Madison County SWCD
October 19, 2010 Minutes
The Madison County SWCD Board of Supervisors held a meeting on Tuesday, October 19, 2010 at the USDA Service Center in Anderson, Indiana. Vaughn Bracken, Garland Antrim, and Wes Likens were the supervisors who attended. Bob Ellis (Associate Supervisor), Steve Schmidt (SWCD) and Chanda Hiatt (SWCD) also attended the meeting.
Vaughn called the meeting to order at 8:08 a.m.
The Board reviewed the minutes from the August meeting. Wes made a motion to accept the minutes. Garland seconded the motion. Motion carries.
Treasurer’s Report:
Checking Account Balance as of August 9, 2010: $ 6300.99
Money Market Account Balance as of August 9, 2010: $96,490.25
Total of all Funds: $102,791.24
Voucher Approvals:
1) Sherry Labs-September Water Testing-$420.00
2) Receipt Book
3) NACD Dues-$775.00
4) Tree Sale Purchases-Approved by phone (Wes, Vaughn, Garland, Gene, Mike)
a. Affordable Trees-$9,928.72
b. Alpha Nurseries-~$2000.00
5) Steve Reimbursement for Tree Sale items-$87.21
6) Fund 52-$15,000.00
7) Rent-$4472.41
8) Schrenker Agency (bond)-$159.00
9) Chanda Reimbursement for tree sale brochure supplies-$55.60
10) Print Cartridge (yellow)-$282.99
11) Steve Reimbursement (hotel for IDEA conference)-$91.84
12) Postage-$169.93 (minus $50.00 with pen trade)
Wes motions to accept the Treasurer’s Report and approval of vouchers. Garland seconded. Motion carries.
319 Grant Update
Chanda gave an update on the 319 Grant. She has some people lined up for No-Till modifications and has been doing farm visits for the GPS/Auto Steer. There are quite a few interested now that we’ve added GPS/Auto Steer to the cost share program. Chanda will continue with the farm visits to get people interested. We also discussed the possibility of a sewage spill in Elwood. We will submit our report to IDEM with our water testing numbers.
SWCD Business
Steve announced the date and time for our budget hearing will be on October 21, 2010 at 4:30 p.m. at the Madison County Courthouse.
Steve has been working on the 2010 & 2011 CWI Grants. The 2010 CWI Grant is still waiting for landowners to fix broken down tiles. Steve will bring the payments to future meetings for approval. We have spent over half the money, with the other’s waiting until crops are out before fixing. As for the 2011 CWI Grant, Steve called everyone on the board to get ideas and approval for our 2011 request. It was decided to ask for training reimbursement, as this allows the SWCD Staff and Supervisors to attend. We will also use some of the money towards our 2011 Field Day. We will be offering a tour of a CAFO (Lawyer’s) along with Hancock County to receive an extra $1000 from the CWI Grant. There was also discussion on using some of the education money to make signs for educating the public on Cover Crops. They would say what the benefits are, how much reductions on fertilizer, help compaction, etc. Steve will look into these signs and see if it’s possible to get them made this year. We will be offering the Blow Out Blitz (BOB) again in 2011. The discussion favored this program since we had so much interest in it last year.
Steve had a discussion on the 2011 Annual Meeting. Wes, Gene and Mike were nominated as the election committee. Some names were brought up to replace Wes when his term expires this spring (Bouslog, Utterback, David Jones). We also need to be thinking about a speaker for the event. Bob, Vaughn, Wes and Garland suggested someone to speak about GPS/Auto Steer and its benefits. Chanda will see if Lawrence (Smith Implements/John Deere)
can help her out on this.
The dates for the 2011 Annual Conference in Indianapolis are set for January 10, 11, & 12th. Vaughn and Garland will be attending. Steve will get with Mike and Gene at next meeting to discuss if they want to go. Steve and Chanda will attend also.
Steve has been working with Patrick and Kathy Fetz on Cover Crops for their fields. He has them signed up for an EQIP contract through NRCS and they will also receive the payment for our Cover Crops Grant. Garland made a motion to pay Kathy Fetz for planting the cover crop. Wes seconded. Motion carries.
Chanda gave an update on her tree sale. She mentioned we made a donation to Anderson Little League of five trees. This was approved by the board members through phone conversations and Chanda checked with Tara (DSS) to make sure it was legal. We have purchased all the trees we got through Affordable Nurseries. We are waiting on an invoice from Alpha Nurseries for our saplings. The board made a motion in the Voucher Approvals to make payment for the invoice when we receive it. Chanda reported she has sold over 1300 trees this year.
Steve went over some conservation plans that Josh & Tod have completed. They were all CRP re-enrollments.
Steve has ordered our new plat books for 2011. We have about 30-40 leftover from 2009, so Garland suggested ordering 100 this year, as compared to 200 the last time we ordered.
There was discussion regarding a contract employee for our MS4 agreement. Currently, as part of the MS4 Partnership, someone is supposed to be walking the county ditches, mapping any outfalls eight inches or greater, and testing the effluent. Since this hasn’t been done, the County is talking about hiring a contract employee that will be housed in the SWCD. Wes will get with John Richwine to discuss the possibility of housing the person at our office. If this is a possibility, we will invite John to next month’s meeting to discuss the issue further.
Other Agency Updates:
FSA-Toby Hollinger
NRCS-Tod Herrli
Meeting adjourned at 10:10 a.m.
Next meeting is scheduled for November 9, 2010.
SWCD Board of Supervisor’s Approval:
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