Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutLand Conservation And Stewardship Board - Minutes - 03/08/2006MINUTES CITY OF FORT COLLINS LAND CONSERVATION & STEWARDSHIP BOARD Regular Meeting 200 W. Mountain, Suite A March 8, 2006 For Reference: Bill Bertschy 491-7377 Mayor Doug Hutchinson - 416-2154 John Stokes, Staff Liaison - 221-6263 Board Members Present Bill Bertschy, Michelle Brown, Greg Eckert, Vicky McLane, Linda Stanley, Karyl Ting, Michelle Grooms Board Members Absent Greg Snyder, Paul Hudnut Staff Present Natural Resources Dent: John Stokes, Mark Sears, Terry Klahn, Edith Felchle, Donna Dees, Rick Bachand, Karen Manci Asst City AttomeyCarrie Daggett Guests Laura Sebastian Agenda Review John Stokes needs to add a short item related to a right-of-way project. Public Comments Laura Sebastian: Staff met with me and three other citizens regarding prairie dog management. We had a good meeting. We're trying to work together, instead of animal people working against government people. We've talked about implementing a spay program. We're working on how to do the spaying, we have a few options. I have a wildlife vet who has stepped up and offered to help with volunteers. The long term goal is finding a way to help animals without drastic measures. We'd like to control the population through birth control instead of extermination. Its ultimately more cost effective than repeatedly going in and exterminating or live trapping. This could be something that only has to be done infrequently. Brown: Have you heard of other places that have done this? Maybe someone at CSU? • Sebastian: We're talking about tubal ligation. Bill Bertschy said this is on our agenda for later in the meeting. Land Conservation & Stewardship Board March 8, 2006 Page 2 of 9 Acquisition of Sterling Natural Area, Edith Felchle Felchle briefly summarized the information that was provided in the packets, and then talked about a change of direction in the project. The week before the packets were sent out we were told that that mining permit had been closed out and there were no augmentation requirements. The reason it was closed was because the area was folded into an open permit. Because it was folded in under an active mining permit there are augmentation requirements. Either the permit holder or the land owner will have to do augmentation. • McLane: Did they buy the land to do outside education? • Felchle: The land was donated to them. • Brown: What is augmentation? • Daggett: Under State law if you expose ground water you're allowing water to evaporate and be wasted from the ground water system of the state. When you expose ground water you must have a plan to replenish the loss. It's generally driven by the amount of surface area exposed. It can be expensive. • Felchle: The theory is the water you're allowing to evaporate is harming someone downstream. • Bertschy: When was the pit opened? • Felchle: It was opened in 1981, but there has been ground water exposed since then. In my discussions with the DMG the responsible party should be the permit holder, not the land owner. But, if the permit holder doesn't do it they will go to the land owner. We've decided it's not a liability the City should assume. The costs could be greater than the value of the property. It's not reasonable for the City to assume that liability. I suggested to my contact at the school district that the City lease the land from the school district at a dollar year as a ten year lease, until the school district can work with the mining operator to get the augmentation taken care of. Once that liability is gone the City would be willing to accept the property. We could manage it as if we owned it; patrol and recreation. We're fairly confident that concept will fly, and we will probably do that. We wont be going to Council until it becomes an acquisition. But, I thought you'd want to know the whole story, and what's behind it. • Brown: The permit holder is LaFarge. What happens if they don't want to pay the augmentation? • Sears: We have no reason to believe that LaFarge won't honor their obligations. • Stanley: Is this land protected from development from the initial donation. • Felchle: It's in the floodway, and the flood plain. It's pretty much un-developable. • Stanely: With possible costs of $30,000, I don't know if its worth $30,000. It sounds like a big expense if the City takes it on. • Felchle:The education component would be through the Master Nat program. A big part of what we provide is curriculum based materials. A lot of teachers use us to provide science teaching, relative to natural areas. • Stanley: So the $30,000 would be a one-time cost? Land Conservation & Stewardship Board March 8, 2006 Page 3 of 9 • Felchle: That includes a shelter,which in my opinion isn't real likely. It's in there as the most expensive thing that could happen there. The school district is saying