Meeting transcript
Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Commission - Regular Meeting
September 14, 2021 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Inland, Wetlands and Water Corridors is commissioned to order, and I'm going to try one more time to get my agenda to open. I'm having a little trouble with preview here. Okay, so the first thing we have called to order, the roll call seating of board alternates. We have, I see on the call, Jed Larson and William Monroe. So we have quorum for the meeting, and we can proceed then to see if there are any changes or revisions to the agenda. Are there any that anybody's aware of? Okay, seeing none, I will proceed to approval of the minutes. Our last regular meeting with 07/13/2021, and I'll ask for a motion to approve the minutes of that meeting.
I'll make a motion to approve the meeting minutes from July 13. I second that.
Okay. Moved by Commissioner Larson, seconded by Commissioner Monroe to approve the minutes. Are there any comments, revisions, corrections to enter into the record? I had none.
Nor I. Okay, well, then I'll ask for a vote. Commissioner Larson. Aye.
Commissioner Monroe. Aye. And I, Chairman Elliott, also vote aye. So the motion carries three zero zero. Next item on the agenda. I can get that to stay on my screen. Okay, do we have any wish for public comment? I see only two members of the public at the meeting, and they have an item on the agenda coming up. So, move on to new business. Oh, and I failed to mention to those not on the commission that due to an obligation to be at Bradley Airport, I'm going to have to leave this meeting at 08:15, so we're going to have to move right along. Okay, so new business. So we have a jurisdictional ruling review, IWWC 20 one-fifteen, parentheses JR, from the town of Andover regarding repairs to the culverts on the Hawk River at Bunker Hill Road. I will make a motion that the Commission has jurisdiction in regard to this activity, and I would like a second to that motion. Larson will second.
Okay, so I have a motion and a second. The reason I did that was because we're going to have to vote on it, and we might as well get the motion on the floor right away. I see Eric Anderson, town administrator, on the call, who will speak to the issue on behalf of the town.
Sure. So the town submitted a wetlands application for a repair of the triple culvert at Bunker Hill. And George, can I share the screen? Sure. If, Abby will, handle that? I can't. Not administering the meeting. Can you enable screen sharing for me? Alright, you should be able to now.
Okay, yep, got it. Okay. So, what you're looking at is a diagram of the issues that the town is having with the Bunker Hill triple culvert. So, is a triple culvert. It has been steadily deteriorating for the last fifteen years. This is something that should have been replaced a long time ago. But it has not been because the town has not wanted to fund it. We are basically going for a temporary repair to get us through until such point as a full bridge replacement can be done, which should be starting sometime within the next eighteen months. The, as you are all probably aware, so far this summer, we've had three fairly significant flood events. One of them was a ten year frequency storm event. One was a two year frequency storm event and the last one was a two hundred year frequency storm event. And all three of those cases, the water, you know, twice the water topped the culvert itself and ran over the culvert. As many of you know, to the north, along the road, there's a low point in the road that that the water goes over the road first. And then when the water gets about two feet deeper than that, the water actually goes over the culvert. And so, the big problem we have is culvert number three, which is the northernmost culvert has a bunch of fairly large holes in the bottom of the culvert. It's basically completely rusted out on the bottom, and it is settled. And the problem is, is as the water gets higher in the velocity of the water increases,
the Venturi effect sucks the sand gravel mix out of the hole in the bottom of the culvert and undermines the sides of the culvert, and you get sinkholes. If you look at the picture, can I showed you basically where the two sinkholes appeared? So, what the town has done for an emergency fix is they have dug, staying within the concrete head walls, upstream and downstream, they've dug out the film material. And then first put down about six inch riprap, so basically heavy ballast stone, filter fabric, and then filled it back up with a very low strength concrete mixture called flowable fill. So, there's nothing there to disintegrate and wash out. I realize we're doing this a little backwards, although we submitted the wetlands application before we started, you know, there was almost a month delay before the Wetlands Commission met. And so, part of this work has been completed. Public Works would still like to do the downstream side now, which the Board of Select has requested before we reopen Bunker Hill.
So, we monitored very carefully to make sure that while construction was going, we weren't getting a lot of sediment in the river, and we were not. At the time we did it, the water flow was very low, and the stream continued to run clear. We're not anticipating, you know, any actual work in the river without the consent of the Wetlands Commission. The other area that's of concern is if you see on that picture I'm showing, says area of localized scour. There's actually a scour hole on the head wall that extends below the concrete head wall, which means the head wall along the front and part of there is pretty well undermined and kind of structurally not in the best of shape. We would consider using heavy balanced rock in there to fill that scour hole to prevent further undermining of the headwall in case we got another, you know, high flow, but that appears to be, that would require permission of the Welles Commission. So, in a nutshell, that's what we're talking about doing.
