Rogers Lake Authority - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call the meeting to order at 730. So, Erica, are you on?

I am. Hello.

Hi. Erica, everyone is here except Candace.

Okay, perfect.

Thank you very much. And we have no visitors.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. And happy summer.

Yes, you are.

So I don't know if you've had a chance to read the minutes from the prior meeting of June 10th. I did. I didn't have any corrections. Does anybody have any corrections or adjustments to the meeting? I'd ask for a motion to approve the meeting minutes from June 10th.

I'll second that.

All in favor, aye.

Aye.

The ayes have it. Thank you. Moving on to a review of the expenses for the month of June. I think I handed that out. That's the one that's landscape. So under the period expenditure column, we have the normal clerical fees. Seasonal employment has started to kick in. The H2O testing expenses were the startup costs that Joel submitted for his supplies. The salaneous other, forget what that is. Oh, well, excuse me. And the phone. No, the phone's down actually in boat expenses. Yeah. And that 179 is just gas and we needed a new gas can. The phone was $28 is in that 179. There is about of $400 in expenses that aren't in this number that will probably hit because they were incurred in June. The bills haven't gone out and been paid yet. We have a new prop for 215. We were training a gentleman and he, well, anyhow, we dinged the prop first week out. So this is, we have a prop on it. So this prop is a spare

I don't know.

Yes, it was a rock. They were coming into Haynes Park area. And Mark, the trainee was driving. Mark wasn't situationally aware of where they were. And they should have stayed in the center. It's fairly shallow going into Haynes Park. And they hit a rock.

Rock right off of Ramble Island.

Yeah. Also, somehow over the same weekend, or a couple of weekends ago, the keys got lost in the locker. We have the keys and the phones and all of that going on top of the tanks in the cabinet. The fuel cans And it turned up, it was there Thursday night when Mark was done. We didn't have anybody for Friday or Saturday. Sunday when John came in, he couldn't find the keys. So long story short, I listed Dennis Overfield and Dennis was able to reach around inside the cabinet and reinstall a new key set for $112. That's the parts, not his labor. So I owe him a bottle of something.

Who has access to that, Justice?

Anybody in the boat house.

Which is why I asked, is it a lockable thing?

Yeah, it's not a lockable thing. And it, I mean, what is odd is there was a phone right on top right there as well. So if someone was just taking things to take something, you would have taken the phone, I would think.

They don't have phones.

Taking keys to a boat that I... But they didn't joyride. The boat's still there.

Yes.

Well, it's not good. Now they can't use it. Yeah, because the keys don't work anymore.

Good, good, good.

It's totally weird. I don't know what happened.

Was it labeled on the keychain?

Yes.

Someone accidentally walked off with it. They figured that.

Yeah, I thought what happened is somebody assumed it was the boat launches, the crew launches. So I went down Monday morning and talked to the crew people and said, you know, where do you keep your keys? And it wasn't with their keys either. So it wasn't like someone had accidentally misplaced it. I don't know what happened. We should maybe think about getting a locked box. But then people have to remember the keys for that.

We already have people having competition.

Yeah.

Um, you could have just fallen in the water.

No, I, I, um, the key has, uh, a float.

Yeah.

Um, and Mark swears, he put it in the cabinet. So, um, anyhow, and there's another $71 in gas. Outstanding. So, uh, To the total expenditures for the year 30,096, there'll be an additional 400 that will accrue to that. Since we're talking budgets, I'd like to, or talking about numbers, I'd like to sort of take a look at where we are for the budget for next year. Our budget was I think I mentioned this before, but I got the notice where our budget's formally approved to $57,350. We have a carryover that I applied for last year that we haven't used yet for the weed treatment and survey. And we have another $5,850 that I'm going to ask to carry over from this year. So we'd have a total of $22,000 1,900 if the new carryover is approved. Down below, we have what I expect, what right now I know we will be spending. The survey, they did the survey today, and that's 1,700.

Yeah. Joe, will you read that?

No, they came down. They didn't have the airboat. They came down in a regular boat and there were two guys. They're supposed to do the whole lake. I'm sure they did.

What are you thinking? I have no foil. I do too. You have a ton of it. I do too.

You know, if They're all will get the results back shortly. I will send it out to everybody if your area is included will have to go back and do it again. Because we know there's no flow there.

