 You're dressed. Hello and welcome to the March 27, 2024 conservation commission meeting. The time is 704 members are all present except Laura staff present are Aaron jock Dave Zomek is not here tonight. Okay, so chair report. I'll just mention that I went to the Massachusetts land trust coalition meeting. I think that's what it's called on Saturday. And there was some really great presentations that were very much geared towards land management, managing organizations including municipalities, especially with DCR outreach and like forest cutting plans and some things that were kind of relevant to our land management committee talks. So I got some literature and booklets and we'll have some reports for the next subcommittee meeting. Okay, director is not here so on to minutes from 313. This is just an approval of them. I move that we approve the man. My microphone. Yes, just waiting for a second. Oh, I will second that. All right, Alex on the motion Jason on second. Andre. Hi, Bruce. Hi, Jason. Hi, Alex. Hi. Right. Okay. Land management updates the OSRP. I saw that the deadline has been extended, but do you have updates on that one? I don't. It's been extremely busy and I know everybody's really busy and I know they were trying to give it a little more time and putting out extending it to additional groups and like the schools. The colleges, et cetera. So we were trying to just get as much input as we could. So I think that's why it was extended. Okay. All right, well that's it for that. I think we can move on to land use applications. We're a little ahead of schedule, but why don't you just. Yeah. I don't know if he's got Jackson is here. Yeah. Yeah, why don't we pull him in and do the. Sorry, spring springs first. So commissioners is a reoccurring land use application. So we've had it ever since I've been on the commission. Hello, Scott. Welcome. Thank you. Good evening, everybody. Thanks for having me. Do you want to just give us a brief introduction to the course just because we see it every year. Let everybody know. Yeah, sure. I'm Scott Jackson. I'm an extension professor at UMass. And since the 1990s, I've been teaching a course on wetlands assessment and field techniques pretty much every other year since about 1992. And over the period of time, I've searched and searched for wetlands that would be suitable for the course that are not too far from campus. And I found a real gem in South Amherst, the plum springs conservation area, and I've been using it for a number of years for the course. I have 26 students that are registered for the course, the lab, the field lab is divided into two sessions. There's one that's going to be 10 or 11 people in another that's like 15 to 17, depending on sometimes people switch. We're going to be out there for 10, 10 times total. So five for each of the lab sessions that begins in April, the first Friday in April, and then runs mostly Fridays and Mondays until early May. And the basically the only impact that we have other than trampling around through the through the woods and through the wetlands is for the wetland delineation lab, we will dig some soil pits in order to examine the soil and then fill them back in when we're done. And for one other lab, we will put up flagging tape in order to delineate an assessment area, which we will then remove that same day as we as we leave. Otherwise, we're mostly there with clipboards and pencils and they're recording things on field data sheets in order to write up reports about things like wildlife habitat evaluation. Wetland delineation functional assessment condition assessment and things like that. Great. Thank you. Commissioner is any questions for Scott. Nope. Okay. Thanks for showing up to tell us about it. All right, so do we just need a motion to approve this land use application Aaron. Yes, there's no motion drafted but it is CLU 24-3 so just a motion to approve CLU-24-3. So moved. Second. Andre in the motion. Jason on the second. Yes, Andre. Hi. Bruce. Yes. Hi. Alex. Microphones off Alex. Hi. I'm an eye. All right. Thank you, Scott. Thank you very much commissioners. Good night. Okay. The next one is the Grop Park trails for an informational hike. Do we have someone. Here for that. I don't believe so, but if, if somebody is here and I was unaware that they were attending, feel free to raise your hands. I can give you kind of a quick. Snapshot of this. So the. The Grop Park property is actually owned and managed by the recreation commission. And the land on which the Emily Dickinson trail is located is actually Amherst college property. However, the conservation department has an agreement with the recreation department and Amherst college to maintain the trail that goes from Grop Park to. The parking area for the bike path. So. The application was is coming to us strictly for the, you know, our jurisdiction of maintenance of the trail system. It's not our, not that we actually own the property. And the purpose of this is a partnership with the recreation commission and Kestrel land trust. And they are talking about sort of fish migration. I know Brian Yellen is going to be one of the speakers and talking about preservation of the river, the rivers that feed. The Fort River. And learning about migratory fish, insects, shellfish, and take a half mile walk along the Emily Dickinson trail open to all ages. So it's like a program that the recreation department is offering. So, kind of a feel good thing. I'm pretty right. Bruce knows about the stretch. Two quick points. The former watershed association was got the grant to rehabilitate the trail and put up all those little code cue code markers that held the story of the river. And it was through see with, we're a fiscal partner of CRC. So there's that. And then it will be, you should sign up because Brian knows a lot, but it's also going to be really entertaining and funny because he is wearing a boot because he ruptured his Achilles tendon. And so him doing this talk by hobbling along the trail will be very entertaining. So I encourage you to attend. A little sadistic but okay. I was interested in lamprey. Right. What's the day again. April 1 or I don't have it. Sorry, I just closed my screen when you asked. April 5 from three to 430. And in case anyone is interested, this is CLU dash 24 dash two. Are they going in the river. Well, I guess Brian would be a bit. Okay, so just like pointing at things. Yeah, the trail. Okay. No nets, sir. I didn't say so. All right. All right commissioners any questions on this one. All right, looking for a motion to prove the use of Graw Park trails for informational hike with Kestrel then trust and MRS wreck department. So move. I was second. Alex on the motion. Jason on the second Bruce. Hi, Jason. Hi, Andre. Hi, Alex. Okay. All right, so next up we have a policy discussion. So this is, I think it was last meeting Alex requested that we set aside some time for some sort of basic discussions about the bylaw and the WPA policy. And we have some time this meeting to discuss that. So I thought we could set aside about 20 minutes. More or less about this. We didn't have anything to distribute. Alex has something, but he didn't have a chance to distribute it to the commissioners before the meeting. So I think he's I'm going to give him the floor. And I think this is going to be sort of an introduction to a review of a certain component of our bylaws. And I'll just like, I'll just let you talk, Alex. So why don't you take five. We're going to introduce us. And Alex, if at some point you want to put up any information on the screen, just feel free to share your screen. Yeah, if Aaron Aaron can, can you share that Aaron? You're on mute. Okay. I can do that, but it would. Okay. So I'm going to talk a little bit about the 20% threshold that we deal with all the time on applications. That's sometimes we talk about mitigating the impacts of altering areas within the 100 foot buffer. And there is an allowance and is the way it's referred to in the regs. So what I did was I brought up, I wrote up like a four page document that three page document that sites or copies the pertinent parts of the regs. And if he could go to part two lower pages, I'll just show them that. So what we're going to do is zip through this real quick. And we'll have a little bit of a discussion, but then you'll have the documents sent out to you to look at. Can you, yeah, just go up to the top. Top part where it says Amherst wetland regs. Can I do that? Do you want, do you want to start at the beginning of the regulations or do you want to just on my sheet at the top it says Amherst regulations. Is this, is this Alex's sheet? Okay. So you're in actual bylaws, but Alex had like a informational sheet. Okay, I don't have that. Yeah, I emailed it to you. Oh, you did. Okay. Hold on a second. I'm like having an issue here. Yeah, let's give Aaron a minute and you can talk. Go ahead, Bruce. While Aaron is looking for that it's on page 52. If I can