Conservation Commission - Regular Meeting

So, let's go ahead and get started. Good evening everyone and welcome to the uh Tuesday, February 17th, 2026 meeting of the Littleton Conservation Commission. So, we have a quorum tonight. Michael, myself, Ed, and Carl are present. So, we're going to go ahead and get started. So, the very first item that we're going to tackle this evening is the approval of meeting minutes. Uh, we we have um the draft copy from February 4th, 2026. Uh, so did anybody have any edits or um additions to that set of uh draft minutes? Not myself.

No, not I. I only had one very brief uh modification on the second page on the sentence at the very top about halfway through it says but incorporating a watershed component onto the forge pond lake management plan would substantially change the scope of the plan tremendously and cost more. We could probably get rid of the word tremendously. So it'll just read uh the management plan would substantially change the scope of the plan and cost more. Does that make sense? Because right now we're seeing Makes much more sense. Yeah. Six other

perfect. All right. Well, given that amendment, would somebody like to make a motion to approve the minutes as amended? So moved. All right. Ed's move. Do we have a second? I'll second. Second. Thank you. Thank you. All right. We'll do a recall vote. Michael Michael Livingston. I Carl Tom Albery. Ed, Ed Fultai,

myself, I, it is unanimous. Excellent. So, diving right into the administrative discussion. Oh, and I should point out before we get too deep into these, if anybody here is tuning in to watch the discussion for the uh current and future land use of town-owned parcel U2-14-0, the Lakeshore Drive parcel that has been postponed until the next meeting. Chase is not present. just in case anybody here is uh tuning in for that particular topic. U so we'll dive right into the administrative discussion for tonight. Uh starting with conservation land field burn with Littleton Fire Department. Tim, did you have uh an update on that?

Yes. So, we've been uh Lauren and I have been talking with uh Steel Mccertie and uh some folks at LCT uh Dustin and Alisa about potentially doing a a burn in one of our or maybe multiple fields on our conservation properties in the spring um to combat the uh the invasive growth. Um, and so at this point, we've identified a couple that we're going to go check um once the snow melts and see um which ones are good candidates. Obviously, it's um Steel pointed out it's it's not great to burn poison ivy. So, we're going to be looking for ones that don't have a lot of poison i poison ivy. I don't know if it would be possible to find a field that has no poison ivy. So, um, the ones that we're looking at, uh, going out to after the snow melts is, uh, Long Lake Park, uh, New Town Hill, and Mary Shepard, all those fields. Um, so that was more so just just an update for you guys that this is something that we're we're looking into. Um, and hopefully we'll have another update for you guys once the snow melts.

Excellent. Who who would be doing the burn, Tim? Uh, fire department would be. I can tell you long leak park. Oh, sorry, Ed. I was just going to ask, does does a burn really help that much? I always got the sense that it made it more fertile after the burn, you know, after some where it burns that there's been a fire or whatever. Does know it's going to kill what's there then, but does it all any spores in the way?

It it depends how hot the burn is. So, the longer you can keep the burn on the ground, the more it would get rid of. But if it's just very quick and moves, you know, across very fast. So, you really want a slow moving burn. That's what you really want. Thanks. And I'll just point out Long League Park is probably off the Poison Ivy table. Oh, yeah.

Perfect. All right. So, we'll uh we'll look into that a little bit more. Um, so we'll jump right into the review of CPC applications. Uh, boardwalks at Webster's Woods, boardwalk at Castle in the Trees, and terrestrial invasive species treatment at Hartwell, YAP, and New Town Hill. All right. So, yep. Um Lauren actually sent everybody I don't know if everybody got a chance to see um today we revised the CPC applications and and redistributed them to you guys and as well to uh uh Carolyn Mueller for her to distribute to the the CPC. Um because we got in some uh last minute quotes um that came in much lower um than the one that we had uh used previously. And so that was all that was changed was the uh um the funding amount that we're going to be requesting. Um and that's just for the two boardwalks. The uh the terrestrial invasive species one um nothing nothing changed with that one.

