##VIDEO ID:wJmaaO9TrDQ## okay thank you Andrew oh no problem um let's see I get up um I just had a couple of things for us I hate Microsoft uh I just wanna cast back to Tom me congratulations to park and rck for getting their vote and Carolyn your presentation and it seemed to go pretty well yeah no um it they did a good job and I think they had been to so many boards that there weren't that many questions which was good um right let me here okay um I did have I don't know if anybody saw the um the state match came through and we ended up with $148,300 6% um so it was higher than last year when we got 8397 so that's that's good news um so what that means is um the estimate was 84,000 when we were at town meeting in May so it came in over estimate so there'll be a little bit extra in the in the buckets from what we had um estimated which was kind of nice all right um so uh they also the Coalition also mentioned that there are now 200 cities and towns that are CPA communities um there were 10 communities that had CPA on their um Town meetings this past year and only four of them passed um so that was kind of interesting some of were real close some of them not so uh and Somerville increased their uh Sur charge from 1.5 to 3% so another another big town too so so they get the extra so they'll get the extra which was interesting um uh select word meeting on Monday I think it was um announced they've got the the springtime meetings sched schedule out uh draft articles the warrant will close on 324 so that kind of gives us a some guidelines to when we have to have our articles in May to meeting is May 6 and um they're putting together the town Town Charter commission and they're looking for people and they were going to ask for everybody to kind of announce it to their their boards and and audiences so if anyone's looking to be on that I think the the select board is going to start looking for people so that's Coalition news on a on a project note the window project at the hoton building is finished so all 54 Windows have been removed and and uh restored and renovated so it's it's great um so that they just have a little touch-up painting to do but that's it so the Historical Society thanks the town for that anything else um so the clean Lakes committee is with us with a couple of Eligibility requests I was so productive last night and put it on some slides and now of course Microsoft will not allow me to open PowerPoint but I should be able to C okay um so John you have a couple of Eligibility request to go through us the first one I had is the Matan Lake Matan that's fine sure uh and Dave bar is here who's representing the lake and I think you can flesh things out uh we have uh a crisis uh at spec Pond and Lake minan have for a couple years running now and we're not quite sure exactly the root of the problem uh but uh but the end result is that there is a massive amount of invasive materials we've tried for the past couple of years to tackle it and uh through uh Pro through our our setbacks in terms of uh uh permit and permit scheduling uh we were limited last year uh and the year before that we uh well of course both years were limited to uh 100 cubic yards of material being removed uh hasn't been nearly enough to tackle the problem at metan uh you get some pictures and Stu and I've got some I have the other scroll through some of that but unfortunately you can't see this online you can see uh this is uh this shows the the lake and also the division between uh of course it strad the Town Line between Westford and Littleton uh the lower lobe is Littleton and uh the western town beach is straight up from uh from that lower low um coming that's no problem but uh generally speaking uh the uh the lake has been doing very well with just an annual draw down at winter time which freezes out uh the U the plants that that are in the literal zone because they're exposed to the weather uh it's not always 100% successful uh but uh the past couple years have been warmer we've gotten a rain uh at an odd time it's stilled back up again uh hasn't been tackled uh and I think the probably the generally warmer weather has contributed to the proliferation of invasive plants uh so we are looking for uh $80,000 to really hit this one big time we're in the process now of applying for a uh a much larger uh permit for uh for removing actually it's a dredging permit uh for removing much more than the 100 cubic yards that that we're allowed to right now uh it'll allow us up to 5,000 cubic yards which is way out of scale with what we need uh we won't literally be dredging we'll just be removing organic material but we do need to uh to hit this uh with a couple of machines uh probably over at least a week's time uh which means what 13 14 uh machine days uh of Labor so it's a it's a very labor intensive process uh and hence the the $80,000 that's a portion of what we'll be using uh there'll also be some contribution uh from uh the uh the Light and Water Commissioners so that's do you want to flush this out at all then um so uh like John said um I'm far yes thank you man and uh historically we've used draw Downs to uh mitigate the effects of the invasive plants in the lake and um that has been modestly successful uh not every year is successful but we're if if the draw Downs work every two or three years um that seems to be effective um but um lately the the winters are warmer and so they aren't effective um partly um in order for the draw Downs to be effective they have to Bel low L that's below and we have to have two weeks of freezing weather and we haven't had more than a few days of freezing weather and that also makes it difficult to have the the water level down because instead of precipitation falling of snow and staying on the on the on the land it falls as rain and just runs in and the lake comes back up so um it hasn't been successful the last couple years we're trying something a new process to see how all that works um the other sort of double that we're experiencing is uh starting um two years ago we've had much higher uh levels of invasive plant growth than we have in the past people that have lived uh on the lake their whole lives um in summer of 23 spring of 23 said what's happening we've never seen uh plants like this uh you know ever and uh the same thing this past year and it's not exactly clear why um it uh you know could it does coincide with the warmer weather uh it also coincides with um the uh uh main tributary into the lake uh having its culbert Inlet replaced by a bridge which uh is much uh more uh accessible to you know things floating in from Upstream in Beaver Brook Beaver Brook's very large Watershed um it uh it could be uh It ultimately the plants are growing because there's so much nutrition nutrients coming into the lake we don't know if that's a change Upstream in in Beaverbrook or um we we plan to to look at that um we did uh Westford um funded uh phosphorus nutrient study this past summer we haven't got the results of that yet um but uh bottom line is that we've had much much much worse um invasive plant growth the last couple years than we had previously um so that combined with draw down is not working we're trying um the echo harvesting um we're not in favor of doing herbicides um and uh we this this the funding we're asking for would be for next summer which would be the third time that we we would be trying it um the first time we tried it um we um were very limited in our funding and uh the permits uh delays uh resulted in the treatments being done in late August which is not a particularly it's um by late in the summer the plants are getting weaker and they don't Harvest as well so you're not going to get as many of them um and some of them are actually have already died and have fallen down um so the first summer was limited uh funding and delayed permits uh and last summer uh we had uh adequate more we had more funding but um we um uh for the first time we're limited to 100 Ys of uh material taken out which uh was well below what needed to be taken out um it was a surprise that that that came up like John said we're trying to work through that process to get a permit which would