 Okay. Who. Seeing any revisions that we need to make to the minutes. Do I have anything? Is there a motion? Motion to approve. Second. Second. All in favor say aye. Opposed. All right. The minutes. March 8th have been approved. Tara's going to send out an announcement or a notice. But I decided we're going to have our Wednesday meeting by zoom. Just to eliminate. Any uncertainty that the storm may. Cause the, uh, the main thing we were going to do and we'll do is, um, have Tom Andrew in. Um, so he's fine either way. So I'm just, we just have it for milk. So don't come here on Wednesday. Okay. I'll see you all. Um, All right. So we are expecting water bodies to come in at eight ish. Um, does anyone have any. Budgets to even start between now and eight o'clock and you can, you can cover Brian parking or treasurer or postage. Take your. Let's start with the treasurer's budget. I think it's on page 12. The 30 has a book on page 42. This budget is straightforward. There's basically no changes in it whatsoever. The one thing that we did quiz the treasurer on was the advertising expense, which if you look to the actual in the past, um, they're getting much more aggressive this year. Um, in regards to taking and they have to be advertised. Um, they've been in the same, but they haven't actually spent it over the years. Um, in state travel, same thing. Uh, there's more travel going on as the. COVID is ending. Any questions specifically. Any questions. I'm curious why the. Banking services and charges for both 23 and 24. So much higher than. They are contractual contracts. Uh, their contracts and they are monitored every three years. And is it supposed to be going up to that amount? Um, so I see that the, the treasurer position vacant. I don't know if they filled it yet. It was vacant last time I spoke, but they are definitely interviewing for it. They expect it to be built. I don't know if they have an interest. Yeah. Yeah. Somebody's account. Any other questions on, on the treasurer's budget. Anything else? These are straight forward. That's why. Great. Do you have a motion? Uh, I move that we accept the treasurer's budget as printed. Uh, with a total of $731,521. Any further discussion or questions? All right. All in favor of, um, Brian's motion to approve the treasurer's budget as printed. Say aye. Any post. Okay, uh, posted. That's on the 46. It's on page 46. Once again, it's much due about nothing as far as changes go, but the school budget, pardon me, the school postage, which is line 5, 2, 2, 5 was inadvertently in 2022 posted to the school budget, but the costs were there. Okay. That's why the actual is so dramatically low. So, does the town include postage related to elections? Or is that separate? I don't know what flows through the postage meter. If it's a town item, it's included in the post. It's there. Like, for instance, I don't think it includes the legal women voters and things that you get on that. No, no, no, what I did was like mailing ballots. Yeah. Okay. Any other questions? Just a quick question about the data processing. What is, what is that? That's the pity post machine. Oh, okay. I don't know if I can imagine that it's not. I'm sorry. It's just goes up. The rentals go up. Anything else? Motion. I move that we accept the postage budget as printed. $188,016. All right, motion made and seconded. Any other discussion or questions on the postage budget? All in favor of approving the postage budget, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? And I need to pull up my fucking budget. Which you may need to get printed. Okay. This budget. I don't know what the cost of tickets and the contract. I don't have contract. Oh, that's. I have done here for scanning. For scanning items. 5,000 and they, again, the parking budget in general has been lower because COVID everything is expecting everything to come back. To higher levels. And when we get to the parking district budget, you'll see that more dramatically. There's only one person listed. Which we'll do after. The offset is to the police department. For the, I believe it's a half. Half of the, the parking officer. Any questions? So there's only one. Person listed. Here. They're part of the police. Part here. And then I believe when we get to the. It's actually, it actually gets funded. I believe in the. Parking district budget. Got it. Okay. Yeah, that's. Yeah, that's the same question. In the old days, we used to pass them out. In the old days. Right. I saw when we get there, right? Al Jones. This budget or the next part of the park industry budget, but there's a whole turnover of theaters. Replacing. Yeah. It's in the next place. And so it's, it's funding itself from the parking piece. This, this comes out of the town budget. Okay. So I have a question. I'm just curious why the. Tenement salary goes down. In. 2024. I actually just looked at the prior year's book. There was a previous. That's not who was in that position last year. I just forgot to put in the name of the creature. So it was, it was. So it was, it was. So it was, it was Monday. It was like three years. Any other questions. Okay. So there's no revenue on this. Correct. Looks like the total revenue is 416. I'll get there. Yeah. This year is expected to be this year. 2023 is expected to be tonight. I have next year. Expect to rise back up. What? Beyond all the expenses, like so first, it's the two ADK, as expense on this side to a cake plus the, um, what? Yeah, but we'll just ask that we compare that. It's pretty close. If you, if you're okay with the box, we haven't discussed that. No questions. budget as printed in the amount of $54,280. Second. All right. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. All right. Any opposed? Passes unanimously. All right. I guess I don't have to pass this around, right? Does anyone need to copy? Is this a parking fund budget? This is the parking fund budget, right? Okay, here. Just, there's. Short down. Who on our sooner that you're going to get passed us because you have to do. Do you need to know the local justice? I do. Okay. Parking fund budget. In past couple of years, this is not quite decimated, but substantially lower than it was prior to COVID. And the original numbers that they were expecting in 2020, 2019 was probably about 550,000 in revenues. And it's just gone down from there. They do have money in their fund. If you look at the very bottom, that's the balance. 526,000 is the amount in their actual fund at the beginning of the current year. And then so if you go look at the actuals, they're not so great, but what they did was they did not spend a lot. They will be spending more in the springtime. So if you look to the column all the way to the left, where it says projected f y 23, that's what they do expect to spend. And by the end of the year. So they're going to eat into their budget by about $230,000 apartment into their cash by about $230,000 going forward. They expect a better revenues. And they hopefully are going to replace a lot of the meters. I'm not sure it's the exact timing of it. But a lot of the meters just are turned off. Yeah, but they're expecting to fix sort of like getting any right. So they're expecting to fix all that. There's fixed a replacement. I think it's going to be replaced. Okay. That was my understanding. No, I think the only space major. So like for a change, the only ones that are working. It used to be there were the ones that weren't. So do we know what what happened to all these? I believe a lot of it was a 4G 3G getting turned off. I'm not mistaken. That was the the main problem. Yeah, batteries. Yeah. You can put a battery in something doesn't work. It still doesn't work. How much is the decline in revenue because of that? I'm sorry. How much of the decline in revenue is because I don't know. We didn't discuss that specifically. I could find out. I'm not sure that they're expecting hordes more because they're waiting for businesses to recover. If you look on mass out, there's still a lot of empty storefronts and things like that going on. So I think as the economy comes back and more stores open up, I think it will turn around to some degree, but I can I can ask certainly. Any other questions? Grant. I'm not sure. Was this a sort of moratorium on parking? There was. It ended like at the end of 2021 or just in the middle of 2021. It was it was that way for at least a year. No, this is recent recent broken years. I'm sorry. I thought you were talking about COVID. I don't know. I will be happy to ask. Well, yeah, this I was looking at next year's budget, not this year's. That's why I was looking at the projection for this year being so bad. I don't know. I don't know the moratorium. I don't know. I will be happy to inquire about that. Are we collecting revenues now? I believe we are collecting revenues now. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. So I guess specifically the big wad, thinking of Bank of the Street coming down right behind San Diego, that huge wad, there's one little place to pay in the middle of it. So where would that revenue, would that revenue be a multi space? Yes. So it's $139K. So I guess I have just a question. So is the purpose of that revenue, you know, is it a revenue generation to get that $139K? Or is it mostly just to keep people talking all day long or is it a combination? Is who you answering? So this was a big debate when we were doing this a number of years ago and David and I were both of the mentality that parking meters are to get people to move. They are not to generate revenue. However, lots of people in town and in town roles feel that it's for generating revenue. In a multi use like that one, if you can park all day, then sure it's for generating revenue, apart for eight hours or nine or 10 for community. But if it's on the street, it's for the businesses to get turnover on the streets. And to improve the area around it. So we'll then bring more people in. May I suggest we ask Sandy this one? We have the opportunity, same as the parking. Nice to hear up on it. I see the real reason. You will be in on Wednesday. John, do you have any other questions? No, that was helpful. Thank you. Dave and then Charles. That's sort of a comment. Going back to the, it was a moratorium on the parking meters during the construction in Allen and Senna. That went on for quite a while until all that construction was completed. They were not using the parking meters and that's over now. All right, Charlie and then Jennifer. Yes, just on this question of whether it's used for moving, you know, keeping people moving or for collecting revenue. The town adopted some legislation about five years ago that created parking fund and that collects the money that's created for these meters. And it has to be used for specific purposes in the area where it's collected. And that was a deal between the town, well, the state has the legislation, but the town and the emergence in that area. So the projects that are probably some projects here somewhere, I don't know. Yeah, I guess the Parking Benefit District is what it's called. And these are projects that the town undertakes to improve that area from the money that's collected from the meters. Yep, thanks. And you can see the list of the seasonal iterations. And expanded as well. See the Chestnut Street safety improvements. Yeah. They added Chestnut Street to the parking district. It wasn't there in the prior years. So they are expanding and doing. Yeah. Jennifer, I just wanted to thank you, Madam Chair, to read what we got in our notice, which was beginning of February, said that the policy of no parking, no, no metering because of our meter being replaced was going to be into effect until March 31st. It was a two-month period. And this plan, but the meters were approaching or ended to use the life, scheduled to be replaced in late 2022. But because of COVID supply issues, we're not, not close until now. So it doesn't sound like something went wrong, but more, as John said, there's a combination of, you know, left there. They need your advice. Yeah. Grant, and then Alex Jones. Well, thank you for that, Clara. There's a number of moratoriums. And so it is, in fact, still in effect until the end of March, the current business. Yes. So in connecting with what Charlie mentioned, this isn't the high finance, but how do they account? I mean, so that's a particular parking area that's affected, benefit area that's affected. Are they the ones taking the hit from not using the meetings in meters? And also how are the meters really spread out? I mean, they're not just in one location. The old meters might. And so the parking moratorium also includes meters that aren't working. So there's no, or we are. When I parked personally, they'd taken out the mechanism. Yeah, they literally shut off. They just, they took the, they took our keys. So no revenue from any meter from February to March. Is that accurate? That's fine. But I don't think that's correct. Because I think the ones in Milwaukee are still in effect. Yes. Okay, fine. Okay. That's not the confrontation. That's, this is a sandy question. I don't know how much it is. So the question is, how do we allocate it? How is it being allocated if it is? And that was the question I would have about the current moratorium and about which meters were affected. And I'll, if they're in the parking district, the town does not get the right period. Right. But the parking district does. Parking district, yes. So how do you know which parking district is being affected by all these different measures? There's only one. It's all one parking benefit district. Well, that's great. I think it's, and I'd like to hear that verified by Sandy because it's, which parking benefit area? Center. Only the center area, okay. Sophie, do you have anything to add up? No, I guess that was my question too. Is it just the center on the moratorium? Or because I know the meters are working by the post office, for example. So it says, meters located on Mask Avenue between Franklin Street and Jasonville Street, Broadway between Franklin and Webster, Broadway Plaza, Alton Street between Broadway and Belton, Medford Street, Hicks, Bangler Way, and Court Street. That sounds pretty good. Well, most of it is in Arlington Center, but some of that is further north. Maybe it's possible they're doing some sort of bowling thing. Because some are still, I mean, I was opposed to office one. And then it was working. I mean, I was able to hit the 15 minutes. And that's Court Street, isn't it? Yes. I definitely think that's a question for Sandy. What's going on? When is it going to end? Well, how's the allocation? I have more of a question. I have more about it's the allocation, who's somebody getting hurt because their meters. That's all it's all in the district. That's who's getting hurt. Well, that's what we're saying. Yeah. If you look at this whole budget, this is all the improvements being made within the parking district, which includes if I understand it correctly, it includes everywhere that the parking meters, it's all the business districts that are meter. And this was reviewed as of March 3rd. Yeah. So this is not an old document. This is what they're proposing. So in our projected FY, the spending is the proposed benefits to those businesses. No, I understand the current budget, but all goes away when the meters get fixed. I still think it's that Sandy. Can I send it? No, I don't think that's the table. Carolyn? Al? Two questions about the charging stations. One, is there an expense related to those? And three is why is the FY 24 projection so low? I missed that. I'm not sure where that is. No, no. Where the charging station is. Oh, I assume that there was one, there's supposed to be one. There's one in the Russell lot. There's a couple, I think. But the Russell lot hasn't been, there hasn't been access to it for a while, unless in the last two months. Okay. I don't want to buy it by the old download micro, by CMI. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot for a lot of streets. Are municipal charging stations going away? Well, Town Hall, but what's the town manager? Okay. Are they going away? No, I don't think they're going away. But if there's a cost to them, the cost is the energy. I do know that. So I'm curious then, where that is. We're paying a bundle for them to get the parking meter, tickles collected. I would think there'd be collecting the money. Unless anyway, those are my two questions. No, I have to ask. I'm Julie Wayman. I said he's going to be here on the Sunday on Wednesday. Allen, the charging stations, when you pay, it pays for the electricity to charge the car, and it pays for the parking group to park there. Right. So I'm assuming the treasurer divides it up. The electricity goes to charge point, which operates the things, and the money goes to the parking fund. And then charge point covers all the expenses? I would assume they get the profit. They get, they cover the expenses. Do you have any idea why the production would be so low? Annie, do you want to hand that? No, no. Carol. There is another parking station with, I think, three units behind the Bank of Boston, Bank of America, across from the library. And that is active all Sunday morning, but as far as I'm across the street, I left you to the church. Yeah, but I'm not sure those are ours, because it's a private parking lot there. Oh, never mind. They give it to the town, or they rent it to the town. Wait, which one are we talking about? There's three in the Bank of America parking lot, and then there's two right when you come in from Water Street. Is that one thing? In from Water Street. There's two right there, but there's another city. I was like, we're still with the whole food, so I'm sure we're not going to go with that. On the other side, we have the eventarian church. I don't think the town has the homes. No, I think there's a lot of charging stations around the town. It's not on a public street. I don't think it's ours. Yes, the water street and the town lot. Yeah, one of each. Well, too, there's two by the Bank of America behind there. No ACMI. The Old Valley Park Avenue. All right, that's the town. That'd be the same thing as the Water Street, except there's no charge for parking. Alan, after you have to tell me where they are, because they just got a new electric car. Other questions? Grant. I noticed this seasonal decorations. It's going to be projected to be 50K. That's on Christmas lights. Is that what they are? And they just put, they put out all of that. So thanks for the season. You see the banners and stuff like that. And they haven't done the past? I don't know where they've been. I don't know the structure was in the past, but maybe they've just absorbed it. I think that's a good question. Yeah, there's a 15,000 in our, in the public works. The public works has historically 15,000 every year. So I don't know if this is much more. So placing lights might make sense, rather than just the cost of operating that. I don't know. I, I need to ask the other discussion as well. Sounds to me like we ought to Yeah, let's just postpone some words. I don't want to say. Are there any other questions that maybe we can answer without having to wait for the rest to be answered by the town manager? Charlie? Yes. Once the wine item, are a lot blew by the station? Yeah, well, it's no one. In the prior years, that she just didn't pull it out, obviously. The budget. So is there a move like station? There, I think there used to be. But it's not in this budget. All right. Anything, anything else? All right. We'll hold off on this budget until we meet with Tom Andrew on Wednesday. Then we'll take a vote on Wednesday. Anything else you have, Brian? That's it. It's all I got. Morning. Make yourself at home, man. All right. I guess. Go ahead. Anyone? Come on. Bring them on. All great. All right. This is great. Revenants. The lease is really. So we'll be here. Thank you. Is it okay if we sit here? Oh, yes. Yep. Or if you want, I can get a sharing. So that you can share to the screen. No problem. Okay. Presentation, but they already put up the budget. So that. Right. Why are bodies people? Take it away. I'm David White. Susan Chapnick. The conservation mission. David Morgan. Regent. Grab wherever. I'll start off here. I'm going to introduce people on the way. Okay. As many water bodies. By pond. Those pond. The reservoir. Park. Some of these are the responsibility of the town. Others are shared with other agencies. Such as mystic lake and Mr. Berger are basically DCR. Okay. So this request is to provide funding for the care of water bodies. That only has a primary responsibility for. Some of them. State to DCR is primary responsibility for the missing group. Missing lakes. And they were. So we work with them, but we're not responsible for those water bodies. I'm going to go in sequence. I'm going to go through the report. The first one. I'm going to talk about is the island and reservoir. This is a town swing beach. And a much larger open water space as well. Natural areas. Birds. Other wildlife. That's a major attraction. How many people. Year round. The basic problem of the reservoir waters. I've been facing water chest. Plants. The water in the summer. This is a long term problem. And the basic approach is to harvest these mechanically. In the. Release summer. And reduce the seed bank. But the seeds can last for 10 years. So it's a long term. Also note that volunteers also participate in the water chest. Collection. And they do it. So it's a long term problem. Where the machines can't reach. Okay. Next is. Who's. I'm going to talk about that. So it helps funds. Which is found. In the nominee rocks part. We have one of the locations. The highest ecological integrity. It's a beautiful spot. I'm sure. And you've been there. Over the course of the past year. We saw that location. Enhanced. In terms of this ecological house. We hired water and wetlands. Great consultancy firm. Five site visits to Hills Pond. They treated with algecide. And. Did some invasive species management. Treatment. In Hills Pond. I guess it was three visits. And they did a pre and a post survey. And found that by and large, their efforts were successful. Unfortunately, as you remember last year, we had a drought. A lot of high temperature days. And the confidence of these problems. Slide to. Algal output. Or bloom rather. Outbreak. In Hills Pond. Towards the end of the year. So. When that happens. The state shuts everything down. We're not allowed to get back in there and treat anything until. The harmful toxins. At least from the algae. Which did eventually happen. The focus for next year is to do regular testing. For cyanobacteria. There's an attack toxins that are in harmful algal blooms. And. Also to. Do better maintenance, including the. The buffer strip around. The pond to make sure that. Fewer of the contaminants run off and fertilizer. And the likes get into those funds. Further prevent problems. Bill Brooke. Is a mostly channel wise. And it serves as the primary storm drain. The heights. But there are some natural areas. On the book. And the conservation commission has applied. The CPA funding. Restore the wooded area. The field. And the reservoir. As I'm going. This coming year. McClendon Park. After me for McClendon. So. McClendon is an interesting case. We built it a number of years ago. Detention pond speed with some of the flooding up there. And. In the past year, we've gone over the plans for. McClendon. What was originally designed and how. It's performing currently, I was contacted by residents. Asked me to come out and speak with them about flooding. They're concerned that the ponds are filling up with seven. And. We'll need to go back to the drawing board in order to figure out whether that is true. So we're going to go back to the initial maintenance. However, many years ago was never performed. And so that needs to be reestablished. I will be working on that in the planning department as that was delegated to planning many, many years ago. And I'll essentially reestablish that baseline for. Con Con to manage. Moving forward. There was also a buffer strip. That was established in 2020. And so we need to reestablish that. Detention funds. For the agreement of D.P.W. Recreation and the conservation commission. Unfortunately, and contractors went in and mowed that down in the past year. So we need to reestablish. Detention funds. Bucker zones and establish no mo area signage. In order to keep that bonds. Good health. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm brand. I'm with the spy pond committee, which is part of. Invision Arlington. And I'm also. In representing the main groups in spy pond or the friends of spy on part, which many of you have visited. The Arlington land trust. You own. Most of most of Elizabeth Island. Boys and girls club. Arlington. And we have, we have, we have a lot of other stuff that we've been talking about last year that all the fishermen and everybody who enjoys it. So we had an interesting, a good year last year. It was actually fairly quiet because we're switching providers. So the new. We're not using solid to like management anymore. We're now using. SWCA. Out of Amherst. They are. Big study force. Last year. came here and found significant problems with spy pond and the management of it. And we're now sort of the main event. Just a couple weeks ago, we finished the spy pond notice of intent. So permitting issues, really, there wasn't much done in the way of dealing with problems, but those permitting issues are now over. And we have a notice of intent and the big change is instead of waiting for problems to become perfectly obvious. For instance, when the pond gets choked up with excessive vegetation, we'll be treating if we'll be dealing with stuff when it's like a foot or two high instead of four or six feet high. And that will both minimize the need to how much herbicide is used and it will also reduce the amount of sediment growth, that kind of thing. So the big ones we did was one of the big events that involved half of Arlington is we distributed fertilizer flyers. If you were on this side, well, I guess the other side of Mass Ave, between Mass Ave and Route 2, we delivered to almost every household in the area. 6,500 flyers were distributed by the high school, by the committees, by neighbors, by Boy Scouts. It was a very successful project. We'll be doing about half of the other, we'll be doing another quarter of Arlington this year and we'll be doing the last quarter the year followed. And why is that important? Oh, it's important. Very good. Thank you. It's important because actually something new has happened is if you go into a hardware store now, most of the fertilizers that you find for established lawns have zero phosphorus. And we know about the problems of phosphorus because remember two years ago, we had those massive rainstorms when the hurricanes came through. They basically washed clean the whole watershed and just there was just tons of water coming in and with that came sediment and attached to the sediment was all the phosphorus that people have been putting on their lawns. And now it's easy to treat with zero phosphorus. And that's what we're trying to encourage. And it was a pretty successful project. We've also been doing more studies of spypon. We kept basically bi-weekly review of the plant growing plant analogy that was growing in spypon. I've had project of mine and so I'm starting to study the sediment depth. So there's areas, my deepest one so far is 13 feet of sediment with five feet of water on top of it. So that sill behind the island is really a sediment lake. It's not a water lake. It's more sediment underneath the surface than there is. And that's the sediment is what's giving the substrate for the aquatic plants to grow. So one of the big worries we have, well the big success, yeah the big success of course is spypon part. They've done a major effort to build on their successes in previous years. So the shoreline has been beautifully restored. They've maintained those plantings. They've worked on a project to get rid of invasives on there and there's a new playground going in place. And they have work crews every month going out keeping it really nice. So that's a big win for spypon. So I think that's it. I guess I would like to say the biggest concern and we just don't know what it is. Our biggest concern is we've got some new invasives on spypon in particular variable leaf, variable millfoil which is a cousin of Eurasian water millfoil. And we also have this problem with curly leaf pondweed. The curly leaf pondweed, it's very clear the way to treat. The deal with that is you treat it very early in the season before anything else is growing and keep it under control because if you don't keep it under control it locks up the pond in through June when it naturally does. So I think that's it. I'll have, I have a few copies of our annual report from the spypon committee and also the Francis spypon heart accomplishment. So just leave it up here and if you'd like to, it's not, it's, I don't think it needs to go in the record, but just if you'd like to talk to you, welcome to take one of the activities. L.Y. Brook is actually a responsibility of D.C.O.R. and runs along Arlene's eastern border. There are a number of problems present of our and one problem is that there's combined two overflow outlets in the right book. And we've destroyed and impacted people in all of them. Currently, it's an ongoing process that the Massachusetts E.P. to develop a new long-term control plan for the C.S.O.s along