 of the open meeting law, general law chapter 30a section 18. This meeting of the Board of Health is being conducted via remote participation. I will have a roll call to make sure everybody's video and audio is working. So, Tim, are you here, Tim? Here. D. George. Here. Good morning. Present. John. Here. Oh, I don't, oh, there you are. Hi, John. And Emma, and Emma will, we will, I will introduce Emma Dragon in a minute, and then she'll talk to us later. This meeting is being recorded to the web and could be shown on Amherst media and broadcast on the town of Amherst YouTube channel. I am now calling the meeting to order. So it's first order. Do you just want to say hello, Emma? And then during new business, you can introduce yourself fully. Hi, I'm so happy to be here. My name is Emma Dragon. I feel privileged to be able to step into the role as the public health director after Julie Betterman's long tenure. And just thank you so much for welcoming me. Welcome. And Jen Brown, are you still there listening? Well, if Jen isn't, I just want to thank her very much for filling in the role for the past two months and doing a Yeoman's job, doing director and, and a public health nurse. Okay. So the first order on our meeting, our minutes of the last two meetings, the eighth and then our meeting of the 15th. Does anyone have any comments? There's one correction on the October 8th. You remember, I was ejected from the meeting, not because of my bad behavior, but because of a power outage. And I had to, and Nancy helped me, you know, I've missed the last 20 minutes of the meeting. So I got the notes from Nancy, but I put the time wrong. I knew it was at the top of the hour because of when I was able to get back on, but I said six o'clock. It's actually seven o'clock. The meeting was that's right. I don't know if it was exactly if somebody remembers exactly, you can add something, but seven o'clock sounds good. Yes. Thank you for picking up on that. Okay, good. Can I have a motion to accept the minutes as amended with the time? I move we accept the minutes from October 8th as amended. Second. Second that. Okay, Maureen. Okay, all in favor. John. I. Tim. I. Steve. I. Maureen. I. And Nancy. I so unanimous. And then our October 15th meeting for the variance. I didn't see any errors on that. And it was 544. You got that down to the. That one, I, that one, I, no power outage. Look good to me. Yes. Okay. May I have a motion to accept? I move we accept the minutes of October 8th as amended. Okay, John. Thank you. Second. I can second it. Okay, Tim. Okay, all in favor. Are you in favor of the minute or accepting the minutes? Can you hear me, Tim? Oh, it, it was breaking in us. So can you repeat that? Okay. Well, I'm, I'm getting a vote for accepting the minutes. Hi, Steve. Hi, Maureen. Hi, John. Did I get you for this one already? No, but I'll say I accept the minutes. Yes. I and Nancy. Yes. Okay. They're all accepted. Huh. Okay. Emma's gonna find these are meetings very boring, I think, compared to what she's used to. Okay. This is great. So next on the agenda is all business smoking regulations. And did you all get my email that DJ can come to our December 10th meeting? DJ Wilson from the Massachusetts Association of Boards of Health. Yes. Yeah. So Maureen, I'll turn it over to you for the work you've been doing. Well, given the fact that DJ is going to come to the next meeting, I don't think I did that much. But I did get also the template that you forwarded from DJ and compared that with our current regulations and also the ones that I edited to kind of update some of the definitions and terms. And there's some slight differences in definitions, etc. But I think we can focus on that at the end of this process more than at the beginning to just see what we need for that. And I would just refer you all to the first page of that template that lists some of the additional steps that we might consider taking. I don't know if any of you all had a chance to look at that, but I can read them quickly. It's like places that aren't covered by the state, we might consider regulating for secondhand smoke and smoking bars adult with some of these we've already done the adult only retail tobacco stores, municipal buildings, just as a reinforcement. Do we want to change the buffer zones around the buildings where smoking is not allowed? Do we want to extend the parks and playgrounds, athletic fields, recreational areas? The question of the membership clubs, I don't really know which ones we have in town and what's happening with those nursing homes we've already done, whether we want to extend the totally banned smoking in hotels, motels and bed and breakfast. We currently have a 50% of the rooms need to be smoke free. I actually did look online and most there are only two hotels really in ARS. One is on earth if we count you mass three and all of them are totally smoke free in the Airbnb's if they mention anything tend to have no smoking inside. So that kind of a regulation I don't think would cause anyone any distress. We already have the outdoor restaurant bars. The one thing, another one is the public transportation bus taxi waiting areas. So I did look at what some other towns are doing. A lot of them were it's a mixed bag of who's updated and who's not. And some of these go back a long way it seems. I found some that had smoking positions that were designated like if you were hired to a job it was going to be one that you were going to be exposed to smoke. But anyway that's historic I think. Northampton is up to date on this as we know we have seen that. But I did notice that in 2019 they also considered a banning cigarette smoking or smoking on the in the downtown area in general. And that was brought up at one of their meetings and I think it was tabled really. There was a lot of pushback as there was concern about its enforcement and its effect on people who are unsheltered. And it seemed punitive to that one particular group. So I think they just didn't do that. I'm trying to think of where there was anything else. I saw one of the towns they had a large area out of buffer zone outside their public buildings at like 400 feet. That made me think of what I don't even remember which street it is but the one near the high school you know. But Tomb Street I think it is. It's that one they call Smoking Alley that goes to gray the back of Gray Street. On the east side. But there's something just to consider. And I guess I also wondered is there have there been any complaints, concerns you know that have been that people have brought to the town or the Board of Health. And I guess in my thinking about this I thought well you know what about like conservation areas owned by the town. You know it's unlikely that a significant secondhand smoke issue would come up in that setting. You know there are issues of non-health issues perhaps of littering and fire safety or I don't know but I guess it's just thinking about some of those areas. The only place I go regularly that's something like that is Mt. Pollocks. And I often see people smoking in their cars. What they're smoking in their cars I don't really know. It's almost like people come there take a smoking break and look at the view like 9 o'clock in the morning, 8 o'clock in the morning, 10 o'clock in the morning even. I don't know just some things to think about I think at this point and then we can hear from DJ and to look at that template before he comes might be a helpful thing to do. Thank you Maureen. Welcome. I agree with you especially the extended parks and playgrounds and I don't see Jen Brown on here but I think in September someone called her about smoking in town parking lots so I don't know I don't know Emma if you can bring it up at a meeting with Paul Backelman what the feeling is on extending the buffer zone around buildings and town-owned parking