Meeting transcript
Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Commission - Special Meeting
January 26, 2021 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
I just started recording.
Oh. So I'm Megan Lally. It is 07:00 on Tuesday, January 26. I'm gonna call the special meeting of the town of Andover Inland Wetlands and Watercourse Commission to order. Roll call. I see Vice Chairman Elliott is present. Commissioner Jupalisi is present. Is Commissioner Ed Paine on the call? Is Commissioner Jed Larson on the call? I'm going to seat alternate William Monroe for Ed King. We have one one spot. So if Ed or Jed join, we can accommodate one. But otherwise, William will be the, the seated commissioner for the evening. Item three is actually a a special meeting, so we can't do any changes, or additions to the agenda. We could change order, but that's it. So if any of the commissioners want to propose a change in order, to the agenda, we could do that, but not of a substance. Item four on the agenda is the approval of the January 12, regular meeting minutes. Chairman Lolly. I'll make a motion to approve the minutes. Second. Second.
Jim, are you on two lines? Are you (860) 428-7992? I
don't know how that happened, but He's in a box with his name on it.
Okay, it looks like the other number speaking. Okay, I just wanted to check on that. Okay, so motion made by Vice Chairman Elliott and seconded by Commissioner Halsey to approve the minutes from January 12. Any discussion? Yeah, I had a couple of comments. Go ahead.
Page three, paragraph five. It it I believe the word permit should be used as opposed to permanent. Any other comments? Yeah, just at the end of the, they
refer to the next meeting, the next regular meeting, and it really should be the next special meeting or the next meeting. Not a big deal.
Are you talking about on page 12 of the minutes? Yes. Okay. Okay. So well, it's technically correct as written. The next regular meeting is Monday, February 0, but your point stands. We're obviously meeting here tonight.
Okay. I'm I was confused about the day. I'm sorry. Whoever is boiling tea, can you? Water's ready.
All right, thank you. All right, any additional discussion on the minutes? All right, then I will do a roll call votes with the one correction noted on page three to change the word from permanent to permit. Vice Chairman Elliott, how do you vote? Aye. Commissioner Hallisey? Aye. Commissioner Monroe. Aye.
And Chairman Lely I vote aye as well. So motion carries 400. All right. Public comment is item five on the agenda. Does anyone on the line wish to provide public comment? Going once, going twice. All right. Going forward. All right. Item six a on the agenda is application I WWC 20 dash 34 submitted by Joseph Thoreau on behalf of Ronald and Joan Cherny for a timber harvest at 110 Cone Road. And I believe we have some new materials related to this application. Agent Wagner, can you provide the commission with a summary of your site visit on January 21 with mister Ferrero and I believe mister Bruner was present as well? Yeah. We we walked the site. I think Bruner viewed
the vernal pools that were there and the potential vernal pools. He provided a map and a letter, that are on the website. Mister Thoreau provided me with a detail of the anti tracking apron while you're there. I posted that on the website, and then I took a bunch of photos of the two wetlands crossings that are in Andover. I walked over there, and those are on-site too. Is
Mr. Gruner on the call tonight? Mindy, are you able to pull up the map of the wetlands crossing first that, mister Bruner submitted with his, edits? On the website? Yeah. It should be under the application materials. Would it be this one or?
No. So go down your, that's yeah, go down to 34. So not by Hank Green at the bottom. So Mr. Brunner had submitted this marked up site plan along with a letter indicating that he did think there was two and possibly three vernal pools located within the areas that were delineated as wetlands on the site. If you can pull up Mr. Bruner's letter.
Madam chairman, this is Joseph Thoreau. Can I make a comment here? Go ahead. Yes.
