this meeting is being recorded open the meeting is at 7 o' call to order and we have for guests right now I have Michelle Pratt see if anybody else joins us uh first thing is minutes of the 2824 meeting you want to take attendance first dick oh yeah thank you attendance Norm here Mike kums here Malcolm de Bay here Mike de Bay here dick Gran's here Scotty Graves here uh Karen's here uh Eric here and Paul he can't talk but I can see him somehow you have no sound Paul no I'm to shake his head up and down yeah shake your head up and down you're here H okay and so let's go to the minutes of the meeting thank you any comments changes concerns I have a couple this is Norm item number three on the second sentence says chapter 91 and want we want to scratch and want and replace it with license required license and license required okay yeah then on item number four uh first line it says the select board and the proper response is planning board not select board okay and on the second second line uh let's strike the last sentence it doesn't look like the advisory committee will be approved I'm not sure even know what that is just strike the whole thing that's all I have okay got it anything else anybody motion the minutes I asked anybody else oh somehow I lost the picture there something else crept in front of it okay we're back um if no other comments or or changes I'll take a motion to approve as Modified by Norm I'll make that motion Mike goms I'll make that motion normal second Mike de Bay second it who the Mike Co okay Mike C and and who seconded Mike D who yeah who seconded name Mike D Mike D Paul's coming back in okay and all in favor I say I opposed abstained all right I got to run down the let me just grab my cheat sheet okay Norm CH hi Mike KS hi malol de Bay hi Mike debay hi Dick Gran's eyes Scotty Graves hi Eric meller hi and Paul Murphy he's muted he's also got no picture can you unmute Paul down in the bottom nod your head yes for I okay we got them we just don't have any audio affirmed thank you all right next is concom update by Norm yes one second here okay uh I presented the chapter 91 doc license presentation to the uh Conservation Commission I'll be doing that to you guys later in this meeting we had a discussion on the docks that were still in the water that were illegal and uh based upon the information we got back from Frank gillo uh he is in the process of being fined for not removing his doc um okay and then the letter on on partial dock removal was supposed to go out with the stickers as people apply uh apply for their new stickers they're supposed to be that letter is supposed to be in there it is it is okay good yep with pictures very good okay and that's it for that one Master Plan update yeah okay all right so the planning board still has not finalized the approval of the master plan uh they're still waiting for documentation from a consultant and I would like [Music] to related to that subject okay can you my screen up on your screen now y y okay so in the package Dick had uh the the numbers that everybody had submitted for our prioritization of the land um Lake management action items and I have figured out that uh that the number one was the second one and number two was the first one and number three was the last one okay so we now have priorities so we can know what we should work on first second and third over time related to this I would like to propose that we have a liazon from our committee to the Suffield Conservation Commission I am going to also ask on Monday night to have the con conservation Commission in Southwick have the liaz on to the Conservation Commission in subfield primarily related to improve relationships and assist us in in getting the priorities done on our action item list from the master plan because uh I propose I volunteer to do both I'd like to officially be nominated uh to be that liaison from both committees uh and I think it will help us going forward somebody's got feedback yeah bad so can I make a motion that uh I'll make motion Norm to be the management to subfield conservation Norm I'll make the motion if you could um get the feedback done whoever's doing it murf I think it's could be somebody's gota I'll make the motion to make Norm the liais on okay I'll second it Eric Mueller okay and all in favor I opposed abstained all right I'll run down the list Norm CH hi M hi Al to Bay hi Mike debay hi Dick granel I Scotty Graves hi Eric meller hi Paul Murphy hi hi he got voice okay okay now I would like to comment one thing on that before before you go off that is is that uh the hold on a minute we uh Jason Peron select board member Jason Peron is the uh select board's liaison to Suffield yep he's been trying to set up a meeting um and I saw him actually saw him today he still wasn't able to get that set up he's but he is trying to get a meeting going with the first selectman have conservation there kind of what you want to do so if you want why don't you contact Jason uh directly and and kind of tie in with him that way you'll know what day day or dates he's proposing okay and you can always call Lisa Anderson at select board's office and and she can track him down uh I may have his cell but anyway uh at 5995 okay okay yep all right anything else on that Norm update oh I'm done with conservation and master plan okay all right so the next thing is the dredging Grant which is Pages 12- 58 in your package oh wait a minute I missed one thing you want to do CRC that's what I just want to say CRC update because Michelle is on Hello thank you thank you um yeah so for us our membership Drive is getting kicked off this weekend and so um we'll have our flyers and everything out on social media for that and we're happy to announce that Babs has continued their offer of free membership for folks uh for the whole season into Babs beach with a CRC membership um I'm also really happy to announced that we did talk about the um hydrilla issue with our board at our special board meeting in February and it was unanimous vote that we want to continue to um provide the assistance that we do with the other invasive species and paying uh a third of the treatment for that y we definitely want to do that so yeah when we start to get some idea of what that might look like if you can send us that information I guess do they have to go out and try to where it is like we usually do or like right I can I do a quick update on that uh for what you're asking is that they will it will be mapped what happens is it has to be mapped a second time because it's later than the Eurasian water milk foil and curly leaf pondweed and it has to be treated separately a second time because it it uh doesn't get to the point where you can treat it until after the other one so we actually wind up with two assessments and two treatments and so we put in we Eric and I presented the budget for Lake management and for uh Lake restoration