Conservation Commission - Regular Meeting

With that in mind, we now have a quorum. So I'm going to open up the Littleton Conservation Commission meeting of June 23, 2026. The first thing I want to touch on is how very packed our agenda is. So my intention is to do my very best to keep us on it. The first item we have is minutes from June 2, 2026. Do we have any additions, corrections, or deletions to those minutes?

They looked great.

Okay. With that done, maybe can we get a motion to approve those minutes?

I'll make a motion that the commission approve the meeting minutes of June 2nd, 2026 as printed.

Second.

All right. We'll do a roll call vote. Ed?

Ed Fultz, aye.

Kyle? Kyle Maxfield, aye. Chase?

Chase Kirby, aye.

Am I self-eye? It's unanimous. Oh, did I freeze? I think I froze.

We got you. We can hear you.

Can you hear me? Let me try one thing here. Okay, and now my screen's black, so I might be in the shadows tonight. I don't know what's going on.

That's okay. We can hear you, and I'm comfortable going forward with that.

What's that old office, Andrew?

What?

Okay. We may, Andrew, though, just check in with you every once in a while just to make sure everything's good given that we're tight on a quorum. Absolutely. Okay. Minutes then of June 2nd are done. Tim, I'm going to hand it over to you then to take us through the COC for one Sawyer and sort of the administrative discussion until 745. Sure.

So the certificate of compliance request for one Sawyer, if you remember, Kyle, you were out on that site walk with us initially. The commission had asked that a couple additional shrubs placed in that gravel parking area where the shed was permitted to be, but was not constructed. The property owner has since installed some native shrubs in that area. And that was all we were waiting on to vote to issue this.

I know he had mentioned, or the applicant had mentioned other plantings that they had lined up. Did you happen to notice if other additional plantings had been done?

I don't think it was any of the additional ones that they discussed on site. I don't think they, I think they still have plans to do that. They haven't installed those quite yet. They had some additional like ground cover plantings though, that, that weren't discussed with the commission. Those were installed kind of over in that area as well.

Yeah. Based on what I'd seen before we even had that walk or before we made the plans for them, it seems like they're want more on the ground than they, we would require. So yeah.

Tim, your recommendation is to issue the COC?

Yeah, I think it's ready.

Kyle, you're good with that?

Yeah, sure. I'll make a motion that we approve the certificate of compliance for Walton Sawyer, MSDP number 204-739 and 204-951. Second.

All right. Roll call vote. Kyle. Kyle Maxfield. Ed. Ed Fultz. Hi. Chase? Chase Gerbeck, aye. And myself, aye. It's unanimous.

Very good. Tim, one thing I know, I saw Matt Morrow just jumped on, so when we do get to 745 for the public hearing, we're going to go right to that one, even if we're not done with the administrative items.

Sure. Sure. Okay. 55 Russell Street, if you guys remember at the last meeting, we talked a little bit about potentially Having a javelin approach area behind the baseball field at 55 Russell and kind of in between the outfield of the baseball field and the track. You guys had some additional questions that I couldn't answer. And so I asked Casey Koldenberg to attend. And we do have Casey here with us. So, Casey, I'm going to permit you to talk. You're welcome to join as a panelist if you'd like to as well.

Okay.

Can you hear me?

Yep, we can hear you, Casey. You want to tell us what you're thinking here?

Yes.

Currently...

Sorry, I can't hear myself. I don't know.

You're breaking up a little bit, Casey. Maybe your connections isn't great. Yeah, I'm sorry.

Can you hear me now? Now we can. Okay, so... We have 170 plus kids who are on the track team. One of the events is called Javelin, which is very popular. We used to throw Javelin behind the left is all we could build before the last is in doing track. It just causes problems. It's not really safe and it makes it longer. This last season, we moved the driveway, just basically the grass with painted marks behind left field and one field at the top. It was the perfect dimension. But what I want to do is add a river runway, much like the track is built right now. And that helps for performance, safety, and the wear on the road area outside. of the fence between fence and where there's trees and area. And I like the runway there. The runway would be 100 by 12 feet wide. They do a subgrade prep, compact . And then spray on this EDPM, which is a rubber manual. But this top half rubber, synthetic rubber, would be just like the track is right now.

Okay. And commissioners, my understanding, Tim, is we pulled Casey in because there are some questions about sort of the nature of this. What questions did we have on it, I guess?

Sorry. I know one of the big ones was, is there an alternative location for this? Or is this really the only logical area where this could be?

You're asking me? Yes. Other logical locations? Well, this is during baseball season, so the outfield would be great, except for the games during the same time as the practice. Another location would be, which is not featured on your map, but I guess on the north end, the north side of the track. Okay, keep going a little higher. Do you see that triangle right where your arrow is? But that would be the runway and then throw into that, I think it's like White Street extension, that area that's only dark and red, actually. would take way more work flattening the ground out raising it up and solidifying with um some great stuff and all that but that would be a really nice spot too i assume that's probably what lands as well and so i i think the discussion tonight with the

conclusion that we were hoping to get to is, you know, we haven't seen a filing for this yet, but I wanted to get the commission's sense of, you know, there is a wetland that goes back here. And there's, I think it's likely that if you guys permitted it to be in this area, it would be within the 50 foot. So we need a waiver. So is this something that you guys feel comfortable with giving kind of like a straw poll vote on, you know, this would get a waiver issued if there was an application in front of you.

So essentially the basis for the waiver would be, or the question is really, would we find this to be in the public interest or in the interest of public safety?

Correct. What about that strip of grass between the ball field and the parking lot down closer to Russell Street? Down, no, down.

This one right here? Yeah. There's actually a better map right now on the parking website because it shows the dimensions of what the birds and fields have been created, but right there where your finger is, there's now a... Yeah, there's a batting cage there.

I would also say there... Next to a parking lot? Yeah, that might be a good spot for... Yeah, it might be a good spot for wetlands perspectives, but The challenge here is this comes during track season and baseball season at the same time. I would not want to see someone throwing javelin right there during a baseball.

Oh, no. So super safe. That would be a bad spot. You have to remember, we need the 100 runway, which not everybody really uses 100 feet, but that's the requirement if you do have a runway. And they throw the javelin about 150 feet. We don't, but our opponents are really good at javelin right now. They can throw it 100 feet, so you figure that one may play back in 100 feet. All we have is house. I deal with the exception of it being right there.

Are you saying that the javelin and baseball would be happening at the same time?

Yeah, they do right now. This last season, when they finally put the field up, we were javelin because actually the outfield finish is the perimeter, the right-hand perimeter of the javelin vector, if you will. Mm-hmm. It's got about a five-foot buffer off the fence, so it's super safe out there all the time.

And there's no chance that someone's going to hit a home run into the javelin throwers? Yeah.

Let that be the baseball team's problem.

I'm worried about safety on both sides.

No, it's a good question. This is where the middle school team plays the high school team who's actually in a position to potentially hit home runs. is playing up at the high school. I don't, I don't think the middle schoolers, I saw Paul get within 50 feet of the home run fence this year.

So actually this is where all teams play now.

Yeah. I was just going to say that high school field is not, I assume this is where everybody plays.

A big change recently. The only thing that happens in high school now is soccer. Uh, the varsity soccer games happen, the day games behind the eyes. Everything else is this huge, they're just calling it sports competition at this point. Everything's down here now.

So if you've got a high school game going on when you've got a javelin event going on, don't we now have a potential problem?

No. I mean, we could say, yes, we have a problem, but we've had multiple meets this season and practices during their batting practices, during their games. I saw no conflict at all.

That's where I was just going to go. They just shared these fields for an entire season, right? So that was kind of a concern that I raised was that this area is being used, whether we've given permission or not, you know, for field, for soccer in the past, for track now apparently. Okay. So I prefer to see it's a stabilized runway rather than it getting worn down to dirt after a season. I think Sarah's pushback, but devil's advocate, was that it would have a season to regrow post-track season. But Casey, what kind of use does this area get? Are we looking year-round, other than winter? Or is it just one season?

For Javelin, it's just three months. So the season just ended this last month. Okay. It's just three months of use in this area. It's mowed. It's part of the whole maintenance area. We use it. We run on it. The problem is after you have a meet, you have 40-some-year-old javelin. It gets really slick. They all need to start to wear soccer cleats. And somebody who doesn't have a soccer cleat and you throw the javelin, it gets slick. You can't get everything right. You're not going to get your what's called block to throw so well. We need to do something. I mean, we don't have to. We can live with it like it is now. I just have an area for safety, performance, and whatnot.

So in the interest of how much we have on our agenda tonight, I think I'd like to move this to understanding, is this something we would be willing to contemplate for a... for a waiver. At the end of the day, if it is, Casey's going to have to come in with a filing. We're going to have all these discussions again. So I think what he's trying to understand is, is his debt on arrival or not?

Yes. From my perspective, if they can't go on the other triangle section, which is away from the baseball field, then I guess I'm okay with it. I'm not thrilled with it, but I'm okay with it.

I'd be fine with it under the public interest section of the waiver process.

Yeah, I would entertain it. Casey, I would tell you two things with that. One, I think you still have to make an argument for why it can't be on that other area that is not within a resource area that we know of. But I think Tim and Lauren can look at that with you and just determine if there might be resources up there. And the other thing is, I would want to see it within the existing mode field area, not an expansion of the field.

There would be no extension expansion. It's already in mode. We don't go beyond the current mode area. So I understand that. Are you talking about where we should be going into the white street extension? Yeah, I can walk that with Tim and anyone who wants to go out there. I'm all about track. I'll be out there right now or tomorrow. whatever you want.

Okay. Yeah. I, I think, you know, Tim and Lauren can help you with the process, but I think you've probably got what you need now. You, you will have to come back with a formal filing. Um, so we're going to move on from this then. Um, Amber, could we pull Matt Morrow over for, we're going to move on to the 745 public hearing with a notice of intent for 136 Mill Road. To those who are here for other administrative items, I do in particular want to get this hearing done on time. So we will come back to those other administrative items as soon as we can.

Matt, are you here?

Yes, I am. okay uh it's good to see you how you doing very good thank you um really quick before we start i just want to let you guys know um my mom is not doing too good um it could be any time so the nursing home is on the override from my silent if they call i'm going to excuse myself 100 mad and that's why i wanted to pull you in as soon as we could here so we could

hopefully move you and your client through this, and then we can let you go back to more important things. Thank you very much. Do you want me to share?

If you would, yes. Okay. Can you see that okay? Yep. So hopefully this is actually as straightforward as it looks to me. I went out, I delineated the wetland over by Beaver Brook. We do have riverfront on the property that was quantified, even though the state tends to be a little bit more flexible with septic systems. There is work in the 100 foot buffer zone, but there's nothing within 50 feet of the wetland. It is an existing leach field. It's the leach field only that is being replaced. The leach field that was previously approved by this commission and installed failed. There were various reasons for it, which I couldn't enumerate right now if you ask me, because I'm not really a septic designer. But in talking to Mr. Carloni, he said the reason why we were replacing it is because it failed. This new system should work adequately. And... Yeah, there's no 50-foot buffer zone on either side. There were other wetlands on the opposite side. There was areas I didn't go up to in certain sections because it was right in somebody's backyard and I didn't want to spook them. But we were able to approximate and give you a good 50-foot buffer. We're definitely not within it. We're just tailing the 100-foot buffer on two different sides. We are out of the inter-riparian zone by just a little bit. We're in the outer riparian zone, but we're not in the inner riparian zone. Obviously, it's almost in the same place as it currently is. You can see the dotted lines showing where the existing system is. So it's going to be replaced in kind with a better field system. That's basically it. It's been issued a DEP number, 204-1037, with no comment.

Tim, have you taken a look at this yet? At the filing, yeah.

Yeah, I have no comments.

Commissioners, what comments do you have?

Does this have to do with health as well?

Yes. I always try to not file a notice of intent until the Board of Health is approved. In this case, it was contemporaneous, but yeah, they've already approved it.

Did they have, there was no concern of the prior failed system? Because I guess that's, I'm assuming this is a different system, right? That's not knowing anything about this, but.

Yeah, but it's a different, I'm not sure what the fleet field is there now. This is a different type of field. Okay. I mean, they must not be too concerned because my client tried to get them to give them like an emergency status to replace it. And they said, no. So we're here now. Okay. Thank you.

Your outline shows the existing field, which looks like it's out of the 100 even more. Is there any reason that you didn't just pull that back? Looks like you have enough room to get it completely out of the 100.

It would be because of the subsoils. They're located because of the subsoils. I think that was probably part of the reason why it failed.

Okay. Okay.

