sl 2007 1st quarter report

8/14/2019 SL 2007 1st quarter report

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Kansas Department of Health and Environment Grant Quarterly Status Report

Submitted Project Information

Report Date 04/2007 Reporting Period Feb - Apr 2007

Project Name Kansas StreamLink Watershed Stewards Part 2

KDHE Project # 2005-0084

Project Start 11/2006 Project End 12/2008

Project Management

1. Did the Project Management Team meet during this quarter? Yes

1a. When did they Meet? 01/05/2007 Enter date mm/dd/yyyy

1b. How many attended?

4

1c. How long did the meeting last? 3

2. Summarize any significant project management issues from the quarter? > The KVHA Board of Directors has primary oversight of the StreamLink program. Our last board meeting was January 5, 2007. Our nextmeeting will be scheduled between May and June of 2007. Budgetingand staffing was the primary focus of the meeting. Funding constraintshave meant eliminating all paid intern positions.

Christine Boller has made a solid transition into the role of StreamLink Program Director. (Travis Daneke took a more lucrative position withKDHE last December; Christine has been a Project Assistant at KVHA since the fall of 2005.) Alison Reber continues to be involved with grantadministration and program development. Over the last few years we'veinvested a significant amount of time strengthening our volunteer pool.


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We now have about 10 consistent volunteers helping with events,partner and program development.

>The planning committee for the Basic Stream Assessment Workshopsmet in April. The workshops are scheduled to be held in Wichita (June

21st & 22nd) and Marysville (July 25th & 26th) - both within WRAPSareas. The City of Wichita is partnering with us to provide the workshoplocation and support from Vaughn Weaver, the city's aquatic biologist.The Marshall County Conservation District is providing assistance withplanning and organizing the July event. Additional input for theMarysville training is coming from the Konza Chapter of the Oregon-California Trails Association.smile

>The planning committee for the Wakarusa Wetlands Program metseveral times during this quarter. In collaboration with KVHA and theKansas Biological Survey, the Jayhawk Audubon Society (JAS) obtained a$4,000 grant from the Elizabeth Schultz Environmental Education Fund.The grant helps cover the costs of providing upper elementary classroomfacilitated field trips at Baker Wetlands. A portion of the grant is forpreparing and mentoring interns to assist with events. The field tripseries is part of a broader concept to increase the publics understandingof wetland function, restoration, and creation.smile

>A planning committee has formed for developing a digital walking tour

of a watershed using Hidden Valley Camp for Girl Scouts. Severalpreliminary meetings have been held and photo shoots were doneduring the early spring. K-State Forestry is providing technical supportfor riparian zone content; the City of Lawrence is providing technicalsupport for stormwater impact content. The tour focuses on differentplant communities in a watershed including native grasses, woodlands,and wetlands. Upstream landuse impacts on the evolution of streammorphology and habitat restoration will also be part of the tour.

>A planning meeting for future collaborations was held with theUniversity of Kansas' Environmental Studies & Geography DepartmentsChair, Dr. Bill Wood, Haskell University Sequoah GIS Lab Manager, JohnKoestlenick, Kansas Biological Survey Aquatic Ecologist, Paul Liechti,Education Technology Doctoral Candidate, Dana Atwood-Blaine, andInformation Systems Specialist, Bob Burkhart. Discussion centered onpotential watershed mapping and other hands-on information gatheringlearning projects.


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I & E

1. What Number of Notification Tools were used this

quarter? 20

Notification Tool When Used (mm/dd/yyyy)

# Contacted

Brochures/pamphlets 02/20/2007 5 E-mail 03/03/2007 15 Conference 03/15/2007 15 E-mail 02/01/2007 350 List Serve 02/01/2007 70 News Story 02/20/2007 Sign 02/23/2007 10 One-on-one Contact 03/30/2007 10 Exhibit 04/17/2007 100 Exhibit 04/21/2007 600 Sign 04/07/2007 10 Exhibit 04/11/2007 150 Exhibit 04/13/2007 100 Brochures/pamphlets 04/17/2007 25 Poster 04/17/2007 50 Exhibit 04/20/2007 100 Exhibit 04/21/2007 600 Brochures/pamphlets 04/21/2007 75 Newsletter 04/21/2007 20 Newsletter 03/15/2007 150

