NC Land and Water Fund - 08-27-25 revised
NORTH CAROLINA LAND AND WATER FUND BOARD OF TRUSTEES MEETING
Virtual Meeting
Wednesday, August 27, 2025
1:01 P.M.
Volume 1
Pages 1 through 77
A P P E A R A N C E S
Board of Trustees:
(via Teams)
John Wilson, Chairman
Jimmy Broughton, Vice-Chairman
Ann Browning, Acquisition Committee Chairman and Flood Risk Reduction Committee Chairman
Clement Riddle, Chairman Restoration, Innovative Stormwater, and Planning Committee
Mike Rusher, Acquisition Committee, Flood Risk Reduction Committee
David Womack, Acquisition Committee
Darrel Williams, Acquisition Committee
Lydia Olander, Restoration, Innovative Stormwater, and Planning Committee
Terry Shelton, Restoration, Innovative Stormwater, and Planning Committee
Staff:
(via Teams)
Will Summer, Executive Director
Steve Bevington, Restoration Program Manager
Marissa Hartzler, Acquisition Program Manager
Marie Meckman, Acquisition Project Manager
Christina Benton, Acquisition Project Manager
Donna Morris, Acquisition Administrative Assistant
Justin Mercer, Stewardship Program Manager
Nicolle Montero, Stewardship Program Specialist
Ambar Torres Molinari, Stewardship Data Manager
Ginny King, Business Officer
Terri Murray, Executive Assistant
Will Price, Restoration Program Assistant
Damon Hearne, Western Field Representative
Isaac Merson, Eastern Field Representative
Also present:
(via Teams)
Jeff Michael, Deputy Secretary of N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources
Zoe Hansen Burnet, Assistant General Counsel, NC Department of Natural & Cultural Resources
P R O C E E D I N G S
1:01 P.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 want to welcome everybody who is with us today. But before I call the roll, I want to welcome our two new trustees and congratulate one who was recently reappointed. I'll start with Terri Shelton. Terry is a Senate appointment to our board. He lives in Eden and is a Realtor and retired public utilities director. Terry is a member of Eden's Board of Adjustment and Planning Board and also served on the Keep Eden Beautiful Committee as well as the Rockingham County Local Government Emergency Planning Committee. He holds multiple state certifications in water and wastewater, and he serves on our Restoration, Innovative Stormwater, and Planning Committee; welcome, Terry.
Mr. Shelton: Thank you very much.
Chairman Wilson: Right, you don't have to make a speech, although you can make one anytime you want to as a trustee. All right, Lydia Olander is a gubernatorial appointment. She lives in Durham and is program director at the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment, and Sustainability at Duke University, which as a Tar Heel, I would have a problem with ordinarily if she wasn't so immensely qualified to serve on our board. Lydia works on improving evidence-based policy and accelerating implementation of climate resilience, nature based solutions, natural capital accounting, and environmental markets. She is also a member of our Restoration, Innovative Stormwater, and Planning Committee, and welcome, Lydia.
Dr. Olander: Thank you.
Chairman Wilson: All right, and congratulations to Jimmy Broughton, who has not only been reappointed as a trustee by the House, but is now our board's vice-chair, as well as a member of the Acquisition Committee, the Restoration, Innovative Stormwater, and Planning Committee, and also the Executive Committee. So welcome to our two new trustees, and thanks, Jimmy, and welcome back.
Vice-Chair Broughton: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Wilson: All right, I'll now call the roll of our nine trustees. Please unmute yourself and let us know that you're here; Jimmy Broughton?
Vice-Chair Broughton: Here.
Chairman Wilson: Ann Browning?
Acquisition Chair Browning: Here.
Chairman Wilson: Lydia Olander?
Dr. Olander: Here.
Chairman Wilson: Clement Riddle?
Restoration Chair Riddle: Here.
Chairman Wilson: Mike Rusher?
Mr. Rusher: Here.
Chairman Wilson: Terry Shelton?
Mr. Shelton: Here.
Chairman Wilson: Darrel Williams?
Mr. Williams: Here; I'm having camera issues, but I'm here.
Chairman Wilson: Okay, good to hear you, Darrel; David Womack?
Mr. Womack: Here.
Chairman Wilson: And John Wilson is here. We are all here. All right, General Statute 138A.15 mandates that the chair inquire as to whether any trustee knows of any conflict of interest or of the appearance of a conflict with respect to matters on the agenda. Before I inquire of all the trustees, I'd like to mention that we are also required to record any potential conflicts of interest identified by the Ethics Commission into the minutes during this meeting. There were no confirmed conflicts of interest identified, but there was the potential for a conflict of interest identified for Mr. Shelton associated with his role as a Special Projects Manager for the City of Eden, North Carolina. The Ethics Commission noted that Mr. Shelton should exercise appropriate caution in the performance of his duties should issues involving the City of Eden come before the Board for official action. Any trustees with a conflict will be expected to announce them as they arise in this and future meetings and to recuse themselves from any discussion or action related to those matters. With that, let me now ask that if any trustee knows of a conflict of interest or the appearance of a conflict, please state so at this time. Okay, it sounds like we're all good. So now let me just ask everyone to please make sure your phones, computers, anything that makes noise won't make any noise. And if you are a guest joining us remotely, please mute your audio and turn off your video unless you're called on to speak. Next, I'll ask the trustees if there are any suggestions of revisions or additions to today's agenda.
Executive Director Summer: Mr. Chair?
Chairman Wilson: Yes, Will.
Executive Director Summer: I have one suggestion. At the time that this agenda was published, the Governor had not made the latest appointment of Dr. Olander, so I'd like the agenda to be amended to reflect that Amy Grissom is no longer a member and that Lydia Olander is in her place.
Chairman Wilson: Okay, I will make a motion to that effect, if somebody will second that.
Mr. Womack: Second; this is David.
Chairman Wilson: Okay, for that particular change, are there any other suggested changes, revisions to our agenda? Okay, hearing none; if there's no more discussion on this, I'll ask you to vote on the agenda with the change that Will mentioned, that I made the motion and David seconded, replacing Amy's name on our board of trustees with Lydia's. Okay, please let me know how you vote. I will call your name for each of our roll call votes, except for our super fun adjournment where we all get to vote at the same time. All right, how do you vote on the agenda, please, with that amendment; Jimmy Broughton?
Vice-Chair Broughton: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Ann Browning?
Acquisition Chair Browning: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Lydia Olander?
Dr. Olander: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Clement Riddle?
Restoration Chair Riddle: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Mike Rusher?
Mr. Rusher: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Terry Shelton; I'm not hearing you, Terry. Are you muted? How do you vote?
Mr. Shelton: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: All right, I heard that; thanks, Terri; Darrell Williams?
Mr. Williams: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: David Womack?
Mr. Womack: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: And John Wilson is a yes also. Great, we have adopted our agenda. Let's look now at the minutes from our May board meeting. Are there any discussion of the minutes, any suggested changes? I've got a couple. On page 10, line 23, there is a very interesting and informative comment that is attributed to me, and I don't make comments like that. So I know that was Will Summer who made that comment, not me. So we just need to change on line 23 on page 10, that was Will Summer who answered Ann Browning's question. And then the other one I would recommend we change would be on page 51, line 7. Amy Grissom abstained from the vote. And then on line 7, it quotes me as saying we've had a vote of 7-1 exception. I'm virtually certain I said abstention, so I would ask for that change as well. So those are the only two that I have. Anybody else notice anything; okay, I’m not hearing anybody. I will make a motion that we approve our May board meeting minutes with those two changes.
Vice-Chair Broughton: Second, Jimmy.
Chairman Wilson: A second from Jimmy, any discussion of the minutes; okay, let's go ahead and vote then, please. How do you vote, Jimmy?
Vice-Chair Broughton: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Ann?
Acquisition Chair Browning: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Lydia?
Dr. Olander: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Clement?
Restoration Chair Riddle: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Mike?
Mr. Rusher: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Terry?
Mr. Shelton: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Darrell?
Mr. Williams: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: David?
Mr. Womack: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: And John Wilson is a yes also. All right, thank you; we have adopted our May 12th meeting minutes with two minor changes. We will now move on to an update from the Deputy Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, Jeff Michael; welcome, Jeff.
