 All right. Sorry, I'm trying to get into the one drive. Got the code. Did we lose Leroy. He has trouble joining I'm promoting him as we speak. He is in the zoom as a attendee but for whatever reason he's not getting the zoom panelists link. Come again. He didn't behave so you booted him out. I don't know. Let's get this party started. On that note. Welcome everyone to the Amherst conservation commission meeting. It's November 10th, 2021. Our first agenda item or comments from the chair. I'll just say per usual. Give a quick overview. We have. We have three meetings. We have three meetings. Presentation by land manager and assistant land manager. And then we have three hearings tonight. And then a couple other business items like a couple, three media emergency certs to go through and a couple. Certificates of compliance at the end. So we'll try to keep this moving as best we can while allowing everyone to be included as much as possible. And then we'll also have a meeting with the commissioners. Because we have really. Then kind of, I don't know, it's been a few several long and rather intense meetings in a row. We got somebody sent us a letter. Just saying how much they appreciated our work. And I wanted to read it quickly. If you can give me one. Second. Here it is. I'm going to address to me and conservation commission. And it says dear chairperson fair. I'm just trying to compliment you and your fellow commissioners as well as Aaron dock on your admirable service to the town. I tuned in to last night's conservation commission meeting in order to follow discussion of the Mitchell farm proposal, even though you ran out of time before that discussion. I listened rapidly as you and your fellow commissioners Thrashtown environmental concerns about the proceeding proposals. And I wanted to make sure that I had clear-cutting to make way for 45 year solar field reevaluate and book status that is rummage as intermittent streams as examples. The entire meeting may be confident that our town water resources are an excellent hands and also proud to be a citizen of Amherst. Please convey my good thoughts to your fellow commissioners. I appreciated getting that after a few long hearings. And I really want to pass on like 100% of the credit to you guys. This has been like a total marathon. I'm really excited to be here. And I'm really excited to be here. I really appreciate the opinions on those hearings now with standing like definitely I feel proud of how we're engaging with this process. So bear with me, bear with us through tonight. And probably another big one in December. Our December eight. Meeting will probably be a pretty big one. But then hopefully we can buy the new year. Things will be at least different. If not later. So thank you to everyone and especially Aaron, who does everything off. Offline to make this all as efficient and organized as humanly possible. So thank you all. And that was my report from the chair. So. The next one was a report from Dave, who I understand was going to be late if at all attending. The next agenda item would be. I'm Aaron, if you have an overview or anything to report right now before. We move to minutes. Why don't we let Brad and Brendan. Do their presentation first. I think they're expecting to be about 10 minutes and then we'll take it from there. Okay. And if we don't have enough room, enough time for minutes, that's something that can be postponed as well. So I, if we end up getting carried away. Okay. So. So. I see them. I see them. I'm going to promote. Okay. Great. They are. Hi, Brandon. Hello. How's it going? Good. Is that puffers in your background? Excellent choice. Brad, we can't hear you or see you. Can you hear me? We can hear you. Sorry. Hello. I'm not really sure how to fix the video part. Yeah. I'm sorry. Down on the left hand corner. It says stop video. There's an X across it. Click on it. Do you have a camera cover on your laptop? Oh. Sorry. There he is. Yes. Sorry about that. Welcome. Thanks for taking the time to do this. Thank you. So Brendan and I, I guess just wanted to give everyone an update on how things have been going and a few of the things that we have coming up in the future. Is it all right to get started? Yeah, please go ahead. Awesome. So the first slide here is, I think it's actually Brendan's background. It's the puffers pond. And if we want to go to the next slide. So this is a pretty good example of some of the pretty nasty trees that we've been kind of tackling. Almost everything has just been some kind of crazy storm damage this. I mean, I guess in the last five years, we've had a lot of storm damage, but this is an example of the stuff that we've been kind of tackling since the last time we met with you guys. And the two smaller pictures on the left. Are. Down in the Amherst Woods neighborhood. Actually, I guess all of them are, but. You can see that the bigger picture on the right is actually a really bad one that took us over a week to take care of the, these trees were hung up, as you can see, and it doesn't really give it justice to how big these trees were. We ended up bringing our 80 horsepower tractor down to kind of free them from. That you can see how one of the trees is sitting in that Y of the tree and. There's kind of a house in the background that white in the background isn't the sun. There's a house there and it was a little dangerous working in someone's backyard and making sure everybody was safe, but we got it down safely and everything worked out good. So, Brendan, if you want to take the next slide. All right. All right, so some more tree work we've been doing. I think this, the one on the left is a big white oak that we've been working on. We've been working on it. We've been working on it across the, the TRG path at Puppers pond. I think we cut this one up about, you know, maybe two or three weeks ago. Got that cleared. And the fencing kind of fix itself because luckily there's a steel cable. So it kind of realigned itself once we got the tension off of it. And then the other one is on the top of Mount Pollux during one of the storms this summer. So we've been working on that tree making sure it stays healthy so that nobody, you know, get a bad storm. It falls down on someone. So keeping an eye on that tree. The good news. For the, the Mount Pollux top is, or the summit is that, you know, there's a lot of leaves on the tree. So the tree is a, it seems like starting to get a little old, a little sick. As you can see in the, you know, the outer branches on the perimeter of the tree too. Like a lot of the limbs don't have leaves anymore. So we've been keeping it on that tree, making sure it stays healthy so that nobody, you know, gets a bad storm. So the good news for the Mount Pollux summit is that, luckily we've been replanting in the past, like maybe four or five years up there. So we have, I think three new trees that are eventually going to take the place of these old ones. Obviously it'll take a while to get to that point, but that's the, I guess the positive note there. Because as Brendan said, this one is getting to the end of its lifespan. So at some point we're going to have to make that same decision. Erin, if you can go to that next slide, please. So this is an example of some of the bog bridging that we've been doing as part of the, that DCR trails grant where we're redoing a lot of the, the dangerous old bog bridging on the Robert Frost trail. On the, in the right picture, you can see just south of station road. We've got bog bridging that we replaced in Lawrence swamp. And then the left hand picture, you can see that we actually had this one up just off market Hill road. It's across the street from that coal zone property. I can't think of the name of the woman who lives there, but that one came out pretty good too. You can kind of see there's one section there. That's a little bit wider where the bases are. And that was a tricky spot around some roots. But otherwise everything came out really, really good. And we made a nice little approach ramp there to make it so that people that were either biking or had limited mobility could still use it. We can switch to the next one. Sorry, double clicks. All right. So this picture, the one on the left is kind of like in the process of being built. This summer was really rainy as you all are probably aware. So oftentimes we'd have to wait kind of a while for it to dry out a little bit before it could get in here. Here's an example of us trying to go to work the day. And as you can see, there's mud everywhere. So we decided to pause for the day. I'm working on that bog bridge. And the bridging on the left looks like that the old national, the national guard bridge for Ed. Yes. That's over by the brickyard conservation area, making a better approach to the national guard bridge. So people can get around that area towards the KC trail. Yeah, we had a lot of rain in that section and it kind of washed one of the bridges off of the, the ramp that goes right up to the national guard bridge. So we had to make this approach so that people could get over that really wet section to actually cross it. We also fixed the ramp on the other side, but this was the most recent fix. And as you can see, it's very temporary. It's a not particularly attractive, but it's solved the functionality of getting people safely across for now. I think we're ready for the next one. Thank you. So this is the Wentworth conservation area. We had a flail mower earlier this growing season. And we used it to open up some of these trails and access roads into the conservation areas. We used it here. And as you can see, this is, I was standing near that first bridge, looking back towards old farm road when I took the picture. And it opened it up pretty good so that we could get the vehicles into to maintain that area. And then the other area where we use the mower to do the same type of work was the KC trail off Southeast street. We're going to be working with Aaron to replace that bridge. That the tractors have to go over. Hopefully this coming year and we, we did this so that we could potentially get some bigger trucks and contractors equipment down to that to get the work done. I think we're ready. So this area is over by Puppers pond, right underneath them. We had an individual this spring that was stacking rocks kind of in the woods and making like a little, I guess some sort of area. And we kind of had to scatter the debris around make them look more natural and return most of the rocks to the river bed because otherwise, you know, they're taking rocks out of the stream, which is not good for the stream bed. So we had to put the rocks back in. Yeah, Brendan actually teamed up with a huge group of volunteers at one point to actually bring the rocks all the way back after Brendan and I had spent a few days dismantling some of the stuff. It was kind of quite an undertaking, which was a bit of a pain in the butt, but it needed to be done. And this individual had spent a long time building it. So it was good to get it over with. I think we're ready for the next one. So this is the before slide for or sorry, the before slide is on the left and the after slide is on the right. And it's the puffers pond perimeter trail. And you can see where on the left hand picture, one of the pieces of cribbing had rotted and broken off, leaving some nasty stuff exposed on the on the hill. And we wanted to protect the pond from erosion in the trail, obviously. And so we teamed up with a group of Eagle scouts. And they helped us build what you can see is the new cribbing on the right hand side there. They did a really nice job. And they actually just finished it last weekend. So I think we're ready for the next one. So over here, this is in the plum, plum springs conservation area in South Amherst off of middle street. I believe that's the KC trail that runs through here. So I think with all the storms coming in, like August, September, this fall is really rainy and it overwhelmed the current, I guess, like the pond lover that existed in this pond. If you look carefully on the right picture, right underneath that big tree, there's a big beaver lodge. And they've been damming up. This whole trail. So it was impassable for a couple of weeks. And fortunately, we just got a new pond leveler in. And now it's finally drained back to what it was. And in the future, we'll have to go back in there. Once it dries out more and do some maintenance on the trail to make it more accessible for people to hike and bike. And that's one of the emergency search that you guys are going to be seeing tonight. So. So let's go back in there. And I'll just highlight that. It's for saying, I was saying that I was going to ask, it's like. Invasive a little bit. You had to get in there in order to. Make that repair. Right. So this is the Puppers pond. Beach. And these are the before pictures of when we replaced some of the cribbing. there was actually a bunch of sections of rebar that were coming through the rotting cribbing and were early kind of unsafe with people walking with bare feet on the beach and with the kids tripping and stuff. So as you'll see in the next picture we put up new, I guess you really, it's a good thing I suppose, but you really can't see the new retaining wall. It's all we did was replace those rotting cribbing which is just six by six timbers with new ones. In the picture all the way to the right you can kind of see the foot of one of them, but we put in a new beach sand and it actually came out really nice. It cleaned up pretty well. With the potential dredging in the future we kind of tried to keep the budget reasonably low on this project just because if we do do the dredging in the future it would all kind of come out. So this was temporary but pretty functional. This is a project that we're going to try to