and we effectively doubled the amount as a guesstimate that it would take about $24,000 to treat uh to assess and treat both separately so and that was a number that we got from uh Solitude now they gave me a wag on it and I and I just put enough in there so that if we find more than you know uh if it's just in a few select places then obviously the treatment is less but the assessment is still going to be the same right okay okay okay yep all right thank you and then um very early to say it but our boat Parade's actually going to be the sixth this year because it's the closest Saturday to the fourth so it falls afterwards and in honor of the late great Jimmy Buffett it will be a margarita theme this year Margarita V theme um I don't really have anything more to report yet about the buoy lights but I'm going to be in touch with Mark Co who was um the one who was helping with those and we're really hoping that we can get the rest of those taken care of um for what we voted on already for this year um and get that done sooner in the season rather than later so I'll get an update on that when we hear more um and then the last thing I had was unfortunately I didn't realize this ahead of time but it didn't look like anybody from Lake management was specifically invited to the wersh shed planning meeting uh that took place on the 8th and I don't know who came up with the list of invitees um I know I sent it to anybody that wanted to to go uh send it broadcast to all but I was not myself yeah okay I didn't see you on the list or anybody on the list except Norman Jerry um as crossovers from other boards so but um it was a really interesting meeting they talked about you know possible grant funding for different Pro projects um they were mentioning about how conoman and Great Brook are listed as impaired and they talked about the different issues like the mil foil dissolved oxygen and algae blooms and things like that but they did not mention um the eoli in terms of the lake so I did bring that up and I said that I thought that that was a you know quite a large issue because we had so much closure of the Town beaches and things like that and concerns with all the the geese and all of that and so they were G to look into that and reach out to I told them dph would have the data as well as probably all you I just kept referring them back to LMC and telling them about um you know all the water quality testing that's been done over the decades and to get in touch with um dick and Eric about that um they did mention that they did get communication from West Springfield about um contamination of their drinking water coming from our way I guess um from Farm chemical runoff and I don't remember the initials it's not EDT you know you always think of that we don't use that anymore but um a similar maybe one digit off uh some kind of chemical that's used but I don't think that Souix had it turn up Randy Brown was on the uh zoom and I don't think that southex had it turn up but West Springfield did mention it so I think there was further assessment in that I think it's Edomite right y y y used by the tobacco Farms right they asked about the different kinds of farming you know what we had around the area the mark of the watershed area and they showed the mapping and things like that so we said primarily we were kind of just thinking through it in our heads of definitely tobacco was huge and then um corn corn farming and things like that but not a lot of livestock Poes yeah yeah so we trying to kind of go through that um and we talked about you know the need for for better public education around washing your boats um and people kicked around the idea of more information being provided to people that are launching their boats um if that comes in the form of they were talking about posters on the kiosks and things like that I was thinking to myself well nobody really looks at those when they want to get down there want to get their boat in the water that's all they're thinking about you know at in that moment um but how to increase public education and I mean we talk about it at our meetings and stuff like that but I think it's more more um the folks that are coming in to access the boat ramps uh that really need to understand more about how you can spread the invasives and things like that um so those were the P you know that's just kind of my short version of my notes but I thought it was a really good meeting it was really nice to have a lot of people a lot of people from Westfield there as well that you know were kind of just talking about the issues and and um trying to think about planning for watershed management and you know increasing water quality and you know we just talked about the need for the dredging and um Chris was on it briefly talked about the dredging project that you guys are working on as well down at the south end of middle by the boat ramp um and then we spoke about like you know trying to work with army cor engineers and the bath metric mapping and all of that um so it was just kind of giving them a whole bunch of information so that they could be starting to put together pieces for future planning well it's probably a good segue uh I just learned something I had a call late this afternoon from uh Cara slaski um she's the one that's in DCR and had she's the one that found the uh hydrilla and has been working to get money for the town for conand uh and she was successful and right now it's we're working on how much and when but it's pretty significant I can tell you that but she also shared something else else is that they have been working with and she's going to send me the name of the company they have a company that does um DNA testing of water and they have done that and they are doing more of it uh to identify certain things like geese and and um the hydrilla they've used it to identify the specifics of the hydrilla that it is in fact the uh the this particular strain so they they've got contacts for that she's sending me that information which should be great because if we do happen to have an eoli uh event at the town beach we will now have a place that we could take the samples that can actually test it and tell it what made it you know what what was the contributing factor so and they have found though for the most part by the way is geese I mean that's she says it just they they've done a lot of it with the the Lakes right over in Westfield you know the Hampton Ponds and it's geese so anyway uh just thought I'd pass that on but that's good news because it's coming with money the money starts Federal fiscal year uh which is October 1st so we can't use it unfortunately it would not help us for this fiscal year for treating hydrilla assessing and treating hydrilla because it'll be all over and done with by the time the federal bucks come out but it's good for three Fiscal Federal fiscal years so that's nice so and it's a big