 And be able to make it. So it looks like Anna just joined us. I haven't heard from Laura. Laura is here. Laura is here. Okay. So why don't we get rolling we'll see how quickly we can get through this so welcome everyone today is February 24 2021 this is the Amherst Conservation Commission meeting. We're going to start off with a item from me tonight. I got a message from the town services and outreach committee. They would like a letter from all of the town commissions in regards to a new project that is happening down in South Amherst, particularly what they call the Pomeroy village. I never heard of call that before. Yeah, that's where it is. Yep. And so they're talking about putting either upgrading that intersection or putting in a roundabout. If you read through their materials they talk a lot about Hickory Ridge so it is kind of interesting there. So I don't know if Stephanie or Dave if you have specific background I could talk a little bit. Sorry, I'm just wondering if you want me to share. Any of the materials. Talking Dave, it depends how much time the commission has tonight I mean I, I think I can. You know there's a project that I've been working on with with my staff in the planning department for a number of months so there's been many plans through the years to improve the intersection at Pomeroy Village Center which is the intersection of 116 West Street and Pomeroy Lane. Mission Cantina is right there the four corners with the gas station mission and various commercial buildings and through the years we've been unsuccessful at getting any grant money to help us to improve that intersection but as a whole we got a $1.5 million grant through what's called the MassWorks program. So, this is about a three year project and we'll kick off public outreach and input session and I think the TSO committee is beginning that we're going to be talking about this with the TSO tomorrow night. I believe that meeting is at five, but again this is all preliminary it's all very early we just got awarded the grant. And I think they're reaching as Brett said as you said Brett they're reaching out to committees and boards saying, we'd love to love to get some input from you all. It has not been decided whether this would be a roundabout or a signalized and enhanced signalized intersection. Ultimately that would be up to the council to decide because it's in the public right away. It will include you know the goals of the project are obviously safer vehicular movement, pedestrian movement, bicycle movement through and among the businesses and the residential units there. We mentioned Hickory in large part because there is a connection there we're trying to make a connection through Hickory for people to get to the Village Center. We also thought it would help our application and we think it did to reference the acquisition of Hickory Ridge, but primarily this is an intersection project that's all that this is going to pay for. A roundabout or signals or you know an increased sidewalk improvements there, those kinds of things, but it will not get a sidewalk to Hickory Ridge. That is not in the budget. So, you know, there are wetlands associated and nearby. There's a couple of stream crossings there as well. And those may, may be in the project area, they may be the one stream crossing is the Plum Brook crosses under West Street, north of the Village Center and we may get that far with the improvements. I kind of doubt the money will go that far but it's certainly worth the commission thinking about and stuff I don't know if you have an image or two there. I have the presentation that was provided. I can, let me just, I can just shuffle through it. Yeah, it should be a nifty image or two in that PowerPoint. Yeah, there's some good, some good plans. Which is also on the one drive. All the commission see, see the PowerPoint. Everybody has it had access to it in the one drive folder. Sorry, I'm trying to find the one that has images. So there will be a test to see how much you retained. Yeah, so you already answered the one big question I had Dave which was just in reference to Hickory Ridge to see if there was going to be, you know, more access to it, but apparently not and so yeah that intersection is a little funky, no doubt. So but I mean apart from, you know, since it's not a tax, or it's not connecting to Hickory Ridge directly I don't see much in terms of our role from the conservation perspective. If it hits wetlands we'll see it but besides that I don't really know if we have much input from our side. I don't know if other folks have different feelings or I just add if it's a roundabout that you get a sculpture of a beaver in the middle of that roundabout for all the folks on Pomeroy Lane. I second that. Getting a nice mission cantina taco please but yes, did you people see the article about the Native Americans from the West Coast importing beavers from various places to repopulate their native lands. I know where they can get some. There's certainly going to be fewer in that area than there were in 2019 and 20. Just just for my own curiosity, David, this is not a conservation committee question necessarily but will money have to come from the town for this project as well as or strictly from the state. In large part I'm 90 some odd percent funded by the state 1.5 million will certainly have to put in some engineering time some planning staff time. The whole public outreach will come through the planning department. So they'll be a fair bit of that but by and large it is all state funding. That's 200 K and matching Laura. So no cash from the town at least according to what I looked at. You want to keep going stuff I think there's sure we can kind of stop that. You know it's keep going next. I thought you're looking for images. Yeah I was looking for kind of the map showing just where people live there's the Village Center for context. There are a lot of people who live very close to that Village Center so it's been a troubling spot for us for a number of years from a pedestrian and a bicycle standpoint. There you can see just within walking distance of that Village Center, there are literally thousands of people's thousands of residents and families and it's a very challenging intersection because there are no crosswalks and there are no crossing crosswalks. So this will be a huge upgrade, regardless of which way we go. Yeah, I try to cross that when I'm running sometimes and it's sketchy. Yeah, and that's that's kind of interesting showing the, you know, kind of the the remaining open space and then of course, to the far left on on on the computer at least my computer screen is a Hickory Ridge. So Brett, if you know I think it would be worthwhile if a brief, you know memo came from you, you know just reiterating the Commission's commitment to safeguarding resource areas wetlands streams, etc. And, you know, some reference to Hickory I think would be helpful. You know we certainly are going to be thinking about the connectivity through Hickory to the Village Center but again this project won't pay for any of that. Yep. Happy to put that together. And Dave would it be useful for us to vote on this as well or is a simply a letter for me sufficient. I would look to the commission members if I don't think we necessarily need to take a vote rather if there's a sense of the meeting that they empower you to write a brief memo to the TSO that would be fine I think. Yeah, I mean we're not going to be endorsing this per se but yeah, as you're saying exactly because there will be a notice of intent coming regardless. And so my intent was just kind of bringing this in front of the Commission see if anybody had any ideas, as Dave is suggesting, see if people support me submitting a letter. And we can call it a day at that support you. Sounds good with me. All in. Okay, great. So I'll get that together there's some timelines I got to check on what those are I'll make sure to hit those and yep and so Laura that's the dollar figure there. So, okay, excellent. So I think we're good on this one unless anybody has any questions or comments. Can I ask Dave a sideline, do we own Hickory Ridge yet. We do not we do not I was just out there this afternoon. Who's who's who's taking care of who's I've had my son has been out here and some friends have been out here in terms of cross country skiing. Who's driving all over the place. That's a good question. It's a good question Larry I think, you know, with lack of on site, you know, over management I think people are taking some liberties there with snowmobiles and four wheel four wheelers a TV. Yes, my son talked about the four wheelers he didn't he was very my son is on the conservation commission and in Foxborough so he was talking to me about the fact that what's going on out there. Yeah. Hickory Ridge yet is not ours yet so it's it's it's a tough one for me to watch from afar. But you know there is a decent amount of snow cover so I'm kind of reassured that you know the impacts from snowmobiles and ATVs over a winter a decent winter snow is pretty minimal. But that will become an issue if you know when the snow melts later in March, what's going to happen when we own it are we going to stop that. Absolutely. We're going to try to minimize vehicles. Okay. Except for conservation or town related vehicles for maintenance. And of course the solar vehicles will have access but that's, that's minimal throughout the year once the solar is built. Okay, so I'm going to try and move us along so is there anything else that we want on this one or any other questions. So we're good on this one why don't we move over to the minutes so there are two sets of minutes that were distributed in our packets today. They are fairly concise, which is fantastic so thank you Stephanie. People have not had a chance to look at them now would be, you know, it shouldn't take too long. And once people have looked at them if we can get emotion starting with the 127 notes to prove then we can move on to 210. So, I make a motion to approve the 127 notes. I wasn't at the 210 meeting. Okay, so, so Laura, you said you were not at this meeting. No, I was at this meeting 127. I was not at the 210 meeting. Okay, gotcha. So, I think anybody can make the motion but I think to vote in favor