Wetland and water courses commission for March 3rd 2025 J like we have an option to add other application today U we here two Woodside Drive I don't have the application I mean 255 seven approval of the minutes anybody see anything regular minutes on January 6 that need to Beed go back and everybody hi okay motion to add and so let's do that and who second is it made I seconded and then all in favor minutes are fine nothing needs to be corrected on those motion to approve minutes presented second all in favor I here there is no old business so let's go to the new business we have a jurisdictional ruling review for iww c251 Donald Bo 134 Wheeling Road a 25 acre Timber Harvest with a stream Crossing is part of a USDA nrcs equip rogram that you up there good evening can you hear me yes yes okay wonderful I'm I'm Don DUIs Duo forestry and Land Management professionals from Brooklyn Connecticut I'm here tonight representing my clients Anthony and Susan rerio from 134 Wheeling Road we have a simple jurisdictional ruling to address tonight this is a salvage thinning that's taking place on about 25 AC the goal here is to improve Forest Health my client is a recipient of a a
grant from the USDA nrcs and we're using that program to salvage dead and dying ash trees actually most of them were dead already and they've died in the last few years from the emerald ash borer so our goal is to remove these these trees in an effort to grow the better quality Oak and maple and Birch and Hickory and sugar maple so it's a very small operation it's involving 15,000 Bo feet of Saw Timber and about 990 cords of firewood we have two good access points onto the property if you look at the topographical map there's a narrow strip of land on the northeast corner of the property and there's a a gravel Access Road there and then there's another gravel Access Road situated just to the north of rerel Homestead the green lines that you see on the topographical map are proposed and existing skid Trails the wetlands map that the capitol region Council of governments has is actually pretty accurate it shows you can see the wetlands in the blue line Brook and we're looking to place a temporary stream crossing over that Rook to span the channel to prevent any sediment or erosion into the stream channel into the adjacent Wetlands I was out there last week with with Joe it was frozen solid and
cold but we did go out there and we were able to take a look at the the stream channel itself and I think Joe got some good pictures of it this operation will probably get started sometime in mid to late August we're hoping for you know dry ground ground conditions when the water water tables are at the at the lowest this is a a one- phased operation the P the person's doing the work is going to come in he's going to take out the dead trees and do the firewood cleanup so it's one operation one contract then he'll be done he'll put the bridges in place before he starts of course and then he'll he'll remove the bridges completion of the operation the nrcs is also car sharing Trail stabilization so when we're done all the woods roads and skid Trails will be seated with a shade tolerant conservation grass seed mix and R to assist in germination so it should be we should be shutting down the roads in pretty good order at this point in time we're just looking for a a permitted use as of right activity under Connecticut state statute if you have any questions i' be more than happy to address them that one question just right off the get go the designation USDA nrcs equip what exactly me is that okay the USDA United States Department of Agriculture has a a program the acronym is equip that stands for
Environmental Quality incentives program and it's a cost share program that gives money to private Forest landowners to help them take better care of their land that program is administered by the natural resource conservation service which is the nrcs it's a pretty big Federal program and we use the program quite extensively throughout Connecticut Ro massachus is to help land owners particularly in situations like this where their Woods are in such poor form that you could you cannot do anything here commercially the only way we can help this land owner is by using this program without it we couldn't do any of this so it's a pretty good program so I saw in the photos that the it was a fairly small screen were there any Wetlands on the sides of that that we had to worry about the size of the temporary Bridge yeah the stream the stream channel itself is is pretty well defined as photos show but there are there are and like I said the capital region Council of government Maps pretty
accurate we're going to be Crossing at the most narrow location but the bridges will be put in place to span the channel itself and then probably on either side if it if it's soft we're going to have to lay additional mats in there but the mainstream channel will be spanned you know with with these mats I'm sure you've all seen them we call them wooden bridges but they're they're big wooden mats and the machine puts them in place and it allows the machine you know the wooden equipment to drive over that without you know dragging sediment into the stream channel and like I said once the job is done then the the bridges are removed so are the meds in the wetlands or are they outside of the wetlands I didn't you know the wets aren't delineated but and the ground was frozen when we were there but we have we're choosing the most narrow location and the bridges are 12 to 14 feet long so where they land on each side of the wet of the stream that's
