 Hello, and welcome to the April 10th meeting, 2024 meeting of the Embers Conservation Commission. The time is 7 or 2. We have all members present except Laura and staff, Aaron, Jack and Dave. So, Mike. So, we have a new member tonight, Rachel Loffler. Did I say that correctly? Rachel Loffler, but Loffler works too. Okay. Welcome. Do you want to. Take a couple of minutes just to introduce yourself to the commission and like, maybe tell us something about your background. Sure. Hi, everyone. My name is Rachel. I've been living in Amherst since 2016. And I've been practicing with Berkshire Design Group as a landscape architect since 2014. So our firm is multidisciplinary and I'm very interested in sort of how land development and intersects with the protection of wetlands and conservation areas, especially as the climate is changing and precipitation is changing and things are changing all around us. So it's wild to see it happen with our own eyes and want to be part of that conversation. We're happy to have you with us. Should we do a little round robin and just give like one minute intro bio? I'm going to start with Andre, put you on the spot. Hi, Rachel. Welcome. I'm Andre Gidera. Let's see. First time I got to Amherst, I moved with my parents back in 83 for my senior year in high school. I stayed here for college, went to UMass and got a degree in wildlife biology. And I spent 20, well, I spent about 26 years with US Fish and Wildlife Service as a law enforcement agent and retired and was recently a park ranger with the state. So, yeah, I've got a lot of interest in wetlands and in wildlife, of course, the wildlife aspect of it and in protecting what Amherst has left. It's my minute. Thanks, Andre. Alex? Rachel, I met on a site visit at Amherst College and I introduced myself then so I will give my time to somebody else. Okay. Thanks, Alex Bruce. I'm Rachel's recruiter. I was looking forward to your bios. Okay. I am from Amherst. I've since spent time elsewhere. My background is in wildlife ecology and natural resource management and I currently work in for land trust and endangered species management and all things related to the conservation and perpetual management of critical habitats. So that's that. Sorry, Dave and Erin. Do you want to give your bios? You already met Rachel. Go ahead, Erin. My name is Erin Jock. Rachel and I have worked a little bit together. I have been with the town for about five years and I'd say my background is municipal conservation and also GIS analysis, all things from conservation related to land use to public health. That's all. Good evening, Rachel. We've met before during the interview process Dave Zomek. I'm the assistant town manager and in my role. I'm fairly new to Amherst so I'm just kidding to know the community, but joking for a while. I've worked for the town for about 20 years and my job is a really interesting mix of land use and development and conservation and historic preservation, affordable housing. And it's a fun job to have as the director of conservation and development and I dabble in recreation projects and town common projects as well. So happy to have you on board and I am here for many of the meetings tonight. I may not be here for the whole meeting. I'm actually wearing kind of multiple hats while our town manager is away. So I may be here for part of the meeting and then either jump on another meeting or get a few things done while he's away. So welcome. Alright, thanks everybody. I'm just going to dive right in. Mill History, Miller River History Trail Update. Dave and I had a meeting with the committee or the representatives, the team that's putting that forward and we talked about signage content of signage. Some things will probably be bullet-pawning and circulating to commissioners to get some input on things we'd like to see incorporated in that material. So just for the background, this is the Mill River History Trail, which will go from about the North Amherst Library up to Cushman Center. And yeah, we just want to give them a little input on some historical ecology, fish passage, just some things we'd like to see on that trail and coordinating with signage design. So keep an eye out for that. Director's report, hand it over to Dave. Sure, I'll be very brief. A couple of quick updates. I did make a presentation to the town council on Monday evening on Hickory Ridge, the property and the project. I think Erin was instrumental in helping me to pull that together. We'd be happy to send that around or a link to that. Maybe Erin could do that in the coming days. It's also on the town council page in their packet. But it was well received by the council. They're very interested and impressed with the work that town staff and consultants have done there. Everything from ecological assessment to the grants that we've received and even looking at the potential for some of the frontage to be used for other municipal purposes, such as a fire station. So we'll send that quick PowerPoint around. I think it's about 16 or 18 slides. Staying with Hickory Ridge. I think Erin may have other updates, but our contractor Taylor Davis landscaping Taylor Davis construction has been out there this week with some good weather beginning to put up erosion control and turtle fencing for the loop trail and the north south connecting trail. So we're finally getting going on that. We have some turtle trainings going on soon for staff and contractors so it's exciting to get going on that. I know that Pure Sky is back on the site and beginning to make some progress around rainstorms. And then staff and I working with the Erin and I working with the fire department. We've also been making some progress on the emergency access, and we'll have updates for you on that in the coming meetings. For River Farm. Just I believe Erin will be talking about this later but we are trying to come up with some some solutions for some drainage there in the parking lot of Fort River Farm Alex and I and others talked about it when we were on some site visit some weeks ago and we're working on a plan to address some of that drainage there and and likely of course we'll be back to talk to you about that. Finally, I can't remember and whether we reported on the dam and seawall grant I think we've been talking about it but it was submitted last Friday I believe it was. This is a grant for design we submitted it to the dam and seawall program, which is under DCR Dam Safety, a state agency and we, we put in a grant for design about 250,000 for the grant ask. And we are required to put in another 150, 160 in match. So the total project could be around 400 for 10, and this is for design of improvements repairs to the dyke structure the dam structure. We'll be looking at bathymetry we'll be looking at depth of sediment depth of the pond of course with imagery and also sediment will be doing sediment cores, some survey work, and really kind of get ways to to begin to get issues up a puffer spawn. I want to make clear that you know the dam and dyke are safe they're not in any threat of collapse or anything like that this is just kind of long overdue work with a particular focus on the dyke, which does need some work. So anyway, did we leave anything out on the dam and seawall brand there and there's there's about six or seven elements to it for the total cost of about 400,000. And of course that does not include construction and will cross will cross that that bridge if you will when we come to it. Yeah, so it's just for design and permitting. Once we get the design and permitting completed will have to come back for all the construction costs. Yeah, there's extensive permitting with that project. So, so I think I'll stop there given your full agenda if anybody has any quick questions happy to do a speed round of questions if there are any. Thanks Dave looks like Alex has a question go Alex. Yeah I have to real quick. I had to chuck all when you were talking about training turtles. When you get them all trained. Would you give us a show training. Yeah. Training the yes. Anyway, and as far as the dam goes. Last time he talked about that he gave us very nice presentation and I brought up the subject of fish ways. I don't know if that's in your proposal but if you want a quarter page write up suggesting it and providing some justification I'm happy to do that. We would welcome that if you wanted to put something together Alex. It is not part of the formal repairs per se that we are looking for but while we're while we're appealing things back and looking deeper at puffers dredging. So, emergency access emergency systems there as well as the dyke and the dam absolutely if you want to put something together. I think staff would welcome reading that and taking a look. I'll talk to Aaron about timing. Thank you. Sure. Thanks Alex. Okay onto minutes. Bruce thanks for taking minutes as always. I saw Alex had some comments come in so I think just. Given those were good to make a motion. I also realized Jason's not here tonight and I hadn't commented on that. Do we expect Jason coming or we heard from him. No Jason won't be here tonight he's away. Okay. So, for tonight's minutes Bruce. Okay, so we're looking for a motion to approve the minutes for 327 2024. Yeah, before we do that. I did send you mentioned that I sent some comments to you and Aaron and Bruce. If they're fine. And you don't think we need to put them up on the screen that's that's fine but. It's fine with them if you want to just move to approve with those edits. Yeah, that's fine. So I'll move that we approve the minutes with those changes that I suggested. For a second. Second. Alex on the motion on the second Alex. Hi, Rachel. Do I. You can. Sorry. Yeah, that's fine. I can't, I can't put it right because I'm correct. Thank you. Bruce. Hi. Andre. Hi. Okay, land management updates. The OSR. You plan. Still open. Spread the word. Anything else. I think what the group is, is going to be meeting tomorrow to. Discuss next steps. So I'll have more of an update. Once we've sort of regroup to post. Post survey. Okay. And can you remind us when that survey closes? Dave, do you know I'm not certain if it's closed already or if it's still open. I believe it may have closed. Okay. Last week. Okay. Not 100% sure on that, but I think. I think it did close. Okay. If I might make a comment. I found the survey really long. And difficult to, to fill out. I don't know. I. My heart's in it. And that's why I did it, but I think I would have had a really hard time. If it weren't. Just a comment. You aren't the only one Andre. Go ahead, Bruce. Okay. So I guess that other people have commented in various ways about those kinds of things. And those comments got passed on to the team. So. When it happens again, they can take that information and work with it. Yeah. It looks like the survey is open still. Does it list. Does it list the closing? I think it used to. Yeah. I thought it was updated to April 22nd. But it doesn't say that. So there's a little more time. Okay. Well, for all the public here tonight, if you. Or up for it, please visit the town of Amherst website and participate in the 2024 open space and recreation survey. So the first parts open space and the second parts recreation. Okay. Great. Now on to land use application. Amherst college. So this is a recurring one. Is it maybe possibly annually and there it's a water quality sampling. And they're very great at reporting back their survey results to us, which then get posted on the Amherst website. So. I have no questions or issues with this one. Any comments or questions from commissioners or Aaron, do you want to. Yep. Okay. I think they, they test at various locations throughout town. And they've even incorporated some additional testing sites, sort of at our recommendations. So I think it's a great program and they incorporate. You know, student learning in the, in the process. So I think it's another one of those great partnerships with the, with the colleges where we get to sort of reap some benefits from having some. Academic inquiry into the. Quality of our streams. Thanks. And if anyone is in the audience representing that, and you want to say anything, please just raise your hand. Go ahead, Alex. Dave has talked a number of times about water quality and purpose pond. But, and he's talked about trying to develop something with you mass. To track that down. I wonder if we could talk to Amherst college. About joining in that effort. If they, as part of their water quality analysis. And I don't know if Dave has already thought about that, but here they are. And they have a program. And we have a problem. If I could, Michelle. Yeah. You happy to. Happy to talk with Amherst college about that. I do know that. You know, one of the big challenges is just oftentimes. The sampling is done by students or volunteers or. Or, or others, sometimes faculty. And the challenge often is getting sampling when the, the rain events happen, you know, right after, and those could happen at three in the morning or. Sunday afternoon or, or whatever, during holidays. So I know they're a little bit maxed out on some of the research they've done, but I'm happy to ask Alex. We're trying to get a little traction from the university on helping us with buffers. And it's just been a question of, of kind of focus for Aaron and myself. So we've had some initial conversations, but we need to move, move that forward. So I'm happy to ask Amherst college. Yeah. And if I recall, they don't quite to like E. Coli monitoring necessarily, or it's more of a sediment load and macro infertivate type of thing. So, it's still, still worth it. Ask to see if they might want to expand their sampling. Breath. Okay. Mind the coal eyes on is in every stream. Right. Levels there in. Okay. If there's no other questions, I think we're just looking for a motion to approve the. And use application for Amherst quality water. Amherst college water quality analysis. And it's a CLU dash 24 dash four. So moved. Save the number again. Sorry. CLU dash 24 dash four. Are you. Second. Andre on the motion. Alex on the second Alex. Hi, Rachel. Hi, Bruce. Hi, Andre. And I'm an eye. Wow. Okay. Can we quickly move on to some. Yeah. Other business. Yes. Enforcement compliance. Sure. Do you want to do enforcement or do you want to try to get the. The continuation or the. Yeah, the extension for the order of conditions first. Michelle. Just two other business items. Okay. Yeah, sure. We can start with that. Okay. So I received a request to continue the. To extend the order of conditions for the Fort River farm order of conditions. Part of the reason was anybody who's visited Fort River farm. Community gardens recently or parking lot. There's a drainage issue going on there. It's a lot of work that's been installed. But the, the parking lot is actually like the staging area for the. Blood plane restoration area that was constructed at the end of the fairing. So I think the construction of the swale didn't happen. And so we received a request to continue or to extend the order of conditions in order to allow that construction work on the site. So that we can hopefully deal with that drainage situation. And I'll pull up the screen so that we have a motion to read from. I moved to issue a three year extension. To the order of conditions DEP. Number 089 dash 0684. Second. Alex on the motion Bruce on the second Alex. Hi, Rachel. Hi, Bruce. Hi. Andre. You did Andre. Yeah, I was saying it anyway. Hi. And I'm an eye. I have a question. Yep. You didn't, I didn't see the application in the, in the folder. I just saw the memo. But I'm curious if the drainage pipe coming out of the nearby dam. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if we'll get fixed or whether we're just going to deal with it. And the products that come from it. I, I don't know if Dave wants to speak to this, but I think it becomes complicated dealing with offsite situations. So I think we'll just have to discuss that and sort of formulate how the town wants to proceed with it. But I think construction of the swale is a good first step to try to address some of the stormwater issues. And then we'll have to, we'll have to, we'll have to, we'll have to divert water onto another person's property. It's a good question. In New Hampshire, it's not. In other states, it's not. And that water is being diverted onto. Or river farm property. We're going to look at all of that area. Alex. I think it's a good question. That pipe and that drainage has been there. For a couple of decades. So we're going to look at that. But in the meantime, you know, at least the short term, putting in the drainage that was planned all along for that parking lot is kind of step one, but we are going to have conversations with that owner. We know that owner. Well, he's Ian, his company have been very supportive of the, the gardens and our access there through his property. So we're going to look at the whole picture and see if we can solve the problem and apply some creativity there. So we'll, we'll keep the commission informed. It's going to take a little while. It's not an easy fix overnight, but getting that drainage swale in there. ASAP would be a good first step. And we'll see what that does for the parking lot as well as the gardens, because as you know, the water is moving. I guess that would be east toward the gardens. So we'll keep you posted. I'm well aware of it. Thank you. Thanks. Okay. So we need a motion or did we already do that one? Oh, we did a motion. Okay. Sorry. It already passed. Yeah. On to the enforcement updates. So start with Trillium. Yeah. So. In your packets, you'll see that there was a request from. The owner's son, basically to ask for an extension for the stabilization of the site. There have been measures installed. I am told I wasn't able to get out there because I had a, an illness in my house this week. But the, I did speak with Mr. McChese son and they have. I don't know. That was sad being delivered, I believe next week and they're planning to install everything so that the site is, is stabilized within the next couple of weeks, but they're requesting additional time because it's, with the weather, it's been difficult to get everything lined up. I was sent photos. them to put them in your folder. So I realize it's a little difficult, but I can say that the front of the site is stabilized. There were some additional measures. The last time I was out there, I believe Alex and I were out there the last time that I visited the site, and there were some ongoing issues that needed resolution. I just haven't had an opportunity to go out and verify that those items have been completed, but I'm told that the stabilization is completed on the rear slope and that erosion controls have been corrected. So kind of taking a good faith belief that they're moving in a positive direction, I believe, trying to comply with enforcement order, and I would support allowing them to take additional time to stabilize the site since they've been working with us cooperatively. Thanks, Aaron. Do we have a suggested deadline for the extension? Yeah, so I'm just going to toggle to my back or to the folder so I can try to open up Iman's email. While you're looking, can I just make a comment? Of course. So when I read the memo, it was all about sod and loam, but I didn't see him say anything about removing the material from the slope. So he didn't say anything. Maybe you have information that they, in fact, have pulled back a lot of that material that they moved down the slope. And so I'm interested to know if he's, I mean, that was part of the season to assist order was to get that stuff out of there. And I didn't seem to mention that they had done any work on it. I thought they had, but Aaron, update. Yeah, so from the, so historically speaking, they did do a great deal of removal. Alex, when we were out there, there was some remaining fill. And I think that they sort of had assumed that they had removed all they needed to. And when Alex and I went out there, we made it clear, nope, there's still a great deal of fill out here that still needs to be taken. Mr. McChie said he was going to address it. So I have to sort of assume that that's going to happen. But if it hasn't been done, they're still going to have to take care of it. The other thing I can get out there for a site visit and share photos with you in the interim before the next meeting so that we can feel confident before they install the sod on the site that all of that material is out. And certainly we could issue an extension of the deadline with the assumption that they've taken care of all of the items that were asked of them, including the removal of the fill that was placed without a permit. The reason I asked was, once they put sod down, they're not going to be wanting to put heavy equipment across that sod if they needed to to get material out. So I would ask them not to put the sod down until you're satisfied that they have complied with what you asked them to do with regard to the material on the slope. I think that's totally reasonable. The sod will be a barrier to them doing any additional work on the slope. Yeah, I agree. I think that's a completely reasonable condition. So they did ask until April 26 to extend the deadline to April 26. And so the commission is aware when Erin and I were out there, they were pouring cement over a large patio. And while they were there, they poured cement in light fixtures, which are inside the 100-foot buffer, which were not authorized. And the cement was still wet. I could put my finger in it. It hadn't even set up. And then they dumped the cement truck, dumped, washed as they usually do, and left all the cement right there inside the 100-foot buffer. Somebody would have to clean that up. But they were doing work inside the buffer when the season assist order was in place. What date was that, Alex? Last week? Was that last week? I think we were there on a Friday. Yeah, I think it was a week from Friday. So I do agree with Alex that the cement should not have been being washed where it was. I did put the photos in the folder so you guys could see the latest. Okay, it was really muddy. There was cement washing down the slope into the buffer. One of the things that Alex and I asked for were for survey stakes to be placed 100 feet from the wetland boundary so that we could actually determine where the 100-foot buffer was. And I do agree with Alex that it's tough to tell where the 100-foot buffer is because they used a measuring tape. So the measurements don't follow the slope. They go as the crow flies from a survey measurement. So that's why we did ask for the 100-foot buffer to be staked out. So I think we need to confirm that the erosion controls were corrected, that the fill is removed, that the 100-foot buffer has been staked, and the stabilization measures on the rear slope have been installed. Assuming that those things have happened, I think it would be reasonable to allow more time. I also did tell Mr. McChie that the commission may be requiring an after-the-fact notice of intent application for this in order to require additional mitigation on the slope and within the 100-foot buffer. Particularly if the buffer zone impacts to the buffer zone are determined once survey stakes are placed. Okay. It's messy. Yeah, that's different than what I saw when I was out there. Bruce, go ahead. This is a reminder that when I was out there some of the down slope erosion was actually going under the filter fabric and onto the neighbor property off the site completely, and that that piece of it has to also be addressed. So, Michelle, I'm going to suggest that we might hold this conversation and continue it until after the hearings just because I see it's 7.35 and I want to be- Sure. Okay. This is a more in-depth conversation. All right. So, we'll revisit the enforcement order on this one and the other one. Okay. I'm going to skip back to our first hearing. So, this is a notice of intent for SWCA on behalf- Sorry. Leave my hearing page. All right. Hearing is general procedure for fairness to all applicants. Each hearing has 20 dedicated minutes on the agenda. The hearing structure is five minutes from staff, five minutes from the applicant, five minutes of public comment or two minutes per person, five minutes for conservation commissioners. The commission now requires all submitted and revised materials to be submitted by the Wednesday prior to the meeting at close of business. For all members of the public, please clearly state your name, address, who you're representing, and any preferred pronouns. Same for presenters. Okay. First up. Notice of intent for SWCA on behalf of the University of Massachusetts for the construction of a gravel parking lot and associated stormwater structure in the 100-foot buffer zone to bordering vegetated wetland at lot 13 Olympia Drive map 8D lot 15, 16, and 3. Do we have anybody here tonight for this? I'm not sure if the applicant's representative is here or not, but I can give the commission a quick update. But if anybody is here, please raise your hand. So, I have met with UMass several times to sort of discuss path forward and I'll just try to briefly summarize UMass was on hold because they were conducting a in-depth study of parking on campus to determine whether they actually needed lot 13, because they were considering whether they even needed it. They were considering just dropping it all together, but because there's several large construction projects impacting parking areas on campus, they feel like they really do need lot 13. So, they did re-engage with, I believe it's Woodward and Curran. I can't recall the name of the company that they've retained, but they've re-engaged with the engineer and they are working on revisions. However, they recognize the sort of conundrum that the commission is in and they have asked that the commission take no action tonight. So, they're not asking for continuation. They don't want the commission to deny the project. What they're asking is basically to give them some time to make the recommended revisions and take the commission's comments into consideration. And once those revisions have been made, they would re-notify a butters, repost the legal ad and essentially start over at square one again, which they hope to do in the next month or two. So, it's different than what we discussed last time. However, I think they're feeling like they want to proceed and they want to in fairness to the public recognize that they're willing to re-notify a butters and re-notify the public. Thanks, Zaryn. If there's any public comment, please raise your hand. I'll keep an eye on the room. I don't know who's first, Andre. So, what are the what are the alternatives here? I mean, what they're, I mean, I think the ones who are in a conundrum are them, just to say that. We've been, you know, we've basically kicked this can down the road for what, six months at least. I'm not willing to, I'm not, I don't want to keep on doing that. So, what I'm wondering is what is the reason why they wouldn't refile later? Because, I mean, they're going through the same steps, at least about a notification and so on. It's the application that they're not willing to start with. I don't think I, I think they need a fresh start, but that's so can I hear what it is that they're, what the reasoning for not restarting it? You mean not withdrawing the application? Not withdrawing or, you know, taking a closure of this application and then. It's, yeah, I mean, they would keep their same DEP number. So, it, you know, there's some challenges there for them. Erin, do you want to? Yeah, I mean, just from an administrative standpoint, refiling is a little more complicated. You know, they'd, they'd have to go through that reapplication process. And again, it's, it's at the commission's discretion here. This is, this is just what they're asking, but I think it's simpler for them to re-notify a butters and repost a legal ad and come back to us with a revision and try to sort of reopen things under their existing application. So I think that's what they're hoping to do. I think. I just remember a clear statement made by SWCA representatives regarding the timing and timeliness of the town and in the commission in addressing the issue at the beginning. I'm not, you know, I'm not, I just don't want to, I don't want to be getting into any kind of complications with that in the future. Thanks, Andre. Bruce? My preference is whichever alternative we take, that it enhance the opportunity that the vernal pool will be fully protected and engaged in the planning and that they address all of that stockpiling of materials that's right up against the edge of the project and the, on the, I guess it's the northeast side of the thing. And Alex knows what I'm talking about because he was on the side visit and if an alternative, whichever alternative addresses those two things in a significant way, that's my preference. Thanks Bruce. Dave? Yes, thanks Michelle. I was just going to add, you know, Erin referenced a recent meeting that she and I had with some of the senior leadership at UMass and I think they were very apologetic. They were, they were, you know, in general, this is not the way they wanted to do, to do permitting and do the work with the town. I think up until now we had mostly heard from their consultant and maybe some lower level project managers and we were talking to some of the senior leadership at the physical plant and above. So, you know, I'm hoping, I guess I'm advocating to give UMass the benefit of the doubt. I do think they're going to come back with a smaller footprint. I don't know all, we didn't hear all the details about vernal pools and some of the other issues that Bruce mentioned, but I felt, you know, assured by them that they are taking a new tact. There was some, there was also some absence of some of the project managers at higher levels during that period when they had 11 continuances and such. So, I was just advocating to give them the benefit of the doubt and let's see what they come back with very soon. I think we were promised some, some new plans very, very quickly from that meeting, which I believe was last week. So, that is my comment on, on this project. Thanks. Thanks, Dave. I'm not sure Bruce to your