 Hello and welcome to the November 29, 2023 meeting of the Amherst Conservation Commission. The time is 7.03. First on our agenda is chair reports. I'm nothing. So I'm going to hand it over to Dave. So, Mike, I really, based on the, the number of items you have on your agenda, I'm, I really don't have any significant updates. So, I'm happy to defer to Erin if she needs some time at this point in your agenda. Thanks, Dave. Go ahead, Erin. I'm just pulling Bruce in as a panelist. Yeah, so. The first thing I wanted to share with everyone is that the, the town is starting to embark on the. Updated open space and recreation plan. We've had a couple meetings amongst the planning department staff. Conservation department staff. And there's some other applicable departments who are, are involved sustainability, potentially diversity, equity and inclusion, the recreation department. So we're just right now sort of breaking up pieces, getting the things we can update now updated for the new version. And in the coming weeks, we're going to be updating or creating a draft survey for the community and the purpose of the survey is basically to survey the community to see what their sort of open space and recreation wants and needs are. And that kind of guides the whole process of open space and recreation plan development. So we wanted to just town staff wanted to keep applicable boards and committees in the loop that this was beginning. We have to have a draft ready, I believe, by June of 2024. So it's going to be kind of fast and furious once we get the survey underway. But just wanted to make sure everybody has an open invitation to participate and in the survey portion or any portion you wish to. So if you have interest in being involved in any capacity, please let me know. And if the commission wants to be involved, just as a, as a committee in any sort of official review of anything, you're welcome to do that as well. So. Okay. Thanks, Aaron. Two questions. One is how will this be distributed to the public. And two, how does the commission be involved if we so wish to be. Yeah, so great questions. The first is there will be a digital survey. So something basically you follow a link and go in and fill out the survey. There will also be a hard copy. So people who are not comfortable with, you know, using the computer to fill out the form or the survey can use a hard copy form to do that. And so we'll have both available. The format for the digital version has not yet been determined where we're kind of hashing that out right now. Yeah, there'll be a version of both. And the second part of your question was how could the committee be involved. We meet we've been meeting every couple weeks. So, you know, if individual like if we wanted to have like one member of the concom attend some of the meetings, that would be possible like as a liaison. Or if there were any instances where the commission wanted to have more direct involvement, we could put it on the future agenda to kind of get an update. Right. Could I just jump in. Yeah. Yeah, so I guess I would say we're, you know, we're going to be more proactive than that in terms of the commission's involvement and both the rec commission as well as the con conservation commissions involvement. So the survey is just, you know, so first of all, this is, I think it's a seven year update. I think the, the plan is seven years old. Is that right, Aaron? So I think we bought a little time usually you have to do five year updates. We've been doing these, oh my goodness, for over 20 years and their requirement of the state. I would encourage everybody on the commission to look at the current open space and recreation plan. And it makes us of course eligible for future grants from the state. But I think once the survey is done, I think this staff working group will come up with ways to Michelle's question about engagement. And I, and I like what Aaron said there, which is, I think we need to have this on your agenda in some, in some routine way and members of the committee may come with Aaron and myself to do updates with you and, and we could set aside some parts of your agendas in the new year to devote to some of these sections and get your input. And likewise, we're going to go to the recreation commission and get their input. I think there's also a couple of required public meetings that will, will have to have public forums on the open space and recreation plan, where we invite members of the community members of communities and boards the planning board typically takes a look at this as well. I imagine members of the council might want to take a look at it. So I think there's going to be, you know, pretty robust, but efficient and timely process to get this done. What is our goal for completion Aaron? I don't have it off the top of my head. I think we're supposed to have a draft by June of 2024 to submit to the state. So, so we'll be coming to you and we'll be inviting you members of this, this commission as well as the rec and planning board and other boards and committees as Aaron said DEI to come and, and talk about, you know, how we use recreation and conservation areas how the two mesh together or how they don't mesh well together. So it's going to be an exciting process. Thanks, Dave. Um, I guess I was just wondering about that like logistical distribution to the town public. And, you know, like is it Facebook is it what like what is the mechanism emails, whatever but it sounds like we'll have time to discuss that. I think we'll also have an engage Amherst page. Okay, use very effectively in the past. Okay, sounds great. Okay. Next, shall we move on to our back to gender. Yeah, do you want to jump into some other business that way we can. Okay, so our first hearings is seven 10. And management updates. Okay, other business. Bring it on. Oh, Bruce has a question. Go ahead, Bruce. Before I got in to you approve the minutes. Let's consider that other business and put it on the top of other business approval of minutes. All right, what are the minutes 1025 2023 looking for emotion or comments. I think we already approved 1025 actually. Okay, that's what's on my agenda. Okay, that must have been 118, 118. Right, given that. I move that we approve the minutes from 118 2023 is drafted. I saw Alex, maybe on a second. Yeah, thank you. Okay, Jason on the motion. Alex on the second. Bruce. Yes. Alex. Hi, Jason. I'm an eye. Great. So two items on the agenda for, for other other business. First is a request for a minor administrative change. This is kind of really, really administrative, but recently we approved the substation upgrades on college street. You may have noticed that route nine was closed while they were doing some of that work. And there's two poles that are across from the substation, just east of Fort Hill auto body and the replacement of those poles. They were originally going to just access by vehicle, but they're concerned now that doing that will cause some damage running to the ground around the tires and there's a lot of vegetation there. So they'd like to just place timber matting to access the poles. This is what I recommended to them during the hearing, but they didn't think it was going to be necessary. So it's mostly just to share with the commission that they are asking to use timber matting for the construction of the, or the replacement of the poles and I can share a quick figure that shows this there. They already got approval from natural heritage to do this. But this sort of orange hatch indicates where they would put the timber matting to protect the ground while they did the pole replacements. So that's basically they're just, it's, it's kind of just a notification to us that they're, they'd like to use the matting. The matting typically for forever source is very common. And in my experience causes relatively little by way of impacts. Thanks, Aaron. Alex, you have a question. Oh, I was going to make a motion. Jason, you have a question. No, I just have something more common that I noticed that there's still fence along that line on the opposite side, or on the side where the pole is. There doesn't appear to be any kind of sediment controls around disturbed area on the same side as the substation. And there's been some mud in the street and such. And I would just like to potentially put it out there that some sediment controls be installed or if they're done disturbing those little areas that erosion controls being installed but I believe we approve that some plantings are going to be going in there. So I know they got a little ways to go. So I would like that to be cleaned up. Yeah, it's really timely that you mentioned that Jason because I was, I just called Chris LaRose from ever source this morning and I just, I'm going to stop sharing for just a second so I can see if Chris is on the call. I did notice that they did some cleanup this morning. I see. I'm going to let Chris in. Yeah, they did do some site cleanup this morning. Hi. Sorry. Go for it. Yes. To, to, to your point, Aaron, you know, I, you'd call this morning. Jason, if you can kind of detail exactly what you're looking at, but what, what we did this morning. I've been, there's, we installed some gravel base where the water drains from both the road in the substation area and ultimately filters kind of off the street and into the property towards the wetland. That's taken a lot of constant runoff as well as, you know, some of the surface water shed from the area. So those stones are getting ran over due to vehicle use and after you call me today I did go out there. They reinforced the straw waddle in that area. So they added a second layer and then they added gravel. So there will be vehicle traffic over it just because of the limited footprint of it. They didn't seem to be a way to feasibly avoid that. So what we did was add additional gravel and they're going to make sure that that gravel area is raked out and maintains kind of a healthy filtration system for any runoff. But as far as erosion controls, Jason, that you were referring to, it sounds like your concern was more the roadside soils like in the tree belt. Is that correct? Yeah, the parkway there between the road and the sidewalk. Okay. And the concern would be that the soils are exposed, soils are migrating toward the road. Migrating toward the road or migrating toward the curb cuts for the driveway and then into the road. Yeah. Or just being tracked out by vehicle traffic coming in and out of the site. Okay, we have talked to them about cleaning it. I do plan to go out to the site and they were doing active work in that area. So I have some pictures that they sent me at the end of the day. It was like an HEIC file. I could not download it. So I did not send those over to you, but I am going to go out tomorrow morning and take some pictures of the work they had added to it. And I have asked them to make sure it's cleaned up at least at the end of every day if it's not feasible to avoid it during the actual construction. And then especially during inclement weather, which it sounds like we may have this weekend. But for the, for the, I'm trying to picture the, that roadside tree belt in my head to, you know, I know there is a curb in there now. So it does seem like it would be possible to put erosion controls wrapped around that off the top of my head. You know, I can't exactly picture it. If it, you know, if that hinders vehicle access, but it shouldn't, it should have the two entrance points. So I mean, I think that's something we can certainly address in the field tomorrow and have them have them do and make sure that they clean up any, any soils tracking into the road. And because that parking area is becoming so disturbed that I guess you call it a kind of like a gravel drainage, more like a filtration area. So if there's any, any water that did shed, that should settle out in the, in the stone and we did look in the far side of the, the straw waddle and there is no sediment that doesn't appear to be any sediment that's actually over topping or making its way through so it doesn't appear to be doing its job in that regard. But, but yes, certainly for road tracking we can be more, much more diligent. Is that sufficient Jason. Yeah, let's look at the map again. Yeah, I think so. I think that would be fine. It's hard to see on this exhibit but it's essentially the parkway there in between the two driveway curb cuts. Okay, it sounds like there's a quick timeline for this. Yeah. Given whether. Was that for Chris Michelle. Yeah, it sounds like that's what Chris was saying, but I guess, given what Chris was saying, I'm looking for a motion unless there's other comments from the commissioners as to Bruce. Well to approve the minor administrative change outlined in correspondence data level 1423 for the order of conditions DEP number 089-0682. I'll second that. Bruce on the motion Jason on the second Bruce. Hi, Alex. Hi, Jason. Hi. And I'm an eye. You're welcome. Thanks Chris. The next item is request for certificate of compliance for Southeast Commons. So, let me just navigate back. There. Some folks have been out to this site. We visited back in, gosh, I think it was in the summer. There was quite a bit of, I don't know why it always does this one I'm on a call. There was quite a bit of issues, quite a few issues when we were out there last time, but they have. Sorry, it's going to be difficult for me to navigate to the photos while I'm sharing. Stop sharing for a second. There was quite a few issues and we were out there with storm water, but we were able to get them to button everything up and they were able to stabilize it before winter. I am very much in favor of issuing this certificate of compliance for a variety of reasons. Part of the reason that I'm very eager to issue the certificate of compliance is because there is going to be a project across the street. And when the project across the street has its permits filed, it's relying on the wetland delineation from this project, which is extremely inaccurate. The wetlands that were included in the original wetland delineation do not accurately reflect what's on the ground today and I don't know if that's the symptom of the wetland boundary changing or if it was just, you know, to delineate, I'm not sure which but until we issue a certificate of compliance that original delineation is valid. The site is stable. We have a report from the engineer that the that the project was built in compliance. We have a property manager identified as well as a engineer who will be doing the regular inspections for the site. I apologize that I am unable to pull up the pictures they're not seeming to want to open on OneDrive for some reason and it's, oh, there we go. Okay. Well, let's take Jason's comment while you're looking. You mentioned that the project across the street, you want to get this certificate of compliance approved because the product across the street relies on the wetland delineation for this project. How will approving this affect that project? Can you just expand upon that a little more? Yeah, so as long as, so when somebody files a permit and a wetland delineation is approved as part of that permit, that delineation is valid for as long as that permit is valid. And so unless we specify during a permit review process that we're not approving the delineation, there is a presumption that the wetland delineation is the same. And so as