Approved
Minutes
Herring River Restoration Committee (HRRC)
Cape Cod National Seashore Headquarters
Wellfleet, MA
January 5, 2012
9:30 am-5:00 pm
Members Present: Gary Joseph, Tim Smith, Eric Derleth, Hunt Durey, Steve Block, Steve Spear, Hillary Greenberg, Charleen Greenhalgh
Others Present: Margo Fenn, Don Palladino, Ed DeWitt, John Portnoy, Shelley Hall
Administration/Coordination:
Friends of Herring River: Don Palladino reported that the Massachusetts Environmental Trust (MET) had invited the Friends to submit a full grant application. The application deadline is March 16, 2012. Bill Hinkley of MET indicated that the grant application should provide more information on the proposed funding approach and elaborate on how the proposed work tasks will be completed. Hunt Durey stressed that the application needs to make it clear that the grant will be used to coordinate completion of a Project Implementation Plan-not for a consultant to actually prepare all the proposed deliverables.
Don Palladino and Margo Fenn will meet with Mark Forest on January 6, 2012 to explore potential funding options for the project, and will also consult with George Price about this.
Don Palladino also noted that the Friends are putting together a short video about the value of salt marsh restoration. He requested that the joint Communications Committee meet sometime soon to discuss approaches to community outreach, leading up to the release of the DEIS/EIR.
Minutes: The Committee voted to approve the minutes of the December 1, 2011, as amended.
Meeting Schedule: The Committee agreed to the following proposed meeting dates:
February 2, 2012
March 1, 2012
The Technical Working Group will meet on January 11, 2012.
APCC Project Coordination Contract with the Cape Cod Conservation District (CCCD): Ed DeWitt noted that the current Project Coordination contract will expire on March 31, 2012 and that the Committee needs to put in place a new agreement to cover these services through September 2012.
Margo Fenn and Ed DeWitt agreed to prepare a draft contract for consideration by the HRRC and CCCD. Steve Spear offered to contact Rick Devergilio about the process for executing a new contract.
Legal Update: Hunt Durey provided the Committee with an update on the Conservation Law Foundation’s (CLF) legal research project. The legal consultant, Rubin and Rudman has been reviewing relevant statutes and case law and conferring with the government and private legal experts to define the legal “landscape”. There will be a meeting on January 9, 2012 to review this information. Phase 2 of the effort will be to evaluate key legal questions, using the agreed-upon facts, statutes and case law. One issue that still needs to be clarified is the constraints of confidentiality between the government counsels and their clients, and what parts of the process can and should be public documents. CLF hopes to have the work completed by early February. The legal information will be critical in shaping
the HRRC’s outreach efforts to low-lying property owners.
Coordination with Wellfleet Selectmen: Hillary Greenberg reported on her meeting with the Wellfleet Selectmen in December. The Selectmen would like to have a special workshop session with the HRRC to review the management questions posed by the Committee. The Committee discussed when and how such a session could be held. The workshop should include an overview of the DEIS/EIR and a discussion of the management questions. The major objective should be to ensure that the Selectmen are familiar with the DEIS/EIR, as they are the official project proponent in the MEPA process. They may wish to have public input on some of the management questions-and this could happen through the MEPA review.
The Committee discussed how to present the Preferred Alternative in the DEIS/EIR. Shelley Hall noted that the current language in Chapter 2 regarding the Preferred Alternative is confusing. The group agreed that the workshop with the Selectmen needs to walk through the reasoning that led to the recommendation of Alternative D as the Preferred Alternative. Gary Joseph stressed that the Selectmen will be concerned about costs and management responsibilities. However, these issues do not have to be resolved right away; the towns and the Seashore will develop a third Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to spell out the implementation plan for the restoration project.
Margo Fenn agreed to prepare a draft agenda for a workshop with the Wellfleet Selectmen and circulate it to the Committee for review. Hillary Greenberg agreed to contact the Selectmen to propose the following potential dates in early February for the workshop: Friday, February 3, 2012 and Saturday, February 4, 2012.
Cape Cod National Seashore Superintendent George Price joined the meeting briefly to report on progress with some land negotiations. The Committee briefly discussed some of the ownership and operations issues with the Chequessett Neck Road dike. Tim Smith noted that the Restore America’s Estuaries (RAE) grant would be used, in part, to design new tide gates for the dike and develop and operations and management plan.
Discussion:
DEIS/EIR Chapter 4: Tim Smith reported that he had received comments from a number of people on the Louis Berger Group (LBG) draft of Chapter 4, in particular the analysis of salinity. Numerous commenters thought that the approach to the analysis did not answer the right questions, and made it difficult to understand the significant differences among the Project Alternatives. In particular, the extent of inundation does not tell the full story with salinity changes. For this reason, Tim Smith and John Portnoy reworked the salinity section to incorporate more of the modeling information-and to recognize that there are substantial differences in salinity levels among the different sub-basins of the estuary. The Committee discussed what data to use in this analysis: The channel data would provide a
“best case” indicator of salinity penetration, but the narrative needs to explain that salinity levels would not be uniform across the marsh surface. The group agreed that the channel data should be presented in a table and the text should describe the qualitative effects on the marsh surface. The text should explain the differences between the proposed 3’ opening (Alternative B) and the 10’opening (Alternatives C and D).
