 Okay, so recording has started. All right. Go ahead, Bruce. I would just like to note that today is Nagasaki day. Can you. Explain a little bit. Why that's important because the Russian, the day was three days before it. And between the two of them. Millions of people died. And the use of nuclear weapons is still a possibility and we should note that. Well, thank you for. For noting that, Bruce. So I'm just going to informally sort of. Welcome everyone to the. Gosh, August 9th, 2023 conservation commission meeting. Our, our chairperson is not here this evening. And our first item of business on the agenda is. Appointing a vice chairperson to run the meeting tonight. So I was hoping somebody would be willing to make a motion. I would like to move that. Andre. The vice chair. In which he expressed interest. I think during the July 12th meeting. Okay. Is there a second. Second that motion. Thank you. Is there any discussion or would anybody else like to make a nomination? Okay. Hearing none. Alex. Hi. Bruce. Hi. Jason. Hi. And Andre. Hi. Okay. So thank you. All right, I'm going to turn it over to Andre. Thank you, Andre. Well, thank you. Alex Bruce and Jason, Jason welcome and. Good to. Good to see you here. I'll try my best to. Keep things moving along and then going straight. So. We have a fairly light agenda for tonight. We're. I think we're, we have two hearings. And one that's going to be. Another one that's going to be postponed. That'll be. 52 fairing street for anyone who's watching and looking to. Attend the hearing for 52 fairing street. It is going to be continued to August 23rd. 2023 at seven 30 PM. And. Let's see. And. Yeah. You have the chair. You have the. You have it now for the management updates, et cetera. Sure. So. Dave isn't going to be here tonight. We have a ton of stuff going on sort of in the land management. Area. Sort of at the, at the top of my list is Hickory Ridge. And we're right now waiting for some design work to be completed at Hickory Ridge associated with handicap accessible trail and a multi use path. I may have mentioned before, but we have a comprehensive. Ecological restoration plan that's underway there. We also have. We have two grants that we've received. We've got one grant that we're waiting to hear on, which is the America, the beautiful grant, which we submitted a letter of support for, which is a huge restoration on the site. So we're waiting on our consultant landscape architect called Dodson and Flinker to finish up the designs. And once the designs are completed, I'm going to be doing some. Crunching of numbers relative to resource area impacts and putting together a notice of intent application to come to the commission commission with the full package. Go ahead, Bruce. Who is the project manager at Dodson Flinker. I've been working primarily with Lee. Lee, and I can't think of our last name right now. But it's fine. There's also a gentleman named Peter that we work with periodically. But Lee is, I think the primary contact that we've been working on with Hickory. Okay. We're a little bit light right now in the, in the. Staffing realm because we have one staff member who's out on temporary leave and we have a position that's open for the. Land. We have a land management assistant. So if anybody knows of anyone who's interested in applying to be the assistant land manager, that position is open and on the town website. One thing that Alex and I had discussed a little earlier this evening was, and this is kind of shifting gears a little bit away from land management, but I had asked Alex if he'd be willing to take notes for the commission because it's been really difficult for me to, to keep up with the minutes with everything else that's going on. And so Alex has been kind enough to do the last few sets of minutes, but he's going to be out of town and traveling for the next couple of meetings. And we thought maybe we could sort of rotate the minutes and the interim if anybody was willing to take notes. So it's really simple. What we'd be looking for is basically just the sort of general framework of the meeting where it's announced when the meeting opens, the general business that's discussed in very, very basic sort of format and then the hearings, the subject matter of the hearings and the motions for the hearings and then basically the motion to adjourn. So really sort of a simple, hopefully simple project. And I am going to sort of assume that it's me, but if anybody was willing to volunteer to step in. Bruce, is that you raising your hand? I'll do it. Oh, thank you so much. That's awesome. Really appreciate that. Bruce, you. Go ahead, Alex. Bruce, you'll have two examples, which is I reached back in the past for an example to copy. And you'll find it useful to go through the recording of the hearing, your own notes. And also the PowerPoint that she sends out those three things were very useful. And then she has July 12th and July 26, which I put together, which hopefully she'll send out to the commission pretty soon and you can use them as examples. Yes, and I'm hoping at the next meeting that we're going to have four sets of minutes to review and approve. So we have an intern who's been helping us as well. And he's drafted a couple sets of minutes and then the couple sets that Alex has worked on. And I'm hoping that for the August 23rd meeting that we'll have some, some minutes to review and approve. Go ahead, Bruce. So I assume that our objective is to get caught up enough that we then approve the previous. Meeting every time and that we, it's a routine after that. Exactly. And we're, I'm hoping that we're going to be catching up on some of the things that we're going to do in the next few minutes that, that I'm currently behind on as time goes on. Okay. Well, I'm happy to do these two to. Get us to a place where it's more routine. Excellent. Thank you so much. So if it's okay, I'll jump into a couple other business items that we have on the agenda tonight. And the agenda was a land use application for a peace pole at Mount Pollux. And I talked with Dave a little bit about this this afternoon, and he asked that we table that discussion until staff has had a chance to review it and discuss it and potentially talk to the applicant a little bit. So we'll, we'll hold on that for tonight. We do have a couple other other business items. One is there was an emergency certification. That was issued for 51. Leverett road. The situation was that I basically got an email from Ed, Edmund Smith. He's a staff person with the board of health. I don't know exactly what the, the emergency trigger was in terms of like if it was a backup into the home or what caused the, the issue, but there was an emergency need for an emergency septic replacement at 51 Leverett road as a result of effluent, which was discharging. And so an emergency certification was issued for the new folks. Emergency certifications are only issued in an instance of public health or safety. So if there's ever an issue with public health or an issue with public safety, we can issue. I have the ability to issue an emergency certification, which means that work can take place within a 30 day window to address the public health or safety issue. And then the folks will get, they get a permit from me for a 30 day permission to proceed with taking care of the emergency. And I typically assign conditions to that. So it might be installation of erosion and sediment controls, stabilization of an area after the work is done, et cetera, which was the case here. In this case, there were, there was a requirement for erosion controls and similar to what happens quite a, quite a lot with erosion controls. There was a black filter fabric silt fence that was installed. I went by to have a look at it and it wasn't towed in. So because it was a really, really rocky site, I actually suggested that they just instead use a straw waddle. And so they staked down a straw waddle and they, I went out and inspected that. And it's all set. And actually I, oops, sorry. Just trying to share a picture of the location. So this is, this is the location and the straw waddle was staked down in front of the fence. And I, the work has already been completed and the stockpiles were put back into the, into the area that was excavated. So basically what I'd be looking for, unless anybody has any questions is a, a motion to ratify that emergency certification, but I do see Alex has a question. It's not a question. It's a clarification of the terms we're using. And the term is emergency. So. What was just said is we don't know what emergency cause the, the request and then emergency certification. And just to be clear under. The regulations emergency certification doesn't mean a house is burning or somebody's on the way to the hospital, that kind of emergency. It means expeditious. Yes. And it's issued quickly. And expeditiously, I think is the, or the terms that are used in the regs. That's a little confusing. Yeah. And it, it can be, they can be issued in actual emergency situations. So when I was the agent in Sturbridge, there was a tornado that went through town. And so there was a lot of emergency certifications following that for issues with debris blocking streams and, you know, trees that had fallen on homes and stuff like that. So it can be, it really depends on the situation, but typically within 24 to 48 hours, work begins when an emergency certification is requested. And typically to issue an emergency certification, I need an order from somebody to do that. So it might be the board of health. It might be the DPW. It might be the town administrator. Or assistant town administrator, but that's kind of just a little bit of useful background information on these. And Aaron, you said in this instance, it came from the board of health. It did. Yes. Yeah. Beavers are also taken care of. Typically under emergency certifications. So if there's a problem with beavers blocking