share my screen, I've got it up. So I'm going to go back to zoom. And find where share is share screen post is disabled participation screen sharing. I just got it on the screen, but I can, if you'd rather I can switch it to you. Okay. So we're going to look at the right hand side. Because just to tell you that it's there. No, the next page Aaron. Okay. On the right, I'm just going to show you that what I did was I'm going to talk about the left hand side in a minute. But everything I talk about on the left hand side is on the right hand side, plus another part of a page. I pulled from the regulations. Everything that I talk about on the left hand side. So when you look at this at home, you don't necessarily have to go to the regs itself. I did it for you. And I, you can see exactly where I pulled information from. So I'm not going to spend time on it. I'm just telling you it's there. And in between now and the next time we schedule a call I talk on this, you can look it over. So right now I just want to switch to page one. So if you could just make a full page of page one Aaron that would be delightful. There you go. And I'm going to make it bigger on my screen. Purpose here is to just review the context of the 20% threshold. And which is identified in the regulations. courtesy of Aaron you have a link there to that section. And then consider some identified some considerations sort of the context for this, and then invite discussion. So we'll have some of the, well, we'll go through the considerations now. Have whatever discussion you want. And then in another meeting, we'll continue the discussion after you have familiarized yourself some more with this and given it some thought. So to begin with, if we go down to the bottom of this before I go down through the considerations Aaron, if you just go flip down to questions. I'll just tell you what questions I posed and should there be clarification about how the 20% is calculated, particularly for long linear resources, such as a stream or a wetland. And are the conditions for the commission approving alteration inside the 100 foot buffer, well understood by applicants and consultants. And if not, how best to improve on that. And is the 20% threshold providing the protection that is intended. So, we're not going to come to any conclusions tonight we're just going to begin a dialogue and try and wrap our head around the 20% and how it's presented in the regs, which Aaron wrote, along with Michelle and some others so they're very familiar with this. But, you know, I'm, I wasn't around when they wrote this and the rest of us were not so it's helpful to just refresh our memory. So anyways, there is 100 foot 100 feet from wetlands can be considered a no disturb area. And that's presented in the in the preamble which has no teeth. It's just to kind of frame the area. And it is allowed that the commission may underscore allow alteration about the 20% within the 50 to 100 foot buffer, not from the 50 to the wetland. And there's a provided and I discussed that below which we'll get to that's a number nine. So it's not necessarily carte blanche. It's not an allowance that's handed out freely on a regular basis or not supposed to be. So, alteration is specifically identified to the exclusion of other activities such as removing filling dredging, building upon degrading or discharging into a stream. And it's interesting that when Aaron and others wrote this they chose alteration, which and that's the only thing that is mentioned as being allowed. Number four, the 100 foot buffer can be in may be insufficient to protect many of the important wetland characteristics and values. And that's stated in in the wetlands regs it might be might be a part of the preamble. Negative effects may happen immediately over time as a consequence of construction and as a consequence of daily operation. And we're supposed to think about all of those. We can track on time if we're going to go through all of these, because people can read it on their own time but is there anything you want to call out specifically under consideration there should we go to questions and possibly open it up for discussion. Okay, let me flip down to number nine so the bottom line. I thought we had 20 minutes. Okay. Yeah, but I also see that our first. We're going to be at 730 so we'll try and sort of keep to time to the bottom line the commission may allow the alteration of up to 20% within the 50 foot 200 foot buffer provided. It is convinced, based on evidence it deems sufficient that the proposed alteration will not have significant adverse impact on the resource area, and will not harm the resource area values protected by law. And that's something that provided is something that we could probably pay more attention to and like I'd like to have discussion about later. But so in practice the commission has approved mitigation we're all aware of that for impacts within the 100 foot buffer. And if the commission continues that practice, the commission I this is me talking now should be assured that the mitigation, if it approves will be in full effect for the life of the project. And I think that's something we should talk about. So that's all I have to say to introduce this Andrew answer up. I don't know who came up first Andre. I'll, I'll, I'll feel that first I just want to go to Aaron and just confirm with Aaron that everything has been presented. You know, to spec. I mean the only thing I would comment on is that we didn't write the regulations we revised we revisited and revised regulations and 2020 I think so. Aaron and me and Leroy were not the primary authors of this but I just to clarify, but Aaron, everything is fine is as presented okay, then I'm going to go to Andre was hand was up first go ahead Andre. All right. Yeah, just a simple question. Alex you were talking about what is permitted you noted that what was written into the regulation is the word alteration. And I suppose what that brings to mind is us needing to make sure that we have a good definition of alteration and it should be defined I imagine at the very beginning of those rags. I didn't look up in the definitions. But I okay so if you do and it's typically at the beginning. After it talks about where the is from it, but that would be one place to to kind of set your eyes or set our eyes to get that definition and have it. Have something that we what we know when alteration is and if not then I think we may. What was significant to me is that alteration is a is a series of is in a series of words. And although I was happy to give credit to Aaron and Michelle and others for writing them. I wish they declined. It's it's interesting to me that it's those other things are left out purposely. Yep. Yep. No, I get it. Yep. So what is allowed is if it if the conservation commission determines to do so is the alteration right. Yeah. Well, as opposed to building for example. So that's what we that's where we need to kind of focus, I suppose. I was also on the. Not on the commission when we revised these. But I won't take credit for writing them. But yeah, we all revise them. And you guys see the definition of alter here. Did it switch over for you. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's perfect. That's great. Okay. Jason, unless Bruce, you had your hand up. We have any background information on how 20% came to be the number. I can address that. I'm just going to stop sharing because it's really hard for me to like communicate with you guys when I'm not like seeing your faces. Buffer zone was in the previous iteration of the regulations in my opinion buffer zone was not treated as a resource area. It was treated as a buffer zone and as a result of that. My observation was that like back when these were the original version we started with, there was a 35 foot setback. And I felt like that was definitely not sufficient. And as a result of that what we were seeing where people pushing right up to that 30 foot line and also altering everything outside of 35 feet. So putting parking lots, putting buildings, etc. And I just felt like that. That level of impact to the wetland was was really, really, I was seeing significant issues with it. So that's why the buffer zone sort of, and it is under our bylaws a resource area protected resource area. So I framed it out as such and defined it and, you know, I did do research into many surrounding towns and not just surrounding towns as in North Hampton, South Hadley, Sunderland, Belcher town, but also other towns I was familiar with in central and eastern mass that had strong bylaws. And one thing I found which was in actually the North Hampton bylaw and I really liked it was. So in addition to making the no disturb zone a 50 foot, I also liked the idea of limiting the amount of alteration that could take place between 50 and 100 feet. And North Hampton had a really great section of their bylaw that basically stated they only allowed alteration of 20% of the