pot of money so and it's it's arpa funds it's not you know so it's the it got committed by I can't remember what she said EPA some whe you know somehow it trickled down to them so is there anything you have to do to to obtain those funds or was it just kind of like portioned out in a certain way or how does it Cara and I Cara and I talk fairly regularly and she put us in for it and so she's been fighting for it so and I I keep sending her data she's she's very appreciative and she's in Communications with Ken Wagner which is good so that kind of Segways to the next one which is the dredging Grant and we had to move really really fast if you recall we at the last meeting we opted to go with the the uh Cove next to South pond so we spent a a lot of time I personally spent endless hours uh even on weekends creating that that Grant package that was all online which is kind of a a little more difficult to do but we are seeking $297,000 to dredge the cove and it'll be a dry dredging process is what we proposed so be a um a a porta Dam just like was done for the uh fishing pier and it's like a giant curtain that surrounds the area going to dredge and then you pump it down essentially dry it's it's wet you know it's muddy but it's not it's not in water so you're not using hydr suction you're using excavators much faster and easier to control so that's what's going on with that um the application we made it in time we also applied for $100,000 of CPC CPA funding through the CPC that was approved by the select board and the CPC so now it goes to town voters at the annual town meeting for approval so that's a buffer in case because we it's part of it is we don't know what we don't know that Grant pays for design permitting um construction sampling testing uh disposal of materials all the reports everything it's all inclusive so we do not have to spend Town money on that so we don't know until we do this more sampling uh if there's a any with what will be removed from there but we don't suspect any there will be any because we we took samples back in in uh was that 2001 or three um and they were clean then no no problems so we think we would still be in good shape there uh but we don't know like I say it's what we don't know what we don't know so uh we will that 100,000 is a buffer we don't we won't use it if we don't have to but it was committed by both CPC and the select board so that's good news um the total pot by the way for that Grant why we opted for 297 is that the total pot is only 4 million and that's to cover all of the rural communities and there's 100 80 something rural communities out of the 351 and so you know we're battling doing battle against anybody else who has water and that's yet a smaller number but it's still Statewide so we opted to not not go crazy with uh what we were going to do and that that project fit in very nicely any any questions on on what we you know what we've applied for no it seemed pretty good so and and and it will the nice thing is thanks for thanks for all your hard work I hope it pays off for us we hope so too it it will address hydrilla in that area IT addresses the phosphorus Laden mck it'll also remove that um mound of of sand and gravel that runs diagonally from the South ramp over to uh KGAN road back of KGAN Road properties because we're going to put the the Porta Dam on the east side of that so we can remove it so we'll have a minimum of four feet of water when we get done that sounds good and we're gonna take it right up to the wear Gates so it's the start of what nrcs will pick up um which I will give you an update on that uh when we get to that area but it it fits very nicely into uh like I said what nrcs is also doing and I might I guess I might as well quickly tell you about nrcs because it kind of ties right into this and then we get into Norms chapter 91 I had a conversation with uh Darren Davis at nrcs and they did get funded finally the government you know when they finally Rel passed a budget some some of the budget while theirs was included they already have a consultant on board to start the hand the boots on ground assessment of both Canal Brook and Great Brook so that's really really good news and they've got the funding to do the work if the what the consultant that's doing the assessment and design comes back and says yeah it's doable and oh by the way here's what it's going to cost and they're treating him as two projects but they're T they're taking the lead on both so and and I also sent him our information on our our uh dredging Grant so he knows it'll tie in nicely any questions from anybody else on that no just good work dick thank you that is good work dick what what are they going to need from us for support um when they start looking at it yeah when it when it comes time if we do win the grant um we need to be phys physical presence so if they need something uh it'll be a it'll be an engineering company that we will do an RFP to get an engineering company on board and then we have to do a second one once they Define everything that's got to be done for who's going to do the actual work and the engineering company will oversee and we will just be an interface and eyes and ears and whatnot like I've done for ting projects already on that are on the lake but when they once the once the boots on the ground folks want to come in to do the assessment probably a number of us can step in to help them find what they need to find and look where they need to look absolutely they're gonna they're going to come from wherever the last one was in Colorado and you know they're going to come in here it could be somebody local but there's a good chance it's not and we could make things go a lot better for them if we just help out absolutely and so once I know I will share anything that I get as soon as I get it but um Darren has been really really good about feedback he keeps me in the loop uh regularly and then I just share it like I just did so you're right up to our conversation that we had two days ago um anything else on on that otherwise we can go to to Norm with chapter 91 summary okay take it away Norm okay can you see that on the screen y yes sir is it okay now the good news is this one's in color the one that was in the package was black and white um and you really needed color uh I've had a lot of frustration with chapter 91 working with with Jean and uh and dick on this um we we know that uh every Doc's got to be registered either by L the lpp program or a chapter 91 uh but there's great difficulty in determining who's got one and is it still active uh and this is an an aggressive project it took quite a bit of time to give us the first most L accurate list I say mostly accurate because I'm still missing a couple uh but uh we have uh what I learned on this process was that the state uh issues the license to EP but they don't track progress of them over time and they admit that