 So are we, I don't think we're in practice session. I think we're live. Oh, no, we're live now. And it looks like we're recording as well, Aaron. I just click record. Okay, and we are public, I believe. Yeah, I think we're. No, it is recording. Yeah. Okay, so good evening everyone today is January 13 2021. This is our first meeting of the Amherst Conservation Commission for the year. So according to the agenda comments from me first I don't have any so that is quick. Dave is next he is not here so that's even quicker. And so just like that up to you Aaron. All right. The town just gave me a laptop, which is so wonderful. And it's, I think, going to make this much easier for me. I can't see the do we have any attendees other than concom members right now. Yeah, we do. Okay, and they, and several have their hands up. Okay. There's 13 people involved right now. All right. So I'm going to start by sharing Chris to second and see who's raising their hand. People are putting hands up and down. It's kind of like all over the board. So. I'm recognizing the team. They're raising their hands are from the district one group, which is exciting to see. Oh, is that the CPA stuff. And it looks like a little Roy is an attendee right now. And Aaron, I don't think I am a co-host so I can't let people in or out. All right, little Roy's in Aaron is rocking this new laptop. Put it through its bases. So you should be a co-host now, Brett. I am. So, you know, the, the open space items aren't on until seven 10. So I don't know if you want to try to get some other business out of the way beforehand, or if you, how you want to tackle this. Yeah, I'm just going to, there's a couple of people their hands up. So I'm going to see if they have something to say quickly. No, they're going to keep going down. So. But yeah, so Mary has her hand up. So Mary, do you have something. to say at this point? No, you just, you just asked if there were other people. So I'm a property owner. I'm here for the camp and I have part. Okay, got you. Okay. Yep. We will be getting to those later. So thank you. Yeah, I do have one question though. Can I, I'll like it. You, you must all be committee members that I can see. I don't see anyone like a committee member. Is that the way it will always be? Or is there, I might not put the right button. Nope. That is how it works here. So you are good. Oh, okay. Okay. Thank you. Yep. She will see other people when they're added to our thing, but not where the main ones. Yeah. So other panelists will be. Okay. So Aaron, did you want to start. Yeah, on those items. Sure. I'll just start on one of the requests for certificates of compliance. Cause that's something that we could tackle really quickly. Yeah. Okay. This is an ever source request for certificate of compliance for the work at the. Potix substation. And it's kind of a little tricky because when they, when they prepared the request for certificate of compliance, the site was fully stable. But you guys might recall that we issued an. Determination of applicability for the repair of a. In addition to that, we also issued an application up to the Sunderland town line under one 16 and that works been underway. And so when I went out to do a site visit. The front Northwest corner of. The Potix site had had disturbance from where the duck line had been installed. So. I don't know how you guys want to handle it. I don't know. I don't know if you guys are going to be beginning there. They did seed and mulch the disturbed area from the determination. And that area won't be regitated until probably mid to late spring. So they're trying to administratively take care of this before their new order of conditions starts up, which I think is. Good to do. When I went there, the site wasn't fully stable. So I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if I will yield to whatever decision you make. I don't, I don't have a problem with the certificate being issued because I've got, I go by that site. Pretty much. Multiple, multiple times weekly. I'm sorry, Aaron. So did you say that the place that's disturbed now is still under an order. A different order of conditions. Well, there's, so technically there's this order of conditions, which is DP eight, nine dash six, six, seven. And there's also a determination of applicability that's also active. And that was for the replacement of the duck line, which actually they just finished, but it's, they seeded it and mulched it. So they're just kind of wrapping up operations there now, but that's what's caused that additional. Little disturbance on the front corner. And then the, the project that we just issued has. It's a new order of conditions that's going to be starting up early this year for additional work at POTIC. So we will have another active order of conditions on the site where work is beginning very soon. But that does not necessarily cover this area that's disturbed now. Right. It's the area behind the substation that we have in the little road type thing. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. But so is this area. So I get what you're saying. It's out in the front and kind of goes up one 16. Yeah. But it's not, but it has been seeded. So it is, it is stable at this point. It's, it's stable. It's just not vegetated. Okay. But it's not going to be vegetated for a while. Right. I think, I mean, I think it'd be all right to give them a certificate of compliance as long as we just give them, give them the heads up, like, you know, that corn needs to get taken care of. The only reason I say that is because it's such a, it's such a busy place. They're going to be there all the time with that new substation. So that's where I kind of, that's my take on it. I agree. As long as we have some, you have mechanism to keep them in check. I'm good. Okay. Well, if others are comfortable with it, I have no problem with issuing the certificate. I just need a motion. I'll make a motion to. The certificate of compliance for the POTIC substation. Second. Okay. Looking for a voice vote. So Anna. Hi. Jen. Hi. Fletcher. Hi. Laura. Hi. And Larry stepped away. So I'm not quite sure. So no vote from Larry. I'm back. I'm back. I'm here. So, but Larry, did you hear everything? Okay. Yes. Okay. And yes, from me as well. Right. So, um, it's seven 10 now. Okay. So for the open space related items. The folks from the historic walk in. Cushman area. That would be the first item for that. Okay. So for people from the public who are here, you'll notice that we do have a fairly long and full agenda. And so when your item comes up and this is an open space, you're welcome to stay as long as you want. Participate in everything. Please do. We strongly encourage that. Um, but specifically when your piece is up. And if there is one person who is presenting it. Um, we'll ask for that person first to raise their hand. We'll make them a panelist and they can present. And then we will go through discussions and then we definitely will open up each and every one to a public. Um, discussion. So we definitely want to get everybody's comments. So is there anyone here who is presenting on the historic walk project? Okay. So Meg, I see you. And so Meg, you will be a panelist in just a sec. And Jessica as well. And Jessica as well. Yep. And she is on her way in. And so Jessica. Or Meg, um, would one of you like to give a brief background on the project and where we are at this point? And so we have heard parts of this. Great. I believe. So this is really a chance to brief you. We're not asking for anything. Uh, but because it's on this historic, uh, interpretive trail idea is on. Conservation. We want to be sure you know about it. And hopefully we like it. Um, The goal is to research the many, many mills, uh, and small factories that went along them. No river. Uh, really from where the current. No river park is. All the way to Christian common. Except for Christian common. It's entirely on conservation land. So that's of interest to everyone. At this meeting. Um, by 1775, it's estimated there were already six mills along the river. Um, and, uh, There are a number of remaining, uh, seller halls and dams. Uh, I don't know if you've ever noticed when you're at, um, the mill river park to the north side, there's this berm. It looks like a high hill, but it's actually the outside of the. Canal that went from the river all the way along that edge. And then around the corner up to the, um, Uh, Gristmill that's now at the. Home. Uh, so our goal is to research what was there. And to, uh, Build an interpretive trail. Our original project. Uh, To the CPA was a little grand and that I think, uh, you know, we talked about engaging the community and community archeology. And, um, we've had pictures that I should have prepared and maybe when Jessica speaking, I'll go find them. People who've looted or whatever you want to call it. Um, Found things. Um, I think of it as looting, although they're thinking of it as kind of amateur historian research. I'm sure. Um, but our goal is to try to protect the sites. Um, the sites that we have. Um, We have pictures that I should have prepared and maybe when Jessica speaking, I'll go find them. People who've looted or whatever you want to call it. Um, Found things there that are ancient, very old. Uh, coins and relics, um, that they're taking away. Um, and they're trying to protect the sites and to protect and to create a sense of, um, What happened in North Amherst, uh, over the years between when this town was first colonized through almost the beginning of the 20th century. We hope to have a signage. Uh, we will have signage. I got to be more positive here. We will do this. And, uh, with QR codes, which allow you to link into all sorts of additional information like websites. And one of our hopes is that we'd have students involved who might, uh, Be the voices when you go on the QR code that you hear high school students or middle school students describing the families that lives there and what they produced and what their lives were like. Um, So we think North Amherst is one of the great treasures of our town. And we are eager to, uh, Find more ways of celebrating. Maybe I'll hand it over to Jessica. Yep. And, um, just for a second. So we're getting some feedback on the line. And so if you're not speaking at, at a given point, if you could mute your microphone. It might be my husband listening to the news. I will. Okay. But I will mute. So I'm inviting Jessica. Sorry. Thank you for that. The feedback means the good feedback. Thank you for telling me that. About feedback feedback on the feedback. Um, I'll hand it over to Jessica to make a few additional comments and I'll mute. Right. Um, one of the things that we love about North Amherst is its rich history. Um, and we want to help people who are currently zooming through North Amherst to have a reason to stop and, um, provide them with a rich, um, experience while they're in the town. This old, um, you know, provide them with a walk in the woods and, uh, you know, a little bit of a history. Um, It's if we will. Um, but we could all, but this will help, um, build up the local economy. There's a quite within a half a mile of North Amherst. There are quite a few people living, um, and many, many of them already walk in the conference or conservation area. Um, and so, uh, we would also be drawing on those people who are current fans, um, to form a committee that will help to, um, enact the, uh, The trail and then take care of it. Um, we don't expect the conservation commission to have to take over the responsibility for the maintenance of the trail. We, we expect that it will be a community, um, effort. And so that's part of our planning. Can I ask a quick picture of some of the stuff that's been found on the site and dug up and taken home. Old coins. Uh, it's really, it's really a cool in a way, but also kind of horrible. Uh, if you're into archeology and preserving, um, history, we're going to reproach this, approach this woman who gathered these things and hopefully create an exhibit at the Jones or somewhere of, of, uh, what she's found. But I remember it's, you know, we've changed our attitude around digging and finding old things. I remember as a kid, we used to go to the Connecticut river and dig around and find arrowheads. And, you know, that was a really great thing and we'd bring them into school, but it's actually not a great thing. Uh, cause we're just something precious history. You know, we didn't know. So we were 12 and 10, but, um, we, we think our community in North Amherst is, um, cares about history and that they'll want to protect this resource. You had a question. Yeah. Um, where, you say, where is this trail you're talking about? I haven't seen any of the plans. Sorry. So I'm, maybe I'm late in the game here, but. It will be on the. Oh, what is it? The name of the, the, the, it goes from, um, from the mill river park and the, uh, Julius Lester trail. And then it goes, um, up by Puffers and it goes out to Cushman on, um, I think it's still, it's still the Julius Lester trail. Oh, so it's existing trails. Yes. Totally existing conservation trails. Got it. And there's one little spur when I've spoken with David about it, he was in order to get to the dam that created the canal, you have to go a little, just before, if you're on mill river. Park recreation area and you're approaching the bridge to go into the woods to the left. You walk down there a very short distance. There's actually people have made a little trail. You can see the dam that was built to create the canal that went, that took water. Um, up to the Christmas mill. Cool. Have you spoken to, uh, Steve Puffer at all? Well, we've, Steve Puffer's not a lot. We're working very closely with Barbara Puffer, Garnier. Yeah. Yeah. He used to tell me about, he used to walk down to the blacksmith shop where Cushman is now. And I'm like, Barbara's very, Barbara's very enthusiastic. We can send you a letter. She wrote the support of this. She lives in France, but she comes back a lot. Um, can I add to what my, again, Jessica have been, have been saying, cause I think that, um, it's, it's just worth noting when this came to CPA, uh, it was not. It was not concert. I wasn't the, I wasn't the reason that it didn't go through. But I think, um, I, I, you know, I think my questions for, for Meg and Jessica were, and their group were really around what you just asked right around, like, is it existing trail or not? And, and yet the only, the only part I think if I'm not mistaken is that part where, where kind of a natural path has occurred that was not built by, by conservation folks by the dam. Um, and so just to kind of bring to folks' attention, you know, what, what I was told was there was no digging. There's no, you know, like this is not supposed to be a disruptive project. Um, but I think it's really more about ensuring that these sites don't further slip into decay. Um, and so from our end, just so people know, like it's not, um, I guess I, I think that it's a really great project. I think that it's really nice to see the community coming behind it in a, in a strong way as well. Um, my, my questions are around that one piece of kind of. Not intentional or well, not created intentionally path. Um, but yeah, just, just to let folks know, like this is hopefully coming back to CPA soon. Um, and I'm looking forward to seeing it again. Thank you. Thank you, Anna. The little mini path that Anna's talking about is, goes from just before the bridge as you approach the woods. Uh, it's about a hundred foot. It's not even that it's 10 or 50. It's like 10 or 20 feet. It's really very short. Yeah. It's really short. Yeah. So I don't know how to see the dam. Yeah. So I too just want to express my support. I think that this is a great idea. Love seeing people use the conservation land. Love people seeing doing more historical stuff. My main question is just, and maybe this is something that's going to be happening afterwards. Is what's going to be added to the conservation trails. Like how many signs, what will the signs look like? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if that's a concern or my concern. But question. With the story walk. That's in there. Now it will be about like that. It, you know, we can't, we haven't designed anything yet, but it's not that they're not going to be. Giant, you know, tables of information. That's why the QR codes are a key feature because we don't want them to be. Signs. We want them to be explanatory, but and provide a link to more information, but we don't want to get them in anybody's way. Right. The part of the trail from Mill River to Puppers has fewer sites. Then the part above Puppers to Cushman. Most of the sites who are on the summer street side, they're not going to be able to get in. They're not going to be able to get in. So, you know, it's been totally destroyed. You know, they don't exist anymore. I think a question I have along the signage. Sort of a conversation is, you know, what's the plan for maintaining the signs? If they get destroyed, if they get damaged. Who's responsible for that. And just making sure that there's budget for that. I think we'd be responsible. And the committee. That would be more, you know, more directly in charge. We're creating. Yeah. Jessica, maybe say a little more about, we're creating a, a community committee. Sort of. Non-governmental committee, though. To, to feel, to supervise it and walk on it and maintain it. It'll be all the dog walkers. That's great. Some amazing people who, you know, archaeologists coming out of the woodwork is pretty amazing. And so one thing that we would be looking for is before anything is finalized. And so I think today is just sort of informational and we really appreciate you approaching us this way. But before anything is finalized, allowing us to get a chance to see the actual number of signs, where they're going to be, what the signs are going to look like. And that's not anything that's imminent. We have to, we have to identify the sites and, you know, just decide how to research and decide what the best display. You know, the best way to explain them. So it's down the road. Not really, really. Yeah. You have a question and then I'd like to hear from Dave to see, you know, from the town perspective, but Larry, you had a question first. Larry, I'm you. My question is, who has, who has final control over the signage and what it says? Is that coming to our, our, our or the towns or is it up to them? We're happy to do whatever works for everybody. It's conservation land. And so we have final stay in my opinion. I mean, granted, you know, we're not going to word Smith. That's why I asked the question. Remember blue meadow. Wordsmith and going on. I'm sorry I said that. Yeah. That's fine with us. What's going to, what would happen? No, I think I think this is a great. Conversation we're having and, and you know, I too am supportive of the project as it, as it moves forward. And it'll be up to CPA to decide eligibility and all of that. I think these are all good questions for, for Meg and Jessica. Yeah. I mean, I, I see this quite differently than the storybook project. There are similarities, but to be honest, I see that as a temporary installation. And I don't think that has the longevity that these would have. And so I think as, as Meg and Jessica and others think about a budget for this project. I mean, I do think, you know, Laura's questions about maintenance. We really need to, on the, on the front side of this, think about what the signs are made of both the posts as well as the signs themselves. Oftentimes what happens in these projects is the applicant or the, the contractor or the town, whoever might be or the federal or state government, if it's at a park or a historic park, they'll order multiple copies of the sign in case of vandalism, but even the choice of, of material is very important. And what it is covered with or covered by or protected by is really important. You know, if the, if a storybook post, and I was just up there this weekend, I just sent some photos to Aaron. If you haven't seen the storybook walk, it's really, it's really quite nicely done. But if one of those gets damaged, you're really talking about a, you know, there'll be a little work involved, but you're probably talking about less than $50 to replace a post and the attached signboard, if you will. But you know, if one of these, these, these I see as a permanent installation as part of the historic nature and the historic Bushman Brook and Mill River. So, so those are some of my thoughts, but I am very supportive. I do think Meg and Jessica, the more we really need, we have some experience with volunteer trail development and sign development, and it's been a mixed bag. I think we've learned some lessons. So I do think that the commission who is really the town and has care and control function over conservation land really needs to be involved all the way through. And there might be a liaison even, you know, certainly staff would be involved, but there might be a liaison from the commission who is, is with you and us every step of the way. I would be fabulous or join our committee. That would be great. Wouldn't it? We'd love that. Yes. Yes. I've already signed my husband up. I mean, so there are professionals. There, it is a profession out there of interpreters. Yeah. Nature or history or historical interpreters. And so if it's possibility of building it into the budget to have some of them, you know, we're all very well intention, but it's really hard to design a, a good sign that is robust enough, yet simple enough. Right. It's really interesting. The advice we're getting is, do you really have to pay somebody for that? Can't, what if you do that? Or you should really hire a professional who knows what they're doing on us, on a number of points. Like the archeologist. You really need an archeologist. Anyway, it's, but I'm, we're, we want to do this properly with the right. Just what, what you said, Brett, we wrote something for you that unfortunately we didn't send until last night and you might not have had a chance to see it. But I know Aaron's going to send it to you and you can, it'll fill you in. I'm aware. It's uploaded on the one drive. So folks can look at it. It's a memo. And then there's another document, which was the original document that we have. We've modified our, the original project was a little grandiose because we, we laid out our whole vision about community archeology and community archeology. And so we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we. High school students being involved and really the CPA just wants to fund research to preserve the rocks. So the proposal that you, the, the memo that we wrote to you, that we sent last night is paired, that we've got a couple of, of examples. We've got the story walk of the storybook walk it along the, the mill river. We have, we now have in storage, we do have the blue bird meadow signs. They have arrived and we have them. We also have signs that Beth Wilson developed for the Fort river fearing brook project. And so, you know, it might be beneficial for all of us to, you know, and I can take some photographs of those, um, um, you know, uh, in, in storage, take them out of the boxes. Many of them are out of the boxes anyway and, and share them with Meg and Jessica and the commission to, to give you an idea. Um, there's a wonderful, a pretty nice, uh, sign, um, example. I think up in Turner's falls along the old historic canal. And those are fairly simple. They're probably three by four. I can't recall, but they were part of a project I worked on many years ago up there at the great falls discovery center. So that's a nearby example of, of some well done natural history interpretation signs. And, and they're on, um, um, I think they're on some sort of aluminum or broad iron, um, close. They're nicely done. We're also going to take a, uh, a field trip in the better weather to act in because they have, um, but in place, uh, trail very much like the one that we want to establish, um, the look in their conservation land along with a Neshoba brook, um, with, uh, both, um, first peoples and, um, early settler remains. So my apologies, but I'm going to try and move us along. So we have a lot on the agenda and I mean, this is really deep and extremely interesting, but I think we could talk about it for a long time. And so what's important, I want to open it up to the public. I see your hand as well, Larry. Um, and then make sure that we have a path forward. And so first, I just want to see if there's anybody from the public. Um, so you can just use that little raise hand icon. If you have any comments. I don't see any. So Larry, did you have something? My main thing was that I really liked this project, but my rate, my concern is that it be done well because I think this is significant for the town. But there was a hand. It went away, but if you want to ask again and maybe give it. A little bit longer. Maybe not. Raise the hand. Name was Patricia. I think. Yep. Okay. So I don't, don't say anything at this point, but yeah, if you do have something to please. Um, so path forward. Um, so this was kind of informational tonight, which is again, extremely helpful. Thank you. Um, and so you will be developing your proposal. And so, um, yeah, it'd be great if you can be in touch with either Dave or Aaron, and they can definitely sort of fill us in. If there is somebody from the concom who is, you know, passionate about this and would love to work on this, you know, that would be great. But yeah, I mean, we all have a lot of other things going on as well. I understand. One question I have is that we are, um, possibly going to hire an archaeologist to do site surveys. Is there any permitting that we need to have. Take care of before he goes in and starts measuring and photographing and things like that. Are they going to be disturbing earth or will it be noninvasive? No, it's not invasive. We know there's a permit we need from the state, which is because it's not invasive. But is there a permit from the town that we need? Brett, if I could suggest that this could be handled through your, you know, the, the form, the activity form that, that anyone fills out if they'd like to use conservation areas for a wedding or a research, uh, I think the commission could handle it that way. It is not invasive. It doesn't involve digging or removing stones or anything else. I think it could be handled that way. Yeah. It's a pretty simple form, very pro forma. So any issues with that as long as the form is on the town website. Yep. We're getting in touch with Erin as well. Yeah. If you shoot me an email, I can send it to you. Great. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. So just one final call to the public because. So I count five. Okay. We're good. So my apologies. So thank you both. And yeah, we look forward to seeing this in the future. Thank you. Bye-bye. Thank you everybody so much. Bye-bye. So I just wanted to jump in really quickly. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I have another person who had submitted. Who was supposed to be. I guess presenting or, or putting in a request tonight. Related to some graduate research that they were doing and wanted to use conservation land and talk about it with the board. I don't see them in the attendee list. I don't see them. I don't see them in the attendee list. I don't see them in the written request, the written request in the drop box so that you guys could familiarize yourself with it. Cause I don't think that they're in attendance tonight. Okay. Can we just verify? So if you are here for that, can you just use the little raise hand thing? And I had some questions about that one, but if they're not here, I guess we can talk about it after we get through our normal. Yeah. And I'll, I'll, they, you know, we're, I sent the information for the meeting tonight, but I don't know if they're in attendance tonight. I don't know if they're in attendance tonight or whatever. So I'll follow up with them and maybe at the next meeting, they could present. Okay. Sounds good. Okay. So I have seven 34. So I think that we are okay to move forward with our, what's Lisa seven 30 on our agenda. And this is a notice of intent for 84 East Leverett road. So if. If you're a part of that, if you have a question, we'll be in touch with you in a bit. And we'll do a quick, quick review of the report and open this. This hearing is being held as required by the provisions of chapter 131, section 40, the general laws, the Commonwealth and act relative to the protection of wetlands. It's most recently amended in the town of Amherst protection by law. This is a notice of intent that is being presented by Meredith Ornstein for Joseph. Mary to Cushman broke the address 84 Levitt Road map 3 C lot 12. Okay, so Meredith, I see you you are now a panelist. And then Deborah, I see you. So we might just want to make sure that we're distinguishing between the folks who are presenting verse people from the public who have comment on this because just just to make that clear because I think that there's a number of butters who might be present. Yep, thank you so yeah so what we're looking for is only people so Meredith is do you know if there's anybody else here who is presenting, or are these. Deborah are you presenting or a presenter, do you know. I think, I think that the last name. AI MUA on the attendee list might be. Joseph. Okay, so I see Deborah's hand up so I'm just going to let Deborah in sometimes people have different names, but we can just check real quick. So Deborah you should be able to speak now are you part. Are you presenting or are you just. Okay, so I'm going to kick you back out and you'll. So, but please. Okay, and somebody else with their hand up. So Patricia I think is in the same boat. So, okay. So, Meredith, do you want to go ahead and present for us. Thank you. And I was wondering, can I share my screen eventually. Okay, because I have a plan to show and I also have some photos. I can show everybody. I'm just going to make a button on the bottom of the screen that says share screen. Oh yeah okay it's like regular zoom now okay. Can you hear me okay I think I lost. Okay, no we can hear you okay it looks like you're searching for the buttons and. Okay, sorry. I'm just going to go ahead and show you what I'm going to show you. Okay, so I'm going to share my, I'm going to share a plan. So you can see what we're talking about here and see if this works. Now can you guys see if I jump around from plan to plan. Yes. Okay perfect. Okay, because we have revised the plans a few times. So, this is the most updated plan we actually updated it today with this minor revision that I'll talk about in a few minutes but first of all. My name is Meredith foreign scene I filed this notice of intent on behalf of Joseph and why he's the applicant, the air and the contractor for this project. There he is. I'm a wetland scientist and I'm doing this for myself actually. So this project is for a single family home located at 84 East Levitt Road, you probably know this. Getting a lot of feedback. I think Joseph you need to mute. Okay Meredith so you should be muted at this point. Thank you. We should be good to go. Okay I'm going to try that again. So back to my plan. Sorry. So this law is located across the street from Cushman Brooke over here. There is an existing egress here and I'll show you some photos in a few minutes that will be utilizing or they'll be utilizing to access the lot. So the driveway is located in the riverfront area, the house and the septic system will be located outside of all resource areas. So, so during construction to protect the resource areas, we will be installing a compost filter tube around the entire limit of work. There will be a 30 foot 30 foot gravel wash pad to collect any sediment as trucks are going in and out of here. Also, there is a there is an existing catch basin. Here it is. That currently receives any water from the driveway. So that will be protected with a silt sack and then filter tubes or hay bales around that. This is also, this will have double protection because there is grass, then there'll be a compost filter tube and then there's the driveway and then the catch basin so it will have double protection there. So, as they're putting in the driveway there'll be some minor excavation to get the foundation and the driveway in and any soil stockpiles that that come out of that will be stored up here outside of resource areas, and will ultimately be used, you know, around the house to kind of level out this area but it's mostly flat up there. So, we did a sidewalk today. And I thought that was really helpful. There is a small wetland located over here but we're going to be outside of the 100 foot buffer zone, which is this line here. We also noted there is an intermittent stream on this north side of the property, and we measured, and I believe we came up with, was it 160 feet about. It might have been more 160 to the property line and then it was an additional, I think, 30 feet to the work area. Okay, thank you and then there was there's actually a hump here you can kind of see it in the contours there's a hump here so I'm very confident that this stream will we're well away from it and it will be protected by the natural topography out there. So, really minor tree clearing back here outside of any buffers or riverfront area. Really the reason we're here is because we're here tonight is because we're located in the 200 foot riverfront area and we are complying with the regulations. We're doing that by one. And we, we received DP comments and one of their comments was this needs to be 10% this driveway needs to be 10% of the riverfront area on the lot. So we decrease the width of the driveway from 13 feet to 10 feet. And that got us down to. Originally we were looking at 1700 square feet of impacts and now we're looking at 1483 feet square feet. So, another way we're complying with the regulations is that because we're working in the riverfront area we're going to do we need to do some mitigation. We're going to propose some native shrubs over here, sort of between their neighbors over here at 66 East Leverett Road and then this is all grass right now. So I'm proposing some shrubs there I was thinking shad bush, which hazel and dogwood something to give it some color, I think in there would be nice. We're open to suggestions on the native plantings that the Commission would like to see in there. I wasn't going to propose any seed because it's already grassed. So, I wasn't sure if seed would take but we could, we could do a wildlife seed mix in there too. So I think that covers the majority of what we're proposing out there and I don't know if you'd like to the Commission has questions or I can show some photos. Should I do the photos, the photos would be great because my, I didn't get too many of them on site. Okay, I took a bunch so hang let me see. Here we go. Okay, can you guys see that photo. Yes. Okay, so this is the East Leverett Road over here this is the existing catch basin existing driveway. This goes up to 86 East Leverett, which is the neighbor to the north. Let me just see if I can I scroll through there we go. Okay, so these aren't in order but this is the proposed this is the, let me try to get a better picture to orient you guys. The existing houses I'm sure everybody knows this, this location as you drive by you can see these houses on the road there. Okay, so let's start here this is me standing in East Leverett Road looking up towards the existing driveway here so this is going to be the egress then the driveway will calm up the slope. These trees and the house would be located kind of at the top of the hill there. So now if I scroll through my make a little oops, this is the proposed planting area the native plantings will be in here. Here's a better picture that so that would provide sort of a buffer between the neighbor, neighboring house and the driveway there. Again, driveway location looking up this steak is sort of where the house will be up here. House location. Now I'm gonna have to scroll backwards sorry. Okay, so house and then looking back towards where the leach field is proposed. And now this is where the perk test is a perk test to looking down this where leachfield will be proposed in the house over here looking down towards East Leverett Road leachfield location leachfield location and then back to the catch basin. I had some better photos in my notice of intent. If folks show a couple more photos and then there's ready to go. You guys see that. Okay, so again, driveway where it's going. Probably a lot of the same but I thought they were kind of a better angle. You know the driveway is going to come up through here, and then the house will be facing out. I'm sorry there's actually going to be a garage at the ground level. But it's just going to be and then the house will be on top of that of the garage. Sorry yeah these are some of the same photos just a different time of year. So let me stop sharing. I think that covers everything with you guys have questions. Thank you very much Meredith so Aaron