May 12, 2015 Hydrology, Run-off & Land Use Sub-Committee Minutes

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Brule River Coalition: Hydrology – Land Use-Runoff Subcommittee

Process Notes and Recommendations

May 12, 2015, Brule Town Hall

Premise: (as established by the subcommittee)

“A functioning, self-sustaining watershed to be maintained and managed for resiliency.” (Biological, climatological, hydrological resiliency.)

Purpose: To develop an issue or problem statement along with actions that will impact that issue or problem.

Development of Statement: Participants were asked to consider this prompt and share responses with the group: “ We consider the problem in the BRWS as impacted by hydrology, land use and runoff to be: ________________________________________, because______________________________.

Grouped responses to above exercise:**

* Forest Management not taking account of all impacts to the watershed
* Mis- guided hydrolics- what is happening in the channels and adjacent to the channels
* Un-Coordinated Land Use Management
* Targeted education program to drive decision-making in the basin
* Lack of needed scientific data
* Development implemented without accounting for consequences.

** Full list of responses attached.

Actions to impact each group of issues above:

Functioning committees
Further Organizatoin of Coalition
Determination of monitoring needs
Strategic Action Plan
Land Use Zoning Within Watershed
Development of Funding Assistiance to impact problem Areas
Watershed Plan/management
Existing watershed plans/coordination of
Demonstrations
Tours
Identificaton of scope to needed information
Compilation of existing data
Mangement of Hydrology and Hydraulics
Forestry management in the watershed
Education Plan
Watershed Planning Effort to coordinate efforts toa achieve WS goals
Restore Hydrologic Connectivity
Management of forests at a watershed scale to address hydrology, sedimentation, forest disease and pests.
Coordinated /consistent planning and management for development
Forest management coordinated among all large-scale forests (720 ac?)

What is needed to understand each of the issues above?

Water Temperatures
Recreation al use of Canoe and Kayak
Tributary Water Runoff
Spawnig Reserch
Floristic Study
Water Flow Data
Historical Data/Photo Coordination
Hydrological Assessments
Functional Wetland Assessments
Updated Forest Age Class
Functionality of spawning beds
Site visits
Forest plans and implementation over the years (upper Watershed in partciular)
Historic land use data
LiDAR
Ground water study (upper watershed in particular)
Historic forest harvest schedule
Monitoring
Water Budget
Water Qulaity and Quantity parameters
Hydrolic and Hydraulic Study of River and Major Tributaries
Field inspection for stream disconnections, culvert condition, areas of erosion
Impacts of logging
Imagery for GIS
Study land use impacts on water Quality and Quantity
Forest Management coordination between different forest managers.

Who is missing from the discussion?

Industrial Forest Managers
Government Officials
Lake Associatoins
USGS
ACE
DNR Researchers
Scinetific Community
Private Landowners
Local Businesses
Funders
Township planning committees
County Hwy (Douglas and Bayfield)
Private Foresters/Managers (Stegerwaldt)
Bayfield County
Representative Duffy
Local State Legislatures Bewley and Milroy
River Alliance
Douglas County Chamber
WDOT
DNR Forestry
County Forest (Douglas anc Bayfield)
Flood Plain Mangagers
Local Business
Large Forest Landowners (>20 ac)

Recommnended Next Steps:

* Synthesize Actions and Needs into a working document to use as organizatoinal tool for sub committee
* Present to the Steering Team
*Evaluate potential impacting actions against current plans
*How are BMPs being used in the watershed in relation to the issue?

May 12, 2015 Hydrology, Run-off & Land Use Sub-Committee Minutes pdf