Conservation Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay, I'll call the meeting to order. Before we get started, let's introduce everyone on the meeting. I'm Sandy Brock. When I call your name, please confirm that you can hear me by verifying that you're present. I'll start with the commissioners. Travis.

I'm here.

Great, thanks. Noah.

Present.

Thank you. And our other two commissioners are not present tonight. Staff. Leah.

Present.

Jan. Present. Thank you very much. Okay. This is okay. Before we get started, I'm sorry. Long day today, a very long day today. This open meeting of the Conservation Commission is being conducted remotely via Zoom pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12th, 2020 order. As most recently extended on March 28th, 2025, access information for the public has been provided on the TAN website. This meeting is being recorded. Please remember to mute your phone or computer when you are not speaking. This is done on the phone by pressing star six. As chair, I will introduce each speaker on the agenda. Please note that you will not have screen sharing privileges, but staff can display any visuals per your queue. During the periods of public comment, participants must use raise hand icon in the Zoom menu bar to indicate they would like to speak. This is done on the phone by pressing star nine, then star six to unmute when you are called on. Participants who raise their hand will be recognized one at a time and will be promoted to speak. Finally, each vote taken will be conducted by a roll call vote. As a reminder, the commission is concerned with state and town wetlands and stormwater regulations. Concerns outside of this purview need to be addressed to the appropriate boards. For example, road conditions must be addressed with select board and traffic concerns must be addressed with the planning board. All right, so it's 7.02. Anything that we can take care of ahead of time?

You want to read in 21 Meadowbrook?

I have it up, so very easily. Let's take care of that. Pursuant to the Massachusetts Wetlands Protection Act, the Grafton Wetlands Protection By-law, Conservation Commission will hold a public hearing to act upon a notice of intent and application for a Grafton Wetlands By-law permit for the construction of a single family house at 21 Meadowbrook Road. The applicant has requested a continuance to June 23rd. Can I have a motion on that, please?

I'll move to continue 21 Meadowbrook Road to June 23rd.

Do I have a second?

Second.

We have a motion and a second. Roll call vote. Travis? Yes. Noah?

Yes.

I am also a yes. The motion carries. Okay. That took a whole minute. Any other action items? Meeting minutes?

Yeah. Go for it.

Okay. With someone like, well, I'll just put it out there. Does anyone have any comments or edits to the May 26th, 2026 meeting minutes? Nothing for me. Thank you, Travis. Noah, anything?

Nothing for me.

All right. Do I have a motion?

I'll move to approve the meeting minutes from May 26th, 2026.

Second. Motion and a second. Thank you, Noah. Travis. Yes. Noah. Yes. I am also a yes. The motion carries. Should we do the appointments to the Lake Quinn? Yeah.

Quinn Sigmund.

I'm sorry. It has been an extremely long day and week and it's only Tuesday. And the open space recreation committee and the community preservation committee.

We can certainly start. I know you guys often want a full house when we do that, but we can certainly start and maybe do some.

Okay. Yeah, I'm just trying to figure out who's... Travis, are you doing the open space?

I am, and I'm happy to keep doing that unless somebody else wants to try that one.

Okay. Okay. So maybe Leah, we can, I mean, I'm still fine with doing CPC. I just don't, I know as far as like Quinn Sigmund commissioned, you know, we can wait and see if, you know, if there's anyone else or someone different wants to do it, but.

Okay.

Yeah.

So do you want to just table Quinn SIG or do you want to table all of them?

Why don't we table all of them? So if anyone has a great desire for anything particular, we can just have it discussed.

Okay.

Okay, 705. Okay, first NRAD. Okay, pursuant to the Massachusetts Wetland Protection Act, the Grafton Wetland Protection Bylaw, Conservation Commission will hold a public hearing on Tuesday, June 9th to act upon an abbreviated notice of resource area delineation at 104 Creeper Hill Road. Who's here to speak to that?

For the record, this is Brian Nelson with Metro West Engineering.

You have the floor.

Okay. Thank you. Also with me tonight is Jim Russo. I can see him up on the top of my screen as well. One of the property owners for 104 Cooper Hill Road, LLC.

um i did uh expect to be able to share my screen tonight so i did kind of in a panic just email um three pdfs over to jan maybe she can pull one up and we can take a look at it yeah just we have found for a lot of reasons it's easier for our staff to do it and also make sure that we have all presentation material that we're supposed to keep by law anyways But that's not a problem. Hence, next time, just go ahead and send it. I'm sure Jan is so damn efficient that she's already seen the email and is ready to go.

Thank you, Jan. Just one second.

So I can start out while you're pulling that up with just a little bit of a history for the property. Sure. The property was basically purchased and developed in around 2016 by Jim and Andy Russo. And the property has about 15.3 acres. It was basically acquired from the town. It was developed and we were before the commission in 2016 for the development of the part of the property that basically fronts up near Creeper Hill Road. So there was a shop that was built an accessory building followed after some paved parking and storage areas a detention basin and all of those were located on the southerly part of the property this property is It's kind of got a weird shape to it. There's a section along Creeper Hill Road that's fairly wide. It necks down as you head to the north, and then it widens out to a big peninsula of land up on the north side of the property. Again, it's about 15.3 acres, and I think now you can see it. Flint Pond is basically the border of this property on two and a half sides. It's bordered on the north. wrapping around southerly and then covers most of the easterly boundary of the property also. The New England Power Company of the power line easement is the westerly boundary, and that's shown on the left of this plan. And as I mentioned before, the developed part of the property is down at the bottom of the plan. You can see the two larger buildings are solid hatched, and then there's a kind of a paved parking area that runs around there. There is a cell phone tower, and that's located basically on the northwest side of the property, north of the detention basin. And we're here tonight basically to start the process of kind of locking in resource area boundaries for that northerly part of the site. The applicant is looking at development options for that northerly part, which is presently mostly wooded. There's some area that's been cleared, but most of it's wooded. And we have just a mixture of resource areas. Excuse me. We have the Bank of Flint Pond, which is shown in cyan. There are some colors on this plan that I sent over. there's a bvw basically that is roughly parallel uh it deviates from the bank in some locations that's shown in green and the bvw the most notable kind of point of diversion from the bank is the easterly part of the peninsula there's a finger of wetland area that projects in to the site um a couple hundred feet uh so we've got bank wetlands we have an isolated wetland located on the northerly part of the peninsula Um, and then we've got bordering land subject to flooding. And then we have the FEMA flood zone, which is a, um, basically just a, it's, it's been approximated from the flood maps. It's, it's a zone A, not a zone AE. And so we're looking to, you know, get confirmation on, on those boundaries and, uh, from corresponding with Jan and Leah, um, You guys, I think, would like to get a peer reviewer to review the resource area boundaries, and obviously we're fine with that. One request I had, and this may or may not be possible, Graves has done peer review on this project basically since the lot was created. I wonder if maybe it would be possible for them to review this as they have a history with the property. So I just throw that out there for consideration. But I can go into more detail on the wetlands if you like, or maybe this is a good spot to leave it until we get a peer reviewer engaged.

Sounds good. And I'll leave it up to Leah to kind of go through that. We haven't changed our peer reviewers in a while. So Graves does all our kind of more civil engineering type of reviews for stormwater and other things. So I don't know, Leah, if you want to kind of go through your comments.

Sure. I mean, just on the subject of peer review, we usually use Ecotech when we're checking wetland stuff. Graves, like you said, is more the civil side. So my plan was Ecotech for this. We're waiting on their DEP number, so we wouldn't be able to close tonight anyway. And the only comment I had in the meantime is just once we lock in the... boundary of bordering land subject to flooding, it will need to have its own buffer zone line and no disturbed line under our bylaw. But I know that was like a subject that needs to be worked out. So I'm fine waiting on that to be locked in before it's shown on the plan.

That's great. Do you have any questions on that?

No, that's all pretty straightforward.

Okay. So I'm going to leave it up to you to request a continuance. I will just put it out for public comment, and I'll go around the commission just to see if anyone has any specific questions at this point, just to take care of a few things for tonight. So, Travis, any kind of questions on either the delineations or the submittals? not based on the info we've got no okay all right no any questions no questions yeah i i don't have any at the time at this time but i'm sure you know uh big things once we have it peer reviewed um we're going to rely on their expertise for that um based on that i'll just open up quickly to The public, if anyone's, I don't know if anyone's on, but if anyone is, please raise your hand if you have any comments or questions on this. This is what's called an NANRAD, so we're looking to delineate the wetland resource areas. And Jan, let me know if there's anyone with questions.