lots for smoking. Other comments? One thing we might want to do is update the references there there's some newer I did a quick search I could I'm glad to do that unless you already did Maureen. I did look at that a little bit but I'd be happy to have you look at that because I am not sure which journals in this field are ones to look to but I think I think there are a couple of things that I came across one is something called third-hand smoke which is yes go into the like a hotel smoking room and even though nobody's smoking there now you know that this is the smoking room and so those vapors and chemicals are still dangerous to someone working there so that's the kind of argument for perhaps saying that we shouldn't have smoking in any hotels or bed and breakfasts or or the like that was interesting there's there's enough new information about vaping second hand vaping we should probably add and I forgot the other area that I was thinking about but those were two that I noticed but you're right and just updating some of some of the others if I looked at the CDC website or they seem to go back still to those older references. PubMed has some good ones that look quite legitimate just not making any new point but just updating I'll send you a couple. Sure so we should also stress smoking and vaping also a week and a half ago was the annual American Public Health Association meetings and they were virtual and I went to a lot of tobacco and meetings and I asked a couple questions but in all the presentations they kept saying look to Massachusetts. Massachusetts is the lead in the US for all the regulations so as far as selling tobacco products we were being referred to and it kept being mentioned that town by town Massachusetts is the place to look for all the regulations so I got nothing out of any of those meetings except can can you send us your regulations when you write them we'd like them. Nancy what we're going to do is Nancy had his hand up it don't recognize Ed. Oh wait a minute I have panelists where's Ed oh and Smith there you go okay there you go Ed. Okay thank you I did want to just throw out that we don't have too many complaints for smoking on the street or in the parking lots the ones that are some of the hardest ones to deal with are secondhand smoking multi-unit buildings yes and many buildings have taken an official you know no smoking policy which certainly helps but there seem to be a lot of people who think that smoking marijuana is different than smoking cigarettes and it's not all smoking for them and the other thing is when they can't smoke inside and they're still smoking close enough to the building and we get infiltration through windows people who can't open windows or doors because the smokers are far enough from the building but the smoke ends up in their unit so those are those are thorny things for us to try to help occupants and managers. Yeah that's another set of regulations we have. The regulations I looked at I don't know if that's under a housing considerate it just didn't seem to be there. I think that HUD housing. There's a third set of there's a third set of our town regulations on multi-unit dwelling that would be the next we'll look at. They're on the website and they're old as old too. I mean not revised and so and if when we start working on those if you can give us any guidance that would help you too. I'd be happy to try it. Okay so when we get these done then that's the next set of. We're not done yet. No there's three of them. Hopefully the other this and the next one will go much quicker than our selling tobacco products. Other comments? So we'll leave it that we will review the template and be ready for DJ. Okay well thank you. Welcome. Next old business is the mask order and with the idea of discussing masks we thought required on school property because I believe it was Jen Brown had gotten a complaint that college kids were going and using basketball courts at schools and smoking in I don't know whether it was off hours or on hours or whether the schools I haven't been opened but there have been staff at the schools. Have you heard anything Emma? Well in terms of hearing about them going students going on to school property and smoking? No. However with the new mask order that's in effect as of last week. School property would be considered public property so therefore mask wearing is inferred. Okay so we'll just leave that the order as is without adding anything to it. I had a question about that Nancy. So you know the town very quickly they commendably put up signs all around the downtown area showing our mask area however those signs are perhaps a little bit misleading now since there's a statewide order for everybody outdoors no matter where and if somebody sees that it might give them permission to think that they don't have to use the mask except in that area which is not true. I mean it's asking a lot to take down all those nice signs but don't you think it is a little confusing to have that to have a town mask area where the state law supersedes and covers the whole state? Yeah I know that the town was ordering more signs so they could put them kind of throughout town in areas I can certainly I certainly hear you Mr. George in terms of that can miss messaging. I know that for myself I feel like public health messaging and outreach and communication is very important in order to get the public the behaviors that we want to see in our public the only way to possibly get to that point is to is to meet them where they're at right so I know that I've had been in discussions with Brianna in terms of how to strategize with that as well as the Angela and Jen Moylston to really try and problem solve that to make it more streamlined so an answer for the signs I think more signs are coming but hopefully we'll be able to I mean there's been so many things that have come up on my week one but other things needed more attention so more to come with that. Okay Emma do you think adding an amendment to our mask order including um what did I write here of course I have all these papers including school property would be helpful or just leave it as is it doesn't seem necessary to me because it seems obsolete now you know because now the massachusetts advisory is to wear a mask in all public place not advisory it's the law you know it's the law sorry regulation um should we amend ours to match that or no it just I think it just kind of sunsets yeah that's the way I view it is that now that there's state regulation however if there's a time when state regulation is lifted I think that would be a great time to address it but if the board wants to amend it now wouldn't that language I will support what the board wants to do. So we're just gonna let the state orders supersede our mask order and wait and see what happens and you'll let them know they're complaining about the signs well maybe you'll you know put a sticker over it says in all it's a changing landscape so you get it communicating on the web and news and orally and I think we address our local order when the state order no longer covers it because if we decide we want to rescind our local order at the same time the state does then we can or if we want to leave it when the state does we can leave it okay so that's what we will do new business introducing Emma Dragon and we have to make her an agent of the board of health right so yeah oh sorry you're wearing the classic zoom interjection of the dog dog scratching that's ellie um so I'm Emma dragon I'm a nurse and a mom and a local community member I live in Padley I have three children and a lovely spouse named Kyle um I've been a nurse since 2007 I moved back in the area in 2011 which I've worked at Cooley Dickinson since then that time in a numerous different areas emergency medicine behavioral health and case management I was