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HomeMy WebLinkAboutUnapproved MINUTES_JULY _2012 GRANT COUNTY LAND & WATER CONSERVATION COMMITTEE MEETING July 3, 2012 9:00 a.m. Ag Services Building Lancaster, Wisconsin The meeting was called to order by Chairman, Mark Stead at 9:00 a.m. Present in addition to Chairman Stead were; Lester Jantzen, Dwight Nelson, Roger Guthrie, and Marvin Kettler. Others present were, Larry Wolf, Jared Reuter, Melissa Bartz, Lynda Schweikert, Kevin Lange, and Annette Lolwing. Dale Hood and Vince Loeffelholz were excused. Certification of Open Meeting Law: Annette Lolwing Annette Lolwing sent the agenda to Karla Schwantes to post in the Administration Building and at the Courthouse, also sent agenda to Bob Middendorf, WGLR, and was posted in the front of the Ag Service Building. Media notices were sent to Karla Schwantes, Herald Independent, Tri County Press, and the Platteville Journal. Motion by Dwight Nelson, seconded by Lester Jantzen to approve the agenda as printed. Motion carried. Motion by Lester Jantzen, seconded by Marvin Kettler to approve the June 5, 2012 minutes. Motion carried. Motion by Dwight Nelson, seconded by Roger Guthrie to approve the bills. Motion carried. County Cost Sharing: Lynda Schweikert Lynda reported that Steve Gehrke, Ellenboro Twp., had requested to cancel his $3,500.00 county cost sharing for his rip rap project. The rip rap project was identified as habitation for the Cricket Frog, needed permission from FSA to do rip rap on a CREP site adjacent to the stream, and would have needed smaller equipment to get to the location. Motion by Roger Guthrie, seconded by Dwight Nelson to cancel Steve’s $3,500.00 county cost sharing. Motion carried. Lester Jantzen Abstained. Lynda presented final approval request for county cost sharing of $500.00 on a well decommissioning project for Mary Smith, South Lancaster, Twp. Motion by Dwight Nelson, seconded by Lester Jantzen to approve payment. Roll Call: 5 Yes, 0 No, 2 Absent. Motion carried. Lynda presented final approval request for county cost sharing of $3,500.00 on a grade stabilization structure for Kevin Lange, Paris Twp. Motion by Lester Jantzen, seconded by Marvin Kettler to approve payment. Roll Call: 5 Yes, 0 No, 2 Absent. Motion carried. Lynda presented final approval request for county cost sharing of $2,530.00 on 4 grade stabilization structures for Doug Schauff, East Cassville Twp. Motion by Roger Guthrie, seconded by Lester Jantzen to approve payment. Roll Call: 5 Yes, 0 No, 2 Absent. Motion carried. Lynda presented final approval request for county cost sharing of $1,400.00, and DATCP cost sharing of $7,000.00 for Mike Schauff, Waterloo Twp. Motion by Roger Guthrie, seconded by Marvin Kettler to approve payment. Roll Call: 5 Yes, 0 No, 2 Absent. Motion carried. Lynda presented final approval request for county cost sharing of $934.72 on a grade stabilization structure for Joseph Uppena, Cassville, Twp. Motion by Lester Jantzen, seconded by Dwight Nelson to approve payment. Roll Call: 5 Yes, 0 No, 2 Absent. Motion carried. Lynda had a presentation of what a cricket frog looks like and what they sound like. Lynda presented tentative approval request for county cost sharing on a well decommissioning project for the Grant County Boscobel Boat Landing, Boscobel Twp., $312.50. Motion by Lester Jantzen, seconded Roger Guthrie to approve the Grant County Boat Landing’s request. Motion carried. Lynda presented tentative approval request for county cost sharing on a well decommissioning project for Jeffrey Belstra, Mt. Ida Twp., $487.50. Motion by Dwight Nelson, seconded by Lester Jantzen to approve Jeffrey’s request. Motion carried. Animal Waste Storage Permit Approval: Lynda Schweikert Lynda reported that Lonnie Holthaus will be constructing a manure storage facility. Project was designed by Larry Austin engineering, and was checked by Ralph Hemling, DATCP engineer specialist. Lonnie has paid his $45.00 permit fee. Motion by Roger Guthrie, seconded by Lester Jantzen to approve the manure storage permit. Motion carried. Lynda reported that Louis Kieler, Kieler Farms, Paris Twp., will be abandoning an old hog manure storage facility. Louis has paid his permit fee of $9.50. Motion by Lester Jantzen, seconded by Dwight Nelson to approve the permit for the closure of a manure storage facility. Motion carried. Purchase