the that they don't have a a good accurate listing of it they basically sent me three files for every chapter 91 license that they ever issued across the state not just Southwick so I had to come through all three of those files to come up with this then the actual uh uh place of of accuracy is is supposed to be on the registry of deeds once the license is issued they have 60 days to put it on register it with the with the hon County registry of deeds but the registry of deeds has some issues too uh number one they're not user friendly I got to be pretty Adept at at work in their system but it took a while and then there's some problems you can search either by name or address but sometimes you get the license showing up on name but not on address and vice versa so there's some some issues there as well then I learned uh that some of the 91 licenses transfer when the property is sold and others do not and if they do not transfer the new homeowner uh has the has one year to apply to extend the dock over to them okay so Jean when she when when when the resident says they don't have to have an lpp sticker because they have a chapter 91 license she does not have an file to go to so she will now have this to work with which should help her out quite a bit so across the top we've captured uh the is it is it active the license number do we have a copy of it and right now we for everything on this spreadsheet we do have a copy who the name is that has it the street address the town the date of it was issued the length of service uh and that's all over the place some of them are 5 years 10 years 30 years and some are lifetime uh and then they'll give you an expiration date uh also is there a clause in there for them to remove the dock in the winter there are some that have it and some that don't the number of docks that are on the that are approved the sides of the docks and then General comments anything in red in the in the right hand column in the comments basically says it's voided okay so in totals we gotone to the bottom of this first file oops there are 40 chapter 91 licenses issued 13 of them are currently active and that includes our three marinas okay wow so so high percentage of these chapter 91 licenses are not valid right now that is correct wow do the homeowners know that uh that I don't know they will they will right because wow I mean that's I um I'm I would not be surprised if a bunch of them don't realize it right now two of them come up for uh for this year Jerry patrias comes up this year and he's he said he's going to go lpp he's not going to bother to to extend it and also two of the 13 are old ones that are from Connecticut that until I see the docks I can't make a decision on whether it's voided or not if they changed the configuration so uh if they change the configuration they voided uh so after the docs go in I'll check those two out I fully expect because of the age of that those will go to the voided too okay so then I uh the second file is the same thing but it's only the active ones okay and also in the files for instance under each of our uh of our marinas I have aglon has approval for 49 motorized phical vessels Saunders has 68 and Tri State Marina which is now Frank gillow Enterprises has 42 okay and then the last file is just those that are voided so depending on how you want to look at it uh you can you can use the first file second file or the third file now what this tells me Norm Norm real quick I thought that I thought that Kurt Saunders not that long ago updated his chapter 91 permit and has more like 98 slips well I couldn't find that one yeah uh I will try to research that um it's I gota agree with Norm it's really tough because D does not have a any real system to track what goes on after they're issued right well I I believe he originally was issued that one but I think at some point it was increased well it could be heard they didn't change the license number I can tell you that but I'll check that out uh so one thing this tells me is prior to 2011 when LP started that most of the lake was in violation yeah you know so with through lppp we've actually done pretty well even though it's been frustrating for us from our side but it's getting better and better coverage across the board but now uh we got something to work with now going forward okay any question Mike Mike kums on on on the new stickers I I you know I was required to show a map if the if uh Gan or yourself or whoever is not getting the map our stickers still being sent out Ah that's a good question uh I don't know that I haven't asked seen that question okay I know I sent in a a diagram of mine and I got my stickers so yeah ditto I I also did that but that's why I'm asking the question if people aren't providing the maps that are correct which no one knows uh are we still giving out stickers I will find that out good question thank you good question so just the I didn't mention that this all three of these are the sort criteria is State Street and Street number okay so Connecticut first followed by mass and then so on okay EXC excellent work Norm thank you yeah thank you yeah it doesn't look like nor Norm yes Norm I got one quick question is that on the front of the application every year for the lpp for the renewal we'll say or the lpp it'll always say on there if nothing has changed with your address and names and all that stuff just leave it alone don't fill it in because the stickers right there right why don't we have something like that as well so that I don't have to try to attempt to redraw my docks if they have not moved and they're in the same position same size docks and everything else if nothing changes why do we have to go through this drawing thing every year well we're not going to go through that this is supposed to be a one-time deal to get everything up to Snuff and then it will say in the future if you if if your do configuration has changed then send us a new one but but this is a one-time deal because the whole whole list was pretty inaccurate get everything up to Snuff yeah well I can only speak for myself personally because I I I'm in Florida won't get back until after that time frame is up and the the map that I made that I submitted last last year is up back there not here I don't know if I made a copy for myself and uh it would requires a lot of time and effort to redo it that's all y especially when I'm not there you know that's the price Florida right I'm gonna I'm gonna call her and ask her we'll see all right we all set on that one y okay next one is Mike debay with lake level uh do you do you want something to have anything to show or just what I uh included in the package I only have what you included in the package in fact dick I didn't get that till just before this meeting because I didn't get volume two of the notes I only got volume one but anyways I've got a copy of it in front of me I wrote this up