MEETING MINUTES

Mid-Atlantic Exotic Pest Plant Council

Thursday, March 9, 2000

10:00 - 4:00

Meeting was held at Maryland Department of Agriculture in Annapolis, Maryland

In attendance were:

1.       Faith Campbell, American Land Alliance, Co-Chair
2.       Art Gover, PA State University, Roadside Vegetation Management
3.       Betsy Lyman, The Nature Conservancy, Pennsylvania Chapter
4.       Bob Trumbule, Maryland Dept Agriculture, Plant Protection and Weed Mgmt.
5.       Bruce Knott, Maryland State Highways Administration, Land Operations Division
6.       Carol Jelich, Maryland Native Plant Society
7.       Carole Bergmann, Maryland National Capital Parks and Planning Commission
8.       Daniel Barringer, Natural Lands Trust
9.       Deborah Schwab, Maryland Chapter of American Society of Landscape Architects
10.    Elmer Dengler, USDA NRCS (State Office MD)
11.    Fred Grau, Atlantic Seedsmens Association, American Seed Trade Association
12.    Jennifer Kujawski, USDA NRCS, National Plant Materials Center
13.    Joe Garuey, PA Dept. of Agriculture / Association of American Seed Control Officials
14.    Jon Johnson, PA State University, Roadside Vegetation Management
15.    Karen Budd, The Nature Conservancy, Pennsylvania chapter
16.    Ken Oristaglio, VA Dept. of Transportation, Environmental Division
17.    Kerrie Kyde, Hood College for Catoctin Mountain Park
18.    Lane Heimer, Maryland Dept. of Agriculture
19.    Lisa Smith, Western Pennsylvania Conservancy
20.    Lois Capshaw, MD Dept. of Agriculture , MD State Seed Testing Lab
21.    Louisa Thompson, Maryland Native Plant Society, Patapsco Valley State Park
22.    Marc Imlay, Maryland Native Plant Society
23.    Sam Lindblom, The Nature Conservancy (Virginia Chapter)
24.    Shannon Cauley, Louis Berger Group
25.    Sue Wolfe, Hawk Mountain Sanctuary
26.    Wayne Tyndall, Maryland DNR
27.    Donnelle Keech, The Nature Conservancy (Maryland/DC Chapter) took minutes

Old Business

1.      Bylaws & Incorporation

We reviewed and discussed changes made in January, and discussed some additional changes.  Lisa Smith will incorporate changes and redistribute the draft bylaws. 

One major issue still remains to be resolved: how to insure representation of states and constituencies on the Board of Directors.  All interested should be sure to review draft bylaws and prepare for final discussion at the next meeting.  We plan to vote on the bylaws at the 5/17/00 meeting.

We continued to discuss incorporating and gaining 501(3)(c) status through affiliation with Southeast EPPC.  We discussed pros (cheaper, less work) and cons (perception of compromised autonomy/independence, could we be linked legally in case of a lawsuit?).  Noted that other regional EPPCs are joining (i.e. Michigan).

Question of whether SE EPPC would want payments of some kind was raised.  Also, some discussion of what SE EPPC's incentive/motivation for this offer is.  Seemed to be generally accepted that they are sincerely committed to fostering EPPCs in other parts of the county. 

STRAW VOTE:  We took a straw vote, and among those in attendance there was good support for seriously considering incorporating through SE EPPC.

Lisa Smith is going to represent MA EPPC at an upcoming SE EPPC symposium and board meeting, and will ask the questions that we have raised in our discussions.  She will report back by email, we hope to be able to make a decision on this at the next meeting.

2.      Reports from Committees

Technical Support for volunteer weed removal projects (Louisa Thompson)

Second season of Conservation Stewardship Project at Patapsco Valley State Park began in April.  Implementing 3 phase model - orientation, conservation work (with major focus on exotic species control) and recording information on observations and actions taken.  Developing training materials for volunteer leaders - hopefully dovetailing with work of Jil Swearingen. 

Working with another group to have a big public workday (competitive garlic mustard pulling, along roadsides)

REMINDER:  As chair of this committee, Louisa is acting as a clearinghouse for information about volunteer weed control projects.  Send her any information about projects you or others are working on, and contact her if you would like to find a project.

Other projects:

Sue Wolf at Hawk Mountain: they are having a stilt grass SWAT team workday

Carole Berman of M-NCPPC:  Weed Warriors in Montgomery County parks; she produced a brochure, has been training and outfitting volunteers to do weed control work in the park of interest to them; then setting them loose, asking them to track their hours;  she currently has 25 volunteers, is going to try to convert this core group into volunteer leaders.  Carole has also produced a slide show for use in training park staff.

