 Hey Ellen. Hey, Chris. How's it going? Good. Good to hear you. Hey, hey, save me here. Yeah, let me get this thing going here So far you're the only person in Like to be early yeah exactly one minute early perfect I Was just actually going over my little PowerPoint here. Nice. I just want to give you heads up We are live and being recorded. All right, perfect. Hi Hey They generally make these recordings available the last the Friday of the week they are filmed so they would become public at that point, okay, I Had invited a lot of my colleagues tonight and Everyone had somewhere to go at this point. It might be some guys popping in there's a lot of different meetings going on right now So, okay. Hello, Ellen. Hello, Chris. Hi there Hopefully people are coming in soon Chris. That's Henry Lappin chair of the Shaitree committee. Do you remember nice to virtually meet you sir? Yeah, thank you, too Oops, I didn't want to do that. I asked everyone to show up on time, but they're not that good with that So hopefully they will get her soon Alan thanks for the wood chip attempt Yeah, sorry about that. He just I told him where to go. He's like, okay, and he started driving and He's on autopilot and just dumped him at Ruckston. So yeah one's coming in. I don't know why they don't get the the official link but Yeah, Sarah got it. Well, we have a quorum Wait one more minute and then we'll start Helen or Britt either of you want to be the note taker. I did last month. Okay We did do it great because Bennett. He may show up late, but he may probably won't be here. Yeah, I can do it Thank you. Okay. Good Do you have the um? Well, you can just send to me. I'll put it on we have to do it on official town. Let her head when I submitted but Yeah, good. All right, let's start but I just want to make sure we announce that the This is a meeting is going to be recorded and then we're live right now. So it'll be recorded and available Friday afternoon for a public viewing Okay, good. Um So Let's see. I'll get the agenda up here. I'll share that Yeah actually Sarah I'm gonna make you co-host and you can share the agenda. Can you do that? Yeah, I think so Okay, then I can keep watch on the attendance. We can do it either way, but I don't think I can make you co-host All right, why don't you try to share the agenda? I'll I just um made Sarah calls. Okay, great So you share the agenda and then just look at one thing anybody's emailing trying to get in So back to zoom All right, welcome everyone we have Chris Hayward from ever so us here and It's customary when we have visitors who usually start off with that. So let's go right to that Great Thank you very much. Uh, we met quickly back I said April maybe of last year on this past year And I've been away from talking with Amherst because we've been really busy and trying to go through the MEPA process for our WTO to Transmission right-of-way reliability project, which is out in the Lanesboro and Cheshire and those towns areas in MEPA is They require a lot of permitting from us So we've been kind of really busy with that and now we're we've submitted our draft environmental impact report to those folks With the work that's going to need to be done So they're reviewing that so now we're focusing our efforts a little bit more over here on what we call the right-of-way is WT 11 Which goes through Granby and Irving and there's a little bit of Amherst and the reason why I'm contacting you and Want to meet with the folks in Amherst is because MEPA has an environmental justice portion of their Requirements, so if we're going to be doing any kind of Threshold Types of projects and this one would be that where the amount of land that we'll be working with We have to make sure that we reach out to the communities and outreach to explain to the community, especially if it's Income or ethnicity or things where maybe those people might have just been forgotten They might not have had an opportunity to have gotten public notice or whatever So I'm here speaking with you because I want to go right straight up to the the folks in Amherst that care about the trees The most and then bring it down right through everyone. I want to try to meet as many people as I possibly can So I have a little PowerPoint presentation I don't know if if I can share my screen and I could just quickly go through some of our diagrams and Sure. Yeah, Sarah. Why don't you stop sharing and see what happens with that? Let me see if I can do that. Oh, here I go I Got things bouncing all right. It's not going the right screen Let's see, you know Bear with me one minute here. I think that it it's not allowing me to go through my computer Okay, yeah, I'm gonna make a co-host that might make it Simple it popped up sharing screen and then that went away Try it again. Let's see Just jumps right through the screen not working Hummer All right, well, I Can forward this to you. You can definitely take a look at it on your own. I have no problem with that I'll I'll email it to Alan get it to him so you can take a look at it Now Chris what's that if you emailed it now Alan could share. Yeah, let me see. Yeah, maybe he can share it Let me keep talking, you know. Yeah, let me see if I can do that Hopefully it's not so incredibly huge that I can do that. All right While we're doing this with some gather hours Yeah, yeah, yeah, if you guys have some other business here while I'm having this technical difficulty I appreciate that Brit. I Gotta think about it here. Let's say five hours Okay, Ellen, um, maybe three Okay, Sarah do do and Julian Probably about me Okay, and I'm probably at yeah about eight for this month and Who's disappeared? Alan disappeared so that's all we have so far Bennett and Shoshana, okay, and um, do we approve the minutes from last month? Everyone's looked at them. I assume. Yeah thumbs up. I'm Yeah Okay, so we approve the minutes. That's good Alan's not here yet, so it probably means that Listening you just get serious. Yeah. Yeah, we'll wait till I'll move forward with the agenda And I'm I think I can share my screen now I just got the thing to pop up my camera is working a little sideways here, but I think I can do this Let's see if this will work This should be my Back to Can everyone see that yes, yeah, so it's not blown up as well as it should be but as long as everyone can see it we cannot Kind of get into this so just my little tile page here and then I didn't really have an agenda This is what we so this is the same PowerPoint presentation that we submitted to well we presented to the MEPA officials back earlier this year for Wt-11 or right of way 11 as you'll see in that third line there Wt just means Western transmission. It's just an in-house Way of speaking And so TRRP is you're gonna be hearing that a little bit That's our transmission right of way reliability program and this is an overview So the anticipated benefits I want to talk a little bit about that The actual project overview some of the impacts the MEPA thresholds the permits required, which are numerous agency interaction and mitigation And then the expanded outreach opportunities and for people to participate and then schedule Now the schedule is going to be a little bit off because we haven't pushed off a little bit So I can just tell you that we're probably not expecting any of this work To be at least officially permitted till I'd say at least a year from now anyway So we get right into it. So why is this work needed? Well So we are governed by the federal energy regulation commission FERC They're called And they require all the utilities To be as reliable as possible with no outages They don't tell us how to go about doing that But they say that if you have more than enough outages and you're not as reliable as you're supposed to be you can be fine So ever source has taken it upon themselves to look at all the problems we have now is aging infrastructure is definitely one So