Conservation Commission - Regular Meeting

I'd like to open the Littleton Conservation Commission hearing and we are via Zoom. What I'd like to do is to first off approve the minutes from May 19th, 2026. There are quite a few pages of those. If the commissioners have any omissions or corrections to those, we can discuss that. That would be great.

I had a couple quick comments. I read through them pretty closely because I wasn't there. Still not significant, but the first one was I saw that there's no that Carl arrived late, but the meeting started at 730. So I assume he was there at the start of the meeting and you guys had quorum. I didn't see what he arrived at any point in the meetings.

Where did you see that?

The first line where it says a member is present. They have Carl Melberg and it says parentheses arrived late. Lauren said Carl was there at the start. That was just a carryover or typo?

It might have been a carryover.

Yeah, that's... Only because it says that you started at 7.30, so if he wasn't there, you only had three members. And then the only other... I think the... under the public hearing notice of attend zero Taylor Street um kind of the middle of the paragraph the minute say Mr Scott explained the intent for the pond to function I think that should be Mr Smyers yep okay thank you anyone else have anything they'd like to change or add if not if I could have a motion to accept as amended

I move that we accept the minutes of May 19 as amended.

Okay. Do we have a second?

I'll second.

Okay. Thank you, Andrew. And would you do us the favor?

Absolutely. Roll call vote. Ed. Ed Fultz, aye. Kyle. Kyle Knox, aye. Sarah. Sarah Seward, aye. Myself, aye. It is unanimous.

Okay, fantastic. Things that we would like to add to administrative discussion items. Tim has one or two. Does anyone have any that they would like to add?

Okay, Tim, go for it. Yeah, if you can add six spectacle pond, road, and a bird situation we have over there.

Yep, okay.

Say bird?

Bird, yep. Oh. Okay, anything else?

You add just a finalization on John McGagan?

Yeah. Yeah, we can add that at the end. I'll give you an update on that.

Okay, great. So let's go ahead and get started with a request for minor modification. This is 64 Beaverbrook Road, Lot 1, DEP 204-1018 and 3. lot three, DEP 204-1019. We went to discuss this last time, but we didn't have quorum. Andrew, you're recusing yourself? Yes, thank you. Tim, I'm going to pass it over to you.

Yeah, if you guys remember, you guys were all on board with this with the stipulation that the stamp plan comes in before instruction. And we just didn't have form at the last meeting because Andrew had to recuse himself. But this is the original plan called for a box culvert. This is going to be a three sided culvert with less disturbance.

OK, so with this, would you like a you want a formal request for the minor mod, correct? Yes. And a vote. OK, super. Is there a commissioner that would like to do that?

I'll make a motion that we approve the request for minor modification for 64 Beaverbrook Road, lots 1, which is DEP number 204-1018, and lot 3, DEP number 204-1019. Okay, great.

Do we have a second?

Second.

Okay, thank you. Roll call vote.

All right.

Do you want me to do the roll call vote?

That'd be great. Sure. Ed? Ed Polsak. Kyle?

Kyle Matzkelbeck. Sarah?

Sarah Seward, aye.

Carl? Come over, guy. Good evening, Carl.

And myself, I am recused. I had a little trouble checking in on the website tonight for some reason.

And you changed the spelling of your first name.

Because I was kind of rushed on and I changed it. I'm using my wife's computer and I kind of screwed up. Anyway, apologies.

All right, all good. OK, thank you for that, Andrew. OK, so next is the Strawpole 55 Russell Street. This is a construction. So do you want to talk about this one, Tim?

Yeah. And I'm going to share my screen here. So Casey Kallenberg, who's the track coach over at the high school, he came to us inquiring about putting in a javelin approach area. So when they have their meets, obviously the track's being used, the interior's being used for, gosh, I can't remember. Is it Discus? Whatever this event is. Oh, there you go. And so for the Javelin event, they've been having it over here on this section of the ball field. So it's actually, I think, outside of where the... The back fence is now, but it does get a little wet. It's not wet, but it does get wet from time to time if there's like rain events. He was curious if the commission and I didn't want to make him submit an application for this. Wanted to get a straw poll vote whether or not you guys thought if the javelin approach area, which I can share a picture of that right now and what that looks like.

Wow.

Is it showing up for you guys or no?

No.

No. Okay. Let me try this again. But he was curious if it has to be within the, the only area that this could be is within the 50 foot no disturb area, if this would be something that you guys would consider issuing a waiver for for being within the public's interest. So this is the material that they'd be putting down. And I'll go back to the imagery. and show you so there is a wetland so obviously you see this is the the core wetland there the wetland actually extends out into this his finger right here and so he would be looking to put it somewhere in this general vicinity um and potentially within the 50 foot so yeah but like i said before before i wanted before i told him you know put in a uh an application i think it's probably best whether or not we see that if the commission feels that this would uh get a waiver issued for this work

He can't move it closer to the parking lot toward the left.

He might be able to, but I'm almost positive that this wetland actually goes throughout the entire finger. So I think with the general direction of the launch, the approach being in this area, I think he'd be able to get out of the 50, but I don't know that he would.

So when we're talking approach, this is for the trajectory to take off, not on the landing, correct?

Correct. Yeah, I believe the javelin would be landing in the grass area.

Do you have an idea of, I know we saw that picture, but do you have an idea of how big that pad is? And is it basically hot top material?

And, man, I'm blanking because Casey did describe it. Actually, Lauren was the one that met him out here, and I spoke with Lauren about this and caught up with her afterwards. I can't remember the type of material that it is. I believe he said it's only about 10 feet wide would be the width of the approach. How long? I can't remember.

It looks like the same material they use over on the track. Right.

It might be.

Okay, commissioners, what are our thoughts on this? Also, I had a quick question. Is it, how close are we to the 50? Are we more on the zero or are we more on the 50?

We would be closer to the 50. I would say it would probably be, my guess would be from the 25 to the 50, somewhere in there would be the closest point.

Okay. Commissioners, thoughts?

Yeah, I guess I have a couple of things. one that land has been using i guess i knew that there was others there but that has always been used like for soccer it had always been soccer fields prior to that for the younger kids so i mean we've been using it for recreational activity already i guess i'd say without a permit but like without a land use um I've been letting folks go in there and do that work. I personally would rather see something like this more permanent get installed than just kids running through the grass. And it's going to get worn down, eroded, and turn into bare soil by the end of a track season, which would turn into non-growing seasons where it won't recover. It'll be unstable. So honestly, I think regardless of if it's within the 50 or the 100, I think they should do something that is more... stable than just letting them run on the grass. So I'd approve of this.

Thank you for that. Any other thoughts?

It'd be nice to know their full dimensions.

So one thing we could suggest is, Ed, we could ask, instead of going right into a formal filing, we could ask Casey to come in and just do like we're doing now, an informal discussion. Tim, would that work?

Yeah. absolutely what size would make you say no i guess like how oh i mean they're not going to put a track down there right so i'm just curious like i'm just i don't want to waste our time here having another discussion we don't need to and so i'm just curious what if everyone else is inclined toward it then i'm okay with it no i don't want i'm not don't try i'm not trying to sway you one way or another no i understand i um

we're just so strict about things and in the public interest, we just drop all the, all the, the, I don't want to say requirements, but we, you know, we're basically throw the book out kind of feels, maybe it's the right thing to do. I'm not, I don't know.

Okay. Carl, do you have thoughts or Andrew?

I, I, I, I kind of agree with Ed that we're right tough within the 50.

Well, how about we do this? Tim, if you want to just gather a little bit more information in terms of approximate distance material and really where we are, we're still happy to just potentially do a straw vote. Are we okay with that?

That sounds good because I'm curious, you know, how big is this going to be? Exactly where is it going to be? And once we have a handle on that, I think it'd be, I mean, I don't see any problem with it, but it would be nice before we, you know, kind of give a green light to move ahead to, you know, at least get a rough idea of what they're looking at doing.

I can certainly reach back out to Casey and get confirmation on the dimensions. Something, and I could be wrong, but I just looked this up and it said... The length of the javelin approach area tends to be around 100 feet, and that might be what he said. I can't confirm it. I've kind of drawn an area here that would, I think it's a little wider. I've drawn it a little wider than it should be, but this is generally 10 by 100, judging on the scale down here. So this is something that you would be looking at, something similar to this area.

I guess my only concern is access, if it's fairly wet, and then is it going to degrade? quicker than other things because it is in a moist area? Are we going to then be having to be constantly repairing it and having to come back? So those would be my only questions.

Yeah, okay. Yeah, I can get Casey in here at the next meeting and he can answer some of those before we ask him to put in a formal application.