active on the nursing committee there for the mna in a leadership role um helping drive policies and make sure that nurses voices were heard and I'm also a member on the Padley board of health um and have been doing that since 2018 and so uh Stephen our our meetings are also quite fun as well so um that's why I sniggered a little bit when you stuff that earlier I have my graduate degree in emergency and disaster management I've been on many federal deployments both for disaster relief but also congressional events um and I've been doing that since 2009 so I've kind of been evolving into public health in the last couple years and um really enjoyed it the more that I learned about it and I'm really happy to be able to kind of continue that journey here with Amherst I could not I am blown away by the amount of work that Jen Brown has done in the intern both with keeping up with Maven doing her contact tracing at all of the normal public health nurseries but then all of the work that she's done helping write policies and agreements with crime's place and other things that have come up I just she's really stepped into that role hugely and I'm just very thankful for her and Nancy Schroeder for a warm welcome and I'm really excited for where things are going to go oh and Mary Beth Ovalowitz with her work with the shelter as well and kind of helping out as needed so good stuff does anyone have questions for Emma well welcome and any way we can help you and work all together for the health of Amherst's residents should we introduce ourselves to Emma this is true yes we should start John oh I don't know hello Emma welcome to the your job and challenging one thanks for taking it on for our town my name is John Tobias and I'm a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Massachusetts and head of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and I'm an environmental engineer by trade mostly drinking water stuff and so that's been my interest related to public health because ultimately that's what environmental engineering is about and been on the board for a bit so actually I think I'm extended on the think I think I'm in in for an extra bin here at the moment but anyway see what happens next next year okay Steve okay Emma I'm Steve George I'm retired from full-time work at Amherst College where I was a professor in biology and neuroscience so I'm a neurobiologist and I don't have any real public health qualifications but I'm just interested in the work of the board and so I'm just kind of here because of that and of course you know as you probably know we get on the board in a different way from how people get on the board in Hadley and so who knows how whether I would be here if we had the same situation as Hadley but I'm happy to be on the board Maureen hi I'm Maureen Malay and I'm a retired physician I practice like the cough right now medicine in the valley since 1981 initially in various internal medicine practice positions but really for the last 20 years of my career at Mount Holyoke College and in that position it really moved into both you know caring for the individual student but also a real public health role especially as various infectious diseases or even smoking on campus and all of these things came up and that sort of piqued my interest in public health and when asked to serve on this if I want it was interested in applying I said yes about two years ago I think a year and a half ago um no is it just just over a year maybe I don't actually remember now uh must have been 2019 because I retired at the end of 2018 so welcome I noticed your letter along with some other nurses from Cooley Dickinson hospital and in the paper recently and supported that Tim hello I'm this my name is Timothy Randy I'm a professor in at UMass I specialize in environmental sciences especially watershed science and hydrology that type of areas related to water quality and yeah I actually joined the board along with Maureen hey do you have any questions for any of us Nancy you got to give your board since oh god I was off about 18 months and then I was back on I predated Cooley directorship but I was here under EpiBody um I have my area I'm a nurse my areas of expertise have been gerontology community home health and public health um I taught public health nursing from 2001 to 2011 at um elms college and then I've done clinical for UMass from 2011 until 2000 through 2019 um I guess that's about it so do you have any questions for us Emma? I don't think I have any questions right now but I'm just really excited to be here in the room see how your board works um I really am encouraged to have a collaborative relationship with the board of health as this role as the health agent for the board um and building on the great foundation that has been experienced historically and and see the good things that we're gonna be able to be successful on moving forward so that's all I have okay so Nancy I just thought of one thing I should mention I think too about myself so I and that that you may intersect with so in my role at UMass I either lead or co-lead a couple of projects for the state of Massachusetts the mass department of environmental protection one on lead in schools and early education care facilities and the other on uh the topic that's called PFAS and um so that which is a new regulation in our drinking water so in that role I sometimes am wearing different kinds of hats but they're both about public health and about uh water quality and so uh the town of Amherst appears on lists of things that I'm that I'm seeing lists of what who's participated in what whatever or may not appear so there's intersections that are outside of this role of serving on this board so sometimes I'm wearing different hats so I just wanted to be aware be aware of that if you hear of these programs there have questions or something I can maybe help out some of those the school stuff intersects more with the schools than with the town as and those two are entities that have some difference between them but and overlap thank you so as a board we have to vote Emma in as an agent of the board so we need a motion does anyone want to make a motion I'll move that Emma Dragun was the health director of the town of Amherst to be an agent of the board of health second that could uh second that motion okay all in favor hi oh Tim Tim is an I hi Maureen I Steve I John I Nancy I so it's unanimous welcome as our agent Emma thank you so much okay next is the Kern Center the composting toilet update John I certainly hope you've seen all this stuff well I've seen it I'm not as on top of it as I should have been I'm sorry I've been on zoom calls almost the entire day and I and I have that but I dig and surprisingly Chris Chamberlain sent me an email to my UMass address that I forwarded to the board members and I asked if anybody could it was right before the meeting could forward to Emma and Jen because I had not seen those but I see Chris and Claire and Sarah joining in here so I have looked at those and I'm aware of that so I guess I don't know what the exact order of things are but that's up to you Nancy I don't know who who speaks what when I'm sure so let's see who signed the letter I think Sarah has is on the letter correct let me look here whoops kind of out of order now it's Claire so Claire do you want to speak first hi I think can you guys hear me but not see me yes okay well that's fine I'm gonna pass to Chris and folks for the purposes of the minutes could you introduce yourselves and say what your title is so we get it straight hi yes I'm Claire Shillington and I am the RW Cron Center coordinator at Hampshire College right okay oh no I think I messed up they're there now we'll be able to see them okay yeah we got kicked out for a second and then pop right back in I think I know I got nervous no I wanted to change you to