##VIDEO ID:x## I I think I thought the minutes were really good um and I don't know if anyone else had comments on the minutes but not would someone make a motion approve the minutes of May 16th I see motion from Mike yman the minutes yes Bob D so motion by Mike second B any further discussion uh all in favor say the minutes of May 6 are approved the U um next uh order of business is I a couple of issues around this being kind of the the year one that we went over where I uh I describe who is the 14 people who are uh fully reappointed and reworn the four that are um uh reappointed but not sworn am will remind them and um then um I don't know if there any other have not been reappointed uh but uh I that's Cent status of members these meetings are open to the public um and uh for uh Kyle or Eden or anyone who wants to come uh or I see Kim Bell just joined us uh All In courage to participate and and you know we don't take a lot of vote just discuss and and get suggestions from everyone but if you want to be a uh and vote then there's appointment process and then you get SW uh I do want it um kind of out of or uh David Cole has uh offered his res and uh David's the first chair of the inent subcommittee uh is what 94 years old and uh he's also been a member of the planning and he's been on a lot of other that serve uh W he he's really been a treasure of town and uh he um was uh he contributed to the climate resilience committee uh we've been in exist now for about three years and he uh helped get us on around and provided very valuable Service uh to us and so uh uh uh I wanted Amy as your minutes to to spread on the minutes uh we are very grateful for his service understand with uh the amount of time spent and his uh his age uh his desire to lessen the amount of time he spent on Town boards uh but uh uh I know people here who have worked with him extensively but uh um ask someone for a motion to accept David's res Jim do you want to say anything David yes yeah I oh yeah hold on I should not be on mute can't anyway okay we can hear you so I I would uh move not we can't hear you what's John I think you're the one that might have audio problems yeah I can hear him okay so can other people hear yes yes okay I I would move to regretfully accept uh David Cole resignation I worked with David for about 18 years on various things uh David and I uh together started uh the the nonprofit South Coast climate change Coalition several years ago which is now not an operation but he is uh going to be missed and I reluctantly mve to accept his resignation maybe what we should do is uh thank him for his distinguished service to this committee and to other Town committees absolutely I second that with Michael's addition [Music] um think need to call you need to call for a vote he's a he looks like he's in the midst of fixing his laptop oh that's an idea we now have a quorum I think as well because Joseph englesby joined us right so I don't think Joseph is actually on the committee yeah I don't think he I think Joseph should be if he's I think he's chairing the egg part so he should be appointed to this committee what do you say CH all right can hear at any rate now okay so we had uh the motion and the second uh we just need to call the vote all right all those in favor of accepting U uh David's resignation say I hi hi opposed okay thank you very much Jim for that sorry for my glitch in hearing people uh the next thing I'd like to uh and I think we have a quorum now with Joseph uh here um so Joseph Joseph was not been reappointed to the committee oh he's not even been reappointed that's right so does Joseph want to be reappointed I think we can arrange that Joseph you're on mute Joseph you're on mute he's still on is I'm sorry that would be great thank you very much uh you need to get reappointed all right that's see the the uh Town Club work of the select board uh the select board has to reappoint you and then once you reappoint it you have to get sworn in okay thank you all right um all right so we will um uh continue on uh I want to say a couple of other uh things um to those who already are appointed swor and those who will be uh once you're appointed and sworn in uh you are uh we are Town employees um and I uh there are a couple of things I think Amy or Michael emailed us all uh ethics training with a link on how to do that through mass.gov and it is uh uh something we have to do every two years uh I I did it it took about an hour uh it's an hour of your life you won't get back but you only have to do it once every two years uh so I encourage you uh uh to do that uh secondly um I want to uh uh and and the training uh emphasizes this that even though we do this without pay uh whether you're on the CRC or whether you're on the planning board or any other board um uh you are Town employee uh and as such uh you you represent the town and um and so that means whenever you're communicating uh by email or talking to a neighbor or anything else uh you represent the town of Westport uh so please keep in mind uh that uh you're represent you were seen by people as a a representative of the town of Westport and um um and so uh Stephen forest does great job at the beginning of of town meetings about how we should uh communicate with one another how we should treat one another whether it's other people in these meetings whether it's staff Amy and and Michael the these are not Amy and Michael are not staff to the CRC they are staff to the town and to the planning board uh that uh you know we should always be treating uh people uh with uh respect and um uh and keeping in mind that uh you know everyone's got First Amendment rights and all that but we are always uh representatives of the uh town of Westport so um uh thank you for letting me say that the last thing is uh that uh at the beginning uh three years ago when we set this up uh we had an election of chair and vice chair I was uh elected chair uh and Sean Vice chair um we probably should have done that every year but um uh it's certainly time to do it again as again as we've all been up for reappointment and um I'm a happy to serve again but I'm also happy if someone else wants to to be chair uh but I do think we should have uh uh elections uh again I shouldn't just continue to serve be you know ad nauseum um and so I I would ask uh right now for nominations for the positions of both chair and vice chair Jim whiten you're on mute Jim I will nominate John Bullard as chair in Shauna te as Vice chair this is Bob daylor I second that uh um thank you I'll never forgive either one of you I have long memories I are there uh other nominations I don't see any hands up I don't hear anything and I think I've got my sound so it's working um in that case uh all in favor of those nominations say I hi any opposed okay uh we will John I I think with the remote uh uh meetings like this to be compliant with open meeting law you have to have uh a roll call all right uh Amy could you ADM Amy you want to go down it sure I'm going to just call on the people who have been reworn in and reappointed um so Phil Weinberg Phil Weinberg I Michael yman I John Bullard I Jeff Canton hi Wendy Nicholas hi Jim whiten hi Sean Lee we'll come back to him uh Bob dlor hi okay we just need sea leech to participate Sean's on mute Sean are you there John are you there well he's here but he's on mute yeah he might be he's probably multitasking yes I'm sure he's driving so yeah all right well uh uh we've got a quorum and uh and so uh that's a vote yep um I'm assuming Sean was in the affirmative well don't no just say he's not voting he didn't vote one way or another so you don't need him uh to be a vote he's just present no I think I do need him to be a vote to be a quorum because we need eight people and he's the eighth person well he's in attendance he's voting present okay all right then that passed okay all right so John one other reminder I think that uh the town clerk needs us all to send in our conflict of interest uh forms if my memory serves me right along with the ethics training yeah once you do the um that conflict of interest training which that takes about an hour then the acknowledgment takes about two minutes to do and it automatically once you do that the clerk automatically gets it so you can do it all you know at home or as I see Phil weberg and Jim White and you can do it out on your porch all you need is a computer computer and uh and you can do it and it automatically goes to the clerk so you don't have to physically take anything to the clerk okay there were there were two different things John there's there's the conflict of interest and the open meeting law right and the conflict of interest um is the one you do on the computer the open meeting law is about a 20s something page thing that you have to read through and then sign that you read it and understand it yeah you have to check a box saying you've read it and understand it no it's but it's not online it's it's a piece of paper and and wait and it gets submitted to the town clerk right yeah I think you get that out you can get that online through mass.gov and the documents there you go through it and you check a box and say I've got it I read it I understand it okay that's what I did anyway all right so uh back to the agenda uh thank you very much for um this uh other housekeeping uh the restrooms are down the hall oh wait a minute you're already in your home you know where the restrooms are okay um Grant updates Amy you got two grants here what you want to talk to us about yes Michael provided me with an update for you so the first one is the coastal resilience Grant we're requesting $180,000 from coastal zone management to develop a beach management plan for East Beach Atlantic Avenue and Beach Avenue the funds will be used for existing conditions analysis public engagement and education Shoreline change analysis and best practice recommendations to build um support for adaptation and retrofit and relocation of infrastructure as needed and Implement Shoreline restoration projects that support Coastal resilience um secondly there is the national Coastal resilience fund the planning office coordinated a general um sorry a regional application through the national Fish and Wildlife Foundation with Little Compton and Dartmouth to request $281,000 to enhance Coastal and climate resilience of sensitive habitats at risk species and critical infrastructure um within Westport our Focus will be areas of the town that did not already have plans in place to scope out potential projects to improve Coastal resilience and this includes areas like the head of Westport salt marshes including the salt marsh Flats overhead Utilities in places like East Beach and Horseneck Beach and the Westport River Crossing and also improving the resilience of Bridge any questions of Amy good good luck thank you and Amy let us any of us could help out um I have one one other Grant item uh David Cole had alerted us to a grant opportunity a small one with the mass Ean uh that's the ecosystem climate adaption Network