 Hello and welcome to the November 8, 2023 meeting of the Amherst Conservation Commission. The time is 7.04. First up on our agenda is chair report. I don't have anything. So I'm going to hand it over to Dave Zomek. Great. Good evening, everybody. Hope you're staying warm after yesterday's nice day and then that drop in temperature. So it's that time of year. A couple of quick updates for all of you. You know, one just putting another plug out there we do have a vacancy on the commission right now. So we are accepting CAF citizen activity forms in the town manager's office. So anyone you might know who's an Amherst resident who would like to volunteer to be on the commission would be great and we're collecting names and CAF's and those go to the town manager and then, you know, we, we have a pretty straightforward interview process so I'll keep tabs on those with Aaron and see what kind of applicants we get. So Brad and Anthony are kind of wrapping things up. You know, we'll work out in the field as long as we can and as long as the conditions allow. They're doing some field mowing now. They're working on equipment getting things kind of put away for the winter certain pieces of equipment that go, you know, in buildings will be put away in the next three to five weeks. And they're still out there doing some, you know, very minor, you know, board replacement on bridges, fixing handrails, guardrails, things like that on boardwalks and such. So a lot of those kinds of projects going on. I think the most exciting trail project field project that I think has happened since your last meeting is that the the pond loop boardwalk at sweet Alice conservation area that you approved is completed. So Kestrel trust teamed up Brad and Anthony were there a number of days with Stu and Luke who are two staff members at the Kestrel trust. And I don't I pass them some photos on there and I don't know if you have those this evening or not Aaron or whether you put them in the packet but anyway Aaron can send them out to you after the meeting or something. I don't want to complicate things tonight with with that. But the boardwalk looks great. Commissioner weighed in as well as myself and Aaron, and Kestrel did a great job they donated all of the materials. I'm going to say that I would estimate about $15,000 in materials, and the labor was volunteer labor, Kestrel labor and of course town of Amherst staff so it looks really nice and it reconnects the loop there. So, very nice. What else is going on. Another interesting project, Stephanie Ciccarello our sustainability director has been working for many, many months with the gardeners down at the Port River Farm. She was able to fund some, I would call it a vertical extension of the fencing there those gardeners have been quite impacted by deer over the last two years. So, there are now quite attractive extensions on the fencing around the community garden. So, we will now have an eight foot fence around the garden now whether white deal dear can or will go over that. They might but they're going to have to work a little harder. The fencing also will close off the vehicular access that was there which deer could have just walked through, and it also provides an extension over the two pedestrian entrances so if you're out and about this weekend. They should be done I would guess by the weekend, installing that and sustainability funds went into that. So, kind of a neat project and we'll see if it works. There's still lots of little critters that crawl under and through fences so you can never be 100%, but some people were really disappointed when their their crops were eaten last year and this year by dear. What else we will be when the hickory trail project comes up later we will be asking for a continuation of that to another meeting. And I did have a good consultation with natural heritage on some of their questions and concerns about our pond or excuse me our loop trail ad a loop trail, and the other trails at hickory but I think we're. I think we're in pretty good shape and we'll have more information for you in two weeks. We will be kind of ground true things some of that there's some they've asked for some modest changes in the in the location of those trails. Pretty pretty straightforward things moving it a little farther away from the Fort river, and maybe trying to hug some other corners so that the trail doesn't fragment would turtle habitat so we'll have more for you in two weeks on that but we, we want to ground some of those things and then awkward natural heritage and then hopefully in two weeks, I hope we'll be able to close that out we'll see if your. You are impressed with our changes and satisfied so so some interesting things going on in the field but. And we'll just play it by ear here with the weather so happy to take any questions if you haven't. Thanks team good stuff. Anybody have any Jason I see your hand up. Yeah I just want to say that we were out at the sweet Alice. Area loop trail this weekend this past weekend and the bridge was great. And the great view and kids loved it, and it looks beautiful so great work to everybody involved in that was really nice. And thanks it's a great partnership with guest role I think we're I think the plan is to there's a bump out in the, in the small bump out on the boardwalk and I think they're going to put a bridge, excuse me bridge, a bench there facing north I think looking at the pond. So, but yeah, check it out it's that's a really hugely popular trail now so great. Okay, with that I think we can move on to land management updates so we have the middle river history trail project committee update and do we have our presenters to see your hand up Bruce. You skip the minutes. Sorry, approval of minutes for 1025 23. I had discussed a few minor changes with Aaron on this I don't know if they made it into the folder but it was essentially just some corrections to names, such. So, given that, I guess I'm looking for a motion to approve the minutes for 1025 23. I moved to approve the minutes for 1025 23 is drafted. Andre and the motion Jason on the second Bruce. Andre. Hi, Jason. And I'm nice. Thanks Bruce. Okay, on to land management updates. The mill river history trail project committee updates. I don't know the names to look for sorry and go ahead. Michelle, are you able in attendees to add people as panelists because for some reason that option is gone from my. I am. I don't have the PowerPoint in front of me. So I don't know the names to look for. So if you could just pull in Meg gauge and then I think she can pull in or she can tell us the names of the other people who are part of the committee that need to join. Okay. Meg, you're pulled in. We're just, yep, there you are. Start my video. I think a Brian Harvey is there. Jane walled. Catherine striker. And I believe heady startup was not able to be here. These are some folks from our committee. Brian. Jane. Catherine. I don't see all those names. So if you're affiliated with this project, if you raise your hand, that would just help me find you and pull you in. Okay, got it. I see Jane. Hi, Jane. Okay. All right. Hi, Catherine Catherine should Catherine should be there. She's joining. There's Brian, Brian Harvey. Oh, good. All right. All right. Hi, everybody. Welcome. Okay. So we have a pretty full agenda and I want to leave time for some commissioner questions and such. So if you could keep this to maybe like five minutes. Does that work for you guys? Yeah. Absolutely. Maybe even shorter. Great. We're eager to make a very brief. Sorry. A brief overview, although I see a number of new new commissioners so we may make sure everyone knows what this project is. This is a project we've spoken with you all about before. It's to create to tell the story of Amherst history. We've come from the indigenous people's time through the early 20th century, in terms of things that happened along the Mill River, and to create an annotated trail along the way that people can walk and learn what has happened with what some of the various sites have been between the North Amherst library and Cushman Common, almost entirely on conservation land. This is the first stage and have sent you the report, which I hope you've had a chance to look at, although it's massive. This is how big it is. And I want to draw your attention later to one particular thing. This was a look, a detailed look at four sites, the two Roberts Mills that are between Puffers pond and Cushman. There's a canal that runs along the north end of the recreation trail and fed water, diverted water and fed it to the mill. It's on Montague Road, and the Cushman clam club which was a men's social place where the eight clams and socialized. We are now going looking for funding from CPA we were funded by CPA we're looking for a second grant in order to fund stage two, which will look at nine specific sites that don't actually have remnants like those original for four specific sites of things that happened along the river, and three contextual features, including the indigenous history, the surface official geology, and the social political and economic significance of these various activities in the context of Amherst. We have hired to have time consultants for six months a project manager in an archivist to look at these additional 12 sites, and working with you all, which we've just to figure out how to annotate this with signs along the way that people will be able to read and then with a QR code in their phones, click to a great deal of additional information, possibly things they can listen to people reading diaries and so on. There's a massive amount of history. And people just don't know it. There was a huge, but it's by 1775 when the American Revolution happened they were already four or five mills on that river. It was a fantastic history that we're eager to tell. And I'm going to stop, because we want to be sure you have a chance for questions although we have a three of our committee members here who may want to add something. Jane and Brian and cats. I'm going to ask us questions. That was super brief but one of the things we talked about with David at a previous meeting was the signage which will be a stage three, which we won't be dealing with yet. So sorry, Jane, did you have a comment. Not not really a planned comment but I just want to emphasize that the sort of the overall nature of this project is identifying and making the sites that are already on conservation land, more useful to the community of Amherst. So it's kind of a marrying of conservation and history and historic preservation. Brian, I see, I see your hand up and you're on mute. You're on mute Brian. No longer on mute. The, and just tying in with that. When we look at the whole long development of this area, the last phase of it is when it was chosen to be put into conservation use. And I think one of the things that are that all these activities for all of these years, but then the town's most conscious decision about this was to preserve the large part of this area, and to try to make it possible to carry this over for future generations at a much different use so it's kind of it's kind of an interesting way of capping off the story of the area that you're there in a conservation area because that is the last sort of decision that community made about what they had in the future of this area. Great. Awesome. Thank you. Any commissioner comments on this questions. I had one but I'm also on the CPAC. So it's, we are, we'll be talking about it then too but since we're in the, I see you Andre, but since we're in the context of the mission and unfortunately, the person most expert on this isn't here today. So I would have bring to light the connection between