 So this, hello, welcome. This is the July 28, 2021 conservation commission meeting. For the town of Amherst, Massachusetts. The first item on our agenda is comments from the chair. That's me. I think the only comment is just for the team. I think our agenda is could be sneakily full tonight. We have, we have three hearings and then I think our, we have to issue the orders of conditions for Tafino, which is going to be a discussion. And then there are a few enforcement orders that while they're not open for public comment, we do have to certify one and discuss another. So bear with us. Aaron and I will try to be as organized as possible. But just to let you guys know, this could, you know, we have to stay focused. And that was my only comment and I know Dave is on vacation. Aaron, let me know earlier. So Aaron's actually going to cover the speed Alice hearing. So that just leaves any reports or items upfront from Aaron. Yeah, let me just jump down here and try to Jen. My only thing for you is I, once I start sharing my screen, I can't see the attendees or anything like that. So I'm going to make you a co-host just in case anybody I see the is here. She's from Amherst College. So like when she needs to talk, if you could promote her. Yep, no problem. Perfect. And then let me just get sharing. So I think that the just so seven 10 is our land use application. The is here so that's not a hearing so if you guys want to jump into that and just start rolling with the review of the latest land use application that might actually be a good thing to just get off the, get off the agenda first. Okay. Tia or Taya, hopefully. Oh yeah. Which one you were I just promoted you to a panelist. Hi. Oh, good. You're here. Is it Tia or Taya? It's Taya. Taya, sorry about that. Thank you for being here. If you wouldn't mind, so we all have your application. Oh, great. Thank you for submitting that. If you could just give us just like literally a three minute introduction to yourself and overview of the plans. We should be able to cover this pretty quickly. I remember this from past year. So thank you. Great. So yeah, we've been doing this for a number of years now. I am a biology laboratory coordinator or at Amherst college and so this is for our introductory class. Typically we have about 90 students in this class and I like to distribute them over a number of different stream sites. It's a really incredible experience for them that they're able to actually interact with a local ecosystem. They're able to get to see local conditions and learn about environmental issues that might be related to the stream health. So we take them out and we collect stream macro environments and then we also collect some characteristics of the area so we might collect things like the measurement of the water, the flow of the river. We might look at how much light is reaching the area or like what substrate type is so all those types of things. So then what they're able to do is collect those stream macro environments, they are able to identify them they come up with diversity estimates for what they're finding. And then we have them put that all together into a more formal write up of it where they're able to think about some variables that might be predicting that diversity. So it's a really incredible opportunity for them. And so I was just requesting to be able to go back to the Mill River site because that site has been a really wonderful site for us to use. We can also go to Adams Brook, that's on a private property and then there's another property over in Pellum that we go to. And then Aaron and I can talk a little bit about like I'm curious about the Fort River area and what's going to be going on with property ownership there as to whether we might be able to do some sampling there. Yeah, I think Taya means Hickory Ridge Golf Course along. Sorry, Fort River is long. That's great. I think so the two things that I know I can say upfront will we usually have to discuss is just one. So you mentioned about 90 students and I you say for parking that you'll need vans to park there. So I'm assuming it's like, I don't know how many students per van but have you ever. We go out an individual lab section so they're quite small so at any one time usually the most people you'd have would be 24. Okay, so this is where like having the multiple sites and then I actually the lab times are five different times during the week. And so ideally I'd probably go to the Miller River like two times during the week. Again at any one time 24 would probably be our max. So we should be able to do two of those like large white vans. Yeah, you get everybody and the Miller River parking is wonderful for that. Yeah, there's plenty there. Okay, awesome. And then the other is usually if there's anything that you can do to share the data with us. So it sounds like you're doing macro invertebrates sampling and then some sort of modeling about what covariates are driving diversity. So I guess if you have any interesting results or are willing to share over time that would be great we're always interested in that for our streams it helps us know what's going on for targeting but also like for conservation stuff so yeah even if a student presentation like if they wanted to do a presentation or anything that would help but you know we're here and we're willing on it. So sorry, so let me know like what you all would like what I have done in the past is that we would write something up at the end of each season so Aaron you should have been CC'd I think I'm one of the emails that I had been sending along. And with just our basic summary of like this is how many things that we found in that sort of thing. And we did more recently like, we were trying to look at the stream held in the Miller River was surprisingly doing very well given that it's like more town oriented than like some of the places where we go a little bit more up in the mountain so that was really exciting we got lots of sensitive macro organisms there so good stuff. Great. So yeah, there's additional things that you would like us to let us know. Yeah just sharing the data and sharing your assessments is really great. That would be the main request and then the other small thought is just I don't know if it would ever make sense for you to also monitor or sample at a more impaired system, but we're kind of interestingly focused on like you said the Fort River but also fearing Brooke that runs through the center of Amherst College. So for this class or for other applications if you need kind of an analog more impaired system to the mill. Tell me the name of that one again. Fearing fearing Brooke FAA are ing hearing there again also tan Brooke as well tan Brooke. Yeah, there are a couple of pretty impaired or like relatively flashy urban systems and Amherst. Yeah, that we're really interested in. That would be great. I am. I'll need to look at the map to figure out you said hearing book goes right through Amherst College. Yeah, literally there's not much water. Is that the one that you're talking about? It like drops out at daylights like temporarily just down like directly. Let's see. I'm not even sure they're math. Yeah. I mean it's pretty big once you get here like going down route nine essentially it's like as your headed east on route nine it's like down to your right behind a bunch of houses back in there. And then it goes into the like Amherst College sanctuary area and then it actually goes underground under the like southeast Amherst like intersection where there's like a Florence Bank and a Cumberland farms near Spirit House. And then it kind of daylights up on the other side of that and heads into the Fort River, and the town is actually working on a restoration project at the consulance of Fearing Brook and the Fort River. I over the next few months so I would love to help out with that I guess I just need to figure out access points to it because and so some aspect to the Fort River I had previously told that we shouldn't sample because there were sensitive muscles in that area and so some of that was near the college. Do you per chance have something where you have like marked out on a map where these places that you're mentioning where it comes up to the surface. Fearing Brook is definitely mapped in the Amherst College Sanctuary like on the corner of southeast street and route nine. That's it's a 100% perennial stream system and that's Amherst College land so that shouldn't be too difficult and then once it started. Find her at her website that's got the map. So the conservation area so she can look at them and see that she'll see them there. I can, I can send her some information on this to make it a little easier. Yeah, issue it for her anyways. That would be great. Yeah, just for future reference. No, we'd be happy to do that. I mean that would be great to be able to contrast one that's not doing as well with the ones that are so beautifully healthy. That would be ideal for their questions and that would be great that we can help you out as well. Great. Thank you. I see Michelle has a question. Yeah, I'm going to go real quickly. Five years of data is pretty impressive so if you have any motivated students that can just put that together in a graph you know her macro invertebrate or whatever your big sampleings are that would be fantastic to see just a few slides of some five years of sampling. So I've been sending in reports I don't know does nobody get to see those. I mean something with like a five year accumulated, accumulated data, just a real quick graph would be really cool to see. Okay. Yeah, I don't know if we've been getting them to you. They may have been going to Beth. Yeah, previous person so and I know she forwarded me something recently which I didn't have a chance to look at that may have been what it was. It all went to back because she was the one that I was working with. Okay, and then the more recent one you should have been copied on and so we've just been doing it yearly but we do make a graph Michelle every year of what we're finding. And the totals that we're finding in the years but if you're interested in like, what are you thinking just the number that we're detecting over the years or what was it that you were interested in the differences and over the years. I mean, yeah, I guess, if that's what you're tracking maybe like species richness or something, you know, and then diversity. Yeah, three criteria. I see one more comment or question from Larry go ahead Larry. One of the things I'm interested in is that that the conservation commission does a lot of things that are good for the town, but the town doesn't know that. And I think this is an example of the kind of things that we can do that are make sense to the town, but the town doesn't know about it. I don't want to make more work for Aaron because that's that's not appropriate in a sense, but it would be very nice if we take these things like reports from her from tail, and so forth other things that we get and publicize on our website, things that are going on relative to the conservation commission that makes sense for the town. Now, unfortunately, one of the things we could do with this is to say to Thea, Oh, that's fine that you're going to do this but one of your share of the things in this is to get it onto our website so we can show people about what we're doing. Now this is, this is not meant for a long discussion right now. It's meant for something for us to discuss in the future but I think we should do this. I think that's a great point I mean, as a federal employee I have to make every single piece of data I like develop public immediately. Exactly, we've got to do that. That's what we're doing. Yeah, yep. Yeah, okay, but I think that does anyone else have any questions or comments for Thea on this request for sampling on conservation land I think it seems great, and we appreciate it. I move to accept it. Did I beat you? Okay, I'm looking for a second. Second. All right, voice vote. Larry. Hi, Roy. Hi, Michelle. You're muting yourself. I abstain because I work at Amherst College. Okay, Laura. And I'm an I so that's all I is except Anna who abstains. Super excited about this just can't. Thank you very much. Yeah, we really appreciate it. Thank you all I appreciate you taking the time and then Aaron I'll just follow up with you about getting people the information they're after. Sounds good. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right. So, so I'm just going to keep running through until we have a hearing if that's okay. Sounds good. Great. So I met with, well, I was supposed to meet with Amelia from the Hitchcock Center, but she ended up having an beasting emergency with the Hitchcock Center camp. So she sent me some locations of where she hopes to put the signs Dave and I finalized the signs these were approved several months ago for a little trail project that the Hitchcock Center is doing. So just wanted to update you that we're green lighting on those and that those should be installed at the Wild. Wood conservation area and also Harkness Brook conservation area. There was also progress on the Stanley street parking area getting into Wentworth conservation area. I put those in that I believe site visit folder I don't know if you guys got a chance to see them that I can pull them up if you want to take a quick look at where are they. Oh, maybe they were in the I know where I put them in here. There were some of you showed us. Yeah, okay, I guess I shared them with you guys already. Oh, that's a different site where you were just at you just had Stanley Street, the back the back folder the folder before this and updates updates click it. Stanley Street. Oh, there we go. Thank you. These might have been. Oh yeah, no, those are the right ones. Thank you. Yeah, it looks fantastic. They did a really nice job. So, go check it out. Looks good. I know they did a really great job. Good. All right, so I'm going to jump to some other business here. Hickory Ridge. There was some correspondence in the folder. Basically, some groundwater testing that was done post some of their they did some We had issued them emergency certification a couple months ago to do some earth removal and some removal of contaminated grant groundwater at Hickory Ridge and that process and then they did some post testing to see how effective it was and they're still having some issues with contamination so they're doing some CO2 injections which don't require a lot of ground disturbance but that's going to be going on at Hickory Ridge just so everybody's aware. Dave isn't here but words that stand on transferring the property. So, I, I can't give you an official update other than to say I know it's still moving forward. I think that the remediation is a big issue because the town wants to make sure that the site is clean before we purchase it so this is a big component of moving forward with the acquisition. Have the owners signed with the PV stuff yet. Or is it still waiting on that. They are still finalizing from what I understand on the solar side. Yeah. So ever source. There was a couple things on this ever source basically requested that we instead so we had a for a wetland creation project at the podium conservation area which has already been approved. And the addition that a certified wetland scientist has to oversee the wetland plant, the wetland creation area plantings and the creation of the vernal pool that we permitted to be constructed. And they're asking basically to have a certified ecological restoration practitioner oversee the project instead. And the information for the individual is a BSC group. He's also assess we and we provided his his resume here for you guys so you could see kind of the projects that he's worked on. But I didn't have any problem with them substituting out another professional to to do the oversight of it. I just wanted to make sure you guys were okay with that. You're going to take a Canadian. Exactly. And