um they were offering uh opportunity for funding of $2,000 to support committees like us um we did do a quick turnaround application just online and unfortunately we were not selected but I just wanted on record that we did uh we did apply for that thank you Jeff you don't ask you don't get Jeff could you mention the uh the meetings we're uh doing with surit about the community engagement that hopefully is going to lead to $50,000 in funding for correct yeah it does um maybe that's something Michael would want to cover since he's um kind of chairing that group uh at our next meeting but uh yeah we do have a grant through MVP 2.0 as as many of you know uh that is focused on um uh vulnerable population engagement in in climate U resilience and that that group has been meeting uh with support from sured and once we get to I think the third stage there is a u a a a no tie Grant we can use it for whatever kind of resilience or engagement activity we decide or the committee decides um at the end of that project and I believe I believe it is in the range of $50,000 Mike okay all all right now um uh the fifth item on the agenda uh we're down to the the last two subcommittees in terms of first draft of reports and U uh so Wendy Nicholas has been working on the historic structures uh report uh Amy has uh I believe sent out uh these reports uh to every member of of the CRC c um at least a day or two ago so you haven't had a lot of time to uh read them but you do have them in uh your email uh uh so I don't want Bob or Wendy to read them or go through them kind of word for word uh I I want them each to take you know 10 minutes to kind of go through what they're trying to do with them uh and summarize them so that we can uh get some Q&A uh and some reaction uh to them and so um and then uh spend the rest of the meeting now that we have rough first drafts uh of all the reports with uh how do we take they're all very different um and uh under Jeff's leadership then uh see how we uh turn these into a uh first draft of a CRC report so Wendy you want to summarize um historic structures for us sure thank you John and I I'm apologize for not being able to be on camera but I know many of you not all of you and um happy to meet the rest of you um so uh my entire career and I'm retired so it's a long it's a long one um my entire career has been in historic preservation most recently as the northeast regional director of The National Trust for historic preservation which is the national nonprofit for historic preservation and um architect kit wise and I approached John after we saw you know what the the that the climate resilience committee had been established and um saw the list of um of subcommittees and uh we asked John if we could have coffee and and proposed that the um given uh westport's historic nature and the number of historic properties older and historic properties that we have um didn't it make sense to have a subcommittee on um on historic structures because um when you think about it in Westport and in most Coastal communities um the oldest houses the oldest buildings are close to water sources they needed water for transportation for their livelihood for food um to power factories and Mills and so on and um and that's all very what good but now those a lot of those properties are pretty vulnerable um to uh you know Rising tide sea level rise uh U dramatic storms and so on so at any rate um not to drag this out but it ended up people suggested that I um I was having a hard time sort of putting together a subcommittee and um I think John and uh Mike Sullivan suggested to me that I probably could write the plan the plan so that's what I've done and and um and you know one of the things I think many of us love about Westport is its historic uh nature that we retain so many buildings from westport's past um the you know boat and ship building whaling fishing um rum running Agriculture and Manufacturing and then the whole um you know all of the summer houses that were built in the late 1800s and and into the well into the current time um and we have many of those buildings still in place um so uh Michael I think M we Michael's Michael or Amy circulated a map um there's a there is a FEMA FEMA um National flood hazard map showing the point and you can see um that uh part of the point particularly closest to the point is quite vulnerable um to to flooding and um Michael is going to do uh some more mapping for this part of the report but as he and I looked at um the coastal zone management maps and then the FEMA maps and so on um there are other parts of Westport that are um that are vulnerable as well I think Coit parts of a Coit um Boat House row some properties up at the head including the building where the Westport River Watershed Alliance and the the um ospry SE kayak folks are and um uh and there other places so Michael's going to do the mapping um to to insert Jeff I hope into the plan or links to the maps or so on and from that mapping we will be we will have a definitive list of vulnerable specific vulnerable properties um or so Michael tells me that we can do that um and so then I tried I um did a lot of work on online mostly um looking at materials available from FEMA they've got a fantastic document on integrating historic properties and cultural resources in your um Hazard mtig mitigation planning um feema The National Trust for historic propert preser station the National Park Service um and then there is a national um set of conferences uh initiated by the Newport Restoration foundation called keeping history above water and Coastal communities on both coasts and Puerto Rico also have sponsored these conferences um and Mone many of the materials are online on the keeping history above water uh site um and so I spent a lot of time looking at those materials from Annapolis Charleston Portsmouth New Hampshire um Portland Maine and some others um and was able so basically I've cribed stuff from all these folks who have done a lot of research and um and planning around the topic of um uh resiliency for historic for historic properties in coastal communities um and I've reviewed the draft with Garrett stuck who's the chairman of westport's historical commission you guys all know what their job is I think so I hope so anyway um and then with Betty Slade and both of them live on the Westport Point and had good information to share with me about the experiences they're having there and then um Michael was ALS burus was also very helpful so um I followed the format that Michael had sent out as um recommended format for the report where there are specific goals laid out and then specific actions and you can read them all um I hope it was pretty clear as I read it again getting ready for this meeting I will move a few things around before you get busy Jeff um but essentially we want to we need to start by making sure we have a good in good up-to-date inventory of westports historic properties and cultural resources and Betty SL slay did this inventory did the inventory that's available on the mass historical commission's website she says 50 years ago it's hard for me to believe there are 900 properties on that um inventory um and there are probably others that are missing from the list and there are some on the list that have are no longer with us so that should be um that should be updated um then the next goal would be uh our goal would be to protect vulnerable historic properties and cultural resources from the impacts of future flood and wind events um while still being able to maintain the historic Integrity of those um properties and a number of the communities that I looked at um spent time evaluating all their at risk historic properties deciding giving some priority deciding which ones were of priority that they really should all rally around and make sure um we're um we're protected in whatever way uh was required um and we might do that um uh I also learned that some of the neighborhoods um particularly the point and I'm sure over in the copes it are affected by um their their septic and um septic systems and and Wells are affected by uh saltwater infiltration and that's really a problem um for the future viability of of these older neighborhood well of any neighborhood where that's a problem so if there's some way to help um those neighborhoods with shared system or dealing with it uh in some way um and then to encourage owners of vulnerable properties to take action to protect their properties and um I think that um I think that Sean if I can just finish and then uh happy to have Q&A I think Don wanted to do that at the end but um I think we need all need to become knowledgeable about you know what are the best practices for protecting properties that are that are vulnerable um and I I did a bunch of reading on this and put a list together of um some of the some of the strategies that are used to um essentially protect properties um number one move the utilities out of the basement um and then uh you know sort of as a last resort to consider moving the building to Higher Ground or um elevating uh elevating buildings above the pro projected um high high water mark and um in new since Newport um piered that keeping history Above Water conference work their historical commission has in fact um modified its guidelines the guidelines it uses for reviewing and approving um applications and if you've been to the point neighborhood which is really vulnerable to flooding and that's uh newport's oldest neighborhood if you've been there you may you will see um properties that are up on New Foundations they're like three feet high I did see one that looked like was six seven feet high I guess those folks are planning to be around in a 100 years um and then some other things to protect uh properties from from high winds um then I think lastly or almost lastly we need to make sure that our towns regulations allow um for appropriate and and timely or Speedy protection of of uh damaged properties and it's really important that um the the historical commission and the building inspector and so on um are able to review and approve um work to be done post uh post natural disaster um so that buildings don't don't sort of stand open and vulnerable much longer than than they need to be after after they've been damaged by uh storm or or sea level rise and so on and I talked to Garrett about that I mean uh you know spe special emergency meetings of the West board historical commission um some kind of FastTrack uh review and approval prior prioritizing reviews for existing for renovations existing building before um devoting time to new construction um and then also having a building inspector Building Code Enforcement person who is very knowledgeable and um and this is a sort of an engineering question but in in some communities that have experienced hurricanes or flooding and so on the um Town officials have been quick to declare properties as um as um must be de to be demolished and we we need to make sure that we have uh really good solid experience people