not have that limitation for next time um but we're really trying to understand is this an effective way to deal with the uh invasive plants and we haven't uh been able to have a valid uh test of that and so we want to have enough funding to have uh a uh really uh extensive uh treatment uh to really see you know what's the best that it can do uh and we will be doing it uh much earlier in the summer when uh it's more effective with the plans um so uh we do uh we will be starting it in June uh the treatment as the plan which would allow us to use our leftover uh funding from water department from this year and then we'd be uh continuing it into July with um the funding for um from from CBC assuming we can we can get it is right working in the same way on their section of what they call forch Bond uh right so uh we have always been I mean since I've been involved for um last uh eight years uh it's always been a collaboration between Westford and Littleton and um so uh we are members of the clean Lakes Committee in Milton uh I'm I and one of the other uh members of Cl committee are also members of the Westford Health lakes and ponds collaborative which is the sist organization to clean L committee and um they uh as long as I've been associated with them they have gotten their funding from uh from the West CPC uh and um a couple uh two years ago um that changed and they weren't going to be able to get funding from the Western CPC anymore and they've been going with a uh line item uh in the town budget um last year was the first time that they were strictly relying on that and they uh had a $50,000 allocation which got knocked down to $5,000 when their override didn't pass and um this year uh working with uh you know the the committee the expectation is the same that there will be um practically nothing coming in uh last year they were able to they had money in the bank that they could spend down um this year they don't um we're working with uh the other members of the of the committee a collaborative uh to try to develop uh uh more townwide support in the town government and groups um but um it doesn't look like we'll be able to achieve that for this coming fiscal year so um we've had discussions with our uh we're also some of us are also on the board of the friend for pond and we've had discussions with our members in Westford about this and trying to also develop ways to get more funding uh you know develop support within the town and we've let them know that if we're not getting a funding this year from from Westford that the funding that we get from Littleton will need to be um used for the the Littleton part of the lake um that's not our our main concern is unification of the Lakes U the Lakes filling in you know having a lot of plant growth which then Di and fills the bottom and it [Music] just instead of taking 10,000 years it can take 100 years for the lakes to fill in so that's our our main concern is you accelerated unification and um uh it isn't effective to fight it on one side of the lake right but for this year in terms of assessing the effectiveness of the Echo harvesting uh it would be effective to we would be able to assess it even you know doing doing the little I've driven by the excuse me you're talking about left I was thinking of Bron I think I think gr has their own Echo Harvester They Do by the highway department I mean that's been discussed uh but it's not on the table right now um thank you I have several questions yeah um do you know why the Westford CPC is no longer going to be funding those efforts um I believe that when they started the health LS and ponds collaborative um about 12 years ago it was uh to uh meet the concerns about uh uh algae blooms and that kind of thing which had shut Downes and such and they were being proactive about fighting that kind of thing and they were looking for what's the best way to do this what's an effective way to do this and they were trying different things but one of the main things they were trying was herbicides and so I think the understanding was that let's see if this method works and uh let's see if we can control the invasive plan in the Town Lakes doing this and so it was a effort to see you know is this effective um at some point uh I think they determined that it was effective was yeah uh and so but at that point it was no longer uh assessing you know is this is this an effective way or not but it was something which uh was being done uh repeatedly to uh preserve the Lakes I I I contacted Westford to find out and she said that's what it was was um they determined that the because the lake treatments were done year after year it was considered maintenance and that's why they decided it wasn't appropriate because we can't fund for maintenance so there's there becomes we talked about this before where's the breaking point where we go from the project to routine M but it seems I don't know I mean you just I mean this is we heard that westbr found that this method is effective but no no they used herbicides oh herbicides was effective they used herbicid that's what they found was I'm sorry I misunderstood so they didn't test Eco harvesting no they they the only Eco harvesting that they've done is uh when we in the last two summers did Echo harvesting on Forge Pond okay yeah um for so what did they find there was in effect that's that was us doing it on on the whole lake oh so like I just described you know the the experience was what I just described right um I mean if I had chance I would I would just say that um you know uh I I know that I've heard like like I explained in terms of westford's situation that the CPC is not charged with doing maintenance um and uh you know I can see if you know we buy some conservation land or whatever and you know uh you know they they want to be mowing or whatever to make so uh if you buy land to conserve it from development you can buy it and let it sit there and it's preserved it stays in its that's the state it pretty much stays in that state um the Lakes you don't have to buy them they're there they are State the state owns them um but uh when there is development around lakes or in the region of the Lakes uh the Lakes don't stay in their pristine uh State they need some help to do that um and so um the what we're looking at is preserving the state of the Lakes not uh mowing the grass or you know U planting uh flowers or whatever so I have a few more questions can you is is this is this is this like Public Access I can't remember yes it is it um it has a uh state owned public boat ramp that anybody can use um it has a very big beach uh on the north side of the lake in Littleton and it's open to Litt res it's it's a Westward Beach better deal it's a better deal than what we have in town I didn't know it was open to Lion residence it's here it's called Forge Beach it's a Westford property uh but uh we've been collaborating with them for last 12 years and they allow West Lon residents to use the beach with the same in the same uh way that Western residents can use it which up in till now at least and as far as we know it's be maintained but I don't know uh means that Western vants can use the beach without paying a fee and Litton residents can use the beach without paying a fee um I think they're talking about uh putting in a fee for Western residents in which case Litton residents would pay the same thing but uh because it's a shared Lake and because both towns are contributing to main you know the the maintenance of of um managing the quality of the lake um they are willing to you know have Wilton residents use it with the same same way two more questions that I'm done um one is um you you're asking the CPC for 880,000 but the total cost is 98.5 th000 is that all from the Light and Water Department that the remaining balance okay and my last question is what you've done so far has given you inconclusive results for Eco harvesting so we're all hoping that when if you were to do it this year with CPC funds it would show that it's a great method and it's works great fantastic but if it if it fails then we're paying $80,000 out of CPC funds for a failed method testing so it's a little bit