against you just have to be there. Okay. I probably could have looked at the top and found out who was thank you sorry. Okay, so why don't we do a voice vote on this so Larry. Hi, Laura. Hi, the Roy. Hi, Fletcher. I think I abstain. I wasn't on that one. Okay. Stay in the right word or I say, yeah, staying. I. And then I for me as well. Okay, so we are good on those notes so thank you for that Stephanie so why don't we move on to the notes from 210. There are a couple of typographical area errors in the 210 one. So minor spelling errors about three quarters of the way down. That's not very helpful. I looked at it earlier. Sorry, Stephanie. No worries. Boiler plate was one word. It was misspelled. Remember that stuff that gets stuck in my head. No worries. We just got these up there. It was a slight missed opportunity to use the word be search, but I'm letting you know. Thank you for it for these definitely was helpful because I wasn't there. Sure. Sorry, I'm just having a little technical challenge here right now just bear with me in a second. I've lost my cursor. I'm trying to go between two monitors. Okay, do folks need to see it or are you folks while you can you have them. Yep. Sorry. Somebody wants to make a motion that that works as well. I think I have to approve the meetings and the two time meeting. I second. Thank you, Larry. I think I have to abstain. I think I missed that meeting. Okay. We're right. Laura abstain. Fletcher. Same. Anna. I'm I'm standing, but Larry, it is set. It says on the minutes that you were present. Just as an FYI. I. And I vote I as well. So I'm not quite sure we have quorum on that one, but I think we're good anyways. So. Okay. Excellent. Before you move on, can I just make a quick comment on minutes? And I really appreciate Stephanie in so many ways, but for getting those, those minutes done as well. And before Aaron went on maternity leave, we did have a little chat about minutes because I think with, with everything flying at Aaron this fall and with COVID fall, winter, we are a little bit behind on minutes. So I think that's going to be kind of a high priority when she gets back. So we do want to get caught up on minutes. It's, it's, it's a legal requirement and people do. Ask to look at them. And so, so if you, if you notice on the website, we are behind, but it's a high priority when, when Aaron gets back. Yeah. Yeah. One thing that was mentioned a little while ago, Dave, is there is a feature within zoom to do automatic transcriptions. And so I do it for most of my classes and other things. And so it works super quick. And it's every word that does, they don't get everything, but they're pretty good. So. Yeah. That's Steph. Have you had any experience? When I'm down related meetings with that feature. I've seen it. No, I've seen it though, but I, I'm smiling because the last time that I checked the recording from this meeting. It called you the amorous commission. It was right around Valentine's day. So, you know, it worked. It could be worse. Isn't this all recorded anyway? So do we have to, or does Aaron have even though. I think we have to have written minutes. Okay. The audio and video will live on, but I think we're, we're still required to have written minutes. Yeah. I think. The recordings are definitely helpful, but. And it, I mean, it actually helped me be able to go back and, and do the minutes. So it is good that we have them. But yeah, I don't think they are a substitute for having minutes. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Thank you, Dave. Okay. So just checking the time. So Dave, do you want to go through your report now? Do you have anything you'd like to add today? I have a few things, Brett, but I wonder if maybe stuff, you know, do you, do you, you know, your things are typically more pressing. I mean, mine are just kind of updates on projects, but I will go or fill in wherever the agenda. Okay. So, yeah, I was wondering if we want to just save both of them till the end. To later after the hearing. Yeah, we have about 10 minutes before we can start the hearing. Sure. I definitely have a few things that I can cover that. In your, in your packets, just a very quick monitoring reports from Aspen Heights. Those are weekly reports. Those came in. But I wanted to give you an update on a few things regarding a bundled order of conditions that you had issued. For some stormwater work at UMass. Mickey Marcus submitted. Proposals for some of the work that would happen this summer. It's early yet. And I know Erin will be back. I just wanted to get it. On your radar that that's coming. But it's more just a courtesy of the notification. And I think if Erin might want to take a look at the projects and see what he's doing and then. You know, she may want to be on site for some of the work or just check in with him about some of the work and follow up. So I gave you that information. Just a recorded order of conditions from ever source for work at 325 Sunderland road was included in your packet. And then. Let's see. I guess there's another issue that came up regarding. A rather large project that ever source proposed where the commission was. Going to get some financial. Compensation for some of the impacts. I just got ahead of long call with David Follis today. Just about the order of conditions when it was. The commission had issued. Referenced only part of the impacts to the. To the resource areas. And I know Erin came back. Or they came back and Erin had issued a letter. That basically outlined. The greater impacts, which then had the financial. Renumeration. For that. For those impacts. Identified. So there are six towns that are impacted by this specific project. And. Almost none of the order of conditions had the total. Area of impact resource area impact identified. So. I had a call with GZA after the talk with David Follis. And. They. They understood what the concerns were. They did feel like they had presented all the information to you, which was confirmed by Erin's letter. And I could, you know, verify that that was the case. However. It doesn't. It still necessitates the need to have that documented in the actual permit because it's the permit that gets attached to the deed. So in terms of having a real record of the impacts, they really need to have something that's part of the permit. So what, what they're going to do is to submit an amended. A request for an amended order of conditions. I had recommended that they do that because they also told me that they identified a small wetland area that was never identified in the original survey. And plans. So. Instead of just kind of a Scribner's correction on an order, it was better that they request the amended order because then we can reference the revised plan. As part of that order. And then in that, we can add the correct. Calculations for resource area impact. So it sort of brings everything up to a cleaner neater package that I think DEP will be much happier with. David was not necessarily. Pushing back on the amount of resource area alterations so much as process. So I think it was, we had a lot of long conversations. It seems like it might have been something way more complicated, but we were able to. To work it out. And so that will come before you probably on March 24th. He'll come in with the amended. Request for an amended order. And just to be clear, this is the one that's running through sweet Alice. So off of Bay Road. It's the one. It's the one by. I want to say it was said Monogu road and. It's a pretty long. It's a pretty long quarter. It's a really long quarter. Yeah. It's the one that goes all the way through town. Yes, it's goes all the way through town pretty much. So anyway, so they'll be coming. They'll be coming back before you get that. And I did let David know that that's what the recommendation was. And. It does open it, you know, because it's a. A request for an amended order. It does give. DEP an opportunity to take a look again as well. In case they have any other outstanding concerns. So that's the biggest. I have another enforcement updates, but. I can save that for later. We still have five minutes. Dave, do you have five minutes worth of anything? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Hope Dave, you're immune. I always have five minutes worth of something. If you need. Some quick updates. Sure. Why don't you go for it? Brett. So yeah, let me rattle through a few things here. So I've reported to you about our search for an assistant land manager. And Stephanie is on that search committee again. Thanks to Steph for, for, for that work. I think we have a couple of things that we should have our candidate, which is really exciting. We've got, we had close to 50 applicants, which is wonderful. Not surprising given the economy. But we have some terrific, you know, candidates. And I think we will find our, our assistant land manager coming out of that. So, you know, I could see a couple of week transition for that. That successful applicant. And then. You know, we'll have to see who is the finalist and who accepts the job. I've been corresponding pretty regularly with the Fort River watershed group. I think some of you may be on their email list. This is the fledgling group that is quite organized around advocacy for the Fort River. And I think we'll have to see who is the finalist and who accepts the job. I've been corresponding pretty regularly with the Fort River watershed group. I think some of you may be on their email list. I think it's very clear that they are. Organized around advocacy for the Fort River. And it's tributaries. They are gearing up to do more water quality work. On the Fort River and its tributaries this spring. At their latest meeting, which was yesterday. They talked about doing. They're very interested in doing some sort of interpretive trail. Sounds familiar. so I'm usually, you, you know, you can find this kind of kind of, you know, Interpreted trails right now. So they talked about doing an interpreted trail along the Dickinson corridor. The Dickinson trail, which begins that. Golf park and then goes Easterly to. To down the other end of mill, Mill Lane. And I said, you know, by all means, if you have a proposal bring it forth. But I think it was a poetry walk of some sort down there. I