we're working on that But some in some areas along the transmission lines. We haven't really been as Responsible with the maintenance over the years and that's mostly because There used to be other companies. You might know the electric companies that were out in western mass a little bit better than me But we used to have a columbia gas and electric here in eastern part of the state and National grid comes in and ever source comes in and they buy up little Companies that aren't doing as well and then we take our plan and put it into action so that we do have that reliability response So transmission with reliability is a long-term transmission system reliability resiliency program to address more frequent severe weather events which In the last five ten years some of our storms are coming in they may not be as long in duration But they're much more powerful. We're getting straight line winds We're getting terms like derachos and things like that that are coming through That are really starting to affect some of our transmission areas this trrp program was Being conducted in the eastern part of the state Really about the last 10 15 years and we've seen a lot more reliability in this part of the state what we're seeing a little bit some of the larger White pimes that are getting up over a hundred feet and within a Short little, you know, not a very wide right away and they're very shallow rooted trees are starting to cause problems here So what we do is we expand the current maintain width of the right of the way to the easement extent or be Or the furthest out would be a hundred from hundred feet from the outside conductor So let's see. We're going to go to the next bit. So these are the conductor. You can see my cursor Anyone hear me here? I think we can see the cursor. You can't see my cursor need to um forward the slide Or if you if you present if you click on present then they'll be bigger and then you can go through the slides Oh, wait a minute. I got this too I'm looking for present here. It's like not giving me the option Um, what is this? If you click where it says from from beginning on the upper left That might do it I'm not even getting that. I have show taskbar. Maybe I'll try that It has a bunch of little um, can you see this? Uh, they just gave me an opportunity to Show like a laser pointer. Can you see that? It's like a little red dot going up and down. Oh No, it's it's still on your title page. Oh it is. Yeah Oh Maybe I'll try oh some are I'm looking at two different screens here Can you see my I can see your cursor now now we can see Okay, so this is what all right, so I was just reading this to you from I have two screens playing out right now Sorry for the technological uh failures on my part here. All right. Can you see this map? This is our Okay You see my cursor now. Yes. So these would be the conductors So what we're looking for typically what has been done in the past is we would just go down 35 feet And just keeping trees clear of these Over the years we've let species like white oak and red oak and white pine and trees that can get up to 125 And especially with the speed of white pine growing they can get up to 125 140 feet especially in these You know outlying rural areas that most of our rights away go through So we had to bump it out a little bit further, but we're still finding that some of these trees can still fall into the wire zone So we're we've decided that now we've got to go even further out to the edge of the easement Which isn't something that we really want to do it's a very expensive process and a very long permitting process But it's for reliability and because this isn't electricity like out in front of your home on distribution um This is if a tree hits a transfer transmission line, we're not just talking about a neighborhood out We're talking about potentially a whole region and it could lead to an even potential state Because of shutdown processes because it's so dangerous. There's so much power going through these lines So that's what we're looking at there. I'm gonna move along here So some of our anticipated benefits One of the things that we don't see a lot along these rights of ways are any kind of Well, you see the picture of the bees first. Let me go by this so you can we can fall along together So we have increased reliability in climate resiliency because of these these storms coming in Reduces a whole bunch of number risks and falls We expand and sustainably manage our early successional habitat One of the things that's happening here is especially out in the western part of the state right now Is you're not seeing a lot of low growth. You're not seeing a lot of the scrub shrub area. You're just seeing forest And we're noticing especially out here in the eastern part of the state that when we're taking away some of these trees We're encouraging low growth to come back in for our pollinators for our wildlife It allows for better habitat allows for better feeding for A lot of the critters that are looking You know for places to go and forage And so it actually we're finding it it's it's Very beneficial to our flora and fauna for our state instead of just that forest habitat Um, it reduces potential entries into the right of way and disturbances sensitive resources We just recently did a bat survey out on the wto2 out in Cheshire and Windsor and those towns We were looking for the northern uh long-eared bat And we were able to find uh some of these bat species But we've been able to find them a little bit more in other rites of ways Where we've done this uh type of work Because we've allowed that you know the insects to repopulate we've allowed some of the Pollinators to repopulate which then in turn builds the cycle mosquitoes come around the bats enjoy their food um, so we found that um this project actually has benefits that most people don't really see right away because You during you talk about cutting down a tree Nobody wants to hear about that and and for reference I know allen very well I'm uh a former tree warden for the city of quincy massachusetts in the town of water town Certified average arborist in massachusetts through the mass arborist association So i've been doing this now for about uh 17 years and and i used to be the biggest thorn in ever sources side And they would come through water town. I wouldn't let them even look cross-eyed at a tree I would make sure we had a Specific plan in place and then two years ago. They recruited me which i thought was you know keep your enemies closer, right? Now i'm in the company and i'm telling them that you know, we really need to get out We need to talk to people about we're going to cut down multiples of trees. We have to tell them What are the benefits here? So that's how that last slide came into play Chris yes Um, how do you keep um invasive species out when you're clearing the trees? It's nice to have bushes and shrubs come in but how do you avoid the Invasives so we go through that uh, that's later on in the process when we come back On our regular cycles. We have herbicide treatment We have other treatments that come through we have uh guys on the ground that'll like be clipping and sniffing roost Unfortunately These rights away are disturbed areas with the trucks going through and then you know a lot of um A lot of recreational activities people with motorcycles or ietv So the soil is getting disturbed to begin with so we're going to try to stay up on as best we can for sure That's it's it's a very difficult process an expensive process, but we're very aware of it um We're looking more to Enhanced some of the species that we've lost because of the overgrowth of invasives So if we clear these areas and hope that you know, there's an old seed bank of different types of material Um, we are very aware. We work very through this whole meeper process. We have to work with natural heritage so we're looking at different