 Yes, there are two attendees. They're just not. Um, so we're, we're seen by them. We're just not recorded recording. But actually we are recording now. And so today is July 8th, 2020. This is our bi-weekly Amherst Conservation Commission meeting. Um, so starting off with comments from me, uh, is Dave going to be on tonight? Aaron? I believe he is. I'm not sure if he's going to be a few minutes late, but, um, but I believe he's joining us. I just had a couple of questions for him. And so probably most people know that there's a E coli issue over at Puffer's already. Right. Not quite sure where that's at. It tested clean today. It opened back up today. That's great. That's what I saw the town posted, I think. Well, we had the rain. We'll get there. Maybe today it will happen again. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and then obviously there's potential for drought issues in town as well. I'm not quite sure if anybody's up to speed on what's happening with that. Yeah. I thought that wildfire and lever for five days straight. Oh, did you? Is that right? Yeah. 60 acres. Yeah, that was bad. It's still, it's still hot. I didn't, I didn't. Two days ago. Yeah. It's really hot. It's like, it's, this is like this talus rock and it's just underneath the rock, just dead hemlock in the air. It's just cooking. It's not spreading. Yeah. Yeah. Um, Brett, I did hear, and I'm trying to find my source here. I feel like I have all these random weird bits of knowledge for some reason. Um, I did hear that with the drop in numbers at the university, that water levels have actually been okay. Um, because there's so many fewer people using what, that's why we didn't have like a, uh, But what should we call it? Water ban ban. Thank you. It's, it's, it'll get there. It's fine. Um, but I'm trying to remember where I saw that and I can't. So that's, I'll treat that as word on the street. Yeah, that makes sense. Definitely a lot fewer kids there now and be a lot fewer in the fall as well. So they're still trying to figure out what's going on. But they're not sure yet. So, okay. Um, so yeah, I guess without, um, Dave here, Aaron, why don't we pass it over? Oh, actually Dave just joined. So you can see if all my word on the street knowledge was correct. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, Dave, perfect timing. So the next thing on the agenda was you. And so we were asking about puffers and E coli and anything about droughts that you might know. And then obviously anything else. You care to impart on us. Sure. Great. Thank you. Sorry. It's a few minutes late. I'm so glad I have that background. I'm in my basement and behind me is all these boxes that I'm supposed to go through. And so I'm really glad that I have a, I'm really glad that I have a, I'm really glad that I have a, I have a great background here for a real background, uh, Mount Pollux. Anyway, um, yeah, let me start with buffer spawn. So, um, yeah, I mean, unfortunately the roller coaster, the summer roller coaster has begun. Uh, we did have. Uh, we did, uh, two, two, two series of tests last week. Um, and unfortunately both of those, uh, uh, resulted in, in, uh, some of the, um, the higher level levels that were above the state acceptable. Levels. So we did have to close the pond down for the weekend. Um, we test every Monday. We get the results back on Tuesday. And fortunately, uh, they were a way down, uh, Under acceptable levels yesterday. So we opened officially today at 10 a.m. Um, you know, I, uh, we have the staffing back up there. We have parking enforcement and LSSC staff. So we're going to try to do that as long as we can. We've gotten great. As I said at the last meeting, we've gotten great feedback on, on staff being up there. Brad and Tyler, among all their other responsibilities, do check in there a couple of times a day. But I think we're going to be in this, this pattern of, you know, rain, large rain events, flashy storms, and the Coli level is going to go up. I think I've put out a few feelers to the context I have at the university to see if maybe we can kind of dial in a little bit closer on, on what some of the causes are of this problem. You know, there's certainly upstream runoff. There's the potential for underperforming septic systems. And then probably the most logical one is simply the amount of sediment that is in the pond. The pond hasn't been dredged in over 20 years. And every one of these storms, it's really just like a blender, a mixer, and everything kind of gets churned up. So that might be yet another reason why a more compelling reason, frankly, to dredge. So we're going to try to get more help from some folks at the, at UMass. And I've reached out to a couple of professors I know, but I'm open if anyone has other contacts in, in water resources, happy to, to make some calls if, if you all know folks that I don't. So that's kind of the status quo at buffers. Overall, I think it's going pretty well with the staffing. We've had kind of a good luck with educating people about social distancing. So that's going very well in the parking as well as the, the education we've been doing up there, I think has resulted in some pretty positive, at least recent behavioral changes. We are, I hate to do it, but we are going to kind of mix up the signage a little bit up there and try to start doing a couple of things that are a little bit more maybe just right in front of people. So we're going to do some, some temporary signage for carry in, carry out, just to try to see if we can get people to take their trash with them. This whole notion of coming to the pond and then leaving us with half a barrel of trash times the number of parties that go there. We're also going to do some signs on the trail above buffers for picking up dog waste and really kind of put it back where it should be, which is the responsibility of the owner to pick up all their dog waste. You know, and I'm, and I have worked on the, you know, these conversations with the dog park task force, but it's not good enough anymore to just say, well, my dog went off trail because it's all ending up in the river course, whether it's a tributary of the mill or the fort. You know, it's all contributing to bacteria levels. So I'm trying to get people to take more responsibility there. So maybe I'll stop there. That's kind of the buffers pond update. I had a few other quick things, but any questions or thoughts or comments? Couple things. When you talk about people at the university, I mean, you know, I'm an, I was an engineer, retired faculty there, you know, and I know a lot of people still like Rick, how do you deal with him? I don't deal with him directly. But I, you know, I, he's a friend of mine. I can always call him if you want me. You come to me, you come to me and tell me what you want to do and I can make a contact there. And there's also a couple other people in that department. But I know. I think we're specifically looking for folks that are, you know, water resources folks, water resource engineers. Well, he's, he's, he's water treatment, physical, chemical processes, water quality, water chemistry. Why don't if you could Larry reach out to him and say, we'd love to maybe have a zoom meeting with him and talk to him a little bit. I will do that. We have a, we have a reasonable amount of data. You know, we've been collecting data in the pond proper for a number of years. And then we did some upstream testing. Um, in 2018 or 19, I think it must have been last year when Beth was still with us, Beth, that Wilson. How about Tobias and who's the department? You know him. Yeah. He is on our water resources. I know, I know both of them. I've known them for a long time. So, I mean, just, that's, I'm just saying, you know, I can, anything that I can do to help that kind of thing. I'll be happy to do. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Dave, is it possible to put some of those signs at, um, Kiwanis as well outside of Wentworth farm? It's, it's like trashed. Yes. Yes. Yeah. We're going to, we're going to put these around a particularly the dog. Actually, we're going to do a dog waste and carry in, carry out. Yeah. Do the buffers around the trails. We're going to do them at Mount Pollux. And we're going to do them at Wentworth. That's a great idea. Yeah. Yeah. I was up at Mount Pollux last Friday morning on the holiday, July, July 3rd, our holiday for municipal employees. And it was a mess. And, you know, it's hard to go out there and frankly, not step in it. If you, if you know what I mean. Yeah. Wentworth was actually more trash than dog waste. Um, that I noticed, but. You know, what's interesting in talking to my staff is, and I think this is a, just a byproduct of the COVID-19 situation is we're finding far more. Um, What do you call it? Takeout, uh, packaging. Because so many people want to eat outside. They get, you know, they get their burrito, they get their whatever hamburger, whatever it might be sandwich bagel. And there's a lot of, a lot more takeout containers being left on the ground and, and piling up our trash. So. Yeah. Yeah. So. Yeah, go ahead. I have one more for you. Uh, you're going to get a call one of these days from Adrian to Rizzi. She's concerned about the pond down here. She's concerned about what it looks like. And so she's going to bug you about things that, you know, that she thinks it's, you know, I'm not, I'm kept passing information on to you. I'm local, as you know, I'm right here, but the concern about the, what's happening with the idea of the flow through that bond. Yeah, I haven't, I haven't been to the pond in Orchard valley in a while. What is the water level? Is it, is it pretty