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Present:                                                                                                                     SWCD Personnel:
David Ellison, Chairman                                                                                               Bonnie Bittner
Wayne Fehd, Member
Lauren Preske, Member
                                                                                                                                   NRCS Personnel:
                                                                                                                                   Darrell Rice

                                                                                                                                   IDNR Personnel:
                                                                                                                                  Amy Steeples

The minutes of the April meeting were mailed to each member prior to the meeting.

            Wayne Fehd made a motion to accept the April minutes as mailed,
             seconded by Lauren Preske, and carried.

The minutes were passed for supervisor signatures.

Dave Ellison asked the board to refer to the April financial report. The previous balance on 4-1-04 was $33,349.15 Receipts, $1,389.87, Debits $1,771.29 and the balance as of 4-30-04 was $32,967.73.

            A motion was made by Wayne Fehd, seconded by Lauren Preske, and carried,
            to approve the treasurer’s report as presented.

Wayne Fehd checked the claims saying they were in order and

                Lauren Preske made a motion to approve the claims, seconded by Wayne
                Fehd, and carried.

Wayne passed the claim registers for the supervisors’ signatures.

OLD BUSINESS:
Natural Resource Committee – Dave Ellison & Todd Thomas, Co-Chairperson
Lauren reported she contacted Brian Herr by e-mail to set up a date to have lunch. She wants to
get the information we need to set this project up for fall.

Lauren said the speaker they wanted for the Sustainable Evansville meeting charges $3,000 to $4,000 which is out of their reach. They will probably have the meeting at the 4-H Center. Bonnie said the District could sponsor a speaker or part of the meeting with certain criteria met. She read Greg Biberdorf’s answer to her question on the subject. "If the SWCD chooses to be a co-sponsor of the workshop, and if the speaker is appropriate, and the SWCD supervisors choose to authorize this expenditure, then as a legitimate educational program of the SWCD, they could participate in covering some of the expenses. It should be made very clear the SWCD does this as a co-sponsor and credit should be publicly acknowledged in the announcements or publicity for the speaker and workshop."

Bonnie reported she sent a letter and River Friendly Farmer forms to Kevin & Roger Rexing and one to Daniel Kercher.

Bonnie called Dwayne Caldwell to invite him to a board meeting to see how we could partner to address water quality concerns. Mr. Caldwell will attend the July 27^th meeting.

Preservation/Creation Natural Areas Committee – Lauren Preske, Chairperson
Bonnie asked for a motion to purchase a license to sell trees in this summer for fall delivery.

                Wayne Fehd made a motion to purchase a license ($50.00) to sell trees
                seconded by Lauren Preske and carried.

Farmland Preservation – Wayne Fehd, Chairperson
Bonnie touched base with Dave Elgin, Director of Four Rivers RC&D concerning making a presentation at the board meeting about what possibilities Four Rivers RC&D could do for Farmland Preservation. The rules have changed and he will come when he has it sorted out.

Bonnie said Holly McCutchan asked her to report she contacted Diane Barber at the Zoo and she is very excited about utilizing the Indianapolis Zoo Farmland Conversion Display. They are very busy this summer and couldn’t consider it until fall. We will probably wait until 2006 when the Indy Zoo said they would give the display to us. They offered to send the graphics on disk, but it may be too expensive to recreate.

Brown Field and Urban Land Use Committee – Phil Hoy, Chairperson
No Business This Month

Legislative Committee – John Hahn, Chairperson
No Business This Month

Finance Committee – Holly McCutchan, Chairperson
Bonnie reported the CCE computers have been set up, the migration is completed, software loaded and our files have been loaded. Norma’s having some problems that the IT specialist is working on; Bonnie’s is working very well. Bonnie asked what the board wanted her to do with her old computer. After some discussion they decided to donate it to a not for profit organization. Bonnie should do some checking and make a decision.

