Background
Of the many rivers in New Hampshire only about 15 are “Designated Rivers”. The Cold River is one of these.
What is a “designated river”? The term reflects a legal relationship between the State of New Hampshire and a “local advisory group” for that particular river. The process of becoming such takes a long time (two years in our case, from about 1998 to 2000), is dependent upon jumping through a significant number of hoops and fulfilling legal requirements and the requiring of the particular advisory group to fulfill a significant list of requirements and obligations. One of those obligations is to provide local citizens (within the “designated” river’s watershed) minutes of its meetings.
The Cold River from prime source (Crescent Lake) to its entering the Connecticut River (just south of Aubuchon’s hardware store) is 23 miles long and has many contributing streams. Its watershed is 102 square miles. Along its banks are 5 communities: Walpole, Langdon, Alstead, Acworth, and Lempster.
The Cold River Local Advisory Committee (CRLAC) serves as an advisory, not a regulatory, committee. It advises local people, town governments, and the State of New Hampshire via the Department of Environmental Services (DES).
The CRLAC regularly studies the river from many viewpoints but most particularly does scientific measurements of entities in up to 70 locations along the river and its tributaries. These measurements include flow rate, pH, volume, temperature, biologicals (E-Coli and micro-invertebrates), chemicals, conductance, oxygen concentration, obvious contaminants, etc.). They are reported to DES.
What follows is the most recent approved minutes of our Committee.
Charles H. Montgomery and Jennifer Polcari
Co-Chairs of the Cold River Local Advisory Committee_____________________________________________________________________________
Minutes of July 23, 2009 Meeting of the Cold River Local Advisory Committee
Call to Order
7:05 PM
Present
Carol Drummond, Fred Ernst, Michael Heidorn, Deborah Hinman, Austin Hunter, Susan Lichty, Cathy MacDonald, Charles Montgomery, and Sam Sutcliffe.
Absent
Jennifer Polcari
Minutes of June 25, 2009
After identifying minor typos Cathy moved and Carol seconded that the minutes of June 25, 2009 be accepted as amended. All approved.
Procedures regarding Agendas
Charlie announced that he and Jen have agreed that he will serve as point person at meetings and she will forward all email communications from DES and others. The new Agenda format is in alphabetical order and the Chair will announce their time priorities at each meeting.
Treasurer’s Report – Sam Sutcliffe
A written report dated July 23, 2009 was received from the Treasurer with June 30, 2009 Balance. Copies were given to the Chair (Charlie) and to the Secretary (Debby). There were no expenditures in June and $3.99 of interest accrued to create a balance of $8101.69. Charlie gave $15.00 cash to the treasurer from sale of Atlas maps made at the Alstead Town Festival.
Acworth Land – Debby Hinman
Nothing to report other than ongoing discussions and searching for a method that could protect this land as easily as possible. She has a copy of a recent survey of the property
Alstead Festival – Charlie
Mike set up the display that included a sub-watershed map, the large Atlas copy, and our logo and contact information. (Sue would like to use this display for upcoming Lempster Old Home Day) Charlie managed the table by himself, and enjoyed the conversations with the dozen or so people who stopped by. The Alstead Open Space project was the focus of the conservation commission’s display. The CC has a new newsletter and a land conservation pamphlet available that mentions an Easement Walk with Nan and Bruce Montgomery (no relation to CM) on Old Settlers Road on September 26 at 1pm. www.alsteadnh.org is the place to learn more.
Management Plan – Charlie
Charlie has created a 3-page summary of the Management Plan that he will email to all members. Distribution accomplished to date includes:
q Sue to John McGee at Fish and Game in Concord
q Sue to Lempster CC and Planning Board. Lempster Selectboard is aware these plans are in town.
q Mike to Lake Warren Association. (Alstead CC and PB coming up soon)
q Deb to Unity CC instead of Crescent Lake Association, plus the Joint Rivers Commission, and Ashuelot LAC. (Acworth CC and PB soon)
q Charlie to Walpole CC with Walpole PB coming soon.
Designated River Signs –Sue Lichty
Sue has spoken with Steve Couture. Signs are on back order and our two should be coming soon. These will be placed on the Rt 12 bridge over the Cold River in Walpole (we’re not sure which side would be best or exactly who decides; DOT or LAC?) and just below Crescent Lake beside the Lempster wetland area on the 2nd NH Turnpike. Sue was asked to find out what the cost of additional signs would be and whether or not the Educational Outreach grant at DES might be used to cover such costs.
Membership- Cathy MacDonald
Membership is listed on the DES and CRLAC websites as well as in the Annual Report. This seems sufficient.
Program on Ethics and Frogs- Carol Drummond
Carol would like to coordinate frog assessment sites that are related via wetlands to our WQM sites. Programs that Carol already does could relate to our own frogs; monitoring would be during breeding season in the spring, followed by location and count of young ones in summer. Within a year of a full cycle, she could begin to make presentations on the findings, perhaps as early as 2010.
