Meeting transcript
IWWC Meeting
November 6, 2023 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
And weapons and workhorses commission. Today is 11/06/2023 at 07:00. Yep. There, man. You're alternate. Right?
Did you want you wanted to change the order of the agenda? Yeah. There was two. Corrections to their it's gonna show up later because he's added on the meeting right now. We can move the jurisdictional rolling up. Alright. We'll do that. Just change a to b on items set. And the approval of the minutes,
September 12, did everybody get a chance to read those? I did. Mean Yeah. I see we've got another
case they have In the prospective commission number. Okay. Patricia, you got Brad. Yeah. Thank you.
If anybody's talking to me, it's very hard for me to hear what's being said.
It will speak louder, Ed. Yep. I don't need to put the tear on always great. Whole business
action. Do you have anything on that? They will all are all being sustained. Right? So we can go into the new business. They receive and discuss the jurisdictional ruling for, I review, IWWC twenty three slash seventeen jurisdictional, Norman, 63 Bunker Hill Road. What do you think you said? Yeah.
I screwed up that one. Okay. And weapons crossing for an approximately 54 acre timber harvest of saw size and to remove dead and or dying trees. This is the jurisdictional ruling review.
We're trying to figure out who's had jurisdiction on this.
Correct. Figure out we have jurisdiction. Figure out we have jurisdiction on this particular
Timber harvests. The preventers. Boston Harmon, Cold Forest Products and a licensed forester in Connecticut, Massachusetts. We're planning the proposed timber harvest on property of Peter and Dorothy Yemen's 63 old Andover. We had a harvest previously battled, want to say five ish years ago, something along those lines. The goal of that harvest was to open up first it would become unhealthy and diseased trees but also to open up the forest canopy reveal sunlight to the forest floor and establish natural regeneration for the trees from there. From that harvest has been plentiful natural regeneration throughout the property. So we are planning on going through and cutting most of the sawlog size trees, so trees 14 inches or larger, and then any other unhealthier disease trees that are well there to free up more space to that advanced regeneration. Oak in particular, I'm trying to regenerate it needs a lot of sunlight in order to actually maintain itself and get it into the forest canopy and become a component of the forest. So the goal of this project is to open up the forest canopy more, give it the sunlight it needs and then have that forest grow up and have a long healthy future ahead of it. There will be two wetland crossings and two drainage crossings associated with the harvest. What type of harvester.
Were there copies of the barns, or anything in this county? You guys had them on here. Yeah.
There's four crossings in total, two prolivens, two bore directives. All were used in the previous markets. It all will be supported using quarterly, annual, and temporary timber bridge map depending upon our positions when we're there and obviously, flooding events. Obviously, three three inches of rain overnight. Unpredictable, seeing the half year. We won't work for, you know, a day or two. Give us some time to dry out. We'll be losing moderation there. Yeah. The harvest is planned to be used with a harvester and a forwarder and a cable skidder. The cable skidder mainly will be used to the steeper areas of the property where other heavy machinery cannot access. The landing area will be right off of Bunker Hill Road previously used before. There already is an existing anti tracking pad, so we're going to use that as we can. If we do come into any sort of issues with their sedimentation onto the world, we will install a new anti tracking pad to help combat that. When you did it, I think it was 2019,
is it did you do a whole piece of land?
Or was it We did the majority of the property. I think there were a couple sections we left untouched as to why I'm not sure. Yeah. I can't say as to why we wouldn't have. I mean, we weren't with the company five years ago, and it was done by one of our associates who no longer works for us.
And you're doing the same. I mean, it's the same scope this time. Yes, exactly. Yeah.
It's not clear cut, right? Like a cut. Correct. Yeah. It will be it will look different and it's gonna be more open, but there will still be plenty of healthy trees left. The goal of it is to open up the sunlight in the trees, the saplings and seedlings that are you know around the height specifically. The oak like I said, needs typically needs at least one to two legs of each tree in between trees in order to properly grow into the forest canopy and become a component of the forest so that we can shade it out in the future. The goal is to do that. There were a handful of ash trees that weren't cut at the last window rounds. Now we'll be on the back border. It's important to try to salvage the other bottle can. Besides that tree health was pretty good for the most part. There were a couple of trees that have bled down and declining them since the last harvest five years ago, things will be cut accordingly during the harvest.
You know the decision of the inlet letter? If you did a cut in 2019,
did you do a jurisdictional review at that time? Did you put in what was the conclusion of that? I'm not sure if it went through as technically a jurisdictional ruling. Nothing in the paperwork file that I was able to see said it was any sort of permit. So it doesn't make me believe there was any sort of permit or anything else along those lines needed. But I can't say for sure because that wasn't here then. I don't know what obviously was approved because it was done, but it's about it.
I wouldn't bet on that. I was on the commission in 2019, I don't recall anything being discussed then. But You're tonight's peak? Yep.