if anybody hasn't looked at the package there's two pages in there I think it's somewhere around 667 it starts 67 basically what I've done is explained the water level problem we've been having over the last year and a half we've been having we've been struggling with trying to keep the water level down because the level is too high now we've had this problem all along and we've been had more people in the canal working than we've ever had this year there's been Malcolm Scotty we had a CRC member down in there Norm were down in there there's been a lot of people in there pulling out stuff to keep it flowing and we're still having problems keeping it flowing as of right now the water level today which hasn't changed really it's changed a half an inch in the last three or four days is is running about 225 ft one and a half inches that's well over the normal level and it's at the level where we be closing it Lake now we've been like that the gates have been wide open since October we haven't moved them off dead bottom we've got them open as far as we can get them down and the level and it's flowing I mean it's flowing I went down checked it again Malcolm's been down every day and it's been flowing very good it's just that it's no place for it to go right so anyways I wrote this up as a as a problem then I put down some short-term and long-term Solutions long-term solution being we got we got to get the thing dredged somewhere south of us so the water will keep flowing out and keep moving so we can control it with the the Weir Gates and obviously beavers are an ongoing problem all the time which we don't have a good answer for we tried TR happen and that didn't work the Trapper gave up on us so unless we get somebody that wants a trap or wants to just shoot them we probably won't get rid of the Beavers shortterm solution what I'm recommending is we take an approach of in October each year lower the water level down to an even 224t now we could go lower if we wanted to but I figured we better take it a shorter you know level change the first year and make sure we can recover it because come April want it back up to normal level so I don't know whether we should be you know I wrote it up because we got to write it down somewhere because other than that the only one control on the level is me or Scotty down there with the wrenches so we give out the numbers and Eric tracks them yeah so I think you know we can we can certainly analyze you know that might be the best number I'm not sure what it is we should analyze the number but yeah it it makes sense to to bring it down a bit um in October like you're suggesting it gives us some buffer to work with yeah and you know this year remarkable amount of rain yeah yeah the lake lake is really crazy high right now regarding the Beavers um we may be able to find because my son knows some Trappers we may be able to find a licensed Trapper who can do it uh and you know and it's two different things that you it's a different thing in Massachusetts than Connecticut so it's not in other words it's not like we find a Trapper and then they can necessarily do both States right the state line makes a difference yes and and as far as dispatching them by firearm I believe we can't do that legally I don't think we can either legally but you know we did a Trapper some years ago just so everybody knows we hired a guy and we're offering him $50 for everyone he killed he got the two and he said I give up I believe the state law refers to uh them being as varment if they're causing property damage they are eligible to eligible to be shot yeah I don't think that's the issue I think the issue is discharging a firearm there because the rail trail yeah got I think I think you can't discharge you can't legally discharge a firearm there because of the proximity to the rail trail I do know Eric one thing that the Beavers are right in the area of Mountain Brook Dam where Norman and I were and that's in Connecticut it's right before the state line so it is Connecticut I don't know if you know the rules for Connecticut but I could tell you that's where 90% of all of the beaver dams are in that 100 150 200 yard stretch they always build them in there they build them inside the the the um dam for Mountain Brook and they bring it all the way down towards the wear gate so you'll end up with four to 10 dams a year in that one 200 yard stretch Scotty and I were there pulling at least three or four out Norman and I pulled a little one out of inside they're building them inside of the bridge so that you can barely see them and it's the only outlet for we've been down there all year ripping these things out but if you can get somebody to trap from Connecticut I don't know if you know the rules in I will uh I I'll see if if I can find someone I'll look for that yep because that would certainly help if if you could also check on the uh discharge of a firearm within so many feet of a a residence yeah in in Connecticut it's 500 feet 500 you can't do it there it's right on the trail guys right I had the guy from the state of Massachusetts tell me to use a firearm to get rid of the duck the geese on the lake he said me put your back against your house and you can aim 500 feet you're clean I said no way yeah right because we know that ain't gonna fly no M hey Mike this is Mike kums you said about uh lowering in October but you've said the gates have been as low as they can go since October so how that's correct water that's correct Mike it has been as low as they can go and the water's been flowing heavy all winter it's just that we've had so much rain yeah I I would believe that that's a natural occurrence you know I mean we shouldn't be regulating that we don't normally regulate in the winter because we don't usually have to worry about it well right now if you come to North can I can I inject a few things can I inject a few things Scot here Scot murf is talking if you come now and you take a look at the water level all of the docks are built to the water at this height when I applied for my chapter 91 license the mean level was 225 wow that was inch a whole inch you know higher than the water level that we we pick now me the mean level has has been 224 point4 for about 25 30 years at least think I think it's actually actually it's before that because the Sills on the Berkshire Avenue Culvert which used to be the outlet are set at 224.000 right that's what I remember all my life yeah and that's that's that's concrete it doesn't move yeah yeah the the lake is you know I think I forget who it was they made the point at the moment that the lake is so high that if we're this were regular boating season we'd be closing to boting right the lake is very high it's very high it's it's 10 in above nominal yeah and that data is in your package all the data on the you know can I inject a few ideas yeah go ahead out of here okay okay so Eric you asked us