Anne Arundel
Waterway Restoration Alliance

Meeting Notes 2008-01-22

The annual AAWRA meeting for year 2008 @ South County Police Headquarters was called to order by President Bob Whitcomb.

Attendance: 16 individuals were present. Special guest, Jennifer Mook of Bayland

AAWRA first 2008 meeting began with an introduction from everyone present in the room.

President, Bob Whitcomb introduced himself, current president of AAWRA and that later tonight they will be voting for 3 AAWRA board positions which include his position. Bob asked the other AAWRA officers to give a recap of 2007.

Vice President, Paul Rickett reported that the Town Point DMP site consumed most of the year and had a major impact on nearly all scheduled dredging projects in Anne Arundel County. After numerous monthly meetings with the AA County DPW, Bayland and Advocates of Herring Bay, Town Point DMP has been salvaged for all dump material from Town Point, Broadwater Creek and half of the spoils from Carrs Creek. Work still in progress to finalize a DMP site for Carrs Creek. Town Point DMP was originally designed to be Anne Arundel County main DMP site for a large number of up coming dredging projects. Paul stated that AAWRA should focus with the county on locating new DMP sites and revamping current DMP sites.

Treasurer Jay Phillips reported there are currently 11 communities, 1 corporation, 3 individuals and 5 lifetime active members in AAWRA. Currently, there is around $2500 in funds which will go to completing the 501c4 process. Request was made of renewal to all communities and individual membership be turned in for FY 2008 membership.

Bob Whitcomb stated that 3 board positions are up for election at this time; President Bob Whitcomb, Treasure Jay Phillips and Board Member Vern Penner. Motion was made and 2nd for each one.s re-election. Discussion or floor nominations were asked for.  None were made and all three were voted unanimously for re-election to the AAWRA board for full terms written in the AAWRA by-laws. 

AAWRA continues to have quarterly meetings with AA DPW Chief Engineer Chris Phipps for progress reports on all AA County Waterway projects. The first meeting is schedule for tomorrow morning. The Environmental Program Manager position for the Anne Arundel County Waterway program is still vacant. A candidate has been selected but currently there is an AA county hiring freeze.

AAWRA communicated in advance of the Special Legislative Session last fall, and received a response from Speaker Michael Busch to keep the State Waterway fund intact. The Session was concluded with no change to the Waterway Fund, and we are cautiously optimistic that it will also go smoothly through the regular Legislative Session just begun. At this time there does not seem to be a need for any major lobbying effort in this Session, although AAWRA will request again for a presentation time to one of the County Delegation meeting.

The loss of legislative contacts from 2006 elections still requires attention to identify a new contact or contacts that would represent our cause. An attempt to contact a couple of local area legislators will be made to schedule meetings with AAWRA officers.

Possible focus for AAWRA 2008 is the boat count measure used by DNR for ranking and funding projects from the Maryland Waterway Improvement Fund. Some ideas suggested for campaign for the funding formula included; to take into consideration commercial waterman, marina.s, additional usage of creek by extended family and friends and recreation use by kayaks and canoes. Also suggested is maybe work on increasing dollar amount per boat in boat count formula and research what/if are other states formulas. An attempt 2 years ago was made by AAWRA to address boat count. It was agreed that legislative contacts are needed before moving forward.

Boat count formula appears to have officially started in fall of 2005 when the Dredging Program Manual was last updated. The DNR waterway fund is a collection of funds generated by boater taxes to be used for Chesapeake Bay watershed and Deep Creek Lake projects. The boat count is done on site during an inspection by County or contractor personnel.

The Storm Water Consortium is seeking support from AAWRA in its efforts for storm water management. Currently they are working on passing a bill for every home to be charged a storm water utility fee with an opt-out clause. Much discussion on should AAWRA at this time jump into the debates on this issue. The general consensus was that stream runoff management issues might be a better arena for AAWRA, and for us not to get active on Storm water issues at this time.

Miscellaneous notes:

  • suggestion of marina support for AAWRA and will be researched,
  • AA waterway funding is a part of the Anne Arundel Capital Budget,
  • Army Corps of Engineering funding is all but gone and that Maryland is having to pick up on funding federal waterway projects,
  • Parish Creek did get federal funding for engineering design,
  • Chesapeake Bay Trust is a good place to try to get waterway grants for small creek projects,
  • dredging permits are good for 5 or 6 years in case there is a need for maintenance dredging and the communities are responsible for this type of dredging,
  • Bayland to provide list of grant funding organizations.

Attending were: 

Bob Whitcomb
Paul Rickett
Jennifer Mook	
Trish Gardner			
Ron Nicholson
Peter Tango		
Carl Mauck
Jay Phillips
Mike Geers
Geoff Thomas
Juliet Page
Chris Reinert
Elisa Moore
Karen Jennings
Juliet Page
Nick Stoer
Jimmy Rogan

AAWRA Board Meeting

AAWRA board members held its board meeting immediately after the AAWRA general meeting. The Board of Directors meeting was called to order by Bob Whitcomb for voting of AAWRA officers. Nominations were made for Bob Whitcomb as President, Paul Rickett as Vice President, Jay Phillips as Treasure and Lisa Moore as Secretary. Each motion was made and 2nd with a full vote taken and all unanimously passed.