the Mill River and the indigenous relationship with the river. And I understand there's no written history and there's no dockets and trade and things like that but there is an ecological history. And that is fairly well known and Alex who's not here on the commission tonight, but he's, he's expert in this and there are things like that may or may not still be here but they really drove the activities and use of the indigenous use of the mill river so while those things may not like have, you know, written records anymore they, they are sort of understood about the general land of the place and they're also somewhat contemporary and they have a connection to the conservation of the land, which is where it is now as you said Brian so we can talk more about that I actually consulted with our previous chair because she works for us at Fish Lab. And if you need any, you know, expert on that, we can connect to you but I just wanted to say that that's a really cool way to tie in the history with the current conservation context of the river. And there is there is some history, but it's not written, but we do know there was a trading trade route that went quite close to where the mill river is. So, yeah, and even just sort of like seasonal land use I think would be really tied to the migrations of the fisheries. Anyway, there's a lot you can sort of glean from general, you know, known migration fish ways and stuff but I'm going to hand it over to Andre because he's got his hand up also. Good evening. I don't have a whole lot to say other than the fact that I really support what you're doing and I think it's a good, good thing for our community to have the history available to them at their fingertips, and thank you for what you're doing. Thank you first. Brian. Brian, did you have. Go ahead Bruce, we'll get back to Brian. Okay. So I just wanted to ask what involvement indigenous people have had in the that particular part of the project. I know someone who might be, you could seek his advice if they're, if that's needed bill a trail. Great. I'm going to be in touch with you about getting his contact information. I would advise that indigenous native people be included in the discussion about what you're going to say and what you know and what you don't know and what they know. It could be valuable. Yeah, I fully second that and I think Alex again would be interested in talking to you guys about that and he's like currently involved in doing exactly it's kind of outreach and working with indigenous tribes so he'd be a great resource. Yes. Okay, anybody else. Any public comment on this please raise your hand. Yeah, I wanted to invite cat to say, say a bit about this project she's doing, which is related to it based on her being a curious neighbor interested in horses. You may have read about it in the paper. If we have a minute or two more. Yeah, maybe just a couple minutes cat. Okay, so I live right next to the library in Northamhurst. And when they were digging up foundations for the new extension building I noticed a lot of old horseshoes being dug up and being a keen amateur historian. They asked what the plan was for them and there was none. So I developed a project called for one of a nail, and the project is going to be a exhibition in the library extension, showing the horseshoes that that I found and kept, and the sculpture, very visible from the road right next to 63 facing east, which will combine the horseshoes and have a very sort of flowing dynamic about it to help like attract people to the idea that you know history can be found objects as well. And when you know what you're looking at and have an understanding of it. You can, your imagination can run free with it and it connects you to so many other things. So, you know for one nails about honoring the working horses that were around in Amherst and did so much labor for the early community, which is completely unacknowledged, and also to highlight the role of the blacksmith, which is a very universal metalworking for hundreds of thousands of years around the world. And I'm in these final stages of getting approval from town of Amherst and the Public Arts Commission. They will have their meeting on November the 14th. And once I have approval for that I'll go out fundraising blacksmith has already been commissioned like a little website going called for one to the nail dot info, and hopefully we'll have this absolutely beautiful bust of a horse's head with a very flowing main sometime in spring. Thanks cat. The trail will begin there and it'll go up to kushman. Very nice. About to say some. Yeah, all I was going to say that one of the things that we went back to the indigenous. Pardon me the indigenous topic. One of the things we discovered in phase one was a conservation commission document that is on a sort of four page Dave and I have talked about this a little bit of four pager on the history of puffers pond. And that has a very provocative map which we believe is that comes from the mass historical commission, showing that various travel routes of the pre contact indigenous peoples here, and it seems to go right up through your trail. And so we're very interested in trying to figure out how to get that more better documented and also talk about that as a place that was really the origins of the activity along the whole river valley. Great. Thanks Brian. Okay, I think we need to keep moving on. Hold on Jane. I'm sorry, Meg. I see Jane's hand up. Jane, did you want to add something very quickly. We really need to wrap this up. I think a minor footnote to what cat was talking about. And that is the existence of a long running 19th century blacksmith shop on the site of the North Amherst library so. So, which was the source of the horseshoes I just thought that was something to point out. Thank you. Okay, thanks Jane. I'm going to do it in a minute. Really fast on page of figure 105 in our report from the first stage is this message for David is a picture of a tree that's almost falling down and when it does it'll cause a landslide down onto one of the foundations. It would be very cool to cut down that tree. Figure 105. I'll send you a picture of it. Yeah, maybe offline. Yeah, I'll do that offline. It'll destroy one of the foundations. Thank you. You don't like to chop down trees, but. All right. Thanks guys very. Thank you. Very interesting. We look forward to the multiple phases of the project. So thanks for presenting. Okay. Good night. Okay, can we do anything in a minute. Aaron. Um, you mass spill update. That's a, you know, fairly. Positive news. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Um, so I was able to get confirmation from DEP that there were no wetland or waterway impacts from the. Spill that happened at the. You mass property. At 300 mass av and Lincoln av. And there they have an LSP who was. Contracted on site and they also have been working with DEP emergency response for. The remaining cleanup items, but. Yeah, they've, they've caught up on their SWIP reports getting them to me and those are in your packets and. Yeah, it's, it's resolved. So I just wanted to make sure I circled back on that. Great. Thanks. I see 1 public with a raised hand. Danny Hartman. If this is in relation to the mill river trail. If it's not, maybe take your hand down and we'll take public comment later, but. Okay, I see his hand up. I'm going to let you in. Just please keep it to a minute or 2. I'll keep it brief. No, I'm the professional engineer that handled this bill. So I'm just here. Okay. Great questions. I took my time to join the meeting. And I also wrote up to respond to your notice of violation. I spent quite a bit of time compiling photos. And giving you very detailed descriptions of everything you had asked. I just wanted to get to the board's email address 2 hours ago, but your summary is very accurate. It is contained. It did not reach. Any critical features of the environment. It was largely within the infrastructure that was there. And we are just going through the steps with the DEP to close it out. Mostly administratively now. So that's where we're at. Any commissioners any questions or comments on this? Okay. I don't see any. Thanks for checking in Danny. So I think we can. Move on this one. Thanks for coming to the meeting though. All right, one more minute maybe update on the tree removal. I think everybody had that in their packets. We asked some questions about why the tree need to be removed. This is in relation to the UMass. project and they came back with some very detailed reasoning, which sounds good to me. Did anyone have any comments on that? Or can we consider approved? Okay. Hearing none. I think we can check that off. Okay, we're at 430 and so do you want to open our first hearing. 730 but yes, absolutely. I'll pull up hearing screen first so we can go over that. Look. Oh, so Michelle, somehow you have been assigned host and not co host. Could you make me co host? Yes. I managed that one. I click the button. Let me know if it worked. Yeah, they did. Okay, great. You know what they are upstairs. And do you think you could help me out with the opening procedure? Or I could just. Yeah, let me see if I can, let me see if I can pull it up on. Well, I've got to stop sharing my screen. So if you can read from the slide while I stop sharing, I can grab it from my email. Try to. You want me to read from. Well, the hearing slide where we tell people how the hearings go. Okay, sure. I'll do that. All right, so we're moving into hearings general procedure for fairness to all applicants each hearing has 20 dedicated minutes on the agenda. The hearing structure is five minutes presentation from staff five minutes for comments from the applicant. Five minutes of public comment or two minutes per person five minutes for the conservation commissioners are two minutes each. All plan revisions are required now by Wednesday prior to the meeting at noon. Your presenters clearly state your name, the address of the project and who you're representing as well as if you have preferred pronouns. Bruce, I see your hand up. I want to confirm that it's Wednesday and noon a week from the meeting, not the day of the meeting. Thank you, Bruce. I'm going to update my cheat sheet. I'm going to say run and get my, my hearing. I'm zeroing in on it. Just bear with me one second. Do you want me to just pull it up on the screen Michelle would that be helpful. The meeting call probably ran away to go get it. Seems like she did. Andrea's vice chair this your big opportunity. I could certainly read. What do you think Gary, you want me to read it out. So, yeah, you can, you can read this out and then the, you've got to read the on the hearing slide, just the specific to the project description. All right, this public hearing is now called to order this hearing is being held as required by the provisions of chapter 131 section 40 of the general laws of the Commonwealth. An act relative to the protection of the wetlands as most recently amended an article 3.31 wetlands protection under the town of Amherst general bylaws. As abbreviated, we notice a resource area delineation pure scribe development incorporated on behalf of WD coals incorporated represented by Goddard consulting for the confirmation of resource area boundaries on site limited to areas that fall within 100 feet of the proposed solar installation. She's very road map nine be lots 11 and 12 and map 90 lots. 27. Okay. I'm going to pull in Andrew Shabo, or if I'm saying that wrong please correct me Andy. And if there's anyone else from the project Steve liberty I'll pull him in as well. I see. I thought I saw Tom reedy but now I'm not seeing him. Oh there is. Okay. You keep jumping around on my list. Okay, there