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Home My Public Portal About20140820 - Agenda Packet - Board of Directors (BOD) - 14-22 SPECIAL MEETING BOARD OF DIRECTORS MIDPENINSULA REGIONAL OPEN SPACE DISTRICT Administrative Office 330 Distel Circle, Los Altos, CA 94022 Wednesday, August 20, 2014 SPECIAL MEETING BEGINS AT 6:00 P.M. A G E N D A 6:00 SPECIAL MEETING OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE MIDPENINSULA REGIONAL OPEN SPACE DISTRICT ORAL COMMUNICATIONS – PUBLIC ADOPTION OF AGENDA BOARD BUSINESS 1. Integrated Pest Management Program (R-14-106) Staff Contact: Cindy Roessler, Senior Resource Management Specialist General Manager’s Recommendation: Review status of the Integrated Pest Management Program. ADJOURNMENT TO ADDRESS THE BOARD: The President will invite public comment on agenda items at the time each item is considered by the Board of Directors. You may address the Board concerning other matters during Oral Communications. Each speaker will ordinarily be limited to three minutes. Alternately, you may comment to the Board by a written communication, which the Board appreciates. In compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, if you need assistance to participate in this meeting, please contact the District Clerk at (650) 691-1200. Notification 48 hours prior to the meeting will enable the District to make reasonable arrangements to ensure accessibility to this meeting. Written materials relating to an item on this Agenda that are considered to be a public record and are distributed to Board members less than 72 hours prior to the meeting, will be available for public inspection at the District’s Administrative Office located at 330 Distel Circle, Los Altos, California 94022. CERTIFICATION OF POSTING OF AGENDA I, Jennifer Woodworth, District Clerk for the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District (MROSD), declare that the foregoing agenda for the Regular Meeting of the MROSD Board of Directors was posted and available for review on August 15, 2014, at the Administrative Offices of MROSD, 330 Distel Circle, Los Altos California, 94022. Agenda materials are also available on the District’s website at http://www.openspace.org. Signed this 15th day of August, 2014, at Los Altos, California. Meeting 14-22 R-14-106 Meeting 14-22 August 20, 2014 AGENDA ITEM 1 AGENDA ITEM Integrated Pest Management Program GENERAL MANAGER’S RECOMMENDATION Review status of the Integrated Pest Management Program. SUMMARY District staff and consultant have drafted an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Guidance Manual and are currently preparing an Environmental Impact Report for the Program. This study session will review the principal procedures set out in the IPM Guidance Manual and treatment options for managing different pests. DISCUSSION The District is currently developing an Integrated Pest Management Program to guide decisions regarding management of pests on all District preserves, other properties and associated buildings and facilities. IPM is a process of efficiently managing pests while protecting human health and environmental quality. Examples of the broad range of pests on District properties are rodents in buildings, vegetation encroaching on trails, flammable vegetation next to buildings, non-native bullfrogs in ponds, and invasive yellow starthistle plants in native grasslands. The Board of Directors approved in concept a Draft Integrated Pest Management Policy on July 23, 2013. The IPM consultant team, led by Ascent Environmental, subsequently prepared an IPM Guidance Manual which is split into two main sections: chapters that deal with program- wide processes and chapters that guide individual pest management activities. The IPM Guidance Manual is the document that will provide direction for staff in the day to day application of the IPM Program principles to their work managing District lands and facilities. As set out in the IPM Guidance Manual, an annual cycle of pest management work will be primarily directed by an Annual IPM Work Plan. All departments will project what pest management activities they expect to occur in the upcoming year, and these will be reviewed by the IPM Coordinator and IPM Coordination Team to make sure they are consistent with the IPM Guidance Manual. Through the Annual IPM Work Plan, the IPM Coordinator (expected to be a new position at the District) and the IPM Coordination Team (comprised of respresentatives from the Departments with land and facility management responsibilities; Operations, Real Property and Natural Resources), will set priorities, oversee safety of pest management activities, R-14-106 Page 2 and provide for required licensing and training. Other processes undertaken by the IPM Coordinator and associated departments throughout the year include planning, notification, reporting, and monitoring of IPM activities. Any new pest management actions not originally evaluated in the Annual IPM Work Plan will be reviewed on an individual basis throughout the year. The IPM Coordinator will present an Annual IPM Progress Report to the Board of Directors every year that summarizes the work completed in the year, evaluates the program’s compliance with overall goals, and recommends modifications. The most important decisions regarding IPM are made when individual pest management activities are implemented. In each case under the IPM method, the proper identification of the pest, an assessment of the pest’s damage to the surrounding environment, an evaluation of tolerance levels and thresholds for action, and the treatment options including non-chemical and chemical methods must be considered before a decision is made regarding if and how to respond to the pest. The IPM Guidance Manual includes separate chapters to guide such IPM decisions in five pest management categories: • Buildings, • Recreational facilities, • Fire managment areas, • Rangelands and agriculture properties, and • Natural areas Human health, environmental quality, and effective and efficient management of District properties are concerns across all categories. Pests and treatment options are somewhat unique in each of the five pest management categories because each category represents not only a different purpose under the District’s mission, but also a different type of environment. In general, the first three categories represent conditions that have been altered to a greater degree for human purposes, are more frequently occupied or visited by humans, and where the District has greater concerns for human safety. The later two categories are in a more natural state, and environmental quality is of great importance. The District’s IPM program emphasizes pest prevention as a first approach, followed by actions to discourage or reduce pest populations from reaching levels where active control may be required. Tolerance levels help staff determine when pest populations have reached levels where active control actions may be considered. A wide array of preventative (e.g., exclusion of pests from buildings) and cultural (e.g., sanitation habits) actions, and manual and mechanical control methods are provided before chemical pest control treatments can be considered. Options are provided in each pest category to allow the choice of the most effective and least environmentally disruptive and least harmful treatment. Monitoring and adaptive management principles, both on the project level and on the program level, are provided to help ensure improvements in efficiency and effectiveness of pest control treatments over time. FISCAL IMPACT Preparation of the IPM Guidance Manual and environmental review are budgeted in the current fiscal year in the amount of $200,000, and review of the status of the IPM Program has no additional fiscal impact. R-14-106 Page 3 BOARD COMMITTEE REVIEW No Board committee review was needed for this item as this subject has been taken up by the full Board from inception. PUBLIC NOTICE Public notice was provided as required by the Brown Act. CEQA COMPLIANCE A Draft Environmental Impact Report is currently under preparation and is expected to be released for a 45-day public review period in late September through mid-November 2014. NEXT STEPS A public information meeting, tentatively scheduled for October, will be held during the public review period for the Draft Environmental Impact Report. A Final Environmental Impact Report with responses to any comments received during the public review period and the revised IPM Guidance Manual will be brought to the Board of Directors in early December 2014 for review and adoption. Responsible Department Head: Kirk Lenington, Natural Resources Department Prepared by: Cindy Roessler, Senior Resource Management Specialist