Does anybody on the Commission have any questions about that?
Okay, I don't have any questions about the work per se, and I certainly don't want to delay these absolutely necessary repairs. I'm a little confused about the item on the agenda, which is a jurisdictional ruling. We don't, and I have not yet seen an actual application for a wetlands permit on this. Joe, could you comment on that? I'm asking our agent, Joyce Wagner.
There should be a permit posted online. But if we're doing a jurisdictional review, then it technically doesn't need to submit a permit yet until you determine that one one would be necessary.
From my perspective, the jurisdiction is clear. We already have precedent for approval of a permit for culvert activity on Hutchinson Road, and I think this would fall under the same kind of rubric. And again, as I say, we certainly want to see that work completed as expeditiously as possible so that we can get more yokel throwing barricades in the river. Obvious impatience about getting across that point on the Hop River. So I think that we have jurisdiction here. And if we actually have a permit, which again, I didn't see at the time. When I looked under applications submitted or pending on the website, though, we don't have an application on file there, so we're really getting our socks on over our shoes.
If we were It's going listed under jurisdictional reviews on the website, which is under
It's on that sidebar, maybe. Oh, okay. Okay. So it was just a matter of where it was put.
And George, I brought up a copy on your screen of the wetlands
Yeah, I've got it here now too. Yeah, okay. Okay, I'm sorry for the confusion because the agenda didn't state that we actually had an application in hand, and I hadn't noticed it when I was looking for new application on the web. Okay, So, since the motion on the floor is to determine whether or not we have jurisdiction, let's knock that off. And then again, since this is our first meeting of actually receiving the application under statute, we can't rule on it for fifteen days, which means we'll have to have a special meeting to approve, act on the permit application. So, that said, let me
quickly poll the members so that we can get the jurisdictional review part out of the way, and then we can move on to the applicant again to schedule a special meeting for the application. So Commissioner Larson, your vote on the motion to exercise jurisdiction. Aye. And Commissioner Monroe. Aye.
Okay, and Chairman Eiliot also vote aye. So, the Commission votes that we do have jurisdiction. Now, given the work is already underway and we expect it to proceed with further issues that have arisen since I believe the application was submitted, And as I said, under statutory requirements, we have to wait before we can actually vote on the motion. So, let's take this opportunity to look at opportunities for a special meeting. Our next Well,
And because we are running over a week late in our normal cycle here, I would like to ask Eric, if we have a meeting in a little over two weeks, is that much of a help as opposed to a little less than three weeks?
I was going to say that the earliest opportunity would be the twenty ninth of this month, and our regular meeting would be October 4. So maybe we don't need, now that I'm looking at the calendar and with regard to Commissioner Larson's point, it wouldn't make much difference in terms of time. So, yeah, Eric, are you okay with that?
I'm okay with scheduling it for your next regular meeting, with the caveat that we are going to be doing further work on the bridge probably starting next week, because we have to get the thing back open.
I figured as much, and I don't object personally, and I would ask if any of the commissioners have any concerns regarding, again, having the town crew working on the bridge and potentially with the headwall actually depositing material in riverbed, right?
I mean, that we don't have to do. I mean, I would like to do that, And we would actually consider going into the pipe by hand and filling the void under the pipe with stone by hand. You know, but that, you know, that was definitely going to require wetlands approval before we did it. The rest of the work, because we're not actually disturbing the water course as we do this, because the water course is still running freely through the pipe. All we're doing is resecuring the pipe relative to the water course.
Right. Okay, as long as the, okay, I haven't, obviously looked in detail at the application since I wasn't aware it was there. As long as those issues are addressed in the application, then, you know, our consideration will include them. And if they are faire complier, then, well, so be it. I don't see any issues here, given that we're talking about really an emergency repair for an artery and for a situation that's inconvenienced a lot of townsfolk. Okay, any other comments or questions from the Commission?
Chairman Elliot, I was wondering if, since the repair he wants to do in the interim is not affecting the water flowing through the culvert, and it is kind of an emergency repair to get the bridge back open, can we have that take precedence over the two week wait? I mean, I don't know what we lose by approving it when the work is going to continue and we've got, you know, Eric's comment that he's not going to disturb the watercourse in the, you know, he'll come back to the wetlands commission before he disturbs the watercourse. Yeah,
but the permit application includes the potential for work in the watercourse per se, if it's, you know, again affecting the stream bed at the headwall or working in the culvert itself, then that's clearly within the watercourse. Not only, of course, is the bridge itself, is well within the 100 foot Upland Reviewer or the 200 foot Upland Reviewer area. Correct.
