right welcome everyone to the October 28th Watership Planning Commission meeting I will call this meeting to order uh we have the agenda and meeting minutes up and I believe everyone should have got the meeting minutes so uh please take a look at the agenda and meeting minutes and I will call for um an approval or well call for um modifications to the agenda or the meeting minutes and if there are none would like to um ask for a motion to approve as presented Madam chair this is commissioner pent uh hearing no Corrections or changes requested I'd move that we accept the minutes and the agenda as published all right do we have a second commissioner schm I'll second I will do Roy Commissioners commissioner Weaver hi commissioner pint hi commissioner Schmidt hi and commissioner Phil abstain thank you Commissioners okay and whoever has screen control can you roll me back to the top I do not have the agenda open I will open it as soon as we get rolling here um on another computer but uh as we get started I need to see it thank you um all right so then next up is it looks like we have our wo report from Vanessa I will turn it over to you thank you madam chair and Commissioners I just got a few updates Ryan and Melissa both have quite a few themselves um a few updates on a couple of things uh a couple months back I mentioned that we are working on a kind of a joint Endeavor with Dakota and Washington County for an mdh uh grant for scine testing in local Wells it's a pesticide side mitigation Grant uh basically MDA reached out the department of uh Health reached out to all Three Counties to see if they could kind of do some real targeted efforts to both test and provide uh water treatment for private Wells that might test high in cyanazine now there are only about a handful you know less than probably about a 100 in scat County in general uh but there are more in Dakota and Washington so uh with that in mind uh the fact that it would ALS provide us more data on potential cyanazine and maybe some other nitrate testing uh as well we went ahead and obviously joined that so that's kind of been executed and is moving forward um again the process with that is is that a letter is being sent out or sent out by mdh to those specific targeted residents asking if they'd be willing to test and if they do come in High um they can do a full replacement of their system or have pre-treatment done uh so it's a pretty good deal to make some Safe Drinking Water uh for those that may or may not test High plus it will give us some good information moving forward now the bulk of the work is actually being managed by Dakota County because they have a pretty um Hefty uh you know well and groundwater treatment program uh so they had a lot more Foundation already available so they're actually running the web page website for all three of us and kind of um helping with kind of the application process and everything so um um it's it's a pretty good deal for us so we'll hopefully get a little bit of good data out of that as well um but where that's at now is that it is uh kind of up and running so it's good to know um couple of things the county again is uh working on a new it's called an Erp system it's a system where we do all of our accounting our budgeting our finance uh and uh the county and the effort to replace that is a pretty big Endeavor uh so that's currently moving around and um it might actually help us moving forward because a lot of the work we actually do uh is often just in Excel because the County's current system isn't uh doesn't have the capacity to kind of handle the work that we do it's not organized for that so we're hoping that moving forward um we can do less in Excel and kind of more in a much more highly functional system so that's nice to have um uh just again another update too with the p Lake Spring Lake Wata District MOA which would allow us to uh Implement and manage their rules through the county ordinances kind of reduce duplicative permitting um everything is is pretty good on our end we are just waiting a little bit on the district uh to be ready to tell us that it's okay to sign that Mo MOA uh in the meantime we are administering their rules overall um but you know we're still kind of checking in with them probably a little bit more than we would normally once we have assigned away uh but that is still uh you know moving forward as much as it can and we kind of look forward to getting that one executed uh speaking of ordinance updates it is that season again I know Megan put in a couple of small ordinance updates um I'm looking out a couple of small updates as well uh one of them is to see if I can somehow figure out how to do a an administrative permit for FEMA flood plane Administration so right now uh our flood plane ordinance is very tight it's modeled after FEMA model ordinance through the DNR uh a lot of things require a permit as usual but some things like if somebody comes in through one of our C share programs and also happens to be in the flood plane oftentimes we don't have to do a permit because it's like the S swcd administering ordinances for us for that Resident and they're making sure all the permit requirements are being met unfortunately FEMA doesn't have that exception so I'm kind of looking at seeing if I can maybe do an administrative permit moving forward uh to allow us to still uh be compliant with our FEMA uh ordinance and still kind of keep those things moving around without having to go through a more lengthy permit process for those so those are kind of the kind of bundled ordinance updates we're looking at um the last one in that pile is we are also looking at coming up with a probably an in lie an an after the fact permit for permit violations permit violations have kind of crept up considerably probably in the last five years and we are spending a lot of time on permit violations uh and getting people to come in after the violations been recognized uh the problem is uh staff doesn't you know we don't make up the funding when somebody comes in after the fact for a permit so staff places a considerable amount of time identifying the violation reaching out to the homeowner working with the homeowner and then once they come in for the violation and do the after the fact permit it's pretty much it it doesn't cover all the cost and work we've done up through that up to that point so um we are looking at also moving forward with a kind of a a violation permit as well uh it'll it'll be a bit more than the normal permit um to kind of cover those additional costs um the last kind of thing of interest is that's kind of coming up right now is that we have been having again more development in the flood plane um one of the bigger ones we're working on or that has kind of come in with some questions is actually in Spring Lake Township and it's in kind of the Lydia area of Spring Lake Township that's kind of like right on 13 uh what often happens with development is people come in and they look at storm water they look at a lot of the resources look at wetlands and they often forget to turn on the flood plane layer and unfortunately Once you turn on the flood plane layer a lot of development is really no longer suitable for development but unfortunately people have also put a lot of time up to that point thinking they can put development in those places so um Lydia is probably a very good example of that where probably a lot of folks and developers have come in to this point thinking this area is great for kind of an industrial commercial development uh but unfortunately the bulk of it is very heavily located in the flood plane uh Ryan can I share my screen actually see if I can yes should be able to now perfect so can you see my screen all right now I can perfect little delay there so um this area here is kind of kind of the the general area that uh currently developers are kind of looking at and you know it looks pretty flat and probably pretty appealing and it's right on 13 which is really nice um unfortunately when you turn on the flood plane layers uh you'll notice that actually by and large the bulk of it is in the flood plane and actually County dish 13 runs through here as well so uh we're kind of trying to figure out the best way to kind of work through people learning more about the flood plane ordinances in advance so they don't put too much time and effort into development that might not go the way they are looking at uh plus especially with the potential abandonment of 13 in the next few years if it should that that should occur uh this area would obviously become an even uh wetter area as it stands so um going to bring that to you now uh because these things do seem to be coming up more and more now um and uh we will look at maybe ways that we can kind of promote maybe what the flood plane Ordnance is uh as we kind of do with wetlands and things folks are better now at looking at Wetlands on their properties prior to development and storm water requirements um just getting them to kind of get that last piece of hey don't forget there are often flood planes where you might not think there are flood planes so that's kind of the last uh update I have right now and I will stand for any questions thanks Vanessa questions for Vanessa Madam chair this is commissioner pint I have a quick question sorry to bother you about the details of this but you showed me the map on 13 there can you tell me what like what that cross road was on the North side or top side of that map where are we about where is that Crossroad yeah I saw the crossroad on 13 but so south of that