Broad River Watershed Association Board Meeting

May 13, 2009

Present at Meeting: Sam Linhart, Jean Smith, Michael Moody, Dudley Hartel, Pat Kelly, Mary Freeman, Paul Webb, Robbie Griffith, Debbie Lester, Jeff Pentz

The April board meeting minutes were reviewed. Debbie made a motion to approve the minutes. It was seconded and approved unanimously.

The April financial statement was reviewed. Dudley made a motion to approve the April financial statement. It was seconded and approved unanimously.

Jean reported that a draft of the letter to Stephens county landowners on the N. Broad River was still being worked on. Pat K. had completed a list of landowners. Dudley sad that he can provide the landowner data for Madison County when we want to send letters to those landowners.

Mary said the Madison County farmers market in Comer would be a good opportunity to recruit members and she could go once a month. Debbie said she could also go once a month. Debbie will also be taking BRWA displays to the Hull Festival.

Michael needs to get a new map of the Broad River Watershed at the outpost. The one there now is fading and cracking. It is oriented horizontally and the other ones at the office are vertically oriented.
Mary says she will try to find a student to take that on as a project.

Robbie reported that the man who previously had the hunting lease on Purvis Woods is interested in leasing it again. Robbie will get some signs made prohibiting ATV use on Purvis Woods. Andy Bryson from Wyoming owns 50 acres in Banks County on the Hudson and contacted Jean through the website about a conservation easement. Robbie will send him the information.

Mary met a person who did a masters project and worked with the Oconee Land Trust to prioritize different types of land for protection. The final product is a GIS product that allows them to look at different kinds of values and how it ranks different portions of the watershed of the Oconee River. He is willing to talk to us in the fall about how it could be useful to BRWA. Michael suggested that maybe we could set up a meeting of Oconee Land Trust and BRWA and have him speak to both groups to foster dialog between the two groups.

Sam has moved the monitoring project to the fall due to low interest this summer. Dudley has completed the fecal coliform part of the ecoli monitoring. Pat and Paul will do the last ecoli sampling tomorrow. That should complete that project except for following up with any recommendations that DNR will make regarding the results of the data.

Jeff Pentz reported that he and Eric have been working together to improve the website. Jeff has been able to get the details worked out to allow the website to work better, but he needs to know what we asked Eric to provide in the website. Various possibilities were discussed. Several areas were discussed. Jeff will get back with Eric about those. Jeff said he will eventually be able to send us instructions for us to add content to the website. Right now the best way is to send it to him embedded in an email, not an attachment. He will be more than glad to post it quickly. He also thanked Jean for asking him to do this for BRWA. He wanted to do more and this is fun for him. Everyone expressed their gratitude for him getting the website to work for us.

Victor left copies of Directors and Officers Insurance for the board to review in case we felt the need to obtain it. Robbie said we needed to look at the budget first. Mary said we would look at it and the budget in June.
Michael made a motion to adjourn. It was seconded and passed unanimously.