he is. Okay. I think I got everybody in now. Andrew. Hi Steve. Hi Tom. Welcome. Okay. Do we want to start off with your comments Aaron or shall we give them their five minutes to present. No, I think having them present, but we've already discussed the peer review so they're they've been provided with the estimate for Emily Stockman. And I think just give them an opportunity to present and then potentially some public comment or commissioner comment. Okay, great. Go ahead guys. I can just quickly lead off and then I'll just hand to you Steve so thanks everybody for your time tonight. My name is Andrew show I'm pure sky energy here to speak to the submitted and read for the parcels off of Shoesbury Road. Okay, zero shoes Shoesbury Road. This particular area had a formerly been delineated back in 2020 received an ORAD that has since expired so we're seeking to re delineate. And renew that process, which is why we're here tonight. So, I know Steve is gone and taking care of a lot of the initial work here so I'll leave it to him to speak to any technical issues or technical questions, but I'll just kind of hang back and answer any other questions that might come up. Okay, thanks Andy. Yeah, so we basically re looked at the the original delineation that was done in 2020 expired, I think maybe a month or two before we got out there. Pretty much all the flags are still there we reevaluated all the wetland lines we filed an ORAD for portions of those line that would now potentially put jurisdiction close to or toward the proposed project on the site. You know, we're not proposing the project now, but you know, everybody kind of knows where it is internally. So, you know, the entire site wasn't re delineated only portions of it, you know, probably 75% of the site. For the most part, things haven't changed. It's only been three years. The wetlands are essentially in the same location. We did make some of the wetlands slightly larger, you know, a handful of flags moved. We renumbered the flags to kind of make it a little bit more logical on the different wetland system numbers, but we kept the flag number at the end. So there'd be very easy to compare, you know, flag 30 to flag 30 from the previous delineation to the new delineation. We just changed, you know, like the the wetland ID number. We added some newer flags down by the road where there was the town drainage swale kind of goes underneath the driveway and turns more into a channel or a bank that flows off site off property to the south, I believe it is. So that's a newer wetland that's on there that wasn't in the previous anrad. Everything else is in the previous anrad, you know, hasn't changed substantially from what we what was originally filed and approved and peer reviewed back, you know, three years ago. So that's kind of the gist of what the new anrad filing is. Most of the flags from the original anrad are still present in the field. Our new flags are pretty much on the same exact vegetation at the same location, you know, with new numbers on them. So it's fairly easy from what we saw in some of the initial field walks to kind of see where you are and see where the wetland boundaries lie out in the field. So, you know, that that's kind of the summary of what's kind of happened out there and what's in the new anrad filing. So, you know, we all been talking about getting the peer review consultant involved and assuming we'll be out there in the field. Reviewing everything over the next next couple of weeks. You know, Aaron that you had mentioned, wanting to have a plan that showed the original anrad, the old rat approval line on kind of married with the new line to see the differences or the process of putting that together now but it's a little bit of work just because that old line and all that data kind of came from the previous consultant. So we have to get that from them and then work put it into the CAD and get everything to line up so it's a little bit of a process it's it's happening but I don't I don't know how fast it will happen we don't slow the review but I can let Andrew talk about if he has any insight on how fast that might happen on not on their end but on the you know the surveyors end to put all that data together I would think it's probably a week or two to put all that together and vet it internally. I think that a week is a pretty safe assessment Steve yeah we were told just today that they're aiming to send us over those documents hopefully hopefully tomorrow or early next week. So I'm hopeful that we can throw everything together pretty quick after that. And it'll probably take a little a couple days to set up the contract so, you know, probably be pretty well aligned when the contracts done and the map is prepared. Great. Thanks Andrew Steven, I'm going to take public comment now so please raise your hand. Okay, Luke. I'm going to lie to talk. Please state name address and preferred pronouns if you have them. Thank you Madam Chair, Luke Leger. I'm an attorney with the firm of McGregor Leger and Stephens in Boston. He him his is fine for me. Thank you again. I represent Jenny Calich and Bob Bazooka. There are butters to the project site at 147 Shootsbury Road in Amherst. My clients are committed to ensuring that the valuable natural resources out on the WD cows property are protected. I'm here tonight primarily just to sort of introduce myself as we do expect to participate fully in this and ready permitting process and any subsequent permitting processes that may come before the commission. My clients are firmly aligned with smart solar and her submission of supporting environmentally responsible development of solar energy. And we do firmly believe that that starts with a complete and accurate delineation of all of the jurisdictional state and local wetland resource areas on the subject property. And that brings me to really the reason I wanted to comment tonight, which is more of a question that I'm hoping to put to the applicant through you. Madam chair, and that is, whether we would be allowed to have a wetland consultant participate in the site visit to review the delineations that was just mentioned. Certainly we would expect to do that at the same time that the stockman's out there so we wouldn't delay or hold anything up. Absolutely would make of the applicant if you're willing to put that to them. Thanks, Luke. So you're requesting that a. A second wetland scientist be out with Emily Stockton during her review third party review of the site. That's correct. I anticipate that we will be retaining or by clients. I should say we'll be retaining their own consultant. So the idea would be to allow that individual to take part in the site site visit to review the delineations. Okay. Well, I'm going to check in with Aaron on this. This is an unfamiliar activity to me but Aaron, there's first is Emily Stockton, okay with this and then of course is other project proponents, okay with this so. Yeah, I mean, I would have to ask Emily Stockman it's new territory for me to do something like that I would say would be really important to. Check with KP law relative to the legality of that and also. You know, obviously the landowner and applicant would have to give their permission for that to move forward. So, I guess those are just my initial comments, but certainly willing to look into it more and come back with some additional information. Thanks. Andrew Steven Tom, do you have any comments on that request? I think that we will have to I'll turn to Tom, you probably feel just dress it easier than me but I think we would have to discuss that with the landowner before being able to say one way or the other. Okay. So that's the response Luke I think maybe offline communications would be the best way to coordinate this. So maybe you could get in touch with Aaron and by that. Andrew Tom and Steven and the landowner does that sound okay to you. Sure, that's fine. Okay, thank you. All right, thank you. Any other public comment I don't see any hand raised. Okay, I'm going to move on to commissioner comments any comments or questions from the commissioners. Okay, seeing none and do you mind putting up the PowerPoint with the proposed motions. Make the motion. I move to request authorization from the applicant to employ an outside consultant under MGL part one title seven chapter 44 section 53 G retaining and contracting with Emily Stockman of stock by associates to review the resource area boundaries and flagging that fall within the project footprint and or impact the project footprint. And the premises have buffers within 100 feet of the project footprint on but on parentheses and resource area boundaries that may cast over the project area in parentheses within 200 feet of the project footprint in the case of riverfront. All right Bruce on the motion looking for a second. Second. Andre on the second Andre. Bruce. Hi, Jason. Is Jason still with us. I can't see everybody. He's connecting. Okay, I'm an eye. And now we'll just he seems connected. Jason, you there. I am here. Okay. And your vote is. Thank you. All right. All right. Thank you, Steven, Tom, Andrew. Oh, there's a second motion. I'm sorry. I'm going to continue the public hearing for Shrewsbury road and read to 750 on 1129 23. Thanks Andre. Andre on the motion. I'll second that motion. Jason on the second Andre. Hi, Jason. Hi, Bruce. Hi. And I'm an eye. Okay. With that, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Let's see. 735 notice of intent. So we have. This hearing is being called being held as required by the provisions of chapter 131 section 40 of the general laws of the Commonwealth. An act relative to the protection of the wetlands is most recently approved by the Department of Immers general bylaws. And this is a notice of intent. The Zen engineers on behalf of Amherst college for repair to culverts road maintenance, hazard tree removal, repair of bog and bridges and long-term routine maintenance. At multiple parcels on Amherst college campus map 14 C lot 73 map 14 D lot one map 14 C lot 73 map 17 B lot one map 17 a lot. Map 14 D lot two map 14 C lot 89 map 17 a one lot 62 map 17 a lot 68 map 17 B lot three map 17 B lot six map 17 B lot eight. Good job. Boom. Do we have the project proponents here tonight that might want to present. No, they're because they got their a butter notification or their certified of butter's list at the very last minute and there was obviously a lot of a butters associated with this project. They needed some additional time to properly notify a butters. So they will be notifying a butters and indicating that the hearing date and time has changed, but we will need a formal motion to continue this hearing to account for anybody who showed up from the public hearing notice. The legal ad notice. Okay. If there's any public questions, I mean, it'd probably be better to do that when our project proponents are here. So I think we're just looking for a motion to continue the public hearing. I'll move to continue the public hearing to 1129 2023 at 740 p.m. Jason on the motion Bruce on the second Andre. Hi, Bruce. Hi, Jason. Hi. Okay. I'm just going to pull the project proponent in before I share my screen should be Maya there she is. Promote Maya to a panelist if there's anybody else joining for Maya just raise your hand and I'm going to share my screen so Michelle if you can pull them in. Okay. I can no longer see them. So maybe Maya can let us know if there's somebody else. Okay. This meeting is being held as required by the provisions of chapter 131 section 40 of the general laws of the Commonwealth and act relative to the protection of wetlands as most recently amended in article 3.31 wetlands protection under the town of Amherst general bylaws. This