##VIDEO ID:obJFU-DG74g## this is the Lake management meeting it's going around come to order at 7 o'clock even and first thing uh the meeting is being recorded if anybody else is recording this meeting you have to notify the chair which is me so we can know somebody else is recording and i' got to do attendance let me do attendance Norm chever here Mike kums here Malcolm de Bay is not Mike de Bay here dick Gran's here Scotty graay here Deb Harris here Eric meller here and Paul Murphy here all right and Ellen C secretary is here okay we are next we have reading of the minutes I do have a correction my my wasn't in yours it was when I was doing some cut and paste uh the first line says meeting held on October 24th November 14 that yeah was correct on yours other than that I have one change on the same page make it to that meeting item three yes my error last second the last word charge need to be changed to change on change the replace the r with an N oh wait I'm trying to find it officially changed to show Char to show got it I'll Ty out oh and D okay sorry change or change toste of charged yeah yep got it take care of those uh do we have anything else not for me then I make a motion given accept those changes yeah we accept M with those changes yeah normal second that noted and Norm all in favor oppose abstain I gotta okay Norm hi Mike kums hi uh Mike de B hi Dick I Scotty hi Deb hi Eric meller um question I wasn't there so should I just say I or abstain because how do I vote on that those are the right meetings okay I done Paul okay and we're all set affirm public comment do we have any public any no I mean nobody on nobody else but us okay none seeing none hearing none we move on okay conom meeting nor several items we an RDA from 16 and 20 Grove Street remove some vegetation in the 100 foot buffer zone um no action taken they're going to through a site visit and we'll discuss it next time 54 Brook shav it's a continuation from our Brier RDA putting a deck and stairs down near the water was approved pending him getting approval to get a variance because he's within 10 feet of the property line variance from the zoning board of appeals I assume yeah yeah no update on 129 North Lake Avenue we're still waiting for the Town Council to advise us on how to handle that state lpp agreement changes no update do you know who's who's uh looking into that at at uh Council uh Diane Gale no no at Council oh I don't know all right I don't know who it is all right subfield uh lpp contract we talked with u Jason Peron last night at our meeting and he was going to call Colin and try to force the decision because we're waiting for the the state to come back and say it's okay to um have three officials on the Conservation Commission be elected and there'll be a requirement that they are resident of Southwood so they were waiting for that document to come back and Colin has says they buy that so I says well you know I don't if he's going to buy it let forc him to make a decision now yeah right wait because we don't know how long the state's going to take and we got to get the lpp mailing out shortly yeah you know so uh I don't know if he he was GNA call him today good I just saw him when I was I run back out to the truck he was coming out of town hall so he had a meeting in here yeah uh and from the safield concom uh I did do the presentation on the pamphlet on the dos and don'ts uh for uh working in the buffer zone uh I got I could say the best was a lukewarm response for them endorsing it no I thought it was very good yeah well they they don't want to be party is basically what I'm feeling and he was going to call Colin today so we'll wait see what happens so action is on Jason pH on that yeah uh two new two new retaining walls were on the list for one on Lake View Drive and one on 623 Forest one of them was has already been removed oh but the 623 which is about eight houses north of Yus Scott big gry house massive program that they want to do in the Waterfront they want a boardwalk they want a retaining wall they got new stairs coming in they've got yeah I know the house they said they're getting older and into the water or just at the water front at the water front but I looked at sketch the sketch says approximate uh oh approximate yeah ownership of the line it's like yeah it's like that one that that on South B Circle so that is in Connecticut right filled in the lake yeah so so this is where right there there are some Deeds from Connecticut that show things that aren't right you know because they because they extend into Massachusetts right so I'm uh I'm going to present that to our conom on Monday night they had there was rotten away so to be refed and the other one was a new house going up on 407 L that's the house that burn down they they got a oh they got a request to replace the house oh okay oh W okay that's been years yeah lots like a postage stamp yeah yeah I know yeah do they have the same do you know does does Connecticut have the same laws about non-conforming properties that you know if you're going to build on it you and it was non-conforming before you can rebuild but you got to keep the same footprint probably yeah yeah I don't think they could build much bigger Ian somebody else's property yeah now one interesting thing that did come out Keith Morris did admit that that their standards on rules and regulations for Wetlands protections are less than Massachusetts less stringent than Massachusetts I could believe that because we've always felt as a double standard but in the mass Water Mass rules right as soon as you put your foot in the water right yeah about like removing trees in 100 foot buffer that can do it in Connecticut we can't do it here yeah I'm aware that yeah there's people doing that every day on the so that's my concom upate thank you okay thanks all right and next Ms master plan subcommittee anything on that yes we had our first meing last night we officially kicked off and uh got a good solid team they're very excited and I think we'll make some good progress good that's that all right so we probably hear something on the next one uh CRC update the U holiday party is um tomorrow night and um it it's at the breath rail um it should be a good time um I forget the name of the band is but apparently it's well known not to you right have a band I may have discounted tickets yeah so that's that's about it I mean we're in pus right now anyway so winter and uh I just back up a little bit because they were they were in here in Norm section in the concom but the the two variances had been approved the one for uh 107 Lake View was approved by concom also approved by I signed off on because we had talked about it the last time no problems there the same thing is true with uh John S 52 Lakemont that's actually a repeat of Prior year and I did include in this package you can see where it was it's gone through the concom and was blessed so anyway those are done you won't see him again Southern Southern rain is the name of the band what is it Southern rain okay all right um so next on the Hit Parade uh let's see lake level and water quality uh and so the water quality thing I included what came from uh Ken Wagner and you can comment on that Eric if there's yeah so the the um the the biggest concern in with regard to the beavers and water quality in our case is not so much the Beavers it's the dams they create and the backf flow that that creates the the um the Beaver poop is is probably not a major issue in comparison with the backflow issue that we have it's very different from a situation where if you look at the impact of all of the migratory Birds we have that aren't migrating that actually is a noticeable impact on on water quality the nitren they put into the lake is actually noticeable which surprised the heck out of me but if you go through it one Goose produces a lot every day as it turns out they're on your lawn you'll know that well that no but but it surprised me that it actually can have a measurable effect on the lake and it can at the numbers