 So we're recording and I'm going to make, Michelle, I'm going to make you the host. Oh, wait, hold on. I'm going to enable sharing so I can share my screen and now I'm going to make you the host so you can run the show. Okay, let's see. I'm able to see participants. Yeah, and if I share my screen, I can't see the participants. So you have to monitor if somebody raises their hand. Okay. All right. So hello and welcome to the emmer's conservation commission meeting on April 12 the time is now. 703 probably I lost my clock. So our chair Jen fair is out tonight as is our vice chair so I am standing in Dave Zomek is also not here tonight so present is Michelle me Cameron Alex and Andre and we are also missing Laura so that is our roll call. So moving on to comments from the chair by present chair. If you are here for 46 faring that hearing has been continued to 735 on April 26 so please check in again on that we will not be talking about that tonight. Okay, so moving along land management updates to Aaron. So, there's a lot going on by way of land management that probably the biggest thing would be Hickory Ridge, Hickory Ridge is well underway there, I would say about two thirds done with the access road. I've been monitoring I've been out there two or three times a week monitoring with them communicating with them probably five days a week. The site looks really good there's a couple. They're, they're taking out the cut trees in the next week or so and also patching up a couple areas of silt fence where trees had been down blocking their ability to complete the installation. So they're going to be in there patching it and getting the trees chipped removed. And I'm going to continue working with them to work towards getting a building permit for the photovoltaics out there. Let me see what else I spent the day out in the field with Brad and Tyler yesterday. We're doing some field work on the Robert Frost trail. We're working towards a basically an operation maintenance notice of intent for conservation lands. And so what that would be is replacement of bog bridging repair of existing foot bridges areas where we need new foot bridges and or we need new bog bridging or a boardwalk type infrastructure. I'm trying to think what other there's there's some other things here and there like we would include some dam maintenance for veg maintenance. My dog got tangled in my mic sorry. There's a couple areas where our trail has encroached on private or one area where trail has encroached on private properties so we have to kind of move it back on to town land. And so it'll be like a sort of a bundled notice intent application for multiple trail projects throughout town. Similar to kind of what we're asking DPW to do for their maintenance projects and we're going to be doing it ourselves for our trail work. That's a good idea. So the OMP is an operational permit for the town. Right for the town by the town. Does it, how long is the operational period is it a year five years. It would be. Well, we could make it three to five years. You can make it up to three years or up to five years rather. I think that's for us to roll as much into that as possible for maintenance so that every time they need to put in a new bog bridge they're not coming back to us. Or I shouldn't say put in a new bog bridge. So the deal with the bog bridging is let's say there's an existing bog bridge. If they're just replacing the decking but the footings are staying exactly the same. That's considered maintenance. But if any of the footings need replacement, then DP doesn't consider that maintenance. We would basically cover that. So we would be saying anywhere where the footings are deteriorated and we need to replace the footings. We would be doing that townwide and it would cover our ability to do that. Great. Sounds like some good efficiencies being incorporated in guidelines. Anything else I saw that the polar plunge has been extended to next year. Okay. Yeah. Another sort of related to Hickory. So there, there is the solar facility that that is being constructed, but the town also has two trails grants. One is for an ADA loop, which is sort of south on the southwest corner of the property and the other is a multi use path which would sort of connect to the neighborhoods to the north and also to West street. So that it would kind of create a nice continuity for the property for people to gain access to the town center to the, you know, South Amherst center there. And so I'm working also on a notice of intent application and some design work related to those two grants and a lot of that work is straight restoration work. So pulling out old culverts that were part of the old golf course, pulling those out and restoring the banks of the stream so they'll be daylight again. And then in a couple of places where the culverts are coming out, we'd be replacing them with foot bridges for the trail. And there's one location where it would be a potential vehicle access but only for maintenance vehicles to get in and do mowing and you know trail repairs and stuff like that, but it's, it's going to be. Hickory Ridge is going to be pretty phenomenal once this grant is wrapped up there's going to be a multi use trail that's going to be really long going the extent to the property. There's a series of looping trails throughout which we're hoping to incorporate some wildlife look off areas and educational signage so it'll be really really special once it's finished. Great. I do have a question about Hickory Ridge. How is the dog poop maintenance going because I think it's probably going to be a problem are we do we have bag stations and lots of. Who is going to be in charge of emptying those trash cans and is this all integrated into the management plan for Hickory Ridge and lastly, there is such a thing as a bio incinerator for dog poop and it can be used to generate electricity to light paths. And this has been done in other cities, but just going to throw it out there for maybe a grant opportunity because I imagine this will be a significant part of the maintenance at Hickory Ridge. Well I'd be really interested in any details that you have on this bio incinerator that sounds really interesting. What I can tell you about dog poop at Hickory Ridge is I've walked just about every square foot of the property at this point. And just about every square foot has dog poop on it at this point. So it has become a free running off leash dog area. Yeah, I don't want to see that happen for the accessible trails. Yeah, I think that needs to be addressed at some point. Yeah, and I did talk to Dave about it because a lot of our sort of survey out there. He highlighted that and so he is planning for us to get some dog poop bag stations and trash receptacles similar to like what we have at Mill River, which Mill River, you know, I think that's one of the sort of success stories for, you know, the dog poop situation because a lot of other places like Amethyst Brook people just leave the bags out. They don't bring them to their car they just put them on the side of the trail. But at Mill River they, they really do put them in the trash cans for the most part so that's pretty good. Okay, well maybe to be discussed at another time. So I'll just check in once again if you're here for the 46th varying street it's been continued to 735 on April 26 so we will not be covering that hearing tonight. Okay. I guess we can keep moving along if you don't have any other land management updates. Yeah. Do we want to just jump to other business until it's hearing time. Sure. Okay. So, in the last two weeks, there was an emergency certification issued at goal pond. I came in initially as a complaint to me and I responded and found out that our land managers had basically done some very, very minor maintenance work. The maintenance work consisted of removal of a small amount of debris from the culvert which runs under the road. The goal pond which is crossbrook, a very small amount of woody debris was removed from that culvert and there was an area of the sort of caging that surrounds the outlet for the flow control structure slash beaver deceiver and the inlet that goes under the road, and that caging had been damaged so they repaired it. In the course of removing the small amount of woody debris, the pond dropped significantly as well as a an upland water body which sort of became like a backwater overflow for the pond. And so that's where the complaint came in, but I circled back and found out it had been very minor work that had been done. It just had kind of a ripple effect. So I issued the emergency certification in response to that because there had been a resource area alteration as a result of the work. I circled back with everybody and like the person who complained and let them know what had happened. I got engaged in some communication with the DPW about the fact that the beavers have moved downstream. And so they might be doing some similar flow control structure at the next crossing that goes underneath old farm road to try to address another debris situation down there. But for right now, I would just be looking for the commission to ratify the emergency certification, which was issued for the removal of that small amount of debris from the culvert under. Crossbrook. Yeah, go ahead, Alex. Did I say that they're going to engage beaver solutions? It was beaver solutions. Beaver solutions were the ones who made the repair to the fencing. Okay. Are they still involved? They're involved as far as well. So they did their, they did the work that was planned to be done to repair the beaver deceiver fencing. They're involved in so far as like we do regular maintenance to the structures, but that's about it. Yeah, I've worked with them before. Any other questions commissioners? Okay, so I'm looking for a ratification. Do we have a, do we need that up on the screen or does someone want to go for it? It's gull pond ratification for emergency certification. So to ratify the emergency set of certification for gull pond. Seconded. Alex. Hi. And I'm an eye. I'm an eye too. Me too. Good. All right. What time is it? All right, we still have 15 minutes. So again, if anybody's here for 46 fairing street that hearing has been continued to 735 on April 26, we will not be covering that tonight. Yeah, I can give you guys a little bit more by way of updates too. And, you know, I was just checking in with Andre briefly before the call. I know we have the MOU for DPW on the agenda, you know, on the, on the PowerPoint and that was carried over from the last meeting. But considering we are missing three board members, Andre had suggested maybe we should table that again just to have everybody present including Dave. I'll totally defer to you guys on your thoughts about that. I'm in favor of that. We've, we've continued that or for a few meetings now though. So maybe we can nail it down for next time. And there I think that there, I mean, it's the same version as we got about three or four weeks, probably maybe six weeks ago now. Okay, there was like a single edit I had that I will make a point of getting to have it hasn't already been gotten to. Sure. And then let's see, I just want to see if. Oh, Kristen McDonough is on so if for the, the UMass enforcement situation, Kristen McDonough is on the call. And I believe she is planning to do the sort of presentation about the work that's been designed for the rectification of the issue from the enforcement case that happened at UMass. Okay, so that's our only other item of business. Okay, I'm just wondering if can we do that in 13 minutes. Yeah, and if we're a few minutes late, like if it wraps, if it goes into like 735, we can do the continuance after 735 we just can't do it before. Okay. So I'll pull Kristen in actually I can't pull because you're the host so you have to do it. Right. Here she is. Hi Kristen. Hi everyone. Can you hear me. Yes. Okay, but can you see me. We can see your picture. We can't see you live. Well, that's so weird. I can't see me either. How do I change that I normally