Umatilla County
Critical Groundwater Taskforce
Minutes of March
2, 2006 Meeting
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1. CALLED TO ORDER: The
March 2, 2006 meeting of the Umatilla County Critical Groundwater Taskforce
(Taskforce) was called to order by Chairman Kent Madison at 2:00 p.m. in the
Board Room at Umatilla Electric Co-Op in Hermiston, Oregon.
2. INTRODUCTIONS: Chairman
Madison requested that the Taskforce members and public participants introduce
themselves and sign-in. There were 14
Taskforce members, two staff members and approximately 17 public
participants. (A copy of the sign-in
sheet is attached to the original minutes and included by this reference.)
3. MINUTES: The minutes
for February meeting were not available for approval.
4. WEB PAGE COMMITTEE: Mr. Cook handed
out a questionnaire sheet for the Taskforce members to fill out in order to
obtain information for the web page listing of members.
5. GRANT WRITING & PROJECT REVENUE
COMMITTEE: Mr. Cook reported that the current balance of Taskforce funds is
$53,682.80, there is $5,000 technical assistance grant and $23,000 of the
budget is committed to OSU.
6. NEW PROJECTS COMMITTEE: The
New Projects Committee has not met.
7. OBJECTIVES / 2050 PLAN COMMITTEE: The
Objectives / 2050 Plan Committee met and Rick Colgan reported that the
committee is drafting a plan outline to support the annual report and to be
used for funding requests. This item
will be visited later in the meeting.
8. OUTREACH COMMITTEE: Jaime Clarke will
give a presentation regarding outreach later in the meeting.
9. WALLA WALLA BASIN: Bob
Bowers reported that there was a telephone conference earlier in the day. They put through requests to earmark funds
through the different senators from Oregon and Washington for them to come over
and peer review their work. They have
been asking for three or four years and are expecting that this will be the
year that they get approval.
They have gone to the next level of approval for the
OWEB grant for the final two years of their recharge project under a limited
license. The final approval on that
grant will be made on March 16, 2006.
According to Ms. Clarke & Mr. Cook Westland’s OWEB grant did not
rank.
10. COUNTY
STAFF REPORT: Mr. Cook reported that there was a luncheon
with OSU staff. The lead staff person,
Stephanie Paynor, seemed overwhelmed by the volume of information available. She then met with Taskforce staff and they
gave her an idea of the areas of data that she should focus on. Mr. Cook is keeping in touch with her on a
regular basis to keep OSU’s staff on track and has asked Todd Jarvis to do more
oversight of the OSU staff due to the importance of this information to the
Taskforce. Ms. Paynor expects to have
the data base ready for presentation and review by the Taskforce’s April’s
meeting.
After the Taskforce approves of the data base she
foresees the synthesis will move along quickly. There is one person working on the chronology, one on the contour
mapping and Ms. Paynor herself. Ms.
Paynor expects to have a preliminary synthesis report for the Taskforce’s May
meeting and hopefully have a final report by the end of June, if approved by
the Taskforce. Any delay of this
information will affect the outreach process.
The Taskforce would like to have a complete package from OSU a month
before the Umatilla County Fair in August.
Mr. Cook reported that while in Washington D.C.
Taskforce staff met with Congressmen Walden and Wyden personally, Senator
Smith’s staff and Commissioner Keys and his staff. They met with USGS staff and heard that they have a groundwater
resources program that is 100% earmark funding. The meeting with Commissioner Keys focused on the Phase Exchange
Project and the groundwater capture and return flows to the Umatilla
River. Commissioner Keys stated that
groundwater investigation is authorized under the Bureau exchange project, but
it has never been requested of the Bureau to look at groundwater. If the Bureau did investigate groundwater the
investigation may not hold up the progress of the exchange project in any way.
Mr. Cook also reported that the BOC has approved the
membership of both Bill Burke and Bill Quaempts to the Taskforce. There is still one vacancy on the
Taskforce. New applications for
membership have been received by Mr. Cook and will be reviewed by the BOC along
with the original applications to see if anyone would like to reapply.
Mr. Cook recommends that $20,000 be requested from the
county budget. That should pay for the
rest of the planning process. Tamra
Mabbott suggests that the request be in the form of a resolution. Ms. Clarke has applied for two grants from
OWEB totaling $98,518 for outreach projects.
The OWEB proposal was ranked high enough that the Taskforce should
receive some funds. The EPA denied the
funding request and she has not heard back from DEQ. Gary Reed moved to request $20,000 from the county’s budget. Charles Miller seconded the motion. It was taken to a vote, there being no
further discussion the motion carried unanimously.
Mr. Cook reported that the Running Dry documentary was
attended by approximately 80 people and the producer is looking to do a follow
up documentary. Chairman Madison
thought that the documentary seemed to be more about political and sanitation
problems, rather than water problems.
Mr. Cook reported that the Union Bulletin did a front
page story on the Walla Walla Basin water issues, particularly the Port
supplying water to a new subdivision.
There is a lot of concern that the recharge from the city is going into
the Port’s well to supply this new development and the golf course.
Doug Woodcock with OWRD asked about the peer review
process of the OSU synthesis data. He
wants to make sure that OWRD gets a chance to review the contour map and the
documents. Kate Ely added that she
thinks that it would be better if the Tribes and OWRD were involved from the
beginning instead of just the peer review toward the end of the project.
