 And Jen, I'm going to make you co-host. Great, thank you. I'm going to start it. Welcome to the January 11th, 2023 meeting of the Amherst Massachusetts Conservation Commission. First meeting of the new year. Happy new year, everyone. Comments from me. We have a packed meeting. So we're going to try and we're going to try to get a few hearings, at least three hearings that have been continued many times. We're going to try to close them out this meeting. So let's try to follow our usual meeting kind of protocol and stay as efficient as possible so we can get a lot of stuff done. We have a special meeting planned for next Wednesday from 12 to 1 PM. That I haven't heard what availability is. I know I haven't done my calendar. It sounds like we do have a quorum. So we're going to plan on that. And Erin was saying earlier that we might have to have another special meeting in January or maybe early February to talk about a strategy for the Amherst Hills to Finoe properties, how to deal with that kind of open order of conditions. So it doesn't seem to slow down. And Erin's holding everything in the road. So thank you, Erin. I guess the one other thing I wanted to bring up front in the meeting is that this week, Erin was notified of some work that the DPW is doing to, I guess, dig out an outfall that should have been a permanent activity. It was above and beyond kind of what we usually think of as regular maintenance activities. And we can get into more details of this. It doesn't have to be in this meeting. But I wanted to put it on the record that based on kind of my review and my tenure on the commission, the activity was kind of outside of what would be considered regular maintenance and should have been an NOI or at least a conservation commission reviewed activity. So I think Erin and I are going to work on just a short friendly but a little bit formal memo to DPW because we just want to make sure that we're being consistent with enforcement of the Weapons Protection Act and the town bylaws across the town, across Amherst College, across UMass, across all of the landowners in the town. We just want to make sure that we're handling all these situations in the same way and doing our job to protect kind of our resource areas in the town. So Erin and I will be working on a memo that will run by the commission. And I think we're going to ask them to do work on a blanket NOI for activities like this so that we can clear up communications. And it's not just on Erin to be the one person kind of defending the Weapons Protection Act and the bylaws in the town. Instead, she has some structure to lean on when it comes to working with the DPW as to when activities are regular maintenance versus activities that should be reviewed by the Conservation Commission and potentially permitted. So I wanted to say that upfront. We don't really have the information to kind of discuss it as a commission yet. And Erin and I will be working on it over the next couple of weeks before our next meeting. But I just wanted to kind of get that on the public record and then let you guys know that it was kind of coming up so that it's on your radar. Was there anything else on that, Erin, that I should cover? OK, great. So those were my comments upfront. Director's report, Dave, I know you had enough day, but you also have a four-weeknight meeting week. So thank you for being here, but we won't, you know. Sure, I'll be very brief because I've reviewed like everybody reviewed your agenda and it's packed as usual. So I appreciate everybody's time tonight. No, really quickly just a few updates from the department and obviously Erin will keep the commission up to date on goings-on related to Hickory Ridge golf course and AMP energy getting ready with their project there. Erin, myself, our former planner, Maureen Pollock, who has left town service and the fire department have been working with AMP over the last six or eight weeks pretty intensively to try to get ready for a building permit to be issued for that project. So suffice it to say, AMP will be breaking ground out there in the coming weeks. I think within four to six weeks, they will be on the ground out there getting going with both bridge work. They need to, of course, improve the bridge over the Fort River and then they will proceed once they have a building permit from the inspection services department. They will begin to construct the solar project north of the Fort River. So January, February, March, there will be activity out at Hickory Ridge. It's also a time budget time here in the town. Just to give you a sense, we start budgeting. We start planning for budgeting really early, which is both it's wonderful, but at the same time, it's a little hard to think about FY 24 at this point in FY 25 and FY 26. But we get going both with operating budgeting planning and also capital planning. So we're engaged in that right now. It will go on between now with various committees and boards right through June when the town council will approve our budget. I don't expect any significant changes to the conservation budget. I think we've been doing a really good job advocating. I think the positive change will be on the capital side. I think through advocating for CPA dollars, for capital dollars, for ARPA dollars, we're going to have a significant amount of money to spend on trails and trailhead parking and improvements and bridges, things like that. So I think that's all positive. I know Michelle has been. Is Dave frozen for everyone? He's frozen for me. Yeah, he's frozen for me too. Dave, if you can hear us. There you are. You're back, I think. Yes, am I here? You're here. Yep, you're here. He froze for a few minutes. Okay. I know Michelle has been working with the CPA committee. Michelle, I can't remember what the final recommendation. I believe the conservation proposal was reduced. Is that correct? Yeah. So our recommendation was for 70,000 for FY 23. Which will go on to be recommended to the town council. And I presume it would be funded. So right now is a good time for us to really look at potential field projects for the summer of 23 and probably the summer of 24. There's obviously more to do than we have staff or time or energy. But we'll be looking at kind of, three categories of projects, kind of the three bears approach, kind of large, medium and small. And what can we handle as a department, a small department? What can we do with volunteers and then some of the larger, more complex projects we would probably contract out for? One of those big ones is the MFIS Brooke Bridge. I know that's been in the works for a long time. We're still working with our building commissioner on a potential redesign of that. And Aaron and I will be kind of nudging that project along. So that'll be probably the largest project we take on in 23 will be the MFIS Brooke Bridge. I know Brad and Tyler from our field staff will be joining you on February 9th. I think they will be giving a short PowerPoint and answering your questions about, it'll be kind of a recap of 2022. And then looking forward a little bit on field projects that are coming down the line. So that's kind of a general recap. Given the weather, we are still brush hogging. We had some irritating, I would say, tractor issues this fall, but with semi-frozen ground and our tractors back in action, we are brush hogging some of those areas that have not been brush hogged in a long, long time. So you will likely see Brad and Tyler out there. One tractor has a cab, one tractor doesn't. So who gets what tractor I think is a toss of a coin? But anyway, they will continue to be brush hogging as long as we can. So that's kind of the quick overview of projects. So a lot of project planning to go on in January and February and March before the field season next year. And again, lastly, I'm looking forward to, we are going to kick off that subcommittee looking at land use policy. And I hope we can meet, you know, before the end of January, early February as the subcommittees and Aaron schedule allow. So thanks. I'm happy to take any quick questions if you have them, but I don't want to take them more time. That's great. Thanks, Dave. Please pass on our thanks to Brad and Tyler. It's gotta be cold. It's great that they can get it in, but... They love that outdoor work though. It's very informative, yeah. One, just so you know, I mean, one of the main tractor does have heat and a radio. And so it's quite a comfortable setup. It's the older tractor that's almost 20 years old, I think. Yeah. Anyway, thank you very much. Have a good week. Yeah, thanks Dave. Good luck with the rest of your week. Okay, so thanks, Aaron, for sharing land management updates. I still have the land use policy for review. I've gone through about half of it. I haven't made it the whole way, Aaron, but I'm not giving up. Comments on mitigation calculator, was that just soliciting any additional feedback? Folks had time to look at it over the holidays, Aaron? Yes, yep. So we're gonna potentially be implementing that calculator tonight for the 47 Olympia Drive. So it's basically our board members comfortable with sort of how it's been developed. And obviously it's meant to be a living document. So as there are improvements or changes, or for example, you know, rates change for, you know, mileage or cost change in terms of materials, plant costs, these things are expected to be modified as time goes on. It's not gonna be sort of set in stone, but it's more looking at sort of the general framework that has been developed to make sure everybody's comfortable with it. And if anyone has any comments or changes that we should talk about it before we move into the hearings tonight? For my part, I mean, I looked at it for a while this morning and I couldn't think of anything that you guys had in. So I'm glad that we have it as a place to point to