low? She's concerned about what the level is in terms of leakage. So you're likely to get a contact. A letter of, you know, a phone call or otherwise. Okay. Sure. Sure. We just got a little rain here in South Amherst. I don't know if it's still raining out there. Not where I am in South Amherst, but you know, right. I'm right next to the pond. Okay. Sure. So other projects around town, Brad and Tyler, again, we're not really taking on, given the low level of staffing we have. We're not taking on any major projects this summer. Really. Fixing things. Getting things, getting the house in order. So. They're over at Stanley street fixing the railings at jump bridge. They're doing mowing early mowing. They're doing mowing early mowing. They're doing mowing early mowing early mowing. So if anybody's been down at that cons flats, I think they're probably mowing on the order of 40 to 60 acres down there for the first time in years. No bobble inks were down, sighted down there and also it's been so dry. I'm usually dry that we can, we can actually do that. So anyway, no, no major projects. We are hoping, I'm keeping my fingers crossed, that we're also going to be doing some kind of, um, Young people in mid to mid mid, mid-to-late July to help out Brad and Tyler with some of the routine mowing of trails and brushing of trails. So. I do have a little pocket of funding that I can apply to that. So they'll get a little, a little boost here in a couple of weeks with, with a few young people that we interviewed earlier in the year. So. So that's kind of the quick update around town. Sounds good. Thank you, Dave. So, uh, Aaron, we have about 15 minutes before our first agenda item. Well, Aaron, you're on mute. Great. You've got an awful lot. Oh my gosh. Is this my personal desktop I'm sharing right now? It is. Wow. Sorry. Hold on a second. How do I stop? Your kid is super cute though. Big mistake there. Okay. Here we go. Let's try that again. Can you see that? Yeah. There you go. Oh boy. Okay. It's okay. We're recording. It's so embarrassed. Oh wow. That's really embarrassing. My desktop is a hot mess. All right. Um, so just to, just a quick, I'll just do a quick update on the agenda. Um, so that you guys can kind of, um, get a feel for what tonight's going to look like. Um, So Tafino's requested an extension. That's our seven 50 hearing. Um, Tafino for the lots, uh, lot one, two, five, six, seven and eight on Concord way. And also shoots, Barry road has requested a, um, an extension as well. And we can talk more about the status of those, but just in case any attendees are on, um, For those specific hearings, that's the status, uh, that those will be continued. Related to those two, Erin, in case somebody is on, do we have dates for when they'll be continued to, I know one, one. Yes. Yes. So the agenda is seven 30. Um, With you guys. Entertaining emotion as such. And then, um, The, the, um, shoots, Barry road project requested a continuation to July 22nd. So they'd be the first on the agenda for July 22nd at seven 30. If you entertain that as a motion. Thank you. Um, so good news that the document was finally recorded. Thank you. Yeah. So good news that the document was finally recorded for us to do e-signatures. So I have a stack of permits that I have got drafted that I'm just waiting to issue. I just need to clarify if I need to sign them for the commission or how exactly the e-signature is going to be administered. But the form was notarized with the registry, so we are good to go on issuing them. So that's great news. I wanted to just get a quick status update on the permits that I mailed around for circulation, for hard copy. They're in the mail. It's in the mail. I'm sorry. OK, do you know how long ago they got mailed? Somewhat recently. OK. I'm really sorry. No, it's OK. It's just that I want to just in case I get questioned on it, I want to make sure that I'm prepared. They were placed in the mail on Monday. OK, cool. That's great. And who did you mail them to, do you know? Fletcher. Fletcher. OK, so Fletcher's next. So Fletcher, when you get that, and do we know who's already signed off? Yeah, Jen and Brett. I think left were Laura and Larry. OK, OK, great. So yeah, if when you get those, you could just sign them, pop them in the next envelope to go to the next person in line. And then we will, once that gets back to me, then I'll issue those, or file them accordingly. We did have a forest cutting plan submitted by Lincoln Fish. And this is one that I had talked previously with Dave about. It's for the Luddy property. Frederick and Judith Luddy. They are right near Amethyst Brook on, I think it's, is it Pelham Hill Road? Yeah, Pelham Road. Yeah, Pelham Road. And they are planning to do, they have some acreage out there. And they're planning to do some invasive treatment as part of a forest management plan. So they are near the brook, but I mean, in other towns I've worked for, this would be sort of an acceptable process for somebody to go through doing this type of thing. And so I had checked in with Dave just to see kind of his feelings on it. And so we wanted to get this plan from them to assess what they were actually proposing to do in order to kind of do a checks and balances, make sure what they're proposing is acceptable as far as the Conservation Commission is concerned, and that there's no additional permits that are required of them in order to do their removal and treatments. I haven't had much of a chance to look at this. I just received this plan I think a day or two ago. So I haven't had a chance to review it in any detail. So you guys don't have to render any sort of decision on this. But if you feel strongly one way or the other, it would be, I guess, good for me to know. But if you want to review it and then provide guidance later, then that's fine too. Where do we stand? What is our position on this? I mean, where do we? Well, other towns I've worked for, if somebody develops a forest management plan, then it's considered to be under an agricultural exemption, and they wouldn't be required to file a permit under the Wetlands Protection Act or local bylaw, as long as the exemption applies both under the bylaw and, of course, it applies under Wetlands Protection. I do believe that the ag exemption applies under our local bylaw. The difference here is they're not doing like a timber harvest. They're talking about 23 corns. They're talking about 23 corns of wood. Not a lot of wood. What? It's not a lot of wood. It's not a lot of wood? OK. I think, Aaron, sorry, are you going to keep going? No, go ahead, please. Yeah, I've dealt with this by hand full of times when I was a service forester for different towns. And most every town accepted this as a process. And as long as they're going to, if you go back to that narrative, Aaron, if you scroll down, I think it's a totally fine process. And he spells out everything in terms of BMPs. You have to be a license applicator in the state in order to use herbicides on other people's property. Lincoln Fish is one. So I personally like this process. And this also gets signed off on the service forester as well. So it has another little set of review. I mean, although they're not. It has another review process as well. So personally, I'm in favor of something, a filing of a cutting plan in order to do some herbicides. I'm glad I asked the question because I'm getting some information. Hey, Fletcher, could I jump in? Could you just, though, maybe if we scroll down a little bit, I am, and again, I have not had a chance to read this. And I'm sure we'd all like a few minutes to do that. But we'll do that via email. But I'm just curious, how does the removal invasive square with any cordwood? Is the cordwood a byproduct of removing invasives or? No. So I've read this, obviously. I've already read this. So no, he's actually just doing timber stand improvement. And so he's just doing a thinning. They're going to keep, they're just basically creating room for the better trees to grow. So there is a small component there. They're cutting, but it's all firewood and one load of wood, bigger wood. So it's a whole, it's just part of the whole process. So they're cutting trees, but then, and then they want to knock back the invasives to allow other trees to grow and really specifically native species. I'm assuming this area is probably pretty loaded with invasives. Would they count the trees that have already been choked out by bittersweet in that cord hall too? Oh, I don't know. I'm not sure I've ever like gone out to the site, but I think he said, if you scroll back up, the cutting plant says the type of, the type of cut it is, and it's a cut. They mark the trees to cut. So I don't know who, and he didn't say what logger is doing or anything like that either. But so yeah, it's just a part of a, and this is also funded through the NRCS office here in Amherst too. So why, I mean, my two cents, I mean, I completely trust Lincoln Fish. He has a tremendous reputation in the Valley. My only concern here is when we're talking about the Amethyst Brook, I mean, we are talking about, you know, really the premier cold water fishery and stream in Amherst, you know? So I just, I just, I have this feeling like I would love Erin to meet with Lincoln and have Lincoln walk her around out there and just walk her through what it is and where it is and I just wanna make sure that, you know, as close to the brook as possible is being protected, you know, even like so, again, I haven't had a chance to read this, but so how is the cord wood getting out? Yeah, scroll up, Erin, if you can, there's a map if you go all the way down to the bottom. There's a map that