##VIDEO ID:mSPktuUfgtQ## e e [Music] he [Music] [Music] good afternoon this is a hearing of the CH Conservation Commission being held on December 18th 2024 in accordance with the Massachusetts Wetlands protection act and the town of chadam wetlands protection bylaw and regulations my name is Karen Laton and I serve as the chair today's hearing is being broadcast live on Xfinity channel 1072 and is being recorded for the ond demand archives available on the town's website is being conducted in person by phone and by video conference the agenda instructions on how to attend and copies of documents for review are posted on the town's website to all participants whether attending by phone or online please remain muted unless you've been recognized by the chair when recognized please identify yourself for the record if you're attending by phone you can mute and unmute by using star 6 if you're online and you are not a commissioner please keep your camera turned off unless you have been recognized indicate that you wish to speak by using the raised hand feature so that we have a record of a quarum I will now ask each commissioner to indicate their presence Vice chair Elise Gordon Janet Williams present Cheryl missery I don't think she's here Eric Hilbert he's not here Paul Johnson present Bob Delio present and I am here we have established that we have a quorum before we begin the agenda are there any announcements about any requests for continuances today Katherine we have one continuance request request to amend an order of conditions at three oyster Drive the applicant has requested a continuance to January 8 2 thank you at this point Katherine Ricks chadam assistant conservation agent will now lead us through the agenda we have a request to amend an order of conditions at three oyster Drive map 15a parcel 8 h15b for three oyster Drive LLC Mass D SE number 10- 3599 raise and replace existing dwelling amendment is to downscale the project wherein the existing dwelling will remain intact Act and the soil absorption systems raised and replaced with the applications of sludgehammer IIA technology under remedial use approval phase two the applicant has requested a continuance to January 8 2025 thank you okay I move that we continue three oyster drive to January 8th 2025 I need a second oh that's second okay Paul hi Janet I Elise I Bob hi and I say I okay Katherine the next request to amend an order of conditions at 1070 Orleans road map 10K parcel 23-2 for John and Mary Bole Mass D SE number 10- 3611 Landscaping construction of a boardwalk addition of fiber rules draft amended order of conditions okay um did anyone any Commissioners do you have any modifications to this amended order no does anybody who's online have any amendments to this order I do know we need to continue it um but we were going to see if anything needed to be modified before then can we continue it to another meeting looks like no and I believe Katherine did they ask that we continue to the 22nd of January I think think yes the 27 okay thank you I move that we continue 1070 Orleans Road to January 22nd 2025 second second Paul hi Janet hi Elise hi Bob I and I say I all right so Katherine the next notice of intent application at 189 Moon Penney Lane map 10h parcel 6 for Francis and Christina Fab fabrio Mass SE number 10- 3713 construction of a Title 5 subsurface sewage Disposal system within land subject to Coastal storm Flowage hello good afternoon David Clark on behalf of the fos uh they recently purchased this property um and it is served by Cesspool so they're under order by the Board of Health to upgrade um as you can see uh there's a lot going on on this property uh to comp compound things uh it's served by a private well there there's no Municipal Water available on this section of moon peny Lane um so as such we we have to work around that um and we weren't able to work around that um and uh we're proposing to relocate the well um so that we can maximize the separation of the well to the uh leeching field um leeching field is uh located um as far away from the well as we can get it uh and keeping in mind we need to be as far away from wapon River as possible uh so that's really the only location where we show it um there is uh a small section of the yard um in the northeast corner or the North Corner that's outside of uh all the setback requirements but that would place the uh leech field UPG gradient of of a well for this property and uh and so uh that's not uh something that's uh permittable um so we're stuck with the location um that's shown on the plan uh so to minimize the impacts on the flood plane we're adding an IA technology um as you heard your one of your last hearings with the sledgehammer um this is not a sledgehammer it's a uh a fast system but uh with the use of IIA technology uh you have a choice of either lowering or minimizing the separation between the bottom of the system and ground water or getting a 50% reduction in the size of the leech area um so in this instance we chose the 50% reduction in the leech area um because uh that gets us to the 100 ft uh separate separation between the leech field and the River or the mean high water mark of the river um if we had gone with the minimizing the separation to groundwater we'd be able to lower it by a couple of feet but it' be twice as big um and that footprint of being twice as big would