Meeting transcript
Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Commission - Regular Meeting
May 2, 2022 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
On Monday, 05/02/2022. I see that regular member Jed Larson is on the call, so present at the meeting. We were informed that Mr. Monroe would not be able to attend the meeting, but alternate Ed Smith is pinch hitting and on the call. So, we've got a quorum for the meeting, and we can proceed to the remainder of the agenda. Are there any proposed changes or additions to the agenda?
George, I would like to add one item, if I could, and that would be new business, Charlie. And that would be a discussion of the application at 3 Lakeside Drive. And did we get what we expected based on what we approved?
Okay, I think that would be old business rather than new, and I think we could probably take it up under other business for a reconsideration. We did have some discussion of that application at our last meeting when we approved it, but yeah, we can certainly revisit that if you've noticed the situation has changed. So, I guess that would be in the form of a motion to add that to the agenda. I'll second the motion and ask for a vote on said motion. Commissioner Larson? [Aye.] Commissioner Smith? Didn't hear that, but I read an aye. I will also put aye. So, we will add that to our discussion under other business. Anything else for the agenda? Now, I'll move to approval of the minutes for the last meeting on April 4. We may have to defer consideration of this because with only two of the members present today having been present at that meeting, I don't think we would have a plurality or sufficient number to constitute an approval of the minutes. So, let's defer that until our next meeting, when hopefully we'll have a full house. It's okay. We have an opportunity now for a public comment. If people have questions relevant to the agenda tonight, we can entertain those at this time. Okay, I don't see any hands raised, so we'll move on to our principal business for the evening. We have a permit application, two permit applications, the first of which IWWC 2200And2, the town of Andover, for drainage improvements in the vicinity of Schottie Mill Road, Birch Road, and Birch Drive. I see that our Public Works Director, Mr. Jay Tuttle, is on
the call or in the meeting, and I'll ask him to briefly walk us through the nature of the work that's going to be done and any special considerations, and then see if the Commission has any questions. So, Mr. Tuttle,
my dear. Good evening. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Yeah, so we're, as most of you know, we're doing some drainage improvements on Shawty Mill Road, starting at Wales and then continuing on down to toward Route 6. And the section that I'm bringing up tonight is a section that is between Birch Road and the Rail Trail. So, and the critical points on there are just before the rail trail in the area, pretty much right in front of Residence Number 34, Shawty Mill. I'm assuming everybody has the application in my drawings. Had Joe help me out quite a bit filling this out.
Yeah, do have access to those. I'm wondering, okay, do you want to look at the overlays on the ArcGIS web map? Because we have Abby pull those out on the desktop and share that screen with everyone for a point of reference.
Yep, I'll pull that up. I'm sorry. So, which one would you want me to look at? That's the project It's description site it ends with project description site plans 42022. Okay. Now let me just Right. That was odd. Okay.
Yeah, and I scroll down there. There we go. Okay, so again, now we can all I guess we're now on the same page.
Yeah, so this is the intersection at Birch Road and Shoddy. And specifically in this spot, it really doesn't have much to do with any wetlands other than the water course, the discharge side leads to wetlands quite a ways out behind the property. I don't know if you're seeing my cursor or not. At Number 43, Shoddy Mill at the top of the page. Yeah, so that water course there is just a drainage swale that when the water accumulates enough, it flows out behind that residence and on out into the lay of the land down toward the rail trail. So that area specifically is not really affecting us as far as the wetlands. We are putting basins in here, adding on, you can see where, and this part will be future so it's part of it. Apologize, I don't Right here at the bottom left, what's the number that Birch Road 10? Is that right? That Okay. Is Number 10 Birch So with that water course, there we go. So that water course there currently goes
to the catch basin and then crosses the street as you show behind Number 46. And this is where further on down the road is where we're gonna tie in where I'm gonna be We're planning on getting close to wetlands. So, for future reference, the basin at the Corner Of Birch And Shawty will tie into the basin going up birch. Right now it doesn't. But we are going to do this in the future after we get shoddy mill done. And in turn, we are going to tie in the base in this water course that crosses the street now, we're going to tie into that basin. If that makes sense to you, because we're gonna eliminate the water going from here, we're gonna eliminate the water from number 46, the water from traveling behind 46. Gotcha, okay.