lays out everything. Okay. Yeah, so I don't know this property at all, but here you go. So that little X next to the house, that's the landing. That's the little skid road, the little dashed road. Okay. And so it looks like, and then there's like a boundary of the harvest area where they're cutting the firewood and it looks like that's where they're gonna be treating the invasives as well. Well, I don't know if he's gonna be doing the invasives on the whole property or just right there, but there you go. So it looks like they're gonna put the landing next to the house. It's a fascinating property. I've been out there with the Luddys and by myself, there are actually one or two old ice ponds out there. So they've worth the amethyst brook into the ice ponds. So the dams or dikes for the ice ponds are still there and it's fascinating just looking at, kind of the old infrastructure. So would there be, in your experience, Fletcher, would there be any issue with Lincoln, you know, going out with Aaron and walking around and just... I'm sure probably he'd be fine with that. You know, he has to do this anyway with NRCS as well. They have to see it. Service Forrester goes out and sees it as well. So I'm sure he's pretty used to it. Yeah, I mean, I'd like to go walk the site with Lincoln and NRCS too. Just to make contact with them. I mean, I worked there about, gosh, 15 years ago, but I'd like to get to know those, the new folks that are working in that office as well. So that might be a good opportunity. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Brett, does that sound good from your standpoint as chair? I mean... Yeah, I mean, particularly once Lincoln's involved, I mean, he's, yeah, about as good as it gets around here from what I know. You know, everything that's in there, I read through it quickly. Everything that I read seemed to be up to specs as well. And yeah, I mean, Fletcher knows this better than I, but so... And you know, they're not, yeah, it's not like, this isn't a farmer going out there and broadcast spraying with a tractor with a 250-gallon drum on the back. Right. You know, this guy, he literally has a backpack sprayer that has two gallons in it with a 5% concentration. So that is wetland certified. Yeah. Again, I think there are a lot of, you know, I just feel better if Erin walked around with them. When I was out there last, I mean, there's a lot of depressions, you know, I don't know if there's any vernal pools that, you know, I just love it if Erin walked it with Lincoln and the folks from NRCS. And that would be the only thing I would ask for. Yeah, I'd be happy to do that. And I could take pictures and maybe report back at the next meeting, let you give you guys some photos and just let you know what I found out. I mean, do they have any timing issues? I mean, I guess we just received this. So, I mean... It said on the ferry front page it said they were trying to start on the 19th. Of July. Yeah. And so that would actually be after our next meeting is the problem. Well, I think from all the impression I'm getting is, you know, the commission feels comfortable with it. It's just more of a, you know, it's more of a formality if you will to have Erin go out there. So as Fletcher said, I don't think the commission or the department can deny them necessarily the right to do this. It's more just, we'd like to be on, you know, we'd like to have a little more information so we understand what's going on. And frankly, we might get questions if people hike through there, they fish through there. People might ask us questions and it'd be great if we had a complete understanding of the project. Yeah, and I can probably get out there before the 19th. So at least that will give us some, you know, review process before they begin. Yeah. So procedurally, do we need to vote on this or anything tonight or? I mean, under, through the state, there's no requirement for that. I was more or less just gauging how you guys felt about it. Yeah, I mean, so does anybody else have any objections or any worries about this moving forward? No. So, okay, so I mean, okay, so I'm not hearing that we need anything formal. Everything informal is sounding very supportive. So if that's enough, Erin, I think we're good. Okay, sounds great. Okay, anything else from your cider? And it is 730 at this point. Why don't we come back to the other business once we wrap up with the first hearing? Okay, sounds good. Okay, so let me just get my cheat sheet here. I'm gonna stop sharing until we're ready. I just have to pull up the right. Magic wording, okay. So if anybody is here for the 730, which is our 227 Pomeroy Lane hearing, if you could just virtually raise your hand and then we will make you a panelist. And then at that point, you will be able to speak at will. Okay, so Neil and Peter, you should be on or about on. So let me formally open it and then we will turn it over to Peter to give us an introduction to what the whole project is all about. This meeting is being held as required by the provisions of chapter 131, section 40 of the general laws of the Commonwealth, enact relative to the protection of wetlands as most recently amended in the town of Amherst Wetlands Protection bylaw. This is a, again, request for determination from environmental planning associates for cutting of trees and saplings and habitat enhancement in the buffer zone to bordering vegetated wetlands at 227 Pomeroy Lane, map 20C parcel two. So Peter, if you wouldn't mind giving us a introduction to the project and then after that, we'll go to you, Aaron, for your comments and photos. Peter, start your video. Oh, sorry, okay. Yep. Can you see me now? We can see you and hear you. Yep. Okay, very well. Good evening, commissioners and Aaron, Neil Stillings and Catherine Fister, the property owners. And they are also the applicants, by the way. I was the preparer of the application joining us in this meeting. Neil and Catherine are the owners of a property. It's 1.7 acres, more or less, on Pomeroy Lane. And this is an application for a small amount of work in a buffer zone to a BVW. This BVW, while it might have some pockets of intermittent stream of either upgrading or downgrading into the Stillings property, it's in the area that we're talking about. It's solidly a vegetated wetland system. On the, to the degree that you, I assume that you have access to the plan. So I'll make reference to the plan that my office prepared. I'm sorry, one second, Peter. Aaron, can you pull up the plan so that everybody can be looking at that? Yes, I can. Thank you. Okay. So just for orientation purposes, the, there's a pine tree, a sizable pine tree to the South, almost along the South property line of the Stillings property. The next adjacent property to the South is owned by the town of Amherst. And my understanding is that it's known as the Pete Westover Conservation Area. Neil and Catherine are intimately familiar with that property because, you know, they've lived there for many years and have, you know, spent a great deal of time in that meadow of the conservation area, meadow. So this is an application to do essentially two things or two categories. One is to significantly cut the existing white pine tree but leave some, certainly leave the stump intact but maybe cut the pine tree so that the remaining trunk remains to be four or five feet high. The slash and limbs would be mostly left onto the East and West of the existing pine probably looks like there's more room to the West. And that would be there as a wildlife habitat enhancement primarily for reptiles, amphibians, as well as red fox. And we do propose to use silt, sock or on the wetland side, which is to the North of the white pine that's, I won't say removed else but trimmed is an understatement removed is an overstatement. So we'll say cut, I guess. So there'd be silt barrier there and it just so happens that the pine is in a sort of peninsula projection of buffer zone into the surrounding vegetative wetland. And the cutting would be done by a licensed arborist and somebody who's, and they'd be doing it manually. They don't need to use heavy equipment at all. They just need to go out there with chainsaws and ropes and climb and cut and take down and move, you know, move tree limbs and such with ropes. So there's no need for mechanized equipment beyond the chainsaws. If you'd like, I can open that part of it to the proposal to questions by the commission or I can move on to the other half of the proposal depending on the chairman's preference. Yeah, if you could present the full proposal, that'd be great. Very well. And you can see on the plan that we've located the stillings dwelling and deck elevation benchmark there in the backyard, approximated the extent of lawn shown in the green polygon. And I did put wetland flags along the wetland boundary there. It's a pretty obvious boundary because it's also, you know, really demarcated by the toe of the slope. And in that, as you go north or uphill from the wetland flags that I put out, I believe it's four, five and six or five, six and seven, you go up to the top of a short embankment and you reach the edge of their lawn and then between the edge of the lawn and the wetland flags there's a prodigious, you know, distribution of saplings and a number of which commissioners and attendants today and Aaron noted that there is some buckthorn as, and also, so there are some invasive species there. The basic idea here is to cut the saplings, leave the stumps intact to maybe, you know, four, five, six inches anywhere from there to several feet high and actually incorporating Aaron's suggestion, use, you know, an herbicide to treat at least