 Okay, hello everyone. Welcome to the Wednesday, October. 13th, 2021 conservation commission meeting. First item on the agenda or comments from me. I don't have any in particular except just to forecast that. Hopefully we should be able to move through some relatively simple hearings for the majority of the meeting, but then we have the fearing Brooke. Or I guess the fearing street and rad to tackle later in the agenda. So pace yourselves. But aside from that. Aaron, or I guess we don't have Dave yet, huh? We do not have Dave yet. I'm. He didn't mention that he wouldn't be here. So I'm assuming he'll be joining. Okay. Well, do you want to go ahead, Aaron? And then. Yeah. Hi, Laura. I welcome. So I'll start with some. Other business items. So Canton road. I was out there today. And I did do a bunch of plantings and I asked them to. Demarcate the wetland as well. They put in wooden stakes. You know, the, the plantings all looked great. I didn't check them, you know, planting by planting or anything like that, but I could see that the plantings were done. And so I'm really relieved that, you know, there was a good faith effort made to comply with the. The plantings. So that's good news. I do think that we should have some sort of permanent. Demarcation added where the wetland boundary is. As part of that. Just. Because there is that outstanding. Sub division. Order of conditions. And I know that we have an outstanding requirement from the government to. To survey that and have that looked at the wetland is significantly increased from where it was before the cutting definitely. Made the wetland expand significantly. And so. You know, that piece definitely needs to be looked at. And I know that that's outstanding still as far as having an outstanding requirement for the sub division. But I guess my, you know, as far as that goes, I would consider them to be in compliance with the plantings at this point. They were supposed to do them by October 15th. So I would say that that's, that's fine. As far as when they want to proceed with the subdivision, my recommendation would be to hold to that requirement that they have the storm water and looked at in conjunction with the wetland boundary and also that the commission require permanent demarcation on the. Boundary itself to prevent any further encroachment on it. Other than that, it's mostly just an update for tonight. I don't know if anyone has any thoughts or actions that you want me to take on that. What kind of demarcation you're thinking about in terms of this situation, like obviously. We're trying to get away from boulders, but like what do you think would be the best approach? Yeah, I mean, I really like the rebar wetland markers that actually have the plastic cap on them that say wetland. I've seen those work really successfully in a lot of locations. I know that they can be moved. But generally speaking, like in the Amherst Hills, for example, even though on occasion you see them, you know, some people move here and there for the most part, they're pretty sturdy, and they stay in place. And I've seen them on other sites too, and they, they do hold up over time and they're noticeable. And it's clear when people come across them, what they indicate because they say wetland on them. So it's not like you're playing guessing games. Do you think that, and so what the, you're talking about the wetlands increasing, is that going to trigger something, Is it going to be a process or is it like, is it going to screw with the current subdivision plans? It could. It definitely could. I mean. To be honest with you. With that particular situation. I'm, I'm really leaning toward. The commissions considering an amendment. To the order of conditions or just requiring them to refile. I think an amendment would be. Fair to require in this case. Because. And this is an important thing for you guys to know is that. When the emergency order came into effect in, I think it was like March of 20, March 15, 2020. As soon as that emergency order came into play. Through when the emergency order ceased, which I believe was, I want to say like June, 2021 or something, whatever, whenever the emergency order. Was ceased by the governor. That window is called a tolling period. And that window is called a tolling period. And that window is called a tolling period. And that window is called a tolling period. And every single permit that we have, we have to calculate the number of days that was remaining on the permit prior to it expiring. And then add that number of days back on to the end of the permit. Any permit that was issued. During that. It's very complicated. I can send you the language just so that you know, you know, you know, you're adding, it's like depending on when it was issued, it was issued in a certain window, adding an additional 495 days to it. Like there's depends on exactly when the permit was issued as to how much additional time they have, but the bottom line is that we thought that that permit expired. And in fact, it did not. So. Are you saying that the amount of time the permit was in existence. It was in existence. The days, the days that it was originally set up. That that time period has increased. Right. So. To give you an example, like let's say the permit was set to expire on. I'm not talking about an expiration. I'm talking about the time. So if it was a period from the time when it started, it was like, say a two year period. Because all permits are good for three. Let's say it's three year. But so, so the three year period. If it expired during the, during the emergency order. With this, the emergency order is the period. The thing is still in both. It's still three years, or does it increase? It's greater than three years. If it expired during the, during the emergency order. I'm not saying that if you exclude the emergency order. Okay. That time period. Is it still three years that that is actually in the case, or has it become longer than three years? It's still three years. It's still three years. You're essentially add for a permit that was in existence before the emergency order. You're essentially adding the duration of the emergency order to the, the length of the permit. That means the permit stays at the original length. It just did a study. The time period has changed because there's been a stuck in there and emergency period. No, because. They could have been acting on the permit during the. Permit, permit started on, on. January 1st, 2021 for three years, it would go to 2024 and three years. Because of the emergency thing. Which might let's say the emergency thing was two years. It now adds only two years to that. Am I correct? Or is it. So Larry, I don't think that we should get into the nuts and bolts of the law on, because I don't have the language in front of me. And it depends on exactly when the permit was set to expire and exactly when the. The duration of the order relative to that. So it's way more complicated than you think. As a matter of fact, I have consultants contacting me, asking me to. Tell them. Anna has her hand. I stupidly just realized that I left my phone charger at work. So I'm going to drop off and rejoin. I'm so sorry. I have to rejoin on my phone. But I will be right back. Sorry. That's okay. Thanks for telling me. Yeah. So I think what's relevant here to this. This is that can nav. We thought was expired. It is not. So we need to figure out how we amend that permit. To move forward with any work at that site. Correct. Correct. Yep. So I guess we'll just keep a heads up for that. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess we'll just keep a heads up for that popping up on the agenda. Incoming meetings. For that, for that update, Aaron. Yeah. So that was just enforcement. And I think now that, um, Dave is here, we could should jump to. His report and then, um, We'll carry on with my other business later. Okay. Thanks, Aaron. That's good. I mean, I think that. I'm glad that kid now is coming to a resolution. That was painful. So thank you for shepherding that through. Um, Dave. I think you're there. Hello. We see you, Dave. I cannot hear you. And if they stepped away. Oh, there is. Okay. I am here was having a little connectivity problems here tonight at town hall, but I'm here. Hello. Hi, Jen. Did you want me to take a couple of moments now? Yeah, is that good for you? That's fine. I will be here for part of at least part of your meeting tonight. Um, yeah. Just a couple of quick, quick updates around town. Um, Aaron and I attended an event, uh, Kestrel. Uh, their new office down on Bay Road had an open house. I think it was last weekend. I'm losing track of these weekend events. But, um, I spoke at the event. And, um, they had, um, they invited, uh, members to join them to tour their building and take a walk around the pond. I'd love to get the commission down there. Uh, to, to kind of talk about some of the things that we hope to do down there. Take a look at, um, The trail, um, the new steps are in. Um, the trail, um, the new steps are in the permitted steps that, that came through the commission, uh, have been installed. Um, there are some remaining challenges down there. I want to, um, talk to the commission at your next meeting about some of those challenges with, with signs, with, um, We've encountered a, uh, an issue with the parking area. So there's a number of things I'd like to, to kind of run through with the commission. So maybe we'll set up a site visit, uh, prior to your next meeting where I can join whoever, uh, members of the commission who go out on the Wednesday morning site, visit and, um, walk around down there and we'll put a couple of things on your agenda for your next meeting. Um, I also attended and you all, you all were invited to the food bank, uh, slash Zala conservation area, um, event. I believe Anna was the only one that made it to that. That was over in Hadley. It was a wonderful event attended by about, I'm going to say 50 people, 45 to 50 people. Um, again, Aaron was there. I spoke at it, talked about collaboration between towns, the importance of agricultural preservation. Um, you know, just cooperation and collaboration between, between communities. Um, they're actually doing some very interesting models with inviting different groups onto the property. There's me talking about one of the streams out at the, the, uh, area that was preserved. It's a pretty big project of about 195 acres total. So a really, really good size. One of the largest farms left in the town of Hadley that is not preserved. So, um, still have some trail issues out there. Um, lots of work to be doing. I mean, kind of if you build it, they will come. And when people come, they, they want to see better parking. They want to see better signage and they want to not get lost. So, um, they've got our work cut out for us. Other events last week, and I saw some of you at the Hickory Ridge events, they were held