we have but but the be beavers the Beavers not so much um beavers do produce some uh they can Harbor certain types of bacteria that some water treatment systems can't deal with so that's why there are um uh many reservoirs will actually trap out beavers for example barkham stead Reservoir pays Trappers to take beavers out of there because their standard water treatment systems don't don't treat for the bacteria that the Beavers prod prod um and so they and so they uh you know they they pay Trappers to to keep that clear um I think in our case it it's not an issue you know this is not you know we don't drink the lake water not intentionally and maybe when you fall sometimes but uh but the the bigger issue is just the dams you wonder about the where the area surrounding for instance uh the corner of north of middle Pond the northwest corner uh next to 81 where there were two fever lodges yeah and they built again they rebuilt completely and in fact did they get a permit for that yeah well and the lady that owns the property was at coold because they can't get their docks out because they built around their docks and they've actually engulfed their docks in there so I wonder if they got a permit to you know to to construct on top of a dock yeah but she was she was upset because she couldn't remove the dock yeah of course of course so you know I think you know we're not the only people in in the state in in the northeastern states who are having Beaver problems yeah you know many years ago if you trap beavers they wanted them relocated now it is illegal to relocate them right kill you you are required you are required to kill the Beavers if you trap them um because they are a big problem there's way too many of them it's not just that they Annoy Us even from a from a an environmentalist standard there are just way too many beavers which makes for an unhealthy Beaver population yeah so you and I were talking about this you know we I I think we should start to explore the possibilities of getting some professional Trappers to take out beavers especially in the in the canal Canal area because they really frustrate our already difficult efforts to keep you know to to keep the water level from getting to flood levels well we have we have uh at least one and I'm going to keep an eye on it because the last time this happened the ones that are up in the northwest corner of middle Pond they uh this is about dozen 15 years ago when we had a big uh weeping willow off the point of the uh you know like like next to where the fishing pier is just to the left of the fishing pier huge and it had like five or six and they were all maybe six inches in diameter and I would go down there I drive through at night you know on the way home from work and this one time I see doesn't look great so I drive pull up and I look and there's one of the trees one of the 6inch trees is gone and it's laying on the ground so the next night when I went that one was physically gone and another one was dropped and so by the by the end of a week they had dropped everything and they had hauled it over to that corner so the what I was getting at was I had a call from Mark seagull one of our officers and he says one of you where they're going to build the boat house is where our our uh the door is that goes to where we we have our irrigation pump and that had that was surrounded by by uh Evergreens well it it was one it's one less now because he sent me a picture of it they ate the damn thing and hauled it away yeah so I think you know there are certainly other areas on on the lake where there are some Beaver issues but I think the most most pressing issue for us is the canal and of course it's in both States yeah um and the and the state um the licenses and the regulations are different state byst state for be be removal so you need we need to get a licensed Trapper for Massachusetts and a li Connecticut Trapper trap a Massachusetts Beaver that went over the line yeah does he have a passport CRC looked into this about five years ago and we knew that it had to be licensed in both and back then they wanted a hundred bucks of Beav yeah and at the way they repopulate yeah guessing we hired a guy this committee did what 10 years ago yeah when I first got on it for doing it we were paying 50 bucks a beaver yeah after two beavers he said I did I'm done he quit yeah the I uh some time ago you know my son knows a lot of Trappers because he you know with the wildlife management and you know we talked to some of those guys and they were like do you have any idea how much work is involved do you know what it takes to do this and in Massachusetts it's much more difficult in Connecticut you can't use the traps in Massachusetts Massachusetts you are required to use traps that don't kill the beaver and then you kill the beaver Connecticut you're allowed to use kill traps which makes a big difference but like this guy one of the things he showed us he said he showed us one of the traps and they're very dangerous and he said as an example and he holds his hand up and one of his fingers there's no bones in the finger it's like rubber he said yeah the Trap you know he's been doing it for years the Trap closed and completely crushed all of the bones in his finger so it's not not repairable so he's got a rubber finger basically so so he was saying you know the reason why Trappers charge a lot to do this is it's cold it's somewhat dangerous it's you know it's uh and and there's no I can tell you there's no budget for that that we have uh and that that would be that's not a small budget talking thousands and thousands and thousands probably tens of thousands yeah depends how many beavers there are yeah because I mean we I know Ray re who actively hunted in that area uh in the and the area is Palmer Brook Canal Brook that whole uh it's a huge Wetland area and several several streams in there and he estimated the time at when he was alive that there were over 80 pair in there well you thinking Goose Pond Goose Pond oh yeah I don't believe there that kind of beaver activity on our Lakes I the way they're rebuilding not 80 per I I agree I doubt it's 8 pair but so I guess one of the things is do we want to uh do we want to at least investigate and see if we can get somebody to look at it and give us some sort of a yes interested no I'm not we should get an estimate as soon as possible because budget starts next month yeah we'll get the paperwork for it this month yeah and maybe part of the argument to make is that the cost of continually having to get Machinery in to clear out the beaver will exceed the cost of removing the beavers and the and the actual the other thing too is that and it's long term but the work we're doing with nrcs yeah when they if that comes to reality and they actually have got the they're getting ready to Ink the contract with a boots on the ground designer but uh if they actually do that work they're looking at at uh literally many tens of millions of dollars to do the restoration on Great Brook and Canal Brook and numbers I keep hearing are anywhere from 45 to $60 million um if they did both all the way if they did both right and and it's so expensive to do and the permitting is is the tallest pole in the tent uh you know once you get all the permitting done you can get contractors that'll do it but the permitting means you're you got to have permission from many homeowners that you're going to be able to access where that Canal runs or where the Great Brook runs yeah yeah now luckily the you know the most critical one to us is is Canal Brook yeah and that one there's actually very good access for a high percentage of the space they need to work that was one of the things when Ken looked at it he said you know yes the permitting is not easy he said but he said compared to a lot of the other projects right you know here it's very easy to access for the vast majority of the range you need to go yeah on in both States it's quite easy to access so that's is that something we could do where you know how Suffield