point that we'd necessarily lose control over, you know, the protection of the resources. We just stay, stay in the track. But if, you know, Erin, do you want to weigh in on that? No, 100% any application that comes to us is going to get reviewed for compliance with the regulations and we're going to make sure that they're held to meeting the standards of our regs and hopefully providing some mitigation to compensate for the impact of the footprint of the the parking area that they're proposing. But what I was going to suggest is maybe we say to UMass, if you don't submit materials within the next 30 to 60 days, we would like for you to withdraw and refile. Just trying to throw out an idea that gives them kind of a benchmark that if they don't, if they don't re-notify a butters with it and repost a legal ad within a certain period of time, if they don't provide revisions to us within a certain period of time, that after a certain period, the commission's not going to, you know, we're just going to ask them to withdraw the application. Sure. Alex? There's a parking lot adjacent to the one that they proposed, which is never full. It's a very large parking lot. It has very few cars in it. I'm not going to judge whether or not they need new parking, but there's a parking lot right there, which hardly, it has three snow removal vehicles in it right now. I just drove by there the other day. And my feeling is that this is the project that caused us to give considerable time and discussion to continuances. And we've asked for a number of things here, which I was anticipating they would come back. They obviously haven't. And they know what we want. So my inclination is to say no and let them decide whether it's worth their money and time to refile. They really need parking lot that badly, but do not spend any more time on it. It's already cost us a lot of time. Thanks. That's probably my two minutes, but it's not to say I don't care about the vernal pool. I'd love to see that buffer restored, but they know what we want. And if they want to come back, I'm sure that would be in the package. Okay. Yeah. How about, okay, Andrea, I see your hands up again. I'm going to, I'm thinking we might want to do a show of hands here who's weighing in on extending this or not, but go ahead, Andrea. Yeah. Right on the right on topic. After hearing David, Dave and Aaron's comments, I, I'm flexible on it. Okay. I'm flexible. I think for that 30 to 60 day suggestion, I'm, I'm weighing on 30, not 60. I think we've already given them enough 60 days. So that's where I am. So if, unless there's any other comments, commissioners, anyone feel very strongly against this? Okay. I, I would, if I was going to go with an extension, it would be 30 days. That's just two commission meetings. And I could vote for that in the interest of being neighborly. All right. So I think I'm moving forward with this continuation, but with a 30 day max. Oh, go ahead, Rachel. Yeah. Sorry. I'm still getting up to speed. Where are they in the process? Have they prepared surveys or engineering plans or an angelination? Or are they, where are they in that in the process? So I'll, yeah, Erin, this is a very long story, but yes, there's been many years of that. And there's been some pretty important revisions requested and updates requested on like actual locations of certain resource boundaries and things like that. So this was pending many, many months ago, us receiving some updated maps and confirmed locations of updated resource boundaries. Things have changed since they first did their resource delineation, which I think was before 2020. So there are some discrepancies about what we understood and what they were showing. And that really was the last time we've seen them. So that's what we're waiting for. Anything else from that, Erin, that I missed? I mean, if, if, yeah, it might be a longer conversation that we could get into later, if you want the whole story, frankly, I think we just need to move on to our next hearing at this point. So yeah, I was just wondering in the context of, of like the professional side of things of what it would take timeline to get a survey or to have a delineation prepared. So 30 days if they were starting from scratch would be kind of a quick turn. Yeah, they're not starting from scratch though. That's all you're saying that sounds adequate. Right. And we've also requested some just sort of proof of moving forward on the items that we've requested. So I still think 30 is adequate, Erin. Yes. Okay. Yeah. So I just want to clarify one thing if I could, which is, and this is kind of a recommended motion. So this is what I'm going to recommend that the commission do tonight. The commission is taking no action on this matter this evening and allowing 30 days for the applicant to resubmit materials and re-notify a butters or withdraw the application. Sounds good to me. Now I'm looking for a motion. Let me give this a try. I moved to continue the hearing. No, we're not continuing it though. No, okay. Erin just read the motion. Okay. You can make it. She didn't put it up in writing. I can't remember every word. So let me give it another try then. I moved to take no action under the notice of intent DEP file number 0890718 and continue or take no action until 30 days from now, which will be the 10th of April at which time the university must have or must have notified butters and made a put an ad in the paper and submitted all requested or required materials. It's May, not April. Thank you. Almost perfect, Andre. All right, we have a motion. Second. Alex on the second. Alex. Hi. Rachel. Hi. Andre. Hi. Bruce. Hi. And I'm an I. All right. Hearing number two. Abbreviated notice of resource delineation for prior sky development incorporated on behalf of WD Coles, incorporated, represented by Goddard Consulting for the confirmation of resource area boundaries on site limited to areas that fall within the 100 foot feet of the proposed solar installation at Shootsbury Road map 90 lots 11 and 12 and map 90 lots 27. Okay. So we have many public comment for tonight. So I'm going to ask that you start putting your hands up now. If you'd like to make a comment, we're going to go first Aaron for an update, then we'll go to public comment. And as a reminder, please keep it to two minutes. I will be keeping track and commissioners, please keep your comments to five and just we're going to try and limit the back and forth on this one. Okay, go for it Aaron. So I'm just Emily Stockman is here this evening. She has completed her peer review. I have some additional recommended conditions, but basically we're prepared to issue an ORAD this evening if the commission is willing to entertain that. So I'd like to just hand my time over to Emily so she can give sort of a brief synopsis of her peer review and where things stand right now. And then from there, we can take the next step. Hi Emily. I'm just going to interject for a second. So just for the public here tonight, what we're doing tonight is approving the resource delineation. So there's no site plans as of yet that will be a notice of intent, which would follow the resource that approval of the resource area delineation, which is what we're doing tonight. And we've had one resource delineation by the consultant for peer sky development on behalf of Coles. And then we had a peer review by Emily Stockton, and she is reporting back to us now her results. Thank you. Go for it Emily. Thank you for providing that summary, Michelle. Good evening everyone. As Aaron mentioned, my name is Emily Stockman. I'm a professional wetland scientist, the owner of Stockman Associates, and I was retained by the commission to perform a peer review of the previously referenced and rad. I know you have a full agenda tonight, but you ask for summary area, I'm going to be quick. And then I'll pause and make myself available for questions or any other comments that may come up. So I first began my work on this site back in December. I was able to perform a site visit first solo, and then a secondary site visit I was accompanied by the applicant's wetland delineator. Subsequent to those two site visits in January of this past year, I issued my first peer review comment letter. It reflected observations that I had made in the field, as well as revisions that I felt were necessary for the site plan. Subsequent to that, we received revised materials from applicants. I performed a second review of all of those revised materials. In February, I provided a comment letter to the commission, acknowledging which of my original peer review comments had been addressed and which still remained open and in need of attention. Subsequent to that peer review letter, we received additional revisions from the applicant. I had an opportunity to review those. I was able to confirm that all of my suggested revisions had been made, and I provided the commission with a draft finding of facts that I strongly recommend that they include with their ORAD. This is a complicated NRAD in several ways. There are a number of resource area boundaries that the applicant is seeking to have approved. Those include resources subject to state protection as well as local by-law. It's also an interesting NRAD in that the entire property is not being submitted. Rather, the applicant is only requesting that the commission review and approve boundaries within a specified portion of the properties. So I've done my utmost in those draft findings of fact to encapsulate language that clearly details what the commission is approving under this ORAD and what the commission is not approving under the ORAD. Thanks, Emily. Great. All right. I'm going to go to public comment. I see Luke Bajeri. I think I need you to allow him to talk, Karen. Yes. Good evening, Madam Chair. Can you hear me? We can. Welcome. Okay. Thank you very much. I appreciate your time this evening. Thank you, and good evening, Madam Chair, members of the commission. For the record, my name is Luke Leger. I'm an attorney with McGregor Leger and Stevens in Boston. I represent Jenny Callick and Robert Bazooka of 147 Shootsbury Road. Our clients are direct butters to the property west of the subject site. With me this evening somewhere out here in the peanut gallery is David Cameron, a senior professional wetland scientist with Fleetwood Environmental Solutions. David submitted a letter to the commission ahead of tonight's hearing. Just really quickly, I just want to explain to the commission sort of who our clients are besides being just a butters to the property. They do very much support responsibly planned and designed renewable energy products, but they project, excuse me, but they do have very real concerns regarding the proposed development of this particularly environmentally sensitive site. As the ANRED makes clear, there are a wide array of jurisdictional wetland resource areas across the property, and those contribute to almost all of the interests that are protected by the State Wetlands Protection Act and by Amherst's local wetlands protection bylaw as well. Mr. Cameron's letter outlines some of the environmental impacts typically associated with conversion of forested hillsides like those found on the site into large-scale solar arrays, like what ultimately will be proposed here. We understand that the ANRED is simply delineating the resource areas, but it's not submitted in a vacuum, and I think we all know what's coming next. Mr. Cameron, I should say, is hoping to speak for a couple minutes after me as well. But this ANRED is the first step in the permitting process. Any ORAD issued by the Conservation Commission is going to set the parameters for the future review of the project itself under a notice of intent. And as Ms. Stockman mentioned, this ANRED is somewhat unique in that it seeks confirmation of only some resource areas on the site, and not all, and there are certainly others. So we certainly applaud the Commission's decision to retain Stockman Associates as peer-review consultants. We very much support the proposed findings and conditions that were mentioned earlier, particularly those which clarify what wetland resource areas are being confirmed by ANRED and which are not. So without further ado, Madam Chair, if you wouldn't mind, I would like to ask that you acknowledge David Cameron and give him an opportunity to present briefly as well. Thank you. Sure. Thanks, Luke. I'm going to go in order of the hands raised. So next I have Alexandra. I'm going to allow you to talk. Two minutes, please. Okay. Hello. Can you hear me? Yep. Hi. My name is Alexandra Volunas. I'm a resident of 201 Shootsbury Road. I just recently learned about this from my parents. I've been traveling and having some health issues. I've gone on probably 100,000 hikes across the Coal's Land since I was born. I've lived there. And there are, there's many endangered species back there on the land that aren't in delineated wetland resource areas. They're on hillsides. Like there's a very beautiful orchid called the Small World Pongonia that can only grow in very, very limited conditions. And there's not, there's a whole lot of them. I could list off many, many things that are in those backwoods. Obviously, Western Maastricht is full of many beautiful, you know, forests. I guess my point is I just strongly object to this. My family also has a geothermal heating. This would affect flow for that water. It requires a certain level of water flow to the home for it to be effective. Like I'm sure other properties have similar issues in the area. There's an intermittent stream directly at the entrance between the two properties that directly about this development. I just, like I know that we need more solar, obviously, but this is not the, this is not a location that makes any sense to me at all. And I would strongly suggest that we find another location that perhaps doesn't have as many endangered species and wetlands just completely dotted around in this development. It's just, I don't know, it seems senseless to me personally. And I wish I knew more about it before coming into this. But I mean, I would love to find more information on why this location would have been selected by Kohl's. It simply doesn't make any sense to me. Thank you. Thanks, Alexandra. Next we have Corey from Pure Sky. I'm going to allow you to talk. Please keep it to two minutes. Well, I'll give you five, I guess. This is our project proponent. Yeah. Hi. Thank you so much, Madam Chairwoman and good evening to the board. My name is Corey McAnlis. I am the project manager representative of Pure Sky Energy, the applicant that has, you know, that is here this evening. Thank you so much for taking the time to entertain our application. And as Mrs. Stockman has already outlined, there's been quite a bit of back and forth between our consultant with Goddard. And we've been, you know, doing our best and supporting Goddard in making sure that, you know, everything has been peer reviewed, everything has been fact checked. And so we are very sorry about that. And so we are very confident in the and read that is in front of you this evening is, you know, set, you know, grounded