of a concern right well I mean you know we weren't sure that the gy project would work either you know I mean it's uh we haven't a lot of options um we've consulted with uh Lake people that do this for business you know for a career Lake management and um after spending hours discussing with them there's no perfect way to deal with this uh friends of Forge Pond is uh thinking about uh bringing in uh a consulting firm to you know look at the overall uh state of the lake the conditions that causing it to be whatever it is now and you know advise us on different ways that we could we could deal with that um like I said the main the main issue is the high level of nutrients that come into Lake when it's surrounded by a developed region uh from The Watershed from the directly on the lake um so uh that's the the bottom line is the try to deal with that but then there's mitigating in the meantime to try to uh reduce the effects of um you know the the plant growth that can lead to accelerated ocation I assume this happens all over the state are there like State initiatives that are going on now to try there's no there's no funding unfortun that's that's our find uh we have these lakes and if we don't care for them well they become mil you 40 or 50 years ago there was um Nationwide understanding that this was something that was important and uh certainly in Massachusetts uh a lot of towns and had their lake Lakes they were they were studied they were evaluated there were suggestions of what to do um and there was also some funding to try to deal with that but um that kind of thing uh has changed and that's not the that funding is not available the that approach is not really the approach of the uh State Environmental uh agencies now um so the lakes and the towns are kind of on their own to try to figure out how to deal with it I mean there there are some grants and um if we figure out you know what the right thing to do is um we would pursue those well I was thinking more of just like understanding the problem I mean throw money you could throw money at it all day long but are you going to come up with some kind of um way to I mean you're going to try to figure out if this is working do you have you been able to formulate a plan to see so like I said friend for fond is looking at bringing in a Consulting Group and the the end result of that that we would hope would be a a link uh management plan and and what what would that entail you had a couple of I think there were four figures with different types of invasives uh yeah the first one shows the overall plant coverage um uh in a survey that was done in July um and that second line of my caption points out that uh the the group that did it uh typically you know the um the plants grow near the shoreline where the water's shallow and the sun can get down to the bottom uh we were out uh on the lake when the um company was doing the survey and we pointed out to them that there were several places where the water was deeper that there were a lot of plants and they should look at those and they apparently didn't um the whole Southern Bay there which is you know mainly the most of Litton part of the lake uh has in the last couple years had uh invasive plants across the whole width of it um and it's it's deeper there it's 12 to 15 ft deep which uh you know previously would not have had plants growing there uh but now the last couple years there have been so um the uh this gives you an indication what kind of uh issues we have but I would say it's not complete so this on the right is um Eurasian mil foil and then you had fan warts and variable Leaf Mill foil so there are five invasive plants in the lake the there are three that are the the main ones the uh Eurasian male foil fan wart and varable male foil the other two are cly p weed and BR I at but there's not much of those it's mainly the other three um and they they I put those in for completeness because those are invasives but they're not the issue um issue is really the mil in some pockets it's mostly F but um you know we've had uh there are fishermen that come to the lake you know regularly every every other day or that live on the lake and that fish every day and and they told me this year I wasn't out there much because um you know we we fish by we look for the weeds for fishing right but we need to look we need to have edges of weeds for fishing and when the whole thing is Full Of Weeds it doesn't it's not they can't they can't is it choking out any of like the fish species or anything um I I don't know um I the state periodically comes through to do fish counts and um I want to see if I can find out I I didn't see them come this year but I wouldn't necessarily they might have come I didn't see them anyway I I'm interested in seeing if there's a difference but I haven't I don't know this is the yeah that's the machine I can explain it if you're interested but as you did on Long Lake last year right yeah Long Lake yeah and respect spectal Pond both uh it uh it it pulls the weeds it doesn't cut them it pulls them and as it pulls them it puts them immediately onto that uh ramp uh that you see there which is a conveyor belt and that goes directly into a contained uh hopper in the back of the uh floating vehicle so it's all contained it doesn't float away very little of it floats away which is important because the invasive plants when they break off and land someplace else that's a way that they can spread they can spread by fragmentation think Andrew or Karen do you have questions I think um everybody's pretty much covered what I was wondering [Music] what is the appropriate time for doing this the best time is uh June or July um and the plants are uh robust uh and uh it um it could be that doing it earlier like early June or late may could be an effective way to do it um if the plants are fully uh in place uh and have not generated as much plant Mass it could be uh uh effective to do it uh early June or late may but um I don't think our funding would be available until July um so well if we if we make sure that we say it comes from the open space reserve it would be available after town meeting after the votes are certified or okay whatever yeah so we have to make sure we put it in those okay the the determination of success or not would be a year from now when when yeah it would be I would say it be the spring of of the next yeah when we see so it's it's it's twofold I mean um you can see you know throughout the rest of the summer and and like the late summer you know how well uh did it eliminate the plants that are there and to what extent uh do they come back how long do it take from come back but the real test would be uh next in this spring after uh when you can see you know uh is it basically are you seeing the same thing that you saw here before or or not um and um so there are I would say two two kinds of success the best kind of success would be when you do the treatment and it um uh really um kind of throws the plants for Loop and they and they coming back like they did uh we did see that um in one or two places after the first year we didn't have limited funding so we had limited ability to you know uh treat the lake or you know cover the lake uh in a couple places we spent a fair amount of time on a small area small areas and uh we did three different places and and one of them when we you know the next year um that was still quite quite clear which uh I was pleased with um at The Other Extreme there there wasn't one of the three areas you couldn't tell the difference uh and uh the third one was sort of in between uh more like the first one where it you know wasn't nearly as bad um but um we it we weren't there with them as they were doing each of those the whole time so there could be some other factors that led to the difference but the fact that at least in one area you know when they did they focused on it and they could spend quite a bit of time you know feating it uh the next year it seemed uh definitely seemed better uh that's that's the best success um the secondary success would be well it's coming back but uh if we get all this plant volume out of the lake uh it's not uh decomposing