have some pieces that you'd like to kick off with. Yeah, so just to, you know, kind of sum up with the board that I've had some communication with several butters that are downslope of this site, and there were some concerns raised as far as water. And I did upload several documents to the drop box which contain a butter comments and questions and I tried to respond to all of them but I wanted to make sure that you guys knew that they were there so you could view them. So, just to kind of summarize really briefly that conditions that I would recommend to try to mitigate some of the concern. And, and again, a lot of these are outside of our jurisdiction related to the house, but asking the applicant to focus downspouts from the house. I'm going to go to the north side of the house and preferably into some kind of like French drain system so that it can infiltrate up on top of the hill. Now I understand even at the toe of the slope groundwater is four feet deep so because of the location of the river you know there there is a relatively low groundwater table there even though the neighbors do experience water issues so just to kind of recap on that. So the downspouts being being dealt with dealing with any runoff from the house up on the hill as opposed to directing it down the slope. Also, I would recommend that the driveway be sheet flowed to the north side of the site and preferably into some kind of a grassed swale, like very, you know, low gradient grass swell so that any runoff can be gathered in that direction and then run downhill toward the catch basin that's at the toe of the slope. And then one of the concerns that was raised was regarding if there were any groundwater seeps in the hillside because the way that construction is going to work. And again, it's outside of our jurisdiction but they're carving into the hill to put the garage in and the garage will be lower than. So the garage will go in and then it'll be a four foot lift into the basement and then the main floor of the house is on the second floor. So they're doing quite a bit of cut and fill and then back filling the back of the house. And so if they hit a groundwater seep in the course of constructing the driveway or the house that they have to come up with some kind of a plan to mitigate that and I've seen this happen in the past on hillsides where they install like a French drain system and a French drain system could be filtered into that same swale if that condition arises where water is coming out very, very rare and not super likely but if it happened, we could condition it so that they would have to deal with it and come back to us. Another comment that was received that I think was a really important one was that the initial plan said that we received had been completed by a surveyor and it was signed and stamped the plan that we've received this time around doesn't have a stamp or a signature on it and it does appear that the wetland flagging was possibly picked up via survey or maybe it was shared CAD data, but the riverfront area flags, if you look at the plan they appear to be in the centerline of the river. And we actually approved flagging at the top of bank so I wanted to make sure that that wasn't a graphics issue and that the flagging was actually picked up along the top of bank for Cushman Brook and that that was being accurately reflected in the distance offset to the 200 foot riverfront area and also just to make sure that the applicant knows that we will need for the final plan the plan set will need to be stamped and signed by architect landscape architect surveyor somebody who's signing off on the accuracy of all of the points that are being provided on the plan. Thank you Aaron. And so just as a reminder we've been out there on this property before I don't know if people remember and I don't remember how long ago that was Aaron maybe a year or two when we did the initial delineation and Aaron out there for here you were you may have been out there for that as well. Yeah, I also just want to reiterate what you started off with Aaron, and so just for the applicants and everybody. We as a concom as the you know wetlands commission we have certain jurisdiction, and we have no jurisdiction outside of that area. We've had recommendations, but for those who are here from the public with. We're happy to talk about everything that's within our jurisdiction, but some of those other comments will need to be brought in front of. I assumed zoning Aaron, or who they talked to about that. So a couple of the questions should go to Board of Health related to the leech field up on the hill and then there was also some questions about the house design, which those would be building inspector or they could speak to you know the applicant directly to get the design plan. The other thing is that the question with water runoff is kind of a tricky one from a conservation commission perspective. We certainly can do what we can, but the building inspector also has an authority as far as reviewing the land plans and making sure that landowners are not displacing water from their property on to a neighbor's property so that's also written into the building code so that's something that, you know, discussing with the building inspector would be a really good thing to do. And I also advise them, you know, if you're concerned about water start documenting now take pictures seasonally of, you know, the conditions that are outside because if all of a sudden after you have pools of water that are forming all around your house, it's good to have documentation and that's just for your own personal, you know, protection. So those are kind of all conversations that we've had. Yeah, and we're not trying to shirk any responsibilities here we're just trying to, you know, let people know, you know what we have per view over. So as always, if you have any questions about which board to, to talk to, you know, Aaron or Dave can help point you in the right direction as well. So, okay, so how we're going to run this is we will open it up to the commissioners first and so we'll go through a round or two of comments so we'll see if people have any questions and then we will start opening it up to the public. If you can hear from the public, if you can raise your hand as I see one person has now please do that and then once we come to the open comment period will call each person who has their hand up. Okay. So, kind of like what I was saying before I just want to start off with, you know, a lot of this work that's being done is outside of any resource area. Within, you know, our jurisdiction or our purview, the piece that's down towards the bottom. And it's also a super steep slope on the other side down to Cushman Brook, for what that's worth. And so but yeah that part that's down towards the bottom the beginning of the driveway. That's sort of the biggest most direct concern that we have. And Brett, what's the or to be, do we know what the driveway is going to be made of is it pervious or impervious material. So, Meredith or. Yeah, I can answer that it's going to be. So during construction they're going to gravel it and but ultimately it will be paved. Okay, but just for sedimentation issues they don't want to leave it open and it. If we get approval and if this moves forward we can't pave until April or something so. And then planning to incorporate the swale and the northern. I'm cheap runoff. That's right word right term that Aaron was using. Is that something you guys are doing narrative. We're planning on having the driveway pitch to the north. Yes. And then it's all grass there now so it was all planning to be remain. So it's going to remain grass. And we would have to update to plant the plan to put on like a formal grass swale in there, but ultimately everything will go back to being vegetated. And I think the area is naturally sloped to the north there I think the plan. It will actually form almost a basin, if you're raising the driveway up a little bit and then being grassed area on the other side. But I mean, there's no harm in putting a little indicator on there that it's going to be made for the purpose of capturing water and. Yeah, I think a note should be added to the plan that says, you know, driveway pitch to the north and. I have a question just as far as like precedent in history goes. I noticed like a lot of a lot of homes who presumably have driveways built within that same 200 foot buffer zone. Are those older homes or has this commission reviewed any of those plans in the past I'm just wondering what precedent has been sort of set. Yeah, I mean, people are allowed access to property, you know, with it within due restrictions, I can't remember anything. I don't know if you can fletcher anything specifically that's come before us during our tenure. A lot of those are older than yeah. But yeah, I mean they are there but yeah, sometimes laws change and yeah there's some stuff that people put in that we don't know how the hell they got allowed to why they're allowed to do it. It probably was before wetlands protection. Yeah, like houses that are across the street and like on the Cushman brook. Really nice though. Well, Laura, to your question I mean most of those houses along East Leverett Road predate the Rivers Protection Act. That's the simple answer. I don't know the date of that Aaron do you know, August 6 1996. Here we go. I do have a question about conditioning. I know we've gone through this before but actually I forget about impervious surfaces. Is that something we can request I know it's sometimes it's actually not I know many times not even feasible. This particular section doesn't matter does it work. I don't know, but that's something we can something to consider. Yeah, definitely something we can ask about so I mean, Meredith or Aaron do you see any issues, or will it work. Oh, are you asking I'm sorry Mr chairman, are you guys asking if it can be pervious rather than impervious. So we're looking for very often we'll ask these pavers or something along those lines as a alternative to simply paving over. I don't have a problem with that I don't know if Joseph wants to speak to that. He's also the contractor in using pervious pavers. I think it's just a matter of maintenance, and it is on a hill there. Can you pay, can you pay pervious, those pavers, or is that something you kind of maintained by shoveling. I'm just thinking of snow snow removal. You mean can you plow them, plow them sorry. You don't pay. Yeah, you can plow them carefully. They also have to be after winter storms they have to be maintained using sort of like a best management practice where they, you know you might sweep sweep sediment that accumulates in between the pavers to make sure that they're still infiltrating thoroughly. I do think on the hillside slope like that it they might be challenging for a plow catching edges and things of because they're there essentially was like, you know bricks but I mean, if it's something that the applicant is willing to consider then you know I think all options are on the table for, you know request so. Oh, not your on me. Nope, still on mute. I can unmute. One sec one sec. Ask to unmute. You're muted Joseph. I can only asked to unmute. So Joseph if you hover over your face on the screen in the top right hand corner there should be an unmute in a little blue button right over your face on the screen. Nope, no good yet. Oh wait I think. The host should be able to unmute now. We can mute people we can unmute them. Which makes sense. Yeah. That's fair enough. I think that's fine. Yeah. So, email them some. Yeah, I mean I, I don't think we should get too hung up on it if, if we can figure it out as we go on maybe we should keep moving on with questions and then agree. Okay. I guess I do. Have one more question about the mitigation. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know just for the commission. Is that something that was that obviously doing like a replication like a wetland, but like the mitigation is that. Sufficient. You know, the plantings along that border of the. Of the property line there. I don't know. I mean. Riverfront. You got to do something. I see it seems good, but I don't know if there's like anything else that might be better. Yeah. There's definitely going to be sheep. There's definitely going to be water coming in. I know those houses have wet basements. I know people used to live there. Yeah. Those are wet basements there, but that's nothing we can do, but I wonder if that's the best option we can do. There's also an existing wetland in one of the corners. I don't know if there's an option to sort of build off of that. Or do something with that and then actually increase some infiltration there. Not quite an ideal spot where that is, but. Yeah. If it was a, if there was wetland alteration taking place, I think allowing replication to be. Piggy backed on a wetland like that is a, is, is a. A good. Thing and that would probably be required, but where this is riverfront area. You know, I've talked with Mark Stinson about this because this was related to one of the DEP comments. The other thing that I'm going to talk about is. You know, converting lawn back to native vegetation is the preferred manner of riverfront restoration. And in this case, what I had suggested was one to one. So like whatever the alteration was for the driveway. To require that amount of mitigation for. Natural plantings. So the commission could require additional. The commission's to not be disturbed in perpetuity. So like somebody couldn't come in and tear them out and put in lawn in their place. They'd have to stay native. Native area. But the commission could require additional. Area of riverfront restoration as well. Additional square footage, I should say. And how so. And the only way that it would be demarcated obviously beyond the deed, but we know that that does not always. It would be the same. So. For the area, the native area, it would be conditioned in the order of conditions. And then it would be an ongoing condition in the certificate of compliance that would be recorded on the property. But so sometimes we will ask for some demarcation. So stones or something like that, just to make sure it's not disturbed as well. Yeah. Mr. Chair, can I make a comment on that? Please. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Do the houses. The applicable. Once you decide how big. Cause I also am concerned about that too. Cause it is adjacent to a lawn area that gets a moan. I don't know something permanent, some sort of permanent marker. But signage, I don't know, really would fit in. Wouldn't fit that well there. Yeah, we have conditioned birdhouses as long as they're on some sort of permanent stake type of thing before. So it depends on what you would be proposing for the stakes. I think is what it really comes down to. Yeah. So it's maybe it's on sir. I think would be. I guess it's up to the applicant. I shouldn't speak for him. But. That's a good. Thing to consider to add to the plan. Okay. Yeah. So, um. Yeah. So we definitely will need to see some additional stuff before we can approve it. So I don't think we're voting tonight in any ways. Plans need to get revised and all of that. Yeah. So if you can come back with the proposal for next time. On some sort of demarcation, that'd be great. And commissioners, any feeling on the amount? I mean, one to one. Is that acceptable? Seems reasonable. Total was. 1,480 something square feet. Right. Yeah. That seems reasonable. Okay. So I'm going to go ahead and open it up for people who have comments from the public. So. At this point, Patricia, you should be able to unmute yourself and. Okay. This is Robert. That's going to be speaking. Okay. Hi. So I, I live across the street and I own the east side of the road, the very steep bank that goes into the river. And I have two quick straightforward questions. One is I would request that the wetlands would be. Clearly demarcated. Okay. Thank you. This is Robert. That's going to be speaking. Okay. Hi. So I live across the street and I own the east side of the road, the very steep bank that goes into the river. So I would request that the wetlands would be clearly demarcated on the proposed housing map. Because I feel as being pretty vague right now. And secondly, I would like to question the reference point used to calculate the 100 foot 200 foot. Buffered zone. Because by the map, it's in the middle of the river. And I have read that it's a real estate law that it should be in the middle of the river. So I would like to ask you, do you agree with Robert? Yeah. I agree. I agree with Robert. Yeah. So that's something that needs to be, particularly that second point needs to be corrected. That's not acceptable how it is. And then so on the revised plans, that would need to be something that happens. And the area being of impact, it will need to be recalculated and the replication area would have to be adjusted accordingly as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just to clarify Brett, it sounded like there was question as to whether the current delineation is off the bank or off the centerline. So it could be that it remains the same. We just need clarification on that. Okay. Good point, Jen. So yeah, we need to make sure that, and you are right, Robert. It is off of the bank. Should be off of the top of bank. We don't know if currently it's from 200 feet from the top of bank or 200 feet from the centerline of the river. So we need to make sure that the current delineation is off the centerline of the bank. So we need to make sure that the current delineation is off the centerline of the river. So we need to make sure that the current delineation is off the centerline of the river. And then the next, if need be. And then the other point that you're bringing up, Robert, about the wetlands lines. Yeah. So if there's any wetlands that are not on there, if those can be made clearer. That would be important as well. Thank you. And so Robert, I think you have your hand up still. Okay. Thank you very much. So there we go. Thank you very much. And so Brian. Okay. I should be. My, my hair. You can hear you. Excellent. Okay. We just have two quick questions. We live right next door at 66. And last year we looked to purchase this lot. And so related to that is two things. One is that the lot has changed. Pretty dramatically. I think it's about 1.7 acres then and this law looks to be 1.1. It was saying, so we just, this might be a question for Dave about the status of. What this lot is and if the new borders have been approved. And what the process