Meeting Minutes – TWG Meeting December 8, 2004

IDWR Office – Boise, ID

In Attendance –

Al Rea, USGS
Erv Cowley, BLM
Linda Davis, IDWR
Sandra Thiel, IDWR
Genna Ashley, IDWR

Via Phone Conference –

Leigh Bailey, Payette National Forest
Valdon Hancock, Sawtooth National Forest
Lee Leffert, Caribou-Targhee National Forest

The meeting began at approximately 10:00 a.m.

NEWS TO REPORT

E-mail received from Angie Walker, Utah USGS – 10/22/04: Goose Creek – area at Cave Gulch that crosses hydro will be fixed, and Curlew Valley – Mud spring and Buckboard Canyon 6^th fields will be combined. Genna Ashley will make these changes and forward them (after the December TWG meeting) to Utah and all interested parties in Idaho.

E-mail received from Duane Anderson, 10/22/04 – Montana has another set of hucs ready for review. There are several along the Idaho/Montana border that Idaho and Montana share: 17040202 Upper Henrys, 17040203 Lower Henry’s, 17040214 Beaver-Camas, 17040215 Medicine Lodge, 17040216 Birch, 17060203 Middle Salmon-Panther, and 17060204 Lemhi. This data will be reviewed at the 4^th field level and cross-referenced with the Idaho data and we will provide comments to Montana by their deadline of December 15.

Duane Anderson, GIS Manager for NRIS in Montana, is stepping down from his position as of November 29^th. Duane has worked extensively with the watershed delineation effort, and has done an exhaustive amount of coordination between Montana and Idaho, as well as other states. Duane’s replacement will be Duane Lund. Tom Potter and Rosa Nygaard will continue in their roles for Montana. Good Luck, Duane!!

HUC REVIEW

Goose Creek 17040211 – The group reviewed this huc with Valdon Hancock, Sawtooth National Forest. There is a difference between the Idaho 5^th field labeling and Utah’s 5^th field labeling for Utah’s units 01 and 02. The Idaho TWG group feels that Unit 01 could be split into 3 separate 5^th fields, especially for the Upper headwaters of Goose Creek, which Valdon stated should be broken out as a significant 5^th. In addition, Valdon would like to break the Goose Creek-Beaver Dam 5^th (Utah’s unit 02) at Beaverdam Creek, and put the remaining two 6^th units in with the northern Goose Creek-Trapper Creek 5^th field unit. After some discussion, it was decided that Erv Cowley would contact Bill Brookes in Nevada and ask him what they had done with this area. There is no proposed change in the line work, only changing the numbering and regrouping the 5^th field units. There is no need for another additional TWG meeting on this huc, the changes will be worked out between Idaho, Utah, and Nevada. After coordination and changes are received, this huc will be considered draft approved for concept lines.

Raft River 17040210 – The group reviewed this huc with Valdon Hancock, Sawtooth National Forest. Valdon submitted a shapefile with some proposed linework changes for this huc:

There will be some changes to Lower Grape Creek confluence with Raft River
Round Mountain Creek – major drainage should be its own 6^th field
Move the pour point to Clear Creek up stream
Change the 6^th fields above Sublet Reservoir.
Change the line work for Parks Creek, between Cassia Creek and Raft River

The group reviewed and agreed with the changes Valdon was proposing. It was decided that Valdon would make these changes and send the data to Genna Ashley-Poulson for incorporation into the master draft watershed coverage. After changes are received, this huc will be draft-approved for concept lines, dependant on any additional input Valdon may receive in the future.

Curlew Valley 16020309 – The group reviewed this huc with Lee Leffert, Caribou-Targhee NF, and Leigh Bailey, Payette NF. The following changes were identified:

Combined two 6^th fields in Glen Canyon – 0204 and 0202
Changed the southern portion of the Taylor Canyon 6^th field huc to make Deep Creek-North Canyon it’s own 6^th field.

Genna Ashley will make the changes according to the shape file created during the meeting, and then these proposed changes will be sent to Karen Hansen in Utah for coordination. Leigh Bailey mentioned that she had discovered some Utah linework that crossed hydro while reviewing this huc. Leigh will make a point shapefile of these areas and this file will be sent to Karen Hanson in Utah. After these changes are made, the Curlew Valley is draft approved for concept lines.

Lower Bear River – Malad River 16010204 – The group reviewed this huc with Lee Leffert, Caribou-Targhee NF, and Leigh Bailey, Payette NF. The following changes were identified:

The 6^th field huc Brush Canyon-Malad River will be put into the northern Malad River-Deep Creek 5^th field huc.
The 6^th field line between Lower Devil Creek and Big Hollow units was removed and replaced with a line at the Malad River/Little Malad River confluence.

The line work for Idaho appears to be general concept. Genna will make line work changes according to the shape file created during the meeting, and send to Lee Leffert and Karen Hanson.

Montana/Idaho Continental Divide line check – The group reviewed the differences between the Montana and Idaho 4^th field boundary linework. Both sets of linework were very close, and there were very few major differences between the lines. The group went through the linework and identified a few areas where they thought the USGS-delineated linework would be preferable to Montana’s line, and those comments are in a point shapefile. Genna Ashley will send the group’s comments to Montana by their December 15 deadline, and request that Montana send their final linework to Idaho for coordination.

MISCELLANEOUS DISCUSSION

Al Rea stated that USGS is getting very close to completing the 4^th field boundary linework for the state, and would like to have these lines reviewed by all interested parties before these lines are considered final. There will be some areas in the Snake River Plain that will not be delineated, and those areas will need to be matched up with existing linework, or the best linework that has been submitted and is available. It was decided that this dataset should be sent out to all data stewards with a cover letter describing the project and requesting assistance in reviewing these lines. After the data stewards have been notified, additional notices will be sent via GeoTech list server and the IDWR watershed mailing list. A notice will also be posted on the Idaho Watershed Website. It was decided that linework should be submitted in a shapefile line-format, and participants should just draw the alternate lines they would like to see incorporated. Genna Ashley will be the contact person for all submitted changes and linework. Al Rea will draft a letter to be sent out, and it was decided that a reasonable deadline for submitting changes would be January 31^st.

ACTION ITEMS:

Erv Cowley will contact Bill Brookes in Nevada and coordinate on the Goose Creek huc.

Valdon Hancock will make his proposed line changes for the Raft huc and send that linework to Genna Ashley for incorporation into the master draft watershed coverage.

Genna Ashley will make the proposed changes to the Curlew Valley and Lower Bear Malad hucs, incorporate into the master draft watershed coverage, and send the completed linework to Lee Leffert and Karen Hanson.

Genna Ashley will send Idaho’s 4^th field boundary comments to Montana by their December 15^th deadline.

Al Rea will draft a letter to be sent out to all participants regarding 4^th field boundary checking for the state.

NEXT SCHEDULED TWG MEETING (S):

Next TWG Meeting - Tuesday, January 25, 2005 – IDWR Offices, 322 W. Front Street, Boise, ID

For directions and/or NetMeeting connections, please contact Genna Ashley at (208) 287-4880 genna.ashley@idwr.idaho.gov

***Subject to change before meeting***

Via Phone Conference –

Lower Bear River – Malad River 16010204 – The group reviewed this huc with Lee Leffert, Caribou-Targhee NF, and Leigh Bailey, Payette NF. The following changes were identified:

The meeting concluded at approximately 4:30 p.m.