don't think the two are necessarily mutually exclusive. I think the Fort River group would like to focus on, on geology, on water quality, things of that sort. But this is a very well organized group. And I think it'd be interesting to, you know, to engage with them. Yeah. I think it was more just a single box. Or something like that, Dave correctly. Sticking with the Fort River theme. Stephanie and I are continuing to work, of course with Beth Wilson from DPW on the Fearing Brook project. And that will be coming to you in the form of an NOI in the next, I would say month. Is that about right stuff? In relation to that, Stephanie has also been working with some folks around food security and that group has secured money and other, other materials to kind of support our, our community gardens down there. So as we speak, there are a dozen or more raised beds. Being put together this winter at the old Hitchcock center building. And come spring, we will be pulling those out. Now the challenge with these multi-pronged projects is how do we coordinate? How do we consider and possibly coordinate use of community gardens when we're going to have a major construction project? Happening on that conservation area later this summer. So access and easement rights and safety come into play. So Steph and I will have an update for you in a couple of weeks on that. We're going to be meeting with some of the adjacent landowners and talking about some of these access issues. But suffice it to say that. We're going to get those gardens going at the Fort River farm. It may be kind of a fall planting. If people want to put in gardens this fall, you know, garlic and other, other perennial vegetables for, for actually harvesting in spring of 22. So that's probably about five minutes. If you want to get going, Brett. Yeah. That was fantastic. And yeah, good to hear about the Fort River, Dave. So thank you. Okay. So yeah, I do have seven 30 by my watch. So why don't we get going with our seven 30 agenda item? So this is a notice of intent. This hearing is being held as required by the provisions of chapter one 31 section 40, the general laws of the Commonwealth and act relative to the protection of wetland. So that's probably about five minutes if you want to get going, Brett. Yeah, that was fantastic timing. And this hearing is being held as required by the provisions of the Commonwealth and act relative to the protection of wetlands. As most recently amended in the town of Amherst wetlands bylaw. This is on behalf of the town of Amherst department of public works for construction of 9,500 linear. Put extension of drinking, water main associated valves, service line, hydrants, et cetera under East Leverett Road, Cushman Road and T Waddle Road Leverett. With directional drilling under Cushman. And so I assume Beth you'll be presenting. that you really need to introduce yourself but if you can introduce yourself Beth and then introduce the project. Hi everybody, I'm Beth Wilson, environmental scientist with DPW and yeah I'm here to present the Water Main Extension Project under East Leverett Road and then it goes into Leverett under Cushman Road and T Waddle Road there too. I think I should just try and share the plans and we can you know I can just talk and describe the project while we look at the plan set. So I'm going to try and share that. I'm not sure. Almost we can see yep there we go. All right so this project is as I said it's a Water Main Extension project. It's a total of 9500 linear feet. It starts approximately here's the intersection of Leverett Road and East Leverett Road. So it's just the limit of work is just past that intersection. As you can see throughout the project there's areas that have BVW here's a little area of BVW right here. There's areas of BVW both north and south of East Leverett Road and then there's also a riverfront for the Cushman Brook. So as we go through the pages I can kind of point out where the BVW areas are. The project is it's trenching mostly so there's a 12 inch main that's going to get put in under East Leverett Road and so the trenching we're estimating the trenching to be about six feet wide for a six foot trench box seven feet deep. It'll all be within the right of way. It'll all be within the road. The pavement is only going to get cut for the trench. The trench will be backfilled with gravel around the pipe itself and then the excavated soil that's been excavated for the trench will be put back in and the pavement will get patched and they are planning to put all soil back in the day of. So they'll just move along the line and what they excavate in a day they'll put back in so they won't be storing any soil really on the on the roadway. And as we go through the sheets you'll see wherever there is BVW there's silt socks for erosion control that's what these little little squares are and then in addition to the trenching for the main line there's trenching for service lines. This is a service line right here for this house. The service line trenching will be a little more narrow three feet or so and we'll just go off of the paved road. All the service lines and the hydrants are still within the right of way. So why don't we go to the next sheet. So this you can see this is the beginning of the main along here. We've got erosion control. Oh and the other resource area is BLSF. This line right here is the 100 year elevation line based on what AECOM has done for Amherst. So that's base base level out base flood elevation. And so that that's mostly to the south of East Levitt Road but there are a couple areas I can show you where it comes on. So East Levitt Road and some of our work will just barely get into BLSF. But those are the only resource areas for the project. We don't go into BVW at all. We don't go into bank. So there's work within riverfront and BLSF and then buffer zone. So those other resource areas. There's the next sheet. So moving along East Levitt Road. Again we have some BVW here and we have the end of riverfront right there. This is a hydrant as an example of one of the hydrants and the erosion control is outside is between the resource areas and any work areas. So here it goes outside of the hydrant and you'll see in spots where it kind of bumps around service lines too. Here's a service line. You can see the erosion control kind of bumping around it. There's BLSF line and then we come back into riverfront again. But all the work is considered temporary, temporary impact because we'll be back filling the same day. The only permanent work that I accounted for in the NOI was for the hydrants. They're really the only permanent construction that's going to happen and it's a real small amount. This is an example of one that is actually not in riverfront or BLSF. So I only I counted up ones that are in riverfront and then BLSF. This sheet shows the one of the one of the smaller areas where our work actually does get into BLSF. So here the trench right here is actually that trench work will be just along the 100 year elevation line, which is this squiggly line coming through here. Here is some more BBW. Here's Cushman Brook. So here's riverfront. Yeah, I think this is the one hydrant that's in BLSF. That's the only permanent square footage of impact that we have actually in BLSF is that one hydrant. So there's one location where the Cushman Brook actually crosses East Leverett Road. That's right here and you can see riverfront kind of going way up this way along Cushman Brook. Here's the BLSF line. There's a few different areas of wearing a BBW mark there too. Beth, where's the town line? One more sheet. Oh, it is. Okay, okay. Yeah, we're not there yet. I mean, obviously, because we're only going to deal with Amherst here, but I was just curious. I thought we were already there. So here's where the Cushman Brook cross that goes under bridge on East Leverett Road. And what's going to happen here is we're going to do directional drilling, which has been proposed basically so that we don't impact any resource areas. Then it'll be, this whole project will be contracted out. DPW is not doing this project. So there'll be a general contractor who's doing the trenching, putting down the main water line, but then there'll also be a subcontract just drilling company who has, you know, done some of this directional drilling before. And I know you guys have seen a few projects that have directional drilling. I think it's pretty common now, especially for, like, gas companies and other utility companies. Anyway, what we've, well, we've got so far, learned so far from our consultant, and then she's been talking to a drilling company, is that the bore pits will be about 150 feet from bank. So here's one of the bore pits, and here's the other bore pit. And they'll just really, the pits will really just be almost the end of the trench. So the trench is six feet wide, and the bore pit might get a little bit, they might need a little bit more width if they have to kind of angle it, but it's basically going to be another six, seven foot wide hole going down, you know, seven to eight feet deep, similar to the waterline trench. And there'll be erosion control on either side. And then they just bore underneath the depth, I think it's going to kind of be a depend on in the field kind of thing, but I know it's not supposed to go more than 15 to 20 feet. I don't even 20 feet, I think is too deep somewhere between 15, 18 feet. And it won't impact bank or land underwater at all. What's the depth of the brook there relative to the depth of the line? Cross sectional sheet at the end here that kind of shows, we can look at it when we get to that sheet. It's in the. That's fine. That's fine. What it shows is that the abutments for this bridge go down 13 feet. So I'm assuming that the stream bank is at about 13 feet below surface grade. So again, I think the boring, the underground, the directional drilling will be somewhere between 15 and 20 feet. The boring is going to go below the regular pipe, the line, the line level is going to go down under further. Yeah. Yeah. The water main is five feet deep. It's going to be about, it's going to be placed at five feet below grade. But as I said, the bank here, we can look at that cross sectional and it gives a better picture of sort