 Thanks, Laura. All right. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Amherst Conservation Commission meeting. It's December 8th, 2021. The first item on our agenda are comments from the chair. And my first comment. Is I see attendees starting to log in. Maybe I'll give that a couple more minutes. So I have two comments. The first one I'll do is our next meeting is on December 22nd, which is the Wednesday before the Christmas holiday. I for one, no, I will not be able to attend, but I wanted to kind of take an informal roll call. Just so we can get a sense of based on what you know now, if we'll have a quorum or not. So Michelle, do you have any idea if that night will work for you or not? I will be here for that night. Okay. I can be here. Okay. No for Larry. Fletcher. I can be there. Yeah. Might be making some rum punch that time, but it's okay. Okay. So this is a double pronged question for you. One is can you and two, if you can, are you willing to chair the meeting? Good point. But yes. So I can't. Was it can or cannot. I'm sorry. Good. Okay. Okay. So it sounds like we're on for December 22nd. I will not be here. Apologies. Thank you. And the second announcement is just so, so far we have, it sounds like eight attendees and we might get a few more who are tracking the. Shoot spray road. Amp solar application. And I just wanted to say at the top of the meeting. If you're here for, let me read the. Talking things. Exactly. The notice of intent for TRC for a. MP, ASD shoots, with a construction of a solar Venetian energy generation facility in Access for a buffer zone to be, when you at shoots for a road. That application was withdrawn. So we will not be talking. That hearing is closed and we will be not be talking about that that project tonight. So again, shoot spray roads solar, that application for the solar installation project was withdrawn. So we will not be talking about that project tonight. On our agenda, just quickly for those of you who are logged in, we have an RDA for property at 55 Mechanic Street, the notice of intent for UMass undergraduate and graduate housing within 100 feet of Tan Brook. And then we have an ANRAD SW, SWCA is representing an applicant for confirmation of resource area boundaries at 246 Montague Road. Okay, so that's what I had to say at the top commissioners. This is one of those sneaky agendas again, where it seems like we have some some hearings that we'll be able to roll through pretty quickly. But there's a sticky one at the end at 246 Montague Road. And then there's just a lot going on in town that Aaron's fielding, navigating and dealing with. So sick with me. And let's keep the pace going. For those members of the public who are here, thank you for joining us. Just so you all know the way we usually do this is for each hearing, I'll open the hearing. We'll have about five minutes of project overview, five minutes of staff report and commissioner comment. Sometimes that's five to seven minutes and then take two minute public comments. And we really have to limit our time and keep things moving just because these meetings are packed and could last until midnight if we let them. So thank you again, everyone for being here. And with that, I will hand it over to Dave. Do you have anything to report tonight? Good evening. I can try to be real quick, Jen, because I know you all have a lot a lot in front of you. Part of part of my thinking is as I look at my my screen behind me and my outfit, I think how long it's almost like I feel like I've been caught in the same, you know, the same zoom meeting since like 2000. So anyway, here we go. So lots of things happening before winter sets in here in conservation. Unfortunately, starting off with some sad news, we did lose Brendan Kelly, our assistant land manager. You may be aware Brendan was with us for I think less than a year and and he got the calling out West and he is headed out West to find his fortune and go do some exciting things out there. He's very interested in firefighting. As a matter of fact, that's kind of what he's decided, I believe is his career path and talked about maybe even jumping out of planes or helicopters to fight fires. So crazy stuff, but we wish him well. So we are searching for an assistant land manager. The position is posted. Please, if you know anybody, point them toward our website and have them apply. We'll be putting together a search committee very soon on that. We're trying very quickly to complete all of the work on the Robert Frost Trail. This is the $30,000 grant we got from the Department of Conservation and Recreation. Brad, Brendan and some limited summer help have been trying to do that over the last couple of months. They've been making great progress. I believe they finished the last of four permitted bridges in Lawrence Swamp and south of Lawrence Swamp just I think late last week. So four bridges, hundreds and hundreds of feet of bog bridging and lots of hard work went into that. So we're wrapping that up before the snow flies and we'll submit a reimbursement to the state. Let's see. We're also working on the KC Trail and this is all weather dependent. I know there's snow flurries out there tonight, but Brad will work if there's no snow and he can run a tractor, he'll do it. So we're trying to finish up some work on the KC Trail from southeast street, not far from where some of you know well from southeast street down to the rail trail. We started some work down there and it's been kind of bumpy and so we're getting some new material delivered there to kind of smooth out some of the edges down there. I know some commissioners use that trail, as does the public, I've heard from many of them. We're also trying to address some of the safety issues around that bridge. You know we've been struggling with that bridge for a long time. Aaron and I have had numerous meetings, emails talking with consultants and we'll probably do something to button that bridge up for this year, but that's going to be a major project in 2022 and in our top three of let's get to the bottom of this bridge and do it right for the next 40 years. Brad is also going to be working on Markards Pond. We issued an emergency cert for Markards Pond to just shore up that dam at Markards Pond down in Orchard Valley and get that buttoned up. We're working with the town engineer Jason Skeels. He'll be on site next week to really kind of shore that up for the winter. We had some erosion happen there in the last couple of storms of 21 and we want to really firm that up for the winter. Aaron has been working on dam assessments. These are required assessments for the various dams that we the town owns and are on conservation land. One of them is Puffer's Pond. So these are required by the Department of Conservation and Recreation Phase 1's. Puffers I believe is a two-year cycle or three-year cycle frequent because it's a high hazard dam and then Aaron has also initiated a Phase 1 of the so-called the dam on the on the Epstein Pond or the Pond we just recently acquired in South Amherst. So those will be ongoing and we hope to have both of those done I would say in the next 30 days, 45 days, which would be great. We had a contractor out at Podic, Catherine Cole in North Amherst getting most of the work done to do a new parking lot out there and set the stage for some new kiosks to go in there in the spring. So if you're out at Catherine Cole and Podic, take a look at that work. It really makes kind of what was a bumpy ride out there and some big potholes a much smoother approach to Podic, Catherine Cole. What else? All of this before winter sets in and then finally I did mention at the last meeting DCR is concerned about the Bay Road parking lot that we put in and I'm happy to say that I haven't gotten the letter yet. I'll share the letter with you when we get it. It's due any day now but DCR reviewed our work. They were actually quite pleased with the work and they're willing to concede that really had we gone through a more formal process, they would have allowed the work to happen. As I said last meeting, it was really on me that we didn't realize that that section of the conservation area was covered by a conservation restriction but so as soon as I get that, we'll put it in a little packet. Aaron can share it with you all and the supporting materials that we submitted but the bottom line is we're in compliance and they're fine with the work we did. They actually think that by consolidating and concentrating the parking, we're going to try to do away with all of the on-street impacts that happened down there on Bay Road both on the south and north side of Bay Road and we're going to reseed those in the spring. We might even put some boulders in down there so that you don't get these big impacted areas on either side of Bay Road. It also makes it much safer down there. We don't want people parking on either side of Bay Road and crossing on that busy stretch so those are five or six of the hot kind of topics here in the department before winter sets in and happy to take any quick questions if your agenda allows, if your time allows. Hickory Ridge. Oh Hickory, thank you. Thank you Larry. I was meant to put that on my list. We are on track. I know I've said that before. It's really right now in the hands of the lawyers. The lawyers are going back and forth. We have a little staff input. In fact Aaron and I and other planning staff will be meeting on Friday on Hickory. We're really just getting down to the nitty gritty of what the easement agreement says and what the terms of the easement agreement are for the solar facility. How do they get there? How wide is the easement? Who maintains the road if it washes out? Who maintains the bridge if it washes out? Things of that sort. We're also working out the final terms with the assessor's office for the payment in lieu of taxes. So the solar company will pay a pilot every year to the town for the value of the solar installation in the 25 acres. So the lawyers are kind of working out the final details there. I'll throw out a date of January 15th. That's our goal to close by January 15th. If you've been out to Hickory recently the town worked with Barry Roberts who's the interim holder of the property and we consolidated the parking out there with some jersey barriers. We really wanted to not have that big huge parking lot open for people to come down with snowmobiles or ATVs and all of that. It also gives the police and fire department a more concentrated, easy area to kind of keep an eye on this winter. So we should own the property by January 15th. We've got signs getting printed to put up kind of town ownership what some of the rules and regulations will be down there and then our planning process will kind of ramp up in the spring. We did have some very nice meetings with residents of Mill Valley Apartments. They're the first apartment complex on the north side of Hickory Ridge. Planning staff and our community participation officers and I went out and we had some great conversations with adults and some young adults and some teens about what they would like to see at Hickory Ridge. The funniest thing that they shared with me and I thought it was really cute. A couple of the young folks said it'd be great to have a petting zoo out there. So we took that under advisement but they would love to have live animals and I said well there's many live animals that live out there in their wild and we talked about foxes and deer and coyotes and things so but lots of ideas from the folks at Mill Valley, from community gardens to a pavilion for picnicking to a petting zoo to trying to think what else came up. Obviously trails and connections to the Village Center. So we have over a hundred suggestions that have come in on the web page to engage hammers. So if you have more ideas about Hickory, go to the website and put in your ideas. Petting zoo was already taken. You can probably second that culture. I love the petting zoo