So right now we're just doing, we're putting in, we're preparing this part. But we're not gonna get to this part until Shotty Mill till the drainage on Shotty Mill is ready to accept this. So that is Go
ahead. Right now, Jay, the water just runs across Schottie Mill Road down through 46 and into a storm drain on the other side of Birch Drive?
Right now the water from Birch Drive currently on the right side of Birch on the Number 46 side, okay? Comes down the road and then goes in a swale at this point, but there's no basin here. The basin is actually across the street. Right here where she's circling right now is just a runoff and the water runs off of the right side of the road behind the house of Number 46. Across the street from here, there is a basin and this basin collects the water as it shows and then brings it across the street. All the water from Birch currently right now crosses and goes behind 46 which is cumulative to the problem that we're gonna discuss a little bit later at Number 34, Shawty Mill. So eventually this area here will tie into the basins at Shawty Mill that we are getting ready to put in right now. Does that make sense?
Okay. Yeah, so future work, but you're thinking ahead in the planning for the current work?
Correct. The current work being done at Schottie Mill and Birch are the basins out front. Okay. The two basins right out front are going to connect to the basin that is an open pit basin right now in front of 46 because that basin at number 46 is an open pit basin, a stone basin that is gonna become, we're gonna take that out and put a standard catch basin in there. And that will continue to cross the road as it always does. We're not changing anything here other than taking the stone pit basin and putting and make it a catch basin, a concrete structure
with a grate. You said you're going to replace the pipe
as well? We're not replacing the pipe across the road. Oh, okay.
We're not gonna replace that because it's okay. We're gonna take that open pit, that stone pit that's in front of Number 46 and make it a catch basin. Not where you're circling in front of on shot there, right there. Right. Okay. Currently, that's a stone open pit.
Yeah, I believe that agent Wagner provided some photographs of that and the sedimentation that was incurring there with that.
Yeah, that water right now that crosses the street, that's just a sump that we dug in front of the pipe. So, we catch some sediment that comes out of the pipe rather than it continuing down and plugging up the swale. So, right now it's bone dry. There's no water in it whatsoever. It's just a drop sump at the end of the pipe. The basin across the street, let's see if you got it, there we go. That's the inlet side of that cross culvert. That's what we're gonna take that out and put in a concrete structure, catch basin. That
one's still the outlet. I think if you scroll down to the next picture. Oh, is that still the outlet? Yeah, go on. That's There still the you go, that one. Okay.
So that's what we're gonna make a catch basin right there. So if you hold up there for a second, there's gonna be, we're gonna put an additional catch basin in the area of this sidewalk. It'll be in the roadway. Scroll, keep scrolling. All right, well take that back. It's gonna be up here closer to the pole. I guess that walkway is a little further away than I thought it was. It's different seeing it in pictures. All right, right here on the corner where most of the water goes to the corner, the left side of this road where it ponds up, pulls up a little bit before it crosses Birch Road. This
is where we're getting ready to put a catch basin in now. I got the road cut and that's runoff from the woods currently. That doesn't happen all the time. And that's the base in that we're going to tie into at the one that I just showed you at the that's gonna that base in there is going to connect to the end of Birch At Shotty. And across the street from that, that's where it goes behind Number 46. And that's looking at it from the other end. Oh, don't you're good. That's don't go any further than that. That's the next spot right there. That's down there by Number 34. So any questions up of the catch basins at Birch And Shadi? I'm good.
Okay. So this area here, do you wanna go back to the other part, Joe?
Do you mean the map? Do I pull up the map again? Yeah. Okay. Okay,
here we go. Keep scrolling. All right. So you can see where this is the next section down near House Number 34, The waterway that comes down behind House 46 comes behind House and around House Number 40. And then it goes out into the roadway where if you're familiar with the area, the water discharges directly onto the roadway, follows the curb line and then goes to the catch basin, hopefully. And it's a maintenance nightmare there constantly all year long with leaves and icing in the winter time. And what I wanna try to do is capture the water just before it goes out into the roadway, dig a ditch, form a swale, armor it with riprap and then guide it behind that basin in front of Number 34, creating a plunge pool. And that plunge pool will be piped to the back of the basin at Number 34, The Residence 34, and then it's piped across the street, which there's already an existing cross culvert there. So, eliminating the water that directly flows onto Schottie Mill constantly. And then the next spot, because we can go back to the pictures and let's scroll down a little bit, Abby, see what you got there on Okay, so that gives a little bit more description there. And if you look at Residence Number 28 And 23, where the Cross Culvert is there, the water that by, there's another stream that comes from the property. It's not really a street, it's a water course from Residence Number 35 on Birch Road, which is that small track of land next to 34.