Nothing from the public.

All right. Thank you. All right. So based on that, do you have anything else to add, Leah? I think you've already kind of went through what you were talking about. Nope. So I'll go back to the applicant and ask if you have any other questions. If not, if you would like to continue this hearing to June 23rd.

So nothing else to add and certainly would request a continuance until June 23rd.

Leah, we don't have the DEP number, so we can't close it anyways, but we're just waiting for their comments also.

DEP and peer review, but we haven't received payment for the peer review yet, so we haven't gotten that started yet.

Okay. So that can be usually turned around pretty quick, but just reach out to Leah or Jan to kind of get that straightened out. Other than that, if you've requested the continuance, I'll ask for a motion then.

I'll move to continue the hearing for 104 Creeper Hill Road to June 23rd.

Do I have a second?

Second.

We have a motion and second. Roll call vote. Travis. Yes. Noah.

Yes.

I am also a yes. The motion carries. We'll see you on the 29th and 23rd, I should say, June 23rd. See you then. And we're too quick. We're a minute before the next hearing. So thank you very much. Have a good night.

Thank you.

All right, Leah, next up.

So we are 7-15. The representative has two meetings tonight. So he did ask if we could do anything we can to delay a little and give him time. So if you want to go through, and it's the same representative for 66 Brigham Hill and 81 Milbury. So if you wanted to do like everything but...

Okay, so as far as Fisherville Pond, that's also a continuance, right?

Not anymore. Okay. So we got the file number to come through late today. So if you want to hop to that, we could do that next.

Okay, why don't we do that? Let me just open up a second. I need you back up here. Okay, so... go down to the right one. Fisherville Pond. Okay. Pursuant to the Massachusetts Wetlands Protection Act, Grafton Wetlands Protection By-law, the Conservation Commission will hold a public hearing to act upon a notice of intent and application for Grafton Wetlands By-law permit for herbicide treatment and management of aquatic invasives at Fisherville Pond. And who's here to speak to that?

Joe Berkman with GEI.

You have the floor.

Thanks. So yeah, we had discussed this last hearing and we had discussed the proposed herbicide treatments and hand harvesting. And I think we had a good discussion, but we didn't have the file number last time. So we just got it today. And nothing has changed on my end since then. I don't know if you need me to go back into the project or...

No, not at this time. Leah, do you have any DEP comments?

Yeah, I incorporated them into potential conditions. If you want me to pull them out and talk about them now, I can, or we can do it when we go through that list.

Well, we do it when we go through the list. So why don't we, I know we had a few folks have some questions and comments last time. So basically, Joe, you have no more additional information really to add. And then what was holding us up previously was the fact that we didn't have the DEP number. And so we have that DEP number. Leah, can you just go through real quick on some of the comments that they had? Uh, the public comments? No, no, no. DEP comments.

Oh, DEP.

Um, let's see. That's the only thing the public may not already have seen.

Sure. So they, they recommended that we get copies of any pre and post treatment surveys, which we had actually already talked about, um, as a condition last time.

Okay.

Um, Let's see. Another condition will be all applicable setbacks, prohibitions, and or guidance for a Zone 2 wellhead protection area shall be adhered to. This project will span the Zone 2 wellhead protection area for both zones. uh grafton water district and south grafton water district so they wanted to put that in the list um herbicides shall not be applied to any adjacent bordering vegetated wetlands only they'll only be applied in areas of open water with land underwater which is the plan and then um Native species shall be preserved wherever possible with a goal of maintaining 30% coverage of native aquatic plant species for habitat purposes. And we sort of touched on that last time, too, with the, you know, the intent is not to treat the whole thing at the same time.

Correct. Okay. Thank you for that. That's probably just information. If there's folks here that were on last time or listening, that's what it is. So at this time, I'll go quickly around the commission to see if you have any further questions. Then I'll open it up to the public. And then we can keep on going after that. So Noah, any questions at this point or any questions on the DEP comments?

No, no questions for me.

All right. Travis, any questions on either one of those?

Nope, nothing else from me.

All right, so I'll open it up to the public and just say if you do have any questions on the DEP comments, typically when the applicant submits, you know, in this case, notice of intent for aquatic invasives, they also have to send it to DEP. DEP has to issue a DEP number, and along with that, they will review it and make comments. So that's what we would just... So if you have any questions on any of that, please raise your hand and let us know and we'll be happy to try to answer any of those questions. And Jan, if you let me know, keep an eye on it. Otherwise, we're just going to go ahead and kind of set up our special conditions just so that a lot of the things that we spoke about at the previous hearing and obviously to address some of the DEP comments. So, Leah, you want to go through the list of special conditions that we've come up with so far?

Sure. I have one just note. It will be a five-year order because it's vegetation maintenance, which is the one kind that you can do that with. I have one finding. It is an Inland Ecological Restoration Limited Project, and I give the citations from the Wetlands Protection Act regulations for that, as it is invasive species management. And then in addition to the four conditions created off of DEP's comments from a few minutes ago, I also have the Commission will be notified of the treatment dates. The public notification process will be followed, which includes signage along the water body. It's to be treated in accordance with EPA and DEP guidelines and all applicable product labels, not done in poor weather and not the entire pond at once. And they will only launch boats at the Riverview Park boat ramp.

Okay. And then the other ones that I'm looking at are the ones from DEP. So I'll go back to Joe. Do you have any questions or comments on the special conditions that we're proposing?

No, I'm good with all that.

Yeah. And then Jan, one of the last check of anyone in the public?

Nothing from the public.

Okay, great. Having said that and having gone to the public, do I have a motion to – well, let me first go through. Travis, any other comments for this? All right, thank you. Noah, any other comments?

None for me.

I also have no comments. So can I have a motion to – let me get this – to issue the order with the special conditions as previously discussed? Yes.

I'll move to close the hearing and issue the order with the conditions as discussed for Fisherville Pond aquatic invasive treatment.

Thank you very much. Do I have a second?

Second.

We have a motion and a second. We'll do a roll call vote. Noah?

Yes.

Travis? Yes. I am also a yes. The motion carries and we'll issue the order. Joe, if you have any questions, please reach out to Leah or Jan.

Thank you very much. Thanks for your time. All right.

All right. Okay. Leo, other things that we can do.

So our 715 has arrived. If you wanted to go back to that. Yeah.

Okay. That sounds good. So that's 66 Brigham Hill road. Correct. Okay. So I need to switch. Bring this back up here. All right, I need to make you a little bit bigger. Okay. Pursuant to the Massachusetts Wetlands Protection Act and the Grafton Wetlands Protection By-law, the Conservation Commission will hold a public hearing to act upon a notice of intent and application for Grafton Wetlands By-law permit for the construction of geothermal trenches for a single-family house at 66 Brigham Hill Road. Who is here to discuss that?

Good evening, Madam Chair. This is Matt Morrow, Morrow Environmental Consulting, representing Charles Mason.

Great. You have the floor.

Be my guest. Thank you. First of all, I just want to say, excuse me ahead of time if you see me doing this with my glasses. I'm just at that point in my life where I have to look down at my notes and I can't see the computer with my glasses on. So. Not a problem. Just forgive me for that. So essentially what we have is if I can share my screen.

Actually, Jan can share anything that you've submitted.