L.Y. And the select board and the safety of our book people are involved in that process trying to close the C.S.O.s that still remain in L.Y. Brook. We also received through David Rogers a grant from D.C.R. for green infrastructure systems. Basically, they're going to build a system on Medellia Street for this D.C.R. grant. We're also kind of legislators trying to somewhere more funds for state study what can be done in L.Y. Brook. There's other things going on but not much kind of money involved in that. Mr. Hi, I'm Susan Chapnick. I'm the chair of the Arlene and Constellation Commission. Sorry, we didn't totally introduce ourselves before. And Chuck Taroney is the vice chair. So if you have any questions after any one of us can hopefully answer them. I'm going to talk a bit about the Mystic River. The Mystic River border quality has a rating of B plus according to EPA and the Mystic River Watershed Association. That border quality rating is based on bacteria not on chemicals for the health of the fish. Not too bad but not as good as the upper Mystic Lakes which are A. Over the years the Arlington's department part of Public Works has taken a watershed view of Mystic River and has promoted installing green infrastructure such as rain gardens and infiltration trenches which there's a nice little figure in in our report to show how many of them were installed last year. The work that's managed by DPW is funded mainly by Coastal Pollution and Mediation Grants from the Office of Coastal Zone Management. However last year actually we received financing from Federal Nonpoint Source Grants. And also in the Mystic River, as you may remember in several years I've been coming here, discussing the restoration of the area on the Mystic where we had an oil tanker that overturned back in, well it might have been 2015, 2013, 2015. It's a long time ago now. We won a grant for restoring that area and besides just restoring a riparian habitat, riparian means right next to the river. We also took the opportunity to improve the water quality in the area by fixing a broken head wall from an outfall there and also partnering with DPW to install some better infiltration upstream of where the water is coming down across Mystic Valley Parkway into this area. The project received a certificate of compliance from the conservation commission last year meaning that it was installed and maintained as permitted. The challenge now is to keep this restoration healthy by controlling the invasive plants that come in there. And we have an agreement with DPW to do just that. In starting this year, Arlington hosted its first public meeting to discuss the connection between the Minuteman right way and the bike path along the Mystic River and why is this important to conservation versus just transportation. The reason it is is because we have an opportunity for enhancements along this area like reduction in impervious surfaces while this project is getting developed. There are some recommendations that we like to make for work on the Mystic Riverfront area. Additional measures to improve stormwater runoff. There's a lot of runoff from the Mystic Valley Parkway as you might expect. This runoff can contain a lot of chemicals that are harmful to aquatic organisms. And also we'd like to investigate opportunities for restoring degrading conditions at other town owned shoreline outfalls. Now this may come as news to some of you, but most of the outfalls are DPWs along the Mystic River in Arlington. But there's three board that belong to the town and they are also broken and degraded. They are not working as they should. The water that's coming out of there is basically just polluting the wall and lighting. So it would be great to look at those just like we did at the Mystic Riverfront restoration and see if we can improve that area. Okay, thank you Susan. Yep. So there's a lot to do but they're working on things. This particular budget tonight is for part of the work that requires us to hire outside contractors to do the work. The budget is going to focus on part of what we do. It's David going to review the budget or it's behind you. David's going to present the budget. And I don't know if you can see that. Great. So per last year's agreement we went for $15,000 in funding and FY23 we were looking to spend down the amount that we had in reserves at that time. So we managed to spend I think roughly, we got it down to about $60,000 from I believe it was $114,000. $114,000, yes. $35,000 of that went to spy pond. That's the work that Brad summarized for us. We had $26,000 at the reservoir and I want to put a pin in that expense because I'm going to come back to it in just a moment. Just remember how much we're spending at the rest. That's for the water chest not harvesting exclusive. Expenses at hills came in less than what we anticipated. That's because of the algal boom that I mentioned that shut down our operations there towards the end of the year. And we incurred just $35 and other expenses. It was some pristine costs, nothing of any significance. So in the future we'll revert to this being FY24, we'll revert to the $50,000 funding level per usual. We're looking at pretty much level funding across the board. We've allocated $5,000 from the Clinton to start to sort out those issues that I was talking about. As I said those are mostly going to live in the planning department and not be con-con expense, water bodies working group expense, but we have the money set aside in the eventuality that something does need to be taken care of. And now I'm going to come back to the expenses at the reservoir. We have a contract sitting on Doug Hyme Legal Counsel's desk right now to be signed for a new contract with a service provider for water chest net removal at the rest. We were told by our old contractor that they would essentially double the price. And so we had to go out and find a new one. We were very fortunate in that we found the one other operation in New England that does this kind of work, and he had just purchased his hard stay. So we squeaked by. Yeah, we got on the ground floor of that operation. They seem like a wonderful service provider recommended by our folks that take care of hills ponds and spy ponds, water and wetlands, who I have both faith in. I very much trust this is going to go well for us. So timely. Very timely. Yes. And we're going to get on that issue much sooner this year as a result. We have the contract in hand, no, none of the hangups of last year's delays. I want to underscore though how much we are spending on the res every year and that that is an avoidable cost. We had initially proposed a CPA this year for a aquatic harvester for the town to own ourselves, cost of which would be about $100,000. Over the course of three, four years, we'll have paid for that harvester just out of the regular cost of doing business, let alone it costs do go up like the other service provider had said that what happened. So I want to offer that for your consideration in the future. We're not making any requests to that end here today, but I want you to have that information to be able to deliberate on it. FY 25 looks much the same, but shall we go to questions? I'm going to emphasize my prerogative this chair to start the questions. Okay. So Rez, I am concerned about the other invasives. For example, I know milk oil is spread by fragments. So are we not making that worse by pulling and harvesting the water chestnuts? And what's the plan to control the other invasives? Well, we have the order of conditions now that specifies manual removal can be conducted at the Rez and it's by phone. So those methods are definitely preferable compared with the harvester. Milk oil, and I need your back up on this one. I can talk. I don't think it's in the... Is it in the Rez? Milk oil? Is milk oil in the Rez? You speak louder please. We had problems on milk oil in spypond. We actually eradicated it there. Right. From all reports. There may well be milk oil in the Rez. I don't know. We haven't identified it. We haven't identified it, but even if there is milk oil, I talked with Steve Johnson, who's one of the senior people at SWCA. He did the surveys. He was spent two and a half days here on spypond. And his comment was, especially in the place like the Rez, which is small and contained, if you have water milk oil, it's going to be everywhere. So fragmenting it more is not going to make a difference. It is a concern if you're like on a big lake and you just got a little area, you don't want it to spread further. So that's like the issue that we have with water milk oil, with the variable milk oil. It's currently in a small area, and we don't want it to spread further. So we will be minimizing our disturbance of that. But that's spypond. That's spypond. Not the Rez. Does that answer your question? I'm looking at your report. On page three, you cite the 2020 Aquatic Department of Plant Survey and Management Plan, and it says, of the five invasive species observed at the Rez, three are very aggressive in their growth, which that's the water chest naturally upon the aneurysm milk oil. And then on page five, on spypond, the current situation is the sentence that says a new invasive variable milk oil was found in scaring locations. So we spend $26,000 a year on a harvester, and we get rid of the, maybe we get rid of the water chest, but then we're covered with milk oil and other invasive. So why are we spending that money if we're going to have problematic water body, no matter what? I think this is what the true report's made about. So the water chest nuts create a canopy, a dense canopy, and no other milk oil. The milk oil, these other things, they're just like secondary third on the list. But when we do get rid of the water chest nut, something else will probably take over. But it's not a major issue at this point. The water chest nut is the main thing we need to take care of. David talked about getting the harvester, that's more or less so we can control our own destiny. I think that I've been here a few times on the water bodies looking group, but not coming up on that now. But we've promised that we're going to deplete the seed bag, and that really hasn't happened, and there's been various reasons. I think the primary reason is the fact that we haven't been able to get a machine out there in the optimal time. So each chest nut plant drops its seed, the seeds go into the seed bank or into the substrate down at the bottom, and they can grow with any time within the next 10 years or 15 years. So that's the primary reason. The grass also lowers the level of the water. Anything on the edge is going to freeze and die. And so that doesn't come back. So that probably also takes a big bite out of what's growing there outside of the chest nut plant. So those two reasons. And of course, the sunlight's not getting in there. There's nothing growing beyond that point. So the canopy is the real reason, but we're helping it out by lowering the level. No promises, but you will see those other invasives come in if the water chest nut was ever completely removed. And again, the problem with all the ponds in Arlington is its managed landscape. We're working with very deep sediment banks. It's filled with nutrients that all these plants love, and we just can't get in there and just dig it out because those permits aren't available. How many years have you been treating pulling more chest nuts? Wait, how many years have you been doing this? Oh, at least 10 or more. More 20. 20. And some years we haven't. So some years didn't happen. So it didn't happen during COVID. And when you lose a year, you actually lose more than a year because it grew back with such a vengeance. And then last year, we got in really late. I think it was August. July. Almost way too late to do that. And there was years we couldn't get the entire res. We had to leave, you know, the blessed inside alone. And that was because of money, because of timing. It has not been successful, this management. We're hoping if we can get in earlier that it will be successful and consistently. And that's another reason to put this bug in everybody's ear about owning a harvester, which is not, it's a small piece of equipment that can fit in a parking lot in space. And it could be run by, you know, it's like a boat on the water. It's not a very high tech solution. But if we owned one, we can, as Chuck said, control when we use it. Yeah, we could be out there more than just once. So it's facing the conveyor belt. And I'm not sure how it operates. I thought the one I saw that David looked like it was pedal operated. So someone would just use the conveyor belt, bring up as much invasive as they could possibly manage and then bring it over to the shoreline and tough it off. Who still needs the support of the DPW department to remove that from, you know, and dump it. Do we know how the water chestnuts got to slide home? No. So I have seen all but one of those water chestnut plants. So a water chestnut, unlike a lot of our other problems, are actually, if it's a small scale, they're very easy to deal with because they're really, really visible. Often birds hear them. And what happened, we had chances, are they came from boats. And in fact, I think we had four sites of water chestnuts this year, this previous year. Almost surely it came from boaters. And because one was right by the boat ramp, another one was further down the spy pond park. Another one was found in front of those condominiums. And David and I found what we found three or four plants near that gut between Elizabeth Island and the shoreline. And because they're so easily visible, we actually got all the seeds. I think I let one seed lives. So it's the kind of thing where every couple of weeks you have to make a tour around the pond and look for them. So unless we ban boats, we're going to have that problem. Or we educate and make people watch their boats. It's very tough. We actually looked into, the spy pond committee looked into all that we could do about doing it. If you really want to do it, what you do is you hire somebody, you set up a hot water pressurized washing system. And that's what they use on some of the lakes, like in the Berkshires where they have a known problem and they really want to try to prevent it. Of course, we can't do that here. We can improve our signage. And we have, our signs are currently and it's something we need to do. Absolutely, yes. And the $5,000 expense with the concom, what will that cover? That's the miscellaneous expenses. Things that come up. Set aside, for incidentals. So for example, if we get another harmful algal bloom, if we get it early enough, we would treat it with copper. If you get it too late, you can't. So it's kind of an incidental, you know, emergency fund. What do you do with the water chestnuts? I live in that area and I've seen just who disposes of them and where do they go? DPW takes them. They get trucked off as part of the truck and contract that the town holds and dumped and they go into a landfill landfill. So first they're dried. First they're dried, yes. We have a place. We dry them near the reservoir and then they take them so that it's less bulk. But they can't be recycled or used and composted because it's an invasive plant. So they have to go to a landfill. So DPW does that? Yes. So the $26,000 year you spent basically is for the harvester? The vendor. I'm in the harvester, yes. Transport and the person who runs it. Yes. Okay. Were you going through that cost-benefit analysis? Keep in mind if somebody who knows what they're doing to run it, you need to be able to clean the machine, need to be able to maintain it, and you need to be able to store it over the winter. So there are other costs besides just the capital. Right. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. And we have talked about that a little bit. We'd love to explore that with you. It could fit under a tarp in the winter in a parking space. So we'd love to have that conversation. We need to DPW. Yeah. And with DPW. Yeah. Well, so first of all, if DPW is hauling it away, if they're having our regular trash contractor hauled away, it's being burned. Okay. So because all our trash is incinerated. Yeah. So just... That makes sense. Thank you. And we do not have access to a landfill. Thank you. I just want to second Al's thought about that particular purchase, but also that purchase doesn't go through us. It goes through the capital plan. Right. So it's their call, whether or not it's going to be in the U.S., but I do think you will still have operating costs for it, and we'll have to figure out what goes on, because we'll be able to show what it goes through there. My second question is, why are we maintaining the fund balance? Why don't we just give you $10,000 or $15,000 this year and get that fund balance down to zero? Because I personally would prefer not to carry a fund balance, but you just ask us what we need each year, and that we always know what decision we're making about supporting this budget. So, yeah. Yes. So the Water Bodies Fund was set up, this by-pond committee was actually involved in setting it up. And the reason that started was because when we were trying to, the problems, the big problems, the big expenses for water bodies, typically in the spring, because that's when plants are starting to grow, and that collides with the fiscal year. And so what happens is that you don't have budget, and so you can't treat. That was the explanation that was given to me, because of the collision, and that's why it was balanced here and here. I have a feeling that Alan and Charlie, they had talked about that. Or maybe, as you said, we're budgeting now for something that happens a year from now, or 14 months from now, which is sort of unpredictable, based on climate, all sorts of other things, whatever. So this acts as a reserve fund in case, or we can either budget for the worst case every year, or have a substantial reserve fund, or the budget won't be the average. Except these are constant costs. The alternative to come back to a reserve fund. But it's also, I could be wrong, and maybe you could correctly if I'm wrong, but you can encumber funds in June, you're going to spend it a lot. That's not the issue. Charlie, that's what the issue is. We went through this a number of times for a number of years, and basically, as I recall the discussion, and I think I understand it, sometimes the invasives come early in the spring. Sometimes they come late. That activity all happens before town meeting ends. And actually, the funds are not available till July 3rd and 1st, after the Attorney General approves it. So they need to have the money available when the ice melts. And sometimes they don't spend it, because there are no invasives. And sometimes there are invasives. So we went to the system of having a reserve fund or a fund balance to take care of the stochastic nature of invasive plants. It's sort of like snow and ice, except you can't. May I make one comment about that? If you move this over a little bit and see what we're doing after FY 24, we are taking it down. So we are drawing it down. We realize it was too high, and we are drawing it down, but we're doing it slowly, kind of, to be safe about it. Anything else, Anne? No, I'm not sure the argument tracks, but I'll trust Charlie and Alan on it. It's great. Carolyn. Actually, I was going to bring up exactly what they did. It's that 10 to eight years ago and seven years ago, we had this conversation multiple times and came to this conclusion. And you're right, that's what I was going to point out. It has gotten really high, but you're dropping it down to 25. It's about 25 where you wanted. I think some reasonable amount to have, about half a year. Grant. Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a couple of questions. It must be very frustrating. I'm just listening to this and hearing all the forecasting. It must be really frustrating to work at this. I feel like throwing up my hands, but I don't feel like throwing extra money. If you feel this isn't part of the question, but it seems this has shifted from intractable to sycophant. I mean, many years we're doing this. Same water chest, same everything. So I'm glad we're looking at some other alternatives, but we'd like to hear some alternatives, I think. So some alternatives I have a question about is you mentioned this thing about the set of it. How are we addressing any of that? That's one question. Let's start with that one. How are we addressing it? That seems to be the root of the problem. So your reaction is exactly one. It's sycophant. We're in a, yes, exactly. We're in a, this is an urban watershed right here. The problems were set up 100 years ago, right? Spipon where I'm living now was all market gardens. And the way they did it was they put a wagon in downtown Boston at a stable when they got the call saying the wagon is full. They brought it out to Arlington. They dumped manure on the beautiful glacial soil, glacial sand and turned it into vegetables for that. Now that manure is high phosphorus. And I think that there have been complaints about Spipon for 100 years now. Now, there's sort of the two easy things to do are to, well, no, the easy thing to do is to do nothing. And we've done nothing in the past. And people who've been around, the worst was in the late 50s when Spipon was really, really bad. You think it's bad now, the water bodies are bad now. Back then, as someone quit, you could walk from Pleasant Street to Elizabeth Island without getting your feet wet. There was so much decaying. It was basically use algae decaying and that kind of thing. So that's not an option. And then the question is, and the other option is you could solve the problem, drain Spipon, dig out all the muck. There's a lot of it. Find a place for it just to dig out, just to dig out, you know, basically from here to there of sand. So not muck sand, just to dig that out and get it disposed to cost the mass DOT about a million and a half. And digging out all the Spipon, just you can't do it. So the goal is to try to figure out the problem is not going to go away. It's not going to go away. It's you're going to hear from us for now to eternity. But the trick is to try to minimize the growth of the problem. What that means is try to minimize how much stuff ends up on the sediment. Because as the sediment grows closer to the surface, it's going to keep getting worse. That's it. Yeah. It keeps growing. I mean, you that's right. That's right. But you minimize the rate. So the way to address this, if I may paraphrase, the way to address the sediment problem is, well, just stop it from getting worse. No, no, not stop it. Again, not stop it. Keep it from getting, not keep it. It's not getting better. It's not going to get better. And so instead of 35, and I wasn't even asking about it, so there really is no cure. There is no cure, but you can manage it effectively. But we've been, and also you said we've been doing nothing, but you know, it's not a lot of money. And I'm a big, I wouldn't even, I love, I love, I love the water and everything else. I'm a big advocate for this, but the concern is about how we're directing the money. And it's not a lot of money, but it is a lot of money. So we're not doing anything, we've done nothing, but we've spent a lot of money for the last 20 years. Yes. And we've kept things five pond. If you were on spy pond this summer, there was a period of two weeks when it was not usable or more difficult, the northern basin was okay, but the like the drivers couldn't go. But other than that, it was absolutely fabulous. I appreciate it. And to say it, we could do all kinds of things. Very good. So thank you for the first question. There is no, the answer is there isn't a cure. There isn't a cure, but you can manage it. So the second one is medication. It's amazing, it's like mowing your lawn. Yeah, exactly. No, it's not. We don't get more snow. Snow is getting worse. It's probably in the middle of nowhere. Well, that's the second part of this, is the drain is the red. So I appreciate that. You know, the problem is the sentiment. We're not really trusting sentiment. We're trusting everything around the sentiment and okay, but I'm not the sentiments about sentiment. May I offer one thing about going back to spypond? Well, actually the sentiment applies to all the work. True, yes, true. Spypond more than that. Not just spypond. True. And there is a solution to sediment in MacLennan. I think you could dredge MacLennan. So there is a solution in that set of basins. That you can dredge. And it's supposed to be dredged. That's in the permit that we permitted years ago, but it was never done. That's another, we can have that discussion. However, in spypond, what we're looking at, I feel your pain. I felt the same way. I said, this is not working. We're throwing money at it every year. That's why we change vendors. We change vendors because they weren't doing it. Okay, they weren't doing it. We changed vendors last year. We got a new plan. We have a new vendor. We're going to treat it earlier, but we're also going to be proactive. We're going to try to do a pilot study of introducing native vegetation. We have no native aquatic vegetation growing in spypond. I think that's horrific. Terrific. So we're going to introduce a pilot project to try to do that. That will control sedimentation too. When you get the native population growing, and if we can replicate that, we're going to reduce how we need to treat it. Hopefully they'll proliferate. And we can start on doing a positive improvement rather than just always chasing the invasive. So I just wanted to point that out. That's one initiative. We appreciate one option is to do a pilot study to try and bring back native plants that have been eradicated by invasive plants. Yeah. So the second question I had, thank you for the answer for the personal elaboration. The second question I had was, speaking about 100 years ago, that sort of stuff when they used to carve ice out of spypond, but there was no Arlington Reservoir. There was no Arlington Reservoir. They kind of dammed it up and they tried to make it a drinking reservoir where it was going to run, and that failed. Mill owners brought suit in one. That was 100 years or 150 years ago. What would happen? So we occasionally drain the res, and I'm torn. I hear like in some ways it's affected, in some ways it's not. It seems to me it would be very effective. What if we drain the res entirely? Because the swimming section is totally different. Has there been any consideration about draining the res entirely for a certain period of time, and then do some manual community service, school project type of stuff, scour the sediment, whatever, because it is possible in the res to drain it. It's not spypond or something. So has that ever been considered? Yes. We just had a proposal this past winter. So every winter the water level gets brought down. The lowest it really ever gets is, the lowest that the topography slopes from the spillway down to sort of the basin. So if the water has to go up, you can't get it right. So it's in that area between the spillway and the lowest water level, then we could make a difference with volunteers. And folks did ask about doing that. We didn't have capacity to pull it off as a volunteer event this year, but I think that that's a viable strategy. It's essentially manual removal, similar to when folks go out in canoes and pull the full grown plants. In this case, you're just taking up the seeds off the bed of the reservoir. So I fully support that approach. I think that's a great idea. So what is the plan about that? Do it next year. Do what? Get the volunteers together and have them go out on the plants at the reservoir and pick up the seeds. And I'm sorry for questions. Why didn't it work last year? There wasn't enough time between coordinating the drawdown of the res and mobilizing volunteers that was not a window of office. What's the plan for this year? Yeah, we could do that this year. Well, I mean with advanced planning, we're March now. We can get it done for the county. So I just want to try the nicest days of our U-Advanced Planning. Yeah, so just to be clear, we're not talking about draining the entire res. This is just the annual drawdown that we're talking about. And we're just doing a select portion of the. It's a partial drain down there. Yeah. And when are we talking? I mean, so I'm trying to get more detail about you say, oh, we're going to think about running work. Well, when is it going to happen? What's the plan? It was lower the. Well, that was suggested that people collect this seeds from the bottom. But I'm not sure. There's other issues as well, too, I think in terms of dredging and distribution. Also, but when do they lower the water levels in the rest? Oh, after the beach closes. Yeah, yeah, just send me a mailer and, you know, arrange it because it doesn't sound like it's being planned. And I hope that we get a plan before next year and you come back and ask because you won't go away. I won't go away on that either. So, right. Thank you. Calling up on grant. You just said that McClunnan is supposed to be dredged, but hasn't. Well, why are we, why are we spending any money anywhere else? If we can, there's a solution. We can, we can stop what, what has been happening on all these other water bodies. Sounds to me if because it's where it's a small pond. Why don't we, why don't we dumping the month, $50,000 on something like that so we can start. So the reason why Reedsbrook can get dredged