So that water course goes underneath the driveway of 34 and then goes out in front of 28, crosses, goes on to the land of Property 29 And 23. So right now with that, the water course has got enough debris in it and roots from trees, everything built up and the water kind of splits off and some flows onto 23, which goes into their yard. Not really staying in the more wetland area. It's kind of flat in there. So, what I want to do is deflect the ditch as it leaves the outlet pipe. Want to deflect it to the left, take down a couple of trees close to the road and some of the root system that's built up over the years. Again, digging a ditch forming a swale And it's about 30 feet, 30 by 50 foot area just to work in. And then armor the banks and make a formal swale and deflect it so it goes into the wetland rather
than into the people's yard. And it'll help assist keeping the water there where it should be. So if you wanna go any questions on that, we can go to the pictures. That would help. Yeah.
So that's the basin, the first basin in front of Number 34. And you can see where the skunk cabbage is and whatnot to your left. We would just be encroaching to that point. The trees directly behind that basin, the one tree and then there's like another four inch tree. Those would be slated to come out due to the fact that's where the plunge pool will be. And then it'll be piped directly to the back of the basin. So rather than having the water up, it's kind of hard to see what's the picture before that Abby? Is that? Yeah, it doesn't really show it too much. I think most of you are probably familiar, go back. Most of you are pretty familiar. You can see the water coming down the side of the road ahead of the basin. It comes out of the side of the road breaking the curve. Yeah, right about in there and then it flows down to the basin. So up there in the wood line where it comes off out of the road, if you want to put your cursor there again, yeah, go in just a little bit further. Yeah, a little further, right about in there, there's a dead totem pole, dead tree, it's broke off.
That's where the water breaks from the land and then heads towards the road. So I take that totem pole out and then dig a trench just about from that down to just behind the basin. Again, shape the land a little bit and armor it up and create the plunge pool right there and put it to the back of the basin. Keep scrolling. Oh, there's where it comes out of the woods. Yeah, spot. And that is showing a picture of when the water overflows and beyond the basin, that's an inlet to the driveway, the inlet side of Driveway Number 34. That's what's showing that picture. So there is a water course there to the left that comes down from 35 Birch Road. At the same time when I'm creating the plunge pool
for the upper section, I am pretty sure if the elevations work out, I will be able to capture a good percentage of that water as well. So, it'll go into the basin, which will help the amount of water that goes down to 28. Not sure I'm gonna be able to get over it, get all of it because I don't wanna affect, get into that wetland area too much. I'm going to be right on the edges of it. And I don't want to disturb the natural course of that trench either. So, putting in the plunge pool near it and it's down low enough in the high water times, if it takes some of the water, it'll relieve some of the pressure going down to number 28 And 23. And that's the picture crossing the street at Number 23. So, you can see the trench, the watercourse now goes between the trees and the root system is built all up. So, the tree closest in the right hand corner, I have that to come out and then the tree to the left of that
diagonal, yep, that one and those couple little ones right in there, those will come out as well. And that is the area where I would deflect that trench and use the material that I take out to create the embankment on the high side, a berm and armor and direct it to the wetland area. All protected by riprap. That's another view. You see where the water jumps and goes almost directly to the people's lawn at 23. That's right at the beginning where the outlet pipe is. Yeah. Another view. So if you kind of just diagonally look between the trees, that's where the water course would go. Taking out those couple of trees and I get rid of some of those roots so we can direct that water very nicely. That I think is a picture of the outlet at the driveway for Property Number 29. That's the outlet. Joe, correct me if I'm wrong, but pretty sure that's the outlet right across from Property 34. That's where I'd be making that plunge pool. Yeah, that's the first.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that one's down deep. The only thing I would do there is just dig a little bit in front of the pipe and put some riprap down there. So, it's just as, you know, take some of the curse of the volume when it goes out of the pipe. Take some of the pressure off, get the vegetation out of there so we can maintain it properly.