this is a different screen that I normally see. No, stay. Oh, join as a panelist or stay as attending. I just promoted you to panelist. Okay. There we go. I can see me. Can you all see me now. Yes. Okay, so shall I shall I introduce us right now. A little ahead of schedule. Thanks for fitting us in tonight. I don't want to give too much background. Since I know that we're, we only have about 15 minutes, but just as a quick background so SWCA right Pierce and UMass are here this evening to present a concept culvert replacement plan and stream bank and wetland mitigation plan. And that has part of an after the facts notice of intent for University of Massachusetts underground conduit replacement that was potentially covered under an existing comprehensive notice of intent and an existing order of conditions in Amherst and Hadley. However, mistakes were made. There was no notification provided to the commission. There was no written notice. One of the culverts, which was made of clay, which was considered to be fragile by the contractors was replaced in kind and that was likely going to require written notification and possibly even a permit application. And that wasn't done so Amherst issued an enforcement order. On September 8, I think Aaron in 2022. And since then Hadley Amherst DEP UMass and SWCA have all been working together to come up with the mitigation package that can satisfy the work that was done to date while concurrently pulling together a notice of intent for after the fact permitting. So, we sent the commission three concept mitigation plans. I'm sorry, three concept culvert replacement plans and a concept stream bank and wetland mitigation plan on Friday of last week. I don't know if you have all had a chance to look at that, but we have Tom Hogan from right Pierce here this evening and Tony Summers from SWCA who prepared those plans. I'm prepared to pull those up and we can talk about them and if the commission has any questions. I also have some site photos if anybody wants to see any of these areas. And I have an ArcGIS online map queued up so I'm prepared to do some screen sharing and if you guys have questions I can just walk you through the stuff. Yes, please. Yeah. All right, perfect. All right, let's see. So we sent three concept culvert replacements. This one is an elliptical culvert, and this is for this culvert was the clay culvert that was replaced in kind by the contractors this is an 18 foot wide gravel access road. This road doesn't really see any traffic. It's, it's really just a utility access road. This line right here is the town line so Hadley is to the south and versus to the north. This is all wetland up here flow goes this way west towards the Mill River over to the West. This is a 60 inch culvert that was not replaced and this is the double barrel 18 inch culvert that was replaced in kind. This concept shows an elliptical culvert replacement. And let me actually just pull up a photo really quick before we get into that. This is the downstream end of the double barrel 18 inch culvert replaced on the on the access road. This is my backpack up here. This is the elevation of the top of the road. This is the double barrel culvert. And then they put in these concrete bars at the toe, and then this is the stream bottom down here. So there's a pretty significant elevation change right here. Just to kind of give the commission some background on why we're talking about replacing this double barrel 18 inch culvert. The second concept that right peers prepared was a box culvert. And then the third concept was an arch culvert. And so we just wanted to present these ideas to the commission and see what your thoughts were on this. So because there's all this riprap here at the downstream and the upstream end, which resulted in impacts to BVW and some stream bank. SWCA prepared a stream bank and BVW restoration plan. Sorry, I know I'm jumping around a lot, but there's a lot of information and I want to make sure I get this clear. So here's our ArcGIS online map. So this 60 inch culvert is right here. The stream comes through. This is all just a big persistent emergent marsh up here. Mill rivers over here to the west. This is the main channel right here goes through this 60 inch culvert. Then it makes a really sharp turn. It joins the outflow from the 18 inch culvert. There's no discernible bank upstream of this double barrel 18 inch culvert. It's just a marsh. But once it joins here it flows down and then you can probably see on this ortho there's some stream banks slumping on the left descending bank here. There's some pretty significant bank erosion in this stream channel right here. There's a lot of stream back cutting and down cutting. And so that was our concept in designing the stream bank restoration plan. So this is sort of a two fold and Tony you can jump in if you're on in a minute. I don't know if I can get anything. So this is the 60 inch. There's a significant restoration plan for this stretch of the channel right here and then due to the elevation changes from the top of the road to the culvert outfall that double barrel 18 inch culvert. There are a series of step pools. So that will work as a velocity diffuser and also maintain some aquatic connectivity, some habitat connectivity, and hopefully mitigate some of the stream back cutting that's that's going on. This right here is a utility right away and there are telephone poles that are there's one right here. So I'll show you a picture in a second but you know if this stream continues to a road. This infrastructure is eventually going to be in jeopardy and possibly the road is going to be in jeopardy. This is a good photo. We pull this up. This photo is facing this is the 60 inch culvert. And this is facing downstream so you can really see that down cutting and that stream bank erosion where that stream kind of turns to the north right out of that 60 inch culvert outlet. So I know I just pounded you with a ton of information. I do have other people here I have right peers here who did