idea, that's awesome. Yeah. If nobody else has questions for Dave, Dave will you pass on our thanks to Brendan for his time and hard work. I know this was a hard summer to get anything done between rain and trees being down and everything so please wish him luck. More small note of good. I successfully advocated have been advocating for new vehicles for the conservation department. Our vehicles are extremely old and so they were included in the capital plan so believe it or not we have those on order. So first four months of 22 we will have some new vehicles that are not what 11 and 16 years old. Yeah. Wasn't one of those trucks a hybrid where like one was the original truck like cabin and the other was a new truck bed. You remember that. Yes, a hybrid in that regard. Yeah. Unfortunately we can't get hybrids for the kind of work they do yet but that's coming. You know Ford and Chevy and other other vehicle makers are coming out with hybrid trucks and or electric trucks so we're looking forward to the day that we can convert to fully electric vehicles for our staff. So thanks. All right. Thanks Dave. Erin. What do you want to do with this time? Yeah. 12 minutes. Yeah. Maybe I'll just give you a quick update on some enforcement and if we still have time we can get to the emergency cert. Canton have subdivision. We had required the area to be reflagged and when the area was reflagged we identified that the wetland had expanded significantly and so we had required the owner to put together a new engineered basically to survey the new flagging and determine how it impacted the approved subdivision plan in terms of the house layout, the stormwater layout and what was determined based on that was that in fact it is going to impact the original approved plan. So I got a sort of plan revision but the plan revision changed the house footprint and removed the stormwater features that were approved on the plan. I did include that plan I believe in your packets and I guess my feeling on it with the Canton is that they should just file a new order of conditions at this point. The order of conditions was continued more than once and is kind of at the end of its life and considering there's a plan change I think it doesn't make any sense to amend the permit to take into consideration the change but So you would file a new permit, a new application, Aaron? Correct because the conditions have changed so drastically on one of the lots with the expanded wetland that they cannot construct that lot as approved in the order of conditions. It's changed so dramatically the house footprint and the stormwater structure couldn't be constructed. It requires like an entire redesign of one of the lots. So how do we communicate this or what support do you need from us? Yeah I mean I let them know that they would need to file a new, I mean I said either you'll need to amend or file a new permit. The commission needs to kind of weigh in on this and they said that they would check back in after the holidays with us to see kind of what the process was. So I just wanted to make sure you guys were aware that this is still moving forward behind the scenes and I think that makes the most sense. I don't think it makes sense to amend a you know six-year-old order of conditions that's about to expire where there's a plan change that's pretty dramatic. Can you remind me when it expires? Do you remember? It would be easy for me to tell you that but there's this tolling period that actually requires like a calculation for me to tell you the exact date so but what I can do actually I'm glad you mentioned that. I will calculate what the expiration date is and we can maybe talk about it in early January if that makes sense. Okay great. The new design is that the same was actually was it Bucky Sparkle to the first one? Did they use the same engineer? Yeah Bucky did do the plan. He put the design together for them but he did speak to me offline and basically explain all the concerns and then when I looked at the plan it was pretty easy to identify right off the bat. The house footprint has completely changed. The driveway footprint changed. There's no stormwater feature on the site that was originally approved so Bucky is involved. I don't know what his schedule looks like in 2022. I think he was trying to help him out to resolve the enforcement issue and kind of come to a determination as to whether the project would need to be redesigned and we've determined that indeed the project does need to be redesigned based on the change so I don't know if he's going to stay on for another permit round on this but he did put together the rendering for you know making a determination on the change to the wetland. Okay okay thanks for the heads up on that one. The other thing that you guys should be aware of is the fact that on Tuckerman and Kingman there's a it's a cul-de-sac so if you're coming off of East Pleasant Street what's the road there I'm trying to and so there's this come again Henry Street right so from Henry Street you can see the back end of the subdivision but I'm trying to think it's like there's a cemetery on on East Pleasant Street almost where it connects to Pine Street and there's like a huge subdivision in between that road and Henry Street and it abuts up against the railroad tracks that run along Henry Street. If you drive down there you'll see that two lots have been clear cut basically for house lots and it was reported to me and I went out and looked at it that there is an intermittent stream that is abutting one of the lots it's it's not an egregious violation in the sense of I think the commission probably would have permitted the cutting even if they had come to us with an application it's like the outer 40 feet of the 100 foot buffer zone that was cut and so I required them to file a request for determination and hire a consultant and come to us with a plan for the house the house lot that's close to the the intermittent stream so just so that you guys know that that was a like an enforcement response issue and there in the course of dealing with a building permit application I was actually out on site reviewing a building permit and let me see if I can get the photos up actually I heard a chainsaw going I was taking some measurements to see if these people who were filing a building permit needed to file a permit which they didn't end up needing to do but I heard a chainsaw going down along the stream and so I walked over to the folks house and as it turns out they were doing some some tree clearing but the trees there's a on on Chapel Road there is a stand a grove of pine trees which sorry I'm just queuing up the photos so I can show you guys there's a stand of dead pine trees in this neighborhood and they run all along these people's backyards and you can see they I mean they're they're very dead and they've I mean they've got um they're like dead snags with with um nesting cavities in them and everything and they're in some cases these ones are actually these photos are closer to the road but they're somewhere they're very close to people's houses so um as a result I ended up issuing an emergency certification for the tree clearing because it was clear that they were hazardous and one of them had actually already fallen down on somebody's deck and like damaged their house so uh so issued an emergency cert so we just need to um to ratify that this evening and I'll get the motion back up for you just getting down the pictures here are we ready to go with that ratification yes uh so I move we ratify the emergency certification at 52 Chapel Road second right voice vote um Leroy hi Fletcher hi Hanna hi Michelle hi Larry hi I'm an I and Laura's absent I guess um okay um three minutes okay so I'm just gonna talk about sort of some of the behind the scenes stuff really quickly um I'll just talk quick briefly about Southeast Commons um this is a project that came before the board a couple maybe six years ago um it was like three years ago oh I'm sorry you're right it was like 2000 2018 I think um yeah that's right I thought that we had handled an extension on it but I guess we haven't needed one yet um 2018 so it's uh right next to Florence Savings Bank on South Southeast Street um they had right when I started they got started on the project without doing a pre-construction meeting without installing erosion controls they started excavating and so that was one of my first things to issue them enforcement order when I started and um got them to stabilize the site button it up um and they in doing so they moved a lot of dirt around and so now they're basically getting started again um remobilizing to do the construction project and it was painful to go out there and inspect erosion controls because the entire site has reestablished with the wetland um it I'm guessing was a historic wetland that had been filled and when they got in there and started scraping off top soil um just the hydrologies there I feel kind of like my hands are tied on it um there is a replication and I did tell them that prior to putting in doing any of the foundation work that they needed to do the replication area first um it's it's been a little it's been a little bit of a tough project but we're all working together trying to um you know do it right and make sure that um I want to make sure that the wetland is constructed first because there's so much wetland being lost on the site that if we can establish the wetland first and at least in the spring it'll be growing with vegetation and and um protected um and so then the rest of the site is going to get constructed but um just so that everybody's aware that work is going to be starting very very soon so you'll probably be seeing um work happening out there in the very new future they were surveying out there today I saw yeah okay okay thanks Erin um so it's 7 30 are you okay with moving to our first hearing yes yep and I see um Erin Schiffer Lee is on she's the applicant so I'm gonna um make a panelist can you make me um like yes of course yeah Erin and um also I just wanted to say um for our members of the public who've joined us in case you didn't hear my announcement at the top of the meeting if you're here for the Shootsbury Roads solar project that application has been withdrawn so we will not be discussing that project at this meeting um so if you're here just to hear the update on that project that's all we've got isn't the application is withdrawn and we will not be discussing it in this meeting um just so you don't have to hold on for us to make it through the rest of this agenda so with that Erin welcome hello hello um if you wouldn't mind um just giving us a brief introduction um to yourself and the project um then we can ask any questions and and move from there that'd be great absolutely well first of all thank you for having me I learned a lot in the last 10 minutes sounds like some interesting work um so fast forward we're new to the area we're actually from western New York we just purchased this property um closed on August 31st and we moved our four kids and our family here um in order to attend the local hartsburg school um previously in western New York we had a small homestead um so from we're familiar with our chickens and dog and cat and um we had a little bit more property we had three acres um and when we moved here we were really prioritizing trying to work with the land in a good way although the as you probably know in this area it's very hard to find land sort of close to the hartsburg school or the area that we were looking for um so we wound up on about almost an acre a little bit less and um we are currently trying to put in or we're applying to put in a small chicken coop that my kids built last spring from upcycled materials it's on wheels which turns out to be really good because this whole process um we've been learning a lot about trying to be respectful and you know where we're placing things um we didn't have any of these rules and