It's to take that a step further, Sarah. If this is something that we think isn't appropriate, then I would question the use of that area for this event, right? If you will,

Well, I guess I'm thinking, and I think I know where you're going, Kyle, but I guess I'm thinking more of like permanent in-ground structures that doesn't actually allow the land to renaturalize. So, I mean, worst case scenario, if we ever had overuse of this area, we could say, okay, it needs a season to chill. But if we have a permanent structure, we don't have that opportunity.

Yep.

So, yeah. Okay. Just, okay. That makes sense. All right. Let's go ahead and move on to the 745, which is continued public hearing, notice of intent, transmission line improvements, right-of-way DEP 204-1033, New England Power Company, general maintenance and improvement along transmission lines. Okay. Okay. Allison, I see you're here.

Hi. Good evening.

Hi. Welcome back.

Allison Milliman, BSC Group, on behalf of the applicant, New England Power Company. The applicant is planning to join as well, but I can start, and then he should be able to join momentarily. Is that Andrew Cole? Yes, ma'am.

Okay. I'm going to move him over.

Yep. Hey, Tim, I'm going to leave it to me. My video is not up, and I'm going to come right back on.

Okay. Allison, go ahead.

Okay. So at the last hearing, is Andrew?

He should be. Yep, he's in. He's with you. He's just unmuted now. Okay.

All right. So also with us is Andrew Cole, applicant from New England Power Company. At the last meeting, it was post our field review that we conducted with the Conservation Commission members. Two additional items were brought up by members of the Commission. One was use of Blood Road. The other one was requesting time of year restrictions for batting within the vernal pool that's located outside of Natural Heritage Endangered Species Program habitat that was field identified by BSC group consultants. So is there a certain order in which the Commission would like to hear our responses on those two requests?

I think we would defer to you however you'd like to approach.

Okay, I'm happy to start with the vernal pool matting. I looked into the vernal pool report and species associated with that pool that we had identified last spring. Species were fingernail clams, intricate fairy shrimp, and caddisflies. There were no amphibian species that were identified, any larvae or eggs. So based on that, I would like to propose that the commission condition that matting be placed during dry conditions, since all three of those species tend to, you know, kind of burrow into the ground and, you know, sustain themselves during dry conditions in that vernal pool. I know specifically when this request was brought up by Chase, I believe, he had said March would be a no-go, but I'd like to request, you know, something maybe perhaps midsummer, and then any time between midsummer and, you know, February, if that's acceptable to the Commission. And we will add that as a note to our plans and make sure that that's adhered to by the contractor.

Commissioner's discussion on that? So condition would be midsummer through February?

Yes, please, if that's acceptable.

Tim, do you have thoughts on that?

I think that sounds reasonable.

May I say something as Springbrook Farm?

Yes, thank you. I promoted you over. Yep. If you could introduce yourself, that would be great.

Certainly. It's Irving Matheson and Gail Matheson, Springbrook Farm. We are the co-owners with Frank Matheson Jr. And it's interesting that you're discussing this. They don't have any approval from us to go through our land. So all they have is a right-of-way. So at this point, you can discuss what you want, but there are a lot of things that we are not going to allow, some of that being the towers.

Irv Matheson here. I think there's a less aggressive approach to this. They were concerned maybe five years ago somebody came over from the power company and said that they couldn't access the towers because it was too steep too high you know maybe like put an access road into the tower and a crane pad would be a better thing instead of ripping you know 30 000 yards of material around me up and um there's got to be a better solution than you know they're talking five years ago they were talking about drilling and blasting and You know, we really don't want that impact.

And not only that, but we have an active farm and there is one of the towers is on a significant size, what we call an island, which is up high. It's very treed in. There's a lot of deer and animals that are in there. And actually, we really don't want to lose that because it provides a buffer for both wind and lights from While there is a stand of trees, beyond that short stand of trees after that is just an open field to 119. And we are really not happy about having to have that ripped down.

And on one side of that hill is not that steep and we would allow them to put a, you know, a crane pad in or an access. I understand that they have to service the towers. I don't have a problem with that. They have a right of way.

And we've always been very good.

But they're not the landowners.

Yep, they're not the landowners, and we've always been more than willing.

And besides, you know, I've never had any, like, email contact or anything with National Grid about this, just other than some, you know, couple of random people coming around like five years ago shooting their mouth off about it. So, you know, we're against it at the moment. We think there's a lot less invasive way to approach this.

Okay. I'm glad that you were able to join this meeting. Personally, as co-chair, I thought that you were part of this process. So I'm a bit taken back. No, we were not.

We found out the last conservation meeting. I'm like, what? Okay. Okay. So what I've been invited.

Yep. OK, Andrew, I see that you have your hand raised. Andrew, you should be between you and Allison. I'd like to pause the discussion on what were the two items that we were concerned with and then have you speak to this. Andrew, do you want to go ahead and take the lead on this discussion? And Andrew, if you could please introduce yourself and who you work for as well.

Sure. Can you just confirm you can hear me?

Yes. Thank you.

Thank you. The video is not allowing me to turn it on. I apologize.

No, that's okay. If you could, for the Mathesons, please, and for this meeting, state who you are.

Yep. My name is Andrew Cole. I'm the lead environmental scientist at National Grid. Thanks for listening here. So to Mr. and Mrs. Matheson, I was out there with, I think the group that you're referring to Mr. Matheson during the soil boring project. And we met with you and looked at these mounds and talked through the maintenance, the repair and replacement of them. and the mounds being pulled down if there's an issue with the removal of the mounds then yeah we would meet with you out there and discuss sort of what the concerns you have and try to come to a compromise on the mounds being removed or like you said i had to do the new structure replacements that kind of aspect i mean that's something that can be done for sure our project engagement A GROUP, MATT WALKINS, IF THAT NAME IS FAMILIAR TO YOU, HAD BEEN IN CONTACT WITH YOU DURING THE SOIL BORINGS. IF THERE'S BEEN A LACK OF COMMUNICATION RECENTLY, I APOLOGIZE. BUT WHAT WE WOULD DO OUTSIDE OF THE CONSERVATION COMMISSION, THESE AREAS I THINK FALL OUTSIDE OF JURISDICTION, WE WOULD MEET WITH YOU THERE, LOOK AT THOSE MOUNDS AND TRY TO WORK THROUGH HOW TO PRESERVE THE MOUNDS TO YOUR PREFERENCE AS THE UNDERLYING LANDOWNER AND DO THE REPLACEMENT OF THE STRUCTURES. service the line.

So for the Mathesons, just to understand, for this particular hearing, it's only our discussion is solely for the jurisdiction of the Wetlands Protection Act. So there are some things that may be more inclusive of both your discussions with all the other parties that may not involve us. So we are completely committed to working within the wetlands resource area. Alison, would you like to, do you have anything you'd like to add to this discussion for the Mathesons?

No, no, I do not. Thank you.

Okay. Okay. It might be helpful, Alison, for the Mathesons to understand what your role is in this filing.

Yes. Thank you. Mr. and Mrs. Matheson, my name is Allison Milliman. I'm an environmental consultant that I work for New England Power Company, specifically Andrew Cole is my client. My role here is I oversaw the wetland delineations, the preparation of the notice of intent, and to provide support for New England Power Company. As far as stakeholder engagement or community engagement, that is not my role, so I will remain silent on this topic. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Andrew, anything else you'd like to add?

No, I would just plan to do outreach with the Mathesons following this hearing tonight. And we would set up a meeting time with them as early as would be convenient for them and look at the mounds and the proposed like the ER maps that we've presented in the NOI and just talk through the scope of work and try to resolve their concerns. And again, just get to a point to be able to service the lines. That would be the next step for me with them.

Okay. So what I'd like to do with the commissioner's approval is that let's go back and go on to the second article that we wanted to talk to with Allison in specific for the controls of Blood Road. Commissioners, would you like to do that to carry on this conversation? Or do you want to hold conversation?

Yeah, I'm good with moving on.

Okay. So, Allison, if you want to go ahead and proceed.

Yes, thank you. So the second concern that was brought up by the commission at the last hearing was the use of Blood Road, which was identified at that hearing as a private road. And, you know, Andrew and I have consulted with their real estate team, and they've confirmed this is indeed a private road that runs through their existing easement. At this time, you know, I think our commitments are to use a similar sediment control setup as what's out there now. So that would be, you know, towed in silt fence with reinforcements such as straw bales or larger compost filter stock. And then Numero Power proposes to photo document the existing conditions of that access road prior to the beginning of use. And then the commitment would be to restore that access road to the pre-construction conditions post-construction.

You're muted, Sarah.

I have questions, but I'd like the commissioners to ask questions first ahead of me, because it seems like I'm the one that always has questions.

Allison, you're Lest, if I remember correctly, you were going to actually significantly widen the road. And it's already really close to wetlands and so forth. I know you're talking about restoring it back, but that doesn't resolve the issues or concerns of, I'm going to call it damage. I can't think of another word. while the work is occurring. And also, even though we're not necessarily involved in that part of it, the impact to the Matheson's field sounds like it would be an impact there as well.

