NC Land and Water Fund Minutes 02-27-25

A P P E A R A N C E S

Board of Trustees:

John Wilson, Chairman
Jason Walser, Vice-Chairman
Ann Browning, Chairman Restoration, Innovative Stormwater and Planning Committee, and Chairman Flood Risk Reduction Committee
Amy Grissom, Acquisition Committee Chairman
Jimmy Broughton
Clement Riddle
Darrel Williams
Mike Rusher
David Womack

Staff:

Will Summer, Executive Director
Zoe Hansen Burnet, DNCR Assistant General Counsel
Steve Bevington, Restoration Program Manager
Marissa Hartzler, Acquisition Program Manager
Marie Meckman, Acquisition Project Manager
Christina Benton, Acquisition Project Manager
Justin Mercer, Stewardship Manager
Terri Murray, Executive Assistant
Damon Hearne, Western Field Representative
Chelsea Blount, Central Field Representative
Jill Fusco, Eastern Field Representative
Nicolle Montero, Stewardship Specialist

Also present:

Pamela Cashwell, Secretary of N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources
Jeff Michael, Deputy Secretary of N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources
Hervey McIver, Onslow Bight Project Manager for The Nature Conservancy

P R O C E E D I N G S

9:08 A.M.

Chairman Wilson: I'd like to call today's meeting of the North Carolina Land and Water Fund Board of Trustees to order. I'm John Wilson, the board chair, and I'd like to welcome everyone who's with us today, however you are managing to do that, and I will now call the role of our nine trustees. Please indicate that you're here; Jimmy Broughton?

Mr. Broughton: Here.

Chairman Wilson: Ann Browning?

Committee Chair Browning: Here.

Chairman Wilson: Amy Grissom?

Acquisition Chair Grissom: Here.

Chairman Wilson: Clement Riddle; not here, are you Clement?

Mr. Riddle: Here.

Chairman Wilson: I know you're here.

Mr. Riddle: Here.

Chairman Wilson: Oh, there you are.

Mr. Riddle: Right.

Chairman Wilson: Mike Rusher?

Mr. Rusher: Here.

Chairman Wilson: Say again, Mike.

Mr. Rusher: Here, here.

Chairman Wilson: Did you all hear Mike? I didn't hear him. No; is Mike here, Will?

Executive Director Summer: I saw him.

Mr. Broughton: Yeah, I saw him.

Executive Director Summer: Mike is present and he's trying to speak. I can see his lips moving and his thumb going up. There he is.

Chairman Wilson: Okay.

Mr. Rusher: I'm here. I'm having technical difficulties. I apologize.

Chairman Wilson: There you are, okay. I heard you there, Mike. All right, Mike's here; Jason Walser?

Vice-Chair Walser: I'm here and you'll see me in about three or four minutes; sorry I'm out of picture.

Chairman Wilson: Okay, Darrel Williams?

Mr. Williams: Here.

Chairman Wilson: David Womack?

Mr. Womack: Here.

Chairman Wilson: And John Wilson is also. That was a very exciting roll call. All right, General Statute § 138A-15 mandates that the chair inquire as to whether any trustee knows of any conflict of interest or the appearance of a conflict of interest with respect to matters on the agenda. If any trustee knows of a conflict of interest or the appearance of one, please state so at this time.

Committee Chair Browning: Mr. Chairman, I do have one item I need to recuse myself from. It's a restoration committee amendment request 1997A-076.

Chairman Wilson: Okay, thank you, Ann; so noted; any other conflicts or appearances; all right, hearing none, we'll move on. I just want to ask everyone to please make sure that your phones and computers won't make any noise, and if you're a guest joining us remotely, please mute your audio and turn off your video unless you're called upon to speak. And I'll now ask the trustees if there are any suggestions of revisions or additions to today's agenda.

Committee Chair Browning: I move approval of the agenda.

Chairman Wilson: Okay, thanks, Ann; is there a second?

Mr. Broughton: Second.

Chairman Wilson: Second from Jimmy; any discussion of the agenda; all right, I'll call the roll. Please vote on the agenda; Jimmy Broughton?

Mr. Broughton: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: Ann Browning?

Committee Chair Browning: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: Amy Grissom?

Acquisition Chair Grissom: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: Clement Riddle?

Mr. Riddle: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: Mike Rusher?

Mr. Rusher: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: Jason Walser?

Vice-Chair Walser: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: Darrel Williams?

Mr. Williams: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: David Womack?

Mr. Womack: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: And John Wilson's yes, also. All right, we've adopted our agenda, and we'll move on to the minutes from our December board meeting. Is there any discussion regarding those minutes? The meeting was on December 10th.

Committee Chair Browning: I have a couple of things, corrections. The first, page 13, line 23, there's the words part of. I think they were intended to be PARTF, so the PARTF program or grants, PARTF.

Chairman Wilson: Okay.

Committee Chair Browning: And then I have three others had our comments attributed to me. And so my takeaway from this is that I need to enunciate better. So I'm going to be working on that, but the -- the first one is page 22, line 15. It says third discussion. I think third should be thorough. It's page 22, line 15, and two on page 30, line 21, fixes, F-I-X-E-S should be fix, two words, fix is. And then still on page 30, line 23, perspective changes should be prospective changes.

Chairman Wilson: Good catches.

Committee Chair Browning: That's it -- that's it for me.

Chairman Wilson: Okay, thanks, Ann; any more changes, questions; okay, we have a motion from Ann to change on page 13, line 23, so that it reads PARTF, P-A-R-T-F, the abbreviation for Parks and Recreation Trust Fund; page 22, line 15, change third to thorough; page 30, line 21, change fixes, plural, to fix is, two words; and page 30, line 23, change perspective to prospective. Did I get all those right, Ann?

Committee Chair Browning: (Nods affirmatively.)

Chairman Wilson: Okay.

Committee Chair Browning: Thank you.

Chairman Wilson: Thank you; anything else; all right, let's vote on adopting the minutes with these changes. That -- Ann, can that be a motion from you?

Committee Chair Browning: It can.

Chairman Wilson: Okay, do we have a second on that?

Mr. Womack: Second, David.

Chairman Wilson: David, thank you; any more discussion before we vote; all right, how do you vote, please, Jimmy?

Mr. Broughton: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: Ann?

Committee Chair Browning: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: Amy?

Acquisition Chair Grissom: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: Clement?

Mr. Riddle: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: Mike?

Mr. Rusher: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: Jason?

Vice-Chair Walser: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: Darrel?

Mr. Williams: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: David?

Mr. Womack: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: And John is a yes also. Okay, we are now at -- Will, do we have Secretary Cashwell with us?

Executive Director Summer: I do not believe yet, so perhaps we can go on and come back to that section later.

Deputy Secretary Michael: Yeah, Will, I was just going to say, I was going to let you all know I texted her assistant to see if she has a sense that she's going to be able to join us, and if so, when. And, Will, I'll text you separately so you can discreetly and appropriately weave it in when she is able to, if she is.

Executive Director Summer: That sounds good.

Chairman Wilson: All right, let's move on to the Executive Director's update from Will Summer.