making those judgments um uh should that be necessary should we have a a big a big storm um and I think oh and then um I I heard that uh the town now has created a hazard mitigation planning uh committee and it would be good to have somebody who's uh keeping an eye out for historic the the state of historic westport's historic properties to be involved in that planning work um lastly and Jeff maybe this is not climate resilience but maybe it is um uh is that we all need to do what we can do to reduce um emissions and um help with help reduce the the threat to our climate and uh historic preservation folks have for decades been pointing out that preserving and reusing or continuing to use existing buildings is really the greenest um form of of uh of development when you think about it if you extend the life of the materials and the energy invested in um in uh finding those materials or manufacturing those materials if you extend their useful life then rather than demolishing throwing out and starting all over again you are you are putting a damper on or reducing the amount of emissions that um that you're sending off into the ether so um I would recommend that we just the community adopt as um sort of a a fundamental value that we try to um preserve and um Rec you know reuse recycle uh as many of our existing buildings as we can before we um replace them with new buildings um and then I think Jeff you're I also put in a note about um Charleston South Carolina's really cool climate action plan but that is about carbon reduction and Jeff straightened me out and reminded me that this is about resilience not so much about carbon reaction so I mean reduction so maybe that's for another conversation um and I think Sean you had raised your hand I I don't know John manage the we've got uh uh three questions Sean then Jim then Jeff but I I do want to say first of all Wendy thank you so much uh there's a lot in your report and on the theme of uh Reduce Reuse and recycle uh we all want to do that and for example you mentioned the issue of saltwater intrusion and Wells one of the jobs that Jeff Canton has is to reduce reuse and recycle so the issue of saltwater intrusion appears in two or three subcommittee yes and one of jobs is to say well we're going to reduce reuse and recycle that probably should only appear once in the report and the question is where does it appear but it should only appear once and so uh that's uh one example of reduce reuse and recycle another is that you have correctly identified that we're not the first to see that old buildings are built near the water and uh we should think about what that means Newport strawberry Bank other places have done that can we copy good ideas uh Joseph englesby looked at what Cornell had done and said hey they have some good ideas can we copy we're uh very much into sh copying of other people's great ideas so that's uh recycling so we're we're wonderful Recyclers of other people's great ideas that that's saves energy which is what we're about so at any rate Sean uh you've got your your first one with your hand up questions or comments okay first first thing is uh I voted I on that uh for the nominations that I was trying to get through but sell service presented prevented me from so uh but I want to thank Wendy too because I was no help on to her on this and I should have been uh and I want to point out a few a couple of things one is in my new my new life now down in Middletown uh we deal a lot of those historic preservation uh houses down on Easton's point and everything and I highly recommend that Town look at what the City of Newport has done to encourage and or help people maintain and reconstruct those houses in a manner that is resilient as much as they can be and in a way that doesn't make it overburdening regulatory historic wise because I think that's one of the problem a lot of towns fall into a trap about you know you got to use cut nails and things along that line and you know where appropriate uh second thing is uh when it comes to structures you know I'm a big fan of houses and everything but I'm also a big fan of the historic structures you know as as everyone knows I'm stone wall guy and I viewed stone walls and Westport as Westport Stonehenge but there are Viking ruins there are Indian burial grounds sided along the river and other historic very historic I'll go and more ancient probably uh in the town that are also on these properties some of which most owners don't want people to know where they are and what they and what is on the property but also need to be considered I mean it's more than just the structure it's hard to move an Indian burial ground and it's hard to move a dolman or it's hard to move a viking trading stones from one place to another without significantly impacting the historic value of that particular item wherever it may be so I think that also has to be consider because old structures obviously everything was because of West nature everything was located on the water or near the water and they're all in flood zones and uh I think it's important that you know it's hard to say catalog them because they're purposely not known publicly because for obvious reasons uh people tend to ruin these sites uh so to speak but they should be most land owners know that they're on their land but it should be something that somehow we can preserve document or do something I'm not sure best way to do that uh but I think it's an important part of the qu historic structure that's really an important piece and I didn't I I saw um that other communities had addressed archa archaeological sites and I didn't spend time on that but that's that's a good point and I think the Massachusetts historical commission probably has a pretty good survey which they don't make public but a survey of um important archaeological sites in in Westport and one thing and and those of you who live on the point may already know this but one thing that Garrett stuck was telling me is that number the properties on the point have these stone walls sort of back between the house and the water um and he's concerned that they seem to be keeping the water from leaving the property once there's a flood um which I I thought was quite curious but um and I think so I think um to look at what Newport does to help people is you know it's a little I I've got some of that in there I think for this town the question is who's going to do it the West I understand that the historical commission is really stretched and um so I think one of the challenges uh challenges will be you know where's where's the man where where the people who are going to do the work um I think it's excuse me and I to me interrupt but I think uh obviously the historic commission uh is in charge of the historic district basically Westport Point right but that does not cover a maybe I'd say three quarters of the historic structures that are in the town I Al be a cop it as head of Westport where have you uh you know and that's where some of the problems are I think it's more of a uh you know I think it's a good idea as Mr bullet has pointed out that we copy ideas and apply them you know in a manner that fits Westport uh the best we how because it is very difficult uh for people to maintain historic properties in a historic manner uh without uh uh changing uh the property I mean they have to make it viable for them to to work and there's not a lot of regulatory uh abilities to maintain some of these things and we' had we've had this discussion I think Wendy you you gave that very nice shet down for the Historical Society uh down at who white house but you could see that there that everybody's idea of what and how to do it are are different but there should be some kind of a task or some kind of educational in both uh the town's eyes and the regulatory Town's eyes to look at these things under a different set of glasses so to yeah because not everything fits I mean the state of Massachusetts uh very nicely gives a lot of exemptions to major changes required for flood zones for instance for historic structures uh for building codes and along that line but it doesn't make it convenient for some people to do that because if you buy a million dollar house at Westport Point you want to jack it up so you have the million-dollar house five years from now and that's understandable it's just a matter of what's the best way to do it I think uh yeah it takes a lot of dressing new for from what I've seen we do a lot of them uh has done a very good job of getting together with the Historical Society you try to promote you know instead of having a you know five foot concrete foundation well let's see if we can get funding to put a uh Stone Face on it so at least looks right right uh that kind of stuff and then it looks like it's still been there for 200 years yeah and I think those are the kind of things that need to be done here as part of uh I don't know if I was at this committee but the town's actions and the ability to do certain things for people to work with them not against them yeah and and I should I didn't I wrote it but I didn't mention it Betty Slade who chairs the community preservation committee um you know suggested that there might be a role for the community CPA money to be used to to make some of these things happen and historic preservation is one of the three um you know areas that uh can be funded by the CPA money so okay do you want do you want want to go on to Jim well let me uh just uh say to Sean when uh kit and Wendy came to me at the beginning I they suggested a uh historic building committee and I said uh why don't we broaden it to Historic structures for the reason you mentioned Sean and uh as you uh nice ly admitted you haven't contributed yet to this report but uh it's not too late Sean I it's not too late and what we're trying to do here is I think the most terrifying thing as I've said is a blank piece of paper that is why getting these first drafts is so important because that's the toughest draft to get once you have a first draft everyone has something to react to to add to uh and it gets better and better but the first draft is absolutely the hardest now Sean you have in your comments in the last five minutes I shown the subtlety of this issue of structures and how if you map and identify uh that can be the first step towards destruction uh and uh and so this issue of not buildings necessarily but structures that might be 10,000 years old uh but might for the same reason that they were built near water uh Native Americans were located near the water for the same reason historic buildings were located you know uh but you don't NE necessarily want to map them because then people start to do uh um souvenir hunting so uh I don't want to solve this problem here but I'm saying you can get into this draft with Wendy and the same way Wendy said you know raise Utilities in the basement get flow through uh hatches in the basement the way they did it in Newport uh to so buildings can continue to be used they can continue to be historic