that's a wetland soil so if the stream channel is say two or three feet wide and the bridges span that channel then on either side those bridges are you know probably resting on some Wetland soil before it becomes Upland so there might be some there do you have the CR Cog maps in front of you you have those I can you share maybe but okay I think I included in my application maybe I didn't yeah we do yeah we do have them oh good not they we have to share the screen or is it on the yeah thing rests on whether or not if the bridge spans from not Wetlands to not Wetlands I think that's not under a jurisdiction to put these Ms down in the end of the temporary brid ass not to be at sorry was looking for you know and I was expecting the answer to be there were no Wetlands on either side of the stream and we're putting it down on good soil the temporary bridge if if there are wetlands on the side of the screen then that's what would you know cause it to have jurisdiction this is called the yeah St 2 is where we're you don't have the forest type map there but that's it's called a technically it's called a riparian woodland so the streaming channel is very defined I think the photos show it the area on either side the photos aren't very clear we were there when there was eight inches of ice although the stream channel was flowing easily discernable but kind of hard to see what was under
the ice but best management practices in Connecticut as you know require that you span the stream channel and that bmps would allow you to put in corduroy on the approach if it's sound but I prefer not to use corduroy we're going to have plenty of mats and I would let the mats do the work and carry the weight of everything far less impact in a riparian woodland I mean do we have anything that tells us if there's any I think all the green are water pores you have streams going through there there no those are the skin TR those skid okay so I know there's a lot of a lot of wetlands around here that's why I ask the question yeah well there's definitely wons up there's in okay it's a like maybe this area here it's kind of then it channelizes a little bit over where the crossing is and then kind of spreads out and ends up flowing over this some over this way too yeah I guess your your question is are there is the spand going to be lay going over the stream laying on a wetland where the mats are they're going to be laying on Wetlands if they are then we need to take jurisdiction over that what well because there is it is as a right used you know the agriculture which includes forestry so yeah and this is also in consist
consistent with bmps in Connecticut this is a you know pretty standard procedure as long I think the statute says as long as you're not blocking the Stream flow and impeding the stream channel in any way the purposes of the bridge are to span the stream channel and if the approaches on either side need hardening is typically done with corduroy and that's BMP is acceptable practice in Connecticut but the best thing to do is don't put the cordoy in and add additional Bridges if need be I wish the photos that were were clearer they could you could see it but unfortunately like I said when we did a site walk the ground was hard and Frozen in any event we certainly don't want to do this operation in the spring we our projection is to start by mid to late August when grounds no ground well drained ideally of course this winter would have been ideal to be in there it would have been perfect but we don't usually see winters like this anymore letting here our president in direction from our land has always been that poroy or mat into the Wetland is considered filling Wetland and we need to take jurisdiction it doesn't mean that it's a bad practice it doesn't mean that it you know can't be handled in a timely manner between you know he's trying to get the logging done in August there's a lot of time for now arst to do that but you know that's
been pretty much what we have chosen to do for you know when we would take jurisdiction if temporary Bridge were to go you know outside weaps on both sides then you know it's not a jurisdictional issue but if we're putting anything into the weaps you know and again it's not not a hard thing but that's what our land use attorneys told us to do yeah all right it's just I haven't seen this before I've been doing this you know I've done hundreds of these just never seen this come up as that point if if that's the point that you're making that bridges are going to span from Upland to Upland I I don't know if if that could be done there so why don't we just do this why don't we keep the application in as it is and remove the request for a temporary stream Crossing all together which is okay because we have two log loading areas you know one's to the north and one's to the South and we can divide the property and not get anywhere near the wetlands I wanted to provide a temporary stream Crossing to make it convenient for the operator but if if it's going to be an
