1995-07-20_AgendaPacket - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

' yater8i!!lBoarri agreed to use $25,000 from each grant to purchase equipment. Therefore, each JPA grant will be $75,500. Most JPAs will prob- ably get these grants in February, depending upon how quickly formal agreements get signed and fiscal agents are designated. The BWSR asked for the JPAs to submit an estimate of annual staffing costs for one engineer and one technician. The estimates received thus far have been in the range of $100,000 to $190,000. The independent estimate of the technical committee was also in that range ($105,800). It is estimated that actual hiring of this techni- cal staff will start in April. SRF: grants info anon The Department of Agriculture is administer- ing this portion of the program on a statewide basis. Locally, counties and groups of coun- ties are the most common fiscal agents. These counties are currently applying to the Department of Agriculture for the amount of SRF funding they estimate their county will need. This application period ends at the end of February. The Agricultural BMP Subcommittee of the SRF Coordinating Committee will meet to review the applications in arch. It is ex- pected that the loans to counties will be issued in April. tin rvti c produced a .list of recommended changes for the BWSR's consideration. The BWSR will discuss and vote on these recommended changes at its January 25 meeting. • One proposed change allows local govemments the opportunity to develop comprehensive wetland management. plans for adoption as part of the local water plans. These wetland management plans would be implemented by incorporating them into local controls, such as zoning ordinances. The BWSR would approve each individual wet- land management plan, as it does now with local water plans. These wetland management plans could give local governments flexibility to vary the sequencing and replacement standards of WCA. Although the plans would still ulti- mately have to achieve the goal of no net loss of wetlands, this definitely is an avenue for local govemments potentially to achieve significantly more local control in terms of WCA administration. • One proposed change simplifies and streamlines the notification process for all projects. The change reduces the number of parties that must be notified of an application for a replacement plan. Under the change, the only parties that would need to be noti- fied would be the parties directly involved and anyone who specifically requested notification. Those who would no longer be notified under the proposed change include mayors of cities within the watershed and the SWCD board. The legislatively-created Wetland Heritage Advisory Committee (WRAC)-which includes representatives of local governments, state agencies and various interest groups-has met several times over the past months to discuss potential changes to the Wetland Conservation Act (WCA). The group has • The diminimus standard in the act-the minimum amount of wetland area that is covered under the act-is increased to 1000 square feet for counties with 50 to 80 percent of their presettlement wetland acres remain- ing; and to 7500 square feet in counties with more than 80 percent of their presettlement 2