panelist so we could see all of you thank you yeah okay um I will also just introduce myself before Chris starts speaking I'm Sarah Draper I'm the director of the RW current center at Hampshire and I'm Chris Chamberlain I'm a civil engineer with Berkshire design group in Northampton and was responsible for designing the net zero water systems at the current center and so this is actually revisiting something that we came to you folks with in I think February just before all kinds of events happened but to recap the current center was constructed with clivus composting toilets in lieu of traditional toilets as part of the net zero water systems in pursuit of something called the living building challenge and part of that composting toilet system includes composters in the basement that that collect waste and allow them to compost into more inert organic matter the building has been open since 2016 and to date solid material has not been removed from the composting toilets the liquid component which is primarily urine which which we sometimes refer to as leachate is periodically pumped into a holding tank in the basement and removed currently by a septage hauler and taken to a wastewater treatment plant and so what we're here today is to talk about the end destination of the compost material the composters are starting to get to the point where solid material needs to be removed they are not at that point just yet but we want to get ahead of this and actually I want to start by just talking about the regulatory basis for all of this and also admit that for years I was misinterpreting or misreading what title five says on on this issue but just to to recap so title five the state septic regulations as you know allows for composting toilets and within the provisions of 15.289 it says that the system shall be designed to store compostable and composted solids for at least two years unless otherwise approved by the department clearly we met that with our design which is great and then talking about the residuals from the system meaning the solid compost residuals from the system shall be disposed of either by burial on site or in another manner and location approved by the local approving authority covered with a minimum of six inches of clean compacted earth the impression that I was under in February and for years before that was that it needed to be buried on site as approved by the approved by the local approving authority in this case the board of health it's actually that title five allows for the burial or by another manner allowable by the board of health I am not saying that because we are looking to exempt ourselves from your approval we very much want your consent to do this but just to point out that DEP in their official opinion has determined that this method of disposal is safe and protective of human health and the environment and so that what we are really asking you is whether you object to us following title five back in February when we talked about this John raised a very important point which was the fact that we are not strictly speaking under standard standard title five regulations on this site because a public sewer is available and therefore we were not permitted to just build a traditional septic system and use that for disposal of our wastewater instead we used other provisions of title five to pursue a pilot program for for the use of the composting toilets as well as treatment on site and disposal of gray water that was approved by DEP we got a letter of support from you folks to pursue that and have constructed and are operating that pilot program system and so we inquired to DEP to clarify whether the those rules that I just quoted from title five are applicable in this case where we are under a pilot program and not a standard system we I apologize we got that answer back in May and didn't forward it at the time and so in the shuffle it got set aside but I did make sure that that was sent to John I think Sarah may have sent it also earlier today and it sounds like it's been circulated the board I'm also happy to share my screen and show it but essentially DEP after reviewing the approval that they issued for our system determined that yes in fact the provisions for disposal that I just read to you do apply in the case of this pilot program so essentially DEP's opinion is that we are allowed to bury these solids on site some other issues that came up in February that we were asked to look into a little bit further one was to test the compost material so the board could have a better understanding of what exactly we're dealing with and so after some discussion about what standard we'd test them to we did send samples of the compost material for testing as compared to EPA standard for land application of class A biosolids I want to pause there and point out that what we're proposing is not actually land application but burial but regardless we did test against that standard we've sent those results in and you know the things that I'll highlight is of course you know first significantly fecal coliform was below the detection level of of the testing so I think that's certainly the most important result and then the the remaining factors that we tested for were below the EPA thresholds for that land application with one exception which was copper and that I want to talk about just very briefly because this was not actually a surprising result to us with that initial result that we got the history of these composters is that the spec for the composting units that went into the basement included stainless steel plumbing for the pump and discharge line that removes that liquid component and sends it to the storage tank the plumber trying to be proactive save a little money put a better quality product in whatever the case may have been installed copper piping in that highly aggressive environment and within about four months it sprung a leak because some of that copper corroded into the compost mass that was immediately swapped out we've had stainless steel components in there since that time and have not had a similar problem so when we got that result we decided to retest from a different location in the composter where we felt that the compost would not have been impacted by that incident and those results we found levels for copper that were below what the the EPA maximum would be for land application so on on in that regard we feel like the test results sort of speak for themselves and back up again DEPs sort of determination that this is an appropriate means of disposal and then finally we had presented a layout proposal where we would bury those the compost outside of the Kern Center between a couple of sidewalks I can pull up the the plan if we want to look at it again and there was some concern about placing that immediately next to the sidewalks with the possibility that soil could get removed through erosion or abrasion or whatever else and we could lose some of that six inch cover that the regulations require leading to an inadvertent exposure we certainly heard that there were also questions just asking us to think about the location and destination of these solids in terms of the long term you know we we continue to feel like a prominent burial location certainly for this first batch near the building that we can add educational signage to to help people understand what is going on is something that we want to pursue if there's a strong objection to that you know we can certainly find a more out of the way place capture is not short of land in order to do that but we're certainly willing to commit to an offset of you know we we'd suggest two feet minimum from the edge of the sidewalk to alleviate those sort of practical concerns about accidentally uncovering this and we're certainly strongly committed to putting signage up not just for public health