Deputy Secretary Michael: Well, thank you, Chairman Wilson, and it is great to see everyone. Chairman Wilson, I just want to say that I believe your former colleague, Amy Grissom, would be quite proud of you with those minutes revisions. We could always count on her for going through them very carefully and coming back with edits, so I know she'll feel good that we're still in good hands, so thank you for those. I want to start off by just welcoming Terry and Lydia to the board. We really thank you for your service. This is a board that has always taken its role seriously on behalf of the taxpayers of North Carolina and the citizens of North Carolina, and I know it will be no different with you, and thank you for that service. And, Jimmy, congratulations again on your reappointment and willingness to give us another term; we're grateful for the work that all of you do. For Terry and Lydia's benefit, I don't normally do this, but I'll just briefly say who I am and why. Either I or our Secretary Cashwell usually speak at the beginning of our meetings. The Division of Land and Water Stewardship, which includes the Land and Water Fund as well as our Natural Heritage Program, is a part of one of the cabinet agencies for the State, and that is the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. Our Secretary Pam Cashwell oversees that department, and she sends her greetings to all of you and, again, her thanks for your service. She will often say she's got the best job in state government, and she does to some extent, but she also has a lot more in the way of headaches to have to deal with than I do, and I think I might just because I have five divisions that truly are, I think, among the most fun divisions to work with, not just land and water, but state parks, our aquariums, the zoo, and our Museum of Natural Sciences. And as you can tell, Will, this has been an odd confluence of meetings today where within about an hour and a half of time, I've gone from a parks meeting to a zoo meeting to a Museum of Natural Science Friends Board meeting and now with you. So I think I need to call the aquariums just to give them a little love today as well, but it is great to be with you all. You know, the Secretary has been and continuing to do a lot of travel. She joined us with your joint meeting back in the spring as we were down at Salter Path and doing a tour there around Carteret County and nearby areas or maybe Craven. I can't remember where all we went, but she continues to do that. Just last Friday, she was with John Wilson and other supporters of the Conservation Trust of North Carolina for one of their annual gatherings. And I share that with you because while our department as a whole does a whole lot more than natural resources, we also support and steward our state historic sites, many of our arts institutions from the Museum of Art, the North Carolina Arts Council, and so many other things. She continues to give a high priority to the Natural Resource Divisions and the missions of our various divisions, but also of our many partners across the state, including conservation groups, who are such important partners to the work of the Land and Water Fund. Just a couple of quick updates for you; normally, at this time of year at your meeting, I would be giving you a budget update, but as I think most of you know from the news, the Legislature went home after the summer session without an approved budget, and so we really don't have anything new to report there. Will may in his update give you a few updates in terms of his perspective on where we are with some things that will impact Land and Water Fund. But I will say that, and this is a good segue to one of the things I wanted to share with you, that we were fortunate in the Helene Recovery Bill that was passed and signed into law by the Governor back in June to receive 12.25 million dollars of Helene Recovery funds to support the efforts in our state park system. That was the first allocation of state funds that we have received, and that's really important because you hear a lot about FEMA. We're certainly aggressively doing everything we can in our recovery efforts to get the documentation in, the paperwork in for FEMA recovery funds, but it's a cost-reimbursable program, and so that means we have been challenged from the beginning in beginning to do some of our repairs, kind of a chicken and egg scenario of, you know, where are the funds coming from to get those repairs done before we can even submit our paperwork in to FEMA for reimbursement. So we're grateful for the Legislature and the Governor for getting us those funds. There's still a lot of work to do. I'm pleased to say we did get our first pot of money from FEMA just last week, notification of that, for some of the work we did at Chimney Rock to get it back open, which was a big milestone for us in June. We are coming up on the one year -- we're not calling it anniversary, because that sounds like it's a celebration, but we are using the term milestone, of Helene hitting North Carolina and in particular Western North Carolina. There were 18 of our sites impacted, not just state parks, but state historic sites and a few other sites of the department out in Western North Carolina. I'm pleased to say that with the Chimney Rock opening in June, all but one of our sites that were impacted and closed are now open, and that one site is Mount Mitchell State Park. We are ready to open, but the reason we have not been able to go ahead and open Mount Mitchell State Park is because the public access to that comes from the Blue Ridge Parkway. And our colleagues at the National Park Service have had a lot of work to do to get that portion of the Blue Ridge Parkway cleared up and repaired. We are optimistic that mid to late September, we hope by that milestone of Hurricane Helene hitting a year ago, that we will be able to open Mount Mitchell with the opening of the southern portion of the Blue Ridge Parkway from Mount Mitchell down to Asheville. We've been told it's going to be quite a while before the portion of the parkway north of that opens back up, but we're going to be grateful, and I know many North Carolinians, people who love Western North Carolina, are going to be pleased just in time for the leaf season that we'll be able -- hopefully be able to open Mount Mitchell State Park back up to the public. I mentioned budget in terms of appropriations and state budget and all that, but we are also as an agency, as are many state agencies, at this point also working through some budget challenges. Part of that is because of the impact of Helene and the need to come up with resources before we can get reimbursement from Helene. We are also beginning to experience some of the inflationary pressures that all of us have been experiencing, impacting the budgets of many of our divisions. And then we're also really coming up on a period where we're beginning to lose some of the COVID funds that were provided to our divisions as part of the Recovery Act there, and so it's kind of been a perfect storm. Our divisions have been great in terms of pitching in and helping us make sure that we are doing a little belt tightening within DNCR. You know, in many ways the Land and Water Fund, the Division of Land and Water Stewardship, because its funding stream is somewhat unique among others, that those pressures haven't been as great for them, and we feel good about where they are. Will Summer and his team are great stewards of the resources they have. So even though I share that with you, it's just to let you know that those are among the things that we as an agency are working on, but you shouldn't see any impact at all in the work that you're doing with land and water. Talking about Helene Recovery, and I don't want to steal Will's thunder, but we recognize that even as we start getting facilities back open, parks back open, amenities in those parks back open, that Helene Recovery is not going to be done, and it's not going to be done for many, many years. And part of that recovery effort is first understanding what the impact has been on the natural environment, the flora and fauna of Western North Carolina, and then understanding what we all need to do together to help that recovery take place. So Will, I think, is going to be sharing something with you that our friends on the natural heritage side have been working on with the U.S. Forest Service, so I'll save that with him. But I just wanted to share with you that we're certainly aware of that need as well. Just a couple last few things, you've heard me report previously about the major federal grant that we received last year, 420 million dollars on behalf of not just North Carolina, but Virginia, Maryland, and South Carolina, to do some conservation work and restoration work, wetlands restoration work in the coastal areas of our state and our neighboring states. DNCR will be coordinating and leading that effort, not just here in North Carolina, but on behalf of our three sister states as well as the Nature Conservancy. You may see some applications coming in that reference that project if, indeed, people are matching funds, so it's something we wanted to make sure that you were aware of that we were doing. But the big announcement there is, a couple of weeks ago we were able to bring on the new director of that initiative, which we're calling the Atlantic Conservation Coalition, ACC for short, recognizing the region of the country that we are in. And for those of you who know Sara Ward, who has been working for many years with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, particularly in Northeastern North Carolina, although she has worked all over the state, has agreed to come on to be director of that initiative. So Chairman Wilson, we’ll maybe have an opportunity at a future more informational session. I know your next meeting is going to be a full one with your selection process, but maybe at a future meeting we can have Sara to come and give you updates. Also this fall, our state park system will be completing their statewide comprehensive outdoor recreation plan. This is a plan that we conduct every five years. As part of our role, and by our, I mean our state park system with the Land and Water Conservation Fund, so I think most of you are aware that the Land and Water Conservation Fund are federal dollars that pass through to the states, but in each state, there's a designated entity to help distribute those grant funds. One of the requirements for doing that, though, is each state has to develop every five years a statewide comprehensive outdoor recreation plan. So they have been busy with that in the last few years. The report is in draft form. In fact, I think it's out there online for public comment, but we will be submitting that. Again, it's another document that as you are doing your work and you're looking at how applications and proposals that come to you fit certain strategic priorities, not only for you, but for others, I think that plan, at least on the outdoor recreation side of things, will be a very valuable resource for you. That's certainly the intended purpose, not just to inform our work with Land and Water Conservation Funds, but really to inform the work of all of our partners across the state. Finally, this is just a sister division, but I share it with you because I think a year, a year and a half ago, your joint meeting with the Natural Heritage Program -- we were at Salter Path this past spring. The year before we were in Asheboro, and I think some of you had the opportunity, if you did not already know her, to meet Pat Simmons, the director of our North Carolina Zoo, as they hosted us with a couple of our meetings. Unfortunately, we lost Pat this summer after a five-year battle with cancer, a battle she fought very courageously. But nonetheless, we lost her in July. We've been grieving, but also at the same time knowing we have a responsibility on behalf of the people of North Carolina to move forward and make sure that we have another outstanding leader just as Pat was in that position. We are beginning the search for her replacement, but I just wanted to share that with those of you who may remember meeting Pat or having interacted with her before, that we miss her, but look forward to bringing new leadership to the zoo just in time next June for the opening of the Asia exhibit, the first time in 20 -- 25 years that we will be opening a new major exhibit with a continent theme at the North Carolina Zoo, and that's scheduled for next June. And, Will and Chairman Wilson, maybe we can make sure all of you get invitations to that opening and that celebration. But with that, I'll turn it back over to you, Chairman Wilson, and I’m happy to entertain any questions anyone has.