then the other thing was that they had some trouble acquiring plants and this is something that a lot of folks are running into having to sub out some some plants. So, they're just basically letting us know that they had trouble acquiring some of the plants on their planting plan and that they're subbing out and just letting let them know if there's any issue which again I don't have any problem with. And if anybody does please let me know. Sounds good. So emergency certifications obviously we had a lot of flooding going on. And so there was a request for an emergency certification at 16 Kestrel lane basically these folks are having flooding in their basement related to an issue with a foundation drain. I went out to the site today and I apologize I don't have photos of the site but I have no problem with the emergency certification getting issued. It's definitely a public health issue that there's water filling their basement. So basically, I informed them of where to put erosion controls. There's a couple treat their autumn olive bushes that they want to take out basically to relay the foundation drain line which is probably what caused the problem to begin with with the roots getting into it. And basically I asked them to stabilize an area in the back which was them where they had attempted to try to find the foundation drain to free it. But yeah, if we could make a motion to issue an emergency certification at 16. We ratify an emergency certification for 16 Kestrel Lane flooding. Second. Okay, voice vote Larry. Yes, Michelle. Hey, Anna. Hi, Roy. Butcher. Hi, Laura. We lost Laura. For a second maybe. I'm an, and I'm an eye. Sorry. The water heard my name ran back. Yep. No the drill. Thank you. Okay. Green leaves. I am not sure if I've got photos in the folder for you guys on this one. Yeah, there are pictures in there. Okay, good. It looks a lot worse in person than it does in these photos basically this entire hillside along the road is collapsing. Some type of erosion mat over here that completely washed down. It was like some kind of geotextile. You can actually see it in this picture. This was like the sidewalk continuing down completely washed down. This was with the big flooding event that happened and there's all this material there's currently boards holding it up from going into the water. So they need to pull that out and basically stabilize it. So if we could just ratify that emergency certification for the DPW to do that repair that would be wonderful. I move we ratify the emergency certification for the DPW to do work at green leaves. Do I have an address. No green leaves. Green leaves drive. Yeah, green leaves drive. Thank you. I second that. Thanks Laura. Voice vote. Fletcher. Hi. Michelle. Hi. Anna. Hi. Laura. Hi. Leroy. Hi. Larry. Hi. Michelle. Did I already say Michelle? Thanks. I'm how the order just switched on me and I'm an I hope I got everyone. Sorry. Excellent. So the last one is for Wentworth farm, which has not been issued yet. But the. Land manager Brad has requested to basically fill in the old. The spillway on the backside of the dyke at Wentworth farm. There's a large concrete structure that's pretty dangerous. Where is this? Where is this? So if you come into Wentworth farm property from old farms road and you walk around Owens pond, you walk over a spillway that was installed by ever source, a new spillway that was installed. And then you come up around the corner and on one side, there's the old spillway outlet structure. And on the other side, there's a concrete structure that where the water came down and entered the stream. And that structure is what they're talking about filling with stone. So that no one falls in there and gets hurt or. An animal falls in there and can't get out or something. Sounds good. It's as simple as just dumping stone into the spillway. We ratify the emergency certification for Wentworth farm. Second. Alright, boys vote. Larry. Hi. Loray. Hi, Michelle. Hi, Anna. Hi. Laura. Right. Fletcher. Hi. I'm an eye. Wonderful. Who was the second on that one? Me. Anna, thank you. All right. Wow. We're burning through this. Good job. Come back to that one. that it would be a long meeting, so we're on it. No, it was more, it was more a call to arms. Yeah, that's a better phrasing. Thank you. Yeah, well, okay, so I'm just gonna update you guys on a couple of projects. So there's a lot of projects right now that are underway beginning all around town. And so as you're making in your travels, you're gonna see a lot of stuff going on. I already told you about Stanley Street. 200 Leverett Road, large house out there. They just were installing a waterline to connect to the house. So I did erosion control inspections out there. So just in case you see that work going on, it's right along the roadway. They're gonna be stabilizing that once the work is done. And I also asked them to do some reinforcement of the erosion controls behind the house. I did the pre-construction meeting for the East Leverett Road waterline, which is extending all the way to Leverett and did the water inspection there as well, pre-construction meeting. So that's gonna be starting, I think they're gonna be closing East Leverett Road to through traffic. So just so everyone's aware of that. The work is supposed to start early August at the Podic Conservation Area. And one of the things, which I might as well get a read from you guys on this because I just got an email right before the meeting, is Eversource LegalSide wants to get permission basically to have an alternative access into the property if they need to. Basically because they need to get written permission in order to access in to do the restoration. And right now they were planning on accessing through the Valley Light Opera property, which they have permission to do and it's fine, but they need like written permission. And so if they can't get the written permission in time to start, they've basically asked if they could mat over the Zala property to get in, which I don't have any problem with and Dave would need final say on, but just kind of get a read from you guys if you'd have any issue, if they lay the mats on the town property just to come in on this is the yellow line on the map I have up here. It's all through wetland, just like the mats were originally, so it's not really a huge difference, just slightly shifted over. Sounds good. You said that's starting next month. They're supposed to start I believe August 3rd. There's going to be signage installed at the entrance. There'll be a DEP file number sign. I believe Tuesday I'm going to do a pre-construction with DEP file number signs going to be installed. There'll be a sign installed basically telling people that there's a wetland restoration going on, wetland replication going on, and then I'm also working with them to finalize a sign that would be an educational sign to let people know exactly what we're doing there. So that and a lot more and we'll cover quite a few more once we get done with our hearings tonight, but that's just to get us rolling. Okay, thanks Erin. So I have 730, so I think we can start with our first hearing and this has continued, right? Erin, I know I've seen this project before. Yes. So and just to give you guys kind of a quick snapshot and I think Michelle can't vote on this one because this was open prior to her coming on board, but to give you a quick snapshot, there was an application to put a tennis court on the property and when I went out to do a site visit basically documented that there had been an intermittent stream that had been partially filled and relocated. So as part of the application, we required them to hire a peer reviewer to go out and reassess the wetlands. There was also some wetlands that I noticed that weren't flagged. So they reflagged that we had Art Allen go out and do the peer review. So he's come back with some recommendations and they've revised the plan. So that's what they're presenting tonight. Okay, and I see Lisa is here. I'm gonna promote her to a panelist and is Art here for this hearing? He is, yep, and Adrian, I'll promote as well because she's here for this. Okay, awesome. All right, Adrian, Lisa, Art, welcome. Adrian, are you kind of gonna lead the conversation here? Yeah. Okay, great. I'm Adrian Dung, I'm from GZA. I'm working on behalf of Lisa Kittridge, the applicant and property owner. And so since our last meeting, as Erin summarized, we had our third party review with Art on July 16th during that meeting. So I'm just gonna share my screen here. During that meeting, we added a delineation of this E-Series wetland in the northeast property corner, and that is GPS as flagged with Art. In addition, this intermittent stream of bank resource was extended down south to meet our original wetland delineation. Art in his letter confirmed that this W wetland line is delineated, that he had no concerns on that line. So the primary changes to the existing conditions was fully connecting the swale from the northern property boundary down to the prior wetland line. Because of that, we did also reproject the wetland buffer lines. This whole field is now within the wetland buffer. And so this kind of green dashed line, that's the 30 foot no work zone, and that's projected off all wetland areas. And this teal line is the 50 foot building setback layer. So those were all of the existing condition revisions from Art's review. When we were in the field, we also reviewed the stream. We know that there needed to be a restoration plan. And so Art confirmed with us that he recommended no earthwork and instead recommended shrub plantings along the top of the swale and a formalized bank crossing to avoid further erosion. And so we have updated our site plan with those proposed changes. This orange hash would be the planting zone. And then these circles are the proposed species, which would be shrubs. They are high bush blueberry, steeple bush and meadow sweet. The planting ratio is based off the US Army Corps compensatory mitigation guidance, which is a ratio of 600 shrubs per acre. This area is approximately 2,100 square feet. So we are proposing 30 shrubs be planted. Again, in response to this request for a more stable permanent crossing, we agree with that. And what we are proposing is a temporary crossing for construction, which will allow for larger vehicles and heavier vehicles to access the tennis court area following the completion of construction. That would be removed and a permanent bridge would be put in which would span the bank. So I can, I'm switching to the details. Here's our temporary crossing would be, we've put down a geotextile layer on the existing bank and then three six inch culverts are proposed. The whole height is under a foot. So we wanna keep the culverts smaller. So we're proposing multiple culverts. And then that area will be filled in with trap rock. The larger size trap rock will allow for infiltration and will allow for additional flow around. So this is proposed to be 12 feet long. And as you can see here, where these blue lines are the bank, the regulatory bank, it will be filled to just outside of the bank to create a stable surface and about 12 feet in length. Again, that will only be in for the duration of construction. Following the completion of construction, that will be removed. The bank is not anticipated to be damaged because of that geotextile layer, but anywhere that's unvegetated would be seeded to prevent future erosion issues. And then the final bridge would be built. And that would include concrete abutments on either side of the bank, set back from the bank. They would be spanned across by some type of, an I-beam support with then wood decking. So we anticipate approximately two feet of height from the bottom of the channel to the bottom of the bridge. We anticipate the bridge being approximately 10 feet long. It's primarily for foot traffic, but it is also to accommodate a lawn mower accessing the field. And so it'll be, we're expecting it to be approximately 10 feet wide again, just so that the abutments are set back from the bank. They're not in the bank. This would actually is a buffer zone. All buffer zone work as it's spanning over and the planking will be placed to allow for gaps between the planks. So we expect light infiltration through those gaps as well as a significant enough space between the decking and supports and the bottom of the channel that we don't anticipate creating a bare spot that would erode. Let me switch back to the plans. So from here, that's this yellow box would be initially culverts and then a permanent bridge and then a stone pathway to access the tennis court. This area between the abutments and the stone is approximately 280 square feet of disturbance. And to mitigate for that, we are proposing this kind of red hashed area north of the pathway. And that's 800 square feet of pollinator planting. So that would be through a New England seed mix a showy wildflower seed mix. Other revisions to the plan are primarily to accommodate the change in the buffer zones. So the tennis court has been rotated on our initial plan. It was more oriented north, northwest. Now it's north, northeast. Of this project, the only part that requires a building permit and is therefore considered a structure or a building is the fencing. So all of the project has been oriented and actually we're using a design called the California corner on here. And that has been incorporated to keep all of the fencing and the tennis court surface outside of the 50 foot no-build zone. So again, we rotated the court, we cut the corners off. And so the fence will be outside that no-build zone. The drainage was also initially, we just had it on one side. We're now proposing a perforated pipe, French drain type drainage on either side of the tennis court. This will just dissipate some of that drainage instead of it daylighting in one location. It'll be in two. And then the associated grading slope stabilization and erosion control has just been revised to reflect the new location of the tennis court. All of this work to support the tennis court is located outside of the 30 foot no-touch zone. And the slopes are at a three to one or gentler grade throughout. So I think that this design really meets Art's request to enhance in his recommendation to enhance the existing stream through plantings and then changes have been made to the tennis court to respect the town's buffer zones. Okay, thank you. Erin, did you guys, do you have any additional information to provide or site visit photos? So I was gonna ask if Art could just sort of concur on his opinion on that since he joined the meeting tonight. And I do have a couple of questions and a couple of recommended conditions once we've kind of reached that point. Okay, sorry about that. Yeah, Art, do you have anything to add or any questions? Hi, Art Allen from Ecotec here, peer review consultant for the commission. Yep, I can concur that I did visit the site on July 16th with Adrian. And the contractor and the plan now reflects, the accurately reflects the revisions that we made and agreed to in the field. I'm in agreement with the proposed enhancements, just to add that the crossing location is actually the existing forwarding and gate in the fence where they currently access that field for mowing. That appears to be a historically mode and maintain field that has deep plow layers throughout well established. So that field itself does not appear to have been significantly altered recently, although I know they did do some work to kind of channelize that stream. But the field itself has been historically mode and maintained. At this point, they're using, they're basically just forwarding through the stream to access the stream for mowing purposes. So yeah, I certainly would support having a permanent stable access that doesn't continue to impact the stream over there regardless of whatever project is done. I mean, they need to access that field. So