but we can deal with threats whatever they are you can add to that Sean you've got a lot to offer from your uh experience and knowledge let me go to Jim White Jim yeah I I have uh some edits to the buildings that are listed in in uh your report um Wendy but I I don't think we need to go into it here but there there are some um things that need to be changed and and structures needed to be added like the the life saving station on East Beach uh East Beach Road yeah and Jim just just know that um that all that stuff will get sorted out once Michael's been able to do the mapping and we can see specifically the the addresses so um I I recognize that th that those lists are they're incomplete and I hope and maybe they have things on them that shouldn't even be on them but but um yeah good point so and secondly I am on the hazard mitigation committee uh they've met once uh without me because I couldn't make it but uh it is going to be important from Westport because without it there's a lot of grant opportunities that we cannot get so so uh it'd be good to to try to sort out the historic structures in this in this issue um the other thing that you mentioned about saltwater intrusion Into Water Systems and stuff uh we we funded through arpa funds uh to help the Coit water system find a new source of water uh partially because of saltwater intrusion and partially because of surface water um impingement uh from cocky pod into the system that covers 51 houses in the Ked area and uh it has resulted in uh finding a location for this or an interim location for this water system the water system has been uh made this past week uh the wells um and I think we could use this as a model uh for some of the areas that we're going to have problems with especially the the former summer colonies up and down the East River the the east branch of the river um and but I I I'm not I don't think it would be in this section of the CRC that we need to address it is probably in the infrastructure right right and I I wrote to Bob and but I didn't want to lose that piece of information so I but it doesn't go in this section you're right okay it's it's it's it's worked so I think you know it that's what we did so well uh uh Jim if you would get those edits to uh Wendy that would be great thanks for going through it Jeff Kon thanks John I'll try and be quick I just want to thank Wendy so much because uh we're very um appreciative to have somebody with their background and knowledge on this topic um participating in our committee I took a quick look at the draft and uh I was really um uh really admired the the process we went through Wendy and the example that you you brought in from other locations that have been going through a similar process it's It's always important to be able to to borrow from the best and uh and uh why reinvent the wheel right um my main question had to do uh going in before I'd seen the report is what is the scope of this is there a defined list of properties that we are uh considering in here and it sounds like you're working with Michael to develop that I I was surprised to hear that Westport has a list of historic properties that's hasn't been updated in 50 years though um and then on the cultural resources um are are there cultural resources that have been identified that we should be including in here um I know SE Sean brought up you know there a number of probable sites on on private land and maybe there's advice we can give to those type of land owners that um could could could help them go through their own process of preserving those sites without having to involve the town but are there other cultural um yeah Landmark that that you've identified that's a good question Jeff um what I had in my mind when I was writing that and I there's not much in in the report on this but were um collections of documents like the town's archives or the town's files and what happens if you know those are not in a safe waterproof fireproof place but the other thing that came to my mind was and I I I don't know uh the people who live on the point but um or or at any the other thing that came to my mind is are there people in town who have valuable collections you know whether it's something that the Historical Society the Westbard historical society would be interested in whether it's Diaries or you know letters or P paper stuff and photographs um and are they in places that are vulnerable to um flooding or or fire um you know and so I I actually didn't write much except about the town's archives on this but it could use some flushing out yeah uh Wendy I hate to interrupt but I think that the town clerk has or the town clerk's office has been in the process of Digit digitizing uh most of the old documents that they have uh and I think they might have already done about 80% of them that's great that's great check that box I'll interrupt here but also and if you're not aware I mean the Historical Society has a number of historical documents uh we just spent a tremendous amount of money on the Bell Schoolhouse which unfortunately is right up at the head of Westport and there are a lot of historical artifacts and collections that are there were going to be stored there it's something to think about also as part of before going to to to I Jeff I I haven't been to read Kyle Johnson has extensively entering the chat as far as I can tell enough resources that we might take advantage of so uh e and Amy you might want to look through chat at what uhle has been entering in for resource that we might want to explore as all forward but let me turn now to Joseph you you've been patiently waiting Joseph I was going to say that the the past is a precedent for the future and if you look at the past and what's being done in the present I'd I'd reference the westpo historical society's exhibitions on hurricanes uh two had taken place to my knowledge uh one at their headquarters and the other at the public library uh because those images I think in combination with your research would certainly be uh of interest to the public and certainly those people who um May phoha um what the committee is is proposing would actually put it in a in a very tangible terms of what has happened in the past and what could happen in the future so I'd recommend you sort of incorporating some of the the research from the historical society and other sources to show what happened in September of 1938 or um August of of uh uh let's see of 1954 and 1991 and so on 2012 to show that it is possible again and what with what we're finding um with the um in increased War ocean warming and other issues that when it hits it's going to hit as powerful as it's hit in the past if not so it's something to really uh put on the agenda and to bring to the Public's attention uh in a way that uh can't be ignore that's a good idea Joseph yeah thank you Joseph what I uh any other uh hands up so uh what I'd like to do now uh is Jeff mentioned we are fortunate to have in in you know one of the foremost experts the United States of America ination uh not here living in Westport but willing attribute her knowledge in area and as to the next uh topic of INF and safety uh we find oh again have one of the best experts in the States of America living here Sport and willing to his time to help us solve uh problems in structure and and publicity and it just out how lucky you are I import to have the human resource we have here uh and how lucky we are that these incredibly talented and experienced people are willing instead of just playing golf to give their time to the town of Westport um Bob dlor has um uh written an outline of infrastructure and public safy uh which uh I've and I can't remember whether it's eight or nine chapters but that in the outline a very big topic and it includes in a hazard mitigation plan which is just a huge undertaking by itself and then Bob has um tackled the the kind of first chapter of that and uh he's done while managing a committee what 20 people Bob oh no wait it's a committee of one thank you Bob and you want to do the Wendy you know 10 minutes walk us through this again all had a chance to uh or have a chance to look at it not just what he's written Bob is an artist and the diagrams that Bob has done can be cut framed and put up your wall and they will be valuable at some point I encourage those too Bob yours uh thank you John and um as they they teach you in business school the toughest group of people to manage is yourself and so being being a committee of one is a is a a difficult task um when I I I wrote the outline uh some time ago and and and also I I delivered the um the original lwork and I apologize to the committee of of my my um limited skills with uh computer systems and computer graphic systems um so that the uh Amy and U and Michael have the original drawings and they were meant to be integrated when we do the final report they will be integrated into the sections when they are referred to and whether this is done in in design or something um you know I'm I'm still working and so I U in my professional life I have people who take my scribblings and actually make them into something um so um but not only did I do an outline I did a synopsis of all the chapters and and uh and and I as I went to sort of tackle what these are there's a lot of frustration and I found myself sort of listing a u uh there's a list of potential risks and we don't know much about them and you know and then I put a period after that that's what the chapters might end up saying but I you know and I and I'll I'll illustrate two with the roadway Network and with the dams but let's talk about uh water um and um as you know except for very small portion of uh of the town in Northwest Port everyone has Wells here and um and those Wells um get water out of the ground um and so I hear all kinds of stories about hydrology in which you know there's a river flowing down from Vermont and all of our we have this beautiful water that we get um that's that's not so essentially the water that we're drinking is the water that falls on the ground close to us um and um and and basically two things happens when it rains you know some some of the water goes back up into the atmosphere and and some of the water runs off the land and some of the water goes into the ground and it goes into the ground and in two Fashions one is it sort of replaces soil moisture it's the it's the um it's the things that make your plants grow so in this shallow infiltration it is it is um uh creating the root Zone and creating the vegetated life that sits on top of the soil uh um that's not what we drink we drink the fraction that gets through all that and enters into the ground and and we have this is a fascinating place to live if you uh if you like uh geology and glaciation because you can see um from where we stand here you can see the the Great results of the last ice age and our um uh where we live um the the land that we have largely is new some of it very new John where you live it's probably certainly not more than 5,000 years old and