Chairman Wilson: Thanks, Jeff; any questions for Jeff?
Deputy Secretary Michael: And I should note, I've got another meeting at 2:30. So if you see me quietly get up at two o'clock, you'll know why and where I'm headed. I can't hide my screen, so you're going to see me when I get up.
Chairman Wilson: I heard on the radio this morning that it was 39 degrees last night on Mount Mitchell, Jeff, so the sooner you can open that glorious weather up to us.
Mr. Michael: We're working on it.
Chairman Wilson: There will be a rush from the Triangle to get up there for that; okay, thanks; any questions for Jeff? All right, we will move on then to our executive director's update from Will Summer.
Executive Director Summer: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good afternoon, committee members, staff and guests. Let me echo John and Jeff in welcoming our new members, Terry and Lydia, to our board and celebrating the reappointment of Jimmy. We're glad to have you all. As Jeff alluded to, there is some exciting news for the National Heritage Program. They have recently executed a 10-year 10 million dollar good neighbor agreement with the U.S. Forest Service, the purpose of which is to inventory the Pisgah-Nantahala National Forest as well as surrounding private lands to, one, assess the impact of Helene, and two, use that data to help Forest Service and others prioritize restoration efforts to more quickly recover from the impacts of Helene. We're really excited about that, so you're going to see more biologists hired and based in the western half of the state to begin that effort shortly. So moving on, the purpose of today's meeting is to handle some regular business before the October meeting so we can clear the decks and focus on grant review at that meeting. We'll have three committee reports today, but before we get into those, let me catch you up on a few other items, including what to expect in the coming weeks as we gear up for the big meeting. Staff have been busy here reviewing and scoring applications, and that information will be shared with you at the upcoming orientation on September 12th. You should have a calendar invite from me on that. After that, it's just a few short weeks before we get together in person here in Raleigh. The Acquisition Committee will meet on Tuesday, September 30th, and that will be a long day. And I currently have that set to begin at 8:00 A.M., but we'll consider backing that off by an hour if I think the agenda will allow it. As we have in the past, we'll find a place nearby to eat dinner that evening as a group, and I encourage all of you to plan to join us if you can. The following morning, we'll have the Restoration, Innovative Stormwater, and Planning Committee, again, planning to start at 8:00 A.M., and we hope to have that work done in time for the full board meeting at two o'clock that afternoon. We will order box lunches both days for staff and trustees to prevent us from having to scramble to get fed and return in time. As a reminder, our board structure is organized to have the heavy lifting done by the committees, and that doesn't mean that the board is expected to rubber stamp the committee recommendation or the discussion can't or shouldn't happen at the full board meeting. However, I do want to make sure that you all know that you're welcome to attend any committee meeting as a non-voting member, and I won't speak for chairs, but it is our norm for any trustee to participate in the discussion at those meetings as well, whether they are on that committee or not. So if you do have a particular interest in another committee, you don't have to wait for the board meeting to weigh in on any particular item. One last logistics item before I move on, Terri has reserved a block of rooms at a hotel one block away from our meeting room here in downtown Raleigh. I expect that many of you will choose to stay Tuesday evening, and some traveling from further out may also need accommodations Monday evening. So expect Terri to be reaching out to you all soon to confirm your lodging needs for the upcoming meeting. Speaking of the big meeting, let's talk about what you will have to award. There is some expectation that legislators may return later in the season and pass a full appropriations bill. However, without that the State is currently operating under a mini-budget, and we are authorized to make grants using our recurring appropriation and other revenue, and that's what we plan to do in October. As we stand today, between some funds brought forward from last year, recurring appropriations of 28 million, and anticipated license revenue for the year, I expect we will be able to award at least 36 million, not counting any additional return funds which have been substantial in recent years. Currently, our application total is around 120 million, so as usual, it will be a competitive cycle. While I hate to think of worthy projects that we will not be able to fund, that does afford you the ability to be selective and know that everything you do fund will be exceptional. Switching gears, we've had a lot going on with staff between turnover of our two field rep positions earlier this summer and several new hires. So let me put up an org chart to make this easier for you all to see. So I've coded the recent hires and changes in green just so they stand out here. So let me start chronologically. In June, we hired Chad Guthrie as a temporary employee with the primary responsibility of reviewing our appraisals. He was no stranger to us as he had worked with us the previous year through an MOA with the State Property Office, but we're excited to have him now working directly on our team, and it's been fruitful, virtually eliminating all of our backlog there. In June, we also hired Nicolle Montero as the permanent stewardship specialist working with Justin Mercer. Many of you met her at our meeting in May when she was still working for us as a temporary employee in a similar role. In July, we hired Ambar Torres Molinari as our stewardship data manager, also working with Justin, and her primary responsibility will be managing the GIS data associated with our work. In August, we hired business officer, Ginny King. That was a position we had prior to 2013, and we are long overdue to have that back on the team again. Terri stepped up for us for years to keep track of our funds, for which I am grateful, but as our funding has grown again, these responsibilities are just too critical not to have a dedicated position in this area again. And finally, we have new field reps to fill the positions vacated earlier this summer when both Chelsea and Jill moved on to explore other opportunities; Isaac Merson, who started last week, and Hannah Bowen, who will join us next week. It may sound like a hiring spree, and it is a lot of change. But in fact, it's only two new bodies on the team, and these changes have been in the works for quite some time. I look forward to you all meeting our new staff in September. So we have three committee reports today with action items in each. Without spoiling all the surprises, I'd like to highlight two items. The first is that once again, the NC Department of Environmental Quality Flood Resiliency Blueprint Program has reviewed our applications and requested to contribute a little over 1 million to several of our projects for flood resiliency if we fund them. As I've said previously, this is an endorsement of our deliberative and open process that you, our trustees, ensure as well as responsible administration of funds that my staff stewards. I think it validates the time and work we put into the process, and we get to do more work with somebody else's money. The second is an item to increase funds for a program that's actively working to remediate the impacts of Helene in Western North Carolina. While both of these items are atypical for us, I think they have a lot of merit and warrant your serious consideration. So on that positive note, Mr. Chair, I will conclude my report.
Chairman Wilson: All right, thanks, Will; any questions for Will; all right, so before I open the floor for public comments, I'd like to remind our guests that the North Carolina Land and Water Fund Guidelines and Procedures Manual states that comments shall be limited to subjects of business falling within the jurisdiction of the Land and Water Fund. The Land and Water Fund welcomes public comments on general issues, but comments will not be 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, are there any public comments? Please make yourself known by unmuting yourself or raising your hand or some other equally creative attention getting method.
Executive Director Summer: Mr. Chair, I'm not aware of any members of the public that have joined us in person or virtually today.
Chairman Wilson: Okay, thank you; then we will move on to the business portion of our meeting. Item one is consideration of Acquisition Committee recommendations, and I'll hand it over to Chair Ann Browning.
Acquisition Chair Browning: Thank you, Chairman Wilson; we had a very productive meeting on August 13th. We welcomed Jimmy Broughton to our committee, so we're thrilled, Jimmy, to have you as part of our team. We had two business matters. The first was a program manager update from Marissa. We were excited to hear about the good progress on the appraisal backlog with the hiring of Chad, and also hard work and good progress on other closings. Marissa mentioned that she is reaching out. They have a process for reaching out for some listening sessions with our partners to talk about the closing process and making it as efficient as possible while also making sure that we're being diligent, so closings, looking at the process, all of that hard work, along with preparing for our funding meeting that's coming up. So we're just so grateful for this hardworking staff and all they're doing. We had one specific project item request for a budget amendment, and we considered it, had a good and thorough discussion, and bring a recommendation to the full board, and I'll let Marissa kind of share some highlights about that request.