and sinking to the bottom and becoming uh you know part of the um silt on the bottom of the lake other problem yeah which is what you know that is the ocation experience that it fills in the lake um so tonight we're we're voting on eligibility just to see if we want you to you know proceed um I don't know if there's anything that if we do I mean I guess thinking of you know what Lyndon talked about too is maybe if um we have a full project come back to kind of outline how you're going to do the you know what the outcomes are like what your testing is going to be um just trying to think you know like you're saying $80,000 for something we might might not know works but if we could really get I would think what I would like to see and I can be overruled I don't care um you know how how are you going to test it how are you going to measure success I don't know if anyone else has any other I mean how much is that weight can you cover in two weeks 10 10 12 days of of machine time well that's um one of the uh you know variabilities right uh we this is new um we haven't uh been able to really uh have a good experience to understand you know how much is needed um if um so like I said last year um we had three days on the loing part of the lake so this would be basically four times as much uh but last year um there were uh we again had to focus on places we tried to you know do the sweep of the the perimeter of both sides of the lake right so there were three days spent on western side three days spent on on Litton side um and a lot of people said were they here did it you know they but but I think that was more sort of a stochastic you know some places they spent more time than other places but they clearly didn't have enough time to to really do it effectively and unfortunately it was late in the season yeah it was late in the season too which makes it hard for them to uh have the harvesting be as effective you know at a particular spot in a given you know um so um if turned out that you know um they were there for you know two-thirds of that time and we said uh this looks good you know it doesn't look like you're getting anymore it doesn't look like we need to do anymore you know uh I am advocating that we write our bid in such a way that we can have that flexibility um to be able to say okay I think I think we we've got it but we don't really know how how much is needed because it's been so inadequate with what we've done in the past but but this this the way this works is you hire a company that comes in with a driver and and a machine and yeah they presumably know what they're doing and they're not this this is what they do this is their job they have uh they come in with two machines and they um we cont the the water department does the bidding and uh contract that are able to do this bid on it and one of them wins the bid and they're they're hired to come and do it I I wonder if I don't know if this possible but based on what you're asking is there a way for the contractor to tell us or provide us with some information on how they decide what areas of the lake they're going to work on we we guide them in where it needs to be done and uh we we've each of the two years we've done it we've given them priorities uh okay do these a survey is done beforehand yeah identify problem so the the maps that you saw were done in order to identify where we needed to do the work um and and then from that we give them priorities we say you know this area is Priority One this area these areas are priority too and um uh they can you know we ask them you know as you go around give us feedback if you think something should be done differently let us know and we can have a discussion so this has been the eligibility is based on this as a investigation if it's successful then we can't do any more fund [Music] I think that's debatable so well it may be debatable but I mean that's that's an issue and I'm just saying like I said earlier uh I mean I would Advocate that uh you know you can buy forest and leave them and they and they're preserved uh lakes with the you can't actually they get overrun yeah problem so it's it's a similar issue uh maybe similar but different right I I don't think I don't know that it's any more uh because you've got you know a developed area surrounding it uh then it would be just naturally but Lakes are definitely that way when they're surrounded by developed areas they their ufic uh can be 100 times faster our problem of course is we create problems living around Lakes uh with runoff from roads and storm sewers uh run off from erosion uh people don't know any better and throw leaves in the lake and what have you and it's not just on the lake uh you know it's a whole it's a whole water right so Forge Pond has a very large wed you know the the Beaverbrook W shed goes all the way up to vro and it's pretty wide it goes over to mil Pond mil Pond feeds in is is part of the and so anything that happens in that Watershed in terms of uh nutrient you know Pepsi Plant or farmland or people putting fertilizer on their lawns or you know uh we all have septic systems right and they even if they work perpectly right uh they the the clear effluent that goes into the septic field it has nutrients in it and it goes into the groundwater and that goes into the lake uh which is more nutrients in the lake than we would have if you know the houses in the region weren't there so it's it's the whole area yeah and it's it's it's accelerated because there's a developed region around it not just you know development uh on the lake so I mean I guess we could have that discussion if we needed to another well I I I don't think we have should have the discussion now but I'm looking at your eligibility and your comments about we can't maintain and that's something for us to decide but but the other issue is you know their competing needs or in years to come and um so that's fine well yeah I mean I would also point out that I mean even though we're not we're not getting into it uh if it's successful clean light committee would be looking at ways to make it more uh feasible more uh financially feasible right uh like if we if we weren't hiring uh an outside firm that gets profit from it but you know doing something more like rotten perhaps or in fact we'll just get a a line of funding through the select board like we anticipate but again we're in a blind at this point and uh and you are you're Our Saviors do anyone have any like little reservations about this and again we will excuse me this is the eligibility to kind of put it through to the next round and we've gotten a lot of information for this this part of it um it's a really good presentation yeah think the data from the survey is really useful thank you and I will post these on the web for people to see because we can't get the pictures up might take me a few days to remember how to do it but I can get those up there on on this the community preservation portion of the town website and I can help you too Carolyn oh that's right thank you um Caroline about um eligibility I've been looking at the Coalition website database and the the the community preservation Coalition is a nonprofit that we're members of and they provide a database and it's searchable there's a lot of projects that have dredging or invasive plant removal from ponds and I I think that this is uh presented as an Open Space Project so it's possible it's not um the the the maintenance prohibition is for maintenance of recreational facilities in Recreation you have to make the capital Improvement to have the project allowable um but in in terms of open space if it's open space and it needs preserving or rehabilitating or resing that's I think the the word that this falls under um it appears that it doesn't have to be a CPA property or a property that's under a conservation restriction um for instance Warner Pond and Conquer is an extensive pond it's owned by the town of conquer and they're talking about dredging it using CPA money and um but I I wonder if uh if we think it's a uh if we determine tonight that in our opin is eligible I think it would be smart to get a second opinion on it too to make