2. How many Educational Materials were Produced

this quarter? 12

Educational Material # Produced # Distributed Date Distributed (mm/dd/yyyy)

Poster 10 10 02/23/2007 Newsletter 15 15 03/03/2007 Exhibit Display

1

1

04/11/2007 Exhibit Display 1 1 04/13/2007

Exhibit Display 1 1 04/17/2007 Exhibit Display 1 1 04/20/2007 Exhibit Display 1 1 04/20/2007 Poster 10 10 04/07/2007 Poster 25 25 03/30/2007 Web Site 2 500 03/15/2007


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Web Site 4 650 03/15/2007 Web Site 3 3561 03/15/2007

3. How many Educational Events took place this

quarter? 18

Educational Event Event Date (mm/dd/yyyy)

# Attendees

Water Sampling 02/01/2007 2 Water Sampling 02/08/2007 2 Water Sampling 02/22/2008 2 Tour/Field Day 02/21/2007 2 Focus Group 02/06/2007 4 Press Release 02/20/2007 2 Water Festival 04/13/2007 100

Focus Group 02/23/2007 4 Focus Group 03/02/2007 4 Workshop 03/03/2007 15 Conference 03/15/2007 200 Water Sampling 03/08/2007 2 Water Sampling 03/29/2007 2 Workshop 04/07/2007 6 Water Festival 04/11/2007 150

2. Summarize the I/E activities from the quarter

>In January StreamLink began working with a student intern fromHaskell Indian Nations University. Jason Koontz is a Senior in theEcology Program. He will be field testing the volunteer stormwatermonitoring protocols we've been developing in collaboration with theCity of Lawrence. Mr. Koontz will be monitoring stormwater runoff coming off of a major through-fare, water exiting a newly createdstormwater detention wetland, and water exiting an established wetland.He has been accumulating his data and submitting it to StreamLink andthe City of Lawrence regularly. Mr. Koontz also represented StreamLink at the Water and the Future of Kansas Conference in March.

>StreamLink hasestablished a relationship with the Kansas Trails Council. KTC works on avariety of trail systems statewide. KTC, along with the Corps of Engineers, the John Dewey Learning Academy, the Lawrence Dog Park Community, and the City of Lawrence Parks and Rec, have partneredwith us on several projects in the Clinton Lake area. We anticipatecompleting a half-mile stretch of trail at the Coon Creek area. The trail


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will help facilitate continued community involvement with the CoonCreek wetland restoration. Additional streambank tree plantings areplanned. (*A photo storyboard of the Coon Creek restoration project hasbeen created and archived online at Bubbleshare.com. Several hundredpeople have viewed the presentation. *We have met several times with

a KSU graduate student working on an auto tour of the Wakarusawatershed. Our hope is to have the area included as a stop in the tour.

Access to the site highlights the breadth of ecosystems from bluff tobluff of a stream channel. Additionally visitors will be able to watch thewetland go through the stages of restoration.)

A second trail-building project is underway along a stretch of theWakarusa River east of Clinton Lake. This area is heavily used by avariety of interests including fishermen, picnickers, whitewater rafters,and dog owners. Over time surge waters have undercut portions of theriverbank and amplified tensions as dog owners either chose theprecarious highroad or the river. The latter puts the dogs at risk forfishhook injury, aggravates fishermen and picnickers. The alternate trailswill also help prevent further riverbank damage by safely divertingstormwaters. We are very excited and encouraged by the grassrootscooperation these diverse groups have demonstrated in order toalleviate tensions among river users.