rights where we came from so I've been very thankful for Erin guiding me through this process it's been a lot of emails um but the project that you have on the screen in front of you is our upcycled chicken coop um and it is about 81 feet directly so if you walk a straight line from the brook but it's about 72 feet from the closest diagonal and the kind of a little bit more tired looking fencing is actually an existing budgie patch that was already here and um that's pretty much the basic project is um the coop in process with learning and growing and talking with Erin about wetlands conservation we discovered we have riverfront property which we actually didn't know when we bought the property so I was thankful to learn so much about it and when I explored back there a little bit to make sure that we were far enough from the brook that we could be um within regulation and not have to involve the state um I found some bittersweet so Erin sort of held my hand a little bit to work with that as well so we've been clipping that manually to try to offset any impact that we might have with this project I think that's pretty much the long and the short of it under Erin's guidance I also added basic fencing for a dog run we would like eventually to put in some fencing probably not until the holidays are over or it's a little bit warmer out but that's everything on the application are there any questions for me sorry we're in the middle of a bit of a toddler meltdown here um Erin do you want to share anything like pictures or report from your field visit um yeah so it's it's a very simple project um this is a map showing you the measurements um I did work with Erin to to relocate the coop a little bit um to try to address some some neighbor concerns um what do I want to say about this um the the coop does not have any footings it's very small it barely even qualifies as a shed um so I I don't really have any concerns about this I think it's a pretty minor project it's minor under state it's over 50 feet away from the brook so it qualifies as a minor activity under the wetland protection act um I did talk with Erin about her composting plan and it sounds like she is going to be taking her compost to is it brookfield farm Erin yes yeah and then the heartsbrook farm both accept compost from um from from people so she'll be periodically taking truckloads of of compost to the you know so that she's not putting it back in the wetland area behind her home um but there's a there is a um a vegetated sort of strip along the river it's not huge but there's quite a bit of um brush piles um along the stream which provides quite a bit of um wildlife cover back there there's no vegetation that's being removed as part of her application it's the coop and everything is located on existing lawns so I don't really have any concerns with this it's like five chickens um and she's handling the compost responsibly I don't really have any comments on it I think that it's fine okay great thanks Erin Erin and Erin um commissioners any questions getting a lot of nos um all right well it sounds like we're leaning towards a negative determination here which means that you wouldn't have to file a permanent application Erin um let me just see if there are any um public participants or anyone who wants to make public comment on this application uh if you please raise your hand Matt all right Matt you should be able to talk um you're yep um hi um Matt and Julie Emerson are here we're the immediate neighbors next to the proposed project and the first thing I'd like to say is that we were kind of surprised by the movement that Erin made of the the chicken coop and enclosure because it actually moved it closer to our house and that was one of our problems as neighbors as we were kind of like worried about chicken smell chicken uh manure in the ground and that kind of thing and I I did a little bit of research on this because I was curious about it I mean I grew up near farms and I was curious about how one does composting and that kind of stuff and then it realized I realized after reading the wetland protection act for the state and also for the municipal one that it was a at a minimum a hundred foot area that it was supposed to be between said project and the stream and what this committee doesn't know is that right now it's dried there but in another month or so that water from the stream actually goes up into the backyard it's both of our backyards and so the wetland area is much larger than it looks today um what the previous owner dumped a lot of vegetation brush and stuff in there one of the reasons was to soak up a lot of water um and and that's why there's a lot of debris back there but I guess we as neighbors have two questions the first one is um you know given that there's a 50 foot exemption could the chicken coop be moved to the middle of their property so that it would not in any way affect either a butter because the other butter I don't know if he's here tonight but he is also concerned about um waste management smells all that kind of stuff and um so so that would you know in fact we wouldn't really uh that would easily accommodate our interests as her as the plot indicates it looks like the chicken the garden is on an angle actually the garden is perpendicular is parallel to our our fence line it's about eight feet from our fence line and so the chicken coop is actually parallel to our project it's not closer in toward their house the the the plat is off a little bit there so it's right next to our fence actually and so we're we're concerned about two things one is that chicken manure bedding all that kind of stuff even in the winter time is going to be going into the ground and in fact I spoke to the poultry inspector uh Megan McGrath about this and she said that they recommend for backyard chicken chicken coops that everybody use sand that they dig out um grass and dirt and put sand in and she said it's totally inappropriate to have it on a lawn and that's not me speaking that was the poultry inspector for the messachusetts um department of agricultural resources and so what we see is what used to what is a beautiful lawn in their property is you know becoming kind of an eyesore to be honest and and and the fact that it's within 50 feet if there is a 50 foot exception then why can't they move it further away from our fence line and have it equidistant between the two of butters I think that would be a very workable solution because right now unfortunately um the chicken coop is across from an area that I have a permanent hammock stand in we have guests have a sitting area right there um you know we have a deck right there not too far away and for us it appears to be not exactly a very pleasant place to have a chicken chicken farm and we have fairly close quarters in this neighborhood so there are really two issues one is that it's a bigger wetland than you know second of all is that okay we can work with a 50 foot exemption if it's a 50 foot exemption could the applicants move it more toward the center of their property so that you know both neighbors might be accommodated that's that's pretty much how we feel about it and none of this is personal it just has to do with the fact that my wife and I you know we we've worked very hard we've been long-term residents here in Amherst for many years and we worked very hard to create a space that's both peaceful and pleasant to sit out in the back and we have meticulous lawn and landscaping here and we just um we you know this this really kind of changes the entire enjoyment of our property back there and that's as honest as I can be about it great thanks for uh being here Matt um and I hear you I think uh wow um those are interesting points about the aesthetics um and the noise and things like that kind of our jurisdiction is really in our job here as the commission is to really protect the wetland resources so we really have to evaluate the impact of the proposed chicken coop just in terms of risk to water kind of quantity quality and wetland habitat um which is why um I think what we should go over again here is just how the applicant is planning to mitigate potential risks associated with for example fertilizer from the the chicken coop so um can you remind us again Erin what your plans are for making sure that there's not a buildup of um waste from chickens and and plans for mitigating kind of what could be a risk to to water water quality on the property yes first of all um thank you Matt for being here and sharing that information that is really helpful to know how you and Julie feel um for the record my husband and I did approach our neighbors to try to find out information from them to see how we could come up with a resolution and um that did not go anywhere so um I do appreciate hearing more about what you're looking for that's very helpful um we want to do what's in the best interest of everyone involved here and so to be direct on mitigation of composting and chicken um waste as I said we are experienced chicken owners so um in this particular area different than our last area where we had three acres and it was a little bit more rural of a setting we've got a compost bin that we can excuse me collect it here and it's a four by four and then from there um we will take it over to there's Brookfield farm which accepts local compost as well as Hartbrook farm and my my kiddos are students there um so we're there literally five days a week so um this is a family project we started it with the kids and they're very much going to be involved and so there's there's six of us that will be working on this and as Erin said it's a pretty small coop um and it's a pretty small setup and I do want to say Matt that we actually had it on the other side of the veggie patch originally but then when we got the email from the wetland conservation and working with them and trying to be really mindful of the land and the water we moved it farther away to the other side of the um existing veggie patch so that it would be farther away from the water so that we can be more mindful of the existing stream that I think feeds into the actual river itself correct the Connecticut river um so yeah so we will be mitigating by making sure that the waste goes from the chicken coop to the local compost bin and from that compost bin off to Brookfield farm and Hartbrook farm does that answer your question directly yeah thanks for reviewing that Erin it looks like um Julia is now on another computer and has her hand up um Matt I'm gonna take you uh disable your talking and promote Julie all right Julia sorry Julia um do you have uh something construction to add to the conversation more information or something relevant to protecting the wetland uh sure can you hear me yep yep all right so we um as Matt said we we looked at a lot of bylaws both the state and the town and the state was 200 feet the town was 100 feet we didn't see anything about an exception for small projects being 50 feet so if you could direct us to that uh in the bylaw somewhere that would be really helpful uh to know um that that that is such a possibility so I don't know if we missed it but I would love to see it in writing somewhere Erin do you want to speak to this yeah just give me uh one second to pull up minor activities under the well and protection act okay um so it it addresses deck sheds patios pools and fencing as being if they're at least 50 feet from the mean annual high water line or wetland and um so I didn't hear anything in there about chickens though so so that's what I'm curious about so where's the 50 foot exemption from the water for poultry and livestock so we have to evaluate fencing and sheds and decks but this is animals excreting waste um into the ground so where is so the this would be for alterations so for placement of structures um any kind of um you know structure ground disturbance that we're dealing with um and so in this case those the structures are so are really