these are things they'd like, but don't want to tie our hands. • Brown: Who owns the land to the south? I'm wondering if there's a chance of looking at that also. • Sears: We've worked to see if we could connect the trails. • Eckert: So LaFarge can get out of this by saying we don't want to pay? • Sears: We certainly don't want to imply that LaFarge is trying to get out of their responsibility. It could be 10-15 years before they need to close out the permit. It could be awkward for them to close out a portion of the pit. • Eckert: Does augment mean to cover up the exposed ground water? • Sears: It's more likely they will create water storage and acquire water rights. It has to be upstream. • Eckert: What would you do with the old damn infrastructure between the properties? • Sears: It's a diversion structure. The liability of that diversion structure wouldn't be the City. That would be the irrigation company who owns it. • Eckert: To me this is a disturbed site, it's trashed. • Sears: We own a lot of wrecked properties along the river. Rick is doing amazing restoration work. Over time we would start to restore that. • Felchle: There are neat things out there. • Bertschy: I think there are a variety of values in different pieces of property, especially along the river corridor. • Eckert: I agree, it's a no-brainer for us to acquire what we can along the river. I'm just thinking of the big picture of what we want. • Ting: Are there, or have there been other leases with PSD? • Daggett: The City works with PSD often. It's a pretty cooperative relationship. My sense is it's a good relationship. • Ting: Since the school board is a political entity, how have other agreements played out? • Daggett: I'm pretty sure we've had a couple lease arrangements. One of the reasons you do a lease agreement is to make sure things work out. • Sears: The relationship with the school district so far has been incredibly professional. Their folks are top notch. • Ting: Do they have other natural areas that might prove beneficial? • Sears: A few sites. • Daggett: The City leased the old high school for a number of years. That was a pretty amicable relationship. • Brown: I appreciate the work you've done, and this discussion. It's been valuable for us to hear this. Prairie Dog Management Policy, Rick Bachand John Stokes said he wanted to get the board up-to-date on this policy. It's one of our more complicated and controversial ideas. Bill (Bertschy) has had a long association with the prairie dog management in the City. Donna Dees is our wildlife biologist, Rick Land Conservation & Stewardship Board March 8, 2006 Page 4 of 9 Bachand is our restoration ecologist, and Karen is also a wildlife biologist who worked on the plan with Bill and Darin Atteberry • Stanley: In talking to the mayor, people think they're not threatened because they see them. • Bertschy: That's because we've forced them into visible areas. They've been forced into corridors where they're become visible. That's the problem. • Stokes: In Colorado EDAW and the DOW did a survey. They found several hundred thousand acres, around 270,000 of occupied habitat. In my opinion, prairie dogs clearly are not threatened or endangered. What has changed is the habitat, and the ecosystems. • McLane: The problem isn't the prairie dogs, it's us. • Stanley: When you talk about fumigation, you're talking about killing prairie dogs. Can you explain the process? • Dees: It's a big project. We're not wanting to wipe out all of the prairie dogs. We're looking at a third of the colony. They use tablets and throw 3 down each and every hold they're certain is being used by prairie dogs. They throw newspaper in the hole, and soil over that. • Ting: They're producing phosphate gas? • Donna: Yes, its toxic. • Bertschy: The policy has a number of steps that take place before fumigation. I want to know what you've done for each step. • Bachand: We trapped about 350 animals and transported them to the black footed ferret center. • Bertschy: That's not the first step. • Dees: We don't have a receiving site. • Bertschy: Who did you contact? • Bachand: We're looking at sites on our own inventory. • Dees: We cant look at other counties. • Stokes: The other place we've taken dogs in the past, Meadow Springs Ranch, wont accept any more prairie dogs. The other place is Soapstone. We don't believe that's a good site. There are a lot of biological reasons not to live trap, you've moving fleas and breaking up coteries. The survival rate is not great. In some ways its crueler. Biologically we don't feel there are good reasons to relocate prairie dogs. • Manci: We haven't had plague in quite a while. A lot of sites are degraded and not suitable. • Ting: This whole process of relocating. You take a colony and try to move it. How does that social interaction occur? What's the mortality of the animals? Those animals are going to starve. If