Executive Director Summer: All right; thank you, Mr. Chair; well, good morning, trustees, staff, and guests; I'm glad to see you at our first board meeting of 2025. This is also the first under a new administration, and I'm tickled to report that our division continues to enjoy leadership that supports what we do. From Deputy Secretary Michael to Secretary Cashwell, all the way to Governor Stein, we're really fortunate to have folks that understand the value of what we do for the citizens. There are a few things I'd like to share with you today before we move on to our business. Change and uncertainty continues to impact the federal government, and I'd like to take a moment to share how that does and does not affect us. First, as a reminder, all of our funding originates from state sources, so North Carolina Land and Water Fund staff and grant funds are not directly impacted by changes in the federal funding landscape. We do have a few positions on the natural -- natural heritage side of the shop that are funded through federal grants, but for the time being, they are continuing to do their work. There are, however, a substantial number of our grants that have leveraged federal funds against our awards, and therefore, loss of federal funding may leave those projects struggling to move forward. At this point, we haven't had any projects withdraw due to concerns over federal funding and I would expect -- I wouldn't expect anything until the dust settles, but when it does, we'll let you know if there are any big impacts. It's still a mixed bag, with some federal programs feeling more vulnerable than others, and frankly, all the people I know in federal agencies get their information from the news anyway, so there's not much inside information to be had, so we're just going to have to wait and see. At the state level, bill drafting deadlines will be behind us soon and legislators are busy. Thus far, there isn't anything that directly impacts the North Carolina Land and Water Fund. There is a Helene Disaster Recovery Bill in the Senate now, and while it has some things that are similar to what we do, there are no additional funds for NCLWF. It's titled Part 1, so perhaps we'll see something in another part later. And, of course, once the budget bill is drafted, we'll keep an eye on that as well, so for now, not too much directly impacting us at the state level. Regarding the impacts of Hurricane Helene on our program, so far, we're not aware of any acquisition projects that are not viable as a result of Helene, though I know that our partners working that area were certainly slowed down as they focused on their own recovery in their communities. We have been surveying our stream restoration projects in the area, and it is as you might expect. Many fared well, but there were some impacts to both completed projects and some changes that may affect our active projects. Steve will talk a little more about that during his report later. As you all know, after squeezing all the gains I felt I could out of technology and efficiency, I've been trying to increase our capacity to serve our customers through internal and external staff. On that note, I'm pleased to report that we have an open posting for a real property agent through the state property office, currently. The primary purpose of this position is to assist us in reviewing appraisals and that's a place where we can decrease our bottleneck a little bit. And secondary to that, it's critical that we are not spread so thin that we're all wearing too many hats and have no redundancy in critical skill sets internal to the Land and Water Fund. For instance, we don't have a dedicated PIO or GIS specialist or business officer or database manager or website manager for that matter, and all too often, we end up spinning plates just trying to keep things from breaking internally. To that end, I'm also pleased to report that we're advertising a stewardship data manager and permanent stewardship specialist that will both report to Justin. One of those is posted now, and I expect the other to be posted very soon. While their primary purpose is stewardship, they'll also help alleviate some of the mapping and other needs in the division. The growth of this program is a direct result of this board's support and investment in the stewardship of our funded projects in recent years. While funding new projects is the fun and glamorous way to allocate funds I, again, want to commend this board for also ensuring that we properly protect the work we've already done over the last 28 years. Last thing before I wrap up, while I appreciate the efficiency of a virtual meeting to handle some of our routine business and save you all time, there's no substitute for getting together in person, breaking bread, and experiencing firsthand the results of the good work we all do. As we have in recent years, we will meet in person for our May meeting and our fall funding meeting, which falls right on the September-October line this year. For our May meeting, we're going to meet at the Trinity Center in Salter Path, and after our business meeting on May 12th, we will spend May 13th visiting some excellent examples of restoration and land protection projects in the area and plan to have dinner both nights. So please mark your calendars and perhaps you could book an Airbnb for yourself the weekend before and celebrate Mother's Day at the coast. That's just an idea. We're finalizing the itinerary now, and I'll send out more details soon. So today, you'll hear reports from the restoration acquisition committees and a single item from the flood risk reduction program. Last reminder because it's important to me that trustees be able to see one another during their deliberations and not be pushed off the main screen, I would ask that any guests turn off their camera, excluding the secretary, deputy secretary, and likewise when staff are not speaking, please turn off your camera as well. With that said, I will conclude my report and be happy to take any questions.

Chairman Wilson: Thank you, Will; any questions for Will; all right --

Mr. Womack: Yeah, John, real quick question; the September-October meeting, I've got on my -- the invite said Teams meeting, but you're telling me now that it's going to be in person in Raleigh. Is that right, Will?

Executive Director Summer: Yes, David; I'm sorry. It's also a Teams meeting for guests that want to tune in remotely, but my intention is for trustees to be in person.

Mr. Womack: In Raleigh?

Executive Director Summer: Yes, sir.

Mr. Womack: Okay, perfect; just wanted to know; thank you.

Executive Director Summer: Well, thank you; my apologies for that not being clear; and, John, Jeff has informed me that the secretary is on the call, so I will give you that piece of information to do with that, please.

Chairman Wilson: Okay, well, then I'll just say I now have the pleasure of congratulating and introducing my friend Pamela Cashwell, who became secretary of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources in January. Prior to joining the department, this -- this -- this department, Pam served as secretary of the North Carolina Department of Administration from 2021 through 2024. She was and will always be the first American Indian woman to head a cabinet department in North Carolina. And finally, I'd just like to point out that Pam is a double Tar Heel, having earned her undergrad and law degrees at UNC Chapel Hill, so go Heels, and over to you, Secretary Cashwell; welcome.

Secretary Cashwell: Thank you so much, Mr. Chair and friend; it's great to see all of you this morning. As Will said, there's nothing better than being in person, but I guess this is a good second alternative, and I will look forward -- I was frantically trying to get the Salter Path event on my calendar for May so that I can join you all then, because I really like to be in person. And I'll warn you, I'm a hugger, and so random people get hugged by me. And so just know that if I'm in your personal space in advance, I'm giving you fair warning, you know, back away from me and put your hands up if I come near you. I just wanted to join for a few minutes this morning to introduce myself to you and primarily thank you for what you do. But first of all, John gave a little bit about my background. I have 30 years of experience. Most of that has been in the public sector, 10 years with the feds, and then I have spent the last 12 years in leadership positions with state government, and so at the State Ethics Commission and then at the Department of Public Safety as the Chief Deputy Secretary there, and then as Mr. Chair noted, for the last four years was Secretary at the Department of Administration. And so while I don't profess to have all of the expertise in all of the things that we do here at the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, I do feel very confident about my ability to run a state agency, to develop a budget, to look at systems like HR and our IT systems, to just try to really analyze whether we are operating as efficiently as we can. I've been -- I've spent this first two months really, more than anything, in addition to running across the street to the legislature to introduce myself to them and get ready for my confirmation hearing, spent a lot of time doing that, really just digging into the budget here, our HR process, how long it takes us to hire in this department, which I can tell you already is too long. And looking at our, you know, really looking at the budget carefully in light of the budget forecast for this year, we know that we're not likely to get any increases in this department. I mean, frankly, that's -- that’s the hard truth, is that we're not likely to get really any increases. At this point, I'm hoping to hold stable actually, with maybe, there are a few places that we're going to push really hard for some increases, and frankly, one of those is that I know our folks are not getting paid what they need to get paid. This department is among the lowest-paid staff in state government, and that is not a good thing. And in a climate where it's already hard to fill positions, that just makes it even harder. So know that that's how I'm spending my time right now, largely, is just really digging into our organization. And, you know, the budget was due -- I started on January 5th, our budget was due to the -- to OSBM two weeks after I got here, so, you know, a lot of like mad scramble on that at the outset. And then I'm also, of course, trying to meet our staff, and I really look forward to getting through the confirmation process so I can get out across the state and meet the great folks who work for DNCR. And I will tell you, you all may already know this, the thing that I already love about this department, let me be clear, I sought this position, like, I have coveted this position for many years, as I've sat in cabinet meetings and heard the secretary of DNCR talk about all the great and fun things that impact North Carolina and, you know, bringing land into state parks and natural areas and wonderful art exhibits and saving various endangered species, like having those announcements and then when you follow that and you're a Department of Public Safety leader where something, you know, awful has happened over the weekend or at DOA where the announcement is, you know, we're raising fees on the state motor fleet or it's something about procurement, you know, kind of really important but mundane in comparison to what the Secretary of DNCR is announcing. You know, we're having a naming contest for some polar bears at the zoo, like everybody who sits next to the DNCR Secretary is like, I want that job. And so I feel very blessed and fortunate to be in this role. And I named those things because they're the fun parts of the job, but obviously, there's so much hard work to be done as well, so thank you all for what you do; thank you, thank you, thank you for what you do. You're not getting paid for your time with us. I know that. And I know that it is a gift to the state, the service that you provide. And so know that that time and work and energy is really, really appreciated. We cannot do what we do without people like you giving their time, talent, and often treasure to help support our efforts. So I really appreciate the time that you all spend with us and all the work that you do when you're not with us. And so I look forward to meeting you. I certainly hope to be there in May in Salter Path and look forward to the next four years together. And I, you know -- some of the things -- Will, I'll tell you, my antennas were up with some of your report, and I was like, whoa; wait a minute; we got to get some -- we got to look at that and get some support in for Will on some of those things, so we’ll be chatting about some of that. That is -- that is my main goal here is to really support the divisions in this agency to do their job in the best way possible, to serve North Carolina in the best way possible for us to utilize taxpayer dollars in the most effective and efficient way. I feel very strongly about that responsibility to serve well, so thank you all, and thank you for letting me take a little bit of time, Mr. Chair, to introduce myself. I look very forward to working with you all.

