Lower Susquehanna Resources Regional Committee Meeting
DRAFT

December 18, 2003
Cumberland County Cooperative Extension Office, Carlisle, PA

Meeting Summary

Committee members attending

Administrative Items
Review of Minutes of October meeting. Betty Conner's name was misspelled. Motion was made by Bill Achor and seconded by Cynthia Hitz to correct the misspelling and approve the minutes. Motion was approved by the committee.

Draft bylaw changes. DEP Recommendation No. 2 is to be struck. No objections to Nos. 1, 3 and 4. Motion was made by Bill Achor and seconded by Glen DeWillie to approve Nos. 1, 3 and 4 of the DEP by-law recommended revisions. The motion passed by a unanimous vote.

Specific revisions from other committees to be considered:

1. Ohio's Article X on Executive Sessions. No motion of support.

2. Delaware's Article VI on Voting and alternates. Motion by Michael Kyle and seconded by Betty Conner to eliminate voting privileges for alternates. Motion by Cynthia Hitz and seconded by Don Baldwin to amend first motion by striking out the one meeting provision. Both motions failed to pass due to lack of majority.

3. Upper/Middle Susquehanna revision of Article IX on missing consecutive meetings. Motion by Bill Achor and seconded by Michael Kyle to adopt Article IX on meetings as written. Motion failed to pass. Motion by Don Baldwin to change "may" to "shall" because he believes "may" is not strong enough. No second to this motion.

Motion by William and seconded by Bill Achor to accept by-laws as amended by DEP. Motion approved.

Meeting dates. First Monday of every other month: Feb 2, April 5, June 7, Aug 2, Oct 4, Dec. 6. The Southcentral Regional Office, Rm. Susquehanna B, is available for all meetings.

Scoping and Setting of Major Milestones- Stu Gansell
Four primary obligations and timelines:

• Public participation
  
• Hold joint public hearing/meeting - gain public input
  
• Guide development of regional components of state water plan
  
• Identify/recommend critical areas

Announced 12 currently appointed members of statewide committee. Six additional will come from regional committees, eight from state agencies and five from compact commissions.

Overview of existing State Water Plan - Bill Gast
Most information was collected on a county basis. There is no executive summary of the original SWP, but we may be able to pull Chapter 5 out of each of the sub-basin reports.

Water Budgeting Vision - Bill Gast
Currently there are 8,200 miles of named streams. There will be about 3,000 watersheds at 15 sq. mi. size. Population projections were somewhat over projected. Baseflows are good indictors of GW yield to stream in watershed. Existing water quality would play into precluding withdrawal use, it would have to be considered or removed from availability. Also to be considered is the water quality factor into pass-bys, conservation releases.

Relevant Regional Issues
Members recorded their important regional issues and also regional data gaps (information we may not have now that we would need to make decisions).

Public Comment
Ken Davis represents bottle water industry. Their interest is good science and mindful of roles of river basin commissions, DEP and municipal entities. They respect current regulation and don't want another level of regulation.

Future agenda items