put about 50 more square feet of the Lee field in the flood plane so this minimizes the amount of fill in the flood plane um and that's about it oh in order to move the well uh we have to construct a temporary construction access between the the two garages to get up the hill there are a couple ornamental trees there uh one of them I think we can just Barrel block and and keep the other one needs to be uh removed or um removed and set aside and replanted there are two trees in the leech field one is a little scrub Oak that's been hacked to death over the last 80 years um and the other one is a is uh a more substantial ornamental tree actually there's three trees there and there's a there's also a u an apple tree that that I think those two trees the ornamental and the Apple are too big to move so uh they'll be removed and we're more than happy to put replacement trees in um we don't have a landscape plan in that um you can't really plant anything over the leech field uh that that has a substantial uh root system uh so we're just planning on uh looming and seaing over the system with a with a native grass mix um it might be some opportunity to plant something more substantial on the side slopes um but again that's awful close to the system and we'd prefer to uh keep that as a as a grass mix other than that uh we went to the Board of Health this past Monday night and got approval uh so this is the last step thank you um all right only question I have is we need a mitigation plan to show where what what the trees that are going in you say six native trees and where they're located you know where they'll be placed and we should know what the what the trees coming out are yeah but they're all non-natives that's obvious but we should have a little I mean I can see where they are on the plan so you just need a a sketch showing where the the replacement trees are going okay right and what they are the what the replacement trees are going to be yeah um all right I'm going to open it to other commissioners before I ask anything else um anybody go ahead Janet David um so this is it's a little confusing to me um some of the areas of confusion that I have um go to the existing um structure that's there the house um so the the narrative in the notice of intent refers to a n bedroom house the Assessor's card says it's a seven bedroom house and the marketing materials called it a six-bedroom house so can you clarify what what the situation is and if you have any explanation for why it's the house is the house is over 80 years old um and it has been used as a nine-bedroom house uh there are two bedrooms above the the garage and seven bedrooms in the in the D um after a walk through with Judy Georgio uh one of the bedrooms above the garage really can't be considered uh a bedroom and then one of the bedrooms in the main house can't be considered a bedroom under the current definition the Board of Health so we agree we agreed that we would designed for seven and as far that existing um cess pool system was adequate for that intensity of use no um the former owner had been there for decades and and primarily lived alone for the last decade or so uh so it it did not get the use as modern seven or nine bedroom house would get um I know back in the 80s the uh the uh the bedrooms above the garage was used as an apartment um but that's about that was seasonal uh so uh it's always been a summer home for the most part um and uh and SOS categorically fail under the Board of Health regulations so yeah yeah yeah so the system that you've designed will be adequate to service a seven-bedroom house yes with with the treatment that's with the with the yeah we'll get to that in a second because I have some questions about that okay um so you don't know yet I'm assuming what what the ultimate plan for the property is going to be in terms of Redevelopment um there will be Redevelopment um they're working with an architect now but those plans could take two years to to bring before the board or or most all the boards um um so when you reduced the soil absorption system um can you explain to me how the smaller leech field doesn't does provide adequate treatment for even the flow coming from a seven bedroom so uh in a standard Title 5 system the only thing the septic tank provides is is a mechanism to settle out solids and remove grease and uh and that effluent from that tank goes out to the leech build it's still still heavily loaded with suspended solids so what the treatment system does and this is the primary function of all IIA Technologies is to uh um biologically treat the waste water to remove suspended solids and and also dissolve solids a secondary benefit is the reduction in nitrogen excuse me so um again sorry uh uh you can have suspended solids in in a uh coming out of a sep septic tank uh in in the in the parts per 100 um uh the clarified effluent leaving the treatment system is required to be below 30 parts per million um so it's a at least a a 10 times reduction in the suspended solids because of that you can load the leech field at a greater rate um similarly the cadams water treatment plant um wastewater treatment plant Title Five says untreated Wastewater you can load at 3/4 of a gallon per square foot per day um when chadam did went to uh tertiary treatment with their uh wastewater treatment plan um the engineers looked at the soils in South chadam