Sam's Outdoor Heritage Council to order. It is July 29th. Um, [clears throat] welcome everyone. Uh, Tom, will you call the role? >> Hartwell, >> I'm here. >> Hartwell, present. Sherah >> Baird, >> present. >> Baird, present. Representative Burkl, >> present. >> Representative Burkl, present. Eggering, >> here. >> Eggerling, present. Senator Her >> here. Senator Her present. Kaharski >> here. >> Kaharski present. Senator Lang >> here. >> Senator Lang present. Palmer >> here. >> Palmer present. Saxhog >> here. >> Saxhog present. Sus >> here. >> Sus present. Representative Vang. Mr. Chair. There are 10 members present. >> Great. Um we have a quorum. Uh, the first thing, first order of business is to review and approve the agenda. Can I have a motion to approve the agenda? Sus makes a motion. >> Oh, >> you're a little late, Tom. We'll let you do the minutes. >> No, it's okay. I lost. >> Are there any suggested corrections, adjustments to the agenda anyone wants to offer? >> If not, all in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> I. >> I. opposed. Motion carries. Uh we have the minutes of uh June 17th. Um I'd love a motion to approve the minutes. >> Find somebody. [laughter] >> I'll make the motion. >> Thank you, Kristen. [laughter] >> Are there any suggested adjustments to the minutes? All in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> Opposed. >> I. >> Motion carries. Um, conflicts of interest to report on today's agenda. Um, Tom, I assume you have a couple since you >> I have three on the which I don't recall the numbers. >> That's okay. But they deal with uh Clean River Partners. There's two of them. And there's one in Winona with the Marine Museum, the Isaac Walton League. All right. Any other conflicts to declare? Great. Thank you. Um my comments, I hope everyone had fun reading all the proposals. Uh [snorts] um some that were new, some that were familiar. [clears throat] Um we're going to uh uh talk about what we do with the scoring that was done, but I appreciate everyone taking the time to actually read all the proposals and become familiar with the requests that we have. Um, other than that, I don't have any other sideline comments for anyone, unless they're questions of the chair. >> All right. Report from the executive director. >> Thank you, Chair Hartwell. Good morning, members. A couple items. Um, [clears throat] in your packet, you'll see a revised calendar. The only change to this calendar is showing the two days at the end of August for the hearings on Tuesdays and Wednesday. Um, previously we had uh blocked off Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. So that's the only change is just showing the hearing dates. Um, there was [clears throat] one minor conversion on June 24th that consistent with the ability for administrative approval that we reviewed and approved. It was an a Minnesota Heritage Forest parcel and it was a a private land owner access easement that actually was decreased in length and overall provided um positive results and a benefit to the land and both for both owners involved. So that was approved. Um, also in your packet on request of the council is the updated ML22 programs um with the acquisitions for fee and easement that were closed on June 30th and some additional notes that are information that came in in mid July. So members, if you have any questions about this um table, please ask. Otherwise, um if you after the meeting have some questions, you can reach out to myself or Miss Smith as well, and we can walk you through the information um that was updated and provided there. Um look for an invitation soon to the 75th anniversary of the state wildlife management areas. We've been told that this will be occurring in September at Keystone Woods WMA. So, that's an exciting milestone to celebrate. All of you will be getting invites. And then lastly, echoing Chair Hartwell's comments, thank you all for the time and thoughtfulness that you put in into reviewing the proposals. It is uh a lot of material to get through and staff very much appreciates your your efforts and getting us the scores in a timely way so that we could compile the information for all of you here today. But again, thank you for your time and effort in reviewing all of the proposals. And that's it. her. >> Great. Any questions of Christina? If not, we'll move on to item six, uh, acquisition of easement parcel with existing protection. Sharon, I'll turn it over to you >> right after I get my map up. [snorts] Morning, [clears throat] Chair Hartwell and Council. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss a potential easement acquisition uh for a 19.6 uh acre moderate quality grassland in Ottertale County. It is adjacent to WPA and several other US Fish and Wildlife Service easements and other rim easements in that part of Ottertale County. Um the reason I am here today is because there does exist uh within the larger property and parcel that we are looking to acquire our easement on a much larger area that is under US Fish and Wildlife Service easement. Um there are maps in the handout. One that shows the extent of the boundary of the entire US Fish and Wildlife Service easement and one that's uh a little more zoomed in on where the grasslands easement will be um that Bowser is proposing. Uh the issue at hand is within the larger US Fish and Wildlife Service easement. All of the wetland areas currently have a US Fish and Wildlife Service no drainfill burn easement over them. None of the upland is covered by easement. And so we are proposing to take about a 20 acre easement as shown on one of the maps um a little zoomed in. And within that 20 acre easement about 3 acres already has US US Fish and Wildlife Service easement on it. uh um but just their no drain fill burn easement. Uh we are proposing to reduce our payment by the original value of the uh US Fish and Wildlife Service easement payment. Um due mostly in in part because it is a 1991 easement. Um the protections afforded by the US Fish and Wildlife Service easement are just that no drain, fill or burn. Uh so we believe our easement provides significantly uh higher protection than that easement. Uh it will be continuous. It will be um over the upland and the wetlands. And so we believe our uh administrative policy governing how we reduce the payment is appropriate to uh cover the wetlands in addition to the upland with additional protection that the rim easement would allow including no structures uh no agricultural row crop no hang and grazing without Bowser approval and um we believe it's an appropriate uh additional protection that is worthy of spending LSOC dollars on it. I'm willing to take any questions. >> Questions. >> So, I have a couple of questions for you. Um, it doesn't make sense to me to take a value [snorts] from 1991 and say that's the value today. Why aren't you going to use today's value um in this? That's my first question. And the second is most of the time when we see projects like this um they find funding in other places for the the property that already has protection on it. Why aren't you proposing that? >> Um thanks for that chair uh Hartwell. Um so I did some math last night in anticipation of a question of this nature. Um, going back my best information, I could go back as far as 1994, um, to actual reported values of property uh, in Ottertale County. Um, the increase in property value, if we're just looking at the property value, is about 668%. Um if you apply that same value to uh the easement payment at that point, um the total math over our 20 acres of easement and covering these three acres uh is about $3,000 in the overall easement payment um that technically we could reduce uh because that changes on every easement depending on the timing of the US Fish and Wildlife Service easement. Um, it was Bowser's administrative policy to choose to just subtract the original payment. Uh, because of our increased protections on the easement area. Uh from uh what I have heard, even appraisers have a very hard time determining the value of these small US Fish and Wildlife Service areas that are covered by minimal protections when someone takes an easement over them with higher protections. [snorts] Um the alternatives and we have used them in the past. Um sometimes we uh when this occurs we propose to the landowner that uh donation is an acceptable option. This landowner was not interested in donating those acres. We can take them out of our easement. Um but we believe that having this higher level of protection on the wetlands um is actually a benefit. So, we believe they are worth paying for. >> I I'm worried about precedent. We're asked by others to do this and tell them no. Why should we say you yes to you and no to everyone else in terms of of uh allowing protection over protected areas all already? I I can't support it. Why would we do that? It's already protected. the the wetlands are no development is ever going to happen in the wetlands. It would seem that that to to not recognize current value or to not exclude those and find other funding for them doesn't make sense when we ask everyone else to do that. >> Thanks Chair Hartwell. I would respond in saying that um they aren't protected the way that they could be under RIM. there is absolutely the potential for rowcrop agriculture to happen in the dry years. Their easement language specifically says that um and I would say that um you know alternatives in other easement programs would be that we could fund it with clean water fund. Um but all of a state agency's funding generally comes from state sources. Um, and we do not have another source of funding for our grasslands easements. This is the uh the only funding source we have for our uh grasslands program. >> So, what do we tell the land trust when they come in and say we don't have any other money? Make an exception. I mean, that's what you're asking us to do. That's the question the council has to wrestle with. It sets a precedent. >> Matt, you had a question? I I guess I was maybe I just didn't understand this, but I I thought we were I thought what it was was basically looking to swap for a easement that actually gives better protection. >> Is that accurate? >> It it does give better protection, but it is protected already. And our rules are we're not going to pay for protection on [clears throat] what's already protected. and we've made everybody else exclude or pay for that in some other way. I'm worried about the precedent of when the land trust comes in, when TPL comes in, when Martin County comes in and says, "We've got this opportunity, but we don't have any other money." Um, and we've already got protection. And and I'm also concerned with using a value that goes back to 1991 is I mean come on we all know it's not got the same value and there's no appraisal. There's just a use a 1991 payment as the value which to me is concerning because again precedent that's just me. So the council has never made this exception ever anywhere else. >> I don't remember us doing it. Doesn't mean >> that my memory is perfect, but I don't remember. >> Okay. I just want wanted that clarification. Thank you. >> Joe, do you remember? >> So, Mr. your chair and members. So, the reason they're here is because they want to use OF to OHF money to pay for the existing already protected portion of the parcel. I would guess that we have that someone has come into the council and asked for permission from the council to use OHF money to buy existing protected lands. Those those are probably few and far between. Uh most of the time, uh Chair Hartwell, you're correct that um others, uh will find other funds or um make the land owner donate that value. Um and that's how they get around that. But the difference is is that like when MLT does it or feeasants Forever, they get an actual appraisal and that appraisal they can work with the appraiser to figure that out and show the math so that we feel confident that they're not um using OF funds to buy those same twice, >> right? And then but the difference is with RIM, they don't have they don't just get an appraisal. They have their mass valuation methodology that they use. So they can't just go out hire an appraiser and say, "Hey, you know, give us a value for these four acres and, you know, give us some value for them." >> They don't want to, >> right? I I don't know if they can or not, but that's that is also a difference is they're kind of um their the way they value properties is a lot different than the [snorts] other partners. >> So would you be more comfortable if there was actually an appraisal done? >> Absolutely. >> Can that happen? Uh thanks for that question. Uh cheering council. Um >> baby. Thanks. >> I mean [laughter] to be honest uh we would take the acres out of easement and allow them to exist with their minimal protection before we would go through the process of getting an appraisal to value these three acres in the 20 acre easement. And they would just be left with less protection. which I think is not the best easement boundary and and not the best protection for the property that's available. >> Can I So why why would you prefer not to do the appraisal? Just educate me. >> Sure. >> I know it's only three acres, but help me understand why you you guys wouldn't want to do the appraisal. >> Yes, council member. Um, thank you. So, uh, RIM works on a valuation system at the township level. Um in this particular program for crop and non-crop land um we assign a value uh to the acres based on information from uh department of revenue. That is just our structure and model. We have not engaged with appraisers in the state of Minnesota ever in the 40 years of the program to do conservation easement appraisals. Um, so we are trying to we have an administrative policy that documents this process in a way that is easy for our SWCDs and our land owners to understand. um introducing an appraisal for um this one particular situation uh just doesn't make um doesn't make it easy for the landowner to understand um and is not a process that we typically would do. Other questions? >> Terl, sorry I wasn't didn't have the full screen to see you. >> All right, I'm looking for the uh button that Tom said was down here on the left for raising my hand. I don't see that. So, we'll try the other option. So, what does it cost to do the appraisal? Great question, member. I have no idea because uh I don't do appraisals. Maybe Wayne, sorry Wayne, you do them all the time. [laughter] [snorts] >> Uh I'd say it's highly variable, but somewhere in the realm between probably five and 10 miles. >> My my only observation is I I I agree with David that I hate to make a precedent. The flip side, I guess, is if the appraisal costs more than the change in the value of $3,000, um, are we are we battling the right thing? But as a as a policy issue, I would I would have to agree that it would make sense that they have an updated valuation, even if that's just current property tax uh, appraised values. Yeah, I I think going back to 1991 and saying that's the value is a non-starter >> chair. Um, you know, I I would say that um it is not just looking at current day property values. It is then also creating a valuation of what the rights that are already protected within the US Fish and Wildlife Service easement are worth. And that is not the same as what the rim easement is worth today because of our increased uh protection and rights. So I it's not a a onetoone um analysis just based on current property values. My numbers that I just gave you are very rough. They're from uh the best data available 1994. It is an estimate of $668. Would an or 668% would an appraiser tell me that um you know the current protections on 3 acres of the 20 acres that we're looking at might be worth $200 or they might be worth $5,000 potentially. I would not be surprised to find a range uh somewhere in there. Suzanne. >> So, the Fish and Wildlife Service for their easement program, they don't do appraisals either. So, to find out what the current value is, they might be able to run it through their system to give you a current value of what that particular easement value is for to utilize that number rather than going through the cost. I mean the cost of appraisal may be more than the value of the easement. So >> and and I'm not trying to spend money but no >> just to say 91 numbers 35 years. >> No and I understand that. I'm just trying to give you another option. >> What's the precedent of this? >> Oh yeah. Absolutely. >> Ted, [clears throat] you know these are wetlands and there's already an easement that says they can't uh drain, grade, fill, burn. I don't see where there's any additional public value by putting it in a rim easement. And uh I'm sure the person's looking and say, "Boy, I sold 3.1 acres, not sold, but gave up the use of for only x amount of dollars. That's worth a lot more now. I mean, my parents sold a farm in 1976 for $90,000. It's worth over a million now. I wish I had that back. So, I don't see where there's any additional public value here. >> Yeah. Well, I think the public value is, and let me know if I misspoke, is they can still farm that property, which eliminates habitat value for for those wetlands. So, they can even in dry years, they can farm through it um as well. So um just my understanding >> it's a different level of protection. >> Yeah. So there is some level protection but I'm just you know whether there's another you know partner that can step up to help fund that. I don't know. >> And member bar I did I do have a call into US Fish and Wildlife Service. Um, also one of the things I did yesterday in advance of today's meeting, but I don't have an answer back yet if they would be able to help uh value that easement today. Okay. >> So, I don't want to drag this out any longer. I for me, if there isn't some attempt to come up with current value, I have a problem. The rest of the council might not. So, does anyone care to make a motion? I'll put forth a motion just so that we vote on it. >> Okay, we have a motion to approve the uh request. [clears throat] >> Any other discussion? Tom, call the role, please. >> Members, starting with number three on our list, Bar. >> Of course, I have to go first. [laughter] I'm going to say I >> bar I representative Burkel. >> Burkel. No. >> Representative Burkel. No. Aggerling. >> No. >> Aggerling. No. Senator Her >> no. >> Senator her. No. Kaharski. >> I. >> Kaharski. I. Senator Lang. >> No. >> Senator Lang. No. Palmer. >> No. >> Palmer. No. Saxhog. >> No. >> Saxhog. No. Sus. >> No. >> Sus. No. Representative Vang, >> no. >> Representative Vang, no. Hartwell, >> no. >> Hartwell, no. Mr. Chair, there are two eyes's, nine nays. >> Motion does not pass. You can come back with a different kind of request if you wish. Thank you all. Um, number seven on the agenda is something Ron and I want to propose to the members. We have in the past