00:00:06,570	Let’s go ahead and call the uh Burley Water Resource District, August board meeting to order. When do you take roll call, please? Manager Smith, I’m here. Here here here we have a core and we will continue on with the agenda this morning. Uh, first time up there’s approval of last month’s meeting minutes. Move to approve.

00:00:32,770	Second, a motion by Man Vinegar, seconded by Manage Jones to prove last month’s meeting minutes. All those in favor say aye. Motion passes. Ms are approved. Moving on to amendments of the agenda this morning, we did have a request this morning from Mary to move up Apple Creek.

00:00:52,430	To the, uh, top of the agenda this morning, so we’ll put that right under comments from members of the public. We had that discussion right away this morning. Any other amendments or additions? Uh, just so you’re aware, I’ve got quite a bit on Ber Creek this morning. OK. information to pack and you get additional information to OK that’s good.

00:01:20,930	OK, you need a motion to move to approve as amended Second, the motion my manager Reap and then seconded by manager Bennier to prove the agenda as amended. All those in favor say aye. Motion passes. Agenda is approved. Any comments from members of the public not associated with a meeting this or with the project this morning.

00:01:42,100	Not seeing any. Right, we can move on to Apple Creek. Um, That’s going on as you in your packet on page, I think it starts on page 29. you pack it, there was some information that, uh, Michael, I think you put this together, right? I just kind of given actually I think it starts. That’s on page 29.

00:02:10,300	So if you had some time to kind of review that. We, we have obviously discussed it last month as well, um, this, there’s some erosion occurring on Apple Creek down below the Mary University of Mary Hill, um, I’d simply drive there, Bley County Highway Department has been Working out there since uh since the uh.

00:02:30,100	Slides started to occur into the into the actual Apple Creek. Um, there has been some rip rap that’s actually been added to that stretch. I don’t know if Casey if there’s an update at all you’d want to give this morning and then I think Mary, you might want to come and address too and um while

00:02:45,070	Casey’s coming up, Michael, anything else to add to the discussion this morning and just kind of some quick background um since everything started, they got a call from Casey relative to uh assisting with the uh. Nationwide permit from the Corps of Engineers.

00:03:02,570	So in the process of what was going on, Casey can allude more to it, we did get the permit, uh, issued nationwide 45 and then the nationwide 45 was extended for the additional rock that was placed.

00:03:22,070	It was a second set of rock that was placed after the action report that was put together in, in your booklet and it would be another after action report written for that placement and I suspect with ongoing conditions they’ll probably be additional rocking with that, I’ll just kind of leave it to Casey to update you. Morning.

00:03:40,930	How’s it going today? Uh, so the area out there, we flew it again yesterday, and we’ve had a drone going up flying it every 2 to 3 days going through there and we set it so it we call it waypoints so it can take photos from the exact same perspective, looking at the exact same spot, we started.

00:03:59,830	Uh, July 25th on those we had 34 way points since then we’ve added probably another 30 at least, so that way we get a really good documentation and really see what’s going on. We’re down there yesterday morning after I was flown just to recheck it. To the north, there’s an area that looks like it’s slowly eroding, it’s not going real fast, but we’re keeping our eye on that.

00:04:15,630	There’s still a lot of trees, bushes in the area, so from the roadway, it’s very hard to see what’s eroding out in that current area, but that’s the one we’ve been keeping our eye on.

00:04:34,100	We might need to go another 75 50 75 ft north with riprap right now it’s further out from the roadway, so there’s room we just can’t, uh, I can only operate within the right way if it’s outside of it, there’s not much I can. Do at that point, uh, for the area south of there, there is erosion that is occurring, but it’s outside of the right way and that’s into uh private person’s owned land. I have been down there.

00:04:52,200	I have spoken with him quite a bit about it and just said there’s is options he can take if he wants to protect his land, um, everybody’s one is to contact the water resource district. From there, and he was, he just want to know who was coming in to clear out the trees and I was at this time.

00:05:09,000	there, there’s no plan to clear out the trees at at this time doesn’t mean long term there won’t be, uh, some of the things that we are watching and keeping an eye on and everybody’s just trying to make sure we have the lines of communication open. After he placed the rip rap on the West Bank.

00:05:27,500	Of course, that’s stronger bounced everything off to the east side, uh, the East Bank, you can see it’s slowly taking it and it’s taking the bank and there you can see little sloughs happening, which pretty normal going through an area like that, it, the area where the riprap is at has pretty good velocity, real flow going through there, the parts upstream and downstream of this area are pretty flat laminar

00:05:50,270	flow going through there, which, which is. Good, uh, so the creek’s gonna just keep adjusting and making its way through and as the highway department will just keep our eye on it if we got to protect the roadway, we’ll go down and do that.

00:06:04,170	We did have to have some utilities moved, different things to protect that, but I’d otherwise besides just keeping an eye on it, uh, we have been in contact with the engineers for University of Mary, just talked with them, just in general, we want to make sure we keep the lines of communication open. We’re just keeping our eyes on, on what’s going on, so.

00:06:22,570	That way if something’s going on, we can be able to react and go from that and we just, you know, versity Mary, we just had very brief, uh, contact with them directly when we’re out there playing around, talk to them a bit and then they had asked about their sight and as well, it’s their land, it’s their responsibility

00:06:41,330	to be able to address that and more than willing to give them the phone numbers of who they need to talk to on different things, but they have their own engineer and they’ve been working with them and talking about that. OK Thanks, Casey.

00:07:00,830	Questions for Casey? Do you have an estimate of how much money have we put into this bank erosion at this point? Uh, the first time we played rip rap, it was about 40,000, the second time we’re probably just shy of 30,000, so about a total of 70,000 to date, uh, luckily we’ve had a good rep rap source that is close.

00:07:21,830	And we’ve been able to contract with a contractor, and we’ve been using some of our own guys in our own trucks. So when our own guys are getting it, we, it’s a less price per ton when they’re hauling it, it’s a little bit more, but, but it’s worked well with everybody so far.

00:07:39,500	So we’re just documenting it, documenting everything, make sure we keep records of it. Mr. Chair, Uh, Casey, how often are we putting the drone up? On that stretch of lane about every it was really good. We did it yesterday. Then after the storm last night, we’ll see how everything goes through, uh, water from the storm last night isn’t even down there yet.

00:08:03,300	It was hitting Apple Creek Road by the detention center about 5 a.m. this morning. We had to shut down Apple Creek Road. So it, it is working its way through the system after everything happened last night, it was well it generally takes. 20 to 30 hours, so we’re figuring about a day it’ll start.

00:08:22,200	To show up there and we’ll just keep our eye on it and watch over like a. Last night at Tavis Road, I was down there, um, it didn’t even get up to the top of the wear till about 10 o’clock last night, so it it takes once it’s in Bismarck, everything’s hitting really fast.

00:08:39,600	They’re just to go downstream it was just to start hitting was about 5 to 6 hours, so I, uh, which is normal, that’s what normally happens and we’ll we uh Wayne’s down there now checking the pumps, uh, Marcus and Dan are up north checking our roads, going through That stuff right now, so just like anything keeping

00:08:59,000	eyes on those things, yep. Any other questions? Mr. Chair, Casey, you referenced the uh engineering firm for the University of Mary. Is that bar engineering or? Uh, from what I understand, bar engineering did the geotechnical design, that’s who we’ve contacted. I don’t know if they’ve contacted additional engineering firms.

00:09:23,600	They, they may have, I just don’t know that information. Thank Uh, Casey, just looking at these photos that you had provided, you know, on the basically the south end that riprap line, it’s a pretty good Change there in that bank. Are you guys concerned have you added more there? Are you concerned about that kind of that abrupt.

00:09:43,970	Uh, we’ve watched it constantly from the beginning. There’s been erosion, uh, trees fell in there, um, not this Sunday but the Sunday before, pretty good sized tree fell in, the neighbor that owns the land where the tree fell in. He lives west of Sibley Drive, but he owns the land on the east side.

00:10:02,370	That’s where I was out there talking with him. It’s eroded up into his garden area. Part of the fence has dropped in. We just told them, you know, I, I can’t, I don’t own that land if it gets, if it rodes out, it threatens the road, then I can do something, but that’s a lot of erosion.

00:10:18,870	And, and he had a lot of questions like can we put rap riprap on helicopters and drop it in. What’s the cops of Engineers going to do and When I talked to him, I was with the core engineers. I was this, this answer will.

00:10:37,330	Drive you absolutely insane, but their answer is it’s the creeks acting like a creek. That’s how rivers work and that’s how the flow goes and. Let’s say he had a few interesting words after that, but, but, um. I, I was, we’re more than willing to work with you. It’s just I have to work within the confines of the law.

00:10:53,330	I can’t just run and do whatever I want on there. And we’ve just told them we’ll keep in contact, keep flying it. That was some of the additional waypoints that we added was to the area further south as we’ve seen that was eroding out more so that we can see all of that and I don’t remember if I had

00:11:08,330	time to get the latest photos emailed over to Mike on there, but I, I’ll double check, but It, it’s, we’re just keeping an eye on it and see. I know we’ve had requests from kayakers to clear it out, but as well as highway department that’s not really I’m not really authorized to do that, um, more

00:11:28,430	willing to help communicate the things on to to others and go from there. OK. One more question. What, what is the You said you can only put that rock riprap in there if if the erosion was in a certain proximity to to your road.

00:11:49,000	What is that? What is that easement or, or what is that that distance from the center line of the road where, where it, it belongs to you folks. So when the plats were done in that area, they dedicated 80 footer right away, so it’s 40 ft each side of the road. I can’t say the road’s 100% perfectly centered.

00:12:07,300	It’s a varies a little bit, but that’s once it was getting to the point where it came real close and we’re like we’re just protected this is the line we’re protecting it and. So now it’s We’re kind of on the edge of the right away line, so we got to watch it and um I can’t get too far on there and also there’s trees.

00:12:23,300	I don’t want to necessarily just start ripping everything out because sometimes the rip structure is what’s actually helping us, so that’s why it’s OK. Let’s keep our eye on it. OK, good discussion. One other one I might add, Mr.

00:12:42,370	Chair, from the standpoint of regulatory, um, this is kind of set off the side now given the active situation, if you call it, um, we’ve been working with the Department of Water Resources relative to placement of rock in the floodway? Um, because you place rock in the floodway, not unlike Hogue Island. You know, you have to do an analysis and say what sort of impact you’re having on that floodway environment.

00:12:58,670	Um, we’ve looked at it. There’s a mild encroachment. There might be additional encroachments, but, uh, talking with the DWR right now and saying that, you know, the stream is actively moving.

00:13:14,870	Uh, it doesn’t do any good to do an analysis because 3 days from now it could be different than what we did, so, um, that particular issue is on hold and they are aware of that. Yeah, thanks, Michael. That’s Mary, Yeah Mhm Good morning, Chair and commissioners. So we’ve had some activity and um it’s time to bring the stakeholders together and start looking at some emergency action plans and what are our opportunities long term.

00:13:47,930	Um, so I would propose under the Water Resour district. We take a look at pulling all the stakeholders together. Um, there’s various stakeholders. They have a lot of data, especially now since we’ve had a lot of activity out there and look at what we have, how fast it’s moving, um, and again, what’s, what’s our emergency action measures? What can they

00:14:06,830	be? What should they be, as well as any opportunities for again that long-term planning. So we need a plan. Need a plan. We need a plan. I like plans do you have an idea of who these stakeholders might be are we thinking even like University of Mary to bring the I think University of Mary is certainly

00:14:24,530	the Corps of Engineers, the highway department, um, and then at, at some point, some of the, the private landowners that actually own that land along the creek, and it, it not just the two active areas we have going on because this could happen anywhere along, um, Apple Creek, cause we’ve been watching some of these spots

00:14:42,900	for several years, um. The opportunity is there. Like Ms. Mary, uh, Should we consider a public hearing? And mail out invitations to all those involved, including some of the private landowners.