on, um, the, what was it? We did some kind of open houses at the Hickory Ridge, former Hickory Ridge golf course. In total, we had, I would say a hundred or excuse me, 220 people, maybe 225. Between the three days. Really great, great groups. Lots of questions, lots of comments. Um, the project is featured on the engage section of our website. So if you have ideas about the property by all means, uh, you know, anytime of the day or night, if you're, if you're, uh, out there, uh, and want to jump on our town website, um, please do so. We will be kicking off the master planning process for that property. Keep in mind that, um, only a part of the property will be permanently preserved. Some of it will not. Um, and we'll have to work with and through the commission on which portions of that property are permanently protected with the conservation restriction and other, uh, regulatory, um, uh, layers like wetlands, floodplain, riverfront, et cetera. Um, there is considerable interest in reusing the parking area and the old clubhouse for other uses. So if you go on that engage page, you'll see everything from zip lines to pickle ball to a affordable housing to trails and hiking trails, biking trails, basketball courts. Um, and at this point, there's no wrong answers. We're just trying to gather community input. Um, and then lastly, I'm working with Stephanie Chikarello on the final stages of the, the, um, conservation restriction that is going to go on the old landfill as part of our project to, um, install solar on the North landfill. There will be a, about a 45 acre portion of the, uh, the South landfill that will receive a conservation restriction. So we're working on the final, uh, the final details of that. And we might need the commission's help on that. We're going to meet with our time council. And there's one, believe it or not, one little sticking point over a survey. And about an acre of land that is in question. So we, we might need the commission's help on that. So we may be back to you at your next meeting on that too. So stay tuned. Dave, I can always help on those things too. So let me know. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. This is, um, yeah. This is an interesting little. CR related conservation restriction related, uh, item that nobody, uh, really, really found until 1159. So we're, we just spoke to the natural heritage program today. And we're, we're trying to come up with some options. So I appreciate that, Laura. So, so those were my four or five updates, lots of exciting things happening out there. Getting ready for winter, trying to finish as much as we can on the rubber frost trail. That grant is due on 12 31. So the more we can get done. Uh, between now and then the better. It's all the reimbursement grant. So that's a good thing. We get our labor. And most of our labor and most of our materials, uh, costs back on that. So, um, we're going to have to, um, We're working hard on getting more of the Robert frost trail done. And all of that has been, uh, all of that work has been permitted. Uh, for the most part, um, is all done. So. Thank you much. Thanks, Dave. Um, so we saw 10 minutes to our first hearing. If I'm not mistaken, Aaron, do you have a 10 minute or. Well, you know, some small items we could. Handle now. Yeah. Um, actually the land use application that Kestrel submitted. If we could handle that. And I see, uh, Chris. Blente from the, um, Kestrel is here. So I'm going to promote her to the panelists so that we can. Review that. Application. Great. Chris. Do you. Hello, welcome. Oh, we can't hear you. You're muted still. We can see you. Hi there. Hi. If you wouldn't mind just briefly introducing yourself and a very brief overview of the land use application. That would be fantastic. Sure. Um, Chris full auntie, a stewardship director, Kestrel and trust. And this is an application to do a few nights of owl banding. Um, on a portion of the sweet Alice conservation area. Up behind the pond, just off the trails up there. Um, which involves, um, it's very low impact. It involves setting up misnets, the same kind that are used for songbird banding. On slender poles inserted into the soil. Um, And, uh, suspending nets from those. Um, and other than that, the only, uh, Equipment up there is a small audio unit that we put up there to, to run a lure. To, uh, Bring the owls in. Um, And this is up upland away from the pond away from the wetlands. So outside the buffer zone. Um, And as I say, it's, uh, for several nights. Um, we'd be setting up, um, between, you know, Five and six getting going potentially. Being active until about 11 o'clock. Um, and on one of the nights, uh, We hope to hold up an event at the Kestrel property. At our office of inviting, um, Some members of the public to come, uh, With watch the, the banding. So what that involves is, um, the personnel, The trained personnel, um, Myself and, and the other map, The master bander who oversees this, um, Going out to retrieve the owls, The public stays on Kestrel's property and we bring the owls to them. Um, and that's where the event would take place. Great. Thank you. Um, so I'm also looking at the application. I don't have any additional questions. I guess the one thing that often comes up as parking and making sure There's a capacity, especially at night for everyone who might be in Attendance to safely park and travel to and from their vehicles To, um, where you guys will be bringing the bird, the owls, I guess, down to Kestrel. Um, so can you give me a quick overview of our parking plan? Yeah, we, we would hope to use the suite Alice, The new parking area, of course. Um, and these, the steps have been completed, which is great, Which will add to safety. And I think what we'll probably do is, Um, we always have our community engagement folks involved in this Kind of thing, and they'll probably have some, Greeting people down in the parking area and escorting them to Our to, you know, walking them to our property. Um, and also back if that's needed for folks and we'll probably, Uh, suggest that people bring, um, I mean, everybody has the Phone with a light, but you know, if they want to be able to Fashion, they can bring a flashlight. Um, so that that's how we're going to do it. And if there's anyone with mobility issues, then, um, There's a, there's space, uh, Directly adjacent to Kestrel's office. Okay. Great. Um, That's those were my, that's the only thing that pops to mind for me. Commissioners. I see. Fletcher. I do have a question. Yeah, just Chris. Who's the, um, The master Bander. That's Anthony Hill. Hill. Okay. I don't know. He said he's based in South Hadley. And he's, uh, A master Bander for songbirds and numerous other species. Uh, shorebirds owls. Um, and he, uh, Operated a software. Outbounding station in South Hadley for a number of years. Um, at his home and was a participant in the project. Owl net. Um, where we were, Which we were both participants of, um, Banding that species. Excellent. Thank you. Great. Michelle. Did you have an additional. Yeah. So I looked at the land use application. I saw there wasn't really, um, A prompt for this, but perhaps going forward when we have things like this, There could be submission of permit numbers for things like this because. Well, it may not be impactful to the wetlands necessarily is impactful to wildlife, especially when there's moving of animals and showing them in the light to people. But, um, I don't know Anthony Hill. I know Dave King is one of your advisors and he's a master of perimeter. And I assume this has been run by him, but do you mind submitting a permit number? Just. For our records. Sure. That's no problem. Okay. And maybe we could have that as part of the application in the future when sensitive species are involved in. Permits are needed to handle. Animals. That's a great suggestion. Thanks, Michelle. I don't know if it makes sense to change the land use application. Now. But let's come back to that. Separate from this particular land use application. Cause I know we, the other thing that always comes up with these land use applications is how we can then get the data collected as some of these. There's some of these. Exercises. Like we're always. People are always measuring flow in streams. They're taking the sentiment cores. And we never see the data. So that's another kind of amendment to the land use application. We've talked about in the past. So maybe next time there's time in another business part of the meeting, we could talk about. Edit or, you know, revisions to our land use application. If that's okay. Oh, there. Okay. Did you hear me hear that, Michelle? Is that all right with you? Yeah, yeah. I. Assume we do it today, but I think it's a consideration for. Great. Yeah, thank you. I don't know anything about that. Dave, I see you've patiently had your hand up. Sure. So I was just going to follow up a question for Chris. And I guess when we were thinking about parking, we didn't talk a lot about night. Night events. So. I'm, I'm kind of intrigued on. On kind of numbers. How many people are you thinking? I have done a lot of going back to my Hitchcock days. We used to run the, um, The Halloween events at the Hitchcock center. And I think in. Two or three nights, we would run something like 500 to 600 people through the trails at large Hill. Um, so, um, I know that's not nearly that many, but I'm just thinking. Of the average person who isn't out at night walking from the new parking area. Over the driveway over through the. Through the new steps and up. Are you thinking this is 15 people or, or how many people are, are you thinking this is? Yeah. We're still working out the details with our program staff. Um, But as you know, Dave, we've been thinking about parking at this place for a very long time. And we've always known it would be a limiting factor for events. Um, the, the event you just mentioned, um, that we hosted for our members. The way our staff, um, organized that was they did it by, by car loads. So they did it. They did it. They limited by, they limited it. By vehicle number. Um, so for instance, if the town wanted to, to tell us how many vehicles. You wanted in the parking area. On this, on a given night for this event, you could say limited to X vehicles. And we could do that. Um, The number you said 15 or so, that sounds. That's what we did. Um, the other thing I was, yeah, I was just trying. This event is, is the wildlife. You know, you don't want to have a big. Noisy group. Um, around, you know, Wild animals. You want to try to keep it into a controlled situation. Yeah, no, no. These kinds of demos are always small. Okay. Yeah. No, I, I think it's, yeah, I don't know as we want to set that number. I'm just saying from Kestrel standpoint. It's a lot. I was just out there this afternoon. It's a long way from the sweet Alice parking lot to your building in the dark. It is, it is going to be very dark out there. So I just, you