Well, not the meeting. Sorry. Dorothy Yeomans. I went to all the state meetings on the highway going through there. They took the whole back of our property, all of our frontage on Bunker Hill Road. They took all that. And at that time, at those meetings, that scung the mug pond a little bit beyond us, little bit toward the Nathan Hale Forest, but close to our property still, was the big wetland consideration, but they never considered. I mean, I have all the maps at home. They never considered our little there's a little pond and then beyond there's in the spring, there is a spring that comes down one
area, but it was never made for me to think that it was actual wetlands that needed to permit, not that I ever was involved. I mean, my husband and my son were doing it. But if you walk the property, you would see it's not like a major thing. We did see one spotted turtle. That was one of the reasons the highway didn't actually be built through my property. One spotted turtle saved us.
Some cases they weren't sure if you did mine a spot in turtle reel that's a listed species right and that's probably the reasons why the six months would be challenged and they're also a funkulpin species that utilize of knowing better what those weapons are and characteristics of those weapons, I think, is important. As far as weapon commission's jurisdiction over that, if you were putting down, if you're if you're actually putting something in the weapon, a process, after deposition in the weapon, it mimics temporary. Was this it isn't one of the previous structure? Yes. So this is the crossing with a preexisting road already going through it. It was obviously a skid trail we used in the past, but it also has been used by the landowner for their own private use of the property. So that would be probably number one. Do know the numbers on this compared to what we're looking at? I believe so. Yeah. That's the number that I'm sourcing. I believe so. Crossing number one is that's that's the process That's the chip. Oh, that's chip. That's yeah. So I'm
not hearing enough language. I I think I'm just gonna bow out, and from now on, I'll make live live meetings. It's just not able for me to pick up what's being said.
So that picture right there isn't you're not necessarily in the wetland yet, but if you see that larger tree in the middle of the screen, we are approaching the wetland. That is the high grass area I was speaking of. So the wetland essentially starts at that larger tree in the middle. If you go to the next picture with a shorty shower angle. Yeah that is part of the view of that same crossing. Is there any way you can avoid that? Either way we have to use one of those crossings to access the property that Wetland runs. This one I use, number two. We could, since we used it before I'd like to use it again. It would also make the skid distance a lot shorter on our end of things.
I realize that but sometimes you know some it might be worth it to just leave it maybe that's where your spotted drills you know right there Right. There are other areas of that wetland that are holding water bath. It's just a very small feature you can see on the Canada. The rest of what you see doesn't hold any sort of water. Well, the way I'm looking at this particular mark is it's undisturbed. I mean, I I realized it's like if if you put what you need to put in there, you're not gonna it's not gonna be in there permanent. I understand that, but it's still gonna just completely change what we're looking at here. I mean, it has a tendency to sag down. You get like that. If you do that, sags the land down and the water pools and you have to move a pond instead of a marsh. Correct. No, I completely understand what you're saying, but that's the whole point of the tender bridge mats is to help disperse that waste so we don't leave any indentations into the soil itself. What we have done in the past where needed is we would use timber bridge mats up to the edge of where you see standing water we would get a firewood mold or a small stalbot, place it not in the marsh, but at the edge of it and then along the other edge, and then that's over it. That way, we're just going right over it throughout all and putting any sort of pressure into the area itself, if that makes sense. Yeah.
That's an would you you go to skid your locks, are you crossing through this? Can you skid your locks out? Well, that's one of those crossings. Yeah. Yeah. We would all, like I said, put porta rolling in or temporary, which means that we're as needed.
And if if you said it would be a longer distance if you skid around it, you'd have to skid all those logs even further. Correct. Stirring more soil.
I guess my conversation here so I'm not whispering over here is you would talk about the rain depending upon the weather conditions we would use corduroy mat or we could possibly bridge
the process Yes. And we would use corduroy and or temporary bridge. Yeah. It depends on the crossing. And and the difference at least
say it again, sir. The difference in my mind at least is we were brick by 30 branch is that if we put Corduroy in even though you're going take it out that requires a permit if you're going to bridge it and not have anything going to the wetlands that's when we could rule that you don't need a permit and we'll look at at the map here there are some solutions where you wouldn't need to go through the wetlands at all. I'm sure there's some drawbacks to that but if you weren't going to go through the wetlands then you wouldn't need to have a permit either. So there's a couple of options here but tonight we're not talking about approving the plan we're just talking about do we need an application And
it sounds to me like we can't rule out the need for an application because we don't know exactly what we're going to do there unless we have a different route that avoided the weapons. And it looks to me like, from the map, it's possible to avoid the weapons completely. There might be other factors why you don't wanna do that. I'm not aware of it. It looks like it might be a little bit longer route. Yeah. But
So if you're speaking to the area, I believe it's to the east of the house there.
Well, I mean The reason we Like, we saw it online. So Oh. We did it. It's in our file. Oh, we
okay. It looks terrible. Yeah. It looks much better up there. We scroll down some, please? So I'm gonna try to zoom out to try to get it. That will work either way.