obviously you're talking about but I don't know what crossbow that is oh oh it's um it's 10 or 205th Street okay so that's okay so it's right there at Livia okay oh yeah it's kind of blood plane typically we think of flood plane down on the Minnesota River Valley Etc but this flood plane means that their natural Outlet right is is there is no natural Outlet to that area so in a heavy rain event there would be pooling of water right there right and there's no Outlet yeah and County ditch 133 kind of hugs and we weaves its way through kind of that general area uh so by and large probably for the last many years um it's probably a little bit more uh Dependable as to how much it floods because it's a county ditch right it's maintained should County ditch 13 ever be abandoned uh it would obviously revert back to a more natural state which would increase those kind of fluctuations in in count D 13 area so exasperating and already a flood plane issue yeah very very very helpful thank you very much absolutely other questions for Vanessa okay hearing none I think we can move on to Ryan and his program updates Madam chair I think it's actually uh the swcd update first oops I'm muted um yep sorry about that go ahead Troy no problem thank you madam chair and good afternoon everybody uh just reading a few highlights from the October report in your board packet uh service requests these are a number of land owners in the Scott wo that we're actively working with on the cost share program whether it's technical assistance Andor uh project related uh you'll see for the month of October we're right around 140 or so total land owners and of that close to 80 or more are uh actual projects that we're working on health and uh soal Health cover crops uh we continue to make a focus on that we had a open house cover crop open house at Jim schwingler Farm uh that was back in uh September that was done in conjunction with the natural resource conservation service we have a partnership agreement with them for uh next few years to uh focus on on soil Health practices uh we coordinated our annual uh countywide aerial uh cover crop seating we did 405 Acres with an a winged airplane and 330 other Acres with a a helicopter uh each one has its advantages and disadvantages so some land owners prefer one over the other so we we uh offer both options uh we had 10 land owners that use our drill for no tailing and then another nine new requests for financial assistance uh the soil Health practice graph there you'll see a huge spike in 2024 this is really a a result of our focus on this and we've just seen a tremendous bump in the number of the amount of Interest we've had in soil Health practices we're well over 300 or 3,000 acres for the year covered within the tax program uh this is countywide but the vast majority of that is in the wmo uh equipment rental as well we haven't even hit the uh late fall uh season yet and we're up over 2250 acres for 2024 uh so we'll see another jump in that after um November here with additional seating being done late late in the year cost share funds so this is the uh a snapshot of where atat with the amount of a cost share we have we have have 1.25 close to 1.25 million uh in Awards we've uncovered over a million of that and so we're sitting on about 217,000 uh Ryan will talk later about Grant application or for uh wbf funds and so that will um replenish uh significantly here in the near future uh but we're getting down there and that's good we've made a conservative effort to get these funds out out of the door and uh that's been our Prime Focus the last year or two and and that's helped U Whittle that number down clean water education program uh we hosted outdoor education days we had a thousand students from 14 different schools participate um we completed translation services on a number of ms4 educational materials this is a a kind of a new metric that's required of uh communities that have their ms4 permits or mpds permits where that material that's available is available in different languages and we're starting to work on that um and thanks to the county they have uh somebody at the county that we work with to help translate into U materials in into Spanish so we appreciate that help uh let's see I'll move down to the water quality monitoring so we continue to do our our bi-weekly sampling on the main uh monitoring sites on the creek and also did the uh monthly synoptic reading that's where we go out to 38 different sites and collect uh data all on the same day uh we also collect 10 flows now since we had little uh to to no uh precipitation a lot of the streams are low and we actually uh had to take a number of readings at those low levels because the goal is to collect uh the flow gauge data at different stages of that Stream flow and we had a lot of high flows because of the wet spring uh so we needed to get some low ones and that's what we were able to do later in the season here um and for groundwater observation Wells we completed our um data collection on all 19 Wells for the first quarter so we hit each well throughout the county uh four times a year so their first quarter is done precipitation comes as no surprise you can see for the month of September uh it barely shows up as any precipitation so well below normal uh after a couple months of it being up o and I'll skip down further Ryan to uh inventory and assessment so we continue refine our inputs and develop our Raven Phase 2 subwatershed assessment uh we're finalizing the uh the uh model run which has been completed we're just doing the qaqc and all the data and then we'll head into preparing the final report for that one and then we'll be able to deliver both phase one and phase two for Raven stream here shortly um scoot down Ryan if you don't mind um I think that covers it on the narrative section uh the final part of the report just uh lists all the new applications that were approved along with payments this past month you'll see here we've done uh more than a dozen application approvals totaling over $95,000 uh this past month and then in payments would be the next part of that we had is there any more Ryan there we go about a little over almost $36,000 in in payments that were issued this past month so with that I'll stand by for any questions thank you Troy questions for Troy Adam chair this is commissioner pant I have a quick question for tro um you reported again that you did your 19 Wells monitoring again for the quarter Etc I'm assuming that U the data that you're collecting is falling with in the normal range of bounceback Etc therefore there's no issue um is that a fair assumption I think it's a fair assumption but I can't speak to it I I don't have the data um at my um availability right now but um what I could do is put together a uh a report that shows kind of where we're at and maybe include that in my next uh report to the board a report on where we're at with these uh we can do a year to date and maybe a 10 year ad average uh so you can kind of see how things are trending but I'd be happy to include that thank you so much I hate to put extra work on you but I am very concerned that I want to make sure we're monitoring in case there's any issues that I want to be ahead of the curve and not find out after the fact that we have an issue so I appreciate you thanks TR no extra work at all happy to do it and and it makes a lot of sense in fact The Soil and Water Board asked for the same the same question so we're going to put that together and uh share it out right thanks you bet other questions Madam chair uh Troy if you wouldn't mind just at the last meeting commissioner pint had a question about the helina Wetland bank if you wouldn't mind just giving kind of a brief update of where things are at I I did my best to tell them that you're embarking upon the fiveyear mark uh with Bowser and finalizing the acreage but think commissioner pint also was wanting to know what the long-term plans were yeah good question so Ryan right we we're um bumping up against the end of our five-year monitoring period uh we had our Consultants do the final Wetland delineation on the site it turns out we had a couple more Acres than what we had projected which we projected a little conservatively not being sure exactly how many would restore uh but it restored well uh so we have approximately 48 to 49 Acres of wetland in addition to that we we have approximately 37 Acres of Upland uh buffer and habitat area surrounding that so total about 82 Acres uh to 85 Acres total of of restored area um the the final um release of credits will happen within the next couple months so we were waiting to get this final delineation report then we submit that to um Bowser and the Army Corps and then they uh approved the final final release of credits as far as future management of the property um we haven't really made any decisions on that yet uh we were really over the past five years focused on on meeting our benchmarks and our performance standards on the restoration part of it um so I would think within the you know early next year to mid next year we'll be maybe diving into it deciding exactly what how we want to manage or what we want to do long term with the land itself for now it'll just be under our ownership we'll continue to manage manage it as we have making sure there's um all the noxious and invasive weeds are controlled try to control Woody vegetation and also manage the outlet structure to make sure that um it's in proper functioning order thank you TR okay now we can move on to Ryan with his program updates M chair commissioner