sure that we're putting it in the right category by calling it open space is that what the other rehabilit yeah yeah when um yeah they're under open space and we have to remember too like technically it's open space and Recreation is the actual category in Littleton we split them but if you go to the C CPA legislation I think it's it's all one category and we also have undesignated funds that we we can tap into and that that all comes out you know when we think get of funding but that's something for us to think about how we want toize those um what you say is true Caroline about our bookkeeping but um you can do open space you can acquire open space but you can also create it whatever that means preserve it support it [Music] um um oh rehabilitate open space no unless acquired or created with CP money well as we know it's it's all semantics it's a big gray miasma so we can and that's where the the maintenance comes in depends on you know how we think about it but for tonight we're we're trying to think whether it's an eligible project or not and I think you just said that there are there's precedent for this plus we did it last time can't say it's not tonight I don't think well we did last time so we do have that local uh precedent from the last couple of applications as well um in the past we have kind of said hey it's you know the preservation of open space so any last comments or do we want make motion if is that database searchable can we look for completed projects and find out if this harvesting is successful in other areas in other places or could we do have yeah and they have dates there uh for the projects um and they range over from 2010 to okay you know 2020s um that's a good resource to you get ideas from um K I think in terms of semantics it might make a difference I think we should call it preserving open space rather than rehabilitator restore because you can only do that under Recreation rehabilitator restore yeah I I think open space is the right open SP we have a motion or I will move that we determine this project to be eligible as an open space preservation project um we do have one member who is remote so we'll do a roll call M yes Sam yes Saul yes Carolyn is a yes Bartlett yes Linda yes yes and and yes yeah but she's not a voting Jerry [Music] is all right there's one down thank you the next one is the I can't say this word spect spectac Pond Bo launch engineering study vot against it just because of that got the big words in there we've got uh we've got a project here that we have been trying to just one oh I'm sorry going back to the previous one I think it would also be if you get to it hopefully before we get around to town meeting to have that if we can get that um management plan make sure that the Eco harvesting is in facts [Music] a part of the management plan for the lake that would be yeah I don't think we'll have time I mean it that's a process for you know people company to come in and evaluate um the lake and look at options and such but uh this department of engineering Environmental Protection has documents that again um 20 30 years ago they developed to help uh groups like us uh deal with uh problem of invasive plants and this is definitely one of the uh options that they recommend as uh a feasible approach to um mitigating invasive PL grow okay okay um so this one is uh 20,00 to for an engineering study to determine how to improve the spec Pon B launch area are you I'm Le Weaver this is my submission okay picture so this is a bit of a calibration the spectacle Pond is the F further westernmost hinterlands the town if you were familiar with the old Agway that was off of 119 yeah this boat launches right across from there yeah it's not called an Agway anymore but yeah and it's also right next to the access to the Littleton water department facility there a road that leads to their facility and the boat launch Road access is just down from there uh and you can see there there's a boat launch area that's identified there this area is fairly uh extensive these days you could park a half a dozen trailers and uh and towing vehicles in that area uh it was reworked in 2010 I don't know if you recall we had the flood 119 was shut down yeah the mass DDP reworked this area to expand the parking area but also at the time they modified the boat launch used to be a much more gradual slope down to the water prior to 2010 they optimized the parking area but then they needed to do a a fairly severe slope down to the pond and there's a guy named Leon Weaver standing and you can see you really got to visit the place to go oh yeah yeah that's that's a s slope fact I had knee surgery done about a year go and I have to be I have to take baby steps down that because the gravel is loose I would recommend that you be very cautious if you would go out to visit that area you don't want to be you don't want to be eating gravel basically yeah and that's my truck that's parked up top there just to kind of give you a proportion of of the the launch area and there there is this fairly severe slope it could start off with not so severe but it can increase over time it's can be 20 and 30 degrees on certain spots anyway the problem is that the slope is severe enough that trucks especially TR trucks that have trailers that have to haul very large Vehicles like larger pontoon boats these are one and one and a half ton pontoon boats uh they will very often gouge out the gravel material as they're trying to gain traction and that's loading and unloading the these these boats you don't you don't really see it that well right here but there is one picture I think you can kind of see that there's some gouging there this is not this is not optimal I I we're in a drought uh were we not in a drought and you would have water going down running off as well you could see some fairly substantial running is this the same Hill just looking down it that yeah now I'm it's an L-shaped though too isn't it pretty this goes straight down it's a little bit of a dog way to it yeah the other one is much more effective that's that's excellent that's not 1199 that is not Park the lot yeah again M EP gave us some more substantial parking area but they messed around with the slope and and this is what we're left with anyway the uh over time the uh Vehicles loading and unloading boats gouging out gravel that gravel travels down into the pond and it's making uh at right at the water's edge I don't have a good picture of this it's tough to take a picture of this but you would see that there's been a discouragement of quite a bit of gravel over time and what happens is uh you try to put a boat in there and you uh the boat goes rear end first down into the water and at some point you got to turn the engine on in the propeller and the propellers are getting caught up in the gravel that's been disgorged here um this is a continuing process I I try to get get a good picture of this but we got to get the angle right on it suffice it to see that the little water department more than occasionally has tried to repair this by bringing in more gravel and and Grading it but you you're just putting more gravel down there is getting discorded so I I think what we're looking for is an engineering study first off to recommend whether we put an impervious or semi- perious structure down so that we're not discoring gravel out anym so $220,000 for an engineering study to tell us what the smart thing would be to do do you have a firm quote on that or is that a we do not about 10 years ago we were in that $20,000 range engineering study that's what we're basic on so what if it's more now unknown yeah will you have those will you be getting those like soon um for the for the actual project submission uh we were sort of waiting on the funding once once we know got $20,000 promised earning that in hand we would Engage The the engineering company to do more than 20 yeah it' be worth talking to a few get a at least get a a round number quote for what that that work costs yeah we can push for that again this was around uh the the previous decade ago I I suspect that anything from a decade ago was going to be probably and that may come up at