Center for Invasive Plant Management Semi-Annual Steering Committee Meeting

September 30-October 1, 2008 Montana State University – Bozeman

Draft – 1/24/09

Note taker/transcription: Dianne Brokke Editing: Liz Galli-Noble Attachment A. 2008 Fall Meeting Agenda

Tuesday, September 30, 2008 Morning Session – 9:00 am to noon Meeting Attendance: Steering Committee Members: John Simons (moderator), Jim Olivarez, Tim Koopmann, Dean Peterson, Earl Creech, LaDonna Carlisle, Bruce Maxwell (ex officio); joining via telephone: Mandy Tu, Tim Prather, Slade Franklin CIPM Staff: Liz Galli-Noble, Mary McFadzen, Janet Clark, Erik Lehnhoff, Connie Bollinger, Melissa Brown, Dianne Brokke, Tanya Skurski, Juan Banda Absent: Jennifer Vollmer, Dave White

CIPM BUSINESS MEETING

1. Welcome and Introductions The meeting was convened at 9:15 a.m. All were welcomed and introductions were made by each Steering Committee member and CIPM staff: John Simons – Bureau of Land Management based in Billings, Montana. Jim Olivarez – US Forest Service and is based in Missoula, Montana. Connie Bollinger – CIPM staff, in the process of shifting from the website team to the research and grant writing team. Dean Peterson – Rancher from Judith Gap, Montana. Janet Clark – CIPM Assistant Director for Policy and Publications. Bruce Maxwell – Interim Department Head of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences Department at MSU. He took over from Jon Wraith. Earl Creech –Extension Weed Specialist at the University of Nevada at Reno. Dianne Brokke – CIPM Office/Grants Manager. Erick Lehnhoff – CIPM Assistant Director for Research. He is working 0.6 FTE until January 1, 2009 when he will go up to 0.8 time. He is teaching the LRES 443-Weed Ecology and Management class and lab this fall and is also working on a post-doc research project. Tanya Skurski – MSU graduate student and the project coordinator for CIPM’s plastic weed model project. Melissa Brown – CIPM Science Communications Associate; she works part time. Mary McFadzen – CIPM Assistant Director for Science Communication and Education. LaDonna Carlisle – Bureau of Indian Affairs, Jicarilla Agency in New Mexico, natural resource specialist. Tim Koopmann – Rancher and range resource manager in California.

Liz Galli-Noble – CIPM Director. Tim Prather – Extension professor at the University of Idaho and chair of CIPM’s Science Advisory Council. Mandy Tu – The Nature Conservancy based out of Portland, Oregon. Slade Franklin – with the Wyoming Dept. of Agriculture out of Cheyenne. Jennifer Vollmer (absent) – She works for BASF and is the Steering Committee’s Industry representative. She is leaving the SC and her Industry position will need to be replaced. Dave White (absent) – USDA-NRCS, Montana State Conservationist and is the SC’s Other Federal Agency representative. He is taking a new position with the NRCS in Washington DC and his Other Federal Agency will also need to be replaced.

New Steering Committee members: See Attachment B.

New CIPM personnel: See Attachment C.

Steering Committee Members to be replaced – John Simons asked for suggestions on who might replace these two Steering Committee members.

Liz Galli-Noble – I briefly spoke with Jennifer Vollmer when she told me that she wouldn’t be able to attend this meeting and she made two recommendations for her replacement. She said it’s a little different than what the SC has done in the past; she suggested two industry distributors, rather than outreach- and education-type people within industry. Her suggestions were: (1) Jim Gordon, United Agri Products in Billings, MT and (2) Bill Walker, also with UAP-Timberland in South Dakota. I have contact information and background information on these two individuals that I can share with the SC with the minutes of this meeting. Other than that, I don’t have any suggestions with regard to Jennifer’s replacement. Bruce Maxwell – Are you looking for a particular alliance or segment that you’re trying to represent? Tim Prather – It’s hard and probably a little too quick to think of a replacement off the top of my head. There could be some other really good folks out there, so we might want to just think about this for a little bit and see if we can come back with a couple of names. John Simons – That would be fine; we could try to come up with suggestions over the next three or four months and then get together in the spring or late winter and make a decision. This just came to our attention, so we added it to the agenda in order to let the SC know and to see if you had suggestions. Tim Prather – One person that comes to mind for me is Scott Johnson, he’s with Wilbur Ellis in their Forestry Division in Rio Linda, California but he was very active in the Cal-IPC and a real strong leader in that arena in California. John Simons – I am not sure if the Bylaws specify a particular type of industry representative. I think that it’s been a chemical industry representative from the beginning of CIPM. Janet Clark – According to the Bylaws it could be any kind of industry – Ag related, natural resource related, or the horticulture industry. You could think really broadly about it, but traditionally, it has been a herbicide manufacture representative. Liz Galli-Noble – Tim and John I think your suggestions are good. I would request that SC members start thinking about this over the next few months and if you come up with some good suggestions, please email those to me. I’ll then do some information gathering and maybe even check individual’s availability, contact information those types of things in preparation for our spring meeting. All agreed to this plan. Liz Galli-Noble – I just want to make one other comment concerning Dave White. I would like to ask Dave White if he’s still interested in continuing to serve on the SC in his new NRSC position. If people are comfortable with that, then that’s the first step I’d like to take concerning the “Other Federal Agency” position on the SC. Then the second step would be if he says “no,” we would look to another NRCS person or to another federal agency. Are people comfortable with me taking that first step?

John Simons – I would certainly be in favor of keeping him on for awhile if we can. It would depend on the position he has in Washington whether it would be a good fit. Mary McFadzen – We have had former Steering Committee members in DC. One was very active with CIPM and the second I’ve never even met or talked to on the phone. So, I would consider asking him if he’s actually available to participate in these meetings via phone or in person. John Simons – One other comment that Liz had made on this is perhaps looking into the US Army Corps of Engineers as a potential SC member, which has some pretty good possibilities. Right now they’re fairly well funded and they’re getting into natural resource management a little stronger so that might be a fairly good fit. Slade Franklin – I just have one question maybe for Liz. In filling these two positions are there certain areas within the region or states that we should look at getting representation from? Liz Galli-Noble – That’s a good question, Slade. This issue came up at the last SC meeting -- that we should target states that we didn’t already have representation from. Those would include North Dakota, South Dakota, and Washington. LaDonna is from the southwest but we could use additional members from that region as well. I think it’s a good point to make that we should target people who are in different states or regions that aren’t presently represented. Jim Olivarez – I’d like to comment that the way I operate in my SC position is as a Forest Service representative. I relay everything to the Washington Office; in fact the materials for this meeting went back to DC to our national coordinator and we discussed a few things. So I’m the USDA USFS’s representative at the table; it’s actually an agency position that I fill as Mike Ielmini’s representative – the agency rep – so he has that direct tie. Most of the input I provide I brief him on that. So, that might be a way to think about the national office of the NRCS. Liz Galli-Noble – That’s very helpful, thank you. I know a lot of people in the Corps of Engineers. I worked pretty extensively with them in past and in particular Omaha District. A lot of money, especially in Montana and in the Missouri Basin is coming out of Omaha District. I also know of potential National Park Service candidates out of Yellowstone National Park, who may be interested in serving on the SC. Again, I’d like the SC members to send me suggestions for federal agency representative replacement on the SC. We are looking specifically to expand our representation from other states.

2. April 25, 2008 meeting minutes approval – See Attachment D. John Simons – Are there any corrections that need to be made to the April 25, 2008 conference call Steering Committee meeting minutes? Jim Olivarez – I wasn’t at the meeting but I went through the minutes and was pretty impressed with the minutes and how comments were captured. I was able to envision how people were thinking, what they were saying and what the issues were. So I thought they were a great set of minutes and even thought I wasn’t there, I sure felt I got the feel for all the topics. Decision: There were no comments/corrections made to the April 25, 2008 conference call Steering Committee minutes. The minutes were approved as written.

3. Steering Committee Bylaws – review, edits, approval – See Attachment E. Liz Galli-Noble – I went through the SC 2007 Bylaws and highlighted areas requiring wordsmithing or areas where I had questions. Could we review the document, discuss the highlighted areas and make any other needed changes. John Simons – First suggestion is made in “Mission Statement.” The words, “policy makers and natural resource” were added to the statement. Is there any problem making that change? No one objected to the change. John Simons – Change two under “Terms of Office,” should this be July 1st to June 30 or a different time frame? Should we be looking at the University fiscal year or calendar year? Liz Galli-Noble - Could we just say three years commencing at your first meeting? Could it be something that simple?

John Simons – From whenever they started, that would work. Next “Officers” – a one-year or two-year term is perfectly fine. I would suggest it would probably be in the fall, if we always have a fall face-to-face meeting. That’s my suggestion. Anything else? One-year or two-years? Earl Creech – I know I’m kind of new to this group, but my suggestion would be that it’s always nice to give a person a couple of years to fit into that role. I would think two years is a good thing. Liz Galli-Noble – May I also ask why it says “Moderator” versus “Chair.” Would it be permissible to change that to the “Chair” of the SC? John Simons – That term doesn’t make any difference to me. We agree to make it a “Chair” of the SC who can serve for two years and who’s term starts in the fall. Next “Expectations” is just a change from “Executive Director” to “Director” - just a word change. No one objects to that change throughout the Bylaws. Also, we may need to adjust the “Time” statement about semi-annual SC meeting. One suggestion that’s been made is to have a fall face-to-face meeting and then have two conference calls in early spring (February or March) and early summer (June). I think that would help out in travel costs and probably make it a lot easier on everyone’s schedules. I think that the last set of notes were comprehensive and we covered a lot of issues in a short period of time. Jim Olivarez – Can we get new microphone for future conference calls? John Simons – Yes, we’ll get microphones or maybe a new speaker phone. The suggestion would be to a one fall face to face meeting and two conference calls - comments or suggestions on that? Janet Clark – Perhaps the language could say “one in person meeting and conference calls as needed.” Then it’s flexible. Some years you may want every month and other years only two or three. John Simons – That’s a very good suggestion. Hearing no objections we’ll go with that – one fall meeting and conference calls as needed. We’ll make adjustment throughout the Bylaws. Then under “Committees” the Science Advisory Committee has made some adjustments to paragraph B. Is that acceptable to everyone? I had one comment – how does Erik Lehnhoff’s position interact or overlap with the Science Advisory Committee? Tim Prather (SAC Chair) – The Science Advisory Council was trying to figure out a new course of action because the primary role that we’ve been playing is to serve as a review panel for the CIPM research grants. With the loss of that grants program, we were discussing if it’s really necessary to have a science advisory committee. What spawned a lot of discussion, particularly at my request, was when Liz provided us a description of the SAC’s duties from the CIPM Bylaws, which none of us had seen previously. So given that description of duties, the SAC will serve in an advisory capacity to the Center and to the Steering Committee for science-related issues. We would try to work on the science both from a research stand point and also broaden that to include the educational and extension side of things. So, that’s where we were looking at making some changes in the revised Bylaws. Some of what we were originally instructed to do, can’t be done at this point – to serve as a grant proposal review panel. We’re hoping that program can be reinstated at some point, especially the seed money grants. This is because there really isn’t a place where researchers can go to get those kinds of funds, other than a small provision in NRI, but that is not as broad reaching as what CIPM has been able to do in the past. One of the ideas that was brought forth by Liz was with respect to EDRR (early detection rapid response) which is an area that’s received a lot of attention. It’s an area that I think could use some help from the SAC, much like was done in the past for things like the survey manual, farm bill product, and Joe DiTomaso’s role for the fire manual. I think we could be useful in that arena focusing on early detection rapid response; the idea being that perhaps we could work on that with respect to the new Missouri River group. If we can get a new SAC description in the Bylaws and broaden it to include the educational side of things as well, then this might be a task that the SAC was certainly interested in doing. We were thinking about a national EDRR conference or hold something that would be in support of the EDRR effort with respect to the Missouri River group. That’s my recollection of things. John Simons – Perhaps we should discuss how Erik’s position is going to interact with this science. Erik Lehnhoff – Unfortunately, I have to go in just a few minutes. I haven’t had time to chat with anyone on the Science Advisory Council yet. I was hoping to have a chance to talk with Tim and others in the near future. So it’s not clear how we’ll interact yet.

Looking at the suggested Bylaws language – providing specific grant writing advice to CIPM – I would look at that as teaming with SAC members to write grants as well as having them provide advice to us. Liz Galli-Noble – I would actually like Erik to sit on the Science Advisory Council as the liaison for the Center; we discussed this about a week ago. Tim said that he felt that the SAC chair should not be a CIPM staff position and I tend to agree with him; but I would like Erik to interact closely with the SAC and communicate those activities to the Steering Committee. Also, we have never specified how many SAC members there can be, so if Erik joins the SAC that will make five members. I would like to suggest that the revised Bylaws read: “Five or six members shall be appointed by the CIPM Director for two-year terms.” John Simons – Any other suggestions or comments? Does anyone have any objections to the new language that the Science Advisory Council came up with on June 11? No one had any objections. Tim Prather – Have SAC members been appointed by the Director or were they appointed by the Steering Committee in the past? Janet Clark – They were appointed by the Director with significant input from the Science Advisory Council, as far as providing suggestions to the Director. John Simons – Next is “Education Advisory Committee.” Can someone provide some input on how this committee functions? Mary McFadzen – Shortly after I came on five years ago, Janet and I decided that an Education and Advisory Committee would be helpful. There was no committee before I came on. We built the committee to provide input about what’s going on out there in the world, as far as what the needs are in education. The committee was Leonard Lake, US Forest Service; Dana Backer, TNC and Steve Dewey, Utah State University Weed Specialist. They provided some input on what they felt were needs in terms of education and outreach which was very helpful. But then CIPM entered into the cooperative agreement with the US Fish and Wildlife Service (developing learning modules), which became a huge project that consumed all of the outreach team’s time, I didn’t want to waste their time so I told them I didn’t need any more input. I was working specifically with an agency that had their own experts. We were having problems with meeting attendance and providing input, so, I told them that I no longer needed their help and just let the committee go. It hasn’t been reinstated in terms of assigning people or asking people to join the committee, since. As the Assistant Director of Science Communication and Education, I personally don’t think we need it. What I think is important in my job is if our mission is primarily to connect science with management and also with policy, I think it’s part of my job to be working with Erik and the SAC to disseminate outreach information but also developing education based on the science. So, I don’t think I need a specific committee to help provide input. I think we have a lot of experts already with the SC and SAC. I’d be interested in hearing what other people think. Tim Prather – If we do indeed expand the SAC into also helping with education, I think that makes a lot of sense. Jim Olivarez – I do too. Slade Franklin – A lot of post Rocky Mountain Weed Summit discussion has been on, at least with the western states, the need to work closer in terms of disseminating educational information between states. So we can find a way to share what’s being done in one state, so that other states can use it. Would you be able to serve that purpose through what’s been done in the past? Mary McFadzen – Slade, are you specifically referring to professional development for natural resource managers, more K-12 or both groups? Slade Franklin – I think what we looked at is education along the lines of what Idaho is doing with their commercials. Maybe it would be easy to transfer this information over to Wyoming or Montana for them to use. This is just one of the things I’ve heard come up about education on the regional level. LaDonna Carlisle – I’ve personally have in my job description that I have to do outreach to the local community as well as being a member of CWMA. We have to do outreach to all levels. It doesn’t matter if they’re school children or adults. We provide information to each group and I also give up my personal time to go back to my own tribal nation and do educational outreach with them. As I was telling Liz yesterday, I’ve also done some outreach with other groups as well such as the Native American Fish & Wildlife Society, Southwestern Indian Agricultural Association which consists of land owners and ranchers in the southwest, New Mexico Vegetation Management Program. So, I’ve hit all different levels. I’ve participated in summer camps for school kids, teenagers, doing workshops for professionals in forestry, game and fish. So, I’ve done that just on a personal level from my own job description. I also do oil and gas on-site outreach and talk to industry people themselves saying “look you have weeds on this oil pad

and I want it clean” because of the tribal code. There are a lot of people out there who do the same things that I do; we don’t need to be told to do it. It’s just something that we do because we want to see a change in the way things are. I know that with BIA we’ve been extending outreach in other ways. We have Mark Schwarzlaender on a BIA Noxious Weed Fund grant and he does a lot of education. He goes out to the tribal agencies and meets with them and does workshops with them. I think the education tie needs to be there but we can’t limit ourselves because we have to remember that we’re not going to be here in 20, 30 or 40 years and the little kids that are in school right now are going to be the ones at this table making the decisions for future generations. So, we can’t leave anyone uncovered because the generation behind us is the one we’re preparing to take over what we’re doing now. A lot of the decisions and changes we’re making now we won’t see but the next generation will and that’s the outlet that we need to have as a committee and not be saying that we need to filter out a little bit more. Education is key and the driving force of where we’re going to go. Liz Galli-Noble – LaDonna, do you think we should reinstate this group? Do feel that as a member of this Steering Committee it would be a worthwhile thing to do? LaDonna Carlisle – I think we can incorporate the education and the science together. I don’t want to see it totally go away because I’ve used some of your products. I’ve purchase the weed bouquet and take it out and give those things away to encourage people to learn and they’re willing to learn. Jim Olivarez – It seems like we still have some discussion relative to making a distinction between awareness type efforts versus education and training, and professional training. I don’t see this group doing primary education or public awareness; we’ve got other programs going on and that would be a significant change from what we do best. Mary McFadzen – There’s a lot of history with the Center in terms of what the education person was supposed to do. Things can change no doubt. What we’ve done in the past is been really strong in providing education for land mangers in the form of professional development for lets say Forest Service employees, the on-line course, etc. We also did some K-12 education materials which you can find on our website. The focus right now is more toward professional development. We are doing awareness in terms of the fake weeds, etc. but we don’t really have somebody on board developing K-12 products. LaDonna Carlisle – Regarding professional development, I’m just bombarded with workshops. I want to go to this and that but I have to make a decision regarding what to focus on. Slade Franklin – One more comment on the Educational Advisory Committee and maybe you’re hitting on it there. A lot of states are doing this stuff. We’ve developed some school programs in Wyoming and I guess without knowing much about the committee I could see where that committee might help in terms of getting what Wyoming has produced for schools and helping get it t work in Montana. That’s where the Center’s Education Committee could bring those state education folks together, to assist each other and to see what they’ve already developed and get it out to the other states without reinventing the wheel. Janet Clark – Just to clarify, it’s not for this Center to create new products but to be the clearinghouse for the western states. Is that what you’re saying, Slade? Slade Franklin – Yes, along those lines and maybe within that same capacity find out where those holes are. Come up with some ideas on how to fill them. Tim Prather – If you’re looking at expanding into that area, I don’t think that the SAC as it’s currently constructed could deal with that. It’s really more into research and the science education side of things; and this function is public awareness and somewhat into cooperative extension. Connie Bollinger – Avoiding reinventing the wheel is an important thing to do and I’m just wondering if a committee is even needed. The website is now part of the education and science communication arm of the Center, and Mary is in charge of that and it seems to me the website would be a good place to communicate the different products, curricula, etc. that are available throughout the states and it seems like it would be fairly simple to just communicate with Mary and keep that part of the website continually updated. Mary McFadzen – What I could do to help facilitate that is send out an email to key education/outreach/awareness type people and solicit information from them that we could then post on our website to make it readily available to broader geographic audiences. Connie Bollinger – Also, the newsletter is going out bi-monthly and that is coordinated by this same group the science communication and education team. Since Melissa is part of that, the new things that came along could easily be reported in the

newsletter as well. I just don’t see any reason that a committee has to do any of this. It seems the avenues are already set up to collect, communicate and disseminate all these various kinds of educational and awareness products that different states have. Jim Olivarez – Janet, a year or so ago there was an awareness type of workshop in Boise, Idaho; wasn’t the Center part of that? Janet Clark – CIPM sponsored it. Jim Olivarez – In essence it brought in some of the educational heavy hitters in the west which is the Montana awareness program and the Idaho. We acted to facilitate that and pull it together, but I see that as a different roll than what Mary is doing. We can continue to facilitate things like that, but not be the experts in it. Janet Clark – It was a valuable role just to bring everyone together in one room to share what they are doing. CIPM can do that live through a conference. We can do it through our website. It’s always valuable to bring people together and for people to share ideas rather than creating something new. Just that facilitation role has been valuable in the past. At that time, one of the conference outcomes/conclusions that everyone agree upon was that it would be great to have a regional awareness and outreach person. We didn’t really follow-up on that, and you could discuss whether or not that’s necessary, but it was recognized that it would be valuable to have some regional place where people could communicate about education and outreach activities. Liz Galli-Noble – I would agree with what’s just been said. The Center already does provide that educational/outreach clearinghouse. This has come up at several of the conferences I’ve attended recently – that CIPM has an educational and outreach portion of our website specifically for K-12, and much of that is very up-to-date, and some of the best educational products for the western region are posted there. I also think the Center could facilitate and provide workshops or regional meetings where that information is shared. So I ask LaDonna and Slade would those two traditional roles that CIPM has played satisfying the needs that you’re articulating? LaDonna Carlisle – I think so because a lot of people contact me when I give out stuff and ask where did you get that? I give them the name of the organization and website. Slade Franklin – For comparison reasons, who serves on the research committee? John Simons – The members on the Science Advisory Council are Tim Prather, Lars Anderson, Cynthia Brown and Marcel Rejmanek. Slade Franklin – Comparatively, I guess, my only thought would be that an education committee could bring in people like Roger Batts, an education person from Montana and our appointed person from the Weed and Pest Council in Wyoming. Make it more of a continuing update to ensure that whatever new information or products they have coming out, that’s what the committee focuses on. As long as it’s getting done that’s fine, but I was just thinking if you had those education people involved with that advisory committee you’d have more of a continuous flow of information. Tim Prather – Don’t those individuals talk to each other now? I know Roger has a lot of discussion with surrounding states. Slade Franklin – The first time I met him was in Colorado. He might be having discussions with other states; but no, I won’t say that communication had been there between our two states. Ever since I met him, he’s been very good working with us in Wyoming in terms of giving us many educational products from Idaho. Jim Olivarez – So what about Montana -- Carla Hoopes? We’ve sent her across the West. Slade Franklin – I don’t know if I’ve ever met her. Mary McFadzen – Since I know a lot of the education and outreach people for the states, I could contact them collectively and start a discussion in terms of the products and materials that they’ve been developing and ask them if they’d be interested in us hosting that information on our website to more broadly disseminate the information. Again, I don’t know if I need a committee to make that happen. I think I could do that independently without an advisory committee. Slade Franklin – That’s certainly fine with me. I’d sure like to see the states working together and getting that information to each other. Mary McFadzen – Do you have other suggestion on how to make that happen?

Slade Franklin – I guess, that was my thought, that the education advisory committee would be a perfect fit for them to 1) participate with the Center, and 2) to do that. John Simons – After hearing suggestions for both continuing and not continuing the education committee, my suggestion for the present would be to leave the Bylaws as written. Since one of the positions of the Center is to be a clearinghouse for information, we need to expand that and make certain that every educational specialist in the region has their information and contact points on the CIPM website, so that that back-and forth-communication can happen. We did talk about continuing to sponsor workshops and I think the Center should continue to look at that by being part of national meetings and by presenting on education from a regional stand point. I’ve heard through this conversation that we have education for K-12, which will probably have at lease three different levels of education or types of education to target. We have education for professionals, coordinated management areas, general public, NGO or other groups, industry, governmental entities, and they all have a little different educational focus. Since there are a lot of ways that education can grow, if we start by having the Center make sure that everyone within the region has their contact information available on the CIPM website, we can use that as a starting point to expand our education program. Does that sound reasonable? Jim Olivarez – In all of this what I keep in mind is either the services or the products that people are willing to pay for. We have to be conscious of that to keep this the Center going. So, the nice, “to do” stuff falls of the table as far as I’m concerned. There’s a certain amount of nice things that the Center can do as services, but there has to be a little bit of financing on some of this as well. People must be willing to pay for it. The service is the expertise and facilitation. Mandy Tu – Evidently education is very important across all different user and end groups, whoever our target audience is; but I really want us to think back to our strategic plan and what are our objectives for education, because we could definitely spend all our resources doing education, in general. We already have this great Science Advisory Council that’s much more specific in what they’re tasked with and what their areas of expertise are. So, I’d just urge that we really think about what are our objectives that we’re trying to do and then think about how we get there, rather than to think about what are the broad things that we want to do with education. Bruce Maxwell – I’d like to add one thing to what Jim was saying. One aspect that I haven’t heard so far is that part of the function of the clearinghouse should be reviewing materials for content. How do we ensure that the information posted on the website is scientifically valid? Who will do this, the education committee? Mary McFadzen – What I would like to do is ask some of the key players in the West if there is a need to have a CIPM review committee review their materials; that’s probably the best place to start to really identify is there a need. We obviously see a need for putting their information, products and materials on our website. But I know a lot of those other groups have their own review committees, but I can definitely throw that out. I’ll contact several of them and start the discussion. Jim Olivarez – I’m curious as far as the need for this committee. I don’t hear more than one or two people saying this is a great need and we have to divert resources toward this. Slade Franklin – I’m new to this whole thing so when I see the Education Advisory Committee I think well there’s an opportunity for us to expand one of the needs expressed at the Rocky Mountain Weed Summit. If I’m the only one standing on this island, I’m more than happy to jump ship. Liz Galli-Noble – In your defense Slade, there were many states asking to share educational information. There are a lot of good products that are not getting out to a wider audience. John Simmons – We’ll leave the education section of the Bylaws as is, and the Center will in the short-term try to pull this together and bolster this clearinghouse topic. The remaining changes to the Bylaws are minor. LaDonna Carlisle – I make a motion that we accept the Bylaws with the changes discussed and agreed to. Decision: Motion: Accept the Bylaws with the changes discussed and agreed to by the Steering Committee. The motion was seconded. Jim Olivarez opposed the motion; all others approved the motion. The motion carried. See Attachment F for revised and approved 2008 Bylaws.

4. Election of New Steering Committee Moderator (Chair) John Simons was asked and agreed to serve as the Steering Committee Moderator (Chair) for a second year, thus completing his two-year term.

5. CIPM Financial Updates – See Attachment G. Overall Income/Expense Summary and Attachment H. Products Sold Summary Liz Galli-Noble – Please review the CIPM budget provided. For this meeting, I will focus on the bottom line regarding this budget – which is how much do we have at present and how much will be have at the end of this funding cycle. If you flip to page 3 of the budget, you can see that – if nothing changes from now until June -- CIPM will have about $182,000 left from our FY06 appropriations funding on June 30, 2009. In addition, we can add about $70,000 from the Missouri River Watershed Coalition grant to that total. So, if no additional funding is secured for the rest of the year, which I am very confident will NOT be the case, we will have just a little more than $250,000 remaining as of June 30, 2009. We need approximately $330,000 in base funding to operate the CIPM for a 12-month period, as it is today (same number of staff, same office space, etc.). We expect to reach this goal (that is, to move an additional $80,000) because we’ve already written three grants and are pretty confident that we’ll get one of those for sure. While we’re hopeful about the other two, they’re a little iffy. The Missouri River Watershed Coalition has also indicated that we’ll likely get another round of funding from them in June 2009, which could be as much as $100,000. However, the federal budget is pretty iffy and that federal funding source may dry up. I’ve told everyone on my staff, including Erik, to push very hard to move additional money – in particular, project-specific and research grant funding. I’m very confident that we will be able to, within this calendar or certainly by June 2009, secure enough funding to carry us all the way through June 2010. If we’re even mildly successful with grants, we’ll be pretty solid through 2011. That’s the big picture. Does anyone have any questions on the budget? Bruce Maxwell – Do you have a deal with MSU Administration for your IDC rate on grants? Liz Galli-Noble – Yes and IDC rates vary with each grant. The most recent appropriation/earmark through the BLM was for $1,000,000. 10% of that came off the top and stayed with the BLM, and MSU received another 10%. That’s the lowest percentage (IDC rate) that CIPM pays, except for the Montana Noxious Weed Trust Fund where MSU gets zero in IDCs. So, it varies from 0% to 26%. A 26%-IDC rate is common for DOI grants, through the USFWS, for example. There are standard IDC rates that MSU has already negotiated depending on the funding source/granting entity. Bruce Maxwell – Right, but I’m talking about IDCs that come back to your Center. So, rather than you being in the typical formula, many MSU centers work deals and you would be well advised to work a deal. That formula has changed tremendously and to get a sizeable chunk back you need to work a deal. You get practically nothing back if you don’t. Liz Galli-Noble – At present, CIPM gets 9% of the IDC total percent that is taken by MSU. So for the BLM earmark for example, the BLM takes 10% of $1,000,000 + ~1.4% for rescission; then MSU takes 10% of the remaining $886,000; of that 10% amount (~$86,000): the MSU Vice President’s office gets 55%, LRES gets 27%, School of Agriculture gets 9% and CIPM gets the remaining 9%. I would be delighted to negotiate a higher rate for CIPM. Would I start with Jeff and go to Tom McCoy to make that deal, with your approval and support? Bruce Maxwell – Yes. You’re not showing it as income anyway, but it could provide some padding, especially if you get more active in the grant world. Liz Galli-Noble – Okay, I’ll do it. Thank you very much. Other questions and comments regarding the budget? We’re going to talk about the restructure of the program and additional funding sources, later in the meeting. Historically, the Center has been very close to 100% funded through Congressional appropriations. I was told when I was hired that CIPM absolutely would not get another earmark/appropriation, and that we needed to look for other ways of funding the Center. I’m going to talk about appropriations in just a minute, because I don’t think that door is really completely shut. So, as far as the budget is concerned, is anyone concerned or confused about any of those numbers? Are you comfortable with me taking advantage of opportunities as they arise? In June, we will have ~$250,000, probably a little more, in the budget. I think it’s a little precarious, but I’ve been in worse situations in other jobs; and as the director, I’m comfortable with that amount of money. LaDonna Carlisle – Under the Missouri River Watershed Coalition did they apply for the money from the HR grant that came through on tamarisk? John Simons – The Missouri River Watershed Coalition (MRWC) money actually came through the Montana Department of Agriculture. The MRWC is six states that are working as a coalition for salt cedar management. The Center is the facilitator to build that coalition and get them moving forward and recognized as a group that wants to do salt cedar management. So that whatever bills come through Congress, they can move forward as one large group to say we manage salt cedar and lets put some of that Federal money appropriated through laws up here instead of all of it going down south.

LaDonna Carlisle - But did you apply for that HR grant? That HR grant was open about 1½ years ago to all western states. (Liz Galli-Noble responded no, that was not how the MRWC funding moved.) Okay, because the San Juan Woody Watershed Initiative that I’m also on the committee of, applied for a $15 million grant that included all of the San Juan Basin, which covers four states plus four of five Tribes and 200 other cooperators - federal, state, local. We made it into the final round because they were going to pick five different groups and we did ours on a watershed basis. They had us all sign an MOU or MOA. Right now we’re just waiting to see what happens with the budget because it was signed last year in December. Janet Clark – Do you mean the Salt Cedar and Russia Olive Demonstration Act? That Act was passed by Congress, but hasn’t been funded yet. So, you had signed up as a potential demonstration area. The Missouri River group was lining itself up possibly to be a demonstration area, too. LaDonna Carlisle – We had put in all the paperwork and our whole plan is online. Tim Koopmann – This was $15 million to go to one demonstration site or were they going to split it? LaDonna Carlisle – They were going to split it up, because it was a total of $50 million, I think. Janet Clark – It was a five-year bill funding demonstrations and research, and a bunch of other things. But now, two or three years have passed and they still haven’t appropriated any dollars to it. The Bureau of Reclamation is not enthusiastic about it because it was going to run through BOR. LaDonna Carlisle – Yes, it was going to run through BOR but they’ve decided they’re not sure. When we went to Washington, I talked to the representatives from BOR and I gave them a nudge to get the money appropriated so that we can start our projects. A lot of us have started projects and there’s been a bunch of wide spread releases on biological control agents and we’ve done a little bit of tamarisk treatment. Janet Clark – It did get a lot of people fired up and collaborating in case the money came through, but I think BOR didn’t even request the appropriation money in their 2009 budget. Some folks are not feeling optimistic about ever receiving funding from that legislation, but it got people together in the mean time. LaDonna Carlisle – We got all four state senators on it and the pushed it. The state of Colorado had actually gotten some funding separated from that and they are doing some work. We have a bunch of different little avenues that we’re addressing. Katherine Ortega from the San Juan Institute, who’s been at the forefront of the whole group has tree replacement going on in the city of Durango. If you cut down your tamarisk or Russian olive tree, they’ll replace it for free, and they have 30 different replacement species from which to choose. She has some college work-study students who are building a model by going out in the Durango area and GPSing all the trees. There’s a young man from U of Arizona, who is developing a regional-wide database, where one can list their tamarisk project in the database and share that information. This is touching on a really tough topic because a lot of Tribes aren’t willing to share their information. Liz Galli-Noble – Thank you for your comments. Moving on to another budget topic: I wrote to the Steering Committee this summer regarding a stumbling block that CIPM encountered when we asked the BLM for an extension on our FY06 earmark/appropriation. An extension wasn’t supposed to be an issue, but we unexpectedly found out that our BLM grant was under an overriding agreement that supercedes that movement of money. That overriding agreement is the Cooperative Ecosystems Studies Unit Agreement or CESU. Although this may have been problematic for the Center, I’m happy to report that both MSU and the BLM have indicated that there will be a new CESU Agreement in place by the time the old agreement expires on May 29, 2009. Starting in January, CIPM will work with the BLM to apply to the new CESU program (using a non-competitive application process) to retain the remaining funding from the original appropriation. That will be a five-year agreement to spend down the last of the money. Some of you may recall from our last SC meeting, I said that my goal was to stretch out the federal earmark as long as possible, and to infuse new project-specific funding whenever possible. So, my goal is to stretch that federal funding under the new CESU agreement for at least 1½ to 2 years. I doubt we’ll go a full 2 years. I will keep the SC abreast of this new agreement beginning in January. There may be one problem, though. You asked about IDCs that MSU charges. Under the original agreement MSU IDCs are 10%, but I can just about guarantee you that it’s going to go up with the new agreement, probably closer to 20%. So, there is a good example of what you said previously, Bruce, that CIPM should negotiate the same IDC rate with the new CESU Agreement. Bruce Maxwell – I thought CESUs had no IDCs.

Liz Galli-Noble – They’re at 17.5% now; we got a better deal than what others typically pay under that CESU agreement. John Simons – The rate is negotiated at the national level and it will probably go up. Bruce Maxwell – I thought they were a cooperative agreement with a Land Grant. John Simons – Correct. Liz Galli-Noble – I could show you the contract; it’s very clearly stated that IDCs are 17.5%. At the last signing, five years ago this coming May, the IDC rate went from 15% to 17.5%; so I asked MSU if they predicted it was going to go up and Leslie Schmidt said yes it would. Although she also said the IDC amount won’t be a “deal breaker.” The prediction is that it’s going to go up to ~20%. Janet Clark – I think originally the BLM insisted that it be no more than 10% overhead. I was floored to find out that it was under some CESU agreement. I don’t even think Jon Wraith knew. Nobody realized that there was an overriding umbrella contract. If there was a CESU at that time and the BLM insisted that it be 10%, is there a chance that if this is run through a CESU agreement again that the BLM could insist again that the rate for CIPM be 10%? Liz Galli-Noble – Jon Wraith didn’t know about CIPM being under a CESU agreement. Yes, Janet, I think we should ask to keep it at 10%, and John Simons is the person to help us do that. John Simons – Yes, I am. We can ask. Janet Clark – Or insist that the rate be 0%? Bruce Maxwell – I think you can. I’m doing one with CESU right now and it is 0%. This is just like a grant. This is USDA-CSREES. Liz Galli-Noble – John and I will ask. I think this is good advice.

Proposed National Network Appropriations Request Update Liz Galli-Noble – This is a report on the $2 million FY09 appropriation request that Janet Clark wrote for a network of invasive plant management centers. It was requested by Montana Senators Baucus and Tester. I recently met with all three of Montana congressional delegation’s local staff, introduced myself, gave an update on the Center and asked for follow-up information on this appropriation request. It was officially announced, recently, that the federal budget won’t be finalized until March 2009, so none of the congressional staff could predict what might happen with this appropriations request. Our chances are likely very poor to get this request, but all three congressional offices in Montana said they loved the idea and they would support it. They also said that CIPM should definitely make sure that MSU blesses these requests in the future and not to go through a different mechanism for an appropriation request. John Simons – What about other neighboring states being for this as well? Liz Galli-Noble - I asked them if it was timely for me to start asking other states to have their senators/congressmen write letters of support, and they said not to bother right now because there will not be much movement on any of these budgets until the new year. We already have the support of the other centers, also named in the request; they will write letters of support. Janet Clark – Right, and last February when we were in Washington for Weed Awareness Week, we did go around with this National Network idea. One of the partners is Cal-IPC, Doug Johnson in California and we visited Senator Feinstein’s office and discussed the network idea with them and will continue to visit with partners as this develops. It just needs someone to take the lead and some senator to take the lead. It would make sense for our senators to take the lead if the dollars for this network came through this center in Montana. If for example Senator Feinstein was to take the lead, then it would make sense for the dollars to go through the California center or the one in Connecticut or the one in Indiana. So, we’re just feeling it out and seeing who’s willing to step forward, but in this last year nobody wants to step forward on anything and so we’ll see if the tone changes in Washington in the coming year. John Simons – Are there plans to go again in February to National Weed Awareness and do the same type of thing? Janet Clark – Yes, potentially, there are many things in flux right now with the whole policy thing, but yes, sure.

LaDonna Carlisle – I could help you get in touch with Katherine because she goes to Washington, DC on a regular basis. I know she’s going for vacation in a few weeks, but she says she’s going to stop by the Colorado senator’s office –Salazar because they’re the ones that wrote the support to get the free money that they’re getting now for some of the stuff that they’re doing there in Colorado on tamarisk. I think it was $30,000 or $50,000 that they just recently got earmarked. Colorado I know is very, very active and they’re one of the more progressive noxious weed states. Liz Galli-Noble – That’s all I have to report on the national network appropriation request. When I was hired, I was told there was no way we were going to get any more appropriations; yet all three of Montana’s delegation staffs, including Republican Congressman Rehberg’s office, said that is absolutely not true; that CIPM definitely should be coming to them with new ideas and funding requests. What the Center provides are base services to many people at a local, state and regional levels and that is a good fit for federal funding. CIPM was encouraged to apply but to do it through the official MSU process. I have spoken briefly to Bruce Maxwell and Jeff Jacobsen (Dean, School of Agriculture) about this as well. They advised me to cautiously move forward on this. Tim Koopmann – Are we kind of looking at a conflict of interest here, if I go back and do some lobbying at home? Is there a conflict of interest where maybe the money might not go through this center but instead go through Cal-IPC? Janet Clark – I think, in the end, this center would gain whether the dollars go through California, go though here, or any of the others. It would be a gain. Liz, would you agree? Liz Galli-Noble – I would agree. If somebody else wants to carry the appropriation, and if they have a much better chance than us, I’m all for them taking the lead. Tim Koopmann – I think we should stay in contact with Cal-IPC and work together on this thing. Just a side bar, we also may have the availability of using our Rangeland Conservation Coalition as a lobbying force. About two years ago we formed a Rangeland Conservation Coalition that was basically a statement that private rangelands and rangeland operators have provided some of the most bio-diverse, valuable resources in the State of California for years and need to be recognized for that. We have over 90 signatories, including all the federal government agencies, state government agencies, and a whole load of conservation organizations that we used to be in conflict with – the Audubon Society, etc. We have gone to Washington twice and been fairly successful in doing some lobbying. If we can get that group to adopt some efforts here, then when we make our trip to Washington -- which is generally in February -- that might be something good. It’s been a real eye opener and it’s been kind of a precedent setting thing to walk into a representative’s offices and senator’s offices with the Defenders of Wildlife, Environmental Defense, TNC and the Cattlemen’s Association; to walk in those doors and you’re all here together in one group singing “kum bah yah” and holding hands. Janet Clark – California has been a model. Tim Koopmann - That might be something we could do because I’m really close with the two people who are working for it. We have two full-time employees now working for this Rangeland Conservation Coalition. One is working out of the California Cattlemen’s Association headquarters office in Sacramento and she’s a very close friend. The Defenders of Wildlife has hired another fellow who’s working directly with her, so they’re co-chairman of this organization. The US Fish and Wildlife Service is paying 3/4 of the CCA reps salary. So, that’s been a pretty effective lobbying group and we can direct some work here. Janet Clark – I have some ideas for you. Liz Galli-Noble – Yes, thank you that is very valuable information. We need to talk about this more later. Tim Koopmann – I’m kind of excited about going back and saying this is a project we need to adopt and go forward with it with that organization. The organization has been pretty precedent setting.

DuPont Donation Liz Galli-Noble – We received a $4,000 donation from DuPont this past summer. Janet and I occasionally use this funding when we are not comfortable spending federal dollars on activities that approach things like lobbying, for example. If the SC members know of other entities – industry folks, NGOs, etc. -- that could provide CIPM with financial support with no strings attached that money would be very valuable. The vast majority of CIPM’s funding is federal, which limits us. You can send me funding ideas via email as well.

Grant Applications Submitted Liz Galli-Noble – CIPM has applied for three grants in the last month. A Western Invasive Pest Management Center grant that Janet spearheaded for funding a workshop for invasive plant centers at $10,000, and a second Western Invasive Pest Management Center grant that Mary spearheaded for a web seminar series for $37,000. They will give you details on those grants later in the meeting. Within a week’s time, we’ll find out if our pre-proposal to the DOD Legacy Program is accepted and we are asked to submit a full proposal. That project is a southwestern installation workshop and training for the DoD at $122,000. You can see that CIPM is moving forward and applying for project-specific grant funding. Connie Bollinger will talk a little bit more about our grants program, shortly.