So, again, I feel really uncomfortable with trying to shortcut the timing, which is statutory. And at the same time, we're on a quandary because we don't want to delay the work. Major Wagner, do you have any comment on that, situation?
Yeah. I was thinking, initially that I could fall under section 4.2 a of Landowners regulations, where it could be permitted as a non regulated use. This 4.2 a states that, conservation of soil, vegetation, water, fish, shellfish, and wildlife, such operation or use may include, but is not limited to minor work to control erosion. So I could I I just thought it would it could fall under that. Because yeah. Controlling erosion.
Yeah. Yeah. I could buy that. Because it's not in which is why I put it under jurisdictional review because if it if you did that, we could just say it's a permitted use because it's technically not like, all the work that they're doing is inside those two head walls. It's they're not really doing anything work in the riverbed other than maybe a repair to the rusted out culvert Right. Which is pretty minor, really. The major work is removing all that fill, which is actually, like, isolated from the the stream itself by those two concrete head walls.
Yeah. A vexing problem there. So in essence, then what you would suggest would require us to rescind the jurisdictional ruling and state that the activity is permitted as of right.
I mean, either way, the result will be the same. I mean, if you just approve the permit after the fact. I talked with, did I send you? I spoke with attorney Yeah, he pretty much said that that was a kind of a standard practice to do after the fact permits for emergency repairs. I mean, either way, if you believe that you have jurisdiction, I mean, it's kind of fuzzy, make a case either way. So Yeah. I frankly, I'd rather exercise jurisdiction.
Yeah. And then just approve the permit at the next meeting if that's what you if that's what the commission wants to do, and then the end result's gonna be the same anyway.
Yeah, Again, the key here is we want to get the work done. Yeah, we don't want to stand in the way of the work. Well, it still it still could be considered an emergency repair.
Yeah, so you know, I I I don't think we need to really hold it up is what I'm I'm trying to say, because it it could kinda fall under an emergency repair. I don't think anybody's gonna argue with that.
I think when we pause the legal notice, we won't get any comment. Okay, so we'll leave it as is. We will take up the permit application at our next regular meeting, and I believe that we have adequate information in the permit application to rule on it. I'll ask, the Commissioners on the call wanted to see further information at the next meeting. Any details of either the activities or the mitigation? Not here. I'm good. Doing.
Mean, the one thing I would say is that by removing the sandy soil that's getting sucked out and replacing it with ballast rock, we're actually decreasing the sedimentation that's going into the river. Now, every time it gets high. So, we're actually doing, you know, the the repair leads to a net siltation of the river, a net less siltation of the river,
not increases it, or we could put it positively as a net improvement in water quality downstream. Okay, I believe that's adequate consideration of that application, and we will again return to that in our next regular meeting. Thanks, Eric, for your diligence on this issue. Sure, thank you.
Okay, the next item on the agenda, 6b, we have a new permit application, IWWC 2119 from Brendan Wayne Fazino for property at 268 Lake Road, rebuilding the existing lake wall using existing and new stone on the shoreline on Andover Lake. Again, that application was online, and let's see now. Abby, you could pull that up on screen. Yep, bear with me a second. Sure.
I don't have it handy at the moment. If you have it handy, can give you screen share,
or just wait for me to pull it up. Actually, I'm not working on this screen. I have a setup where, my main computer has got the materials at hand, and the computer I'm using for the Zoom call is air gapped. Okay. So, Okay, Commissioners, do you have this application in hand?
I did not run a copy off. I did look at it online before the meeting. Okay. Can you pull it up online
for the purpose of me? We're not going to be, of course, again, with the statutory delay between the receipt of the application and its actual ah, bravo. Here There it we go. So, the application, again, as you say, was accompanied by several photographs of the existing condition at a site plan.
Sorry about that. Did you want the pictures, or do you want to look at the site plan first? We could take a quick look at the pictures.
Okay. And at this point, I'd like the applicants if they have any comments on the situation.
Well, that's our existing wall. I think it was built in 1994. And you can see it's getting a little tumbled down there. So we're gonna have somebody take all the racks out of the water, up on the lawn, and then rebuild the whole wall hopefully this fall.
Okay. As the poet Frost put it, something there is that does not like a wall. Indeed. This is a usual, not unusual situation. It's almost reasonable.
There are a couple of questions I have for you regarding the site plan and, well, what I saw. Have you got a contractor lined up for this work? Yes. Okay, because usually we, in situations like this, we've typically had a plan from the contractor regarding the mitigation, and that is to say what the what the contractor will be doing to avoid sedimentation to avoid impact on the lake and the lake bottom.