Excellent. I did have a Oh, sorry. I was just going to say we have CPC um meeting tomorrow night um where they're going to do the initial review on on this and we also submitted um the eligibility requests to Carolyn as well for these. Excellent. And I did have a chance to look these over and they looked great. Um I think including the ADA component for both boardwalks is fantastic. Um, and then having the contingency on both, you know, 10 grand just in case because you never know with the price of materials. Uh, right.

That's very wise. Um, but no, I think they look great. Um, and are ready to go. I think they've got a good shot at, uh, tomorrow night. Excellent. So, did we want to take a collective vote on um, all three project applications? Sorry, all um, technically four, right? Let me see. No, three. No, there should be three. Yeah, terrestrial ones. That's all a lump sum of of three properties. Is a vote needed? Uh I would say I would say yes. Um just so we can say that the uh applications are supported by the the commission.

Okay. In that case, I move that we u support, I guess, the review of CPC applications for boardwalks at Webster Woods, boardwalk at Castle in the Trees, and the terrestrial invasive species treatment. Perfect. We have a second. I'll second. Thank you. All right, we'll do a roll call vote. Ed, hold. Michael, Michael Livingston. Carl, come on. I

myself I It's unanimous. Thank you, Tim, for putting those together and we'll do our best to represent them tomorrow night. Of course. Yeah, I'll see you there. Um, did anybody have any additional items that they wanted to uh uh discuss tonight? It seems like our it seems like our continued list is keeps getting longer and longer. It does. Unfortunately, at some point it's all going to come back to roost on us. I can envision. Yeah. Meetings.

A lot of them are the enforcement orders. Um and you know, some of those were waiting for the snow melt to do um site visits. Um and then monitoring reports as well. There is one that we could uh potentially get off here and that is the nine air road. Um their monitoring period was up at the last fall. So I can reach out to those folks and see if um do a site visit, see how the plantings are once the snow melts again. We're not going to um we're going to have to wait till then. But 13 Winged Cove has been continued since gosh, it's got to be almost since last winter. Um, and I've tried reaching out to Kyle Man to see if he wants to keep continuing and I and I haven't got an answer from him. Um, so

I'll try again to reach out to him, right? What was that? That's the one he's tearing down in the house and putting a whole new house in, right? Yep. And there was discussion about the the patio out back. Um, but I I I'll try again to reach out to him and see if I can get a hold of him and ask him if if you know, does he want this continued? Does he want to withdraw the application or or what? But yes, K or Carl, I I I [laughter] did notice that as well. It's Yeah, it's getting quite lengthy. Yeah. Hey, Tim. Uh, we're going to talk about those two trails tonight or the one the one by the library and the

Was that on the list? Did I did I see that on the list or um Are you talking about the the the CPC applications for the for the boardwalks for entries? Um, we haven't had the um the February CPC meeting yet. Um, so I didn't have an update. Okay. We submitted this revised applications. Um, but we'll have an update on those uh at the next meeting. Yeah, it was just a CPC didn't meet before um our meeting tonight. Gotcha. Yeah. We'll be meeting tomorrow night at 6:30 if anybody's interested. [laughter]

Is that going to go beyond just the boardwalks? Are they talking about the like is is this the or is it we walked him? Yeah. Uh the boardwalk, the CPC application is just for the boardwalk. Um Okay. Yeah. It wouldn't be the whole trail that that we discussed. Okay. All right. Yeah, that'll be that'll be discussed that'll be discussed at a different time, right? Yeah. Okay. All right. Cool. Yeah. We just have to get that that boardwalk figured out first. All right. Gotcha. Thanks. Yep. All right. Perfect. Hey, this is going to be a record meeting. 11 minutes. Crazy. Did anybody enjoy enjoy it? Enjoy it while we can.

The spring is going to be murder. Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. Well, if anybody does anybody else have anything they want to add or budget was approved, I'm assuming. Uh, yes. But budget meeting went went well. Yep. And the capital plan thing that uh Steve mentioned is was he saying that can't be done this year or No, it can't be done this year but to look into it for for future years. Yeah. Thanks. Yep.

Perfect. All right. Well, would somebody like to make that final motion? I move that we close tonight's meeting. All right. Do we have a second? Check in. All right. Roll call vote. Ed. Edi. Michael. Michael Livingston tonight. Carl guy. Myself. I We are adjourned.