Meeting transcript
Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Commission - Regular Meeting
October 5, 2020 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Hereby call the meeting to order at 07:01PM. The first item on the agenda is roll call and seating of alternates. Unfortunately, I see only one member of the Commission, Jed Larson, present. And we don't have any alternates to seat, so I'm afraid we do not at present have a quorum for the meeting. I was previously informed that Mr. Hallisey, Commissioner Hallisey, would be unable to attend the meeting. And I don't see Commissioner Smith on the call. That said, failing a quorum, I regret we cannot conduct any business or proceed with the agenda.
George, it looks like Allison's iPad is trying to sign in. I think that's one of the alternates.
Well, actually not yet because there hasn't been an appointment or swearing in by Board of an appointment by the the Board of Selectmen or a swearing in to make it official. I was informed this would have been on the agenda that Gabriel Anderson, who we had recommended and whom the Board of Selectmen had recommended for appointment, has declined that appointment. And Mr. Monroe, who we recommended for appointment I believe that Mr. Monroe is using Allison's iPad based on last time meeting. Ms. Monroe has not yet been appointed by the Board of Selectmen. So as I say, unfortunately, we'd prefer an alternate to be seated, and we therefore do not have a quorum for the meeting. And we can't conduct any business. I'm holding on for just a moment in the hopes that Mr. Smith will join the call. I don't have his contact information at hand, so I can't communicate with him directly to see if he might be available to join the call. Does anyone have contact information for Ed Smith other than email, which I'm afraid would not be effective in this situation?
George, I got his phone number if you want to try and give him a call.
Okay, let me jot that down. It would be 860, I assume. 942942. 7416.
7416. Okay, I will mute myself. Mr. Smith says that he will join the meeting shortly. Okay, I see Commissioner Smith is now on the call. We now have a forum, and I will call the meeting to order at 07:11PM. Third item on the agenda, additions or changes in order to the agenda. Are there any suggestions for additions or changes to the agenda? Okay, seeing no indication, we'll proceed then to, item number four, public comment. If any members of the public wish to speak on the items on the agenda, you can contact me or Mindy, the board clerk by chat, and we'll unmute you. Or if you're on video you could raise your hand to, thus literally raise your hand, to indicate a desire to speak to any item on the agenda. Okay, well seeing no indication, I'll proceed then to item number five of the agenda, approval of minutes. I will entertain first a motion to approve the minutes for September 15 regular meeting.
I'll make a motion to approve the minutes from September 15 regular meeting.
Thank you. I'll Judd Larson moved. I'll second the motion. Okay. So Judd Larson moved, Ed Smith, seconded, to approve the meetings. Any discussion, on those minutes? Amendments, corrections, whatever. Give you all a minute to make sure you've reviewed them Commissioner Larson, are you ready to proceed with a vote? I'm all set.
Commissioner Smith, ready to vote? I'm all set. Okay, I'll call for a vote on the motion. Commissioner Larson? Aye. Commissioner Smith? Aye. And aye, Vice Chairman Elliott, also vote aye. The motion carries three-zero-zero. Next, we have minutes from the special meeting and site walk conducted at one hundred twenty nine Hebron Road on September 19. Again, there are only two of us who are actually there, I will move to approve those minutes and ask for a second. I'll second. Okay.
As an item of discussion, I would propose I use the term seasonal water course at a couple of occasions in the minutes. And I would like to revise that. I think I may have used the term water course inadvisedly and incorrectly and I would like to change terminology for whatever it appears to the terminology let me make sure I get this straight seasonal or storm event runoff. Since there was no clear channel in the wetland area that we observed, I don't know that we're entitled to call it a seasonal water course. So I would move to revise the minutes accordingly. Any comment on that? None for me. Okay, Commissioner Larson. I'm all set.
Okay, then I will move to amend the minutes accordingly and I'll take a second. I'll second.
Okay and now we vote to amend the minutes. Commissioner Larson. Aye. Commissioner Smith. Aye.
And Vice Chairman Elliott also vote aye. So it's three-zero-zero. And now the, again, any other comments or revisions, corrections to the minutes of that sidewalk special meeting? Mr. Larson, do you have any? No other comments. Okay,
in that case, I'll move to a vote on the amended minutes. Commissioner Larson? Aye. Commissioner Smith? Aye. And Vice Chairman Elliott also votes aye, so the motion is three-zero-zero. Okay, we can move on now to item number six of the agenda permit applications. The first one is IWWC 2026 from Gary Partridge, 151 Lakeside Drive. Application to connect to construct or erect a 20 by 20 foot outbuilding storage shed in the Andover Lake Upland review area. We received that application last meeting, and I believe that well, yeah, those meetings minutes reflect. We asked if there was any plan to mitigate the impact of that construction on the watershed and runoff. We have subsequently received a communication, a couple of items added to that application. I think the first was a note to the effect that the gravel pad for the shed and the specialized or gutter and downspout system that would introduce the runoff into the gravel pad would be a mitigating element in the plan. Are there any other comments or considerations Commissioner Larson? No, I'm all set.
Okay, Commissioner Smith, did you have any comments on that application? No comments.
Okay, Mr. Wagner, were you trying to unmute you. Okay. You go. Okay. You're unmuted. So were you in communication with the applicants about this mitigation?
Yeah. We we met over there when we discussed all the different options. Gary wanted to avoid excavation. And then when I went there, I mean, it looked like you wouldn't wanna excavate because there's several large rocks in that area. So, like, that would just cause more erosion and who knows how rock how big those rocks are anyway. So yeah, we talked about a few different options, and then I I think the one he came up with is pretty good.
Okay, so in your opinion that would be a sufficient mitigation and avoid the runoff issue.
Three quarter inch gravel provide plenty of room for the for drainage and then the way it'll be designed with the gutters run basically uphill dump in front of the shed and then run back down through underneath the shed and all percolate into the ground.
