 So good evening, everyone. My name is Ryan Clapham, Arlington's Conservation Administrator. The February 15, 2024 meeting of the Arlington Conservation Commission will be conducted in a remote format consistent with Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2023 to extend the remote participation of public meetings until the 31st of March 2025. Please note that this meeting is being reported. I'll put a link to all the meeting materials in the chat right now. Chuck Turoni, our Conservation Commission Chair, shall facilitate tonight's meeting. Please note that there will be a comment period for each hearing and each vote taken during this meeting will be conducted via a roll call vote. And we will begin with a call of attendance. Thank you, Ryan. So I'm hoping everyone can hear me. So I'm going to just go over the agenda. We have some correspondence for general review and then some discussion items. We're going to take a few things out of order tonight, and then we'll do the hearings. We're going to take 51 Burt Street out of order. And then depending if they're here, we're going to do the amended order of conditions. But we just want to review on the mounting analysis and the issues that are around that from Mary Trudeau. And then our last item on the agenda will be Thorndike Place. Hopefully by doing it that way, we'll leave a lot of room for discussion. And so it's important that we, it's important that we try to be conscious of the time that we're spending on each each item for the commission and for the public. So with that, I'll take a roll call. And I'm wondering if Mike Gildes game is here. I don't see him. So, I think he's on vacation this week. Okay, so Mike's not here. Nathaniel Stevens. Present. Sorry, I'm late. Susan Chapnick. Present. David White. I'm here. David Kaplan. I see David. Yeah. Present. Yeah. And Brian McBride. Yeah. And associate member. Sarah Alfaro Franco. I'm going to get that right. One of these days. All right. I'm present. And Eileen Coleman. I think I saw her here. Yeah, I'm here. Yeah. Okay, great. Great. So let's just get right into correspondence. And the chair is present. Oh, sorry. Chuck Taroni. The chair is present. So correspondence received in between meetings. GM. Hackens. At Edith street. Flood photos. East street. And. East street area. Elaine light at 53 Dorothy road. For the one died place. And that was also about the flooding. Brian Marino at Melrose street. And the board of directors had some comments. And the coalition to save Mugar woods. Had some correspondence. They sent. One and two. So two. Correspondents from them. Lisa Friedman at 63 Mott street. Continuing concerns about Thorndike place flooding. And the ALT. Allington land trust letter to the conservation commission. And that was also about Thorndike place. So we have correspondence for other. Committee commission agenda items. And that can be found. By reaching out to Ryan, but he's going to provide a link. To that right now, but specific correspondence for the Thorndike place is available. At a different link. And Ryan will put that in the chat at this moment. So that was a lot quicker than. I had let people know. I'm going to get there. So let's quickly. So I'm going to take things out of order, like I said at the beginning. And. So I'm going to call on the notice of intent. For 51 birch street at this moment. And if Mike Novak can. Be unmuted. So let me just before you start talking, Mike, hold on a second. So this public hearing will be, we'll consider the notice of intent to demolish a single family house dwelling and construct a two family house. At 51 birch street within the bordering, vegetating, bordering lands subject to flooding. And Ryan, can you update us on this project? If anything has happened in between the two meetings? Yes. So at our last meeting, we had a few outstanding items. One was revised plans showing the revised flood storage. Calculations. We also requested a. A memorandum from the engineering division, which was just received today, as well as a revision to the stormwater report. Requiring a note that there was no modeling in the. It was. Performed. So we've received all of those items. We did unfortunately just receive the engineering memo this afternoon. Late this afternoon. And. The general highlight of it is. Bill copper thorn at the engineering division. Does not recommend that the commission close the hearing this evening. There are. Some outstanding items, which I'm. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Particularly item number one in his memorandum. The total storage shown on the proposed porous. Pave drive detail on the plan and used in the hydraulic analysis in our port. Does not appear to factor in the void space percentage of the washstone. Please clarify or update to indicate the actual available storage space for stormwater in each driveway. So that is the. Most important. Item that he had pointed out there are a handful of other items. That being said, it does appear that. There are some outstanding materials that are needed. Before the commission can close the hearing. So I recommend the commission not close this, but I see we do have rich Kirby. In the audience and he can speak to. Bill's memo if he has had the opportunity to review it. Sure. Rich, are you on. So if you could just introduce so for the record. I'm not taking this up. But we do have a revised memo. And unfortunately, there's two issues. One, it has some action items. That. That appear need to be done and to be completed by the engineering department and to. No one on the commission had time to review it. So. With that. Either Mike or rich. Just introduce yourself and take this away and. So, just to clarify my. Mike Novak patron engineering. I too received this recently. I was driving to my location that I'm at now. So I just had about 20 minutes before the meeting to really, to really dig into it. Certainly, like you said, there's, there's. Clearly some action items here. Nothing. I don't think that is. Anything that I can't. Revise and get back to you. Obviously I didn't have time to get it back to you before tonight. as you just said, you didn't have a chance to review it. I think we've, other than the drainage item, number one, I think everything that Mr. Klap read out as we started, I think that has been addressed on the plans that were submitted to have the revised storage area on it. As Rich mentioned, the last time we changed the numbers, the plan just didn't reflect it. So that's done. And then I did add that no modeling was observed in the storm, excuse me, in the soil reports, the logs on the second detail sheet. Those were the two biggest action items I had from our last meeting. And then along with, I think there's some details to try to address the last comment letter from engineering. So I mean, obviously, like I said, I didn't have a chance to see these or respond to them. So I guess I'll just leave it up to you, Mr. Chair. I saw how to proceed because we're kind of both at a disadvantage here. That's right. So I think we're going to err in caution and I'm going to ask you that we'd like to continue this hearing until, let's see, 15th. So it'll be next month. The next meeting is on the 7th. On the 7th. So we'd like to get asked your permission to extend this to the 7th of March. I don't think there's much of a choice, so off we go. Commission, can I get a motion to extend 51 Verge Street to the 7th of March? I'll make a motion to continue the hearing to March 7th. Can I have a second? I'll second. I didn't make that call. So David White is, so David White's second. David Kaplan. Yes. Brian McBride. Yes. Susan Chapnick. Yes. Nathaniel Stevens. Yes. David White. Yes. And the chair says yes. Okay. Sorry about that last minute notice, but we'll see you on the 7th. Yeah, we'll do everything we can to get everything ahead of time as fast as we can. So hopefully we're not in this position again. Great. Thank you. Okay. Moving right along, we have, let's see, if we've Claire's here or Claire Ricker is here. I'm here. I'm in the DPCD department of Arlington and we're going to discuss the Inland Wetland District and Claire's has permission to, I don't know if you have a presentation or you're just going to talk, but we're going to talk about the Inland Wetland District and go from there. So Claire, just state your name and position for the record, please. Sure, absolutely. My name is Claire Ricker. I'm the director of planning. And community development here for the town of Arlington. And I'm going to talk about a warrant article that has gone in front of, that is in front of the, went in front of the Arlington Redevelopment Board presented by David Morgan on December 13th. And that is to delete section 5.8 from the zoning bylaw, which governs the Inland Wetland District. And the reasons for this removal is that the Inland Wetland District, the jurisdiction is superseded by the conservation commission. The conservation commission, you all possess a robust authority to protect the wetlands via your public hearings permit review and acquisition. The Inland Wetland District is a redundant overlay that has created really unnecessary complexity and potential for conflicting regulations. The Inland Wetland District itself is internally inconsistent and is practically inapplicable in its current state. The Inland Wetland District's kind of broad brush approach fails to differentiate between various wetland types, functions and performance standards, and therefore fails to provide intended protections. It's an impediment to development. The town's permitting process could be further streamlined by removing surplus overlay. A more nuanced and data driven approach like that taken on by the conservation commission is preferable. The Inland Wetland District also references public data not currently included in the zoning map. This is not necessarily a problem with the district itself. But not having that publicly available, accurate information hinders informed decision-making. Town employees, honestly, and folks in DPCD should prioritize other work right now than going back and revising the Inland Wetland District to make it more operational. We feel that this district is, you know, firmly in the wheelhouse of the Conservation Commission, section 5.8.3 of the Zoning By-law, which is the applicability, says that any proposed use in this district is determined by the building inspector and by the Zoning Board of Appeals and not by the Conservation Commission, which could leave us at risk of competing decisions frankly, and it just really muddies the waters, I think in terms of what, you know, the responsibilities of each, you know, permitting board are. So that's basically it in a nutshell. I've shared most of a memo written by David Morgan before he left and I'm happy to try to answer any questions as he's been on paternity leave. I've sort of been moonlighting as an environmental planner, but that's really the sum in total. We're looking to delete 5.8, the Inland Wetland District, given the redundancy and given the competing regulatory permitting boards that are involved. This was a request that was made, you know, by DPCD, but also by the Zoning Board of Appeals and by the building commissioner himself that we sort of abandoned this Inland Wetland and, you know, push all requirements onto CONCOM as is appropriate. Thank you, Claire. So I could turn to the commission, but before I do, I'm going to just reiterate the fact that the Zoning Board, DPCD, David Morgan, Claire Ricker have all, and I think that we've talked about this before. So we can discuss this or I will take a motion to accept that we're abolishing, or at least support the town meeting warrant to abolish the Inland Wetland District. Hands for either commissions. I'll make a motion to support the Warren article to delete section 5.8, the Inland Wetland District. I don't know if other commissioners need to see what that wording is. It wasn't in your information. I reviewed it carefully and I'm comfortable making that motion. I have a second. I'll second it. David White seconds. We'll call a vote. Nathaniel Stevens. Yes. David Kaplan. Yes. Brian McBride. Yes. David White. Yes. Susan Chapnick. Yes. And Chuck Taroni says yes. Thank you all. Thanks Claire. Welcome, thanks Claire. Okay, moving right along, I'm gonna do some discussion items right now. And it's a water bodies working group and they're gonna talk about the, they're gonna talk about the contract that they have with SWCA in partnership with Waters and Wetlands. David White, are you prepared to talk about this contract? Yes, we proposal from SWCA. Proposal. To take the managed spy pond for the coming year. The total amount is $41,550 within their budget. And we'll be back and forth a number of times but I think we have good contract, good proposal now as you improve and move forward with. May I add this was reviewed by the water bodies working group and got their stamp of approval prior to bringing it to the commission for a vote. And that contract was in our materials as well, right? Yeah. Yes it was. Thank you. So if there are any questions, but yeah. $41,505 is what the material is. Right. Which is within budget. Actually it spans two years. It's fiscal year 24 and fiscal year 25. Covers fiscal years, yeah. It can be a budget. I hope that collaboration between the two just WCA and Water and Wetlands works in the town's benefit. This has been a tough road on our invasive, aquatic invasive, you know, pathway here. So it looks like it's $41,505 time and material not to exceed and they have quoted rates. So it's pretty good for the town. And those two companies are who we've been using lately and they are, I guess, right at the top. So with that. It's also the second year of a two year contract agreement that we have with them. Right, and we made this contract a little more specific so that we get things done in the time frames we want them. So in the contract there are time frames for different tasks. It's been a problem in the past, yeah. Okay. Any other questions? Sure. Any motions to accept? I move to accept the proposal. Have a second. I'll second. David Kaplan. Yes. Brian McBride. Yes. Nathaniel Stevens. Yes. David White. Yes. Susan Chapnick. Yes. And Chuck Taroney says yes. So... Can I make one statement? I just hope that just to Ryan, because he may not know the process. So now that we've approved this proposal, we need a contract and Jennifer will help you get that through if you forward this to her and tell her that it was voted unanimously to approve it. Thank you. Sorry, Chuck, I just wanna make sure that's done. Good information, yeah. No, thank you, Susan. So next on the agenda is item C, approve the use of the By-Law Expense Account for the Conservation Commission Administrator. I'm not sure how much explanation we need, but we have two expense accounts. One is from state fees and that is called the Conservation Commission Expense Account. And the other one is from the By-Laws and that's the By-Law Expense Account. So we've been using the Conservation Commission Expense Account to pay Ryan's salary and to offset David's salary. And it's, you know, with the David Gaughan and the extra time that Ryan has been working, that account is either at zero or close to it. So we'd like to have the commission understand that we wanna switch to a different account, which is the By-Law Expense Account. And vote to allow Ryan's salary to be paid out of the By-Law Expense Account is approximately $18,000 in it. So there's no issues with paying for, you know, whatever else we pay for along with his salary. So I think if there's any questions, we'll take them now. But if there's just a motion, we can move ahead with that. Also move, I'll move, sorry, Brian has a question. Oh, just a quick question. This won't put us in any kind of pickle as their fiscal year plays out till June. We don't have to spend any problems. Not with the amount of money. And it's also the funds are set up in a way, the funds are set up in a way when one runs low, it can take from the other account anyways. So this is automatically happening. We're just taking a vote to make it official with the conservation commission and for everything to be above board. So that's what we're doing. If it doesn't follow the fiscal year process, it's just, it's a revolving account. Oh. It's not the municipal budget. Gotcha. So we can't run out of one year in May. Oh yeah. Good. You can only run out of money if we stop getting applications. Okay. Any more questions? Any more comments or a motion? And we have actually, I think Nathaniel made a motion and then some more to second that motion. I'll second it. Brian McBride seconded that. And so David White. Yes. Susan Chapnick. Yes. David Kaplan. Yes. Brian McBride. Yes. Nathaniel Stevens. I think I saw him shake his head. Yes. And the chair says yes. So that's, that's all set. Okay. We have an enforcement order, item D on our discussions for 66 and 66R Dudley Street. And we wanted to do a little housekeeping on that. I believe this is your item, Brian. Can you explain why we need to work on this? Yes. So the property owners at 66, 66R Dudley Street, they had a family emergency come up and they have not been able to get in touch with the condos or at least they were not at the time able to get in touch with the condo association. Our previous iteration of this enforcement order required that they coordinate with the con via Jason Nellbrook condominium association by tonight by the 15th. And then for them to have come back to the conservation commission with a plan of action on March 7th. The revisions the enforcement order eliminates the requirement of having them be all coordinated with the Jason condo association by this meeting. It still holds the same deadline for attending the March 7th meeting with a plan of action. So it doesn't really change any timeline. It just kind of, it gives them a little bit more flexibility in getting in touch with the condo association. And I actually did get an email earlier today from Evelyn Maruso at 66, 66R Dudley. And she did indicate that she has emailed the condominium board but hasn't received a response as of yet. Okay. Yeah, I reviewed this myself and it looks like just in the, you know, what we've given them to do, you've just taken out by February 15th, 2024 and just put in the word and so we're just the same action items are needed. We've just taken out the date and having them come back to the meeting to discuss that with the commission. So this is a situation where you're going to have to keep, you know, Ryan, keep by and David Kaplan, sure. You're gonna have to keep an eye on this, David. Yeah, it's been a while. Can you just refresh my memory? Why they