 Okay, so we're we are currently recording. Do you want to open the meeting? So good afternoon or good evening everyone today is June 10 2020. This is the Amherst conservation. Meeting. And so start off with would be comments for me. I have none. So that is quick. Dave said he's going to try and join us later. So we'll wait for him. So with that, Aaron, the ball is in your court. Okay, sounds good. Just give me one quick second to get queued up here. Oh, we have so hello, Anna, hello, Fletcher and hello, Leroy. So nice to see you. Okay. So. We'll jump into my report first. Can you guys see this? And then I put Dave's stuff at the end and we will do some jumping around. At the end I've, I only got the stuff from Dave, like, like five o'clock this afternoon. So I added in what I could, but there's some stuff that I've just got saved that I'll have to open the documents. Okay, so just sort of status report on a few things. E signature form. I took it to have it recorded at the registry. The registry wasn't allowing people to go in, which I was told they were open. So that was frustrating. And then I brought it back. I had a conversation with the registry. And result is it was mailed out today, but there was a line on the form that was a question because there was an extra signature line and it wasn't clear who was supposed to be signing that and if they should be included on the application. So it's been sent. Hopefully it just gets recorded and then we're good to go. But that's basically the status of that. So it's been kind of a hold up. I did notify all of the applicants of the situation that we were making this trying to get this process in motion so they know that and they know that things might be a little delayed until we actually get that recorded. So we don't have to issue any e signature permits until that document is recorded. Old Friends Farm gave us a, an update on their irrigation, which you might recall we, this was Bramble Hill Farm up in the back old friends farm. They were drawing from the two ponds on the property. They kind of brought it to our attention this past fall, and we asked them to give a six month status update on their process procedure for getting irrigation going in the means of like a well or an upland water source. They are still working out the details of their lease with the Bramble Hill Farm owner. But they have not made any progress toward establishing like a long term irrigation plan so I think they're trying to establish their lease first, and then figure out what to do with irrigation. If anybody has ideas on this for how we can assist them because you know there's, you know, they're small little kind of co-op farm and they don't have a ton of money to invest in this and I'm just really worried about the resources on that property getting all the water getting pumped out especially when we're in drought conditions. So I mean I'd like to volunteer myself but I talked with Dave and that's definitely a conflict of interest so I can't. But if anybody knows of anyone who is interested in volunteering or doing a project or anything like that. Please keep that in mind and I don't know what you guys want to do as far as a response back to them, because they did give the six month update. Yeah, I mean it sounds like they're, they don't really have many options at this point so in their short term issue, they're just going to have, you know, what they're requesting is just to do what they've been doing they've been doing that for a long time. And so, yeah, I mean I just, I don't think there's many other options with that. But to me it sounds like they're optimistic that the lease would go through soon. And so it sounds like they are willing to do one, they are willing to do what we asked once that is established. So I think it's kind of a wait and see from what I see and I'm not that it's great what they're doing but I'm okay with it personally. You remind me Aaron when did they say they're going to know about the lease. To date certain they just said they're working out the details. My feeling was maybe wait until or tell them, once you've established whether your lease is being extended. Touch base again, maybe. Yeah. Yeah, or so whatever comes first either that or six months though Aaron, in case that goes. Okay, I think that we want to have something sooner if need be. That makes sense. Okay, place. Okay, that sounds great. So I was contacted by this gentleman named Ron gross line he is a volunteer with the Fort River cleanups that take place annually. He lives in Connecticut River watershed cleanups that that are happening all over. And he lives over on Columbia Drive off of East Hadley Road, and he walks in. There's a sewer access that goes along the Fort River behind between where the brook is located and Fort River, and he knows that there was some historic dumping that had happened back there. There's a vehicle that was dumped there quite a while ago it's basically just a rusty rusty bones of a vehicle at this point and then a couple old metal containers and possibly some other material. So he's trying to organize some efforts to basically get a tow truck back there to pull the material out and just get it off the site and kind of cleaned it up. So there's a couple parts to that he's he's reaching out to the brook to get permission because it's private property. Dave Zomek is going to be talking to Guilford about disposing of the material once it's removed. And then the other piece of that is permitting. I went out and I walked the site. I could try to show you a few photos, if this allows me to. So these photos are kind of jumbled up here because this was another last minute situation so bear with me. So you can't really, can you guys see the photo? Yes. Okay, so I was standing on the path and the car was like out here. So the river was to my was behind me. So this is on the upland side of the river and the brook is on the other side of that tree line. So basically require a tow truck to get back there and put a cable way out to where the vehicle is in the woods and then pull it. So you're talking about dragging it through that area, which may cause some minor disturbance to pull it out, but that's about it. Erin, which direction are they pulling? Are they pulling away from the wetland or through the wetland? If that makes sense. So this area here where the vehicle is I think is in an actually in an upland, but it is in riverfront. There is a sort of a finger like projection of wetlands that go behind where the car is located and then there's the river, which is on the other side of sort of behind me when I was taking the picture. But no, the impact or the disturbance would be an upland just adjacent to the river and the wetlands. So, I mean my feeling from walking it and I'll show you the other picture of the, so this is it's difficult to see I'm actually standing in the wetland looking toward the upland area. This is probably right in a transitional area between where the wetland is and where the upland is. The car is just on the other side of where this barrel is. And there's another barrel on the other side of this in the just just on the back side you can't see it, but basically I mean I kind of saw this as a resource area improvement and it was the impact would be so mild. I didn't really think it required a permit filing. My only suggestion to them was if we offered say like a letter of support and suggested that if there is any ground disturbance that they seed it and maybe mulch it. But I don't know how others feel about that. And there's no more chemicals in the car or in those barrels looks like they've been there long enough I'm sure there's only nasty water, if anything. Yeah, I think just our water supply. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's already in there pleasure so we're good. Yeah. Oh yeah. Look at me I'm doing great. I see I think it's great I mean hey if somebody's willing you say he's willing to pay for it. He's looking for sort of volunteer assistance with it. I don't know if the funds are coming from a watershed Association for the the record to get back there. But you know the town would essentially take the materials so I think you but he's willing to volunteer his time and facilitate all this which is amazing. Yeah, I'm all for it. Yeah, if you don't feel like we need to need to permit it. I mean great. Get it done. Yeah, I mean it's literally just attaching them stuff to the truck and pulling it in and putting it on a flat bed and driving it out. I think it's relatively simple. I don't think there's a reason not to agree. Okay. Okay. Great. And then there was a request for certificate of compliance on the agenda but they have withdrawn because we found that there was already a certificate issue that was never recorded so is now being recorded and we are good to go. Monitoring reports. There's nothing major to report on monitoring reports. Bear with me with me one minute. But there, there are several outstanding site visits happening this week. I'm also meeting with the BSC group who's working for ever source next Wednesday, and they are doing, they're looking to put together, we had discussed this briefly at the last meeting but they're looking to put together a mitigation plan for some work that they're doing to put in a roadway behind the POTIC substation and so we're basically brainstorming trying to come up with some ideas of mitigation projects they could do for the town. That would be a benefit to either conservation areas, conservation lands or town lands that could mitigate the impacts that they're proposing with the substation. What time you meeting the Dave out there. From one to 230. Yeah, terrible time sir. Okay. Are you guys got also talk about the beaver issues and the flooding that's going on at POTIC. Yeah, that's going to be a key, key subject we're discussing I'm trying to get ever source to do all of it, like the beaver address the beavers at both the POTIC substation or some POTIC conservation area and they're right of way there's a beaver dam and then also on Pomeroy court there's another beaver dam that and the beavers actually I already