00:15:10,700	I think the smaller group needs to get together and look at the data they’ve accumulated over the years and especially since there’s been activity and have some discussions there before we go ahead and do a public, yeah, OK, great. Ms. Chair Mary, there are current annex or the Burleigh County Emergency Management Plan is silent on this particular type of, we, we have a flood annex, but not. If something pinches a crick.

00:15:38,370	OK Any thoughts on that this morning? Roger, I think this falls into your portfolio, um, we can certainly kind of work to. What it would take to get a list of stakeholders and start to see if we can organize a meeting here quickly. Mary, would you want to be invited to that meeting as well, yeah, yeah. Casey Mr.

00:15:58,770	Chair, a couple of issues, and I appreciate everything that Burleigh County Highway Department’s been doing relative to what’s going on out there. Um, obviously it’s an active situation.

00:16:12,770	Um, are we going to end up with, uh, kind of what Mary’s referring to you end up with a failure of the hill and it comes down and blocks off the creek, and then, then what happens? I mean, obviously that water’s got to go somewhere, so, uh, from an action plan perspective, um, we have the models for Apple Creek, we could, you know, make a projection as to what that would look like if it occurred.

00:16:29,170	Which is, I think part of the overall discussion, um, I guess my concern, like I said from a floodway perspective, we were going to put survey crew out there. Um, I think there’s a risk with the fractures and stuff that we don’t want people walking on that particular area because you don’t know when the next block is going to fall in, if you will, um, I have a

00:16:43,330	couple of concerns from the standpoint of the ongoing erosion of the toe, which is normal at this point. Um, that material is going to wash away, which is going to potentially destabilize the slope more, uh.

00:16:58,830	With the recent rains that we had in flood risks, we’re going to have a lot more water coming through there. So that erosion is going to happen probably much quicker. Uh, so if you want to call it the, um, you’re monitoring every other day anyway or even on a daily basis, so I don’t none of that’s gonna change, but the uh conditions may change.

00:17:16,130	Uh, as far as you know, movement because of some of the ongoing, um. flows in the stream, etc. so, uh, I think putting the action plan together or getting some people together and having a conversations probably sooner versus later. just in my opinion, given the scenario that’s going on. Mr. Chair, I would go ahead, go ahead, Comm. Woodcox. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

00:17:36,700	I visited last night with a friend of mine who lives about a half a mile east or west of the Apple Creek and he didn’t get one drop of rain last night.

00:17:53,600	Not one drop, so maybe that’s a good bonus for us might help out down there because if we got the 3 inches like everybody else did, we’d be in big trouble, but he said not one drop so as of 10 o’clock. Mr. Chair, and following up on Mike’s point there, and I, I agree.

00:18:10,000	I think modeling, you know, so what’s a catastrophic failure here, you know, the whole thing slides and blocks off the river and what’s that do upstream? What’s it do downstream? And so I think the modeling is a critical part of that planning effort, of course, and we probably all understand this, but just to reaffirm that. Um, and I, I guess, uh, we probably. We probably have the resources to make that happen.

00:18:30,700	And, and be a good steward from that aspect. To that point, Dennis, do we have any sort of existing model, we have all the modeling on Hay Creek for the flood plain scenario. So in essence all we would do is go back in and basically block off the channel component and see where the water goes from there.

00:18:47,100	So he’s probably looking at, you know, again in the catastrophic situation you’re probably looking at. Um You know, um, moving people out of their homes and and that type of thing and not to be. Not to scare people here, but that’s the catastrophic thing what you plan for, right? I was looking on Google Earth.

00:19:06,100	I mean, there’s a, there’s a apparently a relatively active one, about a half a mile north too, right, right on the north end of you Mary. Um, parallel to that, so I mean it, this isn’t the only site, I guess. Yeah Mr.

00:19:23,700	Chair, a couple of different aspects and um Mary and I visited about this before that, um, obviously there’s a couple of locations that could fail. We could, you know, from an action plan you could test 2 of them or 3 or, you know, just select as part of the community getting together.

00:19:38,870	The other thing that’s a concern is that this is the only access to the Briar Darrel area and if this access is blocked, there’s no emergency vehicles and stuff that can get down there. Um, so that’s kind of the, the next point in the, in the action plan is what happens when that occurs and how quickly can you reopen the roadway or or something of that nature. There’s a lot of unknowns.

00:19:52,470	All you got to do is be prepared for, you know, what may happen, so. Uh, no, I think Roger, I think between you and I and maybe we would have Michael’s sister, so I’m trying to pull this together and work with Mary to.

00:20:11,270	See if we can get a meeting planned and yeah, so who would initiate that in this first meeting would be, I think you’d come through us. You know, just reaching out to the various stakeholders and seeing who they could have come to the meeting. Get something scheduled and uh probably uh since we’re uh sounds like we’re agreeing to do some modeling and having that in our hand, uh, prior to the actual meeting would be.

00:20:33,130	That’s something I don’t know if we get it done prior to the meeting, but we can certainly get some selections as to the locations we would look at modeling and we could explain what that model would, uh, would show us once we run it, so. would be good. OK.

00:20:51,430	The other thing is a public education component and as you heard Casey State, there’s people that have expectations of what they think Burley County is going to do, and there’s private property, uh, land, so we really need to communicate. What our plan is going forward, what the county can do, what’s private, what we can do together as a stakeholder group and.

00:21:11,730	Yes, certainly when we get that a lot more formulated. Great idea. Just out of curiosity, have you spoken to anybody with the Corps of Engineers? No, um, highway department and Michael have been doing that. Yeah, they’ve been the core basically the conversations relative to the nationwide 45 and the permit put the rock in.

00:21:34,800	Um, I think they’re probably aware of what’s going on relative to the to the slide, but uh, um, they will be more aware as I submit the second, you know, after action report for the additional rock, so. OK, Mr.

00:21:53,100	Chair Mary, uh, as far as that public education uh component of it, I, I have an impression that you would be your office would be more ingrained in tune with being able to do that, is that fair? OK. sense. Yeah. Um, Mary, I did have a question, uh, Kathleen and I were visiting last night about just the.

00:22:13,100	You know, responsive, you know, you get these trees, these larger trees falling into that Apple Creek. I know there’s a lot of, you know, kayakers and canoers and recreation people, and I just think even from a standpoint of, of a large tree in the middle of the creek can cause, you know, higher velocities and flows around that can cause additional.

00:22:31,200	I mean, do you have any thoughts on, I mean, should we be looking at removing these trees and you know, that’s something that maybe this district could take on on on in these areas that we know whether there’s ongoing issues snagging and clearing.

00:22:45,970	Yeah, and I don’t want to get into is the entire Apple Creek stretch, but in these certain areas where we know there’s active erosion and, and, you know, impacts to like the public, you know, these roadways and things of that nature, but I think if there’s modeling that showing if the trees are accelerating the erosion yeah, then that’s something possibly to look at removing them, I just, I do worry about safety of recreational people in there too.

00:23:06,570	No You come around the corner and there’s a large tree, you know, he didn’t know it was there. Yeah So we can maybe talk about even at this meeting and moving forward. OK. What’s up, Mr. Bowman. Because we don’t have the equipment. No, yeah, we’d have to hire that out, yeah. OK. your thoughts. Yeah, Mr.

00:23:31,070	Chair, Mary, yeah, I, uh, absolutely support, you know, the concept of going ahead and putting together an action plan, but I, I think there’s limits to how, how much we can. Plan ahead on this because you don’t know if it’s gonna slide at all anymore.

00:23:49,030	I’m just gonna slide 3 ft into that creek, could be 30 ft into that creek, right? Um, but certainly getting ahead with some modeling would be, would be uh an idea I would support. Do we need a motion to Should we? Yeah, it probably would be a good idea. Yeah.

00:24:11,630	You want to make the motion, Randy? OK, that just from being out there and looking at the creek all the time, it was narrower probably a week ago, actually, it’s widened a little bit now just cause on the East Bank it is slowly eroding and going over it doesn’t mean it won’t worsen that’s we got to keep our eye on it, but it.

00:24:28,630	The water is eroding on the east side too, so that’s, it’s trying to find its balance point, good point. OK We’re just Entertain a motion to the emergency action plan. So moved. You got a motion by Manage Vinegar and the second by manager Jones to, uh, kind of work with. Mary will include Michael as well and, uh, Roger to kind of formulate a.

00:25:02,000	A stakeholder meeting to kind of figure out next steps and hopefully work our way towards uh some kind of an emergency action plan for Apple Creek here. OK. All those in favor say aye. Oppose. Motion passes. All right. Thank you. Thanks, Barry. OK, Roger, we can Can discuss afterwards or with Michael too. All right, moving on.

00:25:26,600	Any other items regarding Apple Creek this morning. I don’t think so. OK We can move on to McDowell Dam this morning. Andrew Bennegar. OK, so as you guys recall, uh, there was an access audit that was completed on on the uh on the area around uh McDowell Dam, and there were some ADA requirements that were identified mainly associated

00:25:49,770	with the the bathroom and and the bathhouse. And uh we had a had a uh design group that has has looked at that for us and um identified some pretty significant um. Um, budget requirements to.

00:26:13,470	To at some point bring that into compliance is not something that has to happen tomorrow, but it’s something that we need to, we need to have a plan in place to address. So with, with that, I guess I’d like to have Dave come up and maybe give you a little few more of the details on what needs to be done there. Yeah. Excuse me, good timing. Good morning.

00:26:32,770	Uh, as a manager Benniger mentioned uh when we talked we had Uval design group, um, evaluate the buildings, uh, both the bathhouse and the original bathroom that’s up to the north, um, by shelters 2 and 3.

00:26:51,230	Um, Came, came back, we, we still have the floor plans for for everything, so it’s easy for him to digitize it was built in the early 70s. Um, so went out, I gave him the, the trend, the access audit where the uh the consultant had identified all the deficiencies that were there, and he took his own measurements and compared them to, uh, to what, what could be done, what could be modified, and I believe in your packet

00:27:10,730	and I brought some to put up. I’ll just go through them briefly so everybody’s aware of what’s going on. So that’s the original. Bathhouse that’s the floor plan of the bathhouse, the, the darker lines indicate everything that needs to be. Demoed or removed to make modifications for compliance.

00:27:44,300	Um, As you can see in both bathroom. There is not an accessible stall, um, accessible stall has to be at least 5 ft interior space, uh, and there is not one of those in either the men’s or the women’s and then on the outside of those two changing areas, uh, part of the identific uh in the access audit, what was

00:28:03,700	identified was there need to be a a spot for somebody that. Is disabled to be able to sit down. Uh, and there’s not that in there as well. So minor modifications for those two. Um, So he went through and. took a Took a glance Uh, what could be done to make it.

00:28:32,400	Compliant And uh came up with the fact that it’s fairly Fairly uh easy renovation to this, uh. It does require all those partitions and everything to be rebuilt and replaced, um, in the women’s restroom. We’d be removing a sink. And sliding a.