bylaw on a given property. So that's where that came from. I really liked the concept of limiting the amount of alteration that we allowed outside of that 50 foot no disturb buffer. Alright, so there you have it 20% and I think in that discussion years ago we talked about how that allowed some development to move forward when like for example in North Hampton, it's pretty impacted an urban and a lot of ways and so there's like a subjectivity to it to allow some development to take place with the, you know, commissioner approval within the buffer. Go ahead, Jason. Yeah, thank you. I was also going to bring up the definition that Andre brought up and just ask. I went to ask Alex what his, I wasn't quite sure what that sentence that was on screen. So alteration, what, could you just flesh that out a little bit more Alex why was that a consideration and what was which which which sentence that alteration means to the exclusion of the following. Yeah, so there's, there's, you know, there it is. And there's below that is a whole list of things that are not allowed, filling, removing, dredging, building upon degrading discharging. And in the regs, when it was revised, they chose to use the word alter. And as which to me means it's none of the other words it's alter does not mean removing filling dredging, building upon so on and so forth. But it does in our definition. Excuse me. Alter means without limitation the following actions when undertaken upon or affecting any of the areas subject to protection. In the bylaw listening section one C one removal excavation, judging of soil sand. So all of these things under alter are allowed. Yeah, it's correctly. It's confusing isn't it. Yeah, that now I think it means without limitation these following actions are allowed at the discretion of the commission. Like this is alter like can build. You can build in the resource area or in the, in the, in whatever area we're saying is the resource area, you can drive piles or erect a building or structure of any kind, but it has to meet these other criteria first right you can't alter more than 20% of the resource area, right? Yeah, you're absolutely right. And I didn't go to the definition of alter. So my number three point needs some modification. Okay. All right, I was just seeking clarification on that. No, you're you. I'll fix it. Andre. Yeah, it does kind of get a little confusing when we're looking at the what. So. Oh, okay. So the one who wrote alteration is specifically identified to the exclusion of other activities. That's me who wrote that. I did. Okay. All right. I did. And what I should have done is gone to the definition of alteration. Yeah. And, you know, I, I, I have to admit I had a limited amount of time to get this done today and I didn't do that. So most of this stuff's around page 52. And I didn't have time to, I just should have done it and didn't do it and we'll do it. So I'm in error. And we'll just move on. It's not at the exclusion. Okay. Yeah, good discussion. So maybe if there's any other questions, we should focus on the questions that Alex defined rather than maybe some other items that need a bit tweaking. I know Alex did this in a hurry because he had some other work. He was doing. Okay, so. All right, one through three. Maybe commissioners, if you have time. In the next two weeks to. I assume Alex, you'll maybe provide this in an updated form. Yeah, I'll, I'll make the correction that Jason pointed out. And sorry about that. But the point is to get this conversation going. Yeah, it's drawing attention to the definitions and that's really important. So, and also just focusing on these questions is sort of our homework for further discussion. Go ahead, Bruce. Just so we should try hard to get the materials to Aaron in the same way the applicants do. At least if we can a week ahead of time so that we've done our work. And then people can have time to read it before the meeting. So we under. I just talked to Alex very briefly about this because this is a fairly light agenda tonight. So we saw an opening to at least. Discuss it tonight probably next meeting we will not have an opportunity to do it, but it's been posed and here it is and here's the introduction to it so everybody can mull it over for the next month and think about it. But yeah, this probably won't be coming to us for another four weeks. So, at least two weeks in advance, Bruce. Good. All right. Okay, thank you Alex for that and just, you know, keeping us fresh on our regs. So everybody discussion. Sorry. I look forward to discussion. Yeah, it'll be we could spend a whole two hours on this. Okay, so I think we can now move on to our first hearing. This is open already right Aaron. Yes, it. Okay, yes. Great. Okay, so there's still some more butter notification with this one. It looks like they just got there a butters list like a day or two ago so they didn't have time to notify in time for this meeting. And so they're they're working on that and they'll be ready for the 10th. Okay, so we're looking for a motion to continue on this one. Go for it. I move to issue a continuation of public hearing for 214 Main Street, be number oh eight nine dash 0733 to April 10th 2024 at 755. Second. Bruce on the motion on the second Bruce. Hi, Jason. Hi, Andre. Hi, Alex. Hi, and I realized so all and I am and I, I realized I didn't read the NY so this is a notice of intent for Berkshire design group on behalf of Emily Dickinson Museum for the construction of a historical carriage house and associate site work. The buffer zone to bordering vegetated wetlands at 214 Main Street map 14 B lot 26. If anybody's calling it. Okay. Next up, I think we have a word here there any. Any other representatives to pull in Aaron, let you do that. This is notice of intent when the wetland services on behalf of Kevin and Mary O'Brien for the construction of a new 1200 square foot single family home associate site work within riverfront area of Eastman brook at 260 Levert road maps 3 a lot 50. This project is proposed as a very front redevelopment project replacing an existing garage and chicken coop structure. So we're going to give Aaron five minutes. Hi word welcome. Hi. Five minutes for Aaron. And then board I'll give you your five and then we'll hear from the public if there's any public comments and then commissioner questions. Right Aaron. And I just I see Kevin, but I don't see his last name if that's Kevin as in the owner of the property and you want to join Kevin O'Brien. I can bring you in to. Okay, so I'll promote you to panelists and I'll just give a quick intro. So. This property to 60 Levert road. Came to us when Mr O'Brien purchased the property. There's a historic home on the site already. And he was looking to make it. Handicap accessible, but there are constraints with the construction of the historic home to to sort of bring it into accessibility standard. And so. He was my understanding from speaking with the planning department. He was looking to basically. Build a new house on the site of the existing historic home and the historic commission and or planning department kind of. Well, there was a demolition delay. So they were working with him to try to come up with a solution to save the historic home. And the solution was basically for him to construct the home he was looking to construct in a different area of the property preserving the historic home and its existing footprint. And just for the sake of understanding the historic home is outside of jurisdiction. This home is in the riverfront area, but it's between the 100 foot and 200 foot. So the outer riparian zone. And they're also looking to redevelop the footprint of the existing. There's an existing. Pretty significant chicken coop structure that's already located on the location where he wishes to put the new construction. Based on all things considered and even just looking at the overall size of the property. I don't. I don't have any concerns about, you know, replacing the footprint of the chicken coop with a with a new home. We did discuss and I made recommendations in the field about establishing a permanent mitigation area in the existing wetland location, which. So I took orders the Eastman Brooke and Ward took my comments into consideration and submitted a mitigation plan that basically it's a pretty significant planting plan. And they would demarcate that area with boulders to be a permanent mitigation area on site that wouldn't be touched in perpetuity. So I feel like there's sort of a balancing of interest here but overall I feel like it's, you know, we've worked together to try to come up with a. A worthwhile mitigation plan to compensate for the construction of the home. One point I will make, which I think is really important here is the entire site was not delineated with this. It was not delineated with this kind of intent. So only portions of the property were delineated. And so it's really important that when we issue the order of