So any runoff from the roof will end up basically end up in the gravel.
Yeah, gets directed to the uphill side of the gravel and then percolates into the soil from there.
Okay, good. Okay, so if there are no further comments, I will proceed to ask for sorry, my phone was ringing. Ask for a motion to approve the application with standard conditions for, I guess, a two year period would be more than sufficient in this case and with the mitigation as specified in the amendments to the plan.
I'll make a motion to approve the application of 151 Lakeside Drive subject to the standard conditions of approval. I second the motion. Okay, I'll call for a vote. Commissioner Larson. Aye. Commissioner Smith. Aye.
And I Vice Chairman Elliott vote aye, so the motion carries three-zero-zero. Will issue, remember there is a two week delay and we will issue a standard notification of that approval. You very much. You're welcome. Thank you.
Moving on, referring to the agenda. Okay, the second is IWWC twenty twenty seven, Ruby And Negen Puerto 129 Hebron Road the three part application for wall and fence in ground pool and utility shed and a two car garage with accessory apartment. Before we proceed with comments from members present, I should note that I received a communication from Commissioner Halsey already referred to in the minutes. He pointed out that the sidewalk construction that we noted on the sidewalk was not included on the submitted plan, that the submitted plan did not include any reference to the or the submitted application, I should say did not include septic system alterations that would be associated with the garage and apartment construction. And he also asked if additional clearing
might be required for any of the activities in the permit request. So I want that reflected in the record of the meeting since Mr. Hallisey was unable to attend. I'll ask now if Commissioner Larson or Smith have comments or questions on the the application and then we'll proceed to some of the additional materials that have been received since our last meeting. Commissioner Larson.
I did have three comments. One, when we were out doing the sidewalk, it appeared that there was a rather large pile of split wood in the wetlands up on in the area behind and to the right of where the swimming pool would go. Okay.
I guess the second comment is that the application requires alternatives that were considered but not chosen with respect to mitigating the impact on the wetlands. And I didn't see anything in the application that addressed that. And my third comment is that with the fence being proposed to go through the wetlands, I just had a question if we should consider this an activity of significant impact to the wetlands. And those were my comments.
Right. And with regard especially to comment number three, yes, we will address that question subsequently. Commissioner Smith, did you have any questions or comments on the application? No, I defer to Mr. Larson's comments.
Okay. Agent Wagner, have you met with the applicants since our last, since our site walk?
No, I had some email back and forth. I think a phone call. That was it.
Okay. Then that brings me to the additional materials. We received. And here, I've got to refer to my notes. We did receive, first of all, of course, a letter from engineer Brandon Hanfield. And we received a sketch of the proposed fence indicating how cutouts might be used to avoid impairing flow from seasonal or stormwater runoff. I had, again, the same comment about alternatives considered. Some of those are spelled out in Mr. Hanfield's letter. I also question the object and the necessity of the fence. We don't really understand, we don't have any indication in the permit application what the the purpose is purely aesthetic or is there some functional consideration involved there. We don't know how much of an area is being drained by the again seasonal some water runoff in the well. We don't have any topography and it was hard to judge on the sidewalk because the terrain is quite rough. So there seems to be a good deal of information that we are going to require before we can consider this application. And I think prominent among them is the question of whether or not this is a significant impact. The letter from Brandon Hadfield stated unequivocally that he felt that the construction activity in the wetland would constitute a significant activity. Now as the Commissioner is aware and the agent is aware, the applicants may not be aware, this would automatically trigger a public hearing on the application if we determine that it's a significant activity. And I would ask the commissioners for their input on that question. First, Commissioner Morrison, We could of course do this in the form of motion, but I'd rather discuss it informally first.
So Commissioner Larsen. What exactly was your question, George? How
do you feel about Mr. Hanfield's comment that he considered this a significant impact?
I agree with it. I think putting a fence across wetlands is something that does have the potential. And I know the drawing indicates that it won't restrict the flow, it still has a significant, it has the potential to have a significant impact on the wetlands. Okay, Commissioner Smith.
I have the plans, I have not visited the site, so I defer to Mr. Larson.
Okay, I'm somewhat reluctant to take an official action given the fact that we only have three or five members of the Commission present. On the other hand, if we don't take action on, if we don't make a resolution on this, the application is still going to be in abeyance and we can't move forward with addressing any of the other concerns. I'm going to ask our board clerk if she can bring up that letter engineer Hanfield for screen sharing I can't share the screen that I'm looking at but I want to make sure that everybody has that available and in front of them. Would it be this one?
Yes exactly. Okay, a couple of points I want to make here. First of all, the referenced documents in the first three bullets do not include the amended drawing for the fence with cutouts. But other than that, it appears to reflect the same information we're working with. And then following that, the review comments from engineer Hanfield, the septic he addresses the septic system, which again Commissioner Hallisey had brought up. We don't have information regarding the soil survey, particularly we don't have the soil scientists and the map that delineated the inland wetlands. They are delineated on the plan, but again we don't know who is responsible for that delineation. We don't have a convenient summary of any sort of the impact and the area, not just the area in which the fence would be constructed, but the area of disturbance, which would be, as engineer Hanford points out, considerably greater than the area occupied defense per se, since there would highly likely be machinery impacts and possibly grading and other alterations of topography to erect the fence as shown on the plan. Furthermore, within the Upland Review area, Hanfield has proposed or I should say suggested some alterations which, along Commissioner Larson's comments, could be made activities in the Upland Review area. And again, we have not seen those addressed. And I don't understand the force main and trench and pipe but I assume that it refers to septic system upgrades that would be required
to accommodate the construction. And again, as I pointed out earlier, the concrete and stone wall would be likely to be a significant impact and that we don't have the information you need regarding the actual impact of that activity. So it appears to me at this point that the application is deficient in several regards and that we certainly cannot approve it at this point. And secondly, that as it's likely to involve a significant impact, we should probably make that ruling and proceed to the next steps.