need to coordinate with the condo association? Some of the work that had been done was on land that was owned by the condominium association. So they needed their sign off in order to do that work on their land. Thank you. Yeah, so they're along Millbrook and the condo didn't realize that they only other side of Millbrook and the substantial amount of the condo association's land has been altered. For the purposes of a commercial business, so. And just quick update that Chuck and Ryan and a few people met with the condo association on the site to kind of show them because they were totally unaware of this was happening. Yeah, we didn't enter the site. We observed from the start. Oh, okay. Just since the property owners of 6666 are likely weren't available just to, you know, make sure that we were doing everything above board. Great. Thank you. Okay, any more questions or motions on the floor? We're looking to a motion to. Sorry, I was just gonna say, could we just change that date from today's date to March 7th? I think if they're gonna appear at the meeting, I'd still like to hold the feet to their fire to contact, I guess, well, I guess they've gotten in touch but, you know, get some feedback from the condo association. So I guess I would vote to amend it to just change the rather than eliminate any date, just change the date and we can change the date again if we need to next on March 7th. That makes sense. Yeah. The implication in having them attend the March 7th meeting is that they would have been in touch with the condominium association. But does it say that in the wording now? Maybe you should put it up the letter. It does say it in the wording. It says the property owner shall attend the March 7th, 2024 meeting, the conservation commission. What purpose is, remind us for what purpose? So they need to contact Millbrook and to ensure that the stock is maintained. I think it's the erosion control is maintained in good working condition and they're gonna need to talk to the condo association and, you know, I don't know if... It would be helpful to be... The only thing they need to do is contact them and then try to start working out how that's gonna work. I want you to put that up and we can discuss this a little bit. Sorry, could you enlarge it please? I'm on a smaller screen, thanks. How's that? Thanks, that's good. Yeah, so that last sentence there is, you know, where the amendment is, so property owner shall attend the March 7th, 2024 meeting of the Conservation Commission for further discussion and to report on communications with Millbrook Condo Association. Oh, I see, okay. I'm sorry, that's there or this is what you proposed to add? This is proposed. Proposed, oh, got it. See the original one, I can pull that up too, but I just had an extra sentence in there that said property owner shall communicate with the Millbrook Condominium Association by March 15th, February 15th. Oh, I see, okay. I understand it better now. Okay, thanks. Yeah, I'll make a motion to move, to approve the amended enforcement order. Okay. Thank you. So do we amend, are we approving it or are we ratifying? And I'm... I haven't issued it, so we would just be approving it. Okay. All right, so it wasn't anything that was, you know, desperately. Can I get a second on the approval? Thank you. David Kaplan. Mike, Brian McBride. Yes. David White. Yes. Nathaniel Stevens. Yes. Who's the chapnick? Yes. Everybody. Ah, David Kaplan. Yes. And the chair says yes. Okay, moving on. We have item E, which is the DEP 91-326. And that's our request for a permanent amendment for the Allington DPW through a culvert project. But before we get into this, I just wanna remind the commission, we are only, we're not really here to listen to the project. We need to know enough details to allow us to decide whether this should be a notice of intent or it's minor in nature and it can be an amended order of conditions. The purpose of the project hasn't changed. The scope of the project has not increased. The project still meets relevant standards of the regulations. The resource area is still protected and the potential for adverse impacts to the resource area values has not increased. And with that in mind, I'm going to bring up its page. So it's Haley Page from Weston and Samson. Haley, please introduce yourself for the record. Hello, my name is Haley Page from Weston and Samson. I'm the environmental scientist who will be handling the environmental permitting for this effort. And I'm also joined by the project architect, David Steeves and also the project engineer, Elena Comter just in case any questions might come up. So I guess to start off, we do have a presentation prepared. However, due to the fact that this is kind of preliminary and getting the actual approval on whether an amendment is appropriate filing for this project, I guess I just wanted to first give a quick statement that the proposed project essentially is limited to the culvert that is locating, running across the DPW facility located at 51 Grove Street. It is proposed to install a glass reinforced plastic liner within the existing culvert to improve the carrying capacity of this culvert at this time. A culvert assessment was performed, I believe in 2020 as mentioned in our amendment request package we submitted. And it was found that this portion of the culvert from exiting what was noted as building B on the plan that we submitted to where the property extends just before the high school to look to just repair by installing that liner in that area. I guess to start just with that if anyone has any questions or if you do want us to go ahead and proceed with this presentation or if it makes sense to just wait until the formal filing for this. So yeah, I appreciate that. So we're, unfortunately our regulations we have to make this first determination and I'm trying not to have the presentation twice. So I think that we have a culvert at the DPW yard and the work is within the existing limit of work. It is the culvert that runs from, what is it, Mill Street? It's not Mill Street, it's Grove Street. Grove Street. Yes, to the high school. And in the paperwork, in the paperwork you can see that the repairs are significant and the culvert has lost structural capacity. Sections of the GRP, which is the glass reinforced plastic is what they'll be bringing into the culvert. The work is within the previous proposed limit of work and it's gonna take about three weeks to do this work. The work, the length of the work is about 204 linear feet of GRP will be installed and during this process, they're gonna bypass the water. Now this is quite a big construction project and we're talking about a culvert work now and is the proposed work or the proposed project has that changed is probably the first thing that comes to mind. But I'm gonna take a question from Susan Chapnick because she has her hand up. And of course, I haven't said no to the presentation but again, I don't think I'd wanna hear it twice. Susan, please. I agree that I don't wanna hear it twice. However, it would be really helpful to me because this is a complex site if you just had one overview diagram to show us where this is a plan. Maybe we could start there and I also have an aerial map that that can help kind of. That would be helpful. That would be where we're talking about. Exactly. Let me know when you can see my screen. I can. Perfect. So I think maybe just try it, it may be helpful just to pull up an aerial image just to get an understanding. And maybe take this one. Okay, so this is an aerial imagery from Google. You can see growth. We're still seeing the diagram, I think, Hailey. Hold on, let me try to share again about that. That's okay. To end screen. Okay, now let me know if you can see a aerial image. Yes. Great, okay. So as I was saying, without pointing to the right, you can see growth speed is running right along here and the DPW facility is what looks to be partially under construction, which the work has begun for the DPW facility site improvements, but has not been completed yet. So we know growth currently runs across this site. Getting in this area right here, there's a daylight portion of the culvert and then hums and runs underneath this building here, becomes daylighted again at the exit of that building, then goes back underground, I believe. Man, that's the daylight. It's easier to see in the plan sheet, but I believe that's okay. And it comes back underground and it's daylight again right before it opens up at the high school. Now I'm gonna share the plan sheet just to have a bit of a better understanding of where we're actually proposing this culvert liner. So let me share that other screen now and now you should see a plan sheet. Yes. Perfect. Can you make that any bigger, Hailey? Yes, let me do man here. Let me do man here, I think that'll definitely. Awesome. Perfect. Thank you. So starting here, this is the area where I was speaking to where the Millbrook enters the site and it is daylight coming from Grove Street. It runs under building B here is what has identified as the plan. And we're looking to install this culvert liner where the culvert exits building B and look to install the liner all the way until right before the ending of the culvert. So I believe it would stop right before the daylight area. The only daylight area that impacts would take place on is this one that's located in the middle. And that will remain daylight. The culvert lining that is proposed there's an opening at the top, which if you look on the seat that was included in that preliminary submission, it kind of gives some details on the different types of culvert lining that will be utilized in the fully closed culvert liner and then the day-lidded culvert liner that will be utilized. I guess you can see that it's a darker black where we're proposing that liner to be installed but off about right here. I guess I'll pause right now for if there might be any questions on this plan view. What's the thickness of the liner? Alayna or David, might you know that level of detail? Yeah, I can answer that Haley. It's about a half an inch. It's a composite fiberglass reinforced liner but the thickness is just almost used as a finish material to form what is in the interstitial space between the liner and the existing culvert walls gets pumped in and grouted solid. So although the liner itself might be thin, it makes a fully, and here you can see in the photo, it makes a fully reinforced and stabilized culvert walls and surround. Thank you, that's helpful. That's just the photo. Is there any other questions right off the bat or additional details we can give? Do you know when the permit, the permit hasn't expired, it's still in effect and you can finish up this project without needing an extension? That's what we believe. I believe that extension was granted in 2023 through 2026. So there should be no problem with completing this work prior to that is my understanding at this time. And what are the stream conditions that you're going to try to do this work in? That's a great question. Elena and David, do you know what the kind of timeline they're looking to work in? Well, they want to try to achieve this when the flow is at a reduced capacity. However, it varies quite a bit to the mill brook is not always predictable, which is what we're discussing and coordinating with the director and the contractor to do this work once they start and mobilize to do it as quickly as they can because that is going to be challenged the control of the water and flow during the work. That's right. I mean, there's a lot of these details we could get into in either the notice of intent or the amended order of conditions. I know that you're bypassing the stream and how are you avoiding scouring when it's re-entering that area? What is it re-entering into? All those things can come up. Any other questions from the commission members? Oh, I think it needs to be said that these sections are, it's not like jacking the culvert or like aligning or anything like that. These sections are, and David, I'm gonna let you answer the question because I think they were like five feet long or something like that, maybe a little bit more. Yeah, about eight feet. They're about eight feet. And I was told they walk them in but in the application that we got for tonight's meeting, it says they're going to pull them in, pull them through, but it seems like people would have to be in the culvert to properly support them and wedge them against the sides. So David Kaplan has his hand up, David. Yeah, thank you. So I'm curious if it's sort of new to me. I'm curious what we base this decision on. I mean, it seems like there's economies of scale here, they have a mobilized crew, there's an existing order of conditions, but the proposed work doesn't seem to align with the work that's going on site. We're talking about in-stream culvert work versus a project that's basically just there to protect erosion and sedimentation into Milbrook. So I'm just curious if there's precedent to be able to move forward with an amended order, but just the nature of the project is so different what's there that were required to ask for a new notice of intent. Yeah, so it says in section 18 of the regulations that the Conservation Commission shall determine whether they're requested change warrants, the filing of a notice of intent. Or whether it's sufficiently minor to be considered an amendment to the original final order of conditions. And it gives us some criteria to think about as we're pondering that question. And its first one is the purpose of the project has not changed. The second is the scope of the project has not increased. The project still meets the relevant standards of these regulations and the resource area are still protected. And lastly, the potential for adverse impacts to the resource area values will not be increased. That's section 18 of our newest regulations approved in March 16th, 2023. I think David's comments are very good and your review, Chuck, because originally I was thinking, oh, in amended order, okay, it's just DPW, but it really is inconsistent with what was done before. It is an increase in scope working in Milbrook, even in the daylighted areas. And that was not part of the DPW project, the DPW yard project at all. So I'm kind of hesitant to say it's minor enough to be an amendment. Whereas when I was thinking about this earlier, I was on board with that, but I don't know that I am right now. So I often ask myself, what would you gain, what further protection would you gain from a notice of intent compared to an amended order of conditions? Because you can add conditions to it. You just don't change the timeline. Plus it would be this original order is expiring in 2026. We'll have two on the site. It doesn't mean it can't happen. But again, to go through all that work, what are we gaining here in protection and review? Well, respectfully, Chuck, I don't think that's the criteria in the regulations. I think you have a good pragmatic approach to- Absolutely. That's what you said, but... No, that's exactly why I said it. Exactly, yeah. And here, I'm just trying to look, so we cribbed off the DEP policy about what an amended order is. And I'm just trying to think, because I think there's some examples in the DEP policy, which I have up on my screen. Let's see. So we got under DEP, the issuing authority shall consider such factors whether the purpose of the project has changed, whether the scope of the project has increased, whether the project meets relevant performance standards and whether the potential for adverse impacts impact to protect the statutory interest will be increased. Yeah, so we have identical. So here, let's see, I thought there were some examples. No, there aren't. I'm sorry, it's another policy has some examples. But I'm with Susan and I think David to say that it's borderline, but it is actually they are assuming, my recollection is the same as Susan is that previously they did not propose any work on bank or in land underwater or in the stream channel itself. So in fact, we do have additional resource areas where actually in those resource areas, not just in the riverfront area, resource area in the buffer zone. So my inclination is just to have them file the new notice of intent, which, yeah, I think it would be a similar lift to what they'd be doing if they were doing an amended, an application for amended permit anyways, because that does require public notice, a butter notice, and a hearing and all that stuff. So it's not, and it's the town, they're not gonna be paying a fee. So there's no argument there about, well, they're gonna pay another filing fee. So I think it might be better to do it. That'd be my inclination. It's a closed call, but I think my inclination is that there will be a new notice of intent. Yeah, so I, yeah, I know the way the regulations were written, that's where it points you, but again, the pragmatic approach would say, why do we need to do that? And I still stand on that. We're not getting anything else. It's being recorded, but we wrote these rules and we're supposed to follow them. I think that's the reason why we're moving forward here. So with that, and the fact that this has been 15 minutes, let's, let's more comments or emotions. And I think Nathaniel is ready to make a motion. I will just make one more comment very briefly, that we are increasing, as Nathaniel said, or changing the resource areas we're protecting. And that's, to me, a big reason to go with an NOI is because we're looking at land on the water, we're looking at bank, we weren't, those were not resource areas we were concerned with. Yeah, but you saw the small openings that were, so, and it's armored bank and it's a padded base. Right, and we'll have to divert. But those exist, it is land underwater, even though it's under concrete. Right, and how is that gonna be done and what does that gonna have? I don't know. I think it needs to be a NOI anyway. Well, and I'm curious too, I mean, if we're talking, if you said you mentioned lands under water, are there any kind of standards for natural bottom culverts? I know it seems like the proposal is to kind of hermetically seal off the bottom portion and I'm not entirely sure how naturalized the existing bottom of that culvert is. I know it's dark, I'm not sure how valuable that habitat is but there seems to be under the proposal so it's changed for the nature of the bottom of that culvert. Okay, I'm gonna ask again, can we get a motion? It sounds like the commission has made a decision but I would just like to move it along if we can get a motion. Sure, we'll try, let's see, I'll make a motion to say that a new NOCIP intent needs to be filed for this proposed