a culvert or something of that sort that goes into the health department. And in some cases that comes to Aaron. And that's an emergency certification also. And we don't really hear about the beavers. It just gets taken care of. Yes. Yeah. So in the, in the regulations that. I believe the. Aaron has the authority. To issue them. Which he does regularly. Yes. It's just background. All right. So in this instance. You're looking for a motion. To ratify this at. 51 lever road. Correct. Correct. All right. So I'll meet the motion that we move to ratify the emergency certification for 51 lever road. Okay. Jason with the motion. Second. Alex for a second. Alex. Hi. Jason. Hi. Bruce. You have a thumbs up for an eye. You're muted. Okay. And I went on. Okay. Great. So our, our other. Other business item is a request for certificate of compliance at 797. Southeast streets. And I see a Virginia. Martel in the audience. So I'm going to promote her to a panelist while I do just sort of a quick intro. This is a. There was an order of conditions which was issued at. 797 Southeast street earlier this year. The project was. Replacement of a line accessing a single family home. So the line ran basically along the driveway from Southeast street up to the home. And I was out there today and I took photos and the site. And I saw, you know, I saw when work was going on, but I would not have even been able to tell that, that they had done the work. So. I think it was a job well done. Everything was stabilized. I couldn't even tell that, that they were in there. So. I will pull up the photos. You guys can take a quick look at what the site looks like. Virginia, please feel free to. Clarify anything that I didn't say already. Yeah, that, well, that was good. Basic project description ever source. Replaced direct buried cable within the driveway of 797 Southeast street by using horizontal directional and drilling methods and trenching methods. And then for the first quarter of the driveway was trenched along the edge of the driveway. And they replaced the direct braid cable with underground conduit. And then for the latter two thirds of the driveway, they actually used horizontal directional drilling, which meant they only had to create small potholes along the edge of the driveway. In which they could then pretty much slide the underground conduit in between these potholes rather than digging up the entire driveway. This entire driveway is. Wetlands on both sides edge, almost edge to edge on it. So we wanted to make sure that we were very careful about protecting those resource areas. Most underground conduit is considered an exempt maintenance activity, but we did need to install a new junction box. And silo next to, because the wetlands go right up the driveway next to a wetland within about 20 feet of the BVW. At the end of the project, it was determined that they actually didn't need the above ground junction box. So they only needed to place the silo. So everything that they did install is now underground. So the silo top itself is. Flush with ground and everything has revegetated around it. There was the project went. Beautifully, honestly, we were out there. Multiple times a week with them just checking to make sure everything was going well. And it did. So we were pretty happy with that on our end as well. We did permit. All of that. So we were able to make sure that everything was going well. So we were able to make sure that everything was going well. There is a temporary timber matting in case the crews needed to leave any equipment alongside, or they wanted to make sure that they didn't. You know, accidentally get into any of the wetlands there. But as it turned out, we didn't need to use the matting. Everything was done from the driveway. So the impacts were. And just for the record, there was a couple ongoing conditions that were associated with the order of conditions. And again, it's one of the conditions is if the property ever changes hands that the new land order has to be informed about the ongoing orders of conditions. Then there's, I believe one about use of, use of pesticides and one about use of herbicides. So, or I think it was deicing actually maybe. So they're sort of our standard ongoing orders. In this, in the certificate of compliance. Well, from ever sources. They would not have any reason to go out and use herbicides or deicers on that driveway at this point. But if the landowner does something like it's his driveway, if he decides to deice during the winter, which I'm sure he does that has nothing to do with that resource. And I know that he actually tries to actively maintain his invasive species by pruning, because he's come out and talk to us a couple of times. But again, ever source at this point has no ties to anything that's going on that property. So we don't do a vegetation maintenance or anything like that along the driveway. So. Yeah, under understood understood. I see Chris LaRose raising his hand and Chris is a ever source representative. So I'm just going to promote him to panelists really quickly so he can. Speak to anything on this. Hi, yeah. Thank you. And it sounded like Virginia nailed that, but I thought in case there was any questions, I should jump on as a panelist here. So. Okay. Does anybody have any questions for Virginia or. Chris about the project. Looks like we need a motion. I move to issue a complete certificate of compliance with the following ongoing conditions. WPA conditions. E seven, eight and nine. Okay. We have Bruce with a motion Alex with a second. Alex. Hi. Bruce. Hi. Jason. Hi. And I'm an eye. All right. Well, thank you, Virginia and. Chris for jumping on and addressing that. Thank you very much job. Thank you. So it's now seven 29. We have time for hearings. Is that right? Yes. I'll pull up the sort of intro slide just so that we can cover that in the minute before the hearing starts, if that works for you. Sure does. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I go ahead and explain the. Okay. Sure. If you want to or I can totally up to you. Yeah, I can. I've got it here in front of me as well. So we have, we're going to go into hearings now. Just before we begin with the actual hearings, I'd like to make sure that. Everyone's aware of the general procedures. So here, here they are, they're up on the screen for those of you who can see it, but for those who cannot. I'll go ahead and read it. General procedures for fairness to all applicants. Each hearing has 20 dedicated minutes on the agenda. Five of those minutes will the first five will be comments from the staff. The next five will be a presentation by the applicants or their representatives. The next five will be a presentation. Followed by five minutes for public comment. Which is going to be limited to two minutes per. Person who's going to comment. And then five minutes for the conservation commission. All plan revisions. Are required by Friday prior to the meeting. At noon. I'm going to go ahead and read it. And then I'll go ahead and read it. Here for presenters and members. Of the public. When you're going to present presenters, please clearly state your name. The address of the project and who you are representing as well as if you have a preferred pronoun. Or pronouns. For members of the public, if you have a preferred pronouns. And with that, go ahead and launch into the. First hearing. Great. So I'm going to promote. Kristen McDonough from SWCA as a panelist. And if there's anybody else who. Is involved on this hearing, just go ahead and raise your hand. And while Kristen joins, I'm just going to pull up my. I'm just going to go ahead and. I'm just going to go ahead and raise my hand. Notes on this. I'm going first or are you, it took me a minute to join in. After you promoted me. Yes. Andre, did you want me to go first? Yes, Kristen. So we're, what we're doing is we're having the first five minutes for staff commentary. And it'll be followed by your, your. Okay. So. Aaron, just point of order. Sure. Chris and Virginia are. Going to stay with us. Yeah. So I think Chris has a, a later hearing. I don't want to remove him because I'm afraid if I do that, he's not going to be able to rejoin the meeting. So you can remove me. Oh, okay. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thanks Alex. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So. I think I'm just going to not share my screen at the moment, because I've got some text in front of me that I'm looking at, and we can all pull up the slide. Shortly, but. And again, I'm not sure exactly how you guys want to handle this, but it's, it's all kind of a big, one big project to me because they're all very intricately related. They're all sort of in the same general vicinity. So when we were out looking at the site, there was a lot of sort of curious topography and it looked like a lot of fill piles and. Like there had been quite a bit of excavation on the site with like mounds of earth that had been where excavation had basically been abandoned and become overgrown with trees. And it made me very curious about sort of the site history down there. So I did quite a bit of aerial imagery, sort of looking at, looking at a historical aerial imagery to try to understand exactly what took place down there and better understand sort of the, the wetland systems on the site and how they were connected. What I found or what I. Interpreted from looking at the aerial imagery was that there was a wetland system that previously ran through where Olympia Drive is currently located. And that at some point between 1974 and 1981, it appears that the roadway was installed the Olympia Drive roadway. Now, just to sort of touch on that a little bit, I reached out to DEP about it because I thought it was sort of what I would describe as egregious in the sense of like this, this stream with an extensive wetland system that appeared to basically just be completely bisected by the road and