 All right, you're all set. Hey, good evening. Seeing that there's a poor man attendance. I'm calling the January 7 2021 meeting of the town service and outreach committee to order at 630. Governor Baker's March 12 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law allows us to hold this virtual meeting of the town services and outreach committee. I'm going to call on each committee member by name to confirm that you can hear me and we can hear you. Let's do it. Present. Barcelona. Yes. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Evan Ross. Present. George Ryan. I'm here. And the town manager. Those assisting the meeting will be monitoring committee member connections and if necessary will pause the meeting until we're reconnected. We request that everyone be patient with the process. Looks like we don't have any public present. At the moment. So we will skip the public comment. We have another public comment at the end. So we'll see if anybody shows up. Okay. Action items. We don't have any appointments tonight. Okay. I regret to report that the updated version of the town manager public way policy revisions is not ready to be looked at tonight for review. So we are putting that off until probably the next meeting. And the third item on the action items is just let me make sure I'm not washing the hands here. Dorothy, do you have a question? Just a statement in reference to public comment. Today when I wanted to get the link or to look to check on the documents. I scroll down the new web page and I get to the committees and we weren't listed, but you have to press a little thing that says see more. We were not featured amongst the listed committees that are meeting tonight. So a member of the public would not know unless they knew to go to that press, go see the whole thing that we were listed. So I found that a little not good. Do you have any, do you have any knowledge about that, Paul? No, we, the committees get listed chronologically. I mean, I see it on my screen there for four meetings today. And it's there on my screen. So maybe I'm not sure what happened. I see it on the homepage. Yep. Okay, it didn't show up until I pressed see more. Maybe think maybe think shifted or maybe one got kicked off already. Anyway, Okay, moving on. The, the third item, which was added to an amended agenda was something that the council president asked me to add to our agenda. I just put out the question to the committee members, whether, whether we want to as a committee add anything to the list of future agenda items for the town council's 2021 agenda. We haven't had much time to think about that. And some of you may not have even noticed it on the agenda. But if you have anything now that you know of that you want to bring up, you can do that, or she, she has asked that we respond by the 20th, which is before our next meeting. So we could conceivably just, you know, send send your ideas and thoughts about that to me, and I can pass them on to her. So does anyone have any comments or suggestions at this time. No, why don't we do that. If anybody, she just wants to know if there's anything that we want to add in addition to what's already on the future agenda items that would be specifically from, you know, related to this committee. So if you have any just send them to me. I would say, let's see, what's the date today the seventh. So if you could send them within a week that would be good and then I can send them to her by the 20th. And maybe we won't have any. Okay, so moving on from there. I have our main presentation tonight is the stormwater management and ID, DE bylaws. I did have a chance to talk briefly with the town manager to get his advice about how, since we haven't looked at anything quite like this before. I'm just interested that we listen to the new updated revised presentation, Beth Wilson's going to present it tonight, then open it up generally to questions. And then go back and go back through each bylaw section by section with Beth explaining each section and seeing if we have questions on each section. And I'm hoping that GOL is also going to look at it so we don't have to look at and finance is going to look at it so we're only looking at issues of substance with regard to the bylaws. And I shouldn't say only we are the most important committee, obviously. So, so we'll just get started with the presentation Beth Wilson of DPW is going to present for us. Can I ask a question Darcy. Yes. So as I mentioned at the full town council meeting, and perhaps I can say it more bluntly now, it actually doesn't matter what's in this bylaw, if it's what's required to be in the bylaw. If we could focus not on line by line and understanding all the details because honestly it doesn't make any difference if I understand how most of the bylaw actually gets executed. What matters is that I understand what our decision points are within it so the things that we have options about. So if most of it is just this is the way the bylaws are written in Massachusetts now, then let's cut to the chase and talk about the things that we can actually change. So if we could maintain as I asked at town council, that focus, rather than on each of us becoming an expert in stormwater management, I think that would be really helpful. Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense to me. So, go ahead, Beth. Well, thanks for listening. I want to thank the committee again for listening to this presentation on the proposed stormwater bylaws. I know you, most of you, I think all of you heard the presentation that was given to town council before Christmas. So this presentation, there's some a little bit of repetition but I tried to get a little bit more specific into the two bylaws. So, next slide. Amherst stormwater drainage system. Our drainage system consists of the catch basins drainage swales piping manholes and outfalls that carry our stormwater from developed areas to the streams and rivers ponds and wetlands in our town. It's maintained by the Amherst DPW. That's also known as our municipal separate storm sewer system or MS for 2018 ton of Amherst applied for coverage under the 2016 Massachusetts general MS for permit, which is administered by EPA, MSTP. It's a general permit that they put together for all towns to apply for. So any MS for community in Massachusetts buys for the same permit and has the same requirements. And I said, as I said, Amherst was granted coverage in 2019. And the overall requirement of the permit is to develop a stormwater management program. Next slide. The stormwater management program, the overall goal of our program is to investigate monitor and manage our stormwater. So that it meets surface water quality standards at all outfalls. And to meet that goal, the permit has set up six minimum control measures. Public education and outreach public involvement participation. Elicit discharge detection and elimination program construction site stormwater runoff control stormwater management and new development and redevelopment. And good housekeeping and pollution prevention for permity owned operations. And of those six control measures, three of them are required to have bylaws. And they are required to be enacted by the end of June 2021. So that's why we're talking about them now and those are the ID DE program and the construction site stormwater runoff and stormwater management and new and redevelopment. So we've created two bylaws. One, we, we call our ID DE bylaw and the other we're referring to as a stormwater management bylaw. And it covers all the requirements of the construction site stormwater runoff control and stormwater management and new and redevelopment. Next slide. All right, so the ID DE bylaw. Basically, it establishes that it's illegal to discharge anything besides stormwater into our stormwater system or MS4. So that includes direct discharges such as dumping into a catch basin. Elastic connections, which I think of as pipes that connect from say a commercial business directly into our stormwater system. It also establishes that it's illegal to either obstruct or interfere with the normal flow of our, our MS4. The bylaw has language that includes exemptions. So those are discharges that are, that are considered not illegal. An example of that is waterline flushing or DPW does waterline flushing of our main lines once a year, but I'm sure there's private homeowners who may have to flush their portable waterline at some point and that is exempt. It's not considered illegal. I'm not going to go through the whole list of exemptions. Maybe we'll do that later in the discussion. But there are exemptions included in the bylaw. The bylaw establishes the authority for illicit connection inspection removal and restoration. So it's giving DPW the authority to go on to private property to inspect for illicit connections. It's giving DPW authority to suspend or terminate someone's connection to our MS4. That's illicit connection removal. And then it gives the DPW authority to require restoration if there's been damage to our MS4 or at the outfall from our MS4. And the bylaw has all of that. The bylaw gives DPW the authority to issue written orders. And that's where these things would be communicated to someone. The DPW would issue an order requiring somebody to disconnect their illicit connection. The bylaw includes an appeal process for people who are issued an order. They can appeal that order to the town manager. The bylaw includes language about BMPs, which are best management practices. It requires people who have some kind of a connection to our system or even a catch basin in their own parking lot. They're required to protect those connections. So using things like straw bales or waddles or matting to protect a catch basin that continually at a commercial business where a truck comes in and continually there's releases of something into a catch basin. This bylaw requires people to protect any connection that they have to our system. It also requires the notification of spills. So if there is, if it's a hazardous spill, the property owner is required to notify Department of Public Works right away. If it's non-hazardous, the bylaw gives people until the next business day to notify DPW that there's been some kind of a spill that's gotten into our MS4. And then the bylaw establishes a finding mechanism for those orders. So if an order is issued telling somebody to disconnect and they don't do it, there is a finding mechanism within the bylaw. And then DPW administers and implements and enforces the bylaw and the bylaw will become part of our written IDD program. And I think as I mentioned in the last presentation, IDD program has a lot to do with investigating outfalls, identifying ones where there is a pollution problem, and then investigating the catchment or small watershed that goes with that outfall. And this bylaw will then give us the authority to investigate where the pollution is coming from and then have the authority to disconnect any sources of pollution. Next slide. This is the stormwater management bylaw. This is our second bylaw. This bylaw basically establishes that stormwater management permits are required for new development and redevelopment projects and land disturbances and any disturbance, land disturbance, the disturbance, it serves the drainage characteristics of one acre or more of land. It develops, it has a whole process where these projects would be applying for the permits, and then it establishes the superintendent of public works would either be approving an application or not approving an application. It establishes again