know, the events you guys did a couple of weeks ago, that I was at her whenever it was last Sunday or the Sunday before, we're all during the day. On busy bay road. And I'm just saying, you know, Some folks with limited mobility, limited, uh, maybe, uh, Vision, you know, less than, than, um, 20, 20 vision. It's just, it's just, It's just, it's just, it's just, It's just, it's just, it's just, it's just. It's just, I really don't think you could have. I just, I don't think that I would have done it. Less than, um, 2020 vision. It's just, I just think you ought to think through. I don't think you can just point toward the driveway. Um, and, and the stairs. It's, it's a long way. So I'm just, I'm sorry to interrupt, but as I said earlier, we're thinking about having escorts. Okay. To and from. Yeah, I would think too. Yeah. And these kind of events do tend to be self limiting. a lot of information out there so that people can self sort. And, you know, most people recognize if it's not the sort of event for them, you know, we would certainly mention the walking and the darkness and the cold, all these things that make outbending events, not everybody's cup of tea. Right. Have you done night events? Has Castro done night events like this where you've invited people before? We did. We did actually do one at this facility, yes, at this house when Paul was living there. Yep. Okay. And in that case, in that case, we, you know, we didn't have parking. We didn't have your beautiful parking area. And we actually shuttled people over from Atkins. We got permission to park people there and shuttle them. Okay, yeah, I've done, I've let Alprowls for 20 years and it's just a whole different experience getting people out there in the dark. Yeah, but in this case, the only wandering is really from the, like you said, from the parking area to the house. And then they're going to be at the house. They don't go anywhere from there. Perfect. Okay. Good. All right. That was my only question, kind of logistics and safety and, yeah, making sure you all have folks out there to help people. Yep. Well, as you know, our community crew is very, they've had a lot of experience with events. So thanks, Dave. Those were good thoughts. How many owls would you expect to ban? Well, not many. I mean, it depends. It always depends with these guys, I mean, sometimes they show up in flurries. But if the purpose of being there is to really hold the event, we would even just release some owls without banning potentially just to keep things moving along. So I've had events where we were lucky to have one owl show up. And I've had events where, you know, people were happy as clams because there was an owl every 20 minutes. So it just depends. We try to pick a good night. This particular timing is key to the new moon. There's some, seems to be some correlation to small owls not wanting to move around a lot in bright moon situations because they're prey also. So if there's not much light, they might be more active. So that's why we timed it for this time period. I hope we get a chance to ban them if we're going to catch them. Might as well get the data, right? Yeah, that's what we always feel. But we also don't want them sitting around too long waiting to be banded. So, but yeah, that's what we've always done in the past. We could just crank them through and we could even have two people banding at the same time. How many nets are you going to have? How many nets are you putting up? Probably an array of four. With two banders? Yep. And two people checking the nets? Yep. I've done owl banding. So I've you sound like it. Yeah. Yeah. Just don't want to stress birds out too much. Exactly. Well, we can also, you know, there's ways to control. You close nets. If you get busy, you do what you have to do during a demo situation to keep the birds, the benefit of the bird is always the priority always with banding. And so, but as I say, I think my most common experience with the demos is please, please, please let there be an owl. Okay. Well, last chance for questions. I think we have a couple just, just notes about making sure there's a plan for safe transportation between the Sweet Owls parking area and the building. But aside from that, commissioners, any other questions? Okay. Then I think we're looking for a motion to approve the Kestrel Land Trust land use application. I move up to approve the Kestrel Land Trust land use application. Second. All right. Voice vote, Larry. Yes. Michelle. Aye. Lutcher. Aye. LaRoy. Aye. Laura. Aye. Anna. Aye. And I'm an aye. Okay. Thank you very much, Chris. I hope there's the right amount of owls and they can be appreciated and learned from without being stressed out. Great. Thanks for your time. We promise not to stress the owls. Oh my gosh, owls are my favorite. That sounds amazing. Sign up. I mean, I'm going to keep an eye out for it. It sounds amazing. Good luck. Thank you. We'll let you know how it goes. Okay. Great. Thanks. All right. Did you just demote her? I did not. Oh, but she left. Yeah, usually people, I don't even know how to remove somebody. I, because I don't want to just kick them out of the meeting altogether. Usually I just wait for them to depart. Oh, I go too. Yeah. Okay. Well, anyway, Dave, your hand is still up. Do you have more to tell us? Okay. All right. So it's 736, Erin. Should we get going with hearings? Yes, please. Okay. Just pulling up the agenda. All right. So our first, our first 730 agenda item is an RDA oh, from the town of Amherst for expansion of a paved parking area at the baby carriage broke treatment plant. Is somebody going to be here to discuss that, Erin? Yes, Beth Wilson's here. Okay. I should. Beth, hello. I just promoted you to panelists. There's Beth. Hello. Good. It's nice to see your face. Yeah. So, Beth, for those of us who are new, would you mind just briefly introducing yourself and then giving us an overview of the application? Sure. I'm Beth Wilson. I'm the environmental scientist with the Department of Public Works and Amherst. And this is a project at the baby carriage broke water treatment plant. It's off of Southeast Street on the well number four access road. So can I, I can share, right? I can share stuff. Okay. Yeah. I just want to share the plan. Yes. You should be able to, Beth. If you have trouble, let me know. Yeah. Can you guys see it? No. If not, I can share it on my end. Share application. Yes. Oh, good. Figure two. Yeah. You can see it? Yes. Okay. Great. Right. So this is a project at the baby carriage broke water treatment plant. This is the water treatment plant here. And there's a small isolated wetland just north of where the project area is going to be. And that's actually on conservation land. This square, I don't know if you can see my cursor moving, but the water treatment plan is on a sort of a square, small square parcel on by the town that's under the water department, but then it's abutted on all three sides to the northeast and south by Atkins Flats conservation area. So the wetland is actually on conservation land. But the project is to improve the parking area by expanding it to the north and then also paving it. So the whole hatched area there with the arrow going across it is the new parking area location. Currently there's a gravel parking area there that comes right up to the water treatment plant building and then heads to the east and really becomes the well for access road. So we are expanding the area of the parking area and paving paving the area to the reason is that the water treatment plant gets a lot of shipments and they get shipments on large trucks, 10 wheeler trucks and then turning around, even just parking for the trucks is difficult. Turning around certainly is, they often end up basically going where this driveway is going to be placed anyway and that north area is grass right now. So they drive on to the grass, they make very deep ruts in the grass, they make ruts in the gravel parking area part two and they often get stuck. It happens a couple of times a year that a truck will get stuck down there and have trouble getting out and some have even had to be towed out. So that's the basic idea of it is to improve it for truck access and delivery access. The paved area will be pitched to the northeast so the arrow there is showing the plan for drainage. It'll be sheet flow to the northeast so it won't be going towards the wetland. There'll be erosion control between the work area and the wetland and the construction is basically to dig down a foot. So dig out the gravel, the current gravel parking area a foot, put down quarter inch stone, one and a quarter inch stone as sub grade and then pave over it. So in addition, we're going to repave part of the driveway. So if you look going to the west there you can see the hatched area of the driveway that we're planning to repave. So that part's already paved but it's extremely rutted. It's to the point where small cars are like leaning when you're trying to drive down it. It's so rutted. So that's part of the project too. Just to repave 260 feet I believe of the driveway and then pave the parking area to expand and pave the parking area. What else can I tell you about it? I guess we're going to put fabric down too if needed so if when we dig down a foot and excavate the gravel if it's if there's enough saturation we would use fabric beneath the one and a quarter inch stone sub grade. And I think that's that's generally it. Okay thanks Beth. Before we go to questions or comments Erin do you have site visit photos you can show us? I do. I'm jumping back and forth between screens trying to get to the right one. Okay so this is standing with your back to the building looking out directly towards the wetland and then turning to the east looking out at the conservation land. This is looking down the well number four driveway. That's the existing delivery area that's fenced in. This is the building itself and then that's the driveway that's going to be repaid that's proposed to be repaved. Okay thanks Erin. Commissioners any clarifying questions or comments? It seems to me that making it safer so that trucks carrying chemicals don't get stuck next to our resource is probably a wise move. But if anyone has any questions on kind of the details of the plan anyone not seeing anything? Okay great and then quickly we have a number of attendees in the meeting public participants in the meeting right now. If you're here about this for this hearing and this RDA hearing for the time of town of Amherst DPW driveway parking expansion at well number four just raise your hand. Not seeing anyone. Okay great well it seems like Erin has suggested oh Dave I can't hear you Dave. How about now? Oh yeah yeah this is more something for the future I don't think we certainly don't have any bandwidth but there are many times where I I do go down to Atkins Flats and I am I'm always struck by the fact that we have no parking