be doing in the future. This is the boardwalk over at Larch Hill. It's just old as you can see the the decking is starting to kind of get old and worn out. We've had some holes that we've patched with temporary OSB plywood and some timbers that we have around the shop. So we've been doing some patchwork to keep the bridge walkable, but we will be working on kind of renewing this bridge in the near future. And this is the Kevin Flood Bridge which is off of State Street across from Puffers Pond and as you can see in the picture on the right it has a little bit of surface rust and so since it's such a nice bridge over the Cushman Brook we really wanted to get that preventative maintenance going pretty soon. So I think the plan is going to be to really clean out between the boards and replace some of the boards as we go and in the process we will get all the debris and to try this out of there and scrape it down and repaint it. So this is one of the things that we're going to be working with Aaron on to come forward to you guys hopefully soon so that we can get it done next growing season and that's it. I think right? I think so. Awesome. Well thanks for letting us share these pictures with you. Thank you for being here to share them. Yeah thank you for all the hustle out there guys I know it's been a tough season. Commissioners do we have any questions or comments? Just thank you. Oh yeah, LaRoy. Yeah just a thank you and a lot of the work looks great and I'm really impressed but I'm most impressed by the amount of outreach you've done including even Eagles coats that really helps us, helps the town. I think it's all about outreach and of course the more hands the better so thank you again. Yeah neither here nor there but the Bogbridge and Lawrence Swamp south of Station Road is like a toddler favorite. It is like the coolest obstacle course if you are between the age of one and a half and four that could like possibly exist so. Or between 25 and 35. Yeah I also think it's awesome. It's of all ages. I don't know if I was ready to feel that by myself but anyway thank you guys. What's the status of the Marker Pondam? Marker it's Pondam so that's a good question we actually just spoke with Dave Zomek about that this week. Our plan is to work with Erin on an emergency cert which might even be in the works tonight. I think it is. Yeah it was already issued but we just need to ratify it. So I worked with Jason Skeels the town engineer to come up with some plans for rehabbing it. We're going to be putting in some thicker geotextile fabric pulling out some of the riprap and replacing it with a little bit heavier duty riprap and then we're going to top dress it and roll it again with that stone dust so it's accessible again. So it'll have that built in spill away again because it did function really the way it's supposed to in this last storm. But yeah other than the so the erosion control also is what we're going to have to work with Erin on. Too much water. Yes there's a lot of water. I'm glad it held up as well as it did but yeah. Okay. Any other comments or questions commissioners? Okay well thank you both very much for being here. Keep up the good work. Yeah. Thanks for having us we should do this more often. Totally. It's good to hear like really good things. Yeah. Okay cool. Well hang in there. I'm going to move you guys out of being panelists. Oh no maybe Erin did you already or I can't. Oh Erin can you make me a co-host? Oh yeah sorry about that. That's okay. And then commissioners maybe we can quickly approve or discuss vote on minutes and we have like three minutes before our first hearing. So the only minutes on the agenda were the 10-27 minutes. Okay. And I move we approve the minutes of 10-27. I beat you Anna. I had started speaking. All right it sounds like we have a voice vote. Larry. Yes. Anna. Yes. Michelle. Yes I. LaRoy. All right. Laura. Hi. And I'm an and I'm an I. I think Laura stains from that one. No I said I okay we couldn't hear you. Sorry. She flipped. Okay. It's an eyes across the board. We have three minutes Erin. Anything we can do in three minutes? Yeah. So request for a certificate of compliance I think we can handle in three minutes. There was one at 11 wildflower drive in Amherst and very easy because it was not it was not even. Sorry about that. It was not even there was no wetlands there's no wetlands around it. It's it's in an upland area so I would recommend that we issue a complete certificate a complete certificate of compliance at 11 wildflower drive in Amherst. Somebody wants to move that. I move that we issue a complete certificate of compliance at 11 wildflower drive in Amherst. Second. Second. Okay. I think Michelle was that Michelle who got the second. All right. Second. Voice vote. Michelle. Hi. Anna. Hi. LaRoy. Hi. Larry. Hi. Laura. Hi. And I'm an I. So I also received a request for a certificate of compliance for Aspen Heights which is a large apartment complex kind of behind Domino's Pizza on route nine um between Greenleaves and Domino's and um this one was a little tricky because there's two level spreaders in the back which um they are the stormwater part of the stormwater systems and I know there have been issues with standing water in those level spreaders but um when I went out to look at them they were dry and functioning so um I mean considering the issues with flooding in the past that I've seen out there I'm I'm a little apprehensive with it but at the same time I know that they they had suspected that part of the reasons that they were backing up were because there was um erosion controls right at the outlet that they thought were damning it um so I don't know how exactly you guys want to handle that um but if you want to entertain a certificate of compliance on it I would recommend at a minimum we include of course the ongoing um conditions from the order of conditions um but yeah knowing the history of that site it's kind of um I don't even know what withholding a certificate of compliance would really do um as long as there's ongoing maintenance required as part of the order um as part of the certificate I think that that's really the best that we could ask for on the on the order I'm comfortable with that okay yeah is this the um is this the area that you can see from southeast street when you drive by and it's on the left no um so not nope um this is on route nine coming from the Hadley Mall towards the town of Amherstown line shop and shop is on your left and it's on your right it's a really large apartment building it's tucked back you can't really see it right right by dominos yeah don't I was thinking of another flooded apartment complex yeah I'd be interested to talk offline with are you talking about um colonial village michelle I maybe it's from the back but yeah okay both yeah offline yeah it's fine we don't get or Erin or Jen we this is not one where we get monitoring reports from am I mixing up aspen chase chase and aspen heights don't we get monitoring we we were having monitoring reports however when they did their final pave and the I actually okayed them stop to stop doing the monitoring because the site was stable okay yep okay so if there are no other questions or concerns on this we're looking for emotion I may have to issue a certificate of compliance with ongoing conditions at aspen heights in amherst was there additional criteria okay second okay voice vote larry hi michelle hi ana hi laroy hi laura hi and i'm an eye okay that was a good use of uh a little bit um so our next agenda item is a notice of intent um so I think this is our i'm going to open the public hearing um this public hearing is now called to order this hearing is being held as required by the provisions of chapter 131 section 40 of the general laws of the commonwealth and act relative to the protection of wetlands as most recently amended and article 3.31 wetlands protection under the town of amherst general bylaws um so this is our 730 hearing notice of intent hearing niche engineering for bell 4 bd campus solutions in the university of massachusetts for proposed construction of new undergraduate and graduate housing and associated parking lots within the buffer zone of bordering vegetated wetland within 100 feet of tan brook so just before we get going a quick reminder of like our process here what we'll do is a brief five minute introduction to the project and overview of issues that are of particular relevance to us at this stage in the application and erin has already spoken to folks at the engineering firm representing the applicant to kind of identify what would be super relevant for us in like a brief five minute presentation then we'll have five minute of any site photos and input from staff that's erin um five minutes for questions and comments from commissioners and then if there's any public comment we're going to limit that to two minutes per person with a total of like 10 to 15 minutes of public comment so that we can keep this meeting moving along we have a lot on our agenda tonight um so with that we have britney i'm gonna move you promote you to a panelist if you are part of this application oh oh we already have jared erin must be moving people um if there's anyone else in the audience who would like to join for this is there anyone else britney or jared no that that's just us is fine for now okay awesome thank you welcome thank you yeah so i'm assuming you did you just hear my kind of process overview yes great and i know you've been in touch with erin on kind of like the focal points here so are you willing to give us a quick intro and presentation yes absolutely um so thank you madam chair commission members thank you for having us tonight again jared gentilucci with niche engineering also with me here britney veek with niche engineering i'm going to turn over to britney in about three seconds or five seconds we're going to try to keep our presentation to five minutes or less we do have other members of the design team and project team on the line just in case there are questions but britney and i will cover the the five minute presentation with that i will turn it over to britney to share her screen and cover the highlights can everyone see my screen yep yes i'm britney veek with niche engineering um and this is a project at emass amherst we're located at the corner of mass av and linkin av this is our roche control plan and you can see the existing site colored in here in gray we have the vehicular impervious area and orange is the roof area so the existing site is a parking lot along the north side of the site and then um additional parking and driveways on the south side with residential buildings um we are adjacent to the tan brook and we are doing work within the 100 foot buffer the existing site has building and um other site elements within the 30 foot buffer and the 100 foot buffer and there are existing buildings within the 75 foot um no building setback for erosion control we are proposing a perimeter barrier around the edge of the site we have inlet protection at all existing and proposed catch basins and area drains and we have a stabilized construction entrance at each of the site entrances in the proposed condition we're going to eliminate that parking lot on the north side of the site and construct two residential buildings and another residential building on the south side of the site vehicular pavement will be concentrated on the southern side of the site and we are still proposing work within that 100 foot buffer we show you a little closer the work within the buffer so this is the existing condition and you can see in the dark gray is the pavement the light gray are the buildings and the green is the landscaped area and existing condition and this is the 30 foot buffer the fit and 50 foot buffer and 100 foot buffer the proposed condition um you can see that we are going to be adding a lot more landscaped area and reducing the impervious area especially near the tan brook um most of the impervious area is within the 50 to 100 foot buffer instead of up to the 30 foot buffer for stormwater we are proposing to maintain an existing outfall to the tan brook it's a 12 inch outfall pipe the tan brook flows north to 60 inch culvert that goes through the site here we are proposing to revert that culvert around the proposed buildings stormwater will discharge through that 12 inch outfall directly to the culvert and then also to existing drainage systems in Lincoln have and we are trying to match the existing rates to each of those individual design points although they all ultimately go to this 60 inch culvert we are not proposing any subsurface infiltration systems or stormwater runoff rate mitigation because we are decreasing impervious area on the site overall and therefore we're also decreasing the runoff rates and we have looked at it at each design point to make sure that we're decreasing at each point and not just overall we are going to be using water quality structures to treat stormwater runoff before it's discharged to either the outfall or the culvert and that is kind of the summary of the site so I think we can move on to questions if you guys have any thanks Brittany I appreciate that it was succinct but also yeah but you covered the salient points especially comparing existing and proposed conditions I really relevant to our borders I really appreciated that um so I know I have a couple questions that pop to mind but Erin do you want to give us your kind of guidance and take from the site visit first before we get into questions yeah so I'm just going to stop Brittany sharing really quick so that I can go to the site visits I'll start with the site visits and then Jen I don't know what you would prefer as far as if you would rather um have me kind of go through my breakdown of Q&A with the applicant first or if you'd