the culvert design plans and I have Tony summers here who did the restoration design plans if you have any technical questions for them or if I can help with any questions I'm happy to answer. And do you want to go or should I ask the commission first. Okay, I mean I would I would love to ask just a couple questions. I mean, it just in general. I would like to see the open bottom concepts that you guys have come up with the arch culverts are great but in terms of maintenance. That material in the pipe has the potential to wash downstream a little bit. I like the the open bottom arch concept. Can you talk a little bit about the sort of plunge pools and what the material in that would consist of just wondering if that's because it looks kind of like in the rendering it looks like like stone would that be sort of like a river stone or a riprap what is that material. I don't know if Tony's on the call can can an administrator see if Tony's on the call Tony summers from SWCA. I don't see a Tony. Okay, from what I understand this was this was intended to be flat stones. That was what we were discussing when we were in the field together a couple of weeks ago. It is a little bit misleading that looks like it's like a rounded river stone but I, I thought it was supposed to be a flat stone. So like a, I mean like a field stone type. Yeah, not an angular riprap in other words. Okay. And then the interior of the of the plunge pool would that just be like a native substrate or would there actually be some sort of an engineered basin in there. Let me see if he has any notes over here. I'm just looking for like as natural to mimic the natural channel as much as possible. I like the idea of the native vegetation. I'm curious if that would be. I know like, in a lot of cases there's like a choir log that they use that you like willow stakes and stuff like that or if we're just talking about seating it down and, you know, mulching it which I think would maybe not be as as successful for the bank. Yeah, I think that we were in the field and we discussed the restoration design options, because this bank is so unvegetated and so unstable. Just pull this up. You know it's very herbaceous this is basically all flair us. There's a little bit of cornice on the right descending bank but the left descending bank is all flair us and you can see this bank piece right here that actually slumped after we flagged it in November. So this whole chunk of bank with the flag that's down in the channel now was lost just in a couple of months. So this is very actively eroding going towards that telephone pole and back cutting towards this culvert. This is actually a 36 inch benthic drop right here and have a close up photo of that too if you're willing to take a quick look at that. So we were thinking about willow stakes or cornice states or cornice cornice plantings out there just to get some cohesion on the bank and to stabilize that bank. I personally would like to see as native as possible for the biological community in here. And I believe that was what our intention was. Okay. I mean Alder to that's a good one. Yeah, there is Alder out there. That's a good point. Thank you. So the picture that we were just looking at that's going to be reinforced with a wooden, like a backstop basically to maintain that that turn. As we can see it. It's going to look like that but was a wooden reinforcement. What do you vegetation you mean. I believe it. Can you go back to the schematic. Oh sure. Oh yeah and Tony just teams to me he is he is here so I think you'd be a better person to explain his design than me. Okay, I'm just looking at that dark black and the sort of middle bottom where the tight. Yes. Oh sure. So tow wood protection on restored bank. I will let I will let Tony pop in if we can, if we can. I made Tony a panelist so hopefully we'll be seeing him in a sec. Sorry, can you hear me. Yeah, hi Tony. I realized I was joined as a participant as a viewing member. So what the question is about the tow wood. Yes, could you explain that a little bit. Sure, tow wood is basically just bundles of shrubby material that helps to slow velocity down around a bend. So in this area as the water's coming out of the culvert. It's basically making a 90 degree turn right now, and the velocities coming through or hitting that at the direct angle and eroding the bank so the idea would be once the channel has been stabilized. So that this in a stabilized form we would use additional tow wood to help reinforce that bed. And what do you mean by tow wood what what exactly did that does that consist of it can be. It's generally shrubby materials so like root rods and stuff like that thick brush that's courted in bundles and then laid out and it's just that rough texture of all the stick material sticking out of the bank that helps slow down the velocity. If you saw it in larger rivers, you might see root wads where they take the tree and they leave the roots exposed similar concept but just for a smaller application. Okay, that's interesting so I mean I'm looking at this 90 degree angle of a river and just thinking that's impossible but is this like how long do you guys expect that to be there for is this a tried and true. Way to keep a bank stable. Yeah, this this is a fairly standard practice. A lot of times those that tow wood would have some kind of live staking in there. So, whether you would put, you know, willows or cornice in there, something that would colonize and help stabilize and reinforce that bank and so by the time they tow would starts to degrade. Hopefully you have a good solid massive of woody material in that root mass up along that bend. The idea would be that this portion, you know, one concept for this portion of the restoration would be that this might be re elevated because of that back cutting or or the banks would be pulled back to allow excess flows to kind of spread out instead of dig down and channelize. So this wouldn't be something that would just be the stream and its current form. This would be part