Chairman Wilson: Thank you very much, Secretary Cashwell; any questions for the Secretary or comments or -- okay, well, thank you so much for being here, and we look forward to seeing you in person in Salter Path, and hopefully, Jeff Michael can be there as well. All right, we will now move on to the business section of our agenda, and we'll start out with the restoration innovative stormwater and planning committee, and I'll hand it over to Chair Ann Browning.

Committee Chair Browning: All right, thank you, John; our committee met on February 11th. We received a good report and discussed update on active projects and Helene impacts, and then we considered two items that we bring to you today, both of which were unanimous recommendations from our committee. So I'll just turn it over to Steve and let him take us through those, and Justin.

Mr. Bevington: All right, thank you, Madam Chair; I'm going to take us through two items. The first one is just an information item, the second one an action item, and then Justin will describe the second action item after that. Let me share my screen here, be right with you. So this item is a slight update from what the committee saw, make sure people can see my full screen. On February 11th, as -- obviously the state is dealing with the recovery of Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina. Staff had identified 89 sites that we thought may have received damage, and we're working with our partners to accurately describe the conditions we find at restoration sites, either active ones or recently completed sites, or vulnerable sites throughout that portion of the state. And at the time on February 11th, we reported the committee to Madam Chair and all on 54 sites, I believe, or 56 sites. We now have information on 62 I'd like to present today. Basically, it breaks down, and these are all evaluated partially by our own great staff getting out, the field representatives get out some of these sites, but primarily this is from our partners reporting what they have seen. I think it's important to note that we're still collecting this information and hope to have further information, maybe in May, a really good handle on what's out there. Damien continues to remind me that, of course, the most damaged sites are probably the ones we'll hear from last. But the bottom line is of these 62 sites we have information now on, we believe about 11 of those sites, or 18 percent have received major impacts, and I'll give you quick examples in just a second about what we mean by major impacts. 20 sites have reported self-reported mostly moderate impacts; 22 sites have minor impacts; and nine sites really have no visible effects, believe it or not, even though they received very high waters, and I was very pleased about that. Let me just give you a little sense, and feel free to interrupt if you wish. The first is the Bakersfield area, severe damage done to a recently completed project. I'm just going to flip to the next slide to show you sort of the before scene. The plantings you could -- probably difficult to see, but there are live stakes, small pieces of material put into the bank here that was recently rebuilt and graded back that given a year or two would have been much more robust, but it got caught in a vulnerable situation where these sticks essentially had not yet grown roots and this, you know, blank cover of grass really had to provide a very limited restoration, long-term protection. You can see some structures here in place, and this isn't exactly the same spot, but it's within 100 yards of it; this kind of severe damage and a greenway completely removed at this site as well. So that's sort of what we see with major damage. Moderate damage is where the stream is still in its original course, but there's major sediment debris, loss of trees, and you can see in this case here on the south fork of the New River a new channel being cut right through a bar, through a point bar. My sense is that kind of damage, there's a debate of what to do. It may need to be repaired. You may have to let nature take its course and have some repairs on that, but -- but serious erosion, serious damage to vegetation, but the stream's still in its original general configuration. This is sort of an example of light impacts. It doesn't look very light in some ways, but you can see the structure's recently put in place, the toe roots, the toe wads, and the branch work that's put on in the ground to help resist erosion are still in place, but the real damage here is so much sediment was brought in and dumped on the floodplain that it essentially killed the plantings that were done and it'll have to be replanted on the mouth of Hardin Creek, and a New River -- again another New River project. And this is a similar situation. I wanted to point this one out for the town of Morganton just because we have some numbers in, and Chelsea visited this site. Again, just believe it or not, we're considering this just a minor impact really, because again sediment was put in. There were a few spots where the channel actually avulsed a little bit and eroded heavily, but essentially up to 18 inches of sediment was placed on top of newly planted work. What I think is amazing was this stuff was just sitting there this exposed and I think this broad floodplain really helped preserve this during huge flood waters. The town of Morganton reported they think this project, even its current state, it's two phases there protected homes that this new parkland, well, this newly graded parkland protected neighboring homes by holding water back and then looking for further opportunities to expand this work. But they, in their own park system, experienced 16 million dollars' worth of damage they estimate at this point, and on this site luckily, it was only $120,000.00 they have to do to sort of clean this up and replant it, but they do feel -- they're sort of it's out of pocket. We did not have repair funds to offer them. Other partners, cooperating partners don't have extra funds. Everyone's scrambling, so they're hoping to receive 40 or more million dollars city-wide from FEMA. If that doesn't come through, I don't know how they're going to really recover obviously, but they will, and the example that is here is $120,000.00. They've already allocated that begun this work to restore -- to bring this up to its full restoration potential, recognizing how important it is to neighboring communities as a flood water protection and as a natural resource, really fantastic example. And I wanted to throw in one of the nine sites here where, you know, even in a case where there's no mature vegetation, some of these projects survived. You have extensive floodplains here, so the water, once it really got out of its banks, essentially became a huge lake. There was evidence of heavy water movement and deep waters, but essentially no damage to the channel of this project even though it was just completed within the last year. So, Madam Chair, I'm happy to answer any questions about this. I can go back to slides if people want, but I think -- let me flip back to this very quickly. Again, the hurricane had a major impact, and communities are struggling with all parts of the work, including recently completed restoration if they have it in their neighborhood. That's our information item, Madam Chair.

Committee Chair Browning: Thanks, Steve; anybody have questions about that; it's really helpful to hear from our partners and get more and more information about all the damage they sustained.

Chairman Wilson: I have a question.

Mr. Bevington: Very good.

Chairman Wilson: Steve, can you show the slide of the Morganton project again?

Mr. Bevington: Sure.

Chairman Wilson: And did I hear you correctly that you said that the city felt like the grading helped mitigate flooding? Can you just explain briefly if I heard that correctly and explain briefly what that means? I can't remember that particular 2022 project.

Mr. Bevington: Let’s get to the slide.

Chairman Wilson: It was a restoration -- it was a restoration project, right, not a flood --

Mr. Bevington: It's a -- it’s a restoration project. That's correct. Let's see. For some reason, I'm having trouble getting to the right slide. I'll be there in a second. There we are. So this is a city park and maybe Chelsea can provide an extra explanation if you want. Bethel Park in the town, it's a public access area. They have its regular features. They had a very incised channel through the middle of it. It was a sort of a narrow, not quite a gully, but a very narrow channel which had limited access to its flood point. So in other words, the storm flow would be contained in a deep and sort of steep banked channel, and by the time it got out on its floodplain, it was too late. It would already have so much energy in that channel it would be sort of like a fire hose, and unfortunately, we saw a lot of cases of this, especially below bridges and culverts across western North Carolina, where the velocity of the water is damaging. It comes out of the system at high rates of speed, moving all sorts of materials, literally trees and rocks moving with the water downstream and in sort of debris torrents. So they felt that this system, how they had sloped the banks back, provided a floodplain at the lower level to allow the river to get out of its banks earlier and sort of fill as a -- more like a temporary flood storage pond, briefly, for four or five hours or a few days as the case may be. That's sort of where this saving, they believe, came from. I haven't been there myself. I know Chelsea's been out there, but just as sort of a screening visit. It's one option I had was if the city was interested to sort of describe further how important they feel it was for their community to have them send us some sort of report or maybe even show up at one of our meetings and tell you about it. So this was a case study that I thought could be developed. At this point, I have to say it's more or less anecdotal, but it's really -- it's allowing the floodplain to be accessed, and it's hard to see in these pictures, but a lot of this depth between the water surface and where you see a flat muddy surface off to the right of the stream, a lot of that was filled in. It was actually lower to accommodate even more water, but so much sediment came down the stream. It drops sand and gravels on the floodplain, and the city is actually -- part of their $120,000.00 estimate is actually remove a little bit of that sediment, put it to other parts of town that need soil, and allow the floodplain again to accommodate floodwaters. And again we always do provide the natural ecological functions of a floodplain at the same time.