Possible CIPM FY10 Appropriations Request Submitted Through MSU ($250,000) Liz Galli-Noble – As I said previously, I went to the local offices of Montana’s Congressional delegation and they encouraged CIPM to look to new appropriations for program funding. What we need is the blessing of MSU to do that. I am not comfortable applying for appropriations outside of the MSU process, because it’s not looked on favorably. I want to work within the system, especially having research as a new focus for the Center, and hopefully MSU will make our request part of their packet of proposed appropriations for the next FY10 cycle. I want to request $250,000, because I think that’s a reasonable amount of money for the work we do. What I said to the congressional staffers and how I really want to sell this is that CIPM will secure funding through grants, partnerships and donations, whenever possible. However, we provide services to many people who will never be able to pay us for those services, and that is why we will always need base federal funding for the program. Just a portion of our funding should come from federal appropriation. Getting an appropriation in the next cycle is very unlikely, but I still want to ask. The Center would be in very solid financial shape if we could infuse $250,000 into our budget annually. So that’s what I’m going to try to do. I’m delighted that Tim Koopmann brought up this Steering Committee’s influence. Surely if MSU blessed a funding request for CIPM, we’d love to say that we have lots of friends in California and other places that would be lobbying hard for this money as well. Jim Olivarez – It seems like some things have changed relative to the delegation and the posturing/influence of MSU and that realignment is in the process. So, this is just my impression that I want to give you and Bruce, and you can comment or not. Those of us who have been on the Board for a long time know that the University structure, protocol, process of earmarks that we were a part of, we didn’t quite understand, and the point and position of the University was made crystal clear at the time as to who was boss. The philosophy was that earmark projects had a life of maybe five years and that whole idea was kind of a birthing of a program, a nurturing of that program and then letting it fly. But what I’m hearing today is a little bit different. One is you have a different delegation of people. You don’t have Senator Burns. You have a little bit different arena. I also hear that is a change not only in who those individuals are but the relationship with the University or what used to be. So MSU might be realigning itself relative to the new senator and representative. I’m scratching my head wondering, is the door really open or not? What is the position of the University? We have a strong alliance with Montana State University some of us by just being here and thankful for adopting, oversight and taking care of the program. But we’re still in a do-or-die situation from a Center standpoint. So, I’m wondering, do we follow MSU’s lead?; but MSU is realigning itself and deciding how do they lead. Do they have a Senator smiling on them like they used to? And if we step away from the University, where do we go? I’m confused about what tomorrow really holds. I hear you as the Center Director and the new person of face value; but to be frank about it, is maybe the allegiance and the guidance recommendations; we don’t make any decisions is on behalf of the Center, nor for the University (as the house of where the Center is located). I hear what you’re saying, but I’d like to see a new world. Liz Galli-Noble – I would have no problem supporting other funding mechanisms that benefit the Center -- direct or indirect. If we could make money off of an appropriation that is carried by California, I don’t have an issue with it. But my hands are tied with the congressional delegation. They want to see any appropriation from this Center, which is housed within the LRES Department at MSU, to go through MSU. MSU has a “wish list,” a “red book” of blessed proposed projects that is presented and lobbied for by MSU. Jim Olivarez – I must have missed that the senators or delegation staff said you must go through MSU. I missed that part. Liz Galli-Noble – They’re not saying must, but they’re saying you really do not want to go outside the normal process again. It’s not a wise thing to do politically. Jim Olivarez - I heard that but I didn’t realize that was the delegation. Liz Galli-Noble – Their staffers were quite clear. Jim Olivarez – Then erase everything I said.

Bruce Maxwell – You make a very good point. You’re very astute as to what’s happening, and the way earmarks worked with Senator Burns was that all the power got centralized through the VP for Research here and proposals went through him and he made the decision with really no input other than what he might have gathered on his own as near as I can tell. I think that’s fairly accurate based on the history of watching what’s happening. They want to continue that. The VP for Research, who has control over those things and has to sign off on the relationships, clearly wants to keep that going. I think that’s simply a historical approach. It makes it kind of easy for the delegation; but I don’t think it precludes you doing some of your own lobbying, and again, I didn’t say that as an administrator but as a Steering Committee member. All I’m saying is I think it is somewhat of a new game and our administration here would like you to think it’s not a new game. I know for a fact that they’re involved with preparing an earmark request from McCoy who selectively chose three people on campus to get efforts started on particular earmark proposals. They didn’t come to you or didn’t come to us about you providing that information. My hands are a little tied. I’ve got to go through all the channels to ask about that, but I know for sure that those were called for and those were due last week. So you weren’t blessed so far, but all I’m saying is I think it’s a new game. I think Jim is right. I don’t know that I would strictly adhere to those rules, but be darn careful. Now, my department head hat is on, make sure you go through me.

6. Ongoing Project Updates

Plastic Weed Models Project Update Tanya Skurski – This is the in the second round for the plastic weed project. There was a project in 2002; the center produced plastic weed models of knapweed, Dalmatian toadflax, leafy spurge and yellow starthistle. This is a new round of that same project, which is using Center and Noxious Weed Trust Fund grant (2007) funding. The four species that we’re now in the process of developing plastic weed models of are tamarisk, perennial pepperweed, purple loosestrife, and garlic mustard. Presently, we’re in the fourth round of revisions of the prototypes. How it works is I get a prototype sent to me; I look at, do some analysis, and figure out for instance if the flowers are wrong, the leaves are wrong, they’re the wrong color or the wrong texture, the stamens aren’t long enough, etc. We want these to be as botanically accurate as possible, so that they can be useful to people using them to learn what the species looks like and they can go out in the field and accurately identify them. I communicate, back and forth, with a botanical expert/professor in China. I send my requests for modifications to him, and he then goes to the factory in Hong Kong and passes the information on. We are now working on the fourth round and we should be receiving those within the next month. If the likenesses are reasonable enough, then we’ll probably move forward with placing the orders, put them up for sale and they’ll be available. LaDonna Carlisle – I have a question. How did you select the particular species that you were going to model? Janet Clark – It was based on asking people for a couple of years what kind of plants they would like to see. It was also based on what kind of requests we had been getting, after we did the first four. We had an eye to what species were most likely to sell a lot of. For example, garlic mustard isn’t something that we’re very aware of in Montana or Wyoming but it’s huge in the Midwest and starting up the West Coast. So, I was thinking of sales at the same time and of expanding the reach of the Center and its potential supporters – that’s why garlic mustard. Purple loosestrife is very wide spread and we had meant to do it in the 1st round anyway. Do you have ideas for other species that you’d like to have? Tim Koopmann – Another one that we have a real issue with in California and all the other grasslands is medusahead. Janet Clark – Grasses would be hard, but that would be a top choice for sure. LaDonna Carlisle – Cheat grass. Liz Galli-Noble – We actually make money on these models; please see Dianne’s handout (Attachment H) on the money that we’ve made on different CIPM products. Dianne and I have kicked around the idea of continuing to produce models in the future, but to make it more lucrative. It’s a little strange but CIPM is really sort of famous for these models. It’s a product that is really needed and we sell a lot of them. Janet Clark – Early on, in the first couple of years, it was the thing that put the Center on the map and made people recognize the Center. The Center was set up to do good science and be very serious about approaching the invasive plant problem, but we needed something flashy and truly, people were looking for educational props that they could use. And the weed models certainly filled a niche and have been a nice low-level project in the background for six years. It’ll be exciting to get new species. Bruce Maxwell – If you sell these, why don’t I see that in the budget?

Dianne Brokke – The money goes into a designated account. There’s a product report page. Many of the products haven’t made a lot of money, because they were developed when we had solid earmark funding and many of them were given away. Janet Clark – When we developed things using dollars from the earmark, we were prohibited from selling them for a profit. We had to sell them at cost or give them away because they were created with tax dollars. In the last couple of years, we’ve found a way to do that differently, so there’s a designated account for income from sales. In the past, we never reflected this as income in the budget because we never counted on this as income for budgeting purposes. I assume that’s how you’re continuing. There are dollars are coming in, but they’re small amounts. Liz Galli-Noble – Yes, I agree. If we do decide to develop another round of weed models, I asked Dianne run some numbers to see if we could move $25,000 to $30,000 to compensate all of the expenses incurred by CIPM -- looking at the prototypes, writing the contracts, communications, storing stock, shipping, etc. And we determined that if we had a partner (funding entity) who would pay CIPM ~$50,000, we could pay for the whole production effort. They would then have to buy the individual models, of course. It’s just another thing that we have out there. We’re positioned with budgets and if the right group comes along that wants to pay us for this service, we’ll look into the idea further. I think they’re a great product and thank you Tanya for presenting.

USFWS Online Learning Modules Update Mary McFadzen – This is just another of the many updates on the Fish & Wildlife Service online learning websites that CIPM created for them. To give the new Steering Committee members a brief background, Fish & Wildlife Service approached us in 2005, asking us if we’d be interested in developing online learning module tools for the National Wildlife Refuge staff and volunteers. We agreed to do that and we entered into a contract, more of a collaborative effort, where they kicked in a bunch of money and we kicked in a bunch of money. Now, three years later, we’ve completed both of the products the USFWS wanted - one for the volunteers and one for the Refuge staff. But keep in mind that these websites are available to anybody. They’re on a public website and we’re strongly encouraging other land managers, other schools or public entities to use these materials. Last year, we finished the volunteer websites for the Fish & Wildlife Service and those are online and available. I think most everybody knows about those because we announced it in our last online newsletter and sent out announcements a year ago. In the spring, we finished up the website modules for the staff and other natural resource managers and now it’s in the hands of the Fish & Wildlife Service. They’re adding some DOI web standards to it and so it’s out of our hands, we’ve signed off on the contract, we’re done. They’re in the process of getting it up to go live and we hope to go live within a month or two. At that time I’ll be working with the Service in terms of the PR for announcing that website. Again, it’s not just about the Fish and Wildlife Service -- even though some of it is specific to them -- it’s still a really valuable resource to other land managers and the general public. If you have the time, I encourage you to take a look at it and become familiar with it. It’s really high quality product. Any questions? Jim Olivarez – Is this a take-off or a spin-off of the advanced course in land management? Mary McFadzen – Not really, it’s a really passive, informal learning environment; not like the online class where we had faculty actually facilitating the class. Everything we did in terms of these learning websites - if it was science based, we researched the science and tried to provide the most valid information as far as the things we were saying. It’s not really a spin-off of it by any means. It’s more basic. For the Refuge staff natural resource manager website, it’s more basic than the online course CIPM has offered in the past. Jim Olivarez – One other quick comment: by this agency expressing their need and providing the money to pay for the product, it also displays a need or potential need by land managers that was not being fulfilled by whoever was trying to fill things in the past. Liz Galli-Noble – We were really hoping that this would spur on other agencies to piggy back onto this product and say we need training for our people too and we’d like you to do something like what you just did with the US Fish & Wildlife Service. For example the Forest Service, the BLM and other entities -- who have lot’s of people to train and little money for travel. I’m personally a little surprised that it hasn’t motivated other agencies. Mary McFadzen – Well, I gave a presentation with your group, Jim, last year in Tucson and John Simons and I have talked about it. I don’t know, is there interest in your agencies? One thing the USFS (Mike Ielmini) said is, we’ll just take the stuff; we know the Fish & Wildlife Service, I know Michael Lusk, we’ll just take the information and we can use it. That’s just one way to present learning and it’s not the best way. There are a billion different ways to do distance education and training. If people are interested in talking with me, even your education folks, about how we can develop these projects to really have them fit your mission, it’s a great way to go. But, it costs money; it costs a lot of money.

John Simons – There is a push in most federal agencies to move toward online learning because of the cost of travel and help. One other question I have is, how do you keep it really up-to-date? Would you have to adjust it every year? Mary McFadzen – Any website demands maintenance or anything online, but there are lots of different ways to do it. Jim Olivarez – One last comment, we’re like any other outfit; it takes time to get things moving. I’m coordinating the national meeting for my agency in December in Boise and I’ll put this on the agenda. We’re going to hit it again. LaDonna Carlisle – I’ll also make comments on that too and push it for BIA.

Salish Kootenai College, Flowering Rush Project Update – See Attachment I.

CIPM Research Grant Program Liz Galli-Noble - CIPM had CWMA and Research grant programs for several years. The Research Grant Program went from 2001 to 2007. We are presently closing out the 2007 research grant subcontracts. So far, we have received two very good final reports, are giving out four extensions, and are waiting on four other reports to be submitted. I hired a student, Tess Wood, this summer to clean up some of our research files and reports. She built a summary table that provides access to all the research final reports -- submitted from 2001-2007 -- and it’s on the CIPM website now. The Center is expanding our program focus on research, and one of the ways you do that is by showing casing what you’ve already done. I definitely want to reinstate the research grant program, if we can find a funding source. Dianne and I ran the numbers to see what we needed to pay ourselves to do this program. I won’t do the research grant program unless we’re actually breaking even or even making a little bit of money on it. We only need about $100,000 to $150,000 to make the program work for us. If CIPM got $150,000, we could grant out $100,000 of that in small $5,000 grants. CIPM could do as many as 15 to 20 small research seed grants; we’d do all the subcontracting, document the process and results, and showcase results on the website and in our newsletter. We also estimated that MSU would take 20% IDCs off the top. We could also grant out up to $85,000 with a smaller amount to the CIPM, about $120,000 to $130,000. $130,000 to take care of an entire small granting program is a bargain by federal standards. Janet and I talked a little bit about reinstating the CWMA Grants Program as well. It would be the same situation as previously outlined; we would have to be paid to do that work. We did look into the PTI program funding this, but they are restructuring right now and until they make a decision, we don’t know if this is an option.

7. New CIPM Structure & New Projects – See Attachments C and J - CIPM new program structure and new staff positions.

Education/Outreach - Science communication, teaching tools, technology transfer, program promotion (CIPM consistent

education/outreach message; promotional packet, website, newsletter) – Mary McFadzen and Melissa Brown

Research - Research findings distillation/dissemination, collaborative research & regional research leadership, in-house expertise, etc. – Erik Lehnhoff

Grants Connie Bollinger – I have a lot of experience working as a grant editor. I did that for many years at WSU and the University of Idaho. Liz asked me if I would like to move from my website coordinator work to working on CIPM grants -- to have a single person do the online submissions, editing and preparation of the grant, keeping track of all the forms and things like that. So, I’ve been doing that for a few months, and submitted our recent grants. I get an awful lot of emails, bulletins and newsletters from different agencies describing grant opportunities and anything I think is potentially valuable for us I usually have a discussion online with staff about it. Erik and I have worked quite a bit going to NSF abstracts to do some background research for a workshop that CIPM is thinking about doing. To see if there isn’t some way that CIPM can get some NSF funding for some of the basic questions in invasive ecology, and basically doing that front end kind of stuff that Liz created my position to do.

Policy & Publications – See Attachment K. Janet Clark – I’m really excited and thankful to Liz for keeping me around because it’s very nice for me to be able to focus on the things that I really love doing, the policy part. It’s about networking, knowing people and being available, and I do think affecting public policy has huge potential to affect long-term change and how we manage weeds from an ecological standpoint based on good science. I’m interested in that and involved in a lot of things and later on I’ll go through some of the projects that we’re working on. I think and I hope it’s a valuable initiative for this Center to be involved in and that it will bring in some dollars to the Center. My goal is to be able to bring in enough dollars to support this position through this work.

Liz Galli-Noble – Janet has already brought in funding to cover her position for this year. Regarding publications, she is being paid to market the WSSA’s Invasive Plant Science and Management Journal, which she helped launch earlier this year.

Administration & Management Liz Galli-Noble – Dianne has agreed to stay on part-time even in retirement. Dianne and I manage the CIPM finances; she answers budget questions that I have and that’s been going smoothly so far.

Partnerships/Collaborations Liz Galli-Noble – CIPM is asked to be involved in many, diverse collaborations and partnerships; and to me, this is where funding through an appropriation could be easily justified. Many of these groups asking for our technical assistance are never going to be able to pay us for those services, no matter how crucial that advice or networking is to the organization. Often times, CIPM will host their websites and provide technical editing and dissemination of their project results. I am confident that we could get 10 or 15 letters of support very easily from these organizations. Providing these services makes our jobs interesting and rewarding -- we’re assisting people on all levels – local, state, regional, even national – through these partnerships. Janet Clark – Just to add a little bit to that. In my experience everyone is told to partner-up, to work together, to collaborate, to coordinate, etc. all these agencies, organizations, NGOs and different groups are told to do that and then it’s not in anyone’s job description to really spend time to do that and do that well. It takes time to do that and to coordinate and facilitate a group and make sure communications are done well and on time. It’s not a glamorous job or the thing you get a lot of attention for, but it’s desperately needed by all kinds of groups in the West and nationally. You can see collaborative groups rise and fall based on whether there’s somebody willing to stand in the middle and coordinate them. I feel like that’s a service that this Center has been able to play over the years and to be able to provide. Again, there’s not money in it. The Center came out of frustration that there wasn’t any money to coordinate anything, so let’s put some money into this Center so we can help everyone else get coordinated. It’s tough and Liz is doing an amazing job trying to find dollars in various locations to support this service that we provide; but the reason the service is provided is because they don’t have dollars to do it themselves. I do think it’s a good role for the Center to play, and if we had appropriations, I would support Liz in putting the dollars into that kind of service and activity, because it’s very much needed. Liz Galli-Noble – There have been a few organizations that have been able to give us money, but they’ve few and far between; and I can say that after six months, I’m a little bit disappointed. NAWMA is a good example: it’s a great organization, but they need help; they want to grow and have asked for our assistance, but they have little money to pay for it. Bruce Maxwell – I guess I have a different perspective on the perspective of our department overseeing the Center and what my recommendation to Liz has been is to try to increase the focus on research. Mostly to gain a level of respect, I guess, on campus from campus administration that they belong as a Center. This has been a problem because centers on this campus are primarily focused on research types of activities and the Vice President for Research notices these activities so, unfortunately, you have to have a research presence. If you’re seen as bringing in some money through research and contributing to the pool, then your ability to maintain yourself will increase, especially as you might have to wean off of earmark funding, so that you can survive. I think that’s an important aspect, it doesn’t have to be the total aspect, but it has to be something that is a direction that’s worth taking and from the perspective of just maintaining your space on this campus that could be crucial. Just so that the Steering Committee recognizes what drives that interest and why I make the recommendation to go in that direction is based on that fact of life, I guess. You have the talent and you have the potential to do it, so I guess one of your partners also is, just in proximity, the LRES Department and its weed science group and to maintain that. I realize that this is a regional center and there’s always been some reluctance, I think, because it would look like it was too in house, but you have to look at that as a strength rather than just strictly something to avoid. I think that can really help. I think that the more those research activities are shown to benefit things on campus you’ll be able to ratify yourselves as a center equivalent to some of the other centers, and maybe even broker those deals that I referred to before – the IDC return. John Simons – I know that it’s been discussed in the past about the Center being housed here and other states are reluctant to have a lot of association with MSU because it’s not theirs, it’s not in their state. That’s why there’s been a lot of caution about you’re housed here, but you also are regional so you have two hats to wear. Bruce Maxwell – I totally understand that and with the funding based the way it was that made a lot of sense but as it shifts, there may have to be more attention paid to earning your keep, so of speak.

Tim Prather – Bruce, there are some other avenues within those competitive grant requests. There are some that deal with meetings, getting workshops put together or bringing people together to collaborate in developing another grant. I could see CIPM functioning in that realm. If it’s to add another research branch, there’s several faculty there in the department and across the West and ARS and we look at success rates on grants as being pretty low. I see Montana State’s reasoning for putting money into that arena, but in terms of the Center, if we’re just adding yet another person or group competing for those dollars, I wonder if it’s necessary. Bruce Maxwell – I guess I would argue, Tim, as Janet indicated the facilitation component of CIPM or that activity can be just as useful in research and partnering with other people across the West to be that much more competitive in competitive grant programs; so that’s fine with me, I don’t have a problem with that. Just recognize that in some of those cases the money would probably be channeled through MSU and that way CIPM can justify their existence here in a more sound way. Still everyone can receive those research dollars but those would probably end up as subcontracts out of MSU. That’s just something that we have to deal with by virtue of having good space here and the activities that do survive. Does that make sense? Tim Prather – I think it makes sense. My concern is that if it’s an independent activity within CIPM I just wonder if it’s branching. For example, if you need to do some additional work in restoration with respect to salt cedar, it makes sense to partner with some of the other states and look for a research opportunity for that; but I’m just thinking if it was MSU based, then I don’t see the Center value. I see the MSU value but not the Center value. Bruce Maxwell – I realize that if it was at the University of Idaho I guess we would feel the same way. I understand totally, but I think you probably also understand the realities of if earmark funding is not there and it’s surviving on grants that it brings in, then it’s crucial for us to be involved in some way. That’s just an evolution, I guess, of the Center. I think it can still serve the general purpose and we’re supportive of that or I’m supportive of that certainly. I’m also trying to position the Center to have a life beyond the earmark and even the potential to have bridging funds that I doubt your VP for Research would be interested in -- providing if CIPM remains housed at MSU -- but our VP for Research might. These are conflicting interests it seems but I think we have to deal with them in some way and this is the best way for us to do that. Tim Prather – I certainly think we need to have these kinds of discussions, but I think it’s important for looking at how the Center approaches adding in a research component. That’s just my own two cents. John Simons – Other comments? Very well, we’ll slip on down to New Projects.

Missouri River Watershed Coalition (MRWC) – See Attachment L. Liz Galli-Noble – It was within my first month at the Center that we took on facilitation and coordination of the MRWC. I’ve been doing the bulk of the facilitation for this project but everyone has helped me in other capacities. The MRWC is a six-state coalition that meets twice a year in conjunction with other regional invasive plant meetings. We just met in conjunction with the NAWMA meeting in Billings, and the next meeting will be in South Dakota in the spring of 2009. CIPM facilitates communications for all six states and their partners: NGOs, industry, private citizens, and other government agencies. One of the things they want us to do is try to spearhead an early detection rapid response system for this six state coalition. So that was one of the first tasks added to Erik’s job description, as a main short-term focus for his position. Erik gave his first presentation on EDRR at the MWRC meeting on September 18. We talked about using a database system and which one would best suit MRWC’s needs. There are many systems to choose from. So I definitely see CIPM as the nucleus for a lot of these ideas, and as Bruce has brought up a couple of times, making sure that there’s validity in what’s being proposed. I’m very happy to be working with this group and it’s a perfect project for the Center. It’s regional and watershed in focus. I’ve already been told that there will likely be continuing funding for us in 2009. Tim Koopmann – Question: was that additional 2009 funding included in the budget you presented this morning? Liz Galli-Noble – No, we have not even spent down the first $100,000 from the MRWC to date. The follow-up funding would not be secured until May 2009 and was not included in that budget. Janet Clark – The MRWC strategic plan has education, research, management and policy elements. It’s a great, very on the ground kind of group that works together well. John Simons – Hasn’t it actually helped in some of the mapping standards between the states by having everybody get their mapping and management up-to-date? It’s been helpful to kind of have a little peer pressure to get everyone on board at the same level.

Several agreed. Liz Galli-Noble – They’re very politically savvy because they understand well that they are much stronger together -- at a watershed level -- than any of them would be separately. They’re pulling together, pooling resources, and they’re going to take that message to Washington. Jim Olivarez – Is North Dakota part of that? Are they a very strong partner? Liz Galli-Noble – Yes. They’re not the strongest partner, but ND is actively involved. I would say the three strongest, are Colorado, Wyoming and Montana. And South Dakota is also a key player. Slade’s on the phone. Do you want to add anything, Slade? He is one of the key partners. Slade Franklin – I think you’re doing an excellent job of explaining. John Simons – Nebraska is pretty strong too. Slade Franklin – From my standpoint I think they’re all pretty big players. It was great to see Colorado join. I guess just personal opinion I’d like to see North Dakota a little more involved but that’s probably more of a general statement than anything. Jim Olivarez – Let me give you a random comment. North Dakota’s Senator Conrad has strongly supported earmark money directly for weeds. That’s just something to plug into your equation. He also tells us what we’re going to do. Slade Franklin – I think you hit on it. That’s why it’s important to have North Dakota involved, because they have their finger on the money. Jim Olivarez – It’s not a lot of money, but a half million dollars is half a million dollars. Liz Galli-Noble – So, unless Slade has additional comments about the MRWC, that’s it in a nutshell. The handout outlines all the basic information about where we’ve been in the past six to eight months.

CIPM Online Newsletter – See Attachment M. Melissa Brown – We sent out first newsletter in August. Is there anyone here who did not receive our electronic newsletter? Our next issue will be delivered tomorrow morning at 4:00 A.M., so get up early and check your email boxes. Liz introduced this idea and we dragged our heels on it for a little bit, but she kept on pushing it and I’m really glad that she did because I think there are a lot of benefits. It’s another avenue by which we can fulfill our mission of disseminating information and connecting people and keeping the Center on the radar. We’re reaching out to people rather than waiting for them to come to us. We’re sending them something through their email in boxes every other month and probably every month eventually. One of the benefits is that we’re sending this email out that then brings people to our website, which opens this other bit of information for people to peruse. In addition to fulfilling our mission by disseminating information, I think there have also been some real benefits internally. It’s brought us together to work as a team and has kept all of us informed about what everyone is working on. I’ve really enjoyed working on it. We’re in the early stages of finding our feet and figuring out where we’re going to go with it and what type of information we’ll be including. But we’ve got a couple of issues out, and that’s a good start. We wanted to keep it really light, keep the stories short, keep people interested; don’t provide too much information to scan through their emails; keep the design familiar so they know it’s the Center that’s sending it; and we’ve been using an email marketing service called My Emma. They manage all of our subscriptions and provide a template so it keeps it really easy on our end. We just plug in the information, which was another big objective of this project -- to not have it take too much of any one person’s time; but, instead, to have all of us contribute and just have a great product come out every other month. Since we wanted to comply with sound anti spam practices, we didn’t solicit email address from outside sources. We used a pool of email addresses that we already had -- people who had bought our products, had collaborated with us or had participated in an online course, attended a conference, etc. Then we made an effort after our first issue to bump up that subscribership and had a 30% increase after our first issue. Right now we’re just trying to get information out there and figure out what people are reading and what they want to read. We welcome anybody’s input and any time regarding what should be included in the newsletter. LaDonna Carlisle – I belong to FICMNEW and they send it out as well. So that goes to all the federal agencies. Liz Galli-Noble – I would add that there is so much information that’s being generated in the invasive species research world and timeliness of that information is important. So I’d like to make a major focus of the newsletter be research findings and results out;

to get a short summary of that information out to managers. In the future, I would like at least 50% of what we put out in this newsletter to be research based. What I keep hearing is that people don’t have the time to seek out all these research findings. They can’t afford to buy the journals. So I hope that CIPM can provide that information to them. That’s something I definitely want to do with the newsletter. I do want it to go to monthly, but it’s going to take everybody and this table to start feeding us information to accomplish that, because we can’t do it all on our own. If you, the Steering Committee members, have interesting information that you’d like us to share with a broader audience, please send it to us. For this last newsletter, Marcel sent two ideas to us – a review that he did for a new IPM textbook and an idea for an article. We went with both of them. I was pleased to see the Science Advisory Council assist us. Tim Prather – From the University standpoint one of the responsibilities that we have is to put a portion of our time into regional activities from an extension standpoint on the extension side of things. So having faculty engaged in a regional newsletter would certainly be looked upon favorably at the different land grants. I think your on real solid footing and can provide a nice regional audience for work that people are doing. I think that’s great! Bruce Maxwell – To add to that and extend it to some degree, I really like this idea that you’ve identified a way to quantitatively evaluate using your feedback off the website. That’s really useful because people are more likely to use it; but I would also say that you’ve identified some key questions about whether or not your product is getting used. It would be nice to see some goals, some actual goals, of how much you want or expect it to be used and how close are you getting to that. So try to take it to that step and maybe I would even suggest that that could be done with many of the CIPM programs; so that you really have an identifiable evaluation process built into each program like this. This is just a great example of having nice access to data. Mary McFadzen – I think that’s critical too. We’re throwing out words like “marketing;” it’s huge; this email newsletter is marketing-- that’s really what it is. It’s also serving our constituents; but we need to evaluate to see if it’s worth our time doing it. And if it’s not, then we need to discontinue doing those things that aren’t being profitable. Tim Prather – This is a number of years old now but there has been research done in terms of where people get the information to make decisions and the one that people use the most were newsletters. Melissa Brown – That’s a little intimidating. That’s my last point. I do feel it’s really important to monitor the success of what were doing so we know whether it worthwhile to send out this newsletter and how we can modify it to really key in on what people need. Like I said, our goals and objectives, we didn’t even call them that at this point, are really broad. We wanted to get something out there and refine it as we go. I agree it’s really important to have those numbers and that’s one really good thing about this application that we’re using, we can get reports at any time to see how many people received the newsletter, opened it, clicked on it, what they clicked on and all these things. We can also get names of subscribers, which surprised me, linked to this information. Bruce Maxwell – What about advertising the newsletter? Melissa Brown – We just sent out an email to weed management organizations and associations and just let them know that the newsletter was available and encouraged them to encourage their people on their list to subscribe, which I think was reflected in the increase in subscribership. We also turn to all of you to let all of your folks know. It’s easy to subscribe. Just go to the website, put in your email and you’ll start receiving the newsletter. Mary McFadzen – To add to that Liz forwarded to the Montana Watershed Coordinating Coalition, which I think was valuable, and we got a lot of new subscribers from that. I’m trying to get other audiences on board also like the Native Plant Society and other conservation groups. Liz Galli-Noble – I had many of my fisheries contacts say that they absolutely would subscribe because it’s simple, a quick read and it’s information they’re interested in. Melissa Brown – That’s all I’ve got unless you’ve got more questions. I welcome anybody’s input at any time if you see that there’s something we’re really missing or something we’re really doing well. Tim Prather – See if you can get people to sign on whether it’s one or two issues per year to have something and have a month where they have an assignment where they’re going to be contributing. We have one for our state Farm Bureau. It’s called Private Forest and there’s a group of us that contribute to that so we have an assignment and every year we know which month we’re on tape for doing something. Melissa Brown – Are you volunteering?

Tim Prather – On the extension side of my job where a certain percentage of my extension appointment is supposed to have a regional and national focus like that, yes, certainly, it’s a good way for me to fulfill that obligation. John Simons – It sounds like maybe the extension specialist from each state might pick a month to put in an article. Tim Prather – I think something like that could be of value. Earl Creech – I think that’s a good idea, and I think making an assignment is probably the best way to do it because we all work better with a deadline when we know what’s expected of us. John Simons – There are enough western states that it would be every 16 to 18 months. So it wouldn’t be something that would add a large workload. Melissa Brown – You can expect to hear a reminder from me and you can direct your emails, articles or ideas to me, Melissa, at anytime.

IPSM Journal Marketing Janet Clark – As some of you recall a year or two ago the Weed Science Society of America, which is a national non-profit organization, contracted with our Center to help them launch a brand new journal called Invasive Plant Science and Management. We got the new journal off the ground in one year and it was terrific. The third issue is just coming out and I have copies of the second issue here. As it turns out Bruce, Tim Prather, and Lars Anderson are all associated editors on the journal. The managing editor is Joe DiTomaso, who was on our Science Advisory Council for several years. The idea was that this would be a different kind of a journal. It would appeal to land managers as well as researchers and provide very good peer-reviewed research, but also be accessible to land managers in some way. The journal came out and has performed as expected. But within the Weed Science Society, they thought that it would be good to have someone pushing this a little harder, so they contracted with our Center again for ~$11,000 to do some marketing, PR, and coordination to make sure this journal gets in the hands of land managers, in particular. If you haven’t seen this journal and you think you may want to subscribe, I have a few copies. They’re tracking individual subscriptions as well as institutional subscriptions and when the journal committee got them started the committee promised the Weed Science Society of America that they would have a lot of individual subscriptions. However, four or five months after the journal was launched there was only one individual subscription. Part of the problem was that for a long time the first issue in its entirety was offered online for free, so there really wasn’t an incentive, but now there is. A part of our contract is for travel to meetings, so I can take their display, journal copies, etc around. If you are aware of meetings that you think it would be really terrific for the Center to be pitching this journal, please let me know. I’m taking it to meetings that I was going to anyway and then adding a couple more meetings on top of that. I do think it’ll be a real good journal. Something I want to do in the next couple of months with the Weed Science Society is encourage them to think about modifying the layout and design just a little bit. This is a great start and looks like a good solid peer reviewed journal but I think it could use a little color to appeal more to the non-academic subscribers. Mary McFadzen – A great way to do that is through visual communication. Janet Clark – Absolutely! So I need to get together with you and maybe we can kick around some ideas about that and then I can pitch those to Allen Press and the Weed Science Society. Mary McFadzen - I think Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment did a phenomenal job. Janet Clark – Yes! So we needed to get started on the journal and it’s off to a good start, but now it’s ready to be modified. Mandy Tu – Janet, are you going to that National EPC Natural Areas meeting in Tennessee. Janet Clark – You bet and Joe DiTomaso too! We’ll have a big display there. Mandy Tu – Okay, because I was going to say I think that would be a big target for this audience. LaDonna Carlisle – Are you going to be at the SRM Conference in New Mexico in February 2009?

Janet Clark – Allen Press will be there. They’re the publishers and they’ll have a big display. Mary McFadzen – Who’s going to be at the American Deserts and Invasive Plants Conference in Reno in December? Janet Clark – Allen Press will be there also.

Website Restructure (A digital presentation was given showing slides of new web page prototypes) Mary McFadzen – This is a restructure/redesign and there are a lot of reasons for doing it, but the obvious ones for us are that we want to showcase our services at CIPM. This is a marketing strategy for one, secondly to make the information more readily available to people (helping people more easily find information on our website) and finally to make it more visually appealing by putting in images making things cleaner. The purpose of this presentation is to show you an initial draft mockup of a couple of pages. There is a lot of work to be done and when you see the real draft it will probably be quite a bit different – cleaned up and a lot more organized. Juan Banda, who you met earlier today, is programming it. He has been working with Melissa and me in putting it all together and it’s still in its very early stages. We may solicit some of you who are interested in websites to be our user testers to check the usability of the website. I think it would be really helpful to have some Steering Committee members look at it before we go live with it. We have a new spotlight section where we’ll spotlight a CIPM partnership project – it could be a CWMA, research project or something the staff is doing. We’ll have a short interest story and, like the newsletter, the reader can click to a link that provides more information about that story. We may use some of the newsletter stories, so we’re not creating new stuff all the time. We can use that information in a couple of different formats. We’ve retained, of course, the news information. We’ll retain the quick link because that information already on our website and used by many users. Connie’s going to talk about the survey results, which help support the 10 most visited links and the kind of information people really want on our website. Then, in the Resource Directory everything is basically our website right now, that’s all the information, that’s the clearinghouse. We’re going to have to modify some of the pages and we’ll probably be adding pages. We will also add a section for our Newsletter. People new to our website can look at archived newsletters to see if that’s some kind of information they’re interested in subscribing to and then they can easily subscribe. We’ll have a little box or cell about our CIPM store products. The “Need Our Help” is just a little thing Melissa and I threw in because we want to advertise our services to remind people that we’re just not an information clearinghouse, we have profession skills and we can contract out to help meet your objectives and goals for your organization. The top navigation links – research, outreach, policy and partnerships – are our marketing for CIPM services. Under outreach we’ll have a page that describes exactly what we do with outreach and education, so it’s clear what we do and we’re going to have links to all the products that are involved in outreach and education so again they can see the kind of work that we do. We want to make it really obvious to them and that’s why we thought those links should go at the top. This is what CIPM is all about and actually one of our outreach products is the Resource Directory - disseminating information and making it readily available for our audiences. John Simons – Is your search just within your site or is it a Google search? Mary McFadzen – It’ll be an in-site search. Anything you want to add Connie? Connie Bollinger – I was the CIPM website manager for years, but I no longer do it. Liz hired Juan Banda in August and he took over programming duties for the website. He is doing terrific programming and he’s designing a website program that will allow all CIPM staff to do website updates. That was one of the more tedious things for everybody to do in the past, to sending emails saying add this to the calendar, to new grants, etc. What I’ve been doing lately is just a little bit of website updating to keep it going. I also keep track of analyses; we now have three types of analyses. The main one we’ve been using is WebTrends, which the MSU runs and that gives us our basic date of how many visitor sessions we get. Hits are a very poor metric. Hits don’t tell you anything about human behavior. Juan suggested using unique visitors. Given our last three WebTrends reports, we’re getting about 203 unique visitors a day; but even more valuable than those overall numbers is what pages people are looking at. So, we get a lot of information on what are the most visited and what are the least visited and that’s very useful. We also did a quick Survey Monkey on our website starting in May to try to find out information about who’s using it. We’ve gotten 121 responses, which give us a little tiny snapshot of who at least cares enough to respond to the survey. I made it really quick; it’s a two-minute survey with only five questions. The first one was “Where are you?” and it’s no surprise that nearly everyone was out west. The second one was “How would you describe yourself?” and it turns out that about 57% of these respondents called themselves either program managers, private landowners, or concerned citizens; very few were students or academics; the least was within industry. We asked them what kind of Internet connection they had because the speed of their Internet connection affects the kind of stuff that you can put on your website. Sixty-seven percent of the people have a fast Internet connection so that gives the designer and programmer a lot more freedom with innovative stuff. This one I thought was really useful, “How often do you visit the CIPM Website?” The choices were daily, weekly, monthly or seldom. Fifty percent of the people who responded to this

survey visited seldom. So that gives you a lot of information about how much updating your web manager needs to do. The last thing was “What pages do you look at?” and this corresponds very well to our WebTrends report so there’s really a few pages that get the bulk of the visitors. The top five were weed control methods, invasive plant ID and biology, the homepage, management methods, and then funding for invasive plant managers. So, it looks like people are just looking for very basic information about invasive plants. Tim Prather – I’d pretty cautious about using that for making decisions because you’re just looking at a small segment of folks that were willing to fill it out and you don’t know what the demographics of the total group that click could have a very different view and sent of needs, etc. To me the WebTrends is certainly where I would put my effort, unless you required for certain levels of access or certain documents that visitors had to fill out a survey in order to get access this information. If that were part of the information, then I think you’d perhaps be on more solid ground in terms of the people you have in your cross section. Mary McFadzen – Marketing experts say you don’t get people to your website just by having a website. You have to use things like the e-Newsletter and draw them in for other reasons. You can’t just build something and they will come, because they won’t. Also, in the e-Newsletter we set up subscriber account that asks for mandatory information. Their first and last name isn’t mandatory but the state is and while I don’t know what the proportion is there are quite a few people from the east that have subscribed to the Newsletter at least the first issue after our initial push. So, I think, that will provide some interesting information over the long run. Tim Prather – Those types of statistics I’d put a lot more faith into. Liz Galli-Noble – So how does the Steering Committee feel about these changes? Is this moving in the right direction - the online newsletter and website restructure? CIPM is spending time and money on this. Does the Steering Committee feel that we’re heading in the right direction – yes or no? Some suggestions? I just want a little bit of feedback because we have to move on. LaDonna Carlisle – I think it’s moving in the right direction. Web pages are an easy way to get information and communicate quickly especially if you’re in a different area. Slade Franklin – Yes, I think the web page is looking great and the Newsletter is a good thing too. So, I think, it’s the right direction. Other’s agreed. Liz Galli-Noble – January 2009 is our cut off date for many of these actions, because we will start working on grant-funded projects. We’re not going to have the luxury to be able to do these kinds of things in the future. When I came on in March, Mary and Melissa had just finished a two-year project. CIPM had appropriation funding and we had staff with few contractual obligations. So we’re spending time and money to clean up basic elements of the program that are not functioning well, but the window of opportunity to do that is very short window. After this we’re moving on to paid projects. By the end of December a lot of these efforts will be complete. We might be tweaking things into the new year, but we will be moving onto other obligations and grant money. I think the outreach team has done a fabulous job and I’m really pleased. Tim Koopmann - As kind of a lay person I’ve gone to different websites and I was very impressed with the ease of the ability to move around on the website and find things and I would strongly endorse that we continue to work on this in the time we have left. If anybody has any input, get it in by email or make some comments now. I think it’s a great website and it serves it’s purpose well. Mandy Tu – I think the Newsletter is a great idea and I think you’re definitely moving in the right direction. I didn’t really have any problems with the old website but the restructured one looks like it is clearer to move through. I’m just revisiting the short version of the strategic plan and looking over the strategic goals and objectives again. I’m trying to think of how exactly are we trying to better increase collaboration and communication between research scientists and folks on the ground. I think the Center is moving in that direction. One thing that we’re trying now just on a test case basis with our website resources at The Nature Conservancy is we’re moving a lot of our ESAs or our write ups on specific species and management options to a Wiki-type of thing, because it’s supposed to encourage more managers and researchers to write in on the state of knowledge and things like that. So that’s just one thing that you might want to consider as far as being more on the cutting edge of research. That’s just something that we’re trying right now. We don’t know if it’s going to work or not, but it seems like it might be one way for folks to rapidly put in new information on management, research, etc. Tim Prather – Mandy, how are you referring that? Mandy Tu – Right now Barry Rice is setting it up and our basic understanding is that we will have oversight over when people submit things, but it’s built on the whole Wikipedia model that it’s sort of self correcting. If people put up things that are outrageous or

incorrect, it will be caught within a few days. But we haven’t actually gone live with it yet and haven’t gotten a whole lot of feedback yet. You can set it up so that there is a reviewer as well. We’re going to ask one or two people to be the overseers for a couple of species each, so no one is overly taxed with anything. They would oversee and make sure that the information is correct but we haven’t actually started it yet.

Research Grant Summary Series - See Attachment N (final version). Mary McFadzen – This idea came up when a research grant recipient wanted to produce an educational brochure of his project results. Liz and Janet agreed to assist him with this. Janet suggested that we do a series of summaries of these CIPM research grants. I have handed out a mock up of my idea, in terms of taking CIPM funded research projects and finding a strategy for disseminating that information to people. Liz will be going to DC next year and perhaps we could have a two pager like this that she could distribute to show what we’re doing, the great product that has come out of awarding this person a $5,000 grant and how it’s contributed to science on invasive plants. This would be just one way to disseminate this information. I’m a science geek and was inspired by the US Forest Service P&W that comes out with great science findings every month – how their staff is doing phenomenal research work. It’s all applicable to management. This is what the big researchers are doing and we should be doing something similar. This is something that I would do as time allowed because I’m interested in science. We’d need to come up with a catchy name and layout so that people become familiar with the series. We’d have to go through and write summaries of these research projects. Liz was just talking about how Tess put a table together with all these abstracts and reports and we would take that information and summarize it. We’d also have information about the scientist and what they do and their contact information. Again, it’s CIPMs stuff but it’s also the researcher, so if anything is wrong in there, they can contact the researcher as well as us. I don’t think it would take all that much time to put these together and I think it’s a part of our mission to do this. Mandy Tu – I think this is great. I’m familiar with this work and this is just short and quick and straight to the point and says exactly what it is and recommendations. I think it’s great! Liz Galli-Noble – The reason we’re doing this retroactively is because we’re not funding research right now, but I’d love this to be a justification and validation for future money for research grants. I hope to reinstate the research grant program and I think by producing these outreach products, we can disseminate this information in ways that we know our constituents and clients will read it and get it. I think it’s a little bit weak to always have to go back to older research because; it really should be timelier, disseminated as soon as they finish their projects. But for now it will have to be past projects. Mary McFadzen – We wouldn’t go back and do all the research projects. These could also be articles for the Newsletter, we can build an archive on our website, there’s a million ways to use and disseminate this information if people find it valuable.

8. Potential Projects/Program Opportunities John Simons – Under number eight we’ve already briefly covered some of the items, so we’ll try to cover all of them as quickly as possible.

A. DoD: Strategic Management of Invasive Species Workshop – See Attachment O. Liz Galli-Noble –You have received the pre-proposal via email. We’re not going to hear back from the DOD for about five more days. If we are asked to submit a full proposal, we will submit that proposal in early November. Does anyone have questions regarding the DOD project? No one had questions or comments.

