evening Littleton welcome to the April 24th 2024 Board of Health meeting it is now 7 o'cl we're going to begin our meeting just um administratively uh member Kevin Davis will not be with us tonight uh and Gino fralone should be meeting joining up in just a moment but we do have three members here so we have a quorum so we are able to open our meeting and begin our process before we get started any want to have any preing issues that we need to address prior to our first public hearing seeing none I will be honest I'm trying to pause just for a moment to give G an opportunity to join us before we get into this so I apologize I'm speaking a little bit more slowly than a normal New Englander would be speaking but all right we're going to begin so our first public hearing this evening is for 30 mil Lane a variance request requesting approval for an impervious barrier we have check it out up there we go thank you Doug Le for the petition Doug you should have a panel there we go all right hello can you hear me we can hear you sir welcome so you're here for 30 mil Lane yes 30 mil Lane um this was a septic system my name is Doug Le by the way from Land engineering and Environmental Services of the engineer and the survey on the project for m&b Investments LLC um this is a septic system that was approved we were in front of the board for a variance um the system is within 10 feet of the lot line so there's some grading that takes place within 10 feet of the lot line the system was put in as designed um the house was this conservation associated with the house we had a notice of intent and an order of conditions and during the conservation review the house got slid about 6 feet closer to the septic system and it was supposed to be raised um but that didn't get reflected on both plans so it was put in a little low uh making the grading between the septic system in the house a little difficult challenging the system is 30 say 32 and a half feet from the house and 10 ft 10 ft from the lot line but because of the grading out there we're hit here tonight to put in an impervious barrier um about 10 ft off the edge of the system or actually 10 ft off the edge of the system to allow the grading to take place without having a back fill and kind of burying that side of the house so that that's the history of the project um was when the house got slid over during the conservation review and got raised that didn't get reflected on the septic plan and when the system was installed um the house was put in actually a little bit lower than on the septic plan but pretty much as the septic plan goes so it ends up being a little bit low for the grading that's out there okay before we go to Jim and Francis I just want to clarify the timeline so new construction new house new septic system yep went before conservation went before us got approved conservation then said we have a change in plan here we think this needs to be moved a certain we move six feet and then the plans were updated and gone back through the approval process I think Doug froze um we froze I think I froze yeah sorry before I just want to get timeline straight for our sake of going it sounds like sure plans went through plans changed plans never came back through the approval process the plans got changed at the Conservation Commission yes after and they no CH to the septic system right it was just the house slid over six feet and raised which really wasn't going to affect the septic system except for in the field the house didn't get raised all right gotcha all right thank you sir um before we go to the board if I can we can go to Jim or Francis whoever feels most comfortable chatting about it tell us a little bit of their side their their impressions of the plan and we'll open it up to the board and the public so so I did the inspections on the site uh reviewed the plans and um when they were installing the system it unfortunately the lot slopes up towards the house so it got to be even more critical when the house lit a little closer to the system um because the grading uh that the standard Title 5 grading going out 15 ft level sloping 3 to one got a little difficult in that you'd have to grade right into the cellar wall um and since the system's already uphill of the the house um that was going to leave no place whatsoever to do some uh surface running a surface grading to get the runoff to go around the house so one of the solutions since both were in place and you can't really move the system it's where it needs to be was to come out with a title I mean a impervious bear at 10 feet and then slope at 3 to one that gave them the room to actually do the grading they need to do around the house to make sure the house that the water can move around the house and not flood the basement uh 10 feet 3 to1 still complies with Title Five they allow the use of imp purose barrier your regulations require that um the board approves any walls or barriers at a public meeting and that's why Doug's here all right thank you sir uh we're GNA open up to the board we'll do alphabetical tonight Kevin Baker I guess I'm curious uh without seeing a plan uh I'm curious how that six feet it's six feet on the elevation that was that was missed correct no the house moved six feet closer to the field right now the house is 32 and a half feet from the field and originally it was designed at 38 39 feet from the field okay so it's not elevation it's it's lateral movement it was about a foot in elevation okay and Jim you think with the poly barrier uh it'll solve the problem and no adverse effects to uh Public Health I I don't believe it will no and it'll make the grading around the house much better okay yeah no further questions thank you Mr Baker Mr Wason I have no questions all right and no questions from the chair I don't see any hands in the audience is there anyone in the audience at the moment who'd like to speak on 30 mil Lane see no hands what is the will of the board I'll make a motion to allow the use of the poly barrier I have a motion all a second and a second roll call vote Kevin Baker Kevin Baker votes yes Matt Wason M yes Dan Kane votes yes good luck very thank you very much really appreciate it all right thank you have a good night you as well thanks all right officially my clock says 7:09 we are one minute ahead of our 710 hearing so we're gonna actually pause for a moment I do know that our friend Judy was working with Gino trying to help him join our meeting I have not seen him yet I did not see him in the audience we're officially waiting for 710 for our nine Birch Road public hearing um is there anyone in the audience to speak for nine Birch on behalf of the petitioner thank you Mr or Miss McKenzie I'm going to promote you to panelist good evening everyone good evening all right we are now at 710 we're going to open our public meeting our public hearing excuse me for nine bir Road Littleton for a variance request for local variances and local upgrade approval for retaining wall and fill requirements Mr McKenzie whenever you are ready if you'd like to uh share any anything you have and tell us the story yeah is it possible for me to