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1 FROM: Commission for the Environment SUBJECT: Monthly Meeting DATE: February 14, 2011 LOCATION: Southern Human Services Center (Chapel Hill) _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ MEMBERS PRESENT: Bill Kaiser (Chair), Renee Price (Vice Chair), Lucy Adams, May Becker, Loren Hintz, Clay Hudson, Michael Hughes, Tom O’Dwyer, David Neal, Gary Saunders, MEMBERS ABSENT: Chris Adams, Lynnette Batt, Peter Cada, Michelle Drostin, David Welch STAFF PRESENT: Rich Shaw, Tom Davis, David Stancil GUESTS: Renee Boyette (Triangle J COG), Lois Nixon (Capital Trees Program), Pat Davis (OWASA), Tom Craven (Forestry Consultant), Bonnie Hauser (Orange County Voice), Derb Carter (So. Environmental Law Center), and county residents from Cane Creek watershed _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ I. Call to Order: Kaiser called the meeting to order at 7:30 pm II. Additions or Changes to Agenda – None III. Approval of Minutes – The meeting summary for December 13, 2010 was approved as submitted. Motion by Price, second by Saunders; approved unanimously. IV. Capital Trees Program – Renee Boyette and Lois Nixon gave a PowerPoint presentation about the Capital Trees Program—Wake County’s program for recognizing significant trees. CFE members asked questions about tree protection afforded by this program. Boyette and Nixon explained that it was primarily an educational program, but that some municipalities like Raleigh have a separate tree protection ordinance that includes enforcement mechanisms. Hintz said this looks like a good program for the CFE to consider; he volunteered to review the materials and report back at the next meeting. V. OWASA Forest Management Plan – Shaw provided an overview of the CFE’s December meeting discussion of OWASA’s plan to manage forests on 16 properties in southwestern Orange County. He recalled that this issue was referred to the CFE following the BOCC’s receipt of a citizen petition requesting that the BOCC ask the OWASA board of directors to reject the draft plan and replace it with a program to improve the water quality of Cane Creek Reservoir. Pat Davis (OWASA) provided a PowerPoint presentation of the draft forest management plan. He described the forest management plan for OWASA’s Mitigation Tract and the management activities that have occurred thus far. Davis then discussed the draft forest management plan for 2,600 acres—1,924 acres of which are located in the Cane Creek watershed. He noted that 45 % of that area (877 acres) would be preserved as riparian buffers. A small portion of that buffer area (132 acres) is protected with conservation easements held by the State of North Carolina. Davis said the proposed management activities would occur on 1,047 acres over the next 20 years. Davis said the OWASA staff is preparing detailed responses to comments and questions received thus far for the OWASA board of directors. He noted there is no specific timeframe for completing that task, but a revised draft plan might be available sometime within the next two months. Davis reviewed OWASA’s objectives for the project, the stream buffer widths prescribed in the plan, and the different levels of forest management planned on the various