good afternoon so I actually don't have a lot of updates uh because they're embedded in some of the other agenda items so we'll be able to go through this pretty quickly um updates in our cips uh so we did make the final payment for our phase six uh stream Bank project that was approved by our board on October 15th uh so that project is all wrapped up now nothing more to to do on that one uh the Pika Creek Ravine stabilization project uh has kept us busy here in the last few months um it's uh it was out to bid as of this morning so we had our um our bid letting uh at 10: a.m. this morning and I'll dive into more of that in the um the nine elements agenda item and I'll let you know who had the lowest uh bid and kind of where things sit with that now we also held a pre-bid meeting on site on October 11th where contractors uh were able to walk the site uh had probably roughly 10 different uh firms there so probably one of the more well attended uh pre-bid uh meetings and um a few folks also had let me know they wouldn't be able to make it and they did um not really supposed to but they did go out at other times to to look at the site so um we're planning for mid November for start of construction and wrap up in uh end of February so um that one's kind of at a exciting spot where we're going to be getting going with the construction soon uh we are starting to work on the docket revisions for 2025 uh so you will see those at the November meeting um there's not a lot of major changes um did want to make note that commissioner Schmidt did have a good suggestion regarding um residue management and that if you want to uh continue let's say you do a contract and then you want to do another contract they'd have to maintain your existing acreage uh to be eligible for any uh applying of new funds for uh different fields or new Fields similar to cover crops um how that works uh so that will be we made that change in there so you will see that um when it comes to you in November uh two more items had maintenance activities occur at Cory Creek and Blakeley Trail where they did some touch work um that work was completed by our public works department uh they did a great job on it and um it didn't take too much of a an effort to it wasn't uh it wasn't big uh any of the issues that um had happened so um that's all complete and last thing our macro invertebrate samples uh were dropped off at the lab for the 2024 season so we usually get the results maybe February March time frame um is when we get those back so then we'll put together a report and put that online when those become available and with that I'll stand for any questions thank you Ryan questions for Ryan okay on to Melissa is she on yeah there you are see yeah all right Melissa thank you madam chair um just a couple things so I've been working with uh different lakes to try to get their individual input so that we have um some informed information for the Watership Plan update so for odou and th working with them together I've been preparing a uh preparing for a lake uh resident public meeting um to discuss the future management of odal andth lakes there are some wants that some of the residents have um so that meeting is tomorrow night so myself and actually Megan will be at that meeting I'll be presenting on like sh Lake ecology Basics um the current state of the lake such as the water quality um vegetation management that we do and then I'll discuss what we do for current U management actions um and then the Lake Association will be sending out a survey so we created a survey together of about 10 questions they'll be sending that to the residents after the meeting um to kind of get some input from the residents um individually on kind of what they're looking for for the future for their Lake um so that'll help inform the Watership Plan update and then I'll provide those responses to you um probably at the January meeting because I think our November meeting agenda is going to be pretty full um doing the same thing with Cedar Lake I'm working with the Cedar Lake Board to develop uh the same survey I've got the same questions but I'm going to be meeting with them um next week to go over those to see if they want any changes um so the input for from the Cedar Lake residence will help direct um the Cedar Lake total maximum daily load implementation plan that we're going to be updating so next year we're uh going to be working with bar to update the model for that with the new data and information that we have um that model is going to be updated through Watership based implentation funds and um so that'll help inform for management strategies into that implementation plan so I'll be meeting with the board at their board meeting on November 4th to go over the draft survey questions and then we're going to be mailing out a postcard to all the residents in the lake improvement district which is approximately 465 Parcels um that'll include the survey link um it'll also be posted on their website and they'll have until December 13th to fill out that survey um and then the plan is for me to attend the the lids annual membership meeting in April to present the results and next steps to those residents I did reach out to McMan Lake a couple of my key contacts there to see if they would like the same thing and I did get one response back saying that um yes they would have an interest in um you know doing a similar survey um so I will put something together for them and and reach out to those residents um I did attend this morning the Minnesota pollution control agencies uh Watershed restoration and protection strategy meeting it was kind of an update on the approved sites and um some more detail on applying for a sway Grant a surface water assessment Grant to uh be able to do some oh sorry can I share my screen Ryan let's see yes you should be able to now sure okay um so the grant is if you made a request and the PCA isn't considering it a core site um the the PCA went through each request and determined whether they thought it was a priority um and some parameters they approved and some parameters they didn't they they said that they're deferring them so what that means is so here is the map showing all the different requests that were um submitted uh so I'm going to turn off that layer and I'm going to turn on oh yeah this layer so these blue circles are what the PCA considers core sites um so they the PCA will monitor these and they will pay for that monitoring and they will staff that monitoring [Music] um so there's six core sites in scat County um the biological sites they don't want to show here we go there are 13 um biological sites that npca will monitor for macros and fish some sites might not be fish and just macros um but I just wanted to show where all of those are um so a lot of them are in the Scot Mo there's a few in one in lower Min one in I think that's still lower men isn't it there's a par spring um and then one on Credit River so we will it's good for us to know where those are so that we aren't duplicating our sampling on the macro program with that um there was a request that I made so I'm going to turn that off and I'm going to go back here um so this request that I made here PCA is going to do um so they did a well I'm sorry they approved it so which means they approved certain parameters for it so they're not going to sample it but we could apply for a swag grant for those approved parameters um what also found a little interesting is that sorry I'm going to move back over here uh so this is Robert Creek you know we already have a subwatershed assessment a plan to improve Robert's Creek um this was a request made by an outside agency um but the PCA is going to they created a core site out of it so the PCA is going to monitor it and pay for that monitoring so we don't have to decide who's going to uh apply for a swag Grant on that site um this isn't typically the location that we monitor Robert Creek typically our location is further Downstream um so we might have more discussion on that um um there are other sites that it might be worth um if we decide to go for a swag Grant um to you know to work with the S swcd on that and have them apply for it because it does include basically all the expenses um that you would need to monitor so that it's pretty detailed on what it covers um so I might just jump in here Madam chair Commissioners um just a reminder that we utilize these sway grants and mpca monitoring to offset our own local costs because obviously if PCA will monitor it uh then we don't have to contribute the Scott W Mo Levy to monitoring it and uh especially for sites that we would like to have monitored right uh and then if we can get a sway Grant again the cost of the grant offsets our local Levy so that we don't have to use local tax tax dollars to pay for that monitoring as well it means we can focus those tax dollars on other monitoring sites or save them for other projects but we can still get the monitoring done that we want to get done um the downside is is that if this new lore Minnesota River East Waters said entity is now creating monitoring sites within the Scott wmo um it takes away or potentially can take away from us being able to get pca's assist with monitoring uh because now they're allocating the resources elsewhere uh so obviously that's when Melissa said there's some additional conversation that needs to be had um these are conversations we keep trying to have and haven't been particularly successful so far um we're not sure why this other new entity is uh doing work in our Watershed um and we are