and safety but also because we want people to to understand what this building is doing and that was our memory from those many months ago of what your questions were although if I missed anything we're certainly happy to talk to that essentially we put this on the back burner because the building was primary was mostly shut down for the spring and the summer and and this was not really a pressing matter but schools back in session and time to time to get back into it John and Tim do you have questions I don't really have questions it's interesting and great that you found that the title five by by giving a permit under title five designates that composting toilet residuals can be buried on on site by by definition by by permit and that's that that was interesting to me for this case in particular but despite that I think what we requested was reasonable and your actions in response are are excellent I think getting some data on it class a biosauce is about the closest thing you could compare to that's a reasonable choice so to me it seems really excellent that you have that information in other words if I built a composting toilet and it was approved by title five no one would make a measurement of what I buried on site but you've got some measurements of what's going to be used there and the copper high on one sample and not another is I think the median average it's all going to be mixed together it's not a concern from my perspective I know it's also really bound tightly to all those organics and the reason it's not absent from other parts of it in case everybody doesn't realize we all require a significant amount of copper as a it's essential nutrient we excrete it I mean all humans do we take it in and we are about easy and we agreed it lead is not the case that's another story we don't want any lead we don't need any lead but we do need copper and we do excrete it so it will never be non-detective in case you were wondering about that it's there's copper is pretty ubiquitous in in places so to me everything your pros make sense I think the setback from the sidewalks and the educational stuff so I don't think we have to take action actually we don't have a role to take action because it's permitted under the permit but if others interpret it differently I don't know Tim or anyone else I'm not clear you know so if it's it's allowed what is the role of the board of health you know is it going to be an opinion or I'm just not clear about that you know I think it's yeah so I think initially we approached under the understanding that we needed your approval and and having raised the flag we certainly didn't want to disappear and just go do this on our own so I guess that that we are advising the board of health that that we are going to follow title five and pursue this and if the board of health has an objection and certainly DEP also pointed out that that a regulation could be adopted holding us to a higher or different standard but in the absence of any action like that I think that your silence on the issue is good enough for us but if you feel the need to to take an action and then that's your prerogative so couple of this is my opinion but you know it might help maybe improve your standards or whatever it is so one thing if I could remember in the first meeting and I believe in February we had high vehicle qualiform or is that is it correct in the in the tested we didn't have any sludge we didn't have any sludge right we had some some data that had been gathered by the manufacturer on the site so in this case we have testing of the actual material that that we have on site right I mean this this testing is is much better in terms of the sample you know there's no fecal contamination so couple of things one is of course you know you are legally allowed to bury on site but one thing is risk management you know because you're an institution you know educational institution if there is some sort of a occasional spike in something you know because this was not anticipated copper was not anticipated or there might be other type of things you know so one thing is it might be helpful for you to have some sort of a contingency plan you know if if something goes wrong in the design or something down the road what are some of the ways you can actually handle it so that is one thing another one is I know that is the primary purpose of burying it next to you know next to the building is primarily for educating the educating students and educating visitors and all those things which is a very important role but also if there are sites which are a little bit away from the sidewalk like not too feed but maybe a little bit away it might you can still have signage leading to that say you can just visit visit this place that might help in terms of potential exposure and contamination or runoff or whatever it is coming out of it so this is just my opinion since border health is not going to actually allow or permit or anything because it's we are just I'm just providing the opinion to help you plan in the future thank you Steve or Maureen do you have any comments here's one quick question just out of curiosity is it going to be a raised bed so the the sludge is going to be or the you know the fecal material is going to the compost is going to be below ground and then there's six inches of soil on top of the raised bed or is it going to end up at ground level I I think the intention is not a formal raised bed although having the ground high there I think would be expressive in a way that would that would be beneficial to to creating a thing you know the the idea is is a mulched ornamental planting bed so that there's a clear demarcation the the issue with the raised bed is now if that that raised bed is our six inches of soil or do we have less than six inches of cover around the edges so that would hesitation to do something quite so deliberate thanks I mean I can also just speak to that the other the other planting areas on the site all at least have some kind of border it's not necessarily a raised bed above ground level but it's a border to prevent the soil from moving around I would anticipate that we would at the very least do that and then as we put the bed in the site that it's on has a an ever so slight slope so we may need to put an higher border on one side anyway just to structural for structural integrity okay cool yeah I guess I'm I'm looking at google maps right now at the site I mean you got a lot of open area south and and east of the site as opposed to the north and west where the rain the the collection you know the the depressed and the plantings I mean why not you got a lot of room to work with that's a lot more than two feet away from a sidewalk so it seems like you got plenty of plenty of places to go that they've got good soil areas around them demarcate you can sign it and note that this is good soil amendment nutrients for for this so that's fair yeah yeah our our choice of that site was a lot largely based on the fact that grass doesn't grow as well there so we figured it would be a really good place to put a planting thing um but I appreciate your your feedback on we do have a lot of space yeah about how many cubic yards will come out of the two composters is it about 20 gallons I think uh yeah it's nothing right it's not yeah it's not a large amount no it's it's uh I just wanted to point that out it's very small yeah and again that's after about four and a half years of operation you know as I don't know what towns have dealt with this but then you we're always updating regulations here we've been dealing with a lot of different things but if we do more um human or type approaches or onsite um uh fickle matter disposal uh which I'm very much in favor of which only works under certain circumstances it'll be interesting to see if towns need to address that so it's