is a request for determination. This is a request for determination. This is a request for determination. This is a request for determination. This is a request for a single family home with associated site work is subject to the wetlands protection act and whether the area and or work are subject to the town of Amherst protection bylaw and nine through 11 poets corner map 15 B lot 131. Hi, Maya. Welcome. Thank you. Hello, everybody. Can you hear me? Okay. Okay. Aaron, do you want to give us a five minutes? Um, I'm going to pull up site visit photos. So bear with me for just a minute. Um, we did schedule a site visit for this project. And, um, I don't think no commissioners were able to attend. Um, the, there's really the only real, um, proposed alteration I would say is the driveway, which I think is about 60 or so square feet of impact within the outer extent of the 100 foot buffer zone. Um, for the corner of the driveway, which the, um, applicant is restricted to that particular area because of an existing access easement, um, that basically limits the location where they can put the, um, driveway apron coming off an existing shared driveway. Um, uh, the, when I was on site, I observed that there had been an existing spoil pile on site, which, um, was historically existing. Um, but I, it appears that, um, some of the vegetation had been removed off of it. Um, and in an effort to sort of clean up the area. And so this is the sport picture of the spoil pile here. The area to the left is the, um, project site, which is outside of a hundred feet. So the a hundred foot kind of comes just on the left hand side of the spoil pile. Um, I did speak to the applicant about using straw waddle rather than the, um, filter fabric silt fence just cause I felt like it would hold up better in the, um, winter time and the silt fence wasn't towed in. So it wasn't really functioning. Um, there was also a, a stump here. Um, I basically advised the applicant that this spoil pile, which was a remnant of the original, um, um, subdivision construction, uh, from poet's corner road should be immediately removed. Um, and or tarped for the winter. So, um, I think that their intention is to remove that as soon as possible. Um, and I think that they may have already installed the straw waddle, but overall, um, I don't think they're exceeding the 20% alteration threshold for this. Um, there was alteration already within the buffer zone. And I think that they're proposing to maintain most of that as sort of yard area. Um, so with that, I'll just, um, turn it over to Maya. Yeah. I mean, basically suffered everything. The only thing that you haven't covered that I think is also important to mention is that there is an existing sewer line that runs through the easement that we have on our property. And that happens to fall within the hundreds of buffer zone as well. And we would need access to that while we're doing the construction. And then once that's done, it's going to be covered back into this lawn. Uh, but I also, um, adjusted the driver a little bit to see it as far back. I can take it. And it's about 42 for a feed. Now that's really touching within the very edge of the hundred speed buffer zone. And that's really the maximum we can do. Within the terms of the easement that we have to go through. And if, if anybody want a visual, um, I can open up a plan to explain. Thanks, Maya. So, um, in addition to the pictures of the straw models. Based on sites. Okay. Um, commissioners, if you, if you want to see those, raise your hand. Um, so I, I heard in addition to the now 42 square foot, you say that there's also going to be some temporary impacts into the buffer zone that I don't think we really covered in our, um, packets. So, um, is that on this plan that we're looking at right now? Yeah. Um, I don't know. I mean, you can't see my, um, I'll just try to explain it on the image. So the first of all, on the right, there's an image of the, um, um, straw waddles that we put on, but there's a few things that are in red, uh, no, so they'll are the most obvious ones. So the one in the middle, which is what we're seeing now is an access for connecting to the existing storyline. And that's where the, that's where the storyline runs. And that's where we need to go into, into it. And then the middle triangle at the very bottom, um, if we choose 42, that is the overlap of these proposed driveway, um, on top of the. Henry's three buffer zones. Erin, if you wouldn't mind scrolling just a little bit down. You can see the, the red line is the, the easement line where we cannot pass. So we're really pushing it as far back as we can to avoid. appreciate that. So just to just to confirm where the temporary impacts are there that circle and like where I mean what it's it's going to be like a truck or a I think digging a pipeline. Yeah, there's a little bit of trenching that has to be done towards the the shoreline. So that circle with the S on it is that's a manhole that's existing site. And about 15 feet down I think up north is where we would have to do the connection so we would make a trench into that. And then the waterline you will see down further down with a W right next to the flow driveway. So that is beyond the the limits of the buffer zone. So it's really just a sewer line that we have to connect because that's an existing town sewer line. Okay, thanks. Are there any questions about this? Okay, I see none. So like my only comment is that while this is under the 20% it is in the buffer and it is a permanent impact. And I think that you know are we're moving towards a recommendation to not require an NOI for this but my ask of you is to do some voluntary mitigation for the six or I guess 42 foot square foot and that really could include just some high bush blueberry, a vaccinium, some kind of native plantings. Many of them are you know attractive in the fall and good for birds and great but just something that's maybe not lawn that sort of remediates some of the effects. Our bylaws do have like a pretty substantial preamble about why we don't want any impacts into the 100 foot buffer and I just want to honor that and ask you to maybe just do some voluntary mitigation and that in lieu of having to file an NOI for this. So I just want to okay that's great. Thank you for being willing to you know be a good steward of the land in that respect. Any other questions or comments? Erin? I just want to make sure we don't forget about public comment. Yep. Chris? What is the plan for removing the pile of soil and the and the stump if it's still there? We are going to spread it out and feed it. It's basically topsoil with some debris that we try to remove as much of the debris as possible but there were there were like big chunks of concrete in there left from the construction from 20 something years ago so we removed the big concrete chunks and we're just going to spread out what is supposed to be topsoil and feed it and don't bother it. Right I guess my only comment would be that if it's been sitting there that long there's a reasonably good chance that there isn't a lot of nutrient left in the soil that's in that pile so you may need to augment it with some assistance in some way. Thank you. So we also have a big fresh pile of topsoil that we scraped off the top of the rest of the property and you can always add some of that in to make sure we have better topsoil. Okay and so I understand the timeline for that is sort of as soon as possible is that is that the communication that you've had Erin and Maya? Yes okay um okay great um if there's any public comment please raise your hand I'm keeping an eye on it I don't see any okay is everybody satisfied with the discussion of the spoils pile and buffer impacts yes okay with that I'm looking for a motion and maybe Erin you could pull it up thank you and Maya maybe you could just be in contact with Erin about the plantings that we just discussed thanks. I'll read it. I moved to issue a positive determination checking box five indicating that the work proposed is subject to review and approval by the conservation commission pursuant to wetlands protection in the town of Amherst general by-laws article 3.31 and a negative determination checking box three indicating that the work described in the request is within the buffer zone has defined the regulations but will not alter an area subject to projection therefore said work does not require the filing filing of a notice of intent subject to the conditions uh parentheses under WPA and wetlands by-law and regulations on parentheses listed in the wetlands administrator hearing report dated 11-8-2023. Do you guys want me to just share the um oh sorry go ahead Erin I go ahead and get the second on the motion I was just going to share the um the um conditions. Just for clarification the motion says uh not an area subject to projection is that supposed to be protection? Where are you seeing this on the in the lines Jason? Third line from the bottom? Yes that's supposed to be protection that's a typo. Okay I'll second that motion. Bruce on the motion Jason on the second Bruce? Jason? Hi. Andre? Hi. And I'm an I and Erin you wanna? Yeah I do I um bear with me one second I've I did just do sort of very standard conditions on this one because it's pretty minor um and sorry for whatever reason my um my memo was kind of lost in the um shuffle of the slides just trying to make it larger so I can share them on my screen. Okay so um um so just that a member of the conservation commission or myself can enter the property to do periodic inspections of the erosion control um no machinery shall pass the erosion control barrier um the applicant shall notify um me prior to activity taking place in the buffer zone and uh that provide the name and telephone numbers of the contractors who are working on site uh that the erosion controls shall be maintained during construction um and that additional controls shall be added if necessary the stable construct construction entrance shall be provided during construction so just to make sure that materials not tracked into the existing driveway and the resource area all stock piles um of soil uh from stored for more than one day shall be surrounded by uh a row of silt fence and or covered with a tarp and um I'll do an inspection at the completion of work once the site is stable um so that the erosion controls can be removed. Thanks Erin and do any edits or I don't know caveats need to be made given the need for the access to the sewer line and the temporary backs okay great no because that's just that's all within the work area that was defined in the plan set so we'll reference that in the determination so that'll be covered got it thank you all right Maya thank you you guys have a good night you too all right um next step we have am had development corp for construction of a parking lot and detention based on the buffer zone to bordering vegetation wetlands at 28 green leaves drive at 13 d lot to 79 I believe this is already open right Erin okay yes and is anybody here for this or are you just moving to continue because we did not have information in time correct yep they're they're still working on the revisions for this one so we just need a motion to continue okay looking for that motion I will move to continue the public hearing to 11 29 23 at 755 p.m pending receipt of additional required information I'll second that Jason on the motion Andre on the second Bruce hi Jason hi Andre hi and I'm an eye okay um notice of intent for amers for the construction of a handicapped accessible trail system in bridges resource area mitigation and restoration activities work is proposed in a bordering land subject to flooding bordering vegetated wetlands bank riverfront