of New Computers Lynda reported that the computers that we use are on the NRCS computer system. For us to have access to the NRCS system we must purchase our computers from their line of purchasing. All the IT work on the computers is done by NRCS. Our computers were last purchased in 2005/2006. The NRCS IT personnel are having difficulty updating them and installing new programs. NRCS IT person has given recommendations for the new computers. The quotes were for 3 computers large enough to handle the AutoCAD design program, $1,875.00 x 3 = $5,625.00, and 2 Non-AutoCAD computers to cost $905.00 x 2 = $1,810.00, along with 5 monitors $185.48 x 5 = $927.00 totaling $8,362.00. Motion by Lester Jantzen, seconded by Marvin Kettler to use $830.00 from Lower Grant River Watershed Earnest Money account and $7,532.00 from the General Earnest Money account. Motion carried. Comments/Suggestions on Developing 2013 LWCD Budget Lynda presented a draft version of the 2013 budget with the recommendations from the finance committee. The wage increase would be only for the step increase, with no other wage increase, and Health Insurance increase of 7%. Lynda sacrificed the Cost Sharing Fund to make up for all the increases in the 2013 budget. No comments made when asked about cutting the county cost sharing by $8,949.80. By reducing the county cost sharing money, there may be enough money for 2 – 3 practices. She also presented a second scenario with a 1% wage increase. Each department was to come up with a tentative budget to be balanced, reasonable, and sustainable. Approval of WI Standards Oversight Committee Dues Lynda reported on the Wisconsin Standards Oversight Committee which is made up of DATCP, Safety & Professional Services, WI DNR, NRCS, UWEX, WLWCA. All these agencies get together to review the WI Technical Standards to see if there are any modifications that may be addressed. Motion by Dwight Nelson, seconded by Marvin Kettler approve paying the $350.00 dues. Motion carried. Lynda reported that we do a stewardship program for the schools; offering church litanies for earth day and activity books to 5th graders for Arbor Day. These publications are purchased from NACD. Lynda completed a survey from NACD based on educational materials they have to offer. For completing the survey your name was entered into a drawing to win a $50.00 gift certificate. Lynda won a $50.00 gift certificate and has spent the $50.00 on activity sheets titled “Soil to Spoon” for a giveaway item at the Grant County Fair this year. This is also the title of the poster contest in 2012. Approval of Deer Donation Program Lynda reported on the Wisconsin Deer Donation Program. This program has no net cost to the county; we are reimbursed by the WI DNR. Hunters may donate their deer to an approved meat processing plant to have it ground, packaged, and frozen. Paul Cook, a volunteer from the Family Outreach in Boscobel is in charge of distributing it to the local food pantries. The meat processors receive $55.00 a deer for processing. Motion by Dwight Nelson, seconded by Lester Jantzen to approve the County Agreement to Participate in the 2012 WI Deer Donation. Motion carried. Southern Association By Laws Lynda handed out a copy of the newly revised version of the Southern Area By Laws. Lynda reviewed the by-law changes with the committee. Motion by Dwight Nelson, seconded by Marvin Kettler to approve the Southern Area By Law changes. Motion carried. Land and Water Conservation Department Report: Lynda Schweikert Lynda reported that there were 323 hits on the LWCD Website Counter as of July 1, 2012. Lynda received a listing of the LWCC committee members with their phone numbers, email addresses, and mailing address, from Linda Gebhard to proofread before she enters it in to the Grant County Official Directory. If any committee member has a county email address; that should be listed instead of personal address. Lynda passed around a sheet of the Southern Area Association appointed people that will be serving on the WLWCA Board of Directors. See Attachment. Lynda mentioned that WLWCA and NRCS would like for us to do a survey of what the Field Office of the Future should look like. July 27th is the deadline to have it completed by. Lynda handed out copies of the survey to all LWCC members. Lynda will be on vacation July 16th through the 20th. Lynda reported