                Wayne Fehd made a motion to let Bonnie make the decision which not-for-profit
                to donate her computer to seconded by Lauren Preske and carried.

District Operation Committee – Wayne Fehd, Chairperson
The County Commissioners meeting report was tabled. Supervisors want Norma to set up a schedule
when she will attend the commissioners meeting and let them have a copy so they know when to
attend. They want her to report on district activities & accomplishments which is different from her weekly report.

Lauren reported she met Bill Pedtke, Executive Director of the South West Indiana Builders Association for lunch. The bottom line after a very open discussion was he is willing to work with the district on education, but will not stop the County from taking the MS4s. Lauren stated she e-mailed him after the meeting stating, "You mentioned the development community was supporting the County taking over monitoring and enforcement of the storm water prevention laws because the SWCD has nothing to do with development.  Here's my question: What does it matter who enforces it?  Given that whoever is doing so is only given that responsibility by the state, and is only executing the laws coming down from IDEM and EPA as they are dictated?  Neither the SWCD nor the County would have any say in how the laws are stated, regulated, or enforced.  Given that this is the specialty of SWCDs and their purpose from inception back in the '30s by the USDA, it seems only appropriate to me that they carry out that task rather that waste that resource and instead tax the taxpayers to pay more county employees to do such.  The County might handle volume better as you mentioned only because they are not providing the staff to our office to meet the demand.  This could easily be remedied.  I'm just asking about this because I can't seem to figure out WHY it matters."

Bonnie gave Lauren Preske copies of all the e-mails she received from across the state on Youth Boards. She couldn’t forward them to Lauren because her computer is down. Dave tabled a decision on a Youth Board until Lauren has time to look over the e-mails.

Natural Resource Committee – Dave Ellison & Todd Thomas, Co-Chairperson
Construction in a floodway was tabled.

Amy Steeples reported the district received a letter from IDEM stating the application submitted for assessment and mapping of e-coli bacteria contamination in Locust Creek Watershed was not one of those recommended for funding and will not be funded through the Section 205(j) grant program this year. An assessment and mapping project is not a priority for FFY04 funding. Amy said the Lake and River Enhancement application is still in the running.

Dave asked members to refer to a copy in their plackets of a video conference on Planning for Rural and Urban Storm Water that will be held on June 3^rd at 7:00 p.m. in the Darmstadt Extension Office. After some discussion supervisors directed Bonnie to send information to Area Plan, County Council, County Commissioners and City Engineer. Dave Ellison, Wayne Fehd, Darrell Rice and Lauren asked Bonnie to put in reservations for them.

Darrell reported his status reviews are finished and if he has a cooperator in non-compliance he is suppose to send a copy to the district. Marvin Schmidt, who normally does a good job, was in non-compliance. Darrell contacted him and he explained what happened, but he did not call and let Darrell know before status reviews. He will be checked next year automatically.

Darrell reported he has a filter strip (Tract 462) on Gregory Blankenberger, Gene Wilderman & Marlene Wilderman farm. There is a filter strip & pip structure on Joyce Vaught, Mark Wildt, Gloria Sanders and Kevin Burgdorf. He also has a filter strip on Tract 9006 for Victor Chamness and Todd Thomas.

Tract 1695 has a Grass Waterway for Clero Schmitt and Tract 8880 has a Waterway with structure for Mark Schmidt and Marvin Schmidt.

Preservation/Creation Natural Areas Committee – Lauren Preske, Chairperson
No Business This Month

Farmland Preservation – Wayne Fehd, Chairperson
No Business This Month

Brown Field and Urban Land Use Committee – Phil Hoy, Chairperson
No Business This Month

Dave asked member to think about resolutions for the Annual Conference business meeting. See Bonnie for a form, if you have a resolution to submit. Resolutions are due at IASWCD no later than 4:00 p.m. on August 2, 2004.

Finance Committee – Holly McCutchan, Chairperson
The petty cash report was reviewed by Wayne Fehd and passed for supervisors to initial.