had beaver solutions go out and look at it and the beaver solutions said the beavers need to just be trapped because they can't put in a beaver deceiver there and it's pretty dangerous. The situation that's going on. And it's just unmanageable because every time you break the dam down the beavers are right back chewing down all the veg and dropping trees and stuff so I'm hoping that ever source will be willing to do some trapping for us and potentially some mitigation I'm I'm hoping my my pitch was really for amethyst brook particularly I mean I know we've already permitted a bridge crossing there I made the pitch for the polls once again for the bridge crossing but also where we haven't had that bridge crossing for so long once people come to where the bridge crossing was they're taking a right and they're walking up along amethyst and there's a really serious undercut going on with the river already and now all the veg along that area where the undercuts happening is gone because of foot traffic so maybe coming up with a plan to mitigate that and help protect the river in some way I think would be a really and I think it would be like kind of a good thing for ever source to to from a public relations standpoint to say hey we've done this great thing for the river so maybe they'll maybe they'll go for it Aaron at amethyst does it make sense to do like signage to tell people that that's not a path and that they're actually hurting the land Yeah, I've I've definitely made that case and I think that they have actually done that in the past I talked with Brett and are not Brett Brad and Tyler about that The signs the signs get ripped down and people but I was thinking maybe like actually put up like a safety fence or something across there but I don't know I think that's something we need to talk about and rerouting Yeah, I mean that's a trail. I mean it's a well demarc it's as well demarcated as any trail there. One thing just to make sure that we don't want to constrain the river at all. I mean it is undercutting like all hell but that's natural from what I Right up on top. That's a separate issue. Right. I agree. It's great. I just because there's a dam that's naturally there. Yep. Yep. What's the I remember I forget I remember that Brad was trying to get power poles from ever source right to build a bridge. That correct. Yes, but it was from ever source it wasn't just from some random private vendors something. Yeah they're outrageously expensive. They're like over five grand for both poles. And we just don't have the budget for it. So yeah over over five grand for both of them. Can't find like an old one kind of somebody back gravel pit. Well that's what The extra long though Fletcher I think as well there was. Oh are they 44 they're like 40 feet. They're 50. Yeah. Oh never mind. Okay I'm thinking like If I remember correctly. This was like a funny situation where ever source like offered up these poles and then we designed the bridge to use the poles, but then the poles never materialized but we never went. I mean you can build a bridge across the Amethyst Brook for less than that cost like we never went back and we're like oh let's do it less expensive bridge design. So there's a little bit about like we don't need those telephone poles to build a bridge. Yeah, I think I think the goal is to have them kind of come through one that Yeah, I'm on board with that. I just want to point that way. Yeah, it's kind of like a specialist item. It's a good point. It's a good point. Yeah, it is if it but it could be pretty pricey regardless if it's 50 feet a 50 foot span but they can you can put a couple peers in and No, totally. I hear you. Yeah. So I've also got a follow up next week with the State Street restoration. You guys probably remember there was like access or an access that was needed through private landowners home. In their front yard there was a wetland to put in a new distribution pole. And in exchange for that they gave us some plantings for the kushman brook and puffers so I'm going to follow up with them to see where that stands. I'm behind on site visits just because of administrative stuff phone calls and emails. It's like, I feel like I'm constantly putting out fires and I just have been putting off getting out in the field so I'm hoping next week I'm going to have some time to get out and take some photos and follow up on some inquiries. Totally understandable. Thank you. What do you mean site visits? Are you being like monitoring site visits or just like in general for agenda items? Nope agenda items I'm kept I'm up on. Yeah, so yeah, so monitoring and then also like I got I've been getting some calls about people cutting and it's difficult right now because there's no way for me to like look up a phone number and there are times if I go to a place there's nobody there and and also with COVID I'm really nervous about knocking on doors and hunting people down so That's legitimate. But I'm going to go and I talked to Dave about it and kind of like have a strategy of knocking on the door and then standing back and like, you know, talking to people and, you know, trying to do that. But there's a couple that I need to follow up on and then it's like, some of it's like wild goose chase stuff like somebody complained that there was cutting around the wild like a wild wood cemetery pond. And it's like I don't even know who to I've seen what's happened there I just don't know who to even where to even begin as far as like getting in touch with people so I've got to do some hunting of people hunting down of people. The Wildwood side or is it a private private landlord on the other side of the Wildwood pond. I think it's the Wildwood Cemetery Association. They have they have some. Gosh, I met her. They have like a general manager for the for the whole for the cemetery. She doesn't live there they have that brick house which they rent out but there's an office upstairs. And so there's a woman who runs the whole life which I didn't know, because I used I would park there and go do some other stuff and they were. She was like what are you doing here and I'm like well who are you she's like I'm the general manager of place I'm like you are like oh cool. Yeah, yeah that's good I'm also I'm going to check in with Beth because I think she has a contact there as well. Yeah there are you know that brick that brick house I'm talking about. There's not there's an office in that for them. So, okay. Sorry. No worries. Okay. So let me see. I think. I think that covers most of my report. I know we still have about seven minutes I don't know if anyone has questions or issues that we need to bring up or talk about before we get into the first hearing because Dave hasn't joined us yet. I have a quick one I was trying to find the minutes from the meeting that I wasn't at and I can't seem to track them down. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Do you have them. There are no minutes, because I'm behind on them. Oh okay. That makes me feel better that makes me feel a little less like I can't Google so that's great. Yes, I was able to catch up on a few meetings but I've been talking to Dave about this issue because I just There's there's way more on my plate than what is adequately like what I can really accomplish in 20 hours. So he's aware of that and we're just taking things one thing at a time. But if you go to the town of Amherst YouTube, all of these videos. Okay. Yep. So you guys are all all being televised and I mean I knew that. I didn't know I'd have to go watch it. These are all on YouTube all these all these. Yes. Yes. And I need the side. Yeah, right. I do a pretty good job saying off the internet and man. And I will go, I'll go look at those. Yes. So it's actually, I think more convenient, because I like just pop on my headphones and I can review the meetings and I don't have to listen to the you can just slide the little bar to, you know, get to the section you want to view and I don't want to deal with the recording anymore, which is wonderful. Well, because we also, we did talk about this about trying to figure out a recording system that alleviates this issue. I know. I mean, obviously now we're not meeting at the town hall, but yeah. I think we're going to be doing this zoom situation for a long time. And who knows when we're going to be getting back and actually the system seems to work. I think pretty well. Yeah, how does the bees, when you say they're on the YouTube site, are these the zoom meetings are they on there or are you talking about the recorded ones, the audio recorded ones. Nope. The whole thing. Yeah, but before we had recordings, but they're all audio. Right. Those were not the new ones are now available on the YouTube. Right. Any zoom meeting that we've held are available on YouTube. Yeah, I wonder if there's some automated way Aaron where these can be transcribed. I know a lot of the Google products have that built in. I don't know about zoom, but I can look into that. That's a great, great idea. If anybody gives presentations Google presentations. The one thing I like about it is it transcribes automatically and does pretty damn well. Wow. That's amazing. That's a, wow, that's, that's really cool. Okay, is there, does anybody else have any questions or concerns or anything that I assume the ag license that's going to be a Zomac issue. Yes. And I did just in case you guys all want to take a quick look to the link that I sent you on one drive. I uploaded the documents that Dave sent me around like 435 o'clock this afternoon. And actually what I could do is, and I wasn't able to add all of Dave's information but I did add at least. That was not going to do. Sorry about that. These were the some bullet, bulleted summary. Some bulleted summary information for you guys if you want to just take a quick look at it. He'll be going over this with you with you guys. Yeah, my only, my main comment with this one is, I don't know if we've ever actually seen management plans. I like everything that's in here. And I think Ryan's been very solid for a while, but I don't know if we've been getting management plans. I think