work. Now a second? I'll second. Oh, that was David Kaplan? Yeah. Yeah, okay. So let's run a roll call vote and Susan Chapnick? Yes. David White? Whoops, he's stepped away. Brian McBride? Yes. David Kaplan? Yes. Nathaniel Stevens? Yes. Chair says yes. And David White's not here so. We have a majority anyways, right? Yeah, we have a majority so let's just, okay. Before I run away, can I just ask one quick question with the understanding that this will be a new NOCIP intent that means we need to recalculate impact numbers associated with this portion of the project and the riverfront area on this site is associated only with the daily areas. And through the existing open order of conditions, we did quantify impacts to riverfront area for the actual overall site improvements that will take place within. However, for this portion of the project, the only thing that would take place within the riverfront area would be being able to drive over to bring in the culvert lining into the actual culvert. I just wanna confirm that that wouldn't be something that would fall under this new NOCIP intent rather to just be quantified under that existing open order of conditions. Right, assuming that you're driving over areas that are already marked as for sort of construction impact on the existing one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that's fine. Yeah, otherwise we'd be double-accounting. Exactly, and that's what I wanted to make sure I was avoiding, so that's it. Otherwise, we will get together our NOCIP intent and get it in as soon as possible. Thank you so much, everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, and at the end of this is... I wanted to add this one in because I know you're gonna be leaving later on this evening, but item F on the discussions are the unpermitted activity, which came up at our last meeting for 35 Beverly Road. And so it's... There's a picture. I'm not sure Ryan has it prepared of the jet ski on the bank of the Mystic. And this area has been set up and it has a ramp to it, some stone and a border. And when we went there to look at the dock permit, this came up and the commission wanted to discuss it tonight, specifically Nathaniel Stevens as such to put it on the agenda. So I see this as the commission deciding if this is in a violation and how to move forward. And then with that and the information we want to request, we'd send that letter or that enforcement letter or the enforcement order to the applicant or to the homeowner and have them come back with information and talk to the commission. So I'm gonna turn it over to Nathaniel because I'm sure even though I don't see his hand up, I just wanted him to start this off. Because it's your baby, yeah. Oh, it's mine. Oh, thanks. Yeah, yeah. Just for the record, I did not put that there. Not that much of my baby. No, I was just asking that we split off that enforcement discussion from the permitting. So thank you for putting it on the agenda. But yeah, I think the commission needs to decide, as you say, what if anything we wanna do about this? In my mind, it is an unpermitted installation of it looks like rails and a gravel bed on resource areas that's without a permit. So there's gravel there. There may have been digging to put that in to create the slope. And I don't know much more about how far those tracks go into the water, but I just think that it's not an activity that we should condone because would we wanna see people around spy pond doing this or around rest of Mystic Lake? I don't think so. So that's my thought is that it is an unpermitted activity. If they want to try to, I don't know if the commission can decide if it should be order removed or they could come in and try to get after the fact permit for it. But I think it's definitely unpermitted work within our jurisdiction and we should address it. But we have just like how do we wanna address it? Sure, I think that's the next step. So we have a couple of ways to address this. We could do it's administrative control. I didn't know what to call it, but I'm gonna say something that the administrator would take on and work with a homeowner to make sure that this happens. We have a violation letter which we could put down some requirements, some to-dos and then require some check-ins and for the administrator or the commission to go back and to verify that things have been corrected. And then we have our enforcement order which it requires them to fix the bank. And so I know that Susan's talked to these, the homeowner here and she is going to recommend that maybe we don't need the enforcement order, which is fine, it's fine with me. I just wanna see this fixed. But I think that we would first make sure that this is a violation and everyone agrees with it. And then the second step is the, what we're gonna use to make sure this gets fixed. And then lastly, the conditions that we're gonna put on that in the time frames. So any, sure. Sorry, I might just say, I think the, before we decide what tool to use, I think we need to, after we come to agreement, whether there's a violation, is then what do we wanna do about it? And then we, I think then we might choose the, that will determine a bit what enforcement tool we want to utilize. Sure. Do you see those as votes? Sorry. Yeah, sorry, I meant to just discussion wise, because I think, but as you say, I think you and I see it as a violation. I don't know if others on the commission do as well. Maybe we're the minority. I do. I agree. Yeah, I see it as a violation as well. I would like to just mention that I had some discussions with the owner and the owners are very environmentally conscious. They have a net zero house. I mean, they're really environmentally conscious. They said they researched before they did this and they thought that it was acceptable because it's not a permanent structure. And when they read our regulations, so maybe our regulations need to be clearer, we need some guidance documents on what you can and can't do on a bank. So that's something for the future for Ryan or David Morgan. They thought if it's not a permanent structure, it's acceptable. And they thought that other neighbors of theirs that were putting in retaining walls and patios and things like that, those were not acceptable. So anyway, there's a big misunderstanding and we'll try to relate to them, why it's important not to change the bank and why that's protected, et cetera. So they are willing to do the right thing, which I just wanted to mention to the commission, so. Thanks, that's helpful. Yeah. Okay. So it sounds like we have a violation and what do we want? Do we want the bank restored? Do you want the jet ski removed immediately? What's some of the requirements that the commission is thinking about for this situation? I would like to see the jet ski and the pad removed and the natural ones. And we can leave it up to them to propose on how they want to do that. I imagine it was just lawn prior. So going back to the lawn would probably go back to pre-existing conditions, but we could make suggestions on improving the resource area values of no disturbed zone and make some recommendations on how they replant it. But I think it's a very nice, it should just be, remove the jet ski and the pad from the disturbed zone and re-naturalize the area. Okay. It's still sounding like a violation and less so of a administrative control, more like an enforcement order and to me, but could be a violation letter. Does anyone think this will work with a violation letter when we would just, I would like to just let them know that this is a violation. I would like them to come up with a restoration plan for this area and a plan to store their jet ski anywhere else but the bank. But I think I'd like to know where that is, such as they're getting that dark, they could tie it to the dock and when it comes time that they're not using the jet ski anymore, they could just drive it over to the boat ramp and put it on their jet ski tote and bring it over to the house and store it at the driveway for the winter. But that's kind of how do we get there? And I think that it's not up to me to tell them how to do this. So that's why I'm saying that we would get a restoration plan. Yeah, I agree, Chuck. I like David Kaplan's suggestion about what to do. I would just add that maybe going with what you just said, Chuck, is have them submit a restoration plan to us by date certain. I'm comfortable trying a notice of violation rather than an enforcement order. I think they've been cooperative so far and based on what Susan has reported, but I think they will be cooperative. So I don't think we need to be as quote unquote, heavy-handed with an enforcement order. And we give them a deadline and if they don't meet the deadline and don't have a reasonable excuse for not meeting the deadline, we can move to the next step of enforcement, which is an enforcement order. Okay, so how about it's a violation notice? Is that what you're suggesting? Violate the notice? Can I just get a clarification? And this is just a point of procedure that maybe I don't understand. We've had different letters sent to different people over the years. So for example, to the Arlington High School, we had a non-conformance letter. It wasn't not Arlington Catholic for the turf field. It wasn't a violation letter. It was like one step below that being nice about it. We've noticed this. Can you please fix it? Then we have violation. So that was notice of non-conformance or non-compliance. I don't remember how it was worded. Then we have notice of violation and then we have enforcement orders. Are those underserved? Sounds like we have a really good writer on staff. I don't know. Any, I don't know what the difference is between some of those. I don't know. I don't know. I don't think there is. I think of the difference between agents maybe as well. Oh, okay. Okay, okay. That's all I wanted to, I will also just interject that the homeowner is planning on submitting an RDA to do restoration of the bank, to do some planting restoration. We're getting beyond the scope. I just want to, well, I thought it was relevant because you were talking, because Dave Kaplan was talking about restoration. So I think that would be good to go. Right. I know that's happening, it may not happen in the timeframe that we want to understand this project. So I would suggest a violation notice and for the applicant to return on March 21st, 2024, conservation meeting and present a restoration plan and then to restore the bank and how they're going to store the jet ski not only in the summer but in the wintertime also. And if at that point there's some sort of new project they want to do, we could talk about combining both of them at that point. So I don't know if anyone wants to repeat that or you could just say so moved. So moved. I have a second. Second. I'm going to say that was Brian McBride. So David Kaplan. Yes. And David White. Yes. Susan Schapnick. Yes. And Nathaniel Stevens. Yes. And I don't know where I'm at. Sorry, who did I miss? David Kaplan, right? No, I said David. I'm scared to go. It must have been Brian McBride. Yes. And the chair says yes. So hopefully everyone's, if I missed someone, just let me know. Brian, when you write that letter, could you just make sure we're very clear about the jurisdictional resource areas and what can and can't be done just because this applicant really didn't understand our regulations? Sure, Brian, why don't we do this? Why don't you write the letter and then distribute it to me and Susan. We'll discuss it at one of our meetings. Perfect. We'll be excited about it. Okay. Thank you. Okay, so let's go quickly. So the parking racks, this is mine. Park and rec, they're going to submit a project. The recreation department update. So the discussion was on February 15th. It's a second public meeting for the Montanari Rocks playground and picnic area, which is going to introduce new equipment outside the 50 foot buffer zone. And within that area outside of the 50 foot, there's going to be minimal grading, no trees cut, and they're going to restore something within the resource, well, just outside the resource area, but within the 50 foot buffer zone, they're going to restore a previously disturbed area. So they're coming to the conservation commission for that project. And I think they need to be funded first, but we will see that and we'll be able to talk about it. But it's another playground project and they really do a great job with their playgrounds, if anyone's seen some of their work lately. Their next meeting is February 27th, 2024. And Nathaniel, Susan and myself have been sharing the duties. I went to the last one. Is there anyone available to go to this one on the 27th? Sorry, I know I'm due, but I can't. I'm actually, I think I'm out of town or returning from being out of town. So I don't want to trust the airlines to get me there on time. Susan, are you available? Or I could go again too, if it's a conflict. Kind of. So the artificial turf committee, which I've been just sitting in on, is meeting that night for probably two hours instead of one hour, which might conflict. I'd love to attend that meeting because I'm missing the next one. Yeah, so I think there was some discussion about. You know, I could. Yeah, so I think there was some discussion with the committee members that also attended the turf committee and also attended the recreation. And they said that that's going to be a conflict. And since Joe Connolly and... Oh, right, Liz. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so. So they might. It might solve itself. It might solve itself. If you go, great. If it turns into a conflict, I'll step in. Okay, that sounds good. So you can put me there and then if it doesn't work, we can have a meeting. Thank you. I owe you guys one. And also, I guess the other thing too, is if there's nothing on the park and rec agenda, too, that you think of concern, but that's kind of hard to tell because stuff comes up. Right. I see Eileen has her hand up. Thank you, Susan. Sorry, I didn't know she's there. A lot of people on. Eileen, do you have something to say about the park and rec meeting? I was just going to offer myself as a backup since I didn't... When I put up my hand, I wasn't sure who's available. Thank you. I think this one we have solved, but maybe in the future or for other committee meetings, that would be great to bring your hand up. Next on the agenda, item eight. Just quick, the CPA committee did fund the monotony rocks. You had mentioned you weren't sure if it was funded. They did get funded. Got funded. Was that recently? Last week. Okay. There you go. Was it $400,000 or $500,000 or something like that? Don't like that. I think, yeah, I can't remember around that. It was there. It was like at that number. Well, that's great to know. And I think that it's good to move forward with that project. So next on the agenda, the discussion, I just want to do these quickly because we're really getting crunched here. The artificial turf. Mike's not here. Susan, I know you're going to have something to say, but... No? Well, no, go ahead, but keep it brief because Mike is, you know, he's not here and we need the time. Right. The artificial turf study committee had two presenters. One was Samantha Jones, who's the head athletic trainer at Arlington High School. And she spoke about natural grass fields versus artificial turf fields in Arlington and injuries. And she was questioned about that and also talked about heat. And then there was another speaker who was Dr. Helen Pointon from... She's a professor at UMass Boston. She's a professor of ecotoxicology, looking at toxic effects of metals and emerging contaminants on aquatic organisms. And she presented on the potential toxicology of toxic effects of chemicals as well as microplastics and plasticizers in the artificial turf fields. And then it answered a lot of questions about that, also talking a little bit about climate change impacts. So people that are interested in that, Natasha Waden does a really good job of doing the meeting minutes and all the materials are up on the website. So how was that, Chuck? That was pretty good. All right. So I do have a question. Are they... So all that stuff, like, are those recorded, those meetings, and are those recorded meetings on their website? Or is that not what they're doing? I don't know. I don't think they're recording. Okay. Well, they missed out because I was at that meeting too, and that was really powerful. I thought it was really good. But all the materials, so the Dr. Pointon's presentation materials are on the website, but I agree with you. I think they decided at the beginning that they weren't going to do recording. Okay. Okay. Moving on, Sarah Alferro Franco has a tree committee report. And I will make it brief because... So I attended a tree committee meeting yesterday. The tree warden just discussed how engineers are going to be doing a tree's scope work and that a new stump grinder will be purchased this fiscal year. Discussed was the tree canopy program. The goal is to drum up tree requests. The tree committee submitted a warrant article, and the goal is to plant shade trees in parking spaces, in parking lots that are greater than 25 parking spaces. And the next meeting will be March 13th. It's great. Any questions for Sarah? Seeing none, moving right along. So the next thing, the last thing on our agenda is that, so sitting at town hall is the ESCO agreement for three for Dudley. It needs the signatures before town council reviews it. So those who haven't signed that could go to the annex and where David Morgan's office is, and please sign that. And if we could get that done within the next week, that would be great. We just need one more. Okay, so whoever that person is, if they could get down to town hall, that would be great. Well, just one more to have a majority, which should be all the constituents. Oh, geez. We have three signatures at the moment. Okay. We should only need four. Okay, so whoever gets down there first, put a big candy bar on top of it. That's yours, okay? So we'll just go from there. Okay, so that's it for the discussion item. I'm sorry it took so long, but that's one of the things. So I'm going to take another agenda item out of order tonight. So I'm going to call 88 Coolidge to speak right now. I know that Mary Choudau is here. And Mary, I'm just going to set it up by saying we're just wondering about this mounding analysis. I know you submitted a report on some other issues, but we can do that later after you've made a request to the commission if that's what you're going to do or discuss the mounding analysis and the issues that surround that. So can you just introduce