B. National Network of IPM Centers – See Attachment P. Janet Clark – Our original proposal for a national network of invasive plant centers -- the one that I’ve talked about and that you’re most familiar with -- included four centers based in California, Montana, Indiana and Connecticut. We put together a proposal in 2007-2008 and pitched it in Washington to different agencies. We took to the Senators and it’s still hanging out there. In the mean time, I was also working on a project for the National Invasive Species Advisory Council and I was on the subcommittee that was talking about a similar issue. I collected information about all the regional centers I could think of that dealt with invasive plants and in that case there were ten. With this background knowledge, CIPM decided to submit a grant proposal to the Western IPM Center at UC-Davis for $10,000, which we submitted a couple of weeks ago. It’s specifically to fund a very small meeting (15-20 people), just for the directors of eight invasive plant centers some time this winter. At the very least these centers should know each other, and in the future there may be funding. We will have a two-day meeting and the idea was to become familiar with each other’s centers

because many of them have never met each other or worked together. To identify programs in which they might collaborate, explore options for network funding (that is, what committee does your senator sit on? and that kind of thing) and establish some type of communication process just among those eight center directors. Just start very simply building for very little money a little bit of a network because I think it could grow into something bigger and it would be a strong group to go forward with all kinds of initiatives. It also could be a conduit for grass roots organizing for various policy issues, which I’m interested in. So we put in a proposal to the Western IPM Center to fund this two-day meeting for eight centers located in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Montana, and Tennessee. We really tried to hit the whole country. We’ll probably know if our proposal was funded in November. In the mean time many of these center directors will be at that Natural Areas meeting in Tennessee in a couple of weeks and so I’ll just try to contact everyone and say you want to get together after the meeting for a couple of hours on Tuesday night and figure out if we get this funding when and where would be a good time to meet. So we’re just keeping this going at a low level of organizing.

C. Inventory and Survey Web Seminars – See Attachment Q. Mary McFadzen – For the new comers here, CIPM supported the development and printing of the Inventory and Survey Methods for Non-indigenous Plant Species publication, which was printed in 2006 and was edited by Lisa Rew, professor at MSU and Monica Pokorny, a former CIPM staff member and Connie Bollinger was instrumental too in doing a lot of the editing, organization and everything involved in putting together a big publication. Janet was the one who assigned the funds for this. It was a big project and it produced this great publication. Again, what I’m going to propose is an example of outreach. Here we’ve got this great product and people are buying it and using it. The US Fish and Wildlife Service is using it in some of their training. As a follow-up, we came up with this idea of taking this product and developing it into a web seminar series for land managers. We came across the Western IPM Center’s RFP and thought that this would be a reasonable fit. First I contacted a lot of the authors to see if they were interested in participating and I have four authors that are able to participate. Before Erik took his job, I already had assigned him to be one of the presenters for the web seminar series; so we have five presenters who would be involved in facilitating a web seminar on specific chapters of this publication. This would not be just an ordinary web seminar series. It would involve more interaction; so they’re just not sitting there going through a PowerPoint with somebody. They’re going to be asked questions that they can actually answer through web seminar actions. There are ways to make these web seminars more attractive so people don’t fall asleep and also provide some learning value to them. So, we wrote a grant for $37,000 and submitted it. The RFP is for $175,000, so if we get this I think we’d be pretty lucky just because there aren’t a lot of funds available. The grant required letters of support indicating the need for this kind of information and it was great because Earl and John wrote letters, which I submitted with the grant. For those who are new to this publication, Tim Prather and Mandy Tu are two of the authors on this publication and are also on our Steering Committee. Am I missing anybody else? So, we had two Steering Committee members involved in this, a lot of our partners, and people we know and then some we don’t know. It was a great collaborative effort to get this publication developed. We’ll be notified in December as to whether we’ll get the grant or not. I was talking to Jim Olivarez today and if we don’t get the funding for this, may be the Forest Service would be interested in sponsoring a seminar series like this. Jim Olivarez – They might be. We’ll just have to see. Liz Galli-Noble – That brings up another point. One of the reasons we cranked these grant proposals out quickly was so we could have project proposals and budgets ready to submit to other funding sources. I only want to commit a minimal amount of staff time to be able to get another grant proposal out the door. I’m really hopeful that we’ll get the money, but if we don’t we’re well positioned to apply for other sources. Mary McFadzen – I don’t know if we could get agencies to collectively kick in $10,000 to $15,000 to do this. It’s not just that they come to the web seminar but it’s also going to be recorded; so it’s available on the web too. So people not attending could still watch it and get some value out of it. Jim Olivarez – Let me make a quick comment and I don’t know how this fits with other departments or agencies but in the last two years the accountability has ramped up nationally relative to expenditure of funds. The questions and monitoring items aren’t just how many acres did you treat but what good did you do. What effect did you have or maybe another way to say it is efficacy relative to treatments. So how do you inventory or monitor those effects. As I look around there is no real common thread of web standard monitoring method or some basic things people can tag onto. We have some standard population stuff that are tailored to invasives, which is why I’m gravitating towards this text with some of the names in that. It’s been sanctioned recently. So this may be one of the next steps of potentially, the methods aren’t unique to CIPM but, putting them in the context of invasives species. So there might be an opportunity there, because right now we’re a little bit soup to nuts as far as how we portray efficacy and it hasn’t been driven because Congress hasn’t pushed us very hard, but we’ll be there one day. So it’s a little bit different then where we’ve been in the past – how many acres did you treat – now it’s so what good did you do. We’re concerned with how much to treat it but what we really want to know is what difference did you make or are you making.

John Simons – From the Bureau’s standpoint, when funds were short in the past, monitoring was one of the first things to drop off. But we’re also finding that if you have that monitoring data, then you can usually limit litigation on your decisions because you have the report that shows we did this kind of treatment and these were the results. Whatever kind of peer reviewed monitoring or standard monitoring process can be applied, it really saves them a lot in the long run. LaDonna Carlisle – I’ll support exactly what the two gentlemen said. On the Federal side, monitoring is becoming one of the big things. I know you have to plug it in on noxious weed protocols, which we submit for our tribes; and even through all of BIA there’s that part in the proposal where we ask, how are you going to monitor and show us that monitoring; because you have to submit a report ever year. Mary McFadzen – Just to clarify, this book primarily deals with inventory and survey methods not monitoring; but it talks about what the difference is between the two. Even though we have a book, that doesn’t mean we couldn’t use some of the great experienced people that are into monitoring to pull together a monitoring web seminar series even without a book, if that was the topic of the needs for your agency. There are definitely very knowledgeable people out there with a lot of experience.

D. Tamarisk Research Project Erik Lehnhoff – I can be brief and say that I’ll cover the tamarisk research project, the regional research effort, and the USACOE cottonwood research funding topics when I give my talk in a few minutes.

E. Reinstate CIPM Research Grant Program - See Attachment R. F. Reinstate CIPM CWMA Grant Program

Liz Galli-Noble – I have provided you with a spreadsheet that outlines how CIPM could reinstate the grants programs, this is the justification of what we would ask for, monetarily. Dianne and I came up with these figures; this is what CIPM would have to charge to make the grants program pay for themselves.

G. EDRR and Database Project (pilot: MRWC interactive database and mapping) Liz Galli-Noble – We’ve talked about this a little bit already. When CIPM first started coordinating for the MRWC, one of the very first things they said that they wanted was to help them do a Missouri River Watershed level EDRR program. So as we developed Erik’s job description, developing an EDRR system for the MRWC became one of his work priorities. Erik Lehnhoff – In our MRWC meeting a couple of weeks ago, we talked about which species would be included in their EDRR effort and we never came to a consensus about that but are still in discussions on that. It also came up that each of the six MRWC states do some form of EDRR and I’m working on getting a package together to request information from each of the state weed coordinators on what exactly it is they do, what’s the form of their database, what their flow chart is for notifying people about new invaders, etc. So, that will be the next step in getting that information together and then we can start working with Juan just to talk about the feasibility of CIPM investigating a database. Liz Galli-Noble – I will mention one other thing. I was shocked when I asked people how much these kinds of EDRR/database projects cost. I’ve seen a couple of knowledgeable people’s proposals and they’re very high; oftentimes a million dollars or more. So, I asked the MRWC at our last meeting for their approval to seek additional funding if we indeed need to establish a database to do the MRWC’s EDRR project. I also mentioned that at a minimum this project will require us to move at least $250,000 and they approved CIPM seeking those funds. We can use our base MRWC funding to seek that new funding, but it will not be enough to cover the real cost of this type of project.

H. Follow-up Flowering Rush Project (Bonneville Power Authority Grant) – See Attachment S. Liz Galli-Noble – CIPM is presently working on a flowering rush research project with the Salish Kootenai College and the University of Montana. About a month ago, I was contacted by them to ask us if we are interested in continuing our partnership on a follow-up project. The new project would be funded through the Bonneville Power Authority and it looks fairly promising. We haven’t talked about the details yet, which is one of the reasons I’m going up there next week. But it looks promising and the project could be a great three year funding source for the Center. I can’t share anything more with you at this time, but I’m intrigued and hopeful.

I. Regional, Broad-scale Research Effort

John Simons – Erik said he’d cover this in his presentation.

J. Production of Additional Plastic Weed Models Liz Galli-Noble – CIPM has been approached by people asking if we’d be willing to develop additional plastic weed models for them. So Dianne and I put together a spreadsheet showing what it would cost for us to produce addition weed models and not lose money on the deal. So we’re prepared if somebody comes to us with $50,000; we would be able to pay ourselves to produce four new models. So, I just want to be ready to move forward on potentially profitable projects like this one.

K. USACOE Cottonwood Research Funding/Other Corps Opportunities John Simons – Erik will cover this in his presentation.

LUNCH BREAK (Noon – 1:30 pm) Meeting reconvened at 1:45 pm

CIPM BUSINESS MEETING (continued)

9. CIPM Policy Updates The Steering Committee decided that the CIPM Policy Updates agenda topic would be covered during the morning session of Day 2 and that the remainder of today’s afternoon session would be devoted to the Research Presentation and Discussion agenda item.

RESEARCH PRESENTATION & DISCUSSION

30-Minute Presentation: Erik Lehnhoff – New CIPM Research Program Erik Lehnhoff – Liz asked me to put together a slideshow presentation partly to introduce myself -- because I didn’t know most of you until today -- and then to talk a little bit about the future of possible research within CIPM. I just graduated in May from MSU with a PhD in ecology and environmental science. I’ve actually been done for over a year now, but I was working on some other stuff and they wouldn’t let me graduate, so I was just hanging on getting paid. See PowerPoint presentation for Erik Lehnhoff’s research background. The question has already come up, why do research within CIPM? I have a couple of answers to that and one is that I think it will actually strengthen CIPM’s mission, so conducting research on ecology and management puts us one step closer to getting those results out to the public. We do a great job as a clearinghouse for knowledge but I think we could also do a great job creating some of that knowledge within CIPM and also being the head of a team that’s doing the research. I’m not saying all of this would be done by me; instead, we could be part of a team that’s heading up this research. Building research partnerships with other institutions across the region is going to be a key to making this research effective. If I’m just one person here trying to do research within CIPM, what’s the difference if I’m doing it here or within LRES? But if we’re building a team to work with others, then this can be more effective. Also, as Bruce brought up repeatedly, bringing in research grants, bringing in money could be very important to the future of CIPM and the IDCs associated with that. However, it’s not only the money. There are a lot of grants, especially federal grants these days, that require some sort of extension and outreach as part of them. So again that’s part of our mission to get this knowledge out; and if we bring in a nice research grant that has 25 percent of the budget allocated to extension and outreach then that just fits seamlessly into our mission to what we do anyway. Just a few bullets on what I’ve been hearing are the important things in research.

Anything to improve the efficacy of weed management, that’s what it’s all about.

Anything to improve surveying (inventory and monitoring techniques should be included here) and to unify those across states would be helpful.

Simple studies looking at the ecology of species, especially new invading species, is going to be important. We’ve studied knapweed to death and we’ve studied leafy spurge quit a bit, but we’re starting to see new species that we don’t know that much about. Flowering rush might be a good example. So, we are getting these new species and there haven’t been a lot of studies done on the ecology of those and I think that’s going to be important.

Specific management techniques, which is definitely along the extension side of things looking at how to control certain weeds.

How we respond to new invasions and how weed populations might respond to changing environmental conditions, climate change if you will. Map show how temperatures are expected to change across the U.S. and there have been different envelope models showing how species are going to respond to those climate changes. We might start seeing in the north species that are typically associated with the south or southwest; but on the other hand, species that we’ve been dealing with may not deal as well with warmer temperatures. So we might find that some of our common species now don’t do as well as it warmer areas. That’s just speculation, we don’t know those answers without some research.

These are just ideas of things that can be done. Next I’m going to talk about some work that I’m currently doing. Tim Koopmann – Before you move on, regarding the first study you spoke of with your grass, could I use your data to dispel an argument from an anti-grazing zealot? I would use your single cow track, the problem is most cow tracks don’t show up as singles, unless you have a one-legged cow. So I’d like to use your data because I’ve had people approach me and say, “your so-called managed livestock grazing is the cause for yellow starthistle infestation and spread; these colonies are a responsibility of your grazing program”. How would I extrapolate this information from that data to make that work? Erik Lehnhoff – That’s part of what CIPM would do. I don’t know if I’m going to answer your questions specifically here, but I’m showing you data from a research publication that CIPM could condense down into a user-friendly format. To specifically answer your question, I don’t know. I guess it really depends on the whole grazing regime. If your grazing regime isn’t creating a lot of disturbed ground, then essentially you are not creating a disturbance. I don’t know if that answers your question. Erik Lehnhoff - I’m currently working 0.6 time for CIPM and 0.4 time continuing a research investigation with LRES and teaching the #443 invasive plant management course for LRES. Liz was kind enough to let me keep working on these projects while in addition to working for CIPM. This will be research data that will be disseminated through CIPM when we’re done. This is a tamarisk regeneration study, focusing on populations along the Yellowstone River. There have been lots of studies on tamarisk done but typically they’ve been in the southwest. There have been a few studies in Montana but none specifically looked at regeneration. There are some that look at hybridization of the plant but not looking at seed germination. In working with this and talking with some of the county weed agents, they are convinced that these seeds are surviving over winter along the exposed gravel bars and germinating the next spring; because they’re not seeing populations when they go out and monitor say this time of year in the late summer or fall but they’re seeing new populations when they come back the next spring. They seem to think these seeds are over wintering even though the literature suggests that doesn’t happen; so that’s one question we’re looking at here. We have a very simple experiment set up storing the seeds in germination trays under several different temperature regimes and for different amounts of time – storing them in (1) a deep freeze at negative 20 degrees, (2) in a refrigerator at about 5 degrees C, (2) at room temperature, and (3) then in a very warm growth chamber at 35 degrees C. We store them for a day, 3 days, and up to six months, to look at how they respond and to see if they’ll still germinate. We’re just starting to get results in on that. Another part of this study is looking at seedlings and the flood regime and how they germinate at different depths in the soil and different flood regimes – completely submerged, varying water table or just watered from the top. The latter would be a seed that falls and does not get wetted by floodwater, it only receives rainfall. LaDonna Carlisle – So your short term would be a day or a rain event and that’s it? Erik Lehnhoff – Yes, we’re not looking at continued growth and survival in that first study; it’s just germination. The second part looks more at survival. This will be a pot study conducted in the greenhouse, where we’ll plant the actual seeds in soil instead of just growth chambers and we’ll water them for several months. We’ll give them periodic simulated rainfall from the top. The last part of this particular study is relating the growth of tamarisk to the different flow regimes along the Yellowstone River and also relating that to growth of cottonwoods. We cored the cottonwood trees and collected tamarisk cross sections. We are doing analysis of the tree rings and looking at the date of establishment in the campus tree ring lab. We are determining if there’s a difference in annual growth between salt cedar and cottonwood; the literature suggests that there is, that the cottonwood actually grows faster, which is good news because they could potentially shade out the tamarisk. The final thing is trying to compare the river flows to establishment periods – are they establishing under low flow, high flow? We think we know the answer; they establish after floods on managed (regulated/dammed) rivers. The Yellowstone isn’t managed (regulated), this could be very important. Tim Koopmann- Is your flow data at CFS? Erik Lehnhoff – Honestly, this is just a graph I pulled off the Internet so it’s USGS data, probably CFS. That ends where the research is that we’re currently doing. The rest of what I’m going to talk about are just ideas and this is where you can all feel free to jump in or maybe it would be better to wait until we get into discussion afterwards. These are just my ideas

and I’m open to doing anything but these are a couple of projects that I thought would be useful for the region and things that I thought we have a decent chance of getting funded from the sources that I know. Again, continuing with the salt cedar, a lot of people use the cottonwood and willow pole cuttings to re-vegetate sites, which is pretty common, typically after a restoration project where you’ve gone in and cut, sprayed or whatever you do to remove salt cedar then they come back in and plant these. Studies have shown that salt cedar is not tolerant to shade so it’s been suggested that maybe we can use the pole cuttings to keep tamarisk from growing; sort of short circuit it before we have this big infestation and then going in there and spending lots of money to treat. Can we go ahead and prevent the new growth of these seedlings by restoring a site that’s been degraded in some way. So, I was thinking of a simple study of planting seeds, set up plots and look at the efficacy of using pole cuttings to reduce growth as compared to herbicide treatment or a controlled no treatment. I have question marks by all of these funding sources and dollar figures but this is something that I believe the Noxious Weed Trust Fund would be interested in and I haven’t talked to people who provide the pole cuttings yet to know what this really costs but $40,000 is an estimate. LaDonna Carlisle – When you did the removal of the tamarisk, was that done by mechanical or herbicide method? Erik Lehnhoff – I haven’t done any. Are you talking about what I’m proposing? LaDonna Carlisle – Yes, because you’re talking about the restoration of the tamarisk area, so are you removing the roots, are you doing mechanical removal or are you just doing a spraying? Erik Lehnhoff – The most common thing they do around here is spraying. I think I ran across one site where they did a mechanical removal but most of the time they’re spraying or doing cut stump treatment. LaDonna Carlisle – We just had a meeting last week and there was a new publication that came out, I think it’s in geomorphology, where they did a tamarisk removal. They removed the root mass but then they didn’t do any revegetation or anything, and now it’s caused massive soil loss. Erik Lehnhoff – Those mechanical removals are very destructive. In my opinion it’s sort of a last resort effort because then you end up with all the annual weeds coming in. LaDonna Carlisle – So that was one of the things that you were saying is that you’re going to use pole cuttings so would you leave the root mass down below and not worry about it and that way you’d have a stabilized site before you put the pole cuttings in. Erik Lehnhoff – We’re sort of talking two different situations. One could be an area that doesn’t have tamarisk well established already, so there might be a few mature trees. But mostly we’re talking about little seedlings coming up and I’m thinking a study to see how well the pole cuttings could establish and then compete with the new seedlings; but you could also look at it as cutting the existing trees. I guess the unspoken part of this is that a lot of agencies now are sort of focusing on reduced herbicide input for these systems especially riparian systems. The Noxious Weed Trust Fund doesn’t specifically say that but CSREES in their grant proposal and Western IPM specifically says they’re looking at methods to reduce herbicide input. So this would be one way to look at that - can you do this and not spray as much in riparian areas. Moving on: this is what I mentioned earlier: how do invasive species respond to climate change? This has been coming up more and more lately. There are some prominent authors here specifically Buckley has talked about the need for research on how these species respond both in terms of their distribution and how invasive they are to changing climate. Studies that I’ve seen have looked at increased CO2 and how that might affect plant growth or more basically just increased temperature and how that can affect plant growth. A lot of people are calling for this type of research to be done and there’s money out there to do that. Finding the right match is the hard part. John Simons – Any comments, questions or suggestions on that? Jim Olivarez – Salt cedar isn’t something that my agency has been real involved with in the Northern Region; although we also manage the national grasslands in North Dakota, so it’s becoming an issue and I’m aware of it. One of the things that I was impressed with is a continued and a focused effort of the application of the idea that we talked about, that being: here’s the research we’ve got, here’s how you might be able to use it, what else do you need, and what are the unanswered questions? To actually get it done is always a challenge. I see that you’re doing that, so you’ve got that message and we can continue as managers to tie in with that. I think that’s one of the things we’re always after, how do we continue to improve that, how do we plug the holes, how do we listen to the managers? I like the tie with managers and the collaborative efforts with the other researchers, that whole idea of yours is just another way of continual improvement.

John Simons – Salt cedar and global warming are a couple of things that you mentioned that are very in right now and that’s where the money is. So we follow the money, but the other question, I guess, would be what other areas are in need of research? Is it bench research that we need or is it watershed application research or what are some of the things that people are seeing as a need? LaDonna Carlisle – I know in the Southwest the biggest issue is water. Certainly, now with six states revamping and reconsidering the Water Act on the Little Colorado, it’s a big issue and that’s one of the biggest things coming to the forefront. The other thing too is that down in the Southwest all the native tribes are asking for their water rights, which they never had. But because we are supposedly the first users of that water and it’s not covered in the compact or covered under the Winters Act under, water is the big issue. Tamarisk is moving in to those areas and that’s another big thing. I’m happy to see these issues being addressed but at the same time climate change is an issue. In the state of New Mexico we’re very unique because we go from a desert floor all the way to subalpine across the state, which is very rare. I think we’re one of the only states that’s doing that. Seeing the change in these different areas is very sad. We have cattle people who are going out of business because they’re being pushed out, because we’ve been in a drought for about 10 years and it’s not turning as quickly as everyone would like. Last year we just barely received normal precipitation. Water and tamarisk are big issues, but cheat grass is also becoming a big issue. Buffelgrass, especially in Arizona and the desert, is wiping out the majestic saguaro cacti. The fire season has extended especially in the Southwest. We had a cheat grass seminar and they said it added five months to the fire season because cheat grass comes up in early February and it goes all the way to October or November. That has entirely changed our landscape, how much fire we’re having, we’re not having enough rehabilitation coming in, and we’re having massive erosion problems. So I’m happy to see those top things covered. Tim Koopmann – Not to particularly pick on the two agencies represented in the corner here but between Nevada and California between Owens Valley and Bridgeport, I have a project I’ve worked on over there and during the case of a burn, following the burn, both agencies (Forest Service and BLM) have a policy of no re-entry by livestock for three growing seasons and I don’t know what it is in Montana or Wyoming; is it two or three seasons? John Simons – Depending on the situation you’re usually looking at two growing seasons. Tim Koopmann – This ends up being a three growing season layoff and in my experience -- working with the ranch family down there on some of their allotment grounds -- they’ve had some real serious infestations coming in behind that break; which probably could have been controlled with a light to moderate seasonal grazing use. They’ve been told by both agencies that that’s policy and regardless of the science, that’s policy. And the agencies would not listen to any biological opinion that by working on cheat grass early on (in a February growth period for a short period of time) might inhibit seeding and growth. I’m just wondering if there might be some way to set up some plots and do a study that might help suggest that: following the fire, it is advantageous to come in with a certain number of units, on a certain sized plot, and have a control, and see what the difference is. Because I’m always thinking about the economics of the producers and the impact it has on them. Liz Galli-Noble – Are there data? LaDonna Carlisle – Yes, there’s a new publication that was put out by the Rocky Mountain Research Center on fire and cheat grass. Liz Galli-Noble – And grazing? LaDonna Carlisle – I think so; I think there’s some information in there. I don’t know; it’s a huge book of +100 pages. Liz Galli-Noble – That’s a good suggestion because if there aren’t data, certainly that’s a niche we could fill and it sounds fairly straightforward. I don’t know if you agree. Tim Koopmann – I’m real familiar with the folks that are growing on some of that ground down there because I work in the Bridgeport Valley and they’ve been very frustrated by the inability of the agencies to even think about doing something other than what their policy says. John Simons – Part of that too is that we certainly need to be able to look broader as an agency on what species of animals can be used and considered for invasive species control. Most often the only thing that is used is either sheep or goats. Nothing else can control invasive species. We’re seeing quite a few things that involve -- if you teach your cows right they’ll eat spotted knapweed or some other various species. So the agency needs to be able look further out at: what can be used, are we doing livestock grazing, or are we doing invasive species control?

Tim Koopmann – Can we be doing both at the same time? That would be an advantage. John Simons – You’d have to couch it in the right way. If we are controlling invasive species, the class of livestock doing that happens to be cows rather than sheep. I don’t see any reason why we can’t do that. Jim Olivarez – I think we’re already moving in that direction. We may not be there yet, but the whole targeted-grazing focus has been something that the USFS and BLM have been supporting. What you talked about is our research station, which does not cover the California region. The California region has its own research group; but it’s something through this group, we can bring on line, assuming you haven’t been successful. It sounds like you aren’t successful with them in Region 5, that’s California. We’ve been promoting this. The Bureau has been the strongest one in our area for grazing associated with invasive species. The USFS Northern Region is just beginning to come to grips with the annual grass problem and maybe the unwashed thoughts are extinction of the Great Basin of the Northern Rockies. Now we have to deal with it and we don’t have any answers. We have some strategies now from a research and entomology standpoint -- relative to bio-control agents to reduce populations of spotted knapweed and a few others – but, and we’re already seeing this, we get that done and then in comes the cheat grass. So, it’s kind of a double-edged sword. Tim Koopmann – There is a palatability period though for the cheat grass, too. There is a grazing period, a palatability period for cheat grass, but it seems like no one over there at Owens Valley north of Bridgeport has been willing to recognize that. There is a palatability period during that first growth period when you have the cheat grass replacing what burned. Jim Olivarez – Maybe the Center can help facilitate that. It may not be classic or it may not be new research, but it could promote or spotlight a connection with that part of the country. Tim Koopmann – You also mentioned targeted grazing and I had mentioned earlier to Earl Creech, and everybody’s familiar with Dr. Provinsa’s(?) work at Utah, about targeted grazing for specific species that’s been successful on a small scale with both sheep and cattle grazing. They trained the cattle specifically seek out various noxious weeds. Liz Galli-Noble – We’ve started to move into the next part of meeting, which is to talk about what this group feels are the three most important landscape scale invasive plant management issues facing the western region. We’ve just keyed in on a couple of them. We will not have time right now, so as a group, can we decide how we want to take on this next step, which I feel is the most important part of this meeting for CIPM. I’d really like us to break into small groups and talk about where the Center should be focusing our attention. I agree with Tim that we don’t want to take small projects away from institutions; instead, we should be looking to the landscape scale, the regional scale. I’m not saying we won’t do specific projects, especially if we’re asked to do them for a collaborating partner. But I think as a Center, in the long term, we should be looking to regional landscape scale issues and pulling together research teams to address those issues. As Erik has talked about, we’re hoping to be able to move the large grants like NSF and NRI. So, what do you think? Should we break up and have a discussion? Should we call it a day and start with this in the morning? What are people feeling like we should be doing for the rest of the day? LaDonna Carlisle – Well, we’re having dinner that would be a logical time to get into small groups and we can also socialize and talk about other things. I don’t think we need to have it separate. Tim Prather – My experience on dinner meetings is it’s almost impossible to talk about business stuff pretty much. It’s really hard to have fruitful discussions in that venue, especially when everything is so loud around you. Liz Galli-Noble – Could we start with this discussion in the morning, just for an hour? People seem tied at this point. All agreed. Janet Clark – Just a question, these are also questions that our Science Advisory Council might be interested in discussing and the results of what comes out of this group will this be some how bounced off the Science Advisory group as well? Liz Galli-Noble – That’s exactly what Erik, John and I were talking about doing. We want to get feedback from this group and we will ask very similar or the same questions of our Science Advisory Council. It will be very powerful if both entities come up with a lot of the same responses. We’re looking for management expertise from this group and then sharing that with the Science Advisory Council. John Simons – We’ve got 20-25 minutes left, today. Let’s have Janet give us her policy update.

The group returned to morning agenda item #9.

9. CIPM Policy Updates – See Attachment K. Janet Clark – I provided you with a table handout. This is a summary of what I’m working on. Preparing for this presentation made me sit down and think, why are we doing a policy program? Just because I like to do it and Liz is nice enough to let me do this. What are the benefits of this to the Center? I think it is good for the Center to maintain its visibility and increase its visibility regionally and nationally, and to be involved in a lot of things to generate dollars. This has generated some dollars for the Center and there’s some potential for more serious dollars, if we want to go that direction. It’s nice to be able to weigh in on policy as a science-based organization, because often the people who are involved in policy conversations are scientists, but they haven’t been very much involved in science for a long time and they’re move involved in agency bureaucracy right now. So, it’s good to have that science input into it. It keeps us in the loop as far as knowing what’s coming down the road legislatively for potential dollars, which benefits the Center as well as for our partners. It helps support our information clearinghouse function. As long as we’re collecting information and educating people about policy issues, it all fits really well under the earmark in our federal funding. The minute it gets in advocacy -- saying this bill is good this bill isn’t; calling up people and saying you should be aware of this information, policy or legislation; or you should be involved or could be doing this -- it gets into the lobbying area, which we can’t fund at all with our federal dollars through the earmark. So, whenever I lean into that kind of a space, we keep track of those hours, we use DuPont dollars or any dollars we have that are non-federal. There’s a potential in one of these projects for contracting with an organization that has non-federal dollars, who appreciates the work of the Center and would give us more of those dollars. In any case the main things that we’re involved in right now are the Invasive Species Advisory Committee, which meets twice a year and is a Washington-level entity. They’ve just put out a new management plan that’s a road map for the federal agencies for the next five years, and we’re in the process of reviewing that. I’m involved in several subcommittees with that. Jennifer Vollmer is too; actually, Jennifer is involved with almost all of these along with me, so I’m concerned that she’s not in her position any more. Liz and I were at the Rocky Mountain Weed Summit held in June. It was a one-time meeting organized by DuPont, interestingly, because they wanted to get into lobbying issues. There were no federal agencies at all involved with it. What came out of the meeting is that they wanted to increase funding for invasive plant management regionally, enhance the collaboration, and conduct a national awareness campaign. In those three conclusions CIPM was implicated in two of them and it wasn’t us volunteering which was sort of nice. It was other people at this meeting saying, you know who could do this is CIPM. As it happened Liz was in one small group and I was in the other and then we sort of went along with that. Liz Galli-Noble – I quickly report on the national invasive species awareness effort. It’s in its infancy and there are lots of players region wide. We’ve had one meeting and our second meeting will be in two weeks. We are tasked to investigate the feasibility of launching a national awareness campaign. Basically informing the public that this is a huge issue with national importance and they’re hoping that this will allow more dollars to be allocated toward management of invasive species because it is such a large problem. The National Ad Council takes on these types of things, but they require a minimum of $2.3 million contribution and a guaranteed 3-year contract. So the group is debating if that is possible for our group to do. There are NGOs, states, fed, lots of different entities, private sector that say that is not unreasonable and if we’re going to move large amount of money to invasive species management we’re going to have to be looking at a national campaign, and people need to be aware on a national level. John Simons – Is this the Invasive Weeds Awareness Coalition? Liz Galli-Noble – This is the Rocky Mountain Summit and the summit came up with three major work group goals and one of them was the national awareness campaign and I’m in that group. Janet’s in the other group focusing on enhanced collaboration. These people don’t pay us, but they definitely want our help. Janet Clark – Next up, the 10th National Invasive Weed Awareness Week. It’s going to happen again this year at the end of February. It’ll be a little different because it’s in a big transition phase. It’s been very interesting the last couple of years to watch as it has gone from starting off as being very political, then becoming primarily education and awareness (networking focused) and is now coming back around to being political. This has implications for the roles of the federal agencies in that week, as well as the non-federal agencies. So, that’s in a transition and we’re just now discussing what’s going to happen in that week. That is very much related to the next item: Healthy Habitats/National Coalition. This is a new group that has just come together in the last couple of months. It’s made up of non-federal organizations and agencies and people who have been concerned because of the relative ineffectiveness of this NIWAW in raising this issue or raising money. The new Health Habitats Coalition group has decided to pull itself together, try to raise $100,000 a year, hire a professional lobbyist and lobby professionally and effectively with a strategic plan in Washington for invasive plant issues, year round. So this isn’t just a one-time shot -- go to Washington, wonder up to the Hill and talk to your senate staff. This is going to be a really strategic, professionally run, advocacy campaign. This group of

about 10 people is just putting together the documents now for fundraising for that. DuPont and Dow are involved, but it’s not just herbicide companies. Eric Lane with the State of Colorado is involved along with Wildlife Forever, Larry Walker from NAWMA, and the Weed Science Society of America. So it’s a mix of professional societies and non-profits, and this small group is going to get much bigger and it’s going to start gaining some traction. The person who will be the director of this is a professional lobbyist; his name is Tim Richardson and he’s a consultant and lobbyist for Wildlife Forever. Wildlife Forever is a hunting/angling conservation group that’s very involved in this issue. They will be the umbrella group for this Health Habitats Coalition and they’ve agreed to be the fiscal agent. So, of the $100,000 that this group is trying to raise, $50,000 of it will go to this lobbyist for his part-time work and the other $50,000, it’s been proposed, would go for operational assistance to him; that is, mailings, traveling, going to events, fiscal management, all kinds of coordination and communication. That means potentially some of that funding will come to our Center because I’m very much involved right now in assisting this lobbyist in getting this thing going. He has indicated that he’s interested in getting dollars to the Center to continue that support. Slade Franklin – Janet, how has that group been doing in terms of reaching out to some of the Ag groups? Janet Clark – It’s just now compiling a list of groups that it needs to reach out to. Do you have some suggestions about that? Slade Franklin – I was just more concerned that they hadn’t been working with the Ag folks on the ground level. I didn’t know if that was true or not or if they were planning on it. I was just curious, in your opinion, if that was going to happen or is happening. Janet Clark – We have a big conference call on Thursday, and that’s one of the things that will be discussed: who needs to be contacted and who needs to be involved in this. Tim Richardson has a lot of expertise on the Hill and in strategizing policy and making things happen. What he says he doesn’t have is the expertise on the ground. He doesn’t know the people, the organizations, or who to contact, and that’s where he thinks that our Center could be particularly helpful, as well as this advisory committee that’s coming together around it. So, Slade, you’re one of the people that I would call to get some ideas and bounce some ideas off about that. Slade Franklin – Well, I just wanted to make sure that the Cattlemen’s Association and woolgrower groups were some how contacted within that. Tim Koopmann – The Farm Bureau too! Janet Clark – You bet, those organizations have come up in every conversation that we’ve had, very much so. The lobbyist for cattlemen in Washington, Jeff Eisenberg, is going to be tied into this group. Next on the list is the State of Montana and a subcommittee that’s discussing legislation to be introduced this year to establish an invasive species council. Jim Olivarez is on that too. It’s really interesting to me having been on this national committee about invasive species advisory council and to be throwing out advice about what you should do and then to sit down at the table while this is being hashed out -- it’s a killer, it’s torture. I’m really learning a lot and it’s really interesting. Further, one of the services related to policy that the Center can provide is actions taken with the Farm Bill -- we were able to pull together a panel of experts who could come up with some consensus on Farm Bill issues and we could feed that back to the policy makers. We were a neutral opinion; we didn’t have anything to sell or buy or anything else. This is the state of the knowledge. I think it would be great if we could do that over and over for policy makers, to provide that kind of expertise from a panel. The Western Weed Coordinating Committee remains one of my favorite meetings of the year. Slade is very much involved with that; Jim is one of the founding members. We sponsor the website for the WWCC. I’m on the Board of Director’s for the Tamarisk Coalition. It has very little to do with the Center but it’s sort of a whole other loop of people, contacts, networks, understanding some funding issue and staying in touch with other things going on in the West. That’s what’s going on in policy. I’d be glad to answer questions or talk about any of this over dinner. LaDonna Carlisle – Since I just came on, I was kind of curious who else sits on other boards and steering committees, besides Janet. I sit on the San Juan Watershed Initiative Board, the Northern New Mexico CWMA Board, and the State CWMAs and they’re thinking about appointing me to the state noxious weed list board as well. Of course I’m affiliated with BIA and I’m hoping to make it to Washington to take on the position as the whole nation noxious weed coordinator. I am the noxious weed coordinator now at Jicarilla Agency, but as that I also represent them on the CWMA. I’m also on FICMNEW too. I’m the alternate for BIA. I’m just curious about what groups other folks are involved with. John Simons – When Hank retired he gave me a list of about 15 groups the BLM gave advice to and I can’t tell you what they all are. Most of them are here in Montana – Montana Weed Control Association, state prevention, invasive species, new species, weed seed

free, education board, etc. There’s a whole list of them and I don’t always get to all of them. We have a lot of partners and then we go to our staff in our field offices and provide advising from the standpoint of coordinating weed management areas, etc. Jim Olivarez – Just a couple of them. In Idaho there is a coordination group, the weed coordinating committee which is primarily state and federal agencies and they have similar role to the steering committee in Montana -- in the sense that they provide support, guidance and implementation of the state weed plan. The state weed plans/strategic plan for invasive management in Idaho actually names that committee and brings that into existence. I’m past chair and a continuing member on that. In Montana we have that and I’m the federal rep on that one the implementation of the state weed plan. For the WWCC, we sit on that, it’s just a once a year thing. We’re both ex-officio members of the Montana Trust Fund; we’re part of the expert technical group that supports that. Nationally, we have a invasive species policy that’s being developed or already generated nationally and I’ve been a part of that three or four person team with that to help finalize national policy for the agency, which is several years old and the national policy group for native plants I led that team for the agency. We’re strongly involved with the Weed Free Forage Certification Program in Montana and Idaho, in fact the agencies have grabbed what some of the counties have done and formalized it. So we have closure orders within Montana and our regions. In both states of Idaho and Montana they have working committees within the state governments departments of Ag and we’re part and parcel to that -- as advisors or a connection -- because the states don’t really have quarantine stuff relative to that. Right now it’s just us and some other state agencies. Earl Creech – I’m spearheading the Nevada Weed Management Association, on the advisory committee for the plant materials center within NRCS based out of Fallon, which covers most of the great basin, and other several other groups. Dean Peterson – I try to stay out of that kind of stuff. Mandy Tu – I’m working on a program called iMap Invasives, which is working to aggregate data on an online GIS-based, all taxa mapping tool. I’m also adjunct faculty at Portland State University and at Washington State University-Vancouver and as part of my position; I work on a small team that works on invasive species across the entire Nature Conservancy. I don’t sit on many of the other committees mentioned. But The Nature Conservancy does have staff that are part of the national efforts, such as NISC and ISAC and all of those committees. Internationally, The Nature Conservancy is also one of the founding members of the Global Invasive Species Program. Slade Franklin – I’m on the Wyoming Weed Pest Council ex-officio, Wyoming Weed Management Association liaison for the Department of Ag, member of NAWMA, Missouri River Watershed Coalition, secretary for WWCC, North Platte River Coalition with three states – Colorado, Wyoming, and Nebraska and that’s all the acronyms I can think of right now. Tim Prather – I’m currently on the board for Idaho Weed Control Association, which is another one of the Idaho weed groups and one that works closely with the one that Jim Olivarez serves on and on the editorial boards for two different journals right now and then the Center for Invasive Plant Management. That’s really the extent of my obligations at the moment. Tim Koopmann – I mentioned earlier today our involvement with the _______ Conservation Coalition, I’m on their steering committee for the research committee. We’re working closely with UC-Davis and one of the research areas, obviously, is weed management. I’m also involved in another organization called the Central Coast Rangeland Coalition and their primary function at this point is to develop a user-friendly monitoring program for annual grasslands and that has a major weed management component as well. I also serve on the local RC&D board which has a weed component in it as well, and the local two county RC&D weed management area, and an active member of SRM. John Simons – We are done for the day. We’ll begin at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow morning.

________________________________________________________________

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

1. Complete Unfinished Business from Day 1 2. Where does CIPM go from here? Steering Committee Feedback

Group Discussion –

CIPM wants to take the lead in bringing together diverse, regional research teams to address regional/landscape-level invasive plant

management. CIPM will invest the staff time to investigate and solicit for grant funding; will function as a research team member; will

manage the grant contracting, documentation and reporting; and will conduct follow-up outreach and educational requirements for the

grant(s).

Questions

* What are the (three) most important landscape-level invasive plant management issues facing the western region?

* What research questions need to be answered (research investigations need to be conducted) in order to address these invasive plant

management issues?

Large Group Discussion –

Steering Committee consensus, provide CIPM with direction where to focus our research program attention over the next year or two.

John Simons – Regarding the research information Erik Lehnhoff presented yesterday, we were going to look at the three most important landscape invasive plant management issues facing the western region and what research questions need to be answered in order to address these management issues? The decision was made to stay in one large group for this discussion. John Simons – So, what we’re after right now then is just ideas, no bad ideas, good ideas, all ideas on what the most important landscape-level research issues that a going to affect the western region. LaDonna Carlisle – The impact of the water and that also reflects again the climate changing. It’s multi-tiered kind of thing. With the climate changing we’re also seeing the expansion of a lot of invasives that are starting to come in, but we’re also seeing the drought affecting that as well and causing other impacts on our full landscape measure. John Simons – Is it a drought or is it climate change? LaDonna Carlisle – I think it’s the climate change. It’s a multi-tiered problem; it isn’t just one single thing. John Simons – You mentioned impacts of water. So, the invasion impact to riparian areas or stream flow? LaDonna Carlisle – I think both to stream flow and also to invasives, because you’re not getting the snow pack which you once used to get. I’ve seen in the area where I live, this past year, we had seven feet of snow, which was pretty common up until the 1960s. They said they haven’t seen that in over 30 years. There are a lot of areas in the West that aren’t seeing the snow pack that they used to get and that’s affecting all of the downstream users. I just saw a CD that was done with Jane Seymour about drought and it’s impact on the six states – California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah – because the Little Colorado feeds into that and it also goes down to Mexico. So we’re not even fulfilling our own obligations to give water to Mexico. So, it’s having a big, huge impact. It’s also having an impact on some of the natives and traditional plant communities. So we’re not seeing those plants that we would traditionally see if we had that flow, because of the climate change. I think it’s causing a lot of impact. Erik Lehnhoff – We could bring that back to invasive species and specifically with the salt cedar example we see salt cedar infesting these areas where reservoirs have been drawn down because of drought. So the water levels are down considerably from their historical full pool and you have this bath tub ring of salt cedar around them. That’s just one species that ties in directly to drought, if not climate change. John Simons – Then it’s how to control that the stuff in the draw down area? I know Fort Peck would very much like to go to full pool for about two years. And that would probably take care of 60-70% of their salt cedar because they’d just drowned it out. But downstream users want that water -- most of it for barge traffic. Janet Clark – So how much of the issue has to do with climate change and how much has to do with human intervention? Should we blow out the dams and call it good?

