 I'm Alex Orr, chair of the subcommittee of the conservation commission who was reviewing a policy document on how we use conservation land. And today is December 19. And we have present staff of Amherst Aaron Chuck and David Zomack, director of conservation development. We have commissioners Bruce Steadman, Michelle Lobb. And today we have an agenda, which has been posted if there's any public on who is going to be with us. We wish you would make yourself known. And we're first going to discuss an agricultural session that we've all commented on. And then we're going to talk about some policy questions that we need to address and discuss our next agenda. And we have a list of site visits that we're going to talk about. And I'm going to ask that maybe we can get done with the policy, I mean the discussion of agricultural session in 20 minutes, but no longer than 30. So that we have plenty of time to talk about the other issues. So with that, does anybody have any comments, and Michelle has her hand up, yes. Yeah, I just have to go in about 25 minutes, that's all. Do you want to flip this around, flip this around so that you make sure your questions are addressed before you go? No, I think we should go for the agricultural section, I'd like to be part of the discussion. Maybe if you're going to start scheduling site visits or anything, then we can do that via email too or something like that. Yeah, because did you see that Dave sent out a list of site visits? I did, yeah. OK, so when we get to that, I was going to suggest that we focus on agricultural sites first just because we're dealing with the agricultural policy and trying to stay focused. OK, we'll talk about it then. But in case you have to scoot, that's what I was going to suggest. And then scheduling a time for that, we'll get back to you on what your real ability is. OK, Bruce, maybe Erin can bring up the document that shows everybody's comments and you can lead us through it. Can you make it bigger? Is that better? Yeah, so. I largely agree with all of Alex's finer grained edits. I think we should focus on the questions. So the first question I raised was why the licenses are so short. And you see my comment there about one to three years is somewhat of a disincentive in some cases. So I'd like to talk about whether the licenses can be longer. Dave, you have a point of view, I'm sure. Yeah, no, I totally understand where you're coming from, Bruce. That was some feedback we've gotten. I think so. So this document came out of a period where the commission at that time was working with the Agricultural Commission and and we were trying to pump some new life into this process of RFP conservation land for agriculture. And I think the commission at the time felt like they needed to go slowly. And they wanted to really. You know, go at a pace that they felt comfortable with. And that's why the short licenses were selected. That was in large part what it was all about. And just feeling their way through getting a couple of these going. So having gotten some going, what is our experience? Not many got going. To be honest, not many got going. It got to be it got to be part of it was a staff time issue, a resource issue. Just managing these things takes people power, right? And and focus. And I think at the time we we got between wetlands administrators and we had some changes in departments. So I think it never really got off the ground. So I'd be open if other commissioners if commissioners would be open to considering longer licenses, because I think it is kind of a it is a deterrent. Aaron. So I completely agree. And I've gotten some feedback from some members of the public who were prospective folks to bid on the license where they basically said, you know, that it takes one to three years just to prep the soils. And so signing on for that, you basically put a ton of work to to amend the soils before you're even really able to produce anything. So that was a good piece of feedback. The other thing was, and this was an interesting one, too, it might be good to leave it open to have a choice and or we might want to break it out. I know Stephanie Chickarello, the sustainability director, said that previously they had tried to start a an incubator farm program where people who were like recent graduates of like I forget I'm drawing a blank on the name of the school, but like the UMass School of Agriculture Stockbridge School of Agriculture that they might want to do like a two year license as an incubator just to try it out and see if it works for them without taking on like a 10 year license. So just to put that out there is food for thought. Thanks, Michelle. I was just going to add that, you know, going through the rest of this policy, there's a lot of upfront work just to being compliance with the policy and making a management plan. So one seems like not enough time at all. So that, yeah, I agree with opening it up for flexibility and maybe having maybe talking about why it wouldn't be continued or like, you know, two years to five years with renewal and renewals based, you know. Thank you. Might I suggest that we focus on solutions and cut the agreement type conversation short so we can get through this? It's a fairly long document and there's a lot of comments. Could I suggest that we