types of um You know if it's plants, you know threatened species or in the wildlife We have to be very aware of what we're looking at So that we're not doing more damage to the environment Hopefully that answered your question and if not I can get you more information on that Um This is so out in the western part of the state most of our work is largely passing through rural areas So as you're driving around out your western part of the state and I've been able to spend so much more time out there this year Boy, I I love it out there It's so awesome compared to boston and brain tree and Where it's it's hard to find a quiet place, but this is where we're going to be going through just this is just an example This is up in the town of wendell Some of these pictures are just showing like we have like little rivers that we have to cross over So we'll be talking with conservation commissions in all communities Um, I don't have a legend up on this this right here It's a lot of this stuff will be becoming more clear as we're going I didn't want to get too detailed on some of these maps, especially this is just uh, and A figure showing why we're coming through and some of these lines Reference where the ej of income level comes into play ej again environmental justice So the state is recognizing that there are certain areas in the part of the wendell and monogu that are under uh, the normal income rates and at those people we don't want to Just come in in there and do work and then have them think that we didn't explain to them because of their situation and it's the same with ethnic neighborhoods I understand that Through mep of that amherst is at least 10 percent has a chinese population And that's the trigger for us to be talking with folks in amherst. We have a translator business that we work with So we'll be coming through and we get into those neighborhoods and talking to people using the appropriate language Here's a picture of amherst so you can start to see like you know these wires if you can see my cursor I know these pictures are small. I apologize for that You can see these wires. We're getting these white pines that are within absolute falling distance So those are the trees that we're going to be looking to take out The bigger taller trees clearing the area of of any of those saplings that are white pine So we don't have to wait another 20 years before they get too big and take them out again And encourage that low growth forest on the outside. So this is looking from That's a structure. I don't know the number itself, but you folks might know this better. This would be bay road So I haven't been able to walk this easement yet because we've been so busy out in the other part of the state So this is uh, what we'd be looking to take out to the outer edges of the easement Moving on to our next slide. So now when we talk about mepa review and thresholds and project impacts and permits So a mepa review threshold for this is if you're going to be directory direct directly altering land 50 acres greater than 50 acres Then we need to have certain types of Permit regulations sent in So this would be an e and f would be an environmental notification form An eir is an environmental impact report So we've already submitted Uh, in that's an environmental the e is Sorry, it's been a long time since I did that. I used to be a in a um I used to be a whetless scientist for an engineering company I think that's executive environmental notification form. It's a much smaller form Uh And then there there are different levels and mepa will come back and tell you what level of Uh reporting they're going to need based on what we're giving them for numbers So We've revised these numbers. We're not exactly 100 percent certain. We're still doing lidar flyovers for wt 11. We're still analyzing some of the areas We're going to need to take down Some trees we're we're looking at different wetland areas where we're not allowed to take down trees We're looking at rare species that we don't want to disturb those areas So our numbers here, this is what we gave them last year But these numbers are being tweaked as we speak So temporary construction for mats for you know working in wetland area. We'd be Disturbing about eight and a half acres Permetry clearing about three hundred and seventy acres Uh, and then we go into wetlands areas um literally bordering vans bordering vegetated wetlands Uh eight acres of bordering vegetated wetland So here are some numbers and in different permits we have to go through so wetlands protection at 401 quality cert uh clean water act Massachusetts and dangerous species act so We're being held to all these permitting processes. We're talking with all these agencies where um, we're very cognizant of the fact that you know We're going to be going out into areas that haven't been disturbed in a long time but they've become What dangerous or risks to our um electrical system? Uh, so we've already these are some of the interactions. We've already taken place We've already contacted D.P. They're aware that we're going to be coming through. We're they're uh with different types of uh permitting regulations I had a meeting um With the town of amherst back I think that would have probably been about february and it wasn't for this project But I had sent some information to the town uh administrator and uh selectman to make sure that um They understand what we were going to be talking about that we were going to be coming in and talking uh and making sure that nobody's uh left out for many information um when I I was the last person to speak in that meeting. We had a pretty big team of ever sourced there Uh, I addressed the town manager and said, you know, this is what we're doing. He goes Thank you very much for applying and our you know, senator sensed information You're going to be dealing with our conservation commission. We can't wait to see that so So we know and and i'm the chair of the brain tree conservation commission. I know what it's like To go before conservation commissions and and uh and being on a conservation commission expecting uh good information when it's coming through so Um, so we'll be reaching out to the municipal conservation commissions all local conservation commissions have been contacted already um In fact, some of the conservation commissions, especially in the town of wendell, even though we don't actually own any property or have any type of rights of way in wendell Our buffer zone in the state Uh through meeper process has a one mile buffer zone off the middle of that y at that right away So when we go into communities that we don't have property, but we are in the buffer zone We still have to notify So, uh, the wendell conservation commission alerted some of its butters and neighbors and And they reached out to us early in the process very early in the process Well, we didn't really have all of our numbers in place like still today Now we're still working on that. I have um, I'm asked some of butters Direct contact information. So i'm speaking with these folks and trying to keep them up to date with what's going on Have no problem doing that We've already reached out and talked to a natural heritage and endangered species program So we are doing our our bat surveys our box turtle surveys. We did some of those in the summertime. We'll be doing them again When the spring months come around We've had to go through the mass historical commission. We have a group An outside consultant that works for us Because some of these areas are considered historical architectural sites or archaeological sites And we can't do any type of work that would disturb anything like that. So we're involved with them So we have different consultants that work with ever source And our project managers reach out to those folks on a pretty regular basis Moving on to the next slide As far as mitigation goes So we're always using our best