the saplings of the invasives to discourage their regeneration. And so those saplings, for a depth of maybe five to eight feet south of the edge of lawn, the proposal is to cut some of those saplings on the top of the embankment, maybe going down about five to eight feet. And then also at Aaron's suggestion, we thought that it would be useful to take a section of lawn in the Catherine and Neil's backyard and convert it to, you know, let it go more to meadow and that could be done by tilling up the existing lawn. That area is, you see it as what's known as a revision cloud graphic on the plan. You know, generally in that area that is somewhat coincides with the 50 foot buffer zone line, convert that lawn and then by tilling the grass and then introducing a wildflower mix. And I do specify a wildflower plant mix from Ernst in Pennsylvania or some other equivalent purveyor of wildflower seeds. And then also that would be mowed no more than, that area would be mowed no more than twice a year and to allow the wildflowers to, you know, basically be somewhat more prevalent than grass. I guess that's it in a nutshell. And I'll just mention that Aaron and LaRoy and Brett came out for a site visit today along and joined Neil and I, you know, walking the two areas that where we're proposing this activity. So with that, I'll leave it to you for questions or Neil and Catherine for any additional comments. So first, Neil or Catherine, do you have anything else you wanna add before we turn it over to Aaron? I think that Peter covered it pretty well and so we're open to questions but I don't have anything further to add at this point. Thank you. So Aaron, do you wanna share any pictures or any other information about the site? Sure, and I did take quite a few more photos but these photos I just wanted to sort of illustrate what the area looks like. So they're standing in the area of lawn and sort of where Brett is standing is I think sort of gonna be the limit of where the wildflower area is. So there's a path that kind of runs along this tree line and in the red circle is the pine tree that's proposed for removal and then in between where the pine tree is located and where Peter's standing is the hedge of sort of saplings and there was pretty significant glossy buckthorn. We also saw autumn olive in there and there was a little bit of multi-floor rose. I mean, my suggestion on the cutting was if there are invasive, I mean, they're cutting the invasive so when they cut them to remove the, properly remove the invasives off-site and if they're not gonna be doing this regularly they may wanna do spot treatment on the stumps of the saplings just to, so they don't turn into stump sprouts and create more invasives back there. And then this is a view looking from, looking toward where the wildflower area would be in the lawn in the back and actually this is. So I just wanted to, I just will have one quick question for Peter which is, one of the things that I wanted to say is that the area where the saplings is being removed, I feel like is not really well defined here. In terms of like, are you in the wetland or are you just cutting those saplings outside of the wetland? Yeah, fair enough. I agree that the plan doesn't spell, could have spelled that out more specifically. No, it doesn't. More specifically. No, we would not be cutting in the wetland. We would be cutting if the cutting would begin at the edge where it says edge of lawn and it's also shaded in green and it would go five to eight feet southward of that line going somewhat down the embankment, down the embankment being south. But the cutting would stop at the flagging of the wetland line? Oh, no, no. I would, and I'm estimating extemporaneously, I would say that the actual distance from that, and actually if I could cursor to my, if I could get to that plan on my computer, I can tell you the exact distance. But no, speaking extemporaneously, I would say that the distance from that edge of lawn to the wetland flagging is at least 10 to 15 feet away. And no, so we're not proposing to cut 15 feet southward from the edge of lawn. We're really proposing to just cut five to eight feet southward of the edge of lawn. So that would leave at least another eight to 10 feet from the cutting to the wetland boundary. Okay, so just to be clear, that you're not actually cutting in the wetland, you're just cutting in the upland adjacent to the wetland? No, and that would be very clear to the contractor who's doing it because the wetland is very clearly defined, not just by the flags, but the whole vegetation profile, it's the BVW is largely a flat area. So as you go down the embankment, when they cease to be an embankment, you kind of know that you're in the wetland. Okay, I just wanted to make sure only for the motion part of this because it was not entirely clear to me if it was proposed to do some work within the actual wetland. So I just wanna make sure I clarify this for the motion that it would just be number three for the motion. Buffer zone only. Yeah, okay. So those are my comments, questions. And there are more photos if folks wanna see them. Okay, great. Thank you, Erin. And yeah, just to clarify about the chemicals, if that does go through, then it would be only for approved chemicals. So meaning rodeo or garland or something similar. Meaning approved by what is the state agents in Department of Ag in Massachusetts? I can't remember. Yeah, MDAR, it's also just EPA certified as well. So yeah, but MDAR. So Dave, you have a question or comment to start? Sure, yeah, I think a real easy one. And I apologize, I've not been out on Westover Meadow, the lower section of Westover Meadow in quite a while. But I just wanna make sure that the property line is clear there south of the white pine is that, so your plan seems to indicate kind of pin to pin. Is that, am I correct? Well, it's not definitively defined on the ground. In other words, if you look at the far, at the southeast corner of the plan, there's a monument there, okay? And there is somewhere to the northeast, there's a pin, but we did not find the pin. And so in defining and be able to key this in to the property boundary of the survey plan, I was able to use the two monuments that are shown. Okay, but yeah, it's just clear that the tree is on the applicant's property and any of the cuttings will kind of remain on their property, correct? Yeah, and I mean, I think that's a very fair question because the tree is probably no more than 15 or 20 feet from the property line. And I'll just have to make that or you can specify that more loudly in a determination perhaps. But yeah, we'll make that clear to the person doing the tree cutting that their work is limited to the property line as best we can determine it on the ground. Right, that sounds good. And is that lower section to the south still remains relatively open? Is that correct, Erin? Again, I have not been out there in a while. The area to the south? I can show you some photos, if that's helpful. Yeah, so I think if our goal is to keep that open for early successional species, then we just wanna make sure that contractor, whoever you decide to hire, doesn't end up piling beyond the property line. And I understand the cuttings would be, the branches and such would create wildlife habitat for the species you mentioned. Right, but I mean, I know you definitely don't want somebody working or depositing material on someone else's property or the town's property for that matter. And the best I can do on the ground is simply to maybe meet with the contractor there and just amplify that he really has to stay no more than 10 feet from, I think he does need to at least walk on the town property. But the material has to really stay within 10 feet of the tree trunk. Yeah, no, I understand. I think it's just kind of a before, during, and after making sure that whatever. Yeah, I mean, I think the property line as best that I can estimate, the property line is somewhere between the meadow grass, you know, somewhere near the end of the meadow grass in the beginning of the shrub area. Sure, that sounds great. Thank you. Dave, this is a picture from the south looking north and the pine tree is right behind this deciduous right here. Yeah. Sorry. That was definitely one of the highlights of the field visit today. So people didn't get to go. It's a gorgeous little property back there. It really is. Oh, pretty. Okay, so commissioners, any comments for the applicant or for Erin or myself or LaRoy? I mean, when you were out there this morning, did you notice the property boundaries at all? Just, okay. No, I mean, we talked about it when we were out there, but we didn't look at the monuments. It's clearly, you know, there is that vegetation boundary. Yeah. That's just based on where our crews have been mowing. I mean, from my perspective, I'd almost like to see a couple of flags hung just to indicate to the people doing the cutting not to go beyond that point, even if it's approximate, just so that they get the general idea of where the property boundary is. Well, I mean, so, I mean, what I can do is I can set up my total station on that southeastern most monument and I can shoot across to the other monument and then I can establish a traverse line that would be, you know, plus or minus a couple feet, that would basically depict on the ground the property line, you know, with a level of accuracy horizontally, you know, one to two feet. That'd be great. Yeah. You know, yeah, we can string a line or, you know, do something to indicate that. That'd be great. Yeah, and when we were out there, we talked about different options. And so, yeah, they're interested in