allowed under compost toilet on title title five but um I wonder if we have any composting toilets in use uh single home residences in amherst I actually don't know that maybe Ed does I don't know but I mean they would be a title we don't have that many title five systems left in amherst we're about 95 percent seward so we don't really come up but it's an interesting question I'll comment that I shot one down last year oh yeah really it had access to sewer yeah yeah it had uh side by side um systems it was basically just a soddiston bucket operation but it involved um rental housing oh yeah homeowner who had tenants in the house oh is that the one on beston street yes yeah yeah and and that was a very cooperative remedy there there was no hard feelings and yeah yeah we last talked this in earnest when where I live about 20 years ago folks neighbors here in south ours wanted to instead of suing do alternative onsite whatever things and I guess my my protect public health and interrupt the fecal oil root hat was a lot stronger than than the the cool notion of what works so people are lousy at maintaining anything so yeah you guys are an institution and you're teaching it it's really a great application of showing this one question I know that there is a water body downslope to the from that location I'm just curious how far is it like maybe 200 300 feet or I was just looking at GIS maps enough I mean there is one near the as you come in the main entrance of campus um I think that's the closest is it like a wetland or a forested wetland or um there is a why there's nothing oh oh I know what you're talking about that downslope you know yeah yeah the little bridge is over it when you walk over from the red barn so one option to think about is to have some buffer strip as Sarah was mentioning you know have a buffer strip downslope of it so that any runoff or anything can prevent going into that it's not a long way issue but it's it's still something to think about in the design sure and and I will note that the entirety of the site runs to rain gardens within the site as a first step which then infiltrates unless they're overwhelmed by a very heavy rain and then from there overflow goes to the campus road system and is is collected in the in the storm drains yep hey any other comments well thank you Chris Claire and Sarah and lots of luck as you progress with this wonderful project thank you thanks very much welcome okay thanks room for us so next on the agenda is 289 east Hadley road emergency condemnation so are you going to be addressing that ed yeah I can give you a just a brief update the homeowner actually did not request a hearing before the board because I took the action bottle we can half ago I wanted to make sure at least was on the agenda so that if we needed to use this time for that purpose that it would be there and it would be relatively easy this is a person a senior who I worked with about five years ago and actually she was in open recognition that she had a problem she you know definitely had an issue with acquisition and retention of too much stuff of many descriptions and she did quite a bit of voluntary clean up there the weren't formal orders involved I came to the house actually under a different question and we ended up striking up a relationship we were able to just I would visit and check on progress and encourage and she had improved quite a bit and then had a cancer diagnosis I'm sorry I'm probably giving too much information but at any rate she was quite open about that and voluntarily we stepped back from that but this came to a head Sunday a week and a half ago when the fire department called from the scene and they were assisting and noting that the condition of the house was was bad for egress for fire load for just having access to the things that one needs in a habitable situation and I was able to using their pictures actually decide that this deserved to be the subject of an emergency condemnation so I did that and I forwarded the information to the hospital letting them know that it was not fit for releasing her to and they actually collided and it's been very cooperative in situations like that I think if I give them what they need they are I mean they print up the orders and actually deliver them to the patient for me which helps a tremendous amount I also send it legally to the house but that doesn't really inform the person so she's in she's at this time fully cooperating she's in rehab and family and or church members a community in other words are pledging to help and I have to keep monitoring that and see that it actually happens so this time there's there isn't a need for a hearing or board involvement okay well thank you thank you for your tact and handling that well this went better than many so yeah we've had a few like that and so there's conditions that could result that would allow this order to be lifted actions that can be taken yeah I'm anticipating that probably what we'll realistically do is leave part of the house condemn which I believe can be done I'll make sure of that but it's a it's a split-level ranch essentially a daughter or a niece had an apartment downstairs and we are tentatively playing coach working towards her being able to live out of that area so we'll provide living space a bathroom an area for realistically she's eating food she's not really extensively cooking which is what I would prefer is that she's not trying to cook until the place is really cleaned out and it's not actually very much different than the lifestyle that she's been eating for years just without the mess hopefully thank you thank you and then do you have the Lincoln real estate Catherine Calaverally is that how you pronounce her name question regarding white variants and the housing code is that you add to yes and we're still tossing that back and forth it's much like the other situation where she first Lincoln real estate first brought this proposal a week or 10 days ago Lincoln is working with the building commissioner this space this is where the I don't know if I have the name right the fire and water yoga studio it was in the alley near where the Thai restaurant used to be kind of oh next next to the lit restaurant bar we go through that little little walk through yeah yeah next to Antonio I mean there'll be that near that back of Antonio so the back in the back there okay well that space has an abundance of showers it turns out and there's discussion currently about whether that might be tied in with use for the the shelter downtown and while that gets hashed out anyway Lincoln has been trying to find a tenant a commercial tenant it's a difficult space and they're thinking of just converting into an apartment there are questions about is there enough natural light is there enough natural ventilation how many apartments could they or how many bedrooms could they make in there so they didn't have something that I thought was proposable so we're we're going back and forth but it's not under the deadline that I thought it might be so maybe we'll have something in a month or two okay okay thank you okay so that's all the new business thank you ad okay so topics not anticipated by the chair um I just want to forward all this everybody but the um because it's the health department's mission is based on the essential public health services they had been updated the end of September beginning of October and I became I knew they were updating it and at the APHA meeting I became aware of the update so I'll just send it out and um they've changed it from assessment policy development promotion and assurance to assessment policy development and insurance the core being equity and I'll just send this document out to people and I don't know if Emma you want to look at it um because it's the foundation of the mission of the health department not the board