Ms. Hartzler: Thank you so much; good afternoon, everyone; so the committee heard a request to amend the budget of 2024-062, Tar River Land Conservancy's Edwards Tract, and this project aims to purchase 134 acres, you can see on the left, just outside of Franklinton in Franklin County and adjacent to the existing Franklin County Park for the purposes of expanding that nature preserve. Through an 83 acre land and water fund conservation easement and a 51 acre declaration of covenants and restrictions on the more disturbed area, you can see here on the right, they would expand recreational opportunities while protecting the riparian buffer of Billys Creek and Fall Branch. So this project is funded at just over $567,000.00 of a total of just over 1.2 million dollars, specifically for the acquisition, and in this proposal, this budget does not change. Instead, it is the source of the matching funds totaling over $652,000.00 on this budget. So the proposed change is that in lieu of a $100,000.00 North Carolina Ecosystem Enhancement Grant Award that is now not available, they request to use a portion of a recently awarded North Carolina Great Trails State Program grant towards the acquisition. They would use $209,000.00 of a half-a-million grant towards acquisition. And so this change is before the board as it reduces the project score by one point. And by our guidelines and policies, that means that this decision must then be made by the board. I think overall this is a change that will ensure that the property can be acquired with grant funds now and that other secured raised funds and other funds that they will raise will be used to build trails and open the property up for recreation soon after acquisition. So as you heard, the committee's recommendation was to amend the grant contracts matching resources to allow for the substitution of the North Carolina Great Trails State Grant funds in lieu of the North Carolina Ecosystem Enhancement Program funds as was presented in the proposed matching resources you saw on the last screen, which I can go back to, and I’m happy to take any questions.
Mr. Williams: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to move approval of this proposal.
Chairman Wilson: Okay, thanks, Darrel; this is actually coming to us from the Acquisition Committee. So it comes in the form of a motion and actually doesn't even need a second. So we can go straight into voting when we're ready. But is there any discussion on this before we vote? At the committee meeting, I sort of thought of this as making lemonade out of lemons. They found out that one of their significant grants was not going to happen and they found a wonderful alternative, and it simply changed the score by one point, which is why we're discussing it as a full board today. One other thing to point out, and I think we should constantly remind ourselves of this and particularly with two new trustees, is that our rating system as thorough and well thought out as it is through years and years of contemplation and revision when necessary, is simply a starting place for the trustees. It's the order in which we hear presentations typically, but that the trustees do have the authority to elevate or lower any particular project in terms of its ranking and its position for funding. But with that, Ann, do you want to say anything else about this?
Acquisition Chair Browning: No, just to echo your comments and we were pleased that the applicant was very nimble in substituting this new grant. The grant that they received, they're allocating a portion to the acquisition, but they also have additional funds to go ahead and start construction on trails and getting the public out on this property. So we felt like that was a good response to what was some tough news for them to receive; I'm sure.
Chairman Wilson: Any other comments or questions from trustees or staff before we vote; all right, again, this is coming to us from the Acquisition Committee in the form of a motion. I'll ask you to vote now, please; Jimmy?
Vice-Chair Broughton: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Ann?
Acquisition Chair Browning: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Lydia?
Dr. Olander: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Clement?
Restoration Chair Riddle: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Mike?
Mr. Rusher: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Terry?
Mr. Shelton: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Darrell?
Mr. Williams: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: David?
Mr. Womack: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: And John is a yes, and I'll just mention also that Mike is the newest addition to the Acquisition Committee. I think Will may have sent out a notification of that, but I just want to make sure that everybody is aware of that. So that is a great development.
Acquisition Chair Browning: Welcome, Mike.
Chairman Wilson: Yeah, Ann, anything else before we move on to business item two?
Acquisition Chair Browning: Nothing else from me.
Chairman Wilson: All right, thank you very much; thanks, Marissa; item two on our agenda is consideration of Restoration, Innovative Stormwater, and Planning Committee recommendations, and I'll hand it over to Chair Clement Riddle.
Restoration Chair Riddle: Thank you, Mr. Chair; we had a good meeting on August 12th to discuss the two agenda items before us today. We also had a chance to welcome Terry Shelton to that first meeting, which was great, and we had an update from Steve Bevington about some restoration program closeouts. So I will turn it over at this point to Steve to talk about these two items.
Mr. Bevington: Thank you, Chairman; let me just pull up my slides here. All right, thank you; many of you are familiar with this, having served on the board before, but I'll just say that there is a usual to us requirement for any project that requires construction, that they enter into a construction contract within one year of our contract execution. So this comes from the General Assembly and our enabling legislation. I think it's a good common-sense requirement that gets people moving quickly once they've received money. Some of our contracts take three years. So to get them moving quickly, to have that construction contract lined up makes a lot of sense. However, there's often some difficulties that are encountered by some of our 20 or 30 applicants a year who go down this road. So just very quickly for those who weren't here before, for all NC Land and Water Fund projects involving construction funds, which are restoration projects and innovative stormwater projects usually, they must enter into a contract to begin construction or to have construction contract paperwork completed and a contractor on board within one year; otherwise, the award can be withdrawn by you as the board. So we have one of those items to consider today.
Executive Director Summer: Steve, you inadvertently muted yourself as you went to advance the slide.
Mr. Bevington: That happened last week. I'll try to keep that from happening. Somehow, I want to hit the button. Let me try it this way. All right, we're back. That's the first slide. Let me try the space bar. Am I still audible, okay.
Restoration Chair Riddle: Yes, you're good.
Mr. Bevington: Okay, thank you; I'm not sure. I have one method that simply does not work with that. The item in front of us is from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Storm Water Services. They have generally one or two projects with us awarded every year. This one was awarded in 2023 on the Reedy Creek project just above I-485 in Mecklenburg County, and it's sort of a funny thing. We think of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Storm Water Services as one entity, but of course, they really have to deal with both city properties and county properties. And essentially that's their difficulty. I'll show a map of the projects in a minute, but they have had to reacquire the project to put it into permanent conservation easements. Essentially it was city-owned property, but the County is running the stewardship of the project, so they had to transfer it. And they weren't anticipating it taking as long as it did, but it is now resolved. So they are requesting to extend their contract, the contract requirement to enter into a construction contract, to June 30th of this next year. They presently would otherwise miss that deadline, November 6th of this year. The project is really two large segments near the -- near a closed landfill in Mecklenburg County, again near -- just near 485. You can see there in that corner, and again, the property, it's one entire restoration project. The hashed areas is where our project is involved. The County themselves is completing the segment in between, so it would be one big long section of restored stream. And we're really pleased to see this all come together, but they're back on schedule, but they were delayed and in this case are requesting, as the committee approved or recommended that you approve, the committee recommended approving Charlotte-Mecklenburg Storm Water Services' request to extend their construction contract deadline for this project from June -- from November 6th of this year to June 30th, 2026, and that is what is in front of you today.
Restoration Chair Riddle: Thank you, Steve; any questions or discussion?
Mr. Bevington: And I can stop sharing, or if you'd like to see the motion in front of you, either way. Let me know.
Restoration Chair Riddle: The restoration committee had a good discussion about this, and one of the things that helped us feel comfortable about the project was the long-term relationship with the Storm Water Services and the number of projects they've been able to execute and complete successfully. So it seemed like, due to these circumstances, that this was a partner that we could rely on to keep moving forward.
Chairman Wilson: All right; thank you, Steve and Clement; before we vote, again, this comes to us as a motion from the committee, so we can just go straight into voting when we're ready, but any discussion? All right, I'm not hearing any, so I'm going to assume that we are ready to vote on this. How do you vote, please; Jimmy?
Vice-Chair Broughton: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Ann?
Acquisition Chair Browning: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Lydia?
Dr. Olander: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Clement?
Restoration Chair Riddle: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Mike?
Mr. Rusher: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Terry?
Mr. Shelton: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Darrell?
Mr. Williams: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: David?
Mr. Womack: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: And John is a yes. Steve, would you mind just flashing that motion back on there again? I’m sorry.
Mr. Bevington: John, I just closed it, but I'll bring it right back up.
Chairman Wilson: Okay, well, I just -- I don't know that if it -- can we just -- can I just ask that it be entered verbatim into the minutes? I was just going to quickly read it, but I think we've all got -- we all know what we voted on, and just enter that into the minutes by reference, if you would, please. Is that all right?
Mr. Bevington: John, I can get it in one second. I'm just scrambling. I should -- I was moving ahead to agenda item two prematurely.
Chairman Wilson: Okay.
Executive Director Summer: I think we're good, John, because you're approving the same motion that appears in everybody's agendas.
Chairman Wilson: Yes, we are. That's the request to extend construction contract deadline for project 2023-407 until June 30th, 2026; thank you. All right, I just wanted to see if I could make you mute yourself again, Steve. Clement, back to you and for item 2 -- I'm sorry, item 2B. You're muted, Clement.
Restoration Chair Riddle: Thank you; on and off, on and off, I’m not going to steal Steve's thunder on this, so I think we can just jump right into it and have some discussion afterwards.
