Town of Rochester Environmental Conservation Commission

Meeting Minutes November 12, 2015

 

Facilitator: Laura

Recorder: Chris

Attendance: Angela, Stu, Colin, Tim, Laura, Chris. Guests: Larry, Judith Karpova

 

I.      Call to Order

II.    Business and Logistics

A.    Minutes approved. Not necessary because no quorum last month.

III.   Reports

A.    Riverkeeper result. All testing this season was done by Tim, Angela and Stu. No update on results. Discussed some details of testing sites and why there is more pollution after rain events. Stu is going to work with Larry to check out a newly exposed site on Granite Road.

B.    Rail Trail Report-Stu. No update right now.

C.   OSI & OSP report- Larry/Laura. We secured the money for the Open Space Plan, in addition to the Open Space Inventory. Uncertain when the process will start. Larry met John Michelson, our contractor, and he’s doing a great job so far. Met with Wawarsing to see how the town’s plans relate. There will be another training soon. Last training was for Google Earth Pro. Trying to figure out which layers we want in our inventory.

D.   EMC Report – Tim. No update at this time. Tim is leaving town for three months, so Larry will be the new town representative. He will be our unofficial rep. Tim wants to be the rep again when he returns.

IV.  New Business-

A.    Review this year’s accomplishments.

a.    Completed OSP funding push.

b.    Site organizers for Riverkeeper sweep.

c.    Spearheaded Boat Brigade

d.    Earth Day clean up and celebration. Attendance up.

e.    Riverkeeper testing sites. Added three more sites.

f.     Collaborated with high school students. Angela would like Kaly’s email, high school student, who has the data.

g.    Received State Pollution Discharge Elimination (SPDE) permit review

h.    We would like to have a celebration. Tim invited us to his house for dinner. He asked us to choose a date.

B.    Planning brainstorm-What are our next projects and areas of interest for next year (see ideas)

·         Boat brigade volunteers for Riverkeeper

·         Inter-municipal opportunities

·         Contribution to Planning and Zoning

·         RVHS relationship

·         Expanded DEC and Riverkeeper relationship?

·         Composting and recycling?

·         Grants

·         NY Rising watershed plan. Still attempting to secure funds for this. Will need to talk to the other towns to see if we’re all still on the same page. This would demand a lot of work for us.

a.    Angela and Laura met and suggested that we continue to work on Earth Day, Clean Sweep with Riverkeeper, and Creek Week. And we hope that Creek Week will be intermunicipal again next year. Marbletown is doing some nice policy work right now.

b.    Andrew Meyer, who does culvert studies and habitat restoration with Hudson River Estuary Program, suggested that we work on a culvert study grant. Laura would like us to meet with Wayne Kelder to get his feedback. He knows which culverts need work, and we need his input for costs. The study would look at culverts to see how to help habitat and mitigate flooding. Do we want to move forward on this? DEC is proposing to do this for us.

c.    We will start doing more planning when we here more about what we need for the Open Space Plan.

C.   Code of ethics for ECC members: Be Punctual, Respect each person, Share responsibility, Criticize ideas not people, Question and participate, Share information, Listen constructively, Avoid sidebars.

D.   Who is continuing, who do we need to replace, possible new members. Stu’s and Angela’s terms are up at the end of the year; Angela is staying on, and Stu will make a decision later in the year. Since Colin took over Ian’s term, he will also have to state his intention to stay on. Judith Karpova intends to join in the new year.

 

I.      Old Business. No old business.

II.    Action Item Review. Next meeting is December 10 at 6pm.

III.   Adjourn: 6:50pm