yeah, so just in general, I'm in agreement with the stream mitigation work, the pollinator planting, the proposed crossing, the revisions to respect the commission's buffer setbacks and the additional wetlands. So that's about it. Thank you. Thanks, Art. Erin, questions? Yeah, so a couple of things that I was wondering what you guys are proposing for erosion controls during construction? Yeah, the erosion controls during construction at the bottom, I believe with silt fence. Silt fence, just like a black filter fabric is what you're proposing or? So yeah, we're proposing the silt fence to be installed down to an eight inch depth. Okay, so I'd like to see staked straw bales behind that, just considering the fact that there's gonna be some material brought in and it's gonna be graded and there's gonna be a slope above it with the tennis courts. The other question is, how long is construction expected to take from the start of groundbreaking until it's fully stable? That is still in flux. The original intention was to construct it this summer, but due to some other deadlines and delays, it looks like it will be this fall or potentially next spring when construction occurs. Okay, I'm just wondering how long the construction access is going to be in place. Like I would prefer to see that construction access like I would rather see that done in the spring and then pulled out as opposed to installed and then left in all winter if construction stopped. Do you know what I'm saying? However, it's timed. I'd just like to see the construction entrance be sort of more of a short-term situation as opposed to being in for three years while we're waiting for the bridge to be built. So I don't know. All right, can I pipe in here? Oh, okay, go ahead. This is Lisa. Hi, Lisa. I was just gonna say it would certainly be less than a year. It would not be a three-year sequence. It would be less than a year, but the total duration if it's five months or six months, that is as of yet to be determined. That's accurate. And I can just say that it is our interest to get this done as quickly as possible. Okay. And what's being done for the... Oh, okay, I see the erosion control blankets. Is that what's being done for the slope stabilization? Yeah. Okay, and is that like a seated erosion control blanket? Yeah, it'll be seated. Okay, with like some kind of geotextile to hold it in. Yeah, it'll be the, you know, a coir, probably a coir mat for a mat and be installed and monitored periodically until vegetation is established. Okay. So, and just for the record, sort of my original feeling on this was that they should be relocating the swale to where it was originally, but I think based on everybody's opinion viewing this and our consultant's opinion viewing this was that it is less disturbance all around to not disrupt the swale again, to just let it rest where it is and restore it in its current location. So based on that recommendation, I'm comfortable with us keeping it there if the board is comfortable with that. And I do have a couple conditions as well, but I don't wanna take over sharing my screen with those until everybody's had a chance to ask questions. Yeah, so on that commissioners, any questions or concerns? No, I agree with keeping the swale as is. You were talking about, are you have to put mats down across the field to get to the tennis court area? Don't you have to bring like some big dump trucks in there? You guys gonna mat that or did you already say something about that? We didn't state that. No, I don't think there's any intention to mat it. I think just those little, the little culverts in the stone fletcher that- No, no, no, I'm talking about from there to the tennis court area. You're gonna be driving dump trucks in there during construction. That's all. I'm wondering, it might be a good idea to consider, I'm sure the dump truck driver will actually have a pretty good eye whether or not they're gonna sink or not, but I'm just bringing that up. Yeah, it was wet in there. Yeah, I think that we'll definitely take under consideration the truck drivers- Yeah, he'll be looking. You know, their assessment, but we have not specified a mat or anything. Anyone else commissioners, questions or comments? It's like, nope. Okay, Erin, yeah, do you wanna go through your recommended conditions for this? Sure. And then we'll be looking for a motion team. So if you wanna pile on after Erin list the conditions, there's your warning. Okay. So my recommendation was for us to include the state and local boilerplate conditions that all restoration work and work in the resource areas must be overseen by a competent wetland professional. Monthly monitoring reports must be provided to the conservation commission from the start of work until the site is fully stabilized, ongoing condition and perpetuity that no more wetland alteration is permitted on the site due to the previous violation and restoration. Planting must be monitored for three years and have a 50% success rate. Certificate of compliance must be submitted when the order of conditions expires and staff can enter the property at any time to inspect the progress on the work and to ensure compliance with the permit. Erin, do we wanna add anything related to the ongoing condition and perpetuity that no more wetland alteration is permitted on the site due to previous violation and restoration that that has to be acknowledged if the property changes hands, like if it were to be bought or the owner of record were to change that they have to acknowledge that in writing? Sure. And we could keep that as an ongoing condition in the order of conditions as well. I think that's a good idea. Okay. I mean, sorry, Erin, by that, do you mean adding it to our boilerplate? Sorry, what is, sorry, what do you mean by that? Cause that was what we were talking about earlier, right? Is like how? So the boilerplate sort of like standard conditions that we attach to every single order, but it would be ongoing in perpetuity, meaning that when we issue an order of condition or when we issue a certificate of compliance, it's specifically spelled out in the order that that must be a condition in perpetuity. So even if a certificate of compliance is issued, that condition still stands. Thank you. Yeah, I was going way back in my brain of like, oh, maybe that should be something that we're doing for all of these to try to mitigate the issue. Thank you, Jen, for that face. That feels better. Thank you. I'm sorry, Anna. No, I was like, is this what I think it might be? And your face was like, no, Anna, it's not what you think. No, it was good. Thank you. I appreciate it. Should I hold my nose down from wrinkling? No, it was, I'm not, this does, no, sorry. That's a good question and a great clarification in all honesty, yeah. So it's good to know that we can have this, after a certificate of compliance is issued, we can have a condition that continues in perpetuity. That's a great point. Okay, so we're looking for a motion, is that correct? Can I just ask a few questions? Oh, sure. Yeah. Just one thing, I understand and appreciate Aaron's opinion about us intentionally moving the water, which I will, I disagree with, but we can agree to disagree on that. We didn't do anything intentionally. And I also just wanna ask, I have no problem with them coming in whenever they want to, but would we get some notice before somebody came on the property? Oh yeah, no, I would contact you so that you'd know I was coming. Okay, thank you. I mean, I wouldn't just like scale your fence or something. No, I just wanna make sure that there's other ways to get on the property besides scaling the fence, but I'm not sure. Okay. Yeah, Aaron, we'll reach out before I end this. Wait, one other, can you explain, I don't know what you're asking. What they're asking. Jeff is here too, my partner. Hello. What you guys are, so just so we understand what we're agreeing to or not, you're saying for the length of the property, I mean, it's complicated for us from the standpoint of we feel like, like saying that we've violated, when they made the garage, it created that swell off to the side with the drainage. It didn't pre-exist. I understand that maybe there was wetlands or however it's streamed down when we had the permission to do the original car barn, the drainage is what created the other conditions, the other swell, but we didn't move anything in that regard. Like we didn't relocate the swell, we put the fence in and then things kind of happened the way they happened, aside from the fence, but we didn't do anything in that regard. That's why I'm saying that we were in violation and as a result, it feels like kind of punitive. When, if you can understand from our perspective, we can understand making an agreement to not do something, but addressing it as if you're coming down on us for something that, you know, I mean, we had absolutely no idea and all the people that we had work on the property did not move anything that we feel like we're being accused of doing. And it's not to argue with you guys. It's just- That's fine, yeah, we'll do what you want us to do. I just feel like when you say we are in violation that that feels a little bit uncomfortable. Yeah, 100%, I hear you. So that's with the wording of what we have as a recommended condition number four. So when we're saying ongoing condition and perpetuity that no more wetland alteration is permitted on the site due to previous violation and restoration. And so you're saying because of where a structure was built, you think that caused the relocation of the swale and so it's not necessarily of, you know, egregious violation. The drainage that was permitted for that, I mean, everything was permitted through the town for building that structure and the drainage that goes underneath it because we're at the bottom of the hill, all that drainage has to go somewhere. So now it's through piping, which is creating, it has to run off somewhere. And so instead of it dissipating into the ground because there wasn't all of that asphalt and a structure there, now it's being channeled into where the pipes go to mitigate, you know, to solve the drainage issue. Yeah, okay. So what, instead of... I guess I also want to understand the perpetuity as far as what that's going to do as far as affecting our resale value and if that's going to negatively impact us because that's a strong statement to say that for the rest of the property's existence, it cannot be, it can't be approached. So I just want to know what we're agreeing to very specifically on something that's going to be for the length of the property, regardless of our ownership of it, just because that does affect our property value and that's a contingency on selling it. So... Sorry, Erin, I was just going to ask you actually because really what we're saying, what we're saying there is that, right, okay. So, Erin, do you have any, are we, can we, if we're not acknowledging in the order of conditions any previous violation, can we still ask that acknowledgement of the wetland's presence on the property and great consideration to any future wetland alteration be given somehow in perpetuity? Do you see what I'm saying? Yeah, so, I mean, we can just change the wording to alteration instead of violation if that makes folks feel a little more comfortable. The bottom line here is that a wetland was excavated and moved and so because of that, there was an alteration of the wetland and now it's essentially being considered to be a replication. It's being like a replicated stream as opposed to its original stream location. What that means is that there can't be any more wetland alteration on the property. So that doesn't mean that you can't file a permit to put some, do more work in the buffer zone. It doesn't mean that you can't, you know, if you're abiding by the bylaw that you can't do any other work on the property, it simply means that you can't fill in wetlands or do, you know, you can't do further wetland alterations on the property in perpetuity. And that's in general that would apply to any property that has wetlands. You're not supposed to do that. So this isn't something. Particular, right. And particularly because it's a replication because it's a replicated wetland, that's why that condition, because you've basically exceeded what you can do for a replication on a given property that there can't be any more wetland destruction and replication on the property. It's not just you. It's definitely not just you, if that. Okay, so it's something that would apply to anyone who has wetlands on their property regardless. Replicated wetlands on their property. Replicated wetlands, exactly, yep. Okay. Okay, yeah, it's just, we just wanted to make sure that we've completely understood it before agreeing something for the rest of the life of the property. But that makes sense when we understand. Of course, yeah, of course. Thanks for asking the clarifying questions. Just that's, it's helpful then, yeah. And we also struggle with it because it's one of those things when properties change hands, like it's hard for buyers to know that there's wetland on their property a lot of the time. So it's something that we end up cutting up again and again in the commission is how we can make sure that potential buyers and then ultimately owners know that they have wetlands and know that they in this case have replicated wetlands. So, yeah, we 100% appreciate the question and understand where you're coming from. Thank you. That's why it's written, that's why it's written into the deed. So people that buy the property know that there's a previous thing associated with it. Yeah. Yeah, we've learned way more than we ever anticipated about wetlands and all of it. And we absolutely had no intention of doing anything sneaky or in violation of any of this. This is a big one. Most people don't, most people do it because they don't realize that the situation exists. Yeah. That's a problem. But now you do and you have a beautiful spot and now it's gonna be a really nice spot. Once you guys plant that stream, it's gonna, you guys got a great spot there. Yeah. Very great. The wetland will be healthier and more a better functioning ecosystem as a result of this. So we appreciate that. And you did the number five as well. Planting will be monitored for three years and it has to have a 50% success. What happens if it doesn't have a 50% success? You have to replant. Like if you're, if like 75% of your blueberries die or of your planting, sorry. I'm just really excited with blueberries. If like 75% of them die, you have to replace them with new, you can't just have dead shrubbery. Okay. So I mean, just for transparency, our landscapers, we use snows and they are on top of all of this stuff. So anything that goes down in general, even right now is replaced or anything that isn't thriving, they just take out and put in a new one. It's really just to make sure that people aren't just saying they put something in for posterity and then, you know, they don't actually care if it lives because the plants are there for a purpose. And so yeah, we appreciate that. Okay. You care. So it's gonna work out good, I think. You care. You got snows, they're reputable. Yeah. I've known snows for a long time there. You got it. Okay. All right. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you, Buck. All right. So we're looking for a motion on this. Are we, are we moving to approve? Sorry, what's the language, Erin? So it'd be a motion to issue an order of conditions. Do you want me to state it all out for you guys, like with the conditions? That way I can say so. So. If it's easier, I can do that. I can read the conditions. It's, I just need to, okay, I forgot it. Sorry. To issue an order of conditions. Thank you. I'm moving the project. I move we issue an order of conditions approving the project at 29 Mill Lane with the following recommended conditions, state and local boilerplate, all restoration work and work in the resource areas must be overseen by a competent wetlands professional. There needs to be monthly monitoring reports provided to the commission from the start, Erin, from the start of work until the site is fully stabilized. It got smaller. It's okay, I can find it. Ongoing condition and perpetuity that no more wetlands alteration is permitted on the site due to previous alterations and restoration. Plantings must be monitored for three years and have a 50% rate of success. Certificate of compliance must be submitted when the order of conditions expires and staff can enter the property at any time to inspect the progress on the work and compliance with the permit. Did you have one more, Erin? There was two more that you had added, Jen, which were that upon sale that a new owner must be notified and acknowledge that the issue with the restoration and that it must be an ongoing condition in the COC if you're willing to amend your motion to include those. Yep, I am willing to amend my motion to include notification of any future fires of the property around condition number four and an ongoing condition in the certificate. Yeah, thank you. An ongoing condition of the certificate of compliance and something else that I've probably forgotten. Oh, I think you got it all. Thank you. Thank you, Lorraine. I think that's all right. Second. Oh, I thought I heard Leroy second. Maybe I was wrong. Okay, well, I don't care. My actually question on that. Wait a second. Okay, do we have a second? Yeah, I think Leroy, did you second? Yeah, let me see. Yeah. Okay, voice vote. Fletcher. Aye. Anna. Aye. Larry. Aye. Leroy. Aye. Laura. Aye. And I'm an aye. All right, Larry. My comment was related to the idea that they notify people that buy. That's the reason for the deed and writing it into the deed. So people automatically know it. That's just a comment. Thanks, guys. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Adrienne and thank you, Art. No problem, take care. Thank you for your time. Jen, that was the one that I was thinking about more in terms of like in our local boilerplate was more about like notifying future. That was what I meant with that. Yeah, so I don't think it makes sense to add that to our boilerplate because think of like the wide range of different kinds of projects that we apply that those boilerplate conditions to. But I do agree that it increasingly seems like something we should consider regularly as a condition that goes on after the certificate of compliance is issued in perpetuity. And I like that it's in writing that the new owner has to acknowledge it in writing. It should be in the deed. But it's, well, so I don't want everyone knows to like read the deed in detail, unfortunately. And so I think it's one of those things that just an extra step to protect people. I mean, realtors are like trained not to say anything about like. I was gonna say like, yeah, it's not. So you gotta, yeah, it's not easy. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and just like when the orders of conditions are recorded on the deed, they are there if somebody does deed research, but not necessarily folks don't necessarily know to do deed research. And we have a situation like this later on this evening that we'll be talking about. But I think it's good to cover all the bases, which is what we're doing. So yeah. Okay, so the next item on the agenda is to continue the Town of Amherst Robert Frost Trail improvements. So I just need a motion to continue that hearing to August 11th at 7.35. I move we continue the public hearing on the Robert Frost Trail improvements from the Town of Amherst to August 11th at 7.35 p.m. Second. Okay, voice vote for Fletcher. Hi. Anna. Hi. Larry. Hi. Michelle. Hey. Laura. Hey. Leroy. Hey. Thank everyone. I'm an I. I keep thinking I miss, because I'm like trying to scroll through while Erin's sharing her screen and it keeps changing the order. So I feel like I'm going a little crazy. Yeah, and if we ever miss anyone, just shout out I. I shout out I or nay or whatever you're about it. Right. Because I feel like Michelle, I definitely missed you. So well, on the last one, you did vote, right? But she couldn't vote anyway, so you were OK. Right. All right. Next hearing, let's see what time 7.40. Oh, good. We can go ahead with this. So this is a hearing continued from March 24th. And this is Amherst For Farm. Let's see who would be here. So I see Sabina is here. I'm up to panelists and David. He's. Jen, could I just make a recommendation that we try to keep this to 20 minutes if we can with our presentation and questions? Yes. Yeah. So actually what I was going to say. So. David and Sabina. Hello, there you are. Welcome back. Dave, you're muted, I think, still, unfortunately. How's that? There we go. OK, so do you think it's possible to do an eight to 10 minute kind of presentation of where we stand with this? I will talk as fast as I can. OK, great. If you could just introduce yourselves and yourself and give us an overview, that would be fantastic. I'm my name is David Haines with Haines Hydrogeologic Consulting, been in business since, I don't know, 1985. I've done a few of these. And as I said to Aaron today, I haven't presented a lot before the Amherst Commission, even though I'm on I live in Belcher Town and I've been on the Belcher Town Commission for 34 years. I presented when Mickey Marcus was the chairman of the Amherst Commission anyway. And also here with me is Sabina, co-owner of the property and we'll proceed from there. This was was submitted as a notice of intent and it included actually the restoration and and and the aggregate continued or new agricultural use of the property or renewed agricultural use of the property. And the the restoration was it was separated out at that March 24th meeting. The restoration restoration was approved as a restoration plan and that allowed us to go ahead and perform the restoration of certain areas that had been altered by mistake. Since then, we have replanted all the disturbed area within the riverfront area. It was a strip that was cut. We did replant that. It was supposed to be replanted with sweet fern, low bush blueberry and black huckleberry. No black huckleberry was available. So we increase the number of low bush blueberry. As Aaron saw in there today, it is it is very dense with vegetation. Unfortunately, there's there's there's a lot of other stuff that you could hardly find the plants that we put in because other things have come in, including a lot of raspberries and things like that, which are good for the turtle habitat. The and that area is in the lower right hand left hand corner of the screen. I it goes through the riverfront area. There were three other areas of bordering vegetated wetland that were brush hogged and and York raked and maybe a little bit of grubbing occurred in there. Those areas, the the work in the restoration in the riverfront area was replanted before May 15th because that area is also within estimated habitat of the of a rare species that would use that area for nesting after May 15th. So we part of the restoration plan prepared by Meredith Borenstein was to restore that. Then the two three other wetland bordering vegetated wetlands, which are outside of the estimated habitat, were replanted. That was that was supposed to be done by June 15th. It was completed on June 14th in the pouring rain in the thunderstorm and that has come back very well based on observations of those areas prior to the replanting. There was a lot of regeneration of silky dogwood that was was one of the species that was being planted to restore the area. I did confirm the confer with Aaron prior to us making any substitutions that we could take credit for regenerating vegetation that was target species. And so we did and we did not put in any silky dogwood. Aaron viewed the site today and we did put in alder and and high bush blueberry and winterberry holly. We put in a lot of a lot of plants and we've got good growth, excellent growth, Aaron saw it today. And I believe she can speak to that as being pleased with the results. Also, part of that, the mitigation plan were the placement of of permanent markers along the disturbed areas with with both rebar with with with a cap and also with four inch posts. Those have both been done. That was supposed to be done by the end of August. It was done has been done. Signage still needs to go up in the post and the Bluebird houses need to go in. So we've got very good regeneration. It's a good year to plant a wetland. I could tell you that with the amount of rain that we've had. It was it was it was working rather nicely. It's beautiful. It looks amazing. Great. Yeah. There was a lot of effort put into it and it was it was done well as to the the notice of intent that is now before you that the restoration was withdrawn from the notice of intent. The notice of intent has been revised to show to just do the future agricultural the new agricultural work that is basically renewed agriculture. The property was was had been an agriculture up until about 12 years ago when the previous owner passed away and the agriculture stopped. So it does not quite qualify as land in agricultural use and for that exemption. So we are applying to renew the agriculture out there and we're we're actually I've asked for a limited project status even though we're not altering any more wetland resource areas. I've asked for a limited project status for new agriculture so we can we can work with your bylaw and your 30 foot setback requirements and and and and do some more agriculture in the field. The agricultural components there is renovation of the existing barn they would like to to construct a green house on the property outside of 50 the existing barn is within 50. We would like to restore that in the existing location. We're not sure how much of it can be salvaged. We're going to try to salvage as much as we can. But it may be a lot of it being rebuilt. There's some various sheds that would like to be rebuilt and and reutilized. The agricultural use on the property. They there is an NRSES farm plan that I did submit today via email and a forest forest management plan for the northern portion of the property that is outside of the this notice of intent. But. So the rest of the the the right now the we have done a had a a wildlife habitat evaluation done by. Kristin SWCA right SWCA and to confirm where that the basically the the habitat for the wildlife does not extend beyond the the limits of of of where the priority habitats were and she confirmed that. We are proposing only one thing inside of the natural heritage estimated habitat and that is to to hay that area during the nonactive season for the species of concern. And that is back before natural heritage for their review and comment. We have not heard back for them, so we will definitely need to continue this public hearing until we do hear back from them. The other uses of the property is a regenerative no till as much as possible. We haven't they haven't decided on exactly what they want to do. We've thrown in a shotgun approach to what might be done. There might be row crops or might be some composting done out there. It might be livestock, fencing, construction, things like that in areas all outside of the natural heritage habitat and outside of the bordering vegetated wetland. We are proposing a dev of five foot no till strip right along the wetland boundary. We might plant that with shrubs or we might just annually mow it and hay it might be part of a hay field. They want to use no till regenerative practices in there and with a minimal impact and and soil, hopefully soil disturbance. And basically, that's where we stand with this application. And with that, I would like to open it up to any questions or comments. Thank you. That was great. Fast enough. Yeah, awesome. Thank you. Yeah, so just to rehash for everyone quickly. As Dave said, we're still waiting on information from National National Heritage on this, so this will be a continued hearing. But I think what would be helpful now is any questions or concerns. Based on what we have in front of us at this point to let these guys know. So they can anticipate any adjustments, but otherwise we would just need a motion to continue the public hearing. Aaron, did you have anything further? Any questions, concerns, comments? I just wanted to state for the record for the board to be considering as we continue this to the next hearing when we have comment from Natural Heritage. So Dave has requested that the board consider this as a limited project status. And we'll see this with a with another item on the agenda tonight. What limited project status is. And for those who are new to the board, limited project basically means that what they're proposing can't meet the performance standards for the resource area in the regulations. And so there are certain activities which are exempt and can fall under a limited project status. And for example, agriculture is one of them. Another is energy utilities can fall under that exemption. Damn, maintenance is another one, which we'll talk about later. But there are multiple that fall under limited project in agriculture being one of them. So the commission would actually have to render a decision as to whether or not it's considering this is a limited project, which I think is totally fair in this case, because it's an agricultural proposal for new agriculture. But the other two things that the board should keep in mind is that their proposal as far as the five foot no till around the wetlands would require us to have a variance of our 30 foot no disturb buffer as well as there is a vernal pool on the property. So it would require a variance of the vernal setback as well. So just to keep those things in mind as we review this, that those are kind of the legal considerations when making an approval on this particular one. Thank you, I forgot to mention that. Commission, any comments, concerns, questions? But I would when I was saying, is that me and things like vernal pool and so forth, if this is designated as special because of the agricultural issues, don't have to be considered. Erin. Sorry. Is the question if it's a limited project? That doesn't that doesn't mean that those aren't variances. So those are still variances, even if it's a limited project. Right. So we would have to consider it as a limited project and issue variances under a local bylaw for those two items. Yep. So is that area specifically the five foot buffer we're talking about around the wetland? Is that currently in agriculture use? I haven't been out there. No, and I apologize because confused where they're talking about. Yeah, I can. What I can do for the next meeting is I took pictures today. I just didn't get a chance to upload them for you guys to view yet. It's it's right now what the condition of this field looks like is it looks like a beautiful natural meadow. It's full of. I mean, I saw monarch butterflies everywhere. There was milkweed wildflowers. I mean, it's it's absolutely beautiful. So I mean, it's it's right now, you know, I don't know what the, you know, if it's if it's there's definitely grasses growing there that, you know, could be hayed, but and then the areas that were restored, you there are posts, so there's wooden posts and rebar around those wetland areas to prevent, like, say, a hay truck from mowing through there and mowing the wetland down, which is great. I mean, it's it's really. I couldn't have asked really for a better restoration project. I mean, it's it's it's beautiful. They did a fantastic job. You can see where all the plantings are. And I yeah, I don't have to raise your question. So with the variance of kind of that five foot wide mow zone. Yeah, but it's all 30. Like what is what is that additional 25 feet? Has it been previously treated as agricultural land or was that your question? Yeah. OK. Yeah, Aaron. So can you, I guess, maybe for the