Yeah, I can comment now looking at this letter, I had not seen that and it does appear to me that this could be a blueprint for the applicant to use to try to get more information at the next meeting for the Wetlands Commission. Commissioner Larson?
As I look at the first comment for consideration by the Commission. I would think that the new septic system would be part of the application because that's instrumental to the building of the garage with the apartment above And so I think our review does have to include the septic system. I agree.
Okay, so we're agreed that the deficiencies so far enumerated should be addressed in the application and that Mr. The engineer Hanfield's comments can serve as a and the comments that we've made on the record in this meeting can serve as a guide to the applicants in addressing those deficiencies. I would say then I think that we should make a ruling on the issue of whether it's a significant impact in order so that we can in fact move this process forward in an orderly fashion.
I can clarify something about the septic system. This is agent Wagner. It was the system that's on the plan is, it was approved previously when they did an addition to the house. They they just added to the plan when they resubmitted it. So that septic system, hasn't been constructed yet to my knowledge, but it has been approved.
So agent Wagner, I'm sorry, agent Wagner, does that make moot then our concerns about the new septic system as it applies to this application?
Well, if it would need to be, my understanding is that it would need to be built to for the garage to be the garage apartment that's proposed to be connected to it. Like, you would need to upgrade the septic, but it's already been approved through a previous application.
And the upgrade would be sufficient to accommodate not only the expansion of the existing structure, but also the additional load, which would constitute essentially one bedroom and I guess a couple of bathrooms if I recall the plan. So would the septic system approved be sufficient to accommodate those additions?
I was so I talked to the sanitarian that approved it and I yeah, I think she's she said it was it was sufficient, but it would need public health, Connecticut Public Health approval because it's a separate building that's getting connected to it and that hasn't happened yet.
Okay, well then we presume then that that will be addressed in the course of the application, you know, or within the within the time frame of the applications being considered. We have, as I understand it, until February under the new guidance, and I don't know what the impact of a public hearing will be on our timeline off the top of my head, but in any event we certainly have adequate time to receive further information about the septic and its appropriateness for the proposed activity. Thanks for that clarification, Agent Wagner. Okay, so the question that we have to resolve, as I say, is will the construction of the fence in the wetlands, not to mention the Upland Review Area, constitute a significant activity, under the regulations. And I would entertain a motion to that effect so that we can resolve it.
I'll make a motion that the activity described in the application on 129 Hebron Road be considered a significant activity impact for purposes of the application. And I second the motion.
Okay, is there any further discussion? Seeing no indication, any other comment from the commission? Okay, I'll ask for a vote on the motion. Commissioner Larson? Aye. Commissioner Smith? Aye.
And aye, Vice Chairman Elliott also vote aye. So the motion to declare the activity significant impact carries three-zero-zero. We will I'm afraid, have to defer a scheduling of hearing since we only have three of the five commissioners available. But I understand that this will entail a public hearing and that we will have to work out how this is done in the age of Zoom. I hope that others may have had the experience to carry us through that requirement.
Excuse me, I have one question because I think when you started the conversation at the meeting you mentioned something about the front, I think that doesn't have nothing to do with the wetland, right? That's one in the comments he has for the wood you know, I know that's going to be removed at some point because when we was cleaning the yard when we don't know nothing about wetland and nothing like this because everything is new for us, so we just put it there but that's because that's going to be removed at some point. And for the activity what we're gonna do there, because we're not gonna use any machine to to drill the the land in the wetland area, it's gonna be by hand, so it's not gonna be nothing seriously consideration to make any damage to the wetland area. Okay, well, you'll have your opportunity
to make these points in public hearing, since, you know, against we have ruled that it will be a significant activity. Now, that's not to say that your comments aren't, well, again, you'll have the opportunity to make those comments and we'll certainly be taken into consideration in our final decision with regard to approving or denying the permit application. Can I ask a question, sir? Well,
I'll entertain one more question, but we do have to move on with the rest of our agenda. Go ahead. So
since I see that the issue here is defense, right? That's the most concerning issue for you guys? That's
the one that we've identified as being a significant impact in the wetlands. There's no activity proposed to construct in the wetlands per se.
Okay. So if we submit a separate application for the fence and just submit another application or leave one application for the fence, whichever one, and submit a new application, even if we have to pay the fee again, that's fine, for the shed, the pool, and the rest of the stuff. Do you think it will be better? That way we don't have to wait too long to do the other garage and the shed in the apartment? I'm sorry. Let's just go for the hearing for That was a good question.
And I'm not sure what the process would be. It seems to me there would have to be an amended application. It had occurred to me that having all those three elements did make the application excessively complex and hence more difficult.
Burj, I have a comment. Jud, go ahead. And one of the things that could also concern me, I'm not all that knowledgeable about it yet, but was when the letter from engineer Hanfelt discussed the backwash or the backflush from the swimming pool and that backflush being in close proximity to the wetlands. Wasn't sure how that impacted and I thought that could have a significant impact as well.
Point well taken. But again, to answer the question about amending the application essentially to separate out the fence and I suppose that with more information and again, Mr. Hanfield did propose an alteration of the pool configuration and shed location. And that might mitigate the issue of the pool impact on the wetlands per set. But off the top of my head, unfortunately, I'm not familiar with what would have to be done to revise or to you know to alter the application. Agent Wagner do you have any comment on that?
I think because it should be able to just submit a new site plan without like a revised site plan that doesn't include the fence because it hasn't, the permit hasn't been denied yet or anything. You don't have to modify So it could just be like a revised site plan removing the fence, a wall, and then you could put that on a later application as its own thing.
Right, and with, again, with the mitigation of the pool impact, Yeah, that seems to me probably the most straightforward way to do that, essentially an amended application with a plan that does not include the fence and again addressing the potential impacts from the other activities. But that would certainly simplify matters in terms of considering the considering the application. I think we can hold off on further action until you've had the opportunity to amend the application. I think our ruling now is that the application as it stands includes a significant impact, but a revised application an amended application might not be.