I have one, maybe more than one condition that I think we would need here. One condition would be that all excavated soils need to be stockpiled out of the 100-foot BVW buffer. Obviously, it can't be outside of the 200-foot riverfront area, but stockpiling outside of that. Matt, I also think I'd like to see, I don't think it should hold up our approval of it, but I think I would want to see a final figure that shows sediment and erosion controls around this, but I would be willing to approve this as long as you're willing to provide that to Tim so that he signs off, is good with it before work proceeds. I really at the end of the day here. Oh, I'm sorry. I that lines right here. I completely missed. Okay. Well, nevermind. So then my only condition would be stockpiling outside of the resource area. Absolutely not a problem. Andrew, are you good?

I'm good to go.

Could we potentially then get a motion to close the public hearing and issue a notice of intent?

I'll make a motion that the commission close the public hearing and issue an order of conditions for 136 Mill Road, DEP file number 204-1037. with the aforementioned condition that Chase mentioned about stockpiling outside of the resource area?

Second.

All right. We'll do a roll call vote. Ed? Ed Volz, aye. Chase? Chase Kirby, aye. Kyle? Kyle Maxfield, aye. Oh, I see Carl in the audience. Did we want to plug him over?

I've been trying.

Moving him over right now.

Nonetheless, I think we have a quorum. I'd rather not chance that quorum. Absolutely. Can Carl vote on this? Sure. Absolutely. Okay with that, Carl.

Absolutely. So I'll be an I as well. So it is unanimous. Oh, here's Carl.

Okay. Very good. Matt, it looks like you guys are good to go. Okay.

Thank you very much, Carl, and I'll talk to you soon.

Take care, Matt. Take care, guys. Okay, I'd like to go back to the administrative items. Tim, you have a sense of what makes sense to take before the 8 p.m. public meeting?

We can go through some shorter ones. Okay. that I think would make more sense to go through right now. We can jump ahead to the NVIDIA volunteer project. So About a month or two ago, NVIDIA came to us. We met with, so it was NVIDIA, Lauren and I, as well as Elisa Russell and the trust. And I guess every year, NVIDIA does a local volunteer project. And this year, they were interested in doing one for Littleton. And so we're kind of talking to them about which project might make the most sense. And originally we were thinking maybe they can help out with a boardwalk. And ultimately what we decided on was it would probably, what the best fit would probably be is if they were to help with the construction of the Braille trail over at Yap. And so what that looks like is it's about a, three tenths of a mile loop. And I actually have a figure here. Or maybe I don't. I think it's lost somewhere in my email. But it's a three tenth of a mile loop right at the front of the property. And hold on a second. Nah, I can't find it. But essentially what they would be helping out with doing is, so on a braille trail, there's posts every X amount of feet, anywhere from like six feet to I think like 15 feet. And along those posts that are on the side of the trail is a rope that goes through the posts that the users can hold onto as a guide rope or wire. And along the trail, there's other, you know, There's Braille signage and other sensory things. And so we thought it made the most sense to do a workday with them. They can offer anywhere from, I think it's 20 to 50 or 30 to 50 volunteers for a full day. donate about $200 per volunteer that they can provide. So they would anywhere up to about $10,000 in funding. They would be donating to the trust, not the commission, just because it's easier for them to donate to the trust. And so we've been working kind of behind the scenes on planning this and been in communications with NVIDIA. about this as well. We're aiming for the first week of October. But I know we generally talked about the idea of the Braille Trail at YAP. many months ago back when we were thinking about going after a grant for it and the Commission was on board with it. We got a letter from the Disability Committee saying that they were behind this as well. So just wanted to throw that out there as an update to you guys on where we are with that. After we opted to not go with the applying for the grant monies for this, it was on our agenda to go after CPC funding this fall for it. So hopefully we can get it done with the funding and volunteer work provided by NVIDIA.

Cool. That's great. So will it, will there be sort of like a finalized design to this? Like I, I would love to make sure that the disability commission not just as supportive of the concept, but as supportive of the implementation. I want to make sure that we are, we're doing it in the way that's the most effective, essentially a, a good idea gone wrong is what we would like to avoid.

Yeah. Yeah. We can certainly, um, reach back out to them, I can talk with Diane, provide them a basis of our design and get their approval or comments on that as well. And if we need to tweak it, cause they think it's better a different way, then we can certainly do that.

Cool. Any other comments on the commission on this?

Yeah, I have a quick question. You've mentioned funding, I guess, A, do you have a ballpark on what the costs would be for this?

Not quite yet. We're still in that planning stage. We're going to see. So we still have that to figure out. We're also going to see how much we can get in either donated materials and services for this project as well.

Yeah. And I only ask because you mentioned that NVIDIA is also providing $200 per volunteer, right? Now, is that money that could be used for materials and Exactly, yeah. Okay. It seems like, again, I don't know. I've never seen one of these installed, so I don't know what it takes, but it sounds like they could be pitching in quite a bit of funding. Yeah.

Yeah. And there's things that the volunteers won't be able to do with this for this project. Right. Like the wooden posts are going to have to go pretty deep into the into the ground deeper than you can manually dig. So a cost that we're looking at, if it's not going to be a donated services, is having somebody come out to to actually do those or to drill to drill those holes. Excuse me. So they're not going to be able to do everything. There are some things that we're going to need to either get in donated services or have to pay for. Thanks.

Yeah.

So, Tim, are you just looking for a general sense of the question? Yeah.

I was just kind of, I mean, if you guys want to give another vote of proof, that's fine too. I was just looking to give you guys as much information on where we stand with this as I have at this point.

Cool. Sounds great. Go forth, do good things for the community. And better yet, do it with the help of external resources.

Yeah, no, we're very grateful that they came to us and are looking to help out in that way.

Cool. Great.

It is 8 o'clock, so we can move on to the next.

Sounds good. And so those who are still on the administrative discussion, we will, I promise, circle back to you as soon as we can. So we're going to open up the 8 p.m. public meeting, the request for determination of applicability for Prouty Woods' invasive plant management proposal. Who is here to speak to that? I'm just promoting him.

Oh, sorry. I was going to say, Chase, before I do get started, I will have to recuse myself just because I am a volunteer for now. It's kind of a conflict to participate, so I will be lurking in the shadows.

Okay. I think you're probably being conservative in that regard, but because we have a quorum otherwise, let's just go with it.

Sounds like a plan.

Okay. Um... The floor is yours. You want to describe to us what we're looking for, what you're asking, and then we can figure out where we're going to go.

Yeah, so we have CSIP funding to do invasive species treatment on the Prouty Woods. It's going to be 43.5 acres. And I will not be personally doing the project. My co-worker Zach will be, so the more technical questions can be directed to him. But yeah, we're planning to do spot treatment for all of these various species. There's Little bit of everything in there. There's a Barbary, Japanese knotweed, bush honeysuckle. multi-flora rose not just off the top of my head so um they've done some harvesting in there um oriental bittersweet as well we're trying to get on top of this uh ideally get rid of this but you know ultimately it's more managing and we're trying to get it so there can be more more and better regeneration where they've done harvests um and then just to make it so you can have more native species coming in in the understory there so um yeah they have the funding for it and um We think there's good applicability with the work that they've been doing. They're trying to have it be kind of a prime example of forest management in the community. So we just think that this is part and parcel of kind of what we have to do with everything going on there. So I'm the forester who wrote the management plan, and I've requested this to be done. And they've followed up, they've applied for the funding. And then Longview Forest will be doing the application with our certified pesticide herbicide applicators.

And I think one of the things that the community is going to want to know is if you could explain sort of the extent of the herbicide applications, like essentially describe how, in so many words, we're trying to use as little herbicide as we can, but it's also not practical to do this without herbicides.

Yeah. So to kind of address the doing it without herbicide, I mean, I'm I would love if we could just go in and hand pull and just cut the stuff. But a lot of these things, if you cut them, they come back more vigorously. It's kind of like treating Medusa, where you cut it off and it has more branches that come out. So it's not really feasible, especially at this scale, to manage this mechanically. So we do look to herbicide to do this. Everything is spot spray. So our workers go through with a backpack spray and are specifically treating individual plants. They'll kind of walk a grid back and forth to make sure that they're getting everything. And yeah, we're using the applicable herbicides for different areas. So if you're near wetter areas, you're using the appropriate herbicide for wetter areas. stuff breaks down after a couple months so it's not persistent in the environment that's why we're using it and ultimately it's less disruptive to the kind of soil into the habitat than doing mechanical removal because if we were to go in and pull stuff out things like that we're disturbing the soil we're going to be disrupting the native plants are there and then by opening up that soil we're kind of inviting more seeds to come in and re-establish just this kind of suspicious cycle so This is kind of the tool that we have at hand, the best we can do at this moment. And, yeah, it's kind of what we have to do to make this work.

And, again, mostly in the interest of making sure the public sort of read into this, mass DEP-approved herbicides and licensed applicators.

Absolutely. Everybody's a licensed applicator. This is state funding, so everything has to be completely done as Massachusetts state law mandates. And yeah, we do this on lots of properties. These guys have gotten all the certifications. They're using the appropriate herbicides for everything. Yeah.

Commissioners, what questions do we have here? You're on mute, Kyle.

Sorry. So I'm looking at the plan that you provided that shows the areas across the 43 acres and it overlaps a lot of the trails by looks of it. Will there be, I guess, when would this work be performed and is it something that the public can still utilize the trails or will it be marked off, detours, anything like that?

So we're going to put up signage and we're working with Neff to get them to put up signage as well. I don't know the specific time that people shouldn't be near that, but yeah, they're definitely signage to divert the public away from there. And again, like I said, it's not persistent. So it will be a certain timeframe where people will be discouraged from entering there. And we'll work with Neff to figure out the best alternatives for where people can go. And they've done some treatment. They've got some similar funding prior to do some cut stump application. And cut stump is where you cut the plant off, and then at the base of the stump, you're just painting the stump itself with herbicide. They've done that in some areas, so they've done this management before. And so they have some practice with it. you know, communicating with the public and making sure that people are aware where they can or shouldn't, shouldn't go. And this is not being like broadcast applied. So it's not like there's just gonna be stuff all over the place. So it's gonna be very targeted with the plants that we're putting it on.

Other questions or comments? So what we have in front of us is our request for determination of applicability with a waiver. And I think, although Andrew is recusing himself, he would remind us to, if we are approving this, make sure to mention the waiver in a motion.

I would.

Do we have anyone who wants to make a motion or any substantive concerns that need to be expressed before them? Then I'll take it upon myself to, oh no, without Andrew, I don't know which negative determination. It's always four. Well, negative determination four.

I think it's a three, but fingers.

Andrew, you're so recused. You're just helping us from stumbling or tying our own shoes together here. So I move that we issue a negative determination three and approval of a waiver for the application of herbicides by NAF at the Proudy Woods property. All right. Motion's been made. And in secondary, we'll do a roll call vote. Carl Malberg?

Carl Malberg, aye.

Kyle? Kyle Maxfield, aye. Ed? Ed Fulci. Myself, Chase Garvey, aye.

And one recusal.

Oh, right, and Andrew, sorry. I take that for granted. Very good. Okay, we are moving right along. Thank you all very much for moving along. We have a very packed agenda. I think you're all good to go. Thank you all for your time. If you could let us know so we can make sure to announce it at a Conservation Commission meeting before this kicks off so that we can make sure people are as read into it as possible.

Yes, absolutely. Thank you all for your time. I really appreciate it. Cheers.

Tim, the floor is back to you to go through whatever you think makes the most sense in the next administrative items.

Sure. Why don't we go ahead and I'll promote over Aaron. And Aaron has a brief presentation on Bumblebee and biodiversity that she would like to share with the commission.

Okay. Very good. Aaron. Oh, let's wait for Aaron to get in here. Hey, Aaron. How are you doing?

There I am. Hello. Hello.

Thank you for having me here. As you heard, we have a pretty packed agenda, so we're going to try and work you in here. I would say you probably, technically, our next item comes up at 8.15. You probably have a few minutes more than that if you need it. I don't want to cut you short, but also I don't want it to draw on either. So the floor is yours, Erin.

So I can share my screen, right?

You should be able to, yes.

Okay. So does everyone see it?

Yes.