00:28:53,200	You know, adding in a stall, so we’d still have 3 stalls in the women’s restroom. Um, And then we were able to fit um accessible. stalls in both the men’s and women’s. Uh, and then. Adding a larger seat, bench seat in the changing area.

00:29:17,500	minor changes, as you can see in the top left corner, there’s some potential costs estimations, uh, I asked them to figure just for Budgetary sake of 2025 number. I know we’re past that, but, and then he, he also said the figure 5% for escalation every year after, just to kind of keep it in the ballpark, uh, and then gave a range of what it could cost. You know, some things to say that some of the simpler items.

00:29:35,270	Our staff could Easily do the demolition on um some of this stuff takes, I mean, you’re taking out the cinder blocks on the walls and that kind of stuff and rerouting, plumbing and things like that. I’d say we’re out on that one.

00:29:53,170	But the partition walls taking down the toilets and that kind of stuff, the easier things that might cut down some of the costs of that demolition and make it a little bit simpler. A contractor could get in there and, and know exactly what they’re working on. Um, the other thing identified in it is the um. Down along the bottom half.

00:30:10,770	Those are the showers to wash off when you get out of the out of McDowell Dam, uh, making some modifications of that, um, to make those accessible as well, cause right now they’re not compliant. So, fairly of the two, fairly simple. I mean, it’s not, it’s not cheap by any means, but it’s fairly simple. Uh, I can’t read the number.

00:30:31,070	What’s the total number on that? The total number is $50,325. Thank you. In that, like I said, includes demo construction permitting consultant fees, all everything that’s that’s uh in there. So and the benches that you’re putting in. Will they be the heights? Necessary for someone in a wheelchair. Yes, that would, that’s part of the requirement to meet that.

00:31:04,530	Thank you. Yes. Any other questions on this one before I go to the next one, the, the big one, the smaller one, but bigger one. So this is the, the left side is the existing bathroom building that’s up in the middle of the park that services the general area where the shelters are

00:31:24,330	between 2 and 3. Um, just off the parking lot, looped parking lot there. Um, It is not compliant in any shape or form. Um, After going through it and looking at the evaluation, the architect said, you know, if the building was built 1 ft wider. We wouldn’t have to renovate it.

00:31:46,400	Wouldn’t have to replace it and that’s the bad news is it’s just that close to, to, uh, the amount of modification you’d have to make to that existing structure, you might as well just replace it.

00:32:05,400	That’s how, how far, how much has to be moved because the, the two, the north and the south wall would have to be pushed out about 6 inches. That’s about it. So then you’re redoing the roof, then you’re redoing the two cinder block walls you’re redoing the new foundation, you’re doing all those sorts of things, and then you’d be. You’d have a women’s restroom that has one stall. And a men’s restroom that has.

00:32:26,900	Well, one stall, so we talked about, can you just renovate and push the back of the building out? Well, you could add stalls, but then you’re still short with the access aisles on the sides, so, um, we, we looked at everything, uh, trying to figure out how to make that existing footprint work and with the future plans that if we add another shelter

00:32:45,170	out by the the little uh ball field, you’re only. And an additional playground and we’re only talking about increasing usage in this bathroom would then see more usage.

00:33:06,470	So I think it’s based off of some future plans that we’ve already been talking about in the big picture in the future, it might be better to talk about replacing this bathroom. Um, To a tune of about $191,000. Um, that’s the unfortunate part about it.

00:33:28,770	cinder block and the construction is assuming pretty much essentially what is there, the style of construction, cinder block walls, wood roof shingles, that kind of thing, wood structure uh for the roof, uh, and then uh shingles, asphalt shingles for the for the. the roof Um, But this would, this would give us room, as you can see on the on the right side there are 3 stalls for both the men’s and the women’s, and we think that would be adequate for For that building and to service that portion of the park in the future.

00:33:51,230	Are all those stalls handicapped in the new segment? Are they all handicap accessible, the illustration. Those to the two north and how, how old is that other building built in the 70s 70s. So it was in terms of ADA compliance.

00:34:18,630	It was before ADA ever existed because I didn’t come around and the standards now I believe talking to Jeff, they’re up to 20. 2020 standards now. I think they modified them from 202,010. So there’s some new new requirements in there, so everything that was is planned here is completely compliant with the up to-date. Standards now OK, last question. Obviously this building needs replacing.

00:34:46,100	How quickly do we need to do this? Good question, um. As we’ve talked, uh, when, when you were a Comm. of the county, um, and we talked about doing the access audit. There’s multiple facets to that, um. You’ve got the access audit, and then the next step is what’s called the transition plan.

00:35:07,700	The Park district As you’re all aware, has gone through all of the Park District property, both Brearley County Parks and the Water Resource District. Took part of the access audit on the properties that we manage um for, for both entities.

00:35:33,970	And we’re creating now is what is called the transition plan, and that identifies the varying levels of importance um from ADA standard, from a usage standard, and from a priority standard and we take all that into account and we create a priority list as to, OK, some of these things are easy to take care of from a staff member standpoint, these things we can probably budget in the next couple of years and, and so on and so forth.

00:35:51,370	The larger ones where it’s a renovation or replacement, those ones are further down the line we’re talking 5,, 1015 years, as long as we have a plan in place. We are compliant with the DOJ. Which is what we want. Um, we have identified it. We know that we have to do something and we’ve made a plan to do that.

00:36:11,270	Now, that doesn’t mean that you can’t not do this. It has, it should be done. It needs to be done in the future, but it doesn’t need to be done next year, yeah, you have to work within what what’s available for the budget for the entity that, you know, what they have, um, and, and that’s understandable with this transition plan and

00:36:29,170	understandable by the DOJ. So Mr. Chair Dave, I have a question with the ADA uh requirements, do you see them as basically for access or convenience or some of those more safety-related. And secondly, if there’s safety related other things out there that the board would need to know about to correct before they correct other things.

00:36:54,430	That may relate just to convenience or access. There may be um some items in there that Could have been and I, I don’t have the full list in front of me and, and don’t have it in my memory right now, but I can see some things.

00:37:10,530	In some of the Park district property they may may be something that might be I have identified as what would be a potential tripping hazard. Um, and based off of that or an impedance for somebody that with um that’s in a mobility device or um disabled.

00:37:30,130	That could be an impedance for them, so that would be mudjacking or, you know, to get rid of that trip hazard, and I think anything over a half inch is considered a Uh Impedance for somebody that’s in a wheelchair. That’s a threshold it’s like for a door is a half inch.

00:37:50,800	So, um, there could be some things there, um, and those are the smaller things that we planned to take care of either if we’re not capable as a staff or uh we would have a contractor come in and take care of them in the short order, you know, those are the things that would probably happen. We call them some of those things we’re calling internally the low hanging fruit, the easy ones to take care of.

00:38:04,200	It’s adjusting a mirror, it’s adjusting a grab bar, the toilet paper dispensers off by 2 or 3 inches. Our staff’s taking care of that stuff already. Um, or in the process of taking care of those things.

00:38:20,100	Uh, I know our, our staff member that is responsible for the um Bray County Parks, gone through all the vault toilets because those were put in in probably the 60s and 70s too, and. Moved the toilet paper dispenser so they’re within the proper distance adjusted, we’ve adjusted those, those grab bars. Some of those are convenient, some of those are are um safety issues. Because if they can’t grab that grab bar in the right spot.

00:38:37,700	That, that could be a little bit of both. Uh, Mr. Chair Dave. You said you went through all the Burley County parks, so. The the uh. Vault toilets at wing are in compliance we went through the ones that we manage. OK. So we don’t manage weighing and we don’t manage Driscoll. OK. Thank you.

00:39:00,400	Um, kind of along those lines, Dave, I was just wondering, does handicap uh individuals have other access to other bathrooms or locations in that area, or is this the only? Those are the only ones available to the public, yeah, yeah. Sure that was clear, but that doesn’t mean. That if there’s a restroom in the maintenance shop.

00:39:25,000	We can’t, we can’t skip that, sure, because that would have been ident, he would have gone through there too and there would be a note that that is not compliant because you may, we may in the future have an employee that that has a disability that we need to, we have to need to make accommodations.

00:39:41,070	So He, he looked at everything. I mean everything. Then out of those two, do you feel there’s one that would rise above I mean look at the, you know, the bathhouse versus the bathroom? Is there one that, I mean, is probably more important if you were to have a plan for one, maybe we could get one in next

00:39:57,570	year and then maybe plan for 2026 for the other one. Well, I, I would say just by usage you’re, you’re gonna have more usage with the bathhouse than you than you do with the restroom because you’ve, it’s, it’s serving both shelter one. And the, the beach area and the rental shack and the kayak line.

00:40:16,470	I mean, it’s serving everything there right in that area. You have more traffic there than you do at the other shelters. OK, that’s when I was born in budget wise that might be an easier one to work into our next year’s budget if if we’ve got some available funding as opposed to the.

00:40:31,070	Closer to $200,000.01 that’s when we’re gonna have to buy a plan for. And, and, you know, we, we had identified a couple of projects for next year and if we, if, if the board sees fit, we could, we could push this to 26 to to do it like I said, it doesn’t need to be.

00:40:46,330	Right away, but identifying it in the budget and saying OK, this is our next if you remember we talked about that um capital improvement plan and those three, those three legs of maintenance improvement and equipment. And This would be on that improvement.

00:41:04,530	Um, improvement thing and or side of the side of the uh capital improvement plan that we could, we could attack in in 26 and just move that one up the list. OK With the, uh, with the Parks and Rec. Cast share in any of this, or is this all fall on? Us I believe it would all fall in the water resource district, yeah. The infrastructure and then.

00:41:24,430	That point, I was thinking to some of the other grants that we’ve looked at in the past, you know, for ADA things, you know, if that’s something that that Christopher Reeve Foundation, things of that nature, maybe for the larger one, but something to think about.

00:41:38,400	Yes, it’s definitely something that we can look into to see if if either one of these would check the box there. Um, Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And there’s also a, you know, one thing we can consider too is the land and water, lining water ground, right? Um. That could That probably could help pretty well, um. Pretty good on the uh the second bathroom, the replacement.

00:42:02,700	Because I think that would probably score pretty high, or even the Garrison Conservancy. Yes, yep. All those things we got options. And when you apply for those grants, do you typically do that with staff and staff, you know, so so it’s cost.

00:42:20,800	I used to do that when I was a consultant and then we also have a a park planner that does them as well, so she and I team up really well and, and. Do a pretty good job at the grant applications. OK.

00:42:42,170	OK, um, I know Kathleen’s got some, uh, items on that’s gonna take some time today, but Dave was there anything other updates for uh McDowell Dam that you wanted to bring up? Just the, the traffic counts. You want me to throw that up there too? OK, let’s go through that quick. That’d be good. And I’m getting better at it. It’s got to be up, yeah. Uh, so we have two traffic counters.

00:43:04,270	We’ve got the one vehicle counter as people drive in right at the entrance, and we have a trail counter which catches uh counts, it’s doesn’t determine whether or not it’s somebody that’s biking, walking, if it’s a dog, which direction they’re going, so it, it’s non-discriminant as to, you know, I can’t give you.

