Pennsylvania Cave Conservancy Meeting Minutes for May 15, 2011 This is a summary of the minutes of the meeting. The meeting was called to order at 9:30 pm by President Pat Minnick at the Harper’s Memorial Park, Shade Gap, PA The following officers were present: President P. Minnick Vice President C. Catherman Secretary --- Treasurer G. Dunmire Representation was as follows: Bald Eagle Grotto JD Lewis Baltimore Grotto --- Bucks County Grotto --- Buffalo Valley Grotto --- Central New Jersey Grotto --- Commander Cody Caving Club Mike Mostardi Franklin County Grotto Pat Minnick Greater Allentown Grotto --- Huntingdon Co. Cave Hunters --- Nittany Grotto Gary Dunmire Philadelphia Grotto Amos Mincin Seven Valleys Grotto Gretchen Williams York Grotto Brett Johnson Secretary Report: The minutes from the February 2011 meeting were accepted as briefly read at the May 2011 Meeting by Pat Minnick. Minutes were not previously published as no April 2011 MAR Breakdown was published. Treasurer Report: Copies of the PCC financial summary was not distributed as Gary Dunmire reported that there was very minimal change of activity since the last Treasure report provided at the February 2011 meeting. Web Page: Dave Fricke continues to maintain the PCC web page. No report was given. PCC Breakfast: Christopher Catherman thanked all volunteers and participants who helped make the breakfast a success. A special thank you to the “worker bees”: Keith Wheeland, Gretchen “Red” Williams, Joe Schock, Mirinda Schock, Anne Shepard, Pat Minnick and Karen Bange. Approximately 44 cavers attended the pancake breakfast on Sunday morning despite the light rain. The breakfast made $220.00. The PCC will be having another breakfast at the upcoming Fall MAR at Woodward, PA, hosted by Bald Eagle Grotto. PCC Brochure: Anyone interested in obtaining brochures should contact George Bange. Mail: Dean Snyder continues to manage the conservancy’s mail. No report was given. Christmas Cards: Karen Bange continues to manage the yearly distribution of Christmas cards to cave landowners. Contact Karen if you have a landowner you want added to the Christmas card list. A few new cave landowners were discussed and will be added. T-shirts: Gary Dunmire continues to have PCC 25th anniversary T-shirts available at $15 each (approximately $17.65 with shipping). PA Cave Database: Tony Canike continues to act as the Database Steward and coordinates cave information with the various County Stewards within the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Continuing with the discussion and clarification of current county stewards performed at the February PCC meeting, the County Stewards list was re-read with corrections noted. The current list to date is as follows: Berks County Mike Mostardi Blair County Derek Flaig Centre County --- (Open Position) Clinton County JD Lewis Cumberland County Ken Jones, Pat Minnick, & Don Arrowood Franklin County Ken Jones, Pat Minnick, & Don Arrowood Fulton County Ken Jones, Pat Minnick, & Don Arrowood Huntingdon County Garrett Czmor Lebanon County Brett Johnson Lehigh County Mike Spencer Lycoming County JD Lewis Mifflin County Todd Hancock Northampton County Mike Spencer York County Brett Johnson Christopher Catherman mentioned that other counties within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania should be added to the database list as many of these other counties are equally important due to increasing developmental impacts on natural karst resources. At this time, credible requests from the general public (such as agencies, organizations, developers, etc.) for information may not be considered by those counties not currently listed or being handled by a database steward. As a result of the discussion, Lebanon County was added to the list and was accepted to be handled by Brett Johnson. Christopher also mentioned that since the PCC took over the responsibility of the Pennsylvania Cave Database in 2007 from Keith Wheeland, former creator and maintainer of the database, the database is still be "refined" as new individuals are needed to cover, existing counties on the database list, such as Centre County, and counties not currently listed on the database list that do contain karst geology (limestone, dolomite, etc.) and karst features (sinkholes, caves, springs, etc.). Anyone interested in being a County Steward should contact Tony Canike, the Database Steward. OLD BUSINESS: Karen Bange reported that the lawsuit between the Juniata