um just to bring everyone up to speed uh we've had proposals from the DNR for roving crews which we've all heard the kind of work that they do. Um, originally the roving crews were embedded into other proposals and they would ask us for 5 years funding for a roving crew in the southeast region and we'd give them two years and and it was part of some other restoration program and and it became very confusing um because there were multiple roving crews. Um so three bieniums ago I think we said to them please come back to us with a proposal just for roving crews not embedded in other uh projects but just the the roving crews so we can can look at that we understand they have value um but we're confused with all of this in other places and and they did that um we then go through the process of hearing the proposal for that. We then go through an additional process uh um of doing an allocation um and coming up essentially with an average allocation. And Ron and I as your chair and vice chair have for the last three times this proposal come in said the money that wasn't allocated in one place we'd reallocate to the Roman [clears throat] crews to fully fund them because we requested that they do this. We requested that they put together a proposal for two years just for roving crews, but it has been dependent on Ron and I um making a recommendation to you using funds that weren't allocated from other projects that fell off the list. Um and what we would like to do and recommend to you is that we treat roving crews the same way we treat contract management. the same way we treat our own budget that we fully fund the roving crews, the five roving crews for up to eight people as part of the allocation process. So, it's comes off the top before we do the allocation of all of the rest of the proposals. So, we don't have to manipulate um to get to full funding for the roving crews. The the formal language that staff came up with is treated as other because that's what we've done with the others. um which is fine with me. Um but I worry that you'll have a different chair who will forget to do this and then we won't fund the roving crews even though we intend to uh at the level that they need which would be a real blow to the restoration work that we're doing. So, we're asking for a motion uh to approve treating the roving crews five up to five crews of up to eight members per crew. So, there's a cap on it as other. So, it would be automatically allocated uh before we do the the individual allocations just like contract management just like our own budget. If someone wants to object somewhere down the line and say, "Hey, I'm not sure about this. You know, we we want to do something different." We certainly can do that, but it makes the calculation process a lot easier and cleaner. So our recommendation and and our motion is that we treat the robing crews in the allocation process, the initial allocation process as an other which would allow it to fully fund before we do allocation of of the rest of the proposals. >> I so move to >> we have a motion >> move that that motion to move >> this would essentially change our procedures. >> Yes, >> I second that. Well, I'm glad we have a second. We don't need it, Darl, because we [laughter] >> I threw it out this morning to see if you were awake or not, David. >> Oh, I'm still awake. Senator Lang. >> Uh, thanks, Mr. Chair. I I guess I'm I'm perfectly okay with taking the allocation off the top of the the list when we start. The question I would have is um what does that cap look like that you talked about? this besides the people, but the the dollar value, I guess, and does that dollar value actually change as the uh as the projects where the roads are used changes? Uh just so it isn't just a rubber stamp. I I mean, I think the council should take a look at it no matter what, even if we do intend to to fully fund it, just to make sure that it doesn't, you know, grow uh rapidly and and we're just rubber stamping. But uh that would be my one concern. But yeah, I'm I'm so familiot. >> Well, and and I shared that concern, which is why we we put a cap on five crews with eight people because the vast majority of roving crew budgets have always been the personnel. There's some travel expense. Um there's occasional equipment expense, but but the vast majority is the people. Um, and we felt that was the best way to do exactly what you're talking about, which is to not not create a anything you want kind of situation. U, [clears throat] but also we we should see a proposal from them every time and we have the ability to to go in and say, "Yeah, you know, we allocated full funding, but we don't like the fact that you added 13 bulldozers to the proposal, and we're not interested in that. Um, so but I know you want to drive one of the bulldozers. So, [laughter] >> hey, you got got to give a guy some chances here. >> Matt, you had a question. >> I had a similar question that Senator Lang, I appreciate they brought that up. Um, my question is what what is the mechanism then for re-evaluating what the cap should be given the fact that, you know, we've all seen labor costs change quite a bit. I just wondered what the mechanism for the change would be if if it needed to be changed in the future. >> Um, so the the mechanism would be a couple things. One, uh, we're still going to get a proposal and we have the ability to comment on that proposal and to ask questions about that proposal and the initial um, review. Um we have uh we still will hear from them. Um and if there's something there, we can say, you know, we said we'd do five crews with eight people, but there's a problem with this, so we're knocking it down to something else. >> We can make a motion to adjust what we're doing at any time. we don't have to do it which holds them in check in terms of it's not a blank slate. It's a we trust you until you're not trustworthy and then we have the ability to change that. >> So so so putting it more in a positive form form, can they also come back and ask for exceptions on the on the on the increase side? >> Absolutely. They could come back and say we want six crews. >> Okay. um >> and it's still >> then they would have to justify it, but we would lock in five crews up to eight people as a baseline funding and then have a discussion beyond that. >> So it still will come out on our proposal sheet. It'll be number four >> on this. So it's it's not like we're giving them cart blanch. We still have to review and approve every year, but it takes it out of the bulk of the other proposals. And I think that makes a lot of sense to me. So >> yes, >> Ted, [clears throat] >> this would apply to this year. >> This would apply going forward. >> Okay. So in reality, we're making a rule for ourselves. >> Okay. >> Which whoever the Wii is the next time proposals come in could say we're going to change that rule. >> Yeah. >> It's it's a statement of intent, but it doesn't commit. As I always say, you can't commit future legislators. No, >> we're not committing future councils to to not change that rule. >> It it commits us to a process which we can change. >> My concern is, you know, we now have term limits. Not that that's a whole another discussion, but Ron and I have done this because we have the institutional memory to to think this through and to come to this point. Um, we don't want it to depend on any person. Um, and the robing crews are something that I think everyone agrees does amazing work in in our public lands and don't want to see that somehow get screwed up because we don't remember. But you're absolutely right. We can change it at any time because it's just a rule for us. >> Can you clarify how you can move the five and eight again? >> That's what they're currently asking for and that's what they've been doing. Okay. >> [snorts] >> Some of the crews haven't >> 10 next year. We can say uh that doesn't apply. It only applies to the five. >> That's right. >> Thank you. >> Okay. We have a motion to approve that procedure. Uh will you take the role? >> Burkel. >> Burkel. I. >> Representative Burkel. I Eggering >> I. >> Eggerling. I Senator Her >> I. >> Senator Her I. Kaharski >> I >> Kaharski I Senator Lang >> I >> Senator Lang I Palmer >> I >> Palmer I Saxhog >> I >> Saxhog I sus >> I >> Sus I Representative Vang >> I >> representative Vang I Hartwell >> I >> Hartwell I Baird >> I >> Baird I Mr. Mr. Chair, there are 11 eyes, zero nays. >> Motion passes. Thank you all for agreeing to that. Um, next we're going to go to proposal review. Um, thank you again for doing [clears throat] your review. Uh, does staff have any comments before we get into discussion? [snorts] >> Mr. Mr. Chair and members, in your packets, obviously you see um the we have a a summary of the hearing uh selection process there is a summary that Mr. Pavvel put together that has all of the evaluation scores and then ranked highest to lowest as well as you have three different ways to look at how the scoring preliminary scoring came out. Um, and then I know that it's maybe a little bit of small font, but hopefully you can see also a summary of all council member questions and comments. So, um, our what we would be looking for from the council today is to affirm the format and schedule for the, um, council hearings as well as the proposals, the number of proposals that you would like to see be invited into the hearings. There's 62 uh, proposals. Um, so looking for your guidance so that we can help get back to our program partners with these comments in a way that is um allows them time to respond, get those responses back to you ahead of the hearings and help them plan in advance for the hearings for the end of August. >> Mr. Pavvelco, anything to add? >> You got it. So the you know the the question format I'm not sure Ted if this is exactly what you were thinking of but we would ask everybody to respond who's asked to call to to uh participate in the hearings to all the questions that are there in writing for everybody in advance of the meeting so that there's a a track of of that. Um, so that that's I don't know if we are are are you okay with what we did? >> I'm very okay with that. >> That's good. Um, and so the real question is do we want to hear all of these or do we want to not hear some of them? Um, I have my own opinion, but but I'm interested in what everyone else is thinking. Do you want to hear my opinion >> or do you have >> There were certainly a couple of that I felt like didn't make sense. >> Okay. Um, >> you know, and [clears throat] and I do I do think, you know, with all due respect, we've got to make sure that we have people and applications here that actually fit the purpose of the O of OHF. And I felt like I felt like the the museum one did not did not fit. I probably will send some money personally to that because I think it's an awesome program, but it just doesn't to me fit the the the the guidelines for what we have here. Any other comments? >> So my usual comment here is what's that fit really well and we just come up with a cut off number and leave it at that. which is contrary to what I know. >> I can't hear you, Susan. >> Can you speak up? Daryl's having a hard time hearing. >> Sorry. >> Sorry, Darl. What I I said was that um you know, normally my position is let's hear them all. uh give everybody a chance because some people's proposals on face value are very very strong but then when we hear them you know we have other questions and concerns whereas there are some that are really strong proposals but just don't come across in writing well but there are this year but I have concerns about a couple of them and I don't know whether we should just come up with a cuto off number, but I would like to make sure that we give the majority, if not almost all of them, the opportunity to to speak. >> I I support Suzanne in that one. I I think that we've got a lot of folks there and and some of them have some pretty low scoring. I know last year I suggested can we cut off the bottom 20% or something but uh I think as well if we're going to do good vetting uh I don't know we have time to hear all of them and if they're ranked low in our scoring it would seem like that would be an easy way to to do a cuto off. I hearing them all. I just also don't want to be disingenuous and waste someone's time. You know, that's that's my concern. It's has nothing to do with anything other than that. >> There were three that scored less than 70 collectively and and the lowest was the the uh uh museum, which didn't strike me as a strong proposal in that they don't have permanent protection on the property. It's $600,000 an acre. They're going to take out a retaining wall on a river that will flood, which is concerning. Um, but the the bang for the buck isn't there for me. Um, and the fact that it's not permanently protected excludes it. Uh, the fact that they're going to seek permanent protection isn't everyone else says we're going to do it. They're not doing that. That's a problem for me. uh camp Ripley there was no match. I mean this is part of of a big government program and they can't come up with any match at all concerned me and uh the acquisition and restoration of terrace wetland complex and potential fen characteristics. I read it and there were so many questions because I don't think they understand their potential calccarious fence. Well, I don't want to fund a potential. There either is or there isn't. Um, I think they need to come back later with a more solid proposal. I I think that they could use some help, but I don't think they're ready for prime time. So, my recommendation would be that we look at the scores and anything that got 72 70 and above we hear and we exclude uh the three proposals that did not get that. I'm I will say that 01, two, and three, many of us didn't score along with CPL. Um there were a couple that got no score for that. Um those we ought to hear. Um I'm talking about the the PA O2, FAO1, and HRE1. So my recommendation to you is that we hear everything except for those three proposals. So the camp one um large amount of familiarity with and I don't understand why they've got huge amounts of match that they could have put down and I don't understand why they didn't put that down but their failure >> because we can only rank it based on what's in front of us and so I'm assuming that they should have plenty of money to do a lot of this because they get just I wanted to clarify. >> Yeah, it just didn't make sense. >> Ted, did you have your hand up? >> Yeah, there's to the m speak to the microphone. So, >> there's kind of two ways I look at it. One is I like the 70% because that's everything from passing nth grade history to you name it. And secondly, there's only one place in the entire list where the breakin score is more than one uh [snorts] whole digit and it's takes those three out. So my initial reaction is those three should go. I don't know if I'm allowed to speak on that because I have a conflict of interest on one of the three. >> You're allowed to speak because we know you have the conflict and you declared it. Well, well, looking [clears throat] back over the the years, you know, I think the idea of the two bites at the apples is not a bad one. Uh, you know, if we we've all spent the time to read over those proposals. takes takes a lot of time, but if you do a good job, you you get a pretty good idea uh without [clears throat] well, you know, I I'm I I don't like spending a lot of time uh uh uh grading things, but so but I but if I read them all, I I've got a pretty good idea what's going on. different ways of communicating though and I think over the years we found out that there's been people that have come in here that haven't really had a very good proposal at least not as good as the lot of them and and have presented well and uh and consequently did pretty well. So, um I don't disagree with the bottom three going out, but I think it's important that uh uh I I give I I give the most to the communication uh that happens when you read the actual proposal and then listen to the presentation. >> Um I [clears throat] I can be okay with us cutting off the last three because because for the reasons that are here. I will point out that I have a I I do have a little bit of gas on that because I I I separate HRE1 from PA2 for instance. PAO2 I just don't understand enough about it. I'd like to be educated more on that. Um it could be actually a really cool program but it's really foreign to us and I I don't I just don't understand it. I feel like that's much different than HRE 11, which it's pretty clear what it's what it is, and it just doesn't fit our our requirements. So, I I have a little bit of a challenge with this cut off at 70. [clears throat] I I can I can be supportive, but I have a little challenge particularly because we have some members who actually didn't even give a score of 70. So saying that that the a that that average is is a good cutoff is a little bit off because each member each member has its own different different scale on scoring. So that I just bring that up and I have that's why I have a little trouble grouping these three together as as one. So, someone want to make a motion to do something or do you want me to or >> I'll make a motion to not consider the anything less than 70? >> Okay. >> Not including the things that we have to do. >> So, the motion is to not in not include PAO2, FAO1, HRE1 and hear everything else. That's the motion. Comments on the motion. Yeah, just I just want some a little bit of clarity here that this is we're not setting a rule. We're just >> No, this is just what we're going to have in front of us this year. >> What we're going to consider this year >> this year. So, it could change for next year. >> Absolutely. And should >> Thank you. >> And Mr. Chair, we we have cut off before. >> We've done all sorts of different things before. We've cherrypicked. We've cut off. We've heard them all. We we get to decide every year. Any other comments? We have a motion. Tom, will you call the role? >> Member starting with number five on your list. Agger. >> I. >> Eggerling. I. Senator Her >> I. >> Senator her. I Kaharski. >> I. >> Kaharski. I. Senator Lang. >> I. >> Senator Lang. I >> Palmer. >> I >> Palmer. I Saxhog. >> I >> Saxhog. I sus. >> I >> Sus. I Representative Vang. >> I >> Representative Vang. I Hartwell. >> I >> Hartwell. I Baird >> I. >> Baird. I Representative Burkel. >> Burkel. I. >> Representative Burkel. I. Mr. Chair. There are 11 eyes, zero nays. >> Great. We now have our calendar for hearings. Um, just to remind you, the hearings will be the 28th and 20 the sorry, the 25th and 26th of August, Tuesday and Wednesday. >> Prepare for long days. Um, we are going to have food here so we don't have to go out um to try to make it a little easier um and compress our lunch time. We will take a break the morning and the afternoon, maybe 10 minutes. Um, and