Yeah. So if you're yeah. Correct. So we technically could go around. So realistically, that portion of the skid trail to the Southeast. I let that open in the air. We didn't harvest there last time around. The reason for that is because it's a lot of high multiple or rose, Japanese barberry, other invasive species. And although that's not technically wetland, there is a very poorly drained soil pipe. So that's why we left it undisturbed last time was because the feeling is we caused more damage than we'd actually get anything out of doing it. That's my initial instinct. This go around the landowner was adamant on trying if we can. So that's why I left that roof open, but that's up in the air whether we do or don't do that. So realistically, that the skid trail to the Southeast isn't is still up in the air whether we use it or not. And that Central Skid Trail you see coming through to the south connecting the two of the East and the West. Part of that kind of runs through somewhat of a barn area they have on the properties. We have planned to open the barn, run little machines. Is it possible to navigate through that? But it's definitely gonna be a very much of a hassle. Possibly the days of moving equipment that might not even be able to run. If we're looking at it, I doubt most of it's able to run. I just left it in there as an open option in case,
but the main skid trail, what we're really hoping for is the skid trail from the landing, continuing north using both wetland crossing and going to the end of the property from there. So you're talking about the one that's
it might be helpful if you went up way to shore to move on. Just which one shore? If if my arm's will reach. Yeah.
It's kinda hard to see on this map that there is a cross black hatch area here. I didn't do that. Did I? Alright. There is a area here around the house and the barn. That's the hardest area, and then also going through the wetland here showing that we're not cutting any trees within the wetland. Some within the edge, but not within the wetland itself. The side, possibly on the skid trails where you might need to cut a couple or two for proper access purposes. This part of the skid trail, are we not planning on using. We might be able to. It really depends on weather conditions when we're there. If we do have a nice cold spell, it would be a good time to do it. If you don't have a cold spell, it might not be a great time to do it. So our main route we're trying to focus on is heading north from the landing using one both Letton Crossing and heading up further north from there and having it's happening. I don't if that tree is a touch screen.
Wasn't I don't think I touched it. So the plan would be for us to pull all of the wood from the north of the property south using these two crossings, as well as the drainage crossing down this way. Oh, I see. Right. The other skid trails I just left in there as a possible option doesn't mean we're necessarily going to use them. I'm hoping not to know if we can help it for the most part.
So just my question. Yeah. Is for everybody Is I would actually prefer to see bridge repair to weapons. Because if you go around, that's even further to skip a lot of the whole point is to decrease the kinetic acid and to cause regeneration and growth. If you go further around, you're just causing more soil degradation and which could cause more erosion into the wet areas of bottle. Correct. So I would say, I think the shortest trail possible is the best way to reduce, you know, soil degradation and more disturbance because your whole point going in there is to increase your degradation and not destroy soils. Correct. Whether wetlands are not, you know, soils are soils, and and erosion erosion. That's just my 2¢. So you could, like you said, build that bridge, you know, on either side where you can go right over the water. I would prefer to see that rather than go all the way around and create more disturbance and more you're you're trying to increase plant Correct. Succession Yep. On the ground. So by disturbing that, it's just gonna cause more. I agree.
Yeah. There's a like you said, if that soil at the bottom right, if you have to use that as a skid trail to go around as well, it's the connectivity of the saturation of soil that's really, really high, it's really, really wet. I mean, it's just gonna destroy this one going through there. Whereas, as it gets dry, and you're just crossing over that wetland of the bridge,
you're gonna do less destruction, I think you said, rather than Correct. Correct. We're consolidating any sort of possible damage. From my experience, I've done dozens and dozens of timber harvests with wetland and drainage and even big street crossings where we had the cable and use log bridges over major streams that run year round. The effects I've seen on wetlands have been very minimal. Yeah, there's gonna be a there's been a couple of jobs where you were in the wrong half of the year or it was classified as a wetland. It's not a wetland according to soil scientists. It just came through cold water during part of the year as we've had very wet summers. It does definitely doesn't help the cause. So consolidating the course of travel to two areas, especially areas that have already been used in the past is our main effort here.
Are you planning on doing this as soon as possible or quickly?
I was hoping within the next month or so. Yeah. So my subcontractor, Brian and mine for this property, he would hope we start it by, I would say, mid December.
So there's some potential ground could be frozen? Correct. Correct.
Yeah. That's right. Pretty much supposed to have a lot of snow this year. Yeah. That'd best case scenario for a few times. We'll see the metal stuff. Maybe it's better to go over the marsh instead of driving around. I was thinking you could use that and trail over the labor to the right. Right. Like like I was saying, not fair enough. Sure. Right. I it's definitely not a preferred option. If possible, yeah, preferred. It's it's not the best course of attack if we're trying to, you know, obviously minimize and prevent any sort of damage. Yes, sir. So you're actually building a bridge over the sky. Right? Or you're putting down the corner
in 2019 when you did this when you built this bridge or whatever you want to call it over are you talking about the same doing the exact same thing this time yes correct and that was your side bridge No. I know. But what was it in 2019 now? That's what I'm asking. Like,
I'd like to see I those papers and Sure. So I wasn't there in 20019.
I don't know. I wasn't there. Didn't watch it. I was there for the rest of the stuff. I know we submitted a timber harvest notification because I do have it in my files, but was submitted to the town, which leads me to believe it was then voted on approved by the Wetlands Commission in 2019. I mean, it'd be interesting to see what
was approved. What what what what from looking at it, it was the same language. It was quarter void and or temporary bridge maps. I'd be more than willing to contact somebody from Connecticut DOT. The DOT, mean, sorry. Nick Zito is his name. He's blocked many properties with me when I have questions and such and it's definitely the third party source. So DEP? Yes. What's his position? Don't know. It's technical.