the the item that we're regulating um associated with this and they are filing a permit so they are still coming through the conservation commission to get approval it's not like we're just saying oh you're all set and didn't require them to file we're still doing you know requiring them to come through for an approval so even though they're over 50 feet and it's exempt under state law as a minor activity the conservation commission under its bylaw is still reviewing to make sure that they're doing this responsibly so again to repeat this would be evaluated as a similar structure as a shed under the wetland protection act and this would be an exemption under the wetland protector act protection act as a minor activity it is we do have to file a permit or come in front of the conservation commission for um the town bylaw and that's why as a commission we're focused on what the impacts of this small mobile shed like structure would be on the wetland so our job is to protect the wetland and that's why we're we're focused on um how this would impact the wetland right i understand about the structure but i would think that you would be concerned about what pathogens are moving into the wetland as well and so so it's one thing to have a shed with tools in it it's another thing to have a shed and you know in a run with with animals in it and so i'm just curious about that yeah so julia can you can you see this shared screen now um erin is just underlining the relevant section in the um wetland protection act so you have it i'm just highlighting sort of the pertinent sections um i'm just going to clear this so that i can scroll down i guess i guess another i guess maybe the question i'm asking is there was also a health permit um filed and we never received so erin did come to talk and it was a very bad time for us so we were not able to talk with her um about that and so we said that we would put our concerns in writing and go through the process which was through the health um health permitting and we've not heard anything back about that and so maybe it's the jurisdiction of the health that is the issue with the chickens in the waste and the smell and everything else and so i guess i'm wondering shouldn't there be an intersection of you know structure to house chickens if that's if the health issue of the chickens is a health issue shouldn't that be addressed at the same time before getting the go ahead to build the structure to house chickens shouldn't we also address the health aspects as well yes i personally agree with you in concept but um we have unfortunately as the wetland conservation commission you know our jurisdiction is over protection of wetlands and waterways um so unfortunately those two things kind of go in parallel and i i don't have any information about the application into the health department um yeah i guess i guess um i guess my point's not being understood it's just if you're concerned about protecting the wetland isn't isn't that concern also include microorganisms and other things like that or which is why we why we're asking Erin you know repeatedly about how compost is being managed and she's removed collecting it on site and then removing it from the site so the residence time of the compost on the site is very short um so the impact the potential impact to water quality is very low because it's being removed and taken to a another facility that is otherwise able to handle that kind of of material but so julia i really appreciate your um being here and these questions i think at this point i'm actually i'm going to remove you from the meeting so we can get input from the other commissioners um but we can come back if we need to come back to questions um so commissioners i think we know the full scope of what we're talking about here does anyone have any questions for erin uh yeah michelle go ahead i was just wondering erin is um the method and conditions for removing the compost going to be built into the permit somehow so that it doesn't sort of get lost in conversation here so that you know in five years maybe someone else is going to be using the chicken coop or there may be more chickens but the conditions of having to remove the chicken manure will still be in place yeah so we'll condition the determination to include the items that erin outlined as far as removing compost from the site yeah and just to clarify that so what that means is that when we move through this negative determination literally part of that documentation will have these conditions for compost management on the site detailed um so that it will stay with the property um so thanks michelle that's a great point Anna did you have a question in our comment uh question so i feel like i should know this because i'm a part of the brookfield csa but do they accept compost year-round um or erin what's your is your your composting plan does it cover the full calendar year between heartsbrook and brookfield so heartsbrook does yes um we're part of the winter share at brookfield and i will determine that for sure once and check in with erin to make sure everything is so that i can put that's a great great thing to cover make sure that um one doesn't but they should overlap i guess is what i'm saying so heartsbrook takes it all year okay great brookfield doesn't then i'll still have a secondary backup plan perfect yeah in between the two of them so yeah no that's plenty i just wanted to make sure it was your round coverage but i'm one or the other thank you thank you for asking thanks Anna anyone else comments questions from the commission okay um so i feel comfortable that the management of potential risk to the wetland and water resource here is sufficiently managed and in line with the applicable regulations um commissioners does anyone have any further questions or concerns to raise on on that point okay um so erin would you put up your your slide just so we get the um language correct i think it's a negative determination which always does yeah and you know what i'm i'm sorry because i'm a little bit uh i didn't actually get the motion up there but it would be a negative determination under the wetlands protection act a positive determination under the local wetlands bylaw all right i got it is anyone else want it are we good if i okay i move i move we issue a negative determination under the wetlands protection act and a positive determination under the wetlands bylaw for 55 mechanic street for the construction or for the proposed shed chicken coop and fencing within the riverfront area second was that a second from fletcher that i just heard okay uh voice about um michelle hi uh larry hi fletcher hi laroy hi anna hi and i'm an i um so erin um follow up with erin who will get you um the exact language of the conditions applied to that to that determination okay thank you everyone i appreciate your time yep thanks for being here all right um moving on i forgot to read to open that hearing you guys have to remind me about this um okay the next hearing is our 735 hearing it's a continued notice of intent hearing niche engineering for bell 4 bd campus solutions in the university of massachusetts for proposed construction of new undergraduate and graduate housing and associated parking lots within the buffer zone of bordering vegetated wetland and within 100 feet of tan brook so are you already promoting people erin or should i um i am so britney from um niche engineering and she's uh jared excuse me for niche engineering yeah and i don't know if anybody else is present on the call from for the applicant but those two names i do recognize okay jared britney are we missing anyone hello hey i think um just the two of us for now okay if we need someone else to weigh in on something we can um point you to the correct person okay great thank you um yeah so welcome back um nice to see you both i think we had a lot of kind of outstanding questions from the last meeting and i know you guys have buttoned most of that up um i'm just pulling up our paperwork so i can remind myself some of that all right um so yeah so it looks like erin you put responses to staff question and additional documents in the um in our one drive folder um so commissioners you should have access to that um britney or jared would you guys be willing to give us a short update just kind of a reminder on the project and an update of new information you've provided kind of a short four to five minute overview um and then we can follow up with any updates from erin's and question updates from erin and questions from commissioners yeah i i can give you a little update on what's been happening um so we had a few comments from erin uh from the last meeting and from some of the commission members and we put together a letter um addressing each of the comments and providing some additional information that you all seems like have access to um one of the changes that we've made since the last meeting um the area um between the edge of the parking and the tanbrook that was previously shown as lawn is now going to be like a wild meadow mix seed mix um and we have a revised planting plan that shows that we also got the outfall pipe um that goes to the tanbrook video inspected actually this morning and we did let me share my screen to talk about this can you all see my screen yeah so what we found during the video inspection that about 12 feet from this existing structure here let me the structure here um so they started here video inspected towards the outfall and that fell feet in the pipe was crushed and so they couldn't video inspect further so uh we are talking to erin about this um last week and what our approach could be to cover us in case it turns out that this outfall is in poor condition so we would like to propose to replace the full outfall um up to the tanbrook and then once we're able to actually video inspect that entire length we're only going to replace as far as we need to so if it turns out that this 20 feet from the end of the outfall is in good condition we would maintain that and we would really only replace the sections of the pipe that were damaged so that we could limit the disturbance within this area as much as possible um if if we find that maybe there are a few cracks in the pipe we might reline it but obviously if it's crushed we'll we'll have to replace it so we're proposing right now to kind of cover the work for the full replacement of that 12 inch outfall we would have an erosion control barrier at the downstream end where the wetland line starts um and then one of the comments um at our last hearing was also about the the potential erosion at this outfall so we are proposing some hand placed stone at the outfall and we actually did not have a good example photo of what we would like that to look like but Erin sent us one that um we does represent what we had in mind for that so that's what's on the screen here um just some stone there to really kind of catch the water as it's falling so it's not digging away at that finer material um so those aren't really the two main changes that have happened since our last hearing um and then I think at the last conversation we have you were asking about um how we were changing the flow to the tanbrook and like we were telling me that we were reducing flow and you wanted to know by how much so in the 100 year storm we're reducing the volume of water that goes to the tanbrook by about 19% um and I think in every storm event the two tan 2500 year work within that 20% range between 19 and 21% and the specific numbers are in that uh packet of information that you have on the one drives and I just want to clear just point of clarification to what Brittany just said she's talking about storm water discharge flows there yes I just want to make sure that's clear to everybody on the call okay thank you for clarifying that that's the volume of runoff that's going to the tanbrook from our site um so I think that that's kind of a high level overview of some of