Yes. So I think most of you know that I have been growing plants based on a list by Dr. Robert Jagir at UMass Dartmouth who studies at-risk plants. pollination systems, but specifically declining species of bees and butterflies and plants. So this is the fifth year or so that I've grown specifically plants from his list of about 130 some odd species. We used to have 12 species of bumblebees. We now have nine, but really three are almost locally extirpated. So we are also, as you know, in a biodiversity crisis with insect loss degrading or declining rapidly. These are some of the butterflies and one moth. declining at risk, endangered in Massachusetts, bird losses are down, bird populations are down. This is one of the plants that I grow that is at the location at Bumble Bee Park and at the library and it's a state listed plant called Penstemon hirsutis. I'm now trying to source local ecotype seeds, so I'm trying to find seeds and I grow them myself with the winter seed method. This one is endangered so I haven't been able to find seeds. So I just wanted to update you on Bumblebee Park that Con Con gave me permission to install a garden there. And this is in 2023, a group of homeschool kids and I started trying to tackle this property ultimately had to have sam bell come and plow it it's it's very impenetrable i don't think it was ever plowed i think it was pastured and then mowed for 50 years so it's really rocky and compacted but this is what it looks like this is last summer i just did a tour as part of i'm part of metro west conservation alliance has a subcommittee now called the metro west PSA, Pollination System Action. So there's a number of gardens around the region featuring Dr. Jagir plants. We call them biodiversity gardens or pollination preservation spaces. Here's just some of the blooms from last year. And last, more nice blooms. It was really important for me to provide, I want this to be autodidactic and provide public education, so I made labels last year and signage with a QR code to Dr. Jagir. Um, and I just wanted to update you on how it's going. It's a challenging property. There's a lot of poison ivy. There's a lot of rocks. It's really dry. I my water is provided by the fire department filling my 200 gallon watering cube. That's the only water I have. Um, It's, you know, it's a work in progress. I've been able to, as Tim knows, cordon off an area of the slope behind the bench that is a big area of low bush blueberry. I tried to cordon off areas of a little bluestem, which is a clumping grass, which... Native birds like bobolinks nest in I don't know if we have enough space for bobolinks, but they do need clumping grasses that are native Warm weather wait cold weather and never I always get those screwed up. But anyway native grasses I'm still gonna try to keep certain stuff like the lowbush blueberries away from mowing so i'm kind of thinking about the whole property as a restoration project and it is in succession so it is obviously we know really hard to have a meadow in new england and it is mowed just once a year so it's full of buckthorn, but also the native gray dogwood and Oaks and bittersweet and, um, and blueberries, but it's, it's a tricky, um, Project. What I'd like to do now going forward is obtain, I now have my site set on the property across the street, which is a wet meadow. So a lot of the plants on Jagir's list are wet meadow plants, which makes sense because Massachusetts really, you know, is a wet meadow, wet forest area. State or area. And a lot of and we're in a severe drought again for like the fifth year and a lot of my plants are suffering. I mean, the right plants for the right place. Right. So. I started thinking about this and I've been walking around the meadow IDing plants. What we have, the good things we have extant on the property at the meadow is we have two incredibly healthy white ashes, which is amazing to me because you never see living ashes anymore out in conservation land because usually they're at private properties and they're being treated. Anyway, a lot of sugar maples, willows, cattails, sumac, sedges, elderberry, meadow sweet, sensitive fern, and then the meadow portion of it is actually full of reed canary grass which would have to be herbicide there's no way to mechanically eradicate that um what i'm interested in doing is obtaining some um some like three uh quotes for um i think ideally we would start with the reed canary grass um i would like to install some native plants In that area that I couldn't, I would like to get local ecotypic seeds and sow them. So I have a list here, but anyway, I can stop sharing because this is just boring words. Where's my cursor? There we go. So. So. Anyway, LCT owns this property, but obviously it's wetlands and I need to be in good communication with you and have your blessing. But I'm interested in... pursuing this as a restoration project and it will be multi-phase. There's so much bittersweet that it's very overwhelming. And then of course there's Phragmites. There's also these ditches that maybe were dug as mosquito management or wetland farmers historically would do this lowering the water table funky thing. So anyway, it's... uh not very well trafficked there's not there's one kind of trail um that jim and rick blazed um and i would want it to be only i want it to be accessible like when that that trail just intersects the really wet cattail area and the meadow and i think that's a fine Trail, and then some sort of access into the meadow where I would like to put in swamp rose, swamp thistle, monkey flower, all the stuff that needs wet. But I don't want to have a lot of trails in there. I just think it's an incredible bird and insect sanctuary, theoretically. But like a lot of places, I would say it's like 80% invasives and 20% natives. And they're really wonderful natives, but... I think we have to cherish our wet meadows these days, especially in the drought and climate change and the dearth of insects.

So Erin, you're generally looking, I mean, given that it's trust-owned property, you're really asking us in our capacity as conservation commissioners with respect to the Wetlands Protection Act, like, Is this a thing we're generally supportive of to the extent that we need to get some permitting done or something like that? Is that generally the question?

Well, I think what inspired me to come here today, really, Chase, is that, as some of you know, I was working on the library for... I had been working on the library property for a few years and realized that I wasn't... I didn't know that I should be presenting an update of the work, and I was kind of going not just unnoticed, but... it didn't work out well so i felt like i should be here to represent the work that's been going on at bumblebee park a tim has been really helpful and also you know i've been able to say to tim like let's treat the napweed let's treat the bittersweet so we've had some herbicide work there um And I don't know, you know, so that's really why I wanted to come. I just wanted to come and make sure I'm dotting the I's and crossing the T's and letting you know that, like, here I am. Things are moving slowly, but in the right direction, I think. But I don't, and I don't know what I have to do to, I mean, at this point, I'm just going to get... have quotes because all of the invasives there can't be, they need professional help.

And I think to the extent that invasives on this property need to be managed, in fact, we just went through this a couple of minutes ago with respect to NEF. And I think what you heard was probably without giving you formal approval, without the right paperwork, that we would be very supportive of that frankly, NEF's application would be a good model for you to take a look at in terms of what a request for determination of applicability needs to look like. And I would say, particularly in this context, I would expect Tim and Lauren to be able to sort of help you. There are some formal processes that we need to do, but I think generally what you will find is we're going to be very supportive of removal of invasives, and we'll be doubly supportive of replanting of natives. To the extent that three quarters of those natives are names that I don't recognize, which is probably itself indicative of why we should plant them. But I think we'll lean on Tim and Lauren's expertise there to make sure what's going in makes sense. But certainly commissioners, if you guys have anything else to indicate here, but personally, I think very supportive of this, we have some eyes to dot and T's to cross.

Yeah, like, for example, there's a bunch, there's several species that are like, Tim, you know, probably like white turtlehead, closed gentian, swamp rose at Hartwell that were being mowed by Sam Bell because he didn't know they were there or what they were. So I think it's just becoming more critical for us to not just understand, not just to know where we have them, but to also protect, keep our local ecotypic native species in a protected space away from mowers and invasives.

Yeah. And like Chase said, Lauren, I can certainly work with you to fill out an application to get there besides permanent.

OK. Yeah. But like first step would just be to get quotes. Right.

I mean, you can certainly do that in the meantime. Yeah. Yep.

Because we have the person that you that, you know, that was hired to do Cloverdale. So.

Oh, land stewardship. Yeah.

Yeah, it certainly, the means, the methods, the dollars involved, who's responsible for the dollars involved, those are all things that we would need to navigate together. But the overall concept, the broad vision, the goal, the end point, I think makes a lot of sense.

Yep, thank you. I mean, it's just kind of an extension of what and is going on in other places too, and just becoming more and more critical as we move into this kind of next phase of management now that we... We just have so many things stacked against us in this day and age. Well, we appreciate you.

The bumblebee garden is ecologically wonderful. It's also just beautiful. So thank you very much for sort of managing.

It's hard. I'm still waiting for the unicorn. all yellow bumblebee to appear, which it has been, which I've seen in what in Chelmsford and Southborough. And that's this rare Bombus fervidus, all yellow bumblebee that I don't, I don't, I don't have the magic formula yet, I guess, or maybe it's locally extirpated, but it's very, it's very humbling to try to make a garden in a remote place with, you know, it's just a tricky one, but yeah.

Understood.

Thank you.

I hate to cut you off. We have a very tight agenda. I know. Sorry, I talked too much. No, you're great. Thank you so much for coming in. And Tim and Lauren certainly be there to help you as we move into this next phase across the street.

Awesome. Thank you.

Thank you, Erin.

Let us know if you need anything.

Okay. Thank you so much. Take care. Bye.

Bye. Um, we appreciate everybody's patience is a important topic. Um, we're going to open up the 815 public hearing for the notice of intent for Beaverbrook DEP. Oh, it looks like at least when the agenda was printed, we didn't have a full DEP number, manual removal of water chestnuts and Dave Barr should be there. We go. There's Dave Barr. Um, Dave, I know Tim circulated today an update to the list of properties. So if you want to sort of take us through the application here and what you're looking for. And I think we can toss out any general questions. I don't think, well, not I don't think. If we don't have a DEP number, we can't approve it tonight unless one came in, Tim. Okay. No, not yet. So Dave, if you want to hit the high points or things that you think are substantive things that we need to understand, and then we'll have to continue it in any case to pick it up next meeting.

Yeah, I understand. So Friends of Forge Pond was made aware over the winter that one of our neighbors had seen some water chestnuts in Beaverbrook when they were hunting last fall over there. And so at that point, we couldn't verify that they were there because they were down for the winter and they Things were iced and snow. But we started the process of applying for a permit to remove them because it takes a while. And recently we were able to go back. and look at the area where they were reported and we did find them there. And they're in the Littleton portion of Beaverbrook. We are requesting permits from both Littleton and Westford to look in Beaverbrook and find where there are water chestnuts and remove them where we find them. The big concern here is that water chestnuts can very quickly spread. Individual plants will produce about a dozen seeds, and those seeds can last for 10 or 12 years. So a small infestation can quickly overwhelm stream or a river or a lake or a pond. So we saw, I would say, a few hundred plants when we went and looked. So we are hoping to be able to get approval in time to remove them before they drop their seeds for the season, which would be late July. And so we talked to Westford a couple of weeks ago, and this is our first hearing here with Littleton. We are, the section we're looking at is between Forge Pond and the Westford town line in Westford and between the Westford town line and where Beaverbrook first crosses under 495 in Littleton. And that's basically one section downstream of 119, another section between 119 and 495. And, you know, it would, it potentially could take a while for any plants to move downstream in, you know, or to But we felt like those areas had major open sections that it made sense to investigate upstream of there. It's narrower. It's harder to get into. There's more. more reeds in places and the number of properties involved becomes kind of exponentially bigger so we limited it to the from the western town line upstream to where it first crosses under 495 which is about 16 well it is 16 properties and at this point we have and we understand that we need to get the permission from the property owners where the stream crosses their property and we have shortly after we submitted this we sent out letters to the property owners and asked them explain what we were doing and what we were we asked them for permission to look for and remove any water chestnuts found in their section of Beaverbrook. So far we have five responses where the owners have given us permission. We believe we have, talking with Lauren and Tim about the Hartwell conservation area they were pretty sure that the commission would be in agreement so that was a sixth area that we listed on the revision that we sent today but we were looking to ask you whether you agree with that before Tim signs it Anyway, that's where we stand. So just the logistics of the revision today was that it was pointed out that we needed... property owner's permission in order to open the hearing and so we reduced the scope for the moment to the properties where we have permission and our hope would be that when we get additional permissions we can expand the scope. Unfortunately, at the moment, we don't have permission from the property where the plants were found. And the property owners aren't local. But at this point, I'll be trying to reach out to them to see if we can... The loan properties... their addresses in Connecticut. So our hope is that we could get approval for the properties that we have permission for with the condition that if we got more permissions I'm thinking ideally we could work with the conservation agents to expand it if the commission's willing to set it up that way. But we wouldn't be doing any work on any properties we don't have permission from in any case.

So what you're asking there is, let's say we issue the notice or we issue an order of conditions after that you get someone else that signs off on it, you'd like to make sure that you can do that too, right? So, Tim, let's assume we approve this. Tim, could you and Lauren look into our ability, like what, what would the conditions say to give the friends of ForgePond the ability to essentially add things onto that with your sort of sign off? Cause I think we'll want to make sure we have the right language to the extent that we even legally can do that.

Yeah, I could certainly look into that. The other option I would say is, um, if you guys are willing to entertain it is, um, if, you know, Dave gets another signature for another property, if he comes back and requesting a minor mod to just expand that as more of a formal commission approval of it. I mean, I guess my approval would be a formal one as well. Yeah.

That is that, um,

we, you know, you only meet every two weeks or twice a month and the seeds will drop around the end of July. And so we may get the permission in time to actually go in and work in the areas where we know the plants are, but the commission might not meet in time to be able to go in and do that before the seeds drop.

I would be willing to entertain town council may not love it, but some sort of retroactive. I do think we should ultimately sort of do a minor mod that memorializes it. But Tim, if you can find a way for us to do that, let's say retroactively, because I hear what Dave's saying in terms of we don't, if people are out there doing this work, we don't want to have to remobilize out to do it from one additional property or have the seeds drop in the process.

Yeah. Yeah, we can definitely look into that.