and be consistent as we deal with increasing kind of payments in lieu of mitigation. I'm super appreciative of kind of Michelle, your expertise and background in that because I think I would have been pretty lost. So I understood what you did and it made a lot of sense but I couldn't think of anything to add. Anyone else? I guess just one thing I thought of based on what Erin said that maybe another step is terms of the living document part of it is sort of an accompanying table of like triggered changes. So rate changes, inflation changes, you know, land cost changes and maybe I could just write something up real quick. So every time we have to use it we could just quickly look down a short table and make sure that it's up to date in terms of things that might trigger changes. That would be excellent. That would be awesome. Right, because then we can kind of, when we have a hearing that it's going in that direction we can be straightforward and upfront with a representative or an applicant about exactly how it could shift based on how long it's been since we applied it and the specifics of their project that does make a lot of sense. The other thing, you know, just to touch on this because we had talked about it we had kind of gone around in circles a little bit when we first discussed it. And, you know, I guess for me personally I was sort of unclear in terms of how we should be applying this like should it be for 100% of the alteration that's not being mitigated for, right? So like if they're not restoring the area should we be calculating it for 100% restoration and or because we in our bylaw regulations we have this 20% sort of, I don't wanna call it an allowance but it's at the discretion of the commission to allow up to 20% alteration of the buffer on the given parcel. And because I felt really sort of unsure about how to advise the commission with regard to the percentages that we should be requiring I did inquire with the town attorney to get their read on it. And their read was, and I wish I had the exact language and notes in front of me but it was basically, there is a sort of a legislative intent in everything we say in our bylaw. And if we say that we are considering allowing up to 20% alteration of the buffer on a given parcel that that's essentially an allowance. And so requiring folks to restore up to that 20% he didn't necessarily think that was a good idea in case there was ever an appeal that that language might get teased apart. So his recommendation was for now we should, if we're gonna do the in lieu fee funding for over 20% alteration that he thinks that's completely defensible based on our bylaw. But he said that if we decide down the road that we want 100% restoration that we should also revise our bylaw in turn to reflect that it's basically completely at the discretion of the commission what they allow and don't allow. So anyways, I thought that was interesting and just something to pass along to all of you from research I did in the background. Yeah, thanks for clarifying that Erin because I remember we debated that as a commission on the 47 Olympia Drive hearing. Okay, good to know. Commissioner, is there any other questions about the mitigation calculator comments? We're talking about putting this into work tonight, possibly. Sorry, it's hard to hear you Flutcher. Can you say it louder? Oh, I'm sorry. So we're talking about adopting this tonight. Yeah. Yeah, so it is being used in the 47 Olympia Drive hearing and because it's a living document, I don't know, Erin, I wasn't thinking we had to have a motion to accept it or anything. I mean, I think it's a public tool that we're using in order to put a dollar amount on payments in lieu of mitigation. So I don't think there's any formal activity we have to do to adopt it, Flutcher, but it is behind the payment in lieu of mitigation we're asking for in the 47 Olympia Drive case and that's kind of gonna be the beginning of our precedent in using this tool, so. Yeah, and somewhat related to that also, I did inquire with town council about our bylaw sort of supporting us to do in lieu of fee funding requests from people as part of the applications and it is in our bylaw spelled out under mitigation that we can require offsite mitigation. So he felt pretty strongly that it was defensible under our bylaw to require this of applicants and yeah, so I don't know that there's any necessarily formal process that we have to go through to adopt this specific calculator. It's negotiable, we could talk about it. This is just what we're putting out there for people. Do we have any feedback from 47 Olympia Drive about it? We should talk about that in the hearing itself. Yeah, it would be nice to hear from them. Yeah, but we'll definitely ask that, Alex. Yeah. Okay, the other item under land management updates is a land use application for a polar plunge at Puffer's pond, but that's the request is for date in April and given how a fuller agenda is and how that could be a much discussed situation I would like to table that until our next meeting. So Erin, is there any other business we can move through in the eight minutes before our first hearing? Yes, absolutely. And Jen, I can't see attendees while I'm sharing my screen. So if anybody pops in with a hand raised if you could just keep an eye on that. Yeah, I am looking, yeah. Wonderful. Yeah, so yes, a couple other business items to update you folks on. Request for certificates of compliance, this five-hedral lane has been patiently waiting for the last couple of months. It's a very old order of conditions. I went out and did a site visit. The site is totally stable. There's no violations on the site. So I would be comfortable to issue a complete certification for that property. There is Amherst Hills Gen referenced at the top that's tabled for this evening pending for future discussions and I'll keep you posted on that one. So it looks like we're looking for a motion. I'll make a motion to issue a complete certification for five through seven-hedral lane, DEP number 089-0223. Second. Is that Michelle on the second? Voice vote, Alex. Yes. Cameron. Hi. Michelle. Hi. Fletcher. Hi. And I'm an I. Woo, woo, woo, woo, sorry. And so is the dog. Yeah, the dog's in. Like a graze of battery. Don't worry, so we'll just keep moving. So emergency certifications, there was two emergency certifications over the last few months. And again, we haven't met since early November. So these were, some of these are a little dated, but the 60 Chapel Road, you guys might be familiar or remember out on Chapel Road behind the homes, there's like a subdivision on Chapel Road behind the homes, between the homes and the waterway are these very dangerous, a very dangerous stand of dead red pines. And we've issued historically, since I've been here, I think, two emergency certifications for tree removals where these trees, they're like toothpicks and they fall on people's brooves and decks and another situation arose with a backyard being dangerous. And so the landowner requested permission to remove the dead snags. So that was the 60 Chapel Road site. Palm Roy Court, there'll be more discussions on this particular roadway in the upcoming weeks and months, but there's an issue with flooding on Palm Roy Court and on that road, the utilities all run underground. Eversource has had multiple issues with the electricity faulting out and losing power because the road is always inundated. And so a section of the conduit had to be replaced to service the residents who live on that road. And that was several weeks ago, the work is actually wrapping up right now. So both of these emergency certifications, I'd be looking for ratification of tonight. Keep it going. I'll move to ratify the emergency certification for 60 Chapel Road. Seconded. That was Cameron on the second, voice vote, Alex. Yes. Cameron. Hi. Michelle. Hi. Fletcher. Hi. Also and I. And I'll just move, make a motion to do the same ratified emergency certification for Palm Roy Court. Second. Michelle on the second, voice vote, Alex. Yes. Cameron. Hi. Michelle. Hi. Fletcher. Hi. Also and I. So thank you. And we received a request to extend the order of conditions for Southeast Commons. This is the project that's on Southeast Street behind Florence Savings Bank. I alerted them that the order of conditions expires in early February and asked them to basically reflag the wetlands and to file the extension, which they did. I haven't had a chance to get out there to just verify the well and flag locations. I have been going out there sort of spot checking periodically. The replication area looks absolutely beautiful. So that's one very positive thing. And the other really positive thing about this site is that they're moving very quickly. So my hope is that they're just going to wrap up, continue monitoring the replication area and stabilize the site in the spring. But they're on a very fast timeline. They didn't ask for an extremely long extension basically just to finish up the project. But I'll keep you posted on that and we'll address that one at the upcoming meeting. We'll definitely need to deal with it at the next meeting because it does expire in early February. But make sure that we get that one on that agenda. That replication area in the back towards the brook there. Right, I'm just trying to remember if we went through a lot with that one. Yeah, it's kind of at the southwestern corner of the property, Fletcher, like way back, almost adjacent to the existing wetland. Yeah, and they still had to build a wall for the parking. Exactly, yep, in order to stabilize the parking area. Yeah, it took that particular one, it's taken a lot to get it into compliance with the actual order of conditions because the work started before there was a pre-construction meeting. I don't know if you guys remember that. And then, yeah, so but since