long as this permit is open and there's no certificate of compliance, the wetland delineation is presumed to still be accurate. Once the certificate of compliance is issued, then it basically means that the delineation is no longer accurate and anybody who wants to do work in that, you know, general vicinity of that wetland would have to delineate again, take a second look and start fresh looking at the wetland boundary. This was one, there was a trash can with some rakes. I can just ask them to remove that. When you say general vicinity, is it in the parcel? Is there a specific buffer? Like what is the criteria for that? So I don't have the site plan up right now to share with you, but what I can tell you is when the delineation, when you look at the plan of where the wetlands are located, it basically shows the wetlands being located behind this replication area. So in the woods behind the replication area, but the wetlands actually extend all the way out along this boundary. And they actually, if you walk along Southeast Street, there's wetland along the entire boundary of Southeast Street. So basically the entire property boundary is wet and I've been in touch with Amherst College because a portion of the property that was delineated is Amherst College property and they've acknowledged that this whole area is wet. So, yeah, it's just this, and I can try to draw, but this whole area over here is wet and according to the wetland delineation, it's upland. So that's why I'm concerned about it. Any other, yeah. Any other commissioner questions? Is there a way to show where the other project is going to be, or is likely to be proposed to be? You mean right now? Yeah, I mean you were saying, well, there's a different project that might rely on the current delineation. Well, where is that? It's right across the street. Right across the street. And so why the delineation is important is because, can you guys see my screen right now? Yeah. No. Why this delineation is important is because, so if you can, it's kind of difficult to, let me see if I can. Yeah, so like see these houses across the street here. Where there would be a potential project and if there was development on that side of the road, then that means that the buffer cast off of this wetland would cast across the street. Because the road is not 100 feet wide, and that would make the project across the street jurisdictional under the Wetland Protection Act versus if the wetland delineation is as it is today on this permit. It would not be jurisdictional. And so it's really important that this permit be closed. As well as this, to be totally clear, the site is stable and the applicant really wants to just close out the permit and there's at this point, no reason to keep it open. It's, it's been seated. It's totally stable. The work is finished. We have a certification from the engineer. So there's a lot of reasons for us to close this out. Well, three of the four of us were out there with you that day. So. Yes. Go ahead, Jason. I just have a question about picture photo six or 082150. It appears either there's just some trash in the water or that there's like a filter fabric. I don't know if that was wrapped around a pipe or something. Aaron, can you. Yeah, what that is. The So that that pipe was the outlet of it was protected during the, the final phases when before the stormwater system was brought offline or was brought online, all of the catch basins in the roadway had silt sacks in them and the outlet of the stormwater discharge had a filter bag around the, the outlet portion. And that I think was to prevent surcharge, you know, water, dirty water washing back into the pipe. It's frozen in there right now so they can't take it out off the end of the pipe, but they, they are eager to take that off. But it's essentially like a filter bag at the outlet of the stormwater structure. Okay. I mean, I would be in favor of approving this provided, you know, on the condition that they remove that because that certainly and, you know, and as long as you can confirm that all the other inlets have their BMPs removed. Yes, they do. Okay. Okay, so second point you made is covered. First point you made can be done hopefully in the next week when it's over 40 degrees. Given that, looking for a motion. We just add that language in. Pull a slide up. Yeah, I'll do that. Let me just type first. There's also a number of ongoing conditions on this site just so everyone's aware. And so this, this certificate will look a little different than previous ones where we just issue a complete certificate of compliance and this is related to monitoring and ongoing maintenance of the site. You guys can reword this however you want, but at least it's something on the motion. Sorry, Aaron, I have one other thing. There appears to be a few delineation states out there still around the reconstruct at wetland. Are they going to be removing those as well. Delineation stakes. So if you zoom in on this. So last one, I think it is. Just the stakes with the pink plastic ribbon around them. So, um, you know, if you want them removed, we can. And I'm having a hard time seeing it on my screen because I'm doing a. A screen share on my work computer. So it's a little difficult to zoom in, but if are you talking about around the perimeter of the replication area or are you talking about the wetland. Okay. So it's, it's up to you guys whether you want those removed or not, but. There, the, there are still ongoing conditions for monitoring of that replication area. And so having them remain wouldn't be such a bad idea at this point, because it would just help them to be able to. Monitor the extent of the replication area for, for another year. But it's completely your call if you want to have them pulled out at this point. I'm fine with that if that's why they remain. Yep. Okay. Sounds good. So we're looking for a motion. All right, I moved to issue a certificate of compliance for DEP number 089-0644 and local. NOI 18-1480 with ongoing conditions state SC number 10 SC number 11 SC number 20 SC number 23 SC number 27 SC number 28 SC number 29 SC number 30 SC number 31 ongoing conditions local bylaw 21 23 24 27 attached to COC inspector and property management contact information conditional approval on the filter bag being removed from the discharge pipe. Nice. Okay. Jason on the motion. Alex on the second Bruce. Hi. Alex. Hi. Jason. Hi. I'm an eye. Great other business out of the way. Let's move on to our first hearing of the night. Okay. So before we go. General procedure each hearing has 20 dedicated minutes. We're going to stick hard and fast to this one given the number of hearing as we have today. Five minute presentation by staff followed by five minutes from applicant five minutes total for public comment or two minutes for a person. Depending on how many people we have five minutes for conservation visitors comments. Okay. So all of the presentations are required by the Wednesday a week prior to the meeting at noon. And for all presenters clear, please clearly state your name your address of the project and who you're representing as well as preferred preferred pronouns. Okay. This. Okay. So can you pull up our first one. Okay. We'll start with chapter 131 section 40 of the general bylaws of the Commonwealth and act relative to the protection of the wetlands is most recently amended in article 3.3 when well in the protection under the town embers. And this is for stone notice of intent for a stone field engineering and design LLC on behalf of the valley community. Development for the construction of 15 residential duplex structures and associated site work, including parking utilities, stormwater management and landscaping within the buffer zone at 20. To 40 ball lane map 5 a lot 56. And who do we have representing. Today I see Josh Klein bringing you in. Hi Josh. If there's anyone else that wants to come. Yeah, anyone else is here for that raise your hand please. Hi Josh welcome. Hello, thank you for having us. Great. So we're going to give Aaron 5 minutes, and then we'll move to you. Hi, just guys. I see you in there also. And you want to take it away. Yeah. So, everyone probably saw my memo with comments. These were sent to the applicant. I don't want to go into all of the comments. I'd like to sort of. Give my time to the applicant to present the project and also potentially respond to my comments because everybody can read my comments online and. If anyone has any questions about, you know, the comments that I've made, I'm happy to address them. I will say that we didn't get responses to the comments until tonight, but hopefully Josh can can touch on that a little bit and we can figure out moving forward how to deal with revisions. Thanks Aaron Dave. I just wanted to before this before Josh jumps in and Jessica I just want to say, I'm going to work use myself from this entire conversation in this entire hearing because my, my family actually owns property across the street from this proposed project. I'm going to kind of turn off my camera and won't respond to any questions. So please, if there are any questions, obviously direct them toward Aaron, but I will not be I will just take myself out of this, this hearing in this conversation. Okay, thanks for letting us do it. Alright, Josh Jessica do you want to take five minutes for presentation. Perfect, yeah I can get it started. Good evening my name is Josh Klein I'm a partner with Stonefield engineering and design I am a licensed engineer in the state of mass as well as I think about 13 other states throughout the East Coast. We are here tonight kind of representing Valley Community Development and I'm going to share my screen on the development as well it's it's at the corner of Montague Road and pulpit Hill Road. The address we've been using is 20-40 ball lane and that's on the plans as well. So, I am going to try to keep things brief and then use a little bit of time to talk about some of the comments as well. And sharing here on the screen. This is like an over an aerial overlay exhibit I think it's helpful because it shows kind of the site plan improvements and the grading because again we're we're incorporating above ground BMPs as part of the project to meet the stormwater management requirements so the contours I think will help us see those areas and then the aerial I think helps us maybe visualize a little bit better for those that were not out with us the other day when we did the site walk. So I am going to kind of zoom in a little bit. So we've kind of we're looking at two different resource areas we have a kind of a wetland ditch along pulpit Hill Road, probably an old stormwater ditch that through you know kind of not being maintained over time has kind of grown into this this wetland ditch that helps kind of convey water from the site to a DOT inlet at the corner. The DOT inlet I did a little bit more research since our field visit does connect to another DOT inlet across the street and then we believe it actually discharges to a stream kind of under a bridge in Montague Road. And then we have another resource area there's a kind of a stream that runs along the back of the site. As you kind of you can see I'll zoom in a little bit. It's kind of down the hill near the back of the property as well so you know, both resource areas are shown on the plan with a 50 foot no work work area, 75 foot building set back in 100 foot buffer, just to kind of verify the improvements a little bit so the, the kind of wetland ditch at the top of the screen, the only disturbance proposed, you know with is within the 100 foot buffer. So no disturbances with within 75 feet of the feature. There's a slight parking encroachment that I'm highlighting on the right hand side of the screen. And the majority of the disturbance is really associated with kind of re grading the stormwater management feature towards the front of the site. So kind of one of the strategies or mitigation, you know measures of this design was really looking to minimize disturbance, you know, kind of along the front of the site and kind of along this wetland ditch area so we're kind of protecting the existing vegetation in this area that I'm highlighting between the stormwater basin in the parking. And we're protecting the mature trees and vegetation that you can kind of see the darker colors and I'm circling here. And again that the site really today all drains towards this corner so kind of this is that kind of the ideal location to put a stormwater management facility without kind of significantly having to, you know, impact the rest of the surrounding site. So the stormwater management facility is an infiltration basin we've done significant we've done two rounds of testing on site to ensure proper groundwater separation as well as infiltration of the system. And we are fully capturing infiltrating the 100 year store event so this you know this application goes, you know, well above and beyond the stormwater requirements set by the mass DP. And again, the, you know, the majority of the water will run off into the stormwater facility kind of the main one that I'm highlighting and the infiltrating to the ground and then there's a smaller infiltration system. Along the Montague road driveway, just to collect a portion of the driveway, you know, due to the grade change, you know it's hard to see, see without zooming in but you can kind of see the corners at elevation 185. So the back of the sites are around elevation 206. So there's there's a significant amount of grade change on the site, which makes kind of the design and implementation of the of the site, you know, a little bit challenging. Now kind of working our way to the wetland feature in the back of the site. So there's no parking facilities that are located within the buffer so we're only encroaching within the, the 100 foot buffer again no encroachment within the 75 foot. So this is just to allow for some of the backyards for these homes as well as there's a couple patio areas or a few that kind of encroach within that 100 foot buffer. I think one of the other things to note is that, you know, the areas where we're disturbing are areas that have been previously disturbed. So these are areas that have been far and cultivated over time. These are kind of the natural mature vegetation that you know that we're coming in and removing. These are areas that, you know, over time have been cultivated have been used for agriculture there's clear signs of disturbance in them. And then, and one of the other kind of mitigation strategies we're going to be incorporating will be kind of going in and we found there's some debris within some of these areas. And we would be kind of removing any debris or trash. There was some construction materials and, you know, kind of old debris. So that would be something that the applicant would like to do kind of both for both wetland resource areas is kind of clean that debris out. We aren't, we aren't because it's a comprehensive permit application. We're not subject to the kind of to the wetland by law by law, but we did want to kind of highlight some of the disturbance summaries. So, in total, we're disturbing less than 20% of the buffer zones on site, 17.1% to give kind of an exact number. And that's even a conservative number because that excludes this property here. So as part of the, you know, comprehensive permit, we are going to be doing an A