All right so I believe that we will just amend the application and do two separate things. Or do you want to do, since you guys are saying that you guys are concerned for the pool as well, do the fence and the pool or just do the fence? What is your advice so we don't have to be waiting for the next meeting and then finding out that we have to revise something else? Well,
think that you have to determine your priorities in terms of you know what you want to include in the permit application in the amended permit application to be able to move forward and have us consider the application at our next meeting.
Okay, if I have any questions about what paperwork should I do I just talk to agent Wagner or somebody I think that agent Wagner would be the appropriate contact to proceed with an amended application.
Okay any way we can have a copy of the paperwork from the engineer? The
letter from engineer Hanfield the advisory is posted on the Andover Town website and if you have a copy of the agenda of the meeting there is a link to the okay yeah I can look it up online and again
those comments and the comments in the discussion tonight, which will be included in the minutes for this meeting, I think will give you a roadmap to move forward.
Okay. Okay. All right. So, I think that should be it because he talked, he said, agent Wagner said what I was gonna say about the septic because the septic was already approved.
Right. We would need that on record for this application and we would need the indication that the approved upgrades will be sufficient for the additional construction that you're now asking for, okay? Do you have anything else no okay thank you so much so we'll keep working
on it okay well we'll look forward to receiving that amended application then all right thank you Okay.
So, I guess we have, no further discussion on that application and I will move forward to item seven on the agenda enforcement actions. We have two linked enforcement actions, the activities at 33 And 41 Route 87. I haven't seen anything new online and I'll ask Agent Wagner if he is aware of any new activity or any new communications regarding those enforcement actions.
Actually I visited both properties. I met with Kurt and Sandra. I was able to get the insurance information for Mark Williams, the the contractor that's gonna be doing the remediation for Kurt. Uh-huh. So they now have Sandra Nichols now has granted permission for Kurt's contractor, Mark Williams, to access 41 Route 87, which is the Nichols property to remove that material. And last time I talked to Kurt, Mark Williams was out of state for a month or so. So I'm waiting to hear from Kurt when as to when Mark will be back and ready to start working on that job. Right now he has permission to access the Nichols property. Mark Williams does.
Okay, so that at least represents a tiny increment of progress for the situation at forty one. However, I take it that act that the shed at Number 33 is still there and the fill is still there. And were you able to visit the site and view any further activities that were alluded to in the, communication from Nichols' attorney?
Yeah. I didn't see anything anything further from my first visit. So I was just going off the what was there for before was yeah, it was pretty much to what was there when I went again. So the shed was there, there wasn't any significant erosion. I didn't notice any fresh cut trees, anything like that. So when I talked to Kurt, we were trying to put priority on getting 41 Route 87 cleaned up so that the other neighbor wasn't in, know, getting our property cleaned up and then we work on putting a permit in to relocate the shed and then having to remediate that.
Okay and I understand again from your previous comments, we should be getting an application for a shed that's smaller than the existing shed and located elsewhere but still in the Upland review area?
Yeah. We're looking at other we're actually looking at keeping the same shed because he said his opportunity to get the smaller one came and went. But but I think we could work something in with the new with the with the larger shed in a different area. Move it somewhere. So
that's the whole. Okay, so this is a great leap somewhere, so to speak. Frankly, it has been a frustrating and drawn out process, well with one thing and another and I realized that you know you came into this as the what the not not exactly the pinch hitter but the designated new hitter for trying to get this enforcement action taken care of. But the fact is it's still a situation that where we have a shed that was you know we don't have an approved application, we have a shed that's in violation, and we have wetlands activity in violation. We have the order to remediate, from February 24 and we had the show cause hearing on March 2 and basically nothing has happened and I don't know if we need to go to our next step in order to make anything happen.
Well I I think from what I mean, like you said, I'm coming into it partway through. Talking to Kurt, he was under the impression that he wasn't supposed to do anything until he got that letter. So what I was going to do is now that he got the letter, I think that was last week.
You mean you're by letter, you were referring to The permission to access the Nichols property. Yeah, well, that's 41. I'm talking about 33, which he hasn't done anything about. And if he was under the impression that he should wait for permission to work at forty one, to work at 33. I don't think that follows and I think he was under the wrong impression because know any you know he could have submitted an amended application, he could have undertaken work on his own property to remediate the situation on that side of the creek, and essentially it keeps getting deferred.
So I would say at this point, at the very least, you should communicate to him that he damn well better get some action on his side of the crick and soon because the commission can't wait forever. And the next step would be communicating with Attorney Brantz and requesting his action with perhaps requesting an injunction and fines in Superior Court. So if you could communicate that to Mr. Baum in no uncertain terms, I think that we could defer to our next meeting. All right, will do. Okay, any other comments from other commissioners? Mr. Smith?
Yeah, I'd like to see a firm deadline with that letter if possible. Like by our next meeting, progress must be made or even the project completed, which might be a little bit extreme. But I remember our first visit there, I remember we made it pretty clear the things that needed to be done. So we've had this up on the agenda for so many times now. It just seems like we just keep on letting it ride. But not saying we let it ride, but it's time to get it done and over with.
Yeah, I would say that at the very least we absolutely would have to have a permit application with respect to the shed. And we would also have to see some evidence that work is proceeding at forty one at the very least and also at thirty three. We understand that work at thirty three is going to be contingent on moving the shed, and so the shed has got to be moved. Now as to its permanent location, that's going to require a permit.