next meeting, that would just be helpful to know the historic kind of management. And I'm assuming it was probably managed. But from, you know, in that 30 foot buffer from the wetland to the. A 30 foot buffer out from the wetlands. Yeah. And just overgrown there. No, sorry. Yeah. The existing tree line, I think, pretty well represents the old farm fields there. The wetlands have expanded into the farm fields since they weren't being managed. And so that's where you see those those outcroppings of wetland that have popped out into the field over the course of it not being managed for, you know, 15, 20 years, whatever it was, there were there was no mowing happening. But historically, those those wet pockets were definitely and I don't know what was done beyond hanging on this site. I have no idea if anything was even done beyond hay. It looks like Dave has some info on that. Yeah. Yes. Thank you. If you look at the old aerial photographs from back to 1990, you'll see that the whole wetland system over to the to the east all the way to the property line was used as a pasture. And it was all clear. I mean, historically, this was a field. And and except for the northern portion of the site, which is trees, that probably at one point was also completely clear, but not in the 1990 photographs with the 19. They I'll get some documentation of that and present those photographs so you can have a better idea of what it was used for how it was used. Basically, the what was mowed last year was mowed back to a more recent and reasonable line. And but it didn't fringe in and intrude into the wetlands that have become established. And frankly, it was probably a wet meadow at that time, even when it was an agriculture. But we're going back to what we're much reasonable agricultural land as we can. And and if you add that 30 foot strip, it cuts it way back. And we've already cut back by the natural areas to get to make it a viable farm. We're trying to get a little bit more land to to to actually farm. I think the intentions are good. Things got out of cart before the horse a little bit, quite a bit. And that's been corrected. And so now we're trying to put back. This was an agriculture back 12 years ago. Yeah, absolutely. OK, that's that's really helpful. And so, Fletcher, if I'm intuiting your question well enough, then I think just documentation that like the previous management included up to that buffer so that we know that we're not taking what is like a relic or, you know, original wetland and allowing agriculture there. That would be super helpful and and allow, you know, I think help us support the the variants. Is that fair, Fletcher, for where we're going? Yeah, OK, great. Thank you for clarifying with my two word answers questions. Michelle, did you have a question or comment? I did just real quick is the mowing schedule you mentioned is that for natural heritage species you mentioned for sensitive species? Is that around like herptophanas so shared the vernal pool in the wetlands or birds? Has it been identified? I think it's turtle, isn't it? Wood turtle. But but I think that the mowing schedule that they're proposing is in the off season for ground nesting birds as well. So I think it's like after November 1st through March, something. OK, so there were there were no birds listed in the and the natural heritage recommendations. It was it was it was a turtle and a and a muscle in in Plum Brook. That nothing has happened to that. Got it. Thanks. OK, great. Thank you, commissioners. Other questions, concerns, comments. Looks like we're OK. So thank you for this. Sabina, did you have anything you wanted to add or comment? No, I must say that I can answer the question about how the field was used. It was an open meadow and there were cattle on from on the farm when we were growing up next door in the 60s, 70s, 80s. There was always cattle there. And that was just the way that those farms were meant to be sort of small cattle farms in those days, but they didn't become. It wasn't something that was money producing. So I think they stopped that and just hate it. Got it. Thank you. OK. Time for a motion. I move to continue the public hearing for two fourteen Pomeran Lane to eight eleven twenty twenty one at seven forty. Oh, second. Awesome. OK, voice vote, Anna. Hi, Larry. Hi. Fletcher. Hi, Laura. Hi, Leroy. Hi, Michelle. Hi, and I'm an eye. Hopefully I didn't miss anyone. Great. Thank you, Dave and Sabina. I appreciate it. We'll see you guys in August. Thank you very much. Yeah, thank you for all. OK. Oh, sorry, I should have asked earlier. So they're going to come back with as a limited project for that. It's it's already yeah, I mean, this request is before us now. So at the next meeting, once we get natural heritage comments back and we go to issue an order of conditions, then we'll have to render a decision as to whether, number one, is the board considering this a limited project? Number two, is it willing to issue variances to the two by law restrictions? I think that would be helpful for me that I just have no perspective on is our history when we can talk about this next next meeting, but our history with limited projects. You know, what have we done? What haven't we done? What how what precedent has been set will be really helpful. Yeah, I remember we debated whether or not the solar at Hickory Ridge is a limited project, and I think we pushed back pretty hard on that, but that's the only limited project that I've seen come across. I don't know if you have memories of others, but that's why I'm a little confused. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, limited projects are very common. Like I've dealt with them dozens of times in other towns I've worked for. Typically, people come before the board, asking for them all the time. And and Amherst is very unique in its exemptions, like the limitations on its exemptions. But yeah, limited projects for agriculture, I believe, are still included in our by law to allow it. If the at the Commission's discretion, yeah, I mean, I think I'm just interested in the history even before us of this mission, not in broad commissions, but this commission with limited projects in Amherst. In particular variances, too. Yeah, exactly. Especially across any vernal pools and things like this. I'm just interested in knowing what we've done. It's going to be a hard thing to get the data for that. I can imagine statewide data may be being available, but. I don't know. I'm not saying we can't. Sure. That's not a minor effort for Aaron to pull to go back and do research on when we've issued them issued a limited project considered projects, limited projects. I mean, I'm not really sure we can't deny it. I mean, so like let's let's say, for example, Eversource came to us and said, we have to put in this line. We we that's very clear. Eversource is very, very clear to me, you know, utility. This is not Eversource. So I guess my question is, you know, like. This is. I mean, this would be on the basis of agriculture, right? Right. That is that is this type of limited project, right? Right. But so. But in the regulations, agriculture is treated exactly the same as utility. So it's not like we could say, oh, we're going to like favor utility for a limited project, but we're not going to allow it for agriculture. It's they're actually completely on the same exact plan and is there like a requirement that you have to keep your property in agricultural use the entire time? You know, I mean, like what are the requirements, right? So so land and agricultural use has to be maintained in agricultural use. So it can't lay follow for more than five years. And if it does, then it is no longer considered an agricultural use. At that point, you would have to reapply for an activity and considered new agriculture, which is why, you know, they let it lay fallow for like 10 or 15, 20, I think 20 some odd years, whatever it was it lay fallow for. So that's why they have to come back to us requesting it as new agriculture. OK, thanks. We should probably cover that again when we talk about the hearing again. Oh, yeah. And we're going to talk about a limited project on this next hearing. Exactly. Thanks for that question, Laura. Yeah, no, it's good. Let's think big picture. And to learn because these are things we haven't talked about since I've been on the board, so it's good learning for everybody to understand the, you know, when when these things come up, kind of what the regs call for and what the restrictions are and stuff. Yep, absolutely. OK, we have one more hearing. Let me find my agenda. Please don't have closed it. Almost there. So this is the sweet Alice conservation area. So this is continued from our last meeting when we opened the hearing and Dave gave us a full overview. We have since I guess there was a site visit on the 22nd. And then we have since received or Dave's written responses to the DEP comments on the application. And Aaron sent those deaths with a PowerPoint earlier today. So I think, Aaron, you are going to give a quick overview or recap. Yes. So if it's OK, I'm just going to jump into the DEP comments, because I think once we start digging into this, we'll really sort of get into the into the weeds on this. And a lot of this, I'm going to try to paraphrase. So if you guys need me to slow down, if you need me to explain more, please just stop me. So the the bold portions are the DEP comment and the non bold are the responses from Dave. One of the issues that DEP had with this proposal was because what we were planning to do was basically when we do the culvert removal at area four. The proposal was basically to dewater the stream during construction so that we could work in dry conditions when we replace the when we pull the culvert out and do the bridge replacement. And then at the same time, it would allow the the pond to draw down so that we could do the weirboard replacement on the dam. One of the things that we've realized in the course of proposing those two things and the idea was why do two separate drawdowns? Right. One for the culverts and one for the pond. Why not just do them two in one shot? But what we've realized is that's not going to work. Just because of the comments from DEP. And so the questions regarding the drawdown, the depth of the drawdown, how the work should be done, how it complies with the performance standards. And based on that, I think and because of also the limited information, basically the the weirboard repair on the dam was done or was being proposed at the recommendation of our town engineer. And so one of the things that the DEP comments sort of called to our attention and kind of made us realize that we really need to do is to do a phase one dam inspection report. So basically what we what we're what the town is proposing, what Dave is proposing that we do is to if the commission is willing to approve it as right now as it's spelled out, but then we will have the phase one dam inspection report. If that dam inspection report concurs with what our town engineer says, then we would proceed as as as proposed. But if there are differences in the dam inspection report, which require us to go beyond what has been proposed for maintenance, then we would come back before the board and explain what those distinctions are so that the board could consider them. And if we need to amend the permit or have you guys amend changes, then we would bring it before you at that time. The issue is that the weirboards are rotted and deteriorating. So if they failed, then the whole day the whole pond would empty. And so the idea is for us to strategically replace them so that the entire day the whole the entire pond doesn't drain. And then this comes back to. The issue with the limited project status. And so as I go down here, oh, and and just for me to back up for one second, we're asking you to consider this as a limited project because of the dam maintenance and I'll I'll pull the excerpt or highlight the excerpt from the regulations so you can see where that's spelled out. But the idea with the to address one of the DEP comments here, anyways, is to do the work on the spillway between November 1st and March 15th. So this is outside of the active period for nesting Eastern box turtle just in case. And again, there was no box turtle found on this site. There was a box turtle found in the vicinity. So that's why we're trying to be conscientious of impacting their habitat in the course of this work. But this is just an example. And so dam maintenance is one of the many that are one of the many exemptions that are listed as a limited project. And again, limited projects are specifically it's there are limited projects that are allowed that can't comply with the performance standards for one reason or another. So a drawdown to do dam maintenance is a good example. A utility project is a good example. Agriculture is a good example. All things where maybe a certain setback can't be met or certain impact can't be avoided for a given reason. In this case, we can't replace a wheel board without taking making the water go a little lower so we can replace it. So this is like just an excerpt from the language and the regulations that the issuing authority may issue an order of condition and impose conditions as will contribute to the interests of the Well and Protection Act, permitting following limited projects as long as they don't have an adverse impact on the habitats of rare species. So, you know, getting back to our whole agriculture discussion, we couldn't allow a limited project if it adversely impacted the limited endangered species. And then there's a whole series of factors that we can continue that we can consider and one of them and this is I. So it's ABCD all the way through I. They're all limited project options that can be considered. And this one is the maintenance and repair but not substantially enlarging structures, including dams reservoirs for repairs of these structures for safety purposes and maintenance purposes. I'm not going to read them word for word, but you guys have this memo if you'd like to read it further. We've added the for the I guess I don't have it right here. I can pull it up, though, for you guys to see, but I added basically the wetland delineation to the original plan that was provided to DEP and it was sent to DEP that basically provides our delineation on the management plan so that we can show, for example, the area of one of the areas is proposed mowing to widen a trail slightly so that we can have emergency access to the holy oak range if in case of a fire, if we needed to get an ATV through there or if we needed to get a pickup truck there or if it was like a search and rescue operation. There's no structures proposed for that. It's simply widening the trail a little bit and the area of trail widening is in upland. And so a portion of that was delineated by Art Allen. And then I visually verified that the other portion of it was in upland that he did not delineate. Dewatering. This gets back to the question that we were discussing about dewatering the stream to do the culvert replacement. And one of the basically what this kind of made us realize is that we really, I feel like it's not really responsible for us to dewater the stream looking at it a little bit deeper and digging into the dewatering regulations. What's tricky is that, so my thought was to do it during low flow because then the stream would probably barely be flowing at the time that we're doing the culvert replacement. But I think that it's a more responsible proposal to actually do the stream restoration one half at a time. So the idea being that we would install erosion controls and excavate one half of the stream that's currently filled in, restore that half of the stream bank. And once that half of the stream bank has been graded, planted, stabilized, then reroute the water through that section of stream, reinstall the erosion controls, turbidity curtain