In other words, find us a credible legal way of doing it. And I think you have the green light to be as creative as you need to be to get. But I think that jumps over all of the bigger points, which are essentially is the commission supportive of this once we have a mass dep file number to proceed with an order of conditions and so i'd like to open it up to commissioners to see what questions comments or concerns commissioners have on the hand removal of water chestnut i will note one thing um that dave didn't touch on uh natural heritage has looked at this and there are a few conditions that Natural Heritage has requested, but nothing substantive in terms of not being able to do the work. Things like make sure that any wildlife on the water chestnuts gets returned to the water.

Their biggest, like you said, that was one, do that in two places and then clean the boats before and after. The biggest constraint was that they said we couldn't do it between August 15th and September 30th, I think, right? September 30th, right. So, you know, by August 15th, the seeds have dropped. Anyway, by October, it's kind of too late to be taking them out.

My goal with this discussion with commissioners, though, is that if the Friends of Forge ponder in front of us in two weeks, I'd like Dave to know, are we going to say yes or are we going to say no? So that he can, I think, credibly get everything lined up so that this could proceed essentially immediately after a formal vote.

Thank you. Yeah, there's fair amount of logistics to getting... It's a difficult area to get into, and once you're in there, there's not a lot of room to move around, so you can't have a ton of boats, and the boats have to be basically kayaks or canoes. And then you have to get the plants out of there in a way that you're not spreading them, you're not dropping them.

Commissioners, questions, comments, or concerns?

How are you getting rid of it after you pull them all out?

They'll be composted. That's the standard process. Keeping them out of the water. They're okay to be composted. Whether we do that at a... commercial site or if somebody wants to manage it themselves, we'll just make sure that they're not getting anywhere back near the wetlands.

Yeah, I would say, Dave, I'd hit on the same question I have. I would require a condition here that says that you will, the composting will be outside of all Wetland Protection Act resource areas, and you will notify the Littleton Conservation Agent about where you're doing that composting.

Right. Sure. Yep.

Hey, Chase. A lot of these, from my experience with water chestnut harvesting, is one of the better ways to handle it, in addition to the compost, is you're supposed to spread them and let them dry, and then you can compost them. But from my experience, that's how most people that are harvesting these things do. The other thing is When you harvest them, you need to get as much of the plant as you possibly can because, as you know, Dave, little pieces spread throughout the system. So it's not an easy thing to do. I understand what you're saying with the small boats and kayaks is probably the best way to do it.

Yes, thanks, Carl. That's right. We've had some members that have participated in other water chestnut removal events recently to gain some experience in how to do it and It does take some care, but if you are careful, the roots do come up. And you're right, you have to make sure you get everything.

And Carl, looking at their performance guidelines, I liked two things. One was provide a fragment barrier around areas to be harvested. And the other was guidance on harvesting the entire plantation. including to the extent, the greatest extent possible, the root system.

Yeah. Yep. But I'm all in favor of it. You don't want, you certainly don't want a test and taking over the waterway. That's for damn sure.

Great. I'd agree with Carl and she's, um, Thank you, Dave, for leading this charge as always. And yeah, no, I would be very supportive of this in two weeks.

Okay, Dave. So I think what you can say here is to the extent that there are other folks who haven't signed on yet that you have I don't think you're overstating it to say you have conservation commission support to do it. If that helps people get their head around it. I also would suggest that if you have someone who's concerned a little bit about the town stance on this, that Tim, I'm volunteering you for a lot of stuff tonight, but I think you could point them to Tim too, who could talk to them and say, no, that the commission is very supportive of this. Right. Yeah.

And I, I may send follow up. I mean, uh, in, in our cover letter, we didn't say, you know, that we will specifically only be in the stream. We will not be on your property otherwise, which might be what some of them might be concerned about. But, you know, we did say that we're just going to be going in to remove, um, uh, in the stream. Um, so, uh, My main interest at the moment is getting the permission from the one or two properties where we've already seen them.

Very good. Well, good luck with that. We have to continue it until we have a formal EP file number, but I think you're good to go.

Appreciate it. Thanks. Thanks, Steve.

Do I have your guys' blessing to sign off on the Hartwell property portion of this?

Oh, yeah. Sorry. I think we should formally make a motion to authorize the Friends of Forge Ponds use of the Hartwell property for uh water chestnut removal purposes in association with the notice of intent filed uh june 1st discussed yeah i guess we want a number there there's a convoluted motion but i think it'll do that'll work second all right roll call vote ed ed full side kyle i'm actually like carl i'm not a guy cheese chase caribbean guy

Myself, I it's unanimous.

Okay. Thanks a lot. Okay.

Okay. We're going to move on to the eight 30 continued public hearing on the notice of intent for three 59 King street DEP file number two Oh four, 10 35 for site redevelopment. Who is here to speak to that one? Is this, this is Joe.

So Mark Arnold here with Goddard Consulting is here along with Joe. Joe Calero is with us as well as Dwight Long.

Very good. So Mark, you want to take us through any updates on this? We had a site walk, what, about a week and a half ago? Exactly. Anything that you guys have changed in the meantime?

Yeah, so we took the comments that we got from the site walk, which we appreciated. One of the comments was the installation of bounds to kind of demarcate the limit of kind of like the developed area as we redevelop the property to kind of like demarcate the limit of lawn and landscaping. And so our intention is to proposed bounds, basically along the outside of the proposed cart path, which I'll just pull up the current landscaping plans just so you can see that. So conceptually, as a team, we're working on exactly where we want to put these, but basically we'd install them along the outside of this pathway, and they would kind of tie into this garden, and then from here again to here, so that would kind of demarcate the The pathway kind of being your barrier to any manicured lawn beyond that and everything else would be maintained as agricultural fields as it has in the past. And the other comment we had during the site walk that we were working on addressing is there is a desire to install an open shelter shed for a horse or animals in the back fields. The plan would be to put that outside the buffer zone. It's the kind of structure that you could basically put in the back of a pickup truck in terms of materials, install it with hand-dug sonotubes, basically put it up. So it's not a full-blown four-sided shed that's like for like, you know, full-time winter with utilities, et cetera. It's basically mostly either one or three-sided shed with one side completely open. It's mainly for shelter when it's raining heavily or it's windy for livestock to gather some shelter. And again, the plan is to put that outside the buffer zone. So we will plan on showing that on the plan somewhere. So again, we do have that actually here. So again, we'll make sure it's clear what this actually means. And we'll re-change the wording and explain what it means. But again, in terms of a barn, it's not the classical New England barn. It's going to be more of an open shelter shed. So you're building a run-in shed. Exactly. It's a run-in shed. Exactly. Yep.

Yeah. We have those for our horses as well.

Yep. So those are the two really major updates from the site walk. And we wanted to make sure there wasn't anything else that... was missed. We're working with planning board on on their review of things with the stormwater, everything else. And so we're hoping to kind of conclude any comments that we have from the Commission in terms of the project tonight. So we have those all together. And we can do like one plan revision at least covers all the conservation Commission comments. So we can have a tight set that has all the details and all the notes that you want to see. So we have a plan set that we can all agree is a plan set that adequately shows what the Commission is approving.

Mark, I think one, my comment on the barn, since you're riffing on that, so everyone is aware, I talked with Mark a little bit on the sidewalk, not just about that barn, because frankly, jurisdictionally, as long as it's outside of the resource area, they can do it. The real challenge is getting it out there. And I think, Mark, one thing that could be helpful there to sort of assuage my concerns is to make sure that there's some construction notes about the equipment that will be used to actually get the, to build the run-in shed and any restoration that might need to be done. I don't think there will be any, but what might need to be done to restore any resource areas that could be disturbed in the process of getting equipment or materials out there to construct that.

Yeah, certainly.

That's probably just a couple of notes on the drawing to make sure it's clear.

Yep, absolutely. Yeah, I think we can put together some notes that are very clear to make sure that, again, any type of vehicle traffic that does pass through the buffer zone would make sure that it didn't impact the vegetation. Or if there was any roughing up that we could add, we'd throw it at what seed we'd use, et cetera, so we can make sure that it's adequately restored and stabilized.

And, you know, like one other thing, you know, traversing the minimum distance through the buffer zone to reach that area and not doing it during seasons when it's wet. I think I could reach a determination that there would be no resource area impact as long as it's not overly wet. When you do it, you're using reasonable equipment, you know, things like that, that you're minimizing the travel distance. Then it becomes a, a thing that is not an impact.

Yep, understood. Yeah, I think we can provide you that good level of detail if you're comfortable.

Other comments or questions on the plan that Mark's got for us?

Mark, one thing real quick. Actually, two. Something that we discussed on-site at the site walk, and I think Andrew confirmed that there's not going to be any trees that are being taken down within jurisdictional law prisons, right?

um that yeah that is that is the case yes yeah that is there's one tree by the path here um but that one's remaining so we're just basically coming right alongside that tree there you can see the existing path already basically comes along that tree um so we're just going to kind of you know wish work right next to that tree just like we had before i'm going to take that down and then this tree back here is obviously not being touched by the path down here and and there's nothing around this area so um I believe the landscape plan has details for tree protection and I'll make sure that they're on the detail sheets so that way those trees that are in the buffer zone that are near where we're going to be working do have adequate protection just to make sure that we keep all those trees protected during construction.

Excellent. The other thing that I wanted to discuss, one other thing that we talked about on site, was the area within the 50-foot no-disturb where it shows the proposed pavers. I think Andrew mentioned that that is not going to be proposed to be pavers anymore?

Correct. It's going to be a gravel cart path, yes. Okay. Yep. Yep.

And that's a continuation of what's already there, right? So to the extent that that's showing work within the 50, it's simply continuing or simply sort of redoing what's already disturbed there.

Basically, yep, exactly. Right in that edge, it's all within that. There's a chain link fence right there already. And exactly, just kind of making sure we have a good radius there.

Can you go out to the shed again for a second?

gonna build a shed but what what mechanism is keeping the animals out of the out of the wetlands um the the the whole the whole property um is fenced in and has been used historically for a livestock in the past um so um there's nothing that prohibits the livestock accessing the entire back area in terms of Livestock that happens every day. I know of farms that have cattle that go through, that have perennial rivers running right through the cattle runs and the cattle go right through the river, they lay in the river. I feel that's a little weird, because to have a perennial river seems to be a little more significant than an intermittent stream. But still, it's, I mean, that river is actually in the watershed to the Waukesha reservoir. So, but it's basically, the livestock is allowed to wander through there. I mean, we will be putting a lot of, I believe there's intentions to do some protections for some of the plantings to make sure they don't get damaged by the livestock if they are out there. They will eat them. Yeah, the livestock otherwise would be kind of left to roam in the buffer zones where there isn't any plantings or anything.

The other condition that we talked about in the field was we have standard conditions about fertilizers, fertilizer application rates, organic fertilizers. I would propose that we make sure that Tim and Lauren include those standard conditions here.

Yep, I think that's good. I don't think there's need to fertilize back there. If you do grazing and you strategically graze it out, you get natural fertilization through the livestock. So particularly if you do strategic grading where you actually just move, you can have temporary electric fences, you can move them around if you want to, and then you can strategically graze each area and you just, it gives a good a good amount of nutrients but also lets the grass regrow and you get more grass and then they come back and get better nutrients and it's a good cycle for soil regeneration the space is not going to be able to handle very many horses so because they will graze it down by the end of the summer Yeah, I think right now there's, I mean, I heard there was one horse that was the applicant's daughter. It's being put elsewhere, I think, this summer because of the permitting time that this has taken. But we're hoping to, again, have a permit so we can get the shed up there. And hopefully next year we have a lovely horse walking around and the neighbors have something to do.

One or two won't be a problem. But much beyond that, this field won't survive. So I can speak from experience.

So Mark, to be clear, you're not looking for a vote tonight. You just want to make sure you get all the comments, critiques, concerns, criticisms.

Yep, exactly. If there's anything else, particularly that the commission wanted to hear or see on the plans or further clarity, we want to make sure we have all that so we can kind of provide you one kind of updated package with everything. And hopefully at the next meeting, we'll have a plan that will be actually approved by planning board or near there. And then we can kind of hopefully have plans that coincide with each other.

So commissioners, any other comments that we have, concerns that the applicant needs to address? So Mark, my understanding is, I just need you to confirm it, you're looking for a continuance to the next conservation commission meeting?

Yes, please. Oh, Joe, do you have one more comment? Your hand's up.

Mr. Chairman, we intend to go to the planning board Thursday evening, we're on the schedule. So I think in speaking on behalf of Mr. Long, we would appreciate a positive vote tonight so that we can pass that on to the planning board so we can keep this moving along. So I'd like to correct Mark. If we could get a vote tonight, that would be very, very helpful so we can try to get this project underway.