concerned that obviously there's really no point to this site being monitored uh so yes it is true that PCA agreed to make it one of their new core sites but does that mean they wouldn't they are not going to choose another core site that maybe we actually needed monitored in the wmo uh does it mean that they could have used that money elsewhere for something else um it's still tax dollars whether it comes from the wmo or elsewhere uh and of course the data they collect what's going to be done with it because we're not going to use it but we're the really the only entity with jurisdiction to do anything there so um these are kind of conversations we need to now have because of this new entity that doesn't really probably need to be here but is here nonetheless and we have to figure out how to move forward so um this is probably one of the first of many conundrums we will be running into moving forward uh thankfully this year it was just one monitoring site not many uh and so hopefully uh we'll be able to keep working through it moving forward so adding just a little bit on top of Melissa I know what you already getting uh covering there so yeah no that was good thank you um that's all I had at the moment questions for Melissa on her updates all right and then onto your plan update Melissa yeah I'm not sure why that was on there but I I just wanted to say that I'm I'm still working on some izing all the Phase One issues and concerns data I will present that at the November meeting okay I lost my agenda again so I apologize can we scroll back to the top fish survey thanks um all right yep fish survey go ahead Sean Madam chair I'll I can start off and actually introduce uh Sean let me get back to our memo sorry Sean I didn't mean to cut you off there oh no it's all good thanks Shan um there's a couple Point uh of emphasis here that I wanted to make so uh Sean and actually when I had created this um memo didn't know that Peter would be joining us as well so Sean Gibbs from Mount Hood environmental and then Peter hunt with uh the University of Minnesota uh completed all the work uh for us this year on our second round for our fish survey efforts on Sand Creek um and they will give you a little presentation here um and kind of highlight some of the uh items that they uh that they completed for us and some of them are especially like the Edna is pretty cool so with that I will turn it over to uh Sean and Peter awesome thanks Ron you welc here I'll go ah and share my screen here guessing you don't see it in presentation mode is that correct uh we're looking at it like as if you're creating the uh PowerPoint I think it's F5 I thought was the but it's also down at the bottom I know I'm losing my cursor um I thought it was uh yeah it's one of those where you got your cursor it's one of those there go all righty well thank you thanks Ryan thanks for the introduction uh yeah like he like he mentioned my name is Sean Gibbs I'm a senior scientist I'm joined by Peter hun who's working with M Hood environmental on this project um behalf of the county um we do a lot of we're a small research based company uh based s of the Pacific Northwest and uh pan and I are kind of working on uh operating out of the Midwest office uh out of the Twin Cities up here so um we do a lot of work with uh researching fish um aquatic invertebrates um amphibians we also do a lot of water quality and toxicology work um but today I'm going to be talking about the the some of the work we're doing with fishes in the Sand Creek Watershed um and I'm going to start I I'll try I know it's Monday and I know it's getting later in the afterno I'll try to I'll try to move through this quickly for everybody um but I do want to include just a bit of background uh history a lot of what I'm going to be talking about today is going to be focused on the dam that uh creates the falls over in the city of Georgia and by um by mil Pond there um and you can see in this picture from uh 1888 uh a picture of it over from the railroad track perspective um but the dam was actually built back in in 1860 so we're going on almost 165 years of it being in existence and I'm sure some of you are probably aware that for the majority of those years um the dam has functioned as a uh complete barrier to um Upstream Migration by fishes so we would expect a lot of uh various fish species to be migrating from the Minnesota River up into uh Sand Creek and and probably throughout the Watershed but the dam has for much of its existence uh prevented them from passing further Upstream uh and interestingly enough um their um the Minnesota game and fish commission which would have been essentially the precursor to them uh Minnesota DNR uh received so many complaints from residents of of uh new pra back in the early 1900s that they um um that the residents were no longer um seeing returns of fishes during the Spring up towards that the city um that they had once seen before the dam was constructed and so they were they requested that fish passage be installed and so the Fish and Game Commission um ordered installation of of fish passage back in 1906 and for about 50 years or so um there was fish passage at the dam and we know that some fish were at least using it up until 1960 when a major flood uh had destroyed the fish ladder um and that kind of sets I guess the scene for for the work that we're doing here um and the overall um objective of of this project is kind of a multi-year effort here is that is to basically quantify the impacts of the dam on fish assemblages uh Upstream of the dam and specifically uh we're interested in kind of two groups of fishes primarily uh game fishes so these would be species that would be targeted by recreational Anglers um and I'll show a couple pictures as examples in a minute here but also sensitive species or intolerant species that might be uh um good indicators of water quality or available habitat as a secondary objective we're also interested in freshwater muscles um I'm sure um some of you are probably very familiar with the fact that the nearly all freshwater muscle species require um a fish host in order to complete their reproductive cycle and so um what that basically translates to is um factors that influence fish populations and their distributions also have uh a really strong impact on freshwater muscles um so we would expect um a fish bass passage barrier to also impact the distribution of those muscles throughout the Watershed and why that's also important is because of course um some of you probably are very aware that freshwater muscles have um a lot of ecosystem benefits including um the ability to improve water quality and water Clarity so uh as just a brief overview of of the timeline for this work um we began conducting work last year in 2023 doing kind of a targeted fish survey located in close proximity to the dam um and this year I would say there's kind of two phases to the work that we did There's um the data collection phase which occurred in the summer and uh a habitat analysis that was conducted uh earlier in the spring that was used to inform the location for the data collection effort um I'll Circle back to this timeline here towards the end of the presentation but I'm going to really just go through these three elements uh rather quickly for you all here um so going back to the fish survey of last year um I mentioned we did some targeted sampling uh in close proximity to the dam so here we're just zooming in uh right there into Jordan the dam is indicated by that little red uh rectangle Sand Creek is the blue line and then the sampling locations indicated uh by green and orange and this was um more of a conventional uh fishery sampling approach so we were using Nets and electrofishing um at those sites and just kind of go through some of the few pictures um of some game species here so here we have one of our technicians who was working with us Kenrick holding a northern pike these are all going to be fish I'm not going to show all the different fish we caught uh Ryan knows that would take forever um but I'll highlight a few here um that were caught right below the dam so this is a northern pike uh popular game species of course our state fish here the walleye um and Sunfish this is a orange spotted Sunfish but also so these would be examples of games species but also some of the Lesser known um species of fish that aren't encountered Often by recreational Anglers um such as this Stone cat here which is like a very small species of catfish um or this slender head Darter which is actually a close relative to walleye and perch and these would be examples of more um sensitive and intolerant species and just to highlight um uh um on a on a more complete level here all the different species we observed here during that initial sampling located on the x axis um and then their relative abundance on the y axis indicated by the the height of These Bars and so what we observed was about three times as many species Downstream of the dam as up compared to Upstream of the dam we also observed a lot more sensitive and intolerant species Downstream of the dam but really this was just a snapshot uh in time and a very uh discreet um um uh spatial extent um and so we can make um very broad assumptions about about the Watershed as a whole um using this approach it's also very time um um an approach that requires a lot of of effort to to collect this type of data and so this year we transitioned to uh more of a watershed level approach um and a few different kind of key components of that that I'm going to talk about we had um a