The same people as it was said new.

The general I there were 2 people. I just happened to be going by the gentleman I talked to that was near the The truck was new to me. There was somebody down. They'd launched one of their boats already. It wasn't Nick. I didn't get to talk to the other guy.

They're super thorough, the one timeline.

Yeah. I'm estimating the treatment that they'll do as a result of this survey is about $8,000. It could be more than that. We've asked to do a meander intercept survey in September. He originally estimated that at about $4,000. And then our permit application for next year is $400. So I know for sure we're going to be spending 14, one 50 or, or possibly a little more depending upon where that is.

So glad if we have 64, nine 50.

That money first, right? I think so. Additional carryover.

I think so. I'll have to talk to accounting about that. But yeah, I think so.

Sorry, I missed it. For the survey, the meander one. I didn't see that on your sheet. It's down at the bottom.

$4,000 on the bottom.

Okay. Okay. And Joel was kind enough to give me an estimate of what he expects his water testing, water quality testing and our DNA testing is going to be.

And his estimate comes out at 7,827. I just rounded it to 8,000.

You'll notice our budget for H2O testing is $14,600. So we have some additional room there. And thank you, Joel, for your work. And that really helps reduce our costs and gives us, if other things develop, we'll have some funds available.

What we're doing is really focusing on what's most important and from what Yale did, and then adding to that the eDNA work, then we'll see what brings the most value, but I can't be without that. Yeah, and Morgan's been extremely helpful. Good, good.

Can he get out there scooping up water and stuff?

Yeah. Okay. No, he does it with careful finesse.

When do the first samples get sent to Maine?

So the main samples were sent for eDNA analysis.

They were already sent?

Yeah, and it came back negative, which is good. And then we'll do that every month. So about the 17th of this month, we'll sample again. Cool. Those were sent overnight TEDx to Maine, inflated box with cold packs and they'd be out there frozen and all that. Sorry, I don't mean to.

No, I mean, it's on the agenda. We can talk about it now. So we've got that protocol worked out, how to do the samples, how to ship them and all of that.

And the analysts got the results the next day. Wow, that was fast.

Yeah.

And then for total nitrogen and total phosphorus sampling, from the streams, we can access five streams coming into the lake, and we do those after five days of dry weather. And that hurdle that I showed last time, we got down there and it worked out well. And then heavy rain, not the most recent heavy rain, but a few weeks ago, we measured after the inch of rain, and You could see it was lighter and taller from the streams. And so those samples, 11 in total, five dry stream, five wet stream, and one lake sample, we sent to Iowa State University. I sent that Monday by three-day express FedEx to save a little money, and that's with three cold jacks in there. So they'll get that tomorrow, and we'll see if those arrive. and they'll do those results. So four times a year, only three this year, we'll do the total nitrogen, total phosphorus shipments to Iowa, and then once a month, the shipment to Maine. And in addition to that water quality test, the so-called Secchi disk, the disk that's black and white, we got that from the Connecticut Deep Volunteer Program, That's signed out in my name on behalf of the lake. And Morgan and I tried that in kayaks. And we put this thing in the water and it just went that way. We were blowing one way, the current was going the other way. That didn't work. So I told Morgan to figure it out. And we went to the hard border store. He said, well, if I get this, I'll be able to attach weights on it and do that. He's got access to a motorboat that he and his friends put together. So he's gone out and done that. And he said that's working really well. I confirmed with Melissa, her last name, he runs that program. Is it okay that he puts in the official numbers? I said, I trained him. And she said, yes. So that's going. So we've got total nitrogen, total phosphorus on streams in the lake, water clarity on the lake, and ETNA. are what we're measuring. And we're not measuring sodium and potassium and chloride and all the things I don't think are necessary. Chlorophyll would be nice to have, but not convenient to do. So for the 8,000, I think we're doing what's most important, to keep track of it.

Jim, thank you so much.

Yeah, for putting this together.

Thank you, thank you.

Thanks very much. One other thing on budget while I think of it. I haven't seen the bill yet for the...

I haven't seen it either. I picked him up, the guy, Bill, who I work with. He wasn't available. So I have a note into him to ask him what the total was. I can tell you, but I think you had in here $4,200. Yeah.