Chairman Wilson: And a project like this in our restoration rating system is -- is scored, this -- this is a question, not -- not a statement of fact, so help me with this, is scored based on, you know, length of the stream and -- and the degree to which we have restoration, but how much in our current rating system, if any, would a project like this also benefit from reconnecting it to its historic floodplain; any or -- or is it just length of -- length of stream and how much we're restoring or whatever level of restoration is being done?

Mr. Bevington: That's a great question. It's still an evolving process for us, and we brought some of those to the restoration committee before, some of those thoughts, and right now with this project, you're exactly right. It's just length, unfortunately, that we take into account to give it sort of its uplift score. People have a number of different ways of describing that with different models and things, but length is the key factor. It also relates to price per length, but we do, in some cases, and actually, I can sort of steal out the next slide; we have a very large floodplain restoration project, where the floodplain that was being approved was so big and so wide compared to the length, we do take the perimeter of some of those projects especially if they put wetlands on the project, take the perimeter of the wetland and half that distance basically to some sort of a mathematical averaging idea, add that to the project length quote/unquote to give us a slightly better score for projects that do go wide. We now encourage people to even look at the 500-year floodplain to get a kind of a uplift score, and really then we're almost we're not quite in the acquisition world, but we're starting to get very large parcels as opposed to little ribbons of difficult to steward projects. So I think our field reps have been fantastic about sort of promoting those, and we have started to see those where the whole floodplain is involved in a project. I'll just say the last thing about the score that does benefit a wide project is since we don't buy any land, don't -- don’t pay for any acquisition in the restoration program, it's all match, so if they give us not 50 feet, but the whole floodplain 300-400 feet of property, at least their match goes up, and that's very helpful to some applicants in some cases; doesn't help state parks and people like that who have already secured the land for future use, but that's -- that’s a second benefit, so --

Mr. Hearne: Steve?

Mr. Bevington: Yeah, go ahead.

Mr. Hearne: If I can steal the screen for one second, if you all can kind of --

Mr. Bevington: Thank you, Damien; yes, please.

Mr. Hearne: -- burn your eyes on that picture of the stream, and its relative stream bed compared to the side. I'm going to show you a picture that's of the same reach, but a little bit from the other direction. You can imagine in a flood situation that water is moving straight down and not accessing that floodplain and taking a lot of that sediment with it. It was a pretty extreme -- so I was a field rep on phase one. Chelsea's also been there, but this happens to be the picture of that general site, and I think depending on the uplift calculations that the applicants do if they do an SQT, which is our more holistic uplift model, the fact that the hydrology and the connections to the floodplain are more natural will get them more points in that scoring system, but they may have used our more -- more historic and perfectly valid process of how much sediment is being lost to get the same score, because obviously, you can see there, there's a lot of what they call mass wasting because of that speed of that water and how deep that is, but I just thought I'd share that picture since it's of the generally the same location and it really gives you a sense of why flood waters would be exiting that property before and not exiting at the same speed with the picture that Steve showed you.

Chairman Wilson: And there are countless, I know you know this Damien and Steve, but there are just countless streams in that part of the state that look -- that looked exactly like that before Helene and now just, oh God, just awful, so I think -- I think those types of projects like the Morganton project are really, really important and that's a poster child for success in -- in this case; thank you.

Mr. Bevington: Yeah; yeah, thank you, Damien; that was excellent. And I think I agree with everything I've heard so far on these questions. The town is interested in telling what they think was a success. You know, again, it's going to cost them 120,000 extra dollars to get it back to where they want it, but they're very happy so maybe I can get a nice, you know, kind of further update and a happy tale of recovery somewhere down the road to present to you all or -- or maybe even better yet have Chelsea present; any other questions about that information item? I will -- I will -- just last thing I have to say is there are so much damage in other sites not near us the field reps have been fantastic about sort of helping me understand the true impact of the natural resources received. Of course, we hear about the communities, but also natural resources in western North Carolina and all field reps, but especially Damien and Chelsea have been out and about and contacted our partners and I think with a sympathetic ear but, you know, we're not able to sort of say, hey, guess what; we have funds available for your repairs to this so there's some partners who are really scrambling to decide -- they're still a decision phase of how they're going to recover as communities all across western North Carolina.

Committee Chair Browning: Other questions for Steve before we go into our other two items?

Mr. Bevington: All right, I'll move on to another and actually this has a nice similar width of project story, but it starts -- I'll start with the generic, and we'll see this twice in a funny fate. We have the same request coming both from flood risk reduction projects we'll hear later today, and this one is through the restoration committee because it is relative to a restoration project. But as you -- I think most of you all know, there is a -- in our enabling legislation a requirement, and it's I think it's a good one; it's intended to keep people from sort of banking money to get an award and sitting on for a few years not doing too much and finally getting around to it to keep the currency of projects alive. And we lean on this a lot that any project that involves construction is required to enter into a construction contract with one year after the contract is executed, and further, that requirement can only be amended by you the board of trustees. So the staff has many levels of operation in which we can help work with applicants, but the state legislature did ask specifically the projects that don't meet that condition or are in danger of not meeting this condition come back to you for an extension of that deadline again to enter in a construction contract with one year. The case in point is from Conserving Carolina. It's a Deerwoode Floodplain project, which again, I'm happy to have come up because it's very relevant to John's question about how -- what the benefits are in terms of evaluating a project, as well as the natural resource benefits wide project. I'll show you in a minute. But this is a project it is out west. It's a project has been delayed from permitting they have a lot of wetlands out -- potential wetlands on the site and they're improving some wetlands so the 401 certification process for wetlands has been the part that's been slowing this project down, understandably, under the shadow of Hurricane Helene. So not only are they having trouble getting some contractors on the site, they also had some permitting slowdowns because of that. So they are requesting that this -- their request they'd be allowed to have to the end of this calendar year to enter into a construction contract. I -- just to show you briefly this fantastic project, the gray band around the bottom of this colorful picture is the French Broad River, and I think you -- many of you were a site visit on a similar project where we saw muskellunge sloughs being built to allow hopefully to encourage muskies to reproduce naturally along the French Broad River again. But this site involves many different activities sort of our classic riparian area in green. That's a little bit of stream restoration around the edges where the French Broad is gnawed into poorly maintained riparian buffers. We’ll repair those with natural riparian vegetation, but also extensive wetland enhancement a little bit of upland work sort of pollinator garden sort of stuff. And -- but mostly -- and as you see, they highlight their a floodplain forest in the brown, 15 acres which is the kind of thing that's absolutely, you know, kind of one of the perfect sponges; the natural places for water reside during a flood briefly make its way slowly off the site instead of dashing downstream to Asheville or some other community downstream. I can go further into the project, but since it was a highly successful project, I do have to point out one important thing about the applicant. They have two of these projects going on at the moment. The other one was not delayed. They were able to get through the permitting process a little faster and they're on time. Staff feels that this applicant should have no difficulty completing the project in a reasonable time frame, and so we do support approving the extension. That was the committee's unanimous recommendation as well to approve the request to Conserving Carolina for this project 22-411 to enter -- to extend the deadline to enter in a construction contract to December 1st of 2025. I'd be happy to ask any -- answer any questions about the project, although Damien may have to bring us some expertise and slides again if you want to know much more about it. But that's the -- a motion -- a motion from the committee in front of you.

Mr. Williams: Steve, what was the amount of the award?

Mr. Bevington: The amount of the award?

Mr. Williams: Yeah.

Mr. Bevington: I'm going to have to go check that really quick. Damien will probably beat me to it, but I'll go look right now. I do not know off the top of my head.

Mr. Williams: Just curious.

Mr. Bevington: Yeah, I'll answer that in one second. I'm on the other screen; any other questions while we look that up? Well, that's not going to help.

Acquisition Chair Grissom: I guess I just have one -- one question as well. I saw on the map that floodplain area with invasive control. Do we help fund some of that or how do partners manage invasive plant management, because I just feel like that's going to become a huge issue particularly in mountains.

Mr. Bevington: Yeah.