management practices to avoid and minimize impacts, especially in wetlands You know, again, I was a wetland scientist for a number of years and You've seen construction projects go so wrong create So much damage that creates, you know, flooding situations or or killed wetlands. So we are very aware of best managing practices Trying to make sure that everything that's done out in the field is done correctly Leave the site as you almost never even saw it. So We solicit feedback from DEP all the time conservation commissions And local environmental land trusts. We're working with the dcr in some communities To talk about going we're going through public parks in some areas We look for land preservation opportunities. So in some cases We've had conservation commissions say will allow you to do this work But that wetland area right there isn't owned by or it's owned by ever source We'd like to see you put a conservation restriction on that property so that no structures are put in there Going forward so that you're going to remove the trees. We understand But that that you're going to take away that hazard, but you're not going to You know further industrialize this right of way. So we do that in some cases If there are other areas that have been damaged in the past we try to come in and you know Mitigate that damage, but maybe there's something else, you know, again recreational vehicles atv is going off site Maybe we can put in You know some trees in that area so that we're not going to be Encouraging that type of behavior along wetland areas riverfront area conversion If it's been converted in the past, um, I know a lot of times out here in the Eastern part of the state we see river banks that you know back in the day used to be like landfills or whatever So we we see that figure out a way to mitigate that make it a much more healthy kind of environment with rare species Since I've been working with ever source. I've been amazed that The training that we put our contractors through we hire wetland Scientists we hire wildlife biologists to come out and explain the contractors before they get into a project You know the things to be looking for We we show the mapping areas where these are areas where we're going to find certain types of plants That we don't want you stepping on we don't want you're putting a mat down We don't want you crushing things like that We have time of year restrictions. We have rare plant surveys and and how to avoid those rare plants How can we enhance these habitats to make them even better? Uh, then they currently are that may go them back to what they used to be in historically And then many mitigation measures are developed in consultation with the natural heritage and Endangered species act Moving on to the next slide here. So just some of the dates that we've already done Um These are the cbo. It's um Oh gosh, I bet you every one of you know that cbo better than I do I know it's right there. I've you know one working in the corporate business They're uh initials and anagrams for everything When I was at shree ward in quincy, we didn't have anything like that. Uh, but it's basically it's collective um It's like landowners and landowners and municipalities that really need to be initially contacted too So we we already started this back in 2022 before I even worked for the company Um, we had some pop-up events and we were told that we didn't really get into the good areas Where people people really didn't show up. Unfortunately So when we go to do that this coming year, I'm really looking to you know lean on folks like alan um other community members Like where would be a good place to really reach out to folks that they can understand what we're going We could have a lot of questions. We can have a lot of dialogue Uh, so that everybody's on board of what we're doing Uh, we submitted that's what expanded environmental notification forum. We submitted that back in 2022 Mepa is requiring more from us because of the project uh in the extent of the project. So that's What we're getting working on now uh notice some project was put in the environmental monitor, which is a A monitor that the public can look at that Mepa's These different types of reports you're looking at you can go right through the Mepa's website to see that environmental monitor If you're not aware of that prior So a lot of the stuff we did last year We had a virtual public meeting with Mepa back in july of 2022 We had in person in person public site visit back in july of 2022 We we went to wendell we met with a bunch of residents uh in wendell and pelham belcher town And then uh in amherst We submitted our supplemental Expanded environmentally uh back in um august 5th We had public comments that were due in august 22nd There was a little bit of a protest that took place out in our Hadley substation and it was because of um Some of the public that hadn't heard about this you know back going into march had heard about it in august And didn't understand what was going on. They were very upset. So there was a little protest We've talked with city officials town officials government officials local representatives That we're not pulling the wool over anybody's eyes. We're trying to do this the right way Everybody's going to be informed Mepa was going to issue this certificate I'm not officially sure if it has been submitted And these are we're we're either going to be required to do a single eir or a draft eir Draft meaning that it's worked on between us and mepa and as well as communities People have a lot of uh better opportunity to come in and comment So all this is starting to take place now again a lot of these dates We tried to get wt 11 off the ground a little quicker than wt o2 Didn't quite work that way. So These are very involved projects not so easy to be running side by side with the amount of staff that we have So we're just kind of focusing on one and then taking it to the next one So a lot of this stuff is going to be uh redone actually And then we have uh, we have a community uh relation specialist out in the amherst area Mike kane I work with a lot if I had meet him remove him earlier Um, he works with your town administrator law. He works with your town government a lot Just to make sure that everybody's on board knows what we're talking about We have um consulting firms that work with us. This is uh swca is our consulting firm She's our environmental purving representative We have an environmental permitting in-house representative We have weekly meetings In-house to talk about where we need to put staff what we need to be enhancing what we need to be talking about And my job is the public outreach. So that's why I'm talking with you folks I wanted to make sure that you knew who I was Uh, I'm I'm hoping that going forward you'll be able to give me a little bit of assistance and putting me in the right places Um, if you want to know more information, I'm I'm definitely available to speak with you speak with anybody I'll be speaking with all the communities that are involved that Have any kind of question or concern whether they're environmental justice or not I don't mind talking with anybody because I'm pretty passionate about the environment and trees and wetlands and protecting as much as we can um I was never a guy that thought, you know cutting down trees to save some wires Uh was a good idea until I saw I saw my first tree fire Uh, and then all of a sudden you have a different perspective on the danger involved and I've never seen one through transmission which um You know if you ever walk through these little rites away in the summertime and you just hear the wires cracking above you it's it's a pretty It's pretty creepy feeling but people are relying on this power and we need to get this power people and um This is one of the projects we think is going to be able to help us stay as reliable as possible and provide benefits