the main questions and changes that we had from last time so I think if you guys have any additional questions we can move on to that okay great thanks Brittany I appreciate that succinct overview Erin did you have anything to add yeah um so there and we're we're trying to resolve a lot of these things as expeditiously as possible because they're they're so close here um I do have some suggested conditions which I'll talk about in a second um I think so just to kind of update the commission there we we uh niche engineering sent a packet of materials earlier uh end of last week which I put in your packets for your review and um and then after they send that material we actually had a call to discuss everything and there was a couple outstanding items um and most of those items have been resolved I think the biggest thing was the the biggest concern from my perspective was that outfall but outfall pipe that comes to tanbrook I wanted them to have a contingency plan in case there was failure of that pipe like if the pipe was collapsed and not functioning properly I didn't want them to have to come back before the board and you know a month with a um amendment to replace that so that's I'm really glad that they got the pipe looked at and and we're planning for that um I guess I just have a couple quick questions on that item for niche um so um and I think that the generally speaking what they've provided as far as the plan for replacement of the pipe is fine and the placement of the stones they had sent me an example uh that was a little more intense I'll say like in terms of a larger amount of stone um in the stream itself and so that was the example I sent them I thought well this might actually be a little less impactful but still do the job of providing the armoring but um relative to that plan I just have a couple quick questions the first is is it possible if you end up having to replace the whole pipe to just pull back the outlet a little bit from the stream bank itself um so that it discharges say five feet away and do like a level spreader similar to what you've shown in your photos um yeah yeah that's a great question um so the it so it's something that we might be able to do we can't necessarily answer right now the issue is that um the elevation here is um we can't see your screen Brittany oh I'm sorry I stopped sharing so that we can talk sorry about that and just while you're pulling that up so I noticed that in your proposed order of conditions Erin you have that if we end up in a situation where this whole outfall pipe has to be replaced or what if the disturbance area changes that niche can submit plans showing like the area of impact so just so everyone knows we're not talking about you know we'll we'll have some understanding of what has to happen no matter what the outcome is here um yeah there's yeah I just wanted to put that context in there okay good Brittany so the the the elevation that we have our outfall pipe out right here is two around two thirty three and a half and the actual um ground elevation if we were looking at that two thirty three and a half elevation would be very close to where this pipe comes out now it's very steep once you get like close to the edge of the bank here so we were looking at that and we we might be able to pull it back like a little bit but without re-grading in this area specifically it would be hard to pull it back much um we did look at if we can raise this the part that we still need to look at is if we can raise this entire system to get it to daylight closer and further back um and that's what we can't answer today so we wanted to show this as the worst worst case scenario okay perfect so that's that's my first question and I think that makes sense the second question is if it did if it if you determined that it was in fact necessary to replace that whole pipe where you're showing your erosion control barrier is far back from the stream it's it wouldn't account for impacts that are between the erosion control barrier and the water flow itself so I guess I'm just wondering what you would do to account for that area we could definitely have I think we would want to have erosion control here for as long as possible and then once they're doing this work the erosion control would need to be closer right to the edge of the stream um I think assuming that this isn't all dug up at one time this location made sense to us because it was outside of the wetland flags um but obviously for the work that's happening closer to the stream we would need erosion control downstream with it so one thing I might suggest for this is that the commission understand sort of the variability of this situation and that we may need to address this either depending on how the commission how comfortable the commission would be is if they submit sort of a final plan once they have it and if the commission either wants to review that and give an administrative approval or have me review it and update the commission about that um with the final plan I just think that it's difficult because they haven't snaked the entire pipe to know exactly how much of it is salvageable and and it makes sense not to disturb the stream bank if we can avoid it so I think as is their proposal is fine but I think we should incorporate an additional condition based on this conversation that a final plan um should be facilitated either with me and and the applicant um prior to implementation or with the commission prior to implementation yeah I think the former scenario is a good one have we seen flow during a rain event coming out of this pipe like so do we know if if it even connects I guess is the question like I'm just wondering if the likelihood of it being crushed further along the length and and you know more approximate to the stream is high or low anyone willing to speculate have we actually seen the the pipe convey water I've been out there when it's raining and I've seen this pipe dry um and that was one of the reasons that I was kind of curious about it um okay yeah all right all right yeah I think that this is a good way to proceed I like Aaron where you're leading with these questions like I think considering all possible levels of kind of having to replace that are reasonable to have on the table um yeah and Brittany I appreciate what you guys are trying to figure out as you go here so I appreciate the transparency and working with Aaron on it um were those your main concerns Aaron okay Brittany would you mind I'm stopping sharing and I can kind of open this up for commissioners does anyone have any follow-up questions or concerns for Brittany seeing I'm seeing largely no okay like I could say I'm just going to echo your thing Jen and I appreciate Aaron's approach to this yep okay great so with that you have a number of members of the public with us and I'm wondering if anyone is here for this hearing and has any questions or comments I'll remind everyone that we're going to try to limit comments and questions to kind of some topics relevant to the jurisdiction of this commission so that is the protection of the wetland and water resources impacted by the project and also that we limit the comments to two minutes just because we have such a full agenda so with that thank you for being here if you have a question about this this project please raise your hand we can give you access to talk okay I'm not seeing anyone all right um well then I guess with that we're ready for a motion to go ahead Aaron you're gonna pull it up and so we have to do want to adjust the language or you did it already yeah I did and this is long so what I'll do is whomever starts to make this motion which starts starts up at the top here of this text box I'll just move to the second slide because these are these conditions continue down to the end here okay great thanks who's or I can read it if you guys want to say so moved I'm happy to do it either way whatever works best for you guys Anna is your second to last meeting I will do it all right but fine y'all okay um I move we issue an order of conditions for DEP file number 089-0694 with the following conditions boilerplate state and local local conditions monthly monitoring reports shall be submitted by the contractor who shall be trained in environmental monitoring prior to the start of the project the monitoring monitoring report shall include photos of the buffer zone storm water structures in tanbrook culvert three wallity oh my god water quality structures have been specified for the project it is conditioned that all three structures shall have 80 tss removal capacity contact water quality structure manufacturers recommendations shall be submitted to the conservation commission the updated operation and maintenance log shall be revised and resubmitted once the water quality structure being used on the project is select selected next slide please the contact person maintaining the operation and maintenance log shall be Ray Jackson I'm not going to read the full title but we can read okay great shop drawing shall be provided to the conservation commission once completed confirmation of the outfall pipe in a functional condition shall be provided or plans showing the plan to replace the pipe a photo example of the armoring to be installed at the outfall pipe shall be provided to the commission and final plan design on the stormwater outfall pipe in tanbrook shall be submitted by the applicant and approved by the wetlands administrator or the commission as an administrative approval almost got a second that quickly please lary's on the second okay voice vote larry hi rachel hi flutcher hi ana hi lary hi and i'm an eye all right britney and jared thank you and best of luck with the stormwater outfall pipe thank you very much have a good night okay you guys too you're so fast here okay okay great moving on next agenda item is the notice of intent for trc for ast shoots for a mass solar llc for the construction of her photo solar photo will take energy generation facility and access road and buffer zone to bvw at shoots for a road and just as a reminder this application was withdrawn so we have nothing to discuss on this conservation commission meeting about this application it was drawn so um 745 yep so we'll move to an anrad this is a continuation swca for barry robert slash stanley michael like estate for confirmation is a resource area boundaries at 246 monagu road let's see it sounded like the applicant may or may not be here for this one um are you seeing anyone i'm not seeing um yeah if if the if anybody from the applicant's representation is here if you could raise your hand that would be helpful um i'm not seeing anyone but the little scroll bar isn't really behaving for me to scroll up and down and see for some reason oh maybe it's just because i think that's the max we have such a we have such a small attendance list i know you know usually i can scroll through like six pages of attendees but yeah not so much great okay so it seems like maybe they were not able to attend um okay so to film the commission it sounds like there's been a little bit of back and forth on this project but most importantly michelle and anna visited the site since our last meeting so we wanted this this opportunity to talk as a commission kind of get updated on the project get a report from michelle and anna about what they saw out there and talk about kind of what the sticking points are right now with a resource area delineation um so how should we approach this erin do you want to share photos and anna and michelle would you guys um i guess talk us through what you saw there yeah maybe a map too yeah i was going to say would it be helpful if i pull up the plan and just show the area in question um that way there's a little context to it because it's a little ambiguous um to discuss i'm just pulling it up right now so just give me one second okay sir michelle i'll let you go first and then i will okay so just so that you guys see