All right, great. Even better. So what we have is a notice of intent. The 100-foot buffer zone is actually halfway through the geothermal field. The applicant is looking to construct a new single-family home on the lot. He has an existing house on the lot, which he intends to place as an ADU for his family. That's something in the future. Those really aren't within the buffer zone. There's no riverfront associated with the property. So it's actually those particular dynamics are actually out of jurisdiction. I just wanted to give you guys the context as to what he's doing here. This proposed house, he wanted to do a geothermal heating system. The system essentially is made of it's specified in the notice of intent. It's a closed loop system. There was a concern or a question or a comment rather that was initiated by staff, which I thought was a good question about the installation depth. That's usually this, these particular geothermal systems are, they're branded and each particular brand has its own type of design when it comes to that. So the system designer and the implementation would be consistent with the Final geothermal installation details, including the depth information, can be provided to the commission office for staff review prior to any construction. The erosion protection that is set up on the plans, you can see on the plans there the square blocks that are shown on the plan going from south to north on the plan. actual east side of the plans, as you're orienting with the north arrow, the erosion protection is actually placed right at the 25-foot line. There is no work proposed within the 25-foot zone, so the erosion protection will serve a dual purpose. The purpose is for erosion protection, obviously. The second purpose is for demarcation limits of the 25-foot zone because there is one corner of one field that does actually come close to that zone, but not within it. The wetland delineation that is on site was not done by me. It was done by my friends over at Ecotech. I did review the delineation myself. I took a look at it. It was Ecotech's usual thorough job. They documented it thoroughly and that was submitted in with the notice of intent. There is floodplain on this property. It is at elevation 307. The floodplain elevation is noted here. On the plan itself, there is no work taking place within the floodplain. If I remember the notice of intent literature correctly, which I'm not looking at right now, kind of winging it, it is at 310 at its lowest elevation point. So it doesn't go into the 100-year floodplain. That essentially is the Reader's Digest version. I can... go over any other comments that the commission has, staff comments, et cetera. I figured I'd try to give you my Reader's Digest version to leave more questions.

No, that's great. Yeah. So the problem is, is I've worked in and around many geothermals. So I've got some other specific questions, but Leah, why don't you go through your kind of comments and questions?

Sure. The first one that I wanted to clear up is if you could just explain the extent of, you mentioned that some work had already commenced on site. Just where was that and what has occurred already?

Well, there was some preliminary vegetation management. It's no grading, just some vegetation was cleared in this part of the buffer zone. It's actually starting to reestablish itself.

Okay. So I'll leave it to the Commission if you want to call this like an after-the-fact filing or not based on that. Other things that we were looking for, well, the note of the flood elevation is on here. The line is not, so we don't also see it's no disturb and buffer zone under the bylaw. DEP called that out in their comments as well. I'm curious to see that so we can make sure the geothermal isn't within the no disturb of that line. I know you have the no disturb of the wetland, but the no disturb for bordering land subject to flooding might be a little askew from that. In addition, we had asked for a handful of things on the plans that I still do not see. An erosion control detail so we can make sure you're not using things like hay. Limit of disturbance, I don't see on the plan. Any proposed grading. Existing or proposed tree lines. Existing and proposed utilities. There was a different plan we received at first that had a septic system on here. This new plan doesn't show one at all. and any stockpile locations as well. We had also asked for the amount of total disturbance in order to try to see if this falls under the stormwater bylaw as well. Matt had calculated that to be 96,800 square feet, which does trigger the stormwater bylaw. So we need to get everything associated with that part of a filing. So if you go back to our application checklist, it'll walk you through what you need there and the fee under that bylaw as well. And then my last question for tonight is just that you've been describing it as a closed loop system, which is fine, but can you just explain to the commission what circulates within that system and what would happen if it had a leak since it's so close to the resource areas?

Okay. So the event of maintenance or repair or anything like that becomes necessary, it would... There's no discharge that would go to the resource areas. If Charles is here tonight, he could probably explain that a little bit better. I'm not as familiar as my applicant is with closed-loop systems. As far as some of the other details, I need you to zoom into the areas where the erosion protection is, if you could do that. So the 25-foot buffer, if you look up to the top of the plan where it says WFA1, the 25-foot buffer is noted as a dotted line. The dotted line does go up behind the plan. area of the 25 foot zone so the hay bales that are shown are hey wattles i can get an extra detail added to that plan that won't be an issue but the 25 foot zone is on the plan it has been on the the plan that i submitted i wanted to make sure that it was spelled out um i can probably put some color in that if you want like so which stands out more pronounced So I know you have a busy plan.

So you have the 25 foot to the BVW. But what we don't what we don't see here is the line for bordering land subject to flooding. And then that line gets a 25 foot and 100 foot under our bylaw.

Okay.

So you don't have to exactly have all of them as long as you have the most inclusive one, if that makes sense. But because we don't have the BLSF line to go off of, we don't know which is the more inclusive set.

Okay. Let me just note that down. I can tell you what I've got on here is the inclusive set because if you actually, if you zoom in a little bit more, It helps my weak eyes more than anything else. If you look behind the BVW line, you're going to see that the BVW is actually around elevation 308. And then behind that is elevation 306. 307 is actually internal to the wetland itself, which is actually very common around areas of this lake. A lot of your BVW actually winds up coinciding with your floodplain, or it is just a little bit above it. In this case, there are areas that are just a little bit above it. So your 25 and your 100 would actually be behind the BVW 25 and 100. Now, As the expression goes, that being said, you're correct. I don't see a 307 on here. I see a 308 and a 306. I can work with the engineer to get the 307 so that it's more clear as to where it is, which means I'm going to have to actually have this thing done in different colors because that area is a little congested. So we'll blow it up, get some color on it so you guys can see better detail. Does that sound okay, Leah? Sure.

Thank you.

Anything else, Leah?

No, I went through my whole list.

All right, thanks. Travis, any kind of questions?

Remind me again, I think it was the NOI reference, 2,000 square feet of impacts to the resource area. Did I read that correctly? But it looks like everything is out. Can you clarify there are no impacts within 25 feet of the? Wetland. Is that correct, Leo? Maybe it's just a question for Leo.

Well, the impacts I cited were buffer zone impacts. They weren't wetland impacts. So there's no work within 25 feet of the wetland?

So there's no work within 25 feet of the wetland. That's correct. The floodplain is still kind of unknown.

Well, the floodplains, no. But we're going to have to draw it out so you can see it exactly. Again, what I would reiterate, if you look at the contour lines on what is a very busy section of the plan.

Wait, no, just like there are no impacts within 25 feet of the resource area, I guess.

Within any resource area.

Okay. But we're going to get that clarified in the plan. Okay. That's it, Sandy.

All right. Thanks. Noah, any questions?

Did you mention if you knew what the impacts were if something leaked in this closed-loop system? I don't know if we discussed that.

So the closed-loop system, if it does leak, for one thing, it would start showing above ground. There's usually contingencies in these plans where the systems are shut down while they're being repaired. So I probably will go to my client to get the manufacturer specifications on these systems and add to the notice of intent what their procedures would be.

Yeah, and I would also suggest that you get the materials label on what the fluid is within the closed system because typically it's a liquid that transfers the heat and cold and so forth. Anything else, Noah?

No, nothing else.

Okay. I have to say the type of geothermal I've been working with are large scale for campuses and so forth, but it's all the same science. It's all the same kind of thing. I'm very curious on the depth of it. The whole idea of doing geothermal is you hit a depth below the surface so that you maintain a constant temperature so that you're changing from typically 54, 55 degrees to heat something in the winter is obviously a lot less than if you're using cold air and so forth. And it can work also for cooling too. So that's, you know, it's a balance and so forth. And it's a type of a heat sink and things like that. All that's fine. Got no issues at all with geothermal. It is, you know, if you can, you know, use it. I haven't seen many residential kind of installations, but it's all the same. So I'm very curious about the depth. Typically, the depth is usually based on temperature and not based on the product, at least that's the ones I've seen. Again, on a much bigger scale. The other thing is, is that you typically have I know it's a closed system. So the questions I would have is if it's, you know, how are they piping this? And do they have basically Different junction boxes, I'll call them. And then, you know, where's the exchanger? Is that going to be in the house or is it in something? I'm just looking at the layout and this doesn't really show a layout of a geothermal. And I know this is horizontal, so it's not deep wells. I get all that. It's really just getting a little bit more detailed. And kind of the things that I'm looking at, and these are all just related to the wetlands, which is when I look at the edge of one of the trenches, so to speak, it's right on the 25 foot and right on the erosion control. And if you're digging down three or four feet to get below frost, then, you know, then you're going to have a little bit more, you know, disturbance in that area. In general, it'd be a really easy thing to accommodate. So I'm not like think that's a big issue. What I'm looking at is purely from the wetland standpoint, the fluid that's being used. Where are your, you know, junction boxes? You know, where's, you know, where's all your mechanicals? If it's in the house, we don't care. That's great. Wonderful. And it's really looking at the piping because it is a closed loop. So I have no idea when I look at these, quote, trenches, how the piping's going.