of a, you know, multi concept restoration for that segment. Okay Aaron did you have anything else I saw Andre had his hand up. I was just going to ask if he could talk more about the plunge pool basins there and what those consist of besides just the sort of field stones. Yeah, I mean, at this point. This is just kind of a draft concept and it hasn't that really hasn't been fleshed out because we need to know more about the velocities and what we would need to be able to step that down so that stepping down maybe shorter. The material that we would use. Obviously, if there's more force and more flow. We would look at, you know, larger material. If the flows in this area aren't going to be. You know, basically it would be sized appropriately and the materials haven't really been selected at this point. Okay commissioners any other questions. I have a question. I'm just curious to know what, what type of volume is coming out of that second culvert the, the open bottom one. Is there anything to put the structures down below. Is it, is it a significant amount that's coming out of that or I will say that right pierce is still in the process of finalizing their hydrological design and the hydrological study, but this is this is kind of a snapshot of what the water looks like coming out of that double barrel 18 inch culvert. The water out of that system that wetland system so this whole wetland system is basically mostly draining from that 60 inch culvert. It's there's there's some water coming through this double barrel 18 inch culvert. But I think if you can even look on this on this ortho you can see the black line. It's really most of the flow is coming out of that 60 inch culvert. I'll piggyback on what Kristen said and say that that road serves basically as a large dam of that wetland and it was, it was, it seemed to be there was more water in it before the culvert was was replaced so as soon as they came out of the culvert there was so much material that was put in there, that it, it seemed like it restricted flow even more so I think opening it up would allow a little more hydrologic connection. We've gone back and looked at orthos from the 1990s, and it, you know, I can't see an original channel in here, we might have to order historic aerials to really see. We've put in in like 68. So we have to go back further than what we have on mass GIS to look at if there was ever an original channel here or if there was ever a channel here but if you look at the USGS topographic map, the blue line is right in between these two channels. So, right now for permitting purposes we're considering both of these crossings a perennial stream. It's basically the same system. It's impossible to say which one is the blue line on the topo so we're considering both of them perennial, even though it seems like right now most of the flows coming through here, and we are we are going to have more data from right pierce on the hydrology. So is the the wetland actually drain significant amount and is that now stabilized if so or. Yeah, so I mean just doing my desktop assessment and preparing the note, the notice of intent and looking back at aerial photos the wetland hasn't grown up gradient or in order, you know, otherwise towards the east of that road, it hasn't grown. Since the road was put in which was kind of the first thing that I was looking at if that's what you're asking, you know, considering that this road is probably an impoundment to that flow. It seems like the water just sort of shifted and it's mostly moving through that 60 inch culvert now. I guess what I'm asking is whether that alteration on that culvert had made the level of the, you know, the level of the, this looks like marsh has that made the level of the water go down. If it's, if that's the case, was it restored back to the normal level. Oh, I see what you're saying because the new culvert is is a larger size than the older culvert. So I think Aaron, Aaron mentioned earlier that the, that it did some draining there or that there was some, there was a bunch of not only debris but more water than normal coming through there. I'm wondering if it affected the wetland that's that's on the other side on the upside. So I'm just going to jump in here so my observation Andre is that it's draining less now than it was before when when this violation was discovered. Basically what I asked them to do was just keep keep in place what they did because they replaced it in kind the culverts the two culverts replace them in kind and stabilize everything until a notice of intent could be filed. So, right now, although it's in there and I'm not happy with what's in there. The design that they're talking about now would be filed so that hopefully they can complete the work to restore that entire area by the summertime is the hope. So it's temporarily I think it's a little more restrictive as far as flow for that culvert that's on the Amherst side but hopefully once they do the restoration work. It'll improve the flows so that it can, it can be a little more free flowing. Thanks. That answers my question. Thanks to both of you. Cameron. Yeah, I was just wondering if you have it remaining at that 90 degree angle to keep it away from that power line and connecting it to the other culvert. Is that the only way to do it. As opposed to just because that causes so much erosion. There are more certainly more complex ways to do it. A 90 degree to 90 degree bend on a stream obviously isn't ideal. But are those are those the reasons you're keeping the 90 degree angle. And it's the natural where it's at right now. That seems to be the his, I guess, historic channel or at least since that culvert was put in. Okay. So we really haven't looked at the other alternatives. But one, you know, one possible scenarios that when the culvert was the 60 years culvert was put in. When it was shallower and connected to like the lower floodplain that that the water velocities were allowed to spill over into that lower section to the West. And that's why you might see