buffer zone at 191 primary lane about 19 d 20 a lots 10 and 59 um so we're still waiting on nh esp comments on this and you had your site visit is there anything else you want update us with or should we just move to the motion I see Bruce's hand up but I'll let Dave go first I'm no happy to take Bruce's question okay go ahead Bruce I thought I heard Dave say earlier than he had received the letter and that they had good suggestions um Erin maybe you could clarify that I think I'm not sure if we received an email or we covered all that in a in a in a phone conversation a zoom call yeah so we we did meet with natural heritage to review the plan we had a number of representatives from natural heritage who we went through painstakingly through the whole plan with revisions suggested relocations of the trail and we are in the process right now of sort of ground truthing so about half of the site has been ground truth for the trail location and we're hoping by Monday we'll have ground truth the remaining trail segments so that we can update the map and provide that back to natural heritage once natural heritage gets the updated map they would issue us a determination letter at that at that time so that's that's sort of the more detailed explanation of where things stand I'm just understood yeah so at this time we would seek to continue that to your next meeting in two weeks hopefully we can turn that around it might be a little optimistic I think we can do it on our end and we'll just see if natural heritage can um can do it on their end I will say they were complimentary of the comprehensive nature of the NOI and they acknowledged you know all the work that went into it and and thanks in large part to Erin putting together all that that material and the the supplemental material and reports and maps but they said boy there's a lot you got a lot going on there so that's where they wanted to comment and and again it was not a wholesale changing of of trails or anything like that they just wanted us to maybe consider a couple changes to the path of or the location of a couple of the trails you know the loop trail for instance one section moving it a little farther away from the from the Fort River and then likewise up on the the north south trail so as Erin said we'll I'll probably get out there tomorrow or more likely Friday and do a little ground true thing of what they suggested and then we'll go back and forth with them and then then they can submit a letter for your review and and our discussion in a couple weeks thanks Chris so is there any process by which we should continue the public hearing for two meetings I mean you look at the list at the end of this document of how many things are on the list for the 29th because can you go ahead and move it even further because is it really that important to do it three weeks from now well I will say that we are under quite a bit of pressure now with the grant funding that we have so if we have to you know if we have to continue it again from the 29th on we will and we'll take two minutes of the commission's time on that date but I'd love to keep it on your agenda just in case natural heritage really moves this along quickly because we our grants really need to be completed for both of these trails by June 30th of 24 okay yeah so appreciate it thanks for those good questions any anybody else any public comment I don't see any hands up okay with that looking for a motion to continue the public hearing for 191 West Palm Ray Lane to 1129 2023 at 8 p.m. So moved. Oh second. Bruce on the motion Jason on the second Bruce. Hi. Jason. Hi. Andre. Hi. And I'm an A. Okay next up is SWCA on behalf of University of Massachusetts for the construction of a gravel parking lot and associated stormwater structures in the 100 foot buffer zone to bordering vegetated wetland at lot 13 Olympia Drive map 8D lots 15 13 and 3 so this one is also seeking continuance so looking for a motion on that unless there's any comments do we we have sorry go ahead Jason we have continued this several times now they had raised concerns about this project you know taking too long to get a third party in there and so on and so forth and they just keep asking to have continuance is it does anybody have any idea why has anybody been in contact with anyone is the project are they scrapping the project does anybody know anything as to why we keep continuing this yeah all that area go ahead yes why expire at any point can can it expire yeah as long as we're continuing to a date certain we can sort of keep kicking the can on this one and a little bit of this is just as you can tell with the volume of applications that we've received that I was a little bit short on time to reach out to them and have a conversation and also because I was a little worried to nudge them forward considering that at the next meeting we have eight hearings so I do want to check in with them and and see where things stand but I also don't want us to have you know a meeting that's so overwhelmed with with content that we can't get through everything so I sort of I checked in with Michelle about it and said I haven't had a chance to speak to them I'm kind of feeling like I don't want to push too hard if they're doing their due diligence but I think maybe once we get to our December meeting when things have calmed down a little bit at that point I would reach out to them and try to get some more information I guess that's that's kind of my my best recommendation for right now yes and then at a certain point a third-party review may not be possible because it'll be winter so I think they understand that and what the risks are but good questions Jason yeah thank you for yeah go ahead all right you know Michelle you just mentioned a third-party review won't be possible in the winter time if we do decide that we want to have a third-party review potentially at this next meeting does that mean that they'll have to wait until the spring I think but correct me and that's like up to the discretion of the third-party reviewer whether or not the conditions allow for an accurate delineation but yes go ahead yeah okay so there's potentially yes yes potentially yes okay okay unless there's any further questions or comments looking for a motion to continue again I move to continue the public hearing for lot 13 Olympia Drive notice of intent to 11 29 23 at 8 0 5 p.m I heard Bruce on the second um Andre on the motion Bruce hi Jason hi Andre hi and I'm an A okay notice of intent this meeting is being held as required by the provisions of chapter 131 section 40 of the general laws of the Commonwealth and act I was on RDA let's I had to flip pages okay this hearing is being held as required by the provisions of chapter 131 section 40 of the general laws of the Commonwealth and act relative to the protection of the wetlands as most recently amended in article 3.31 wetlands protection under channeled embers from all the dialogues and this is a notice of intent for Tertut Tertek on behalf of Fort River Solar 2 LLC for construction and operation of a 6.35 megawatt direct current ground-mounted photovoltaic solar facility an effort to effort tenant components at 191 West Pomeroy Lane map 19 D lot 10 I'm sure I said that wrong but with me okay and we have somebody here for this yes tetra tech Sean Foster pulling you in please raise your hand if you're also associated with this project and I see Matt Moyan and Erin you got him I got a couple folks in and if I missed anyone please raise your hand Ryan yeah good evening I'm Sean Foster I'm with tetra tech I'll be speaking on behalf of the project tonight I'm joined by Matt Moyan from tetra tech also and we have some representatives from the client here on the call as well so just to give a brief back background on the project and is it okay if I go ahead and share my screen Erin or is that something that you typically do or nope you're fine to share okay so just a little bit of background on the project it was previously approved under an order of conditions back in May of 2019 and there were several minor modifications administrative administrative modifications that were made through March of 2022 the permit expired this past August on the 25th so we're coming before the board to repermit for an NOI for an order of conditions for the proposed work some of the work has previously been completed and and I'm going to bring up a plan here in a second to you know demonstrate you know kind of what we have what has been completed to date if you could just share with me if you can share if you can see my screen we cannot yet you should have you should have abilities to do so though okay okay so you know the project started construction this past year the erosion controls including the construction control entrance and silt fence around the complete site was installed some of the fencing was installed as well and the proposed gravel access road was completed as well so we're using that as kind of our basis of the starting point for this new NOI it's kind of our existing conditions that the site is proposed to have two solar arrays one on the eastern side and one on the western side totaling 6.35 megawatts it includes electrical equipment and and some remediation mitigation because of the endangered species at the site the proposed and I'm going to walk through each portion of the project here so the entrance way is is already completed the proposed work and the entrance way would still include the utility poles to be installed from west palm array lane all the way back to the solar field there's an existing bridge deck that goes over the fort river the deck will be replaced but the substructure will be remained so there's no in-water work we're proposing just to replace the the structure of the deck to provide more sufficient loading to get equipment out to the site and to allow other vehicles and and better access to the site because right now the deck doesn't have a high loading but the new deck will have a load in close to 31 tons and this plan set that was provided as part of the NOI includes the details for redoing the deck but again I want to be clear there's no in-water work it's just that the the deck structure itself will be replaced and and kind of the approaches to it this is a photo of the eastern array you know and I do want to reiterate the layout is substantially similar to the work that was previously approved through the administrative approvals we've made some minor modifications to the stream crossings but other than that the project is we haven't really changed the the the layout at all or the you know the extent of the solar field there's two stream crossings for intermittent streams that we're going to replace they're currently currently have pipes kind of conveying the storm water through these intermittent streams we're going to replace them with precast structures that are going to meet the wetland crossing standards and will also provide a better habitat and kind of movement for wildlife in the area this is the second stream crossing so the two stream crossings are between the western array and the eastern array the arrays themselves would be fenced in with a fence and a gate some of that most of that fencing has been installed the panels and the electrical equipment has not been installed yet the site has been permanently stabilized through the summer and sweep inspections and a third party environmental monitors required under the previous order of munitions has been conducted there's a niche there's an open niche permit for the habitat for endangered species that was requiring us to do remediation and mitigation within kind of a buffer zone between our limit of work and in the river that permit's