So well, asked him about that, and so on the site plan, I put where he's going to have his silt fences and the hay bales. Those are indicated there. He was going to put a silt fence on the lake bed itself. And then up on the lawn, he was going to put a silt fence and line the whole thing with hay bales. So there'd be a silt fence on both sides of the wall while he's working on it.
Okay, the second item I want. Okay, so that's been addressed. The second item, do you have approval, have an approval from the Andover Lake Management Association,
Alamo? No, I've been talking to Jeff Hayes on that and he was going to email that for this meeting, but there was personal problems and he couldn't get everybody together to get the online approval. So, I do not have the Alma approval yet. But it's in progress, and presumably by our next regular meeting, you will have that approval in hand.
Yep, he seemed pretty confident about that. Okay, very good. So,
that addresses the two major concerns I had about the plan, and I'll ask the members of the Commission if they have any additional concerns. So, Judd, Ristoff?
The, well, the concern I have is about the pipe from the basement that's running into the lake. Yep. And you wouldn't think in this I day and age that's what we were looking to don't know what the pipe runs into the lake, but you wouldn't think that would be a best practice for protecting the lake. It's been there forever.
So I understand that if we're gonna do do work on it, maybe it's time to make it so that it doesn't drain whatever drains into the lake. Okay,
well, it's it's a the house is on dirt, it has a half cellar. And when it rains, sometimes you get water in the cellar. And so there's a hole in the floor. And the water runs down through the hole out the pipe and into the lake. That's, that's what that pipe is. So it's just a gravity drain from the basement floor? Yes, yeah, for, for rainwater that gets in there. That's what it is. Okay. What do you do instead of that?
Rebuild the house. Okay. That's a good point, Commissioner Eliza. I think that that's something we might want to consider in mitigating the impact, and there might be an efficient way to
Or the discharge from going directly to the lake. What we have seen on occasion is that the contractor that's building the wall, he puts a bunch of stone behind the wall with a non permeable membrane or something, and it would almost be like a detention basin that you could run the pipe into that and it would sink into the ground as opposed to running into the lake.
Well, you can see on the site plan that he is going to put 12 inches of crushed stone behind the wall and line that with fabric. So maybe if we run the pipe into that, just that far, is that what you're saying? Yes,
the, you know, I Got a dumping right into the water,
dumping It would allow the material to hopefully, you know, sink into the ground as opposed to running into the lake. But if you're going to go through all that work to make that big trench, which is what we would normally have you do up closer to the house, that might be more costly. But if we were to run that pipe into the high end of the stone so it can sink down in there, not go into the lake, that might be a better deal. Better, yeah, and better for the lake too, probably. Yes, yeah.
Why don't ask your contractor about that? Okay. It would be, you know.
Well, part of on the permit part of what he's going to do is relay that drainpipe because daddy put that in decades ago and it's it's worked up. It's kind of just sitting on top of the lawn now. So he's going to dig a trench to relay that pipe straighten it out so he could just go to the crushed stone. Would be good.
Certainly be better. Yeah, absolutely. Yep. So the cellar drain pipe, and then there's also indicated on that on the storm pipe, which, okay, which runs from Lake Road. That comes from the road, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And again, that was probably pre dates modern regulations. That was Percy Cook. Right.
Yeah, Percy Cook did that back in the, I think the 60s that was.
And again, not being at all an authority on drainage systems, you could ask your contractor, and I think also work with our agent, to see if anything can be done to again redirect that discharge from That's directly into the
a that's a town thing. That's there's a town easement for that storm drain.
And that's why I say the, you know, wetlands agent being, you know, how shall I say, in the town hall, might also be able to talk to other people about that, the easement, and whatever else is involved there.
So, you're talking about redirecting the storm pipe away from the lake into
If there's a potential to do that, it seems to me that it would be a good thing to do. Again, if it's not gonna add tremendously to the, it would reduce the impact on the lake for sure. It's not something I would insist that you undertake on your own recognizance, especially if there's additional expense involved there. But I think it's an idea to explore at this point since we're still, you know
I don't know if I can do anything about the storm pipe, because as I say, that's a town thing, and we actually have an easement where the pipe is for the town, and that we're not supposed to touch anything that's supposed to be town.
Right, but the discharge goes through the wall that you're proposing So, to you know, there's going to have to be some impact there. And as you say, I think that if you talk to our wetlands agent and the idea at the town hall level, it might be possible to do something at this point. You know, the easement is obviously going to stay there, but where exactly the discharge lands, whether it goes direct to the lake or whether it has a chance to get filtered first is the question we have here that might be addressed.