I have a question. Larry Hartsby, when he was the town engineer, he did quite a bit of assessment on the right hand side from Bunker Hill up quite a ways, at least 800, a thousand feet into the woods. Just a soil assessment with my son because my son was considering building a house there. Mhmm. And so I wonder if you would have any record of kids.
Mapped it for a project like a housing project well he was trying to see if he couldn't build a house there yeah well a lot of times what we'll do is we'll go in and they actually they record and they analyze the soil yeah and
Agent Wagner, do you have anything for us on this? We must. I just asked for agent Wagner for his input.
He's been he's been pretty quiet so far. I'm just I'm just listening. Well, I I remember if we go back to the pictures, if you don't mind. I look at that crossing one is that one right in the center. Right? Over the Southeast. Yeah.
You want crossing one or crossing two? Yeah. Crossing one.
That would be existing one. Yeah. So you can see that one's pretty much a road already. Yeah. Crossing one. Yeah.
And that this is how you what you wanna do on crossing two, same thing?
Say it again. Sorry. Is is this what we're looking at here crossing one is what you wanna try to do while crossing. We're not gonna try to make it any sort of, you know, a full on road. We're going to try preventing as much damage as we can over the wetland by putting down the corduroy and or temporary to bridge mass where applicable. My gut feeling from looking at the site is we're gonna end up sticking with mostly bridge mass, but it really depends on weather conditions if we come into some really cold weather we might be able to get away with the quarter away of the appropriate rather than breaking that through the whole entire area but it really all depends. So when you say quarter away you're going put the quarter right down on the graph Correct.
Somewhere in the documentation for this, I thought I saw a really good drawing of what the bridge or my weapon And what? Was. And and it's not in the little flyer that Joe sent out so it's got to be in the boulder here but there was you're right it showed it yeah I pulled an example out of the ddps over here forestry man there yep
yeah yeah so so if we were to put that to expand the wetland then we wouldn't need a permit but this that wetland for crossing number two looks like it's pretty big. It is definitely long. And so yeah. So I guess for the purposes of the discussion tonight, I would make a motion that we do have jurisdiction over it in that an application is required.
This would be a separate application than the one I've done. You could use this because it's the same application. So we could use this, and you could receive it tonight, and that would start it. And so you could technically approve it at the next meeting you wanted to. Second person. Mhmm. Jen's motion? Second. Okay.
I guess in the point of discussion, it I'm sure that the project is doable, but it concerned me a little bit that we have trails. We have a trail marked around the wetlands that we don't want to use that would avoid the wetlands entirely, and that we don't have the wetlands fully officially identified and we talk about we're trying to avoid going around the wetlands because it sounds like those are wetlands over there too for you know any extent of things so as far as discussion on the motion, I'm not sure that I'd be willing to receive it later tonight because I don't know that it's got agent Wagner's blessing on that. But Well, I mean, I'm looking at it as forestry as an adverite use. So,
I mean, you have to look at that, like, legally allowed to September, and they do it in a responsible way. Yep. And so we're reviewing this and the crossings to make sure it's basically done in a responsible way, and that we, you know, conforms to the regulation. Like I said, I think the biggest thing is the the focus on the crossings and, you know, whether or not you think they're the permits are required or not. But there was another
application and I don't know if it was right before right after you took over here, you know, Megan Lally was the chair at the time and and we did reroute the trails around the wetlands as part of the discussion. And Again, I to consider
it independently. I don't know how we get people to If be Sorry. I think If I can say if it
makes you feel better about it, I'm fine with taking wetland crossing two out of the equation and just sticking to wetland crossing one. The reason I had it in there because it was previously used before, I figured we could use it again. Makes it feel better. We can just stick to weapon processing one. What weapon processing two was being used before? Say again. Sorry. What weapon processing two was used? I don't know if it was used in the past harvest, but it has been a trail that you can tell somebody was going through. I mean, it didn't have any tire ruts and such, but it's a open area. It's clear somebody used it at some point in the past.
So my husband has four nineteen forty seven really big trucks. I don't know what size you call them, but he's got a wrecker, a dump truck, a steak truck, and a cabover. He goes into the woods. And from the previous harvest date, he pulled all the logs out on that road that you just saw it's full of rocks and no one I mean Jerry Hardesty was up there checking on the southern part but he knows Peter he never said anything to us that wasn't wetlands. So I'm very surprised that this particular road that goes all the way out to Bear Swamp, actually, is suddenly a wet wetland. There's a little pond on the right hand side. It dries up in the summer. Now this year has been rainier, but every other summer, it dries up. Petersen's
pulling logs out of there for 26 cord a year for thirty years. So I'm astounded. Looking at the crossings independently,
if you were to put a bridge over the Wetland Crossing, which one would do the least amount of damage to your lives?
