Mystic Watershed Collaborative
Steering Committee Meeting
March 7, 2002 8:45 ­ 10: 45am

Attending: Molly Anderson, Heidi Bours, Lisa Brukilacchio, Dale Bryan, Paul Kirshen, Janet Kovner, Susan Loucks, Ellen Mays, Grace Perez, Aaron Toffler, Lisa Waters, Kevin Welsh.

Next Meetings: March 28th at 3:30pm, April 25th at 9:30am ­ 11pm

Announcements & Updates:

River Institute: Dale distributed the new flyer for the River Institute and announced the launching of the River Institute's newly designed web site (http://www.tufts.edu/river_institute). He wants to publicize the River Institute to the students through both mechanisms and needs our help. After spring break, there will be two weeks before the deadline to further publicize the River Institute. Dale also announced that the River Institute had applied for funding through Katman Entrepreneur Foundation and was denied. After May 1st, the River Institute can attempt to re-submit their application for funding. A two-hour long symposium is being coordinated by the North American Association of Environmental Educators to be presented at the conference. There is a possibility that a boat trip will be planned for some Association and River Institute participants.

Basin Meeting: The next Basin Meeting will be held on Tuesday, March 12th at the Winchester Town Hall. Other Announcements: Susan Loucks is looking for a position! Her funding through Chelsea Creek Action Group has expired. Please send leads to: Susan Loucks

Urban Ecology Institute Survey: Aaron Toffler, Director of the Natural Cities Program at the Urban Ecology Institute (UEI), joined the meeting to discuss a two-year project that will develop three layers of data on the Mystic watershed. The first layer will identify critical ecological resources within the watershed. The second data layer will determine show the most important social sites and issues, as identified through residential surveys. The third later is legal data, designed to identify sites that have potential legal tools for protection. After all of the data is collected and analyzed, thirty sites will be selected to create advocacy plans with community groups. Once the sites are chosen, teams of ecologists will be sent to the sites to perform assessments. The project is funded by USDA's Forest Service, and has another year and half remaining. Aaron suggested that there are opportunities for students to help with the projects through the River Institute. UEI has partnered with several organizations including: MyRWA, CCAG, NAH, Eagle Eye Institute, and Tufts. Aaron distributed surveys to the steering committee members. Completed surveys should be returned to: Aaron M. Toffler, Esq. 225 Higgins Hall 140 Commonwealth Ave. Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 Dale suggested that the survey be distributed to all faculty and staff living within the watershed. Aaron stated that they will survey some municipal employees although, at this time they did not incorporate any data from the municipalities' own surveys of residents. To increase survey participation, Lisa Waters will work with Aaron to produce an online method to complete or print the survey.

Reports from Work Plan Groups: Community Engagement (see Heidi's handout entitled: Ideas for Tufts Community Involvement in MWC): Heidi and Molly met to discuss how to get the Tufts Community more involved in MWC, and Heidi presented a summary. Her first goal is to clarify how Mass Water Watch can best work with Tufts, given the existence of the MWC and River Institute. Dale suggested that developing a strategic plan or role definition would be helpful as long as the next person would continue implementing the plan. Heidi is also looking for ways to fund t-shirts for upcoming events, and we discussed possible sources of funds.

Upcoming events are:

• April 20th ­ Tufts Cleanup
• April 22nd - Earthfest
• April 27th - Super Cleanup
• May 11th ­ Herring Run

Mission: This committee has not met yet.

Sustainability: The primary MWC fund-raising recently has been proposals submitted by the River Institute and an Environmental Justice proposal through EPA. In addition, Paul and Grace have been working with Wendy Lekan(sp?) from Corporate & Foundation Relations about possible fundraising opportunities. Molly will resend a list of projects for the watershed that corporations may be interested in funding. The current intern of MyRWA has a close relationship with the founder of the Philanthropy Initiative, Peter Karoff; and he is interested in assisting MyRWA with fund-raising as well.

Projects: EJ Proposal to EPA: Lisa met with Aaron, Veronica, and Kwabena to discuss applying for an environmental justice grant. The group had two meetings where they developed a plan called "Environmental Justice Across the Mystic for Community". The EOEA is interested in determining the validity of this model. If so, they would like to propose a series of public forums (3 across watershed, 2 publicity). From there they would like to plan trainings, the Mystic Environmental Justice Summit, that include community board organizations and municipalities. The trainings will address elements which fit into to the collaborative's goals: developing overall sustainability and linking communities with watershed issues, including environmental justice. The River Institute is interested in videotaping the entire event so that it can be used for future marketing. Three interns of the River Institute will be working on Environmental Justice projects. Kevin's

GIS Project: Kevin is doing a class project for his GIS class, and wants to map several variables in the Mystic Watershed that bear on environmental justice. We discussed possible variables to include, and agreed that a major project to "ground-truth" the recent Massachusetts EJ report that Danny Faber prepared is important but beyond the scope of Kevin's project.

Green Streets, Green Cities: Lisa met with Jim Marzilli last week about the Green Streets, Green Cities project, which is interested in planting indigenous species within the watershed. The program utilizes volunteers and donated materials. The first training is planned at Habitat (Mass Audubon Society's site in Belmont) on Saturday, March 8th and Sunday, March 9th to begin propagating seeds. The Steering Committee suggested that Tufts become a partner in this project. AFE students want to build a small greenhouse at 126 Curtis Street, and may be interested in propagating native edible species. To have sustainable demonstration plots on the Tufts grounds, we need to build a good relationship with Admissions. To increase publicity, Lisa Waters will incorporate them into the new MWC web site.

EMPACT: The group meets monthly and the next meeting will be March 28th at 9:30 at CEE. Paul reported that permits for the modular equipment are being obtained and the monitoring equipment ordered. They have decided to use radio to broadcast to Tufts, with power supplied from the monitoring sites with solar panels. The radio tower will synthesize the data from five EMPACT sites. Miller Hall seems to be the best location to place the radio tower. This equipment will link to a computer in the TIE Resource Room, which will in turn transmit data to a computer in Anderson Hall for display on the EMPACT web site. They hope to have all equipment in the field and functioning by May 31st. Trial web pages have been created to test the software and have been so far working well. A public meeting to examine the web site will be held in the near future.

Water Resources Graduate Education Program: The Graduate Council at Tufts will review several proposals that were submitted by groups of Tufts faculty to develop new interdisciplinary degree programs, or support for them. The proposals include water resources, sustainable communities, GIS, and children. The committee will select the strongest proposals with President Bacow, and then raise new funds. Bill and Molly are working on two proposals for a private foundation: one dealing with problem-solving or "environmental intelligence", and one dealing with environmental citizenship and Tufts partnerships with community organizations and government agencies.

Assessment Project: Grace and John Durant are currently working on a one-year project to assess the entire watershed and develop an action plan. The project is presented by MyRWA and incorporates two Tufts professors as subcontractors. Lisa Waters will place the project information on the new MWC web site.

Teach 21: Teach 21 has developed a website on the Mystic watershed for use in secondary-school science curricula. Faculty members from the Department of Education (under Linda Beardsley's direction) are providing technical support and teacher training. Janet, Dale, Heidi, and Lisa met with Rob McGreeby, a Medford High School Teacher who is interested in training students and setting up research centers in schools.