filled in. So I was curious if there was a permit, a historical permit going back in time through DEP for that project, which I was able to get the historic permit log from DEP and able to confirm that there was no permit for that work. I also inquired with the, with the town attorney on it, mostly for guidance because this is a really, really old situation. And I did share some sort of privileged advice from the attorney with you guys via email and also in your packets. But I think just to sort of sum up what the comments from the attorney were, where that, you know, the commission could pursue enforcement if they chose to, to try to rectify the situation. But the thought was it might be more advantageous for us to try to promote some mitigation on the site and some restoration on the site in some of the areas that were impacted by the work. So I'll leave that there just as a sort of background piece on the history of the site. So I issued this memo on August 9th, 2023 that also outlines that site history as well as the other parking area and some of the background on the other parking area. Back in 2020, Mickey Marcus from SWCA contacted me about a proposed site plan for the expansion of an existing parking area that was off of Olympia Drive. And that was filed as a category two T project under the existing UMass order of conditions. And that provision, that category two T was minor buffer zone projects that fall within the 100 foot buffer zone. And so that was sort of the project umbrella and just for other folks on the call who are new. This is called a bundle notice of intent application and sometimes for certain applicants, they'll bundle together many projects into a permit application. So that basically it makes it easier and they don't have to file an individual permit for every single project that's under the bundled notice of intent application. So this project did happen mid pandemic. And I shared the notification with the conservation commission at the time. And there was, there was really no major alarms that it raised. I was fairly new with the commission at the time. So just sort of starting to understand the town and the existing permits. There was at one point, Mickey followed back up with me and said that the erosion controls were installed. So I, and he sent me photos and I saw that it was a black filter fabric fencing. And I said, would it be okay if they install some straw, waddle or compost sock or something in addition to the black filter fabric? Because I'm not a big fan of the black filter fabric fencing. It just blows down most of the time. If it's installed properly. And I got a response back from Mickey that they'd let you mass know and get back to me. And then a couple of weeks later, I got an email that the work was done on the parking lot. So that's kind of, a little bit of site history. The, this, this, this project that's currently before us, as well as that project were not identified in the bundled notice of intent application, but they, the general area was identified in the permit as being part of the permit. Let's see. I'm just going to jump forward. A little bit here. So when we were out on site. Doing the site visit for the new parking lot. There was a couple of issues that were identified. On the site, which kind of. Concerned me a little bit. The parking lot was really, really constructed really, really close to the BVW. We measured five feet from the BVW line. It was also constructed within 25 feet of a vernal pool, which the vernal pool was not identified in the plan that was given to us from Mickey Marcus back in 2020. And vernal pools in Amherst have a hundred foot notice. So that was, that was the plan that was provided to us. The parking lot was supposed to be 30 feet from the wetland. So in this case, it's, it's within five feet of the wetland. So it was constructed too close to the wetland. Also, there was supposed to be six red maples between four feet and six feet in size planted on the site as mitigation. I only observed three trees, one large tree, and two small trees. And then there was a, a set of trees that were not identified as mitigation. I only observed three trees, one large tree and two smaller trees. And I did include photos in the packet for you guys. You could see what the trees were that identified had been planted. Let's see. The other item, which I didn't note in my memo was that as part of the application, there was an asphalt driveway, asphalt driveway is still existing. So it was never removed as it was proposed to be in the original plan. I've already taken way, way more time than I should. And as I'm sort of getting into the, the meat and potatoes of this particular application, just to touch really generally. And again, there's a public record. So anybody who wants to see my memo is welcome to, receive it if you, if you want to message me, but. I identified a number of issues with the stormwater plan. There was missing information. So basically just running through that. They're, they're supposed to be a TSS worksheet for every treatment train in the stormwater system. And the only TSS worksheets I saw were on those bio retention areas. There were on those bio retention areas, there was no pretreatment listed, which in order to get the 90% TSS credit, you're supposed to have a pretreatment BMP. There was noted in the application that there was a P gravel diaphragm, which was basically the, the pretreatment system that was proposed as part of the stormwater system, but that wasn't identified on the plans themselves, because there was no pretreatment system that was located and what the specifications for that would be. There was. Sort of missing detail on the bio retention area. There was a detention basin shown on the plan, but there was no cross section included for that. There was also no TSS removal worksheet provided for that. There was no TSS removal worksheet provided for that. There was no TSS removal worksheet provided to be associated with that detention basin. Those are just a couple examples, but there's, there's several other issues related to the stormwater management plan. And then as far as the wetlands. I, I think that. So I know Kristen put together some, some numbers as far as alteration, but as far as the wetlands are concerned, I don't know, because I'd really like to check the numbers mostly because I think what's happening is that. You know, and, and Kristen, I, I guess, wasn't entirely specific, but looking at the individual parcels, we're trying to determine. If over 20% of the wetland is being altered on the parcels that are affected by the project. And it appears that. Certain parcels in the project area. Are potentially exceeding 20% alteration. So I would like to sort of dissect that a little bit and just see what the percentages are for each individual parcel. And then we did identify that there were some questionable characteristics on the site that I think it would be helpful for us to have a second, a second professional or a third professional get involved to, to just give an opinion on. The issues is that there were significant obligate species, which were shown outside of the flagged area. And again, I didn't see soil characteristics, but I'd be interested to, to have a third party look at that and, and give an opinion on them. And also a small wetland basin that was identified. Within the project area or close to the project area that was not flagged. So I think that there would be value in us having a third party look at the stormwater plan and potentially look at the, the wetland delineation just to. Have a, another professional sort of. Give their opinion on the, the project. And I'll stop there. Lots of moving parts there. Just a point of order here or a point of. A little bit more on that. Procedure. And I. Have not. Made the public open the public hearing for it. Unfortunately, I forgot to do that. Is that something that I should just do right now? Yeah. Why don't you go ahead and do that right now? Sorry about that, Andre. Okay. For you. My newness everyone. That's okay. So. This is a hearing on a notice of intent. SWCA on behalf of the university of Massachusetts for the construction of a gravel parking lot. And associated stormwater structures in the 100 foot buffer zone, ordering to ordering vegetated wetland. At lot 13. Olympia drive map. There was a problem with the legal ad. Posting and the hearing needs to be reopened. So here we go. This public hearing is now called to order. This hearing is being held as required by the provisions of chapter 131 section 40 of the general laws of the Commonwealth. An act relative to the protection of wetlands. And this notice of intent, as I mentioned before, was submitted by SWCA on behalf of UMass. For the construction of a gravel parking lot and associated stormwater structures in the 100 foot buffer zone to buffer. To ordering. Vegetated wetlands at lot 13. Oh, it didn't drive map a D lots. 1563. There was a legal ad posted on. 823. And we have proof of the butter. Notification. There were site visits on. July 12th and 26th. And we have some photos here. All right. So now with that said and with Aaron. Aaron's. Statement. We now turn it off. And now with that said and with Aaron. Aaron's. Statement. We now turn it over to. Kristen McDonnell. McDonnell for UMass. Tell me how he had a pronouncing name, Kristen. It's McDonnell. Thanks, Andre. Good evening, everyone. I'm Kristen McDonnell. I am a certified wildlife biologist and professional wetland pilot. I'm a biologist with SWCA environmental consultants. And I'm here representing the University of Massachusetts. To present a notice of intent associated with the expansion of a gravel parking lot called lot 13. Located north of Olympia drive in Amherst. And the wetland file is 089. 