The group agreed that changing the approach to the salinity section would have implications for other sections of Chapter 4 as well, including water quality, vegetation, habitat change, wildlife and rare species. The vegetation changes could also affect the analysis of views/aesthetics in the socio-economic section. The Committee discussed how to make the necessary edits most efficiently and concluded that HRRC should develop the revised text and provide it to LBG. Members noted that the issue of nuisance mosquitoes is not addressed in the current version of Chapter 4.
Tim Smith agreed to edit each section of Chapter 4, and provide the edited versions to the rest of the HRRC for review. HRRC members should carefully review the analysis and provide track changes to Tim Smith and Margo Fenn. Tim Smith will include the issue of nuisance mosquitoes in his rewrite of Chapter 4. Charleen Greenhalgh and Hunt Durey offered to focus in particular on the socio-economic section.
MOU III/IV: Tim Smith reported that the DOI regional solicitor’s office has recommended a new Memorandum of Understanding between several HRRC agencies in order to clarify the roles and internal decision-making processes of the individual agencies represented on the HRRC.
Shelley Hall agreed to work with the DOI regional solicitor’s office to determine the process for drafting a new MOU.
RAE/NOAA Grant: HRRC members had a phone conference in December to discuss how to identify and select qualified consultants to work on the grant activities funded under the RAE/NOAA grant. The group agreed that HRRC needs to develop an RFP for the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) to use in seeking qualified bidders.
Steve Block offered to draft a RFP, using the Scope of Work from the RAE/NOAA grant. Steve Spear agreed to assist in this effort with the goal of circulating a draft RFP to the rest of the Committee by January 20, 2012.
TNC/CYCC Land Plan and Appraisal: The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is seeking to complete the land plan and appraisal work for the Chequessett Yacht and Country Club property by early February. There was a conference call with Jim Czypryna (appraiser) and LBG staff in December to update HRRC and NPS representatives about the status of the land plan and appraisal. The group discussed how to factor the Cape Cod Commission’s open space requirements into the value estimates for the 14-acre parcel that the Club may wish to sell to the National Park Service. It might be preferable to create 4-5 estate lots along the river to maximize values, while also providing the needed open space mitigation. Jim Czupryna agreed to evaluate this option. There will be a final project meeting with CYCC
representatives when the plans and appraisal report are complete.
Cultural Resources: Bill Burke and Jim Harmon agreed to provide comments on the Cultural Resource sections of DEIS/EIR Chapters 3 and 4 by January 12, 2012. They also expect to have a revised draft Programmatic Agreement for the HRRC to review by mid-January. Tim Smith presented the detailed Cultural Resource maps that he prepared, showing likely areas of disturbance and sensitive historic and archaeological resource areas. The Committee discussed the status of key roads in the area: If High Toss Road were to be removed, or other low-lying road segments were to be raised, what additional steps would be needed to address Cultural Resource issues? Shelley Hall agreed to discuss the road issues with Bill Burke and report back to the full Committee.
Technical Working Group Meeting (TWG)-January 11, 2012: The Committee reviewed the agenda for the upcoming TWG meeting. The morning session will provide updates on various project activities (Low-lying Property Analysis, Legal Issues, Coordination with Town Officials, MET Grant, etc.). The afternoon session will focus on review of the DEIS/EIR materials. Tim Smith suggested providing the TWG with a summary of impacts for each impact topic and then discussing mitigation options for any adverse impacts.
DEIS/EIR: Mitigation Options: The Committee discussed how to address potential mitigation for any adverse impacts. Most of the likely impacts will be positive but there may be loss of habitat for some rare species and/or a need to manage invasive species like Phragmites. The Committee discussed what should be included in the Habitat Management Plan, noting that there is no model for how to structure such a plan for a whole ecosystem. The HRRC will need further guidance from the Massachusetts Natural Heritage Program staff about how to approach the plan.
DEIS/EIR: Chapter 5 Review: The Committee discussed how to address the issue of regulatory compliance. LBG has proposed to provide a series of Appendices that address the specific regulations. The HRRC expects the~DEIS/EIR to have a detailed discussion of how the project will comply with each of the applicable regulations (federal, state, regional). ~The MEPA Scope and the agency comments letters provide an outline of what needs to be addressed. The Committee had differing views as to whether this information should be addressed in Chapter 5 or in the Appendices, but agreed that it needs to be included in the DEIS/EIR.
LBG is working on an Appendix that will address regulatory compliance. Committee members suggested reviewing a sample section with the Technical Working Group (TWG) at its January meeting in order to determine the appropriate level of detail for those sections.
Margo Fenn agreed to contact LBG to get a sample section on regulatory compliance and find out the timetable for completing Chapter 5 and the other Appendices.
Loose Ends: Hunt Durey noted that the list of project loose ends continues to grow. He suggested that the Committee consider what are the critical loose ends that need to be addressed in order to get the DEIS/EIR completed in a timely way.
Margo Fenn and Tim Smith agreed to review the project loose ends and refine the list specific to completion of the DEIS/EIR.
Cumulative Impacts: Tim Smith noted that the Committee needs to refine the list of projects that should be included in the cumulative impact analysis.
HHRC members agreed to review the table of cumulative impacts and provide their comments to Charleen Greenhalgh and Hillary Greenberg by January 13, 2012. Greenhalgh and Greenberg will refine the table and provide that information to Tim Smith and LBG.
The meeting was adjourned at 5:15 pm.
Documents Referred to in the Meeting:
-Minutes of the December 1, 2011 Meeting
-LBG Draft DEIS/EIR Chapters 1-5, 12/5/11
Respectfully submitted,
Hillary Greenberg-Lemos
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