Town of Rochester Environmental Conservation Commission
Meeting Minutes June 11, 2015

Facilitator: Laura
Attendance: Chris, Laura, Stu, Ben, Colin. Guests: Taylor, Danielle, Chuck D (Taylor’s dad), Elijah, Meg (all here for Environmental Science class), Larry, John
Recorder: Chris

I. Call to Order: 6:05pm
II. Business and Logistics
A. Minutes review and approval from April meeting.
III. Reports
A. EMC Report – Tim
No report this month. Waiting for minutes from last meeting.
B. Rail Trail Report – Stu
No report this month. Quickly discussed last two unfinished portions.
C. Grant Reports – Chris/Larry/Laura
Working on proposal for DEC grant for Open Space Plan. Hope is that this will be built into a number of town plans. Decided to change directions and get Wawarsing to go into this with us. It will be a joint process. Both town boards approved this. Small team of Hank Alicandri (Wawarsing), Angela, Laura and Larry are working on the grant. Going for $50,000 split between the two towns. It’s due this Monday, so we’re trying to finish the grant writing by Friday (tomorrow). How was phone meeting with Amanda LaValle, county enviro department/planner? Went very well, but she is expecting a call from Chris for feedback on the RFP for Open Space Inventory.
D. UCRRA – Angela and Barbara. Not in attendance.
E. Rondout Creek Watershed Alliance
F. The Omelet – Ben. No gnus. Larry suggested that Rondout teacher, Meg, get on their mailing list because there may be some overlap/interest for HS students. Second Thursday of every month in New Paltz. Next one is in November.

IV. New Business-
A. Creek Week Alliance – Meeting Rosendale and Wawarsing representatives after this meeting to discuss moving forward on an alliance. Ben went over what this will involve. We will want protocols for liability, so we either want a waiver signed or coverage from an organization like Riverkeeper. Need to get volunteers to commit. Need to schedule trainings for volunteers, most likely two trainings at 2-4 hours each. Regarding private property, we’re fine if we’re in a boat. There’s a desire to collect data for a variety of programs, e.g. grants, for a basic assessment of the Rondout. We have a tight budget, so we’re not getting into very “high science” assessments. But we will look at color of water, riparian zones, shallow or deep, pipes discharging into river. Scope and timeline are up to us. We want to get municipalities involved from Ellenville to Rosendale. We will create a scorecard based on 11 parameters. Wawarsing is already making progress on some segments. Laura is hoping to do something all on the same day so we can work together.
B. John Boat – Tim
Flat bottom boat that Tim would like to get so we can clean the Rondout better. Stu suggested looking at the boats for sale in Saugerties on Craigslist. It can be stored at Colin’s or Tim’s house. Most likely at Tim’s, near his bridge. We have enough in our budget for this, in addition to funds for OSInventory. Thumbs up for the boat.
C. Signage in town hall
Carl approved us hanging two of our signs in the town hall area after we take down two existing pictures. Barbara may be able to do this.
D. Recycle plastic bags
Looking into companies that can use the material for their facility, which can allow us to put a bin at the transfer station to keep bags out of the waste stream.
E. Common Ground Celebration – Chris
Chris asked if the ECC would like to have an educational table at this year’s Common Ground event, but planning on date and location is ongoing. We can decide on this next month.
F. Briefly discussed the rebuilt of the Rochester Creek bridge on Route 209 that floods. New York Rising funds come later than this, so there was a request for qualifications. One concern is that this will just make more water flow downstream for another location to deal with.
G. Riverkeeper sampling – Stu made progress on testing Foordmore, which was pretty bad. Did outfall at 42nd Street Bridge in Kerhonkson. Riverkeeper is working on finding root cause of endocochis and optical brighteners (detergents). Kingston Point Beach tests well for cleanliness. Our goal in this is protecting the watershed.
H. Budget discussion
The budget for next two years will be tight because we committed to put $3,500 per year for next two years toward Open Space Plan. So we have about $1,500 to put toward our other efforts. We approved this.

I. Old Business
A. Any old business? No.
II. Adjourn: 6:55pm