0718. I'm going to just give a quick little background because I gave this a little background because I gave this a little background because I didn't have a lot of background. So I'm going to just give a little background because I didn't have a lot of background. So this is a notice of intent for an approximately one acre gravel lot. It's a buffer zone only project. As part of this filing, the applicant is proposing an expanded gravel parking lot for students of Olympia drive. It includes about one acre of parking in addition to storm water management facilities. There are three storm water. There are three storm water. There are three storm water. The existing conditions within the limit of work consist of an upland forest. Forested with eastern white pine and red oak in the canopy with glossy buckthorn, multi flora rose and bitter sweet throughout the understory. As Erin alluded to in her presentation earlier, SWCA did an initial site assessment associated with the bundled NOI in 2019. We did a redelineation in the summer of 2020 as part of the gravel parking lot expansion to the northwest of the wetland. And we did a redelineation in January 2023. However, we double checked that delineation again in April 2023 since it wasn't the 2023 January delineation was not completed during the growing season. And at that time we observed vernal pool activity in the western portion of the wetland. We delineated the boundary of the vernal pool basin at that time as well. The project has been designed to stay outside the 50 foot wetland buffer zone per the bylaw. And outside the 100 foot buffer zone of the vernal pool boundary. As Erin mentioned, she provided a comment letter to us. It's stated today, but we actually received it on Friday. And at this time, I would like to ask for a continuance so that we can have an opportunity to prepare a written response to those comments. I'm sure we'll be able to have those by next week. Per your request to have materials by Friday at noon. And I would, I would also like to ask the commission to wait on deciding whether you would want to require a third party review until after you see our written responses. I think our written response will shed some clarity and address every point in that comment letter. Yeah, I think I think a. A response would be, would be appropriate. Is that, is that the extent of what you were. We were going to state tonight. Yes. And I mean, I'm happy to get more into the project and show the plans and show more details and answer questions. You know, if, if this is the right time to do that. Mm hmm. Okay. Maybe maybe a quick discussion among the, among the commissioners. To address, address your request. Would be appropriate here. Yeah, and my, and in my view, I think it makes sense to have a response from you and give us a little bit of time to digest your response as well. And I think it would also give us some time to. Yeah, no, I, so I'm, I, I'm wondering what, what the other commissioners are thinking as well. Anyone else. Is there any opposition to, to garnering a response? No, I have no opposition to it. I do. I just have a quick question. Was it was a slip prepared for this project? Yeah. Generally, swipes are prepared by the contractor and there will be one prepared because it is over an acre with the stormwater. Mm hmm. Okay. Bruce. Actually, Alex had a set. Sorry. Because I'm still new. Are any of the participants who are on the list that I'm looking at from the university? And if not, then is it typical or common for us to have a project that the university is in charge of. With no representative of the university in attendance. Leaving it to Kristen to as the contractor to describe the situation. So I can just try to address that a little bit for you, Bruce. I mean, I think it really depends on the project and it depends on the availability of folks. So there are times where you'll see a lot of representation and there'll be times where you don't. But I think. It, it might be a good idea to have. You know, potentially at the next meeting to just address some of the stormwater questions in particular. To have at least the engineer. Attend to address some of that stuff. Absolutely. Yep. And we'll have, we'll have the, the engineering comments that you provided. Responded in writing as well. Awesome. Thanks. Alex. Yeah, my, let me make sure I put my hand down. My, my comments go to the previous work. Not so much to the, to propose project. But I would like to bundle them. If I could. For purposes of proceeding with this project. And the first, I'd like to suggest that we. Consider. Some. Out of. Some mitigation that would restore the hundred foot buffer. For the vernal pool. Where the parking lot was built. Within the hundred foot buffer. And I would like to suggest that perhaps as part of the parking lot. Mitigation package. That UMass could restore. Could pull the parking lot back. And restore the vegetation in the. Hundred foot buffer. That would be on the west side of the vernal pool. That's the first thing. And. Second is. For those mounds of dirt that we witnessed. That seemed to. Influence the hydrology. For those that weren't there. There are huge mounds of. Of fill that were piled. On the edge of the wetland. And may have. Affected the wetlands. So I would, if we're going to have more look at this. I'd like to have a better understanding. Of what the impacts of those piles of fill. Have been. And if they did affect the wetlands, I would like to. Consider pulling them back. And removing the fill. If they, if they were put in the wetland. I would like to consider removing them from the wetland and restoring. The wetland. From the previous project. And the third is there's a big pile of horse manure. That's, that's. Leaching. Liquid. I think I took pictures of it. Aaron, did I, did you get those? I didn't get, well, you may have sent me pictures. But I have, I have pictures that I can pull up to right now. Anyways, I think UMass is using them for mulch. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe somebody was coming with their gator to, to get material, but. There was a huge puddle of. Very sour looking water. That was headed towards the wetland. And there may be a water quality issue. Coming from the pile of manure, which is. I didn't measure it, but it must be. 125 feet long, something like that. And it's probably. 12 feet high. And it's probably that wide. And I would like to consider. As part of the lot 13 project. Cleaning up the horse manure. If it is leaching water. Into the wetland and we, and causing a water quality problem. Well, I can address your second and third point, Bruce. So, and Aaron, are you actually also brought up the topography and fill and that's in the island. And just so everybody is clear where that's where we're talking about. That's in the island in the middle of Olympia drive. Which is. Which is south of the project area, south of the road. Where the project is, it's north of the road. So that's a, that's what we're calling wetland be. The project is outside the hundred foot buffer zone. And that's kind of offsite. The manure pile is on another property north of the lot 13 property. I believe it is also owned by UMass. I don't know whether it's. Agricultural or what the, what the story with that is. That's all the information that I have off the top of my head right now on those, but we will be happy to address those and go into more detail on our written response. Yeah. Could you bring up that picture again? Yes. And just. Just a point of clarification and I don't, I don't know which pile specifically. Alex was referring to, but I thought he was referring to the ones that are beside the sort of. Area that. Was identified this, this wet pocket that had. The water stain leaves. There were some really large. Piles that were immediately adjacent to that, to the north. I think, I think that might be what Alex was talking to. Okay. I'm referring to, but the, the. And I do understand that. They're. Outside the, they're outside the footprint of. The proposed parking lot. But. It's all UMass. And if there was a wetland fill. In the past. Now we have an opportunity, perhaps a few masses willing. To rectify the situation and do some. Wetland restoration. And then the horse manure, as you saw from the photo. Is that big. Portal of. Of liquid, which. Is coming from the horse manure towards the wetland. And the horse manure sits on as well. Anyways, those are the three points that I wanted to raise. Thank you. All righty. Seems like a lot of, like I was saying before, lots of moving parts. And we're also dealing with, yep, we'll get just one second proof. So I'm sorry. That it, you know, we're also. Just sweep under the rug the, this. Past violation. I mean. So we'll need to be addressing it at some point. Kristen. So I think that's part of where, what Alex is. Referring to as potential mitigation. But. Let's go with Bruce. I was just going to follow on Alex's comment that. There's a huge parking lot. On the other side of that pile of, of mulch. And what it's used for, I have no idea, but it's. A very big area. So it is entirely plausible that the kinds of things that Alex is talking about could be done. It's just, there's plenty of space there. Just conceptually. Thank you. I think. Yeah. Yeah. For the record, I just want to be clear that I'm not implying. That any of the three things that I brought up. Are an impact of the proposed new parking lot. It's just that while we're on the topic and working in the area. These other things come up. And I hope there's an opportunity to rectify them. That's all. Thank you. I was just going to suggest that we give an opportunity for public comment. While we have the hearing open before if continuance is being considered. Okay, let's do that. And is, is anybody from the public. Right here to address. To address us here today. Raise your hand. And Aaron will be. Bringing you into the meeting. I don't see anybody. You're not seeing anyone. I don't see. No, I don't see anybody raising their hand. Okay. Well, I suppose with that. Unless I'm wrong. We're looking for a. For a motion to continue. Is that correct? Yes. Yep. I can give them a time slot at seven 35. On August 23rd. I move that we. Continue this. Project. On August. 