Wetland Crossing 1. Crossing one. Yeah. It is an existing trail, all we we did was put a tender rig mass over that trail when you don't map it and then pull it out afterwards. I'm not sure if I mentioned before as well, but all the skid trails and any other areas exposed to bare mineral soil within within within outside the wetlands will be seeded hay after harvest. In this case, obviously, seed won't be put into spring. But as long as there's not snow on the ground, we can still put hay down or feasible to help prevent any sort of possible erosion and, you know, soil disturbance. Do you think you would have the trust? That would be thoughtful. Yeah. Correct. Well, all that happened with this didn't go on. Period. This is Google. Yes. View. If as Boston mentioned, he he gets rid of crossing on the two. What would that do to us? Well
since we all think so the motion right now is to say that the weapons commission has jurisdiction over the application This application? Yeah. If there wants to be a change based on some discussion, based on discussions with agent Wagner and all that, that's fine. But we're not gonna make a decision on it tonight. We are permitted to do that. You can make a ruling on that jurisdictional
ruling. That doesn't require all the time because you're basically saying, you know, have authority.
Well, I think we need to vote on that. I personally think that we are required to take jurisdiction over the application. Even mine's cropping too?
You say that's not there. That's that's not the plan. The plan that was presented to us should be over the one around it. I I think that before we make a decision one way or another, we would like to go out and actually look at the site so that we can make an informed decision. But tonight, we're deciding whether or not we need to have an application. We don't have an application yet. If we want to move through the wetlands, which which the applicant does,
I think what we've heard tonight does require us to take jurisdiction and then the application could either have both spots or just one or just one yeah but you know they need to get the agent right person to help them come up with this you know plan
that they can. You know, I like the course remanagement aspects of the plan. I just think we're we're required to take jurisdiction over the weapons process.
I guess the other thing you could do is make a motion about specific weapons crossing the jurisdiction over one, two, three, or whatever and not. Know, he he We can make the motion. You have to cite that, you know, drawing, gait, you know, as in accordance with this.
But but I haven't heard anything that convinces me that we shouldn't take jurisdiction over what we haven't even talked about three and four Don't know where the stream. So yeah. I don't I don't know what
the story is of those two. We've been talking about the weapons here. I'm gonna put corduroy in weapons, and I've heard that there's a possibility for both one and two. We need to have an application to that.
But if we don't use corduroy, then we don't need an application
according to what you said earlier. Is that correct? That is correct. Correct.
But are you talking about the temporary bridge mats at this point? Yeah. I'm No. Temporary bridge. So if we use the temporary bridge mats such as on the board there, would need an application. Right. K. With that being said, we can we're more fine with just using temporary rig events and no board work.
I prefer what barrier? So you guys use temporary rig events to hold than
screw and that's fine. We don't know how long to do that. So so how long is that weapons crossing to?
Say that again sorry. No no. Why did weapons crossing come here too? Oh I didn't bring a tape measure out and actually measure it. I would say it's roughly 70 ish feet, so I don't hold that map exactly the scale. I was just going off the wetland layer. It's according to according to the state, but if that's outdated, not exactly sure Whether it's true or false, I've seen white layers definitely be off in the past. I don't know that you can build a temporary bridge 70 feet long.
You know, it when when I was schooled on that previous application, and they were talking about 15 to 20 feet.
Yeah. So the this it so the temporary break mats are separate pieces. They're each about, I would say, five by ten, five foot wide, 10 foot long, something along those lines. You would place one after the other as you're going, you know, over the wetland in this case. It's not just one whole big structure. And that thickness. So that would be a deposition surgery of the hole? Definitely. I've seen it used time and time again without a shape.
That would technically be a deposition on my own. Do you happen to be in the election? Correct. That's my problem.
So I guess you're back to voting on the motions on the table is do we take jurisdiction
over the issue or not? Okay. So even with the
bridges that you're talking about, you still have to go into the. These temporary bridges are gonna be sat down into the wetlands. Correct. Yeah. They would be sitting on top of the wetland surface. Okay. Correct. So we're still in the same kind of in the same place as ours echoes. I
did we get a second on that motion? Yep. I think Yeah. Second. So this is gonna be a vote on this. Say we take jurisdiction over this this
application for button's processing. Period that anyone gave us just to give them the go ahead or not?
No. Actually What to do? I think we did. We probably should if we're gonna take jurisdiction over that, I would think we would need to go on and do the night walk,
like, on Saturdays or something like that instead of what
of people would be dealing with so we can make a better decision on or the same decision the same decision that you've already made, but with an application. Yeah. I'm sorry. I took all this. Was there weather disturbance from the previous harvest?
The the roads. Yeah. Because it's, you know, cut off the center. Okay. Yeah. And then from the log. Yeah. So this is gonna be, like, the first time that I think that this this piece of land is actually been looked at by the and and large forces commissioner, I think is probably it should be.
By the looks of it, looking at the map and looking at what you wanna do.
We have to vote on the motion. Oh, we have to vote on the motion first.
So the motion is do we take jurisdictional are we the ruling review over
this emerald artist. Now you probably wanna receive a permanent application. We'll receive it as an application. After a visit?
After a site visit? Yeah. What you wanna do? Or I think we should do a site walk. And we need to can you make it on Saturday? It could have been Saturday morning. 09:00 on Saturday?
This is Brad Kelly. Are you talking about this Saturday, Veterans Day? Oh, Veterans Day.
Or on Saturday? This Saturday. Oh, okay. Regular Saturday, no problem. I can do it on an afternoon too.
Okay. I can do it on an afternoon too. I can do it on an afternoon then,
or I can do it with Paul and Jack. Yeah.