Looks like barberry, which we're Yeah. Happy to see you
We try to roadside mow all our inlets and outlets so we can see them and try to maintain them. That's half the battle right there. And that's the inlet side of that cross culvert at 28 and 23 coming down from 34, we're going to put a catch base in there. So that's my plan right now. As time presents itself, it doesn't absolutely have to happen, but if time presents itself, I wanna put a catch face in there because that head wall is starting to fall apart. So if we can get it done, we're gonna get it done. That's all the pictures I have. Okay. Okay.
That's pretty much in it in a nutshell. I do have easements that I got from the people from property number 23 Shotty Mill, 2934 Shotty Mill And 35 Birch Road. All of those people, they're temporary construction easements, permission to encroach on the land in the area described. Okay. Do you guys have copies of those or?
Right, that was all in those were all posted and distributed. So, we have, yeah, the formal acknowledgment, the easements granted by those property owners. We have the completed application and, of course, all the project description. We briefly discussed the timeline for this project. You're already moving that way, so to speak. And I wonder when you currently have that scheduled, assuming that the permit is granted, when would you want to get that work started?
As soon as possible. We're looking to up there at Birch And Shottie. We're working on that. Know, it's probably going to be a couple of weeks up there at least, maybe a little bit longer, but I'm looking middle of the month to the end of the month to start down below. And it's weather dependent too. If things don't rain for a bit and it dries up, especially that little brook and stream there that jumps out at number 34. The less water we got to deal with, the better it is to get the job done. So, weather presents itself and it's good dry weather for a spell, it would be easy to jump to that to get that done.
Okay. Were there other questions or comments from the commissioners?
I guess I would make the comment that I appreciate Jay's description of all that because I was looking through the pictures and the maps earlier today, had a hard time understanding what's going on. It does and I agree that the goal sounds good with respect to keeping the water, you know, controlling where the water goes. I guess when we're talking about digging ditches and connecting to water courses, that sounds like a significant activity to me. And well, guess, so it will take me a little bit of time to go back and figure out, you know, when we're doing that, understand the physical work, the impact on the wetlands, I'm not so sure, but my first comment is I would like to make a motion that we do a sidewalk this Saturday morning. Yeah, I was gonna ask for
maybe tie it together because as Jay said, when he looked at the pictures, it didn't look like what it really looked like out there on the site. I share that thought and I think it would be even better to tie it all together to have a better picture if we did a site visit. Okay.
Hold on a second. Sorry about that interruption. Just spam on the landline. Okay, so we're going to say, I wanted to check the weather forecast for Saturday. I think that a sidewalk is in order here, and we want to schedule it, of course, as a special meeting. Okay, the forecast looks reasonable for a sidewalk Saturday. You're proposing the usual time, 09:00. Works for me. Okay,
and okay, so okay, so we've got a motion. I'll second the motion, and we'll vote on scheduling that meeting so that we can get that on the calendar and get it properly worn. Commissioner Larson? Aye.
Commissioner Smith? Aye. And I'll vote aye. So, we've now got a motion carries to schedule a site walk. So, I think we can then perhaps defer further discussion of this application until that event, unless there's other pressing questions at the moment. Okay, I guess there's one other question here. Commissioner Larson, you perhaps inadvertently used the term significant with respect to the impact here, a determination of which would entail scheduling a public hearing on this work. I think, though, that we may want to defer the question of whether we want to rule this as significant activity until we've had that sidewalk, because then we'll have a much better sense of what the impact of this project is going to be on the watercourse and wetlands as affected.
I agree with, you know, that recommendation to hold the determination of significant activity after we did the sidewalk.
Okay, we'll take that as read then and ask once again if there are any questions or comments regarding this application. Seeing none, well, thanks, Mr. Tuttle, for walking us through that, and I hopefully you'll be able to give us a little further guidance this Saturday, 09:00. Okay? All right, thank you. Appreciate your time. Okay,
and we'll see you then. Appreciate your time too. Okay, so we can move on now to our other application, 20. Shane Vertifullo? How do we Vertifa. Vertifa, okay. Yes. Who has crossings at 880 and Eightwell, I guess it's a joint crossing for the two properties on East Street crossing over the upper reaches of Burnout Brook and essentially a culvert replacement. Exactly. Did you want to walk us through that? Or you have an engineer or anybody to represent you on this? Yeah, so I can just share a little information.