Well, the access road itself, as presented in the notice of intent, is not proposed to be widened. What is proposed as shown on the plan is for it to be refreshed. So that's a type R road. I think we kind of went through the road types. So that would be a refreshment of the road.

Excuse me. I'm sorry, but as far as the road, we would need to know, we have not been notified about refreshing the road. So we would need to know what you're going to put on the road and we would have to approve it because Blood Road is actually owned by Springbrook Farm. It is a private road. It's not owned by anyone else but Springbrook Farm. So before anything can be discussed about what you're putting down, we have to be able to approve it first. Okay. Because we're growing crops.

Yep. So that is definitely understood. And thank you for sharing that. That's good for Mr. Cole to hear as well. What I think, obviously nothing is going to be decided tonight. What I think would be helpful is for Allison to carry on the discussion because we had concerns from the site walk of there are parts of Blood Road that if you're going to have construction equipment over is inferior to be able to carry trucks, in my humble opinion, to be able to carry the trucks through there without impacting the wetlands. So Allison, if you want to kind of talk about what might be helpful for others to know is what a Type R road is. I know we spoke about the different types of roads in previous hearings, but if we could just back up a little and just tell us what a Type R road is. And I guess for the point of reference, for me, for clarity, when we're talking about this project, I think we were originally told that it's a five, six-year project. So I'm curious, we start with the road, the pre-construction road now. Do we wait five to six years to then bring it back to where it should be? Or I'm just trying to understand from a wetland standpoint how the road would impact potentially the wetlands.

Sure. I'll start with what type R means. Type R means filling potholes and adding a top layer of stone where needed to stabilize the existing road within the existing road footprint. So there would be no widening associated with that access road or with that private road. There is proposed grading immediately adjacent to that associated with the removal of the mounds that I understand is to be further discussed with the landowner. And as far as routine maintenance, I have to defer to Andrew on that as far as what the company would commit to. I mean, I understand that there could be degradation. I think, you know, routine maintenance may be needed, filling more potholes throughout construction, but I'll defer to him on what the company would be comfortable with committing to here.

Yeah, you're correct. So if they came through and did, as you described, that type R and there was the surface maybe degraded, we would continue to do that maintenance. So those potholes would be filled. So the contractor would come through and refresh that road and just make sure it's maintained. Erosion controls would be maintained. So that would be ongoing for the project.

Okay. Commissioners, questions? Comments? Most of you all are muted.

One more thing to add. I'm sorry, Sarah. I think you asked about the timing, right, for the five- to six-year project. So it's through multiple towns, right? And our kind of sequence of work is to get the access road work prepared, complete those work paths prepared. And then there's that line work and foundations work that's later. So we wouldn't be in this area this entire time. There would be activities that would start the improvements to the road, and then we would be out of the area, and then they would come back in to do the foundation work and then set structures. So it wouldn't be that full duration. There's activity going on in this location. And based on the conversations with the math assistants here, the mounds being graded down, it's going to further discussion on the scope of work here. So it's probably going to change the frequency or the amount of time we're in this area.

Alison, can you talk a little bit about reporting? Who would be on site and how often reports would be generated? In terms of construction and then in lay times as well?

Yeah, so I think we had discussed that this project, due to the amount of overall land disturbance through all the towns, will require an EPA NPDES stormwater pollution prevention plan and notice of intent. As such, the applicant is required to provide inspections on a weekly, at the minimum, and then post-rain, which is a quarter of an inch of rain or more. Within 24 hours, the inspection needs to occur, and then subsequent reporting. So at a minimum, BSC's environmental monitor will be on site on a weekly basis, and then again after a quarter inch of rain or more, and we would be generating reports, making observations, and as always, We, you know, communicate directly in the field with the contractors to address any action items or compliance issues that we see. We definitely do not wait to show them that in a report that gets issued at a later time. So, you know, on behalf of the applicant, we do our best to be very proactive, identify any issues, and report them immediately to the contractor to address.

Would the landowners also, with request, receive those reports immediately?

I need to defer to Andrew on that question.

Traditionally, we haven't provided the reports to landowners. We have the project engagement team have a direct contact for them. They can always call and basically voice any concerns that could be open line of communication. We would address items that they have issue with, but it isn't our standard practice to give them environmental inspection reports to them. We would absolutely be giving them to Tim, you know, basically weekly or a monthly cadence, whatever the commission is comfortable with.

Okay. Commissioners, questions?

Sounds like there's nothing where we can, I mean, we need to wait for the potentially modified plan after the Mathesons meet with them.

Can I ask, are those areas in the jurisdiction of the Conservation Commission? With what we've described tonight, is it possible to continue with developing an order of conditions and voting.

That's a great question, Andrew, specifically on blood road. One of those mounds, one of those towers is in a resource area.

Okay.

Um, to your point, Andrew, we are actively working on the order of conditions, right? We always are. So it's not that, um, It's not that we're going to wait until the end to start to prepare those, but until we have a comprehensive plan, we're not going to close the public hearing.

Yeah, no, that's appreciated. I understand that. Thank you.

So with the applicant's permission, I would recommend moving this on to either the next meeting or the meeting after once you've had discussions with the landowners and the right-of-way holders as well

Yeah, I would agree with that. Thank you.

Okay. All right. Thank you. Just circle back with Tim when you would like to be on for the next meeting.

We will. Thank you very much. Thanks for your time.

Thank you. Thank you for joining us.

Yep.

Have a good night. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. We're going to jump back into one of the land use permit requests for the Boy Scouts of America Troop 1 backpack trip. Um, Chase, do you want to speak to that?

Sure. And just to be clear about this, I'm speaking as the applicant for the permit, not as a member of the conservation commission. Um, scout troop one is proposing a backpacking trip. Uh, police and fire have signed off on that. We have a permit from the fire department to have a, um, to have a fire. The recent rains have helped. It's actually supposed to be a little bit rainy next weekend as well. The plan is essentially to, um, backpack through a series of Littleton conservation lands, potentially some acting conservation lands, but Sarah Doublets, Hobbs, Yap, and then up into Long Lake Park. The permit shows an area, a general area in which the boys would be backpacking to and camping out for one night next Saturday. That is, as we discussed two weeks ago, off of the meadow area. It's essentially in the wood line to the west of the meadow. Hiked it a couple weekends ago and found sort of a nice flat area. We're looking at probably, the application says approximately 15. We just got back from the scout meeting. I think it'll probably be about 17 people, adults and kids included. And as part of that, they're also doing working with Elisa to sort of look at, are there any service projects that the boys can do? And Elisa has proposed a couple of them. And it may either be a service project in Saradublet or a service project in Long Lake, either in Saradublet helping the trust close some trails or Long Lake helping with some invasive species management. But long story short, the point here is to get the boys to It's a younger troop sort of accustomed to backpacking in a safer environment, but also introducing them to more of their conservation lands than they've been sort of familiar with in the past. So the land use permit is for one night of camping in Long Lake Park.

Okay. Thank you. Commissioners, I know we've discussed this previously at the last hearing. Does anyone have any questions for Chase with that permit? Just for record, we discussed leave no trace, pack in, pack out. If there's things to be done along the way that need to be, if there's felled trees, they can move those aside. And obviously the concern for ticks as well.

Yeah, to your point about leave no trace, that's both in the permit application itself, but absolutely leave no trace. And in terms of sort of keeping the kids safe, one of the things we talked about tonight was sort of how to safely hike this time of year per method and traded clothes and all that stuff. So.

Okay. Great commissioners. Any questions? If not, we have someone that would like to make a movement for the permit.

We also talked about staying out of the main part of the field for nesting birds and the like.

Yeah. The only places that we will traverse through the meadow are the mode pathways.

Cool.

The ticks will keep us out of that anyway, even if we're inclined to do otherwise.

They'll carry you away. Yeah, no kidding. Okay. Do we have a motion? I move that we approve the land use permit request for BSA Troop 1 backpacking trip. Do we have a second?

Second.

Thank you.

All right. Roll call vote.

Ed. Ed, full time.

Kyle.

I'm Maxwell.

Carl. Come over, guy. Myself, aye. And Chase, are you going to?

As a representative of the applicants, I will abstain.

I'm going to vote too, Andrew. Oh, sorry. And Sarah. Sarah Seward, aye.

Perfect. We have one, two, three, four, five ayes and one abstention. Sorry, Sarah. That's okay.

Thank you all for supporting that. I think it'll be a really great thing for the boys.

Excellent. Okay, now it is 8.12. We're going to jump into continued discussion enforcement order 8 Blood Road. Who is here to speak? Let me... Okay, so John and you guys just got moved over. Okay. Hi there. Okay. So let's go ahead. I feel like you have submitted. Tim, do you want to go ahead and call that up? Option one, two, three as well. I can share it if you want to, Tim. Either way. Sure.