26, is that it? 23rd. 23rd. At 735. Yes. And I didn't name the project because it didn't have it in front of me, but it's. 13 Olympia drive. So I haven't stated that motion very clearly. I'll restate it. I move that we continue. 13 Olympia drive. To August. 23rd. Yes. At 735. Second. Okay. We have a motion by Alex and the seconded by Bruce. Bruce. Yes. Second. Alex. Hi. Bruce. Hi. Jason. Hi. And I'm an I. So the hearing will be continued until the 23rd. At seven 35. Thank you, Kristen. Thank you. I'll see you soon. We'll look forward to your responses. Thank you. Okay. 735 hearing. Was. I'm on a cargo. Yeah. Wow. Alex. If you can mute, please, just for now. That'd be awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, I forgot it. Yeah. So, and. Shall I continue then with the notice of intent by Goddard? Consulting. For 52 fearing. Just so you all know, this is going to be. This hearing is going to be continued. Until. 23. At 730 PM. Do we need a motion at this point? Yes. Yep. We just need a motion to continue to. August 23rd at 730. I make the motion that we move to continue the public hearing for 46 fearing street notice of intent to 823 23 at 730 PM. No, we have a second. Second. Okay. I have a motion by Jason and a second by Alex. Alex. I. Jason. I. Bruce. I'm not sure I can vote on this because I wasn't. Right. Aaron. You can, you can vote on the motion to continue it. You just can't vote on a motion to approve it. Okay. I. And I'm an eye. So it's going to be continued. Public hearing for 49 fearing street or 52 fearing street is. Going to be. Continued until 823. This year. At 730. And lastly. The question. Yes. Point of order from Aaron. This particular project at. Fearing street. Has been going on for a long time and will be in front of us in the future. And we have new members. Who. What would, what would they have to do. In order to be able to vote on this project sometime in the future. So. Yeah, it's a, it's a good point, Alex. So our new members aren't going to be able to vote on that project because. Under there's a. A law called the Mullen rule, which basically means that commissioners can only miss one hearing. For a given project. So. And, and also because you guys weren't members at the time that the, the project opened, it would preclude you from voting on it. So what that means is that we have a quorum. And because right now we only have six members. On our, in our conservation commission under our local bylaws, we have to have four affirmative votes. So a majority of the entire board of sitting members. In order to pass a project. So. We have Laura, Michelle, Alex and Andre, who can vote on this project. And three out of the four have already missed one hearing. I think Alex is the only one who has not missed one of the proceedings yet. So that means that. Laura, Michelle and Andre can't miss any more sessions of the hearing, or they basically are precluded from voting on it. But we can't even open the hearing if we don't have those four members present at this time. So it really is starting to sort of present a problem. And it was because it was opened right before we lost two of our members. And we're going to have to sort of evaluate this as time goes on. And we might run into a problem in, in which case. We may have to close the public hearing and reopen it and sort of start over again is a, is a very real possibility. But again, if we, we'll see if we can get the four remaining board members together to issue a decision on it. And that would be our best, our best hope at this point for that project. Thank you. With regard to the mullings rule. Could the new members go back and watch the video recording. The several video recordings for that project. And with that. You're shaking your head. No, you can only miss even a sitting member can only miss one hearing. You can. And in order to vote on it, you have to. Certify that you've, that you've viewed the proceeding that you've seen. But yeah, if, if they weren't members at the time when the hearings occurred, then I would say that they should not vote on it. So it will have to handle that when it comes up. Yes. Okay. The soup thickens. Absolutely. So we have ours now to our seven 30 hearing. Yeah. Sorry, that's seven 40, that's an error. I thought so. Okay. Seven 40 hearing, which is a notice of intent. Tie in bond for ever source energy. Propose equipment and switch gear upgrades within the 17 K substation expansion of the substation fence line. At 246 college street. 14 be 173 and installation of 21. Manholes and three distribution poles within the roadway along college street from intersection. The intersection of North Hampton road. Slash south pleasant street to 246 college street. I did get a chance, I was not present last week, but I did get a chance. Earlier today to listen to and watch the video of the hearing before, which is why I was just hesitant. Just now I thought I had just, I was double reading it. Okay. Okay. Well, here present, I see Chris LaRose and. Kate Wilkins. Okay, so. Aaron. Yeah, are there any other members of your team joining you? I, I, okay, Sam. Okay. I'll add you in. Okay. If there's anybody else who needs to get pulled in, just, just let me know. I did. Plug the project into our mitigation calculator. And I sent an email earlier today to Chris. I also have the orders of conditions fully drafted for the project. I think that the big. Sort of discussion tonight is probably going to be around the. The mitigation for the in lieu fee. Contribution, which I believe is what ever source was. The direction that ever source was hoping to, to go for this site. So I'll, I'll pull up the calculator so that everybody can see. The amount I came up with and. Folks may recall that we, we Michelle created. This mitigation calculator, which is basically it takes into account all of the costs that go into. A mitigation project. And so this comes down to everything from acquiring the land to do the mitigation. To developing a plan, which may include site visits to wetland delineations. And then purchasing of materials like, like seed and. You know, the, the species that are being planted from a nursery. Delivery of those species staff hours doing the labor to install it fuel staff fuel driving to the site. We, and we sort of have a standard. And we have a standard for that. And we have a standard for that. And we have a standard for that. I would say boiler plate of things that we include. So if it's a mitigation site, there would be signage that's associated with the mitigation. There might be equipment rental associated with that watering, erosion controls. Compliance monitoring for a three year period. And these are all based on. The size of the lot and the. The size of the lot that I believe had like a 4%. Or maybe it was actually it was a 7% alteration. But it was a smaller land footprint. And so that one was like a 13, 13,000 dollar. Mitigation package in this case. The percentage is smaller. I believe. It's instead of being 7%, it's 4%. But instead of being. 500 square feet, it's 4,000 or almost 5,000 square feet. So it, it upped the amount pretty significantly and puts us at 29,000. For the. The restoration. And again, this is our standard. Calculator that we use. So. It's quite. It's pretty far afield from the estimate that, that Chris proposed, which was about 5,000 for. Okay. So I was looking at the, the, the, the in-loop fee contribution. So I thought a big thing we might want to discuss tonight is the in-loop fee contribution and how to handle that. Makes sense. Oh, it's not. No. It's not my turn. It's not commissioned or time yet. All right. So we'll with that then. Aaron, if you're. If you're done for now. Okay. I'm going to be with the. Kate. Who would like to start there? I can, I can handle this. So. Yeah, there's, there's a couple of points, Aaron. And thank you for sending over. Both that. Mitigation calculator. And then also the draft order of conditions. I think the mitigation. Might be a little bit of a longer discussion. Alright. So we just have three item recommendations that probably make sense to the breeze upon first that works for the commission members. And a couple of potential talking points there. So first of all, in general conditions, number 13, it mentions no trash dumpsters allowed within 100 feet of areas subject to the wetlands protection act, or the town bylaws. in the wetland behind the substation. The planning board requested we clean that up. We'd wanna clean that up anyway. So we do have a quote for clean harbors. It looks like they're gonna be on site for two days. Most of this site is within buffer zone. The way it works, if you recall the maps, there's a small square in the front of facility that is outside of the 100 foot buffer zone. We can try to stage the dumpster there, but we would hope to, it would be close regardless. So we'd hope to maybe have a 48 hour time window where we are allowed to dumpster on site. And that is for, I don't know if you wanna call it restoration, but for benefits to a wetland system. Yeah, and that's our standard boiler plate. So we can just remove that condition to allow you to do the cleanup. That's completely fine. Okay. And then the second condition on there, second one in general conditions, condition seven, all construction materials, stockpiles, landscaping materials, yadda, yadda, yadda, can only be stockpiled in approved areas labeled on the plans. We didn't label these areas on the plans. We would hope that there'd be the ability to stockpile material on the site either within the substation fencing or there is a fenced lot. It's the same site, but to the west of the substation, there's an area that currently stages some piping and similar things. It's not project related, but for the