of health and I just thought I would tell you about it and send it out there's really nothing for discussion but I thought you'd like to see the update there it were 25 years old before they were updated and they were just updated by the CDC and the the Beaumont Foundation with guidance from the Public Health Association accreditation board nationally so it was just an FYI and then we will have the director's report oh so it's my first director's report seven days in so um all the information that I've been able to gather and experience there's that dog again um in the last seven days uh working with Craig's place has been a large part of my time Kevin and I have frequently communicated with each other I have visited both sites the UU and the UML more than once on each time and Kevin has been very open with submitting the management plan he has been receptive to suggestions that I had regarding that management plan it's a fairly good plan um and it was a great start but certainly with COVID additional areas with health and safety um kind of guidelines and protocols that they're using I thought would be very helpful um we do have an agreement with Dr. Bossie where she's going to be performing testing every four weeks on at um at Craig's place and while I don't think that is the goal that I have for us testing the guests that are coming in the change in population that we'll see there I think it's a great start um I know that there's just further discussions about additional testing possibly coordinated with UMass but I think this is a really great start I wanted to secure at least having that as testing right now and be able to problem solve additional testing moving forward um Jennifer Brown recently had two flu clinics um if you want to call them that one was outside of Craig's place at the UU and the second was held at the Amherst survival center um both of them were outside we received clients at both of those um state funding that was previously secured through grant monies um had not yet been submitted to the state for Amherst so I was able to work with um and get that submitted today for the state application for those funds to support flu clinics and equipment and other resources that we might need and then kind of delving into influenza and vaccine vaccination and clinics um I also had a great opportunity of meeting up with Maureen Davine from the Hampshire Preparedness um coalition for emergency preparedness and do a site visit of our outdoor emergency dispensing site which will be at right now at as it's planned at Amherst regional high school in the parking lot as a drive-through uh my goal um is to have a outdoor flu clinic there so we can try to use it as a practice run if you will um for when the time does come that we have COVID vaccine to do a widespread activity to really engage our assert team use the MRC possibly mass nursing students um have it and problem solve from there one of the challenges with the COVID vaccine is that we do have to have an observation period where cars will stay parked for 15 minutes after receiving the vaccine because this will be the first time that any of us are receiving a vaccine so to make sure that that's being administered safely that's the guidelines that that have been given to us um we're also working on securing a new refrigerator for vaccines that'll help have a five-day generator in case there's an emergency of power outage that'll be wheeled so working on that and um then in terms of COVID status and where our community is as of this morning we had 91 active cases um I know Stephen was it you or was it John that said the the table to the group with the the total number of cases I said that yeah yeah yeah so that was great um and certainly cases are going to go up as we see testing increase in terms of the cumulative count of cases one thing that I like to focus on is the active number of cases because people recover following that time um our data that came out just at the beginning of this meeting showed that the town of Amherst has an average daily incidence of 14.4 and a positivity rate of 0.34 um I just want to highlight that that is incredibly low um I know that there's concerns about the college data somehow skewing our results um I know that's something that department of higher ed has looked at and so that our data will be top notch um um and oh I don't have share screen but one of the things that dph did do last week which I think people might have heard feedback about is change the parameters for the color mapping and change the color mapping and the and the map that will be sent out in terms of risk level of communities um I think there was unintended stigma that was being experienced against color uh communities with a higher risk point um and certainly the red and the kind of static metrics created an alarmed community I think a community that really wants to be engaged in public health I think people are confused and anxious um and want information but it's being able to give out thoughtful clear information that's based in science so um that's what I have for the director's report I hope that's okay yes thank you does anyone have any questions for Emma it does seem like the number that's the increase in the number over the past two weeks is the most rapid increase since the pandemic began how are you guys doing on contact tracing are you doing it locally or involving the state for that so that's a great question so it's really a partnership I think Jen brown I she's still on the call listening and I know she'll key in if I misspeak um and certainly I'm just saying kind of what's been on boarded to me so far so for cases that originate from Amherst residents that are not students of the University of Massachusetts are done primarily by Jen brown we do engage the ctc that state the contact tracing collaborative sometimes as an adjunct when needed but the primary amount of contact tracing is done by Jen um that's that engagement of the ctc is also experienced if sometimes if it's a like an employer or an establishment um and really kind of the intersection of the UMass contact tracing staff uh and and and Jennifer brown and um um I lost it at whisk does that ever happen to anybody else that um so local contact tracers the public health nurses the university and the ctc it can get kind of jumbled sometimes right our hairs can get crossed in terms of like who's on first I know those are kinks that it in another in my other town we're experiencing as well that we're trying to iron out and really engage the the stockholders if you will um to try and better it I did have a meeting with Ann Becker this week to try and work on that certainly since we're going to have an increased population of students this spring I know that I am probably in a room of of like-minded people where I want our community to be best prepared as we can with a clear identified plan that we can execute and adjust if needed but to identify those contacts quickly um and be able to keep our community safe any other questions also I think it's a really good I think it's a really good thing to have COVID-19 on the agenda even though of course we're going to talk about it but just in terms of how the port appears to the public um I think it's very good to have it listed as part of the director's report until we're safe till it's over as as it was this time that's good yeah absolutely I agree I think it's gonna be a present discussion for quite a bit I think it's I know it's hard that we're saying the same kind of messaging but it truly is kind of a marathon we're at the kind of end of the first part of COVID um but I think public health for quite a bit will be in the light of the public view and I'm well I'm sad that it took a pandemic for us to be visible because usually public health is kind of the quiet in the background piece I'm I'm happy that