taking down the tree, largely for aesthetic reasons. And, you know, that's obviously their prerogative. Talked about, you know, wildlife values and all that, talked about the invasives. So it seems like we have most of the stuff covered. I think they've thought through a lot of that already. So it feels fine to me. Brett, that was definitely a yellow throat that we saw this morning. Just in terms of your bird watching. I eliminated other warblers, so. I'm gonna have to go look that one up. It's all too common, unfortunately, but I haven't seen many this year, so. Yeah, Brett, I just wanted to echo. I mean, it's so great when you have applicants come in and wanna do something but are proactive and looking at the whole picture here. And it's frankly one of the kind of joys of the work we do is because so many times it's after the fact coming in and saying, whoops, or, you know, I did something and one of the consequences. But it's so great to work with you all and be neighbors to people who care about their acreage as well as the land behind them, which is open to the public. So thank you for doing this and being so caring and responsible. You're welcome. So anything else from any commissioners? And yeah, I echo what Dave said as well. So if there's anybody from the public who would like to comment or has a question, you can virtually raise your hand and we'll, then you can ask. Okay, so I am not seeing any there. So at this point we are looking for a motion. And so, Erin, can you set us up on the specifics for that? Of course. So this would be the motion and I have a couple additional conditions besides just cutting the invasive, that I cut invasives removed off site. I have flag property boundary for tree removal as noted. The treatment for invasives should be approved for use in wetlands and spot treatment only. As opposed to foliar spring. And as far as the erosion controls, I would recommend a compost sock be used as opposed to silt fence or straw bales. And so those are the four conditions I have listed and that is the recommended motion. All right, I'll take, I'll make a motion to, so we're doing a positive determination for the local bylaw, but a negative determination for 1.32, 1.32. 2.27 Palmer Island with the conditions that were noted through Erin. Second. Okay, so go through and do a voice vote on that. So Fletcher. Aye. Larry. Yeah, aye. LaRoy. Aye. Anna. Aye. Brett, aye. Okay, so we are all good. So Erin will work on the paperwork and that will eventually hit, I assume, Peter's desk. Yeah, if you send it to myself or Neil, whoever's you think of at the time, you're gonna send that, it'll be fine. Okay, sounds great. So do the applicants have any other questions at this point? No. I don't think we do. I think I'm interested in sort of the timing here is how long it takes this to, when will we receive the kind of final determination or whatever? You should receive it within, well, within 21 days, but I would say within at least two weeks. If it takes that long, we're gonna be starting to issue things much more quickly now that we have electronic signatures that we can do instead of waiting for people to sign manually. So it should go much faster. Thank you, all of you. Yes, thank you guys. Thank you. Thanks again. Okay, no questions. Thanks very much and thanks for coming out for a site visit. Made it much easier to explain. And it was fun, so thank you. Okay, so I'll just change up a couple of things. So I'll put the applicants back as attendees. When was that designated as Westover Meadow? Was it officially? I don't know if anybody, Dave or Brad or David. This is where we need Harvey. Yeah, my dad used to work for Pete Westover. And so he always gets excited when he comes up in conversation. No idea. So I didn't even know that was back there, but yeah. And there is some public access. I mean, there always is, but it's kind of tucked in there. So there's some access off of Middle Street and maybe another place. Okay, so why don't we keep going? Cause I think we're gonna be able to cruise at this point. So Aaron, you said that the 740 has been withdrawn. That's correct. Okay, and so now for, can we do the, yeah. So we can do the 750. And so for the 750, there was a request for a continuation. And so what's the date and time for that one, Aaron? Yes, and actually I just have one quick thing if I might mention about that particular one about Tafino. I received a phone call today from, well, I don't know if the gentleman wants me to share his name or not. So I won't share it. Somebody was a representative of the neighborhood was I think gonna be possibly in attendance tonight for this, but there is great concern with this particular application that we're just gonna keep putting it off and putting it off and putting it off. And we opened this in October and we're still continuing. And it's been, I think continued on two or three meetings since the additional information was requested. The comment from the member of the public was asking the commission to set a deadline so that for them to get back with information to the board. And I explained that there's an application process and people pay and they're entitled to their due process. But the feeling is that it's starting to be a disservice to a butters because a butters can't keep up with the continuations and can't provide public comments every two weeks going on over a year and that it would just be for the benefit of the residents in this community that the commission consider setting a deadline for this. So I just wanted to put that out there for you to consider. It's not, I'm not pressuring you to do so, just wanted to share the comment. They did request a continuation to the first meeting in August which is August 12th. And they would be the first hearing on that meeting which would be at 730. So August 12th at 730 would be the continuation date. Yeah, I mean, I think for all involved we would certainly like to just kind of move this on. So there's no doubt about that. But I've never, I can't recall any times when we have ever set that sort of deadline. It's always been sort of on the applicant's onus to figure that out. I do appreciate what the member of the public was saying. It is an onus on them as well to kind of keep on top of that. And we did, to be kind of fair, we did get new information. So hopefully they are working on it to come back to us with it. With our last request. Yeah, it is moving forward just, yeah, very slowly. Is there anybody from the public who is here who would want us to comment on this topic or this, this application in general, besides what Aaron conveyed? Just virtually raise your hand and so. So what about this, Aaron? I mean, can we at least convey this concern to the applicant? I mean, unless there's a commissioners want to actually set some sort of deadline. But I don't think we, we wouldn't want to set a deadline with that out the applicant here anyways. And so, if the applicant knows that, maybe that will move them forward a little bit and we can see what we can move forward next time. Does that sound reasonable? Sure. Okay, so can you remind us again, Aaron, of the time and date? Yes, August 12th at 730 p.m. Okay, so looking for a motion for a continuation? So moved, motion to continue to August 7th at 730 p.m. 12th. 12th. 12th, turn it. Second. You were so close. At least I didn't say at 1230 p.m. Like, I mean. Okay, so. It's close to my birthday, so I gotta remember it. There you go. So Larry, how do you vote? Yes. Donna. Aye. LaRoy. Aye. Fletcher. Aye. Me, aye. Okay, so that's what it's gonna be for the attendees. As we always do, feel free to contact Aaron beforehand if there is a potential, another continuation. Ah, yeah, we never hope that there is one, but that happens. That being said, I think we have a request for a continuation for the next one as well. What's the longest a project has been continued to your knowledge? It's another Harvey question, but... It's been a long one. Here's if we're breaking records. No, I don't think we're near where we're going. I've had a project go for over a year with continuous review and it was in another town. And it was a very unusual situation of the applicant refusing to comply with the regulations and the commission demanding that they comply. And in the end, I believe the permit was denied. And so that's, I've been through that before, that was a much simpler, it was a single family home construction. So this is a much more complex project. Cool. Yeah, I don't know if you remember Fletcher, the Eversource one, that one seemed to stretch on for a while. Right, but we also had just meeting after meeting with them too. And that was an enforcement order. Yeah, that was like enforcement number three. It's like, oh, they are again. Yeah. Right. Yeah, that's the longest I've, that's true. I think I haven't had anything else longer than that. That Eversource one. Okay, so why don't we move on to our 755? So we are, we have time, we can start that now. And so again, for our 755, there was a request for determination. This one just as to jog people's memory. There was additional work that we were asking of the applicant, particularly in response to our third party review. And Erin, if you just wanna encapsulate what Maria was saying. So I think she needs more time. Yeah, so we, I had a conversation with Maria this week. They do need more time because they had actually an error on the final STAT stamped plan. It was like the wrong version of the plan. So it's good that we didn't approve at the last meeting. It's good that we were extra thorough and wanted to have a second look at that. And she's still working on responses to comments, but