CRC and Southwick pay for the lake treatments and stuff is that something we could interest welled money let money no I meant for the Beavers oh ah yeah good Su again they're gonna have to do the same thing we're gonna have to do is they're going to have to have that the aign item in in a budget yeah uh all right so let Let's uh you GNA see if you can find yeah I'll yeah I'll I'll I'll ask my son to poke around and let's see if we can find out you know if you can get somebody to do it like you said there's the they want $100 a beaver but do they even want to do it at all yeah exactly you know because they yeah you know if they charge by the beaver in Mass pardon Connecticut be more critical we see more beaver dams in Connecticut yeah and and Connecticut and there's two things there number one the trapping is easier in Connecticut because of the rules and number two if you take if you take the Beavers out of Connecticut the Massachusetts beavers will go there back they all go downam right and but when they go there well you just crossed the border yeah right without papers what I do is do Connecticut first yeah right you do Connecticut and those M realize this is this is not the same man all righty and if anybody wants I have that that chart which is an ey chart but I have that on my thumb drive if we wanted to put it up on if anybody wants to read it I did email it to you and I can email it so you can study it which chart that even read it yeah thought it was a heart monitor yeah yeah I yeah I I don't print it I look it on my computer yeah right yeah you don't sideways I I'm G trust yeah all right 159 burshire is is next um you've got all the paperwork and we still do not have an updated uh schedule that's the problem and I've been speaking with uh John Gard about that and I looked on the latest planning board uh what do you call agenda and I did not see that so I don't know if they need it as an agenda item but I will ask John about it again uh ask John that's about having a due date right an actual date and and it's not just an end not just the end right you know so so that so you can look and go as opposed to we get to the end and he goes oh we're not going to get it done yeah and the other thing is what is the penalty right because there was a big penalty yeah but I I believe they probably never collected a dime I don't know I know the the number I had heard was was tens of thousands it was big money it was yeah uh anyway not much we can do about that right now yeah so the next thing is uh well we get into this erosion and I figured Eric if you wanted to start sure so what you researched yep so I um you know I went through to do some of the rating and one of the things is I'll apologize that the when the original document came out I didn't review it closely and then when we got down to hey I need the ratings then I started reviewing it more closely went and I saw some issues and then I also reached out to Ken to kind of get his perspective because he's this is this is an issue that is not unique to our Lakes you know this is an issue that exists on lots of lakes and so he's been involved in this in lots of places and I think ultimately we we're going to want to get him involved in in the first place yeah so I I made some comments here that I'll kind of uh touch on and anybody read them who they like one of the things that was pretty clear is before proposing Solutions we probably need to be a lot more Quantified about the erosion issue and one of the big things is that the dominant causes of erosion are different in different areas of the lake and there are a number of things that affect that some of it some of the things that affect it are what that Shore is like another thing thing that affects it is what the lake bottom that is under that is right there is like and another thing that affects it is what the airf flow patterns are there because for example in some cases you may have an area where it's boat waves that are the biggest contributor in other areas it may actually be wind driven waves because while boat waves may be bigger the wind driven waves are there all the time whereas the boat waves the boat waves are only there when the boats are there so it's not like we have to invent the wheel here in other words the erosion issues are stuff that that has been dealt with on lots of lakes and I think probably it would make sense for us to get Ken involved to help steer us a bit um I I so I did my own sort of scoring and stuff I I suggested um we jumped down to like one of them I suggested a little bit of editing one of the things and and dick you and I talked about it a little bit I want to make sure that we don't convolve Lake safety and erosion because for example one of the things we had in there was reducing the speed limit on the lake well that won't help the erosion issue that would make it worse because with the exception of displacement hole boats we don't have displacement hole boats on our Lake if you have displacement hole boats then when they go faster they produce bigger waves right not planing boats which are what we have on lakes they produce smaller wakes when they go faster so actually reducing the average speed of boats would actually make erosion worse so I I don't suggest we do that um the and so that's why I kind of had that that General comment um everything I read on that by the way would say around 10 miles an hour is where you get the most amount of wave action behind 20 foot boats I I put it on a 20 foot boat outboard or inboard outboard whatever 10 mil because you haven't right you haven't played or if you have people that load the butt of the boat right you know and it's riding along like this so um the and let's let see I reference I referenced an item here but I don't have I don't have the wording on the top of my head um so we we want to make it clear like I like I said that that we we want to focus like there there was a discussion here one of the items which could be convolved as either safety or or erosion and we want to make sure it's clear this this has to do with distance from Shore so um looked through the Mass General law you you and I looked through that you know like anything they um some of the stuff's not completely clear in how it would apply to us because there there's stuff in in the town bylaws and Mass General law regarding um when you're what they call operating a a motorboat or a a powered vessel within a certain distance of a Active swimming area and then there are other rules within a certain distance of a public beach so you could have an active swimming area in front of your house but that that excur that um standoff requirement is only in effect while the swimming area is active so just because you swim in front of your house does not make does not mean that people have to stay more than a certain distance away from there to operate a motorboat Because unless somebody's actively swimming there they don't have that requirement so one of the things that I did was I just took maps of the lake scale maps and then manually with a good oldtime protractor um went and marked off let's just let's just say I'm not saying that we have a way to legally do this but let's just say that we said all right we want to say that we don't want uh wake producing boats which is not just wake boats it's all kinds of boats operating at wake producing speeds within 150 feet of Shore and the question is what would happen if we did that and that's what these drawing show so in South so that's what the line is this is a line 150 ft from Shore so there's South Pond excuse me North Pond middle Pond and South pond so the my point here was not for us to draw a conclusion from this just to illustrate to everybody if we wanted if we wanted to try and seek that as a rule what would that rule look like on the lake or is it just easier to say that wake boats as an example should only be running down the middle of the lake and so one of the challenges there and it's the same challenge with 150 ft is um the only can can would probably