So we we did successfully walk the site with mister Gruner. We did take a look at several areas that were inundated within the inland wetlands. We did we did concur that they might be potential vernal pools. But, again, I want to I want I can't stress enough that at this time of year, you cannot unequivocally determine whether they are or not. You need to do a study in March to actually look for obligate species. So I am more than happy to admit that they are potential pools. But I do want to stress that what we're proposing here is not going to be any severe or even significant impacts to those pools or their immediate habitats. In walking the site with Mr. Gruner, we discussed the activities that we were going to be doing in the upland review area. We discussed residual stand conditions, the fact that we were going to be doing minimal impacts as far as ground disturbance. There's gonna be little or no rutting. If there was any small ruts that were gonna be made, the logger was going to back blade them. That way, there's no no puddles or what we would consider decoy
pools for amphibians to try to habitat in when they can't, instead of pools themselves.
Okay. Thank you. In reading through his letter and his previous, recommendations to the question before he had, gone out with you guys, some of the the comments he had provided were to avoid, dropping any trees within the depressions. Is that something that's possible?
Yes. What Mr. Gruener did see out there is that the fact that we do not have any timber marked within the significant wetlands or within the perimeter of these pools. All the timber that's being harvested is in the upland review areas. So again, as far as shading shading of these potential pools, there's gonna be no issues there. The logger actually does very, very high quality work. In fact, the state forester was out there Friday and commended him, on on the job that he's doing thus far, in the town of Hebron. So as a professional forester, I have no worries about the abilities of this logger to do good quality work in there. The job will be under my immediate supervision. And essentially, the biggest thing that Mr. Gruner appeared to be worried about is time frame. And, I assured him that, you know, the idea here is to get this job done, while we have frozen ground conditions or nearly frozen ground conditions and and not and not work within within the period where the amphibians are obviously, you know, leaving the pools and and dispersing.
You noted that all of the work is within the upland review area. One of his comments was trying to maintain a 100 foot buffer around the verticals or wetlands. It sounds like that would be satisfied if there's no activity going on within that area?
Yeah, I pretty much concur that. There are some trees in other portions of the wetlands or immediately adjacent to the wetlands that are marked. But again, these are over mature trees that are gonna end up in the wetlands anyways. If they're not harvested now, they're just simply just gonna come up hard or blow over. And again, we're not we're not even denting the crown canopy anywhere in these in these, wetland areas. So there's there's still gonna be, you know, plenty plenty overhead cover. We're definitely within the 25%, of the basal area being removed on on the on the site. I have I have no worries there. Okay.
Were there any plans? I know there was some discussion in the materials provided regarding erosion control fencing. Were there plans to install fencing? Say that again? Were there plans to install erosion control fencing associated with the activity?
No. In fact, one of the problems with putting up silt fencing, especially in areas like this is, you know, you're you're dropping trees, you're dragging trees, you're you're cutting brush. So even even by even putting it up, it's not gonna it's not gonna last. You know, the best thing to do is to get in there, cut the timber, you know, restore the site, and get out of there. You know, the idea is, again, is to do this. So if if this job was gonna be going on at the time when amphibians are dispersing, then I could try to see putting up silt fence. But again, this is a very rocky site. This is not a site where silt fencing works. And again, the the job itself is not going to be creating any kind of sediment or erosion that is gonna need E and S measures.
You had provided at the request of the commission additional detail regarding the anti tracking apron. Are you able to see the screen?
No. I'm on the phone right now, but I did draw the
diagram so I can pretty much remember it. Okay. Mindy, can you pull that up for those that can see the screen? There you go. Okay. When you're ready, mister Thoreau.
Yes. So the anti tracking apron, I guess, the, you know, the main the main job of an anti tracking apron is the pool. Is is not allowed mud to be brought out onto the road. It's also built right up to the road shoulder. That way, when an 80,000 pound log truck pulls out onto the road, it supports the supports the edge of the road so it doesn't it doesn't crush or or break up. The anti tracking apron that's gonna be constructed is gonna be identical to the one that's in place in the town of Hebron right now. Approximately 30 feet 30 feet wide, about 40 or 50 feet long, made out of about approximately two two inch crushed stone. And that's put in. And just for the record, the cost of one of these tracking aprons, by the time he's all done, is is almost $3,000. So I'd like the commission to understand the fact that he's basically spending $3,000 to put in a secondary landing site when he could have done an extra stream crossing. So to avoid three stream crossings, we, you know, we're putting in that landing. So I think that that was a pretty good concession on the loggers part.