Sure. I could be I can meet you by 03:30 in the afternoon. You wanna do it on afternoon or Saturday?
Now do you wanna make a a motion to accept this or to continue this as determined to put on record?
I don't know. Because it might change. Yeah. If we do that, the
whole thing Well, you wanna accept it, and then you make your ruling next time. So you can you can accept it now. That'll something change you can make changes. Yeah. You can just discuss it at the next meeting, and then either vote on it or put it off and connect you know? Okay. Why don't we
You really should accept it before you go on a site anyway.
Okay. So we vote on that. Yes, make a motion to receive it. I made a motion to receive the application.
And then we might make some changes with our opinion. It would be something that we'll see that you just don't see. Yeah. But I think, you know, at the next meeting,
we need to hear the specifics of what the plan is as far as crossing. You know, we we've got a lot of talking about we might do. We might do bridges. We might go this way. We might go that way.
I think we need your plan. This is what the plan is. Right. My my whole point with the company obviously is to answer questions and concerns regarding the project. When I initially write out, you know, a timber harvest map and a plan, I do it to the best of my ability and also to leave our options open. So that's saying, you know, let's god forbid, one of the wetland crossings isn't turning out. We quit on that one. Will we do anything further? We try the other one. That's why I try to leave it open ended. Is it really because it really depends when you're on-site. You can't really and you can't really gauge exactly what you're gonna do if you're going to do it you know not in this case but let's say six months later it can change in six months depending on what you're doing so that's why I try to leave it open ended but I also want your guys's feedback as to oh we don't want to use sports excuse me only temporary bridge pens that's why I leave it open and it is for those purposes precisely
it could be open ended and bounded at the same time for sure sure sure okay
alright you know we we don't want to you know have an application and or take an application and then have Joe walk out there and just leave me something totally different going on. Yeah. No. I don't wanna see that. No. Because I have explored often in the. Surprised. Well, I have also seen commissions in the past where, you know, they'll give me they'll accept the application under condition, etcetera, etcetera. Condition could be only temporary regiments and no court or lawyer, something along those lines. So it really depends. But that's another reason as to why if you're fine with quarter away and bridge mats, great. If you're only fine with one instead of the other, that's fine too. That's really good. To your guys is, you know, this that's the whole point of this meeting is to go over that again. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Okay. Okay. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you. You got a period of Have a good evening. I'll see you for the next one. Have a good one. Thank you. Thank you. Do on you need here?
No. I I mean, I'm I mean, I'm assuming at this meeting, you're simply accepting the application that the TAM submitted and it will be discussed at a a follow on meeting, or do you intend to discuss it discuss it now? You can do both. Okay.
We bigger than the center. Can you bring up the
application? I can. So, basically, what the town is doing is the town is obviously building a new community center directly behind this building. At the same time, we're doing HVAC updates to both the fire department and town hall. One of the things we're doing with the town hall is changing from oil to propane for heating source. We're doing this for two reasons. Reason number one, we only have a two seventy five gallon tank for this building. When it gets really cold out, we struggle to go seven days between films, which is a problem. And if you happen to have a bad storm along with a cold snap, you know, we stand a significant chance of having an issue. So what we've done is made a decision that we're going go with propane. To do that, we're looking at installing two additional 1,000 gallon tanks behind the firehouse and directly adjacent to the two existing 1,000 gallon tanks. So we'd have a total of four, basically in a double the existing pad size. So if you're looking around and you're looking out back there and you see what's there, we're basically going to double that adjacent to that. Now that does have weapons and packs. The whole thing's in the uplift review area. It's within a 100 feet of the weapons. But it also involves some filling in weapons because the riprap has to extend past where we didn't have the weapons flagged on this and we had a surveyor come in and, you know, take elevations and and take points for that,
specifically for this project. So he calculated it was about 214 feet or two fourteen square feet of wetlands will be impacted. The wetlands that are impacted are basically created in large part by the drainage. This is one of the main drainage swales and outfalls from the town areas. So right now, unfortunately, that particular swale takes a fair bit of runoff from the parking area, so it's far from pristine wetlands anyway. We are as part of the community center application going to be creating a separate rain garden to pretreat some of the water coming off the parking lot. We we obviously have way too much surface area to be able to create a rain garden big enough to deal with all of it, but we'll at least treat some of it before it gets to this this wetlands. So the project will definitely have some wetlands impact, but they are fairly minimal. And then the second real question is, is there a feasible, prudent alternative place we can put the tanks, you know, that has zero wetlands implication. And, you know, we have surveyed this property and looked at it with that in mind. But part of what we're trying to do is interconnect all four of the tanks and basically have an emergency interconnect so that during a storm and during an extended outage, we can use the full capacity of all those tanks for the fire department, the generator, and the town hall. So the only way we can do that is if the tanks are collocated with each other. So that's basically what we're proposing. You know, we're happy to talk about any mitigation that the the commission thinks is appropriate. You know, because of the way the previous pad was built, which was basically to just to bring in
fairly large ballast rock and build it up straight out of ballast rock and then cap it with a concrete pad, There's not a lot of fines released when doing that. So we'd certainly be happy to use some fencing or bales to act as a settlement barrier, but I'm not sure that it's really necessary in this case. But we're certainly willing to consider it if the commission has anything that they they think is appropriate for this spot in this application. So that's basically what we're talking about today. Where the patent fee, is there running water there, or is it just delineating my soil versus standing water? There is you see that if you poke your head out here and you listen by the culvert right there, you hear water running $24.07 for a hundred and sixty five days a year because there's basically
there's a a a full length curtain brain that runs all the way from the upper parking lot at the elementary school all the way back down a year, and it ends somewhere in this parking lot right there. So there is a constant drainage of water, you know, from there. So, yes, there is running water near there. Okay. Is that is there any on the surface, or is it all? No. It's it is all pretty much a 100% of what you see there comes out of the town's existing drainage system. Okay. Is the pad gonna be pretty much right where that water is? Or
There's some other pictures. Yeah. We should be able to scroll through.