okay I think because you're I think you're gonna encapsulate most of my questions okay perfect um so this is standing at the culvert where the tanbrook comes under um so we can only see like the thumbnails in like a file manager oh okay all right let me just reshare one second see if that works you can see it now beautiful okay fabulous um so this is the um where the tanbrook comes into the culvert at the parking lot um that is um on mass have and then this is standing beside the tanbrook kind of generally what it looks like from that area this is on the other side of the tanbrook um looking at the Lincoln Ave apartments facing south and the tanbrook runs parallel to the fence um on the left side along the tree line and then this is facing west turning facing west um the the site is already has a construction fence around it and the reason for that is because um as part of UMass's operation and maintenance plan um they were permitted to demo this site um and so they're basically going to proceed with the demolition um imminently and so there is erosion controls installed all around construction fence and um they do have um mitigation for um for the storm water and everything in place for that already so that's going to be happening concurrent to this filing just so that you guys are aware and I did ask them to post DEP file number signs because I noticed they weren't posted today so just it's an FYI on that this is from inside the site and again uh just kind of some general lay of the land photos so you can kind of see what we're looking at this is inside facing north um so this is kind of facing the opposite direction uh tanbrook is on the right hand side just on the other side of those erosion controls on the other side of the construction fence and then this is the parking area where the new um buildings would be on the parking lot itself and then Brittany referenced in her presentation that there is a um uh culvert that pops out into the tanbrook and that this is the culvert and I'll talk about that a little bit more in just a moment okay so we did receive um comments back from DEP nothing really earth shattering um as they usually indicate because this is a redevelopment project um that we're looking for improvement over existing conditions they did provide to me um proof of a butter notification we did do a site visit today I sent um Jared a list of questions um yesterday and uh today Jared and I were able to touch base and go through those questions together which was really helpful um so as a result of that Q&A Jared's going to be providing us with some additional data including the field report from the geotechnical soil borings that were done to prepare the storm stormwater analysis um manufacturer specifications for the storm water units there's a couple that are under consideration for this site so he's providing those manufacturers recommendations to me or specifications to me and then um there's also a construction phasing plan which has already been drafted but it just wasn't included in the application so he's going to be providing that um in addition I have asked for mitigation in the 30 foot um no disturb zone of tanbrook so once they once they demo those buildings and move them away right now the current plan was to do some sort of general landscaping and then a lawn up to the edge of the existing tree line and so um what I discussed with him was basically to reestablish a natural buffer in that 30 foot no disturb um so they're going to be working on that um I requested specifications on reductions and impervious surface both site wide and also within the buffer zone um a revised stormwater inspections log basically just greater detail and more of a list format um and so I'm going to be sending him an example of that to incorporate into the plan um calculations um on the volume and attenuation for the tanbrook outfall that's a particular interest because we have an existing outfall there that's capturing um site runoff and we know that the the treatment of the water that's coming out of those is going to be improved with new um deep sump catch basins and um some water quality structures but um I guess my concern was that we weren't going to be increasing volume and so I just wanted to make sure that there wasn't going to be any volume changes um for you know peak attenuation during storms and then um I also wanted to confirm the functionality of that pipe to make sure that we weren't connecting a bunch of stormwater structures to a pipe that was blocked or broken um so I asked them to snake it and make sure that the pipe is actually functioning and working as it's supposed to um there was those are the main highlights I think that we discussed Jared and um our intention was basically for him to target some of those items and then that we would touch base prior to the December 8th meeting to kind of run through and make sure everything was in order before that meeting that's fantastic Erin and thank you Jared and Brittany for getting on top of this I mean I heard you say Brittany that you know you're decreasing runoff from the site both in total and at the specific locations where you calculate that in the stormwater model um so I appreciate that with respect to that outfall it looked like it was kind of like a funny outfall like it's like um we we call it like perched in a stream where like there's nothing preventing it from like the outfall when larger we have larger rainfall events just kind of scouring the stream below it and in this case it doesn't benefit anyone to have more sediment moving downstream um so I would be interested in both Erin's and your guys like instincts on that you know I think um kind of doing anything we can to attenuate a reduced velocity and erosion in that area would probably make sense it might not be changing the pipe sizing it might be just changing like the head wall or adding some slope um some way to reduce scour would be my like gut instinct on that so I think that's my like that's my one question then my second question is is there anywhere aside from tanbrook that we could put the stormwater runoff from the property like did you guys investigate alternatives from that outfall for this site yeah so stormwater from this site all ultimately ends up in that 60 inch culvert so we are discharging directly into the culvert in some instances and then we are the stormwater systems in link and have also discharged to that culvert and we are utilizing those as well we did not look at removing all of the runoff from tanbrook and directing it directly into the culvert and we didn't look at any options other than going through that culvert eventually okay and that's a really interesting point I just wanted when Brittany was doing her presentation I had a little note written down which I just want to clarify so Brittany had mentioned that um that the the tan goes in or maybe I misunderstood this that the tan goes into the 60 inch culvert I just want to make sure because I think that there's two separate issues here there's the tanbrook which I believe flows towards the campus pond and then there's that 60 inch culvert which is a separate input I believe that goes down towards the athletic fields so there's actually two separate sort of side by side large stormwater systems that was my understanding too when we looked at the like an rad for this site I believe we talked about kind of flow through those two all kind of routes and I think that what I understood correct me if I'm wrong here but that that there are there are two potential out outlets for the current stormwater that's proposed on the site one of them goes directly into that 60 inch culvert and then the other one comes out to that little outlet pipe into tanbrook and so one of the things that Jared and I had talked about on site was whether everything should be directed towards that 60 inch pipe and then eliminate that outfall in tanbrook or if we did want to continue to keep it separated yeah I was gonna say I can help um just kind of clarify you're exactly right on the culverts there are two culverts at that head wall actually yeah Brittany if you want to zoom in so that culvert heading northeast is a 48 inch culvert that does that does discharge to uh campus pond at the center soon and that that 48 inch culvert is at a slightly lower invert elevation at the head wall so most of the flow goes through the from tanbrook goes through the 48 inch culvert the 60 inch culvert which heads northwest and ultimately discharges at the athletic fields on the north side of mass av that culvert is up a little bit higher in elevation so it does during larger storms it does see some flow from tanbrook but I'd say the majority of storms and and not that we've done a full analysis of all of the flow going to tanbrook but generally speaking based on the inverts it seems apparent to us that the majority of the flow from tanbrook on a day-to-day basis I'd say or 90 percent of the time probably is going to the 48 inch culvert which goes to the campus pond okay so I guess the question is are we really happy with the state of that 12 inch culvert are we I mean you know can we make sure that we're not causing scour in the tanbrook if we think that that is at all liability given that likely our peak flows will increase for within the lifetime of you know this facility is does it make sense cost benefit but also in order to protect tanbrook to divert that flow that's now going into the 12 inch culvert instead into the 60 inch culvert you said there might be an elevation issue maybe it's not surmountable but I wonder if it's worth considering we could certainly take a look at that I think one thing to consider too is that our initial approach on this was we consider that outfall as a design point for the site so if we if we do shift that runoff to the culvert we are shifting it to a different design point which means we're reducing the amount of flow that would go to tanbrook in the future and we always try to balance those stormwater flows to resource areas so that was the reason why we wanted to maintain that outfall we are going to investigate that pipe because we are right now our plans are maintaining about half of that existing pipe so we're actually yeah right that so our manhole right there is where we'll tie into the existing pipe because we're trying to maintain most of it to stay as far away from tanbrook as we can the condition at the end of that pipe when Erin and I were doing the sidewalk this morning we were taking a look at it there wasn't any from what I saw any evidence of any significant scour at the end of that pipe and we are reducing the peak runoff rate tanbrook by about 20% in all storm events both peak rate and volume will be down about 20% based on the proposed design but if there are concerns with any scour at that pipe one thing I would recommend is is we could hand place some stone at the end of the pipe just to reinforce that area to ensure that even in a larger storm that we wouldn't experience any scour of the bed of tanbrook it could be that simple absolutely yeah I haven't seen it in person I can try to stop by and take a look yeah so this is great I think that the kind of dialogue you guys have going is is hitting are hitting the important parts from my perspective commissioners does anyone else have any points of clarification or questions at this point I'm seeing lots of no nodding yep it looks like we're okay all right well thank you everyone I again applaud like the organization and communication on this application and hearing I really appreciate that um and yeah so I think Erin would you mind pulling up your slides again so we can see that we just need a motion to continue the hearing well she do you want to see if there's any public oh thank you thank you Erin remember it all the time um yeah so if I see one hand two hands so yeah if you have any comments or questions please raise your hand and I'll remind you um thank you I see a lot of hands my apologies thanks for reminding me Erin um as a reminder we're going to try to limit it to two minutes and um while there are a lot of holistic things we can talk about in terms of the use of this site um within like the larger whole of Amherst I would ask that if you have comments and questions if you could please limit them to things within the jurisdiction of this committee yep Erin go ahead I just wanted to make one quick point just in case this is a question that anybody raising their hand has yeah I know yeah um so the board um at the last meeting uh made a determination that Tanbrook is perennial um at the 52 faring street site and I just wanted to state for the record that this site actually has a standing ORAD order of resource area delineation which had previously determined the Tanbrook to be intermittent which was issued in I believe 2019 early 2020 and so that is good for three years and so any question relative to the perennial status of Tanbrook wouldn't apply to this site since that determination was made prior to the analysis that was done by the conservation commissioner recently so I just wanted to state that in case that's a question anybody has to just put that out there first yeah and the only thing I'd add to that is just as Erin has emphasized many times throughout this larger discussion about Tanbrook it's a site-by-site basis um for for figuring out the resource area delineation for Tanbrook so in this case it is the ORAD states that it's an intermittent stream um thank you all right again two minutes and um please try try to keep comments and questions relevant to our jurisdiction here um all right Freddy um I'm gonna allow you to talk welcome if you could introduce yourself and ask any questions or make any comments okay I'm Freddy Manning and you probably answered the question I had because I was going to ask you when