Does the commission have any questions of Mr. Thoreau or of agent Wagner regarding the visit since the last meeting? Commissioner Hallisey, believe that we see that I have requested at the last meeting additional detail on the tracking path. Were your concerns addressed? Yes. Thank you.
Well, the main reason we had called tonight's special meeting was to try and come to a decision on this application. So I'm happy to entertain a motion.
Chairman Lalit, George Elliott moves to approve the application either AWC twenty-thirty four specifications as noted in the agenda. Do you wish to specify a permit duration?
Well, a two year permit duration seems to be adequate here. Is there a second for the motion? I'll second.
So motion made by Vice Chairman Elliott and seconded by Commissioner Halsey to approve the application, as currently submitted and revised for a two year period. Is there a discussion?
Would a condition be appropriate to address Mr. Brunner's concern about the timing of the operation? Specifically, work done in the area of the vernal pools be done in February, as I understood it.
Mister Thoreau, if a permit is issued tonight, do you think it's feasible to complete the work during the month of February?
Well, again, this is a this is a crapshoot because, you know, we're trying to work around ground conditions. You know, when we get a lot of rain, he has to shut down for sometimes several days, even a week or more. Amphibians aren't dispersing until well, well, well, well after March or April. So I don't feel that a condition limiting us to February is realistic. Think I think that the fact that I'm a professional forestry with thirty years of experience, I'm a certified soil scientist with twenty years of experience. I do vernal pool studies. I think, I think it would be prudent for this commission to leave it up to me to be able to determine when or when he should be in there, when he shouldn't be. Realistically, I don't see it going beyond March anyway because, you know, once once you get into mid March, beginning April, things are starting to thaw out. You're starting to get in those 40 degree rainy, rainy days, and he's gonna be done by then anyway. But I I don't I don't feel limiting limiting limiting this this timber harvest on the assumption that that these are even vernal pools to begin with. And I had that conversation with mister Gruner out there. And again, both of us have been doing vernal pool studies and both of us, I think, are experienced enough to take a look at an inundated wetland. And it's a big guess to assume that something's a vernal pool just based on standing water and sphagnum moss. So I think I think I can handle this and I would appreciate it if you did not
put any kind of conditions on this sort of timeframe. This this this job is is limited enough.
Thank you for reminding us that there are potential rental pools and not confirmed. I think that's significant in the decision as to whether or not to place restrictions on the timing. Any additional comments from the commission? Commissioner Halsey, did you want to make a motion that the permit be limited? No. I'm okay with Mr. Thoreau's comp response.
Alright. Any discussion before I call for a vote? Chairman Elliott? No. Alright. I'll call for a vote. Vice chairman. Aye.
Commissioner Commissioner Halsey, how do you vote? We'll come back to you. Commissioner Monroe. Aye.
Alright. And chairman, Lily, I vote aye as well. So I don't know if Jim's having technical difficulties, but we can just say, the motion carries. You say three zero one and just note we weren't able to hear commissioner Hallisey's vote. So mister Thoreau, the the permit's been issued by the commission. Please follow-up with agent Wagner to to get a copy of the permit, and the associated standard conditions.
Okay. Thank you. And I appreciate you guys having a special meeting to accommodate this so that we can get this job done in a timely manner.
No problem. Any additional questions of us before we move on? All right, hearing none, we'll move on to item 6B on the agenda, which is application IWWC twenty-thirty five submitted by Kevin and Catherine Shay for a new construction within the Upland Review Area and Overlake at 436 Lake Road. This application we discussed briefly at our last regular meeting and we have asked an engineer to review the application on behalf of the commission, Mr. Brandon Hanfield did and submitted a letter. Mindy, don't know if you're able to pull that letter up. Agent Wagner, are you able to review for the commission, mister Hanfield's review? What I do, you review is review.