and R to kind of subdivide the existing single family home. So those calculations exclude kind of the single family home, which is not being disturbed as part of the project. And it just includes kind of where the, the kind of affordable housing development will be proposed. So, again, we're proposing in terms of buffer zone disturbance, 11.1% along pulpit Hill Road. And then if you include the single family home, it's 14.4%. If you exclude that lot area, it is 25%. But then again, overall, we're at 17%. We did have a chance we went through all of the comments and provided some feedback. I think the key is we have no issue complying or in some instances, I think it just requires working with staff to ensure compliance with any applicable comment. A lot of the comments, you know, I think are kind of technical in nature and probably something we would see as part of the stormwater management review in the ZBA process as well, you know, kind of final design of, you know, stormwater basin kind of technicalities, whether we're going to do, you know, rip rap sides on the forebay versus a grass bottom. But again, we have no issue kind of complying with any of the suggestions that were made by staff. We did provide some feedback on some items that, you know, that kind of what the design process is because it is, it's definitely, you know, from a stormwater perspective, something that we don't see all the time, you know, a lot of a lot of practices will kind of discharge or let water kind of go out throughout falls where in this case, you know, we are capturing and infiltrating the water into the ground, which is kind of a nice, kind of design practice here and then, you know, we would kind of work and ensure that there's a final sweep, you know, on file and that's provided prior to any work being being completed. So, I don't know if Aaron there was any comment in particular you think it would be helpful for us to like talk about with the commission. Again, like I said, we would, you know, you kind of I noted in there we'd comply with all of them or I provided you a little bit I think of feedback on any that needed it but know for overall we think this is a great project we're excited to be here we're excited to kind of continue the process. Aaron you're muted. Sorry, thank you. There is one comment I just wanted to make sure I was that was a little bit more clear to people which is this project is a little different than basically any project that's been before the conservation commission in my tenure which is that it's being filed under 40 be as a comprehensive permit application and if you read the memo that I drafted I just this was a point of clarity for the Commission, especially for new members who might not be familiar with the 40 be process is that when an applicant files under 40 be it's for affordable housing and so they're filing a comprehensive permit application and because of that under state law. They have this certain exemption that they qualify for under state law which means that the zoning board can review the project under all local by all local ordinances which are more strict than state law. So, in this particular situation, the conservation commission can only review this under the wetland protection act, and the zoning board would review, and that's my understanding. But, you know, this is also new to me, but the zoning board would review it for compliance under our local bylaw that's my understanding. So I just wanted to make sure that commissioners were clear on that. And that's important. Okay, any commissioner comments, questions. I have two, one for Aaron. Would you say based on what we know now that they, if they were under the town's wetland bylaw would they still be complying. Yeah, so they're, they're under 20% alteration and under our bylaw we do allow up to up to 20% and they're they're under the 20% of the bylaw alteration they're also staying out of the 50 foot no disturb. So, I don't think that there is anything proposed here which would be non compliant under our local bylaw. The second one is for Josh. Could you just comment very briefly on we spent a lot of time on the site is it talking about invasive species and getting rid of them. Could you just comment on that for a moment. So there in the, in the back of the, the site. There was some kind of, you know, Japanese not wood that was kind of located so I know talking with valley CDC and Jess is here. You know, if the, you know, if that would be something the board would like to see as a mitigation strategy for us to kind of, you know, do our best to control it and kind of provide the necessary treatment for that species. So I would agree as a mitigation strategy for the project. Thank you. I'll take public comment in a second. I just wanted to follow up on Bruce. Okay, I see Jason, I'm just going to go with you. Next, go ahead, Jason. I have a real quick question for you up in the northeast corner of the project that parking lot. If you zoom in. Here's the go 202201202. Is that in that low point, how is the water getting back to that corner then. Yeah, I think it's, it's, I think when we converted the overlay it's just a typo is probably it's 200201202. You can kind of see here's a 200 contour. So it's pretty close to what's out there today but all the water is draining down there's an inlet. You can see the great. Yeah. So that's not a low spot for this. Yeah, not a low spot looks like just a typo and a contour line. All right. Thanks Jason. Good observation. So my understanding is that in the southeast corner, continuing on past that 100 foot buffer is a significant wetland and vernal pool complex that continues to the puffers pond. The Mill River. And I guess I'm just mentioning this because we're in the 100 foot buffer there and I understand that the, the, our commission really doesn't have jurisdiction at this point, but is this the area where you're proposing potential mitigation for not weed. Yeah, so this, this area is where we're kind of focusing a lot of the mitigation strategy. So both for the, the not weed as well as this is where the most amount of trash and debris is. You kind of walk into this area, which is a little difficult to, you know, there's tires, there's rail ties would all throughout here. So it's one of the nice kind of strategies of this project is kind of going in this corridor and being able to kind of clean it up. And kind of get a lot of that debris out of there as well as the invasive species. I guess I'm just hesitant about not weed remediation without like very specific plans, because it's so pervasive and invasive and very, very hard to control and revering systems which this isn't sort of a system here so we can talk about that more offline but there's, yeah. I mean I guess that's the primary invasive species you're talking about down there is just Japanese dot weed. Correct. Well, if anybody on the commission has visited the site and has any comments on this. I'd love to hear them, but maybe we can just talk more about that later. In terms of specifics on remediation and the not weed and doing it in just one specific area where it's surrounded by other not weed is probably not going to be successful. So, we might have to have like a deeper conversation about what the expectation is and what the kind of treatment is about that. I'm not very much interested to anybody who's been there to have any other ideas on it. Well, I was on the side visit. And I don't know that I have other things about not weed. You're right that there's a lot of it and but the stream and the whole wetland saw is a fairly steep slope. I think they're going to approve the situation within our, the area that we're concerned about it a lot. The storm retention pond up on the upper left is going to be a probably a wonderful open grassy area for recreation and most of the time, unless there is a storm. It's pretty reasonable. The way it was being described and the plan that they had envisioned. Okay, thanks Bruce for the insight. All right, so public comment, please raise your hand. If you have anything I'm not seeing any raised hands. Considering that there may be none. I think, are we still looking. What are we looking at Aaron Bruce I see your hand up. How do we address the person who's on the phone. How do we know that they want to speak or when they want to speak. And I do see a hand up for a lot. I do now see a hand up. All right. All right, Lawrence. Thank you very much. I'm in a butter. I have not weed in my part of the ditch. It serves a function. It is holding the ditch together. So I want to, I fought not wait for 30 years being here and I've come to peace with it and so that's fun. Not weed it's, it's doing a good job. So, and I want to express the grief of change. And I want to point out the wildlife corridor of all kinds of animal life comes through this ditch, this, which is on the map called Mill River. This is, this is a wildlife corridor and please what I don't know the business but please respect that and please help it. The mitigation and the 17% of disturbance it's all hurt. And the farmers who farmed this property were, they were very good at what was good for the property, try to listen to them and thank you all of you for staying up late for me it's late and trying to do good. I'm very grateful and I have comments I'm sorry David so much. The neighbor left the I understand but I'm sorry. His input would be valuable if you could talk to him privately and I'm concerned about lighting affecting the wildlife corridor and the animals that come through to continue to come through they're going to the river from the hill. And I, I don't know how I'm not a public speaker I don't know how to do this but thank you very much for being there to take input and I don't know what to do and I, I'm leaving it to you guys to figure out. I have that's my two minutes, and I'll try to get off now it's very hard to. I'm sorry about people who don't have this technology and don't know how to do this I have a struggle with this communications way and I'm going to go I'm going to try to get off now I'm going to try to me bless you for doing good. I'm very grateful and thank you for speaking up Aaron for the knot weed. There's lots of stuff over there that's been used over the years and clean that out that's good and but I'm very hesitant about deciding what's what's good plant life this has been working for a long long time. Respect its knowledge the knowledge of the plant life's life that's there. Thank you all I really do sincerely appreciate your doing good for people. I'm going to try to get off now. Thank you Lawrence appreciated. Any other public comments. Yeah just to reply to Lawrence quickly to our jurisdiction is the wetlands. We're talking about remediation on the knot weed. Not weed provides cover, but is very low and supporting biodiversity very very low. Unless it's honeybee which is not even a native species so I'm in favor of removing knot weed with the caveat that it's very very hard to do. And it's not very successful and there has to be a very good plan about what to replace it with. And I totally hear you about the wildlife corridor. So, you know hearing that Aaron and Josh I don't know if you have any comments about supporting that in the 17% and maybe not is the time to consider that but yeah if you want to reply to the public comment go ahead. The one thing I would say I mean obviously there there's an interruption in the in the corridor between Pulpit Hill Road and that wetland. But I understand from the applicant that they are making an effort to create sort of a natural meadow pollinator meadow on the front of the property in the strip between the sort of parking lots in the homes. And the stormwater feature so I do think that that pollinator habitat will provide some wildlife benefit. So yeah I mean obviously there are going to be impacts to wildlife but that I think that that is a is a positive and that positive to have that pollinator meadow consideration in there. I think that was one of a great point I mean there's a lot of different facets of the project I mean the projects and incorporating kind of no mo type grasses so kind of longer grasses that require less maintenance that support. You know wildlife and provide a better natural vegetation there's the kind of pollinator meadows that are being maintained on site kind of looking to clean up these buffer areas. I think we want to be careful with some of the items like lighting and things like that you know I'm happy to talk in depth about them but lighting won't be an impact I mean this is a residential community lights are dark sky. I think certified as the technical term fixtures. Everything is downward facing it's low it's internal to that pedestrian corridor there's going to be no lighting impacts, you know, kind of back back here. And then I think you know what we really have to look at is, is a lot of the positives about this community we want to be careful right this is an affordable community so we don't want to you know put the community in a position that they're going to be in this endless fight that's so costly that you know it doesn't have enough benefit you know I think what we have to keep in mind here is a lot of those good things as projects introducing you know I think. You know, we were not going to be bringing in bobcats and things down into this ditch I think the idea would try to be able to minimize disturbance but let's get some of the trash out of there I mean there's been trash. There's visible, you know when you walk in this quarter you can see there's visible trash that's sitting on, you know, in the ditch that someone can easily walk in there and pull out by hand there's tires that someone could easily get out with a wheelbarrow and all these things that I think inhibit you know wildlife and then within, you know, the buffer that's currently there at this project will be able to eliminate so, you know, I think we're, we want to work with the city and staff and in the commission on, you know, the best way to treat the not would and our hope would be that, you know, we could agree to kind of do it in a plan of action that would be approved, you know, by the commission and by staff but, you know, obviously the, the request would have to be reasonable. You know, we wouldn't want to, you know, put the community again at Valley and if anyone's curious you can kind of listen into the different ZBA meetings, you know, Valley, you know, eventually, you know, moves their way out of this project and these these are homes these are homes for people of color and affordable homes so we want to make sure that what we're doing here tonight, you know, sets up these families for success and make sure that we don't kind of put this community in a position that for the next 30 years they're, you know, endlessly fighting a problem that we know exists in the area and we know, you know, I think we all want to put our best foot forward on so happy to go into any other items in depth but I also appreciate kind of concern and you know, one of the really nice things about the project is the amount of time that Jess and Valley has spent, you know, communicating with neighbors and in city and staff and experts to kind of get to the point we are at tonight. Thanks, Josh. Okay, well, we've heard from the butters. Maybe that can be a conversation moving forward. And with that, so we're looking to continue this given some questions regarding the NY, so commissioners, looking for a motion. The motion says to continue it to 735 on 1129. Not that about that. I move to continue the public hearing for 20 through 40 ball lane and a lie to 735 PM on 121323 based on the motion. Bruce on the second Bruce. Hi, Jason. Alex. And I'm an eye. Thank you, Josh. Thank you, Jessica. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Lawrence. Thank you so much. Okay, next. SLR international. So this hearing is being held as required by the provisions of chapter 131 section 40 of the general laws Commonwealth and act relative to the protection of wetlands. This was most recently amended in article 3.31 wetlands protection under the town of Amherst bylaws. This is a notice of intent for SLR international corporation on behalf of the Amherst associates LLC, and the including work within buffer zone bank and under land land under water bodies and waterways at 370 North Hampton Grove, Matt 13 D lot 18 a. So we have a representative here tonight. Please raise your hand unless Aaron, you can pull them in. I see no hands raised. So. There was one. Oh, there's one someone's in. Thank you. Okay, so we're going to do. Hi Heather. I can't see you, but we're going to do five minutes from staff and five minute presentation from you. And then we're going to take public comment and have comments from commissioners when I try and keep this to 20 minutes because we have a very packed agenda so I'm going to give it to Aaron. Thank you. Yeah, so similar to the last application. I did submit a list of comments and questions to the applicant. The applicant's representative was actually able to respond and address all of my questions. They provided responses to DEP questions responses to my questions, as well as plan revisions. So I did have an opportunity to review those revisions prior to the meeting, and I was satisfied with those revisions so I just wanted to stay that state that at the outset. I want to give the applicant an opportunity to present the project and explain things, but from staff perspective. I just wanted to state this. This project was constructed in the 1970s. There are stormwater features on this site, which have not been historically maintained and that has resulted in adverse impacts to the resource area where these stormwater features discharge. I do think that what's proposed here is going to provide a net benefit to the resource area. Replacing some stormwater structures so that there is some level of treatment and also removing sediment that's been discharged into the wetland for decades and restoring the area and stabilizing it. I think those will all be net benefits to the resource area. My only sort of comment or words of urging for the property managers or owners are that there are additional failed stormwater systems and structures on this site, which I don't think can be ignored. So while I do think that what's what the applicants representative has done to come up with a solution to the issue and try to improve the situation is going to be a net benefit. I think there are additional net benefits that could be gained by addressing some of the other failed stormwater infrastructure on the site. That's what I have to say. Thanks Aaron, Heather, Mike to wanna present five minutes. I'm going to share my screen just pull some plans up. So the, my name is Heather, I'm an engineer with SLR my gag and also on the call is also from SLR. So we were our purpose in this project is to help alleviate some flooding that's occurring in this building right here in the basement. So we came up with some stormwater improvements to try and alleviate that. And also improve some of the stormwater outlets into this wetland system right here. So as part of the project, one part of it is to remove the accumulated sediment in this area right here, which is at the current outlet from this catch basin up here. So once we do that, we'll have to reconnect the upstream and downstream channels of the intermittent stream here. And we will also be replacing two catch basins one here, and one in this parking area down here it's deep some catch basins with hooded outlets to provide an improvement in the water quality of these systems getting into the wetlands. And we will also be pulling back the outlets, which are currently discharging directly into the wetlands. So pulling those back out here and adding some preform scour holes at the outlets, which will provide some energy dissipation of the stormwater as well as provide some help for trapping sediment and debris before it enters the wetlands. Disconnecting to some pumps which are currently in the roof drainage system and directing those to the catch basins instead. So we will also be doing some restoration plantings as part of this project we will be putting dogwood, three dogwood in each of this Wales as well as some varied plugs placed where we're removing sediment in the intermittent stream area. Thanks Heather. Is that you done. Public comment. If any, please raise your hand. I'll keep an eye on it. I can't see the public right now. Okay, any commissioners. Bruce, I see you. Aaron, with apologies that I didn't find see it in the folder. Can you just really quickly characterize the no email reply to a butters from staff. Yes, thank you. I was just going to mention that I did receive one. Public comment from a butters. It was from a resident of green leaves and they were concerned about a stream which flows through the green leaves condo facility, which is south of this location. And they were particularly concerned because there's a stream that flows through the green leaves driveway where there had been a culvert failure and required DPW to get involved and do an emergency culvert replacement. And they were concerned how this work was going to impact that area. I did respond back to them and let them know that this is a different stream system. So the stream system that they're referring to that flows into green leaves is actually a different stream system. That's further south. This stream system actually flows north and goes toward. I guess it goes across the street toward like sort of the big why location. So it doesn't flow towards green leaves. So I just wanted to clarify that but there is a public comment in the folder from folks that expressed concern about how this might impact the stream that flows into green leaves. Thank you. Okay, thanks Bruce. Anyone else. No, okay. I'm not seeing any public comment. Alex, go ahead. Was a nice site visit that took place yesterday. And it's the drain from the parking lot in the upper part of the screen. There'll be a trap there. And that may not be obvious. I didn't hear it being said, but and there's going to be a maintenance plan, I think. So that that will be maintained. It's full of sand right now. So, all the material off the parking lots has been deposited in the wetland and the channel has just been filled up with sand off the parking lot and other debris from the parking lot. So that's, as Aaron said, like a restoration wetland restoration effort. So, the other drain that Aaron referred to isn't on the drawing. It's on the bottom. If you go to the bottom of the drawing, it's further in another parking lot. Just south of this, this one here. So this project will probably will not solve the water in the basements 100%. But it will do a good job of stopping material from entering the wetland and clean it up. Thanks Alex. So we're looking at an improvement on existing conditions, but maybe there could be more with the outside storm water improvements as Aaron mentioned. We don't have any jurisdiction over that. So that is a strong recommendation by the commission. Given that, is there any more commissioner comments? And if not, I think we're looking to close the public hearing on this. The suggestions of more comprehensive storm water management. Bruce, I see your hand. Is there any reason we couldn't just go on this. Right, it says issue an order of conditions at the December 13 meeting. Why can't we order issue the order of conditions now. It's because the order of conditions isn't drafted yet. I didn't have an opportunity to get the conditions prepared. Sorry. Good question. However. I don't even know more public comment. I'm looking maybe to close the public hearing for this and that will continue it to the December. What is it 13th. When we can issue the order of conditions. That was a prompt anyone. Go ahead. Bruce, you're on mute. I'll go. I yield to Alex. Move to close the public hearing. For notice of intent. The EP number. 089 dash 0726. For 370 Northampton road. Second. Alex on the motion Bruce on the second. Jason. Second. Hi. Bruce. Hi. Alex. Hi. Okay. Thank you, Heather. Thank you, Mike. Okay. Let's see. The Zen engineer. Okay. 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 protection of the wetlands is most recently amended and article 3.3. This is notice of intent for this engineer on behalf of Amherst college for a pair of culverts road maintenance hazard tree removal repair bog and foot bridges and long term. Routine maintenance and multiple parcels on Amherst college campus map. Okay. OMP. And do we have our representative. I see a hand up Bucky, allowing you to talk also. Darren Gray. Also. Okay. Well, we'll have Bucky in and maybe that's public comment. Not sure anyone else. Aaron, there's some hands up in the public comment might be. Hi, Bucky. Hi, Bucky. Welcome. Bucky, do you know if Darren is associated with the project? Darren Gray. Yes. Yes. Okay. Great. Thank you. Darren Gray. Kenneth lozier lozier and Catherine Sims are all likelihood out there in the summer. All right. Although it's probably just going to be me talking and I know there's a lot on the agenda. So I'm going to dive in and share my screen here in just a minute. Click the correct button. Yeah. We're going to just let Aaron have five minutes to assess the project. Yeah. So go ahead, Aaron, and we'll go to you. Yeah, so just, I know I gave the commission a little bit of background in my, in my memo on this, but just to give a quick snapshot. Amherst college came to us in 2020 with a request for determination. The commission urged Amherst college at that point to file a notice of intent application. They began a very long, very comprehensive process of doing this right and they've been working with me for years now to develop this plan. It's included site visits. It's included many, many meetings of assembling things. And they've done a great job to assemble this plan. I did provide a list of comments to Bucky. I'd like to hand it over to him now so that he can do his presentation and address some of my comments. But I will say that I do think that this project is not only ready for us to close tonight if the commission so wishes to do so. So I'm prepared to issue the order of conditions even with my comments. I've basically drafted my comments so that we could roll them into an order of conditions with conditions for things to be submitted. Although I know Bucky has already prepared some of the materials that I requested. So I'll turn it over to Bucky now. Thanks for your review and go ahead Bucky. All right. Thank you very much. I mean, now I'll share the screen if I can. All right. So I normally for a project of this complexity. Yeah, I would be talking like a very long time about all the details, but as you know it's a very long submittal that we've made and time is short so I'm going to do this high level review. And move on. I'm going to introduce the project team from Amherst College. We should have on the call Kenneth lozier supervisor of landscaping grounds Catherine Sims professor, both of whom are also co chairs of the sanctuary stewardship committee. So they are my primary contacts on this project and part of the visioning group to maintain and move this sanctuary forward. We also have Darren Gray, who's another civil engineer and more importantly, the capital projects manager for Amherst College where Smith did the wetlands delineation and I am Bucky Sparkle. Briefly, I think most people who live in Amherst area are aware of the Amherst College wildlife sanctuary. It was established 1933 90 years ago and since then the college has been in position of continuous stewardship of the environment. And there are a whole bunch of stakeholders who are involved in this piece, multiple pieces of land, not just the sanctuary stewardship committee, which is the long range steering committee. But there are classes and research projects that are constantly out here across country teams train and compete out here. There's a student body and alumni are out here, there's a relatively well known benefit race, and a host of community members are in and out of these lands. The sanctuary combined is about 500 acres a whole bunch of different ecosystems meadows woods waterways of all types and of course wetlands. The property is a as a sanctuary for all sorts of flora and fauna as well as much human activity recreational activity research, etc. And the over this large area as you might imagine we're dealing with multiple resource areas so wetlands land under water bodies and waterways bank and riverfront even just a little bit of riverfront within the limits of work that we're proposing. And there are two natural heritage priority habitats on property. And then I'm going to try and condense 16 pages of plans and 184 pages of submittal to this slide effectively and talk about it at a high level what's going on here. So there are roughly four types of projects at 15 different sites. And I kind of color coded them here this is a map of the sanctuary with Amherst college being in the top left corner sites a and B. These are culvert replacement projects. There are massive failures at these locations. The road is impassable. It's dangerous to walk over. These are sort of, you know, cut and dry opportunities. We are able to make one excellent stream crossing through here and bring it up to stream crossing standards. Of the two one one we just can't and we could get into the details as to why but we get one stream crossing where we have none. Another type of project was, I say past tense was tree has a tree removal in these green areas the D1 D2 areas. The trees were so hazardous that at the last site visit Aaron suggested that we considered emergency certification so we've worked with their office and have actually received approval and have taken down the trees so the D1 and D2 work is no longer part of the application because it is complete. These brown areas are bog bridge and footbridge replacement projects. Now these trails have been here since the 30s and 40s. The bridges have been here as long the current version of these bridges have been in at least since 1983 we have we have verification of that so this is all old infrastructure. And it is structurally unsound and we need to repair sections of bog bridge occasionally replace them repair and really replace the foot bridges. I will say that part of this application is to gain approval for the conceptual replacement of these foot bridges, and the application indicates, you know, some details about staying out of resource areas elevating them using helical piles minimizing disturbance, but we do not have structural designs for these bridges yet so the commission is going to see these sites, see effing at some point in the future, where we'll come back with with detailed