consider changing this the wording to an upper limit? No more than or something of that sort so that on a case by case basis, the term can be determined. Let's split the difference and call it no more than seven and see how the rest of the commission feels. OK, I'm fine with that. But as long as we have a review, you know, as long as we have a robust review process, you know, how's it going? We need to do check-ins. We can't just kind of let things slide. So I'm fine with five to seven years as long as we build in checks and balances. Yeah, what I was trying to get at earlier is then maybe after two years, there is some kind of review and there's like actual measures by which there's a decision to renew or not renew. So that it's not just kind of subjective and up, you know, everybody knows what the expectation is and what is allowed. OK, it does have review in here somewhere. So maybe when I redo this for the next draft, I can put those two review things together, find the place, put them together and then we'll talk about how this all reads when it's redone. The next one, Alex raised the question about comparing our the fee to other places. And I haven't gone out there to do that, but I'm willing to do that in between now and the next time. OK, so. And I add a little background to when I was thinking about the fee. Amherst incurs cost every time its staff is involved with conservation land. And we don't think about much about recovering that cost, particularly like, for example, we were talking about community gardens and we had a fee in there and Dave said the town really wasn't interested in a fee for good reason. But there is an opportunity for us to recoup some some of our costs. And that's part of my question of bringing this up. I think it's a good one. We actually have a line in our budget and have for years as to how many acres are currently being leased or excuse me, leased or licensed. And yeah, there in years past, there was, you know, some a decent amount of money coming in for these kinds of things. So I think it's it's a good and 125 was years ago. I mean, that's been a placeholder for 10 years. I'll look into it ever changed. OK, thanks, Billers. So we'll see something else when you when you come back. Good. The next one is Aaron talking about insurance. I don't know whether I'm in the authorised to go check with the insurance company or she needs to do that. But one of us should do it. This is a this is a non starter for the town. It has to happen. So there's not much debate on it. We did a lot of research on this. OK. And then we just leave it the way it is. Yeah, it's like we're done here. Yeah, we had town attorney involved in this. But, you know, somebody using tractors. Equipment, they get hurt. They're coming after the town for sure. Where the deepest pockets going? I think that the sounds like we're done with this one. Oh, Aaron, no, I'd like to hear what what were you going to say? I think that it was the question was raised as to whether that was enough because again, that had been a placeholder for quite a while. And I think it was whether whether the current liability was whether a million is enough or if we should require more. OK, then it goes. Aaron could reach out to through Holly Bowser. Why don't you do that, Aaron, and and see if a million is enough? OK, OK. Right. And get back to Bruce so that he can work it in. Yeah. OK, we need to scroll now. Yeah, we got daylight hours and I also have excuse me, but I I have a comment about who's involved. It it gets it gets all mixed up in the next couple of items. Go ahead, Bruce. Well, I just I raised the question. They're they're clearly farmers who work in non-daylife and that's that's part of the ethos. So I don't know. Is that a legal requirement? Why do we even have it in here? Well, the commission, it's not about legal, Bruce. I mean, the commission can require a farmer to, you know, do some results if you want. I mean, I'm joking, but it's not legal, legal. But I think my recollection of this was twofold. One, the commission at the time was worried about a butters to conservation land. And should they, I don't know, should, you know, they they purchase their house and they're living in their house and and all of a sudden Farmer Brown is out there at six in the morning, you know, harrowing or or whatever. Is there an expectation from a butters and residents who live, you know, near near conservation land that they will enjoy peaceful whatever and and should they expect, you know, operations after dark? I think there was also consideration of impacts to wildlife and animals and such. But I think the main the main point was a butters. So that's why it's in there. On the other hand, if a guy wants to get his hay in before it rains and it's already dry, why can't he do it with the headlights of his tractor? Absolutely. Again, the commission at the time was putting the lens down that this is not private agricultural land. This is public conservation land and butters have. Expectations, well, I was wondering if maybe it could be site specific if there are or not but butters. And then, oh, yeah, the conservation lands are closed from or open from dawn to sunset or something. So I don't know if we need to think about that. But technically, they're not supposed to be there. I