as well going forward so I'll stop sharing my screen and hopefully be able to say we go and take any questions that anybody would like to have And we'll be back over here so I can see it. No, it's not going to argue that I have to take a quick call. So um someone else concerned asking questions Sure. Um, thanks, Henry. Uh, I really appreciate your presentation. That was really in depth. Um So my I guess two questions unless someone else wants to go first uh first question is if a If like on bay road, for example in amherst our Uh, large transmission lines intersect with the public way and there's some trees on the edges of them um Would that still have to go through the same process? um through the committee through the tree warden to get uh those trees removed or would that be uh That would that be granted um given that it's within the transmission line right away It would still have to go through the same process That we include all the trees that we're going to be uh, and I'm sorry. I'm looking away my camera's looking at me And um my screen's showing me so I can see you. Um We're still going to be going through the same process. So we're counting all the different types of trees We're going to be separating out the trees that are in uh buffer zone to wetlands Trees that are in wetlands trees that are in uh protected areas. So we're going to be able to break all that out If there's a tree along the right of way That's on the public way that is in that is a tree subject to failure and could fall on acquires Right coming out, but everybody would know we would be considering that Right, absolutely. Thank you. And my other question was uh Like there's a lot of hiking trails biking trails snowmobile atv, etc um That aren't allowed in some areas, but in other areas there are more of a community resource um what would be done to keep or protect those um After or while the trees are being removed So it would just be a temporary basis when the trees are being removed. We just don't want people Right. Yeah removed. Yep. Um, and then after that those Most of those paths and trails if they're accepted right now and people use them and there's not a problem I no problem at all. They'll study anyone that you know if we know there's uh, you know One thing natural heritage doesn't like to do is advertise where the protected species are Everyone wants to go out and find them Pick them Or take pictures of them So they don't even tell us exactly where they are. They give us a roundabout kind of like Going on a map Saying just watch out in this area. These are the things to look for this type of firm this type of plant This type of critter So if we know about those areas, we're not going to encourage any kind of trail blazons Perfect. All right. Thank you so much. Sure Can I see her back? Uh, does anyone else have questions? I have a couple but anyone else want to go first? No, okay. I have two questions. One is um, what happens to the biomass that gets removed along the Do you leave it in sight to break down or? So one of the some of the things that we've been talking about with other communities are, um We're for example, Lanesboro in Hinsdale. We're working with those communities to save firewood and bring it to a place that Community members could use it for free So we take the firewood and bring it to those uh areas and then you could come and get firewood We're not trying to leave a lot of slash. We're not trying to leave anything like that If anything we would ship it The smaller stuff the brush and just ship that it back into the into the environment But we're we're looking for firewood locations in most communities in Lanesboro was interesting um We found that in Lanesboro the people that want to talk to us the most were I would say mostly getting into their senior years and they've said firewood I'm not splitting firewood anymore. Now I have like propane. I've been able to take care of myself like that How can you get me a discount rate on propane? I'm like we're not in the propane business But firewood's still here. It's still available for you um So we're trying to do that because we don't want to just leave it out You know and that just kind of litters up the area and It's nice to leave some in certain locations for habitat and things like that but Uh a lot of the stuff which we're certainly going to try to have as firewood And then my other question is um, what about street trees when you're crossing roads and things like that So that would um, if it's uh within the 20 foot 20 feet of the right away that would go right back to alan If that's considered a street tree if it's a public shade tree it would go right back to alan In most cases a lot of these trees aren't really going to be considered that um You know, but I would be talking with alan about that. We could definitely uh point those trees out if we came to something like that Okay, thank you. Yeah Anyone else No All right. Well, thank you so much chris Thank you. So i'll be in touch and uh through alan and uh, if you ever want to reach out to me Have any questions about what's ever source doing here or anything? I I do work with project services and I do work with vegetation management So i'm kind of like a liaison between the two So if you ever want to uh reach out, uh alan has my contact information I'd be more than happy to speak with you and try to put you in the right place Great. Thank you so much and you want chris You want to say for the rest of our meeting if you want. Thank you very much for your time I actually have another meeting to rush off to Uh, I don't know what's going on. I thought around the holiday time everybody started to get a little bit slower No, no, not tonight. That's enough. So off to another town meeting Okay, thank you so much. Yeah appreciate your time. Thank you alan You're welcome All right, sarah want to share the agenda again Anybody have any more comments about what we just heard before we go on? Was that more just for our own knowledge? I wasn't sure if there was any action items or anything we were supposed to do with that presentation um, I'll try to answer that the uh, the intent of this was to begin the process of notifying the residents of amherst Of the work they're proposing to do along the right of way. So this is the first of many Um, he has to go in front of felt to go in front of the conservation commission, you know, um, a bunch of other Orids or committees in town so There's no action items here other than we want to Make sure that we let people know what's going on. You know, you can um You know reference the uh presentation in the newsletter or something like that to So that if we publicize on social media something they could watch the presentation on social media right Yeah, I would just share that You know my my response um Is that I you know, I understand the need to have reliable Power of course and the the risks that he outlined are not insignificant, but it is disheartening to Hear that large trees in particular need to be targeted Um for removal and I had a student this semester. I think she's a forestry graduate student who did a paper um kind of doing an inventory of carbon sequestration in trees by size and she found that in new england and in massachusetts in particular I forget what the diameter was but it was something like, you know Of trees over 60 inches, you know, the number of trees is not that significant But the amount of carbon that they are storing is very significant. And so, you know, I think that is something For all of us to keep in mind and think about like, how do we Protect large trees, you know, even in the face of some things that are necessary In terms of, you know, protecting power reliability and such but, you know, that's that's my response Yeah, that's good good response. Um Not sure where we go with that exactly. It's not in our purview, but Maybe as we talk to other groups and other people