But he has to remove a boulders lot and everything else right that's been dumped down there. Yes,
he's got to get at that, he can't just let it sit. Right, that's what I saying he's got to get the shed out of the way before he can get out the fill that was unlawfully deposited in the watercourse, and that means the shed, you know, as I say, the ultimate location of the shed will require a permit. We denied a permit, the permit request to move it what eight feet, so you know there's got to be an acceptable location for the shed but in the meantime but that's assuming the shed stays on the property frankly I don't care if it's in his front yard but it's got to move. Okay Commissioner Larson, do you want to weigh in on this?
Oh I agree with everything you said George. It's time and Ed it's time for that shed to get out of there especially you know one of these days it's gonna start raining again and We don't, we hope.
We need to get the situation resolved before we get to rainy season.
Okay. So, Agent Wagner to communicate, in no uncertain terms that, action is required here. Okay. Okay. Think you got the gist of it, right? Okay all right so moving on well we can segue right into the agent report
Alright. So one thing on here, investigation of citizen complaint, wetland disturbance on private property at 139 Hebron Road. And I think that's the the wood piles and stuff that think it was Jed mentioned earlier that we saw during the sidewalk. Maria Thulman wrote the letter. She didn't put any contact information on her letter. So I was just able to get her phone number tonight. So I'm gonna give her a call, but I couldn't give her a call or write her back because there's no contact info. It appears that the letter describes all the previous disturbances that obviously we saw during the sidewalk. So I don't think it's anything any new activity. But I'll contact Mrs. Tollman now that I have her phone number and make sure I'll confirm that that's in fact the case.
If I may ask, it seems that the boundaries were unclear and is Ms. Holman asserting that the activity spilled over onto her property. Yeah. Okay.
Yeah, I think that woodpile I remember seeing that you could there was some blue stakes that marked the property boundary and the woodpile extended over it. I'm gonna probably set up a visit or or at least talk to her on the phone and and she can explain exactly what what the complaint is. Okay. Very good. So moving on.
The review of standard permit conditions. I had sent an email to Megan. I sent one to you too. I don't know if you could post it on I
hadn't received that as of the start of the meeting. Yeah. No, I would not be able Unless Mindy has it.
I don't think she has it because I just emailed Megan and hopes that she could share it. Well, go ahead. I'll check my email while you
Yeah. Basically, he recommended three or four changes to our standard permit conditions. So I wrote a I included them in red and a copy and then he put some feedback in there. So I included them on notes. So basically we would need a public hearing to amend those because it's a part of the regulations. The We don't amend our regulations anyhow, so Yeah. But that could be included in the amendment.
Okay, I found those emails. I'm going to see if I can forward them to Jed and Ed at least while we're working here. Okay, forwarded two emails to Jed and Ed and we'll see how many trips around the world they have to take to show up in their inboxes. But at least we've got the summary now. And as you said, would have to take official action and have a hearing and all that. So maybe we can forego further discussion at this point. But at least we have that information in hand. And as you say, you noted the exceptions there, the salient details of what we might need to address in our regulations. Yeah.
And the last thing I had was a review of area towns procedures for public works projects, which I thought I I briefed last month. I think the chair wanted examples of the minimum impact permit that other towns used for agent approval. Yeah. So anything that that goes through the agent, they would have a like a reduced fee, a smaller permit, you know, like a one or two page permit. So I I emailed them to George. Yeah. And I forwarded those. Yeah. So there's three separate well, there's one from Coventry. I picked a small town, like a medium sized town in a city, and they're they're a little bit different, but we could take a look at those two and maybe think about incorporating a minimum impact permit into our regulations when we decide to revise them. Okay. So that would make projects in the Upperland upland review or or other minimum impact. Well, basically anything in the Upland review could possibly fall into that.
Okay, and again, as we said, this would be particularly relevant for our town activities so that the road crew doesn't necessarily have to go through a full application process to fix a drain line or something like that. Okay, well, thanks for pulling that information together. And of course, commissioners will have to review that. And again since there will be amendments to the application we should probably address that in connection with the upgrades to our amendments to our regulations required by changes in state statutes. We're gonna have even more on our plate, but we're still gonna have to address it soon enough. Yeah. Okay. Let's see. Getting back to the agenda, which is now buried under several layers of It's as good as anybody yet.
Okay. So agent report covered and other business. Okay, resignations and appointments. As I indicated earlier at the beginning of the meeting, Ms. Anderson has a declined appointment. And as far as I know, the appointment of William Monroe is still pending. I don't have any information on other applications for open alternate positions. Is anyone else aware of any activity in that regard? Okay. 9B something about Planning and Zoning Lake District Special Regulations presentation and I see that Linda Derek is on the call and of course Jed as P and Z would also probably be aware of this so could you all enlighten me and others about this presentation?
George, I'm giving the presentation. In planning and zoning, we've been working on lake rigs for probably close to two years at this point. And we had some significant turnover both as chairman of the planning zoning commission and the zoning agent disrupted the progress on that for a little bit. But I think we're up and running, moving forward on that. At the last, Alma, Andover Lake Management Association, and Alcoa, Andover Lake Property Owners Association, I was asked when I reported that the lake regs weren't complete, I was asked that at the October meeting maybe I could give a little update on those. And I wasn't sure, well I do know that those regulations will impact the Inland Wetlands Commission. And in fact, when we were talking about putting the shed at 151 Lakeside Drive, these regulations would be very helpful
in regulatory with respect to mitigation measures that we would take to mitigate the runoff because we've increased the impervious service by 400 square feet by putting a shed. So I do have a little presentation that I was going to go through that Alma ALPOA meeting next Wednesday, not this one coming up, but on the fourteenth. And I thought I would show that to the wetlands committee tonight. And there's a couple of people from PAMA board tuned in to take a look at it so they're not surprised by what it is that I put out to the public when we have our next I was going to get together with the Alma board this Wednesday and give them a private viewing, but the freedom of information regulations kind of suggest that everything we do needs to be done in the public domain. And so this meeting gave me the opportunity to do that. Okay. So the next trick will be in I think I'll try to share my screen here and I need Mindy to make me a cohost so that I can make the presentation. I just sent the request. Okay. You're live.