yourself for the record, please? Sure. My name is Mary Choudau and I'm representing the applicant in the request for an amendment to the order of conditions for 88 Coolidge Road. As you know, we've been working on the third party review with Novus Engineering, with the commission selected to do this reporting. And we've gone back and forth a couple of times. Our most recent response from Novus was a December 15th letter. Most of the items in this letter, there were six categories that were broken out. Novus has either agreed with us or has accepted the information that was submitted to date. They did make some red line comments on our site plan. Our site plan showed the perimeter drain and drain system that allowed for water to move beneath the foundation atop the existing bedrock surface of the lot. When our engineering team looked at this plan that was marked up, they said the only way to answer these questions was through a mounding analysis. This is problematic for a couple of reasons. One, the software that has been developed for the use in running mounding analysis was not designed for this type of project. We're a single family house lot sitting on a ledge with a significant gradient. The software wasn't really built for that. The software was built for like infiltration systems or septic systems that would have some type of vertical separation from groundwater and you would be concerned that you'd be pushing too much water into a system and having groundwater contact with your water that you were treating. That's not the issue on the slide. So we've spoken with many hydrogeologists and I just wanted to read to you the response from our own Matt Hodges when he saw the plan request because I think it does clarify some of the issues that we've been hearing from other consultants. I mean, we've spoken with the list that you gave us that Bill Copperstone gave us, we've looked at our own. We've probably spoken with a dozen hydrogeologists and for one reason or another, they're all singing a similar song about why they have no interest in doing this job. Okay, so this is a comment from Matt Hodges when he reviewed the original Novus letter. ONEP has excavated multiple test pits throughout the property, groundwater, i.e. measurable and persistent water was not encountered in any of the test pits. Evidence of modeling was observed only in the first few inches of overburden directly above the ledge, i.e. the bedrock. The limited modeling steep slope of the ground surface and the bedrock outcroppings are indicative of a situation where precipitation infiltrates into the overburden and flows along the surface of the bedrock. This water most likely delights at some point downhill and become surface water run up from the site. To the extent that an existing groundwater elevation could be established at the site, that elevation would be beneath the surface of the bedrock and that's kind of a key point. Okay, his last, he goes on to say, stormwater structures, stormwater temporarily stored in subsurface structures will not change the groundwater elevation because that stormwater will never be in contact with groundwater. The thin layer of modeling above the bedrock is evidence that the bedrock is impermeable relative to the overburden. Mounding of the stormwater will likely occur while the water exfiltrates from the storage structure. The duration of that exfiltration will be on the order of days and will necessarily be followed by periods of no exfiltration, i.e. periods when it's not raining. The intermittent nature of the mounding and the permeability of the soils and fills will not create a situation where the hydraulic gradient is sufficient to push the stormwater into the bedrock. Therefore, we conclude that the proposed stormwater storage of stormwater, the proposed, I'm sorry, therefore we conclude that the proposed subsurface storage of stormwater will not change the groundwater elevation of the site. And that's basically the response that we got from the other hydrogeologists. They just said that this site, it's not an appropriate measure and that they don't have the capability to run this type of thing. So what we would like to propose to you is that we submit our responses to whatever questions our team has been able to answer on the novice letter, which is basically all of them, and address the comments on the site plan as best we can with the engineering team that we have in place. We're not planning on submitting a mounding report because we literally can't find anyone to take the task. So you're requesting that we waive that requirement? Well, I'm requesting that you let us submit what we feel is a complete response and let novice address it. That most of the people that we spoke with felt that novice would accept an answer that said this is not an appropriate question for this particular site because. Mary, does this applicant have a stormwater management report with stormwater calculations? And if not, could that be provided and also sent to Novice to review? I believe we probably do from the original filing. I wasn't the wetlands consultant, but I can look back and have Al Gala pull that together. So that would likely answer some of, you know, it's a really unique site that we don't get runoff from above because of the way the roadway is graded and roadway bedding being in place. We have a ledge site. We basically handle water that comes right directly from precipitation hitting the property. Groundwater is not an issue. Okay. Commission, any questions? Nathaniel Stevens. Just a comment. I think I endorse Mary's approach. I think they should submit what they have. We should have novice review it and respond in writing to it. And then we can go from there. Sure. Would that include the stormwater management report? I think if they have, are you, I'm trying to remember if they have, I don't remember if they prepared one. It's been so long, but yes, certainly if they have one, certainly provide it. I guess, do we want to require them to do one if they don't have one? I guess if you're asking for it. Let's see what we have before we get into that. Yeah. I mean, I think that's just, that's really an additional item. We did talk to Jim Vernon about this and that's, that is something that he suggested. So our peer reviewer believes that it's important. But if you have it, it's great. If you don't have it, maybe you have to come back to the commission, but so we have Nathaniel Stevens saying, submit what they have to novice. I'd like to add the stormwater management report and into that. And what do others say? Any other hands? Chuck, can I just add to that? What, I guess it might be helpful to understand to get from Jim Vernon, who's our peer reviewer consulted, what aspects of the stormwater report he would like because I think that a traditional stormwater management report going over all 10 of the stormwater management standards might not be pertinent to what Jim is trying to get at. I don't think that's what he's asking for. I suspect he's asking for the background information that allowed us to design the system that we have proposed. Yeah, the size and stuff. You know, the hydrocarbons and stuff. Yeah. Yes. Okay, right. So that's my point. You definitely have that information. So that should be easy. Okay. Okay, any other questions? I think Nathaniel's set. Okay. I don't think there's needs to vote. I think we just need to agree to it. Does that you want to vote? Well, we need to vote to continue the hearing, right? Yes, please. Yeah. And then you need, sorry. Go ahead, Jack. Yeah, I would like to request that the commission continue the public hearing until the next meeting of the commission and we will submit information to you prior to that meeting to allow you and your third party reviewer to inspect it. So I'd make a motion to continue to March 7th. I'll second. So yeah, I just want to make sure that I understand this. So you're going to come back to the next meeting or you're just keeping, you're just going to tag in that meeting. But if our reviewer doesn't have enough time, you would continue again. Of course. And we will try and get you something within the next week. We have our answers prepared. I've just got to collate them. You know, if Novus can turn it around, that's awesome. If not, we'll bug them. Sounds good. Okay. Okay. So we have a motion and a second. And let me go through the, let me go through the, I'm going to save my guild's game. Susan Chapnick. Yes. And David White. Yes. And David Kaplan. Yes. And Brian McBride. Yes. And Atheneal Stevens. Yes. And Chuck Turoni says yes. Okay. Thank you. Talk to you soon. Thank you. Thanks. Good night now. Night. Good night. Okay. Finally. We are. Thorndike. Conservation commission will hold a public hearing under the wetlands protection act only to consider notice of intent for construction of Thorndike place multifamily development on Dorothy road in Arlington. This hearing will be. A minute to discussion about, regarding a stormwater peer review. And with that my screen is blocked. So, yeah. Oh, and David White will recuse himself from this discussion. And with that hatch, I did see Duke here before and so. I see Ross. Ross is here. So. Okay, so let's go with Ross Ross. Why don't you update the commission on your reply and please introduce yourself for the record. Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is Ross Mullen. I work at Hatch and I completed a third part. We completed a third party review of the Thornbite Place development on Dorothy Road. Just as a recap, it's a six-pound home and one four-story senior living complex on a 17.7-acre parcel. You might remember from two weeks ago I had expressed some concerns in the third party review regarding groundwater levels as well as surface water intrusion possibilities and I was concerned on both from both the flood perspective as well as the water quality perspective and the ability to meet standards three and four for groundwater recharge and total suspended solids. Since we spoke two weeks ago, Chuck, Mr. Tyrone facilitated a technical discussion between the applicants and Hatch back on February 6th. I think we came a long way in that discussion to understanding some of the questions I had around the third party review, especially relating to the groundwater levels. In the intervening week or week and a half, there was the comments and response to comments that were sent back and forth between the applicants and I and I think those resolved many of the remaining questions. This morning I did send out a summary level list of what I believe we believe are the open items that still need to be addressed so that the project is in compliance with the mass stormwater handbook criteria. There were four things listed on that document and I briefly think I heard from the applicant that he was amenable to some of the changes. Those four remaining items would be the permanent establishment of vegetation on the south side of the senior living complex prior to that runoff from the senior living complex being routed over the top of it so that it didn't pick up any sediment and discharging the wetland. I'd like the applicant to verify that they provide at least 10 feet of separation between the infiltration, 10 feet of lateral separation between the infiltration tanks and the town home units as required by standard three. Jumping down in my list of comments to number four, there was some discussion about making sure the applicant manages a loose grit from aphids fault shingles if that's the direction they choose to go. And then finally and I think the biggest item still on my list is I'd like to see a bit more technical, the hatch team would like to see a little bit more technical basis for the groundwater mounding analysis underneath the largest infiltration device that's used to capture much of the runoff from the site. They're showing about four-tenths of a foot of mounding and I allude to this below. This site is just walking in extremely fine line with the groundwater levels and the elevation of all of the relevant structures and making sure that the clearances that are required and that within that very tight margin of error everything is solid. We've got a belt and suspenders dot the I's cross the T's. Those four items are I think the remaining concerns that the hatch team has for the project and but I did just summarize this whole discussion this morning and I don't know if the applicant has had time to review them. Is that the conclusion of your comments? That's a conclusion, yes sir. Dominic Rinaldi, I'd like you to reply before I go to the commission and then we'll let the commission ask each one of you questions as they go through their notes. So please just introduce yourself for the record. Sure Dominic Rinaldi, the C group of the seniors civil engineer on the project and let me apologize my voice may go in and out in advance that was the sixth last week and it's still kind of coming back so the cracks during the meeting that's that's what it is. So as as Ross mentioned we didn't haven't actually technically received this letter. We did manage to see it attached to the agenda tonight and we we did start looking at it this afternoon. You know certainly you know some of these things we can respond to relatively easily and some of them you know with a little more discussion. You know the first item of the discharge is basically talking about one of the roof discharge points. We did in a letter that that was probably received while Ross was writing this letter did provide calculations showing that the discharge from that that pipe and its associated outlet protection is is a non-erosive velocity and certainly we can discuss exactly what permanent establishment vegetation means in every regard. I think that's that's relatively relatively easy. The second one this is the first time anyone has mentioned ten feet of separations is the first time that comment has come up in in a couple of rounds of comments here so we'll kind of get back to you on that topic. The third one which is the probably the biggest one is as Ross mentioned you know they asked for additional information about some of the the variables that we used and how we determined them and you know we can we can provide that information. Going into it here is very technical and I don't want to burn with her. And then the last one we had actually previously that that was a comment in Ross's original letter that we had agreed to we put it in the in the stormwater report and we can certainly add those as as no plan requirements. It's basically just you know some cleanup of stuff before we we connect the the townhouse roof drains into the systems if we use asphalt shingles which I mean I don't know at this point if we're going to use asphalt signals but certainly if we do that's a perfectly reasonable request and we have no issue with that. Okay so to the commission looking for questions for either Ross or Dominic on this and I'm not seeing any and so I'll start out maybe that'll help. So I guess a number four on the hatch the late hatch latest hatch report talks about the asphalt shingles. What I was wondering about that is are you going to set up something at the discharge point to manage the water until this till that area is is vegetated. Yeah that one's a little you're kind of combining one. I'm combining two but I think that's number one I was talking about. Yeah and so what we what we have on that outlet pipe is is a riprap dissipation pad so basically there's a detail in the plan set it's a riprap it boils down a little and has an area that that is a level spreader and causes the the pipe outlet to the pipe discharge water to slow down goes over the bridge and spreads out in what you know what's called sheet flow which is that slower velocity spread out flow and that's the calculation we provided was we modeled that usually don't model that we modeled that in to show in the 100-year storm it's actually it's less than two feet per second which is which is a non-erosive velocity you know what we'll what we'll do is I mean so that that outlet gets built that outlet protection gets built as soon as that pipe is built and ready to discharge anything at any point which obviously comes once really the building is is sort of tight and enclosed and the roof is actually catching rainwater and discharging and what I imagine we'll do is yeah provide I mean that area is is a little bit depressed as you go away from the building already and we'll probably provide some sort of temporary settling basin or something during construction until everything can fully be established yeah so what my concern is and I'm going to skip back to the asphalt shingles so I see the roof going on quickly and the gutter system going in and the downspouts going on if that's the way you're going to work this as soon as possible because it manages the mess that's around the building and since it can't go into the discharge the underground infiltration system where's it going to go and how do you propose to manage that until all the gravel that's from the roof that gets into the gutters is cleaned out and then again so the problem with from what I hear from Ross the problem with those little granule asphalt stones is they'll get into the crevices and block up the infiltration system so it sounds like a smart idea but and but how are you going to manage that system until everything's ready and I guess the gutters can be cleaned out well initially I mean it'll be a system where we'll work with the contractor again basically like a temporary settling basin or a small diversion swale that'll wrap it to a temporary settlement basin on on site as these stands and then once once you know once the roof is on and the shingles are established and I mean honestly I was even thinking from the concept of their description of when they go on you know you get a hose up there and wash them down or something to sort of speed up that process of of getting really it's kind of the stuff as you bang the shingles in that that breaks loose and then once you know it's kind of done it's just your typical roof which which as you know doesn't require treatment under sure I think if you if you're diverting the water once it's kind of done and that's all cleaned up you know then that connection gets made underground sure so yeah it's good if it's going into a settling basin that that's fine stone it's going to drop quick so I think that's great we'll just have to think about maybe a condition on how long that happens and you know when but but I'm glad that you're prepared to not connect it immediately I see uh Nathaniel Stevens hands is up thanks uh and with the risk of getting too technical uh Dom you mentioned that you guys were