think there's some flexibility on this. And like Michelle said, I like the idea of maybe it's case by case field by field, if you will. So I think we could maybe Bruce could work on some language that gives us some flexibility there. Great. I'll give it a try. All right. I have an issue that our question is actually an issue that I didn't raise, but I when I reread this, I did. It has the agricultural leaseholder contacting Dave if there is some something required to go outside norm. And then when you read down, all of a sudden somebody's contacting staff and about, you know, including farmers conflicts between people and who the contact person is kind of bumps all bumps all around. And I didn't know if there was a reason that Dave was somebody goes as high as Dave on daylight hours and yet contact staff on conflicts. And all I would ask is that we be consistent. OK, I'll I'll read through with that in mind. Thank you. So can you scroll down more because I can't see the number where Alex had a comment. Oh, it's out. It's it's land management specific section A and he asks from outside sources. Yeah, why outside sources? I don't know by limited to that or compost materials from outside sources. Well, I don't know what an outside source is. So that means that means I mean, I mean, Wagner's Wood. I think I think the Commission at the time was worried about the introduction of invasives and things like that because compost coming from other sources, I mean, you know, you get Japanese not weed seeds in all sorts of things and in they come. So inside sources would be like green manure. Oh, let me let me read this. Sorry. So I just want to jump in here if I could. So a lot of a lot of agricultural producers will take compost from like, say, private landowners and allow them to deliver their compost. For example, I think Brookfield Farm did this, like where let's say you have like household chicken farmers and they have to dispose of their chicken waste that they'll allow them to bring it. But there are other farms who will take anything from from households. Like, for example, they'll allow people who like households who have their their compost waste to deliver it to a transfer station and they'll pick it up at the transfer station because they're using it to actually produce compost. OK. But I sometimes that compost can contain meat. It's not always like what we would expect compost to be. Usually people who are producing compost want it to be free of proteins. So just like vegetable stuff. But sometimes people put meat and bones and stuff. So if that's happening on conservation land, it could. Thank you. I never said my comment. OK, we could we could define that differently. I think Aaron's spot on. It's just it's just a contamination issue. It's we had years ago, we had somebody who was they were they were composting all these newspapers, thousands of pounds of newspapers. And the ink in newspapers is not necessarily organic. So where does that go when you compost it? Anyway, things like that. All right, I have to go. But I didn't have any pressing concerns about the rest of this. So good luck. I'm good with it. Thanks. Thanks. Thank you. So maybe we're fine. So I'd source is just leave it and I'll send my comment. OK. And just leave it alone. OK. The question I raise is it is it the wetland bylaw? Is it the towns or the commissions? Aaron, bear with me while I catch up on this. It's in section B. So it's specific. Yeah, so this is this gets a little deep in the weeds, but I'll try to sum it up under the exemptions under Wetland Protection Act and under a local bylaw. If there is an existing agricultural use on a property, so I'll give you an example like field edges. Let's say the property has been harrowed and used for row crops within the last five years. Then then technically, because it's been used within the last five years within that field footprint, they would be able to to use that area. Now, if it's an area that's within, say, riverfront or within a buffer zone, and it hasn't been used in the last five years and it requires them to come in and like cut down trees or go into an area that hasn't been farmed, that wouldn't be exempt from an agricultural standpoint under WPA or our local bylaw. OK, that's all fine. What I wanted to know is whose bylaw is it? Is it a town bylaw or a commission bylaw? Should there be the town's wetland bylaws? I think would it be the town's wetland bylaws? That's how we generally refer to it. Yeah, but I mean, it would be a case by case basis, too. So if it's an existing, let's say there's a feel like I think has, I'm sorry, we're getting to all I want to know is who's responsible for the bylaw? The town or the commission who wrote the bylaw? Who the conservation? Well, the bylaw itself is the town. So let's just let's just eliminate the word commission and let it go and just say in the wetland bylaws. OK, that's fine. I would put I would put the town's bylaws. Let's agree with Aaron. It's a town bylaw. OK, Alex asks whether. Can I just go back to buffer strips for a minute? Aaron, I wanted to tease something out, you said. And I don't know if I'm overthinking this, but. Couldn't we define like we could say here is the tillable? Here is the tillable acreage. It is from this state to this state to that state to that state. This is the field we're putting out there in a license. We don't we don't authorize you to mow clear nothing beyond this. Figure out your field within this. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. I mean, then then we don't have to get into. We're not like regulating. We're still regulating the license. We'll govern how person farmer A B or C uses it. But we will define the field edge and say you cannot plant or till or or harrow beyond this point. I like that. I like saying that town staff will determine the limits of. Yeah, I think it's easier for us or something. They don't have to get into the wetlands by law. We will define the field for them. And it's very crystal clear. Sorry, Alex, I just thought that might be a simpler way. That's a much better approach. Can you capture that? Yeah, I got it. OK, cool. OK, moving on. The next one has to do with the D. And the Commission is aware of dogs and wildlife have the potential to damage and contaminate crops and work with agricultural producers to help mitigate blah, blah, blah. This subject comes up in, I think, three different places. And here I, you know, give me an example where wildlife contaminates crops, those two words, wildlife contaminate. I know damage, but give me wildlife contaminates. The Commission is aware that dogs and wildlife have the potential to damage and contaminate. Again, this was written by a previous commission. I'm crystal clear on dogs and contamination. I'm not sure why wildlife. I wonder whether this is a sentence construction issue. And and they were talking about. They were talking about dogs damaging and contaminating. They were talking about wildlife damaging. They didn't really mean wildlife contaminating. There have been instances of wildlife contaminating crops and I can give you an example. So there was this is another state, but there was an agricultural producer who was who was doing orange juice or I think it was orange juice. And there was a deer that were coming into the fields and. Living or eating foraging in the location and they ended up with an outbreak of I think it was E. Coli from the deer accessing the field and and like several children got sick from the orange juice and the farmer ended up getting sued. So that's just one example, but this happens quite a bit. I mean, deer are a good example, but there's a lot like Canadian geese can come in and they go in the in the fields. In the in the fields. And if the vegetables aren't being washed a lot, you know, that that can transfer but bacteria onto the onto the food. So where I'm challenged on this one is. The second part of the sentence to condemn any crime will work with agricultural producers to help mitigate access challenges. It's so so to me, this is all about. Fencing, really, I mean, you know, I mean, fencing or, you know, for instance, geese, what if they wanted to use the cannons to keep geese off? So those are tangible examples that Aaron kind of alluded to. You're not going to. You're not going to. There's another section in here that says that you're going to have to accept damage by wildlife that there's nothing you can do. That's pretty close in here. Well, like what point to what section that is where it says that? I think it's M. M. Well, just just so we're clear just on dogs to be clear. So dogs can damage crops. That's that's pretty straightforward. But they're all supposed to be on leashes. Correct. But we know they're not. But the where we ran into problems with dogs and contamination was in the organic standards. We had some farmers who wanted to use Wentworth farm. They went there one time and saw all the dogs running around. And they said, we're out. They had no interest in in farming there at all because they they couldn't guarantee that the dogs weren't defecating in their fields. OK, but this this subject matter is threaded through this. I think in in I comment on it, Bruce, you've seen maybe if you flip down to M, I know M is maybe that's above or below. I don't know, Aaron, can you flip around? I mean, I try to find it. Well, that's no till farming. Sorry. Well, anyways, it's in my comments that where we start to deal with mitigating damage. And there is a place where it says that farmers just sort of have to accept that. Yeah. So maybe, Bruce, you can find those in. I will try to make sure that I'll try to figure out what to do with them. I think what they don't. Yeah, what the commission. So they don't come conflict. Right. What the commission was trying to do. And I think it's a valid point to say the commission will work with the farmer if there are reasonable, reasonable mitigation alternatives, i.e., you know, an example is the community gardens at Amethyst Brook. The farmers there would like us. The gardeners there would like us to put a fence around the community gardens there so dogs can't get in and poop and mess up their early crop production or their propagation. So I think that's a reasonable thing to ask. Can we do it? I don't know. It's expensive. So I think that's what we're trying to get at is there should be reasonable mitigation, you know, considerations. But you're right, Alex, wildlife is wildlife. We can't keep moose, deer, woodjucks, beavers, whatever out of there, out of there. And if you go right to the top of