some of it is a week old that is the beach looks different this week than it did last week um but when uh the glaciers Advanced over us it it did two things in its Advance it laid down essentially um all of the stuff that it grinds up so it in the glaciers advance and we believe here that it was at least sever several hundred feet thick and in and it Advanced um over a period of two or two and a half million years it got to us maybe 880,000 years ago and and out in front of it it pushed up uh what is called a terminal Marine so this Glacier is advancing over the Bedrock geology it is laying things it's melting as it slides along it is compressing the soil and it's pushing up a a bunch of stuff in front of it the stuff that it grinds up as it moves in the in the center of this somewhere in Northern in southern Canada this ice uh sheet is 2,000 F feet thick so this is this is something big so 80,000 years ago it it gets one of its warming periods and it pushes up the North Fork of Long Island it pushes up the hills and southern Rhode Island it pushes up the Elizabeth Island it runs out over the Falmouth Hills shoot flying Hill if you go on the cape you know the bulldozzer pauses and it melts and it leaves that line and it leaves also out in in the uh what is now the ocean it leaves a a big uh terminal braine and then it advances over up and it and and it deposits as it melts all the boulders all that stuff um and then about 40 or 45,000 years ago it got cold again and then the glacier Advanced from its Retreat and rode back over all the stuff that it melted on top of us and then it proceeded to advance out into what is what we now think of as the ocean and it it pushed up the gay head Cliffs it now pushed up the South pork of Long Island the shoremont hills on Block Island runs across the Northern end of the vineyard and chilmark Hills pushed up the the North coast of Nantucket turned North and ran up over the highlands on on the the cape and eventually it ran out in the ocean and ended up in Sable Island so we had this big Glacier and about 20,000 years ago it got as far as it got and then it retreated so there are two of us there are two kinds of folks here that have wells one of us like my well sits in the uh all the debris that was left from the glacier it sits in soil that is all compacted by having several hundred feet of ice over it it sits in these Cobble bony silty soils that were left and and my well and almost all the wells here um that overburden on the Bedrock is in some cases it's nothing that is the Bedrock sticks up on the on the land but in most cases it's 15 to 25 50 ft very deep well so you have this compacted soil material that the glacier left sitting over the Bedrock and most of the wells are in the Bedrock the there's a another bunch of folks that live in the outwash as the glacier melted it sorted materials and it left materials and it left a mound and the the river that you see the rivers that we see now ran out through through what is the barrier Beach and um the barrier Beach all was uh deposited you know after the oceans came back so at the height of this glaciation 20,000 years ago the ocean level was about 400 ft lower than it is now all the water in the planet was tied up in the two glaciers on either poles and and the water came back um and left the show that we see now so in a series of figures I went and said what do what do wells look like when they're at the coastal ledge so if you there's a u there's a theoretical relationship between the water called the Gyan hburg relationship that says for every foot that water is above mean sea level in in the ground that it extends fresh water extends 40 ft below the mean sea level that's theoretical based on the relative densities of ocean water and and uh fresh water the reality is it's much more like 20 times because we don't really have deep ocean water we have saline water we have we're in an estuary we have freshwater rivers that are emptying into the ocean here um but essentially at the coastal Edge the fresh water is floating on the salt water and I showed that in my figure two and in figure three I show a well that is um in that uh condition so when you pump a well two things happens if you can if you can think about um the water is now everywhere flowing into the sea level from levels of higher elevation so it's flowing slowly and in most cases gently to the ocean um and then we stick a well in it and we pump and we pump at much faster rates than than than the water is seeping that make sense so we now we we we turn on the pump and we pump a lot of water out and how does the water get out and into our faucets it draws down the level and so it it when the pump Kicks On The Water all flows into the pump rather than flowing in into the uh into the river or into the ocean and it does that over a little cone of influence depending on how big your pump is when it does that it reduces the the level that the water is above the salt water and what the salt water does about that since it's heavier it knows that the freshwat is no longer above that and and it does the reverse thing it bounds up under your well so if you look at at figures three and uh and in figures four you have this uping they call it of the salt water as you draw water down so um that's um that's why it's critically important to look at what is our pumping race how far back from the ocean can we get and as Jim whiten explained we we have been able to work with the coed folks and and move a well which is now sitting immediately adjacent to cock's Pond and move it up into a little better um outwash area and and if all of these wells in the rocks are really getting water out of the fractures and it's recharged from above but it's all the the the granite here is fractured and the we're we're sucking the water out of these cracks so for most of us um as long as we we don't have a drought and we don't have a lot of development around us all trying to draw out of the same Wells for those of us with rock Wells the sea level change and if we're back from the ocean sea level change is not going to mean much to us but those of us that live immediately along the coast and and I and by the coast I mean all the way up the river if we're in these glacial outwash deposits are in are in the Barrier Island system or you know at uh you know living there the water is now the water is a very thin lens and a lot of the wells and Cherry and web and the homes there are little well points drawing just out of this very thin Lin there there's salt water on both sides and and there those Wells are very very um subject to saline intrusion and it's true in the harbor it's true along the river it's true that uh you you can this this can happen for the homes that are the old cottages and everything that are sitting right down near the river uh in places like cadman's neck which is sort of a as a glacier melted it sort of deposited a big sand and gravel piece in cadman's neck so in those areas where you have uh you know that's very permeable non Rock Wells the the sea level change is is is is a big risk and will eventually cause many of those immediate Wells to become saline and that's already happening in the in the H so uh what I tried to do is to go through that you know this is where I want to come from this is what the this is how it this is why it's different in some places here in in other places um and and also uh in the coastal Edge uh particularly in the Barrier Island system the the ftic surface the freshwater surface varies with the with the tide that that that the if I'll try to draw a word picture but when when The Tide is low the the water tends to bend down and and go out and meet the level of the ocean When the tide comes in it sort of bends up in an area it bends up the uh the water and the salt water again intrudes underneath so you have this fluctuation of the tides and depending on High you pump at high tide can affect how much water that you so how much saline water you draw in so it's very it's very subtle the the big risk is sea levels going to thin that freshwater lens until someplace you you won't be able to some places you won't be able to Pump from it I think the biggest risk to our water supply is the losing the power in a storm that I think uh all of our wells are or electric when I bought our house we had a dug well with a hand pump on it it also had a it had another well but the original house had a dug well with a hand pump um we have a generator but not everybody has generators and uh we we talked about hurricanes if we get hit by the hurricane we will we will definitely lose power all of our power is hanging on poles it's all of our streets are filled with trees we have we have a very limited ability to keep the lines clear so if we get hit with a category 3 St or larger and it's not if it is when we will get hit I I just uh uh as as people talked and they go through the list of the 38 hurricane and the 54 hurricane and Doner and everything um I may be the only person on this call who actually has lived through all of those hurricanes I actually I I actually was at my grandmother's house in New Bedford in the 38 hurricane um so uh it will any event that has happened has a 100% statistical chance of happening again because it's it's in it's in how we forecast the storm so we're definitely going to get one again and when we do we essentially will be without our water supply for some time and and that is probably the single biggest risk um so that's what this this is about we've got Wells we understand how the hydrology works we understand how the uh in in the permeable areas like the Barrier Island system how the sea level exchanges the freshwater exchanges with the salt and uh we know that the answers to that are not easy but they lie in for for those people living in the barer islands or those people living in the lower elevations along uh the Harbor or along the river the answers lie in community well systems that is building a system that moves the well back out of the risk of saline intrusion so that's that's what the the Westport Harbor water company has is doing right now they're moving their well up at a higher elevation away from the risk um that's what we could do in the north end of town we have already enh hand solution except nobody wants to spend any money and build infrastructure um we we could extend the Fall River water system and take away the risk completely of a power outage and the loss of water supply for people who live in the North by extending the water system that exists in the street there now um if the town town meeting changed its attitude about public in infrastructure I also U along with Amy and um Michael have a synopsis of all the sections and I sort of gave up trying to tackle them sort of in frustration because I needed to know so much information let me just take two um the east branch and and the West Branch the West Branch its head is is a dam so Adamsville Road the Adamsville Pond um the road sits on a dam um uh Forge pawn and Forge Road and the forge pawn