plans for exactly how these bridges are going to be replaced as sort of an extension or amendment of this notice of intent. The last type of work that we have on site is road reinforcements all these pink or magenta areas sites H and I one through seven that go through this lower meadow. All of these areas are pre existing roads that access vehicles use regularly to get out there and perform maintenance operations. They are also use hikers across country racers, and in a few areas, there have been historic crossings of wetlands. They are, they're getting pretty beat up very muddy, the devastation to the ecosystem is expanding further and further into the resource areas people are trying to walk around the muddy spot to get to the dryer spot and turn that into the mud hole. So we really would like to condense and stabilize this area by installing in the H and I sites, a cellular confinement system, this one's called a geo web and it's a it's a flexible system that allows water to move laterally and vertically. We would infill with a permeable stone, so that we still have a previous surface, and it would then also be able to support the vehicles that go out there that the campus zones as well as provide a stable surface for hikers runners riders any other anybody else who's using those trails. I do want to point out that these projects at these various sites. It is extremely unlikely the college is going to be able to have all of the capital funding to do all of this at once so we're going to phase the construction prioritizing the athletic field so the road reinforcements and the high locations are the top priority, and as the funding becomes available the rest of these bits of work are going to be implemented, and we will keep in touch with Aaron as we go. And I'll talk more about that later. So in this specific rehabilitation of existing infrastructure jobs. There is this ongoing routine maintenance that we would like to, we are rolling into this notice of intent just to get a, you know, sort of the blessing of discrete list of work, basically replacing signposts clearing of sand culverts or ditches ongoing mowing of the fields and a few other items that that are delineated in the notice of intent. Again, we can go into these details if you have interest. Now I did receive, as she said from Aaron comments yesterday. Which seem, you know, very typical and understandable reasonable. They're all reasonable. There are a few that I do want to, you know, respond to and highlight those responses in tonight's short amount of time. Yes, we will absolutely have an engineer on site available for the infrastructure rehab projects. I'm going to read it all in and not necessarily full construction observation, but an engineer, probably me is going to be out there making sure things start right or going well and end well before the certificate of compliance is requested. Also, Aaron asked about more detail in the watering. So I have added a little more information to sheet three I did submit the updated plans earlier today. I've included those notes on the screen, and effectively what we're going to try and do is use sandbags as much as possible. And in some case that's probably going to be fine and in another case, we're almost certainly going to have to do some bypass pumping we want to limit that to the shortest amount of time possible. We're going to use sediment traps as well for that pump discharge, and really try and use gravity to move water to the greatest extent possible. I also had some comments about erosion controls. Most of which I think was already addressed on sheet four in some of the details which I have appended sort of cut out of my own plans and just paste it into the screen here about, you know, the details of the sediment log, the waddle erosion blankets and how stockpiles are going to be working. In terms of stockpiles that was another question that Aaron had, and I amended this map a little bit. And before we get into the details, I'll say that stockpile locations are going to be strongly influenced by which contractor is there what equipment they have available what personnel and manpower they're going to have available. So, we may have a lot of need to stockpile we may have a very little need to stockpile, but in all cases, any stockpile locations will be at least 25 feet away from any resource areas farther if we can get it. Some of these sites, you can get more than 10 feet. Well, you can't, you can get 25 feet away but but that's about it you kind of surrounded by resource areas out there. And any stockpiles of erudible materials will absolutely have down gradient barriers still fence waddle depending on the material that will protect downstream resource areas. And of course during the pre construction phase, we would be able to talk about stockpile locations with Aaron and come up with any plans if necessary. There's a lot of information in the overall submittal and an awful lot of details. Aaron did mention that we had been working on this a while and it's been a lot of back and forth and she's given us a huge amount of support and feedback. And I'm pretty sure we've done a good job accommodating the needs of both the local bylaw and the wetlands protection act. So at this point I'm happy to turn it back to the commission and answer any questions. Thank you Bucky for the very thorough and thoughtful and why we appreciate it and we've had a chance to look at it for a while now so hopefully the commissioners have reviewed it and Aaron's comment and we can possibly keep the questions minimal but if there's any public that have a question please raise your hand I'm going to keep an eye on it. I see Kenny is up so I'm going to give you a minute, Kenny. You're muted, go ahead. I'm not here to question I'm with the group I'm with Amherst College. Go ahead. I'm with Amherst I'm not here to question. Got it. Yeah. So you're just here. Sorry. He doesn't want to comment. He's just representing and I think you can't get his hand down. All right, yeah. Okay, Bruce, go ahead. So I just I appreciate the extraordinary amount of work and gradually on all of that for the people who work on it. The one thing I want to emphasize is that the maps and a lot of the discussion focuses on the trails, but it's also a wildlife sanctuary. If you look at the four bridge sites that are were highlighted, and you go to the selected points of interest on the Amherst website, every one of those has some significant wildlife piece noted. They thought it was significant actually write it down here. I just want to make sure that it's kept top of mind to really focus on preparation for these construction things given that they're pretty close to the places where some of the even endangered things endangered birds have been seen and may still be there. Thank you. Thanks Bruce bucket you want to respond to that or is there a plan in place for timing possibly. There are some timing elements we're talking specifically about the bridge sites in this case and natural heritage had timing issues but that was related to the priority habitat to the south. The only species that was the habitat to the north up there the only species of concern per natural heritage was the climbing fern, and we do have to re up. We have we have done biological surveys with Pete West over conservation works. And by the time we would get out there in the spring if we are there that early, we would have to redo those surveys so that that is one thing we are aware of the climbing fern out there. I am, I'm not so familiar with Amherst college website and content to know specifically what what Mr. Stubman is referring to in terms of bird species relative to these bridges. I will say that the type of construction we're talking about is not like road bridge construction there'll be very little disturbance of earth and vegetation. Very little disruption to the ecosystem, probably some bank stabilization because there's some serious erosion going on in the vicinity of these bridges. Very little habitat is going to be impacted on any level during construction of the bridges and bog bridges. Well I won't read them to you just look at their website they attached to the map is this thing called selected points of interest with numbers on all those, all those numbers that are on their map referred to something that they thought was important and just the one example is 508. The northern edge, a pair of rare said trends nested there several years ago, well maybe they're not there now, but they might. Absolutely, I have no doubt that I mean though the sanctuary committee has been for almost 100 years working really hard to maintain the biodiversity out there that is a fundamental purpose for the land and we're not talking about people who are trying to build a subdivision or No, I wasn't I wasn't asserting that. Awareness. I am. I have no doubt that the sanctuary committee is going to remain very closely involved in the construction processes as they unfold. Fair enough. Thank you. Good. Thank you. And thanks for the question. Mr said I'm a capital project manager with Amherst college and working closely with Bucky and Kenny and Kate in preparation and gone through the plans in great detail with Bucky. And I can just speak on, you know, the college's behalf from the project side, like, we would certainly keep very close range on the contractors, you know, be a pre construction meetings, regular construction meetings and site visits. I mean, I love any excuse to walk the trails during my work day to be honest. And also, of course, work with this job as well to make sure things are done well and correctly and I certainly learned in my time here at Amherst, how much the campus and the sanctuary committee values these lands and the biodiversity out there and hearing about the different research project so we're certainly aligned with you on the importance of protecting everything out there and around these sites. Thanks turn to go ahead. Yeah, thanks very much Michelle I'll be brief. No, I just want to appreciate and acknowledge all the time and effort that the college and and Bucky and Aaron have put into this I think I think it's wonderful and look forward to, you know, the phasing in of all these projects. I had a couple of questions and I apologize I've not had a chance to look at these the plans in detail. I guess one just note is that, you know, the town has been working for a number of years on the health and well being of the faring brook. And I just wanted to kind of noted in this process that, you know, the faring brook does go through the northeast section of the sanctuary. And I, through the years I've talked about and talked to the college about the incredible opportunity we have to mitigate some of the impacts of water quality in that brook and and before it reaches the Fort River so just something for the college to think about in the future. I don't think this plan, obviously is, you know, geared toward that and focused on that but I just wanted to get that, you know, in the record that hopefully we can work on that in future years. I'm just wondering, and maybe again I apologize if I have not reviewed these in great detail but is there a plan for, you know, trailhead signage at the public facing points of the sanctuary ie South Pleasant Street, College Street. Particularly, you know, I've mentioned this before, you know, particularly the South Pleasant Street entrance to the sanctuary. I've used the term underwhelming. I think that's a very generous term but is there, does the plan include that and again apologies if it does. David, the plan specifically doesn't address signage at the locations that you indicate, and I can't speak to whether or not the sanctuary committee is is looking at providing that maybe Ken lozier has something to offer in that regard, but it hasn't really come up in any of the planning discussions as part of the NOI we do talk about replacing signs, but not the installation of new signs necessarily. I don't necessarily need it. You know, it's, I don't need it necessarily tonight I'm just saying it would be nice if the college considered that because the sanctuary is pretty subtle and, although it's used by the public I think it's points of entry from the community standpoint, you know, are mostly along the rail trail, and within the college itself but there are points of entry that are along those roadways that I mentioned that really there's close to no signage and particularly the South Pleasant Street side which is just really an old rickety fence that's falling down so it doesn't the outward facing piece of it is is pretty underwhelming as I said. So faring brook signs kiosks. And those were my main comments or questions for the future so look forward to working with you as the college phases this in. Thank you. Thanks Dave. Great public access comment. I want to circle back to Bruce and the sedger ends which are a state endangered species. So we talked about working with the engineers. So what we're going to use as to why natural heritage hasn't weighed in on this, if there are no nesting habitat, and what the plan is because this isn't about just that construction workers checking out if there's some birds around this is the need for a survey. So I don't know if this is the time to look into it but if there is documented nesting sedger ends like I think we need to pay attention to that and have a better plan for any kind of construction that's going on in that area, especially with the timing. It could be just a matter of timing like planning it for the fall and not the breeding season but I would not want to see any kind of impacts happening in April or May or June. So I don't know if this is the time to figure this into the NOI or the conditions, but I didn't know about this before so thank you Bruce for bringing it up. But if that is in fact a species of interest in this location I think that's something we need to pay attention to, and possibly remind natural heritage of it. So part of the issue might be that it's, even if there's a documented threatened or endangered species, it doesn't always mean that it's mapped on the natural heritage atlas. I can certainly look into that more but from what I understand the NHSP has provided a determination letter on this and Bucky please correct me if I'm wrong. I don't think that the area of this right now. Trying to get a sense of whether the area in question is in fact. Okay, so that might be almost a documentation or bureaucratic criteria that is not going to be part of this. I don't know if there is documentation of sedrens. I mean, all we can ask you to do is possibly do a bird survey beforehand and I'm sure that many of the people on this wildlife sanctuary be happy to do that for sedren. I anticipate that there would be a number of volunteers in that capacity if not we can always get peace what people asked over somebody with biological background, not me, you don't want me to do this but to look around. I'm pretty confident in understanding that there will be virtually no soil or vegetation disturbance for the installation of these bridges, which was in the vicinity of faringbrook no item 508 was that selected point of interest but we'll definitely keep an eye out for them. There's bird people on campus that I know I don't have access to but they can take a look around. Do you think that the that the college might be amenable to a condition