is on that. I can just touch on that briefly. So my understanding is that the, the application was not required. The application was not required. The applicant went through approval, not required for the original lot boundary, but, and then filed. And then the notice, a notice of intent was filed earlier in 2020. And when we began review of that. Application that was submitted. DEP would not issue a file number on it. And I also, I had a conversation with the owner and the consultant at the time. And I think the consensus was that they were, they're exploring the basically. Reconfiguration of the lot to see if this house could be permitted with the new configuration, but they don't want to permanently change the lot boundary. Until they know that there's a lot. They don't want to permanently change the lot boundary until they know that they're going to get the house approved because. Carving up the lot again. And going through the legal procedure to do that. If they don't know that they're going to be granted a permit to put in the house. So they just wanted to go through this process before they do that to make sure that it's feasible. Okay. I mean, I mean, I mean, when that would happen, would there be more? I mean, what, I guess, does that just go through a zoning process or a planning board? That's a good question. And I, I'm assuming it would just be a revision of the approval, not required, which would be a planning board or zoning board sign off, but I'm not. Super familiar with the procedures. I think that would be something that we would need to get clarification from another department on. Okay. Thanks. And then, so the second part of this is that when. You know, we had looked to purchase it. And in the process of that, we had an inspector come to look at the land and that is actually when the current wetland designations were made. So prior to that in 2019, the wetlands in the back. In the. The southwest corner of that property were not designated as wetlands yet. And so if this. So I guess going forward, looking to see if this house could be built on the proposed site. Would there be another inspection of that land? Because at the time in 2019, it seemed like we could, like a house could be built. And so if we were to look at the land and if that hadn't been inspected, we wouldn't have known that. So we just are wondering if the new site would have. An inspection to look into any environmental issues. Yeah. And Brian, I mean, that's kind of the process that we went through. And so, um, yeah, that was very useful and very important for that initial site assessment to be done. And that's why we were out there or why that process went through. And thank you if you're the one who sort of instigated that. Yeah. Um, at that point, the lines are approved. And so they did come in front of the conservation commission and we did approve those lines. And we do that so that, you know, future, the current landowner or future landowners know what their opportunities are. So that's kind of a. So that's kind of set for, you know, a given period of time at this point. So Aaron, do you have some additional clarification on that? No, I don't have any. I just want to touch on that a little bit more. When the initial delineation was completed, we, we did walk the entire site. We walked lots, lots one and two. Um, and, um, then they were walked in their entirety and checked in their entirety. The, there was one area, which is north of the existing two homes. Um, and there was a stream there. Um, there was an intermittent stream that flows in the back of the property and it, um, goes down. Um, underneath, um, East Leverett road as well. Um, at the time I brought that up to the landowner that there was a stream there and that there was actually flagging there at the time. And I said, you know, if you're going to confirm on lot one, you're going to be able to confirm on lot two. Um, you're going to be able to confirm on lot two. And at the time they made the determination of the decision. Not to include those flags. And so we only approved the delineation for lot two, as it was shown in that configuration. When I was out there today, that was one of the things I was looking for was how, what is the proximity of that intermittent stream and the. Ordering wetlands on it. Um, in the new lock configuration and the flagging was still there from the original delineation. And we took a measurement and it was 160 feet from the wetland boundary to the property line. And then another 30 feet to the proposed leech field, um, to the north. So there's a significant offset back there where there's no, um, we're not in any proximity to a wetland on that side. Um, and the area where the perk test was done and the house is situated. Um, our, our upland areas. So just to. Kind of address that holistically. Okay. Does that answer your questions, Brian? Um, yeah, that's, if it both the lots were covered, I guess the issues since the lot had changed boundaries so much. We didn't know what had been reviewed. Yep. Okay. So. Thank you, Brian. Okay. Okay. Um, so are there any other questions from the public? Or anything else from the commission? Okay. So there are a couple of things that we have asked of the applicant. So we'll need to, you know, see some revisions and see all of this. Um, Aaron, can you give a proposed date and time for a continuation of this hearing? Yeah. So it would be the January 27th meeting and we could. Start the hearing at seven 30. And so is that enough time for the applicant to get together? What you need to. Yes, absolutely. We'll. We'll get those revisions. As soon as possible to Aaron and be ready for the next meeting. Okay. So with that, we are looking for a motion. I move we continue this hearing to January 27th at seven 30 PM. I second that. Okay. Thank you. So voice vote Larry. Yes. Laura. Hi. Anna. Hi. Jen. Hi. Letcher. Hi. Roy. Hi. And I as well. So we will see you later this month. Okay. Thank you so much. You guys have a great night. Hi. Okay. So just switching up roles here. Okay. So I think we are good. And so we are going to move on to our seven 35. Which is a request for determination. So. Let me get my paperwork here. And for those who are here, so this is the Amherst college one. If you could raise your hand and we will promote you to a panelist. I'll be abstaining from this one as that is my employer. Okay. Okay. So this public meeting is now called to order. This meeting is being held as required by the provisions of chapter 131 section 40 of the general laws of the Commonwealth and act relative to the protections of wetlands is most recently amended in town of Amherst wetlands bylaw. This is a request for determination being presented by Kenneth Lozier on behalf of Amherst college for replacement and repair for foot bridges on Amherst college property footbridge are located in wetlands and buffer zones within priority habitat areas. So here is the map map 14 d and lot one. Okay, so. So okay. You should be able to go. And so I can here before. Can my show up as Julia. I bet she he is. To the panelist. Okay. So we can see, even though it says UMass, I assume that's actually an Amherst College person. So- That is an Amherst College person, yes. So Kenny or Kate, I'm not sure which one of you would like to present, but if you would like to provide an overview for us, that would be much appreciated. Absolutely. I will start, let me, yeah, that's a little bit better. A little less UMass. Here, I hate headphones. Can you hear me? Yes. Can everybody hear me? Yes. Perfect, good. Okay, so allow me to share screen, okay. And can everybody see that? You're good. Excellent. So just for reference point as to what we're looking at. Can you also just introduce yourself? Before that's College Street running east to west on the left side of the map is the railroad up and down the middle is the ever source right of way. I'm going to toggle back and forth between this screen and some of the individual bridge descriptions we have pertaining to each individual site. Kenny, I think- Original submittal, we're going to, sorry, go ahead, Brett. Yeah, if you could just introduce yourself real quick. Nobody can hear you. Now that I've got my headphones out. Apologies, one sec. While Kenny is getting his headphones on, let me just introduce myself if you can hear me. Sorry about that. Go ahead. Yep, so the request was if you can just introduce yourself so we know who you're presenting. Don't just dive all the way in. Yeah, and then if you could do the same, that'd be great. Yeah, so Kenny Lozier Supervisor of Landscaping Grounds at Amherst College. Thank you. And Kate Sims, I teach Economics and Environmental Studies at Amherst College. Thank you, Ken. And so, yeah, if you want to jump back in, that'd be great. Sure. So I'm going to toggle back and forth between this screen and those individual bridge pictures. The original paperwork that we submitted with bridge, altered bridge lengths, we are further altering so as to further remove bridges from any resource areas. So I'll start with site one over here on the west side of the map, closest to East Drive and Merrill Apartments on Amherst College campus. So that is pictured here. This picture is, let's see, we are standing on the north side facing south. Just for reference point, initially, we were planning on a more modest lengthening of this bridge but after further inspection, we believe due to the erosion of this bank, it's probably best to length it even further. All bridges are going to remain the same style that you see in these pictures. They're going to remain the exact same width and they will remain being non-permanent structures. They won't, there will be no digging, dredging, trenching, no permanent footings of any kind, but we will use, we will raise these and lengthen them. So the new proposal for this bridge would be to, on the northwest side, increased by six feet, or by four feet, I'm sorry, and on the southeast side, six to eight feet. Is everybody, does that make sense? Okay, and then this is, so we'll move to bridge two, traveling eastbound on the trail, right here just south of the pond. And on this one, we are facing north. The new proposal would be to rotate this clockwise, roughly 10 to 15 degrees, taking the north side of the bridge a little further east away from that downtree and further into the center of that pathway and out of the bank. We would propose a three foot extension on the northeast side and a five foot on the southwest side. And then on to bridge three, we now get much closer to College Street for a frame of reference, kind of across the street from Subway. And on this one, we are facing north. The new proposal remains the same as from this prior, it would be a two foot extension on both sides, also raising this to be a little closer to grade with the bog bridge on the north side and on the south side. And then the final bridge, bridge four, crossing Feeringbrook near College Street. This one would have a six foot extension on the north side and a four foot extension on the south side. And that is essentially, let's see, all work would be done by hand, bringing in materials, bringing out old materials. And once again, we would not be implementing any digging of any kind. So I will stop sharing my screen and there we go. Thanks. Thank you, Kenny. Kate, did you have anything to add before I turn it over to Erin? Sure. Let me just add a tiny bit of context, which is that all of these bridges had sustained some damage earlier in the fall and were unsafe for various reasons at different points. One of them, we fear is gonna fall into the Brook. One of them is tilted pretty heavily so that if it's slippery, we're worried about people falling off One of them had a tree on top of it which was taken off and temporarily repaired. And then the other one is down pretty low. And as Erin pointed out this morning at the site visit, really could be obstructing water flow underneath. So I think the hope is in all of this to try to make these more usable, but also in a way that's gonna help actually protect the resource in the long run by lifting them up out of the streams and out of the bank area. So Erin gave us several great suggestions this morning on how to do that in terms of getting them up and out. But I think we would love to also hear other thoughts from the commission on how to do this in a way that's going to protect the resource. I don't think there's any question that this is in a very sensitive area in terms of resource use. That's why the college likes to have students out there. They're able to do things like a bio blitz where they go out and identify different species. There's experiments and research that's happening in this area. And so I think the request for determination was motivated by the thought that we would be doing this in a way that that doesn't affect the resource area. Not that it's not in a resource area because it clearly is. Okay, thank you Kate. So Erin. Yeah, so this is kind of in a tricky one for me just because of my background for midding trail bridges. I would ordinarily recommend notice of intent filings for these. In this case, they are existing bridges. I don't know how long they've been in for. I don't know if there was permitting for the original bridge. But if somebody was to come forward proposing a new foot bridge, I would always require a notice of intent. It's just because you're a lot of times talking about bank impacts, wetlands impacts, et cetera. In this case, they're existing bridges. So that's a consideration. Also, adjusting these bridges will be a tremendous improvement to existing conditions on the site. And if you see the bridges and what's going on out there you would see that it's really, they're damaging the resources at this point causing erosion underneath where they're situated. So those are kind of my first initial comments. The initial submission did not include bridge plans. So I spoke with Kenny about that today. They came up with a sort of a standard design. And also I've talked to Kenny about for each of the sites providing measurements of what the bridge dimensions would be, including, you know, bankful estimates to make sure that we're staying outside of bankful for the placement of the footings on either side. Also, because each of these bridges had no footings they were basically just these platforms that were set on the ground that they should have some kind of a structural foundation under each. And that doesn't necessarily mean digging them in or ground disturbance. What it means is it could be as simple as setting a block and having the bridge be up on top of a block of some sort. It could be a flat stone. It could be, you know, a cinder block type just set in place on a stable surface to raise it up a little bit so that you get better openness ratio underneath the bridge. So the bridge they're gonna be submitting bridge plans to us. The other thing that's kind of shaky about it is there's no delineation here. You know, ordinarily for a project we wanna see where the wetlands are located where the bank is located and that sort of thing and that's not included here. And after speaking with the applicant I can understand kind of why they took the approach they did. It is sort of a precedent setting situation in terms of saying, okay, we're gonna allow you to do this work without doing a delineation. All that said, like I said, it's doing damage right now. This will be an improvement to existing conditions. So I'm not gonna obstruct it moving forward for that reason. What I will say is that a lot of the footings are in existing wetland. That was pretty clear, but by making the spans of the bridges longer and putting in a foundation of some sort it will greatly improve the openness so that light can penetrate underneath the bridge, air can penetrate underneath the bridge. You can get some greater water flow underneath the bridge without causing additional erosion underneath it. So yeah, I mean, the way that we sort of left things was that the bridges were gonna be the designs, were gonna be revised and sort of provided to us in writing. And then at that point I would feel much more comfortable with what has been proposed here. Thank you. One other just quick thing is that there is an endangered fern that's located on this site. And I know Eversource is transplanting it for the structure replacement project that's happening. And I just mentioned to the applicant that they should be in touch with natural heritage because there may be other endangered species on this site that we're unaware of. And there may be time of year restrictions or other issues. And they should also familiarize themselves with the species out there so they can identify them and not impact them. So thank you, Erin. And yeah, one comment. So Leroy and I were out there today as well. And so it was great to actually see it because actually some of that erosion that's going on, you just can't capture that in some of those pictures, particularly that first, I think it's site number one that's closest to the campus. That has some serious issues. And when that sucker goes down, it's not going to be good. So I agree with you, Erin, that yeah, overall it will be a big improvement. When we did similar work on some of our trails on concom land, we did go through and do, did do delineation for that. And so that would be our preferred mode for that. So when they come in front of us, if that could happen, you know, so if you can look into that as a possibility, it should be fairly straightforward. I know that you guys had some challenges on the initial go at that, but if there's something that's reasonable, it's not going to be good. It's not going to be good. It's not going to be good. It's not going to be good. It's not going to be good. It's not going to be good. It's not going to be good. It's not going to be good. There are some challenges on the initial go at that. But if there's something that's reasonable. If there are some mitigating factor, let us know, but that is definitely our, our standard operating procedure, including for our own lands. So I'll open up to other commissioners and we'll go to the general public. So comments or questions and. Yeah, particularly for. If you had other observations. I'm sorry, Kate. I have a question on what you just said. Can you just tell us a little bit more about what specifically needs to be delineated because. There's, there's a lot of wetlands there. Oh yeah. I think part of what happened to us is that we quickly got overwhelmed by the cost of being offered to delineate all of the wetlands. So