share my screen be able to yeah y here you go hope you can see that all right um so uh the property located at nine uh Birch Road here it's getting a septic system upgrade it's an existing two-bedroom house we've designed a Presby system located in this area and uh uh show the breakout grading uh coming out with a small retaining wall basically those 2 by 2x4 blocks the concrete blocks uh right basically along the property line about two or three feet off I think it's three feet off of the property line uh there'll be a new septic tank being installed over here um a two compartment 1500 gallon uh to a debox to the leech area the grading ends up all coming very close to the property line um we are requesting uh a couple of local variances and a couple of local upgrade approvals the Varian is I'm not too sure about this one after reading and I don't know that we really need a variance for regulation 23 because regulation 23 basically says that we need to notify a Butters if we ask for a variance for a wall so we have it listed here if a Varian is needed for that then we're asking for but I I don't I maybe defer to Jim on that if if he thinks I'm correct or not uh but regulation 27 is regarding uh the fill requirements no portion of fill requirement for a subsurface system shall be within 10t of a property line The Proposal shows about three feet for the wall and the uh and the fill to be ending right there so we're just right off the property line couple local upgrade approvals uh reduction of system location from a seller wall uh 20 foots required we're showing uh 13.4 feet right in this spot right here and then the second uh Title 5 uh local upgrade approval is for the reduction of the four foot separation between the water table uh and the bottom of the leech area uh We've designed a Presby system so that allows us to ask for a two- foot reduction uh and a two foot separation at the end uh once you reduce by two uh so we're asking for a two- foot separation from the bottom of the leech area to the groundwater table um and and Jim can uh talk on this potentially uh I guess he spoke with a couple of neighbors that were concerned about the proximity uh of the wall and the fill to the property line uh so we've looked at you know an alternative setup and certainly uh I'd be happy to show that to you uh but I want to advise you we'd still be basically asking for all the same variances it's just going to reduce down that distance uh from three feet to I think uh Jack said about eight feet or something like that or seven feet um of an offset I'd be glad to show that to you if you're interested in seeing that that's this layout here so basically this involves a poly barrier uh being installed the uh the original plane does not have a poly barrier uh about 10 feet off of the system located right here and then that would be followed with a uh 3 to one slope as required by Title 5 but we would uh do a rip wrap slope there um to uh help prevent any runoff from from coming down and potentially uh going on in the budding property um but again this is you're still probably I think this is about seven or eight feet right here um so we still would need the variances that we're requesting it just wouldn't be for quite as much I guess I think that's about it [Music] um yeah there's no there's no Wells uh in this area it's all serviced by Town water and that's what allows us to go for that two foot separation all right thank you sir going to ask uh Jim or Francis if you'd like to speak to it from the town side of things your opinions sure so again I did the testing and review this is um bir chill is pretty steep in this section um and so this property slopes right down to the abuts property the engineers have tried to use all the tools that they have to try to minimize uh the height of the mound and the grading so as Chris mentioned they are asking for the twoot ground water reduction um they're using a prisby system so they can slope the bed to try to follow the Contours the natural Contours but even doing all of that they'll probably end up having to raise the grade a couple of feet uh from about the system down to um in this case down to the wall and then the other design um the barrier would be there and it would slope off a little more quickly um we had a couple of abutters I should say I had a couple of abutters come in and talk to me uh yesterday afternoon one lives kind of K Kitty cornered to the um the right the other one is directly downhill Hill of it and and they were concerned about the potential for runoff onto their properties so after I met with them I contacted the engineers and I said is there something we could do to try to minimize the amount of fill um so he can pull it back from the property line this design that that's up there now um has kind of the standard Title Five breakout requirements so goes out 15 feet slopes three to one um just to be able to catch the fill before it goes over the the lot line that's why they need that wall the other design that Chris had up there has the barrier on that out at 10 feet still allowed by Title 5 and then the 3 to1 slope um and the goal here was it it pulls the fill back from the property line a little bit but also using the rip wrap uh hopefully that allows any of the surface water that's coming across that maybe to go into the ground before it goes across the lot line um regardless I think of what happens um unfortunately that just so the regular slope of the land the water's going downhill um with this design just trying to mitigate um any potential from what the system may you know any additional that the system may cause I can't imagine it would but you know part of the problem we see and we've seen it really badly this year and and last with all the rain we've had the ground's so saturated there's no place for it to go uh and so using the rip wrap allows it to kind of get back into the ground it also allows it to get back in the ground during those problematic times like late winter when the ground's frozen but you get a couple inches of rain and those kinds of situations the water usually just sheets downhill this way here with the rip wrap hopefully it'll slow some of that down and put it back into the ground and just to kind of address Chris's um that uh regulation 23 is is not so much a variance but kind of a direction for individuals when they're using barriers or walls that they have to get them a approved by the board and notify the abutter so it's more of a process regulation than it is a a variance for itself right so I don't think we actually need a variance from that because we those requirements all right I'm going to open up to the board and then we'll go to audience for any public input um pause one moment I'm just going to bring Gino onto the panel all right um we'll do reverse order this time Matt W um so I guess uh I think my only question is any other place on the property where you could put that field it looks like it' be uphill if you went to basically the northeast corner but is that a possibility with pump to get it up there and bypass the issue altoe well we we try to avoid a pump situation