project, we would hope to use that as a staging area. So we would hope to be able to provide the commission with a set of plans that shows that and then be approved for stockpiling or staging there. Any soil stockpiled would be stockpiled with our BMP. So we would have controls around the stockpiles. We'd have them on poly and we can cover them as well. Yeah, I don't see a problem with that. And then this one will probably might warrant a little bit more discussion. In special conditions, number two, this is within buffer zone and it mentions only native plants are allowed within buffer zones. As part of the planning board meeting, it was requested we did a visual screen in the front of the facility. We talked to Arborists internally about what the best method would be for that. And they determined that blue point junipers would be the best vegetation because they're salt tolerant and this is a roadside planting and they meet our height clearances. Obviously we can only have certain tree heights below the wires and these offer visual screening. So it was determined that these would be the best option. If the commission is very strong on only native plantings, these are not native. We can look and request with the planning board a native Arborvite, but at least our internal Arborists thought this would be the most successful plant. I'll leave that on to the commission. Okay, anyone else, anything else? Sorry, before the commissioners get their turn. I guess the only other point to touch on would be the in-loop fee mitigation contribution if it's during our time to speak. As Erin noted, it's definitely a bit of a difference between the 29 plus thousand dollars and the $5,000 we proposed, understanding that there's a standard fee calculator that's used for this sort of site. I don't know if there's any considerations for the fact that 70 plus percent of this site is already degraded. I don't know if that hurts us or helps us in the grand scheme of the calculation of mitigation contribution and if there's any way to kind of talk about some of the parts and pieces that we could remove from that to reduce the fee from 29, sorry, I can't call the exact number, $29,000 down to maybe a more manageable fee knowing that this area is, the characteristics of the site are going to change slightly, but the overall function of the buffer zone at this location in our opinion is not going to change. So I can just address the, I guess, sort of semi-question in the overall existing alteration was not taken into consideration with regard to the mitigation, the mitigation that was taken into account, I believe it was just the 4%, which is like the just under 4,000 square feet for the total site area. So that is the only I guess percentage or unit that was plugged into the calculator just to clarify that, because it's not like we were asking you to mitigate for your historically altered 80% alteration of the buffer zone from the previous 100 years or whatever. Thank you. Yeah, if I can touch on that quickly, we know we do want to get this project through it's an important project for the town of Amherst as well. So we are willing to work with what the commission seems fit. I will say when we did the initial compensation package for mitigation, there is a lot of that area. We included the entirety of the defense bump out, which is the majority of where the square footage is coming from. There's a little bit of square footage from our provided removal and a little bit of square footage from, from pole installation, but pretty much negligible compared to the defense bump out. Most of that is outside of the 50 foot no disturb area, but all within a majority within the 100 foot buffer zone. And the areas comprised of both asphalt parking area and grass vegetation. So we, in our initial package, did compensate for both asphalt, just as kind of a package. We included that whole area as mitigation just to offer that up as a food of thought. Yeah, and I mean, I hear what you're saying, Chris. I would just counter that the drainage on the site, like stormwater, isn't really being improved that dramatically. It's basically staying the same. So the substation footprint is being expanded. The parking area is being reduced. So there is impervious surface being removed and that the parking area is being reduced slightly, but there's really not a net improvement in stormwater. It's not like there's any stormwater BMPs being incorporated here or any real sort of net improvements to the site. It's, I agree, it's a historically altered site, but we're also talking a lot of encroachment in an area very close to a severely degraded wetland. And we sort of established the calculator as a means to be fair to everybody so that when a project comes before us that we have some standard that we input. And I agree, because I checked my numbers and double-checked them and triple-checked them because I was like, wow, that's a high number. But that's just what the number turned out to be. So, but I don't wanna capitalize on any more time here. I wanna give commissioners and the public a chance to comment. And with that said, I think right now, typically it's time for the public to comment, but Bruce, if you had a question or whatever, no. Okay, so if there's anybody from the public who would like to speak, I see Alex over there in the, okay, is there anybody from the public who would like to speak? Go ahead and raise your hand and we'll include you as a speaker here. Going once, going twice. Okay. Well, now we've got a chance for commissioners to speak. Alex. Yeah, Chris, just point of clarification when you were talking about removing the debris from what we think was a community garden. Were you suggesting that the cost of that removal be included in the mitigation calculation? I did not suggest that, but that could be offered as potential. We do have a quote from Clean Harbors for that. That's around 15,000, which includes almost 6,000 of which is disposal of the material itself. They also budgeted two days on site for doing the work. If the commission feels that, that's something that would be justifiable, I could certainly send that the proposal that they provided over. Yeah, and just a point of clarification on July 26th, that wasn't something that we asked for, that was something you offered. Yeah, that was actually identified during a site walk with the planning board, and yeah, it went from, it spawned from that. Yeah, I understand that. And you said the cost of the cleanup is what? It's around, it's 15,000 something. I'll pull it up right now. Never mind, just looking for a ballpark. I missed the site visit. And as much as I've looked at the drawings and driven by, would it be possible for us to visit the site again? We have a couple of new members. I would benefit, I don't know if others would, or whether Jen, Aaron thinks that that would be worthwhile. Yeah, I mean, absolutely. If we're gonna hold out and do a plan revision or I mean, I guess we can talk about it, but if we're gonna hold out and do a plan revision to include the stockpile location, I think that would be great. And I also love the idea of incorporating the mitigation that Eversource is already paying for. So that would bring potentially the mitigation down to about 14,703, which might be a little more of a kind of middle ground. And the third thing, I wanted to, I know you wanted to go to INLU mitigation, but from a process standpoint, the first thing we try to do is avoid, second is minimize. And if that's not possible, then go to some sort of compensation. And I understand that the wetland is degraded because of things that happened in the past. And I wonder if there is an opportunity for some work to be done in the existing wetland to improve it. And would like to consider that prior to an INLU mitigation package. And I'm again, not familiar with the site, Aaron is. So I don't have a strong basis for what I just said because I haven't actually walked the wetland. I've just seen pictures of it. But that was my third point is whether or not there's opportunity to improve the existing wetland which has been historically degraded. Thank you. All right, lots of hands up here. We're looking for a response here. Kate, why don't you go ahead and then we're going to go with Bruce who's had his physical hand up for the next one. I'll take the end. So sorry, Bruce. Just knowing that if we do have to come back and provide a plan revision or further discussion on the restoration or potential restoration of the existing wetlands, they are currently working in College Street and moving down College Street towards the substation with the distribution. And portions of that project are waiting for this order. I understand that's not anybody here's problem at this point in time. But once this order does hopefully get issued they can continue down College Street to go in front of the substation and continue the installation. So I know that they're chomping at the bit a little bit to kind of keep moving forward but also understanding that the commission needs to get the full grasp of what they're doing but if there's any consideration for kind of hoping to keep the project moving forward that's all I wanted to add. College Street was closed today. Yeah, trying to hopefully get as much done before kids come back and all of that fun happens. As requested by the college in the common to try to do that over summer break in that area. All right, Bruce. I yield to Jason. Jason? Thanks, Bruce. It was mentioned that there's no stormwater permanent stormwater BMPs. Can you explain why there are no permanent stormwater BMPs on this project? So the stormwater, there was a stormwater plan that was provided during the last meeting. Stormwater is not expected to be altered by this project. So ultimately, we're removing some impervious putting in gravel but the numbers remained almost identical. Okay. And so, you know, Alex, I believe mentioned potentially