John Simons – Or just population growth for water demand. Janet Clark – The solution for those are two different things. There’s a political solution and one you can’t touch. I don’t know if there’s a solution. LaDonna Carlisle – In the southwest -- especially along the Rio Curcle(?) and further downstream of the Pecos -- it’s also impacting some of the endangered species, such as the Rio Grande silvery minnow, and that’s really impacted water use. You can’t take out water because there are only certain regions of that area where the minnow or the chub still survive. The willow flycatcher is another one that’s starting to have a really big impact. The consideration of all of these things is regulating how much water can be taken, yet we have a big metropolis of Albuquerque that is drawing water down like nobody’s business because of industry, population growth and everything else too. I think a lot of it has to do with climate. John Simons – What are some control or management things that we need a better handle on? Maybe there are some control methods that we should be looking for that we don’t have. Are we doing enough integration between our bio-control, herbicides, mechanical and whatever treatments? Is there something that should be looked at more, from that standpoint? Slade Franklin - One of the big things last year -- and it’s kind of quieted down this year -- has been the issue with cheat grass. Last year there were governors who signed an MOU regarding wildfires in their western region states; and hidden in that MOU was an emphasis on invasive species with a focus on cheat grass. The big issue is that there aren’t that many weed management tools out there for cheat grass or economically-feasible controls for cheat grass. It’s certainly one that if we start getting another dry summer next year it’s going to flare up again and it certainly might be something to consider. Jim Olivarez – Let me offer some reinforcement in what we’re dealing with. I mentioned earlier that the USFS thinks we’re seeing – and we don’t have the research to back it up, this is just managers observations with some of their treatments -- is an expansion like never before of cheat grass into the northern region (western Montana, Selway River country). We also have concurrence with our folks down in Nevada and they have a very complicated situation: the Forest Service has the high ground and the BLM has the low ground on a public land basis. So the FS folks are becoming more concerned with cheat grass because it’s marching up the hill. It’s going to the high ground like it’s never done before. A significant concern for the USFS is our research group has done a lot of research on cheat grass, big time in the Rocky Mountain Research Station, and yet there aren’t any real answers that we can see. And the impression our folks are getting is that the BLM, who has the bulk of the cheat grass, is now managing for annual grasses rather than still thinking we can do something different. So that adds to the complexity. That’s then tied to in the Selway, which is inundated by spotted knapweed and some sulfur cinquefoil co-dominance. The challenge there is we probably have some pretty good bio-control agents that could knock those out, because we’ve got that experience; but what we get is cheat grass when those are gone. We’re in the middle of a wilderness where you really are hampered with what you can do. So that’s the quandary, what do we do? Tim Koopmann – Has there been reluctance, and I’ve kind of heard the rumors, has there been a reluctance to go back into burn sites and reseed with the traditional crested wheat grasses because they’re not native. Slade Franklin – I heard that rumor too and I don’t know how true it is. John Simons – Very much the emphasis is to go to either natives or native cultivars. Tim Koopmann – Which can’t compete nearly as well with your annual cheat grass. John Simons – Exactly. Tim Prather – I just joined you. There are a number of instances where these native cultivars can effectively compete. It’s more a matter of getting them established and if you don’t get them established in high enough numbers then there at a disadvantage. John Simons – One of the key things in doing that following a fire is seeding as soon as the fire is done. And you’ve got emergency stabilization funding, which happens through the fire suppression end of things. That funding can go for about a year and then you’ve got whatever the next one is for about three more years, but that second fund I know gets robbed by the first one. Suppression winds up robbing that second one. There is funding that’s sent down I know to the Department of Interior to do that rehab kind of work. I know there are some good examples in Utah. There is a very good example a few years ago where they were doing seeding work and chaining of burnt junipers; but an environmental group got them shut down. So the part that they did chain and seed came back to the cultivars and the rest of it came back to cheat grass. That’s a real strong example of if you don’t get in

there a take care of it, then you’re going to lose it. I know recently there have been conferences on cheat grass; so is there enough research on that already? Or do we need to pull some of that together through the Center? LaDonna Carlisle – There’s quite a bit of research on cheat grass. Jim Olivarez – There’s tons of it. I don’t know that there are any answers, but there’s tons of it. Dean Peterson – A lot of people are trying. LaDonna Carlisle – I know that they’re experimenting with some kind of fungus a couple of different kinds of fungus. Jim Olivarez – Bio-control or pathogens or smut or something? Slade Franklin – We’ve come to the conclusion in the Wyoming Weed and Pest Council that we’ll never add cheat grass to our state list. There are a couple of reasons to that and one is it would highly impact our availability of seed because it’s so difficult to clean out cheat grass seed from your native seeds. Secondly is the cost of control, currently the extent of the problem. But I do think it should be on a western region list. At least strongly pushed to look at what new alternatives can occur or push the development of bio-control agents if it’s a potential tool for us. So, there are some statements that can be made about cheat grass more on the policy end of things than I would say research. LaDonna Carlisle – I know for the State of New Mexico, we are going to add cheat grass as a noxious weed on our state list this year. Colorado has it already listed as a noxious weed on their sate list. Jim Olivarez – They’re the only one, right? LaDonna Carlisle – They’re the only one but we’re going to be the next one to add it, because it’s over taking a lot of the area. I do know that they’re putting a big coalition together between the four corner states because it’s really impacting fire in a lot of those areas. It’s becoming bigger and in our state, the BLM has made it a state initiative to try and eliminate it, or control and manage cheat grass. There are a lot of ranchers that say it has some beneficial uses. Yes it does but it’s only for two weeks and that’s about it. Slade Franklin – To me that’s kind of a perplexing issue here is we have probably the poster child of weeds in the West -- cheat grass – yet the majority of the states with the exceptions of Colorado and New Mexico now won’t address it in their weed laws. Bruce Maxwell – But is it going to do any good? Slade Franklin – In Wyoming we’ve come to the conclusion that we have to explain why we’re not going to put that on our weed law, because everyone asks, why aren’t you doing any thing? Jim Olivarez – It’s the same dilemma in Montana. It’s been proposed in the last round to be listed, and it’s probably a similar argument. Except in this last year or so my eyes have been opened to the problem. We may make some arguments that it ought to be on there. We’ll just have to see because things have changed. It’s not just a matter that it’s everywhere; it’s more like it’s everywhere, so what do you do about it? The difference today is that it’s dominating big landscapes, and it’s changing the environment more than ever before. Now it’s got characteristics of the classic forbs species and we don’t know what to do about it. We’ve got some herbicides but they don’t necessarily work in our country. I’ve got another one that is at a landscape scale. This is from our southwest region. We were there last year for a national meeting and buffelgrass is an issue for the Sonora Desert type and they’re struggling with that. But what could really compound the problem is the fact that the plant materials center or ARS is looking for cold hardy species of buffelgrass to bring into the country. So what is going on here? Tim Koopmann – To introduce it! Jim Olivarez – Yes. So if we have that type of a system, or a landscape issue with that type of species, we’re compounding and fighting it ourselves. I don’t know if the Center is into something like that? Mandy Tu – That leads exactly into one of the two issues that I think are in need of some type of research. The first is broad. It’s really thinking about how can we work best to prevent new invaders at these large scales? There are lots of existing tools, such as weed risk assessments, that seem to work pretty well. If folks could be persuaded to actually carry out weed risk assessments for

new species, as well as for those species that are already here within the U.S. and then getting states across the region to really cooperate and be proactive to prevent new invaders, such as those new ones and or ones that are newly showing these tendencies from the nursery industry or from pyro-fuels or from the grass seed industry or from folks that are actually importing in these new plants -- then I think that would be great. I don’t really have a specific solution for it except to encourage the use of these statewide risk assessments and actually make sure that it is implemented into state laws of some sort. Then my other suggestion for some type of research question is to take a step back and look at what are the broader picture interactions between fire, climate change and invasives? If there’s some way that the Center could pull together some research and then provide guidance for how landscape managers might want to plan and prioritize their own management then that would be helpful too. LaDonna Carlisle – In the states of New Mexico and Arizona, buffelgrass, fountain grass and few other grasses, which have been used as ornamentals in desert landscaping, now are on the list. We have cooperation from the State Noxious Weed Boards to disallow those grasses to enter into the state. Mandy Tu – Excellent! LaDonna Carlisle – It goes through the nursery process. So those two states are getting more proactive on trying to eliminate that problem. However, we still have some native plant centers that want to still be able to utilize those grasses. In the state of Arizona, they’ve put out a wanted-dead-or-alive-type pamphlet on buffelgrass and fountain grass, and how to eliminate them. They have weekly excursions to go and try to deal with those grasses in the Sonora Desert, in Tucson and Phoenix areas, and they’ve been really, really successful. They post fire warnings. We had held a cheat grass seminar in Dulce, New Mexico this past year; and I was able to find a lot of information on preventative measures. So we’re trying to be more proactive and getting more of the federal, state and local grassroots groups together to try to deal with these landscape issues. Mandy Tu – That’s great and I wish that the western folks would coordinate more those new species that are invasive. For instance, we know that buffelgrass is terribly bad in the desert southwest; it’s not really that bad yet in the more northern states. But given that it has these greatly invasive qualities, and we have these predicted changes in climate change, don’t you think that it’s going to be bad elsewhere? And it’s the other way around for other species that are currently bad in the north and not yet in the south. There seem to be folks in positions of regulatory power who are not yet able to take that step. They say, “well, it hasn’t been shown to be that bad in my specific region yet, so I’m not going to do anything about it”. Tim Prather – I think that the real difficulty is that we need a fundamental change in how we approach these. If you look to the examples in New Zealand and Australia, where it’s not so much that you have a don’t import list as you have an import list. You have to demonstrate that a new species is not going to be a problem before it is allowed in. That fundamental shift would be very painful and difficult, but trying to approach what we want to accomplish by a bad species, by bad species in a set of listings, it’s really going to be difficult. If you look at this 10s Rule, where they talk about 10% naturalizing and 10% becoming invasive, that still leaves 3,500 species that could potentially be nasty for the temperate regions of the world. Mandy Tu – Exactly. There are these upcoming potential regulations that could change that into that approved white list. APHIS is reviewing the Quarantine 37 sections of their quarantine rules, but that would only apply to species that are not yet in the trade or not yet established in the U.S. So there are lots of species that are already in the U.S. that are either invasive elsewhere or have not shown invasive tendencies, yet. We need to be watching out for those potentially problematic species and have some way to communicate that with folks who are able to do something about it. Janet Clark – Q37 regulations and the risk assessment that The Nature Conservancy has been really a leader in pushing for that. It’s very much a topic of policy discussions nationally. My second thought, which is unrelated, is the wildfire and invasives conference coming up in December in Reno; will some of these issues be discussed there? And if so, will the conclusion of that conference be some synthesis and some thought about here’s the places where we really need research related to wildfire and invasives? There may be a role there that the Center could play: to do the pickup, follow-up, implementation something coming out of that conference, but I’m imagining a lot of outcomes there. Mandy, will you be going to that conference? Mandy Tu – I haven’t decided yet. LaDonna Carlisle – The agenda is on the Web. Mary McFadzen – Yes, it’s on the Web. I’m going. I also talked to some folks there about education/outreach stuff; they’ve got that pretty covered because they want to disseminate the information to management and land managers. But I don’t know about your first question regarding the research aspect of it. I think Erik might be going.

Erik Lehnhoff – I haven’t looked at the agenda yet either. Tim Koopmann – When you talk about landscape-level management issues for the whole region, and I’ll use yellow starthistle as an example, a major problem and major issue that has not been addressed is the affordability of treatments that we know work for the average producer/land manager. We’ve got some products in particular herbicides that work effectively against yellow starthistle. As far as I’m concerned probably yellow starthistle in California is the single most serious weed issue we’ve got and I know Earl’s got yellow starthistle in Nevada now. We’ve got products that work but they’re not affordable. They’re not affordable to the practitioner out in the field; they’re not affordable to the average rancher to apply the herbicide. You’ve got herbicide that’s going to cost you $30 an acre, yet a lot of this ground isn’t worth $10 and acre to graze. You’ve got a $30 an acre apply cost to treat the weed and you have to do a three-year plan. Fire in cooperation with herbicides works, but the average rancher cannot afford to do the treatment, and I think that’s a major problem. We’ve got answers to the control of the noxious invasive weeds, but we can’t afford to do it, Can CIPM in any way through research affect that? I think the affordability of treatment is a major problem. Tim Prather – We’ve been doing some work in collaboration with ranchers at the University of Idaho. We’ve been doing multi-species grazing in combination with trampling of seed into the ground of perennial grass seeds, and that has had some success. We could also be looking at using a single application of a herbicide, but they’ll go through and graze with cattle and then come back through with goats to catch the starthistle. And that’s kept that in check pretty well. That’s not to say it’s widely used, but it is used in areas within Idaho County. Tim Koopmann – That’s anticipating a three-year seed bank life of yellow starthistle? Tim Prather – In California that may be the case, but in Idaho and other places north (where you get heaving of the soil, where you get incorporation of the seed into the soil) seed viability can be longer. Tim Koopmann – We consider a three-year treatment effective, with spot treatment after that. But with large infestations, you consider a three-year seed bank, so three years of treatment either combination of fire and herbicide. Tim Prather – We have a threshold for canyon grasslands, where if we have even 15% of the ground covered by perennial grasses, we no longer have yellow starthistle as the dominant. We’re starting to use that as a value to shoot for when we talk to folks about management. If we can get to that point then yellow starthistle becomes much less of a problem. Jim Olivarez – Idaho and Montana have weed management plans and a component of those management plans is a section on research. There’s a listing, some site specific and some broader scale, of research needs within those boundaries. That’s something that you might want to look at. It may give you some clues as to how you might track on a regional or landscape basis. Erik Lehnhoff – We’ve been talking big picture regional things but you mentioned site specific research needs and a lot of those could still be scaled up. If we’re solving very simple problems on management of a species then it’s likely that, that’s useful for people in other regions as well. So as a group I don’t think we would want to shy away necessarily from a very local research project if it could be applied elsewhere. Janet Clark – I’m wondering if there are issues in restoration that people encounter in rehabilitation that there are questions about. Erik Lehnhoff – I’m sure there are questions and they’re big questions. A lot of times we have the science down for treating the weeds and getting rid of them but then we don’t necessarily have a good plan for restoring the sites. So we end up getting rid of our perennial species and have invasions of annuals; so there certainly are needs for restoration. Jim Olivarez – One of the management aspects we’re struggling with, and I don’t know that it’s necessarily research, is training for practitioners on how to do restoration. We have some pretty sharp people but that doesn’t necessarily mean they have experience in actually doing restoration work. So I just throw that out as a complement to what Janet talked about. We surfaced that when I worked on the native plant policy for the agency. The need for training or the need for demonstration or the need to tool up a whole new generation of practitioners or do cross pollination with other agencies that do have it in that restoration follow-up idea. Janet Clark – Do you feel that we know enough about how to do restoration, to be able to train people how to restore? Is there enough curriculum written to teach people? I don’t know myself. Jim Olivarez – You know, I’m not sure. I think there’s quite a bit of knowledge. I think some of us have been reluctant to do it. There has been classic work done in the Dakotas and Wyoming relative to seeding native species or desirable species in leafy spurge infestations. But some of the reluctance in that country is that you have to rest it a little bit; so there are some conflicts with

management decisions. So there are examples of some really staunch species, tough species like leafy spurge, and some tried and true restoration, re-vegetation work; but you need a little bit of rest on that ground to let it dominate the site. I’ve not really practiced it, myself, but trying to promote that to local managers it is tougher to follow through. So there is at least a little glimpse of -- we know how to do it, it’s a matter of will we do it. We also have some challenges with the promotion of native species. Some of us can come to grips with this -- that the natives aren’t necessarily the right species during this time of restoration -- where we have to get a foot hold. But there are others of us who won’t let that go, we have to have the native even though we’ve proven in some situations that we have too much of a seed bank of the exotics. So some of it isn’t -- we don’t know how to do it, it’s we don’t want to do it yet. Dean Peterson – You’re saying we need a little more flexibility or the lesser of two evils? John Simons – I think it comes back to what we were saying here about the affordability of being able to do that. Jim Olivarez – I think there’s a little bit of both. We know how to do some stuff and then there are other restoration situations of species we don’t know. So we need some help with that. Tim Prather – We had put together a group on restoration – including the Center when Monica Pokorny was there -- but then when she left that ability to work together for some reason fell apart. None of the rest of us were willing to become the leader of that but we had started to set forth some pretty good plans and had some ideas in mind for what we potentially could do. There are a lot of great ideas; but the thing you come up against, just as you would for treatment, is the lack of money to do the work and the research. So we’re going to be limited no matter what, in terms of the topics that are actually going to get addressed, just because of the limitation of resources. Jim Olivarez – Joe DiTomaso presented some of his work on restoration in Missoula. Some of his work in restoration really rang clear not only with the expense but what is a realistic expectation. How far can you go and how you should temper your sights on what success is. Tim Prather – The other thing that we don’t pay enough attention to, and we’re starting to here, is a stronger focus in the native arena to look at these perennial species and later successional stage species. We’re starting to do is to take a look at the early successional species that are native and use those in the process of restoration, because those are the species that are going to have a greater ability to deal with disturbance. We’re starting to try and use some of those in addition to the more standard perennials and that’s an area that’s really untapped. Jim Olivarez – One of our scientists in Nevada is looking at species from communities that are a different site potential for the ground because of climate change and is being shifted. So, it’s not just the early stage, it’s a whole different site potential and what associated species are there in an effort to find an answer and that’s associated with fire and cheat grass and a couple of other things. Tim Prather – That’s a different tack than what we’re looking at. We’re trying to look at successional stage and whether you are early, mid or a late stage in succession. To see which treatments are appropriate at each of those stages, to move you into a later stage, where you’ve got a more stable community that’s dominated by the perennials. That’s another area that we’re trying to develop some decision tools to help people get an idea of under what conditions do they choose one treatment over another. Jim Olivarez – There has been some work in the Great Basin by the BLM on that, relative to fire and restoration. As far as I know, a couple of years ago, they were still monitoring and seeing what was working and what was not working in sage brush complex areas. There weren’t any answers at least the last time I went to the conference. Tim Prather – We have a new faculty member who was hired on to deal with some of those issues in southern Idaho after the catastrophic fires and her area of expertise is in restoration and she’s within our College of Natural Resources in range. Jim Olivarez - In burn areas, we’re getting post-fire money for weed treatment. Some of that’s going to restoration. But at the same time, what’s being frowned upon or shunned is re-vegetation, because the most recent research backed efforts are recommending dropping wood straw to hold the ground; that’s even more effective than regular straw. So maybe you need to look at a few of these restoration issues. That would definitely be a regional thing. John Simons – It’s a combination of research and policy change.

Jim Olivarez – Tim, you talked about what should be brought into the country and it’s probably like you’re innocent until you’re proven guilty. You’ve got the same challenges with animal invasives. The Lacey Act is a classic one. I think there’s 25 species that are not allowed into the country and everything else is innocent until proven guilty. So it’s not just a plant thing on a national basis. Tim Prather – I think it’s even tougher than that because once something is in the country it’s not regulated at all. So when you take a look at the big game farms in Texas, the species that they have are not subject to the same regulations, because they’re already here. It’s just the way the legislation was written. I’ve had discussions with people in the south central part of the country who are really concerned about this. Take like camels or lions, if they’re already here, then they don’t fit under the regulations. John Simons – What we’ve heard so far for possible research focuses are: climate change, cheat grass, bio-pesticides, preventing invasions on a regional basis, fire-climate invasives, affordability, threshold of perennial species so the site becomes a little less weedy (associated with yellow starthistle), restoration, looking at successional stages, and site potential change due to climate and fire. Tim Prather – Another area that I don’t think we have enough information on -- and is related to work that Marcel Rejmanek has been involved in, and on a smaller scale we’ve been working in the area – is trying to determine where you would look for a new invading species, if you’re not looking for one species specifically, where would you look? For example, in the area of say encephalitis in California, you have sentinel chickens that you put out in riparian areas (and they have a fairly good idea of where to put the birds), so that if they get an outbreak they can detect it. I don’t think we have done enough to develop the same sort of approach in weeds; so that you would figure out where you would want to look and how frequently would you look in different areas, in order to catch something that’s new coming in. The Forest Service funded us to do this type work on a small scale and it was a pretty good project. We learned quite a bit, but there’s more work to be done in that arena. John Simons – There was somebody in Missoula with the Forest Service working on a similar type of research about the potential of a site to be invaded (“invadability”). I don’t remember who that was. Tim Prather – This isn’t just “invadability,” but more, where would you look; where would you have the species; where is there opportunity for species to come in? You’ve got the “invadability” side, but then you also have whether or not you get seeds or some other propagule put onto that site. You have to look at the combination of those two. Bruce Maxwell – We’ve published about five papers on probability of occurrence. It’s probably a pretty good predictor of not just where species are going to be but what impact they’re going to have. We’ve shown that as well. John Simons – Is that something that could then be applied to resource management plans and watershed plans? Bruce Maxwell – We are currently showing that in a Forest Service District doing an economic assessment. I’ll be giving a paper on that at a workshop in Washington in a couple of weeks. Tim Prather – I think those probability of occurrence approaches -- we’ve been working on that as well -- are really quite valuable. Bruce Maxwell – There’s probably some real fundable opportunities associated with climate change that get into this prediction of where species are going to be. There’s a whole set of climate envelope models that have been employed for this kind of thing. We’ve done some work with those and in comparing those with a more empirical approach, which is probability of occurrence, and shown that both of those can contribute at different scales differently. What I think is difficult for people to understand and what I think is emerging from the literature is there’s very much a difference from a port of entry situation and a movement across the continent situation. In other words, there are boundaries and when species cross boundaries things happen and their opportunities for crossing those boundaries play a big role. If introduced at a port of entry that’s our best place to deal with species. We are extremely hampered right now because all of the data associated with looking at invasive species plants or otherwise now comes under Homeland Security and is not available. We can’t study it, and yet APHIS has a ton of data that no one can get at. Their scientists can get at it, but they really don’t have a science division working on it, which is absolutely silly -- but that’s the state of that problem. I tried to dig into that last spring to see what would be possible to make that data available and that’s been a real problem, and I know Marcel Rejmanek has dealt with it some, too. Now, they’ve gotten around it in California, as I understand it, because they do their own. Cal-IPC, or somebody, is doing their own monitoring and they have a better handle on the number of introductions around ports of entry and how things move out from ports of entry. So they have an independent data source, but anyway, there’s this other situation. Now the other aspect, which is somewhat different; I believe and I think that the studies are starting to show that once a species is established on a continent, it’s kind of a new character and has much greater ability to move and move randomly in different sort of patterns then it would out of a port of entry with a fresh introduction. So I think it’s a little different situation. And often then, we’re stuck with measuring where it has been on the continent and where it’s likely to go from

there. So, that’s where we can employ some of these techniques of probability of occurrence and climate envelope models, which can then say under a changing climate where these things are likely to go as well. The issues associated there with understanding invasion at those scales or tying the theory that’s developing rapidly with empirical observations on the ground are very important and very fundable by USDA, NRI and even to some degree by NSF. Those are the places where I think you’re going to get the level of funding to really support a program and be able to tag those on to efforts that are associated with control and outreach kinds of activities> But I think kind of building around that base, it’s easier to extend into those other aspects. Those are the avenues that I would suggest that you focus on, and the climate aspect in particular. There’s so much funding across many, many more agencies and then you open up even larger opportunities. We’ve been approached by the Department of Defense now, and they’re very interested in the probability of occurrence for their lands. There are a lot of opportunities, I think, out there especially as you move into this climate change arena; because as long as you tie your issue to climate change, somehow, then there’s a lot of interest. That’s just one of those things and you kind of follow where the money starts to flow and that’s certainly one of them. I think Mandy Tu mentioned the fire-grazing-management-invasives connection and that could be a hot topic; and I think that could be a very fundable the NSF bio-complexity program because of the interesting interactions of those factors so that could be an opportunity for you as well. The problem with the straight out management, and I don’t mean to diminish the questions -- they are all very good questions; the affordability question is an excellent question -- is I don’t know where you would fund that. Tim, I’d like to hear from you; who is funding your project on yellow starthistle on the management of that? Tim Prather – We’re at the end of our funding on that; it was an ARS Cooperative Agreement and it’s done now. Bruce Maxwell – It’s really hard to get those kinds of things funded unless you tag them on with something else. Tim Prather – Yes it is. We’re trying to incorporate it into an IGERT renewal, which is a program through NSF to train PhD students. Just with my colleagues, I’m having a difficult time. They’re saying, what’s the NSF-level question that you’re asking? I think there are questions that are certainly worthy of the NSF, more basic level, but it’s just a little bit more difficult. So, I would echo that management-related research projects are really difficult to fund and with NRI now, you have to demonstrate that you have a production effect as well. Bruce Maxwell – There are the integrated projects in the NRI. Tim Prather – Yes, but you still have to demonstrate that you have a production component. Bruce Maxwell – You have to have an outreach component in that as well. So that’s actually a good thing. NSF is calling for broader implications, so that’s to your advantage for these kinds of applied questions; but they have to be tied back to what’s the sort of current state of theory that you’re testing or addressing in your proposal as well; but that can be done these are hot topics. The invasion topic is still hot enough, to where I think you can fund those kinds of questions. I think the restoration arena is a very good one and the people who have made hay out of that are people that are again attaching it to the fundamental theories on successional theory and general plant population dynamics; but that’s not hard to do. Again, Erik is welcome to and should get involved with making those ties to those kinds of projects. Liz Galli-Noble – Slade, I just want to hear from you and maybe a couple of the other management people at this table. You just heard there are obstacles to doing applied science. How do the states feel about that? Could the Center start asking states to collaboratively contribute funding so that we could conduct research that would answer very specific invasive plant management questions, that you want answered. Is that a stretch or is that a reality? Slade Franklin – Well, I always think the possibility is there on two levels. If you ask the states -- for instance with Wyoming -- you either have to ask the State of Wyoming or the Weed Pest Council and when you’re asking the Weed Pest Council you’re going to have to specifically apply it to what they need, what the research is going to do and how it’s going to address what they need on the county levels. If you’re going to ask individual states then it’s one of those things that’s going to have to be somehow budgeted or legislatively approved. I think the potential is there and I don’t’ see any reason why it can’t be asked. The worst thing that could happen is the states would tell you no. Liz Galli-Noble – I’d really like to explore that a little bit. It’s frustrating for me to listen to this conversation because the researchers want to do applied science, they just don’t have a mechanism to fund it. Maybe the real problem here is not exploring other avenues to fund it. I just think of the Missouri River Watershed Coalition -- there’s a six-state, regional entity that has a lot of common problems. We could use the MRWC as a pilot and show other states that there are ways better ways of doing business, especially with regard to research.

Slade Franklin – I certainly think it’s worth looking at, Liz. One thing I would say is it’s really stretching your time but you’ve got to get involved almost annually with these individual state weed meetings. For instance, you know we have our Wyoming Bio-Control Steering Committee that’s going to meet at our Weed and Pest Conference in November. It puts you in a better position to ask for money if you’re sitting in on those conversations from the get go; instead of just showing up at one meeting and saying you know can we get money from you. I certainly think the question is worth being asked and I think there are some potential outlets at least in Wyoming. It has to be addressed as we’re helping you at the state level by doing this and showing up and starting the dialogue. Mary McFadzen – I have a question, Slade, in terms of your role on the Steering Committee, do you see yourself playing a role in encouraging and starting that dialogue with people in your state? Slade Franklin – Oh, I certainly can. I’m pretty good at asking the Council for money, for other stuff too, and have been turned down many times too. Yes, I’ll certainly start the dialogue from my end, but I do think that presence from the actual Center is going to make a significant impact on whether they say yea or nay. Building off that question, too. The conservation we’re having maybe needs to be asked at some of these state meetings: what are your needs from the Center. I know you’ve done it in the past but instead of going in and saying this is what the Steering Committee says are issues, ask the question of the people on the ground: what are your needs for the research? Maybe that can be done through a survey too. John Simons – Erik, I thought you mentioned the other day that you were developing a survey for something. Erik Lehnhoff – This was just for the six-state Missouri River Watershed Coalition, to inquire about their EDRR systems and looking into what they’re currently doing and what kind of data base operations they have. Janet Clark – Something that’s come up that I think might be another funding opportunity and issue is energy development -- energy and mining and particularly rehabilitation and restoration. The Tamarisk Coalition has had some success recently in approaching energy companies who want to be developing and who also want to be good citizens and want to be able to talk about their contributions to the environment. They’ve been very open to contributing to salt cedar management and restoration of riparian areas and those kinds of things in big dollars, really big dollars. Perhaps tying the big restoration question to energy development, which I think will only get bigger and bigger, particularly in Montana with this Governor and certainly in the West, might be another thing like tying it to climate change. It might be very timely and there might be a lot of dollars available depending on how the election goes. Slade Franklin – From Wyoming’s perspective we’ve had some good luck with that also. We just had a meeting with three of our bigger producers near Pinedale and basically they told us they’d help us with some funding for educational programs. They haven’t told us how much yet, but their big thing was they wanted it to be a long-term project with more of a regional or state effect, instead of on a county level. They are trying to paint a pretty picture that they’re not just out destroying the ground. John Simons – Associated with that energy development is there enough evidence that they’re doing what they need to do on control of research during development and production, and once they close down or is there a little more needed from that standpoint? LaDonna Carlisle – I think there’s more that’s needed. I know on Jicarilla, we have over 5,000 oil and gas pads and on the ones that have been closed down, they haven’t adequately restored. But there was a new push and they did make changes in the Tribal Code and Ordinance to make a difference; so if they rate it as non-successfully restored then the following year they have to go back and restore it. John Simons – That’s more of a policy change. LaDonna Carlisle – FICMNEW, too, is pushing on the BLM side to do more wash down of equipment and things like that; and right now our agency at Jicarilla, the soil scientist and I are tracking an invasive (puncture vine) that has come in from a neighboring county. It was never in Rio Arriba County and we’re going to try to monitor its spread out from the pad onto the roads. So we’re going to see if that works using a model that we’ve developed along with the BLM. John Simons – Lisa Rew here at MSU is doing a wash study. Is that something that can be expanded to some other states or areas? Bruce Maxwell – It’s been surprising to me how many seeds are on the bottom of vehicles. She’s doing all these military vehicles too – on road and off road, all these different things.

John Simons – Is she also doing different types of washing equipment? Erik Lehnhoff – They compared a couple of commercial units. The one they’ve been using for this recent study belong to Sweet Grass County in Montana. They’re ones that the county uses after fires with the equipment going in and out of fires. It’s a very small unit just a small undercarriage washer. The one that they used on the military bases was a big platform that the trucks and tanks could drive onto to be washed. Yes, they’re definitely testing the efficacy of different washing methods as well as looking at how many seeds vehicles pick up traveling from place to place. Bruce Maxwell – This has been done in California, Idaho, and Montana. LaDonna Carlisle – Washington too, I think. The Forest Service has a policy right before you go onto a fire, certain states vehicles have to be washed down. Jim Olivarez – I don’t know that it’s national. Regional policy implementation varies. The contract specifications in this area for cooperators (Northern Rockies Coordination Group) might be adopted on a national basis for the agency and probably interagency. John Simons – The set up is generally that everything that leads to fire camp has to be cleaned. But actually implementation of when that happens has been variable. How well it’s used, the kind of washer that is brought in, whether somebody just comes in with a couple of portable pressure washers or there’s a big drive on unit -- that varies. To me there is a concern that that should be one of the first pieces of equipment that comes onto the fire. Every day, when those outfits are going out, they go off clean; so that dragging stuff all over the place that’s in the fire. Again that’s more policy type regulations that need to happen, but I’m sure that washing studies can demonstrate that the sooner you wash the better off you are, as well as the type of washing you do. One of the things that I know has been particularly associated with energy development is how much time does it take to wash this equipment? The less time they have to spend on washing, the better off they feel they are. So if you can get a complete wash in a very short period of time, they’re willing to take a look at that, But if you’re out there with a couple of guys with a high pressure washer and it takes you an hour to get a truck cleaned, that’s not going to cut it. Jim Olivarez – There’s another thread that branches off of this and it prompts another question that I have for Slade. It may relate to some potential research. There is within some of our field units in the Northern Region relative to washing vehicles and prevention aspects, we also have an overarching monitoring relative to Environmental Management Systems, which is an international standard. Part of that applies to management and it gets down to: are you doing what you said you were going to do? That is, the monitoring associated with that. So a few units have developed not just what you’re talking about, but how do you track it?, how are you accountable for it.? Does that mean that the supply unit leader is in charge of monitoring? Or is it the transportation group within the fire camp, ground support, who is responsible? And if so, do they track every vehicle? What is the documentation associated with that? Is it also part of your demobilization slip that you have to wash before you “demob” from the fire? It’s not just a fire organization item; it is environmental management for that unit, whenever they have a fire and it provides the documentation and we have internal audits associated with that. So, Slade, I was wondering with the oil and gas lease stuff in Wyoming is EMS or ISO1400 is that a factor for those companies or are you even aware of it? Slade Franklin – No I’m not aware of it. It’s kind of strange; it’s hit or miss with monitoring, specifically concerning invasive weeds. Jim Olivarez – This is a potential avenue with this international green standard and it’s not just fire, but it’s all types of businesses. Stone Container, the cardboard company in Missoula, is a big proponent and actual practitioner of ISO (the international standards for environmental management). Consequently, their products --because they qualify, because they’ve met the standard, because their certified products meet the green standard -- they’re automatically purchased by Home Depot and a few others. There are benefits for doing it. The other side from their standpoint is the standardization of practices and on the safety aspect; their safety record just blossomed. Accidents go way down because of standardization, because of monitoring. In our arena, it’s a matter of effectiveness -- application of standards, effectiveness and we need potential research to help refine that. But ISO1400 there’s several aspects of that. It’s on an international basis and it’s been going for like five or six years. Slade Franklin – I’m not too aware of it. It would be nice to have standard practices with these companies in terms of their monitoring or at least their weed control, because it’s hit or miss with the individual companies. Jim Olivarez – It really comes down to a lot of people agreeing to things, but whether they actually do it. How do we police ourselves? Bruce Maxwell – Are invasives written into the bonding that mining companies pay?

Slade Franklin – In Wyoming, all the contracts will discuss invasive weeds but most of them just talk about contracting with the county weed and pest folks to do the work. We do have some of them who contract with commercial applicators or do it themselves. Those are the ones that we don’t have good monitoring records for, because it’s not the regulatory authority doing the work. Pinedale is probably the prime example where there’s numerous companies running around punching holes in the ground and we have good, bad and ugly. We could show you some of the companies have great weed control along the roads and their pads and you can go not too far down the road and with a different company the invasive weeds are jumping up all over the place. Standardization would be great especially from the regulatory end in Wyoming. Jim Olivarez – I don’t have much experience with the gas and oil. We do have some prevention measures and re-vegetation requirements in the region. We also have hardrock mining and gold mining in our region and relative to weed treatments and/or re-vegetation, they’re pretty receptive to that and money hasn’t been too much of an issue. But they have their own objectives; for example, at some of the leach piles, they don’t really care what you plant. If it’s effective for weeds that fine; if it’s effective for re-vegetation that’s fine. Their main objective is that it sucks the water out of those piles, so it doesn’t drain down and arsenic isn’t translocated. They’ll do it, they’ll come up with the money as long as they’re very focused objective is met. So we’ve made headway with that, but we don’t have the same type of situation with gas and oil leases. Slade Franklin - I had a company five years ago that contracted with a commercial applicator and they were just paying his bills; they weren’t following up on what he was doing, what-so-ever. Finally one day they got a bill that was so astronomically high they said what’s going on here and brought us the bill. The guy claimed to be spraying yellow starthistle in the middle of Wyoming. We all jumped up and were worried that we had yellow starthistle and when we actually went out to see what was going on the guy was spraying yellow clover and calling it yellow starthistle. We have these things written into our programs but standardization in terms of the regulatory arm is where we’re lacking. Mandy Tu – It sounds to me like there’s definitely this difference between regulatory and voluntary measures and it’s something the Conservancy has been working on, not specifically at all with gas and mining types of projects, but more with forestry products and also how can we better insert invasives into working with the nursery industry. There’s always going to be a part that’s not going to be regulated, it has to be voluntary. And then you always have the folks who don’t follow through. Now we’re at the stage of either doing regulatory or looking into market incentives programs. Things like that to push individual industries to be more responsible as far as where invasives come in. John Simons – Well, we’ve done this for about an hour and a half now. A summary of our key points is: tying things to climate change and bio-complexity, energy development, restoration and succession, and fire/climate/invasives on a regional basis. Those are some things that we could focus on and Erik can get the Center involved in, and like we talked about yesterday, he’s been doing some of the upfront work already --where you do some of the coordination, you do the outreach portion of it, you do a portion of that research tied in with whoever the primary researchers are. I think that has some real opportunities. Let’s take a 15 minute break.

15-MINUTE BREAK During the break Jim Olivarez showed a new DVD – Defending Favorite Places

Jim Olivarez – A couple of years ago there was a national effort to promote awareness through a DVD associated with noxious weed control and road maintenance. This is the next iteration of that. This is a new product and this is a draft copy of a DVD relative to invasive species management and the different factions of hunting and fishing organizations throughout the country. So this is not just weeds, it’s all taxa of invasive species, but it’s highlighting the issue of invasives which includes noxious weeds. Different scenes are shown from across the nation as well as different taxa and a lot of groups are involved with this and sponsored it, including the Center. Janet Clark – The production of this was funded by National Fish & Wildlife Foundation, PTI grant. Wildlife Forever wrote the PTI grant and CIPM assisted Wildlife Forever in writing that PTI grant. We were partners in submitting this grant to produce this video. The CIPM logo will be on this in the end and we got $5,000 from this PTI grant for our assistance in doing this. We thought at one time that we would have a chance to review it as part of it but apparently not. Jim Olivarez – Our executive producer is Mike Ielmini our national invasives guy. Literal contributions from the Elk Foundation and the Turkey Federation those all contributed to the production, USDA film crews and production crews actually took the footages. A week or two ago they debuted this in New York at the National Association of Fish & Game agencies. It was a big hit. Mike has recently been interviewed by Outdoor Life. Different wildlife promotion groups are anxious to get final copies.

3. SC Member Updates The group chose to skip this agenda item.

4. Other Business Where does CIPM go from here? Steering Committee Feedback Continued John Simons – As far as the research discussion that we had this morning what we’ll do is those items will just be in the minutes and when those come out please review those minutes and add to that or pick those things out that you feel are the most important research items that the Center needs to be focusing on and collaborating on and we’ll go on from that.

2008 Strategic Plan – See Attachments T and U. John Simons - The next thing we want to go through is the 2008 Strategic Plan. Liz Galli-Noble – You also have a copy of the 2007 Plan, just in case you want to do a comparison of the two. John Simons – Probably nothing needs to be changed on the mission. On the vision there’s a question. Do we need to keep it? A vision sometimes is there and sometimes it’s not. It’s kind of up to the committee and if we feel a vision statement is important we can continue with that. Any comments on that? Slade Franklin – I’d say you could probably just drop it and just go off your strategic goals and objectives. Tim Prather – I would agree it’s better to be able to track your goals and see whether or not you’re meeting your goals and objectives rather than reciting a vision statement every time you meet. John Simons – Very well, any other comments? Let’s just drop the vision statement and go on to strategic goals. Liz Galli-Noble – Pretty much the strategic goals and objectives are quite similar. I’m very happy with the basic goals and objectives that the Center has had in the past. I just added a few or I just changed some of the wording. Mandy Tu – Are you just looking at the 2008 Plan? John Simons – Yes we are. Mandy Tu – It’s been a while since I looked at the more detailed one, but my one overall comment for all of these strategic goals and objectives is that I think each item needs to be a little more specific, as far as: how can we tell if we’ve been successful or not? For example, “promote broad scale and comprehensive research,” what does that mean? John Simons – There needs to be a measure of accountability in the statement. Mary McFadzen – Shouldn’t the objectives each address specific goals? Janet Clark – The way this worked previously there were four objectives and for each of those objectives there outputs and outcomes were listed, and how we were specifically meeting each of those objectives, so that it could be measured and checked off the list. So I don’t know if you still want to go with that system or do a new system and for each of the objectives I think it related to strategic goals in some specific way. Liz Galli-Noble – I think we can do that as a staff – get very specific about our outputs and outcomes and milestones; but for the Steering Committee, I would prefer that we focus on the big picture – CIPM’s goals and objectives. I agree that there should be measurability and accountability and staff can build that into our plan for Steering Committee review in the near future. For now, we need to get general program guidance from the Committee. Mandy Tu – My only other general comment then is a lot of these objectives seem sort of more like activities or they’re all large things by themselves. Is there some way that we can tie these objectives to actually what kind of change or what kind of things or actual management is being done on the ground? I think that would be helpful.

John Simons – The second goal where we talked about comprehensive research investigations that probably ties in to most of what we already discussed this morning and kind of develop out of that. Goal #5: adding “status, control and management” clarifies that goal a little bit there. Goal #6: adding “community-based invasive species management efforts and in particular, cooperative weed management areas,” I think, that just broadens and increases that a little bit. Any other comments on the goals? Do we need to add any more to it or take any more away? Slade Franklin – Just one little verbiage change on goal #5. You can probably remove the word “control,” because control is actually a subcomponent of management; it falls within management. So you could just say management rather than control and management. John Simons – Okay. Does the “community-based invasive species management” get at the watershed level? Does “community-based” tie to the watershed level of management? LaDonna Carlisle – Yes and no, because, in the state of New Mexico, our cooperative weed management areas are by county and others are by watershed; so it depends. Janet Clark – I think in this case when we’re talking “community-based” it has to do with the human factor in this effort. Slade Franklin – Do you know if community would include agency also? Janet Clark – Well, maybe not. Liz Galli-Noble – The Strategic Plan used to say just “cooperative weed management areas.” I was trying to make it sound broader in focus, because CIPM used to do a lot of work with CWMAs. I just wanted to broaden the language to say our focus could be at the county level, it could be at the city level, or it could be at the watershed level. I wanted it to be broader -- not just cooperative weed management areas. Tim Koopmann – Could we have “community-based and watershed scale?” Bruce Maxwell – I think there’s confusion with the term “community.” I think watershed and landscape based would cover it. Slade Franklin – What if you just said “community and agency based.” The watershed is included with your weed management areas or it can be. I’m just not sure what you’re defining with community. It sound like you meant for it to be all-inclusive, but when you see that cooperative weed management is there and then you see community, it leans towards private landowners, which may be what you’re trying to hit on. Tim Prather – From my standpoint it seems like it’s trying to get at the human element and I don’t know that community is the best way to say that because it gets you at even a smaller scale rather than a larger scale. Slade Franklin – Why don’t you just knock off “community-based.” John Simons – Bruce, why don’t you say again what you just mentioned a minute ago, it might have been a little bit quiet for those on the phone to hear it. Bruce Maxwell – I just said the “resiliency of watershed and landscape based.” I was trying to add the two terms that would cover what I thought you were after. Landscape is usually that inclusive of going over political boundaries those kinds of things. I don’t know if it includes the community aspect but I would think cooperative weed management areas says something about the community. I’m asking a question I don’t know what people’s impressions are. I was just trying to get away from community, because all kinds of people could interpret that as a fairly small area -- a plant community versus a human community, which could be any group of commonly thinking people. Janet Clark – This is trying to get at being supportive of these kinds of grassroots-led efforts in areas that may be a town, it may be a watershed, it may be the city park, it may be any of those. We want to be supportive of those human efforts to deal with invasive plants, which is quite different. Maybe that’s not a statement that the Center wants to continue to make. Bruce Maxwell – Maybe it clarified it in the wrong direction totally. Janet Clark – We put in a social element in there.