and right at Route Six uh The Remnant the remaining uh dams on the east branch and they are they us they are old they're not owned by us they're owned by Fall River I don't know anything about them except that they exist I know what they look like um I know their spillways are are are very old and very small as I I I had a opportunity and the early part of my career to uh restore a dam that failed in the 54 hurricane and it was an Old Mills Dam in bille Rhode Island and it washed down through um Wocket killing people and washing away Mills and everything when it failed it's two 2,000t long and 55 ft high and it has Spillway in it the spillway was was 35 ft wide when it failed we we replaced it and built it uh and raised the level a bit the new replacement Spillway is 150 ft wide so you can see these Old Mills and these Old Mill ponds were were not designed for the 10.7 inch rainfall we're forecasting for 2070 you know they they are it is very likely in their earthfill dams they're very likely to be over topped and if they are over top they will erod that would flood down through and put at risk the uh the bridge at um at the head and and and that's a significant risk uh other than saying that that's essentially what I know about that in the report we could take photographs of that we could do that kind of stuff but I don't know when the last time they were ever inspected I don't know if they are inspected I don't know I mean there's there's a lot that we don't know and it takes some engineering to sort of do that the second example is is our roadway Network essentially all of our long roads Maine River Road is is not a good I'm thinking of Escape Routes and how we get out and can we can we have evacuation route from the flood prone areas so Main Road 88 drift Road horck division all generally rise from Allen's Pawn or from the ocean arising to the north so they could provide Escape Routes to Route Six uh they have almost no no drainage within them uh most of them have have uh roadside ditches Jeff where you and I live we have Roadside ditches that run along and they and they cross and they take the water in those ditches under the road in Old Stone culets or old corrugated pipe culets so there's this huge inventory and the question comes are these really Escape there's a need for a huge inv are these roots really Escape routs um or could they be flooded now some of them like where Angeline and Brook crosses uh under um uh you know the roadways and where like uh Kirby Brook here on drift Road those Brooks are substantial enough that they they could uh be a risk of washing out but most of them are small and we don't know you know how how big of a risk so if we're if you're thinking about um if you if you look at the experience we've had uh we got 16 inches of rainfall in um in the 54 hurricane Donna that came in 55 had 19 in of rainfall um if you look at uh Irene that went up the Hudson River Valley and went up through Vermont washed out almost every bridge and the White River um you look at every bridge up there it's almost all of them have been replaced and you know after that storm so the question is if you're driving along and there's just a puddle in the road and it's only six Ines deep when you get how do you know that that that you know that you get to some point where it's not just six inches deep but the culet is actually the roadway is actually gone underneath that so those are the kind of risks that that I think require an inventory require you know a lot of sort of engineering work Beyond um certainly Beyond me as a as the Committee Member um but and and I I I don't quite know as a committee what we should decide to say about that we should decide to say that this these These are risks that need attention and this is a task a list of tasks that should be tackled and maybe in the in in the vulnerability report or the hazard mitigation report or some of these grants that are we getting or or or do we or do we try to I think trying to tackle Dam safety is is going to be a task I think uh just a quick answer to that Bob uh I would think it you know not every town is doing a uh resilience report but we are and that it's uh perfectly understandable if one of the recommendations that comes out of this report to stay on the issue of dams is that uh we need uh information on culverts uh or bridge openings or dams um the more specificity the better but if that report got delivered uh to oh pick a name I'll pick Mike Rodricks uh with h a list of culverts uh or a list of roadways uh with these Bridges need to be uh inspected or these culs need to be inspected uh they're not going to get that from a lot of towns because not a lot of towns are doing resilience studies and if we're there first with specific requests uh I would bet that uh relevant State agencies are going to get that list of requests uh from someone like uh Senator Rodricks and those things are going to get done and um who knows what they'll show us but we'll get the information we need to take the next step and and uh and in Jeet you know we we live close by and and you know how how the the report gets put together graphically so the illustrations and everything work with uh with all of this the you know looking at the the flood Hazard areas and the roadways and evacuation routes and all all of those kinds of things um it it just it just need need some sort of Staff someone with skills that I don't have to put put together something that that that is really readable Jeff you you have your hand up um yeah just a couple things on on the uh the water section Bob I you know there's a lot of great information in there and uh again we're we're very grateful and lucky to have somebody like you participating in this process um as a non-engineer uh honestly I I struggled through some of it but uh by the end the takeaways were pretty clear right like um most people are on Wells which will um be okay with the expected changes from climate variations um you know a major hurricane with long power outages notwithstanding um but then some people are on these Wells that are um a different animal and my question is do we have any way of identifying those or mapping those uh in our in our capability or is that just unknown at this point how many people or what percentage of the wells might be in that condition I I think we could we can have a u we can have a a guess at that clearly everything on on the on the Barrier Island system so if you if you take from right on the on the dmouth line Little Beach up where you know around around the head end of Allen's pond so all of those you know all all of those uh homes in there I mean a lot of those homes in there I can't say all of them then every Everybody East Beach um the the West Beach piece that has a home sitting on it um then all of cherry and web all of that Atlantic Avenue all of those all of those homes that are around around the Salt Ponds so if you look at Richmond and the Salt Ponds the homes that are right low and adjacent that and then I would say up both if we if we did for instance if we took the flood Hazard area we took the FEMA map and showed the flood Hazard area up up and down both the both of the East branches and the east branch and the West Branch we would probably Encompass the home that that have wells at risk so that's that's good and you know I think it's important for this and and all the other impacts that we're looking at that we let people know um you know based on where I live I might risk for this right because there's public actions that the town may consider taking but then there's also private actions that people may need to take or want to take um to for their own resilience right so um I I think where we can we need to try and identify where are the particular vulnerable areas so people can look at and say hey that that's an issue for me um and then that helps get their support if we have proposals going forward right um the other thing is you know looking at the rest of the report there there's still a lot of work to be done and I I I wonder um you know are there research tasks that would be manageable by people on this committee or you know could we talk to UMass Dartmouth and see if there's any students who are looking for a project that could help us tick off some of these things that we need um you know maybe we should be thinking about other grants that we could be pursuing to to help us do these kind ofs too yeah there's there's there's there's work to be done and and um you know and and no one has ever when when we we first divid committees no no one raised their hand for infrastructure and safety um and you know and just you know I'm still working so you know I I I have plenty of excuses but there's no good reason you could we could sit down and flesh out some of these these items but it's going to take some work it's it's going to take more work than I can do that is I don't I simply don't have the time yeah that's I've got I I wanted you know it's 6:50 um and I I I want to get to the last which is really important segment of this meeting which is how do we combine these reports uh but I've got two questions for Bob um now three uh but I do you know I don't want to go to 8 o' tonight okay guys uh and I want to leave some time for Jeff to say how do we combine these so these questions for Bob I I want to keep them short all right Joseph wanted to thank who was able to tell the story catch a acid way that it's understandable for any one public really brought it all to life your storytelling actually L me to visualize what you were saying um and I wanted to thank you for your knowledge and and depth of understanding and your ability to communicate public and I think that the word here is communication um because um as it goes to the next level to the next stage um it's going to be critically important that we get this help to the public you raised the question of group six for example voted down at Tom meeting and you know the what is unfortunate is that um it wasn't brought to the attention of the public that Westport has the lowest tax rate in brista County followed by Dartmouth and Then followed by Fair Haven both dartman and Fair Haven have a a diversification of their tax pays um so it's a question of communicating to the public these sorts of you know details that would bring this to their attention and also change their mind to vote Yes for infrastruct inste of no um so I think your your storytelling about the the dams and the um infrastructure issues and the flooding um I think you you've told the story I I think that that's that's going to make the difference for what Grant getting and also for public forums but thank you very much thank you Joseph I got Jim whiten yeah I just wanted to say maybe Amy can tell us how that stands but I think we have applied for a grant for cult uh replacement and I don't know if if it's a current Grant or we're just applying for the grant um Amy do you know Amy I'm here sorry um so we applied for that Grant and I believe it's for the design of the new culverts um