that Grant County received a grant from FEMA to receive LiDar data. We just received the final copy in June. John Anderson and Lynda have been working together to get it incorporated into the county. Lynda gave a short presentation of the LiDar to show how it fits into the field office. The cost to fly over Grant County and to generate the LiDar information was ½ million dollars. During the fly over, lasers were bounced off the bare earth and the vegetation to get the elevation. FPP Report: Kevin Lange Kevin reported that he has been working on FPP spot checks, and expiring CRP contracts that will be rolling over in to CREP. NRCS Report: Melissa Bartz Melissa reported that there were 4 more EQIP applications funded last month; 3 in forestry, and 1 large fish habitat and streambank protection project. Melissa and Marlene have been doing site visits on CRP, and working with landowners to sign their CRP contracts. The deadline is to have around 80 CRP contracts done by August 10th. Approximately ½ of the CRP applications have been forestry contracts. The forester needs to go out to check these CRP fields that were planted to trees and to draw up his plan before NRCS has them come in to sign their contract. There were a couple of tree plantings that did not meet what tree species the landowner had told FSA that were out there. Those bids were not accepted. Jared will then go out and look at those problem sites again. There are approximately 4-5. Last year, Kevin and Lynda worked with half of the accepted CRP clients through a contribution agreement. A contribution agreement was not offered this year. Melissa reported that the MRBI (Mississippi River Basin Initiative) Grant that Lynda and she applied for was not accepted. There were only 5 applications submitted in Wisconsin. Dane County was the only county to have their grant application accepted. Melissa reported that she will be on maternity leave during our August meeting. Melissa will be having other District Conservationists acting for her while she is gone. Marlene will be representing NRCS to share the updates as needed at the August 7th LWCC meeting. FSA Report: Jared Reuter Jared reported that there were 78 CRP offers that were accepted. Mentioned that they are having some issues on some of the existing tree contracts. No trees growing, some were to have a hardwood planting and only trees found were conifers, and one individual reported that he had 3 hardwood tree species growing in each field. Two out of the three fields only had 2 hardwood tree species, and the other field only had 1 hardwood tree specie which threw the whole contract out. Jared mentioned that they are very busy with crop reporting. At this time there were still approximately 1,100 farms yet to report their crops. The deadline to certify crops is July 16th and will probably have an appointment register of producers that will need to make an appointment starting at 8:00 am on July 17th and scheduling someone every hour until the register is full. If landowners still wish to certify and are not on the register after July 17th they will be charged a late filing fee. Jared reported that FSA took on another employee and is up to 9 full time county employees. Leslie Opert from Rhinelander is here and will be working as a farm loan technician. FSA is the only office that is sharing a full time technician with farm loan. Jared is having a meeting with the county committee next week, and in the afternoon they will be having a county emergency meeting to discuss the hot dry weather. CRP has not been released for haying. Requirement to meet that release is that there must be a 30% loss in crop ground or pasture, and look at the last 4 months worth of rainfall data to see if we are 40% down on rainfall. Currently a landowner may hay or graze their CRP every 3 years with a 25% reduction in payment after the nesting date of August 1st. - Farm Bill has gone through the Senate and is now in the House for review. - They released the milk income loss contract rate for May; it is 1.21 per hundred weight. - RC&D space is walled off. Talking of replacing sidewalk on the back side of building, replace carpeting, painting walls, and changing light ballast. Motion by Dwight Nelson, seconded by Marvin Kettler to adjourn until August 7, 2012. Motion carried. Respectfully Submitted by Annette Lolwing for Lester Jantzen