be unwise to have the only worded in such a way that if somebody is doing something for safety reasons that they can't violate that because because if there are safety reasons you may need to move like you're going along and a boat comes in front of you and then you need to violate that because we'd rather you violate that than run into the other boat um so so my objective in producing these was more just for people to look at them and think about them as we think about you know potential Solutions the staying further away reduces the effect of erosion no question that that's that's very very clear it is interesting so there aren't any states that have banned wake boats okay there are there are definitely lakes that have done that um one of the challenges also is that if your objective is is erosion then there are other classes of boats that you need to consider also because deep V's for example can produce waves that are as big as wake booat waves so you know the question is do you then need to go after deep V's um there are there are states that have put in very long standoff distances like 300 feet from Shore the issue in those States is what what you find is the rules are unenforced because they're unenforceable because they unless you have a really really big lake it makes the lake undrivable and so people just violate it and since since it's kind of obvious you can't do it they don't enforce their law so they write a and I'm just I'm not a big fan of writing laws you can't enforce yeah that's you know I'd rather you know if a rule is going to be written let's write a rule we can enforce so my point here with this was just for everybody to take a look at it I look at this and I and I think I think 150 foot standoff distance is probably manageable when in other words if you look at the impact on navigation on the lake I think it's in general it's it's an area that's for most the most part it's shallow it you know h no I mean we get we get deep pretty fast yeah but you know uh it's it's probably areas that are less than 10 feet it well it you know South Pond South South Pond gets gets deep pretty quick over here yeah but I I think I I think 150 ft you know you draw the 150 foot line which is what I did here and you look at it and then kind of picture what this looks like when there's a lot of boats on the lake and I go I think that's manageable in other words I I don't and I I'd like to see what other look at middle Pond and uh it it starts getting on the island right so there's there's a pinch here over in the island although that although that's MIT that's much wider than the pinch that you wind up here in South yeah okay because of you have to look at the scale you know there's a there's a real pinch where the where the um where the uh Peninsula sticks out yeah now we we already have a buoy that's out almost that far on the one side you know where you come across the you know where you come out of the where you come out of there there's a buoy that sticks out almost that far already so it's really the other side where you're where you're pinching but if you look I think it's it's mostly workable I'm not saying it's perfect nothing's perfect but I think I my opinion is it's mostly workable in other words I can imagine putting a rule in like that and not having it be a horrendous problem but the the other thing though I think that we're missing I think we're missing the elephant in the room is that the biggest problem is when the lake is is high as soon as you get over right we had it pretty good this summer right because the lake has been low but if the lake is up at at say and when when you get any kind of weight it's so the which I agree completely and that kind of speaks to the first point I was making which is I think I think if we want to if we want to go after erosion we need to start with some quantification and not qualification of erosion but quantification numbers and this is where I'd like to reach out to Ken to get some help on how have other people done how have other legs done this but like the thing you bring up the maybe maybe the way the rules in a sense may have to have some some factor of of the lake level you know just like when the Lakes get too high we shut the lake down to boating at a certain point you know is the is there a point below that where we need to restrict not shut it down to boating but restrict boating in some way we did have before no weight yes yeah but it but but I'm saying is there something even before that where where we should consider that especially with the type of boat that produces those waves it's almost like green yellow red you know right so you so you you could imagine that as a solution but again before I want to propose Solutions I'd like to I don't want to invent the wheel again what I like to do here is hit up K hit up Ken find out what other Lakes have done and figure out how to quantify what it is what the problem is how we want to deal with it and and the other point that I was making is different areas of the lake may have different things that are dominating them and then when we're done if there's if regulation's going to be part of it whatever we come up with we need to speak to the Harbor Master to make sure it's enforcable you know one of the things that always concerns me with things like standoff distances is there's no markers yeah you know so can't pay right so right so the you know so the GU cop pulls you over and says I'm giving you a ticket for operating too close now sometimes it's ludicrous right where it's like okay look you know you could have spit into onto a the shore but in other cases be like oh you were closer 150 feet no I wasn't you know they do have I gotta say though that they do have GPS a good GPS on the new boat and they can know exactly where they are yeah they can know where they are no I mean if they p pull somebody over yeah and he's sitting there but yes but they pull you over you're it's not like a car where you hit the brakes and you stop stops right they pull you over you're coting you also got a your defense here because I agree with you on it 100% I'm against generically making new rules because we have rules we don't enforce we shouldn't even have them right we have a speed limit 45 miles an hour we've had that for 20 years 30 years I don't know how long longer than that is is not enforced no not enforced not that they can't because they have great radar guns they work real fine they don't do it correct so what's the point of Mak if you don't take it there's no point in doing it's like ticket and toe you know yeah yeah i' love to know how many tickets they wrote All last year yeah I'm not I'm not in favor of giving everybody a ticket so it's yeah so anyway so that was that's kind of my two cents and like I said my hope with the is people would look at it you know and form your own opinions as to whether or not you think you know it is practical I'm not saying let's go do it I'm just wondering you know do you guys think it's practical to say Hey you know you're if if you're you we're we basically would be saying within 150 feet of Shor is a no wake zone is effectively what that would be and is that practical well does Ken W agree with that um he said that's a potential way to deal with it um one of the things he's seen done at other Lakes is where they have times in other words because the amount the the effect depends on how on how often how often the exposure is he said so one of the one of the ways that Lakes will deal with stuff like this is they'll say oh you know on I'm making it up you know on Tuesdays and Thursdays it's no wake for the whole morning you know so that the paddle boarders and all have their thing and then on Monday Wednesday Friday you know it's you know it's this other set of rules and that you know like we have for Saturday Sunday I still think years ago on the Lakes at one point I thought we had a thing from a certain time in two to five or something there was no skiing or something like morning Saturday and Sunday morning talked