And just share if I may real quick. My client, Charles Mason, is one of the attendees. He's got his hand raised. Maybe if he could promote it to panelists, he could probably get some of your questions right now. That would be great.

Just promote it.

Sometimes it's a hassle when it gets promoted. All right, Charles, you are shown as being muted. Okay.

Okay, can you guys hear me? Yes, yep. I think I can answer some of those questions based on conversations with the designer that had used, which right now has escaped my mind, but the allocate amendment. There is still some additional questions The installation needs to be done to see if that system will work as you indicated. What they indicated, the depth is six to eight feet for the geothermal system. That makes sense. What's used is mostly water with some antifreeze and there is no junction box, nothing in the trenches, all the equipment is inside the house. It's a complete closed system that goes five loops They go and just circulate the water on the ground. But my understanding, what he told, we did some tests and he wants to see some, actually some potential water to hold in the ground to be able to be capable to be efficient so that there's a little more of the gelations need to be done to confirm the design. But I think I answer all those questions as far as I know from what they told me.

Okay. And again, I think it's great that you're doing it. I hope it works for you. It's definitely a green energy source and it can work very well. Have fun trying to figure out the difference if you're doing both heating and cooling because that gets a little tricky in your balance between the seasons, but hopefully you have good luck with that. So So going back to Leah, some of my kind of questions is getting the actual piping layout and so forth and understanding with the, you know, not just the limit of clearing, but the limit of excavation. And again, these tend to be, and I'm guessing, and Charles, you can answer this, I mean, they're probably one inch pipes. I mean, and it's more, it's not even pipes, it's tubing.

Yeah, that's correct. That's tubing. They said initially six by one, three quarter or half inch. Okay. Yeah. Now he's, he's indicated the last time he did, it'll be short, potentially shorter than one inch. So he's giving a little smaller fields based on last he did. And, uh, who I'm working with is Stephen Teleform, a voucher energy systems amendment.

Yeah. And again, that's kind of the part of the calculations and so forth. So I, you know, again, I have no issues with that. The only thing I'm looking at this is to see how much it could impact onto the, you know, basically the wetlands and the no disturb zone. So that's my concern. Other than that, yes, we would like to get, you know, what exactly if it's mostly liquid with some additives to it. And we just want to make sure that that's not an issue. Antifreeze is probably not quite antifreeze, but it probably acts like it. So that's kind of the information. So Leah, because this isn't fully designed yet because it's still doing the testing, it's really about getting the actual layout of all that information when it's done. And I guess I'm toying with and I'll go around to the rest of the commissioners. You know, we can set, you know, this is the area of, you know, the geothermal location. It's a closed system. All of your equipment is inside the house. That's fine. And then, but what we really need is a finished layout from the company that's actually installing it along with the depth and also the limit of excavation. Because if you're going down four to six feet, You're going to have to have, you know, a slope on your excavation, which based on where these are shown doesn't look like you have it. But I also think that's easily manipulated. So, so guess to go around to the commissioners as far as, you know, what we have. I know there's a couple things that need to be added to this.

plan um but i'll go back to charles i don't think you're going to have a layout of your system anytime soon what's what is that schedule so so this layout had that's on the drawings has been they provide the specifications i lay out they review and they say uh would be acceptable uh they he just indicated that potentially increase the pipe or reduce a little bit that it's option to reduce the number of fittings in the length of the loop but i mean uh the intent as long as i just can't they they need to confirm if it's work or not for me to have the investment right so that that's all that my intent is to have at least be able to continue the work so we can clear the area, do the rest of the testing so they can be finalized.

Okay. Yeah, so it's in, let me go around to the different commissioners. um travis any kind of do you get what i'm saying where we really don't know what the limit of excavation is at the moment because we don't know the depth um yeah i thought you could bore these well you have one of these systems it works really well and i thought they had it bored Is it still, is it still horizontal? There's two ways of doing it. You do horizontal, you can do a welts. Okay. So, yeah. So, and again, it's, it comes down to, you know, what works the best, what's the available area and the ease of trying to put it in to get a rig in can get really expensive. So, you know, again, it's, it's, there's choices out there. We're not here to dictate what, you know, what the owner's choices and stuff. I'm more just making sure that if there is a certain depth of excavation, that we're not going into the 25 foot no disturb zone and that it gets, you know, restored and so forth. So that's, those are my concerns. um it's not it's not that i really care about the exact layout of every every tube and how it all goes into the house only in the only so far as we're not impacting the 25 foot no disturb yeah so yeah can the system be viable if right they have to extend one run shorten another i think it actually i think it'd be very easy to do but that's my opinion and I'm not building it or designing it, but yeah, but we would, I'm thinking more of conditions and so forth that prior to, you know, actually installing it, the final, and again, to the owner's perspective, he's going through this period of having it tested to make sure it's a viable system and that I understand. And then once they have it, have a condition where we get the actual layout of the tubing and so forth and the depth. And then they have to indicate the limit of excavation to put that in. Because if you're four to six feet down, and again, it has to do with the temperatures and all that kind of good stuff. Then it's what type of soil is it and how far you have to have a slope on the side of your excavation. Bottom line is we just say you have to stay out of there. So they'd have to adjust it. Noah, have any questions?

No questions, no.

Yeah. So Leah, as far as like, and I know we still need to continue this so that some information needs to be added and confirmed. I don't know. I don't see a huge issue with having certain conditions where once everything's designed, it has to be submitted and has to demonstrate that the limit of excavation is outside that 25 foot.

Is there a question in there to me?

Yeah, the question is, do you think that's a reasonable condition to put on here?

if we kind of locked in like a rough footprint or like, you know, some rough guidelines around it, I think, or like, you know, should it need to go beyond X? Here's how we'll handle that kind of thing. Yeah. I would be okay with that. Okay.

So I'll go back to the applicants representative. Hopefully you're following what my train of thought is. Do you have any questions or comments on that?

No, actually, I think that's very reasonable of you guys. And I appreciate it.

Yeah. Again, we're here to protect the wetlands. We're not here to stop anything. And again, as far as the house and so forth, that's outside the buffer. It's really just the geothermal. In this case, it's a horizontal system. So they just got to make it fit within the criteria that we're doing. So at this point, I will have to continue it anyways, but I'll go back to the applicant on that. but jan anyone i'll open this up to anyone in the audience if they have any questions or comments um please raise your hand and we'll be happy to try to respond to those uh we do yep we do have one person uh patty and steve brightly sure if you can promote them and once they're on if you can give your name and address and then we're happy to kind of answer any questions

Yes. Hi, this is Patty and Steve Reichli. We're 70 Brigham Hill Road. And I guess first, we just want to say that Charles has done a wonderful job with that property since he's taken ownership of it. But this is really a cool idea he's got with the geothermal. But our only real question is, do they anticipate needing to do any blasting to install this system?

So I will give you kind of my take on that. And then I'm sure the homeowner will actually find out. So typically you can, but on this type of horizontal system, you typically do not blast. If you run into ledge and so forth, then that's a totally different thing. I think that is a good question. What we can do is to add a condition that if they do run into any ledge within that depth that they're going down, is they would have to notify the commission plus there would be a whole series of other permits they would need. Again, typically on a system like this, you don't really want to be blasting rock. But that doesn't mean it can't happen. But I think it's a very good question. And that's something I think we could chat with the applicant's representative and homeowner, because if he's going to be trying to blast anything, the price just tripled or quadrupled. So but we would just like to be notified of that so we can add a condition on that.

Right, because we had some issues previously. There was some blasting up the hill, higher up on Brigham Hill Road years ago and ended up with some well issues and foundation issues. So we're just trying to make sure we don't see that happen again.

Right. You know, and again, from, excuse me for interrupting, but again, from our perspective, as far as the Conservation Commission, we do not in any way permit or control, excuse me, permit or control any of the blasting permits that's done through the fire department. But for us, the concern is to the wetlands. And if you're that close to proximity to the wetlands and you start blasting, you could impact some of the hydrology in the area. But again, we don't know that would happen. But that's just something to be aware of.

All right. Thank you.