an appeal process. If somebody's application is denied. They can appeal that decision there. There's exemptions again included in the bylaw an example of exemption is land and agricultural use, or projects that involve the construction of utilities. Those are types of projects that are not going to need to apply for stormwater management permit. The bylaw management permit is all about the design of us of the stormwater system that goes with the with the project. And the bylaw establishes the creation of the stormwater regulations. Now the stormwater regulations are going to are going to detail out this process of acquiring these permits. It'll include information on documents that would need to be included. And with the application. So what the DPW engineers would like to see in terms of descriptions of the stormwater system that's being proposed so that they can review it and either also, you know, approve or disapprove the application. So the regulations would include what documents and forms would be needed. If there's going to be fees, there will be fees with these applications. The regulations will spell out the stormwater quantity and quality standards that need to be met by these proposed stormwater systems. And those standards are going to have to meet the MS for water quality and low impact development requirements. And then the bylaw establishes again that these stormwater systems that are being proposed for these projects, they have to provide how they're going to be maintained in the future post construction. And also how during construction construction site stormwater runoff is going to be has to be controlled. And that. So next slide. So more on the stormwater management bylaw it also establishes enforcement. So it gives the authority to the town to cease and desist any of these projects if if number one they didn't get a permit at all a stormwater management permit at all, or they are not abiding by the permit or the conditions that come with the permit. If they're not maintaining erosion control during site can during project construction and then it and then they cannot this establishes that we can require remediation for any damage again caused by the project itself. And there's a finding mechanism. The stormwater management bylaw has gives the town authority to establish a stormwater utility. That's something that's not required by the MS for permit, but a number of towns across Massachusetts have established those and we talked a little bit about this with town council. It's, it is basically a fund that specifically be used for the maintenance of our, our MS for system. Similar to the water and sewer funds. And that is all I have for my presentation. And we can talk more about the details of the bylaws themselves. Very good. Do we have any council questions on the presentation. Dorothy. I'm interested in some context for this. It's obviously a very elaborate system. It's something that a good citizen would want for the security of water systems and land. But I guess I, when did, when did Amherst start doing this. How many towns have systems like this. Well, I don't know. I, I'm I'm guessing that many, many parts of the country have nothing at all like this and just let stuff go where it goes. But like a context for this. Right. Well, our, our stormwater system is pretty old because the town of Amherst is pretty old. So the actual piping and catch basins and manholes. I'd go for it would know better than I, but I would say going back 30s 40s or so. And most bigger towns in Massachusetts have stormwater stormwater drainage systems. Regulation is relatively new. EPA started working on trying to permit stormwater system discharges in the early 2000s. And it's, it's finally made its way to Massachusetts and been sort of really formalized with this 2016 permit requirement. Thank you, Dorothy. Um, just two things. One is that, and I'm sure you'll get into this with us, Beth, but unfortunately the slide presentation doesn't cover any of those decision points at all in terms of us knowing that ahead of time. So it was hard to us to read it within without that structure. I mean, it, it's perfectly lovely, but it doesn't tell us what we need to know to make a difference as to what we're going to be recommending to the town council. The other thing I just want to ask, and this is a town thing, not so much a department thing is that when we get draft bylaws, they need to have a date in the footer on the draft bylaw, because the only way I can tell this is new is based on the fact that the in the upload says it's new, but the work the pages don't say anything about the fact that it's new. So that would just be really helpful I think a footer would be great because it would be on every page but however you do it to make it really clear that I don't have to depend on what the document was titled at some point when I download it. Thank you. Yeah, just a couple of questions quickly, I guess one first of all, just do these bylaws apply to the university and to colleges, or is it just to town property. UMass has its own MS for their own permit. But the Amherst College and Hampshire College would be considered in this MS for and would the relationship between the University of town be such that that is pretty good. I mean, what they're doing and what we're doing is in sync or is it just like two different universes and if it all works out fine but if it doesn't, that's the way it goes. We've actually had some meetings with them in regard to stormwater and MS for they've had their permit longer so they've actually moved forward a bit more than we have. But one of the requirements of MS for is to maintain what they call your the interconnections. So where one MS for merges in with another image because that happens. And that's where the town systems end up connecting so we have interconnections with UMass is MS for so we do need to work with them. And maybe a question more for Paul maybe premature but or maybe it's simply answered that he's confident that that there would be good communication and cooperation between the university and TPW in this sort of area. I'm not sure if he's confident that he'll be the communicator. Okay, all right. My understanding of the bylaws that if you have if you're doing something with less than one acre. So if you're building a house or developing a site, this bylaw or at least the stormwater management bylaw does not apply. So that's because it's the one, it's more quantity is what matters here or is that just a freak of this. Particular bylaw. Why isn't applied everybody. Right, so one acre is what's required by the MS for permit. Other towns have gone smaller. There's there's towns that that in their bylaws have said have permits for smaller lots have for a breaker there's there's some towns that have. You would have two two different permits being issued one for a smaller scale project and one for a larger scale project. So this would be a decision point is this something that we would. It can be. Yeah. I know I wouldn't think of it I can tell you that. Well, impact I think this is in the slide presentation but I am I do have concern ultimately about the impact on course homeowners, but also business owners, developers and builders and I guess this is something comes later down the line where you reach out to them and in terms of what new requirements or costs will be connected with this is that part of this process or is this really not going to cost anybody anything it's just a matter of, you know, us making sure everything's done right. They are there is going to be a permit fee. And it definitely would be something that I feel like we would want to work with the developers and contractors on that would absolutely have to happen. Just to get them used to the new process. So, typically, you know, they go through planning process and maybe the conservation commission process and that involves submitting permit applications to those those offices with and those have fees and this would, this is just going to be another permit, you know, in the process of getting permitted to do a development project. I guess I'm not expecting the fees to be anything that would gouge them compared to some of the other permit fees that they're already required within the town of Amherst. But, but just just working with them so that they understand new process will be very important. Okay. And finally this last question really is maybe more private for Guilford but as you mentioned in your presentation. Our system is very old. And I'm just wondering, as we look long term at infrastructure piping sewers etc I know we do kind of piecemeal and maybe that's the answer we just do piecemeal. I'm just wondering about the state of the system overall, and what the long term plan is for it if there is one. There is no, it's a good question. There is no master plan for stormwater at this time. We take stormwater and deal with it. So we fix it but we also look to do stormwater repairs when we do major road upgrades because more pave in the road we don't want to pave a road and then have a section of storm pipe fail so we tie it in with our road road work so that we kind of put it all together we look at water sewer and drainage and see what needs to be repaired when we're paving paving a road so we actually get the best product and that's kind of how we. How we've been doing it in the past. This will now add a layer where we look at what the environmental impacts are. How much sediments being added in this catch catch catchment area, how much E coli is there now in the stormwater how much other bad pollutants phosphorus nitrogen. How much of those things are in the stormwater system, and those will add another layer where we have to examine those and then develop a plan to address the worst areas first and solve those with some type of treatment type system. Yeah, this is not perhaps the time for this discussion but but the idea of a master plan if that makes sense what other communities do. It would be something in the future I'd like to hear more about whether it's feasible and if it were how we go about it. I want to go for just quickly maybe you heard the question earlier but the assumption is that we do have good communication with you mass and and they're sort of they're ahead of the game a bit, but that we and they would be in sync and what we're doing would be coordinated with them and you're confident about that. You ask if I'm confident about it. We exist. Yes, the town of Amherst exist. We also exist with mass DOT who has a permit as well. It always comes down to us trying to make it work. Sometimes we're a little out of sync but we do tend to get back in sync really quickly. So it will work and we will be able to work together and it will be fine. Like everyone's while we have a hiccup but we work it out. Do you have any more questions George. For the moment. No, thank you. I would just say that, you know, I, I, I think that George's comments about a master plan makes sense and I'm just wondering, you know, where you have a cut off for the new construction is required to to apply for a permit. The acre acreage amount. Why, what's the, what would be the purpose of not not requiring it for everyone. The smaller, you know, the smaller a project is it just becomes becomes it. I guess the more people and it would involve everybody because it becomes a larger project for the town to take on really, you know, it would be more permitting. If you, if you took it down to half an acre, you would obviously be needing to review a whole lot more applications that came in. I've always, I've