whenever possible uh I don't know that there there was no tests dug up there I I don't know what the sight conditions were that uh uh produce this uh either way you're still going to end up most likely with the same kind of system I don't know how well that would fit up here um and still meet property line and building offset requirements as well as the grading that would be required you have to worry about what's going to happen up against the house at this spot if this grade continues the same way all the way up and you put a system up here the breakout grading now that we show down here is going to be actually up against the house uh and so we'd end up having to create some kind of wall or some ugly thing along here to to create that area so we weren't putting Phil right up against the house and then in reducing the distance off the house and the seller itself to the system is that something and maybe this is a question for Jim is that something where you'd say should we put a poly barrier there as well or we're not worried about it because of the grading um just get off I I think um in that case there the Presby bid sloped so we'd expect that the flow of that underlying Wastewater is probably going down to the end of the bed and down towards the barrier so I think it's less of less of a risk on the uphill side okay and then uh do we have any Wetlands information don't believe there are any wetlands in the area yeah the two lot the Lots surrounding are all built on it's allil yeah cool um I think that's all I have right uh next Gino fatalone welcome any questions comments uh concerns about nine Birch Road all right I'm gonna come back to Gino Kevin Baker how you doing no at the moment no I I I think I'm not sure if that's just me or is everyone else having garbled okay break and everything I have no I have no questions I'm sorry j you're very broken up so we really couldn't make out any of that I apologize all right at the moment the chair has no questions I'm going to give Gino a moment to for his system to catch up and I'm going to go go to the audience and we'll come back to Gino is there anyone in the audience who would like to speak to nine bir Road I have a hand number to remote so stepen foss's Hand first I'm not sure who came first oh okay I got it hello my name is test Dean I am the direct a butter on One Birch Road below the system uh my house is situated um about rectangularly downhill and I just wanted uh I did come to speak with Mr graffy yesterday and our neighbor uh Steve and Sarah Foss I just wanted to reiterate that I already have a lot of water coming into the east side of my house from the hill straight down it enters on the uh on the Eastern side and fills my basement partially and then other areas also um I just wanted to mention that I hope any solution will not increase that amount of water um that's uh kind of my concern obviously and yes thank you so much excuse me all right thank you ma'am um Stephen Foss hi stepen welcome four Seer road yeah I'm the adjacent butter um anyways I'm looking at the two plans well first of all I'd like to say thanks to all you guys for um putting your time and for the board it's a really um worthy thing to do thanks but um I'm looking at the two plans I've got some experience with this stuff having been on the board I kind of like the um the plan with the barrier and the rip wrap I think that's going to collect the storm water before it gets down to um the Deegan household more so than the wall um that's that's what I see and I figured I'd just put my two cents worth in uh again um thanks for everything I I appreciate what you guys do and thank you Jim for suggesting that yep over and out thank you sir all right um Mr Baker go ahead uh after hearing the the comments from the abuts I'd like to suggest a uh a RI wrap Swale uh on the property line that directs the water out to Birch Road uh and into the storm drain in the street any thoughts from Chris McKenzie our engineer we certainly hate shifting water out into the street as well but it's yeah I would be a little concerned this whole neighborhood it's it's the whole lake neighborhood it's all lots of water and not much space and all the water has to go someplace and unfortunately it tends to be in everyone's basements in that neighborhood yeah I would be a little concerned about putting a Swale in directing water going anywhere where that isn't already going uh you know the the system that we're proposing here um other than the rip wrap part of it will all be returned to uh LOM and seed and Lawn and it it's required to uh to stay that way you're not allowed to grow trees or anything or anything like that on there so the ground in the end is going to act a lot the same as it does now there won't be there's not going to be any significant increase in flow off of the property because of this um the the same amount of rain is going to be falling on the same amount of area and it's going to be soil that's equivalent to what's there now um and actually in a sense there's going to be more fill there and more sand and more area to be able to absorb that water underneath um I I I don't know that uh I would be uh too inclined to talk about a swell and and putting a swell in here you're going to actually have to do some some serious excavation because the hill the way the slope comes down in this area here is a high point on the property uh at the property line so the best you could do would be to swell maybe half of it in this direction the other half is going to go over here towards Mr foss's property um and and I don't know that that he would appreciate that um that that's my feelings on that all right Mr fralone are you is your internet connection a little bit better now are you with us thank thank you am I can hear you very perfectly I had a problem and uh somebody came and they gave me a hand and uh like I say everything that I hear it's fine thank you thank you you don't have problem all right thank you sir I have no more members of the audience uh any other questions from the board or any input from our professional staff guess Dan I guess I would just say to the idea of a swell that's a steep part of that Hill there and I'm not sure where the catch Basin is but uh the idea of the rip WP there was hopefully to slow that water down and and try to get it to go into the ground back on the laot itself um so I just would be a little concerned with what happens in the winter time if we direct that water out that way yeah because I'm I'm looking at Google Street View at the moment and yeah it looks like it's it's downhill steep the the nearest what I can tell on Google anyway is a Full House house length down on the opposite side of the street and the houses across the street are also downhill both ways so downhill but then also if you go straight across from one driveway to the other it's downhill across the street as well as down the street so anything we push towards the street is going to end up in those houses and on that street and yeah certainly concern about ice would be concerning as well um I do have Mr f is spoken but his hand is up so Mr Foss go ahead sir