still active and we're committed to you know completing that work as part of the project you know general phasing would be to complete the the bridge decking the river crossings and the flood mitigation because we are impacting some of the compend some of the flood storage and we're providing compensatory flood storage as part of that the second phase would be to complete the the solar portion of the the project including the utility poles and then the final piece would be you know any mitigation planting and restoration as required by the niche out permit and as dictated on these plans but I one thing I want to go back to is for stormwater we we kind of looked at the existing conditions which the road is already installed so the need for stormwater is fairly limited as panels are considered to be pervious under you know the state bylaw so we've done some mitigation of stormwater in the sense of by the crossings directing stormwater to level spreaders to you know we were counting the overland flow as treatment and mitigation for any peak rate increases associated with the the wetland crossings you know I think we were asked to kind of wrap this up in five minutes so that's that's a brief overview I was going to turn it over to you know the board for any questions that we can possibly answer thank you Sean I see your hand up Bruce Aaron do you want to give your five minutes or should we go right to commissioner comments and also to the public please raise your hands and I'll keep an eye on you if you have any questions um yeah I'll jump in I did include some comments on the memo that I issued to the commission earlier this week I just want to say overall that I you know I think reviewing this project under the sort of the guise of the previous permit is I think a an effective approach here I do think that there might be a couple pieces of information that would be beneficial for the commission to see or have so just one specific example of that would be for the stormwater um on the original notice of intent application there was no stormwater calculations that were completed and so there's nothing for us to look back to and see what the pre pre-development runoff calculations were so there was no calculations done at that time which I'm I'm not quite sure how the project even was permitted without those but um nonetheless it was so I looked back to see if I could locate them was unable to find them and I just think it would be useful for us to see what the pre-development runoff calculations are that way we can be assured that the installation of the roadways the installation of the expanded equipment pads and gravel areas doesn't increase the post development runoff calculations and that if it did it would provide an opportunity for us to retrofit some stormwater on the site which may provide some reduction in peak runoff rates so maybe some water quality swales or something to that effect which was something that I had spoken with one of the project proponents about in advance of this filing in hopes that there would be some potential addition of structures like that considered um let me see what else um I mean I don't want to run through all of my comments they've been provided to the to the applicant and to the commission um that there's a little bit of minimal detail I guess I would say on the flood mitigation area I would be interested to see sort of a more detailed concept of what that the construction of that flood mitigation area would look like particularly because it looks like it's being proposed on top of an existing gravel access drive so just to see sort of what the more more detailed grading would look like in that location um I've already talked about stormwater um yeah don't feel I need to go through every single one of them if you don't want to um okay Matt do you want to quickly respond to one of Erin's comments and then we're going to move to commissioner questions yeah more more of a question than a than a response in terms of going back and looking at the the existing conditions prior to the construction of the road what are you envisioning looking back pre application so golf course condition I just want to make sure where when we go back and look at this we're evaluating what you're expecting us to evaluate yeah exactly um and I mean I'm assuming that there was some evaluation of this done already it just may not have been submitted to the commission so that would also be a potential option if there was any calc's run previously by the applicant and they just weren't submitted but yeah that's exactly what I'm looking for just because the access roads even though they are already constructed they were part of the overall project and so because we're looking at the overall project to make sure that there's not going to be any sort of stormwater issues which might cause um erosion or washout or environmental you know resource area damage um once the project is installed and functioning yeah okay that's helpful to understand and I can tell you you know here that we don't have any concerns of that but I know you're gonna you guys are more likely than not going to want to see some numbers to back that up but when you look at a golf course condition where you have manicured on go into a a meadow condition which is going to exist you know as we move forward here on this project it's going to be substantially lower in the post condition because you've got that denser growth vegetation that's not a manicured surface so you know if that's if that's good enough for you great but you know we can certainly pull some numbers together and give you a table that that represents that for you yeah that would be the models built so it's relatively easy effort yeah that's exactly what I'm looking for um there were there were a couple other comments just relative to phasing I know um in the initial presentation that was touched on but just if we could get a little more detail on the phasing um and you know if there was other specific questions it might be helpful to to talk about those offline yeah I we definitely took a glance through your comments earlier today and I don't think there was anything in there that was earth shattering it was just more making sure your expectations in our understanding were aligned and then in terms of the the stormwater improvements along the road we heard you and um for the crossings that's why we proposed what we did uh originally stormwater was basically going to run off at the crossings and go directly into these intermittent streams and the resource areas and what we've proposed here is to put up some timber curbing that extends the flow path away from the stream pushes it through a double spreader and over what's called a qualifying pervious area which is basically just dense vegetation for a length of 25 to 50 feet and that gives you water quality and quantity benefits it's it's a measure recognizes DEP as a low impact development um improvement so we put four of those in two on two at each crossing one on either side just to help protect those resources that that are immediate to it um and we could the other thing i just from a stormwater perspective there are a number of other locations along the existing drive that do qualify as these quote unquote qualifying pervious areas so if it's beneficial we can show where those are on the plan but the the gist of it is the majority if not all of the roadway between the east and west arrays and on the on the eastern side of the east array if you follow where i'm talking uh are all qualifying pervious areas that are going to give you the water quality and quantity treatment you're looking for thanks for that bruce not sure when we discuss uh what i'm gonna ask but so in effect this is a project inside a bigger project the town is doing a project all around this project and my interest is to hear from both center tech and dave how do the particularly the endangered species mitigations but in general how do these two projects engage with each other that's a good question bruce and it's a big picture question so i just want to back up a little bit back to erin's like bullet point questions that we all received and just make sure that that has been um transmitted to the to the project applicants and that i think what we're looking for is um a response point by point and you know what you've been doing that and telling us and just putting that into writing so that the commission can review them point by point so does that sound good to you guys and and then we can move on to bruce's question yeah we're happy to provide written responses okay great all the erin's comments okay just real quick michelle if you don't mind there was one other item uh that i think shon and i both wanted to bring up the the wetlands topic there was mention of looking at the wetland delineation that was done for the town project and potentially swapping that out uh you know i can't speak for shon but my initial reaction there was we have a little bit of concern showing a line that is not representative the work we've done and hasn't yet been approved on plans we're stamping we're certainly happy to look at that delineation compared to what's shown on these plans and you know identify where there may be some differences and take those into consideration but just just wanted to put that out there to be open about it and gauge uh reaction from from erin from the commission on you know our feelings about it okay thanks and that maybe that ties into bruce's question too because there's some dovetailing here erin i don't is davis still with us yep okay um yeah do you want to answer maybe more specifically about the wetlands really quick and then maybe davin you can get to the detail part i mean i think that the wetland boundary will be confirmed as part of the notice of intent application that's currently under review by the concom for the the trail system so it's just sort of a more accurate representation of of the trails i wouldn't ask you to rerun your all of your calculations necessarily for the you know mitigation and everything else um it's mostly just um to recognize that there's been an updated delineation it's included on an updated plan that's currently before the concom is probably going to get approved um maybe even in tandem with this one um and so just just to sort of recognize that and and that the conditions from this original delineation have updated and i didn't even realize when the permit process was sort of initiated for this one that there was that dramatic of a difference in the delineation but i think that there were a couple changes um particularly like this area that we're looking at right now i think that the wetland now carries down a little bit further and that's a symptom of the the property rebounding pretty significantly since the um the golf course changed or closed so anyway that's my comment on that okay yeah it sounds like there might be some discrepancies that you guys can probably collaborate with offline on that yeah does that sound okay okay great all right Bruce back to you did you want to restate that or did you have your hands up yes yeah i'll just say there's a pretty big project inside the even bigger one and i just carry particularly with regard to endangered species like the wood turtles are the things that that the solar project is doing and are they meshing appropriately with the things the town is proposing to do when they butt up against each other great question dave do you want to yep go ahead yeah no it's a great question bruce i'll i'll try to address it um so so yeah clearly you know the town entered this project overall project for the 150 acres and the purchase and i've said this before with with the solar already a