down there. So something I'd like to investigate I don't you know Atkins Flats was preserved by the town long before any of us worked for the town but I you know there's certainly there's public access you know thousands of people go down in Lawrence swamp every year I see many people hiking and walking their dogs and mountain biking down that road and not to suggest that that any of that is part of this project but it is interesting and something I'd like to look into in the future is to say you know what is what is our plan for for more formalized public access down there at some some point in the future so um anyway I'll just put that out there as as on our to-do list to look into. Yeah agreed great point Dave it is hard to park anywhere near there um okay if there is no further comments from the commission it looks like Aaron had some um suggested conditions so installing erosion controls prior to start of work which Beth mentioned um erosion controls as a limit of work and that's what it looks like on the plan upon completion of work area must be stabilized with seed and strong mulch erosion controls must stay in place until vegetation is fully established and final inspection by wetland administrator prior to removing erosion controls is that all right on your end Beth? Sounds good okay great so commissioners if no one has any additional conditions or question or comments I'm looking for a draft motion to issue a positive determination under the way. I was so ready I was so ready to read the whole thing but you I think you just missed it John. I think that's what it is. I know you're fine um I moved to issue a positive determination under the local buttons bylaw and a negative determination under the wetlands protection act box three for the town of Amherst dpw driveway parking expansion at well number four with the uh conditions as listed currently on this page do you want me to read them? That I just read. I'm gonna second that. The gen just read beautifully great thanks for the second Fletcher okay voice vote Anna. Hi. Fletcher. Hi. Larry. Hi. Leroy. Hi. Michelle. Hi. Hi Laura. Ah Laura thank you sorry the names keep moving around and I'm an I. It's an I for everyone Aaron. Thank you. Thank you Beth. Oh thank you. Good luck with the project. Sorry John I should have just pulled a Larry and I didn't but I apologize. It's okay. Not a big deal at all um you know what I realized I didn't open that hearing Aaron. Oh you're just we just got a roll with it I think it happens. I'm sorry I even have it right here. You I mean it's it's okay it it it happens there are commissions who don't even do it so we'll just just keep moving forward. Get past it. Okay. It's okay. You're time to make it up right now Jen let's go. Okay all right um our 735 RDA um I didn't want to pronounce this last name wrong. Anna Marie Gitsen um Gitsen for a placement not to correct me for a placement of existing swimming pool in the buffer zone to bordering vegetated wetland at 407 old farms road um and I'm going to open this RDA hearing this public meeting is now called to order this meeting is being held as required by the persons of chapter 131 section 40 of the general laws of the commonwealth and act relative to the protection of wetlands as most recently amended and article 3.31 wetlands protection under the town of Amherst general bylaws um Aaron words is there somebody did you already promote? Yes I promoted Yvette who I've been speaking with um but if there's anybody else on the call that is present for this hearing you can raise your hand and we can promote you to a panelist um okay Yvette um I think you're there can you hear us? So just in case she has trouble and I'll I just asked her to unmute herself um but if she called in she might have trouble unmuting. But uh okay Yvette if you can hear us feel free to jump in at any moment and I'm just gonna um kind of go over some basics of the application as long as um as long as we're waiting so this is a replacement of an above ground pool it's um it is jurisdictional only under our local bylaw um because um there is a minor activities exemption under the wetland protection act that deck sheds patios and pools that are over 50 feet from the wetland are exempt from wetland protection act so this is bylaw only um it's an in kind replacement there's no ground disturbance or vegetation removal that's proposed as part of this application I'm just going to jump to the photos really quickly so I can show you the site forgive me for the delay I just have to jump around between screens okay so this is what the backyard looks like it's a grassed backyard with a fence and a vegetated um buffer behind it that the wetland is um approximately 80 feet behind the pool based on um using a um DEP wetland layer so it's really just sort of a um you know it's a general requirement under our bylaw that somebody file a permit like this for work that's within 100 feet that's exempt under wetland protection formality I guess I would say um and uh my recommendations are included on here don't have any concerns with what's being proposed um I think the biggest issue is no draining of the pool into the buffer zone or the resource area okay thanks Erin um commissioners any questions or clarifications uh just Erin how do you I mean how are they not gonna drain the pool I mean you're just saying they're just just drain it more into the yard um you know what I mean like most yeah I mean in the in the past um there are I've I've seen um pump trucks trucks and pump it out all the time like a tank truck comes and takes the old water it fills new pool with new water they could drain it theoretically to an upland but it's pretty residential and um that goal pond is like right across almost right across the street there's wetland across the street too so I don't think draining it on site would really be a great solution unfortunately gotcha okay thanks watcher any other comments or questions commissioner um and we do still have a number of public participants in the meeting um so if you are here in attendance and you have comment or question about the 407 old farms road RDA permit application please raise your hand all right I'm not seeing anyone so commissioners um it looks like Erin has some listed recommended conditions um first erosion controls must be installed to serve as a limit of work to no draining of pool water into buffer resource area three any disturbance must be fully stabilized with seed and straw mulch for final inspection by wetland administrator prior to removing erosion controls we're looking for a motion all right uh I move the issue of positive determination under the town of amherst bylaw approving the pool replacement at 407 old farms road with the recommended conditions as just listed by our chair second thank you all right Anna I watcher I LaRoy Larry hi Michelle hi Laura hi did I already say Anna hi okay and I'm an I all right thank you any bad thank you thank you oh there she is oh good thank you we're here enjoy I'm sorry I did not handle that last name well no disrespect intended um good luck with your pool replacement um okay Yvette I'm gonna give you back to attendee all right um next up another RDA um all in confino confine confino for removal of shrubs and installation of offence in the buffer zone to um board and vegetated wetland at 30 hedgerow lane um and I think I saw Alan here so I'm going to move you to a panelist um was there anyone else Aaron that you noticed I should just be it should just be alone I think okay alone great and um I'll let I'll he asked me to sort of present it a little bit on his behalf but um I'll let you know I don't want to jump in and interrupt him and introducing himself I think you got to go ahead Aaron okay you can do it's much better than I can okay so first I'll start with some photos um and I hope I'm pronouncing his name correctly as well so um they're hoping to do some shrub removal and install offence for their dogs in their backyard and they're on the um the outer extent of the 100 foot buffer zone with their proposal um sorry about that let me get to the plan set and show you that so um I believe um Ward Smith did the delineation for these folks um so it was a formal delineation was done just to determine where the boundary was located of the wetland um and then they um there is a wetland report from um Ward that was included in the packet it was submitted to us somewhere Ward gave us a report um but anyways um they so they did take measurements from what I understand from sorry this is really difficult to do when I'm um sharing the screen in a remote computer while running and meeting but um they from Ward's flagging they took measurements to where their proposed limit of clearing was located um and so this kind of gives you a sense of how far the fencing is um and the removal of the vegetation is from the wetlands themselves and um every yard um neighboring them is cleared all the way back to the property line theirs is very heavily vegetated as you could see from the photos with shrubs so I don't I don't have any concerns with them um with what they've proposed I do have some recommended conditions apologize air messages um I can read their recommended conditions while we wait for you to pull it up and so the recommended conditions are erosion controls must be installed to serve as a limit of work no oh wrong one sorry 30 hydro lane um install erosion controls prior to start of work erosion controls shall serve as a limit of work upon completion of work the area must be stabilized with seed and strong mulch erosion controls must stay in place until the vegetation is fully established and final inspection by wetland administrator prior to removing erosion controls finally proper removal of invasive species offsite in landfill so we kind of got ahead of ourselves there for a second Aaron is that kind of the background that you wanted to give us on the project yeah there one other point is there is extensive invasive species in the in the yard um glossy buckthorn multi-floor rose bitter sweet vines everywhere so the area where they're proposing to take the shrubs out is basically just a little invasive species cluster there okay commissioners any questions not seeing anything okay um again I should just check we still have a number of public participants in the meeting if you have any questions about this rda for 30 hydro lane please raise your hand not seeing anyone okay um once again we're looking for a draft motion that I believe that I'll move to issue a positive termination under a local wetlands bylaw and a negative termination on a wetlands protection act for 30 hydro lane for shrub removal and fencing I think Laura got the second that's all right I'm gonna do a voice vote uh Fletcher Larry hi Leroy hi Michelle hi Laura hi Hannah hi and I'm an eye all eyes Aaron wonderful okay great progress everyone thanks a lot um yeah thank you very much your