of what the abutments look like and how the drilling has to go under the abutments and then under the stream. Yeah. So that's it. Something I to think about too is part of it is the trenching. As they're trenching, if there's any dewatering of the trenching needed or of those bore pits, you know, if we're only going to be going down, say, seven feet to put the main line in, we may not get a lot of water. But anywhere where there is water, there will be a need to dewater. And again, one of the sheets of the plan set here has a little, has a diagram for dewatering. And again, that's kind of a contractor call on how they want to do that. But I don't think it's going to be a huge issue with this project. So that's the crossing. And then we come along here. And again, there's a few areas of BVW to the south of East Leverett Road. The computer is slow. Yes, actually. So here we're back at the Cushman Brook. And right here is the Amherst Leverett town line. Right here, this line that comes right across is right there. This is, if you guys are familiar with East Leverett Road, this is where there's a little pond right here, with a driveway and a house up on the hill there. So that's where we're at kind of on East Leverett Road. And that's where the town line is. And that bank has been delineated. All the delineation was done by Ecotech, Arthur Allen. He did it last spring, 2019, I think in April. This is all Leverett. These are some of the specs that we can just take a quick look at. Like, here's the diagram of the trenching. They've got three feet, but talking to the engineers at DPW, it's going to be six feet because we want to use a trench box for safety for people that have to climb in and do some of the fittings and stuff. It's very typical to use a trench box, which is six feet wide. But you can see here, it shows that there'll be backfilling with gravel and then the excavated soil and repatching the pavement. Here's a cross-sectional diagram of the directional drilling. And you can see from this, it says 13 feet for the footings of the bridge over the Cushman Brook. And then this, you know, this is sort of a general diagram, but it's showing the line going under those. That's why it's an estimating 15 to 20 feet below the stream. And then we've got, this is about, I think this is 160 feet to the bore pit. And that's from the middle of the bridge. So from the bank, probably about 150 feet to the bore pit. All right. What else can I tell you? Yes, so they've proposed silt sock for erosion control. The eastern portion of the project is in, it's in natural heritage. And we, we've gotten a response letter. We've gotten a review letter from both DEP and from natural heritage. I don't know if you guys had a chance to see those. I have copies of them too that I can share. Yep. We got copies in our packet too, Beth. I guess before we go through those review letters, do people have questions on the plan set? One question for me, Beth. So it sounds like most of the new pipe is going to go under existing road. Is there any that's going to go, that won't be under existing road? And my main question is what's, what will happen to soil that's disturbed next to the road? I just want to make sure it's all returned and stabilized. Yeah, no, it's within the right of way and it's all under, under the road. And the only portion of the pavement that's going to get cut is where the trench is. So the rest of pavement stays. Well, and then there are the smaller trenches that will go for service lines and hydrants. So any of that soil that's sort of that's excavated that maybe doesn't end up being put back into the excavation will get taken off site. But the goal is definitely going to be to try to clean up every night, you know, try to put back anything that's excavated during the day by the end of the day. Yep. And then the areas, you know, like the areas that get excavated around the service lines or the hydrants will get loomed and seeded, you know, it's a small little area, you know, around a hydrant is maybe a two by two area that would, where work would be done. But any, any area there that gets disturbed would be loomed and seeded. Okay, great. Thank you, Beth. So Dave, you have a comment or question? Yeah. So actually, I've got five or six, I just wanted to run through Beth and maybe you could, I'm sure some of these are easy. My first question is, do you know why a 12 inch line is that standard that seems like a large line to serve? How many houses total is this serving? Isn't this driven by Leverett? They weren't watered. I want to hear the answer to my question though, Beth. Larry, just why a 12 inch line? It seems large to me. I'm surprised at how big the line is. Relatively standard for being put in right now, but there's at least five houses in Leverett that I think have already shown interest. But then all these the stubs that they're putting in within Amherst itself, those people are all going to be offered the opportunity to connect to the line too. So I actually don't know the total number of stubs that they're putting in. But yeah, so that decision is kind of above my head, the size of the line. But I do know that it is more than just those few Leverett houses that people have been talking about who have the contaminated issue. Other people will be able to connect along there if they want to. Right. No, I asked the question because one of the concerns I've always had about this is does it open areas in Leverett or Amherst to development that otherwise wouldn't be developable? So it's just a question I'll put out there. So following that up on the service line, so Amherst will take the the stubs from the main line to the property line, correct? Right. And then it's up to the owners. The ones in Amherst are already on wells, right? Correct? Right. So it's up to them to decide if and when to connect. They won't be directed to connect. It's a choice, right? Right. Yep. Okay. If they decide. So I think one thing that would be important is in the outreach on either side, the Amherst side or the Leverett side, there may be filings that need to happen. Like Amherst is only going to take it so far to the property line. And I just want to make sure that the owners of the property know that if there are resource areas beyond where Amherst takes it, this NOI doesn't cover that. Do you follow me? Yeah. Because there are likely quite a few resource areas. So if they're going to trench from the road right of way to their house, they're going to need to file with the Amherst concom or the Leverett concom. So just kind of maybe you, you're working with Leverett, but that would be a think and important thing to communicate to all the landowners along that way. Because there's a lot of BBW on either side. Yeah. And just to feed off of that, Davia, I mean Riverfront along most of that. And we just had an application come in for a new house going in there and they're planning to put in a new well. And so probably important for them to find out there is this option before they put in a new well. Yeah, it's interesting, Brett. I'm actually thinking according to the map that Beth showed, I think the waterline goes by their house already. It does. Yeah. I'm not sure why they're putting it. Oh, it looked like an extension to me, but I could be wrong. Yeah. Beth, you mentioned for the trenching, the trench will be six feet wide in the roadway, is that right? Yeah. So they'll backfill, but will they be paving the whole thing at once? Like they'll do the 9,500 feet, linear feet. It'll all be open. And then they'll pave that whole linear strip or will they pave as they go to kind of button it up? Patch. So I think they may be able to do it as they go. I just put it out there because that will be the erosion point, right? I mean, anything that's open will be erosion prone. So I know you'll have silt fence or a silt sock on either side, but just it's kind of something in the construction process that that'll be good to look at. What about staging? Will they have to stage this? Do they have a staging area? Where will it be? Yeah, we've been talking about the leverage transfer station because it's got a lot of space apparently and and they're funding the project. So they're willing to work with us. So we have that and Ruckston, but I think Ruckston has so much going on with it. But Ruckston's relatively close to, but no, I think they're leaning towards the leverage transfer station. And the time of the year, are you thinking about a dry time of the year? Yeah, definitely. Hoping for end of summer, early fall next year. And then lastly, I do want to, I think we need to be, we need to have a little more information if you could ask the drilling company, because I think that calculation of the directional drilling under the Cushman is really critical. Because according to that diagram, I mean, I would think you'd want to be, you'd want to be five feet under that stream, at least. I mean, I think that's a question for the town engineer, but I would think you would not want that waterline to be within three feet of an eroding stream, right? Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, definitely. So I think the deeper, the deeper you go, the better. And that diagram was kind of like, that didn't seem, again, I couldn't quite read the scale, but yeah. Yeah, I think we are kind of, we're definitely contracting with the company that's done this before, is sort of how people are leaning, and we don't have any of the contracting done yet. But so that diagram that Tata and Howard did, I think they've had conversations with the drilling company, but they put that diagram together. And I feel a little bit like it's the expertise of the drilling company that's going to come to play, and then they'll know what needs to be done. But we can, I haven't had any conversations with the drilling company, or any drilling company, but we should. Yeah, I think it's a good conversation to have. I'm almost wondering if the conditions of, the order of conditions can include a depth, because I just worry, I mean, that is an absolutely, it's one of the, there's no pristine streams in Amherst, but the Cushman Brook is one of our finest cold water fisheries and is just a gem. And I just want to make sure that we have a very exact plan for how deep that water line is going to go. And granted, it's not a sewer line, but you just don't want to have any problems with that water line nobody wants to for forever, right? But I think it just needs to be a very exact calculation and get a deeper air on the side of getting it deeper, I think. Yeah, that's fine. I don't, if you guys saw that DEP was asking me about a frack out, not a freak out, but a frack out plan, which to me is not necessarily the water line itself, but it's when they're drilling it. And so that's something that the concom could condition that before construction starts a frack out plan, which then would have more details sort of on the depth of the drilling and everything gets written. And you know, what would happen is we would bid in contract or the general contractor who would then sub and get a drilling company and we would include in their contract that they have to write a frack out plan, which then before construction starts, we would share with the conservation commission. What is a frack out plan? I'm sorry, I didn't see that. In the DEP's comments, frack out I guess is something that can happen when they're doing this directional drilling or underground drilling, that then there's the fluids and everything. Maybe they hit something and it explodes. The borehole explodes. And so it's like an accident that happens during the drilling. And this is such a small borehole that it's probably not going to happen. It applies more to like the projects that are going under the Connecticut River and stuff like that, larger projects. But DEP brought it up in their review letter. And certainly I've actually seen examples of those plans online and it's not a bad thought to ask the drilling company to put together a little plan like that as part of their contract. And I would think the commission would want to know, so what is the depth under, you know, under the stream bed, the lowest point in the stream bed? Are you two feet below that? Are you 10 feet below that? And what is the plan for that? So that we all know that this was four feet below the stream bed and that's a safe depth to be because of erosional factors. I, you know, again, I don't know the characteristics of that stream. That's not my area of expertise, but it concerns me a little bit. So thanks. We know what the, what the pipe is going to be for the water pipe, but what do they get to use for the conduit that goes down under there? Because that's going to be a curved distance. You know, the pipe they're going to bring in is straight pipe regularly, but then they're going to go down under there and they've got to have a conduit that goes through there. It can't be just their fracking thing going through. They've got to have a conduit in there in the end. What is that and what's the shape of it? And, you know, how, how do they put it? I'm concerned about that part of it as well. Does it make sense what I'm saying? Yeah, I'm not sure about the, of it being a conduit. I mean, the way I heard it was... Well, it's not going to be, it's not going to be the soil. I think the, I'm not sure if the, the pipe itself is going to have anything else around it besides the 12 inch pipe. Yeah, but the 12 inch pipe is a straight pipe. So how are they going to take a straight pipe and push it down on a curved path and come up the other side? Some kind of flexible piping. Yeah, I'm not sure how Larry, but I've seen them do it. Yeah, but that also dictates what the, what the shape of the, as, as Dave was talking about, where is it going to go and how low is it going to go? What that conduit is going to be is dictated, dictating what's going to happen going down through there. I think these, these are, this is why, you know, it has to be at least 150 feet from the bank so that they can get, get a line in there that isn't, doesn't have to be as sort of curved and bent. You know, they need to be far enough away to get a lot, to get the line through like that. Beth, is it reasonable to think that, since there are lots of questions about this, this directional drilling, particularly under that resource area, is it reasonable to think that somebody from Tata and Howard or I don't know, I don't know if Jason has the expertise in this area, but that an engineer could come talk to us about that? How that's going to be done? Yeah, again, I would say that the only people that really, really know are some of these drilling companies and, and I'm happy to gather some more information from them. Again, I don't really think Tata and Howard presented it that well in the plan set, because they, based on just conversations that they had with the drilling company, but yeah, I can definitely reach out and get some more information. Okay, that'd be great. Thanks. Okay, great. Thank you, Dave. Beth, one other question across my mind during Dave's questions. How long is the overall project expected to take? They're estimating about a month. A month? Yeah. And part of that's in Leverett. So, and the, and the road's gonna, they're gonna try to still keep the road open. So it'll be, you know, a one lane kind of thing. Okay. Thank you. So how about other commissioners? Yeah, I just thought briefly, because Beth, you're saying if they have to dewater, so I'm assuming they would go, then they would go to the staging place in Leverett at the transfer station. What, to dewater? Yeah. I'm thinking like the pond, they're doing the UMass pond, when they dewater, they have to like, that's a huge dredging project. So I'm not sure what the scale of dewatering would be on this one. No, this would be more like, maybe you guys have seen the, like those sedimentation bladders that construction companies have. So if they're going along and they get to a section where there's just a lot of water filling in the trench, and they're gonna set up some kind of a sedimentation situation right there at that section that they're working on, and pump the water out of the trench into, for example, one of those, those sedimentation bladders that then, I don't know if you've ever seen those, but they fill up with water and then the water kind of oozes out of them, but it's clean and all the sedimentation stays in. That, that's the, that's the doping dewatering that would happen. So, so it happened right there at that trench site. Yeah. Okay. I have a feeling there's going to be a lot of water. Then the silt that remained that would get shipped off somewhere. Maybe in the Cushman brook. No, no, no. Sorry, I had to, I had to. I'll only do this. Okay, so any other comments or thoughts on this? And then I'll open up to the public. Okay, so if there's anybody here from the public who'd like to add a comment or ask a question, you can use a little icon to raise your hand. Okay. So not seeing any. So the primary thing that I'm hearing is concern in regards to the actual crossing, which makes a lot of sense. The other stuff, Beth, I mean, it seems like it's going to largely get returns to pre construction conditions. So there's not a whole lot going on there except for a handful of yeah, fireplugs. So not a huge thing happening there. And so the one request that I'm hearing is for additional information on the crossing. And so if you can arrange that, do you think you'd be able to come back to our next meeting with that additional information? And what is that next meeting, Stephanie? Sorry, March 10th, and it would be at 735 p.m. So does that give you enough time, Beth? Yeah, that's fine. Yeah. Okay. Greg, can I ask one more quick question? Beth, have you been before the Leverick Concom yet? That's Monday. Monday, okay. Yeah. Yep. And I think we actually happen to have the Leverick Conservation Agent at our meeting tonight, Dave, if you have a question directly for them? No, I was just interested in, you know, making sure we're all on the same page. It's a great project. And we want to, these landowners, property owners, homeowners have been dealing with this for years. And I think it's a great collaborative project between two communities. So we want to get it done, but we want to, on both sides of the town line, we want to just make sure we protect the resource areas. Yep. Okay. Can I quickly ask what the issue is? What do you say? So the contaminated, people have contaminated wells? Can I get a quick, like, why are we extending, why are we adding this pipeline? Because so the Leverick landfill has a contamination plume. And so there's a number of houses there on Cushman Road and T Waddle Road that have been bottled water from the town of Leverick for a while. And the town of Leverick has just been dealing with that contamination issue for a while. And so the town of Amherst is willing to put that line in and that water be coming from our water treatment plant at the Atkins Reservoir. Right. Yeah. Leverick has funded the project, but I believe once it's constructed, Amherst will manage the water going forward. Yeah. That's a great summary. I mean, you know, as I said, these property owners have been dealing with the water quality issue for years. And so they'll, they're funding it and then they will become rate payers in our system moving forward, but they'll have secure, clean, portable water for hopefully perpetuity. Okay. So any other comments or questions on this one? Okay. So if not looking for a motion for continuation, 735, I remember the time, March 10th. 10th. I move we continue this hearing to March 10th at 745. 735. 35. Excuse me. My second vote. Okay. Fletcher. Aye. Larry. Aye. LaRoy. Aye. Anna. Aye. Laura. Aye. And aye for me as well. So see you soon, Beth. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you, Beth. Good to see you. Bye, Beth. Bye. Bye. Okay. So that was our 730. So that was our only hearing for tonight. So we can move down into our miscellaneous business. So, Stephanie, apart from any other ideas, I say we just go ahead and hit it in the order on the agenda. I wish I have another preference. I just, well, I just had quick enforcement updates. One for the Pomeroy Court poor farm. Meredith Bernstein is going to be filing a notice of intent as the commission requested. So we did get in a butter's list. So she didn't make it for the March 10th meeting, but I believe will probably be scheduled March 24th. It hasn't officially come in yet. I just wanted to give you a heads up that she is following up on the directive from the commission from the last meeting. And then the other update I have is on Canton Ave. Bob Stover contacted me yesterday to see if he could speak to the commission this evening. I explained that that did not allow ample time for notification is legally required so that we could not allow them to be on the commission speak to the commission this evening. But the order of conditions does expire today and the wetlands were not reflagged as directed under the enforcement order. So they will need to refile a notice of intent in order to do the work. They'd have to refile at this point. And I guess you'll all have to decide how you want to handle the enforcement situation if you would like me to draft something for the March 10th meeting. I did tell Bob that I could put him on the agenda to appear for that date. Okay. So yeah, so order of conditions as Stephanie was saying, that's yep that was due today. So that is now done deal. So if they do want to continue work on there that will need to be a new NOI, new notice to a butters and starting that process anew. And so there are basically from the enforcement issue there's sort of two on my mind. One is we need that initial flagging that has not happened yet and that was due. So there is we have to decide if we need to take additional action related to that. And then my recollection is that we were kind of waiting for that to happen and then to figure out what our next step was going to be in terms of enforcement. We've always talked that we're going to need some restoration return to conditions. But as far as I can tell Stephanie that was not part of any of the current enforcement order. So my thinking was we're probably going to do the flagging and then the restoration one. So we will need another enforcement order at some point unless I'm missing something. No, well because the right. So the flagging was supposed to have been done by today and you're correct in that they are really kind of two separate issues but really in order to determine the extent of the potential violation you really need the flagging to determine exactly what that extent is. So without it you really can't tell for sure, especially right now. So I would say that you're really needing the flagging to be done. Yep. Okay but seeing that the flagging hasn't been done yet and this was the date what are the next steps that we could or what are our options I guess Stephanie at this point for that. I mean technically I mean at this point we could start to levy fines and do that sort of stuff. I'm not quite sure how we want to go. They've had ample time. You know there has been you know Erin did some legwork. There were people who were available to do this. Right exactly. So right so technically you could begin to levy a fine. I think the fact that you're not extending the order of conditions and you're requiring a notice of intent now in order to do the work and having to start does incur a financial implication on them as well. So if they had if the flagging had been done it's likely you all would have been able to extend the order of conditions based on having some idea of what might have had to have been restored in order for that work to continue forward. So you did have the there was the possibility that they could have had an extension because that didn't happen and now there's starting the whole process again. There is a financial implication as I said to having to start from the beginning again. So whether you levy a fine is up to you not extending the order and requiring them to file a notice of intent is also kind of a consequence if you will. Good point on that one Stephanie. I mean my fear is I mean I kind of separate the two a little bit and so my fear is that the you know we're kind of where we're at now we still need that flagging done and so we need to make sure that that does get done at some point. So yep Larry. My concern is that they might do what they've done before and just decide to postpone this for a few years and not do the flagging so we so they sort of hope to have us forget about them. Yeah my I mean my perspective is I understand there's a financial application to you know what Stephanie laid out but I think we should start to institute a fine. I know it might be uncomfortable for the commission but it seems like sort of based on what I was reading and someone can correct me if I'm wrong but you know just flagrantly ignoring what has already been communicated to them about what needed to be done next so that's my perspective at least. Yep and I do see that Pete Wilson is here and that he has his hand raised so we'll get to you in just a sec Pete. So I guess I'm confused on so everything's out of they have to if they want to do any work they have to refile a notice of intent. Is that correct right up on? Correct. So at the read delineate everything and get a whole new delineation down. Everything would have to be reflagged. Everything. Everything has to be reflagged. All right I guess then the question would be like what if it looks different and then can we use the last can we use the last delineation that was in the last NOI as the reference point that's I guess where I'm getting confused because what if it's different I don't know but that's a what a situation. Well what couldn't the couldn't the new flagging be different because they might have done something in the meantime to make it look like it was not a wetland? Well that's why we're requiring it to be reflagged using GPS to the original flag locations. Right okay that it goes back to the original things okay. Correct yeah it needs to be and it's very explicit that it's what Zengineer has flagged so it's very explicit in the order of condition or the enforcement order. Well and you know you can in the enforcement order you can require a notice of intent be submitted and you can you can reference surveying the previous flag boundary. Yeah because even if they didn't even if they chose for some reason not to proceed with their project they still need to restore it to previous conditions and so we need to get there even if they wanted to do nothing else that is the law so we need to we need to get there however we get there. I also hear what you're saying Laura about the potential to start levying fines. I'm also okay potentially keeping that one in our quiver for you know a little while you know it's still in our quiver if we need to pull it we can but I don't know if now is the right time. When does like DEP get involved so we're just trying we're not there yet. Can I can I interject one thing here I'm a little I'm a you know I expressed this to Stephanie earlier in the day so this is not even on your agenda tonight and and there's been tremendous in interest from the butters so I'm a little concerned about getting into the substance of this when this was not even on your agenda. Stephanie was giving a brief update but as we move further into the conversation I'm just wondering you know if I was one of those butters who came to some of the initial hearings and we're having you're having a substantive discussion of potential penalty penalties and path forward I'm just a little concerned about the open meeting line and whether this should should be an item on your agenda in two weeks so I'll just put that out there and I know the owner is on this call and his consultant but um I just am concerned about getting us getting into substantive issues when this isn't really even on your agenda is there a pressing need to take any action tonight I guess is is is my question. Yeah so that's a good point. My concern is that an action is eventually I was going to say my concern is that actually this is going to get taken so we have to deal with it. Yeah so I mean I think it is important Dave for us to talk if we do need to do something the yeah the previous order is done tonight so there's nothing that we have to do with that that just happens by itself and just trying to figure out what yeah sort of the path forward but yeah I'm perfectly comfortable waiting until the March 10th to make any any decisions and yeah we can bring up the our discussion I think right now we're pretty much just rehashing um and just kind of getting everybody up to speed but I think that's good counsel. Okay so um I still see that Pete has his hand up uh even and let's make sure that we keep Dave's you know advice in mind so again I'll go to Pete in just a sec but first I just want to see are there any other commissioners who have anything they want to say at this point okay so um Stephanie can you allow Pete to speak and then and so Pete again um what we're going to be trying to do is you know we have the issues in front of us tonight but as Dave was suggesting next week or not next week next meeting will be when we can have you know sort of figure out the fuller path forward okay can you hear me yes okay hi good evening everyone and as I said Bob Stover's on tonight as well um Bob had mentioned he was in touch with someone in the commissioner's office yesterday my understanding was uh and we've done everything we could over the winter we were not successful to find a different uh resource for a surveyor we've got a surveyor we've used over the years and I just got an update tonight to bring to the board he's within four weeks of um being able to be out there and put those points together so it's not as though we haven't done anything over the winter we have taken the direction of the board we've secured someone given the fact of how busy would the pandemic the holidays winter in general um we knew and I I let Aaron know this back in December that it would be April more so time frame uh Bob's thinking he'll get out there the end of March so I just want the board to know that it's not something we're not uh falling through on it's not something uh because I've heard so many different comments made I appreciate them but they're not but they're incorrect um we're going to have Bob out there to do the uh survey work get it done have you out there to review as my brother mentioned I couldn't be at the meeting back in November with Bob but um you know we'll wait till the flagging's there again and then everyone can take a walk and make