Wayne reported the Indiana Association of Soil & Water Conservation Districts (IASWCD) dues for 2004 is due.

                    Wayne Fehd made a motion to pay the IASWCD dues ($2,000) for 2004,
                    seconded by Lauren Preske, and carried.

Bonnie reported Norma’s Soil and Water Conservation Society 2004 dues was due and Tom Niksch sent an e-mail saying his was due, but he thought it should be transferred to a supervisor. Lauren said she would like to receive the mailings.

                    Wayne Fehd made a motion to pay the 2004 dues for Norma and Lauren Preske ($75 each),
                    seconded by Dave Ellison and carried.

Bonnie reported she attended the New Horizons Word class in Louisville. The class was excellent; you have access to help by phone or online for six months and can retake the class for a year free. She went online and printed out a 235 page step by step review of the class for reference. She is looking forwarded to the two classes in Indianapolis.

Wayne asked board members to refer to a copy in their packets of the budget proposal letter Bonnie drafted after meeting with Holly and Phil. She will fax it to the Commissioner’s office and mail the original to Catherine Fanello, copies to David Mosby and Suzanne Crouch. The leveraging sheet will be sent later.

Wayne asked members to refer to a copy in their packets on the Historic Preservation/Natural Resources Conservation Come Together Tour. After some discussion it was decided to send Lauren Preske if her schedule allowed and she will invite a County Commissioner or public official.

                Dave Ellison made a motion to send Lauren and a public official if schedule
                permit to the Historic Preservation/Natural Resources Conservation Come
                Together Tour seconded by Wayne Fehd and carried.

District Operation Committee – Wayne Fehd, Chairperson
Wayne asked members & staff if they received registration information in the mail for Summer Splash.  The conference is in Merrillville this year on August 6^th -7^th. After a discussion and with some members and staff absent Dave asked for a motion

                Wayne Fehd made a motion to send supervisors & staff schedule permitting
                to Summer Splash, seconded by Lauren Preske and carried.

Dave presented Lauren Preske with her new supervisor ID card, congratulating her. Letters from Ken Eck, Conservation Program Specialist, Division of Soil Conservation, IDNR and Peter Hippensteel, Chairman, State Soil Conservation Board to outgoing supervisors Todd Thomas and Tom Niksch were passed for review.

Wayne asked members to refer to copies in their packets of Amy Steeples’ (Resource Specialist for IDNR Division of Soil Conservation) report. Amy pointed out that V3 Associates were here and did the first round of sampling in Barr Creek. The water going into Big Creek was clear, that is a good sign. IDNR spent $250,000 in dry stacks and structural practices. This sampling is to see if these practices made a difference in the water quality in Barr Creek.

Dave asked members to refer to copies in their packets of Norma’s report. She was planning to be here but a tornado went through her neighborhood. Her husband called and she left for home.

Dave also asked members to look over the Inspection and Mileage reports.

Darrell reported Edwin Almadovar will start in our office on June 1^st. He started as an NRCS intern in our office several years ago, was hired, sent to the Lafayette office, then did a tour of duty in Iraq, is back and once more stationed in the Vanderburgh office.

Darrell also reported:

County Employee time sheets were passed for review and signature.

Amy asked Dave Ellison to sign Charlie Rexing’s buffer strip program certification of cost-share work completed.

Dave Ellison set the date for the next board meeting on June 22, 2004, 7:00 p.m. in the Vanderburgh County SWCD conference room.

Dave asked for a motion to adjourn

                Wayne Fehd made a motion to adjourn the meeting at 9:30, seconded by
                Lauren Preske and carried.

MINUTES APPROVED ON June 22, 2004

David R. Ellison _______________________________

George Phillip Hoy_______________________________

Wayne Fehd ________________________________

Holly McCutchan ________________________________

Lauren Preske ___________________________________

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