Yeah. Why not?

Okay. Do you want me to do it right now or no? Yeah.

That'd be great.

Sure. That's perfect. Do you want to go ahead and walk us through your thoughts on the three options and then kind of talk about each one? Sure. Sure. So let's go to this.

Can you guys see this?

Yes. All right, perfect.

All right, so per the last meeting, you guys requested that we shared a variety of plants. You also were wanting us to share how we plan to plant them, and then you wanted to know the advice we had gotten from a knowledgeable source. So this is the first option. It's already a garden bed. When you're coming to our backyard, it was to the right. There's nothing really in there right now. There were some wildflowers in there last year, which some of them are popping up now, but... Nothing really is there. It's shadier in the morning and then it has that afternoon sun and then there's just the Sizing right there. I also just wanted to point out that the property line is just like right here on the wood line Just that's how much space we have With that we put in a variety of plants the First whole front is like flocks and some Hens and chicks is just like a succulent that's a ground cover and that would drape over and spread. The middle row is just more middle perennials, all native that have pollinating attractions to butterflies, bees. And then the back row is a type of dogwood just to kind of give it a wall in the back. Option two, I updated the picture since our last meeting. We added just like a little measuring tool right here just to kind of show where that property line is that we really don't have much space. This is also shade in the morning and then it has our measurements right there with 20 feet long, two feet at the bottom and a little bit more space up here at the top. And then there's just one more angle just showing the slope of it. What we thought would be the best is a switchgrass. It has a really good rooting system. And let me just get, it's a switchgrass. It has a really good rooting system to stabilize any soil. It's very adaptable to whatever soil it's in. And then just for a little color, we put some corn flour for the pollinators. Then the third option we didn't have a picture of at the last meeting. And I just drew a line just so you can kind of see where the property line is. This is shade all day. And we were hoping for something with like privacy here. And we were going to put mountain laurel there. It is also a native shrub and it gets rather large. And that's all I have.

Rebecca, two things. Your slides are different than what we have. So if you go back. So while we're on option three, you originally had the mountain laurel, but then you also had the viburnum.

Yeah. After talking to, we conversed with a Site 1 planting person at the Site 1 landscaping. And he said the viburnum that we were requesting is actually really hard to get. So he said just stick with the mountain laurel. I know there are other viburnums that we could look into, but he said the one that we had listed is really hard to get.

Okay. And then when you scroll back to option two, you had the switchgrass and the coreopsis, but then originally you had the little bluestem?

Yeah, he said the same thing. Just keep the switchgrass all the way along. He said it would fill in a little bit better and be a little sturdier.

Okay.

Sorry, those changes happened today.

Okay. Thank you for those updates. Commissioner's thoughts for John and Rebecca and options that might appeal to you all more? I'd like everyone to chime in.

I can go back to any pictures too if you'd like to see. Thank you.

Sarah, I kind of like option one. I mean, I like the location of option three because it's closer to the lake, but I'm not sure if it's going to offer the treatment that we would like at that point. The option Option one, at least I think addresses pollinators. It's got a lot more diversity. And that to me would be a positive. It wouldn't necessarily treat any kind of runoff. I don't believe going down towards the lake, but it would improve pollinators. pollinators. I guess that's the positive from from my from my perspective.

Yeah, no, that's helpful. I think also, commissioners, you can also look at collaboratively so you can kind of look at option one, but then also help out on option three that if they are hoping to put some, you know, mountain laurel in there as well, you can do it doesn't have to be one or the other. these are, you know, options to you as a commission. You can look at collectively how to have different options work together. Okay. Other commissioners?

Rebecca, would you mind to go to option one again? No problem. Thank you. I'm sorry. Numbers are hard. Option two. I was originally a fan of option two, I think because I thought the property line was maybe a little further in or picked up a little bit more of the shoreline. This is a very helpful visual, Rebecca. Thank you for providing it. Given what I see here, I think I tend to align with Carl in terms of option one. I like option two in the sense that I think in the long run, bank stabilization is better, but if you can't really get out onto that point and stabilize it because it's not your property, then I'm not sure how much value there is into, and overall prefer the greater biodiversity associated with option one.

Okay. Thank you. Other commissioners?

Yeah, I completely agree with Chase. I was definitely more a fan of option two and offering some stabilization on this bank. But if it's, not actually doing that, then I would prefer seeing the diversity out there.

Okay.

Ed, Andrew? Is there any reason one and three couldn't happen?

Yeah, you can always do combinations.

I like the idea of the big bush because it gives the little animals somewhere to hide. And obviously the other spot just gives you all kinds of stuff.

Yeah. I would support that too, Ed, one and three.

So, Rebecca, with option three, you're looking at three mountain laurels?

Yeah, hoping to fit. We do have a shed over here, and we have some kayaks and stuff that are mounted on the back of it. So we do want to make sure we keep some space open. to be able to get around there. But I'm hoping, yeah, I think we all saw that there was like a bleeding heart right here, hoping that we can fit three right in a row. They do get kind of large.

So I would go back to my original thoughts. I like the combination of one and three. And hearing you about spacing with option three, I think you could go between two and three. Mountain laurels, so if all of a sudden three is gonna be you want them to succeed so you don't want them to smush together as well Yeah, it says it could grow to fat 5 to 15 Feet tall and wide so we're definitely just gonna kind of see you know how it looks once we're there, okay commissioners thoughts

I think two is probably funny there based on the size and otherwise I'm inclined toward one and three, the way we talked.

Just one note, Sarah, Mr. Matheson has a public comment too.

Yep. I saw that. I wanted to finish up and get commissioner's comments first. Any other commissioners have questions or comments?

Okay.

I did have one comment with just in terms of installation method, to the extent that we're putting, I assume option one is pretty straightforward because we're planting flowers. Um, option three, um, are we talking about essentially hand excavating the area to put those in? Okay. Great. That makes a lot of sense to me. Just want to confirm.

Yes. Thank you. Irv, do you have a question?

Yes, I do. We, um, We have a big farm to protect, a lot of forestry land. We're on the 61A. And Mount Laurel is very invasive in spreads. And we are free of that right now on all our land. And we would like you to consider something else that isn't intrusive on us. You know what I mean? And spread and be invasive. All due respect, I'm not trying to be argumentative. But I've been in foresty land before where that is rampant, and you can't even walk through it. It's so invasive. It chokes the trees out.

Rebecca, what are your thoughts of going back to a different type of viburnum?

That's what I was just thinking. I can talk to Joe at Site 1 again and see what other types of viburnum they have and happy to do that.

And again, I'm not trying to stir the pot or be invasive, you know, but I don't want nothing that's going to like take over and change our environment too.

No worries. Yep. Commissioners, any thoughts or other suggestions? Obviously we look back at a viburnum or is there something else that you'd like to suggest for the Scots for that area? It's a, it's a unique area. It's small. It really doesn't get much sunlight. Yeah.

We could do like an azalea or rhododendron too. Those guests are larger. Okay.

It's their property. I'm not trying to tell them what to do on their property. It's up to them, you know?

Yep. We understand that. Thank you. Commissioners, any other thoughts?

I have a thought, not so much on the plant specifically, Sarah, but on the process. What I would suggest is if us and the Scots are comfortable with implementing options one and three. And we're just circling around what precisely to install an option three that we essentially ratify that plan and empower the agent to approve whatever ultimately is decided on.

Yeah. So John, Rebecca, what that means is that you're good to go. And then once you figure it out, you come to Tim and, and just make sure that he's online with that so you don't have to come back for another hearing. And it allows you to go ahead and start the process with your plantings.

Okay. And then what would be the next step? Do we take pictures of the plants and submit them?

Once they're planted, you just let Tim know. And then, sadly, you do have the kind of rate of success. So we do know that not all of them will survive. So that just kind of stays open for a couple years. Usually we say three years. You just kind of come back to the commission. You can even do it in writing and just say what was the success rate or if you see that something has flourished over something else and you want to plant more of them as well. I just wanted to make a comment that on your option two where you did talk about the switchgrass and then I had you know, vibrant root structures, you can still go ahead if you see an area that you want to plant that, you can absolutely go ahead and do that if that's something that you want to do if you start to see different areas of erosion.

Okay, thank you.

So it might be a good experiment somewhere? Yeah.

Okay. I guess then with what... the enforcement order. Now, what, what would be the next step for that?

Right. Correct. So commissioners thoughts on that, what we would like to do is to, we would again, ratify the order. So it basically means that we're lifting portion of it so that you can go ahead and start to do the planting. So it starts that ball rolling. Cause it seems like we've been at kind of like just the status quo for the last couple. but as we've always talked about, it's a process. So with this kind of gets you to start going again.

Okay. But would we need to come back onto another meeting for it to be lifted or would it be just like a, once the process is done, it's done?

Commissioners, what are your thoughts on this?