revised do some revisions to your storm your mounting analysis I believe you said well I didn't say revision I said what what they've asked for is basically backup information right is is where did you come up with some of this information oh okay because all right well I guess related to the mounting analysis we had a comment from Scott Coorsley and so I just want to turn to it so I don't butcher it because it's quite technical he mentioned that your groundwater analysis was based relied on a modeled infiltration duration of 0.1 of 0.46 days which is about 1.1 hours to simulate the impacts of a 24-hour storm and he says the storm water report does not provide an explanation I don't know if that's the information you're going to provide or yeah that that that is part of the information that um uh I believe Ross asked for okay I was entitled duration of infiltration period which is one of the questions okay great because he just goes on to say and he did I did check this in the handbook that it requires the groundwater modeling analysis be conducted for the 24-hour design storm 10 24 100 year events so no storm side duration by definition as you know Dom but maybe others don't have a duration 24 hours so that's also I was hoping that that can be addressed and sounds like you're headed that way to do that yes thanks so any other questions from the conservation commission so I'm just going to follow up with one other question so um Dominic you know I've been concerned about the sump pumps and I know it was just mentioned but it makes a lot of sense that these units are going to have sump pumps and you haven't determined that yet but I was just I'm still wondering where that discharge if they were needed is going to go and the reason why I'm concerned about that probably unlike anyone else in the neighborhood is because per 10.04 and the definitions again one of the examples of alteration would include lowering water water levels or the water table so it concerns me that with with all these new buildings possibly discharging uh just to keep the basements dry I'm concerned where that water's going and that we're not going to have some sort of alteration so I don't know if you're prepared for that question but if you are great but I did ask it at the last meeting so um sorry um so what we'll be working out ultimately as the building design progresses um as as we get into building permit stages the foundations and the foundation waterproofing and and potentially any need for sump pumps will be determined by the foundation designer in in coordination with McPhail Associates as the geotechnical engineer on the project they've been the geotech since the the project was in the comp permit process they are in the process of updating a memo that they did for during the comp permit process regarding foundations and groundwater elevations they're updating it with respect to when they wrote that memo originally the the main building garage was actually lower it's um actually a little bit higher now than it was sorry I'm just pulling something and so one of the things and and obviously like I said that memo is being updated but um they did provide um you know in that memo and I'll just read this as part of it from 2021 um where they said that the slab should be designed as a waterproof slab and waterproofing extend up the foundation walls to the ground surface surface all right this will protect the garage from groundwater intrusion and from seasonal fluctuations in the groundwater level at this point by the way I'll just interrupt that the graph at that point the garage was actually a little bit below groundwater level it's come up since then um given that the garage is only slightly below the observed groundwater level and the groundwater gradient is relatively flat the garage should not have an impact on seasonal groundwater fluctuations or on the groundwater gradient parentheses flow in the area surrounding the proposed building so as I said the Gears-Hackville engineer and the foundation designers will be determining that um you know any some pumps will will discharge in a in a legal manner um whatever that that may be but like I said that the need for some pumps or anything like that is is determined at a later process and in the state in the permitting state so if a if a some pump for a single family house or one of your units was running 24-7 how much discharge do you think that would account for are you moving over 10,000 gallons 100,000 gallons 10,000 gallons sounds like a lot I mean I I honestly don't know all right well it's still it's a question that's out there I know that you said in a legal manner but it it's it's connected to the well and protection acts and lowering groundwater levels so I'd like to get closer to an answer maybe when that um that memo's updated you can provide that to the commission yeah that's the intent okay uh Susan Chapnick thank thank you I have to lower my hand now okay um um previously we had talked about it at the uh last hearing um that test bit seven which is directly over the infiltration unit the larger infiltration unit is my understanding was um unreliable I I believe those were the words I I'm I'm not a stormwater expert so excuse me if I'm butchering it a little bit um and that therefore um the uh test pit I believe for whichever one was the more conservative number was being used um as the seasonal high to develop season high groundwater so I'm thinking this is inconsistent with the stormwater handbook guidelines um because it's not at over the infiltration unit and even though it looks like maybe the project is using a more conservative level how do we know if we did did monitoring wells that we wouldn't even get a more conservative level in this area I don't know so it's just a question I have um it seems inconsistent to me if if you could address that well so one I would say it's test for seven isn't unreliable um that's um I believe someone who is working opposed to the project um said that but okay excuse me what the the question was is there was some redox features some modeling found in test pit seven and the question was why didn't we use that to determine groundwater elevation and as I explained at the last hearing and I believe your peer reviewer confirmed my statement so the way you do this when you use redox right I'll try to make this as untechnical as I can right basically you do these test pits you're digging a hole a big hole and on the wall of that hole in the dirt you look for these redox features right some are basically dirt is tan or brown for the most part and some of these redox features are lighter some of them are darker they have a purple coloring depending upon the minerals involved and when you see a certain you look down and if you see them when you see a certain percentage of you continue you sort of generally what you're doing is you're in the hole you sort of draw a little line where they start seeing that percentage and you look down in the hole if that percentage or more of those redox features shows all the way to the bottom of your hole to wherever you've dug your hole that's a ground wall that's what we had in test pit five right we saw the redox features the top of that percentage was that elevation 3.98 looking down the hole there they are the whole way that's a ground wall in test pit seven you saw some you went down a little ways they were there and then they stop and so the rest of the test pit they were not so when you have that that's that's an indicator that like at some point as water seeped into the ground maybe it got hung up there for a little while something happened that caused those little color variations but it's not ground wall it's not a seasonal high ground water and that's the process that the state has has put together that's the process that's used under the ones protection act and that's why it's consistent so in these cases where in many other cases when you're doing test pits in a in a month like May like we were or November or something like that and groundwater elevations are normal or high you know you're not in a drought which we determined we've all determined and I believe I think David Morgan determined it in the first hearing groundwater elevations what we were doing these test pits was in normal elevations a lot of times most of the times what people do and they don't see redox is they they see groundwater which we saw much deeper and that's where they say groundwater well we did is rather than do that we said we have this redox feature which is farthest away from the well right and as people presented previously groundwater levels the groundwater flow is expected to go towards the wetlands so you expect that if anything as it heads in that direction groundwater is going to be a little lower a little lower elevation as we get where like test pit seven is the infiltration system is and we said we're not going to call it lower we're going to call it the exact same thing that we found in the worst case scenario that we found on the entire project site we said this is the highest groundwater elevation we found anywhere and this is what we're going to use for everything so we took a very conservative approach rather than try to say something was lower rather than try to say that we just said we're going to use the worst case scenario for us and that's what we're going to stay so let me just ask one follow-up thanks for explaining that um the the one follow-up is is it your opinion so it it appears that there's a lot of variability on this site um in groundwater elevations at least in in my very you know limited experience of looking at groundwater at projects that come before the commission um so there is a lot of variability in in a kind of a smaller area um do you believe that this this method that you used is more reliable than than doing monitoring well um getting monitoring well data over a few months and actually seeing what it is is is that your opinion I think generally speaking it's going to be more conservative because the redox that top redox is is a seasonal high it doesn't mean every year it gets there it doesn't mean it's even going to get there in the period that you watch it it means that it gets there enough to leave that mark and that's sort of that is the standard that is used which is why again we use the highest thing you know you can observe these groundwater and as I said we did this in May we saw groundwater but all of the physical groundwater we saw regardless of where it is was much lower than this and that was in what USGS referred to as normal groundwater conditions so again we tried yeah thank you could could I um um chair would you mind if I ask the same question to our peer reviewer please okay so um Ross could you answer the same question what do you think would be more reliable the the taking the the highest redox point even if it's not over the infiltration system given the inconsistencies at the site or doing getting monitoring well data real for several months and and doing it from them I am not a soil sorry I know I gotta be careful I'm a stormwater engineer I'm not a soil scientist nor am I a geotechnical engineer there's a reason that those professionals exist and they provide their thoughts on this as I've said a few times the margin of error on the site is very tight the the applicant meets the standard which is using the redox method can I answer that please um yeah I'm also with Ross I'm with Hatch this is Duke I'm a conservation commissioner over in Lexington I've been there for 25 years and I've gone through many many test pit analysis and what we do is we we uh favor this method of using redox which is the estimated seasonal high water table which is what Dominic was saying so you can find groundwater that fluctuates and in certain seasons it's higher than the estimated season like the people who call in and say take a look at my photograph look I'll hide the groundwater well that's true and then most of the year it's actually lower than the estimated seasonal high water but when when we make a determination especially when we're doing infiltration we're looking for that two feet of separation we're looking for the estimated seasonal water and that's where we use soil scientists to go out there and they have their little book and they're looking at the it's the moles book for coloration and we're trying to determine that higher elevation that you can see and we as a commission will require that they do the test pit information um over the area that they're doing their infiltration proposing their infiltration devices so that that's that's what we've done and I think that's um the most conservative way that's been put forth by the stormwater handler thank you so your your recommendation is doing another test pit if if test pit seven is not giving reliable data taking another test pit under the infiltration chamber and uh seeing where the redox is and that and that second test pit and that was that was my it's going to be my follow-up to susan's question it's a dominic and the dominic I was wondering like you know just to just to put you on the spot a little bit east eilington has been flooding for years you guys must have known that there's been a problem out there forever and people have been telling everybody who's in quasi town role that they need help and and you're out there and you take a test pit and I get it and you must have known that stormwater and groundwater and flooding is going to be a big deal in this application and so I'm curious why with all the time it's taken to even get to this point why there wasn't just three months somewhere where you could have put some wells in a bunch of wells just all over the place and then monitored them I know they might have been expensive but this is uh this is a big project and if you ever thought of it that way it seemed like maybe you did what you thought was needed but you didn't look to um kind of like overcoming you know what what the neighborhood believes and what what's been happening to east eilington so I'm also at a point where I'm I'm wondering why you're not doing monitoring wells and and you had a great explanation on the uh seasonal high ground water maybe you could talk about that a little bit and then also talk about why you didn't uh just do another test bit next to or at least underneath that chamber somewhere else well this chamber we have three test pits in there where you were very focused on test pit seven because uh someone brought up the fact that there was modeling in there and implied that we should have used that as the groundwater test pit eight is in that same system and showed we found gross we found sitting around water at elevation two and a half well below where we're you know a foot and a half lower than what we're using um and test pit I forget if it's two or three from the original set of test pits we did in 2020 in November where again we found groundwater significantly lower than the elevation that we're using so again I before we are using the most conservative method that that is is the standard of the practice and and as for flooding in the area I'm not going to deny there's flooding in the area but there is a lot of causes for flooding um including you know there's there's there's a catch basin in the corner a Dorothy and little John that goes to a town owned drain that clearly has never been maintained there's an easement there's easements through this site that clearly never been tamed because they're massively overgrown um so there's a lot of causes of flooding it's not just ground one yeah we don't want to we don't want to add nothing to the flooding and we certainly want to make everybody feel a confident that the project is going but again this is this is is the the standard practice in the industry the way we did it and the approach that we took again is conservative compared to what is done a lot yeah sure so my my question is suggest that we're guided here by what the state requirements are we're adhering to that we're using the most conservative and I think that you know if if the commission is is you know looking at other projects as this neighborhood which I know you are right now has this standard that you're proposing been applied to these other projects I don't think so so we're asking for consistency not arbitrary or profuseness we understand this project isn't um desired by certain people but the review and you know to hatch his credit they're they're looking at the standards of the state standards and and that's what we're talking about um the the what ifs and the worst case scenarios and is the groundwater higher than our conservative or are we going to do something that's going to lower the groundwater those are all a bunch of navies that that people that are opposing a project you typically hear from we will respond to the most recent hatch once one thing at a time to really fully review it as nobody really wasn't given to us formally yet but I think that a lot of these what ifs scenarios are based on conjecture and they're not based on the standards and I just want to make certain that our discussion here is under the state standards yeah so I'm the one that asked about the discharge so I haven't made my mind up yet so I want to make sure that that's clear even though I did say I was concerned about groundwater levels but so getting back to my question um because I do think it's relevant I'm just wondering is it not standard when you get a bad report on a on a test pit to not to do one next to it I understand you have another one underneath that invitation I'm sorry I have to politely disagree with you we don't have a bad result on a test pit that is a wildly misleading statement and I'm sorry I'm getting upset but that is a wildly you have my permission to correct it but I don't know how you would characterize results on a test pit we did the test pits in according with the standards and this is what we found redox features do not so you're satisfied with the numbers that you got from that test bit I'm very satisfied with the numbers I got from the test bit and we used way worse numbers for our for our design so you wouldn't you don't we don't need to do another test bit and we don't need to do monitoring laws because what you have out there is adequate and all of the information that we have in those tests is what we use for design I just again it might not be the wetlands protections uh I'm just saying it seems like that you might want to you know kind of make people feel confident and I'm sure confidence isn't in the WPA but again you're you it's two battles that everybody has to fight I know you have to talk to us and then we have 47 people here online that are all concerned about this project