what we're discussing and what we were viewing in the field so um can you guys see this plan okay what were you gonna say just zoom in on it a little bit more of course yeah okay so now good yeah perfect so our report from our peer reviewer basically found found there was a couple issues that were of disagreement one of them was there was a little bit more of either a buffer or a wetland line here which i believe they were in agreement on and that swca was going to revise the other issue which actually you can see on the aerial image it comes up like this um off of this little edge and i'm gonna now that i've drawn it i'm just going to clear my drawing so you can see the the shadow on the aerial image that actually shows that little swale depression area and the the issue at hand was that um there was soils were checked there and there were some wetland indicators in the soils um and there's also some plant indicators in the hay field as far as rushes and sedges that are growing in that area and if you walk in the swale itself you get kind of wet feet it's a little soft and wet there so i'm gonna just stop sharing for a second so i can pull up the photos and then i'm gonna let michelle and ana give their um i'm sorry let's just take a second thank you michelle and ana for making time to go out there seems like it's a complicated sight so this is sort of standing at the top of the swale looking down toward um where the road is the the road is um is right about here and so this is just standing at the top of that hill looking down and the swale kind of runs like this this is another wider view of the same area looking down so it looks like a hay field um just from a an untrained die this is looking up i'm apologize in advance to michelle capturing you guys standing in the middle of the field uh but you guys they were standing yeah all business she was like do not take my picture right now it's good um but they're standing right smack dab in the middle of the um the swale right there and then this is another photo without them standing in it but you can see the sort of green patch in the middle where there's there's some rushes and sedges growing in there and this is looking down at my feet so you can kind of see what the ground looks like you can see there's some pockets of standing water there um you know those are footprints where people were walking kind of in the in the wetness so you can see the ground is wet um this is on the other side so this isn't the area in question i was just kind of capturing but this one is actually a good photo because you can see the swale to some degree kind of like up in this area a little bit from this photo so anyways that is what i have for photos of the site and i will leave it there and let folks share their thoughts can you pull back um pack up the map erin please yes thank you i just i just think it's kind of almost easier to look at that more talking about the vegetation because it's definitely you know formerly grazed cattle pasture and that's what it looks like but um based on this topography so so first of all i i totally agree with the revised wetlands that i think are now in agreement between third party review and swca and then it's just about this um basically that with that place that erin called out which is and a pretty obvious drainage to the site from the top of the hill which is where the barn is and you can see even like there's a like a darker area which is like a just a depression that sort of connected to that drainage area and there's definitely junkists growing in there um we they did a few um jonathan did a few soil samples while we were out there and the soil is pretty disturbed from historical cattle grazing so soil in itself wasn't an obvious you know red flag but there was um i guess oxidation of the roots that we saw so i don't know i mean the wetlands that are flagged i'm totally in agreement with this drainage area it's definitely draining the site and because of historical land use you know it's a little it's a little uncertain as far as like the clear soil and plant indicators so it's pretty disturbed but that's what i saw it was had just rained when we were out there and it was pretty wet so i don't know what on as impression was uh you're much more eloquent than i am i was gonna say it's pretty wet uh so yeah i mean i think that this is i completely second everything michelle just said right like not no disagreement about the new wetlands flagging but um i think that the it was visible like to the untrained eye this is this is a visible shift both in the vegetation and in the general um that general area that you're seeing on the map there so i just reiterate i mean i would have done a much poorer job had i gone first so thank you michelle for going first because you captured it okay and our third sorry so just as a reminder our third party reviewer would have included this as wetland so it was identified as wetland that was my question yeah that's what brought it out right was so we have a disagreement between the applicant and the third party review here um commissioners any other questions or observations sorry i interrupted the view there for sure no that was my question i forgot what the third party review said about this particular site and that that's obviously what the two disagreements about um and then moving on from it though um i mean soil is a major indicator but obviously because of the disturbance so i guess that's why we're here trying to figure out what we're going to figure out how we can first try to get consensus of this area from us and then kind of move on from there yeah yep so i want to kind of see about the soil thing yeah right larry or larry do you guys have any questions or thoughts on this okay so my instinct is that this should be mapped wetland um it's to me from a drainage and surface area delineation perspective connected to other mapped wetlands on the site so it's not like it's an isolated pocket that would be like a bylaw only wetland this is a connected wetland um and i you know the reason we have a third party review is for situations like this and so my instinct is to ask the applicant include that in the delineation or we deny the application um but i'm open for input on that if you guys think we don't have the information to support that stance that's the question right Erin was it was emily right the third party review um was she like a hard yes on this i just i'm trying to remember the conversation yes i was definitely mapped okay yeah and i mean i think the feeling i got from swca was that they were a hard no on it um and so i mean my i always move to a compromise that's just what i always recommend in a situation like this because when you have uh i mean there's a couple ways you could go you could compromise and say let's map a portion of it and try to protect as much of it as possible recognizing that maybe we're not going to get all of it or the commission could just say we want all of it mapped and that's it um i think my only concern is that because there are portions of it that are sort of marginal in terms of identifiers that if we told them to map all of it and it went to appeal that it's it's almost like a tie breaker in the sense of like having DEP go out and look at it and if they're looking at it and they're saying we don't see soils here we don't think it's a wetland then they could overturn the commission's decision and issue a superseding order so i always try to find a compromise where we can keep it under our jurisdiction to on the order of conditions or on the orad as much as possible yeah flutter so what type of um you should just run for congress there erin anyway um what type of compromise are you talking about that are you saying half are you saying two thirds right or unless the commission's not even considering sorry yeah so that that makes me pretty uncomfortable just because you know we're the ones closest to the resource and have responsibility to the town so i mean if it were borderline for our third party reviewer i would feel differently about this i mean she is an expert in wetlands and would include it in the flagging so to me i'd feel um i feel better about a clear stance in terms of protecting the resource for our town but i totally hear you erin and i understand full you know the long view of of trying to yeah i'll really go ahead i'm wondering erin i hear you on it may go to appeal and it does look like the soil case would be weak doesn't the connectivity boost your case significantly though because i mean we've seen other cases in similar type of field scenarios where it's just like a solitary swell and that i feel like could be argued down pretty quickly but in this case to jen's point pretty clear the connectivity is there and easily mapable uh and just to make it clear i'm with jen if you're going to map it's going to be a hundred percent i i hear you erin i like compromises too but it doesn't really make sense intellectually on this one yeah and i think i mean we just talked about southeast street commons you know like that was the great debate about that that wetland in the middle of the property and sure enough like the hydrology was there it's just that the site was so impacted that the second you got rid of the artificial soil or the disturbance like the hydrology reestablished so chances are you clear that swell or change it and you'll you'll see the connection immediately um so well i am 100 behind you guys and i think you just for the record you guys are awesome um i it's it's always a tough um a tough tightrope for for me to walk because um i'm i'm trying to to recommend something that's that's a balance of no one's going to end up happy in the end you know and and if i've done my job well that's the outcome that nobody's happy uh because everybody's had to compromise but i 100 and behind what you are saying i am 100 in support of what you are saying and i 100 agree with you and i think if that's the way you guys feel i stand behind what you are suggesting 100 this is a drawing from emily her sketch so i just wanted to include this because there was a question from Fletcher about the extent of it now so here's the here's the tricky thing about asking swca to flag it if they go out there and they don't think it's a wetland they're going to flag it the way they see it so would we then have emily flag it and have them map it as emily has flagged it um that is kind of the i think i think 100 we tell them to to flag it and to include it um it's just a matter of um if they you know how we sort of posture ourselves in terms of the delineation itself if they're disagreeing that it exists right the extent of it whatnot yeah um well it's not unreasonable for emily to go out there with them and flag it and they can survey in those flagged points in order to map it that's probably the best outcome in terms of protecting the resource too is having our third party reviewer and their well and delineation team out at the same time um any other comments or thoughts on that can i just make sure i'm really clear so what you're saying is if they disagree and there's a lawsuit or they somehow they disagree and it goes up to DEP that DEP own would you they would also use vegetation indicate vegetative indicators and things like that in addition to soil it's not just the soil because they would ideally take into account that this was a cattle pasture right so it's not right it's not risk a little bit better right all i'm saying is it would be a tough review because there's two very experienced people arguing two polar opposite decisions two polar opposite opinions and sometimes when you get a third person some people are more conservative and some people are more liberal in their delineation somebody might come out there and say this isn't a wetland sorry you know and somebody might come out there and say this is absolutely a wetland it really there is there is some object you know some subjectivity involved in the in