conditions. That that's noted on the record that only portions of the site where the flagging is located were. We're delineated. So. Thanks, Aaron. Thank you for this presentation here. Yeah, just, I don't know if you have a screenshot of the plan Aaron you can you can show. Sure. I don't know if you guys are some of you are familiar with it I'm sure but there's a paved driveway. As you look at the site to the west of Leverett Road to pave driveway that goes in existing houses to the right. And then there's a loop is to the right to the left is the perennial stream with a bordering vegetated wetland and a strip of riverfront area that's outside of the wetland that's mainly golden rods and grasses. Yeah, you can see that. Oh, did you want me to pull the mitigation plan or this is this is fine. This is fine for now. So you can see the driveway kind of in the middle there. All the work is going to take place proposed work would take place away from the perennial stream. On the other side of the existing paved driveway. As Aaron said, most of the new house location will be within the footprint of a chicken coop. There will be a total of 2,604 square feet of new impact and most of that's for septic system and some lines that are going to go underground, but we're proposing to mitigate that at a two to one ratio. But most of that is most of that area although we're counting it as disturbance is currently lawn and we'll go back to lawn so it's not going to be a structure or anything like that. So we're proposing to do over 5,000 square feet of mitigation in the lower part of your plan you see a proposed mitigation area will be a total of 55 shrubs are proposed to be planted. So that'll be evenly distributed between which are very Holly spice bush silky dogwood high bush blueberry and high bush cranberry. And then if you can, I don't know if you can pan down can't quite see it but on the other side of this perennial stream. There's a line of evergreen trees kind of along the property line there that are dying. We're proposing to plant 10 trees there split between black willow and slump white oak to eventually replace those evergreens when they die. And then the third thing is Aaron recommended is we're proposing to put a row of boulders at 20 to 25 foot intervals along the edge of the mitigation area so that will be a clear limit of work area so there'll be no further mowing or any kind of intrusion outside of the existing lawn. So these are the trees that word is referencing and this is a portion of the area the wetland area but you can see like, to the right of where Bruce is in this photo. They're like some grasses on either side of the of the stream and so those are the areas where we had discussed doing some of the areas we'd put right here doing the plantings. And in the back there you can see that area on the other side of the brook is where that would be planted with trees. Yeah the same in that picture. So, yeah, and all along here on the other side of the apple trees would be all plantings right now like I said it's mostly golden rods in the in the non wetland and then there's some cat tail re canary grass. We won't be planting shrubs in the cat tail because that's that was like an old farm pond that's filled in but all of the grassy areas would be planted with with as I said 55 shrubs. So, I think that's something scored. All right, I know Bruce is on the site visit so I'd like to hear from you as Bruce by see Jason's hands up. Go ahead, Jason. Thank you. Yeah, I just have a question about the boulders it said that they're going to be spaced roughly 20 to 25 feet apart. And the purpose of those is to prevent mowing. Yeah, 20 to 25 feet is easily enough space for a mower to get through. So, I think the potential deterrence that we can put up split rail fence something like that to, to, I think, I think if you, if you prefer we can put some of those shrubs along that row to that would be another thing so that would be a deterrent to mowing the shrubs there. I think that's the plan was to make that to have that grow up to be more of a shrub area than a grassy area. And is this the. Is it the homeowner that's doing the mowing or are they having a homeowner, somebody they're hiring someone who homeowner may come in and not know what the plan is. Now it's the homeowner. So I think the intention of this is eventually when these shrubs get larger the area will no longer be a meadow. It'll be a shrub area. So that, you know, but the idea of the boulders is so that it's clear where the edge of mowing is allowed and that nobody will, you know, the concern is in the future somebody might, if he sells the property and you know, yeah, that's my concern is that it probably gets sold or a third party comes in a long service that doesn't know that they're not supposed to necessarily go on the other side of the holders. I mean, Kevin can correct me if I'm wrong but a lot of these areas before he purchased the property were brush hogged regularly so that's why they don't have a shrub community. So, if we go five or 10 years with these plantings and with the natural stuff that will come in. I think that area will all grow up and it won't be somewhere that anyone even think about mowing. I was. I like that idea of interspersing the some shrubs along that same line as the boulders are. Okay, Kevin I think is going to be the guy doing it so he's. Understood. Understood. And I think the shrubs within a year to create a pretty strong thicket that, like Ward said nobody would even think of trying to mow through it. All right, Aaron is that something that we would add to the conditions. Yeah, so I can add a condition to the existing drafted order of conditions that states that shrubs will be planted along the boundary of the mitigation area to create like a shrub barrier. Okay, thank you. Chris, do you want to. Very quickly, I, when I was out there. It was pretty self evident where the boundary was. And yes, it is possible that someday way off in the future someone would bring a rush organ, but they would do that I think knowing that they were going over a line that was not supposed to be gone over. I believe it's our understanding that people who get orders of conditions are supposed to make sure that their contractors know what the orders are. And I'm sure Kevin will know him and him and see in himself, I know what they are, but someday other contractors need to be informed about what this line means, and it all looks pretty straightforward to me. The only thing is that Mr O'Brien was very. We had good conversations about the plantings and what would really be the best mixture of things and about the dying pine trees and how to build that into the process and I felt like he was being very forthcoming about working with Aaron and ward to be creative about what could be done there. So I would urge that we approve this. That's just like if I could just add one follow up to Jason's comment, which is, this is, this is in the order of conditions. And so when they get a, you know, this gets recorded on their deed and we will have these as ongoing conditions. When you get a final certificate of compliance, it lists the ongoing conditions from the order. So it's, it is tied to the overall property. Even if the property sells, that's still attached to it. So they should know that that. You know, management is required. Thanks, Alex. Go ahead. Yeah, just for my own clarification. You own all the lots. And just trying to turn my camera on. Whoops. You own all the lots and on those lots is an historic house. So you own the historic house, correct? Yes, sir. And you don't choose to live in it. I do not. And so what you choose to do is build another house, leaving the old one vacant. And that is to reduce by half the existing historic house. So the historic house, the original footprint will be preserved. And the addition that was tacked on to it sometime. Some time ago, remove that and turn it into a ADU, like a guest cottage on the property. So it's, it's a nice old farmhouse, but I can't have my parents stay here. It's just too dangerous for them to go up and down the stairs. Okay. So, but you don't intend to subdivide the lot. I didn't know that. Okay. Thank you. Okay. I do appreciate the planting plan. Thank you for being thoughtful about that. So if there's any further questions. Can move on to. The motion and issuing an order of conditions. Right. I moved to close the public hearing and issue order of conditions for DEP number 089. dash 0730 with boilerplate and special conditions under the wetlands protection act. And wetlands protection town of Amherst general bylaws article 3.31 and regulations. I second that. Bruce on the motion. I have Jason on the second Bruce. Hi, Jason. Hi, Alex. And I'm an eye. So much. Oh, sorry, Andre, I couldn't see hundreds and I unanimous. All right. Thanks guys. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks Kevin. Thank you. Okay. Wow. So that was it. Amazing. But we have a lot of enforcement to talk about and in fact. I was out with Aaron on Friday for one of them and we had a surprise other one. So Bruce, go ahead. Well, what I was going to say got under cut a little bit with by what you just said, but I, there are times that I'm feeling pretty lonely out there on the side business. I'm just saying. I've suggested my timeframe, which does not correspond to Aaron's timeframe. I'm not going to blame it on our children expressing my, my inner loneliness when I'm here by myself. Well, where are you, Bruce? It was a fun Friday. Well, I can't do them all either. So I get. Okay. One thing that I can suggest relative to the site visits is. In a previous town that I worked for, we had similar scheduling issues. And I would conduct my site visits during the work day. If members could join me for those, they would. However, frequently commissioners would meet up and it was kind of a fun thing for them to do on a Saturday morning, get a cup of coffee and go around and do site visits together. Now they were mostly retired and had a lot of time and they, you know, would do the rounds and spend half the day doing site visits on a Saturday morning. I'm not suggesting you all want to do that, but it is something that you could do set up regularly. And I don't necessarily have to be there. It would be tough for me to come with my kiddos, but, you know, just putting that out there is a thought. Thanks, Aaron. I mean, I would be up for that. I guess I worry that. My read of the land and the plans and what's going on is, is far more limited when you're not there. Or anybody else is not there. So there, that's just my hindrance. Go ahead, Bruce. I'm going to turn the coin over and say, it isn't going to, for the next three months, it's not going to be loneliness. I've taken a half-time job and the schedule changes a lot. It's, it's, I'm, I'm going to be a fish survey technician for the, the Connecticut River Conservancy. And I'm going to spend my time going down to South Hadley and I'm going to be talking to the fish or people about what they're catching. And but I will not be able to go to as many site visits. So I'm just, there we are. Sounds like something I did about 30 years ago. Well, I'm getting bored with being retired. That didn't take long, Bruce. Three months. So we'll see. Yeah. I'd like to seek that boredom. Yeah. Well, we do appreciate the time that you have had on site because it's super valuable to us. I like doing them. I'm just. Anyway, enough said on that. Maybe we'll have a story. You're going to make me feel like I never show up. No, it's not true. Everybody shows up. It's just, it's like, it seems to go in like one person will show up for this and other person shows up for that, which, which is fine. And I think as long as we have really one commissioner who shows up, who can speak to their experience of viewing the site, I think that's not uncommon. I mean, there was when I worked in green field, no one showed up. Like no commissioners would show up. So, you know, it's, it's nice to have commissioners making time to be there, but also you guys donate a lot of your time. So it's really what you can do. And we can try to work around it and come up with solutions. Well, I have to admit when I, when I am able to go to site visits, which is fairly often was one of the questions I was asked when. I was interviewed when I show up for site visits. And it. There's nothing like a site visit to understand the project. And though some of the best ones have been when there's been two or three of us to really. Ask questions from different perspectives. I'm thinking of the battery storage one, which was. I think three of us there and it was really good. You know, that way. Anyway, we are getting a new commissioner at the next meeting. So hopefully having a full board, a full compliment to board members will get. We'll get more folks on site. Okay. Okay. Well, I'm going to be in a ranger. So. I'll have some time. Oh really? Okay. See you out there, Andre. Cause. When I'm out there. Okay, let's move on. So we can all have an early night. In forest and orders, Aaron, take it away. Yeah. So. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to go to the next meeting. So hopefully having a full board, a full compliment to board members will get. Yeah. Yeah. So. As Michelle noted for 11 trillion, we had a, our one week benchmark site visit from the last meeting. They're already out removing Phil at the 11 trillion way site. They already had erosion control blankets installed. New straw waddles installed. We had a. A good discussion with the landowner and with the contractor. And so I'm hopeful that the next site, the next time I get out to the site, which will be. Later this week, early next week that they'll be quite a bit more stabilization measures installed between now and then. Does anybody have any questions on 11 trillion before I move on to the next one? I just want to make sure. I have a question. Have you been out there since we were there? Cause we were there like the day before the five inches of rain. And I, and they were about to do all the work. I'm just wondering what, if you've seen it. Yeah, I have not been out there this week, but I can try to get out there on Friday. My schedule has been a little bananas, but. But I can try to get out there Friday to take a look and see what's going on. Okay. There's a lot of imminent work to be done. And I just have one comment on this, which is. This was a circumstance where. The violation was not because of work being done within our jurisdiction. It was work at, it was literally like at the line and outside of the line, but because there was so much earth moving and rain, all of the fill and the dirt was pouring into our jurisdiction. So this was just a case of where they, it was like an infiltration made a jurisdictional and that, that seemed to be difficult for the landowner to understand. That seemed to be a, like a challenging point of him, sort of accepting. Guidance from Aaron about what to do was that it was, he said, but I'm out of the buffer. I'm out of the buffer. I'm out of the 100 feet. Yeah. Anyway, so this was just different. And it was just kind of a different framework for explanation, but you look like, go ahead. And to piggyback on what Michelle just said, I think this, this site is a really important one for a variety of projects. When we allow clear cutting in uplands adjacent to resource areas on slopes. This is what happens. Right. So we have to be very cautious. And we didn't allow clear cutting in this particular case. There was supposed to be a 50 foot buffer between the 100 foot buffer line and the house. The landowner cleared up to the 50 foot buffer. So they were claiming to be outside of our jurisdiction with the work, but they clear cut that did earthwork left it completely destabilized and it was on a slope. And that's what washed down. So situations like those are the, in my opinion, the most dangerous for wetlands when there's slopes involved and clear cutting and earthwork. Yeah, go ahead. When I was, when I was out there, Aaron pointed out to him several different places on the site where the sediment was going down into the road. And then into the catch basin, which then means that there's a different pathway to farming our jurisdictional interests. Yeah. So it was basically three sides. It was on a hilltop. And so into the road into the catch basin, into somebody's driveway and then into the river, like many, many cubic yards of just soil and there are shovels and buckets down there where they just, that's stabilized, but I mean, it looked like a, it just looked like they dumped dirt next to the river. It was, it was pretty dramatic. So this is the area they started removing the fill from. Right. And you can see it's just loose dirt, like silty, very moveable. This is the area that has not yet been. And you can see the rivulets basically eroding channels. Yeah. These photos aren't as good because I didn't go down below, but yeah, you can see the, the rills and gullies forming. That's sheet erosion. Yeah. So anyways, just for future projects and if no one has any further comments on 11 trillion, I'll move on to the next one. So I'm not clear on what that's you, are you giving us a status update or is there an accident? Nope, just a status update to let you know that we're monitoring it and we met with them and we'll be monitoring it again before the next meeting. Yep. So the next one is. The, there's a lot on wildflower drive. It's locked 21 D or sorry map 21 D lot 16. It's a little difficult for me to explain. It's, it was a undeveloped. House lot in Amherst woods on wildflower drive. It was, it's the house lot immediately adjacent to an intermittent stream, the same intermittent stream. I will add, which is upstream 11 trillion. It flows downstream comes under wildflower and then this lot is immediately beside it. So this landowner contacted me in 2023 basically