some of that back cutting on the lower bank. And just at one point, I think it just got so incised that it got disconnected with the floodplain. Yeah, you can see right here on this. This is this ortho I think is from 2021. But you can see there at some point it looked like there was some connection to the floodplain, and maybe there was some overflow. Over here to the West but now that stream channel is just so incised it can't. It has no connection to the floodplain whatsoever. You know, as as is evidenced here I mean this is. This is three and a half feet right here, and it's actively slumping so you know if it were tiered it would have access to the floodplain but right now it's completely incised. Okay, thank you. Alex. Is there any aquatic life in any of the water courses that you've noticed. Absolutely. On our very first site walk out there when we were talking about the enforcement order we found, we found a little juvenile snapping turtle trying to climb up these obstructions so yeah there's absolutely an incentive to ensure the aquatic connectivity at this crossing. Yeah. I think it's a good question that the structures you were going to put in for low dissipation would provide aquatic life connections and it seems like to me they would be a barrier and certainly the double barrel situation as a barrier. It's not clear to me how the aquatic life is being considered in the design. Sure. So, so there's a pretty significant elevation change from the top of the road to the bottom of the stream bed. So, without adding a lot of fill to raise the elevation of the stream bed. We kind of need to step it down gradually which is typical of a stream bed morphology, similar to like a step pool stream bed morphology. Because these step pools retain water during periods of low flow, there will still be able to, in theory, have aquatic connectivity between the downstream and the upstream and vice versa. And I do want to stress that, you know, those drops that are depicted. This is just for initial draft we don't have the hydrology back yet so this could be smaller. It could be less invasive. But the idea is that you have the plunge pools so each of the plunge pools in theory would help to hold water laying back the banks would certainly help help animals get in and out, certainly vegetating that slope would help improve habitat. But it would be more of a gradual drop in that that wall and all of that rep that you see there. So it would be more improved connectivity. Got you. That picture right there isn't very friendly to me. Yeah, yeah, no, it would be nothing like that. There won't be any vertical barriers under the proposed. So, the bottomless arches are that your bottom bottomless culverts that you're talking about would have native material in them. And they would be. They would reduce the drop is that correct. How would that work. Well, you have a certain grade that you have to have going through the culvert and as you can see from where the culvert set right now that double barrel culvert. You know, obviously there's a positive flow there so that's the lower end of the culvert that you're seeing and it's still pretty high up on that bank. So the idea is that the grades would be fairly similar under the culvert as the adjacent wetland of the upstream wetland system. And then at some point after exiting the culvert. It would need to have some kind of reinforcement so that we can ensure that it wouldn't the open bottom. You know it's an open bottom so you got to make sure that that bottom is stable and we'll back cut back through the culvert and compromise the culvert. And from that point, then we'll look at the gradual step downs and the idea is that those step downs help to dissipate that energy because the steeper your grade the more velocity that picks up in the more scour and and erosive forces that you put into the system. And then into these plunge pools, it goes into a large pool and in a larger surface area helps dissipate that energy, and then it will spill into the next pool and so on and so forth, and help to ease the the velocities, going into that drop until we can get it to a point where it's connected back to that original grade of the stream bed. No. Okay, well the road is a hydraulic control and the water is going to drain where we give it the opportunity. So you've got two culverts that's where the water is going to drain if you put culvert someplace else would drain there. And it looks to me like the, the one with the 90 degree corner is a new channel being cut. I understand the putting the woody debris on the 90 degree corner, I have used trees to anchor them on banks on rivers stabilized banks and adding woody debris, I don't just to slow down the water. So adding the woody debris in small size might give that bank some stability while other things take hold. Yeah, where else this wetland on the right. Is this the only place it can drain to. I believe, I believe based on the contours yes. So if you have more of a to the south, I think you have a wooded area and it raises up an elevation and same, same thing on the other side with the apartment complex. So it is kind of a kind of a valley system there, little micro shed. Thank you. The wetland kind of curves curves away from the road over here to the west and curves away from the road over here to the east. So this, this is the, the watershed low point, the micro watershed low point right here and right here. Yeah, I'm just trying to figure out now how to go there it is lower my hand. Thank you. I, I think the drawing with right there with the velocity barriers they they just appear to be a bunch of rock is that's not true. I'm having a hard time picturing what they would be like in reality. I'm not sure are you referring to the step pools or are you. Step, like maybe, maybe do you mean on how they're kind of on one side of each of the step pools. Yeah, it looks like you got four rock dams with a pool below it with a rock bottom. But I can't, I'm not understanding the drawing very well. Maybe if we had