April 21, 2005 Meeting Minutes

UI Facilities Management Building, Jack’s Creek Meeting Room

Members Attendance

Visitors: John Bush, UI Professor Geological Sciences; Alyssa Douglas, IDEQ; Bill French, Palouse Water Conservation Network; David Hall, Latah County Resident; Bob Haynes, CDA Regional Manager IDWR; Brian Johnson, UI Assistant Vice President for Facility Services; Farida Leek, WSU Grad Student; Nancy Chaney, Moscow City Council; Kathleen Warnick, Moscow Citizen; Phillip Nisbet, I Minerals, Inc; Jenna Campbell.

1)    Approval of the March 17, 2005 Meeting Minutes – Rob Corcoran, PBAC Chair, called the meeting to order at 2:30pm. The March minutes were approved unanimously with minor revisions.

2)    Proposed changes to PBAC Bylaws   – The proposed changes to the bylaws requested at the March meeting were circulating prior to the April meeting.  Adams suggested a number of changes to improve the efficiency of the bylaws starting with a definition of a voting member as one whose PBAC dues are current.  There followed extensive discussion regarding additional possible changes. The Chair then recommended that PBAC adopt Article 6 defining who is permitted to sign agreements for PBAC and that a further revision of the bylaws be presented at the next meeting for final adoption after more review.  A motion to the effect of the above was moved, seconded and passed unanimously.   

3)    Change of UI Representation on PBAC -
Ken White, UI Director of Facilities Maintenance and Operations, announced that he will be retiring at the end of June. He introduced Brian Johnson, UI Assistant Vice President for Facility Services, who will be taking over his position on PBAC. 

4)    Updates on PBAC Research Projects

a)     Handout on Comprehensive Data Base and Analysis from Farida Leek – Farida reviewed her progress presented in the handout.  Since the last update in January of 2005 the remainder of the 739 basin wells for which she has data have been digitized. In addition a generalized soils map and stream network map of the Palouse Basin were added to the database. Long term hydrographs for the Moscow City Wells and the WSU wells were updated to include information up to December of 2004. Other progress includes expanding the annotated bibliography, which now has a total of 189 references.  The next and final progress report to be presented in July of 2005 will include three cross-sections of critical basin areas, water level contour maps and 2 user manuals. One manual will detail the usage and maintenance of the PBA GIS database and the other manual will detail the usage and continued development of the bibliographic database using Reference Manager.

b)     Handout on Shallow Aquifer Benchmark Study from Nicole Badon – A GPS survey of the shallow aquifer wells being monitored was conducted on April 3, 2005. All water level data are now shown as mean sea level elevations for comparisons. On February 14, 2005 a pump test was carried out using Moscow City Well #2. During the test, Moscow City Wells 3, 6 and 8 and nine area private wells were monitored.  The pump test results documented an impacted on Moscow City well 3 and the Bond well slightly over half mile to the southwest. All other wells either showed no impact or the impact was so slight that it is obscured by the “noise” from other pumps, barometric pressure changes or other causes.  Further analyses of the data collected are currently being conducted.

5)    Idaho Legislative funds for PBAC Projects – (Handout)
Kirkland advised PBAC to table this item until next month when more information will be available. There will be a meeting between IDWR and PBAC on Wednesday, April 27, 2005 at 8:30 AM in the Moscow City Hall Council Chambers to discuss the process of making the $450,000 of legislative appropriations for the specified PBAC projects available through IDWR.  This will be followed by an IDWR presentation on the project funding to the public at 11:00 AM that will include a time for questions. Anyone may listen in to the first meeting which will not include any public involvement.

6)    Report from PBAC subcommittee on Citizens Advisory Group (CAG) – The PBAC development subcommittee for the CAG met at 1:00 PM prior to the PBAC meeting to make minor changes to minutes of the March 31 meeting. A quorum was not present so no official changes to the CAG charter document were made. The subcommittee will meet next on May 10 with the intent to complete a charter for the CAG which will be presented to PBAC at the May 19, 2005 meeting. Considerable discussion was devoted to the membership the CAG will have.  The subcommittee proposes a balance of members representing both Washington and Idaho.  Seven persons have already applied to be on the CAG.  The discussion next focused on how to get a membership representing a wide range of interests that included the rural communities not on PBAC, such as the City of Palouse; rural groups; conservation groups; business groups; and interested individuals not represented on PBAC.  It was recommended that there be a total of 10 or 12 people with voting rights on the Citizens’ Advisory Committee and at least 2 ex officio members, one from IDWR and another from WDOE.  Any interested parties may apply for a position.  PBAC may assign specific tasks to the CAG in addition to the four suggested by Director Dreher.  The CAG will keep minutes and publish details of their meetings.  A PBAC motion was made to put together a press release to advertise for persons interested in serving on the CAG. The motion passed unanimously.

