Members ATtendance

VISITORS:  Marcia Sands, Golder Associates.

1)      Call to Order and Approval of February 19, 2004 Minutes
Rob Corcoran, the PBAC vice-chair, called the meeting to order at 2:35 PM.  The minutes of the February 16, 2004 meeting were approved by consensus as corrected.

2)      Election of New Chair and Vice-Chair for current and next Fiscal Year
Jay Becker, the PBAC chair for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2004, announced at the February meeting that he had taken a job in western Washington and would not be able to complete his term as PBAC chair.  Two options were discussed:  (1) elect a temporary vice chair to serve with Rob Corcoran, the current vice-chair, who will serve as chair until elections in June or (2) elect a new vice-chair to serve with Corcoran for the next 16 months until elections in June, 2005.  Mark Workman moved, Barney Waldrop seconded, and PBAC voted unanimously that Rob Corcoran serve as PBAC Chair and Tom Scallorn be elected to the vice-chair position until the 2005 elections. 

3)      Federal Grant Update
Kirkland informed PBAC that getting access to the $100,000 of earmarked federal funds would probably take several months based on communications with EPA and others.  The first step is for EPA to appoint a project officer to act as the contact.  Next, EPA has to determine the requirements that have to be met for release of the funds and then the paperwork has to be completed.   Jim Werntz, the EPA Field Office Director in Boise, is helping Kirkland get a project officer to work with and to understand the details involved before PBAC can gain access to the $100,000 in earmarked federal funds.
   

4)      Monitoring Well Field Project
Kirkland informed PBAC that Jim Osiensky, Kent Keller, John Bush, Dale Ralston and he had met to discuss the location, design and timing for the proposed monitor well field.  The proposed site is on UI property northwest of the mall toward the Washington line.  Due to the location, which is expected to have alternate sequences of basalt and sediments, costs for the proposed well field is expected to exceed the $80,000 of PBAC funds allocated.  Kirkland proposed using some-to-much of the federal earmark funds if needed to make sure the monitoring well field is done well and effectively collects the desired data.
Timing could be very important.   If the details can be worked out quickly it may be possible to get a driller on site this spring.  Otherwise it will probably require waiting until the busy summer season is over and drillers are possibly interested in contributing some to the project and/or bidding a lower rate for the drilling in order to keep the crew working.
In the discussion that followed the consensus was that earmarked federal funds could be used but PBAC wanted more details about the proposed bids or drilling proposals before any final decisions are made.
Maria Sands from Golder Associates in Coeur d’Alene said she would be willing to provide some names of drillers who might be interested in offering a good deal to do some work in the area.  She is working on ground water projects for Golder and has considerable experience with well drilling.

5)      Preliminary Planning for Next Fiscal Year Budget
 Kirkland said PBAC needed to make some preliminary decisions at the March meeting about the 2005 fiscal year budget which starts in July, 2004.  In preparation for this discussion, he reviewed top PBAC goals and objectives and on-going research and activities.  PBAC’s long-term goal is to ensure a dependable supply of quality water for the Palouse Basin region.  A priority subgoal, which PBAC has been focusing more attention on in recent years is to stabilize the deep aquifer system water levels.  Both of these goals require careful and systematic monitoring of water levels throughout the Palouse Basin.  Installing and effectively utilizing the monitoring well field project discussed above is expected to further this goal.  Continuing to monitor water levels in key wells in the basin and analyze the data from large-scale pump tests is also very important.  Erik Stern has been doing this work for the past year as part of his thesis project.  A replacement graduate student needs to be trained starting this fall to take over for Erik, who will graduate in December. 
PBAC has only been monitoring a half-dozen shallow aquifer wells because of the priority focus on the declining deep aquifer water levels.  For a variety of reasons PBAC needs to begin a systematic monitoring program of shallow aquifer water levels in the Palouse Basin.  The most productive means is setting up a thesis project that will locate and examine regional shallow aquifer wells and then select a sample of them for monitoring on a continuous basis.  Under the guidance of key UI and WSU professors the data will be analyzed and findings presented to PBAC.  Because good graduate students need to make commitments to the school of their choice and decide on graduate projects by mid-April, Jim Osiensky needs to be able to offer appropriate students financial aid to carry out the desired graduate projects in the near future. 
Kirkland said PBAC has been funding two such graduate projects this past year with a specific allocation for Erik Stern’s monitoring work and a supplemental appropriation to OK Project funds for Alyssa Douglas’ work on dating water samples and attempting to determine ground water movement.  Both presented progress reports to PBAC at the February meeting.  Kirkland requested that PBAC authorize setting aside $20,000 for both a deep aquifer and a shallow aquifer monitoring project from the 2005 fiscal year budget so agreements can be made with appropriate graduate students for the required work.  Mark Workman moved and Mike Holthaus seconded setting aside $40,000 from the FY 2005 budget for continuing the deep aquifer monitoring program and setting up a much-expanded shallow aquifer monitoring program.  However, two specific proposals are to be presented to PBAC with the appropriate Memorandum Of Agreement before these projects are finalized as items in the FY 2005 PBAC budget.  A request was also made that Kirkland  check to see what other financial help could be lined up to supplement any PBAC funding.

6)     Small-Scale, Shallow Aquifer Well Applications
At the November 20, 2003 meeting, IDWR asked PBAC to review applications for two shallow aquifer wells east of Moscow for approximately 0.07 cubic feet per minute ( about 45,000 gallons per day at continuous use), which is considerably  more than the domestic exemption maximum of 13,000 gpd in Idaho.  At the November 20, 2003 meeting in which PBAC discussed and approved these two shallow well applications as not counter to the regional ground water management plan, the issue of what size well applications should PBAC review came up and further consideration was requested for a future meeting. 
Following up on that request, at this meeting Kirkland passed out a sheet with some questions and considerations for addressing small, non-exempt well applications in both the deep and the shallow aquifers.  After a short discussion, the consensus was that all non-exempt well applications for the Palouse Basin area should continue to be reviewed by PBAC.



 

7)     Status of IDWR Order regarding Idaho Portion of Palouse Basin
Kirkland heard indirectly that Karl Dreher, director of the Idaho Department of Water Resources, said the order for the Idaho portion of the Palouse Basin, required in response to the Coalition petition, would not be issued until June due to legal complications in the adjudication of water rights in south Idaho.

 

8)     Reports and Announcements

a)   WRIA – The majority of the March 10 WRIA 34 meeting was devoted to discussing supplemental grants.  The next meeting on April 14, 2004 will be an all day meeting devoted to reviewing the existing data collected by the consultant for the Palouse River Basin. 

b)Activities by Entities
Tom Scallorn and Les MacDonald reported that a consultant would be making a presentation to the City of Moscow on April 19 with a list of water conservation suggestions for possible inclusion in a Moscow water conservation plan that will lead to increased conservation of deep aquifer water in the Moscow area.  Moscow will also be adopting a water conservation ordinance for the 2004 irrigation season that will limit the hours available for irrigation and possibly restrict watering to odd-even days for specific locations.  Tiered water rates are being evaluated with the intent of implementing a tiered water rate structure before the 2004 irrigation season.
Mike Holthaus reported that the University of Idaho had pulled the pump from UI well # 2, a shallow aquifer well that has not been used in many years.  The University has agreed to allow monitoring of the water levels in the well, which will be a key well for the shallow aquifer water level monitoring program since this well is not being pumped.

 

9)     NEXT MEETING DATE

By consensus the meeting was adjourned.

Respectfully Submitted,

Larry Kirkland

Note: these minutes are submitted in draft form and have not yet been approved by the Committee.