March 26, 2003 at the Wisconsin Indianhead Technical Institute in Superior Wisconsin

Co-Chair Diane Soden-Groves called meeting to order. Members and guests present introduced themselves.

Bedrock Influenced Tributary Streams to the St. Louis River and Western Lake Superior: Cindy Hagley, Minnesota Sea Grant, gave a presentation that started with a quiz for the attendees. The quiz consisted of various photos of water, stormwater and land use and asked what the impact was from what we were seeing. She discussed what stormwater is, what happens to the naturals flows when an area becomes urbanized, and why we should care. She explained how impervious surfaces such as roofs, sidewalks, streets and even hard compacted lawns prevent water from soaking into the ground and increases runoff flows. She discussed things that we can do to promote infiltration of water into the ground such as improved forest coverage, vegetated buffers and water storage facilities.

Marnie Lonsdale, City of Duluth, gave a presentation about Duluth's stormwater plans. She gave a history of the development of the stormwater program including the development of a Task Force to study Stormwater in 1996 and a Stormwater Utility in 1998. They recently submitted their notice of intent to MN. It includes the stormwater permit application and the Best Management Plans they intend to utilize. They will have 5 years to complete the plan. The plan will address such things as public education and outreach, public participation and involvement, illicit discharge detection and elimination, construction site runoff and post construction management.

A new website, www.duluthstreams.org, was also introduced. Both Cindy and Marnie have been working on its development. This website gives access to almost everything you might ever want to know about Duluth's 42 streams, including their history, geology, water quality, human impacts and recreational opportunities they offer.

Business Meeting:
Minutes of the Jan 22, 2003 meeting were approved as distributed.

EPA Presentation: On Feb 24 Lynelle met with the Fish and Wildlife Service. They asked her to do short presentation at GLNPO on the Habitat Plan Tuesday, March 18th. The main purpose was to increase the visibility and presence of the SLRCAC. The Fish and Wildlife Service funded the trip. Lynelle gave a 15 minutes PowerPoint presentation that was followed by 2 hours of questions. AOCs have recently been moved into the GLNPO jurisdiction. This was excellent exposure of the CAC to the people making funding decisions in the Great Lakes basin.

Member/Board Member Involvement Form: Several Board Members still need to get their forms in. Phil will be contacting members to encourage them to sign up and volunteer in their area of interest.

Board Member Nominations: Tom Lochner has resigned his board membership. He has moved to Phillips, WI.

Tax Report Form: Treasurer okayed tax form. The year-end balance equaled (-$7,000) due to the reimbursement policy of our grants.

Habitat Workgroup Report: Group met on Feb 28. Discussed strategies 1 and 2. Worked on developing a matrix defining the tasks, prioritizing them, projecting a duration, identifying funding sources, responsible organizations, cost, etc. They are to have these to Lynelle by 3/28. A small committee is also working on the sheltered bay issue, trying to define a matrix of conditions to evaluate.

Financial Report: Still working on getting donations, submitting request to MN Power and US Bank.

Stewardship Group: Saturday May 10 from 9:00 am to 12:00 noon is the cleanup at Grassy Point from the boardwalk to Keene's Creek. Meet at Grassy Point wearing your old clothes. We will provide the gloves and garbage bags. Herbivore Exclosure Construction is also on May 10 from 12:30 pm to 3:30 pm. Spend the afternoon helping to construct deer and rabbit exclosures around the planted conifers at Grassy Point. No construction experience necessary. The canoe trip is scheduled for August 9. They are trying to make arrangements to canoe the Nemadji this year. Will know more later. Getting off road and into the canoes will be a challenge.

Newsletter Workgroup: Need articles and or ideas.

Director's Report:
Received a card from Eric Epstein thanking CAC for award. CAC did not receive grant from MN Office of Environmental Assistance. We did get preliminary approval from Minnesota Lake Superior Coastal Assistance. This grant has a 50% match so completion of the involvement forms is important. We are waiting to do some of the habitat plan presentations until receiving this grant. The format of the EC meeting has changed since last January. In order to keep the CAC focus on the strategies, we are addressing one in each of the monthly meetings. We do not want to let the habitat plan become a shelf plan. This is one way to address the strategies laid out in the plan. The Jan meeting covered "Reduce Peak Stream Flows that result from land use patterns." CAC will support strengthening ordinances and an ad hoc meeting may be set up with landowners. MN NEMO received funding to develop model ordinances for communities. February's topic was "Encourage Development and Implementation of a Comprehensive Port Plan." Superior's port plan should be out for review in the next 10 days. It will be a template for the entire port plan. We will be reviewing it and commenting. March's topic was "Develop Zebra Mussel Control Strategy." We are lending our support to those doing the Zebra Mussel work. We will be adding a link on our website to the Protect our Waters Website. The annual AOC/RAP workshop will be on June 6&7 in Detroit. The sponsors asked for our mailing list to invite members. Our policy has been not to provide our membership list to anyone. This was put to the general membership and the decision was to continue with current policy and not provide list.

Diane Thompson, secretary