Acquisition Chair Grissom: And I, you know, not to be too negative about it --

Mr. Bevington: Yeah, the only --

Acquisition Chair Grissom: -- but with all of --

Mr. Bevington: Yeah.

Committee Chair Browning: -- that disturbance, this is going to be an ongoing issue for our natural areas.

Mr. Bevington: Exactly; we have been very shy about participating any project that's primary focus is -- is invasive species control, because it's a huge task across the state and an important one, but there are other agencies, including parks and other agencies, that can better handle that and it's not really directly in our charter. Although, of course, it would help natural resources, it's sort of off to the side. The only exception was that we did one where we did control invasive weeds into -- a hydrilla getting into Lake Waccamaw. That was sort of the one-off exception. The board discussed it extensively, and Parks really felt like it was an important thing to do, so in this case, I'm almost sure that's a match element and a stewardship element that comes on after our project. We're more focused on the wetlands and the flood retention as one of our purposes does allow -- and of course, the riparian buffers. That's a great question. Our executive director is quite alert to that, knowing how many millions of dollars could be siphoned off into that kind of activity in a -- in a heartbeat. So with that, I'm going to stop sharing for a second, so I could open a file without confusing myself.

Mr. Hearne: It’s $552,000 award.

Mr. Bevington: Thank you, Damien.

Mr. Williams: Okay.

Mr. Bevington: Any other questions; it's the kind of project we've really been encouraging. I mean, for such a large project, that's a pretty modest award, and Conserving Carolina does a great job with these things. It's moving forward, just happens to be a little bit slow on this one, partly again because of the hurricane and then some complications of permitting the wetland changes on the site.

Mr. Williams: Steve, I do have another question. It's kind of unrelated --

Mr. Bevington: Okay.

Mr. Williams: It's unrelated to this project, but it raises a question, and this may have been mentioned earlier. But I'm curious to know other projects that were awarded already and was in progress, and then Helene may have come and damaged the areas that may require some redesign and -- and possibly extensions. So any -- any status on -- do we know what's going on with those, if any?

Mr. Bevington: Yeah, we don't have a summary to give you.

Mr. Williams: Okay.

Mr. Bevington: We have been approached -- as a matter of fact, next week, I've got another meeting with Phil Russ who's been actively engaged with a number of partners who do have shortfalls. There's one project that I think may just end up being withdrawn. With some of those major damages to projects, it's almost like a redo, and there's no money because they spent the money. And you know, do they apply again, or do they let nature take its course? I mean, the -- my assessment of stream restoration is if you give it 50 or 60 years, nature -- and leave it alone, nature will do it itself. We can't always wait that long because we're impatient and because there's going to be so much damage to other nearby properties in the meantime. But, Damien, if you feel like you want to jump in, but there's -- there are several projects that are in jeopardy. There's ones that are half done. I think -- I think in terms of the hundreds of millions of dollars of damage that's out there, I sort of feel like restoration got away with it better than average. But that's still a huge price tag that a number of people are going to have to struggle with and communities that have resources they have to put towards community improvements and that they weren't expecting to and may not want to be able to engage. So we haven't had any exact withdrawals yet or requests for modifications. I think in the March 1 deadline we may see a few applications coming in. But we have had -- we have had applicants come in and say, look, we're $200,000.00 short now; what should we do, and we've sent them back to -- you know, our first answer is, well, it's a competitive grant price -- process. We've already allocated 100 percent of our awards available. We really wish we could help you. We're trying to be as flexible as possible in terms of deadlines and in terms of project reports. Don't worry about progress report this month. Just go ahead and do more important work. But we're having to tell them their first choice is go back to your other partners and see if your matches can come up, and if FEMA or somebody steps up, that might be an easy job. It may also -- they may really frankly be stuck. I don't know. Damien, do you want to put your own --

Mr. Hearne: Yeah.

Mr. Bevington: -- thoughts on that.

Mr. Hearne: Well, I’ll just add so we looked at all of our open projects and recently closed projects that were in the impacted counties, then reached out to the applicants, and then we -- and also did on-the-ground surveys to the ones that we hadn't heard from or needed to look at along with them. So we have a pretty good sense of recently completed or in the middle of construction projects that were impacted. And there were a bunch that just in, like, the French Broad River and slowly came up and slowly went down. It's the areas that were kind of in the headwater areas, a couple in Ashe and Watauga County, that had higher impacts that we're working with the applicants on. There's a couple that are permitted and funded and ready to go. I just heard about one this morning where the landowner on one side that was in great agreement before the storm is a corporation is now really nervous, and they're not so sure, and they're trying to work it out, and they're doing negotiations. And it may or may not be successful. We hope it will be, but that's kind of why every year we -- we have that -- we just know that even after the funding meeting, we can get projects that withdraw, and then we have a provisional list for that reason to handle those. And we're also -- as I'm telling applicants, we just don't know what -- what we'll have as far as special repair or special focus money on those, but the kind of sweet spot that I've been focusing on when we've surveyed projects is, is there something left to be repaired? Is there an investment that we put in that's still there that we can salvage versus 100 percent loss starting over? It's a totally different project than it was originally. And luckily, there's not as many of those as there could be. There's a couple of projects that were completed 10 years ago, had good vegetation, but just got such massive amount of water that they just resorted themselves in the way that, you know, streams do. But we've been really focusing on those projects that are open and have good -- a pretty good handle on those.

Mr. Williams: Okay, yeah, thanks.

Mr. Bevington: I just put this up for your convenience, so happy to go back to any of the slides and, Damien, sorry, I didn't mean to replace your face with this slide, just in case it's useful to the committee -- or to the board.

Chairman Wilson: So, Ann and Steve, anything more from the committee before we discuss and vote on this recommendation from the committee?

Committee Chair Browning: Nope, we just fully supported the staff recommendation, so bring it to the board.

Chairman Wilson: Okay, so this comes to us from the committee as a motion, and so we're going to move straight into voting on it unless there is any further discussion from the trustees. If so, now's the time. All right, hearing none, let me know how you vote on this motion from the committee to approve the request from Conserving Carolina to extend project 2022-411 until December 31st, 2025. How do you vote, please, Jimmy?

Mr. Broughton: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: Ann?

Committee Chair Browning: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: Amy?

Committee Chair Grissom: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: Clement?

Mr. Riddle: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: Mike?

Mr. Rusher: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: Jason?

Vice-Chair Walser: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: Darrel?

Mr. Williams: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: David?

Mr. Womack: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: And John is a yes also. And Ann, is the next one the one that you recused on?

Committee Chair Browning: It is.

Chairman Wilson: Okay, and did I run this in the committee?

Committee Chair Browning: You did.

Chairman Wilson: Would you like me to? Okay, all right, of course I remember. Okay, this is agenda item 1c, the request from NCDOT for a conservation easement amendment, and I will hand this off to Justin, please, to present it to the board.