>We continue to recruit volunteer interns through the University of Kansas, the Roger Hill Volunteer Center, and the general public. InFebruary we held an open house for volunteers to meet each other, talk

about the KVHA/SL projects they're involved with, and plan out how tocoordinate endeavors. E-bulletins have been going out and severaldifferent web applications for group planning have been trialed.Knowledge management has been one of our biggest challenges withhaving a sustainable volunteer program. Volunteers will be able toconduct record searches and sorts, add and update contact information,and collaborate on event management. SalesForce donated a 10-userlicense for the non-profit version of their web-based customerrelationship management application. Unfortunately we were not able toroll our (highly-customized) database into SalesForce without significantpreparation and programming. When the system was introduced tovolunteers for fresh data entry, it turned out to require more trainingthan was feasible.

We are now trialling a beta-version web-based relational databaseapplication called Zoho Creator. It is similar to Microsoft Access but canbe simultaneously accessed remotely and does not require specificsoftware. Although the layout and coding are a bit clunky, the whole


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system is less complicated than Microsoft Access and real-timeinformation can be embedded in websites. Programming for the customfields has been fairly straightforward. Part of what volunteers have donethis quarter is recruiting other volunteers to help with specific events.We'll reevaluate the usability of the interface design after the spring

rush.

BMP Implementation

1. Enter Information for each BMP implemented this quarter

Cooperator HUC 14 BMP Qty Unit HI

City of Lawrence 10270104 Recreation Trail/Walkway - 568 500 LinearFoot Hidden Valley Camp for GirlScouts 10270104 Erosion Control Blanket - 011 10 Acre

Hidden Valley Camp for GirlScouts 10270104

Streambank and ShorelineProtection - 580 10 Acre

John Dewey LearningAcademy 10270104010070 Recreation Trail/Walkway - 568 500

LinearFoot

Kansas StreamLink 10270104010070 Streambank and ShorelineProtection - 580 100 LinearFoot

Kansas Trails Council 10270104010070 Recreation Area Improvement - 562 20 Acre KVHA 10270104010070 Recreation Area Improvement - 562 20 Acre

2. Summarize BMP activities from this quarter Hidden Vally Camp - buffer replacement; habitat restorationKansas Trails Council - mountain bike trail development; preventsstreambank damage in lands adjacent to Clinton LakeCity of Lawrence - streambank trail enhancement for stormwaterprotection along Wakarusa RiverKVHA - post-burn cleanup

Kansas StreamLink, et al - tree plantingJohn Dewey Learning Academy, et al - trail development

Other


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Mudscapes will be conducted in targeted areas. Please specifiy these targeted areas

and the approximate number of mudscape activities conducted in the grant period.

Describe accomplishments to date

Mudscapes is just finishing a busy April, with many Earth Daycelebrations. We were invited to take part in the following festivals;Franklin County (150 students), Hillsdale(100),Wabaunsee Co (notattended due to sickness)and Dickinson County (100 students).Normally, we would have attended more festivals, but had to turndown a few festivals due to staffing constraints and calendarconflicts. Thankfully, there have been volunteers to lend a hand.We are also prioritizing WRAPS areas for our Mudscapes events.

Additionally, we are requesting funds (through StreamLink membership) to help curtail travel expenses. The popularity of

Mudscapes among festival coordinators, teachers and students ishigh. Fortunately, most understand that it is a labor intensive activitythat requires a lot of gas and extra hands to stage.

*Additional events not listed: Water Festival, 4/20/07, 100 students,Water Festival, 600 attendees, and Stream Cleanup, 4/28/07, 100attendees.

Please describe in detail how KVHA has addressed historical grant funding gaps.

Describe accomplishments to date Partner and program development continue to stengthen our abilityto procur alternative grant funding. We are following up on leadswith the National Park Service,the Kan-Ed Network, the KansasHumanities Council, and other grantors. Donation and membershipgrowth have been steady. Catfish Cookies was released in Marchand has been generating sales revenue.

A condition of this grant will be that affidavits and status reports will be submitted on

a quarterly basis via the Kansas Clean Water System.

Describe accomplishments to date

We believe that providing a more robust detailing of StreamLink planning and progress will clarify the activity level of KVHA staff members. In addition to providing information through this reportingsystem, we will be publishing our reports and archiving our activities


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through web-based repositories such as Flickr, Scribd, andSlideshare. The information will be accessible through searchengines as well as directly from the StreamLink website.

sl 2007 1st quarter report

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