that time, I feel like we've really made a lot of progress. I held them very firmly to getting the replication area done and the replication area came out beautiful. And I'm really happy with how that came out. And I have no doubt that it will be successful because the wetland plants were moving into the site during the period of time when no work was going on. So I think it's going to be a successful replication and confident that the extension will be a good thing to see the project through. OK, great, that's good news. We'll take that. Thanks, Aaron. OK, so that was other business. That was awesome, eight minutes of other business. So I have 7.30. I think we could go to our first hearing. So this is the Notice of Attent EBT Environmental Consultants on behalf of Amid Development Court for the installation of approximately 12 1,250 liter feet of water line at 23 and 28 green leaves drive and replacement of an existing failed culvert. Aaron, this is the one where there's an open order of conditions. And part of that order of conditions was a wetland replication. But it sounds like that still needs to be cleaned up. Is that am I remembering that correctly? Yes. Give us a quick update before we move into the. Yes, I definitely would like to get you guys guidance on the guidance I gave the consultant on this one just to make sure that you guys are on board with what I've recommended. So it's AMHAD, Amherst Hadley Development Corp. So it almost looks like a mod. I had a friend named Amad in high school. I'm not sure how to pronounce this AMHAD. Anyway, yeah. So they had developed the green leaves development condo development back in the early 2000s. And there was an associated replication area, water lines, all the infrastructure, et cetera. But unfortunately, with that particular project, there were a couple like when the work was done for the condominiums, there wasn't sort of a lot of follow up in terms of making sure that the final restoration area was in compliance with the original order of conditions. And a certificate of compliance was never issued. So the permit expired and then there was no certificate of compliance, which means that there's a standing order of conditions on the site. Glenn Krawoski from EBT Environmental is the consultant on this one. I've known Glenn for a very long time. He's really good. He took a look at the replication area and there was a couple issues with the replication area. So the replication area is too small and it was built too deep. So it ends up being just like a standing pool of water. There's not a lot of vegetation, wetland vegetation established in it. And the way it was supposed to be constructed was to connect with the adjacent wetland. But unfortunately, it was like dug as like this hole and then there's a berm in between it and the adjacent wetland. So it's not as large as it should be. So you're not supposed to have two open orders of conditions on a site, but that order of conditions has expired and the replication area wasn't constructed per the spec. So my recommendation to Glenn was roll the replication area into the new filing. There was also an area of fill that had been placed in a wetland that needed to be restored. Roll the restoration and the replication into the new permit and that once he did that to submit the plan to us and that we should consider issuing a partial certificate of compliance, noting that the replication and the restoration were required to be completed as part of the issuance of the partial certificate of compliance for the old order of conditions. That way we could issue a new order of conditions for the work to actually be completed properly and we can correctly oversee it and make sure that it's done per the plan. But that old order isn't gonna be sort of interfering with our ability to get this issue built to how it should have been in the beginning. That makes a lot of sense, Erin. I think that's a really good plan. Thanks for working through this. And I don't see Glenn here. So he was just planning on us continuing. Do you wanna take, so with Glenn not here, I feel like we should continue and open and take public comment at our next hearing. That would be my recommendation is just to not even open it tonight. We'll just continue the public hearing to the 25th and then open it, take public comment, get a presentation from Glenn at that point. Yep, okay. So let me do some quick translating because I feel like we could have some of butters present because I think this work is something that needs to get done and we're trying to figure out the most efficient way to move through it. So if you were here about the 730 notice of intent EBT environmental consultants on behalf of AMHED Development Corp for the installation of approximately 1,200 million feet of waterline, 23 and 28 green leaves drive. So what just happened is basically there was a permit for work there that had an order of conditions associated with it. The order of conditions were not fully met and there was no certificate of compliance issued and we can't have two orders of condition open on one property. So we have to figure out how to kind of close the old order of conditions and then wrap a new order of conditions into this new permit application which is why we have this public hearing now. So this is a long and complicated way of saying we are working with the applicant to move through this as efficiently as possible. Erin has found like the straightest and shortest line between two points but that means that we are continuing this public hearing until our next meeting which is on January 25th. So you will not, if you're in a butter for this property you will not be notified again by the applicant. Instead what you should do is log on to the Amherst Conservation Commission website or fill up the Amherst Conservation Commission website and check the agenda, make sure it's going, it's good to go for the 25th and plan on calling in again then if you have some sort of comment or questions about this application. So with that commissioners, we are looking for a motion to continue. Great job, Jen. Move to continue the public hearing for 23 and 28 green leaves drive which will then be a notice of a tent application. We know that's happening, yeah. Yes. The notice of a tent application, 745. Second. That was a second for Michelle, voice vote, Alex. Aye. Aye. Cameron. Aye. Michelle. Aye. Fletcher. Aye. And I'm also an aye. Okay. So awesome, moving through. Our next one is Service Net on Belcher Town Road. And before we jump into this, could you pull up the slide that just has our usual, the like five minutes do this, like our usual plan when we open hearings just so I can go over that quickly and explain how we're going to do it a little differently tonight. So unfortunately, because we haven't had quorum and have had a lot of reasons to not have meet really tough reasons to not have meetings over the past kind of month and a half. A lot of these hearings that we're going to start to move through are things that have been open for months and are pretty complicated. And a lot of Erin's been managing a lot behind the scenes to kind of get us where we need to be in order to close a lot of these tonight. So in order to keep things efficient instead of our usual plan, which is that we have a five minute update from an applicant or the applicant's representative and then comments from Erin and then public comments and then questions from commissioners. We're going to kind of flip the script a little bit and have Erin catch us up, kind of bring us to the tip of kind of what the outstanding issues were so that we're all kind of reminded immediately kind of what the kind of outstanding issues were for these permits and what's gone on in order to kind of get to where we are. And then once she's updated us so we're like fully reminded of everything that happened with this project then we'll move on with any questions from commissioners or any short updates from applicants. And we will open for public comment but we'll try to keep that brief just because these hearings have been open for a long time there's been a lot of time to discuss all of these issues. And then hopefully for us a few of these we'll be able to move to issue in order of conditions. So I just want to let people know that we're kind of messing up the order but everything will have a chance to be included. So that is our plan for the upcoming meetings. And that's where we're gonna start with this. Notice 710 at 735 p.m. on our agenda. So our Levesque Associates on behalf of ServiceNet for repaving an existing parking lot and drive aisles associated with pedestrian access improvements within the buffer zone to an intermittent stream at 12 slash 20 Belcher Town Road. So Erin do you wanna give us your update? Of course. So since our last meeting, myself and the planning department have been coordinating with our Levesque Associates to try to negotiate all of the additional conditions that the commission wanted and also the conditions that the planning department wanted in terms of revisions just to sort of run through those a little bit at the meeting. So the first thing was one of the first requests from the commission was to reduce the pavement. That was one of my first requests when we were out on a site visit was what can we do to move this pavement away from the brook if possible. And so there was some question about whether that parking was required as part of the original development and like there's a shared because the building is attached to an additional sort of condominium that's attached to it. If folks could mute if you're not talking just because I'm getting a little feedback. So the planning department did confirm that some of the parking wasn't needed. So there's a large swath of parking that is being removed closest to the brook. So that's one big