outfit thank you best of luck with the project great so the next is our 745 and it's eight so we're good to go this is the anrad um this is SWCA for confirmation of resource area boundaries at 52 Fearing Street um so let's see this is a continuation so I don't have to open a hearing um and probably we have Mickey not seeing so um Mickey did request a continuance on this and there's a correspondence in the folder requesting a continuation on this that's right and um I did respond to to Mickey's request for a continuance and let him know that um it was rather important that the status of the stream be discussed tonight for the sake of not holding up the project um I provided the commission uh findings of fact that I basically on a research that I've done um so Aaron let's just back up and remind everyone um sort for the benefit of the commissioners but also it looks like we have 17 attendees and I'm guessing this is the reason that they're here um so just to catch everyone up um SWCA um submitted uh um application um for a resource area delineation at 52 Fearing Street whether Fearing Brook or sorry whether Tan Brook is considered intermittent and that is that it doesn't flow consistently all year long versus perennial is very important to how we understand and protect this given this surface water resource um and so really at the heart of this applications in order for us to move forward we need to make a decision about whether Tan Brook is intermittent or perennial um at this location in the brook um this is easier much easier said than done um the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection um has very complicated complex necessarily complex guidance um on how we understand or determine whether a stream is intermittent and perennial um and they require that you use a USGS online tool an interactive mapping tool um to first delineate a drainage area that contributes flow to the your point your location on a stream and then use that size and then some of the geologic features in the stream to determine if the stream is perennial and that threshold is about half a square mile in this case when we just use the stream stats tool straight out um when we delineate the contributing area um from this point 52 fairing street on Tan Brook it says that Tan Brook is less than a half a square mile however anecdotally we know that Tan Brook is um has enough flow of it for all of the year and further has a lot more flow than a typical intermittent stream might um so we have reason to believe that the contributing area to this point on Tan Brook is actually larger than what stream stats um spits out when we put it in stream stats so Erin um thankfully we also have some GIS expertise in Erin um and she has gone through and done a fact-finding effort around how we delineate um Tan Brook the drainage area for Tan Brook um at 52 fairing street um so um I think that's a okay 30 000 foot summary um so what we're really trying to get at as a commission here tonight is to go through um Erin's finding a fact about how we designate Tan Brook discuss it as a commission get a chance to ask questions and kind of make a decision as a commission um how we feel or what the facts lead us towards for the designation of Tan Brook as intermittent or perennial at 52 fairing street um is that okay Erin do they miss it? It is it is the only concern I have is that Mickey is not here um and I don't know that anybody else representing them is here because they submitted a request for continuance to me and I responded saying I think we need to discuss the status of the stream tonight my concern is they've already revised the plan they submitted the revised plan showing Emily's Emily Stockman our peer viewers from Stockman & Associates did the third party review and found that there were more wetlands on the site than what was on the original plan so Mickey has revised SWCA has revised the plan to add in those flags that Emily added as a result of her peer review my concern is so right now Emily's doing sort of a final review of that revised plan and then she's going to say to us yes all of the wetland flags are there so at the next meeting theoretically there's going to be a revised plan ready for approval or ready for issuance of an ORAD so an order of resource area delineation so if we don't talk about this tonight then we're not going to have a revised plan for the next meeting on which to issue an order and I feel like I don't want this to hold up issuance of the order um at the same time the applicant's representative is not here so we could review the finding effect um and wait till the next meeting and have it hold things up or it's really I would defer to you Jen on how you'd want to proceed on that Can I ask a quick question too? Did we ask that um well in this case Emily Stockman to do what you just what you have done Erin? Did we ask her to do the watershed review? Yeah where did we end up with that? So that fell in how did that I guess I'm confused that that went on to your plate I thought we asked yes have you created to get somebody else to do that for you? There's a couple reasons why that happened um so first off during the last the last hearing when the third party was discussed and the need for the watershed review was discussed it wasn't entirely clear how that was going to take place um we I mean we knew what needed to happen but it wasn't entirely clear how from a peer review standpoint we were going to handle that the reason is because we knew that the wetlands needed to be looked at but we also knew the watershed needed to be looked at and so the the peer reviewer that was hired was hired to look at the wetlands it wasn't in her scope to look at all that and and Mickey did object actually to paying for a review of the watershed so and there a watershed study like that is not trivial um it is a big effort that you would have to bring in an engineering consultant um to do right that's what I thought yeah so I thought I wasn't then I then you then you provided your fact-finding research too so I just that's where I got confused because I remember hearing that this was like an engineering consultant or firm kind of type of so in the end we ended up that's what I was asking anyway Aaron yeah so in the end I think that the hope was to have sort of a desktop review completed a desktop review looking at the digital elevation model the contours the drainage to get a sense of if the watershed was in fact correctly modeling in the stream stack software and so that's kind of how this all started was me taking a look at that and I actually took a look at it with Mike Warner who's our GIS coordinator for the town so he I worked with him in conjunction initially and then um sort of just ran with it um because I knew what needed to be done but the other thing we should say is that Aaron's work that she's done is entirely reproducible so none of it is um like a judgment call you know she used reproducible tools in ArcGIS she used published data sets to do this work so if somebody were to pick it up and try to recreate what they did they could immediately and Aaron's done a good job documenting that so to answer your question Fletcher I think this was a middle ground in order for us to see if there was a case to be made uh for Fearingbrook to be perennial rather than intermittent yeah no I it was great I followed right along like you did an excellent job I was like I agree I agree yeah it was simple but it was great I was just wondering how Emily and Jen both QA'd that um and and that is basically formulated to address our town attorney's recommendations for how to review this and how to make a decision on this considering this being a very unusual situation and um just wanted to mention we made every effort to get an opinion from DEP I reached out to Mark Stinson I reached out to um Tom McGuire Tom sorry I've been talking to so many people Tom McGuire DEP will not give us an opinion on this just um in case it goes to appeal they will not give an opinion on it they said use your best judgment and that was it so and follow your your town attorney's recommendations so that's that I feel like is kind of the only guidance that we had and what we had to do so here we are so the decision here is do we feel comfortable making a decision as a as a council about designation of Tanbrook without the representative of the applicant present at the meeting the alternative I mean I don't think I um I know sometimes we talk about it and then we push it to the next you know and then we make the decision in the next meeting but by the time we get to the next meeting we have to rehash it all anyway so it doesn't really save us time um and if we feel like we need to do it in the presence make a decision in the presence of the the representative of the applicant I feel like we should discuss it with the representative the applicant here so I think it's kind of either we do it and we make a decision now without the representative of the applicant or we wait and continue it to the next meeting um but I would love others commissioners inputs I think we continue right now yeah okay others Fletcher looks torn or I mean I agree with Larry I like but it would be nice just to get this over with yeah yeah I'm kind of want to make how can we just be like I mean we clearly agree with Erin but the applicant's not here she did a good job but what's the applicant going to say could differ from what we're going to do but we can look at the stuff that's come up and make the decision on that I think we can do that with or without the uh applicant here but you just said to continue so you're doing it now I say oh continue oh I see okay do it now okay do it now that was confusing oh I think I continue no I want to do it now all right so let's just do uh like you know get a feel for the room here can I ask it can I ask the clarifier there's no reason why we would be discussing this other than this um it's an anrad or anno or anno sorry I'm forgetting yeah so there's no other reason why we would be discussing this point on Fearingbrook other than this and uh you just said anrad right sorry other than anrad is that correct correct yeah so this isn't right this isn't like overlapping other hearings I know I I worry about setting a precedent of discussing and making decisions on projects without the people without the people who are submitting the application having a chance to weigh in especially when they explicitly asked us to continue the hearing that being said we do have a number of folks from the public here and I'm wondering if we can also continue with public comment to note that if the applicant can't hear it either right and so there's a lot that for me is feeling not really not fair to this applicant or future applicants if we set that precedent but this is all recorded but they're not here to respond to questions or to hear things and and and respond Larry so it's part of