yeah Steve Foss again yeah that's um the discussion about getting the water moving the water out onto the road is definitely a negative impact for the neighborhood we want to keep any storm water from getting into the lake that's what's um causing it to um go further into ufic um so again the rip wraps a good idea if I were to do anything I might even suggest a trench on the other side of the rip wrap towards the property line if you will um but I think the rip wp's going to do what we're hoping happens just my my two cents over all right thank you sir all right what is the will of the board for nine Birch I guess uh one last question for Chris so this revised sketch that you're showing is this a a final enough plan that we could potentially vote on it or is this still a mockup that you need to flesh out a little bit more like is that exactly where the poly barrier is going to be or are we going further in one of those directions so the what you're looking at here is is basically a a a a clip of the of the plan as we currently have it uh so this would the the plan view of this would not change um our actual final plan would have to change uh that we've submitted uh because it comes with title blocks and D details and all that other kind of stuff this was just produced for tonight's meeting uh to show what we could do but uh we could have this plan uh ready and over to Jim quite quickly uh as shown right here with all the proper details Jim's going to want a detail uh of the uh of the poly barrier I'm sure maybe something of the of the rip wrap uh you know showing a detail for construction purposes really uh but yeah it's otherwise ready to go all right what is the rule of the board I'll make a motion to approve the plan uh with the poly barrier and the rip W I have a motion would you mind amend your motion to include uh local up here approval on setback from the cellular seller wall so moved I'm a two foot offset so moved I'll second that I have a motion in a second roll call vote Kevin Baker Kevin Baker votes yes youo Falone I'll come back to Gino Matt Wason Matt Wason yes chair votes yes youo fatalone sorry G if you voted we couldn't hear you I say yes thank you sir all right the local upgrade approval and variances have been approved good luck with construction thank you very much and we'll get a plan uh right into Jim and it'll have the revive offsets too uh for the final final numbers there thank you very much you guys have a good night no thank you very much work with Jim and Francis and obviously if they have any questions or concerns they'll direct you back to us but good luck I'm sure it'll all work out thank you very much all right thank you all all right that gets us to our 7:15 discussion around the opiate opioid sement funds uh as a little bit of a background we did talk about this uh a few months back um we talked with the U assist director of Elder and Human Services and it sounds like they had had a process they had actually started working with um the substance AB use Coalition and a few other folks uh upon followup um there's actually some miscommunication between us and them and they actually thought we were taking lead on that uh we have seen Francis ha has started some work putting together a proposed list of stakeholders here in our community to pull together and start having those conversations about how best to utilize that funding so I'm going to uh if it's acceptable to the board let's start with um Francis for the discussion if that's okay um sure so in your packet you'll see um as Dan mentioned potential stakeholders um and also a uh draft kind of survey for the public with some ideas on it in terms of General funding areas to look at um I bring it to the board tonight for um just to open the discussion give it some further thought for a future meeting um we'd also bring it to the department heads as well um such as Liz's Department would have their certain expertise that they'd be able to provide input on um so I just open it up to the board for initial thoughts pull now it was it was not in our full packet it was a separate email under a separate cover so I'm just pulling it up the moment we'll share it with the group all right so as far as stakeholders um we have obviously Public Schools um let's say the Senior Center eldo Human Services really Police Department Library parks and wack eldo Human Services um our churches here in town uh wintering experience is one of our preschool and and Murphy's after school care as part of our Early Education and after school folks and Oak meow as educational um so these would be more of um Outreach for like um providing paper copies of some kind of survey so we get a larger group of the public to participate um not necessarily just people who live but also people who work and y y no I apologize one I was one page too early so we have the health department and public the public health department the Board of Health The ta's Office El Human Services police fire parks and wreck school department Al service director time clerk community members looks like a pretty good starting point obviously if anybody has any other ideas or input please please share them either now or you know in the coming days so we can start building this group and identifying opportunities to bring us together and start identifying where are our needs are where we can start even start focusing on where what next steps should even be we're very basic here of what even our needs are I'm not sure we have solid numbers as far as we do not we don't as far as recreational and and misus numbers overall in our population um exposure numbers I'm not sure we even have that kind of data at this point I haven't seen it um so yeah we're at it's kind of square one even here for background data never mind how do we we don't know what the needs are so it's hard to develop an implementation plan if we don't even know what our needs are yet so yeah the initial approach I'm looking at is more of um an emotional you know um contact through family members or friends and other towns basically um I should have sent the board the numbers the numbers are low um I'll send those numbers out to the board there's some data it's very scant um we have about one death a year and a handful of emergency responses but it's very low numbers in comparison to other towns uh I know we've shared it in the past uh I will try to pull it back up again unless I I don't remember seeing it here as I look through this document um there is some flexibility in how opiate settlement funds are utilized it is relatively prescriptive and limited of what we can do with it but it is still pretty also in some ways relatively flexible um so it is not only for opiates it really can be for you know any drugs of abuse um it can be for um crial justi side diversion programs it can be for avoidance it can be avoid it can be used for treatment programs um there's a wide variety of things around um drug use and misuse that we can really utilize it for so it's not it's not purely for or heroin and fenal it can be used broader than that so it is still relatively limited but we have some more