is because it's actually a storm water detention basin. And so it can be managed by pond and the Reeds. They can't be, you wouldn't get a permit to, to the dredging. It would be 10 years before you got a permit. So it's been discussed with the DPW. I don't know where they are with this dredging, but it's, you know, I think David, you've been looking into this, but that is something where you could get a permit from the conservation commission and with enough money, you could dredge Reedsbrook. I will say that the amount in our coffers, even last year's amount, the highest it's been, that project way outstrips the amount of funding available. We need to first evaluate the pond, establish what the conditions were at the outset. So essentially get an as built plan for the detention funds, which requires a survey. We then need to establish a monitoring protocol in order to determine how sediment flows into the ponds and how much it builds up over time. So we're looking at like a five year monitoring period. Already we're way past the funding available. Now on top of that, we need to dredge. And you heard Brad's estimate for how much dredging would cost in the spy pond. So no, no, that was that was how much it actually cost. Just to do just to the portion. So there is much larger outside funding, but that's needed and I'm pursuing that. Testing to make sure that it's not contaminated. It's my pond was contaminated. That just can't be spread out somewhere. Special trucks, custody for all the material. So that's five points problem. We don't know what's that. Reed's Brook it. I mean, if you're thinking, hey, let's just take it out spread it out on someone's yard or in a field. That's probably not what's going to happen with that stuff. So it's expensive. It's a different kind of problem. So yeah, you could we could we could get that approved. We just need a lot of money and more expensive solutions. Very expensive. But we're behind the eight ball for 20 years at the rest throwing money at it and we're not getting any any progress. Here's an opportunity to maybe get ahead of something and at least one water body. I'm just putting that out there. We keep the rest for useful during the summer. So people use during the summer. I don't think we're getting behind the eight ball with the spy pond. I think you would have to have never touched it to find out where exactly you would be right now. We might have some developers proposing homes and lots on spy pond right now. If no one ever did anything over there, it would grow in almost. If we stopped all this, it would just grow in. I mean, you have it's just like a park. It's a it's a it's an aquatic park. It's an expensive aquatic park for the maintenance. But every year you have to do maintenance. You want your yard to look good. You have to get rid of the crab grass. You want people to use the crew teams to be outshared. They can't be weeds. So we can't fall in the water and get tagged up in the weeds and have a problem. We have to if we're going to use it, it has to be in a usable condition and we have to be able to understand what we're putting out there. And we ask people to come and enjoy spy pond. So I don't I think that we've kept it open. It's it's had some years where there's been a lot of algae blooms and and cover on top of the pond and people have commented on it. But for the most part, it's it's open and it's usable. And that might be what is the best we can offer and the best we can hope for unless some other some big money comes in and we can start stretching some areas. But you know, there's also a lot of outfalls. So not only we have to maintain spy pond, we have to maintain everyone's yard and that watershed and everything that goes into spy pond. So it's all connected. Like I said, it's a managed landscape. It's not just about cleaning one area. You pick up the you pick up the chestnuts on that shelf over the winter. Are you digging for the rest of them? Are you going to sift through the dirt? Now, those are growing next year, too. You're going to get really frustrated doing it that way. You have to wait until they deplete themselves. And we've been waiting a long time for that. And that's what's been frustrating. Always asking what's, you know, what are we taking out and wait? And is there less weight the following year? And it really hasn't been. We've been taking out exactly the same amount and we've never caught up with it. So we were hoping with our water chestnut harvester, we could instead of having a two week process or a month process, we could have someone out there most of the summer just picking up. And then hopefully even using that machine in other lakes in Arlington and see if we could really help out in that area, too. So that that was the plan on buying our, I guess it was a plan of frustration. Charlie, and then Jennifer. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I have several questions. Questions. First of all, I wanted to thank the water bodies committee for a very comprehensive and readable report that we circulated prior to the meeting. My first question is about Hills Pond. In the report, it mentions that there was an algae bloom developed in the early fall and treatment had to be curtailed. I also read the report of water and, what's it called? Water and, and they sort of indicated that the declaration that the, that Hills Pond was algae infested with cyanobacteria was premature, if not wrong. He clarified that because once that declaration was made, there was no more possibility of treating the pond. And I understand from the water, from the Water and Wetlands report that it was not cyanobacteria, but duckweed or something like that. That was Water and Wetlands initial opinion. They tested it later. It turned out it was in fact cyanobacteria. Sport of health evaluates the presence of cyanobacteria and the first indication of it by sight is the first, first action they take is to shut it down out of abundance of caution. So that was the course of action this past summer and presumably will be in the future. However, we're starting to test regularly for the presence of cyanobacteria. So if we get a report from the Board of Health, we can say, well, what was the last observation? Does it contain cyanobacteria? Or is it maybe mistakenly duckweed? We can have a conversation about that. We can additionally do testing that day. I mean, it's a 10 minute walk from my office. I can skip up there and skim a little water overnighted to the labs as part of our contract of Water and Wetlands. Fantastic. So if the ruling comes down from Board of Health, we can either get it lifted as soon as possible or just delay it such that we don't actually make that proclamation. Can we give treatments that prevent the cyanobacteria from cyanobacteria from the algae? We could treat it for all. Okay, so this is a point that I wanted to make about spypond as well. So there are methods for preventing the growth of algae that are just mitigating the amount of contamination that a water body receives. Some of those techniques involve treatment of stormwater outfalls. So you can use, for example, biomediation. There are inserts that you can get to put around a stormwater outfall that catch an amount of the contamination so that when we're feeding more stormwater into these water bodies, we're capturing the sediments and the contaminants that cause the growth of algae in the other spaces. So that's one option that we can consider. Those are costly options. There are highly engineered options. So we need to work with engineering on the implementation of that. Make sure we're not screwing up stormwater flows, et cetera. But it's an option. The other thing to address is we're working on algae and the ponds regularly. That's what water and wetland was there doing for most of their visits. They were flying algae sites to keep those levels down. So in the regular course of events, I say that and then admit readily that we're about to experience far more heat waves, far more droughts, far more excessive rainstorms in light of climate change. And so there is no regular course of events. This is going to be iterative and responsive. And the more attention that we can pay to it, the safer option residents are going to be from things like our block, please. And may I just add that in terms of process, we're trying to coordinate a lot better with the Department of Health. Once the Department of Health goes out to a water body and makes a statement that it's potentially harmful algae and sends that to the state, there's nothing we can do in water bodies or conservation. We can't touch it. So we're trying to coordinate better. David has reached out and we have an agreement where if there is an investigation, we do it together. So we can do this testing and we can make sure that if it's harmful, yes, it goes to the state as a report. But if it's not, if it's something else or duckweed, we don't report it. So that's one way we're trying to. But we will be treating. But we will, if it is, if we catch it early, we can treat it. And we do have that in our permit. We treat it with a cop or algae side. Yes. So thank you very much for that, David. So I just want to make one comment about that. We had this big discussion about deraging. We did dredge Hills Pond about 25 years ago, completely. Dug it out and then maybe it was 30 years ago, I'm not sure, but it was a massive project. And the town, I believe the town funded it through the capital budget. And 100% positive, we have to go back and look. And the whole project was very successful in improving the water quality, as some people have asked here. The one major problem that we had was disposal of the material. We found out that it's not so easy to just take this stuff out and send it somewhere. And so it wound up going into the backfield that at Menard, New York's Park, which was a disaster because it was made to feel five feet higher than the surrounding areas and was threatening trees and so forth. Eventually, the town found a place where they could bring the material. They took it all out and life went on. But it is, I mean, I don't know if it's permitted. The dredging must be because the town did it. And so dredging is definitely a solution that can work. Thank you. John. Thank you, Amanda and Jarrah. Just big pictures or questions, comments. One is that I hear a lot of frustration on all sides. I also hear some cautious optimism about some of the plans for the future that you think that we've been battling this in a system way, but there's some possibility of inching ahead of it to some extent. Also, David, you're new, fairly new, right? When did you first start? It was a year and a half ago. A year and a half. And I've heard great things about you. So I suspect that lots of energy is coming that way. Then other big pictures or questions it sounds like now that we will have pulled down the reserve, we're looking at asks of more in line of 80,000 in the coming years. Does that feel about the right numbers? Just looking at it, it's 76. No, we're spending about 50 a year. But when we get down the reserves, then the total spending. Look at the bottom line here. The bottom line, the actual annual expenditures. Oh, annual expenditures. You're right. We have talked internally. I mean, there is a $10,000 increase. Then I have a question. Have you approached capital yet about some of these capital ideas? We started those discussions or is this not happening? Not started yet. Yes, I did put in for capital funding for the Harvester this year as well. In tandem with CPA just to see what happened. Yeah, okay. And then I have a one very tiny question, the outfalls. You've mentioned that they're broken. And I was wondering, what does it mean for an outfall to be broken? And how do you fix it? Sure. So I don't know if you've ever walked along the Mystic River. So if you walk along that path there, next time you do it, if you look down to the river every once in a while where you can see an opening, you'll see some concrete blocks. When the concrete blocks separate, they're kind of partially in the water and they're not attached to anything. That's a head wall that's broken. So they should have been a pipe and a flange and a concrete thing and it should have been well connected and it's not. So first of all, it's broken. Second of all, we haven't done any of the stormwater improvements upstream of that. So what's happening with the stormwater at that point? It's just going straight into Mystic River. So an outfall, I mean you mentioned these sort of fancy things you can put on it, but a regular outfall would it protect the water bodies a little bit more without these fancy extra things or no, you need to do something. So either if you looked at the pre picture on the front here, I don't know if you can see, but on the side, this is just, I mean, an easy thing to do at the edge. This is the edge of the outfall and it's rock and it's a swale. So actually instead of the water going directly in here with a pipe, the pipe's back here and it filters down into these rocks and then it goes in. And so you can see the water here is really clear. Right. And if you look at the water on those broken outfalls, it's cloudy. It's got all these particles. Okay. So even a minimal improvement there, but there's lots of things we could do. Absolutely. I said I'm a gavid kayaker, so I love the river. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, you can see it better from the river. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Questions over here? Hey, do you have a hand up? Go ahead. Do we have public access to the insurance? No, no. That's unfortunate. Just the way it is. Thank you. Have you thought how you might see managing these water bodies for larger chunks of time than two years, like what it might be like in five years, that type of thinking? Is that, is there long range planning on this type of stuff? Did you want to take a quick look at that? Did you want to take a quick look at that? Okay, one of us. So we are something that we started. We're about a little over halfway through. Tufts is actually the used spy pond as a classroom for water quality and one of John Durant's students. Gabby Ackerman Logan has decided to take on spy pond as a project. He's a little over half. She's completed half of it last year. She's got another half. They've got, she's collecting all the material that Tufts has gathered over the last 13 years on water quality and any other material that she can find. I sent her a whole bunch of stuff from the previous studies and she's going to combine that all up. Show the historical trends and produce suggestions on how to improve the situation. So that's one area. I'm looking myself in doing this map of sediment of spy pond and I presented the initial results at the New England Botanical Society last month. And also, if I could interject, all of our permits for these water bodies are three years. So whenever we come around and permit them again, we do an evaluation and like a three-year planning. What, what is going to be entailed in this? What do we need for this water body? And our new vendor that you heard SWCA is helping us with that. They did some new surveys last year for us so we could start on that plan again. But it has to be a plan that's adaptive. It's got to be adaptive management. As David said, we are getting, with climate change, we are getting more algal blooms, more droughts. These are stressors on our water bodies. But it might help that feeling of just throwing money and not seeing improvement by having some clear objectives. Some, okay, we're going to make this a rather a deeper, going to go to a C minus or something. You know, some concrete measurement that we could bring to the town just to avoid this feeling of just throwing money at it. Throwing money at it. I hear what you're saying. This is exactly what we're trying to do. And it's, it's a long-body problem. It just, it's tough, tough. And as you noticed, we, we gave up the old way, started a new, a new group and crossing our fingers. If they don't work out, there's other people. We'll figure it out eventually. But it takes a lot of time. But also communicating our, like, three-year plans. Maybe we're not communicating that well either, which is, I hear what you're saying. Got a good idea. Surveys and plans don't help if we don't consult them. So we can send a lot of money for plans. But no, you got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. My students, Carolyn. I sort of lost where we were with the dredging at McClellan. If we'd already paid for dredging to have happened. No, we didn't. No. Well, okay, but it was part of a contract. Part of a permit. Oh, okay. And that was like how many years ago, 20 years ago. When did we do McClellan? Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was part of the operations and maintenance manual. That was meant to follow the construction. And as far as I can tell, I've spent 10s of hours researching this in the archives. That was never conducted. We are unfortunately as a town, not real good at follow-up maintenance. For some of our projects. It's a cost. So that's another to present at some point. It may be we've considered a lot of different avenues for it. We thought about getting in earmark. We've thought about getting state funding for it. There are many opportunities to pay for that work at that scale. I mean, we may have to look to federal funding from FEMA or something and the likes and do our homework in order to get that level of money. But those are the considerations that we have in the future. Any more questions? Sophie, just a quick one that we haven't brought up in this is maybe peanuts and not too helpful, but there was mention of a contractor rolling down for buffer zones. Are there consequences and any revenue from fees assessed for actions like that? It's DPW. Yes, they're good. I will say that they're good. If it's sort of hard to shoot yourself. Yeah, it would either be levying fines against DPW or the recreation department. So we're trying education onwards. Private properties, I guess all around. Is there ever, do they ever contribute to the Pico spy cons? Very much so. The fertilizer flyer I had. It was so nice. I sent a note out, especially the Cowan Manor Association. And I got back, all I got, I guess about 12, just residents, just spending an afternoon doing the fertilizer flyer. That was part of it. It's a great resource and it just needs to be taken care of. Sophie, did you have a couple of questions? Of course, you mentioned, I believe that you've gone to the CPA for certain things. So I would say that's another potential source of funding. I just want to make sure you're looking at the comment. The other was, I saw you're talking about no brook and how it's mostly strong on a runoff. And that in other places you've done infiltration trenches. Is that something that you, I know you're not asking for money for that now. Is that something that you could potentially do? Absolutely. So have done, continue to do just this week. I actually was it yesterday? Now, what's today? Same Monday. Friday, I filed a $4 million earmark for in partnership with the Mr. River Watershed Association for infiltration trenches that our engineering department division pioneered. And we're going to try and get them funded throughout the watershed. And Arlington, let's see a sizable piece of that. Excellent for that, please. Yes, that's great. Anything else? Dean? So I do want to thank you for coming in. I knew you had a lot of questions and comments tonight. Oh, I don't have any questions, by the way. This is all I'm getting at. No, I know you have a lot of questions and comments. But when I look at this budget, it's like one of the rare budgets that's the dollars are disproportionate to the impact. Usually small budgets and this is small budgets have small and that big budget, these fire schools are big, right? But this is this. It's like a mismatch, right? It's small money, but it's big impact that the water bodies turn into swamps. Then it's going to be awful, right? And I do want to say for you, Cal, that I hope you appreciate that. I think the questions reflect people's passion for the subject in our desire to have a great water like clean water bodies or whatever the proper turn is to not have these things growing, right? And that we are really appreciative for the work. Everyone does on this because the alternative would be terrible, right? And so I just wanted to like, because I think sometimes when you're sitting in your studio, all these questions and you're like, why did they not like what we did or they're not happy with it? I don't think anyone's saying that. No one's like, I think you're just hearing people's passions towards the subject that has a lot of interest. And I think it doesn't get the fact that you guys all do an excellent slash grade one. So thank you. I want to wrap this up because David is willing to talk to us about gas leaks and open space. So I want to be able to spend some time on that. Many questions. Thank you. The mystics are really getting on that, right? The last 10 years, the wildlife is just increasing and increasing. There's multiple herons, there's multiple swan, all sorts of stuff. The mystic river is getting better. And I have noticed there's a proliferation of swan and rats as well, which is great because swan are in the book. Do swan eat water chestnuts? The answer is no. Can we answer chestnuts? The water chestnut is a hard shell with spikes on it. That's what your little kids step on in red sometimes. They go, what is this? It's a dinosaur egg. Yeah. And they stick to the birds sometimes. This is bone wire rat secret. Great. Any more of those, right? No more of those. Whoever in the library is crap, so they're all set. Right. All right. So just a real quick thank you. This is my first in-person committee meeting. This has been fabulous. Giving us an hour and a half is just such a treat with real people and real discussion. I think we've learned a little bit about each other. And now I could recommend a few others. I do want to thank you for your report. I was impressed that you were honest here. Here are the problems. Here are the things that the town has screwed up over the years. And we need to do better. And I do appreciate that a lot. I think that's true. And you've given us some good food for the lunch. Yeah, very good. All right. Well, what are the priorities that are done? But David, if you can answer some questions. I'm going to start with this. Okay, so we have two budget requests. One for the gas leak task force budget. And the other for the open space committee. David, do you want to start? Let's do open space committee first. Let me just, the memo we have. The memo says there's a request for $2,000, but the backup indicates $4,000. You're trying to do too many things at one time. So it's $2,000 request. All right, so tell us why you need that money and why the open space committee. Sure. My name is Wendy Richter, and I'm one of the newly new volunteers to do the co-chair of the open space committee. So our open space committee is responsible for preparing and implementing our open space recreation plan. And the 2022 plan, of course, is just recently released. This is a policy document that the town will rely on in the coming years. These are seven year plans. So every decade-ish we revisit it. And this is a document that I use as environmental planner. I treat this essentially as my to-do list. And I want to underscore just how significant this plan is to me and also how much work have been done on the plan by this committee of late. Open space and recreation plans are state requirements to maintain funding eligibility for state funding programs. Other municipalities write a page and a half. They copy and paste their justifications for doing their work, and they simply move on. The open space committee has put in hundreds, maybe thousands of volunteer members into a formal plan that the planning department can then take and use in tandem with the committee as an environmental plan. So it's one of those things that if it didn't exist, it would need to be created. The open space committee had the initiative to go and create a very robust plan of their own volition that have done for many years. The plan details 53 town-owned parcels and 14 privately-owned parcels, considers all of the needs and concerns on those locations, talks about the community's vision for those locations, how they want to see them used, how they benefit from them, and so forth. The total report clocks in at 827 pages. This is no-light lift. It took years to put together. This is a very robust document, as I say. So now, Wendy and the committee and I are tasked with implementing that plan. So the plan was last updated, of course, in 2015. The last one ran its course. We implemented a number of the goals and actions in that plan. This new one is an opportunity to bring new focus to open space and recreation planning, combining environmental stewardship, natural hazard, and climate adaptation planning, complete streets, and doing this all under the umbrella of open space and recreation priorities. So at that end, we laid out four goals. These are important to read off, so I'm going to give them to you, verbatim. First one is to protect the natural environment, to retain its important functions and values and help Arlington adapt to and mitigate the impacts of climate change. Second one is to ensure the town's recreational facilities, conservation areas, and other public spaces. We local means and are accessible, safe, and welcoming to all climate and residents. Third one is to support local and regional capacity to meet the needs for recreational opportunities, natural resource protection, and overall resource management to be resilient to climate change. And the fourth one, which is the crux of this funding, built environmental stewardship and public awareness to support the town's recreational facilities, conservation areas, and other public spaces. So as I mentioned, there was a very impressive public planning effort that went into this. They took this up during the pandemic, no less, and still managed to accomplish it and relatively close to the timeframe that we wanted to do it. So all this to say, establishing sustainable funding mechanisms for the open space committee and the actions in the plan, it's vital. Similar to how we were talking about maintaining our water bodies as essentially parks. These are the parks that we're referring to. So before income, we've got a $2,000 request. We'll divide that in half. The first half will be allocated to printing costs for the open space and recreation plan. The committee plans to host a release party for the open space and recreation plan, sort of a kickoff. We'll do that as a celebration of the committee's accomplishments and to bring folks in on the ground floor, so to speak, to get the other towns, rather the town's other departments, committees, boards, et cetera, involved in the planning for the next seven years. In the implementation, I should say, for the next seven years. We'll also involve the volunteers and the organizations who are named in the plan. Many, many private organizations, I think probably five have active roles to play in the open space and recreation plan. And so we plan on printing just the first 200 pages of the plan, trying to save costs here, not going for the full 827. The essential portions to distribute at this event would be 25 copies of the plan for the folks who will eventually be tasked with implementing it alongside myself and the committee. I'm at during EcoFest, I believe I said, and happy to send you an invitation. We'd love to see you there. The second half of the funding is likewise for a public education and outreach. So the committees receive funding since 2020, I believe. It's been a $300 award annually. Only a portion of these funds were spent, and I think back to 2020, we had like a year maybe before we went into lockdown, and then we're not spending much money in the interim. So sort of a sensible explanation there. But we are, we were winding down the old plan as well. So now that this new plan has the goal to build some publicity and visibility into the role that the Open Space Committee plays, we're looking to increase that funding to $1,000. There are a number of objectives and actions named within the plan that, again, I'll read to you that these funds can and will be put towards one is to expand and enhance opportunities to utilize non-traditional open spaces. So those would be things like pocket parks or the sort of pop-up dining spaces that we see. If we're using things, using creative means to make more open space, we want to direct more people to those. We want to increase attention paid to those kinds of spaces. We also want to focus on adding wayfinding and interpretive signage of the materials that get incorporated into historic sites, conservation areas and so forth. One example of this right now that we've been working on is called Picture Post. It's a service where you can position your smartphone on top of a podium and take the same, that's the word I'm looking for, same vantage time over time. So you can see the way that the landscape changes seasonally over a period of years, et cetera. It's one of those public engagement types of activities that you can find in our open spaces around town. We also spend additional funds on events, like town day, for example, we need to reserve our booth, we need to print materials and things of the like. And now that