Fry's Run Watershed Association
May 3, 2011 Minutes


Present: Jeff McGuire, Bob Schmidt, Jim Wilson, Tyler Tobin, Linda Heindel, Polly Clark.

The Delaware River Wild and Scenic funding is still pending. Bob Schmidt will talk to Supv. Fred Mebus about this.

Jim Wilson, Northampton County Soil conservation District, brought Lehigh Univ. student, Tyler Tobin, to the meeting. Tyler is a junior environmental engineering student with Prof. Frank Pazzaglia, and will be working on the sampling of Fry's Run hydrologic study. He'll be doing ten 40-hr. weeks of analysis, which will be starting before the end of May after his exams. This project is being funded by an environmental initiative grant from Lehigh University. Project involves checking the flow pressure, height of water, flow of stream, flowing sediment per volume of water, sediment vs. legacy sediment, and a visual assessment of the stream at the usual 3 sampling spots at Melchor's bridge, McGuire's bridge, and Powers' streamside. He will be comparing the differences between the forested area vs. the farmland and more developed areas of the stream.

Another L.U. professor, Kristin Jellison, is interested in doing source tracking of bacteria of FRWA and has the facilities and equipment to do this. 

The Fry's Run Park model riparian buffer project is still pending. Matt Powers is in touch with Jim Buzzer from the Pa. Fish and Boat Commission to set a time to meet in the park and discuss plans for the buffer project. He'll be following up on that.

Planning for the Spring and Summer "critter captures" along Fry's Run is being done. Jeff McGuire talked to Walt Russell, who will check with some parents to see if their kids are interested. The supplies can be borrowed from Frank Kuserk again. This will probably be sometime in June.
    
No date has been set yet for a possible nature walk along the stream. Bob Schmidt is doing a rain barrel workshop for the Wms.Twsp. Garden Club in August, so we probably will not have an additional one through FRWA.

Bob mentioned a meeting of the Bushkill Creek W.A. on 05/09/11 that will be discussing impairment issues due to bacteria and any remedial actions needed. It will be held at the Plainfield Twsp. building on Rte 115 south of Wind Gap at 7:00pm. Tests that can be run include bacteria, e-coli, nutrient levels, B.O.D. D.O.D., C.O.D., macroinvertebrate levels, etc.

The FRWA Adopt-A-Highway clean-up was done on 04/17/11. They expected less trash this time, but there was still a lot.

The next water testing date of Fry's Run is set for 05/14/11 at 10:00 am at Melchor's Bridge, at Jeff's and Matt's.

Dan Kunkle is interested in any of our observations about phenology re: earlier blooming of plants, etc. Diane Husic, Chair of Biology Dept. at Moravian College, is interested in "ph" and temperature data.

Penn DOT is using GIS re: environment "hotspots" information getting in earlier to them so that they do not have a problem later on their highway planning projects. They also use the PNDI to determine if it would be detrimental to endangered and rare species.

Upon further investigation it turns out Zack Brennan will not be able about to help out with website design.

 Next FRWA meeting is set for 06/07/11 at 7:00 pm.

         Submitted by,

         Polly Clark