in science. And it is what it is. I wanted to address a couple of points that the previous speakers brought up. And this is really just to, you know, educate the public at large, because these projects are complex, they involve, you know, a lot of consideration. If we if we could find sites, and we actively look for sites that are already cleared. So we don't have to cut down trees. It's, you know, it's not something that we enjoy either. The reality is that the constraints that we have to work within to site these projects are really limited to the existing infrastructure. So in your neck of the woods, you have Eversource and you have National Grid. These projects are interconnecting to National Grid's infrastructure. And unfortunately, those lines and those substations are incredibly expensive to move or to build out. So it's it's really, you know, we really are limited to the existing infrastructure. And that is, you know, what that means is those those lines and the substation that I mentioned, they are those are the only ones that we can interconnect to. So I'd be happy to speak on that more. But I don't want to take up too much time. The last point that I'll make is, you know, we, we have, we have actually gone out and, you know, surveyed the wetlands in the surrounding areas of the site. Larger than what you have in front of you. We, including the Adams Brook, that was asked to be removed from the application because that scope of review is what was reviewed, you know, reviewed by the peer reviewer. So we do have that information. We can provide it to the commission at large. But I think what that will come to is during the NOI process. I'm still acquainted myself with the process in Massachusetts on, you know, an anirad to an orad. But, you know, we did flag the stream and in order to establish that wetland buffer zone. So we could avoid, you know, we will avoid that area. So anyway, I can make my contact information available if any members from the public would like to, you know, contact me with these questions or concerns. And I believe we have Goddard from the consulting agency on the line. And I also believe that Mr. Tom Reedy will be joining us as well. So thank you very much for your time. I appreciate it. Thank you, Corey, for the information and your offer to speak to the public. Maybe if there's any members of the public that want to take you up on that, they can contact Erin through the town of Amherst to get your contact information. Okay, I'm going to move on to Fleet Wood Environmental Solutions. Welcome. Hi, can you hear me okay? We can. Great. Well, first thanks for entertaining my comments. And also just thank you for what you guys do. I know it's not easy. I'll do the best I can to keep this to two minutes and follow your signals. I think I can keep it to two minutes. I've got six specific comments here, which are an attempt to boil down the five page letter that I submitted to the commission on Monday. My clients are downhill butters. And this again is Jenny Callick and Robert Rizuka. They're down hill of butters to what we understand is going to be a solar project that prompted the filing of the scan read. As returning legit indicated, they are supporters of renewable energy projects, including solar as am I, as a matter of fact, some of my most important clients are solar developers. So I do understand this type of project as well. They do have however legitimate concerns regarding how clearing and developing the site may end up inadvertently and negatively affecting their property as well as the site's resource areas and downstream resource areas, some of which include cold water fishery resources, property habitats, a rare species, and estimated habitats, a real wildlife. Number three is my opinion is you hired a very solid peer reviewer in Stockman Associates. I've followed the correspondence between Stockman and the applicants consultant, Goddard consultant very closely over the past several months. I think Stockman's comments have been very insightful. And my impression is Goddard has made an earnest attempt to adequately address Stockman's comments. I can tell you from first hand experience, the amount of labor hours that these two firms must have put into this effort were substantial. And that's an understatement with a lot of time into this. I did find a few discrepancies and bio materials. I don't have time to go into them in detail, but I would request that you focus on my comments regarding establishing a formal quote unquote study area as a as a much neater and cleaner way of geographically and clearly indicating what this ANDRAD actually covers and what any subsequent ORRAD covers. Excuse me. And I would also ask that you look at my comments regarding Eastern Hemlock and how that plays into the definition and how it was represented on the delineation data forms. Fleetwood supports Stockman's suggested ORRAD findings. I think they were really well crafted and they're very important. Number six, and this is my last comment, I will plead with you to read the discussion section of my letter. I just don't have the time to go into what I wrote in there, but in short, it's about constructions and construction-based stormwater and getting that right. It outlines some of the inherent challenges these types of landforms present when it comes to stormwater management. And I made these comments not just for the commission's benefit, but also for the applicant's benefit and for the property order's benefit. If things go off the rails with stormwater during the construction phase, it's often very, very difficult and time-consuming sometimes years to get things back on track, and it will cause a lot of unnecessary environmental damage. It could cause damage to the abutting properties. I believe that's it. I apologize for not saying who I was in front. David Cameron, Fleetwood Environmental Solutions. I'm from 84 Russell Street in Hadley. Thank you very much. Thank you, David. Yes, and thank you for your comments on Emily's report. Commissioners, I hope everybody had a chance to review those, but we do appreciate that, and we'll talk about that now. Okay, I think everybody has had a chance who has their hand up. So commissioners, questions and comments. Bruce, go ahead. So in the findings of FAC attachment, there are several references to possible state jurisdiction in contrast to, it says local and possible state in contrast to local and state, meaning it's already assumed. Can Aaron or someone else describe what it means that it's possible and what's the potential that it becomes actualized? Emily, do you want to feel that one? Thank you, Bruce. I'm happy to discuss that terminology there. I believe that the four resource areas that, excuse me, the six resource areas that you're referring to are protected, isolated, vegetated wetlands under the local bylaw. The applicant had stated in, I think it was their first response letter, that they did not evaluate the isolated, vegetated wetlands to ascertain whether or not they would also meet the jurisdictional definition for isolated land subject to flooding under our state regulations. So they had clearly acknowledged that they did not go through that exercise and that they were not seeking approval for isolated land subject to flooding. And so that is why the jurisdiction is listed as possible state. It's undetermined and would be undetermined based on your ORED. I have lots of questions about that, commissioners. So in those cases, are we giving it the benefit of the doubt or the greatest protection or this remains uncertain until the NOI comes? Is it going to be resolved in the meantime? I guess what's the plan for that? How would we evaluate that when we have the NOI in front of us? Michelle, if I may respond, whether or not the applicant or landowner chooses to proceed with that assessment at the time of the notice of intent or in between stage, like Corey just was referring to in terms of the delineation of Abby Brooke, I can't speak to that. What I can say is that the findings in the order clearly state that there are additional resource areas within not only the property, but the area review that have not been submitted, reviewed, or approved. And one of the things that the commission needs to be cognizant of is that under the ANRAD process, the applicant is coming before you voluntarily seeking approval of boundaries. And those are boundaries that they have presented to you. So at this stage, to address the presence of additional boundaries that are not being requested for review, the findings I feel are the strongest way to ensure that when the project gets to NOI phase, if any work is proposed with an area that is not subject to this ORAD, the applicant will have the burden of proof to vet those additional resource areas, delineate them, and submit those boundaries for the commission's review and approval. Thanks, Emily. And just for comments to the commissioners, we are, again, just reviewing boundaries and not our buffers, because in some cases, these, like what Emily was saying, haven't been determined as to what they fall under. So that might come later down the line. And that's part of the finding a fact that these are just boundaries and not buffers, the buffers which are dependent on what type of wetland they might be. So that is not what we're not deciding on the buffers tonight that comes later down the line, the boundaries of the wetlands themselves. Bruce, go ahead. So we're clear. What you just referred to is part six and seven on page two of the findings of that. And then each one of those has, I don't know, six different descriptors of what's not being included. Okay. I'm asking you're just confirming or asking me information that this sheet that we've been reading is what we're talking about. Yes, the finding a fact. Okay. Erin, go ahead. Yeah. So just to further piggyback on what Emily was saying, like, for example, when a notice of intent comes in, there are, there's two jurisdictions that the commission oversees. There's the Wetland Protection Act and there's our local wetland bylaw. So the jurisdiction will be determined, you know, when, when the notice of intent is filed, whether it's jurisdictional under state or local law will need to be determined at that time. So to Emily's point, if there are resource areas that have not been defined or investigated to determine whether or not they actually fall under state jurisdiction, that documentation would need to be provided to the commission so we could make that determination if it did fall under state jurisdiction or not at that time. So just wanted to make sure that that's clear. So when we're issuing, we're issuing both under state and local. And so when we get to that point, that's, that's kind of another nuance of what those finding of fact tees apart is what, where we have definitive answers of what's jurisdictional and where there are still outstanding questions of what's jurisdictional under state. Thanks, Aaron. And just to be clear, so there were a number of revisions requested that David had suggested and the applicant has agreed to incorporate those. So in our motion, do we have an updated one? I'm just trying to confirm that the motion is dependent on those, okay, with noted additional comments. Is that what's referring to? Right. So yeah, I did read the comments that came from Minister Cameron. And so the first thing is that we did receive an updated application form already that has the checkboxes in the, I think it was saturated in inundated conditions where it was one of the checkboxes that was missed and also contains the landowners information. However, that was received late this afternoon. So I haven't had a chance to like go through it and verify that it's, you know, apples to apples exactly what was submitted to us before just with the new information on it. So I haven't yet shared that with the commission, but we did receive it. So these two outstanding again, I have them listed here as additional possible conditions for consideration of approval. And one of these is a comment that I had, which is that on the plan set, the final plan set only contains the original plan date, which was February 12th. It doesn't contain any of the subsequent plan revision dates or the final revision date. And so my recommended condition here is that the commission require a revision to be submitted as part of the ORAD approval, which would, the final plan stamp plans that would include the original plan date, the subsequent revisions and the final revision date so that it was clear on the ORAD that all those dates were accurate based on the revisions that were made to the plans from the original submission. And then the second condition that's listed here is that the, is the condition basically verbatim that Mr. Cameron suggested, which is that the plan include a simple continuous bold boundary labeled ANRAD study area to specifically and graphically make clear what portions of the property are subject to the ANRAD. So that's also a recommended condition here. I did speak with Goddard consulting about this earlier today, letting them know these, this additional submission would need to be submitted to us before we can issue the ORAD. And I let them know that if they were in favor of us approving it with these conditions, that they would need to grant the commission a, if it's not get, if the materials, the updated materials are not received by us within 21 days, so we can issue the ORAD that they would need to grant us an extension to that 21 day issuance requirement so that we can close the public hearing tonight. So I wanted to ask the applicants if they're willing to confirm on the record that if the materials come to us after 21 days that they grant us an extension so that we can issue the ORAD after that period. Yep. Thanks, Erin. Cori, I see your handups. Do you want to respond to that real quick? Yes. Isn't it a granting of our 21 day extension? Yep. Yep, we can do that. Erin, did that most recent edition that we sent over to you, I thought that did include the ANRAD study area labels? Yeah. So it included the exclusion areas, but not a polygon around the ANRAD study area, which I think is what was referenced in the comment letter that the commission received. So I was again trying to sort of keep us on track to approve tonight, but also sort of incorporate some of the public comment so that it was clear we're taking that into consideration. But yeah, that was the issue. It was just a bold border around the ANRAD study area on the plan set. Yeah. Yeah, we can definitely make those updates and get those over to you well within 21 days. Great. Thank you. All right, commissioners, any further comments? Rachel, go ahead. I had a question. I wanted to clarify that within the ANRAD study area to make sure there were additional resource areas that are being excluded. Maybe I'll let Emily take that one. Thank you, Michelle. Rachel, I think I understand your question. So the plans that they stand now, rather than demarcating the boundary of the area subject to the ANRAD, Goddard took a different approach and designated what areas were not subject to it. With this