given so so so so pure sky um as you know permitted this this 26 acre solar through the concom as well as natural heritage and they're coming through with this additional step for the reasons that were stated earlier so in their project it requires you know for 26 acres of impact 17 acres of restoration and a permanent conservation restriction to be put on the north side of of the four river so i think you know that is is where pure sky is you know we're working you know on our side of the project i think you know the first part of our project to really kind of look look comprehensively at the 150 acres was to complete you know the full wetlands delineation again pure sky um formerly amp did not need to do a full wetlands assessment so we we started by gathering all this information we you know hired somebody to do all the wetlands all the vernal pools riverfront so we've extensively mapped both sides of the four river we also hired somebody to do the restoration plan that being said all of that is kind of informing as we move slowly you know through these next steps the logical next piece of the puzzle for us was the trail system so because that was one of the major pieces of the acquisition story that we told to the town council that convinced them and other boards and committees to support this and purchase the land so that's kind of where we are i think we are keenly aware of the rare and endangered species that are on the property in addition to the terrestrial turtles we also have those species that are found in the fort river watershed including a federally listed species so all of that being said natural heritage is holding us to an extremely high standard for a course that is now um gone from a 150-acre heavily manicured uh limed and and herbicide application and fertilized application to you know what we see out there today so we're really pretty happy with that and and the feedback we've gotten from natural heritage is some of the species they're monitoring out there seem to be um really uh taking advantage of the new habitat that's been created out there so with all that being said i think we're we're being very careful to plan our trail system which is really phase one to align with you know the goals and protection for those species a great example is you know using as many of the existing cart paths in our NOI we we stay very close to many of the existing cart paths that have been there for 60 years or more and then we're also going to be using a shared space like some of the access roads what was stated earlier with the uh the bridge over the fort river that's going to be rehabbed that will be used very sparingly by a pure sky to check on their array throughout the year but there won't be a lot of heavy traffic on there and the the plan is that there will be pedestrian access over that so we're being very careful and and taking a very high road with natural heritage and with our planning we also are going to be held to some mitigation you know in our in our NOI we list mitigation and restoration as part of our work and then we are also going to be required to put a cr on part of the property um so that is coming down the line which the commission will be involved with and the state will be involved with as well and then finally you know when all said and done when you start backing out start from 150 acres you have 26 acres of solar which is under a lease agreement for the next 20 years minimum and then you subtract 17 acres of the required uh uh sea art area for pure sky then we subtract the sea art area required of the town you're really left with under 10 acres probably closer to five or six acres around the clubhouse that has any development potential whatsoever the rest of the land by and large given floodplain wetlands vernal pools uh riverfront areas will be managed according to the restoration plan so it quickly goes from 150 acres really down to the frontage uh around the clubhouse that has any i don't want to call it intense uh or uh intense development potential but that's where it is the parking lot and the and the former clubhouse so okay thanks jane and and bruce i believe as far as like the comprehensiveness or of the of the two different plans happening here the same people doing the ngsp permitting or reviews and suggestions are doing it for both i mean i assume that's true and so the same people are out for each site and i have confidence in those people that they are making something cooperative that's um you know more comprehensive between the both the town plan and the solar plan if that's um addresses what you're yeah did you have another question well an example would be what is the 17 acres of pier sky mitigation what's it's actually going to do and is it complementary to enhancing of detracting from what the town is doing on inside and some kind of an analysis of that would be helpful just to reassure and the extent of communication is is in between the town and pierce guy directly or is it through natural heritage that they're the mediator of this of those actions and discussions i can answer that very quickly so um and again i don't mean to answer for for laurencer pierce guy but the short answer is the the um the cmp that was that was developed the management plan for the project um was a cooperative effort between pierce guy the town and you know with heavy review by the natural heritage program so that involves lately trying to get to what's that that's what i was trying to find out yeah so that is locked in stone and laurence i see his hand is up and he can talk about that but that requires extensive planting and and we are our future management of the remainder of the land will need to dovetail with what happens on the north side much of the restoration that we will be involved with will be on the south side and some of the north east quadrant of the property so absolutely there will be coordination and communication between those those two uh those two plans okay so there's a comprehensive management plan that includes both of these projects and i think that gets to what bruce was concerned about erin did you want to add anything to that yeah there's like a 400 page cmp which i can send to bruce which details the management in the 17 acres i did see laurence's hand too i don't know if he's yeah i don't see it up or i can i took it down again you and erin pretty much covered it it was uh yeah the uh the cmp applies to the whole site all 150 acres um the and then there's the specific 17 acres that will be in conservation it's not just going to be left as is there are improvements proposed including uh nesting habitats of the turtles and uh meadow and what and native plantings and things so it is it is very comprehensive and uh i'm sure the towns will fit into the the general plan with the amendments that's needed as a result of what you're doing and and i would just add our trail proposed trails purposely avoid um or limit the impacts to that 17 acre mitigation plan on on the north side so we were proposing to remove one of the bridges that connects north and south uh pieces of the property so so we've given it a lot of thought i i still think we will learn a lot there will be bumps in the road it's not perfect and you know we're going to work with pierce guy and we're going to work with the natural heritage program and as i said we had a almost a two-hour call on this last week and i think we're going to have another one before your next meeting so um this is a very unique site ecologically and and we're going to be held to an extremely high standard just like pierce guy was as we develop our ideas for the site and just one final comment from me uh is the the reason why we've stuck for the already approved plan is that both uh uh an hesp and the concom and the town have have already done that and your plan is based on where our our final layout is so nothing we're proposing here is is going to cause the town to change any of the plans that they've been working on over the past several months good thank you Lawrence okay um so i know we gotta go but if any if any members of the commission want to see that cmp i'm sure erin can send a link to it i would love to see that cmp so please do distribute it it's a quick read what it sounds like it okay thank you everybody um okay so we have a list of questions from erin that's been transmitted to project applicants and we said that we'd like some point-by-point responses to them um so that we can review that and unless any commissioners have any more comments on that andrew i see you i'm not sure that we've uh garnered any public comment yet yep just getting there um i i yeah please raise your hand public if you have any comments in general just raise them when you've got it and i will take them and do time i'm not seeing any hands up so um Sean Lawrence and brian do you you have what you need to move forward with this um the next steps just in terms of the the clear questions and what erin's looking for okay not seeing any other questions so yep just go ahead yes we do thank you okay great thanks um okay commissioners i think that given that we're looking for some additional clarification information for the applicants we're looking to continue this hearing to our next meeting and erin do you mind putting up our motion can you guys not see my screen i could read it okay thank you move to continue the public hearing for 191 west pomeroy for river solar llc notice of intent to november 29 2023 at 8 10 a p m it says a m there but thank you sorry i'll second that okay andre on the motion jason on the second bruce hi jason hi andre hi and i'm i okay thank you laurence ryan and matt for attending and we'll see you later thank you thank you okay i think that's it for hearings um and okay i guess the update from an hesp on the forest cutting plan um that was conveyed to us um did anyone have any questions on that basically it's non-jurisdictional um erin did you want to say something yeah um i did speak with ali akhandi about michelle's questions and relative to the forest cutting plan that was recently approved that had um the nhesp letter associated with it and um speaking with ali basically what i understand is that the the information from natural heritage was guidance so they're providing guidance on the cutting plan as opposed to having sort of a regulatory role in administering it and so the the administration of the forest cutting plan is done by the service forester um and that is the individual who monitors the site for compliance with the nhesp permit um so i did send along the links um from ali but um that basically kind of addresses the question i think that michelle had asked at the last um meeting which is as is under current law in massachusetts we really don't have any jurisdiction under forest cutting so there it is yeah and i i've talked to davie about this i'd really love to see amherst develop a forest cutting bylaw um i there was one formerly in the town of stirbridge where i worked and it was a wonderful bridge between the forestry community and the conservation commission and we really helped to um uh improve communication and beneficial relationships between foresters and the commission so that we could be more deeply involved in forest cutting plans um and just dcr in general so i really think something like that would be a long-term benefit to the town to develop excuse me thanks sarin just something to keep in mind okay um we have the next step is the umass dredge permit extension and i think christin is here for that thank you for hi christin thanks for hanging on hi everybody um i'm christin mcdonough with swca and i'm here on behalf of the university of massachusetts and um um you mass has an existing order