all these things are happening in person, again, thankfully, those will be enhanced in terms of their ambition and their cost. So in addition to what I've summarized, Open Space Committee is set to embark on two CPA projects this year. And I think with that, we'll be looking at increased visibility and so our ability to explain what the Open Space Committee is to the public. So it will entail more needs in terms of printing and publicity. So the community is energized. We're ready to implement this plan, take a more active role in the community, and I think their hard work is evidenced by the quality of the plan that they drafted. And I think we'll see benefits back from, or paid to, our way to residents from this modest investment. So Wendy, you want to add something? Well, I just want to say that having participated on the master plan process and implementation of the master plan, I feel like this is kind of another plan and implementation, but we are a volunteer committee and we don't have a department that's working to implement this. So this is not a very large amount that we're looking for to help us do that implementation of this new plan. It's an important point. You go into anybody's office in town hall, you'll see a copy of the master plan. I think it's important for all of our plans to be held in that esteem and the Open Space and Recreation Plan is not on anybody's desk currently. The old one expired. So we need to get these out to town department heads and the likes. Okay, questions. Can you? Is $2,000 enough? That was a long list. We have $1,000 just for the printing and the 25 copies of the plan that will be sufficient for distribution. $1,000 is likely enough for the coming year. I think when we crunch the numbers on what our regular commitments are, we really only get up to the $300 level. Adding these other projects and increased visibility and so forth, I think we'll do that in a measured way. So we're not going to be overspending by any stretch, I think. We're scaling up. Like I said, we'll do it measurably. So given that this is the first year you're looking at a large number, it's still a small number, but you're looking at a large number when you come back next year, which I suspect we'll ask you to, can you have a more detailed analysis of the actuals of where things were spent, which will make it easier because one of the things you're talking about is printing $1,000 to print X. More often than not, groups come back and ask for the same amount. It's like, wait, the majority spent $1,000 on X and X is done. And so we'll want to see very specifically, because this is pretty basic for this year, which makes sense, but in the future just keep that in mind. Charlie. Thank you, Madam Chairman. So first of all, congratulations on that open space report. Strangely, I read the whole thing. And the first part is 188 pages, not 200. And one of the appendices, I think it's 495 pages. I don't know if I can't remember the other ones. But the question I have is, why do you have to print it? I mean, who's going to carry around and use a 180 page report when it can be on a PDF in your computer or a drive? And I did a quick check at Staples and printing that report, quantity one was going to be something like $35 or $40. And quantity 100 was going to be $4,000. I don't know what the number is for 25. I couldn't pick that number because there wasn't enough information isn't a request that we got from the town manager. So that's the first thing I do. You know, is this the right thing to do to print this report? I would recommend on the town website that you've got 13 sessions here. Never mind, I think scratch that comment. You've got 13 sessions. Oh, and you also have the entire report that can be downloaded at the bottom, which is the report. So I also think it would have been helpful with that request from the town manager that some of these items that you just describe had been this, that you just enumerated had been described. It was just one request for printing, you know, sort of big, especially considering quite a momentous work. So do you have a response to why do you need to print? Yes, I think it's important that so we're representing physical spaces. We're talking about access to and use of actual locations. As I say, we need the specificity and I think the gravitas that comes with the printed report to be on every department desk in town hall. It also matters that we're working with a number of volunteers and partner organizations and so forth who won't as readily, you know, have access to digital versions of applying for evidence. It's on the website. But the folks who are not thinking about Arlington's open space and recreation plan will not know to go look for that. So having that on a shelf in the Mystic River Watershed Association office, I think does a lot to get us out into the community in a literally solid sort of way so that people have something tangible to look at, flip through, understand what we're representing in terms of Arlington's open spaces and, you know, point to those things. Call me up and say, all right, I see objective AC. You want to do X, Y, and C for thinking about that too. How do we make that happen together? What's the actual total amount that you're asking? The total amount is $2,000 for one half for the project related costs, printing, et cetera, publicity. The first half is 25 copies of the plan. That's what runs the $1,000. And I got that from the Swanky. And I can provide an actual estimate. That's really cool. Any more questions? Okay. I'm probably mistaken. I was under the impression that this kind of committee was more advisory and preparing a report. And then once the report is done, sort of giving it to the town, is there really continued, I don't know, when it was established? Does it continue on for infinity or does the committee intended to end at some point once the report is final until next when it's needed? Well, there are ongoing actions in the plan. So they'll be involved with the implementation of those from now to the publication of the next plan. So committee doesn't get dissolved in between creation of the plan. Additionally, the statutory sort of mandate from, I believe it was select board to form this committee includes the implementation of the plan. So we have both the creation and implementation of the plan. And the committee also does a fair amount of just tracking monthly meetings so we go over where we are with different goals. And it's not like the old plan stopped. It's like we were running, it was like a relay race where you pass off at the time of running with the old one while we were putting together the new one. If there aren't any other Charlie, any more questions? Yes, thank you. One more question. Have you given any thought to all of the very well considered aspects of the plan? Have you given any thought for the cost of the implementation? Not your cost, but the town's cost. In other words, what is the impact, the financial impact of all these things? A lot of them are course of business type of activities. So, you know, me as environmental planner, my role is a halftime position on the other half on conservation. So as I say, this plan is essentially my checklist for my aims of environmental planning. It informs the town's prerogatives in those terms. So in that way, it is, as I said earlier, you know, if it didn't already exist, it would need to be created in order for me to do my job. So my job has associated cost of course. We have not estimated what those costs are for all of the activities in the plan. Some certainly have cost estimates attached, specific projects associated. Others are vagrant. You know, there are more ongoing activities that are town functions. And so it would take a pretty significant audit to accomplish that. Yeah. We only have 15 rounds left and we need to get to Gasleek. So one more question and we'll move on to Gasleek. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have two clarifying questions. So one is that you're asking for 4,000 for this, right? No, 2,000. 2,000. Sorry. That was my mistake. Other thing. Okay, got it. And the second clarifying question is you're also updating the plan, right? Is that the plan right now is expired and that one... No, the new plan is printed. We have... The new plan is that you're not... You don't have... Okay, got it. That's right. Those are the only clarifying questions. Thank you, Madam Chair. All right. So Gasleek. Yeah, yeah. Again, the memo says 1,200. The backup says 1,250. 1,250 is the number. 1,250 is the number. So you are maybe the first to hear. Start this before the news that I'll deliver. This is this presentation before the news I'll deliver. But just know that there's a bit of news ahead. So Gasleek's the cause of explosion-scaled trees to great human health and contribute to climate change. The time manager's Gasleek's task force has been working since 2016 to find a utility-scale solution to national-grade leaks, which escaped from under the back streets. The task force takes its mandate from a priority action identified in the net-zero action plan, which is specific to stopping Gasleek's. And here's my bit of news. That effort took a big step forward tonight. The select board just passed a resolution calling on National Grid to fix 14 of their biggest leaks. National Grid's responsible for these repairs under state law, but they have been delinquent in addressing the issue. They're up against regulatory timelines and in some cases, I pass them. So last year, Grid reported that there were 177 leaks in town. That would be Q4 2022. Field observations suggest that number is actually two to three times higher. The Natural Gas Distribution Infrastructure in Massachusetts is the second oldest in the country and the most leak-prone. There are leaks next to the high school, major intersections, near daycares, health facilities, and on average, there are multiple leaks per mile of roads and arches. So needless to say, there's a lot of work to be done. I'll be working with the task force on the follow-up to the resolution, but these are just National Grid leaks. These are the ones in the infrastructure itself, the utility mains. Residential indoor leakage is in fact in the same way that the utilities are and we certainly need to pay attention to this problem. There's an estimate that up to 90% of homes using Natural Gas have indoor leakage. There's a big gap in our methane accounting globe that says that we can account for what's being taken out of the ground. We can account for how much the utilities are using or losing rather in terms of leakage, but then we can't account for the rest of the loss that must be out there somewhere. The working assumption is that that's happening in buildings. So in Arlington, we'll just put this in specific terms. Methane supplied to 12,000 homes give or take and 90% of those leaking we're talking about 10,000 homes, which are very likely to leak. So the gas leaks task force is seeking 1250 for the purchase of indoor sampling equipment and this equipment will be used in tandem with a partnership we're discussing with the non-profit heat. Heat is the home energy efficiency team and their executive director, Dom Nichols, Nicholas, sorry, proposed to us a three-step voluntary program that he would run in partnership with the task force offered for free to anybody who enrolls. There are three parts of this program. As I said, the first one is air sampling. This is the first step in getting at the indoor leakage problem. So the elevated rings inside, if you take a measurement of methane inside a house, very high indicator of leakage, folks can do this on their own. They can essentially bag the air in their home and shut that off to heat for analysis. Easy, safe to do and really little to no training associated with it. But you can then analyze that for the occupant, provide sort of not quite real time, but direct feedback on the air quality indoors in that person's home or apartment. And then we can track sort of in a separate database the incidence rate of indoor leaks and get an understanding of how many homes are impacted. And the instrument that we're looking to purchase would be used in tandem with that survey. So when methane is combusted, it releases nitrous dioxide, so harmful gas, and it has deleterious health impacts. We're looking to also collect data on the level of nitrous dioxide exposure in homes. So the device is an aeroportable air quality monitor. Likewise, it would take air quality samples, but this would be done in partnership with volunteers who would be on site to take the measurements in the home. Restore this equipment in my office. It doesn't require any special training or calibration or storage requirements, anything of the likes. It's just a handheld device. It's a little bigger than your smart phone and can be used in many locations. So this would give us a much more holistic sense of the air quality impacts resulting from methane and its use. The second stage of the survey, or actually I should say of the study would be a survey. So if we do register that a building has an elevated level of methane specifically, then we would take a close look at all the infrastructure in the building, look at the heat pump, the heater, anything else that uses natural gas and evaluate it for weeks, try to quantify those weeks and then estimate in step three the daily emissions that are coming from buildings and that frankly will breathe. So there's a lot of work being done in this area. Heat is a leader in this space. They have done quite a bit already on the utility scale weeks and they want to move in the direction of quantifying, assessing and forming about indoor weeks. They, like I said, developed new methods for that and those have been likewise celebrated in sort of academic settings and in the press. So this I think is an excellent opportunity, a very low cost to do some community-based science, engage residents in our net zero action plan and further about the impacts of methane and at its core, much as this is about data gathering and assessing gas leaks, this is a program about the safety and welfare of our residents. It's a public health concern that we're looking to address and in that sense, we've earned that same thing. We've given thought to the affordability of the fixes for folks. So we have as part of our net zero action planning, electrify islands and they have coaches who can help folks get electrical appliances. They're coaches willing to take folks through the rebates and so forth and so anybody who's interested in changing their appliances based on the results of the survey would be able to take advantage of these substantial rebates at this time. So I will add one more thing to that which is that there is concern about the transition