we will have time at the end of each day to have a general discussion about what everyone's reaction was to proposals that we heard, what you loved, what you are concerned about, what you want additional information about, what you don't like. um what it is a time for us to discuss um and debrief from the day and and please plan on staying a little late so that we can do that. Great. Thank you all. Um next is uh um agenda item nine uh CPL program modifications. Uh this is an update for how CPL is going to uh handle the uh funding that they were given and our recommendation and the legislative action. Perfect. Okay. Um Mr. Chair and council members, thank you for having me here today uh to discuss how we are responding to the legislative changes to the CPL program for the year. Um for the record, my name is David Stein. I'm the coordinator of the CPL program. And I'll just go ahead and get started. Um in your packet for today, there should be a memo that outlines our uh pretty in-depth ways that we are going to uh run the program this year, but I thought I would provide a brief update uh via presentation just to go over that. um just make sure that everyone's on the same page. So, uh gonna start with some brief background. You all probably know this, but uh doesn't hurt to go over it again. Um the CPL program was created alongside the legislative amendment that uh created the constitutional amendment. Um the legislation required a conservation partners program to encourage and support local conservation efforts. Um this was to provide uh smaller matching grants to uh restore, protect and enhance prairies, forests, wetlands and habitat for fish, game and wildlife. And the funding comes from the same sales tax. So this is just a brief outline of how the uh grant organization is for this year. Um it's split between smaller and larger grants. this year. The larger grants are just metro grants as outlined in the legislator or the legislative uh decisions this year. And our smaller grants are again uh called expedited conservation projects. Um again, they need to be within the metro area as well. Um so they all need to operate on that same rule. So the metro grants we are going to be giving 11.1 million of our 13.1 million allocation uh minus the admin costs. Um, again, these are larger grants. They range between $5,000 and $500,000. Uh, we'll have up to two grant cycles. Um, this year, I'm assuming we are going to have both grant cycles. Uh, private land is allowed under permanent conservation easements. Uh, the big thing here is acquisitions are allowed under these larger grants, and they're open-ended habitat projects, so they can range in uh very wide scales, and they're not limited to a list like our expedited ones are. for expedited conservation projects. This year we are allocating 2 million of our uh total allocation. Um again we have up to five grant cycles. That's mostly on a rolling basis. We'll announce grants about every other month for this one. Um they're smaller between $5,000 and $75,000. Uh private land is allowed again under permanent conservation easement. There are no acquisitions allowed in this one just because they are expedited projects and they need to be hitting the ground running and it's very hard to find an acquisition of 75,000 and below. Um, and it's limited to a certain list of activities. Um, those range on habitat types. Um, so there are a list of prairie projects, a list of accepted forest projects, uh, wetland projects, etc. Um, those are available on our website if you [clears throat] wanted to go ahead and review those. So again, just brief overview here. under the metro cycle. Um, again, these are large grants between $5,000 and $500,000. The total project cost, which is the grant funding that we provide as well as match, and any additional funding that the grantee is bringing cannot exceed $1 million. Um, the point of these uh projects are to be small grants. So, it needs to be under that $1 million threshold. And as per the legislative rules this year, all uh large projects need to take place within the 7count metro area. Uh this is a noa, Carver, Dakota, Henipin, Ramsey, Scott, and Washington as well as within the city limits of Duth, St. Cloud, and Rochester. Uh and that's determined by population. Those are all five or 50,000 people and above. Again, the expedited conservation projects are small projects. These are restoration enhancement projects only. So, no acquisitions. Um, between $5,000 and $75,000. These are small projects kind of hitting the ground running. Um, they have a very quick evaluation and award period. So, we will award these about every other month. Uh, only certain projects are covered determined on habitat type. Again, those are listed on our website if you want to know more. Um and this year again due to the legislative changes these must occur within the 7count metro area as well as the city limits of those cities with 50,000 people or more. So I want to start out with just saying what will not be changing um based on this new legislative language. Um the the application evaluation criteria will remain the same. We are not changing how we score projects. Um the review and award processes will not be changed. These are at this point pretty welloiled machines. Um they pretty much take advantage of what we can do within a fiscal year. So those will not be changing. We're not going to be tweaking that at all. Um the OGM guidelines and reporting requirements, those are uh what we have to operate under. So those will also not be changing. Our current high standards for habitat projects will not be changing. We will be again scoring based on our previous scoring criteria. Um they need to follow the exact same guidelines that we set out before. We don't want to just fund things just to use up funds. We want to make sure that we are getting highquality habitat on the landscape. And it will not change anything about currently open CPL projects. So those who are out of state right or outstate right now, uh those projects will not be changing. They're still funded. Those have all been encumbered and executed. Um, this will just have to do with this fiscal year. So, I want to start out with just going over the changes, how we're really going to start out. And this really starts with grantee outreach. So, I split this up between three different uh goals that we have this year. Um, the first goal is maintaining our statewide partners. Um, unfortunately, a lot of them cannot participate this year just because they are outstate. They're outside of where the legislative uh language uh directs us to spend money. So, finding ways to incorporate them within this new framework is really important on our end. So, we've been reaching out to our larger statewide partners and seeing if there's any opportunities where they can partner with more uh in metro organizations or if they have any ideas on where to uh go ahead and partner on new projects. So, we've had some discussions with certain organizations who just don't have the capacity to do it this year. But on the other hand, we have organizations who are moving into the metro area and starting new projects. So, it's kind of a take them where we got them at this point. So, we are really opening the door for partnerships to build between the metro area uh land and the outstate organizations who can actually contribute uh to providing new projects on this land. We're also focusing on our current metro partners and making sure that we are uh advertising what this year is going to look like. So, as you know, we do have a lot of money that we are able to spend within the metro area. So, part of our goal this year is really getting the word out and making sure that uh our current partners know that we have all of this money available. And we're looking for good projects to happen on the ground. Um, we want to know who will not be applying, who will be applying, and if we know who's going to be applying, discussing any potential projects and going over uh eligibility requirements and really using our knowledge to say, "Yes, this is a great project. We want you to apply." Um, something that we have been learning as we have been doing this more uh outreach focus in the metro area is there is a issue about capacity. A lot of our current partners in the metro area want to do a lot more projects, but they just simply don't have the staff. They don't have the time and they don't have the uh I I guess just capacity to do these projects. Uh so it's like giving someone lottery winnings and they have no way to spend it. Um, with that, we are developing ways that we can tweak the CPL program a little bit, which I'll discuss in a little bit to try to encourage more capacity building this year and moving beyond. Again, these are small fixes that will hopefully have a large impact. And then finally, new partner outreach. This is something that we've been doing over the last couple years when we did have that dedicated uh new applicant round where new applicants competed against each other for CPL funds. Um, so we're going to be continuing with those lessons on how to get them more involved with the program. So what the CPL program has done between myself and my staff is we've developed a general list of organizations that are in the metro. These are a list of all cities, all townships, all counties, um, all NOS's, all school districts and institutions of higher education, tribal governments and federal partners that we can then work with. Uh so we've been going and splitting them up between staff members and just trying to again spread the word on what is going on, what opportunities exist, and how we can help. Um again, just to introduce them to the CPL program at large. So I'm going to go over some ways that we are changing our capacity building uh within the CPL program. Again, these are simple, small tweaks to the program that will hopefully have a larger impact moving forward. Um, I want to start out that these are not going to be just a one-year change. These are ways that we are looking to change the program moving forward again so we can continue to build capacity regardless of what the legislative rules are. So, the first one that I wanted to discuss is pre-awward match. This is match costs that can be uh allocated to the program for work that was done prior to applying. So, these would be things like making phone calls to potential partners, things like developing engineering and design costs, things like uh drafting up management and restoration plans, things that can really be used for a project but just happened before the project took place. Um, the way that we want to change this here is that we want to make sure that those who were going to be applying from the statewide area still have a chance to use that effort for their future awards. So, just for example, we have been speaking to various small communities in the statewide uh realm who have really been focusing on engineering and designing and wanted to apply this fiscal year. Unfortunately, now that the legislative rules have been established, they cannot apply this fiscal year, but they still did all of that backlog of work. So, we want to make sure that that can be applied for a potential round next year. So, we had doubled the uh months of uh availability that that uh entails. So, previous rules in the CPL program were that pre-awward match uh within 18 months of an application submission date was allowed. We doubled that to 36 months so we can address that potential backlog of pre-awward match that might not show up until next year. Um, additionally, we had shifted biological surveys away from pre-awward match to just being towards regular match. So, that is still allowed. it's just not allowed for uh grant funding to be used but match for that biological survey data can be used. I'll then talk about changes to match. Again, our match remains at 10%. That is our hard guideline. That has not changed. Again, um again, just for posterity, our match is usually averaging around 20% or so. Um usually our grantees like to contribute more than 10%, but that minimum still remains. So, for this fiscal year, uh again, this is just for capacity building. The following budget items will now be allowed as match. So again that biological survey um people who want to do volunteer events like biob blitzes or want to hire someone to know what's on the landscape uh in the sites that are going to be as a part of the CPL program or part of their CPL project. Those are going to be allowed as match. Additionally, planning expenses for educational or volunteer events will be that will be taking place on project sites will then be allowed. Um, previously we allowed for the actual volunteer events or the actual education event uh money to be to to be spent towards match, but the planning to actually set that up was not allowed. So, we're expanding that out. So, everything from the project uh inception through the planning through the execution will all be allowed as match as long as it takes place on their CPL project uh boundaries. And finally, the biggest one is going to be allowing capital expenses of uh valued at $10,000 or below. Um, previously we have not allowed any capital expense costs whatsoever. Not for match, not for pre-awward match, not for uh reimbursement. This is a change that we will be implementing again to hopefully build capacity if we have grantees who can now uh use any capital expense uh planning in their uh drafting up of a CPL grant or use as match and get that covered. That is hopefully going to be uh an incentive for more people to get involved in the CPL program. Um, the caveat here is that we were only going to be allowing a maximum of $10,000 worth of capital expense money to be used as match. We don't want to see people just keep buying $10,000 pieces of equipment over and over and over again and build that up as match. They're limited to $10,000. Hopefully, that will get them one great piece of equipment that they can then use for more projects in the future. And finally, we're going to talk about changes to our reimburseable expenses. These are things that will be allowed as program costs and we will be able to reimburse them. Um, again, these are just slight tweaks to help build capacity. Starting off, we have travel expenses. Uh, originally we only allowed 1% of the CPL budget to go to travel expenses. We are increasing that to 3% based on current fuel costs um and those not seemingly coming down anytime soon. So we want to make sure that our grantees have uh that level of assistance available to help them cover those travel costs. Personnel costs are similar again with inflation not ramping down anytime soon. We are hoping to increase this again from 10% to 15%. Again, not a large change, but a significant one to help uh cover uh personnel costs that might pop up for those new applicants wanting to get involved in the CPL program. Finally, interpretive signs and hand tools and uh personal protective equipment. Again, those were never allowed as CPL costs, but with a uh especially in the metro with more eyes on these projects, having interpretive signs available and ready to be uh utilized by the general public, I'm hoping that that will increase the visibility of the program and allow uh people to learn more about what's going on in terms of habitat restoration and enhancement. And hand tools and PPE again are a big uh capacity building uh expense that I want to build up a little bit more. Uh with those uh increases in hand tools and PPE expenses, hopefully uh that leads to more projects and more capacity to do projects down the line. Again, just an overview of the CPL project or CPL program. This is a current map of our project distribution. You can see we are all over the state. We funded over 1100 projects between 2010 and 2026 uh through more than 290 government and nonprofit organizations. Um we are hoping to again increase this. We have plenty of metro partners that will be new applicants if we can get them to buy into the program. Uh but what I want to end on is all of your help is essential, especially those within the metro area. If you know of a project or if you know of an organization who's looking to do this type of great habitat work, please let them know that this funding is available. Uh we do outreach on our own uh uh on our own time, but sometimes that's not enough. If you have personal connections in the metro area, please let them know that we are available to help and we want to fund great projects here in the metro this year. And with that, I'll take any questions. >> Question. >> You gonna get a lot of them. >> No [laughter] time. >> Daylighting. >> Daylight lighting failing. >> Mhm. >> Lake Lang Creek project is it was one of this approved by this committee at some point. Would that would that be >> would they be able to apply this on this grant? >> That's a hard question. Um, we actually did uh have to deny daylighting Failing Creek because it was part of the same large project. So, that was above $1 million, which is our cutoff. So, if they do a phase two or if they do a different project that's connected to it, but not part of the same framework, we would be able to fund it. Um, it's just within that larger framework of the Daylighting Failing Creek project. That's a massive project and we just can't do it under our own statutes. Can I have follow a separate question, but uh how do you do outreach? Then >> right now it's limited to either cold calls or cold emails or visiting different organizations. So I know one of my staff went to the Metro Conservation Network meeting that was held I think last week um letting them know what we have to offer. Um but we are at this point limited to mainly either virtual or phone call outreach. Ted, you had your hand up, right? You don't you don't have a question. >> Well, I don't have a question. I just want to say I'm involved in at least three and maybe four organizations in the metro area and we all get uh emails and texts and lots of communication about this program. >> Great. >> Yep. Thank you guys. So I just need some clarification because I'm still kind of new to this program and such and you know it talks about it's a metro program >> but you have projects all over the state. Can you clarify that for me? >> Yes. So the distinction between statewide and metro grants happened I believe as part of a initial legislative uh effort. Um originally it was just one pool of money that was for every single project but as the program matured um there was s there were specific cutouts for projects happening in the metro >> and projects that were expedited this year due to legislative language. Everything needs to happen in the metro. >> Um this was part of dealm at the end of session. Um so we are limited by that legislative language that we now have to do everything within the metro >> just for