April 20, 2009 Minutes

EWM Committee meeting

Monday, April 20, 2009,  6:30 p.m.

Barnes Town Hall

Ingemar Ekstrom called the meeting to order. Members present: Ingemar Ekstrom, Barb Romstad, Mitch McGee, Stefania Strzalkowska, Gerald Gustafson, Dave Pease, Lee Wiesner

Absent: Patti Joswick, Jim Joswick. Pamela Toschner

Agenda items:

1.      Minutes from the February Meeting

Minutes from the last meeting were reviewed. A motion to accept the minutes was made by Dave Pease seconded by Mitch McGee; approved.

2.      CBCW Hiring Process

The committee has completed the hiring process. Two employees from last year are returning; Scott Bell and Kenneth Higgins. Barbara Lawson is a new hire for a landing monitor. Patrick Vanderhoof will be the coordinator. Two alternates have been hired; Allen Basacker and Sabin Perez.

The coordinator will start on May 1^st, attending the lunch and being introduced to the group. The other monitors are also welcome to attend. All the monitors, including alternates and the coordinator will be attending the training in Cable on May 7^th.  All will be paid for their time when they are in training.

Some discussion followed concerning the number of hours the monitors and coordinators will be putting in.

3.      Volunteer Appreciation

Barb has organized the volunteer lunch, which is scheduled for Friday, May 1, 2009. All the volunteers and the POA members who gave money to CBCW program were invited. Rita and Jim Johnson and Sue Wiesner have volunteered to help. Any members of the committee able to help set up chairs and tables would be appreciated.

4.      Clean Boats Clean Waters Award

The committee received the Wisconsin Lake Stewardship Award stewardship award given to them by WAL. Susan Amundson from Bayfield County Journal has asked for information to place an article in the Journal. Barb will communicate with Elaine to see if we can get Susan to attend the appreciation lunch to take pictures and get information for the article. Ingemar will present the award to the town at the board meeting tomorrow night.

5.      Other Business

·        Ingemar indicated that we need to get the EWM materials ready for the season. He would like to have them available for the May 1^st meeting.

·        Ingemar discussed an email from Pamela in which she is proposing the date of Saturday, June 20^th for a meeting with the Tomahawk and Sand Bar Lakes property owners. The content would be an update on the Tomahawk Lake treatment and also a proposal for the future management of Sandbar Lake. Barb and Ingemar will take care of getting the notice of the meeting to all the property owners. If the town hall is available we will schedule the meeting for 1:00 pm, Saturday, June 20^th at the town hall.

·        We received the permit from the state to improve (stabilize) the 40 foot landing at Sand Bar Lake. The town may be willing to help with the improvement.

·        Gerald Gustafson is wondering if he should be putting the Corps of Engineers labor on the Tomahawk project into a spreadsheet in a timelier manner. He also fixed the snow fence between the two lakes.

·        Lee wondered if we can do something to get people interested in monitoring their shorelines this summer. Some discussion took place on methods we might be able to use to motivate the owners to record their time spent monitoring.

·        The group discussed the possibility of getting a simple freedom phone for use at landings.

·        Stefania asked if anyone would be interested in volunteering to be a speaker on the topic of invasive species to groups in the area.

·        Stefania asked if we would like some of the sandwich boards that say “EWM Courtesy Check” to use at our landings.

6.      The next meeting is scheduled for Monday, May 18^th, 2009, 6:30 pm at the Barnes Town Hall.

Motion to Adjourn: Lee Wiesner, seconded by Dave Pease; approved.

Meeting adjourned at 8:15 P.M.

 Summary  of Town of Barnes Clean Boats Clean Waters program - 2008

The Town of Barnes Clean Boats-Clean Waters program for 2008 has now been successfully completed.

The Town began the 2008 program year with a training session for volunteers and staff. A light luncheon was provided by an anonymous donor for this session. It was very well attended and all totaled we had 63 volunteers registered in our program this year.

The paid staff consisted of three landing monitors and one project coordinator. The three landing monitors were assigned to the busiest landings which were the Upper, Middle and Lower Eau Claire Lake landings. Their work year began on the fishing opener weekend of May 4^th. They continued to work all weekends, Holidays, and the full week of July 4^th up through Labor Day weekend. A number of their hours were filled in by the volunteers on weekends and during the week of July 4^th. The volunteers were also assigned to a number of the smaller land-locked lakes on the busiest of weekends.

Project Coordinator, Jack Conklin, determined the weekly schedule for the staff and volunteers. He also monitored their performance, collected their daily records, maintained their supplies, provided training when needed and sometimes monitored a landing when necessary. He also regularly visited the boat ramps which gives access to 25 lakes as described, in this project area of Bayfield and Douglas Counties. Jack did a variety of other administrative work. He and the Town Clerk-Treasurer, Elaine Brustad, managed all payroll records and the payment of bills.

The Town’s Eurasian Water Milfoil Committee met the third Monday of each month. The Project Coordinator gave his up-to-date report at these meetings. The Committee and Project Coordinator always supported each other as needed. One member of the Eurasian Water Milfoil Committee, Gerald Gustafson, continues to work very closely with the Project Coordinator and the State DNR to make sure all records are recorded accurately.

The success of this project can be summarized with a few statistics, they are: 3,377 boats and trailers were inspected, 7729 persons were contacted, and 496 volunteer hours were provided. Our final project for the CBCW program year was to provide landing monitors at the Eau Claire Lakes during the recent Muskie Tournament. This feat was accomplished totally with volunteers.

Summary of Tomahawk/Sand Bar Lakes Research Project 2008

The Town’s EWM Committee has also been involved with a second very important project this year. This is the EWM Research Project on Tomahawk and Sand Bar Lakes. This project is a serious scientific effort which we believe will have a positive impact on the future success of managing the spread of Eurasian Water Milfoil. This is a cooperative venture which includes leadership from the US Army Corps of Engineers, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, and the Town of Barnes.

The EWM Committee has been very involved in this project. Our efforts have included:

·        Communication with the lake property owners to make them aware of the date for treatment in their lake

·        Taking necessary water chemistry samples for the Corps after the treatment process

·        Installing a temporary fences on the sand bar separately the two lakes

·        Posting signs which encouraged slow-no-wake behavior on Tomahawk Lake

·         Placing two buoys on Tomahawk Lake reminding boaters that a research project is occurring on the lake

·        Assisting the DNR staff person with collecting well water samples from eight property owners on both lakes

·        Organizing the necessary arrangement for the Corps and DNR to use a private boat landing on Sand Bar Lake

·        Sending out additional written communication about the progress of the research project to the property owners

·        Posting information about the research project on the Town of Barnes Web site

The WDNR and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will submit a report on their findings for the first year of this research project.  We will post these findings on the Barnes web site when they are completed.  Right now, we are finding no EWM in Tomahawk Lake.  And, the private wells which were tested on October 9 showed no chemical contamination.

Ingemar Ekstrom

Eurasian Water Milfoil Committee Chairperson

Town of Barnes