there was sort of a compromise that she and I discussed. So I wanted to mention that to the board this evening and just make sure that the board is comfortable with it. What that is is basically, is somebody talking to you? Something else is. I'm gonna try just in case. Okay, thank you. So the issue is that I'm just gonna put this out there kind of as it was conveyed to me. The original delineation as it was done was very incomplete, as you all know. And when we had our peer viewer go out there, a tremendous number of flags were added to the delineation. And so what happened was it really complicated the flagging number system. So the flags that are on the ground now are really confusing because it's part of the original delineation and then all of these additional flags that were added. And so what TRC had done previously was they had one set of flag numbers on the ground and then they had provided us a plan that has a completely different set of flag numbers. And that's what I was raising issue with at the last meeting because my concern is the flagging on the plan as numbered doesn't match the flagging in the field as numbered and that's gonna create a great deal of confusion down the road. So what I had discussed with Maria was providing two sets of plans to us as a final version. The first is the flagging as it's represented in the field. Accurately as it's represented in the field, the flagging number system. The second is the flagging number system that the flags would be updated to if a project comes forward. So if a project came forward for work on this lot, they would have to update those flags to accurately represent what's on the second plan so that it's a little bit more of an understandable numbering system. A correspondence that outlines the difference between the two plans specifically so that it makes sense and can be put on the actual determination of record. And lastly, a Excel spreadsheet that has the field flag number, the plan, updated plan flag number and the X, Y coordinates for each flag in the field. And so what that provides me is something that I can actually map in GIS in order to have a solid concrete piece of information down the road if a plan does come before us for a project of some kind. So they've asked for that as a compromise to having to go back out in the field and reflag the entire site. The reason being because they're over budget and they don't have the funds in their budget to go back and reflag the entire site and it's such a huge site that they're asking for some relief there. So I just wanted to get, I mean, I told Maria I thought that sounded reasonable to provide to us because it will give us a clear information and that it won't be confusing down the road for us. But I wanted to get your opinions and make sure that that sounded okay for you. Yeah, so first Aaron, thank you for doing that. And so doing those negotiations. To me personally, that sounds reasonable. They're basically kicking the can down the road. So somebody's gonna have to do it later on. But I think you outlined the reasons why. So first, any commissioners have any thoughts, comments? Well, my concern about that is that is that gonna create problems later on which somebody argues one versus the other? I think it should be definitive which way it is. And I'm not happy with the idea of them being able to postpone it. And I know that's why it's happening. I mean, I realized last time that they were over budget that's what they were doing this on. But I'm concerned that somebody comes back later on and says, well, there's these flags in the field and we can use that. Anyway, go ahead. Yeah, that's why we will have this documentation Larry but it is something else that we will need to keep track of. So it's not ideal, I agree. Any other commissioners are, is there anybody from the public who has any comments on this one? Just virtually raise your hand. Okay. So not hearing anything. So I guess at this point we're looking for a motion for a continuation and can you remind us again, Erin of the, I think July 22nd. Yes, it would be July 22nd at 730 p.m. I move to move Schuetsbury Road to July 22nd. I would say 730. Yes. 730 p.m. Second. Okay. So Larry. Aye. Anna. Aye. Letcher. Aye. LaRoy. Aye. Aye. So that is now continued. Okay. So I think that's the last official agenda item. Oh, I'm sorry. So then there's the request for extension for Westry, Erin is the next on the agenda. Yes. Uh-oh. That's me. That's Mr. Viss. I remember this one. Okay. So, yeah, I'm sorry, but yeah. This is seven, I believe. We do have somebody from the... Oh. I think somebody's hand is up there. Okay. Yup. And so is Tim laying part of this one or is he... I think he's in a butter to... Good night, Xavier. I think he's on a butter to Shootsbury Road. Okay, so... Yes, I'm on a butter to Shootsbury Road. Can you hear me? Yep, we can hear you now. So I just saw your hand, Tim, so sorry. Okay, I raised it a little bit late. At the last meeting, I think you also convinced TRC to approach the landowner and see if we could certify the vernal pools. And I was wondering whether any progress had been made on that. I have reached out to Shane, I believe it's Benosi. The... Badgenosi. Bad... What is it? I say it again. Badgenosi. Badgenosi. Shane Badgenosi. That's a hard one. To discuss this and him and I have been playing Phone Tag this week. So before the next meeting, we will clear up, get a read from them on that. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you, Tim. Okay, Erin, so back to West Street. Okay, so backstory on West Street is there was an original DEP order of conditions issued for this work. And it was issued in 2014. And from what I understand, it included this driveway and the single family house in the rear of the lot. So, Leroy and I went out to look at this today. And this was extremely confusing on a number of levels because, well, I'll show you another figure in just a second. But there was no flagging remaining on the site. So it was extremely difficult to... There was an original permit issued in 2014. They got a continuation to July of this year. So one continuation was issued on this work. They've requested a second extension on the original permit. I went out there on any permit extension. I will go out and look at the delineation because that's a long time for a wetland to sit unchanged. And so I wanted to have a look at it and see if I noticed anything. So I walked the site, there's no flagging. So it's very difficult to confirm flags shown on a plan whether or not in the field. But my observations are basically highlighted in orange here of where I observed wetland vegetation that was beyond the wetland flags. And this one here, can you guys see my cursor? This one here is a little more expansive. These are field nodes. So forgive me. This is a little more expansive than what it actually looked like in the field. But I was just trying to give you a general idea of location-wise where I saw additional veg that appeared to be beyond where it was in the original delineation. And the veg that I saw, and LaRoy and I both walked to the site was sensitive fern, which is a fat wet species and soft rush, which is a fat fat wet plus species. So I'll show you this other figure I created to kind of give you a sense so you can visually see. So on the plan itself, it appears that the tree line follows the wetland line. So the picture all the way to left, you can see the tree line. And I believe that that is the extent of the original wetland. You can see that there's a wetland veg behind that tree line. But what I observed was this patch of, these patches I should say of sensitive fern that extended beyond what appeared to be the boundary of that into this open field. There was sensitive fern here. There was two spots of sensitive fern that appeared to expand closer to the roadway on either side. And then there was also almost an inadvertent gully that had formed along this gravel roadway. And there was quite a bit of sensitive fern that was sort of in a linear linear configuration along the roadway here. But again, I don't know that there was hydrology. All I was looking at was vegetation. This roadway, it was also really confusing because the roadway comes in here, straightens out, and then it appears right now it cuts off to the left and goes into this open field to the left. Which there was no plan for a roadway shown there. I don't know if it was a preexisting roadway or if they changed the roadway location and just put it in there. But it definitely veers off to the left. And when you come up to the left, this open field, there was also similarly a patch of what appeared, there was definitely a big patch of sensitive fern. And I'm zoomed out too far for you to see it. But the big patch of sensitive fern that extended out from the tree line there as well. And then trying to make sense of this plan, LaRoy and I walked back from the road and then we walked straight ahead into what appeared to be the previous single family home site. And when we did that, we walked in and again, it's difficult to tell because there's no flagging, but this whole area out here was full of soft rush. It was a massive meadow out there. And it was just massive meadow of soft rush and other species to the point where you could almost see like hummocks of soft rush forming in that field. So- Is there a road? Was the road, does the gravel road continue through it? It stops where you have that black line? Exactly. So the gravel road goes off to the left and then coming forward there, it was just a walking path through the grass. So where the site was going to be? Exactly. Yeah, okay. But I'm a little