Bruce Maxwell – Why not just say “resiliency of cooperative weed management efforts” or something. In other words, erase “community-based invasive species management efforts and in particular.” Just go right to “resiliency of cooperative weed management efforts.” John Simons – That’s what the original one was. Bruce Maxwell – Oh, that’s what the original one said. Liz Galli-Noble – I made the change in this language. The reason I made the change is because -- as Janet just said -- our website gives lots of people information including city groups, towns, counties and I don’t want to be restricted to cooperative weed management areas. I want to say we serve lots of different people. It seems to me that the reason CWMAs were highlighted is because we had a CWMA granting program. I don’t want to drop them; I just don’t think that they’re our ultimate focus. Connie Bollinger – Looking at objective 5 below that uses some of the same language. So, is this actually just part of an objective to serve as a resource center and by saying “increase the efficiency, effectiveness and resiliency” aren’t we just sort of trying to generalize in a larger way from Objective 5? In other words, does this have to be a strategic goal? Or is it meant to say, we have “increasing opportunities for scientists and natural resources managers” and then again we are “increasing the dissemination of information for scientists, natural resource manager, educators and policy makers.” So are we trying to just have some kind of strategic goal that expands the opportunities we’re providing to the concerned citizens? Maybe the more specific language should stay in the objectives. Tim Koopmann – For the goal, perhaps if we use the word “comprehensive” and landscape scale would that be all encompassing? Mary McFadzen – We’re trying to address the audience in this statement because we address all our primary audiences above in these other strategic goals. Janet Clark – So what if it said “increase the efficiency, effectiveness, and resiliency of (and these are lower case) cooperative invasive plant management efforts” and then it’s not using that phrase upper case or lower case cooperative weed management area. Melissa Brown – Of course, you want to identify the audience. You can say, “increase the efficiency, effectiveness, and resiliency of invasive species management efforts by many groups or across different political boundaries” or if you know specify who those groups are that you’re trying to identify, then you’re doing that in Objective 5. Connie Bollinger – Well, if you’re talking about a group you’re serving, up above you’ve got natural resource managers, scientists, educators, policy makers, so really isn’t this group more like concerned citizens or landowners or the general public. I think what we need to do is name the group we’re aiming at here. I don’t think this is about the specific activity that’s covered below; I think it’s more about what is this group we’re trying to identify here and whose efficiency, effectiveness, and resiliency are we trying to increase but those words don’t attach to a group they attach to efforts. Liz Galli-Noble – The original language was getting at the grant program and how we were bolstering those efforts by providing funding and that’s great but we don’t have the grant program any more. Maybe efficiency, effectiveness, and resiliency aren’t the exact right words, but I still like the spirit of what’s being said. We serve landowners, concerned citizens we do that as well. We do lots of things, even if it’s indirectly; we serve those different groups and I also agree with Janet that there are grassroots efforts that we support. Connie Bollinger – Well then is that the strategic goal -- to serve. Erik Lehnhoff – Can we just add that language onto the original language so “CWMAs, concerned citizens, grassroots groups, landowners, etc.” John Simons – That’s where we’re trying to go, to identify those groups of people. Let’s just put it in there, somebody wordsmith it after “the landowners and concerned citizen groups…”. Liz Galli-Noble – Is everyone uncomfortable with that? No one objected.

John Simons – Objective #2 -- I don’t know how much it changed. That’s one of the things we had a lot of discussion about and we want to certainly make happen. #3 that’s one of the things that we have certainly been making grow. #4: one question is this promoting existing professional certification or study aids or exactly what was going to be an outcome of this? Liz Galli-Noble – We do trainings and workshops. We produce publications; what are some of the other things you’ve done in the past? It’s a keystone of our products and programs. Mary McFadzen – I’d like to add some language it’s also professional development opportunities: the online course, the workshops, the DOD project we’re proposing, the web seminar series; but it’s also the dissemination of information and sometimes that’s combined and sometimes it’s totally separate types of media to get that information out there. I don’t look at professional development opportunity as sending somebody a pdf of some research results; I think of that more in terms of dissemination of information. John Simons – Did you know that NAWMA has a professional certification testing type system? Are you going to try to tie anything in to that? Mary McFadzen – No we’re not doing anything at that level right now. We had discussion about that early on with the online learning program but it really didn’t go anywhere for a host of other reasons. We don’t need to waste time talking about, but perhaps we could consider other opportunities, but I’m not sure yet if that’s something that we can do with the products that we’re creating. I don’t know it’s a discussion with NAWMA. There are other types of certifications too. John Simons – That was just one I thought of off the top of my head. SRM has other professional certifications and I didn’t know if this would help people prepare for those special certifications or not. Mary McFadzen – I need to review my notes on that whole discussion that we had three years ago about NAWMA and maybe it’s something to reconsider for future opportunities, like our online opportunities if NAWMA would accept somebody attending our web seminar series could be used toward accreditation for that certification. John Simons – I don’t even know how popular that certification process has been with NAWMA. Mary McFadzen – I don’t either. Liz Galli-Noble – So you’re saying that’s something potentially we could be doing? John Simons – That was my question, would this tie into that as a potential? #5: we already talked about that a little bit. The changes look fine to me on that one. Any comments? Liz Galli-Noble – It used to say “nationally”. Johns Simons – We need to bring that down to regional. Janet Clark – Does it have to say that? Several years ago, we had a conversation about our geographic area. At one time we were very much in the West and it said that in all our documents. I think it was Jennifer Vollmer who said, why don’t we take that off just in case there are opportunities to do something bigger. Mary McFadzen – I think that’s especially important with any kind of online professional opportunities because I’ve had people from the eastern U.S. and eastern Canada taking the online course. It wasn’t restricted. Janet Clark – But that was then and this is now. There may be reasons to pull the focus back in. You may want to consciously do that, but I’m just saying in the past, it was that way; and we just whacked off the geographical limitations. But again, you may want to insert those back in and be more focused. Tim Prather – Even though we had people from the east participate in that training, the examples were western and I think people need to understand that they could have the opportunity to participate in a program but that it would have a western focus. Mary McFadzen – Well, that was clear in the syllabus also when I advertised it; so they came regardless.

Tim Prather – I guess what I’m saying is even thought you get people nationally and there may be opportunities nationally, really this is a western focused Center. I think we need to acknowledge that and keep that kind of language in here. Slade Franklin – I agree with keeping that western focus. But looking at that #5 specifically -- and regarding things like the Missouri River Watershed Coalition, where we’re trying to provide information back East, on the Hill -- there are points where the information is going to go beyond just the western region, at least on the resource end of things. So I’m wondering if at least on that one objective, it may be better just deleting “western region and nationally,” entirely. Janet Clark – We’ve been sort of mentoring other centers on this issue in particular. We’re seen as the leader, so working with centers in the Midwest and the East. Slade Franklin – I certainly think there are other places in the objectives where a western focus is pretty strongly emphasized. I’m just wondering with the resource portion of it, there is the potential for other agencies or people to build off of what the Center’s resources. Mary McFadzen – Also, our mission states it’s western North America. John Simons – Looking at just #5, the information on that particular objective could have western examples, but that information can apply anywhere. It wouldn’t apply just in the West. It can be applied to anywhere in the country because it’s basically organization and management or development of weed management areas. Tim Prather – So you’re going to serve as a resource center for information related to management in the southeast? John Simons – I guess, how I’m reading this thing is that it’s a how to basically build weed management areas and the steps for building weed management areas are basically the same regardless of whatever regional of the country you’re in. You’re going to go through the same basic steps to develop a weed management area or a weed management group. Tim Prather – Or individual landowners or conservation groups that are outside of weed management areas. John Simons – The basic principles will apply no matter where you are. Janet Clark – It’s more about organization dynamics than biology or ecosystems or anything else. It’s about marketing, it’s about social interactions, it’s about the organizational dynamics; and we have developed that information and used that information in the West. But what we’re finding is that the Midwest, the Southeast and the New England states are drawing on that information and finding it useful; not that we’re creating information for Connecticut. It’s just the stuff we’re making for the West is widely applicable all over the country because it’s not ecosystem based or species based. Tim Prather – When you talk about a resource center maybe, that’s where it needs to be specified that you’re not dealing with a management technique. You’re dealing with organizations of groups and dynamics within groups and other factors related to the human side of things. Maybe that’s what it needs to be billed as instead of just a general resource center. Erik Lehnhoff – Maybe it should say, instead of a resource center, something like provide assistance or information on forming and managing locally-led grassroots groups. Tim Prather – Would that be accurate to what you’re trying to do? When I first read it, that’s not what I got. Liz Galli-Noble – We may need clarification here. If you look at the original objective, what it says is to serve as a resource center for cooperative weed management areas nationally. I personally think we should be a resource center for western activities and groups, and I have no problem if our efforts or products are used nationally. But I don’t want a person in Massachusetts calling me asking me if we can develop a product for a watershed in Massachusetts, when we don’t have in-house expertise to do that. That was what I was trying to get at here. I agree with Tim that we can’t be everything to everyone. It’s great that people use our products in other regions but I don’t necessarily think that they should feel that we’re a specific resource for their region. There are centers in their region that we collaborate with on a national level. I think we need to be focusing a lot more in the Southwest and some other areas within our own region. John Simons – I guess I don’t want us to look like we’re trying to be the nations center for all of this because there are other centers around the country and we’re trying, as we already heard earlier yesterday, to get those four or five centers to develop together and

be supported together. We can help them but we don’t want to look like we’re trying to be the one that’s in front of everybody else. Slade Franklin – I guess my question is then is the resource then the organizational material for the western region to organize this stuff or is resource everything under the sun that the Center can offer? Janet Clark – The grants program was part of it but I think even more so I was thinking of our website as being a resource center or our staff as being resources that people could call and say what about this you know anyone in Nebraska who’s doing this. I was thinking very, very broadly not of a specific thing that the whole Center all that we do is something that people can use and that anyone around the country could use it can use the website. Slade Franklin – Could we just say, “serve as a western resource center,” and that’s not defining it necessarily as only going to the western region, but it’s defining it that it’s used in the western region’s information. Tim Prather – I think that sounds good. John Simons – That sounds fine. Slade Franklin – That defines where the information is coming from, but still allows it to be used nationally. John Simons – I think that’ll work out. Tim Koopmann – Anybody have any objection to cutting the comma and instead of using the abbreviated “etc.” say “and others”? Connie Bollinger – I would just eliminate the etc. altogether because when you have such as you’re already pointing out that you’re just going to name some examples and if you’re naming some examples you don’t want to say etc. because that’s endless. Liz Galli-Noble – Since this is prompting discussion, are we missing anybody in there or are we being too specific? Connie Bollinger – It’s just giving some examples, which is fine. I don’t think we have to nail every single possibility down in this item. Tim Koopmann – You’re right when you say such as you don’t need the other. John Simons – The entities you have listed here I think covers most of the possibilities. Connie Bollinger – Again this is just examples it’s not meant to be exhaustive or exclusive or anything. Tim Koopmann – So just say “conservation districts and landowners” and then end it. John Simons – #6 is a new one. I made a note off to the side. Do we have enough current economic information or do we need some more? Do we need a little research on current economics? Janet Clark – There’s a huge need for that. Slade Franklin – I was going to say we have economic data but it’s really out of date. Janet Clark – At the national, state, regional levels there’s a huge need for that, which is why the economic research service instituted a grants program for invasives and economics. But they don’t get a lot of proposals or a lot of results that are very applicable; and everyone finds it hard, the biologists have a hard time, working with the economists. There’s a huge need. Tim Prather – I’m just wondering if we’re premature on this one in terms of educate. We have terms like facilitate, collaborate and communicate and I’m wondering if we need to be looking at this in terms of encouraging collaborations to develop this kind of information, rather than educating. John Simons – That sound reasonable.

Tim Prather – To me one of the better resources we have right now is the book that you were involved in putting together on the impacts of invasive plants -- Celestine was one of the editors. So beyond that there are individual works out there that deal with this, but I don’t know that they’ve been pulled together to where we could use them for education, yet. Liz Galli-Noble – What word would you suggest to replace educate? Tim Prather – I’m just wondering if we need to collaborate and develop information on environmental and economic impacts – “collaborate to develop… .” We had similar language in #2 “organize, support and participate” we might want to use similar language here. Liz Galli-Noble – Can we leave “educate” in, if we just say, “collaborate, develop information and educate concerned citizens.” I understand what you want to say on development is it “for concerned citizens;” is it okay to leave that in? Or should it be broader than that? Tim Prather – To me these are most effective at a policy level. So “concerned parties” may not be the target you really want to go for. John Simons – That would be correct because you want to see policy change because of the environmental and economic impact. Tim Prather – Really it’s policy makers at a number of levels. The folks that I work with even at a county level, they look for this kind of information, so that they can go to their county commissioners and make their case for wide support to have these programs. So it’s a local, state, and federal need. John Simons - #7 Liz Galli-Noble – I was trying to get to the fact that we are asked to advise, to sit on committees, to sit on boards -- I’m trying to capture that service. I don’t mind if people want to drop these; I’m throwing out ideas for your consideration. Slade Franklin – Liz, I like the idea of#7. I’m curious, will that cause any conflict being that you have central funding. When I look at “advisory capacity,” I assume that won’t be a lobbying issue. Liz Galli-Noble – No, it won’t be and the Missouri River Watershed Coalition as a good example. We’ve been asked by the MRWC to help them find funding. I’m cannot use our appropriation funding (our federal grant) to do that, instead, we are using the MRWC’s money to seek additional funding. I know it might be confusing, so lets wordsmith the language in the objective if it needs to be clarified. I’m trying to be capture that we are the “go to” people in a lot of capacities for these types of things. Tim Prather – You could just strike “for funding” and make it implicit. Jim Olivarez – I’m curious about how does that fit with some of the past discussions we’ve had relative to everybody wants you be on everything and how you narrow that down in this context. Liz Galli-Noble – I’ll use the Missouri River Watershed Coalition because that’s really what I was thinking specifically of in this case. When they asked us to facilitate, part of that facilitation was to address issues such as new funding opportunities. Janet is the person who typically provides that insight while working with their funding workgroup. You’re right, Jim, we can’t be everything for everyone, but I think this is a common role that we have played for a long time. Janet Clark – We get calls all the time or are asked to give presentations all the time about that issue. The grants web page on our website is consistently one of the most accessed pages. So just providing that updated website is serving that purpose to a great extent. Yes, we get asked to help out in many ways all the time. Slade Franklin - So I guess if I’m reading or understanding from you guys it’s not necessarily asking for money but more or less telling people what funding opportunities are there. Liz Galli-Noble – Yes, we help others in an advisory capacity. I was trying to capture that idea and perhaps this needs to be edited some to get that point across. Tim Prather – My sense is that it could be “Serve in an advisory capacity for the continued western-regional needs to support research and management of invasive plants.”

Janet Clark – Is this quite different than#1? Tim Prather – I think it is. Slade Franklin – Yes. Connie Bollinger – It’s mainly about helping people find funding. Telling people where they can get funding. It’s mainly about funding. This is the funding objective. Several people disagreed. Liz Galli-Noble – We serve in an advisory capacity; I’m not talking about other parts of the program. A lot of efforts within our program are quite specific, but we’re also asked in an advisory capacity to provide ways of linking people with other people. I thought “advisory capacity” captured it; but maybe it doesn’t. Tim Prather – I think it does. John Simons – It’s an advisory capacity but maybe you need to identify some of the examples of who you are advising. Janet Clark – It can’t be to everyone. Connie Bollinger – You have to set some limitations on it. Janet Clark – So, Liz, is what you’re trying to get at here is we answer the phone and emails all day long and respond to requests -- all of us, all the time -- about all kinds of things funding, research, management, who to call, where. So was the point of this to cover that kind of broad response to requests concept? Liz Galli-Noble – Yes. There is a base level of services provided by the Center that are never going to be directly funded. Technical advisory duties are a good example of that. If it’s confusing, we can drop it, but that’s what I was trying to get at. I’m trying to build in justification for the funded parts of our program and the non-funded parts of our program. Janet Clark – The Tamarisk Coalition, the GYCC advisory council and many others. Connie Bollinger – Or do you need to add some kind of a clause establishing some kind of limitations or as feasible or as possible or something to make it not totally open ended. It sounds more like we’re trying to say that we provide various kinds of advice and serve in an advisory capacity, but we want to establish our need to set our own limits on this. The way it’s being approached now in this sentence as it stands is the limitations are trying to be set by saying “western-regional needs” and then naming four issues. Maybe you need to just say something broader in terms of “an advisory capacity to various organizations on a range of invasive species issues when possible or when feasible” or something to that extent. Maybe we want to establish our own right to set the limits, rather than try to specify what we will advise about or to whom. Really I think it’s just to say, well we provide lots of advice, but what we want to say is we can provide all kinds of advice but we’re not going to be everything to everyone. So how do we say that in a way that’s consistent with the rest of this? Slade Franklin – I agree with what Tim said but maybe with #7 taking that “for funding” out because funding can be assumed in there. Then put “serve when practical in an advisory capacity for continued western-regional needs for research, management, and control of invasive plants.” Connie Bollinger – I like the word “practical”. Slade Franklin – I think “needs” covers that funding, because funding is going to be one of the needs to do this. Connie Bollinger – “for continued western-regional needs as practical or when practical”. Slade Franklin – “Serve when practical in an advisory capacity for continued western-regional needs for research, management, and control of invasive plants.”

Tim Prather – I think that sounds good. The one amendment I would make and this would pick up on something that Earl said earlier is we don’t need “management and control” just end at “management” and that would be throughout this document. Management includes control already, so we don’t need to specify it separately. Liz Galli-Noble – How about the last objective, comments? Tim Prather – What I’m wondering is if you can move that language into #7. John Simons – I guess that’s a real possibility. Slade Franklin – If you do that I would say “research, policy and management” because I do think policy needs to be spelled out. Tim Prather – I think so, too, because you’re dealing in an advisory capacity in both of those, right? Providing a voice isn’t it, you are trying influence in an advisory capacity and I think that we could put those in together. John Simons – The Center can be in an advisory capacity either paid or not paid. Liz Galli-Noble – That’s certainly where we are now. I’d love it if people paid us but I think the reality is there will always be entities who just don’t have the ability to pay. The way I saw #8 was where we do function in the national arena; we provide the voice for the western region; we’re not the only western voice but we are a western-focused center that knows what’s going on in our region. So, I didn’t see #7 and #8 as being the same because the advisory capacity I thought was a much closer to home, then when we go to DC or to national conferences, the Center is seen as a western voice and our website is also a go to place for what is happening in the West. So, I’m not seeing those two things as exactly the same, but maybe I’m misinterpreting what people are saying. Slade Franklin – Liz, that’s fine if you want to keep that separate; I’m okay with that. But would you also be providing a voice in the policy arena on the state or county levels? Or is it just all going to be national? Would you provide assistance for the states on policy issues? Liz Galli-Noble – Yes, CIPM does provide those services as well. John Simons – Keep #8 by itself and add “policy” to #7? Tim Prather – I think he’s saying not just national policy but also state policy. Slade Franklin – I was trying to define if you guys would include those kinds of policy arenas also. Janet Clark – Take out “national” and leave “policy arena” Tim Prather – I would add “state” I wouldn’t take out “national.” Slade Franklin – I guess if we keep #8 separate, which I’m all for doing, I keep on reading this first part “western regional invasive plant entities,” do you mean management entities? Tim Prather – To me it’s, “Provide a western perspective on invasive plant management at state and national policy arenas.” Janet Clark – Could we say, “issues” instead of “entities” so it doesn’t sound like we’re representing Cal-IPC or the Western Weed Coordinating Committee or the Colorado Department of Agriculture. We’re representing the western perspective on issues rather than a voice for those entities; so that nobody gets their back up about us. Tim Prather – I think that’s fine. Liz Galli-Noble – I am hearing to “Provide a perspective for western-regional plant issues at the state and national policy levels.” Tim Prather – Sure, I think that’s great. Slade Franklin – That sounds good. Janet Clark – I still like “provide a voice.” I think that it’s much clearer than a perspective of a voice.

Connie Bollinger – I like voice better. Tim Prather – I think it sounds weaker actually. A voice - crying in the wilderness. I think perspective sounds better. Liz Galli-Noble – With voice or perspective does anyone else have any comments? Connie Bollinger – I thought a voice is what we were talking about actually. You’re going to go places and say things. Slade Franklin – How about just “Provide a western-regional perspective on invasive plant management at the national and state policy level.” Melissa Brown – I suppose either word works -- voice or perspective. Connie Bollinger – It gets the point across because what you are going to voice is your point of view, which is your perspective, so I suppose either way. Janet Clark – We’ll work it out and get back to you on that. Liz Galli-Noble -- So in general, are people pretty comfortable with this? Did we miss anything? Tim Prather – I would have a couple of things that we went by a little bit quickly. On #2, I don’t quite understand why “using CIPM’s in-house expertise whenever possible” needs to be explicitly stated. What’s there before includes it. I understand Bruce’s discussion from yesterday and I’d agree with him on that, that you’ve got to have some funds coming in, but my sense is that it would include it. This is almost sounding like you’re trying to exclude others. It says use this whenever possible unless we need to get somebody else. That’s the way that reads. So I would suggest that as a possible change. Liz Galli-Noble – Tim, I just want to comment on that so probably like taping CIPMs in-house expertise whenever possible. I didn’t mean just Erik, I meant all the other expertise we have, too. But I agree with you that we don’t need the specificity in the statement. However, I want to be clear that we need to tap CIPM staff whenever possible, like our grant writer/technical editor, and not depend on others to do that work; so it’s not just the research side of it. It’s also the organization side and the outreach side as well, so just to be clear I wasn’t talking about just the research side. Tim Prather – It rings pretty clear to me, when you say organize, support and participate. Those are pretty strong words in terms of this is going to be something that CIPM has a leadership role in. What else did I have? In terms of serving as a respected, science-based information clearinghouse and data repository, to me one of the strengths that CIPM has had in the past is development of these materials, when we have partnered together and put together some outstanding products that would not have been produced otherwise. I think that we want to be sure that we’re including that in that objective because the service as a respected, science-based clearinghouse is a more of a passive role and in the age of Google being a data repository is not as big of a deal any more; but you still do provide as a hub for invasive species information, but also that we need to include development. Jim Olivarez – I agree. Slade Franklin – Yes, I do too. I don’t see anywhere that has been included on the objectives. Tim Prather – That’s all I saw. Connie Bollinger – I just have one more comment going back to #2. I don’t see much difference between interactive and collaborative. I think collaboration assumes interaction. I’d rather see “participate in collaborative research opportunities” because if you’re collaborating are you not interacting? Tim Prather – Yes, I think that’s right. Tim Koopmann – That would be great. John Simons – Okay, we will make that change. Liz Galli-Noble - Tim just to be clear about what you said in#3. I should just add that we’re also involved in the development of products, and then strike “data repository” and just have “and as a hub” correct? Is that correct?

Tim Koopmann – Yes. Liz Galli-Noble – Then I’m going to move on. John Simons – Any more comments, questions or concerns on the Strategic Plan? Liz Galli-Noble – I would make a request. With all the things that we’ve talked about today and how quickly it’s been provided to you, I would ask that as you review this in the next few months and other ideas strike you, please share those with me and perhaps we can revisit this a little at a future meeting. I’m very new to this group and CIPM processes. I threw out some ideas for your consideration and I’d love to get more feedback once you have had time to reflect on it. We will have a more complete Strategic Plan for your review by the next Steering Committee meeting. Decision: Attachment V is the edited and preliminary-approved version of the 2008-2009 CIPM Strategic Plan. Addition edits maybe made by Steering Committee members or CIPM staff at future meetings.

5. Schedule Spring 2009 Steering Committee Meeting (date, time, location) John Simons – We have about half an hour and we have just a couple of things that I think we need to try to finish up here. I guess our consensus was to do one fall meeting in Bozeman and then do conference calls as needed. So do we want to try to schedule a time for a spring conference call? Liz Galli-Noble – Are there any times that are particularly bad for people? Slade Franklin – I was going to say, just from my perspective, spring is usually chaotic. The sooner we pick a day the better; it helps me with planning everything else. I would prefer that we just picked a day today. Tim Prather – From my standpoint it really helps if it’s after the middle of March. And for other folks it’s better to do it before field season starts -- the end of April maybe. Does that sound like it jives with the views of other folks? Liz Galli-Noble – So does that mean if we want to do one in March, it would be the end of March. Janet Clark – Yes, the fourth week. Tim Prather – If you look at the last week in March that might be a good time. Liz Galli-Noble – Any particular days that are better for the group -- mid-week? LaDonna Carlisle – I have to check on FICMNEW because we have our meeting during that last week usually and it’s usually on a Wednesday; and I always have a meeting on the third Tuesday. Tim Koopmann – I always have a staff phone call Thursday morning from 9:00 a.m. to whenever. Liz Galli-Noble – So we can’t do it Monday morning, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. Janet Clark – Friday morning? LaDonna Carlisle – We could also do it Monday afternoon. Slade Franklin – The afternoon is fine. Liz Galli-Noble – What’s that date, Janet? Janet Clark – Either the 23rd or the 30th of March - the 23rd is the fourth week of March and the 30th there are five weeks in March; so it’s either the 23rd or the 30th of March. Those are both Mondays. Liz Galli-Noble – Monday, March 23rd or Monday, March 30th.

The vote on the dates was even. Liz Galli-Noble – Let’s go with the 30th of March and I’m going to give everybody about a week to get back to me if they have a major conflict with that date. Otherwise, we’re going to meet on March 30, 2009. John Simons – That’ll be a conference call at 2:00 p.m. Liz Galli-Noble – Let’s say 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. preferable, but schedule out for sure 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. to give us a few extra minutes. Decision: The next Steering Committee meeting will be via conference call and held from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Monday, March 30, 2009 (Mountain Time). John Simons – The other thing that we’d like to do is for the Steering Committee to visit with Bruce Maxwell to do an evaluation and help him with his supervisory duties. Mary McFadzen – Are we going to address #2 - Where do we go from here? Steering Committee Feedback, today? Or are we just skipping it? John Simons – I thought that was being covered in the strategic plan. Mary McFadzen – How about potential funding opportunities, was that adequately addressed? Liz Galli-Noble – No, but there’s no time today to do that. LaDonna Carlisle – I thought it was covered earlier, because Bruce had brought up a lot of things when we were discussing all the criteria that we were looking at, saying this could qualify for an NSF grant, this could qualify for such and such a grant. So, I thought we had covered that. Liz Galli-Noble – Again, I would ask the Committee members to contact us if there’s a new funding opportunity that we should be aware of. That all does not have to be covered during our formal meetings. Mary McFadzen – I’d also like to ask all these agencies folks to consider, what kinds of CIPM services could your agencies use? If you’re not clear on our services, give me a call? When we get our website up, it’ll be more clear in terms of what we actually offer and we can provide one-pagers on those services also. Liz Galli-Noble – Before everybody leaves, I want to ask this group if we should try to pick a fall time to meet right now? Does September and October work for everyone? I know a couple of members of the Science Advisory Council have also said that they’re interested in participating in a meeting with this group. LaDonna Carlisle – Right now this is perfect because a lot of us Feds have to worry about closing out for the year. If you put it earlier in September, I know that I cannot come, for sure. Tim Prather – Liz, I think this time frame is a good one. I wanted to talk to you about getting the Science Advisory Council together anyway and we can talk with them about this. I think it would be great to have a phone conference meeting with that group and then look at getting together jointly next fall with the Steering Committee as a second meeting. John Simons – How about the first or second week of October? On the second week Monday is a holiday. Liz Galli-Noble – Lars Anderson called me the other day and he was actually going to try to come to this meeting because he was interested. But at the last minute he couldn’t make it. He’s on the Science Advisory Council for people who don’t know that and he said that for him, and I’m just throwing this out I’m not saying it should dictate anything, the third week of October was good for him because Cal-IPC has a lot of conflicts earlier in October. The other thing that he suggested -- and I was wondering how the group felt about that too -- we subsidize some people to travel to this meeting and I was wondering if it might be helpful to people who are on limited budgets if we had this meeting in conjunction with another major meeting. Lars suggested that perhaps we could do it in conjunction with the WWCC meeting which is in December. I just throw that out as an idea. Slade Franklin – If you are able to do it on top of another meeting, especially ones that I’m involved in, I would rather pay for my travel out of my personal budget, my state budget. WWCC is great, although this year I don’t know how it’s going to work out with

us adding on two more meetings. For next year that’s a possibility, but there are maybe some other opportunities out there to tie onto, as well. Liz Galli-Noble – For sure it would be this year, Slade, just to be clear. He just used it as an example. Slade Franklin – I guess I was just saying I don’t know after this year how we’re going to be working WWCC with this additional group. Liz Galli-Noble – Thanks Slade. So it sounded like October was the best month for most of you. John Simons – The third week of October is fine. LaDonna Carlisle – I have a meeting every third week of October on Tuesday. That’s just a standard and I cannot miss it. That’s a requirement for me. Liz Galli-Noble – Do we want to try to set a date? LaDonna Carlisle – If it’s like Wednesday then I can do that but not Tuesday. Slade Franklin – I’m all for setting dates early, but I’m wondering if we should do it during the spring conference call. I might have a little better feel of what my fall schedule is going to look like. Liz Galli-Noble – That’s a good idea, so I request that everybody to be prepared at that spring meeting to make a decision when to meet in October. Does that sound reasonable? Tim Prather – Yes! Jim Olivarez – Yes! Mandy Tu – Well, maybe not just the first week of October. Tim Prather – I think the first and second week. John Simons – We could meet on Thursday and Friday morning would work out and have Wednesday as a day for travel. Liz Galli-Noble – So can we say either the first or the third week of October might be the best bets and then we’ll come more prepared for the next meeting. John Simons – That’ll work. Tim Koopmann – If we’re going to have the Science Advisory Council folks here, is it going to be extended to two full days? Liz Galli-Noble – It’s up to the group. I’d consider more of what we just did, the first day would be the business meeting and I didn’t know if the Science Advisory Council would be involved in all of that or not. I thought there could be a collaborative discussion with the two groups perhaps on the second, half day. I’m very flexible; it can be whatever is most beneficial. John Simons – We’ll let the Science Advisory Council talk amongst themselves and we’ll see if we need to do two full days or a full day and two half days or do it in a day and a half. Tim Prather – My sense is that in terms of the interaction it would be a specified portion of the Steering Committee meeting not the entire meeting and then the SAC would have a separate meeting and then join the Steering Committee. John Simons – We’ll have pretty definitive dates at the spring call. Decision: The Steering Committee will meet in person in October 2009. A final decision on the date of that meeting will be made during the March 30, 2009 Steering Committee meeting. Liz Galli-Noble – Thank you to everyone for a very productive meeting! John Simons – We are adjourned.

____________________________________________________

Attachments

Attachment A. Fall 2008 Steering Committee Meeting Agenda Attachment B. Steering Committee Member List Attachment C. CIPM New Staff Positions and Duties Attachment D. April 25, 2008 Steering Committee Meeting Minutes Attachment E. 2007 Steering Committee Bylaws (with proposed changes) Attachment F. 2008-2009 Steering Committee Bylaws (approved 9/30/08) Attachment G. CIPM Budget Attachment H. Products Sold Summary Attachment I. CIPM Flowering Rush Project Summary Attachment J. New CIPM Program Structure Attachment K. CIPM Policy Program Summary Attachment L. Missouri River Watershed Coalition Program Summary Attachment M. CIPM Online Newsletter Summary Attachment N. Research Grant Summary Report Series (Peter Rice paper) Attachment O. DoD Pre-Proposal Project Summary Attachment P. National Network of Invasive Plant Management Centers (grant proposal) Attachment Q. Inventory and Survey Web Seminars (grant proposal)

Attachment R. Reinstate CIPM Grants Programs Attachment S. Flowering Rush Project Update Attachment T. 2007 CIPM Strategic Plan Attachment U. (Proposed) 2008 CIPM Strategic Plan Attachment V. 2008-2009 CIPM Strategic Plan (approved 10/01/08)

Attachment A.

Center for Invasive Plant Management

Steering Committee Meeting September 30 & October 1, 2008

LRES conference room #325 – Montana State University Bozeman, Montana

TUESDAY, SEPTMEMBER 30th Meeting moderator: John Simons

9:00 am – Noon CIPM BUSINESS MEETING

1. Introductions (Steering Committee members, CIPM staff & others): New SC members:

Slade Franklin - State Representative, Wyoming Department of Agriculture

LaDonna Carlisle - Tribal Representative, USDI-BIA, New Mexico

Bruce Maxwell – Montana State University, LRES Head (ex officio)

New CIPM personnel:

Erik Lehnhoff – Assistant Director for Research

Tanya Skurski – Grad Student, Weed Model Project Coordinator

Juan Banda – PhD Student, CIPM Website Manager/database expert

SC members to be replaced:

Dave White (NRCS) “Other Fed Agency” – leaving Montana, new position in DC

Jennifer Vollmer (BASF) “Industry” – position with BASF eliminated

2. April 25, 2008 meeting minutes approval

3. Steering Committee Bylaws – review, edits, approval

SC members were asked to review the CIPM Bylaws -- including a revised SAC description -- over the summer

and to bring suggestions for changes to this Fall meeting

Science Advisory Council Update (Tim Prather/Liz Galli-Noble)

New SAC description

New focus

EDRR assistance to CIPM (2009/2010 National EDRR Conference)

4. Election of new SC Moderator

5. CIPM Financial Updates

Review 2008 CIPM Annual Budget (Dianne & Liz)

Projections for 2009

CIPM FY06 (BLM) appropriations update

Proposed National Network appropriations request update (Liz)

DuPont donation

Grant applications submitted (CIPM staff)

CIPM FY10 appropriations request submitted through MSU ($250,000 - $300,000) (Liz)

6. Ongoing Project Updates

USFWS On-line Learning Modules update (Mary & Melissa)

Plastic Weed Models Project update (Tanya/Janet/Dianne/Liz)

Salish Kootenai College, Flowering rush project update (Liz)

CIPM Research Grant Program (Liz/Dianne)

10:30 am 15-MINUTE BREAK

7. New CIPM Structure & New Projects

New staff positions and staff/program restructure (Liz)

*Program Focal Areas:

Education/Outreach – Science communication, teaching tools, technology transfer, program

promotion (CIPM consistent education/outreach message; promotional packet, website,

newsletter) - Mary/Melissa

Research (research findings distillation/dissemination, collaborative research & regional research

leadership, in-house expertise, etc.) - Erik/Liz

Grants (seeking targeted project grants, partnerships & new opportunities) – Connie/CIPM staff

Policy & Publications – Janet/Connie/Liz

Administration/Management – Liz/Dianne

Partnerships/Collaborations: Local, state and regional IPM support, technical advisory

committee/board/workgroup duties (NAWMA, CWMAs, GYCC, MWCA, NRCS Montana STAC,

PNW-IPC, Tamarisk Coalition, etc.)

*New Projects:

Missouri River Watershed Coalition (Liz)

CIPM Online Newsletter (Melissa)

ISPM Journal Marketing (Janet)

Website Restructure (Mary/Melissa/Connie/Juan)

Website Survey Monkey results (Connie)

8. Potential Projects/Program Opportunities

1. DoD: Strategic Management of Invasive Species workshop (southwest installations)

2. National network of IPM centers workgroup (Janet)

3. Inventory and Survey Web seminars (Mary/Melissa)

4. Tamarisk research project (Erik)

5. Reinstate CIPM Research Grant program (Liz/Janet)

6. Reinstate CIPM CWMA Grant program (Liz/Janet)

7. EDRR & Database project (pilot: MRWC interactive database & mapping) (Erik/Liz)

8. Follow-up Flowering rush project (Bonneville Power Authority grant) (Liz)

9. Regional, broad-scale research effort – (Erik/Liz)

10. Production of additional plastic weed models (Liz/Dianne)

11. USACOE Cottonwood research funding/other Corps opportunities (Erik/Mary)

Noon – 1:30 pm LUNCH BREAK (at The Habit restaurant – on MSU campus)

1:45 – 3:00 pm CIPM BUSINESS MEETING continued

Continue unfinished morning business

9. CIPM Policy Updates (Janet/Liz/SC members)

National Invasive Species Advisory Committee

Rocky Mountain Weed Summit

NIWAW/IWAC/Healthy Habitat v. NCIPA

Montana Invasive Species Subcommittee

3:00 – 3:15 pm 15-MINUTE BREAK

3:15 – 5:00 pm RESEARCH PRESENTATION & DISCUSSION

30-Minute Presentation: Erik Lehnhoff – New CIPM Research Program

Small Group Discussion –

CIPM wants to take the lead in bringing together diverse, regional research teams to address regional/landscape-level

invasive plant management. CIPM will invest the staff time to investigate and solicit for grant funding; will function as a

research team member; will manage the grant contracting, documentation and reporting; and will conduct follow-up

outreach and educational requirements for the grant(s).

Questions

What are the (three) most important landscape-level invasive plant management issues facing the western

region?

What research questions need to be answered (research investigations need to be conducted) in order to

address these invasive plant management issues?

Large Group Discussion –

Steering Committee consensus, provide CIPM with direction where to focus our research program attention over the next year

or two.

6:30 – 9:00 pm DINNER (at the Montana Ale Works – 611 E. Main Street)

____________________________________

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 1ST Meeting moderator: John Simons

8:00 am – Noon CIPM MEETING continued

1. Complete unfinished business from Day 1

2. Where does CIPM go from here? Steering Committee Feedback

SC members provide program guidance to CIPM for 2009/2010

SC members provide potential funding opportunities for CIPM in 2009/2010

3. SC Member Updates – SC members share new information/updates from their organizations/agencies

4. Other Business

5. Schedule Spring 2009 Steering Committee meeting (date, time & location)

Options:

Continue to meet in-person twice per year (Fall & Spring).

Meet once in-person in Bozeman (Fall) + 2 conference calls (Spring & Summer) per year.

Other ideas?

6. Noon - Adjourn

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CENTER FOR INVASIVE PLANT MANAGEMENT

January 2009 Steering Committee Bureau of Land Management John Simons – 1st Term: Fall 2006-2009 Bureau of Land Management 5001 Southgate Drive Billings, MT 59101-4669 406.896.5043; John_Simons@blm.gov USDA Forest Service Jim Olivarez – 2nd Term: Fall 2004-2010 US Forest Service, Northern Region PO Box 7669 (200 E. Broadway) Missoula, MT 59807 406.329.3621; jolivarez@fs.fed.us Other Federal Agency Vacant Conservation Group Mandy Tu – 2nd Term: Fall 2005-2011 The Nature Conservancy 821 SE 14th Avenue Portland, OR 97214 503.230.1221; imtu@tnc.org Industry Vacant Private Landowner — Montana Dean Peterson – 1st Term: Fall 2007-2010 E.L. Peterson Ranch, Inc. PO Box 8 Judith Gap, MT 59453 406.374.2244; elpranch@hotmail.com Private Landowner — Other Tim Koopmann – 1st Term: Spring 2007-2010 Sunol Valley Rancher PO Box 177 Sunol, CA 94586 925.862.5509; tkoopman@sfwater.org Research – SAC Chair Tim Prather- 2nd Term: Spring 2005-2011 University of Idaho Ag Science 317 Moscow, ID 83844-2339 208.885.9246; tprather@uidaho.edu State Agency Slade Franklin – 1st Term: Fall 2008-2011 Wyoming Department of Agriculture 1510 E. 5th Street Cheyenne WY 82002 307.777.6585; sfrank@state.wy.us

Tribal/BIA Representative LaDonna Carlisle – 1st Term: Fall 2008-2011 Rangeland Management Specialist USDI-BIA Northern Region-Natural Resources 911 NE 11th Avenue Portland, OR 97232 503.872.2886; ladcarlisle@yahoo.com or LaDonna.Carlisle@bia.gov University Representative Earl Creech – 1st Term: Spring 2008-2011 State Weed Specialist, U of Nevada Cooperative Extension Churchill County 111 Sheckler Road Fallon, NV 89406-8951 775.423.5121; creeche@unce.unr.edu Montana State University (ex officio) Bruce Maxwell, Interim Head (Fall 2008) Dept. of Land Resources & Environmental Sciences PO Box 173120 Montana State University-Bozeman Bozeman, MT 59717-3120 406.994.4605; bmax@montana.edu Science Advisory Council (SAC) Tim Prather, SAC Chair (Spring 2005) University of Idaho Ag Science 317 Moscow, ID 83844-2339 208.885.9246; tprather@uidaho.edu Lars Anderson (Spring 2006)

Lead Scientist, Weed Science Program USDA Agricultural Research Service 106 Robbins Hall University of California, Davis Davis, CA 95616 530.752.7870; lwanderson@ucdavis.edu Cynthia S. Brown (Spring 2005) Assistant Professor Dept. of Bioagricultural Sciences and Pest Management 111 Weed Research Laboratory Colorado State University, Fort Collins Fort Collins, CO 80523 970.491.1949; csbrown@lamar.colostate.edu Marcel Rejmanek, Professor (Spring 2007)

Department of Evolution and Ecology 5337 Storer Hall University of California, Davis Davis, CA 95616

530.752.1092; mrejmanek@ucdavis.edu

65

9/30/08

Attachment C.

Center for Invasive Plant Management New Staff Positions & Descriptions; Restructured Staff Positions

1. Janet Clark, Assistant Director for Policy & Publications (Formerly CIPM Director; asked to stay on to focus on regional and national IPM policy issues & to continue IMP publication efforts) 1.0 FTE; May 2008 – May 2009 Job Duties:

Promote ecologically-sound management of invasive weeds by facilitating collaboration and communication among researchers, educators, policymakers and land owners/managers through the CIPM;

Facilitate, organize, and communicate with diverse partners regionally and nationally involved with invasive plant policy and management;

Design, coordinate, and implement all phases of special projects, courses, trainings and workshops for natural resource managers and policymakers;

Collaborate in the design and creation of CIPM publications and participate in the development of collaborative publications with project partners;

Present information about the Center at professional meetings, conferences, and other events; Support CIPM professional staff in goal-setting, grant writing, creating multi-disciplinary programming, and building

partnerships with other agencies and organizations; Provide oversight of CIPM operations in the absence of the Director.

May 1 – October 2008: Janet Clark has been working out of her home office, where she has provided her own office space and some office equipment. If additional space can be secured, Janet will move back into the CIPM office by November 1, 2008. 2. Dr. Erik Lehnhoff, Assistant Director for Research (Mara Johnson resigned 7/4/08; knowledge gap at CIPM; funding available) Qualifications: PhD and background in invasive plant ecology and management 0.6 FTE - August - December 2008 0.8 FTE – January - August 2009 Job Description: The CIPM Assistant Director for Research is responsible for scientific oversight of Center activities, products and publications. Working under the direction of the Center Director and in partnership with CIPM staff, Steering Committee and Science Advisory Council, the programmatic goals for this position are to:

Adapt and improve existing science and technology associated with invasive plant management; Promote ecologically sound management of invasive weeds in the western region by facilitating collaboration and

communication among researchers, educators, policymakers and landowners/managers through the CIPM; Encourage innovative collaboration and partnerships that build sustainable solutions to invasive plant problems.

General Duties - CIPM PhD; staff invasive plant ecologist/expert; in-house science advisor. Scientific, internal peer review/technical review for CIPM publications, articles, products, etc. CIPM-Science Advisory Council team leader; primary communications link between CIPM and our SAC. Seek research grant opportunities for CIPM and partners; grant writer; PI or co-PI on CIPM research grants. Conduct, sponsor, and/or facilitate multi-state research initiatives. Participate in regional/national conferences to gain broad insight into the state of the science and to present CIPM program

information. Stay current on invasive plant research; alert CIPM staff to new information relevant to ongoing projects. If the CIPM Research Grant Program is reinstated, function as program co-PI and assist in developing annual RFP and

selection of grant awards. As resident PhD, develop an active CIPM invasive species research program with a regional IPM focus and application –

collaborate with western-region invasive species experts, generate science-based information on invasive plant ecology and management, publish, seek and write grants, and secure funding for research activities and the dissemination of scientific knowledge.