00:43:22,270	I can’t say there were this many bikers or this many walkers or, you know, that many furry friends that were on the trail, but. These, these are the accounts that we have on the top um through July, uh, unfortunately, June and July it was not available for the trail counter because ants decided to build a nest in the county, uh, so that has been taken care of and cleaned out, um, so we’ll get

00:43:39,630	those numbers. Back, but you can kind of make an average assumption as to what’s going on on the trail counter where we kind of, yeah. You kind of stay around or busy time of the year we’ll probably, I, I would venture guess that the, the June and July numbers are probably between the 6600 and

00:43:56,230	800 number, um, for, for that uh counter. And then at the bottom, uh, just the historical data of the last two years, 4 years that we have for that counter, the, the both counters were put in about mid 2021. So they’re not, it wasn’t complete data there so I didn’t include those.

00:44:17,330	Yeah, they’re pretty accurate, um. We do know that the traffic counter only catches one side of the road, so it doesn’t, it’s not catching both vehicles going in and out. OK, I was gonna ask that it’s just, it’s just one car, it’s a, it’s magnetic, so it only catches.

00:44:33,700	And we have it set at a certain distance, so it, it only catches that data. OK. I catch the deer or the raccoon and come in around. It won’t catch the raccoon walking down the road. Thank you.

00:44:52,200	Yeah, that must be interesting just kind of track this moving forward, and it’s the reason we’ve done that, we have in the Park district, including these two, we have over 15 trail counters and vehicle counters, and we do it because a lot of. A lot of grants ask for data and it’s just good they’re not, they’re not cameras, they’re not, they’re just it physically. All it does is say something went by and so it tells us that and it shares the information.

00:45:11,100	I, I’d say in the past it was a uh an estimated guess as to how much traffic we had on our trails. Now we statistically know and actually know how many, how many people passed that spot, and it’s great information. Hm Mhm Thank you. Any questions for Dave? Gearing up for the cross country season.

00:45:32,000	Right. How many, how many events do we have planned out there this year? I think we’re at 9 right now. Wow, wow. That’s fantastic. College and were out majoring. OK.

00:45:53,870	Yeah, we’re we’re coordinating with our part with the groups that that utilize McDowell Dam for the cross country trying to verify, make sure we don’t have overlapping dates and getting all the schedules correct. That’s exciting. Well, congratulations. That’s a good move. Thank you. Thanks, Dave. OK, further updates on McDowell Dam, um, the, uh, regarding the supplemental water supply project, the easement negotiations on that. We are moving ahead with the appraisal of the Anderson property.

00:46:20,670	And we have sent a revised offer letter to Southern Cross Ranch, AKA the Hansen property. Um, so, uh, that was with a 30 day um uh deadline or request to uh to reply, and we’re still within that 30 days, so um that’s uh that’s where those, that’s where those efforts are at, um.

00:46:47,230	Michael, let me know that the water supply simulation data doesn’t doesn’t sound like that is close to having Houston, um, wrap that that effort up, um, you know, a little disappointed. I really think that is an important piece of, of the puzzle on this and I know. Um, we lost Travis and, and, um, that’s, that’s not helped, but uh um.

00:47:13,530	It is, uh, it is, is an important part of this, and I, I, I, I do believe we need that data before we can make a final decision on this project, um. We, we have, we, so we’ve been incurring some costs on this, on this effort, um, uh, mainly, mainly through Houston and the work on the easement negotiations and so a cost

00:47:32,330	share request has been submitted to the Department of of of Water Resources on that. Um, I’m just gonna take a breath and, and ask Michael if at this point you have anything you want to add. No, other than on the caha request that’s for the preliminary design.

00:47:52,100	And there were a couple of questions back from Beth that we’ve responded to based on the total, so I suspect those reimbursements will be heading our way shortly. OK, thank you. OK, um, doing some Houston’s doing a little work on the on the spillway erosion issue and putting together some plans for that, um, at uh at uh Kathleen’s request, um, the, um, McDowell Dam folks put together

00:48:17,300	an equipment list kind of showing all the equipment that’s out there and which of that equipment is owned by Burley County Water Resource Board and which is owned by the Parks and Rec. So, uh, we do, we do have an updated list on that and that.

00:48:35,600	Good uh Good to be aware of of the Who owns what out there and and what exactly our inventory? Um, And the last item on the agenda for McDowell Dam was the Emergency action plan, the 2024 update, um, Michael, do you wanna, yeah, I just wanna touch base on that obviously that’s an annual update we go through and basically primarily contacts.

00:48:58,900	Uh, but we bring it to your attention for you to basically by concurrence authorize us to update those contact information and, you know, um, like I said, it’s kind of this on the schedule for this time of year, um, having a discussion with Mary Sanger. She thought at some point in time we should have another exercise.

00:49:16,000	I don’t know if Dennis was involved in the prior exercise that was done or you were, so it’s been a while, yeah, she thought it might be an opportunity once we get it updated with the new contact information actually do an exercise.

00:49:31,700	but we’ll come back with you with you once the update’s completed, so just looking for a concurrence to move forward with that. Yeah, all right, thank you, Michael. That’s all I have on the dial down unless there’s any questions. Imagine the lake level will be going up. Next few days, yeah, be good. OK. Right. Any questions? No questions or move on to financial reports this morning.

00:49:56,370	I was Chair board members, pages 9 and 10 is your are the balance sheet, and I’ll go through just uh the last month uh activity we started out with the balance and checking of $942,532.80. We paid bills in the amount of $134,281.44. We had income and the amount of $36,289.87 which included real estate tax, some state aid, McDowell Dam income.

00:50:27,970	in about 10,500 in income, um, some special assessments collection reimbursement from the state on the Sibley Island project in the amount of $9600. And then, um. $6500 for our rent to the aerial club out there, so. Um, that comes up to 36,000. Um, that does check out, um, a reserve fund balance is $7700,355.

00:50:54,430	57 which was a slight increase from the previous month, and then we have. The other thing I’ll add in there is that um you know per direction and discussion last month we did renew the CD for 5 months. Uh, that happened on July 12th in the amount of $303,784.

00:51:15,730	60 so uh we have total uh CDs in the amount of $2,303,7784.60. Um, He did it to that point when we talked about these other items like for maybe for McDonald Dam and the budget, you know, the amount of interest that we’re getting on some of these CDs that that’s kind of where I’m thinking could be.

00:51:31,630	Yeah, yeah, I mean we we definitely need to look at it from a total budget standpoint next year, um, but I think we’ll be fine, uh, just, you know, as a point of reference, we had a $300,000 CD for three months.

00:51:52,100	We earned about um if you do the math, uh, how much? But uh almost $3800 so about, you know, over $1000 a month in interest just on that one CD and so those other CDs are bigger and, and so we’re earning quite a bit per month on. See Good job rent income was not from the Aero Club, it was from Melvin Brown. My bad.

00:52:14,200	Yeah, that’s yeah, that was a little steep for the Aero Club, wasn’t it. Uh Yeah Thanks Wendy. Any questions? Dennis, Mr. Chaman. We had several recommendations in the state audit for water water resource district. Have those been addressed? So, um, yeah, and I, and I can dive into that here now, um.

00:52:42,670	As well, I did watch the county commission meeting from Monday that part of it at least, and so, um, as you, as you may recall our annual audit signify or identify as a segregation of duties is one of the deficiencies, particularly for the water resource district it’s due to us not having permanent staff to have multiple people look at the financials each month or you know, continually.

00:53:04,770	And so our remedy um has continued to be what we, what I do right now is just I review each month I review, um, I have access to our consultant’s QuickBooks account. I look at all the, I look at the transactions and and do my own math, do a separate accounting of it. I’m not an accountant.

00:53:23,470	I mean, we all understand that hopefully, but um I do review that and that’s been our, our band-aid to that uh Comm. Woodcox, um, we’ve, we’ve responded in that way to each audit that we’ve had in in recent years, um.

00:53:44,130	And so I, I, you know, but as a county commission, um, you know, you maybe have a higher calling or a bigger calling and, and so part of the discussion at that meeting on Monday was There’s probably going to be some policy documents coming down towards us that are going to say you shall do this or this should be the process and we’ll gladly follow those.

00:54:01,230	I mean, obviously we want to do what’s right, but our band-aid has been what I’ve been doing it. Thank you. OK All right, uh, Dennis, you were, you’re in the process of having a motion for the balance. Yeah, yeah, I’ll move to approve the balance sheet on pages 9 and 10 as presented.

00:54:22,130	Second, you got a motion by a man Reap seconded by Man Jones to approve this month’s balance sheet. When do you take roll call vote, please. Commander Smith, yes, yes. Yes. Andrew Benneer Chairmanberger. Yes, motion passes. balance sheet is accepted. Similarly, the, the profit and loss and the budget year to date are presented on pages 11 and 12 of your packet.

00:54:48,500	I did go through those, they appear to be in order, um, I don’t know if there’s anything noteworthy uh other than we’re probably not going to collect if I see the trend, read the trend correctly, all of our real estate tax we budgeted for, but um we certainly made up for it and some other income items and our

00:55:06,400	our overall expenses are, are, are uh really good, so With that, I move to approve as presented. 2. OK, motion my manager Jare and second by manager Jones to approve this month’s profit and loss statement. When do you take a roll call vote, please, Smith, yes. Yes Yes. Beer, Chair Laenberger.

00:55:32,300	Yes, motion passes profit loss is accepted for this month. Um, on the other items, Mr. Chair, I don’t know that I have any major update other than our budget. I have not really heard anything back negatively or positively from the from the commission, and so I assume it’s progressing as as planned and Mr. Chair, everything is going along.

00:55:53,170	We haven’t had very few changes. We’ve got a a zero tax increase in place in our budget, so we’re hanging on to that. I think there’ll be some changes, but nothing in the water resource that I’ve heard of, so everything went well. Comm.. And pledged securities are listed up for uh for your reading on page 13, OK.

00:56:13,070	All right, thanks, Dennis. Any questions for Dennis this morning on financial reports. Right, thank you, Dennis. Moving on to item 7. Any updates regarding The drainage permits, complaints. Just waiting for the letter to, uh, physically get finished and mailed on the uh Watson Grass Lake issue. There are no new drainage complaints to my knowledge.

00:56:39,730	OK, we’re talking about putting together kind of a final pack I’ve got just to let you know, Mr. Chair, and, um, Comm. Jones, the grass lake, uh, the recommendation, bottom line is going to be to uh dismiss the complaint, but because of the historic.

00:56:58,130	Record of that, it’s time to put it all in one package and I’ve been battling that. I’ve got most of it together. I just didn’t have the memo completed, so from that perspective, I will add um for Casey’s edification on the, uh, Randy Cook scenario. Uh, we have completed the evaluation on the, on the drainage.

00:57:15,530	We just don’t have anything written up at this point in time, but we’ve looked at what that can do and what the project may entail out there, so, uh, we’ve got an update to provide internally first and then you’ll see it at the next board meeting.

00:57:29,230	I just, just for the, you know, board’s information we did meet with Randy Cook at out of Burley County Highway Department last month and just kind of walk through kind of the history and Like the various aerial photos of what’s going on out there and there’s certainly some impact due to the development, so we’re can be talking with Mr. Cook on just maybe some potential options that we could look at down the road for him.

00:57:43,900	Do we have a formal formal, uh, notice from Mr. Cook? We had won a number of years ago. It’s old and of course it kind of languished and sat on side, so it comes up periodically, so OK. Thank you. OK. Thanks, Michael. Thanks, Kathleen. Anything else on those? If not, we can move on to projects this morning.

00:58:09,000	First one up should be pretty quick, but simply Island any update, general updates or anything this morning? what you have there. I think there’s the Department of Water Resources, uh, appreciated the email signifying that it that it is no longer an active project and they can remove it from their plan so other than that I don’t

00:58:26,200	know if I have any. Yes All right, thank you. OK, we can move on to Hogue Island, Man vinegar. Yeah, so the uh project costs have been outlined on that in in a state water commission cost share request has has been submitted.