we requested them one point. So I know Laura, these are two properties. I don't remember if we did it for this one, but maybe some additional application that Ryan had submitted there was some information that somewhat resemble the management plan and I don't know if that is what this is referring to, or if something else has been developed since then but maybe Dave can shed some light on that. And somewhat related to that an annual report would be nice as well. Doesn't have to be fancy by any means but everything in here says what he will do and just what he did do would be nice. And I did invite Ryan to join us tonight. But I didn't hear back from him so he maybe he was just busy and not checking email. He's a busy man. Yes, this is a season. Yes. I see him out there alone. So this is just page two of the update here. We had a monetary fee for that. Were we offering that were we asking for a fee when we did try doing the went with farm stuff. I think the fee is for Ryan not for people who are having a plot, but I'm not positive on that. There was supposed to be one for both I believe so this one's for Ryan I think usually for the community gardens there are some as well. Oh, they are there is a fee. Or at least some of them there. There's supposed to be some that are reserved for people of lower economic status as well. So I have 730 by my clock Aaron so shall we run. All right, let's do it. Okay, so 730 by my clock. So the first item on our list is request for determination and this is a continuation from 1211 19 for 2014 or 214. So the attendees who are here for this if you can virtually raise your hand, and then I will make, then I, Aaron or I will make you a panelist. Panelist. You should be. Then. Tom. Analyst. Okay. Okay, so Tom and Sabina you should, if you, yep, you can just click on mute, and we can see you Tom. So, Tom, are you presenting today you want to just kind of give us a quick update or Sabina do you want to because we also have a note in our files from Ward as well. Yeah, sure. I'm, I'm happy to do it. So for the record Tom ready to turn with bacon Wilson here in Amherst here on behalf of Sabina and her brother Nick relative to this RDA. Ward Smith isn't going to be able to join us this evening, as I understand it so this is, I'm just getting involved and frankly I'm getting involved with Sabina and Nick because they're looking to do some pretty incredible preservation work on the land, ultimately, but as that first step they need the resource areas delineated, as I understand it. There was a question about an a series wetland so Ward went back out did some further investigation provided you a letter dated June 3 that he suggests you know the wetland line as delineated is the correct line that he's done so I think what we're just looking for this evening is, you know, that positive RDA. And, and then just, we'll be back we'll be having conversations with you as we start this, you know, programming process for the land. Sounds good. Thank you. So Sabina anything that you wanted to add, or No, I think that captures it very nicely. Thank you. Okay. So, I'm sorry, anything from you on this. So I had, I've walked the land, I think two or three times at this point. I did see the areas that, you know, Brett had identified previously, but I had really sort of felt that a lot of the hydrology was a result of the freeze thought situation that was happening this winter. I have worked with Ward for a long time and I trust his, his expertise in verifying that, you know, the wetlands are where he says they are so I am comfortable with it and I've walked the line I feel like it was, it was. It looked accurate as far as I could see so I think that my recommendation for the board would be and I can pull up an example. So I'm going to skip the screen. It takes me I'm skipping between two computers and so I apologize, but I am getting there. You're looking for language at this point here. Yes, yep. So and it's actually a B and C, ABC and D series. Extends just a few flags around the vernal pool on the backside. But it doesn't this isn't for the entire. Just for the record, this is not for the entire property it's just for the area that's shown on the latest plan that was submitted to us by Berkshire design group. You know, I'm the one who raises and so I want to say thank you to Ward even though he's not here for going out there again. I'm with you Aaron, I am comfortable now. You know he did take another look. I trust him as well. And so I think the letter was good. Evidence is fine so I'm comfortable there. Seeing that nobody else was uncomfortable I assume that we're just going to kind of proceed. I mean if we did have some issues we could ask for a third party review personally. I don't know where to go there. But just wanted to kind of put that out there. So does any other commissioner have any questions about this one or are we ready to move forward. Okay, not hearing anything so if we are ready to move forward we're looking for a motion with what Aaron has highlighted on the screen. I motion to issue a positive determination checking box to a to confirm resource area boundaries for flag series ABC and D at 214 Pomerai Lane. Second. So much easier when it's written. Okay, so we'll go around for a voice vote for Anna. I, Laura. I, Fletcher. I, Roy. I don't know that I can vote on this but if so, I, Oh, that's true. So you're in that initial one. So you have to recuse yourself from this one. Stay or abstain. Yeah, thank you. Good point. Jen. Hi. So Brett, I, I get everyone. No, you miss me. Thank you, Larry. I don't know where I was going through so I thank you. Okay, so we are good with this one. So, Tom or Sabina, do you have any questions at this point? I'm all set. If I, if I could just jump in before they jump off the call, Tom and Sabina, we're in the process of having electronic signatures approval recorded at the registry of deeds that was nailed in today. So I expect that recorded document will be back in the next week or so. And then at that point, the permit approval can be issued. So just so that you know where things stand with that. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, thank you very much. Thanks to everyone. Good night. Okay. So we are efficient enough that now we're ahead of schedule again. So we have. I'll give it a couple minutes. Luckily, my watch runs a little fast. So any other issues that people want to chat about her? Yeah, so I mean, once we're done with the items on the agenda, Aaron, there's no other additional items. Correct. Nope, it's mostly just the item that we're waiting for Dave Zomek to discuss. I have a question that relative to our proceedings and so forth. What kind of differences are there between our bylaw and the state law? In other words, what I'm thinking about is relative to denying or accepting something, proving or not approving. If we disapprove something, are we disapproving it relative to our bylaw or whether the state bylaw, that actually makes a difference. That's what I was wondering. It could actually be both. If, if we're issuing an approval, we're issuing it under both, and if we're issuing a denial, we're issuing it under both. And that's really important because if it ever went to appeal or a superseding order from DEP, DEP can supersede wetland protection act decision bylaw issues go to superior court. And my point on that is shouldn't we be making some of those decisions on our bylaw rather than the states? We do it at both at the same time and our bylaws are almost always stricter. Yeah. So which one gets followed? If they're going to appeal, what do they appeal on? Which one? Well, so I'm not sure if you're talking specifically about an RDA versus an NOI like with an RDA, it's a little bit different because in on the form itself, you would check the given box and that covers for both bylaw and for wetland protection act within that form itself. Under an order of conditions, when we issue an approval, we're issuing two separate sets of special conditions, one under state law and one under the local bylaw. And those are what we always refer to as the boilerplate. When I say the boilerplate, those are, there's a set of boilerplate conditions under state law and a set of boilerplate conditions under the wetland protection, or excuse me, under the local bylaw. So those are included when we include the boilerplate conditions. So if we're challenged, any of these could make a choice that says we want to use the town bylaw because it's usually more stringent? So what you're getting at, Larry, is you could approve under wetland protection and deny under the local bylaw, in which case they would just go to Superior Court so that that is an option as well. So I'm going to start getting set up for the 740. So if there's anybody here from the general public who is here for the 740, and this is the Tafino. If you are one of the applicants or representative applicant, you can raise your hand and I'll make you. So I don't see Ted on the list at this point, Aaron, I think he was showing tonight. So Ted actually requested a continuance, but I am going to, so if it's okay, I'll just give a brief update on the town council, where things stand with town council, because I've been communicating quite a bit on that and I'll also share my screen so you can see. And I forwarded this to all of you today as well. So I can just note just real quick just so that people who are following along at home, which I guess is all this. This is our 745 notice of intent for Concord way lots one two five six seven and eight, even though we have it as one agenda item these are separate items. So after our last meeting, I consulted Copeland and Page who's the town's attorney basically provided them with copies of the original orders of conditions the extensions of the orders of conditions and the current applications that are before the board. They went through that pretty rigorously over the last two weeks and there was a couple recommendations as far as additional information to request and some of the information had already been requested but the first thing which hadn't been requested was an