was the determination of Tanbrook as intermittent when it passes the UMass property and you're saying that was done in 2019 the permit was filed at the end of 2019 and I believe the order was issued I want to say in early January of 2020 and we never heard about that it was a public hearing so um you would have been notified as in a butter at the time if you're in a butter you would have been notified so what happens if Tanbrook is now um determined to be perennial nothing changes the intermittent status of Tanbrook relevant to this application so so I just want to just really to address the question though that Freddy is asking in the sense of protection of Tanbrook like if it would be any different if it was considered perennial in this case what we're seeing is an improvement over existing conditions where we're seeing a dramatic reduction in impervious surface on the site in general and also within the buffer zone and under the rivers protection act um for redevelopment sites which this would qualify um that is basically what they require is to provide an improvement to existing conditions now a site that is undeveloped you know forest land as an example would be a completely different set of performance standards that would need to be met under rivers protection but in this case because it's a redevelopment project it's really not reviewed much differently um as it would if it was perennial so this will will this affect the decision the upstream decision no no okay it's a completely separate case yeah okay thank you thank you okay thank you Freddy um all right uh I have Edwin next up Edwin you could introduce yourself hi my name is Edwin Gensler I live at 43 Fearing I taught at UMass for a long time and I've gotten a few babysitters out of those Lincoln Street apartments so I read through the as much as I could my gosh it was hundreds of pages and I I I'm really not an expert but I have once again this will be anecdotal I have walked that area quite a bit I walk my dog down there all the time the culvert itself where the water leaves Tanbrook and goes into or under the visitor center there's significant erosion going on uh as you're facing I guess it would be north off to the right side of that I don't know if anybody saw that in their site visits or the engineers took a look at that but uh there's quite a bit of water coming into there and those culverts uh aren't taking all the water away they're not very well placed um and then the water has to go someplace so it's running off to the right and probably going under the visitor center one of the pipes is too high the other pipe is almost always blocked uh UMass physical plant comes out there on a regular basis to clean it up but when it's backed up it's like a damn so I hope that that whole area how that water is discharged gets a significant look and that those pipes um be sort of rearranged to better hand I you're you're saying 20 reduction of water flow but my guess is the water flow is maybe higher than some of your numbers from 2019 are but that looks like a real thorny area to me so that's just an anecdotal observation that I have and I I hope people take a look at that thank you that's great thank you Ed when we appreciate the local knowledge and input um I don't know I mean Erin I know you're very familiar with that hovert and that head wall um this relates to my concerns about you know making sure we're protecting from scour and erosion you just don't want any more in sizing into and broken that area both just for the long-term life of that infrastructure but also for water quality concerns in tanbrook um yeah yeah and um so there's there's a couple things so that 60 inch pipe my understanding is that that's being removed and replaced at a different um angle um the larger 68 inch one is that correct Jared yeah he's given a shake yes that's correct yeah so that will help I think with some of the flow coming down from um into tanbrook now or from tanbrook into those culverts but that the 48 inch pipe would remain the same now some of what Edwin might be seeing there is a lot of debris and material that does come down and and in all fairness a lot of the material that comes into tanbrook is coming out of storm water structures um underneath the town of Amherst and so um I do know that periodically that the university does have to scoop material out to unclog those culverts and that's why there's grates there and they um have to dewater a lot of that material before they even take it off site so it's something that we're aware of this site should be making some improvements too but it is separate from the that smaller culvert that comes out where we were talking about scour but um I think this project is definitely going to be an improvement over a lot of the conditions that Edwin has described thank you thanks Aaron thank you Edwin um next up Barbara um you should be able to talk hello Barbara if you would mind introducing yourself and then making anything I'm Barbara Pearson from the neighborhood to the south of um this and to the slight west of of the tanbrook upstream a little bit um I really am just curious now to ask you about the 52 has disappeared 52 fearing has kind of disappeared from the um actual schedule it's now miscellaneous other business and is it going to get further discussion my my recollection was last time at the discussion kind of closed precipitously and I don't know that anybody's seen the the new the revised drawings have they been subended um so I can take a crack at that and then Aaron you can cover what I missed you don't you may not want to talk about it now just tell us when you're going to talk about it yeah I was just going to say so this is about a different fearing a different hearing excuse me upstream onto and brook um that we just we closed the public hearing at the last meeting so we just have to ratify what was what is and will is will be and will not be included in that resource area delineation at this meeting um the it's up to the applicant what happens next so I can't say when if they'll be another hearing um but if they open another hearing Aaron will they notify a butters again yes yep if this was to go before the board again but yes so Barbara you would get another notification when if and when that hearing is that a new application is submitted so do I understand you to say that you can just either say yay or nay on it and that's the end of it we don't get to see it again until there's a until they submit plans there'll be a motion on it tonight Barbara uh after we close our all of our hearings out for the night they'll be that'll be the first order of business to issue that or add okay thank you that's my question yep thanks Barbara um all right it looks like we have two more Linda welcome you should be able to talk you can introduce yourself and ask any questions my name is Linda psyche I live at 18 nutting avenue and tan broke is my back lot line um I have a question related to the issues that both ready and Barbara raised specifically the relationship of any findings in this project it it was very helpful to hear um that the treating it uh treating tan broke is intermittent for this project is really just for this project my my question is um can you make it part of the record that the classification for this project cannot be put into evidence about the intermittency of the stream at other places because in fact a piece of the argument that the 52 fearing street project makes to rebut uh what happened at the last presentation is that this um the the the project on Lincoln Avenue uh has classified this stream as intermittent so I would like to see it part of the record of this finding that this cannot be used as evidence in upstream cases so this hearing isn't about the resource area delineation um this is about uh redevelopment of the site um so I'm not sure you know I don't go ahead Aaron but they're not that that resource area delineation with deciding that tan broke was intermittent at this site is a completely separate closed issue um and I do understand that and I apologize that I'm not aware enough of process here but but that hasn't prevented the folks who want to declare it intermittent on fearing street from using this case as evidence so I just hope that you'll say the same thing to them that that's a completely separate issue and they can't use it as evidence of the intermittency of the stream yeah I believe the record will show that we have said that we've made it very clear that it's a case by case property by property application by application determination of intermittency versus perennial status for tan brook yeah that's very helpful thank you and also I just want to um say that I'm really grateful to um the whole project for actually reducing the impact on tan brook by pulling the the buildings farther away and and having more modern approaches to mitigation than were the case when Lincoln apartments were built thank you all right um okay the last it looks like the last hand raised spring field I can't see the full name house association um hi my name is um Catherine and I'm representing the um corporation that owns the sorority house cap capigama at 32 nutting avenue um and I just kind of wanted to share a little bit about our experience um as being a butters of the tan brook um we do have periods where when the brook overflows you know the our property in the back we have some grass and some gravel does get pretty wet um and like a little soppy but um I wanted to sort of echo the other comments about appreciating the efforts this project is taking to sort of um reduce the stress on the brook um we we appreciate that great thank you very much for being here and for your your comment thank you um all right uh I don't see any more hands up and just let me check the list really quick looks good okay so I think we're looking for a motion to continue this year into December 8 and would you mind putting your slide here because we don't I don't actually have a draft motion for the continuation um but yeah I have 735 on December 8 okay I move we continue this hearing for the uh notice of intent for UMass undergraduate and graduate housing and niche construction to December 8th at 735 is that what you said? Thanks Roy got the second on that one all right voice vote uh Larry I forgot I'm viewed um Michelle hi Roy hi Anna hi Laura and I'm an I thank you Brittany and Jared it sounds like we'll see you on December 8th great thank you very much have a good night everyone yeah you too okay I think we're good all right great work everyone um all right next one and this is a continuation TRC for ASD Shootsbury MA Solar LLC for the construction of a solar photovoltaic energy generation facility in access road in buffer zone to BVW at Shootsbury road um so again I'm going to just review our protocol before we get into the nitty gritty on this one um in case you've recently joined um what we're going to do is a very brief update um from the app the representative of the applicant on changes and updates from the last meeting as far as I understand it there's information outstanding so I think this is more just going to be a quick review between Aaron for town staff Aaron and the applicant of exactly what is outstanding and the timeline in which we expect to receive that information um so that will kind of be five to seven minutes max combined between the applicant and town staff then commissioners if you have any questions or comments or anything to add to Aaron's list please take a look in the folder it's pretty exhaustive we definitely need this information before we can move forward with this hearing um and then we will open up for public questions and comments again I will say you know forest health and relationship between human health and large tracts of forests are intricate and intimate and the understanding of the trade-offs between something like a solar array and a forest are also intricate and complicated there are a lot of ways we could frame that pull it apart unfortunately that's not the jurisdiction that we have with this commission the levers that we have to pull are around protecting the wetland resources on the site so the best way that we can do that in this case is really a concern for runoff runoff quality runoff quality and habitat making sure we can protect the resources here as much as possible so while I know this is a bigger picture issue and there's a lot of interest concern and passion around this I would ask that your questions and comments um are relevant to the jurisdiction of this commission um we very much appreciate you being here we very much appreciate the engagement on this um but we have we have long meetings a lot in our agenda um and we want to create a good keep a good balance between moving things forward but including everyone as much as we possibly can so with that um I'll look for Maria thank you for raising your hand Maria promoting you to a panelist Andy I see you should be promoting you to a panelist that work there we go I see you hey hi guys hi yeah thanks for being here um so I understand um I know Andy you've been going back and forth with Erin a fair amount on kind of information outstanding Erin what is kind of the most efficient way here um should you want to just go through exactly what information we need and kind of in what timeline right now yeah so and Jen I wanted to touch base on you quickly too on how you wanted me to present this so I kind of presented it in um the format of a motion more or less to request um a list of information within the next 30 days and so I don't know if it would make sense for me to run through that list and then do the motion again or if I should just sort of read through the motion that I drafted um and put that on the screen so that if anybody wants to move it they can um and what makes the most