you feed them you defeat the purpose. • Stokes: I'd like to say a few things about Pineridge. We have bare dirt. It's unusual, a couple things have been working against us the past several years. There's been the drought. We've not had plague. What happened is the prairie dogs have been reproducing. Now we have a situation where they have denuded the site. Now there have been big winds. We have a lot of dirt moving on that site. This is an unusual Land Conservation & Stewardship Board March 8, 2006 Page 5 of 9 situation. We're doing adaptive management, and learning about prairie dog management in an urban environment. Even if we could have predicted all of this we couldn't have predicted bare dirt. We're trying to learn about optimal densities in urban locations. Some unusual things have happened. We have to take some fairly strong measures to try to get that property back into stasis, or it will blow away. • Stokes: Staff has spent a huge amount of time and money managing prairie dogs, Managing for a single species is probably not the right approach to managing an ecosystem. And, as director I have some concerns, it costs a lot of money. • Ting: Bill (Bertschy), as one of the founders, what was the mission or intent? Was it to preserve the number of animals? • Bertschy: We wanted to manage a viable prairie dog population within the boundaries of Fort Collins. We didn't have the same number that we do today. The policy was designed to do every thing possible to maintain a viable population, with out the extreme of exterminating all prairie dogs. • Bertschy: In your argument of managing, I'm hearing lets get rid of the prairie dogs. • Stokes: No, no, no, I don't think I said that. Prairie dogs are part of the ecosystem. There are six hundred acres of prairie dog towns in and around town. We have another 600 acres of dogs on Soapstone. I'm proud of the City's prairie dog management. Donna, Karen and Rick have done a great job. With Donna's conference Fort Collins is now recognized as a national leader. It's very impressive. • Bertschy: I was the lead council member to recruit the black footed ferret center. There are some of us who would challenge the statement of prairie dogs not being a threatened species. It's what you said, habitat for the prairie dogs, we've created prairie dog ghettos in the urban environment. It's not the prairie dogs' fault, its not our fault. I think we should do every thing we can to manage them appropriately. • Bertschy: Another piece is long range strategy. West Nile has decreased the raptor population over the last couple years. The DOW is seeing increases in rodents all over the country. My point is, maybe it's at a peak. • Brown: I would like to see the Prairie Dog Policy. (Karen Manci provided copies.) • Sebastian: We found out about this current situation three weeks ago. We need time to get people together and we have done that. I don't think the public is aware. I found out about the September thing when I went to visit the prairie dogs. We as a community need to let people know. People do care. With the spaying program we could spay about 400 animals for about $10,000, or less. About half the cost of what was done in September. We need to let people know what fumigation is, its not a pretty and wonderful thing. It's a pretty violent and painful thing. We don't want as a community to be complacent and do the easy thing. • Ting: We could let it alone and let nature take its course, but at what point does it become the prairie dog zoo? Is that something the community will support? Who's going to pay for it? There are ongoing maintenance costs even if you spay the animals. • Ting: There's emotionality and the natural history of the prairie dogs. Those two perspectives need to be put together. If nothing were done all of the animals will eventually die. Land Conservation & Stewardship Board March 8, 2006 Page 6 of 9 • Stanley: It's an unnatural history. • Stokes: I think we're trying to find an intersection between the natural history and the passion people feel around prairie dogs, killing animals and the science of managing habitat. My sense from what staff has said about meetings with Laura is they went well. We're willing to try Laura's innovation at other sites. Not at Pineridge. We are open to trying different things at different sites. • Sebastian: I realize its not just prairie dogs. I know you have to reach a balance. • Brown: So you have an immediate need at Pineridge, but thinking ahead we need to make sure another Pineridge situation doesn't happen. There are different strategies for immediate and future needs. • Grooms: There's overgrazing at Cathy Fromme Prairie. I think I'm with everyone else. We can work together to come up with good policies to effectively manage those populations. We can come to the intersection where there is a best practice. • Stanley: I'm worried about the political