or cofferdam, if necessary, and then pull the the culvert out on the other side and restore the other half, if that makes sense. It makes sense, but that seems like some, yeah, you think that's the best efficient, most efficient way? No. No, right. Like, no, you fix one side, then you put water on a fresh stream. And then it's around and dig up. It's like, why don't you just do it all at once? So the original place once. It's hard. I know, I do, yeah. By dewatering. In New York State, they do it all the time. But in that sense, we really fight against it. It's hard. So what I was originally suggesting was sandbagging the stream and just pull the culvert, grade it, stabilize it, and then let the stream flow. And hopefully do that all within a day. The problem with that is then the stream is dewatered and I don't believe that we can meet the performance standards if we do that. The other alternative is sandbag it and pump around. I don't like that option. I've seen so many of those situations go awry for so many reasons. The equipment is really unwieldy. It's somebody has to be managing it constantly. I've seen it so many times. I've seen it constantly. I've seen it sucking up sediment at the bottom on the inlet side, blowing out sediment on the outlet side, causing basically a violation. I just think that we're getting into sort of a slippery slope with dewatering and pump arounds. And I just think that this would be the safest route for the commission and also the most responsible. But if the commission feels otherwise. Yeah, from a cost perspective too, it ends up coming out even because it's so much to pump around. Like you think of the extra equipment that you have to get down there. And I mean, for me, when anytime you're adding a mechanical equipment that operates with fuel and oil, you're adding potential spills. I mean, I've seen that go the wrong way so many times. But yeah, I hear you, Pletcher. How long is this process going to take? For that one area four? Yeah. I mean, I would hope that we would be done within a week. How big is that culvert again? I'm sorry, I haven't been over to that area four yet. How big is the culvert or the crossing? Oh, the length of the culvert and the diameter. So it's about 19 feet in length, linear feet, the culvert. It is, there's two ceramic, I don't know that they may be broken. Yeah. They're probably about six inches in diameter. They're sunk super deep. They're deeply embedded and very deeply, you know, sunk in the sediment at this point, barely flowing. Get one big excavator in there and just pull it out. My point is we're gonna have a problem, no matter what we do, minimize the issue by taking care of it quickly. Aaron's on it. I mean, that was my original, yeah, it was my original thought, but I think we've got to adjust. And hopefully if we do it during low flow, it won't be that big of an issue. I mean, if it dries out. Chances are it's not gonna be that big of a deal. You're not gonna be letting like a raging river back into the fresh restoration. Right. It's gonna be like, yeah. So this gets back to the comment about the DEP made a comment that BVW was gonna be mowed. And that's not the case. However, the mowing of the dam, the dam dyke itself, you know, that has not been delineated and that is actually a structure. So that needs to be mowed and there may be wetland species that are growing on it that are going to get mowed as part of the maintenance. But that's something that's required. Again, it's something that falls under limited projects. Typically wetlands will creep up on a dam structure because there's hydrology there. And so just something to kind of keep in mind. There was also issues raised about the invasive species. So we proposed an invasive species management on the site. And so they're saying, you know, there's been no survey there of what species and where they're located and that there's additional requirements. We've done enough exploration out there to know that there are dozens of invasives out there and they are everywhere. And there are some very thick areas of invasives. It would be, I would say since we're filing an NOI it makes a lot of sense to include this. And so my recommendation here is basically prior to any invasive treatments the town and Kestrel would have to do an invasive survey on the property, acquire a WMO for a permit and identify who the license applicator would be. We would have to hire a license applicator regardless and have a permit regardless if there was treatment in wetland areas on bank in BVW any areas and including in the pond itself, you know if there's like milk oil or water chestnut or something in the water then we would have to do more work to find out what those are and what would be done to do the treatment. But the bottom line is that we would bring that survey to you guys and propose a treatment plan and we'd submit that to you for approval prior to doing anything. And so I know it's probably not the most complete thing to include in the application now but having it covered by the notice of intent means we wouldn't have to refile later on down the road. Since we're hoping you'll consider. What's a WMO for? It's a, and this is another thing I'll bring up later in the meeting. It's basically it's a permit that you can spray in a wetland or around a wetland. Is that new? Apparently it's something I haven't heard of before but yeah, it's something that DEP called out is now required. I guess I got to know that one, okay. And this is, it was not clear to DEP that we met the performance standards for the resource areas. So this is going through each regulatory performance standard like that we're not gonna impair the physical stability of the bank. In this case, the only area where we're working on a bank is the restoration of the bank. So it's kind of going through each of those. And again, a lot of these are the performance standards are meant to protect in a case of development. So if somebody's coming in and they're putting in a culvert, in this case we're taking out a culvert. So a lot of these, we're not impacting the carrying capacity, we're not restricting the channel, we're actually widening it. We are not limiting the capacity of the bank to provide breeding habitat escape cover for fisheries. We're actually reestablishing a migratory corridor for wildlife and fisheries. So there's a lot of things here and then we're restoring 38 linear feet of bank. So anyways, you can read more about this but we just wanted to make sure this was sent to DEP. We are responding to the fact that they didn't think that we addressed all of these considerations in the application, in the original application. Trying to kind of let them know that there is a net benefit to this project in terms of restoration to wetlands, in terms of restoration to bank, in terms of restoration to riverfront, we're trying to be responsible about what we're proposing here. Does anybody have any questions on this memo? Have I presented it effectively? I'm not used to being on the side of the table. Good job. Yeah, I thought it was pretty. Yeah, I think both your presentation and the response are extremely thorough. So all of this being said, the commission has to, I guess, number one, make a decision on whether or not whether or not the board is gonna consider the dam to be a limited project. So that's kind of our first line of business because the proposal couldn't be considered as is unless it's considered a limited project. I mean, it seems appropriate, but what's that? It's not Owen's pond. What's the other dam that we have to maintain that's in that development in South Amherst there? It might be Owen's pond. No, it's one that they rebuilt. Yeah, and Brad and DPW rebuilt the spillway. Was that an emergency service? That was not a limited project. How was that brought to us? But that's something the town has to maintain. What the hell's that neighborhood? Anyway. I don't want to say like Marsh or like... Oh yeah, I think I know what you're talking about. Is it down in that pond view area there? Yes, it's in that area. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. There's an outlet there. Yeah. So we had an emergency shirt and the whole town came out. The whole neighborhood came out to talk to us about, you know, we ice skate out there, but we need to fix it because the water went down. Anyway, I think it was just an emergency shirt that came through. But I'm trying to think of other game maintenance issues that we've dealt with on our limited project, which we haven't. Yeah, so an emergency shirt's a little different because it's a public health or safety issue. Yeah, sure. I'm just trying to remember what it was. And I think it was. I mean, from the last discussion we had, it seems like a limited project seems applicable to the agriculture part, but I don't have any strong feelings. I mean, you guys can't meet this standards, right? What is meant by limited project provision? It means that you can't meet the performance standards. So basically what it's saying is you can't keep the entire pond filled up and still maintain the dam outlet structure. It's just not, it's not possible to maintain that structure without some resource impact, but that basically it's essential to maintain the structure. You want to do it, but you can't guarantee that everything is right. Right, like we couldn't say there'd be no impact from doing a drawdown to replace the weirboards because there's got to be a drawdown and then at that point there's going to be an impact. It's almost like by definition in order to ultimately get to the right thing, you have to have an impact, Larry. I got you. I understand that. That's what I was wondering. And I understand that once you put it in that perspective, I think that's a good question, Jen. Yeah, so it's kind of like your airhands are, I don't know if that's a totally fair, but yeah, I think that's fair, actually. You have to have an impact in order to achieve the goal which ultimately protecting the resource. Yeah, right, got you. And I think that the whole limited project, the whole term itself is saying there's a limited, there are limited projects where it's allowed and this is one of those limited projects where it's allowed. However, it's at the commission's discretion to say if it is in fact a limited project based on your. Something you've got, you really should do, but you can't guarantee that everything's going to work out right. We have to hurt the resource a little bit to help the resource. Exactly, yeah. I have to file these for like restoration projects I do on state lands like. Right, yeah. You got to do a little hurt. Got you. So I'm based on my understanding and limited experience of limited projects. I'm comfortable with this because I think a dam, going through the process of the dam safety reporting and acknowledging and understanding that we have to manage this as a dam, I think is really an important part of this. So I'm comfortable given the orders of conditions that you've kind of recommended. Erin, I'm comfortable with it as a limited project personally, but let's do a kind of around the room. I'm with you, Jen. Okay. Anyone else have any, I see a thumbs up from Anna, thumbs up from Fletcher. I'm getting a nod from Laura, Michelle, Roy, thumbs up and a smile. All right, cool. So it seems like Erin, we're good with a limited project. So I remember your orders of conditions were pretty straightforward, yeah. Yep, yeah. State and local boilerplate, dam one inspection report must be completed prior to any dam maintenance report provided to everybody, all parties and any deviation from the report would have to be provided to the, or approved by the commission in advance of the work. Spillway work could only occur from November 1st to March 15th. And again, that's to consider the rare species, threatened species on the, that could possibly be on the site, not listed as a species on the site, but we're trying to be cautious in stream work and draw down for the wear board replacement must be handled separately. The bank and stream restoration sequence must be followed as outlined in the DEP comments. During the stream work, the entire area must be swept for a wildlife and wetland organisms. Prior to any invasive treatments, the town and Kestrel Trust will do an invasive species survey of the property, acquire the WMO for permit and identify a licensed applicator treatment plan would be submitted to the concom for approval. So I was gonna say, I move we approve the order of conditions for sweet Alice conservation areas to 37 Bay Road with the noted conditions. Seconded. All right, voice vote Fletcher. Aye. Anna. Aye. Laura. Aye. Mary. Aye. Michelle. Aye. LaRoy. Aye. And I'm an aye. I think I got everyone. All right. Okay, great work, everyone. So we've made it through the hearings. Yes. We've done the, most of the other business except for the order of conditions for Tofino and the emergency certs. Right. Oh, we did the emergency certs. We have to do enforcement. Right. Correct. Yep. We have Tofino order of conditions and then three enforcements to discuss. So what do you want to do first? So nobody's here. So Ted is not here. Right. I spoke to him earlier and went over my recommendations. Okay. Okay. Well, unless anyone's opposed, I say we do Tofino. But do it. Okay. Awesome. So I sent these out to everybody. I apologize. If these were late, if I was late to the party with these, but so the standard boilerplate is our standard boilerplate that we include on all residential properties. But I included a copy of that in the version that I sent to you guys just so you could see it. These are Tofino conditions that I basically am suggesting that are project specific to this site. And so, Jen, how do you want to, do you want me to burn through these? Do you want to go through them one by one? What do you think? Yeah. What do you recommend? What do you recommend? What? I could run through them. And then if you guys want, just stop me and we can amend. These can all be changed and adjusted unless Jen, however you want to handle it. I was just trying to think of like how to summarize effectively. But yeah, I think run through them, Erin. Okay. I hope all of us have read them. I've read them, but it's a matter of, you know. So right off the bat, are you gonna do wildlife sweeps in the winter? Yeah, so, okay, so let me just jump in here and start at the beginning here. The additional conditions that I would recommend. Wildlife sweeps must be completed on the construction site each day prior to the start of work. So from the time they start cutting vegetation until the site is fully stable and they're coming to us, you know, basically for a occupancy permit, they would need to be doing wildlife sweeps until everything is set on the property and they're removing erosion controls. A sweep log would need to be maintained for each and every work day. The log must include the date, time of inspection, name of the person doing inspection, note of any organisms found in a signature. Photos would need to be kept of any organisms that are found. On the construction site, live or fatalities, sweeps should be completed by a competent individual who's identified and trained by a wildlife biologist prior to the pre-construction meeting and that person would need to be identified and be responsible for the sweeps. Weekly monitoring of the vernal pool would take place during the construction period from the pre-construction through removal of erosion controls by a competent wildlife biologist. Inspections assess the functions and values of the pool, identify species using the pool impacts of the work and to the BVW and to the pool during construction. Vernal pool monitoring reports submitted to the Conservation Commission on a monthly basis. So these would be doing daily and weekly but the monitoring reports would be submitted to us monthly and that they would start at the pre-construction meeting until the site was