Specific Duties -

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EDRR project leader for the MRWC program (investigate and develop an EDRR system for the MRWC). Work with CIPM’s Science Advisory Council to develop MRWC EDRR system and host EDRR conference in 2009.

Science team leader for the DoD Training/Workshop proposal (function as invasive plant science leader for DoD training; help establish technical training team; develop technical components of the training; participate in training session; assist with writing proposal; etc.).

Submit timely research-based information (research findings, articles, publications, etc.) to the CIPM online newsletter and CIPM website.

Review (and modify, if needed) scientific information presented on the CIPM website. CIPM scientific representative for the 2009 Tamarisk Research Conference (session organizer, presenter). Develop and lead a web seminar on inventory and survey methods – proposed project with authors of Inventory and Survey

Methods for Nonindigenous Plant Species edited by Rew and Pokorny (2006). 3. Juan Banda, CIPM Website Manager (PhD Student)

(Took over website duties from Connie Bollinger; works closely with Mary and Melissa) 10 hours per week; August 2008 – June 2009; works mostly from his home computer Job Duties:

Maintaining CIPM web site: routine updates, following up on link check reports, printing a Web Trends report once per month, making edits and adding new information from CIPM staff and project partners;

Maintaining CIPM electronic listservs; Collaborating with CIPM staff graphic designer and implementing web design ideas; Responding to, or redirecting, information requests from CIPM partners and customers; Database design and management; Performing other duties as requested by the CIPM Director.

Required Skills:

Educational background in computer programming, business, graphic design, or related field. Knowledge and experience with html and css, and html and css coding. Ability to use Project VII Page Packs for page templates, as well as PopMenu Magic, TreeMenu Magic and Dreamweaver

MX. Ability to work with little oversight; to be assertive and confident with website management.

4. Connie Bollinger, Lead Grant Writer & Technical Editor

(Created a new grant writer position; relinquished website duties) 0.5 FTE - starting October 1, 2008 Job Duties:

Promote ecologically sound management of invasive weeds by facilitating collaboration and communication among researchers, educators, policy makers and natural resource managers through the CIPM;

Lead the CIPM grant-writing team; Function as the CIPM lead technical editor; (4) respond to information requests from CIPM partners and customers; Support fellow CIPM professional staff in creating multi-disciplinary programming and building partnerships with other

agencies and organizations; Collaborate with CIPM and MSU specialists on web-based technical and design issues; Assist with other duties as requested by the Director.

Attachment D. Center for Invasive Plant Management

Semi-Annual Steering Committee Meeting (Conference Call) April 25, 2008

10:15 am – 12:00 pm (MDT) Montana State University – Bozeman

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Friday, April 25, 2008 Meeting Attendance: Steering Committee Members: John Simons (moderator), Tim Koopmann, Mandy Tu, Dave White, Dean Peterson, Jennifer Vollmer, Eric Lane, Tim Prather, Earl Creech, and Jon Wraith (ex officio). CIPM Staff: Liz Galli-Noble, Mary McFadzen, Mara Johnson, Dianne Brokke, and Janet Clark. Absent: Jim Olivarez, Melissa Brown and Connie Bollinger. I. Welcome and Introductions The meeting was convened at 10:15 a.m. All were welcomed and introductions were made by each Steering Committee member and CIPM staff: John Simons – is with the Bureau of Land Management based in Billings, Montana. He has been the SC moderator for the past year and was asked to moderate this meeting as well, “in order to keep the group on track.” He has been the invasive species coordinator for Montana and the Dakotas for almost three years now. He joined the SC after Hank McNeal; his position was empty for about a year and a half. Before his Billings assignment, he was the Rangeland Management Specialist and weed coordinator in Dillon, Montana for 14 years. Dave White – Montana State Director for NRCS. He manages $60 - $70 million a year in various conservation programs and a “goodly portion” of that goes to noxious and invasive plant control. The NRCS has done many special projects, working with a lot of the other agencies. He is new to the SC; he has known Janet Clark for several years. He appreciates the opportunity to serve and looks forward to working with everyone. Mandy Tu – Invasive Species Ecologist with The Nature Conservancy’s Global Invasive Species Team. She is the science advisor for the organization-wide team that works on invasive species worldwide. She is based out of Portland, Oregon. Jennifer Vollmer – She lives in Laramie, Wyoming and works for BASF Corporation. Her main job is liaison to governmental agencies, which involves: making sure that when they’re using pesticides, especially BASF herbicides, that they’re using them correctly; helping them with their programs; answering questions; etc. Tim Prather – is with the University of Idaho. He works in forest and terrestrial systems and to some extent in aquatic systems. His job focuses mostly on an extension appointment but also a research appointment (about 20% of his time). He also teaches a course at the University of Idaho. He would like to work on decision support tools and landscape level issues. Tim Koopmann – is from California. He has a small family ranch operation, where he runs a couple hundred cow/calves. He is also a resource manager for a 40,000-acre watershed/rangeland for the city and county of San Francisco, which is still being grazed – remarkable in and of itself. “We’ve got a number of things going on in the watershed, which we manage for biodiversity, with resource water quality being our first primary goal”. Eric Lane – works at the Colorado Department of Agriculture. He was the State Weed Coordinator in Colorado for about 10 years. He is now the Division Director for the Colorado Conservation Services Division, which includes noxious weed management, biological control, groundwater protection and the conservation districts program. He works on a variety of natural resource issues through locally led initiatives, and is still active in the weed management arena, particularly at the regional and national levels. Dean Peterson – is a private ranch owner and operator at Judith Gap, Montana. He has participated in the Environmental Management Systems program and weed district areas. Jon Wraith – is head of the Land Resources and Environment Sciences Department in the College of Agriculture and the Montana Agriculture Experiment Station at Montana State University. “The CIPM is housed in our department and we’re very happy to have them…. Flow chart wise, that makes me the MSU direct supervisor of Janet Clark, previously, and now Liz Galli-Noble. We’re very excited to have Liz at the Center.” Earl Creech – (joined the meeting a few minutes late) is the Extension Weed Specialist for the University of Nevada. He is one of the new SC members. Jim Olivarez (absent) – is the USFS Region 1 Invasive Species Coordinator based in Missoula, Montana. Region 1 covers the Dakotas, Montana and the northern part of Idaho. Information provided by John Simons. Liz Galli-Noble – It’s nice to meet everyone. I’ve spoken to almost all of you privately in the month and a half that I’ve been with the CIPM. Those conversations were very helpful and I thank everyone for taking time to do talk to me. For the few people who I haven’t had a chance to talk to yet, I plan to do that in the next month or so. As I said, I’ve been here a little over a month and it’s been a trial

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by fire. We’ve been very busy at the Center. I’ve already done some traveling (to Reno for the CWMA conference). I’m very happy to be working alongside Janet Clark, who agreed to stay on at CIPM to tie up loose ends. She’s helped with many, many things and I want to thank her for that. My staff has been excellent and very supportive. I’m happy to be here, happy to meet the Steering Committee and I look forward to working with you in the months and years to come. Mara Johnson – I’m the Technology Transfer Coordinator for the Center. Mary McFadzen – I’m the Education Program Coordinator for the Center and also function as the Assistant Director for Education and Science Communication. My primary responsibilities are to communicate science to land managers by developing online learning materials. Dianne Brokke – I’m the Grants Manager/Office Manager for the Center. Janet Clark – I’m the former director, working at home as a “temp hourly” doing special projects for Liz. I’m on this call to provide historical context, if it’s needed. Otherwise, I’m just listening today. Connie Bollinger (absent) – Connie is the Electronic Communication Program Coordinator for the CIPM. Information provided by CIPM. Melissa Brown (absent) – Melissa works part time as the Science Communication Associate for the CIPM. Information provided by CIPM. II. Steering Committee Member Renewals John Simons – I assume everyone has received and taken a look at the meeting agenda. We just covered a couple of items. Our next item of business is SC member renewals. Jim Olivarez and Jennifer Vollmer both indicated that they would continue with their membership for another three-year appointment. Eric, are you interested in doing the same thing? Eric Lane – I would be happy to continue as an SC member; however, I suggest that it might be more useful – since I’m no longer the Colorado state weed coordinator – to make that spot available to another state weed coordinator. I’m just a little sensitive to the fact that I am taking a spot that might be useful to engage another state and another state weed coordinator. As I mentioned it’s not that I’m not still very active in weed management issues. If Liz wanted to make that slot available for someone else, I’d be happy to step aside and continue to support the Center in a different capacity; to provide the opportunity to someone else to step in and continue to do some of the work that I was doing on the SC. Liz Galli-Noble – I want to add that I spoke with Eric Lane and Janet Clark yesterday and asked them if they had specific suggestions who might be good candidates to fill Eric’s slot. Both of them agreed that Slade Franklin from Wyoming would be their #1 choice; followed by Greg Haubrich of Washington; and Tim Butler of Oregon. So, I was wondering, if it’s okay with the SC, if I may go ahead and pursue filling the SC vacancy with one of those candidates over the summer? May I have comments from the other SC members, please. John Simons – From what I know of Slade, he would do very well. He’s very active; they have an excellent program in Wyoming. But if he is unable to do it, Oregon and Washington would be good states to try to include in the SC. We could even look at other programs in Colorado or Utah. But, I think Slade would work fine. Jennifer Vollmer – I work with Slade a lot and I think he’d be an excellent choice. Tim Prather– What kind of representation do you have from Washington and Oregon right now? Liz Galli-Noble– Mandy Tu is in Oregon; we don’t have anyone from Washington; and Wyoming (Jennifer Vollmer) is also represented. Tim Prather – I think if our 1st choice can’t do it, my suggestion would be to take a look at trying to interest someone from the state of Washington. Mandy Tu – I would agree. Liz Galli-Noble – Other comments? None given. So, what I’ve heard is that people are comfortable with asking Wyoming, but we could use Washington representation on the SC as well. Decision: The CIPM director will proceed over the summer to find a replacement for Eric Lane’s SC position. The SC agreed that Wyoming and Washington State Weed Coordinators were good candidates for the SC. Liz will keep the SC apprised of developments.

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John Simons – What are we doing on the tribal SC position? Liz Galli-Noble – I was told that LaDonna Carlisle had already been approved as a new SC member at your October 2007 meeting. Janet Clark has tried to get a hold of LaDonna for some time with little success. During a recent visit to Washington DC, Janet ran into LaDonna and confirmed that she is interested in serving on the SC. She just needs to get permission from her supervisor to officially participate. So, if it’s acceptable to the Steering Committee, I would like to write a letter to her supervisor inviting her to join the SC. I’m hoping that she’ll be able to join at the fall meeting. Any comments? Any objections? No comments or objections were given. Decision: Liz Galli-Noble will contact LaDonna Carlisle and her supervisor and formally invite her to join the SC. Liz will keep the SC informed of these developments. III. October 10-11, 2007 Meeting Minutes Approval John Simons – Are there any comments on or corrections to the minutes from the October 2007 meeting (see Attachment A)? No comments or corrections were given. Decision: There were no comments/corrections made to the October 2007 SC meeting minutes. The minutes were approved as written. IV. Bylaws and Strategic Plan John Simons – We ask the SC members to take a look at the Bylaws and the Strategic Plan over the summer. We then hope to have a good discussion about possible or needed changes at the fall SC meeting. One other thing, I am willing to continue to function as the SC moderator over the summer or even through next fall’s meeting, if the rest of the committee is fine with that. If not, we can go ahead and have somebody else take on moderator duties. Any comments? All agreed that this was a good idea. Decision: John Simons will remain SC moderator through the fall 2008 SC meeting. A new moderator will be elected at that meeting and that individual will take on those duties after the fall 2008 meeting. V. CIPM Financial Updates Liz Galli-Noble – Dianne Brokke provided me with the most recent CIPM budget (ending March 1, 2008), which I e-mailed to all of you last week (see Attachment B). I’m going to quickly summarize this budget and explain what my strategy for funding will be for the next year. FY06 Earmark – Presently, we’re spending down our final FY06 earmark. I have been told that there will be no more earmarks for the CIPM. Given that, my plan is to find different funding sources, which may include federal money but not earmark. However, when we were in Reno (for the CWMA conference), I had federal agency folks approach me to say that the CIPM should not close the door on future earmarks, and that we should consider applying for future earmarks. Of course, that action would have to be palatable to Montana State University. CIPM Budget – If you look at page 3 of the finance report, under the FY09 column, the CIPM is fully funded (that is all CIPM staff salaries/benefits, infrastructure and limited travel) through June 2009. In addition, we have a surplus in that earmark of approximately $120,000 and an additional $50,000 from a science research project that was not conducted (Mara Johnson and Tim Prather will explain this later in the meeting). New Funding –

1. The CIPM is about to sign a contract for $100,000 to coordinate the Missouri River Watershed Coalition-Saltcedar Management Project. Janet Clark and I met with Dave Burch (Montana Department of Agriculture, Noxious Weed Trust Fund) in early April and worked out the details. The contact dates will be from May 1, 2008 to May 1, 2009. The CIPM has already provided pro bono assistance to this group in the past, but they are now paying us for the service. (See Attachment C for work plan and budget).

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2. Janet Clark and I also met with John Cantlon of DuPont Corporation in early April. DuPont agreed to make a small contribution to the CIPM “to continue doing the great work that we do for the western region;” nothing more. I’m not sure of the exact amount but I imagine that it will only be a few thousand dollars.

Note: The exact amount is $4,000 (as of May 8, 2008).

So, in addition to being fully funded through June 2009, we have an additional $120,000 + $50,000 + $100,000 + $4,000. Potential Funding – As of yesterday (April 24), Mary McFadzen, Janet Clark and I spoke to the Department of Defense about a potential project for the CIPM. It would be for an ecologically/ecosystem-based invasive species training for DoD installations located in the southwest US, put on by the CIPM (and partners). The funding source is the Legacy Program and the CIPM would submit a proposal this fall for funding to begin in January 2009. An early estimate for the project would be in the $50,000-$100,000 range. Funding Strategy – My basic funding goal is to move $250,000 this year. I’ve been told that there shouldn’t be a problem getting an extension on the BLM earmark. My strategy is to extend the earmark for an additional year because base funding for things like administration is so hard to get. My plan is to infuse additional money through project specific funding, which will cover salaries for specific work products, but will not allow funding for program administration or infrastructure. So that would take us through June 2010. I would welcome comments about my funding strategy or if anyone has additional ideas. Also, many thanks to Janet Clark for bringing these new funding opportunities to the Center. The SC members commented that they were supportive of this strategy. John Simons - I will make sure you have the appropriate forms for requesting the earmark extension. I have visited with the person who handles that and they’re looking for justification and budget information to make that happen. VI. Project Updates CIPM-SAC Science Project – Tim Prather and Mara Johnson

Mara Johnson explained that during the 2007 round for CIPM research grant funding, the Science Advisory Council (SAC) decided not to fund one $30,000 project and, instead, chose to take the money and an additional $20,000 (that was available for the research group) to do an in-house project. The SAC had planned to take the lead on addressing a current policy -- similar to what CIPM did with the Farm Bill Workshop (brought in a panel of scientists and came up with science based recommendations for the Farm Bill). A list of policy issues (requiring the infusion of science) was developed by the CIPM and then given to the Steering Committee to rate. Because both Tim and Mara (1) were on the new CIPM director search committee, (2) there was no clear issue like the Farm Bill to focus on, and (3) given the CIPM’s financial situation, the decision was made not to use the $50,000 for an in-house project, but instead to leave it in CIPM’s general fund.

Tim Prather – They were also interested in having the new director provide some input on this project. If the decision is made that there is an issue that we really need to address, we can put those funds to that project; otherwise it should stay in the Center’s general budget. Liz Galli-Noble – Is the Steering Committee comfortable with that plan? John Simons – That sounds fine. If there’s an issue that comes up and we need a portion of that money, then we certainly should take a look at it. The Farm Bill group was very successful and was a good use of the SAC and the Center. Other SC members agreed.

Tim Prather – One issue that has come up recently is related to biofuels; that probably would have been the one that was on the forefront for the SAC. However, there have been several very good conferences held on the topic, so the issue had been addressed fairly well at least for the near term.

National Network Update – Liz Galli-Noble Janet Clark gave me a quick update on the National Network; much of this information was provided to the SC at your October 2007 meeting. In summary, the CIPM, along with three other centers – the California Invasive Plant Council, Midwest Invasive Plant Network and Invasive Plant Atlas of New England – discussed trying to get an earmark or promote some way of funding a national network of invasive plant centers. Eventually they put together a request for a $2 million earmark that would fund this national

network. When Janet went back to DC for the 2008 National Invasive Weed Awareness Week, she and her colleagues pitched the idea to Senator Baucus’, Senator Tester’s and Senator Feinstein’s staff. She also spoke to Michael Bowers with the USDA-CSREES. The idea was well received and she got a lot of positive feedback about it. So in early March, she was asked by Senator Tester to

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submit an earmark request for the national network. It’s very unlikely that this earmark will be funded. It should be noted that Montana State University did not have this on their “priority list,” which is somewhat of a strike against it. There are some follow-up actions that now should be taken, which I want to share with the SC for feedback. The CIPM took the lead on this and thus, we have to make the decision: (1) to continue to lead the effort and promote the national network idea, (2) to hand it off to one of the other center partners, or (3) to hold off for now and notify the partners. Personally, I’m happy to continue to try to subtly pursue this and work with our partners. I’m comfortable that we’ve already taken the first step in the lead, but don’t want to make three trips to DC this year in order to continue to support it. I’m comfortable being part of this process; being part of the team. If we are not successful in this cycle, maybe we can apply again in the next year. Janet, would you like to add anything to that? Comments from the SC? Janet Clark – I think this effort is something that could be ongoing at a low level. It’s a long-term plan with a big vision and it’s worth following to see how things develop. Jon Wraith – I just want to reiterate that, as Liz mentioned, this earmark was not on MSU’s list and wasn’t submitted through MSU. As a general case, we are not allowed to submit independent earmarks; however, Senator Tester’s staff requested of Janet that we submit the request, so after she spoke with me, we went ahead with the submission. These are very important details regarding this situation. Tim Prather – I can appreciate that, Jon, I know exactly what you’re saying. When you have a Senator ask for something, that’s certainly a positive and perhaps it could be carried forward from there. If it’s something that is not going to rise on MSU’s priority list, you may want to have a discussion with your other partners and find out who does have an ability to get it on a high priority list, so that the program is put forward as one that’s supported by the institution and the senator. Jon Wraith – This year, as Liz mentioned, the consensus in DC is that hardly any earmarks are going to be funded. This was more an effort to get a place holder for the future, in case we do have a future opportunity. John Simons – It’s my understanding that the other three centers are getting some funding through USDA - is that correct? Janet Clark – They’re all funded in different kinds of ways. They’re all on soft money – some federal, some memberships, product sales, or grants of various kinds. The USDA has been very supportive of this effort and the folks in Washington have been working closely with CIPM to help form this proposal. Eric Lane – I would continue to pursue this avenue because I think there may be more hope that a small coalition of like-minded senators could get an earmark, than anyone of them individually. And that’s probably the strength of the proposal at some level. With support and interest from the USDA, who would be willing to channel the earmark, it would seem like a lot of the pieces are in place, and I would hate to drop it. I think it would be worth the time to continue to pursue it. Tim Prather – One additional point that I would make is, if you’re going to continue the interaction with Dr. Bowers at CSREES, you also want to emphasize the production side of invasive species. That doesn’t necessarily have to be crop production, but it needs to at least be pasture-range impact to forestry. Because when you submit grants to the program he administers, you have to demonstrate a production component. This is important to note going forward on this aspect of the proposal. John Simons – Is the level of work you’re doing in Washington with the USDA at the department level or at one of the agencies within the department? Janet Clark – It’s been at the department level. John Simons - Has there been any interest from the Department of the Interior at that level? Janet Clark - We haven’t generated a lot of interest on that side at the department level. There’s some work that could be done there.

New Journal – Liz Galli-Noble

I would like to send all the SC and SAC members a copy of the new Weed Science Society of America journal, Invasive Plant Science and Management. The journal is very impressive and I want to say thank you and congratulations to Janet Clark, who was a key person in launching this publication. A summary of this effort was provided by Janet (see Attachment D). The WSSA is now looking for an editor for the journal. Other comments?

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Mandy Tu – Could the Center potentially play a part in that editorial role, if interested in doing so? If you’re interested in doing it and if they would provide some sort of constant funding to do it? Is that something that the Center would be interested in taking on? Janet Clark – The Weed Science Society of America has been talking for a year about its publications. It also publishes Weed Science and Weed Research, so it has three peer-reviewed publications now; and they’ve been discussing how to coordinate them better and what are the opportunities. They’ve expressed some interest in the Center being involved, but it’s very vague. It’s something the Center could certainly follow-up on, if it wanted to. John Simons – Could the existing staff do that or would there need to be another staff person to be that editor? Janet Clark – The editors themselves tend to be senior scientists who work closely with the authors, but there’s been some talk about a position or a coordinating opportunity – PR, marketing, the business side – for handling all three of the journals. It’s very vague right now but there could be some discussions with the WSSA board of directors about what CIPM is willing to do, what it can offer, or what it has available in terms of time. And see if that’s something that WSSA is interested in. Liz Galli-Noble – I’ve already told Janet that I think that’s a perfect example of a role that she could play, and, I think, there are probably other individuals on staff that could also provide assistance in that capacity. It’s definitely something that I want to think about. Tim Prather – I think, if you’re looking at a managing editor, that’s one thing. But in terms of the editor of a journal, it really does need to be a senior scientist. Because you are making final decisions on whether or not to reject or accept papers. And you have to have the expertise in that particular field to make the judgments and evaluate the judgments of the reviewers, who review the paper and then also the associate editors. I don’t know what role CIPM can fill. Liz Galli-Noble – That’s correct. We were talking more about the journal management not the editor position. Tim Prather – That would probably require leaving Allen Press, which is the group that currently fills that role, and I wonder how comfortable they would be with that. It’s something that you could discuss though. I think that it would probably meet with some resistance from Allen Press. Liz Galli-Noble – Any further comments? None were given. It’s a wonderful product and I think it’s a true feather in the cap of the Center to be part of this new publication process. Other SC members agreed.

CWMA Conference Update – CIPM Staff

Liz Galli-Noble – The very first National CWMA conference was positive, energized and very successful, with a diverse group of people and a wonderful group of partners. I was able to do a lot of networking and talk to a lot of people. Congratulations to the CIPM staff for spearheading the whole event. Liz reviewed Janet Clark’s CWMA conference summary report see Attachment E). Janet Clark – CIPM staff was terrific in supporting this effort. Something I was really proud of is that there were nine organizations co-hosting this event and they were primarily non-governmental organizations, only one federal agency. These were grassroots groups from across the country that stepped up and everyone worked together really well. It proves the National Network concept that these groups, when you bring them together, can accomplish great things.

Tamarisk Research Conference – Mara Johnson

This was an item that was in my work plan for 2008 and, I believe, it came up at the last SC meeting. The initial Tamarisk Research Conference was in 2006 in Fort Collins. We wanted to establish having this conference every two years with the partners being the CIPM, Tamarisk Coalition and a university. Both the Tamarisk Coalition and CIPM were going through director changes over this winter, which limited our ability to look for a partner at a university. Tim and I did meet with the Department of Agriculture in New Mexico last October. They were interested, but there wasn’t a partner available at the university. Also, with the director change and funding constraints, we didn’t know if this was something we wanted to allocate dollars toward. At this point, Liz and I will be meeting with Tim Carlson at the Nebraska Invasive Species Summit (May 5-8) to discuss putting on another conference. The Tamarisk Coalition is interested in putting this on again, but we don’t have a university partner that’s interested at this time. We’ll discuss what opportunities there are for this; if it’s something we want to continue. Originally, we thought we’d start with saltcedar and then open it up to riparian invasive plants. John Simons - As far as the universities, perhaps the right one hasn’t been approached or they just feel there’s not enough time or they’re too busy already. Mara Johnson – Colorado State University was our partner for the 2006 conference and they have a young core group of faculty who are working on saltcedar. It was a unique group of scientists who were willing to take this on. So I’m not surprised we haven’t found another group like them. They’re the ones who did most of the logistics for it: I did the technology transfer and Tim Carlson

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raised the funds. I think there might be other universities that are interested. But I doubt we’re going to find the same type of partner we found at CSU, as far as the caliber of scientists who are all working on saltcedar at the same university, as well as the time and energy that the professors put into this.

John Simons – I was just thinking that since there’s quite a bit of saltcedar in the southwest there ought to be somebody down there who ought to be doing quite a bit of this work and would have an interest; but perhaps not. Mara Johnson – Well, that’s why we approached New Mexico State University, that’s the partner that was approached. Jennifer Vollmer – They weren’t interested? Mara Johnson – No, they weren’t interested in taking it on. Jennifer Vollmer – What about Texas with Charlie Hart? Mara Johnson – I think what we have to decide first is whether or not the Center wants to play a role; what kind of role the Center wants to play; and how it fits in with the rest of our funding? It is very time intensive and requires a significant amount of time for website support and technology transfer. I think that’s a good recommendation, Jennifer, that Texas might be an organization. Also, Tim Carlson was thinking about Reno, there are several partners – university and government there. So from that crew, we might be able to draw the number of key scientists that we would need. Jennifer Vollmer – What about looking at the Bureau of Reclamation science crew – Fred Nipling and Ken Lair in Colorado? One thing that I learned from trying to get funding toward the Saltcedar Act is that if you pull in the scientists from the BOR you’re more likely to get funding from the BOR. Mara Johnson – I believe Ken Lair was a partner on the last conference in Colorado. What we had was more of a coordinating committee, which was the core group of Tamarisk Coalition -- Andrew Norton (professor from Colorado State University) and me. We did most of the work and then we had this larger group that included people from several different agencies and organizations, who helped to beat the bushes and draw the attraction. So, what we’re looking for is this third coordinating partner. I’ll put down, Jennifer, that you also suggested Texas.

Eric Lane – I guess I would just volunteer that if for some reason it’s hard to get a new university, then I’ll just volunteer CSU to do it again. I think the point was to have this thing be a traveling/rotating show. But if people can’t get it together – can’t see the value of having this hosted at their own university – I have a hard time believing CSU wouldn’t be interested in hosting it yet again. They have the experience doing it and from what I’ve heard from a variety of folks was that it went very well. I think it’s a worthwhile conference to do and if other universities are sitting on the sidelines not taking advantage of the opportunity, then I wouldn’t drop the ball and say we’ll go back to CSU. As you pointed out, Mara, there’s a good group of folks there that are working on it and already have a lot of collaborative partners to draw into it. Mara Johnson– Tim and I have actually talked to Andrew Norton and he’s not interested in taking on that role right now. We could approach one of the other people in that crew. Liz Galli-Noble – I just want to make a couple comments. I realize that it is a very valid and important thing for us to be doing, but I’m trying to be very cautious about not committing the CIPM to things that actually tax our budget and we have to spend money to do. Rather, I’m trying to think of things that we will be compensated for doing. I’m not saying that I dismiss these kinds of things because I think they’re very important and they’re well within our mission, but gone are the days where we can just give months of staff time to things that we aren’t compensated for. Mara Johnson – We were compensated for this conference. Jon Wraith – I agree with Eric’s comments, but if there’s only one regional university interested, and they might not be interested in doing it again, that’s informative also. I suspect many of the institutions just don’t have any kind of a critical mass of people working on saltcedar. Certainly, we don’t here at MSU. So, there are complications in putting together something like this in terms of trying to find a single entity that’s willing to do the leg work to make it happen. Jennifer Vollmer – I was just wondering: did the university contribute dollars to make that happen, did they gain any dollars to make that happen, or did it cost them anything out-of-pocket when they participated? Mara Johnson – What happened was everybody had to do their work upfront and then after the conference, everyone was compensated for their time. They had to take the risk of doing the work without knowing what the compensation would be.

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Jennifer Vollmer – Charlie Hart’s program is very slim on dollars, so they might look at it as something that they can do that’s not going to cost them anything; but, like you said, if they can get compensated for what work they do put into it, I think they’d be more open to it. Mandy Tu – I agree with Liz’s comment that things like this do fall within the mission of the Center but we do have to be careful about where we put our efforts. Eric Lane – I’ll just follow-up. I agree with that, but the reason that I pushed the Center to do this was that it was within our mission; and my experience has been that conferences typically make money, not lose money. So, in the large sphere of activities that CIPM has been involved in, at least we can caulk up the Tamarisk Conference as one that was profitable. Certainly not as profitable as getting a $100,000 contract to deal with the Missouri River Watershed, but vastly more profitable than many of the other activities that have been engaged in; where we’ve been supportive of stuff and helped make things happen but there’s been no financial remuneration. There’s a range of profitability out there and most of the things that we’ve been doing have been taxing and at least this has been one activity, which has been taxing in time but been compensated for. Liz Galli-Noble – Thank you, that’s very helpful. If these are things that we can do that are well within our mission, reach a lot of people, we’re doing a lot of good for many states within the west, and it doesn’t tax us financially, that’s exactly the kind of activity that I want to be focusing on.

USFWS Online Learning Modules Update – Mary McFadzen

The online learning modules are almost completed. For those of you who are new to the SC, we entered into a partnership with the US Fish and Wildlife Service/National Wildlife Refuge System about 2½ years ago to develop online learning products for them. The project consisted of developing two products – learning modules for Refuge staff and learning modules for Refuge volunteers. We have completed the modules for the volunteers and it is up and running on the USFWS’s Invasive Species website. It’s available to the public as well. Anybody can go to that site and access that information. In about a month, hopefully less than a month, we’ll be handing over all the files for the staff modules to the USFWS and hopefully they’ll have it up and running and go live within the next two months. That product can also be accessed by anybody on line. It’s going to be a great resource for natural resource managers who don’t have a background in invasive plant management. It will also be a good refresher for those who do have some experience. We’re really happy to complete this project and within a month that contract will be closed and we can call it done. When the staff modules do go live I’ll send all of you a link to the USFWS website so you can take a look at the modules. Any questions about that project? Jennifer Vollmer – I just have a comment about it. I work with the USFWS for training their refuge managers for invasive plant management at NCTC. Recently, they talked quite a bit about that module for the volunteers and we even added an afternoon onto the course to go through a volunteer exercise. So I think they’re really going to get a lot of use out of it.

New Weed Models Update – Mara Johnson For those of you who don’t know, CIPM produced four plastic and silk weed models (spotted knapweed, yellow starthistle, leafy spurge and Dalmatian toadflax) several years ago and they were very popular. The sale of the models goes into a non-federal “designated” account that the CIPM can use for non-federal match and other things. We set about producing four new models a couple of years ago and applied to the Noxious Weed Trust Fund for a grant to match that production. Tim Seipel worked on producing the four new models – purple loosestrife, saltcedar, perennial pepperweed and garlic mustard. In January 2008, Tim was accepted to a Ph.D. program in Switzerland, so we hired Tanya Skurski to finish up the project; coordinating with a botanist in China and the Global Floral Company. They have three of the models pretty much done, but they’re having a tough time with the saltcedar, even though that seems like it would be the easiest one. Our estimated time to have the prototypes completed is June 2008. Then once the prototypes are done, we can initiate production and order 2,000 of each model (this last step is how we are using the Noxious Weed Trust Fund match). Connie Bollinger will produce matching weed identification cards for the new models, using the template from the weed identification cards for the previous four models. The final products should be done by fall 2008.

Research Grant Summary – Mara Johnson

I put together the 2004 Research Grant Summary (a compilation of CIPM research grant final reports per year). The summary reports lag quite a bit because the CIPM doesn’t get the final reports for one to two years after the award. In the past we’ve produced a hardcopy or paper booklet summary report; but we don’t end up passing very many of those out. So this year we decided to post the reports online. The final reports for the two largest 2005 grants are already posted. The 2005 Seed Money Grant final reports are typically short summaries and those will be posted online as well.

Salish-Kootenai College/ University of Montana Collaboration – Flowering Rush Project – Mara Johnson

This is a great project. The CIPM was invited by the Salish-Kootenai College (Professor Virgil Dupuis) and the University of Montana (Professor Peter Rice) to put in for a CSREES tribal research grant, which was awarded last year for $20,000 (to be spent over three years). It’s a collaborative effort that also includes a Confederated Salish-Kootenai Tribal wetland specialist and other local

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partners to address flowering rush in the Flathead Lake and River system. Flowering rush is an invasive aquatic species that has definite recreational impacts; other types of impacts haven’t been studied. Many people around Flathead Lake “self treat” flowering rush. In doing so (by pulling it up), they cause it to spread further because it spreads vegetatively. This project is an interdisciplinary collaboration to do outreach, education, and research. Researching the genetics of the particular population is pretty critical in determining how to treat the population. The CIPM is also listed as a “non-working” partner (in name only) on a Noxious Weed Trust Fund grant for trials investigating pulling and herbicide treatments. In support of that project component, I presented the research at this year’s Montana Weed Control Association research session – a session that I coordinated for the MWCA. I will also present this research at the Weeds Across Borders meeting the end of May, because the Flathead is part of the Colombia River system, and this is a great opportunity to create a larger network. This has been a great project because we’ve been creating a network of people in the northwest by tapping the energy from this group. John Simons – So, there might be the potential when making these presentations in various places to establish additional contacts for similar types of work? Mara Johnson – Yes, and this core group with the Salish-Kootenai College has a lot of potential for future funding because of the success they have had and the interdisciplinary nature of the organization. John Simons – There’s a number of the tribes that are relatively financially independent with some of their projects and there might be the possibility of looking toward other tribes within our region. Mara Johnson – That’s the great thing about this grant. With tribal research grants in CSREES, the potential to be awarded is about 80 percent, as opposed to the other CSREES grants.

National Invasive Species Advisory Committee (ISAC) -- Liz Galli-Noble

I will provide a background and overview, and then Janet Clark and Jennifer Vollmer (both of whom are members of the ISAC) can respond to questions or provide additional information. When I first started at the CIPM, Janet Clark came to me and explained that she was a member of the National Invasive Species Advisory Committee; and that she was only in her second year of a three-year term. She asked if I would allow her to finish out her term on the Council; and that even though she was no longer with CIPM, she was still eligible to continue on the Council. I made the decision that Janet should finish out her term. The ISAC is scheduled to meet next month from May 11-18 in Anchorage, Alaska. I have to thank Janet for thinking of the Center and our partners and continuing to play a leadership role with this group. Janet and Jennifer do you wish to add anything? Jennifer Vollmer – I think we should reserve time on the fall SC meeting agenda to have Janet and me report on the May ISAC meeting. We will also need time for discussion because ISAC will be talking about a national center for invasive species. Janet has done the most leg work of anyone on this issue and has really given some good guidance to the ISAC subcommittee that’s working on the issue of a national center. The subcommittee will be able to present information to the whole committee at the May meeting and will then get their feedback. Our task after that will be to get additional feedback on how other people see a national center working; what would they like to see?; and how do they think they could best interact with a national center? With the diverse group that we have on this SC, it would be really good to get everyone’s input on this subject. Janet Clark – I agree. There are some real opportunities there and it’s good for CIPM to stay in the loop of what’s going on at that level. It’s great to have Jennifer there. I’m thankful, Liz, to be allowed to stay on the ISAC and to be able to report back. I’m glad to play that role; it’s a privilege. Decision: An update and discussion on the National Invasive Species Advisory Council activities (in particular the proposed national center for invasive species) will be added to the fall 2008 Steering Committee meeting agenda.

VII. CIPM Program Changes CIPM program focus - research; communicating science to land mangers – Liz Galli-Noble

The main reason I wanted to meet personally with each member of the SC and SAC was to get feedback on: what’s unique about the Center?; what do we do well?; are we duplicating other efforts?; what needs to be changed?; and the like. I appreciate the time many of you were able to give me and I learned a lot. After only a month on the job, I don’t have all the answers, nor do I know exactly where the CIPM is heading. But certainly one thing that I heard from the majority of the people is that CIPM should get back to our research base and communicating science to land managers. CIPM needs to identify the unique niche that we fill, which other invasive species groups do not. The reality is that, in the short term, the CIPM will be forced to do projects that provide us with funding yet still allow us to fulfill our mission. It could be difficult to find money that will be a perfect fit, however. I really hope that CIPM staff (as a team), with the help of the SC and SAC, can come to some consensus on several specific actions/tasks that we should be focusing on. At this point, getting back to a stronger research focus is one thing we all seem to agree on. Another component of the program that I want to see and several of you have stressed is to reinstate the Research Seed Grant Program. I do not have a specific strategy to fund this yet, other than to

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approach federal agencies (possibly even states) for very small amounts ($25,000 - $50,000) to fund up to 20, small, applied research investigations, annually.

Missouri River Watershed Coalition –Saltcedar Management Project – CIPM new program coordinators ($100,000) -

Liz Galli-Noble and Mara Johnson This information was presented earlier in the meeting. The Missouri River Coalition has hired the CIPM to coordinate their program. They are paying the CIPM $100,000 for a one-year period. (See Attachment C for work plan and budget.)

Pilot Project: online self study learning modules (Mary McFadzen)

I am developing a pilot project with Melissa Brown. This pilot project would be working with research scientists and perhaps practitioners and extension faculty. What we’re finding out from people is that people like Tim Prather and Steve Dewey have scientific information that land managers want. But extension and other research-type people can’t be everywhere to give their presentations. So the easy and relatively affordable way to get that information out is to take the power point presentations that they give, and develop those into a web-based production that will support learning. It’s not just putting a power point up there and having someone click through the site. It’s really about developing a learning product. So, we’re in the process of creating a couple of these pilot projects, where we’ll have them reviewed by specific users and also use evaluations on their value. These will be funded by the CIPM because we don’t have any other funding sources to do online learning projects right now. This is a really valuable investment of my time. Liz Galli-Noble – I agree that this product is money well spent. So I am taking a bit of a funding risk and asked Mary and Melissa go ahead and produce one small product – cost effective, short term – that we can use it as pilot to show people what we can do. I’m pretty confident given the feedback that we’ve gotten that it’s going to be well received. I hope that having some kind of a product in hand will help us sell future projects. John Simons – I think that’s a really good process and also the learning module that you produced for USFWS could certainly be shown to other federal or state agencies. This might be something that you could look at for NGOs for an education product and people can pay a small fee to take it on line. Jennifer Vollmer – Do you think that this video-type product could be used by people going to a BLM or USFWS recertification training? Using this product instead of having the speaker there? Mary McFadzen – There are endless possibilities. You just have to have someone who’s creative, knows the resources and the media, and can coordinate it to make it happen. I feel really confident in doing that; but it does cost money. Like anything else there’s definitely some investment of time and money upfront. John Simons – We’ve had discussions with Richard Lee on using such a thing for the BLM certification or recertification. There is concern about being able to add annual adjustments to the product because the programs are changing on a regular basis. Mary McFadzen – Right, and there’s new information coming out all the time in terms of research that could be highly beneficial. I don’t think online learning is the ultimate answer in terms of training or just supporting knowledge. But it can be a great resource to complement existing onsite programs. John Simons – The interaction we have in a classroom setting is really valuable. We just wanted to be sure that it’s practical and cost effective to make potential adjustments to those presentations on an annual basis. Mary McFadzen – If you video a class one time, it doesn’t take much to go back and video the main presenter in their office in some other state when needed. Then one can simply update the product. If the resources are there, which they usually are, it can be done quite easily.

CIPM continue to support CWMA efforts – Liz Galli-Noble

I hope that the CIPM can continue to support cooperative weed management area efforts. After going to Reno, I definitely saw that small amounts of money reach a lot of people on the ground. CWMA efforts function at the grass-roots level, they do a lot of fantastic work, and by supporting the CWMAs we are reaching the local landowners. I want to be able to help and continue to financially support CWMAs, but at present we don’t have the money to continue our grant program. In addition, the western region, with the exception of a couple of states, is pretty far along in the process of establishing CWMAs. The Midwest and the East are just getting started and the bulk of CWMA funding in the future will likely go to those regions.

Met with Montana’s Governor’s Office; new Invasive Species Initiative – Liz Galli-Noble

Janet Clark and I met with Hal Harper, the chief policy advisor to Montana’s governor on April 4th. Montana is trying to put together a regional invasive species initiative for the western region. Hal asked if the CIPM could provide assistance to this effort in the future. This is exciting and the timing is excellent for the CIPM to get involved.

New CIPM Online Newsletter - Liz Galli-Noble

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I’ve heard from many sources that the CIPM needs to be focusing more on research and distilling and disseminating the mammoth amount of information being generated on invasive plants to land managers. In order to do that, I want to create a new online newsletter where we would be reporting on regional and maybe occasionally national new research findings, important meetings not to be missed, the successful work that CWMA groups are doing, highlighting CIPM-funded research investigations and showcasing the Center and what we do a little bit more. We could showcase our best research grant recipients and provide follow up to their investigations. I realize that we already have a very good website, but this would be more timely information (on a month-by-month basis) and would pop-up information, not something that would require a search.

CIPM Promotional Packet - Liz Galli-Noble

I’ve asked everyone to do one-page summaries of their projects/products for a CIPM promotional packet. I plan to give this information to congressional delegations, governors’ offices, our weed coordinator partners and everyone else who needs to know what the Center does and who we are.

VIII. Weed Management Survey – Earl Creech Earl Creech – This goes back to the first bullet point under item #6 about the focus of the CIPM being on research and education. Liz and I had the opportunity to sit down in Reno to discuss future strategies and priorities for the Center. As we discussed these issues, my thoughts went toward a formal needs assessment that we’re currently in the process of conducting in Nevada and Utah. It’s an electronic survey that Steve Dewey and I put together that will target our two states. It’s for public land managers because Nevada is about 90% public lands and Utah isn’t too far behind. It’s an important component of our clientele from an extension standpoint. This survey asks questions about perceptions and practices of these land managers regarding noxious and invasive weeds. The survey purposes are to document and identify the critical needs of managers, which we can use as a base for our research and education programs. It is really helpful if you’re writing a grant proposal to cite survey results that state: “this really is a problem; this is where I need to spend my time.” Also, these surveys can provide baseline data for tracking changes into the future; and more and more of us in academics, and really everyone who deals with weeds, are being asked to document impact. These types of surveys, if they’re done every four or five years, can help you get a feel for the impact that you may be having. The thought I had was that this survey could go out region wide. It could be something that we could send out to every state in the West. Every university has research and extension people that deal with weeds and there are an awful lot of other people who I think would have interest in this information. One of the nice things about it is that it’s an e-survey, so it’s cheap. As I think about sending this out regionally – going for the entire western region – if it were to come from an extension weed specialist in Nevada or Utah, I don’t think the people in other states would lend it much credence and it would probably end up being deleted. But if it was spearheaded by an established, well respected, regional organization such as the CIPM, we would have a much greater chance of being successful. John Simons – Would this survey go to individuals or to agency employees? Earl Creech – The people that we would like to target would be everybody who has a good feel for weeds and weed management on the lands that their organization manages. It’s actually people who are on the ground and deal with weeds. A lot of what you find from these surveys is that it simply reaffirms or documents what you already knew. However, you’ll sometimes find that there will be some revelations, maybe some things you’d never considered before that maybe a person ought to be spending some time on. For example, I sent this survey to every Ag producer in Nevada and we had over a 31% response rate, which is actually pretty incredible for a mail-out survey without follow-up. It was surprising to me that hoary cress came back as our most problematic weed. I was kind of hoping for something a little bit more sexy than that. That’s what they tell me and it was actually #1 by quite a large margin. What I’d like to propose to you on the Steering Committee is, is this something that the Center could spearhead maybe send this out using the Center to hopefully get responses from folks all across the West? Then we can all use that information in our programs and in our activities for establishing priorities and documenting impact. John Simons –About what would be the cost per state? Earl Creech – This is an electronic survey and so it’s housed on Survey Monkey. It’s $30 a month and I can send it out to a billion people if I wanted to. So it’s dirt cheap. The cost is negligible and actually that program collects all the data, it analyzes it, and then you’re ready to write it up and summarize it. It’s a really slick program and really it’s cheap. Jennifer Vollmer – Would you be the one that would summarize and analyze the data, even if it was for the whole West? Earl Creech – You bet. I’d be happy to partner with anybody else who would like to be involved in that process. John Simons – So, if we do this regionally, we’d be able to identify either states or regions that the results come from? Earl Creech – You bet. We could summarize it over the entire region and then we can also summarize the data for individual states. John Simons – Would it be possible to do it for agencies? You’d have to ask the questions appropriately to be able to do that.