the discord yeah I agree I 100% agree with Anna I also asked I said that we we needed to discuss it tonight to not hold up the hearing further and that was communicated so I just want to make sure that that's clear to you guys that I did respond to the request for the continuance in state I think it's important for us to discuss this matter this evening so that we don't hold up this hearing any further and so can we track I'm sorry he didn't reply to that right correct Aaron okay go ahead and we're just responding to a finding of fact and we can look at the facts and make it say but I agree that the other the aggravated party isn't here but we can just respond to that I think I mean Jen can we can we make our best attempt to do that so Aaron are you saying what you said to Mickey and company I'm sorry my dog is breathing so close to my headphones if you can hear it it's not it's not me like panting sorry but are you saying that are you saying you told Mickey that we would make a decision in a determination or that we would just discuss it I mean can we make our best attempt at at not rehashing it in the next meeting and just moving right to the vote or are you saying it's all this meeting or or nothing but this is this is verbatim what I wrote thank you yeah no no it's important I'm glad you asked thank you Mickey in an effort to keep this permit moving the commission will need to discuss the status of tanbrook tonight to come to a consensus on whether it is perennial or intermittent I don't want that discussion to hold up the proceedings of the next meeting I agree on the other plan revisions and we'll look forward to Emily's review thank you so to me that sounds like we can discuss and come to a preliminary decision on on tanbrook and that I mean that's how I would read that is that we need to settle this part of the discussion no yes maybe and I mean ultimately right if we for we accept Aaron's work let's say that seems like at the moment we are it doesn't change the anrad but it does have implications for future possible well that means that there's river trying to think about like it's perennial it means that there's a river it means river right yeah it's just it's a big deal one of my things about it is if we can come to the conclusion about that they can always challenge it and ask for a outside engineer in your view of this so at least which they probably will do but at least not to that point where we've made a decision about what we think about the finding of facts that that Aaron has found do you guys want to just present the finding so that it's clear to everyone the reasoning and rationale for this discussion so my gut is saying um while I think it's you know while I'm dying to dig into this finding a fact and I think it's very well done and I kind of can anticipate where we're headed as a commission at my gut is saying that in order for the everything to be on very solid footing for this decision being made and how it like how it impacts this application and applicant I think that we should continue to the next meeting um I think this is yeah and I think this is when we want to be on really solid footing yeah I think that's the hard decision but the right decision unfortunately um so so actually is it when we when we look at this and make evaluate this and defining the facts the the uh uh they are not going to be commenting until after we've done that isn't that correct yeah but it impacts like all the work they have to do to redo the plans for the project so if we right so if if it entirely changes like how what the scope of the next meeting is for the applicant um yeah which is why it holds up the process right yeah um Michelle Leroy did you guys have any gut or additional knowledge to feelings to share on this I I also want to note I see a couple of attendees um with their hands raised I am not ignoring you I'm trying to figure out how this is going to work procedurally um so just hang tight we'll uh we'll get there thank you um yeah Michelle Leroy um I guess I'm disappointed that the applicant didn't come to the meeting tonight given that he was um strongly encouraged strongly encouraged that we're asked to but I I get and agree with the the extreme implications going forward that um a continuation would put us a more solid footing with the big decision that we have to make thanks Michelle yeah Leroy I uh it's interesting this particular applicant has a lot of resources I feel like we might have seen someone else but uh that said it's clear we can't really make a final decision tonight but to Alex's point to Larry's point even with the recorded I don't see a reason we can't always have a discussion let's just hear from the public get another section of it out of the way in uh preparation for next minute okay um so it seems like we're pretty much split your chair you make the decision well so I was gonna say Dave if you're still sitting there and you have any wisdom or guidance in this situation that this would be a great time to chime in he's probably off in another meeting now um okay I am I am here Jen okay thanks Dave I am here and listening um this is a tough one I I I do tend to agree with you Jen that my gut tells me that you know without the applicant present it just seems like the right thing to do to continue this good this discussion could be communicated to the applicant um and but it just seems like the right thing to do that we normally would not proceed without the applicant present but again I defer to you and and the other commissioners on how to proceed okay um so right now it seems like sorry go ahead Erin I was just gonna say from a procedural standpoint if we continue and don't render a decision tonight what that means is that at the next meeting we're gonna have another continuance even if the wetland line is perfect we're gonna have another continuance so we're kicking the can down the road which scares me because of some other projects we have coming down the line um but I also understand that we want to be cautious about making making yeah I think this is important enough and we want to make sure that the decision we made we make um can like stick and so I think doing it in as fair way possible is the right thing to do um so let's go through uh one more time so with that you know additional knowledge does anyone kind of so it sounds like LaRoy we might have convinced you that waiting until the next meeting is an okay tack the tape okay all right all right so okay thanks Larry Fletcher are you gonna oh no you're okay yeah I trust you okay great thank you um so we're gonna continue and we'll discuss the finding effect and the designation of tanbrook as perennial are intermittent at our next meeting which will be October 27th um Erin can we take public comment I don't I mean the public is here they're raising their hand I don't see any reason not to I mean I'm not sure that we should open up like a huge firestorm of um you know but if people are raising their hand to speak okay yeah I see Barbara and Ralph I see you guys thank you for your patience um so just to summarize we've decided as a commission that since the representative of the applicant for this um anrad application is not present that we're going to continue our discussion and decision on the designation of print tanbrook to on our next meeting um I do want to hear any questions or comments you guys have um again because we can't really discuss the details of this anrad at this meeting as we just decided as a commission um I would appreciate it if you just keep your questions or comments relatively brief um so Barbara I'm going to allow you to talk um I see you I see your picture welcome back so my first question my first question I mean I um it seems to me that the status of tanbrook has come up in two or three recent applications toward this board so the fact that there's nothing else current pending doesn't mean that it doesn't keep coming up and it hasn't kept up and it it's always been kind of puzzling to me as to why it's sometimes adjudicated this way and then for other things it's adjudicated the other way and it just seems like we have a really good opportunity now to figure it out I don't know so I I see your point that it's the only one it doesn't overlap with something else currently but it has it has a history of overlapping yeah so I mean I'm a little disappointed to see that um we don't get to hear what Erin found um yeah um and I also don't understand exactly I mean I heard you say river front or this or that but has any plan been entered for development on this thing I mean we've seen the flags but we haven't we've seen we've seen a diagram with the flags and now you tell us that the flags have changed a little bit um but we still don't know I mean I've heard rumors that there's x number of units that have been proposed or y number of units that have been proposed but I haven't seen it or heard it officially yeah hold on a second Larry so I'm gonna I'm gonna address those two um questions in order so and then well I'm gonna address the first one and then let Erin pick up for the second one but so the reason that we're not or a good part of the reason that we're not discussing or designating tan brook as perennial or intermittent in this in in this meeting is because we know it has implications um I mean technically really if we designate this point on tan brook as perennial it means that anything downstream from here would also be perennial so we are taking this very we're being very careful to make sure that we treat this process with respect and we cross the t's and dot the i's so that we're able to protect this resource as best as we possibly can under existing regulations um so we recognize that while at issue here is this resource area delineation for this particular process the designation of tan brook has far reaching implications um so that is the that in fact is the reason that we're handling this as carefully as we can um and then to your question about what actually is going on at 52 faring what we have in front of us right now is a resource area delineation um we don't have any permits for development of the property in front of us as a commission um i'm going to let erin give you an overview of why it works that way um so erin do you just want to give your very solid regulatory overview of how where how we go from anrad to ny etc um just so briba understands where the other intersection points are for public comment yeah so with like a simple single family house law a lot of times an application will come through with the delineation and the proposed work all in one shot and that's usually like on a small lot that's um you know half acre to say maybe two or three acres but on a larger lot like this um it's not uncommon to do a an anrad first um to to confirm the boundaries and a lot of times that's for planning purposes so that it can be determined what is even available on the on the space