Wasn't the best language I've ever used, but yeah. Okay.
I don't have it then. I just have that. I mean, it's basically has a few recommendations. I'm not sure what you want me to say about it. They also the engineer engineer Dutton sent me a revised plan for this. They made a few changes to reflect the comments from engineer Hanfield. I sent it to get posted on the website, but it didn't get posted in time. So I think, I believe, Megan, you emailed a copy to the rest of the commissioners.
I did. Mindy, are you did you receive that email? I know you were having email issues last time. I think I did. Is it this one? It just this evening.
I see Mr. Dutton's on the call. Does this look like the correct one? You may have to go to where it says review. That
is the correct plan. Okay. If you enable screen sharing I could share my screen. Are you able to do that? Yeah.
Okay go ahead. You can use your mouse to circle things just hold on one second. All right you should be able to share your screen.
Okay, can everybody see that? For the record, Jim Dutton from Dutton Associates, engineering firm in Glastonbury. We received these comments yesterday. Today we revised the plan. I believe addressed all of the comments that were here. For some reason I had towns confused. In the town of Glastonbury, accessory structures like a detached garage can be closer to the side yard. We adjusted the location of the house to comply with the zoning requirements. We modified a lot of the erosion and sedimentation roll items. There will be trees cut on the site. A lot of them will be chipped up. Branches and most of the smaller wood. Our plan is to kind of use a lot of those wood chips as erosion and sedimentation controls. I'm a little concerned that we would the closest of ledge and the ledge outcroppings we may have some difficulty in some areas to actually install a sediment barrier. So if you look, can you see my hand? Yes. We're proposing a wood chip berm at the toe of the ledge outcropping and hopefully if they can back it up with a sediment barrier, there's a note we added in the box to protect. That's where most of the activity is heading toward. The other thing I would mention is the likelihood of blasting is almost certain on this site. And it's really not going to be a muddy mess. Once you, once the blasting occurs, they'll be excavating rock. It'll be less susceptible to my dog is behind me and he's barking in his sleep. I don't know if you can hear that. I can hear him. Apologize.
Also made a change. We changed the slope on the driveway. As many of the roof drains as possible are going to be connected to a drainage system and discharged where my hand is right now and that water will ultimately meander through a swale and then after a while cross the driveway. I changed the cross slope of the driveway so that some of the pavement water will run into there. We have an embankment here to hold up the road. One of the reasons we did that is to facilitate getting the electrical utility in without having to blast for electric utility utility and also to install the septic effluent line from the septic tank to the leaching system without having to blast for that. The we added a detail for a wood chip path. I consulted with a friend of mine, a professional landscape architect, went over it. Basically, you remove the leaf litter and you cut any vegetation that's within the path, and then you put down some filter fabric, put the wood chip mulch over top of it, wet the mulch, and then compact it to the extent that you can. And the plan calls for just trimming the edges of vegetation that overhang into the path. We have a four foot clear path. There's also a note on the plan that requires the exact location of the path to be field determined with the assistance of the environmental planner and the engineer. I added a big note that talks about additional erosion sedimentation controls will be installed as directed and required either by the environmental planner or the engineer. We added a sediment barrier at the top of the driveway,
I don't think it's really gonna be necessary after we change the cross slope. We added a note about stabilizing you know top soiling, seating and mulching the roadway or driveway embankment at the earliest possible convenience to do so. There was a comment about the roof drains. I think at least half of the house will be going to the system that drains into the, I'll call it a water quality swale. The two on the west side, what I would like to do is discharge those at the top of this ledge outcrop and let the water just trickle down over the ledge outcrop. Then it has all woods to get before it gets to the lake. I think that'll break up the flow. In the wintertime, it may have a little bit of icing there, which would be kind of a unique thing to see. And I believe that's just going to be a portion of the house, probably less than half the house that would drain down there. I
think that pretty much covers it. I mean the most significant comment I think was the fact that we had the garage over the zoning setback. We adjusted that. I did add a pervious paver walk that comes out. There's a door that exits the house right where my hand is and then there's a door in the garage So you can come out of the house and go right into the garage and then the front door of the house is here that allows you to get to the driveway here. The extra little pavers in the back, I'm assuming would be the place to put the trash barrels where you can wheel them out to the street, a convenient location to wheel them out to the street. That concludes what I have to say at this point in time. I'd be happy to answer any additional questions you may have.