00:58:51,200	Uh, the bond sales documentation has been provided to the bond council, so that’s moving ahead and and this information can be found on pages 15 and 16 of your of your packet. Uh, and, um, Michael, you have any updates on the access easements that are still pending? Yeah, we really haven’t done a lot with the access easements I need to have a discussion with the Attorney Bliss on what those the

00:59:11,200	document, you know, the actual easement document looks like. I mean, the, um, the exhibits and stuff are, you know, fairly straightforward, um, but I will go back a little bit to the bond sales. We did get an email yesterday from, uh, Scott Wagner.

00:59:30,200	And he’s asking for some specific dates and stuff, and it’s contained in the information that was provided. Uh, we’ll just summarize that for him, um, makes it a little bit easier to go through that, and I think Mr. Chair, you got an email from, uh, John Lundby and the Colliers, there’s two documents, the letter of intent and the disclosure form.

00:59:48,270	So you know, assuming consensus from the board, I can sign those documents and send those back to you. I’m so moved, John, yeah. Yeah Um, and then we’re looking at like October 9th at this point kind of bond so they just threw a date out there that could change, but that’s kind of what we’re looking at.

01:00:03,370	Um, speaking with John, his comment was, he said, we’ll try and get it on your, you know, an opening on, on your board meeting or thereabouts so that you’d know what those what those are, and we provided them the totals and stuff and um there’s a little um. buffer in the number because of how they actually sell their bonds.

01:00:18,770	They sell them in certain increments so that’s uh all factored in there. And he did say there’s there’s a likely chance that those rates could go down, you know, if the feds take a cut here in September, so wait until October is probably a good. Yeah yeah yeah. Agree, yeah, that’s all I have.

01:00:38,730	OK, thanks for Randy. Any questions for Randy? Michael this morning on hold. Hearing none, we can move on to Burt Creek Fuddway, Andrew Jones. Where we go now. OK, I, um. Assumed My mistake. That we had a cutting contract with Travis Johnson. We do not.

01:01:04,930	I did have Travis go up and Cut the berm. On the south side. Um, a week ago tomorrow. And in doing so, we found All kinds of things, rebar. Barrels Um, The gate on the west side, there’s a farm gate on the east side next to 1804, and there’s a gate on the uh west side. Where our responsibilityability ends.

01:01:33,300	The chain. On the west side was missing. That has been replaced. Those locks I could pick with a hairpin. I’m going to recommend first item. That we look at buying some logging chain and heavier locks. And then the keys for those locks be given to the appropriate people? Uh, that had not been.

01:02:01,000	Nothing up there has been done for 3 to 4 years. Nothing, no spraying, nothing. We need to spray. Uh, within 3 ft of the creek. We’ve got, you name the weed, we’ve got it, we’ve got buckbrush, we’ve got just all and we’ve even got wild potatoes, which I haven’t seen since I was 10 years old.

01:02:22,300	They’re not really a weed, but they don’t belong there. Yes, Kathleen, when you’re saying 3 ft within the creek. Are you talking just the floodway or are you talking the creek moving flood flood flood floodway, sorry about that, Mr.

01:02:44,170	Chair, um, and I have, um, the only people who are willing to do it, um, are the cowboys land and landscaping, and I, I have Andrew here. So if you want to question him about the type of chemical they intend to do some test plots because not all chemicals mixed with water, as we know. Um, They have all the former. County equipment that has been rebuilt.

01:03:08,270	Uh, but he is here in case you should have some questions. Andrew, do you want to come up, please? Oh, it’s coming up, Kathleen. So are we talking, I mean, there’s obviously the actual bottom of the channel. We’ve talked about cat tail removals, things of that nature, and then.

01:03:26,470	The side slopes the side slopes is the top of the top of the berm has been cut. The side slopes is what I anticipate Andrew Deprey on the inside and the inside there the cattail. Population up there this year is minimal. Very minimal. That’s what we used to always talk about was more of this cat tail spring. Well, and not from looking at this, that’s all we’ve ever sprayed up there, yeah, Mr.

01:03:48,530	Chair, from the standpoint of the cattails, the cattails were way out of hand for years and we were always trying to get on top of it and we attempted to get a 3 year contract with uh um Dakota helicopters, which was, as you know, a significant struggle, small project they really didn’t want, but

01:04:05,830	eventually they did spray it and since they’ve sprayed it, Um, you know, the population has come down and it looks pretty good right now. Um, will we need to spray again in the future? Yeah, you will, but right now, as you know, Kathleen pointed out, uh, there’s a lot of other weed scenarios out there that that

01:04:22,330	need to be addressed. Mos most of them are noxious weeds, I might add. Uh, they’re not just your Dandelion type of weeds. There is some grass there and Andrew can address that. We’ve been concerned about it, but I believe the grass there is strictly a field broom.

01:04:45,100	Um, And we’re OK with grass growing on the berm and and and here’s the, here’s the scenario and Kathleen and I’ve talked about this, you know, somewhat at length is a scenario that we have a water environment which is kind of your guys’ environment, pardon the expression, cowboys as far as, you know, spraying for weeds, uh, but we, we got an issue to

01:05:01,700	where a lot of times the that particular chemical can have an adverse impact on the grass. And if you impact the grass, then we have a potential erosion concern.

01:05:19,600	So what is the influence of that chemicals on the weeds versus the grass and I guess kind of look at Andrew to, to maybe chime in on that, if you wanna chime in on your tests. Yeah, absolutely. Um, good morning, introduce yourself to the, this is Braden. Um, I do all the, the planning and the testing. Braden does all the spraying. He has a lot more knowledge with the spray.

01:05:37,370	But regardless, The plan right now is to do 2 chemical test blocks, have a 10 or 15 by 15 test plot. One with awkward neat and one with Roundup custom. They’re both glyphosate products, so they’re gonna affect the grass and that’s where we’re gonna. As Michael mentioned, that’s where we kind of have an issue. Uh, we’re gonna do those test blocks.

01:05:55,970	Um, If we mix our chemical correctly, the way we’re thinking now, it’ll kill the weeds, it’ll damage the grass, but we want to see if the grass will bounce back. And if it won’t Well, we need to go back to the drawing board and figure something else out.

01:06:13,570	Uh, if one of our test plaques works, awesome, then we can spray the whole entire area or the waterway. OK, so Andrew, how long does that take for you to decide? Does it work or not work? 7 days.

01:06:30,570	Oh, pretty pretty pretty quick then, and I believe you’re planning on the 19th to do the test spots where they’re pro as well we can start on the 19th to do those test blocks. Just so we, we have an answer sooner than later. So Andrew, this is Michael, good question.

01:06:50,130	Um, so is there a, uh, the, the mix of the chemical or the dosage that’s becomes a question on the test plot, um, because I’ll, I, I can tell you the grass that I spray in my yard that I’m trying to kill. I kill the leaves, but it keeps coming back, so I get that so that I think that’s where the test plots are going and the issue is, is that, uh, with the two, you’ll find out which. Um, dosage, if you will, is the best one to,, maybe knock the.

01:07:09,630	The Les back but not necessarily kill the grass, is that the kind of the intent which chemical and then the dosage of each chemical. OK, so right now we’re gonna be testing two different chemicals. Both essentially the same Glyphosate products, but, but they all have their different purposes. True.

01:07:29,630	So Andrew, do you expect success? Do you expect to find one that works for you, OK. Great. And then I just want to ask you, so we’re talking back slope. Top of the we’re talking back slow. I’ll get to the top in a minute, we’re talking to the back slope down to the creek. So the insult basically, yeah, the inside of the channel strictly the south side.

01:07:52,300	Park and Rec has the easement on the north side. And I assumed when I sent an email out that they were spraying over there because I’ve seen a gentleman down there with boots on. And doing the cattail thing. They have not done any spraying whatsoever.

01:08:18,600	In past years, Dakota helicopter and I spoke with Sean has basically gone in there and sprayed the creek strictly for cocktails. If you read the contract that’s in your pocket, it says weeds and. The creek. I cut the weeds down. Uh thinking we had a contract with Travis Johnson and apparently we do not. Uh, he’s charging us $600 per mowing, so it’s not a major expense.

01:08:46,300	Um, what’s he mowing for that? Well, he’s mowing the top of the berm, right at the top, the top of the berm. He gets over the site a little bit just because the tip of, but not much because of the type of moor he’s got. Well, it’s a brush hog.

01:08:59,900	And you can only get down that slope so far. Without disturbing something else. Um, and. May weeds just doesn’t work. I mean, here’s, here’s the follow up on that that makes it worse, right? Well, sometimes. I would suggest to the board, and I think Michael will concur with me.

01:09:22,300	We used to do this on the farm. We cut him. And then we wait until a very moist. Scenario and then we burn them. And I’ve talked to Dustin with the Rural Fire Department. And he’s more than willing to come out and. Help with this On-site burn. My father used to till up the land.

01:09:47,470	I would not be in favor of tilling up the land because then you have More erosion that could happen. Um, But I think if we went up and did a burn. Maybe October, November, somewhere along in there. Uh, it would assist in killing out some of that. Now, unfortunately, the Sissle has all broken. And Sissle and um.

01:10:15,770	Some of the brush up there. Takes 3 years of continual spraying in order to really get rid of it. So Last but least, and I have all kinds of pictures here if anybody wants to look. Um, I think it’s time. That we as a board. Think about putting Travis on contract for the mowing.

01:10:44,230	And have it done annually. Um, I’ll get to the, the gate situation in a minute because we haven’t been inspecting our Watergate up there, and that is mandated. Um, And then also have Travis. Kind of check those gates on a regular thing. Now, at one point.

01:11:10,330	We had all kinds of signs up there, no trespassing, danger, whatever, they’re all gone. The only sign that’s up there is a paper sign that a good friend of mine put up a number of years ago and the wind has pretty much destroyed it. It’s on a post.

01:11:31,630	Um, So I want to be able to look into what the replacement on those signs are and then my suggestion would be to put those signs on the gates, attach them with a U-bolt. Um The The damage that has been done up there. To the fans. To the top of the berm has been done by 4 wheelers and snowmobiles. I had a long discussion with the farmer that farms both sides of that.

01:11:55,700	Uh, floodway. And um I’ve also spoken with the sheriff’s department. The sheriff’s department. Doesn’t have the personnel, etc. To drive C clear back in there and look and they’re all coming in from the west side. They’re not coming in off in 1803.

01:12:17,200	1803 is fenced pretty well, so you can’t really get around it unless you go to the walkway and go through the creek. So, um, We need signs. The fence someone has ripped the fence apart. Every 5th post up there on the fence.

01:12:40,570	is to be a wooden post and there’s 3 or 4 wooden posts laying on the ground, and the barbed wire has been damaged. That needs to be fixed. I have not gone as far as to get bids on any of this. Um, Because I would like. The approval of the board. Before I go forward. And and my last subject is putting both the cowboys and Travis Johnson. On at least a 3 to 5 year contract.

01:13:06,870	So we know it’s getting done. When I asked why it hadn’t been done, I was told it was not scheduled. So I went back through some of my minutes and I’ve never found where we have talked about scheduling anything up there. If we need to schedule it, then we need to schedule it.

01:13:28,770	Because that berm On the very top of it should probably be cut in the spring. And should probably be cut again. Sometime in August. Before the weeds start spreading.