options so UNIF our opiate exposures are relatively low in town um there are still other places where we may utilize it as well as working with other communities perhaps to leverage some of that money to find a bigger impact so yeah that'll certainly be um one of the starting conversation points um is looking at a regional approach versus a local approach or perhaps combination of both um I actually went to a meeting today um with nishoba uh for a couple towns that got together and discussed what fund spending could be pooling looking like um and some kind of General ideas of how that would work and forming some kind of agreement in terms of how to spend that money over a certain period of time um we're not any further or any behind any other town and terms of looking at sement funds and starting to build so um I think we'll find more information I'll have more information available as the towns surrounding us start to um look at their suggestions as well um the thing I like about forming the task force early on is it can be looked at more not just with substance abuse but also mental health and wellness as well so any future programming like the community health assessment um we'd be able to tie in that group as well and kind of build that Coalition so um it' be great to bring everybody together like that and I'm sure we'll build upon this a lot and um yeah just start the conversation tonight right no thank you uh questions from the boards Mr won uh what is your timeline plan for your survey um I think it's good to get it out there early we're kind of at a terrible time where School vacation's coming yeah you know for the summer rather quickly um and at the pace we're going to be able to go it's going to be a little tricky um I would like to get some stuff before the summer but I guess we kind of have to see where we are in two weeks and evaluate how we can do that and then participation period that will probably take a good two months maybe three months tops um to get enough back so you know we have to get a certain percentage of the population to respond to start collating data and do you um I saw the program suggestions are within the questions are you asking about those programs in the survey to say can people rank them or is that just informational it's more informational to get their mind going so at the beginning I asked some general questions um and then I threw out some ideas and some subject areas to look at to get the mind going and then I've had some open responses so then you get some more personalized responses to build on um it's just kind of how the flow I side starting um there's a couple different ways we could do it we could do based on priorities in terms of are is or we could just do in general what do care people focus on most and care about the most ter yeah I think I mean I I like it I think since you're sending it out I don't know if there would be any Farm to you what do you think as a community member which would which should be our priority um it otherwise it might be a missed opportunity if we don't ask the question then like you said if our numbers are low that's a positive that's good I like that um but people also might I don't know have some more insight information or Community Information that might say well yeah but maybe this one is little more important for somebody who knows the community well stigma plays a large Factor still too so um it's going to be opening that conversation cuz it'll be to also you know Community forums as well I think that we'll end up having so um it'll be interesting to see how it transgresses over time thank you thank you I said for my Fe I wouldn't necessarily hold off just because school's coming to a close in a couple months that you know there's still lots of good work we can do we obviously need to include that big a population and a data source into our piece but I wouldn't necessarily put everything else on hold simply because summer's coming we can still start the conversation start the process and then ramp up as folks coming back in September if we get that far but yeah I wouldn't necessarily put things on hold till September just because school's coming to an end because there's still School staff working through the summer so and there's lots of every almost everybody else in this list is working all summer so we might as well still start the process Mr Baker go ahead yeah I just want to say thank you uh Mr dagel for putting that together I think the survey is great and maybe we can use the end of the school year as you know a benchmark but uh you know a date by when we'd like to get this sort of out into the community and and hope to have responses by uh as opposed to waiting to September to put it out there so uh maybe if we get some folks that are responsive know police fire uh Liz at EHS and some other members of the committee um you know we can get the ball rolling uh sooner than we think you think that's possible oh absolutely okay um yeah I'm gonna try to go full steam ahead so what I can do to help um happy to be there at the meetings uh let me know when you when you need me oh that was great thank you um the next step for us would also be to think about how we promote it how we get it out there um I'm fairly new to the town so I don't know all the channels um Marin and planning gave me a great list of resources to get public information out broadly but if the board has any suggestions um always open to that as well M speaker uh I just have two uh one is Liz at uh Elder Elder Human Services you know she's got the broadcaster newsletter uh that we can put out and I'm sure she's got uh you know digital database of some sort and she also has that Facebook pages she manages really well uh and it's got a number of followers and it might be a really good place uh for us to put something like this out to get the word out and then the other um group is uh you know Public Schools yeah and uh Dorothy Malone uh is amazing and she's got the mailing list and that's pretty much all all we need and then there's parts and wreck they also have have a a really you know cast a wide net with their marketing and advertising uh and I think they're right upstairs from us now so I'm happy to go up there and talk with those folks next time you and I are are in the building together we can do that yeah if if we were ready town meeting is you know two weeks right weeks can we get something with a QR QR code yeah May 11th could we I'm figuring it out y uh maybe we got a q QR code and just distribute that you know as people walk in because they're there will be people handing things out right at the door or or paper copies fill it out and drop it off right there yep true yeah the nice thing about the money too is we can also use it uh they so I went to a conference on the I think it was the 18th and 19th where they had updated um information on the settlement funds so you can use it for like getting feedback you could give gift cards you could pay people to be part of things um you know you can give incentivize those are allowance um for the funds so that will help as well too great speaking of town meeting it