piece that's really important here in terms of revisions on this plan. The additional restoration of Faringbrook. So on the original plan from the last meeting there was a small area of restoration. That restoration has been extended down faring and also up the banks of the faring to include plantings, stabilization, erosion control blankets, removal of debris and material, removal of old fencing, removal of material that had been dumped into the stream, concrete, just like junk that is in the stream right now. There was also a request to improve water quality to the stream and there is one catch basin which drains the parking area associated with this property into the stream. And so my ask was to add a sump to the existing catch basin if it's not being replaced which would add an additional layer of water quality protection. But the alternative is if that cannot be added to the structure that they would have to replace the structure as a whole with a deep sump catch basin. Let's see, there was fencing added to protect the restoration area and also to protect people from going down and getting injured like a child falling off the head wall but that'll also protect the restoration area from damage. Oh, relocating and armoring. There was a sump pump from the basement of the property that was basically previously discharging right behind the head wall and it had been revised to basically discharge right into the brook. We asked to have that adjusted and it was put closer to the building not behind the head wall and that outlet is now armored. The head wall itself has a lot of issues and the question was who owns the head wall? Is it in decent structural condition? The applicant communicated with Jason Skeels the town engineer to basically determine it is a DPW structure. DPW owns and maintains it. The structure is in working condition. It's not, it hasn't been damaged to the point that it's not gonna function or fall apart but the trees that are growing on top of it do need to be removed. So the applicant will be taking care of the tree removal and then stabilizing around the culvert. And sort of that negotiation has gone on with DPW behind the scenes as well. I think I've covered all of the sort of changes and adjustments to the plan. I did do a calculation just to determine the previous buffer zone, altered buffer zone on this site was 75% developed and with this proposal, the developed area is being reduced to 67%, which is an improvement over existing conditions. So for new commissioners, for redevelopment projects like this, that's the type of thing we like to negotiate is an improvement over existing conditions to the maximum extent that we can ask on a previously developed site. And, sorry. And also the 18% restoration of the existing degraded resource, which is the banks of the faring brook which are pretty bad. So that's my update. I did draft conditions for under our local bylaw and under the Wetland Protection Act. So there's special conditions and our standard boilerplate conditions for commercial projects. To make this a little easier, there's three orders of conditions that I've drafted tonight. They're all very similar. There are some special conditions which are site specific. And if you'd like, I can run through what those conditions are, or we can wait until we get a little bit closer to where the commission's ready to move if you are. I mean, my first cut on that is that it's a vast improvement over what we saw last time I heard about this project. So I am thrilled with this. I think, especially, yeah, I think given everything we know about the site and the project, this is a really good place to land. And I feel great about improving kind of the status of the buffer at Fearing Brook and also a little nod towards water quality given our future focus on Fearing. So from here, commissioners, does anyone have any major concerns, red flags, questions? No, I agree. I'm happy to see these improvements over what we discussed last time. Yeah, great. Thanks, Michelle. So with that, I see Ryan Nelson from RLA and Connor Burgess from ServiceNet as attendees. Ryan or Connor or anyone else who is an applicant or a representative of the applicant. If you want to make any comments or have any questions, please raise your hand and I can bring you in as a participant or as a panelist. I see you, Ryan. Is Tom Miranda? No, Tom Miranda, okay. So yeah, thank you, sir, attorney. Okay, great. It usually takes a few minutes. Hi, everyone, Ryan from RLVEC Associates. Hi, I just wanna say I think Aaron did a good job at summarizing changes and I don't have any further comments at this time. Great. Tom, do you have anything to add, any concerns? We can't hear you, but is that a thumbs up? Okay, awesome. So yeah, Aaron, if you'd be willing to run through those order of conditions or at least share your screen, we can reference them in a motion. Yeah, I thought I was sharing my screen. Is it, have you guys seen, did you see the plan that I shared or did that? We saw the plan. We saw the plan briefly and then disappeared. Okay, I must have kicked me out, kicked me out. Okay, so bear with me just while I open these up. And again, we're gonna be kind of, this is gonna be a little repetitive this evening because a lot of these conditions are very similar to the other orders that we're gonna see. Before you read through those Aaron, sorry, let me just, I forgot to have a moment for public comment. Yeah. So if you're here about the Belcher Town Road Service Net application, or the NOI application and you have a comment or question, please raise your hand and I will bring you in. I've not seen anyone. Hey, just real quick, Aaron. So you're, I know you just said this. So deep, you got everyone's coordinated with DEP and DEP is okay with the tree removal happening on the head wall and all that stuff. You mean DPW? DPW, yeah, DPW, yeah. Yes. Jason sent an email and basically was, my understanding was they were satisfied with what the applicant was planning to do around the head wall. Okay. Great. Okay. Order of conditions. We're ready, Aaron. All right. Okay. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna kind of point out where these are all gonna sort of be our standard special conditions for most of these permits this evening. They're all very similar. So this is special conditions under the Wellans Protection Act. And so when we make the motions, we'll just reference these documents because these are pretty substantial in terms of the list of special conditions. So the standard boilerplate under Wellans Protection and our local Wellan Protection bylaw for commercial projects, only native projects to be used on the site within Conservation Commission jurisdiction, including landscaping, no snow storage in resource areas or stormwater structures. The stormwater operation and maintenance log shall be filled out as required for each stormwater structure following the approved stormwater maintenance schedule in the notice of intent demonstrating regular required maintenance. This condition shall follow the site in perpetuity. The complete maintenance log shall be submitted with the request for certificate of compliance. Any contractor performing work on this site shall be provided a copy of the order of conditions and shall sign our original indicating that they have read and understand the document. I've had a lot of contractors recently doing work that say they've read it and they don't have it, never seen it. And so this is kind of my way to hold people to account on that. Any contractor that does not install, correct or maintain environmental controls shall be subject to enforcement action and fines. All drainage and stormwater structures shall be placed at proper grades and inverts using survey equipment and shall be overseen by a registered professional engineer. Again, projects where folks aren't following plans. So I'm trying to make sure that we keep that as a requirement. Okay, so limit of work in mitigation areas. Permanent boundary markers shall be placed at the limit of work and the restoration areas prior to the start of development activities on the site. Options include boulders, split rail fencing, other fencing or rebar wetland markers. In this case, they have a fence already proposed there. These markers shall serve as the boundaries and perpetuity and will be required to be maintained in perpetuity in the certificate of compliance if they biodegrade. As built plans shall include the onsite mitigation areas which shall be conspicuously labeled. Signage shall be installed at visible intervals along the limit of work line and the limit of mitigation areas that state wetland area no mowing, dumping or cutting and other or other proposed language approved by the wetlands administrator or conservation commission. Mitigation areas are considered compensatory mitigation for approved buffer zone alteration and as such, no future alteration of any kind is permitted in the mitigation areas. This is an ongoing condition and perpetuity in the order of conditions after the issuance of the certificate of compliance. There shall be no use of herbicides, pesticides within the buffer zone without approval of the conservation commission. No future alteration of the buffer zone is permitted on this lot in perpetuity and shall be an ongoing condition in the certificate of compliance. Work on the approved buffer zone mitigation plan shall begin within six months of the completion or I'm sorry, within six months of completion of the building construction and associated site work. So again, we don't want the mitigation area being, you know, at the, an afterthought we want it to once construction begins we want construction to begin on the mitigation as well in tandem. Site monitoring, the owner shall be required to hire a competent wetland professional to do weekly erosion and