where the work is restricted to not be done for April, May and June in the areas where the nesting sites are known to be. For if it just those three months I would be very surprised if they would say no there are members of the college here who could speak directly on that issue. Yeah, I mean, if there are certain locations that are of concern. I don't see a problem with avoiding those months. I mean, still gives us. You know, July and August when things are quieter. Well, at least on the campus, we have more local folks but. I don't see that being an issue, especially if it's like something we discover a concern or something of value I think you're very careful about like I think we want to be careful in those months and avoid it I think we're to do with you there you know. There, I mean it might have been a very interesting year for Cedren and a one off but anyway, I'm going on information provided tonight so Bruce I saw your hand up. I'm just on again the points of interest and talks about 910 there isn't one on the map. But 909 is right by one of the bridges and it says American kesterles steep decline over the last 20 years. Same same concept. So maybe time of year on these sort of sensitive adjacent nesting habitats would be a consideration for this. Dave I see your hand up go ahead. Yeah just on the Cedren I was unaware that there is a document or there was a documented nesting there was there a year on that. You're muted. It's on the points selected points of interest attached to the sanctuary trails from the Amherst College website. Okay. Cedren's yeah they're sporadic nesters in the valley, quite rare nesters in the valley and as Michelle said state listed, they do occur, you know, off and on in Hadley and Amherst. We've had nestings on Amherst conservation land before, they're kind of a wet meadow dry to wet meadow breeder. I'm not as familiar obviously as other folks with with this map or with this submittal but I would also suggest maybe that that Aaron and the Amherst College folks could. I was thinking a little later to Michelle like into into July and August, because I know they're still, they can still be on territory at that point so maybe Aaron could work with Bucky and the team on what that sensitive window looks like. Because I, I know this year we actually had Cedren's nest in Amherst this year and Amherst conservation land and they were active well into July and August so. Right. Thanks, Dave. Good point. So I think there's a certain number of points which are identifiable with these numbers that might be adjacent or in proximity to a sensitive nesting bird habitats that might benefit from having a time of year restriction on the activity. I think that's something that Aaron and you guys could talk about offline. Hey, I see your hand up. Go ahead. Hi, thanks very much. Kate Sims I work at the college in environmental studies and economics and have been part of the sanctuary stewardship committee since the beginning of this process. I wanted to say a big thank you to the commissioners and to Aaron and to Dave for weighing in on everything tonight and I wanted to respond quickly just to one of Dave's comments about the access and public access. Just to say that I was noting those comments for the sanctuary stewardship committee and would be bringing those back to the committee. One of the reasons why the public access on South Pleasant Street has been limited at this point is because that's one of the areas that needs to be repaired and restored before we want people walking through there. But very much share your hope that that will in the longer run be accessible again and something that we can promote with with better signage. And with respect to the biological dimensions I just wanted to add that those points of interest are were created in most cases about 10 years ago, and we haven't had the chance to update everything with those maps. So it is very much worth our trying to review that information. You'll note that in Bucky's plan a lot of the details, especially of the any bridge construction would be coming back to the commission before anything were to move forward with the bridges specifically. So there would be a chance for, I believe, further discussion at that point of any of those areas. So I just want to add those points. Thanks very much and a big thanks to Aaron for all of her time on this. Great. Thanks, Kate. Okay, we got to move on but I think the last question I have here is, is this land preserved and we're talking about permitting but land impacts and what we're interested in is this land preserve for recreation or wildlife in any kind of perpetual way. And if not, would you consider doing so? There's a point where I might rely a little more heavily upon the Amherst College staff here if they have I know they've been looking into that a little bit I see Darren's hand just popped up there so I'm going to let him speak on that topic. I've asked around since we received the memo and haven't heard anything definitive yet. So I can't say, I guess, if there's any deed restrictions or conservation restrictions officially on the record. I mean, certainly Amherst guiding principles that this land stay protected and given the extent of resource areas out there I don't know the development could even happen. So I guess I don't have a very clear answer. I can inquire further on it, but at this point I haven't been able to uncover anything. I feel like a day and a half I think since the question, since I saw the question so. Okay, thank you Darren. I think we would have with that. Yeah, that's a great answer. Yeah. No, yeah, I understand you've had very little time. Well, we would appreciate a follow up on that, like what the long term planning is for Amherst College just given the investment that we are discussing here tonight. And some long term protections for the recreation and wildlife on the site, as we discussed thoroughly and provided in the plan. So given that if anybody has any further comments, unless they do, I'm looking for a motion now to close the public hearing and issue an order of conditions. If I could just before the motion is made, I did draft sort of insert the conditions in and with the commission's blessing and the applicant's representatives blessing, I would just modify those based on the materials that have been submitted by the applicant prior to tonight's meeting. So where I said, for example, a dewatering plan has to be submitted, I would note the dewatering plan was already submitted, etc. for the for the other items where they've they've been provided. And then the other thing is, I would just add the condition that we discussed to determine where appropriate time of year restrictions would be necessary and what those restrictions would be. And we would leave that sort of an open ended condition on a site by site basis to determine based on wildlife that are present in the vicinity of the specific, the site specific work that's proposed. That makes sense. Go ahead Dave. Sorry, I know you're trying to close this hearing, but just on that last point about permanent protection. So often I think we focus when we talk about climate change we talk about climate resiliency. We, we, we, we talk about energy, we talk about energy consumption, we talk about carbon. But oftentimes what is lost is, you know, how are we going to provide kind of permanently protected open space and I think just our Kate and the Amherst College team thinking about I know the college has made great commitment to climate change and climate but protecting some of the land that the college owns in perpetuity would send a really strong message. You know the town has protected over 4000 acres of land just in Amherst. You know, I know the college protected some of their land up on the Mount Hoyok range but protecting something near the core of the campus and I realize much of this land may never be developed. And kind of saying, maybe never, we don't know what's going to happen in 4060 100 years but, you know, just if you could, you know, with the powers that be an Amherst College talk about maybe the sanctuary proper, putting a conservation restriction on it with the town with the state or with some entity like Kestrel trust might make sense in the long term, and, and build on your commitment to, to climate change planning and climate resiliency. So that's all. Thanks. Thank you Dave absolutely. Go ahead Alex. You're on mute. We can't hear you. So we can't hear Alex. Alex. I, you can always send a chat to the message, but I think we're going to have to close this up. So raise your hand if it's critical. Okay. All right. Well I don't know how he's going to vote but I'm looking for a motion, a couple of them. So, I think he's leaving you're coming back. All right, present members. I will move to close the public hearing for notice of intent DEP number 089 dash 0725 for Amherst college comprehensive multiple sites and motion to move to issue in order of conditions DEP number 089 0725 with the noted special conditions under the wetlands protection act and wetlands protection under the town of Amherst general by walls. Also note since no and Rad was filed the commission is not approving the resource area delineation as part of this review. Thanks Jason, can we move on to emotions at the same time Aaron. Yeah, that's fine. Okay. Jason on to Bruce on to Jason. Bruce. Hi. Alex. I'm an eye. I think we still have lost. Yeah, he gave. He gave us some. We have an eye on Alex. All right. So moved. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Darren. Thank you Kate for being here tonight. Thanks everyone. I'm sure to really, you know, the thoughts and concerns that kind of broader than just what's going to be in the order of conditions. I appreciate everyone's feedback and participation. Thank you. Good luck with the rest of your agenda tonight. Thank you. And speaking of that, I know we went over commissioners, but that was a big one. So I think it was worth our time. Okay, next up we have another one to open this public hearing is now called to order the hearing is being held as required by the provisions of chapter 131 section 40 of the general laws. The Commonwealth and act relative to the protection of the wetlands is most recently amended in article 3.31 wetlands protection in the town of Amherst general bylaws. This is for a notice of intent for wetland when Wendell wetland services on behalf of Eric Olsen for proposed restoration of a 2,300 square foot man made pond by dredging and replanting at 296 Pomeranian map 28 D lot six. We have anyone here tonight please raise your hand. So I'd be happy to give the commission a quick update on this. I did want to state though, that I'm a little concerned that we can't hear Alex. And I don't know. Alex, if you would might be willing to, to exit the meeting and just try to reenter that way we can have you involved with the meeting because I'm just really worried we've got only got four members that it's going to be important that we hear your voice. Alex try rejoining and Bruce, I see your hand up good. Well, I was going to ask Alex, can you hear me. So if you go to the microphone on the lower left. You click on the little up arrow and go to audio settings at the very bottom of the list. And you click on that it shows you the microphone and maybe your microphone is down at zero or something. So it's odd that he was fine before and isn't right now. Yeah. Well, I think we've got a lot more business to cover and so I just want to make sure that we that Alex is with us. Okay, how about you try logging back on and if that doesn't work you can call in perhaps okay. Yeah, good idea. Good idea. Just give him two minutes to do that and I'll just give the commission a quick update. So, in my memo. Commissioners have probably seen that I had extensive comments on this. Obviously it's not a state protected resource, but it is a resource area and I think it's, it's really important that we protect it and so there was a number of issues that I. I had with it the time of year for this project being kind of at the top of my list Alex can can you speak. No, not working. Yeah, so he's going to call in. So anyways, the bottom line is I did have extensive comments on this. I think that they had some additional details that they need to resolve in terms of the time of year, the de watering process, how the de watering is going to be controlled. How the turbidity is turbidity from the dredged pond is going to be dealt with and I did speak to their consultant yesterday. And I, they kind of said that they were considering coming up with a new plan in terms of how they address how they go about doing it, potentially doing putting in a turbidity curtain and doing half the pond at a time which I feel like is a much more simple option. And that way there's some sanctuary for the wildlife that they're going to be disrupting when they're dredging. So, they've requested a continuance from the commission that I wanted to let the commission know that they're, they're aware of the challenges here and they're trying to come up with a plan to address the challenges. I'm trying to keep talking so we can buy some time for Alex because we don't have a quorum right now. There is no communication with them. Your hands up for us go ahead. Well I went on the site visit. And I can second Aaron's concern about both the wildlife part, and especially the de watering part. It's going to be really challenging. The only thing that he can do to work with the DPW because that there's a lot of stuff there that is sort of town infrastructure. Some of which doesn't look like it's functioning very well. And so that it's a more complicated thing that it appears when you start to look at it. And in Aaron's notes, there's these questions about where's this and where's that well. I could tell he the owner has tried according to him he has tried, and he can't find it. Some of these pipes were built many decades ago and he can't find any of it. So it's a problem and they're not, they're probably ceramic like that so they're not metal he can't go around with a metal detector and find it. Okay. Do you want to do your quick check. Still can't hear you. Yeah, I'm concerned that that's going to present a problem for us. Yeah, so do you want to try calling in and maybe texting us if you have questions I don't really know how else to handle that because you can't see your hand up if you're calling. Alex do you need the call in number. Or perhaps just stay on video and call in on your phone since there will be no feedback. That's actually not a bad idea. You could just mute your computer obviously you're already muted anyway but you could call in to have voice contacts. Let me let me pull up the call in number and just put it on the screen for a minute that way you can get on because we will be in trouble if we can't get through this agenda. Yeah, I mean just looking at that I'm suspecting there is some wildlife activity like wood frogs and peepers and looks like a functioning pond so I'm glad you mentioned the time of your aspect. Otherwise it sounds like Bruce has highlighted some known complexities of the inflow outflow. So once Alex is able to communicate, I think we're looking for a continuance. And move to continue the public hearing for shoots very road and read to 745pm on 121323. Well, I think we're looking for the Pomeroy visit. Oh yeah. I'm sorry the wrong