 sent him another link. We're recording right now. So we'll give it a few minutes and see if any of the links work for him. Let's really hope that it works because we have a lot to get through. Michelle, can you hold on just one second? Hey. How'd you end up getting in? I honestly don't know. I was about to reboot the whole thing and then I just put a pop up and said, would you like to join us as a panelist? And I would, yes. So we have no idea how to... That was lucky. I was starting to lose hope that we were going to make that work. The same thing happened to Dave Zomek the other day, by the way, Leroy. So I think that there's something like a fluke or something going on with Zoom. Just about ready to blame it on my hand for sure, but if it's a known problem with Zoom, feel a little better. But let's jump right in, I guess. It's the way real behind. Okay, sounds good. So what I did was I started with an empty shell, basically sort of starting from scratch. And the reason I did that was because I need to go section by section, subsection by subsection, and seeing what the old regulations look like, what the Wetland Protection Act looks like. In some cases, in most cases, what I did was for sections like performance standards, which performance standards are really important. The performance standards from a regulatory standpoint are what people have to meet when they file a permit. And so those I copied over from the Wetland Protection Act. And then I looked at our old version of the regulations and the ones, the sections, the subsections of the performance standards that were different, I copied in. So we're consistent now in the sections that I've edited with the Wetland Protection Act. But we still have in those performance standards that were additional from our bylaw. Did anything substantively really change? The pieces, so remember, we had talked about this before, that it was almost as if the Wetland Protection Act had been copied and pasted into our bylaw, except there was things that were taken out, things that were added into some sections, and it was really confusing and inconsistent, what was the same and what was different. Now it is consistent, except where there's additional required performance standards, those are added in as additional. So I'm trying to make this as clean as possible. So for bank, I still haven't gotten to the preamble for bank yet. Come back to that, okay. We'll revisit that hopefully at the next session. Definitions of bank are the same as the Wetland Protection Act. They have not changed from the existing bylaw regulations. So I'm just going to move through this and I have these highlighted so that you guys can see what's changed and what has not. Presumptions are the same as the Wetland Protection Act, same as previous bylaw, except where this language was adjusted. So previously, the way that this was written was not very, from a regulatory standpoint, it wasn't really tight. It was basically saying something to the effect of land within 100 feet of bank and 100 feet in riverfront and are likely to be significant and that is not a good way to write it because we really have to be clear bank of an intermittent stream and land within 200 feet of a bank of a perennial stream and then I put riverfront area to be clear. So that was like a clarification that I did there to make sure we're talking about what we're talking about lines up from a regulatory standpoint. This general performance standards were made consistent with the Wetland Protection Act here under bank, which there wasn't much of a distinction there to be honest. Now there's going to have to be some editing here as far as the references back to the Wetland Protection Act. So bear with me. This is going to have to be looked over by town council. We're going to have to make sure we're referring to the correct sections. But this is mostly just to give you a sense of the shell of this. These are the additional performance standards associated with the existing regulations. So you can see this is a good example section where it's like the top is Wetland Protection Act performance standards and then the bottom two are the town performance standards. So I'm not sure what would be the easiest way to talk about this. Reading these in detail is really interesting. This is a good example. They're saying here basically that within 50 feet of the bank no activity can take place. Now let's just talk this through for a second. Remember how I told you guys before that our bylaws sort of conflicted with itself in many, many places? This is an example. Remember that little table that says there can be disturbance up to 35 feet and that single family homes could be built within 50 feet. So that's inconsistent with this because this says no work can happen within 50 feet. Very important to keep that in mind except as approved on a case by case basis. No structure of any kind shall be permitted on an eroding bank to protect the building or other structure to a permit granted. To mention that like to call that out with the table specifically because I imagine the table will be the most referenced source for this. We're going to come back to the table, Michelle. Stay with me on that because I made the table 50 feet all the way down the board as far as no work within 50 feet and that might be controversial. But that's what I did. So we can edit that or change that but that's just what I did to make it all consistent. There was also a note in here about if you want to be closer than 50 feet you file for a variance. The variance section we took out because it refers back to zoning. And this is really interesting because like LaRoy on the last hearing that we were talking about we were talking about building envelopes and the applicant was like no the building envelope is determined by zoning. That is not correct at all. There's a building envelope that zoning defines and that's for meeting zoning setbacks. For conservation the building envelope is completely different. So you were 100% correct LaRoy. He was not correct. But anyway we don't want references to zoning in here or anything that resembles zoning. So we can come back to this. I just want to give you guys a little overview of this and then we can discuss. So bordering vegetated wetland the preamble here you'll see I did the preamble for this and I did the preamble for isolated vegetated wetlands which I changed from seasonal wetlands to isolated vegetated wetlands to make it consistent with the Wetland Protection Act in terms of how we refer to the resource areas. What I did here was you can see the list. I'm just going to scroll back up really quick so you can see this. You can see the list. These are under our local bylaw. These values right here are the values that our bylaw protects. There's eight interests under the Wetland Protection Act. Seven inland interests and we have more than what the state has. I think we have 12 or 13 here. So what I did was with our preamble and the preamble in the Wetland Protection Act is a couple paragraphs and it usually talks about you know how each resource area is presumed to be significant to the interests. What I did was I put the interest at the top and then I made a list of what the resource area was presumed to be significant to as far as that specific interest. So I made this section quite a bit longer and I did that because I feel like this is a very important section and that we if we're going to say that these are our interests and that these are the resource areas that we protect I think we should be really specific about how that resource area serves those interests according to our bylaw. So I broke those down and this was based on research that I did which is in your that I uploaded to the OneDrive. It's in that like research folder. I make a comment on it when you're please do. Yeah. Um just up to B. I uh no sorry previous section. Okay. Oh the numbering is off there. I'm glad you pointed that out. So the first B. Yeah I know these should be in order though so I've got to fix that. Okay go ahead