about it yeah Saturday and Sunday mornings it's and it it's a funny thing because right the rule actually is that you're not supposed to go faster than 10 miles an hour before 10:00 a.m. on Saturdays and Sundays so it people have pointed out to me but I mean you can Sur you surf at 10 miles an hour I'm like yes but so yes by the letter of the law you could surf on Saturdays and Sundays once Sun is up but the point of the law was not that the point was it's a shared resource and effectively what we're doing on Saturdays and Sundays is well sell that to the fisherman what we're really doing is we're we're giving the we're giving the fishermen the lake on Saturdays and Sundays till 10: a.m that's really what we're doing and kayak and kayak Rob keep the last 30 years since I put my retaining wall in 30 years ago approximately and I built it four or five feet back in and I had land in front of it which is almost all gone now but we weren't doing surfboards behind boats of any kind right 30 years ago not even 25 years ago but in last four or five years yeah I've seen my entire thing disappear all my land disappear and I've seen my retaining wall I'm at a point now believe it or not I'm at a point now where I'm saying well which kind of a rock am I going to put in front of a retaining wall to keep from losing it and I'm going to put rip wrap which I really don't want to do but they say that's the best product to use you know you know and it it's funny because it really depends on where you are in the lake so eight years ago I started measuring the erosion actually measuring in front of my place and what I found completely surprised me which is for the first three years I saw this erosion taking place oh this is what's happening and then the next three years it went the other way and then it went back for a year and then it went back the other way so no it's just it's that where he is the the lake level people run get pushed into there sometimes it moves the matal in and the other thing is that the lake level makes a big difference you know if you recall a few years ago you had suggested that you know within within the bounds of what we're allowed to do that we just kind of push down our level a couple of inches and we did and at least in my area where I was measuring erosion I saw what looked like an effect from that yeah now I I I got to measure it over more years to know for sure but I saw what looked like an effect just us being a couple of inches lower your reference and I've seen that because ours originally it came down it was gradual down to the to the H water and with ours pretty shallow you go out uh that's why our dock is 70 feet long because at 70 feet we only have three feet of water yeah and so it's it's a and then but then it drops off because that's the old Canal yeah yeah so at any rate long story short so it sat up here and then a gradual taper like that into the water over the years this moved back so now we have a Cliff here but what I did see this summer because the water's been low that's been filling in and it's moving the sand back into that area that was a drop and now it's back to a gradual so if we get to high water again it'll probably take it and move it back out I I I also would just comment and say that you know if and when we get the canal dredged out yeah successfully on both sides then wear Gates will be more successful I should say at Lake level than we're doing now well the other thing Scotty that goes with that yeah the corollary to that is that if we get the the canal and the and Great Brook clear especially the canal but beavers don't like to build they will not build in five feet of water 9 feet of water uh which it was 9 feet deep by 15 feet wide with the two minimum numbers so if you think about that there there's no beavers don't build in 9 water they bu get shallow for one reason sa so that you know so they get out of their den and back on back into their den it's all a safety issue with them right so you know sure where there's strong vegetation is is you know very resistant to erosion yeah and and of course there are structural things like you're talking about stones that you can do that you know that also that also um prevents erosion and then what I was kind of surprised uh in talking to Ken and I don't have the number with me but he actually gave me a number for it it turns out that a lake bottom that is steep a in those areas you get less erosion for a given amount of wave action than in Lake Bottom that is gradual um so yeah well well and he said it it turns out that a lot of what's driving that is that Lake Bottom that is steep tends to not have a small scale silt it's more it tends to be um larger conglomerate materials there and so that actually prevents erosion so it it's it's sort of a a two-step thing but if you look for example like if you look around South Pond there are areas where it's pretty steep and areas where it's quite shallow so the areas where it's quite shallow are going to be more sensitive to wave driven erosion than the areas where it's Steep and of course as we go around the lake you know there are areas where there's more vegetation or less vegetation and you know all all these different things so so I I think it it would probably be worthwhile for us to do that you know we can engage Ken get him get his input on this and and uh you know and then start to to piece together I mean some of the stuff is you know clearly a very good idea right you know that you know Ed educating educating people um you know around how to how to you know how to manage things the advantages of having some stuff growing on Shore versus you know versus having sand right to the water you know their their advantage is there um of course enforcement of boating regulations yeah and my point there was that yes it's always good to enforce boating regulations but I'm not sure that that has much to do with erosion the only reason that would have something to do with erosion is if we did something like this in other words if if we went to a kind of no Wake Within 150 ft or something like that then then you would need enforcement of that regulation or it isn't going to work but otherwise the the boating regulations we have I think are not really aimed at erosion control they're aimed at safety and I think our biggest problem still is is Lake level yes which is no question you know uh we probably wouldn't be talking about it if the lake stayed closer to nomenal and I mean either 22 24.5 or slightly under right well this year we did yeah we did we did but it took a lot of work to do and it was much better yeah and actually this year for example my erosion my shoreline erosion went the other way yeah so it ours by the you have a hard time water skiing though if you're got to go out 150 fet to go skiing why why is that because she just told me I can't operate my boat and yeah well so you do deep water starts huh deep water starts the what yeah deep water starts deep which is which is actually the only way I let anybody ski behind my boat so there because near near near shore there's there are things you can hit yeah right so I don't I I never let anybody take off or you look like that uh the movie with the what the hell is his name Bernie the the off the the the issue Bernie you know when when I learned how to ski you know we ski from Shore all the time and stuff but when you when you read about the really horrendous injuries the most horrible you know horrifying like where they died injuries water skiing and wave boarding are from hitting things that don't move objects and so what happens is like you get somebody who's getting up near a dock or from Shore and they get up but they don't have good control and they wind up cutting a turn and they and they hit a dock at 30 miles an hour and that's it for them yeah so in my case we only start deep water so everybody has to learn how to do a deep water start yet have I not one many many years but I don't speak anymore so I don't worry about it right I have the floor now yes okay I listened