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Camelot Dining & Lounge, Amery

In attendance:
Kathy Bartilson – WDNR
Nadene Cable – WDNR Drinking Water
John Carlson- Trout Unlimited
Cheryl Clemens- Harmony Environmental
John Haack - UWEX (note taker)
Kate Hansen- National Park Service
Britta Lee- West Wisconsin Land Trust
Aleisha Miller – St. Croix County LWCD
Melanie Oetzman - River Country RC&D
Jim Riemer- US Fish and Wildlife Service
Buz Swerkstrom - Osceola Sun
Pamela Toshner- WDNR Lakes Coordinator
Jeremy Williamson – Polk County LWRD

Welcome and introductions:
St. Croix Basin Citizen Invertebrate Bio-monitoring, Jeremy Williamson Polk County LWRD
* Burnett County will be hosting training and starting a citizen stream monitoring program with the Boy Scouts (Jeremy will host the training).
* Washburn County’s Lakes and Rivers Association has expressed interest in the program and perhaps the Yellow River as target for monitoring locations.
* St. Croix County is hosting a citizen monitoring training program on May 20th, Jeremy and John will assist. Contact Aleisha Miller for training details.
* Water Action Volunteers is a basic protocol for citizen monitoring on Wisconsin streams, however the lack of riffles on may of our basin streams make this protocol challenging. There are other protocols and sampling parameters that can be used for insects, frogs, mussels, crayfish etc… if groups are interested. Jeremy is particularly interested in Choronamid casings and functional feeding groups as indicators. He is also researching/developing a lakes aquatic invertebrate monitoring approach for citizens.
* John Carlson of Amery is working with Trout Unlimited to establish a Polk County T. U group and bring citizen involvement/ protection to county steams.

St. Croix Basin Water Resources Planning Team Overview- Kathy Bartilson, DNR
This multi state team was established in 1993 to improve communication and basin water quality protection across state line. Kathy provided an overview of the team committees, science and the team’s goal of reducing nutrient in the basin by 20% by the year 2020. Controlling nutrients in the future brings challenges as the basin population increases including; continued ag loading, residential conversions, and municipal waste loading (plants have a concentration cap but not a load cap). Tools to address challenges will be primarily voluntary options but may include future legislation and legal requirements. The advent of the Lake Pepin T.M.D.L will not have impact, beyond the 20% by 2020 goal. For more information, monitoring sites and reports on the St. Croix Basin Water Resources Planning Team go to the MPCA website or contact Kathy Bartilson.

More information about the team and these goals, plan to attend this year’s Protecting the St. Croix Conference, April 6th. For registration and information about the 7th Annual “Protecting the St. Croix Conference” go to the welcome page of this website and follow the links.

Updates
• Jim Riemer, USFWS continues to recruit general habitat enhancement projects for the Partners for Fish & Wildlife Program. Last year he completed 32 projects under this program, contact Jim if you have any potential habitat projects. . USFWS also manages 3,500 acres of Water Fowl Production areas in Polk, Dunn, St. Croix and Pierce Counties- conducting annual burns on many of these properties.

• Nadene Cable, WDNR - Drinking Water, is our regional ground water staff supervisor. While new to the position, Nadene has worked in the ground water program for more than 20 years, providing information on wells and groundwater, inspecting wells and serving the citizens and communities in NW . The new (two year old) ground water rule requires agency reviewers to look at resource impacts of high cap wells (those wells or group of wells on one property that pump 70 plus gallons a day) in addition to the impacts to adjacent municipal wells. If you have questions on wells or ground water in the basin, contact Nadene at the Spooner DNR or Larry Rietz at the Cumberland DNR office.

• John Haack, UW Extension is assisting the St. Croix Water Resource Team with the annual Protecting the St. Croix Conference… call him with any questions about the conference. He is also assisting citizens with this year’s NW Wisconsin Lakes Conference, June 30th in Cable. Click here to see the conference agenda.

• John Carlson of Amery is a member of the Apple River Association and is working with TU to foster a more active and organized presence in Polk County.

• Polk County - Jeremy Williamson is working to wrap up a number of projects: Apple River Report and the Balsam Lake Priority Watershed project. Polk County completed more than 40 shore land restoration projects last year and can no longer spend staff time to assist with designing this large number of restorations. Hopefully, student interns and Polk County landscapers will fill in the gap.
Amy Kelsey is working with Loveless Lake to complete shoreland suitability ratings for the entire lake. She is also working with Bone Lake on an aquatic plant management plan and the city of Amery on a storm water management grant.

• Britta Lee, West Wisconsin Land Trust – the trust completed 18 projects in 2005 (1,800 acres protected) including Burnett County Love Lake, Bass Lk and Lake 26. She also provided handout on the new environmental education programs sponsored by the trust (500 folks attended the program in 2005)

• Melanie Oetzman, River Country RC&D recently began working with the RC&D.

• Aliesha Miller, St. Croix County LWCD educator is working to revive WAV/citizen water quality monitoring in the county with WAV training scheduled for May 20th at UWRF. She is also teaching St. Croix County geology in are schools. Pete Kling is leaving the county to work for a local consulting firm.

• Pamela Toshner, WDNR - Lakes Coordinator explained that the grants submitted to the current cycle are 1 million dollars over subscribed, recent trends indicate more and more large scale aquatic plant treatment grant requests coming in.. Grants will be ranked on March 16th. Sensitive area list is being updated due to changes in Act 118, process will become more formalized and include public comment and review.

• Kate Hanson, National Park Service update on the St. Croix Conservation Coalition groups focus to protect lands within along the St. Croix. The action oriented group is working on mapping projects at this time. (John to forward April meeting notice to team). Stillwater bridge mitigation money will be directed toward land protection and ordinance work. Kate also shared the agenda for the May 9-12th River Mgt. Society Conference in Nebraska, those in need of a ride contact Kate.

• Kathy Bartilson, WDNR- St. Croix Basin Water Leader, highlighted the recently published Land Legacy Report that looks to acquire lands to: protect water quality, provide great recreation opportunities, to protect the pearls and to keep common species common and protect endangered species over the next 50 years. The remains of the washed out Osceola dam will be removed later this month and the land transferred to the City. The city of St. Croix Falls are expanding the existing wastewater treatment plant – compressing the existing plant adjacent to the river. The state wild river additions of the Totogatic and Upper St. Croix River will once again be on the table at Superior Days as a DNR agenda item. Kathy sent Senator Jauch draft language for a wild river bill per his request.

• Cheryl Clemens, Harmony Environmental, is working on a long range plan for Balsam Lake, completing the Pierce County Land and Water Plan, working with Amery on grants for storm water management, developing a grant for Deer Lake (gulley erosion and infiltration focus) and a grant proposal to promote infiltration for Burnett County shorelands. She is also working with Star Prairie Land Trust (presently protect 63 acres and 200’ of frontage on Cedar Lake).

Next Meeting:
May 31,2006 from 9- Noon at the Polk County Visitor Center in St. Croix Falls. (Kate will reserve the visitor center.)