I'm, you know, speaking on behalf. I'm here with my wife, Rebecca. We own 880 E Street and it's a shared driveway with 874 E Street, which is Don Keener and Elaine Bouchard who are also on the call here as well. So our culvert, we have two forty foot culverts that run perpendicular across our driveway and both being installed in the early eighties. They are compromised at this point and do need to be replaced. So we are looking for your approval to do a direct replacement. We have listed a full erosion control plan. Most of that being based off the initial order of construction from the initial blueprints with a few little things here and there added in. And overall, it's gonna be a direct replacement. We will do it at a time of low water flow, ideally during this summer. And we will be diverting the water through one of the pipes while the other one is removed and directly replaced with a new pipe. And then the water will be diverted through the replaced pipe and the other pipe will then be replaced. So all erosion control plans will be in place and it will be very minimal impact.
Okay, you said this was originally constructed in the '80s, so steel pipe, I take it, galvanized steel pipe. Yes, yep. Okay. And you propose replacing it also with galvanized?
Yes. So, it's going be a direct replacement with the corrugated galvanized steel pipe, same exact size. They are considered, I believe you call them squash pipe. So they're like the oval oblong size, I guess you could say. Will be replacing them with the polymer coated pipe, which is a bit longer lifespan as far as the pipe goes, which I believe most towns are using those nowadays. Okay.
You do mention in your application that essentially alternatives to direct replacement would be, how shall I say, inappropriate or not feasible because of the time install, time involved in doing some other alternative. Can you explain that just a little bit?
Yeah, we looked into alternatives in regards to possibly looking at bridge options or box culverts. And just as far as like the supply chain right now, and we believe this is a fairly urgent project just because it, you know, is compromised, you know, these pipes and it's, you know, kind of turns into a little bit of a safety issue. Just as far as, you know, if, you know, a fire truck needed to get up the driveway or something like that. And, you know, just not knowing if it would hold up so that the time involved in getting, you know those other potential means built and installed there just wouldn't have even been able to be done this year as far as you know, the companies I spoke with. And then also we just thought as far as, you know, keeping the most minimal impact to the actual stream there. It's going be just a direct, you know, direct replacement, very, very minimal excavation in that regard. Okay. Other commissioners have questions. Commissioner Larson.
Was interested in how you would divert the stream to allow removal of one of the culverts?
Yep, so it'd be during a period of low flow. So ideally, usually in the summer, it does get, you know, the water level does get fairly low in that area. Sandbags would be used. It would fully divert the stream through pipe A, pipe B would be excavated, replaced, and then vice versa that would be swapped and the other one would be done. Yep. So here's the blueprints on that, the drawings. Okay, thank you. Yep, you're welcome.
Okay. Mr. Smith, did you have any questions or comments? I do not. Okay. In that case, I think that between the plans and the photographic description, we've got an adequate description here. We will, of course, as you are probably aware tonight, we only receive this application. We will consider it, and expect I we should be able to vote on it at our next regular meeting. I would be of the opinion this is not what we would call a significant activity. If other commissioners concur with me in that, then we should be able to, again, actually vote on the permit application at our next regular meeting. Any comments from commissioners about that? Commissioner Larson? Sounds good to me. Okay.
And Commissioner Smith? Sounds good to me also. Okay. Well, then I thank you for your time. And as I say, we seem to have application in order. Everything we need is there. Do commissioners want to do a site walk for this application?
I don't think we need to based on, you know, the pictures and the drawings.
I'm in agreement with that, that we can go ahead without further information. The photographs are pretty depictive. So, any other questions or comments? Okay, then I'll thank you for your time, and we will move on to the next item on our agenda. Yeah. Okay, I don't have anything to report on commission vacancies. They still are there. The other item of business, Commissioner Larson wanted to bring up a review of actions or of work that was done at No. 3 Legiside, which was the permit that we approved. And again, I believe we got a description on some of that at our last meeting. So, Commissioner
Larson, go ahead. Yeah. So, Abby, can I share my screen?
Oh, yeah. Hold on just a second. You should be able to.