just last week the three of us uh uh you know who I'm talking about Mike and and uh Malcolm and myself is there anything we could do to speed up getting the lake down quicker so a few things that we could be doing uh I've been asking now for a good year to get Suffield or somebody in there with some equipment to take out those rocks before it goes back underneath the bike trail there by Mountain Brook that that really needs to be cleaned out number one number two there's no question longterm the silt from the wear Gates all the ways down to Phelps Road obviously is filling in so it's easy it's harder for the water to escape in the first place because it's easier for it to try to backflow towards the lake number three they need to at some point they need to drop the culbert underneath VPS road because we all know it's too high but here's my quicker solution to at least try to get the water down now my two cents worth would be simply this block up the culverts block them up that are exiting into the lake the two of them between the we gate and heading north because the water pouring through those things is not doing us any favor trying to get rid of that water on top of everything else in the lake usually the Beavers plug them up anyways if they plug them up leave them plugged up I would strongly suggest that we try to get Solitude with their toy that they have that goes out that normally we clean out the canal with and either start at the uh uh what's what's the one there when you first get right at the Connecticut line the uh the bike trail bridge right there right at the Connecticut line metal either either put that puppy in there and try to clean back towards Goose Pond 100 or 200 yards to clean the crap out of there so that water will flow from that watershed area back underneath the bridge like it did years ago or I don't know how far it is come in from the goose pound side which is easy to put it in the water There Are Places there you can do it and try to clean it out heading towards that that uh uh you know Bridge uh that would help in my opinion immensely the other thing is yes uh whether it be myself or whether it be uh Mike or Malcolm uh I know it's Mike and I that got the the uh the wrenches we attempted to get these things as low as we could trying to get rid of some of this high water but there is still a a lot of sand and crap underneath these things that don't allow us to get them down quite as low as we could we still have another three four five six inches that we could drop those wear Gates if we could lift them back up clean out the crap underneath them I've been saying for a long long time get somebody in there with a piece of equipment even if it's only a couple of feet away we don't want to smack the wear Gates I understand that but maybe you know a couple of feet away and then lift the gates back up clean the crap out with some hose underneath and then drop those Gates you should be able to drop right down to the concrete and uh it that would help the water get out faster you could you could raise the bottom one and the top one so that you get them out of the way and let that what's down below flow if you disturb it flow Downstream that'll only work that's my point that's my point but I think you're going to have to you're going to find that you're going to also have to get underneath there you know somebody with the waiters on chest High waiters and somebody in there with a long hoe trying to clean out the crud underneath there yeah you're going to need a fire hose to blow all the sand out of there dick because if you raise that Lower Gate which has never been raised it's going to clog with mud and then you're never going to get it closed again okay it's probably two feet under the mud or four or more okay the the mud the silt ramps up as you get to where the wear gates are it comes from the hole out in front that's about 10t deep and it ramps right up to the almost to where the water level is now right now the gates are probably 8 in or more below water level so they're not really restricting that much flow but you Scotty's right you could get you could get them down lower if you clear them all out but that's not going to be an easy task you're going to have to get Machinery in there to clean that out with a back hoe and then get in there with like a fire do that without a that requires if you're going to get that kind of Machinery in there that's a lot of Permitting and that's exact what nrcs is doing that's when the gates when the wear Gates were uh installed is there a limit on how low they they can go yes they set physically the lower Gates goes at the bottom and comes up halfway the upper gate goes from the upper half up you can lower it down so it doubles up between the uh front and back which is the Lower Gate and the higher gate but the front the upper one is not quite down as far as the Lower Gate is but they're not restricting anything right now maybe a little bit I mean a good foot of flow over the top of those I was down I was down there this morning the what Scotty said prior the water coming in from Goose Pond from both of those culverts is full it's shooting in like a flume he's correct if you if you want to straighten this issue out you have to go into Goose Pond and clear that out that water's supposed to go south come through Meadowbrook and then go down through Mountain Brook that's Palmer Brook that it's connected Palmer Brook yeah Palmer Brook what is happening is p Brook yeah yeah Palmer Brook the water's coming into the lake and then it's going back through the wear Gates that's what's happening to both of those and both of those right there are coming like flumes now this morning the the South one which is closer to the wear Gates has been blocked by beavers so that has helped us out but the top one is still shooting through there's a actually the water on the Goose Pond Side is a foot above the pipe so there's a Whirlpool coming that's how much water in that Watershed that Watershed in that aquafer out there which is what a four to 10 Mile Watershed is filled it's filled dick you go out there and look oh yeah you've got so much water out there we're not gonna get we're not going to catch up until um summertime here that's what's going on the only way to and the only way because it all has to go out before conine can empty anyway way and the problem is is that it sends so much water into Palmer Brook that it winds up backing up uh Canal Brook into kand it does right right through the we it's a question I have you know it it's clear that you know a really big solution is a really big you know is a big deal and it's going to take a long time but some of what Scotty brought up I would think is tractable for example getting a machine in to get the rocks out that are blocking things up before the water goes back under that bridge and that would be Connecticut we'd have to get Suffield to do