determinations based on that okay thank you Pete um yeah there's probably some feedback for you but um I'd say why don't we save that until the March 10th meeting and then we can have the fuller discussions hopefully you'll be able to be there and and the only question I'd add to that is based on where um Bob LaMate the surveyor is going to be would the meeting be better held the end of March once he's been able to get out there um I mean the enforcement order still stands so I mean I think that we as a commission still need to have some discussions in regards to that this has been a fairly long standing if we want to have that more substantive discussion next time and we want to extend um I think next time's a good time to have that so and next time would be your March 10th meeting correct and last thing if you could indulge me one more minute so my understanding was tonight we would be on the agenda but sounds like we weren't so yeah um I saw some of those emails I thought it was pretty explicit that it did that because of open meeting laws um it was not able to be on the agenda because of we need I think a week I can't remember the exact time frame but we need so many days before the meeting posted publicly we need 48 hours to post and I was contacted yesterday yeah I thought it was a standing our meeting was going to be tonight so I hadn't seen any emails um I received no emails from Aaron about any change so anyway I just throw that out there thanks for your consideration okay thank you so anything else on this so there's no voting there's no movement or we really need on this tonight and NOI is over the NOI is over correct so there's nothing that can happen on that property there's a full cease and desist that already went into into effect that was the enforcement order if anything else has to happen on there besides the reflagging they'll need to come in front of us for a NOI correct okay so thank you Pete thank you Stephanie um okay so that was our enforcement order issue so is there someplace else on the agenda you'd like to go next Stephanie no I don't have any other business okay um so I mean we have a couple of things on um so maybe the CR is that for you Dave yeah um what I'd like to do is see if Steph can invite Pete Westover to join us Pete has been a consultant working with some residents in North Amherst on a gift of a conservation restriction and Pete has provided us with a map and the document I think was in your packet this is a fairly unusual thing actually it's it's it hasn't happened too many times in my career and and but it's it's a wonderful thing when a landowner offers to gift a conservation restriction again this would not be a fee interest but a CR on a piece of property that they would like to see conserved our understanding from the legal review is that this really is up to the commission at your sole discretion to accept the conservation restriction and I think I'll turn it over to Pete if you want to give a little more background Pete on the on the family and their intentions yeah and also I don't know if it's necessary Pete but if you could just introduce yourself as well that'd be absolutely yep Pete Westover my firm is conservation works and I'm actually working this project is a donation proposed donation from the owner of six six and a half acres up at Flat Hills and and Market Hill Road I'm sure you've all driven by it it's the open field up there and do you think before you get sure what I was going to do is tell you what the other projects I'm working on which are I'm working right now on eight different tax credit applications through the program it's a terrific program but it is really slow and it's the queue is backed up to 2023 now so we're lucky that this one is coming up now but I can I can tell you about the property it's it's the open field there the corner southwest corner of the two rows it's got a stream that runs right down into Cushman Brook it's in the Cushman Brook watershed so it's kind of a key location it's the the conservation restriction allows continued agriculture and just so you have a feeling for the for the value of the the the gift the appraisal is 337,000 and the tax credit reimbursement is less than a quarter of that so it's a very generous donation on the part of the owners. Ilsa Lawyer's daughter Eva may be on the call and if she has anything to add to this the property is under 61A so the the taxes shouldn't shouldn't increase by anything significant and at this point what we need is the conservation commission's endorsement and signatures and then the owner once the owner signs it goes to the secretary of environmental affairs for the usual approval so as I mentioned I'm working on projects in in Bernersen, Ludlow, Hatfield, Southampton under the same program and it's I hope more people will learn about it because it is really a a good incentive for owners to come forward with with this kind of a of a gift what's it called the gift either Pete or maybe it's the state conservation land tax credit program so what it does is donate up to 75,000 or at a maximum that half the value of the donation. Thank you and I think Stephanie's ahead of me yep if you could throw up a map Stephanie so we can see there were two properties on the map that I was looking at so just to make sure but it's only the I apologize the last thing that begins with an L. Yes it's the law of property but it's sister application is land of Barbara Davis and George Howard who live right across the road and whose field is up the road a little bit so all of these both of these are next to the the rotor real rotor property and both are in the cushion brook watershed the Davis project won't come up until next year. Okay gotcha and you can see other protected land along cushion brook that the town has and Dave and you all have secured. What does the proposed town acquisition mean? I'm sorry. I'm sorry Fletcher your question was first I'm sorry. The next the proposed town acquisition that's that that's the piece of coal's landing back. Yeah actually this map was made before we purchased that land from okay from I got really confused okay so that is now 44 acres 47 acres of protected land on the south side of the Cushman brook so this would the Dave the Davis property would have but that Pete is talking about the property to the south and that would be the first the first donated CR to come into the town. And you can see from the date at the bottom we've been this application went in in July of 2019 so it's it's already been a wait for the for the owners. Brett did you have a question for us too? I just had some questions about some of the larger landowners of the unconstra but yeah particularly the one that Fletcher was talking about but that's us so and then I assume some of the other larger ones are coals as well. Yes coals does own a lot of land up in that area. Steph are you able to show a few pictures of the property? Sure I'm just gonna have to stop this one. Yeah that's turning into very substantial yeah conservation area up there it's very nice. Oh yeah we've really built on the work that Pete and previous concoms did many many years ago I mean Haskins Meadow is a very old you know we've we've owned that for a long time and then we we started kind of picking away at other properties that were owned on the north side of East Leverett Road and then we picked up the Stoats property which is a gorgeous piece of property that actually is honestly that's that one's in a life estate so the owners have life rights on that property but we own the underlying fees so it's really a kind of a creative mosaic of of conservation tools that have been used to protect that Cushman brook. As you may have guessed these are hickory ridge pickers. Oh sorry that's a big brook. I sent those to Dave last week. Oh I've been taking my dog out there skiing and boy it's no showing it's really been a great place to go. Okay I'm not sure what other pictures I have them. Well if they didn't make it it's it's let's see. So I think the key thing is you know I think what we're looking for is for the commission to accept you know accept the the gift of a conservation restriction and authorize the commission to sign said restriction and we'll figure out how to actually do that given COVID you know COVID limitations I think we can do it safely with social distancing we've done it before with Brett. Pete and do you want to just talk a little bit more about you know the purpose of the CR? Yeah so it's it's I would say primarily to keep the the parcel in agriculture but also to provide extra protection for the Cushman brook watershed and it's got very nice views and it does not require public access of the owner but the but it allows the owner to open as she as she prefers to outdoor recreation. And this would require this this gives the commission and delegating to the department presumably the responsibility to monitor to monitor the conservation restriction we should monitor this on an annual basis and we would monitor it in perpetuity to make sure that the terms of the conservation restriction are being adhered to and again this is this has already gone through state review so it's a pretty standard document Pete is that correct? Yeah and I would say monitoring is going to be fairly easy because it's totally visible from from the road from both roads. The stream runs along the west side of the property and it takes a little walk over there to follow the stream channel down but as it's right in the woods but it's not it's not much of a walk so I think monitoring is pretty going to be pretty easy. And so that was my only comment on this one Dave I mean overall I mean I think this is a beautiful gift I'm very thankful for people considering stuff like this. There is a little bit of a cost to the town that we should just talk about real quick and that is the monitoring costs and it's going to be minimal for this so I don't think it's a big deal but just put that out there and Dave do you know exactly who within the town would actually do the monitoring? Would that be Aaron? Would that be Brad? Probably in the future it's probably going to be Aaron that's one of the reasons that I wanted to make Aaron's position full-time is to really add some of these higher level responsibilities