updated plan for the site which includes the full delineation of the vernal pool and the associated 100 foot buffer from the vernal pool and that's important because we haven't actually gotten a plan set that includes vernal pool identified on it and so having that for the record will be really important for whatever decision that we render since they provided us with the documentation already from their consultant that it could be reliable. So I so that's one item and then the the other item is a request for variance and not just on one lot but one for each individual lot and the reason for that is because the commission may end up issuing a variance on one or two or three lots but not on all seven lots so to have one for each individual one so they can be looked at as he noted on an individual look at each one on an individual basis to determine if it qualifies for a variance. So I sent that language to Ted Parker and said this is what we're going to need this is what town council has requested that the board do and he said he would need a continuance in order to prepare the documents and revise the documents to submit. So that last from the last meeting with the consultant provided the vernal pool that so you're saying that we need your ask well town council and I agree that they are asking for a new delineation of the vernal pool so that last the last one we saw last meeting that was not a delineation. No, that was a sort of a field investigation. See, so what's really interesting. Yeah, and that the the individual lots don't show an overall site plan for the entire project of where things are located. And that's where things have changed and so that I think is what town council is getting at. And it does present as new information which should be included on a plan so that we can visually see each of these lots in relation to where the vernal pool is located in relation to where that 100 foot buffer slash, you know, vernal pool no disturb is located. So we have we have the plans to show the 100 foot buffer we don't have on those individual plans where the vernal pool is. Right. And so and and that's one point that I did make to town council was, you know that according to, and they the applicant really brought this to our attention at the last meeting that that the in our bylaw, if there is a vernal pool basin within a bordering identified bordering vegetated wetland that the bordering vegetated wetland boundary serves as the boundary of the vernal pool. I guess the point I'm trying to make is a vernal pool is not a resource area under the wetlands Protection Act. It's however a protected area under our local bylaw and so for us to have a plan in hand that says vernal pool on it is going to be very important for whatever decision we render. So that's where things stand once that info. So once the information comes in from Tafino with the plan showing where the with the vernal pool noted on the plan and also the variance for each individual lot noted in writing. At that point, town council is going to take that documentation and use it toward formulating a decision or recommendation for the conservation commission to move forward. So there's it's kind of a two step process. And they did request a continuance. So I would our next meeting is on the 24th of June. And I don't know if you know he didn't specify what meeting he wanted to be on. I would defer to Brett as chair on whether it be the meeting on the 24th or the first meeting in July to allow enough time for that. Yeah, without him here I think we should put him on the earlier one. But before we go there. People in general public if you have comments or questions on this one if you can start raising your hand I'll open up the commission though first thing by the commission has comments and in particular. Are there any other items that we're going to want them to present to us before we can sort of move forward so they can be working on those as well. So Blake I do see you so I'll get to you and just one second. So any commissioners have anything that they wanted to add. I guess I've got one question I still I'm not I'm still confused about this Aaron. So, would they would make when they're going to give a request back again it's going to have a very variation they want to, you know, get a variation on it. We make the decision or the town does. You said something about it that goes back to the town. Right so when the documents are submitted. And then the town council will be sent to the conservation commission for by to Fino that those documents will also be sent to town council and town council will consider those documents when they give a recommendation to the conservation commission. So, you know, and the reason that I had recommended. The reason that I had recommended the town council opinion is because I, you know, not only did it feel like we were at an impasse at the last meeting but also, you know, I think that there's a huge potential for litigation based on this project and so are these these no eyes. And so I think having the best like to stand on as far as recommendation from town council is the best approach to take. It sounded like it was the other way around the way. Okay. Thank you, Aaron. And yeah, I think that one of the big points will also be towards the bottom of that towards that financial piece that they're talking about undue burden. That's not quite the right word, but the financial hardship issue. So yeah, it'd be good to have there. There's any other commissioners before we turn over to the public. Just a, I read a little bit of it before but so would they also come back with possible redesign of some of these house off so you were going to have the frontal pool delineation. The second one was they're going to request a variance for whatever hardship. Is there going to be a redesign possible is that going to go back to us and we're going to try to compromise and work that out after. Well, Brett had requested an alternatives analysis on October 8 of 2019 and that had been sent in writing to Ted twice requesting that while we were at the, you know, continue it when we were in between where it was continued and continued and continued and continued he was sent that requesting that alternatives analysis and also at the last meeting Brett requested it again. So, I will remind. I got the impression he didn't want to do a very change in plans in that last meeting. At this point in time. And that's his prerogative and it's our prerogative to vote it down. I agree. I agree. I mean, yeah, I'm not going to be able to move. I would not be able to vote in favor of it, regardless of any other issues at this point until I saw that right. Okay, just confirm me. Yeah. Okay, so Blake, I think you had a comment or question you might have a question and a comment. Before you get started, if you just introduce yourself. Blake Spirko 53 conquered way. Thank you very much. The question is, I was just trying to figure out in terms of how your commission comes through. If you have a vernal pool and you need 100 feet. When do you make a variance, like what is a protocol for going through that that was my question. And then the comment was in terms of hardship. And one of the facts are out there is they knew I just again repeating, I talked to Doug Cole about this, we talked to Ted Parker about this many, many years ago they knew this was a vernal pool. They asked that conservation commission didn't evaluate the land until there was snow on the ground. And so they've, they've kind of plan this and then the now it also was brought up by Ted Parker the last meeting about the widow, but it's actually Benedict Cole. I believe who's a multimillionaire is be the one benefiting from this, the most so if you're going to look into hardship. I just think you need to look at all the facts and look at how many millions they've made on this. So if you just start to look into hardship I just ask you look all the facts that's all I'm saying please and but I my my question was how is a variance determined from what's the protocol through that. Thank you. Thank you Blake and yeah I agree that I, for me the biggest issue is that this was not identified to begin with. And if we had this in the beginning. Yeah, things would have been very different I hope. We'll have to figure out, you know the piece about who owns land. I try to be agnostic about that. I don't know if that's the right thing or wrong thing but that's what personally I try to do. So as far as the variance is concerned. Yeah, Aaron has that up on the screen at this point. And so yeah we do have set circumstances set set of rules will be working with the applicant to figure out, are there alternatives. Yeah, what are the other possibilities that are here for these parcels. So I don't know if Aaron you have something more specific to add for Blake. I don't, I don't have anything to add. I mean this this documentation here can definitely provide some breakdown of what town council recommended be included in the variance request and that's basically the burden of proof that the commission would have to look at in terms of considering it and it's very much a question that the commission's discretion as to whether that would be issued or not. Yep sorry I don't have something more specific that we can provide for you Blake, but. Okay, thank you. Any other comments or questions from the public again just use that little button down there to raise your hand. So. Okay so not hearing any. Do we have a time for, I think you said the 24th. Yes. So, I would recommend a continuation to June 24th at 740pm. So looking for that motion. I'll move. So, I heard two moves how about one move in one second. Thank you. Okay so voice vote so Larry. Aye. Letcher. Aye. Anna. Aye. Jen. Larry. Oh, you were muted there. I have to abstain. Good point. Thank you. Laura. Stay. Oh, that is true. Forgot about that one as well. Okay. And I for me as well for the continuation. So. Okay. So that was to Fino. So we will be doing that another day. I have seven 54. So we are fine to move forward with our seven 50, which is a abbreviated notice of resource area delineation. Oh, I'm