Yeah, no, I'm sure I just wanted... I'd like to get the bill in so I can hit

Last time he sent it directly to the town.

Yeah.

If he does, I'll get the, I'll get the amount.

Okay. Yeah. Cause I checked with, um, I went over actually and checked the mailbox because I thought it had gone directly to the town once before. So, um, okay. Well, thanks.

Um, if I don't get from him in the morning, cause this was, it wasn't today. Okay.

Right.

So.

Okay. No, thank you. Just cause. I want to save the $4,200 we've got for this year and have that expense hit for last year. Okay. So that's it on expenditures. Patrol boat update. Bill Humphrey started on Friday before the 4th of July and then worked on... On Saturday, he towed a couple of people in.

Oh, he's a new guy.

Yeah.

Where'd he come from?

He lives down the street. He grew up on the lake. Oh, okay. He's retired. He always, Dave Evers recommended him.

That's cool.

And he knows the lake. Is everybody down here? Yeah.

Okay, now I know. I thought the name John was right. Now I know what it is.

Yeah.

Yeah. Linda's here.

He works Friday nights and Saturdays. He's going to miss a weekend in August because he is climbing a mountain in France on his bike. It's one of this particular mountains. Sometimes it's part of the Tour de France. 16 miles up that's good yeah that guy had one tour to france like three times yeah he was a people yeah he was on the team yeah okay um rapid response i was i just got to that today i sent you some some changes yeah um And if you could add that, I think we'll be pretty close with those two ads. And I hope my green, my red line, what comes, it comes through for you.

Not for me. I didn't open it. Okay. I opened it. I'll open it tomorrow. And I saw no, that's not your, I don't know.

I'll give you this.

Okay.

Is that.

You want this back?

no you can keep well let me tear off the back page that you'll start that you think that's that is a bigger change yeah those are my changes did you send the word document and not a link to it's a word document i said a word document because i'm the i can't get that link to work because it we don't have access yeah i think it went away yeah um so in terms of the boat launch monitor i've I've got Samantha hired. We're going to try to start this Saturday. It's taking a little longer than I thought to get that all together. Thank you.

The phone is inside.

Oh, okay.

So if she's just sitting there, she can separate them.

Okay.

Perfect. This is great.

Yeah, you did a really nice job. Thank you. So we'll see how that goes. I mean, I think next year when we know a little bit more about how to set it up and everything, I mean, I'd like to find more people. And if any of you have an idea of anybody that would like to do this, that would be helpful. There's two on Saturday. Yeah. The And these guys put their boats in the water at 6 o'clock in the morning.

Yeah.

So, you know, we've got it started at 7, and that's what our license is for. I think we need to, as we make this, you know, as we learn from this, we'll ask for an expanded program, and then we've got to figure out a way to find more people.

Does this start at 4 p.m.? It ends at 4 p.m.

Right.

So, oh, but there's no monitor then.

Right. Well, we...

In the future, is there a way for us, you know, like next year, to... We can't tell these tournaments you must start in that... Oh, we have no control. No control.

No, no, no, no.

Can't suggest? Okay.

No. We would have to show a huge reason why.

Okay. Even the one on the 12th and the one on the 21st, If the person, if Samantha starts at seven, they're starting their tournament at seven. So they're putting in the water 630, 645.

No, I know. I mean, I can try for a modification to our license. As far as I know, we're the first ones to have a license outside of, I think it's done some others, but for most of the other boat launches have monitors that are actually hired by the state. So we're unusual in that we have our own monitor at a state boat launch. I'll see if I can expand the hours, but then I've got to find people that are willing to get up at 6 o'clock in the morning on a Saturday.

How much do they make?

$25.

Yeah.

I don't know. I haven't had a lot of takers.

Not minimum wage. Well, yeah.

So that's where we are. No, I think I can check to see if... if we could modify those because people were starting so early. I did reach out along those lines to, you know, we'd like a sign on the hydrilla at the boat launch. And the state is determining how to respond to these requests. So they'll get back to me. Yeah, we're not the only ones.

But I sent them their approved

sign. So I I am at a loss to know what the problem is that.

The sign like we saw it when Mike or which is if you haven't or the.