I think we often look at replanting plans and as long as there's documentation submitted to the agent and everything looks good, We often lift those. This one doesn't seem all that complicated to me. So I would think it would be possible as long as everything takes for Tim and Lauren to tell us things look good. You know, once they're established, once we have a couple seasons of documentation that everything is living, it's not obvious to me they need to come back as long as they submit documentation photos and so on.

Okay. So it was a two part process. So the planting was one. And then obviously we had DEP's comments in terms of boat traffic, docks, things like that. I think that's just the other element that I think we should discuss tonight because that way we know where we're, where we're going in terms of the enforcement order. So there's a couple of things that DEP originally, and Tim has reiterated this a They didn't want anything done for ever and ever. And then we thought that that was a little much. And then we also talked about, well, how do we kind of allow the area to reestablish itself a little bit? So I look at that there's two things in question, the dock and then boating. So I think what's helpful is for you to say, knowing kind of like what the superiors say in terms of DEP, what would you ask from us and then what i'd like to do is to ask the commissioners to kind of weigh in on those thoughts does that make sense so we're really hoping to put our dock in on the right side of the beach with our pontoon boat there is the right side where it usually is rebecca or is it the left side so just so it's clear all the commissioners have been out so i just want to make sure that they understand what you're referring to.

So if you're looking out to the lake, that would be towards Irving's property?

No. Sorry. The dock is originally at the bottom of the walkway. You walk straight down the walkway right out onto the dock. We had hoped with some of this weed clearing to put the dock on the left side of the property because it's so muddy in that area that it's kind of unmaintainable and unsmovable. We were going to put the dock on Irv's side of the property this year was the goal. But now we'd like just permission to keep it back on the right side, which is a sandy, gravelly bottom.

The original side.

The best swimming area. That's why we wanted to move the dock originally. So we put the dock back on the right side is what we asked to be able to do where no work was done because it's a nice sandy bottom.

Tim, that's very helpful.

Yep.

And so john, that's essentially outside of the area that was where sediment was removed.

Correct. That's a nice sandy area. You can, you can see it just walking up to it. But that's why we want to move the dock because that's the best swimming area.

So I've been thinking about a comment Ed made about how it didn't feel very fair to ask the Scots to not operate their boats across there when We can't practically control fishermen and things like that. After thinking about Ed's comments, I think I'm coming around to his way of thinking. My sense would be, my personal perspective would be, we allow them to put the dock out and they agree that anytime they're within, let's pick a distance, 200 feet of shore, they're running under minimum power to bring it into the dock.

Other commissioners? I'd like everyone to weigh in.

Yeah, I would agree with you. I think that's a good practical solution. I think it's a good halfway point here to kind of get things moving.

Yeah, I'm on board with it. I would change it to 100 feet only because on the big lakes, you have to be no weight within 100 feet of the docks, and that's essentially minimal power. Beyond that, this is what I was pushing for before. I agree also.

Yeah, I'm on board. Just to clarify or confirm that the dock is going in its original place. That's what we're keeping it off to the right thing. Yeah, I'm fully on board with that. And I really don't... I agree that we should have some sort of note there with the power and no wake. I'm sure that their area gets access, but there's no... I can't see boats zipping through there. It's not a big area anyway. So I'm not as worried about the dock stirring up.

What you can do also navigational rules is that during in a no wake zone, you can put a buoy out that says no wake. So it'll also keep other people from really kind of flying past your dock as well. So that's a suggestion I would make. I support kind of the dock and the boat, but I would add for that no wake zone, but I would add for a buoy to kind of go in that area just to kind of, it's, it's more of a little bit of a warning to slow down and that way it would allow that, um, lake bed to settle a little bit more as well.

Yeah, definitely.

I feel like even a buoy just in general slows people down, even if it didn't say no wake.

These do. So they're, they tend to be tall and cylinder and they say, and they say no wake. Um, and it is permissible. So dock owners are allowed to do that. Other commissioners? Comments?

I like the idea of a buoy. I think that helps solve the we can't control other people as easily.

I have seen those buoys sour on other lakes, and they do tend to slow people down and keep them out of those areas.

Okay. Has everyone, all the commissioners have voiced an opinion, I think? Andrew, you have, correct?

Yes.

Okay. So I guess where we're at is that we would look to ratify it again. And so there would be a few parts to the new ratification. One is that lifting it so it would allow you to do your plantings. It would also allow you to put the dock in and the boat. Commissioners, help me here. Is there anything else? We would ratify, so we're basically amending the enforcement order.

Okay.

Commissioners, thoughts from a ticking all the boxes and paperwork standpoint? So what would the enforcement order have left on it? So the only thing that would be left, which is more like an order of conditions where they have to come back for three years and make sure everything has planted. Tim, you could help me here with this. If we lift the enforcement order, we want to make sure that we still have the ability to come back and check on these. Oh, great.

I don't know that you do. I was going to say the same thing. Then they're not on file at all with us, right?

So there's no mechanism. Holding the feet to the fire.

So we're not lifting the enforcement order, right? We're moving to amend the enforcement order to allow certain activities. That was my understanding.

So is it an amendment or is it a different ratification?

I think it would be another amendment.

Okay.

Because you'd be changing the condition that you had implemented on the last iteration of the order or Enforcement order. Okay.

Um, yeah Okay, so from a clarity standpoint, so John And Rebecca this so it would allow you to go ahead and do all the work But it still allows us to keep a mechanism in that For the three years you have to come back and show us that the plantings are working. Okay Commissioners if I'm correct in that assumption with someone like to make a motion to that I

I think I have a motion here for you, Sarah. Thank you. So I move to amend the enforcement order associated with 8 Blood Road to allow for planting options 1 and 3 as specified by the applicant with the condition that option 3 plantings are ultimately to be approved by the agent to allow the placement of the dock on the right side of of the property to allow the placement of a no wake buoy and to allow traversing that area with a boat under minimum power and to amend the enforcement order to include monitoring of the option one and three plantings for a period of up to three years.

We need a second for that. Second. All right.

Okay. Of course. All right. Roll call vote. Chase. Chase. Ed. Kyle. Sarah. Carl. I think you're on mute. And myself. It's unanimous.

So John and Rebecca, what that means is when you have your plants and you're ready to get going, just let Tim know, okay? Okay, that sounds good.

And we'll talk with Herb about a plant that he likes too.

Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so it's now 8.38. We're going to open the 801, continue discussion enforcement order 2 and 6 Blood Road. Tim, do you have pictures?

Yes, give me a moment.

So, Mr. and Mrs. Matheson, this is your time to share with us what your thoughts are in terms of plantings.

Certainly, because where the dredging was on our side was way out in the lake. There was never erosion, nothing from our beach or even close to our beach. However, in the front of our house, we have had significant erosion. This picture that you're looking at comes down, if you drove into my driveway, that is erosion. So we have a proposal that we've done. We actually had planned to do this. And in all fairness, we wanted to do more of these. We put these graduated beds and we do a mixture of both, This is early, obviously early, but a mixture of perennials and annuals. And it's worked great. These beds, this bed is four years old. We no longer have any erosion in the front. And now if you came over now, it'd be so much prettier. And so we were wanting to put in two more of these beds. So you see they're three down in, what's the dimension, hon?

Eight by 12.

Like eight by 12. So we would put that, the top row would be the echinacea or cornflowers, mostly because I love them. We would have some hostas, um this is open hill now sorry to cut in but we're not like removing any trees no we don't vegetation no what we do is yeah i know yeah what we do is we frame it in and then we add um our our our soil our loam and then build up from there we don't even dig in we don't have to dig anywhere because you can't you could not just on top of the ground the graduated yeah two by eight with um

I think they're six by six by eight. And so that was like stairs almost.

Yeah. They're like stairs. If you want to drive by and look at them, they're really nice. Um, and that is, yep. And also part of the reason we started doing those is we have bees. So we have one hive here at the house and then we have seven other hives going up through the farm. And, um, HOPEFULLY COMING SOON, MISS G'S BEES FOR HONEY. KIDDING. BUT YES, WE ALREADY HAVE TOLLINATORS.

COMMISSIONER, THOUGHTS ON THIS?

I LIKE THE IDEA BECAUSE IF IT'S AN EROSION ISSUE, and it's helping keep silt out of the lake, that's a good thing, as well as protecting their shoreline. I guess I'd like to see some... Not to interrupt you, but that is not on the shore side.

On the shore side, believe me, there is no erosion. We have never, ever mowed anything. Anything on that side has weeds and whatever normally grows there, pine needles. We do not. On the lake side, we have zero erosion. This is on the front side. And only because you guys said we had to come up with a plan.

That was our worst space.

That's our worst space. Not on the lakeside.

My mistake.

Oh, that's okay. Yep, Carl, so carry on with your thoughts. Yep.

Well, now I have complained. I need to rethink my whole thought process.