sorry. Just real quick before we go on there. For those people who are on the. On the zoom call right now for the to Fino associate ones. Again, that's going to be on the 24th. There are times when these get continued another meeting, you can get in touch with Erin. And she should be able to tell you if we know ahead of time, if it's going to be continued. Sometimes we do. Sometimes we don't. This was a late notice on this one. But he also got late notice as well from town council. So that makes sense. Okay. So again, going back to the seven 50 abbreviated notice of resource area delineation. This is the one for shoots, Barry road. And. If a applicant is here or representative of an applicant, if you could raise your hand at this point. So I don't, I don't suspect anybody is going to be here. For the applicant. They. We, we got a quote from Emily Stockman for the final review. And. TRC. Us has put a check in the mail for us to put in the. You know, the final review. And I think just in the last day or so, we got the final plan that. Is essentially the final. Flags that were recommended by Emily that we reviewed in the field. And basically it's just. Providing given to her so she can do a final field check and then write a final report. So we haven't received the check yet. So we're just going to go ahead and do the final review. And then we're going to go ahead and do the final review. And then we're going to get the check. I've been told is in the mail. Once the check is received, I will extend Emily's contract to get that, you know, deposited in the town. And then she can go out and do the final. Visual check in the field and start preparing her desktop. Final recommendation for issuing the. Approval of the resource area boundaries on the property. I uploaded. The plan. Account the plan set. And I don't think it's going to allow me to open it here, but I could, it's actually. Amazing looking at the plans, how the wetlands have changed. Let me see if I can open it up really quickly. So you can see. Looking at this. I'm going to go ahead and do the final review. Which is great. And that means we've. You guys. Kudos to you for. For your work on hiring Emily. She did a great job out there. They did request a continuance to the next meeting. In order to allow Emily time to. In order to allow time for the administrative process. And I'm going to go ahead and make a quick comment. And I'll go ahead and send it to Erin and yeah, glad that the checks in the mail. It sounds like stuff should be ready by the 24th. So that's great. Any comments or questions from commissioners on this one? It seems fairly straightforward at this point. Anybody from the general public have any comments or questions? Just raise your hand. Okay. So not seeing any. I think we're looking for a continuation for June 24th. 7 40 p.m. I move we continue this to June 24th at 7 30 40 40 40 yeah Erin was the other one at 7 40 as well I thought it was I'm sorry 750 excuse me that was my fault I moved to move this to continue this to June 24th at 7 50 p.m. thank you okay so voicemail or voicemail roll call Jen hi Larry hi LaRoy hi Pletcher hi Anna hi Laura hi Brett hi hi okay so we are good so this will be continued okay so going back to our agenda here so luckily I have eight o'clock so this is a request for determination for the work that's being done on Northampton Road I still have a hard time figuring out how to describe this sucker yep it extends from South Pleasant Street down to University Drive it's the proposed roadway reconstruction for iMASS DOT yep also known as Route 9 so if there are there's any applicants here or people representing the applicants if you could raise your hand I will make you a panelist so I see you Sam I see Brian okay so I assume Sam if you want to or Brian if one of you want to introduce yourselves and then just kind of give us an update about where we are at at this point then we'll go to Erin for her update yeah I can uh I'll start Brian um so Sam Campbell Greenwood Peterson Inc we submitted this RDA on behalf of MASS DOT as described by Erin and Brett it is the proposed reconstruction of Route 9 there we'll be doing uh specifically you know within the buffer zone we'll be adding sidewalks and shared use path as well as some drainage improvements throughout the corridor including the installation of 38 new deep sump catch basins the total impervious area increase within the buffer zone is 3193 square feet and we walked the site this morning um Brian I don't know if you have anything else to add uh no I think you summed it up pretty good there yeah okay thank you so Erin do you have visit or photos from today or other things you want to share yes I do so um these are some photos let me just make sure okay so this is the this is the first one here this is standing um behind on the sidewalk behind where the urgent care facility is looking down towards the Realtor's office at the intersection of Northampton Road and University Drive and these blue flags are indicating where the sidewalk is shifting to so um from what I understand and the applicant definitely correct me if I'm wrong but on this side of the road the roadway itself is being widened by approximately three feet to add a bike lane adjacent to the road and then there'll be a grass shoulder similar to this it'll just be shifted over shifted over three feet and then the edge of the proposed sidewalk will follow these blue flags so that gives you an indication of the change from existing conditions this is me turning around and looking in the opposite direction looking up route nine and again this shows where the flagging is going to be extended one note or two notes maybe um one was that um I think DOT is providing a curb cut for an entrance a backside entrance to the urgent care facility um and I think there's sort of like a bump out in the sidewalk to demonstrate that and then the other thing that we noted in the field was that there's a driveway that comes through the sidewalk it's there was formerly a house there which was demolished years ago and there's a large asphalt driveway that's in pretty poor condition that's still located there and one of the discussions in the field was whether or not that could be removed as part of mitigation so just keep that in mind as we look at this um this is the wetland that is most on the um I guess the north side of route nine that's going to be the closest impact is going to be located um and I believe the closest it's getting is 50 feet um correct me if I'm wrong Sam yep it's it's approximately 50 feet on that side okay the setback that is yeah so at its closest point the proposed sidewalk change is going to be about 50 feet from the from the existing well and and I did try to this is me climbing out into the wetland to take pictures of the flags and it's very difficult to see but sort of can you see my cursor yes the flag is right there and then this is shifting left there's another flag there and it it looked like it was pretty um looking at the wetland veg there was a lot of um sensitive fern in there that kind of ended on the edge of a little a little berm so I didn't have any issues with where the wetland flags were hung this is on the opposite side of the road so we walked down to the intersection across the road and then looking up the hill um there is an existing catch basin here which is going to be replaced and then this is looking there's a big patch of um Japanese knotweed right on the road and in stand almost immediately in front of where Brett is standing right at the edge of the Japanese knotweed is about where the wetland starts there's a stormwater outfall there and the wetland begins right about there from what I understand on this side of the road the proposed um sidewalk which is going to be new on this side of the road on the south side is going to make the the the sidewalk is going to be about six feet from the edge of from the wetland um the edge of pavement will be about six feet from what the wetland right now it's about 15 feet is that does that is that uh it's my memory correct on that one too Sam yeah that's that's about yeah okay um so one of the things I had brought up in the field was their proposed mitigation plan shows um erosion and sediment controls going between the roadway work and the wetlands but um I don't believe that there's anything shown at the outfall um where this particular stormwater structure outfalls into the wetland and there's another stormwater outfall further up on the other side of the road and one of my big concerns while this work is going on is if they're pulling stormwater structures out and um pulling up the existing pavement regrade re whatever the the process is for tearing out the pavement and repaving that there's going to be a period of time where there's no stormwater structures and there's basically a torn up road and the potential for material to get into the stormwater where the stormwater structures were and down into the wetland so I think that one of the conditions I would recommend on this is to add additional protection either in the form of a straw wattle or silt fence or straw bales or something at those outfalls to protect the water coming out of those during construction this is looking down right in front of where Brett was uh this is the actual stormwater outfall there was a lot of debris in there um old cardboard boxes and junk and stuff so it looked like it hadn't been cleaned out in a while that's looking toward the area and you can see the opening where the outfall is located there so those are those are photos Brett you had also asked me to prepare kind of a side by side comparison of notice of intent verse request for determination and what the differences are so I did kind of put some notes together on that um I don't want to take over so if you want me to talk about that a little I can or if you want to get public comment just let me know how you want me to proceed yeah thank you Erin um and one reason of just as a reminder why I asked you to bring this up I mean from a conversation we're having before this is already a request for determination at this point in