Now the one that's actually this way, you know. So this one. It has been approved by chairs in the state basically.

Yeah, good. We have the box that we can just have that I mean all they have to do is say okay yeah and maybe give us parameter it can't be any larger than X by X. I asked her for the size I suggested, but I thought would be good, but you know. Because we can put it right on the same. sign.

Right, I have done is taken this to staples. And had a 24 by 36 one put on like a poster board. So while we're there, we can put it out.

Nice.

Did it come out nicely?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, they sent me a 4-meg PDF. So it came out, actually. I was surprised how nice it came out. I don't know if you can see it. No, Connecticut Federation of Labor will do that.

So could we take that sign, knowing that we're turning on Saturday and another one slowly on Sunday, could that sign be posted?

Our license specifically prohibits us leaving anything, yeah. We're supposed to have stuff there while we're there and then gone. Yeah, we'll put them up while we're there.

It's a town property that's just off the boat launch property that it could properly.

Yeah, I don't know who owns the curb. Right. I mean, if it's triple and I don't know who Yeah, we could try posting it there.

Yeah, as you go out to bowl lunch, you can mention that alongside the channel so we can see it as you go out. Yeah. I don't think there's state complaining about that.

If you... It's at the end of Avenue B off of Hickory. is where those properties are on the other side of the boat.

But to the parking lot.

No, no, no, no. They're crossed. I mean, the problem with that is the boat's already in by then.

Right.

I mean, we could. The best place to do it and see if they complain, they complain would be to put it on the way in. you know, right as you turn in.

There was some, do you mean on the road?

Yeah. Yeah, right, you know, on the grass part.

Do you have a sign that says boat launch?

Right there, no, because where the sign says boat launch.

Yeah.

Yeah.

in the town on 25 feet not yeah yeah well we just played um they say no you gotta take a bath they're always up to the town oh you know yeah we all live in the town 25 feet or 20 feet or whatever um because um because that's what we think anyway um

I don't know the gentleman who lives across the boat launch. He's an older gentleman. I think he was about four.

Yeah, but that, you need...

It's already in the water, like they said.

Yeah, no, it's already in the water, I think.

No, on the boat, on Grassy Hill.

Oh, on Grassy Hill, yeah.

You could stick it in my yard, but...

I couldn't do any good. No, no. We really need it at the boat. That's where someone stopped and can actually see it. As you're pulling in, you're going to see there's a sign invasive hydrilla, and you're just going to drive right by it, right?

Oh, you mean drive right by and not put the boat in?

No, just drive right by. You're there. You want to get out on the water. You pull in. You know, you're not going to stop and redefine. I'm not so sure they stop and see the sign that's right next to where they're putting their boat in. Anyhow, so that's where we are.

Would it be worth calling some of the people from DEEP who we've led at conferences who are friendly and responsive and say, hey, we've got two tournaments coming Saturday. If we could put this up on Friday, it sure would help the cause, which we're all interested in, and just see if we can expedite this.

Before I go over her head, I would... Well, no, actually, this would be Krista, because she will go... I'd like to ask Krista how tough it is to modify these, because I don't want to do something that I don't want to jeopardize doing this in the future.

You're right.

So, you know, we went, we probably went, I went too conservative on the first application, but it hadn't been done before, so.

There's going to be other boats that are coming. There's a lot of strange boats on the lake that don't live here. Yeah, no, I know. A lot. Yep.

Yeah.

They're not local.

The trainings that I went to, this might have been Yolanda running it. She emphasized how the sign that says Hydrilla, like we saw at Twin Lakes, that's only if you have it. We don't want that sign. And I don't know if she had a clear answer of what you do if you don't have that, but she seemed to be up on the question. I mean, this was like months ago.

Well, I sent her this. She has this. And this is concerned about, you know, not if you had it, but keeping it out. So she knows the intent of the sign. I think it is... You know, deep, even when we did get our own sign, we bought the sign and got it delivered and they put it in. So I think they're figuring out how they want to, you know, if they've got a bunch of different people wanting to do this, how they're going to support getting the signs placed in. I don't, I'm just guessing. I don't know what their...

I wish they started that thought process six months ago.

Yeah. So I will talk to Krista and see if when we can expand what we do and our ability to have signage there and stuff. And I will talk to Krista about our ability to alter our time that we're there.