Michelle. You call out vertebrates but I'm imagining like monarchs and dragonflies which migrate and breed bordering vegetated wetland. Is there a reason why you're calling out vertebrates and not both vertebrates and invertebrates? Nope I um did I spell it wrong? Yeah remove the okay remove the comma after vertebrates and then it looks what you said. The comma after vertebrates can be removed. There you go. Yep yep that was a good catch. Please anything you see like that. I mean this was taken from research that I did so a lot of this was like me really hustling trying to put this together so if anybody has any suggestions for things that will. Um salmon bearing maybe you mean salmonids like I think trout is a salmonid but it's um I don't know it's so D so salmon's generally oh it is salmonid. No I just changed it I just changed it. I just edited it for you. I think that makes sense. Sorry LaRoy what did you say? You're very quick. Yeah all right. All right um this is going to keep scrolling stop me at any point. I have a couple of comments before you. Please yep. I liked we had another weathering is different so I'm having trouble dragging but we had one on biochemical cycling I really liked that. Um we had one on nutrient processing I really liked that. Overall I like this heading system it's easy to like track back to the original table I think that'll make it a lot easier for the public to read. The only one that was kind of interesting chanting was it used to be E it was about plants preserving carbon um in peak it might be further well no further yeah okay it's now number or letter I bordering vegetative wetland store carbon within their life and preserve deep biomass instead I would put a period after biomass and strike the rest of it I don't know it just has a weird feeling of instead we don't we don't need to prove any cases here and we're not using an instead class anywhere else you know I like that remove this sentence you're saying LaRoy okay got it perfect on that section okay good good good you guys are good okay okay so definitions were made consistent here with the wetland protection act it would change vegetational sorry just vegetation so that's a copy and paste from the wetland protection act really okay I've never ever seen that word before but if they say so yeah yeah yeah um sorry that's okay no no no it's good it's all good any comments you guys have there's no no bad comments here okay so again through E is wetland protection act and then F G are specific to our bylaw now do you see the flow of this how much better it is like to me this is so much better because it's clear they have to meet everything in the wetland protection act but then we have additional requirements at the bottom all right so presumptions no change from existing those are all good performance standards again consistent with the wetland protection act except we're underlined okay so under the wetland protection act it's one restoration or I'm sorry replication so you guys understand the difference between replication and restoration right I could benefit from your that's please okay so restoration would be taking an area that's been degraded and restoring it so let's say you have a wetland that was historically filled and people want to remove the fill reestablish wetland veg in it that would be a restoration replication would be if the project is damaging wetlands filling wetlands altering wetlands and to compensate for the loss of the wetland that we are recreating a new wetland redesigning and mitigation is the term but mitigation can cover both mitigation can cover restoration or replication but just to make sure that we're clear so under state law replication if you're filling a wetland you it's one to one so you're filling one square foot of wetland you're replicating one square foot of wetland under our bylaws doubled so any wetland filling you do you have to make it twice as big the replication area so that's just one area where in these performance standards our bylaw is different so that's why I highlighted that thank richelle fear benefit pregnant from ronger and a really good example of that we got was where ever source had to do some filling for utility work and from that we got a really great white line up a poetic or on the line between product and so so exactly plays out on the graph yep yep exactly um from existing regulations um consistent with wetland protection act um okay I'm going to keep rolling here taken from existing regulations so um I'm just going to keep moving because this is all pretty this is all pretty it's staying the same for the most part it's just cleaning it up okay well I shouldn't say that it's not staying the same I'll explain why in a second Michelle go ahead um is it a fair assumption that when something is taken from the state bylaws there's a citation or a reference and when there's not it is our bylaw or is that not a consistent um like theme that's a great question um so let me just show you something really quickly um I'll come back down to where we're left off but I just want to show you something really quickly because these are all important things to discuss at the top of this page is this um there's two of them actually and I've got to clean this up with our town attorney so that it's correct but um all definitions everything is presumed to be the same as the wetland protection act except we're specified but I do think it's important for us to restate the wetland protection act requirements in here because um if ever there is an appeal and they let's say they don't meet something that's a state requirement they could say well that's not listed in your bylaw as a requirement and so if we haven't listed in our bylaw it's it's consistent for both so the appeal would go under our bylaw and under state law if they were were refusing or if they wanted to do something different um but we'll clean this up it's going to refer back to the wetland protection act there may be some some of these subsections where there's references back to the wetland protection act where we change that reference to reference back to our bylaw and there's going to be some that continue to reference the wetland protection act it really depends and we've got to we've got to kind of scrub it at the end to make sure that that aligns if that makes sense on that point Erin did you say if someone ever files an appeal it actually goes through two separate systems that's correct why the real benefit of citing the wetland protection pieces that we really need directly in our bylaw so it could be cross-reference exactly exactly because there are cases where there's an appeal and they just appeal under the wetland protection act but they don't appeal under our bylaw or vice versa they just appeal under our bylaw and they don't appeal under the wetlands protection act it should be consistent tracks of appeal so if they're if they're appealing under wetland protection they should be appealing under a bylaw at the same time unless they're the only the only thing that should be different is if they're only appealing something more strict under our bylaw that they disagree with or think is unfair okay so let's come Michelle tell me or did I answer your question yeah I'm just trying to follow I guess like when you said is it a and b down here that you were saying like at the at the top of this page these are these are bylaw um you don't actually say we don't actually give the qualifier that it's the bylaw right so I don't know just as long as the other as if otherwise specified is consistent like do we have to say under the bylaw blah blah blah blah you mean the statements at the top of the page the statement at the top of the page that it's you know unless otherwise specified it's all consistent with the state wetlands and then but there are just sort of like these text paragraphs that are uh more stringent under our bylaw we don't specifically say that they are specific to the bylaw oh I see what you're saying okay well you know maybe we want to do that maybe we want to say something