[Music] [Music] welcome everyone this is a meeting of the board of Selectmen today is March 26 2024 it is 400 p.m. is there a motion to call the meeting to order so move second all those in favor this meeting is being audio and video recorded please rise for a pledge of allegiance pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the rep which it stands one nation God indivisible and justice for gentlemen we got a couple of executive sessions first on the agenda the first one is executive session on the general Law chapter 38 subsection 21 A3 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining or litigation time cards if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigating position of the public body and the chair so declares and the board will return return to public session at the conclusion of executive session the second one is executive session on the general Law chapter 38 subsection 21 A3 to discuss strategy with respect to litigation pending litigation mcad if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the litigating position of the public body and the chair so declares the board will return to public session at the conclusion of executive session is there a motion so move second all those in favor hi roll call vote Mr inkley yes Mr L yes and I am a yes we are now in executive session is there a motion to reconvene Open Session roll call vote Mr Hinkley yes Mr Mona yes and I a yes we are now an open session gentlemen I'm going to go out all we have Kevin McHugh here from conico I'm an associate Tucker here to do a small um presentation of our M the town's ms4 pering the first of its kind um so Mr McHugh I'll turn it over to you and you can jump right in and right give us an update on what's been going on with the town's ms4 permitting process I know a lot of people at home you know we talked about it numerous times I know I've talked about it numerous times um with the folks but we've never had the opportunity to have you in to give an update on what it means for the town to have an ms4 permit um and you'll go through some demonstration I'm sure to show us some outfalls as I can see on the screen so the floor is yours good to go all right thank you thanks everyone so again I'm Kevin mck with kico and this tuck also from kico so appreciate you having us in um so we pulled together a quick presentation to give to give everyone an idea sort of the work that we've been doing and some of the things that we're planning to do over the next few months just to keep checking off the boxes for compliance um as we mentioned before you know this ms4 program started actually back in 2003 um the permit was extended in 2016 and became effective in 2017 and it just keeps building on itself with requirements that most of the cities and towns of Massachusetts have to comply with but again it's all related to storm water storm water quality and so we're just helping to move the town forward to stay to be in compliance and stay in compliance so just give you an idea of some of the things just a real quick overview um the whole ms4 permit is really based around the six minimum control measures which we have listed here so public education and Outreach public participation uh was a discharge detection elimination which is really the biggest part of the whole permit itself with the requirements U management of construction site runoff management of post construction site runoff which is essentially new development and Redevelopment projects and then the last one is Good Housekeeping and Municipal operations so where we kind of started off with the town is trying to help you to address the public education uh Outreach in the participation portion portion of it and you may have seen I I know um select boards probably seen throughout some of the the town's the public buildings we've developed some BR Shores and just some educational materials um that for people to help them understand the importance of storm water what they can do to help keep the storm water runoff clean help to protect surface water bodies and groundwater also so we have to produce according to the permit there very specific requirements of the the public education information you put together and the audiences that you Target so I won't go into the details of all of those but every quarter we need to produce new material and that's what we're going to continue to do for the town so we get started off uh last fall I guess it actually was Tech help to pull this information together we put a lot of broad information in to try to get you caught up to get you going on some of the educational materials but we're going to start to keep continue to produce those be different Target audiences different messages um one of the things we'd like to do is to be able to get some of this information up on the town's website I think the has a Facebook page just to get it electronically too so people can see it that also helps with EPA if EPA does want to take a look at what you're doing they can just jump on the town's website they'll see it right there so that'll help them to know that you know the town's moving forward with that but we've been moving along with that so you're in pretty good shape with the public education portion of it um and this is just an idea it's a lot of what we're doing is just best management practices some this is an example of one of the public education informational uh documents we pull together but again I think they're a town hall I believe Mr Hannon when he was here he helped to distribute them so I think they're in town hall in the library so they should see those those paper copies again we'd like to go electronic if we could just to help broaden um the distribution now here is the part that I'm going to handle with Tucker because this is what he did but as I mentioned the elicit discharge DET Tex elimination is the biggest portion of this um big pieces of it are outfall mapping outfall inspections wet weather outfall sampling and that's what Tucker has been running through and he's actually pulled together some GIS mapping that um at the end of this project will'll have available for the town she'll with access for this the tuer give you sort of an example of of where we are so far with this all right so you'll see here there's a map um of the town of Acushnet um and here we have a bunch of um you know discharges catch basins and man holes associated with the storm water drainage system um mapped um so you can zoom in here um you see this map was put together by the Buzzards Bay Storm water collaborative um it's been updated as recently as October 20123 um and we've been using this mapping for all of our dry weather and wet weather inspections that we've been doing um this information here also includes information on um the ms4 regulatory St for all these outfalls so if you look at this map here um whether or not an outfall is regulated underneath the permit to be monitored is based on whether it's located within PA designated urbanized area so you can see that urbanized area here marked in red and all these outfalls that are marked by yellow circles are the cushion outfalls that are regulated for you know to be monitored underneath this permit so that's what we've been working on so if you go down here to the dry weather outfall inspections we assessed 109 of these outfalls um that were in the maps above um we were able to locate 73 of them number of them were inaccessible or deemed not an outfall based on uh the work that the storm water uh collabora had done before um we collected data on the construction of the outfalls the condition of the outfalls and we looked for any indications of an illicit discharge um so we completed all that dry weather inspection um this past fall so everything's complete as far as that's concerned um we also assessed viability for wet weather sampling and any these outfalls um so here you can see an example of an outfall we found with a tree growing around it um so we started doing the wet weather inspections this past fall and into the winter um we assess a total of 70 outfalls um part of that assessment is detecting whether or not there is flow so when we say