this section, the first sentence says, the first couple of sentences, says what will be considered if you, Erin, can you go right to the top? The top of the document? Yeah. OK. It says here only parcels where agricultural activities will not negatively affect blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then it lists other factors they all considered. There's a whole list of factors here. Site history, current projected agricultural use. I don't know what community development is or involvement, but it looks like the commission has a whole set of things to look at before it decides that a parcel will be leased out for agriculture. And maybe this is a place to add some language, Bruce. I don't have any suggestions, but one of the things with these rules is it's, things are scattered and not organized very well. If I was trying to use agricultural land, I'd have to really work my way down through here to figure out what my responsibilities are, what's allowed, what's not allowed, and things, it's almost in some cases like stream of consciousness the way it's organized. So that's what I was getting at there. Anyways, let's move on. Trying to make sure we have room at the other end to talk about the two other agenda issues. All right. This is section F, page two. I reached out to Brian. He told me what he knows about the gauge. The gauge records. So we'll incorporate that. This is a big issue. This may be the biggest issue about licensing conservation land is irrigation. Yeah. So if I could speak just for a minute about 10%, I stuck that in there. 10% is equivalent to 7q10. 7q10 is like the sickest day of your life in terms of stream life. That's the way it was explained to me by a very good 1930s type naturalist. If you're a fish, it's like being crammed into the bathroom in a 13-room house and you're in there with every predator and the water's getting warm and you're having a hard time breathing and staying alive. 10% is not a comfortable state. And it is, 7q10 is the driest condition for seven consecutive days over 10 years. Or I think that's what it is. It's either, doesn't matter. It's not a healthy condition. So that's a real bedrock. We could be higher than that. That they can't take water out below 30% of mean annual flow. And 30% of mean annual flow is the vegetation line on the bank. So that's a point of discussion. So for this one, my proposal is I take what Alex just said. I go back to the water quality people that I work with on the Fort River stuff, see what they think, come up with a proposal that has some backing to it. Thank you. Can I just, yeah, I'm fine with that. I think, can I just say I would, I would add, withdraw water from the Fort Mill Amethyst or any other stream. And we also have to consider ponds, right? You know, we have ponds that are sources of water at various conservation areas. So I would include ponds or you could put body of water, you know, whatever you want to do. I'm just saying it's more than the mill in the Fort. And again, this is the number one issue for farmers licensing land is, how will they irrigate? What will it cost? How easy or hard will it be? All right, well, we've done that. Okay, go ahead. I was just going to say, I think we should move towards trying to have wells on the properties where we have farming operations as opposed to pumping water from waterways. It's just a better system. Yeah, if those wells are too close to the stream, there's stuck in water from the, from the groundwater that feeds the stream. That's true, but we could put pump limits. We could put a gauge on the well and limit the amount that they're pumping from it a little bit more as opposed to just pumping from the water, pumping from the. Let me, let me work on that one. I'll work on that. I don't know how many farmers want to undertake the cost of drilling a well. They'd much rather throw a pump in the water in the, in the stream and arrange, you know, pay for the gas to run it. We're running out of time. Yeah, yeah. Let's just put a note on wells, please. Okay, I got it. Come back to it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So we're 1238. Let's move on. So if we can focus on solutions to the question rather than background, that'll speed us along. Well, background's important. Okay. Alex, what did you mean? What about bees? Yeah. I, in terms of background, Dave, I'd rather shoot for a solution if we need background. Right, Alex. I, I, I don't want to get into this, but I feel so rushed that some of these conversations are not all that productive for me personally. So I don't feel the same urgency you do to, to kind of move through this at lightning speed. I mean, you know, getting through this whole policy in 30 minutes, I don't know what that achieves for us. So I'm just giving you feedback based on, you know, this policy has been around for 10 years. I think some of the background is important. So I'm not feeling the same urgency of rush that you are. And I don't work well under those, those, those conditions. So that's all. I, I would rather be mindful and take it at a pace that is comfortable for everybody. So that's all. Well, please bear with me as chair. Yeah, we are. So bees, I think the commission didn't consider bees, but I think it should be. Are you talking about bees raising bees? Or