Thank you. I have one initial clarifying question. So the adjustments you made to satisfy the zoning setback requirements, did they result in an increased amount of activity in either the wetlands or the Upland Review area? No,
No, did not change the clearing limits as a result of moving the house. And as a matter of fact, looking at this plan right now where I'm tanning my little hand, I could actually tighten those clearing limits, bring them in a little bit closer to the garage because I moved those contour lines, they moved a few feet. So we could actually reduce that clearing a little bit. I left it because it would give a way to get around the back of the garage. We could perhaps change the contours just in this area right here where I'm going back and forth. But there is adequate room in which to have a vehicle go around behind the garage to service the well and to get to this area over here.
And one minor note, some of your notes reference an environmental planner, which we don't have in the town of Andover. I would recommend changing that to wetlands agent.
Okay, I mean, that's kind of a generic term we use wetland, I think, yeah, I'd be happy to change
Does the commission have any questions of Mr. Dutton? Okay, I'm not hearing any. I can either entertain a motion to make a decision on the application or, I would also be open to a motion to, ask Mr. Hanfield to review the changes that were made to see if they satisfy his recommendations. Anyone wish to make a motion? Chairman Lalit,
will move approve the permit application, IWWC twenty-thirty five with conditions as noted in engineer Dutton's response to the concerns raised by engineer Hanville and for a permit duration of, what would you like, five years?
Seems appropriate for this Okay, so a motion's been made by Vice Chairman Elliott to approve the permit as presented with the standard permit conditions for a duration of five years. Is there a second? I will second it. Seconded by commissioner Halsey. Any discussion? Okay, hearing no discussion. I'll call for a vote. Vice Chairman Elliott. Aye. Commissioner Hallisey. Aye. Commissioner Monroe. Aye.
And Chairman La la I vote aye as well. So the motion carries. The permit is granted. Mr. Dutton, please follow-up with a Wagner to receive a copy of the. Have any questions? Absolutely.
Thank you very much, folks. Have a good evening. Thank you very much. Thank you for your rapid response.
Well, thank you. That's what I do. Have a great night. Thank you again.
Alright. So moving along on the agenda, that brings us to item six c, which is application I WWC twenty dash thirty six presented by Eric Lateska and George Correa. My how do you we've had a few people with your last name that pronounce it differently, and I don't wanna mispronounce your name. How do you pronounce your last name? You got it right. Correa? Yeah. Both of them.
Oh, okay. Well, let's ask because he's. Yeah. Alright. So for a permit application to construct a wetland crossing for a proposed driveway and new residence at 26 Old Farms Road. Given that this project would result in a new neighbor on my road and, one of the applicants is a teacher of my daughter, I'm gonna recuse myself from further discussions on the application and turn it over to Vice Chairman Elliott.
Well, thanks so much, Chairman Lal. Sorry, didn't give you any notice. Yeah, okay, I was really ready for this. Okay, so I'll
turn it over to Agent Wagner for the moment to bring us up to date. We seem to have received two or three new communications since the last meeting, little back and forth. Our engineer, our consultant, their consultant, if you could give us quick summary on what's transpired since the last meeting.
Yeah, we received a letter from ecologist, George Logan from Rima, I think it's Ecological Services, and he, he's basically wrote a letter in response to, mister Gruiner's comments, that were discussed in the last month. Then we also received a review by engineer Brandon Hanfield that detailed his concerns with the application. And I think that's what we got so far.