Karen Budd:  at beginning stages of exotics education program in Township - she contributed an article on the issue to the Township Newsletter, and they are planning to develop a brochure.

Marc Imlay and the Maryland Native Plant Society: have been working with success on Microstegium at Chapmans Forest and Swan Park, using a combination of chemical and mechanical methods.

Regional List

John Beckman, who had been chair and only active member of this committee, had changed jobs and will not longer be able to participate in EPPC activities.  Need to reestablish working committee, and determine process for going forward.  The following individuals volunteered to serve on a new list committee, and to meet briefly after the close of the meeting to determine a plan of action:

Carol Jelich
Lane Heimer/Bob Trumbule
Bruce Knott (for Don Cober)
Fred Grua
Art Gover
Jennifer Kujawski/ Elmer Dengler
Donnelle Keech (or other TNC  rep)
Faith Campbell

relevant note:   VA legislature recently passed legislation placing purple loosestrife on the VA noxious week list

Compatible Databases

Nancy Benton reported through Betsy Lyman that there is nothing new to report from TNC HO/ABI. 

There is an intern at the PA Science Office working on a negative database (i.e. occurrences of bad things). 

The Deleware Invasive Species Council has developed a database - Don Eggin is the contact (Bob Trubule has contact information).

3.      Weed Awareness Week

Kerrie Kyde presented a poster on work at Catoctin Mountain National Park at poster session at USDA. Received good feedback, made some new contacts.

4.      Millersville Conference

Native Plants in the Landscape - 10^th anniversary conference;  June 10, 11, 12, 2000; near Harrisburg, PA.  For conference brochures and more information contact Betsy Lyman.

There is tabling space, would be a great forum to spread the word about EPPC.  For this (and many other applications) decision made to develop a simple brochure!! (Carol Jelich volunteered to draft content, Bob Trumbule said he could handle photocopying)

5.      Weed Conference

This is the second annual conference (first was the Nov 3-4 conf. held at Swathmore) jointly organized by The Nature Conservancy (PA Chapter) and the Morris Arboretum.   Conference is targeted for Fall 2001.  They are looking for funding (ideas/help raising money and/or contributions from our organizations).  They also need minds and bodies to contribute to the Steering Committee (this can take form of actually serving on committee, or contributing ideas and suggestions).

6.      Media Outreach

Several ideas for media outreach outlets were discussed:

• Environmental New Network - Carole Bergmann will check it out and report back
• Earth Day Network - can post events here
• ESA.org (that's the Ecological Society of America) - recently posted a 15-20 page summary of monographs on invasive species; Carole Bergmann says another similar article in a nurseryman's journal.
• Another thought use email instead of press releases, it is less work.

7.      Outreach to relevant economic activities

Identified several professional associations which have newsletters:

LCA (??)
MNA (Maryland Nurseryman's Association)
ASLA (American Society of Landscape Architects)
ANLA (American Nurseryman and Landscapers Association)

Use websites and/or Co-op extension service to get contacts for submitting articles (Kerrie Kyde and Bob Trumbule volunteered to compile mailing list.)

Also consider:

turf associations
production agriculture side (Farm Bureau, Grange, NRCS, MASCD (?)

Fred Grau suggested these, and has contacts.

NEW BUSINESS

8.      Election of new Co-Chair

Request for nominees and volunteers. Kerrie Kyde nominated, but no decision reached.

9.      Announcements

• Faith has been nominated to serve on the Invasive Species Advisory Committee (created under the Executive Order to advise the Invasive Species Council - council of 15 federal agencies).  Committee has 6 working groups, working on the national plan which is supposed to be ready in August 2000.  Committee had one meeting in July, second meeting was snowed out.
• Rick Johnstone (of Connective) posted message recently about pesticide recertification course, open to all.
• Chesapeake 2000 Agreement: A Watershed Partnership. Draft distributed.  Public comment period open until March 31, 2000. Plan mentions exotic species, but mostly in context of aquatic systems.  Carol Jelich brought Agreement to our attention, encourages us to comment, requesting that exotic species be added as an issue to sections on terrestrial habitat protection and restoration.
• Kerrie Kyde initiated discussion of slide library, or some such method of making images (or even prepared slide shows) of exotic species available to anyone doing educational presentations.  (this need was seconded by others)  Donnelle Keech suggested that a volunteer recruited and supervised through her office might be able to make a slide library happen; Kerrie and Donnelle volunteered to work together to make this happen.
• The Land Trust Alliance has brochures on exotic species available; contact Dan Barringer.

10.Next Meeting

The next MA EPPC meeting will be Wednesday May 17, 2000 in The Nature Conservancy's Pennsylvania Field office in Conshohoken, PA.