and that's actually loaded at 7 to8 gallons per square foot per day because of the level of treatment it's basically you look at the water coming out of after tery treatment and you put in a clear glass bottle it's clear um this doesn't treat to that level but um it's a significant Improvement of as to oppos to what's coming out of a septic normal septic tank so then the difference you're saying between secondary which is just the primary treatment and then the the E the effluent goes to the leech field and tertiary which involves another component being put into the system that performs the biological removal well the fast system is a secondary a tertiary would be something you're targeting something specific so this is this is a secondary system this would be a secondary treat it still but it still does solids total solids and nitrogen reduction there's a added benefit of nitrogen reduction it's inherent to um an IIA system okay okay so because of that the small the Lee field air can be smaller M and do you know I um how far above existing groundwater we're we're 5 and A2 ft right now 5.5 and the limit is five right yeah yeah we we we never go right to five um because we know what's happening it uh it it always comes back to bite people and I don't know why people design right to 5.0 but uh that would definitely bite you sooner or later um okay so I I'm I'm spending a little time because we don't do a lot of this but it's important especially in such a sensitive area as this where you've got this system right on the Coastal Bank and right above the Oyster River so there is a d regulation uh 310 CMR 10.33 that says that the once the Board of Health has approved a septic system that Conservation Commission should presume that it complies with the wetlands protection act and we've applied that before but there are some limits in there uh and one of them is that only that presumption can only apply if the soil absorption system is set back at least 50 ft horizontally from the boundary of certain resource areas including a Coastal Bank so this one is 38 feet yep back from the Coastal Bank so how does that how does the presumption work in that case um you would have to look at alternatives to see if you can get to the 50 feet that's one of the purpose that's the the main purpose the state wants uh want you to look at IIA technology and an upgrade um they in their maximum fusible compliance section of Title 5 there are bullet points as to under the maximum feasible compliance and it's a it's a prior prioritized list so number one is they expect full compliance number two the use of IIA technology to achieve full compliance um so that's that's where we started with this one the use of IIA technology to see if we can get full compliance we can't but on that section is of Title Five is maximum feasible compliance so we feel this is the best we could do on the site but it is 100 feet ultimately from the receiving Waters from the from the roer river yeah okay um and in this particular case um we are measuring to a point on the slope where it stops being steeper than 10:1 under the D's guidance document on Coastal Bank delineation MH so it basically the slope starting to Peter out as you you head to the to the east towards the system and and we're 38 ft at the break point where it starts being 10 to one or less am I looking am I seeing it right there's a lot going on in this site plan yes yes um but it looks to me like the line indicating the top of the Coastal Bank goes right through the leech field or that's flood plane that goes that's the flood plane so uh the primary bank is is parallel to the river um so if you look at towards the the south side of the house towards the river you'll see the standard Coastal Bank is running along the the top of the the steeper slope uh adjacent to the river and then um we we hit a point where the slope is less than 4: one so we no longer follow the top of the slope as being the top of the bank we're following the flood plane Contour okay and then as you go off towards the east we're still following the flood plane Contour yep but then we come to a point where I have a little tick mark and a and an arrow to it says end of Coastal Bank and so at that point ah it is less than 10:1 okay and so there's no Coastal Bank further Inland of that but we still have a flood plank okay yeah I I actually didn't understand that either it's all one line and I didn't catch that so thank you thank you for that so is there any um any concerns about having the the leech field in partly in the plane um it's one of the few exceptions under the Z zoning bylaw that you're allowed to fill in the flood plane um but we again we didn't take advantage of that we minimized it to the maximum extent possible um given the constraints of the site I can't I can't see another location as I said earlier uh anywhere else we're less than 100t to the to the well right I get it's an incredibly constrained site because of the odd the way it configured with that with that very narrow top bit um so are there any but I guess what I was getting to are there any environmental concerns about having the system partly in a flood plane I don't see any in that um it's an a Zone uh so uh although we're we're we we're close to the vzone the vzone there is a little bit of vzone on the property but we're looks like we're 50 ft away from that um I I I