All right. I can indicate it. Just take, by the way, thanks for the comment. The property here has been, as I understand, neglected for 20 years. So there's so many people, they already stopped from the neighbors and comment. So I do appreciate the comment. uh there's no ledge in this property i have been working entire property uh have done tests for potentially the future subject system as a priority even by the property was one of the things they did and there's no ledge in here so far that i and i don't expect to be and i have been everywhere in the property so i don't expect any plastic yeah

And then we'll probably just add a condition to the approval when we get to there. And that's really just a notification type of thing is if you do hit it. I don't know the site, so I'm not going to even guess on that. So appreciate the input. So we need to kind of have a couple of updates to the plan. And then we need to kind of figure out our conditions and so forth. Is there anything else? Did we have any comments from DEP?

Are you asking me? Yes, I'm sorry.

No, I'm asking you, Leah. I'm always asking you questions.

DEP really just chimed in on what I touched on earlier of the bordering land subject to flooding being on the plan. That was the gist of their comment.

Okay. So I'll go back to the applicant's representative. Is there anything, any other questions that you have

No, I just want to make sure that I have the list I need to work with the engineer to just add these to the plans. So you want an erosion protection detail. You don't want hay. You want wattles, correct?

Straw, compost, whatever you like, as long as it's not hay.

Too many invasives.

Natural netting versus the plastic netting, please.

Okay. The 307 line added along with your buffers, added buffer zones. We'll probably have some color added to that. So the two different lines are clear.

That's absolutely fine.

Well, it's in a, yeah, and you can see it's in a pretty small area. So it gets busy in that section. Just want to make sure. And then you want me to go through your stormwater bylaw checklist. Correct. Yes.

And there's a few others. Do you have more or was that the end of what you have?

That was what I had.

Limit of disturbance. Any proposed grading. Existing and proposed tree lines. Existing and proposed utilities. And stockpile locations. And then as you touched on earlier, what happens if there's a leak? What are the procedures there?

In the actual, any additives to the fluids that are used in the geotubing.

I got that. Just to note, stockpiling would be done outside of the buffer zone. That's what we're looking for. If you want that noted on the plan, that stockpiling will be out of the buffer zone.

We like people to show the area if they anticipate where the area is going to be. Otherwise, at least a note is helpful.

Okay. Tree lines grading, utilities. I can't imagine any utilities being in the buffer zone at all.

Yeah, but we're also talking stormwater bylaws, so it's not just what's in the 100-foot buffer. Once you trigger stormwater, we're looking at all earth disturbance. So if there's a future septic system, I mean, you can certainly hold that and do another filing down the road if it came to that. But your best shot is to loop it all in and get your stormwater permit at one stop shop kind of.

And just as an FYI, it's 40,000 square feet triggers the stormwater bylaw.

Okay.

Got it. Easy enough.

Okay. I'm just going around to the commissioners one more time. And then I should probably ask you now, are you looking to continue this hearing until June 23rd?

The 23rd would work. Yes. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Noah, any other questions?

No questions for me.

Travis, anything else? No, nothing else. Jan, anything else from the public? No.

Nothing further from the public.

All right. Thank you. So having said that, do I have a motion?

I'll move to continue the hearing for 66 Brigham Hill Road to June 23rd.

Second.

We have a motion and a second. Roll call vote. Noah?

Yes.

Travis? Yes. I am also a yes. The motion carries. And Matt, if you have any questions, please just reach out to staff. We don't want to we want to assist in the process going. So if you have any questions, just reach out to Lee or Jan. Yeah, no, no.

They're always helpful. So, yeah, no problem with that at all. All right. Just to let you guys know, I'm actually up for the next hearing, too.

Yeah, we heard a rumor that you were someplace else and that you had two hearings coming up.

Yeah, well, I mean, that's all set. I'm here for the next hearing as well. And my client, Wasim, is actually in attendance. If he could also be promoted to a panelist once this hearing is convened in case. Okay. Say something.

All right. Thank you for that, Leah. Anything else in between that and me finding the right, here we go.

It'll be 81 Milbury, but no, go for it.

Okay. 81 Milbury. Here we go. Pursuant to the Massachusetts Wetlands Protection Act and the Grafton Wetlands Protection By-law, Conservation Commission will hold a public hearing to act upon a notice of intent and application for Grafton Wetlands By-law permit for the resource area restoration at 81 Milbury Street. So that hearing is open. So Matt, if you want to present what you have for this, this is a continuation.

Thank you. I believe I had submitted another set of plans. If we could share those. Coming up. When we last left off, I needed to answer Art Allen's comments on his peer review, which I have to express my gratitude for Mr. Allen's interactions here. They've been most helpful, and Art is somebody I value very dearly as a colleague. So I was glad he had a chance to put his eyes on this as well. So what I've done in the meantime is I had the areas survey located on the plans as far as where the trees are going versus where the shrubs are going. The different varieties of trees that were proposed are in their color coded, both in location as to where they're going to be planted and the variety. The shrub varieties, that's more of a uniform color. There's several different varieties that I proposed in the notice of intent that would be planted in. But to go to address the comments, basically, a lot of the comments were addressed as far as the comments that Mr. Allen had. As far as the existing tree lines cleared access and wood chips, removal of wood chips and general cleanup are actually part of the restoration and they're outlined in the original narrative. The cleanup activities actually seek the removal of the accumulated chips and the clearing debris. What we're looking to do is to minimize any disturbance to the restored areas to avoid any rutting or erosion or impacts to wetlands. So essentially that material would have to be removed first prior to planting. There is a lot of accumulated debris also by wetland flag WA1, which is in the back of the house. which is blocking the remainder of the channel that goes in that would also have to be removed. And Mr. Allen alluded to that. There's no grading that's proposed in there. There was no grading to begin with. It was vegetation removal. So we need to clear that stuff out to clear out the detritus. So the connection between the upgrading and swell in the wetland area, there really isn't any grading proposed. There was nothing that was done other than the fact that we'll make sure that the water flows. And to do that is to clear the detritus that's in there out. As far as restoration protocol, I mean, we can make sure that there's a... an extra procedure for the work on the survey plan that I can I can deal with staff on that that's something that usually is worked out in the field because you can have different variables that will change um depend and it can be weather dependent my client already has all of the vegetation that's tricky last scrubs yes Everything is already... He's already purchased it. It's actually at the nursery still being maintained and watered by the nursery staff. So he's actually paid for all the vegetation. Now, those particular planting details I can work out with staff because we're going to have to do a pre-construction meeting. I'm going to want them out there after the material is planted to make sure that they're satisfied with the planting patterns to make sure we don't need to move anything around. That is a... very dynamic procedure so i'd like to be able to have the opportunity to work that out with staff as it goes um because if there's anything that they see that they want adjusted um or that they decide they don't like and we need to discuss it further we can discuss it further as i've alluded to before My interactions with staff has always been productive, and we usually are always able to work out any finer details as projects go. So I'd like to continue along that now. The half trees in the backyard, snags in the standings, Mr. Allen and I agreed with him, actually agreed. wanted to ensure that that was kind of left as a snag or snags. I don't see that as an issue myself. Him and I seem to be in agreement with that. Any debris that's removed from the stream area, especially in the back, There's really no debris in the stream area now, other than maybe hand raking out some of the wood shavings if they've gone overboard there. But everything would be removed by hand. There wouldn't be any heavy equipment to remove that vegetation. The only thing that might be needed would be some light equipment to remove the wood shavings, because that would be a monumental task to try to do by hand, you know, with a handed bucket brigade. I mean, that would literally take weeks. And we want to get this planted as soon as possible. As far as like the hemlocks, the hemlocks have already been purchased. And I know that Mr. Allen was concerned with the woolly adelgid. Of course, you know, I'm going to be monitoring that site probably for a good couple of years. So I'll monitor the two hemlocks. We've offered to add two white pines to help address that concern in case the hemlocks have to be removed. There would be two extra white pines that would be added to that. As far as the no disturb buffer, you can see on the plan that the fence that was originally there and the no disturb signs are slated to be reestablished. The signage will remain as it was previously on the site and as shown on the plans. The last issue was Mr. Allen wanted to add additional trees. I him and I still kind of disagree with that. It's more of a friendly disagreement than anything else. The reason being is, I believe, actually, the commission touched on that. It's some of the commissioners touched on that themselves with me. What I find when I do restoration work. When you have a canopy like this that is removed, especially something that's in a residential area, you want to reestablish a canopy. You also want to give room for natural regeneration to come in. Having the shrub layer will establish stability, wildlife habitat, biodiversity. Planting the trees in will help reestablish the canopy and also leave room for others to make their way in. And as was pointed out, and I agree with, and if you actually went on site, you could see it starting to happen, Number one, the herbaceous layer is regenerating. And number two, some of the outgrowth from the stumps on the red maple is starting to occur. That will continue. I just don't want to overcrowd the site with trees to the point it starts to become detrimental. And as you can see by the spacing on these with the number of shrubs, when you look at the stump count that was originally done by staff, we actually exceed the stump count now between the shrubs and the trees. I'm also trying to space the trees out enough so that they don't cause an issue where a future homeowner comes to you and say, hey, I got all these trees here. They're about to fall in the house. I want to cut them down. I wanted to site these trees in a manner that they wouldn't present that kind of an issue moving forward in the future, which is why. I tend to also add a lot of shrubbery in with it. Shrubbery, you're not going to want to cut down because of height issues. And you can maintain your biodiversity, your buffer filtering capacity, et cetera. The herbaceous layer on site actually is reestablishing itself on its own. We're just going to have to monitor the site to cut out those nasty little invasive species that tend to like to make their way in, kind of like shopping carts like to make their way into swamps. With that, again, I'll leave it open to the commission with comments, questions, smoke signals, whatever we need to do. Again, I would like to thank both the staff and Mr. Allen for their inputs. I value it very much, and I think it's been very productive here.