Okay. Let's come back to you then. Other commissioners have thoughts and questions?

I don't disagree with the Mathesons that from what I saw, the lake side of their property was generally stable. And the slope of the shoreline at their property is, I think, shallow pretty much everywhere. I'd be hesitant to do a project there to stabilize a thing that's already stable. So I don't love the fact that this is somewhat a little bit removed from the shoreline itself. I also think that it's probably proportional to the impacts and I don't love it because it's separate from the shoreline, but also I don't think it's unreasonable.

Other commissioners? I like the idea that it

works toward decreasing an issue of erosion i think that's the biggest thing we gain there so i'm inclined toward it kind of agreeing with chase on the uh the water side if you don't have erosion you don't want to do anything that could potentially start some rows. I was wondering if there's any possibility to put any types of plantings on that water side.

Would you want something like a high bush blueberry or something?

I was thinking something like that.

Actually, we already have high bush blueberries already growing there. There is a section when you come down, if you were going towards our dock, there's already a section that already has that right by our well. And there are additional smaller bushes. You know, we don't harvest them. The birds do, but there are additional on all the trees. I'm just going to say that we have no erosion and to plant something, just to say we planted something doesn't seem reasonable because if you look at our property, we are totally shaded in. We have a ton of trees that, we do nothing as far as like mowing we never plant grass we have nothing invasive here we we don't use any weed killer we try to keep the property as natural as possible while making it pretty like those flower beds do make it pretty but on the top of the hill by our house it's just moss we leave it as moss and i in fact water it if it gets dry so I'm not inclined to want to put more bushes just to say, well, they did this because we said just do it even though there's not an issue. I'm happy to plant something if there's an issue. I garden all the time. I love it. But I don't want to just do something just to say, oh, well, we checked a box. I think our solution, if conservation... wants conservation, where we have that erosion in this gravelly soil, I think that's a perfect solution. And I don't know why anyone would have an issue with that.

Okay. We're going to carry on. Other commissioners I'd like to hear from everyone. Andrew?

Or Kyle? I was letting Andrew talk. Yeah, I mean, I guess I agree with what's been said. Fixing a problem that's there is beneficial. If there's no problems as far as impacts to the lake go, then we move down the ladder to the next thing that we can help improve, I guess. It's, yeah, I don't, disappointed isn't the right word, that it's not lakeside or a direct impact on the lake in that area, but anything to approve those type of issues in favor of.

Anyone else want to speak to this? So what we have now is three, the construction of three eight by 12 staggered flower beds, And I've heard echinacea, coneflowers. I'm not sure if I got out what was listed as well. Tim, was that on a list?

Let me pull it back up here.

Okay. Thank you.

Yep.

Commissioners, while he's doing that, is there anything more that you'd like to see? Or different diversity in those beds?

Well, I'm not sure if I'd like a bunch of annuals, to be honest with you. I'd like more perennials and definitely as many. If we're going to get some benefit for the pollinators, if that's what we're shooting for as well as erosion, we should put as many pollinating plants as we possibly can.

So what I'm hearing is perennials that are pollinators?

Yes. Do you want a certain number?

I didn't hear you. What did you say? Sorry. Do you want a certain number?

I don't know what the number would be.

Can I just state that?

Pardon me. The commissioners are speaking. So what you'd want to do is to be able to, commissioners, as the perennials are going to grow and expand, you want to give them the breath to grow. So you don't want to be too minimum and you don't want to go over on that. So going forward with what Chase had said before, in order to allow Tim to be able to work to set the parameters of perennials that are conducive to pollinators. Would we like to follow the same track on this as well?

Sounds good. I think it makes sense, Sarah. To the extent it needs to be modified to have the agents approve the modifications makes a lot of sense to me.

Okay. So it sounds like we're in an agreement moving forward on the three 8x12s. What are your wishes for the Matheson family for docks and boating?

My understanding, and perhaps the Mathesons can comment on this, the Mathesons don't use a boat in and out of that dock.

Actually, we do. The dock has been in for about 20 years. We didn't use our boat last year. Um, we minimally use it. It's 4th of July. So we would probably put it in. Um, we are happy to have a no wake zone. I mean, I will personally put that buoy out there because I don't want all of that coming into our, our, our area.

Plus it's good for the kids too. John's got young children and also our neighbors do. There's some out there and, um, You know, a buoy would be good. It would protect the kids.

We're super happy for that.

So the same condition then, sir?

Yes. I think that's what I'm hearing. Commissioner's thoughts on that? Well, sounds like the same.

Yeah.

Chase, because you have it written down...

I will try, if you will forgive me when I screw it up.

I will move to amend the enforcement order for 2 and 6 Blood Road to allow for the construction of three 8x12 flower beds with plantings to be approved by the agent and allow the placement of dock by the owners of 2 and 6 Blood Road and use of that dock with a boat under minimum power and placement of a no-wake buoy that, I will say here, could be placed in concert with their neighbors at 8 Blood Road.

I would add to that that the plantings are perennial and pollinator-friendly.

So amended.

Do we have a second? Do you want to mention the monitoring period?

Yes, I do. And I'll amend that to include a monitoring period for the placement or for the plantings of up to three years.

Okay.

Do we have a second?

Second. All right. Roll call vote. Chase. Chase Kirby guy. Ed. Ed. Kyle. Kyle. Sarah.

Sarah. C word.

I. Carl. Come over guy. Myself. I it's unanimous.

Okay. Thank you. When you're ready to get going with your construction, Gail, just let Tim know, okay? Thank you. Will do. Okay. Thank you. It's now 8.53. We're going to go ahead and open up the 8.15 continued public hearing notice of intent, 16 Pickard Lane, Cobb Pond. There was not a DEP number as of the last meeting. Is there one now, Tim?

We do have a DEP number. It came in at the, maybe it was Friday or yesterday. I can't remember. What DEP did mention in their comments, though, is that the NOI should have been submitted as an ecological restoration notice of intent, as should, and I got clarification on this today when I spoke with DEP, as should every herbicide treatment for like going forward. And so they're going to have to fill out the appendix A for that, as well as post in the environmental monitor. Do you guys catch all that? I wasn't sure my screen was frozen.

We heard you audio. I don't know if you're going to show us a form that has an amendment.

that has an amendment. No, they didn't submit it yet. This was, uh, this was just their comments, um, what's going to need to be done by the applicant. Um, and so I actually sent an email to, uh, the, the applicant today mentioning all that stuff, uh, and kind of simplifying it for, for her to understand and that we'd work with her if, if she needs help filling out those forms. Um, The other thing is that DEP recommended that the commission ask for a plan showing exactly where the herbicides are going to be used. They don't want to see the whole lake get nuked, so to speak, but they said that 30% coverage of lily pads is ideal. So I mentioned all this to Jen in my email. So it sounds like you'll need to repost it? So they need to post it in the environmental monitor. I don't believe they have to repost it in the Lowell Sun to open up the hearing. They just need to do that additional posting in the environmental monitor.

How long does it take to do that, do you know?

I'm not sure.

So am I understanding that now that we have the DEP number, we're still going to wait for that posting, so you're going to push them out to the next hearing?

Yeah, correct. Okay.

Commissioners, do we all follow that track? Yep. Okay. So going forward, Tim, we'll have to understand the changes of that mechanism?

Yeah.

Okay. Okay. Okay, so we will carry that forward. The next one, which is the notice of intent for Zero Taylor, they have requested a continuation on that. So what I'd like to do is to go back to our administrative discussions. We have a few more to cover. Commission vote to return leftover peer review funds. Tim, can you speak to that?

Yes. So we have a lot of peer review accounts. I say a lot. It's probably like six or seven. that have some funds in them. So we typically get the initial quote from the consultant, and sometimes they have optional items in there, like attending a commission meeting if needed. Sometimes they're, not all those tasks are done. And so we'll have leftover amounts in the fund. And so this is just a vote from you guys finance asked for this or accounting did that the commission vote to return the leftover amounts in the peer review accounts to the appropriate person. And so for each of these, reviewing the accounts to make sure that all of the invoices were actually sent out and that we processed all of them. I did come across one that they just, the consultant didn't send out an invoice that they should have. And so we got that, processed that. So we're, you know, dotting the I's, crossing the T's and making sure that everything that should have been paid has been paid from these peer review accounts.

And Do most of these applicants still have order of conditions out? Are these old filings or are they new filings or combinations?

About, I'd say two or three of them I'm familiar with. They're more recent, like since I've been with the town. The rest of them, I think it's like four of them are before my time. How far before, I can't say off the top of my head.

Sarah, are you thinking that we shouldn't close it out until there's a certificate of compliance?

I'm curious, but I also don't know if you can hold those funds if they've met their standard.

I will say most of them only have like a couple dollars in them. And it's just because while the money's in there, they're accruing interest. And so, you know, they pay all their invoices. Well, now they have 56 cents in there in interest that I accrued. And that's technically supposed to go back to the applicant.