thoroughly to what you had to say thanks and I like the idea and I think we should add it to the list it is on the list there do a study to quantify Those portions of the lake that experiencing the most and I think we should do that and Canada is probably the right source to do it yeah however there are many things that we can do and should continue to do and that line item should be rated along with everybody else and and and we need to start taking action agreed you know and and if we do if we wait to do the study will'll lose the rest of this year rest the rest of 2025 yeah okay so we got to start we got a big problem with erosion and we can't sit on our butts and do nothing and wait for Ken to give us data it's good data we'll use it when we get it but we need to get going on this project guys I I have no problem with that we just need to make sure that we the actions we take are scaled to the knowledge we have that's fine yeah so so we should add we should add this to the list we should rate it and then uh and then then start working on on the list agree completely yeah and one thing I did do on the one that I handed you uh the little sheets is I got everybody else's numbers this is the four or five pages and if you look at it says page 38 I left the number on it so it matches what was there before but what I did is after putting everybody's numbers in score um and so you're ranking I went over on the right hand column and just for hahas I added up and then this would be an inverse so the lower number says it's the right the number one item y so you can see uh items one uh what should come up with well where's the where's the I gave you yeah this this this what this was was your overall rating yeah so right so he he did it he did it over here yeah so the yeah page he doing it again thank you so I I'd actually I'd actually kind of like to suggest I'd like to suggest we remove number six because it's not an erosion Topic in other words I'm not I'm not saying we shouldn't enforce voting regulations but I think it's not an erosion topic so I don't want to put it in the erosion topic discussion because the because then what it looks like is it it looks like we're trying to do a Power grab where we're saying well since we're attacking erosion we're going to we're going to pull a bunch of other stuff in and call it erosion well I I would like to comment though on enforcing regulations and I and I'll give you an example right near youor uh it's the it's Where The Sandbar is and that poor guy that's on the end of Bron Drive spent a small fortune as have the others in putting in walls uh be because people would blow right through there and and it's narrow to begin with it's shallow and it was sending a you know a wall of water up onto his land and he was just losing land so you know enforcement there the number of people that blow through that uh through the the no wake zone and they are sitting there you know plowing water onto the shore that's enforcement and I think it does relate to you're say okay so you're saying there are there are actually areas where the enforcement is an erosion issue yeah and they do I'll buy that the same thing in going into on I'll buy that you get people that plow going through there yeah yeah enforcement and enforcement comes in in a lot of other things too I mean with with wi would it would it be okay with everybody maybe Norm you and I bat around some rewarding and then and then if if everybody's okay with the rewarding because some of the stuff like I like I was saying I think lowering the speed limit will actually make erosion worse so I I think we probably don't want that one in there because erosion will get worse if the average boat speed goes down won't get better not necessarily well yeah not necessarily what's that it's you think at 35 miles an hour you'll have a lower weight and at 45 you absolutely have a lower weight at the at you have a lower wake at 45 than you have at 35 always I like to see the numbers on how much how much a difference that is yeah but it's always different it's it's it's one way the slower you go down to 10 miles hour the bigger the there's got to be an upper limit someplace why no because the faster you go eventually if you go fast enough the whole boat comes out of the water and you're riding on the prop have you have you seen you know like a racing boat the entire boat comes out of the water and you're on the prop and there's no way so I mean reducing the average speed will increase erosion trust me he's right on that done a lot of read I agree with what he's saying but you also start to limit water skiing at that point yeah right but so you're taking away something for what reason if you're not gaining something I don't see you gaining anything well and yeah you're making new rules I think you got to separate the issue of of what boats that deliberately produce wake versus and and then and then the challenge like I said is then what about deep V's there's deep V Halls aren't too many around yeah but they're there they're there um there's a comment that several states have been that's not true there are there are lakes that have banned wake boats but there are no States and they didn't ban wake boats what they did was they banned wake enhancement devices because nobody can Define what a wake booat is and so there are lakes that have banned wake enhancement devices and even those that did that have had problems where they've had to grandfather in in many cases boats that were already on the lake because they're built into the boat it's not that somebody bolted this thing onto their boat they bought a boat and the boat has it in it but it's advertised as a wake boat yes it may be yeah maybe but but you can but you can take boats that aren't advertised as wake boats and add wake enhancement devices to them lots of people do that I don't think I've seen too many of those on the I can point out quite a few of those really tanks for example yeah yeah yeah yeah and and because you have tanks if they're not full you're not doing anything different than a boat that doesn't have tanks but most of them come with tanks built in so you can do that if you want so I I I I think we can refine the wording a little bit and and make it make it a little bit more a little bit more pointed and the with regard to item six I like the point you made I think I'd probably like to add some wording to make that clear because I I I'm a little concerned like I said that other people will read what we're doing and it'll look like oh we gave this guys an inch with erosion and they're taking a mile and they're going to start using the erosion issue as ways to create other new rules so I want to make sure that anything we have on there has a clear line of sight to ER erosion control well there is there is another aspect though to to wakes is that people forget that any boat operator is responsible and liable for their weight for their weight for their weight yes um and that again comes to enforcement uh if you are out there plowing up a a whether it be down by the boat ramps we see this a lot if somebody goes overboard trying to get in their vat because you've sent in this three foot wall of water and you know granny is trying to get in safely and falls in the water or gets squished between the boat and the dock uh I mean I've seen over the over the decades I've seen a many a person wind up in the drink at the boat ramps because of of an idiot coming by while they're trying to you know steady their boat you being in the no wake zone yeah yeah oh oh yeah oh yeah so so that would be an for example because we have a we have a no wake and you yell out at them and they give you the middle finger or they don't hear I mean I can't yell that loud you know well that's how we have the the bullhorn yeah Eric you know that a serious water skier slom skier or especially a bare fere uh skiing more than 35 miles an hour yeah so the you know the the stand the standard tournament water skiing speeds are 32 34 36 so y any serious slm water skiers