It's all underground. A big 36 inches. It's a three foot pipe buried underground. Right, but at the discharge end, know, it's right,
it's coming through your it's coming through your existing wall. Yes. So, as I said, it seems to me there might be an opportunity there.
Well, it's done. Well, I wouldn't mind getting rid of it.
Okay. Okay, so I'll direct our our wetlands agent to look into the potential for remediation there, And we'll follow-up on that from the Wellands Commission. Because again, I realize that since the easement is there, it's a town facility, if you will. It's not really in your Not in my purview.
I can do about it. Yeah. Do you get a lot of flow through that during a rainstorm? Yeah. Well,
scours out under our dock a bit. We had to put some big things to block the flow. Otherwise, it would take our dock away every time we had a big storm.
Yeah. But of it. With that amount of water, you would need some kind of retention basin or something, but that would, you know, that would probably take up half your yard. That wouldn't really be a good a good alternative. Anything that was too restrictive would would back up the drainage.
Right. The storm drain is fed by several other storm drains on the street and we're at the sort of at the bottom of a hill and the hill pretty much drains into there. Once it rains with Ida, it was draining into the storm drain for days. It took quite a long time for all the water to come off the hill and go through the pipe.
It seems like a like an awful short stretch to have any kind of measures to infiltrate that that amount of water. But, I mean, I can I can ask, see if anyone has any suggestions? I just, looking at it now, it seems like it'd be hard to come up with some kind of thing that wouldn't turn your yard into drainage Which we also want to avoid. Right.
I mean, it's like you'd have to dig up the street and connect the storm drain over towards Scoogs Brook. You know,
something. Doesn't change anything. Yeah, which Running doesn't really change full enough, we don't need to raise the level over there.
Right, yeah. I mean, it's all this water and what do you do with it? Yep.
I think it's a stretch too but Agent Wagner wants to look into it a little bit, that's great. Wonderful, okay. Yeah,
see if anybody has any idea and I'll get back to you. Good. Thank you. Okay.
Any other questions or concerns about the application? In other words, it's our chance to put an order in before we have to really consider it formally. This is all pre preliminary discussion, really. Okay. Okay, if we don't have any further questions or comments, I'd like to move on to the agenda. And as I say, we will return to this application at our next regular meeting where we'll be able to formally consider the application for approval. Good. Thank you. Okay.
And, again, understanding that you have addressed already the major concerns and the things we're talking about now, mitigation of stormwater runoff from the road and from the cellar are, again simply items that we would like to consider. They may or may not be possible to do anything about them.
I did have one question. The builder wanted me to ask, is it okay if he brings equipment down? Like he has a small excavator that he would use to pick up the rocks and move them around. Is that allowable, or does he have to do it all by hand?
We have allowed equipment, and I think that the issues there would again be the same: avoidance of sedimentation and impact on the lake bottom and being nice to your yard while he's at it. So, perhaps using, you know, using four by eight plywood, things like that, as a support for the equipment, putting in mulch as a temporary track for the equipment treads. But there's certainly no bar on using equipment per se. It's just, again, a matter of avoiding being careful about erosion. Okay. Yep. Alright. Good. Thank you.
Agent Wagner, did you have any other comment on that question?
No, I mean, looking at that yard when I went to take those pictures, it's not. It's not a steep yard. It's pretty gradual slope down there. It doesn't look like a a real high erosion risk. Especially since that storm drain channel a lot of the water under the lawn. But, yes, I I don't see a small excavator, probably too much of an issue, and we can address that if it does cause problem. Okay. Well, good. Thank you. I'll tell them that. Okay.
One last thing from my notes here. I wonder if any of the commission feels that a sidewalk would be particularly useful here. In my view, the the photographs are adequate to represent the condition, and the site plan tells us what they're gonna wanna do. Jed, do you still have sidewalk or
would you rather kayak in? Yeah. I I don't think I need a sidewalk. Okay, Mr. Monroe. I'll kayak in. Okay.
We're off by the beach. Check it out from the lakeside. All right. Okay, then I think that that takes care of that item on the agenda, and I'd like to move on again. I'm carefully watching the time, and we've got some items that could take some serious time. The Okay, thank you. We're out now. Okay, very good.
Very excused. Hold on a second. Okay, item seven on the agenda. Any enforcement actions, Agent Wagner? I don't see any listed. Yeah, it's nothing this month. That's good. Good news. No enforcement is good enforcement. Okay, next item, eight: revision of our regulations. Now, we have two items subheaded here. The first is revision of the standard permit conditions. Now, Adrian Weiner, you distributed, I believe, a draft for the standard conditions. I have a document.