revision, a final site plan will both clearly identify what areas are not subject to the ANRAD and ORRAD and what areas are. So a little redundancy there, but never a bad thing when we're talking about final site plans and wanting to make sure important information is well depicted and articulated. As far as whether or not there are additional protected resource areas within the study area, yes, there are. We talked a little bit about isolated land subject to flooding. The applicant chose not to run that analysis to demonstrate protection. Another example I can think of is vernal pool. The applicant has acknowledged that there are vernal pool depressions within the area. They opted to not delineate those boundaries and the subsequent vernal pool habitat envelope under the bylaw. So the findings of fact identify those resources as well as others within the study area that have not been determined. Okay. And then if I could, Michelle and Erin, just because I do have to chime in, I understand the commission's desire to move forward with this. There's been a lot of time and effort put into it. I'm sure the applicant is also looking forward to an ORRAD. I cannot keep silent on the concept of closing a hearing prior to having final plans for review. So I would say another option is that all parties based on this evening's discussion are aware of the additional revision the commission is looking for. The applicant could agree to a continuance knowing that those revisions would be at the next meeting. It would then be, I don't want to jinx anything, but a fairly quick agenda item with all the ducts in a row while the public hearing process is still open and you could have your formal vote at your next meeting to close the hearing and issue the ORRAD. Okay. And so you're just, you mean to incorporate the study area and all the said suggested changes? Exactly. Yeah. Okay. Well, you heard the alternative commissioners. Alex, go ahead. I like the alternative that Emily just suggested, but I, and I just say that, but I want to ask Erin and maybe Emily, is the ORRAD incomplete if we have resources that are not in there because the applicant decided not to put them in there, such as vernal pools, such as land subject to flooding. Is it a complete document? Or does it have holes in it? And if it has holes in it, what would be the next steps? Well, the vernal pools are on the plans, but they haven't been confirmed. But under state law, we can consider them to be vernal pools with the impression that they are potential vernal pools. So as far as isolated land subject to flooding, that one I'm less clear about. Go ahead, Erin. So, Alex, we can only confirm what the applicant is asking us to confirm. We can't say to them, you have to confirm all these other boundaries as well. They come to us and they say, this is the area where we want confirmation. These are the resources we want confirmed. We say, okay, we'll confirm the resources that you've asked for in the study area that you've asked for. But we can't confirm anything outside of that study area. We can't confirm anything that you have not asked for confirmation of. So that is where sort of our hands are tied in terms of what action we can take. Any other comments, commissioners? Bruce? Well, then down the line, how do we protect something that hasn't been delineated or confirmed if it's like these vernal pools? How do we protect them in the other steps of the process? The vernal pools will get their 100-foot buffer because they've already been identified as vernal pools. And some of that was sort of no encleture on the map. But Emily, go ahead. It looks like you're not responding. That's an excellent question. So when this property moves from an ORAD phase to a notice of intent phase, the commission's authority to require more information expands. Instead of it being an ANRAD really defined by the applicant and limiting what you're reviewing, under the NOI process, you are going to be provided with a project area. And you will absolutely have the authority to require the identification and delineation of resource area boundaries not set by this ORAD. Okay. That's what I wanted to know. Thanks, Emily. You're welcome. Okay. Any further comments? I see Corey's hand up. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. My apologies for that. I realize you need to click lower hand after you've raised it. So I guess I just have one question is, Mrs. Stockman, are you suggesting that we continue the hearing tonight with the plan for the next CON-CON meeting to not be a public hearing or that it would, I guess I'm confused around it. I mean, it sounded like the conditions that Ms. Jake outlined were simply administrative changes to the plans that we have submitted. And we, you know, we do have this project going through our ZBA process and we would really appreciate a meaningful update to send to staff and to the board there. So I guess if you could kindly walk me through the order of operations and what you're suggesting to the commission. Okay. Hold on a second. I think that the commission has, you know, something in front of us that was suggested by Erin. Emily has suggested an alternative, which is to continue it with all said revisions are until we have all said revisions, what the motion is on our PowerPoint tonight is to issue this with our 21 days to get us those revisions. And if they don't do that, then we get an extension until they have submitted it. I personally am comfortable with that. I have faith in this applicant that they will give this to us. I see Emily's point that there's uncertainty that we don't have a plan in front of us, but I think the communication has been good on both ends. And I think everything is understood about what we want. So commissioners, if you have any further concerns about that, if anybody wants to give one last comment on, yep, I see Alex, whether or not they're ready to move ahead. Yeah, maybe just a few seconds, Alex, give us your stance. I would like to have a complete document in front of us to approve. And so far we do not given the suggestions that that Erin has had, and if it wouldn't take but one more meeting to have a complete document in front of us, I favor that. Okay, I mean, we do this all the time, just to be clear, we issue this with some pending revisions. And the project applicant has agreed to put all these in as far as I understand, and they're not big asks, they're a polygon around the resource, and some other inclusions that everyone had a chance to review. Bruce, go ahead. Erin, can you go back to slide four? Slide four. Number that one. I just want to reiterate again, the thing in yellow, because it seems like, not this applicant necessarily, but over and over again, Erin tells us that she has received something in the afternoon of this meeting, a Wednesday night meeting. And we are trying really hard to get the materials with adequate time so that everyone has the things to look at, and they're all complete. And here's an example of where it isn't complete. Thank you. Andre. Thanks for your patience. I don't really have a problem with going ahead and approving it right now. Thanks, Andre. I'm going to do a show of hands then. Who's ready to move on this tonight? All right, we're kind of short here tonight, so that's a 50-50, and I don't think we can pass it. So in that case, it looks like we're going to have to continue this until we have a full plan in front of us. And with that, I'm looking for, okay, Corey, we're going to get you some clear guidance on this, but I think you know what you need. So if you could just take one minute to respond, and then we're going to make a motion to continue. Okay, thank you. Just one last thing is, I understand that there was, there's a missing commissioner to the meeting tonight, Mr. Jason, and then Mr. Alex had missed a previous meeting, so I'm just trying to be mindful of the Mullen's rule for the next hearing if, in terms of how many folks you'll need in order to vote. Yeah, we have two missing voting members tonight, so I think, you know, that's kind of unusual for us, but is anyone here planning on not, just not being here for our next meeting as far as you know? Okay, Andre. I'm sorry, but I don't really think that that's an appropriate question for, I mean, from Corey. Okay, fair enough. Corey, sorry, we're just going to, we don't have the votes to move tonight anyway, so we're just going to have to continue on. Alex, do you have one last thing? Yeah, for the record, I notified Erin and Michelle that I did watch the previous hearing that I missed, and I watched it in full, so I met the rule. Okay. All right, commissioners, I am then looking for a motion to continue Shootsbury Road. Okay, I move to issue a continuation of the public hearing for Shootsbury Road, ORAD, to 424-24 at 7.50 p.m. Second. Andre, in a motion. Alex on the second. Andre. Hi. Bruce. Hi. Alex. Hi. Nama and I. Okay. Thank you, Corey. We will see you in two weeks or a second. Go ahead, Bruce. For the record, is Rachel abstaining or unable to vote? How do we describe them? She's unable to vote. And thank you so much, Emily, too, for coming tonight. Really appreciate your time. Yeah, thanks, Emily. I learned something tonight. Appreciate it. You're welcome. And for your thorough review of this project, we appreciate that. You're welcome. Thank you, everyone, for your time and your efforts. Okay. Moving on to notice of intent for Karen Environmental Consulting LLC on behalf of LLS E4NACS LLC and WD Coles Incorporated for the construction of a battery storage system associated with access for improvement stormwater management within the buffer zone to bordering vegetated wetlands on Montague Road Route 63, map 2A, watch 18. I saw Eric Anderson. Anyone here for this? Please raise your hand so we can pull you in. What was your question, Michelle? I just asked anyone representing this project to raise their hand so I could pull them in. And I just brought in Eric. Oh, come, Eric. Okay. Erin, would you like to give us the update on this one? Yes. So we have received a proposal from Lodestar for an invasive species management plan, which has been, it's in your OneDrive folders for your review. I believe it was received after the Wednesday date, so you may not have had a chance to review it thoroughly. So just to note that I think what Eric is here primarily for this evening is to get some clarification on staking the site to meet the commission's sort of requirements so that when they do a site visit this next time around that their needs are met. But I think, and just to sort of summarize, I know Alex had sent a request to me via email, which was forwarded to Lodestar requiring or requesting some pretty substantial staking requirements of the site. And I'll let Eric speak to this, but it was substantially expensive and a little more in depth than what we typically require for an application. So he wants to kind of get a read from the commission of what other commissioners feel would be adequate to be able to conduct a site visit and understand what's going on on the site prior to the site visit being scheduled, which is pending and hopefully will happen prior to the next meeting. So that's my update. Thanks, Erin. If there's any public comment, please raise your hand and we'll keep an eye on the room. Commissioners are actually Eric. Yeah, I just want to say that thank you for the updated mitigation plan. I did not have a chance to look at it yet. So we're going to have to continue just to give us time and to get out on the site. So I think what we're here to talk about like Erin said is the staking, which will help us with the site visit. So yeah, do you want to talk or do you want to let us give you some questions first? I know this is going to be a bit of a discussion. Yeah, I'll just like quickly say my piece and then I guess fill in the gaps while you're having a conversation. Totally understand that I didn't meet the deadline for the invasive species management proposal. We've been working with a focal firm, Oxbow Associates to get that. And as soon as I got it, I sent it over to Erin. Unfortunately, it was after that Wednesday deadline. But just to quickly state that we've heard your concerns about what our proposed mitigation was. We're extending the term of mitigation for the term of the project. And we are looking to increase the scope of the work being completed to everything west of Eastman Brook, which is on the property. So it's about six acres of invasive species management. Our proposed project is 9,000 square feet in the wetland buffer zone. About 6.15 acres is being proposed, which is about 267,000 square feet on the property being managed. So just wanted to highlight that and we can have a more in-depth conversation once everyone's had the opportunity to review it. But getting to the site staking, I received an email from Erin, I guess forwarding along some information that Alex had been asking for in regards to what we were currently showing on the site plan and out of the site. All of the information that Alex is asking for, I believe, is in the site plan. So just to speak specifically to you, Alex, what I can do is all of the things you're asking for us to include in the site plan, I can address them, say like in a document pointing out each resource where it is in the site plan. If that would help orient you, I'm happy to do it. The second, I know there's a lot in like a small area and it can be hard to read with so many colored lines. So we can do that. The second part of this is what we're going to be staking out in the field. Alex has asked that we stake certain things like 100 foot buffer area, but also 50 foot buffer area, 30 foot buffer area without any real limit as to where those stakes would end. Presumably those stakes wouldn't go off the property or to the property line, given how large this particular property is. Also some of this, as Erin said, is pretty expensive to do. So I was just looking for some guidance from the commission tonight. That way we can line up the work that needs to be done. And again, we're happy to provide whatever the commission needs, but obviously just seeking some clarity before we go and kick off that work. Thanks, Eric. Alex, go ahead. Yeah, just for clarity, you happened to mention the 100 foot buffer and the other lines. I did sit down with your plan. My concern is that we're going to have a site visit where many people will be there that have never been on that site before. It is complicated. You've got Eversource, you've got your project, and what happens in a site visit is somebody like you stands there and says, well, this is over here and this is over there and you've got a few stakes around. For example, your access road coming down Eversource, there's, I think, maybe five at most stakes on where that road is. And for somebody standing there who's new, it's really difficult to figure out where the project is on the ground. So carrying a plan in your hand without identifying where something is on the ground doesn't do it. And our chair hasn't been on site, other people haven't on site, and we're going to be asked to make a decision. So