sediment control inspections. That monitor shall submit qualifications to the conservation commission or staff for approval in advance. Folks doing these inspections should be competent and we need to verify that before inspections begin. Inspections shall start immediately following the pre-construction meeting and continuing throughout construction phase until the final inspection by the wetlands administrator. So date of pre-construction meeting, date of final inspection and a sign off are included on there. Erosion control inspection reports shall be submitted to the wetlands administrator on a monthly basis. So the inspections are weekly but the monitoring reports are submitted monthly. These can be informal, including photos of the entire site, erosion control boundaries and contain recommendations for repair of erosion controls. If the reports are not submitted the applicant's considered out of compliance. Quarterly mitigation area monitoring. And again, this is geared toward if they do the mitigation area first they can get this out of the way immediately but the reports shall outline the work completed on the approved mitigation plan throughout the calendar year, submitted on a quarterly basis. The property owner is responsible for hiring a competent professional wetland scientist to prepare the mitigation area progress reports. Reports shall be submitted quarterly. From the start of construction and once the installation of the mitigation area is being completed there shall be a completion report. After that time the site shall be monitored annually for the life of the permit. So when the permit expires they would no longer be submitting reports but the final report has to be submitted to the conservation commission along with the certificate of compliance. And the commission cannot issue a certificate of compliance without that final mitigation report. And again, looking at green leaves this is the reason why it's so that we can have some confirmation that everything was done and it was done according to plan. And then the remainder of the document is sort of our standard boiler plate. For the town of Amherst again, it's very similar. They're basically exactly the same. The only difference being that we do notate that what the percentages of alteration are in the buffer zone because our buffer zone, our bylaw regulations do regulate buffer alteration a little bit differently than the Well and Protection Act does. And those are the draft orders of conditions. Thanks, Erin. I thought that was exhaustive. Good job. Commissioners, anything that sparked any further concerns? Okay, super thorough. Thanks, Erin. Tom or Ryan, any questions? Got a note. Okay, okay. I think we're cooking with gas, so. I think Alex has something. But you're on mute, Alex. Erin, when we go through the next couple of projects if those conditions are similar, maybe it would save time to just tell us where they're different. Yes, that's exactly what I intend to do. Thank you. We had to get it through it once. Exactly. All right, thanks for everyone's patience. Erin, do you mind sharing the motion language again? Awesome. Okay, commissioners, we're looking for that motion. I got it. I move to close the public hearing for 1220 Beltrotown Road and Issue and Order Conditions for DEP number 089-0709 with boilerplate special conditions under Wetlands Protection Act and Amherst General Bylaws Wetlands Protection. Special conditions are listed in the documents titled Attachment 1, 1220 Beltrotown Road State Special Conditions and Attachment 2, 2-12-20 Beltrotown Road TOA Special Conditions. Second. That was Cameron on the second voice vote. Alex. Aye. Cameron. Aye. Michelle. Aye. Fletcher. Aye. I'm also an aye, unanimous. Excellent. Tom, Ryan, thank you. Best of luck with the project. We look forward to seeing how it goes. Thank you, everyone. Appreciate your time. Yep. Have a good night. All right. So next up Fearing Street is a continuation. They've asked that we continue to our first meeting in February. So we are looking for a motion to continue to February 8th at 7.30 p.m. I'll make the motion to continue the notice intent for 46 Fearing Street to February 8th at 7.30 p.m. Seconded. Seconded by Cameron. Voice vote, Alex. Aye. Cameron. Aye. Michelle. Aye. Fletcher. Aye. Okay, and I'm an aye, unanimous, Erin. Hey, how long can we, I know we've come across this before, but we're continuing. Yeah. Continuing and continuing. I was gonna ask, but. Yeah. How long is this gonna happen? The word is that things are starting to move, and so we should have something to discuss in February. Like the Houses Movie? No comment. No comment. Not quite yet. Yeah. We should have more information to share on the February 8th meeting, but we know it's time. Yes. Sorry, so we can't really discuss that in the public hearing because there's ongoing litigation just to be clear about that. So I'm not just being glib. We can't discuss it here, but we will have more to report in their first meeting in February. Understood. All right. Next up, Eastman Brook LLC and Blue Wave Proposed Battery Energy Storage Facility in Buffer Zone to BVW 515 Central and Road. This is another one, like the one we just closed out that we're gonna flip the script and get an update from Erin, because if you guys remember, one of the big outstanding issues was containment. So I think Erin has worked with the applicant and applicants representative to really move forward on that. So I think to be efficient rather than kind of dig up lots of old details, we're gonna have an update from Erin first, and then we'll go from there. Yes. So we've had a number of meetings with the applicants and they've been very grateful for their sort of patience as we navigate this because this is a first standalone battery storage facility that we've had in town and we wanna get it right and make sure that we're properly dealing with a situation where there's a breach and materials released. The applicant did submit a plan and a revised stormwater management plan, which I am very happy with. And I will pull up those plans so that you can have a look at them and we can kind of dig into them a little bit, but the main issues that I had with the plan have been addressed and it's kind of difficult to zoom into details here. So they are no longer, they no longer have sort of a permeable membrane underneath or there's nothing aligning this entire facility, but what they did add were a concrete lip around the pads of each of these battery storage pads. So the water will be contained within the pad and then once the water accumulates, the water goes into a piping system and the piping system, I'm zooming in so that you guys can kind of see some of the detail here. The piping system, they're called drain lines are carrying the water out of the pads and down to these water storage tanks. Let me just move up a little bit. So these proposed 2,500 gallon underground water storage tanks. So the drainage coming off these pads is going into these storage tanks and the water is then, once the water accumulates in the storage tank, it is released into the infiltration trench. So if there's a breach to one of these batteries and or if there is liquid detected inside these battery storage containers are essentially in sort of like a cabinet, like a metal cabinet that all the batteries are contained in, they are equipped with an alarm system so that if there's a breach of the battery, a leak in the battery, anything like that, there's an alarm that's triggered. If that alarm goes off, there's a sump that is located inside these water storage tanks that causes the storage tank to close so that that water, if an alarm goes off in a battery and there's a known release of material from the batteries, the sump inside the water storage tank closes to prevent that water from draining into the infiltration trench. So I do feel that between the concrete pads that these cabinets are sitting on, the containment around the pad to keep the water around the pads contained, the drain lines, the water storage tanks, that we have like sort of multiple lines of defense in case of a breach of material from these. They also added lightning arrestors, which I specifically requested. So like if this system was struck by lightning and it caused like an explosion, there's lightning protection there so that they have ground protection in case there is a strike that it's hopefully gonna handle that a little bit better so the whole place doesn't blow up or something. Yeah, so that's kind of a couple of the hangups that we were dealing with. They did add additional infiltration trenches around the entire facility to handle stormwater. They have the compensatory storage for the flood mitigation on this side. Oh, and the other thing which we did talk about and they incorporated was the culvert replacement. So there was a culvert by the road which, or there is a culvert by the road which is currently failed. They are gonna be replacing that culvert so that water can flow under the driveway. I think I've covered all of the adjustments and I've also drafted an order of conditions based on my final review of the documents. So whenever you guys are ready for me to go through that all, as Alex said, I'll identify where the plans are different or the orders are different. Okay, we have questions from Alex and Michelle. Michelle, I saw your hand first. Yeah, sorry if I missed this Erin. One thing we talked about was filtration where the water actually goes to the ground and possibly replacements of the filters. Did you talk about that and did I miss it or what's the status of like where all this contained water actually goes into the ground? Well, so the previous plan was sending water, well, there was an error on the plan that we looked at originally. So, and I was able to figure that out once we teased it apart with