Yeah. I think I sent it to you, and then you, you sent it to the commission last week, maybe.
I remember seeing it. Yeah. That my yeah. Exactly. I, sent that and some other regulation revisions. So, let's see here. Can you bring that up? Again, I'm not able to do that on my computer, screen share that. And then if you could describe what changes there may be or what we've done. I will comment to the Commission that this has been through review by Attorney Brandts.
Can so I can screen share. Let's see if I can remember how to do that.
Just need you a co host, so you should see a green screen share at the bottom of your screen. Oh, okay.
Let's see. Try and find it first. Make sure I share the right one. Alright. Everybody see that?
Yep. You could bump up the size of the document a little bit. I maybe make it about a 150%. There you go. That worked.
This is this is the one with the changes, that Mark Brandt suggested. I'll show you this one so you could see what's different about it. He went and reviewed ours and then, updated it to reflect law and any suggestions that that he had. So condition number four will be changed. There's some reasons. I looked at it a while ago, but there's some stuff on the back. I can pass this along to the commission if they wanna review it before the next meeting because I feel like this will be a multi month process.
Well, again, my understanding is this is this new clause is simply the result of action by the General Assembly in the last legislative session. The legislature in his wisdom decided to extend certain permits up to like 14 meters, which is a lot of grandfathering in my opinion, but there we go. So It's not like we're really in a position to make revisions in any event.
Yeah. Once again, he recommends using standard conditions. Then he recommends putting any conditions on the plan, which I added to the final version of that, which I think George sent to you guys. I'm not sure if this falls under the whole regulation revision because it's it's standard condition. It's something that the commission just adds, but we could wait to implement it until after we get our regulations revised to make sure.
Right. So so okay. So standard condition for bonding, would follow from regulations. Yeah. Yeah. K. I'll have to look at that again. Basically, we'd like to get these and our regulations updated as soon as possible. However, as soon as possible may be a while, given the nature of the process. If I could speak to that, we have essentially, I'm not sure if the proposed revisions of the regulations actually require review and hearing. I'm going to ask I'm going to contact DEEP about it. Let me find the specific At some point, we came into possession of amendment
timeline. I'm not sure what we're doing. The revisions constitute amendments. We're not coming up with any new regulations. We're simply revising our regulations according to the model provided by DEEP and in accordance with state statutes. But let's say DEEP regards these as amendments. In that case, we would have to have review in a public hearing, and we would have to submit the proposed amendment at least thirty five days before a hearing were to be held, and we would have to have a hearing within sixty five days. So, within that, we would have to then submit the final adopted amendment to DEP within ten days. So, there's a minimum of over a month between the time that we submit regulations for approval and the time that we can have a hearing. And then, once the hearing is held, we could potentially approve the revisions. So, as I said, the first step, and what I will do following this meeting, is to contact DEEP with respect to whether or not they consider what we're doing to be technically amending the regulations or simply revising them in accordance with updates to the model that we're following and the state requirements, such as the grace period and the, you know, the expiration of permits under certain conditions.
So, given that, it's unrealistic to think that we could have a hearing before our December meeting and possibly January. I don't think we would have to have a hearing, know, a standalone hearing. I think we could have a hearing that would precede our regular meeting, thus allowing us to act on the subject after the hearing. So, we have the hearing, we adjourn the hearing, We go to the regular meeting. We have the revisions as an agenda item. So, at this point, I guess all we can do is see if we have any concerns about the proposed revisions, which would affect our standard conditions, as Agent Wagner just pointed out, and whether we have any further need to amend our regulations. So, again, in alphabetical order and in screen order, Judd, do you have any questions or comments about the standard conditions or regulations and the revisions that we're proposing?
I have no comments or questions on the revisions you're proposing. I do have two questions to make sure that, but I'm working on the process issue for planning and zoning that I like the standard conditions thing. I'm planning to plagiarize that at some point here. But I did have a comment on item seven on the list, which is all activities for the prevention of soil erosion. And I'm probably begging you just a little Joe here, I talked to Jim about it the other day and he may not have had a chance to talk to you before he took off, but I know at 436 Lake Road the sediment fencing got washed away by the sediment on the first of the big storms we've had.
And it does not appear to me that anybody has taken any action to fix that over there. And I know you were on-site not too long ago, I guess, checking out trees that they wanted to cut down. But my concern is that the erosion, our requirement is it's checked weekly and after rains and I don't think it's being checked at all and I don't know if we have some process to, you know, it says that the engineer will do that. And do we get these reports from that? Kind of like we weren't getting the reports on the gravel pit and, you know, all of a sudden that got to be a big problem there at the end. But anyhow, I'll let you take a look at that. The piece of the fence that I can see from when I'm walking by it on the road, you know, is severely washed away. May be others, I just can't see it from that.