the delineation process and um and so that's all i'm pointing out here is um i want to make sure that the commission is on solid defensible ground in how it's delineated i mean so yeah so i guess i got a slightly different sense from you when i went out with i'm forgetting his name um and jonathan thank you yeah i i didn't get as solid of a um i think i think on principal swca is not going to be on board with what emily stockman is saying but um i guess i'm less convinced that she's not correct i think she's right and so i mean i i think that they i i think i don't think that i don't know how to phrase this you don't think that they're going to be in as in strong opposition as we might be anticipating that they will i think that they're they're they're going to hit a point where they can't be in as strong opposition as they want to be that's right i also also just one second on this dp involvement i mean this is a story that's told again and again and again and amherst because a lot of our wetland resources are impacted by situation disturbances exactly like this one so having dp involvement and expertise in a situation like this could be a really good thing help you know help us understand how to manage these situations moving forward i mean we get an anroid like this very regularly at this point um which is we just have a lot of flux and a lot of applications coming through this so i mean personally i would welcome you know dp expertise in a situation like this because it's gonna happen again um so that's another way to look at it i mean sure it's a tough appeal you know it's it's you know not a clear case but that's why there's an appeal process you know so what the way that we should be looking at it is based on the information we have and based on our responsibility to the town is this something that you know we feel we have enough evidence to support um so that's another way to think about it i want to so unless anyone has any anything to add to that um and would you mind stop sharing just so i can see everyone of course um does anyone have thoughts or feelings yeah one suggestion i was gonna say is i don't mind going out and being there with emily and jonathan and saying being a third person to balance the opinion uh you know and i would be and i mean that's your job yeah i would i would be happy to do that and sort of try to facilitate let's flag it correctly based on what we're seeing um so that might be a compromise a potential compromise that we could come up with for the final delineation that's shown on the plan yep um we still haven't given the public a chance to comment or ask any questions so commissioners unless you have if anyone has anything um okay i'm not seeing anything big so i'm gonna go ahead and um take some some public input here um so uh attendees thank you for being here i'm gonna just remind you that if you could keep the comments the contents of your comments and questions relevant to our jurisdiction here so what really is that debate is the delineation of the resource on this site um and secondly because um we have a long agenda and a lot of participation in our meeting we're trying to limit comments to and questions to about two minutes so if you could just be mindful of the time we very much appreciate it um so with that mag gauge you should hello mag be able to talk thank you everyone i'm so impressed with how much you all know and how thoughtful you are and what great meeting skills you all have listening and i'm just really impressed with this group um i think it's a fabulous idea for erin to go out with emily and jonathan as kind of a mediator person i really appreciate um laroi and jens uh and others wanting having a little allergic reaction to the word compromise um i'm also curious i know we in this meeting in other meetings we don't talk about we don't speculate on motives but it's curious to me uh why we're not getting response from swicca and it's been going on since august and i'm worried that at the december 22nd meeting i i got an unfortunate phone called gen can't be there i hope we're going to have a quorum and i know we're going to lose ana which i'm deeply appreciative ana of you uh running for the council you're going to be awesome um but um i'm worried about how this decision is going to be made given all the moving pieces i'm a butter that's in the little you can't see it now but the little we're literally this little square that's carved out of the east side of the farm and we're not opposed to this we just want to be sure that it's not disruptive to the environment or our neighborhood and i'm just again thank you thank you you guys are awesome jen you're amazing i can't i don't never met you but you're a amazing chair i just can't believe i'm on top of everything you're like where did you come from anyway thank you everybody thank you thank you for being here meg um can you come to oliver um i yeah so just to hear a point about moving the application along that is something that we're all keeping an eye on especially erin and in fact they asked to continue to the next meeting and erin said you know no we're gonna convene and talk about this hearing tonight um so that we could provide get the updates for michelle thank you and ana um mostly because we're mindful of the fact that we're you know that ana's moving on um so yeah i guess we're moving along as best we can i think what will i i think we'll keep it moving offline too so that before the next meeting hopefully we will have had a chance to get emily and swca and erin back into the field so so we'll keep it moving um yeah so thanks for being here um and hopefully thank you see you again soon um all right janet keller welcome you should be able to talk yeah well everything that meg said um we deeply appreciate the care and um the detail with which you um conduct the delineations and um the thoughts that you give to how your actions will actually um result in protecting the wetlands um in the end um it's so appreciated um i'm wondering um quite a few people spoke to me today um saying they were going to be present and watching and i'm wondering if there's um you speak a lot about the resource and i wonder if one of you could just simply give um a few sentences that make a little bit clearer i think you were pretty clear but if you can just clarify a tiny little bit about what the disagreement is about and um what terms like the resource you what what you're really talking about there you know i know what it is but i'm not sure that's as clear for the people who are taking the time to watch if you could do that i'd love it thanks yeah thanks janet and point taken we definitely like dove into the heart of this one just because we know how sticky it is um so maybe i'll give a quick overview and then erin you can fill in but whatever i miss um so the application we're considering right now is a resource area delineation um abbreviated no notice of resource area delineation and red it is a pre-cursor generally to some activity on site and what it does is it permanently and formally delineates the wetland and water resources on the site so we are saying and documenting um in a very very final way exactly where the boundaries of the wetland and water resources are depending on the exact uh identity of those wetland and water resources those delineations have different buffer widths and different um ways of understanding the distance from that resource but um really that's the heart of it is that we're literally drawing on the map exactly where the resource we're trying to protect is um so this underlies any future activity because it then determines the distance from this delineation that acts site activities can occur on the site um erin say that another way or or fill in where i missed yeah so the boundary once it's approved by the commission is valid for three years and and the applicant can get that get an orad extended as well so if it takes more than three years for them to file their notice of intent they could get an extension on that so that's where an orad or an anrad is a little different than an rda which is what you know we saw earlier this evening so um it's very important that we get it right because it will basically um those boundaries that we identify are permanent boundaries under the law for the next three years and potentially longer commissioners anything we left off in that description and thanks janet that's a great thank you for helping us zoom out and kind of fill everyone in on exactly what we're talking about i apologize i should have given a better intro to that um but yeah so again like what's at stake really is that we have a disagreement between the applicant and our third party reviewer of the delineation on one small area i mean it's remarkable the extent that we have a agreement actually on the site is pretty good it's just a debate of whether or not we include that connected additional swale in the delineation um so janet any do we do we hit the mark on that any follow-up questions i i actually you know i i feel like i try to delve into this and i understand it fairly well and i uh i gained a deeper understanding so thank you um for that um and that chased the other thought i had in my head but um okay well thank you yeah and tune in keep an eye on the agenda and tune in for the december 27 meeting i'm sure this will come up again um so um does anyone else any other attendees member of the public have any questions or comments on this anrad i see meg's hand up again because you do mean to have your meg do you have another question or comment when i was appreciating everybody i felt appreciate the most amazing person is erin shock who's just stunning and uh professional and thoughtful so that's all i wanted to say i forgot when i was appreciate you guys you're an amazing team and i've sat in on a whole bunch of uh town committees and you guys you guys rock thank you meg appreciated um all right does anyone else any other participants have any comments or questions oh oh nancy all right nancy we can see you and we should be able to hear you go ahead hi just one very quick question i also appreciate and i've learned a lot during this time even though i'm also falling asleep i i don't know how you do it but uh so many people are on the zoom just how many people are listening to you i seven of you on the commission is that right yeah um well so our commission at full is seven yeah yeah right yeah i can count um and we right now we have 10 attendees in the as members of the public um that's kind of oscillated throughout the meeting but i think it's probably maxed out in like the 20 low 20s and then people have logged off so right now we have 10 attendees okay great thank you very much yep thanks all right so it looks like that's going to do it for public questions and comments on this hearing for tonight um erin procedurally how should we move forward um i think that i would uh it would make sense probably for somebody to make a motion of what the expectation is for the revised plan and also i would probably recommend that we have a deadline set for revisions coming to us because this has been we're at the end of august this was submitted and now we're coming into january and you know jen we're going to lose you at the next meeting we lost laura tonight we're losing ana on the first that's three members lost from voting on this project and as meetings move forward we're going to continue to lose voting members on it so and people can view the proceeding if they miss one meeting but any more than that they can't vote so we're just going to have problems with the quorum if if this continues to get pushed out so i mean just yeah so laura i i don't want to step in and assume it'll be okay for next meeting would you be comfortable with a deadline for the applicant to show the additional area mapped as a deliney included in the delineation or you know the area that agreed upon in the field by the applicant the third party reviewer