confused because I thought up in the northeast corner was the original location for the house. Do you remember that Fletcher as a while ago? Yeah, it's on the map, right? Where her, Erin's cursor is just to the right. No, I thought it was supposed to be in the northeast corner. So where that road leads, Erin? Yeah, up there. That's where I thought I- Okay. And- Why didn't we put it- Yeah, I'm trying to jog, it's jogging my memory because I came in, I just remember this was so complicated, the site. Yeah. Did he want it? He wanted it there. Well, I want to give a little caveat. Yeah. This plan was the one that was in the previous request for extension folder. I was not provided with a plan for the final approved plan for this site. So I took the previous extension permit and took that with me when I went out to look at this site and that was the plan of record that was in there. So the final plan, it's possible, the final plan was different from this. And so I just wanted to put that out there and I can look into that as well. I think the dilemma for me, you know, Pete had- This permit was particularly confusing because what happened was the original permit was issued in 2014 and Pete Heronimus never recorded the original permit. Okay. So that's step one. Step two is the commission issued an extension but they never actually issued it officially because he had never recorded the original order. And so there was no book and page to include on the extension. So I was contacted to find by somebody who was interested in developing this lot and they said, get us the paperwork. And I couldn't find any paperwork in any of the files for this. And so I was like, you know, and then I found, I finally found the original permit and the original permit, it appeared expired in 2017. And so I told the guy, there's no record of any extension, this permit, it appears expired in 2017. And he said, okay. Then I talked with Beth Wilson and she said, oh, I had tucked this file aside in another location for Pete because I was waiting on the book and page number for the original order of conditions to be recorded in order to issue him the extension. So that had been sitting there since 2017 in this other location that I would never have known about if I didn't talk to Beth. And it wasn't an our typical file system, it was like in a file drawer, like in the back. So he ended up just getting me this request right before the last meeting. And it expires on July, I think July 18th, the extended order of conditions expires. So it's been kind of finding a trail of breadcrumbs to get all of the information on this in order to, and Pete has since recorded the original order and he recorded the extension. So he's, everything's above board now, but I required him to get both of those recorded before I brought this before the board because I didn't wanna waste everyone's time if those were not gonna be recorded. Thank you, Aaron. Dave, you had a comment or a question? Yeah, I was gonna comment a little bit on kind of the sequence here of decision-making that I recalled from Mr. Heronimus, but I don't wanna muddy the waters with regard to what Aaron just said. But in essence, my recollection is this, what we're looking at here is probably, it is probably not the final plan as you stated, Aaron, because Mr. Heronimus was interested, I believe, first in the house, putting his house down the way, the Cresstone gravel path to the right or to the south, when that was determined to be too small and too limiting, I believe he then looked up to the north where your blue arrow is there. In that cleared area, and I think that's where he landed, and then circumstances beyond his control, he decided that this site was not his dream location for a house at all. So I think it was a little grave as to whether there was one house lot or two, but I think this is not the final plan that the commission saw is my recollection. I don't know if that's helpful or not, but that's kind of where I landed on this. Yeah, and I mean- Was he invited to the meeting tonight, Aaron, or, so I don't see him on the list, or on the attendee list. I did not invite him to the hearing tonight. He knew it was being discussed tonight at the meeting, and I did ask him if he wanted to be in attendance at the site visit, and he said, you're more than welcome to go to the site. If you want me there, I can come. If you want to just go yourself, that's fine. So I went myself. I mean, from my perspective, the work that was approved is less pertinent than the delineation, and I do feel that it's important at the very least for us to have the site flagged so we can verify that the original flagging is still accurate before extending the permit. If the delineation has changed, then I would not encourage the board to extend it because he should have it re-delineated and come through again. But I recognize that it's been a little bit of an administrative fumble as well on our part as we've transitioned from one wetlands administrator to the next on this. But it's also disconcerting that we're not being quite sure which plan we're looking at. And so I wonder if there's other issues. Yeah, if these are the actual flags or if flags were added, I can't recall. And this is a very complicated site. I mean, you can see, I don't remember where exactly that house ended up being, but putting that road in was tricky. Given the circumstances, we almost already also should go back to the beginning and start over again. So I mean, this is just an idea and I don't know legally speaking, but one idea would be that we issue an extension to the next meeting for consideration of an official extension of the order of conditions is to allow more time to track down the official approved plan of record and check those flags, possibly give him a chance to reflag the site. If he would like to do that, just putting ideas out there that wouldn't just kibosh all the work he's done, but I can see it from both sides. Yeah, and then also if he can be encouraged to be at the next meeting, that could work in for his benefit as well. Aaron, is it realistic? I mean, are there flags still out there? I mean, what's realistic in the next two weeks? I just wanna be realistic here. Yeah, I think that's a fair. We can find if there are plans of record that we don't have or Mr. Heronimus have, we can get those, but field work, I don't know what can be done out there in the next two weeks. Is an extension more of a, is there a lot of paperwork involved with an extension? So if we do one extension, then another one for two weeks out of problem or we could just do a one month extension at this point and hope that's enough time. Yeah, I mean, you could do, I think that Dave makes an excellent point and I agree it is a lot of paperwork and it would have to be recorded at the registry, so it's expensive, but it would buy him more time. So I mean, you could do maybe one month or three months or something just to give him a little more wiggle room to try to figure out the process a little bit so that we can accurately review it. Who did that? Who does it? What our current feelings are, what you've found so far, I mean, unless something major changes, it sounds like he's gonna have to go back and do some new delineation. And so if he wants to save some money, he can not extend it and just start that over, which I realize that's more money. Yeah, do we know who delineated it? I mean, he didn't do it. I want, this might have been Chuck D'Aci, but I'm not really sure. Yes, I think it was D'Aci. I'm not sure, but I wonder if giving him, I don't know, two to three months to get somebody on this, work with who, clearly there's somebody interested in his property. I don't think any of this was done intentionally or this is just a site that is very complex, was on the market for a long time and some time has lapsed here and there's some gray areas. So my only fear is I wouldn't want us to give them too much and then somebody can go in and actually start doing something with what they have. So maybe there's a way to add that to basically an order of condition saying that this is a, it's an extension with these caveats. It's an extension so that additional information can be conveyed. It's not an extension to start doing additional work. Does that seem realistic, Erin? I think it is, because I think we could attach a correspondence to the extension that outlines what the commission wants by the deadline of the extension. And I think having the site flagged would be my top request on that, prior to the end of the additional three months that the entire site be, the flagging be restored to the original approved plan so I could go out and do a site visit and visually see if the delineation had changed. I mean, if the well and mark boundaries had changed. And I like that phrase original approved plan. That's important to me as well. So yeah, I mean, if that's the case, that's what we're looking for. I'm okay with that. So I guess the question is how long you guys are comfortable with allowing him to have to do that. If you gave him one month, he would put you at August 12th, which, I mean, that's the next logical meeting about a month from now, but that even that is a little tight because it's- It should be longer. He's got to have more time. He's got to have more time. Maybe you could do either September 9th, that'd be two months, or October 14th would be three months. Probably September and see if he's okay with it. I'm good with that. Fine. And he need to get this acted on before the current conditions expire though, because we can't do anything retroactive, I assume. Yeah, so I could issue the extension effective immediately