the applicant. So you'll remember that on the previous iteration of the plan there were infiltration trenches between the concrete cabinets or the concrete pads that the cabinets were resting on. And so what they had done was they put these little filters where the water came off of the pads in those little infiltration trenches. Those don't exist anymore. There is no singular place where water can come off of those pads and infiltrate into the ground collectively. The water that falls onto the cabinet or onto the pad goes into a pipe. That pipe goes to the water storage tank. The water inside there accumulates until it slowly infiltrates into the infiltration trenches. But in the event of a breach, those storage tanks would, there'd be an automatic closure valve on it so it would close so that water couldn't be released. So it eliminated the need for the filters because the water's not going into an infiltration trench that can get into the ground. Okay, and I guess just a follow-up to that. I forget what you said the capacity of the holding tank was, but in the event of a very large rainstorm, say California, and say there's some catastrophic storm where there is both, the alarm goes off, the trigger closes, the catchment, like I guess do you feel that the capacity is great enough to withstand a very large water and a breach at the same time? I think short of building like a concrete moat around this entire facility and like, and we talked about this, like we talked about this like a worst case scenario, what are we talking like a plane crashing into the facility, like what's gonna cause this? We talked about all different kinds of scenarios. I think that this is as close to a failsafe as we're gonna get. I think it's well-designed. I think we're trying our best to protect the groundwater here. And I think that this is a decent compromise for making sure that there's containment and there's a system in place. When those alarms go off, if there's a breach in a battery, there's an immediate emergency response here. And so I'm hoping that between the concrete pads that will have lips on them, the drain lines and these 25 to 2,500 gallon storage tanks that it will at least give us some emergency containment in the event of like a severe disaster. So 25 to 2,500 does anyone have sort of a better idea than I do about how much water that is? And like is that an inch and hour for a day? Like I'm sorry, I don't really know, but I guess my question is just like what kind of storm would that hold? And you know, if it's huge, then fine. I just, I guess I'm lacking some sort of realistic understanding of it. So Drew is the engineer, Drew Verdakis from Wood. He might be best equipped to answer the question because he did the hydrologic analysis for the stormwater report. Yeah, and there's also a difference between leakage from the battery containment and stormwater runoff here. Right, so those, when we talk about like an inch and hour kind of storm planning, that's a different drainage system. Right, good point, Jen, because the water that doesn't fall into the pad is gonna be infiltrating into the ground. And it's not gonna be contaminated by anything, it's just rainwater falling to the ground and infiltrating. Okay, so let's, Alex, do you have a question that Erin can, based on like a clarification for Erin or is this is something that we should bring the applicant and applicant's representatives in? I think Erin can probably answer it. Okay, great. First of all, I wanna, I may have been a little confused. And when we were talking about rainwater just going in, what's going, what's being caught, as I understand it, is leakage from the cabinet, right? So yeah, let me just annotate. Let me get to my question. Okay, go ahead. From what I heard, it all works well during warm seasons. What would keep the pipes from freezing in the winter? So I think we should bring the engineer in, because my guess is that there won't be anything sitting in the pipes, so they probably have a little bit of slope, so there's no standing water and it's not freezing. Would the usual issue, deal with sewage, sewers. But let's bring the engineer in to answer that question. Thank you. So Drew, right? No, Kyle, I forget who. Drew is the engineer, I think Kyle's the project manager. If you're here as a representative for the battery bank at 515, thank you, Drew. Raise your hand and I will bring you in as a panelist. And Josh, yes, thanks, Josh. All right. Hi, can you hear me? Yeah. Okay. Hi Drew, we can see you. All right, thanks. Yeah, and Josh Larissie is here too, if you need him from Blue Wave. There he is. So yeah, good questions on storm water. So one, correct, only the concrete pad is being contained, so the concrete pad has the lip around it. So 99% of the time there is clean water falling on that pad, so that clean water will get collected and go to the water tank and then that pump will continuously run to pump out the clean water. So in terms of storms and things like that, like Aaron said, clean water will still hit the ground anywhere else in between the pads and infiltrate like it is now. So in terms of 5,000 gallons as well more, I don't have the numbers in front of me for the battery units, but if the once in a million event where all of these batteries leak, those tanks would be able to contain all that liquid, where in reality if something leaked, Josh, correct me if I'm wrong, it'd probably be one of these units, not all of them all at the same time. But if that were to happen, these tanks could collect all of that liquid. So that's in response to the 5,000 gallons. And then for freezing, right, these are gravity drain pipes. So like Jen said, these would be a typical drain or sewer pipe that are pitched, that are below frost level. So in terms of freezing everything with gravity drain, that pump will be always be running in those tanks so that clean water is always pumped out. They're below grade, they're not on the surface. So yeah, I believe Aaron and Jen hit that on that. Thank you. And for anyone kind of watching as a participant of this hearing, I think to zoom out a little bit, there's kind of a line you're trying to walk with a project like this, right? So we're trying to minimize impervious cover, right? Because we're worried about regular infiltration of healthy rainwater for aquifer storage and providing shallow groundwater resources for the creeks and wetlands nearby. But on the flip side, we wanna have a contingency in case there's any leakage from this battery storage facility. So what you're hearing is kind of a compromise between letting healthy rainwater fall and infiltrate and then also having the ability to contain if necessary any leakage from these battery storage banks. So those are the two factors kind of at play here. So when we're talking about containment, we're really talking about in the event, the very small chance, the event of leakage from the battery storage banks. But when we're talking about draining and regular infiltration, that's healthy rainwater and that's a natural process we wanna allow to happen. So I just wanted to say that for the benefit of anyone here in the public. Michelle, Alex, any follow-up questions for Drew or Josh? No, thanks guys. It's been fun to see this project come along and mature through the process and it's an exciting project. Thanks for your patience and your time, Drew and Josh and Erin of course for all of this. So I think what I should do quickly is see if anyone, any members of the public have any questions or comments about this application. So here we go. Cameron's off. Cameron, what? Sorry, what was that? Here you go. Oh, your camera turned off I think. Oh yes. So if there are anyone here in attendance who'd like to make a comment or ask a question about this application for a battery storage bank at 515 Sunderland Road, excuse me if you could raise your hand. All right, I'm not seeing anyone. So Erin, do you wanna just point out how this, these special conditions would be different from the ones you just went through in detail for the Belcher Town Road application and then we can move to a motion. Yes. So again, very similar, all very standard. Where this is the Wetland Protection Act, special conditions and again, all the same site monitoring, erosion control inspections, quarterly monitoring reports for the, this site contains a flood mitigation area. So the one requirement that is different about this one is that, sorry, my toggle is going crazy, that the flood mitigation area has to be constructed first. I can't make it stop doing that, I'm sorry. Because it's fill in a floodplain, the area or containment or I'm sorry, the construction of the flood storage mitigation area must be completed and stabilized prior to the filling of the flood zones on the property. So that is that condition 14 is where the, the orders of conditions diverge. And then under our Amherst General Bylaws special conditions, there is the notation that this site, this project proposes to permanently alter 8% of the buffer zone on the site. So they're not exceeding the 20% in our local Wetlands Bylaw. Other than that, these are standard exactly the same as the previous one, other than the site specific details. Excellent. So I'll just add, you know, Josh and Drew, I don't know if you guys stay with this project when it goes into construction, but anything you can do to make sure that this order of conditions is understood and internalized and communicate proactively with Erin. As you can tell, we have one Erin and a lot of big projects in this town. So in order to keep this productive and moving forward, we'd really appreciate a lot of proactive communication about what goes on out there, especially given the season that we're having and we're not even fully frozen. We'd really appreciate your continued support and help with that. Commissioner, is