we we think about that Anybody else? No, okay. Let's back to the regular scheduled agenda Um chair's report Um got a bunch of little things to talk about One is john root, uh, who's you probably know, he's come to some of our meetings in workdays But he's really big in pollinators and he met with The principal of fort rufus school. I was supposed to join them, but it was a glitch and I missed that Um Because he's wants to do a pollinator garden. He wants us to plant trees there So I said we'd certainly be willing to plant trees Either when construction's done of the new school or if it's way out of the way of any of the construction so Wait to hear from that more on that Um, I drove by the brook where we did that planting and I found there were eight trees that were still alive that we planted Which is about half That's not terrible considering but all of them had been hit by lawnmowers and uh I want to go back late spring summer and see how many of those actually really aren't alive, but we're still standing so When was that planting? Two years ago, maybe Yeah, none of them were thrive. Well one tree was thriving the rest none of them were thriving. So um Yeah, it's a problem as allen's mentioned when you do private plantings and developments with The people that do the landscaping they're not going to take care of them. So Yeah Oh, let's see what else uh Oh, the ash tree led it to the editor. I did not do anything on that, but I will try to do that We talked about You know, uh gilford mooring suggested we advertise what's happening with ash trees around the town So I'll try to work on that soon um Oh, I met with uh the woman from the historical society and uh We're not going to do a whole program on this old tree the this old tree podcast But uh, she recorded a short that will be played on the hopefully will be played on the um, he does It's a um, it's a podcast about old trees and history of old trees and the history of human interaction with old trees and uh Sometimes he does complete podcasts on one tree, but then he has shorts and so Hopefully the bride and groom tree are going to be on the next short Excuse me um Looks like uh bennett wrote that letter to um the editor for um thanking Sugarloaf nurseries did everyone read that and um We should just let him know whether there's any changes to make before he sends that out I thought it was fine as it is Yes, Britt, I had a question. Is there any? I mean, maybe maybe the town is already aware of this, you know town leaders, but is there any downside to advertising? significant donations, you know to the point where they might say well, you don't you don't need A $40,000 planting budget, you know, if you're getting x amount of trees in kind every year or or do we think that's not an issue I don't foresee that being an issue at this point in time. Okay, great If we get a hundred thousand dollars will uh, we'll even offer to give back to 40 000 that year, but Yeah, good thought um Yeah, so um Did anyone send a thank you note? I think that would maybe fall to you sarah to sugarloaf nurseries or maybe like I think shashona was the one who had them from Before were there postcards that we that were printed or something? Okay, I'll I'll check in with her Yeah I'm also working on a letter from the town um Okay for them, but they um, I just need a little more information from them actually on um Probably donated so I just have to get any answer to that and I'll get that letter off Yeah, um one thing that came up in the minutes. I noticed was that we didn't know the names of the visitors first and last name so And um at least sophie who's been to the meeting said she would take on a project and I have no way to reach her so You might but we need to get um first last names and contact people contact info for people when they come to our meetings That should be in the minutes at least not necessarily the email address but the the name and first and last name should be in the minutes So let's make sure we get that in the future or any member of the public who attends the meetings Yeah, I think so. I mean if they say that I want that but uh They're public meetings. So I don't know anyone have any other thoughts about that But certainly for us to reach back out. It's important to know that um I've been to other meetings where uh, if you're a Public speaker or part of the uh general comment. Uh, you're required to say your first last name and your address So, um, I think there's definitely precedent for having people give more identifiers for themselves in public comment Yeah, the the first the early meetings that I came to for this committee before I was a member Whenever I said anything I had to say my first and last name and my address. So I think we have even done that Okay, I don't see the need for address but certainly first and last name um Yeah And maybe offline we can get their contact information So get them on our mailing list things like that. Um, all right, so let's keep that in mind for the future. Um This whole tree full of flowers Oh number of trees. Um, did anyone allen did you figure that out how many trees we planted last year? I haven't yet. I need to do that. Um, as part of my yearly report. So I need to lock myself in my office and start creating end of year reports And I'll send you the hours after I updated with today's hours. So for the year good, um The arbor day lecture. I'm not sure is that on the agenda No, it's not. So did you reach out to Doug Ptolemy or anyone? The lecture for next arbor day I've got Okay, do you want us to do that? Does anybody know him personally? I'll start my plan was to start working on that. Um after the new year Okay, good Yeah, I just didn't want to lose that detail Um, and that's all I have so turn it over to julian vice chair Yeah, sure. Um, I really just had two things. Uh, first one was I had a few folks ask me about why There was a little tree by like prairie street and triangle street right outside The high school that was cut down and I was just curious why it was removed. Um And then my other Uh thing to note was just that In to what you had said had said henry In the past the town keeps a record for like the past three four years of all the trees at plant So it might be interesting to do an analysis of that and see like are we going down up? Sort of like what's the general trend line there? Um, that might be an interesting thing to look into Like can answer your first question. Um, so at the corner praying triangle, um, there was an ash tree um, and probably four years ago, maybe three years ago um ever source installed a new three phase line um down prairie street And that tree was directly underneath where they wanted to put the new three phase line. So we had a tree hearing for it and It was approved for removal at the tree hearing by myself There was a public discussion about it We never took it down And the ever source Topped it out. So they took off, you know, probably 20 feet of the tree and um installed the power lines because their project was moving faster than um We were getting the tree down So I just left it It kind of filled in that space nicely it has been pruned twice since then to prune out the water suckers Water sprouts that are growing up into the wires again It puts it was putting on about three feet of sucker growth a year Um And we were pruning the lower branches to make way for sidewalks and the street signs that would they have stop sign stuff. So the tree was becoming rather oddly shaped And it is it was an ash tree and uh, it has had I should say Emerald ash borer and I just reached a point where I couldn't prune it anymore to to um kind of keep its shape And uh, I decided to take it down. I talked to the business owner And the property owner there And let them know that I was going to be taking it down And that we'll be grinding the stump and planting some new species there that will grow into the power