this year. >> Just for this year um so far. >> All right. Thanks for that clarification. >> Tom [clears throat] >> and Mr. Stein, what what is your uh interpretation of uh why the legislature uh developed this new strategy? [laughter] >> All that is a great question. Um >> we'll ask we'll ask the senator. [laughter] >> I from my understanding it was part of getting the legacy bill passed. Um it was a concession from both parties. um that to get what each party was looking for the it was just part of making a deal and um that's I'm work again I'm working from very limited information so um I don't know the full uh story of it but I know it was part of getting the bill passed and um it was it was just a concession that was made >> senator >> yeah I think Mr. Stein answer very very well and um um yeah including including the term limits was part of the negotiation if I can brief members on that. Yeah. >> Go ahead. No, I I read the negotiation was including the whole package with the uh board member term limits along with the the uh CPL program. So that's part of negotiation. >> Uh Darl, >> David, uh question for you here. Mhm. >> I you when I when I listen to what you're doing for changes, I mean, it seems to me like you're struggling to find and [clears throat] I'm not just looking at Metro, but it looks like if you're changing your program, you're struggling to find more folks that are able to apply. You're expanding match things, all these the capital side. It it looks like you're just struggling to make ways to expand the program. yet our dollars from the OFF fund aren't necessarily going to habitat as a result of those changes and I am concerned about that. >> Yep. Thank you for that question. Um I can say with confidence that we are not struggling to find new applicants every year. We typically within one grant round will use all of our funds. Uh these changes are mainly just to address a lot of the concerns that we're having with our current partners. Um these have been uh concerns that are raised usually when we go out and do our monitoring of these projects. We usually ask if people have feedback for the program and what they would like to see changed. And typically it's these small fixes that they want to see changed within the program. It would make getting their projects done a lot easier. Um, with the new legislative changes, I will say that it has caused a bit of concern with getting Metro Partner buyin. Um, traditionally, taking just taking a look at our trends, the Metro round has usually been the least popular and it's been the one that's been least used. Um, again, there are plenty of reasons beyond behind this uh between capacity and organizations in the metro just not needing the funds. So the idea behind these changes have really been to not only address that current uh pressing issue with getting more metro buyin, but also responding to uh these concerns and these wants for change that have been occurring since I started. Um I don't know if uh the council remembers several years ago the personnel cost was 7.5%. Which really doesn't get you very far. Um even when it was there I think that was a determination back from when the program started in 2010 2011. So that had changed to 10% and even then that was still pretty minimal change. So these are just small incremental changes that would need to happen regardless again depending on uh inflation and the cost of services increasing anyway. Um but uh the initial push for getting these done now is to address this current legislative language. >> Thank you. >> Uh Samantha. >> Thank you. Um, I have a question. Um, because I want to get want to make sure that we do have more, you know, city government and local units of governments be able to apply for these like what are some like activities that are applicable under the CPL program that that the city governments or local units of government can apply for? >> Yeah, that's a great question. So, uh, you can think of CPL as operating under similar rules to the Outdoor Heritage Council. So, we're looking at habitat restoration, enhancement, and then protection or acquisition. So, just speaking off the top of my head for local units of government, some of the more popular uh requests that we get have been things like buckthornne removal or other invasive species removal for enhancement. uh going into a local city park or a local wildlife refuge or a local uh management area and taking care of the ecosystems that are there through invasive species removal. Another popular thing has been uh when a city or a county buys a new piece of land and needs to convert it back into native habitat, that would be another applicable project. Um, so this would be things like tree planting or prairie planting or site prep for these future activities for getting these habitats put into place. Um, shoreline restoration has been another big one. Um, something in the past couple years has been disease tree address uh addressing diseased trees. Um, we have the caveat that it needs to happen within a ecosystem. So, it can't be things like street trees or trees around a picnic area or in a ballpark or things like that. It has to be within a forest or savannah setting for getting rid of those disease trees. Um, usually that's through emerald ashbor or oakwilt getting rid of those. Um, but plant diseases are pretty widespread. Um other projects would be things like um again turf conversion into prairie um again shoreline restoration uh stream bank restoration and uh uh just reconstructing of a stream bank um trout streams which aren't really that common here in the metro but that has been another big project dam removals really the list is pretty widespread I think for the best sort of snapshot of it. Uh taking a look at the ECP project list that are on our website. Um that goes by habitat on different projects, what's allowed, what's not allowed. Um and making combinations of those uh really that's just a a good starting point. >> All right. Thank you, >> Maya. >> Um I have a couple of questions, so it's up to you, Mr. Chair, if you want me to take them on the string or not. >> I'm for it. Could we possibly go back to the state map with all of the projects on it? >> Yeah, if I can get that out. >> Um, >> Oops. >> So, my understanding, if I get how this all works right now, is that over the past 15 years, we've funded these projects across the state in all these different areas, and now this next year, we're only going to fund what's in orange this year. Is that accurate? >> Yes. So orange is kind the the orange section is kind of a misnomer. This is these are LSOC sections. It's not the legislative uh section. So you can kind of think of it as most of the orange section on the east side. I don't know if you can see my cursor. >> So basically everything around that >> it's it everything around approximating that orange area. Yes. >> So nothing outside of that is going to be funded as part of this next year. >> Not this next year. Correct. Except Duth. >> Oh, Duth, Rochester, and St. Cloud, but those are within the city limits. >> Okay. Um, so based on that, um, you tal I I didn't realize CPL grants had there were multi-year projects within CPL. Yep. >> So, in your estimation, how many of those multi-year projects outside of those metro areas now lost their funding or lost a funding source this year? So the way that these multi uh multi-year projects happen, uh we encumber funds all at once. So we have them having a big pot of money if they say if they got an award this fiscal year, they have all the money available. It's just that we won't reimburse them until they submit reimbursement requests. So those won't be affected. There were organizations that were developing projects to apply this year. So those will be affected. I can think of 10 20 off the top of my head that I had discussions with that will no longer be getting funding this year. >> So they started it but they've had to stop. >> They've started the application work. They haven't started the actual work on the ground because they haven't received the funds or they haven't received the award yet. So anyone who received an award prior to this year, they will not be affected. They have their funds. They will be able to do their projects. They don't need to pause anything. it's a multi-year project. >> Even if it's a multi-year project, since we uh have received all of those funds, we have the pot of money from last year, that is still okay and good to use for the next three years. So, that hasn't changed. Second question. Um, you talk about capacity building and the need to to to to develop this capacity building which I guess on the surface makes sense, but [clears throat] are we enabling some capacity building for organizations who in the future may not necessarily be funded in the same way as we've done because we've made a big right turn here this year. So, are we capacity building in areas that may not need the capacity in the future? That's a good question. I think that will be a discussion that we'll need to have in the future. Um I think at this point we are testing it out to see how it goes. We're kind of testing the waters here. Um my interpretation of it is that the more that we can get capacity built now, the less they will need to rely on us in the future. So, if they have that piece of capital equipment or if they have those hand tools or if they have the tools to get these projects done, the smaller projects that they'll start to apply to. So, they might look at a large CPL project this year, say a $500,000 project, uh, to get a prairie built and to get their capacity ready to go. And in the future, they might not need that large funding. they might go for the smaller expedited round again 75,000 or below to do uh additional prairie seating or to do additional invasive species control. Um I'm seeing this as a big investment upfront so we can hopefully get more bang for our buck in the future. Last question um is you've you've outlined a number of changes to the CPL program here and we did give you a big right turn, a big pivot. >> Yep. >> Um actually we didn't. >> Legislature [laughter] did. Um which of these changes or changes that you all wanted to make in the CPL program just in general to tweak the program's effectiveness overall and which of these changes or changes specifically related to the pivot to the metro? That's a great question. So on a surface level, these are changes that we have been wanting to address for a very long time. At least I have since I've started in the coordinator role. Um, however, there are ones that are now more pressing due to this need for capacity building. So these would be things like personnel cost increases. Um I don't know if you all remember but it increased to 10% just 2 three years ago. So um we've had a sort of small uh turnaround or a small scale turnaround for that. Um but other changes like uh allowing capital equipment as match in that limited uh sense. These have been things that we've been receiving uh feedback on for multiple years. Same with interpretive signs. Same with travel cost expenses, same with biological surveys. Um it's just that now we have more of a pressing need to do it in order to build that capacity. So it's kind of a mix of both. There are certain ones that we've wanted to do for a while that just have been well we'll get to it eventually discussions and there are those who that we've wanted to do for a while that are now in need of getting it done right now. >> Thank you. Other questions? >> All right. Thank you very much. Appreciate the update. >> Um, next is a presentation. >> David, just one quick question. >> I'm sorry, Darl. I didn't see your hand. >> No, it I I thought I thought we were going to maybe have a discussion there, but I I guess I was curious then. Are we is the DNR asking us to approve these changes or do we not have any say in them making this change? >> We essentially >> not in terms of the not in terms of the metro but in terms of changing the matching and those type of things. It is a DNRUN grant program that we really don't we've never been involved in any of the decisions of exactly how that program runs. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Um I would be open for feedback um if you have any questions or comments moving forward. Um my contact information, let me get that out is right there on the screen. So if you have any questions or comments or concerns, please let me know. I'm happy to have these discussions in the future. >> Chair, thank you. >> Yes. >> Now that I have a little extra time, just want you whether you mentioned earlier or not. Um when is the proposal coming out? >> Yes. So our application system is opening on August 1st. So that's this Saturday. Um it's an automated system. So what we are going to do is we're going to be sending out a announcement to our list serve on the 29th that it will be opening on the 1st, but this first uh opening date has been done since the program started. So that's a pretty hard date that we do. Um that being said, the applications for the large grants will be closing on September 15th at 4:00. So, our applicants have a good month and a half to get a application written and submitted. Um, for the expedited grants, I believe that first round ends on the 8th of September, but the next round after that opens up on the 9th. So, again, that's on a rolling basis. And I know Matt has a question, but Darl, in response to your question, um, when CPL presents at the hearings, uh, and when we do our allocation, if there's something that rubs you the wrong way, you are welcome to bring it up and to make recommendations. I didn't mean to in any way cut you off in terms of that, but DNR has always made the rules for how this program is [clears throat] run. It doesn't mean we can't look in uh as we are looking at uh a new proposal um if there's a need to do that. So, I just wanted to clarify. >> Thank Thank you, David. I I guess in my mind I just think okay, you know, we are pretty critical about what we allow for matching and the type of things that go into the program costs for the stuff we look at. And since we're spending sending the money to the DNR to spend in the same way and and the push is to put money in the ground, I guess I'll call it. I to me I go all right are we are we still achieving those same goals the same philosophy um with the CPO as it changes whether it's metro or non-metro I don't care it's simply a matter of is the is the program achieving what we had in mind in terms of putting money in the ground >> yep and I would encourage you to bring that up in the hearings and any recommendations when we decide we want to provide funds um because we have the right to do that. We don't really have the right to go back and say you got the money and now we're secondguessing how you're spending it. But going forward, we certainly have the right to say your accomplishment plan should say this. I I guess I respectfully disagree from the standpoint of they're they the DNR are the ones who are changing what has been a historical program and so they they in my mind seems like they need to come back and ask us if it's okay before they change the rules of the game. Um, I guess I would ask staff whether or not the accomplishment plan in any way limits their ability to run the program the way they're proposing to do that. >> Thank you, Mr. Chair and members. The accomplishment plan, we will go back and review that in more detail, but the accomplishment plan, what is being proposed is uh consistent with the approved accomplishment plan. Um, some of these details may not be as spelled out in that plan. Um, but Mr. Chair, as you said, um, during the hearing process coming up, if there are specific things that the council is looking for to be incorporated in a future accomplishment plan or not, we can obviously you can obviously ask the DNR to consider that. But the current accomplishment plan, this does appear to be all consistent with. I I don't think we've ever approved a 7 and a half or a 10% or a 15% personnel. The accomplishment plan is silent on that, which means the DNR has the ability to >> to create rules within their grant program. So, I don't think we can go back, Darl. We can certainly ask questions, but I do think we can going forward if there's something that that's giving us heartburn, say, you know, we're going to give you 10 million bucks this year, but it can't have this in it or it should have that in it. >> And I think we're well within our rights to do that. >> And we as a program would be receptive. >> Yep. >> M. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yep. Uh, with the 11.8 8 million. Um, I'm not going to hold you to this obviously, but what's your gut say in terms of the ability for that money to be spent within the seven county metro area and the the Duth and St. Cloud and Rochester area? What what's what's your gut say in terms of the ability to actually get those dollars committed? >> It's that's a hard question to answer. Um, I know it is. >> My my gut says we will have money left over. Um, and this is mainly coming from historic trends on where we've spent the money in the metro and how we've been able to spend money in the metro. Again, like I've said before, the metro has been traditionally our least popular grant round. We receive the least amount of applications and we allocate the least amount of funding towards it. So with this new focus on increased outreach and hopefully with help from people who are in the metro for getting the word out, we will hopefully be spending more money than we have in the past. But that being said, I my gut says we will not be spending the full 11.1 million. >> And what happens to that money? >> So there are a couple things that can happen. um we can use that money in the future for small term projects. Um so the allocation uh will expire on the same date unless we work to get that extended um which is a possibility in the future if we wanted to continue on with this same pool of money for the metro. Um, but we would traditionally use that for amendments for previous projects if they require more funding for their work. Um, or if they wanted to add project acres or things like that. Um, we could use it for small scale projects if it's either a year-long project or a two-year long project as opposed to our traditional three-year. Um, the thing that we're mainly run up against is time. So these will expire um the funds will expire on June 30th of 2030. So by then we cannot spend any more. So until then we can have smaller projects or smaller scale projects or amendments. But um if the if the funding is not spent it goes back to you guys. >> Thank you. [clears throat and snorts] So one of the discussions we can have is that we make a recommendation to extend the availability in our next year's recommendations to the legislature. That would be possible to do. Um but we will get to that later in the year. Other questions? Um. >> Mhm. >> So who's who will watch over um the progress of your outreach um and whether it's meet its goal. So as it stands right now, our outreach is tracked via a spreadsheet between me and my staff members. So I I guess what we would do to quantify success with that is going back to seeing who we had reached out to. I'm yet again this is all tracked electronically and seeing if that transformed into a future application. So we can go back and say hey I reached out to the city of Adina and they had a they we had a discussion and they submitted an application. We can then connect. we reached out, they have an application that was a success. Uh, and we can do the opposite of that. We can say, "Oh, we reached out to the city of St. Louis Park and we did not have a discussion with them as a follow-up and they did not put in an application." So, it's just again tracking who was the original person who to reach out. Uh, it's all coded by name in our spreadsheet and seeing if that transformed into a future application. So um we'll then uh quantify our success that way. >> Okay. And will the members here receive that information? >> Um if you request it, we will be happy to provide. >> Okay. Yeah. I I do like to know. >> Yep. >> One as a member here and the other as a legislator. >> Yep. um by the end of this year uh after both rounds we can see who has uh submitted an application and we can then tie it back to who reached out. Um just for clarification we've had discussions with a couple uh potential grantees or potential or potential applicants who are not planning to do the first round of funding but are planning to do the second. So we won't have a full picture until the end of the fiscal year this year. Yeah, I would encourage you know outreach because this is probably one of the rare opportunity for the red metro and um just you know want to share with you like about two weeks ago um I was called to talk to folks at Wongam TP center um and they haven't heard about it. I had to inform you know a group of advocates to pigsai folks you know um that will need wetland restoration. So there a lot of folks there you know including boy tone and town in my my district. So >> yep >> um just want to note then that you know actually I took the initiative to do a little outreach. Yeah there. >> Excellent. Thank you. >> Yep. >> All right. Now I thank you for coming. >> Thank you everybody. >> Next we will move on to item 10 uh legacy fund restoration evaluations report. Good morning. >> Go ahead, >> Mr. Chair and council members. Thank you for having us in this morning. Wayde Johnson with the Minnesota DNR, also working on behalf of the Board of Water and Soil Resources on Legacy Fund Restoration Valuations. I'm joined this morning by my co-orker, Kyla Trip, who will be providing the second half of our presentation this morning. Um today I will give you there's Kyl and I uh overview of our program quickly and a summary of our 2025 report which you should all have focused on stream restorations. Uh and then Kyla will give you an update on our current activities and continued work to improve restoration projects. Uh so quickly off the top as a reminder uh statute for the legacy parks and trails clean water and out to heritage funds uh directs DNR and Bowser to seat a panel of six restoration technical experts to evaluate legacy funded restoration projects. Uh as directed in statute projects are evaluated relative to the project stated goals using current science. Uh Tom tells me you're talking to my mic. [laughter] using current science and to identify any problems with implementation. Thank you, Tom. Um, and also to importantly focus on improving future restorations. Uh, real quickly off the [clears throat] top, between 2012 and 2025, what we have seen regarding those three major buckets that are directed in statute is that projects are largely on track to meet their stating stated goals utilizing current science and being implemented without problems with implementation. As you'll see in those three pies there, the blue is indicating positive or good performance and the green is showing opportunities for improvement where there are some inconsistencies um and opportunities really to do better for motans and that is the foundation of what our panel uses to make their recommendations for improvement. In conducting our work, we've visited project sites all around the state. Dots on this map from our most recent report with the hard dark lines outlined uh show places we visited or areas we visited in 2025. Sometimes those dots are more than one project site, but at some point the dots start to overlap more than we can handle. Um and we're looking at all habitat types across um all of these legacy funds. So our process quickly um is we engage the project managers to gather their project information. We schedule a time to go out on the site with the project managers and third party assessors either state staff or contracted to conduct our standard evaluation and again evaluating the project relative to their stated goals, the use of current science and identifying any problems. We can then take this information in the fall back to our restoration evaluation panel directed in statute with membership from DNR Bowser U of Minsky system and local government units. This was our group in 2025 focused on streams. And so that gets us to the report that you should all have. Our 2025 report again focusing specifically on streams. Um, as the council can appreciate, stream restorations are a very dynamic and particularly challenging area of work where the risks uh when the restoration practices aren't appropriately applied are high. And it's an area of a lot of continued discussion about practices and tradeoffs of employing different design methodologies and practices. Um, and the recommendations you'll find in the report again are aligned with specifically to streams. And this is based on the evaluation of 94 stream projects across all funds since 2012. That also includes 24 projects of those that we completed in 2025. And so the two standout recommendations that you'll find in the report are implementing a comprehensive approach in planning and also implementing uh vegetation management and planning for stream projects specifically. And these are both uh kind of a continuation of previous recommendations from our panel regarding uh stream planning and specifically vegetation around streams that were made back in 2019 when we had a focus on streams. Um so looking at those two um recommendations the major recommendations made in the report um the panel did note uh lack of and encourages the collection of a consistent data on pre-RO conditions to establish that baseline to monitor projects post project and to understand the dynamics that have happened between what was there before and what is there now. Oftent times pre- project data is limited at best to really understand exactly what has happened in a substantial way as a result of that work. And handinhand with this is to establish those clear measurable objectives for the project site specifically and accompanying monitoring plan to gauge the success of that project. And for stream projects, this could be something like a percent reduction in bank erosion or the increase in the mean pool depth ratio within a certain reach that you're working within. Um, also uh to scale the projects to address the underlying drivers of degradation uh was something that kind of stood out across uh several projects and really ensure the project plans align with that scale and the project goals. as in um you know just trying to reduce bank erosion to reduce sediment and turbidity might not be enough to make a substantive improvement in that stream or stream reach uh long term. Uh so this might mean scaling back a project to achieve you know discreet goals that's okay if needed if you don't have the space to do it or potentially expanding the extent of a project be more uh in line with achieving a substantive goal and extending the length or pulling back that bankfold bench and potentially a larger project with more earthwork and sometimes that's not feasible. Sometimes the easements or things like that are limiting. Um but it's really an [cough] advocacy for um trying to you know move away from a discrete stabilization just to reduce something like an acute uh erosion problem. Um also importantly to engage an interdisiplinary team and this is something that our panel has echoed many times over the years uh trying to bring a diverse set of expertise to the table to get better outcomes. um both in the planning, technical review, the construction oversight and and the post- project monitoring, you know, can really support the multiple components of stream health overall. And this includes the engineers, the hydraologists, geomorphologists, fisheries biologists, ecologists. You know, to have a comprehensive project that's going to work long term to really improve stream health rather than one particular attribute, it takes a takes a team of expertise to make that happen. Um, some tools that we identified aligned with uh that comprehensive approach are things like DNR's watershed health assessment framework. That's a web-based interface tool that's available to anyone. And it really gives you a framework for understanding the stream health within a certain site and the components um that provide a really substantial set of data on the watershed attributes including the drivers of degradation in that wershed and the overall again the stream health from a number of different attributes uh for a given project site. Um, also the Minnesota stream quantification tool managed by Bowser and the Army Corps. This is a mitigation banking tool, but it does provide a standardized structure for assessing and measuring, you know, structural and habitat components of the project site and sets metrics for measuring how those particular attributes and components perform as the restoration project site develops. So something to track some discrete individual components of that project to understand the dynamics related to habitat and water quality and things like that. Um also we mentioned the Bowser's wetland restoration guide. This again is focused on wetlands, but it provides a lot of applicable considerations for stream projects and planning and design and accessing wet sites and managing vegetation and wet sites and getting that established that really carry over well uh for stream projects. Um and then also uh the suite of training that's out there in the state of Minnesota, both by Minnesota DNR on diagnosing stream impairments and methods for stream restoration design. Um, also training resources through the partnership for river restoration in the upper Midwest that's administered by the University of Minnesota and works regionally trying to advance the science and understanding of a comprehensive approach to stream and river restoration. Um, one other thing that you'll note in our report, we included a design report template, which is essentially a um, a list of a compilation of information and data that really informs the critical aspects of a project, including the causal relationships and processes and site attributes relative to specific design approaches. And the compilation of this information really supports that collaboration across stakeholders and can serve as a reference to streamline the environmental review and permitting process which I know is a ongoing discussion and continuous improvement process um working with DNR on the council. Um so that is a good set of data. If project managers were to collect and keep all that information at the front end and understand those dynamics, it will bode well for uh that project moving forward and really informing the design and all of the logistics around it. Um the other recommendation standing out in this report um is improved vegetation for stream projects. Um I think we can all appreciate uh that wellestablished vegetation is really critical for the long-term success especially in stream projects uh providing stabilization the habitat and the ecological functions that happen as a result of established vegetation. Um you know bridging the terrestrial habitat and the aquatic habitat and streams. Um, our review identified instances where vegetation management could have really improved the overall quality of a project site and there's opportunities to uh, you know, advance that. Uh, the recommendations included establishing detailed vegetation plans um, and specifications in the management plan. That's really an important piece of all this is understanding at the front end exactly what you're trying to shoot for. uh selecting appropriate materials, knowing that they're going to work under the site conditions and provide [clears throat] some of that structural uh capacity for stabilizing that site long term. Um and appropriate site prep, things like invasives are always really important. Um and then when possible, establishing the uh having a season for offline before water is brought into the loop created channel. That's not always possible. However, we've saw a few instances where that had happened and it worked very well for those project managers. Um, also the concept of setting performance standards in your contracts is an important one uh for plant survivorship and having some clarity around maintenance plans for setting vegetation on a good trajectory especially [snorts] in those first few critical years. uh overarching all of these really is the promotion of improved coordination and training around establishing vegetation. Some tools that we noted here, Bowser resources are really good in this regard uh in managing establishing uh vegetation especially on wet sites. The native vegetation establishment enhancement guidelines gets updated regularly over the course of years and it has many modules in it now. Um, it's a more modular design that it was in the past and all available on their website. In the past, it used to be one very large document. Now, there is a number of different pieces in there that apply to a lot of different uh project types. Also, Bowser's wetland restoration guide, I'd already mentioned, has good application uh for a lot of stream projects. Uh, also Bowser's uh native seed mixes are a good resource to tap into, especially uh if it's not someone who's used to making seed mixes day-to-day. Um, another thing that we uh put in the report was a showcase a few outdoor heritage fund stream projects that really performed well and embodied some of the good application of many of our panel's recommendations. This included Gorman Creek down in Wabasha County. This is a formally ditched stream and an agricultural valley bottom with a spring stream entering Gorman Creek within that project area. The project partners between Trout Unlimited, Minnesota DNR and Wabasha SWCD uh developed a welldesigned uh and implemented project supported by again this interdisciplinary team that leveraged a lot of expertise from DNR on geomorphology and hydrarology and also brought in uh fisheries biologists and the SWCD and managing the vegetation to really have a more comprehensive design process as we've been advocating for and it really led to a wellestablished diverse vegetation within the uh project site itself. Um, another successful set of projects up in the Red River Valley um, reshaped this ditched stream systems uh, over tens of miles within an agricultural landscape as you can see there um, with outdoor heritage fund projects on Wolverton Creek, North Branch Buffalo River and Whiskey Creeks. Again, this was a partnership uh between the Buffalo Red WHED district, the Minnesota DNR, Wilin SWCD, and again incorporating a interdisciplinary multi-disiplinary team to really uh look at the project site, understand what's feasible within this landscape and what's going to really in drive improvements in the aquatic habitat uh through this newly meandered channel of a formerly, you know, ditched system and also to expand the upland habitat uh you know, within the boundaries of it. There are many new rim and crepe easements that happened within the easements in that corridor. Um, so it's really a win-win in this case for the managers and the egg producers. Essentially in that image you see there, that corridor of green sort of has an embankment that holds water within a certain area. And this essentially overall reduces flooding to the agricultural producers and contains that uh water kind of within that newly widened you know formally ditched channel and meandering that stream you know kind of gives that added benefit of reducing flooding to the agricultural producers. So they were all on board and happy to give their easements you know to conservation um and really a win-win for everyone in that case. I'll hand it over to Kyla to talk about our current and upcoming activities. Let's see. Do you want to just switch off >> or can you pass? >> Hello, Chair Hartwell and council members. As Wade mentioned, my name is Kyla Trip and I am a restoration evaluation specialist with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. And today I will be walking you through our 2026 restoration evaluations, an upcoming field visit opportunity, and our expanding outreach activities. So Wade just spoke about our stream restorations and enhancements theme from last year, and this year we'll be focusing on durability and longevity, measuring lasting change by assessing projects that are seven or more years old. So essentially 2019 or prior. To address durability and longevity, we're first looking at performance and stability. We want to answer three questions. One, has the original project goals or have the project goals been sustained over the long term? Are [snorts] project goals generally stable, improving, or declining relative to those goals? How resilient are these sites when facing major weather stressors like drought and flooding? Next, we'll be uh taking a look at stewardship and funding. So, do these previously funded restoration enhancement projects have consistent planned maintenance or are they being passively overseen? How is ongoing maintenance or follow-up work funded, if at all? And finally, we want to capture any new lessons learned from projects that exhibit long-term success. Next on your screen here, you'll see our 2026 OHF project selection. You'll see 13 projects on this list. All fit within that 2019 or prior time frame. You'll notice a couple of clusters in southern and western counties, which is intentional because these are uh counties that we haven't visited yet as a program. And then on your screen now um you'll see three carryover projects um that were from our 2025 plan. These are stream projects that were we took a look at this year. Gizzard Creek will be wrapped