sense from your perspective well just in the interest of a fair dialogue Andy and Maria are you guys clear on that information outstanding I mean I I believe so I think that that we're clear on what information is outstanding there was a lot of discussion at the last meeting um what information was needed um including responses to Erin's questions responses to the questions and concerns that were raised at the last meeting and responses to the key's questions um and we are working on that and we have already communicated to Erin that we are planning to have that at least two weeks in advance of the December 8th meeting we had actually requested to just continue to that because we wanted to not waste your time with with a lot of stuff yeah if we hadn't didn't have it already for you yet um but it's our understanding that there were potentially a number of butters that didn't get to talk last time and since we're trying to be comprehensive we agreed to come tonight so that we can you know get a make sure we have a full picture of of what any other concerns are so that we can make sure to address them great thank you um Anna did you have a comment or question um yeah I just if we're not going to run through it which I completely understand can you just clarify for folks in the audience where they can find that no I think we should run through it it's just a question I just wanted to make sure that Andy and Maria were clear on it but just so that if Erin sets it up as a motion we can you know move forward in that way so somebody doesn't have to go through and repeat everything Erin said I mean Erin hasn't formally shared with us what she shared with you but I think based on the conversation that's been had that there shouldn't be any surprises in there right I mean I think most of it was probably conveyed with my questions but um I can just kind of start running through that if that would be helpful um and yeah that sounds good how you have it set up Erin I think it's great okay so um but do you mind sharing the the screen yes yeah I can do that I'll be quiet now okay so so this is the draft motion and this incorporates a lot of the elements from questions that I had previously asked TRC as well um sort of just a compilation of everything I think that I had in my notes um so the the motion would be to move to require the applicant submit the following information within 30 days to resubmit the application materials to include the field soil evaluation revise hydrologic model and adjust and resubmit the plan design according to the results of the field investigation to complete due diligence investigation to determine the depth to groundwater surface to groundwater elevation and to provide a plan showing the boring locations existing elevations and groundwater depths the town of Amherst or conservation commission representative request to be present for soil evaluation to conduct a spot check of the test pits to resubmit plans that are in full compliance with the mass storm water standards resubmitted plans should contain an engineer stamp and must include the on-site sediment disposal area if one is being used submit a tss removal worksheet for each of the treatment trains submit an operation and maintenance log that'll be used in conjunction with the operation maintenance plan submit a revised phasing plan the submitted plan was inadequate and should be revised to incorporate staff's pre-permitting recommendations answers should be provided in writing to the questions sent to TRC on october 15th from staff answers should be provided in writing to the questions asked by the commission and staff during the public hearing on october 27th 2021 excuse me and the public at the meeting on october 27th 2021 ground survey showing existing conditions and an engineer stamp is required for plan design submissions submit a plan showing the construction period erosion and sediment controls including sediment traps and basins their size and locations on the site including again on-site sediment disposal areas on the submitted plans submit a revised grading plan that includes the erosion and sediment controls on one sheet because the erosion controls location seem to be inconsistent with the grading plan on some plan sets and then submit a decommissioning plan that includes buffer zone mitigation and replanting at the decommissioning of the project okay thank you Erin for running through that commissioners any points of clarification or questions at this point let's try to see if I can see it no Erin that's very comprehensive sorry I agree okay um so then I think we should open this up for oh Michelle was that a question nope okay oh you're muted you're good okay um all right so um we'll open this up for public comment on oh Andrew did you have a question or comment I'm sorry I I do I think Maria you might have something at as well but I wanted to just circle up on the soil evaluation really quickly I think Maria you're probably gonna say the same thing I'm gonna say um is we are working to get this scheduled and get people out there to do the survey but due to constraints around getting something out there it was estimated that could take as many as three or four weeks uh from now and I just would not want to try to rush something at the end to get you something that might be incomplete to meet the deadline um if we're not able to get somebody out there sooner and I don't know if Maria you have something else to add on that uh I my I was going to request because this was not discussed with us um that when you make a motion that you not include the within the 30 days clause because there are certain pieces of information like what Andrew pointed out that we can't guarantee that we can get you within 30 days um because they are dependent on contractor availability to get to the site um and then subsequent time that the lab takes to actually run some of the tests that you want Maria can you be more specific which ones you're you're talking about that require more big time um frankly anything that's affected by the soil evaluation which can be many of these pieces because the soil evaluation affects the stormwater items that Aaron has asked about in terms of redesign um so there's information here that we cannot necessarily provide you within that time frame we are absolutely going to provide it to you as soon as we can and we're going to provide everything that we can prior to the next meeting as we discussed but there are items that despite our efforts over the last couple of weeks that we don't have a solid schedule on yet and that impact other things that they have a ripple effect within this list yeah I yeah I guess I understand that a lot of field data is needed to confirm the stormwater management plans here um well Aaron let so I'm I'm I don't want this to be a piecemeal effort I think we need the soil evaluation and the resulting ripple effects through edits the stormwater management plan before we make the next move on this hearing um I think having a reasonable time limit makes a lot of sense because we need to keep this hearing moving um so I'm trying to think of a compromise approach um hang on um Aaron what would the protocol be like can we continue so we would have to continue to December 8th at this point and that's within 30 days so there's no way we'd have this for the next hearing the next hearing after December 8th is I don't have it on my calendar yet um yeah I mean I have December 22nd I'm usually like in the in the past years we've canceled the second meeting in November and December just because of the proximity to the holidays it's been um difficult to get a quorum on those days um so that would push us to um well if it looks like right I mean it's it's tough because it feels like this due diligence should have been completed before the application was submitted yeah and I'm also struggling with that this is just an incomplete application so we're stuck between a rock and a hard place here where we're going to have to continue this for months in order to get what we need to even assess the application um yeah I do I do question why that work wasn't done in the maybe it's new maybe we don't need to get into it now but um you know especially given the wetlands that are around the proposed solar farm this is pretty standard work right that would be expected so so one avenue commissioners should know about is we could deny the application and then hypothetically the applicant could can you know complete this application and resubmit and we would therefore close the public hearing and reopen it if and when there was a new application um yeah and I would be I would be interested in hearing from Maria and team when they think they will be able to submit this detail I know you have your hand on Maria so what what I wanted to say is that there is a fair amount of information was requested that is not tied to the stormwater and that is the information that we were planning to get to you you know a minimum of two weeks before the next meeting and we think that it would be helpful for you to have that information and that given the desire to try to keep meeting shorter that it would actually be beneficial to discuss that information on the summer eighth meeting so that we don't have quite such a huge update when this information is ready yeah I just see the stormwater management here from in both the quality and quantity standpoint as like a linchpin of this of this application um Laura am I off base on that no you're you're you're you're spot on um I'm in I'm in agreement with that I feel like everything should be completed before we move forward because if we were to do a peer review on stormwater or on the natural resource you know wetland side of things it's just doing it piecemeal I'm afraid is going to completely railroad our meetings with this project for the foreseeable future and I would rather have everything submitted comprehensively as we would expect any application to be submitted and then review it at that time and would you mind stop sharing for a second just so I can see every everybody because I just want to run through um the commissioners thank you um so first off commissioners anyone else have any input on this particular question or questions in the procedural side of it yeah I'm in agreement this is a pretty long list of things that should have been submitted at the output and I share the same concerns as Laura and Jen have stated thanks Michelle um yeah Larry I'm inclined to just reject it now enough to come back with a complete plan it's yeah yeah so we can deny the has come back with a complete then we can start um I see Maria um Aaron go ahead so I hear where everybody is coming from and I think that there's really two recommendations that I would make um because I think this is all very important I would either one recommend that the commission proceed with the with the um motion that I put on the table and request everything within 30 days um at that point see where things stand in a 30 day period and what's outstanding and render a decision from there and or ask the applicant to withdraw the application until they have the application materials um completed and then resubmit them to us at that time when we can um basically re-initiate the review process as if we were starting from scratch but isn't 30 days from now past our next meeting so that wouldn't help us um just so I want to just keep going around the room for a second while we sort that out Loroa did you have any input on this no so no okay Anna um I mean I I think I really what Michelle and Laura said is is definitely resonating uh for me my only other little flag is past January I will no longer be on the commission and so for me that's the other consideration of just making sure we don't have a similar situation as has happened before when we are down people who can vote on this right and Flutcher is missing tonight right exactly so that's my other yep thanks for bringing that up um okay Maria do you have another comment um I'm sorry your hand your hand is raised I'll unraise it just that we came tonight at at Evans request even though we requested a continuance so that we could actually be bringing you information um so we we would very much appreciate the opportunity to not be denied tonight based on you know information that we've it is a lot of information that we've really only had two weeks to work on um it's typical to submit the application the way that it was submitted there's a lot of information that's been requested here that's very reasonable to request but it is not technically a requirement within your regulations or within DEP's regulations so we are doing everything we can to provide it for you but we feel that the application was submitted appropriately and we're doing everything we can to get you the additional information we completely understand but you know you don't want to start any kind of peer review until you have everything and we are completely on board with that we are are trying to get you what we can in advance of the December 8th meeting in good faith that we are doing this work um and we we'd appreciate the return of that good faith by keeping the public hearing open yeah I wouldn't recommend that the board close the hearing to deny it tonight um because I think that we have to give the applicant adequate time to um respond to our request for information before taking that step um DEP would see that as us not being reasonable to allow them time to provide us with information and that's why I think 30 days is a reasonable time window in the sense that um with an application like this that is a standard expectation that within 30 days requested information should be provided back to the commission and at that time the commission could re-evaluate if there were outstanding pieces of information