Stewardship Manager Mercer: Thank you; we'll -- we’ll jump right in here. Agenda item 1c 1997A-076 Bacchert and Walton conservation agreement amendment request; this will be a very abbreviated version of what was presented to the restoration committee. Please feel free to stop if you have any questions as we go through here. Just starting with a little bit of background, in 1997, a grant in the amount of $394,103.00 was awarded by the Land and Water Fund to NC State University to prevent water quality degradation through land acquisition and restoration of degraded streams. It's worth pointing out here that 1997 was the very first year that we awarded grants for these types of projects, and many of our conventions and our processes were not yet in place, and so that's why we have a 076 project number that has gone through the restoration committee to review the initial amendment request. In 2000, a conservation easement was acquired on 2.011 acres along Cove Creek to facilitate stream restoration activities. So this easement very much was related to restoration work. In 2024, Blue Ridge Conservancy was contracted to monitor these easements annually. One of those easements that did not previously have funding or a dedicated monitor and so Blue Ridge stepped in for us and agreed to monitor annually for us. Unfortunately, they were unable to make it out to the site before Hurricane Helene came through, and flooding associated with the storm washed out the adjacent bridge on Isaacs Branch Road. Jumping forward into early this year, DOT has requested an amendment to facilitate the replacement of the bridge over Cove Creek. Just to get you oriented a little bit here, our project location is circled in blue, just to the northwest of Boone almost due north of the Valle Crucis area here as well. DOT is requesting amendment of the conservation easement to release up to two-tenths of an acre to facilitate replacement of the bridge on Isaacs Branch Road. Just jumping over here to the map quickly, you can see our easement boundary shown in red, the proposed release area in this dashed yellow box; that does encompass a -- an emergency temporary bridge that was installed as a workaround for the washed out bridge here adjacent to the -- to the easement boundary. So this amendment request would facilitate the removal of the temporary bridge that was installed as an emergency measure and construction of a new permanent bridge largely within the same footprint of the previous bridge, potentially with a little bit of -- of expanded footprint. Unfortunately, the exact footprint is unknown at this point due to the nature of this project; it being an emergency, it being done quickly, DOT doesn't have final construction drawings yet. But they are confident that the impact area will not exceed two-tenths of an acre on the Land and Water Fund easement. So moving into our conservation agreement amendment guidelines and practices, and just as a reminder, I typically get a little bit out of order here jumping into section 4 to talk about offset of conservation impacts. With these public works type projects, our guidelines state that the Land and Water Fund may elect to be reimbursed at minimum the current fair market value as determined by appraisal tax value and/or Land and Water Fund staff or a prorated amount of the investment at the time of the grant contract, whichever is greater. This is a process with DOT that staff usually works through, with DOT giving us an initial number for what they believe the property is worth. And then staff checks that against tax value and other documentation that we have to ensure that the Land and Water Fund is receiving the amount that we are due. So in this case, DOT's expectation is that monetary offset will be required at a one-to-one ratio consistent with our guidelines and practices. Moving back now into other sections of our guidelines and practices, section two major amendments, it's worth noting that at two-tenths of an acre, this is a very small level of impact and would fall under a minor amendment delegated to staff-level decision were it not for the fact that the entire easement itself is just over two acres. So because our area of impact exceeds 5 percent of the total easement area, this does get elevated to a major amendment request. And in that section, it states that amendment requests to accommodate public works projects that are not covered in section 1 may be approved by the Land and Water Fund board. And so there are other factors that we consider. We look at the impacts to value. We put it through the full review process, but ultimately, our guidelines tell us that the board can consider approving this request if you so choose. If there are any more details sworn on that process, I'm happy to provide them, but that does bring us here to the committee recommendation from the restoration committee to authorize NCDOT and the state property office to release up to two-tenths of an acre of the 2.011 acre conservation easement to facilitate the rebuilding of the bridge on Isaacs Branch Road. The Land and Water Fund shall be compensated for the easement value of the entire area of impact as determined by NCDOT appraisal and confirmed by Land and Water Fund staff. With that, I will turn it back to the chair for any further discussion.

Chairman Wilson: All right, thanks, Justin; discussion with Justin about this?

Mr. Womack: A quick question, Justin; I know it's not that much money, but how are those funds applied? What happens to the reimbursement for the additional --

Stewardship Manager Mercer: Great question; our -- our practice is to return the funds to whichever program they originally came from. So because this went through the restoration committee, because this project was associated with restoration work, any funds returned would go back to the restoration program and added to whatever pot of money is then awarded for restoration projects in the future.

Mr. Womack: Thanks.

Mr. Broughton: Justin, this is Jimmy Broughton. What's the timeline again on the sort of appraisal -- that whole process?

Stewardship Manager Mercer: This one is a little bit odd because of the emergency nature of it. It's usually a relatively quick process. I think they're looking to actually move forward on this within the next few months, pending -- pending an approval decision here and ultimately by the Council of State, but it's -- it’s pretty quick. DOT has their own in-house appraisers that they will -- they typically send out to look at this, and they'll send me -- send me back a number. From there, it's just a matter of me checking to make sure that number meets our minimum requirements and ensures that we are not losing out on -- on the investment that -- that we've made here previously. So it'll -- it’ll be relatively -- go quickly. We'll know that, I imagine, within -- within a matter of weeks after -- after I let DOT know that the board has made a decision here.

Mr. Broughton: Thanks.

Chairman Wilson: Any more questions, discussion with Justin before we vote; this was a recommendation from the committee coming to us as a motion to authorize NCDOT and the State Property Office to release up to two-tenths of an acre of the 2.011 acre conservation easement to facilitate the rebuilding of the bridge on Isaacs Branch Road. NCLWF will be compensated for the easement value of the entire area. The impact is determined by the DOT appraisal and confirmed by our staff. And I'll also point out that, as a major amendment, this has to be affirmed by two-thirds vote of our board in order to pass, and Ann will be recusing, so there will be eight of us voting instead of nine. Any more discussion on this before we vote; okay, please let me know how you vote; Jimmy?

Mr. Broughton: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: Amy?

Committee Chair Grissom: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: Clement?

Mr. Riddle: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: Mike?

Mr. Rusher: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: Jason?

Vice-Chair Walser: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: Darrel?

Mr. Williams: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: David?

Mr. Womack: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: And John is a yes also. And I believe that concludes the Restoration, Innovative Stormwater, and Planning Committee actions. Is that right, Ann and Steve?

Committee Chair Browning: That's right. Steve, do you have anything else?

Mr. Bevington: That's it; thank you very much all, appreciate your guidance and advice; thank you.

Chairman Wilson: Thank you; okay, before we move on to our second business item on our agenda, I will tell you all that as I was reaching for my phone to text Will to say, did I skip over the public comment section, there was a text from him saying, hey, you skipped over the public comment section. He said it in a much nicer way. So let me now ask -- and before I open the floor for public comments, I'd like to remind our guests that NCLWF guidelines and procedures manual states that comments should be limited to subjects of business following within the jurisdiction of the Land and Water Fund. We welcome public comments on general issues, but comments are not allowed on individual projects before the Land and Water Fund for funding during the regular meeting. Comments will be limited to three minutes per person. And with that, would any member of the public like to make a comment? And, Will, have you heard from anyone that they might like to make a comment?

Executive Director Summer: Mr. Chair, there is nobody here in person at the meeting space, and while we do have a few members of the public on the call, I do not see them raising their hand or unmuting, and then no one is made aware that they intended to address the board.

Chairman Wilson: All right, well, we'll wait three more seconds to see if somebody speaks up, which is right now. All right, hearing none, we will move on; sorry about that. We'll move on to the Acquisition Committee and turn it over to Chair Amy Grissom.

Committee Chair Grissom: Okay, thank you, Chairman Wilson; excuse me. I must need something to drink. Okay, so Acquisition Committee met just once virtually, February 13th. All members were present. We had a relatively light load on our agenda, especially in comparison with the previous meetings we've had in August and, of course, the October funding meeting, and then leading up to our December board meeting. First, we have an update on two projects, and just as a reminder, these were awards that were made in 2021, when we had the extra 100 million dollars over two years, so we were really looking at funding some projects at a really high level. We extended those in October to January 31st, 2025, as a board, but we wanted updates to ensure progress because of the amount of money that we have waiting for these compelling projects to hopefully be completed. So with that, I'll turn it over to Marissa. Are you ready to go, Marissa?

Ms. Hartzler: Absolutely, thank you; good morning; so in 2021, the board fully funded several projects that exceeded the traditional cap of approximately 1.2 million dollars per project, and as part of funding these large awards, the board stipulated that these projects be subject to at least annual progress reports. Two of these projects are still currently active, both of which the board extended through January 31st of 2026, at the October funding meeting, and at the same time the Acquisition Committee requested more frequent updates, and so I will report on these two projects now. The first project, 2021-037, the Conservation Fund's Johnson Farm Project, was awarded roughly 3.6 million dollars for the acquisition of approximately 1,250 acres in Harnett County. As previously reported, they have raised all of the match required to complete this almost 10 million dollar project, but they continue working on a purchase agreement with the landowners. I understand this to be a very complex family negotiation, but once they get the purchase contract, I believe they're well poised to acquire the land and finish the project. It really hinges on the landowners making that decision to move forward with the acquisition. The second project, 2021-051, the Nature Conservancy's 421 Sand Ridge Phase 2, was awarded 8.9 million in 2021, and in 2020 was awarded 1.2 million for its first phase. Together, these two phases would protect approximately 5,800 acres in Pender County. So the Nature Conservancy is also in active negotiations with the landowner of the larger assemblage, who earlier on sold approximately 600 acres to a developer. They're now working with that developer. They're very sort of end-stage contract negotiations with that developer, for the Nature Conservancy to purchase that 600 acres as sort of a first phase of acquisition of this assemblage. Then with that agreement in place, joint offers can be made for the remaining acres. We do anticipate that a limited number of acres would be excluded from the project, but the details are unknown at this time. Certainly should there be any change, staff will assess that change to scope and budget and use our project change guidelines and practices to elevate that to the appropriate level for approval. Right now, bottom line, I believe by the next time this board meets, they will likely have at least one purchase contract for 600 acres signed and in place. I think we'll be well on their way to making an offer and getting a contract on the remaining acres, and they may even possibly have closed on the 600 acres. So as an informational item, there is no action to be taken by the board today, but happy to turn it back for any questions.