you know the state still doesn't have performance standards for the they promised last summer still we're still waiting um and this is not a um moderate wave Zone either so uh so because of those not being in a velocity Zone well we couldn't put it in a velocity Zone anyways under Title 5 but it's not a moderate wave Zone either see it's catching everybody starting to cough there's something in the air in here that's chery sick okay um thank you that's it for me for now thank you for clarifying all of that anybody else sorry Bob did you have other in and looking at the other option of reducing uh the separation of groundwater the I technology um as I said earlier uh the main the main thing it does is reduce s suspended solids um and the purpose of separation of groundwater or pathogens and and pathogens are suspended solid so it's not that the the IIA system kills it just it they get removed as as part of the biological process and gets settled up right okay Bob uh how you doing David good A little cough huh yes it was worse five days ago but uh that time of year uh this the uh the cess pool the current cess pools they'll be filled they'll be pumped and filled Y pumpt and fills okay and I'm I sure I'm sure there's more than one um and uh the only record we could find is is that there was one in this location from the pumping records but I imagine there's another one somewhere cuz it's it's hard to believe just one suol served a house is big is is that note on the plan I didn't see anything uh that the old cess pools would be pumped and filled um somewhere I think it was in his top to kind of to the top yeah to be yeah there's one for the apartment okay there it is good enough thank you um the driveway is going to remain the current driveway for now for now um obviously they have to trench through it to get the uh electric line and uh the air line to the the fast system but anticipating they just it needs to be it only needs to be a shallow trench um so just patch it for now we'll patch it for now yep uh the uh area by the new well uh that you're going to create a ramp for the equipment yes and that's going to be seated afterwards yes is you going to include some erosion control Fabric or something along that yeah after we so after the well goes in we'll remove the material that was needed to to build the the access and then Lowman and seat okay with some some kind of erosion control because it is on a slope um we we can we can specify that yeah okay and the um area where the uh new uh leech field is going um some of it is lawn currently and the rest is kind of invasive vegetation you call from what I see it's mostly invasive yeah so uh before you extend the lawn I was wondering if uh we could plant some beach grass uh in the area that is not lawn now me me on the side slopes of the system yeah or over the over the new uh leech field uh where it's currently not lawn just so we don't extend the lawn I I will look into that and there's going to be a vent pipe too with in the leech field um no but there are uh excess ports at the end uh for for maintenance purposes but there is not a vent okay diagram shows okay uh and I think that was it I think that was it thank you so David the diagram shows a vent pipe where shows a vent next to the blower and the profile of the system oh yep right next to the blower mhm oh yeah uh for the treatment system there is a vent pipe um not the leech field uh so it it it will be in the same trench and goes back to the blower unit um yeah so that so that vent pipe is going to be sticking up out of the ground next to the garage next to the garage okay else there no that's a thank you okay anybody else yes Katherine through the chair uh David there wasn't any or I didn't see any performance standards for Riverfront area or Riverfront area marked on the plan this is not a river under the Riverside oyer River isn't considered a river on that it is not it is not isn't that just be all that happened quite a while ago little tiny drainage ditches are considered Rivers but the Oyster River is not because it's a tidal Estuary and didn't that happen because of some expert years ago years ago when they were developing all these big houses on stage Neck Road and that's the story I've heard in in Westward hoe the yeah testimony was given that it's not considered a river isn't that funny isn't that I know every time it comes up I like cringe cringe yeah Mitchell river is not a river until you get to the Little Foot bridge at the little Mil Pond then it becomes a river really it wow I didn't know that interesting yep all right anybody else anywhere I don't see anybody online that with a hand raised um obviously we're going to have to continue this because we need a mitigation plan M um if nothing else and and to deal with the things that were brought up like possibly putting beach grass in the area that's not lawn now for the leech field and dealing with those invasives um uh so when did you want to meet again how about uh your last meeting in January that would be the 22nd so we will continue you to January 22nd I move that we continue 189 Moon Penny Lane to January 22nd 2025 second Paul I Janet I Elise I Bob I and I say I okay we thank you have one more piece of business second oh adjourn I move that we adjourn the meeting second okay Paul I Janet I Elise I Bob I and I say I last meeting of the year [Music] [Music]