7)    Continued discussion of FY 2006 Planning and Budgeting – Kirkland stated that it just came to light that last year none of the entities were invoiced for their membership fees.  In the confusion surrounding 3 UI budget personnel leaving, dummy budgets were set up but the billing invoices were not sent out.  Kirkland requested a motion to authorize billing the FY 2005 assessments using the same format as was previously passed for doing the FY 2006 assessment billings. After discussing the request Workman made a motion authorizing separate billing invoices for FY 2005 to the amount of $8000 each for administration and operation to Moscow, Pullman, UI and WSU and $2000 each to Latah and Whitman Counties and Colfax.  For research the billings are to be $20,000 each to Moscow, Pullman, UI and WSU.  The motion passed unanimously.

8)    PBAC Executive Secretary/Full-Time Job Description (handout) -
After much discussion it was decided that this was a job description for two positions: a technical advisor and an administrative manager. It was recommended that Kirkland continue as the technical advisor and PBAC seek to hire an administrative manager to oversee the office functions, budgets and ongoing projects.  Workman stated that he would revise the job descriptions for continued discussion at the next meeting.  Kirkland is to check on whether the full-time position could be a WRRI or UI position with PBAC paying for it.

9)    WA drought funds for shallow well monitoring –
Kirkland reported that he had talked with several persons dealing with drought issues in Washington DOE.  They were optimistic about the prospect of getting matching funds for the proposed PBAC monitor of the drought impact on local wells but were waiting for the legislative committee to finalize the rules governing how the appropriated funds can and will be used.

10)    OLD BUSINESS  n/a

11)   REPORTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

a)     WRIA Eastern Basin Storage Proposal – Kirkland reported that he and Bryony Stasney of Golder Associates had met and discussed a reconnaissance study of the North Fork of the Palouse River area near the Idaho-Washington border for the WRIA supplemental grant on storage.  Golder agreed to complete the White Paper evaluating legal considerations dealing with diversion of water for ground water storage in both states before finalizing the project proposals for WRIA 34.  A presentation on storage options will be made to the Planning Unit at the next meeting in May to facilitate understanding of storage terminology and options.

b)     Naylor Farm Pump Permit Supplemental Hearing – Hayes reported that a decision should be made in May on the appeal of the Naylor Farm water right permit.  A supplemental hearing was held last week to allow interveners to present their arguments on the impact the geology is likely to have on connectivity between a Naylor well and the surrounding wells. Kirkland stated that those testifying at the hearing agreed that monitoring was very important to the determination of connectivity between any Naylor Farm wells and the surrounding area wells.  It was also generally agreed that ultimately the determination of connectivity will require drilling a well on the Naylor property and conducting pump tests while monitoring water levels over time.

c)     UI Well # 2 – Kirkland reported that talks are ongoing with a driller about cleaning the well of the 50 years of deposits, precipitation and sedimentation.

d)     Cunningham Farm Monitoring Well System –. Kirkland reported that he had talked with two insurance agencies about PBAC coverage for the well field during drilling and thereafter.  Both suggested that PBAC have the well driller add additional coverage during the drilling if more is needed and that the best option for coverage after the drilling is to work something out with WSU to add the monitoring wells to its coverage.  Corcoran had to leave the PBAC meeting before this item came up so no WSU input was available.

e)     Exposure in the Communities – MacDonald reported that the Moscow Public Works Finance Committee supported a proposal to support a  water symposium/summit for this fall to better educate decision makers and the public on local and applicable general water issues. 
Kimberling reported that Paul Kimmell and he had attended a water conference in Boise entitled, “Troubled Water – Exploring Solutions for the Western Water Crisis.”  He said he learned a lot and had information available if anyone wanted to review it.

12)           NEW BUSINESS- n/a

 

NEXT MEETING DATE -   May 19, 2005  Pullman City Hall

13)   Adjournment: Meeting was adjourned at 4:17 PM.

Respectfully Submitted,

Larry Kirkland