Portage County Annex Building

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Attendees: Kris Wimme, Kelly Murray, Sally Freckman, Steve Courtney, Shawn Puzen, Tom Koren, Bill Ebert, Steve Bradley, Dean Kaatz, Tom Jerow, Ron Dickrell, George Rogers, and Bryan Cain.

9:05 Self-introductions were made by each attendee and a sign-up sheet was distributed.

9:10 Revised agenda was discussed by Kris Wimme.

Meeting minutes from the January 21, 2003 and county land and water conservation plans were handed out.

9:15 PLOVER RIVER, George Rogers and Bill Ebert. Bill is working on the grant writing for the Plover River. The grant might have to be put off for another year because of conflict with Trout Unlimited. If Portage and Marathon County organizations worked together we could get a much stronger proposal in the future.

9:35 BARRIER ISLANDS, Tom Jerow. At the last Barrier Island meeting possible sites were discussed. The plan for the next meeting is to meet at Barnum Bay Marina. We will be taking boats out on Petenwell to look at, evaluate, and discuss the selected sites, therefore determining the potential to have a Barrier Island installed. The date for the next meeting has not been determined.

9:45 FRIENDS OF MILL CREEK WATERSHED, Tom Jerow, Bill Ebert and Ron Dickrell. This group has determination and motivation to increase the public awareness of Mill Creek. On May 10 a river clean up is planned for sections in Wood and Portage Counties. A grant application will be submitted to provide a part-time support position to assist with projects. This group wants to increase the community pride by having an adopt a river campaign, educational brochures, placemats, traveling display, and a field day tour showing the different management practices available to land owners.

9:55 BLACK, BUFFULO, AND TREMPELEAU BASIN, Kelly Murray. Kelly was visiting the Central Wisconsin Basin Partnership meeting. She discussed what the partnership for her basin was currently doing. Their main focus is to organize the Black River group and have this group be a model organization for the other basins in that area.

10:00 BREAK

10:10 PARTNERSHIP SUMMIT MEETING, Dean Kaatz. Successful group are self-organized but need someone to handle the legwork.

10:25 Motion was made by Tom Jerow to support the Mill Creek and Plover River Grants. Kris Wimme seconded motion.

10:30 BRAINSTORMING, Kris Wimme. Priorities and future projects.
Determination of objective statement (top 5 plus a couple extra):
· Increase diversity in the group
· Explore merging with Golden Sands
· Explore funding source for projects
· Parcelization project – fragmentation
· Invasive species project
· Shoreline zoning
· Ground water – central sands project with the addition of revised UW crop nutrient recommendation for ground water protection and attracting ground water friendly agriculture practices

The next meeting is tentatively scheduled for July 23. Time and location of the meeting is to be determined.

12:15 MEETING ADJOURN