Yeah. That there's that section. What is it? It's like 15 feet from the road, maybe. Yep. Yeah. I've seen I've I haven't been there in the past couple weeks. Probably should have after that last rain. But I have they have been pretty cooperative. I've been going back there with all this rain. I I visited the site like three or four times probably, and then in the back, they had a big mulch barrier in combination with with the sediment fence, and we've we've moved some stuff around. They put hay bales, fixed the fence a few times. They put a little a little, like, retention pool back there to slow the the water down. So they've been pretty good, pretty responsive with
with that. So, judge, your question is not about the the regulation per se, but making sure that it that it gets.
Yeah, I would have just expected that to have been fixed after the first big rain and didn't see it. And I guess the last one, on item nine, it says these standard conditions, along with any special conditions contained in the approval motion shall be reproduced in full on final plans, which final plan shall be endorsed by the Commissioner or its agent prior to the commencement of any regulated activity. And I guess my question is, are you guys doing that now? And I'm finding over in planning and zoning, maybe there's some confusion, especially with the applicants, that when we give approval at the planning and zoning meeting, they think they're done. And they've got a bunch of other work that has to get done before it's really done. And I don't think we've been doing as good a job as explaining what they need to do
and making sure that it gets done. And I think we've got some open permits that we might have to go work on getting to conclusion.
Yeah, it's not. Mean, it's it's encouraged, but it's not usually a condition of of the the permit approval now, which is why I thought it would be a good addition and and. Okay, so that's an addition you're putting in there. Yeah, so that's a new a new thing. Yep, nope, because I know
that on, you know, like 12 Webster Lane, there was on the mylars, I went in and signed it, there was a place for the wetlands commissioner chair. But I don't know that we have signed the mylars for Pine Ridge Road And that's the one I got to go pull the string on. I don't think I've signed anything on that. And so is there, you know, I think the applicants, they got approval at planning and zoning, approval from wetlands, they think they're good to go. And not true. And so if that's an ad you're putting in there, I think it's a great one. And now we just have to make sure that we track getting those things finished after we granted approval. Because the applicants all go away happy that they don't know they're not done yet. And if it's if they're not aware of it, then it's
really not. It's not on them, guess. By putting it on there, think it'll. Okay. Nope. I think that's a great addition then. It'll be coming out. And to the extent of my comments. Okay. You, Commissioner Larson. Commissioner Monroe.
I'll have to I'll have to read this over. I mean, I've read through it, but I've mostly perused it and, I'm just getting it a little bit. Not, even what Jed was just talking about, I didn't even I didn't really understand what was going on there, but I got it. I got Okay.
I read it, but it doesn't all stick in there the way I'd like it to. It takes a while, Bill. It doesn't do. You're
just starting to figure out the planning and zoning piece. Complicated.
Takes a while for the light bulb to come on. Yeah, the light bulb is very dim right now.
So, okay, so we're essentially, we're good with the standard conditions with the caveat that there might be a regulatory aspect to the bond condition, and that might have to be addressed in our regulations. As far as the regulations themselves, again, as we stated, the revisions are complete, to the best of my knowledge. We incorporated the new language provided by Hallor and Sage, particularly Attorney Brantz and his colleagues regarding the new statutory language. And as far as I'm aware, everything else in our regulations comes from the DEEP model regulations and direct from state statutes. So, I asked some questions about language that I considered confusing about the requirement for hearings. And well, no, that's what the statute says. So, really, we don't have any leeway to change that language. So, if there are no questions for no further questions about the proposed changes, again, I distributed those along with the draft of the regulations and the draft of the standard conditions.
I will say George that I did read through all the changes and similar to what Commissioner Monroe just said about the checklist, you know, I understood changing DEP to DEEP, but when you got down to all this stuff about easements and the protected areas and all that stuff going back to that, my eyes kind of glazed over and You mean all of Section 125, 120 Yeah, I do.
Likewise. I do a better job when we actually have an example to work through than trying to figure out what that said. I couldn't get anything out of it.
So I just put on record, Jean. I got no comments on it other than the fact that Well, I would say that the odds of our ever being confronted with a situation where any of those conditions applies are pretty slim. That was my takeaway.
And actually, it's my hope that we will never have to encounter any applications in which these regulations are relevant.
I guess if we do, we'll go talk to attorney branch.