lines. So Because there is a three phase directly over it The uh, I believe the committee voted to oppose the removal of that tree You overrode us. So yeah, all right. I do not remember. Was I on the committee at that time or not? I'm not sure probably not. It was Some years ago. Yeah, right sounds good. Thanks Okay, anything else? Okay, allen tree warden's report. Yeah, uh, so for river school the um project is going to require the current exit at fort river school out onto southeast street To be turned into a exit and an entrance. So they're going to be widening the road, uh, the driveway That currently is there and they need to cut down a silver maple. It's a multi stem silver maple uh, 216 inch diameter Stems and uh in a 21 inch diameter stem There's also an ash tree Well further over that would probably be impacted and that would also need to be removed and that one's 24 inches in diameter And that section of southeast street is a scenic road so it will have a scenic road tree hearing, uh, which will be planned and and um held by the planning board which I will take part in And I will be asking the committee to have a site visit and to uh, you know Have a vote on your recommendations So that's uh, I'm not sure when that's going to happen again the planning board is going to make that I think they need to move rather quickly like march. They want to You know have this work done by i'm not positive on that but so the hearing will probably come up, you know January, february sometime for uh For review There's a large white pine tree on triangle streets right where mattoon Street comes out onto triangle street. It's at the Back of the ball field the baseball field There and it has um, I've been watching it very closely for many years It has been leaning Out into the road There is a fiber optic cable that has a steel support cable that you know the fiber optic cable is attached to And it has pushed that guy wire cable out probably three or four feet from where it is supposed to be and The last heavy windstorm we had The tree moved The crown moved notably from where it was so i'm going to have to take that tree down Unfortunately, but it is it has you know pulled that wire Quite a lot there's a lot of tension on that wire And it's not you know it doesn't Impact the power lines there at all it's just leaning Kind of grew underneath the power lines and leaned out over And the fiber optics cable is supporting it essentially now the root plate has lifted so Soon as Classes closed and traffic slows down on the street. I hope to get that tree down I'm going to be putting out a bid request for stump removal using some of that money We received so we had the $40,000 $20,000 for tree planting $20,000 for tree work And I was doing a inventory of stumps we have and looking at the streets and there's a Too many stumps that have been sitting for too long That are holding up locations for new trees to grow so i'm going to put those out to bid Our stump grinder has been down all summer The tractor unit that runs it has not been functioning properly it keeps Cutting out and can't back at the at the Service center now trying to try and trace down what's going on with it. So I'll be putting that out soon I think that's it As far as All right. Thank you, uh sarah the Treasures report No update Okay And social media update Julian anything uh no update here Okay, can I just say julian when you post the pictures You post them as posts not as stories because the stories disappear after 24 hours And so as a result we only have like, you know, five posts on the Instagram So I feel like it could be more engagement if we were making actual permanent posts not story photos Okay, you can do both but also do posts Because otherwise, I mean it looks like the last I haven't looked at it recently But I feel like one of the last posts was like when the Girl Scouts were planting Yeah I think we've posted since then but yeah, I I get it sounds good all right So presentations and discussions Uh We did have a source We mentioned about maybe changing the meeting time This works for me, but I'm open to other suggestions if uh, it's hard for people to get here I'm in Bennett's case, you know, just different things in life show up. I don't think it matters, but For shashana, maybe it's better if I don't know for you sarah anyone else um I work until six so I it's I'm like trying to overlap a little bit. Um But later's not better So I don't really have a good alternative to offer. Um, I think it's kind of just a difficult Difficult in general for me, so It is what it is I appreciate you making it when you can Anyone else have any thoughts about this or should we just table that? Okay, sounds like tabling is good. Okay, uh Three city oh second saturday workdays We've talked about doing one january 13th um It'd be great if the weather's like it is now, but if it's really could be quite bitter cold or Tons and tons of snow. I don't i'm not sure how that's going to work, but i'm open to it Anyone have any thoughts about that? I think we just have to wait and see what the weather is right? I guess so, yeah What what would we do like what what? I mean presumably we can't really plant No, it wouldn't be planting So just pruning either so it'd probably be mostly pruning and I don't know Alan. Do you have thoughts? Yeah, I think we'd be pruning and possibly mulching if you know mulch isn't frozen, you know, it's okay to mulch when the ground's frozen um, but uh Well the mulch I would think too What's that mulch will be frozen too? Yeah, I mean I can Try to dig into a pile and get some non frozen mulch or something like that, but again, it would depend it'd be very weather dependent All right, let's leave it on the on the calendar and we'll see what happens Yeah Um, okay, three city usa list of accomplishments. I sent that to everyone did anyone have anything to add Oh, then I'll do it. Did you encompass my edits? I didn't check it since I edited it Where did you edit it? Uh, I didn't edit it on the document. I sent you the edits via email. I believe yeah, I think I did that you did that Okay, great. Thank you. Yeah Then I do not Okay Um Town tree inventory anything new Nothing new Okay UMass interns Britt was so free one of your interns. No no No reach here because she offered to uh, do something around the environmental justice neighborhoods Reach out to landowner landlords um I mean presumably you could search her name in the UMass invent like, uh, not inventory Uh Directory there we go Okay, and maybe she's on our Email list so I can check there too Yeah, and that's also something that the student I've been working with would would be able to help with too The inventory No the Reaching out to yeah Yeah, great. If you have a couple of people do that it'd be awesome um Does anyone know her last name because I don't think that was in the minutes. Maybe it was I think it was in the minutes. Okay. I will I will I will research that uh The merry maple table finalizing the library loan I need to follow up on that. Okay, and then Ellen's going to make the sign Sure Yeah, okay. Oh whatever, you know the note underneath tape to it or whatever saying property of the Amherst public shatery committee on loan. Yeah, good. Um So Mindy Dom has the earmarks money. She can Give us money from the state without going through a lot of hoops, but at this point I don't think we need that so we should maybe keep it in mind for next year, but Unless anyone has some money any particular idea about it She offered it to us when we weren't sure we were going to get the $40,000 from the town How much money money is it? It's not a specified amount, but I it could be quite a bit. It could be as much as $40,000 From how she phrased it It seems it seems like we should not say no to money And we should come up with a use for it You know if we as a committee had 40 000 additional dollars, what would we do with it? I