Chehalis Basin Partnership

Meeting Summary – August 25, 2006

GENERAL PARTNERSHIP BUSINESS

Introductions

Chair Bonnie Canaday welcomed everyone and opened the meeting. She asked everyone to introduce themselves.   Twelve of the Partnership's twenty-eight member organizations had a representative or an alternate at the meeting.  Eight additional citizens, alternates, or visitors were at the meeting. See attendance list on the last page of this summary. 

Chehalis Basin Watershed Festival

Napier began the report by distributing a sample proclamation.  She put together a sample proclamation for entities to use as a template.  Napier reviewed the proclamation with the group. City of Centralia, Mason, Lewis, Thurston and Grays Harbor counties all intend to proclaim September 17-23 as watershed week. 

Napier and Jennings reported on the festival activities.    To date many vendor/participants have expressed interest in participating.  FIN, the migrating salmon will be present.  Other activities include: trout fishing, environmental educational activities designed for children, the Centralia Discovery Trail dedication with trolley service, an artifact transfer between the City of Centralia to the Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis, Chehalis River Council will provide interpretive walks on-site, chainsaw carving, and many other informational booths.

Publicity to date includes a front page story form the Chehalis Basin Fisheries Task Force and an article in the City of Centralia’s newsletter.  Napier, Holbrook, and Jennings provided information to the Chronicle, the City of Tenino, and Grays Harbor PUD for their billing insert/newsletter. 

Monthly River Flow Report

Responding to comment from last meeting’s discussion, he revised the format.  Someone suggested he use a log rhythmic (?) scale to highlight the low flows.  He feels it’s difficult to see proportionately the difference between the wet and dry seasons in that format.  Instead he pulled out data from May-September which he thought would show the group how the flows change during the season. 

He also added daily flows to the report, courtesy of data provided by Jim Hill. 

Jennings reviewed the flow charts he created for this month’s report.  The graphs describe real time data from the USGS gage sites at the Newaukum River near Chehalis, Skookumchuck near Bucoda, Chehalis River near Grand Mound, Chehalis at Porter, Satsop River near Satsop, Wynoochee River above Save Creek near Aberdeen, and Humptulips River below Highway 10 near Humptulips. The graphs show the regulatory flow, the actual flow, and the median flows for the 15^th day of the month, measured the flow in cubic feet and described discharge. 

This month, the Satsop and Newaukum sites fell below the minimum flows. 

He pointed out the changes in daily flow at the Skookumchuck site, which is regulated.  The daily flows fluctuation is related to power generation for the coal plant operation.

A. Special Projects

Watershed Planning-Phase IV

John Kliem addressed the group.  Copies of the revised DIP were distributed to the group along with a summary of the DIP.  Since he brought the last draft before the group, he continued to meet with the STC and incorporated their changes.  Napier sent out notices to all workshop participants asking them to “formally” commit to the interim milestones described in the DIP.  Few comments were received outside of the STC meetings. 

Kliem reminded the CBP that this DIP includes only the first five strategies.  The STC intends to continue working on the next 5 or 6 of the remaining 13 strategies after the first DIP is approved. 

Kliem summarized the nature of the changes between Versions 2 and 3. 

• The title was changed to reflect an adaptive management approach, which is described on page 8.
• Figures 1 and 2 and Table 1 were added to show how the DIP coordinates with the watershed plan and the flow for develop, review, and adoption process.
• The text for Interim Milestone 1.1 was altered by the STC.
• During their review, the STC noted a need for coordination between interim milestones. When applicable a special note was added at the end of each interim milestone. 
• The text for Interim Milestone 2.3 was altered by the STC.
• The text for Interim Milestone 3.2 was altered by the STC.  They also added four tasks. 

Kliem asked the group for questions.

• How were the commitment letters distributed?  Napier sent out an e-mail to all workshop participants.  The e-mail message thanked them for participating and asked for a response regarding the commitment they made during the workshops.  She also used this as an opportunity to circulate the draft DIP. 
• It was explained to the group that a commitment was not necessarily an obligation to implement the DIP if resources were unavailable.  In many cases, the participants are really not committing to more than continuing to support the CBP.
• Is the adoption process a decision by the CBP?  Yes

The Draft DIP is available electronically from Lee.  Now that the CBP has received a final draft, the group will consider it for adoption during the September 22^nd.  Between now and the next meeting, CBP members are expected to brief their agencies.  The contract deliverable deadline is September 30^th. 

Watershed Council Grant

Daneker reported his progress to the group.  He handed out a copy of Deliverable 1, the table of water systems with surplus and deficit rights estimated and a sampling of three data sheets.  He reminded the group that the perspective of this study was to identify ways that municipal inchoate rights could benefit stream flows.

The first step included locating potential inchoate water rights.  To accomplish this task, the STC asked him to develop a table, Deliverable 1.