doing that barefooters are 42 to 45 right I know because I used to Barefoot yeah so right standard barefooting was 42 to 45 yeah that's good info that's probably why it got there for a number right I mean right I back in the day the formula was 25 miles hour plus one10 of your weight so weigh 150 PBS in I had to go 40 miles an hour that's a fact for barefooting yeah yeah and at 40 you're just on the edge right right you really you really you really wanted 40 you really wanted 42 or something like that faster the better yeah yeah anybody else have Norm are you done with I'm done okay I got a question yeah are we gonna vote on whether we agree with any one of these or each one of these we're kind of bantering it around before it goes through and say everybody agreed to it limiting the number of boats at a house the state has already told us they don't care if it's under 10 they don't this is consequential well no they no they did not say no what they have said repeatedly though is docks are an accessory use to the owner of the house and therefore if somebody is is bringing in Joe Pete Sam Mary and Sally and putting boats on their Dock and they got nothing to do with that that homeowner that's not an accessory use to the to the home brought in his meeting more than once though that they were it was inconsequential as far as they were concerned they weren't going to do anything about it right so why are we trying to make a deal about it now we we independent of this we are trying to get a change to the lpp word right right and that'll help so independent of this that's something we're trying to do I I I am I am having a tough time saying that I agree with number three I'm just not sure that it that it's an erosion discussion yeah I absolutely is okay Saturday and Sunday afternoons I cannot tolerate being down on my Shore because of the erosion that's taking place and it's all because of both ways so the both so the question I have is well limiting the number of boats that a single Waterfront can have reduced the boat waves then you'll have fewer boats on the lake that can be out there on the weekends yeah maybe I understand your point I mean there are we know we do the boat count every year and we know that um the the number of pontoons is going up and so and people water SK behind pontoon they a lot of water yeah because they make high power pontoons now yeah yeah you know 250 horses very common on pontoons yeah all right so basically you're so so that's your point is basically number three should reduce the number of boats on the lake and therefore reduce the amount of waves yeah got it that's the line of sight and I think we should we should add that yeah got it qualification on there so people understand got it so so Norm what do you think about you and I just batting the wording back and forth a couple times okay what about the guy that's two or three pwc's oh yeah families out there with the pwc's I mean you know a lot of people have two well and there's but there's they don't typically produce very big weight INRI and they're I can I can tell you that the that they create a lot of noise that they do I watch the number of idiots out there on pwc's and they and and uh they they mostly come in from the ramps but there's nobody gives them any tickets for for what they do they'll go right up to another boat or to a canoe or kayak right and try and drown them and and there are already regulations against that right and that's back to enforcement right we had that problem out for years unfortun right so if we get any comments on any of these send them to one of you two or both of you sure send it to both of us yeah and and we don't have to we're not solving the issues now right okay we're just identifying things to go research that's that's when I when I I didn't try to solve any of them I just ra what I thought and that's why I'm saying something now because I realized the other people were going the other direction right and I didn't want to get caught short saying well you didn't speak up how come I got three boats all every year I've done the same but one's of my regular boat that I use the C the ccraft one's a 1955 Criss craft which I'll tell you right up front I don't make big ways thing yeah but but your Correct Craft does my Correct Craft does yeah and I don't run it full of Tanks I you know I leave them all empty but I also got a johnb technically because it's got a three horse on it I gotta you know oh yeah so I carry a sticker for that so that means to Mo to limited two if you're going to make the limit to no no the thing that we were looking at in lpp was and we try remember we tried to get prev back from renting them people had to put their addresses the names and addresses because there are so many people that are not anything to do with the lake and they're renting space to right maybe not even friends they just adver already gone down this road if you have six boats in front of your house you're only going to drive one at a time so you're having six or you having five won't affect the amount of waves out there the issue is if you're having six boats on your house you own one of them and the other five are owned by five other people that might put I've been against it all along I just you know now but Norm if I remember correctly we're waiting we're waiting to get a it we have that that we've submitted into the into the state right right and so we're waiting to hear back on that right right we haven't heard any okay so so if we get the okay on that that I think dick I sent you something on number three that it should read that limiting the number of boats forget that is only boats of the Waterfront owner should be on the docks because I've got five or six boats so I don't I don't really care what anybody else does but most of them are people outside of it again like you say I'm probably only drive one or two my grandon might take one but if limiting it to homeowners only then you don't have to play with the numbers yeah and I think what we were proposing in the lpp is basically to prevent renting right yeah I don't know you can stop that yeah I don't know I'm and I'm going to tell you my friend's boat what can you do about that well you know if you recall there was a there was an an enforcement activity a number of years ago where where the fir they first got kind of this loots answer of oh no no I didn't charge right and then then once the cop said okay so I'm a police officer asking you legally did you charge while I'm giving the money back yeah because we have an un I think waste of time you we're not going to accomplish that you you can't tell me I can't rent out of do space well no no I think we can oh you can well we'll see what the state says yeah see what the state said I'm not doing it I'm not doing it people can say I can can't anything else on this no all right let's move along um okay next there's a few others um dos in the Water Pass September 1st December December 1st yeah there there's still there are some yeah there's still some Poky things I think um we did have one uh float right next to me that's uh now I understand that he was the owner wasn't here he was away on vacation and it was supposedly was going to pull it out today they were coming back so at any rate it was a swim float was still in the water there I'm sure if we you know if you go around and look there's probably some other ones that don't have a a variance yeah yeah mine's close you know uh you're talking out floating actually or ones that are pulled up and they're still touching the water oh no no I touching the water doesn't matter he means the Dock's still in still in yeah the whole freaking dock is still in peanut butter and jelly yeah they now don't pull their docks anymore because of what happened over at the other places dead docks are still in yeah I saw that and they're not coming out and he did take off the conservation allowed that to go at the other place now he's saying I don't have to do it I think Norm knows something about it right I did bring that up