like this it would be helpful for like so the Roy has a lot more experience than me so I feel like I'm maybe more of like a public eye on this that doesn't use to reading it but I mean is there any downside to being super specific about I don't think so no I think that's a great point actually um and I think that that could make it easier for people when they're reading this too to understand which ones are different I can go through and and just say bylaw only or something or I'll I'll ask the town counts the town attorney how to refer to those um yeah I mean if it works the way that it's written just I don't know it just seems no I'm being like I think it's a good idea yeah yeah I think that's kind of a cool idea okay so let me explain something else that I did a pretty pretty substantive change here um so one of the things again trying to make this consistent with the wetland protection act one of the things I did not like about our bylaw regulations was it was like bordering vegetated wetlands and isolated vegetated wetlands were in one section together broken out like one was bordering and one was isolated I didn't like that at all and um it's I feel like it causes confusion because the state only regulates bordering and so here I'm making our bylaw consistent with the state regulations I want to keep it just bordering in this section okay and then what I did I'll show you this and and there we may need to do some edits to this section because it's it's very confusing um and I was sort of spitballing I don't really know any other way to say this like I was kind of figuring this out as I go how to make this better um work better so here is the next section which is isolated vegetated wetlands and then what I tried to do here because there wasn't very much reference to what was an isolated wetland I tried to highlight or name any kind of isolated vegetated wetland that would exist in in Amherst like any possible one again we can add more to that but we had also sort of talked or brainstormed that we might separate out vernal pools from being an isolated wetland and after a lot of thought and consideration I'm not sure that that's the way to go however um we can talk we can talk about that more if I have no problem I mean they're definitely an isolated wetland they aren't always vegetated however right and maybe with that comes down to definition but let's let's have a look at this section and we can talk about it some more so there was a Ralph Tiner paper in your research folder which is where it was a paper that he wrote on isolated geographically isolated vegetated wetlands and that's where I took um a lot of the information in the preamble from so that came directly from him and for the record Ralph Tiner is like a nationally recognized wetland expert who um works for US Fish and Wildlife and has for like 40 years he's um he's written he literally wrote the book on wetland identify wetland plant identification so he is very very um competent to borrow uh our preamble from in terms of um the significance of things and we may want to again wordsmith that section more but before we lose Michelle's last point about making a more approach well if the state's not covering isolated can we put one of those by my only tags right at the top getting from isolated vegetated but yeah that's an interesting point um yeah I we let me let me highlight that so it's it's a little we start to get in a little gray area with that only because so the Army Corps of Engineers does have jurisdiction over isolated vegetated wetlands so if somebody wanted to fill a vernal pool that would be Army Corps territory but um to your point LaRoy we we um are empowered by the wetland protection act regulations and so that is not an Army Corps regulation so I think it's it's a fair comment to incorporate that totally I did not know that that's a so then it's not bylaw only it's bylaw specific maybe or just bylaw like yeah yeah well I hear what you're saying on the bylaw thing like that it's um useful and I I think that that's a great idea um and what we might do is do something like an asterisk or something on the bylaw only ones with like a no I like that something something like that yeah yeah um can I just before I forget because you're scrolling down you you were talking about naming all the types that could occur in Amherst and just I want to make sure that um we use language here that isn't going to um like restrict interpretation yeah so included but not limited to is a good one to include or like for example or a non-exhaustive list includes but I just think whenever we're naming lots of species or or plants or types of things that we shouldn't pigeonhole ourselves into like a strict list um because that can get sticky in legal dealings wise point I will make a point to include that under bvw as well but yeah I think that's a great a great catch too okay so this is good um all right so definitions um we we're gonna have to read through this many times this section is going to be extremely important and I made this an extremely strict section I'll be completely straight up about that I made it a very strict section um so a couple points here vernal pools are considered to be a type of isolated vegetated wetlands not a subset of IVF IVW excuse me and one and these are just notes to myself we have to check back on the definition section because we have a definition under the definition section that has to be consistent with this so I want to make sure we check back on that which I didn't do and then I also edited this section based on the Ralph tiner paper as well um so there's there's multiple things referenced here and so this is a section I want to spend a little time on if you guys don't mind stop me at any time and if anybody has anything they want to change or anything please so the first is a just to say what is an isolated vegetated wetland um surrounded by upland has hydrophytic plant communities surrounded by terrestrial plant communities now Michelle made a good point that vernal pools aren't always vegetated so yeah they're definitely not I mean like if you go up on the power lines right now there's tons well not yet but there'll be tons of toads breeding in like dirt basins that have no vegetation but if a stick falls in it they can still attach eggs so I'm I'm kind of concerned about how to you know I mean they're called isolated vegetation vegetated wetlands but not necessarily like having if a condition is to have plant communities and a forested wetland may not and that's like a accepted definition of a forest wetland that you know it might have two acidic soils to have any plant communities so just having some qualifier in there that it can account for that I definitely would like to make sure that we're covering those kinds of wetlands there we go um the other thing is we can completely change the name um I mean so then may or may not have hydrophytic phytic plant communities if so it's still as insinuating that there might be plant communities so I think may or may not be vegetated just like the like just the example of a forest wetland I don't know that you'd consider them vegetated because they're surrounded they might be surrounded by camels yeah and and I think to your point Michelle the the way to approach this might be to just call this section sorry I keep scrolling just to call it isolated wetlands I was just thinking that yeah just take it I didn't know if that was like a solid definition that we had to lean on but that works I mean the wetland protection act does refer to isolated vegetated wetlands and that's why I used that okay but the wetland protection act doesn't regulate them so um I think it's fair for us to use something different under our bylaw um let me just make a note to myself here um remove vegetated throughout okay let's just go with that for right now because I think that's the easiest way to go so um when we get down to definitions I'll edit that do you guys still okay with saying may or may not have up for the vegetated hydro um maybe a comma after vegetated