fully stable and the erosion controls were approved for removal. The monitoring reports would include the weekly reports as well as the daily sweep logs that the vernal pool must be certified by the Natural Heritage and Danger Species Program during the migration, the period where the first spring rain when the thaw is happening and species are migrating that they would need to have a wildlife biologist on site during that event to transport any organisms out of the work area and safely to the pools. This condition applies while site work is underway until the site is fully stabilized and a final report from the migration would be provided to the Conservation Commission. Vernal pool report, a vernal pool must be monitored for three years following the issue and so the certificate of compliance and the frequency of that for those three years is at your discretion. Could be weekly, could be monthly, could be quarterly, could be twice a year. Twice a year, specifically spring. I was thinking cluster in the spring but I was hoping to get your input on that flutter. Yeah, I mean, as we came across this issue with this whole project, it was dry, you know? So the clustering could not work, might not work. Right. In case if it's too dry or too wet. Right. I mean, what you're trying to get is what are you trying to get out of the monitoring? You want to make sure it's still functioning. Is that what you want? Well, actually you've got somebody that you're expecting somebody to monitor this anyway. What difference to make in terms of the frequency? All it means is that you've got the person identified, do it at what we think is right. Right, we just would need to specify for this because if we're going to hold them to it, we have to, you know. That's fine, we just, what do we think? It also depends what we want. I guess if it feels safe, it's due quarterly, but make sure it's something in the spring. Yeah. I think what are you trying to compare what was during the... I think quarterly... All the data we have now, what they're going to have on site during the site, during the construction time and then three years after. Exactly. Specified quarterly. Yeah, what about quarterly and like with specific timing, like in coordination with the commission or something like that, so that if they're like, oh, we're going to go out and it's been a drought, we can say, that's not representative conditions or, I don't know, I'm just trying to think... Or like mid-January? Sounds good. Sounds good. Not ideal. Not ideal. So maybe like a spring, summer... Two springs, a summer and a fall, right? Yeah, there you go. In coordination, you got it. Yeah, two spring, summer and fall. Early spring, spring, summer and fall. Okay. And then put it in like a cool YouTube, like, you know, dramatic video. Right. That's only 30 seconds long. All right. Filter fabric, totem and steak straw bales, that's to just prevent, provide a really strong barrier around this site and sort of perimeter to prevent, you know, anything from coming into the site from the vernal pool. Temporary straw waddles would be used at the close of each construction day across the construction access to button up the work area. This is when we start getting into sort of the thick of it here. Chemical treatments of any kind prohibited on the site. Herbicides, pesticides, rodenticides. This has to be written into the deed for the lot and shall be an ongoing condition in the certificate of compliance. What about like fertilizers and stuff for grass? I think maybe that would be a more important one to put on. Yeah, thank you. This was a long spring. Yeah, right. Don't know Mosquito Joe. And who monitors that? Wait a minute. What did Michelle say? I want to be sure. It's just, yeah, the mosquito long spring that happened up Stanley Street. Yeah, right, right. Like the mosquito and tick removal, guys. Yeah, we don't want that, which is that follows under pesticides, I guess, but that's a pesticide. Yeah, and I would say organic or inorganic. Yeah, yeah, because there's a lot of organic treatments that are now being proposed, which are equally damaging to species. So how does that get monitored? I mean, to me, to me, that gets monitored by the neighbors. Yeah, yeah, it does. And I think the neighbors here are going to be monitoring. Well, more lives down the street. Yeah, I live literally right next door, which is the reason why I'm not saying anything. But yeah, right. Thank you, Laura. Yeah, so so guys, actually, in all seriousness, this is something that's the let's let's flag to come back to that question. How do they know and how do we know and go through the rest of this? You can see how Aaron's thought about that and then come back. Yeah, OK. No additional alteration of any kind permitted on the lots beyond what is approved in this order of conditions. That means no additional tree removal, vegetation removal, excavation, expansion of lawn, deck sheds, patio's pool, home additions, garages that shall be written into the deed and shall be an ongoing condition in the order of conditions. Permanent wetland rebar markers shall be installed at the limit of the lawn or yard every 15 feet to identify the limit of work and alteration area. The site plan shall be recorded with the deed indicating the limits of lawn yard that shall be written into the deed for the lot and shall be an ongoing condition in the certificate of compliance. Split rail fencing shall be installed at the limit of landscape in the backyard to maintain in perpetuity that shall be included on the site plan recorded in the deed with the limit of the lawn and yard shall be written into the deed and an ongoing condition in the certificate of compliance. Now, this is unique for each individual lot. OK, I quickly jump in real quick before you jump into that with the rebar bars. Do we not want to push on? Is it the areas too small for like big boulders? Rebar gets pulled out. So, yeah, so so just to address that question. My idea was this fletcher because in this particular case with the boulders, my concern is that it's not going to be clear what the boulders represent. And so that's why the fencing and the rebar are both proposed. And to be written into the deed and identified on a plan that's recorded on the deed and noted on the certificate of compliance. OK, because rocks, it's not always clear, right? This is a jump over to the next part along. Right. All right. My comment in going along with Fletcher is that in the beginning, the person knows it. When you get to the second owner beyond that, right, maybe gone. Well, that's why Larry was there. Yeah, that's why we're saying an ongoing condition in the certificate of compliance. So that's like what we were talking about earlier. You still got to go back to making sure that people that buy the house know about the things that are there. And I don't trust. So let me go back to let me go jump to the bottom here because I want to just highlight two conditions that I think are really important one in particular. So there's a requirement in the order of conditions that realtors must include the restrictions identified in this order of conditions as part of the sale of the property. So ordinarily, realtors don't disclose anything, but there's a requirement that they must disclose on this. And then also how do you enforce that? So hold, let me just get through these because we. I mean, it's not like I can sit there and like, you know, stand at the door. I mean, argumentative. This makes sense. You have to read the one right above that. Yeah. So buyers must sign and submit to the Conservation Commission and acknowledgement to the resource restrictions on the property and there shall be an ongoing condition in the certificate of compliance. So who enforces that? Well, so so here's the thing when a property changes. So this order of conditions is going to be recorded on the deed, right? And when the property goes to be sold and somebody buys it, that's flagged, there's an encumbrance on the deed. And so when the first person who purchases it, purchases it, they're going to need a certificate of compliance from us in order to close on the sale. And so at that point, we say we're not issuing you a certificate of compliance until we get this letter from you. And the attorney that's that's facilitating the closing will see the encumbrance on the deed and require that the person, the buyer, like provides us with written acknowledgement. I really, really think it's neat that most of you believe that this society works the way it's supposed to. Well, having recently had to deal with the closing, I can tell you that you have to sign a lot of things. And those attorneys are very, very thorough because they're on the line. They're on the line, but you're in the line after it. You know, whether you whether you enforce it afterwards is part of the question. Anyway, that's like a human nature question. I don't know that we're going to address here. But so I think so just to clarify. So what we're saying is not only are we requiring that realtors disclose this to potential buyers, we're requiring that the buyers must sign and submit an acknowledgement of the research restrictions on the property. And that applies to I completely agree with those things. I completely agree. So and and just to call out each of those boundaries is different on each individual property. So, for example, on lot five, the 35 foot no disturb is is what's noted on the deed because there's no vernal pool buffer that extends on to five. For a lot six, it is the 100 foot vernal pool line and then the contour of the 35 foot no disturb buffer where they meet. So there'll be those two boundaries in concert with one another. Lot seven, it's the 100 foot no disturb around the vernal pool. And then for a lot eight, it's identified as the dash purple line on the overall plan and the lot eight site plan shall demarcate the limit of lawn and landscaped area now. And just to be clear, on that particular lot, a lot eight, which is where the commission is considering the variance to allow them to be a little closer than 100 feet with the site work. The actual site work to develop the lot would go a little bit beyond where that barrier is. But once the property, once the foundation is in and the property is stabilized, the barrier with the rebar and the fencing would demarcate that line. So it would actually a portion of where the grading took place would then fall under the area that would no longer be able to be landscaped and would have to be maintained as natural area. I think, again, I'm not as trusting as some people in terms of these things. Who's going to put them? Who's going to put them into the deed? It says it's got to be done by the lawyer. But anyway, I'm just not as trusting in terms of having this done and particularly from one buyer to the next buyer. Very easy to go over and sell it for a ghost buyer. And then the next step is it goes to another buyer. I'm just concerned of this is not an argument of our system. So what's the solution? Petition the town, Larry. Get a job that you can be the Conservation Commission enforcer. And you're going to go around everyone's backyard and call Laura. You're going to make sure that every stinking house boundary, every time there's a new buyer, you're the one in charge. And then you have to take the job after that. But it has to be damn well paid. No, no, it's going to be volunteer because we don't have any money to pay. Right. So in all seriousness, though, I mean, it's not really an issue of trust here. It's like what levers we have to pull in order to protect the resource as best we can. And this is the best the lever that we that we know of. The levers are there. Yeah. So as much. Yeah. So I think I'm supportive. I'm supportive all the way through. I think that this is super thorough. And I think it's pulling every lever we have to try to protect that vernal pool. Erin, there's a typo in on the second page. And when you say split rail fencing at the beginning of it, it said split rain fencing. You haven't heard of that. New wetland fencing. Yeah, very popular amongst. So, you know, I'm comfortable with this. I think that so far so well, but I want to see if anyone I see Anna leaning in. If anyone has any questions or further concerns. No, I'm good with it. I was just I moved my the video is bigger and so I have to get closer. Sorry. OK, I do want to make sure, though, I think honestly, like they might ask, like right in the beginning, while I sleep, must be completed on construction sites each day, what about like winter, what if what if they do asked? I mean, they're going to ask, like, what do we want? What do you want us to do when it's freezing? Conditions? And are we just going to say, yes, keep going every day? Or I'm just. Yeah, well, and part of my my strategy here is that let's get this. If you're going to develop this lot, get it done fast. We don't want like this lot sitting open for four years undeveloped. Like you want to get it done, get it done efficiently and do it right and start to finish. Let's get. Yeah, I think it does. Sweeps do need to be done every day. I don't care. Rain, snow, sleep, hail. Yes, while a person out there doing. And I also think the other rationale here is that like the question we had about the sweeps after the certificate of compliance is issued, how do we know that we're going to have freezing conditions? So it's like it's harder for us to like hard code times that we do want them out there than it is to just say be out there every day, especially with, you know, our inconsistent freezing, our freeze, throw up patterns lately, like just tough to know when you will have freezing conditions. So it's hard to permit for that, I think you know, the lawyers, you're going to look at every line in this. Yeah, and if they want to appeal to DEP, go for it. And that's why you're going to be volunteering your time later and getting it done. They might just do it. All right. All right. There's going to be a camper. I think we shall have a question or yeah. So just, you know, for the organization I work for, landowners are even with a conservation easement restriction on their deed and that they know about over and over again, landscaping through where they shouldn't be. And it's like a consistent problem, even with like California legal enforcement. And I was just wondering, you know, to Larry's point, is there like some kind of to the line we can put in there about or like, you know, if not in compliance will like lead to enforcement issues or just something absolutely. Area and just don't do it, but some kind of consequence, just a sentence that maybe makes it sound more. Like intriguing, but not to do it. Consequential, implicate implying consequence. Yeah, he says, does not spelled right, is it? Maybe it is. I agree. Microsoft says it's spelled right. Yeah, I think that's a great catch, Michelle. I agree. I agree. Yeah, I think that's good. You don't want to hurt anybody's feelings? No. Any other comments, questions, things that add to this? OK, so what do we need to do, Erin? So we have on this particular one, I believe it's Jen, Fletcher, Larry and Anna who can vote. So one of you would have to make a motion. One of you would have to second and all four would have to vote in favor. And I would recommend the motion be include all of these highlighted numbers. And I would say to include the sort of in this highlighted area. So these are the the lots that are impacted, the boilerplate for wetland protection, boilerplate for town of Amherst. Well, in protection by law and then the additional specified conditions. So we don't have to read through all of these, but we've noted what they are on on the record. Anna, you are me. It's Anna, not Anna. Anna, Anna, you are me. Try one more time, Larry. It's Anna, not Anna. Sorry about that. It's OK. I can I can I can. Oh, every whichever one of us. So so, Erin, just to read just I'm sorry, my brain has exited my body. Yeah, that's OK. It's what am I doing? We're issuing an order approval of the orders of conditions for these. Sorry, I move we order or approve the my God, issue the order of conditions for the Tafino project, including lot five DEP file number eight nine dash zero six six two lot six DEP number eight nine dash zero six six three lot seven DEP number eight seven zero six six four and lot eight DEP number eight nine dash zero six six five. It includes the following conditions, the Wetlands Protection Act, residential boilerplate, the town of Amherst Wetlands Protection bylaw boilerplate and the additional special conditions as stated by the wetlands administrator. Second. Thank you. Good job, Anna. I'm sorry. Voice, voice vote, Fletcher. I, Anna, I, Larry, I and I'm an I. All right, we did it. Y'all, I down. Do we need to have Michelle and Laura abstain? Are we good with. I'll I'll state for the record that that all three of you guys abstain, if that's OK. All right, we need to. So is that it? You know, for now, until a for now, those other NOI. Yes, three issue. So that was how long again? What was the time? How was it? A year, eight months, two years. Let's hope not. OK, let's stay focused. Yeah. Yeah. I can see we're all tired. I'm equally as exhausted. So let's. OK. So enforcement is the only thing remaining right now. So basically enforcement order was issued one twenty one pound of you drive. We just need essentially a motion to ratify that enforcement order. I moved to ratify the enforcement order of one twenty one pound of you drive. Seconded. Have you had any more correspondence with this individual? In the drive letter, do you have a chance to check it out? There were a couple of emails. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm wondering. Are you have you have more? Have you been in contact? No, I'm going to vote no. But. Oh, my question. There have been more things come out. So. Fletcher, to answer your question, I know that Dave Haynes, who did the restoration for Sabina, indicated that he had been contacted by Kim Harwood to potentially work with him, which I think would be the best possible solution for that site. Who was on the call earlier? He was. Yep. Yep. Venus, I'm just curious, because I, you know, I have other questions, but I will leave it alone. OK. I actually, you know, as I said, I'm going to vote no on it, because what one of the things that I find interesting is in terms of us, in terms of the Conservation Commission, so forth, is that really this particular issue is very much the same as the the Tennis Court issue. Basically, what's involved in this issue is that there are two parts of the property where the house is and where there's areas they can work in and do things. And in fact, what we just got done doing with the Tennis Court issue was allow her to go across the boundary that was a wetlands boundary from the regular property over to where the Tennis Court things is. And this is exactly the same kind of a concept in terms of trying to divide the property. Here's a I mean, I have not got involved in this at all. It turns out I live four houses from the person involved. And I don't know him, although he did go to school with my daughter. And yesterday, I walked over and talked to him about the process and looked at the land because I wasn't able to do the visit the last time. Here we are, have the property that is, you know, it's it's. It was a long time ago, the property lines were divided. And here he is on a front property and a back property. How do you connect those two properties, just like the case on of the Tennis Court? How do you connect the Tennis Court? I don't think that that's true. I don't think that's what's happening. Yeah. This understanding. That's not what's happening from a regulatory standpoint. What what's going on here is that this work is not permitted. Right. I agree with that. I agree. Hold on. Let's stop. Let's let's stop for a minute and just step back for a second. So we received, you know, an anonymous complaint about infringement on wetlands and riverfront at this property. And so hold on, hold up. Aaron and Dave Zomek went and did a site visit, you know, with the property owner and said, look, like there are some violations of the town and state wetland protection acts here, like we need to kind of restore this and we're willing to work with him on it. So, you know, I agree with that. There was a point where it was, OK, like, let's figure this out together in a way that works for how you want to use the land and also how we want to protect and have to protect the resource. And when nothing happened, that's when Brett sent a letter and, you know, an enforcement order. And so still all we're asking here is to say, OK, this isn't an enforcement. We have to do it because we know we're in violations of the wetland protection act. But that doesn't mean that there isn't future points where we can work together with this landowner to figure it out. It's in fact very, very different from the case at 29 Mill Lane because the case at 29 Mill Lane was a full permit application where they were saying, OK, we want to use this land in this way. There's some debate about, you know, how we're going to approve, you know, protect the resource and use the land in the way that we want to use it. And therefore it was it was an open situation where you can work together in the permit to come up with a solution that works to protect the resource and make sure the landowner can use the land here. Unfortunately, that opportunity was missed and we had to go through this enforcement process. And so what we really what really would be the best scenario here is if Dave Haynes got involved, helped work as a middleman between the property owner and the Conservation Commission, filed a dealt with the enforcement order, filed a permit, and then we have another opportunity to work with the landowner on this. It did not come out of the blue. It is it is not malicious of malicious intent. It's our responsibility to to uphold wetlands protection act. That's what we have sworn enough to do here. And we can't do it. We can't do it less on one property and more on other properties. And and Aaron Aaron gave Aaron gave very clear. And I thought, I mean, in your letter, Aaron, like that those were really simple fixes, like there was nothing here that was like a lot. You were making recommendations to to do things like submit a cutting plan, right? And and essentially the rest you were saying, like, just leave it alone. You know, like you weren't you weren't suggesting any any major changes. So I think that for yeah, for me, the difference is in the permitting, but it's also not this isn't just a crossing, right? Like this is this is a very different project. Yeah, there was wetland filling. There was there was alteration on a bank. Yeah, there's I agree completely with the idea of enforcement of the wetlands issues. The part of what I'm saying has to do with the idea of an individual. One of our problems is people don't know what the wetlands rules are. And so they do things because they think they can just go ahead and do it. So part of the issue has to do with enforcement of things that they don't know about, but I agree with the idea. I agree with the idea of the enforcement and I agree with the whole thing of this. But part of the issue comes back as well to the idea of an individual property owner that doesn't know what's happening and how does he approach it? My concern is first of all, back off a little bit. I live four doors from him when he got encountered in this thing, he sent things out and I don't know where it stands now. But there are a lot of people signing a petition against us because we're being strong armed and forcing people to do things. Go ahead, Erin. Larry, can I make a very strong suggestion that you abstain from involvement on this as an order similar because like Laura abstained from discussion on this, you know, it's it's unfair for for you to be put. You shouldn't even be commenting on it right now. My concern was really the idea of letting a small guy as opposed to the big guy. Yeah, it's it's it's unfair pressure for you as a and as an abutter to this person because he's your neighbor to I will remove myself. Yeah, it's it puts you in a very awkward, unfair position because you're his neighbor and you see him every day and you shouldn't be put in a high pressure situation to be on any side in this scenario. So feel free to abstain if you feel and I think another thing we should say on the record here is that what the issue in front of us right now for this meeting is simply certifying or ratifying an enforcement order. This is not a public hearing. And so the when this could become a public hearing would be if if the property owner were to submit a permit or a RDA for consideration of a permit and we would move forward with a very public discussion of how we can meet everyone's needs involved. And the other thing I would say is if anyone other interested parties happen to check these minutes or watch this recording, if you email Aaron Jock at the town or wetland administrator with comments and input, we do receive those emails and we do read them. So that is the most effective way to have your voice heard to the commission. Unfortunately, petitioned social media. I mean, I heard about it, but I haven't read it. Not on social media. That's not an effective way to engage with us in this process. We really want to engage on this. And we are happy to have everyone's voices heard. The best way to do it is get in touch with Aaron. Good point because so I did read the petition because my name was mentioned and so just really briefly to make sure that it's also very clear. This is not we're not building a case against anyone. We are not suing anyone. We are not there is no cease no no official. There's no cease and desist. That's not what we send out, right? And so like there are absolutely components of this that have been taken into a level that's it's actually inaccurate. And so the steps in the process, I think, were very clearly outlined and followed by Aaron and by us. And so, yeah, just to just to build on just because I did read it. Yeah, well, and I think the other thing is there was an opportunity offered to work together cooperatively to try to solve the situation. And that was even on my end, I spoke to Kim personally and said, Kim, I am more than happy to work with you to help you put together an application. If you're unfamiliar with the process, if you can't afford to hire somebody like I'm willing to assist, just contact me, reach out, call me. I'm happy to. And the response was basically from what I understand, like almost like making it seem as if it was it was unreasonable or demand. You know, we did what we had to do. That's that's this process when you don't cooperate with the law. That's what we have to do. So anyways, there's a motion, there's a second part of my part of my concern has to do with money, where you really really need you to abstain from this because it just puts you in a horrible position. So I think we should go ahead. We have a we have a motion and we have a second. So we need to do a voice vote to to certify the enforced order. Correct, Aaron, right? Right. Excuse me, thank you. OK, so voice vote. Sorry, go ahead, Aaron. Who seconded that motion? Leroy. OK, I just wanted to make sure that it was not Larry. Thank you. It wasn't OK. OK, voice vote. Fletcher. Hi. Anna. Hi. Larry. Abstain. Laura. Hi. Michelle. Hi. Leroy. Hi. And I'm an eye. You're full. I'm going to really go through these quickly. There was a compliance issue on 21 Baker Street. I was able to resolve it. I can give you guys a greater update further on, but essentially they're in compliance at the moment. 815 Main Street, similar situation. The site is stabilized until a permit is filed in the future. 375 Potwine Lane. This is a situation we just issued a certificate of compliance on this property. It was constructed by Ron Keith. He got a certificate of compliance. The property was sold within three weeks. There was a paved driveway being installed. I contacted them to stop work and have asked them to file a permit within 30 days. I guess my request of the commission is that if they don't file a permit within 30 days, I would request that the commission either file enforcement or have a clear laid out timeline for when a permit will be filed on this. That seems reasonable, Aaron. I don't know about the situation, so just keep us posted. OK, sorry. One more time, you said that they got the CEO and three weeks later they sold to another person that I just the certificate of compliance was issued. And within three weeks, there was a driveway installed on the property. They were about to pave it. So I was able to reach them to stop the paving from happening, told them they needed to file an NOI for the paving. It's unclear, you know, if a permit is going to be filed or not. So I'm just trying to, you know, work. It's another compliance issue, similar, you know, just trying to work it out, hopefully work with the landowner to get a permit on the books with us so that they can move forward one way or another. Twenty five Stanley Street, we checked in on this one. But again, I found out about this WMO for permit that's required for spraying near wetlands, so I'd like to send them a letter and let them know that they do need a permit in order to spray your BVW wetlands bank and just let them know the landowner as well as the applicator that they need to file permit with the EP if they're going to be doing that near the wetlands. Do you know the applicator? Yeah, it's true green, I believe. OK. And this is informational, not enforcement. Correct. Yeah. OK, as a reminder, this is the one we talked about last time and decided that it was a bit of an overreach because we didn't have a lot of information, but it sounds like it's more information. We can help alleviate the situation by just providing information in this case. Is that OK with everyone? I'm getting nods. Not nodding nods. OK, OK, sounds good. Thank you, Erin. Of course. And that's that's all I've got for tonight. Can I have a little bit of work to pull that all together, as usual, Erin? And I just have to tell you guys something. I am I saw a bobcat twice in my backyard over the past week. Yeah. Nice. Beautiful. Have you ever seen it? I've never seen one before. Have you guys seen a bobcat before? They're like they're pretty majestic. They're pretty. I couldn't believe my eyes if my parents were with me, I would have been like, I don't think anyone would believe me. So I know they're Amherst. I've seen him in South Amherst, not recently, but they're I know. They're in South Amherst. Yeah, for sure. Look for their kids. They got kids. They got little little tykes around there. I'm pretty sure that's what someone told me that if you see one, they probably have kids nearby and it ate one of my chickens. Yeah, that's why they're nearby. Yeah, I know. Well, we like fortifying the coop and you know, we have this electric fence which serves like almost everything except the cat just jumped over it. Grabbed a chicken, walked right out. Bomber. That's the way it's supposed to be. That's true. Um, all right. Well, thanks everyone for hanging in there. Make a motion to adjourn the meeting. Yeah, holding. Whoops. Oh, no, that was very relevant to wet ones, I thought. Yeah, I was thinking about those wild good thing, we're going to do those wildlife sweeps. What? I think we need a motion to adjourn. I'll make a motion to adjourn. Oh, I think I beat you, but that's OK. All right, I'll I'll I'll I'll voice vote Larry. Hi, Laura, I'm watching. Hi, Michelle. Hey, Anna. Hi, Laura. Hi, and I'm an I. Good job, guys. Thanks, Erin, you're. Thank you, Erin. And good job, new chair over there. Yeah, we're going to stop the recording. Team points together. All right, have a good night, guys. All right, bye, everyone. Bye.