another view on the final design Tony that would be helpful but I thought these were tiered but maybe you can talk more about that Tony. Yeah. Yeah, maybe we could get an example like a photo of something similar when you submit that shows like what it might look like. Yeah, I was going to say, we've done many of these and in a lot of cases, you know they're they look very natural and they function very naturally. So, I can look to see if we can have some, some built example photos that we provide. If you did not have a culvert where the 90 degree turn is and force the water to go to the other culvert with the road wind up flooding. Well, it all depends on how the culvert assessed. I mean, you if you increase the size of the culvert obviously you can clear more water. But obviously you want to get it right the first time with with the conditions that we have. I don't think DEP would allow us to do that anyways. So what happens if you put in a fairly large box culvert with the natural bottom. They won't let you relocate a stream. DEP won't. I'm not sure what's being relocated it's it's, I don't know the site so it's a, it's a wetland it has a lot of water in it and it's, it's a is that stream that we're seeing at the lower culvert. It's the bulk of the road and the culvert. It appears to be so. Yeah, I think if you look at the, because I'm going to say if you look at the historic aerials, the, the mainstream channel goes straight up to where the, where the open bottom culvert is proposed. Yeah. Here with the 90 degree turn. It's hungry water it wants to eat away at the bank it's going to continue to do that so long as the velocities are high. No load in the water it's going to pick up a load. And so we'll be back here again. Anyways, interesting problem. We have the hydrologic assessment will have a much clearer picture of what the other options might be. And I think right now our primary focus is ensuring that this this crossing, which was an unpermitted replacement in kind is replaced to meet the Massachusetts stream crossing standards which it doesn't currently meet. And so we just want to make sure that you know the existing crossing is improved. Is there any small fish in this in this water. Well this is mapped as a perennial stream so it's very possible there are in this channel but this isn't there is no discernible stream bank upstream of this double barrel 18 inch culvert. So, if they made it through here, they would be in a big marsh and probably have a short life. I think they're, if anywhere, going to be in this main channel down here. And of course, there are in the middle river which is further down gradient to the west. Right. Yeah, when I was in college we did some electro shocking right in the middle river rate right in that area there, and there was plenty going on there. I did that to hold worth. Yeah. So, as I understand there still needs to be some hydrologic data involved here for the NOI to be finalized. And unless commissioners have any other comments. Do you guys have a date at which you expect that and why to be completed and presented. Yeah, so I've already pretty much done what we can on our end and I think we're going to be ready to submit this in mid May. So I would say three weeks, barring any any major hangups from survey data or hydrological data. That's our goal. Okay, so Aaron where does that put us for scheduling this next meeting. So if they filed in mid May, that would probably put us at the first meeting in June for, you know, review and approval, and then assuming, let's say it took two meetings to get through June, then 21 day appeal period would be July. So put us probably to August for the work to be done. I know that the hope was to do the work in the driest possible conditions, but is it shaping up that you mass is going to be prepared to do the work. Late summer early fall. That was always the intention is to do it during low flow conditions which is generally August September, but I can get confirmation. Yeah, I mean it's a it's a pretty tight schedule so hopefully we can stay on track for that I just considering that, you know, the NOI was supposed to be submitted in October, we'd really like to see this resolved. If we can sooner rather than later. So it looks like June 14 is the first for first meeting for June if that's where we're looking to continue this until. Has there been a site visit or would there be a site visit for this situation. When the NOI is filed, we definitely would. And, you know, we'll set a public hearing and notify of butters and everything as well. When the, as soon as the notice of intent comes in. And I'll talk to you offline about that in a little bit more detail Aaron. Okay, just because the butters are pretty lengthy so. Yeah, I know we had talked about how to approach that a little bit. Yeah, so I think that the idea of the meeting today was just to give, give the consultants a little bit of feedback on what the commission's looking for. Do you guys feel like we've given you adequate feedback to kind of. Revisit this and finalize a submission or do you have any additional questions. Our main goal is to make sure that the commission is okay with this. We're going down the right track. Everyone's going to be happy. And so we don't have any surprises when we file this. So if this is, if this is what you guys have in mind. I think we're okay. I guess I would only add that you mentioned maybe we could see a real life example of the pools and I think if you could get that test just to review. As soon as possible so we can have that in our minds before we talk about the NOI in June. You know, in Michelle, I got a comment. Yep. Go ahead, Alex. When you do your NOI if you can spend some more time figuring out how to control the flow around that 90 degree corner but in the whole channel. So that the cutting stops. Otherwise, it's just going to become bigger. Which was kind of why I was wondering if you could what happens if you take out that culvert and just don't have a channel there, because the channel