stating that they wanted to build a house here and I let them know you're in a buffer zone to this intermittent stream. Here's all of the, here's a list of consultants. You have to have the site delineated, put together a site plan come to us with a permit application. So fast forward to last week, I got an email from a town official who was out in that neighborhood and indicated to me that there was clear cutting going on up to the 50 foot buffer on this house lot. I reached out to the landowner. The landowner said his friend who he didn't know their name or phone number was doing the tree cutting. Again, I was told these are like probably 80 foot high pine trees. They were felling them with a chainsaw and ladders. There was no safety equipment. It was extremely dangerous situation. Felling them onto the neighbor's property and there was a house immediately next door. And this friend let him know that he didn't need a permit to cut his lot and he could just proceed with doing it and take care of it. So he sort of put it on his friend that his friend was responsible. And also he said he had a hearing with the zoning board of appeals and he sent me a legal notification, which was not for his lot, but from a neighboring lot where I had been in touch with the landowners because they did file with the zoning board and they did get in contact with me and they were not working within jurisdiction. So there was quite a bit of sort of stuff going on with that one. And I'm very challenged by it. So I'm supposed to be meeting with the gentleman later this week. Very challenging situation. But I will pull up some photos so you can see what the lot looks like. I drove by there. It's pretty egregious. Yeah. If anybody wants to attend a meeting with me with the gentleman, I would welcome anybody who wants to participate but also understand if folks can't. But it was very difficult for me to sort of get. So this is the clearing and basically the edge of the clearing that you're seeing in this vicinity is probably 20 to 30 feet from the wetland. And I will add and there's a photo here that kind of does it better justice. It looks down a slope. So yeah, so the clearing is right up to the edge of this slope. And again, you see the steep slope situation happening down to the stream. So this is what concerns me is work that's on a plateau over a steep slope going down to a resource area. These are where frequently we see issues. So they were given a cease and desist. I contacted the owner gave them a cease and desist the day that I found out about the violation. The next day, Michelle and I, when we were out at 11 trillion went to work on the site and you can see. There were people working there still. So after being given a cease and desist order, there was still work going on after they were told to stop. So we. I notified. W W Clark from shoots, Barry, that there was a cease and desist and they needed to stop work immediately. I also contacted the friend who had given I got a contact number from Clark for the friend who had done the tree cutting. I spoke to them and said, no more cutting cease and desist. And I contacted the landowner and I issued an enforcement order and told them that they need to file a notice of intent application. And I believe I gave them. I am. I think I gave them through. Sorry, I've got a lot of windows open. So while you're looking here and what exactly is the violation? I'm sorry, Jason's got his hand up. I put it in. That's all right, Alex. I was going to go down the same route. What what was in. I don't, I don't recall seeing the. Enforcement order. Or the notice of violation. I saw the cease and desist. But what, what are we? What are our options? And, you know, I would just like to. To, to discuss in further detail what our options are. And what happens, you know, what, when you order a cease and desist and they do not cease and desist. Great question. Well, I'm hopeful that they will in fact cease and desist at this point since everybody has been contacted. But certainly continue to monitor the situation. And if any additional work is going out there, we've got photo documentation. And yeah, Michelle and I had a conversation about this as well. You know, if folks are. Lately not. Responding to enforcement orders, they're going to end up getting fines and the fines are going to be issued daily. So. It's not the ideal because it's highly administratively. Impactful to do that, but we'll do what we have to do to make sure we get compliance. And in this particular case, the site wasn't terribly like the soils on the site weren't terribly disturbed. So I felt like it would be. Advantages for us to require to set a date and say you need to file a notice of intent by X date, which I gave them till April 30th. I know the landowner wants to sit down and meet with me. I know. Finances are probably going to be a concern. But I feel like the reason that this was done kind of on the. Without permitting was because of financial reasons. Sorry, Aaron. Sorry. I don't mean to interrupt you, but. I have, I. I am not. Personally. Who's the is Courtney Rose, the landowner. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. I think Rose works for N. A. I. Plotkin that is. A commercial real estate service leader in western Massachusetts. I would think that this person would know that you can't go and develop a lot without permits. Maybe you should go to the CPA. That was a little like. Like this is this to me is particularly egregious. Courtney is a construction manager. Yeah. Yeah. No, like, I hate to say it this way. I don't want to sound. But like Courtney, you should know better. Yeah. You can't, you can't go and start cutting trees and start developing a lot. Without. Permits. Yeah. I am 100% 150% in agreement with you. I had a really difficult conversation with him. There was a lot of excuses being made. There was a lot of blaming other people. There was a lot of my environmental engineer said it was okay. And by the way, I would like to just point this out because just in case. The gentleman does come the consultant that was supposedly consulted, which I haven't heard from did not see a plan with flagging nothing. But the consultant is a consultant that I have worked with previously and has worked with this board previously. And it was a different. Cross-section of board members because it was prior, I think prior to sort of us getting a turnover in board. Members, but. There was a situation on Canton Ave. Andre and Michelle, you guys might remember this where this particular consultant showed up and said that there was no alteration as a result of an enforcement matter on Canton Ave. We hired a or. I was around for Canton. Okay, you were around. That's right. Okay. Thanks, Alex. We're reminding me of that. We had a second wetland consultant go out and determined that the first wetland consultant had either lied to us or. Didn't know what they were talking about. And the commission at that point made sort of a decision that that particular consultants, if they came before the commission again, would, there would be a peer review of their work because it was clear that either they were not competent to do the delineation or that they were not. There was some kind of deception involved in the presentation that was given to the commission at the time. So that is the same consultant that was involved on this project. So concerning to say the least for me, because it's. Yeah. It's a challenge challenge when somebody like that's giving guidance to an applicant. Just backing up a little bit. Can you just articulate what the. The violation is like, is it. Amounted basal area. Is it within the, within the 100 foot just, just so everybody can hear that. The buffer zone on the lot was basically clear cut. To the intermittent stream. So. They didn't own all the way to the stream, but they clear cut up to the. Property boundary within the buffer on their lot. So, you know, presumably within 50 feet. It appeared to be within about 30 feet of the stream boundary. But the entire swath of buffer on the lot was cut. Right. 