off of gas, not making it more expensive for folks who can't afford to transition their appliances and so forth right now because supply and demand. This would be a proactive approach towards getting folks in the pipeline for affordability well in advance of that shift happening. So we shave off the costs of this to the consumer up front and make sure that folks in Arlington are well taken care of in terms of their safety, their welfare and their wellness. So let's go up there. Who is actually going to do the testing of town employees? So the testing can be done by volunteers. He would coordinate. So the town will be buying this piece of equipment and then giving it to a non-town employee organization to go onto people's homes to take the tests and then who's compiling the results heat or the town? Heat does and what we I should back it up and say that in our utility work we've relied on heat's data in order to make the case that for example to the select board for the resolution tonight. So we're looking to them as a partner in this work. I mean they're already deeply embedded in the Gas League Task Forces work. And I will also say that the program of doing this monitoring wouldn't exclusively be run by heat. Again, it's a partnership and we would have a role in providing volunteers for that effort. So we would be supplying labor and receiving data. Questions? Yeah, help me understand this. I know when I'm outside and there's a Gas League, I know I could smell it. Yeah. My feeling of a Gas League inside of house, one that you smell it and two that your long-term health concerns would be like the least of your problems because your house might blow up. You're going to get out. Yeah. So what am I missing now? What is the? Well, I'll give you the example of my own house. We have a gas heater and gas power water on the right there. And so when the heat kicks on, there are times that I smell methane in my bathroom. And I'm like, this isn't the level of like Paul National's great get the emergency authorities out here. This is just like a whiff at a time. And so these things can seem innocuous. You know, they're not necessarily like finding your bedroom with methane and going to die from it. You do smell it. Yeah. I was just saying like it seems like there's people would mostly have no sense of smell for the COVID. They would they would they would they would have some advanced one. Yes. Certainly. Okay. And then that might be the people that would not have an instrument. And can this instrument actually like really find like where it's coming from? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I've used it myself. So the counter counter sort of getting where it gets because that would be yeah, that's very useful. Yeah. It's a sniffer. It's got a long hose about that long. And the opening is only about as wide as that. So it's hard to write out. Other questions? Great. Sam. Yes. Thank you. Yeah. I think the sniff is kind of like a guy who kind of clicks. Yeah. Good endeavor, by the way. I'm always concerned about the whole thing with the hand over on the gas leak. Sticks with me. And that was because of an operator rather than just a casual leak, which I'm kind of hoping this might help address, but it doesn't. That's okay. So if leaks are found in the home, you got there's some sort of mechanism of place that can help the homeowner fix it themselves. Is that right? Yeah, absolutely. So in the first place, they can call their service provider, you know, the furnace is leaking. You call your furnace provider, you know, get that fixed straight away. They also have the option of replacing that. So they don't want to see it happen again. They think maybe it's aging out. Maybe it's time for an upgrade, whatever it is. They could switch to an electric one. They get all sorts of benefits from that. And there's the electronics and component that we plug into for that. Okay, part two on that. So how is this, there's only one monitor that's available for any homeowner and houses program going to be and only one, you know, is there is the cost prohibitive and also how is that going to be rolled out to make anyone's library system? Yes, essentially, I don't live in my office. So we can have a schedule for the use of the monitor. And we can, like I said, work with heat on training the volunteers who go out into the community to do it. So they would, they would run that. So I'm, I'm, oh my God, I got a gasoline in my house. I call up your office and your office says, okay, we'll send the volunteer that we have on. Yeah. Well, so that's kind of what I'm, and then so does monitors not getting like used. I mean, technically what you're smelling isn't the, isn't the methane. It's the odorized. That burns off. If you have, for example, an efficient gas burner or gas boiler, you're going to get nitrogen dioxide, which is dangerous for you. You're never going to smell that. So this would pick up the stuff you can't smell. It doesn't have to be odorized. Right. Deodorant is so much that you can actually smell it. Yeah. Smell it. They put it in there. So you can smell. I guess you can't smell the gas burner. So somebody says, I don't smell anything, but I'm kind of concerned about this as we go. They would call your office and you would then coordinate with the volunteer and the volunteer would then coordinate with the homeowner and go out and schedule a test. Is that kind of how, okay. And yet if these were like available at the library, of course if you just call and say, I'd like to rent this for a week and then you go pick it up as opposed to a consumer doing it. Yes. Is there a lot of training involved with, I mean, I've, no. Not now. No, I'm also, that was my question. Charlie and then Dave. Thank you. So, I'm anxious that it touched on that by implication there and the cost of managing this program. I mean, you're a very busy guy, right? And if a hundred people want to use this, are you going to sit here and take a hundred telephone calls? Or do we have to hire somebody to be answering the phone to this to meet the special line? I mean, I'm not being facetious. No, no, no, I'm not. That's it. This is it. You're ready my mind. That's the cost. Okay, number one. Yep. Number two, I realize I think this heat program is organized with the Boston University, if I recall, and they have a pretty extensive map of all the outside leaks and, you know, like in one of the other places on their website. But you now want to have these people come into an individual's home to measure the gas, right? So who bets these people? How do we know that the person that's coming in, you know, doesn't have a little scam on the side, picking up the things out of the house? Well, maybe, is there, what do they call it? Corey or Corey? Corey check. Corey check on these people. Oh, I see you're saying not that they be scamming. So, you know, there's a liability associated at a risk associated to the homeowner having these unknown people come in to do a test when you don't know anything about your background. And then in addition, you know, you bring in some nice college sophomore and he or she goes in and she's going to check the burner in the basement and falls down the stairs, breaks the lake. Who's got the liability, the homeowner, the town, the heat program? I mean, I, candidly, I think this is, there's a lot of holes in this, to be honest. The implementation is not simple. That's my only question. Thank you. I have a person. Let's get the questions. Let's get the questions asked. Fine. We're running out of time. So let's get anybody questions. Let's ask the questions instead of debating it. I just, I have a comment and a question. Um, why is the town on this gas issue all across the town for the last five, six years natural grid with the private contractor has been laying new gas pipes, new gas lines on houses, new meters? Well, that would certainly decrease the number of leaks. I mean, for example, where I live, Sunset Road, the whole project of four years, from one end of Sunset to the other to Newland Road to Bow Street, then the town committed and changed all the water pipes. Myself, I've got new gas lines coming into my house. Geez, I hope they don't leak. They're brand new. I've got a new gas meter that they moved from inside my house. Now the rule says it has to be outside the house. That should be okay. In addition, I put in a brand new gas heater. So I, I don't see, and if I was going to have a concern in my house about an order of gas, the one I wanted to call it would be the gas company because they're professionals and they come to your house with the equipment in their meters and they can tell right away, rather than have some going back to challenge with some unknown volunteers checking something. But I'm confused as to where all these massive gas leaks in the town violate them. And if that was a concern going back to Grant's point about and over the massive gas explosion, it seems to me that this idea is something more than just checking gas leaks. That to me, it seems like to me that it's doing away with natural gas. Again, that's my problem. Do you have a question, Dave? Well, my question is kind of the town of Alecden is allowing the gas company to go all the way all over the town from with the feisty contractors laying new gas lines. So if that's the case, why do we need this idea? If it's all brand new. Should I respond? Go ahead. So in the first place, I can't you have to talk about it. New lines are likely to leak as well. It's it's not a matter of age, but older pipes leak more often. So there is every likelihood that a brand new line will leak. For example, that's a possibility. I'll give you that. I'll give you an example. Mass av and pleasant. That line was said to have been fixed as part of the MWA work that's ongoing down there. If you stay on that gas corner on that gas corner, I mean, you smell gas there. I'll call a gas corner in my case. That that's that is a really bad week. It's a major intersection. As I said, we've got 177 of these things in town. There are tons of utility scale weeks that are emitting literally tons of methane for which all of us are paying as ratepayers. So yes, they're out there doing work. They additionally may be misappropriating the funds from the gas line enhancement program in order to enlarge their lines in order to put more gas through them, which is an immediate problem. Oh wait, maybe misappropriate the funds. The fund, the state funds that are designated to someone looking into that. There's something new legal. Yeah, yeah. The the AG was contacted about it. The governor is looking into it. The GSEP program, the gas line, gas system enhancement program is being researched for for this. What does that have to do with this? The right. So I'm just about to say it requests us between $1,250 for new equipment. So let's let's focus on that budget request for for inter-use through a partnership with a non-profit for individual homeowners. Sophie, do you have a hand up? I had the same question Charlie had. Okay. L and then the ending. Yeah, well, it's true, 1250 is not much of it. It does worry me a little bit because we bought a number of sound level meters and whatever one was needed, they couldn't find it because they were hardly ever used. But my question is, am I interpreting this right? This really isn't about looking for pipes that are going to explode and gas leaks. This is more sort of like analogous to coming in with an infrared camera and looking. This is all the heat you're losing through your walls. So you should probably insulate. So you go into a house where you're not smelling gas, there's no leak. But you have a gas, though, when a gas boiler or whatever. You said this is bad air that's coming into your house. Maybe you should consider using a rebate programs to convert. So in other words, I don't think it's really to deal with things like leaks that might explode or whatever, but more to convince people that even in a good house with gas, there's going to be some pollution. You probably want to be aware of that. That's the case. Okay. Is that fair interpretation? Yeah. Okay. Kenny. So if I'm understanding you correctly, this meter measures methane and it also measures nitrous oxide, which nitrous oxide is a off off gassing from burning. So we're measuring two foods in the house, both of which have deleterious health effects. And for somebody who's concerned about those things, the ability to meter will be useful. Yes. Thank you. One more question. Good night. Thank you. Thank you. So I'm struggling with understanding the relationship with heat, which I've just learned about tonight. And so I know nothing about it, but it all seems like I totally agree with Charlie. He is an illustration of it. I mean, would it make more sense to donate $1,250 to them to buy this thing? And they can administer the monitoring and stuff like that? It just seems like we're getting involved with, the town is getting involved with the government, not sure the town has that. Yeah. The town is interested in having the data and having this as part of feeder into the electrify our LinkedIn campaign. So we would be administering volunteers who would then be coached by electrify, sorry, homeowners that they are in contact with would then be coached by electrify our LinkedIn as part of that campaign. Additionally, we receive the information about where the gas leaks occur in residences. So, you know, we have a level of understanding about where the gas leaks occur in the utility lines and the risk to public health welfare as a result of that. But we don't know in town where buildings are leaking. I mean, I stand in my backyard and I can smell my neighbor's house leaking next door. And that's certainly a concern, as it should be for anybody with a family or any individual. I mean, it's something that we should be looking to remedy as a health and safety concern for our residents. So. And is he in a position to do that testing? Yes. Yes, this is their business essentially is. So why wouldn't a homeowner if they smelled gas? They didn't rely on national grid. Could they call heat and ask them to come out and test? No, this this program would be developed in partnership with the town. Good. I guess what I'm wondering is why don't we have heat by this piece of equipment and they take the ownership and the liability and all of that and develop the data for us. We felt like municipal involvement was important so that we had an actual program centered on our LinkedIn. This wouldn't be happening in other municipalities. So we would know specific data about the town. All right. Well, it's 10, 10, the past American women. So thank you, David, for helping us understand these two additional budgetary costs. Do I have more for adjourned? So we'll move on to the next slide.