town meeting too so you kind of want to you be prepared if someone ask you if you have a quote and they say no yeah I mean for for funding application to the CPC a number of people do get so Supply us with actual estimates maybe the um the water department the highway department anyone who's done work in that especially since the blow out of the road it maybe an engineering qu could piggy back off of work that that firm had already done in that area or something like that yeah I don't think we'll have any problems through the committee uh and the water department getting a quote from a source that they use regularly reliably the other question I I know people put votes in there I'm struggling with the thought of a good siiz pontoon about getting through that Channel at this point because it's there's not much left of it Channel's a mess that's dust tail into the uh the ecoh harvesting work that we also be doing on expected to fond okay we need to clean that channel up and that's one of our priorities when the echo harvesting comes through we have some mck islands floating islands yeah yeah yeah have you been canoeing or I it's been a while it was probably been either spring or last fall but yeah I kayak through there and getting a kayak through is seems to be about the limit of what's manageable so there can be all kinds of flum jets them and logs and whatever is going to flow down the pond yeah so it does seem like yeah we need to make sure that there's a a water path access before yeah I mean right now the the ramp is clearly not good for for launching buds from a trailer but it's it's fine for launching off Kay launching off a rooftop Y is there any other bat launch on spec there are some private this public access Mr so I'll just throw out that's similar to what Dave presented with regard to Manan and the made reference to it there's clean Lakes is attempting to get the water department to be funding effectively double the amount that Dave is approaching you for Lake manwan and trying to get double collectively double amount from unused funds from this past year along with a new commitment from them so I I say that by way of being respons Sol to your to your comment because they've been aware of the two years the difficulty of analyzing the approach that's done and and the invasives have taken over State Express so I just want you to know that this is not a boat ramp with a situation that is just being allowed to to go the way it's going efforts are being amassed to try to negate for the inv bases and that Lake as well who who own whose responsibility or is this one of those hot potato kind of things is it the water department owns the boat ramp or is it clean Lake they own that property they own that property plan Lakes committee goes to the water department and the water Commissioners uh and poses the uh the problem of bases they very generous in coming up with funds uh we were throttled back the last three years for a number of different reasons one is climate change when of the plants going to pop up it's the best time to harvest them uh another has been the availability of the vendor they're not going to come up here for the whole summer in Park and wait for the plants to come up they need to have specific time frame where they they do that work and additionally we have been throttled back by mass DP reg that only allowed us to do a 100 cubic yard for of harvesting and uh Manana keep and and Forge and spectal pond has many hundreds of cubic yards that we need to harvest we're working on that to try to get a 5,000 cubic yard permit which should so the the boat R why why isn't the town taking care of the boat ramp they do but they're they're filling it in with gravel so that's their Solution that's their solution right it's not not a win no we thought this is definitely a capital Improvement and we could bring it to you uh as something that would be a benefit to the community and really open up spec Pond to far many more people to visit which we we're trying to encourage so the water department isn't open to Paving it or they just want to bring in gravel they're not open to any other solution uh they have not come forward with another solution yes we've looking at this part have you proposed other solutions to them we have spoken to the water department about this over a number of years in fact and it's sort of lied F if you will another issue why so related to what you this Mass D regag for the invasives we're hoping to get a 5,000 whatever but you don't know if you're going to get that uh it's in process right now we're working on it working on right now yeah did they does DPC open to it we got a meeting on December 4th that's gonna tell us an awful lot the reason I ask is if you know if we decide to fund this it's really pretty contingent on you having that 5,000 cubic yards right yeah so you'll keep us you'll let us know yeah what happens to the weeds after they're harvested we have uh in the past three years ago we used dirt doctor so we hauled the we had the it's a compant AC yeah comp AC Dirt Doctor big compost materials right okay yeah so the material was hauled over to there and they composted it uh today on spectal Pond we're using some local property owner area for comp to Yeah well yeah they we we we dump off the material and it dewaters and dies out you know shrinks to 110 the size of which you can Arvest if like bwan for the last two years we've been uh taking it over to uh an onyx site uh behind uh springell right which is now the's market and they have been accepted they also have a composting right process so I do you foresee if this engineering State comes back with a an idea that you'll be back for funding on that this is just the begin anyone else have any concerns uh not a concern but uh just um looking at the coalition's opinion on Recreation projects uh specifically they say that rehabilitation in this case would be the verb if you will for recreation Rehabilitation could include the replacement of playground equipment and other Capital Improvements to the land or the facilities there on to make them more functional for their intended Recreation use sounds good sounds great come from Recreation or Recreation and undesignated we'll have to work that out when we get down to the front aspect of it less steep slope and and some pavement make that r a whole lot more successful concrete completely imp or they have perious semi perious papers that you can put in again the engineering study that what we do has the highway department ever been approached for their input on a they they're [Music] swamped well I was thinking maybe just a a comment on what might be a good Avenue to go maybe not just maybe not necessarily doing it but maybe what Avenue I we can pursue that rather than spending $20,000 I I think the study is sort of complicated not just I mean there's some you know conservation regulations there's this there's that there's you know anyway so I think you your approach of getting a study is a good one rather than just say hey Highway Department you know what do you you know think is know here good point when you're working around the water the issues that we determined the spectacle Pond boat launch engineering study project to be eligible as a recreation Rehabilitation second yes Sam yes Miss yes Carn yes bartl yes Linda and yes great thank you all right step one is complete that's wonderful um again the um more closes March 24th I think I said so we'll probably have a meeting just before that but you know January February we're happy December we've been trying to uh really accelerate process you've taken our coaching well 11th hour it was not the way to go no you all get the gold star so far at the front of the line yeah um so there's a couple things that we ask for but um whenever you're ready third Wednesday is our meeting nights that's wonderful even these guys have been pushing us so you have to submit a funding application to us you do know that right okay so we could come in next month you could yes y then You' be youve got a lot to do between now yeah I um at least by say third Wednesday of February would be good at the latest just in case we might aim