thought of a one acre as what the permit established, what many other cities and towns across Massachusetts are using. Like I said, there are some that have that have gone more restrictive. It is really an area for discussion. And so the state law is allowing towns discretion in that area. Okay, you have, it has to be at least one acre. If you if the town would like to be more restrictive there. That's, you're allowed to do that. Do we know the number of lots that we have in the different areas like how many lots that we would have that are less than one acre. I don't know that. That's the majority I would guess right. Well, it actually depends on the project. It's not, it's not actually the lot acreage size is the acreage that's disturbed. So you can have a one acre lot and disturb the whole site and you have to have a permit you could have a one acre lot and only disturbed a quarter of it, and you wouldn't really need a permit. There's one lot disturbance and ground disturbance not basically how big your lot is so it'd be hard to figure out how many people might be affected because you could also have a, you can have a 100 acre parcel and only do half an acre you wouldn't need a permit. Okay, one other question before I move on. When we go on to the next step of looking at the bylaw. Is there a way that we can go through it and in a way that Alyssa suggested that where we can kind of ascertain which parts are required by the state law already. And what are the decision points or how can you do you have an idea best of how best to do that. I'm just looking at the bylaws right now you know things that things that that I would areas that I would think you would be interested in our sort of the applicability sections of both of the bylaws and even the lists of exemptions. And the things that you can expand on if if if you're interested in expanding on them. I think what could what I can also go through them and highlight areas that you know I feel like our decision points and and you and get the bylaws back to you with sort of those areas highlighted if that helps. Certainly there is a lot especially in the beginning of the both bylaws that is nothing that you would need to focus too much on. So well maybe committee members can give feedback on that if you have more comments. Evan. Yeah, so I have a couple questions, some of which are to just understand it better sorry Alyssa. So one is the the illicit connections I was sort of confused at points. Is it just connections that go right into the MS for because sometimes it seems like it's just once they go into the MS for and sometimes it also seems like connections that go directly into a water body like when I'm walking down the street and I see folks who have you know their their laundry water piped out directly into the stream. Right is is that part of this or is it just if it goes directly into the MS for system. Yeah this bylaw really only applies to the MS for system, which you're talking about there actually applies better under the wetlands protection bylaw, because you're discharging directly into a wetland. So this is really meant to protect our MS for system. Yep. And then in the stormwater management one we've been focusing a lot on the one acre, but then there is that section that says to activities that affect less than an acre, but could adversely affect the municipal separate stormwater system. If you're going to acquire a permit and I guess I'm curious, who's. Does that mean, if you were someone if I was going to build a, you know, something that was only going to disturb a fourth of an acre. How do I, what's the product right if it just serves an acre we know, but if it's less than an acre someone determines that I don't know if it's Guilford who just like looks at the project and goes yeah probably you should get a permit. So I'm curious how that works because there's that's an area that seems very discretionary and I don't know how the communities have handled that. That's a good question. So, take that back. You can take it. So now the way that works is as most of those are caught when I go through site plan review or some type of permitting with planning. So we have a permit from the town to connect to the drainage, the existing drainage system, like you're connecting truly to a pipe or to existing pipe system. And those are the ones we look at and we'll actually make a decision, you know, can you connect to the pipe system we have to upgrade the pipe system to connect to it. We need to use the same guidance we're using now for anybody who has a smaller project and needed to connect directly to our pipe system, or to expand our pipe system. If you have a smaller project but you need to extend the storm drain up to the project to help you with your stormwater management. So we have our permit because of the pipe, the system expansion. And that's how we would look at it and that's how we look at it now with the planning department and the town engineer reviews most of those. Okay. And then just a couple more. So for the IDDE one, it sounds like it's pretty much just if there's a direct connection right so I was looking at the exemptions, and I was thinking about things like if you were to, and this is just hypothetical right but if you have a little parking place at your, you know, multifamily housing place and you got a bunch of fertilizer all over it right from from fertilizing the lawn that gets washed into the storm sore. That wouldn't be considered would that be considered an illicit discharge or are we really looking for. I know it's sort of non point but really point illicit discharges. I mean that that sounds more like the first description which is considered dumping sort of a direct discharge into a catch basin. If it's a large enough fertilizer that that would fall under that that's, you know, you see somebody dumping a bucket of wash water from a restaurant right into a catch basin or like what you're talking about a whole pile of say fertilizer that washes into a catch basin. You know if it's an accident it happens and it kind of falls under that you must report a spill. If you continually do it becomes an issue so yeah that that's something. Okay, and I think last question for now at least. I'm reading the memo and under and this sort of gets to decision points and next steps but under next steps. It says that you know this bylaw authorizes the creation of rules and regulations and then it says, however, they, the rules and regulations to be drafted by June 30, however they don't need to be fully approved by the town council. Does the town council have to approve the actual regulations that are promulgated under this. This is more a poll question. Yeah. Yeah, no typically the, the, the council, the legislation would give the authority to the town manager to set rules and regulations that's how this would set up. That was my assumption which is why that sentence sort of struck me as, as out of ordinary. Thank you. So this is really for to both of them. I'm not quite sure what kind of projects trigger this so I'm going to assume that a major construction project would, but this is to Guilford was that two years ago when we had to redo the sewer pipes all the way down to sunset. It was a big project and involve catch basins. And since it's on a downhill, I assume it involves stormwater. I have no idea what permits we got. Was that something for which a permit would be gotten in the future. Yes, it would, because usually, when we do our projects we try to keep them to a small size so we don't have to apply for a general permit with this federal government right now. So that's we didn't, we kept that project small enough we didn't have to trip the federal government permit. But now when we pass this by law, even town projects, we will have to apply for the permit that says you know we're disturbing more than an acre of land. And almost most of our projects are over an acre. So we would end up filing for permits. But my project probably was not an acre so, or, or, I don't know how an acre is measured in fact. When your, when your project was done the limit was five acres. So then, but the next question is, what if just say even on the same block between Lincoln and sunset, a lot of people decided to put tiny houses in their backyard. And so it's a lot of people doing a small, you know, half acre quarter acre, I don't know how much 1000 square feet house takes up. Would a lot of people doing a little thing end up triggering this thing or would that not I mean it because it certainly could cause a lot of change in what's going into the stormwater. If they're done as separate projects over spread out over time. The way it's written right now under and it's all under an acre they wouldn't need to get a stormwater permit. But should they in terms of protecting the environment. This is related to, should we do as some towns have done and, you know, do lower acreage. It could have an impact. One thing that is more of an impact here is the increase in impervious area. In lots are have much more of an impact on stormwater management than tiny houses. So. Okay, that's that's a good reminder. Thank you. I want to follow on to that. That's where some communities have built their stormwater utility. And the stormwater utility is based on how much impervious land you have on your lot. So if you have a tiny house a parking lot in a regular house, you have a lot of impervious space. So you would be kind of charged more for having that impervious space where if you only had a house and unpaid parking area and your property, then you'd pay less. So there in the future there is a way to kind of address the growth of impervious area and try to reduce it and try to convince people to install more water quality type things and more methods for improving the water quality from their individual lots. So that could be something that could be addressed in us like the stormwater utility if we make one of those. Okay, thank you. George. Just a quick follow up, Gilbert, your avoidance in the past of the federal permitting process is, is I take it designed to avoid the expense and I assume that's time, which may be the major expense, but also other fees or have fees attached to it. Was it mostly just the time that's required. And I get the sense, and you probably expressed this in previously and I just wasn't listening, that part of the message here is this is going to cost the town some money over time. It's going to be more expensive. I was just going to cost developers and maybe homeowners occasionally because of the permit fees, but it's also going to be an expense to the town in terms of time. Perhaps do we pay fees when we do our permitting to the feds or to, or is it just the time involved and that's the cost. Most of the time we don't have to pay a fee to the federal government or to the state government. So, five acres was a really good project size for our projects didn't really cause a lot inconvenience for the neighbors and so forth so we tried to, we kind of, we're just under that because it was a good limit to be under. As we go to one acre and as we've gone to one acre in the federal system now. We do have to get those permits and we do apply for them it's not a, it's not that big of an issue for us. It's something we have to do so it does take time, but it doesn't cost much we just apply for it and get the permit and move on. One more question about outreach and education and that list in the slide deck. There were, I think, five bullets, three of which were required to be put into bylaws. But I think one of them was outreach