working in the wetland that's already been impacted. Is there any conversation is there any mechanism by which we can have this conversation to potentially add a stormwater permanent stormwater BMP to address some of the stormwater runoff that is coming off of the site? So I'm just gonna jump in here. So Jason, on a redevelopment site, as long as they're not exceeding the pre-development runoff calculation there. So on a redevelopment project, you can't exceed the existing site runoff. So in this case, because they're balancing it, they're removing some of the pavement and sort of in exchange for expanding the substation, they're basically saying that their numbers balance out and that they're not increasing the flows. So it's kind of a tricky under the regulations, like on a news site where it's a site that's say currently forested and they're proposing a new development, we have quite a bit more leeway requiring them to implement a full stormwater management plan, but in this case where it's a redevelopment site, it's a little bit more challenging for us to require that. So I just wanted to make sure I put that out there. Understood. And I guess what I'm asking is more of a, rather than us requiring it, if we're looking at this in Luffy and other potential solutions to the issue, is that something that can be voluntarily done? It would come with the cost of, the cost to implement it and the cost to maintain it. This is a potential solution. Right, yeah. I don't exactly know what that would look like here. So we're talking about degradation and I think that being a substation that probably puts us in the focal point, but this is operating, it is a wetland, but it operates on that eastern side, kind of like a drainage swale and it's collecting water from apartment complexes to the north that funneled through the wetland system and into that, and then an auto body shop on the other side. It's not a very healthy system. I mean, if there was, we can discuss maybe a possibility of trying to help at least on our property, mitigate that, but I'm not sure that would have much of an effect on the system as a whole. Kate, I don't know if you have any idea on that. Yeah, as we said here, I'm trying to think of some potential options for both improvements to the system without causing even more damage to it currently and any sort of stormwater BMPs, the swales or anything that could go along the side of the, without putting in a full underground, underground stormwater basin, there's anything we can do to help any sort of stormwater coming off the parking lot area into that system. You do have the vegetated buffer between the parking lot and the vegetated channel that's there, but also trying to, would any installation of another BMP put us into more impact area within the buffer zone also? Good, Bruce? Very quick question. Let's see, am I on? Yep, there's been a number of passing references to the historic damage. When was the substation originally built? I believe in the early 1900s, 1908, 1910, based on one of the phase one reports written for the substation in the early 80s and the late 80s, early 90s, when the DPW actually experienced some contamination while stalling the sewer line and water line in front of the substation, there was a phase one completed then. So I believe that early 1900s is what we have on the recorded deeds as well. Okay. If it's okay, I'm just gonna jump in here because I wanna sort of try to focus us in a little bit. Jason, I'm sorry, Chris, do you have the total exact amount for the Blue Harbors quote on the wetland restoration project in the back? And you're on mute, by the way. Thank you. Sorry about that. It's getting late for me. Yeah, it was $16,020.20 for the Clean Harbors quote. 16, 20, and 20 cents. Yes. Okay. So I guess this is just a question to ever source. The total that the mitigation calculator came up with was $29,703.10. So if I subtract the 16,000 and 20 cents, $20.20 from that, what that leaves us with is $13,682.90. So it's basically what we would estimate as our in lieu fee amount minus the wetland restoration that you're doing in the back is that $13,682.90, something that's more reasonable from your perspective or is that something you would wanna go back and check with and see if that was acceptable? No, I think from our perspective, that would be reasonable, absolutely. And again, I agree that we're not trying to do this in lieu fee to avoid doing work here. I just, it is an act of substation. It's multiple properties are causing this to be a little bit of a degraded system. We do think that the money would be spent or better spent on elsewhere. Understood. And then just coming back to the commission, what is the commission's feeling on the non-native species as the visual barrier in the front of the property? Because that's kind of a standard that the commission always requires. And is that something that the commission really wants to stand firm on? Cause I think that these two issues are kind of like the, what I see is the primary sticking points on issuing the order tonight. Personally, I'd like to know what else was considered. I know that you mentioned that it's the most feasible or I don't recall your exact wording, but what other possibilities would there be? Yeah. For plantings, you mean, Andre? Yes, exactly, yeah. Sorry. As far as plantings in the front of the substation for visual screening. So off the top of my head, I'm not exactly sure the arborists went through a list. They have to be under 30 feet. So there's the blue point journey pair. There's other evergreens and arborvites. So there is a native arborvitee which does would qualify for our height and should present a visual screen. I don't know the name off the top of my head. I apologize, but it's a native arborvitee. It was just considered to be less tolerant to salt. We can dig that up for you momentarily if you can bear with us for a second, but that was coming from our arborist. So we recommended that to the planning board. They agreed. I think if there's any pushback from the commission, I don't see that being an issue. I think if the planning board would be happy to take whatever you felt was proper into consideration, but our internal arborist thought that was the best way to get the best visual screen. And that obviously was the intentions of that planting. It's not adding to the health of the system. It's really just that visual screen. Is that planting outside the under droid buffer of the white land? It is not. So some of it does extend outside of the buffer, but it would be behind the curbing. So it'd be like a curb planting, a tree belt planting, which a portion of would be within 100 foot buffer. So it's not being proposed as mitigation. It's being proposed as a visual barrier. Yes, we're not counting that as mitigation at all. It's just a visual barrier as requested by the planning board for a screening tool on the substation. I don't know what that juniper would look like to you. Does anybody, I don't have a book. I can go and look it up right now. I guess I could go online, but we do have a rule which our chair is pretty firm on. Um, if that, if that is one of the things that's holding us back, maybe we could settle that tonight. Do you guys want to do a poll and see who's OK or not OK with a native species? Yeah, how about we're just a brief discussion? I mean, if I'm one who likes to stick to rules where we can because because they they have a reason. But I'll also say that if it's that if the wetland is so degraded, perhaps perhaps, you know, what we have on one hand is. Having a having native species and on the other hand having something that's going to remain in place as requested or required by the planning board. Um, that's kind of something to to weigh out. Bruce, you're muted, Bruce, given the context, I think we should just accept what the planning board has already accepted. Yeah, I'm trying to take up from the planning board submission. He's just there was a lot of back and forth with the planning board and in the determining of what plantings to use. So I know that whatever we chose was submitted and approved upon already. I'm just having difficulty finding it. You know, so I can go. I can agree with you, Bruce. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Alex, I agree with you on the on the rules. Sometimes it's I would I would say if if if we had to had to do something is probably better to stick with what we normally require and that is native plants. But the worry about height and whatnot of the chosen plantings was brought up because of safety reasons and the height of the existing lines that go right up across the substation. Some of those will be relocated with the distribution project. But the ones that are connected to those model poles in front of the substation are something that we need to maintain a specific distance from. Yeah, as much as I don't like her providing. Jason, do you know the juniper is going to look very, very similar to a everybody, but they're very, very similar. Yeah, I just I think at this point, if the planning commission or the planning, if they've accepted it, then then I think we ought to as well. I'll side with with that as well. Just as for for a general goal, you would. I think that's fine. I think working, we're working through a few things here. Are you what sorry? And can you say what what is the number of these? How many of these plants are going in? I will have to look into that, too. We did provide a planting plan. It's Sam, do you know off the top of your head? I can pull that up, but I don't know off the top of my head. No, I can only find the proposed fence detail that doesn't have it. Oh, we're including plantings along the front, allowing access in that front gate. There are two gates that need to have access. So we'll provide a screen, except for where the gate is. Just for clarification, what did the planning board approve? It would be a