Exactly. That's what we have a retainer for. So as I said, I'm going to inquire. I'll contact whoever is responsible at DEEP and see if I can find out what we need to do next. If we do need to have a hearing, as I said, we will probably not be able to schedule it before our December meeting and probably January, so we can discuss that on our October meeting. Sounds good.
Okay. Alright. And we will move on now to the next item on the agenda, which if I can find it again. I have so many layers of document on my desktop that it takes a while to scroll through them. Okay. Right. Time now for agent report. There are several administrative permits. Yeah. I can, I just quickly go
just quickly going through, some pretty straightforward ones? There was a shed rebuilt. It was demolished and rebuilt on 27 Hendy Road. The the tree clearing, limited number of marked trees, I think there was pictures online. They could view for the four thirty six Lake Road application. I visited the site with the applicant and we ensure we pretty much made sure that only the marked trees will be cut and they're gonna be cut with a chainsaw and a lot of the wood is gonna be left there. And then what isn't gonna be left there is gonna be carried out by hand or wheelbarrow. So there's no no equipment in that area. Once we got 119 Lakeside Drive, it was a a generator and gas tank installation, propane gas. So that was along the house. Let's see. Then there was a kind of after the fact permit for a paver driveway that was the work was started, and then I had to get in touch with them and go through the process. So it was an existing gravel driveway, then pavers was installed were installed over the old driveway footprint. So it wasn't as expanded at at all. But so that one was 159 Lakeside.
And then the last one, 22 Bailey Road was the guy was getting a foundation replaced. And now they're using the concrete rubble to construct a little ramp on an old farm road in their backyard. So it was pretty pretty simple project. It was within the 100 foot upland review area, but as well out of Stream channel. And and, yeah, like I said, it was along an old road that was back there when when it was a farm. So that's that's it for the report. Anybody have any questions?
I was gonna ask you about the first one, Bill Monroe. That that construction or reconstruction, It's got to be outside of the flood zone, right?
It's it's up on. Yeah, if you're familiar with the site, there's a like a flat area and then it goes up a steep embankment and then, the shed that he demolished and replaces up above that. So it's like right on the edge of the 200 foot up on review area. I think it was, I think it was around a 180 feet from the river. So
Alright. Because I noticed that you had a whole bunch of stuff down there right by the river and I appreciate
it. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And there was a there's another building down there. But, this was a different building up up further away. Yeah.
Okay, any other questions or comments about the agent report? Okay, so did 2128 get a was there any any documentation on that other than the application? I didn't see that online. Twenty one eighteen? Yeah.
Let's see. Might be on take a look at the Okay. There's a there's a description. Yeah.
He has a a site plan on there. I know that. I don't know if I put any pictures on there. I think I took some pictures. I don't know if I posted them. No, I don't see any pictures. That's okay. I just wondered. They weren't very. It was hard to see with the pictures. I think that's why I didn't put them on there. They wouldn't really give you much. Yeah. That's why I didn't post that one.
Okay. Well, we're within minutes of the time that I need to wrap up. So, other business review of permit link application and documents. I believe that the gist of this is that we're going to be going online with all of our applications. Right?
Yeah. Sometime, Sue. Not yet, but we're I just wanted to run the documents by the commission to make sure they didn't want me to add or change anything before I submitted them to the permanent link company. So I had sent George. Did I send I don't know if I sent them to the commission or if I sent them just to the chairman.
Yeah. I I looked at it, I didn't see any need to make any changes since, you know, our we're trying to keep our application process simple. I don't think we're looking for we wouldn't be looking for extensive changes to the standard format that they offer. And I think probably at this point, you should go ahead and share it with the other commissioners. I don't know that the commission review is gonna be required to adopt this, but at least we should review it before we take the next step.
Alright. I'll, yeah, I'll email everything I have so far out. It's basically the the any information that was on the like helpful information for providing adequate detail on the application because the the the new one is only two pages. So I pulled that information off of our old application and kinda cleaned it up, and we'll put it on the website that you go to to get to the permit link. So you'll be able to review all that stuff pretty much the same. So it'll be good. It'll be pretty similar. Just a little different layout.
Okay, well then, that concludes our business for the regular meeting. Our next regular meeting will be Monday, October 4, at 7PM, hopefully not so constrained by time, and by unanimous consent, we're going to adjourn this meeting at 08:15. Abby, our new board clerk, I appreciate your being here and helping to run the meeting. You'll have to update your screen icon. Otherwise, we'll all think that you're Amanda's twin sister. But again, pleasure to see you here, and I look forward to seeing you next month. So, with that, I'm going to leave the meeting because I have to get on my way to Bradley Airport. Good night all. Good night, everybody. Thank Good night, everyone. Bye.