and education. That's correct Beth. Yeah, I'm just wondering, based on what Gilford just said about, you know, trying to encourage developers and homeowners to have less paved area and so on in their developments or on their logs. How would that, how do you foresee that that would be conveyed to residents and developers to encourage them to do that. Yeah, right. So the program has a public outreach and involvement requirement to it. And we've already established the stormwater web page. It's under Department of Public Works. And it has, it actually has tabs for developers and then has another tab for residents that has a tab for commercial businesses. And if people go to the web page and they click on those, those tabs, there's, there's references to, to low impact development, there's references to types of BMPs. There's all kinds of, there's flyers and fact sheets on there for developers. And as I said, for commercial businesses. So that's out there right now. We've been doing mailings. So far, more of a focus on residential education at this point we've been doing mailings on grass clippings and dog waste. That kind of thing. We did do one public announcement on the, on the, on the town web page last spring for contractors really about construction site runoff. The way you're talking in terms of the change in the, the permitting process. That would definitely be reaching out to all developers and contractors that we sort of already have contacts with through inspection services and places and the planning to educate them on on the new permitting process. So there's sort of two, there's, there's the education that's more environmental, and there's the education on on the upcoming changes in terms of permitting. But the environmental side of it, we're really required to just continue to do that kind of public outreach forever. You know, there's that we're under the permit. There's, there is some specific requirements like you need to send out something having to do with dog waste to with dog licenses every year. There are certain particular things we have to do, but then also we have the ability to do whatever we want what I'd really like to do is have a catch basin painting project started up I actually had started to work on that with the middle school environmental group last March but then school closed. So that didn't work and I've been working with Hitchcock Center on some educational, educational things that I'll have to do basically with stormwater water quality. So if we wanted to go to that web page. Is it under the DPW or whereas. Yep, it's under DPW stormwater. Okay. Sounds good Alyssa. Just to follow up again talking about that memo that we saw at town council and it was in our packet again. I really appreciate that it provided the context of East Long Meadow at Northampton that was really helpful so thank you for that. And it also points out so that we're remembering in terms of these decision points conversation that I've been focusing on, since we talked about it at the full town council is that we don't establish the fee schedule, the town manager does that. So obviously it sends a message to people as to how much they charge right Northampton charges considerably more than East Long Meadow does although it's not a one to one correspondence and their two charts. And so I think you know from a policy standpoint perhaps we say, you know, maximize the fees right but we say that about a lot of things. And that's not actually something we're going to be recommending in terms of dollars. So when we're talking about whether we come out of this conversation tonight with the thing I hoped we were coming into this conversation with, which was the highlighted sections that we could make decisions on. I want to be clear what I mean by what we can make decisions on. I don't mean Beth and Gilford thought it was a good idea to do it this way. We're talking the town council two choices. I want to know the state law says you have these choices. Beth and Gilford thought these made the most sense to us. Now you have these choices. This is like the conversation we have with town council all the time. There are times that we want to do something different than the town attorney wants us to do it. It's not their recommended choice but it's still something that's legally defensible. So I just want to be really clear who's making what decisions if most of this bylaw is actually a creature of decisions that have already been made that I want to understand why those are the right decisions to have been made. If it's mostly a creature of this is the boilerplate Massachusetts uses and you only get these tiny little fractional places you can make a decision. And here's our expert opinion and then we say yay that's a great expert opinion of course we don't question that. That's great. I just think we need to be super clear on who's making what decisions when as part of developing this bylaw. So unless other people have questions or comments that seems like a good segue into what we're going to do next. We were thinking that we were going to just go through the bylaw section by section but maybe it does make sense to get a highlighted version. Along the lines of what Alyssa was just suggesting just to see which parts are definitely mandated by law and which are decision points for us. Does that sound feasible to you though. Yeah no that that sounds great would. In addition to that would you want sort of examples from other towns so so at a decision point such as like, like fees or even just acreage. What I can provide is is the highlighted sections in the bylaw where there is some real decision points where things are mandated, but then also provide a couple examples of what other towns have done. That might be helpful. Like it would be helpful. Is there anything that we could look at tonight that would make sense to. You know that was. You had mentioned a couple of different sections that were definitely decision points. Would it make sense to look at them just to give us a preview of what's coming, or, or not. Not to say something. Oh no no sorry. I'll pitch in. To tell the truth most of what you have for the bylaw is kind of meant to be the rule so that when we get to the regulation that's the point where people can talk and make decisions. So if you really look at the bylaw the places that you could, the places to make a decision are do you like how section. C is do you want it to say in the bylaw what the minimum drainage area is or do you want to just move that to the regulation. And then you don't have to keep changing the bylaw every time you want to change the size or what size land it applies to. Exemptions if you want to not have the exemptions in the bylaw you can have those in the regulation only and just authorize us to come up with exemptions in the regulation. So C and D are things that you might if you want to you could tone down to input in the regulation so there's more discussion at the regulation point. In administration we kind of laid out how we kind of manage the stormwater system now if you wish to change that this would be something you could look at changing or adjusting. And then enforcement, you know, you don't want me to do cease and desist orders you want me to do something else like plant flowers or something like that those those that would be something to think about in that section there. So really we tried we did try to strip it down to make it meet all the requirements and then during the regulations we could add more stuff in and we can have more discussion about how we wanted the regulations to function. So those are the only four sections I would see that there's stuff that maybe you might want to move to regulations or even beef up now those would be the two choices. I can just say that we, we have until when to do this, June. That's about, but we have to get it back. Yeah, I thought you meant since town council gave it to subcommittees when do they have to report back to town council. Yeah, I think we're supposed to report back within 90 days but. Okay. But we have June 30 at the end of June. Right, so we have a pretty packed agenda for the next couple of meetings after this so and we don't have anything else on this agenda so it might make sense to go through some of those sections. Now, to give us a preview. And I'm just thinking that we need to. It makes sense to to for to me to do it now. So if we could. Could, could bath or bill for it or whoever it good at screen sharing. Pull up the. Paul, Paul, you have a question. Yeah, so I was going to say I could share as well. I think we're working on the document and adding the footers things like that that you've asked for. So what I want to say was when you know town attorney is taking the first look at this said it looks very familiar. It looks like a lot of other bylaws that many other communities have developed. I mean, we steal from each other and that's sort of how this wasn't made out of full cold cloth. What I did is I tried to put it into the format that the council has utilized for its bylaws and I think, you know, Beth and go for it already found a typo in there they have to fix and trying to match it up. The one thing that one decision point for the council and it may not be this committee it might be GL is sometimes the purpose and authority the purpose sometimes. The overall comments of the bylaw, where that we have you have the data block up front. You, whether you need a purpose section or not is debatable. And that's a decision point for the council whether you want to do that type of thing and I tried to structure it and use the same. I'm not very good at the formatting piece but tried to use the same kind of formatting that other bylaws hit us. Okay, so section A is what you're talking about. Right, I think that's probably more I don't know as I assume that's GLL is going to make that decision. Yeah, that's more of a GLL issue. So could we scroll down to, is it see that you thought we should start with. Yes, I think B is the sorry is jumping on me. I think B is definitions right. You got a lot of right a lot of definitions. And see is apple ability. Can everybody see that, or should I make it bigger. Let's take a second to read it. So the decision points here might be the one acre issue. The one acre issue, and even just issuing permits, you know, these are the questions that I was trying to get at what does the permit require us to do the permit really requires us to establish some kind of a bylaw that gives the town the authority to to investigate and monitor and manage our stormwater that's in our stormwater system so that when it comes out of the outfalls, it meets water quality standards. And how we do that is not necessarily spelled out so much in the permit itself. So such as even issuing stormwater management permits to new and redevelopment projects. Again, but as Paul said, this is this is really based on templates that are out there and what other towns are doing. But it is something that if the town didn't even want to issue any kind of a permit you're not required to. And that's the way most towns are doing, doing things. But the state is requiring doesn't require permits. They know they don't require. They don't require you to to establish a permitting system for new and redevelopment. George. The question I had raised earlier had to do with why, you know, less than one acre and as we look at this and I appreciate sort of the overview and this is a decision point it seems. As I think Guilford pointed out or did that it does give authority to DPW to act in in areas where it's less