The table summarizes water system plan data for 38 systems – those that have submitted Water System Plans.  This covers all the larger systems (about 10 with over 1000 connections) and some of the smaller systems.   The project looked at about 110 systems but the smaller systems generally do not have to submit plans.   The table is the required deliverable.  The data sheets were extras that Daneker thought would be useful as outreach to the providers.

In early August, a letter was sent out to the 38 water systems asking them to review the data sheets prepared by Daneker.  So far 9 systems responded with comments.  He expects to hear from a more systems over the new couple of weeks.  The table summarized from the data sheets. 

Why does the table show a decline in the deficit for City of Elma between years 1 and year 20.  Was there an error in data entry?  This was not an error.  Elma corrected water loss problems within their distribution system. 

Deliverable 2.  This task included development of a list of options to address how surplus municipal water rights might be used to address instream flow needs. He reviewed a list of candidate options with the group. 

n Targeted planning

n Water conservation

n Coordination between watershed planning/growth management planning

n Review existing stream flow protections

n Water rights trust program

n Emergency conservation/ public and junior right holders

n Shift to groundwater from surface water

n Drill deep aquifers

n Sponsor a Hydraulic continuity study

n Coordination between Watershed Planning and Water System Planning

A comment was mad that agriculture does use the resource while trying to conserve water, but runs the risk of losing/relinquishing water if not used within 5 year.  The options should include a reference to this situation.

Would a local water rights trust program help agriculture?  A water rights trust program would be a way to preserve agricultural rights.  However, agriculture users don’t tend to pursue trust programs because it requires evidence/documentation of use to substantiate the ability to put the right into trust. 

He will finalize the draft with the STC and present the results of the final draft to the CBP during the September meeting.  The contract deliverable is due September 30^th.

Salmon Recovery

Napier announced that the Coast Region lead entity coordinators developed a request for funding from the SRFB. She distributed copies to the group.  The proposal requests money to cover the costs associated with time and travel by the four lead entity coordinators and up to six stakeholders for regional organization work.  A facilitator would be hired to help convene meetings and workshops.  Grays Harbor County will be the fiscal agent for the region. 

Napier asked the group to consider accepting the 2006 SRFB Lead Entity Memorandum.  The memorandum includes three projects and requests funding for just over a million dollars.  Projects on the list include: Rabbit Creek Barrier Correction, Decker Creek Habitat Conservation, and Peterson Creek Barrier Correction.  Since the regional allocation is around $1.3 million, the Peterson Creek project will probably be pulled from consideration by the SRFB before they meet in December.  The group authorized the chair to sign the list. 

Supplemental Funding Requests

Napier reported that she received clarification regarding the $75,000 appropriated by the legislators.  Initially she thought the money would need to be spent by June 30, 2007.  Recently she learned the money was set aside in a capital budget for administrative support for the CBP.  Because the appropriation resides in the capital budget, it is not tied to the fiscal/biennium timelines. 

Randy Lehr updated the group regarding the GIS Clearinghouse.  An agreement is in place to fund a full time staff person at Grays Harbor College to help with GIS work in the Chehalis Basin and serve as staff at the college.  Department of Ecology provided partial funding for this project.  He will finish the interview process next week.  He is excited about the candidates.  He will bring that person to an upcoming meeting. 

Regarding the water quality monitoring program that is also jointly funded by the Department of Ecology and the college, he is putting together a scope of work.  This project will involve monitoring by the Chehalis Tribe and synthesis by the college.  He is also looking at other options to continue funding for this project.  In particular he is looking at a source from EPA.  This source requires support from tribes and/or the governor.  As part of this project, he will ask member of the CBP and the Water Quality Committee to provide input to help guide this project. 

2003 Revisions to the Water Quality Standards Regulations

Napier reported that staff from Ecology met with the Water Quality Committee.  The Committee opted to encourage individual members to submit comments independent of the CBP.  At this time, they did not see specific areas where the CBP could weigh in with comments. 

B. Open Comment-None

The next meeting of the Chehalis Basin Partnership will be held on September 22, 2006 and begins at 9:30 AM at the Lucky Eagle Casino near Oakville.

Decisions

• Authorized the chair to sign the Lead Entity Memorandum.

Chehalis Basin Partnership Attendance Record
Bob Beerbower	Grays Harbor County
Lee Napier	Grays Harbor County
Lorna Grube	Grays Harbor County
Bob Fink	Mason County
Kernen Lien	Lewis County
Kahle Jennings	City of Centralia
Bonnie Canaday	City of Centralia
Glen Connelly	Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation
Chuck Caldwell	Port of Grays Harbor
Terry Willis	Grays Harbor County CAC member
Chanele Holbrook-Shaw	Thurston County CAC member
Lyle Hojem	Lewis County CAC member
Steve Craig	Department of Ecology
Ellie McMillian	CBFTF
Ron Mauel	Lewis County Farm Bureau
Randy Lehr	Grays Harbor College
Lee Daneker	Consultant
John Kliem	Consultant
John Mudge	Lewis County Citizen
Kathy Jacobson	CBEC