April 30, 2020 at 8:00 AM - Operations Committee Meeting

Rationale:  We do not have any unfinished business to consider.

Rationale:  We have nothing to consider for Wild NE and other Programs.

Rationale:  The O & M crews is monitoring beaver issues on two of our Cottonwood Dams, we also dug out beaver dams at the three culverts on the Rawhide diagonal ditch. We continue to cut volunteer trees. We packaged trees and delivered them to the NRCS offices and completed one planting. Repaired the gear box on the tower to one of the water management gates on the Wanahoo Dam. 

Rationale:  The Contractor has made arrangements with UPRR to use 5-6 trains with approximately 110 cars each to deliver rip-rap to the Co-op in Mead. They will then attempt to unload the train in 2-3 days. Hauling rock to the levee from sunrise to sunset. The hope is to receive one train/week. This process will last 5-6 weeks. They/we are working with Thomas Lakes Homeowners Assoc./residents because this rock work will be very disruptive.
They have placed all rock surfacing on the top of the levee (road surface) and have finished all the work on the north end of the levee. They are still waiting on BNSF RR on permitting to work on an adjacent berm within the Fuse Plug area at the Guard Camp. Beginning to seed areas that are completed.
Overall the work is progressing very well.

Rationale:  The Contractor is completing the Rawhide repair. A walk through with the contractor and JEO will occur today at 12:00. The repair has gone well because of dry conditions. We have some changes to address;
We need approval for a change order of $7,000 (attached), for repair work under the bridge to the Taylor homestead and removal of rock from the ditch channel on the east end of the project. It was very badly eroded under the bridge on the south side and rip-rap needs to be placed there for protection.

We are now eliminating 2 of the 3 cattle panel structures that cross the ditch to keep the Diers cattle on their property. Heimann has convinced the Diers to have the District install a solar livestock well. Therefore, the District can then fence off the ditch to prevent the erosion the cattle cause on the ditch berm and banks. See attached the original easement, page 2, item #8 which states that "the District will provide adequate water if the ditch can not be used for livestock watering". Heimann would work with the Diers and obtain 2-3 well installation bids to be presented in the future.
Since we are not installing two of the cattle panel structures there will be a cost to the District for not installing them as part of the project repair. JEO will put a final change order together for next months meetings.

Also find attached the most current invoice from JEO for this project.

Rationale:  FYRA had a preliminary meeting and discussion with Tim Gokie, NDNR Dam Safety, on the Wanahoo Stilling Basin repair and they feel they have a proper path in doing the repair. Mike Sotak has approx. 90% prelim design done and is preparing an updated design report and cost, just missing some final details like structural design, etc. that he wants to avoid doing twice.  He will send us and Tim Gokie a draft set of plans, cost estimate and design report by next week for review. After reviewing the plans, if the Board would like a Zoom meeting it can be set up or questions can be forwarded to Mike.
Mike would also like to schedule a pre-bid conference with Contractors.  He believes pre-bid conferences offer the following benefits;
 1) It builds awareness of the project’s budget and schedule to plan for bidding so that Contractors are not taken by surprise??
 2) On complex projects, it gets Contractor’s thinking about ways to improve efficiencies on project components
 3) It allows the engineer to gather and incorporate any ideas on how to save construction costs 
Sotak was contacted, this pre-construction meeting with contractors is in the scope of work under his contract. 

FEMA is also raising questions about the Stilling Basin and asking for past maintenance work, inspection reports, maintenance schedule, etc.
In the 2011 NDNR Inspection report it is reported that "the plunge pool basin wall is sitting askew and is unsightly, it doesn't seem to be causing any serious problems for the dam at this time and we should contact Olssons to see what they believe should be done with the damaged portion of the cut-off wall". A letter dated May 1, 2013 is attached from Olsson's referencing the expansion joints and sill wall. Staff will answer FEMA's questions with assistance from Mike Sotak to the best of our knowledge and documentation.

Rationale:  Hay bids were due Wednesday, April 29th at 4:00 pm and were opened. We received two bids as follows. 

Meduna Family Farms - Lake Wanahoo  ~160 Acres - Bid Price - $69.17/Ton
Daniel J. Kadavy - Homestead - ~25 Acres - Bid Price - $65/Ton

Rationale:  Nothing to report at this time.

Rationale:  Due to these uncertain times, permits have not been required to enter Lake Wanahoo Recreation Area since mid-March.  Our focus was to offer an outdoor escape to the public who felt they needed to get out of their house and enjoy the park.  Beginning May 1, we will once again be requiring a park permit or day-use pass.
Even with the free entry our permit sales have increased and we are looking forward to a very busy May.
As of today, we have $ 35,055 in total park permit sales, $ 7,502.50 for the month of April.

Rationale:  Our current Wanahoo camping revenue is $ 22,670.52.  
The park has been very busy the past two weeks and at full capacity, or very close to full for the past 14 days.
The vault toilets and playgrounds continue to be closed down. We have the park closed to tent camping and only allow RV's and campers with self-contained toilets.
Our plan is to begin opening one vault toilet at a time, along with 1/2 the shower house, during operating hours beginning next week.  We will continue to monitor the situation daily.