at the Conservation Commission meeting and U they had no interest in taking on because it's a chapter 91 problem y so I took the action and I sent the note to Chrissy yeah just informing her that things have changed at the marina they're not pulling the docks this year just wanted to let you know that this is chapter 91 issue and that I didn't hear anything about I I think he's pretty cute because he he doesn't want to take him because he's got them closer than they should be and he's not moving them and that and that's really something that our Harbor Master has to deal with because it's it's a a safety issue because he's it's a navigation safety issue now it wasn't before you know it was a nuisance you have you're looking at a difference of eight to 10 feet well further east the thing that GS me is we were very supportive of the remover removal of the Beaver Huts so that the docks could be moved the other way other way right they removed the beaver huts and then they moved the Docks but they didn't dig out very much so well they weren't allowed to they wer allow you can't put a boat over there anyway so what's the point but that's not you know that's not but they moved the other way right the opposite of of what so they could put Vates there look like could squeeze a boat in there now you shallow draft boat but they but they Beaver Huts are built again no no no I mean they needed me watching totally new one yeah it's an airbn now if there were 80 pair of beavers on the lake where's the 80 Huts they they're a community animal many many live in the same Hut yeah right they don't care families live together yeah but I I I don't think there's 80 pair yeah I don't buy that um but there's quite a few two is too many right well we gotta start putting birth control pills in the water there you go could be a solution um okay now uh Mike kums and and Eric got conflict of interest inputs I did see I did it I you did it but I did send it to Nicole I included that and I have not yet gotten a response because it just came out of the clear blue right and it normally comes from the town clerk it does that's why I sent it to you I didn't open it I know what to do with it it was no explanation it came up I got it in my I got it in my email it was a lousy day it was raining like hell I said I'll just do it oh I didn't do and so I did it and S it to him like okay instead of arguing with I'll just do it what are we talking about conflict of interest the updating I didn't get one did everybody get one here no I she got one you got one I don't know for which committee though not get one Frome see that's why when they come from the town CLK they track it I I I think I think it's I I believe I could be wrong I believe what it is is that the state knows when I last did it and I expired and they sent me a thing to reup so I did it but the thing is it was no it was always done it wasn't the state it was always done by the town CL oh I see okay I figured it out when you're over 75 you're waved yeah it's like loing okay um and the long standing issues will hold will start chewing on that at the next meeting because that's going to be a long thing um let's see there was one other thing oh and there's a uh and actually I put it in this new package there's a request from for North Pond for 16 bab Road for a variance that's Ken plumbley it's you and I went out there last year yeah and and we there's no problem uh he did not submit the paperwork all he did was submit a a letter I think we have to ask him to put it on on the variance form okay and if he does that I'll sign it for we agreed last year I mean we we've all checked it out it's very very it's a good spot not a problem and you know he has no problem putting a light on the end of it or or Barrel or whatever but what we did find when we were out there last time last year was there was a dock still in the water in the and it was sitting in the obviously in the ice that was this decrepit mess off the end of Eagle Street and did anything ever happen with that no nothing that's our problem and that's not a chapter 91 problem I took a bunch of pictures when I took the boat tour in December last year yeah and the intent was to have Jean send out here are violations that won't be tolerated in the future yeah and she only sent it out to the to the households that I had the pictures out so it was supposed to go to the general public oh so it was your fault yeah hey who made this sket Sabrina Sabrina oh okay can you have a corrected so it's correct it's incorrect so mark it up how I did Mark it up okay okay yeah it should have the on there too MP and yeah you can put my name yeah and then I don't know if he added the thing where where you want the the lift sticker is on the vertical the vertical wish you got it even at the middle like cross yeah on on the she just doesn't realize address and address the lake address needs to be on the dock and that not just the sticker but that's what everybody does they s a sticker out there right supposed to have that code they're not yeah they're given the code on every lpp form so that should be on there right and it and and that's enforcement right and it's and it's right and so you don't want to say address because somebody will put their address code yeah which which when you get your sticker it your Cod Sheriff andd first time got a shot get in the state the same same do yeah I made a metal placard the first year and fixed it to the do State Environmental cops that TR to do that's their only role in life that's that's how we wound up with jet do we need clone oh whate are you oh yeah because that was that would be the question only three oh no you're not counting that you what you do in tfield well that's I guess you say that's four yeah okay anything else I have no is there a a holiday party at the town hall or I haven't seen about that I will find out get something like that I got the yeah times Well I normally will see the ad for it so holiday party question mark I need another party yeah uh I didn't answer I don't have them right now okay you want me to send you one you can mail me when that's email it if you want okay that's fine anything else anybody no all right happy holidays so our next meeting is in January we don't obviously don't have one in December oh the other thing I did put in there just so you can read it and what it follows what we do all the time was in this last piece that I just met it was the last sheet of the of the first handout and it was that we don't meet in we go to one meeting per month November December January February March correct we even did that in April last year because there were and so I think we should stay with that because there's too many people that are away and you know we just do the yeah okay Zoom yeah one quick question yeah on the thing I got about the the light ignore it I didn't get anything from the town I don't have to you did yours I don't have to do that though right the thing I gave in mail to you you're you're talking about the are you talking about the are are you talking about the conflict of interest yeah yeah oh I don't have to do that right uh I I would ask she hasn't responded to hasn't responded so just so you know it's not the full training oh it's not it's not like the other one no what did I I sat down all ready to do this full training but what it did was it just came up with a thing where they've updated the conflict of interest law and they want they want no they want you to certify that you received this and and have read it and understand it oh do that that's easier it's really not everybody got it though right I didn't get it I didn't get it well they like us better oh you did get one they like us better that's all it is I just didn't open it because it didn't look yeah L like spam I don't e okay a motion to a motion that Paul oh Paul you speak up all in favor oppose abstain didn't even know you were here unanimously everybody Merry Christmas holiday and happy New Year because we won't be back until after the New Year that's right