Yes. Thank you.

And then I think we'll have to wait for Yolanda to get back to us on the signs. So I think moving along to a new business, you know, these are the fishing tournaments that are coming up. The next items on the agenda actually were at Candice's request. She just wondered about, you know, open water swimmers to use swim buoys. I checked as far as I could in DEET, and they have no regulations about free open water swimming. We could put it on our website. We highly recommend that open water swimmers have it.

We put it in the newsletter.

Yeah. So I don't know much we can do there.

And the one that seems running.

Yeah, yeah. Chopper question that position of the sandbar boy. We put that in I don't know everybody seems to think it should be in a different place. Thank you.

I don't know that we knew that we would buy we didn't read the coordinates are

get you close. I mean, it's not like, you know, it's within 30 or 30 feet or so.

I mean, you can see the sand.

We saw the sand. I mean, we put it in, we were using Dick's depth finder to position where it was, but you usually have felt that it's okay.

Okay.

What do you, are you comfortable where it is?

I'd take it a little more outward. It's me. You mean toward the island?

Okay. I mean, I'm... You can walk around, really. Yeah, and just find it. Yeah. You can do that, too. Um... What?

Why would Candace... The roads don't go down. They're always closer to the island than to the mouth of the boat launch.

I'm just going to put another one like we did before. We had two of them out there on the sandbox. Yeah. What do you think they did? They moved between them.

Yeah. Yeah. When you set up your prop concession just down there. Yeah. It was funny.

Just quickly, if it's okay, back to the science. PB, David Ensign & This is a screenshot I got from the training session, which was learning about boat launch monitoring. PB, David Ensign & And one of these is labeled new is signed with clean drain dry message, but it doesn't say anything about hydrilla and then the one on the right is the one we've seen that talks about hydrilla so I think. Dave Kuntz, Just put you just showed as far better than the one on the left.

Karen Hollweg, On the back of that.

Karen Hollweg, Right yeah no it's inspect everything well it's sort of the same message. Karen Hollweg, yeah this. Karen Hollweg, I got a copy of I got a poster made of the clean dry inspection thing as well that. Yeah, it's about half the size to go along with it. So what what do you use.

Well, then you're one of the left is evidently the new sign that deep approves. But I don't think that the fact that the one that we have here that focuses on. Yeah, that might be part of the whole of it.

I'll I'll see if I can find it. I'll find a sign on their website. See if I can get a copy of it. Oh, it's got a little, did you send this to me? So I can reference it.

Yeah, pass it around to people.

No problem, yeah.

Just a screenshot.

Okay. So, no, I'll check into that.

I can also ask Yolanda what their issues are. I think it's fair to say we're really scared. Yeah. I mean, we care about this, and this is what we want to do.

I understand.

I know we all know that, but maybe... Well, I think, you know...

That look I'm I'm guessing.

But it'd be you know that the that bill 5525.

And that gave deep. And a whole lot of things to to do. So they might be trying to gear up on how to respond to the bill as well as everything else you. But. Just one last thing. We have permission now to apply for our water diversion permit. Which means you know the give this formal approval to have the right to open close the gate. I have. And the permit and things will cost us some money.

I was going to say what the application usually has a fee.

There's a $3,000 fee. 10 years, I hope.

It's a long time. Yeah.

I have reserved from prior years $6,888 in capital funds to the sluice gate and carry over from we first proposed this. So That will continue. So we have some funds to cover that cost.

They keep carrying over, carrying over.

Yeah, if you go back, they, yeah.

So that's not on.

They have carryovers on this from 21. No, that's a capital project.

Something else. Yeah. Cool. Good. Yeah.

So they have carryovers from a number of years back.

Wow. Are we still looking at a new vote next year?

I don't know. I don't know.

I'm just asking the question because it's in the budget.

Yeah, I mean, my only problem with that boat is the steering linkage. Have you driven it in a while? Yeah, the steering linkage is a little bad. But I mean, other than that, I mean, it seems to be running fine now this year that we've done everything to it.

We'll be doing a real wake patrol, I would say, yes. for what we do just to go around out there and help people like that.

Yeah, yeah. So, so far, no, I mean, no. What's needed to address that linkage?