that yeah so but I mean it would definitely be a plus difference that is that is that is where the goose neck gets so tight underneath that bridge even though it's going through there fast there is still I took personally 300 smaller rocks out and so did Malcolm help me with that as well and and twigs and branches and all kinds of stuff that needs to be cleaned out right to the bottom all the ways across that bridge and before the just before the entrance of the bridge some of the big rocks that are in there all this stuff is slowing that flow down from going through that bridge all right so so you know would seem to me that that that should be a tractable thing that we can do you know the the bigger things you're bringing up you're completely right but but like dick says yeah that winds up being a big permitting exercise that that you know was just beyond our scope but potentially getting Suffield to get in there and clean out under that bridge I would think that might be within our scope so Ian you contacts over there yeah I will input uh they they gotta wait until the water does go down because you can't send anybody in there when it's flowing like it is now well well what about a machine I mean well you still but like Scotty said part you the problem is reaching because you got to reach down and under and you know it's it's a precarious the the water is so high I I understand that at some point yes when the water's down they can do a really good job but could they just get in there and make it better because the water is so high and we need you know we need to get it to drop it's not dropping we we got a little bit of rain coming tonight um you know the Boating season's really going to get going pretty soon and you know we we definitely have a problem there's the water is way high yeah come and improve it you know just do something this is hang hey Scotty oh Malcolm what is the drop off on the other side of these rocks is it a foot is it two foot or is it two inches you can't see the drop off Mike they're underwater by two feet so so it's not SL it's not stopping the flow right now it's not stopping slowing it because instead of having the full height of water flowing you only have this much flowing because because the Rocks down here are blocking right that they could all be flowing I'm it acts like a wear gate it's flowing guys one more not hey and and I apologize one more quick thing that we could do that I said we should experiment one more thing I said that we could experiment with this Mike debay and myself have spoken about this and I've mentioned it to Malcolm I still say try it because I did it in the South Pond culbert years ago when we were trying to clean the sand out from underneath inside the culbert taking old clunker boat I don't care if it's a pontoon boat preferably a boat with like an inboard outboard but it could be a pontoon boat D drive it down the canal turn the thing around tie it to the Culver have it coming out so the back end of the boat lower unit motor outboard whatever is in that narrowest point of The Canal at probably out maybe 20 30 ft and put the thing in drrive don't go wide open by any stretch but you will speed up the water flow going over those wear Gates dramatically I mean dramatically and you'd be surprised you might be able to drop the level of that Lake an inch an hour not gonna happen try it that's all I say gance what's that where's it gonna go it's like going out there with a teacup gonna go south how is it gonna keep going it's already full on the other side of the we Gates where's it gonna go well wait a minute you just got done telling me it's running over the wear gate a mile a minute now no no gonna go after that I'm just gonna push it out a little faster no it's it's running very well out of the wear Gates and all the way down we're just not getting it out quick enough cuz the wers shed it's the inflow that's killing us right exactly well then here again then sand sandbag that other culbert so just help speed things up to get out of the lake you that would be not a bad idea but if S field could get down there with something that could reach those rocks underneath the bridge it probably could help a little bit but it's not going to be a major change I don't think they can get in there when I was down there the last time with the the uh engineer from from DPW over in Suffield looking at the Beaver Dam they took out that was just past summer or late fall I mean they didn't have anything that was going to reach down like that and get it and you can't get to where you can get out on that bridge and come across that to our side without going all the way back up the Miller Road and coming down the whole Trail yeah yeah we've been chasing our tails on this all year guys and the one problem was when we closed the wear Gates because we pulled those beaver dams out they made us close the wear Gates and the water's been high since then what we need to do is make sure that we get the water down to the 224 in the fall so that we have some maneuverability we really don't have much to do right now there's not much we can do we just got to hope that that we don't get killed we've been lucky that the rainstorms have been five and six days apart if we had a ton of rainstorms back to back the Lakes would be closed down yeah absolutely and so we got to just sit tight really if you can get people in to do some of these jobs it's great but I mean we're you know we're really we we we kind of sit tight and see what happens here I mean in my opinion I agree let me go back to the original thing I had this written up do we want to take this kind of approach that in the fall I picked October just because most people are off the lake by then drop the level at that point and just hold it down for the winter months to give us a little more space let's not mess with the lake level at that time of year no I I I I want it down as low as we can get it because we've been chasing our tail I've been in that Canal 10 times pulling out dams this year and it's just tiring and it's ridiculous at our age some of them are easy dams Norman and I did one that was easy some of them are two or three hour dams that I've done with Scotty and I'm telling you it's hard to do Michelle Michelle's got a question well actually I I just did a little bit of research and made a phone call and um connecticut. goov ct.gov has actually approved Beaver Trapper list of volunteers and so I called a guy in Enfield and he said actually you have somebody right in safield and so um I'm GNA put uh that name and phone number in the chat and so it sounds like they have volunteer Trappers approved by the state right there I'm sure like depending on what property is there's still all the permits to get but um here's the phone number did that come into the chat c.gov Blake  if you want to email it to me Michelle I'll I'll email it out okay you can't see