Okay. Anyhow, this is, I think, the picture that we approved for three Lakeside Drive. And I know I thought I tried to work pretty hard to make sure I understood what I was going to get in the long term versus what we were approving. And I think, you know, I came up with motion work, but I just want to make sure that what happened is what we approved. And so, you know, on this, we show this whole area in here being grass. And I thought, you know, the perched beach was going to be a raised area here with some sort, you know, it was wood at the time. We swapped it out with Belgian blocks, but to keep the sand in there. And I guess, you know, my thought was, although I don't see anything in here, that this was going to be a grass strip along here as well. When I was reviewing the meeting minutes that we were going to approve tonight, When Joe gave us the brief last time, it said next he will put topsoil over the old sandy area and plant some seed. Then I asked if we'll be using erosion and sediment control when he puts the soil down and plants the grass. And then at that point, Joe noted, it seems like it will be a light use of topsoil proceeding over by the wall, not by the sandy beach.
And so that got me to be thinking about why we weren't expecting this area to be all seeded and grassed. And it says down here in the little note, probably very hard to read, the existing beach area will be reseeded to grass area. So then, you know, Joe was kind enough to put some nice pictures on the website of the wall. And the thing that concerned me a little bit is while I was thinking this was going be all grass up around here up to the perched area five feet in, it looks like this isn't grass, but it's sand that's built up. So it's got a pretty good slope going up to what would be the Perch Beach.
And my concern is that the rain, you know, will wash all this sand down here and into the lake, which I thought we had worked very hard to make sure that that wasn't going to be the plan. And so I guess that's my question. Is this per plan or what happened that we, I didn't get what we expected when we approved the application. And so, you know, going down, I end up, you know, I take my dog for a walk, go down West Street Extension there at the end, and so it's very easy to look across. And you can see, it looks like a nice sandy beach area there. Maybe that's going to be seeded in, but you know, we're into May now. It doesn't seem like it. And then this is just a picture of the property from Google Maps taken before anything was started. And this is 3 Lakeside Drive here and you go out and certainly,
you know, I have a hard time getting the stone walls with what it looks like the shoreline here. But I don't see anything that looks like a beach area before we started. And so I have to assume that all the sand that's there is residual sand that was supposed to be taken away. And again, my concern is that all of that sand is going to end up down in the lake. So that's my question, I guess, is I thought I as a Commission Member worked very hard to protect the sand from going into the lake. And after we're done, I'm not sure it looks like we got what we approved. And I was just, am I the only, I'm just trying to find out what am I missing? And how is it, this one just happens to be easy because I can walk down West Street Extension and see what is going on pretty good? What should our expectations be of ensuring that at the end of a job, it actually looks like what we authorized?
How should that process work for us? So, I guess that's my question.
I'm going to defer that question to Agent Wagner, who has been in contact with the property owner and assisted in the development of the plans that we approved.
Yeah, you're correct that it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be grass in the six inch or six foot buffer between the wall and the perched beach. And then it's supposed to be grass in the old beach area too. Last time I talked to him, was gonna get some topsoil and spread it out. I think there was probably a misunderstanding or something miscommunication. I don't know, maybe I didn't explain it clearly. But he was talking about lightly top adding topsoil and seed over the beach area. So he didn't have to dig up all the old sand, he was just gonna put the you know, kind of mix the topsoil in and put grass in an old beach area. I can give him a call and see see how he's making out on that. I don't know if he's done what he's done. It's hard to tell from your picture if he's done any seating up above the, you know, where the perch beaches or not. Obviously, it looks like he hasn't where the the old beach was.
Right. Yeah, I think a follow-up conversation with property owner would be in order here, because as Commissioner Larson pointed out, time is moving along, and the season for seeding is getting pretty short. So, otherwise, you're going to have to irrigate and do a lot of it'll be a lot more work to get a turf to establish in those areas. And I agree with Commissioner Larson that we certainly have every reason to expect that that area should be seated and that, you know, measures should be taken to prevent any erosion of materials into the lake. So, yeah, Agent Wagner, if you would, follow-up on that, contact me and report to us at the next opportunity, maybe even an email communication with the Commission so that we can stay on top of it.
Okay. Is reasonable, or should we expect something better than this buildup? And I don't know, next time I will request a topographic description that we'll get a lot of pushback on. But I was very surprised to see this photo where the slope of the sand is built up with probably a foot and a half.
Well, me that would allow room for topsoil. Like that slope would be taken up by the addition of the topsoil and then the grass area. That was his plan anyway, was to add topsoil, bring it back up, you know, to to a level surface, and then seed it.
