2011-05 May meeting minutes

Frederick County

Forest Conservancy District Board

May 9, 2011 Meeting Minutes

Those present: Tom Anderson, George Lewis, Lynne Marquess, Mike Kay,

Angie Toms, Sierra Toms

1. Call to order: The meeting was called to order and the revised copy of April’s minutes was approved as written.

2. Membership: George indicated that he does not intend to submit an application for re-appointment. George relayed how much he has enjoyed being a member of the board and said that he will continue to attend a meeting now and again but he does not wish to be reinstated. Everyone thanked George for his contributions and friendship over the years.

3. Logging site exams – Four plans were submitted and we decided to conduct these site visits sometime next week on either May 18, 19 or 20. Mike will send out a feeler to see what day is best.

4. NRCC – Lynne reports that an article ran in the News Post during April but it did not promote any new applications from Frederick County although we have already selected one student. Lynne said that 25 applications have been submitted statewide but 3 of these have been withdrawn. The next meeting of the Education Committee will be during the first week of June.

5. Treasury – Tom indicated that we purchased 100 copies of “The Woods in Your Backyard” for about $12.50 each.

6. Forestry Education Program – We discussed this briefly mostly discussing what venue would be best a library vs. a county park and where should we hold the program, Frederick City or an outlying location. We decided to table the discussion until the June meeting.

7. Neighborhood Green – This training is now underway. We thought it would be good to highlight some of these projects with a web site or newspaper article.

8. River Clean-up – Lynne mentioned that she contacted the Monocacy – Catoctin Watershed Alliance about a potential site for their river cleanup. This site being adjacent to Bear Branch – Bennett Creek along Mt. Ephraim Road. Doug Hertzell with Frederick County Government is presently looking into this location.

9. Clearing along Power lines – Mike relayed an incident that occurred on Keith Schoonover’s property where line clearing crews told Keith that they intend to cut all vegetation that is greater than 10’ tall. Keith contested this since much of the vegetation in his right of way is native, low growing trees such as dogwood and redbud. These natives are holding the abundant autumn olive and bush honeysuckle at bay for the time being. Keith is worried that once the good stuff is cut and removed the site will be overrun with invasives. Keith contacted Mike who emailed Becky Wilson, Western Regional Urban Forester and Marian Honeczy, Supervisor of Urban and Community Forestry requesting guidance. Becky spoke to the Utility Forester in charge and Marian sent out some guidance saying that Allegheny Power owns some of the land around their lines outright however, in most cases their right of ways lies on private and public ownership. Marian pointed out that Allegheny Power has been negotiating right of way maintenance plans with interested private landowners. As such, Keith should be able to discuss and negotiate an individual plan that does not remove the low growing native species. After much discussion board members thought it would be worthwhile to discuss with Keith whether or not he would want to meet with a newspaper reporter to do a story on this incident so as to let folks know about their rights in these manners. Mike said that he would contact Keith to see if he is interested.