to her job description because really I mean Brad can do some boundary monitoring and marking but I think you know really we want to have a more robust conservation restriction program. We don't have a lot of CRs but we have a handful of them that we should be monitoring more closely through you know through the years each year annually so Aaron would would pick this up as part of her responsibilities. I should add too that I've done a baseline documentation report on this property for this purpose and that would go right to the town so the whoever's monitoring will have something to work from. No that's great that's that's the perfect place to start. And there's no other fees or other like there's no surveying or anything else that we need to do Pete it's ready to go. Yep the survey is already in place and and the owner is making sure that the title surge is done and brought up to date at the time of the closing so that's really it. Fantastic. So do any commissioners have any sort of questions on this? I read through the CR and you know it looks like the fairly standard you know newer template that we're working off of which is great. It is and I noticed on the MLTC Steering Committee agenda John Goya who's the reviewer for all of the CRs is presenting a newer model of the you know the template for state-approved conservation restrictions and I think that'll be real helpful. John's been helpful on this one too he's he's made some some good changes. That'd be interesting to see the differences there Pete. Yeah yeah they these just keep getting better they were pretty they're pretty rough to begin with but they're getting there. So so do any other commissioners have any questions or comments on this or Stephanie or Dave and then I think it's a very nice gift. And so I did notice that Eva's on as well so Eva if you have anything you want to add to this again I'll on behalf of the town I'll say thank you to you and your family but if you just rate use a little raise hand thing if you want to say something definitely do not need to though. And I will say it's been great working with Eva she's she's been very helpful getting this through. Okay so I'm not hearing anything else looking for a motion to to accept this CR. I'll make that motion this is sweet. One second hold on so um so Stephanie Kiehlo, Eva? Yep. Okay so Eva you may need to yep you should be there. Hi all I just wanted to just make it clear that gift is really from my mom who's very elderly and she couldn't be here she doesn't do zoom she's 94 but she's always loved that land and she always wanted to share it with everyone and that was really her intention and I think particularly because of the view on the road that people even who don't live in the area or maybe who can't walk or who are elderly there's a lot of ways to appreciate that property even if you are a disabled person or whatever and that was her intention I just wanted to share that with you that's all. That is fantastic and yeah if you can please pass on our thanks and gratitude to your mother. I will do that. So okay so looking for a motion. Back on so I will move to accept the gift of the lord property. I'm sure we say it's not a gift of the whole property it's a gift of a conservation restriction. Gift of a conservation restriction. Second. Okay thank you Larry. I. Laura. I. Anna. I. Fletcher. I. LaRoy. I. And I for me as well so I said it before but I'll say it again thank you this is fantastic and so thank you Pete as well. Yeah thank you very much thanks Steph thanks Eva and we will be back next year with the Davis project. Excellent look forward to it. We need original signatures on this so we give us four or five days to we'll arrange with the commission and we'll get those via socially distanced sharing of pens okay. That's great and I don't mind a few extra days because John Goya still he was hoping to get the final document here today and it'll probably be in in a few days so I'll get it over to you. Okay and yeah there's a signature page so all we need to do is pass the signature page and then we can marry that with the the final final. Absolutely you could go ahead and do that and then and then it would get to Ilsa Laura for her signature. Great and so how we've been working that when I needed dependent ink is I would I'd get a call from somebody in Dave's office I think it was usually Angela and kind of let her know that she let me know that it's ready I would go down to town hall and meet her either outside or in the front little lobby depending on the weather and I would sign and we'd be good so I had to do that with Angela because we need it notarized I don't know if that needs to happen here but I think we probably do I'll have to look at the signature page but okay and if it is being notarized if you just remember to bring a driver's license or some other legal documentation with a photo. So I'll have Angela reach out to each of you and we'll get this signed you know in the next couple of days. So fantastic. Yep and Dave is the fact that I can't drive difficult. Well I was going to actually ask about kind of related to that Dave do we actually need to get everybody to sign what if we just get quorum if we just get four are we good enough to go? We probably are I don't have the form right in front of me but I'll take a look at it in the next couple of days and if I have to Larry you live two minutes from me if I have to run down your way I'll just run down your way and I'll pass it through the breezeway or something and you know so we'll make it work. I'm sure quorum's good but it's also good to get everybody. It's nice but yeah we're in weird conditions nowadays. Yeah yeah we'll figure out those signatures no problem. Okay fantastic. Okay thanks again. Bye Pete. Stephanie or Dave anything else on the agenda? It looks like we're getting close to the end. I do not have anything else. Anything from you Dave? The only thing I will tell you just again hoping for the best but just to let you know we did put in and I can't remember if I mentioned this last meeting but I did ask staff and I work closely with them we put in a grant to our CDBG program and our CDBG administrators in Boston for trail development, trail development design and construction if you will on the Hickory Ridge property and we put in a fairly sizable grant. We put in $165,000 so we're in a little bit of a holding pattern with CDBG funding right now but you know I'm cautiously optimistic that that might come through and that might be a really a big boost for us. That could pay for you know some design but we think we can do most of the design in-house but it could pay for kiosks, benches, new TRG, crushed stone gravel pathways, etc. So stay tuned on that but that could be a real shot in the arm for the trail system up there. That's great and feeding off of what I think Larry was asking earlier is there any sort of new timeline for when the transaction might occur? I wish there was. I have a meeting on Hickory I think at one o'clock on Friday with the lawyers. Yeah it's the most complicated piece is really the solar piece as I've said for months and you know I know Laura has more experience in that field than I do but it is a I don't know it seems like a quagmire between in this case Eversource, the smart program in Boston and the solar providers. Yeah so Dave I'm happy to work with you on this more than happy. I have a lot of experience dealing with that. Through that call on Friday and then maybe you and I can set up a Zoom or even a telephone call on Monday or Tuesday just so I could download what I know and what I'm hearing and see if there's any way to navigate through this. Sure and if you want me to join any calls that you're having with any party I'm happy to just listen and give you my feedback. Thank you. Excellent. Okay so does any commissioner have anything else they would like to cover tonight? One quick thing Dave maybe you might know there's excavator tracks on the old Salza property Salza property on Sunderland Road so across from Podic you know 116 Sunderland Road meet it's the industrial zoned area and I saw like excavator tracks going in there and I'm wondering if there's like because they came to us with an NOI. I'm sorry is this is this the Zola property east of 116 or what? Yes that one east east yeah and then industrial zoning area I don't know if you don't know what's going on if there's anything going on. No I don't know. I'm sorry. Well so I heard about a project I think I think Barry Roberts it might be involved I mean that's usually a safe bet but I think that there's a it's like a innovation facility an innovation research and design facility is that the one you're talking about? That one may be on a different piece of property up that way on Sunderland Road but I think that's being considered further south but I'll check that out Fletcher maybe this weekend I'll go up there I happen to be snowshoeing at Podic and Catherine Cole on last Sunday and maybe it's since then because I didn't notice any tracks in there on Sunday but I wasn't really looking to be honest. Yeah I drive by it all the time I just saw an excavator truck like you know I saw truck tracks in there one time but then I saw an excavator and I was like yeah let me take a look in there I will say I had a great snowshoe out of Catherine Cole and Podic and I was able to easily navigate the north trail and I don't know if our beavers I don't know if they went south for the for the winter or what happened to them I know that Eversource is supposed to trap them out there as part of their mitigation but on the water level seemed very very much lower than a has been and I you were you were I was actually able to see the culvert which moves water from north to south under the trail so that was really good news I have not seen that culvert in probably a year and a half so it's nice to see the water level down there impassable so okay so anything else for tonight if not looking for a motion to adjourn I'll make a motion to adjourn yes I will second that Larry aye Fletcher aye LaRoy aye Anna aye Laura aye and aye for me as well so we are adjourned thank you everyone and thank you especially Stephanie yeah appreciate it Stephanie you're welcome bye everyone good night all see you guys thank you