blue point juniper and looking at this, it's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight on one side of the driveway access and one, two, three, four, five, six, seven on the other. So 15 total. If it's helpful at all, I can share a screen, share a figure that shows the location if anybody would like to see those. Yeah, that would be helpful. So here's here's, I guess, the challenge with this is that we need for to vote in favor of this in order to pass it. So a majority of the the sitting members. So if the board members are to consider this, we would have to be a unanimous decision approving it. Just want to put that out there. So this side here, where my cursor is, would be where the eight are located. And what was the other number, Chris? Seven. Seven on this side here. And there's a access point here, access point on this side. This is where the extension is going to bump out to this area here was where the plan for any sort of staging or stockpiling would take place. So from College Street, everything, that whole red line, you can see through that. Yes, there's no there's no visual barrier there. Right. There's currently no visual barrier at this location. It was the planning board added that on to their planning board wanted you to put a visual barrier just at the entrance point and not not the rest of it. I believe so. There's there's some along here. You can see there's some existing evergreen here, but nothing in front of the existing building and then nothing right here in front of the existing parking lot. Yeah, as much as I've driven by that site, I don't have it burned into my area and we can go to Street View if we if that might bring some clarity. I have I have photos of the site, too. I can I could pull up. I just don't it's it's I don't I don't need that. I it seems like a fairly small point that we're talking about. And it's taking a lot of time. Who who's sorry, who's disagreeing with the who would who would like to see the natives? Well, I I would like to see them, but I'm I'm wanting to go with the nonnative on such a small or on or on this in this situation. So I'd go for it. I would be willing to go for the with the flow. OK, so I believe that that gives us a unanimous decision then. OK, OK, good. Well, that's great. So I think on the conditions. So I drafted the order of conditions. I shared those with everybody. I'm completely comfortable with the condition number 13 being removed to account accommodate for the wetland cleanup that's taking place and the fact that they need a dumpster and number seven, that there be a revised staging plan that submitted to us that that shows that the staging area will be located in that large parking lot that Kate pointed out in the area that's to the west of the substation expansion area. Sounds like everybody is willing to sort of make an exception for the salt sensitive species that are nonnative as the visual screening from the road. And it sounds like ever source is OK with the thirteen thousand six hundred and eighty two dollar and ninety cent contribution to the in lieu fee fund. So I would say unless there's any other sticking points from commissioners or ever source that seems like we kind of have reached a compromise. Ruth, it's all true. I just wanted to for the record that you're keeping the reason that they are asking for the species. They are because it's salt tolerant, not salt sensitive, salt tolerant. Thank you. All right. So, I mean, I guess, unless there's any other questions, I can pull up the. Could you draft a motion? Yes. Just pull up page seven on the just switching between screens here. OK, so I have it drafted here and I would just. I mean, whoever wants to read this, but the adjustments would be to this that the the adjustments to the drafted order of conditions would be to remove condition thirteen that a revised plan be submitted per conditions seven to show the staging area that an exception is being made under condition number two, that the non native Juniper species is being permitted for road screening and that the adjusted amount for the in lieu fee payment of thirteen thousand six hundred and eighty two dollars and ninety cents would be substituted for the draft order. Yeah. Would you take a minute and type it up? Well, I think all that would really need to be done is just to make a motion to approve with the special conditions with the with the noted changes since it's on the record, what the noted changes are. I'll make it. It's on the it's on the recording. Yeah. But whoever's going to do the minutes will have to add it's a lot to unpack and having done the last couple of minutes, it's sure nice to have the motions say what they would they need to say while she's typing is is is route nine closed at the substation. Sam, were you on I did not make the the the college the our call this week. Sam, do you know if there was a detour at at the substation? It's not at the substation. It's still up by I think Sealy Street. They're trying to finish Manhole four at the moment. Yeah, I don't know exactly where the detour is will go. But there is no work going on down at the substation right now. And there is a portion on Dickinson that they they may look to to nub into Dickinson Street, but will not be able to continue until this is approved. So I doesn't really answer the the detours. But OK, the detours are actually I think contingent on being able to get flaggers or police details, which was a struggle at the beginning of the distribution distribution project. Looks like that's ready, is that right? And yes, yeah. All right. Well, I will make the motion move to issue an order of conditions for DEP number 089-0719 with boilerplate and special conditions under the Wetlands Protection Act and Wetlands Protection bylaw with the noted changes. Remove general condition number 13 revised plan showing staging will be submitted per condition number seven, exception being made for condition number two to allow a non native salt tolerant juniper species and substituted amount for in lieu fee payment of thirteen thousand six hundred eighty two dollars and ninety cents subtracting the amount ever source is paying for the existing wetlands restoration on the site. I before we second that could we have a second before you can discuss. I second it. OK. All right. I would like Andre. Yeah, Jason made motion, Bruce seconded and Alex. Discussion, so existing wetland restoration, what they're doing is removing debris that that's that's. Is paying for removal of debris currently in the wetland? They're not. I don't think that's wetland restoration. Well, there's still a significant amount of fill in the wetlands. That they're removing, which I saw the I saw the pictures. It's. It's it's it's not dirt. It's it's. Boards and manmade things. Yeah. To me, there's no wetland restoration. That's removal of. Maybe it is fill, but it's it's not. I would rather be clear that they're removing debris in the wetland rather than restoring it. It's still degraded. OK, so just you're looking to adjust the language in the motion to amend it to state. What about cleanup? Wetland clean up. OK, for the. Wetland clean up. Is that does that with changing that language? And yes, Jason, would you be OK with the amendment of that language? I would be OK. OK, so it sounds like Jason's OK with amending the motion to change that language to clean up instead of restoration. That's fine. Good. OK, good. Well, thank you. No, all right, then. Noose. I. Jason. I. Alex. I. And I'm an eye. Thanks, Chris and Kate and Sam and the commissioners and Aaron. This was a a lot. This was a us. A slog, I would say. It was good, though. We worked through it. That was good. Yeah, yeah. That's a good one, for sure. So Chris, I did want to follow up on a question that came up in last meeting that I listen to earlier today. And. One of the commissioners asked about whether there was an encampment there. And I'm not sure what follow up you had on that. Did you verify that it was not a homeless encampment there? Yeah, I have not. I did go a couple of times and did not see anybody camping there. So it doesn't look to be occupied. I do want to go a few more times before they clean it up. I think that's probably the best route to go about it. We have dealt with this in the past. That is the case. It won't change. We're still going to have to probably try to to clean that up. The what would change was the timeline. We'd have a humanitarian approach. We try to set up with a shelter. There'd be, you know, it'd be a delayed approach, but the right approach, I think, in most people's mind, I hope. But no, it currently looks like it's unoccupied. But I do want to take a couple more trips out and verify that. Andrei, what was said on July 26 is that Chris said that they were going to ask their human. Human resources or human services department to take a look. Okay. Or get involved or something in case there was a humanitarian issue. So they have a plan. Okay. Great. Thanks. Thanks, Alex. Thanks, Chris. Well, I think we'll. Thanks. Thanks to you, folks. You guys have a good night. And I think. Is this. About a wrap for. For the evening. Yeah, I think, I think we've covered most of the, there were a couple of correspondence in the correspondence folder that were more of an FYI. And we can, we can circle back to those at the next meeting. So that's fine. Okay. I see a Mr. Lepinsky in his fellow participant is there. Oh yeah. I forgot. We usually do a quick public. Public comment period at the end of the meeting. If anybody wants to. Okay. See anything. Okay. So. Like if you want to comment or not. I don't see Mike raising his hand. Okay. So do we have a motion to adjourn? So moved. A second. We have Bruce with the motion and Alex with a second. Alex. Hi. Bruce. Hi. Jason. Hi. And I'm an eye. We're adjourned. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you everybody. Have a good night. We adjourned at nine oh three.