are you talking about bees as a, as a, as a pollinator? Yeah. Bees. Or supporting crops on conservation land, that kind of thing. Yeah. What happens if a guy wants to put out 12 hives and, you know, raise honey? I think it wasn't considered back then and maybe we should. Can you work that in Bruce? I'll work it in. Okay. And then down there, you had a question about caging. They're in the, in the, in the egg business, there are a definition of caged, cage-free and pasture, and it's all in terms of square feet. And here it, it, it, and based on some of the comments, it almost sounds like running free. Um, so when you said they are occasionally put in cages, there are fences. Um, and is anybody bothered by, by, well, what are the comments on this will not be caged and will be pastured? Can you, um, Aaron, can you click on the next, the one above it so we can see the whole thing? Um, I guess my thought here was that why are we in the business of telling the farmer how to raise their chickens? I think what, what Bruce is getting at might be, or what they're getting at in this comment might be the battery cages, which battery cages are very different than sort of a standard chicken coop, chicken enclosure. Battery cages are really small where the birds are stacked on top of each other and they can't turn around. So we might want to get more specific about what we're talking about here, but just an idea. So you could say we'll be pasture-raised? Well, being pasture-raised isn't the same necessarily as being in an enclosure. So like a pasture-raised would be, they put a big fence around the edge and the, they're just free range, essentially roaming, roaming free, but they've got a fence around them, but they, you know, you can also, there, lots of farmers have movable enclosures, so they might have a cage, but it's like they pick it up and they put it on wheels and slide it. So my suggestion on this one is that I begin to it deeper, bring back a set of alternatives to this group as to what we want, what's the limit of our involvement in defining what gets raised and what doesn't, but we need, we need to, Alex's point as well, taken that these things are more defined by the Department of Agriculture, and I need to know what those are before we put it in this document. Yeah, you might talk to somebody at Brook, you might get answers quicker, if you talk to somebody at Brookfield Farm, then the Department of Agriculture. Well, I also want to read what it actually says in the rule, but anyway, um, then now can you highlight what I said about the, that one, you know, so this feels very complicated to me, um, that we're getting pretty deep into it in terms of defining what people are raising. I agree, I kind of agree with you, Bruce. I mean, we might want to limit something like tobacco or, I mean, I don't know. Why? The Valley is extremely well known for its tobacco. I mean, it's, it's a major crop. I don't know. It's just, I'm, I'm concerned that it's, that we're trying to do too much. You mean we're micromanaging? Yeah. And at some point, this lit, and I agree that I didn't do too much more than just put it in an order with some letters, but at some point, we will discourage anyone from bidding on these, um, properties because there's so many regulations. Maybe there's a way to soften. Okay. I mean, I think it, it is important to have a planting plan to know what people are planting, but maybe you're right. This is too restrictive. I, I'm trying to think of all, why did the commission, why did they, they wanted food first. They wanted, I think the goal here was to mimic in some way the APR program. So the APR program, agricultural preservation restriction program in Massachusetts, it, it prioritizes the production of food. Well, maybe it's as simple as saying that. You know, so if a farmer is growing non, well, that's a great example. Tobacco is a great example. Are we, are we, are we, are we supportive of in the business of growing tobacco on public land in Amherst versus growing lettuce for the consumption of human beings versus maybe it's as simple, maybe it's as simple as saying that we're going to have food. We're only going to allow food crops. Or does that include animal food, like hay? Good question. Well, I think hay feeds horses well. Yeah, right. You see. And sometimes farmers also plant, um, like a seed crop, like a say, like a high bush blueberry with the intention of actually removing it from the ground and putting it in a pot to sell it. So there's an implication that if you're planting something that it could have impacts to the topsoil and removal of the topsoil from the site at the end of the term. So why don't you work that section a little and we prioritize food production? Let me, let me work on it. That makes sense to people. Next. No till farming. Yeah. Side comment. I was in grad school in the 70s and no till farming was just coming on. And, um, it's amazing how slow it has been in taking hold. And my wife's family are dairy farmers in Middlebury, Vermont area. And they no till, they no till their corn fields. And then they go out and they spray rhodenone, not rhodenone, rhodenone, no, not rhodenone, that's water. Um, what the hell am I thinking of? Roundup? Yeah, roundup. They spray roundup on the ground to kill the weeds and