I think it just needs some more punctuation and then comma after hydrophytic plant communities after communities comma wait is that working out or okay wait I think we just changed the whole thing okay so may or may not be vegetated or have hydrophytic plant communities and is surrounded by terrestrial plant communities I mean should we do should we do um a semi colon instead may or may not be vegetated may have hydrophytic plant communities I mean sort of is that better yeah so then it's surrounded by terrestrial plant communities like I'm almost wondering if we can drop it it's kind of inherently definition of isolated but yeah because then what is surrounded like what's that buffer and then it gets I don't know is it necessary well I I want to hear what the full of what loroy was about to say because Michelle you interrupted him go ahead loroy no no just add add into the mind stream areas there would be a buffer in the soil line you know we could draw the line at hydric soils as opposed to where the plant community is yeah that's a good question wondering if if vernal pools always have hydric soils good point let me you know what I'd like to ask I'm going to make a note here to talk to I want to ask somebody who specializes in this I'm just going to put a note here to myself and we can come back to that I mostly just wanted to get something like a base a basic definition going but I I see that there's already confusion about it and so I think I need to talk to somebody who can give me a little more regulatory and you know field based science to substantiate what we're what we're defining here and I'll we'll come back to that okay so this is the other thing another inconsistency in our bylaw regs was in one place it stated must be a minimum of 500 square feet and in another location it says has no minimum threshold size I went with no minimum threshold size I mean I think that 500 square feet is there to prevent people from saying like oh there's a puddle in my driveway and it's a vernal pool but I included that in here is no minimum threshold size so that if there's something that the commission feels is a resource area and is isolated that we're not restricted our so but okay now I'm just worried that by saying that it doesn't have to be vegetated and there's no minimum size that we're allowing puddles to be isolated wetlands is that I have we gone overboard well that is the that is the question you know um I guess your specialist person might help yeah defining okay yeah definitely check with specialists but I'm also nervous about no minimum I won't lie even the 100 square foot minimum puts you at 10 by 10 pounds I would cover us for most everything we're thinking about mm-hmm I mean so this yeah I just what if I don't know can this be uh evaluated like on like ecological function and size like well so this isn't the only definition there's a lot more definitions so this is just one section of the definition um so maybe it would help to go through mm-hmm so no no it's hard it's questions for the specialist could we ascertain if the size is just the surface area we're looking at or if it's the network of pools because it's very rarely one single pool or isolated wetland yeah good question well and I can see you read my definitions of my performance standards loroy I did I thought mostly they were pretty good yeah that's good good good good that is uh that was one of them that I really liked our ability to track their connections under the soil is protected okay are we good to keep moving I don't want to um shortchange anybody's comments here I think we just we have sort of a growing list of questions about how to define isolated wetlands and then maybe just keeping track of them and your little comment box there and and um yeah okay I'm ready okay so what I was trying to do here is be all encompassing so they can be geographically isolated riparian wetlands that are associated with certain watersheds so they might be connected subsurface to a river that's close by but it's also isolated in that it doesn't have it's surrounded by upland right um forming in basins forming and on flats forming on slopes they can form anywhere um I don't want to restrict and just say these are basins when they can form you know it could be a hillside seep here that we're talking about um they can be artificially created ponds people do this all the time they create they build a pond in their backyard it turns into a resource area all of a sudden you got frogs and stuff living in it you've got a resource area um and I I think that later on we talk to make sure that we're not talking about storm water here if this was a intentionally constructed storm water basin that's not something we're going to take um jurisdiction over unless the state does take jurisdiction over some storm water um systems that have over time converted to wetlands um but there's there's like a timeline to that like it's it's it's um storm water systems that are constructed after a certain date are storm water systems regardless of whether they turn into resource areas because that's how they were designed and if they if they fail then it's going to cause damage um to others so it's important um isolated vegetation this is an important one isolated vegetative wetlands can form as a result of fragmentation of the natural landscape by human development like levee construction road construction urban development agricultural drainage altered river hydrology controlled flooding by upstream dams or river diversions I see this all the time there used to be a bvw somebody put a road right through it and then they're saying oh there's an ice that's an isolated one on the other side they cut off the hydraulic the hydraulic connection so it is isolated now but it was done so by humans add suburban and urban since that's like my neighborhood okay we're just like yeah I don't know um major shifts and river courses over time have left some in the world isolated vegetated wetlands on former flood plains that are no longer actively flooded isolated vegetated wetlands may occur in otherwise flat topography where water may pool at the surface once a year or may be contained in the top 24 inches of soil may occur on the downhill or the downslope of a hillside seep uh the presence of water stain leaves in a dry depression is an indicator of isolated wetlands isolated wetlands may be delineated by any of the following criteria so this is this is a section and I I specifically added in this statement this criteria can be used to delineate the boundary of vernal pools as well as any other type of isolated wetland I specifically added that language in there because we had a situation not too long ago where somebody said vernal pools are a subset of a seasonal wetland they're not a seasonal wetland and the argument was that this criteria couldn't be used to delineate them so I wanted to make sure that it was clear that this criteria can be used and used in containing the largest area being adopted for the delineation and this was all taken from our previous bylaw this whole section or from our previous bylaw regulations this whole section of these delineation I just changed the added in the vernal pool element to make that clear woodland vernal pools are often seasonal ponds that are inundated during the wet season usually from late fall to mid or late summer vernal pools may dry out every year or less often thereby precluding the establishment of fish populations making these pools extremely productive sites for amphibian reproduction species dependent on vernal pools for breeding and then there's a list of species okay so um again with the species list maybe a may include or do you have toad in there like I don't know I just want to protect the list from not necessarily being complete my or I says include you can just put included but not limited to yeah but you might want to add toad is that american toad yeah yes and you have mutes I did I have a cat I'll I'll see I might seek the uh specialist input on some of these as well of what to include okay