fall -out. I had a phone call about Pineridge and they said "I think they're planning to do something about prairie dogs at Pineridge. Find out. Are they going to start killing prairie dogs?" I don't know what you can do, but we need to get in front of this in terms of the media. We need to get out in front of this politically. • Bachand: How do you feel out our approach? • Stanley: I don't like the idea of fumigation but I understand your reasoning. • Bachand: Tell me what I could do differently. • Stanley: Just make sure the message gets out there. It will come out. • Ting: Could Pineridge be a beta site for demonstrating the natural course if prairie dogs aren't managed? • Stokes: The dogs are pretty amazing in terms of their ability to survive. We could adopt that approach, but its not the right strategy. We do have a lot of soil blowing off that site. It's a problem for the site itself And, there's the dirt blowing into the neighborhoods. The neighbors have been patient, and we have tried to maintain a good relationship with the neighborhood. • Eckert: This site is close to a threshold by which if we keep letting this go it will get pushed beyond its ability to recover. I advocate that single species management always gets you into trouble. The populations at that site are too far dispersed to think..... • Bachand: Our current density is about 40 animals per acre. • Ting: Linda's point is a good one. The issue is public response. We're going to have a public outcry no matter what we do as far as public perceptions. How do you get the point across of what the issues really are? This is what we have to deal with, starving children, starving prairie dogs. • Stanley: I do see that you've made an effort, I have great confidence in your judgement. I can't imagine that you hadn't thought of everything you could do. I think if you can get that message out. Change the perception that the City wants to kill prairie dogs. That's what you have to work on. I'm happy to help any way I can. • Stanley: Are you going to be able to tell who is a family? • Bachand: The mapping should identify that. Land Conservation & Stewardship Board March 8, 2006 Page 7 of 9 • Dees: We have experience in identifying coteries in previous locations. • Dees: What we wrote in 1998 was based on what we knew at the time. Over this period of time we've gained a lot of knowledge and presented these different strategies. Rick is supportive of the experience, we're lucky to have research agencies. You're right, the public doesn't know. Hopefully it will be reflected in this process. • Bertschy: Part of the strategy in the public outreach is in this policy. I agree a lot has changed. But what hasn't changed is the public perception and outcry that could happen. One of the strategies was to attempt to get buy in with the major sector that could potentially be the most upset. The concept was there were no surprises in the public's mind. • Dees: We did give the six weeks notice. • Stokes: Bill raises an interesting question. We did notify the Sierra Club. The plan states the director shall designate a group to notify when we do control activities at a site. Because the Sierra Club is not well organized right now we need to talk about the notification provision. One alternative is to notice this board. All of our documents are public record. We send the packet to the Coloradoan, the mayor gets a packet. A lot of people get our packet. I would suggest it as an alternative. We don't need to make a decision right now. • Stokes: When we develop the management plan we're going to be thinking about changing our approach to the notice system and how staff is, enabled. We're at a place where we think we're sophisticated enough for us to make decisions without having to go to City Council or put an article in the newspaper. I understand prairie dogs are especially sensitive. But, we've grown enough that we'd like to move to another level with respect to staffs ability to work on the issues. • Sears: I would echo what John has said. The essence of the prairie dog policy and the essence of our program has been to acquire existing prairie dog habitat in the UGA. We've achieved that. We have also acquired several thousand acres of potential habitat that is yet to be restored. The 600 acres could double or triple in the next 20 years. There is not a group more dedicated to the propagation. Yes, we are killing a few hundred prairie dogs on a site, but we manage more prairie dogs than the forest service. We have got to have a policy in hand that we don't have to go through gut wrenching decisions without debating it in public. It is too emotional, and too complex. It's a lose/lose situation, that's why we avoid the press. • Stanley: You're making a mistake. • Sears: You're right, we have to take advantage of this situation. We must do a review of our policies and make a major public information