then they plant the corn. So that's why I said no till farming usually comes with herbicides. And yet we want people to be organic farming. Okay. Well, it looks like another one for me to dig into. This says encourages no till. It doesn't require it, right? Right. Why wouldn't we encourage it? But it's not a negative if they don't use it. Oh, I agree with that. But we just have to understand that no till usually comes with some herbicides and some of those may be allowed under the organic rules. Yep. Gotcha. Again, I think Brookfield does some no till. I don't know. I don't know their whole crop rotation and all that, but yeah, it might be kind of interesting to get comment from an agricultural producer like Brookfield on this. Like, you know, once we have a good draft going, it might be kind of interesting to get some feedback. Yeah. There is a plowing destroys soil structure and the little nodules that are made when soil is not disturbed and it just destroys them. And which is why no till came about. It's great, but not without, it's slow to catch on. I think it's great that we promote it. I don't have a problem with it, but anyways. Alex, I have a suggestion. Yeah. Let me dig into the last of these. If I have a question, they're yours. If I have a question, I can reach out and say, what did you mean by this? Because we're going to have another draft on this anyway. And I agree we should take the next 10 minutes to at least talk about the site visits so people can start to have a schedule. I think that would be terrific. Thank you. We got 10 minutes. So I suggest, thanks, Dave, by the way, for this list. I know that took a while to think about and I would like to put out there a suggestion that we focus on a the agricultural sites because we've got the agricultural policy in front of us and coupled with this, try and grapple with your, your higher level policy question of, do we need more? We, we have two jobs. One is to finish up the document we were handed so we can give it back to the commission. And you want us to add a, a paragraph to each one with addressing the high level policy questions if they pertain, such as should we have more agricultural use? And we haven't, so far we've just been focusing on the words in the document that we got to work on. And we have never talked about the overall policy question, which we need to. And so I'm hoping that by focusing on the agricultural sites, you will lead us in a discussion about, do we need more? Rather than jumping to B and C and D, we could get agriculture done. That's fine. Dave, is there an order of preference about the sites? Are they already in the order of preference? And Erin may want to weigh in on this. I put them because they represent, you know, Fort River Farm has both existing community gardens and the potential for other agricultural activities to happen. And it was purchased with that specific intent was to find a balance there between agricultural, agriculture and conservation. Amethyst Brook has a less formal community garden, but the potential for other gardening or production, food production to happen. Wentworth Farm is just, you know, nearly a former farm and has some pretty extensive fields and is a good laboratory for kind of looking at what is possible. And it's also a place to look at some of the challenges of irrigation. Podek is an old conservation area, a relatively new one we acquired, and there's potential there for agriculture. So these are all just good places to visit and have conversations. And I thought it would spur our conversations about kind of, do we want to encourage more? What are some of the upsides and downsides of doing this? You know, we'll look at parking, we'll look at trash removal, structures, water, access to water, irrigation, those kinds of things. Erin, were there any other places for possible tilling? Yeah. I mean, I think in terms of agriculture, there's licensed locations for ag producers. And then there's other alternative agriculture, potentially community gardens. Or if it wasn't leasing to an agricultural producer, maybe it's leasing to an organization like a community group that does indigenous growing or something to that effect. But I mean, a couple others I had. Any of these could be that too. So yeah, absolutely. I'm glad you reminded me of that. Yeah. So just to keep all those pieces in mind, what is it appropriate for as we're talking about it? But Haskins Meadow is one that we've historically licensed and has been farmed. But recently, the license expired. And Dave and I were talking sort of internally whether, because it's right on Cushman Brook, should we keep doing that? Or should we think about not doing it anymore? The other one is Larch Hill. And I'm thinking about this from a very geographic sense because I'm a geographer. So I'm thinking we should pick one in Central Amherst, one North Amherst, one in South Amherst. So like Larch Hill could be potentially for community gardens. But I wouldn't say it would be a great place for large scale agriculture for leasing. Let me see what else. Larch Hill, we had Mount Pollux, Elf Meadow, Haskins Meadow, and I think the others were already captured on your list. What is this? Yeah, and I, yeah. Those are good additions, yeah. Yeah, but I thought we were talking about agricultural