Mr. Reed moved to resolve that both the document and
contouring map be technically reviewed by the Taskforce, OWRD and the Tribes
water department. The motion was
seconded by Mr. Miller. The motion was
taken to a vote. There being no further
discussion it carried unanimously.
Chairman Madison suggested that the next two Taskforce meetings be scheduled
to review the OSU information.
11. EDUCATION AND OUTREACH PLAN: Jaime Clarke
gave a power point presentation which she printed out and distributed on the
Education and Outreach Program. This was
a general outline that is intended to solicit input from the Taskforce
members. (A copy of the handout is
attached to the original minutes and included by this reference.)
The subcommittee has attempted to answer some of the
basic questions in forming a preliminary outreach plan. The plan is to present information to all
sectors of the public including schools, youth groups, civic groups,
municipalities, Tribes and elected officials.
The information would be presented via verbal and visual presentations,
publications, radio ads and possibly television or film. The current outline is an introduction to
Umatilla County water issues, possible causes or concerns and potential
solutions.
There are existing resources that the Taskforce can
draw from such as the Groundwater Foundation that has a Groundwater Guardian
Program. It is a national and state
recognized organization. It provides a
national network of communities with issues similar to Umatilla County. The program could provide outreach materials
and some technical assistance, including a field agent to help set-up the
outreach program. Membership to this
program is free and the annual report meets the foundation’s requirements. Chairman Madison recommended that the
subcommittee review the information and make a recommendation on whether or not
to join.
The subcommittee has expressed the need for a
Taskforce logo. Ms. Clarke suggested a
K-12 logo contest in the local school districts. Charles Miller moved to allow Ms. Clarke to proceed with the K-12
logo program. Mr. Reed seconded this
motion. There was some discussion as to
the theme for the logo and then the motion carried unanimously.
Sam Nobles stated that he is interested in having
Taskforce business cards that he could handout when he is talking to members of
the community. One suggestion was to
make generic cards and allow the members to put their contact information if
they want to. Another suggestion was
for Taskforce members to handout Taskforce brochures instead.
The most contested portion of the brochure was members
having their name and representation listed.
This raised quite a discussion with some members believing that
representation should be listed while some members are concerned with having
contact information listed. Then there
was discussion on putting the member’s general location instead of
representation. It was decided that
each member would inform Ms. Clarke what they wanted listed next to their
name.
Ms. Clarke said that she should hear about funding
from the OWEB grant in the second week of March. Mr. Cook also included that the $5,000 grant from DLCD is not
just for OSU. It is for outreach in
general and can be used for purchasing brochures, etc.
12. OBJECTIVES / 2050 PLAN OUTLINE AND TIMELINE
DISCUSSION: Mr. Colgan began by saying that this is the
first draft of this document. This
document will be a supplement to the Annual Report and the committee is seeking
input from the Taskforce.
After some discussion, item I-B was changed to “The
Taskforce is free to think outside the constraints of existing laws”. The Lead Agency was clarified as the Board
of Commissioners. Item IV-G was changed
to “Taskforce submits a draft review to the lead agency”.
There was plenty of discussion about the proposed
completion dates on the document. Most
agreed that it is good to have proposed dates to know what they are working
towards. The heading of item IV was
changed to “Plan Item Generation”.
Chairman Madison suggested adding subheading D under item II, “Start
Draft of 2050 Plan”.
13. OPEN DISCUSSION: Some members
are frustrated with the lack of progress of the Taskforce. Vice-Chairman Harmon Springer stated that
the real problem is deep irrigation wells.
Mr. Madison said that they rely on the OWRD to regulate the wells. OWRD has shown in a previous presentation that
this area was built due to irrigation.
Mr. Reed stated that the solution truly has to be what
comes out of the Columbia for irrigation.
This is a time consuming project, but he feels that the Taskforce has
made the bend from educating itself to becoming more oriented toward the
future. Due to this being a government
issue it will not move along quickly because it has to have public support to
make it happen.
Mr. Colgan reminded the Taskforce that when the Plan
is ready to be implemented and is turned over to the county the Taskforce will
either remain and get retasked or get reformed to be an implementation and
oversight entity.
14. ANNUAL REPORT & RECOMMENDATIONS TO
THE BOC: Mr. Cook reported that based on the outline, he has
done a brief summary of how the Taskforce has met the objectives of the Charter
including the Plan Outline and funding wrap up. There is also a page that lays out funds that have been requested
and funding needs and another page that lists some Taskforce findings and
recommendations to the BOC. Mr. Cook
would like the Taskforce members to review the document and send any
suggestions to him.
15. TOPICS OF UPCOMING MEETINGS: Topics
for the April are expected to be OSU interim data synthesis report &
outreach plan review.
16. PUBLIC COMMENT: Eugene Wigglesworth told the Taskforce to break down
everything in steps. Larry Givens
stated that the group should not get discouraged and continue to work together
as a group.
Bob Bowers announced a technical work group to be held
on March 31, 2006.
17. ADJOURNMENT: There being no further time the meeting was adjourned
by Chairman Madison at 5:00 p.m.
Signed for the Umatilla County Critical Groundwater Taskforce
by:
______________________________ _______________________________
JR Cook Annette
Rambel
Taskforce County Staff Member Taskforce Recording Secretary