wet weather inspections what we mean is if there was a tenth of an inch of rain in the last 24 hours um so for 54 of the outfalls we inspected we had flow coming out of the pipes and we collected water samples and we did field analysis for different water chemistry um characteristics pH temperature contivity looked for chlorine surfactants um you know made note of the color turbidity of the outflow discharge um and we've been keeping all that information in tables and also in GIS databases for you guys which would be available when we're all complete with our inspections and um at this time we've finished inspecting all the outfalls that we uh set out to inspect um the beginning of this win so dry weather and wet weather complete yep excellent yep so we are all set with uh dry and weather dry weather inspections and wet weather INSP this time um just some photos of you know various discharges that we found in the field um different storm water manholes um so this is you know our our map of our survey results so we collected everything in the field um using rjs survey 123 um so you can see here you know we can click on an outfall ID and I can pull up you know all the information from the survey um which includes you know our field screening results how much rainfall we had when we inspected it um what we submitted for analysis for um and including photos in the survey so all that stuff is stored right now in this database just scroll through a couple of these here this one was collected from a catch Basin because the man or the outfall was inaccessible um so yeah anyways this is what we've been working on and these are the survey results um and here's some examples for you know some of the data we've collected so when we go in field screen if we find screening results that are indicative of you know ammonia that's too high we submit that for laboratory analysis so on the right here you'll see laboratory analytical results and on the left here you'll see um you know our field screening results uh we also submit the samples for bacteria analysis which is shown here so as of now we are done with the wet weather inspections we have all of our data in um so with that I will leave this and let you have a parameter when you look at this stuff for the outall do you have a parameter that you work within with like acceptable allowances so you have a bunch of different categories right ammonia field screening so let's just use the first one that you have on there it says 2.0 on that outfall right yep is there a parameter that you look that you have to work within say 0 to five and that one's 2 .0 is if it falls outside of the five is that like a trigger where you would continue further investigation or you know there's got to be some something that you work off of to say that outfall is a problem we need to address that outfall so as far as our field screening goes um you can see here for great example with the 2.0 so the EPA has uh established benchmarks so during our field screening we identify numbers that are in excess of a certain amount so for ammonia it's 0.5 Mig per l so when we go out and we do our field screening tests and we get two um that you know says okay we're above the Benchmark we need to now submit this water for laboratory analysis um which is why you'll see for that first outfall we have an ammonia result here um but for the one below it where we had a fueld traing result of zero we did not submit that sample it was not required to do that because we didn't find any ammonia in the water sample and then for the laboratory results um is there anything you want to add for that yeah so in here there's um so EPA I think we may have talked about this a little bit before so EPA does have some protocols in for what we do from here so one of the things you look at is obviously um the bacteria analysis is important unfortunately bacteria it doesn't designate whether it's a human bacteria or generated by an animal so that some of these numbers will look excessively high but that may not mean anything CU it could be the result of animal waste so but but it is something you need to take a look at one of the or a couple of the things that we really look at and focus on is concentrations of surfactant so if you get a high level of surfactant I think it's 0.25 is the tray I have go back and look I think it's 0.25 milligrams perer of surfactants that's an indication that it could be soaps in the storm water which you shouldn't have soaps obviously in your storm water so that's an indication that somewhere there's probably an elicit connection another one is a ratio of phosphorus and ammonia and if you go over if if that ratio was over a certain number I think that's also 0.25 milligrams per liter that's another indication that it's not a storm water flow but there could be something a sanitary or some other type of elicit connection tied in so that's the next part of this that we're going to go through is go through this data now see any of these outfalls that trigger that so the reference numbers the EPA has set up and from there then we'll start working upstream and first thing we'll do is just look at the GIS mapping and see what is Upstream you know do we have you know a large pond upstream or what's contributing from there we move start looking at opening manholes and going up stream seeing if you have a wet weather flow in that manhole are there some first visible uh indications that there could be illegal an illicit connection something like toilet paper in a man in a storm water manhole if you have strange odors a Sheen but we'd also collect samples from there and we basically work your way Upstream from manhole to manhole until you get the results that are under that trigger then you know you have your Downstream manhole that has high numbers your Upstream manhole has low numbers you know there's something coming in in between and that's where we isolate that area right so this the next thing we're looking at is okay what numbers do we have here and where do we need to go from here and track up streight got it so that would be the next field work that we work on doing question for you so presumably all this infrastru this infrastructure was put in place like years and years ago so in your opinion do we is the infrastructure that we have in place sufficient for the town I mean there's been when this infrastructure was put in place the town probably wasn't as built out as it is now right are we keeping up with what we need to be doing or should there be you know should we be adding to what we currently have or well honest honestly from an in infrastructure standpoint we're really not looking at that because that's that's a whole drainage issue so that's a completely different thing you looking at subcatchments and amount of flow you have and can you yeah that that becomes I think you're asking more about like a flooding type issue well just in general I mean I don't know I'm a I'm learning from the job here right so I just see you know all these different streets that have infrastructure like all right what was the determination why why there versus not somewhere else in town and are there you know do we are there something that we need to look at more critically versus you know instead of what we currently have but do we need to be looking to to expand and there there's two type of things really to look at overall for the town for the overall storm water system of the Town there's your storm water quality so you could look at is our system sufficient to be able to to to manage storm water quality to take care of the quality that we have do we need to add something in and and this is something that we'll be evaluating actually as we go further is can we add best management practices into specific outfalls or segments of your storm drain system to help to treat storm water if you see of a storm water issue so that's another phase of this down the road that we'll take a look at and then there's also from a a quantity standpoint is your storm water system sufficient to manage the storm water that gets collected and so that's a bigger question because that looks at do we need to add drainage