Right, is it fixable?

Linkage in, it's not a big deal. It's not going to cost you probably a couple of grand, but well.

No, I mean, I think other than that, the boat, the haul itself is solid.

And the motor's running fine now. You know. Got new keys? Got new keys?

Actually, we should put in a version for props. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. So does anybody have any other new business or any?

Not new business, but what happened to the buoy at the dam? It's gone.

Dennis and I stole it.

I just wonder.

I hope someone knows it's gone. Dennis called me the night... We were supposed to get four inches of rain last week.

We got one in Texas.

So Dennis got concerned it was going to get floated away. I thought maybe the whole deal got canceled. That's why I was asking. No, no. Sunday we... Dennis and I grabbed my son, and we went over and threw it in the back of his pickup, and it's actually right next door to you. It's right on the right-of-way there. Was that the one we threw in the right-of-way?

Yeah. Oh, okay. Yep.

You knew where it was on the whole thing?

I didn't know it was that one. I saw it drop something there, but I didn't know it was that one. That's what we threw in there until the town decides what they want to do with it. That's how observant I am. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, that's fine.

I just was curious.

No, no, I didn't think to mention it to everybody. Yeah, by the way, we only, you know, for all that storm and all that day of rain, we got in the end, I think, 2.3 inches of rain.

But the lake was down.

The lake was laid on dry ground.

Oh, yeah.

So that all makes a big difference. Do you still have that copy of that print that you showed me with the location of that? The location of that buoy where it goes?

Yeah.

Yeah, I do. Send it to me. I'll try and cross-reference it with engineering skills. Let's find out exactly.

Okay, I will send it to you. You can come close to where it is in the angle.

Okay. Perfect. You can walk in right from that first right-of-way.

Yeah.

Walk right out and do it. Do it, yeah. Okay.

Where's the first right-of-way?

That's the first house. Really? Yeah. Yes. Yes.

We thought the first one was by your house.

Yeah, the two. I don't know if we ever used the right-of-way one, but it's there. It's there. It's a small one. It's not wide like mine. It's only maybe six foot, seven foot wide. But it's there. It's right after that house. That buoy right after the end of it somewhere.

What was the result of the... It was something, not riparian rights, but it was something else the attorney called it when we were looking at putting the dock in for the patrol boat and the weasel property. It doesn't go, does it go straight out or does it follow the property line?

That is apparently still a point of law to be contested for.

It's still gray.

It's still gray. The attorney's position was as long as we're not obviously affecting the use of their waterfront, it's okay. That's about as highly defined as we got it.

Did you know there was a chase boat in the boat parade this season?

No. Yeah.

You know, for the rowing? Yeah. Look, there's a boat parade.

Yeah.

I saw it. What was the name of it? Nothing. It wasn't decorated.

It was there to support a bunch of rowers who put together a float. Yeah. And it was being pulled by another boat. So I think they brought the chase boat out just in case. That ended up over by your house.

I think it was my neighbor. I'm like these floaty barrel drum things, and I'm like, what the heck? And his friend.

One day I didn't lose it.

Yeah.

I said to my friend, boy, I'm going to tell him I'm going a long way. He said, hey, there's a table in the water. Eight, nine feet of water? Yes. My ankle was hooked on one. Thank you.

Oh, my God, that's funny.

Yeah, I mean... We didn't expect to see it. Somebody probably had it out in the ice in the winter or something. Yeah. Yeah. I've seen them. Yeah.

Yeah. But the boat, does anyone know who won the boat parade? Yeah, that's it. Yeah. I saw them. Do you have an eagle on the top?

That's the giant eagle. Yeah. That's my favorite.

They're over by you. That's Ron.

I don't know who did what.

The one with the giant eagle is Ron.

Yeah, that was awesome. Ron Michaels. You saw that, right? Yeah, I saw that.

I'm like, there. The one with the giant eagle is Ron Michaels. I don't know. I was going to ask, I was going to text Dave to see who won.

Yeah, I didn't know who won.

Oh, I'm surprised that it's not in one line. I think they didn't come up with a new one yet. Oh, I would entertain a motion to adjourn the meeting.

I think a motion to adjourn the meeting. All in favor? Aye.

Seconded and aye. Sorry, we're done. Thank you.