and you have an opportunity to make them feel a little bit better so that's all I was getting at so I'm going to turn to Nathaniel Stevens right now thanks Chuck uh I'm sorry just so you were explaining earlier I think one of your first comments was again you saw in test pit good sorry test bit seven you saw modeling start at a level but it didn't continue down through the test pit right right okay thanks so what elevation did you start seeing that I'm going to say in incomplete or yeah what elevation did you first start seeing modeling even if it didn't continue down I'd have to go back and look that up I don't know the elevation off hand because my my main question is is that higher or lower than the conservative number that you say you're using which I think is what 3.98 yeah so and I couldn't I was looking back the storm water report I couldn't tell uh what's you know what that level was in that test pit log or maybe I wasn't looking at the right log about when you first started seeing that I'd have to go back and okay that does if you could provide any information and some of it's that we it's it's kind of goofy in a way when you do the logs you measure down from grade so right the logs are the logs are all done in depth from grade and then you go back and figure out what the service grade is and each service grade each test pit starts at a different service grade so you've got to work it out right you know anywhere from I don't know seven or eight to up to maybe 12 or something but that's why you end up expressing the ground model level in a set elevation right so consistent throughout so okay yeah because you might say I mean in theory you could see you could see redox six feet below surface surface is 12 feet right versus you see it at you know three feet below surface but surface is five or something you know so that you you get the elevation okay yeah so right I get that so yeah if you can just tell me what the elevation is that you observed redox features in test pit seven I think that would help me thanks okay any other questions from the conservation commission and we've kind of taken this a little bit of time I can open it up to I can open up to anyone that's attending tonight's meeting and I see that Scott Horsley has his hand up and I'm going to I'm actually not sure who had their hand up first so I'm going to go with Scott Horsley if that's okay I think based on my observation I think his hand has been up for quite a while okay Scott please introduce yourself for the record yes thank you mr. Chairman Scott Horsley I am working as a consultant to the Arlington land trust and I've submitted two letters one that I presented at your last meeting and then a subsequent letter dated February 7th that attempted to clarify some of the points that I made at the prior meeting and they were discussed and I just want to briefly address those I don't I I have I have the letter I this quotations of the mass storm or handbook which will clarify I think some of the prior discussion what it does say what it doesn't say I'll paraphrase that in my own opinion now if we want to look at the language I do have it we can put it up and read it together but just really three comments one is first of all I agree with Ross's overall characterization here I can't I can quote him exactly but walking a tight line this site I think most of us would agree this is there's not a lot of room to spare here oh it's shallow groundwater we're we're talking about structures close if not into the water table but there's not a lot of room to spare here as I think maybe another way to Ross characterize it which I totally agree with so and as you said mr. Chairman why not get some more data to prove this out I think there might be some wells in existence I'm not sure that's true or not but I've heard that and if so then you know why haven't they been monitored and why couldn't we start tomorrow and it would also be easy to put wells in because this is shallow groundwater so this is not a cost issue or a timing issue we are coming up in about two weeks on the high groundwater season looking around the state typically high water is observed in March April May and so as I said in my letter if in fact we all want to get more comfortable with this and rely on actual data we can do that but we need to start soon or we wait till next year next March April May but I'm not sure we want to wait that long we have an opportunity to measure the water level during the next three months if we start soon again there may be wells there or be the easy to put in I guess what I want to address is some of the other questions about what do you do if you find well first of all I want to address Nathaniel's question because I presented that elevation if you take the modeling level in test pit seven according to my calculation certainly Dominic can check this and get back as I'm sure he will I find it at 5.7 elevation that Daniel is the number and that's in my prior letter okay thank you for reminding me sure sure no problem and my interpretation is stormwater handbook and again I can show you the language if you'd like it's in it's in my letter February 7th is that the way a MSTP recommends or requires uh seasonal high water is to first look and see if you find uh modeling uh redox as as we've been talking about I agree that's a that's a good method to do that if you can get a reliable result um and that there is modeling in this well excuse me it's test pit seven it's that elevation 5.7 my understanding of the soil interpreter is that it was not reliable because of I think the way Dominic explained it made sense to me it wasn't continuous what what the handbook suggests at that point is to then go to welts to to determine seasonal high water and it also talks about comparing the water levels in those wells the USGS index well there is a statewide network this is another routine method to determine estimated seasonal high water both for stormwater and tidal five septic systems to compare the water level measures you're making on your site with one of these index wells to make sure that this spring is one of how it compares to the highest spring this is again these are three standard methods they're outlined in the handbook the the text is in my letter so again the order is look for redox if you find it use it if you don't go to wells monitor water levels for the spring season and compare that to USGS index wells if we want to look at the language we can the other thing I put in my February 7th letter it's pretty clear to me that these measurements need to be and I'll use the terminology in the handbook at the location most people describe it as within the footprint of the infiltration of Dominic's I'm absolutely right there's more than one test pit at the site but based upon their own judgment they don't have adequate or reliable water level data so they're proposing to use it use the water the water level data shown as the redox in well the test pit five my estimate my estimate looking at the plants around 150 feet away that is clearly not in compliance in my view with the stormwater handbook which says at the location so I sum it up with as I think a couple people have asked in that if we don't want to use the redox or if we don't think the redox signature in test pit seven is reliable then we should use wells that's my that's my interpretation of the handbook I think that's what it says and the information has to be you know quote a quote them again at the location there is a lot of look there has been already demonstrated there's a lot of differences and water levels already shown across the site so why we think um the number the levels at seven are indicative of five I'm not sure it is it is the highest one that was found in the redox I do agree with that but this just seems to me we need better information at this site it's a very large infiltration system it's very close to the water table and then my last comment is back to the duration of the the ground mounting analysis I mentioned this at the last meeting I think Ross mentions it in his letter I would just ask maybe through the chair if it's appropriate to simply ask Dominic tonight just one question about it why are we using one hour duration if we can just get a plain language answer to that that would be really helpful I think to all of us because and as I said in my original letter I just don't understand it maybe there's a good reason so through you Mr. Chair if we could get an answer to that tonight that would be really helpful yeah Dominic do you have an answer to Scott Hoasley's question uh Mr. Chair I would rather put that answer in writing sure Scott could you provide the commission that question in writing and we'll relay that to Dominic Granaldi yes I mean I would rather put writing I mean it's fine if you want to get a written comment and pass it along but we we kind of already have that question from Ross okay I yeah Scott I think that it would be good to still have your question in writing just to make sure that we're we're good with that I think I do have it Mr. Chair in both the earlier letter I'll double check in fact I'm looking at it right now if you have a copy of my February 7th letter mm-hmm if you'd like I can show it to you right now but it is clearly in here and it was in my last letter as well and I can just read it to you applicants groundwater mounting analysis relies upon a modeled infiltration duration of 0.46 days parentheses 1.1 hours to simulate the impacts of a 24 hour storm the stormwater report does not provide an explanation for this apparent discrepancy this suggests to me that the groundwater modeling therefore underestimates groundwater mounting at the site so that's in my current letter and I did have a similar comment at the last meeting and we're just not getting any answer yeah I I really I did ask a question earlier about that and Dom said he was they were going to revise revise you know provide some information about the their mounting analysis and but I think yeah tell you on to that yes an explanation as Scott outlines would be helpful for me as well I guess I should just make sure do you have my February 7th letter so do you know anybody from the commission or maybe the staff I just want to make sure you have it yes it's posted on the website thank you thanks Scott you're welcome okay David I didn't know if your question related to this because Mr. Eurek's hand's been up do you need David Kaplan sure I just had a follow-up question a technical question on how groundwater would be determined if we did just that because I would just but I can I can table that and we can continue a public comment and I can ask that of our peer reviewer later no I think you have the question out there who's who's that directed to so I guess the question would be for Ross you know in reference to Mr. Horsley's letter and the consideration of parameters to understand the water table it does allude to measuring that water level at the time but then comparing it to USGS index wells to understand whether or not this was above normal year normal year below normal year I just wanted to understand that a little better because I mean if we do decide that we're going to go down this path that additional groundwater level information is needed and that parameters need to be installed this is you know an above normal rain year and I imagine that the water will probably be higher than what the applicant observed at the time of the test pits so I just want to I just want to understand how that information is normalized so it's kind of an objective look at what the estimated seasonal high groundwater level is and not just we're holding them to a standard where they need to look at everything from the highest groundwater level or one of the higher groundwater levels that we may see this spring is that does that make sense along with it could you maybe provide a what's the one sentence question in there okay they we've installed parameters we're measuring the water table in the spring of 2024 it's an abnormally wet year the groundwater level is high how is that normalized to the seasonal water level right I can just jump in the storm water handbook I think I understand what just to give some context storm water handbook as Scott quotes is it says when redox features are not available installation of temporary push point wells or piezometers should be considered ideally such well should be monitored in the spring when groundwater is high highest and importantly the results are compared to nearby groundwater wells monitored by the USGS to estimate whether regional groundwater is below normal normal or above normal so I think Dave Kaplan you're asking how do you we find out is below normal then how do you adjust the results that we get from the monitoring wells right exactly I just if they you know wherever the water level is is going to push the project you know one direction for another so I just how does that remain an impartial look of an estimated seasonal high groundwater level when redox does not fail just wanted to understand that let's say the water level is normally at four but this spring it's measured at six you know how does that do then they still have to design to the normal four and it's because it seems to me that redox is the way to get that information we're looking at an area that fluctuates you know from high groundwater to low groundwater and we want to design to where we see it in the middle that's we seem to have this redox characteristics so I'm just I guess I'm a little skeptical about the additional information that we would get from installing monitoring wells but if we do I just want to make sure that it's normalized in a way that's um you know uh I guess fair and impartial to the to the process um I do not have an opinion on that I would lean on some of my geotechnical colleagues probably and run that by them uh Duke do you have anything I could provide you an answer in writing from them though if that's helpful no I as I said before in in our town we we use the redox methodology and we use them in the areas um in proximity to the test pits and and if we don't we're we're out there the commissioners are out there with a professional wetland scientist while they do this and you typically have where you have fluctuating water table like this and we're close to the water table you really have good redox readings you really have good measurements so if if one of these is in question and it was our commission I would go back to the test pit and do another test pit in proximity and say and take another look and say how does this compare to the seasonal water estimated seasonal water table that we came up with the first one is it is it lower than than the anomaly that Dominic's talking about because it's not a constant modeling all the way down to the bottom and if it is you know what's that elevation and how does that compare to some of the other redox elevations that we've seen that that's what we would do and I'm not I'm not a hydrologist but we we rely on the soil scientist to do that and it's pretty straightforward and they can do it with a soil probe I mean Dominic I mean is that I'm assuming that's how they did it for the the three test pits that were done correct I mean didn't were they using soil probes or were they using the test pits or would it be easy to do a soil probe we did a test pass yeah sorry for some feedback there oh that was me um we did we did full test pits with a small excavator would it be easy to go out there and do a soil probe because we're only talking about if it's well if it's two or three feet below the actual ground elevation would be easy to do it with a soil probe is that possible uh you know we weren't seeing groundwater two to three feet below well it depends on what do what time of the year you go out there but where you see is where you see in the modeling the modeling in that test pit was the lower four feet okay so in that case you probably would need a test pit and you wouldn't be able to rely on a soil probe right so you would go out and do another test yeah yeah I mean the the modeling we saw in that test pit was 51 inches down and the the groundwater elevations were all 60 plus that was in May or June did you say and then we saw he saw pretty similar results when we did them in November of 2020 in some different spots the design was different so the the locations were a little different those are those three 2020 test pits that are included in the storm water okay um I'm gonna go to john uh your wicks whoops sorry before you go before we get off this point um I don't know you know Scott I'm sorry Dave David asked the question to both our peer reviewer and Dom about what the uh you know if we went down this time of monitoring what it would do and how do you correlate the results and I was going to say you know there's also someone else here going out has had a lot of experience with us I think Scott Horsley could provide any perspective on that question I can thank you Mr. Chair if I may um so that there is actually a method to do this to compare the on-site measured water levels with these USGS index wells and I can attempt to provide a very simple explanation of how this is done there's actually a report by USGS that is used routinely to do this but essentially what happens is you go out and measure at your site and you get that water level during the spring and then you look at an index well that's matched to the site and I won't go into detail how you do that but generally speaking it's a relatively nearby well in a similar hydrologic setting and that index well has a long-term database so measures water levels let's say over a 20-year period and you look at where the water level is in that index well at the date that you're measuring on this site and then you look at the difference between where that is at the index well and the highest point and that's called an adjustment so it might be let's say 1.5 two feet different so then you'd add that to your measured water level on this site essentially what you're doing is you're using the index well as a long-term record to normally use the term normalize before to normalize your measurement because as we've said a number of times here the spring is generally the high time of the year but we don't know whether it's March April of May first of all and varies quite a bit and then we don't know whether this year is as wet as other years so the way to normalize that is to compare it to the long-term USGS record and that's what that's what mass DEP is referring to in the handbook with the stuff that I think Nathaniel read would be to compare the piezometer readings to that USGS index wells I hopefully that was helpful and so