think is a question worth Discussing right would we set up our wood bank would we set up a more elaborate in a nursery like what What could we what kind of infrastructure could we put in place for a long-term? You know for the long-term success of our work Trouble is it's um, she needs it sort of by the end of the year There's not an exact date, but the end of this year. Yeah So but next year she'll be able to do it again Okay I mean I'll throw this out there you know if we had some money to hire or to pay for grad student for couple of semesters to you know Do a real deep dive into You know Canopy analysis tree planting locations, you know Something pretty serious. Um, you know, that's that's a good way to To use that kind of money to do things that we just can't do essentially Maybe also potentially hiring a contractor To assist us in setting up a wood bank Yeah, I mean there would be some we could look at how that would work. I'm not sure how it would work You know, there's ways to Ways to have contractors do things that would make a wood bank work better. Yeah, right exactly I think for something like that we would need to do the research Before we ask her for the money So we know exactly how the wood banks work how we work for us Who we might use for a contractor for something like that sounds good Could also possibly use the money as a match for something larger as well How about to work on the inventory with Yeah Okay, I'll I'll reach back out there and say we're thinking about it and Ask her you could be used to things like that Okay, good anybody else on this? Um, I'll just throw out there that I if we're looking to expand the nursery I know that we're the shade tree committee and we really want to have large established Shade trees that serve that function. But I also think there's a need for Trees that can grow under power lines or near power lines or tight spaces. So it's not They're not really shade trees, but things that are going to be a little bit shorter They can grow underneath the power line or things that are Really narrow the you know the cultivars that stay Really upright and narrow that can grow in tighter spaces or close to power lines where it would otherwise or buildings Where there would otherwise not be room for a mature shade tree So that might be a little bit out of our purview, but if we were looking to expand I think there's definitely a need for those kinds of trees In amherst and in most communities and that's something that we could kind of Foray into if we were interested in taking that on I think it's very true Yeah, it's a great idea. I think to expand the tree nursery. It's More than money we need the labor So maybe we have the ability to do it Let's get the first 40 in the ground and maybe for next year that would be an option. Yeah Yeah, good What else is next here? Urban forestry management plan anything, Alan? No change Okay And environmental justice neighborhood that was the flyer as Sophie was going to work on grants I think in the interest of time we'll table that for tonight Website update The request a tree page we did come up with a new policy for people request trees So I'd like to see that get on the The website on our town website But since then it's not here. Let's table that also An ongoing items. There's nothing new on the state level initiatives significant tree ordinance Sarah No, no updates solar bylaw group Julian Uh, yes, I do have an update for that. I went to their last meeting and I have And pleased to report that they have a full solar bylaw drafted and made um, they presented it in front of the town council and Gone through that and the council is in the process of referring to their committees and Then we'll consider it. I believe next year. Um, so that would be under the new council Long story short, uh, please email me if you have want to see the exact Bylaw or get my rundown on it. Um, you can also look it up on the town website But basically They have made some changes Um with wetlands and that sort of thing. Um and But they haven't proposed specific measures to Stop large forests for me and cut down and so on and so forth. Um With that for solar, but they do protect certain vulnerable areas and such. Um, I know one thing folks have said is that it doesn't address battery storage. Um, But that doesn't directly affect, uh, the purview of the shantry committee. So that is my update there Is this something we might want to, uh, endorse send a letter to the town council or Uh, we can consider it. I would prefer to leave that up to The committee and ever we might want to put it on the Agendas and new item for everyone to review the bylaw and then we could have a discussion if we wanted to endorse I don't want to just say hey, I think positively of it. So thus you committee. You should endorse this Okay, why don't you send the bylaw to everyone and put it on the agenda for next month? I think that's good Sounds good And the last thing is the mary maple love letters exhibit is that going to happen or just not? I think that's not going to happen. I think the letters are not Substantial enough. I mean Again, like I think there are a few That could be displayed with the table and I can you know, I'll follow up on that But I mean, they're just I don't think there are enough um For like a full Exhibit, but I will actually follow up on this And we discussed this last meeting and said that we didn't think that this was If we were going to do an exhibit, this is the time of year we would do it when they like the the mary maple That we missed this opportunity and yeah, take it out. That's fine That's fine. So maybe there are a few that we can like offer to the library to put it in the archive like in their archives or something Yeah, that's good. Yeah, okay. So I'm gonna take it off the agenda All right, so that's all on the agenda that I have anyone else have anything to add I had one comment which is I know we've been talking about the library trees and so on and so forth But as we move into we're seeing the library We're seeing The new elementary school which we'll be discussing The trees there in january it looks like and possibly With john root as well. Um, I was wondering about the track and field project. I know that They Are going to eventually make a decision on that and I was wondering If we had an interest in maybe discussing or bringing up the possibility of lining The edge of the field or the edge of the road there on the other side of the sidewalk with trees It's a pretty sparse area and currently there's just a chain link fence there Um, so I was wondering if we wanted to maybe consider that as a committee I would love to do that. I've been thinking about that for quite some time I even asked alan some time ago about putting trees along the that you know that side of the That side I buy it every day. I just feel like maybe we could put trees instead of a fence here. Yeah alan Yeah, I don't I don't object to it. I mean the power lines the three phase does go on that side of the street And you know, obviously you wouldn't want to do anything till the construction is over with there may be some changes in the parking there along the road So there's a lot of things that have to be You know, we need a plan We don't have a plan yet. They're working on it so I'm all for planting trees if um once we figure out what's going to happen there and If they're going to underground the power if they're not going to underground the power You know, we're going to increase parking wide in the road Yeah, you just have to figure that out. Great idea. Sounds good. Thanks. Let's keep that in mind then. Yes All right, uh anything else? Going once going twice No, thank you everyone. I think it was a good meeting and uh, I like working with all of you I miss the ones that don't show up. So Nice to see your faces And thanks alan. Thanks everybody Yeah, thanks everybody. Thanks Thank you. Bye. Bye