than an acre. And I believe this Guilford said that this usually comes out anyway in the in the site plan review process. I mean, it's in my mind. And also I thought I got the impression that doing less than an acre might create a headache for DPW in terms of just the number of sheer number of permits that have to deal with so if I feel the moment looking at this that, and I'd be the opposite from from Guilford or from Beth that to avoid just tons of permits on the one hand, but also the fact that you have the authority according to what we have here to intervene in cases where you feel it's necessary. This seems to accomplish what I saw as a concern about well why why is one acre, the cutoff point it's not really the cutoff point. It's for permits, unless you feel as necessary and that seems to cover it. Is that a fair, incoherent description of what I'm reading. Yeah, yeah, it is. Because I'd be satisfied with this from that perspective it as long as you guys are happy with it. And you do have the authority to intervene where necessary. And there is obviously established processes where you would be informed you would be aware of what's going on, and to avoid excess permits that we just add more work for you that often wouldn't be needed. This seems to be a nice compromise. Dorothy. I'm asking about the normal maintenance improvement of land in agriculture or agriculture use. And I'm thinking of some instances which we may not have in this town now but we might in the future, hogs, large chicken places, and possibly even cannabis. I know that hogs and chickens can cause terrible terrible runoff problems in places where they have them as like, you know, big business. Would it be safe to put something just in case those things got increased or is that something that we could add a regulation later without there being a problem. I think you could add a regulation later but I think large scale production of farm farm farm things like that actually fall under the zoning bylaws. And if you have a large scale hog production. You would fall under that and then have to go through the planning process as well as and then also they may they may get some of the other natural pollution discharge elimination system permits. Industrial facilities such as our wastewater treatment plant has its own stormwater discharge permit because it's an industrial facility so a large enough farming facility would maybe required to have its own permit. Okay. Thank you. Evan. Yeah, I wanted to follow up. So, I was surprised to hear that the the actual stormwater management permit is not required. And so I guess I'm curious and if you know you know if you know you know, is that the most common way that towns or municipalities have certain have responded to this. And are there other routes that they have taken that is not a permitting approach to this. Yeah, I haven't seen any other any other way to do it. I mean they basically required you to review projects that are at least an acre for the standards that the MS for includes for water quality and water discharge from those projects. You know, you need to review it and approve it in some fashion. It's just that they, as I said, they don't come out and tell you exactly how to do it and so some towns have come up with, with more than one. Basically permit but you know some permits for for a smaller project some permits for larger projects. And if I could follow up. So, and I just want to make sure I'm understanding this all correctly. So the, the permit so you would get prior to approval of the plan and the permit would would deal with stormwater management, both of the site as a construction site and then also management of the site after construction it's one permit for both construction and post construction correct. Right post for post construction, what would be included in your application for your permit would be sort of like an operations and maintenance plan for your stormwater system in your project so you would be providing when you're applying you'd be saying this is the maintenance of our system that we're going to do post construction. And that would be approved to get to even get your permit. Okay, and then just just one more. So, it only applies to new development and redevelopment so so existing parcels that are perhaps like 100% paved are those just unregulated until and unless they get redeveloped. Right, there's nothing that we. Yeah, there's nothing where we can do at this point for that. Unless they are again falling maybe and more under the ID by law and having some kind of a discharge directly to a catch basin that we find is a problem and is producing pollution at the outfall. Otherwise, if there's if there's an area that's just parking lot and pervious surface, terrible for stormwater, we can't do anything about it. And actually if they do decide to redevelop then we actually can regulate stormwater. Right. Okay, make sure I understand that correctly. When we start, if we start talking about a stormwater by stormwater utility, those are the areas we can actually start addressing things that don't fall in the construction redevelopment phase and you can say well, since you have this big parking lot and you're making so much stormwater, you have to pay us or your fee is higher than someone who doesn't. And that would drive someone to start redeveloping and making improvements to it. Does that make sense. Yes. So, again, with the utility and this program in general, publicly owned land that has large parking lot schools are proposed parking here parking lots and things. You know, you can use this program, hopefully, you know, money through the utility to make those using the best green infrastructure that we can, that we can find. Paul. So we were talking about this here and some people live in Belcher town they just got their bill for and they get a stormwater bill from the amount of impervious surface they have and for their stormwater utility so there are all of our neighboring communities are a lot many of our neighboring things are doing this. Oh, what's up. So just having worked on bylaw review. When we were trying to make our bylaws make better sense than they had in the past. So this is more of a GOL thing so George this is your problem not TSO is problem, but the applicability section doesn't really flow. The middle belongs at the beginning or the end, because the reality is issuant prior to issuance you need X, and you need it either because you're under the circumstances of one acre, or because you're under the circumstances of discretion and public works. It just is all one giant paragraph with the part about the permit in the middle is just not helpful. So we're trying to do better, and this may read the way one of our old bylaws read but Evan and I couldn't fix everything with the other people on that bylaw review. So it would be great if that could get broken up because one of the complaints we hear, obviously about our bylaws is that there's a lot of large blocks of text and they're hard for people to follow. I know that we have people who basically hold people's hand throughout the entire process when it comes to all our different bylaws, but to make it a little easier for people. I think that would help. You're done. Okay. One thing that I would be interested in finding out, as far as other communities and maybe you already know this answer about is whether if, if the state just requires the one acre minimum. What other communities do. Are there other community is most communities just adopt the one acre. Minimum or is, you know, I just like to be interested to know if there are other communities that have adopted a, a half acre, quarter, three quarters of an acre or whatever minimum. I think we lost both. I think we lost both. Yeah, we can, we can look that up and we can give you that information. Okay, any other comments on C. Maybe we could scroll down and take a look at E. I'm assuming there's more than one here. Yeah, D has seven. A lot of exemptions. Okay. So let's take a second to look at these exemptions. Okay. This is probably due to the recent experience we've had with Berkshire gas, but my attention was immediately drawn to see it to three C three. Or D three, I'm sorry, construction utilities. And it mentions best management practices. And I'm just wondering whether that's just, you know, how do we know, or do we. We do know, I mean, we do haven't, they do, they do have to get a permit now to be operating in the town way. So when, when our inspector is not home because he's sick, he or a home on vacation. He are sick. He, he's out there and he usually keeps track of what's going on and can keep good, good control over what the going on and make sure things are going on. And then we do talk to the contractor. So it's not something to just kind of every once in a while, it's usually a fluke of white breaks loose and something happens is not supposed to. Guilford, do we know that the timber, the forest cutting practices act regulation. Somehow, regulates stormwater drainage. Yes, it does. There's a whole section on stormwater in the timber harvesting rules. Dorothy. So back to the utilities. So I, we learned in the email from Donna zucker that they removed a crab apple tree. I will assume that they had to remove the crab apple tree, but in such a case, is there restoration. Yes, in the case of that crab apple tree there. The tree was declining in health and the tree warden gave approval for it to be removed with understanding they will replace it. Okay, thank you. Alyssa, help me out on the single family aspect. I understand a single family versus an apartment complex but a duplex, for example, and plenty of duplexes would have no significant difference over the size of a single family home. So I think that a lot of our single family homes have been turned into duplexes, more or less. So what's, I understand that single family home is an easier single family dwelling is an easier thing to define, but I'm just wondering why we're choosing that rather than leaving more options there associated with the obvious example being a duplex. So it was just, just the thought that, you know, duplexes and triplexes, as you go up, they, it's usually a larger area. The landscaping gardens and lawns would just, it would just get to be a larger parcel. And so, then they start to, yeah, become a little more commercial almost like so they may, we may want to regulate them more than a single family house. This is an exemption. So we're exempting a single family house from having to get a permit if they're doing landscaping. They don't have a single family house on two acres and they're making a, they're landscaping an acre of it, they don't have to come get a permit. That's what this allows them to do. Right, I'm just trying to understand why somebody with an in town duplex, you're saying it probably be such a small lot size it wouldn't matter, perhaps that's my solution, because I'm thinking of duplexes that take up a relatively large amount of the parcel because they are much older dwellings and it sounds like in that case, if they, since they'd have so little area to re-landscape anyway, they probably wouldn't fall under the need to have the permit in the first place. So that's how their exemption would come about. Yes. All right. Evan. Yeah, actually, since, you know, if we're sort of providing feedback for revision, that one also caught my eye. Because I guess I just wasn't sure if, if an acre of land is being disturbed, and it's a single family home versus an apartment complex, I'm not quite sure why that distinction matters. If it's