you've already staked out where these things are in order to make your plan. And while I appreciate Aaron telling me that it's too expensive, that doesn't fly with me. And I want the commission, when it shows up, because I think this project has gotten so much air, that probably a lot of commissioners will show up. And I think our chair intends to show up. So I would like, I even asked for the stakes to be painted on top, rather than flagged. I've seen that done. And I just want the, everything from where a fire truck would have to go, to the access road to your site, coming off Eversource, where your poles are going to be, where the trench is going to be. You happen to mention the 100-foot buffer and the blah, blah, blah. I'm more interested, I am interested in where the buffer is, but the whole project's inside the 100-foot buffer. And I'm more interested in where the project is going to be on the ground, so somebody showing up who's never been there before can very quickly get a feel for what we're talking about. And there are more, people use more than one sense to learn. And when somebody's standing there talking, we're only using our ears. I'd like to engage the eyes, two senses, by staking things out in a way that's pretty clear. So the amount of, and you said that it would be expensive and Aaron said it would be expensive, compared to what? I think what you're asking us to do is understand your project. And I spent probably an hour and a half putting that list together, studying your plan. I think I probably spent more time than most commissioners looking at that plan. And I find it difficult to figure out where, I even went with your plan down to the site to try and figure out where things work. And then I came home and wrote that note to Aaron. So it was with the best interest of the commission that I asked for that, for the site visit to be as informative as it possibly can be. And the only way I could think about doing it is staking things. Thanks, Alex. I see that you want to respond to that, Eric. Can I just offer maybe an alternative? And with, do you have GIS data for this that we could look at a tablet and be on site and see where we are and be in a hundred foot zone? I mean, that is how I would do it in the field is to be on like arc or something and, you know, be able to track my movement through and that seems like a really, really cheap and easy visual alternative to what Alex is suggesting. Is that a possibility? It's definitely a possibility. I can look into it. I know when I'm walking sites, I use an app called Landglide on my phone that overlays things like property boundaries, resource areas to show where you are in proximity. So I can definitely look into something like ArcGIS and, you know, trying to use that when we're all out there. And just to respond to Alex, I think that we can do a better job staking things out. I think your comments make a lot of sense. And I didn't mean anything bad by saying it was expensive. I'm more saying that it's a good-sized undertaking and I want to make sure that we get it correct the first time, especially given, you know, the timing of a site visit and everything like that. I want to make sure that I get 100% correct the full scope of work that you're requesting. That it makes sense to me and that if we schedule a site visit before the, you know, the commission's next meeting, that it's meeting your expectations and the rest of the commissions. Okay, Alex, is there like a critical core requirement that you would have for the staking that might be more, you know, he might be able to address in a more timely manner or that would still allow us to orient ourselves on the ground, but maybe not the complexity that you wrote up. Michelle, have you read my note? I did not. I have a sick child at home and I did not. Let me read my note before you ask me that question. Okay, well, I appreciate the need to be able to see things on the ground, but it sounds like we need to find some compromise here to make it all happen for a site visit coming up soon. So I find it difficult that you are asking me to compromise what I wrote when you haven't read it. Okay, well, you're hearing some feedback from staff and Eric, so maybe some other commissioners could weigh in on Alex's comment and especially if you've been to the site. I saw Bruce's hand up but it's down, so I'll go to Andre. Yeah, just Alex, do you have any thoughts on the tablet idea with that? I don't own one. Erin has one and she has work on it, so that's something that we could do in the field with Erin, just to mention. I'm surprised that you have one here. Would that help you or would that? If I could speak to Andres. I think the buffers are pretty probably, I mean those stakes don't need to be five feet apart. I'm not as concerned about how many stakes are in the ground for the buffers. I'm more interested in the project elements and where they are on the ground. There's connection poles that are difficult to understand. There's going to be construction areas that Jason asked about the ditching, for example, the last time we talked about this. That's not hard to stake a ditch and you're going to have a road for the fire truck and I don't know whether ever source will allow you to use their right-of-way. They must use some of their right-of-way to get a fire truck in there, but you told us that they will not allow a hammerhead on their right-of-way, so you're going to put it someplace else. Where's it going to be? So you are putting emphasis on the wetland buffers. I'm more interested in having the elements of the project staked out clearly. For example, you've got stakes where the battery is going to be and then on your plan it says disturbed area and when I went to the site I couldn't tell one from the other. So the emphasis to me, and I put a lot of care into making that list, you know the amount of ink that it takes to write 100-foot buffers is the same as it does to name something else. But I don't need stakes 10 feet apart for the 100-foot buffer. It's a long ways, you're inside it. So my emphasis would be on the project elements when so make it really easy for people to figure out where it is. Like if you had cutouts that you could lay on the ground. You know something like that's ridiculous I know. All I could think of is stakes. If you've got an easier way, you want to use spray paint? I don't really care. My objective is for people to show up in a short amount of time, identify where the project is, and try and hold the group together because what happens on site visits is they're often splinters and we get side conversations going on and not everybody can hear what everybody's saying. So I was just trying to figure out how to make this site visit most efficient and that's to plainly show where the project elements are. Okay thanks Alex. I'm gonna Bruce go ahead. As the only other commissioner who I think was in this meeting who's been out there on a site visit, I concur with Alex that it's confusing and since it's all already inside the 100-foot buffer that I would like to support his effort to get more as much clarity as possible by some mechanism that works for people. Okay well I'm still a fan of doing this digitally. I think it might be easier to visualize on a tablet and seeing our geographic location. So you know I think you're hearing from the commissioners that this is a confusing plan set to refer to when you're on the site and that in order to evaluate what's going on we're gonna need more clarity and we're offering you two ways to do it. Go ahead Eric. Yeah so I don't see why we can't pursue both. It's my intention too to make what we're proposing clear. So I'll connect with Erin and see you know what we can do on a tablet. At the same time we'll you know get the people lined up to stake the site in the way that Alex and Bruce are wanting to see and I imagine the rest of the commission would want to see. Just to confirm I understand the majority of the project is in the buffer however about 18 percent of it is outside of it. So just wanted to set the record straight and then the other part of it is a lot of these elements are staked out. The issue is that it's you know your standard staking where surveyors writing on the side of a stake what you know it's trying to mark up and you know when you're set back from all of this it just looks like a bunch of stakes that are out there you can't really clearly see. So I think you know painting the tops of those stakes trying to get creative with like what maybe using like flags of different colors to show things we'll get creative and we'll do our best and we'll also make it fair and reasonable at the same time like Alex was saying we don't need every you know five feet staked. So we'll get the job done and hopefully make everyone happy. Thank you Eric. Appreciate that. Bruce go ahead and done. Okay. All right I'm not seeing any public comments but it sounds like we have an understanding here and thank you for being accommodating. I do look forward to getting out on that site and knowing what I'm looking at one way or another. So with that I'm looking for a motion to continue. Chris you're muted in case you're making a motion. No. Do you need the public hearing for the Montague road battery storage project DEP 0890731 to again April 24th at 7 35 p.m. Second. Bruce on the motion. Andre on the second. Alex. Hi. Bruce. Hi. Andre. Hi. And I'm an I. Thanks Eric. We'll be a Dutch. Have a good one. Thanks. Okay. I'm opening this one right here. Okay. This hearing is being held as required by the provisions of chapter 131 section 40 of the general laws of the Commonwealth and act relative to the protection of the wetlands as most recently amended in article 3.31 wetlands protection under the town of Amherst general bylaws. This is an abbreviated notice of resource area delineation for SWCA environmental consultants on behalf of Amherst college for the confirmation of resource area boundaries of bordering vegetated wetlands and bank for a portion of zero and 151 college streets map 14 B and 14 D lots 165 and one encompassing approximately 4.1 acres. Okay. If there's any public comment please raise your hand and I'm going to keep an eye on it. Do we have a project proponent here tonight's name? Darren Gray. Your hands up Michelle. Darren is the engineer from Amherst college and Meredith is the wetlands consultant. Could I just give a yeah intro before they jump in which is we had a site visit on the 2nd of April. Bruce and Rachel joined which was great. My screen just went haywire. Sorry about that. Based on the site visit there were several flag adjustments that were made and there was a plan set which was updated and provided to me yesterday so that is only just updated in your packet and so obviously not submitted by the required deadline so I don't expect that we're going to be taking any action tonight but the applicant did want an opportunity to present a couple just quick notes and I think this would be things for the that might help expedite at the next hearing which are just as the request on the previous anorad a polygon that clearly delineates the limits of the study area would be recommended to add to the plan figure. In advance of the next meeting so that we don't have to deal with another go round of revisions after the next meeting. The other thing just for the commission's knowledge is that the bordering vegetated wetland north of the faringbrook was not delineated as part of part of this ORAD so that will need to be included in the findings of fact that are associated with the ORAD. Those are my only comments at this point so just I'll give a quick hello and then turn over to Meredith for presenting but I'm Darren Gray, capital project manager for Amherst College and also a professional civil engineer. First of all thank you the conservation commission and Erin and commissioners Alex and Rachel for joining us on the site walk it was nice to meet you all. Of course our purpose today it's like the other again about is to review our wetlands delineation. It's very thorough walkthrough and there are only minor adjustments in the field and just complete clarity here you know Amherst College are requesting this wetlands limits review and approval to inform our ongoing design efforts for a ground sourced geothermal system to decarbonize our campus. We plan to come forward later this year with a detailed notice of intent so once we are able to lock in these wetlands limits via the approval we can then kind of finalize our our permitting drawings and come before the board and when we do that you'll see that the entire project has been will be with previously disturbed limits but again just want to complete our clarity here on what's going on on the site but yeah I look forward to doing that more detailed review with review with you all in the NOI process but I will just turn it over to Meredith thank you. Thanks Sharon. Meredith. Hi good evening everyone Meredith Bornstein SWCA professional wetland scientist. Would it be possible to share my screen or okay great I will show you the first plan we submitted where's share and then the updated plan actually everyone see this is my toggle back and forth can you see a plan we can see it yeah you can see that one okay yeah this was the original plan as you can see the site is south of College Street and the it's the Amherst College existing energy facility production area and most of it's developed but there are some forested wetlands along the edges of the property and so we flagged the bank of it's actually Fearing Brook that comes out of a culvert and it's mostly underground until it comes out of this culvert and so we flagged that bank yeah Erin was saying there's a there's a wetland over here somewhere on I think it's probably on these other folks property we didn't flag and because it didn't have the buffer zone would it be cast on our potential work area so we're not asking for confirmation of any wetlands over on this side of the property and then so yeah it's just a forested wetland this is wetland one and it's not connected to this other border vegetated wetland wetland two just so you know we just flagged the limits of the wetland relative to the parking lot so the wetland does extend into the forest to the south here but we're not asking for confirmation of those wetland flags and then if I can just show you so we did the site visit and that was really helpful and I made I was able to pick up the points in the field and make those adjustments so we adjusted two flags on wetland one just connecting abandoning flags 118 119 120 and 21 and connecting 117 to 118 R which R stands for relocated you can see 132 R is relocated here and it was really great Erin and I went back and forth and figured this stuff out so that was really helpful and then this other wetland got a little bit bigger and we extended it north a little bit and just to encompass some there is some soft soil and kind of standing water over here but it was not like that in the summer so it's kind of disturbed over here for whatever reason so it was a little different than it looked like in the summer but anyways that's our updated