into that durability and longevity theme. Um and the remaining two will be evaluated or are evaluated strictly as stream projects, but we'll draw relevant lessons forward into this year's annual report as well. So, now that we've covered our evaluation plans for the year, I have uh have the pleasure of inviting you all out to the field to see this work firsthand. So, back in 2016, Dakota County restored and enhanced roughly 100 acres of degraded bluffland and former crop fields into native prairie savannah and cliff talis at Misville Ravine Park Reserve. So, we'd like to invite you all out uh to our field evaluation to see the review process up close and you'll be able to experience how those field discussions translate into our panel's findings and ultimately into our panel report. We're solidifying the exact date and visit details with your staff, but we'll have those details for you soon. So evaluating these sites is crucial, but just as important as what we do with that information, which brings me to our final topic today, our outreach initiatives. So what I have showing here now are core outreach activities and what we currently do or have done for many years, um, which includes hosting an improving restorations webinar with the University of Minnesota Extension. There are byianual webinar series in the spring and fall that reach about 200 folks or practitioners each season. This past spring we partnered with academic and industry experts to showcase stream restoration best practices and um some projects that were featured in our annual report. And then this fall we are going to be focused on uh wetland restorations which should be interesting. We also presented a few conferences each year to share our findings uh case studies at a state and regional level and ensure those findings inform the broader conservation community. This year we're going to try to deepen our engagement with practitioners. We want to make sure that that report is not just sitting on a shelf um but is getting actionable insights directly into the hands of project managers while they're designing those projects. So we are offering uh post panel debriefs with our project managers. So what this means is that we're going to offer one-on-one or group sessions for project managers whose sites were evaluated that this year. Typically after a site visit, we send the our completed evaluation form to project managers for their review. They may or may not uh have feedback with for us or have any questions or further conversation. So the panel then takes all these evaluation, analyzes them individually and collectively to come up with the annual report recommendations. And then our next contact point with those project managers is when we send them our final report. But this year we want to deepen that engagement. So once the panel reviews individual projects within the broader theme this year uh durability and longevity and identifies overarching recommendations, we'll extend the offer to meet with project managers to provide richer context and recommendations for their specific site. We also are working with Tom and LSOC staff to package our recommendations so that they can be hosted directly on the LSOC website. Right now, a lot of our recommendations live on a public DNR page that doesn't get as much traffic as we'd like. Um, but by bringing them straight to the LSC site, we can reach folks applying for OHF funds right when it matters most while they're designing and thinking about those projects. And ultimately, this will help us maximize the impact of our findings and those recommendations online. And lastly, um, we're piloting a pre-application workshop in partnership with the Of CPL team that you just heard from. The idea here is to share our evaluation insights with applicants before their proposals are fully designed or or funded, allowing our recommendations to be woven directly into that initial project planning. So, with that, I'd like to thank you for your time and continued support, and I'd be happy to open the floor to any questions you have for either Wade or myself. [clears throat] >> Great questions. Tristan. >> So, I'll ask the question. If we look at at your restoration evaluations 2012 to 2025, 325 projects, a quarter of them had problems with implementation. An eighth of them didn't utilize current science. Uh um somewhere in between that number had problems being on track to meet stated goals. you in the past haven't wanted to identify who those problems are and yet we see proposals and have no idea if the people who are applying are meeting the standards. How do we get around that? We don't want to fund people who aren't doing good work. And and I' I've asked the question before, but I got to ask it again. Why can't we know who's doing great and who's not? >> Is this mic on? It is. Okay. Uh, Chair Hartwell, council members, um, we want you to know everything that we have and we've shared everything that we have uh, with you and we want to be clear on that point and so if there's something you don't have or something you want to know in particular, we're happy to share it. >> Can we get a list of who didn't meet standards? >> Uh, yeah, absolutely. I've shared that with your staff and we're all very upfront about that. I think it's important to understand the context of what those things are because frankly your your question about um [clears throat] so the issues at hand I think it would take a discussion about what those particular issues are that were identified by our assessors and our panel because frankly I don't think I've seen anyone you know again that's not for me to say but I don't think I've seen anyone that shouldn't be funded per today, but problems come up, things happen, turnover happens, things get dropped, or they don't get properly addressed, or maybe they didn't approach it in a way that our panel would see it as being appropriate for current restoration science. And so, those are the type of things that add into that that list. >> Yeah, I'd like to see the list with context because I understand there's a drought and it fails. [clears throat] Uh there's a flood, it doesn't work. Uh but you know if and I I want to trust you but if uh in in the words of a past council member coup consistently does bad work we don't know it and we should know that and we that information should be available so when they come to us and ask for money we have the ability to ask about that. Um, what is [clears throat] what is great restoration and and what are are there people who have consistent problems versus a one-time we all know the restoration work doesn't always work for reasons beyond control. But I think it's important that we understand what doesn't work and and the context for that. >> Mr. chair council. And to that end, we are definitely interested in sharing everything that we have and having some more nuanced discussions with the council and we want to share all that with the staff. And to to that end, we'd be happy to respond to any inquiries. And to be clear, everything that we've produced and every evaluation and everything about our discussions, it is out there and has been shared. So, we're happy to to continue to give that to you. >> That's great. I'm not looking for a thousand page, >> right? That's that's the real trick. [laughter] So so to that end to be clear what we do put forward at a high level is really focused on where are we seeing issues and where is there opportunity for improvement you know per the direction of you know what we're told to do and so we're happy to share everything we have. >> We we would love to see that and it'd be helpful for us to see that before the hearings because there may be appropriate questions to ask. >> Certainly. >> Great. Thank you. Other questions? How come I always get to ask a tough question? [laughter] >> Because you're really >> Thank you very much. We appreciate your work. >> Welcome. Thank you. >> It's your birthday. That's all. >> Yeah. [laughter] >> Our gift to you. >> Thank you. [laughter] Um, item 11. Tom, you want to talk about funding partners pages? Fund. I didn't say that right, but >> yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Mr. Chair and members. Appreciate you taking the time on the agenda today so that we can display and update the council on uh one of our web development projects. This was to update the LSRC website to include more information and a more complete list of the funded partner organizations. So to provide some background, the LSRC website had an existing list of organizations that have received outdoor heritage fund dollars. However, being that this list required updating, we use this as an opportunity to say, is there a better way we can present this information? Uh so we created a plan to revise the site primarily to improve the quantity and the quality of information that's accessible to the public. One guiding document that we use to to develop this plan is a document that Sandy and member Kaharski likely remember is the strategic communications plan for the outdoor heritage fund which was they worked together and published back in 2011. [clears throat] A few of those principles would be that the communications from the LSC and outdoor heritage fund in general should align with the outdoor heritage fund mission. So for us in this case that meant to really prioritize sources that describe the work directly. So describing outdoor heritage fund programs restoration protection enhancement wildlife habitat. Additionally to establish a body of accurate and vetted information, we sought to index all funded partners as best we could to list the achievements of outdoor heritage fund programs and describe that work directly. Um alongside a voter right to know, we sought to make the site directly information centric and nonpartisan. So that would mean we don't attempt to advocate for any particular program or organization rather to list directly the organizations that have received funds and describe what it is that they've achieved with those funds. [clears throat] A bit about the process. We first developed the digital format which I'll be happy to show you all in a in a moment. So that is a list of funded partner organizations alongside their logos. Additionally, some organizations have a larger web presence that lists uh content that relates to their outdoor heritage fund work. So, we sought to include those pages on an additional website. Um, I'd like to give a special thanks to Yuki Kawahara, LCCIT staff who worked very diligently alongside me to make sure that this website was accessible and aesthetically pleasing. And without him, I'm sure the website you see would be in a much different form than it is today. [clears throat] So since May of last year, we have been communicating with every organization that has received funding from the start of the outdoor heritage fund. We have secured permissions to share their logo and copywritten media. So that media could include photos or videos that go alongside articles uh describing their outdoor heritage fund project work. Additionally, we sought to confirm that any projects we list used outdoor heritage fund dollars to ensure that we have established accurate and vetted information. [snorts] In total, we have 78 funded partners included out of 81 in total that have received funding in throughout the life of the Outdoor Heritage Fund. 32 web pages include organizations that have their own additional content. So, that would be web pages, videos, and articles. Within those 32 pages, we have hundreds of links that are cataloged to describe the work of their programs. So, I'll take us now to the website itself. [snorts] I think I just have to unpresent my PowerPoint here. >> One moment, everybody. While Tom is pulling this up, I'll just say this was a huge effort and it I had a chance to preview and it looks really cool. >> Yeah, thank you so much. >> Oh, thank you. >> So, this is the the landing page. So, at the top here, we have five different tabs which you can use to sort the entire list into nonprofits, local governments, government agencies, and tribal nations. Um, so I'll just click through a few examples to to to demonstrate how the website itself works. So each of these logos is clickable. So for organizations that have their own content, that will take you to an additional landing page hosted by the LSC to display their content. Um and then for partner organizations that did not have enough extra content to index, we tried to link to a relevant page on their website that describes their habitat work or directly their outdoor heritage fund programs. [snorts] One example I'll use is the Nature Conservancy just because they have a large amount of content. Um, so we were able to break this up into sections based on their programmatic work. So many of you are likely familiar with their work in the Northern Tall Grass Prairie National Wildlife Refuge. So this example here, this is a general overview of work done in that area. As we scroll down, we see things like this is a recent press release noting a recent easement acquisition alongside the Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center that was completed with the Notra Heritage Fund program. As we get further down into additional program areas, we have sites that link to specific locations where outer heritage fund program work has been completed. Uh those of you who are on the tour would likely remember Whitewater WMA. So this page is specific to a outdoor heritage fund acquisition that was completed and added to that site. [snorts] So moving back, I'll demonstrate a local government link. So, local governments, this includes soil and water conservation districts, wershed districts, county and city government a uh entities. >> One example, >> just a clarification. >> Yeah. >> Uh does this include CPL or just uh things that have been funded directly by the council? >> Yeah, whenever I've I've seen a CPL link, I've included it and just noted on the content card itself that this was funded with with CPL. So, as long as the information is available and we can directly tie it to a CPL or an outdoor heritage fund program, it's been included. >> Great. Thank you. [snorts] >> So, with the Crowing Soil and Water Conservation District, this link here will take you directly to the legacy site which is maintained to demonstrate uh more detailed programmatic information. So, that could include reporting documents like accomplishment plans or final reports. So for whenever possible this link is included to demonstrate the the multiple programs that have been funded with that particular organization. So here we have some embedded YouTube content which is playable on the screen. You can also click that button there to open in YouTube. Um, we have a relevant Bowser snapshot that describes the dam replacement work on the Pine River as well as some video content that was provided directly by the wershed district that further demonstrates this fish passage project completed. At the bottom here, clicking this this logo will take you directly to their homepage and this will take you to the legacy sites outdoor heritage fund page. within the government agency section. I'll show one example that is uh more sparse and specific and one example that's more extensive. The National Park Service has completed work on the Voyagers Park wetland restoration. So here we have an overview web page describing the project itself as well as an embedded embedded video that demonstrates the restoration itself. Um going further, when organizations have presented to the council on their programmatic work, I've linked to that here. So this link will take you back to the LSOC website to view that presentation. Uh the DNR is an example of a more extensive web page being that the DNR has completed many different programs across a number of years. Um so this is slightly more challenging to to organize into specific programs being that there's a lot of overlap. There's dollars spent across multiple years. Um so whenever possible we have been tried to list them within their program. Um, however, this section here describes just a few particularly notable examples of program acquisition. So, we have wildlife management areas and aquatic [cough] management areas. Whenever possible, we've included some data from our program uh information and tracking systems to describe the amount of acres protected. So, to to contextualize the outdoor heritage fund investment. So, for example, the Carlos Avery WMA has existed long before the outdoor heritage fund. However, that's been expanded and restored and enhanced through the use of outdoor heritage funds. So, if we're linking to a general location, we want to be sure to be able to contextualize the use of outdoor heritage fund here. Going further, we have St. Louis River estuary. We have aquatic and stream habitat, shallow lakes and wetlands, forest legacy and forest for the future among many other programs. So, this would be an example of where we have different programs combined into one section. So we have the native prairie bank easement program. This managing prairies uh website describes general prairie restoration that is undertaken by the DNR. So that would be DNR roving crew, DNR grasslands and other similar programs as well as we have two recent presentations to the LSOC. So now I'll see if I can get back to my PowerPoint. So in the future, we're hoping that we can keep this web page updated as much as possible. So that would be to catalog new content as we discover it. Uh one way we've sought to discover this new content is through a series of targeted Google alerts. So the hope being if a news article or web page is released that describes outdoor heritage fund program work from any particular organization that we have included, we will hopefully track it. That said, we'd always encourage our partners to send us to continue publicizing their outdoor heritage fund program work and the results and to send us links whenever they are created. Um, one additional way to ensure that staff can track it is for partners to note the use of outdoor heritage fund directly and to use the legacy logo whenever applicable. Um, I'd also like to to thank all of the partner organizations who uh updated their website in response to this request, who added additional content or added additional information to contextualize the use of outdoor heritage fund dollars. So, it's been a a lift well beyond LSC staff. So, I'd like to thank everyone's efforts in that regard as well. One development for the future we're considering is to attempt to implement a sort by location feature. So this would be a user could identify uh news articles or organizations working within a particular area of the state whether that's by zip code, county or otherwise. So that'll take some programming and mapping work on the on the back end but we're hopeful