can get tricky when you try to include everything so I mean I'm just amphibians is good right well that's what I was thinking I was just thinking that like do we even want to include species I would I probably wouldn't just because then you're making more work for yourself and you know I don't see why can't you just include amphibians there might be new ones or less of them or I don't know yeah for any keep the starting line species dependent on where you could put amphibians we could also put invertebrates and obviously some plants I'm a terrible speller I apologize yeah okay I'll I'll seek some some help on that would get some get some insight from from some specialists on that okay you suck sorry this okay presumptions I'm just going to read through this you guys because I think these are really important sections um where proposed activity involves removing filling dredging or otherwise altering an isolated well in the commission shall presume that such an area as well as the area within 100 feet of the mean annual boundary I don't really like that mean boundary I'm going to say of the delineated boundary of said wetland is significant to the interests of the preamble and in the case of rental pools to the protection of wildlife habitat particularly amphibian breeding habitat that was taken from our existing regs isolated wetlands are presumed to be significant to the prevention of flooding flood damage protection of public and private water supplies ground water and prevention of pollution that was also taken from our current ranks just before we go any further on that first one a and in the case of rental pools if we are really trying to make that transition in rental pools as a type instead of a subset should we even have a line that that states anything separately about rental pools you know I'm interested maybe strike that line entirely because otherwise it almost reinforces the idea that rental pools are a subset that's a good point I mean I rental pools do you protect wildlife habitat and amphibian breeding habitat but so do other kinds of isolated wetlands so I'm also wondering if we do okay yeah all right another one four rentals yeah yeah I hear what you're saying though Leroy I think I've I've I waffle back and forth constantly on this section do I pull rental pools out of here do I keep it separate I think there's value in having them grouped together though those types even though they're very different types so let's let's keep that in the back of our minds but keep going and if we you know if if we want to reevaluate that we can isolated vegetated wetlands are presumed to be significant okay we already covered that pool breeding amphibian populations operate at multiple scales from the individual pool to surrounding upland habitat to clusters of pools in a given area or property conservation efforts limited to the protection of individual pools or even pools with associated upland habitat may be ineffective over the long term if connectivity among pools is not maintained the commission can require habitat connectivity be maintained between clusters of pools and can consider development between pools habitat fragmentation that will have adverse impacts on wildlife habitat that's a pretty dramatic large change here but I also think an important one one thought I had on this was some type of geographic differentiator like saying if there's a vernal pool within 500 feet or 1000 feet of another vernal pool it's considered to be connected even within 400 feet I mean anything because it's so open ended that we could say like a pool in Michelle's neighborhood is connected to a pool in the Roy's neighborhood and they might be on opposite sides of town and we're not going to take jurisdiction over everything in between that's not the intent of this yeah do we have a expert opinion that we can consult with like metapopulation and pools there's a lot of work done on this at UMass I assume they'd be willing to help if you know some wetland people there right oh yes okay yeah but can I ask a question on this I mean so so the commission can consider this have impacts on wildlife that that is a resource that the commission is protective over but does it I mean if it's not a water source is there any teeth to it or is it just like in the broader consideration of impacts maybe that's a discussion I can have with you on another time I'm just wondering like is this a like a holistic view that this is adding to or I mean the only concern I have with this is sort of an overreach like a regulatory overreach view of it um but I think anybody could say let's say you have two vernal pools and they are 220 feet apart from one another and you have a hundred foot no touch on one vernal pool and a hundred foot no touch on the other vernal pool and there's 20 foot span in between them there's likely going to be um metapopulations right that are going from one pool to the other coming back and forth um I mean so what we're saying here is like and what what we may want to say is like use proximity of buffers so like if buffers between vernal pools is a certain amount like less than a hundred feet then we would consider the pools to be connected and that might be something that would prevent that you know being thought of as a as an overreach um I also have heard that migratory amphibians will go up to 400 feet or more from a vernal pool um so to like um for estivation I think yeah so I think yeah I would be great to have some kind of quantitative guidance on it I mean it's it's like it's there's a lot of value in like the education aspect I I just hope that it can be I don't know I I have a similar concern so however we want to like import it or provide some like citations even um for a specific guidance so Michelle I'm going to make you a co-host really quick um while we're doing this just because I can't see if there's attendees from the public like in case anybody like raises their hand I can't see them when I'm sharing my screen if you could just keep an eye on that okay um yeah so I'll get some I'll get some insight on this section I think that's a good a good what is great I like the idea of using I think it's a stronger idea to use the buffer zone proximity as opposed to a straight geographical um oh right yeah I think it's a stronger case it gives us a lot of protection to start so we can keep that connectivity number low and it would be I would assume a stronger scientific case yeah no I think that's totally what I you know where I would be coming from on it to give us a sort of a more consistent um something to point to um so I just I added in some information here um just to make it clear that upland forest is very important to these resources um if connectivity among vernal pools is interrupted natural dispersal that enables recolonization rescue efforts and gene flow of species will be inversely impacted protecting individual pools without protecting adjacent upland habitat does little for even short term persistence of populations breeding amphibians woodland surrounding vernal pools are significant to pride have had the habitat for juveniles and adult salamanders forests surrounding vernal pools provide critical habitats for amphibian survival and are important for the for the conservation of biodiversity some of these are I feel a little redundant yeah redundant exactly um yeah I think some some could be like eliminated or consolidated like the up the surrounding upland um I don't I don't know if now is the time to do it yeah it's all good stuff but yeah it seems like you could combine things and the first paragraph sort of takes care of some of it too solidate redundant sections okay filling and leveling drainage for agriculture mining and excavation around isolated vegetative wetlands caused destruction of habitat altered hydrology groundwater withdrawals and drainage water pollution runoff from developed areas in farmland and direct discharge of contaminated water um again these are all taken from you know the the paper so this is all stuff and it's pretty what about um groundwater