that habitat desktop analysis that we wanted to use existing data to kind of inform the locations at which we would be sampling uh and the two different types of or the uh two things we collected were uh Ed and a samples which um I'll provide a little bit more information here in a second but but essentially um it's it's an approach at collecting presence absence data for fish and muscles and then habitat data and so just some of those metrics as an example would be like temperature discharge uh Channel width and depth and really in order to answer our our our primary um questions we're going to combine these two things we're going to combine presence absence data with habitat um at those locations in order to understand how is um both how is the dam affecting the distribution of fishes and muscles throughout the Watershed but also how are the individual um habitat that are present within the channel also impacting uh the distribution of those fishes in order to arrive at a a final um um basically answer to our question so and so as far as the initial habitat analysis that we did uh it was um utilizing two different data sets a hydrological data set from the USGS um as well as the national land cover uh data set from USGS and the reason we wanted to use this approach again we wanted to be able to um if we just randomly sampled um there's throughout the Watershed without kind of trying to inform those sampling locations there would be a pretty good chance that we would miss um specific habitat types or perhaps uh inadvertently have kind of a biased um um set of data at at the conclusion of the study and so um we know that habitat within a stream can often be pretty closely associated with the surrounding uh land use so of course like a stream passing through a forested area um would be more likely to have for example like more large wood in in in it stream probably more complex habitat than um for example stream passing through agricultural area where uh perhaps there's less wood and more channelized um sections of stream so so we use this uh geospatial data to conduct a cluster analysis um to kind of give us a starting point um and basically this is kind of a visualization of that so what it did is it broke all of the um all of Sand Creek and its major tributaries into different habitat types more or less so we have forested habitat or forested sections in green Wetland sections in uh blue develop sections in red and agricultural sections in Orange and then um so we wanted to place our sampling locations for the data collection um component of our study throughout the Watershed but also we want to be sure that we're placing them in um these various uh habitat types so we can make comparisons of the fish assemblages located in forested sections Upstream of the dam and compare that to uh the fish assemblages that we observe in forced sections Downstream of the dam and um so on and so forth um and so once we had uh identified the sites we collected Edna this is a picture of our our setup here but as you can probably guess this is not Sand Creek uh so uh this is just um more or less to get a be able to show you a visualization um but Edna is a pretty is a pretty neat technology uh that's um becoming more and more utilized by agencies and researchers basically throughout the country um and what we have here is uh a backpack unit created by uh Smith rout and it's essentially a a little computer attached to a a a very sensitive water pump and what it does is it draws water up from uh in this case Sand Creek um through filters and this is kind of a zoomed in picture here can can you guys see my cursor yeah okay yes awesome thanks uh this is a kind of zoomed in uh picture of one of the filters that would be attached to the setup so at the end here we'd have um two or three filters collecting drawing water up from the stream filtering out DNA and then what we can do is we can send those filters to a laboratory that can analyze it and tell us which fish and muscle species are present within those examples and um there's a lot of um pros and cons to the the various uh approaches to collecting fish data um but one of the um major benefits of Edna sampling is that um if we were to go through and collect uh fish in a more conventional approach using Nets or traps or uh electrofishing we could maybe do one or two sites in a day um and with Edna um you know we can we can easily we can do a single site in about 15 minutes um just collecting the samples itself so um from a um a cost benefit uh perspective it is it is very cost effective so um a little summary of the data that we collected so we did visit 21 sites um one of the sites in in P Creek uh actually didn't have enough water to to collect samples or collect to data so we uh collected Edna samples from and habitat data from 20 sites uh which included 48 Edna samples um so some of the sites we ended up uh collecting add extra Edna samples from what we kind of uh anticipated at the start and then at eight of the sites we installed a temperature probe to monitor temperature continuously from here on out and we also um uh recorded discharge as well those same eight sites and I'm not going to bore you guys with a bunch of details from from the data because again we're gonna we're going to pair the habitat data with the fish data and the muscle data at the end but I do just want to give you a visualization of some of the data that we are collecting and so I'll throw uh I'll show you a couple of figures here they all kind of follow the same uh structure we have our sites uh indicated along the bottom here uh so 20 sites and uh each one with associated with one of the um box and whisker pots here um we have Sand Creek sites on the left side of the figure and then the tributary sites on the right hand side we have sites located down stream of the dam in blue and sights Upstream of the dam in red and then we have various habitat data that I'll kind of cycle through here so in this case we have depth recorded at the sites of which we collected our samples Channel with um we have we recorded bank erosion um on the top here um percent cover in the middle plots and then shade on the bottom plots um we recorded um discrete measurements of temperature and dissolved oxygen temperature on the top and TOS solved oxygen on the bottom and then um kind of cycling back to the timeline here so that carries us through 2024 we're going to expect to have our Edna samples analyzed by the lab and have those results hopefully under the next work order um this upcoming winter we'll use those to inform an additional round of Edna and habitat data collection um in the spring or summer of 2025 and eventually work towards hopefully having a large enough sample size to be able to conduct a um um occupancy probability uh analysis and finish up our reporting uh hopefully in 2026 so um and that was everything and uh with that I'll take any questions um thanks again Tom nice job Sean um how accurate is that Edna sampling yeah so that's a excellent question and it's one that does not have um a very easy answer um there is um for some species species that might be less um that might be more rare than other species is actually tends to be more accurate than like conventional uh sampling techniques for being able to detect those species than perhaps electrofishing or things like that but there is basically this unknown level of uh uncertainty associated with the data and that's where the analysis comes in at the end so uh basically if we if we're able to feed in enough data enough samples and Associated habitat with that the cool thing about the the model that we're going to end up building it's the same kind of model that's being used uh by state agencies like the one in Washington um or by wdfw in Washington um to do the same kind of approach and it's it's called an occupancy probability model and it it it'll basically um provide you with estimates of uncertainty for each of the species um and so it's it's something that we don't know right now um I've used this approach these kind of models in the past and it's it's actually really informative and really cool and has been really accurate for some of the muscles that we've worked with and um but as far as like def uh quantifying how accurate it is that's something we won't have those answers until we start uh in on the analysis and it starts to consider all the different U what positive detections or lack of positive detections uh at a given site across all its replicates it can will ride at those estimates at the end or or less so just one more follow-up question to that um is this a methodology that's recognized and accepted by like the Minnesota poan control agency who makes those decisions on impaired Waters because right now we have a lot of reaches and streams that um are listed for fish and macro IBS so yeah no that's a really interesting uh question and so I'm sure you you might be aware npca um with their surveys they're primarily um would be working with more conventional approaches like um Electro fishing for their surveys and so I I can't I certainly couldn't speak for the agency as far as like uh whether or not they would um uh lend the same level of credibility to this as their approaches um but from a fish biologist perspective I can say um this is becoming one of the more um utilized approaches uh even when it comes to um endangered species and things like that um as far as presence absence data goes so um it is something that we always just have to be and this is where the modeling kind comes into a play is that we just