Valley Audubon Society and the Pennsylvania DEP is in process. The lawsuit is in response to the PA DEP issuing a mining permit within the Heller Cave Biological Diversity Area in Catharine Township, Blair County. A hearing is scheduled to take place in June 2011. Election of Secretary: All the current officers were re-elected at the February Meeting except for the secretary position, which remained unfilled. Gretchen "Red" Williams was nominated as secretary. Gretchen’s nomination was unanimously approved by all attending the meeting and accepted. Gretchen will begin to serve as PCC’s acting Secretary starting with the next meeting, Fall 2011. Project List: Dragon Cave (Berks County, PA) – No update was given. Red Church Cave (Schuylkill County, PA) – No update was given. Merkle Cave (Berks County, PA) – Mike Mostardi indicated that activity with the trustees of the Merkle estate was moving slowly. Cleversburg Cave (Cumberland County, PA) – Professor Thomas Feeney, of Shippensburg University, provided a talk and slideshow presentation after the traditional Saturday evening MAR dinner. The presentation topic was of the on-going research being performed by himself on monitoring the water levels within Cleversburg Sink and its relationship with the water level of nearby Burd Run. The water level within Cleversburg Sink is known to fluctuate over 30 feet in a relatively short period of time and only drains to a "caveable" level every four to five years on average. Schofer Cave (Berks County, PA) – No update was given. Durham Cave (Bucks County, PA) – Mike Mostardi and Amos Mincin indicated that the property was currently for sale. Corker Hill and Frustration Pit (Franklin County, PA) – Franklin County Grotto approached WASHCO Homes with the recently drafted Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in order to move ahead and have proposed meetings between the grotto and WASHCO Homes. Tippery Cave (Huntingdon County) – No update was given. Peiper Cave (Cumberland County) – A clean-up trip is being proposed sometime in the near future. If interested, please contact Ed Kehs, owner of the cave. Dreibilbis Cave (Berks County) – Mike Mostardi indicated that a possible “dig” may occur. J4 Cave (Centre County) – The cave was added to the list (see New Business). Keith Wheeland indicated that contacts listed for the various caves on the Project List should be contacted and reminded to either attend the PCC meeting or to send an updated report to an officer regarding any changes as many caves listed on the Project List continue to have "No Update was given". NEW BUSINESS: J4 Cave Recent developments of J4 Cave were discussed. Various grotto members from Nittany Grotto, including Bryan Crowell, Gary Dunmire, Terrance Lovell, and Paul Winters, briefly discussed the recent contact from Graymont. Apparently it is the landowner’s intention to close the cave, by means of sealing it shut with concrete. In order to be better prepared with further discussions with Graymont concerning the future of J4 Cave, a motion was made by Bryan Crowell asking the PCC to approve the cooperation of the PCC in assisting the Nittany Grotto Inc. and The Central Region Emergency Strike Team (C.R.E.S.T) in their efforts in forming a working-relationship. This cooperative effort would help facilitate discussions and/or negotiations with Graymont in working towards a cave access or management agreement plan due to the cave’s beneficial resources used by many. Any potentially binding agreements with Graymont would then be presented back to the PCC board for consideration and approval. The motion was voted on and was unanimously passed. There was a brief discussion to remove Buffalo Valley Grotto from the PCC Representative list as the grotto officially went defunct recently and is no longer listed on the NSS’s active grotto list. The grotto was removed from the PCC Rep list. Sara Ulrich announced that the Bald Eagle Grotto is hosting the 2011 Fall MAR on September 16-18 at the Woodward Cave Campground, located in Woodward (Centre County), PA. Information can be found on the MAR website at www.caves.org/region/mar. Next meeting: The next meeting of the PCC will be on Sunday, September 18, 2011 at the Fall MAR field meet, located at the Woodward Cave Campground in Woodward, PA. The meeting was adjourned at 10:20 am. Motion made by Paul Winter and seconded by Gretchen Williams. Respectfully submitted, Christopher Catherman, Recording Secretary - Interim