general you know we had some questions on why it wasn't was not an NOI and so we had some discussion on this last time and so I asked Erin to help us out a little bit more so yeah Erin if you want to mind walking us through that walking us through this that'd be great okay so as far as the stormwater management standards there's two massive handbooks on the stormwater management standards so it's very difficult for me to boil this down I'm just going to try really hard with some bulleted points to kind of cover this um so the stormwater standards are applicable on projects that have new conveyances or outfalls in this case they're not to my knowledge creating a new conveyance or a new outfall is that correct Sam yep that's correct we're going to utilize the existing it's just the structures that are going to be replaced so the catch basin that is okay so then this the other one that seemed relevant here is that that the stormwater standards are required where there's a potential for increase in peak discharges or I put increased impervious in parentheses this project does propose an increase in impervious surface so there is a potential for increased peak discharge however one could argue that the new replacement stormwater structures are going to provide greater stormwater treatment than the existing ones which are how old are the existing ones Sam do you think uh whenever the last repaving job was done out there so I don't know off the top of my head but you saw them today I would say at least a decade or more okay so then the other thing is to provide 80 total suspended solid removal um usually with this what you see is what what um I would describe as a treatment train so there might be multiple stormwater structures that all go in a line um in order to make sure that at that final discharge point there's 80 percent total suspended solid removal um I don't know if the structures that are proposed are what their capability is in terms of tss removal um you know I apologize I don't actually know what the actual spec on them is either but I know that the purpose of proposing the deep sumps is to allow for um you know sediment sediment you know suspended solids to settle out of the runoff prior to discharge okay and that might be something that we could actually look up while we're on this call um during public comment session I might be able to look that up because it is available on the mass DEP um handbook I don't know exactly is it a proprietary BMP that you're using the deep sump or is it it should be the standard okay um you might actually be able to find it in the tss sheet the automated one okay oh well we can come back to that um so this is kind of the most relevant one I think for considering the stormwater standards which are that redevelopment projects are only required to meet the standards to the maximum extent practicable however they must improve existing conditions so that's a requirement it has to be an improvement of existing conditions so I think um some of the questions I would ask the commission are do you feel that this project as proposed would be an improvement to existing conditions um that's kind of my first question for you guys to think that's kind of rhetorical just to think about um but in terms of so all of those those stormwater standards are typically triggered for new conveyances or increased impervious in jurisdictional resource areas that could potentially increase peak discharges so that's typically what triggers stormwater management plans and a notice of intent filing that would include a stormwater management plan an operation and maintenance plan which would break down exactly how many times a year are these these deep sump catch basins going to be inspected how many times are they going to be cleaned are they going to be vacuumed is they're going to be street sweeping and all those details sort of on a prescribed schedule and that's typically written into an order of conditions um like to give you an example for the university drive your u drives one u drive south those their operation maintenance plan is actually written into their order of conditions so that will be a required ongoing condition in the certificate of compliance once it's issued and the benefit of that is that the commission has control to require maintenance in perpetuity that's a benefit um now just to kind of address this um because I wasn't sure if the question was going to be raised I did contact Jason skills um the town engineer to ask him how he felt about the project and his response was and I'm you'll have to forgive me because I'm not super familiar with this um phrase but he said something about looking a gift horse in the mouth I think it was really meaning like first off it's a state road if the state is willing to do some work to repair it and fix the stormwater structures then we should take them up on that because it's um it's a benefit to have it done and he said that he did not have a problem with the increased t s uh the increased impervious surface being proposed so that that was just sort of an anecdotal response that he had to me asking him the question um also when I was looking through the stormwater management standards at the bottom I noticed this little stormwater management standards shall apply to the maximum extent practicable to foot pads bike pads and other uh pads for pedestrian and non-motorized vehicle access which I thought was interesting because a lot of the increased impervious surface is for bike and pedestrian access here um and then for request for determination you know there's there's no certificate of compliance so you don't have that control in the long term there's no stormwater management plan required no operation and maintenance plan required and again no hydrologic connections no details on tss removal peak discharge rates um so I think you guys kind of have to weigh what you what you think if you think it's going to be an improvement over existing conditions and um if you feel confident that you can condition operation and maintenance of the proposed stormwater management here I know Sam did send along a document to me this evening which is a operation maintenance plan that was um provided for the Hadley end of the work um that's being done and was a was an NOI filed for Hadley or is it going to be yep so actually we're in the process of submitting the NOI for Hadley now and that O&M plan that I sent you and again just to clarify this is a separate project um but you know very close to our limits here um so that operation and maintenance plan will be submitted as an appendix to the stormwater report and that's being submitted with the NOI so can I just ask Sam what triggered a notice of intent application in Hadley and not in Amherst we have significant impacts to bbw bank land underwater and riverfront area okay so that just puts in perspective a little bit your decision-making process for filing thank you Aaron so that was helpful um I don't know other commissioners but just even not for just for this project but in general I thought that was great so thank you um so commissioners what are your feelings what are your comments at this point I just want to echo the thanks um for putting the time in Aaron um to summarize that for us and also the site pictures really helped just now and I feel much more comfortable with this even as an RDA than I did previously yeah being able to see the site pictures was really helpful I was having trouble wrapping my head around it and that was I wasn't looking at the right place when I went down there oops I was actually surprised at how uh nice for like where it is um it actually is there is actually it's a weird little spot so don't get me wrong yeah um there's definitely some natural vegetation granted a lot of it is not weed but you know there's vegetation I should say yeah not necessarily natural yeah I mean so I don't have any reservations I guess I'm fine I don't have any reservations either no I have a little bit um because it is impervious they are adding impervious there's no doubt about that um they I do think that it will be a net improvement though because just that that whole area you know it's got some issues so I think that the net impact will be better um I have a little bit of an issue where there will not be a operation and management plan that will be on file or enforceable that being said even if we have an enforceable it's mass DOT I don't know what sort of teeth we're going to have for them to do it they're going to say we don't have the money and they're not going to do it and you know I'm not sure how much more that's really going to buy us they're going to do as well as they can either way is what I'm suggesting um you know so there's those and then just the other point the other issue that I have is just parody and so if this was a different kind of applicant a homeowner or something along those lines would we be holding them to a to a higher standard I don't know if it's apples to apples because yeah we can't do that a pretty a pretty long stretch of road I mean the the scale of the storm water management and the reduction of suspended sediments to receiving water bodies is much larger than we'd be dealing with on a homeowner scale um yeah so when I think about this I mean I think about the benefit of those catch basions I mean sediment is one of the number one reasons for impairment for water bodies in the state and the country um so the scale of reduction is significant yeah and I'm being a little greedy because I think we're going to get that and there's possibility we could get a little bit more as well so but that's just being one one thing I think that the commission I would really recommend that the commission ask be explored is to remove the driveway that that Brett identified because that removal of that material alone I think would provide a net benefit um in terms of removal of impervious in that general area I don't know Sam if that's something the possible and also I think that we should have an operation and maintenance plan associated with this similar to what Sam gave us for the Northampton side even if it