always have to be able to try to quantify our uncertainty and have that be part of the conversation when when arriving at any kind of decision making so um but as far as the scientific Community uh out on a broader level it is yes more and more uh becoming a a widely utilized um approach so and like I mentioned like for instance in Washington um their their state department is actually um transitioning almost exclusively to WS this to be able to describe fish assemblages throughout their Watershed so well it'll be a nice comparison to see what PCA when they're doing their modeling for the next two years to compare this and it it hopefully it'll help us make a case for some D listings too yeah um I also didn't uh mention it but I'll I'll Circle back to it real quick um we also when deciding where to place our sites we also did try to align that with sites where back in the early 2000s and late 90s mpca did collect data so that um if we do once we do have those lists of species that we observe there we can kind of compare that to um some of the older mpca data that um can't necessarily rely on but it'll give us a pretty good gauge as far as whether or not we're capturing um all the species and yeah thanks that's all I have thanks so my curiosity kind of aligns with Melissa is it is Edna just as commonly used in creeks and wetlands and lakes or is there one that it's used more often or preferred more often or favored more often um that's a good question and I don't know that I can necessarily speak to uh it on such a broad level I know um in all of those environments whether lentic or loic uh it is something that researchers are um incorporating more and more so um it is still on the um it's not a new technology per se it's been around for several decades but as far as its utility its utility is really coming in um to play more and more as the modeling has kind of caught up to account for um and and allow us to quantify the uncertainty associated with the approach itself so um I know and I could um I could even give like some examples of a numerous studies that have used this approach within like streams to kind of um with basically the same kind of thing that we're trying to do here within streams to describe how assemblages changed through um The Watershed but you could I would say it's probably a little my my gut is uh that is probably a little more widely used in streams than in uh lentic environments just given like the complexities associated with sampling there um but I do know that um I I want to say it's the Minnesota DNR working it might be in collaboration with the US fish and wildlife service but I could be wrong on that um they're exploring right now and they conducting uh initial studies to compare Edna results within Lakes to the Minnesota DNR Lake survey data sets and I've seen some of their initial presentations on that and um and it's pretty it's it's pretty impressive how um as from a presence absence perspective how um how how good they're they're getting it more for lack of a better way of saying it so yeah you compare this with a fish finder set yourself up with like you know one of those sorry yeah set yourself up with something very lucrative there um very fascinating yeah it's pretty it's pretty cool um but the mo again the modeling side of it's really um that's where the really cool stuff in my opinion comes in so yeah any other questions for Sean I have kind of a broader question um maybe more for our um staff do we plan to make any comparison to maybe um um records of what's in the Minnesota River and kind of make any assumptions about whether good or bad of what's coming up Street you know do fish like coming up Sand Creek you know anything like that can we make any conclusions like that or um is that not possible or not useful information Madam chair I I mean I think we certainly could and and we've talked about that the relationship between the Minnesota River and San Creek um but we haven't made any decisions yet on you know doing that sort of comparison um so yeah I mean it's it's a good question it's something we can certainly consider I mean I was just curious I I saw a video about how they were testing in the Minnesota River and how it's improved so much um the the variety of fish species over the past you know 20 years with all the work we've been doing so like oh it' be interesting to know you know how our numbers look compared to what they're seeing but it would it certainly and I'm sure there's d out there for the Minnesota River and we could do a comparison between the river and what we're finding in San Creek and see if there's species that aren't coming up you know there are established npca sites on Minnesota River and there will be resampling those I think three or four sites in the next cycle okay great updated information and I only throw it out there I mean if if it would be useful if it's nothing other than oh that interesting then I don't know if it'd be worth anyone's time so but I I think it'd be interesting to see you know what which ones are utilizing the cek and which ones aren't you know there's yeah there's a reason why some of them aren't you know and and what would what that might be so yeah okay any other questions okay well thank you very much Sean appreciate you being on today my pleasure thank you all I think we can move on to Megan and the th oow elevation survey Megan it looks like you're on mute about say the same thing yes I am I apologize for that thank you madam commissioner Madam chair and commissioner sorry um so just to just to present this item as kind of information on our th Lake Outlet situation or current status of that um in your packet there was a memo prepared with kind of a history of some of the outlet channel that is out there um for those of you who are not aware th lake has a rather IL defined Outlet Channel um that runs along the south side of blue Bill Circle um discharges from there um through a culvert to the North and then through a very um low managed system of ditches and wetlands and and private drainage ways um eventually reaching city of Shaka and eventually Minnesota River um we were approached by Lakeshore residents a few months ago with some concerns about Lakeshore levels um and as part of our wo Mission um so we could help out with getting a survey done of the the outlet ditch that runs along blue Bill circle on the South Side so Ryan if you can scroll down just a little bit further I think the exhibit was part of the package um so yep um so here is is a nice little cross-section exhibit showing the spot elevations that were obtained by um WSB who we hired to do the survey out there um and we plotted those on a nice little cross-section here kind of showing where the existing overflow is today um the ohw at 9 44.7 UM and just kind of shows where that ditch does currently outflow so this is kind of going to be presented tomorrow with Melissa at the at the Lakes Shore meeting or the lake meeting and we are presenting it here to you tonight first um and if you have any questions please let me know so if you don't read these very often Madam commissioner um the ohw uh on the top diagram is kind of outlined there in uh with it's it's listed there with the blue lettering 9447 and then uh those other measurements along those dashed and solid lines are those spot elevations that were taken so you can see that uh some of those spot elevations are certainly some are a little bit higher but some are certainly a bit lower as well um a little bit uh if you scroll down to the second image there um so this is kind of a bird's eye view obviously of the outlet Channel area so on the if you want to imagine it on the the right of this image is kind of the lake kind of kind of coming into that ditch area um and then it it kind of uh crosses under Bluebird there at the top where that kind of red dash line is and that that's where uh the Culvert is is located right now now uh interestingly enough uh looking into the history of this Lake there's actually a wetland a bit I call it to the Northwest Northeast apologize that actually has more impact on regulating that outlet Channel than anything else but uh water certainly flows through this Culvert or doesn't flow through this Culvert on a pretty regular basis and um we got some informational history from the DNR on exactly how many permits have ever been pulled on this and there were two in their re in their records one was in the 90s uh from a group of residents to replace that Culvert uh and then later in the early um Mid 2000s 2011 uh that was actually done by the township uh so the C that's currently there was was uh last replaced by the township so um obviously again you know installing and managing Outlets is not something the wmo does um or uh our priorities are water quality uh Lake Health uh stream Health Resource Health those kinds of things um not necessarily the how how full the glass is because it is a natural resource and it will fluctuate uh but we are certainly happy to provide data because that is one of our missions um so that was how kind of Megan helped us and assisted us with this so uh if you have any questions relating to this data or things you think residents might ask uh now is a great time to bring those forward uh because Megan's here and she'll be braying it to the residents tomorrow so any thoughts you have are are obviously appreciated yeah I was guessing I wonder what elevation we start hearing concerns do we know is it when the road is over topping or there other or they're just saying kind of in general it's higher or um the the blue