I certainly didn't expect that. What's the purpose of the Belgian block given the result that we've got here? I mean, beach is not perched at all. It's just a gradual slope, not even gradual maybe. It's a slope up to the top and it's got an outline of some Belgian block. But you know, when he was talking about putting these timbers in there, I thought that was to retain the sand so that we didn't have this big slope here and it wouldn't result in everything washing down around the corner of the wall and into the lake.
So I think that's that's eventually gonna be grass, but lots of that was what the plan was was supposed to be anyway. And that's what he when I talked to him when I went to take these pictures, that's that's what he was saying he was gonna do. He's gonna go down to told me he was gonna go out on the air and over landscaping and get some topsoil and start spreading it in that area.
Okay. Got it. So yep, looking forward to the follow-up then, I guess, at the next meeting. Yeah,
I'll give him a call and see where he's at, if he's done anything or
what the holdup is or whatever. We'll get you a report next time.
Okay, great. Thank you. And then moving on to item number eight, did you have any other enforcement actions or other items to report?
No, I don't think so. I think we covered everything that I've been kind of working on the past month, so.
Okay, then in that case, well, we've got a special sidewalk or a special meeting and sidewalk this Saturday, and we will determine at that point, I think, whether we need to have any other meeting. I considered, given the drainage work on Shawty Mill and Birch Drive and the desire of public works to move on with that project, we might need a special meeting before our next regular meeting. If we had a special meeting two weeks from now, we would be able to permit the shutting mill drainage work, and that might facilitate getting it done in a timely manner. But I think we can make that decision on the seventh when we have a look at the actual work that's to be done. But we would need, you know, have to wait till the sixteenth for a meeting to vote on the permit application from the town. But if we decide to do that, onif we determine that that would be useful, we could do so on the seventh, and we would have time to adequately warn that meeting. That seem reasonable, commissioners?
I know, on the sixteenth is the, the next planning and zoning meeting. And We definitely don't want to conflict with that. I've got
a pretty hectic schedule for the rest of the month. Was thinking that Jay was talking about doing the work in July, and so I was thinking that if we approved it in June, you know, that gives them plenty of time to get ready. My concern is that whether or not, you know, and I will say I did go out and I participated in the online course for, I got my inland wetlands certificate Good for you, so no. And all that,
and I was not able to go back and get to the individual chapters so that I could look things up. But I know there was an awful lot of concern about water courses and we're talking about creating water courses, modifying them, and all that kind of stuff. Not even sure yet Well, I think
to get smart on the requirements there. And I guess we'll rely on Joe to keep us out of trouble on that. But it does seem like some pretty extensive work being planned there.
Right. I think that though, what we have to consider is that there are water courses and there are water courses. What we're talking about really here are drainage areas, and you know, it seems to me that the net impact is going to be the same water flowing to the same location, but along a different route and maybe less of it on the road.
Yep, I agree that that that's a great goal. I do know that our regulations talk about intermittent water courses temperature Oh yeah, they're courses.
That's different than an event that's twenty four hours or less in duration that happens after a rainstorm. Yeah, yeah, looks like a big job.
Yeah, there's going to be a lot of digging for sure. Okay, but anyway, we'll find out more about that at at our sidewalk. And again, hopefully we can defer further consideration then until our next regular meeting. And speaking of which, Mr. Smith, I hope that you'll be able to join us for that as well, since you've been present for this presentation. Commissioner Monroe won't be familiar with the application, so it would be good if you could participate in that one as well. That said, I don't believe we have any other business to attend to. Is that correct? And so, I can entertain a motion for adjournment. A motion we adjourn.
I second the motion. Okay, and I think we can accept that by what we call unanimous consent. Oh, and before we okay, so we'll consider the meeting adjourned, but before we close the call, may have heard that our Board Secretary, Abby, is going to be finishing her degree and moving on. As an ex academic, I can certainly appreciate get a degree, get a job, move. Done it a few times myself. Nevertheless, I'll take this opportunity to thank you for your help with our meetings, and wish you well. Do you have a defense or anything like that coming up? No, I have a practicum placement thing this summer, so I'll be doing Okay,
okay. Yeah, but thank you all for your time, and I've learned a lot from you all, so thank you very much. I appreciate it and I'll still be I'll be with you until
you replace me and up until August, so. Okay, no stress. Well, I hope that the folks over in the town hall are being diligent about the need to find a new board clerk. All right, well, so we're adjourned, and I'll say goodnight to all, and we'll see you on Saturday morning. Be well and I have take good Good night, everybody. Good night.