two acres being landscaped from a single family home and two acres for an apartment complex, it's still two acres being disturbed. So I was, I was curious why and so it seems like a weird distinction to me since the impact in theory would be the same regardless on the type of dwelling. I was curious if there is a way to reword that, or also if we, if we even feel like, you know, putting an acre and a half garden in would even require stormwater management permit, which, you know, from the fee schedule that we saw for some of these other towns and theory could be quite expensive. All right. You know, I think it's exempt partly because of what the, what the actions are, you know, landscaping and gardening may have less of a chance of creating a whole lot of runoff that could end in our stormwater system. The thought of adding in duplexes or triplexes is actually a fine idea and thought it would still be the same type of activity, which is almost a low impact type of activity. I guess if I, I was actually less focused on that and more thinking, do we even, I don't know, it maintenance of existing landscaping gardens and lawn areas to me seemed like it would just be an exemption on its own regardless of what type of houses attached to so I'd be curious if we are looking at comparisons of other committee communities, if that's common because it seems like if I have an existing guard, if someone has an existing guarding, maintaining it shouldn't be subject to a stormwater management permit regardless of what kind of dwelling it's adjacent to. Yeah, we can look and see what other people are doing. Yeah, I'm kind of interested in this, the same issue in that, you know, and it's very high percentage of single family residents owners, fertilize their lawns. And, you know, I don't know, most lots are half acre to an acre I guess, or I guess there are a lot of smaller smaller lots than that too, but I guess I'm just interested in knowing why we aren't concerned about that. We actually are concerned about that and we go and if you go and look at more into what's the education and outreach program of the permit. There's a lot of emphasis put on talking to people and existing uses of chemicals for lawn care and that type of thing as well so that's covered more of a maintenance type and in the outreach and education side of the permit than it is in the stormwater permits right here. This is more. This is actually more geared towards you're ripping up something and you're going to redo it and you don't want the lot to wash away while you're in the middle of construction. Right, I guess if we want to prevent a lot of toxins from going into our stormwater. The, you know, the, there's a huge amount of our town land that's just owned by single family residents owners and a vast number of them are are fertilizing their lawns and it seems like that that is that is a pretty big issue. I think I think just about everybody in my neighborhood is fertilizing their lawn, everybody but me and I have just Dan Alliance all. So anyway, I would like us to have less less toxins in our in our stormwater myself. Go ahead. Yeah, I was just going to say. Part of this program is identifying all the outfalls all the outfalls and where we find elevated levels of nitrogen and phosphorus, then we need to investigate the catchments and it ends up in your neighborhood. And then we would know that your neighborhood has an issue with nutrients and, and that's where we would really start to push some kind of educational campaign and explain to me, and forgive me if I'm asking a dumb question but you know, the, how the, the drainage from the, you know, the runoff from the, from the toxins in the in the lawn treatments, get into the stormwater. They would typically she pull off a yard and go into a catch base and in the road. It's harder to get there though. Well when it rains, you know the rain is going to it's going to flow through a grassed area and if just been realized the organic fertilizers that they'll dissolve into the rainwater, which a lot of it was it's going to she flow off of the off of the yard and get into the catch basins in the street. So we'd have to go on to the road into the pavement into the great and into the, into the stormwater. Right. Because there's otherwise that would be the only entry way. Yep. Yeah. Any other questions about the exemptions. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Can you scroll down a little bit, Gilbert? Is there much more left here? Just, and I know we'll talk at another time about more of our options here, but just, and again, maybe more of a GLL question, George, but just in terms of my previous work on bylaw review. We're going to talk about regulations within one year because that immediately makes this bylaw out of date at some point, and we don't we try not to do that because then it's a question of well Sean we now revise the bylaw to say the regulations got written. I appreciate that. Obviously we want regulations, but it says here that if he doesn't do it, it doesn't actually suspender and validate the bylaw. That seems more like just something he'd let us know that he'd done rather than something that belongs in the bylaw itself. The only reason I could see putting it in the bylaws to say that he's the one that's required that he's the one who does the regulations, but I wouldn't put the time limitation on it because again you're going to make the bylaw immediately out of date a year from when you adopt it. Let's pull down again, Guilford. So, what does the appeals of the action mean. A decision of Guilford shall be final. Further relief of a decision made under this bylaw shall be reviewable in compliance with section g five of this bylaw. Exactly g seven. No g five. Oh, maybe appeal to the change. So, I don't think it makes sense to say the decision is final then. If it's not, if it's appealable it's not final right. It usually means that the permit is, I make the decision on the permit that's the decision on the permit and that they don't like it. They can appeal it but most people don't appeal it so otherwise everyone would ask the town manager all the time for the be the final decision of the permit. But so, but you shouldn't you, it isn't correct to say that your decision is final, if it's appealable right. No, I mean DP uses that same language with their permits to us. They'll issue a final permit, this is the final permit and it's appealable through, usually through going to court, if we want to go through court with them, and it's laid out that way. But this appeal is just to the town manager right so I guess I'm just saying that that doesn't make sense to me to say that it's final unless you're trying to trick people into thinking it's final. I think it's a legal, a legal way of saying it. Yeah. I mean the next sentence simply to and then next sentence informs you that you can appeal it. So, I mean, I don't see them in here, it's just a way of a way of putting something. I don't see a problem. That's a little crazy to me. But, um, yeah, any other. Darcy. Of course I'm right. Final should mean final. We have a DEP all the time and we lose. Yeah, no, it's just an attempt to deceive the public, I think, which is not a good, good thing for us to be doing. But any other comments. If you take this up in GOL, it's a legitimate point. You're adding to my list, but I don't mind this is helpful to me. And we could discuss it GOL one solution would be striking that sentence. Appeals of action and then just go further relief or just really and just strike the sentence, but that's something GOL could take up. Sure. Yes. You still want to say that you the Guilford is the one who makes the decision. You have to say that. Well, you can say it. Guilford makes the decision. And it's available. So, um, any other comments. So I guess I'm interested in knowing from people what are what what makes sense for our next steps. Oh, do we want to look at enforcement here? Shall we scroll down a little bit. It's a very small point under four F. If the enforcing person strikes me somewhat. An odd phrase, but maybe that's just standard language. The enforcing person I assume would be an inspector or it could be. I mean, it's just right. So if the enforcing person determines. What's the issue Georgia. I'm trying to understand who an enforcing person is, but I guess that maybe just means the inspector or the DPW inspector or whatever. I don't know. And because throughout the rest of the bylaws superintendent of public works, we can, we can just put Guilford in there. And you guys seem to throw me on the. You're basically. Yeah. I just wondered, I just, it's not a big deal. GLL issue, George. Thank you very much. You're keep your hat on the right in the right committee here. Taking lots of notes. Thank you. Any other comments. Okay. It's 806. I am not completely sure when this will come back to us another time. Are you bath. Does it seem to you that we've made comments that would. Where. That. Would require some revisions. Does it make sense to come back with a revised version. Yeah, there's definitely there's a few spots there that I can definitely. Make revisions based on the comments. And so we didn't really, we didn't go through the ID DE by-law. We only looked at this to storm our management by-law. Yeah, I don't know. I have a few other things to do tonight. And I, I'm not sure that we have time to go through the whole thing. Yeah. So maybe on a future agenda, we could do the other by-law. We have other comments here, George. Yeah. I would say we need to come back and hit the decision points. Have we hit the decision points or is that something that we're, we would upon return of Beth and go for, we would then look at the highlighted decision points or have we pretty much covered that. I would, I would say we need to come back and hit the decision points. We'll highlight them and bring them back to you and say. What they are. We think they are. Yeah, if you could do that with both by-laws. That would be good. Yeah, I'm just feeling bad for the fact that staff is here. And we're going to have to drag them back to another meeting, but if we simply don't have time for them to highlight the things for us and the other by-law, then I guess we don't have time. The other thing I was just going to say is that this is, there's enough GOL meet here that I'm wondering at what point does, is it simultaneous and what point is it separated? If GOL is going to make a bunch of revisions that none of those are going to be substantive, I'm just trying to be clear on how that's going to work. But I understand that if we are actually going to get a chance next time to whenever that next time is to highlight the actual changes, then I can understand that GOL is not going to bother messing with it until after we make those decision points. So just trying to be clear on what we're doing and also apologizing for staff that we weren't able to get to both of those things tonight when you took the time to come tonight. Evan? Yeah, actually I wanted to echo, I feel like, I mean, staff is here. I feel bad if Guilford and Beth have to come back again, just for the IDDE that we may then send them back for revisions for. And so I guess I'm wondering since we've all read the IDDE by-law and we got their presentation. If we spend more time on that stormwater one than I think we needed to, because we said we were only going to go to the decision points and talk about them, but then we ended up reading the by-law and full and asking questions and then delving into a lot of GOL stuff. So is it possible for us to just do a