we're at least being seen sorry Maureen I interact with you quite all right I was getting ahead of myself um I just wondered with your insights are in terms of how what types of contexts are how is this spreading now you know initially you know with the with the end in the town there was an event that seemed to cause a blip is is that still an event related are these still event related clusters or is this seeming to have a different way of spreading through different groups in the community so I think that's a great question um I are what I have heard and seen is that these are still related to small those small groups of events um whether they were small gatherings or Halloween related at this point the primary amount of data from the state shows that 88% of transmission for COVID is happening in small in households and small gatherings um you know when when we our friend we might think we'll just meet up with our friend inside just for a couple minutes just say hi um people it's that's when people are letting their guard down unfortunately so it's really just kind of re bringing back of course my home phone is ringing now this is funny it for me it's revisiting the messaging that we're having with our community I think one of the challenges with where we are in the pandemic and part of why I feel that the governor revisited the orders and the mandates that are out there is we are all very tired of the mandates and the challenges that it's having on our everyday life and by making these new orders trying to get ahead of the curve and then also making us more cognizant of what we're doing because of the mandates hopefully it'll be able to manage and mitigate transmission and a big surge in Massachusetts so revisiting messaging Maureen is definitely something I'm excited to do with Brianna as part of that and and using the tools that the local board of health that Ron O'Connor and his team and Jana Ferguson really helped develop with the academic public health schools they have some really great visuals and even some interns that right now on day seven I don't have the capacity to engage but I I am really eager to do so once I have the once we have the capacity. I just want to thank Jennifer if you go into the health department's website and go into COVID she has the Thanksgiving piece up and the governor's new orders up so she really keeps all of that up to date for towns people who may want to go in and get some education so thank you Jennifer. Yeah it's great. I wanted to ask a question of Jen Jennifer maybe if she's we haven't heard her voice but she must be listening we hope you are. For Jennifer and Emma is I know the town was in the paper a while back there was a reach out to engage with UMass in the town to first responders get asymptomatic testing at the Mullen Center and I wonder if you can comment on how much of that has occurred or what you know about that. Emma you may have more information than I do I I know it has been used by first responders there some are going in every week and some people are not using it but they feel very assured and supported by the town knowing it's there if there was an incident so. Okay so you don't have statistics on use. I don't have them yeah okay I don't have them right now but I could possibly get back to you with that. I think it'd be interesting to know how many police and fire officials are you know people in town are have gone and made use of that that opportunity is where I put it um yeah I know I'm doing I'm doing weekly testing and I I love it when that email comes in another negative yeah and it's not a call from somebody like Jennifer. That was one question I hadn't I don't know if either of you can advocate for the following and I haven't reached out but I know in looking at the statistics at the UMass data I'd like to see the another breakdown they have a lot of breakdown a lot of data but I'd be curious to see of the positives how many are from just in in a cumulative manner asymptomatic versus symptomatic I kind of get it because I look every time when they're there I go look at the the basis but it's just it'd be an interesting metric to see just give me a sense I mean maybe it's not that it doesn't have any value per se but what percent of of positives are we capturing via the asymptomatic versus symptomatic both both definitely are there but um yeah yeah anyway it's it's great and to any extent that UMass can extend its um to more townspeople uh the better sorry John no ambassadors I see them um I've talked to them and I see them on Friday late afternoon evenings and Saturdays walking up down Lincoln into the Phillips Street area to sort of see what's happening with parties um have you gotten any feedback from how the ambassadors they seem to be doing a great job you heard about any feedback from them Emma or Ben I know that I haven't had any direct feedback from them but I do know in the most recent COVID uh leadership meaning that I was on there was very good um that they continued to be engaged and reaching out to the community and generally are very very well received um have continued to kind of identify those areas Nancy like you're describing that might have been reported on the party report um site I'm probably using the wrong language but um they do also try to reach other areas uh they have various shifts and I know that they're continuing to try to do their work yeah I've been impressed with what I've seen from them I think it's a model that would be great in other local towns too and I'm glad that they have them in Northampton as well any other comments before we adjourn oh I just had a follow-up question on Craig's door in the in the homeless shelter and stuff I think there was a nice an article in the paper that funding came in for for perhaps some hospital or hotel beds to you know to be used for additional shelter space there was an article in the paper is that moving it was about Craig's doors potentially the getting a funding to make use of maybe university lodge beds or something am I I believe they are using university lodge I think they have 18 beds there do you know Emma the number of beds they have at university lodge yep it's 20 beds 20 beds great that's great that they have that yeah they have a capacity of 20 of the 20 beds at the university motor lodge and the 14 at the university universalist at the UU that's a total of 34 beds which is even higher than they've had on previous years I think that's really extraordinary that we're able to house that you know put a roof over those many people's heads and help provide them meals and coordinate their care with Craig's place so I have another question Emma or Jen have you been involved in the letters and the push for the state to open up a quarantine isolation hotel or place out here for people without permanent homes because the only one is in Everett which is yeah that is correct Nancy the only shelter for the state right now for the Q and I is in Everett I know that lots of our local legislatures maybe dome Joe Comerford and I'm probably those are the two that come to my mind right away are trying to work actively on that I know that I am verbalizing the need whenever the time is available and the moment is right and we're trying to demonstrate that need for that additional place out in western mass not an hour away each way so I hope more to come with that but all we can do is keep trying thank you so how many um how many flu shots did you administer at those two clinics Jen it was a total of about 50 yeah spread out yeah thank you that's great any other comments questions okay can I have a motion to adjourn our meeting I move we adjourn our meeting okay now we have to have a roll call vote John I Maureen I Tim I Nancy I okay we are adjourned great we like you guys thank you thank you thank you for giving to everybody be safe yeah okay bye bye