The 2005 flood wiped out the wetland complex at the base of Cooper Hill, where she lives. No frogs appear to have been breeding there since, but the ten years of data that she had collected on the amphibian populations in those wetlands prior to the flood now prompts her to work toward rebuilding the populations of species that used to be there. Thus, she is making a “nursery pond” to raise frogs!
Mike and Carol will discuss possible assessment sites along the river and how to present a plan to the LAC and to tailor the program for success. A question was raised about the heavy layer of scum seen on several ponds around the watershed this summer; Carol responded that tadpoles eat this scum, so a very heavy layer probably means a lack of tadpoles.
Water Quality Monitoring –Mike Heidorn
Summer collections will begin next week. DES needs to re-calibrate the meters. He will notify members of dates that monitoring will take place.
Trout, Pools, and Rocks –Fred Ernst
John Hansel of Walpole gave Fred a film about work done in Vermont by Barry Cahoun and others to build J-dams to create trout habitat. He and Mike discussed possible Cold River sites for such work. Mike mentioned that he has spoken with Sean Sweeney who was to do a design and assessment at the Griffin Hill area where there are interested landowners but we’re not sure where these plans stand. Mike will contact Sean S. A recent email indicates that Stimulus Funds may be forthcoming soon but that a proposal is still needed. Does Sean know about this?
Discussion among members regarding the fact that the post-flood work was “stabilization” not “restoration” led to conclusion that there is still a great need for habitat work in the near future. Concern was expressed that towns and landowners might not be interested in any more big work projects given the massive stabilization projects of past four years. Fred will explore funding and other possibilities regarding wildlife habitat restoration. He and Mike will talk and explore our monitoring sites and others for possible projects.
Website-Debby Hinman
Jen Polcari reported via email on a very satisfactory conversation she had with Karen Winterholer of Goshen, a contact recommended by Debby. After a brief discussion of prices and options , Sam moved and Carol seconded that the LAC hire Karen Winterholer to move our website from the current host to Karen’s preferred hosting site and begin to assess what is needed to meet our need to have an active website that can be updated to include scheduled events. Vote in the affirmative was unanimous. Deb will send Fred and Charlie’s email addresses to Karen, for they did not receive the information that she sent us. More info may be found at Karen’s web http://www.maiadesigns.com where you may click on Webdesign at bottom of the page for her prices.
Work on Tentative Plans as outlined in February 2009 meeting –Charlie
Remnants of an earlier discussion took place on what should constitute the LAC’s “Primary Functions” as written in the 2-26-09 minutes. Debby and Mike said that it is difficult to create a list of the LAC’s duties without a copy of RSA 483-B in our hands, since that is where all LAC’s official duties are spelled out. None the less, discussion continued, adding details to the following list of items that members in attendance in February had listed as important:
1. Water Quality and flood control issues
2. Wildlife habitat issues
3. Acting as liaison between towns, landowners, and state and/or other interested parties
4. Educational outreach to schools, landowners and towns
5. Annual reports
Discussion then turned to storage of our ten years’ worth of materials. Ideally these would be in a public place and readily accessible but there is no such place as of yet and thus they remain in Hinman’s upstairs room. She reiterated that this is not her first choice. Talk then turned to management of records and how data should be backed up or saved to memory sticks or CDs. Discussion will continue later on ways to keep our data safe and not inundate ourselves with unnecessary materials.
As new chair, Charlie stated that he does not want mail and notices and other papers to be brought to our meetings and take up undue meeting time unless they have first been announced via email so members can assess if they might be interested (or not) in spending time on such items. Charlie and Jen will send emails to members of all phone calls, emails and mail received between meetings from members and others. It was suggested that perhaps these workshop fliers and other news of interest could be brought up each meeting under “New Business”, thus not take time away from items needing more attention during the meeting but not preclude sudden finds of interest on day of meeting. There was no voting on these matters but the chair asked that members think of how we might conduct our business most effectively at our monthly meetings.
New Business-members
q Debby showed the newly published book, Where the Great River Rises that we received from the Joint Rivers Commission. Rebecca Brown, of the Joint Commissions, was editor of the book and did a wonderful job. Six members placed orders for purchase at a special rate. Debby will place one order for all six books and be reimbursed by the individuals. She’ll email the final price once shipping is determined.
q Sue brought her copies of the 4 new Habitat Stewardship Series brochures created by Cooperative Extension. The new ones are on Peatlands, Shrublands, Appalachian Oak-Pine Forests, and Lowland Spruce-Fir Forests. There was also a brochure on New England Cottontail Rabbits in NH in a Focus on Wildlife brochure. These may all be found at www.nhwoods.org or call the Cheshire Coop Ext office at 352-4550 or Sullivan County office at 863-9200.
q An important reminder about our event with David Deen and the Nature Museum at Grafton at the mouth of the Cold River on Saturday, August 22, 9-11am. More announcements about this event will come soon from the museum calendar and then we can send to our email contacts.
q Charlie discussed Emergency Management planning in Walpole and a Habitat for Humanity project he is involved with.
Respectfully Submitted,
Debby Hinman
Scribe