tell us what, what's in scope. Yeah. I mean, so Aaron, can you specify a little bit more? I have an idea in my head, Kate, but yeah, Aaron would be able to specify, you know, so many feet on each side sort of thing. So yeah, so it would just be looking at the, the footprint of. The area where the work is being done. And I mean, I think really ultimately it's up to the commission to make a decision on whether for this specific project, they would want to see that delineated or. Because this is these are existing bridges and you're trying to make improvements. If that's something that, you know. We think the board was willing to kind of wave at this point. I can say that on at least three out of four of the bridges, if not four out of four that the bridges are set directly in wetland that is adjacent to the intermittent streams. So they are already there in the wetland and they're getting carved out underneath. So, you know, picking the bridges up, improve, increasing the span is going to be a dramatic improvement to what's happening already. But I would say for future projects, we should definitely get you guys set up or, you know, suggest some folks that you guys can get on board that will be more financially. I think that's a good idea. Yeah. Yeah. I was just going to say that I think since these are, there's like no question whether or not these are in the resource area. And because they're hazard currently, we should consider not read, not doing a formal delineation here, but instead making sure that the new bridges are higher and wider than the existing bridges, and that the new bridges are higher and wider. So I think that there is a fine line for projects that are improving and chances of building the type of infrastructure that would take us truly out of the resource here is infeasible and probably unnecessary. But I think that there is a fine line, you know, for projects with more significant infrastructure, like we do need to do these delineations. They're very important for both the existing projects in the future. And then just, just to add on to what Jen was saying there, just in terms of infrastructure, do you guys see, can you ever use those diamond piers before? You know what I'm talking about? I do not know. They're actually pretty sweet. They come in all different sizes. There are pieces of cement with four holes. And you literally impact. Pipes into it and they cross in. Yeah. I had brought that up as a potential footing today. Yeah. So. Exactly. Yes. Those seem to be working pretty good for some people been doing on, on Hitchcock center did them and whatever. The guys at conservation works use them all the time, but that's one option. At least to get the stuff. That's what Jen was saying and Aaron was saying, get it up and out. Yep. So whatever those things are. And that's the, the, the peer itself. The pipes go down. So anyway. The other trick, kind of trick of the trade is. Sonnet tubes. So usually you have to pour, you know, mix cement and that can be hard to do at these sensitive sites. What you can do is get cement mix that usually you would add water to put them in the ground as a footing, and they'll absorb water from the soil moisture over time too. So there are like tricks in order to low impact, to make sure that the soil moisture is not too high. And it's just going to be a pretty significant footing. Up and out away from the stream that will better support the bridge in the long term. So. One question I have for the commissioners about the delineation. So no matter what they do, it's going to be an improvement. So I fully agree with that. My big question is how far out. You know, they should. They should make these. And so I think that the delineation could potentially help with that. I mean, I mean, you know, the whole thing is so low and so wet, right? Whole place is wet. Yeah. They're going to, they're not, they're not going to be able to leave the adjacent. Wetland without entering. Another wetland. Not the wetland, but they'd at least be able to identify more concretely. What is the top of bank. Would be more what I'd be looking for. Okay. So that's more along Aaron's comments of trying to get more concrete. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Kind of. So maybe there's some. Synergy there where we could do some bank full calculations. Wedded with. I mean. That's, they're very easy available online tools for making those estimates. That are pretty reliable. So that might be another middle ground there. Like we could say maybe condition that we want them. Yeah. So that's what we're looking for. So what's the, what's the, what's the, what's the, what's the, what's the standard standards? It's a 1.2 times bank fall for the wet. Of a bridge. And I don't know what the clearance regulations are. And maybe you know off the top of your head, but. You know, we could say that that's a good starting point. And they have to be wider than that. Something like that. Exactly. And that's what we talked about in the, on the site visit today. And the question is just what is 1.0. Is what I'm trying to get a, so what. Yeah. Yep. So you can do that in stream stats. Yeah. And I actually have one more question. Is there work going to be done? Mitigation work going to be done on fearing Brooke. From the. Apartment building being built. Yeah. Is there something else going on in there? I'm sorry guys. This is kind of not here. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. I don't know what the status of that is, but. That's significantly downstream of what we're talking about. It's downstream though. I was wondering exactly where the location was. Yeah. It's down. Like near Florence bank. Yeah. Okay. Oh yeah. Just that. Yeah. I don't know what the status of that is, but. I don't know what the status of that is, but. That's significantly downstream of what we're talking about. It's downstream though. Yeah, so. I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yeah. And the, the openness ratio, just to, to touch on that question really quickly. I mean, it can be calculated based on. Like there, the minimum open. Openness ratio is 1.64 feet, but. That's like a bare minimum, but, I mean. from the water level to the decking on a flashy stream that is not, particularly that one that we saw that was the first, I think site one. I think in that case, it's even more than 60. I mean, you're talking a pretty significant height off of the water level. So it really depends on the specifics of the channel to make sure that it's done right. And there's a calculation that you can do. So it's an educational process, but the bankful process that Jen was talking about, it's looking at a cross-section and understanding sort of where that bankful mark is in terms of where water would overtop the channel if it flooded. And then taking that measurement and saying 1.2 times that so that you know that your footings are outside of that area. But there's a mass stream crossings handbook that I could send you a link to that provides more information on that. So it's kind of like talking about it without having the document in front of you, but it's, I can tell you this, it's very straightforward and I'd be happy to even do like a zoom and go through it with you just so you could kind of see that we're not shooting from the hip here, that it's actually something that you can measure out in the field using sort of common sense tools. Yes, I, yes, I'm sorry if we got jargony on you guys, but the point of what we're trying to say is that this can be done without a formal delineation in a way that will achieve all the goals we're discussing. And Aaron, I was just gonna say if there's something I can do to help provide resources for this, let me know. Absolutely. Great. So Dave, did you have a comment on this? I saw you leaning forward. Kind of listened, Brett. I did just squeeze in dinner there while I was gone, but I was listening the whole time. No, I think this is all a great discussion. I do see some parallels between the work that the commission just did to permit the trail improvements over at Zurich and Captain Cole, you know, kind of the limited scope and Aaron, correct me if I'm wrong, but kind of the limited scope of the delineation that was done there, I think allowed the commission to move forward and provided information that DEP, I think, we haven't really heard formally from DEP, but I think was more in line with what DEP was, was hoping we would do. The other thing while Kenny and Kate are on the call, I think I'd be remiss. Whenever I see a map of the Fearing Brook, I feel compelled to mention that, you know, Amherst has and continues to invest a significant amount of money and resources, time to improve the water quality in the Fearing Brook. And if I'm not mistaken, I mean, most of these streams today, are they flowing into the Fearing from there? Are they flowing downstream into the Fort? Certainly one of these bridges crosses the Fearing Brook, but we would very much like to have Amherst College, an active partner with us to improve the water quality and other attributes of the Fearing Brook. I think I'm on fairly solid ground to say that Fearing Brook is probably the most compromised tributary of the Fort River in Amherst. It may be the most compromised tributary on the entire Fort River watershed, but I'm not sure about that. And Amherst, we take some responsibility for that because it drains about a quarter to a half of our downtown. But we are gonna do a very significant floodplain restoration project downstream, but there's no question that section in the Amherst College sanctuary could really use some design and improvements. It is a really, you know, compromised stretch there. And I'm sure you guys are aware of it. So anyway, in the future, 2021, 22, 23, we'd love to work with you guys on that stream quality there and water quality. There's that incredible perched culvert that comes out of the parking lot there below the power plant. It's kind of like Niagara Falls that enters the Fearing Brook in it. On certain days, that's a great little kayak run there, but it really shouldn't be and we can improve that, thanks. We would absolutely have no problem partnering on that. My understanding is that the college in the past has done just that. I know Jim Brassard has implored my predecessor, Bob Shada, provide resources in the past in terms of manpower and would be more than willing to in the future. That's great, thanks. We certainly will be talking. Thanks, Dave. I wanted to add also that, yeah, that would be wonderful. And I think part of the purpose of all of this is to get the sanctuary back on the map, so to speak. I think that the college sometimes forgets that that land is there and the more that we get people out on it and aware of it, I think that the more attention will be paid to its preservation in the long run. But one more quick comment, Brad, along those lines, Kate. You know, I'm a birder also and spent a lot of time on our trails, but you know, one thing you could do is on the western end of the sanctuary near the Amherst Farmer Supply, it is a very underwhelming entrance, shall we say. But you know, putting up some sort of a sign there, the fence is falling in, there's a gate there. It's really not, you know, I know there are multiple entrances to the sanctuary, but that's one that the public uses quite frequently. And I think a lot of alums use that because they remember it in a different way than it currently is, but it's not well-marked and it just doesn't say welcome to the Amherst College Sanctuary. So just an idea. Signage and marking is all absolutely a piece of the greater project that we're looking at here. So those are all definitely things we're looking at. Okay, and then also moving forward, Erin, they're gonna require DEP and heritage letters. Oh, Erin, we can't hear you. You did. DEP issued comments on the RDA for this one. And they responded to those comments and I did send those to Mark Simpson. He definitely had his eye on this and he inquired with me whether I wanted him to come to the meeting tonight and I was like, I think we should just, you know, let's see where things go before that is necessary. But he definitely had some issues. So, but I think the revisions are gonna be a tremendous improvement to that from a DEP standpoint. From the natural heritage standpoint, I'm not sure if they actually need to, because it's not estimated habitat, I'm not sure that they actually need to file with natural heritage. I was more suggesting that they reach out to natural heritage and just have a conversation. Okay, good. And so I must have missed the DEP list and the DEP letter, so my apologies for that. What was their take on delineation? They asked for one. Okay. They did mention that, because they don't like people using the DEP wetland layer and hydrology layer in applications because they're really inaccurate. You can show wetlands where there's no wetlands, where there are wetlands, wetlands change so dramatically that they just, they discourage that. They like to see sort of on the ground delineation. Okay, good, that's all. That was one of the comments. Okay. Okay, so anything from the other commissioners before I'll open it up to the public and then I'll bring it back in and we can do sort of final round of what we think is needed. So nothing from the commissioner. So anybody from the general public, if you just wanna use the little icon, raise your hand. Okay, so not seeing any at this point. And so obviously we're gonna need to continue. So there's a couple of additional pieces. So it sounds like, obviously there's gonna be some redesign work. So we'd love to see that or we'd like to see that. There's a request for a delineation. So if that is feasible, that is something that would be, would help. So what are the other pieces that commissioners would like to see or correct what I said? We're just saying bridge design. We wanna see bridge design. We talked about, well, not the delineation but show the extent. And just bridge design showing the dimensions that will pass a bank fall event. So just to clarify that there is a request for the bank fall, the delineation of the banks for sure that we got. And then where did we end up on broader delineation? Yeah, I don't see any need for any sort of broader delineation. Yeah, it's all wetland down there. But I mean, so yeah, as long as we have some delineation, yeah, I think that'd be very helpful. Yeah, just within the scope of work as well. Yeah, and what Brett means is just like show us on the plans where the bank fall like top of bank and bank fall, which I'm guessing is pretty close to each other in these creeks and show us where we are relative to that just so we can make an easy evaluation of where the bridges are located relative to the stream and likely stream flood elevations. That makes perfect sense. So you can basically just see that we've followed the map on the bridge lengths appropriately. Exactly, yep. Okay, that makes perfect sense. Yeah. Anything else, Erin, that we're missing? I just sent you an email, Kenny, with the link to the stream crossing handbook and just for your reference, a couple consultants for the future. But yeah, I just wanna agree with what the board is saying. I think my primary concern is keeping the bridge abutments outside of the bank so that it's not gonna be eroding and causing future damage. And I agree there's BVW on either side of those streams. So it's gonna be an improvement over the existing conditions. Yeah, okay. And so all of this work, Kenny and Kate, is two weeks enough time? Do you guys need more than that? I think that seems reasonable. Okay, so are we looking at 735 then, Erin? That's what I would recommend. Okay, so looking for a motion, I think that was the 27th, correct? Correct. I'm looking, I'm gonna make a motion to continue at, I'm sorry, January 27th at 725 p.m.? 35. Yes. Second. Okay, so Anna, you recuse. Thanks. Or Osteen. Yep, Jen. Hi. Fletcher. Hi. Larry. Hi. Laura. Hi. LaRoy. Hi. And I, from me as well. So thank you, Kenny. Thank you, Kate. Yeah, really great stuff. It's gonna be a huge improvement. And yeah, we look to even more fruitful collaborations between the college and town as we move forward. So. Thank you very much. And we appreciate your time. Yeah, thanks for your patience and helping to educate us a little bit too, thank you. Have a good day. Okay, so just switching up a couple of things. Okay, so I think we are good. Okay. So those are the only two items that we had as official hearing. So Aaron, is there a certain direction that you want to go? Is there something that other, maybe that the attendees are potentially here for that we might want to address sooner so that people can, obviously people can stay as long as you want. Yeah. So I just, I'd like to just handle the one remaining request for certificate of compliance because it's, I believe, just an in really administrative and I think it'll go really quickly and then move to the enforcement items. Okay. Because there's a couple of people here from the enforcement side and I don't want to take their time but I also want to get the, you know, minor quick thing out of the way so that we can dig into the enforcement. Sounds good. So we received a request for certificate of compliance. This is basically at our last meeting there was a request for certificate of compliance or three of them for lot seven on the Applebrook subdivision off of West street and that was for lot seven but we received the same series of requests for the three certificates of compliance for lot eight and lot eight is actually located outside of any concom jurisdictional areas. So, and I went out to the site, it's fully stable, the house is constructed and I would just recommend that we issue a certificate of compliance for the three outstanding DEP file numbers. Sounds good. Yeah, sounds straightforward. So looking for a motion for certificates of compliance. And these are the three numbers right here, I'll highlight them. Yeah, so I moved to, You go. I moved to, we'll do it to accept the certificate of compliance for Applebrook subdivision, DEP file number is 089-0574-0895-0527 and 089-0626. Just on lot eight though. Just on lot eight. Second. Okay, so thank you. So, voice votes, I'll do the opposite order. So, LaRoy. Aye. Anna. Aye. Larry. Aye. Letcher. Aye. Laura. Aye. Jen. Aye. And I as well. Okay, so that is done. Which enforcement would you like to go into, Erin? I'd like to start with Carver Ave. Do a little update on that because I see there's several butters here for that. Is it correct enough? Did I say, what