it's a little bit more detailed than that the actual method but that's essentially how you do it thanks it was helpful to me hopefully today as well thank you thanks Chuck sorry to interrupt you know not a problem I just want to make sure everyone's finished with this point I want to let uh John yorks has hand up for a very long time hi can you hear me yes hello yes we can hear you oh that's great my name is john euro which 57 year resident of the town 40 years on the corner a little john and mart and uh chairman two only has mentioned three times neighborhood confidence um my confidence was in this project was low all along it got considerably lower after tonight's meeting in listening to all the standardized measurements and readings that are made in an area that has a high risk factor we stand to lose a lot the neighbors in this in this in this area uh every one of them at at some high storm days have had pipes coming out of their cellars out of the garages out of their cellar windows it's we don't want that to happen again if this development is built you're you're making a huge concrete hole in the ground where those aquifers are going to get damaged enough to vary all the patterns all the flows that this groundwater is taking just take one reading and call it the groundwater is at four and like the someone said what if it's measured to six what do you design for well all we need is one six to show up after this thing is built and the whole neighborhood is having water in their basements we don't want that this is of all the of all the impacts this development is going to have in this neighborhood of all the of all the impacts there are many you know that this one here is the worst it has a major cost risk to every neighbor in this area everyone people that have eight steps up to their first floor or two steps up to the first floor we're all gonna have problem yes john do you have a so um i'd like to keep this at a high level and i know that there's a lot of anxiety out there but if you had a question um so we i think they know that there's there's been flooding is there uh some part of the process that you wanted to ask a question about other than to say that you're you're um not very confident about how the measurements were taken so unless i ask a technical question my time is worthless i just don't want you to so we don't want to um uh you know just start um teeing off on on people so i so i want you to just if you just had a question and i think that would be good for everyone also if you have a question that's great i think it's understood that this is this area and east arlington floods and there's a concern out there so i don't want to uh you know shorten your time in any way but i just want to have some ground rules okay so all right you've made test pits and read the ground water levels there's talk about pizometers there's talk about more test pits uh the the engineer i forget a dominic i think uh gave us the answer that he didn't have his his stats with him tonight well if if i was going to go to a meeting in the crux of the matter was groundwater i'd sure have my briefcase full of all my groundwater stats i would like to suggest that we do more than standard for groundwater testing in this area whatever the standard is you know you dig three test pits then you're going to cut it we need test pits to to replicate the test pits 50 feet away 20 feet away so i try to interrupt with my tirade but no i think it can very concerned neighbor um we've been fighting this probably enough of 50 or more years okay now it's now because of 40 b the state says you can build down here why how wetlands were always sanctified land don't build on wetlands now we can build on wetlands something's wrong with that chairman i'm sorry i blew off steam but i understand it's going to impact us in the end thank you for listening good night i understand i i certainly heard you want more testing um susan stamp would you uh just introduce yourself uh for the uh for the record please hi there uh can you hear me and see me yes thank you i am a town meeting member across the street from this project in precinct three and been following this project for for a long time and i have a lay person's question which is we have been talking about and feeling the effects of climate change for quite a while but particularly in the last couple of years and the um the in the governor in her recent state of the state address talked about uh future proofing quote unquote our communities um i've been listening to the discussions of the data which i barely understand on the last several weeks and and i keep and i and i just wonder why there's it's all based on the past what's happened in the past when we can see that we're getting heavier rains um more increased weather and flooding and i'm assuming that if you could make some reasonable predictions based on the last few years and predictions of what climate change is going to do that you would somehow apply those factors and by you i mean the engineers uh to the the numbers um and uh but i would um but i would like to ask that question is to is there any consideration or are you able to give any consideration for the well-known effect that there's going to be a lot more flooding and intense weather coming our way thank you doc do you want me to answer that sure nothing no sure susan unfortunately we're dealing with regulations that have not been updated in over a decade to reflect these climate change measures and actually just uh right before christmas d e p which uh whose regulations were operating under finally after much prodding and pushing released draft regulations which would incorporate climate change measures and conservation commissions to ask for that type of information but unfortunately our hands are tied at this um on those matters so we have to look sort of backwards as you say we have to rely on out of date uh data um i'm trying to remember i think actually in this instance the applicant did voluntarily use uh some less out of date rainfall data in preparing their storm water report i think that they did yeah because it's consistent yeah in the in the comprehensive permit but then you just know and i had had some sway in and in making sure that they used what's called the NOAA 14 data so that right which is newer than if i may mr chairman too we actually have updated that for this application in the comprehensive permit we use NOAA 14 um in this application we used what the town refers to as NOAA 14 plus plus which is the short NOAA 14 they give you a range of numbers um and and a number to use and what the town bylaw requires is know what you call NOAA 14 plus plus which is the highest number in that range and that's what we're using for our rainfall data so we are using even though we are not required to comply with the arlington bylaw we are using the rainfall requirement that the arlington bylaw requires which for reference the the requirements under the storm water standards as nevinia was saying are outdated like a hundred years storm in this area is probably somewhere around seven inches and 24 hours the NOAA 14 or what that we use for the comp permit was somewhere around 10 we're using something like it's a little over 11 inches and 24 hours so it's it's 60 percent higher than the state standard so we are actually taking into account the impacts of climate change in our storm water management system okay all right thank you um again I see uh Robert DiBiasi uh but I didn't know if um Brian McBride had a follow-up question to this NOAA 14 plus plus so no it's regarding the test bit Chuck sure so let's just hold let me get uh uh Robert DiBiasi you can unmute yourself and ask a quest your question thank you mr chair I have three um parts of the question here one is uh I was wondering if the yeah if you if you can hear us you might want to turn off your video and then just ask your question and see if you can come back online you're frozen so we'll get back to uh mr DiBiasi in a few minutes uh Brian McBride why don't you ask your question yeah I'm sorry if this is a basic question but I guess this is to to duke um and uh Ross regarding the um the impact of doing it if we ask the applicant to do an additional test pit or well um I think uh Dominic has said they've used sort of the worst case scenario uh in regard to the two-foot buffer and and you said duke and and Ross the the calculations came very close to that requirement of two feet but past it um if they do an additional well or test pit is it likely that that would actually impact that two feet number would would they have to be the worst case scenario plus something and how would that play out in terms of the calculation if we do an additional well in terms of changing the the pass fail at that two feet yeah thanks for that so the the standard is that there is two feet of separation between the bottom of an infiltration device that's used for storm water management and the seasonal high groundwater and you and you want that two feet so that that water is percolating through the soil um and you get your your treatment uh through that percolation you you you grab the benefits of mother nature by doing that so as I said their their water the highest seasonal high groundwater level was at 3.98 and the bottom of the infiltration features across the site is at six and 3.98 is right next to four so about four and so six minus four is two feet um and so really this whole discussion about the seasonal high groundwater level it if the value was determined to be greater than four by some other process all the infiltration devices um would need to be reconfigured um so they're they're pretty big design impacts on that front it did I get did I answer your question yeah so if that one well that say we redid that one has been discussed there's some suspicion about um is it likely that that would change the results um given what you know about the redox and the water level observed would it have to be some phenomenally surprising situation for that one well to give a game changing result or is that within the realm of possibilities and therefore something that we really need to pursue if if the well that this hypothetical well had a redox level greater than four then yes there would be um it would this the site would need to be reconfigured okay that will be what we'd be interested to find out then uh i'm mr tbsi um i see that you've back online would you like to continue with your question thank you somehow all of a sudden it seemed like we ran out of zoom time my screen went blank my question really was um are there wells on site and i'm not sure if that question was answered after i was offline uh they're they're they're wells on site but they're not being monitored okay okay they're not being monitored so they were uh point in time uh well and so i don't think there's any other data if i've said that wrong dominica ross let me know but that's that's how i see it all right i was just curious about that because i spoke with the gentleman when they installed them back in june or july and they said somebody was going to be monitoring them and i have yet to see that happen and i was curious about that yeah so i i i believe it was actually uh suggested by the town engineering department to put in those um pvc those white pvc pipes um that that's what i heard when i was out on a on a site visit but dominic that was your and i noticed you unmuted do you have anything to add to that yeah it was a request by um the town engineer um we were doing the test pits we were coordinating them with the um uh white stone engineering that the town hired to observe them at the same time um and um and i apologize i'm like wane wane schoenard is wane schoenard wane schoenard sorry um pronounce that wrong if he's here i apologize um um and he requested that we put them in um as they answer the the gentleman's question i don't know who he talked to at that point um he said he talked to um i think he said he talked to a male um which the only male out there that was from our company or our side of the equation would have been me for part of the day and i definitely didn't talk to anybody and tell him anything about what we would be doing so if he talked to somebody he talked to somebody wasn't part of the project team could have been somebody from white stone you know but he is obviously you know it i spoke with the gentlemen that were installing the wells at the time there was four gentlemen out there with the excavator and they had a bunch of other equipment and you were not present at the time i live right next door to the property and i just walked over and i said what are you guys doing today and they said we're installing several wells and i said are they going to be monitored and they said i believe so but that's where they left it at so um my curiosity obviously is being enabled to this is what's going on there they are why aren't they being monitored if that's a source of data why aren't we using it um you know it's it's important to everybody it's important to you as well to have the truth of all this information so um again i asked this out there if it's going to be monitored and if it's going to be made public what the numbers are going to be thank you chair sure okay uh susan thank you um chakra this is just a very quick point um because i just don't remember i know we got a um report from white stone which was the peer reviewer for the town for the um estimated seasonal high groundwater numbers from the test pits and i i guess this is to our peer reviewer hatch did you review that report along with um the applicant's stormwater report and is it consistent i don't recall seeing anything from white stone specifically and that may be our fault if we didn't forward it but um just because i'm not a stormwater person and i don't remember what it said i just wanted somebody to say on the record yes or no that that our peer reviewer from the town that was read that produced a report on these um test pits it's consistent with what is in the stormwater report from the sc i don't remember seeing that report as part of this proceeding would be helpful to get it into the record okay we didn't get it in the right i thought it was i thought it i thought we had it but maybe maybe i have it from another place which would i thought we had it sorry nathania it has it bearing because it's the town's peer reviewer on the test pits it was sure oh i totally agree i just don't remember seeing it on the concom website okay documents or okay so that's something i i will forward to ryan and the chair right i think yeah bsc i assume has been okay uh no we don't we've never actually been given a copy okay wow okay yes i will distribute it to everybody and it actually i don't know why i had it because it it well it went to david morgan but maybe it slipped through the cracks but what's the date of the report like the date of the report is june 29th 2023 now let me help yeah i will forward it to ryan and he can distribute it to the um to to the applicant as well as to the concom sure and connecting at our website right now and i think i see it actually um on our documents for the september 21st 2023 meeting oh my apologies thank you that's a long time ago it is it the june 29th let me just download it a bit let's see what it says june 29 2023 yeah so that's it so it's been so long we forgot about it it's um i'm gonna link yeah i see it thanks but but it was never included in the noi application correct any i think that's correct i think it's separate so um at least if it's okay with you with the chair i would i would like our peer reviewer to tell us if that's consistent yes i approve that um ryan can you make sure that goes to the thorn dyke page also yep it may be there but i just want to make sure that that was what i that was what i just linked the thorn dyke place the page on our website all right so that's been up on the thorn dyke page okay um i don't see any more hands up are there are there any other questions about stormwater tonight i don't believe we resolved everything but um we discovered something that wasn't reviewed us but um i want to i want to get as close to being finished with stormwater understanding that there are questions that need to be resolved um and then set herself up for the next step which would be the habitat eval and i think that maybe we're at a point where i'm not going to start that tonight but we can look at finishing up stormwater and talking about the habitat reval eval at the next at the next consultation meeting so i just i should think about that will i take uh scott hoasley and let him ask his question yes i'll be very brief just on behalf of my clients i know they're very concerned the arlington land trust sounds like we did establish the wells are in place on the site um it could we ask through you mr chair if the client is willing to measure water levels in the wells they installed i'm not sure why anybody would have installed wells without monitoring them but we are coming up on the spring season and i'm just wondering if we could either ask them or i might suggest the commission asked for that only because we are now is march 1st and uh it just seems like uh given the discussion tonight why would we not do that maybe that's the second question if the answer is no then this other question is why not so thank you mr chair yes thanks um i did see a hand up but uh i i think that's a an appropriate question of the commission i think as we talk with one voice i think commissions are the commission from what i hear is um has some questions about groundwater revolve around modeling and that may be an appropriate question now i see ben peterson has just raised his hand so ben if you can unmute yourself and ask your question hey yeah i'll be brief one thing i'm trying to understand with the wells that you know from what i heard scott hoarsley say the wells were not um at the location where the structures will be um and is that true and if so if wells and if it would make sense to actually test the water um depth there so we're talking about uh test bit number seven and a big infiltration area there's a there's two or i saw two if there's three then i didn't see the third one but i know that there's at least two underneath that infiltration chamber the rest of them are not being discussed so there's uh there's adequate tests in those in those areas also so i think um if that answers your question sorry i don't think that's quite right i i agree with you there are two test pits at where the infiltration basin is proposed i think what uh mr peterson was getting at was that the applicant has decided to base the estimated seasonal high water on another test pit because there are about