Mr. Bevington: Very good; here we go. I will just bring it up this slide without muting myself, we hope. All right, the second agenda item today is, again, I think a -- just a request to transfer a 2024 award, which you all made last October, from one good partner to another. I think that's the way I would characterize it. But on October 2nd of last year, the Town of Canton was awarded $75,000.00 by the Land and Water Fund, North Carolina Land and Water, for a project to address flooding and other water quality concerns right in downtown Canton. It's a planning grant. The project is not yet under contract, and as we negotiated having the Town sign the contract and begin this work, they really pointed out how heavily they were involved in other larger contracts with FEMA and other negotiations they are doing involved in the recovery from Hurricane Helene. And they had mentioned they're working very closely with the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy, who was mentioned and actually helped prepare the original application for this grant. And they suggested that Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy take on the project administration and be responsible for completion of the planning grant. And without muting myself, we're going to move to the next slide; we hope. So what's nice is both the Town and Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy support this transfer, and they are both active partners in this project. The Town remains committed to the project. They -- in your packet, you'll see two excellent letters, I believe, both from the Town and from the nonprofit explaining the situation and showing how they're willing to work together in the future under either scenario, either staying with the Town of Canton or having this transfer happen. We have checked, and the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy that does several projects with North Carolina Land and Water every year, they do have the capacity to perform the current scope of work, and they have executed many of these projects in the past. I think they average over one project a year with us, often very successful projects we're happy with, and no real black eyes at all. We're very happy with their work. So with that little bit and not much discussion of the project, I can tell you exactly what the planning project is, but it's really a needed research and planning project to figure out how to alleviate some of the terrible flooding issues that exist right on the Pigeon River in downtown Canton. The committee did recommend approving the request to transfer the award, $75,000.00 for this planning project, 2024-803, from the Town of Canton to the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy. So I'll be happy to answer any questions you have about that or any other discussions you guys want to have, obviously.
Mr. Womack: Steve, this is David. This may have come up in the committee, but given what's transpired up there, I mean, is $75,000.00 adequate to look at this? I mean, the hydrology has changed. The landscape has changed. The -- you know, the concept of what could happen has changed. I mean, is that enough?
Mr. Bevington: Right, it is certainly not enough. Luckily, there are a number of other resources there, including the Haywood Waterways Association is helping. There are -- we have several other grants in the area looking at other sort of flood reduction efforts. This is focused pretty much on the former Canton Mills site and across the river from it. So it's a pretty small segment that actually wasn't itself damaged as much as other reaches of the river. Others may have a point of view on that, but no, it's not enough, but I think it's a useful tool we can hand to them. And given that we don't really have, you know, an open door for brand new applications in most cases, I think it's really just a -- I think they can put it to good use, and I think -- again, if you look at the Town of Canton --
Mr. Womack: Okay, all right, I'm certainly in favor of the project.
Mr. Bevington: Yeah.
Mr. Womack: I just was -- I didn't want them to embark on something and get halfway done and all of a sudden, you know, not have the resources to complete what they were doing.
Mr. Bevington: Yeah.
Mr. Womack: But I'm fully in favor of it. I just -- that was just a thought.
Mr. Bevington: That's a great point. I mean, I -- obviously, we're not the only funder out there. DEQ has funds out there. FEMA has some funds. I think that's -- I won't comment on how quickly those have been arriving for the Town of Canton, but I think we're not alone out there. We're just hoping to get this one rolling along. We would certainly be welcome and open to further applications. I know Damon's in regular contact with them, with both the Town of Canton and the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy. If they were to express need, I think our next funding cycle might be a time that would show up. That's a great point, David.
Mr. Womack: Okay, thanks; good answer.
Chairman Wilson: Clement, anything more?
Restoration Chair Riddle: So I would say this was a pretty easy one for us to discuss as well. A little bit similar to the last project, the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy is a very well known entity to the Land and Water Fund, and I think that gives a very good sense of security for this type of transfer. So it was easy for us to recommend approving.
Chairman Wilson: Thank you; any more discussion on this before we vote; all right, again, this is coming to us from the committee, approving the request to transfer the award of $75,000.00 for Planning Project 2024-803 from the Town of Canton to Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy. How do you vote, please; Jimmy?
Vice-Chair Broughton: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Ann?
Acquisition Chair Browning: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Lydia?
Dr. Olander: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Clement?
Restoration Chair Riddle: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Mike?
Mr. Rusher: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Terry?
Mr. Shelton: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Darrell?
Mr. Williams: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: David?
Mr. Womack: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: And John is a yes, also; Clement, anything else from the committee?
Restoration Chair Riddle: No, we don't have anything else to report or add at this time. It was a pretty straightforward agenda, and it was nice to check off before our October meeting.
Chairman Wilson: All right, thank you very much.
Restoration Chair Riddle: Yep.
Chairman Wilson: All right, the last item on our agenda is consideration of Executive Committee recommendations. I chair that committee. We have three items of business. First is consideration of additional funding through DEQ, and before I hand it off to Steve, I just want to say, I think, as Will said in his remarks, this really is a strong statement of support for the work that the Land and Water Fund has done, that DEQ is showing continued faith in that partnership and providing funding to us. So with that, I'll hand it over to Steve, who was largely responsible for setting up this program, and so off to you, Steve.
Mr. Bevington: Thank you, Chairman Wilson; I'm going to share again at the risk of difficulties. I hope you can all see that first slide. Just pointing out that North Carolina Land and Water Fund is statutorily permitted to accept funds beyond what is appropriated by the State Legislature; however, it is really your choice as a board to decide to do so. So we have such an opportunity in front of you today. In 2024, at the direction of the board, North Carolina Land and Water Fund entered into a memorandum of understanding with North Carolina Department of Environmental Equality, I'll call it DEQ from now on out, to fund additional eight items of work and scope increases on our flood risk reduction projects, as well as to fund four flood reduction efforts within 2024 projects. That -- actually MOA provided us over 9 million dollars in additional funding for the year. Most of that, 5.8 million dollars went to the flood risk reduction projects that were already in place, sort of expanded their scope. But three restoration projects and one acquisition project last year were funded in part by DEQ blueprint funds, totaling 3.2 million dollars for the four projects. So as Will sort of mentioned earlier in his remarks, we're not asking you to fund these projects that you see here, and I'll get to in just a minute. All we're doing is saying there are overlapping objectives between us and DEQ, and they have 76 million dollars available, or did have that much available from their Blueprint Implementation Funds, and they saw these as prime opportunities to do that. So just as we did in 2024, 2025 DEQ staff again identified three projects, and we agree with them very much, that these have mutually beneficial benefits to us as sort of a natural resource lift in these projects. And obviously you'll make the final decision of that in October as you review these in committees and in the full board, but DEQ also sees value in reducing flooding through these projects and supported funding these three in the amounts you see. The first two on that list, the two restoration projects, the 400-number series are usually restoration projects. They would be -- if you chose to pursue these, and they’ve met your standards when you review them in October, they would just -- DEQ is willing to fund the full amount of their request, which is $270,000.00 for the first and $210,000.00 for the second and $500.00 here and there. The second -- the third one there on the list is an Innovative Stormwater Project from Smithfield, and DEQ saw a lot of value in that, but would only propose to fund about 84 percent of it, leaving their unfunded request at $125,000.00. But all in all, this is -- again, there's no decision- making today about whether these projects are awarded. It's just that they see value and would be willing to chip in and essentially contribute 1.1 million odd dollars towards these three projects should you choose to fund them in October. So they would just be treated like any other project in October. We would queue them up on the committee lists, and you can see them. But if you chose to award them, the funds would first come from the DEQ funds. So in other words, there would be a little flat spot as we go through there drawing down our own funds as you award sort of high ranking projects and move down the list. If you came across one of these, DEQ funds could be pulled in, essentially providing a little plateau before funds drop. So in other words, it would allow our funds to go a little further should you, again, find these projects to score high enough to be worth taking on and involving staff work on them. The amount awarded to each project would not change. The scopes would not change. Nothing is really changing. We would just use the MOA between DEQ and the North Carolina Land and Water Fund that is already in existence. And after we hear what happens in October, we would propose modifying the MOA to allow these funds to be transferred and held by us, and we would distribute those as these projects request funds from them. So again, this is not in any way a commitment to these three projects today. It's just saying, hey, that money is available. DEQ sees value, and I think as Will eloquently said at the beginning in his remarks, it really shows that our contracting efficiencies and our deliberative process really pay dividends that DEQ finds this a convenient shortcut. I do have to say they do this with other agencies as well, the Department of Agriculture -- North Carolina Department of Agriculture, and internal funds have also been spent through other processes besides the Blueprint, but I think some of our projects have really been, I hope, home runs for -- win-wins for us and for them. So again, the committee went through this in a little more detail than I'm providing you here today, but the committee did recommend to the board, to you all, that the North Carolina DEQ funds in the amount of $1,139,351.00 be considered at the October funding meeting for the three applications set out below in the amounts specified, and that is what we're asking you to consider today. I'd be happy to answer any questions. I know it's a little confusing how the money is sort of there, but it's sort of not until you take action. I'd be happy to answer any questions you have about it.