appears to be forming actively. And just let it go with that. You'll have to do the homework on whether DEP would permit that but it just seems like it's going to continue to cut unless there's some way you can control the velocity. Okay. All right, thank you. Are we all set then Aaron to continue on. All right, I'm going to excuse you guys. Thank you, Kristen. Thank you, Tony. Thanks everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So I guess I'm going to backtrack now to 46 faring and do I open the meeting Aaron, or do we just know. And so if it's okay, Michelle, can I just now that we're here just give a quick update to folks who are on the call because I do see some folks who are our butters. Please do. So for folks who are on the call. We are sort of at the point we got an updated plan set from the applicant. We scheduled a site visit which was held on the 11th on Tuesday. And basically, because we're short three members tonight, as well as we have an outstanding question for a peer reviewer or peer reviewer regarding some hydric soils, which were found at a 12 inch depth on the site. And we'd like to just get some sort of advice clarification from our peer reviewer with regard to the wetland delineation. We requested from the applicant to get a continuation to April 26 in order to hopefully get a little more clarity on a path forward. Tom reedy grant did submit the request for us to get a continuation to that date so that's basically where things stand is will be continuing to April 26 and at that point. It looks like the hearing will be opening. And I understand there'll be another opportunity for a site visit so I might be able to be there. Yes, yep, I'm going to schedule a second formal site visit for Alex and anybody else who'd like to join. And I'll bring the soil auger and we'll take we'll take samples again so that I can kind of show everybody what we're seeing and everybody can kind of get a general sense of what's going on on the site. Great. I'm just going to jump in I'd like to visit the site to. I'm not around next week. So if there is a way to sort of quickly poll or just have a couple dates sometimes. Yeah, would I was actually I had a date in mind which was with me one second. I also can't do next week with Monday. Hold on one second. I'm out of the country until the 24th. Okay, so will you be available on the 24th Alex. No, no. I'm driving from the Brunswick home. Okay, what about the 26th the morning of the 26th. Yeah, probably is that a Wednesday. It is. That's a Wednesday. So why don't we stay tentatively 830 on Wednesday the 26th. I mean, just 26. Yeah, that's great. I don't have anything in the morning. Okay, I'll confirm that with the applicant but if we just mark our calendars now. That is the morning of the next con the concom on that day. Correct. Yep. Yeah, I got a meeting at 12 but you're saying 830. Yes, 830 am. And will you send something out on that or do you? Yes, I have to, I have to confirm that they can that the applicants representative could be there. Okay. Perfect. Okay, so moving along then we don't, I mean, we don't hit. So this take care of the continuance and I need to wrap that. We should some way. We should make a motion. All right. I'm going to have a motion please. I move to continue the hearing for the notice of intent for 46 fearing street to 735 on April 26 2023. I second that. Okay. Hi. Cameron. Hi. Andre. Hi. I'm an eye. Let me just check if there's any other business here. We were going to go through the land use plan up front, but that didn't happen. Oh, so yeah, I just give you a quick update on the land use permit. Oh, and there was, there was a land use application as well. So on the land use application, the applicant requested to use Hickory Ridge. And I checked with Dave on that. Dave is away right now. And I'd only heard back from him this morning. That he doesn't want to be scheduling any land use. Any programs basically at Hickory Ridge until we finish up some of the trail work that we're doing there, and we can sort of more formally open it to have doggy bags and kiosks and, you know, all these things. So I reached out to the applicant on that, and I haven't heard back from her. So I don't think we're really prepared to approve the land use application tonight. The update on the land use policy regulations is that Monday I got Dave's comments back in hard copy. So I haven't had a chance to dig into those comments, but I'm hoping to basically dig into those start coming to a final draft version that I can share with you guys and then wrap it up. That's good. Thank you. I have not yet started our land management guidelines, you know, as of February, so I've just, you know, waiting to hear when that might have a kickoff. You know, no need to tell us right now, but just wanted to check in that it's still. Yes, it's been, it's been pending this. So the idea is to get the final draft reviewed and approved so that we can move forward and again it's the whole idea of this policy and regulations are for it to be a living document that we edit and part of that will be with the subcommittee going through it and making adjustments, but it's just sort of a clean palette for us to work with rather than the marked up, you know, track change and comment document like I'm trying to get a clean version for us to start when we begin our meetings and yes I want to do that as soon as we can. Okay. I think that's everything that I have I'm looking through my notes. I need to open for public comment once you're done. Yes, yep. Is that good time. Yep. All right, feel free to see two public members here so if anybody has any comments. Please raise your hand. It's going twice. I'm not seeing any raised hands. All right, does that wrap us up then. Okay. Let me do this in record time to have a motion. I moved to adjourn a second. Cameron. Hi, Alex. Hi. Andre. Hi. And I'm an eye. Beautiful Michelle. Great job sharing guys you guys got my back. All right, well, rest up tonight with your extra. 53 minutes. Good night. Thank you.