plan I can go into more detail on the wetlands but probably not necessary I guess I just I understand you may need to continue tonight but I was just wondering if you could say again what I would need to do to the to the plan to get it more up to stuff. Yeah one of them is the polygon delineating the limits of the study area um let's see so they're on our they're on our slide here um bbw north of Faringbrook was not delineated and we'll need to have this on the findings effect um yeah so that doesn't require a plan update um that's just for the commissions um you know when the commission issues they'll just note that in in the ORAD but the the polygon delineating the study area I think is really important just to make sure that we're clear what areas were delineated and which ones weren't yeah is that it Erin just the polygon okay yes okay commissioners any questions nope okay Alex go ahead yeah sorry it took me a while to find my hand I just uh Rachel and I were on this site visited and I just want to say it was a real pleasure to uh spend some time with Meredith and Darren and um and Erin they they did a great job some flags were updated um and I the thing that was the most interesting to me was the project that they have in mind although it's not the subject in front of us but Amherst college is going to be putting a bunch of thermal uh geothermal wells under the parking lot which is why they're doing this they can use this for any other project but Amherst is moving in the direction of trying to decarbonize and the work will be done in the parking lot and rebaved we won't even see it when it's done it's not your main for what's in front of us but I thought it was very interesting what they're going to do and it was a pleasure to spend time with them thanks Alex um anyone if no one else has a comment just looking for a continuation we'll move to continue the public hearing for zero and 151 Amherst college uh 151 uh college street uh for Amherst college DEP numbers 0890734 to uh 424 of this year at 7 40 p.m thanks Andre um okay we already discussed what we'll need for an update but presumably we'll have those before um the Wednesday prior to that meeting okay we're on a random motion second Alex on the second Alex hi Bruce hi Andre hi Rachel I may have to abstain because Berkshire design provided the survey which was the basis for the project okay I'm an eye all right thank you Meredith thank you Darren thanks it was just to confirm to the plans required by next Wednesday is that right the the 17th that's correct okay yep great thank you appreciate your time everyone thanks okay I'm opening this one yes Erin yes um maybe I have a idea that you can bring in anybody if you're here for this next hearing which is right builders on behalf of Lisa Fang please raise your hands we can bring you in okay this public hearing is now called to order this hearing is being held as required by the provisions of chapter 131 section 40 of the general bylaws of the commonwealth and act relative to the protection of the wetlands as most recently amended an article 3.31 wetlands protection under the town of Amherst general bylaws and this is a request for determination of applicability for right builders incorporated on behalf of Lisa Fang for the abandonment of an existing septic system an installation of a private sewer ejector pump and gravity sewer line within the buffer zone for 605 station road met 24 b lot 33 to an existing sanitary manhole located within station road so is it okay if I jump in yes I can't see our participants but I assume you manage that while I was talking okay yes yep so Nick is here from right builders I'll just give a quick couple comments on this and I can share photos and a plan while while Nick presents but my comments are basically that this is about as simple of a project as the conservation commission is going to see abandoning a septic system and then installing a sewer line coming from the house to connect to the road I don't have any concerns about the erosion control location my recommendation tonight would be for the commission to close the hearing and issue the determination of applicability I have some draft conditions in the project folder and myself and Rachel were out on the site visit so I'll share a couple site visit photos and that's all I have for comments thanks Aaron Nick you want to take five sure hello everybody thanks for having us I got Todd Bindler from right builders as well but I can just explain it what we're trying to do we have added a bedroom to 605 station road for Louisa Fang's mom to live down there and her and her husband and two children to live upstairs just kind of an aging in place so the family can be together the existing septic system was very old and it didn't meet the requirements for that many bedrooms so we had gotten a map from Jason from the DPW showing where the town had stubbed all those properties the sewer tie-ins onto private property so yeah this location right off the corner of the driveway kind of where that first white flag is that's kind of the area that we were where the sewer tie-in is located so our plan was to kind of tie into where the septic system was coming out the back of the house kind of run our trench around kind of parallel to the stone walkway and install a booster pump to get it up to the road and then tie into the town sewer we have paid for that tie-in fee but obviously since this project got flagged we wanted to put together a site plan flag the whole site and kind of get Aaron and Aaron out there to kind of see what was going on so that's pretty much the the situation we wouldn't even actually have to go into station road because the the stub is actually off the road in the grass or I guess the leaves there but so yeah that's kind of our project on hand and thank you for hearing us out Thanks Nick. Any commissioner comments, questions? Okay I don't see any public comments so seeing nothing else I'm looking for emotion no I'm looking for a motion to close the hearing and issue a positive determination of applicability under wetlands protection town of Amherst general by-laws article 3.31 in regulations checking box 5 and a negative determination of applicability under the wetlands protection act checking box 3 with the conditions as drafted really no takers so was that a second Alex? Yeah did you actually read the motion? I just did yeah that was a gift on the PowerPoint okay a second okay Bruce on the motion Alex on the second Rachel I have to abstain on this one too um Jeff right in our office Jeff's lawyer in our office prepared the engineering plans for this application okay um Bruce? Hi Andre? Hi Alex? Hi Nama and I all right thanks for joining Nick have a good night thank you guys you too thanks Nick see you bye okay next up notice of intent for Berkshire design group on behalf of Emily Dickinson museum for the construction of a historic carriage house and associated site work in the buffer zone deporting vegetated wetlands at 214 main street map 14 b lot 26 do we have anyone here tonight? Yes all right Aaron do you want to give us an update and I'll bring Chris Chamberlain in? Yes um so the the when the application was originally submitted only one of the parcels had a butter notifications so the applicant has since notified a butters for the adjacent parcel where work is also taking place the applicant also submitted some responses to staff comments and a plan revision as well the plan revisions were submitted on Friday so just to make sure that the commission was aware if you didn't see them in your packets that's why and I think we should just give the applicant an opportunity to explain the project and then if you guys need more time to review the plans then that's kind of where things things rest. Thanks Eric sorry Aaron welcome Chris do you want to take five and give us the intro to the project? Sure and let me pull the plans up here so this is actually that's not the best window let's start with where we are on the property probably more helpful so of course we're at the Emily Dickinson Museum which you're familiar with the property located on main street and we are focused on the evergreens portion of the property with the main house located over here and they're actually separate parcels so this is the main parcel where the work is happening and then the additional land which is both pieces of land are owned by the trustees of Amherst College the evergreens parcel where most of the work is happening is part of the museum and this property up here is part of Amherst College proper we'll get into the details of what's going on on each one in just a moment and I'll swap back to that plan here real quick and so the site the purpose of the project is essentially to reconstruct a historic carriage house that was associated with the evergreens building which is I highlighted on the previous map is located in this portion of the property here with main street down below you can see remnants of the old carriage house with some of these stones that were picked up on the survey those are not literally the footprint of the old carriage house we don't believe but they are relatively close to the location which is also corroborated by some maps from the early 20th century the carriage house was originally associated with the evergreens which was the home of Emily Dickinson's brother and was associated with a driveway that sort of came up from main street located in this area here and the project is going to create what will ultimately function as a welcome center for the museum but will be constructed with the appearance of the original carriage house that stood here and was torn down in about the 1950s going through this project we identified resource areas that are actually not on the museum property but are on the college property which you see delineated in this location here as far as we can tell this was dug at some point in the past as a drainage ditch presumably to protect this land here from runoff coming down the hill if you go out there you actually see the depression of this ditch here and then mounted earth which presumably was scooped out of the ditch to create a little bit of a berm in this area so originally created as artificial drainage but now taking on the characteristics of a wetland is jurisdictional and so that's been delineated and added on to our survey the wetland corridor has become sort of more significantly wooded with brush and frankly quite a few invasive species located in here but nearly the entire buffer area which is identified by the 100 foot buffer line here virtually all of this buffer has been either cleared or historically maintained as lawn the lawn areas as I'm sure you're familiar with are in the southern portion of the property and this area here has several significant trees in it but is pretty much clear of any kind of undergrowth in this area and the property's been that way for quite some time and so looking at the proposed plan the proposal is to construct this new building essentially on top of the historic location of the old carriage house it's slightly larger than the original building the original building we think was about 30 feet by 24 this building is 34 by 24 and of course designed to meet modern building codes and accessibility but otherwise to replicate the appearance of the original carriage house that was on the site aside from that the major site feature is an extension of the driveway if we look at the existing property current the original driveway which extended up to the carriage house has been truncated and now terminates sort of in the middle of the site and the way this works is the driveway sort of comes up continues to come up the steep portion of the site and then it flattens out in this area but just sort of ends with lawn there's also an existing gravel path that connects the two main buildings on the site Emily's home as well as the Evergreens in this location here and so that driveway is proposed to extend right up to the front of the carriage house as the records suggest that it did originally and really the the primary difference between the historic condition and today is that it's a little bit wider because we need to create an accessible parking space in this location this building is too distant from the existing ADA spaces located near the Emily Dickinson house so we need to create a drop-off parking area closer to this building which we've carved out in this location here and then a small extension to allow our modern vehicles to get turned around and leave the driveway that width is narrowed as we come closer to the building and is also integrated with that existing stone dust path which is being realigned slightly to create a more aesthetic route to that path utility connections for the building sorry I'm trying to zoom here we have a water and electric are going to be fed from the adjacent Evergreens building along these routes here storm water from the roof is going to be collected by gutters and downspouts and directed to a dry well that will allow for some level of infiltration before exiting via a pipe and ultimately connecting to the municipal storm water system so the point sources from those downspouts are not discharged inside the jurisdictional area and then sort of the trickiest utility connection which is a significant piece of work is the sanitary sewer this welcome center will have restrooms in it the main street does not have a sewer running across the front of this property there is existing sanitary service to the Evergreens building which is defunct its condition is unknown we do know that it is on the west or opposite side of the house and it also traverses under a town owned parcel between here and the the next street west and so essentially we're a little bit landlocked on sanitary and so the proposal is to take sanitary out of the building and drop it into a pump station immediately in the back and then eject it through a force main onto that embers college property and ultimately connect to the sanitary sewer that's serving marsh hall which is the dorm sort of at the top of the hill on the embers college property and as you'll notice we have deliberately taken a route around this property line of the museum with sanitary and that was one of the staff comments that came up the reason for that is the entire museum property is under and a historic restriction that's running to the benefit of the mass historical commission any land disturbance that's proposed within the museum property has to be sent to mass historic they review it and if they determine that previous land disturbances or previous archaeology have not been done in an area of new disturbance they will turn around and require the museum to do an archaeological study in the area of any new disturbance which would include excavation of test pits along the route of any new excavation which would create significant additional disturbance delay and expense and so the proposal is to run the sanitary line just outside of the property so that the museum does not have to go through that effort because any other route would essentially take it through this northern