looks like that uh one of the items I forget which warrant item it is is that yes part of the budgetary process is moving the settlement fund which by state law goes into the general fund into an Enterprise fund basically or a a separate line item out of the general fund so that it's a little bit more easily track of what they didn't where it goes under a single line item rather than in the general fund so that that's on the warrant I foret where it is in the warrant but just basically it's putting it into its own box so that it's more easily tracked so if if anyone asked if you see that on the W that's should be what that's worth a a tracking process out of the general fund into its own and um right now we have about 96,000 um in the fund that's been submitted so far um we'll probably end up a little over 200 depending on where CVS lands okay well spent that could do uh a lot of good in our community so that's this is good hopefully we can really focus on some reasonable cost high impact programs to to make a difference absolutely all right thank you for all your work on that thanks to the discussion I have no one in the audience so if the board's okay we'll move on to our next item we have a 720 discussion around Board of Health public toilet or portable toilet regulations it does mention discussion and vote we will not have a vote t sight since it is listed as a discussion not a public hearing um and I'll be honest that we did not have the any updated portable toilet regulations in our packet that I saw unless I miss them certainly may have nope um it's in the it's in the packet uh Francis sent out that includes the opiate settlement our other packet other packet sorry the direct the director report all right well then Francis it's all yours how us a story about portable toilets so exciting um wasn't really consideration but we recently learned that the um Carnival is coming to town in June so um part of that will be quter poed placement um people are asking about permits placement is such a big event that hasn't happened probably in 60 years it kind of seemed like a a good item to have on the books um in terms of Maintenance and placement um so this is a pretty boiler plate um for the board to look at it's not meant to be voted on tonight that was a misprint um we would do it as a public hearing if the board wanted to go forward with this regulation for our next meeting Mr Baker I think it would be great to just have something in place and uh it seems like this is pretty well done so yeah you have my support uh quick question Francis are the red areas changes from an original or something or do we need to pay close attention to those um I just highlighted those because those could very easily change and what we'd be really focusing in on um these are the most commonly use so I just highlight them to make it easier to go through and read uh I'm just doing a quick skim through as well so like right now in section four operation no more than five days in any month locations Out Below I'm just gu so for example we usually have um portable toilets at Fay Park all summer for example um so get the municipal site public facilities it would be exempt from that 5day requirement looks like $25 offense I have to go back and look at our fee schedule is that consistent with our um enforcement schedule for other violations um I think we charge a little more in 25 but the form is not really in use technically from what I understand so it gives the board the chance to make a decision whether they want to set a different fee anyway all right any first pass questions from the board otherwise we can can review and bring forward to the to our next meeting [Music] on you guys will be faster than me probably should be April 8th excuse me May 8th all right sounds great absolutely we love have I'm not big one on rules but I love having things clear so everybody's in the same page so this is good all right that gets us to our if I don't see any other hands any other questions around portable toilet regulations that gets us to our 725 um board of health model regulations for private well discussion when last we talked we were still waiting for some feedback from some interest community members as well as our Agriculture and agricultural commission um friends about some input from their side uh Mr Baker I know was taking a big point on this Kevin did you have any more to share add any updates or Francis or Jim I did not have any further updates uh we were at the point to where we were going to sort of separate it out and and look at it uh piece by piece separating out the new construction versus existing construction and um and I don't know if we have uh have separated it out like that I know we we were going to take out the geothermal Wells out of that piece um and we we did uh finalize that uh there is no definition for an Agricultural irrigation well uh so we might be best served uh coming up with one uh and putting it putting it into our own our own document here I can bring um a more for formalized finalized version to the next meeting um kind of playing out what areas that we could look at to approve that night in areas that might need more consideration going forward before we approve that'd be great Mr chair Geo Wells is there a reason why you're not considering that just because we're seeing lots and lots of applications in other towns for geothermal Wells primarily closed loop um I'm not sure if we have NE I think the the separating them out was separating them out between portable water and the geothermal was the only reason to separate them out um I think we could probably do a geothermal portion of a regulation relatively easily mhm you know whatever our technical offsets are simply for construction reasons um and offsets from you know you don't whatever the distances are off from gas lines water lines septic just simple numbers um and a classification that this is not there is no interconnectedness into any portable water system in the house that again that's not a bylaw or regulation but that's not far from it really for that kind of a system you have to be at least this much offsets from from property lines and houses and and other pipes and you can't connect it to portable water seems pretty straightforward um it was really trying to separate it out it was that's an easy one it's how do you dress what's agriculture what's portable what's geothermal but as a subsection it seems geothermal really is the easiest as long it's not connected to portal water pretty straightforward um you know I think probably the more challenging one is how do we figure out what is portable water versus irrigation water and how do we make sure those two things don't necessarily ever mix no no it's the water my yard and then 10 years now oh well I can just connect this up because I've got this well and you know has kind of missed some of our initial testing and those pieces and I think that was how do we how do we classify how do we ex we look at at agricultural while watering my lawn versus portable versus both in my same yard how do we clarify all those pieces and just make sure that it's clear