If you looked at it in the top, it's just a kind where yep no right there so that's okay so
here you're on the corner of the pad looking towards essentially the town hall in the elementary school and the tanks will go in a straight line from the existing pads. And you can see how the pad was burned up and built up. And essentially what we're doing is we're extending that built up area about 20 feet forward to it. And you can you actually you can see the wetlands flagging, the blue flagging for the wetlands area. We did have Richard Starkey come in and and flag the wetlands, so we knew exactly what we were dealing with in this site, and that is on the mapping.
Alright. I don't I wasn't sure if it was gonna be, like, you know, three or anything like that. It's just it's delineated. It it's just on the edge here of the wet one? Yeah. There's like a the
rope kind of splits. The rope comes out of the pipe. It's like an arm comes up a little closer to the tank, and then another one that goes away from it. Now it would be Yep.
Right. But I mean, sure that that whole drainage whale was kind of created. It was artificial. It's all man made. But and it does serve as there's a fairly significant buffer area before it goes into the main wetlands, which is the Dorothy Chamberlain Pond area back there. So there is a fairly good ability for that to, because there's no question that what's coming off both parking lots you know, has a high, fairly high level of contamination. And obviously that is a concern that that is, you know, ending up in the wetlands, but that's a, we're not adding to that.
Have you considered any other locations, like if you were to put the new two tanks just import on the firehouse side where these existing tanks are, so they're beyond the paved portion up there?
Yeah, you mean on the actual pavement? I don't think you would have enough of a turning radius to get the fire trucks in there. That's the reason the fire department is set up for you know, a pull through there. And I think by doing that, you're eliminating a lot of the that's why there's no parking allowed back there strictly so they have the swing radius of the vehicle.
I don't mind the idea of extending the pad as long as not you know, like you said, there's no waterway. It's like a middle boat. It's not cutting anything off. You extended it.
I mean, you're right on the edge. It is is that
is there any other water out there? Is there a spring back there too,
or is it just wash that's coming off? It's From from at that particular location, it looks like the only thing coming through there is what's coming out of our existing drainage system. Not that I mean, farther down that that the whole Doris Chamberlain Pond area is definitely wetlands and it's definitely fed by a number of areas. You know, and there is, I'm sure there, you know, there is surface water that gets to that from a number of spots. But in terms of that little area directly beyond there, if you look at it, you can clearly see that the water coming into that is the water that's coming out of of the main pipe, main concrete pipe there. But I mean, it's still a balance. Mean, you know, I mean And then issue. Right.
Feels foolish and say, well, maybe you could go in there and cut out some of the invasives or something like that with two hours worth of one of your guys and go in there and just pull out burying any we there's whatever. Let's see. Yeah. Well,
I mean, we do from time to time. Like, I mean, public works for example maintains some of the waterways because we have to. Because eventually, they silt in and then they no longer function as designed. You have to be careful about when you do that. But
I think I don't know. I live in Hanover. And when I moved into my house, I had so much of that going on. It took me five years to get rid of all of that. It's actually because Could be like a start to get it cleaned up a little bit on this end.
You know, that's probably the only mitigation I can think of. There's not what else could you think of? It's really helpful. Okay.
Other questions or concerns regarding this, it's obviously right out there. So if you ever wanted to do a sidewalk, you're more than welcome. Okay. It's all on down property. If we were here a couple hours ago, you can look out the back door and and see exactly where it's going. It's really supplies, Jim. Tiny gas
pipes are coming off those tanks. Yep. They can handle the load, go to all these different things you want to do there.
Okay. In that case, I thank you all for your oh, I would appreciate it if you'd agree or receive the application.
And I'm assuming then that you at your next meeting, you would issue a ruling at the next meeting. That's the the basic plan? Hope so. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yes. Alright. I will make sure to be at that meeting.
I make a motion to accept the council proposal for extending the path of propane tanks as received. I'll second it. Aye. Aye. Great. Thank you for your time and efforts.
For all those of you who are running, good luck.
That's it for us. And Joe's got some things here. He'll come back.