for January at this point Mr HS yeah I just like to throw out that because through your Q&A on both projects we've asked a number of questions I just want you to know that certainly I been attempting to utilize select board members office hours as well as time with the Town Administrator in order to impress upon them what I observe which is a great frustration with regard to Westford not doing their part on you know this challenge that's presented to us with a shared resource and I've been quick to point out how our towns can work on different Municipal projects like sewer projects and things of that nature so I don't understand why we have an inability to address at that level aspects with regard to nutrification of our Lake because I think some ways some conversation been you tried this you tried that what are we trying to do and I'm of the opinion that the direct you know Municipal Municipal interaction is needed when we have such a shared resource I think we have plenty of examples where we go to bat with each other or try done so I just want to throw that to you that's another aspect that's not being right thank thanks very much a couple more things um any projects the peline for anyone so um I'm planning to present three small historical projects all to hire a consultant for all three projects I'm hoping to bring it in bring these in in December if not for January um the three sites around town one is one is the orchard um these are we're currently working on writing up documentation of the main house at the orchard to put into this system the state system called Maas Massachusetts cultural resource inventory um every town submits forms of um historical structures in their towns and we have over 370 I think in Littleton and so we're going to add in the main Orchard house and then we're already working on that from our own budget but then there's three buildings also at the orchard and we're going to write those up as well that's part of what we're going to ask money for um just so everybody knows because there seems to be a little confusion this this just is documentation it doesn't do anything it doesn't mean that they have to have historic preservation restrictions or they're on the national register or anything it's just is to document the property even if a document even if a property is demolished we can still put it in the system so there's some documentation of the historical significance so that that's one um property for the historic consultant the second thing is um we're starting to look at The derky Farmhouse with the affordable housing trust owns that land um we've we brought our consultant to do a site visit again that's from our own budget but if if the project goes forward if if it's decided it may not be that the house is going to be rehabilitated then we would hire a consultant to work with the affordable housing trust us an architect um structural engineer just so that she's available for the historic part of it the expert her expertise sort preservation would be available to the group we don't know what direction that's going to go in um so and then the third thing is simply for 12 Robinson Road we want our consultant to continue because the properties are well the historic House of barn are going to be sold relatively soon we want her to just help us make that bridge to the new owner we have historic preservation restriction on that property in perpetuity that means forever those historic restrictions have to be abided by and so we want her to help us work with the new owner um to make sure that that happens and she's also going to provide us with a template that we can use going forward forever for that property Etc so I'll be coming forward for those three small projects in December or January and I think the Historical Society may come in for a couple of historic small ones as well one um the front doors we got all the windows down in the front door the uh consultant said he thinks it's being held together by the layers of paint that so um the similar to the to the windows they would take the doors out they'd build us a new casing to make sure that we're secure take it back to their Pizza Oven as they call it melt all the paint off and repair the door so um we're probably going to come for that and then something we haven't done I think we've done in town is we have an old document um I think it's 1784 um it's a commission for a wh gum and it's just in it's in pieces and we got a um a quote from the Northeast document Center and it was you know few thousand so I think we may come um for that something that's low because it's an artifact so I think those will come in and I'm U I'm also planning toh come forward hopefully for the spring to get the Frog Pond walkway and invasive plant control uh projects kind of underway so uh yeah probably bring that up to the concom fairly soon get an eligibility and funding request in and more another gravestone phas yes yes parking does have um some additional dock materials in their Capital funding requests um I don't know where that will go through the budget process but it may land here not a lot of money but the project okay all right what do we have next and then well I Al put the the budget I do have a slide with um these were the the balances um and that does include taking out the the million dollars for the tennis courts although that may not be exact because some of it was in there some of it wasn't so um these are estimated but they're from the the last um uh the last figures that I got from the treasurer's office less the project that was voted on that town meeting and then again a little bit extra because of that state match was more than than what we thought it was going to be so that's good and I don't I think the state match estimates are in these figures but so when you do that slide which is great um how do you deal with the affordable housing trust money which is sort of separated from this but still is part of the big ecos system yeah well we should be getting at the end of the year a a report from the affordable housing trust which will show they have it well laid out now to their finances so that we can see how much money they have left that we have given them over the years and then they had given us that fiveyear plan plan that shows what Ian that m is no longer in our I know it's in it needs a big picture of money that I mean the town money has been collected by the CPC we've given it to them and I don't know it seems like it should be well we need to know that they used it for C eligible projects so we do need or that they're still holding on to or that they're holding on to it so one and then I yeah ground work just school year 26 which took me a long time to figure out if that was the right year or not but um and one thing we have to think about is you know if clean Lakes is going to come back to us are we GNA do we want to start putting extra money into Recreation I mean we we try to be pretty Equitable to the except for open space which we kind of took a lot of money out for the the Webster property that's why that's so low um you know do we think about using the state match differently do we you know put more of that into Recreation or do we had the undesignated balance you know we've had these discussions over the years and and you know we may have to be a little less Equitable just because of the types of projects that are coming in so planting the seed for probably February is usually when we do the allocations so we have a few months to see what's going on and um see if there's some you know we can do do things differently on our end um and I don't know um if the affordable housing trust is going to come back I'm assuming you'll have some kind of project still have enough left I don't know about that I mean we're about to sign a contract with habitat um we don't know at all what's going on with dirky we spent a little bit of money for SE septic testing and the consultant committ look at at it historically um where the the rental assistance program I think it's that's that was an annual thing so that's not going to come up again until um anniversary so I just don't know I don't have any I don't