issue with the town then we will retract the request for a temporary stream Crossing all together then there's no interference with the stream Crossing whatsoever do I need help understand what that was all about yeah yeah well we're going to remove the request for a temporary stream crossing that's all I'm saying we're are we just are is he saying we're just going to you know Drive equipment see if there two two yeah so you can access see how that top one goes around and then the other one goes so basically cover both okay so that you that would be acceptable or you know what we've done in the past is we've accepted all the information they provided it as the application and we just act out it at the next meeting I yeah I think you know the reason we have two access roads was if possible we should try to avoid this Wetlands all together because that is you know best the best approach is to find an alternative to Crossing it we can do this tree removal operation without that Crossing is what I'm saying and that that'll just be that'll be that'll be a prerequisite we should vote whether or not we've got jurisdiction but I think what we know it would be you I think that do and if
we can do it without going through the Wetland so much better agre you don't have to go that way just don't do it that's fine motion proposes Timber harv is as of bright use Wetlands commission agrees with his conclusion that the P Timber Harvest is an as of right use according to section 4.1 of and wetlands regulations I roow move to propos of Timber Harvest on the property of 134 Wheeling road is permitted as as right purs section 4.1 of the andw England wet some water courses regulations I get a you you should add that the stream Crossing will be okay with the stream stream Crossing being
removed an all thank you very much have a good night good night good night okay bring this to permanent application IWC 252 Joshua you I didn't want to mess that up 296 Lake Road installation of a 4ot by 16t prefabricated aluminum with Dock and a six foot by 8ot B PL within hand pictures is this new or you the dock is new it's in a box and the B lift is not new it's used it's aluminum with some steel cable and it's clean and it's can just be moved alongside the dock the application says it has a 4x4 in aluminum feet on and yeah it's sort of a a scissor lift that the boat sits on the skids like like it would on a boat trailer and you turn a crank and the steel cabl look out of water just to keep the from being have two any problems with people putting them docks on the way you obviously need an access to the way so
it's almost like that the the whole thing with the definitely caught my attention pretty nifty but you know how boats get really they can get stained and grow you look at it's like is high mechanical advantage you know you turn the thing a lot and the boat barely mes you know little by little and just LIF and you know they make them for huge boats but this is you imagine the jet ski which obviously we're not jet ski but about that size is made for a boat very small h to receive it rece second all fav yeah V accept it hat's nice one good okay okay thank you for your time accept thank 255 that would be your that would be me okay that's have to particular application have some full drawings here I guess you got the drawings in you can so we've been here my wife and I Street we were 20 milon years old and we love Ang we don't and want agent place and and we decided to stay here and about five six years ago we purchased a lot on West Street you're going up West Street Lot on the left that's cleared with a driveway oh yeah so we've had that since just prior and during Co that whole process took very because of co so we were going to build there and then because of Co after we got it appr cleared put the driveway in well then we couldn't find a builder and we couldn't find any materials and we couldn't do anything so
we just been sitting around and during that time we both have decided together that we just W really been for 40 years can we just do something here and stay here and we sell that prop so that started off this and so that's where we're at now and so what we've come up with is is a way to so so the house now the way it stands is a two-bedroom Ranch and you come in the driveway and you go in a W room or basement door and then you go up the narrow stairs so that's one of the issues the other is the basement is also where the washer and dryer so it's up and down that the stairs there so right now that's not a problem but it may be problem and we don't want to so this permit is to be able to add on the kitchen is also really small now both of our parents are gone so we're getting nieces and neews and people over the last holiday there were some people in the kitchen some people in the living room so the rec room so we try make bigger dining room get the washer and dryer upstairs get a two-car garage on the same floor that be com in we have a small place in Vermont
come on and we have that situation there so you come in the Terin it's whatever and Pop the trunk take your groceries two steps and you're in the house and that's really what we've been taking is what we we want to do so that's that's the I know I I was reading you mention something I don't yeah I don't know if you want this [Music] summary from the soil scientist and everything printed printed one copy I can make xtras the house this year this is what you want yeah well did it's really it dries up sucker but it's right here in front coming up Woodside you know woodside's Dead Road coming around the corner this's here so these so I I heard weapons engineer come he flaged all that he wor other and this is the proposed Drive yeah and this is where's the old drive right here all the old dri here yeah oh so you know the bedroom I have a drawing house if you want to see it has it exist but one thing that will suggest why to the Edition here well the bedrooms in here the kitchen is here so then just switching the whole house around it yeah so that it's like a indent we and there's already existing C here and there's one