Yes. The agent approvals, a bunch of septic systems, 64 long mills septic tank bleaching system. I'm not sure if that one started yet or not. Then there's another one in 22636. That one's done already. 2315. That's 10 Webster Lane. That's that new house that that you guys approved a few years ago. He put a shed there on the other side of the
long linear Wetland. It was over there at the New England Review Area. This all we got out of that now. And
then 31 Lakeside, it was supposed to start that pretty soon. They put the cell fence up and everything last time I checked. I think that was last week. So they're just replacing the leaching system. I think they're they're, like, putting it in between the existing system. And there's, yeah, 30 feet, I think, from the lake. And then some other things I looked at, 409 Lake Road, they had a CO request for that. So I went and looked at the weather at the site, and Wetlands Crossing looked good. It's stabilized. There's grass growing there. The rain guard was functioning. He said it functioned as soon as the dog hit it started filling up. So they got that area all seated and everything. Nothing's brought up there yet because they had done that later. That was last week or the week before, I think. I put the photos up on website
under that 409 Lake Road 1 if you wanna take a look at it. And then 760 E Street, that was the one where the guy was redoing his stream because of the. So I went down there. He finished the grading, and he's I went out there to look at it, said give him a blessing so he could see it. But it looked pretty good. He did a good job, making it nice and u shape instead of like a canyon like it was, and then connected it where we just got. So he's gonna see it, and then hopefully, sun grows. And then I'll come back out there and see if it's stable enough to start letting at least some of the water out. We're talking about maybe doing partial They have a pool in the winter just to see how everything works, leaving the other one functioning. But then it kinda all depends on if it's stable enough, but then the growing season ends, which I mean, getting kinda late in. So, yeah, that's what I got.
I was curious about the free farm bond. And I know,
you know, we preach the agreement with you not to take out some of the big things.
Because I drive by there, it doesn't look like anything's been done. Yeah. They pulled out a a lot of brush. I remember going to look at it and had it all piled up there. I mean, I can go take another look over there and see. Yeah. There's a little bit a
brush down in the bottom there. But Yeah. If you could do that, that'd be great. And I know we've got a application in the in your folder for Grimaldi. And I looked at the pictures there. Mhmm. I was just curious if did he do any filling and wetlands? And part of that looked like it was built up in the back of the
Yes. It's about shed there around 20 feet or so from the brook that's over on that side. It was really wet when I took a look, and then it had a foundation drain. So I was a little worried that because there was some water coming out of that under the fill.
Are you talking about that pad? The we're talking about the same thing in the other meeting? Yeah. So I thought
Yeah. But it's not it's it's there's a It's a weapons
Yeah. Perspective. Good. Yeah. That's what I was I was gonna approve it, but we had a problem with the payment and
and everything for that. You can kinda wait and see. The communication is great with that application right now. So we yep. I just I wonder why.
But we're trying because they wrote a check for every app everything, and I couldn't pull the wetland going out yet to do that. Okay. Get it off the table, so it's been sitting there. Yeah. And then if they take the shed down, it's gonna bring up that'll probably bring in more wetlands issues and just leave it there. So it might I don't know if it it could change things. Kinda open it would stay, but well, otherwise, you know, it feels gonna be kind of disruptive to chair now and just serve all the soil again. So that's a different matter. It's independent. You know? He's okay with what he's with with what he gets. Yeah. He's got a good buffer. It's it's all wooded there. Yeah. Fifteen, twenty feet to that stream on that side. And then there's conservation easement on the opposite side of the yard. So it's kinda like looking where he put it. There's really not a lot of alternative. It would've worked better. Just, you know, looking at it from standpoint. Any other question?
Okay. That's good for that. Now we'll load the annual report. This reminder, Saturday The seventeenth. Yeah. Seventeen.
I don't What was the I I don't what did it do you mean by a public meeting? Is this a public meeting? It's a special meeting. But I think it doesn't have to be you have to notify It's Seems Yeah. Not a It's also the eighteenth. Oh. The Saturday? Yeah. Okay. So so the public
so yeah. It's not like a public hearing. It's it's just a it's a special meeting. There's a We need to post an agenda and then pick minutes. Oh, okay. But that doesn't mean And then there's rules, like, you can only you can ask questions about the application. They're just like, this is where this crossing is. This is what it's like looking at a map. It's Okay. So if you look at the this is where this bill is. But you have to notify the public.
Yeah. So in case they wanna, like, if anything You want it to be Okay. You could you could actually come. Okay. So you can't ask questions. What do you mean by that? Well, you can't, like, discuss the, you know, alternatives, and then you have to save that for the next meeting. Oh. You can look at it's like a location.
Anything related to the Well, you're checking up us or you're up No.
The commission. We're just going to look up. We can't We're just orientation to the Oh, okay. To take a look at it. That. Look at this, and
he can show us all these different things, and we can ask questions about it. But as far as so
why can't we use this area? Yeah. Do that. We can say, where is that trick? Show us where that trick goes. So
that we Right. That would be a good first thing to do is find out why they can't use that drill. You said you can't come through here, and it should have been out of there. Good answer. I
think he was saying that that area wasn't harvested previously. Previously. That It was wet. They didn't want to disturb the site because it's just very it wasn't wet. Guess, till we needed it. That's what he assumed they just Right. Yeah. But
they just didn't harvest in there, so that's why they didn't go through there. So he didn't he just guess they didn't use that prior. They didn't harvest in that lower area, that little right area. Yeah. So that's why he wasn't So keen on you right now. Guess it's just wet. Okay.