to be able to achieve that. Uh with that I'd like to thank everybody for their time and happy to answer any questions. >> Great. >> This is fantastic. >> Thank you very much. >> Really great. Very good. and a hell of a lot of work. [laughter] >> Well, then it better be, right? >> Yeah. >> I have one question. Yeah. Uh Tom, do um >> you know, when I look at the landing page with the list of funded organizations, I mean, it's just really it's it's immense, right? Um how many of these organizations are doing like reciprocal links back to uh to to the council and thinking in terms of promoting, you know, promoting the uh the opening for for funding, etc., and so on. That's a that's a great question. Uh, member Kaharski, I I would say it it depends. Uh, I wouldn't say the bulk of them. Um, in in terms of promoting uh the the call for funding, I I wouldn't say I see that very often. Um, I would say more commonly uh organizations will note their use of outer heritage fund dollars and link back to our website or to the legacy site itself. Um, and that I would say I see pretty frequently, especially among organizations that have a dedicated web page to their outdoor heritage fund programs. >> Yeah. And I'm guessing they wouldn't promote the call for funding. I mean, >> competition. Um, but just making sure that they're that they're opt helping optimize this location. So, >> yeah, absolutely. I would say there's definitely room for improvement there. But in in general, whenever there's a web uh an organization that's that's describing their Heritage Fund work on their website, they're they're linking back to us in one way or another. >> Thank you. [snorts] >> Other questions, comments? Thank you, Tom. We'll move on to item 12, uh, grassland monitoring for more cost-effective and ecologically sustainable restorations. >> Yeah, you should be able to use the mouse. The key. The keyboard. Hey chair and members. Uh thank you for the invitation to be here today. Um Greg Hoke. I've been here uh many a couple times before. Um, also want to introduce, unfortunately, they're out in the field today. Um, Phil Dah and Allison Earl, who are my my grassland restoration specialists. Uh, they did all the work. I signed the time cards. Um, so with that, I just want to get get us going here. Um, we're we're late in the day. Um, [clears throat] so first question, what are we doing? Um, in the wildlife management um, world, we would call this adaptive management. In government, we call it continuous improvement. in business it's QAQC. Um basically we want to see we've been doing a lot of things spending a lot of money. How are we doing? Um the graphic over here on the right hand side uh Suzanne Barel rec recognized from the fish and wildlife service as the strategic habitat conservation kind of wheel and what we're doing is the outcomebased monitoring and then we want to share this information with the community as much as we can so that they can integrate that work um as soon as possible. Um last month we gave another version of this uh talk uh to on a webinar. Um we had about just about just about a hundred people there that was a little more technical. We were aiming at specifically at field practitioners. Um this one this talk here today will be just a little more general. Um so a very very brief um history of large-scale restoration efforts. Uh if we go back to the 50s and 60s we've got the soil bank. Um, a lot of those fields are planted to broomem, fescue, sweet clover. Um, they they grow easy, they establish easy. Today, of course, we consider these um largely invasives or exotics that cause us a fair amount of headache and problem um in wildlife management. Um, in the late 1980s, we had CRP. Um, a lot of native grasses were planted, a few native wild flowers. Um, but weren't sure about the origin. Um, a lot of that we just did not have the seed indust industry then that we have now. Um, a lot of that seed came from western Nebraska um and other areas. Um, because that's what we had available at the time. Um, you can still easily see these plantings today. It's like, yeah, that's blue stem, but that that ain't the local stuff. Um, in recent years, um, there's been a big increase in focusing on diversity both for wildlife and pollinators. local ecotype seed uh that are available. So, what we want to do is ask how are we doing? Okay. Some restorations that are older, restorations that are newer. Um these are a couple of uh public lands down in Blue Earth County about 3 miles but 30 or 40 years apart. Um so, in that lefthand picture, there's a 90 to 95 lb Labrador retriever um at about 5 yards. And even with the arrow, you still probably can't see him. Um, it's a wall of grass dotted with a couple of Forbes. I remember taking this picture and I looked down and there was like a go or yeah, golden rod and a common milkeed at my feet. Um, same afternoon, three miles down the road. Um, a more recent planting, same same dog at 15 yards. You can see him pretty clearly. Um, looking down, you can see just the amount of structural [snorts] color diversity. You don't even have to count the individual plant species. It was a carpet of wild flowers with some grass grass stems poking up through it. I was estimating 15 to 20 species right at right at my feet. Um, this is what native prairie often looks like. The carpet of of of wildflower leaves with some grass poking up as opposed to the wall of grass which we quite often see in some of our older restorations. Um so what we have in Minnesota um we have hundreds of restorations or reconstructions um funded with the outdoor heritage fund and those are anywhere from you know one year old to roughly 15 years old. Um the the work we're doing are only on OFF funded restorations. Now those may be WAS, WPAS, they may be agencyled, they may be partnerled by Feeasants Forever, the Nature Conservancy, Ducks Unlimited, or another partner, but they all for us to for us to look at them, they have to have been OFF funded restorations. Um, and we just have this great natural experiment um that we've arbitrarily or inadvertently created. Um, we have several different methods for plant putting the seed on the ground. Uh, some people drill, some people broadcast the seed. Uh, some people put their seed down in the fall, in the spring, in the summer. Um, weather that first year, um, Chair Hartwell made kind of a reference to this a few minutes ago. That first summer, you got the cool, wet spring, really good for germination, really good for establishment, or you got hot, dry weather like this summer. Um, I'm kind of a little concerned about some of our our our recent restorations this year. Um, we've got a range of seed mixes. In some cases, we're going out and purchasing all the seed uh from a local vendor. In some cases, we're doing a harvest. And we'll get to that here in another couple of slides. Um, just as an aside, and I know several of us have brought this up in our August presentations in recent years. Um, all that money in the contract and supply lines and all of our appropriations, those are all going to local small business vendors in rural rural Minnesota. Um so these projects are habitat projects. They're also rural economy projects. Um and I think that's I think that's really important. Um and then our first year manage first second year management you know are they doing any mowing or anything like that. Um so that's a lot of information to try to pull together and more importantly to learn from. Okay. One example um the Detroit Lakes Seed Consortium. Uh those of you who are on the 20 was it 23 Klay County field trip um had a brief introduction to this. So here's an example in the upper left corner of a gleaner um where we where they hired a local contractor to go out and drive heavy equipment um through through some native prairie and harvest literally tens of thousands of pounds of seed. And then here are three photos from the Fish and Wildlife Services uh seedshed. Um, and then I got an email from Travis Isondorf, uh, TNC's [laughter] prairie recovery specialist, uh, funded with the Outdoor Heritage Fund. Since the exception of the seed consortium, they've collected almost 147,000 pounds of seed. That's 40 almost 4,200 bags of seed. Um, if you stack those up, it would be twice as tall as the world's tallest building. So, that's a fair amount of seed. I have bagged and stacked quite a bit of that seed myself and it gets really heavy at the end of the day. Um the way we do um our seedings back in the day, we took a seed mix and we spread it. Um what we're doing today is we've got wet, you know, wet seed mixes for wetland edges. We've got music seed mixes. We've got dry seed mixes for those gravel hilltops. We're going out and mapping some sites. This is an example of a WMA that we uh did uh recently. Um going out mapping all those soil types and soil moistures and then putting specific seed mixes to try to match the seed the the plant species to the soil type which again historically we we really weren't doing. Um and that should be really really improving things uh today. Okay. what we are working through um with our staff is what's called part of the prairie restoration initiative or PRI and just want to talk about this is we're the the data we're collecting is fitting into a much larger um effort uh that covers quite a few states in the upper Midwest and the upper great plains. So we're not is working in isolation. We are working with with a number of partners in a larger framework. And I would also mention that we uh we met with uh um WDE's group um last week, two weeks ago uh to see how um our our our efforts can uh can integrate. Okay. Monitoring questions. We're monitoring. We're not doing research. That's what LCCMR is for. Um so just a couple of questions and how we can help develop research hypotheses that then hopefully uh the research community the universities can uh jump on and and get us some even more more more or more more answers. So what species show up in almost every mix or or always show up? Let's keep make sure they make sure we get those. What species show up half the time? Um and then what's different about the sites where they do and they don't establish? Again, we don't want to get into that, but that's a good master's or PhD uh question for a student at the University of Minnesota or other universities. Um, and then what species rarely to never show up? And this creates two questions is the first is ecologically um why don't they establish? That's a research question. Um the next question is economic um why are we spending money on species X if species X never shows up in our restorations? Um, I'm a scientist. I'm really interested in the ecology, but you you folks have trusted me with public dollars and so and all of us with public dollars and we so we want to make sure that we are making the best use of of those funds. So I always have both of the E in the back of my mind when when I'm doing doing my work. Oops. Um, okay. So let's look at some of the science here. Um, just very briefly and we won't go into the details. The um [clears throat] picture the graph over here on the right is the data that we collected and just again very briefly across the bottom it's the number of for the number of sites um they occurred on or number of species and then here are the number of forbes. So the way to interpret this there were roughly 90 forbes that only showed up at one or two sites. there were about 10 10 Forbes that showed up at between 120 and 140 sites. So to way to interpret this is there are many species that show up at a few sites and a few species that show up at many sites. What's interesting about that is here are the data from our SNA program there in the middle and here are some published data. What's nice is our restoration data. Oh, and published data from native prairie. If you look at the big picture, our restored prairies statistically look very similar to native prairie, which as a ecologist I find very exciting. Um here's another way to look at um um the same or similar data. Um so to interpret this, the blue is the data that we have collected um last year. So um there were roughly um 10 sites that we only found 10 to 19 species. There were roughly 60 sites where we found 20 to 29 species. So looking at those two first two blue bars, the orange bars are some data that uh Becky Esser and I collected about a decade and a half ago um up in Becker County um on some WPAS. And the important thing to take away here is there's a nice bell-shaped curve um in the species distribution in our restorations and in our native prairie. Um again, blue restoration, orange native prairie. So again, statistically, our restorations ac look across the state look very similar. They behave similar to our native prairies, which again is really cool. I would like to see that bell curve on the blue bumped a little to the right. uh get that richness a little or diversity a little higher. But we're doing much better than I thought we were going to be doing when when we started this. Okay. To get into some of the uh individual species, most common species we found out there. Surprise, surprise, big blue stem shows up 90% of the time. Common milkweed are second most common and wild bergamment are third most common. Again, for people who've been out on the prairie, that shouldn't be any surprise to anybody. Um then we could just kind of look at some of the next most commonly um found species. Here's a number of them. Um so most commonly found grasses in our uh restorations. Again, no surprise, Indian grass about 80% of the time, side oats, little blue about 70% of the time, etc., etc. Uh most commonly found native forbes. And I'll just let everybody take a second and read through those. Um, again, no great surprise. Um, and again, what we see is a lot of lot of plants in the legume family and in the aster [clears throat] or sunflower family. Um, which again is exactly what you find in native prairie. And then sadly, our most common, we found non-native species. Again, no surprise here. You find sweet clover about 80% of the time, reed canary grass about 70% of the time, um, etc., etc. Okay. Uh the coneflower conundrum when it comes to this, I was just going for alliteration there. Um prairie cone flowers, one of the most common and one of the most iconic and recognizable species in wild flowers. If you're driving around western Minnesota, you may have seen this prairie passage sign. However, it's iconic for Illinois and Iowa prairie. Um, and what it what the range map shows is this really should only be found in southern Minnesota, those northern counties. I know I and a lot of other people have a lot of questions. So, when it talk when we're looking statewide, I should say that we should find yellow or prairie cone flower should be rare or absent in most of our restorations. You would see the same same exact same pattern in butterfly weed, um, compass plant. Again, two very iconic species. So, they should be rare because they're really native to the prairie, but native to a little south of here. To contradict myself, um the times they are a changing. I can't remember who said that, but somebody did. Um we should be proactively moving species northward. Um and this is what's called assisted migration. Um showed some shifting planting zones. This is from the gardening um community, but there's a lot of talk in the ecological community both in forests and prairies. The forests are probably a couple of decades in front of the prairie folks. But should we be moving species and genes um northwards to account for um a changing climate? Um ask 50 ecologists, you'll get probably 103 different opinions on that. Okay. So, if you plant it, does it grow? Um, again, don't try to read all the individual species there on the left. You'll go blind. Um, just to look at again the general patterns. So, what this is showing is, um, across the bottom, the percentage of time when we know we plant a species that it shows up. So, what you can see is about 25% of the species that we plant, they almost always show up. 75% of the time or greater. Um, then we've got another 20 to 40% or so that they're showing up between 25 to 75% of the time. And then down there in the green, you know, they're showing up less than 25% of the time. Um, so again, this is just kind of some of the general patterns we we can see. What the research community would would be great to do is then to go in and start picking out some of these individual species. And why does why does this species only show up 10% of the time? Or again, as I said earlier, why does this species show up 50% of the time? What's different between the sites that it does show up and doesn't show up? Okay, here are some hypothetical reasons why we aren't seeing some species. Um, in some cases, maybe it's a young seeding and we just they haven't got established and we didn't find them. Um, it's an old seating and they've maybe started to get crowded out. Um, and then yeah, just here's a couple others. Low germination rate was the seed storage done appropriately. Was there a drought that first year? Um, are there seeds that need to be seated at a specific time or with a specific method? Um, etc., etc. You know, one thing that I know has concerned a lot of us are the the the soil conditions here. Um, is there residual pre-emergent herbicide in the soil when we're putting this really expensive seed down? Um, if it is, then we're not going to have good seed success. Okay. Um, couple of ideas. Um, this is a hypothetical. Um, what's happening to our seedings over time? And I don't know, I suspect. Um, so on this time, um, the far left side, that would be the year we planted. And then that could be five years, it could be 50 years across the bottom. And then the vertical is just talking about richness and diversity. So one question we have is does diversity increase and then kind of plateau um for lack of a better term or does diversity kind of peak at is it year five, year six, year 10 and then does it start to decline? And my guess is we probably see a pattern closer to that red than the blue. those dominant grasses start really cranking and they just start crowding out a lot of the Forbes. So again, a a research question is when does that peak, you know, first off, which >> which line are our restorations following and then if it is the red line, when is that peak and then what can we do to prevent that decline as far as a management action? Again, that is a research question. Okay, woodilly. Uh very uh very um popular species, very visible, but it doesn't show up in restorations very often. Um it can be done. It does germinate. It's just a really really slow grower. So we may need to wait several years um before we actually see it, even if it is out there at some, you know, inch tall um plant there for the first few years. Oops. Um pas flower. Um you got to match the