Committee Chair Browning: Marissa, I don't know if I understood correctly. Did you say after the 600 acres are secured, they would be freed up to make joint offers on the remaining? What's the joint referred to?

Ms. Hartzler: Sure, they would work with the developer to both make an offer on remaining acres, in which the developer would purchase some of the project area and very likely develop it, and the Nature Conservancy would purchase the remainder. So that's the piece that they still need to negotiate; how many acres, where, and what does that -- what does that offer look like? That will be something that, you know, they're -- they’re having those conversations, but will have them more earnestly after phase one is under contract. Does that help?

Committee Chair Browning: It does. The original proposal did not anticipate that there would be -- it was anticipated that all of it would be preserved, right?

Ms. Hartzler: Correct, yes.

Committee Chair Browning: And so how does that impact the amount of the award that's available?

Ms. Hartzler: Absolutely, it -- it -- it could. It all depends on how many acres and what the impact to the resources are. And of course, you know, these are very likely to be the most developable acres of the property, so very likely worth more. We will need to assess that using our -- everyone's favorite decision matrix form. Once -- once those variables are known, and absolutely, if it rises to the level of chair or board, we will bring that back to you all to make the decision on how to move forward with the project.

Committee Chair Browning: Thank you.

Committee Chair Grissom: I guess I would just add, you know, at an absolute minimum, we ask for a letter of intent. We would, of course, prefer to have an actual purchase agreement signed, but with these big projects and big asks in that year that we didn't have caps, we really hope to make some progress on very compelling, large-scale, amazing opportunities. I know that Greer Cawood, our former board chair, John, and I all went to visit the Sand Ridge property, and I believe Jason and John, and maybe someone else, visited the Johnson Farm. And we found them to be amazing opportunities and hope that they will, in fact, close. And it's great to aim for the stars on occasion, but they really need to close and close soon so that we're not tying up that money when we have other viable projects coming every year that go unfunded, so any other questions for Marissa about that as well? The committee seemed happy with the progress, and as we move toward this January 31st, 2025 (sic) deadline, so I'm sure you'll all hear about it again and probably be addressing this hopefully with a celebratory, yay, it's done. Okay, and with that, Marissa, are you ready for our second item? That's a -- a contract extension request on a donation mini-grant project.

Ms. Hartzler: Absolutely, let me just share my screen. We will actually transition here from some of our most expensive projects to perhaps one of our least expensive, but regardless of that dollar amount, still an important project. In 2023, the North Carolina Plant Conservation Program, part of the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, was awarded $4,500.00 to accept the donation of 10 acres in Boiling Spring Lakes in Brunswick County. You can see on the screen that 10 acre property is highlighted here in red, and it is sort of in a sea of other lands that are currently owned by the state and managed by the Plant Conservation Program. PCP has completed several of these small lot donations through our donation mini-grant program with the goal of protecting the natural areas and rare plant communities present on these never-developed, typically residential tracts. And as I mentioned, this is -- this is almost an in-holding in their currently managed lands, so while a very small project, completion has a lot of benefits for future habitat management. This project, the Kurunsaari project, has taken longer than anticipated due to unforeseen and really uncontrollable delays, and that includes the settlement of an estate for the landowner and now the retirement of their closing attorney, who has been working on the project. PCP is working with the State Property Office to complete this acquisition as soon as possible, but have requested a year extension, and staff supports this extension. And so I will just scroll up. The committee recommendation was to grant the contract extension to allow for the completion of the donation and the project through February 28th, 2026; happy to turn it back for questions.

Committee Chair Grissom: I would just have one quick request, Marissa. I know that the natural areas are called Funston Bays, and the other one, unfortunately, has the name Hog Branch Ponds Natural Area, but could you just talk a little bit about what's there of natural heritage significance, that might not be apparent with a name like that for that natural area?

Ms. Hartzler: Sure, absolutely; I think this entire landscape; while I do not know the specific plant names, we can -- we can get those if folks are interested, but the entire landscape has a number of rare plants that have been of particular importance to the Plant Conservation Program. And this is an interesting landscape because it will benefit greatly from having fire. And so by acquiring these tracks and really simplifying the landscape and having it under unified management, that will enable the Plant Conservation Program to get in there, do some prescribed burning to really help encourage these rare plants and their continuation.

Committee Chair Grissom: Thanks.

Chairman Wilson: Okay.

Committee Chair Grissom: So, Chairman Wilson, this is a recommendation from the committee.

Chairman Wilson: Yeah, all right, thank you; any more questions from the trustees for Marissa about this request for an extension for 2023D-013; we good to vote? All right, please let me know how you vote; Jimmy?

Mr. Broughton: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: Ann?

Committee Chair Browning: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: Amy?

Committee Chair Grissom: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: Clement?

Mr. Riddle: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: Mike?

Mr. Rusher: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: Jason?

Vice-Chair Walser: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: Darrel?

Mr. Williams: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: David?

Mr. Womack: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: And John is a yes, also; Amy, anything more from the Acquisition Committee?

Committee Chair Grissom: Nope, that's it; thank you.

Chairman Wilson: Okay, thank you; thanks, Marissa; and we will move on to the third and final item on our business agenda. That is extension of construction contract deadlines for Flood Risk Reduction Projects, and over to you, Steve.

Mr. Bevington: Thank you, Mr. Chair; I'm going to share my screen. And we'll talk about a familiar approach, but a new set of projects here for the Flood Risk Reduction Program. Item 3, I believe you can see in my slides, is that right? So we had earlier in the agenda, through the Restoration Committee, a request to extend a deadline to enter into a construction contract. The Flood Risk Reduction Committee did not meet because it hasn't been exactly disbanded, but it seemed that committee was really established ad hoc to address a one-time legislative grant, maybe a future grant, who knows, or allocation of funds. But anyway, the committee did not meet. We thought it best probably to bring this item to the full board, and it's going to be very similar to the last discussion, except involving more projects. And the reason for that really is not project delay. It's a new scope growth and new opportunity. So as a quick reminder, the timeline of flood risk reduction contracts is such that 17 projects were awarded back in 2023, and contracts were developed based on the 15 million dollars the state legislature appropriated to you, as the Board of Trustees, and the Flood Risk Reduction Committee worked on that. Since that time, DEQ, through their blueprint -- flood risk -- flood risk blueprint work, had developed a MOA with our agency to have additional funds towards these type of projects. And in 2024, you, as a board, approved 11 projects to receive supplemental funding. Probably at that time, I should have been astute enough to say, hey, this is going to require some difficulty for people who are taking on more work to get their contracts in place because they're going to have to redo some of their bidding and expand their projects. And that, in fact, is what happened. So probably hindsight being 20/20, I wish I brought this -- mentioned it to you back in 2024 when we approved taking blueprint money and moving it forward to these 11 flood risk reduction projects to give them extra money to do more work. But many of them have experienced difficulties in having to re-scope the project and re-bid. It's kind of an embarrassment of riches in a little way is that they received often as much as $800,000 extra to increase scopes. But it does put them in a position of not being able to complete their contract requirement of being under contract with subcontractor for construction within a year from execution date, and that's how the legislation reads. And it reads very specifically about the execution of an exact contract, which is not something you can -- you can change. The good thing about a contract, you can't change the execution date. It's sort of a permanent element of that. So that date is firm. These are the eight projects that expressed either have missed their deadline, just very recently or expressed an inability to meet their contractual requirements to go under contract, because they are actively expanding scope, often doubling the amount of earth moving that's taking place or the length of their project in a couple of cases. Other projects either met their deadline or had less construction work that was already under contract and didn't have to change that. So these are the eight here, and again, I wish I'd been savvy enough to just mention this as a natural expectation, the time of the expanding scope decisions you made last year. This is an example from a contract that the effective date there, the second line there on the first, you know, January 10th, 2024, when that contract was signed, it automatically requires that the construction contract date deadline of the first month, 10th day of 2025 be included. And that's what happened. So they have these jeopardies in front of them, which I think, again, I wish I brought this up. We could have swept this out of the rug with a good amendment instead of doing two amendments, as now we're looking at. So basically, that's my report. I'm happy to tell you more about the process of the flood risk reduction. Essentially, I do feel these eight projects are making great progress. Potentially, one is still floundering a little bit in terms of some uncertainty, but these projects are moving along at a great speed, have had to go back to the design team and say, look, we thought we were going to do 200 acre feat. Now we've got more money, we're going to do projects 300 acre feat, that sort of thing, and they've rebid them. So staff recommendation is to export -- for these eight projects to allow them to consider December 31st, 2025 as their deadline for entering into a construction contract. I'd be happy to answer any questions. I know I've went over that rather quickly.