Bill Circle and in Mary's Town Road there aren't usually in any danger of overtopping um but with past history and notation our files there's there's been complaints when it's too high and there's been complaints when it's tooo low um and the recent concern this year was too low but it seems like people have over the history of the lake um concerns have been expressed in both directions yeah yeah yeah Madam chair this is a very flashy Lake I mean it it's up yep sitting at the top of its Watershed the way that it is it's it's fascinating resource um I'd like to learn more a lot a lot more about it but um what we know so far is yes we there's they it often is either very high or very low and they come to us when there's both okay any other questions this commissioner pin just a comment a few years ago when the water was too high and we had uh problems with up stream from this area where flooding the backyard and the problem was that the Culver area was becoming blocked with Cattails so I became very controversial but we did I believe at that point agree that they could clean out the Cattails to allow the 9427 eight Culver to drain appropriately so it's interesting that it's either too high like you said or too low so I thought I had remembered more going on here thank thank you for dogging my memory because I thought we had discussed this and I I was thinking it was in more recent history but you're right it was a while ago and they were going to do a cleanout aren't they Madam chair commissioner P yes we did look at that the V ation removal we ultimately did not do anything um part of it was there is another Lake south of thol Odell called Schneider Lake and that's where we had residents that were upset by high water levels but we came to find that it was there's an old cattle pass on that County Road and I'm drawn a blank of um of that County Road there it be on the south end of of odow um but they cleaned that out and that seemed to resolve um the issues that they were having so it was actually um a culvert connecting odal and Schneider okay any other questions or comments right looks like we can move on to the nine elements phase two P Creek ravine thank you madam chair and Commissioners so this is a little little bit of a hodg Podge we don't usually do this but uh some of the uh grant information uh came through a little close and tight to our desire to apply it to the paa creek Ravine stabilization so we kind of had to hustle our our chuses and get this through to the board as well so we're kind of uh bringing for forward some information that really evolved quickly over the last month uh so if you recall uh in 2018 the wo submitted a letter of interest to participate in npca nine elements plan which kind of replaced the traditional section 319 grants um kind of are two the two backbones of grants that the wo and most wos and wats use are either the section 319 grants through mpca or the Board of Water and Soil resources grants those are now called the wbf grants so section 319 grants kind of evolved into these nine element grants uh however to uh be eligible for these new nine element grants you had to put together a kind of a targeted plan uh and we did that and our plan was actually approved back in 2020 um and so then that makes you eligible for about 16 years of Grants Bren down into four sections and the concept is is if you uh implement the plan in those four sections over those 16 years you will have hopefully completed everything in that plan by the end of the 16 years and um the the resource will no longer be impaired obviously it's a very lofty goal uh nonetheless we hope to get obviously much closer to achieving that goal through implementation of the plan so uh the first uh section the first phase of the nine elements plan we literally just finished wrapping up there were multiple fa there were multiple activities in that one it had some cier projects it had some work with the Cedar Lake improvement district um it had a group of nice resources and activities that we did uh the second phase actually just came through it came through a little late PCA had to wait a little while longer than they thought again they had to wait for the EPA so this one does talk back to the EPA so things can take a little bit more time um as it turned out uh when it came through we were able to squeeze it in to apply it to the peac creek Ravine stabilization so that's the Sand Creek phase oh Ryan is it four I know these are out of order it's four uh no this is Phase five right now five completed six before five zanado do is six Pik is five they're in the study we named them and even I still struggle keeping them at our that's why I give them names like Pika and zanadoo and DIN and things like that um so as it stands uh this one just came in although we do technically have four years to implement this next uh phase of this Grant and plan we will obviously be executing it here within just the next few months uh the grant uh is a little it it's going to end up being overall a little bit smaller but not by much uh the Grant in this case is 289 $289,600 uh this grant does require 40% match uh so our local match will be [Music] $193,900 182,780 so this phase there's only one project instead of several uh in this case um it's just the Pika Creek so um as we hope to get it in so I uh we are bringing this to the board this is actually going to the board um to approve the lowest uh responsible bidder actually on November 4th uh so we're bringing it forward to the WPC because we would still like you to review it and make a recommendation of support that you would actually um suggest that we do use these funds for this purpose and for this project and uh recommend the bidder that we are hoping to use keeping in mind bid opening was this morning we don't usually do things at such a quick timeline but again we are trying to get this used up as soon as possible so timing is tight but it is actually going to work out for us um and then if you could just scroll down just a little tiny bit oh little little back um and then just a reminder through the grant um the goal through installing the peak Creek Ravine stabilization project or Sand Creek phase five um would hopefully net us a reduction in phosphorus of 4662 pounds per year and siment of similar amounts uh so that's the actual project that we're bringing forward for recommendation for the nine elements uh Grant and then the little kind of second half of this memo is the bid opening which as at the time that this was written we did actually know so I'll be turning this over to Ryan in just one second um but then again just a reminder uh this grant um if we're you know moving it Forward would actually just offset construction costs for the P Creek uh stream Bank stabilization which would mean it would reduce how much fund balance we need uh for 2025 current proposed fund balance usage is 444,000 42 that means we'd be able to reduce that by almost 34s uh and that would help us a lot because we cannot continue to dip into our fund balance and definitely uh one of the reasons we can is because obviously we had saved up for this project um which would be helpful for us moving forward so Ryan if you could uh present to Madam chair and the Commissioners the bid information and what staff recommends is the lowest responsive bidder and then we'll ask the Commissioners to uh make a recommendation for the work plan and uh winning bidder yes absolutely and cheer commissioner so kind of an exciting day you prepare for this project for years I mean when we did this feasibility study back in 2015 we knew this project was going to be um a little bit more on the spend year side things and that's why it's U the last one we had to save up enough to to pay for it so um the we had four bids that we received um and they ranged from our low bid uh which right now obviously they have to go through all our paperwork and processes um to ensure that they can meet everything that we've got in our requirements was for Vite and Company and their bid was $653,000 $598 75 if you will recall Vite is the one that just did our phase six uh stabilization and uh I've probably mentioned it before they actually did phase one which was three different sites as well so um they definitely have been the leader in terms of uh winning these bids so this would Mark the fifth project uh that they would complete with us so um they did an excellent job on the last one I'm not um think that they're going to run into any issues with the paperwork side of things and meeting all the requirements I sure hope not since they did our last one uh so that would be kind of what we're looking for the uh WPC if they are okay with um you know assuming that V meets all the requirements if um they'd be all right with going with them for the winning bid and Madam chair commissioner I would also anecdotally add that I have noticed that when Ryan works with Vite um our bi-weekly updates or our monthly check-ins are are less stressful he seems to be less stressed by Vite so V's been really good so it was exciting to see them as the low bit today and the other I should just note the other ones were Ka wit construction uh Minnesota native Landscapes and sunram construction uh which if you recall three of those have actually done a project with us Minnesota Nat Landscapes did phase two and sunram did phase four we were fortunate to get four bids of from actually all good companies um yes that was nice out of curiosity where the bids close um so the winning bid was 653 the next closest I think was around 715 and then the highest