is just conditions that we include in the RDA I do think it's important that we have that on record in the folder yeah so I guess I'll two part answer here one I'd certainly and unless you have any objections to this Brian I think we'd be happy to provide a very similar O&M plan to the one I gave you today Aaron just the details for Amherst um it's going to look very similar because they are in the same district but um we can do that and then Brian I will lean on you for this one I'm I mean I think a lot of this depends on the timeline and I know we've already submitted hundreds but do you have any thoughts on that driveway um it's the one that I'd like to yeah revisit this and and what is the specific location here yep so it's approximately station it's like nine plus nine five it's left there yeah it's that's sort of the abandoned patch of HMA and that's and that's uh when you guys were out there that was an abandoned driveway is that the history of it yeah so apparently there was a house there but I will say Brian I'm looking at the construction plans now and we're proposing to um you know repair and place that asphalt and provide the driveway connection still yeah yeah which which kind of doesn't make sense right since it's uh again I driveway or nowhere um right so it looks it's owned by the hospital so I mean I know if they have intentions of adding a connection to their other existing driveway but right this one's not even close to that so and there's this one would make no sense because it's basically surrounded on the backside by wetlands or some other obstruction so I don't think that they can do anything with us even if they right well I guess my my concern is that um we can really only do what's you know obviously I I want to reach out to Kulita gets in here but I'm the hospital here but um we can really only work within our driveway because our right of way is is set and we can't really go onto their property and rip up their pavement um would you remove it just in your right of way where there's extra pavement in your right of way um I think that's certainly a possibility if this if that is a connection that we do not need um then it'd certainly be willing to do it okay yeah if you could look into it that'd be great um you know it's not a deal breaker by any means but you know just looking for opportunities to reduce impervious obviously as we all are okay any other conditions that you were thinking about at this point Erin or any other yeah opportunities um so I think as far as conditions are concerned you know we had talked in the field about the additional protection at the outlets and I think that that's something that should be a condition on the permit um and then there is all that Japanese knot weed over there is there any possibility of doing something to assist with getting that out of there within the DOT right of way I mean I'm assuming you're going to try to get rid of it anyways with the um but um sidewalk going in there and replacing that outfall there right the outfall is not being replaced but I it would be really nice if it could get cleaned we have identified all the all the invasives um within the corridor and there is a there is a plan to to um to remove them yeah that'll be a little tough particularly it there because you'll remove it up to a certain point and right that not right back just comes back right oh it's the worst and I think it's a similar situation to the driveway in that you know we're going to mow up to the bounds of the state highway layout um but again the rest of that the wetland itself and a lot of that knot weed is located on private property at 306 and um in the adjacent 324 it looks like parcel yep so I'm going to just read conditions here um and there are I've highlighted on the screen if anybody wants to make a motion with special conditions but I'm sorry Erin before you do that um let's see if there's any other questions by the commission um and if there's any there's still one person from the public see if they have so then we can do the conditions if that's all right perfect so um any other commissioners have any comments or questions at this point so I'm okay moving forward with the rda so thank you all um so we do have one person from the public if you'd like to say something please virtually raise your hand okay I've done my due diligence Erin it's yours again thank you okay so the conditions I have would be remove of asphalt to driveway within the DOT right of way and that the board would also permit removal of the entire driveway if that's something that DOT was willing and able to do with the permission of the landowner that DOT provide us with an operation and maintenance plan for the proposed replacement stormwater structures that additional protections be provided at the outfalls during construction that outfalls be cleaned and that not we'd be removed within the DOT right of way um one caveat to that one the first one just make sure that even the removal of the driveway that still needs to be with permission of the owner I think yes so if we don't get that then it doesn't happen and we can do about that okay so that sounds good to me so I think we're looking for a motion at this point I'll make the motion for we're doing a positive determination no negative determination positive term checking we're doing negative termination checking box three right yeah but it's a positive determination checking box five under the local bylaw I'll just read what you have right there yeah all right so I'll make a motion to have our positive termination checking box five for the local bylaw negative termination checking box three with the conditions um that Erin had just um read out second okay so we're ready for a vote so Anna hi letcher hi the Roy hi Jen hi so Laura hi so Larry did I miss you again yep yes hi I don't know you keep skipping around in my little zoom thing well I'm in I'm in right below you in mind so how do you do that so and Brett I did I get everyone okay so um Sam and Brian I think we are all set unless you two have any questions or Erin if you have any final instructions so just just to let you know that we are working to do the electronic permit approvals and um that it might be a week or two before we're able to issue the permit with e signatures but we're working on that okay great um well thank you all for your time and Erin I will touch base with you either later this week or early next week about getting at least the O&M plan in the works perfect okay well thank you all again thanks everyone bye bye okay a couple things here and it looks like Dave you were able to join us uh just in time and so at this point uh we have all of our agenda items um uh oh Fletcher did I like make you oh wait wait sorry I must sorry about that Fletcher I think I clicked something wrong there tried to talk and click um okay so the only attendees okay we're good there um so Dave um are there some items that you want to talk about did you want to talk about the ag license and then there might have been something else from you was it uh askins yeah thanks um sorry I was late getting to this meeting I was over with the planning board on a on another matter and uh Erin was keeping me up to date but yeah I think given the the hour and and how much time you all have already put in the only thing um I think there would just be two quick things I would say one is you know you'll consider could continue to see our staff out there Brad and Tyler you know working on the conservation areas at this point with COVID and with budgetary constraints I don't see bringing on a you know uh four or five or six summer staff as we normally do I'm going to try my best to maybe get one or two but um we've kind of dialed it back it's going to be a summer of maintenance uh trail maintenance and bog bridging and and really kind of back to back to basics we're not going to really take on anything too huge so to some degree that's a little bit of a relief I think for Brad and Tyler and and we're just going to do the very best weekend with with two folks out there at at Puffers and on on the trail so um if you hear about things or see things please bring them to my attention um uh if if you're out there hiking um you know do your best to shoot me an email or send me a photograph and we'll get on it as quickly as we can so it's going to be um kind of just back back to the basics here for a couple of months um we are planning to open Puffers Pond as I mentioned to you two weeks ago I think that'll happen probably on the 17th of June um we're going to do it with staff from other departments we're going to borrow from other departments from LSSE from town hall uh from parking enforcement so um we're going to try to do it in the safest way possible um but I did just want to spend a minute on agricultural licensing um I believe Aaron has a couple of slides maybe you could start with the maps real quickly yeah and I'm sorry I wasn't able to get them into the power point in time but I do have them on the screen so we can look at them so not sure how easy that is for people to see but this is uh um Haskins Meadow out on East Lever uh East um East Lever Road sorry it's a little late um and what the basically what I want to do is just go over the kind of the terms of the licensing uh for for this season and beyond so Ryan uh Ryan Carb has has been farming Haskins Meadow um I hope you can see that it's 1.75 acres in red uh out in in the conservation area out on East Lever Road he's been farming there for about five years um I'm proposing and we'll take a look at a chart in a minute to give him another five years of a of an ag license out there he's done a great job I think we need to do a little bit better as a staff in monitoring what he's doing and requiring annual reports and I'll go into that in a minute the other map if I could switch to the other map to show him with this brook I saw two with the name Ryan hold on one second Ryan one Ryan two while she's finding it Dave are you at Mount Pollux is that your no it's a background uh kind of looks like an old picture of Mount Pollux I thought it was Mount Pollux yeah all