01:13:50,230	Yeah, I think in regards to our previous discussions and contracts, it really was focusing on the cat tails on the channel itself to to make sure we’re not impeding flow. I don’t ever remember this board getting into much discussion regarding the berm fences, gates. I mean, a little bit here and there, but yeah, so this is good. I mean, obviously this is important and so I appreciate Kathleen taking.

01:14:04,130	Um, there’s a lot to kind of work through, I think here, I think today. I like to maybe focus on the on the the contract on this see if what we need to do there and just. Really getting into the, the weeds about what are we, what are we asking, what are we wanting to do there because.

01:14:23,530	There there’s trails, there’s, there’s, there’s gates and then we’re talking back slope, top burns, you know, interior slope, the channel itself cat tails, weeds, mowing. There’s a, there’s a lot going on there and I, I, I think it’d be good if, if we, I don’t if we’re gonna solve it all day, but no, we’re not, uh. The priority today.

01:14:43,000	is to get Andrew on contract so we know that it’s getting sprayed, both the berm and down too. Now, The second item is Would the board agree to a controlled burn. On what has been cut. So those seeds. Don’t necessarily repopulate next spring.

01:15:07,600	Have we done it before? We burned, OK, is that something I mean, I don’t, it’s, it’s not, not entirely uncommon practice for a lot of egg producers, but it’s not something this board has done. OK. And then the third object is we have and I’ll just kind of pass this around.

01:15:25,600	We have a site obligation to everybody’s got a copy of that one, Kathleen, so I’ll touch on that in a minute. We have an obligation to check those water gates. And I am told by Travis they haven’t been checked for 3 or 4 years either. And they’re wide open. Um Any one of you gentlemen could go up there and change the flow of the creek.

01:15:46,270	Fortunately for me, I don’t have that much strength left anymore. I’m also told that those locks once they, once they are set, are to be locked. And I can’t find anybody that has a key to lock them. And Mr. Chair, a couple of things. What I did in the conversation with Kathleen and I, you know, I think it’s important from an overall management plan.

01:16:05,670	You have a copy of the annual inspection. And that’s a checklist and go through it. Um, I don’t believe in a couple of things. I don’t believe that the gates on the Um, The low flow gates on the DOT structure. were to be locked.

01:16:24,770	I’ll visit with Travis on that, but I don’t think we ever plan on locking it. It’s only a 10 CFS flow. It really doesn’t impact anything if somebody closed it, it would be temporary, you could reopen it, but the gates on the fences need to be locked and the fencing and the barbed wire fence that was installed on the west side as part of the renovation project, uh, a

01:16:41,930	number of years ago in 2015 was specifically designed to keep people out, and obviously if that’s broken down, you know, people are getting in. So what I did from the from the. Context it’s kind of put a general maintenance list together.

01:16:58,130	It follows along with the annual inspection list, and there’s probably a few things that could be updated in the ONM plan, um, as far as, um, annual activities that being um the not only the inspection but the mowing and everything else so what Kathleen was talking about on her contract, uh, from a long term perspective, um, you have other projects that need, um, inspection.

01:17:19,530	We’ve talked about it, no offense, Casey, I’m trying to get the O and agreement with the. County Highway Department that really hasn’t come to fruition yet, that being the case, um, Travis is offered the opportunity to this board that if Uh, they wanted to entertain an option for him to do those other projects, obviously, which he knows, you know, firsthand, um,

01:17:39,400	for doing inspections or observation and, you know, the annual checklist, he would be willing to do that. Um, so I would put that on the table for consideration, but as Kathleen pointed out, the key elements today are to get the spring set up and have additional discussions later relative to the um Uh, control burn for

01:17:59,000	this year and then we can continue to kind of step through all of these activities that are here. Some of them I think are fairly straightforward like the the gates and the chains and that, I think you just do that.

01:18:15,300	I mean, that’s just something that, um, and the, and the signs and we do have examples of signs I’ve had a conversation with Attorney Bliss relative to what the sign can say cause it’s on an easement, you don’t own the land. We did a very similar thing out of her uh Brookfield estates on your behalf so we can work through the signage and get those things done.

01:18:33,200	So, but I wanted to put together the, the list, uh, so that you kind of know where things are going based on the conversation and the project needs, but the key elements is the, like you said the. Getting the spraying taken care of. Get the spraying and getting the locks changed and the and the chain because that chain that’s up there.

01:18:49,100	Good heavens. A good strong man could bust it with a wrist. Yes, Dennis on the mowing front, and this is maybe a slightly tangential discussion, but do we need to mow the side slopes. That’s the first question. If we do, it depends on the water flow.

01:19:07,400	Well, I mean, you don’t, you know, you wouldn’t mow it when the water’s high, obviously, but. If we do, we have Andrew here and I, I think they do mowing as well and so I just wanted to have that discussion at least.

01:19:23,400	I don’t wanna, I don’t know what Travis’s viewpoint on this is he didn’t want to take, you know, a hobby away from work it’s a different piece of equipment is what it amounts to itself, so Andrew, if you just address that question. Yeah, we, we do mowing. Anything slide, you know, steep like that, we have a special machine for it. We don’t love doing it, but we do it, um.

01:19:40,170	What’s the steepest you work on? Is it a 2 to 1? Is it a 3 to 1? It depends on how wet it is. I mean, something like that, we would have to almost go up there and try it one time. And see how it goes, but at least the top, the level part, that’s no problem.

01:19:53,770	We have skid steer mowers, normal mowers, brush hogs. Whatever we please or need. So if the board approves this today, you’re still planning on going out on the 19th, even though we had a bit of moisture last night. And Well, I got 3 inches and I’m not that far from it.

01:20:16,570	I know there’s also more rain that’s supposed to be coming later on today, um, if it heats up and. To at least like 6070 and we get a little bit of wind, it’ll dry a lot of that grass out, and then we can go in and. Do our test plots, so.

01:20:35,130	And would, would you attempt to do part of the slope? For spray Oh, for sure, yeah. How about cutting? We, we would have to take a look at it again when we looked at it, we were focusing on spraying that mowing.

01:20:55,630	But you know I just wanted to keep it open, you know, and it’s a good idea it’s good if we need the side slopes and they have the ability and can do it, then maybe that’s another option we look at seriously. I’m not sure where we’re at with the contract, but I have done nothing until I get board approval, um.

01:21:12,630	I, I’d recommend that we work that language into there as far as the mowing and then I also cat, do you guys pray for cat tails too? Certainly can. We haven’t yet, but yeah, we can. I mean, we don’t need that this year, but if we’re gonna work into a 3 or 5 year agreement. Let’s, let’s figure out pricing.

01:21:27,130	Not that we’re gonna actually do it every year, but we had the ability with your contract if we, if we, you know, choose to do that, that we can then hire you under that contract to come out and spray for the cattails too if um get rid of all those weeds.

01:21:43,200	I know you just said that not to do it every year, but like the thistle that’s in there with how bad it is, it comes up in the spring, plants its seed, you can’t really spray thistle in the summer. You gotta either get it early in the spring or in the fall when it starts to die.

01:21:59,100	I Um, because it, it embeds its seed back into the soil and then comes up next year and then obviously since it’s a waterway, you get birds that carry seeds from walking around in grass and standing on grass and they’ll fly in there and then they drop it out of their wings.

01:22:17,000	I know it kind of doesn’t really sound believable, but that’s what happens and then you just have other pests that just carry seeds too, so to really get it under control, I would say that. Some things you would need to spray in there every year, but then again, there’s certain chemicals for certain weeds that it would only. Have that as its target plan and not.

01:22:33,970	A lot of the other things in there, so yeah. Well, I would, I would like to move forward on the downslope on the on the entire berm. Uh, the bid was 30. $250 which is extremely reasonable. We’ve been playing closer to $5000 a month, uh, uh, annually. When Dakota helicopter was doing it.

01:23:00,370	So I would like to get that approved so we can move forward. Along with the test plots. And then With the board’s approval. I’d like to work with our attorney. To start putting some contracts together. This year I’ve talked to to the Cowboys. Cowboys And um they would be willing to do it on a motion.

01:23:31,270	But we need A regular schedule to get this under control. Maybe it’s a 3 year schedule, maybe it’s a 5-year schedule. Uh, thistle to me is one of the hardest things in the world to get rid of. Um, woodworm. Is my second favorite to get rid of. And we have a lot of that. So I would make the motion.

01:23:56,930	That a We accept the Cowboys’ bid and have them move forward on spraying. The downslope on the south side. It’s just the one side, yeah, somebody’s done the north side. I have no idea who. You in your once again you’re talking about the interior slope or the interior interior slope to the creek.

01:24:23,230	So the north side has been done. The north side has been done, and the north side, understand the north side is part of the uh Lewis and Clark Legacy trail. Bismarck Parks and Recels and and takes care of the the trail system.

01:24:41,600	They just spray down into the water’s edge apparently they, they’re doing some sort of control, but they, they, I, I called and I talked to both Dave Meyer and to uh Kevin. And they don’t spray for weeds except on the walkway. OK, so I. Maybe 3 weeks ago on a Saturday, I was going up there and I saw some fellow in the creek in boots. Spraying something on cattails.

01:25:03,400	I have no idea who it was. I’ve checked the neighborhood. wasn’t the neighbor. So Mr. Chair and Kathleen, going back to Andrew, um, your bid was basically to spray the south side levee, is that probably the best way of saying it? You did.

01:25:25,700	If you have a map, you got 1804, both sides waterway all the way until it tees. That’s what I quoted. All right, that’s fine. I just wanted to clarify that and I’m, I’m fine with that as far as that so and if the board wishes.

01:25:41,570	We can spray both sides so we don’t have a spring crops that was yeah that was that was both sides, both sides and then from, from 1804 till the Ox Bowl, basically where the structures are at essentially the structures out there. That’s correct. Mr.

01:26:01,770	Chair, I, um, happy to work with Manager Jones on the, on the contracts and it could be good that we simply attached to the contract and exhibit so everybody we have a map of the place and we’re seeing what’s the side slope, what’s a bad slope. And go into detail on that map, which then everybody can see that. Yeah, no, I have all the materials ready to start writing a contract.

01:26:20,770	Kathleen, are you mid motion here? Are you, are you, I’m waiting for a second, Randy, come on. Well, I thought you, I thought there was more to it, but well, I’m going to do them one at a time so they were separates I will second that motion. OK, so with that motion would be to work with Dave Bliss to develop a contract.

01:26:37,330	Without motion, it’s a cowboys to get him to spray immediately. Or as soon as possible, let’s put it that way, but also something more long term. Well second motion. Second motion. I have found in going through the minutes we often put things together. And then somebody like myself who wasn’t here when it was put together, goes looking for it.

01:27:01,530	And I’m not sure of precisely what was what? So I’m, I’m being a little overprotective. But none of us are gonna be here 10 years from now. And 10 years from now it could be a problem again, so I’d rather specify each motion, if you don’t mind, Mr. Chair.

01:27:25,830	concerned with that motion if it’s uh is it’s red is that it requires you to work through uh Dave Bliss to get a contract. My concerns motion. The first motion is we just get the cowboys to spray. The berm going down to the creek. Their bid was 3250 for both sides for both sides. That’s my first.

01:27:51,500	The test plots Yes, OK, so, uh, just for discussion, do we have concerns about this resulting in in uh a dead areas that are subject to erosion, um, Mr. Chair, and Randy from this perspective talk, you know, with what Andrew was talking about with the test plots.