Mr. Womack: Steve, this is David. I just have to ask. What's the backstory on them only supporting 84 percent of the Smithfield-College Pond Retrofit?
Mr. Bevington: All of our innovative stormwater projects have a research component or a pilot project, so we really have that program not to improve stormwater. As much as we'd like to the State -- the Legislature has not given us really a purview to do stormwater work per se. So our innovative stormwater work always involves some sort of monitoring and research to sort of say, hey, let's see if this works. And then the whole point is if it works well, they tell everybody, and in a couple cases where it doesn't work at all, they can tell people, don't bother wasting your money on it. That approach did not work, and that's been a successful program over the last almost 10 years now or probably more than 10 years. So I think DEQ looked at that and sort of thought, well, all that extra fancy dancy monitoring and research you're doing seems awful good. It didn't meet their standards. So essentially, our -- obviously our benefit is to the natural resource and uplift, and theirs is to literally how much floodwater can you grab. So they looked at about $550,000.00 of it. I'm wrong, $650,000.00, and said that's going to help flooding. The rest of the request, they sort of thought was -- just didn't meet their needs, frankly, but it may or may not meet our needs. You'll get to decide in October.
Mr. Womack: Okay, it just seemed kind of arbitrary, but I guess there's a method to it.
Mr. Bevington: Yeah, I think, A, it's a big ask for a stormwater project, so they might have been looking to sort of trim it a little bit. Last year they offered it arbitrarily very much, so they capped it. So the four projects had all requested more than $800,000.00, as I recall, and they capped every one of them at $800,000.00. So to me that was even more arbitrary.
Mr. Womack: Okay.
Mr. Bevington: I think in this case, they sort of looked at it and said, you know, most of that is for storm relief. A little bit doesn't seem -- it's a little much research for us. Why don't we pay about 85 percent of it? But, yeah, exactly how they came up with $351.00, you'll have to ask them.
Mr. Womack: Okay.
Chairman Wilson: And, Steve, to be clear, if we do, at the end of September and beginning of October decide to fund these three projects and with this DEQ money being part of that, this will not change the score of these projects and count as additional match. The score remains the same. It's just this would be the first money that goes towards these projects, with our money supplementing this up to a maximum of what the ask is in their application to us.
Mr. Bevington: Correct, for the first two, that's exactly correct, and in the third one, the number you see is $658,000.00. That's all they were willing to put at it. The request is $750,000.00 in total, I believe. So yes, what you said is right. This -- we did not score these assuming free money. We scored them on their own merits, and you'll see those. They fall -- we don't have final scores yet, but I think generally in the middle of the pack. So you'll see them halfway through the day and have to make a decision on whether you think they're worthy at that point. And that is our intent to have you fund them only if you think they're a valuable use of State funds. It's conceivable you think, even though it doesn't hurt us at all not to fund them in terms of our bottom line, not a valuable thing to go forward, and you'll be able to make that decision in committees and then as a board. And if I'm not making that clear, let me know.
Chairman Wilson: Okay, so again, we are only voting today to receive -- if we decide in September and October to fund these projects, that's the only instance in which these funds would be expended, but today we are voting to be open to that and make that possible.
Mr. Bevington: That's correct. And I guess my implication allow Will to sign an amended MOA that would go up by 1.1 million dollars with odd cents on there as well. It's not in the motion per se, but I think Will would have direct -- could imply direction from you to amend that MOA.
Chairman Wilson: Yep, any discussion about this; any more questions; don't let me short circuit discussion. I'm not forcing you to vote yet. All right, I'm going to sense that we are ready to move to a vote. This is coming to us from the Executive Committee recommending to the board that North Carolina DEQ funds in the amount of $1,139,351.00 be considered at the October funding meeting for applications 2025-408, 411, and 1004. That's two restoration projects and one innovative stormwater project as set out below, and I'm not going to read all those. They are on your screen and were in your packet. Any last discussion or questions; all right, how do you vote, please; Jimmy?
Vice-Chair Broughton: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Ann?
Acquisition Chair Browning: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Lydia?
Dr. Olander: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Clement?
Restoration Chair Riddle: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Mike?
Mr. Rusher: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Terry?
Mr. Shelton: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Darrell?
Mr. Williams: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: David?
Mr. Womack: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: And John is a yes; thank you, Steve; anything else on that, Steve?
Mr. Bevington: Thank you all; it's very helpful. I really appreciate it, and good questions.
Chairman Wilson: All right, okay, we're going to move on to consideration of additional funds for Hurricane Helene impacts. One project in particular, and this discussion will be led by Damon Hearne.
Mr. Hearne: Hello, all right, I'm going to juggle some screens. You all can see that slide, I assume. Okay, so presenting to you all a slightly tighter version, but similar to what I presented to the committee, additional funds request from Mountain Valleys RC&D for $194,750.00 for a project that we funded in 2024, 2024-417, their Shade Your Stream project to address increased demand due to Hurricane Helene. I'll show you a couple of the slides that I presented originally, and then at the end there will be a couple of slides on what the new content is. So in 2024 we presented, and the board funded a project, that was the second iteration of their Shade Your Stream project. At that time they requested $218,000.00. It was a $450,000.00 project, and they were working to stabilize at least 12 moderately degraded stream reaches. Mountain Valleys RC&D works in a region that is central to Asheville, kind of reaching from Madison in the north to Transylvania County and over to Cleveland County and the counties there in between. At the time they were proposing to stabilize at least 15,000 feet of stream using a variety of funds. They showed us a number of places that were already signed up or enrolled in that program. The way this program works is that they have the flexibility to sign up new folks as they go and move projects around as needed, as long as they are meeting the goals that we set out and they update us along the way. These are very cost effective, just planting on stream bank only. They're not moving dirt or spending a lot of effort on permitting and design. And they are 15-year maintenance agreements, and they tend to fall into the category of less than $10.00 a linear foot compared to some of our larger restoration projects, which are hundreds of dollars per linear foot. I kind of slid in underneath these dots, so to speak. The rainfall from Helene, and you can see the purple there reaching up to, the dark purple reaching up to 20 to 30 inches of rain. And so just to give you the understanding of kind of where they were proposing this work prior to that rain got a lot of rain and a lot of flooding, of course, as we all know. You don't need this graphic to know that. These are all moderately degraded streams that do not need -- usually don't need the excavator, don't need the in-stream structures. We plant -- we give them funds to plant these banks so that we can get deep rooted roots and prevent erosion before it's too late, and we have to spend $100,000.00 or $400,000.00 on a given site. I showed some before/after pictures in 2024. This is the Bailey Mountain Smith Farm site. We actually, as an acquisition of ours prior that they then planted, and you can see all of the tree protectors there and the buffer doing really nicely, and they spent a lot of effort making sure that works well. So getting to their amendment request, just as a background, they did close out a 2020 version of this. They closed it out early in 2024, and they exceeded their deliverables. And in 2024, as I stated, we funded their new application, and they are slated to exceed those deliverables. So what we've learned since the 2024 award that they've completed 20 projects totaling 10,000, almost 11,000 linear feet, and they've got 11 additional sites allocated, signed up, and ready to go with an additional 7,500 feet. That means that when they -- if they were to close out their current project as it is now, they would exceed their deliverable by 3,000 feet. If you recall, it was around a 15,000 linear foot deliverable. Now also since that time, we've got the world of Helene where some completed projects that they did with the 2024 dollars suffered or that they did right before that. A number of them have already been addressed. There's a picture from the island in Marshall. You can kind of see the same set of buildings in the background. Before the first set of work after plantings when I closed it out, after Helene damages, and then during Helene repair. So they've done a ton of work and have been really proactive in repairing sites that they'd already worked on, on getting new sites and continuing this work, which is why they're -- you can see they’ve or they are going to exceed their deliverable either way. What they found is that all of that work and all the publicity and all the need from, as you can imagine, all the high water on all these stream banks created a lot of need. A lot of landowners showed up and said, hey, I've got this problem, too, or I had it before and it's slightly worse now, or it was fine before, and now the cleanup crews came in and sloped the banks back. You can see the bulldozer tracks and very little deep rooted vegetation. They've got 28 of those sites ready to go if they had the funds, and they're basically -- all the funds that we awarded in 2024 are allocated. If we added to their contract with this amount, they could do 3.7 additional miles, 28 sites, 26 of which are certified to be Helene damaged, and I suspect the other two certainly were affected. They couldn't not be, really. So that's what the $194,750.00 could do. You can see in the little table there the match. They lost some match, kind of not unexpected, due to major upheavals in federal programs and Helene, but they’ve made up for a lot of it. The new math that kind of compares their original application to -- with this amendment only decreases their total match by 8 percent, which is, I think, testament to the fact that they've worked really hard to get other additional match funds in the door. So the committee recommendation here was the committee recommended to accept Mountain Valley RC&D's request to increase the award for project 2024-417 by $194,750.00 and to increase the project scope to include an additional 28 sites and 19,536 linear feet of stream utilizing unused funds from the 2024 grant cycle. And then the board action is stated there, approve, amend, or deny the committee recommendation.