100 foot. 100 foot. Well, so the stream is off property. So it casts onto this property. So like, at its furthest point, it was probably like, I would say. You know, 50 to 75 feet swath was cleared. Within the buffer, but the entire buffer on the lot. And we do allow clearing of trees in the buffer, but only a certain basal area. And this was. And a clear cut. So for. For non commercial purposes without a forest cutting plan, an individual landowner can can remove trees as long as they're not removing. Over 50% of the basal area and they're using the wood for their own personal cord would use in this case, there was a contractor taking the wood off site. Okay. So I don't consider that to be for cord wood. Okay. Thanks. Andre. I forgot my question. Okay, Jason. Aaron, I just would like to clarify. You said. They can cut. You know, it needs to be for their own use. But they have to have an NOI. Prior to doing that, right? They have to come before the commission. Prior to going out and doing all of that cutting. If they're doing it in the resource area. Well, this, this applicant should have had a notice of intent application for what they did, but an individual landowner, let's say they're going out and let's say, let's say somebody owns like 10 or 15 acres behind their house. And periodically they go back and cut down a tree and chop it up for cord wood. That's completely allowed under the regulations. They don't need a permit from us to cut a single tree down. But if they're removing over 50% of a basal area in a buffer zone or in a resource area, yes, they would. So that's where, you know, they, they could. Sin a little bit cutting a tree here and there for cord wood use only. That's all that's allowed. Without a permit. Thanks. Andre. My question. More of a comment and with a question. Karen, you mentioned that the, they clear cut all the way to the edge of their property. Through or into the buffer zone. So I guess, you know, what that means is, you know, how much further would they have gone if their property went even further in toward the buffer zone? You know, would they have cut it all? Would they, you know, but so it's, I'm just adding to the comments. Yeah, you can know, but I do want to just bring up a point that I've been thinking about is because we're not done with our enforcements for the night. There's another one. This is posing to the commission proactive measures to somehow prevent these things from happening. And I don't know if it's a landowner thing. It seems to be sort of on the contractor end where these missteps are occurring. And so we don't have many contractors from out of the town from far enough away that maybe the, the regulations are significantly different, but if anybody has an idea about outreach or some kind of thing like that. Just so we don't end up here. I'd love to hear that at a different time or email or something like that. But it was a significant enough of a week that I've just been thinking about that. All right. Are there any more questions about wildfire? Cause I think we have one more to get to one more question. When are you going to have that meeting? Um, potentially Friday, but also maybe next week, it really depends on my meeting schedule. And it's kind of bananas right now. So wherever I can squeeze it in. Can you send something out in a couple of days in advance? Absolutely. Thanks. Yep. Absolutely. I might shoot for early next week just to see if commissioners are able to. Make it. So we can be company. Sorry, Aaron, are you planning on having that meeting. At the town hall. Probably. Or zoom. Okay. Okay. So what we do know, what we do need on this, on this particular one is a, um, A motion to ratify the enforcement order that was issued to map 21 D. Lot 16. So moved. Second. Andre in the motion. Alex on the second Bruce. Hi. Jason. Hi. Andre. Hi. Alex. Hi. I'm an eye. Okay. So there was one more incident that was reported to me. There's a letter in your packets, but I'll pull up photos as well. Basically the report that I received was that there was cutting and heavy equipment. Um, which was a landlocked parcel that is, um, on, on Bay road, but only accessible through the frontage of a secondary property owner. I contacted the property owner, um, who had the land locked land behind the property owner to request access to get out there and do a site visit, which was granted to me. The landowner was very, um, indicated that they number one hadn't done any work, hadn't given anybody approval to do any work and weren't aware that any work was going on. So I went out and did an inspection and determined that, um, there had been a path cleared behind the house that's on the frontage part of the lot. A path was cleared, um, going back to a, a confluence of, um, streams in the, in the back and that an area had been clear cut, um, on the bank of the stream and also, um, in a BVW, um, not a huge area, but, um, on the bank of a stream and definitely caused an impact. Also, uh, slash the slash from the trees that had been cut were, were sort of dumped, um, on the side of the opposite stream. And, um, there was like sort of muddy ruts that were left, um, where this vehicle had accessed into the back, um, and a path like a trail had essentially been cleared from this landowner's property into the back. So you can see here, it's very difficult to tell because of the sun angle, but basically a path had been cleared and vehicle tracks were coming back from the house that's on the frontage, coming back into the landlock section. This is some of the cut material that was, um, just dumped on the side, um, of the stream bank. Um, this is, again, it's hard to tell because of the shadows, but there's rutting here, um, right through a wetland area. There's some better, sort of better shots of it. It's hard to see, but there, they are there. Um, and then these trees that had like naturally fallen um, on the land had been cut to make way for this trail coming back, um, through this landowner's land who had no idea this was going on. Those are, those photos are a little better. You can see the rutting a little better there. It is with you. Who's standing with, who's with you? Um, a person who shall not be identified. Okay. So is this just, is this theft? Come again? Are they stealing? No, uh, no, it's, um, it's they, so I'll, I'll keep flipping through and you can kind of see what's going on. So this, this area here, um, can you guys see my cursor? Yeah. It's an area of the stream. There's sort of a meander here and this area was clear cut, um, that there was several beach trees here and shrubs. And so they cut it and it looked like they scarified it a little bit with a piece of equipment in preparation for something. Not sure what, but, um, as I flipped through, you can see the cut stumps. Um, there was gunk cabbage popping up underneath this. So it was definitely a wetland. And then there was this little, um, sitting area that had been created back there. So I don't know what the landowner, you know, the trespasser was had in mind, but like little recreation area back there to sit by the river, put down a blanket. I don't, I don't know exactly what they had in mind back here, but they were doing it on somebody else's property without their permission. Um, so they were sent a letter basically told to cease and desist. This identifies the, um, so this is the frontage lot and then the landlock parcel on the back and it sort of identifies there was a path cut and then this area cleared. Um, so I sent a letter telling them to cease and desist the landowner, um, who owns the property that was damaged is also going to be in contact with them. So that's kind of where things stand right now. Thanks, Aaron. Alex, go ahead. Yeah, Aaron, do you happen to know what the laws are with regard to landlock property and access? Um, in some areas, some states you can't have a, well, for some purposes you cannot have a landlock lot. Um, the select men, for example, can provide an easement for temporary reasons, logging. What do you know what the, what the rules are? Yeah. So in this case, the parcel in question was actually like historically owned, um, and, and connects to acreage in the, uh, to the north that is also owned by the same landowner. So this landowner has alternative, the landowner has alternative access to get to the parcel. The challenge is, and actually maybe I can pull back up that last slide. I don't know if it shows up on here or not, but there are two streams which, um, come together. Um, they, there's a confluence of these two streams. Um, yeah. Let me just, this will kind of shed some light on it. Um, so you can kind of see like there's a stream that comes in from this side and then there's a stream that comes in from this side. So it's like this little peninsula between the two streams. So while the landowner themselves can, can gain access, there's no way to drive across the stream or drive across this stream. So I think whoever did this was thinking no one was going to find out about it because no one could physically get back there. Um, but are we suggesting any sort of remediation for this? Are we just starting with a enforcement order? Cause damage has been done right next to a stream. So what's the recourse? Yeah. So I didn't issue an enforcement order. Um, I, I communicated with the landowner. Um, it's actually the properties owned by a family, um, which are, um, for, uh, Children of the former owner who are all out of town. Um, and they, they, I spoke to them about, you know, how, what their wishes are, it's their land that was trespassed on and damaged. They expressed to me that they did not want the people who did this to be on their property. They don't want them coming back. They don't want them coming in there to try to do something and they're afraid they're going to make things worse