So I'm just checking to see if you can hear me.

Yes.

I had a little issue with my audio. I got it working again pretty quickly, so... Just checking to make sure everything's all set. So let me go around to the commission to see if anyone has any questions on the updated plan. Travis, anything, any questions?

No, I do have a question for Leah, though, when it comes to the special conditions. I have some proposed revisions. Do you want me to chime in when you read those off?

Maybe when we get there, I'll have you go first.

Some of them are like additions to the ones you already have or modifications.

When we get there, I'll probably have you go first and then I'll fill in anything you didn't touch on.

Okay, cool. That's it, Sandy.

Thanks. Noah, do you have any comments or questions?

Not right now. No.

Okay. I have really nothing to add as far as the plantings go. I'll leave that up to Travis. Jan, just like to open up for the public to see if anyone has any questions or comments. We'll see if we can get them answered for you. Leah, as far as kind of, is there any other information that we're missing?

So I don't have Art's final sign-off on this last set of revisions, but going through comment by comment myself, he does appear to have addressed everything. I just don't have Art signing off as such. I have one question, which is just, you touched on maybe using light equipment for wood chip removal. Can you just elaborate on what that would entail?

It'd be like a Bobcat or a small mini. You don't want to have big equipment in there.

You're just going to cause more problems than you solve. And what areas are you talking about driving that into? Because immediately adjacent to the driveway, you're right in it.

Yeah, so you'd have to come in from the driveway and go in this way to get that material out because it's very thick right here. So it can be done from this area just behind the fence here. The plain fact is, is this area has already been altered. It's going to have to be restored. So it's going to have to be replanted regardless. The stream area, actually, in the wetland area that Art and I reviewed is actually in pretty good condition. You know, with a small piece of equipment, you've got a wide enough corridor here. I don't see that being much of an issue.

So are you talking about crossing the stream?

No. As a matter of fact, in my response to comments, I said this, I would ensure that this would be done in a manner where there's no stream crossings involved.

So you'll be you'll be on the driveway and house side of the stream, but you will be in the no disturb.

Well, yeah, I mean, we're reestablishing the no disturb as well.

So I'd like to just get the commission's take on allowing that or not.

Sure. So from my perspective, if you go and again, it's depends upon the vehicle and the type of tires or tracks in it. I mean, sometimes we refer to it as landscape type of equipment, mini excavators, actually the track ones distribute weight much better. Yeah, but you can, and again, you have all sorts of smaller pieces of equipment that, And so it's really just making sure we identify them ahead of time. And obviously, you know, standard size backhoe would probably not be allowed. So there's different ways to describe that layer as far as, you know, making sure that, you know, that you minimize any kind of rutting or anything else. It's funny, you know, rubber tired backhoes that you see on construction sites is probably the worst thing you could bring in there. But there's a lot of other smaller pieces of equipment that's typically used for landscaping that can be used. So that's kind of my take on it. I know, Travis, do you have any kind of other comments on that?

I moved three yards of mulch with a wheelbarrow this weekend by myself, so it can be done. I don't know how many yards are out there, though.

Yeah, it's nice.

I don't know how we condition that.

It's substantially more than three yards.

I don't know how we condition that, Sandy.

There are ways to classify equipment and so forth. To do that, and again, it has less to do about cost and just to do about efficiency and getting it done. I can look at different ways of classifying that so that You can have the walk behind type of, uh, I don't know if you've seen them, Travis, where you actually walk behind. It's, it's a pretty low impact and so forth. Um, you can also, if it's, if the material or the soil, um, is soft, there's different types of mats you can use and so forth. And again, I'll go back to the applicant's representative. It's, you're not intended to go into, um,

you know into or across the stream it's really just on the edges and it's using that to get it out is am i correct on that that's correct yeah i mean you can access the edges without having to go through the stream from both sides both sides of the drive you've got the drive if you look at the northern section the lot you can see the you know the wetlands basically end up there you can enter that way if you need to go on the side by the mangini's property you can enter from the upland on that section. And then over by the house, by the turnaround, you can enter around that area, go behind the fence. And this is actually, it's a very wide strip there. There's a fair amount of room. And using a very small piece of equipment to get that out would be expedient. And then the area can be reseated, re-stabilized, And replanted, which is going to have to be anyway. I mean, you can see there's a fair amount of plantings in that wetland area within that 25 foot zone. Actually, on both sides of the stream, there's a fair amount of shrubbery in there, as well as trees. So the trees are sited there to help reestablish the canopy over the stream moving forward.

Yeah.

Yeah, I would definitely, you know, no large equipment. Yeah, that's not what I'm saying. You can still do some work with some mechanical, you know, equipment without, you know, damaging and so forth. You have to be careful. You have to set limits. You know, is all the flags still up?

I don't know. That's a question for Matt.

Yeah. I mean, the last time I was out there, which was a few weeks ago when I went by, they were still up. Art and I reviewed the flags. We actually retied a bunch, added a couple, had the surveyor go out and add them to the site plan. So, yeah, they should still be. I'll make sure they're up.

I would also suggest, and Travis, what do you think about this, is to have staff go out there. when you have your contractor, whoever's doing it to have a site visit. So it's very clearly marked on where you can and cannot go. And it also gives an understanding to staff just what they, what type of equipment they have.

If that would work for Leah, I think that's a good approach, Sandy. I want to make sure they don't just grub the whole site to clean it back down to the bare soil, because there's a lot of stuff coming back in. I, I've been driving by it periodically. So if Leah is okay with that. Sure, just to make sure it's a small area.

Yeah, Madam chair, I was actually going to suggest that too, that, you know. There is a contract, a landscape company that would be doing this work. for my clients. So we could have them, we could meet on site with them and with Lear, with Jan or both, and, you know, go over the equipment and everything to be used so that they're comfortable if they want to add their own field conditions while we're in the field after an order is issued. Like I said, this is this process. You'll have an order of conditions issued, but it is going to be a dynamic process. And it always is. I've done a ton of these restoration projects. It's always dynamic when you're doing restoration work. An order of conditions never winds up being a static document. It's never a boilerplate book, per se.

Leah, this was one of my suggested conditions, but since we're talking about it, can we expand this to include no heavy equipment for the planting of the B&B and container stock that will all be done by hand?

Sure.

And I can expand on that when the time's right.

All right. No, or anything else to add or any other questions?

No, no comments right now.

Okay. And Jan, if anyone has any comments from the public, please raise your hand. I'd like to get any questions that you may have or any questions on what we're discussing because we're moving towards looking at what the special conditions are. So let me know, Jan, if anything pops up.

Nothing yet.

Okay. Um, what other things do we need to go through Leah before we get to start talking about conditions?