that hadn't been submitted yet and to consider allowing more time or what next step they wanted to take at that point. Yeah I think we should hear from Andrew also. Yeah I was just going to say Andrew thanks for your patience. Oh thank you um no I think that Maria and I we're all in agreement that our goal here is to provide you with all the information you need and I certainly don't want to rush it and I don't want to make sure that I want to make sure that there's no quorum issues either I think that was a really excellent point that that could be a problem um so uh I really appreciate Erin's comment there and that if we try to really double down and see if we can get somebody out on site earlier to do this this work try to get everything wrapped up beforehand um 30 days will be tight but I think we can press to try to make that happen and then for Erin's suggestion we can come back and then it can be um evaluate that at that time if that is agreeable to the rest of the the commission yeah and I think 30 days is kind of a uh just a standard window but uh to Jen's point it is 28 days until the 8th of December so um if we could do 28 days instead of 30 um with that is that that's okay yes okay I'm really happy with that compromise because I just wasn't it wasn't swearing with me that we would have the next meeting and then have the requested deadline for the new information Anna so sorry so if the deadline is 28 days then we won't have time to read it in advance is that or it does so are we then giving them like 20 days so I'm working backwards here to make sure it's ready to be read well I think the first thing is let's get the information in our hands and let's say we want it by this date and we might not be that doesn't mean that on the 8th we're going to be like complete everything's going to be thoroughly reviewed and right but the idea is to get what we need in our hands so that we can start processing that and figuring out what the next step is okay thank you for a good faith effort on both sides to everything moving I just didn't want to accidentally be giving them like 10 days to yeah great yeah and we also get like everything is hard right now like the world is difficult right now we schedule everything and we're going into the difficult weather season so good faith effort to you know get through that list in 20 days by our next meeting I think would be I feel good about that compromise commissioners does anyone feel not good got a thumbs up got nodding thumbs up all right all right great thank you everyone great teamwork so we need to open up for public participation comment at this point so if you've joined us from the public for this hearing and you have a comment or question please raise your hand again I'll just remind you we're asking for two minutes a two minute time limit and to keep your comments and questions relevant to the jurisdiction of the commission here so with that Ira you are allowed to talk you could introduce yourself welcome assuming you can hear me yep okay I'm I'm Ira Addis I'm a physician I live at 192 Shootsbury road not exactly butting the project but across from it let me be clear right from the beginning that I'm quite totally opposed to this project and that's why I'm making my statement I also want the commission to know that I appreciate what the commission has said so far and the approach of the commission and what I can see as the thoroughness of the commission as well as the people who've spoken before me about in more fine points about why they oppose this project I consider my views to be generally made from what I think is a well-informed stance and and some critical thinking I'm totally opposed to this industrial project because of three main points one is that given the state of the environmental concerns that we all have at this point this is just a bad project right from the beginning to me it's like the emperor has no clothes but I understand why we're discussing the color of his threads I know why the commission is doing that but I I think the emperor has no clothes and if we ignore that I think we're missing a major point in in this discussion I think this project should never have been approved in the beginning and I'm sure that it may well wind its way through methodically through the system and eventually come about but I think it is a morally and ethically flawed project I actually believe though I don't know that many of you on the commission probably feel the same way the second point I want to make is that this is an industrial project and I don't think it should even be considered until the town of Amherst has passed its its own bylaws concerning this type of project I think it's it's wrong to be considering this at this particular time my third point is that despite any protestations from the people who really want this to go through I believe that the driving force behind this project is simply money I think that that there is not a shred of interest in the greater good for the forest the community around immediately around the project for the Amherst in general so I realize these are my opinions I appreciate you hearing them and I would really ask you to do everything you can to either stop this project or delay it as much as possible for those reasons so I thank you thank you for your input Ira and for being here tonight we we appreciate where you're coming from um we you know again our jurisdiction is to uphold the wetland protection law in the state of messachusetts the wetland protection act in the state of messachusetts and the bylaws for wetland protection in the town of Amherst and as you've seen we are thoroughly and methodically doing everything you can to protect the resources associated with this site and we will continue to do that so um thank you again um and next I see jack jack you should be able to talk yes can you hear me yes hello thanks i'm jack hersh at 400 flat hills road and I just had a couple of questions that I was hoping you could clarify um this is a project that's an industrial grade project cited in a residentially zoned area and I assume that area is in chapter 61 right now so how much work can they actually do preparing for this project and who protects and monitors the resources in that area during the work so that was one question then if I can ask one other question I've always been curious about how can you delineate wetlands and things like that in the fall and in the winter it seems to me that a lot of that involves looking at vegetation so isn't that a seasonal type issue those are great questions thanks jack so um I'm going to let Aaron feel the last one because wetland delineations are are super intricate and have many different kinds of indicators in the state of messachusetts um but to your first question so let me make sure so the first one was like you were asking if this is uh in you know industrial project in a residential area that is out of our jurisdiction um well I understand it's not in your jurisdiction but you're you're still monitoring the resources yep so let me let me finish um so in the last meeting Dave Zomac indicated that there would be Aaron am I mixing up hearings is there going to be a zoning um application yes I believe that they're waiting on some additional information as well for the zoning okay so that's another one to tune in to jack is that there'll be a hearing on this project in the zoning town zoning committee right um where they might approach that question I do not know out of our jurisdiction again um like I said after Ira's comment our job our oath is to protect the the wetland water resources on this this site um and we're doing that the best of our ability um so we have some isolated wetland and then we have Adams brook that runs through there and we're getting into the bordering vegetated wetland um of that brook and so we're monitoring everything we possibly can to make sure we protect that resource um from a water quantity water quality and habitat perspective um on this application so we take that very seriously um so Aaron do you want to answer the question about wetland delineation right so so the wetland delineation was actually done last year um during the growing season so um so it wasn't done during the winter months um it was done during um we actually completed it um in the in the spring and um early summer we had completed the wetland delineation and there was a peer review so a third party independent peer reviewer represented the conservation commission and um from the original submission there were many changes we found we found many um additional wetlands and so we did thoroughly examine this site to make sure that there was nothing was missed and also Aaron can you just talk to like the different ways you identify wetlands that enable us to understand delineations in yeah other than the summer season yep so um generally speaking we would look at um soils and dominance of wetland vegetation and um so um and and hydrology is really the the indicator and cause of both of those um factors in the environment so um when the delineation is done that's what the um the wetland scientists are doing in the field as they're checking soils and they're looking for the presidents the presence of dominant wetland species in the field thank you thank you thank you for being here um and stay tuned for more on December 8th okay Gwenevra I think you should be able to talk you're muted um yes hello my name is Gwenevra Lodinabad and I'm from Northampton, Massachusetts and I came tonight not on this issue at all but I'm just here listening and um so you know first of all I guess when I've been watching about this my okay so let me just explain a little bit I'm a student at Holyoke Community College and my major has been sustainable studies um and it's kind of changing a little bit but I have been a gardener and I have been a land steward for 52 years now since I arrived and um I do have some thoughts about this I guess when I was looking at the design itself having worked in construction um in the Boston area and across Massachusetts and different parts of Massachusetts and watching them change over time I am just really surprised that in this day and age that um there would be any kind of a design that would show up on the table that is not absolutely taking advantage of water period um and so I feel like what I saw tonight with that design is flawed in and of itself because of the times that we're in right now and in terms of the hydrological cycle um I'm also thinking you know geez you know those are the buffer zones for for tanbrook but um is that I mean you know everything that goes and sinks down under there is eventually going to make itself to to coven in some one way or another it's very close and so those are just a couple of the thoughts I have and thanks that's about it all right thank you thank you for being here um all right next up Robert all right you should be allowed to talk if you'd unmute yourself hi my name is bald mullin can you hear me yeah hi i represent fred hulk of 317 shootsberry's wrote shootberry road i'm his son-in-law he's a director of butter he did receive a letter as in a butter and he also submitted a letter last meeting i think october 27th and we weren't sure if you read it into the record we liked we asked you that if you could read it into the record if you have that yeah let me look fred hulk 317 shootsberry road yep i appreciate that but hold on one sec you know what i think that that one actually came in the night of our last yes i think it came in late okay so it may have popped into our packets really late in the um for the last meeting erin but yeah let me just um double check if it's in here hold on one second that was october 13th was our last meeting october 27th going i don't see it in here sorry i remember that one coming in like it came in literally like as the meeting was happening and um i think because of that i filed it in the the previous um yes could you sir could you tell me your uh the name of the person who sent the the message charlotte hulk h-o-u-c-k his daughter charlotte hulk thanks bob bear with us oh no problem i appreciate madame chia you know let me even speak at this evening this evening's a meeting um oh okay so i see um charlotte mullen is that correct yeah that is correct erin um so i can read it if that's okay because i have the email right in front of me yeah that would be great thanks erin um so it says dear miss jock i'm writing on behalf of my father fred hulk um who resides at 317 shootsberry road in amherst he's been a resident of amherst since the mid 1970s a business owner in town and a resident of shootsberry road since 1987 my father's in a butter to the proposed solar project and is against the proposed project to place a large solar farm in this location will require clear cutting of a large area of forest negating the benefits to the environment and air quality provided by trees there's also large areas of wetlands and vernal pools that while mitigation is planned will undoubtedly be affected while he supports the need for solar and alternative energy sources this is not a proper location please read this correspondence into the record of tonight's meeting i appreciate that madam chair could i also say a couple things on my own behalf uh sure but just to address that you'll relate to your father in law that you again that we're doing everything we can within our jurisdiction to protect the resource areas on this site um i'm sure he will appreciate that he's very concerned about the property up there it's a beautiful place they moved there a long time ago and they really cherished the the forest behind them um again my name is ball mullin i'm not from amherst obviously i my in-laws always told me i couldn't pronounce amherst correctly i do apologize that to everybody out there now