and, you know, give more license for them to kind of take ownership of the land. Um, so they basically just asked that we tell them to cease and desist and sort of let the land naturally rebound. That was the request of the landowner who had the, the act. I will say, like in terms of violations, it's, um, Yeah, I mean. It's not a great situation to clear cut a wetland like that, um, on a stream bank and leave it. Um, But I do think that, you know, later this spring, summer, we're going to start to see shoots popping up and it'll probably bounce back relatively quickly. Um, I'm just telling you what I know, but if you feel strongly in another direction, we can, um, Take other action, but it was not an enforcement order issued to the landowner. It was just a cease and desist issued to the. Neighbor that we believe had committed the violation. But don't know. So alleged. Right. Alleged. Jason. That was my question was. This is something of a mystery of who. Yeah, who gets, who gets the order of enforcement, who gets the cease and desist order? Cause we don't really know. Right. Who did the violation. Right. Well, there, there is some witness testimony, which would suggest, uh, that it was in fact the folks on the frontage, but, um, Just leave it. Yeah. So there are people that are. That have visibility to this and can see what's happening. And so if there's continued activity, then presumably some further, like trespass action. Enforcement might take place. Okay. I mean, I'm just worried that we don't see what's going on back there. And who knows what'll happen next, but, um, I'm glad people have their eyes out. Me too. Okay. Um, so you're just giving us a. An FYI on that one essentially. Yes. And I'll keep you posted the, um, The landowner was going to also contact the owners and have a conversation with them. So I'll, it'll be an ongoing dialogue. And I'll keep you posted. Thanks. Okay. Um, unless there's any more questions, it looks like we have a request for a minor administrative change for MS Emerson court. Yeah. And this one is not, I don't even think, honestly, you guys need to approve this. It's more of just an FYI. Um, And I'm trying to remember, I think it was Jason who was out on Emerson court with me. Um, So there was a couple head walls for the discharge points on the stormwater systems. Um, one of them was a. Um, A head wall had collapsed into the stream and they had priced out. Basically repairing, replacing the head wall. Um, And it was extremely expensive to replace. So they asked to replace it with a, um, Sorry. Um, Um, With a flared end. So a pipe that has sort of a, um, Level spreader on the, on the bottom of it, which I have no problem with that substitution. Um, Bucky sent me the specs for it. Um, And I think it will be just fine, but I wanted to just make you aware that there was that minor change to the permit so that it wasn't like I was just approving it on the side. Um, in case anybody has any issues with it. I'm good with that. Anyone else? Okay. Okay. Do we need to discuss monitoring reports or should I go to public comment? And that's a cue for the public comment room to raise your hands, please. If you have anything to say today. Okay. I'll give it five. So I guess we're getting more rain on. Thursday. Did hear that. Is it a significant amount? Is it? At least it's a little more thought than the flooding condition that I had on Saturday. Not good. No. Did anybody else have basement flooding or. Not my basement just like I felt a lot. It was like a river was coming by my house and. We were bailing with buckets to keep it out of the house. It was crazy. Unprecedented. Um, like frozen ground, four inches of rain, call the Amherst fire department. And, uh, We're going to be doing some draining work tomorrow, I guess. Okay. I don't see any. Sorry. So, um, Speaking of flooding, the four river has been flooding. Down by Hickory. And, um, We're going to be doing some draining work tomorrow. Like a Pinsky wrote a letter to. Uh, a whole lot of people. Including Dave. And I think Aaron got a copy and have to check. But he specifically asked if he would, if Dave would, uh, Send the letter out to the commission. I haven't seen it. I've seen the letter, but I didn't haven't seen it coming from Dave. I don't know. I don't know. I don't have a date in front of me. But I don't know. I've been sent out by the commission. I've been sent out since I think October. And none of those have been sent to the commission. And I'm wondering why. Um, so I'm copied on those. Those were. Those were actually addressed to Dave. Am I incorrect on that? Ah, there's three of them. One went to Lynn Grisner. President of the council. And one just went. Um, know they don't have the date in front of me but I know when I read it it's all about flooding at Hickory Ridge and on the bottom he asked that it be sent out to the Commission and I even maybe Dave hasn't had time to do that but Dave hasn't sent out any of the previous letters either and I'm wondering why. So I did include the Lynn Greesmer email in a packet but I confess that I did not forward the email the latest email from Mike Lipinski and there were previous there have been many emails from Mike about the flooding sort of updating us on the you know flooding because he monitors out there quite a bit and I apologize if I've been negligent in forwarding those along they were I believe most of them were addressed to Dave and then Dave responded accordingly so I didn't necessarily know if it was appropriate for me to forward them on or not but since you've specifically requested I will absolutely forward that along to you guys so that you can see it and if anyone's interested in the previous correspondence I can track those down and put them in the packet too so you can see sort of the historic dialogue. Interesting response too but one of the things that Dave pointed out I mean Mike pointed out is progress we haven't been making much progress on alternative access for fire trucks and you know he pointed that out I think in October don't mark me on I might be off by a month but long time ago yeah and we've had we've had discussions about Hickory Ridge but we don't give very many updates about increasing access. Yeah so I can give you an access an update based on what I know on access myself Dave and Jeff Olmstead and Chris Baskham and there was another gentleman from the fire department and I'm blanking on his name but we met with managers the property managers for Mill Valley Apartments I believe it was last week and we had a discussion with them and we walked the site so there is stuff going on behind the scenes and we're working with them to try to come up with an emergency access but it's you know there's a lot of parties involved in the discussion and it requires access through private landowner access point so we're trying to be respectful of making sure that they're communicated with before we sort of announce it publicly and also that they are okay with what's being proposed so but once we get to that point we'll definitely be giving you more updates on where things stand and what the plan is moving forward. Yeah I'd appreciate it if Dave has news about Hickory Ridge if he would include it in his director's report in the beginning of the meeting. Okay. I think excuse me I think Mike commented in that letter that Pierce Guy's planning to use the same batteries so I think Mike is in communication with those folks pretty I don't know how he gets his information but I think he communicates directly with them and I think they communicate with them but so access is going to be it's pretty important if they're going to come back to us sometime soon with the fire department's okay because access will be a stumbling block. So okay it sounds like a complicated kind of right-of-way easement situation which is time. Okay thanks Alex for bringing that up. Alright I don't see any public hands so I think we're good to go. Any would have been like to adjourn. Before we go I have an action item to fix the error in my write-up about the 20% threshold I will do that promptly probably not tonight but I'll do it tomorrow morning and should I send that out to the entire board send it to Erin for her to distribute what you want. My suggestion is that you send it to Erin and then she can distribute it and maybe Erin you could just give it a very cursory look just to make sure there's nothing I don't know you could catch something like that perhaps but then send it out to us not necessarily with packets but just you know as it comes so we have plenty of time to look at it okay thank you. All right thanks Alex. I'd appreciate if you'd send it out directly instead of burying it in a packet. Okay. Thank you. Okay we've got homework and we move that we adjourn. Second. Alex on the motion, Andre on the second Bruce. Hi. Jason. Hi. Andre. Hi. Alex. Hi and then we're closing at 838. And I'm an eye. Yeah all right good night everybody. Good night everybody.