was over 800,000 so there was quite a bit of variation you know close to 200,000 um our last phase it was kind of interesting because the engineers give us a a highend and a low end and uh it actually was exactly that the bids the low end was what the engineer provided as the low end and the high end was the high end this one's a little bit more variation than that questions first and if not do we have a motion that to recommend that the board approve the work p plan and the proposed bidder from our staff Madam chair this is commissioner pant I would uh make a motion to recommend to the wo board that we accept the uh low bid for the nine element uh Phase 2 project as defined by Ryan today we have a second Comm Schmid I'll second um I'll do a rooll commissioner Weaver hi commissioner Pence hi commissioner Schmidt hi and commissioner Phil Comm Phil we may have lost him he did let us know he may oh hi there he is thank you commissioner Phil you're welcome all right that motion is passed um yeah congratulations you guys this is this is good news exciting day very cool all right next up um the AIS prevention plan updates Melissa thank you madam chair um as you know every two years we update the Aquatic aasis species prevention plan this is just um continuing that update um I listed what those updates are in the memo if you if everyone had a chance to read that they're very minor basically just updating data um and the budget for the next two years um I'm still waiting for all the partners to uh respond to um if they if there's anything else that they wanted updated in the plan um um I did hear back from one saying they thought it was good I'm still waiting to hear from Pake Spring Lake so they have until next week um and then depending on what they have um I'm going to be bringing this to the board um sometime in December so with that if anybody has any questions [Music] um on the memo or the updates or if you have something you would want to suggest that we put in there um I'm open to suggestions I assume if we don't hear back from par Lake Spring Lake it's automatically approved as is or or our board as long as they approve it it moves forward yes because I did give them a timeline um when I would like to comments back okay questions okay do we have a motion um that we recommend that the board approve the um aquatic evasive species prevention plan as presented commissioner Schmid I'll make that motion and do we have a second this commissioner they I'll second that right I will do Ro Commissioners commissioner Weaver hi commissioner pint hi commissioner Schmidt hi and commissioner Phil hi thank you Commissioners all right we're getting there um next up uh 2025 wbf Grant Ryan M chair Commissioners so I'll make this one brief um this is just to give you kind of an update as to where things are at in terms of our next round of um Watership based implementation funding and so if you'll remember I think this is our fourth phase of it it started in 19 and it goes every two years so um we're still actually working on our 2021 uh wbf um and then our 2023 wbf was for our xanadoo um CIP so this one actually we um have a few different activities and I listed them as the bullets um on the uh the memo so we are going to do some cost share in the Porter and San Creek watersheds for our um normal cost share program a ditch multi-purpose study in County ditch 4 um Cedar Lake water quality model update and then updating the Sand Creek water quality and assessment implementation plan uh right now where things are at is Bowser has approved the list so there's um you know all the various different entities within Scott County are um they went through this process where they identified their project so that list um with everyone on it has been approved and now it's on us to basically generate our work plan and so we'll probably be looking at generating that work plan um in November and then it would go and if approved then we go through the process of executing the contract um and in total these Grant dollars would be 322,000 um and we are also assist ing the city of newag on um their City Center storm water Improvement design so that one we're not leading it um but it's still um one that we're going to assist the city on and with that was say for any questions any questions Madam chair this is commissioner pin Ryan real quick again uh county road ditch does that service is that part of the new prey issue oh the City Center storm water Improvement designs yeah yeah you said you said a study on County Road ditch where is um the stud's on County ditch 4 and that one Melissa's kind of the more lead on it so I don't know Melissa if you want to chime in yeah oh did somebody else start oh I did I apologize that was me go ahead um no so commissioner pent um this is actually in our Watershed plan to um kind of do a visioning study on a couple different ditches in the county uh we picked County ditch four because it's there's been talk that it could be abandoned at some point in time because it's the the use has changed over the years um in Credit River Township which is now Credit River City um so we thought we'd start with um CD4 it's more of a kind of a visioning study to determine you know um what improvements we could make if it were abandoned in the future to make it um improve water quality in in cret River itself so we'll look at um best management practices um we'll do some modeling in the study um and we'll be working with the city and the and Township um so I mean I can provide you more detail if you'd like it but um we'll be given updates Wella that's great I just I just couldn't remember where County Ro ditch was so I appreciate you following up on that I'm sure we'll hear more going forward so thanks yeah and the the the county the multi-purpose ditch studies are are are kind of interesting to me specifically because I probably haven't really done these too much in the past um it's really only in the in these kind of almost Urban Fringe developing Edge FR I don't know how to explain it um in the inner in the inner uh suburbs you don't see as much ditch abandonment right you don't really see much change over of ditches ditches have kind of uh found their final destination and the by the time things are more urban developed so I think of them as being very interesting I've never actually done one of these myself um I'm kind of looking at it as more of like I said kind of a subwatershed assessment kind of how we would normally look at reach of Sand Creek um normally we don't look at that for ditches because ditches themselves are a little bit more closely akin to um managed storm water infrastructure so in that respect we usually don't look at how to um do a subwatershed assessment obviously in in an a managed storm water infrastructure but when it's no longer a a storm water infrastructure um it becomes a little bit more back to its initial Creek uh and I will just add to that the county is actually pretty serious on abandoning four at this point uh this was added to our plan many years ago and the county has actually probably moved forward a little bit faster on this one than the plan did uh so in this case they might get some of this information a little bit maybe later towards the abandonment um there are others that the District board has actually been looking at 13 is another one that's on the list maybe not as high as for uh but that might be another one we might do a study for and it just helps us as these resources turn over right they evolve kind of back into a natural Creek reach uh as how we can best reduce pollutants and manage them in the future um I Troy I did see you had your hand raised I know it was as a very active member of the ditch board as our ditch Authority did you have some more insight you could help us out with yeah no I I I just kind of build on what were saying um I just had a quick update is the county did send out letters to all the county ditch for land owners about abandonment and basically it came along with a uh a piece of paper that says how they vote do they want to abandon or they not they want to keep it as a county ditch so there's a repi deadline I think sometime in November on that so we might know very soon whether or not abandonment will be uh pursued in the your future here thank you for that update we appreciate that try so and you know if you think about it as a as a ditch it's it's required to be you know cleaned maintained water has to flow through and all those good things when it reverts back to being a reach or an unnamed Creek uh it does not right so it's going to start acting more like those resources do it will flood the way that more natural resources would flood if things clog or back up there's there's no requirement for you know cleaning out making sure water flows anymore uh and that could certainly affect the flood plane of the area it can affect the hydrology of the area so it's um it's kind of a very fascinating thing for me to see that I don't get haven't got to see before so that's my two cents anyway commissioner thank thanks for the clarification of that look forward to seeing more information on that county road ditch thank you other questions okay I believe this is just an info item correct so then we can move on to adjourn the meeting do we have a motion to adjourn Madam chair this is commissioner pent I move to adjourn you have a second commissioner Schmidt I'll second and I'll do R commissioner Weaver hi commissioner pint hi commissioner Schmidt hi and commissioner Phil hi thank you so much Commissioners right have a good night everybody