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Earl Creech – Yes. Initially we’ve mostly targeted agencies because 70% of our state is BLM. We’ve mostly targeted the federal agencies to date, but in states where State lands make up a pretty significant number of acres, we could also expand it to those folks as well. Jon Wraith – I thought this looks primarily like an extension tool and I’m certain it’s valuable to you and potentially to other extension folks. However, a better and more appropriate approach than having the CIPM do it top down, would be to get the other state cooperative extension weed programs involved; instead of someone else doing a survey and then saying “here are the results, do something about it.” Often people do not like that approach. As you said, if Nevada extension sends it to North Dakota producers, they’re going to ask “why is Nevada involved?” I think the approach is valuable but different states may have specific questions that they would like on their survey; rather than using a canned program that somebody else developed. So I have some hesitation about whether the CIPM is the appropriate way to conduct this survey regionally; or whether Tim Prather should be involved if it’s going to be in Idaho. And we’ll soon have a new extension person at MSU. I think there should be more discussion regarding this. Earl Creech – One of the valuable sides of having something that is canned or something that can be applied across multiply states is that you have a much more powerful source of data at the end of the day. You have a higher response rate and you just have a little bit more power in the data you acquire. In Nevada, each of our land managers is managing million of acres; so if I send this out to everybody in Nevada (who deals with weed management on public lands), I may get 30 responses. If we can send this out across the western region, we may get 250 or 300 responses, and that makes it a lot more powerful. Tim Prather – Earl, I think Jon is right. You want to partner with somebody in the specific state. The benefit is that you’d get a more targeted mailing, because they know who to send it to in that state. I don’t think anybody in extension really likes getting surprised by having something done in their state that they aren’t involved in.

John Simons – I think there’s a potential maybe to use it through the agencies, as a way to target the public land users. We’re looking at Montana and the Dakotas, trying to get the view from public land users, as to how they view the agencies and what they feel they need from the agencies. I’m sure that we could figure out a way to have the survey sponsored by the agency, which would go out to agency people or perhaps on the public website for the agency. Earl Creech – What we considered doing was just going through some higher-level agency personnel; that’s how we’ve done it in Nevada and Utah. To go to the BLM person in charge of weeds in the State of Nevada and he forwards it to everybody that he feels it’s applicable to. In the end, it ends up coming internally to a lot of people. On the national level, we could work with Rick Lee or Gina Ramos to get it to all the BLM people in one try. Eric Lane – I would recommend getting it to key federal coordinators at a state or regional level because they have their own agency staff e-mail listservs, who are their ‘go to’ weed people. That would probably be the most direct way, and it would also be coming from somebody they already know (even though they’re going to Survey Monkey and when they hit “enter” it goes to you). That would be less obvious. John Simons – I definitely think we should pursue this idea. Eric Lane – I just want to throw out some random thoughts about the purpose of the survey, but also maybe more generally for the CIPM to think about. Your comments from the survey results awhile back where some people expressed concern about a species is a very valid piece of information. However, that would be like somebody in Colorado saying “I’m really concerned about Canada thistle” because that’s the species that everybody has and that everybody’s impacted by. While I don’t mean to belittle the value of that information, it doesn’t necessarily suggest that that’s where we want to actually invest more resources. In the weed management community, we continue to struggle with the reality that local managers are constantly bugged to deal with the species that people are most aware of and most concerned about, because they’re probably the most wide-spread things that people are dealing with. If that’s all they do, then they ignore the new invaders, and early detection and rapid response goes right out the window. From the weed science sense of things or from a larger landscape level of management, we would say well, it’s great that people think hoary cress is something they all want more help with, but will it be at the expense of them then ignoring the other half dozen species that they wouldn’t know how to identify if it bit them in the butt? But they should be concerned because they need to be detecting those populations at a very early stage, so we can do something about them. There’s a dichotomy about what the typical land manager will say – I need more help on this - if they’re answering a survey that’s not part of a broader discussion. Where you can say: “well you have a lot of hoary cress, specifically how could we help you?” “But what are you doing about yellow starthistle, which I understand is moving into the area?” “Are you concerned about that?” And the manager says, “Oh, well yes actually we are concerned about that I could use more tools on this.” So, there’s that weird dichotomy between what’s on peoples’ minds at the moment, because that’s what’s constantly popping up on their list of things to do. The phone call saying, “why isn’t this roadside being treated for Canada thistle?” versus no one is calling to say hey, “I found the first Dalmatian toadflax plant in the county maybe we should look for more.” There’s a tension there between responding to what people say they need and trying to be more circumspect on the larger landscape. We’re not adequately devoting resources to early

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detection and rapid response. How can we help them identify that as a real need that they have, but they haven’t themselves recognized it? This is what comes to mind when I think about doing a survey. It will give us information but it will give us probably one perspective and there are other perspectives that are also well informed – from the weed science community or people, who are not so much local land managers; but larger state or regional land managers, who may have a different perspective yet equally valid. Dave White – Earl, I read your survey and I thought it was really good. I think that it could, speaking parochially, really benefit some of the things we’re doing in Montana with NRCS. We have special noxious weed sign-ups through one of our programs and I think that what your survey does could really help inform the targeted species we go after and the location. So, this is maybe not the time to do it, but Earl, would you mind if I call you after this meeting and maybe you could help me flesh out a more of a targeted survey that we might use here in Montana.

Liz Galli-Noble – Thank you everyone. I’m sorry to cut off this good discussion, but we’re almost out of time. Earl, thank you for bringing this before the Steering Committee and if people have further comments or questions, please get a hold of Earl.

IX. SC Members Feedback/Guidance; Steering Committee Member Updates John Simons – Does anyone have any comments to provide to Liz and the CIPM staff? Eric Lane – There’s a difference between responding to what some people identify as needs and then leading. The Center research experience has been a good example of how to do it; where we really have focused on synthesizing our current understanding of particular management tools – whether it’s fire, grazing, mapping or the like – and putting it out there in a format so that practitioners can adopt what the current science is; instead of plowing the road that’s been plowed before. That takes a certain level of circumspection to think about. What’s a need out there that hasn’t been articulated yet, and providing some leadership in that arena? The flip side to it is we also have to make sure, and it sounds like you’re keenly aware of this, that given where we are financially we have to be profitable. There’s an interesting balance there between leading and doing things that maybe people aren’t clamoring for, but clearly are a need and also finding the mechanism to make those things self-supporting. I just wanted to put it out there for you to chew on a little bit more.

John Simons – I think that so far things have looked very positive. That the CIPM is continuing at a very rapid pace and it’s still accomplishing a lot of things. So, I think we look forward to some good times ahead. Tim Prather – I think, that after we’ve had a few more months here with respect to looking at potential funding sources and so forth, it might be good at the next meeting to talk about where the Center sits in terms of what area it’s going to serve in the future. I don’t know if we will have enough experience at that point to know (going forward) how big of an area the CIPM would serve. Or perhaps at least start that discussion and revisit it again over the next year, so that we’d have a good sense for where the Center is going to be going in the future. John Simons – This past week we’ve put a lot of plugs in for the CIPM as far as a source of information for people down in Arizona. X. Scheduling the Fall 2008 SC Meeting John Simons – If there are no more comments, we’re about out of time. Let’s schedule the fall SC meeting. Tim Prather – An October time frame would be good. John Simons – Last year it was October 10 and 11, which is fine. Dean Peterson – The time we had last year was okay. Mandy Tu – I cannot do the week of October 6th and also not the week of October 13th (that’s the Natural Areas Conference).

Jennifer Vollmer – What about the 1st week in October -- September 29 to October 5th? The NAWMA meeting is in Billings from September 15 - 18. I have an NCTC training again the week of September 15th, so that doesn’t work, and certification the week before that in the afternoons. John Simons – The week of September 29 – October 5 has been suggested. Does that look pretty open for folks? Do you like Wednesday/Thursday or Thursday/Friday? Mandy Tu – If it could be earlier in the week that would be better for me.

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John Simons – Okay, so do you want it on Tuesday/Wednesday, September 30th and October 1st in Bozeman? All agreed that that would work.

Liz Galli-Noble – Do we want to do a two-day meeting (all day both days) or two days with one full day and one half day? John Simons – Have we had enough time the way we’ve done it in the past – a day and a half. Has that been sufficient for folks? All agreed.

John Simons – Okay, let’s proceed with that. Decision: The fall 2008 CIPM Steering Committee meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, September 30 (9:00 am to 5:00 pm) and Wednesday, October 1 (9:00 am to noon), 2008 in Bozeman. XI. The meeting was adjourned at 12:00 p.m.

John Simons – Any other comments, questions or concerns? (No response.) We are adjourned.

Meeting minutes submitted by Dianne Brokke and edited by Liz Galli-Noble.

Draft 8-28-08

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Attachment E. Center for Invasive Plant Management BYLAWS

2008 I. MISSION

The mission of the Center for Invasive Plant Management (CIPM) is to promote proactive, ecologically sound management of invasive plants in western North America by sponsoring research, conducting public education, and facilitating collaboration and communication among researchers, educators, policy makers and land natural resource managers.

II. STEERING COMMITTEE A. Representation – The Steering Committee shall consist of one representative of: 1. USDI Bureau of Land Management 2. USDA Forest Service 3. Tribes/USDI Bureau of Indian Affairs 4. Universities 5. State agencies 6. Conservation groups 7. Private landowners – Montana 8. Private landowners – outside Montana 9. Industry groups 10. Research interests 11. Other federal agency 12. Montana State University, Land Resources and Environmental Sciences (LRES) Department Head (ex-officio)

Steering Committee members shall be drawn from throughout western North America to represent diverse geographical areas, constituencies, and approaches to land management.

B. Terms of Office – Steering Committee members shall be elected for three-year terms with the opportunity for re-election for an additional three-year term. Terms of office will begin July 1 and conclude June 30 (Does this need to change?). New appointments are encouraged.

C. Election – Steering Committee members shall be nominated and elected by a majority vote of current Steering Committee members. The participation of agency representatives must be approved by the agencies that they represent.

D. Officers – Steering Committee members may elect among themselves a Moderator to help facilitate decision-making and get quorum decisions from the Steering Committee, and to run Steering Committee meetings. The Moderator may serve a one-year or two-year term with a spring or fall election.

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E. Voting – Proposals and initiatives will be recommended for approval with a positive vote of two-thirds of the Steering Committee, working toward consensus. Votes may be registered in person, by phone, by e-mail, or in writing. Votes may be conducted via e-mail/fax between meetings. F. Expectations – Steering Committee members shall advise the CIPM Executive Director and the LRES Department Head; attend semi-annual Steering Committee meetings; advocate CIPM programs; identify new partnership opportunities; and support funding existing and new initiatives. G. Conflict of Interest – Steering Committee members shall abstain from voting on issues or providing direction that directly affects their financial or legal standing personally or professionally.

III. MEETINGS

A. Time – Semi-annual meetings of the Steering Committee will be held in the fall and spring.

B. Notification – Steering Committee members will be notified at least 30 days in advance of meetings. C. Quorum – A quorum shall consist of seven of the 11 voting Steering Committee members.

IV. DECISION-MAKING

A. Long-term decisions – The entire Steering Committee shall be solicited for their advice and votes on issues regarding long-term vision and planning for CIPM, as well as programmatic focus and financial support. B. Immediate decisions – The Executive Center Director shall have the authority to make day-to-day decisions, hire staff, and act in the best interests of CIPM when immediate action is required.

V. COMMITTEES

A. The Steering Committee may form subcommittees as needed.

B. A Science Advisory Council (SAC) shall: 1) advise CIPM on current and emerging scientific issues; 2) provide an overview of invasive weed ecology issues in the West, identify needs, and encourage research that fulfills needs; 3) build regional research consortia that strategically addresses invasive plant issues; 4) serve as a review panel for CIPM’s research grant program; and 5) provide grant-writing advice and direction to CIPM. Members shall be appointed by the Executive Director for two-year terms. Edited by the SAC on June 11, 2008

B. Science Advisory Council (SAC) shall: 1) function as a regional, scientific sounding board for the CIPM – providing scientific guidance and oversight, and helping identify emerging research/management needs; 2) assist CIPM in building regional technology transfer, education and research consortia that strategically address invasive plant issues; 3) serve as a review panel for CIPM’s research grant program, when the program is active; and 4) provide specific grant writing advice to the CIPM as requested. Members shall be appointed by the CIPM Director for two-year terms.

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C. The Education Advisory Committee shall: 1) advise the CIPM Assistant Director for Outreach and Education Program Coordinator on the informational needs of educators/land managers who work on invasive plant issues; and 2) review and advise in the development of educational materials and programs produced by CIPM. Members shall be appointed by the Executive Director for two-year terms.

VI. EXECUTIVE CENTER DIRECTOR

A. Hiring and Dismissal – The Steering Committee, in partnership with Montana State University, shall select, interview, and hire the Executive Center Director. The LRES Department Head shall be the hiring authority and lead the search process. The LRES Department Head shall provide direct oversight of the Executive Director as far as university policies, office space, grants and contracts, personnel, and administration. The Steering Committee, according to MSU policies and procedures, may recommend termination of the Executive Director to the LRES Department Head.

B. Responsibilities – The Executive Center Director shall: conduct semi-annual Steering Committee meetings; communicate regularly with and follow the intent of the Steering Committee; facilitate collaboration among researchers, educators, and land managers to restore, maintain, and protect healthy ecosystems by managing invasive weeds; coordinate CIPM research and education activities; negotiate agreements; generate funding; manage personnel and budgets; and facilitate correspondence among all interested regional and national partners. C. Oversight – The Executive Center Director is responsible to his/her LRES Department Head and to the CIPM Steering Committee. Written quarterly annual reports, including financial reports, shall be provided by the Executive Director to Steering Committee members and the LRES Department Head, as well as to Center funders. D. Other staff – With justification provided to the CIPM Steering Committee and LRES Department Head, the Executive Center Director may hire and terminate CIPM staff as needed.

VII. RELATIONSHIP WITH MONTANA STATE UNIVERSITY

A. Partnership – Montana State University will support CIPM by providing office space and facilities, janitorial services, administration (personnel, grants and contracts, fund administration), legal advice, purchasing agreements, computer network services, and other benefits and services associated with the university.

B. Funding – As established with other MSU centers and institutes, MSU upper administration may fund with broad earmarks to MSU-CIPM high-priority university programs that complement and support CIPM activities, provided that the allocation does not impinge on CIPM’s historical baseline funding. Plans for and outcomes of that funding will be reported to the Steering Committee. The MSU LRES Department Head will communicate with the Steering Committee concerning such funding

VIII. BYLAWS

A. Changing – Bylaws may be added, amended, or deleted with a two-thirds vote of the entire Steering Committee, either in writing or in person.

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B. Notification – Proposed bylaws changes shall be provided to Steering Committee members in

writing at least 30 days preceding the vote.

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Approved 9/30/08

Attachment F. Center for Invasive Plant Management BYLAWS

2008 I. MISSION

The mission of the Center for Invasive Plant Management (CIPM) is to promote proactive, ecologically sound management of invasive plants in western North America by sponsoring research, conducting public education, and facilitating collaboration and communication among researchers, educators, policy makers and natural resource managers.

II. STEERING COMMITTEE A. Representation – The Steering Committee shall consist of one representative of: 1. USDI Bureau of Land Management 2. USDA Forest Service 3. Tribes/USDI Bureau of Indian Affairs 4. Universities 5. State agencies 6. Conservation groups 7. Private landowners – Montana 8. Private landowners – outside Montana 9. Industry groups 10. Research interests 11. Other federal agency 12. Montana State University, Land Resources and Environmental Sciences (LRES) Department Head (ex-officio)

Steering Committee members shall be drawn from throughout western North America to represent diverse geographical areas, constituencies, and approaches to land management.

B. Terms of Office – Steering Committee members shall be elected for three-year terms with the opportunity for re-election for an additional three-year term. Terms of office commence on membership start date. New appointments are encouraged.

C. Election – Steering Committee members shall be nominated and elected by a majority vote of current Steering Committee members. The participation of agency representatives must be approved by the agencies that they represent.

D. Officers – Steering Committee members may elect among themselves a Chair to help facilitate decision-making and get quorum decisions from the Steering Committee, and to run Steering Committee meetings. The Chair may serve a two-year term with a fall election.

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E. Voting – Proposals and initiatives will be recommended for approval with a positive vote of two-thirds of the Steering Committee, working toward consensus. Votes may be registered in person, by phone, by e-mail, or in writing. Votes may be conducted via e-mail/fax between meetings. F. Expectations – Steering Committee members shall advise the CIPM Director and the LRES Department Head; attend semi-annual Steering Committee meetings; advocate CIPM programs; identify new partnership opportunities; and support funding existing and new initiatives. G. Conflict of Interest – Steering Committee members shall abstain from voting on issues or providing direction that directly affects their financial or legal standing personally or professionally.

III. MEETINGS

A. Time – One in-person meeting of the Steering Committee will be held in the fall and conference call meetings will be held as needed.

B. Notification – Steering Committee members will be notified at least 30 days in advance of meetings. C. Quorum – A quorum shall consist of seven of the 11 voting Steering Committee members.

IV. DECISION-MAKING

A. Long-term decisions – The entire Steering Committee shall be solicited for their advice and votes on issues regarding long-term vision and planning for CIPM, as well as programmatic focus and financial support. B. Immediate decisions – The Center Director shall have the authority to make day-to-day decisions, hire staff, and act in the best interests of CIPM when immediate action is required.

V. COMMITTEES

A. The Steering Committee may form subcommittees as needed.

D. Science Advisory Council (SAC) shall: 1) function as a regional, scientific sounding board for the CIPM – providing scientific guidance and oversight, and helping identify emerging research/management needs; 2) assist CIPM in building regional technology transfer, education and research consortia that strategically address invasive plant issues; 3) serve as a review panel for CIPM’s research grant program, when the program is active; and 4) provide specific grant writing advice to the CIPM as requested. Five or six members shall be appointed by the CIPM Director for two-year terms.

E. The Education Advisory Committee shall: 1) advise the CIPM Assistant Director for Outreach and Education on the informational needs of educators/land managers who work on invasive plant issues; and 2) review and advise in the development of educational materials and programs produced by CIPM. Members shall be appointed by the Director for two-year terms.

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VI. CENTER DIRECTOR

A. Hiring and Dismissal – The Steering Committee, in partnership with Montana State University, shall select, interview, and hire the Center Director. The LRES Department Head shall be the hiring authority and lead the search process. The LRES Department Head shall provide direct oversight of the Director as far as university policies, office space, grants and contracts, personnel, and administration. The Steering Committee, according to MSU policies and procedures, may recommend termination of the Director to the LRES Department Head.

B. Responsibilities – The Center Director shall: conduct semi-annual Steering Committee meetings; communicate regularly with and follow the intent of the Steering Committee; facilitate collaboration among researchers, educators, and land managers to restore, maintain, and protect healthy ecosystems by managing invasive weeds; coordinate CIPM research and education activities; negotiate agreements; generate funding; manage personnel and budgets; and facilitate correspondence among all interested regional and national partners. C. Oversight – The Center Director is responsible to his/her LRES Department Head and to the CIPM Steering Committee. Written annual reports, including financial reports, shall be provided by the Director to Steering Committee members and the LRES Department Head, as well as to Center funders. D. Other staff – With justification provided to the CIPM Steering Committee and LRES Department Head, the Center Director may hire and terminate CIPM staff as needed.

VII. RELATIONSHIP WITH MONTANA STATE UNIVERSITY

A. Partnership – Montana State University will support CIPM by providing office space and facilities, janitorial services, administration (personnel, grants and contracts, fund administration), legal advice, purchasing agreements, computer network services, and other benefits and services associated with the university.

B. Funding – As established with other MSU centers and institutes, MSU upper administration may fund with broad earmarks to MSU-CIPM high-priority university programs that complement and support CIPM activities, provided that the allocation does not impinge on CIPM’s historical baseline funding. Plans for and outcomes of that funding will be reported to the Steering Committee. The MSU LRES Department Head will communicate with the Steering Committee concerning such funding

VIII. BYLAWS

A. Changing – Bylaws may be added, amended, or deleted with a two-thirds vote of the entire Steering Committee, either in writing or in person.

C. Notification – Proposed bylaws changes shall be provided to Steering Committee members in

writing at least 30 days preceding the vote.

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Attachment G. CIPM Budget

89

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Attachment H. CIPM Products Sold Summary

Sep 26, 2008

Value of Product

Pcs/Boxes Total Pcs/Boxes Cost of Income Net Pcs/Boxes Gain or

CIPM Products Ordered Disbributed Remaining Pcs/Boxes to Date Income Remaining Loss

Invasive Weed Pocket (Orig Order / 1 Reorder) 15,000 14,510 490 30,747.00 24,148.00 -6,599.00 1,715.00 -4,884.00

Current Price - $3.50 (Previous Price - $2.00)

Leafy Spurge Roll-out (Orig Order / 2 Reorders) 153 124 29 14,790.19 12,995.00 -1,795.19 3,915.00 2,119.81

Current Price - $135 (Previous Prices - $125 / $100)

Weed Models 1,766 1,407 359 32,056.80 36,686.00 4,629.20 9,406.00 14,035.20 Knapweed (Orig Order - 512 boxes [12 stems/box]) 512 417 95

Current Price - $26/box (Previous Price $24/box)

Dalmatian Toadflax (Orig Order - 504 boxes [12 stems/box]) 504 349 155

Current Price - $26/box (Previous Price $24/box)

Leafy Spurge (Orig Order - 500 boxes [12 stems/box]) 500 395 105

Current Price - $26/box (Previous Price $24/box)

Yellow Starthistle (Original Order - 250 boxes [24 stems/box]) 250 246 4

Current Price - $44/box

Invasive Plant Prevention Guidelines (Orig Order) 6,040 4,142 1,898 4,366.21 2,684.25 -1,681.96 3,321.50 1,639.54

Current Price - $1.75 (Previous Price - $1.50)

Weed ID Cards 50,000 33,943 16,057 4,989.45 2,407.00 -2,582.45 1,605.70 -976.75 Knapweed (Orig Order/ 2 Recorders) 12,500 10,312 2,188

Current Price - 10/$1 (Previous Price - 15/$1)

Dalmatian Toadflax (Orig Order / 2 Reorders) 12,500 8,428 4,072

Current Price - 10/$1 (Previous Price - 15/$1)

Leafy Spurge (Orig Order / 2 Reorders) 12,500 8,498 4,002

Current Price - 10/$1 (Previous Price - 15/$1)

Yellow Starthistle (Orig Order / 2 Reorders) 12,500 6,705 5,795

Current Price - 10/$1 (Previous Price - 15/$1)

Inventory & Survey Methods (Original Order) 2,500 872 1,628 12,940 11,886.50 -1,053.50 32,560.00 31,506.50

Current Price - Full-$20/Disc(25+)-$16/Editor-$10

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Attachment I.

Spatial Modeling of Invasive Flowering Rush (Butomus umbellatus) in the Columbia River Headwaters Liz Galli-Noble took over project from Mara Johnson in August 2008 August 26, 2008 Project Background Salish Kootenai College, University of Montana, Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and Montana State University – Center for Invasive Plant Management are partnering to conduct an integrated research, education, and extension project to develop a spatial model that will help predict the biological potential of flowering rush in Flathead Lake. The aquatic invasive plant has significant negative implications for the Columbia River system. This research is the first of its type, evaluating the ecological role of flowering rush invasion, and spatial modeling invasive species in aquatic environments is a relatively new area. Documenting current and future conditions and increasing understanding of plant ecology is essential to evaluate the threat to local and regional fish and wildlife environments, agricultural irrigation water delivery costs, water quality and identification of safe and effective mitigations. Hypotheses: Reducing the spread and ecological impacts of flowering rush in Flathead Lake and the Columbia River system, by utilizing spatial modeling to identify key infestations, spread vectors and characterizing flowering rush plant ecology, we can design appropriate management mitigations to reduce the impacts. Project Objectives:

1. Determine phenology and dispersal of flowering rush in Flathead Lake 2. Inventory infestation in Lake 3. Develop a computer spatial model of Flathead Lake to predict the biological potential of flowering rush 4. Develop educational and outreach program, and management strategies for flowering rush.

Project Outcomes:

Tool to evaluate the potential spread of flowering rush in the Flathead Basin and implications for the Columbia River Basin

An inventory and map of flowering rush incursion in the Flathead Basin for public, natural resource managers and policy makers consideration

Management recommendations for flowering rush management for consideration. ___________________________________________________________

CIPM Main Role – Project Evaluation MSU-CIPM is cooperating as a partner (1862 institution) for the Flowering Rush Project: consulting on a communications strategy, and participating during initial project start-up, mid-term and final evaluation, and during field activities and information sharing opportunities. CIPM will assist with information access in MSU and communicate about flowering rush within the region. CIPM will assist with the survey of Columbia system managers and plant specialists, provide advice on college case study and public education products, and assist with a communications strategy. DID WE DO THIS??

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The Center’s primary role will be to provide evaluation throughout the project. Principals of participatory or collaborative inquiry will guide evaluation to the fullest extent possible. The Advisory Group will be the primary source of evaluation criteria and measures of success. Early on during the initial project goals and work plan review, they will help define expected outcomes and evaluation questions. Outcome Measures Specific outcomes and measurement approaches will be determined and prioritized by participants during the evaluation planning stages. Expected outcomes will be translated into evaluation questions to assess project effectiveness. These will include some of the following:

Successful completing and demonstration of the spatial model effectiveness of predicting spread Meaningful involvement in planning by stakeholder groups and targeted populations, including youth

and students Followed a well organized approach to planning, conducting research, facilitating community

involvement and developing mitigation strategies, ongoing communication systems, timelines addressed Strategies that are evidence-based and feasible to implement Goals, objectives and strategies that are culturally centered and focused on Tribal, environmental, and

regional needs Spatial model tool and flowering rush management goals, objectives, and strategies that address

environmental and community needs Feasibility of management alternatives and adoption by regulators and landowners Establishment of a regional network increasing awareness and action to reduce the impacts of flowering

rush Implementation of site specific actions to reduce key infestation points.

Data and Design The evaluation plan will be developed during the first meeting of project start up, addressing the proposed outcome measures from this evaluation plan. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? Was this done? Research Phase Evaluation –

1. Interviews and/or written questionnaires with planning participants, partners, targeted groups, and community members;

2. Document review, including meeting agendas and minutes, written actions plans, MOUs, strategic plans/written priorities of partnering agencies, needs assessment results;

3. Evaluator participation and observation – evaluator will participate in initial project implementation, develop outcome measures, and give feedback on identified areas at the end of each evaluation session. Research results and model will be peer reviewed with Tribal and University partners, UM-Yellow Bay Biological Station, and regional management agencies.

Planning, Education, and Outreach Phase Evaluation – sources and collection strategies will include:

1. Review and testing of educational materials, 2. Participation in aquatic invasive species and Advisory Group interdisciplinary planning sessions 3. Interviews and/or written questionnaires with key participants and informants, 4. Review impact on policies or management recommendations, and adoption of long-term management

strategies and outcomes. Long-Term Outcome Evaluation The project evaluator will assist in the development and evaluation of long-term outcomes for flowering rush management strategies. Information from the spatial model results of planning sessions, and review of ongoing

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management we will develop management recommendations and strategies to contain flowering rush during the second year of the strategy development and environmental review using a multi-disciplinary participatory approach. Dissemination Plans CIPM will collect information and network with local and regional partners on the project results to further assess the potential scope of the problem. Partnership and Collaborative Efforts CIPM will participate with project from the start, providing evaluation, help define project outcome measures, consult on educational strategies, and advise on educational material production. This project will enhance the land grant relationship between SKC and MSU, particularly with invasive species work. Institutional Commitment The flowering rush research project presents a compelling area for MSU-CIPM involvement and participation for long-term flowering rush issues. Flowering rush is an issue for areas off the Flathead Reservation and has become an issue for the Montana Noxious Weed Trust Fund as landowners implement management efforts. These efforts are largely non-tested, and there is public controversy concerning aquatic herbicide use. This is an area that CIPM sees the need for careful coordination and communication for long-term management strategies to be effective. Funding Amounts & Sources:

1. USDA – CSREES – Tribal Colleges Research Grants Program, $150,000 (2007-2009) CIPM = $18,720

2. MT Noxious Weed Trust Fund Grant - ~$27,000 (2007-2008); CIPM = $0 Partners:

Salish Kootenai College University of Montana CIPM/MSU (1862 Land-Grant University)

__________________________________

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Attachment J. New CIPM Program Structure

Not Available

Attachment K. CIPM: POLICY PROGRAM (J Clark) 9/24/08

Why should CIPM be involved in the policy arena? What are the benefits?

Maintain CIPM visibility regionally and nationally

Generate contracts ($$$) for services (e.g., coordination)

Push policy toward a more ecologically based approach

Awareness of new or potential funding opportunities

Knowledge and communication of new initiatives and legislation supports CIPM’s information

clearinghouse function.

Project

Goal Participants Action

National Invasive

Species Advisory

Cmte (ISAC)

Advise federal agencies (via

National Invasive Species

Council [NISC]) on federal IS

policy

Washington-level staff

of (19?) federal

agencies; diverse

national advisory

cmte

* Review new National Mgmt Plan;

* support IS efforts in Alaska; *

chair Org Collaboration cmte; *

mbr ISAC Steering Cmte

Rocky Mountain

Weed Summit

Coordinate regional

initiatives to support

invasive plant management

Practitioners, NGOs,

industry reps, state &

county personnel

* Increase funding; *enhance

collaboration in the West; *

conduct national awareness

campaign

National Invasive

Weed Awareness

Week (NIWAW) /

Invasive Weeds

Awareness

Coalition (IWAC)

Bring attention to invasive

plant issues at the

Washington level (feds and

Congress)

IWAC = federal

agencies, NGOs,

industry, state

agencies – chaired by

the Weed Sci Society

of America

* Education and awareness

activities for five-day annual

gathering in DC; * At-Large mbr of

IWAC Steering Cmte

Healthy Habitats /

National Coalition

for Invasive Plant

Action (NCIPA)

Advocate for increased

federal funding and

coordinate grassroots-

directed legislation

NGOs, industry, state

agencies, sportsmen,

etc. (all interested

parties that can

lobby)

* Organizing under Wildlife

Forever; * hiring lobbyist;

*developing mission and goals; *

fundingraising

MT Invasive Species

Subcmte

Develop state legislation

establishing an IS Council

Governor’s staff, 3

agency directors,

state agency staff,

~12 reps of other

interests in MT

* Developing the concept and a

bill to be introduced in 2009

Legislature

CIPM policy website Create invasive plant policy

clearinghouse with

resources for grassroots

advocates

JKC / CIPM staff * In development. Potentially

including news, briefing papers,

alerts, resource links; *CIPM can

bring scientific expertise to policy

development (service for hire)

Western Weed

Coordinating Cmte

Bring parties together to

work out inter-jurisdictional

problems and coordinate

western regional programs

State-, regional- and

federal-level weed

program managers

* Annual meeting in December; *

Liz & Janet presenting info;

*developing a state-agency

breakout group to lobby

Tamarisk Coalition

Board of Directors

Oversee western regional

efforts of a nonprofit org

based in Colorado

Reps from CO, KS,

CA, UT, TX, NM, MT

* Tamarisk Research Conference;

* watershed-level projects; *

funding and personnel issues

NEED: Non-federal funding to support CIPM’s involvement in these activities (i.e., staff salary).

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Attachment L. Missouri River Watershed Coalition and Center for Invasive Plant Management Project

Project Title: Missouri River Watershed Coalition (MRWC) – Program Coordination Project Duration: May 1, 2008 – May 1, 2009

MRWC Purpose - Six state weed coordinators (Montana, Nebraska, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming) and other interested parties formed the MRCW in 2005 to develop a collaborative strategy for invasive species and water resource management in the Missouri River headwaters region.

MRWC Membership - MRWC coordinates its efforts with the state departments of agriculture, Tribes, weed districts, county weed boards, private landowners and other county, state, federal agencies concerned with the spread of saltcedar (tamarisk) and other invasive plants throughout watersheds that cross jurisdictional boundaries.

MRWC Background – o MRWC meets semi-annually, since 2005; 6-state MOA signed. o CIPM served as the initial project coordinator during the development of the MRWC. o MRWC has produced a management plan. o Provides an ideal model for other states to use for regional coordination of invasive species.

CIPM Project Objectives: CIPM project coordination focuses on (1) organizing and facilitating intergroup activities, events and communication, (2) coordinating communication and disseminating information to parties outside of the group, and (3) providing evaluation of Coalition progress. CIPM aims to increase the coordination of activities between the members of the six Missouri headwaters states through both general coordination of the group and facilitating specific key projects and products. Specific key projects and products for CIPM were identified from the Action Plan outlined in the MRWC Management Plan.

Objective 1. Organize and Facilitate Intergroup Coordination and Communication

1) The MWRC has identified Early Detection and Rapid Response (EDRR) as a priority management tool that would be most valuable if coordinated on a regional scale. CIPM is taking the lead on initiating a six-state EDRR system.

2) CIPM facilitates and organizes semi-annual meetings, and records and distributes minutes. The MRWC website and meetings act as a clearinghouse where projects can be discussed, analyzed, and coordinated between the states and various entities; CIPM facilitates that discussion, documents those actions and disseminates information to MRWC members and the interested public.

3) CIPM maintains and updates the Headwaters_Tamarisk listserv, and between semi-annual meetings, sends key information to the MRWC members via the listserv.

4) CIPM hosts and maintains the MRWC website. CIPM oversees the posting of data for education and mapping to the site as well as maintaining the links, graphics and MRWC program information on the site.

5) CIPM monitors and communicates potential funding opportunities to the MRWC. 6) CIPM assists with the coordination of MRWC mapping efforts – including a six-state map of saltcedar presence and absence.

Future mapping efforts will include inventories and surveys, and additional invasive plant species.

Objective 2. Coordinate Communication to Parties Outside of the Group 1) CIPM shares information with other groups through the website and/or by traveling and presenting at meetings, workshops

and conferences. 2) CIPM invites agencies and other interested parties to MRWC meetings and sponsored events. 3) CIPM reviews national legislation and communicates opportunities to the MRWC via the listserv, MRWC workgroup

discussions, and semi-annual meetings.

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4) CIPM assists MRWC members with the development of public relations materials – one-page summaries, brochures, posters, press releases, etc. – that showcase Coalition projects and activities for a target audience of peers, policymakers, potential funders and landowners.

Objective 3. Evaluation of MRWC Progress CIPM assists the MRWC with their annual program evaluation and documentation.

MRWC Project Coordination Budget May 1, 2008 to May 1, 2009 Expenditures to date (10/1/08) = ~$15,000

Budget Category Amount Totals

CIPM Personnel Salaries (7 part-time CIPM personnel: director, assistant director, facilitator, website manager, technical writer/ graphics designer, grants manager)

Benefits

$49,175

$18,541

$67,716

Travel $15,300 $15,300

Rent (meeting room) $1,484 $1,484

Contracted Services $10,000 $10,000

Supplies $3,000 $3,000

Communications $2,500 $2,500

Total $100,000 $100,000

PROGRESS TO DATE: CIPM Activities, May – October 2008

Montana Department of Agriculture and CIPM finalized the MRWC/CIPM 2008-2009 coordination contract. CIPM coordinated, developed the agenda, facilitated the meeting and produced minutes for the 2008 MRWC

Spring and Fall Meetings (in Nebraska and Montana, respectively). CIPM assisted the MRWC in passing a constitution and bylaws at the Fall meeting.

CIPM has set up an MSU financial “designated account” for MRWC contributions; they may or may not choose to use this account.

CIPM has assisted with the coordination and development of a new six-state salt-cedar infestation map for website and public relations materials; and has participated as a MRWC mapping workgroup member and attended meetings with a mapping contractor in Helena to discuss interactive mapping and other products.

CIPM is organizing and assisting in the implementation of a Public Relations Plan for MRWC – which has involved the development of a brochure, one-page MRWC handout, new poster for Rocky Mountain Weed Summit, saltcedar project write ups, and the distribution of these materials to interested parties.

CIPM has set up and maintains a system for documentation of MRWC activities (agendas, minutes, MOAs, contacts, projects, in-kind contributions, publications, etc.).

CIPM is working with the MRWC Executive Committee on many issues, including building six-state EDRR system.

CIPM has attended state and regional meetings in support of the MRWC.

CIPM maintains the MRWC listserv headwaters_tamarisk@listserv.montana.edu and the MRWC website http://www.weedcenter.org/Missouri_wtrshd/miss_watershed.htm.

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Attachment M. Report: CIPM Electronic Newsletter Project

Production Team

Melissa Brown (coordinator) Mary McFadzen (advisor) Connie Bollinger (copyeditor/proofreader) All staff contribute to writing and reviewing content Steering committee and science advisory council members are encouraged to contribute

Look and feel

Use web friendly layout and writing style (chunking w/scannable headings) Familiar design (incorporates organizational identity) Use an email marketing service that manages subscriptions and provides templates for programming

newsletters (www.myemma.com)

Audience

The audience for our initial newsletter issue included individuals with whom the Center has worked in some capacity. For example, we sent the newsletter to email addresses that we had acquired from conference and workshop participation, online class enrollment, and customers who have purchased products or sent inquiries to the Center.

To be in compliance with sound anti-spam practices, we did not solicit email addresses from outside sources or do any “cold calls.”

New audience members may voluntarily subscribe or be invited to subscribe to the newsletter. However, we will not subscribe anyone without their permission.

Purpose, goals, and measurable objectives

Connect on-the-ground managers with current issues, research, etc. o Report on topics, events, etc. in which the Center was involved, and other relevant happenings

that are consistent with our purpose. Provide a gateway to our website by highlighting website features, changes, etc. Raise awareness of and promote the Center’s services and products Showcase our ability to disseminate pertinent information and be the “go-to” resource for western weed

management resources Engage staff in team effort while sharing news internally

Goals and objectives for the newsletter remain fairly broad at this point. By working through a few newsletters and employing some simple measures, we will identify more specific objectives and focus our efforts. For example:

Are people opening, reading, and sharing the newsletter?

o Monitor subscriptions, clicks, and forwards via reports from www.myemma.com Is the newsletter increasing website traffic, product sales, etc?

o Monitor changes in activity around newsletter distribution time Is the newsletter increasing awareness of the Center’s services and products?

o Survey customers making product orders or inquiries (i.e., how did you hear about us or the product?)