Commissioners, what would you like to do?

Whatever Tim and Lauren tell us to do here.

Yeah. Yep. Yeah, I think if there's not a high risk of giving the funds back, I would think that you'd want to get them cleared off the books.

I would send the money back. I agree.

Yep.

Sounds like a plan.

I'm assuming, Tim, you don't need to vote. We're just asking you to do that. We do need to vote. Okay. Someone like to make a motion? Oh, that's where you had the word vote. Commission vote to return. Got it.

I move that the accounts referred have the funds remaining returned to the applicant.

Do we have a second?

Second. All right. Roll call vote. Carl.

Come over, Guy. Cheers.

Cheers, Gary, my guy. Ed. Ed, full time. Kyle. Kyle, Max, goodbye. Sarah. Sarah, see where to go. Myself, aye. It is unanimous.

Okay, cool. We have two more discussions. Tim, let's talk about the birds. Let's talk about the birds.

All right, so we got an email over the weekend from a land steward who I believe is very knowledgeable of... birds and ornithology. And he said that he was over by Spectacle Pond Road and he noticed bank swallows going in and out of nests within the existing sand stockpile that's within the 100-foot buffer zone that The property owner has been authorized to move out of the buffer zone. However, with the bird nest there, the bank swallow nest there, they're protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and not to be disturbed. So I met with the property owner, Mickey Jensen, out there yesterday, and we talked about the whole situation. And we did observe swallows flying over the area. We didn't see them going in and out. But we talked about whether or not he would be able to continue moving sand out of the buffer zone, but maybe just not in this area to not disturb the nests. So I wasn't sure what... the feds would say about that. So I reached out to fish and wildlife and unfortunately I've been playing phone tag last two days with, um, a party over there. And then I also reached out to the natural heritage today and I haven't heard back from them, but I was curious, um, what they thought and what, what they thought would be appropriate if in terms of like allowing Mr. Jensen to continue moving sand outside the buffer zone, but also protecting these nesting areas. So unfortunately I don't have an answer from Fish and Wildlife on that, but hoping to get that for you guys by the next meeting. Tim, are there erosion controls on the... Can I just add one thing real quick?

As a point of order, we have to make sure that in the notes and in this commentary that this is a site that's under an active enforcement order. Yes. So this does give us a different purview on that as well. Sorry to interrupt, but I just want to make sure that's on the record.

No, that's fine. Yeah, Chase, there's erosion controls along this, if this photo were to continue this left side in between the stockpile and the... the wetland. So another thing I'll add is doing some research on bank swallows and nesting. We were actually looking into them while we were on site searching some stuff. And this is consistent with their nesting habits. They don't tend to nest on areas of slope that are gradual, only on pretty vertical areas. And probably can't tell too well from this photo, but these are pretty vertical slopes here. I would say this is really the only area of the stockpile that is super vertical. The rest of it's pretty gradual. And on the rest of the stockpile, we don't see any of these holes, these nests.

Tim, what part of the stockpile is this? Because based on this, they've started moving material, right?

Yes. So this perspective is looking... If you were to continue behind where this photo is taken, it's the... the foundation. So it's, it's the, uh, the far portion of the foundation. If you were walking down spectacle bond road.

Okay. So I imagine that they've been moving. It would be the right side of this picture. Yeah.

So the right has been, has been, they're moving outside the hundred. This is, this is like the back of it over here.

Think of it, it is a perfect spot because they've got water right next door. It's a great place to migrate through outside of the noise next door.

Well, that's why I'm surprised that they chose a spot with noise and, you know, if the equipment is running to kind of relatively active equipment moving sand on a regular basis.

Is it permanently protected or is it only protected this year?

of this breeding season or whatever and then if that was taken away after that and not there when the next migration occurs is that illegal so so they can't be disturbed while they're nesting they're actively i get that um i don't know what the exact time period is and i was kind of hoping to get some of that clarity from fish and wildlife on you know at what point is this considered, you know, not protected anymore?

Carl, do you have any thoughts on this?

Well, I can only speak as a former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employee, but I know how they think. And yeah, I would say the answer to that would be, you know, obviously no disturb while they're nesting. I'm not sure the period of time when they fledged from the nest, but I would think, that when the nesting season's over, the protection would not still be there. I mean, this is an area that they're being opportunistic, I guess is the right word, that the birds have. after they're out I would think that you do not need to protect this area again um I don't know if this is like the first time they've come to this area or this is routinely a place that they come um but it seems like they're just taking advantage of the loose uh soil material and um It could be a one-time thing, but yeah, let's just wait until they're done. And I believe the answer the fish would give you is that then you can continue moving the material.

MassDEP says that they occupy their nests until about mid-August, and then they start to make their migration to South America. August, wow.

Yeah. I mean, that's great. It's great that they're using it. Maybe, you know, we should look at other areas that we could do the same thing to attract them.

So I think what we're circling around here is that the, we're trying to balance the impact from two different issues and the risk to the resource area from this loose material staying in place is lower than the risk that we're willing to take to the swallows. So leaving it in place. And I would say cutting a pretty wide birth around that. I mean, this is all just sand and stuff that's just sort of piled up there. It's not like, I mean, Kyle's the geotechnical engineer, but I,

can imagine you find near vertical faces of sand very easily and so i'm impressed that it's that stable honestly it's not usually that steep yeah so cutting a wide berth around that makes a lot of sense yeah yeah i would do as much or as little disturbance to that area i mean sand is any sort of vibration if you start touching that and you

you would you run a big risk if we let them do any more work on that pile of causing issues with those nests so i guess would you guys be okay if we just accepted the direction of what fish and wildlife says right they're going to come back and say one of the two things don't touch the entire sand pile or there's a section of the sand pile that you can continue removing. But once you get, you know, X distance away from that area where they're nesting, stop there. Once we hear back on that, on their decision on that, are you, are you fine with us just going forward with that? And this not being brought up again in another commission or at another meeting, or do you want to hear this again? Once we hear back from them.

I'd be curious to hear the results. I don't know if we need to vote on it or anything in the future, but I would definitely want to hear the results.

I can always just send out an email once I hear from them and just update you guys.

I guess my only concern is that they're not going to come out to the site, so you'd have to be really graphic and specific to detail of the height and the width and the circumference of this so they actually understand the volume of that.

Maybe I can pull them up there from Westboro. I could try.

Those people at Fish and Wildlife, they love a field trip.

U.S. Fish is lacking employees right now. It's not going to be easy to drag any of those guys out.

I guess the other question I have is, is it worth on the construction side to throw up some orange snow fencing or construction fencing so people, especially if there's other people, there's other, you know, people that are on that site that they know to stay away from that?

I think that's a great idea, Sarah, and let people know, you know, they're not an endangered, they're not a protected species, right, Andrew? I mean, right, Tim? So it's not like you can still identify. I mean, if it's protected, you're not supposed to even identify what's going on. Yeah, I can't say I saw whether or not they were protected in any way. But if not, I would put a sign up, nesting birds. I mean, we do that all the time.

Well, I don't know that I'd go that far. I just...

Fish and wildlife does it all the time. It's put this defense up and then nesting birds. I mean, it tends to keep people away.

Yeah. Or have them come in.

Or attract them, yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, that's what I was saying about if it's endangered species, you don't typically identify.

Well, so it says, yes, bank swallows are protected under the Migratory Birds Treaty Act, which we know, and are classified as a threatened species in California.

So it's not a mess.

I would recommend some sort of fencing just to keep somebody away from the bank regardless of the birds. Any disruption to that area.

You think from a safety standpoint there should be one anyways?

Yeah.

Keeping in mind that the more activity the more it disturbs the birds.

That's, well, yeah, it has to be, you know, I'm not saying put it at the base of the pile. This should be feet, multiple feet away from the base of that pile.

Do we have any authority to say that to them?

You do because, well, you're under an enforcement order.

And it's within the resource area, right?

Yep. Okay.

Speaking of the resource area, though, I would also... Our concern was the mobilization of that material, and I'm glad that there are erosion controls back there. I would suggest that if we are going to have the property owner leave that sand pile in place for an extended period of time, that there also needs to be weekly inspections of those erosion controls to make sure that they're not, that's a lot of very mobile material there. And just sort of a weekly inspection to confirm that the erosion controls are in good condition and don't need to be refreshed.

Are you saying that Tim has to do that or that the landowner has to do that?

Oh, that's an interesting question. I guess I was treating it like an order of conditions and the landowner needed to do it.

I would ask that the landowner sends a video or a photo into Tim weekly or bi-weekly or after some epic rain event.

Yep, I'm with that. Like a weekly photograph to Tim and Lauren.