Mr. Womack: Steve, this is David. Embedded in that somewhere, did I hear you say that the legislation had required the projects at a certain --

Mr. Bevington: Yes.

Mr. Womack: So how do we have -- how does this -- how these -- us as trustees, have influence over the General Assembly's legislation?

Mr. Bevington: This is a slide. I'm glad I kept it. I need it. I showed this to the restoration committee in not retreading too much ground for everybody. I hid it until the end of my presentation, but here it is. The statute, it's that second paragraph there states that an award can be withdrawn unless you, --

Mr. Womack: Okay.

Mr. Bevington: -- as the board of trustees, find the applicant has good cause for failing to meet.

Mr. Womack: Got it, okay.

Mr. Bevington: So that's where the legislative mandate, a lot of these small details we administer at our end, and can say, you know, with project extensions, the executive director has the power to say, hey, take an extra year; I understand what's going on. With this, the legislature did specifically ask us to ask you. And frankly, that's a very effective tool for us, like I almost want to say it's a stick, that people that aren't getting along too much, we do send out reminders at 90 days and at 30 days saying you're in danger of losing your funds if you don't get this under contract. So it's a very effective tool. A few slip through the cracks for what we feel it could cause and bring them to you. If we ever have one we feel it does not meet good cause, we would tell you the same, but anyway, David, yeah, good question.

Mr. Womack: Okay, so does the statute also give us the authority to change the date that we sit at for the changing of the date?

Mr. Bevington: Yes.

Mr. Womack: Do we have like in perpetuity authority to do that?

Mr. Bevington: Yes, and you --

Mr. Womack: Okay.

Mr. Bevington: No, I don't know about in perpetuity. I'd have to ask legal counsel about that. No, the way it reads is that you must -- it says it right there at the end of that second paragraph, you must set a date by which the grant recipient must take action or forfeit the grant.

Mr. Womack: Right.

Mr. Bevington: So if you want to say, you know, 2099, more power to you, that's fine with me.

Mr. Womack: Okay.

Mr. Bevington: But yes, you need to set a date is the way I read it.

Mr. Womack: If we set 2026, and it still hasn't been met, and we find good cause, can we reset that for 2027?

Mr. Bevington: Oh, yes; I -- yes, --

Mr. Womack: Okay.

Mr. Bevington: -- we work very hard not to bring those to you. It has happened in the past.

Mr. Womack: Got it.

Mr. Bevington: It's an embarrassment, frankly, because the whole idea is to get everybody on the same page. I'm not saying there's not cause. We've had contractors have massive fires and lost all their equipment, but that was more for a project thing, but there are things beyond people's control. I think we could probably see one of those in the future, but we try very hard not to do that.

Mr. Womack: All right, well, that was just a clarification for me. I apologize --

Mr. Bevington: Yeah, no, that's good. I --

Mr. Womack: -- in perpetuity, was --

Mr. Bevington: I glossed over that.

Mr. Womack: -- it was an incorrect word. I apologize for that.

Mr. Bevington: No, I'm happy you brought it up. I had -- usually, I put this slide as my first slide, but frankly, it's too much information to take in at one time. I think it was better handled through your thing. And I see Zoe, our excellent legal counsel, has raised a hand.

Ms. Burnet: Hi, everyone; I just wanted to point out that everything that Steve has said is correct, except the cite on this page. So if any of you are going to pull up the cite yourself, that has been updated; it's now with the rest of our statutes in 143B, and we will make sure that gets updated in that slide eventually.

Mr. Bevington: Thank you; it's another reason I hid that slide, I guess; thank you. Excellent, we'll get the correct citation back to you. There are the -- this is not the right slide. I have multiple slides for a couple different reasons. These are the projects that I feel have -- staff feels has good cause, having received up to $800,000.00 for increased scope to move towards the end of this year to get everything under contract and moving along. Most of these projects are pretty far along in design or have already begun the rebid process, especially with municipalities, the rebid process, through their own procedures, does take a number of months sometimes. But these are the projects that we felt need an extension and had very good reason.

Chairman Wilson: Thank you, Steve and Zoe; any discussion of this staff recommendation; and we saw that the list of eight, which is the same list that is in your agenda item 3 detail, in your agendas that were sent to you?

Mr. Bevington: That's correct.

Chairman Wilson: Yep, and this has not come through a committee, so we will need a motion and a second before we can vote.

Committee Chair Browning: Mr. Chair, I make a motion that we provide contract extensions for the eight projects listed through December 31, 2025.

Mr. Williams: Second.

Chairman Wilson: Thanks, Ann; second; who was that second?

Mr. Williams: Darrel.

Chairman Wilson: Darrel; thank you, Darrel; any discussion before we vote on this; okay, how do you vote, please, Jimmy?

Mr. Broughton: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: Ann?

Committee Chair Browning: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: Amy?

Committee Chair Grissom: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: Clement?

Mr. Riddle: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: Mike?

Mr. Rusher: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: Jason?

Vice-Chair Walser: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: Darrel?

Mr. Williams: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: David?

Mr. Womack: Yes.

Chairman Wilson: And John is a yes, also. That passes. All right, and my agenda says that we have completed everything. Will, is that your understanding?

Executive Director Summer: Yes, sir; Mr. Chair, that is correct.

Chairman Wilson: All right, before we entertain a motion to adjourn, anything else, trustees or staff?

Committee Chair Grissom: I'll just --

Chairman Wilson: Okay.

Committee Chair Grissom: I'll just say I'm delighted that those flood risk reduction projects are getting expanded, yeah. Hats off to everyone for making that happen.

Mr. Riddle: Yes, that's great. And that was timely that we talked about that in August last summer, about the flood risk reduction. And I think -- and I think Will put out an email earlier that we're hoping that there's more money coming to that or proposed in the budget for flood risk reduction this time around.

Executive Director Summer: There was a proposal from Governor Stein in his Helene expansion budget. It didn't make Part 1 of the Legislature's Disaster Bill, but, you know, when they call something Part 1, I'm hoping that means there's a Part 2. So we'll stay tuned for that.

Chairman Wilson: Okay, anything else; if not, how about a motion to adjourn?

Mr. Womack: So moved, David.

Chairman Wilson: David moves that. Who seconded that?

Mr. Broughton: I'll second, Jimmy.

Mr. Riddle: Second.

Chairman Wilson: Jimmy, with the second, any discussion; all right, we can all vote at the same time. If you think we should adjourn, please say yes or aye or whatever.

Board Members: (Answers in affirmative.)

Chairman Wilson: Okay, that's -- that was three yeses, four ayes, and a whatever. Okay, all right, anybody opposed say whatever; all right, we are adjourned.

(The proceedings were concluded at 10:37 A.M.)

NORTH CAROLINA

WAKE COUNTY

C E R T I F I C A T E

I, Dona E. Overby, Notary/Reporter, do hereby certify that this Board of Trustees Meeting was taken by me and transcribed under my direction and that the seventy-five pages which constitute this Board of Trustees Meeting are a true and accurate transcript.

IN WITNESS THEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this 5th day of May, 2025.

__________________________
Dona E. Overby
Notary Public
Certificate No.: 19971920107