Washington Conservation Commission
Minutes- December 20,
2006
Assembly time: 7:00 PM.
Present: Carol Andrews, Nan Schwartz, Jed Schwartz, Sandy Robinson.
1.0 Approval of Minutes: approved as printed, motion by Sandy, seconded by Jed.
2.0 Old Business:
2.1
Dredge
and Fill Committee - None.
2.2
NHCACC
Membership – Sandy takes over the meeting as Carol steps aside for
discussion and vote on this issue.
Nan made a motion to pay
for our membership fees for 2007 in the NHCACC, Sandy seconded and the vote was
unanimous.
2.3
Natural Resource inventory – Carol
shared with us the latest Historical and cultural map. Nan and Jed will take
the map and hopefully show it to Charlene Cobb for comment before our next
meeting. Jed will talk to Ed Thayer about getting the 911 map data for the NRI
maps.
2.4
Conservation Initiatives for 2007 – We discussed Lori Dube's ballot article regarding the exclusion of wetlands from counting into the acreage needed for a building lot. She got enough signatures to get the Planning Board to hold a public hearing and get it on the warrant. They will continue to get more signatures for the article while continuing to educate people on the issue.
The Global Warming initiative article circulated by the Young's also got enough signatures to appear on the warrant for town meeting.
The selectmen are putting in an article
concerning summer maintained class 5 roads and the need to codify the status of
these roads. There is also an issue with Class 6 roads and the issuing of
building permits on these roads, as they are not suitable for regular traffic
and are used as seasonal trails.
We might put in an article to secure money for
land conservation. These funds would be used to help landowners with
transaction costs and help with land conservation projects.
2.5
What's Happening in Nature? We have had no snow and lots of warmth so far this month. Nan found some good information on the NOAA website about this strange weather. This year through November, the temperatures in New Hampshire were the 2nd
warmest on record, with the month of November ranking as the warmest month on
record. New Hampshire experienced the 2nd wettest period on record
with New England as a whole experiencing the wettest June - November.
Globally the annual
temperature for combined land and ocean surfaces is expected to be sixth
warmest on record for 2006. Some of the largest and most widespread warm
anomalies occurred in southern Asia and North America. Canada experienced its
warmest winter and warmest spring since its national records began in 1948.
Including 2006, six of the seven warmest years on record have occurred since 2001 and the ten warmest years have occurred since 1995. The global average surface temperature has risen between 0.6°C and 0.7°C since the start of the 20th Century, and the rate of increase since 1976 has been approximately three times faster than the century-scale trend.
The extent of Arctic sea
ice was second lowest on record in September, when annual sea ice extent is at
its lowest point of the year. This was only slightly higher than the record low
extent measured in 2005. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center,
this is part of a continuing trend in end-of-summer Arctic sea ice extent
reductions of approximately eight percent per decade since 1979, when
recordkeeping began.
El Nino conditions developed in September, and by the end of November, sea surface temperatures in most of the central and eastern equatorial Pacific were more than 1.8°F (1°C) above average. This El Nino event is likely to persist through May 2007, according to NOAA's Climate Prediction Center. All information was found at: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2006/nov/national.html#text and:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2006/ann/ann06.html
3.0 New Business: None
4.0 Correspondence
- Nan will get this info from Carol and add it next month.
5.0 Other Business - Carol gave us copies of
the Conservation Commission report submitted to the selectmen for inclusion in
the town report for 2006.
7.0 Adjourned at 8:30 p.m., our next scheduled meeting is January 17th at 7 p.m. at the Town Hall
Respectfully submitted,
Nan Schwartz
Secretary