Final Minutes Meeting LANXESS 200 Grand River Ave. (First Floor Auditorium) Sarnia, ON

Transcription

1 ST. CLAIR RIVER BI-NATIONAL PUBLIC ADVISORY COUNCIL 1 Final Minutes Meeting LANXESS 200 Grand River Ave. (First Floor Auditorium) Sarnia, ON Thursday, January 18, :30 p.m. ATTENDEES: Kris Lee Paulette Duhaime Greg Mayne Stewart Thornley Al Lewandowski Frank Frisk Gary Johnson Frank Schoonover Tip Haagsma Kristen O. Jurs Bob Fleming Darrell Randell M.K (Whitey) Simon Ted Briggs Susan Schoen Janice Littlefield John Jackson (phone) Phil Vallance Fred Fuller Bela Trebics Sue Lavesque Donald Craig Darren Henry Amanda Blackbird GUESTS: Chris Drope ( LANXESS Alternate Archie Kerr) Ken Hall REGRETS: Fred Kemp Chris Christenson Mark Richardson Vicki Donohue Archie Kerr Patty Troy 1. Welcome and Introductions Bela Trebics called the meeting to order, followed by introductions. 2. Approve Agenda The agenda was approved, with the addition of the Committee Reports OPAC

2 3. Approval of November 9, 2006 Draft Minutes 2 The Draft Minutes were approved. This was followed by the introduction of Chris Drope LANXESS, Manager of Health Safety and Environment. Chris welcomed the BPAC to LANXESS and outlined the washroom conveniences and safety considerations. Chris then introduced and showed a short presentation on LANXESS. 4. BPAC Elections Bela Trebics and Kris Lee were re-elected as the St. Clair River BPAC - Canadian Chair and Vice-Chair, respectively. Fred Fuller was re-elected St. Clair River BPAC - U.S. Vice-Chair. Janice Littlefield was elected as the new St. Clair River BPAC - U. S. Chair. John Jackson and Phil Vallance were re-elected as St. Clair River BPAC representatives on the St. Clair River RIC. It is the intention that the BPAC representation on the Canadian RIC will be binational. While our RIC appointments are currently both from Canada, the appointments will be revisited if U.S. representation becomes available. Sharon Bender was elected as BPAC representative on SPAC, with Paulette Duhaime as alternate. 5. BPAC letter of support to FOSCR (U.S.) Janice Littlefield read a letter that she had prepared on behalf of BPAC indicating support for an application for funding, through the PAC Support Grant Program. The application was $20K (maximum grant allowance) for a full-time administrative person for education and grant writing for FOSCR (U.S.). The application was sent through Matt Doss of the Great Lakes Commission - SPAC Support Staff. Matt Doss reflected that he felt funding could be available if the request was made more so on a watershedbased need for hardware related to de-listing. Motion: It was moved by Paulette Duhaime, seconded by Fred Fuller, that BPAC endorse the letter in support of the grant request. Motion passed. 6. BPAC letter to Tim Lozen to re-establish FOSCR (U.S.) This action has been completed. 7. Addresses of Canadian legislators Darrell Randell reported that the list of addresses was completed.

3 8. BPAC Power Point Presentation U.S. Subcommittee. 3 It was felt that the Power Point Presentation (PPP) could be readily adapted to suit U.S. circumstances. Paulette Duhaime indicated that she should be approached to coordinate advice on presentations, and to review the script. Frank Frisk, from the Great Lakes Maritime Centre (part of Acheson Ventures) indicated that the U.S. Subcommittee members could get together at the Centre where presentation hardware was available. 9. Forward CRIC Minutes to BPAC Ted Briggs indicated that the Canadian RAP Implementation Committee (CRIC) minutes from October 20, 2006 had been forwarded. 10 Power Point Presentation Darrell Randell ran through the Power Point Presentation. Darrell stressed a need to make presentations to municipal councils. Bela Trebics offered to approach the Municipality of Chatham-Kent. Donald Craig offered to approach the St. Clair Region Conservation Authority that includes municipal members. 11 St. Clair River AOC Report Card Darrell reported that work is well underway on a report card. The format is in the form of a three-page, six-panel publication. 12. Committee Reports i) SPAC Paulette Duhaime reported that there had been an SPAC teleconference about the legislative agenda for 2007, which dealt largely with funding requests. There had also been a conference in December, 2006 on AOC de-listing criteria for Michigan. ii) Friends of the St. Clair Darrell Randell reported that FOSCR held their Annual General Meeting at the end of November. Elections were held, with everyone returned to office as before. He reported that paper work has been completed for the photo contest. The remainder of planned activities will be addressed with the production of the Report Card.

4 4 iii) Membership Fred Fuller provided an updated membership list. Fred announced that Bud West has resigned as a Canadian Citizen-at-Large. Fred reported that Ron Miller has requested that Kristen O. Jurs be appointed as his replacement as the St. Clair County Health Department representative. Fred also reported that the St. Clair County (SCC) Board of Commissioners have appointed Howard Heidemann as their representative on BPAC replacing Terry London. Motion It was moved by Fred Fuller and seconded by Darrell Randell to approve items 2 and 3 in the membership report, i.e. Kristen O. Jurs replacing Ron Miller as the main SCC Health Department representative on BPAC, and Howard Heidemann replacing Terry London as SCC Board of Commissioners representative on BPAC. Motion passed. iv) CRIC Phil Vallance reported that the CRIC met collectively on October 20, He also reported that the four CRIC subcommittees have had regular meetings to develop their work plan priorities. For example, the Habitat and Non-Point Source (NPS) Work Group (WG) has set a goal of six to twelve sites (~1000 metres) for shoreline softening projects. The Point Source WG has been able to conclude many of the Stage 2 work plan actions. Work on combined sewer overflows (CSOs) was determined to be the largest remaining action. The Monitoring and Research WG is reviewing the status of the BUIs in the hope of closing out as many as possible. The Sediment WG is working on the application the proposed Canada Ontario Agreement Contaminated Sediment Assessment Decision- Making Framework to the St. Clair River (SCR) sediments. The Habitat WG plans to produce a map of SCR wetlands affected by Phragmites. It was announced that there is an up-coming Phragmites Control Workshop. More information about the workshop may be obtained by contacting Martha at (313) Ted Briggs, Stew Thornley and Greg Mayne anticipate having a Draft Work Plan in February, for review by the CRIC. v) John Jackson who was connected to the meeting by phone, gave a brief overview of the report, Ontario Hotspots Ontario Citizens Speak Up. The report is a publication by OPAC, The Ontario Public Advisory Council, and can be viewed electronically at: A hard copy of the report may be obtain by ing your request to john Jackson at: jjackson@web.net. John reported that he had met earlier in

5 the week with the International Joint Commission (IJC) and was scheduled to meet on January 24, 2007 with the recently created Great Lakes Office Other Business Fred Fuller indicated that, for those interested, he had information to hand out on the nuclear deep repository issue. Janice Littlefield reminded BPAC that she had a card for Patty Troy for those wishing to sign it. Kristen O. Jurs informed the BPAC that Earth Day would be celebrated April 13 & 14, She also indicated that River Day would be held the 2 nd Saturday in June (June 9, 2007). It was also reported that a corporate sponsorship package is being put together for Earth Voyager. 11. Adjourn/Next Meeting The next meeting of the BPAC is set for March 28, 2007 at 6:30 p.m. in Port Huron. It is expected that the meeting will be held at the St. Clair County Administration Building, 200 Grand River Ave. (First Floor Auditorium), Port Huron, MI. This however has yet to be confirmed. The meeting was adjourned.