I don't know if it's actually like implementing the design but I know that the design no but you have to get the design first but yeah so it is on our radar um it probably should be higher up on our our list but I think if we get um MVP squared away with 2.0 uh we could get some grants at least from them or some others from czm for culprit replacement and the question is these cul Replacements enough to to handle you know the the the hurricane a number three or four hurricane but all right okay Phil Weinberg we had Phil there he has I'm here yeah oh you have a question Phil I do I do um because the Board of Health is uh looking at um our uh well construction you know well permitting regulations now and I was just wondering about the contamination from surface water flooding into the wells and um you know because it would seem that that they would the wells would like survive the force of the storm but if there was extensive flooding along the along the two rivers of um you know saline water whether that is a threat to the Wells if they're you know drawing as you described you know uh you know down pretty far and so that's not an issue that needs to get addressed or whether it is something that people could do that is um ensure that they uh that you know that their Wells are um sealed from surface water which I think is that they're supposed to do to prevent contamination of the you know of their of the wells that are in the you know in the well head yeah Phil they they they should be the wells should be sealed at the at the surface so that they're not they're not taking Surface run off and and particularly stor come on because the water quality goes down during floods and you don't want that water flowing in there um but but in the barrier Highland system you know it it the the homes in on Cherry and web uh that they can't they can't protect themselves by sealing the top because the soils are so permeable um they're all they're all post glacial sand sand and gravel deposits the salt water will be in there they're probably and and and and I know at some places on the cape the the there were Wells that didn't recover from hurricanes and even though the tide level the flood level receded they they they always they always had brackish water afterward not really salty but not not really drinkable wow well you know just looking H at how um what's the right word uh how little oversight I think are well regulations require you know to ensure that Wells are sealed and constructed in that way makes me think that it is a potential you know vulnerability anyway that's my question and thanks right I have I have no I have no idea you know most people probably don't know anything about their Wells other than most of them can can tell where they are right all right Mike Mike yman yeah 30 seconds John I just wondered given the the amount of background work that each of these committees need um have we reached out to UMass Dartmouth I mean there should be a lot of students looking for uh research projects uh around climate resilience that perhaps we can enlist to work with each of the Committees and and uh you know uh provide some staffing I have reached out to Michael Goodman there uh so far and he said oh yeah we should get together now maybe I should just reach out again uh it's summertime uh but you know maybe beginning in September we could uh uh get uh some students focused on this but I I've reached out a couple of times for professors to get involved uh without success I Michael Goodman to see if we could get some students um so far uh I've struck out but I'll uh I can try again John if we get some of these grants we may have we may have some ability to pay U kids and and one of the nice one of the nice things about I'm I'm always stunned by working with recent grads and young Engineers that like it's the things they can do with the computer systems or magic and like oh I didn't know it did that you know and you know that and essentially the the U the skill set they bring uh is really compliment complement you know my my experience and and in judgment stuff we I I like working with young people because they're they're much more Club than I am well you know we accepted uh David Cole's resignation earlier in the meeting he uh suggested uh a couple of years ago that we might want to uh do an application to say BOS bank for a $50,000 Grant to hire some modest staff for this uh committee uh because we're all just going ahead as volunteers and it might be good to have some staff uh and the committee as a whole said uh well we don't need staff and it's premature to get um staff uh and the uh committee as a whole shot down the idea of applying to uh for private funding uh now maybe that what I disagreed with that decision but uh uh maybe that was the right decision back back then and it's not the right decision now and if um uh because we've got you know a first draft of a report got a lot of meat in it it it needs now some you know some work uh that takes some brain power to put together the the report you think of the report of the water subcommittee and what it looks like and the report as it stands of the public safety and infrastructure these are very different kinds of reports uh they they're both good but they are very different uh and how do we put these things together into one uh is going to take some work and and so it may be that this is starting to get beond what we can do is is volunteers and maybe we could get some students from UMD and keep going on the the low budget uh free uh grout or you know uh somebody mentioned that we might get a grant from sered I don't know where that stands uh but Jeff I want to get to you what are your thoughts on how we start to take these rough drafts now we have rough drafts some some complete they're all in different forms some incomplete what are your thoughts on this now okay I'll try I'll try and be brief John but um I've been collecting and looking at climate resilience plans from other jurisdictions um there's not a lot of towns of smallest Westport that have actually done this yet um but the ones I've looked at include conquered New Bedford Newbery port and Salem and mass Stonington Connecticut and then I've got a few from other part of the country Fort Angeles Washington Rochester New York San Diego um many others have climate action plans which include greenhouse gas reductions and resilience but I've been more focused on resilience for the reasons we all want to just focus on resilience we're not the climate uh change solution group or the climate resilience group um but a lot of these plans have uh many things in common right they they um take a basic risk assessment approach so they're they're going to look at all of the potential impacts from climate change that are known or or understood they're going to say which of these apply to our community and they're going to say okay we need to prioritize and we'll take you know we look at it in terms of risk so risk can be defined a few different ways but often it's like what is the likelihood of this happening and then if it happens what are the consequences so risk is the product of those two things um and I I think that is the way to go um and I think we'll need to do some work once we have this inventory of of potential impacts and and the assets that they're impacting to decide which of these are higher risk than you know they're not all high risk they can't all be high risk um so we'll need we'll need to start thinking about that um but if you would like to see an example of a report that I think is something that's doable for us that is appropriate in scope and size and it looks really good um take a look at Salem Mass their report is about 50 pages it was done a while ago but uh it starts off with you know they had a climate resilience committee so what's the Authority for this have a letter from the mayor and you know this is a a town committee what was the process we fall we followed um who are the participants what kind of Outreach did we do to get input on it and then they they identified the climate change impacts that are relevant to Salem they did their vulnerability assessment the risk assessment and then they they started to prioritize they they said which of these risks um uh do we need to start addressing and do we have the capacity to start addressing and the recommended at adaptation strategies and uh there's some great toolkits available for identifying adaptation strategies something called the climate resilience toolkit which is uh a.gov so it's a federal resource fantastic resource um for identifying adaptation strategy and possible solutions and and what I've seen in in a number of the subcommittee reports so far is that we're already identifying action items to address some of these risks that we we've identified specific to Westport so uh I think maybe for the next um meeting I'd like to put together just a little walkthrough of of one of these plans or a proposed outline um and talk about how our existing reports do or or may not yet uh fall into that outline and and and then work with the subcommittee chairs to you know to help work those uh work their reports into that into that format and these sub reports as we have now may be you know more than what we need uh and they could be a background report where we extract you know the essential information into the report that goes to the town and the public you think uh rather than use Salem's outline and put our report into theirs that you could use the structure we've developed of you know agriculture water Health Etc and maintain our structure with you know because we've been using our structure for three years um and we've been identifying risks of within our framework uh now there is no question there is redundancy I use the example of saltwater intrusion and Wells and you don't want redundancy but the is what you talked about is risks and then actions and so on we want to have a common um way of each chapter laying out whatever the chapters are uh so that each one is organized the same way um and uh so we've got to figure that out but I don't think three years in we want to copy Salem's report well um uh you know each of these each of these jurisdictions has a different set of assets that they're concerned about right and we've identifyed our assets it's agriculture it's historic it's infrastructure it's Public Safety it's water so we we've got ours I'm not I'm not suggesting we adopt somebody else's list of assets but the process by which you present that information and the analysis and get that into a public facing document or a town facing document I think some of these others there's some commonalities uh that are probably best practices and and recommend recommended practices from resources like the Dov toolkit so here's here's what I would suggest uh I would suggest our next meeting we we meet every other month is September do we do second or third Thursday I can't remember it would either be the 12th or 19th of September what is it second or third will someone