What I would recommend here, Joe, is that we could ask Tim to communicate to Maren the general support of this. I'm a little hesitant to go down that pathway. You're the applicant. You have the right to ask for the vote. I like to see these things buttoned up on plans. As we talked about, we can be prickly creatures here. So I personally would rather see these things just finalized and ask Tim to communicate to Maren to communicate to the planning board that all of our substantive concerns have been expressed and we expect them to be resolved without a formal vote on something that isn't final yet.

That's fair. Anything we could do to keep moving this along would be much appreciated. So if that's the course that you need to take, Mr. Chairman, we respect that.

Joe, would you like the commission to vote to authorize Tim to let the planning board know that the commission is just pending minor plan changes before they approve the plan set? That would be great. Yes, please. Yes.

I think Tim can probably do that without a formal vote. I think this is record enough of that. But certainly, I think that that makes a lot of sense to have Tim communicate to Marin. We do better as a town when everybody's talking.

Fair enough. That's fine. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Okay. Very good. Then we will continue this to July 7th, Tim? July 7th? Is that what we're doing? That's correct. Yep. Okay. Very good. Thank you all.

Thank you. Thank you. Bye now.

And I've lost the agenda. Where's the agenda? Okay, next up, we have our 9 p.m. notice of intent. Oh, sorry, 8.45 p.m. to a Cataldo Pond Way. MassDEP file number 204-1034, Portable Liquid Natural Gas Facility. So what I'd like to do here is I believe there was a site walk. The applicant could introduce any components of the project that you think we need to understand. Then I'd like to have a report out on findings from the site walk, and then we can come back to the applicant and then we can go to commissioner questions and comments.

I'm sorry, Chase, I lost you at the beginning there. Could you repeat that?

Yeah, Sam, I wanted to know if you could speak to any changes in the plan, anything that the commission needs to know, then I'd like to have a report out from those that are on the sidewalk findings and then We can see where we go from there.

Of course.

But the floor is yours to discuss the project first.

Thank you. Yeah. So my name is Sam Kepferstan. I'm an ecologist with BSC Group. And we have a number of updates to share regarding the project. So our last time we appeared in front of you all, there was a number of information requests. So we had provided the stormwater report that was provided to the Littleton Planning Board, to the Commission, as well as Army Corps wetland forms. as well as we also updated our environmental resource map that was based on the site visit and a call for some additional flagging just to better demarcate the wetland for the commission as well as snow storage locations to be shown on the plan. Our professional wetland scientists also met with CONCOM staff earlier this week just to discuss the wetland line and get out there with you all. This pertinent but in Westford for the portion of the project is in Westford and we were issued a conditional negative determination for that project or for that portion of the project in Westford. And one of the big pieces is from the site visits and the initial review of the project, there was talk of mitigation for the 12 tree removals that are proposed within the buffer zone. And we did share that planting plan earlier today, but we recognize the commission had little time to review that, but the hope is that um you know we wanted to share the plan for some initial feedback and review um so that we can incorporate that and and update our plan accordingly and share at um you know a subsequent hearing for for the commission's approval okay even after after i was out of the office so i i didn't get a chance to forward that over the commission for for the review

That sounds good. Thank you, Tim. So essentially your plan tonight, Sam, what you'd like is for us to make sure that we express any additional substantive concerns, understanding that there are some things we haven't looked at and you're expecting a continuation.

That's correct. Yeah, we're expecting a continuation. If possible during our time tonight, I know it's a packed agenda. I have the planting plan as well as a representative from our landscape architecture team just to share some initial impressions and thoughts. We definitely would love to get... If there's anything that the commission prefers or likes to see in the mitigation plan, we definitely want to have that take place tonight if possible.

we've gotten burned on this in the past, but if, if as long as you'll acknowledge that, you know, our comments may be incomplete, I'm not opposed to taking a look at it, but I just want to be really clear. Taking a look at it doesn't mean that we're sort of only the comments we make tonight are the comments that are sort of fair to raise in a So let's set the planting plan logistically. Let's set that aside sort of to the end, and we can talk about that in real time. Let's talk about the other substantive questions with respect to flagging, delineation, snow storage, and so on. Commissioners, what do we want to see here? Who has comments on those things?

I have a concern about the flags. This is the second site walk down where that specifically has been called out. Sarah and I went, and it was not anywhere near sufficiently flagged. And then I saw the notes, I wasn't able to go the second time. And again, it called out flagging. So I don't understand, what's the holdup there?

Ed, one of the wetland scientists was actually able to get out there yesterday. I wasn't in the office yesterday, but Warren actually got a chance to go out with the wetland scientist when he was hanging those flags additional flags and she had him take some soil samples as well where it was questionable. My understanding is the applicant was looking to submit that revised plan showing those additional wetland flag locations on this new plan. Sam, is that the plan that you sent over this afternoon?

That's correct. Yes.

Okay.

And Carl, were you able to attend the site walk?

Yeah. Hi. Yeah, I did. I did it. Do you guys hear me now?

Yeah. And are these sort of flag revisions based on in some part of your comments in the field as well?

Yes. Yeah, both Tim and I observed that some of the flag locations appeared to be off from what we could tell. And they needed to have an intermediate flag installed, which I think is what they did. Because the distance between flag to flag incorporates some wetlands. So we needed some intermediate flags. to do that. And then we also noticed that the distance from the wetland flag to where they showed the 50 foot was not accurate. And that needed to be, yeah, that needed to be fixed also.

Sam, would you be able to show the whatever most updated plan you have that shows the wetland flag line. Sure thing. So we can kind of point out to the commission at least one flag that we were looking at out there. I believe it was 104.

Yeah, 103 or 104.

Yep, right there. So looking at the plan right now, it's a little... deceiving um we measured out 50 feet from the the flag 104 and it goes i would say about maybe 10 to 12 feet into the existing disturbed area whereas if you look if you're looking at the 50 foot on here almost looks like it's at the the edge of the existing disturbed area um so just wanted to to point that out um Because we noticed that for at least that one flag that we actually took the measurement at to the 50 foot in the field.

Right, right.

Yeah, if I can chime in on that point, I recognize that ER map, kind of the frame of reference might be a bit... you know, confusing or a little off, but, you know, our site plans were based off of the, off of this wetland line. And so we've, you know, after the first hearing and site visit, especially with it being so close to that do not disturb, you know, we, we've confirmed with, you know, the designer that no work, including, you know, pavement or,

fencing installation uh what have you is taking place within that 50 foot no disturb hey tim um were you able to uh look at the past records i i knew exactly where you're going with that yeah i was just about to chime in on that um another thing that that we talked about briefly out there in the field was um the history of this area and the permitting of this existing disturbed area. Carl, I have some information on that. I also have aerial imagery that I could show that would probably help inform you guys as I talk about it. So back in 2000 and, it was either 2006, 2007, and I'll pull up this imagery to show you. This area was part of a larger project that was permitted. I believe it was called the Village at the Common for the development of a bunch of, it was a subdivision development here. This area where there is the parking area right now, it was permitted to be, you can see right here, proposed soil absorption area, as well as sediment format. And so that was on the approved plan. You can see this is the wetland line right here. This is back in the 2006 delineation. So pre-BIWA, right?

Tim, can you orient me a little bit? So the wetland line, so this was the approved plan and essentially allowed work right up to the edge of the resource area? Yes, pretty much. OK.

Where's the road that's there today, Tim? That's not the one that is at the bottom of your picture.

Yes. Yes, that is. So this is the existing disturbed area and the road goes off down here and then it goes, it's not shown on here, but there's a road in this direction. So this is 2008 when the work had begun. You can see this is the well and back here, the Ford Bay assuming was going to go right here and the soil absorption area back here. You can see the road. So this was 2008, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014. I'm not sure if this had an extension. because if the order got issued in 2006, it's only valid for three years. So I don't have clarity on this work, the change between 2011 and 12, and 2013, 2014. And then 2015, in 2019, which is pretty representative of how it looks generally today. There's a lot less, there's no containers over here. The containers are, there's a couple towards this portion of the site. So that was what we found when we did our digging on the history of the site, Carl. That was the last thing that we saw was where it was in front of the commission for development of this portion was this approved plan right here.

The site was never developed.

You're right. The subdivision, it never came to fruition. It built houses, but it never completed.

Right. Right. never completed. I don't know the status of the permit, whether it was ever extended or anything like that. The thing that got my attention, Chase, was the film material that was placed within the 50. And the only reason, I mean, it was obvious, we're looking at this project, which is trying to stay out of the 50, and then we have this fill material on the Kimball property, that's within the 50, pushing quite a ways in. So I just needed, before I could logically look at and make an evaluation on this particular application, I just needed to know the status of that project which Tim was looking at.

Yeah, and it looks like It looks like the change, right, between, you know, when it was in development and, you know, clearly this is not the soil absorption area and the sediment forebay. This was, you know, 2013, 2014, which is pre-bylaw. That being said, you know, don't have record of this work right here being permitted for the development like this, like it became.

They're looking to pave this over.

Yeah, we can jump back into that.

As long as I'm clear on this point, Tim, I'm good. I'm just having trouble analyzing the 50 when there's material already in the 50. That's all.

So Carl, so bringing it all the way back to the existing project, based on the existing conditions, because I don't, I know there are different statutes of limitations under the Wetlands Protection Act for enforcement orders, but I'm going to presume that none of them would allow us to go all the way back to 2013, even if that was done incorrectly at the time. How does that bear on the project in front of us now? Are there things associated with the current project that you think are insufficient to protect the resource area?

No, if I look at the existing project and just the only things that we already just talked about, the wetland lines, the distance, from that 103 wetland flag to the 50. Those would be the only issues for looking directly at this project now.

Okay. Andrew, Ed, Kyle, do you guys have additional substantive concerns as it exists today?

Yeah. I mean, it's kind of a tricky situation because the baseline that we're working with now, I mean, it, it's not a true permitted baseline. So how do you build from that?

That's the point. That's the point, Andrew, that I'm having, I'm struggling with.

Yeah. Cause I mean, if this work was completed 12, 13 years ago under the radar and now it's, you know, it's not getting a true representation of the 50, um, How do you... That's hard to kind of... Hard to kind of move from. I mean, and it's beyond the point of probably even retroactively permitting at this point, so... Or would we even permit it? You know, if that still, you know... Well, I mean, it was done pre-50-foot noticer bylaw, but still...

I mean, it was deliberately put in because... We also noticed within that line of film material there was a there's definitely a constructed ditch with cobble on both sides of it. So it was definitely meant to control water down through there. So again like Andrew brought up It's difficult. It just makes it difficult if we just forget the whole thing and say we can't do anything about it. It was done.

Here's what I would propose if one or two members of the commission are willing to do so. I would suggest that we and the agents get together with town council for a few minutes to understand what What the implications are here. I think that would be a productive discussion with maybe one or two commissioners and Tim and someone from Tom's office. Carl, would you be willing to sit in on that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'd definitely be willing to sit on that.

And Andrew, maybe you too. Would you two be good with that?

Yeah, potentially if it's, you know, even like, you know, maybe like mid-afternoon on like a Friday.

Okay. Yeah, I think what I'd like to do is have you guys meet with Tim and Town Council and sort of report out on that while simultaneously looking at this right now as it currently exists, because those sorts of answers from Town Council could come to bear on things, but I think we also have to look at the project in front of us. And so what I'd like to do is be able to give Sam substantive comments on the project as it exists while we also run down any let's say, legal avenues that need to be resolved.

Yeah, I'd be more than happy to do that. Once I have that clear in my mind, it'll be a hell of a lot easier for me.

Okay. If I'm not changing subjects too much, there is one additional sort of technical issue, Sam, that I wanted to know if we could talk about real quick. Sure. Could you bring up the site plan again?

Of course.

I wanted to talk about, you have like a... You have like a backup generator. Yeah, proposed transformer, an emergency generator. What I wanted to understand were things like fuel storage and things like that and where is that emergency generator running on diesel or is it running on natural gas? How does that all work? And essentially what I want to get to is are we storing oil or hazardous substances in a resource area or in a place where if they were to fail, it could end up in a resource there.

Yeah, great question. And I see Matt Wozniak got like elevated. So if you want to take this, Matt, the floor is yours.

Sure. Thanks, Sam. Hi, good evening. My name is Matt Wozniak. I'm an environmental engineer with National Grid. And that backup generator there will be run on natural gas. We do not anticipate storing diesel or any kind of petroleum fluids on this site. You know, there'll be the tankers with the liquefied natural gas. There's four potentially at the site at one time. Those are those white rectangles in the beginning, in the middle of the parking lot. Yes, Sam. Those will have LNG, but those aren't stored on site per se. When we anticipate a need to vaporize, the trucks will arrive a day or two beforehand. They'll be hooked up. Then they'll vaporize all the contents, and then they'll be sent off site because they'll be empty. So there's no certain permanent storage or long-term storage of chemicals on the site.