Yeah, here we go. One question that came up when we had the last meeting was where is the Andover Lake District and where is the watershed? And so I can at least address those. So here we go. We're trying to improve the water quality in Andover Lake. And there's a couple of different reasons for doing this. You know the town is interested in this because if the water quality of the lake continues to degrade even though it's degrading ever so slightly, you know at some point the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection may come in and say, Andover, you need to put sewers in, which is very costly and not a lot of excitement about doing that right now. The good news for those of us who live around the lake is that with the town being enthused about us improving the water quality, we in the vicinity of the lake directly benefit from that and so that's certainly of interest to all of us. The lake regs that we're working on, and I'm not going to show you all the verbiage that goes along with it. What I'm trying to do is get the concept across to people so that when we make the verbiage match the concept, we've got regulations that work. Are modeled after those that are in existence, have been in existence for the past fifteen years or so in the town of Columbia. And John Bellini who works with the town of Columbia as well said that Columbia Lake was showing algae blooms and that sort of thing and after they implemented this one, the lake got better, got cleaner, they don't have algae bloom problems anymore
and they did have a lot of support from the people that lived around the lake to go implement the regulations and so that would be nice too. Briefly, how do the contaminants get into the lake? Well as the rain comes down through atmosphere it picks up contamination and it gets ground storm water runoff going into the lake. So that's a big portion of the nitrogen and phosphorus that goes into the lake. And then we've also got some septic systems that due to the small lots immediately surrounding the lake, you are not in ideal systems there. So we'll talk a little bit about septic systems going on too.
But the lake regulations would divide the Lake District and watershed into four zones. And so we start with zone A right around the lake, moving out from there, zone B, zone C and zone D as you get further away. And we'll put more strict measures in place the closer we are to the lake. So this shows that down at Andover in blue down here, this is the Lake District around Andover Lake. And then this is the overlay zone map that we generated to work with in conjunction with the regulations. And outlining in red is the outline of the watershed area and you can see an awful lot of our watershed resides in Columbia and Hebron.
And then again going back, the blue line is the Lake District itself. And so if you look at the yellow right around the lake, that's what we refer to as Zone A. That's where we're going to try to make the most significant reduction in the runoff into the lake. And just the big picture, if somebody is going to go and make a significant improvement on their lot and they're in Zone A, we would like the end result to be that the water going into the lake has 10% less phosphorus and nitrogen in it than it did before the guy starts whatever addition he's gonna put on. So he's going to have to take measures that mitigate the water runoff so that the water going into the lake is cleaner than it used to be.
And that's sometimes not an easy task. Zone B would be a reduction of 7.5%. Zone C, which is the purple, that would be a reduction of 5%. And then Zone D, which is the brown, which is outside Lake District, it's still in the watershed, we would have no significant, we wouldn't have to use what we're going to see as a nitrogen allocation worksheet, but they would have to mitigate runoff from the increased impervious area that they have. So that's the map. Again, if you improve your property, one of the improvements should be improve the runoff into the lake. And as we talked about, the nutrient allocation worksheet, the reductions we just talked about there. Additionally, you must infiltrate the first two inch flush of storm water for volume of rain event from the newly increased surface area. So in the case of 151
Lakeside Drive, putting a shed into place of 400 square feet, we would expect both a 10% reduction in runoff and then the ability to infiltrate the two inches of storm water running down off that impervious surface to go something to do something to mitigate that from running into the lake. And normally that would be a trench filled with stones or something like that so that it doesn't all just run off into the lake there. If you were doing a minor improvement and in Zone A it's 100 square feet, B is 200, C is 300, and then again in Zone D, you don't need to use the worksheet. Wouldn't require the use of the worksheet, but still requires mitigation of the two inch rainfall runoff. So that's what we're looking to do to capture the stormwater runoff into the lake. This is the first page of that nutrient allocation worksheet and as you can see it still refers to Columbia Lake Watershed at the top of the page there as opposed to Andover because you know we're just working on making sure that we understand this worksheet before we go make that part of our regulation.
The other thing that's interesting to note here is this block here which has the factors associated with the different surfaces. So if we look down here, woodland, which is the original condition of land before anything's built on it or the mulch beds, that's got a coefficient of 0.1 and it goes up to, you know, if we pave the driveway, 1.5. So somebody who is looking to build onto their house or put up a shed or anything like that, we get all these numbers here and we put the number of square feet associated with each of these items in. We'd multiply those times this factor for the runoff coefficient and that gives you a number here. You add all this up and that's gonna give you the total phosphorus nitrogen runoff going into the lake. And that's before you start to do any remodeling. We would expect a 10% reduction of that and so that gives us the target that we're going to shoot for. So that's what this page does, that calculates what's going on originally so we know how much better we want to make the water.
