Attending: Heidi Bours, Lisa Brukilacchio, Janet Kovner, Ellen Mays, Grace Perez, Lisa Waters, Kevin Welsh, Molly Anderson (first part of meeting).

Next Meeting: April 25th at 9:30am ­ 11am

Announcements & Updates:

Arlington Education Enrichment Fund Proposal: Molly announced that Wendy Campbell, a teacher for Arlington School, submitted an Arlington Education Enrichment Fund Proposal which will allow 5th-graders to observe nature and wildlife at the Arlington Reservoir. The children will hear about the natural features and creatures they are likely to encounter before the fieldtrip, learn about John Jay Audubon, then draw pictures of birds they see. Janet will contact her to discuss possible projects.

River Institute: There will be a meeting Tuesday, April 2nd at 12:30 to discuss field sites. This year, there will be eleven internship opportunities available. Reports from Work Plan Groups: Community Involvement: Janet would like to see more Tufts participation at the Herring Run. Recommendations were made to have TIE place a display at the event along with other environmental groups at Tufts. Ellen is going to make a map illustrating towns and a few watershed attributes for display at the Herring Run. TIE will help in publicizing the event and distributing flyers to faculty and students.

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

Mission: Nothing at this time. Sustainability: Tony Cortese, formerly from Second Nature, spoke with Grace and expressed an interest in helping MWC with fund-raising.

Projects: EJ Project: Nothing at this time. Kevin's GIS Project: Kevin is currently using 1990 Census Data and he is trying to obtain more recent data. He will be making four to five maps showing minority populations (and perhaps income levels too) overlaid on various attributes. The project will be completed in one month. He will display his maps at the Herring Run on May 11th.

Green Streets, Green Cities: The attempt to apply for the USDA grant did not happen, but several successful discussions have occurred since the last meeting. The event at Habitat for Humanity went well and they are receiving feedback from participants stating that they wish to get involved further with the program.

Berger Website: Lisa W. provided the committee with an update on the Berger web site. The interactive maps portion is almost finished and is currently being tested on different versions of computers/browsers to ensure functionality and effective presentation. The text and pictures for various portions of the site are still being developed. The site allows viewers to check a calendar of events, access publications, create maps interactively, and get additional information about watersheds. The launch date is May 1st, and members of MyRWA are invited to attend a demonstration.

EMPACT: Three Omidyar Scholars are interested in doing water quality sampling on the Mystic River. The acquisition of a sixth EMPACT site is currently being arranged.

Funding: MyRWA plans on using EMPACT to leverage funding from foundations and would like help from Tufts. Grace and Paul simplified the list of projects and descriptions and forwarded it to Wendy in the Corporate & Foundation Relations department of Tufts Development. They are exploring new ways to secure funding. One possibility is having President Bacow host a corporate fundraising event. Paul will be speaking to Iaonnis about this possibility. Grace discussed a plan to create a part-time Coordinator position for the collaborative. This person's main responsibility would be to ensure the collaborative is functioning smoothly. She discussed the possibility of including the position in grant requests.

Board Membership: The Committee will need to find a replacement for Susan Loucks. A recommendation was made to see if another representative of CCAG could join our board. In addition, the Berger group proposed that we add someone from the library to the Steering Committee, to be a liaison between the Clearinghouse and Archives projects and MWC