Okay. Why do you need? Um, Matt, when you say vaporize, talk me through the process. What does that mean?

Okay, so liquefied natural gas is natural gas that is cryogenic. It's stored at minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit. And by storing it in such a cold temperature, it contracts on a ratio of roughly 600 to 1. the volume of, you know, it's shrunk down. So you can store a lot of natural gas in those containers. So when a day comes when it's cold out or when the demand will potentially exceed the supply in the distribution system, This plant will go into operation. We will run the liquefied natural gas through what are called vaporizers. But they are basically heating elements that heat it up. The liquid expands 600 times. And then it is put into the distribution network and sent to the homes.

OK. That's large. I just wanted to make sure we weren't, I don't know, I don't know the process very well, somehow cleaning something out or allowing something to vaporize to the environment. So when you say vaporize, you mean just to enter into the distribution system as a gas as opposed to storage as a liquid. Okay.

Yes. It's a closed system. Nothing is in the atmosphere.

Okay. I had one other question on stormwater. Tim, Planning Board is looking at this as well. Is that correct?

I don't believe they've opened in front of Planning Board yet. I think in the beginning of July. In July 9th. Okay. Have we...

Have we coordinated? Well, we couldn't have if they hadn't opened, but I would like a peer review on the stormwater just to make sure everything is appropriate. I expect planning board would ask for that as well. Have you discussed that? And if it was in the minutes and I'm forgetting, I apologize.

Since this last, when we met on May 12th, we met informally with the Littleton Planning Board, introduced them to the project. We submitted a stormwater application. We are submitting site plan review application, and they indicated that both those will be subject to third-party review.

Okay.

Chase, is there anything? Oh, sorry. Okay.

No, just as long as the reviewer is also cognizant of the resource areas. At the end of the day, the stormwater handbook is the stormwater handbook, whether it's conservation commission or planning board that asks for the peer review. So I'm good with it, as long as someone's looking at it. I want a peer reviewer to sign off on the stormwater.

A couple things we talked about. The first sidewalk that I don't see noted on here was the drainage. We specifically talked about that you needed to make sure you didn't drain it back toward the wetlands. And the other was noting stow storage, where you're going to plow and all that.

Yeah, so in... okay just making sure i'm not muted um so we did you know show let me zoom out these these are the um snow storage locations and so in line with our uh the stormwater report as well as the maintenance of you know the the impervious and the pervious pavement um in terms of snow storage most of it's going to be accomplished using upland pervious areas like the road shoulder. And then we also, as needed, we highlighted an alternative area within the lot that could be used to store snow. And there's also off the map It would be within Westford, but there are the batting cages at Kimball's that, you know, the owners of Kimball's have informed us can be utilized as needed if the areas we've shown aren't, if it's a particularly heavy snow year. Okay. Yeah, in terms of having grades shown on the map, I apologize that I must have missed that note. I wasn't at the first site visit, but really it's been this outer edge is pervious pavement, and so the thought is that the grades have been done in such a way to guide stormwater to the pervious pavement, and it would be able to you know, essentially diffuse and recharge groundwater through those pervious points. And the stormwater report we had shared, you know, showed that we were able to satisfy all of the standards and even those set out by the Littleton Planning Board as well.

Can I ask a really dumb question here that I'm sure we've already addressed? Why does it have to be in this corner as opposed to fully outside of the resource area? In other words, if plan north, why can't it be plan northeast as opposed to plan southwest?

Sure, so Matt, definitely chime in if I leave out any details here, but because of the nature of these, you know, the roadway and how the LNG is going to get brought into the site, it needed to be in this location in order to support the trucks to turn around and leave the site.

We have a truck turning around.

Yeah, that's what dictated the size of the pavement and the location of the equipment.

I would like to request, I appreciate what you're saying makes a lot of sense to me. I think in the interest of one of the things that we have to demonstrate is that you've considered feasible alternatives and I think, or you are pursuing the least impactful feasible alternative. And in that sense, it will probably drive a design engineer nuts. I would like to see the auto turn measurements if you take it outside of the resource area. In other words, prove to me through auto turn that you can't make the turns that you need.

Okay.

Yeah, we can. Here's where I'm going. I don't love that we have all of the noise and all of the lights in close proximity to that vernal pool. And so I'm going to come back to light in a second. But that is a particularly sensitive ecosystem there. And the further we can get things away from that, the better. So I think we just really need to see a firm basis, firm documentation for why it has to be here as opposed to outside of the resources.

I think we asked a similar question with the first site walk. Why was it over there? Something else that and nothing has changed is why it's necessary to take out the trees on the left side when you've got so much room for everything else already. And they're big trees. I appreciate that they may not be in the resource area and stuff, but I'm still going to stand up for the trees.

Yeah. I think showing the truck turning movements will help. But we also, because we are vaporizing natural gas and there's some equipment, there's setbacks that we have. per electrical codes and per other things that require space between pieces of equipment. And so that has also led to this layout that we have.

That's a thing, Tim, that I'd like to make sure Planning Board is also looking at, that I appreciate that there are these codes that may dictate these things that are way outside of our area of expertise. But if they are dictating these setbacks, I want to know from planning board that they really do have to have these setbacks. That they're being interpreted correctly and implemented correctly.

Yeah, sure.

I'm going to turn to a really narrow bore thing. I would also like to understand from you all what you're proposing in terms of light poles and how the hoods and the construction of those light poles will minimize light shining on the resource areas and in particular that vernal pool. Because you can really screw up wildlife meeting cycles with too much light in those vernal pools.

Yeah, we can definitely look to pull some more detailed information. I would just share that we did have this project reviewed by Natural Heritage, and we had submitted a MESA checklist to them for the two endangered species that are likely to be found in the area or where this serves as good habitat for them. You know, we did get a no-take finding so long as we implement the mitigation, such as like the turtle protection plan that we had included with our MISA checklist.

Understood, and I think I'm here leveraging our prerogative as a local conservation commission to go above and beyond those requirements.

Understood. Yeah, we can definitely pull some more detailed information to share with you for leading up to the next hearing.

And essentially what I want to know is you are using the minimum amount of light that you need for safety and it's being designed in a way to minimize its impact on the resource areas through the hood, through the type of light, through timing, through motion sensors, essentially all of those aspects.

Okay, we can definitely pull that and look to share for next hearing.

Last question is noise. How much noise does this generate?

We have done studies. We have This equipment, I mean, we can provide that because that's something that the planning board has asked. And so we're working on it.

What I'm going to ask you to do is to take it one step further than the planning board will and benchmark the amount of noise generation to levels that are potentially disruptive to ecological resources and particularly vernal pools. I'm fully receptive to the idea that it may not be significant, but I want you to lay that out for us.

Okay. It is not very long, but we'll pull that information.

Is it steady when there's no trucks, there's no noise, right?

Correct. This is planned to operate 15 to 20 days over the winter, you know, so it's not constant and it's, you know, periodic on the cold days. This will run for a day or two and then it'll be silent.

And when the trucks are there, the noise is primarily the... I forget what you called it.

Vaporizer.

Vaporizer, thank you.

Yeah, they're heating up the liquid natural gas.

Okay. So, Sam, since you're looking for a continuation here in any case, I think, packed agenda, I want to keep moving. Commissioners, are there any other things that we need to put on their radar as substantive concerns?

Okay.

So Sam, oh, Kyle, you just came off mute.

Yeah, sorry. Were you going to continue on to, I know you had some wariness about a potential planting plan.

Yeah, I wanted to give Sam two minutes to put the plan up just to see what's there and we can throw darts at it. And then Sam, you can think about those darts.

Yes. Yeah. And understand, you know, this is preliminary, you know, and there may be additional comments come, you know, time in between the hearing and next hearing. Would it be possible, could I ask, just we have another staff member, Casey Lee Bastian, who I believe is in the audience, if it's possible to make him a panelist just so he can give you that elevator pitch, that would be great.

Yep, if we did it right, Casey Lee should be moving over now.

And are we able to see this plan? Or is it still on the?

Yeah, it looks like a planting plan of some sort or true.

Yeah, yeah.

Yep.

Great. Thank you.

Hello, Casey Lee Bastion, landscape architect and ecologist with BSC Group. And we were asked to develop a plan for offsetting the impact to the trees being removed inside the buffer zone. And we've looked at that and there are some areas in and around the area of clearing where we can perform some infill planting. So this would be adding back some birch and understory species as well as a certain amount of shrub to match that quantity and we're aiming for like a two and a half to one per unit replacement. And the importance of doing some of the understory pieces with the additional light. This helps to prevent anything that might migrate in because edges are very active. So it's valuable to have some multiple layers of canopy and understory for the biodiversity in those edges. That's what we've proposed. Any questions?

I mean, I'll tell you at first blush, you're probably in the right general ballpark in terms of replanting ratios. Do you want to run through the species real quick, Casey Lee? I'd be interested to make sure more educated commissioners on this have a chance to weigh in on if the species makes sense to them.

Yep. So we're working with yellow birch and sweet birch. That's Betula allegheny. And Lenta, we'll be doing some American Hornbeam or Musselwood, Carpinus, some Hazelnut, Corillus, some Hawthorn, Crataegus kruzgalli, Witch Hazel, Hamamelis, and a Prunus virginii and a Chilk Cherry. Then for a lower piece, but still fairly large, some Withrod Viburnum, so Viburnum cassinoides, again, a group of things sort of for a spread of fruit and flower throughout the season, as well as reasonably large mass for things that we can help to infill and restore the forest edge.

How big would the saplings be that you're putting in?

Sorry, can you repeat that?

How... How big are the sap lines that are going to be installed? The yellow birches and that kind of thing?

We looked at the soil and spaces and it looked better than we had expected. So we can still do probably two inch caliper ball and burlap on the larger trees and probably five to ten gallon container for the smaller pieces. So you can expect those to be in the multi-stem and five to six foot height.

Thank you.

So presuming, and I don't take this as approval, but presuming that we agree with the location of this and replanting is necessary, the question for commissioners is, did you hear anything there that's like a non-starter for you, something that, you know, you really think is worth getting out now before you dig into the weeds in terms of species, density, locations?

I don't think that I would get into it.

I always refer to Carl or Tim and Lauren for issues. If Carl doesn't speak up and if he doesn't have any major concerns.

I'm happy with the way they're thinking about replanting. It's always the thing that always bugs me, of course, is... the loss of the big trees. Absolutely.

I think we shouldn't take that as a foregone conclusion here just because we're talking about the replanting plan.

Right. I mean, there are several fairly large trees that we're going to lose. I mean, of course, the replanting never replaces big trees, so we're just looking at a 30-year horizon. I'm 100% with you.

Kyle, I brought that up on our sidewalk as well, that they're taking out some really nice trees.

In terms of tree removal, and I'm going against what I just said, Is National Grid going to come back and argue in five years that they need to clear a whole bunch of area around this because the large trees pose a safety risk to a thing that we're building now? Because right now the trees that are being removed are in the construction footprint, but there's a whole bunch of large trees not far from here, too.

Yeah, so you're, that is a good question. And that's something that I asked my colleagues about, because we don't want trees that are within five to 10 feet of the fence, that would provide an opportunity for someone to climb over the climb up the tree and then over the fence. So I asked him to create this planting plan with that in mind. So he has put the trees off to the side and away, you know, they're not in close proximity to the fence. So we have addressed, you know, we've thought about that in advance.

May I add to that? One thing that I would appreciate is a narrative from you based on the trees that you've seen out there, both in terms of safety, in terms of someone being able to climb over it, but also in terms of when large trees might get too large so that they pose a risk if they were to fall on the plant. And so I would like you to opine on when other large trees in proximity are likely to pose a risk? Is it five years? Is it 10 years? Is it 50 years?

And not just up at that far end, but all the way along the edge, because this whole backside has got trees. I mean, if you're going to go start to chop up trees, that I personally have a big problem with that.

That's the right question. And we typically go for it. Thank you, Matt.

But I think what you guys are hearing is to the extent that what needs to be removed here, I don't think you got any major pushback on the general concept. We'll have to dig into the meat of it. Thank you. Sam, if it's okay with you and your team, I think we've spent a long time on this and a pack tonight. I'd like to move on unless there are any major questions that you feel like you still need to ask or don't have resolution on.

no i think at this time you know we really appreciate the time that you all took to you know go through questions discuss the project and even review this uh planting plan you know albeit quickly so i think um matt unless there's anything else i think we're we're okay to move forward with the continuance this evening yes i appreciate everyone's time thank you very good thank you all

Okay. Allison, you're going to be up. We're going to move on to, boy, it's getting late. 9 p.m., the notice of intent for the transmission line improvements right away. DEP file number 204-1033. Allison, when you are over, if you want to jump in, I think we had, last time we met, we had some questions and some comments for you. I would appreciate it if you could sort of take those one by one, let us know what changes have been made or what things you've considered, and then we can see where we go from there.