have any clear idea of what we're going to need and the Ry house if we if it gets I me it's going to cost somebody in a close to a million dollars to do so it's standing structure but it's almost more complicated to remodel it than I mean to upgrade yeah I mean it's it's you new finishes inside and out new systems inside and out um probably rebuild the back half of it because the ceiling it's it's maybe 6 foot one or two in the kitchen which so one of our first steps as our historic preservation consultant looked at it last a few days ago and she's going to write a report let us know what she thinks remains that's historic you know that'll feed into decisions I mean it could be a hybrid like 12 Robinson was where right the actual of histor that was and that was a unique property because it was pretty original I mean pretty extraordinarily but there were significant pieces torn off and rebuilt and you know and that is going to sell for probably a million bucks affordable housing no oh oh oh yes yes yes um yeah the impression I got from the from the walk through was that the shell the shape of the building and post and beam structure of it has some significance but and possibly one of the fireplaces there's a central chimney with fireplaces on three sides um one of which is invisible it's blocked off but the the inside has been so much changed there's hardly anything original left the floor levels change and steps up and down and the finishes I the walls I took one of the windows of cour and the walls are much thicker than I would have expected so you it's just hard to tell what we're going to find but I think at most we're going to be required to keep the the shape of the building in the front facade and that mantle yeah that right right there's a Wide Frank a fireplace with a very elaborate mantle around it and she looked at that and said that's the wrong mantle for that fireplace that's just a discrepancy in you know 50 years and what she thought were the appropriate dates for those two things she she said that manle is older than the estimation estimate of the house but I think there was a house there before because that's a oh that property there was something there like in 1714 when the town was was created that makes that makes us not of sense because the foundation does not align with the with the house itself because I think there's like a deed that that says something about that house there when when St was split apart so they might have we used the I just had a question for um is that a project in the pipeline how would you like me to record is it derky Farm the derky farm um yeah it's it's going to turn into a couple of projects we' got the the house the old farmouse which is one is it historical or or that's that's historical or um housing we're going to use it for housing but it has historical components and it's possible that there may be some historical money coming towards us for the historic reservation the other part of it is is there's a barn there which um I think could be made into housing um and I don't know how that's going to turn out there's going to be some structural work to make that possible but that's a much newer building and it doesn't seem to have it's a nice barn but it doesn't seem to have historical importance it's doesn't seem to be that old and then there's on the rest of the acreage um it's possible that we would somehow get another building added family house or or something so we don't know what we're doing you got a lot of options well we've got a lot of things rolling around loose but none of them are holding still yet and I don't also don't know what's going to happen with the with the habitat contract I think we are committed to contributing another $100,000 towards that project and that that's in addition to the land in addition to the [Music] land um but that's going to depends somewhat on habitat success of fundraising in town here whatever other sources of funding they have is that up in at Browns Woods Browns yeah not the mer Brown House site on that property any other money things to talk about not um the code of conduct we have not yet adopted and I kind of forgot to send it out again about it so if we want to push it off again eventually let's do something with it so I can get it off oh you think we should do it tonight just let just do it I think the reason we didn't do it last time was that we had we we were short few board members we wanted to make sure everybody was here so and it was probably written still included the select board instead took all that out yeah yeah we Ed it down to like everybody else just changed select Bo to CPC we took one section out and we took that section out yeah I move we accept the proposed code of conduct I second it okay by je second by Linda to um adopt the edited code of conduct M yes Sam yes yes yes yes yes Andre yes yes okay good thank you we will let the Town Administrator know we did our due diligence and we had one set of minutes from last month to approve I don't remember did you send them out did I them out yesterday I missed it get to see p off till next mon I didn't you sent me those was it last night we were corresponding was it just before May two last minutes [Music] um next meeting would be in December 1 two 3 December 18th I will be out of town I don't think I'm [Music] available oh yeah yeah maybe I am here all right well for now let's say December 18th and I'll if you're not going to just let me know well I will not I yeah before we close I wanted to bring something up that might not be welcome but I'm being pressured as part of the planning board to contribute to the town newsletter and I don't know if any of you have actually seen it uh but there's the press for all the I think it doesn't need to be a regular thing but I think since we do go before town meeting would not be a bad thing yeah to feature yeah even if it's just the the library windows or whatever anyway so let's just put this for maybe next meeting to discuss his you know board business yeah I don't even mind doing it do you know who we send it to there's a Town Administrator I'm um if you look on the newsletter I thought thought it says who send it's Nancy yeah I thought it was a secret I kind of knew I didn't want to say all right anyway so but if people have ideas or whatever you know think just think about it yeah Karen yeah thanks um thanks for bringing it up I was just going to say um on the newsletter website there's a link for contributing um your article and typically the deadline is the 15th so oh we have plenty of time to think of something then yeah no I don't well sad yeah sadly it's like the 15th of every month I'm not suggesting that we you know contribute constantly no but a little I think I think you're right especially with new projects coming up like the clean LS people want to know that's a good point finished projects are also good I finished projects um we can take a picture of Windows well that build that building is so marvelous take a picture from the in the main room there yeah I mean most people probably have never been in that building good incentive to come down yeah we should think about finished projects we can write up it's a very good idea and I think before the historic part of Robin mean because they've restored all the hand painted Wayne Scott and everything and and uh it's pretty I mean they don't sound like taste but it is definitely historic and it's wonderful to have been preserved so yeah so can take photos of The Preserve some of the preserved features talk and then there's the steps up to the attic where you can see that that that chimney is like 8 by8 and just piles of brick that you can look at so would be a good example of historic preservation and of CPC funding and CPC funding yeah not only fed but we CPC bought the that that process was really interesting it could maybe be used again all right before we adjourn anything else any last Karen your hand is still up but I'm assuming that you're all set yeah I'm good sorry about that okay that's okay just something El all right well thank you everyone we will adjourn it make motion [Music] tojn well all in favor all in favor hi