there any other questions, comments based on that? Alex, your hand is up again. Yep. Erin or project managers, I was curious what happened to the culverts along the road? Were the driveway to Annie's used to command? Erin said there was an agreement to replace those culverts. Yep. So the culverts are being replaced. That's it, that's all. Yeah, yep, great. Repair and replaced. Thank you. All right, so commissioners, we're looking for a motion. I'm gonna do this one again. I'm just gonna keep in the ball roll on here. I love this. So I'm gonna make a motion to move to close the public hearing at 515 Beltry Town Road to order conditions of DEP number 089-0707. No, you're go. Thunderland Road, sorry, that was a typo. That's okay. Keep going, we'll just amend it. And boilerplate, special conditions under Wetlands Protection Act, Amherst General By-law, Wetlands Protection Act. Special conditions are listed in documents titled Attachment 1, 551, Thunderland Road, State Special Condition and Attachment 2, 551, Thunderland Road, Town of Amherst Special Condition. That's 515, Thunderland Road for the record. What did I just say? That's okay, as long as we clarify in the motion, that's fine. All right, if I could just say anything then. No, I'm just joking, sorry. Look at first second. Like it. That was a second for Michelle, voice vote, Alex. Aye. Cameron. Aye. Michelle. Aye. Fletcher. Aye. And I'm an aye. unanimous, Erin. Drew, Josh, thank you. Yeah, I wanted to say a shout out to those two guys. Josh, we put you through the ringer, it's a good job. Yeah, thank you. No, thank you. Thank you for all your time and input. Really appreciate the process and glad we could get something, a really good result here. So looking forward to constructing it. And yeah, we'll definitely be a lot of communication with the town and you guys ahead of construction. Great, thank you very much. Good luck with the remaining 85% of the project. Yeah. All right, thank you. Have a good night. Thank you. Thanks. All right. Okay. Awesome work, everybody. So now 47 Olympia Drive. And we are gonna flip the script on this one too. But who? I'm just seeing if anyone is here. I think Kyle, I saw Kyle in the audience, although I can't see him now because I'm sharing. Oh, there's Kyle, okay. Yeah, I'm gonna bring Kyle in now just because we need his take on this mitigation in payment in lieu. Kyle, I'm bringing you in. I can't remember the name of the engineer who was great. Mark, Mark said. Yes. Mark is not, doesn't look like he's here. He might not need to be just because we're very... Mark's not here tonight. Okay, okay, great. All right, so Kyle, you probably have heard that we're kind of changing our order of operations a little bit just because it's been so long since we've met and this hearing has been open for so long. I think there's kind of two outstanding issues. So I'd like Aaron to just update us, get us to that point in the conversation so we don't get lost in the details yet again. So Aaron, go for it. Yeah, so the first thing that we can kind of cross off is that Kyle provided me with some documentation that basically indicates that the deed for this property allows the right to connect to the public utilities in the roadway. So that sort of eliminates us needing to get any permission from UMass or the town to allow that connection with the adjusted stormwater management plan. The other outstanding thing that we needed to clarify was that we have, because they're exceeding the 20% allowance under the buffer zone alterations that we've come up with the mitigation calculator to quantify a payment for the in-move fee account to compensate for the impacts that cannot be restored buffer zone on the site. And that's specifically the area where the building footprint is located that can't be restored. So I've had conversations with Kyle offline via email letting him know what the whole framework of the calculator was and how we went about calculating it and shared the numbers, the final numbers with him. And I think we're just at the point where we wanna confirm that everybody's on the same page before the order of conditions is issued. Great. Can you remind us what the amount of the in-move mitigation is, Erin? Yes, I can. I'm just gonna stop sharing a second to make this a little easier on myself. So bear with me while I navigate. Okay, I'm gonna share my screen. And so again, I mean, I'm pulling the orders of conditions because this actually specifically states the amounts. This is our draft order of conditions under our general by-law. And I'm just gonna zoom into this condition 15 that outlines the specifics. So we can have it in front of us and it's this condition 15 right here. Okay. And we should all pretty much have these buffer zone alteration numbers memorized at this point. We've gone around in circles about them for so long, but it looks like the final payment in lieu is $13,106.11 cents. Kyle, I think kind of the first cut is if you're on board with this plan, I mean, this is something that is in our by-law and it's gonna be, we're setting precedent here, but we're trying to be as transparent as possible about where we're getting these numbers. And our intention is to move forward using this same formula with updated numbers as necessary with projects like this in the town moving forward, which is actually pretty common. So I guess that's just to say, this is something we plan to do consistently and fairly across the board. So I wanted to give you a chance to weigh in and let us know what you're thinking about this part. I appreciate that and thank you for the time. And I appreciate you guys beginning this wetland mitigation fund. And if you've gotten to the point where this is the calculation that you're gonna move forward with, then that is fine with us and we agree to it. Great, thank you. Thank you. Commissioners, any other questions or red flags at this point? All right, so I think, Erin, aside from this payment and lieu of mitigation, are there any other differences between this order of conditions and the previous two exhaustive order of conditions we've talked about tonight that you wanna highlight? Yeah, so this is another, this is similar to the previous iteration where the restoration work, so because this one is unique in the sense that the restoration work cannot begin until the structure is constructed and the stormwater is constructed. So that's why this restoration would sort of be phased in with the construction approach that's specific to this site. And so that's where the condition 14 is different on the state order of conditions and our local order of conditions also incorporates that notation as well as, of course, the in lieu fee payment. Other than that, it is the same sort of standard boilerplate that I've shared that all the projects are subject to tonight. Great, thank you, Erin. And I think I'll just say again, Kyle, as you can see we have a, if you've probably seen me have a lot of big projects happening in town right now and given how wet and kind of unstable the season is and with everything going on in town, we have one, Erin, so anything you can do to proactively communicate with us we really appreciate. So I'm sure you will, but I just wanted to back up, Erin. I appreciate that and I'm thankful for all Erin's work to get this through. Absolutely. And I guess also thanks to Michelle who did most of the heavy lifting on the mitigation calculation. So thank you, Michelle. All right, commissioners, we're looking for a motion. I got it, I got it. All right, move to close public hearing for 47 Olympia Drive issued order conditions for DEP number 089-0706 with boilerplate special conditions in our Wetlands Protection Act and Amherst General By-law Wetlands Protection. Special conditions are listed in documents titled attachment one, 47 Olympia Drive state special conditions and attachment two, 47 Olympia Drive TOA special conditions. Second. That's Michelle, the second voice vote, Alex. Hi. Cameron. Hi. Michelle. Hi. Fletcher. Hi. And I'm also an I, that's unanimous. All right, Kyle, thank you. Best of luck. Thank you very much. Tell Mark you did a good job. Yeah, Mark did an outstanding job. Definitely. Thanks Mark. I'm very appreciative of Mark, he's awesome. Yeah. Thank you guys. He explained this project to us probably a dozen times. Very patiently. We appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Kyle. Have a good night. Have a good night. All right. Awesome. Kind of missed Mark already. I know. Please. All right. One more, one more friends. So this is a notice of intent Berkshire Design Group on behalf of Amherst Montessori School for Restoration of BVW at 27. Pomeroy Lane is Mike. Mike is Berkshire Design, right? My clue. Is, and I, he may be here. If. Yeah. And he looks like he's one of the last folks standing here. So I'm guessing that he's, he's here to represent this project. Mike, if you are, go ahead and raise your hand. We'll pull you in. Oh, there he is. And is there a Sam that you assist me with this project? Maybe Michael now. Yeah. I'm not familiar with Sam. So this one's an opening hearing. I know. I don't have the language. Can I. Yeah. I just say wing it. I opened this meeting accord according to regulation according to the Massachusetts Wetlands Protection Act in town of Amherst General bylaws. So this is a, let me read it. Notice of intent Berkshire Design Group on behalf of Amherst Montessori School for Restoration of BVW at 27. I'm not familiar with the district of Amherst. So I'm going to read it. I'm from Amoy, Lane. Um, Mike, how are you? Nice to see you. I'm doing well. How are you? Good. Happy new year to you all. Same to you. Do you want to give us a five minute kind of overview of. Sure. I will. Give you a warning. I'm standing in for Jeff squire tonight. So I don't know a lot of the history of, you