did I say? Carver. Yeah. Carver, Canton, right? I was like, where's Carver? I don't know why it's like the Eastern mass names. I keep switching them. So my apologies. Okay, so but it's Canton that we're talking about. It's Canton. Okay. Is it Canton or Carver? I can never remember. It's Canton Avenue. There's no Carver. Eastern mass. That's Cranberry land. We do have a Harvard, but that's different. Different. That's near there though. So I'll just kind of give a brief overview. Overdav. Sort of what has transpired since the last, because I don't know if the board recalls, but we issued an enforcement. We also issued a continuation to the end of February. And I don't want to wait on this one. I want to just keep the board regularly updated and kind of have the board ready to make a decision of how you want to proceed and keep you up to date because some stuff has happened. So at the last, we had requested that they get a surveyor out there to replace the flags on the lot where work had been done in violation of the order of conditions. I had reached out prior to the last meeting to the landowner or to the Wilson construction who's the landowner and said, what's the status of this? Could you give us an update before the last meeting? Which I never heard from them. And then about a week later, we got a request for a forest cutting plan on the entire site. I reached out to the service forester for our town and basically explained, we have an existing enforcement order out here and we will not allow any work to move forward with any forest cutting until this enforcement issue is resolved. So the forest cutting plan got denied. And I eventually made contact with Pete and I said, what is the status because we're waiting to do a site visit and we want to see where the wetland was and what's going on. And he said his surveyor couldn't get out there until April and the order of conditions expires at the end of February. And so for me personally, like what I did as a result of this was I contacted Bucky Sparkle who did the original plan and worked with the original surveyor and original wetland people out there. And I said, Bucky, what would it cost to have the flags replaced out there? And so he got back to me with a quote of what that would be and I think it was like in the range of 600 to like $1,100 to have the flags replaced. And it sounded like, yeah, they could just get out there and do it relatively quickly. And I just don't want this to be like a tactic that's used to stall our progress or to sort of cause the commission to feel like they need to give additional extensions when it would have been very simple for them to make a quick phone call to Bucky to have this taken care of and so that we could just move forward. I don't know who their surveyor is. I asked who was their surveyor and I asked them for a correspondence saying that they were booked out until April. But in the meantime, I was contacted by several butters who caught wind of the forest cutting plan and had witnessed the cutting that had happened. And I did put in the one drive some PDFs of emails that they had sent to us. But I see Gaston is on the call and Ben Bailey is on the call. There may be other people on the call as well who are neighbors to that project. So that's where things stand right now. And I asked them to attend so that they could just kind of give you a quick snapshot of what they saw. Erin, did you see those emails were in the, I just didn't see them in the folder. I didn't see them either. I'll double check. I saw the emails, but I was just a part of those threads outside of that. So. Oh, I see them I think in enforcement under, yeah. I see emails from Pete Wilson. That's not it. There's some documents there. Thursday, January 7th, Pete Wilson. Yeah, I will make sure I'll just double check and grab them right now. So do you guys have them? Pete Wilson isn't the abutter. Pete Wilson is the. No. Thanks Erin. Yeah. Yeah, sorry. I'm not sure the attachments are there. I just pulled them in. Grab them and see there's some pictures as well. And one of the things I'll just note quickly and Ben and Gaston, if you wanna talk, feel free to raise your hand. But in the meeting we were told no work had taken place in the wetlands. I don't think that that was accurate. And they said they were just out there with chainsaws cutting trees. It was an excavator parked in the area where the wetland was, which I, you know, is in those documents. So anyways, I see Ben raising his hand. I'll go ahead and make him. Well, actually before we get there, I just wanna see if the applicant is here or anybody representing the applicant. No, I mean, I didn't even. So Erin, you haven't heard anything from them. So you clearly just said you reached out to them a number of times. You haven't heard anything. No, I've had communication with them. They said the last communication was that they had reached out to their surveyor and that they couldn't get out there until April. And I said, I would recommend seeking out alternate people to do the work. And I said, I will personally recommend, I will not recommend an additional extension and that what I said was I would rather the commission independently have somebody go out and place the flags almost as a peer review type process to replace the flags by a third party independent person because quite frankly, I'm not sure that we're getting accurate information and I'm not sure placement of the flags would be accurate if they didn't contact the original surveyor who placed the points and they didn't do that. I know that because I reached out to them. Did the cutting plan show any of those wetlands that were to do conversation? No, but just for context, the cutting plan was developed by a forester, but the cutting was to be done by Wilson Construction not by an outside company. And to me, it just was a very sketchy situation because it does happen in the town of Carver, okay. Yeah. So I'm going to open up to the public. So Benjamin, you should be able to speak at this point. Okay. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. So, when Wilson Construction started clearing this law back in December, November, December, 2019, my wife and I went out and confirmed that they had heavy machinery coming in, and they were chainsawing everything in a big rectangle coming in from Canton Ave. I asked them if they had the plans with them. They had no plan with them. They had no math with them. There were no flags for the wetlands at that point. When we asked them, we told them that they were on wetlands. They said, no, the wetlands were up there and just pointed in a general direction to the north. I knew the lot, you know, I knew from the plans that Bucky Sparkle had done, there was a curious driveway that. Went down and followed the south border of the property very carefully. Because that was to avoid wetlands. So I knew if they were coming in with the machinery, they had to be taking this little tight, you know, catwalk along that property. They did nothing of the sort. They just came in through there with their machine. Through the whole thing. Let me read a couple of lines from an email I sent to our neighbors, other butters in December 11th, 2019. So this was shortly after. On a more general note, Wilson properties started clearing part of one of the lots. When we approached them, they had no maps or measurements with them about where they could clear. They just seem to be cutting down trees in a way that would be convenient for the, for them. The huge corridor that they cleared in from Katna. Has little resemblance to the careful designs with limited impact that were presented to the conservation committee in the ZBA. So that's the text of an email that I've got a copy of. Sent out right at this time when, when this happened. They could not even identify where the corner pins were for the property. And basically didn't seem interested. In finding out where they were, where the property lines were or anything. Okay. Thank you, Benjamin. Anything else, Benjamin, or any questions for Benjamin? Then we'll go next to Gaston. Okay. So Gaston, you should be able to speak at this point. Okay. You can hear me. Yes, we can. Okay. Thank you. So I'm the buyer of the, the FABOS house. And as you know, it was the FABOS with the leadership of their son, Adrian FABOS, who prepared the subdivision plan. And we acquired the FABOS house with that plan and, you know, had no input on any part of that. You know, so we obviously, you know, have a lot of interest in how the land is developed. It's right across from us and right next to our house. We've, I've approached the, the Wilson's, and they've been pleasant to talk to. However, when I went to ask about their cutting, they did not tell me that they needed any plans or that there was any guidance or restriction. And certainly they had heavy equipment on the day. Um, they had a lot of, they had a lot of work to do. And, and certainly they had heavy equipment on the day. Um, when they had the hearing December of 2019, that morning I snapped a picture because there was a large digger parked close to the street. My request was, can you at least please park this further from the street. So it's less of an eyesore. Um, I will say that it's, um, I was at that hearing upset with the other butters because part of the request for the extension involved. Um, I was asked for a waiver of the condition that they notify a butters and place a newspaper ad when they, um, submitted or revise their plans. Um, and so neighbors spoke out against this. I invited Pete Wilson to withdraw his request for that waiver. And he did. Uh, when we conferred afterwards, he said that that had been, uh, suggested by the person taking his application in the town as a way to avoid, uh, I don't know if that's, I don't know if that's true. Um, I mean, I will say that I don't, I don't like to see a force flattened for housing development in a way that breaches, uh, the conditions and laws that govern activity for the sake of protecting, um, this ecosystem. Um, and, uh, that may have already happened apparently at, at the lot across the street, the one acre lot. Uh, certainly I don't want to see that happen in, in the larger four acre lot, which, uh, I think is the city's biggest concern, uh, is that the city's largest. Um, the largest. I think it's, it's really, it's an antique US with an 18 acre lot owned by Mary Anderson. And, um, these, uh, You know, 20 plus acres. Um, really represent the kind of largest and last. Space of, of nature in the center in central Amherst. And so I just think it's important to make sure that any, any work is done. Thank you, Gaston. So any questions for or comments for Gaston at this point or. I want to say that that the permit he was referencing there was a zoning approval, I believe. For the waiver of the conditions notify butters that request I think came through the zoning board. Okay. And so, Janie, you should be able to speak at this time. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, we're the residents of 179 North Whitney abutting the property. And yeah, I mean, I guess from, you know, I'm not sure how many of you were around in 2017 2018 when this was approved. But those of you that were will recall. Very significant details. Can you guys hear me all right. Yeah, we can. There was some feedback there for a second, but before that we were good. So you may recall that Bucky sparkle brought very, very significant plans where he literally mapped every single tree, and you, you went tree by tree of approving which trees could be removed and which ones couldn't. I'm not sure that there's good faith here on behalf of Mr Wilson, when he sent in people to clear cut the land that you very distinctly did not give him approval to do. There were only certain trees that were allowed to be removed in those original plans for the lot one. And we're obviously rather terrified that, you know, the majority of the wet land about directly at the back of my property in and Mary's property and I've been in touch with Mary she's in California, and wasn't able to join tonight but you know she's very significantly worried as well. There's going to be clear cutting of, you know, the majority of the forest behind us. And obviously the, the, the integral part of the trees to the wet land is something that needs to be taken into consideration particularly as you took many months to go to the extent of literally tree by tree of what you would approve and what you wouldn't and, and I think that he's really completely ignored you and needs to face the consequences of that. Thank you. Thank you, Jamie. So I'm going to go to Mary next because and then I'll go back to you, Gaston. Yeah, thank you for calling on me. Yeah, so Jamie, thank you. And I wanted to report about one incident I had with Wilson this past April. I was notified by Freddie Munger that someone had flagged had put little tags, and they did not appear to be on the actual timeline. So I hired somebody to go out there and use the city's plans, and compare the city plans are the town plans to the little markers that were there and they were for sure off, obviously in favor of Wilson, onto my property, substantially, like 10 yards 15 yards onto my property. So I contacted Mr Wilson who seemed to be quite surprised by the whole thing. And he said he would look into it and get back to me, and I've not heard anything from him since. And I think it's just another example of people who like to who would prefer to apologize, then do things right in the first place. I mean, if he apologizes whoops whoops didn't mean to wherever he's going to say it's okay. I think that we've played this game long enough. They've already, they have already done substantial damage, substantial damage to that property. And the people who live lower it actually doesn't even bother me very much but the people who live lower the people behind down off of Canton Avenue, have already a water problem, due to earlier work, Fabis did when he owned the land years ago. And now there's going to be more damage. So, in the letter that Mr Wilson mailed which I finally received two days ago, dated December 19. He said something about a 200 foot perimeter. My request is that they be required. I like the third party survey or suggestion I think that is totally appropriate in this case. My request is that they be required to flag with a line, not with a little ribbon on some twig that a deer steps on and knocks down, but to actually flag and delineate clearly the 200 feet from the property line of all the aboutters. They don't have to do the railroad tracks but they need to do all the rest of us. And they need to line that out so that anybody could look at it and could walk in there and see where the cut zone is allowed to be. Not with ribbons, but with an actual strength and all the way around on three sides. That's the first request. The second request is that given the damage they've done, and given the problems that occur every year in this in the spring. And again in the fall when rains and so on occur that mother nature be given a year to recover from what they have done, and they not be allowed to do anything in there for a year. And let's see what Mother Nature does now that they filled in part of her wetlands there was a stream when Bob is on that property. From what I can tell in the pictures that Gaston sent me. I think the area they filled in is where that little stream was that Bob is had to build a bridge over his little trail, because that stream ran all the time. Who knows where that water is going to go now. So I think Mother Nature needs a year to recover. And I think they need to be required to come back with real honest God plans and if that if this commission approves those plans, you need to send somebody out there on a weekly basis to supervise and survey, because time after time they will send has demonstrated he's not reliable. I emailed him the other day. I called the other day course he has no phone number on his literature so you have to look him up on the white pages. But I did find a phone number for him of course he didn't return my phone call. I just don't think that they are, shall we say responsible neighbors. And I think that we need to attend very carefully to anything that they do in there. And that doesn't even talk about the fact that shouldn't be have been allowed in the first place. Thank you for listening. Okay, thank you Mary. And I just want to make it clear that there are certain things that about this that are within our purview and certain things that are not. And so when we're talking about the pieces that are directly related to the wetlands 100% that those are things that we need to deal with. There's going to be other pieces that will have to be dealt with by another board. But just to just to make sure that we're addressing this Mary. That force cutting plan got denied. It is not. They should not be cutting anything that they're, they have a cease and desist and there's no approved force cutting plan out there until their enforcement issues resolved so. And point taken as far as site monitoring, you know that they should be paying for a third party to monitor any work going on out there in the future because Yep. Yeah. That's one of the reasons that we have orders of conditions and then when they violate them then yeah, there need to be round. So thank you so guest on did you have another comment you'd like to make sure sure thank you so I mean I guess that my general comment is that, given the pattern of conduct we don't have confidence that the Wilson's development policy is consistent with and designed to adhere to the development and conservation principles of Amherst and the Commonwealth that's the first point. The second point is that they invested I think if I'm not mistaken $210,000 for these two lots. And so their business people they're looking to make a return. So I'm concerned that the incentive for the incentive to breach is quite high and so I just request that the commission take that into into consideration, and then my third and final point is my concern for what remediation is is appropriate. With respect to the cutting and filling that has been done. Thank you. And yeah, there definitely needs to be. Yeah, some work done because of that. So there's no doubt about that. So, thank you. Okay, so, Julia. Hi, I just Julia Roushmeyer and I am in a butter as well and I just have a quick follow up question in terms of, yeah one the damage that's already been done and the trees that have already been cut down I don't know if it's a remediation that you