quick decision point summary of the IDDE to give them some feedback so that we don't have to, we can minimize the amount of times they have to come back here? That is fine with me. Are people okay with going over tonight slightly if we have to? Because this will take us over our time, definitely. Yes. Well, my brain is hurting. I actually have found this much more interesting than I thought it would be. So I guess I'll just grit my teeth and continue. I think it's partly due to Beth and Guilford. You guys have done a great job. I wasn't looking forward to this. And now I'm starting getting a little interested, which whatever. So yes, the answer is yes. Let's just do it quickly. GOL will not look at this until you're done with it, until we're done with it. So let's put up the other one and, and just run through it. Okay. So we have our purpose. GOL is going to look at, right? So before you start with this one. Just to comment that. There's really no regulations that go with this bylaw. This bylaw is the meat of the. The meat of the meat. So we'll take this. And then we'll look at what you're approving as the regulations basically. We'll take this and then we'll put it into a program where we actually explore and look for the illicit discharges throughout town. So this is the. This is the document. There really won't be another. Regulation that goes with this. Just to let you know. Okay. Right, Beth. Right. Right. Okay. So should we assume that GOL is going to look at the purpose section? Yes. And, and is, is B definitions. Yes, you can probably. Skip to C. Okay. Or even D. George. Sorry, that's a residual hand. Let me get it down. Okay. Okay. Okay. And then we'll look at the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the town manager may develop regulations. But as go for said. There's, there's not as much. Needed with this bylaw in terms of getting more specific about processes, which is really under the storm or management bylaw. The permitting needs to be. Spell out a lot more and they need the regulations. They really. It really covers everything just right in the bylaw. It doesn't need an expansion into regulations. But. I think it's fine that that's in there under D, D too. In case in the future. We decide we do want to. Create some regulations. Could, could one of you. Kind of explain E. The purpose of putting E in there. I don't know. I don't know if anyone has to answer. I think. It's something that came from sort of the. Templates of these that are out there and what other towns are putting in. And the way I read it is that. These. The standards. Set forth here. It's kind of legally is it just says that. Even though you follow these standards, you could have discharges that are. Not standard. And it's just kind of. Yeah. It's the legal ways way of saying it. So for example, you, you were following a minimum standard of. And say, for example, you had a one acre standard. But then there was a horrendous discharge in a. A minimum standard of an acre. Parcel. You're just stating that. The fact that you have adopted a minimum standard. Doesn't mean that we're not going to have. Pollution. Yes. Right. It might also suggest that you would still be legally liable. I mean, you couldn't say that because I fulfilled the requirements of this bylaw, I'm not, you know, legally liable for some thing that I've done. I'm just, I don't know. Right. You know, this bylaw deals a lot with the, with the discharges. So. Say somebody met the rules of using a BMP to protect. A catch basin. So they thought they were meeting the rules, but then I kind of some kind of a large release occurred on their property. It doesn't sort of exempt them then possibly from having to pay for restoration. Or. For mediation or something. I mean, you well could ask for a legal, you know, ask the lawyer for an explanation if you feel it's necessary. The committee does. Alyssa. This doesn't need to be answered tonight. And I was hoping it would become clear to me, but it's not. So if you could just try and explain it next time. Under prohibited activities. Items one and two. Item one, illicit discharges. Any pollutant or nonstorm water discharge. Except as accepted in section G. Then illicit connections. Starts out and I understand what it's saying about, Hey, we don't care if you thought you were grandfathered in from 1937. Not true anymore. But the last sentence of illicit connections specifies conveying sewage. So are we saying that the only possible thing that's an illicit connection. Is a sewage illicit connection because otherwise. This doesn't quite make sense. Because if there are other kinds of illicit connections. Other than sewage connections. I'm not sure why we're calling out sewage in the last sense of item. Two. So again, you don't have to do it tonight, but it just doesn't scan for me as to what I'm saying. But illicit connections, I assume could be broader than. You could have an illicit connection that conveys something other than sewage. And that you're not supposed to be doing that either. Right. Right. The illicit connections is for, for any kind of pollutant. So yeah, we can, we can look at that sentence. Yeah, finesse it a little bit. That'd be great. Yeah. Okay. So I'm just finding it confusing. Because I understand now that this one is non-storm water. And what we were just talking about before with storm water, but you look at the top of the page and. The fines and stuff. There's a lot of things that looks the same. And they both say penalties for violation of storm water management by-law. So the storm water by management by-law includes non-storm water. I'm just saying it's really hard to keep the paper straight. And is there a label or title of the papers? Or did I totally miss the point of everything? There's a typo in the one that you have, I think Dorothy, and they fixed it. Oh, it says, so it doesn't say, say penalties for violation of storm water management by-law. That was a typo. Oh, okay. Here, it's on the screen now, Dorothy. Okay. Fabulous. Because, you know, I'm sitting here with these papers and finally, I see inside it. I'm sitting here. I'm sitting here. I'm sitting here. I'm sitting here. I'm sitting here. I'm sitting here. I'm sitting here. I'm sitting here. Okay. So those are the papers and finally, I see inside it. The thing that makes a difference. Thank you. Good. Yeah. In F. So just a little bit of a confusion. I had asked earlier, if this by-law was really just supposed to cover, um, focus on the MS4 system but then F1 says into the MS4, into a watercourse wetland resource or the waters of the Commonwealth. And so that I guess that's actually where my original confusion came from about, does it apply to just discharge into MS4 or other discharges? Yeah, no, that's true, it does include that. So that that is in here. And like I said, that also would apply under the Wetlands Protection Act. So if that kind of an event was happening, it could actually be enforced upon by either by law. Would you like to scroll down, Guilford, so we can look at all the prohibited activities? Ooh, wait a minute. Exemptions. Are there more prohibited activities or did we see them all? That was all the prohibited ones. Oh, okay. Do you have another comment, Dorothy? Not at this time. It's a nice big list of exemptions. I'll just say that this is an area, this list of exemptions is actually something that's in the permit itself. So it's an area that we can't change as much. Okay, so that's useful. Dorothy, is your hand up? I have removed my hand, thank you. Okay, see the exemption of discharge from landscape irrigation or lawn watering. Just to note up at the top, with the next to where it says, G, it says provided that the source is not a significant contributor of a pollutant to the MS4 system. So again, through our investigations of the health of the system, if we find areas with high pollutant loads, we can still investigate and these things wouldn't be exempt. Is, oh, I'm interested in knowing if storm water runoff containing sand and deisers is toxic. Well, it's not toxic in a sense, but it is, it can be considered a pollutant. And if we do have high loads of salt getting into the environment, which exceed the requirements, the groundwater requirements for salt or so forth, we do have to kind of take a look at it and try to remediate that situation. So it can become like a pollutant and it can be something we have to resolve. Is there in the sand and salt that residents get from the DPW, is there more in there other than sand and salt, other chemicals? There's a deicing agent, which is made from magnesium chloride and a byproduct of different types of brewing processes, depending on which one we buy. And those, the MSD for them show that they're actually not a contaminant right now. They aren't regulated and they don't pose a risk. What is dye testing? We have little packets of dye that we sometimes put into people's sump pump areas to see where the sump pump will discharge to or we put it into the sanitary sewer line in the house, like put it in their toilet and see where it comes out to verify where the actual flow leaves the property. Evan? So I just wanted to confirm what I thought I heard Beth say, which was that these exemptions are part of the permit and so aren't really something that we can modify or a decision point. Was that, did I hear that correctly? Yes. Yeah. So if this isn't really a decision point, I'm wondering if we should just move on to the next thing that we actually have as a decision point. So you're saying the exemptions are required? This, yeah, this list comes straight from the permit. Which, which is, So it's basically that the permit doesn't apply to this list of discharges. Okay, all right, so let's move on. So are we looking for decision points or are we just going section by section? I just need some clarification here. Yeah, is H, is there, are there some decision points in H? These are what we're allowed to do to stop and mitigate something. We're allowed to take this action, it's in the permit. So this is something that the federal government state government wants us to do. Move down or? Yeah. I think the best management practices in the notification are actually pre-standard language too, right Beth? Yeah. Okay. Enforcement, you scroll down a little bit, Guilford. In my copy, I have a blue comment, which is not on the screen. And the comment is right here at which costs first become due, this is in four and it says the comment, in my opinion, the town will need to designate the cost. Yeah, there it is, good, okay. So is that a decision point or is that just that you felt it wasn't clear? So that's a comment from the town attorney. And I don't know if Paul or Guilford can chime in on, he's sort of saying how we would end up, it's financial. We'll have to look at that. So I think that, is that a GOL issue? I guess that could be either one of us. George? Just a compensatory action, six. Could Guilford explain why this is here and what gives him obviously some leeway, which is good, but maybe it's just boilerplate, but I'm curious what the role or purpose of this is and it's sort of et cetera. So I mean, could he, I mean, he could just do, request just about anything. Where is it, George? Where? It's under six. Four, six after appeals. It's compensatory action in lieu of enforcement. The director of superintendent of public works may impose other things instead. You know, could he like 50 pushups and no, I still, what's going on here? It's sort of the same thing, but it would be like, we could require them to improve a section of the stormwater system that