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Accomplishments

Published bi-monthly: released first issue on August 1; second issue will be released October 1 Subscriber list increased by 30% after the first issue (675 to 870)

August Newsletter Response: Emma Report from September 25 campaign: August 2008 News subject: CIPM Newsletter: August 2008 sent: Aug 1, 2008 4:00 am from: Center for Invasive Plant Management <weedcenter@montana.edu> to: Aug 2008 recipients % response totals as of Sep 25, 2008 10:03am total emails sent 675 total received 595 88.1 total bounces 80 11.9 people who opened it 275 46.2 people who clicked 109 39.6 people who forwarded 2 0.7 people who opted out 2 0.3 new people who signed up (linking from the August newsletter; over 150 have subscribed via other avenues) 36 6.1 clicks on links link 1: www.weedcenter.org (http://www.weedcenter.org) 1 0.2 link 2: News from the Center for Invasive Plant Management (http://www.weedcenter.org) 33 6.8 link 3: Take our two-minute survey (http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=02kNZxRGdEY72BBeL8p1DA_3d_3d) 11 2.3 link 4: Calendar of Events (http://www.weedcenter.org/calendar/calendar.html) 15 3.1 link 5: Spanish Language Resources (http://www.weedcenter.org/inv_plant_info/Spanish_resources.htm) 0 0 link 6: CWMA Conference Presentations (http://www.weedcenter.org/CWMAconf/CWMA_presentations.html) 9 1.8 link 7: View website (http://www.fws.gov/invasives/volunteersTrainingModule/) 40 8.2 link 8: View Spatial Invasion Simulator (http://sis.bio.uci.edu/) 21 4.3 link 9: Read more (PDF) (http://www.weedcenter.org/Newsletter/08_08spatialinvaders.pdf) 31 6.4 link 10: Read more (PDF) (http://www.weedcenter.org/Newsletter/08_08floweringrush.pdf) 54 11.1 link 11: Read more (PDF) (http://www.weedcenter.org/Newsletter/08_08newjournal.pdf) 45 9.2 link 12: Read more (PDF) (http://www.weedcenter.org/Newsletter/08_08farmbill.pdf) 105 21.6 link 13: Read more about the CWMA Conf. (http://www.weedcenter.org/CWMAconf/CWMA_conf_home.html) 27 5.5 link 14: What We Do (http://weedcenter.org/who_we_are/who_we_are.html#services) 33 6.8 link 15: Read more (http://www.weedcenter.org/Newsletter/08_08directornotes.pdf) 60 12.3 link 16: Website Screenshot (http://www.fws.gov/invasives/volunteersTrainingModule/) 2 0.4

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Attachment N. Research Grant Summary Report Series (Peter Rice White Paper)

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Attachment O. Pre-proposal to 2009 DoD Legacy Resource Management Program

Strategic Management of Invasive Species

Project Synopsis A weeklong workshop for installation personnel in the Southwest will outline invasive species ecology, prevention, and management; and the value of regional partnerships. A resource notebook and DVD will allow broad dissemination of workshop content. Abstract Effective invasive species management requires strategies and tools for prevention, early detection and rapid response, management, and restoration. Strategies and tools depend upon overall land or water management goals such as land-use activities (e.g., military training) or natural resource conservation (e.g., biodiversity, threatened and endangered species). Local and regional partnerships can dramatically increase the effectiveness and efficiency of management efforts. To support the Department of Defense in the management of invasive species, we propose to offer a weeklong workshop to military installation staff in the southwestern United States. The workshop will focus on developing a strategic approach to preventing and managing invasive species, including terrestrial plants, aquatic nuisance species, and insects. Participants will also learn about local, state, and federal invasive species initiatives and partnership opportunities in the Southwest. The Center for Invasive Plant Management (CIPM) promotes ecologically sound management of invasive plants by facilitating collaboration and partnerships among scientists, educators, policymakers, and land managers in the West. CIPM workshops, online courses, and publications provide natural resource managers with science-based information, reference resources, and contacts with experts and peers. The proposed workshop is based on the framework and concepts presented in CIPM’s online invasive plant management course for land managers and in the Noxious Weed Short Course sponsored for many years by the Western Society of Weed Science. Both programs have been extensively field-tested and adapted to meet the practical needs of natural resource managers. Below, we present our proposal in three phases. PHASE 1- INFORMATION GATHERING We will survey natural resource program managers at military installations in representative eco-regions (e.g., Sonoran and Mojave deserts) for information vital to developing workshop curriculum. This survey will identify 1) the most pressing invasive species problems specific to the military, including present populations and potential invaders; 2) staff knowledge gaps in invasive species management; and 3) challenges in working across jurisdictional boundaries on invasive species management with public land management agencies and private landowners. PHASE 2- WORKSHOP DEVELOPMENT We will use the results from Phase 1 to modify and fine-tune the proposed topics presented in Table 1 (see attached PDF). We will invite scientists and specialists with expertise on these topics to be workshop instructors and will work closely with them to refine the curriculum. We will draw on our network of partners, which includes invasive species experts from academic institutions, federal and state agencies, and non-governmental organizations nationwide. We will also work with DoD personnel to identify specialists with military-specific experience to share. Effective instructional design strategies will be implemented to engage participants and provide activities that allow them to apply newly learned concepts, principles, and methods to real problems,

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both in the classroom and the field. Additionally, activities will provide invaluable opportunities for participants and instructors to exchange ideas and experiences. We will develop two products to support participants in disseminating workshop information to their staffs. The products are a notebook containing materials that supplement workshop topics (technical papers, publications, and web-based resources) and a DVD recording of the sessions that will be delivered to participants and program managers after the workshop is completed. Workshop logistics, including the selection of a central, easily accessible workshop site in the Southwest, a meeting facility, meals, lodging, and field trip location and transportation, will be determined and arranged. It should be noted that potential sources of in-kind contributions by agency partners in support of the workshop may include any or all of the following- (1) waiver or contribution of presenters' fees and/or salaries, (2) waiver of travel costs (airfare, lodging, mileage, meals), and (3) use of meeting venue at no cost. PHASE 3- WORKSHOP DELIVERY AND EVALUATION We will offer the workshop in October or early November 2009. The workshop will begin on a Monday morning and end Friday at noon. The daily workshop topics will be complemented by one all-day field trip and two evening events that will be educational but offered in a more relaxed social atmosphere. Table 1 (see attached PDF) summarizes the workshop agenda, which has four components- 1) invasive species problems in the Southwest; 2) the ecological underpinnings of biological invasions and their application to management; 3) practical management strategies, methods, and tools, including invasive species identification; and 4) opportunities for collaboration with local, state, and federal initiatives in the Southwest. Participants will leave the workshop with the resources they need to develop site-specific invasive species management strategies. Participants will complete an evaluation that addresses overall satisfaction, topics, expectations, relevance to their work, difficulty level, instruction quality, the daily schedule, and other pertinent elements. Although the proposed content focuses on invasive species management in the southwestern United States, the workshop will be offered as a pilot program that could be adapted to other regions. Furthermore, recording the workshop sessions on DVD will make the workshop available to a broader audience. Benefits to Military The proposed workshop will benefit the military by enabling natural resource managers to develop invasive species management strategies that reduce the economic and ecological costs of invasive species on military installations. Invasive species on military lands have been shown to impair training conditions or directly limit training activities, divert funding from other natural resources or operation priorities, destroy habitats and decrease biological diversity, and pose a security risk and/or create potentially life-threatening situations (National Wildlife Federation 2005). The workshop will emphasize deepening the ecological understanding of species invasions and management actions, strengthening prevention and early detection-rapid response strategies, implementing management frameworks that include assessment and prioritization, and encouraging collaboration and information sharing among installations and other partners. These workshop themes all point toward maintaining desired conditions that support ecosystem function and military operations, as well as reducing the expense of managing invasive species by maximizing management effectiveness and minimizing adverse impacts.

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Attachment P. National Network of Invasive Plant Management Centers (grant proposal) PROJECT NARRATIVE A. Previous Work, Related Experience, and Justification Since the mid-1990s, several non-governmental, regional invasive-plant organizations have been established to bridge the information gap among scientists, natural resource managers, educators, and the general public. A two-day meeting of eight regional invasive plant centers is proposed for winter 2009 to consider establishment of a national network of organizations focusing on invasive terrestrial and aquatic plants in non-crop areas. The Center for Invasive Plant Management proposes to organize the meeting, and the other seven centers that will be invited to explore the national network concept are the California Invasive Plant Council, Berkeley, CA; Center for Aquatic and Invasive Plants, Gainesville, FL; Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health, Tifton, GA; Invasive Plant Atlas of New England, Storrs, CT; Midwest Invasive Plant Network, Indianapolis, IN; Southeast Exotic Pest Plant Council, Nashville, TN; and the Tamarisk Coalition, Grand Junction, CO. (The National Association of Exotic Pest Plant Councils representing land managers across the U.S. will attend as an observer.) These organizations educate and serve natural resource managers through programs that have proven successful, and they are all committed to an ecological, integrated approach to pest management. Despite their many similarities, some of these invasive plant centers are unaware of each other’s programs and services. Typical characteristics of these organizations are that they: Were established to meet recognized needs of a particular geographical area. Usually have a broad representation of stakeholders on their boards of directors to provide input regarding

stakeholder needs. Offer a wide array of programs, products, and services. Offer a very applied approach to supporting natural resource managers on the ground. Cultivate grassroots support. Emphasize technology transfer, education and training, public awareness, practical management support,

and information exchange. Operate via a diversity of soft funding, often including investments by federal and state agencies,

foundations, and competitive grants. Working together, these organizations have the potential to offer more comprehensive services more efficiently. Research has shown that when organizations become partners in a system, they create webs of influence rather than chains of command, mobilize diverse resources, and generate the capacity to collectively solve problems (Wheatley 1999). Further, groups have been shown to make wiser decisions over time than any individual within a group. For optimum group performance, members must be diverse, independent, and decentralized; however, there must be some method to aggregate opinions (Surowiecki 2004). A loosely formed national network will serve this purpose. The Center for Invasive Plant Management has corresponded with these other invasive plant centers, collated their organizational information (see Table 1), and polled their directors regarding establishment of centralized versus decentralized national efforts to manage invasive plants. In many cases, the center directors (who are deeply involved in their own regions) have not met or spoken with each other. A face-to-face meeting will take the network concept to the next level by providing a forum to explore ideas and come to consensus on concrete actions to build an efficient, information-sharing network.

The concept of a national network of invasive plant centers has been proposed at several meetings in the past year. Frequently asked questions include:

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What would a national network of regional invasive plant centers do? The organizations involved in the proposed discussion will decide the scope of group efforts, which may begin very simply and grow over time. However, in general, a national network would provide science-based products and services to diverse stakeholders (natural resource specialists, researchers, and conservationists working with government agencies, tribal nations, universities, and private landowners) involved in managing invasive plants found on non-crop lands including parks, refuges, nature preserves and other natural areas, as well as rangelands, roadsides, riparian areas, and waterways. More specifically, a network might:

o Develop and deliver regional and national programs efficiently, coordinating the expertise available at each of the centers.

o Provide a clearinghouse for constantly evolving information such as best management practices, new species alerts, research findings, and funding and training opportunities.

o Support technical and field personnel who deal with invasive plant problems.

In many cases, individual centers are already offering programs and services on a regional basis. However, as a group the centers can provide services more efficiently and comprehensively.

How is this network different from the IPM Centers? Scope: Regional invasive plant centers focus primarily on terrestrial and aquatic invasive plants in non-crop situations. Orientation: The regional invasive plant centers primarily serve natural resource managers and the general (non-agricultural) public with less focus on funding research. Stakeholders: Regional invasive plant centers provide direct services and training to state and federal agency personnel, NGOs, volunteers, industry, and private landowners. Collaboration: The regional invasive plant centers can support the IPM Centers by providing invasive plant data to IPM Centers and services to additional stakeholders.

How might this network support the USDA’s IPM Roadmap? The formation of a national invasive plant network supports the IPM Roadmap goal to “increase nationwide communication and efficiency through information exchanges among . . . practitioners and service providers . . .” (http://www.ipmcenters.org/IPMRoadMap.pdf). The IPM

Roadmap assumes that stakeholders are aware that a pest is, indeed, a pest and are motivated to learn more or choose IPM remedies. For agricultural producers, this is true. However, much of the general public is not aware of the threat of invasive plants and the need for pest management in natural areas. Through awareness activities and training, regional centers can build a knowledgeable public audience that demands IPM solutions in natural areas and supports the USDA’s IPM Centers and IPM Roadmap.

How could the network complement USDA crop-focused initiatives?

A national USDA web portal for pest management might be created to direct diverse users to information most relevant to their situations and interests: crops, gardens, wildlands, developed lands, urban spaces, and others. The regional invasive plant centers might be the ultimate web destination in some cases, while IPM Online programs, the National eXtension Initiative, IPM Centers, or the CSREES PIPE resources would be the appropriate destination for other users. Together, the programs provide a comprehensive library of information, training, and services to all sectors of the public.

B. Objectives

1. Become familiar with other regional centers and organizations in the U.S. focusing on integrated management of terrestrial and aquatic invasive plants in natural areas.

2. Identify programs in which attendees might collaborate, potentially including sharing or developing educational resources regarding IPM in natural areas.

3. Explore options for network funding. 4. Establish a formalized communication process among attendees.

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C. Procedures The numbered procedures below correspond to the numbered Objectives above. In all procedures, shared leadership will be emphasized as per recommendations for building flexible, responsive, dynamic organizations (Allen and Morton 2006, Morgan 1997).

1. Day 1: Each organization will have 45 minutes to introduce itself (mission, structure, funding, core functions, special projects) and answer questions. A group luncheon and morning/afternoon breaks will allow attendees to get to know each other through less formal conversation. Trust relations are essential for effective communication and to solve group issues (Allen and Morton 2006), which will be important in Objectives 2-4.

2. Day 2 (3 hours): Facilitated discussion will focus on each organization’s expertise and programmatic needs, including those related to IPM education and outreach. Emerging commonalities and complementary capabilities will determine the plan for collaboration.

3. Day 2 (2 hours): With an understanding of each organization’s funding from the previous day, attendees will discuss the pros and cons of approaching funders as a national network. If the potential benefits seem sufficient, attendees will brainstorm funding options and the roles that each organization might play in preparing a proposal. A timeline and work assignments will be agreed upon if the group decides to go forward.

4. Day 2 (2 hours): The free flow of accurate and timely information throughout the network will help the organizations support one another and increase each organization’s ability to serve its stakeholders. Attendees will discuss communication options and capabilities including listservs, Google groups, wiki pages, face-to-face meetings, and teleconferences. An action plan with assigned responsibilities will be developed by the close of the meeting.

D. Outcomes The regional centers all promote an integrated, ecological approach to managing invasive plants. Strengthening and expanding the centers’ capacities will allow them to more consistently and effectively promote IPM in natural areas, thereby reducing environmental and human health risks. The proposed meeting will result in the following outcomes:

Inter-regional partnerships and mutual support Enhanced communication and collaboration nationally on invasive plant issues, including integrated

management More consistent availability of information resources (including IPM methods) across the U.S. Less duplication of programs, leading to more efficient use of centers’ resources Regional centers with greater capacity for serving stakeholders Stronger state organizations (e.g., invasive plant management associations, invasive species

councils) with support from regional centers Coordinated rather than competitive approach to funding

E. Evaluation Plans The project will be evaluated using management-oriented product evaluation methods (Fitzpatrick et al. 2004). Descriptions and judgments of outcomes will be collected and related to objectives. The collaboration process will be documented. The evaluation will be used to determine whether to continue, terminate, or modify the national network concept and to present a record of intended and unintended effects. The tentative timeline for the project is:

Upon notification of funding: Determine meeting location and time; correspond with attendees regarding meeting logistics and travel arrangements.

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January 2009: Continue correspondence among attendees; establish meeting agenda; circulate pre-meeting background materials as needed. January or February 2009: Two-day meeting of regional centers. March – September 2009: Meeting follow-up, which may include formalization of a communication network, project collaboration, development of a national-network funding proposal.

F. Probable Duration The duration of the project will be Jan. 1, 2009, through Sept. 30, 2009. This will include the planning phase, the meeting itself, and follow-up on action items. G. Cooperation of Key Personnel and Institutional Units Involved The following people and organizations have been invited to participate in the proposed meeting to discuss establishment of a national network. Organizations were selected according to five criteria, which require that the organization must

1. Be an established organization with paid personnel. 2. Have a permanent location. 3. Have a regional, typically multi-state, vision and responsibilities; and broad recognition as a valuable

resource among the region’s natural resource managers. 4. Be committed to integrated natural resource management based on ecosystem sciences. 5. Show proven success with programs to educate and serve natural resource managers.

University-based centers that are primarily a collection of faculty and students (without dedicated staff) are not included. For more information about each organization, see Table 1 in the Appendix.

Key Personnel Institution Role Letter of Intent

Janet Clark Liz Galli-Noble

Lead organization Center for Invasive Plant Management, Montana State University - Bozeman

Project Director and facilitator Principal Investigator

N/A

Kate Howe Midwest Invasive Plant Network Participant, possible host (Indianapolis, IN)

Attached

Doug Johnson California Invasive Plant Council Participant Invited, tentative

Les Mehrhoff Invasive Plant Atlas of New England Participant Attached

Bill Haller Karen Brown

Center for Aquatic and Invasive Plants Participant Participant

Invited, tentative

Tony Pernas National Association of Exotic Pest Plant Councils

Observer, possible host (Miami, FL)

Attached

Keith Douce David Moorhead

Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health

Participant Participant

Attached

Tim Carlson Tamarisk Coalition Participant Invited, tentative

Brian Bowen Chuck Bargeron

Southeast Exotic Pest Plant Council Participant Participant

Attached

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LITERATURE CITED Allen, B.L., and L.W. Morton. Generating Self-Organizing Capacity: Leadership Practices and Training Needs in Non-Profits. J. Extension 44(6). Art. 6FEA6. 2006. Fitzpatrick, J.L., J.R. Sanders, and B.R. Worthen. Program Evaluation: Alternative Approaches and Practical

Guidelines, 3rd ed. Boston: Pearson. 2004. Morgan, G. Images of Organization. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. 1997. Surowiecki, J. The Wisdom of Crowds. New York: Doubleday. 2004. Wheatley, M.J. Leadership and the new science: Discovering order in a chaotic world. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers. 1999.

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Attachment Q. Inventory and Survey Web Seminars (grant proposal)

WIPMC Grants 2008 PROJECT NARRATIVE A. Previous Work, Related Experience, and Justification Locating and mapping both the presence and absence of invasive plant populations provides essential information for developing effective IPM strategies. Land managers use this information in prioritizing their efforts and developing strategies for prevention, early detection-rapid response, monitoring, and control. Many land managers in the West are responsible for managing invasive plants over very large areas of forest and range. For example, public land managers in Nevada are each charged with overseeing an average of 12 million acres (E. Creech, Univ. of Nevada Cooperative Extension, pers. comm.). To be successful in this daunting responsibility, land managers need efficient and cost-effective inventory and survey methods that are appropriate for large areas. To assist land managers in their IPM efforts, we propose to offer a series of six interactive web seminars that will disseminate inventory and survey methods to a large audience and create a rare opportunity for land managers and scientists to exchange ideas. The seminar series will be based on chapters from the publication Inventory and Survey Methods for Nonindigenous Plant Species (L.J. Rew and M.L. Pokorny, editors, 2006, Montana State University Extension). The Center for Invasive Plant Management (CIPM) coordinated and funded the development and printing of the publication, which presents practical inventory and survey methods that are being successfully applied over large areas, and provides guidance on selecting methods to best meet the objectives of an IPM strategy. The impetus for the web seminar series comes from the successful reception of the Inventory and Survey

Methods publication. The publication is frequently requested and widely distributed, and the authors and CIPM have been invited to present information from various chapters at conference workshops. Stakeholder-indentified needs (see Appendix A) show further support for this information. Our Center promotes ecologically sound management of invasive plants by facilitating collaboration and partnerships among scientists, educators, policymakers, and land managers in the West. We offer workshops, online courses, and publications, and provide land managers with science-based information, reference resources, and contacts with experts and peers. Relevant to our proposal are two successful online products that educate our audiences on IPM: 1. A six-week interactive online workshop taught by university and government agency weed ecologists that CIPM offered annually for four years. Over 100 land managers from the U.S. and Canada participated in the workshop. 2. Two learning websites developed in collaboration with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The websites are designed as self-paced study modules for Refuge System volunteers and staff. Both websites are available to the general public and other land managers. • Learning and Lending a Hand—Volunteers and Invasive Plants (view website: http://www.fws.gov/invasives/volunteersTrainingModule/index.html ) • Managing Invasive Plants—Concepts, Principles, and Practices (website will be available autumn 2008 on: http://www.fws.gov/invasives ) B. Objectives

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The project’s overall goal is to inform land managers about invasive plant inventory and survey methods suitable for large tracts of land, thus providing knowledge that will help in early detection-rapid response and management efforts. To reach this goal, our objectives are to: 1. Provide an effective online learning environment where geographically dispersed land managers can learn

more about inventory and survey methods and how the appropriate method can help achieve IPM objectives, and where they can engage in dialogue with scientists and peers.

2. Identify knowledge gaps and needs that affect implementation of inventory and survey methods for early detection-rapid response and management, and for other components of IPM.

3. Increase the dissemination of information on inventory and surveys methods by making the recorded seminars available on the Web.

C. Procedures The three procedures below correspond to the three objectives outlined above.

1. Provide an Effective Online Learning Environment

Seminar Series Development We plan to offer six seminars based on six of the ten chapters of the Inventory and Survey Methods for

Nonindigenous Plant Species publication. Presenters are indicated in bold and are the chapter authors except where noted.

• Getting Started: Fundamentals of Nonindigenous Plant Species Inventory/Survey Monica L. Pokorny, Steven A. Dewey, and Steven R. Radosevich (Erik Lehnhoff of CIPM)

• Landscape-Scale Wildland Inventories/Surveys: Utah State University Methods Steven A. Dewey and Kimberly A. Andersen

• Digital Aerial Sketch-Mapping for Early Detection and Mapping Jason W. Karl and Mark Porter

• Stratified Random Sampling Method Lisa J. Rew and Bruce D. Maxwell

• Adaptive Sampling Design Timothy S. Prather

• Remote Sensing for Detection of Nonindigenous Species Timothy S. Prather and Lawrence W. Lass

Each author will develop an interactive PowerPoint presentation that contains key concepts from his/her chapter, and will build upon these concepts by adding pertinent new information. To incorporate instructional design strategies for effective learning, CIPM staff will collaborate with the authors to:

• Develop learning outcomes • Craft content to support learning outcomes • Incorporate interactions that enable participants to apply new knowledge • Develop or enhance graphic elements to more effectively convey content

Seminar Delivery Format Authors will deliver their interactive presentations in real time via the web conference service Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro. CIPM staff will moderate the seminar and provide logistical support. Participants may ask questions during the presentation by conference email or phone bridge. Seminars will run approximately 70 minutes and will include the following components:

• 5-minute introduction (welcome, agenda, navigation)

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• 30- to 40-minute presentation • 15- to 20-minute question-and-answer session

Seminar Participants The online seminar series will be offered at no cost to land managers. Interested individuals will be required to register and read the relevant publication chapter prior to the seminar. We anticipate 25-30 participants per seminar. Seminars will be announced through listservs, e-newsletters, and the CIPM website.

2. Identify Land Manager Knowledge Gaps and Needs

At the close of each seminar, participants will be asked to complete an online survey. We will use the survey results not only to assess the value of the seminar in meeting land manager needs but also to identify gaps in knowledge related to IPM. These results will provide CIPM and the Western IPM Center with information that identifies barriers to implementing certain components of an IPM plan, especially monitoring methods and protocols, integrated control methods, and inventory and survey to develop early detection-rapid response strategies.

3. Increase the Dissemination of Seminar Information To make information on inventory and survey methods available to significantly more land managers, we will record the live presentations (audio with slides) and post them on CIPM’s website. This process will require reviewing and editing the recordings, developing a webpage, and widely announcing the presentations on listservs, in e-newsletters, and on our website. D. Outcomes The increased dissemination of inventory and survey methods through the web seminar series and subsequent online recordings will contribute to the goals of (1) increasing the economic benefits of adopting IPM practices, and (2) reducing the environmental and human health risk associated with managing invasive plants. We will meet these goals by providing land managers with new knowledge that will benefit their management programs by:

• Increasing the probability of detecting new invasive plant populations before they become large, thereby minimizing the use of chemical herbicides, their associated costs, and non-target impacts.

• Implementing methods that are efficient and cost-effective, thus enabling land managers to achieve the objectives of IPM plans.

• Encouraging development of IPM plans. • Enabling managers to transfer knowledge to co-workers and field staff. • Enabling managers to share experiences with and learn from other land managers.

E. Evaluation Plan

Outcomes and Activities Timeline* Seminar Series Development • Develop author presentation template and seminar evaluation • Assist authors with instructional design of presentation • Review and modify presentation content • Set up registration; advertise seminar; mail publications

August 2009–December 2010 November 2009–January 2010

Seminar Delivery • Presenter and moderator practice sessions with web conference technology • Present live seminars

January–February 2010

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Post-Seminar Products • Compile evaluation results • Edit seminar recordings and post on Web

February–March 2010

Final Report to WIPMC April 2010 *See Probable Duration below for explanation of timeline. F. Probable Duration We are requesting funding for one year (01/01/09 – 12/31/09). However, our project timeline will be from January 2009 to April 2010, because land managers generally have time to attend such events only in early winter (January-March), when they do not have fieldwork obligations. Therefore we will be spending the requested funds into 2010, making the total project duration 16 months. G. Cooperation of Key Personnel and Institutional Units Involved

Personnel Institution Role

Elizabeth Galli-Noble Lead Institution: Center for Invasive Plant Mgmt. Montana State University

Principal Investigator Director, Center for Invasive Plant Mgmt.

Mary McFadzen Lead Institution: Center for Invasive Plant Mgmt. Montana State University

Project director Instructional designer Seminar moderator

Melissa Brown Center for Invasive Plant Mgmt. Montana State University

Instructional designer Seminar moderator

Dr. Erik Lehnhoff Center for Invasive Plant Mgmt. Montana State University

Content developer Presenter

Dr. Steve Dewey* Utah State University Content developer Presenter

Jason Karl* The Nature Conservancy Content developer Presenter

Dr. Lisa Rew* Montana State University Content developer Presenter

Dr. Tim Prather* University of Idaho Content developer Presenter

*Will be paid as a subcontractor.

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Attachment R. Reinstate the grant programs

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Attachment S. Spatial Modeling of Invasive Flowering Rush (Butomus umbellatus) in the Columbia River Headwaters

Liz Galli-Noble took over project from Mara Johnson in August 2008 August 26, 2008 Project Background Salish Kootenai College, University of Montana, Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and Montana State University – Center for Invasive Plant Management are partnering to conduct an integrated research, education, and extension project to develop a spatial model that will help predict the biological potential of flowering rush in Flathead Lake. The aquatic invasive plant has significant negative implications for the Columbia River system. This research is the first of its type, evaluating the ecological role of flowering rush invasion, and spatial modeling invasive species in aquatic environments is a relatively new area. Documenting current and future conditions and increasing understanding of plant ecology is essential to evaluate the threat to local and regional fish and wildlife environments, agricultural irrigation water delivery costs, water quality and identification of safe and effective mitigations. Hypotheses: Reducing the spread and ecological impacts of flowering rush in Flathead Lake and the Columbia River system, by utilizing spatial modeling to identify key infestations, spread vectors and characterizing flowering rush plant ecology, we can design appropriate management mitigations to reduce the impacts. Project Objectives:

5. Determine phenology and dispersal of flowering rush in Flathead Lake 6. Inventory infestation in Lake 7. Develop a computer spatial model of Flathead Lake to predict the biological potential of flowering rush 8. Develop educational and outreach program, and management strategies for flowering rush.

Project Outcomes:

Tool to evaluate the potential spread of flowering rush in the Flathead Basin and implications for the Columbia River Basin

An inventory and map of flowering rush incursion in the Flathead Basin for public, natural resource managers and policy makers consideration

Management recommendations for flowering rush management for consideration.

__________________________________________________________ CIPM Main Role – Project Evaluation MSU-CIPM is cooperating as a partner (1862 institution) for the Flowering Rush Project: consulting on a communications strategy, and participating during initial project start-up, mid-term and final evaluation, and during field activities and information sharing opportunities. CIPM will assist with information access in MSU and communicate about flowering rush within the region. CIPM will assist with the survey of Columbia system managers and plant specialists, provide advice on college case study and public education products, and assist with a communications strategy. DID WE DO THIS??

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The Center’s primary role will be to provide evaluation throughout the project. Principals of participatory or collaborative inquiry will guide evaluation to the fullest extent possible. The Advisory Group will be the primary source of evaluation criteria and measures of success. Early on during the initial project goals and work plan review, they will help define expected outcomes and evaluation questions. Outcome Measures Specific outcomes and measurement approaches will be determined and prioritized by participants during the evaluation planning stages. Expected outcomes will be translated into evaluation questions to assess project effectiveness. These will include some of the following:

Successful completing and demonstration of the spatial model effectiveness of predicting spread Meaningful involvement in planning by stakeholder groups and targeted populations, including youth

and students Followed a well organized approach to planning, conducting research, facilitating community

involvement and developing mitigation strategies, ongoing communication systems, timelines addressed Strategies that are evidence-based and feasible to implement Goals, objectives and strategies that are culturally centered and focused on Tribal, environmental, and

regional needs Spatial model tool and flowering rush management goals, objectives, and strategies that address

environmental and community needs Feasibility of management alternatives and adoption by regulators and landowners Establishment of a regional network increasing awareness and action to reduce the impacts of flowering

rush Implementation of site specific actions to reduce key infestation points.

Data and Design The evaluation plan will be developed during the first meeting of project start up, addressing the proposed outcome measures from this evaluation plan. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? Was this done? Research Phase Evaluation –

4. Interviews and/or written questionnaires with planning participants, partners, targeted groups, and community members;

5. Document review, including meeting agendas and minutes, written actions plans, MOUs, strategic plans/written priorities of partnering agencies, needs assessment results;

6. Evaluator participation and observation – evaluator will participate in initial project implementation, develop outcome measures, and give feedback on identified areas at the end of each evaluation session. Research results and model will be peer reviewed with Tribal and University partners, UM-Yellow Bay Biological Station, and regional management agencies.

Planning, Education, and Outreach Phase Evaluation – sources and collection strategies will include:

5. Review and testing of educational materials, 6. Participation in aquatic invasive species and Advisory Group interdisciplinary planning sessions 7. Interviews and/or written questionnaires with key participants and informants, 8. Review impact on policies or management recommendations, and adoption of long-term management

strategies and outcomes. Long-Term Outcome Evaluation The project evaluator will assist in the development and evaluation of long-term outcomes for flowering rush management strategies. Information from the spatial model results of planning sessions, and review of ongoing

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management we will develop management recommendations and strategies to contain flowering rush during the second year of the strategy development and environmental review using a multi-disciplinary participatory approach. Dissemination Plans CIPM will collect information and network with local and regional partners on the project results to further assess the potential scope of the problem. Partnership and Collaborative Efforts CIPM will participate with project from the start, providing evaluation, help define project outcome measures, consult on educational strategies, and advise on educational material production. This project will enhance the land grant relationship between SKC and MSU, particularly with invasive species work. Institutional Commitment The flowering rush research project presents a compelling area for MSU-CIPM involvement and participation for long-term flowering rush issues. Flowering rush is an issue for areas off the Flathead Reservation and has become an issue for the Montana Noxious Weed Trust Fund as landowners implement management efforts. These efforts are largely non-tested, and there is public controversy concerning aquatic herbicide use. This is an area that CIPM sees the need for careful coordination and communication for long-term management strategies to be effective. Funding Amounts & Sources:

3. USDA – CSREES – Tribal Colleges Research Grants Program, $150,000 (2007-2009) CIPM = $18,720

4. MT Noxious Weed Trust Fund Grant - ~$27,000 (2007-2008); CIPM = $0 Partners:

Salish Kootenai College University of Montana CIPM/MSU (1862 Land-Grant University)

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Attachment T.

Center for Invasive Plant Management Strategic Plan

September 2007 CIPM Mission To promote ecologically sound management of invasive plants in western North America by sponsoring innovative research, advancing education, and facilitating collaboration among scientists, educators, and land managers. Vision Well informed invasive plant professionals who have the contacts, information, and resources necessary to accomplish their goals. Strategic Goals

Increase collaboration among scientists of different disciplines to better understand the economic, social, and ecological variables of invasive plant management.

Increase opportunities for land managers to learn about and practice ecologically-based invasive plant management.

Increase opportunities for scientists and land managers to share information and insights with each other. Increase the dissemination of information about invasive plants to scientists, land managers, educators, and

policymakers. Increase the efficiency, effectiveness, and resiliency of cooperative weed management areas.

Objectives

1. Facilitate collaboration and communication among scientists, land managers, and policymakers.

2. Serve as a respected, science-based information clearinghouse for ecological management of invasive plants in the West.

3. Provide professional development opportunities for land managers and educators.

4. Serve as a resource center for Cooperative Weed Management Areas nationally.

Objective 1. Facilitate collaboration and communication among scientists, land managers, and policymakers. 1.1 Promote multidisciplinary dialogues in a variety of formats (e.g., symposia, workshops, conferences, electronic media, publications) to encourage development and transfer of knowledge. 1.2 Develop and execute a research grants program that leads and encourages scientists and land managers in new, innovative directions for implementing ecologically-based weed management. 1.3 Conduct, sponsor, or facilitate multi-state research initiatives. 1.4 Participate in regionally significant, on-the-ground, multi-agency demonstration projects that implement ecologically-based management of invasive plants. Outputs

Research results with direct implications for land management and education. CIPM research grant compendium. Science-based training materials and programs for land managers. Information, publications, and publicity about ecologically-based, adaptive, invasive plant management. Examples and documentation of on-the-ground implementation of ecologically-based invasive plant management. Focus-group workshops, conferences, field tours, and white papers on specific points of importance to

ecologically-based invasive plant management. Research and policy conferences/symposia, and programs sponsored by CIPM.

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Follow-up and spinoff materials and programs from conferences, symposia, demonstration areas, and research grants.

Outcomes

Improved communication among research projects leading to more efficient use of research funding and increased collaboration among research institutions.

Improved transfer of research results to policymakers and land managers, as well as land managers’ experience and perspectives to scientists.

Adoption of ecologically-based invasive plant management approaches by more policymakers, cooperative weed management areas, and other land management agencies and organizations.

Objective 1 Projects Timeline Project

leader Beneficiaries (audience)

1.1 Tamarisk Research Conference (co-coordinator)

Fall 2008

Mara

Scientists, land managers

1.1 Fire/weeds research synthesis paper

September 2007

Mara

Land managers, scientists

1.1 International Weed Sci Soc (host invasives section)

June 2008

Mara

Scientists

1.1 WSSA wildland weeds journal development (project management)

February 2008

Janet

Scientists, land managers

1.1 National Invasive Species Advisory Council (member)

Ongoing

Janet

Policymakers

1.1 USDA-NRCS State Tech Adv Comm

biannually

Janet

Policymakers, land managers

1.2 Manage/administer research grants

Ongoing

Dianne

Scientists

1.4 Missouri River Tamarisk Coalition (facilitator)

Ongoing

Janet

Land managers

1.4 Flowering rush collaborative project

Ongoing

Mara

Land managers, scientists

1.1, 1.4 Regional Russian olive/tamarisk summit (co-sponsor)

May 2008

Janet

Land managers

1.4 Continental Divide Barrier Zone project / EDRR

Ongoing

Kim

Land managers

1.3 National research initiative

2008

Mara, Sci Adv Council

Scientists

Other possibilities:

Organize NGO panel for NIWAW

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Objective 2. Serve as a respected, science-based information clearinghouse for ecological management of invasive plants in the West. 2.1 Maintain a comprehensive web site with information and links relevant for land managers, scientists, educators, cooperative weed management areas, and policymakers. 2.2 Develop and distribute products such as books and manuals, research syntheses, teaching materials, and presentations. 2.3 Stay informed of who’s doing what where (participate in statewide/regional/national research and policy conferences, symposia, and initiatives) so staff can respond appropriately to customers’ questions and requests. Outputs

Comprehensive, popular website with increasing activity Publications and educational resources

Outcomes

Improved access to invasive plant information and experts throughout the region. Increased availability of innovative, science-based teaching and training materials vetted by experts. Established CIPM reputation for providing high-quality, objective information. Increased awareness and understanding of ecologically-based adaptive management.

Objective 2 Projects Timeline Project

leader Beneficiaries (audience)

2.1 Website design, updates, and maintenance

Ongoing

Connie

Land managers, public, scientists, policymakers

2.2 Website content review and edit

Ongoing

Connie

Land managers, public, scientists, policymakers

2.2 Weed models

December 2007

Mara

Land managers, educators

2.2 National video series (content dev’t & review)

Ongoing

Janet

Land managers, public

2.2 CIPM research grants synthesis

Dec 2007

Mara

Scientists, land managers

2.3 Conference speaker / poster / display Tamarisk Coalition Symposium Missouri River Watershed Coalition Western Weed Coordinating Committee US Forest Service – reg’l program managers Weed Science Society of America

October 2007 October 2007 November 2007 December 2007 February 2008

Janet / Mara Janet Janet Mary Janet

Other possibilities:

Publish volunteer booklet (for CWMAs?) based on FWS modules Advertising campaign for new (and old) weed models Meetings:

o NAWMA (Sept 07) o SE-EPPC (Oct 07) o New Mexico Veg Management (Nov 07) o Society for Range Management (Feb 08) o Invasive Spp in Natural Areas (Feb 08) o National Invasive Weed Awareness Week (Feb 08)

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o Western Society of Weed Science (Mar 08) o Russian olive/saltcedar summit in Nebraska (May 08) o Weeds Across Borders (May 08) o Aquatic Plant Mgmt Soc (July 08) o Ecological Society of America (Aug 08) o N Amer Weed Mgmt Assoc (Sept 08) o Natural Areas Conference (Oct 08)

Objective 3. Provide professional development opportunities for land managers and educators. 3.1 Develop and offer interactive, online training in ecologically-based adaptive management utilizing experts from multiple institutions and agencies. 3.2 Develop online learning modules for agencies and organizations. 3.3 Develop self-study modules for the CIPM website on aspects of ecological and adaptive management of invasive plants. 3.4 Conduct, sponsor, or facilitate regional/national training workshops on techniques and methods of invasive plant management. 3.5 Conduct, sponsor, or facilitate regional/national workshops on the social dimensions (such as administration and planning, communications, marketing, group dynamics, grantwriting) of collaborative natural resource management. Outputs

Facilitated online workshops. Self-study modules on the CIPM website. Training sessions, presentations, and workshops.

Outcomes

More land managers exposed to concepts of adaptive management, ecology, land management and monitoring technologies, effective communications, grantwriting, and program planning.

More dialogue among land managers about sustainable, desired plant communities and land rehabilitation than about killing weeds.

More organizations developing adaptive weed management plans that incorporate ecological concepts. Increased success of weed management organizations as far as winning grants, increasing resources, gaining

public attention, etc. More effective natural resource outreach and awareness activities.

Objective 3 Projects Timeline Project

leader Beneficiaries (audience)

3.2 Learning modules for FWS staff & volunteers

December 2008

Mary

FWS, public

3.3 Self-study modules on CIPM website

2008

Mary

Land managers, public

Other possibilities: Contract with other agencies/orgs to create online modules (esp. wildlife)

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Objective 4. Serve as a resource center for Cooperative Weed Management Areas nationally. 4.1 Collect CWMA data and provide reports to agencies and organizations as requested. 4.2 Inventory CWMA-related materials, programs, and expertise and make the inventory available to CWMAs through the CIPM website, presentations, and publications. 4.3. Offer competitive CWMA grants. 4.4 Offer professional development opportunities for CWMA organizers. 4.5 Investigate the social, economic, and organizational aspects of CWMAs to determine successful models and strategies, and make that information available to others. 4.6 Establish a CWMA communication network. Outputs

CWMA overviews (summary documents) CWMA grants A national network of invasive plant management organizations. See also outputs and outcomes for Objectives 1-3, particularly regarding development of educational materials,

service as a clearinghouse, and giving presentations.

Outcomes

Increased number of CWMAs. More support (financial, informational, political, moral) for CWMAs. National consensus on the definition and characteristics of CWMAs. Increased communication among CWMAs to share ideas and expertise. Recognition of CIPM as a national leader in CWMA information.

Objective 4 Projects Timeline Project

leader Beneficiaries (audience)

4.1 Annual CWMA grant report

December

Janet

Policymakers

4.3 Manage/administer CWMA grants

Ongoing

Dianne

CWMAs

4.4, 4.5, 4.6 National CWMA conference

April 2008

Janet

CWMAs, policymakers, educators

Other possibilities:

Re-establish CWMA grant program Publish national CWMA report (state of the states)

Ongoing work (approx. 25% of staff time, collectively) Other important CIPM activities

Timeline Who’s responsible

Professional development

Ongoing – as opportunities arise

Staff

Grantwriting

Ongoing

Staff

Responding to email & phone requests for info

Daily

Staff

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Preparing financial reports and budget projections

As needed Dianne

Managing /administering all CIPM funds

Ongoing

Dianne

Filling orders for CIPM products (customer svc)

Ongoing

Dianne

Building a national network of centers

Ongoing

Janet

Keeping up with new research & technology

Ongoing

Mara, Mary, Connie

Creating maps and other images for website and other CIPM publications

As requested

Connie

Writing reports for MSU, BLM, etc.

As requested

Janet

Securing long-term funding

Ongoing

Janet

Steering Committee coordination, communication

Ongoing

Janet

Maintain listservs – state weed coordinators, Missouri River watershed

Ongoing

Janet

Services provided by CIPM

Identify resources (people, grants, research) to meet customers’ needs Convene conferences/symposia/workshops on research, management, education, and policy Coordinate/facilitate regional research initiatives Develop online training materials Provide outreach/education component to research grants Manage multi-partner projects Provide training on scientific and social aspects of collaborative, adaptive, invasive plant management.

Constituents The Center’s regional focus requires direct service to varied groups. By building partnerships with weed management professionals and providing them with products and services, the Center will expand the knowledge and application of ecologically based management in the West.

Land managers. The Center provides information, tools, and other resources for ecological management of invasive plants. This group includes

o Local, state, and federal employees o Conservation NGOs that own or manage property o Tribes o CWMAs

State Weed Coordinators occupy a pivotal position, linking federal and local land managers, shaping state policy, and influencing state budgets. The Center provides how-to information, helps provide training and information to county-level land managers, and supports communications among state weed coordinators about regional issues through the listserv and other coordinated, regional programs.

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University Extension specialists and Extension agents. The Center provides how-to information, current research findings relevant to invasive plant management, and opportunities to collaborate.

Scientists researching invasive plants issues. The Center provides: o Grants for innovative research on ecological management of invasive plants, especially those projects that

are hard to fund from other sources o Avenues for distribution and application of research results o Opportunities to collaborate and network o Opportunities to collaborate with land managers.

Agency decision-makers are regional- or district-level employees with supervisory duties over field-level staff. The Center provides scientific information, opportunities for collaboration, and a western regional perspective.

Policymakers are senior agency staff (generally in Washington, DC) who are detailed to invasive species. The Center provides scientific and social information, opportunities for collaboration, and a western regional perspective.

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Attachment U.

Center for Invasive Plant Management Strategic Plan

September 2008 DRAFT - 9/21/08

CIPM Mission To promote ecologically sound management of invasive plants in western North America by sponsoring innovative research, advancing education, and facilitating collaboration and partnerships among scientists, educators, policy makers and natural resource managers.

Vision Well informed invasive plant professionals who have the contacts, information, and resources necessary to accomplish their goals. This needs to be reworked or dropped. Strategic Goals

Increase collaboration among scientists of different disciplines to better understand the ecological, economic, and social variables of invasive plant management.

Promote broad-scale and comprehensive research investigations that address regional invasive plant management and control.

Increase opportunities for natural resource managers to learn about and practice ecologically based invasive plant management.

Increase opportunities for scientists and natural resource managers to share information and insights with each other.

Increase the dissemination of information about invasive plant status, control and management to scientists, natural resource managers, educators, and policy makers.

Increase the efficiency, effectiveness, and resiliency of community-based invasive species management efforts and in particular, cooperative weed management areas.

Objectives

Facilitate collaboration and communication among scientists, natural resource managers, educators and policy makers. Organize, support and participate in interactive and collaborative research opportunities, using CIPM’s in-house expertise whenever possible. Serve as a respected, science-based information clearinghouse for ecological management of invasive plants, data repository, and hub for invasive species information dissemination in the western United States. Provide professional development opportunities for natural resource managers, educators, and local, state and federal agency personnel. Serve as a resource center for locally-led, grassroots weed management groups – such as, Cooperative Weed Management Areas, watershed groups, conservation districts, landowners, etc. – in the western region and nationally. Educate concerned parties on the environmental and economic impacts of invasive plants in the western region. Serve in an advisory capacity for the continued western-regional needs for funding, research, management and control of invasive plants. Provide a voice for western regional invasive plant entities in the national policy arena.

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Attachment V.

Center for Invasive Plant Management Strategic Plan

2008 - 2009 DRAFT – Approved 10/01/08

CIPM Mission To promote ecologically sound management of invasive plants in western North America by sponsoring innovative research, advancing education, and facilitating collaboration and partnerships among scientists, educators, policy makers and natural resource managers. Strategic Goals

Increase collaboration among scientists of different disciplines to better understand the ecological, economic, and social variables of invasive plant management.

Promote broad-scale and comprehensive research investigations that address regional invasive plant management and control.

Increase opportunities for natural resource managers to learn about and practice ecologically based invasive plant management.

Increase opportunities for scientists and natural resource managers to share information and insights with each other.

Increase the dissemination of information about invasive plant status and management to scientists, natural resource managers, educators, and policy makers.

Increase the efficiency, effectiveness, and resiliency of community-based invasive species management efforts and in particular, cooperative weed management areas, landowners and concerned citizens.

Objectives

Facilitate collaboration and communication among scientists, natural resource managers, educators and policy makers. Organize, support and participate in collaborative research opportunities. Serve as a respected, science-based information clearinghouse for the development of ecological management of invasive plants, and hub for invasive species information dissemination in the western United States. Provide professional development opportunities and dissemination of information for natural resource managers, educators, and local, state and federal agency personnel. Serve as a western resource center for locally-led, grassroots weed management groups – such as, Cooperative Weed Management Areas, watershed groups, conservation districts and landowners. Collaborate and develop information on the environmental and economic impacts of invasive plants in the western region for policy makers and other concerned parties. Serve, when practical, in an advisory capacity for the continued western-regional needs for policy, research and management of invasive plants. Provide a voice for western regional invasive plant issues at the state and national policy levels.