Here's the second page of that and it's going to talk about, okay, if we're going to make the water better, what are we going to do? And it's got, you know, we're going to change lawn to mulch bed and that shows an improvement there. And you've got all these different things, challenges to go through and show what are we doing to improve it. And then you get a load reduction when you tally all that up. And that's got to come and take you down to below that 10% improvement we were looking at. So there's still a couple of bugs that we're trying to work on as we figure out how to use this worksheet. But the worksheet is really the nuts and bolts of what we would be doing. If you're in zone B, it's a seven and a half percent reduction instead of zone A. Okay, so when when would you be required to use this nutrient allocation worksheet according to our regulations? If you're building a new house on a lot, you gotta use the worksheet. If you're improving more than 50% of the structure square footage within a ten year period, what we're trying to do there is make sure that we don't incrementally improve the structure on the lake so that we can avoid improving the water quality going into the lake. We want to make sure that if you're improving your lot, you're improving the water quality. Increasing the floor area
and that varies by zone, most strictly in Zone A, the least restrictive in Zone C. If you add the accessory structure like a shed, again it varies by zone in increasing the impervious surface area, putting in a bigger driveway, paving a driveway, all those things, we get you there. So these are the things that would require use of that worksheet. As we said earlier on, if it was less than 100 square feet we were adding, then you wouldn't have to use the worksheet, you just have to accommodate the runoff from that particular surface. Moving on to septics, you know the Lake District, a lot of small lots with the small lots having wells and septic systems. The majority of the septic systems are pretty old at this point. A lot of them are undersized not meeting the minimum separation distance to groundwater or to the lake. And the existing septic systems are often located in the water table for at least a good portion of the year. These regulations would apply to Zone A and Zone B, the two zones that are closest
to the lake. So the conditions required a new septic in those if you're increasing the use requiring a B100 approval under the Connecticut Public Health Code that requires a new septic septic system. Net floor area of the principal building increases by 20 or 30% for Zone A, Zone B, the new septic. Increasing the overall footprint of the principal structure by 25 or 30% for all the structures combined if you were adding a shed, an accessory apartment, anything like that to 40 or 50%, again we'd be looking at the new septic system in there. Anytime we're adding one or more bedrooms and when greater than 50% of the principal structure square footage is rebuilt and there's any increase in living area requiring a B100 approval. I did get a email back from Art who couldn't join us tonight. He was asking me about this particular thing and I thought he had a good comment there. His comment was if you're tearing down a house and rebuilding it but you're not making it any bigger, don't we care about the septic system? And we do. So I've got to take a look at the wording on that one, but that would be our intention. You don't necessarily have to make it bigger. If you're going to rebuild your house, it might be a good time to redo your septic tank as well. And regulation is cumulative as of the date of the regulation.
So again, if you do a little bit here, a little bit there, then you add up to meet these requirements, that's when we go in to take a look at the condition of your septic system. Somebody could say, well I just put in a new septic system a year or two ago. And so there are some exemptions. If you met one of those requirements to ensure that you have a good septic system, if you get an engineer in there and prove the existing system is greater than 12 inches above the max high water table, that might be a factor that would say yeah you're good to go. You're greater than 35 feet to the high water mark of the Andover Lake or tributary, the various streams that run into it, that might be okay. And the last one, I'm still a little fuzzy on what this means myself and so I got to do some more homework on that, exceeds 50% of the size requirements for a new principal building. To me it seems like it should be, we would want it to meet 100% of the new requirement, but I am told all that's not true, I just haven't had anybody explain to me why fifty percent's
good enough on that yet. So anyhow, we're trying to put the finishing touches on the worksheet and so Jim and I, who are both new to our positions, is Jim the zoning agent and me as the chairman of planning and zoning. We understand the regulations and can explain them to those who might be asking us questions about those. There are still a couple of new construction lots around the lake and obviously if you have a wooded lot and you want to build on it, there's no way you can make the well. There are, I guess, probably a couple of ways you can make it better than a forested lot by putting in dry wells and that sort of thing. But it's very difficult to
improve that. So we've got to come up with some method for giving somebody a basic allowance for what we expect when you are building new construction on a lot and how we make allowances for that so that it's actually doable. One of the concerns I had were the mechanisms in place to trigger use of the worksheet as I walk around the lake. You know, I see lots of new paved driveways going in and that sort of thing. I'm not sure how that gets triggered down at town hall so that we can actually go out to the property owner and say, you know, we need to mitigate all those things. So it's going to take coordination with the Inland Wetlands Commission, planning zoning, zoning board of appeals, and that sort of thing to make sure that we get this over to zoning so that we can put the mitigation measures in place. And then there's still some minor corrections to the regulations that we've been working on and I think Linda you had a copy of that. There's some points we need to smooth out, one of which is the issue that Art brought up on
the teardown house and how that gets factored in. So that's really the concept of what we're looking at. I know that went through it very quickly but that's what I was going to show on Wednesday the fourteenth at the meeting and while we probably don't have a lot of time to go through a lot of questions and discussions on it tonight, I'd be happy to entertain any questions or discussion on it when we get to the Alma Alpoa meeting on the fourteenth and spend as much time as you guys want there. And this gives you a chance to think about a little bit and ask questions then. Don't know that I'll have all the answers but now's a good time to get the questions so that we can build the answers into it as we continue working on these. And I think that's all that we've got before these get put into effect they would have to go to public hearing and certainly having strong support from Alma and Alcoa would be very helpful at that public hearing.
Well, thanks, Joe, for sharing that preview. It's good to see further action after all the discussion we had with John Valenti when he was serving as wetlands agent for the town. And going through the worksheet and the need to reduce nutrient inputs the lake to maintain its quality. And I hope that you'll get further input and be able to resolve some of the glitches especially I noticed Ed was throwing out some comments in the chat line about the you know the nature of different kinds of education and so forth so getting that worksheet straight I think will be a key to successful implementation and then of course our part in terms of any regulatory actions and regulatory revisions that need to be made, I'm sure we'll be willing to take those up when the time comes.
And I was hoping to have gone through the worksheet. Here's the example on 151 Lakeside Drive with John last Wednesday we were planning to meet to go over that and there was a little storm blew through. We didn't get too much of it but he had a couple of trees down around his house and he had no power and so he was going off to deal with that and I didn't get to meet with him to go through the questions that I had on working the worksheet. What would
we do with that 400 square feet of impervious surface and where is he going to put the rain garden
to? Well, so I did ask John that and his answer was that he thought the best way to go about that was to dig down underneath where the shed was going to go and fill it up with the crushed stone more so that it's got a detention basin, if you will, for that water to sit in and perk down in through the ground and that sort of thing. And I thought that sounded good but then it brings up a whole new can of issues with the Wetlands Commission because thought it was a big deal that he wasn't going to excavate to put in the shed. Now we're talking about telling them to excavate. So it's going to be a little bit of a mixed bag but I think we do need to do something to start making the water in the lake be improved a little bit year over year so that we're in good shape there. And hopefully we'll get the support of the surrounding residents to do that because they are gonna have to foot the bill for it, as you say. And when you're doing the shed, bill for the mitigation measures could be a good portion of the total bill for that project as it comes out. Could indeed.