eight or not eight or nine test pits throughout the site another test pit which was about 150 feet away i believe that's what mr hoarsley said so hopefully that clarifies and i didn't just muddy the water even further no no i i didn't hear that part i thought yes that's exactly right test pit five is being used to set the water table or the water level for the entire site and that's just under four feet so 2.98 or something like that and they're using four throughout the site it's a conservative from what we hear from the applicant it's a conservative groundwater level and um you you know the whole discussion tonight was about the test pits and the modeling and where it was found and and and you know a lot of discussion about how the applicant wanted to use this conservative or test pit five and their reasoning behind it and then on the other side we heard some some discussion about the regulations and how test pits need to be in the area of the infiltration chamber so that's what the what the discussion was about and at that i think that between nathaniel and myself maybe that question was answered so so where where are we in terms of why ask the ask the applicant to do additional sure let me so nathaniel just hold off for a second let me just take gary goldsmith and then gary's going to be our last um a resident or attendee that's at the meeting to talk and then i want to open it up to the commission to have a discussion about where we are at this point and what we need to kind of get the storm water information we so we can make a decision gary can you please uh unmute yourself and uh introduce yourself for the commission and the record hi there my name is gary goldsmith i've lived in arlington for 40 years i'm on beverly road um and i do understand i come from a science-based background so i do understand that we're always limited by the best techniques and information uh of the time um but i'm struck by but i guess my question is uh in a simplistic way why is it that we are looking at storm water uh excuse me uh groundwater uh ground level as opposed to flooding um i happen to live on the lower mystic lake and on any given day the lake is you know a few inches higher or lower one foot of flooding happens pretty much every year uh two or three feet is not uncommon but i have seen the lake up five six and seven feet um so if you didn't happen to measure those years it would just look fine now there's only three feet of uh rise and flooding um so i i guess i i understand why groundwater might be measured but it seems to me that's not really the question that uh we're concerned about uh flooding um is destructive to property um reduces tax base for the town um and imposes uh costs and inconvenience on residents anyway so i guess that's my question um so we have addressed uh the flood zone in this uh application and anywhere where the applicant is proposing to build in that area they're replicating the flood storage two to one is my understanding and so the flooding uh under the regulations and we only are working at the wetlands protection act here not our own town bylaw but still uh in the wetlands protection act you only need one to one this applicant has come in and met the town regulations of two to one so flooding has been uh the capacity to manage flooding on the site has been increased not going to tell you that on those crazy days that it's going to work uh to do that but for the most part it's going to work a lot more or than it has been and around this property because they've increased um the capacity two to one only in the areas what they have altered and i don't see dominix unmuted so we're going to go with that oh here he is yeah that's a that's a good summary of it um thank you yeah it's um we are meeting the the the town bylaw standard which is much stricter than the state standard that was agreed to in the compartment process and and that was just it's fine it's there it's gone okay so i'm going to end the public discussion at this point and i'm going to open it up to the commission to talk about what we need moving forward um so thank you everyone that participated in the discussion any hands from commission members named Nathaniel who wanted to talk before sure Nathaniel thanks yeah i was going to say i think we have i think the applicant is aware of the the questions that we've discussed i think the question now for the applicant is do we want to uh sorry the question for the commission to decide is do we want to ask the applicant to do undertake the testing as outlined in the stormwater handbook in which they do monitoring and the upcoming couple weeks and months seem to be an ideal time to monitor that and then you compare those results to the usgs uh gauge so i would suggest that we ask the applicant to do that and if they don't want to do that then provide an explanation as to why not one approach i agree with Nathaniel um many of you know i am a scientist so i like to make decisions based on real data i'm not saying that redox is not real data but um we're making some more assumptions that in in my mind than if we had groundwater data for the next three months that said i would like to make the proposal that if we do this and it ends up being different than the redox numbers that are used right now for planning the project that we use the most conservative number my proposal brian did you want to speak i think you're on mute i see your mouth thank you yeah yeah i was just gonna say i sort of feel like the applicant has basically passed the test we asked them to pass with the with the two feet but then because it's so very close we could use additional assurance that there hasn't been some mistake or there hasn't been a bad well i don't know if i'm saying the same thing as you did susan but that's my feeling so the uh so we have uh i don't know if there's anything else other than then to ask for monitoring during the spring the three months in the spring and then compare that to the index wells for this region is there any other i'd like to hear from dave kaplan because he has a good sense of water yeah i'm i'm on the fence i mean i think you know we're trading one measurement for another and i'm not 100 percent convinced that their methodology was somehow incorrect or um didn't capture you know the site of characteristics so i think i'm i'm on the fence about asking i mean i think if we just want to make sure if we're gonna ask them to do additional groundwater level monitoring that it's done yeah in accordance with the standards in the locations that are needed i know there was some talk about using some existing wells on site and those might not be the proper locations so i think we just want to make sure they're matched up with the infiltration basins and you know where they need to be in order to make the proper determinations but this you know with the two feet of separation too i mean we are talking about some thin margins you know i think if there is mounding that that comes back in into the infiltration chamber it impacts the capacity of the infiltration chamber and it has some implication on water quality and my understanding is that they're meeting the tss the water quality through proprietary separators they're not really relying on a recharge for water quality and the site is they're recharging more water quality volume than they need to so i'm not sure about you know the mounding even if the mounding backs up into the infiltration chamber but that's actually going to you know it may periodically reduce the capacity of the storage capacity of that chamber and potentially surcharge but if they're not breaking the surface you know i want to hear from the applicant whether or not that still meets like the ground water recharge requirements and the water quality i want to understand that you know if if this and we don't even know yet the mounding analysis was done incorrectly so i feel like we need to there are a couple of steps we need to take to understand if we are at the margins of the two feet was the mounding analysis done correctly and then possibly go go from there but again this is this is the wet year i don't think it's going to benefit the applicant um to to monitor um ground water at this point in time so i just want to make sure that that works better and how we um how we change we we ask them to change the approach if we do so at all david i had a i had a question i appreciate that your thoughts sure david i had a question about um the mounding and the water quality so i'm assuming the mounding if it was happening in real time there would be quite a storm going on and my understanding of those proprietary systems is during those storms they just flushed through so that infiltration system would be some part of water water quality during these events these large events is is that also your understanding i mean they don't work if water is just surcharging through there they only work if it's you know slow and and methodical kind of action yeah i mean that yes so i think you're short circuiting the basin if it's not recharging yes there's less water quality um you know improvement flowing through the system um but at the same time it's is that needed water quality because they've met their yes that's requirements through the proprietary separators there's the additional polishing that you would get with the recharge and the filtration that you get from the soils um but i i think that's above and beyond what's required by the state regulations if they're meeting their 80 percent tls through proprietary separators before that one reaches the infiltration chamber or if it's coming directly from a roof it's considered clean and you know the infiltration is just polishing it yeah so they one is the there's one system maybe it's both but there's one that combines roof with uh road surface or parking area so there's there's that system so um i wanted to ask a question that's that's all i i understand what you're saying according to the rugs they've met the direct our um our peer reviewers to investigate you know that question you know if if if there is mounting back into the system what are the implications on the system's ability to meet the the storm water standards yeah we we can look into that um part of my concern about mounting has always been for for the largest infiltration devices that um a regional rise in the groundwater table um that that spreads laterally um uh could impact the the underground parking and the setbacks that are supposed to be provided relative to that basin so um we can we expand that to focus on the water quality side too yeah i think i think the applicant sort of addressed that with the waterproofing i feel okay so we have i have two requests that's that's what i came up this one about we were just talking about to investigate the mounting back into the system to make sure that we maintain the water we maintain the water quality of that unit and then we have install or monitor the existing wells if they're in the correct location and then compare them to the index wells for the spring and then whatever the results come from those uh from those wells that you will take the most conservative uh the conservative set of uh numbers to design the system so it's either going to be the existing for or something different sorry i'm sorry we we also had the um um the reasoning the justification from bsc of why they use less than 24 hour storm for the mounting analysis is that correct that was one of them yeah okay sorry uh chuck sorry you were just saying using existing wells we should double we should dom probably knows are any of the existing wells that are set up for monitoring are they located within the footprint of the proposed infiltration basin you know around the tespid area tespid seven tespid eight area or how about even this you you're not saying that you're even there to see the wells go in place are you confident with those wells you know how they were installed hold on sorry can i just get clarification on that point because someone was the neighbor was talking about existing monitoring wells having put in and put in several yeah last last year i just want to know are those are any of those located within the footprint of the infiltration basin if dom knows right venue yet or scott might know either too do you want sorry this chair is way free day one minute so that question sure uh dom please yeah i um i actually scroll through myself to figure out if it's in tespid seven or eight but it's one of them okay so we do have an existing well that could be monitored then chuck that so that's what i was getting at is the way you were phrasing it it sounded like we were asking to do monitoring of the groundwater out you know at wells that were not where the infiltration basin is and that was not my original intent with my thought so there's the large infiltration chamber and then there's this i don't know if it's three monitoring wells along dorthy that i have to do with the townhouses so i thought we were talking about monitoring all of those systems but if it's only the large one and if it's only if we're only talking about a tespid number seven and that large infiltration area then then it would just be one so what's what does the commission want that one well or that that seems to be that that's my focus at this point i don't mean i'm not speaking for the other commissioners obviously but that's my point it seems like you know we we need confirmation that we have to two feet of separation and the sort of critical piece of stormwater infrastructure that's going to provide a lot of benefit you know to the resource area so i think my focus is on confirming that we have two feet of separation in the in the area of tespid seven where they exist as well as but i think we have based on the test pits that have been done so far in the modeling and the characteristics of the site that have been observed the groundwater that that was observed at the time of the test pits under a normal year plus the modeling that was observed in all the other sites i think we have a good understanding of what the water table is what it's doing in that area so i'm more concerned about the functionality of this infiltration of the chamber i i'm with dav okay i don't know where well where where others feel about that susan or brian okay yeah any any other comments like it over the info but the large infiltrations okay great so we have three requests right and i'm going to ask susan to go through those three requests because i know you wrote them down and we want to get them right so let's let's just say the three requests on one time can you do that for us susan i have notes sure um so the first request is we'd like the information from the applicant um about why less than 24 hours was used for the duration for the mounting analysis that was number one yeah um we would like um the applicant to perform monitoring of the well or wells if there's more than one because we know there's at least one over the large infiltration unit um near test pit seven or eight um and we'd like that monitoring to begin in march of this year and we'd like the monitoring data for um don't think we said how many months i would i would suggest two or three i don't know what the standard is let's let me see if i can find the standard but okay go to go to the third one says through the spring and then compare it to the index wells that was the other step that we were going to do right and compare it to the index wells okay and i don't know that there wasn't was there another one and then you wanted then you had that uh condition about using the most conservative numbers right for um yes and then david and i talked about mounting uh and making sure that when the mounting happens and it backs up into the system that it maintains um at least this is for our peer reviewer to review that and to make sure that the wallet water quality stays consistent i don't know if david you want to uh yeah just the um the implications on maintaining the um storm water standards you know if and when that occurs you know if they're relying on the water quality or the implications on water quality if they're relying on a floor recharge what are the implications on on recharge um that related to the standard okay all right so that's it we spent a long time on this tonight i'm going to ask to have a continuance check one more thing at the beginning don was going to provide and just double check with the number what the elevation of the redox feature he observed first observed in test put seven and then also remember they are going to uh bsc is going to respond bsc is going to respond to uh hatches latest letter from today sorry about that just trying to look up the date but the date of our next meeting was what i was looking for so we do have two additional march seven thanks yeah okay uh we have a list of requests march seventh is our next meeting dominick is that um will that work for for you to come back to the commission with some information understanding that the monitoring is going to be longer than that could i just make a request just because there was a lot there and a lot of people were talking into what those requests were that we get something in writing so we can certainly uh we're all on the same page as to what we're absolutely you and then um yeah i mean let's go with it's march seventh i think you said yeah so sure and then if uh you need more time we can always continue at that point so um our seventh so i'm asking for a motion to continue this hearing until march seventh motion to continue to march seven have a second i'll second sure uh susan chapnick yes david kaplan yes brian mcbride yes nathaniel stevens yes chakroni says yes and i did forget somebody i think i did say brian mcbride right okay you didn't get anybody because um david oh that's right david's out okay so we're continuing to march seventh and um that's great so i'll see uh everybody and thank you for showing up tonight and chuck we can get that letter out tomorrow yeah i think that we're gonna have to make sure we have uh exactly what was asked uh so brian again circulated to myself and vice chair and we'll make sure that we're the chrestron and uh we'll then we'll send it to dominic and ross both teams okay there's nothing else on our agenda anything the commission wants to talk about if not i'll take a motion to close listen to the chair in a second and i i think it's fine so i'll just go through the i can go through again or everyone can weigh whatever you want to do nathaniel stevens yes susan chapnick yes i don't know if david whites back on maybe not um david kaplan yes brian mcbride yes and chuck toroni says yes good night everybody all right good night everyone thank you