in order to um move forward with any kind of plan but yeah i'm i'm not familiar with any plan i haven't seen any plan or nothing has come across my desk yeah so we don't know um what any development plans are look like and they probably don't know until they know what's available the land they have to work with so so that there would be a i'm sorry i was just gonna add there would be another point if they were going to be doing work within the areas that would fall under our jurisdiction where they'd have to come back to us again um with a plan that then there would be a further avenue for public comment on any plan that is received so it's two separate parts of the process so i'm wondering about larry's suggestion um which seemed fairly strong that um they could challenge it and then it would be on them to do the study yeah and they can challenge it it would be kind of good i mean they're gonna challenge it you know if they're gonna challenge it they can do it now and they can do it at the next meeting um by delaying to the next meeting we're making sure we're following procedures and including them in the discussion so they get a chance to be heard um you know if we were to designate tan brook as something you know as perennial instead of intermittent at this meeting it would we would certainly discuss it again at the next meeting um so yeah it doesn't really it only just makes sure that we're inclusive and that we're protecting the public discourse around the resource um and again like the bottom line of our intentions is to be able to protect tan brook as best as we possibly can because that's what our job is right can i ask a clarifying question uh jen and erin uh erin your fact finding is that in our meeting packet which is publicly available yes uh anybody who i mean it's now part of the public record right anybody who wants to to see it can request it from me um yeah so if you really wanted to look at it they you could prior to discussion that's a great point on it thank you thank you it's actually a good idea yeah i have one of those once in a while yeah so um if you wanted to see the finding effect barbara you could get in touch with erin thank you any anyone can yes anyone in the public can even even the proposer even the thank you larry yes let's not overrun erin here okay um okay barbara thank you for being here again um and just keep an eye out for the october 27th agenda i'm gonna um see people talking and rolf um thank you you've been very patient i'm gonna allow you to join us now am i visible you are not visible but we can hear my audible you are all right great so i really do appreciate the the care and caution you guys are taking on this issue um i realized the the gravity of it the importance of it i have a couple questions first an observation i think erin did a remarkable job in informing the applicant and providing every opportunity for them to come i think other people who didn't have the same resources might not be getting the same i mean once you're given that opportunity it's on the applicant to attend a meeting that has profound impacts on their application so i would say you'd be on very solid to say we have we have done our due diligence we are very clear in what we're doing and the applicant decided not to come that's their decision right that so i was very and when i heard larry discussing you know his idea that we should just do it i i totally resonated with me you've done everything i think you need to do to have a very thorough discussion and then they can react the strategy i don't you know if there's a there's not a strategy involved but if it is a strategy on their part of delaying yet again so that they can come back with you know prevent you from making a decision i would find that you know because they would then have time to prepare and come and talk to you during the meeting that to me i would think would be pretty disingenuous and i hope that is not what they're doing by ignoring the invitation for a very important discussion tonight i mean that that's stunning right i find it's stunning that they would elect not to come to the pivotal discussion on their application so just consider that um my question i guess has to do with the downstream implications i think genu said this would this would make downstream perennial my understanding is it already is i don't think there would be any change if you came to that decision today my understanding is that tandrick through my property is a perennial stream it was only designated intermittent in on the request from joel greenbound for a property up closer to mclellan i believe where it comes out of the out of up from under the piping so i don't think your decision today would have profound implications for any change of status for the creek through my property which is on the north side of fearing as it goes toward the university my final question is how and if this this decision would impact the dormitory that's being built basically a budding tan brook by the university so the town we as neighbors were a part of a meeting on thursday or wednesday where they presented us the final version of a 600 dorm undergraduate 600 bed undergraduate dormitory that will be and um graduate housing that will be basically in the place of the current lincoln apartments and the whole parking lot next to the so the visitor center at umass and especially the lincoln apartments they basically their wall goes down to within a few feet of tan brook and i actually they didn't share the setbacks on that but i saw some drawings that basically had this new huge complex almost on tan brook so i'm wondering if this decision if that if the commission is aware of that and what the setback is and how that fits into this decision of a perennial stream and i think i'll stop there thank you um thank you for that solid input and guidance rop i appreciate it um i'm trying to think about how to best kind of discuss and respond um erin do you want to take the last point about how this would impact already proceeding projects yeah so the answer is it really depends um we had an anrad before us in 2019 which i was here for about a month and i didn't know any of this background on tan brook there was a an anrad that was filed by the university in 2019 for um some property that is at the end of tan brook right before it goes under the parking lot at mass av and there was a significant amount of bank that was confirmed as part of that order so as long as that order is active and valid then that determination that delineation is approved regardless of whether it's downstream of this site and you know it's well i'm not even gonna i'm not even gonna comment on it anymore but that's basically okay and erin so my understanding is that you know right now the part of tan brook that's considered perennials only the part that shows up on a usgs topo so there is some distance below 52 faring street that would be impacted by us deciding that if we were to decide that no the only property that's impacted by this anrad is this is the subject property as part of this application there is no that anytime you move a point in a stream stats application it changes the watershed delineation in every site we do that review on every permit that comes to us and and you know getting back to barbara's question about why is it different on this site than that site it all depends where you place that point and so for example if i place that point 500 feet downstream from where my current point was or upstream rather it might it will change the overall calculation of watershed size because it would reduce the watershed size if i went upstream from where i was so every site is different in terms of the watershed but if you are to move downstream and delineate a point downstream of 52 faring street the contributing area only gets larger so that is correct setting a precedent if we were to decide that tanbrook is perennial at 52 faring street that's setting a precedent for for arguing that it could be considered perennial downstream of there correct it would only be determined though if somebody filed a permit and wanted to do the work yes yeah and if they didn't already have a determination that was valid that was not expired for a boundary that the commission had already approved on a legal permit um and so ralph i think your first point was just about you know reflecting on the decision to wait until we have our our applicant again you know i think this could be read a lot of different ways it doesn't really help i think what's the most important is understanding that um we can't we're not we can't make a decision to move forward at this meeting so this was going to be continued to make a final decision until the next meeting no matter what we discussed tonight and so instead of discussing it tonight we're deciding discuss it in two weeks when we have the applicant's representative present um so i think i mean you heard the witness the discussion it wasn't made easily i think we all want to move forward with this as efficiently as possible um but ultimately with the information we have available we feel that this is the best way to ultimately protect tan brook um understood if i'm still audible i i do appreciate the care you're taking on this i'm not disagreeing with the decision yeah it's a very challenging one it's a tricky one pointing out what it looked like from from the audience here yeah and so i hope i've just made it clear that you know we're using the information we have available and the experience we have available and the scientific knowledge we have available to try to navigate this in a way that protects tan brook as best as we possibly can that's very much appreciated yeah all right we have a thank you raff if you don't have any more questions um again um the next this will be continued to the next conservation commission meeting which will be on um wednesday october 27th um all right uh so i see we have a gabor here um gabor welcome i'm gonna allow you to talk thank you for joining us thank you for doing this all and i'm an abarter right next to like with 52 uh fearing street i'm at 44 beston street and i i built a small shed like 160 square foot in 2000 and at the time i was denied putting it closer than 200 feet um to to the brook so basically that evaluation at that time at the same section of the brook was perennial was um perennial like the larger one because the riverfront was you know had a larger um setback applied to it and i just wonder whether that would still be standing or is does have does it have any effect um for this review that you know that was over 20 20 years ago that review happened and and in my case that was a perennial stream so it's i appreciate where you're coming from um thank you for attending i think it's hard for us to comment on previous um permit applications especially ones 20 years ago um i also don't have a super good knowledge of like the streets