phenology. It looks like um seed it fresh. What a lot of people like to say is go pick past flour and prairie smoke seed in the morning, put it out that afternoon. Um we only found it at two sites and the two sites we found it at, one at WPA, one a WMA, those were sites that were seated in June. Um so again, some some of that real specific species specific data we're we're not even scratching the surface at yet. Okay. So, what why does diversity why does biodiversity matter in restorations? Why isn't a three species cheap and dirty quick and easy seed mix good enough? Um, and here I want to talk a little bit about the inverts and the insects. Um, and then talk about relate that to wildlife. So, when it comes to insects, a lot of insects are so closely tied to a specific plant species, they actually take that plant species name. So there I've got a couple of groups just insects that are named after plants. I'll just let you kind of read through those for a second. Insects that are named after specific parts of plants, stem bore, stem, seed, leaf, flower. Um and then some species, and I just picked a couple here. Um lead plant and compass compass plant. Um there we've got for lead plant or amorpha. Um, we've got 1 2 3 4 five I got five or six species for each one of those plants in different parts of the plant. So potentially for every new plant species we get established in a restoration, we could be creating habitat for x number of new insect species. They're just bugs. Who cares? Um, well, we should all care for several reasons. Um so looking at the invertebrate uh data um here are just some quotes from the published data. Um all these arthropod variables were significantly correlated to plant species richness in the field. The composition of the grasshopper community at a g given location depends on the species composition of the plant community and differences in insect communities between native and respored prairies may be best explained by the presence of insect host plants. So the greater the diversity of plants, the greater the diversity and the abundance of insects. Um so why does that matter? Um because insects are the primary food source for a lot of the wildlife we care about. And here I'm going to show my bias towards birds. Um wood ducks um were the only the only bird I was able to actually find numbers for. Um, but to lay um a woodduck roughly the same size of a as a pheasant hen, but eating in a wetland versus eating in the grass, wood ducks need to eat roughly 58,000 insects to get enough protein to lay a clutch of 12 eggs. Um, looking at um lesser prairie chickens in southwestern Kansas, practices that maintain our forb cover will increase invertebrate abundance and habitat quality. Um, and then some research from Iowa. Gameird chick survival is dependent on invertebrate availability. For egg laying hens and for fast growing chicks, nearly 100% of their diet is invertebrates. Um, so if you don't have a lot of insects out there um, and arthropods, um, you're not going to have protein, you're not going to have eggs, and your chicks are not going to uh, um, grow. you'll see the same thing in the song bird uh community or songb bird data that you see in the game bird data. Um so there should be a pretty good tie from blooms to bugs to birds here. I'll take an aside. If you hang out with a lot of entomologists like I do, they get really ticked off if you call all insects bugs. But again, working with alliteration here. >> We're not scientists. Yeah. [laughter] >> Um, so what we what we hope we can do is provide enough baseline monitoring information that other people can take our information and really run with it. Um, so like I said, there's probably a zillion questions relative to individual species, how to get them established, how to keep them there. Is there a best planting method? What is the optimal planting rate? Uh, do some species do better under Yes, specific planting methods. Um, how do the conditions at the uh time of planting affect species composition? If we plant something in the spring of 2029 and the Palmer drought severity index that year is X, we know it's going to fail and we should probably just get right back in there and reed it versus wait five years, let the thistles get established and then have to start over from scratch. Yep. Ah. Um, so then some of the larger questions again I would love somebody in the research university community to pick up on. Um, is there a correlation between uh diversity and the presence of invasive species? There has been some research on this already and it looks like the answer is yes. Um, is there a correlation between plant diversity and the diversity and abundance of wildlife and pollinators? basically, and somebody said this earlier, are we getting a bigger bang for our buck with these higher diversity seedings that, you know, they do cost more? Um, are we are we getting our our benefit? And then what role of enhance what role do enhancement or management play in maintaining the diversity once we get these restorations established? And with that, I'll thank you. And again, um, Phil and Allison are the ones doing all the work. Um, and yeah, I am I am signing time sheets and um that's about it. And with that, I'll be happy to take any questions. >> Questions? >> Uh, uh, Greg, nice to see you again. Um, thanks for geeking out with me a couple months ago on this stuff. Um, I one question I have is there's are so many open questions still with regard to restorations. You listed them on on your past, you know, the last few slides. Y >> why why so many open questions? We've been doing this for a while and and where can we get some answers on some of this stuff because there are so many opinions out there about what the right way to do this is. Uh yeah, chair members. Um yes, there are literally quite a few books out there. If you go to Amazon and type in prairie restoration, there there are quite a few books out there. Um and there's yeah, lots of websites. Um there are lots of opinions out there also. Um, I have my opinions of what has worked well for me. Um, I'm not sure if there is one right way. Yeah, one right way to do it. I think there probably are a couple of wrong ways. Um, but yeah, different things work for different people in different situations. Um, you know, so the last thing I would ever say is Greg's way is the right way and everybody has to do it Greg's way. Um, that's no, there's different things work for different people. Um, prairies are, I'm going to very selfishly argue, I think I've got the data to say this, are one of the most dynamic ecosystems in North America. Uh, a lot of the research coming out of especially Kansas and Cedar Creek by East Bethl um have demonstrated that. Um, so we are working with an insanely dynamic ecosystem habitat and there's just a million in one variables that anybody doing this type of work is trying to keep track of at the same time. And um, yeah, there's, >> you know, if well in another 30, 40, 50 years, somebody else is giving the same presentation, we're going to have more questions, not fewer questions. >> Thank you. makes you feel good. >> Yeah. >> No, it's actually it's actually super helpful because >> seed like seed mix, you go from county to county, there's different opinions on what seed mix should be allowed and not allowed and what should be included and what should not be included and it can make a anybody who's trying to do a restoration can make their head hurt because they can't seem to get definitive advice. You know, even though you and I talked about the grazing versus burning kind of thing, right? So, understanding that >> the dynamism in in the prairie restoration I think is actually helpful. Yeah. And yeah, and chair members and I I I don't look that I don't see that as a negative. I think it's actually really interesting that yeah, this county, this agency, this organization is doing things in slightly different ways. And um yeah, I I don't want to point any fingers and say you're doing it the wrong way. Um I think there's there's a lot of nuance on there. And you know I'm what will not come out of all this work is everybody who's doing a prairie restoration with OF funds should follow these do it you know these three guidelines and do it this way that's that will never happen but I I think we can kind of get at some of the subtleties of of what we're talking about here >> Mr. Chairman, [clears throat] as I drive across the countryside and I look at projects that I've been involved with, it seems like, uh, the efficacy of what we do a lot of times falls pretty short. I mean, is it is it not done right at the beginning? Is it not maintained properly or is it done right but like you say there was a drought and these seeds need moisture shortly after planting and we need to go back in. I mean what what has to happen to get higher degree of efficacy on a restoration? Is there any one thing or is there any one category of things? >> Uh yeah yeah chair and members no there is not one thing. Um yeah, one of the things we have learned like I said there are a number of WAS I I think I can say that probably some WPA out there also that yeah we we acquired them you know as maybe an old CRP field um and we just haven't gotten around to getting them to getting it to them yet. And again, like I said, I'll I can show you some of those sites. And in fact, quite often that site is next to a, you know, a three-year-old restoration that was done really well. And you just look at the big blue stem. It's like it's big blue stem, but they're they're way different. You know, they're different colors, different heights, blooming at different times. That's Yeah, they're just way too aggressive. Um what we what we have found we the the conservation community not just the DNR is when you've got yeah those old low diversity plantings of seed that we don't know where the heck it came from my one of my least favorite words is interceding. I don't like that word. Um but what we have found is the best way to do it and this it's almost traumatic. get a breaking plow in there and plow it up. Um, and in some cases plant it to soybeans for a couple years, get all that stuff out of there and then go back and do it right. Um, using the best science that we have today. Um, yeah, seeing a tractor pulling a breaking plow behind a WMA sign is Yeah. But that's what the science says that we we should we should probably be doing. Um and when we do do it, it we've we've had good results. >> It will vary also depending on the the specific site conditions. [clears throat] >> Yes. Yeah. Yeah. >> Efficacy. So I mean it's and the science is changing daily. >> Yeah. >> And so we have to be aware of of those factors as well. So >> yeah. And never plant when you know there's a drought coming. >> Yeah. >> Oh yeah. And we always know that. Even on the interseeding, we've had this discussion. I've had fabulous results on interseeding, but it's because I'm like babying it along with mowing, which is not a practical thing with all the different public lands that we have available. >> Yeah. >> Do we have built into our system enough quality control checks or whatever you want to call it question to make sure that [clears throat] things are done right? And if something even if it's done right doesn't catch that something is done as a followup. I mean is our does our system require enough quality I guess is maybe what I'm asking. >> Yeah chair and members I don't know that we have a formal set of guidelines written out on a piece of paper. Um but I do think among the entire you know the the the agencies the NOS's out there who are doing this work I I do feel that there are enough informal [snorts] checks and balances that we are we are getting that taken care of now like so you know one one thing that I I hope some of the information we we are collecting um tells us is yeah the drought issue it's a really easy thing to pick on um but you What I would like to be able to say in three or four years that yeah, if we do a seeding in 2028 and there's a drought of such and such a severity or index, we know that seating is going to fail. We should get out there the next year and get that receded as opposed to let it turn into a field of thistles, having to go in there and disc it up and spray it up and blah blah blah blah blah. Let's, you know, be very proactive um on that. And then again getting getting at some of that long-term data where we're surveying, you know, restorations of different ages. And again, this is where this is beyond what we can do with our funding where the research community comes in of Yeah. How do you maintain that diversity once once you get it there? Is it, you know, you know, some it's going to be some combination of grazing, fire, haying, etc. But what what what is that magic combination? Um we we don't know. >> That's what the the Prairie Restoration Initiative is designed to help. >> Yes. Yeah. >> Provide better information so that you know what that cycle should be. >> Yeah. >> And when it you know and you're continuing collecting data after those events of whether it's grazing or burning and those kind of things. So >> yeah, >> that it's a huge initiative across multi-states, multi- agencies that's really providing a lot of really stable data that's that's helping to to get us there. >> Yeah. So chair member, so the P data set, um yeah, they they're collecting data all the way from the Dakotas. Uh they've got a few sites in northwestern Indiana. Um and there actually um couple of university professors are working with Ian Lane who's the Fish and Wildlife Service um data manager for that data set. Um so yeah, we're we're already taking those steps that um yeah, the University of Minnesota is working on some grants to hire some graduate students to go into that larger multi-state data set and and really do the number crunching that the conservation community um needs. And then yeah, then we will be able to take some of our data and plug into that effort. >> Dave, one one last question for me and this is a little outside of OHF, but I'm curious how much collaboration there is between the DNR and um state agencies that that need to do these restorations uh or or the work like around the for the highway department. I mean, I'm seeing a lot of we're seeing a lot of native plantings after a big construction project >> that look great and then you're seeing like ridiculous, you know, tens of miles of stretches of crown vetch that is like bleeding into restorations. How much crossover and collaboration is there with those departments that are doing that kind of work and don't maybe have the same expertise as say the DNR does? Yeah, chair members. Um I I work I'll say a a little bit with with some of the the uh some DOT st uh staff. I think DOT works more with Bowser and all of their seed mixes that they they have developed. Um and I would defer that question to yeah DOT or Bowser um who would be able to speak in more detail and with more expertise than I can. >> Thanks. >> Great. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Appreciate the work. >> We just need bison everywhere. That'll help. >> We're working on that, too. We got a meeting on that late next week. [laughter] >> All right. Um, are there any public comments? Anyone wanting to make Go ahead. >> Should I go up? >> Yep. Doesn't matter which one. Doesn't matter which one. >> And please announce yourself for the mic everyone. >> Uh Cher Hartwell. I'm Mike Linaman, development director for the Minnesota Marine Art Museum in lovely Winona, Minnesota. So wrote up a little thing so I don't trip over my words here. Um, and uh, I would love to just first thank you all for re taking the time and reviewing our application. Um, I would be though remiss that I'm a little disappointed our proposal did not advance. Um, more than anything I'm disappointed because I can't answer all of your questions, which I very much heard and had to just sit waiting on the side. Um, we're new to the Outdoor Heritage Fund, clearly very much so. Um, we've never sought public funding before uh in our past and uh we learned quite a bit uh about what it means to be uh successful applicants uh and long-term stewards here. Um we came to this process with a little humility um and with genuine desire to become partners um in Minnesota's conservation work. Our our river's edge project would restore right around seven acres. It's about sevenish but about seven. Um by removing some invasive species which we have to see all the time and we have to remove those all the time. Um restoring our native prairie um pollinator habitat. Uh I wish I would have included more pictures you would have been able to see. Um and reconnecting people um in Winona to really a a a healthier and resilient habitat. Um our mission is one to connect people to water. um that is our entire purpose and people to that water and really it's just a natural extension of our work as we are literally on the Mississippi. So we throughout this whole planning process, we've worked closely with public partners. Um, city of uh Winona actually advised us to not pursue permanent protection um with the restoration design um until that was complete because the landscape itself was changing. It would be um some hurdles we were suggested. We followed their guidance um and then we came to Lassard Sam's Outdoor Heritage Council after receiving advice that this is the good next step because CPL would be metro only. That was the first plan and that made sense. Um we're small, we're in greater Minnesota. Um we don't have endless pathways. Um so we're grateful the encouragement and the option that we could still apply and see. Um the project here that we have is unlikely to probably come before the council uh again in its current form. Um but hopefully this isn't the end of our relationship with the council. Um we'd love to welcome any additional feedback um provided like how we can better align with outdoor heritage funds priorities. Um, we believe we can show habitat restoration, um, water quality, public education, and public access, um, really advance that legacy amendment together. So, wanted to say thank you again for your consideration, and, uh, hopefully we'll have that opportunity to continue learning from and, uh, partnering from the council in the future. >> Thanks. >> Great. Thank you. And I would encourage you to read the questions that came up because that'll help you going forward. >> Any other public comment? Anything else from the council? If not, we'll see you for hearings >> the end of August. >> Bring our comfy clothes. >> Bring your comfy clothes, >> but we'll have food. Um, >> can I request a recliner be brought? >> You can you can request anything. >> Okay. >> Thank you for building breaks. >> Yeah. So, have a great August everyone. We'll see you at the end of the month. >> Thank you. >> Meeting again. Thanks everyone.