attempt to help inform and educate. We also try to do that indirectly through the Master Naturalist program. • Stanley: If you did that and could have Laura as one of your ambassadors.... • Sebastion: I don't really know these guys, but I think they're doing a great job. I'm not going home and cursing them. I know it's a horrible decision. I feel like you're being honest. Have a little more faith in the public. Land Conservation & Stewardship Board March 8, 2006 Page 8 of 9 • Sears: If we had the opportunity to spend time with citizens it would be better. We've attempted, and have continued to try. We have to do it when we do policy plans but not when we do management plans on a site by site basis. • Bertschy: What prompted this was the people camped out in the mayor's back yard. Staff did have the prerogative to make management decisions. It's a fine line. I do think it's dangerous to be too closed about it. If the public perceives its being sprung on them.... • Stanely: This is a perfect opportunity to get to the public. It's a perfect time to gain the public's trust. • Stokes: It could be. We'll think more about our outreach around Pineridge. • Stokes: Part of the purpose of this meeting was to have a public forum. We have not had this discussion. We could have done the notification and gone out there. This is part of our effort to do some awareness around this. It's not as though we haven't taken steps. • Stokes: We'd like to work toward this policy plan. It's another opportunity for the public to get involved and have this type of dialogue. If we can tell the same story to the public we're telling you I think we'll have strong public support for the management strategy we're talking about. • Sears: Citizens like Laura can help us. • Eckert: I've asked some folks, including animal welfare specialists, and many feel that fumigation is the most humane. • Stanley: You could contact the Coloradoan and try to get past prairie dog lover letter writers. Try to build a trust with them. • Grooms: Do you have a selection process? Survival of the fittest, or is it a random selection. I like you idea of the ferrets. I'm more comfortable with the circle of life than fumigation. Conveyance of a New Right-of-way Easement to the Sanitation District, John Stokes • Bertschy: Will the County have to approve this? • Stokes: Yes, it will go the commissioners. • Bertschy: Would the district vacate the old easement? • Stokes: Jerry White at the County is supposed to be sending the existing easement tomorrow so we can check. • Stanley: Why doesn't it go along the road? Are you worried about it being so close to the reservoir? • Stokes: No, I'm not worried about that. Vicky McLane made the following motion: Move that the Land Conservation and Stewardship Board supports the staff recommendation of the conveyance of the permanent right-of-way and the temporary construction easements to the South Fort Collins Sanitation District. The motion was seconded by Linda Stanley. Land Conservation & Stewardship Board March 8, 2006 Page 9 of 9 • Stanely: I hate all of these easements. Natural areas are a cheap way for them to do these. • Stokes: Natural areas are definitely easement magnets. • Stanley: It bugs me. We're becoming an enabler of new development at a cheaper price. I've seen that a lot of them don't get restored very well. Natural Areas is getting the shaft. When does it end? • Sears: Everything Linda has said is true. I don't know how many easements we've implemented. About five years ago we instituted a very strict easement policy. We try to adhere to it. The policy is well written and is very powerful. The challenge is up to them to prove it's the only feasible way. Our challenge with the sewer district is they'll condemn us. With out the policy and thought we've put into this we'd be taken advantage of. I cant think of an easement in the last four or five years that wasn't appropriate. • Stokes: The policy does work. We've been pretty successful. We can feel good about that. The motion passed unanimously. • Bertschy: I also have a concern about restoration on the easements. There have been some poor examples. I think its better if we do the restoration. I reluctantly support this easement because of the existing easement and because it would be a tough case if it went to condemnation. • Brown: Are they required to do restoration if its condemnation? • Stokes: Yes, but we thought it would be better for us to do the restoration. Linda Stanley made the following motion: I move, under Section 2-712(b), and 2-31 (a) (3) of the City Code, that the Land Conservation & Stewardship Board go into executive session to discuss real property acquisitions. The motion was seconded by Michelle Grooms and passed unanimously. The board emerged from executive session at 9:20 pm and the meeting was adjourned. Submitted by Terry IGahn Admin Support Supervisor APPproved