George, I don't know if you have any time to just get any immediate feedback from the folks who sat in or not or yeah I
guess we have time for a couple of questions or comments but I'll first ask if Commissioner Smith has anything you'd like to say at this point I say I was following your comments in the chat line but anything you want to convey I'm just asking a bunch of questions Okay.
This is finally in my ballpark a little bit. What you guys do is above and beyond my can. But the environmental stuff is having been under Wyndham Water Commission, I drove the commission to conduct the largest watershed study in the state of Connecticut. And we had Yukon, the ERI program come in and we identified, we basically went out and all those input streams and everything throughout the watershed at the Nabasitok Watershed. And we located some inputs that we never knew about that were really high in excess of nutrients and things. So I'm just curious about the streams coming in, as a rain event develops. Have we ever sent a team out to just get some of the input coming in to see what the load is for nutrients and things?
There's a you wanna speak to that? Yeah, sure. Hi, Ed. I work as a consultant for the Lake Andover property owners. And we've done a lot of stormwater sampling and consistent base flow monitoring there. So we do have a pretty good long term data set.
Okay, great. And do we ever did we ever consider having a single septic service kind of contract with everybody around the lake and then No, come
I don't think so. But that would be a good idea because there would be better transparency about the type of inspections that they're doing.
Then we'd have a relationship with them. One truck load can handle multiple houses. Could do it during their off season. It would become part of a regular service and we'd get reports back like, we noticed the septic is starting to fail versus now we might not ever hear about those sorts of things. Right.
We were approached by one company a couple of years ago offering you know for the larger number of families that participated everybody would get a lower fee We could return to that and consider it.
I think that speaks to less so with the regulations and more so of overall planning planning within within the the watershed, watershed though. Though. Jed, I had made some comments on the draft that I was sent, so if we could maybe get together and talk about it at some point, that would be it. If you're willing to entertain some additional technical questions, I'd really appreciate it. Okay, yeah. And if you could, both you and Ed, if you could email me your questions so I can have a chance to take a look at them and not be stumped right off the bat when you
lay them on me. That gives me a chance to prepare a little bit too. That would be helpful. And certainly as we go to the meeting on the October 14, I'm expecting to get feedback there as well and maybe we could go through there. I know John Valenti, Jim and I are planning to get together next Wednesday at 11:00 over at the town hall. I don't know your availability there, Hillary, but we are planning to go spend some time.
That's the fourteenth? Yeah, yeah. As of now I'm not free on that day but we can talk and I'll see what I can do. Okay very good thanks for joining us Hilary. Yeah thanks for it was a good presentation thank you. Linda?
Well I think I think maybe Alma question is yeah how do we so if you and Hillary and John if you're having this meeting and maybe there's some adjustments to the language such as it is right now So coming on the fourteenth might have slight adjustments. And then what's the procedure going forward before it goes to hearing? Like how much discussion do you entertain? How much wiggle room is there for revision
to a final project product? You would see if you looked at the planning and zoning agendas, there's going to have to be a couple of months where we spend some time during our public meetings working on the regulations, getting them in a final form where we're ready to present them to the public before we you know, act on them and we want them to be as good as we can get them there and the public's always invited to those sessions where we're working on the, we're making the sausage, so to speak. Hopefully when the sausage is ready for prime time we'll go to public hearing and present that. So it's going to be a little while.
So think that we're kind of digressing into areas that are really proper for Alma, Alpoha, and P and Z, and getting away from the subject of the Inland Wetlands and Water Courses Commission meeting at hand. So I'll ask you to carry on those conversations as a sidebar or, you know, by some other means so that we can proceed with the agenda for tonight's meeting. The next item on the agenda is bylaws revision. And I'm going to request that we defer that since Jim Hallisey could not be present for this meeting and he was the one who made some valuable suggestions about the IWWC bylaws. And I would want him to be present for any discussion of revisions.
Can I just thank the people that did join us tonight to hear the presentation before they go And drifted
before we sign off, thank you Jed and thanks for letting us come and thanks Jed it was a great presentation, very helpful? Okay, nice. Okay, so long. We'll be in touch. Bye.
Okay, so as I was saying, final item on the other business is the online land use academy basic training. That's informational. I clicked on the links and basically we have a couple of PowerPoint presentations, some of it on legal aspects and then remember we were supposed to have a workshop on plan reading that was cancelled because of COVID and that has now been translated to an online presentation and again we are encouraged to view those presentations for our information and to be better able to function as board members or commissioners. Has anybody checked those links besides me? Nope. Okay, well again I encourage you to do it and again some of it may be familiar we did have that workshop on that was conducted with PNC and other land use agencies some of the material seems to be from that and then as I say the one on plan reading they've translated to an online format. Item 10 our next regular meeting will be Monday, November 2 at seven p. M. In the usual virtual time, well the virtual place from the Zoom server and with that I am ready to entertain a motion for adjournment I'll make a motion to adjourn I second okay
so Jed Larson has moved Edmund Smith has seconded, moved to adjourn and we'll call for a vote. Jed aye
aye George Eliot vote aye so the motion carries three zero zero the mode the meeting is adjourned at 08:47 p. M. Thank you all and I'm sorry I had to shake your chain to bring you here but I'm glad you were able to attend and make up a quorum so we can do our business. Good night. Night everybody. Well. Mindy do you have any questions before we ring off? I don't I think I got everything down and then I'm just gonna relook You've over to glorious voices on tape too don't you? Yeah yeah and our expressions as well no face stars to cover up what we're saying. Okay well thanks so much and see you next meeting. Thank you.