and we're treating them all appropriately for for their intended use and making sure that their intended use doesn't change I don't want to say downgrade but if I've got a pable water well and I get water in my street and I decide to connect I can still use the portable water or I can use it to water my lawn it's you know it's turning my portable water into an irrigation well is really again I want to say downgrade but as far as we're concerned great have a great time you have nice clean water you put in your lawn I'm not worried about it it's when we move the other way that water might not be considered portable that's now being connected into a house and is being used as portable when it was never tested or inspected that same standard when it started so Mr Wason H question Jim I don't think I've asked a hard question yet tonight uh how do potentially swimming pools come into play with your water source and I'm not necessarily thinking the large inground pool with chlorine treatment and pumping and stuff like that but smaller above ground pools with more static water or waiting pools or something like that and kids is there any sort of guidance for your water source for those types of usage or is it nobody will ever drink it so it's fine I don't know that I've ever seen a set of regulations that include considerations for um pool water because generally I think they're considered they're going to be filtered and treated even some of those small ones that you see that they go to Walmart and pick up they may be three and a half feet high I think they even come with filters um so I don't know that there's any from from our standpoint you'd want to make sure I didn't leave the hose in it so it wasn't a cross connection particular if you're tied into town water um but that's that's kind of where we come into that okay all right so follow-up plan is going to be um fris is going to take a look at where we are with the model rig with some of the input we've already kind of gotten and looked at and made some adjustments too and see if we can even do a not necessarily implement but at least review and approve portions of of regulations so that we're closer to having it ready to go out as prated regulations from us awesome all right um two weeks too soon you need more time than that fine yeah okay so we'll put that on our May 8th meeting as well all right there's no other discussion around Wells that gets us to our 7:30 infectious disease decision support tool Dr Wason there it is forgot I was next oh bum okay here we are folks um we've come to a interesting point in our covid history of all time and that is there is only one variant in New England period 100% no other variants exist which is just scientifically just kind of very exciting for me to think about but I'm sure it doesn't excite most of you out there um but to see that one is sticking around and there's not a lot of uh changes going on that are producing a new variant is just interesting so uh but it's out there uh we still just have some middling cases you see going on over here this spring kind of uh a little here and there the Wastewater numbers are all pretty low they've kind of stayed that way for a while but not not zero so it's still out there still circulating um still infecting uh our arbovirus data for Massachusetts is not updated yet so they're still on the 2023 season but I'm sure you're all seeing mosquitoes out there because I'm seeing mosquitoes out there um so as soon as that starts getting updated we'll be reporting it here influenza for Massachusetts Still Remains at a moderate category um where our vaccination rate hit almost 52% for the season which is a little lower than we'd like and RSV uh I'm going to drop down to low as you can see we're we're we're coming out of the RSV season so that's good news um respiratory infections are kind of down all over the place so hopefully it's a nice spring here and the mosquitoes all die from the frost over the next uh last week and this week and it'll be a great season for arbovirus too that's what I got all right thank you sir I will share certainly I know from our Statewide numbers the last week we had info for was April 7 to 13 there were a total of 575 new um Corona virus cases in Massachusetts and only four deaths I want to say only because only even even through all this we've still been you know 50 60 80 cases 80 deaths so um the last couple weeks we've actually come come down quite a bit so I it's obviously four is still more than we'd like but that's a lot better than where we've been both new cases and deaths so it's still out there but a lot less it's really really good to see so the anecdotal data our hospitals are still kind of crazy but certainly less consistently overwhelmed than they have been even three or four weeks ago so certainly there are very very busy days but it is overall much better than it is been in a while still utilize other resources when you can you Urgent Care Primary Care Providers tell Health visits all those good things only go to the emergency department in the hospital if you really really need to but if you need to obviously go uh but yes it's in hospitals are in a better place than they've been in a while so any questions for Dr Wason about our ID decision support tool no okay that gets us to administrative matters um I apologize as I was pulling other things up I did not pull up our minutes for 32724 so if folks can uh give me a moment while I try to pull it up off of the one drive um are there any other correspondents member updates or discussions that folks would like to have while I am trying to pull this up nothing um I asked a question of Francis and Jim about um some new construction on Harwell here in town um near kind of the wetlands on the the low end of Heartwell um it looks like for a couple of them that looks like the leeching field was in the front of the house a good distance from obviously wetlands and pond U I did have a question about kind of a house set back a little bit and I was when Francis said he was going to go and take a take a visit from drive by it looked like I couldn't imagine any part of that property was more than 100 feet away from the from the Wetland since it was the water was above and beyond the the barriers and the little the little tubes by about 10 ft when I went by on that day so um Francis did you have a chance to go by just I'm sure it's all compliant I just to make me feel better as someone who drove by went how on Earth is any part of that property 100t away from W um I did but Jim have a better update um because he was able to go back and look at the plan as well so I was I talked to Tim um the assistant conservation agent and that water level in that pond has come up significantly like all the water bodies in town have come up uh and then that doesn't seem to have an outlet so it really looks awful when you stand there and look at it and when I was doing this the inspection of the septic system that's installed we were looking at the water table saying hey why we dig a hole and see that we're still the right offset to the groundwater um when we did that we adjusted the