Chairman Wilson: Thank you, Damon; any questions for Damon or comments?
Mr. Williams: Damon, I do have a question; thanks for your report. I'm curious whether or not this -- the impact of the hurricane, Helene, does this cover most of the projects that were impacted that were related to Land and Water, or is this just a portion of them?
Mr. Hearne: So these are brand –- the 28 sites are new sites that are beyond the need of what they've already built and done and gone back and repaired. So they've already with other funds done some repair of existing sites. The 28 sites here are not on previously constructed projects. They are landowners that have come to them in the rush of -- since basically after the point that they got all of their previous funds allocated and planned to spend that came in and said, I've also got this problem. And the crux of this is their proposal is that if we amend that project to do these additional new sites that were not on their radar prior, that these bare banks won't have to sit for another 12 to 18 to 24 months to get planted, and these landowners will know that they can plant them. So it’s -– they're basically by saying, we've got an open contract, but all the money is spent, we could take advantage of additional funds and get it done in the next 12 months or the next eight or nine months versus waiting a whole year to apply and then at least a half year to get the contract and get the project stood up again and going forward. So there wouldn't be a lag of these bare banks sitting there through all the flood and rain cycles for the next year and a half to two years. But they are not replanting existing NCLWF projects with these additional funds. Does that answer your question, I guess?
Mr. Williams: Just a follow-up, does Mountain Valley represent most of the geographic area that got impacted by Helene? I mean the organization, yeah. Just to be clear, are there other organizations like this that's representing –- okay, that shows the area. So that's just the whole area that was impacted by Helene. They represent the whole area?
Mr. Hearne: They do not represent the entire area.
Mr. Williams: Okay.
Mr. Hearne: They represent the worst of the area, but there are certainly projects, especially northeast of these counties. So Mitchell, Yancey, those counties certainly were hit very hard. What they represent is a combination of hard hit areas and an open existing contract with a need built up. So in other words, we don't have an analog of their program where they've run to the end of their funds and have people signed up to make a very efficient quick use of the funds. There may be folks in Mitchell County that would like to apply for this kind of program in 2026, but the reason this is in front of us, is it's not a new application. It's an extension of an existing contract that basically proved that they had used all their funds and could -- had a surplus of need, which is the unique part of it. I have no doubt and would love to sign up additional partners to do this type of work in other counties, especially north and east of their range.
Mr. Williams: Okay, thank you.
Chairman Wilson: More questions for Damon or discussion?
Acquisition Chair Browning: I'm 100 percent behind this request. Just to be clear though, if we didn't fund it, those funds would be back, would go into the pool for this coming year's application, is that right?
Executive Director Summer: That's correct.
Acquisition Chair Browning: Okay, yeah, even with that said, I think it's a great and efficient way to take advantage of the momentum they've built.
Vice-Chair Broughton: This is Jimmy. Can I ask you to remind me how much? This has come from unused funds? What does that pot look like? I just -– I can't remember.
Executive Director Summer: So, Jimmy, we brought forward at the end of last fiscal year between monies that came back from projects or license plate revenues that came in -- have come in since July 1st --
Vice-Chair Broughton: Yeah.
Executive Director Summer: -- that are sitting in our account right now. It's a little under 2 million dollars that we have available.
Vice-Chair Broughton: Okay, all right, fair enough; I saw that somewhere. I just couldn't remember.
Chairman Wilson: Sorry, is somebody going to say something? I was just going to say I agree with what Damon was saying, which is this is a unique opportunity in a project with a proven track record in an area of extraordinary need. And I'm all for it and appreciate Damon and Will bringing this to the Executive Committee and to the full board. Any more discussion, questions; do you all feel like we're ready to vote? Okay, I see some nods. All right, please let me know how you vote. Damon read it, so I'm not going to read it again. There it is in front of you. Coming from the Executive Committee, so we can go straight to a vote. How do you vote, please; Jimmy?
Vice-Chair Broughton: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Ann?
Acquisition Chair Browning: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Lydia?
Dr. Olander: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Clement?
Restoration Chair Riddle: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Mike?
Mr. Rusher: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Terry?
Mr. Shelton: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Darrell?
Mr. Williams: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: David?
Mr. Womack: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: And John is a yes, also; thank you; Damon, anything else on this?
Mr. Womack: Yeah, John, David, real quick, I just want to compliment the staff and the Executive Committee for adding a little quotient of entrepreneurial spirit to a normally stodgy process; thank you all for being nimble and quick in addressing this in a timely manner.
Chairman Wilson: Yeah, and you know, both this and the additional funding from DEQ are sort of out-of-the-box procedures, and that's why they were coming through the Executive Committee, where we have both of our committee chairs, our vice chair, and myself in order to contemplate this. So, yes, I appreciated that comment, David, agree with you. All right, moving on to the final item on our agenda, 3C, and that is the allocation of funding for 2025 applications, and I'll hand it over to you, Will Summer.
Executive Director Summer: Thank you, Mr. Chair, so each year the executive committee recommends funding allocations for the grant program committees, and that gives the committees direction about how much funding they will have on the day of the funding meeting. It also directs staff about how to handle any funds received after the board meeting. So before I put up the official committee recommendation, I'd like to take a minute to kind of explain it in plain speak. So the committee recommendation does several things. The first is that it dictates how our existing funding on the day of the funding meeting is allocated between committees. So if an 80-20 allocation is agreed upon between the Acquisition Committee and the Restoration, Innovative Stormwater, and Planning Committee, and we have, for the sake of ease, we'll say 10 million, then 8 million would go to Acquisition, and 2 million would go to the Restoration Committee. Second, it directs staff on how to allocate any new revenue that comes in after the funding meeting, such as from license plates, which we receive as a monthly deposit each month for the rest of the fiscal year. Third, this motion specifies what happens when the money comes back from a project, either due to the project finishing under budget or the project being withdrawn completely and returning all of its funds. Here, we have traditionally done something a little different and specified that when funds come back from a previously funded project, they're not split per the allocation. They go back to the committee from wince they came. So if an acquisition project fails, and it was funded at a million dollars, then that million dollars goes towards the acquisition program to be put into another acquisition project, likewise for Restoration, Innovative Stormwater, and Planning. Fourth, the recommendation specifies that the Acquisition Committee is the group that's responsible for setting aside some of their funds for the donation mini-grant program, since it is primarily an acquisition function. And finally, the last thing it does is that the Restoration, Innovative Stormwater, and Planning Committee, which is one committee that handles three different funding program areas, they bear the responsibility of allocating their funds between each of those three programs based on project merit, and that's done at the funding meeting. So for instance, if it was allocated 80/20 and 20 percent went to the Restoration, Innovative Stormwater, and Planning program, at the day of the funding meeting Restoration, Innovative Stormwater, and Planning would look at the projects and divvy that money up as they saw fit in the moment based on the project merit. So one of the factors that the committee takes into consideration is the percentage of demand in each program. If you look at the table here in the last column, you'll see that the percentage of demand in the Acquisition Committee for acquisition applications is roughly 88 percent, leaving 12 percent for the Restoration, Innovative Stormwater, and Planning programs. The snapshot demand for this cycle is a little different than in previous years, which were a little closer to the 80/20 allocation that we've used in previous years. And I think if this were the only factor that you used, you might end up -- or that the committee used, they might end up closer to say an allocation of 88/12. But the committee is recommending 80/20 again this year, and I'd like to share some of the factors they considered.