remind me Amy what do we do I'm sorry can you repeat yourself yeah sure do we do the second or third Thursday of the month um I think it's usually the 3D all right so that would be the 19th of September is that uh okay with everyone yes y all right so um so we're gonna meet the 19th of September so Jeff uh I think what we should do is uh have the agenda of that meeting be basically your your agenda and if you can uh lay out um you know what you think the outline of our report would look like and uh now I don't want everyone else uh the other subcommittee heads looking at you Bob dlor to think oh I got a vacation now so people Joseph engelby and others can use that time to continue to think of okay is there uh something I can continue to do on my report keep working on it if you if you want to keep working on it if there are things you want to if you've gotten comments you want to work with those comments uh continue to work on it but je if you uh want to take how you think Salem Works in terms of How It's organized and with the all of the raw meat that you've gotten from the what is it six reports or whatever we've got now uh you know I did a preface you said well we also need an addition of the preface and introduction ction where you use the common things like assumptions of what are we going to have for C level rise what are we going to have for uh precipitation so you don't have to have that in every single chapter uh so there might be you know that kind of thing table of contents all that uh so that we see what everything from appendix acknowledgments all the you know everything that's in the report that we're going to have to have and um and then kind of the structure in each of those chapters and then uh I and then walk us through how that looks like and then each subcommittee chair can start to see how they're going to have to modify their first draft to fit what your framework is because each one of them is probably going to have to be adjusted right yeah uh to to some extent Bob uh John um but I think there's there's also you know a lot of the information is going to be there and and I can take that on to take take that information and put it into that format and if there there are gaps you know I'll work with the subcommittees say oh we need we need something here okay so so between now and then if you're working with the subcommittee uh folks to say here's how I think yours get put in this framework that would be great well I think we should have some agreement on what you know what format is going to work for us yeah so I don't know want to put the before the horse there well uh yeah so let's use that two months uh so that you're working with the subcommittee chairs now I get this question from uh uh constant all the time will the whole committee you know have a chance to review this before it goes out to the public and I always answer that of course yes of course yes so we're still in draft mode among the committee uh and I I think Shaun has said that before the CRC sends it to the select board he wants us to um and your uh uh uh uh Community engagement committee should also have thoughts on this J once we get this uh second draft done what you've got is a bunch of first drafts once we get a second draft which is like a complete report done then uh do we have a bunch of public meetings how how do we engage the public in it and so we should think about that too um but uh the yeah so uh think about what that framework is based on Salem or whichever one you like and then start talking with the with the various subcommittee chairs about how their chapter starts to uh morph into that what needs to be done to do that that sounds good John and I'll I'll send out a link to the Salem and and maybe a few of the other reports too if people are interested in communities have done it does that make sense is everyone comfortable with that approach yes yes yeah okay I now I've got three hands up Joseph yeah I just wanted to mention that for the agricultural subcommittee when I was writing you you can write reports in different ways and the the for the report I did a more technical writing uh was more clinical um for the report it was a lot of detail to it but when I was presenting to public at the gra uh we changed the format it became very personal uh so we brought in lots of examples from Westport of of farmers and fishermen and shell fishermen U and gave specific you know e examples uh to highlight some of the points uh that were um made in the more clinical report so I'm wondering do you want a who who is the audience I guess this is the question who is going who is this for is is it for the general public for West Borders or is it for the select board or is it for state agencies for Grants or how should it be written I think the audience is Westport right in in a narrow sense it's the select board but it's the select board because they represent the people of Westport so it is a Westport audience and if I can just underline what Joseph said uh when he made at the gra recommendations on uh what you could do in a type of farming he showed a Westport farm that was already doing that and I found that to be be incredibly persuasive because it showed people this is possible look your neighbors already doing it and it was a known place not that oh somebody in California's doing it no your neighbor's doing it already so it was a very good way to communicate a recommendation somebody's already doing it somebody in westport's already doing it so photographs assuming that we're going to illustrate this report uh of any recommendation if we can find as Joseph did in in the a section uh a a Westport person already doing something if we can start when we know we need an illustration of something if we can find someone in Westport already doing it I think is very persuasive anyway good Point by Joseph Kim Patell you've got your hand up Kim I do hi everyone um for those of you that don't know me I'm the education director at the Westport River Watershed Alliance um and this year I started a climate education program with fifth graders and as part of that effort after they had classes on climate versus I'm sorry weather versus climate in a field program that they did activities um and planted dun grass I went back into their classroom and I talked to them about the climate resilience committee um and in preper for that I met with several of the committee chairs including Joseph and Phil and I met with John and I met with Mike um and I introduced them to some of the issues that adults in their town are currently dealing with and then the kids were broken up and they had the option of Ching to be on these subcommittees where they had to try to tackle the problems that Westport is facing and through that process the kids they could choose from the water subcommittee and focus on salt marsh issues they could choose public health and work on extreme heat issues um for agriculture their challenge was related to Native pollinators to support Agriculture and then there was another committee that was focused on public Outreach and they were tasked with figuring out the best ways to reach kids um teens and adults in the community and I would love the chance to share some of that information with this group because I think it might Inspire some ideas for each of the different committees that you're working on so I'm wondering what the best way to do that is if there's time for me to maybe present on the information or maybe you just want to report um we are having at the end of of August in our River Center we have our open days that are always Thursday Friday and Saturday from 10: to 2 our August session from um August 20th through the 22nd we're focusing on um climate impacts and Coastal bird species and it's going to highlight all of the work that the fifth graders did um so that would be another potential place where you can come and learn about what the students in the town are doing but I'm just looking for your insights on how to move forward with this um I don't know do you want to do that at our next meeting Kim if you feel like you have time for it I would love to do that I mean I could share a report with you first to see if you think it's um relevant and worth doing that way but I I know the kids would I think they would love to hear that um the committee is informed on what their ideas were what if you've got a report why don't you send it to me and to Amy you got I hope you've got Amy you know I know you have my email send it to us and and we could uh put you on the agenda for that uh uh September meeting okay that's great I don't have it ready yet I'm compiling the information um but I can get it to in a couple weeks sure okay yep thank you all right thank you yep Jim White just yeah just quickly just so you know what's happening uh the town of Westport has applied for a regional risk climate risk assessment uh Grant with Little Compton and Dartmouth together uh Little Compton and Dartmouth have bought into it Michael buris has led the way um and we have had good feedback that we potentially could get this Grant and I would think if we do it might help us with all of this uh because we are we would hire somebody to to do this uh and it's it'd be a substantial Grant I think from EPA uh Amy I don't know if you have an update on what's happening with that but um I think it could be very helpful to this uh coalescing or end product with what we have and sharing with them what we are doing already uh and I think it would help us go forward and they might be able to point out where we are lacking Amy you yeah yeah I'm here y so I gave an update on that um at the beginning of the meeting it I just kind of went over the review that Michael had given me for this meeting but um if you want I can read read it again please sure um the national Coastal resilience fund um this is the one that we're coordinating with through the national Fish and Wildlife Foundation for Little Compton and Dartmouth to request $281,000 to enhance the coastal and climate resilience for sensitive habitats atrisk species and CR critical infrastructure um for Westport in particular we're going to focus on areas of the town that not already have plans in place to scope out potential projects to improve Coastal resilience um this includes areas like the head of Westport salt marshes including the salt marsh Flats overhead Utilities in places like East Beach and the hor neck Beach and the Westport River Crossing and improving the resilience of hicks Bridge okay all right I think we have uh completed our agenda uh next meeting date is September 19th 5:00 so uh enjoy the rest of your evening thank you all very much uh this is a big day um we have completed uh the rough first draft of the entire report uh so I I hope everyone who's on Zoom uh would take your hand and Pat another person on zoom on the back or all the good work that we we have accomplished so far all right more to do but Pat someone on the zoom on the back uh that's a a big step forward thank you all very much y we're jour