here narrow yeah there what's the distance from here to the boundary oh that's another interesting thing so when we started this whole project and decided to stay here I called the engineer so Ed peler is the engineer he's the one that engineered the lot on West that's how I got and so he came out we talked about this he said he'd have his weap guy flag this one they did and then we dropped this in on this pad machine here he called me on the phone and said you can't do this because of the setback this whole lot right here was not mine four months ago that is a 2 200x 50t lot that you can't do anything with weapons and it's useless and it took me three months to find the person that owned it because she left in the 60s oh God it was in her mother's name and you guys don't tax her because the land isn't worth anything to send the tax bill out so nobody knew where she was so that yeah three months to find her she's in big water
Utah and then I had to try and find a way to get a holder you would think with the internet right you could just find a way and call her but you can't and so that took another three or four weeks for trying to figure out how KCK right was she surprised she was really surprised because she left here in the 60s she grew up to this that lot next to her that there's a house of lot cab that's where she grew up and then she left her re so her mom passed away she's out there we started talking and then she was interested in selling it by the way she thought it was worth something
because it's a late L yeah and so that that took a few more months to realize it's really not worth anything you can't do anything with it and a long story short we agreed if I paid for all the expenses of opening prob lawyering everything she s me for dollar so that, that wasn't mine so now it is so now there's no boundary and there's no B so we closed on that months ago and then I went back to work with Ed this is a lot of project you merged the Lots you talked to the zoning guys yeah yeah yeah you're probably getting a little bit of an extra Tas go bet well at some point if you open over time we also bought this during a TR time about 15 20 years ago that was one and then we added these two lots so right now yeah if this all goes through we'll put it all into one lot this is now this will separate how many acres will it be know that's there some you bought the little lot the quarter Woodland that drive yeah that was $4,000 they called me about 20 years ago I got something in the mail and said hey this is a a tax sale here and I wasn't interested in what was I going to do with that scrip and Jay was still here at the time and he said well you should just come in and
look at it CU well how much am I going to have to pay for he said well package are $4,000 B $4,000 nobody else do that's what I did so so we got that which was good because that's where you have to have a secondary actic system oh so you already got that approved that's where that's where go because everything here is ledge oh so we would be able to do it there and it is you know since then we kind of cleared this area out brush down it like almost a little like so that's another reason there like we really want to move and go up West we really love so I think I picked up you saying that there was no way to make the house bigger with the garage and the driveway in the spot that it exists really actually the garage this thing the driveway comes in in the garage it's under the house so you have bring a bunch of fill I don't what You' have to do there but house well a basement yeah and be had overwhelming to try and think going off a lak side that would be at that this is it's all L this is really if you drive by it this is really Steep and then when you come down here you have a line that's right on the corner as you come to so you wouldn't as you came out of the driveway you wouldn't be able to see the oncoming
traffic that stone wall that you have there is that coming out of there where you're put the Drive Stone Wall in front of the house here yeah is that coming or that would come out where the driver is yeah that's not much of the stone wall no no it's must been yeah it seems like far as feasible and you know the only other thing I can think of is like there any way you could just up it that would be that's your front yard yeah you're really close to the house CU this drops off pretty okay want a full set of with anybody I just B sign if you have that yeah this I'll I'll put application next mon okay great thank you very much slipping me in here I know sitting here but it looks like you've done your homework yeah I know you're very met the engineer to fill out these form yesterday afternoon and then we looked in the thing so when is the meeting well let's give it a shot and Joe was nice enough to well thank you okay good see you yes I'll be waving we got the was it 243 the pickle ball courts they submitted an updated site plan lighting plan I'm sure Jed probably knows more about that than I do I think we're making good progress I'm getting ready to go on that we'll
