Weed Control District Advisory Committee
WEED ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES
November 11, 2006 at 7:30 AM
Marion County Public Works, Willamette Room
Members Present: Bob Brown, A. Robert Dyk, Ralph Fisher, Dan Goffin, Ruth Higgs, Liz Redon, John Savage, Stan Vistica, Terry Witt
Staff Present: Tanya Beard, Tom Shamberger
Guests: Erik Pihl, Diana Shamberger
Absent: Jeffrey Morehead, Evie Pech, Mike Ricks, Herbert Schunk, Kurt Spingath
Minutes of October 14, 2006: Motion made by Dan Goffin and seconded by John Savage to approve the minutes
Public Input: None at this time
Notification Letters:
John Savage rewrote the notification letter. The edited version was distributed at the meeting. The committee read and compared the two letters. The final version of the notification letter will most likely be a conglomerate of the original and edited version.
Diana Shamberger shared with the group that Tami Amala w/Marion County Planning has recently rewrote the notification letters that Code Enforcement mails out. Tanya Beard will contact Tami Amala for input and to check for consistency in the letters (format, space for case number, etc).
On the follow-up notification letter, the suggestion was made to change the word “request” to “require”. Also, give a time frame as opposed to just a date when the requirement is to be completed. Tanya Beard suggested that rather than using the ordinance number, use the actual ordinance name. The reason for this suggestion – if at any point in time it is deemed necessary to make changes to the ordinance, the ordinance number will change, but the ordinance name will stay the same. FYI – the name of the ordinance is “The Marion County Weed Control Ordinance”.
Status of Jeffrey Morehead as a Committee Member:
Tanya Beard mailed Jeffrey Morehead a letter requesting that he contact her by the Thursday prior to this meeting. She has also tried reaching Jeffrey by phone with no response. There was initial contact by phone when he signed up to be a part of the committee and he was still interested at the time (four months ago). It was moved and seconded to start the procedure to remove Jeffrey Morehead’s appointment. Because of the nature of the by-laws and the status of this group, it will not be necessary to recruit an additional member unless the group desires to do this.
Finance Discussion:
Good news – we have check in hand from the Marion Soil and Water Conservation District in the amount of $5000. Tanya has also been strongly encouraged by folks from ODA to have additional conversations with Soil and Water Conservation District to see about further funding for administrative types of things. She had a very productive meeting with Tim Butler, Tom Forney, Shannon Brubaker, and Beth Myers-Shenai from ODA – discussed what the next grant applications should look like.
Tanya Beard met with Evie Pech and Tom Shamberger about what our priorities seem to be right now and they determined Puncture Vine, Knapweed, False Brome, and Milk Thistle were high on the list. Tanya Beard took information to ODA and went through the list. We have a good beginning of an application for Puncture Vine that will include outreach to farmers. It was suggested that Milk Thistle be shelved at this time. Per ODA, it is not a particularly high priority, being a biennial makes it a little questionable and because of the limited nature of funding and the weeds spatial occupation, it would not be a strong application candidate. We can continue on fairly easily with the Knapweed, particularly as we’ve been working with the BLM on an assistance agreement up in the North Santiam Canyon area. The State Weed Board is definitely looking at “on the ground” activities and they are not doing as much with education and outreach, so we have to have some sort of really strong control component in order to be able to also tag on the education piece. Both the False Brome and the Puncture Vine have that, so these are going to be good candidates. Suggest that we go back to the Japanese Knotweed because there’s still that activity going on. Checked with Soil and Water Conservation District and they are still pursuing their originally identified outcroppings and doing treatments --- we can utilize their work as match. With that we can do some education and outreach with a lot of the private landowners in the canyon area and also up at Abiqua and target some specific areas. They suggested sending in three separate applications.
Japanese Knotweed – is this good timing for Tanya Beard to check with City of Salem and make this a joint application with the city? Tanya did talk with John from the Water Quality Dept (part of the Stream Program) and they are looking at a thorough watershed investigation and inventory this coming fiscal year for specific noxious weeds (Pringle, Mill Creek, Clark, and Croisan). Dan Goffin is the chair of the Mill Creek Water Council.
Robert Dyk, Liz Redon, Ruth Higgs, and John Savage have volunteered to review the grant applications as Tanya Beard is completing them. December 11th is OSWB grant deadline. There will be three applications: one for Puncture Vine, one for False Brome, and one for Japanese Knotweed.
Contract/Partnership Opportunities:
City of Salem – inventory (strictly in the waterways). City does not have the capacity to do any kind of treatments, we do, but we do not have the funding to support that. City could help us out with the funding to support the treatments and we could do additional inventory outside the waterways and outreach for folks that have it in their yards and we could do the control.
Oregon Dept of Forestry – main issue is False Brome, but they are also dealing with Knotweed. It would be a good idea for ODA, ODF, and MCPW to get together and have a chat about what ODF’S vision is, what their funding looks like to achieve that vision, and what can each of the divisions do to attain the goals.
Railroad - ODA received grants from them previously
BPA – rights-of-way
ODOT – rights-of-way
PGE – rights-of-way and easements
Education on their management approaches would be the best way to go. OVMA is a great venue as well.
Terry Witt will work with Tanya Beard: chemical companies and weed specificity – partner regarding funding.
Fact Sheets and Display Boards (side bar discussion during the finance discussion)
Make contact with various groups (Farm Bureau, Soil & Water Conservation District, Oregon Extension) to see if we can include a “fact sheet” with their newsletter mailings. Also talked about putting together a display board to show at upcoming meetings --- the Agriculture Board will be meeting in December, the State Farm Bureau meeting is December 4th, 5th, and 6th, as well as upcoming meetings with various agriculture and fiber growers. Display board could show the importance of cleaning equipment. Puncture Vine is a real issue in vegetable crops as well as grass fields. Equipment being moved east to west back and forth with their tires loaded with Puncture Vine is spreading it into the fields. Terry Witt would work to get info out - - - possibly creating “WANTED DEAD NOT ALIVE” posters with examples of Puncture Vine, pictures of the plant, pictures of fruit in tires, pictures of seedlings and mature plants.
Agenda Items for Next Meeting:
- Jim Gores from ODFW
- Updates on grant applications
- Display(s)
- Notification letters
The next meeting will be Saturday, December 9th – 7:30 AM at Public Works.
Meeting adjourned.
G:\Operations\EnvironmentalSvcs\Vegetation\Weed District Advisory Committee\minutes\November 11 2006.doc