height of the system so it's actually higher than the original permanent plan because we found water table that was higher um no whether that's a permanent thing or whether that's that you know we had 50% more rain last year we're ahead of rain this year don't know uh it's pretty well- drained soil except that that pond is like the puddle at the bottom of the hill it just sits there and I think beneath that is water table so um the conservation didn't seem concerned about it um and you know they're checking to make sure the erosion control the Waddles that you saw um were still being maintain so that they didn't get stuff into the wetlands was there 100 foot offet between leeching field and that water uh so the according to the plan when it was originally pered it was 120 ft from the edge of the pond to that uh the edge of the leech field um I'm not sure how much it's come up your regulations I believe talk about 50 fet from the leech field as an offset uh to the wetlands I think that 100 feet treatment I think you you Chang that which there's a regulation that you put in that says if somebody's requesting a two foot offset within 100 feet of wetlands they need to put treatment on it but I I'm pretty sure your regulations talk about 50 foot offset to to the leech field and it's it's 50 fet at a minimum but the original the proposed plan showed it at 120 it's probably a little closer than 120 now based on where the water water is today um Okay Kevin Kevin Baker's eyes moving side to side he's thinking anything Kevin hello you're on mute I'd have to look at the plan I drove by today and I was like wow he's right that water's really close to leing field it's like right there it's like over the it's over the the Waddles so should we have it flagged again you know is that flag is it a good flag did they put him in the right spots maybe not like when I when I talk to Tim again assistant town you assistant Town conservation agent um he didn't seem concerned at this point so so so conservation's not concerned under their piece but Board of Health should we be concerned under ours again with the offset being 50 feet to the wetlands I I think it's meeting the town's regulation so it's explain this to me again sorry so it's within 100t of the waylands so your local regulation for Wetlands offset to leeching Fields um matches Title Five it's a 50 foot offset from the have a local we don't have a local regulation it just matches title five five that's right so you put a regulation in for these upgrades where people were asking for reductions to the groundwater offset down to two feet and which you stated in that regulation if somebody comes in and asks for that two foot reduction and they're within 100 feet of wetlands you ask them to install U treatment tchs right so these are what's the groundwater offset on these these meet they these meet fully compliant they're they're five feet because it's Sandy so right and and again what we did when we were out there looking at them we wanted to make sure since the water table had come up that it was still 5T above it so we had them dig a hole um and we made adjustments based on what we found so thank you very much sorry it was I no no it's it's shocking to go by the trees are all gone you look over there and say oh my God right and you see the shed sitting in the pond and you go why is the shed sitting in the pond I was going to say that usually as again you when you could see through the trees was at the edge of the pond and now it is in the middle of the pond that yes obviously we've had lots more rain but that also means that anytime we have lots more rain that conditions are probably going to be pretty similar to what we're seeing right now so so again I feel comfortable since we raised the elevation that it's it's more than the 5T it needs to be above the water table and with your regulations not requiring the 100 feet it it meets Title Five all right no thank you very much for going out and looking at it but yet no just check completely understand completely I think we're all kind of scratching our head including the developer all right so thank you guys for being patient with me I uh have uh minutes for 327 let me share them I can pick the right screen oh Mr Baker go ahead I was just going through the minutes there are a bunch of typos on there I don't know if you just want me to correct them all right now with the spell check and or because I've been running through it there are a number of typos um if if the board is comfortable um I'm going to table these minutes and ask Brenda just to go through and just look at all the squiggles and just address that and then we can if anyone has any input or edits offline as well we can just bring it back a clean copy for May 8th for a review if that works because yeah there are there are more than enough spell checks to to deal with on this I think that we can we don't I don't think need to deal with that yeah I think the content's good I just think it needs to the grammatical stuff yeah uh I I'm I'm happy to if it's the board's will to approve with the caveat of spell check um as long as there's no content errors if it's just grammatical Corrections or or spelling Corrections it's I'm happy to accept from the board whatever their will is I would say we we table it and just um have it on the next one it's only it's not not yet 30 days or almost 30 days so we can two weeks we just got him yesterday right yeah unless I missed him over the weekend so I haven't I haven't reviewed him all right so we are uh so brender and Francis we're going to table these ones just to uh allow a little bit of clean up on on the minutes and then we'll bring it back before the May 8th meeting for final approval if that's okay with you guys any other correspondence discussion member updates for the good of the order uh I will just say um that uh Kevin and I have been meeting with Francis trying to get there once a week just to kind of keep in touch and see things going and uh there's a lot going on um it's kind of exciting this board doesn't have time to you know review every single possible Stone that's being turned over but um I really appreciate the work that Francis has done so far in such a short start um there there are a lot of things in motion um and we're going to see Snippets of it here and there like portable toilet regulations which is great uh but there's work that has to be done to get those things done so um I I just appreciate the direction we're already starting and I thank Francis for jumping on board and I think thank Jim for supporting and continuing to build this uh relationship together and um good good things are coming for the health department Department of Health thank you all right thank you Mr Ron and seeing nothing I'll entertain a motion there I'll second it I have Mr won with a motion to Jour and I have Kevin Baker with a second roll call vote Kevin Baker Kevin Baker votes yes J J say yes Matt Wason yes and the chair votes yes that concludes our April 24th 2024 board Health meeting as always thank you all for all your work Francis Jim thank you being here with us Brenda thank you