oh wait groundwater withdrawals and drainage groundwater pollution I know um I mean agricultural activities on a wetland could sort it seems to me like depending on soil types could affect like a residence nearby uh groundwater like sandy soils um I think it's there though no right all right I mean that's yeah groundwater withdrawals well it says contaminated water so let me go back up to something Michelle that I think might get out what you're saying um so this is in the preamble okay there's groundwater isolated vegetative wetlands serve as recharge and discharge areas contributing to both local groundwater flow and regional flow seasonal changes and functions may occur with some wetlands contributing to groundwater during high water periods okay so I guess I'm seeing a lot of like recharge and levels of groundwater but there isn't a connection between the groundwater and the pollution that's that's the one that I was just going for I think they seem to be okay let me get back to the water pollution water pollution eg runoff and developed areas and farmland direct discharge of contaminants Michelle we can't hear you oh maybe just add contaminated groundwater to that list of eg's underwater right here this one yeah runoff from developed areas and farmland direct discharge of contaminated water and what was the what I'm sorry could you just restate that um polluted water you wanted to add um groundwater contamination okay um so these are mostly taken from our existing regulations um any proposed work within 100 feet of isolated wetlands shall not result in the following impairment of the capacity of the isolated wetland as well as the area within 100 feet of the boundary of said wetland or setback determined by determined to be appropriate by the conservation commission to protect said wetland to provide wildlife habitat do you see where I went with that so if the commission says there's two pools that are within 20 feet of each other and those are connected and we want them we want the area in between them to be protected that would give you that ability to do so I know we want some kind of quantifiable number but just that's there for that under performance standards flood damage due to filling uh that causes lateral displacement of water which would otherwise be confined within said area an adverse impact of public or private water supply or groundwater supply an adverse impact on capacity of said area to prevent pollution to groundwater adverse effect on wildlife habitat in and around isolated wetland an adverse effect on specified wildlife habitat or rare invertebrate species vertebrate or invertebrate species as identified by procedures established in that's the um referring to natural heritage endangered species area is there a difference between e and g besides in and around so one sort of bylaw and ones state reg I'm sorry which not which letters michelle so there's no g oh sorry f um he is referring because because wildlife habitat is different from endangered species habitat from a regulatory standpoint if it's an endangered species or threatened species then that has a different threshold okay so f is specific to like um natural heritage and state kind of right all right you guys good can I keep going I was just wondering about b I feel like we get a lot of pushback on this one from all sides from neighbors from developers so I guess my question is how solid is this you say it's from our bylaw originally is this also backed up by the state it seems like it would be right it's backed up by the army core all right that's good enough for me so if somebody wanted to fill a vernal pool they're in army core territory they would have to file a permit with the army core of engineers excellent that was my question okay so I assume the army core has definitions maybe that would be another place to look besides like the academic world but um good point I would hope you know we'd probably want to maintain some consistency at army core to at least know where we're not being consistent with them interesting yeah that's a good idea actually very good idea okay I think they might have rolled back some of those protections in the trump administration so that's another thing to keep in mind right just a note um okay so the other thing just to point out here and this is another so I have to double check this so these are the sections I haven't done yet land underwater bodies land subject to flooding riverfront area riverfront area was not in here previously was not in our bio regulations previously it should be um it has caused confusion the fact that it's not so it's I added it in and uh will be those sections so right now I'm I'm I have a gap in the preamble for bank and I have a gap as far as these three sections anybody who wants to help me out with these is more than welcome to take a section um no I'm particularly the preamble because it requires quite a bit of research um to get it right um I've contemplated uh so this is the other thing that's a little tricky like isolated land subject to flooding and bordering land subject to flooding um they can also be broken out but I kind of feel like that's also kind of redundant for us to be doing and that for land subject to flooding keeping them consolidated we haven't had a problem with that up until now so it's like if it's not broken why fix it um I think the wetland issue has been an issue so I'm with you on that on there if you do want some help I'm going to take a crack at preamble for section D there land underwater or at least crack it doing some of the research you can write yeah absolutely um I I can send you the list of interests and if you want to I would love to have some help with that Leroy that'd be awesome oh we're just taking with the same interest right the same whatever it is 11-13 I'm just trying to compile a list um that's again specific to our bylaw because our interests are different and we can't we can't say we have additional interests and then not outline what why our interests are significant to the resource area it's just an important part of the regs thank you yeah okay ready ready to move on to buffer zones um so if what I'd like to do so a lot of the buffer zone stuff is staying exactly the same and I'd like to come back to this sea that's highlighted in a moment um but before we go there most of this like I said is exactly the same has not changed this is Aaron's edits to minimum setbacks for various types of projects now multiple changes here I took out the separate for solar panels because I I don't really understand why that was separated out um to me that's commercial that's a commercial project or um a utility project um it's not you know we're not calling out electrical projects or sewer projects or um I don't know I'm trying to think something else but we're not calling those out specifically so I don't I don't really like the idea of having that listed separately um I made the no work distance 50 feet and this is um not really meant to I mean I went back and forth between calling this recommended minimum setbacks because there was no header on here at all and so it's not clear are these required setbacks are these suggested setbacks are these optional setbacks you know um at the bottom it says it said previously that um it was fairly easy to just ask the commission to override these um you know that the commission had the authority to just override these in this case what I said was the commission reserves the right to adjust these setbacks on a case by case basis in consideration of hydrologic connectivity habitat connectivity slope protection of the interests listed in the bylaw and regulation if the commission determines this as setback is insufficient to protect the interests in the Amherst-Wetland bylaw it can require greater no work distances from resource areas and building setback distances from resource areas and I felt that was a really important one particularly because of a recent project which we dealt with which there was a steep slope right next to a wetland and the argument was made