So the first thing is that, you know, as the administrator, I'm trying to build and maintain staff to handle project load that results from your funding decisions, and we have staff that's dedicated to the Restoration program and staff dedicated to the Acquisition program. I don't have the balance perfect yet, but shifting more project load from Restoration to Acquisition moves me a little further from getting there and also makes it kind of harder to predict because I can't ramp up staffing or workload on a dime if we deviate a lot from the standard allocation. My other programmatic concern is that if you de-emphasize the Restoration program and the funding, it might lead us into a situation where applicants don't feel there is strong support for the program or that their efforts face too few dollars, and it becomes too competitive and it kind of becomes a negative feedback loop, in which case it just, again, becomes a little bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Another thing is that we generally receive more return funds to the acquisition projects on the provisional list each year, and that's because the universe of previously funded projects for acquisition is far larger than restoration, and they're generally prone to more binary outcomes. So when an acquisition project fails, it's usually one landowner.
It either succeeds and spends all the monies, or when it fails, the whole thing fails and a big chunk of money comes back in. Conversely, when a restoration project hits a snag, for instance one out of ten landowners is no longer interested in the project, they're often able to complete 80 or 90 or more percent of their initial project, so there's less money coming back from previous restoration projects. So the end result of that is that in any given year, the return funds that go back into the acquisition pot, which do go back towards acquisition projects funded in that year, is skewed far more heavily than restoration. So last year, 97 percent of all the money that we got back after the funding meeting went into the acquisition. So if you do pick whatever number, let's say an 80/20 allocation, by the end of the fiscal year, you will end up with far more towards acquisition than 80 percent just because of the larger number of funds that come back in. Also, there are also -– there are some very large acquisition requests, individual requests that are as high as 10 million, which we generally don't fund any one project that large, so they get capped at some smaller number. In recent years, it's been around 4 million. So if you assume that the committee will be somewhere similar to that and all these really large requests are going to get capped at 4 million, that would reduce the demand by 15 to 20 million. And it just results in kind of an inflated demand for that type of project when they're really large requests that we have no likelihood of funding the entirety of. And finally, the last point I'll make, and I think this went into the committee's decision, is that because our demand so far outstrips our funding availability, for instance with just our appropriations and license plate revenue, we'll probably get to about a third of the demand on the list. And even if we had as much money come back in after the fact as we have in our biggest of recent years, we still wouldn't even get through half the demand. So there's no danger that you would go too far down the list by funding 80/20 when the demand was closer to 88/12. There's still going to be lots of projects you don't get to on either list and no danger of going too deep on the list or funding projects that aren't worthy. You're only going to be able to fund excellent, you know, best of the best projects just because we have such a strong demand. So with that said, here's the committee recommendation. This is as it appeared in your agenda. I'll take any questions and leave this up to contemplate.
Chairman Wilson: Will, you described for us what happens if funds are returned during the fiscal year in which they were granted, they go to the specific program from which they came. Will you please remind everyone what happens if we then take those funds and continue working our way down the funding list and down to the provisional list and maybe get all the way to the bottom of the provisional list and there are still funds available. What happens to those funds at the end of the fiscal year?
Executive Director Summer: Absolutely; so that's a good question, John. I'll start with the concept of the provisional list just for new trustees. So when you all meet next month, I'm going to tell you today here's what you have in your checking account and that number will be somewhere around probably 32 million. And you as trustees will allocate, award all of that 32 million towards projects. But as I mentioned, we get license plate revenue every month for the remainder of the year, and we have projects fall through. So in order for us not to have money just sitting around waiting until you all come back to meet at a future meeting, what we've done over the last decade is to have the trustees tell us what they wanted to fund on the day of the meeting and then make us a prioritized list and basically direct staff, when you get the next 100,000 dollars go to this project. And when you fund that one, keep moving down the list, and we call that our provisional list. It allows us to make sure that as monies come back in, we immediately roll those monies right back into new projects, and we're never sitting on money in the account. To your question, John, in the rare event, which normally doesn't happen but has happened, that we receive more money than we anticipate, so we set aside a provisional list that was 5 million projects -– 500 million dollars worth of projects deep and somehow we ended up with 6 million coming back in before the end of the fiscal year. Your question, John, is what would we do with that extra million if that was an acquisition project? The default is that it remains unspent, and we carry it into next fiscal year. Generally speaking, this doesn't happen often, but it has happened, and it happened last year. Generally speaking, when that happens, it happens at the very tail end of the fiscal year. And I have to admit, we're always a little surprised because we generally think we’ve put enough on the list that that doesn't happen. So those funds are carried into the next grant year to be awarded at a future board meeting. There is -- and I'll just say this so you're aware of it. There is an opportunity that we could, if we saw this, if it happened early enough and it was a large enough amount of money where one program ran through their provisional list and another program still had projects left, we could ask the board in May to reconsider what they might want to do in the tail end of the year, but we've not yet done such a thing. Does that answer your question, John? I'm sorry. That was a longer rambling answer, but I wanted to set the table a little bit for new folks.
Chairman Wilson: Yes, but just to clarify, if we do get to the end of the fiscal year and there is still a balance that has not been allocated, it then rolls over to the new fiscal year, but is not allocated for acquisition or restoration, innovative stormwater, and planning. It goes into the general fund, and then this process will happen all over again the following year with those funds.
Executive Director Summer: Absolutely correct; sorry, I answered a different question than you answered with a far longer answer, but you're absolutely correct; thank you.
Chairman Wilson: Okay, yep; it's always good in these kinds of conversations to have the initial discussion in the executive committee involving both the chair of the Restoration, Innovative Stormwater, and Planning Committee and the chair of the Acquisition Committee right there in the meeting making these decisions. I take great comfort in that. So, Clement, Ann, do you all have anything that you want to share, even if it's something you said in the committee meeting?
Acquisition Chair Browning: I would just say I'm comfortable with this recommendation, even though there are more acquisition funds requested because of the reasons that Will outlined, but particularly I think because of the large request that, you know, we'll go through the process of establishing a cap when we're together at the meeting or considering a cap, but it would be very unusual for us to fund 10 million dollar projects given the amount of dollars that we have. So that, to me, kind of helps balance the scales.
Restoration Chair Riddle: I'll just add, I feel really comfortable with this split. In the short time I've been with the program, it seems to have worked very well, and there's certainly -- restoration compliments conservation in a lot of ways, and I'm just grateful that the Land and Water Fund Program has identified by both of these committees or projects or divisions to be important, and I think it's a good split.
Chairman Wilson: All right, any more discussion; this is the Executive Committee recommending for the 2025 grant cycle that all available funds be allocated as follows, 80 percent to the Acquisition Committee, 20 percent of the funds to Restoration, Innovative Stormwater, and Planning. Acquisition Committee will be charged with allocating funding for the Donation Mini-Grant Program. Restoration, Innovative Stormwater, and Planning Committee is charged with allocating funding for each of their three program areas based on the merit of the applications during project review. All returned or unspent grant funds received after the funding meeting will revert to their respective programs to be used for provisional awards for the remainder of the fiscal year. Any more discussion, questions; okay, how do you vote, please; Jimmy?
Vice-Chair Broughton: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Ann?
Acquisition Chair Browning: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Lydia; I'm not hearing Lydia. Are -- you muted or?
Dr. Olander: Can you hear?
Chairman Wilson: Yes, just barely, go ahead.
Dr. Olander: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Okay, that's a yes form Lydia; Clement?
Restoration Chair Riddle: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Mike?
Mr. Rusher: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Terry?
Mr. Shelton: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Darrell?
Mr. Williams: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: David?
Mr. Womack: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: And John Wilson is a yes, and I'll just take this opportunity to say for our new trustees that while you have just experienced a meeting in which every single one of our votes was unanimous, that is not always the case. It is often the case, and I would say usually the case, but it is not always the case. So never feel like you've got to go with the flow. Speak your mind. I know you will. Will, is there anything more on that agenda item or anything else that you or staff or trustees want to say?
Executive Director Summer: Nothing from myself or staff.
Chairman Wilson: Okay, trustees, anything else on your mind?
Mr. Williams: Good meeting, good to see everyone.
Chairman Wilson: Okay, thanks, Darrell; how about a motion to adjourn?
Acquisition Chair Browning: So moved.
Mr. Williams: So moved.
Chairman Wilson: All right, let's give that to Ann and the second to Darrell. Any discussion; all right, we can all vote at the same time. All in favor of adjourning, say yes.
All Members: Yes.
Chairman Wilson: Anybody opposed; all right, we are adjourned. Thanks, everyone; we'll see you on September 30th.
(The proceedings were concluded at 2:43 P.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-seven pages which constitute this Board of Trustees Meeting are a true and accurate transcript.
IN WITNESS THEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this 22nd day of September, 2025.
__________________________
Dona E. Overby
Notary Public
Certificate No.: 19971920107