One thing I will say is Mickey's done a good job at creating, and you can't see it here, but I'll do my best at describing it. He created a buffer between where the sand pile is and where the erosion controls are now. So when we went out there initially, the sand was going right up to that rocky embankment. And now it's not. There is probably, I'm trying to estimate off of memory, like seven, eight feet of clearance between where this sand stockpile ends and where those erosion controls are. So if there is some sort of failure, I don't think it would go over the erosion controls personally.

Would you want him to update you every other week or if there's an event that

I honestly wouldn't mind just having that on our agenda of sites that we go out and look at after big rainfall events.

I'm good with that, too. Really, I just want to make sure that they're functioning. I'm fairly agnostic as to the mechanism, as in the erosion controls. So if Tim and Lauren, it makes sense for them to do it, I'm good with that, too. They know the most efficient use of their time better than I do.

Right. I would say either or, Tim or Lauren. It doesn't always have to be both.

Okay. But, Tim, I think you should feel empowered to direct the property owner. If you need something, you are working under our authority to say, hey, you need to send me pictures of that. Yeah. Yeah. Because I can't get out there. I gotcha.

Yep. Okay. And then, yes, if you can update us, if you do hear a directive from a higher being, that would be great. Okay. Bank Swallow's done. Let's go on to Joe McGagan.

Yep. So we give John the deadline of the end of May to get those final remaining plantings. And so I emailed John at the end of last week and he I actually saw when I went on my email this evening, he gave me a call back in a. a voicemail between when I left today and this meeting. So I'll give him a call back tomorrow and hopefully have an update on that for you guys at the next meeting.

Okay. Okay. So as a reminder, we don't meet until there.

I had not to cut you off, but I have one more cause I thought it was part of the agenda. 73 Hartwell. Okay. We had that side walk with Lauren today. This is kind of interesting what's going on with this. There's a current order of application out there for this. What it looks like it's on our continuation list on our agenda. So Doucet Engineering had submitted a plan and I believe it sounds like it got appealed and there was questions and people were against it and whatnot. So it just sat in limbo. um the land is the property has since been sold to one of the abutting property owners apparently and now they want to of course do something with it um so the original plan which i can't share my screen tim can you make it so cut there you go yeah can you see that all right so this is the snippet of the original plan and kind of try to trace out the wetland flags real quick. So what have, there's a definitely a low portion down here in the site. Um, and so they called up these wetland flags and they called out a wetland over here as well. And then there is a note that you can't read here, but there's an intermittent, they've set an intermittent stream, um, along a cart path, an old cart path. Um, Oxbow is now working with the new landowner and identified this as the wetland area. And the thought process or what people think has changed is they've done a lot of work on Hartwell lately, recreating, paving and whatnot. And so the thought process was that drainage was probably from Hartwell was coming onto the site and created a much larger wet area. And now they've changed that. There is just a smaller area, local area of wet, which has hydric soil, wetland plants. So what Oxbow is thinking is that this is isolated and it's not an actual BDW, which was what Doucette Engineering had called out. I went out there today with them and Lauren and we saw no signs of any sort of connectivity anywhere. There is wetlands off the back side in the Hartwell property. But even this car path is clearly a car path, but there's no indication that there's a stream that runs anywhere through here. And this is all pretty, it's actually a pretty steep slope that comes back uphill to this. So I personally was much, I got on board with what Oxbow was presenting here. The concern or the issue that I ran into that I brought up with Lauren is that 73 Harwell currently has an application in place. So it's going to be more of a paperwork exercise, I think, for Oxbow and you, Tim, to figure out how to withdraw if Doucette Engineering has to withdraw their application and then how Oxbow goes forward if they are just going to go in for an RDA or if they even need to. Right. It's not jurisdictional.

And that's, did Scott mention on site today, and I apologize, I couldn't make that site walk today. Did Scott mention whether or not that isolated wetland is, he suspects it's isolated land subject to flooding or isolated vegetative wetland? Because that would determine whether or not it's jurisdictional. I mean, from what I remember, I... Sorry?

No, go ahead.

When I went out there with Scott a couple weeks ago, I thought it looked small enough that it would be under the threshold of being isolated land subject to flooding. I thought it would probably be isolated vegetative wetland, but again, that's just not the best on identifying that in the field. So in that case, if it is non-jurisdictional, if you look on the approved, previously approved plan, the one on the left, that's from 2018. At the top of it, you can kind of see in the top right, there's a hundred foot buffer zone coming off of those. I don't know if they're ponds or vernal pools back there. So if they kept this work consistent with that notice of intent, They would just be, and then they confirmed this isolated wetland is just IVW. It's non-jurisdictional. They wouldn't be coming in front of us anymore for an application. They would just be asking to withdraw. And so that's why I wanted to get commissioners out there and get their eyes on it before we followed up with the applicant, because I thought there was a good chance that the wetland's changed so dramatically since that 2018 filing that there might be a case for there is no jurisdictional wetlands around where they're proposing.

What I would tell the applicant now though, is that given the history of this and given the isolated wetland, it would be wise of them to file an NRAD to confirm that there's nothing jurisdictional there. And the NRAD may conclude just that. But then I wouldn't feel all that comfortable with no filing, just saying, well, there's nothing there now, given what we have from 2018. I think that they need to paper over that with some filing that documents what is or is not there currently.

Don't just go away.

Well, if, if there was that much runoff where it was creating hydric conditions, then, similar to what you're seeing on the left plan. And they fixed that runoff and really reduced it a significant amount. It could have changed the, I assume it could have changed the hydrology as dramatically as it seems to be when we went out there nowadays. I don't really know how much runoff was coming in from Hartwell. From what Scott was saying and what he heard from the homeowner was that it was a very significant amount.

I remember even when we first did developments out there, there was always discussion of runoff on those properties.

Yeah, and I mean, just the soil conditions. It was clear that there was hydric soil in this area, and it's definitely the low spot. Once you got away from it, there was no indication of hydric soil. There was maybe some plants, some wild plants that were still lingering out here, but the soil didn't look indicative of hydric soil. And it certainly wasn't when we got over to this car path and these other areas. It would be interesting to have Tensyset's point of view on, or if there's photos or something on how they delineated this originally, if it was just based off plantings. Because I'm definitely not a wealth scientist. I know there's different ways to identify them. Based on the soil conditions right now, it's pretty limited to this area that they have flagged out.

Chase, would you be comfortable if Lauren and I went out with Scott or another wetland scientist with Oxbow and confirmed this footprint of this isolated wetland. And then they could do the calculations to prove that it's whether or not it's IVW or ILSF. Instead, that's an alternative to requesting a filing.

Yeah, it's not that I disagree with what you and Lauren have concluded. It's that I think we need some official filing, not just an email or something like that, that documents what it is now. So I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm saying I think we need a process or some filing to establish that. If the Russian Commission disagrees...

This is definitely a one-off and you're really going to have to have a lot of paperwork to ensure the track of this.

It would make me feel better too, Chase. I think that's a good idea, Tim.

So, yeah, Tim, if it's an RDA, if it's an address that I'm against, I will trust you and Lauren to come up with what the right filing needs to be. But I think there needs to be a filing of some sort that ensures it's adequately documented and we can show to the community that we've rigorously evaluated this and. Yeah, it's very strange that we have what we see on the left and what we see on the right a mere eight years apart, but that is what we have.

But so much so that you would have to include the documents of the town changing the structure of that road and the drainage as well.

Yeah, I would think the RDA would have to have some sort of conceptual explanation to justify why it's as different now as it was. For sure. As it is.

Okay.

Yeah.

So much so that you'd go to the as-builts of the road.

Right. So the question is now whether it makes sense for this to continue being put in front of you guys as an NOI, or if it makes more sense for it to be withdrawn and just submitted as an RDA where they're questioning whether or not it's applicable.

Correct.

Yep.

I don't think it bears on those decisions, the conversations that I asked the Lord, maybe you could reach out to Amy and see if she had any further, but I don't know if it ever got to the process to this, to the point that Amy went out there and looked at those original flags or if she would have remembered anything. Cause I don't know if I don't, I was not around. I don't believe when this, I mean, this plan on the left was like 2008 or something like that. Right. Or what the wetland flags were done. And there's a note on the plan. I think that was, It was before my time that the flagging had been done.

I mean, I just don't know if it got to the point that they were reviewed or... I think they were. I would imagine they were because there was quite a history with this and it actually got appealed and they got a superseding order.

I'm confident they were done because I know I went out a couple of times.

Yeah, I can ask her and see if she recollects the Wellens on the site.

Okay. Anyone have anything else? It is 928. Do we have a motion to adjourn?

Is June 23rd the correct next meeting? I believe so. Okay. I move that we adjourn this evening's meeting.

Who did the second?

Oops, sorry. Beef from the Shadows.

Thank you, Andrew.

Alright, roll call vote. Carl. Kyle Malberg. Chase. Kyle. Ed. Sarah. Myself, aye. It's unanimous and we are adjourned.