Before conditions, the only thing left is the waiver request for the no disturb having been previously disturbed and the proposed restoration of it.

Yeah. Fairly straightforward. You're not gonna be able to do the restoration without working within the 25 foot. So, um, Can I have a motion as far as the waiver request for doing work within the notice strip?

So moved.

Do I have a second?

Second.

We have a motion and a second. I will call vote. Noah?

Yes.

Travis? Yes. I am also a yes. That motion carries. Okay. On conditions now, Leah?

Yeah, can you just give me two seconds to plug my laptop in? Sorry.

no no problem take your time i'll talk to jan for a little bit and ask if anyone in the audience is uh has any questions or uh we don't have anything from the public all right thank you very much well let's just wait for leah to come back got it thank you no problem I'll let you, Leah, kind of orchestrate the, you know, if Travis wants to kind of have some comments on the special conditions, I'll let you kind of lead that.

Okay. Travis, do you want to go first on the ones you have comments on, and then I can do anything that's left?

Yeah. So the condition about monitoring in the invasive species, I'd like to clarify the frequency of the monitoring reports, and my proposal would be an initial installation report submitted to the agent within 30 days of installation. And then I'd like to clarify how often they'll be submitted afterwards. What about spring and fall, so twice annually? And since we're so late in the growing season, I would like to see it extended for three years. So like, well, two and a half years of reporting. Does that make sense, Leah?

So we just need to firm up. Are we talking years or are we talking growing seasons when we say two or three?

It would be the remainder of this growing season and then two after. And maybe that's the intention of the condition already.

Okay. Okay.

Yeah, let's go with the growing seasons per the regulations.

Okay, so do you mind if I just read the whole thing with your changes on that one?

Yeah. Yeah.

So I have the restoration work shall be completed within this growing season, and we're stressing as soon as possible, which I'm sure everyone's in agreement with, and shall be monitored for this initial growing season and the two following it by a wetland scientist with monitoring reports provided to the commission as Travis laid out an initial one within 30 days of installation and each spring and fall thereafter. And I tacked on to the end of that, that any invasive species will be removed via hand pulling during the monitoring period. Do you have any other changes to that one?

Yeah. Well, maybe just, maybe we don't need to make this a condition, but if hand pulling isn't effective, the agent in consultation with the applicant can determine an alternative method

I would kind of say put that on the applicant.

Because I don't think we can hand-pull the bittersweet effectively.

I mean, if the commission is comfortable approving a cut and treat of bittersweet now, it makes it easier than us having to come back and talk about it later.

I would be fine with a cut and dab approach by a licensed applicator. And then if some other method needs to be discussed, they go back to you.

I'm okay with that. How about others?

I'm absolutely fine with that, Noah.

Sounds good to me.

We don't really, I guess the monitoring report will give us some insight into the invasive species treatment plan and success.

That's the hope. Yep.

But we're looking to manage, remove the invasives. I think that's going to be a big problem out there. That's that. Do you want me to go to the next one? You ready?

Yes, please.

Yep. So installation of the BNB or containerized stock shall be performed Utilizing hand tools, no heavy equipment will be used such as skid steers, boggers, excavators within the wetland or within the resource area.

Okay.

And then I can't remember if they're still using B&Bs, but if they are, any excess soil will be removed from the resource area and won't be stockpiled in the resource area. Ready for the next one? I think this might be the last one.

Yep, go for it.

To protect natural regeneration of native understory veg, the use of perennial rye, fescues, or other non-native grasses for site stabilization is prohibited. If soil stabilization is required, utilize annual or non-persistent cover crops such as annual oats or rye. Winter Rye. Annual Winter Rye.

Okay. It sounds like you have those written out. Can you just email me those?

I ran out of time. I was going to.

No worries. But I am okay with those. Again, curious what Sandy and Noah think.

Noah?

Noah, I like those. Those sound good to me.

Yeah, I certainly have no issues with those.

Okay. Is that the end of your list, Travis?

It is.

Okay. So the rest of what I have, the note number two on the plan just has a little typo in it that talks about plantings being in straight lines. Pretty sure the intent was to say not in straight lines, so I just wanted to clarify that. Yeah. The restoration work will follow the plan stamped 5-18-26, as well as the narrative that was submitted. The commission reserves the right to require additional plantings to ensure achievement of 75% cover of native species within two growing seasons. And I can change that growing season language to match Travis's, where it's inclusive of the season we're in, and then two more. Any cut wood and wood chips shall be removed from the resource areas, no disturbed zones and buffer zones. I had previously said using hand tools, but it sounds like after the discussion tonight, we're willing to allow light equipment. And Sandy, if you can email me your language on that for when I assemble it would be helpful.

Okay. Okay.

And as we clarified, that light equipment will only be on the driveway side, not crossing, well, it can be on the other side of the wetland as well, but not crossing through the stream. The connection between the bylaw swale and the wetland at wetland flag A1 is to be cleaned of debris that's blocking the flow. All standing tree snags and stumps shall be left in place to stabilize the site and provide habitat. The ground shall be scarified prior to any plantings in areas where vehicle compaction occurred. Kind of already covered this, but vehicles will not enter the resource areas. And... The plantings, so this one, I don't know if anyone wants to firm up the language or change it at all, but I have the plantings shall be watered daily throughout the summer unless there is a significant rainfall that day, and then we could turn over to weekly in the fall. Any commissioners have any thoughts on that?

I'm just thinking of it. Yeah, I mean, I don't have an issue with it. I'm just not sure how it's how it's enforceable, but that's fine.

So I have a question regarding the planting of the trees. Yeah. So the trees that were purchased are like two inch caliper with a three foot wide root ball that are going to be like 15 feet tall. These aren't little sticks. They're going to be really hard to sit there and plant them by hand. It actually would make more sense to We're going to have the light equipment on site to remove the chips. They could probably also dig the 15 holes to get those trees in. The shrubs, yeah, that's fine because there's a ton of them. They're smaller. They could be done by hand. But those trees are tall and they've got wide root balls. And the effort to do those by hand is pretty mammoth.

Yeah, it will be a pain. I've had to do it before on restoration sites. It's a pain. I acknowledge that, but To have large equipment in there, you'll have to bring in a mini excavator, right? I assume that's what they'll want to do. And you're going to have all those roots and stumps to deal with. And if you dig them by hand and you hit a bunch of roots, then you're probably going to move somewhere else so that you can dig them by hand. But if you have equipment in there, you'll just rip the roots out and the stumps if it's with a mini excavator.

Okay, so putting this into perspective, and I understand where you're going with this, we're talking 15 very large trees going in with very large root balls. And while I understand what your concern is, I can understand doing it by hand and having the concern if everything was being planted, like if everything was being planted right next to those streams, like right next to them, but they're not. They're spread out through the site. It logistically, I mean, you would be sitting there and the effort would take like a month of Sundays doing this with a crew. If it were like five trees doing it on one line, yeah, I could understand that these are 15. They're extremely large. It's not like we're going to be going around like excavating the entire site. And again, we're planting. So when we plant, we plant, we restabilize, we allow things to regrow. the same principle is used like in a wetland replication where you go in and you grade and excavate, but this is actually one very localized spot. I don't see the issue you're raising as being like overriding through the whole site. I'd really like that reconsidered. I mean, as far as hand plant shrubs, great. There's enough that can be done rather readily.

I don't believe we're requiring the B&Bs though. That's not something I don't believe that's something we're requiring specifically. Um, and it's, it's not necessarily the, for me, it's more just all the roots that are going to be in there. And once they start digging, then they're going to say, well, we got to rip out the stumps and then it just keeps going. And there's 15 of them. And most of them are within the, the wetland, I believe. Or are they all within the 25 foot?

They're all within 25 foot. We're not thinking of wetlands. The wetland is essentially mostly confined to the stream. It's all basically water flow there. The areas that you're talking about adjacent to it are definitely upland.

Then it would make whatever seed mix you're going to use to restore the site even more important because they will rut up the site if you let them go in there with equipment. So they'll have a skid steer with forks. They'll drop the tree. They'll probably have a mini excavator. Where are they going to put all the soil once they dig a three by three hole? And then once they start getting the stumps, what are they going to do with all the stumps that they rip out and the roots? I just think it becomes a bigger mess than it needs to be because the site's already revegetated.