it okay no you can only see it down as far as the name this 806 okay youil I'll email it to you but yeah volun Tex it to me yeah text it to me at the wall set okay all right I think we've beaten this to death yes what about the level we going to drop it into fall next year or what are we going to do no what let so I let's investigate it and and and I I don't think we're in a position to make that decision right now clearly some people like the idea some people don't like the idea why don't we vote on it whoa whoa vote on it let's see let's see who who likes it and who doesn't how about we take it yeah why don't we table it until we can gain enough information to put up a real proposal in other words instead of just saying well let's lower it let's come up with a number and then and then we've got a thing that we can really vote on I already wrote all that down and sent it in a month ago it's been this I wrote this back on 119 I'm okay for tabling it but I've already researched it enough I'm not doing it again what are we researching Eric what are we researching I see two people you I see two people that are against this right now and I want to see what everybody else says I'm not I'm not saying I'm against it hang on so what I'd like to do is take the data that we have go through it do I can do a statistical analysis I can then talk to Ken to get his input and come back with a proposal of if we want to lower it in September October whatever right the right date is you're probably right October after um Columbus Day or something like that here's what we would propose to lower it to so I'm keep in mind keep in mind it takes weeks to go down so it's not something that if we do it takes a day to bring it back uput bring in a day it takes so hang on hang on so Malcolm what you're saying is only correct when there's water coming in when there's no water coming in you can raise the gates all day the lake won't go up at all we have aquifers that fill that Lake I guarantee you if you went down there and closed that thing right now that water would come Sky High it's not going down at all right now right now absolutely true but remember just two summers ago the lake was dangerously low and there's nothing we could do about it the gates were closed would go up at all so it's it's not just OH Close the Gates and the water comes up nothing to worry [Music] about CL the gates go ahead go ahead Eric read what I wrote on the thing because I have it set up so that in April we'll bring the level back up to normal for the summer because the summer months is when it evaporates and we don't have the I'm on board I'm on board with the concept what I'd like to do is do a real statistical analysis of what the numbers should be other words what's the date what's the number we want to shoot for and and when would we then close them and what would the number we shoot for Based on data yes right I agree very we have a DAT keep keep in mind we're only talking about we're only talking about three or four inches here we're not talking about dropping it feet right oh well no the the suggestion here is to bring it down to 224 and the Noma course is but that's not that's not where we statistically are in the fall we're statistically higher than that right so we're not talking about a couple of inches we're probably talking about 8 inches so I I need to get the real data but I believe it's going to be roughly 8 inches if we went with the 224 recommendation so let's we think R ises are you are you saying that the lake level in the in the summertime is 224 seven or eight no what I'm talking about is right now the lake is extremely high 25 go into the fall the lake is typically higher than 2244 typically not every year but typically it's higher than the 2244 when we go into the the the fall sort of middle of October time frame so if we decide that we want to do 224 flat that's actually bringing it down a lot from what it normally is at that time of year there's no point to us having an extensive discussion right now we have the data let's just analyze the data and come in with a proposal that's based on the data we have the that's fair yeah I agree I think we should and do you think you could do that for the the next meeting in April yes April what it' be the SEC it's the second Thursday I'm not sure what day of the yes we can talk about I put on the agenda for the next meeting yep all right one more one more quick thing if halfway steain tobacco dropped that level of that Lake a foot every summer when I was a kid growing up for a lot of years isn't it amazing that it always fill back up over the winter absolutely and no snow and rain condition of things were very different than the condition of things now we have had multiple Summers where the lake has gotten low and wouldn't recover it the what what worked in 1950 does not work the same way now the the the the outlets are not the same the inlets are not the same the weather patterns are not the same we have the data we need we don't have to make it up we don't have to guess at it we have the data we need I'll go through it and I'll talk to Ken as well to get his input and I'm happy to bring something to the next meeting yep how about we cut it off now so we can keep going all right just remember Who's down there all summer long and all fall three guys all super seniors down there doing all the dirty work there's there's nothing we have we have another eight months till we have to do something different seven months okay so okay let's not and try and reinvent the wheel now okay um moving moving along the next thing we have is let me just see um I gave you a bunch of miscellaneous stuff I already did the thing about Darren Da uh Darren Davis nrcs so uh we're moving along there um couple of things we need to get the the docks installed at the North ramp um and I was going to propose the 30th of March as a as a date that's a Saturday because we always do it on a Saturday that's when I can get DPW guys so any thoughts on doing it on the 30th Target that fine with me sounds good to me good all right so what I'll do Michelle you're going to try and Round Up some Vols volunteers and yeah and I will contact DPW and get them booked for the 30th hopefully it's not snowing that day uh but we let's let's plan on doing on the 30th okay and let me just see if there's anything else on here the the I gave you the LMC budget presentation information you can read that at your leisure I already explained the only major thing was going from 12 to 24K uh for for the hydrilla taking care of hydrilla otherwise and we uh Eric and I presented it and I think we were received very well right Eric yeah um so we covered the docks does anybody have anything else no well seeing none hearing none do we have a motion to adjourn somebody I'll make who was the first on that second and and who second it murf okay all in favor opposed abstained good night all