09/27/2000 Env Bd Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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RICE CREEK CORRIDOR EXPANSION MEETING Rice Creek Watershed District Offices Arden Hills, Minnesota 1:00 t0 3:OOpm August 29, 2000 AGENDA 1) Introductions 2) Project Background, Scope, and Objectives: Metro Greenprint: The study corridor was identified in the Metro Greenprint as a potential high - priority connection between two regionally significant open space areas, Carlos Avery WMA and Rice Creek Chain of Lakes Regional Park. A meeting was held at the Wargo Nature Center in mid- January, 2000 to discuss potential funding sources for natural resource inventory work within this high priority area. Hannah Dunevitz, DNR Regional Plant Ecologist, and Jason Husveth of Critical Connections, Inc. presented. Many of the current project stakeholders attended this meeting. A Planning Grant proposal was submitted to the Metro Greenways Grant Program on January 28, 2000. Chris Lord of the Anoka Conservation District agreed to serve as Grant Administrator for this project. Several other municipalities, government agencies, and watershed districts provided cash matches and in -kind contributions. The grant application was awarded in full in May, 2000. The project area consists of 38,643 acres located between and including the southern arm of Carlos Avery WMA and the Rice Creek Chain of Lakes Corridor. Highway 35W transects the project area. A wide gradient of land cover and land use is represented within the study area, including dense commercial/industrial lands, residential areas, agricultural fields, and large expanses of remaining natural and semi - natural lands (refer to GIS printout). The primary objective of this project is to collect land cover for the. 38,643 acres included in this project area, and to make this information available and as useful as possible to all stakeholders for planning purposes. Future projects will likely use this information for greenway planning, analysis, and design, natural resource inventories and evaluation, watershed planning, and development review. Furthermore, these data will be used next field season to survey for and locate new rare plant populations within the corridor. • 3) Project Timeline and Resources: August 01, 2000 through July 31, 2001