Mystic Watershed Collaborative
Steering Committee Meeting
May 29, 2002 9:30 ­ 11:00 am

Attending: Molly Anderson, Lisa Brukilacchio, Dale Bryan, Paul Kirshen, Susan Loucks, Bill Mayer, Ellen Mays, Molly Mead, Grace Perez, Bruce Speight, Lisa Waters

Next Meeting: Wednesday, June 26th 3:00 ­ 4:30pm (TIE Office)

Commitments and actions needed:

- Shop at Wild Oats on June 17th and 5% of the proceeds go to MyRWA!
- Dale will send further information about the showing of "Sustainable Cities" on June 25 (time and place).
- Dale will inform the Steering Committee of the number of staff participating and the amount of funds required of the $1000 max we committed for NAAEE registration.
- Grace will ask John Durant about adding Lisa to the MyRWA website access list.
- ____ will be responsible for working with Orion Magazine to publish the River Institute article this fall.
- ___ will follow up with Fred Lasky at MyRWA about whether a paid internship/student project can be arranged this fall.

Opportunities to give feedback or help:

- Send suggestions about Lisa's Ecoscape (including a new name) to her.
- Send suggestions about Molly's attached Liaison description to her.
- Contact Molly Mead if you want to help design Omidyar Scholars curriculum.

Announcements & Updates:

- Bruce Speight, Program Director of Mass Water Watch will be attending the Steering Committee meetings until the new organizer begins in the fall.
- Biodiversity Days Events ­ May 31st to June 3rd. Secretary Bob Durand will open the events in the watershed on Friday at 9:00am at the Alewife Reservation.
- River Institute Class­ June 25th from 9am ­ 12am. A film, "Is Sustainable Cities an Oxymoron?" will be shown, and Kent Portney will speak about his work.
- Fred Lasky has an opening at MWRA for a summer intern. The River Institute placed an intern with MWRA last summer, but not this summer.
- Ellen Mays will be resigning from TIE in July and moving to GDAE.

Chelsea Creek Action Group:

The Chelsea Creek visioning sessions are underway: the first session produced a successful charette with good community input. At the second meeting, consultants presented maps and 5 and 10-year plans to the public. The third meeting (5/29) will select one plan, and the final plan will be presented at the last meeting in early June. This plan will be used to direct work and identify areas of concentration for the future. It will also provide a better sense of actions that can be taken when opportunities arise. As part of the EPA-funded Comparative Risk Assessment, students from Worcester Polytechnic Institute conducted a traffic study in East Boston and Chelsea which included photographs of typical scenes and traffic counts. An open space inventory is also part of the Comparative Risk Assessment. All of the results are available on the MWC web site.

Herring Run:

The Herring Run held on May 11th attracted 183 runners and more press attention than previous runs. However, the celebratory aspects were less successful. Lisa and Grace speculated that runners and celebrants have different interests and needs, and perhaps they shouldn't both be targeted at the same event. An Event Coordinator may be hired to coordinate next year's Herring Run.

River Institute:

The River Institute held its annual boat trip and orientation for nine students and their hosts on May 22nd. People from nine of the internship host organizations participated and presented information about their programs. Other guests included MyRWA staff, Wynn Duke, Jim Marzilli and Maria van Duesen. The article about the River Institute that Steve Chase was preparing for Orion Magazine wasn't published in time to help recruit students for this year, because Orion postponed placement. We hope to get this into the magazine next fall.

Integration of MyRWA and MWC Websites:

Grace asked whether Lisa could be a back-up webmaster for the MyRWA site, at times that Josh can't respond quickly by posting urgent items. Grace said that she has been very pleased with Josh's work, but we agreed that having another person who can help is prudent. She will ask John Durant about adding Lisa to the web domain as a site owner.

North American Association of Environmental Educators Conference:

The River Institute proposed to hold a conference with the NAAEE and their proposal was accepted. The conference will be held on August 8th, 2002. There will be a panel of six staff members and some participating students. The River Institute requested help in providing funds to cover the costs of the registration fees, which equals $130/day per person. The Steering Committee agreed to provide up to $1000 dollars for registration with a contingency that there is documentation of the conference.

Ecoscape:

Lisa is developing a website on plant species of Tufts University campuses and the Mystic River Watershed. The websites will allow viewers to search by campus and location, use a clickable map to see further details, and learn more about each plant. Plant information will include landscape usage, edibility, descriptions of plant parts, Native American uses, current uses, pictures, and other interesting facts. Lisa B. pointed out that "ecoscape" is already in use. Suggestions of a name for the website are welcome, and good pictures of plants or Tufts natural areas. Please send to Lisa at lisa.waters@tufts.edu. To get a preview of the sites, go to www.tufts.edu/tie/ecology and www.tufts.edu/tie/mwc/arboretum.

Project Tracking:

Grace suggested that actions of the MWC sub-groups need to be more closely tracked to ensure progress. As a former Project Manager, she had developed a model to track project progression and would like to apply it to the MWC. Molly A. announced her new role with the MWC (see below under Faculty Fellows) and will work on a better system to track the work of each sub-group.

Omidyar Scholars:

Fifty undergrad students at UCCPS are Omidyar Scholars. Molly Mead summarized the experiences of the students last year, as they tried to develop and implement community-based projects. The students had a great deal of autonomy, and while some were able to use it well, others needed more guidance. Beginning this year, UCCPS will structure the students' experiences more by offering three sequential classes to Omidyar Scholars. Freshmen will be assigned to "Explorations in Active Citizenship", offered by the Experimental College, where they will learn about active citizenship and university/community partnerships, and receive introductions to Tufts projects in Chinatown, the MWC, and public education partnerships. Students will choose one of these projects to work on. Upper-class Omidyar Scholars will have two classes: Active Citizenship and a Leadership course. They will also have to choose a community project. The MWC should develop at least three projects for these students. Bruce Speight offered to share Mass Water Watch's curriculum for community organizers with UCCPS students. This13-week class offered by Mass Water Watch is taught by the organizers. If you would like to help in the curriculum design, please contact Molly Mead.

UCCPS Faculty Fellows:

Two of the newly-designated Faculty Fellows, Molly Anderson and Chris Swan, will be working on projects related to the MWC. Chris is developing a "threaded curriculum" for Civil and Environmental Engineering students. Molly will extract lessons for other Tufts partnerships from our experience in the MWC and also help to coordinate the group, particularly the Tufts members. She will help to track MWC action items and interact with other faculty members to encourage wider engagement in the Collaborative's work. Attached to the minutes is a short proposal of Molly Anderson's coordination role with the MWC. If you have any responses to this document then please forward them directly to Molly A. Funding: MyRWA is interviewing consultants to develop a funding plan, and its Development Committee meets 5/29. Once the consultant is hired, a discussion will be arranged needs to be arranged with MWC, Wendy, and the new consultant to talk about funding needs of the MWC.