Okay, thank you. Alison Milliman, BSC Group, on behalf of the applicant, New England Power Company. We also have Andrew Cole on the line for any pointed questions that maybe he's better suited to respond to. If I may share my screen, please.

Yeah, go for it, Alison.

Okay. So last time we met with the Commission, the areas of interest for further discussion were specifically Blood Road and the farm property adjacent. Since our last hearing, the applicant has met with the landowner to discuss the concerns that were raised at the last hearing. As such, we've made revisions to our site plan to reflect those discussions in the field that were had. I think the big takeaways here were that there were concerns about the use of blood road with heavy equipment. Now, we've changed the NOI plans here to identify that blood road will only be used for temporary construction. Oh, I'm not showing the right plan. I'm sorry. Give me one second, please. I apologize. We changed our file structure.

Here we are.

Okay. Here's the updated plan. Okay. So the general concerns were use of Blood Road by large equipment and the proximity to Blood Road to the resource area. Updated plans that I'm now sharing. You're able to see those?

Yes.

Okay. Thank you. Is that Blood Road will now only be used for secondary access and pickup truck use only? Yes. Also, to address the landowner's concerns, we've removed a large amount of the grading of the mounds. There will be only localized grading under the wires as necessary to address the ground wire clearance issues. And temporary matting will be used for the installment of the replacement structures. We are still showing the, you know, sediment and erosion controls that we talked about, you know, to be consistent with what's out there now, the reinforced, you know, the silt fence reinforced with straw bales. We've also changed our access route to the farm as requested by the landowner. So again, the grading is substantially reduced as we're showing here. Per conversations with the landowner, the primary access per schedule with the landowner will be the on-farm access road that we discussed at the last hearing. And additionally, there were concerns about the construction matting to be placed within this field-identified frontal pool. And as committed to at the last hearing, New England Power can avoid placing mats from March 1st to July 31st of any given year, understanding that those mats will need to remain in place until the construction is complete in that area. So I think those are the big takeaways and the concerns that were raised at the last hearing, and I hope they're found to be addressed substantially for the Commission's consideration.

Awesome. I just want to understand the time of time of use restrictions there. When you say, we'll not place the mats, does that mean not do work? Or does that mean? Because Work without the mats is not ideal either.

No, it means that they will place the mats outside of the active season, but the mats will need to remain while the construction is occurring. So if the construction is occurring during the following year, continuing in the following year from March 1st to July 31st, the mats will be utilized for traffic. But there will be no additional matting placed during that time.

Okay, so there's not a time of use restriction on the work. There's a time of mat placement restriction.

Correct, and that's consistent with New England Power's operation and maintenance provisions with natural heritage, should this be within natural heritage. So if there is a vernal pool within natural heritage, they are required to place mats outside of the time of year. The mats may remain during active season.

um because there does that mean that theoretically we could have heavy equipment like literally i mean there'll be a mat down but moving through a vernal pool with standing water in it correct sir yep yeah i'm not okay with that um Well, considering that, I would like to explain, excuse me. Time of year restriction on the work in the vernal pool, period.

Okay. Considering that we're restricting the company's ability to use this as an access road with heavy equipment, we are thereby not allowing them to continue on outage required work, you know, in this whole stretch of right away during certain periods of time.

So, you know, Andrew Cole, National Grid. Allison touched on it. This is the BMP that we deploy under Natural Heritage kind of review and approval for use of mats and work on mats. I guess would an additional erosion control line on the edge of mats that would reduce is your concern the the vibration or migration of animals? Is that what you're keying in on as a concern?

Yeah, exactly. I am not comfortable authorizing planned construction work that involves heavy equipment moving through a biologically active vernal pool. So that's wildlife impacts in sort of all the ways that you could imagine. And I appreciate the mat placement outside of active windows, but we're talking about a lot more than just mat placement here when we have equipment potentially moving through a vernal pool.

Chase, I'd just like to bring up the point that we did provide the results of our vernal pool surveys, which indicated that there were no amphibian breeding species in this pool. It was mostly pretty much, you know, in-pool species such as fingernail clams and very, very shrimp. So I don't necessarily think that a migratory movement is necessarily a concern at this specific location.

But you just said you're going to have heavy equipment going through an active vernal pool. And if you've got the clams and other things that are in the vernal pool, you're just going to drive over them.

No, sir. The mats will be in place before the active season so that there will be no opportunity for those individuals to be, you know, within that soil substrate during active season. So in active season, the mats will be placed and that'll prevent those individuals from occupying that space.

So when you put the mats in, there won't be anyone buried in there or anything? They don't dig in for the off-season and then come up when it's, you know, I'm not a vernal pool expert, but it feels to me like wouldn't there be cases where you'd have animals digging into the soil to, I'll call it, hibernate. I'm sure it's the wrong word. And then when the right time comes, they come out.

That might be the case, but at this point, The consideration is the least impactful, the greatest avoidance, and the minimization that New England Power Company is able to commit to, considering the critical nature of this work.

I mean, that's an additional measure that would prevent and I guess speak to or address your concern. So a straw bale line, I'm not, I would really, we wouldn't do a silt fence line, obviously that's digging in the wetland. So like a silt sock type control line, that's again, a secondary control on top of the mats. So you have mats and on the perimeter of that workspace and those mats, you have an erosion control line that's, preventing those animals, amphibians, even though we don't have evidence of them being there, but those animals from working their way towards the mats. Like that seems like we have two parameters to prevent impact.

I'm just really having a hard time. I appreciate what you're saying, Andrew. You're trying to meet me part way. I don't understand why we can't sequence a project like this to just have a time of time of year restriction on this particular work, given that this is planned work. Right. We're not talking about emergency work. That's a different thing. And you've got a lot of work to do out here in general. So sequencing, I appreciate it's a complication in your Gantt chart, but I just don't understand the infeasibility of sequencing the work to eliminate this while the vernal pool is active.

I mean, you did kind of touch on it. There's a massive amount of work in general across multiple miles of utility corridor line. So to try and squeeze in and, like you said, utilize a Gantt chart, we already have time of year restrictions for natural heritage on multiple priority habitats on the line. So we're already actually committing to not working in areas where turtle species, for example, are active. And so in areas where there's vernal pools, this is the BMP that Natural Heritage observes and we've worked with them on and they've not seen any problems. impacts from it so again that's that's why we deployed this measure and sort of try to squeeze in as you're you know seeing two structures it does create quite a domino effect like you have to come down the line of each of these structures do the direct embeds you have to do that sequentially then you have to move over the other one you have to do that sequentially that's done under nras so safety safety safety observers and communication to outage uh coordinators And then you have to do that on the next line. So while it seems like it's just two structures and it may be manageable, I guess what I'm saying to you is we've provided BMPs to prevent impacts. I guess I'm asking you that additional measure prevents further impact. So it's very critical that we'd be able to do this work and not have these two structures be this outlier that we have to somehow finagle and change around for, quite frankly, a massive amount of work. So it's very, very difficult.

Correct. And since now we are committing due to the commission's concerns and the landowner's concerns, you know, the use of blood road, you know, that definitely isolating sections of the right of way from, you know, the linear nature of the of the work.

What if we did this? What is your client's appetite for hiring a third-party biological monitor during this sensitive work? Essentially, someone who's independent of you guys, and I know you'll have your own environmental monitors and so on to essentially confirm that we are not when we go to do this work, that there are no significant species impacts associated with it. I think that's as far as I'm going to move to getting comfortable with doing this work. I'm also receptive to my other colleagues on the commission telling me to stuff it. It's There are five of us, and if I'm overstretching, that's fine, but I maybe could get my head around it if there's truly an independent environmental monitor looking at habitat impacts associated with the work immediately before you propose to do this work.

I guess just one comment there, Chase. I know there seems to be this, it's commissions in general, like this desire for third-party independent, but again, BSC has qualified biologists, botanists, herpetologists, et cetera, and we would do it with Tim present or we would coordinate it with Tim's presence. doing the observations it's a it's a great hands-on seeing the activity of utility line work with with tim the agent we could report that back to the commission on you know here's the findings pre-mad installation here's the manifestations that give you that representation and we have inspections that are occurring weekly regularly so like uh is is that to it's it's serving what i think you're seeking right just that additional assurance at the time of construction and I'm not opposed to the third party. It just seems like it's just another layer of coordination and personnel and safety. And it gets very complicated. And I guess I'm just asking, like, isn't it feasible? Tim's great to work with coordination wise. We could just work with him on a schedule. BSC does that evaluation in the spring. The matting is occurring. Like, why isn't that like a way to get through this?

But to me, it comes down to very specific expertise. And I agree, Tim and Lauren are great. And I also, I don't take this as sort of puning the credibility of BSE staff, but there can be momentum here to satisfy your clients. And I'd like a high level of expertise that is truly independent of the client needs here. Which is why I don't often go to third-party monitors for stuff like this, but I think this is a place where it does make sense.

Okay, that makes sense. I'm not going to fight you on that. I get where you're coming from. So when you're saying a third-party monitor, it's specific to a biological assessment of the potential vernal pool, right? ahead of MAT installation and observations of MAT use being deployed.

And then immediately ahead of actually getting into that area to do the work. And I would put a time of year restriction. The sequencing ultimately works such that you're able to do this outside of the period when the vernal pool is active, then we don't need a third party biological monitor. But I want to monitor when the mats go in and I would want to monitor to observe it prior to the work commencing if it is during a period when the vernal pool is active.

Yeah, I'll agree to that. I mean, at the end of the day, I see where you're coming from. I think that gives you the assurance that you're looking for. To your point, if the sequence of work we are able to get in here and it's a non-issue, you know, that makes sense. So, yep, I'm all for that. That's fine.

Sorry, Commissioner, as I sort of bit my teeth into that one, but let me know if you think I'm on the line.

No, not on the line.

No, I'm all in agreement with you, Chase.

Yeah, I'm in agreement with you too, Chase, and not to play devil's advocate because I do feel like this is a high priority area, but I just want to make sure we're comfortable with enforcing a third party. We've had these other sites, and I've been trying to think of what was performed at other sites. We've had sites where we've had monitoring performed, you know, Turtles, for instance. And I just, off the top of my head, I cannot recall if we said, hey, you need a third party. You know, this is, which to me is just as critical as a rental pool. So, again, if everybody else is comfortable with that, then so be it. I'm just dragged away if we're pushing, pulling a little too much here.

You know how I'm wondering if we have this exact circumstance. This one seems a little more intense to me. Sure.

And how I see this is not impugning these folks, but rather if push comes to shove and maybe you're a little behind schedule or maybe you got to get something done, A third party is more likely to say no, protecting the animals. They're there to help the animals and the environment, as opposed to the folks doing the work saying, well, yeah, I guess we can go. That's how I look at it.

I'm in the field, so I strongly disagree, but that's just my point of view. And that's why I brought it up from my point of view. Yeah, I'm comfortable. I agree. It's incredibly sensitive and important that it needs to be protected.

And I would agree as well.

So Tim and Lauren, I think, you know, you guys are going to have to work that into the conditions and so on to make sure that that's clear.

Yeah, definitely.

Now that I've monopolized so much of this, any other comments, concerns that need to be addressed on this?

The only other outstanding questions I guess I have is, and I don't know if they're on the call, if they're observing here, but I guess it was outside of our jurisdiction with the private property use of it because that was a big sticking point at the last hearing and maybe I guess I might have answered my own question. There's other concerns other than maybe right in this one spot, and that doesn't pertain to us, correct? That's why it was brought offline.

Yeah, I mean, I can speak a little more to it. So this is Andrew Cole again. I did meet with the Mathesons along with our project engagement group and the construction planners. You know, we met them just looking here at the dates. We sent them a summary of all the discussions and what's reflected on the maps here on Monday, the 15th. So we went through it literally structure by structure, discussed with them what they were asking for us to change from what we had discussed with them back in 2023. So, you know, a long time had passed and they were just seeking a different approach. basically approach and we captured everything that they were asking for, in my opinion. It was largely, you know, mat usage where we were coming in, reducing the blood road access and just trying to be cognizant of their operations and communication. So we sent all this to them. It's all within the right of way again. I'm very confident we've captured everything and any tweaks that they would present, we would be seeking and kind of putting it before Tim as well, like a field change. So I don't think there's going to be anything substantially from here. It's all matting and localized work to remove structures, replace structures.

Did you say in the discussion with the math that those elevated areas where the poles are on are going to stay?