have to put forth or whether there's some kind of penalty or some kind of financial penalty that, you know, what, what is the, what do you do when, when that happens that's my first question. And then the second question is, I guess I'm kind of, it sounds a little bit like it would make sense to deny their request for an extension because they've had lots of time to be able to do this. But if that request for an extension is denied, do they have to then come up with a whole new plan regarding the wetlands or are they still held to the original plan that you all sort of reviewed and we all, you know, worked on together in 2017. Yeah. Okay, so the first piece is what happens to the land that they have already altered. That is a discussion that we as a commission need to come to conclusion on, you know, at a minimum it would need to be restored to, you know, something that is resembling the the pre disturbed condition granted those were mature trees so we can't come back exactly to that by any means. You know, if there are additional ramifications are there fines are there other issues is there something that is a possibility, but that would be something that we would need to discuss. If the order of conditions if the extension is denied, then they would have to reapply. And at that point it is basically starting anew. They can definitely bring the plan before us that they submitted before, and it would be open but it would be a complete new set of hearings they'd have to contact all of the butters again and we'd be basically starting from square one again. Thank you. Thank you. Jamie. Very briefly Brett just wanted to clarification on the what's under your remit and what's not. It seems like the forest cutting piece. He went for approval from somebody else not from you is that correct. And if that is correct. I think the coordination between that body and your body because you were the ones that approved very specific trees that could be cut and which couldn't. So I guess and as an addendum to the request that Mary made. I'd like them to very clearly mark the trees that you allowed to be cut if you're going to allow them to move on which is a big if I imagine. I would do that I would want to be sure. You know the reason that the rest of us are butters all stood down in the end was because we were thought that you acted very reasonably and being very very detailed on what couldn't couldn't. You know, you know we obviously didn't want property back there but you did it in the way that would maintain the wetland and the wildlife and, and, you know, we're all of, you know, more than a little bit shocked. It's also been noted that these these people came and cut at the weekend they didn't come during the week. It was quite extraordinary it was sort of as if they were doing it under, you know, trying to not get caught. Yeah. So, Jamie the question that you were bringing up regarding cutting plans and so cutting plans as long as they are removing above a certain amount of wood, they have to be approved by the Department of Conservation and Recreation DCR in Massachusetts. So if the cutting is within the town and if the cutting is on wetlands or adjacent to wetlands, then they will contact us regarding that. And so there is some coordination but if it is just uplands. No, we don't have any purview related to that. And so you have anything you want to add on the cutting plans piece here obviously. No, you pretty much nailed it but I think, but Aaron already said it that we already have an enforcement and conditions on this property so that's therefore the cutting plan was denied because of that so there is no cutting plan. We are the jurisdiction on for the for the wetlands on this property and so we're here we are with an enforcement order. Okay, so Benjamin. Kind of. I talked with Aaron about a meeting you had where the Wilson's came around November. And it sounded like they acted in pretty bad faith. They denied that they had done anything wrong at that meeting. They brought in a septic tank person who said he had looked at the property and that they had followed the plan. To me that shows really bad faith. And I would encourage the committee not to extend, extend the permit, make them start from the beginning. Thank you Benjamin. Yeah. I just want to ask before people stop start jumping off this call. Anybody who hasn't already been in touch with me as far as being in a butter on this site, could you just coordinate somehow and send me your email addresses because for future discussions on this I think it would be worthwhile for you guys to be included on the discussion. And so I just like to copy you on emails if, if we're going to be having, you know, meeting discussions where this property is discussed. Okay, so thank you, that'd be great. Okay, so is there anybody else from the public who'd like to weigh in at this point. So, back to us to the commissioners on this one and yeah there's definitely some, yeah some weird and bad stuff that's happened on this one. They've been given of, you know, I think a very fair chance on this one I mean initially when they were coming before us and we needed to do a short term extension. I thought we were pretty generous with that. I'm not really, I'm not feeling very compelled by their argument that they can't find someone, especially given what you were saying Aaron. I don't quite know why that is if they only have certain people I want to work with if it's some tactic, I cannot, you know, say one way or the other what's going on there. We have our deadline at this point. And particularly it seems, did they mention Aaron why they weren't showing up tonight I mean that feels very weird to me. The lack of news very. So, so this was, this wasn't I wasn't anticipating this tonight, all these are butter showing up. And so, this was merely meant to just give you guys an update on my communication with them so that you guys were in the loop but as it turned out like a day or two ago I was contacted and I told them if you want to listen in on the meeting you can but they obviously know one another and so everybody showed up. And so that was, I merely was just going to give you guys sort of a status update like I did at the beginning of the meeting I didn't anticipate this at all. So I didn't like extend an invite for them to be involved because I didn't know that this was going to happen. Okay. Yeah, and I mean as the butters know as well as anyone, I think it was just you Fletcher you and I who are on the commission at that point. Yeah, this was a pretty big deal when it happened and at least my recollection was, I get the two lots confused but the bigger lot was the one that I recollect actually concentrating more on and first time I went out there I was confused. And so but yeah, we definitely dealt with both of them and I thought actually the other one was more complex. They're not easy. I mean just to build in there all the replication we that they have to do the rain gardens, I mean the crossing. We did we individually treat individual trees or it was. So, I wouldn't want to build it. I'm playing a little bit of catch up when does the enforcement order, or when does the extension sorry expire right. The end of February, end of February. Okay. And what are the reasons to further extend that, aside from the fact that they can find a surveyor are there any other reasons. I think I'm agreeing with you guys this. Yeah, so they, they had requested the extension first and that's when the import being the violation was discovered. So, and then they claimed that it wasn't a violation they said no, no, we didn't do anything to damage any wetlands and so they were going to. It's missing out there. Obviously it looks like a wetlands been filled in. So, long story short, we issued a very short term extension to give them the benefit of the doubt so that they could go out there and reflag and demonstrate that they had done nothing wrong but now they're not proceeding with that flagging. In a timely way and the permits going to expire before they get the, the wetland flags rehung. I mean, that extension was longer than some of us felt was necessary. We were generous Larry I think yes we were generous. Yeah, I think we shouldn't. Anyway, I think that was our mistake we shouldn't extended it that long. No, I mean, I'm okay with giving. We need some sort of, there needs to be some sort of time a reasonable time. I don't quite know what that is nobody does, but they still have plenty of time. So, you know, end of February, you know so if they really want to get their butts in gear they can still do it. Granted they're going to have to come back before us and we're going to need to approve those points as well. So it's not just they're going to come back and we're like, okay, we're all good to go. That's just going to, you know, continue the conversation. The enforcement at this point is not going away. They're going to have to deal with the enforcement. If their permit expires or permit expires but they're going to have to restore the area that's been damaged regardless. From my perspective I guess it's like what what's the next step I mean I could reach out to Pete and say hey I got this quote from the original surveyor. This is what they've asked to do it they can do it right now. What's the hold up, you know, you guys can do it and get it done, or we can just leave the ball in their court to the clock is ticking, you know it's really, I don't want to. I didn't want to do too much due diligence on their behalf it was more like for me to know has has bucky been contacted. Is there anything we can do because if, if they don't respond to this enforcement what's our next step I mean it's going to end up finding or something and if we can avoid that, I would rather work with them to get it done than to start finding them by the day but if it comes down to that then it may. When we have time that when we get to the point of attempting to renew. Can we tell them now that we expect to see some of the remediation they're supposed to do by that time to show their good faith. Absolutely and that's one of the reasons why I wanted to bring it up tonight was to give you guys some lead time. If you want to say, hey, if you guys want an extension, you have to do x, y and z by this date, otherwise, you're not going to get your extension and I mean, there's a lot of new information it's been presented tonight so. I think about it and talk about it at the next meeting to kind of come up with something or maybe you're ready tonight I don't know I just. I would like to see us say that they should show some good faith and they're going to restore the things they were asked to restore. They should begin that process. It seems like you've gone above and beyond already and in so many ways that I'm having a really hard time finding that the drive to continue to literally give them the answers when they're not taking any of them. I mean the biggest thing for me and is, and why this is sort of. It has made me feel better to talk to the butters is because at that meeting, I was basically told I didn't know what I was talking about and that, you know, no wetlands were filled in, you know I've been out to the site know what I've been doing this for 35 years and the wetlands were filled in and it's like, if you just look at the plan and stand on the site, you can kind of see where the well in was supposed to be and it's not there anymore and there's no flags. So it kind of just, I needed to redeem myself and feel like I was doing that I hadn't, you know, that this wasn't just me making a bad judgment call like other people saw it to, you know, yeah and I guess on that note to the butters who are still on the call for advocating I guess like, even though it was not necessarily it, even though it may have been somewhat of a surprise it's it was really good that was really helpful. Thank you. Can I just weigh in for a sec. Please. So, I've been listening to everything and I was around the table when when when the project, when the lots were permitted a couple of years ago so I'm number one I think Aaron has has done a tremendous job gone above and beyond and from a, from a staff resource standpoint. I, I'm not really in favor of spending any more town time, helping this developer and happy to go on record with that. I think the Commission, it would be very helpful if the Commission gave Aaron some direction tonight on how to how to proceed or how to communicate I think with Mr Wilson. I think you've given him the benefit of the doubt multiple times, and there is adequate evidence here that he is not proceeding in good faith. So, I think you've been more than generous with extended deadlines and, and the conversations you've had with him as has Aaron and, and I think we just need to be as clear as possible with our communication with him and then take the necessary steps. Whether it's not granting that extension, obviously keeping the, the, the know the cease and desist in a work order in place, and making it clear that there, there will be replication. I think Aaron's very early point was that with the flags gone on the ground you don't, you know you can you can bring the plan but you really don't know where the wetlands were and the streams were because the site is such a mess so I think I feel like we've reached the point of enough is enough. And it's really a Mr Wilson's court to do something or not. But I don't think we should bend any you should bend any longer further and, and I don't want to spend any more staff time on this project if from the town standpoint. Yeah, I agree with what everybody's been saying and yeah Aaron I think that you've done a phenomenal job and have gone above and beyond and so yeah nobody ever doubted your, your take. But yeah you've been vindicated many times over. So, yeah I mean one of the actions I think we can take is basically sort of a no action meaning that plan set out at this point. And so he needs to get surveys done by that date. If that doesn't happen by that date. There is no continuation period. So that's one scenario. Other scenario is that they actually do get the surveys done by then. If that happens then that needs to come before us and then we need to figure out next steps then. And so that's obviously not the end all be all but I mean that's just the beginning but without that we can't even start we don't know the total area that's been impacted, obviously stuff has been impacted but we need that to start with before we can really move forward. I think it's been spelled out for him already. So, I think Brett that's it we just wait until the next meeting comes and we already at we already told them we're looking for in order just to proceed to even look at the extension, and they clearly know that their extension is up because they called to get the extension. So, yeah, sorry. I just want to be clear though that you spell out and if Aaron needs to send them another letter to confirm what it is the commission needs before we put this on another agenda, because I think it's a complete waste of staff time and your time. If we're just going over these things again and again and again what do you know what do you need. There are other parallels here I think we have another enforcement issue farther south. Where the commission has clearly asked for, you know flags to be reset survey, a wetland scientist to be hired. Have we have we required Mr Wilson to hire a wetland scientist to consult with him on this project moving forward I mean, I'm just, I just don't want to be back for weeks from now and have him come in and say, you know, what do you what do you need from me or, or, you know, or we we re discuss the same thing that's been discussed. I agree with what David said I think we've got to go on strong and it demands some expectation of why we should continue with this. Are you outlining I mean do have we, can you remind us or are there things that haven't been communicated with him yet or can we re communicate what we need what the commission needs from him moving forward. I agree that it's worth. I think we're overdoing it but I do think that it's worth having a final I'll just call a final communication with him. Just reiterating that this is the deadline. This is what we need so it needs to be surveyed. We can, you know, so that's the first step. After that we are going to be requiring some sort of proposal on his point for for remediation of that site and that is up to the applicant to propose that and so that's the point Dave where I think you're trying to go is that that is going to require a wetland scientist to develop some sort of plan. And then that will be coming that will need to come before us but we will need to be okay with that delineation and then obviously we're going to have to have discussions about what that plan is. So I would argue that those I don't want to see us. I was gonna say I don't want to see us ask for more things like a delineation that allows him to postpone beyond the next deadline. Yeah, but I think, but didn't we already asked what Aaron asked him is that put the original flags back, so we can therefore see what has been done. So we have really know the extent so I think it's, I think sticking with the simple thing like they were flags out there already delineated, put them back and verification they're correct. And I mean that's not going to be enough for a continuation I mean maybe he gets a you know, you know so many month continuation or something if we do feel comfortable that there is you know some sort of progress but you know it's going to be incremental at that point. Aaron, do you feel like you have enough direction to to put something in writing to him. Yeah, I just want to really quickly. Sorry, I was trying to pull up the letter really quickly that I already sent him to see if you guys feel like there's more that needs to be said. I mean that definitely outlines the first steps that need to happen. This, this was the next meeting of the Conservation Commission will be on December 9, which I reached out to him prior to that meeting. If you could please provide an update via email and the status of the reflagging prior to that date. I will update the conservation commission once flagging has been relocated for the original survey the concom would like to schedule a site visit. So I reached out to him and he said, it can't be surveyed until April, and I said, that's not going to work but I mean I think that from where I stand sending him something and saying I would either favor Brett's position, no action, just let it run out and let him deal with the consequences