01:28:12,400	I’m comfortable with the test plots and then based on the results of those test plots during the remainder of the spring. So, well, in the part that I don’t understand is you say it’s a 7 day test. And you kind of kill off everything, but with the hope that the grass portion.

01:28:31,800	Survives and comes back, but do you, do you really know that in 7 days, so on the SDS, which is a safety data sheet on the chemical, um. They have a limited entry time where after you spray it, obviously for contact reasons you obviously don’t wanna cause it comes out in droplets, obviously, and um it’ll drop onto your target

01:28:53,200	plants and. It needs that 7 days to fully integrate into the plant and to fully where if I walk in there with shorts on. The chemicals not going to get all over me. And we also want to see why for 7 days is because, um.

01:29:13,600	Like he was talking about when you spray your weeds, you know how they go brown, then when you go look at them two weeks later, they’re all green and back up again, um, so we’re basically. Determining in our 7 days if the grass is gonna go brown and come back green. With what dosage we’re doing.

01:29:32,700	Um, Sometimes you can see results really early, but the longer I the longer you wait, not too long, obviously, but the longer you wait, the more data we could be or we could see, and then after we’d see that we could be like, OK, we know how long it’s gonna take for the grass to come back.

01:29:48,570	But living in North Dakota. I mean, it could snow middle of September, so. So what’s what’s the visual clues that you look at when you, you come back 7 days later. What are you looking for? Obviously, if the grass is brown, if we come back 7 days later and the grass is still brown, um, we’d either have to.

01:30:09,170	Turn down our dosage of how much our output is for our. Our gallons per acre, I guess you could say. Um, And You can’t You wouldn’t really be able to tell.

01:30:27,470	I mean, we, we don’t have the resources for it, but cause I mean you could pull it out of the ground and you could look at the roots and study the roots, but we don’t have the resources for that, but I um. I guess the tall tale signs would be, it’s just gonna. Going to determine on time, um.

01:30:49,230	If That week it’s during that week that we’re waiting and watching it, if it goes brown and then it comes back, I mean we can immediately go in there and get it done as soon as possible.

01:31:05,630	If not, if it’s still brown after the 7 days, I mean, we could just gauge it and say, OK, let’s give it another day or two, and then if it looks good, then after those day after those day or two, We go in and spray, but if you’re asking for a cutoff point of when we would know. Um, I guess we just determine just on time. That’s, that’s, that’s, I, I couldn’t really give you a definitive answer of how we’d know.

01:31:24,530	I mean, if it stays brown, then we would know, and if it comes back green after 789 days, then. Yeah. OK. And Andrew, you talked about a window too of of when might be the best time to, you know, spray for this.

01:31:45,000	Are we gonna be within that window if we do a couple of these weeks of test plots and get out there maybe in September, is that *** close some of the weeds, yes, um, if you would like us to, I mean, we could go back later in the fall and try to start, um, cause she talked about a 3 to 5 year plan with a 3 to 5 year plan, there’s a thing called IPM um integrated

01:32:02,800	pest management. Mhm. So obviously weeds are pests, pesticides, um. Just, it would just Continue to do a lot of research and like I said for thistle early in the spring, late in the fall. So if you would like us, we can go back and spray for for forth thistle later in the fall, um.

01:32:24,100	They usually say right when they turn brown and they, I shouldn’t say right when they turn brown, they start to drop some of their seeds and their stall tails tall tale signs for that. That’s usually when you go back in and spray so.

01:32:40,270	OK Now, how do you guys apply just out of curiosity, we broadcast, we have one of the old counting machines like Miss Jones talked about, um. If we’re doing it out the back cause there’s two nozzles at the back, it’s 15 ft each way, so 30 ft across, and then we have one that’s mounted to the side of the tailgate that’s 15 to 20 ft straight out.

01:32:59,470	So if we drove on the top of the berm. Just slopes. Yep, that’s the OK, makes sense. OK. How long do you have to uh not have rain for it to still be effective. Um, depends upon the chemical.

01:33:21,370	Like I said, I’d have to look at the SDS and the information sheet, but usually, I’d say with most sprays it’s probably like 3 to 5 hours and then you’re, you’re in the clear.

01:33:37,230	There’s also some uh surfactants that you could put in it that could make it stick more to the plant if you know there’s rain coming and it can sort of limit that amount of time. But I mean, if it rained like it did yesterday, I mean you kiss that makes sense. I did makes sense. I did makes sense. I did did spray my weight yesterday so did I, and they died first. Other questions. If not, we do have a motion on it, but yeah.

01:33:57,130	We do have a motion. To go ahead and. Employ the cowboys, cowboys, yeah, thank you for your time. Yes. Thank you guys. We have a motion by Man Jones, seconded by Manage Binnegar to accept the bid from the Cowboys to do the one time spraying. And test sometime this this late summer fall. Sooner the better. OK.

01:34:22,330	When do you take roll call vote please on that Manage Smith, yes. Man, yes, Man Jones. Yes. And vinegar. Chair Lane yes. Motion passes. work with Mac Jones, you work with cowboys that they get that moving forward and we’re getting to be best friends, um, the second item when it comes to Brent

01:34:49,300	Creek is I would like the board’s permission to pursue with our attorney. Contracts And Mo mowing. On checking the water gates so that we get the operation sheet. Filled out here again, I’ve been told it’s been 3 to 4 years since anybody’s looked at those. And I’m fairly certain they’re fine.

01:35:16,800	So I would make the motion that we go ahead and, um, Create Contract for the Cowboys. And for Mr. Travis Johnson because he has been taking care of the gates and the inspections in the past. And he is no longer with Houston.

01:35:41,570	He’s, I believe with the state, is that correct, Michael? This will, this will be done, excuse me, this will be done on his own. And I have a price list here, um. Mowing is $600. If there’s additional request on mowing, it’s $100 an hour. basic cleaning functioning of the district apparatuses that are up there. would be $60 an hour. And uh report on the maintenance uh recommendation would be $80 an hour. All very reasonable.

01:36:09,670	And I might add he’s the only one that. Gave me a bit. So he’s kind of our only choice. And Mr. Chair, I’m going to go on a little bit of a squirrel here just to let you know.

01:36:30,270	Uh, I did get an email from some gal from the MRCC that was looking for inspections, was there a motion on it? OK, sorry, wait a minute let’s get through that first, OK, so what, what exactly is your motion motion is we accept the let me, let me move forward in developing a contract for the Cowboys and for Travis Johnson for inspections and um. Contract could include some mowing.

01:36:54,930	Cattail spraying, weed spraying, we will work that all out that you work with Dave to kind of get that language put into the contract I’ll bring the cowboys into Dave’s office so they can explain what they can do and what they can’t do. OK. Perfect So are you asking for um.

01:37:15,530	Uh, a motion that approval would allow all that to move forward or just to develop the contracts. Well, just to develop the contract. I will have a cost and we have a cost in this at that point And you, you’re saying two separate contracts, one with Travis Johnson to do other maintenance items on that. That’s correct. OK. All right. OK. And the more discussion on that.

01:37:42,400	OK, thank you, Mr. Chair. Sorry I got off on a tangent there, um, but I don’t want to lose the train of thought. Um, obviously, Travis has experience with all of your projects. Um, he’d be doing this independent.

01:37:58,300	And of course how that independent Dave and I’ve talked, you know, liabilities, insurance and all that stuff, all that have to be kind of worked into this scenario, um, but on the squirrel part of this scenario, I did get a request from uh the MRCC director to have somebody come down and visit with them relative to, you know, the operation of the internal drainage system and their levee and obviously Travis is he

01:38:19,000	knows that better than anybody, um, I know most of it, but obviously if there was a contract. Travis, he would be able to do those things at a lesser expense than if you had us do them and the scenario is, you know, short term, long term, currently you don’t have an agreement with the Burleigh

01:38:35,100	County Highway Department to do it. These things have been kind of languishing a little bit, so I’m looking at it from the perspective and say, if there’s a way of accomplishing this in the in the short term or maybe long term as the case maybe, um.

01:38:51,300	That should be discussed as part of the contract and I kind of understand that that’s part of the motion. Just to clarify, so and we can work those and uh to Comm. Benegar’s point, yeah, it’s developed the contract. You see it when it’s done as far as what’s all included.

01:39:07,600	Yeah, I would think we could make that to where the contract is open where we can hire Travis to do various things if need be and if we continue to work with Casey in the county and they step into that, then we no longer need Travis to. Yeah, operate and maintain those, and that’s that’s the status, OK. All right, thank you, thanks, Michael. Any other discussion on the motion.

01:39:26,600	All right, hearing none, Wendy take roll call vote, please. Understood. Yes. Yep. Andrew Jones. Yes, yes. Chair Leenberger. Yes, motion passes. Thank you. Um, I will go ahead and change the gates. The gates are not going to cost us a great deal of money, a couple $100 maybe, and the locks. And then I will bring keys in to. You and Travis.

01:39:59,470	And myself Remind us now again, where are the gates exactly? Is it just on the west west side both The chain that is there. Isn’t much heavier than a bicycle chain and someone of your size could just This is a swing gate, metal gate, just like a cattle gate, yeah. And there, there’s one on each side on each levee.

01:40:24,270	There’s 4 total gates. No, 2, just 2. 2 with 2 panels per gate, right And I want to change those because. Obviously people, well, the chain on the west side. Wasn’t even there the first time I went up. The loft was. And then all of a sudden the chain reappeared.

01:40:47,830	Well, that chain I don’t even use light chain like that for around my property. Um, I wanna put logging chain on there, which is quite thick. I suppose what, 1 inch, Michael? It’s heavier, yeah, and then find a decent locking system for up there. Because those padlocks, you can pick them with a hairpin.

01:41:09,230	In their, in their age, they’ve been out there since 2015. Yeah, so OK Consensus. Yeah, were you also gonna update the signage, well, I’m gonna look into costs on the signs, um, yeah, come back next month because at one point we had people dumping, uh, grass clippings and leaves and everything else. So we had to know dumping program.

01:41:38,600	And then at another point, we had a very nice. Uh, no trespassing sign on a metal pole. Well, metal poles. Don’t last in North Dakota. Put it on a wood pole or put it on the gate. And I’m thinking we need to put it on the gate with U-bolts. Um, that will hold, it will deter the wind.

01:42:00,400	The ones that were up there were strictly on a metal post and I can’t even find it. I found rebar and everything else, but I can’t even find the signs. And I’ve spent more than my share of hours walking that silly thing. So And just an FYI, Mr.

01:42:20,600	Chair, I forget, I think it’s Sign Pro has your logo and stuff, so I mean we’ve developed sciences for some of your other projects, so be fairly straightforward to just. sign pro I’ll get you the information, yeah, they’ve got your logo and they’ve developed signs for, um, other projects, so it’d be very simple to just change the language and then they could give you a proof and

01:42:37,270	a cost. And and mounting. And then well with the fencing. Well, the fencing, I, I need to call the fellow out in New Salem. He’s the fellow that put it out.

01:42:59,670	And I don’t know how he charges or what he charges, and quite frankly, I think he needs to come and Physically look because a couple of the wood posts that are up there have been broken off. Um, so I kind of like to let that roll until September. Uh, so I’ve, I’ve got a pretty good cost idea on that before we move forward. Does that make sense? consensus, yes. OK And no, unless you want to see pictures, I’m finished.