Well, it's revegetating and it will do so again. It's been revegetating because it's been let to stand over time. Again, respectfully, I disagree with the assessment. We can condition it so that no stumps are removed. And it has to be done carefully by the landscape person. And that's, again, that's part of the reason for the pre-site meeting. Requirement or no, my client did purchase these trees and he wanted to do something As far as the size of the trees to make sure that the canopy had a good head start, which is the reason why he bought something of size. Obviously, with the expense of buying those particular trees, it's not something he wanted to do just for show. It's not like they're going to go in and just carelessly start ripping holes. This is something that's going to need to be done carefully. And again, that would be part of a reason why the landscape person would have to meet on site with Leah and with Jan or with both, whoever winds up on that site.

So can I make a suggestion? So just to kind of, you know, I haven't thought in my head knowing certain smaller pieces of equipment and seeing them used can be done effectively. I also get what Travis is talking about here is maybe to have that condition as far as instead of us setting, you know, setting, you know, I can look up this, you know, I've done it for other projects where you actually set the type of, you give an example of the type of mini excavator so that it's that or something smaller. The other way to do it is flip it around and have the landscape contractor indicate you know, what type of machines they are going to use and have the ability of the CONCOM to say, no, you can't use those. I mean, you know, I feel pretty comfortable, you know, having done not a wetlands restoration, but doing enough bioretention basins having to be restored with very sensitive soil. You know, there's ways of doing it, but it does take a lot of care not to like totally rip everything up. And if I'm correct, I'm looking at the green and red dots on this plan. The good news is they're not right on top of each other. But yeah, Travis, you're always going to, even if you're doing it by hand, you're going to impact roots and so forth.

I just think they'd move or they wouldn't use B&Bs, but it sounds like we have no choice on the B&Bs. So we're kind of stuck with the impacts associated with planting those big old trees. I think they're going to be a pain to plant out there. And I also don't want Leah and Jan to have to go out there constantly to monitor.

No, no. You have to have, yeah, you have to have trust in the landscape contractor that they know how to do sensitive restoration.

Well, I should clarify that, Madam Chair, right now that I'm not looking to have staff spend the majority of their lifespan out there that they don't need to be. Having been an agent myself for many years, I understand their time is valuable and they've got multiple projects that they need to balance. And they've got other departments that they need to help as well as other residents. So what I'm looking for is to do things like pre-construction meetings. Obviously, they can go on site whenever they feel the need to do inspections because that's part of the order. I would update them in the office by email. And anytime they decide they feel the need to go out on the site because of any of the emails that, you know, my client and I generate, that would be totally at their discretion. But at a minimum, we would need to do a site meeting with the contractor and a pre-construction meeting, which is usually standard. I'm not looking to, you know, have... Staff basically rewrite the plan. I just want to make sure that this is balanced. To address is, is it commissioner? Is it masked? Is that how you say your name, sir?

Yeah.

I just want to make sure that commissioner mass concerns are addressed. And the best way to do that would be by a pre-construction meeting and to review the site and where the digging is going and the equipment that would be used with the landscape contractor. So it's basically just productive discussions to make sure that. It's also for the landscape contractor to make sure that everything is crystal clear as to what his responsibilities are and that he doesn't have any oopsies, as the trade industry term is now put.

So, Leah, could we work in Sandy's recommendation about the equipment used to install the B&Bs will be run by you to make sure it's not a giant excavator?

Yeah. And Leah, you can always share that with me too.

Okay. I'm okay with that. Yeah.

And we've got the no stumps or roots will be removed. Correct, Matt? Y'all are good with that? Yeah, I'm good.

I'm definitely good with that. I want to see those stumps left to help with the regeneration.

And the roots, right? Correct. Is that also in there? So once they start digging, they might have to scoot around a little bit. As long as the landscape company understands that.

Okay. Next thing up, Leah.

So I got a couple more. One is just to capture the site visits that Matt has been laying out. Another is we'll have some wetland scientist peer review oversight with Matt out there. It won't be nearly as often as he's out there, but just to check in now and then. Um, the no disturbed signage and barrier that's shown, um, kind of wrapping around the house at the edge of the lawn. That's great, but it also needs to be added to both sides of the driveway, um, towards the north, towards Milbury Street. Um, that was called for on the original order for the house. It was supposed to have been there. I don't know if it ever was, but it should line both sides of the driveway where your stream and wetland system is crossing. the only other thing I have just came up in the conversation now, is there a seed mix proposed in addition to the trees and the shrubs?

It would be an upland meadow mix. That would be non-cultivar.

That's all I have.

For the record, New England wetland plants and earned seed out of Pennsylvania, their seed mixes are non-cultivar.

Ernst does sell a lot of non-native stuff though so yeah well you just as long as it's a native mix leah we can clarify that point yep thanks okay uh anything else leah that's it that's it uh quick we uh we just lost your audio man i'm sure your audio just cut out again

Still nothing.

Nope. Leah, while she's reestablishing her audio connection, can I ask you, by third-party wetland scientist, are you referring to Mr. Allen?

Or his successor.

Or his successor. Yeah, I know. Well, you know, anyone from that firm, they're great people. So I would I always relish the opportunity to work with them, even on a basis like this, because it's always productive.

Yeah. We're very fortunate to have them as our peer reviewer.

On that, you have my enthusiastic agreement. They're great.

Still nothing. You have to do the rest in sign language.

Maybe she can get a little whiteboard, write it on marker, go like this.

Nope. How about now? Now we got you.

There you go.

I have, it keeps switching when I'm, Yeah, it's now I can hear and I'm speaking to my monitor before it was flipped around the other way. I have no idea. Okay. So where we're at. So no other things. So the next step is to have a motion.

Did we open to the public?

I said that earlier and Jan has said there was no one had. Jan, you want to double check that? Yeah, we did open to the public and we don't have any public comments. Thanks. Great. So based on that and based on all of the conditions we just went through, do I have a motion?

I'll move to close the hearing and issue the order and conditions as described, 481 Milbury Street.

All right. Do I have a second?

Second.

We have a motion and a second. We'll call vote. Travis?

Yes.

Noah?

Yes.

I am also a yes. The motion carries. Okay. All right, Leo. What do we got left here?

A couple action items. One is just the annual consideration if we wanted to reorganize the commission at all or keep it the same.

When you say reorganize, have someone different for chair?

Correct, since we don't have other roles. Okay. That's all there is to it.

What's that?

I said, where's my mute button?

So, and I think this would be good to have a conversation when we have the full commission here. Sure. Obviously, I've always been very open to stepping backwards and having someone else run the commission. I think the other question is if we should have like kind of a assistant chair or identify different people because we've had to have folks fill in and so forth. That might be something that people want to think about. But yeah, I'm totally open to having a change in who's running it. No problem there. But again, I also don't want to burden anyone and I don't want to lose anyone.

so okay so revisit when we have a full house you got it you got it okay uh certificate of compliance yeah this is for woodland hill previously known as the uh village at institute road um okay the one that you go by a lot sandy i go by uh multiple times a day yes yeah so they they are done they've worked through all their conditions with us with peer review they've satisfied everything we have their as-built plans the open space was accepted at town meetings so they've they've ticked all the boxes so we're ready to issue them a certificate of compliance all right uh travis any questions no nothing for me no any questions no questions

Yeah, I do go by it all the time. I'm curious how many of the trees on the edges are going to come down, but that's not really our issue.

Well, we have a lot of calls already about trees, so.

Yeah, it's yeah. Yeah. All right. I certainly don't. So based on that, do I have a motion?

Move to issue the certificate of compliance for Woodland Hills subdivision.

Do I have a second?

Second.

We have a motion and a second. We'll call vote. Noah?

Yes.

Travis? Yes. I am also a yes. It carries. Motion carries. Okay. One other thing, Leah, talking about reorganizing the commission, we might want to, and again, when everyone's here, might want to have maybe a potential for an alternative commissioner just so that you can have someone in the wings if, you know, give someone an opportunity and so forth. So just a thought, just a thought. We have a pretty good commission right now, but things always have a way of changing.

Okay.

Yeah. um that's it on me that's all i have which means there's one more motion motion to adjourn second very good motion second roll call noah yes travis yes i am also a yes so