or say to him. We need something from you by, you know, the January 27 meeting, if we do not, if the site has not been surveyed by that date or if we have not received something in writing from you. Outlining when the survey is going to take place prior to the February deadline, then no extension will be granted or something to that effect is another option. One of the concerns I have with what that letter said was that you talk about the idea of what bucky did, but I would like to see us expect that bucky approves of what those re delineation that really re delineation of that property flagging is. I don't trust him to do it himself. I don't trust the builder to do it himself. This is my recommendation for tonight. I don't think we need to take any action or make a decision tonight why don't you guys think about it and at the next meeting we'll put this on the agenda. Once we've had a chance to think it over and then from there decide, do we want to set a deadline for him because we still will have about 30 days. Okay, hold on though. Are you proposing Aaron that you, that you don't send a letter between now and the next meeting, because I don't, I don't actually think that's. I agree. The best path. I actually think you should send a letter. Okay. Like, that's my perspective. Others might disagree, but that's my, that's my point of view just given, given what I've heard tonight. I think doing nothing is not really an option. I agree. Okay. So if you guys want me to say to him, then if I was to send him a letter, I'm just, I'm just concerned because we've got three other enforcement items to discuss and we have three emergency search to discuss tonight and it's almost 10 o'clock. Yeah, the only other thing is Laura so when we say doing nothing, I think that's actually probably the worst consequence for him just to clarify so like by doing nothing. We're letting the time run out on his, on his ability to do anything on the site. So what Aaron sending a letter would simply be a courtesy to remind him that the time the clock is ticking and these are things to clarify the things we need them to do, but he should know that already. So in terms of like the harshest possible response that we can do right now, doing nothing is kind of it. Just to clarify, just to clarify that. Yeah, yeah, I see your point. I mean, the only other additional information potentially conveyed to him is we don't, there are other surveyors out there. So, you know, this has been brought in front of the commission, the idea that you're going to need an extension because you can't find a surveyors probably not going to carry water. Well, and I did express that to him via email. I think I'm with Dave's guidance here, you know, this has been a lot of time spent in a situation that is there's no return on that time invest invested. So, I mean, I would be tempted not to ask Aaron to spend any more time on it. I agree. The thing that I'm a little worried about is he's going to come in with something like, you know, end of February. And, but we'll have to deal with it when that happens. And that's when we deal with it. It's probably not mean we have to act on it. So, yep. Yeah, I mean, I think it's, I think it's been a good discussion as I said before, and Jen, your point is well taken and Brett, yours is to that. There's nothing, nothing, sending nothing or, or, you know, letting the clock run out. I mean, keep in mind that that just restarts everything it's not like I want the butters to realize that's not saying he can't develop houses, or a house on the property can start over in the NOI process, you know, with you, which is fine but we will be beginning from a point of put up those flags so we can see where the original wetlands were flagged back in 2018-19. Right, so that's, that's fine we can start, start it all over again. The enforcement is a separate issue. And so the enforcement still stands and so even if he does not choose to continue let's say we still will require some remediation there. So that's a separate issue. Okay, so if I'm hearing I'll maybe put this on for the next agenda and if there's any updates between now and then I can provide them to you at that time and if anybody feels strongly that we should reach out to him between now and then we can, we can bring it up at the next meeting. Yeah, I am personally I'm perfectly fine with no action. I am, I am do. Okay, that's it that's it's okay if you Laura. Okay. Okay, so I think we reached our non decision on this topic are just how they were before but yeah this is an important one, and particularly thank you to the butters. It's helpful and yeah and I just also want to reiterate what Aaron was saying so yeah if you are interested in getting updates when we have those getting in touch with Aaron would be great. Okay, guys I have to head out for tonight I have a wicked early start tomorrow but thank you. Nice to see you all. Good night Jen. Okay, so Aaron should we move on to the next enforcement. Yeah, so this one be much quicker I hope. So this is related to the poor farm project and basically sort of towards the end of the year last year. I had been in contact with natural heritage we had discussed the fact that there hadn't been any action taken towards the restoration plan for natural heritage or for the concom and so Rebecca Zimmer and myself set sort of a timeline for Sabina's property and said this, these are the benchmarks that we'd like you to reach and the dates we'd like you to reach them. They responded back and said this is too aggressive of a timeline we want to slow it down a little bit, and so they came up with a proposed alternate timeline, to which Rebecca and I said, that's fine that's that's fine but now we've gotten a second request to put it off again and Rebecca and I spoke and Rebecca is really not in favor of putting it off any further. And I also I've spoken with at least one consultant that she's been in touch with that she did not contract with to do the restoration. I've also she's been sent the list of biologists twice and hasn't proceeded with that. She has been in contact with her wetland scientists so there's two issues here there's the biologist to design the natural heritage plan and then there's the wetland scientists to do our wetland restoration. The wetland person is in the process of trying to meet the existing deadline which is that I believe at the end of January. January 21, I think to get the plan to us. So this is basically just an inquiry as to whether or not you guys are in favor of pushing out the timeline any further or if you feel strongly we should stick to it because I when the request came in I said I'll put it by the Commission and see if they're willing to go push this timeline out even further and Yeah, can you remind us again Aaron of when the initial deadline was when it got pushed to and what's being proposed. Just general is okay by my yeah so so right now it was the the initial plan for us to review was supposed to be submitted by January 21. Prior to that it was earlier in January. They just kind of pushed everything out by like two or three weeks later than what we had originally requested. But we set the deadlines because nothing was happening. So. And what are they asking for a extension at this point. She asked for two or three week extension on the initial, just the initial plan submission for staff review. So it's like, basically six weeks from the original date that we had proposed. Yeah, I mean so do you see any ramifications for giving for giving an extension I don't see personally I don't see any problem with that I mean yeah it is kind of weird and you wonder what they're doing but. So, I mean, my only, I guess, and I've spoken with the EP about it as well. Enforcement orders are good for two years. It's been six months. So, and we haven't even seen any type of restoration of any sort. You know, just that dragging it on is going to, you know, limit our ability to enforce and I think we've been very lenient. As far as making them do get the restoration plan together and approved so I mean. Yeah, I don't disagree with that. I don't know maybe I'm just it's late in the evening and I'm tired. But yeah, I'm okay with an extension I mean it's not a great precedent and all of that but yeah I'm, I just think that if we come down yet too hard on this it's going to come back and bite us. I would say something about like you know, we're willing to do this extension. I don't know, but say we need we really really really need to see something. Or that this is it extension, or this will be our last extension. And could you say how long again they asked for. So, the February 21 deadline was the plan to get us the restoration for wetlands and for from the biologist as well. And I believe she asked for two or three weeks for an extension from that which was, they had already asked for two or three weeks previously from the original proposal. Yeah, I mean I don't expect that they're gonna be doing much this time of year anyway so I don't think that there's ramifications for sort of on the ground to work. Unless there's. Okay. Well, it sounds like you guys aren't opposed to the extension so that's. Okay, I just wanted to make sure I felt that out with you guys before I doesn't, it doesn't really, you know, I don't. I just want to make sure it gets done. Yeah, I would say that's unfortunate Aaron. So yeah I'm not happy about it but yeah. So I'm going to try to burn through these other ones as quickly as I can be. We've got a complaint about a forest cutting on Trillium way. It was over the week between Christmas and New Year's. This was the property that had been purchased by Amir Mikchi who we've also, he also owns the South Amherst crossing, or. Yeah, so Northeast, Southeast Street crossing. Anyways, come again. The one we talked about earlier today. So where they're doing. Yeah, exactly. Hammett brook or fairing brook stuff. So, long story short I've been in touch with them, and the work that they did with outside of 100 feet. They did get approval from natural heritage was a natural heritage area so I'm monitoring what they're doing making sure that that, you know, everything is okay from a wetland standpoint, but just wanted to make sure that you guys knew I'd followed up on it and kind of close the loop on it. They did have a wetland scientists go out and flag it and they have a plan which they provided to me showing their over 100 feet over 100 feet away so we're good. There was another. I'm sorry Aaron just related to that one you were in your position when Amir came before us for that Southeast Street one so you're familiar with working with him. There's a little bit of. I issued the enforcement order. Yeah, yeah, you were at the right you shut it down. Yeah. Yeah, so I wasn't for the original permit but for the stabilization. Yes. Good. Okay, thank you. Also, we were notified about cutting at 562 South Pleasant Street. I went out knocked on the people's door, tried to make contact with them they didn't answer the door even though their cars were there. I wrote them a letter saying we've got a complaint about cutting on your property and would like to set up an appointment with you right away to come view it. They received that via certified mail. I went back again knocked on the door nobody answered, but I have taken pictures to document the cutting. And it's kind of one of those situations where I think landowners who are working from home doing some homesteading in their backyard with chickens and stuff. Maybe unfamiliar with what laws are out there doing some clearing, and I hesitated issuing an enforcement order I did tell them to cease and assist in the letter I sent. I were trying to find other ways to reach them and get in contact with them to kind of discuss this with them, but I just have so many enforcement orders I'm really like I don't want to issue anymore but if, if we feel like we need to issue one. I'm happy to issue, you know, an enforcement order to them I just want to make sure that I'm also working with people who maybe have no idea that they're doing anything wrong before. Is it really like really heavy clearing or they're like log trucks leaving or. It's not log trucks, it looks like somebody back there with a chainsaw who's really going kind of. Maybe maybe trying to get some, some firewood cut or something but they're just they've gone overboard and cleared a pretty significant chunk of wetland in their backyard. I mean that's just unfortunate that they're not that you're that they're not responding to anything. So that's kind of strange. Yeah, well, you know, for me it was a little scary knocking on the door with coven because it's like sight unseen, I don't know why they're not answering the door, you know, so it's like, if they're sick inside I'm like, I don't know. But I've definitely tried to reach out to them a couple times but I'll continue to do so and if you guys feel strongly I should issue enforcement order I will. I will do that I just felt like I should talk to them first. Do you know if it's still are they still clearing or they kind of done. If they were, I just got the return receipt that they received my letter today in in the mail so they may have just received the letter in the last few days. Okay. Yeah, if you just kind of keep us abreast. I'm okay without an enforcement order at this point and be great to talk to them first and figure it out. Okay. All right, I will speak to them and maybe ask them if I can reach them ask them to come to the next meeting. That'd be great. So, the last three items on the agenda are all emergency certifications. And I, I'm going to just bomb through them really quickly and I think we can handle them very quickly with them with motions. This is the Hickory Ridge remediation work is underway and they are hoping to have that work completed by the end of January, and you should have had the actual emergency cert in your packets. But let me see if I can grab it because I was very I was very specific about the conditions on this one that they were supposed to be following. Hold up. Basically, I'll just I'll just kind of paraphrase what my conditions were for you guys. They had provided a really in depth letter which I did put in your packets which basically outlined all the conditions that they were following and all the work that they were doing. The conditions were that they install erosion controls prior to the start of work that they that the site entire site has to be stabilized before the erosion controls are removed. They had there had been some question in the in the documentation about whether or not they were going to be de watering on site or removing the contaminated water from the site. They basically told them in the emergency start that they had to remove the contaminated water from the site and if any, if they determine otherwise, then they needed to get permission from me first, or permission from the board first to proceed with that. You know, just standard standard conditions and no no equipment in the wetlands is relatively small area that they're excavating to do the cleanup. And yeah so I issued the emergency certification on January 6 for that. And so basically just be looking for you guys to ratify that. Yeah, and I did try to read through some of that report and who was a beast. Yeah, it is. I am fine with this. So looking for a motion or so I moved to issue the emergency certification for Hagerage mediation for mediation with the conditions that Aaron stated conditions that Aaron stated. Second. Oh, Larry got me. Yeah, Leroy. Larry. Hi. Fletcher. Hi. Hi. Laura. Hi. And I for me as well. Okay, next please Aaron. So, on Pomeroy court, there is a huge beaver dam that has a ton of water behind it. And we basically determined that there it was becoming a safety issue and that we needed to do a little draw down back there to get the water level a little lower so it just sort of incremental release of water from behind that beaver dam so that doesn't wash out that road is very dangerous right now. I have also been in touch with ever source about it they are actually actively trapping this week. So combination of trapping and and breaching I think is going to really help that situation out but the, the, the emergency search that I issued was just to do very incremental breaching of the dam to allow some water to draw down from the impoundment that they've created. And that's hand work with monitoring. So just looking to ratify that one as well. I need to close that road and everyone lives there has to buy like a duck boat or something. And just let the beaver stick it. I mean, this is every year. Yeah, multiple times a year. Yeah. I mean, how many beaver pellets can you really take. Well, I will move to certify the emergency certification for the flooding up on the right court. Oh, Laura. Someday I'll get there. Hi, Laura. Hi. Fletcher. Hi. Larry. Hi. Roy. Hi. And I for me as well and yeah hopefully they can come up with a long term solution because I'm with you Fletcher. Yeah, it's like the first trade was like a long time ago. I mean, I heard it's good eating, but I don't know. No. Really? Groves. Somebody told me. Too gamey. Yeah. Which just means more for you so. I'm a vegan so it's not going to be me. You won't make an exception for the Pomeroy quiet beavers. Especially not that exception. So, so. Yeah, can you take us to the last one? Aaron. This is a 682 station road to hazard trees. Immediately adjacent to a home. The trees are not located in the wetland. They're located in the buffer zone. They're not located in the wetland. They're not located in the wetland. They're located in the dry law jurisdiction only. And they had a report from a arborist stating that the trees were imminent hazard. To public health and safety. So we issued, they were very small diameter trees. They were like maybe eight inch diameter trees. So yeah, I issued an approval for two of those trees to be removed and just looking to have that ratified. Sounds good. Okay. I'm just going to say station road. Just going to say station road with the conditions as stated. I much prefer so moved. I don't though. I really got to say it out. Yeah, come on. Just because Jen's not here. Yeah. How do you vote? Aye. Fletcher. Aye. Larry. Aye. Roy. Aye. Laura. Aye. And I for me as well. So I am going to stop the recording. Are we there? Erin or something else. We're there. We need to. We're looking for the final motion. I move we adjourn this meeting. Second. Anna. Aye. Fletcher. Aye. Larry. Aye. Roy. Aye. Laura. Aye. I for me as well. So I am going to stop the recording. Thank you.