01:43:23,570	No, I do appreciate this, Kathleen. Um, obviously there’s been some Deferred things here that have been going on for a while, so I appreciate you stepping into that and putting together this plan and we’ll get some contracts in place and. Now, uh, a question for You and the board, Mr.

01:43:42,130	Chair, I have this pack of maps and it includes right down to. The physical drawings of how the the creek was developed. I feel that they should be in a centralized place so that anybody that wants to. Review these. Michael has them. But we as a board should have them someplace. We have physical file cabinets, still one.

01:44:10,430	With some boxes in our office, but that’s all. Oh, another box person. One time we went through record keepers too and did a bunch of scanning of documents and I don’t know if that’s included.

01:44:27,730	There’s obviously some newer material record keepers, but I don’t know if there was a there was a lot of digital stuff that was done and You know, that’s part of what I’m thinking about if they’re in a digital folder you have them, we have them on digital. You may have them in digital. Um, I can scan in the digital if we have those digital files. Some hard drives, I think. Is if we do, I don’t know where they are.

01:44:50,800	Yeah, here’s my suggestion, Mr. Chair. Um, I will work with Wendy looking at the overall project elements you have because obviously we’ve got all the files, we’ve got a lot of stuff and we’ve got all the stuff digitally.

01:45:06,900	The question is, is that you only need The, if you want to call them the record drawings. For each project and if we can create a data source for the record drawings and provide those to you to make sure that you have them. You know, basically in Wendy’s files, we can certainly do that.

01:45:24,600	We just need to find out what was scanned and what was their first so we don’t duplicate things or we can do that. OK. All right, thank you, Michael. Thanks, Wendy OK. Um, you also had the Darren Johnson on here, Burley County weed officer on the agenda was I put him on there hoping he would um be able to attend this because.

01:45:44,870	There has been a contract floating around with the highway department. And I can’t find it. And I’ve been trying to get a hold of Julie, um. Layer To get a copy of it. And find out what the hold up on it is and unfortunately Mr. Johnson called me late last night and could not attend. Water issues on the highways. OK, more, more to come then.

01:46:06,870	More to come, unfortunate. OK, thanks, Comm.. Thank you, Jerry. OK. Nothing else on Burnt Creek. I hope not today. Good discussion though. Randy. I’d like to change the name to Kathleen Jones, by the way Randy, I don’t like publicity at all. Thank you for the thought.

01:46:37,730	I like that, yeah, OK, uh, moving on to other old business this morning. First item there, the Burley County Community rating system looking at a meeting potentially just to update on that we did have a meeting with uh. Um, With Mitch and Mary to talk about the elements and we’re making that first step.

01:46:57,230	So once we get the, the next piece together, you know, we’ll get the board involved in the, in the conversation, but, uh, we did the first gathering. It was really good discussion we had, uh, Mr. Spooner from the Department of Water Resources there and they’re doing their calve or their inspection or their observation sometime in probably September.

01:47:18,830	So that basically is a compliance review and if you’re not in compliance, you will not get into the CRS program. Uh, I don’t think that there are any issues. Just a matter that they do come out and they do that, so just give you kind of an update on where that’s at and was there like a task order put together regarding Houston to here for that.

01:47:34,000	I thought that you and then we’re splitting that with the emergency services and uh what Mary said is basically send the invoice basically to the water resource district and also a copy to her and she will automatically pay so you don’t have to transfer funds between the two, so she will, she will pay her half, OK,

01:47:50,600	OK, yeah, so just make sure the invoice shows That breakdown, yeah, actual split. OK, thank you, Michael. Any updates this morning on the Crystal Lake. Yeah, just to give you an update on that, um, that one is moving forward, uh, the Stutzman County Commission is having a meeting on the 20th, next Tuesday, uh, to move

01:48:13,000	forward with uh submitting the web grants application. They have not decided that yet, um, uh, Houston Engineering put together the scope and budget for that scenario, uh, but they are moving forward.

01:48:32,800	There has been some additional conversations with the refuge people at Long Lake Refuge, uh, and there’s been some initial review Water quality issues and uh if you want to look at it, what used to be a red flag might be more of a yellow flag, which means it appears they may be open to that should uh a project. Um Be implemented at some point in the future, so there’s some positive signs.

01:48:48,200	It’s just, uh, as you know, a slow process, but just to let you know it, it is, it is on, uh, on the docket, it is probably going to be moving forward for the feasibility study in Burleigh County would be notified relative to those activities because obviously the water’s coming through you. Very good, thanks, Michael. OK, moving on.

01:49:10,300	I don’t think there’s any updates regarding the assessments or agreements or inspections. Uh Missouri River Joint Board. There’s a meeting coming up. There is a meeting coming up on the 20th. Uh, that will be their summer, uh, meeting. Um, The main part of the agenda will be the discussion on the joint powers agreement, the executive committee.

01:49:37,570	Has gone through and made a number of changes, most of them uh making the agreement more compliant with the new law. It would also now allow. Uh, counties that, uh, are anywhere in the Missouri River watershed to join the joint board the prior agreement only included counties that were adjoining the Missouri River.

01:50:08,470	And it also would uh change the now requirement that uh Representatives to the Joy Bo B um. Water resource district managers. That uh would no longer be the case, so you could, uh, Water resource boards could appoint delegate uh somebody and uh oh, besides some other wording, a little bit in the budget has changed that would impact us, so, uh.

01:50:33,630	The uh The way that uh. You would any individual county would uh fall into uh The budget and what they would owe to be a member is based on total taxable valuation, and so Burley County being rather high, we would be in the top tier, 3 tiers, you’re either paying an annual membership of $2000 a

01:51:01,930	year, 1500 a year or um 1000 a year, so a little bit of a change, a little bit of an increase there for us. And so it would allow some of those uh western counties that have to low tax uh valuation and would have less.

01:51:27,030	Membership dues, but then still be involved in, yeah, still be involved, so. At meetings next Tuesday, uh. I’m, I’m not sure actually how it will go. I think what. Because at some point the the uh Individual districts would be signing the agreement, so once it’s finalized, I’ll have it, I’ll have Wendy put it in the booklet, everybody can look at it, then we would have an

01:51:49,900	opportunity as a board to Agree or or or not, then it would be in the winter meeting then that uh all those uh that that would be finalized. In a packet two there is a letter here regarding kind of some maybe. Upcoming meetings in September regarding the uh educate advocate and engage program.

01:52:10,500	Um, I don’t know if this board, you know, obviously we’ve been very involved. Roger’s been going to meetings. I’m not sure if we want to extend that offer for them to come and update. We certainly could. Roger maybe give that some thought if you want to have them come to a future meeting.

01:52:24,700	It says here meetings for the week of September 23rd, so it doesn’t really line up with one of our. Board meetings, but Um, or maybe it’s just a start starting to schedule such meetings. I don’t know if it is that week.

01:52:41,970	I think, uh, just starting then at that point, um, so maybe our October meeting maybe might be one they could come to. Yeah, um, Uh, they’re trying to hit all the all the other counties, all the counties, right? So I don’t know who would probably Wade would be doing it, uh, I don’t know, maybe Michael’s done a number of them, uh.

01:53:00,470	Yeah, it depends upon, you know, if you want a specific presentation, I’ve given several of them between you two, you might just we could probably cover that at any given time, given our availability and I think we’re a board perspective. You’re probably just more interested at the in what is uh What’s being told to, you know, the others, uh.

01:53:25,970	So it’s, you know, nothing obviously controversial, it’s just uh I suspect there would be at least some interest. What, what is uh Missouri River Joint board advocating and trying to educate people on. They have done a couple of pieces. Yeah, there was a uh a kind of a fall tour last year and.

01:53:50,130	Oh yeah, I’m probably 5 different towns, Devil’s Lake, Fargo, some of it was pretty well attended, some of it wasn’t very well attended. Roger, on on the uh board membership for Missouri River Joint Board. Did they, did they prescribe how those individuals are. Appointed or decided upon, or is it no, uh. They, uh, let me see the, I’ll find that one.

01:54:12,930	Um, Yeah, I guess there is a little bit here, so, um, Open water resource districts within Missouri are based in addition to the original 2005 signaurs. Uh, OK, this is the one. That’s the one to change the counties. Let me see if I can find the.

01:54:39,200	Part On the joint board here it is. All right, um. Uh they also did describe a executive committee, so. Some business can be done in between meetings. Uh, joint board representation, the water resource district. it’s uh you can choose an alternative, basically it’s just the uh representative to the Missouri River Joint Board is chosen by the District board.

01:55:12,000	can be not, yeah, could be a board member. Or And, yeah. Very good. OK, thanks, Roger. Any questions for Roger on that? OK, hearing none. I don’t think we have any updates this morning on the policy manual, so we can move on to new business.

01:55:38,370	This morning, Apple Creek, we already kind of went over uh Summit Point, the Uh, full package that we received, um. was was reviewed and basically we, we sent it back sign to the North Dakota DOT as far as that permit, um, basically just checking the box that we did receive that, that, that full uh package from. Regarding the summit point, so.

01:56:01,170	Um, Through kind of Houston’s review of that provides some comments and those things were addressed, so. I think at this point, Casey, things are kind of probably. Of our plate and On back on to yours.

01:56:24,870	Uh, North Korea DOT got back yesterday and they felt no comments were addressed that the DOT had, so they said they’re denying it on their part at this time they wanted, they reattached the comments I forwarded them to. Uh, Toman Engineering yesterday, hopefully they’re getting, trying to get them all addressed.

01:56:46,330	I haven’t gotten a call or email back on it, on that part, but we won’t have to re review that then at that point I get to, but I don’t know how much you guys want to but um I cause I had comments back to Toman on the amendment that they had proposed, um. I said there is, I gave, I just wrote Dave and then incomplete review. Because in the existing one of the existing watersheds they evaluated.

01:57:13,630	They vivaluated the peak flow every 36 minutes and. The peak was maybe half the amount that it had been in the previous 7 reports and I was, I just please check all your models, make sure it’s right. As far as I know, they’re working on that at this point. OK. Thanks, Casey.

01:57:37,200	Uh, Missouri River Ice Jam, I don’t think there’s any updates here this morning on that one we’re not gonna have any right, right OK, uh, that’s it for new business, uh, additional information in your packet there is the temporary water permit for border states for paving project on pages 33 and 34.

01:57:58,100	For your information and if you want any additional information on any of the plats or stormwater management plans certainly reach out to Wendy. She can provide that upon request. We move on to item 13, the approval of this month’s bills. General board members page 35 is a summary of the bills um and then the details follow.

01:58:19,800	Um, just a couple of items and note, uh, the, the McDell Dam invoices you might notice is a little bit larger this this month, um. Most of the reason being due to um. Some sand that was placed on the uh. On the beach and the bubble pers I believe and so. Um, that’s larger than usual and then the, uh, we have Apple Creek bond payment that’s about $12,000.

01:58:43,300	That’s the reason for those maybe a little bit larger than we would normally would have had. Uh, I did go through them, the math adds up. I do uh would offer a motion to approve the bills in the amount of $69,890.60 so moved. OK, got a motion by Man Jari, second by manager Jones to approve this month’s bills.

01:59:04,100	Any discussion this morning? Mm. If not, Wendy Gabriel call vote, please. Yes Yes. Yes Yes. Yes. Jones Chair. Yes, motion passes, bills will be approved and paid. OK, moving on, we have a meeting scheduled for Wednesday, September 11th at 8:00 a.m. in this, in this same room.

01:59:34,070	If there’s no other business before the board this morning, we are adjourned. Thank you.