but i do represent redhawk also um and destroying 40 i believe it's 45 acres of forest obviously has tremendous impact to the habitat and the environment and correct me if i'm wrong i was looking up the regulations for the wetlands protection bylaws of amherst and in there collectively the resource interest protected by the bylaw includes private water supply um also protection of wildlife habitat protection of rare species habitat among other things you know i know you you spoke about stormwater management tonight but i haven't heard much about the wildlife habitat i know there's bears out there i know there's uh deer obviously most people have said there's some the moose sightings i just want to know what analysis and research if i can get a copy of report of how this these animals can be protected because once you destroy 45 acres of they eat a lot of grass and other vegetation are they going to come up to my father's inlaw's property and destroy that and other people's property i mean i don't know what the plans are but i hope the town of amherst has some type of uh more than just mitigation something that has proven to protect the wildlife uh tell me if i'm off base but i mean that's part of the wetlands protection law that i'm reading and also has any research been done in rare species out there because there's always rare species when you have vernal pools and everything else i'd like to know uh if you have if uh the firm that did the work out there if they uh collectively sampled any of the rare species out there if they found any documented and where we go from here the other thing i'd like to know is how you're going to protect the private water supply people have wells up there and i don't know how deep the wells go but destroying a lot of the uh land taken you know just ripping the surface cleaning the surface the surface of land out there i don't know how it impacts the wells i'd just like to have you have some documentation that it doesn't impact that improve that if you can't do that i would ask that you ensure that the applicant and put a couple million dollars into an s-word account for years to come to protect these people's private water supply because they can't be they can't afford to keep on drilling for wells out there they have to protect their private water supply and i asked that the commission here make sure they protect it for them because that's part of the wetlands protection law um i have a lot of other things to say but i don't want to i think we're about time i know i appreciate madam chair for allowing me to speak this evening thank you very much thanks for being there and i think um yeah maria i see your hand um let us respond unless it's procedural do you have a go ahead i i just had a couple things but if you want to talk first if you don't cover them there are just a couple things i want to say i was just gonna actually um after i ask erin a couple questions ask you to speak to the kind of habitat connectivity allowances in the design um but so erin um can you just give for the like give a box and background on this water supply issue so it's complicated um in terms of designation of you know water supply areas do you feel equipped to answer that question now or do we want to talk about it at the next meeting well so i think i think a lot of the questions that bob has um the information that we are requesting is going to provide us with information from which we can assess a lot of the questions that he's asking and right now um we need that information in order to get at his questions um the only exception to that is the rare species question um because this isn't a mapped natural heritage endangered species area which doesn't mean that there might not be endangered species it just means that they haven't been documented by the endangered species program prior to this filing taking place so um they're all great questions um it's just that we we need more information in order to be able to answer them and um jen could i just make a request that we don't that um i don't think we should continue to yeah we should we should probably take like two or three more comments for the night and then stewart and michael have been on the list since the like kind of first few minutes of public comment and then unfortunately um whenever you've already had a contribution tonight and unfortunately i think that's going to be the limit of our time for this hearing tonight um before we go there though maria did you want a chance to respond to answer any can you clarify any questions about the design with respect to habitat connectivity um so we we talked about this briefly at the last meeting that there is a wildlife gap around the entire facility that allows for the movement of small and up to medium-sized animals throughout the site which includes species that are dependent on vernal pools but i also basically just wanted to say what erin said that uh these questions were were either already raised by erin or by others at the last meeting so they're they're on our list of things that we're working to provide more detailed answers for and the only thing i'd add to that yeah thank you maria and erin and the only thing i'd add to that bob is just for you know your questions about connectivity of surface water and groundwater are complicated and something that we have to be very detailed in our quantification and classification of so that's a lot of what um erin's detailed questions are that we're that we're gonna try to tackle at the next meeting um so yeah michelle i just want to say that um maria commented small to medium-sized animals but i think it's a six-inch gap under the fence right so just to clarify the kind of size animal we're talking about isn't like a raccoon um would be able to get under a six-inch maybe a very very small one um just one question um i saw a wild i have to have evaluation in the index of acronyms but i couldn't find it in the document um i assume it's in there but i can't find it so maybe erin can get me there later sorry that's no thanks michelle that's great all right um in the interest of time we are going to take two more comments and we're going to limit them to two minutes i'm doing my best friends um steward you should be able to talk hi my name is steward shulman i live at 237 shoot spray road i am in a butter i'm a former professor of environmental science and policy at drake university i would like to comment about the procedure i'm an expert in how regulations are made at the national level not the local level so i'm not familiar with your procedures i'm learning as we go here but i'm quite confused why you are considering an incomplete proposal i thought the discussion earlier was going in the right direction when you talked about withdrawal or denial and the negotiation in this process with the applicant over some sort of compromise seems procedurally flawed and so i'd like to object strongly to that i believe an incomplete application should not be discussed at a two hour long meeting where we get two minutes for public comment about all the things people talked about critters wells habitat tradeoffs why we're building in a forest something that belongs on the roof of a mall i mean there are a lot of things we could talk about here i'd also like to say just a recommendation andrew if you think maria is your best representative for public face of this you guys should look for any spokesperson okay i think that that's not very appropriate to do it i those comments nope the head shake can you can get immune thank you yeah um unfortunately steward we appreciate your input on the procedures and you're passionate about this project but one of the things we hold the most important is respect um and fair discourse um on the conservation mission in amherst um so i um thank you uh point taken and we're going to move commissioners does anyone else have any comment about how i handled that okay okay thank you so now michael you should be allowed to talk you see you're here but we can't hear you hi michael lapinsky okay one six seven shoots very road an unfortunate a butter to this traveston this project i just want to remind people i know you people on the conservation committee are very familiar with this because you've been working on this since 2019 but i'd like to remind other people that trc is the company that was hired to try to find the wetlands and couldn't and then had to have another person come along and show them where they were they're the same people now who've come up with a plan to protect the same wetlands they couldn't find to begin with again i appreciate what you're saying here you know the point is that the whole project is separate from this project and you really please be respectful of everyone involved in this project is but the fact is the whole project this 400 page project that they refer to is based on incomplete information and without doing something as basic as soil testing and water table determination so what you're seeing here is a pattern it's a pattern of submitting incomplete and inadequate information and then beg for more time so i think we've been pretty consistent that i think we've put put it on the record with by the commission that we need more information and we put a very tight timeline on the time to get that that information and so that's the way we've chosen to move forward with all parties working in good faith to have everything we need to evaluate this application again our job is to protect the resource and we are doing everything we can to protect the resource here so unfortunately thank you everyone for being here i know that this is a contentious project i know that we all care a lot about that both the process and the outcome we very much appreciate you being here we very much appreciate appreciate the import and the discourse we will continue this hearing until our next meeting on december 8th so we'd encourage you to join us then for for the next step in this in this application um so commissioners unless anyone has anything else to say or add here we can quickly laura are we doing okay okay all right then i think we're looking for a motion and remember this is 28 days yeah thanks i move to require the applicant to submit the following information is outlined by erin within 28 day period second all right voice vote michelle hi laura hi ana hi laura larry hi and i'm an i all right andrew and maria thank you for being here um and we look forward to the seeing you on december 8th so um just we should make a motion to continue the hearing to december 8th at 740 as well that's okay included we need a motion to continue the hearing to december 8th at 740 i move we continue just what you said i'm we continue uh the this hearing to december 8th at 740 p.m oh i think laura i got the second there voice vote ana hi laura hi michelle hi laura hi larry hi and i'm an i all right with that thank you maria and andrew and everyone else who joined and participated in this hearing we appreciate it um and we'll see you guys on december 8th sounds like thank you great thank you raven have a nice night you too too all right laura thank you for being here for that hearing are you gonna leave us are you hanging with no i'm leaving bye everyone feel better feel better get well thank you all right another continuance sorry did somebody say something oh we have a date joining us um all right looks like our last hearing this is the anrad swca for barry robert slash stanley mitchell life estate for confirmation of resource area boundaries at 246 monogym road um oh and the applicant requested a continuance the next scheduled meeting so it looks like unless i'm am i missing something um we just actually the time would be adjusted because we've got a couple other continuations so um it would just be 745 it's 735 okay so it looks like we just need a draft motion to continue this hearing and for those members of the public um who are here about the resource area deletion delineation at 246 monogym road tune in to our meeting at december on december 8th um hopefully the applicant will be present with the next step in the process oh i see a new comment from hilda i'm going to quickly take public comment before we issue the draft motion hilda is it um you should be able to talk is this about that yes thank you very much jan and i appreciate everything guys are doing to protect our town i have a question and i'm running out of power so i'm glad you asked me um i got an email today that the new let's see hundreds of flood plans are back in town for approval and i'm i noticed that the flood plan maps include areas that are not included in the data that you already have for the wetlands and i'm wondering how those two will mesh together and in other words what is the impact of the new flood plain maps on this application yeah so i got that emails today and i know that those are a good portion of them are out for public comment right now so they're not approved yet Aaron i'm assuming that means that they're not relevant for this resource area delineation um so what i've been doing with applications is actually looking at the new boundary and the old boundary to make sure that um both are taken into consideration um in most cases it hasn't changed very dramatically between the old boundary and the new boundary but i will to hilda's question have a look at that and do uh say um a comparison um from the old boundary to the new boundary to see if there are any significant changes and make sure that if the new boundary is showing additional areas that that's incorporated on the in red plan thanks erin yeah i'll look to out of curiosity and just because those new maps are pretty interesting yeah thank you hilda that's a great point we'll take a look at that in time for our next meeting i'll set okay thank you yeah thank you all right with