one. Yeah. The public hearing to 740 on 121323. I will second that. All right, we have Bruce on the motion Jason on the second Bruce. Hi. Jason. Hi. Alex thumbs up counts. Yes. He's an eye. Okay, I'm an eye. Can we do that Aaron? I really like to get his his voice on the on the vote because we're on a virtual call. I think that's going to be important. Alex, are you are you in the meeting on your phone? Can you look at the zoom invite and possibly call in on your phone. So we have you. And then just connect that way and then. We'll see you both on your computer video and then have you on audio. The significance here being that we need Alex for quorum. One other potential thing we may be able to do is have Alex share his screen and try to walk through. Fixing his microphone if that was potentially an issue. Somehow got switched. I wonder if he clicked mute on his computer instead of on the zoom to I know on my headset sometimes I can click mute. And then I can't be heard. So let's try the quick solution and then we'll. The only other thing I can think of is if I called Alex on my cell phone. Just call just call Alex and put him on speaker. Yeah, I mean, it's just it's going to give me feedback. I'm afraid. Okay. Alex, are you able to call the number on your phone thumbs up thumbs down. Can't hear you. He's saying what number number. I think you can just pick one, like the 301 715 8592. He did that. I think I should just call him at this point. I'm not really sure how else we're going to get through this. He's going to try it one more time. Alex, can you hear me? Okay. So. You you motioned I on two votes. Can you just confirm that. All right. Well, we found a technological work around to the technological advances. Okay. Are we good then? We have him at least for audio on your phone for the votes. Yes. Now I can't hear you. You're on mute. The only it's it's it's giving me feedback in my ear because when you talk. Can you just mute him until we need him to vote? Yes, that's what I'm going to have to do. All right. That's fine. But if Alex, if you have a specific question, no one else can talk. And I have to remute you before anyone can talk in order for this to work. Yeah, that's fine. Maybe put your hand down Alex and just raise it if you need to talk again. And then we'll do the rigmarole. All right. All right. Okay. So where are we now? Let's see. We're at. Peer sky. Okay. May I move on? Yeah, this is going to be challenging, but I'm going to do my best. Just just mute him until we. Yeah. Okay. Do you, would you rather I call him Aaron? Cause if so, just send me his contact. No, I had to take him off speaker. So he's just going to have to raise his hand when he wants to talk. And he's going to be here. Okay. We'll get there one way or another. Okay. This is open, correct? Yes, it is. All right. So do we have somebody here from Peer sky? No, they've, they've submitted a request for continuation. Where this is at is that. The check was received from Peer sky. It was deposited with the town. I've been waiting on an account number. I just received the account number today and have been in touch with our procurement officer, but there we have to set up a contract. So until we have a contract set up, we can't proceed with the peer review, which we're working on. So we just need a continuation until we can make some progress. Okay. I'm looking for a continuation. Move to continue the public caring for shoots, Bray road and read to seven 45 PM on 12, 13, 23. I'll second that. Great. You Bruce on the motion. Jason on the second, Jason. Hi. Bruce. Hi. I'm an eye. Alex. Got it. Good job guys. All right. We've been up. All right. We have a notice of intent for him had or have anyone here for that? Yes. I'm sorry. Should we take public comment for the. Your sky. I think it's okay just to do the continuation considering the situation we're in at the moment. All right. I'm had. So I'm going to, I'm going to add a Zachary. Glass to the panel. I know also that Glenn Kravoski was calling in. I just need to check. Glenn. His number so that I can pull him in. I know last time we had some trouble adding him, but we're going to try again. Five. Oh eight. He's Glenn. I'm going to add him in as a panelist. Or just allow him to talk. But while. While Glenn and Zachary are joining just for the sake of keeping this. Going. I'm going to give the commission a little update. Previous. Hearing. I provided a list of comments to the engineer and the wetland consultant. They responded with a variety of revisions. I went through those revisions. This was very last minute in terms of. Getting through the revisions and making sure they were all taken care of. As of like yesterday this morning, there was a couple outstanding questions which are on your screen right now. I'm not going to bother reading through them. But what I can say is that. To the best of my knowledge, all have been satisfied with the exception. The only one that I can't confirm has been satisfied is that there was a plan note on the plan noting the tension basin that had to be revised to infiltration basin. I know Zachary sent me an updated plan. I have not yet. Verified that the change has been made, but he's confirming that the plan has been made. And he sent me a revision based on all of this at this point. I'm comfortable closing the public hearing. And we would not be issuing the order of conditions tonight because it's not prepared, but just to close the public hearing and then I can prep the order of conditions prior to the next meeting. Thanks, Aaron. So we're going to close the public hearing. Did you want to do that with the condition that the applicant will grant us an extension? If we need it to the 21 day extension. Go ahead. This is Glenn Kavoski. We would, we would grant the extension. Our pleasure. Mr. Glash should be on also. Thank you. Thank you. Aaron, is that correct? Just so we know what to do with the motion. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's fine. I think it's kind of a. It just administrative at this point because they already sent us the revision, but I haven't confirmed that the revision was received. So appreciate the fact that they've granted us the 21 day extension if we need it. But we would grant the extension. Our pleasure. Mr. Glash should be on also. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I don't know if we need it, but I believe we have everything we need to issue the order at the, on the 13th of December. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Do Zach, do you have anything else to add or? No, I think that covers it. Again, I did make that last final plan revision change that I did send over to Aaron. I made sure that all, you know, inferences of that detention days and have been revised to the infiltration basin so that should satisfy everything there. Great. Thank you. Public. If you have any comments, just raise your hand. I'm going to keep an eye on you. Do it quickly though, because we're trying to move on. So. All right. Commissioner's any comments? Questions. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. I see no hands up. So commissioners looking for a motion to close the public hearing for 28 green leaves. Um, DEP number 089 0723. There's some emotion. Alex on the second. Jason. Hi. Bruce. Hi. Alex. And you're a nine Michelle. I'm a. I couldn't hear Alex just for the record. You want to say it again? Hi. There we go. Got it. That's important. I'm glad you. Thank you. Good night, everyone. Thanks for hanging in there. Thank you very much for your time. So much time. Thank you very much. Have a good day. Okay. Welcome to the town of Amherst. Um, it's Dave presenting this one or Aaron, do you want to. Take this way. Um. I don't know if Dave is going to be jumping on for this or not, but this is what I can tell you. Um, Oh, there he is. Yep. Go ahead. We've met with natural heritage submitted a plan revision to them to address their concerns. They submitted a determination letter today. So we're hopeful that the commission will close the public hearing tonight so that we can move to issue an order of conditions at the next meeting. Okay, public comment, please raise your hand if you have any. Any questions or comments. All right, hearing none. I talked about this offline and the town has done everything they can to address the natural heritage comments and moved around trails and core protections for habitat, rural habitat. So it looks good to me. Does anyone have any comments or questions? So this is phase one of a multi-page project and is necessary to close this and move on for the grants. Okay, hearing none looking for a motion to close the public hearing for DEP number 089-0721. Bruce on the motion, Jason on the second Bruce. Bye. Jason. Hi. I'm an I, Alex. Did you get it? I can infer. I'm good. Okay. Agenda SWCA on behalf of the University of Massachusetts for construction of the gravel parking lot and associated storm water directions on the hundred foot buffer zone to boarding vegetative wetland at lot 13 Olympia Drive map AD lot 1516 and three. I do not see Kristin. Is there anybody here for that tonight? Okay. So I think we're just continuing this and we're waiting for some responses to Aaron's questions so we can move on with determination about this. So given that looking for a motion to continue. So moved. Second. Bruce on the motion, Jason on the second. Before there's a vote, we just have to make sure that it's noted that the continuation will be to December 13th at 750pm. Great. Thank you. 750. That is eight o'clock on our. Yeah, I had to move things around because there was some last minute updates since the. Okay. Since the PowerPoint was sent. I moved that change. Okay. Bruce. Hi. Jason. Hi. I'm an I, Alex. This is working. Hey. Okay. Alright, last one. Any public comment, just please raise your hand. I'll keep an eye on it. Notice of intent for tetra tech on behalf of Fort River solar to LLC for construction of an operation of a 6.35 megawatt direct current ground mounted photovoltaic solar facility and effort. I just have to learn how to say this word effort tenant components at 191 West Pomeray lane map 19 D lot 10. How do you say that word, Aaron? I have no idea. That was just in the application. I assume it's technical. Hopefully it's not a typo. No, I've seen it before. I just never said it out loud. Okay. Do we have anyone here for that? Okay. I'll pull in Sean and I believe Matthew or both. And Lawrence is also here. So while they're coming in, if it's okay, I'll just give a quick update. Similar to the other projects in my memo. Well, yeah, in my memo, I did provide comments. On one of the last iterations of the plan. The applicant was able to respond with some really comprehensive responses and addressed a lot of my questions, which I really appreciate. I have only had about two days to review their comments. So I do have some follow up questions. On the project, which I can put up on the screen just so folks can see them, but I don't really want to get into them in depth. I've, I've talked to the applicant about them. I'm part way through my review of their responses. So I haven't gotten through all of their responses. And there was a couple things that could potentially trigger additional revisions like, for example, the DPW wanting access road over the sewer line, which wasn't shown on the plans and then confirmation of the auto turn for the fire department. And so there might be some, and there's some other things like I haven't seen the fate. I haven't had a chance to review the phasing or the containment yet. So I spoke with the applicant earlier and explained that, you know, I just need a little more time to get through the, their responses to my comments and sort of in hopes that we could continue to the 13th to allow more time for me to finish my review. And for us to go back and forth on additional changes that might be necessary. But the applicant did want to take the opportunity tonight to take any additional public comment and also take any additional board questions. So I'll just leave it there. Yeah, I think Aaron kind of summed it up well like we responded to some initial comments and we discussed earlier today some comments that, you know, appear minor nature and we can, we can surely address those prior to the next hearing but we just wanted to go on record tonight to see if we can gather any additional comments from either fellow commissioners or any members of the public that may be present just so we can, you know, present the comprehensive response to any any concerns that are that still might be out there. You're muted Michelle. Thank you. Appreciate that. I see Bruce with your hand up. If there's any public comment just keep put your hand up and I'll get to it. Go ahead Bruce. So I went on the site visit and I appreciate the, I think all three of you were there. And I appreciate the time you took to show show me the situation. I simply want to reemphasize my observation that this is a pretty large project inside an even bigger project. And so and I appreciate what I understand to have been very good cooperative discussions and interactions back and forth about that with you and the town and David and Aaron in particular and I just asked that it continue all the way through the process because this all the trail systems, and then all of your work inside that trail system effort. It feels complicated to me and I, I think it's going to need a lot of good communication. Thank you. Thanks Bruce. Any other commissioners ever. Okay, Bruce just following up on that. Do you envision that just the back and forth and sort of notification between the two project is sufficient or it I mean I understand there's a comprehensive plan. I don't know, I guess I'm hearing your concern and I'm wondering what's in place to deal with it and what maybe is needed to facilitate that in terms of a plan for meetings other than just what's on the books on this big like 400 page document. To be able to Dave and Eric to tell us what their thinking is about the back and forth that's going to be needed. I will say that during the site visit there was a lot of discussion about the turtles. And what I felt like was a genuine concern on behalf of, of this team to, to be very mindful and careful about turtle habitat and turtle migration and, and the times when they shouldn't be doing work because the turtles are there and those kinds of things, but the answer your question, Michelle, I think Dave is going to have to answer it. Dave, see your hand up good. Yeah, so no I really appreciate the question Bruce and happy to have the tetra tech folks or Lawrence jump in at any time. Yeah, it is a very complex project. It's a, it's a complex project with it within the 150 acre complex property so we get that in fact Sean Lawrence Aaron and I just met. I want to say it was about a week ago to kind of talk about the, the coordination between the trail project and and the solar project and the way the solar projects timeline has worked out. It just so happens might be in some ways advantageous for our trail project, because we're, we're on a really tight timeline I know, I know, I know pure sky is too but we need to spend this grant money and get the these trails built by the end of 2024. And so we are going to be, you know, working really hard to do that and, you know, part of that of course as Bruce mentioned is, is protection, and only the