you guys allow clearing up to the 35 feet all the time which isn't true by the way the commission has been pretty pretty resistant to that but there was a steep slope which is a you know a topographic difference between many projects that we deal with and so talking about slope the same as we talk about a flat piece of property I feel like is a real problem um and then um is that chart now consistent as in is there anywhere else now in the bylaw where it does still say 35 foot and we have 50 on the chart for nowhere well so it's now consistent with the bank section where it already stated that there was no work allowed within 50 feet so the bank section is a section where that was already in our regs we do have specified in another section which is like our guidance on permit filings that if you're within 50 feet you need a notice of intent if you're over 50 feet away you can file a request for determination depending on project of course um this is me throwing it out there for protection of the wetlands because you know I think that there was a lot we've had a lot of questions come up in the course of this discussion of you know if there are cases where work within 100 feet of wetland might impact it adversely and where are we drawing that line I'm not you guys if you think this is unreasonable I totally open to discussion um I'm recalling when we first visited this table you presented some numbers from other towns and they were almost all greater than emers is that do I remember that correctly yeah so self-hadley is a 50 foot no disturb um Northampton has a hundred foot no disturb except in certain zoning districts so like for example in like a downtown zoning district or like a densely developed zoning district they will allow I think up to 15 feet um and so yeah they're much they they do extend a much stronger um no disturbed zone than Amherst does where it definitely felt like looking at other regulations like gee we're we're given away the farm here um but I do want to just jump back up here for a quick second because this is an additional the commission may allow alteration of up to 20 percent of the area within 50 foot to 100 foot buffer zone this is a total cumulative allowance for lots created prior to the inception of these bylaw regulations um and I don't know if I like that I we might just say want to say total cumulative allowance um the proposed work must have no significant adverse impact on the resource area and the applicant must provide evidence deemed sufficient by the commission that the area being disturbed will not harm the resource area values protected by this bylaw this is taken from Northampton and I really liked this because just because we say you can alter up to right now 35 feet no disturbed doesn't mean you should be leveling that area and removing every tree and so you can be that close but you can't alter the whole thing on the entire extent of the property yeah I see the point there I like that um there's if we allow I don't know if that's actually a variance but if we allow that there's certainly like different levels of developing that would have different levels of impact and I just like the way that's written I guess and also like it adds some quantitative measure with the with the total cumulative allowance which is good guidance I think for the project proponent and the commission I'm leaning towards removing that one statement there created prior to the inception of these regulations your grandfather rule is at the point of that yeah because it's only saying that you we would only allow that 20 percent if the lot was created before the inception of the bylaw which I don't think is fair I think it should be for all locks anyway so those are changes I made those are changes I made to this buffer zone section and I think as long as we're protecting wetlands I'd like to see more protection I recently um I've been monitoring a project which was permitted actually it's the you drive south project which is right across from big why um and Dunkin Donuts and ginger garden and um there's a veterinary clinic across from it too it's on the corner and I mean I think that that site is not a bad site for what was proposed there because I think that that wetland was already pretty severely degraded as a result of root nine runoff and stuff but it's very difficult for me to go out there and see um a parking lot within 25 feet of a wetland boundary I there is direct discharge coming off of that parking lot within 20 feet at 20 23 feet of the wetland and I just feel like that's that's definitely going to impact it over the long term um I mean I think that they that's a good project and I'm not dissing that project on any level I think that it was a really well done well engineered project and I think they've they've monitored it they've you know prevented any violations out there it's more so like the proximity issue it's like a gut check like wow that's very close and anybody can do that yeah I mean I I support these changes and I think that the previous numbers weren't insufficient to adequately protect water resources and like ecological functions and you've seen it firsthand so I also trust that you've watched like a life cycle of a project and a wetland and you have experience with that and I think that these numbers are actually still a compromise between protecting the resources and allowing for development like I think that they're quite a compromise like I I don't think our I don't think we're putting wetlands first with a 50-foot buffer that's still not that much space in my opinion so I'm not pushing back on that change but I'm interested to hear LaRoy's opinion if you have one or want to share very well stated I would second almost everything you said there I'm definitely down to increase all these to 50 feet and I think we would be well within our rights to go further the 50s I think what's going to make everyone quite happy my big hold up and it's actually because of something you said about Northampton area usually they have variances for downtown and wherever they come in the 15 feet does Amherst have some sort of buildings on income for that in our tiny bit of urban areas because that would be my concern if we just keep increasing distances we're going to have nowhere downtown that's buildable I'm thinking like the what was it the tambourine went under the obitucci's lot I think you make an incredibly good point here LaRoy which is there should be exceptions to this and we may want to spell those out I'm just taking notes I really like I'm glad you brought that up because I like that Northampton does that and actually just my understanding of like the sort of direction of zoning and development in Amherst that would actually be sort of consistent with the visions of the planning department you know of allowing for the development of downtown you know I don't keep up with it that much but it seems wise to make it more specific to the zoning in Amherst but I don't even that seems kind of like a big project well let's have a look at it really quick the zoning because I mean I like I've been trying to keep zoning separate from conservation as much as possible but I also recognize that there may be situations where that makes sense so we have like the educational and again I mean within the colleges the developed landscape is very different than surrounding Amherst landscape much more urbanized I would argue in say the educational ED district so that's one we might consider there's also general business districts I can't maybe I can move okay here we go the general this business districts are the the let's see there's a hash commercial so hold on one second sorry you just go up a little bit it's I can't annotate while I'm so there's there's multiple here and I'm not sure that it's going to be apples to apples with Northampton because it seems like there's like so for example outlying residents low density residents you know those those are ones obviously where we'd want to keep those setbacks strong there's but there's a lot of like I wouldn't say