October 10, 2023 Emerald Ash Borer Subcommittee of the Land Use Management Planning (LUMP) committee of the Oregon Country Fair. Zoom only.
Anna Scott: facilitator, Kevin Hillery, Dennis Todd, Paxton Hoag, Robert Albano, Glenn Johnson, Thom Barr, David Hoffman, Glenn Dolphin, Bobbi Jo Newton, Dani Derrick, Rick Valley, Jain Elliott: scribe.
Reflections include Bobbi Jo reminding us to contribute to the Kalapuya dictionary, Paxton suggesting we consider returning the land to an oak savannah.
Dennis nominates Anna as chair, she accepts. Jain will continue taking notes at meetings. Anna nominates Robert as Publications Steward officer, he accepts. Paxton reminds us to include Vanessa in this discussion. We approve posting May meeting notes—Robert will do this.
Paxton says Kirsten has asked water crew to develop a 5 year plan to update the water system. Compost barn is still a 3 year plan, slab supposed to go in this month. Recognizes capital needed for EAB 10 year plan. Need access to Territorial from the Far Side. We keep getting one year extensions on our SUP because the Cow Palace keeps it from being completed. Kirsten is interested in moving Main Camp kitchen within the next 3 years, and in using bicycle carts for alternate transportation. Wants to work with Kevin to put together an outline for the EAB board work session. Announcements: Paxton reminds us to vote in the board elections, come to the annual meeting, hear the treasurers & feedback reports. Anna will forward the agenda for Path Planning's site walk and discussion Sunday to us.
List current active LUMP sub-committees and call for reports:
Glenn Johnson reports on what the committee's done up till now. Over the last year since it’s formation the committee has met regularly and connected with multiple specialists working in the region (Oregon Dept of Forestry, OR Dept of AG, OR Invasive Species Council ,etc.), supported the installation of EAB test sites on the OCF site, held in-depth discussions of operational and ecological considerations, and started planning potential options for policies and operational strategies. We worked with Sierra the prior site manager and identified several OCF policies (guidelines and/or operations) or traditions that make it challenging to implement strategies to respond to the specific threat of EAB, and more generally for proactive management of the site’s ecosystem. For example, only the site manager and designees can cut or plant trees, but the site manager has limited time and forestry/ecosystem management is not a required skill set for this position (or any current staff); generally it is not clear where the needed capacity for implementing strategies will come from (staff, existing or a new volunteer crew/s, committees, consultants, etc.); also there are considerations around archaeology, different values among fair family regarding how to manage trees and shrubs, or the use of injecticides to protect ash, etc. Several members of the EAB committee worked with StewardShip to produce a large EAB educational display and smaller posters for the Fair event. We’re looking forward to having the new site manager join the effort, particularly for the upcoming work session.
Kevin thanks Glenn for the summary, reported at last BoD meeting, wants feedback from LUMP and the subcommittee on what he should be reporting on. EAB is spreading, not as fast as he feared, the state has done an excellent job of finding it and slowing the spread, so we have some time. During the Fair spoke at Stewardship and Chez Ray, both videos are on line now.
Paxton has been thinking about the structure of the meeting—what is the EAB, how do we identify it? what does it mean to us? How will we deal with it, what's going to happen in the future? We need to point out a direction that we're going to start with—we need to convince the board members, then we need to convince the family. First step might be getting people to identify ash trees in their neighborhoods.
Bobbi Jo says EAB knowledge is now more widespread in the general media.
Kevin—will present first part, danger of EAB, likely devestation, then preparedness plan. Main goal is we need funding for trees and we need to be planting them. This needs to be huge right now. The whole 8 should be native trees only, then a buffer zone around that, then plant whatever around that. Most important question is how do we get trees in the ground.
Glenn's goal is different from Kevin's—doesn't feel we're in deficit for planting trees, but rather for recognizing the trees that we have. We have thousands of trees on the site now. We do need to plant, but more important, cheaper, more effective, is protecting the trees we have, we already have a forest with the oaks and maples. We're informing the board after a lot of research and effort on our part. We're not operations, we're volunteers, we need to move these ideas into operations. This is his goal for BoD session.
Paxton agrees we do need to appreciate the trees we've got on site, protect them as much as we can. Need to look at who's not here--Alexis our site manager, and Kirsten, our ED. We do not yet have the support we need. Fixed Assets last night discussed building a nursery at the winery, but there wasn't much interest in that. Water over there is limited, Kirsten said. They're happy with the little nursery that's running at Alice's. There's no coordination of that with us. Non-natives were planted in the 8 this year. Money is going to be very tight, particularly this coming year. Getting anything in the budget for this year is going to have to be done this month.
Kevin thinks we should start with what is the EAB? Willing to start, or have someone else start with what we have currently, then he'll come in with the bad news. Has visited the nursery we have now—it's not up to what we need. It's mostly flowers. Would like to report how many trees we've planted every year. We have to do a way bigger nursery, or start buying trees, or make the decision that we're not going to be planting trees.
November 14th, 2023