and erin um by the next meeting for next meeting yeah okay great erin are you okay with that or is that some unreasonable i mean it's two weeks away and that would mean that we would have to convene three people out in the field and then somehow pick up the flags and get them on a plan i think that's a little tight i would probably give them at least 30 days but i again will defer to what you guys think it's it has been a long a long wait for revision so we'll definitely yield to what you think well what about middle grounds there like could we try to get the three people out in the field before the next meeting so that there's at least a plan to move forward and then if they need to go back out and survey and flagging after that and submit a final plan after that we can um i'm just it's it's going to get harder to see what's going on out there anyway the ground is freezing it's you know we're gonna get snow hopefully eventually uh look outside we got snow oh really it doesn't snow in south amherst um yeah yeah okay so does that make sense to you loroy it does yeah okay commissioners everybody okay so having a field visit prior oh i'm sorry so i'm gonna agree there and it's gonna be real tough to her in holiday season and two ways to get real plans from but i think we can probably get everyone up together in the field yeah well so then sorry i'm just trying to follow the logistics um so will you then make sure that laura knows she has to rewatch tonight so that because i won't be here post i just want to make sure i'm not screwing us up yeah and i can rewatch the 22nd okay yeah thanks so what i have is um that we're going to have a field visit prior to December 22nd and that by January 12th or actually it would end up being um January 7th we would have a plan revision to the commission that would give us time to review it prior to the 12th meeting so by January 7th a revised plan um is being requested to be submitted that would include that um wetland swale yep with the delineation consistent with the third party reviewer do you want me to reread that just to make it easier for emotion yes okay um so what i'm hearing from the commission is that they would like for a field visit to be conducted prior to the December 22nd meeting uh to review the um the wetland swale that was identified by the third party reviewer and that by January 7th a plan should a revised plan should be submitted to the conservation commission which includes the wetland swale um consistent with the third party reviewers comments so second we're giving on to the second on our second last meeting all right voice vote michelle hi anna hi lucha hi larry hi laroi all right and i'm an i i'm a little worried about what you're gonna give me on my last meeting now i'm not gonna lie well i'm not gonna be here so that's true good afternoon your time all right so just this is just an idea to throw out there um do we want to just continue their hearing to January 12th because if that's the case then that would set kind of a timeline for the next review and then that would mean that we wouldn't lose gen as a potential voting member on the 22nd and that makes a lot of sense to me i have no problem with that anyone makes sense unless they're gonna push say no right right they're gonna say no anyway they're gonna tell you no over the phone and we don't have to have a meeting about it anyway so that's you guys call on the continuation they did request a continuation to the next meeting but um we're only gonna have right now we only know there's gonna be four members on the next call yeah so i think it makes sense to continue to the January 12th meeting and pleasure if they i mean we can still move forward with the hearing without them yep so um if we are going for January 12th i would suggest uh 735 is the time for that continuation so you get a motion to continue the hearing i make a motion to continue the oh dang what's the number shoots bay road 246 monique 246 monique road that's all i got to january 12 735 that too voice vote michelle hi anna hi fletcher hi larry hi roi hi and i'm an i fletcher you got to be careful or meg is going to take back all her nice things we have i know you got a standard to uphold there guys there's a buffer plus and minus 10 minutes from nine o'clock where like no one has to be correct it's okay we're doing everyone's doing their best here everyone's doing their best sorry i'm sorry i'll put a poll together all right i think we're good on that hearing are we do yeah i think we're good okay yeah so what's left what's left okay i'm just gonna do a really quick um just to let you guys know what's happening in town just in case you guys see see work going on we already talked about southeast commons we know that's happening 38 chapel road um there's gonna be a pool going in in the spring they are over 50 feet or i'm sorry over 100 feet from the wetland so they're outside of jurisdiction but they are in that location where there's some hazard pines that um are all dead dead stand behind them so they might be coming back to us in the not so distant future with an emergency certification um amity place we had permitted some drainage improvements there they um are beginning work if we did a pre-construction um this past week uh the east levert road waterline project has more or less been wrapped up and stabilized the there's a single family house i've been monitoring out there too that which is pretty pretty well stabilized at this point uh there there i put a note in the in an email that we have an anorad coming before us at the next meeting um on the 1222 agenda for um a northampton road site pretty simple site i include vote included photos in the one drive for it um if anybody wants to get out there please let me know because i've already gone out to see the site i don't really have any concerns it's pretty kind of dry and monitoring 187 college street that's under construction uh 300 north pleasant that is there's going to be a demo taking place there in the next few weeks and then the site is going to get shut down until spring when they do the the new footprint for the structure greenfield savings bank is going to be starting construction down on the corner of amity street and university drives be aware of that and also be on the lookout for a culvert replacement kestrel land trust driveway i'm going to leave it there i think we've covered all the business that i had that i wanted you to cover this evening did you want to and did you want to bring up did i black out or did we talk about the bylaw review oh thank you so much um yes so um we've not really been being successful in terms of getting to our bylaw and my hope was that things were going to slow down a little bit and that we were going to be able to get to address some of our bylaw revisions that are needed so i'm hoping that the commission would be supportive of setting up a bylaw subcommittee of two members and i've already reached out to two members to try to seek their involvement and both of them have been in favor of participating um so it would basically be two members twice a month for a lunch hour review of what the changes are going through um kind of a marked up document and what changes were made and why and then we would come forward with a recommendation to the commission at which time we would set up a hearing to review those changes with the entire board but it's just looking like we're not going to be able to review it section by section during meetings at this point yeah so i just for my two cents i support erin on this i mean the bylaw revisions have been like literally something we've been trying to get to since i joined the commission um which is i don't know how long i've been here for five almost five years um and fletcher can speak to whether they were going on before then but it's something that will like streamline our meetings a lot um we get some people are forced to file for things that under the wetland protection act like really wouldn't come before us and so because lately our we've just had so many hearings and so many applications are so much going on in amherst like i think it'll be painful to put in the time now but it's going to save us and make us more efficient um in the future so i think this is a worthwhile effort good luck i'm really excited that this is happening i'm sorry i can't be a part of it because this is really cool i mean like this is really it's important and impactful so thank you so when i asked our two newest members to do it because i figured it would give them kind of a good you know really like get them deep into the the weeds you know of everything and really understand kind of and give them a good tutorial on every on our entire bylaw in the process so be kind of cool really it would be really into the Junkist Michelle the Junkist exactly get into the Junkist so anyway there's a motion here to do this and i don't know if if Michelle and LaRoy wanted to voice their their if they're still interested and and happy to do this feel down and get in the Junkist you know we need said like the number one phone thing so it's like a wetland plant you know a phone thing with a wetland plant a sensitive phone fern yeah somebody says something you just do this oh my computer is going to shut down all right well make the motion quick so that we can i made a subcommittee consisting of two members plus wetlands administrator to review current regulations work of previous members and former staff proposed revised set of regulations that commission for review public input public hearing and adoption work to be done and posted public meetings with minutes time limited work to span up to four months beginning in january first 2022 second all right i got a second from lairy i think all right voice voice vote laRoy hi anna hi michelle hi fletcher hi lairy hi and i'm an i thank you everyone for doing that yes thank you guys okay heard it the public says it doing a good job everyone so at the next meeting you guys have to be extra nice to anna but also we probably need to pick a new representative to the cpa right you do um yeah and i but this session this cpa sessions over right now though is that correct we vote tomorrow and so that was the only other thing i just wanted to briefly mention was i have not heard any um uh objection to the projects that i mentioned to you um i will let you know we're we're still kind of modeling through some sort of regulatory stuff with one of the projects um the the mill river project which um from my understanding and this is what i'm seeking to confirm with you all tonight you all do support the um there's no objection to the projects that would impact conservation land and we are we are generally in support of those um that's the message i was going to carry through on that we vote tomorrow um so speak now or forever hold your peace on those great thank you next meeting we'll have to pick a new rep so i'm happy to talk to anybody about those responsibilities fletcher can also speak to them very clearly so yeah you had a much different committee than i did yes wait fletcher what you want to do it again i mean i didn't have what i heard i'll put it i'll consider it because it was difficult i had issues with the last one so i will speak strongly i will say it's been a really good experience and so i mean i i will truly like i support uh ask me any questions but truly it's been a really good experience you get to see a whole other side um of of the way that this town functions and um i think yeah there's there's been some really good proposals great thank you ana okay so that's the end of our agenda um i think we just need a motion to end the meeting what do we call it adjourn i'll make a motion to adjourn oh larry and i know three all right this is the earliest meeting we've had in a long time wow voice vote roi hi ana hi michelle hi fletcher hi seri hi i'm an i right thank you everyone thank you guys have a good night good night bye guys take care