Little Spokane River Management Plan Meeting

May 4 2004

10:00 am – 12:00 pm

Riverside Fire Station

Meeting Room

3818 E Deer Park Milan

Chattaroy,  WA   99003

Chair:      Russ Fletcher, Pend Oreille Conservation District (POCD)

Present:   Dale Gill

                 Bart Haggin

                 Bill Gilmour, Spokane County

                 Chris DeChenne

     Ann Zaren

     Mary Sterling

     Paul Turner, Department of Ecology

     Jilla Harmon, SCCD

Meeting was called to order at 10:10am and began with introductions.  A meeting agenda with copies of the April 6, 2004 meeting minutes had been distributed earlier.   Russ asked for any comments or corrections.  Dale Gill made a clarification in the Recreation Committee Report.  It should read: It was brought to the attention of the LSR Planning Committee that the WRIA 55 watershed planning unit had suggested that the whole of the Little Spokane River watershed be opened to recreational use.  The LSR Planning Committee would look at the impact of doing this on the water quality of the Little Spokane River. 

Motion was made to approve the minutes as amended by Chris DeChenne and was seconded by Bart Haggin.  Motion carried.

Open Discussion/Public Comment

Dale Gill received a legislative report from Lisa Brown and it indicates that they have appropriated $325,000 to study PBT, persistent bio-cumulative toxin, which builds up in the food chain.  Dale wanted to know if there was money to study the toxins, is there money that could be used to do some studies on the Little Spokane watershed?  Bart Haggin suggested that he could call Lisa Brown to see if there are other grants that she might know of that we might be able to check into.  

Meeting Minutes

Old Business

Watershed Characterization and the Social Structure Committees Update

Recreation

Dale Gill is gathering data on the different recreational sites to see any impacts can be identified. 

Dale reported that he contacted Riverside State Park and they gave him some monthly attendance figures for 2003.  He will develop a graph to show what is occurring.  There are only certain uses allowed in the natural area. In September of 2003 they was a very large spike in attendance possibly due to the Nine Mile boat launch ramp down at the mouth of the Little Spokane. 

When Dale contacted Pine River Park they said they haven’t kept any usage records.  Dale did talk with one of the maintenance workers and they suggested looking at the demographic increases.  The maintenance worker indicated that in 1975 you could go to the park at 4:00 in the afternoon and there wouldn’t be one person there.  On Sunday, May 2, 2004 the parking lot was packed and not room for one more car.

When looking at the demographics of the area, a contributing factor for water quality impacts could be the housing increases in the area with the lawn pesticides and fertilizers, mosquito sprays, etc. that are being used.

Bart Haggin commented on the possibility of impacts, over a longer period of time, caused by the changes that DOE made when they re-routed the river at Wandemere.  As a result from that the overflow from the aquifer that used to occur directly into the river now goes through the golf courses before existing to the river.

Dale said the committee is looking into the impact that golf has on the river by Wandemere and The County Club.  Russ commented that if the committee goes onto the golf courses, they should look for any riparian buffer areas that might be there between the golf course and the river.

There was some discussion by the Committee regarding possible suggestions that can help the golf courses.

Watershed Field Trip Update

Ann Zaren commented on how well the field trip on April 30 went and that she thought it was very informative and appreciated all of the speakers and what they had to say.  Bart Haggin agreed that it was very informative and that he had lived here for 67 years and on the field trip found out where the Little Spokane River actually started.  He also didn’t realize how much water there was actually in the watershed.

The Committee discussed why the Little Spokane River is decreasing each year.

Time Sheets

Time sheets were made available for those that needed them.  Remember to turn them in monthly to Jilla or Rick, but if that’s not possible then they must be turned in quarterly.  If there are any questions, please see Jilla or Rick.

Discuss Public Meeting Agenda and Date

Different ideas/suggestions for the meeting

·      Photos from the field trip with stated problems and possible solutions for either display or a PowerPoint presentation

·      Two meetings – one in each county

·      TMDL 101 talk by Paul Turner, DOE

·      Quality assurance plan report by the WSU team

·      Workgroup report done by committee members

·      Have a map of the watershed at the meeting with sticky notes for landowners to write their concerns on and put on the map

·      Date:  July 8, Thursday evening at 7:00

·      Meeting Place:  Riverside High School?

·      Advertising:  Public ads in newspapers

          Flyers to hand out

These will be discussed and a final agenda and timeline will be worked on at the June 1 meeting. 

TMDL Sampling Update

Paul Turner from DOE was asked to address the concerns of the Planning Committee that resulted from the report given by the WSU team during the field trip. 

The Planning Committee felt that all the recommendations that they had put together and sent to WSU were not considered.  The majority of the sampling locations that the WSU team said were chosen were in the lower half of the watershed. 

Paul said he contacted Joe Joy and Carol Erickson, who are heading up the technical review at Ecology, as well as their bosses to find out what was going on as he hadn’t seen the QAPP or the sampling locations list yet either.  Paul told them that he was on the meeting agenda to explain to the Planning Committee how this happened and why.

Joe Joy e-mailed Paul and said that the QAPP (Quality Assurance Project Plan) has not been discussed or approved.  They have not been sent a revised QAPP, therefore none of the monitoring locations have been selected.  Joe said that it was his understanding from the beginning of this project that no sampling will take place until EAP, Ecology’s Eastern Regional Office, and the Spokane County Conservation District review, discuss and approve the QAPP from WSU.  When Paul talked with Mike Barber at WSU this morning, based on the budget they can do 25 sample locations.    When it comes time to review the QAPP, the result can be movement of the sampling locations if the Committee feels that there is enough sampling in one area and not enough in another.  The number of locations, 25, may not be adjustable, simply because it is based on what the budget can handle.

Paul asked if this answered the concerns of the Committee.  It was mentioned that Rashimi said that they had selected some sites, but that they were told they couldn’t have them there and that they had to move them to these other locations.  They were looking at selecting sites up at the outlet of a lake, but that DOE didn’t want them to do that because they wanted to look at lakes separately.  They didn’t want to look at the river downstream from the lake.  Paul will check with Joe Joy and Carol Erickson to clarify this and get back to the Committee.

Acronym & Term List

Further review of the list will be postponed until the June meeting.

Homework

Characterization & Social Structure Committees will continue to meet.  Also bring suggestions for developing and outreach and education program.

Next Meeting

The next meeting will be June 1, 2004 from 10:00am to 12:00pm, and will be held at the Riverside Fire Station #46 Meeting Room. 

The meeting adjourned at 12:22 pm