hopefully finish up the public hearing aspects on that or meeting later this month and take action on that time yeah most of it was stuff that Eric talked about on meeting I think like shortening that drain line so that it drains into the Wetland we brought that up and then what else they do took the gravel parking lot out they made it comments on predicting the gritters get the right flavor of L Bol and it'll be turned off at the right side yeah so I had that had and overl notification of the D herbicide permit application was basically I talked to them there it's it's like a renewal every three years so it's almost identical to the one that they submitted I forward to the commission so the regulates that so they just have to notify us and I asked for the that was the draft form so asked for actual get hen 7:46 East Street I know I emailed it to you guys in Friday January the cell phone tower construction which was through I think of what that was it was in the up riew area right yeah I think the road the the road yeah the gravel road that they had to
construct to go into the area was in the up riew area but that's all regulated by the Connecticut sighting commission so it's again they're required to notify us and we can comment for that type of utility we can you can this off theyed no they just yeah they finished the public hearing probably within the last month I know there were a couple of people I didn't attend it because like Joe said week or two about it I was a little annoyed and I hadn't been able to track down you there was the article in the River East that said you know all these people from an over got got this thing back in July and had 45 days to comment and we didn't hear from any of and I don't know about you Bill but I certainly didn't get anything back in July it wasn't it was in DEC December we got that thick book yeah but you know the our comment period was closed back in July so but I was never able to track down what happened you know why we didn't get those talk to a friend of mine who's the chair of the weapons commission over in Eber he said that we didn't get any life so I don't know what the story is you know the lawyer for the company said you know I wrote him and said never got
it he's got a form signed by the post office that he delivered it there but there was no U no tracking of the delivery along the way just sent out the regular mail so don't know but it wasn't like we could do anything by so I said okay more sleep over this one but like in the next couple months is that supposed to start yeah I think it be sometime this year they're going to want to go on it did any of the neighbors I didn't hear anything about it you know negative one way or the other you know it's kind of out in the middle of nowhere and I don't think it's going to be a big ice work not like the one across the street here that can see if both the Treet Toops all I know Brad was talking about maybe I'm not sure he did or that's what I was talking to him about I guess he Liv be interesting if he did yeah there so there was a couple of people on the Conservation Commission that wanted to attempt then I sent him the you know updated schedule stuff that I had gotten and they tried to get in and were not
successful with get any so as far as I know nobody all right yeah so next thing was 2503 was an agent approval of 72 P rid drive that was he had originally plan to put the house further up the hill outside of the up viiew area and it's actually still outside but they had to clear and braid slightly in the up review area but they basically moved the house down the hill because there was like a Hillside and then it's flat so it eliminates a lot of tree clearing and a lot of cutting so that's what that was all about he had talked about it with me last summer finally got plan so and I would you keep your eye on that one because there was a bunch of us out there today still trying to work on his brother-in-law Georgia's house where they filled in you a bunch of dirt on a neighbor's property in the Wetland review area and neighbor's going to make them take the the dirt out and so you should expect to see the wetlands permit come with that because they going to go in
the Upland view area to R all the dirt that they put in there probed off I know know what's all I see is CH going up and down up and down I have no idea what's going yeah you definitely want to keep an eye on that yeah we shouldn't a permit though because technically it's it's rectifying violation so this should be just but you have to I I think you because well we were you know talking about there's got to be some silk fencing and that because you're going to have to do this then proper seaing on all the restoration and all that but but anyhow I think you we're not done with that one yet and he's probably going to have the same guy this no different different people George was doing that's his so yeah no it was already cleared by different they're like I don't think they're that close yeah but yeah he's already U he has some like a pile stumps in the up area I got to get to move working on that and there's no yeah I told him no stock piling up area now so just trying to I remember when we discussed the wetlands application for that particular property and we were focused in on the driveway coming across the wetlands there I didn't see where any of the wetlands were flag how as you get away from the driveway area around there about where the the second house is being built so they might be I just yeah than didn't see him today and course it was starting to get dark out so
