baczynski reported: Not much has been happening in work planning mode. Waiting for Governor Doyle's budget to come out. The new DNR secretary is in the region this week. They are dealing with loss of staff in the region. Expect things to happen like that more and more. FARM SERVICE AGENCY Cody reported: • FSA will be sending out a newsletter this week with program information in it. NRCS, LWCD and RD will have a page in it. • CREP is picking up interest. Six producers are involved in various stages of the program. • CRP (Conservation Reserve Program) signup has not been announced, but it may be around the second week in April. • The Posted County Price (PCP) has been high enough that there have only been a few LDP processed on Soybeans. • There has been an increase in our commodity loan activity. The interest rate for March is 2.375 percent. You could receive roughly $9,300.00 on a 5,000 bushel corn loan for 9 months (February 3 through November 30) for only $181.54 of interest. • DCP (Dairy & Counter Cyclical Program) sign up is about 20% completed. We need to inform farmers to come in and sign up so that they don't miss the April 1 st dead line. Washington DC (WDC) is still making changes in this program, which we hope will speed up the process. • The MILC (Milk Income Loss Contract) is progressing well. Monthly payments are being made to Dairy producers. NATURAL RESOURCES CONSERVATION SERVICE Pemsteiner reported: Several new applicants have indicated interest in the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP). Jay Custer, Soil Conservationist is out on detail as acting DC in Chippewa Office for four weeks. This will slow progress on CREP. We are taking applications for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) at this time. No deadline for application has been set, as funding has not yet been approved in Washington. Majority of applications are for no -till and prescribed grazing practices. NRCS has released a list of jobs that might be available to the private sector. These jobs can be found on our NRCS web site or on the Federal Opportunities website (www.fedbizopps.gov). The county could consider being a contractor for some of this work. Wisconsin has been selected as one of four test counties for a new crop insurance program that covers losses due to following recommended nutrient plans. RC &D No report WEST CENTRAL AREA Heise received consensus from the West Central area counties that they supported a spring and fall poster and speaking contest for 2003. ANNOUNCEMENTS & CORRESPONDENCE None Cody made motion to adjourn meeting at 11:05 a.m., seconded by Bethke, carried. Jim Cody Secretary