Rochester ECC meeting August 14, 2014

Attendance: Laura, Barbara, Angela, Chris, Ben, Tim, Hank & four guests (Melissa, Colin, John Messerschmidt and Larry)

1. Call to Order: 7:06pm. July minutes approved.

2. Open Space Inventory proposal – Larry

-Larry submitted grant proposal to

3. Business and Logistics

-The cap for membership is 9 members, so we are taking this discussion off the table.

4. Reports
5. Water Quality (Ben): Explained the color coding of the water quality of the mapping of the streams and banks. The ECC can do this testing as often as we can, and the process is created by Westchester Soil and Water Conservation.

-Identify properties that border streams, get landowner permission, categorize stream types, conduct walk, fill our data sheets, and grade the waterway.

-The goal is to rate the streams of the whole town and create mapping on possible sources of pollution. This can be done with all streams, but we do what we can.

-The criteria that the Rochester ECC is looking for is channel condition, riparian zone, water appearance and clarity, barriers to fish movement, pools (deep and shallow), canopy cover, insect/invertebrate habitat, instream fish cover, nutrition enrichment, bank stability, hydrology, and more.

-There was an inquiry about whether we will get Wawarsing and Ellenville involved, since they are upstream towns.

-Next steps are picking streams, according to priorities like clear cuts of riparian zones. We should also seek more volunteers to help with the data collection. Also continue along this path that we’ve been pursuing, including working with Riverkeeper, and making progress on the Culvert Study.

1. EMC report (Hank): Spent time looking at the facility in Kingston where they did a lot of plantings for rainwater runoff. Hank shared the minutes from this with Laura. She shared with the group
2. Green Certification (Laura): She made progress on looking at certification criteria. When we notice businesses that are not complying with the rule of keeping out recycling bins, we can look at compliance issues. We can help businesses comply by having something interesting, like in New Paltz, where students paint recycling bins to make them nicer and more of a community project.

3. Creek Week (Angela): This year will be September 13. Brainstorming other ideas for this because the water is so low, so we may need something like walking clean up as well as boat clean up. We should pick a section that hasn’t been done yet. Laura said it’s pretty difficult to get a boat down the creek when it’s low. Laura suggests having a planning session for the ECC projects over a BBQ with pizza, beer and other potluck items. Tim suggests getting some musicians. Use the youth center area and use the community pizza oven. Can have a speaker from Riverkeeper, and other educational opportunities, like John’s septic campaign. Not everyone wants to pull garbage from the stream but people do want to learn about it. This is also an opportunity to gather volunteer contact info from people who attend. The last event had about 20 people cleaning trash (mostly tires). We need a submeeting at Ivan’s to finalize the plans for this event. We also want to shift the date to September 14 so Angela can be there. To do: press release, secure speakers, musicians and more, and marketing materials like flyers. We would like to meet Monday, August 18 at 6:30pm.

-Saturday, September 20 1-4pm is volunteer appreciation day. TOR is providing food and more for volunteers. Must RSVP.

4. Mapping update (Hank): He showed us extra large maps of the Town of Wawarsing NRI. He also had very detailed maps printed of specific spots.

5. New Business
6. Guest presenter: John Messerschmidt. Discussion on his planned proposal to the TOR Board suggesting a law be passed requiring every resident on the Rondout and other tributaries to have their septic inspected and send the results to the town. He suggests that the ECC create a statement to present to the town board to address the main problem: the septic systems.

-Larry pointed out that the science, as far as our Riverkeeper studies and more, isn’t at the point of proving that it’s the septic systems. So this could be an expensive idea for residents when there are different sources of pollution. John suggested that if we take septics out of the equation by passing a law about frequent cleanings, we would know that the pollution isn’t coming from them. A septic clean out costs about $300, and a whole new leach field upgrade is at least $10,000.

-An education campaign can work. For example, teaching people what they can plant in the riparian buffer to help with filtration. A letter campaign can also work if we send letters to each homeowner along tributaries, but we’re not sure if we can do this. Laura will ask Carl about this. We should consider a roll out plan for when to reach out to people, and when. Connect it to drinking water so that it resonates with homeowners. This can be promoted with letters to the editor to local papers.

-By law, the system has to be 125 feet from a stream, but there are properties that are grandfathered in.

-John will start to work with the ECC to initiate this educational campaign, which (once the science is ready) can then lead to potential grant funding to help homeowners with the cost of the septic pumping.

-Hank told a personal water pollution story about how he and his wife didn’t even know where their septic was, until it was rebuilt to be more modern.

-In Woodstock the community came together to help families afford excavation of the old oil tanks that have been underground for over 50 years.

6.  GMOs (Barbara): She handed out material to all the ECC members about GMOs from the Institute for Responsible Technology. 50 countries have banned GMOs. Barbara’s doctor can speak at an event that we have. There are more and more non-GMO labels on store shelves, and it’s consumer demand that can make the big shift. It was $28 for the materials. Chris mentioned HV Current Food Security event at Rosendale Rec Center, 5:30 to 8pm.

7. Adjourn: 8:45pm.

Send minutes to John: j.messerschmidt@verizon.net