they impacted plus a more additional stormwater system if we wanted to. So that's kind of what that is about. We could change the language there to say, has to, you know, have something to do with the stormwater system. So it is pushups or something like that. Well, it actually does talk about there. At the bottom, it says such things as storm drains, denseling, attendance, that compliance workshop, creek cleanups, et cetera. That's at the very bottom. Right, but then just say, you know, et cetera does kind of open the window to other things. So to have a statement, other things. I would prefer to come and blow my lawn. That would be, that would be what I would say. Well, you know, pushups in the contaminated water might be entertaining and educational. Just a practical question. Are these appealable? Yes. It says appeals here. There's a section for appeals. Yeah. Which includes compensatory action. Actually, we can move those up or reorder those. Okay, but it's understood that it's appealable, of course. Thank you. Dorothy? So I'm assuming somebody has done something wrong. They have been notified that they did. They're given a fine. They say, I can't afford the fine. So and say, okay, if you can't afford the fine, then you may do these things. Is that the order that it would go in? Yes. Okay. Any other, any other comments? George, is that a hand that's still up? It's residual. I'll take it down. Are we, is there more here or not? I think that's it. Okay, we made it through both of them. Okay, so it seems to me that maybe one more time coming back with a highlighted version. I'm not exactly sure how you're going to do that. If other people have ideas, please chime in. Dorothy? Do we need to have them come back? That's my question. I felt that we, did not have that many decision points and we had things explained and clarified. I could see maybe getting a copy of the document and if there are any changes or adjustments since this meeting to have those highlighted, but I don't see the necessity to have the staff come in again with this. So tell me if that's, if I'm right or wrong. How do other people feel? George? When we're reviewing these documents, especially as technical as this one is, but I think it's in general when we're dealing with these kinds of things. And they have been made revisions. Plus we have decision points. I was told that at least the previous by-law, there may be some decision points we still need to discuss. It is extremely helpful to have people like Guilford and Beth present. So I don't get the feeling at the moment that this is like just a matter of fixing a few, you know, periods and comments. But that's just my personal opinion. I would like to have them back one last time, especially if they're going to make changes or revisions and especially if they're going to highlight certain areas that have decision points, we're going to need their guidance. So would that would be before or after GOL works on it? Again, GOL will not touch this until we're finished with it. Trust me. I would, I would kind of agree with George there. That's not a problem. Yeah. So, yeah. And then, you know, I can figure out with the town manager when, when the next meeting will be, when it would be good to have you back. I know, I know that it's not going to be the next meeting. On, on January 25th. But we can let you know. Which one. After that. And that was a great presentation and great responses. I'm so impressed that you know so much about storm water. We've been a very quiet meeting. Yeah. Great. The regulations have actually been going on almost my whole career. So when I started. In public works in Charleston, South Carolina and the 89 or actually 91. That was one of the first projects I was assigned to was some of the storm water work there. For the bigger, the biggest communities. They started way back then. So it's been around for a long time. Yeah. Yeah. I'm also really interested in knowing how it. Interrelates with the MVP green infrastructure requirements. If, if at all. You know. I mean, that may be a separate parallel track. I don't know. But anyway, yeah. Thank you very much for, for coming tonight. And what we should probably just move on to the rest of our agenda. Thank you. Good night. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. We don't have much left. I skipped right over the town manager report. I noticed. Does anybody have any questions for the town manager? If not. We just have our minutes of our December 17th, 2020 meeting, which were slightly amended, just. You know, Just a few little corrections, George. Just one thing I noticed very small, but it listed counselors absent. And that didn't make sense to me that counselors didn't have to come to this meeting. They chose to come, which is fine. And we had a quorum. So the meeting was declared. But people weren't absent. They just didn't want to come or whatever. Whatever. Because it was a meeting of the whole council. Well, yeah. So I don't see why that's listed. We can amend that if you want to. It seems to suggest that somehow they were. And I'm not present at something they had to be present at. They didn't have to be present at that. Yeah. That makes sense. Any other comments about the minutes? Anyone want to move to. I'd be happy to move that we approve the minutes of whatever date that is. I don't have it in front of me. Thank you. I make that motion. Dorsey. That was the second. Yes. Okay. Any discussion? Okay. So all those in favor. I mean, Alyssa. Any other comments about the minutes? Anyone want to move to. I'd be happy to move that we approve the minutes of whatever date that is. Okay. Thank you. Alyssa. You're both. Abstain. Darcy. Yes. Dorothy. Yes. Evan. Yes. George. Yes. Okay. So they are approved. Any announcements. In the next agenda preview. We are going to have the next. We're going to have a presentation on the North common. It's going to be based on our input to the town manager, which is due tomorrow. FYI. And it. And we have to do it also. If we want the town manager to incorporate our. Our answers to the questions. So that's due tomorrow. And then I'll compile them. They're just like. Yes or no answers. And so that should be easy to comply. So we, I haven't heard yet from surveillance technology. They had originally said they wanted to come back on January 25th. But I have, I'm not. Sure that they're going to be ready. They're going to be ready. So. So there was an issue of getting a. Getting a, an editable version of. The document. And that's why that's late. But we should have that by the 25th. And if we can fit all those things in, we'll do them all on the 25th. So I'm not sure that we're going to be ready for that. But I just feel the need to. State my hesitation again, as I brought up the last TSO meeting, that. I'm still trying to understand our town council culture that says. 13 individual town counselors can demand answers to questions. And so if I write another five pages of questions, and we each write another five pages of questions, the town manager is responsible for somehow answering all those questions. I'm just going to go back to the agenda priorities. I'm just going to go back to the agenda priorities. I'm just going to go back to the agenda priorities. And then I'm going to go back to the TSO. I believe that the request should be coming from the council, not from 13 individuals. And there is actually a really big difference there. Similarly, I hope that your report to Lynn on the agenda priorities, right? Which is that separate thing. She's been bringing this back to town council over and over again. She said, the committees are supposed to talk about. When we send you our individual things, what TSO thinks, perhaps filtered then through the chairs lens. It's not going to be what TSO thinks it's going to be what five people think. And so that's a different concept to then what TSO thinks. So that's just, I think we just need to be clear in our reports. Who's speaking for what at any given moment. That's fine. And I don't know if you've looked at the actual. I don't know. I don't know if you've looked at the actual. Questions. About the North common, but it's a little different from the normal request for questions and comments, although you can add them at the end. There are, there are. I think eight questions. That are the counselors are asked to answer. Relatively easy to compile. So there are eight questions. And then the ninth question is, what are your, you know, additional comments and questions. So yes, that will be. A lot of random different questions from counselors. But the, the, the first eight will be. You know, they'll all be, they'll all be aligned with the questions that the town manager put forward in his slide deck, basically. So, George. This issue of individual counselors asking questions that Paul is something, GOL is doing the review of the rules of procedure, which were required to do by chart by our, our charge. So that is something that, that I will bring up before a GOL and have a discussion. So just, I don't know if that will answer it or address a list is concerned, but it is something that GOL is aware of. And it's something that I plan to bring up next meeting during our review, ROP. Okay. Dorothy. Where is that number one? I've got two, two questions. Where is that list of questions on the North common? Where can I find it? In an email. From me to you. And it lists the questions. Yeah, it's a, I think it's a, it's an attachment. That has nine questions. Okay. So can you tell me the date you sent that, because that's the easiest way to find my emails. I'll just look up all Darcy ones. Search Darcy North common. Okay. But did you have any idea what day you sent it? I mean, was it this week? Last week. I can just send it to Dorothy. No, but I mean, I'll look for it. Okay. So that's very helpful. Okay. So I had a comment. And this is, I think, I think facial recognition was separated from the surveillance by law. But there's a lot of interesting thing happening right now with facial recognition in reference to the activities of yesterday. And somehow I came across my neighbor right around the corner, Eric Leonard Miller has written a major paper on that, which we started trying to read today. So I just thought that was of interest that we have a local scholar doing work on that. I think it was on oversight or whatever of facial recognition. So I'm sure that would be an interesting thing for us to read. Cool. We're going to identify all those insurrection people from yesterday. Well, it's the kind of thing where, you know, right, I kind of want to do that, but I realized, am I supposed to want to do that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But they're taking photographs and they're checking, they're checking them. So that's, we're going to see it in action. And then applied how we feel about things. I think the guy with the, with the horns and the tattoos, he's going to be fairly recognizable. Well, I don't know. His kind of face was kind of covered by his pelts of fur. I think they know who he is. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Future agenda items. So don't forget to send me your ideas about. TSO related agenda items. If you feel like it. And the North common. By North common by tomorrow. The others within a week. So I think that's it. We had public for a little while, but she left. And I think that's it. I think that's it. We went over by 16 minutes. That's okay. All right. I'll see you all. I declare this meeting adjourned. Good night all. Thank you, Paul. Good night. Yes. Thanks, Paul. Thank you.