that jack her she still have your hand up can you either take it down um if you're listening okay uh oh new hand janet janet is it about this hearing you should be allowed to talk yes please janet um pulpit hill road um i just have a process question please um what happens next time on december 8 if um another continuance is requested continuances and yeah and that that's that becomes a concern um as to whether or not um people come to the hearing um whether or not anything is is is going to be said substantively yeah yeah it is that when this is on the public to keep track of when we have our next hearing i don't know that there's a limit of continuations i know that in this case it's for good reason erin do you want to weigh in on that yeah so our peer reviewer did a follow-up site visit on friday and asked for some plan revisions based on that site visit and so um the reason for the continuance um and again uh that there was a discussion had as to whether it would be productive for us to discuss those those issues tonight but um for various reasons they did request the continuation but they can they can request as many continuances as they want it's really up to the commission to put a fork in it and say we want it by this date um as far as we're not going to continue um extending this either make the revisions and submit them to us by x date which is exactly what just happened with um the previous hearing we said 28 days we want all this information and if the information that we've requested isn't submitted then at that point we have the authority to say you know you didn't give us what we wanted so um um they are there has been a back and forth and a dialogue and i think have a look at the plans and and um make a decision at the next hearing but it's somewhat fluid and really up to the commission's discretion yeah so i realized that wasn't super concrete janet but in this case we are making progress um this um hearing it's just that the information wasn't available for this meeting um the next one we expect to be substantive and if not you will consider our options um so i'm sorry that you have to continue to keep track of it um but we appreciate you being here and hope you join us again on the eighth thank you yep okay that's it um no more public comment unless i think hilda said what she needed to say so it looks like we're looking for a motion to continue the hearing to december 8th at 745 and move we continue to december 8th at 745 so i can do all right voice vote ana hi aroy hi michelle hi larry hi and i'm an i hey so that's it for the hearings 915 hang in there everybody we're gonna get through this it's going to be yes we're very close we can do this guys um all right so we should get our other business the overhead for 52 fearing street right that would be the next item erin yes can you guys see this page yeah okay okay so um i've been through this with a pretty fine tooth comb um and the plan set that was originally submitted our peer reviewer went out provided comments um swca provided us with a revision back at the last meeting and then um asked us to close the public hearing at the last meeting the our peer reviewer had provided us a report i provided a timeline to the commission um in your packets and the items that are sort of they have a little checkbox next to um our issues that were not incorporated revisions on the final plan set from swca so based on that this is my recommended recommended motion that somebody make um and i would be happy to read it um to make that easier for you guys to actually just say so moved at the end or or you i can also read it if you want to break the reading okay what i mean good like i can i'll read it right michelle so first does anyone have any quit any questions um do you want to maybe just explain what it what this motion means like the impact of this or the impact yes yes yeah and we should say first that the public comment period is closed um so if you're here to witness this thanks for joining but unfortunately there's no public comment on this at this point yeah so basically what the commission is saying is that the orad is determined to be inaccurate that the the um plans that were submitted with the application are considered to be inaccurate um and so for that reason the resource areas on the plan cannot be confirmed and the reason for that is because there were wetlands that are bylaw specific um that were not incorporated onto the plans there are wetland protection act wetlands that were not incorporated into plan buffer zones weren't shown on the plan bank flagging that was asked to be added to the plan was not added to the plan and then bordering land subject to flooding that was identified on the site was not added to the plan so um there's there are those issues and then as well in addition to that there is the issue of the um perennial status of the um tanbrook which was decided upon at the last meeting so basically what this this motion does is basically just wrap all of those things into a tidy package so that I can issue the orad and document all of the all of the items that were inaccurate on the plan set and then add in the finding effect that the commission approved on october 27th thanks sarin and with that I will move to issue an order of resource area delineation for 52 faring street setting the following the commission has determined the order of delineation to be inaccurate the resource area boundaries on the final plan set submitted by swca are inaccurate and cannot be confirmed keep reading oh all of it okay the conservation commission peer review stockman associates found the bylaw wetlands bvw on the site was not included on the plan revision submitted by swca additional wpa wetland bvw was excluded from the plan revision submitted by swca wpa and bylaw buffer zones were not shown on the plan revisions submitted by swca bank flagging was excluded from the plan revision submitted by swca bordering land subject to flooding was excluded from the plan revision submitted by swca more details provided in 52 faring street timeline which will be attached the order and included in the final finding effect as well as content contained in the commission approved finding effect reviewed and approved on october 27 2021 determining tan brook to be a perennial stream back in it all right voice vote michelle hi ana hi larry hi laroi hi and i'm an i all right thanks for reading michelle thanks for writing erin all right certificates of compliance we did emergency starts want to run us through it yes um so i included photos in your packets but um there's there's three and there's draft motions affiliated with each so i'll just kind of run through each of them and then if you guys want to do kind of clustered motions that i think would be the fastest way for us to roll through this um green leaves had a clogged culvert um that caused a head wall to um fail and the roadway started to collapse and so dpw contacted me that they wanted to do the repair i got authorization from dave and we issued a emergency certification for them to do the repair i was out there today to take a look at it and the repair looks great they've um they were able to clear the blockage in the culvert they are currently laying geotextile fabric and um restabilizing the head wall and fixing the road and so that is the first one on the list second one is plum springs that one was presented in the power point that brad and brandon presented earlier today there was a flow control device that basically regulated the water level at the plum springs conservation area and that flow device failed but um basically we so it failed and it was flooding and it was threatening middle street and also flooding private property that was surrounding the conservation area and so an emergency certification was issued to repair that flow control device so that's the second one and then the third one was also briefly discussed um because larry had asked about markets pondam um one of the storms recently washed out some stone dust caused some movement of riprap um and uh as a result an emergency certification was issued to um restabilize that area and repair some of the armoring i have no follow-up questions on that it all sounds appropriate for emergency certifications um commissioners any questions or concerns it's like no all right so can we have like a bulk draft motion erin is that okay um i would just if somebody wants to kind of like how we do minutes like somebody just move move to ratify second vote move to ratify second vote just okay move through it in that fashion that would be the fastest i think okay i move we issue an emergency or ratify the emergency certification for green leaves second larry hi anna hi michelle hi larry hi and i'm an i uh i move to ratify the emergency certification at plum springs issued to the integrated wildlife management and town of amherst conservation department second i think larry got it larry hi larry hi anna hi michelle hi and i'm an i and i move to ratify the emergency certification at markets pond dam issued to the town of amherst conservation department sorry larry hi larry hi anna hi michelle hi and i'm an i all right and the only other thing that we missed was um approval of the minutes from october 27th so i don't know if somebody wants to i move we approve go ahead move we approve the minutes from october 27th 2021 second larry hi larry hi anna hi michelle hi and i'm an i all right that's all i've got for you guys tonight how about can i move to adjourn uh i think i think oh i think they want they want to talk for dave dave here i'm here on your mic this is a fragile situation i know it's like everybody i really appreciate you all being here very quiet at town hall i can tell you um uh so i decided to take a couple meetings so i just wanted to let you know i did meet with the cpa committee earlier and presented um i think erin provided you with those uh 50 000 proposal for trails and uh 150 000 proposal for hickory ridge i think just for erin to know and i think it'd be great if if maybe in one of your upcoming meetings if we can sneak in maybe a six-rate up a minute update on hickory ridge that would be great i think for the commission just to let you know where we are our public outreach what closing looks like and and all of that because we i think before the end of the year really fingers crossed we will own hickory ridge so i'm so does that sound good gen to try to yeah when we can't like holidays are coming up and all that yeah so i'm usually try to be the bearer of all good news i did just want to mention and and this is a tough tough update for me to provide but i'll give you more at the next meeting i have been corresponding with the department of conservation and recreation and unfortunately some of the work we did down at bay road at the parking lot at the new parking lot that is so well has been so well received and so well used unfortunately was not in sync with a conservation restriction that is held by the department of conservation and recreation it was it turns out long story short and i'll have more on this next next meeting there was some ambiguity in our in our gis mapping online and unfortunately the cr covered more of that property than we thought so tcr is willing to work with us i don't think it's the end of the world the conservation values of the property in my opinion have not been compromised and and i'll talk more about it and show you some of the things that i'm providing for them they have a meeting next week on the 18th where the will where they'll be talking about this so i've met with them i think they're willing to work with us but you know it's it's it's on me i should have you know i should have been more on top of that with our team working with the planning department so i don't think it's it's a major thing but it's it's uh just not something i like to do so anyway i'll i'll i'll have some materials some supporting materials that i'll share with you for the next meeting and give you an update on that so okay thanks jave yeah i mean it seems like the use of that parking lot has been awesome and it serves to protect you know the resource more by having a safe place to park that's not like in the middle of the field so i'll have more details in two weeks but when you're driving by there one of the reasons we did it was actually to consolidate the parking and yeah they're happy on both sides of the road otherwise it was just creeping in yeah we're going to remove those in the spring essentially we'll restore those areas on the north and south sides of bay road and then i think what we'll do is we'll put in boulders because it's really a public safety issue and that's one of the reasons we did the parking lot so the people weren't crossing that busy road doing crazy turnarounds and u-turns but again we should have unfortunately our gis and we need to correct it on the gis there was not a full representation of where the c are covered so um these things happen was never happened to me before or us before but we'll learn from it and and i'll have more for you in two weeks okay thanks jay are we meeting in two weeks or whenever your next meeting is i'm like yeah december 8th i think is our next meeting we had concerns about quorum at the november 24th meeting yeah so and that might be a good thing um is to just state for the record that the meeting on the day before Thanksgiving it looks like we're not going to have a quorum for that meeting so um the next meeting would be december 8th the commission yeah we should we flesh or didn't know that yeah i'll i'll let fletcher know okay great yeah so we got we got a break guys december 8th i move we adjourn no second everyone's exhausted we're just glazed over i seconded okay larry hi michelle hi loroy hi anna hi and i'm an eye all right enjoy the holiday thanks