know, what happened here, except what I was the information that I was given by Jeff. But there was some mistaken filling in of a slope down to a wetland at the Montessori school site, and Aaron sharing that plan. So, up to the top of the page, as you know is is Pomeroy Lane and you come in on the driveway. You see the building there at the bottom of the drawing, but that red areas off right off the edge of the pavement, where they had put in some gravel fill because people were, you know, parents were pulling in and, you know, parking on the edge of the pavement, and they put the fill in there to kind of create a wider shoulder for the cars to kind of pull off. Unknowingly, they didn't know that there was wetlands down in that area. So, you know, this notice of intent is to basically do restoration work is to excavate get rid of that fill and restore that bank. With a wetland seed seeding and Aaron had recommended that some type of permanent barrier be erected along there, whether it's a fence or stones or something that can't be moved. The owner is accepting of that condition. There was some other draft conditions I think that Aaron had sent through to Jeff. There's no objection to any of the conditions. Another one of note was putting in some signs, you know, like a wetland sign just so that people are aware that there's a sensitive area down there at the bottom of the slope. And, you know, there shouldn't be any, you know, trash or, you know, material being discarded or thrown down that edge. Aaron, if you had taken some photos while you visited the site. Yes. It's not it's it's like what it's maybe like about a three foot embankment from the edge of the paving maybe a little bit more down to the edge or down to the wetlands at the bottom. Right. Right where that car is parked. Right, right where that car is parked and you can see the kind of gravel that was put in. And then to the left down where the snow is it kind of the slope kind of drops off down to, you know, the wetland the wooded wetland down there. So, and that's the type of sign, you know, if, if, if that's kind of it, what's being used in town. You know, we're fine with putting in two or three of those signs along that stretch. Once the gravel is removed in that area is restored back to its kind of original slope. Great. Thanks, Mike. I think this is relatively minor to give Aaron a break. I'm just going to read through her suggested conditions. If that's okay. And I have your PowerPoint. Yes. You're sharing it. So Aaron's feedback, which it sounds like Berkshire design and Montessori agree with is that first, since there's no topography shown on the plan, any grading will need to tie into existing grades within the scale. Second staff request New England wetland plants and wetland seed mix be used in place of the erosion control mix. Three, a permanent barrier must be erected to prevent coachman on the area again. So yes, Boulder split rear fence wetland rebar markers and maintained in perpetuity for at least two signs must be installed along the edge of the restoration area noting this is a protected area. Five wetlands must be monitored for three years following restoration to make sure vegetation is becoming established informal annual reports of photos shall be provided to the commission with photos. Six, there should be no dumping of leaves or yard waste in the wetland soil in the future. And maybe we should add like, don't push snow into it at their seven no future alteration of this area in perpetuity. Okay, I'm going to take a look at questions or anything above and beyond there. Okay, I'm going to take a look. We have one attendee. If you're here as a member of the public and have a question or comment about this notice of intent application for the Amherst upon the story school, raise your hand. I'm not seeing anything. So Mike as long as it sounds like we're all in agreement that this is a reasonable order of conditions. Then commissioners I think we're looking for a motion. Alex you have your hand raised. Oh, sorry if I missed it. Sorry Alex. Go ahead. You're muted. Thanks. I recall there's a culvert involved Aaron or that goes underneath the driveway that drains the wetland is the care of that culvert somehow wrapped into these conditions. So it's, it's outside of the work area and there's going to be erosion controls around the boundary of the work, you know, during construction. Yeah, but the culvert is there to provide a drain for the wetland was down through it. Is that is keeping that maintained part of the part of the agreement. So we could certainly add a condition for, you know, required maintenance of the culvert in perpetuity. I think that would be a fine condition to add, just to make sure that they're doing annual maintenance to clean debris out of it. And we can we can certainly put, you know, silt socks or straw waddle or whatever around that opening to the culvert, you know, while this work is being done. It's a little bit of a reach just because it's so far outside of the work area. It is away from the work area. You know, but once, once you start digging up the ground, it's bound to rain. And, you know, we can protect it from, you know, being silted in or anything like that. I think that seems reasonable. Thank you. I'm sorry. I missed your hand to begin with. It's hard when I can only see three people at a time. I've got kind of a yellow wall back there. It looks yellow anyway. And so the hands and show very well. Well, I have to like constantly scroll through to see what people are doing. So I just missed you. Sorry. Okay, so commissioners, I think we're looking for a motion. I'm going to do it. Thank you. Thank you. I moved to close the public hearing issue order conditions for DEP number 089-0710 with a noted conditions above the Montessori school. Second. Second for Michelle voice vote Alex. Oh, Alex, you're muted. Hi. Thank you. Cameron. Hi. Michelle. Hi. Watcher. Hi. I'm also I, so that's unanimous. Mike, thanks for hanging in. All right, great. Appreciate it. Thanks, Mike. All right. Have a good night. Have a good night. All right. I think that's, that's it. I'm shocked that we got through that so fast. I just want to. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that was really, really good. Very efficient. You pulled all together there. Yeah. You made that easy. Yeah. Okay. So I think we're just looking for a motion to adjourn and just a reminder before we do that. We have a meeting from 12 to one next Wednesday, January 18. 12 to one. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's a special, okay. So, and just to give you guys a little, this is. For the Hickory Ridge. Solar facility that. That Dave mentioned at the front end of this meeting. The purpose of the meeting is basically because I've been working for the last. Three to six months negotiating. I've been working on it. I've been working on it. I've been working on it. I've been working on some. Improvements to. Their plans. And I want to run through what those. Changes are with you. Because it's been. A lot to kind of. Because I wasn't involved on the original permit and there was no storm water on the original permit. So I've been working on it. I've been working on it. I've been working on it. I've been working on it. I've been working on the containment on that site as well. So I've negotiated containment for the batteries. I've negotiated some storm water. All out of concom jurisdiction. But still negotiated. And it'll be an improvement to the resources. So I'm hoping that the commission will. Take these items into consideration. And. I'm hoping that the commission will be able to do that. So that's what the content is. And it's going to take a little longer than a normal meeting. So make. Special session just to make sure we cover it all and. You know, have adequate time to discuss. Great. Thanks, Erin. Maybe another thing we can add to that agenda is the DPW. Kind of. Blanket. No, I. Effort. That would be a good time to cover that as well. Okay. Sure. Thank you. Thank you. All right. When, when did you want to have the meeting? End of January, February that you talked about? That's an additional meeting. Yes. That's a great question. So I'm still waiting for some confirmation from Ted Parker. And working out some details. We're getting some information from NHSP, but it's going to be similar to green leaves. Trying to. You know, I'm not sure what my aim is here. It's like, I want to get rid of that 20 year old permit and require them to file a new notice of intent for the outstanding roadway. And so that's what I'm trying to negotiate with them right now. And so that's what we would be talking about when we meet. So you're going to send out a possible date. Yes. Yep. I'll send out dates for you guys for to confirm. There's a quorum. So that was being. I'd favor February. Okay. It's probably going to be January. Okay. Yeah. It's probably going to be at this point anyway. And same with the land use committee. If we get going that would favor February. Yeah. It's looking like it's probably going to be at this point. Cause I'm still drafting the charge for the committee. We'll get there. And there's no, you know, we're not in a dire rush right now. So. We're in good shape to kick off in February. Great. Thanks, Aaron. Thanks everybody. Thanks for hanging in there, Alex. Yeah. Yeah. Alex. Yeah. Yeah. I've been, you haven't been able to see, but I've been managing the ice. The meeting. God. The things we do. And on that, I'm going to get a motion to adjourn. Yeah. Thank you. Did I get a second? I get a second. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Voice vote. Fletcher. Hi. Michelle. Hi. Cameron. Hi. Alex. Hi. And I'm also an eye. Thanks everyone. Night everyone. Thanks guys. Good night. Thanks for a wonderful organization, Aaron. That was great. Hi, everyone. Hi guys.