systems do we need larger pipes and that really comes down to do you have flooding do you have Flooding at portions of the town that you need to address I think we do to put it simply this part right now is seeing if anything is getting into the existing system m that shouldn't be and how do we eliminate it right yeah this is a stor water quality per okay but yeah there there's those two different things really to need to look at two kind of separate things um so jump into the next one management of construction I'm sorry is there any more questions is is that our town no okay I was going to say I've seen I've seen I've seen something nasty areas but that one looks really bad I thought that was a picture of somewhere in town I'm like oh boy this ain't good no it wouldn't do that to you so manage of construction site runoff and management of post construction site runoff so the big part of this and I know everyone who's been involved with this is your storm water bylaw and regulations so we've been helping the town to upgrade the storm water BWW that you have and for the last couple of years we've been um developing draft versions of the storm water byw I think the most recent one we sent over was um I think it's this month March of this year so that's sort of under review within the town um there's been a couple of components in this last version that we've sent around that still need to be would' like to have looked at just for confirmation um one of them one of the most one of the more important things that we that we had added in is language into the bylaw was s to protect the town from a large developer coming in buying a large parel of land and then subdividing that land to be able to skirt the storm water byar requirements like right now your storm water byar gets triggered if you're disturbing more than 40,000 ft of land so the worry would be um someone coming in buying a couple of acres of land and then saying we're going to subdivide this and now it's each lot is less than 40,000 sare ft so therefore we don't have to comply with the storm water bylaw so we've added some language in there and we just recommended that um Town Council take a look at it to make sure the language makes sense um where we've got this language is from the state's recommended low impact development bylaw so it's it's state language that they have recommended um honestly it's in legal ease so it isn't very clear for people to read so we like to have Town's Council look at it just make sure it makes sense but it is similar language to what most other communities have and they have in their bylaw is that the section 32b yes article three yeah article I'm sorry article 3 2B yes yeah so it's I think it's an important thing to take a look at um one of the other questions or comments that came up on an earlier version was uh who is the designated Authority and I believe right now it's it's been the Conservation Commission and I think it still is the Conservation Commission I think it's the intent it is the planning board technically by the old bylaw is the storm water authority in this one the definition of storm water authority changes that to Conservation Commission and also I think that makes sense yeah is to have the Conservation Commission because they do whole public hearings and it's a lot of what this storm water bylaw is built around is related to the Wetland protection act anyway they very familiar with it but uh some of the language that we have in there that's I think is important is the Conservation Commission in the bylaw also has the ability to establish or to set a a an agent so they can appoint somebody in town to help them with the requirements that they have to meet for the bylaw so for example if you know it's a big construction site and you think you want to get input from DPW they could designate DPW as an agent and they could have DPW go help them with inspections so it gives them more flexibility so not everything is on Conservation Commission it helps to expand it right um and one of the other things I want to mention too is just keep in mind well first of all keep in mind that these are recommended bylaws it's ultimately up to the town what you want how you want the language to be but the bylaws that we have prepared are based on templates that were developed by I remember the name of it but I think it's the northern middle sex stormw Coalition and then the pon River stormw Coalition so they had developed uh templates for these bylaws and those templates were basically blessed by both DP D and EPA right so it's bylaw language that they like and it's by adopting that language then you're sure if EPA comes in again and takes a look at what you're doing you can you can be comfortable that the bylaw meets the requirements of what they want it also Al ties in more directly to the permit requirements and they also have regulations that would be the next step to accompany the bylaw and those regulations and the B are linked together again template based so it's you know it's you can be sure then you're meeting the requirements what you need to do and then the I mean I got the bylaw on the agenda so we're free to speak on all of that see you I we talking about the bylaw there's also a waiver provision that we inserted into the bylaw as well CU we didn't have that before right right and that gives you the ability for example one of the concerns and a number of towns are going this up one of the concerns is that you don't want to have keep piling permit requirements on on to Residents or to developers or whoever so again because most of this bylaw is somewhat related to the Wetland protection act and what the Conservation Commission is already doing again this is an example if there is a project that's already going through conservation they're filing a notice intent they're being issued in order conditions they have inspection requirements the town has the ability through that waiver process to issue a waiver to that developer or homeowner who or whoever to say you don't have to apply for the storm water permit because you're essentially already doing everything through conservation that way you're not applying twice you're not sending permit fees in twice so it gets covered by that you have that ability no matter what if if somewhere else that developer or resident whoever is meeting the intent of the storm water bylaw you can issue a waiver from the bylaw right excellent and one of the thing too with regulations and again to mentioned that briefly so if this balog goes through and gets approved then you'll need to establish regulations which we have draft versions of those which would be the next thing to do um right now the regulations if we go that if if move forward with that they' go to conservation they'd be reviewed and approved in theory at a public meeting with conservation then we add had an added step in there that approved approved regulations would then go to the select board and the select board would also at a public meeting review and approve those so there's two opportunities for the public to look at the regulations come to a public meeting and comment you you you do know well I hope I know when I asked this question they have I believe the town has a set of regular storm water RS on the books currently I'm trying to remember I get all the towns mixed up I don't I think I have a copy of it so I don't know if they're on the website there's a lot of confusion about what's on our website is it current we we got to work through those bugs yep um with certain bylaws that are out there there's been a lot of that room aill going on but I have a set of regulations I believe I have that set so if I do I'll have my Administrative Assistant scan it and send it to you okay and just see if they're even you know applicable again for that right now uh honestly I would recommend if we go with the new bylaw go with the new regulations because they're linked so that way they're referencing each other you know it's much cleaner yeah yeah yeah that's why if trying to adapt you did the bylaw re kind of rewrite of the bylaw then you could kind of keep the RS in line where it's not so stringent where it's impossible to develop right and that's the problem is is we have a lot of land we don't have a lot of land left that's up lands and buildable land right so the last thing we want to do is impede that development when we need certain development in the town and we don't want to impede that by having such stringent regulations and bylaws agree where you're making people jump through hoops and spend 50 $100,000 on storm water I mean storm water controlling storm water is extremely important especially to a buts of land right you don't want to be flooding people up we had that problem with a solar field but we want to be somewhat buildable friendly right without making it so difficult for you know the average J to develop their lot it's been in their family for the last 100 years and they might have 10 acres of land and they can knock off you know for the kids or whatever they're getting through school and they want to build a kid a home site on their land we call it the family compound right right we don't want to make that impossible for a family to be able a do that for their kids right agreed so and you know you you mentioned up Upland buildable land and it's that's important to that's an important point because really where this bylaw fits in it's for anything that would be over 40,000 ft but is out of the purview of conservation so that really limits for most towns where the bylaw applies because you've got to have 40,000 square fet and not near a Wetlands so there's not a lot of properties left that are like that but this sort of fills that hole excellent um couple other quick things I know you guys are have a lot to do tonight so um don't that much Morey you you're good on time right now so some of the things that we're looking to do um moving forward again there's a number of things that we want to keep plugging away with but some of the things we want to focus on is there's a requirement to begin to evaluate our current Street design parking guidelines and other local requirements the that affect the creation of impervious cover so essentially what we would do and what the the permit requires is to take a look at all of the different Boards of Department it's a lot of it's focused on Planning and Zoning but also the conservation their their um their bylaw their regulations and look at anything the big push is to minimize the amount of impervious cover that gets built so looking at how that's addressed in the different bylaws making sure it makes sense and making sure there isn't contradictions in the different bylaws so we go through and assess them all to get make sure they're all consistent um the other thing is part of that is take a look at low impact development requirements because this new bylaw and the new regulations would have requirements EPA is requiring to take a look at low impact development potential so infiltrating storm water treating storm water things like that making sure that any other bylaws and regulations and departments also address that and again it's consistent so it's really about just getting consistency three your bylaws mhm the good news is I don't think we have you said conservation I don't think other than the storm water bylaw we don't have a Wetlands bylaw in the town of aush no I think you just rely on the the state wetland prot act correct so again but again for consistency we want to make sure it all makes sense yep yep um and then the last the last of um the ms4 requirements Good Housekeeping and Municipal operations so that's looking at what the town does so DPW transfer station you know anything any Municipal operations so some of the things that we're going to address again going forward seems to be the next few months um we have done an initial inspection of the DPW Yard um but we need to pull together a poll prevention plan for that facility so we'll be pulling that together I recognize that picture oh yeah I can't I know that's a t um so we're working on developing the Swip um developing an employee training program and we've got a standard approach that we can give to the town it's it's typically DPW you want to make sure the DPW Crews or the highway department Crews um get regular training I think it's every 3 months but we make it simple something that just gets tracked it's just regular storm water type training it's a very short period of time something quick for them to do um and then we do corly inspections of the um Highway garage or the DPW Yard and the transfer station and did we do one more here yeah so those are the main things that we're going to look at now moving forward so just more paperwork type stuff we also have to review your storm water management plan that was done I think by the for for conservation agent back 2008 maybe so that we need to review that make sure that's updated review the elicit discharge detection elimination program plan that that was done back in the same time frame so those are supposed to be reviewed annually so we need to go through those and make sure those are up to date there's no changes need to be made there a number of paperwork things we need to address so that's the stuff we're going to be focused on in the next couple of months so would we we get through all of this we'll just call it ms4 stuff right do we have to like every single year keep spending exorbitant amounts of money because I know that this is costly to do the initial studies and and detections and all that stuff but is this something that the town's people will be on the hook for funding every year or is this something that you would be looking we' have to do every five years or is something that we would be doing every 10 years well it's this is going to be ongoing permit so it's going to be on and it's Federal EPA permit so it's you know a law so it's it's under the Clean Water Act they're going to keep renewing it so as of right now this 200 this this current version of the ms4 became effective in 2017 so we're in year five now and it's a 5-year permit so to give you an example that this this whole program started in 2003 that permit should have ended 2008 they just kept continuing annually until 2016 when the new perit came out it's going to keep going but the requirements in theory should begin to be reduced as you come into compliance with like your mapping is done you know your outfall inspections are done but there's always going to be sure they're considering storm water to be utility so there's going to be ongoing maintenance basically as you go so but some of the larger larger budget items should begin to reduce now EPA should be coming up with a new permit at some point I don't know when that's going to be I don't know what those requirements are going to be right but you know storm water quality is important and that's what they're going to focus on so it'll be an ongoing thing unfortunately like EPA has recommended you know communities again look at storm water as like utility and they want they're recommending communi set up Enterprise funds to be able to through you know taxing you know adding a tax which most communities don't want to do which I understand no one wants another tax but you know cushan isn't isn't a large town you don't have a large storm drain system which is good so hopefully this is something that isn't going to be a large burden right right so I had a quick conversation with you I think Mr Kelly we had a quick meeting a few weeks back right and I asked you the question because of this Insanity on the nitrogen septic systems and all of that stuff right so I then I asked you cuz it kind of makes sense that we have the River here and I asked you if we could go in where and I know you said you'll isolate it to where our outfalls go dump into the aush river because a lot of the outfalls are dumping into the Kush river right we could do nitrogen load tests so that we could actually monitor nitrogen in that River so that in in the future if this all came to a head we would know where our nitrogen's going and whether it's increasing or decreasing right and try to figure out where that's coming from we go up the river and and do testing right inste the nitrogen and you said it's relatively cheap to do that kind of testing so I just wanted to throw that out while I have a full board sure you that's something we could certainly do and it would help to give you a baseline so now you'd know we'd have the same sampling Points each time and come back and grab those samples from those locations at the same time so you have that Baseline you know what your nitrogen numbers are so if you start to see a increase you know there's a concern you if they stay the same or decrease then potentially you can say we really don't have a concern here well if it just be nice the know now nitrogen levels down the river right um and we can test pretty far up the river yep right all the way to the Lake Street ponds actually we can even go that far and test the water right we toally and then we know but if if we know that it's coming from the current from the ocean which we know we have waste treatment facilities dumping into and the furthest one that we have on the kushion faven Town Line is starting to rise but all our other ones aren't we'll know that that we're not the contributors to that nitrogen right and that's basically what I'm trying to do is protect the town from that fugil liability saying well we know it's not from us because all of these outfalls this is the test level we did in 2024 and this is what they are now but the heaviest load is coming from the Kush faven line which is probably from the current bringing crap in from the ocean right yeah you can C the tie does push up and down this River sure no you can certainly do that we can we can we can help you do that what do you think love it sure I think it's a great idea I just want to remind the board that this board created an ms4 stabilization fund and has been putting some free cash in just to make sure that uh it doesn't hit the taxpayers as a tax that this board has been thinking of that all along and that helps fund our in the ms4 yeah so working if you could put that into your plan I think the board likes the idea and this this you know it it protects us I think it's it's a good protection it's an inexpensive protection down the road for us to look at and if D or EPA is saying well look at this and look at that and you know blah blah blah with nitrogen loads and you know the Coalition and all those people down there we can say well wait a minute we've done that testing we've been doing that testing for years and the nitrogen load aren't exceeding anywhere down the river until you get to the cushion baven line so obviously we know there's a problem from current pushing that nitrogen into our waterways now right yeah it be nice to have that in your back pocket that's what I want I want dry gunpowder right so I think it's important to help the community and the people of our community right sure so sense we can put that on the Y we can put that in sound good Tucker absolutely he's doing the sample so so right right I mean you know nobody want most people look at this and say well I don't want to spend money on that stuff right it's kind of like anybody coming into town that now you have the storm water bylaw right right cost a little bit of money to do it but who wants to be flooded out by somebody else's project exactly and that's happening right before our eyes in this town right now right one other thing I wanted to throw at you the bringing up solar Fe feels is we've had some flooding problems with a couple of them I don't need to go into names on TV um I think everybody at home that's going to watch they know what what the board's talking about it I'm dumbfounded by the process of basins on solar Fields large solar Fields right ground mounted solar fields we have a special bylaw that goes that's just kind of nails large scale photo vitalic solar panels right it's a special bylaw we just amended a bylaw um for that reason the basins I've been out to the site several times the one that's flooding M the basins it appears to me the basins were were dug out for the storm water to hold when it's only supposed to hold I think what is it 72 hours or 72 hours something like that 72 hours and it should drain right we don't allow wet basins blah blah blah BL blah it appears that when they you know the rocket scientists that designed that storm water basin they never look for groundwater and what it what it tells me is if that basin's filling up they they do all the models and calculations on a computer and say based on the ground surface the tilt of the topography blah blah blah this is what size Basin you need right y I'm assuming that's what they do but I don't think what they're doing is calculating in like they do when they do a perk test okay where they you have to find groundwater right and a perk test I think the board of Health's got a regulation or it's just a standard rule that applies for them I think it's 4 feet above groundwater for a septic system and they can give a waiver to 2 fet above groundwater depending on the circumstances the hot sh right why wouldn't we have something in our storm water bot basically says the same thing for large scale solar panels solar Fields where they need to do quote unquote the perk test know where groundw is and then there they would be required if be prior to any construction that that Basin needs to sit so many feet above groundwater because when I go out to the one that's flooding out everybody right now and there's probably other ones that are going to be flooding out and it's going into the woods so nobody's KN but right now we have actual residents being impacted by flooding you can't build a basin on top of groundwater right because the water the the storm water's got nowhere to infiltrate right there's got to be that buffer for infiltration so water if you take water and you pour it on top of water it sits on top of itself right so if you build a basin and you dig down 6 ft into the ground but groundwaters at 6 and 1/2 ft you only have a 6 in infiltration for all that groundw that's filling that Basin to infiltrate then you're on top of groundwater hence flooding yep so it just got me to thinking because it's so aggravating to watch all this crap go on in my town and it just seems like all peer review have Engineers yeah let me do calculations but that engineer is doing the same kind of calculations as the first engineer might tweak a few things and go yep I made my five grand on my peer review but it's everything's good to go but then we got a solar field that's flooding out our residence which so standard engineering practice would be just like you said even for you know similar to The Board of Health requirements the title five requirements you do need to have separation to groundwater so St engine engineering practice would be you know minimum of 4 ft of separation even for a detention or retention Basin because you do need that space of soil to be able to infiltrate you need that that clear space for the waterers a place to go essentially so you know long story short they that should be done anyways but you could certainly add that into your BW just to make it very clear that this is a concern that the town has and we want to make sure that this is done but it should be you really shouldn't be designing an infiltration Basin without doing a test fit to see what type of soils you have cuz you need to see how much is going to infiltrate it's part of your calculations and where groundwater is and it's not just where the groundwater is at that time you need to look to see where it is during the high groundwater period because obviously on April you have a lot more rain groundwater elevations are higher so it's going to be completely different than what you're going to see in July correct so you could put in language in there to make sure that whoever is doing this design does meet those requirements but it should be done anyways should be and has been I can tell you right now based on this board's experience it ain't happening and that's something I can tell you son I mean I I got pictures of basins and people pumping from a basin up to a basin from that Basin discharging into the wetlands with pumps so we know everything's failed right why did it fail I don't know maybe I'm not smart enough to figure that out but it got me to thinking that the only reason why that basin's family is because the water's got nowhere to infiltrate and it's sitting on top of groundwater common sense right right if that's if that's the case if that's the condition and out there then that more than likely is what the problem is so again I'm looking to protect the residents of a cush it by having something governing that kind of a project sure and that's something even you could add to the storm water bylaw but you'd want to keep it separate from the land disturbance 40,000 square ft portion you have that that's this is standard no matter what so that could be its own little separate section yeah it's own little own little just like in our regular bylaws we have zoning bylaws and is a separate section for large scale photo volic solar panels right tells you how you can develop that area well I maybe we do that little section and pop it into a storm water bylaw that it says about separation from groundwater yep so that we we we can it's basically foolproof in the development right and and they would have to do that before they can get any kind of approval from planning for a solar field they'd have to do that testing first right to make sure that their basins can be located where they're proposing to planning board to put those basins and they have to submit that to planning and say Here's the proof that everything this is where groundwater is we're only going down X that's why the the tension the basin's being built this way right and at this depth yeah if you're running into that problem in town then it would be something good to address formally so that you don't have that as an ongoing problem what do you think what have you what do you think anything that protects the residents of this town so if you can capture something small sure and to keep it like you said Kev away from everything else we don't want people building Little House lots that have now required to dig these little basins for storm water you know roof runoff and the post construction preconstruction blah blah language that's in this bylaw right you got to manage it you can't have you can't exceed your post construction from your preconstruction storm water runoff that's basically what the the storm water bylaw does right you have to control that on your property right okay we don't want to be you know again making it tougher for people to develop a single house lot or two house Lots on a family compound but we want it to be put in there for large scale photo metallic field solar Fields yeah we can put that in there and basically just telling people essentially it's going to it would be you need to follow engineering pra standard engineering practice this is these are the things that you need to do but I want that word you know the groundwater thing that's got to all be in there and identify it so that nobody they can't play dummy to duns you know making an argument of that's not really what that says so let's not make that out to it and it's like yeah it does say that it's right there in black and white and we can make it very clear and we can propose language and you know have the board take a look at it and make sure it makes sense what you want anything else I think that's it right is that the end that's the end all right well thank you for everything you're doing for the town of aush thanks for having us in I appreciate you coming in much you're welcome I don't know Mr Kelly we can we send I I know you said you sent the byot of planning chairman Board of Health chairman and conservation chairman so I guess we a meeting with conservation chairman tomorrow we can discuss this to Kev how quick can you get us that little thing governing the the Sol of large scale I get your draft by the end of the week could you because we we Mr Kelly's got to arrange it for planning board to do for the storm water bylaw a public hearing okay so they have some uh 14 day notice or something you know I'll talk to uh Mark tomorrow so I I I'd like to get the I want the bylaw to go through the process right through planning public hearing and everything else and conservation will probably take it up for discussion as well but I'd like it to be able to sit out on the website for 30 days prior to town meeting so that everybody can review it and understand what it is you know I we talked about it before we don't want people thinking that we're jamming something down the town's people's throat right so if we can get it to public hearing conservation can do a meeting to vet it out and I'm I'm sure that the planning board's going to do their public hearing that'll I'm sure some conservation members will go so maybe conservation won't do that but at least it'll have its vetting process and amble time to sit on the website for everybody to know this is coming up at we make a section for on our website about town meeting right some of the Articles the warrant whatever we get finalized the bylaws anything bylaw related I like to post minimum 30 days prior to town meeting so June 3D but I need you to get that clause and just slam dunk it somewhere in here it as a separate article be another article article four or whatever yeah but into the bylaw right so you could take it just submit it maybe you highlight it and yellow us so everybody knows that's a whole new addition yeah I've got the the way of the Bon now we have some of those things I mentioned are highlighted to consider so we'll do the same with that one just make that whole article new article thank you very much welcome appreciate it thanks every have a good night thank thank you J all right so going back to new business mle Road potholes I know dpw's office got phone calls selectman's office got phone calls um I returned a couple of those phone calls to the residents with issues of mendle Road um I was actually driving the road when I spoke to the residents um totally get the concerns um safety issues on that road um some of the things that would describe to me is just like couldn't even fathom of what's taking place on that road because of people speeding and you know the parents are traveling back and forth to pick up kids back and forth from school so I was on the road is a good stretch of that road probably at least a quarter mile of that road that just banged up hard but it comes it's from where the fire tower is and all that land that's up there and that storm water's coming up conf and it's been in icing condition for decades in the winter time cuz all that water runs off that field from where the fire towers and things of the like and that's what's a eroding the road so Mr manad had a lot of has a lot of materials um at the DPW Bond I know he's been doing some other work at po Park um and down at the golf course right now I had a conversation with him because trying to get out there with the we we got like a hot box head attaches to the back of a truck where they fill it up with cold patch stuff that's garbage I've seen them go down put that stuff in Pooles through the winter months within a week the crap's already out of the road like the asphalt is too hot it's too cold you can't doesn't sit and it just gets punctured right out so I asked Mr manad he's going to be getting uh asphalt should be available next week two weeks I said if you're going to be doing some um path work with the asphalt machine at the golf of course that's not tooo far away from mendle Road I said wouldn't it be easier to take that machine and just do a quick overlay over that busted up road instead of going over there with you little stamp a thing and popping out in a week and he said yeah that would probably be the best bet but he's got all drainage equipment to go out and do it basically from that fire tower that I just spoke of all the way down to Garrison Lane he's got all the equipment piping in basins to do that work um he just hasn't gotten out there to do it yet we've already done from Garrison down to the high tension lines with new storm water controls down there so now it's from the fire tower area with that curved land is and the Farms are down to Garrison to tie into that at a all go yeah that section is completely covered in ice and water all winter it's ice all summer it's wet yeah I know you travel that road a lot it's just it's a complete nightm the road needs to be milled and paved yeah I told Dan I said we're not sending the hot boox guy out there you know the one of our DPW guys you see them out there with the hot box that's just garbage it's a waste of money and those people are just going to be aggravated in two weeks so if he can get out there I'd actually entertain a motion to have Mr minad Overlay mle Road in that busted up section um within the next 2 weeks by April 15th or whatever the solve that problem all those in favor so that'll take care of that for the residents that little that little hip curve that that's where you can tell that that a lot of the patches were there I mean he's going to go out the and work on the side of the road and bust up a lot of it anyway so like I I told a couple of residents that I spoke to on the phone I said the board will act um take action immediately to fix that problem um immediately meaning a couple of weeks it's going to take for us to do it um but we're going to get Mr manad out there but right now the water table's so high he's just going to be digging and water is just going to be pouring out of the ground so with that said just have him overlay it real quick it's just a quick patch JW but it it makes it nice and clean and even he'll go out there dig up the road and then this board's going to have to figure out what you know an allocation of funds to do the road the problem is is the road right from Perry Hill Road where mle starts all the way down to the Four Corners where halfway road is it's like a half a mile road mhm it's a long long distance so not saying we have to do that whole stretch but there's some really crappy pots from Perry Hill till you hit that like 114 number I think it is on an address all the way down to like 215 or something I measured I forget the exact houses but it's it's a long stretch of road so we'll have to figure out chapter 90 funds and what we're going to do with that project Mr Kelly do you want it within two weeks from today or within two weeks from when the asphalt plants open I think we said by April 15th same day your taxes are do April 16th 17th oh it's 17th whatever but whatever whatever we need to do somewhere around there so it just doesn't get forgotten about and if they're going to have the paving machine you know in the next two weeks where they're going to have it move that get out there where they trailer it up get it up there it's right around the corner they can drop it and spread that in probably 2 or three hours just to make it better for those folks and then we'll figure out a longterm plan town meeting articles Mr Kelly you want me to buzz through this real quick because it's pretty simple right it's basically all housekeeping stuff correct uh uh the COA of the catv article we've got to finalize of figures that's why they are in red but it's a standard article but most of the others are either articles that are housekeeping or placeholders that's correct and we usually set that up later on that we when we do the Omni buus budget we just set it up so that we bundle up a bunch of the articles with the moderator right all these all these housekeeping ones it's just Mickey Mouse stuff I I just wanted to put it in front of you so you know where we're going and you if there are any questions on any of the housekeeping articles uh you can get them to me individually and uh I can uh if there's any research that needs to be done give it to the board do you anything I'd ask the board to look into or have some discussion when Mr Kelly is article 16 it's only paying 8 bucks an hour for our senior workof program um I I think that could go to 10 bucks that just saying remember that's not a paycheck it's I I know it's for the tax deferral I get it I have no uh no horse in the race but it's uh the the the youth program with paying 15 bucks up to $4,000 I think per kid M right and then the senior program we're paying 8 bucks an hour now all I'm asking is if the board wants to consider moving 8 to 10 that's all and uh just a just a suggestion for me I can draft that article that way if the it's a consensus of the board to do that it's just Jing one number I just drafted it for you if the board so chooses to change that from eight8 to 10 bucks that's that's it it still has it still has a max still has a max 1,500 bucks right yeah two bucks an hour ain't going to kill it we've been we've been very fortunate that we've had several seniors come and work on that program far us whether it be filling vacancies and offices while people are on vacation things of the like it's still nice to have somebody in that office to answer that phone so thank you to our seniors that have worked in this program it's very much appreciated from the board of selectman um I think it's done some great great things for the town and great things for our seniors so I I think this board uh the support of that and the support of the Yes program for the Youth not only is it super beneficial for the town but it's been beneficial for all of the participants and uh it's uh programs that are starting to be mirrored in other towns in the area when they see our successes so it's compliments to the board for putting those programs into existence good program it's always easier to be a follower but it's much more successful to be a leader right and that's what we're we're trying to do is lead not fall so I don't generally you don't have if youve gone through it there's not much here I mean like I said it's it's just housekeeping stuff Mr Kelly's plugged in a few different things there is some funding for our fire department for the relocation of the repeater things and things of the like but there's a little breakdown of free cash at the top it's basically uh health insurance the school bus litigation thing fire department senior tax wrof program youth program and then under stabilization if we so choose that's the but there ain't much else in here other than house cleaner things to this point I know we'll be adding some articles limits of the standard limits you do each year right I see PA's the only one that actually shot something this year Well actually the CPC is just met and there are going to be some uh Park recreation I know I didn't notice I did talk to you about um Chad from the park yep but when I looked at that I'm like oh boy we're missing something but I'm sure there'll be more change so we'll have that discussion off and uh I'm also uh investigating whether uh trying to get some prices on moving The Monuments in front of the old uh Russell Library to a location uh by parting way so when you sell the library we can have already moved The Monuments and Mr Gasper can use his metal detector to find time capsu time cap I know we're going to we're going to that that's coming out of the ground we don't have to worry about that we we're going to get it out of the ground that's for sure but yeah we we definitely need to look at a plan to move The Monuments over here and then you know obviously you got to put that on a cement footing you know so they're not falling over so we'll figure out some there's one that's kind of hidden in the bushes over here so we might have to do a little bit of reconfiguration of the grounds and just make it a nice little Monumental site right and put them all in a yeah we're going to get pricing on that I think like we do with the Veterans Memorial you know it's got a little Arch to it maybe you just do the same kind of concept but just keep it all Greenery right we don't do the bricks and patios and all of that stuff just do a nice little footing and you can rest all The Monuments on that and they'll have a permanent place with some nice Shrubbery around it it's interesting we've had a couple requests for people to get married in the Gaz AO too so it's turning into it could turn into a nice little Park yep the um the fees for that though it's crazy the fees we have for the Gazebo if you want to rent it it's big bucks they just pict 2 bucks or something we don't even have a I'm just see what he's going to say he's like wait a minute we got fees for that I got to find that fees schedule that'll pay Road was I was just seeing what he was gonna how he's gonna react to that but and the other thing you know talking about the potting ways grounds um we really need to look at finishing up the we still have some money left over in an oldal for the rehab of that poting ways building that left side of the building is the last side that we need to do the siding on we have to try to figure out as a board collectively how we're going to get that other side finished up yeah I'm not comfortable with with the current Staffing levels we have I think maybe we're going to have to talk to some you know contractors and see if there's we got to talk about that side too okay boss I can tell by that face we'll do that off air so that's that but it'd be nice to actually finish the bounding ways building right pressure wash the gazebo thing and all that if we move The Monuments and do some nice Greenery I I would we still have a beautification committee yes yeah maybe we we should punt that project to beautification well next time they do a meeting maybe we had to put something on tomorrow is Nancy oh yeah they're having a meeting tomorrow yes the problem with that their agenda is already set and it's not on their agenda so I can't do that to them be a violation oh no I'm just letting you know they're meeting tomorrow that's their next meeting so their next next meeting okay the uh parting way uh I encourage anybody who hasn't gone over and seen how the old sign was restored by our staff to go over and look at it yep David the maintenance guy he did it inside of our little garage over there with a couple of the LC kids yep yep yep the help they did and the way they put that thing back together it's pretty incredible and it's inside the building now so if anybody at home wants to go in and take a look at it you got to go inside the pting waste building and it's on the wall to preserve it correct all right so uh execute M MOA Town PL uh that's we're still waiting for to come back signed from M poet in account uh uh Judy is been on site the last two days uh there are going to be meetings between her and uh Jen The treasur Collector and Angela to go over some items and uh I think we're getting to the point where now uh we've got a stock Gap situation again but a situation where we can be confident all the financial uh tees are crossed and eyes are dotted yeah been fortunate with the last few folks that we've brought in so I don't know if you've both met Judith not yet very nice young lady um hopefully we'll be keeping her on board for a while I know she's already seen some things that she wants to a corrective action in place so you know it's funny every time you bring somebody new in with that kind of level of experience it's they pick up on something and they're like you know what I think there's a better way to you know build that mous track so be interested to see what she comes up with next so all right Town administrators report I think I covered everything else on the agenda Mr Kelly you have anything uh I went to a meeting with mega yesterday our uh workers comp and shur and uh they have a grant program where the town can apply for $5,000 every year to create a uh to correct a an issue that uh would affect the safety of our employees uh in advance of doing that I've requested that they do a safety audit of both school buildings the DPW the police station and the library and that we look to see if there are any issues in those buildings they have already done uh a walkth through uh here and they'll update their walk through as far as the safety audits of the buildings right here and just to remind the board it's from the that grant that we were able to get the additional aeds okay excellent selectman announcements gentlemen Mr W anything no Mr Hinkley anything uh just real quick um a couple of the uh Boy Scouts reached out they are there's three young men that are obtaining the rank of Eagle Scout mid April um and they asked us to attend obviously we can't all attend um if it's all right with you guys I'd like to do it um I had already put together two citations for two of them and I have to work on another one um but I also got a personal invitation from one of the gentlemen there who actually interviewed me for it so if it's all right with you I'd like to uh attend that on behalf of the board actually I see 100% and I appreciate you volunteering for that because I seen the date and I won't be in town so thank you very much for volunteering for um that commitment it's going to be nice to see three three young men get the rank of Eagle Scout in one shot and um I already let rep spin know and he's excited because he's a former Eagles well you're not a former Eagle Scout you're always an eagle scout and uh he's pretty excited to participate as well so just like he's a Marine yes correct y all right uh Mr chairman yes sir uh I have done my select announcement go ahead I just something so it doesn't fall between the cracks as you know last week we discussed or last meeting we discussed that A letter came from Fair Haven asking for some and it would been on previous agendas Regional uh cooperation this board had talked about and appointed selectman wona to uh represent the board with the selectman representative from Fair Haven uh if I'm correct there was discussion about it I think we need a vote do you any one I know this we did the talked about some regionalization with Rochester faen for dispatch was Hanley yeah but but if he wants to do that the other because I read the letter you gave me that letter that the faen Town Administrator submitted to talk about you know collaborating on other positions and things of the like with regionalization if select Mona wants to play that role glad glad to do it last year I had spoken with may recall with Bishop Howers who was the chair at the time and we had talked about doing something like that we never got around to it so that's a great project and I know Beach passes number one so already just going to say it say it good man okay so Mr W's volunteer it his time and efforts towards um you know other positions and exploring that if you could Mr W conservation agent is so important so if you can get with Jamie stuff like a punch list of things you want to address conservation agent I mean we the Chairman's Going Bonkers with calls and like I was we just discussing what our am as for flooding issues and things flooding issues and things of the like I mean you know he's a working man you know we have a secretary in the office doing things um she just doesn't have all that experience to do the job so I think that you know conservation agent I'm sure they have one let's figure that out and see if we can get some help in our town and uh select Ben hinley triggered something in my mind I had a discussion with uh representative Schmid to reinforce what you talked to him about and he's going to try to get an earmark in the state budget for the sidewalks and handicapped ramps on slom street okay excellent guess we're going to have to have that conversation we're releasing that money from the Transportation Bond build because I know that Mr Strauss and Mr Schmid are not um running for election which was I was really caught off God by that announcement from especially from rep Strauss I was kind of like wow it's interesting there's I think up to 20 senior legislators that are not C I think we we should try to get them in to have that discussion because I know that money's been sitting out there since like 2015 do you want me to schedule soon yeah I think I think the soon the better right we can get them in here have a quick conversation with them thank them for their efforts um thus far in the town and I think that's very important that we get that release um he's the chairman of the transportation so while we have them working on our behalf I think we need to capitalize all right is there uh my only selectman's announcement is always to the the residents of the town of auset happy Easter be safe uh motion to adjourn move second all those in favor all [Music] [Music] right [Music]