portion of the property which has never been disturbed as far as we know and would be very likely to require an extensive archaeological study along the entire route of that sanitary before exiting the property and so yeah as came up in the comments of course and and as we shown on the plans we are within the no build and no disturb portions under the local bylaw as sort of alluded to earlier on the purpose for that is that the the entire point of this project is to authentically replicate the original carriage house which was located in this location here which is close to this wetland that was constructed and so we're hoping that the the commission will appreciate the value of maintaining this property and its historic character so that visitors can come and see the world as as Emily saw it as close as we can while still abiding by modern building regulations and those sorts of things. We have proposed as and somewhat of a mitigation against some of that intrusion closer into the property invasive species removal in the shaded areas here between the work and the wetland in those wooded areas. If you've been if you had a chance to visit the site I also have some photos there's quite a lot of invasive species so we've included a protocol on the plans to remove those we're proposing to plant eight native shrubs in this area and there is a need to remove an existing mature tree in this location which is in within the buffer and about two feet off of the proposed building so we are also proposing to replace that with a new native species and one thing I want to note on that is when I was replying to some of the staff comments and the comments that we had on our site visit in the field this was an issue that came up and so the revised plan includes relocating the tree out of this tight buffer space and out into the site which was a suggestion of Bruce and Erin when we were on site visit. The plan that I submitted on Friday notes six foot native oak or poplar however Jane was Jane the museum director was out of town so I had put that on matching some of the species that are there since then I've received a list from the museum's records of species that had grown on this site in the 19th century ran that by our landscape architects and we've whittled that down to we'd like to propose either a dogwood black walnut or tulip tree as a native species that was appropriate to the time in the 19th century as this planting so that's a slight deviation from the plan that we've got on records so we would request that as a condition and I think we're open to what's the commission's preference on that. Thanks Chris I'm just going to jump in on that is that new recommendation that you just mentioned in the updated the restoration plan that we received was it Friday or something or is that a new a new addition? So the location and the notes around the tree were included on Friday the species were not I just got that list this afternoon from Jane after she'd been away. Okay my request is that we get a fully updated plan then so that we can review it we were already going to have to continue this because we didn't have enough time to review the restoration plan but I think just coordinating with whoever you have to on all the species and the location so that we just have something in front of us that we could review would be very useful so if you could get that Erin as soon as possible that'd be great sure but thank you for that detailed introduction commissioners you have any questions comments? I do. Andre go ahead yeah if you can include the species of the shrubs as well please sure that's actually on the plan already those are low bush blueberry well okay I didn't see that sorry and there's five of them eight total okay I see yeah got it all right oh I mean we could check the plan out as long as all the species and locations and amounts are there Alex go ahead yeah I would am I on mute nope okay I would ask that the title be changed because what you're you're you're not you're not building a carriage house you're building a visitor center in the style of the historic carriage house and so the the purpose is a visitor center and I I understand that having been to the Emily Dickinson Museum and her brother's house many times um that's really my only comment okay um that would be a sort of a new notice of intent I think um maybe we can change the yeah and I would just say that that for the purposes of the entire construction project you know this is known sort of in in the museum as the carriage house project so we can certainly add notes to the plan but I would really hesitate to change a title on this particular plan which would then differ from all of the construction plans that we'd have going forward I'm not going to follow my sword on it it's just yeah points taken um I'm happy to refer to it as the project rather than the carriage house or the carriage house project um yeah okay anyone else okay well um so you heard what we need from you Chris and we look forward to reviewing the update plans and for tonight we're looking for a motion to continue did you take public comment Michelle I didn't I didn't see any hands up okay that's my hand but if there is any public comment please raise your hand now okay I moved to continue the public hearing for 214 Main Street Emily Dickinson Museum and to 424 at 745 p.m second Bruce in motion Alex on the second Bruce hi Alex hi Andre hi Rachel have to abstain I work with Berkshire Design Group and I'm an I okay can I Chris thank you okay back to our other vipness I have a question go ahead Alex Emily has I mean Rachel has abstained on a number of projects uh in her first meeting and I'm wondering and I understand she operates a business but I'm wondering is this is she going to be able to vote uh or are you going to need to abstain from a lot of projects it could be come down to a problem so um anything that that is associated with Berkshire Design Group she'll have to abstain from um but I just so I'm I apologize to the commission and to the public for this but I have a sick baby upstairs who's crying really loudly and I'm going to have to try to move through this meeting if we can um I just am hoping that we can resolve the outstanding items so that I can get off the call soon um just personal issue but okay we'll do what we can um yeah so let's just get to our enforcement um 11 trillion I see Amir here um and okay where did we leave off with this so we were going to grant the deadline but we were discussing some outstanding things that needed to happen first so I think that's where we're at I'm just thinking about like a clear instruction that we can give to the landowner on that like dates for the completion of the outstanding item and then you know last deadline for the um the cleanup so I think I'm going I think what we had talked about was um that I would do a site inspection to verify that the um slope stabilization had been completed all of the fill had been removed that the um erosion controls had been resolved and repaired in the back and the additional material um that was beyond the controls had been cleaned up and once I can visually verify that at that point then um the additional work could move forward and the commission could determine next steps as far as what else they may require um there was also um some staking for the 100 foot buffer zone that we had requested in the field just to clarify where the boundary was relative to the work that had taken place um so I think you know if we can if I can meet with Amir on site and get a quick look and verify that things have been completed or if there's anything else outstanding before those additional work items take place I think that would be ideal. Thanks sarin I guess I'm unclear about what happens if you can't confirm that those have been done and we can't then give a an extension I mean what's that step look like? Well the extension that they requested is to um I believe two days after our next meeting so um you know they've they've asked for a pretty wide window to try to get these issues resolved I would say like before the end of the week or early next week I could get out there to look at it say are there additional things that need to be taken care of um give him some marching orders and then um he could try to get those issues resolved but I mean it may take a couple steps along the way to get us there um so I don't think we can in one night say we're gonna have it sort of all resolved in terms of what's gonna happen and when it's done by I think the the key here is that the owner is making attempts to comply and address the commission's concern kind of in an incremental manner and that we can verify that and if so I do think it's worthwhile to work with them to try to give them some additional time that they need. Okay I'd like to have a hard deadline on that as we discussed which I think was what was it April 26th and um when you talk about staking the 100 foot when I was there I thought that the project boundary was outside of the 100 foot and you mentioned there was a discrepancy about maybe how they did it and how we consider the 100 foot to be measured and that's definitely something we've discussed before as commissioners how do we measure that 100 foot buffer so are you guys like how how is who's gonna measure it who's gonna be done by survey and that's okay let him know um it can't be done with a measuring tape because it's it's not gonna be accurate. Okay sounds good Alex you have a question? Yeah I support Erin being there to do her work um the gentleman has um he's be his native tongue I think is not English and uh I could be wrong there but I think it's native tongue is something other than English and there's I found it difficult to communicate with him as did Erin but the memo that I that I read was am I wrong Erin? Um I think I I can I am able to communicate with him um okay the memo that I read was about giving an extension to get the sod down and I would like to make sure the sod does not go down until um until Erin verifies that the that the work has been completed simply because you don't want to be driving across the sod with equipment and um so I didn't I maybe I need to read the memo again but I didn't think it was an extension to complete the work that Erin asked for so um I just want to make sure the sod doesn't go down prior to the work being completed. Can we bring Amir on because he's sitting in the audience and we could just verify with him that he'll wait to lay the sod until we can do a site visit and maybe that'll give the commission some sure comfort. Hello can you guys hear us? Yes yeah. I'll just turn on the video okay hi my name is Iman I've met with Erin um some of you other guys might not be familiar with me I'm Amir's son um the extension that we requested was pretty straightforward it was just that um the top soil that was being put down the site where guys were worried that if we put it down given the rain we had last week um with the current schedule that we had that it might cause for more kind of erosion which was kind of I think what we were trying to combat um I know Erin was unable to come out because her child is sick so I did send some photos I don't know if you had a chance to go over them in a video if that helps at all um but um I think if you come out you'll see that a lot of the work has been I think for the most part we've we've nailed just about every um every one of the bullet lines on the um on the enforcement order um so I think um it's pretty straightforward um but again just for the sod and for the to prevent more erosion that was what we were asking for the extension of thanks Alex is that good you're clear okay um so can I just ask a question some pointed questions because I am going to need to hop off of this call um uh Amir um and uh Iman sorry if I'm messing up your names um okay um is would you be comfortable with me coming out to do a site visit to verify the work has been done um either end of this week early next week and and holding off on laying the sod until I can do that kind of confirmation process and then as soon as I do that then we can just coordinate um before the meeting on the 24th on the remaining item as I told you that I have a urgent uh travel I have to I have a 92 year old mom I have to go and visit because she's not in good health and so I'm living on Friday so I'm doing an Iman this year we did majority of the work caused all the work and just the rain that basically delayed the mist of everything but I would appreciate if you can make a room that you could come tomorrow and see you know that would be perfect any time would be fine fine so I work for you Erin yeah I should be able to figure that out okay so so an extension my recommendation is the commission issue an extension to the the meeting on the 24th and allow me to coordinate um with the own landowner on the remaining items and provide an update to you on the 24th okay does that work for everybody are we are we moving on that or can we just decide I think there should be a motion to extend the deadline on the enforcement order to April 24th to allow more coordination with the landowner okay so moved I thought it was the 26th well April 24th is our next meeting they asked for a deadline to the 26th but the 24th would give us another opportunity to review this all right all right was that a motion alex I heard a motion from alex look in for a second okay bruce on the second rachel hi okay um andre that's an eye bruce alex hi and I'm an eye thank you both for sitting through the call yeah thanks for staying on guys good night thank you guys appreciate you see you tomorrow then nice to see you so Erin you're gonna call me yeah I'll call to set up the time it'll probably be afternoon Amir okay thanks Erin let me know when that is and I'd be happy to go with you okay okay um do you have to go Erin or do you want to wrap up I do but um I mean if I could just we did meet with the owner of wildflower drive we had a productive meeting I did confirm that wardsmith is going to be helping um the owner file a notice of intent applications all provide the commission with an update from there I think the only other thing we need to resolve is um the and maybe this is just I got mixed up but did we resolve what's happening for um UMass um at the at the yeah we did a 30 day extension 30 day extension okay I just sorry I'm I got scrambled because we had so much going on tonight okay so I think we covered everything then okay just for the record bruce and I went on that site we're at that meeting yeah um if it wasn't so late I want to hear all about it um but I don't see anybody here to talk about it or okay Alex did you want to comment on it no just for the record thank you for attending Bruce and Alex um okay well and is there any public comment not uh related to any of our hearings please raise your hand now I'm seeing none okay with that we'll let everybody go so looking for a motion I move that we adjourn I second Alex on the motion Rachel on the second Rachel hi Bruce fine Andre hi Alex hi it's 941 Bruce got it and I'm an eye all right good night everyone thank you good night thanks Rachel