in that area so that i don't know where you are relative to the stream and 52 fearing street um we share we share boundaries okay so you're on the other side of the creek hearing and 44 best and share boundaries so the section of 10 brook is virtually identical yeah so that's yeah so that's good information i mean i think what we would do with that is probably you know so that there was a permit or you were denied your permit application was denied well um i had to move my shed further away from the brook okay because it was it was like 120 foot close and i had to be 200 feet close okay um erin if you have any instincts on this i mean it's certainly something where we could look up the permit and see what decisions were made then but it doesn't really have any bearing on this decision now i would say no it's i mean every commission is looking at at this with a fresh set of eyes i don't think anyone on the board now was on the board then different staff different information and you know with this particular application for 52 faring a lot of information was brought to my attention right when the permit was filed by a butters and that is the information that when turnover happens bringing that to folks attention is what makes us aware of the historical context and without that historical context you know we're we're we're flying blind like with the 2019 filing from umas i saw the stream and was very suspicious that it was so large and i was like wow but the stream stats that was what we pointed to and i didn't know all of this information so now that we have this it's you know knowledge is power so we're trying to utilize what information we have to protect the resource and that's that's what we're doing it sounds like that's what the commission did back then but um that's a former filing that's long expired so it wouldn't have any bearing on this case thank you but it's helpful to know and we appreciate your attendance and contribution thank you thank you all right it looks like we have another hand michelle i'm gonna allow you to talk hi michelle welcome back yeah thanks so thank you guys again for all your due diligence um you're really doing an amazing job so i i really echo my neighbors sentiments my question um is kind of a point that ralph brought up that i would love for you guys to have a clear understanding of what do the bylaws say about continuing a discussion when an app when an applicant has chosen not to attend because what i'm afraid is going to happen is that what if this happens next meeting right so i really want to hear from you guys what are the rules in the bylaws what does it say about continuing a discussion when the applicant chooses not to attend and i think we need to stick to that next time and just be clear that regardless of the what the applicant decides this is what the bylaws state you guys have done an amazing job with your due diligence of informing everyone um and then just let it go yeah that's that's great advice and i think are great input i think um Erin one thing we could do is clarify that with town council um just so we understand that for the situation moving forward unless you know already the commission can do whatever it wants the commission could deny the permit tonight if they chose to they could approve it tonight if they chose to it's it's entirely within the board's control to take action on it it's it's really a matter of um you know etiquette politeness appearances yeah i really you know if it smells funny then it's going to cause someone to question and so i appreciate you guys by being very clear and thoughtful about how you want to move forward and allow everyone to be present but i also think it's important to make a strong statement of we're going to move forward yeah agreed i the input of anticipating this happening again is a good angle to think about um so being clear and communicating clearly with the applicant and the applicant's representative in advance of the next meeting is important here um before hearing my comments and thank you guys for everything really thanks michelle thanks for sticking with us here yeah um did anyone else in the commission have anything else to say about that okay um thanks michelle i'm gonna move you back to there we go okay um gabore you still have your hand up um just leave it up i'm gonna let we have freddy um next up there let's go for okay freddy i'm gonna allow you to talk you're muted um thank you for all of this it's exhausting i would actually just have a question information question it's something that i think erin said about the designation that was made at the end down by the parking lot of the stream where it goes underground but i didn't i wasn't clear about what the designation was made there what was that designation was it perennial or was it intermittent it was deemed intermittent at that point i never knew that i live at 61 fearing street and so you know the stream is in my backyard i didn't know about that um and i guess i worry a little bit about the two weeks in between and what is the applicant going to come up with in those two weeks and um is you know that's just that's just my paranoia i guess um because you know i've lived beside that stream for 50 years and it's never been it's never been intermittent so i'm that's all i really have to say so thank you all very very much yeah thanks for input freddy and you know like we just discussed with the after the input from michelle you know we will really communicate clearly with the applicant about attendance at the next meeting or make it clear that we are going to move forward with the decision on the designation of tan brook whether they are present or not um yeah and the other the other just point that i would drive home with the board is that the commission can't approve anything until it's on a plan so so if we go to the next meeting and the next meeting the commission makes that determination we have to wait to the next meeting until we have riverfront shown on the plan to approve it but it's unlikely that there if we decide in this meeting that tan brook is perennial they're not just going to put riverfront on the plan they're going to come to the next meeting and want to discuss the designation of the brook that's a that's a pretty solid we're not going to see riverfront we're not going to see riverfront on the plan set in the next meeting so it doesn't matter whether we discuss it it's it is a safer strategy to discuss it with the representative of the applicant present at the next meeting and if they do continue it further and and if they do bring documentation or something to to you know refudiate the analysis that was done i would welcome it exactly that's going to welcome it and and i think we should say again that you know there's been a lot of hustle to to have this reproducible analysis of how finding a fact of how we should designate tan brook you know we've done everything we can to be prepared at this point at this meeting in order to make that decision and we're deciding and we're deciding that we want to give the applicant a chance to be part of the process out of respect for the process so we're doing everything we can to keep this moving nobody here wants it to be delayed and ultimately we're just trying to protect tan brook as best as best we can um can i right jen can i add one quick thing which is just there's nothing other than coming prepared to try to refute the tan brook being perennial there's not they can't start moving right there's nothing else that they can do um and and as erin said her data is solid and and um can be replicated and so um there's not if that helps ease any worry there's nothing else they can do until this moves forward yes i am in whatever way it does yes from from a reproducible fact finding standpoint we are on solid ground you know i'm not afraid of of a discourse about this um so thank you um public attendees for sticking this out i know it's late i know it's a weeknight i know it's hard to track when we're going to talk about this i know everything about this process is frustrating um we are doing the best we can to communicate effectively about this and um collect all the knowledge we need in order to best protect um tan brook uh because that's what our job is so on that note unless the commission has anything more to add um i'd like to make a motion yes please do flutter can i make a motion to continue 52 fearing street and rad to october 27th at 735 like that oh michelle got it michelle in the game all right uh voice vote uh flutter hi laroy hi larry larry hi hannah hi michelle hi and i'm an i all right thank you again everyone for attending okay team next agenda item i believe is continuation yep so we have the um anrad from swca for barry robber it's in stanley michael life estate for confirmation of resource area boundaries at 246 monagu road um and the applicant requested continuation to the next meeting what i'll make that i was talking to myself uh with the mutes i'm gonna make the motion to contain the public here at a 246 monagu road october 27th and second to myself second second both of those things okay awesome uh flutter hi hannah hi larry hi laroy hi michelle hi and i'm an i okay back to other business um so uh beth wilson had requested that we um as part of the um faring brook uh floodplain restoration that we add a couple sort of pools um put some stones in the stream bed to allow the water to do some ponding in the shady part of the of the stream um it was all discussed with folks from um the state relative to the grant and everybody was in agreement that it would be an ecological benefit to the stream and based on that i gave sort of a verbal i don't think that this is a problem but i wanted to share it with you guys so that you're aware that it is a a change to the permit um and if anybody has any objection let me know sounds good okay um also there was uh there was a splash past splash park installed at groff park you guys probably are all aware of that and the at the outlet there's been some um erosion and ponding and so i'm working with dpw to do some stabilization there put some landscaping fabric down and some stone in an area that's gotten mucky at the outlet and then a erosion control blanket to try to stabilize some areas that are there's a little bit of erosion happening there so i'm working with them on that to try to correct it and i just wanted to make you aware of it because um the corrective actions you know are very public and they're subject to the same changes to their permit that everybody else is so i just want to make you guys aware and other than that that's all i have for you this evening okay thank you erin so i guess we just need a motion to adjourn and i i'm gonna make the motion to adjourn tonight seconded okay voice vote ana hi michelle hi lucha hi larry hi laroy hi and i'm an eye thanks everyone erin 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