Rationale:  The park has been very popular for campers, fishers, and hikers over the last month. Summer staff is currently working on repainting all vault restrooms, getting the shower building operational, spreading mulch, and picking up trash that has been constantly blowing. 

Gottschalk and Schomer met with Butler Public Power(BPPD) and Matt Harris to discuss the electric plan for the new primitive cabins. After seeing the site, BPPD decided that the best place to bring power is down by the NRD access gate and site 76. This will be a much flatter area to trench and will shorten the originally planned distance. BPPD revised their quote and they can do the trenching for us for $8,900 which is less than the $10,000 budgeted when the District was going to do the trenching. Matt Harris plans to begin the rough-ins on 5/1. 

Free park entry is set to end Friday, May 1st. Park visitors were very appreciative of the Boards decision to wave entry fees during these difficult times.

Rationale:  We are featuring the chemigation permit deadline now through the end of May for our KTIC Radio ad and Wahoo Newspaper eAds which are attached. 

Rationale:  The last few weeks have been interesting with the current circumstances. Our website analytics showed almost double the amount of people viewing our site with a total of around 3,000 views as of April 29 in the afternoon. The Lake Wanahoo page saw the most traffic with well over 2,000 views, and Czechland Lake had close to 700 views. Some of the traffic we received was from our Facebook page, some was referral traffic from outdoornebraska.gov and visitnebraska.com

Our Facebook page has seen a viewing increase of 134%. The page has 1,114 followers as of April 29.
Our top posts included:
• (with a reach of 3,913 people) Reminder for practicing social distancing, don’t use playground equipment and gatherings discouraged at all of our recreation areas
• (reach of 407 people) 50^th Anniversary of Earth Day, with activities to check out on education page of our website
• (reach of 342) Memorable Monday - from Eric finding the tree order assigned to his Dad in 1992

Our Twitter page grew to 321 followers (up 5 from last month). Our views increased 32.7% from last month.
Our top posts included:
• Announcement of Spring Conservation Sensation cancelled (782 impressions)
• Changes to Lake Wanahoo/Czechland operations (732 impressions)
• Reminder of Shell Creek Watershed Scholarship applications due (706 impressions)

Rationale:  We have received a few exhibitor contracts for 2020 area county fairs. In 2019, LPNNRD had exhibit booths at Platte County, Butler County and Saunders County Fairs.

2020 fair dates:
• Madison County: July 7-12
• Platte County: July 8-12
• Boone County: July 11-15
• Butler County: July 14-19
• Colfax County: July 15-19
• Dodge County: July 29-Aug 2
• Saunders County: July 29-Aug 2
 

Rationale:  Due to COVID-19, all education programs have been cancelled through May 15. We were informed that UNL-Extension has cancelled their programs through June 1, so we are looking at an alternate date for the 4H/NRD Outdoor Recreation Day (May 29) and the possibility of a virtual or livestream program for the Youth Ag Tour scheduled in June.
 

Rationale:  We have received two scholarship applications for the Shell Creek Watershed Monitoring Program Scholarship. The applicants must have completed at least one year of the Shell Creek Watershed Monitoring Program, be enrolled in an accredited 2-year or 4-year college or university, plan to pursue higher education relating to science and/or natural resources.
Abigail Pohlen (Newman Grove) and Natasha Macholan (Schuyler Central). If approved, they will receive ½ of the scholarship upon approval, and the remainder upon proof of successful completion of the first term with a GPA of at least 3.0 (B) or above.
Essays are attached.
 

Rationale:  We created a list of Earth Day activities - they have been added to the website and were also shared through our Facebook and Twitter pages. See the attachment below. Based on the anayltics from our website, the link was clicked on 21 times.
https://lpnnrd.org/wpcontent/uploads/2020/04/LPNNRD_earth_day_2020.pdf

Rationale:  On April 24, the Schuyler Elementary (Warrior Academy) Afterschool Program passed out 400 trees to be planted during the 2020 Nebraska Tree-A-Thon. Ponderosa Pines and Southwestern White Pines were donated by the LPNNRD and Burr Oaks were donated by Papio-Missouri NRD. I visited with the coordinator a few days after the event and she said it was a total success! 10 trees were donated to the Schuyler Elementary, 8 were donated to the Schuyler Golf Course, the rest went to families in the area that stopped by to pick up a tree.  

Rationale:  Wanahoo service was turned on this month and will run through October.
Regular monthly sampling completed.
Meters read and billing completed.

Rationale:  The first round of lead and copper testing was completed.  DHHS allows samples to be collected by homeowners as the potential for contamination is negligible, so to follow social distancing guidelines all five samples were collected by homeowners and then Elliott transported samples to the state lab.  DHHS policy requires two samples taken the first year and then one sample the next two years, then one sample every three years.  The second sample will be taken in the fall.
Regular monthly sampling completed.
Meters read and billing completed.