prior to the 18th when the extension expires. I can issue an extension for this and give that to him so he can record it and get it to DEP. Okay. Just whomever makes a motion to grant an extension to DEP number 089599 that the condition be that the site be reflagged prior to the next expiration date. Sounds good. So any other discussions? Is there anybody from the public who has any comments on this one? Commissioners? Okay, if not, somebody's interested in making a motion per Aaron's outline. So moved. Second. Okay, so Larry, how do you vote? Aye. Fletcher? Aye. LaRoy? Aye. Anna? Aye. And aye for me. So we have basically a two month extension here. Great, I think that's a good compromise. And we can all do our due diligence. Yeah, that sounds good. And yeah, that's unfortunate about a lot of circumstances here. Okay, so those are the official agenda item. So do you have any nuggets that are left for us to address? One quick nugget. Nate Malloy, and I hid into, I apologize because I intended to talk to Dave about this prior to the meeting tonight, but the emails with Nate Malloy about Emily Stockman getting a special municipal employee status. Basically Emily Stockman does quite a bit of our peer reviewing. She's fantastic, does an outstanding job. And I guess the housing authority wanted to hire her to do a delineation, but we're unable to because she is a sole proprietor basically. It's kind of a funny state law as far as conflict of interest, because if a peer reviewer represents the commission, they're not supposed to also represent outside private parties unless they disclose it. And it's really an ethics question of whether they would do it or not. And Emily won't do it ethically. She's really, she just won't represent other people if she's working for the commission as a peer reviewer. And the only other way around that is to make her a special municipal employee. And so I know Dave and I have talked about this in the past, but Nate had asked us to all collectively discuss it. How does Emily weigh in on that one? Have you brought that up with her? Is that something acceptable to her? Yeah, she would be greatly in favor of it because she would love to do private work inside the town of Amherst, but because she works for the Conservation Commission and she's ethically believes it would be without our consent for her to work for a private party and really without town council consent for her to work for a private party. But the other issue about this is that it really, it puts a lot of these small contractors at a disadvantage because Emily's the only, really one of the only field people who will go out and actually do the delineation for Stockman Associates versus one of the larger firms which might have 10 or 15 wetland scientists on staff and they could have their cake and eat it too as far as working for the town and then also working for a private entity and do bringing work before the town, so. Erin, could you remind me dozen? So anyone seeking SME status, it does have to be approved by the council, right? It does. They have to be appointed by the town council as a special municipal employee. And so I don't know the process. I guess maybe you've looked at this, Erin, but I would presume that maybe what a request needs to come from the commission to the council for Emily to have SME status. I think that might be a sort of a conduit for getting the conversation at least started if we wanted to try. Okay, well, if the commission's okay, maybe we could take this under advisement and allow me to do a little research with the town manager on this because it's just not something done all that much. I mean, let me go ahead here. I've read his memo and he says the same thing. It's not clear that we can do it, but the point of this discussion is do we think it's a good idea? And I think we can act that way and say we think this is something that makes sense. Yeah, and I agree with one of Erin's initial statements. I think that she's been doing some really, she's very thorough. She seems to know her stuff really well. And so it'd be great to encourage her to do more work in Amherst just from being self-centered about what she does for the town. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. So, I mean, what do we do? Should we move that we approve the status of her being a... It'll be more of a recommendation because I don't think you, I don't... I know, that's what I'm saying, that we support, that's a good word. We support the idea of her being a special municipal employee. And so is that enough at this point? Cause it sounds like Dave, you wanna do a little more research on this. I'm not quite sure how quickly the town planner wants to move on this. I mean, if there's something that we can do more formally now, I don't hear any objections to it. But if... Why don't we just make a motion to move that way? I mean, I'll make a motion that we, what was the word? Okay, we'll do one sec though. Larry, one sec before... So is there any other sort of discussion? Cause so technically once a motion's on the table, we're not allowed to do anything else. Right, exactly, exactly, yeah. But so Dave, do you have any... Just clarifying, this is, Erin, I was kind of struck by what you said about how this does impact businesses like Emily's because they're one person. So it's by person, not by company. But that rule applies? Yes, and just to put this in context, you might remember Bucky had done a peer review for us, but he also has brought a number of projects before the board and... That's what's in my brain actually. Yeah, and as part of that, we spoke to town council before hiring him and Bucky was required to do a disclosure, which he was comfortable doing in order to complete our peer review. And the disclosure was basically to the applicant for whom he was doing the peer review, stating that he had previously done work for the, that he had previously brought projects before the town of Amherst, but he currently at the time of the review done by the commission was not serving any other clients in the town of Amherst, and that he would not serve any clients within the town of Amherst until his review was complete for the conservation commission. Yeah. He was comfortable doing that from an ethics standpoint, and the applicant was okay with that, but Emily is not comfortable with that. Okay. Yeah, and again with Bucky, there was that temporal thing. So he did temporarily separate everything. Yeah, right. Which is not ideal from their perspective, I'm sure from a business owner perspective. So I'm fine with a recommendation or you could, it could be a motion to recommend or recommend that staff work through proper channels to investigate SME status for Emily. I'm fine with that. Yeah. And it sounds like you do have support, but I think we all would also agree that some additional ground work would be fine. So I mean, I think if somebody, so Larry, if you wanted to make a motion along those lines at this point. Well, I would recommend that the conservation commission support the process of Emily being a special municipal employee for work with the conservation commission. Sounds good. Okay, so that's a motion. So we need a second on that. Second. So all in favor, sorry, I have to go around. Larry. So Fletcher. Aye. LaRoy. Aye. Anna. Aye. And so I, so hopefully that gives you, obviously, you know, you have a lot of support from us on that. Now there's something formal and if there's something else that either of you need from us, just let us know. Great. Sounds good. Okay. So anything else at this point, Erin? Um, just general, generally speaking, phone traffic has been pretty heavy. Been answering a ton of phone calls. Emails have been pretty consistent. Permit filing. Follow you. Oh, I'm sorry. No, it's, that's a great question. Let's see. People who are looking to do work on their property and wanting to basically explore, you know, whether they need a wetland filing, people calling about outstanding projects to give comments or find out status of what's going on with continuations. One gentleman called interested in potentially donating land, but also wanting to do land on his property. Another was a gentleman proposing to develop a single family lot, potentially putting in multiple units. So going out to site visit with him. Sorry. No, no, I just, it's good for you guys to know this, you know, like a site visits for people doing pre-construction meetings, people complaining about new construction, wanting to know if there's permits. People asking about conservation lands. I've gotten a couple like people asking, oh, is there stroller access or is there a parking area here? One I actually have to touch base with Dave on was a inquiry I got about conservation land. We can talk about that another time, but just those types of things. And then pollinator resolution, been having some conversations about that. So there's just, there's a lot of conversations going on right now, but the good news is the permit filings seem to have slowed a little bit. So that'll give us a chance to catch up and get our backlog of permits issued. And then we can kind of, hopefully in the fall, things will be a little slower and steadier. Well, thank you for dealing with all this. Of course. Thank you, Aaron. So anything else that you wanna share? I don't have anything else to share tonight. So anything else from you, Dave or any other commissioners? So if not looking for a motion to close before nine o'clock. I make a motion to adjourn 845. Second. Larry. Aye. I had to turn on my mic. Come on. That's your. Aye. Anna. Aye. LaRoy. Aye. Aye. So we are officially adjourned and the recording will stop now.