Hangman (Latah) Creek Watershed

Planning Unit Meeting

Spokane County Conservation District

October 28, 2004

Chair:              Walt Edelen, Spokane County Conservation District (SCCD)

Present:          Keith Holliday, Department of Ecology

Dee Bailey, Coeur d’Alene Tribe

                        Gary Ostheller, Triangle Grange

                        Peter Grunte, Landowner

                        Reanette Boese, Spokane County

                        Bill Rickard, City of Spokane, Environmental Programs

Rick Noll, Spokane County Conservation District

            Shallan Dawson, Spokane County Conservation District

Minutes:

The meeting was called to order at 9:00 a.m. and began with introductions.  A meeting agenda with copies of the October 21, 2004 meeting minutes were distributed for review. Walt asked for any comments or corrections.  Minutes were approved with the following changes:

The Planning Unit requested information from Golder regarding the cost of balancing basins and dams. The figures provided were rough estimates that did not include the cost of land, or permits. They were asked to provide more detail in the final report. They were also asked to determine if the Dams would hold water when needed, and revise the watershed boundaries for the wetland in Spangle Creek.

Implementation Ranking

The Golder Storage Assessment Report was discussed. The group did not have any objections to their recommendations of pump and dump, and wetland construction, but they did not want the recommendations placed directly into the matrix. There were no other comments submitted to Walt.

Gary suggested the group inquire about the Tekoa Golf Course irrigation system.  If they are pumping out of Hangman Creek, it might be beneficial to change their system to municipal water, as Tekoa has the largest capacity to store water.  Ground water could also be exchanged for surface water irrigation for producers, also.  This will be added under Issue Seven in the Recommendation Matrix.

Walt suggested the Golder recommendations be put in Recommendation 7.a.  Bill was comfortable with the recommendations, but was not comfortable adding them to the Recommendation Matrix.  Gary thought the Golder recommendations were good, but we should not limit ourselves to only those recommendations.  Reanette was concerned about how the recommendations will be stated in the Matrix.  When the final revisions to the Golder report are distributed with more accurate figures for cost, Walt will distribute to the planning group wording for adding the recommendations to the Matrix.

Implementation Body

The initiating body for phase IV was discussed.  Walt suggested using the existing 2514 group, and invite other stakeholders to join the group, with the SCCD as the lead agency.  The SCCD will write the grant application for phase IV.  There were no objections to this suggestion.  The City of Spokane will not be able to support a grant application until an MOA is in place.  This MOA should include the Coeur d’Alene Tribe and Whitman County.  The interim body will explore signing MOAs across state line.

Coordination with 55/57 will be necessary at some point.  WRIA 54 is still in phase I, making it difficult to coordinate implementation strategies at this time.

Prioritization

The ranking will be used for allocations of the budget and is a requirement for the plan.  Several ways to prioritize the Recommendation Matrix were discussed.  The priority ranking process from WRIA55/57 was distributed.  Gary thought the importance of the project should be considered and the timeline should stay in the document.  Reanette thought the timeline should be taken out of the document, as the priority categories of 0 through 3 would include a timeline.  Bill suggested changing the priority to high, medium, and low and to keep the schedule.  The importance of an action might be different than the time allowed to complete the action.  Keith pointed out that there might be funding for only one project, and importance ranking could help decide which project to fund first, especially if there are two projects ranked and scheduled within the same year.

Keith presented comments he had received on the Recommendations.  These comments were from others at the Department of Ecology.  Although the Planning Unit will be considering comments for changes of the Recommendations, they did not feel that changing the plan now would be beneficial as there is a public meeting next month.  Keith will send a digital copy of the comments to Walt (to be considered at a later time).

Public Meeting

Golder has been contracted to present their storage assessment findings at one public meeting.  They will be attending the meeting in Fairfield on November 11^th.  Golder will provide posters and handouts for the second meeting.  The Planning Unit will present the storage information at that meeting.  Reanette discussed methods that have been utilized in the WRIA 55/57 public meetings.  It was decided that a brief overview of the process and the plan should be presented.  The issues and recommendations will be placed on the wall in poster format (forming section stations).  Each section will have a planning unit member there to discuss the issue at their station. The residents can then roam the room to discuss the issues.  Each station will be given post-it notes and dots to make comments or highlight the issues that are important to them.  The goal of the meeting is to hear their comments and gather input on which issues are important to them.

Recommendations

The group discussed the Recommendations Matrix.  Bill noted that Walt had done a good job of proposing a first cut estimate for the costs of implementing strategies in the plan.  The City of Spokane will have a difficulty obligating funds at this point, and actions will have to be paralleled with other funding for resource management.

The planning unit spent a few minutes ranking the Issues in the Recommendations Matrix.

Gary proposed adding a recommendation to 2.b concerning a specific recommendation for growth management. Peter Grunte was not sure if that is a recommendation this group could make.  Walt tabled the issue, this group needs to work with the local jurisdiction.

Homework

Planning Unit is to rank the recommendations (high, medium, or low) in the Matrix for the next meeting.

Next Meeting

The next meeting will be November 8^th from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm at the SCCD office, upstairs conference room. The agenda for this meeting will be to finish prioritizing the recommendations and final preparations for public meetings.

The meeting was adjourned at 12:00 p.m.