Minutes
Group:
Saline County Study Steering Committee in conjunction with the Saline County Study Management Team
Date, Time, Place of Meeting:
Wednesday October 8, 1997 7:00 PM CDT
Farm Credit Services Building, Highway 65 North, Marshall
Steering Committee Members in Attendance:
Patti Carr, LeAnn Haling, Vince Buck, Richard Clemens, Wayne McReynolds, Mark Belwood, Tim Simmons, Marc Harris, David Perkins (for first half of meeting), Kathy Borgman
Steering Committee Members Absent:
Corey Lyon
Management Team Members in Attendance:
Russell Dehn, Mike Dillon, Richard Pemberton, Cynthia Crawford, Gerry Snapp, Darin Starr, Dennis DiPietre, Tom Johnson
Management Team Members Absent:
Chris Fulcher
Other Saline County Study Team Members in Attendance:
Chris Barnett, John Lory, Mubarak Hamed, Ken Pigg, Mary Hendrickson (will be assisting Ken Pigg in evaluating the project), Vincent Burke, Jim Scott
Approval of the minutes of the first three meetings was the first order of business. The actual reading of the minutes was dispensed with as everyone had received a printed copy of the minutes prior to the meeting. The minutes of the July 2 1997 meeting were approved after appending the words "because where everyone thinks alike no one thinks very much" to the last sentence of the second paragraph. No changes were made to the minutes of the July 9 1997 meeting, and they were approved. Two changes were made to the minutes of the retreat meeting prior to their approval. On page 2 the last two sentences of the fourth paragraph following the August 25 heading were changed to read as follows: "The watershed concept may also be integrated into the study. Key tools will be GIS (Geographic Information System) technology, input-output analysis and the Show-Me model." The first sentence of the paragraph beginning with the words 'John Lory' was changed to read as follows: "John Lory, who is the Coordinator of the Natural Resource Assessment Team (NRAT) for the Study, was next."
Following a period of very lively discussion, the motion was made to reaffirm the committee's position regarding disseminating information from the committee. An amendment was added to include Cynthia Crawford as a co-spokesperson with Tim Simmons. The amendment passed and the motion as amended passed. There were no audible dissenting votes cast on either issue.
Dennis DiPietre moved that a Communications Subcommittee be formed to plan and organize the official communications of the Saline County Study. He noted that although there was no pressing immediate communication need, the committee will need some lead time in which to get organized. The motion passed with no audible dissent. The chair and members of the committee will be appointed later by Chairman Simmons.
The Chair then gave the floor to Chris Barnett to entertain input on suggestions for the web site. Before discussion proceeded very far it was determined that this was a matter that should be deferred to the soon-to-be-appointed Communications Subcommittee.
Next, Mark Belwood gave a report on Missouri's Sunshine Law. He noted that he had made one significant change to the Preliminary Report that everyone had received in their meeting notice mailing. To the end of the Preliminary Report he had added a single bulleted paragraph which reads as follows: "Section 610.029 of the Sunshine Law states: 'A public governmental body is encouraged to make information available to useable electronic formats to the greatest extent feasible.'" He stated that in his position as recorder it is his policy to not name names in the minutes in association with discussions on sensitive issues unless a person specifically requests that their statement be recorded and attributed to them. He said he was comfortable that this policy was not in violation of the Sunshine Law. He asked if there were any objections to his policy. No one voiced any objections. The matter of drafting a resolution for appointing a custodian for the Steering Committee's records (as required by the Sunshine Law) and the handling of Notice of Open Meeting announcements (also as required by the Sunshine Law) was left to the Chair and Recorder.
After a short break, the meeting resumed with a presentation by John Lory, Coordinator of the Natural Resource Assessment Team. He first gave an overview of the capabilities of GIS technology. He gave the example of how GIS technology could help assess the effects of varying stream buffer sizes. He also said that GIS technology would be useful as a site-planning tool. He pointed out that the value of GIS technology depends heavily on the data layers that are available. Some important layers may not be currently available and will need to be created. Creating a data layer will require money, and we don’t have the resources to do all of the layers we might want; therefore, a careful prioritization is needed.
The Natural Resource Assessment Team has categorized natural resources as relating to agriculture, natural habitats, water resources or cultural and recreational sites. Issues in each of these categories have been gleaned from discussions occurring at the August retreat. John covered the issues that the Assessment Team has identified in relation to agriculture. These are:
John then turned the program over to Vincent Burke whose area of expertise on the Natural Resource Assessment Team is natural habitat assessment and ranking. He distinguishes natural habitat from human habitat by the following definitions:
He said that historically Saline County had very diverse natural habitats. Some questions that need to be answered for the Study are:
John Lory covered the issues that had been identified related to water resources. These are:
In a discussion following the above presentations several suggestions were made concerning the data that needs to be collected. Among these suggestions was that water quantity is an issue as well as water quality. The problem of junkyards, both as an eyesore and as a potential source of soil contamination, was mentioned. Russell Dehn pointed out that the county currently ships out all of its trash. He said we should plan now for potential landfill sites, because eventually other counties may grow tired of accepting our waste.
Chris Barnett next made a presentation on the state of GIS resources. He categorized these resources as follows:
Data resources that are already digitized
Data resources that are currently being digitized
Data not currently available nor being digitized; these need to be prioritized
Chris requested that we all turn in a written list giving our prioritization of this missing data.
Vincent Burke explained how he would convert his natural habitat data into GIS form. He said that ranking of natural habitats will be based on the value of the natural community and the ranking categories are as follows:
His plan for assessing and ranking Saline County's natural habitat is as follows:
Next occurred a discussion of how GIS data on CAFOs could be collected. The data available from MDNR is unreliable. No conclusions were reached as how best to collect the data or exactly what data needs to be collected. A map showing the current MDNR data will be presented at the next meeting.
Tom Johnson presented preliminary baseline data for Saline County. He presented everyone with graphs showing the following:
Other baseline data was provided in tabular form. He asked us to consider before the next meeting which of the two year average growth rate, ten year average growth rate and the average of the 2, 5 and 10 year average rates were the most realistic to use. A copy of a completed baseline (for Howell County) was presented to give everyone an idea of the data that the final Saline County Baseline would contain.
The next meeting was scheduled for Wednesday, November 5 1997 at 6:00 PM CST. The tentative location for the meeting is the Farm Credit Services Building in Marshall. Placed on the agenda for that meeting were the following: