##VIDEO ID:OC8y0SsRRco## still be with me hello and welcome to the emmer Conservation Commission meeting the date is October 9th 2024 and the time is 7:03 we have all members present except Laura we have staff present including Aon jock and Dave zc first um up on our agenda chair report I have nothing to report today I'll hand it over to Dave zik for director's report sure thanks Michelle um one thing I wanted to note I believe Aaron may have kind of a a a drop dead I think there's drop dead deadline tonight of 10 pm so I think we're aware that she may have some connectivity issues after that so um just putting that out there and and hope we can move through business uh in a in an efficient way tonight so that's great um couple of quick updates for the commission um one is uh if you haven't visited Hickory Ridge uh the former golf course in a while we are um you know moving forward there at at some Pace trying to get what we can done before winter sets in um you may if you visit there you may notice that we are moving forward on some of the um some of the the the the improvements that we uh put forth before you and the planning board in our site plan review um application uh including better defining the parking there we have split rail fence in there we've improved the um the easternmost portion of the parking lot which will be the uh parking for the site for the foreseeable future um uh Brad did that work um as well as some other staff and then uh we are actively working my staff and I are actively working to move forward with the Demolition of the building um the building is outside of of resource area but um um it will be coming down hopefully this fall or uh if we have a mild winter in the winter so that'll be a nice um uh a nice thing to get off the off the land there um you may recall we got Capital money to do that so uh we're we're actively moving forward with that that effort um I don't think we're going to open the the uh the trails this fall they're just we just have too many um things left on our plate we don't have any kiosks we're working on ordering signs kiosks informational um um U materials etc for the trails so um I I think we will do some sort of grand ribbon cutting in the spring with you and the planning board and and town officials Etc um you know the trails we do have people using the trails informally at this point but um a formal opening would be in the spring early summer of next year you may recall we also have a mass Trails grant that uh we received earlier this year and again that that money is to be used to connect what we're calling the loop trail out near West paloy Lane we've got to come up with a different name for that Aon and I are working on that um but the the loop the uh accessible Loop near uh West palmery Lane to the trails going north through the property and so again we're working um Bob parent who's a staff member working with me we are working on a timeline for getting that work done and again we're kind of racing against winter here again that work is all permitted through the commission as well as through the planning board we're also working on a bridge connection if you've been to the site we actually removed the main um um decking to the the the principal primary um uh crossing over the Fort River that we're going to be using and we're going to be putting that project out to bid for uh basically a a redo of that bridge a remake of that bridge and we have funding for that moving north um we've also been working on on some efforts up at um puffer Pond I I can't go into too much detail and and I can report at at upcoming meetings but we have made a little progress with you Mass I think uh I've gotten some good traction from some of the folks at UMass to help us with some U testing uh additional more robust testing up at at puffers Pond and the kushman brook so uh as soon as that's a little bit more uh uh complete uh I can I can say more about that we also are going to have an announcement this week um again I can't go into much detail but we're going to have an announcement about a grant that we got for buffer Pond um so we'll have more on that you'll see it Aaron I'm sure we'll send it to you in the next 24 hours certainly before the weekend that should go out but it it will give us a real jump start on um addressing some of the the shortcomings of the Dyke and the dam at puffers again nothing is failing at Puff suffers with all the you know focus on natural disasters around the country right now there is nothing urgent with the puffers pond dam or the um or the Dyke but this will uh set us on a good path forward to address some of the issues we do need to uh address there um in terms of Land Management it's really kind of a still an active period Brad and Anthony are out there still clearing Trails Trail heads um doing some some um some brush hogging here and there on some of the fields that we've really um um lost over the last couple of years and then um let's see what else I believe later in the meeting there will be an update on Hickory Ridge I believe P pure Sky Hickory Ridge related to the solar project I believe pure Sky will be with us for that and I Erin and I will add a few uh of our own comments around um we have landed on an emergency access route uh and gotten input and approval from the fire department as well as um our our engineering staff here in DPW and and our Building Commissioner with feedback on the emergency access so we'll have more on that uh coming up in the next hour or so so those are the the quick around the around the town updates lots of things happening in addition to Wetlands permitting thanks Dave any questions happy to take them for you I see one from Alex go ahead yeah I just wanted to comment that I stopped by Hickory Ridge didn't get out of my car but I did go into the parking lot it cleaned up very nicely from all the piles of stuff and the uh split rail fence looks Snappy good job and also I want to compliment you I watched you on amoris TV standing in the water in puffers Pond talking about the water sampling and I'm glad you mentioned that there are ducks and geese in there because they were in the picture of you yeah they were they were swimming around all around you as you took water samples but I'm glad to see you on Amis TV talking about Po's Pond I I think I watched it actually two or three times thank you yeah for those commission members thank you Alex for bringing that up um um emis media reached out to me and we did about a TW minute video up at puffers pond on on water quality and recreational and conservation uses up there and yeah I guess it's getting you know a reasonable decent amount of play out there but yeah in the middle of me talking about possible sources of of bacterial contamination a malard you know floated by me so it was it was perfect and uh um but yeah so the good news is we're we're getting some traction up there and looking forward to you know this is not the bacteria issue of puffers is is not unique to puffer pond it's not unique to ammer it's happening all over the the state and probably the region and there's lots of reasons that that is so but um you know we we've got to roll up our sleeves and start addressing it it it it was another very disappointing summer up there I think for everybody and all users that we didn't have more healthy swimmable weeks uh this past summer so it's not going to be solved in one summer it's going to take probably a couple of years and some more funding to address I'm sure but thanks Alex for that feedback than sa Alex you know the town's working on it okay um moving on we have minutes we have three meeting minutes um 626 710 and 1028 any comments on the minutes just to point out the 1028 minutes are from 2020 we're shipping away at a backlog from the pandemic so there's a couple sets that are still outstanding so I'm not not sure anybody on this commission was on okay it's okay I mean it's really just an administrative approval to get them on our website at this point um if anybody's uncomfortable you don't have to vote but it's it's so that we have a a record a written record of the meeting on our website and we can't post them without approving them okay thank you so I think we need motions to approve these three um minutes move that we approved three minutes second okay we have a motion from Alex and a second from Andre for the minutes of 626 24 71024 and 10282 um Alex hi Rachel hi Jason Hi Bruce Bruce is on mute hi Andre hi namai thank you Bruce yes thank you again Bruce for for then and for now for your minute taking very very appreciated okay moving on to Land Management updates we have conservation land used applications um the first one up is for a for-profit professional photography session at pic Conservation Area so um an important note for this one is that our current policy does not allow for for-profit use of conservation lands and um this is very clearly a a for-profit use so direct conflict with our current policy I mean I I'm not sure if anybody has any comments on this one but um I don't see really how this is um congruent with our current uses I see Hands Up um go to Alex first I would be I would I would favor offering a waiver on the um policy it's not a it's not a huge deal it's nice to have the conservation land in the background and it's one day Alex Jason I uh I think I have the opposite thought of Alex that we have the policy and we should keep the policy and not make exceptions there's lots of places to take pictures that are beautiful and have Scenic um you know locations behind them they don't necessarily need to use conservation land yes Jason Andre uh I don't see that there's any um any method to uh to go to go around uh or circum vent the uh prohibition on commercial use interesting um Alex proposed a waiver and we have not discussed a waiver before I would ask Dave if you have wavered um our current land use policies before um have we wavered have we ever been wavering on these Poli not wavering but how specifically wavered um so Michelle are you just to clarify and I I I apologize I only had just a minute to kind of briefly skim this proposal and and I should have taken more time on that um are you saying our current policy which or or the one we're working on in committee so our current policy is is such that it does not allow for profit use and our and our in in the works policy is is the same so in in neither situations is there an allowable circumstance for this so in both cases we're talking about wavering the policy and again my apologies was this a one day ask or was this if I I chair this is this is a request by a photographer to take um pictures of families and kids um on conservation land um using the conservation land essentially as a background it would all happen on one day she sets appointments for people to show up she takes the pictures and and it's over in a day it doesn't create create any damage it doesn't create any harm um they're not going to be wandering all over the conservation land there might take a short walk but um I I think this one brings Smiles rather than frowns and without doing any damage to the conservation land so although our policy doesn't allow for waivers or explain circumstances I I just I'd rather be uh forgiving on this one than than um um straight Lac thanks Alex and I'll note that in um circumstances where we've had like um Environmental Education groups or Adventure groups we they've offered um donations to the conservation fund um as part of this okay I see Hans Bruce so Aaron um given the policy why did the applicant continue on why do we have this at all I mean I I can probably answer that probably people don't read the policy or have like straight access the policy I mean if they if they if they want to do something they introduced to our land use application but not necessarily to the policy but correct me if I'm wrong Dave and Aaron well i' I did tell her that that you know the commission and forgive me because I wasn't aware that there was already a policy on this I I thought that this was part of the new policy that was in the Land Management subcommittee but um yeah so that's what I was that's what I explained to her um but I Michelle maybe you're aware of something that I'm not in terms of the current policy I mean I'm I'm going on the current policy and I'm pretty sure it just says to for-profit use but Dave I I realized I sort of cut you off so please no I I I think through the years that policy has been Revisited off and on and that's why I asked you if we were considering it under the current or or or or the one that's under under under underway um yeah it it's it's hard because we unfortunately don't have a we don't have a waiver option under this and it is something for us to consider as we move forward is what you know are any of the the new policies wable and if so what is our process for doing that so Alex has you know put forth a a motion if you will to to wave it in this case for one one thing I I think this was developed in the context of we were kind of getting overwhelmed with the number of people who wanted to use conservation land for a lot of things for fundraisers for um uh I remember you know things like basically for-profit kayak and canoe lessons at puffer Pond etc etc and so we came up with this you know basically blanket policy that said you know for-profit uses are not uh in keeping with the the public uh interest of of of conservation land and so that's how that arose and I think we've kind of stuck with that so we've we've allowed research we've allowed you know nonprofit uses but not for-profit uses and you know I think the question is if you make this exception will you to be consistent will you need to make other exceptions and do we look at the current policy under consideration the one that we haven't voted on you haven't voted on yet and make sure there is some sort of waiver part of that policy so that's all I've got for tonight thanks Dave Andre I think Dave uh touched on many of the points uh that that I was that I'm thinking of I mean um it it should be defined if we're going to uh make exceptions uh then we need to define the exceptions that are allowable uh if not then we're uh basically uh playing favoritism um we also spoke uh last week or last uh meeting about uh you know dogs and uh commercial uh dog walkers um I I believe we touched on that or at least that was one of the things that uh came to mind and we need to uh we need to make sure in the next um uh in the next policy or in the next uh regul ations that come out um that that's addressed uh because it is commercial and all of the commercial activities on the on conservation so we may as well um remove the prohibition uh if we're going to be making a bunch of exceptions and I know this is one exception but um uh you know someone's essentially bringing people to conservation land and making money off of their use of that land uh even though yes it gives smiles to the families it's giving it's giving funds to the uh to the uh bank account of somebody on the backs of the uh essentially on uh on conservation land we if we are going to do this we need to find a mechanism and instead of kind of uh deciding uh at hawk or at will uh what's going to uh what's allowable and what's not thanks thanks Alex thanks Andre okay Alex I think we're yeah I just want to First be clear that I'm not going to follow my sword on this issue and I'll certainly go with whatever the group thinks but my thought is that um for profit is a little misleading I she's going to charge for the photographs but Goodwill goes a long ways bad news travels faster than good news and we can use all the good news we can get um I don't know she's probably talked to families about trying to get on conservation land or something and I don't know how many families are involved but a little Goodwill goes a long ways and I agree we need to come up with some way if we're going to have a waiver or set some criteria it's either a hard line um which gets difficult we'll deal with that in the dog issue but um in this case nobody's going to get rich over it it's not going to do any harm and Good Will goes a long ways and that's that's where I how I come to this on the other hand if the group feels otherwise I will certainly go with them thanks Alex I see lots of hands up um I just want to take a quick poll I think like how many people need more information to make this decision how about just how many people are ready to move on this based on current regulations yay or nay okay I see a majority um Rachel I did not see your hand up and I did see your and up for questions do you want to just ask a clarifying comment question yeah um I've been in multiple places in town that are conservation land and there have been photography sessions while I've been there like um just last week up at um Mount poock um is there there was wedding photography going on one day and then a week later there's a baby photography happening um I don't know if those were for profit or not they it looked like a professional photographer um so this person who's applying are they are they GNA be penalized because they're actually following the protocol and and what the other people are not or a philosophical question yeah indeed that is kind of a ongoing philosophical question that we have to deal with and one of um regulation and enforcement um and it's tough so um that's unfortunate that all of that was happening and it makes me feel like Mount Pollock because we constantly come to this land management application and mount poock is always the example of things happening where it was not sanctioned and not permitted that perhaps we need more signage and very big signage that says things here need to be permitted or something to that effect and I know that Dave and Aaron are working on that but it seems to be a problem and an ongoing one um I don't want to just move things because people are already doing it and um you know not regulate it on account of that go ahead Jason yeah I'm just uh Alex mentioned Goodwill I wanted to I just wanted to just ask what your thinking was on Goodwill like what Goodwill there is um but also if we do because we have this policy in place and we go ahead and make an exception for somebody does that open us up to liability for someone who we did not make an exception for because it doesn't Define it and that's not necessarily we don't have to necessarily answer that question but that's part of my line of thinking is that we open ourselves up to potential liability yeah Aaron go ahead I'm sorry can I just make a point real quick this is not policy it's law can you explain that a little bit Andre well policies um so laws uh these are the laws that we uh that that have been enacted um that people need to follow the laws are essentially you may not do this you may not do that you may not do the other policies are set by the agency itself uh and essentially the agency decides how they will apply that law so uh for example it's illegal to um it's illegal to park in a certain place uh policies might be the agency uh meaning uh town of amers might decide okay well it is illegal but we're going to make some certain exceptions uh uh if this that that and the other and they're written and they're followed um so that it's not confusing um but the law that we have uh I mean the laws but what we have is laws and they're not policies the policy would be if we decide that uh there will be exceptions and the policies list out how we how we go about um uh making these exceptions I'm perfectly fine with that uh but I I just want to make you know I just want to make sure that we we we don't confuse um you know decisions uh versus a law that's already out there on the books thanks Andre and just so to hit that home per policy and per law we don't have an Avenue for utilizing conservation lands for for-profit use right now and per this discussion which I've let go on a little bit because we're working on our policy document um we can think about how we want to have an Avenue for waivers but right now we don't have that Erin go ahead I was just going to suggest that maybe we table the discussion um in until a further time when we have um a little more opportunity to think about it and just let the applicant know we're sorry but the commission's kind of at an impass right now um and needs to discuss it a little bit more before sure I think the applicant had like a um specific timeline or like photog photography usage or set of things that one does in photography like specifically the automile um time period so I think we could probably make a decision now and then let her know that this has um stimulated more discussion so that maybe come back to us later and see if we've you know changed our decision making or just something to that effect so that I think think it's a I think it's a local photographer so that at this point in time we don't have an Avenue to do this but we're going to keep this under discussion based on our vote which we have not done so I'd like to open that up to a motion on the for-profit professional photography sessions at proct Conservation Area if anybody would like to make a motion on this all right I'll move to deny the uh the permit uh for professional photography on conservation land and I think Jason seconded so I have a motion from Andre and a second from Jason Alex I'll go with the group I Rachel I Jason I Bruce I'm going to abstain because I can't decide Andre I and I'm an i okay so thank you for relaying our um deliberations on that one Erin okay the next one up is the annual amoris College macro invertebrate collection at the Mill River for those of you who have not been on the commission a long time this has been going on a long time it's just an ongoing um in River collection of data and macro invertebrate collection that ammer college has been doing and I'm pretty sure they've been very diligent about reporting their findings to the town right Erin which is great because that's yeah go ahead and that's been an ongoing condition too of the approval that they share there and it always is and they always provide so very grateful for that does anyone have any questions or comments on this one okay I none I move that we approve the addal land use permit 2415 second I have Jason on the motion Andre on the second Jason hi Bruce hi Andre hi um Alex hi Rachel hi and I'm an i okay um land manag subcommittee updates agricultural policy I'm going to hand this over to Alex right we have in the folder now for your review our mission statement that sits on top of all the policies that we're working on and it's there for your review and comment I have an additional document which is not in there which is an appendex to the uh to the policy document which includes definitions and I'm happy to provide that to Aon to post it with the mission statement and some of the key wordss that are in the mission statement are defined so I would ask that your comments not only be on the mission statement but also on the definitions and so that's and we need to set some deadline for comments and I'll leave that for a bit later the agricultural policy is listed here because we want to schedule it for a vote you've all had an opportunity to review it some have commented um and um I think the next time we meet is a good time to bring it to a vote so the strategy here in order to make our deadline of the end of this calendar year for all the policies is to start bringing uh individual policies to you which stand alone they're not integrated and have you consider them comment on them have us integrate your comments and then bring it back to you for a vote what that does hopefully is it diminishes the amount of conversation we have at the end of the year and we can conclude this subcommittee um so we're queuing up agricultural policy that Bruce Stedman spent a tremendous amount of time on and our hats off to him and we're bringing it up for an up or down vote next time we meet and that's that's if I've missed something Michelle and Bruce are on the subcommittee if I missed something please fill in Bruce go ahead well I would just comment that I think the agricultural one is the the largest subsection and so once this has been voted on we have done a fair amount as the percentage of the total in terms of of words yes but right not so much deliberation or content okay um so are we looking for a motion on the anr cultural policy Alex or Rachel go ahead um so the the final version is that something that will be in our packet for next time that we'll then vote on at next yes and um we'll make sure that the version which is in the packet is the final version which included all um integrated all comments considered that were provided to us so that gives you folks two weeks and uh I'll check it tomorrow with Aon to make sure and Bruce to make sure it is what I think it is and um then you have two weeks to consider it if you have questions I would ask that you come to the next meeting uh with them formulated or it would even be handy if you submitted them ahead of time so that we're prepared to answer them um and there's some expectation that there will be deliberation by the Commission in the process of coming to a vote and time will be allocated for that I understand yeah okay any questions okay all right good to move on thank you thanks Alex okay um we're g to move on to hearing one uh this is a notice of intent for Niche engineering on behalf of wayfinders Inc for the renovation of an existing School building demolition of an existing parking lot and construction of a new proposed Residential Building attached the existing school with Associated site and utility improvements included parking and storm water management at 31 Southeast street map 15a Lots 20 okay Erin would you please give us our update on this one sure um so there were very few staff comments on this the only comment that I had was um ask asking that the um perimeter of the former basketball court um have compost sock and Filter Fabric silt fence um specifically rather than straw waddle because the Wetland boundary is so close to the boundary of the limit of work and excavation on this particular site um that revision um we we received a revision um on the application um by the meeting or by the Wednesday deadline of last week um but the the revision accidentally included um straw waddle so I did contact the the engineer and ask them to make that correction that correction has been made and it's in the project folder for you um and then the only other condition which I requested was that we have a thirdparty Swip monitor for the during construction for the um erosion control inspections and the Swip inspections which they were completely fine with and they're already in talks with a a third party um to do that work so the bottom line is on this one um I think the the project is in my opinion ready to move unless the commission has additional questions on it and I would be in favor of closing the public hearing tonight so that we can draft an order of conditions for approval at the next meeting you're muted Michelle do we have a project proponent here um I believe yes okay would they like to comment before we take commissioner comments I did um have some communication uh with the planning department on this one just to make sure that um there was no outstanding uh uh concerns from the Zoning Board of appeals before we close the hearing just in terms of additional um adjustments to the plan that might impact the commission's approval and um uh I understand that um uh Nate Malloy communicated with um the representative from wayfinders Jamie Gruber and they were comfortable with closing tonight but um that's just the backstory of my investigation today sarin hi Joshua welcome do you want to give us a five minute minutes or would you like to hear comments from Commissioners first uh yeah sure I think Erin touched upon everything um we refined the erosion control detailing to um originally the the update included put our specifications um we typically detail a compost filter sock um or waddle that could be composed of straw um or compost um that little description was still in the detail so I revised the detail and provided that back to Erin today um so that be a part of any approved um final documents um and then secondarily um Jamie guber with wayfinders he can speak more on his interaction with s swca environmental that's whom he engaged with um to have that um local subc consultant be able to perform the um construction period inspections of the erosion controls and report back to the Conservation Commission thanks Joshua um commissioners comments questions okay I'm seeing none got one oh Jason go ahead thanks um I'm I'm curious I see the the detail for a silk fence with a compost filter sock in front of it can you just walk me through the um rationale behind that and um my concern is that uh whenever I generally see that in the field the a compost sock or straw waddle gets put down silt fence gets put behind it but the silt fence never gets trenched in and then it just sits there is flapping in the breeze um so can you explain the rationale behind having two redundant bmps um yeah sure I'm I'm happy to refine it to just the compost filter sock if that appeases the commission um we'll typically specify this in these sensitive areas um during our site visit with um with Erin in the field we did discuss um the need for Sil fence at that edge um and ensuring that it would be trenched in um so I understand um your concerns regarding the actual trenching in of that Sil fence um I've seen it plenty of times myself on site that the erosion controls aren't installed correctly and um therefore they don't function um and we would hope that in having a third party perform the Swip monitoring through construction we could ensure that it will be installed for the detail okay I'm just is it is so is it's just an extra layer of protection just the extra layer yeah because we understand that um and if you look at the plans we kind of denote a specific area where we're only calling this Al for it's not the full perimeter it's only the area immediately adjacent to um the intermittent stream um so I think we just want to be extra careful of any of those um sediments running off into that um all right and as far as the compost filter sock is concerned I don't I don't see oh 12 inch minimum diameter sock okay all right okay thank you you got it thanks Jason thanks Josh um Alex your hand I'm just going to go to staff first um Ain go ahead yeah I was just going to really quickly state that um on a lot of sites particularly where work is very close to Wetlands I like to have the double barrier I always do inspections prior to work beginning and typically in a situation like that we would have a weekly monitor out there doing inspections but for me um the importance of that Filter Fabric fence does have a double benefit which is it really does provide like a a very definitive visual barrier of where the limit of work line is located so there's no question of somebody accidentally driving over a compost sock or a straw waddle it does really provide that physical barrier that prevents um equipment from crossing over into the Wetland boundary think sah makes sense um Alex yeah I just uh want to comment that it's nice to see affordable housing coming along I don't have any concerns with the proposal we're going to have a connection created between existing two existing Wetlands which we didn't have before and some benefits there but I think it would be um informative for the commission as we um consider affordable housing which has lots of subsidies to make it come forward the town's been working on this a long time and um it's certainly everything every something that everybody wants but I there is public information available on what the range of rents will be and would you mind telling us what the range of rents will be that are considered affordable if if you know that I mean just yeah I'll I know James is on the call um he's had these discussions through the zba meeting process so I'm sure he has that readily available but I'll defer to him yeah and and the um the range of rents is uh you know determined by um What the residents income levels are they're split it um they're split up and and um by what the um percent of the area u mean income is so they they range from 30% of the area mean income to to um we have um rents up to um 50% and 60% of the area media income and 80% and we also have a few market rate units but um to give you an example like a one-bedroom um apartment for a 50% Ami uh single uh person would be uh around $1,000 or a little bit more they're they're subject to change and they're actually um and that would include all of the utilities as far as um heat hot water air conditioning um the buildings are all going to be um accessible and and visitable with with elevator access to all floors um and um to give you another example James that's it's it's okay I'm sorry to interrupt you it's just it's great and it's just not sort of under a purview so I'm just gonna try and move this on um yeah but thank you for that information I saw Bruce's hand up I see that was my point okay great so right now we're looking to close the public meeting for um n engineering on behalf of wayfinders than renovation of this at 31 soueast Street M 15 a lot 20 so mov second all right sorry Bruce on the motion Andre on the second Alex hi Rachel do we have to have public comment thank you public comment raise your hand appreciate that Rachel I'm still seeing none so I'm going to go back to you and if there's public coming I'll interrupt the vote I have to abstain Bruce hi Andre hi checking back still seeing none I'm an i okay thank you James I'm an IO oh sorry Jason okay um before you go on sorry Erin how does the Callin person indicate that they want to speak there's one on the phone but what's the mechanism should that happen so I don't I don't off the top of my head know Bruce but I know that there's um instructions when you dial in that tell you um okay all right someone would like to Google that um there is a way to do it um okay I'm s busy but if if a different person on this commission would like to look that up the simple Google would find that because I have heard it announced before raise your hand star n star n okay great thank you all right thank you okay I'm gonna move on to the next notice of intent this is for Niche engineering on behalf of wayfinders Inc for the demolition of two existing residential dwellings and construction of a new proposed residential building with Associated site and utility improvements including parking and storm water management at 7280 btown Road M 15c Lots 58 59 and 60 okay Erin please give us our update yeah so um I had a couple comments on this one um I did put the the comments in the folder and I've emailed them to the applicant just to run through them really quickly again uh the the compost sock was also a a revision on this one as well because the work is very close to the Wetland boundary on this one because um the rear of the lot there is some Japanese knotweed which is um going to be where the um proposed bio retention area is going to be located that there be a um invasive species management plan by way of you know making sure there's um a narrative description of removal and proper disposal of cuting handling and removal re or reuse of soils and then also if um treatment are required post construction within the storm water basin that there be some protocol or you know a management regime for how that's going to be handled integrated into the plan um again they committed to a third party Swip monitor on this site um there was also in the revision there were changes to the storm water management plan which included um some additional storm water bmps and also adjusting the BMP rather than being an infiltration chamber it got um changed to a bio retention area and so um I would like to see the revised storm Water Report with the adjusted bmps the TSS removal worksheets and then the updated operation and maintenance plan um prior to recommending that we move on it um also just making sure that we're consistent um with the numbering systems um so there's two bio retention areas they should each be numbered and also there appears to be a distinction in the functionality of the bio retention areas one of them being a filtering bio retention and one of them being a um what is it exfiltration or something um why am I my notes exfiltrating bio retention area so we should specify which is which because they have different operation and maintenance requirements um then the planting plan for the bio retention area and then um on the on the specification from D there's some um additional measures can be installed between the parking area and the bio retention area and so I was just inquiring with the engineer as to whether it is possible on this site to add those so that it can be more um sort of in compliance with what the d d standard is um so there's a couple adjustments and a couple additional pieces of information that we need before I will recommend that we move forward on this one but I think it it looks great I think it's better um the adjustments that have been made have moved the storm water basin further from the Wetland it's reduced the amount of impact so I think it's it's going in a great Direction and I think probably by the next meeting we'll be ready to close an issue assuming everything is is um in order thanks aarin Joshua James any comments updates per aon's comments yeah no that sounds great and I appreciate Erin's comments um given the scale of the updates I think it was understood internally it was unlikely we would address everything and and close out this evening um especially with the ongoing zba meetings and um some followup we need to do with the other design team members um for them to to catch up so today is um sort of an introduction to the updates and hope that we can at least agree upon the revised storm water approach so we can work to finalize those revised documents for Aaron um before next week's deadline so um I'm happy to share my screen and we can discuss those updates if you'd like sure shortly um if there's any public comment please raise your hand now and I'll get to you um similarly Commissioners do we want to review Joshua's screen and updates now Alex go ahead last time we met I asked if there was a way to move the parking lot back further from the Wetland and um there wasn't any answer then but the expectation was that you folks would take a look at it and also um I mentioned that there are lots of people in town that are good at moving houses and we do need housing so although it's outside our jurisdiction it it rubs the long way to tear a house down if in fact it could be moved and utilized in another spot to provide housing and I wonder if you folks have made an effort to contact people in town that are good at moving houses to see if you could in fact have them bear the expense of getting rid of the house from the site rather than you spending money to tear it down thanks Alex um I understand that's outside our purview and I don't even know if this house is habitable but um go ahead Dave sure if if uh Jamie is okay with me jumping in there um it's a great idea Alex and we we have considered it we meaning staff of the Town um I think wayfinders is open to uh to such options so we are looking at that um it's not out of the question but um logistically the hardest thing is finding a place for a home to be relocated to and then working on those Logistics but we we we continue to talk about it but I I think it's more incumbent upon the town because currently the property is ours and there are two houses one old and one newer 1980s V vintage I think so we're we are looking at that so just wanted to assure the commission and anyone listening that we we've talked about that a little bit with wayfinders and I think they're open to it and um but it's not within their perview to actually do it um does is that consistent Jamie so we we are looking at it and and we may you know proceed but I can't make any promises today can I respond yeah Jamie it sounds like you're good but go ahead Alex so it is the towns I haven't named anybody who's good at moving houses but you know who I'm talking about and if the town is still just talking and hasn't taken any action maybe it can move to the action stage and see if in fact those houses can be reused um we're going to great effort to create housing and it it just bothers me a bit to car down a house if it's Avail if it's useful uh in another spot end of story thanks Alex I guess the if it's useful part is the is the critical question yeah okay well Joshua I think we'll spare you the screen sharing tonight but um you've heard Erin's comments and our comments as commission I don't see any public comment so I am looking for a motion to continue the public hearing for D number is 089 074 to 1023 2024 740 so moved second I have Andre on the motion Jason on the second Alex hi Andre hi Jason Hi Rachel I'm stain Bruce I andom I okay great thank you very much thank you Joshua James we'll see you later right thank you okay next up we have um notice of intent for Wendell Wetland services on okay I'm going to open the meeting this public meeting is now called to order the hearing is being held as required by the provisions of chapter 131 section 40 of the general laws of the Commonwealth an act relative to the protection of the wetlands is most recently amended and article 3.31 Wetlands protection under the town of Amber General bylaws this is a notice of intent for Wendell Wetland services on behalf of Robert Gustaf for regrading an existing lawn in order to alleviate serious leeding impacts to the basement of existing single family home at 104 Pond viw Drive map 19 C Lots 150 and and I'll let you bring in any project proponents that are here yeah and I don't see Robert so Robert if you're here and you um want to speak just raise your hand and I'll pull you in but I don't see I see a bob oh okay go uh I'm gonna promote hopefully Bob is Robert um okay so I'll just give a quick a quick um staff sort of overview of this um I think that this is so first off by way of history on the situation I've been um in contact with um Robert Bob for probably close to a year now um and understand that this is a a very critical situation um they've had mold issues they've had flooding issues in their basement and um had he and his family have gone through um Great Lengths to make sure that they do this process right um and just understanding the backstory of of the public health issues behind this situation and also um the the design that they've come up with I am um in favor of the commission moving forward as quickly as possible with issuing um um Mr Gustafson the um the order of conditions um I did have a couple quick questions which were the duration of the work so from the time that work begins how long it's expected to take um what time of year the work is proposed to be compl completed and who um would be monitoring um if it would be the homeowner or if um they're proposing to have an outside monitor do the do the um erosion control monitoring I could answer the questions when you ready um according to uh Bob the contractor says it's probably going to take less than a week or a week or less um I he would like to start as soon as possible um in order to take care of the flooding I know concern that the we can get some grass growth um but we've had some pretty mild Falls I can't guarantee you this fall is going to be mild but um I'm hopeful that it will be and I talked to Bob and he's happy to have me um check the erosion control before work starts and send a uh email to the commission via eron um just just a quick um summary of the of the site I think this Bob can correct me if wrong I think this house was built in the 70s um or was it the 80s and they just didn't grade it right so it's kind of a heavy soil like a silt Lo soil and the water just sits there and actually pitches towards the house and ends up coming into their basement so what they like to do is create a Swale within the existing lawn there'll be no alteration of any undisturbed areas um and the S will end in an area where it he that there was an old stump dump that was buried in the lawn so there's kind of a natural depression there anyway that would be um filled with RI wrap about 200 square feet and because it's in the riverfront area although most of there's minimal change other than the change in the Contours um we're proposing to um have 2,000 square feet of the lawn closest to the perennial stream um return to natural conditions in the upper right corner of your photo of the uh the plan here and to plant four red maple trees uh just as uh an air you know to permanently show where the edge of that mitigation area is and to remove the shed that's there now um there's an isolated Wetland to the right you can see that was created Again by the uh improper grading that's not going to be changed or disturbed that's going to be left as is so you can see the Swale to the left um and we're hopeful that this will this will take care of the the problem thank you thanks for um if there's any public comment please raise your hand now I'm seeing none so far I'm gonna go to Commissioners Bruce go ahead oh sorry B wait hold on Bruce I'll let Bob I just want to say early when you read it you said 104 Pon view it's 105 Pon view I don't know I just want to make sure that everyone shows up to the right address so and for the minutes great thank you all right go ahead Bruce um I'm went on the site visit I would recommend that we move to close this thanks Bruce any other commissioner comments Alex go ahead I was also there with Bruce with Aaron and with the people who are coming forward I don't have a single problem with this project um they have an issue there's not going to be um the damn the the the construction will be on their lawn and from the drawing it's difficult for people to get a sense of this project but it's uh I would support going forward without delaying thank you Alex Andre yeah I don't have any issues with it but I do have a question um the that area there has a lot of um a lot of clay uh underneath I've I worked uh doing landscaping uh before down in that area and uh I'm just uh Curious is the uh is this surface water or um is it surface water it's all surface yeah yeah because otherwise it'd be a yeah the isolated Wetland to the right of the house as you looked at the plan it's not ground water it's just rainfall it's just can't go can't infiltrate so we have water coming off the roof and because of the way the the property was graded the water just can't run anywhere it just sits there and actually runs toward the foundation all right thank you Rachel go ahead um yeah I was also there on the site visit and I I just support this this work and also just want to make sure that we keep the door open for this particular homeowner this may become a bit of an edit process um so see how this goes and then just know that he can let him know he can come back um if he needs to amend this he can amend this right yeah we we we looked at putting in a curtain drain and everything but that you know now you're dealing with Excavating right near the foundation and we we're we're hoping that this simple solution will be will do the trick thanks Rachel okay um I see no public comment thank you Commissioners so I'm now looking for a motion to close the public hearing and issue the order of conditions I moveed to close the public hearing and issue an order of for 105 Pawn View Drive D number 08907 42 with a standard boiler PL conditions under both the Massachusetts Wetlands protection act and the wetlands protection town of amoris General bylaws article 3 3.31 and regulations with the noted additional conditions second okay Bru on the motion was that Andre on the second yes yes okay Alex hi Rachel hi Jason Hi Bruce hi Andre hi and I'm and I okay thank you ward thank you Bob best of luck out there thank you very much good luck okay um next up we have um CWD Consultants on behalf of the University of Massachusetts this public hearing is is now called to order the hearing is being held as required by the provisions of chapter 131 section 40 of the general laws of the Commonwealth and act relative the protection of the wetlands is most commonly amended as article 3.31 Wetlands protection under the town of Amber General bylaws and this is a notice of intent for CWD Consultants Inc on behalf of the University of Massachusetts building authority for the construction and expansion of a regional ground Source heat exchange System including geothermal at parking lot 31 and underground piping heat recovery chillers and Associated infrastructure within the existing utility plant at 110 North Service Road map 8A 8C Lots 46 and 13B okay and Aon I see you're drawing in our yeah there's a big team for UMass so I don't know if everybody wants to come in um okay I still see Bob so I'm gonna I think that's this our um let me see I think I saw Jason in here there's a lot of people in the meeting tonight so sure and just please raise your hand to make this easier on Aon and us there we go okay so yeah if and so not everybody may want to be pulled in so um if you raise your hand I'll pull you in but if you're if you're not raising your hand i'm gonna I know there's a big team on board tonight um so while um folks are coming in um I can give just a brief over rview um of my comment which I sent out sort of late this afternoon um but just I'll run through them as quickly as I can um on the Sate visit I observed that um the the low side of the parking lot um there is sort of uh the the westernmost Culvert um I guess it'd be northwesternmost um there was some erosion which was um just west of the catch Basin which kind of indicated that uh the Culvert wasn't functioning um and or maybe it was getting too much runoff at that particular location so um I mean I can do a quick screen share to share my um photos of the site but you can see the catch Bas in here it looks like there's some erosion controls and there's a silt sack in the Basin um or at least there was at the time of the site visit but just beyond um this location there's some rip wrap here and then there's like a a wash out area scour um area on the Downs slope side of that rip wrap and you can kind of see it um in this aerial image here's the corner there's rip wrap and then you can see um looks like a pipe discharging there um so I think that this bottom northwest corner of the lot seems like the most vulnerable location um on the site to me just looking at it but I think this whole western boundary is to be pretty vulnerable during the during the project um I did notice that they um are proposing a water quality unit um on the East northeast side of the lot which is sort of at the higher end of the of the site so I was curious about the Strategic placement of that and why it was located there and not the the lower P point on the site um I am a little concerned about I I know this is going to be wintertime project and it sounds like the um sort of construction um uh process hasn't quite been nailed down as to how this um geothermal well system is going to be installed whether it's installed on existing pavement or whether um the entire parking lot is going to be scraped and and so um soils removed um and so there's very different um management I would recommend depending on both so we're sort of I'm I'm trying to recommend based on a worst case scenario here um assuming that this site is opened up and we have water coming down to this location and potentially ponding uh and would just like to come up with a plan for if that does happen um what will what will the protocol be for controlling um sediment and also um dewatering if the water has nowhere to go um also advocating for some additional um um erosion and sediment controls um just a second second row just to protect those Wetlands which are very close by for anybody who who didn't know the the Town Line is right in this location so it also sort of keeps the materials contained in the town of amest um there is a proposed um snow storage uh on the site as well which was a supplemental submission and there's a point source discharge um associated with that and so I had question about the TSS treatment um of that potential Basin and then um specifications on the silt sack if they could be incorporated in the plan and again they may have been in there and I just missed them I was doing a pretty quick look and then um I'd like to see a sample operation and maintenance log and um operation and maintenance plan which I provided an example of each to the applicant so hopefully um it will give them a um a starting point of what we're looking for thanks Saron I see someone with a remaining hand up Eric um if you can pull them in um okay um applicants Aon has presented a number of questions I don't expect them all to be answered now or tonight so please just take five minutes to maybe address it but I think we're moving towards continuing this public hearing um with a greater addressing of of these things writing in a greater plan but please go ahead and take your five minutes to respond great how you doing again Commissioners my name is Jason venditti for the record I am from UMass I have with me Eric wil hamson from CDW they are the Consultants that are working on this uh noi with us we actually have uh there are a couple other members that are on call or I should say on ready ready in the ready if needed GZA from uh the geotechnical Consultants we have uh this civil engineering leading team RF so if we need more information that might need to be uh discussed we can do that but Eric has the gist of The Proposal but I wanted to make sure we're clear on what we're trying to do here so the university is proposing to do geothermal Wells within the existing footprint of lot 31 uh this is an existing um parking lot that we want to we did uh analysis in regard to where we should put geothermal wells in the side of campus and after a long study and a very expensive study in regard to what we could do to mitigate our carbon and to go to move our campus forward in our mission to be more stewards for environmental causes we settled on the fact that this parking lot being an existing parking lot that was in distress already was a great uh test case in regard to the fact that it was a a great location within the limits of the footprint of the parking lot is where we're proposing to do the work um we did do test well that showed that the performance of The Well in this area of this campus was actually going to be functional so our plan as a campus was to propose to you tonight as an noi was to uh propose geothermal Wells to rehab this exacting Park a lot what we want to do is talk about the fact that we have some changes that are small um we want to remove Islands anybody who's ever plowed for living knows that if you plow in their Islands there those things are just not good things to have because they're just not good so we want to remove the islands and therefore that is an increased impervious area so that is one of the changes that is going to be made and Eric will talk more in detail about that but uh this is going to feed two buildings that we are currently under construction for the sustainable engineering laboratory which I think I mentioned to you guys a couple meetings ago uh that's going to be in the center of our campus that's a new building that's near Draper hall and then under construction right now the uh computer science building rad off going D is where that so this is going to feed those two buildings so it's a good initiative so I'll let Eric talk about the details of that there are some comments that you had Erin that Eric has already started to respond internally to that we could probably get into details for already um we did do a site walk with both Hadley and ammer which I think was a a good uh it's I think it's a good thing because it's was a conversation that we had had last night about the fact that Hadley views this as a redevelopments parking lots existing but we wanted to make sure that both towns are on board at the same time so it's it's a good conversation to have were appreciative the fact that the town boundary like literally dissects the resource area that we're talking about the most of the work is taking place in Hadley but the resources were protecting I mean excuse me are in amorth but the resources were protecting are in Hadley so it's actually a great conversation good litmus test for us going forward as a you know as a campus in regard to the fact that we have ammer in Hadley lands so Eric I like you to take the re here and just go through the details of the project and um look forward to the commentary sure let me just uh share my screen although it like it's disabled right now um I see the same thing I I don't have a share button try one more time y there it goes okay assum you can see that no see it let me see you I see me um Dave are you still on the call oh there we go okay I just wanted to make sure it wasn't okay we're looking at the parking lot thank you yep okay so here here's the extense of that existing parking lot is the Town Line in magenta and we highlighted the uh Wetland boundary as well as some of the the bucker zones moving down to the demo plan so demo and erosion control so at start of construction they'll basically surrounding the site with a Sil multi fil silk sock extends around the perimeter it's down around the sides um and then as said the G these islands are going to be removed put in a construction entrance the C the two catch basins that are in this parking lot will also have silk sacks and additional mulch filled stilt socks around them and just move down to the GU with the V of the work is shown which is this utility plan so with the removal of the islands which are basically going to be under or through all these gos we are have a slight increase in it in impervious to account for that we have a new drainage pipe that's replacing an existing pipe that connects this upper parking lot to the lower parking lot down to this drainage manhole and everything sort of discharges out to the side here this catch BAS here which Aaron was talking about before also has its own outlet pipe and under the proposed conditions that a the entire perimeter of the parking lot is going to have a new curve which includes around this corner and it put the new curb places the catch Basin right at the corner the ex that existing curb has a bit of pavement behind it and and pretty much no curb along this side so any water that sort of accumulates here if it's not going through the catch Basin it doesn't take much for it to Pond a little bit just sort of flows off the edge here the there a better view hold on this entire Southern Edge has a uh Earth and BM that's higher than the curb so this is the curb here and then the ground is mounted up except for just that corner so as the water comes down and you know pours into that area there's no curb there's nothing to hold it restrain it so it's it's just been sort of sheep flowing off and into the grass area so I'm sorry I'm just gonna interrupt you while we're looking at that that's the really the low point in the drainage section of the entire lot right yes so is there any proposed um storm water mitigation for that low point which already seems to be a problem in current conditions and maybe exacerbated by additional work well there's nothing directly being proposed in this corner the new drainage pipe here has been sized to deal with the increase in in flow and volume from the removal of these islands this entire I said this whole upper parking lot or or at least a portion of it there's a catch Basin right there so this entire portion here as well as most of this parking lot all comes down to this corner so and that was the corner we were just looking yet yes so by picking up the water here we have room to put in a a flat I believe it's a 24 inch pipe to hold back some of the water which flows out an overflow con control structure while this water quality unit that's up here treats and cleans the water as it goes before it goes into that detention pipe which then is released into the that existing drainage manhole before it overflows and discharges into the W so the the mitigation for the increases is happening here along with the water quality unit again size to treat the additional volume of runoff that happens with the removal of the island okay thanks ER I mean I guess I and I don't even want to try and address this right now because I think we have a list of questions to get through but um it seems like there's already an existing problem that's not being dealt with with the current flow and so the mitigation for the additional flow is not necess necessarily addressing the existing problem but I see your storm water expert hand up so I'm going to just call on yeah go ahead Eric I'll let you so when this parking lot is being rebuilt this whole Edge will have a new curve and the water will won't discharge or flow past that catch Basin anymore it'll be forced into that catch Basin okay thank you Jason go ahead yeah um I have a lot of the same concerns that Michelle has um you mentioned that the upper parking lot is also going to be discharging into that new pipe it it already does under so there's a couple cach basins up in this corner that connect down through and and connect already down to this existing drainage manle so it already all flows this way MH and with the proposed grade that's being shown here it will like most or if not all of this parking lot is going to drain to that corner yes it does currently we're not really we're not changing the grades we're not expanding its size these are the existing Condors everything comes across down to this corner and you can see on this plan there's there's burm along these sections and then the firm sort of disappears through here and there's the that widening of the pavement which is going to be removed and the and the curb line straightened out and a new curb and everything will have to go through that catch base right so in the proposed condition everything still drains that corner yep but you're saying that you're putting a new pipe in that's going to catch what and you're calling it a the tension pipe yes there's a pipe with a weir so it it's it's a flat pipe it's basically similar to an underground ground plastic chamber it's just we're just using a pipe instead it holds back the water and slowly releases it so that the increase and runoff from the removal of the islands doesn't exceed predevelopment conditions but the increase but removing the islands that water still going to the corner all this water also still comes to the corner the the this pipe here wherever it is put in within the existing drainage system is still reducing the volume of water that comes to this manhole doesn't really matter where you pick the water up from it's reducing the water to this manhole which is the the main discharge point so the volume of water that's coming it's Eric the the water the corner there yeah there's a the where does this corner uh discharge it's connect Ed to to this catch Basin and to and to that drainage manhole and it also has its own discharge pipe so the water that so that corner is discharging out of that 10inch diameter PVC pipe yep so by removing the islands and increasing the impervious surface you're increasing the flow to that to that corner to that man or to that uh catch Basin Inlet which means you're increasing the discharge out of that 10-in pipe so this detention pipe on the leftand side of this screen is not catching or in any way taking any of the flow from the increased impervious surface from the removal of the islands there is a volume of water that comes off the the islands that same volume of water is being captured in this pipe it doesn't capture the direct flow from the former location of the island but it still captures that same volume it's just picking it up off of this section of the parking lot but that section of the parking lot's not included in your PL your project the upper parking lot isn't part of this project correct the drainage that runs through it is but you're not but you're not collecting any of the drainage from your project site in that new pipe the same volume of water but it's not because it's not on your project yes it is but it's not your Project's water it's you're catching run on it's all piped to this drainage manhole right but that that that upper parking lot's not part of the project right that's not like being constructed directly on the upper parking lot but there is a volume of water that comes off of this parking lot flows into the same drainage system that's under this existing parking lot comes to this drainage manhole and and flows out we are intercepting and and collecting and and holding back the volume of water that comes off of these islands if I have a hose that sitting up here flooding water this way and and a hose over here flooding water over this way and I shut off this hose over here there's still a redu in water coming into this into this well but that hose is not water that's related to your project it it is it's flowing it's not you're taking flow from off of your project site the existing condition flow for this point includes all the water Upstream that flows through the site but it's not part of your project is what I'm saying your limit of work is on that slope between the two parking lots right we're not you're not necessarily building anything in on this particular section of the parking lot but where we are still intercepting the pipe that's bringing flow from that parking lot through our site yeah and I think what the big issue here is that or one of the qu the question that I'm talking about and I think Michelle was talking about is that you're not doing anything to mitigate or treat or capture the existing uh the additional impervious surface due to the project that you're proposing you're catching water off site and you're moving it around underground under your project but you're not doing anything to treat the water running off of your project and you're not doing anything to treat the water in that corner which is a problem spot you're gonna have a curb there that's what 3 in you're going to have some additional impervious surface that's contributing flow to that corner to that curb and there's a lot of potential for that water to just overrun that catch Basin and still jump over the curb and you're not actually treating any of the water from your project site you're treating offsite runon and I understand it's a drainage area that you're treating but your drainage area you know drainage areas are usually much bigger than project areas but you have to treat it's my understanding that you have to treat the water from your project area you have to treat a volume of water it doesn't really matter where the water comes from because it's going through the site it's part of the flow to this section if if by treating this it here it's treating the same volume of water that's coming off here but it's not treating like if you have additional pollutants or an additional volume of water it's not being captured in that dmh1 right it's no it's being it's the required volume is being treated here the water still all comes through the site it still all discharges to the same place place it doesn't really matter how you or where you treat that volume from or let's if you had to infiltrate that volume it's it's reducing the TSS the suspended solids that are coming and discharging to this point by treating it here it's the same as putting it in in here we elected to put it up here because this is where the the pipe is and there's all these Wells and underground systems that are that are in the way and there's not a lot of room to work in here and and put a similar drainage system in here I think that Jason and I are on the same page with our concerns but I see a number of other hands up so I'm going to go to Erin do you want to just take a a staff stab um yeah I just wna I just wanna if I can just take control and I'm trying to see if this will allow me to annotate because I I completely agree with Jason and this is what I see um is that there's a line that goes about like this and there's water coming into the site from the park we can't I don't think we can see a cursor we can see it Aon but your line should go from the the lowest drainage Point not to the corner sorry I can't see your cursor I can't see your cursor let me um Let me let me try again I saw it can you guys see my screen no um Eric would you mind stop sharing yeah thank you okay now I see a different screen okay let me try in red maybe this will help so I'm I'm doing this I'm not an engineer I'm just going by you know approximation here so so bear with me so I think you want the screen with the elevations yeah I'm let's just go with this we can look at the elevations I just want to show you just where what I'm getting at we can look at elevation so there's a there's a cut Point that's approximately here okay and you've got a parking area that's up here water already comes from this parking lot and comes down to this location there's there's a catch Basin here a catch Basin here a catch Basin here what they're doing is they're adding a water quality unit here to improve the water coming off of that upper parking lot and then you know bring it down and so it'll be cleaner at this discharge Point here 100% agree with that and I think that the applicant is on point with that what my concern is and number one I completely agree with Jason and we've seen this on many other sites where curbing does not stop storm water water jumps curbs water flows through curbs um the water is still going to come across this entire parking lot to the low point it's going to collect here and we have old catch basins I don't know how functional they are um but we know that the the point is here where all that drainage is coming to so you know looking at this I would think there would need to be more considerations down in this corner um and that's that's what I see when I look at this plan but I can definitely pull up the um the um topography so you guys can see it a little more clearly as well while you're doing that I'm gonna take Rachel's comment Rachel go ahead yeah um I I have a lot of detail comments which I can just send since this is going to be continued um or or may be continued but um related to that the existing condition um Eric in your report you were saying you know you are improving over the CFS of the runoff but it's at like 12 is um is is one of the conditions and you know from from um critical erosive velocities of grass and soil you know once we get above four in most conditions CFS or five CFS you will see erosion down slope of release so one of the questions might be is um at the outlet of of that catch Basin do we need something else do we need a level spreader do we need something else in your system to help slow that down or retain that or reduce that velocity coming out 12 CFS is pretty high um and then with the you know with the geothermal Wells I'm really excited that you guys are doing this um DP has shared guidance to the commission about the construction of the wells and the different types of wells and things to look for with respect to protecting groundwater um so it' be really helpful to have from your from your team a detailed description for example is this a is this an open system or a closed system if it's an open system you know when you bleed it where you going to send the water um what are your leakage protection measures that level of detail would be helpful to know to make sure that we are protecting the groundwater in this area um the depth of the piping especially with the high groundw that was referenced in the report um and then also during construction um dewatering any dewatering that you have to do or any of those spoils that's 800 feet of spoils is a lot of material that you're bringing up on site like how is that going to be managed um during construction and then um I know I'm all over the place right now but the bigger question is okay great so you're removing these islands for ease of Maintenance it's increasing imp area is there a scenario where you you truncate the parking lot area I mean those weren't parking spaces before could you shift that and reduce the the footprint of the parking lot so that you have the same number of spaces but you you have you're not increasing impervious area and therefore you'd be pulling your parking lot further away from the wetlands I mean I think you guys had referenced the 35 no touch we have a 50 foot no touch now in ammer so um that might that might be helpful thanks Rachel um all very good points and hopefully ER and they can be combined into a yeah continuation set of um points to address um I'd love to see that pulled back into the 50 Foot thank you Rachel for catching that especially um yes per D guidance so I'm not sure that it's valuable for us to go into more detail tonight about this um unless there's any commissioner hanging comments um seems like we need to talk more about this um if there's any public comment please raise your hand still seeing none um so I think we have some more back and forth between staff and Gass um per comments tonight so with that I'm now looking for a motion continue the public hearing for D number 089 074 210 2324 at 750 so moved I'll second Alex on the motion Jason on the second Alex hi Rachel hi Jason Hi Bruce hi Andre hi and I'm and I thank you Jason and Eric um and we'll see you again okay okay we're um on to other business and the first up is Hickory Ridge solar project update do we have a project proponent here tonight Erin you're muted I see laoren I've got Lawrence added sorry I was muted um Lawrence should be coming in if there's anybody else from Pure Sky hiding in the attendees just go ahead and raise your hand I've just sent uh Neil from Dynamic a test text he'll be joining shortly so keep your eye out okay I can hear Lawrence but I don't see him oh you don't want to see me I walk around like and you'll end up looking like The Blair Witch Project all right well I don't even see your icon but oh there no Dave okay welcome Lawrence um do you want to give us a brief brief update on how it's going at hick Bridge please yes it's uh it so far it's been a very frustrating project um we are um constantly discovering new things um and uh We've uh obviously running out of time now for the rest of the year um at the moment uh we've got uh the trenching and combiner boxes are in the fence is part of the way around the site we've got the uh polls sorry the foundations for the um for the racking going in um we are dealing with a couple of uh issues with the racking company at the moment to do with the some topography concerns that they have particularly on the western side um but uh uh we're we're so we're dealing with that at the moment um we are still uh aiming to have this completed by the end of the year there may be some residual civil work that we'll need to come and touch up in the spring uh as far as the CMP goes that work is progressing um we've uh again uh given the the the length of time since the original C CMP uh and the fact that plants tend to grow um we have uh found a a lot of natural um Native species uh that have uh since grown in the areas and a couple of the invasives uh in some neighboring areas are worse uh than anticipated um so we're uh looking we're working with natural heritage at the moment in ways to to deal with those and overcome those um but yeah progressing uh slower than we'd hoped um but uh aiming for end of year completion okay thank you um and Erin can you just give us a brief update on the progress and what we are considering tonight um yeah so um just in terms of sort of overall compliance with the order of conditions um there have been sort of a couple um areas where the phasing has not aligned with the order of conditions and I think part that's part of the reason why Lawrence is here this evening um so just to give you an example of that um in the order of conditions the um Eastern array is supposed to be where work um begins and um work begins on the Eastern array and a portion of the Eastern array um would be uh constructed and there would be sort of a phasing so like I don't have the exact order of conditions in front of you but say like half the Eastern array is completed there's an inspection then they're given permission to move on to the second half and then once they complete the Eastern array and it's stabilized they would move on to the Western array um in in practice what has happened is the trenching has gone in on both arrays um so there's there's been trenching on on both of the solar array sites and um rather than starting on the Eastern array they've started on the western array and the Western most end of the western array um doing the driving of the posts um for the arrays and then my understanding and Lawrence I don't want to speak for you here because I know this is your ask to the commission but um sort of I think what pure sky is looking for this evening some relief on the phasing um in the order of conditions so is to allow them to just move forward with construction of both arrays and at the same time construct the equipment pads um so that they can try to work through the winter to get the project completed and and again please correct me if I'm wrong I'm just sort of parap no that's that that's generally the gist of it Erin um the the main reason for for looking at being able to do both pads at the same time is obviously we're running out of time for the uh for the end of the year now um in terms of as far as growing uh Seasons go what we'd like to be able to do is do both pads at the same time so that that that's the last kind of major ground disturbance efforts um that uh and the uh DPW Road um they're the last remaining ground disturbance uh things and we want to get those started sooner rather than later on both sides so that we've got uh some as much stabilization as we can before the end of the growing season uh we are already going to have to deal with some additional measures things like Juke mats and uh some additional bmps to to ensure the stabilization and also the use of possible things like winter rye and things to get some temp stabilization over the winter and then a refresh in the in the spring thanks sarin thanks Laurence so I mean the end of the growing season is about 30 days from now um yeah yeah okay uh see you Jason I guess I just want to remind the Commissioners who have been here that we spent a lot of time on the phasing specifically for the stabilization ideas and purposes for the buildout and um so this is kind of a unas to wave the phasing um that was put in place to ensure that stabilization would happen throughout buildout of both sections so I'm not I can't remember who was here when we did that but it was a fairly lengthy process that went through and detailing that process go ahead Jason yeah um we are coming up rapidly on the end of the growing season and I think that if this winter is like any of the last four or five there's probably going to be a good bit of rain um how Lawrence how many acres then do you propose to have exposed at one time and then um what is your anticipated time frame to finish the construction right and I assume you this is just the construction of the racking system or is this are you proposing to go through the racking system the equipment the panels everything all in x amount of time no so we we've we've got some uh some topography issues on the uh the Western array that we're still dealing with the raging company with to find out what their solution is there um where the it goes up and down in certain areas we've got um uh the torque tubes higher than uh 3 MERS above ground um which is for those people that don't do is about uh 9 ft um and anything above that three MERS is is outside of the testing so we're looking at uh some possible uh ways to uh in increased wind deflection uh in a couple of couple of spots um we're waiting on uh on some feedback from FTC the racking company on those but we're talking about the two pad areas uh obviously most of the pad is is is the concrete uh we're talking about the areas where the is graded around the edges so we're we're under under an acre across both Paths of of disturbance so you're looking to disturb less than an acre yes and then you're going to you said concrete the pads are concrete yep so they're G in their finished condition they're going to be concrete pads correct and what uh and I apologize because I don't have the plans up me but what is the what is the Finish condition around those pads supposed to be it's uh it's seated with grass and uh it's kind of just as we got some grading where we we match it up to to the slopes and things um they'll be loan put down and then seeding around the edges so is what you're asking for to just grade the areas where the pads will be or grade the areas where the pads will be plus the areas around those pads so it's it we've already got approval for the pads uh it's just that we've got to build one pad on one site and then one pad on the other per the phasing fan what we'd like to do is build both of them at the same time so that uh they can uh they can both start the stabilization as soon as possible we're not looking to alter alter the plans in any way just to be able to do them at the same time what is the time frame for building those pads uh as soon as we can get the approval um we will uh coordinate and do that and start within the next week or so no I mean what what how long will it take from start to finish uh the pads will take uh I would say uh little over a week um to get formed and poured and uh and then we can uh start with the great side so so I just want to um comment that one of the things the commission has to decide is if if this is a minor formal Amendment the order of conditions and one of the things of the order of conditions was the phasing which again we spent a lot of time on because of wet Winters because of um stabilizations um so keep that in mind and and I guess one thing that makes me uncomfortable is that we have nothing in writing about um mitigation measures or if there is significant rain or if your time period goes over what if then and I guess it it would it would make me feel a lot more comfortable if we had some kind of mitigation to your plan or not mitigation but at least sort of a um a plan you know like how what is your timeline what are you going to do if there's a signic rain event like what the map anything and really this is like a a verbal request towards um an amendment of an order of conditions that we probably spent months determining for phasing so obviously there's the Swip which details a lot of the bmps and things that we'll be using we've also worked quite closely with Erin over the uh over the past year uh on this as well so we would stick within the terms of and the um proposals within the Swip to deal with the the areas and stabilization um and work with Aon if there's any additional um uh any additional measures that we need to do to uh to provide the uh the stabilization progress over the over the winter month okay so but in terms of timeline that's sort of like uh you're in the middle of construction and here comes a huge storm and what are you going to do because the ground's not frozen and there's three inches of rain coming so you know not having any kind of measures in place to deal with that and US approving what I think is sort of a major administrative change to our order of conditions that we spent a lot of time on is is is um honestly I'm I'm not that comfortable with it so i' I'd be interested to hear what other Commissioners that have been involved especially with this project over the last couple years and have some knowledge of how we've dealt with this in the future or in the past any comments would be appreciated here um I guess it's a significant change of events and I think we're depending on Frozen Ground scenarios which I just don't feel like we can depend on anymore um and also given the timeline and the setbacks that have already happened I'm not sure I can definitively say based on your progress so far and the benchmarks that you have or have not met that you're definitely going to meet it within the 30-day growing season so with the it's just to give us the chance there um obviously if we don't get the permission to do both pads that the both pads will be be done in the sequence so one after the other it's just that the other one the second pad will definitely be built in the winter months with the the same bmps so it's it's not a question of us doing one pad and then waiting till the spring to do the other pad we we will be building both pads in the sequence if you if we can't do them at the same time um it just gives us the the chance to be able to to get in and and use the last of the growing season now the second dependent upon the stabilization of the area around the first pad can you say that again Jason didn't quite catch it isn't the build wasn't the phasing you have to stabilize the first one before you can move on to the second one that was the isn't do we have the sorry do we have the conditions please chime in I can get the conditions um the so the the pads were um proposed to be constructed later um so this is just an overall of the entire project this is the Eastern array this is the Western array these are the equipment locations that um Lawrence has been referencing um so I'm just going to zoom back up to the top and get to the get to the conditions so um and I this is the the um sequence thing that is on the plan so this gives you a sense of sort of what their proposal was on the approved plan set so I'm going to try to zoom in here so that you can guys can see these but there there are additional phasing considerations in the order of conditions which further break out the phasing so construction of the compensatory floor uh storage area which has been done um silt fence inspection obviously um placement of the culverts so the the replacement of the CTS just to give you more specific the CTS are installed but the wing walls have not been installed because the um concrete Wing walls were a little late being delivered so that's that section of the um uh phasing has also been adjusted so that that will be done once the Western array is completed um removal of trees grubbing removal of stumps um conduct minor grading implementation of St ization measures and then install of the arrays and so um they have phase 7A is installation of the Eastern array and phase 7B is installation of the western array we have again those phases broken up so that it's half of each array being constructed at a time and then construction of the equipment areas is the next phase um and then like the the install of the utility poles has already been completed some of the security fence has been been completed um but you can see the the phasing has has um jumped around but I think the the big thing that Lawrence is is wanting to do is basically to make this all one phase so combining the full arrays for each um to do at the same time and also to construct the the equipment area the equipment pads um and then also to construct the um potentially well I mean uh the emergency access which is off outside of concom jurisdiction but that is another excavation um that would be taking place on the site and then the installation of the um the sewer line access which was a request of the DPW um so that's another sort of um area of excavation in the middle of the site and that runs um try to just give you a general idea of where it's located so the sewer line runs through the Eastern array and there's um a proposal to install an access road for the DPW in that location so that would require excavation in that location as well I think visuals help me so I wanted to make sure I get a visual up so everybody can see it thank you Erin I mean I guess Lawrence I if you want to throw out the phasing I'd be interested in seeing something in writing to give some kind of plan for you know contingencies and what you expect to do out there there in a 30-day time frame and what if a significant rain event happens which it probably will rather than not um and just something that we can lean on and and hold you to um because right now this is very much like uh word to mouth through a concom meeting and it's not a lot to lean on and I once again want to reiterate that we did spend a lot of time discussing the phasing and the importance of this and stabilizing this very sensitive site um I see you Dave I'm just I'm gonna go to Jason so we can follow up on his previous comment thanks yeah so I would I'm still interested in going back to our conditions um you know Michelle you're right we spent a lot of time on this and it's it is a sensitive site and I just want to I want to make sure that we do have a plan um I I I'm I'm just fully in agreement with Michelle we don't have a plan we don't see anything um we worked on this for a long time to get this phasing and you know to to to grade and pour two conrete pads grade and then try to stabilize within 30 days sounds like a tall order to me so I would like to I would just like much more of a plan thanks Jason Dave go ahead sure thanks Michelle um I'm not disagreeing with anything that has been said and if the commission I I I agree if if the commission would like or want something from Pure sky on you know inwriting with a plan I I think that is a good path forward um I did just want to put it a little bit in context um just to pull us back for a second um that um you know overall except for what Lawrence has described as delays in the pure Sky project from the standpoint of the town and our Wetlands administrator and myself we were as recently as last Friday out there for a couple hours on site with Lawrence and his team um the site is very stable right now it is vegetated um so I just wanted to put it in context that there really haven't been issues significant issues on the site uh with regard to Resource areas um as Aaron said many of the uh the the uh the items on the order of condition have been accomplished uh from Pure Sky standpoint they have gotten behind and here we are approaching winter but I just wanted to put it in the context that right now the site is very stable I'm not arguing at all in pure Sky favor I'm just wanted to set a little bit different tone because I think many of you haven't been on out on the site and if a site visit would be helpful I'm sure Lawrence would meet us out there but I I just wanted to say that the site is very stable right now and as as laurren said they're talking about uh two small areas and again I agree a plan and u a contingency plan if as Michelle said there's a 34 inch rain which we know we can get in the next 30 days 45 days what happens there I did want to confirm with Aaron though even if can pure Sky move forward right now with the first pad and then the second pad throughout the fall is that in keeping with the order of condition conditions um the the pads are phase eight so they'd be after construction of the arrays according to the phasing okay um okay so I think that's all I wanted to say but I just wanted to say that overall the site is very good condition as of the 9th of October um I I think it's really up to you all whether you um allow this change and perhaps a site visit um as soon as possible would be good for you to see where they are thanks for the context Dave are these recent photos yep these are the pictures from our site visit last Friday I mean to my semi-trained ey I see a lot of dirt but well you're also seeing the access roads most of those are the access roads which will not be vegetated they will be permanently okay so I do see how um a site visit could be very informative to this and and I just I think we're converging on needing something in writing just for a plan that we can read and review and vote on Bruce go ahead I just wanted to ask Dave if if is the stabilized condition that exists a function of having stuck to the phasing up to now um I guess I would defer to Aon on specifics on that but we did we did um we um Jason Jason Lawrence and his the other staff person from Dynamic who out there and we they walked us through how the um how the arrays will be installed very specifically and so again I would defer to Lawrence is Lawrence still here yes he's still here and maybe Lawrence wants to run through um to to install the arrays uh there isn't as much uh there there's no ground clearing the the the posts are installed in the ground and then the arrays are installed on top of those so yes there is some back and forth over over the um over the the grade of the of the two arrays but Lawrence maybe you could if Michelle would allow Lawrence could explain that but I think you have to be out there and see it to understand they're not clearing the land of vegetation they're they're simply traveling over it with a skid steer or smaller piece of equipment to install the post and then the arrays on top of the post okay um thanks da Rachel can you not very familiar with the project yet and I I heard of something about sewer line DPW is there a critical path item there in terms of considering phasing and things that um there's a public safety element to this at all is that an existing sewer is that a new sewer what what's that an existing okay so it it's not impacted by phasing discussions the installation of the sewer line no is not part of the phasing nope well if I could there is no installation of sewer line okay right we're not installing a sewer line we're we're simply installing a pure sky is installing a road over the sewer line that exists in case there is a breach of that sewer line sometime in the future okay that was all part of the original project okay thanks um um I do see public comments so if there's no further commissioner comments questions I'm gonna move to that um see none Lawrence's hand has been up for a little while oh I can't see Lawrence at all for some reason sorry Lawrence that's okay it's because I'm not on video so it's probably only thing we keep referring to a plan there is a plan it's the Swip is the storm water pollution prevention plan it lists the bmps and things like that that will be necessary throughout the project and and and also just if we stick to the current phasing then both of those pads still get constructed but they get constructed in November and December rather than October so it's it's it's not a question of that we don't build the pads they they do get built and the the plan that's been in the Swip that's been submitted to and approved by the concom previously is the is the is the document that we'll be we'll be doing I'm happy to provide a further narrative about any additional measures um but I'm also happy to work with Erin on uh on a sort of a an ad hoc basis as to um uh when this is happening any additional measures that she may see fit over and above what's been laid out in the Swip to do with uh the use of things like erosion control uh um matting and and things like that thanks Lawrence I mean the Swip isn't our permit so I guess in terms of our purview um we're talking talking about the order of conditions and that's where I'd like to see some kind of formal inwriting um revision and proposal of that Jason I see your hand up I'm just do you mind if I go to public comment first yeah go ahead okay um I see Mike lapinsky has his hand up Aron do you mind allowing him to you're on mute I and I don't have controls I I added Mike Mike are you able to he on mute Mike Linsky 167 shoot spare road ammer to I apologize in advance because I have a number of questions and comments and because I have a pretty long list I I would just like to have the comment or the question addressed as they come up so that they don't get lost sure but let's just please try and keep it timely and we I'm going to try but there's a lot to to uh address here um I think it's pretty clear I mean pardon the pun but you're looking at a project that's really in disarray um it's a project that's been going on now for over two years since they've been cutting down the trees it went through a long period this spring and where nothing happened of any significance and suddenly there's a big push to get things done and it's been such a big push that you can see already things have happened out of the phasing I don't know if they were given permission to do things out of the phasing or if they just did it they went and they dug trenches and they installed a conduit and they installed solar collect not solar collectors but solar compilers um because the equipment happened to arrive I don't know if they were given permission to do that but they worked on both sides of uh the project when they weren't supposed to it was definitely out of the phasing um they went and they started putting the uh posts up on the wrong side of the phasing I don't know if they were given permission to do that but that's what's happening so you already have a situation where they're coming to ask for permission to uh disregard the phasing but they've already disregarded the phasing Lawrence said they want to be complete by the end of the year my question my first question is what does complete mean does that mean all solar panels installed all electrical equipment installed everything done wrapped up what does complete mean because I just can't imagine them having the ability to get this done in that time period we're coming across Thanksgiving we're coming across Christmas and suddenly this project that's just been sitting there languishing is going to go into extreme high gear so what does completion mean Mike so this isn't going to be like a back and forth but if you'd like to give your pro um um your comment you have about one more minute left just a quick point of order uh along with what you're saying Michelle um the uh questions are not asked between uh public and presenters questions are addressed to the chairperson and then they uh then they're relayed from there we're sure idea is to avoid a a uh I understand a quarrel if you would so I'll ask commission what do you think completion means and we're still not going to make this a back and for us so please take your one more minute going thank you the the um concrete pads that you're talking about are for putting electrical equipment and for putting batteries on as far as I know there hasn't been a battery plan that's been approved and I'm trying to figure out how you can assemble those pads for batteries that haven't been approved yet um there's something called a pull test which happens and that happens early in the project they they U pound in the steel post that they're planning to use and that was done a long time ago since that test was done they've changed the way they're mounting the post they're drilling a hole about 18 24 inches wide and it's drilled down about four or five feet then they're pounding in the post then they're filling in the hole they created with stones that's not what they tested for when they tested they just pound it in a steel post and I'm wondering if a test has been done on this new method of putting the post in because my guess is that it's not going to be as stable as the original test that was done also okay no I think your time's up thank you um Jason go ahead yeah I I just wanted to come back to the I don't know eron if you can provide it but come back to the actual phasing that we discussed as far as the stabilization with the pads was was the specific language that pad one would be constructed the area stabilized permanently stabilized then they would move on to pad two and permanently stabilize it or was that they would just build the entire array and then move on to the next array and where like where do the paths fall in because um I think like Michelle said the Swip isn't our purview per se it's the order of conditions so um yeah and I can try to toggle back and forth to the the so their phasing is shown on the plan um that was the sequencing that I um shared with you guys previously um so to just to try to answer your questions like everything that you just fired off Jason um the the arrays were broken out by Western and Eastern on their sequence the construction of the equipment areas was not um broken out in terms of constructing one at a time um the so going to the order of conditions and looking at the phasing there's supposed to be a preconstruction meeting in between each phase of the um construction sequence um and there were some of the phase was combined um to consolidate certain phases so that they could you know proceed with with things at one time um but the specifics really where the phasing was controlled um strictly was under phase seven which that's the 7A 7B on the plan set and through the 7A and SE um 7B it was broken out in ours as multiple steps and I'm just going to scroll so you guys can read it excuse me sorry about that um so it's um construction shall begin on the Eastern array three acres of the Eastern array must be fully stabilized before work can begin on the western array when work commences on the western array it may only begin in the easternmost half of the western array and only after the entire Eastern array is fully stabilized can work begin on the western half of the western array and then there's some additional um narrative about um soil disturbance um and I don't know if you guys recall but during the the permit phase there was discussion about using Timber matting um in the drive ISS because like one of my big concerns particularly right now with this project is uh equipment um tracking back and forth over the vegetation especially through the winter and if we have rain it turning in really muddy um and so Timber matting was originally approved but um I'm not sure where the timber matting um discussion stands I know we discussed in the field a little bit potentially having Timber matting over the main drive a to try to reduce the amount of um sort of mud and ruting that's happening with the construction like on the the main Drive aises where the vehicles are going to be tracking repeatedly um but just a an ongoing communication through phase seven being the the most um detailed in the order of conditions and the remaining phases were were really step by step again the equipment areas were sort of combined together as being done at one time is there more than three acres exposed right now I don't think so I mean not exposing any of the area underneath the panels correct are they exposing area under the panels right now yeah so from the reports from the photos and the reports you've got the the piles of driven you know you can tell they D they've driven on it but they haven't they're not grading it right so you don't have you know quote unquote exposed soil from a kind of a Swip standpoint you have some exposed soil but it's not totally graded there's not three acres exposed right now right so in theory do they have at least three acres stabilized to allow them to move on to the next step and I want to I and sorry I want to just clear this up I'm not necessarily against them doing this like we have erosion sediment controls people work you know projects get built during rainy Seasons all the time that's what erosion settlement controls for um I just want to make sure that we're not doing something that we we may regret in the future by allowing these phasings but it sounds like they already are kind of meeting the conditions to move on and as long as we have those meetings as long as we have those pre-construction meetings and erosion settlement control bmps are in place and the sight's in good condition I'm not opposed to it yeah and you know I think it's a um so my understanding Jason is that the The Proposal is not to do like say one half of the western array stabilize it and then do the second half of the western array I think the proposal is for them to go through the entire Western array and drive posts go through the entire Eastern array and drive posts then they're going to have somebody coming behind to do the additional steps in the installation process which you know the the wiring the installation of the racking you know getting the panels installed and all those steps so it's um it's going once there is work taking place on both of these arrays which we're talking um and again I'm I'm working off of my memory here but I want to say one is about 12 acres and one is about 20 acres the arrays themselves so um it ends up being a big land area and it's going to get complicated in terms of assessing land disturb disturbance on both arrays if they're being worked on at the same time just relative to your comment just now it was a good question no Jason but I think what we need is just some kind of inwriting plan which would help us understand what the total discernment area is going to be like relative to the phasing plan and then we can we can actually think about it from there and I'm totally willing as Dave suggested to do um a a very quick site visit so people can get like some actual on the ground context for this but I really also want to move on with this um I see three hands Four Hands Up okay um Alex can you make it quick I'm almost quick and so God speed this time go ahead I um value public input I would like to Grant the public more time to be on the record to inform the commission and if for no other reason to Simply have the public list their concerns so that they are recorded and part of the minutes so that they can be considered as we go forward and um uh rather than cutting them off saying that their time's up I would I would like to honor the opportunity for the public to provide input and um and yield that time to them okay time was yielded and speaking of that um time has already been yielded to the commission so Bruce are you going to tell us to move on or do you have a no I I I agree with Alex except that I would urge Mr Linsky to write us a formal um memo letter with these questions people send us stuff all the time about various aspects of what we're deliberating it gets put in the folder we read it and it's part of our thinking and the second thing is in general I'd be inclined to just stick with the phasing that exists and just stick with what we have thank you first Dave um I am concerned about the clock here in terms of a 10 o00 if we really are going to potentially lose Aaron at 10:00 so I just want to keep that front and center again I I would encourage you know us to schedule as a site visit out there as quickly as possible and see how many commission members can make it I'm happy to be there I'm happy to be there with Aaron and I'm sure Lawrence and his team would be there um I think you without being out there you don't get a true sense of kind of what's happening and and you know where where they are in the Pro uh project so um anyway I I think it's been a good discussion thanks Dave so is how we're going to move forward with this is that we're going to try and schedule a soon site visit in lie of moving to ask for some um specifics in writing for this amendment is that is that acceptable to to staff and the project proponent I'm happy to provide something inviting to the board as well okay thank you Lawrence Dave I'm sorry I forgot to mention two things we won't have time tonight but I just wanted to assure the Commission on two fronts one uh we do have a plan for the emergency access to the north um and that is well well well defined and and uh has re received a lot of input from staff uh happy to report on that at an upcoming meeting it is completely out of resource area so um uh I don't think the commission um has much involvement in that but it was one of the long discussion points we had and we're happy to report on that at a future meeting secondly I do know that the fire department is currently reviewing the batteries that have been proposed for the site and I believe they if they have not already they are soon to engage with a third-party reviewer of those batteries that have been proposed on this site so those were the two large outstanding things that the commission spent a lot of time on in months prior and those we've made some progress on both of those and we can report out on that at a future meeting when we might have a little more time thank you thanks t Okay s hand it's known okay so I think what we're doing is we're going to schedule a site visit as soon as possible and Lawrence is going to provide the commission something inting to consider for an amendment the order of conditions is that acceptable raise your hand if not okay seeing no hands I think that's how we will proceed with that thank you Lawrence um and we will be in touch soon okay moving along quickly Wildflower Drive um the surveyor was on site that's progress that's good to hear I don't think we have a report on that okay so we can move on but that's the update um 11 trillion way I see Iman I understand that there are a couple people out on the site visit I spoke to Ain about it I think the staff suggestion is to revisit the site the spring it's been a dry season and so that potentially will allow us to further see if things are really um setting in that area in terms of growth so we're not willing to sign off on anything right now based on what was seen But Commissioners who are out there please raise your hand if you want to comment on whatever it is you saw okay seeing none I I don't see Bruce is that my screen or is he just not here anymore I think his video is just off Michelle okay sorry I think my um Zoom updated and it's different okay um so thank you Iman for coming tonight I think eron will be in touch with you about that but Commissioners does that sound good to everybody a maybe like an April or early May site visit just to see what's taking effect drawing season sorry Michelle would you tell me where we are on the on the agenda right now we are in enforcement compliance updates and you're talking about which one of the two 11 trillion we were just there I was on the site visit with Aon yeah um why are we postponing it to the spring so as I said that was my update from Aaron was that there was maybe some growth but um it would it would because of the or growing fall because of the rain it would be beneficial to see the site in a full growing season because it wasn't clear that it may be um meeting acceptable regrowth or um standards for what we were expecting and I asked the Commissioners that were there to comment if you had seen anything that you'd like to report on I was there and I was never asked I did ask but I guess I did it very quickly and you didn't hear it but please comment if you'd like to ask I I I think great progress has been made and um we have a very willing person and um if we need to wait until the spring great um I thought we were going to make a decision tonight that um um things can move forward okay were there pictures additional staff pictures but Aaron did okay I mean so here's what I heard from staff was that it was unclear if conditions were fully set for like an actual established growth of what was expected so I understand you aren't the only person out there does anybody else that was out there would they like to comment on what they saw okay hearing none maybe Aon could I mean I could just tell you my thoughts on it um so the erosion control blankets are still in good shape and I'm going to try to pull up photos really quickly for you um thought I popped them into the folder for you all um but I'll try to get them um so my observation was that um the like if you're facing down the hill the left side so like the northernmost side of the site was pretty well vegetated but the southern half of the slope was less vegetated um so I think there was was a couple questions at the last meeting about how to proceed because some Commissioners wanted plantings in the form of shrubs and um the thought was do we want to plant sh I think the applicant or owner was concerned about planting shrubs because they put down all this seed and these erosion control blankets and the concern was if they plant a bunch of shrubs then it's going to impact all of the seed that was put down that's becoming established um so my thought was allow the seed to really germinate and become established and if we can achieve 90% stability of the slope um I think we can say that the site has achieved compliance um but I just I saw probably I mean maybe if I was to guess like 50 or 60% coverage of the slope um the remainder was area of erosion control blankets that hadn't fully seated yet um or germinated so that's why I had recommended we wait till spring because I I don't think it's I don't think they need to plant anything but I do think we need to um visually confirm that the site is becoming vegetated on that slope before we um fully sign off on it first I I looked at the pictures and it I was surprised that it it didn't seem as vegetated as I imagined that it could be should be but it's it was fairly subjective but just look at the photos Alex I walked on the slope I walked on the control blankets and I heard the discussion there are ferns coming in my God feeling is that the forest floor will be like um many others and will wind up being covered with Ferns and um I don't I don't have a problem with waiting till spring but we may be asking to to to plant things that in under a canopy where those things aren't apt to grow there isn't a lot of sunlight given the slope and the aspect of that site um I think nature will take its course and frankly I think the thing that's going to want to move in a Ferns and there are already coming in I don't have a problem with waiting till spring but these people are have been extremely cooperative and I don't I'm uncomfortable keeping them on the on the string if things are essentially okay thanks Alex I mean I'm I'm hearing a 50% okay and a 50% I think we should wait to spring so um to me I think we should just make sure that in Spring we can confirm that that there's no plantings that natural regeneration has taken place and we can just sign off on it Andre I think we should wait till the spring um we got to we have to remember that uh what brought uh what brought 11 the folks at 11 trillion way to uh to our attention is the fact that uh they got a whole bunch of trees there where they shouldn't shouldn't have cut them um so uh as much comp passion as I have for the them going through the process and uh trying uh which is obvious that they are trying um I think uh a little bit of patience and waiting until the spring until we are uh sure that we are doing our job and have done our job properly I think is uh fine I'm very comfortable with doing that thank you well said Andre and I do want to remind you that we everybody that um we decide not to go with noi as a helpful way to help the landowners in this and I think that a little bit of um patience is is due okay Erin um I just wanted to say like relative to Alex's comment um you know I'm not um suggesting that they you know we keep them on any on any hook um so to speak I I think it's really just saying yeah we we I would say the site is in compliance at this point we just would like to have a site visit in the spring to confirm that 90% stability has been achieved um so not to say I there's no there's no real way to close out an order uh an enforcement order um you don't issue a certificate of compliance on it the commission just deems it incompliance I think the landowner has complied um but um there were you know there were a couple issues like this is a photo here um the the people who are doing the Landscaping were were putting um uh some of the the cuting from the the mowing into the restoration area which caused I think some of the vegetation to not establish um as you can this is the front the front looks looks really well stabilized um but as you can see looking at the slope um there's there's a quite a bit of area that hasn't stabilized so I don't think I'm not suggesting we hold them up in any way or you know hold this over their head it's more so just can we get a site visit out there in the spring to just see seen all that bare dirt um I'm definitely interested in waiting till spring and again yes maybe they're in compliance but there is an entire planting plan that they've asked it to be exempt from which we are saying that we may exempt them from if there's natural regeneration so if we are exempting them from that you know Alex as you say maybe it's not necessary or even reasonable then I'd like to see some natural regeneration on that bare dirt first so that I think is rationale is there anything I have my hand up I just want to clarify that when we say it's not stable that's not true there's no erosion taking place the erosion control blankets are working the leaves are falling so on and so forth what the problem is that it's not 100% vegetated And there's a difference between not being stable and not being vegetated and no florist floor is 100% vegetated sure but it doesn't look like that and again they had a whole planting plan that we are discussing them being exempt from so if we're going to do that I'd like to see some regeneration of native plants on the floor okay I think we need to move on here but um can I just have a show of hands who's in favor of a springtime site visit to sign off on this order of conditions okay I see a majority all right so that is our decision for tonight and we're going to move on um all right request for certificate of compliance for D number 089 0694 345 Lincoln Avenue UMass yeah that there's no action on that tonight they haven't resubmitted okay missing all right issue order of conditions for monteu Road and I see that Scott has very patiently hung out with us for a long time thank you Scott thank you for the back and forth and are you gonna well so f for this one it's up to you Michelle we're we're not in a public hearing so do you want to just talk about the order um we can have them sort of we can talk about the order and where where we can pull it up and have a look at it and then um if we want to ask questions or confer with them we can pull them in or if you want to pull them in at the get-go that's fine too why don't we pull up the order of conditions first have a brief discussion on it um and then we'll pull in Scott for any kind of um lingering questions that we may have because I do understand there's been a lot of back and forth on this one Bruce go ahead so I read these as carefully as I could and I agree with all of Alex's um points I agree with Aaron's um track changes also I there's a couple of things that the applicant changed that I wonder about but generally speaking I'm comfortable with the way they are thanks first do you want to detail what you mean by the questions that you had um I guess the the major one was the notion of changing the the language in perpetuity to during the term of the project that came up several different times and so I would be interested what the problem is with that because in perpetu was where we started if I understand it correctly can I feel that Michelle yeah please do um so Bruce I think the um the life of the battery system and the facility is 30 years so once the facility is no longer in operation in a 30 year period they may remove the facility and return the site back to like decommission it essentially and return it back to um an an undeveloped condition and if that's the case then they're not going to be maintaining the mitigation area at that time and I think that that's where they're wanting to make sure there's clarification okay if 30 years from now there's a whole another battery system that's five iterations better and they want to put that one in the place of the old one do the conditions continue no um the at that point there would be a new order of conditions and um there would be a new commission sitting reviewing the proposed impacts and determining what mitigation would be necessary for that okay than for yeah I think for the life of the project is generally how we term it not perpetuity was that it yeah thank you okay any other comments questions from Commissioners on the order of conditions okay there was considerable I have comment go ahead El um in the do you have the version up that Aaron posted most recently can you guys see my screen yeah this is the most recent version that I put in the older so I provided Erin a few comments and they were mostly editorial there was no substantive changes in my comments that I submitted to her but she ran out of time to deal with them and most of my comments had to do with the paragraph that followed Michelle's Turtle paragraph or condition where uh Michelle or Aaron wrote that the the mitigation plan should be amended to accommodate the changes noticed in this order and the only changes that were noticed were those that had to do with turtles and by the way I thought the turtle condition was terrific I wish I thought about it and I'm disappointed I didn't so thank you Michelle so my only comment was that that paragraph should be modified that not just the turtle comments should be uh amended in the plan but all the other changes like the date that annual reports do and the other things be amended in the plan and given to Aaron and Aaron hasn't had a chance to look at that yet so pull pulling up the version that Alex sent me this is my first time looking at it um so Alex do you want to walk us through what the changes were I'm I'm fine with that I mean so specifically with the turtles like the the problem was that there was a conflict and the dates stated in the management plan with the timing of herbicide spraying and Mowing and then the timing that we were asking for and I just didn't feel comfortable that there would be an order of conditions date that was in conflict with the management plan date but if there are different dates that we need to update yeah I mean let's just well there were some some other conditions beside Turtles one of which I just for example we created a date certain that their annual report would be due I okay I named December 31 I don't really care what the date is but there need there needed to be a date certain and that what the point that's made in um the paragraph following the turtles was that the plan be amended to accommodate the changes mentioned in this order because um um uh it's the mitigation plan that rules and and and all I'm asking is that the other changes that are in this order be included in the adop in the amended plan given to Aaron that's all okay any commissioner comments questions on that Alex you highlighted them in yellow is that correct yeah I was trying to make it easy for you yeah I know um so just just wanting to make sure I'm sharing because the the applicant project proponent is looking um there's nothing spooky yeah there's no new substance it's it's neatening things up that's all so um maybe it would be good I'm just slipping through to make sure there's no other surprises as we look through this other than those highlighted items um do you want to pull the proponent in and see if they're okay with those adjustments Michelle that's your okay um promoting Jeff but if um oh I see Sam if anybody else wants to be promoted just go ahead and raise your hand can you hear me he J welcome good evening um so yeah the um December 31st um date it was the only thing I heard mentioned by Alex that was a new item and and um I think we saw that in an earlier version today when we requested an update so we're completely comfortable with a date certain which would be the last day of the year for our report to be submitted yeah and again I don't care what the date is as long as there's a date certain it sounds very reasonable so I me we assume I assume we would have that in and I've got Scott here as well I assume that that report could be completed kind of the end of you know in the fall I would imagine would be the the time for us to do that but I can defer to him um since we have him with us tonight to to make sure that works for him yeah if you don't like December 31st make it January or February or March I don't really care just as long as there a date anyways there were some other changes like um you don't have a planting plan and that the initial report include a planting plan and some other things so Michelle said in her Turtle thing that the mower would be 12 in off the ground and following that there's a paragraph that says that the that the invasive management plan will be amended to include the condition she wanted which was Turtles and it didn't say more than that and all I'm asking is that that particular condition include the other Chang um uh that are mentioned and they're all there they're all highlighted you've seen them before you said they're okay and I just want to make sure that there if you're going to provide a new plan a revised plan to Aaron that all the changes are in the revised plan that's all you've already looked at all of them yeah thought I think these were great I so the last piece was um so we had previously Incorporated a mowing plan for part of the um for part of the field to address comments from members of the commission we had a written comment today that was separate from the actual order of conditions which indicated there were some Curr concerns about turtles so we reviewed that with Scott this afternoon and asked whether or not we could accommodate both a mowing plan and turtle concerns and Scott suggested that having a a mowing height would um essentially accommodate both comments from the commission that you can have a mowing plan you can protect against um potential damage to turtles by having a 12inch cut height and it would enable him to continue to do his cut and spray methodology in that area um so that sounds like that um was incorporated and um I would just request feedback if that um if there's any anything that we need to do to memorialize the commission's requests thanks Jeff and just to be clear it was a it was a time of year restriction as well as a mod heite but that was in in there and I think Scott noted it as well um I mean you've read and heard what Alex and um others including myself have written so if you're good with just updating that management plan with those for a and sign off before start of work then I think we're good yeah so I did provide eron comments um they were late this afternoon she said she's probably actually ready to go home that she didn't have time to go to the applicant and so on but if if um um like I said there was no new substance in my comments it was a u if anything the neatening up of whatever the revised plan is going to look like that is sent to Aaron to include um um all the changes suggested that since you submitted your plan that's all it's an administrative neatening up that's all Michelle could I just say one quick thing go ahead please um the version that Alex edited was just one of the um sets of conditions so there's actually two attachments to the order of conditions there's a state attachment and a local um attachment the attachments will essentially be the same but the version that Alex was editing was the state version so all of those edits will be rolled into both sets of conditions if that makes sense um I just want to make sure that that's clear because we only were reviewing the one draft just to make it easy for the sake of editing um but it will include both the state and local conditions when I sent my comments to Aon I told her I'm only at edting one of the two because they're essentially the same sure as long as these get transferred to that management plan is that whoever is doing the work for the next 30 Years is handed a management plan with the conditions that we are trying to outline now I am happy with this and I'm ready to move forward with this motion to close issue I'm happy great okay um actually we don't need to close the hearing right that's what I thought okay well Commissioners if anybody has any comments questions please raise your hand now otherwise looking for motion to issue the order of conditions and applicants I can't see you but if you have any last questions about this me please raise your hand okay seeing none yeah can you see as that yeah we we don't have any further question great thank you I will uh move to issue order of conditions for monteu Road battery storage project DP 89- 0731 with the standard Boyer plate conditions under both the Massachusetts Wetlands protection act and wetlands protection town of Amber General bylaws article 3.31 regulations with the noted additional conditions and I have a question yep what is with the noted additional conditions what is that those are the special conditions beyond the boiler plate those are the section one at the top of the document as amended as commented on yeah so there should always be a second before we have discussion under Robert's rules um but I can show you um what I'm talking about um so these are the special conditions so the additional conditions are the the special conditions which are section A and then once you get through Section A the boiler plate begins yeah down down this is a pretty good one the boiler plate begins in section B so the additional conditions are the ones that are in addition to the boiler plate I guess I'm asking which draft are we talking about well we just discussed the final draft being the version that everybody contributed to and just agreed to which would be the one we just discussed with the with your final edits from this evening am I understanding that correctly yeah I mean I if you want to put the second on it and just specify that we're talking about the final draft as discussed Alex yeah because we we got Aaron's draft we got Michelle's draft we got my draft I'll amend my motion to to clarify that the additional conditions as discussed in the October 9th Conservation Commission meeting Second Jason on the motion Andre on the second Alex hi Rachel I'm St Jason hi Andre hi Bruce hi M and I and thank you everybody for working with us on this one and I'm glad to see the battery storage and some ecological lift happen in the same place so I do appreciate all the work you've done yeah I want to Echo that thank you for your patience your diligence and uh good luck with the project thank you thank you night everyone okay um I think last up is uh emergency issue for the casc trail beaverdam flooding pending pending flooding pending emergency Dave do you want to feeli this or do you want okay yeah so I think in your packet um is a copy of an emergency CT that Aaron put together so you may recall um some months ago we did some significant work on the bridge along the KC Trail which comes off of Southeast Street and then tees up with the nortic rail trail unfortunately we've got a number of active beavers along the Hop Brook and the beavers have decided that that um very narrow pinch point on the KC Trail which uh has one abutment uh one Bridge abutment intact and one Bridge abutment that you may recall slumped into the river and we were able to stabilize that the stabilization is going Extreme has been going extremely well and it was a great you know measure for that for that particular area virtually no erosion with any of the storms we've had this summer anyway long story short they have blocked that up um I am very concerned with we've also gotten um quite a few um complaints concerns uh about beavers Upstream of this on some of the Farmland U including one of the farmers um just south of this site um and what we want to do is we we do not want to allow beavers to establish a permanent Dam at that pinch Point um I think that would cause significant flooding to Upstream Farm fields and potentially compromise that entire um way between Southeast Street the trail the bridge and what was a historic access for agriculture uh over the bridge that used to be there so that's kind of the background on it um I don't know what we're going to do longer term but um this is a site that I really do not want to have beavers backing up a very large that would be the entire pretty much the entire Plum Brook if you will backed up south of the KC Trail um I don't know if Aaron she probably didn't put together a map on that but it's a very you know the hot Brook coming out of Lauren swamp is a very significant water course thanks Dave any questions Commissioners Dave eron is not a magician she she can't make a map for everything just like that anyway we don't in the late hour I don't think we need to go to a map but um provide you one in the coming days but we've we've got to figure out a long term solution it's we've had Beaver solutions by the way look at this and it is not something they feel that a beaver deceiver would work on because of the topography and the n and the actual flow of the uh this is the entire flow if you will of the pop Brook going through this very narrow um pinch point it's a you know it's a former um agricultural um Bridge that's been there probably for a hundred years um you all familiar with it you familiar with how narrow that is no take take a walk down if if you'd like off of Southeast Street or you can catch it on the rail trail park at Station Road and where the KC Trail comes in it'll be on your left if you're going north on the rail trail um so that's why we're doing the breaching and we're going to try to keep that water level as low as possible and not let the Beavers establish a permanent Dam there um thanks Dave I saw hands but I do know no longer see them so I guess I'm looking oh she does have a map look at that I was wrong a magician I think this is the right spot right Dave it's it's really tough to tell um but so when you zoom in um it's a very wide this is part of why it's such a kind of sketchy situation it's a very wide Wetland and there's a BM on either side and there's this little pinch point right here where the water comes through and that's where the Beavers are building and as a result when the water backs up there's a number of farms um that are located south of here that immediately get their fields flooded and you can see there's an APR located right in this location there's also another one here so they're both they're both APR Farms yeah yeah that pinch point it doesn't quite do it justice there but it's probably what 10t wide Ain yeah yeah it's very constricted between the bridge of Ms that's there and the rip wrap that we put in earlier it looks much larger there but take a walk down so we're looking for an emergency CT to continue to breach that and we've got to come up with a long-term solution there I don't want to go into that kind of detail tonight but we just cannot have the Beavers basically make a dam and Dam dam the entire hot Brook coming out of Lauren swamp at that site conversion to race Farms crry BS rice and cranberries just because I've only got five minutes and I see Alex hand up so Alex real quick unless you're looking to make a motion no I wasn't goingon to make a motion I was going to say it's the wrong time of year to be removing a dam the Beavers won't have an opportunity to uh find a new territory to survive the winter yeah take a look if you will Alex this is um one of many dams that I believe the same pair of beavers is using and this is a it's it's actually not even it's it's not even above the surface of the water so it's ponding right now but the their inclination is to Want to Build It Up Above the surface of the water right now so if I could finish um there are usually three generations in a Beaver Lodge yep thank and um the farmers aren't going to be cultivating their fields during the winter and now is really not a good time to remove a dam yeah um I wonder what harm would be done to wait until spring to come up with a long-term solution and ask Beaver solutions to put in um mechanisms that would control the water level as much as possible may not be able to do everything that everybody wants but they could do something and then um when the when the spring comes there's a better time to remove the dam or to breach the dam why don't for the sake of time Alex why don't you take a look because I think without seeing the dam you're not really hearing what kind of dam it is and secondly I will tell you that Beaver Solutions did offer their professional opinion and their professional opinion is this would be an an excellent place to trap the Beavers period they do not believe a a beaver exclusion device or Beaver deceiver device will work period so that was what we got from our experts I'm not proposing that tonight what I'm proposing is to not allow the Beavers to build up a subsurface Dam so it is larger than that and then we have a large impoundment of water up against a very small pinch point of a trail if we lose the trail and we flood the farmers Fields then it's incumbent upon us to solve that solution in the spring there is plenty of ponded water on either the South or the north of this site for the Beavers to do their thing there is no Lodge even near this pinch point that I can see so so we we literally have like minutes left with Aon on this tonight so we're not looking for anybody to issue anything tonight okay um this was the work is has been being completed already as a under an agricultural emergency because it's been flooding flooding out the farmers to the South so um I think really this is a courtesy notification to the commission that this has been an issue um it's it's causing F they the farmers have are actually the ones who reached out to us noting that they're their um access roads were underwater and their fields were flooding so um there's no action that's required by the commission it's just a we're letting you know about the situation um and as we figure out how to deal with it into the future we'll come back and we can talk about it you're telling us that you have breached the dam yeah yes y so this is an after Thea um item on the agenda right it's a an agricultural emergency a lot of the time our our emergency issues are after the fact so this isn't exactly different um but Alex if you can do a visit I mean I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on longer term Solutions and it is 659 so I'd like to adjourn for tonight um if there's any public comment I'm sorry please raise your hand now I'll contact I'm not quite sure where this is but I'd love to go down and look at it if if I'll contact Dave or or Aaron to get directions thank you very much I'm I move to uh close the session ni second right Andre on the motion Jason on the second Alex hi Rachel hi Jason Hi Andre hi Bruce hi I'm I all right we did it I'm sorry no we did it we made it happen right thanks everyone everyone Bye by thank you Dave I have a thought can you hear me I can hear you yeah so um Milton and Helen have had me thinking about the 38 hurricane and I wonder if after the land use committee gets its work done I would suggest this group start thinking about what are we going to do when there is a h Helen scale Milton scale hurricane that comes to our town because it's going to come the way things are going so just a thought I'll just ede with you and I don't want to go into detail tonight um because it's late um the town has a hazard mitigation plan um it's online you can take a look at that we're in we're in the process of updating it that basically looks at what are our vulnerabilities with regard to flooding Electrical uh uh grid all that kind of stuff and we're in the process of updating that I think it's six or eight years old um and that kind of is the way the the town organizes its Public Safety response etc etc so I'll take a look thank you good deal while you're here I want to Broach a subject which maybe yeah I'd rather it's very late Alex I'd rather just Qui T night this is quick it's got to be really quick y it's really quick yep it has to do with the storm water emptying out on ammer College property right below their parking lot I'd love to have a site visit down there uh and propose that the town work with Amis col to figure out how to mitigate the damage which is occurring on their property as a result of the storm water uh being diverted down there yeah um we can talk about it we've had many conversations with emmer college about it um yeah I would tell you in in brief the college looks at it as both a town pro pro problem as well as a college problem and the actual erosion isn't happening on Amis College property it's happening on the next property down so the erosion itself is actually the the pipe outflows on private property so that's a complicating Factor as well because the private land owner isn't going to want to put in any money so well I've walked out that Brook and um and it it begs to be addressed so that's all that's all there was yeah we we brought it up in in uh in the context of the geothermal Wells that they were drilling on the the parking lot there and there's a conversation going on there but it's you know it's it's a big dollar amount to actually fix that whole thing I mean we're probably talking I don't know could be half a million to a million dollars to address some of that stuff down there but it's it's a good one it's right on the fearing Brook and the fearing Brook is a mess all I wanted to do is bro a subject that's all thanks for the time take care good night byebye