sites. Those are potential. Mount Pollux is an agricultural site? Yeah, there's about a 10 acre field at the southern end of Mount Pollux that is just a hay field. Yeah, okay, yeah, I know where that is. I didn't look at it as, I don't think it's in agriculture now. It's a hay field, yeah. Okay, it just got by me. It's what that? It got by me. Would it be too aggressive to try to do one a week for two months? Yeah, I think that would be too aggressive for me. And the other thing is I think we can do some of these very quickly. These might be 15 minute stops. We can do multiple of these in one. If we do a two hour block or an hour and a half block, we can visit a lot of these, take photos, have a conversation. Well, if we break it up by North, Central, and South Amherst, we could potentially hit, say like three sites in North Amherst one day, three sites in Central Amherst. I mean, just to like keep the geography of driving around less too, that might make sense. Why don't we do this? Erin and I can refine this list with the additions she just suggested. We can arrange them geographically and then we can arrange these dates by email, correct? Yeah, because these are just site visits. And then if we did one every other week, Bruce, that might work better. Okay. Yeah, we constantly deal with Erin's workload and your schedule is... We're both busy. Yeah, we're both just busy. We're all busy. But we can fit this in. And I like the idea of front loading the agricultural sites. Yeah. And I'd like to make sure that Michelle can make it. I would almost insist that we find a time and a way to allow Michelle to be there because we're so few people on this so many. I agree with that. Does anybody have days that really don't work for them for site visits? Not at the moment. Tuesday morning. I can ask Michelle what days work for her. And I'll ask her that offline. And then when Dave and I sort of try to organize these a little bit, we'll try to keep in mind scheduling on days when Michelle can make herself available. Erin, could you just list it was Elf Meadow, Larch Hill, Haskins? I think Haskins would be good to visit to really... That's a good... Some of these I put on here to contrast another one. Like, Haskins would be a good kind of a contrast to say, wow, look at this. Look at all these natural resources. Turtle habitat, riparian zones. Do we really want to... You really want to till this? So there was Elf Meadow, Larch Hill, Haskins. What else? Mount Pollocks. I just want to make sure I got them all. So Mount Pollocks, Elf Meadow. I have Fort River Farm, Amethyst, Wentworth, you have Larch Hill, Zollipotic, which you have, Haskins Meadow. Those were on my list for the agricultural discussion. So we'll group these, and Erin will arrange the first couple of site visits. And I bet we could do this whole list. What do you think, Erin, in two visits, two site visits? I bet we could if we're fast. Yeah, two different dates. I mean, yeah. I think most of them are North Amherst or Central Amherst. I think there's only the one in South, or maybe Mount Pollocks and Elf Meadow, or probably the two South. And there's not a lot of walking. It's really quite accessible. We just park, boom, there it is. You know, Fort River Farm is probably the most walking or Wentworth. Wentworth is. Wentworth is, Wentworth is, yeah. Michelle's availability is pretty restrictive, and plus she's got other things going on besides earning a living. She's chair of the conservation commission. She's the... CPAC. Yeah, right, which is still going on. I just soon get us done while we've got mild weather and before we get into February, March. So when we pull together, can we try and focus the conversation on the pros and cons? You mentioned some. So we can get at the come away as a result of these sites come away with a sense amongst us about the do we need more policy question? Yeah, and if we're doing site visits, we should definitely focus on information gathering as opposed to deliberation in the field. Otherwise, we have to post it as a public meeting. So my image is that I'll redo this draft for the next, whenever our next meeting of this group is, and then modify it one more time after the site visits. Okay, it's one o'clock. Thank you, everybody. What about the next meeting day? That would be two weeks from now. And hold on, let me get a calendar up on my phone. I believe January 2nd would be our next meeting. I can do that. I can. I am going to be away, but feel free to meet without me. And do we know what we want to talk about at the next meeting specifically? The next draft of the agriculture. Okay, we'll keep that culture on. And then there was one other thing on, we can just work on some of the other policy things if there's time. Yeah, we have a tough time getting through more than one policy topic. Yeah, that's okay. I've never been able to do that. But we need to talk about which policies to take on next so that somebody can get it done. And that'll be another agenda item for that call because we're out of time for this one. Right. We have a tough time getting more than three things done in this hour. Think of the shock if we ended it at 45 minutes. Thank you, Dave. Thanks. Appreciate it. Bye. Goodbye, everybody. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.