That's correct, yep. Yeah, there's a significant reduction in grading that removes the mounds. It's basically now a replace of structures and remove the prior structures. So you'll just see the box outlines sort of our workspace where Allison has zoomed in. 21, for example, existing 21 in red with an extra, it's what will be removed. New 21 puts the new structures off of the mound. And the mountain stays. So it really cuts out like all the all the grading significantly.

Okay.

Thank you.

I'm going to take silence here to mean we've run out of comments and questions. Is that fair? Are we good with this to go?

I'm fine with it.

Yes.

If we are, if someone would like to make a motion to issue an order of conditions.

I'll make a motion that we close the public hearing and issue an order of conditions for the transmission line improvement right-of-way, DP number 204-1033, as we've conditioned tonight. I imagine this includes a waiver somewhere along the way.

Second.

Are there updates to the plan still coming? In all this conversation, did I miss that? What was that? Aren't there more updates there? You know, the third-party monitor and what have you? Or is that...

Part of the conditions? That's how we're making that a condition.

Okay, okay.

Sorry, I was a little confused. Tim, I think along those lines, before we take a vote on this, I do think this is one where it would be useful for you to circulate the conditions to the commission and then our next public hearing, or our next meeting, if we could spend five minutes to just make sure we're good with those conditions before finalizing them.

Sure. Yeah, I was definitely going to ask if you wanted to see a draft of those before they went out. So you guys want to continue this into the next meeting?

No, we don't need to continue it. We have three weeks to issue the order of conditions. So the public hearing will be closed. We are about to take a vote on whether or not to issue the order of conditions. The two weeks from now when we meet, it's not a public hearing, but we can certainly meet to confer about the conditions before they're issued.

Yeah, okay. Sounds good.

Okay. Motion's on the floor and has been seconded.

All right. We'll do a roll call vote. Chase. Chase Gerbig, aye. Kyle.

Kyle Maxey, aye.

Ed. Ed Fultz, aye. Carl. Oh. Carl, can you hear us? We're not hearing Carl.

Oh.

Carl, can you give us a thumbs up?

I'm not sure we can accept a thumbs up as a thumbs up.

There he is. Oh, there we go. Perfect. Thank you, Carl. And myself, aye. It is unanimous.

Very good.

Thank you, everyone. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Have a nice night. Good. We're getting there, Al. Okay, we're going to move on to the 9.15 p.m. Notice of Intense 16 Pickard Lake Cobb Pond, DEP File Number 204-1036, Control of Nuisance Aquatic Vegetation.

I thought we were going to... We don't have the applicant here tonight for that. We were waiting on... So DP's comments when they issued the file number where they wanted this to, they wanted an appendix A to be filled out and for this to be posted in the environmental monitor as a ecological restoration notice of intent. Haven't received the appendix A yet. They also recommended that the commission ask for a plan showing exactly where the herbicides are going to be used and haven't received that plan back either. So my recommendation would be that this just gets continued to the next meeting.

Okay. That sounds reasonable. But Tim, I mean, I think go forth and make sure we have those things and make sure the applicant knows that if in a couple of weeks we come forward and we don't have those, then I don't see a lot of points in having a discussion until we have those.

Yeah. Sounds good.

Cool. Look at that. We just made up 13 minutes. 9.30 p.m. Notice of intent. Zero. Taylor Street DEP file number is not yet complete for habitats enhancement.

It actually just came in today. Oh. It is 204-1038. And... To the best of my knowledge, the commission didn't have any remaining or outstanding questions or concerns with this project. We were just waiting for the DEP file number to come in tonight. So I told the applicant they did not have to attend.

That was my understanding as well. You're about to make up more time?

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Someone would like to make a motion to close the public hearing and issue an order of conditions on this.

I'll make a motion that the commission close the public hearing for Zero Taylor Street. It's EP file number 204-1038 for habitat enhancement. Did we have a waiver for this? I'm sorry. Yes. Yeah, we must have. With associated waiver.

I'll second that.

All right. We'll have a roll call vote. Chase.

Chase Garagai.

Kyle. Kyle Maxerbeck. Ed? Full time. Carl? Colin Malbrick, aye. And myself, aye. It's unanimous.

Okay. Now we're going to circle back and finish out the administrative items. And my apologies to those folks who have been waiting around all evening. Tim, you want to take us through the rest of those?

Sure. I'm promoting over Mickey Jensen right now. Going on to the discussion for six Spectacle Pond Road since the last meeting where this was discussed, which I believe was two meetings ago. We had a site walk where we looked at the rocky embankment as well as the potential nesting habitat of the bank swallows. Chase, I don't know if you want to give a review.

Yeah, I can handle this first. First, Mickey, I should probably apologize to you directly for keeping you so long.

Yeah, I almost had to go to bed. I'm still sitting in my office. I've got to drive home. You have to fly every morning. It's late for me.

Okay, so I think a couple things came up during the sidewalk. One, The proposal to essentially extend the perimeter made sense. And we talked with Mickey about that. And essentially having two rows of berm there for a while to make sure that we're not creating sort of an opening for sediment to get through. So that... I think we were pretty square on, didn't see a lot of issues there. In terms of bank swallows, what I had indicated to Mickey at the site visit was that my own preference was to be highly deferential to the bank swallows. But if Mickey was able to come in and sort of show that they're not using that nesting, that my mind could be changed. But I essentially said that it was going to be on, the onus was going to be on him to sort of prove that the bank swallows were not actually using those nests through some kind of evidence or biological opinion. The third thing that came up and I had Tim follow up with Mickey was whether or not we needed a construction general permit from EPA and a stormwater pollution prevention plan. And my understanding is Tim, I think Mickey emailed you about that. That's the thing that I'm still stuck on a little bit is that I think we do need a construction general permit. We do need EPA authorization under the Clean Water Act. So, Mickey, and the first two, I know we've talked about those. Anything to add to sort of what I summarized there in terms of the berms or the bank swallows?

Yeah, I just want to confirm. So we're keeping the existing berm there. That's what we talked about, putting the new berm in front of the old berm.

Yeah, sort of two layers of berms.

Yeah, we had talked about what you had mentioned that, where the existing berm is not on the left side, not on the right side, we're only adding a berm to the continuation of the existing berm is to not allow me to put wattles in between them. So we're using the existing berm as the wattles.

Yeah, in this scenario, like the berm is three feet above grade and it didn't seem to make sense to me to make him put a wattle on top of a three foot tall berm. I'd rather see those wattles deployed elsewhere.

Yeah, still put wattles on the left side where I'm going to add on and then on the right side. I just wanted to confirm that.

That is what I suggested. I want to make sure everybody else is good with that. I'll take silence for a kiss.

Yeah, I agree. From seeing the site, that makes perfect sense.

Okay. The back squall, I'm not going to hire a biologist to spend money on that, but if I want to set up a camera, I guess I can set up a camera. Do you want actual days of video footage, or do you just want an hour every day?

What I'd most like to see is... I got more than enough stuff to do. I'm not going to sit here and watch a video, but I do think if you take a video of it, particularly in the evenings or in the mornings, right? Like I can't imagine that bank swallows are going to be using that while there's heavy equipment moving around. I'm looking for quiet periods of time, particularly in the evenings or the mornings. If there's video from multiple consecutive days where we don't have bank swallows coming in and out of that, and there's no additional nests being formed. That's the other thing. I think to have a photo today, a photo a week from now, a photo a week after that saying, hey, we have the same number of nests, I could be convinced that the bank swallows aren't there.

How much footage would you need? How long do you want me to take them for? I don't know. How much do you want to watch it?

we did we did anybody research and i feel like i heard the timing of when these things nest are we getting yeah mid last he says mid-august is when they hightail it out of here okay so we got a while all right yeah that's what i'm saying it's two months down the road

So let's do this, Mickey. If everybody's conceptually good with that idea, I'd rather empower Tim and Lauren to come up with something that makes some sense. Maybe do a little bit of research, maybe call Fish and Wildlife to figure out what what makes sense there. Is it, you know, the hour right before dusk or are they more active, more in the day? And I would suggest have them provide you with a reasonable sort of time frame. Tim, is that okay with you? Yeah, I think that makes sense.

If we can get in touch with Fish and Wildlife and see when they are, when is the best or when would be the best time to see activity around those nests, going in and out of those nests, and we can nail down those times and get videos of those times, I think that would be good.

Is there any shot that Fish and Wildlife would come out and take a look at themselves? I ask that.

They get the sense from talking to them that this was very high up on their priority list.

I think I talked to Mickey about that too, but we weren't too sure.

I mean, they're migratory birds, so they're protected. I mean, that's the bottom line. But You may have to wait till August. It would be interesting to see the use. So it shouldn't be that difficult in my mind. Birds should be coming and going every day.

I haven't seen any signs of birds.

I'm hoping they came in on a Saturday morning when you guys weren't there. And then you guys showed back up Monday morning and they were like, whoa, forget this. We're moving on. And they went somewhere else.

Yeah, I mean, it could be the case.

So in that sense, I tend to agree with you. If we have like three consecutive days at whatever, you know, time frame that Tim and Lauren come up with where they would be most active and we don't see any birds, you know, we don't need weeks of this, right? If we don't see them for three days, we're not going to see them on the fourth.

Could, is it beyond, I mean, could we, why don't they just hire an ornithologist to go in there and check it out? Yeah, I don't want to spend the money on it.

Well, then you wait until August. Yeah, but then the pile stays there within the 50-foot buffer, too.

It's not going anywhere. It's just sitting there.

Yeah.

So I guess maybe that call has the option.

That's the bottom line.

Hire someone to prove it one way or the other, or you wait until August when we're comfortable that they're gone.

Right. I think that's our only option.

So now, Carl, you're not comfortable with the applicator, Mickey, in this case, trying to turn it on his own?

No, I'm comfortable with it. If he can... Yeah, I mean, we need to know, though, that, you know, taking the videos at the right time of day.

Yeah, I just want to make sure you're comfortable with that plan.

Provide that guidance. Yeah, I mean, I was thinking that, you know, an orthologist can maybe go in there and tell you whether there's even a nest in there or not. Or whether they came in like, you know,

they came in on a saturday didn't like it and left but to have that many nests in there i don't know just seems weird to me too so mickey what i would suggest is let's take a photo if you haven't already taken one i'd like you to send those to tim and lauren like as soon as you take them like that helps time stamp them right like here's my photo on tuesday here's here's an email on wednesday here's my photo on wednesday same on thursday and then um And then we'll follow up with you as soon as we can on sort of timing to take a look at the birds. Okay.

So just want to throw this out there. We do have a department trail cam that we could, with approval from Mickey, if we wanted to. Is there any work going on out there during weekends, Mickey?

No. I mean, I might be. pulling, it might be a truck that goes in and out, but nothing on that side. The foundation guy has moved now, so he's not on that side anymore.

Yeah.

I think if we installed the trail cam pretty close to where those holes are in the sand pile, we set it up there for a weekend. We can review the footage from the trail cam, what it captures. I can't remember if ours takes video. It might just take photos. But either way, I mean, if there's something in front of it, it's going to pick up a picture of it. We can use that. to make the determination. That way, you know, we're not confined to just, you know, an hour that they might be coming and going. Just want to throw that out there as an option, see what you guys thought about it. That's perfect.

Yeah, I'm receptive to that, too. I think you and Lauren should feel empowered to come up with the right mousetrap.

I'm finally setting up a camera.

Okay. The nice thing about a trail cam is that it'll pick up movement, so we don't have four hours of video with literally nothing happening.

Yeah.

Okay. I think we have a plan there. The last issue, though, is the construction general permit. So construction general permit applies when there's more than an acre of disturbance. My understanding of the original application is that a construction general permit was going to be obtained. That's an EPA permit under the Clean Water Act, and I don't think we have one. Part of what goes with that is not just the permit, but more importantly, the stormwater pollution prevention plan. I don't think we can go further allow you to continue working, Mickey, until you have authorization under the Clean Water Act.

Okay, I got to check. Tim did email me asking me that, and I just had a chance to talk to my engineer about it. Okay.

If you've got an engineer available, he should be able to turn it around pretty quickly. But stormwater pollution prevention plans are not Shakespeare. So...

Yeah, they usually always have to do those when we have stone water.

Oh, right. Yeah, you know something about this.

I might have it. I just didn't have a chance to look for it.

Okay. I'm going to say, though, we can't have you doing dirt work until you've got that coverage.

You mean like construction of the berm? Yeah.

Construction of the berm or even grading work across the site.

Yeah, I'm not great at anything.

The construction general permit doesn't just apply to the Massachusetts, to the Massachusetts Wetlands Protection Act resource areas. It's site-wide and it's independent of our resource areas. So it's not even like working outside of the resource area is you're in the clear.

Yeah. No, I understand. Yeah. I'm not doing, we're not doing any grade and we're just, the only thing we're doing is removing that sand.

Yeah.