right I'm glad I'm not alone yeah there's two trees there there's only one he's only you know I thought it was old it could be cool for concom to like put up some Amherst conservation zoom backgrounds for people to use be a fun little community outreach project there we go there we go sorry about that it's a little hard to navigate this double double computer double screen because I'm I'm uh can you take it into the town can you take us in a little closer of course so the commission voted to grant Ryan a one-year pilot license for Amethyst brook for the area that is outlined in the in the upper left of my screen which is almost an acre of land that was formally um formally uh licensed to a gentleman by the name of win win Levine for about the past 25 years probably 20 years or so as part of that review that Stephanie Chickarello in my office helped with we agreed on a couple of things we agreed to discontinue the area and and um Erin maybe you could show that that area that is currently um community gardens we we agreed to discontinue that area and then establish a new community garden there that Ryan would mentor those um farmers so that new area has been established there's 10 plots there I believe they're 20 20 or 10 by 20 um they've already been tilled they they look beautiful if you haven't been out there the soil looks fantastic and so uh Angela Mills in my office is helping to relocate any farmers who want to be in the old section and they want to move to the new section we will give them a plot there I think there's already three that have moved over and then we still have seven spaces left so the idea is to relocate everybody over into the new spaces to be mentored by Ryan and then we would discontinue that area that has been controversial for years because of all the dog use and the conflicting use in the middle and frankly it's getting shaded out and the soils are not great so um next slide there's a next slide kind of summarizing the two licenses if Erin could find that so is that a full can that be a full slide or is it broken up on it's broken up um we'll go to the top of the page so a little odd to see it but that's fine that's fine so the summary is this so any license would be subject to the terms of the the town generated um legal document the license agreement that was generated by Coleman and Page you had you saw a copy of that I think two weeks ago or four weeks ago it includes insurance indemnification etc any license would also be subject to the Amherst Conservation Commission policy on ag use and you saw about a couple of weeks ago as well that covers things like hours of operation um um organic or not irrigation etc there would need to be an annual management plan developed by the um applicant and then we would also require you know town staff to visit annually and meet with the farmer and then um any special conditions of the site or license uh for instance at Amethyst Brook or excuse me at uh Haskins Meadow there's really no special conditions other than former former concoms have not agreed to allow irrigation there because of the sensitivity of the Cushman Brook um but there's no other special conditions out at Haskins Meadow at Amethyst Brook the special conditions are really linked to the uh desire of staff and the commission to have Ryan mentor 10 community gardeners there throughout the year so I think right there we have a quick summary so Ryan applied for some years ago to get Haskins Meadow it's 1.75 acres the proposed term is five years the fee is 125 dollars per acre which is the standard fee that we've had for a little a little while and then at Amethyst Brook it'd be one acre uh a one year term and then the fee is the same and the special conditions would be mentoring of community gardeners the 10 at that site so that's kind of the quick summary um if you're happy to take questions if you're in agreement we would move to um finish up those licenses Ryan is actively farming on both sites and we would have him sign the licenses and get those to you in advance of the next meeting for your signature or e-signature thank you Dave that all sounds great the um my only comment or concern is just get making sure that those new community plots are open for people this year um not that it's late in the season yet but people would probably want to get in sooner rather than open um we've been promoting them on the town website I just talked with um Angela Mills today again to whoops I lost y'all there I just talked with again today to try to promote those and say we've got right now we have seven spaces open seven I can't remember whether they're 10 by 10 or 20 by 20 honestly but um they're seven open and we're ready to go yep that all sounds great and I guess the only other special condition for amethyst broke is also to decommission the old area as well yes so and what's gonna happen that we're just gonna let that go um do its thing after all the the tritus has gone I assume well we're gonna have to clean it up um I honestly don't have a report as to whether every gardener there is ready to move but I'll get that before the weekend if there were one or two that really were saying hey you know I wanted to stay this year I'm not about to really force that hand I would let them stay this year have them move out move over to the other location um and then we would clean that up this fall so we would get all the uh the old fencing out of there any metal any stakes um probably brush off that there's a lot of uh invasives in there and then try to re-establish it with something with more natives and and get rid of any of those those non-natives that have you know taken hold in there Dave is that on the town to do or on Ryan to do no we're gonna do that I can't you know Ryan has been great I you know it's just been great on this mentoring thing so I think we're getting some real value from Ryan I will say to the commission that I was part of the um Agcom uh meeting last night uh where we talked about other community gardens and really I'm like trying to sell community gardens to the Agcom um I I hope you're on board with that but I would really like them to kind of take this on work with you work with with me and staff and really have them be the the promoters of of community gardens throughout town we've got locations we know that we just need a little bandwidth from them to to kind of take it on and I think they have some new members who are pretty enthusiastic so that's kind of my hope yeah that'd be great so they're in Fort River and wherever else so yeah next year we would try to um um you know cut the ribbon if you will on on Fort River Farm and get that established um but it takes a lot I mean you know you look at something like uh Grow Food Northampton and you know that's a huge huge place with I don't know over a hundred plots but it's a full-time job for somebody to manage all those people and all those relationships and that's where we just don't have the staff to manage those relationships so yeah so we'll do the best weekend for this year get Ryan on two places and get those plots established and uh we'll keep an eye on Mill Lane Mill Lane is you know been been community gardens for the last 25 years but Amherst College would really like us to be done there so yeah okay great so any questions for Dave on the ag license I think that all sounds great Dave um yeah and with a one-year to start at Amethyst and then moving on after that I mean I love the idea so very supportive so do you need anything formal from us Dave I think I hear a maybe take a vote to you know grant a five-year um five-year license at at Haskins Meadow to Ryan Carb and a one-year pilot license agreement for Amethyst Brook to be reviewed you know we could review that late in 2020 and if all goes well then then I would expect you know we would recommend a longer term license yeah and my only condition this is um we talked about this a little bit before you were on Dave is just yeah trying to get reports from him and a management plane from him yeah that'll be uh my job and I think um you know I may lean on Erin a little bit yeah I don't think we need something fancy or you know could I just add one thing um this license at Amethyst Brook does not include the right or ability to irrigate from the Amethyst Brook Ryan has assured me and will write it into the the agreement that he does not need to irrigate he does have permission because he is across the property line there on Bernard Brennan's property he does irrigate from the Amethyst Brook there so in the future if the commission wants to look at irrigation both in the Amethyst Brook Fort River Mill River that's kind of a separate but related to does he irrigate in Haskins Meadow he doesn't he's never irrigated there and and we we have always said no um and he's successfully growing things there yeah he's very low to no till right wash up there he rotates um great okay Dave do you want us to do that as two separate motions or is one okay I think one is okay that is fine so looking for a motion uh as Dave was saying for five years at Haskins and then one year at Amethyst for Ryan Karp um all right I am voting move five years five year lease for Ryan Karp at Haskins and a one-year pilot at Amethyst Brook you get that right sure and we just um Laura we just want to use the word license because the license is revocable at will we can't grant the lease so license so five year license at Haskins and a one-year pilot at Amethyst Brook second okay so voting Larry yes Anna yes so Fletcher hi LaRoy hi Jen hi Laura didn't hear you there Laura hi thank you and Brett hi so okay anything else Dave or that that's it sounds good um any other items that we need to cover tonight that's all I've got no if not looking for a motion to adjourn I move to adjourn second do we need to go around for a roll for a roll call on this Aaron I think every vote we do I don't know Dave is our other committee's doing that that's what I've heard okay Larry hi Anna hi Fletcher hi LaRoy hi Jen hi Laura hi Brett hi we are good thank you all bye everyone thank you guys so much good to see you thanks Dave good to see you guys take care