like Cushman for example I wouldn't want to be one of those areas because I feel like Cushman is a very residential location it's not really like a meant to be a developed area professional research park is an area that's designated and that's very you know you've got Eastman Brook running right through it and it's a lot of it's very pristine undeveloped light industrial there's that's like probably like um the sawmill and uh there's you know the areas that are just north of the Mill River in North Amherst light industrial educational and then you know you get general business limited business etc so it sounds like we if we want to go about this we would have to make a different rule for each one of these zones or we'd have to look at them anyway we might have similar rules for groups. That seems like a big job but but but I also think like it's worth considering or like I don't know having some guidance for the commission or like statement for the commission to be able to consider zoning this part of this like because you know if we're if we're reviewing like that Bertucci's parking lot right so I assume that that buffer we made some exceptions with it which we probably wouldn't do in a very rural area a pristine area so on what the basis on which we're doing it is zoning and condition of the current landscape and infrastructure yeah it's like grandfathering it's grandfathered because it was right now that's like a totally subjective is it grant but right now we're just doing that subjectively and then someone could say well you did it for Bertucci's why can't you do it well no no I don't think so Michelle because that was already paved up to that point there was no encroachment closer to the stream they were just repaving an existing parking lot so it's maybe that's not a good example yeah I guess my point is more that like if we think it's important to consider zoning maybe we should continue this conversation and make it a basis on which the commission is you know has grounds to consider that buffer because it's not apples to apples but the zoning like I you know I don't know I haven't thought that out very much but it right now we're supposed to be considering it all on the same plane right but it but it isn't anyway I don't have more to add to that right now but it's an interesting consideration yeah yeah I I'm in agreement and like I would I would say um uh like the general business district of downtown Amherst where it's already developed it would almost be a no-brainer but there's other areas like at UMass where there's you know some places which are green space and you know you wouldn't want this to be to put a blanket over that area and say yeah you can get within 15 feet in these areas like like campus pond being a good example like it's already an extremely degraded stream system being the tan brook there's already built infrastructure around the entire thing and most of it is running subsurface in culverts and so you know yeah are we using this as an excuse to get closer and degrade already degraded resources even more yeah well I guess there's enough leeway for the commission to consider case by case basis for this to to happen so maybe northampton just is big enough and there's more going on there that they decided a different approach I don't know yeah I think it's something I think we can think about more I would ask you guys to think about it more I'll think about it more um like I said I've got multiple more sections to draft I've got um let me get back to this for a second um I still have you know the land underwater bordering land subject to flooding um and there's riverfront which is basically just going to be copied and pasted from wetland protection act stuff with the exception of the preamble of course um but those three sections still need to be drafted and then we have the preamble for bank that needs to be done so other than that we are we're getting really close um while we have 10 minutes I just want to mention I was contemplating being away on the 22nd Michelle you said you were okay with moving our last meeting to the 29th I am yeah Leroy are you comfortable with that I think so I'm looking around right now for account that's just the following Friday right correct yeah I'm good with that okay and how would you guys feel about doing another two hour session so we is this did we accomplish what we wanted to today we did we did and we only got we've only got really three more resource areas to review I don't expect those to be a deviation to the degree that the previous ones were um so I don't really expect we're going to have to go through those with the same fine tooth comb that we did on the these I think a lot of it's going to be taken from the previous regulations and from wetland protection act and that's basically going to be it besides the preambles which are specific to our bylaw regs or for our bylaw interests but I think we have enough things like that we need to revisit from this section where I need to do some follow-up and come up with some recommendations to bridge the divide sort of like how are we going to handle these situations that I need a little more I would a little more time would be helpful and also I think if we have a longer session we might need to a little more time to review those I'm actually planning to do a special meeting the following week with concom to like hold a hearing to review this stuff so I'm hoping that we would be able to cover everything in two hours if you guys can can do it I can do it um and if we're done earlier that's great too right I can definitely do the two-hour meeting I'm also sorry to email about the special concom meeting that special meeting itself the first one I'd be available for um concern the second one which is a normal meeting but the one where you want to have comments from the whole commission it's possible that I might have to not be there okay and that's completely fine LaRoy I mean whatever and you can always send me comments just to me and I can share those too if you have to miss a specific meeting um okay and LaRoy I am sending you for land underwater you wanted to assist with the preamble right yes please all right great any other comments folks want to make today on this I don't know we started late we got it early yeah I have to um yeah I don't have any other comments okay all right guys well thank you so much so I just I want to um thank you all right and you what wait did you have something to say I just want to say quickly I don't think we actually formally reviewed sections five and six would just conclusion but I said no problems with us because I know last time I had not looked over five and six at all but oh five and six of the um the regulations you haven't looked at okay well yeah six is conclusion and then five is right before I forget okay okay so that's good that we have a two-hour session next time I'm so we'll try to get through as many comments as we can at the next two-hour session what we don't get through I think I'm just gonna take what we have get it as close as I can highlight outstanding questions or changes that we might want to make to certain sections and then just take it to the full board try to power through it I mean I don't know what else we can do at this point because we're coming up against the end of April um but if you also have comments on those sections and you want to send me edits please by all means um just make sure you just send them to me and I'm happy to incorporate things did you see those do we have those they should be in the one drive okay Michelle you are going to say something too oh I was just going to close the meeting but before that I realized that we didn't open the meeting um well acknowledging we didn't open the meeting I would say that it started at uh recording and so um now we're I'm not sure exactly what time that was due to technical difficulties but we can close the meeting at 1 54 I get my time right you got it um got it April 1st thank you Leroy thank you and I'll see you guys next week thank you guys take care