of conditions the dp wetland file number is 089 0670 and it's associated with um um uh dredging the campus pond and the university has been faced with a number of constraints beyond their control primarily due to covid but also due to funding and they've had to push the project back to um summer of 2025 so you asked us requesting a three-year extension of the existing order of conditions okay thanks christin commissioners any questions about that um i'll just say that this is being submitted within you know with ample time so there's no going over requested buffer there so no concerns with that any any questions okay seeing none um if there's any public comment please raise your hand i see bruce's hand up go ahead bruce christin when was the last time that the pond was bridged actually um there's a lot of sediment that accumulates um in uh sort of i want to say it's like a water quality structure um this is a very loaded question bruce so a lot of the a lot of the sediment from downtown amherst filters through the tan brook trash grate which we talked about earlier um it goes through that culvert and then it accumulates in the pond and there is this kind of sediment um water quality structure that needs to be cleaned out quarterly and they remove tons of sediment out of that every year quarterly every four times a year um the pond hasn't been dredged for several years but it does need to be dredged it does need to be lowered um in order to compensate for flood storage and there are several other pieces of this permit that i don't want to get too in the weeds about unless you guys have questions we can talk about that more um but the in a nutshell the tan brook inlet structure needs to be redesigned and permitted um there's uh a master plan that needs to be approved and that includes um cultural resources uh there's just a lot of different components so this is a bigger project than just a simple pond dredge okay thanks any other questions okay looking for a motion to issue extension to d e p number zero eight nine dash zero six seventy mass campus pond dredge order of conditions for a three year period from current date of expiration so moved so i'm gonna give it to andre jason emotion andre on the second jason hi first hi andre hi i'm okay thanks christin okay thank you okay so michelle if it's okay i'm just going to jump in on the request for minor administrative changes it's okay so for i'm just going to cover them both and hopefully we can just do back to back motions on these um for 51 east pleasant street um you may recall that there was a request for minor administrative change that was submitted to us prior to the previous meeting and it was really lacking detail um and uh there wasn't really a plan associated with it so i did request some additional narrative explanation of what work was proposed and um a planting plan that showed what was going on as far as a bank restoration that information was provided to us and so at this point um i'm comfortable with us moving forward on approving it it basically replants the um the stream channel that is behind the um burtucci's old former burtucci's now garcia's uh parking area and i think that the proposed planting plan will be a significant improvement over the existing um sort of vegetation that's growing there sparse vegetation that's growing there um the second one is a mass dot beaver deceiver so previous about a year ago the commission approved um the repaving of the southernmost portion of the norwitak um rail trail and um there was an existing sort of makeshift beaver deceiver that was in place um under one of the culverts going under the the um bike path which was removed during the construction process and mass dot just omitted the reinstallation of a new beaver deceiver and so what happened was the beavers immediately moved in as soon as the beaver deceiver came out so they'd like to just reinstall the beaver deceiver with a flow control device there to keep the beavers from flooding out the bike path and i don't have a problem with either of these minor administrative changes okay any comments questions bruce so on the um east pleasant street and there's a lot of silk fencing looked pretty old it's still there was there it's left over from a previous plant set of plant no um they their original permit was actually to repave the parking lot um so they they came through with their their original permit was to repave the parking lot which included expansion of the curbing um or not expansion of the curbing replacement of the curbing it also included um a uh invasive species management because both sides of that that little tributary to the tan brook were completely covered with Japanese knotweed so they've gone through a multi-year treatment process of the knotweed at this point and the treatment of the knotweed is basically resulted in the bank of the this little tributary basically being almost completely void of vegetation except for a couple grasses and spindly kind of you know this yeah so um they're going to be planting a significant number of um of dogwood down there um small dogwood shrubs so I think it's going to really provide a nice native um uh root base for that um bank all the way along it and hopefully it'll provide some native structure to hold the regrowth of the Japanese knotweed to some degree I have a question do they weed it because I mean I'm thinking about the port river restoration project and there's still those plants in but bigger than those plants and way levier are the invasives that are coming in next to them and it just seems like a little bit of maintenance could go a long way in which which project are you referring to Michelle um but yeah by the um the community gardens you can see where these bandings are getting overtaken by non-natives and just on this bank like the knotweed just grows in so early and serve fast that yeah I could just see it being overtaken very quickly for licks slower growing um woody shrubs like dogwood so I was just wondering if there's any intermediary I don't know care taking involved to help it get a leg up yeah I mean I think they're they're also trying to they don't they didn't really like the aesthetic of the Japanese knotweed taking over so I think they're trying to create a better aesthetic back there too but certainly in issuance of the minor administrative change you could include a condition that they continue to monitor and remove or cut knotweed um for the duration of the permit I don't think we really have we could we could ask them for the duration to to do that but um I think that's kind of the as good as it's going to get what about having a condition that the native plantings remain dominant to not just survive because over three years they could still survive but in you know year five or seven they'd be completely overtaken like just something that's maybe it's just on this like kind of really eroded waterway and it's like prime knotweed habitat and yeah I don't know just something to the effect of slightly tinkering with the performance standard so that it's not knotweed a canopy of knotweed over small saplings of dogwood that are alive but not thriving if yeah I mean I think absolutely like you know they've asked for a change to the permit so I think you can condition that change how you see fit so whatever language you'd like to incorporate I would suggest doing that I think just adding um maybe that the restoration plantings are remain the dominant overstory of the area would be sufficient for me I think that gets to what I'm trying to say but open to suggestions from anybody um are you saying that they should they should also weed the native vegetation if it starts to come in or are you saying only I don't think there would be a native yeah what would be a native vegetation that would overtake those so quickly I mean well I mean there's a ton of herbaceous wetland plants yeah okay edges rushes um well that wouldn't be terrible um I don't know does anybody have any input on this yeah I mean I would word it um with the conditions that the uh applicants ensure restored plantings and native vegetation remain dominant because it you know we can't condition that the plants remain dominant we can condition that they that they ensure that good point I think that's a great idea though Michelle yeah I'm just having now seen sort of the trajectory of plantings versus very fast-groting herbaceous vegetation it kind of needs to be reconciled about what is success over such a short time period is three years um anyway thank you Erin um I'm totally happy with that and I think this is a great improvement so look for a motion unless there's public comment of course I move to approve the minor administrative change outlined in email dated 10 31 23 and submitted restoration plan dated 10 30 23 in to the order of conditions DEP number 089-0682 with the condition that the applicant ensure that restoration plantings and native vegetation remain the dominant I mean remain dominant in the restoration location. Second. Andrea in the motion Bruce on the second Jason. Hi. First. Hi. Andre. Hi. Hi. Yeah go ahead. I was going to say do we need a motion to for the Beaver Deceiver I will approve the minor administrative change outlined in correspondence dated 10 26 23 with attached plan and beaver solutions documents for DEP number 089-0702. Second. Andre in the motion I think I mean sorry Jason on the motion Andre that was you on the second um Jason. Hi. Bruce. Hi. Andre. Hi. I'm an I. Okay Stanley Street pickleball courts. So I did put draft um conditions in the folder I apologize because that was a very last minute addition today I used a very standard those very standard boilerplate with erosion control inspections monthly monitoring reports um you know very standard so I I don't know if anybody has any comments but it was relatively straightforward buffer zone only project. Okay no comments no comments from the public so raise your hand seeing none I'm looking for a motion. We move to I move to approve the order of conditions DEP number 089-0722 with special conditions under the wetlands protection act attached for one and town of Amherst wetlands protection bylaw regulations attached for two as drafted. Second. Bruce on the motion Jason on the second Andre. Hi. Bruce. Hi. Jason. Hi. I'm an I. Okay um so we had some monitoring reports was there any comments on that and um lastly public comment so raise your hand if there's any anything else okay not seeing any I think we're done. Yes. I have a motion to adjourn. Thank you. Like it. Jason on the motion Bruce on the second Jason. Oh sorry Andre on the second Jason. Hi. Bruce. Hi. Andre. Hi. I'm an I. Okay. Thank you guys that was great work that was a really intense agenda we moved through it really quickly so great work. Let's see next week next in three weeks. There you go. Can I ask a question about the the agenda that you have for November 29th? Okay. Is there anything dramatic that we need to know ahead of time or are there site visits linked to these that we may be asked to go to? Yes. We're going to need to have site visits for Ball Lane Hawkins Meadow and 296 Pomeroy Lane. I think we've had site visits on all the others and I'm going to have to set up site visits on Monday. We do have a couple weeks but obviously Thanksgiving falls in the middle so there will be site visits. Yeah. I'm I'm not expecting any major major surprises other than we're just going to have to the next meeting we're going to have to really be efficient to get through it because it's going to be another intense agenda but I think I think we can get through it and we will get through it and I'll just try to be as prepared as possible to have recommendations for you. Thank you.