wetlands and the resource areas but also the turtle habitat so we've already had those conversations because we are going to have to be having very regular conversations both, you know, by zoom but also on the site so I don't have more structure in that at this point but our relationship with pure sky and, and tetra tech so far has been very good and transparent and I also wanted to add, if I could, that the town is under an obligation to put a conservation restriction on a portion of the property. Obviously the 17 acres that is part of the mitigation for the pure sky project will be required to be put under a conservation restriction, and we're working with misty and Merrill at natural heritage to move that forward in January and so there will be permanent protection once the, the solar project and the trail project are completed, there will then be a CR put on a portion of the property that plan will have to come through the conservation commission, and ultimately the town council will be able to do that. So, I know that's separate from this notice of intent, but I'll stop there if any, you know, if Sean or, or Aaron or Lawrence wants to jump in, or Matthew, you know please do. So I'm going to jump in just for a second to note that Alex fell off the call it looks like. I'm not sure exactly what's going on. He is on my phone right now. I can't. Okay, so he can hear me. I heard, I heard him. Yeah, he's just not on the call. So this is getting more complex by the second since he's not on. If everyone could just hold for one second, Alex. Did you, did you get kicked off or are you not able to join back. Okay. I mean, if you have him on the phone, can we consider him present. Alex is logged in. Okay, he's, he's trying to his, his computer, he had to restart it because his computer froze. I think at this point, my recommendation to the commission is to, I feel like, because we don't have a quorum and we're still taking testimony, we should stop and just public comment. Can I take that while Alex is logging in? Are you suggesting that we stop? He's going to be in in two minutes. He said, okay, can I ask a question then. Does pure sky or tetra tech have a separate permit or, I don't know, a letter from an HESP. So there are two separate ones for the same parcel and two different projects. Yeah, we're, yeah, we're currently under an active permit through September of next year, and we've requested it in an extension of that permit based on the, the most recent plan set, which is, you know, this for all kinds of purposes is fairly, you know, similar to the set they approved so we don't anticipate any additional feedback but we gave them that opportunity to, you know, take a look at that as part of their decision making on an extension of that permit to give us self enough time next fall, you know, to complete the work. Okay, so presumably they're looking at these two in tandem as in the trails project or the Amherst project and your project and to Bruce's point, there is some like cohesive turtle planning happening at the state level, which is also the whole party is is is governed if you will by the the comprehensive management plan the CMP from the conservation management plan that the state has authorized so we the town tetra tech pure sky we are all we all have to adhere to that plan. So there has to be that coordination. I was going to add that the other thing that we talked about is, we will, and I haven't reviewed the letter from natural heritage but we will likely have, you know, our own turtle monitor out there for the trail project as well. It may be Aaron, part of the time it may be some of my staff or it may be higher. So, to build our six foot trail we also obviously have to protect with turtles. Right. Okay, we have Alex back. Thanks, Dave. Alex, can we hear you on your computer at all. No, no, I can't hear him. Okay, I've got him on the phone still. Okay, well, I'm going to take public comment. Mike Lepinsky, please go ahead and welcome. Hi, can you hear me. We can. Yeah, Mike Lepinsky. 167 issues for your own Amherst. I've taken a lot of interest in the golf course project and visited the site and many occasions on two different occasions. In January 26 this year, and on September 30, there were situations on the site where the entire access road was under about two or three feet of water. And not only was it under water, particularly in September, the, a lot of the erosion controls were just over swept by the water. They were knocked down the water was running freely over them. And yet I haven't heard any mention of this flooding problem in any of the plans and I'm concerned about that because that access road is in floodplain. And yet it doesn't seem to be an issue in any in any of discussion that I've heard along along with that is the fact that in that water almost up to the top of the access road. So the access road they're planning to use to visit this site. And on the September 30th date, the water was up to it and it may have actually overflowed it because that water tends to come up fast and tends to receive fairly quickly. And it is twofold one I'm wondering how that deals with the turtles, if all the fencing and all the erosion controls are being washed away by this flooding how does that affect this turtle plan. And the other thing that I think is the bigger concern is safety, and if you have a situation with safety on the site, where the fire department is expected to go out and deal with the remaining battery for instance, and this flooding situation is taking place, there really is no access out there. I will tell you that in the September event, the water was about three feet deep in the access road. And at that point, if you knew where the access road was, you could actually, you could actually see the road. But if that situation had occurred at night, I find it hard to believe that the fire department would be able to go out there and find the road in the darkness, if it's under three feet of water. I think this is a serious concern for the site. I haven't heard of any remedy to it. It's just that I guess when it floods no one's going to cross that floodplain. But it's a, I think it's something that should be addressed. I think it affects that turtle plan. And I think it's something that should be looked into related to that. Another thing that was in place and I'm not sure how critical is it looked like it was small detail. When they first reinforced that bridge, they put some netting underneath it. I guess the netting was meant to capture broken pieces of concrete or something coming off. And of course, after the first flooding that occurred in January, something came along and just ripped that net down and it was hanging and it was an obstacle. It's been removed ever since, but whatever purpose that net was supposed to serve, it no longer serves that purpose because it's just lying in a heap by the trailer, which happens to be in the floodplain that floods. I'm not sure how that affects the conservation committee or not, but it's a reality of that situation at that site. And I really haven't heard it being addressed by conservation committee or the ZBA for that for that matter. So that's my public comment. Thank you, Mike. So there, we are aware of the flooding and relevant to the, the road. I mean, Sean or Matt, do you want to answer about, you know, the plans for flooding on the access road specifically. Yeah, I mean, we're in the flood 100 year floodplain and some of it's in the more frequent floodplain. So it, you know, it's going to occur, you know, as it does, you know, and it's just part of it none of the critical infrastructure for the site is located within the flood zone. As it relates to the turtle, you know, erosion controls and eternal monitoring erosion controls, you know, silt fences has been reinforced around the site. I am aware of some, you know, areas that need to be repaired after a certain rainfall events and certain flood events. And I will note that the site has been subject, it's subject to a construction general permit which requires either weekly sweep inspections or inspections after half an inch of rainfall and which, you know, an inspector on behalf of the pure skies goes out and inspects and creates a remedy plan for any erosion controls that, you know, needs to be repaired. In addition to that, the town is required a third party environmental monitor that's been going out there as well. I'm not, I'm not sure what the duration of their visits is but that's in addition to that so we do have there are a lot of eyes on the site from a professional standpoint that are looking into the erosion controls and if there's any, you know, damage done during high intensity rainfall rates or flood events that have been repaired. I'm not aware of any kind of, you know, mass breaches whatnot. It seems like it held up fairly well during the flood events as it relates to the turtles, right. The turtle monitoring occurs during, you know, from mid April to mid October so during that time we do have a, you know, a biologist out there, you know, making sure if any turtles get stuck inside the silt fence line are taking out of it and that will only be during construction. Matt, feel free to add in anything I may have missed here. I did want to touch upon the netting right. So the netting was required as part of the coordination with the building department and the intent for the end of the project is to, you know, replace the at least the, the top part of the flooring of the building and kind of the guardrails as part of that effort, you know, we would be required to put like netting underneath that so during that demolition of the deck, any debris would be kept by the netting. The deadening isn't really necessary during construction because there's a pretty thick, you know, there's a lot of erosion controls on the side of the bridge and the bridge has a pretty, doesn't really have a lot of gaps and there shouldn't be any sediment that are being tracked all the way to the bridge. It's mainly for demolition of the, of the deck which is supposed to occur later on in the project so you know that can be, you know, replaced and repaired prior to that work and then taken down upon completion. Thanks, Sean. Lawrence, I see your hand up if you could make it quite great. Really appreciate it. Yeah, no, I'll try and keep this as very quick as possible because I know this is much later than you anticipated. The turtle barriers are to protect, prevent the turtles from entering reactive construction areas which are outside of the flood plain. So the actual turtle barriers are not affected by the flooding because they kind of sit on the, where they, where the site is, the erosion controls that are around where the road is being done are a separate thing. They're not turtle barriers, it's turtle barriers that the ones to keep from the site. I think it's a valid concern about being able to see that road in a flood situation. Perhaps the solution there is to add some markers along that access road so that it's defined and they can come above the flood water. So, I think I'll have a quick chat with the fire department before the next meeting and see if we can update the plan to show some of those things on there as well. Great. Thank you. Good. Good point, Mike. And it sounds like we can incorporate some safety measures on to that with the flooding. All right, Aaron, I want to give you a chance to respond and then hopefully you can wrap this up. Yeah, so I just wanted to note that I did talk with the applicant about moving the construction trailer and any equipment out of the floodplain during construction and they have committed to doing that as well. There is a flood mitigation area for the work that took place in the floodplain. And just a quick note that the netting was supposed to be removed from the bridge when work on the bridge wasn't underway. I think that was just an oversight that it was left in place. But when work resumes to repair and re-deck, et cetera, as noted by Sean, that netting will have to be replaced. And also it's been put on a sliding wire so that what's supposed to happen is that at the close of construction at the end of the day, it gets pulled across so that it's not laying in the water. It should only be under there if they're actually working on the bridge and debris is falling. So at the end of every work day, it's pulled back. Okay, that's good. All right, any further comments? Okay, seeing none, I think we're going to continue. Yes. I think we should move to continue the public hearing for 191 West Pomeroy, Fort River Solar LLC, notice of intent to 121323 at 810pm. Jason on the motion. I saw Bruce's hand up. I don't hear you, Bruce. Well, it's just that if you look at the list of things for the next meeting, it says 805. So does it matter? Erin. It's all relative apparently. I think I second it. It's your hand up Matt will get. Okay. Bruce. I second. Jason or Bruce. I'm sorry. Hi. Jason. Hi. I'm an I Alex. I heard the I. Okay. Matt, did you have a last comment? Just a quick request given the time constraints that the project is under where. Hopeful that between now and the December 13th meeting Aaron, you, me and Sean and warrants can work together to not only address your comments, but ideally help craft a draft order of conditions. Yeah, I mean, we'll certainly do our best. It's a complex project. And we have, as you can tell, nine hearings on the agenda. So I have like. Five or six orders of conditions I have to draft before the next meeting. So certainly that is the goal and I'll do my very best to accommodate. We have to finish the revisions or finish the review and then we have to coordinate revisions as necessary. And then take it from there. So what, but you have my word that I will do my best to try to move it as as promptly and efficiently as I possibly can. That's all we can ask for. It's just a bit of copy and paste Aaron. I don't know what you're concerned about. Excellent. Well, let's, let's let you have your evening or what's left of it. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right, commissioners, I think we're done. Yes. Okay. Well, there are further. Looking for a motion to adjourn. Oh, Thank you. Bruce on the motion. Jason on the second Bruce. Hi. Jason. Hi. I'm an I Alex. I think we have good. Thank you. Aaron, another, another amazing job. You know, preparing for this meeting and making us all. Prepared and looking good. So thank you. Yeah. Thank you. I want to encourage Aaron to put off anything. That can be put off for if we are bothering her with things or. You know, and I. I think we should discuss the question of whether to put off the land use. Subcommittee work. Right. I mean, I could use more time. But yeah, we'll keep us posted on your constraints and availability. Aaron. Absolutely. Probably flexible. Yeah. I assume you're taking minutes. So thank you. I assume the hearing nothing else. I assume that what we're producing is. What people need. So. Are they getting what they need though? That's the question. So. Too much or too little. I'll do what I can. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it was also really great to cover anything that you feel like you might have missed or skimmed over. Well, I use the video to. Yeah. Great. And it's really helpful. So. All right. Well, thank you everybody for your work. Sure. Okay. With that. Good night. Good night. Good night.