I didn't look that hard to work but when we got down by the driveway cross the wetlands they were all SL nicely so yeah I'm pretty sure take a look at but I guess the point of the discussion for us as a commission you know that would when we when we talked about the 12 Webster Lane subdivision as well you know there was an area of weapons right was going back all that stuff then there was a bunch of other weapons where he's going to build the HX and you we didn't talk about that at all that was just kind of an afterthought the HKS have so we need to make sure that they're fighting all the weapons right because they'll come into play later dra the Wetland delineation I don't know if those were all Flags or not but I think there was a few I'll have to look through my pictures been on site since all the snow on the ground what in this town procedure is for emptying what emptying if there is a procedure in hand
over where you have to pump it out or you just open up the drain and just let it go or because you know that he's he's got an Brown pool that looks pretty huge from what I can tell by looking at photo and I I just wonder if that's something never clean go the yeah it's like buil then treated with something had ground pool we only Dr it once when you know Le never never on purpose like you're saying there's a filter and yeah I'm going to a therapy pool and you written and they just empti it and I don't know where I mean it's a huge pool
and I [Music] thought I have no idea I don't know the answer to that a little well the other the other mystery question that I asking with and maybe Joe's got some hints there is I found there's regulation in our zoning RS it says if you put more than 2,000 square ft of impervious material whether roof driveway pool you name it not a lot you have to mitigate the extra runoff that it's not being absorbed into the ground and of course when I brought that up on the pickle ball work oh we're just going to run it in the weapons that doesn't seem to be beating the intent of what we're trying to do to maintain the water table in the groundwater Supply
so AR not supposed to direct water directly in anyway toward the wetlands but not actually into the wetlands like I don't think you can like take drainage in your yard PPE it right in the wet right no I mean that's not that's not a good practice right well that's where it all that's where it all ends up you look at you georg's house that he built over here he took all his gutters that you put them into a common drain that runs down into the weapon are and if I was Smarter on that requirement when we were doing this thing I'd you know asked isn't there a better way you know to do that we're doing that with the pickle ball and I see we're running some trains here that look like you they're going to end up going down into the weap so I know that's and maybe that's just we're lucky that we got a lot of wetlands in handle I don't know but something about what's the best best way to handle that situation to mitigate that runoff that our Z break required have which you would think would be a weapon's concern think the way the the way that site slopes too though it's like even though they're in here but the way that contour line flow like the water flow will be that way so it'll be a way actually yeah in the area but fall in
the opposite direction that's that's the thing I was thinking but I think with that one they'll end up because it's it's the way they moved it it was in now it's in like a flat site it's actually the old like back when that lot was first going to get developed that that was the site where they were going to put the house and nice pretty level it's not like George where they he was sticking it on the side of the Hill well it looks like George just got a bunch of material he going be trying to get rid of so I think'll help out yeah I was hoping it because it's it's fine and stable so yeah it's like it's I wish they could have work something obious planting or something like that you got to you can't fill someone else's property either so sometimes when you build like what what it sounds like he's doing he's going to have a slope behind his house that's not always a great thing cuz then that water is going to run down that slope and it's going to come right into your BAS yeah Poss if it's not it's not you don't have like a kind of there it's it's going to have a lot of problems but digging into a little Hill like that also you could also hit a spring especially in that area yeah figure if you can avoid I mean you can shift it a little bit and you can avoid all that cut C out the hillside that's that's a Hot River watered right
here I don't think there's a good way you could actually build a house in there not not a good way something's going to Happ again I had one that came in finished shed 116 Wheeling clear backyard that's within the area so submitted a permit for one so made out an application for permit yeah close enough and he had Alternatives but it was like the way that you know wife wanted it yeah all right business next PR meeting is Monday April 7th STI that that sry