Okay. I see that engineer is on the call. And do we have let's see. Do we have somebody that can speak to the first of the reply to Mr. Gruner's comments. And then we'll address the comments from engineer Hadd from our consultant, Hanfield.
George Logan was the the individual who wrote the letter. He's not on the call. I I think we'd be happy to maybe summarize
what we're do. That. Yeah. Yeah. Mindy, can we bring that letter up for screen sharing? I don't know the yeah. Good. I don't know what the that would be it. Thank you.
So I mister Gruner's letter, if I could attempt here to summarize what a couple of his his main concerns seem to be would I think it was mainly impacting the habitat with the crossing perhaps cutting off some of the area where the wood turtle, a listed species, could pass back and forth over that area. And then in addition to that the, potential for the crossing and the culverts to channelize, the water in storm events during storm events and and while there is flow and the impact of that being perhaps erosion and the movement of that material downstream or down gradient into the Hop River or the the corridor leading to the Hop River and and that of course, you know, impacting the habitat that the turtles live in, you know, sort of naturally down down by the riverbank. So, Mr. Logan joined we we made a visit to the to the site after, on a Saturday, I believe it was a couple of weeks ago now. It happened to be the morning after we had a pretty significant rainfall. There are actually photos toward the end of the letter that
what the water looked like. Mean this it was know it was it was probably in its state as like an intermittent stream at that point the water was two to three inches deep. His assessment, I think acknowledges the concerns that potentially the wood turtle could make, its way up to the area however it seems unlikely. Maybe to one reason being the steepness of the climb up from the areas where they, would spend most of their time, and then I think maybe as evidence of that speaking with with the neighbor who's lived, lived there for decades having never personally seen turtles in the area. Nevertheless he did say it was, you know, it's not impossible to see see a turtle make its way up to that to that area, however unlikely. He, I guess in response to that points out that the, the proposed culverts 36 inches in diameter two of them handling the two streams would provide adequate passage for a turtle, should they make their way up there to get to the other side of the crossing. And then with respect to his other concern the the channelization of the water and the erosion and deposition down downstream His opinion is that the, I think I'm going be better off if I try to read what he says here, will not have an adverse long term effect on the down gradient wetlands and water courses or the wildlife that utilize these habitats,
including potentially the wood turtle. He characterizes it as very low risk to the regulated resources from the proposed crossing. And then in analyzing some of the alternative options deems the, you know deems the expense of a span, a crossing to be, to be, not necessarily, feasible, or appropriate given that it's serving one household And then I think just emphasizes that the, as the water, you know, I think as the water exits there, part of what he's saying is that it would quickly, yes, there might be some channelization immediately after exiting the culvert, but, because the area is flat, the water would pretty immediately spread back out, over a larger area. So forgive me for going on for a little bit there. It's kind of speaking from memory, but hopefully that gives an idea of what
his point of view was. Okay. Thanks for that summary. I'll ask if any commissioners, Mr. Hallisey or Mr. Monroe, have any questions about this part of the response.
Yeah, this is Hallisey, and I have a question. Preface it, I've seen different renditions of this plan evolve. I'm curious, I don't recall as to why the two houses would not be served well by, off of old farms. The recovery collection does. Okay, I do know the answer to that. I'm sorry. Came back. Do you recall that it was actually our commission's
recommendation that they not do a joint driveway to reduce the footprint?
No. And also there was a problem with right away. Yes. It's been a while. Okay, I just want to bring that to the commission's attention. Okay, I do have a concern though. Don't see on the, the project includes bringing utilities in from Old Farms on an adjacent property. And I don't see that. I mean, I don't really don't see that on the plan.
The utilities will be split. The house that's gonna be as closest to Old Farms. The utilities will come from Old Farms the I'm sorry. I understand that. Can you still hear me? We can, Jim. Okay, I'm sorry.
But when, I mean, you're showing the screen. The work seems to end at your property line and that isn't the case.
Right, the power is going to have to continue up. And George can speak to this because he's been working with CLMP, I think, or trying to work with them to see what's going to have to happen past that point. You have to continue up that existing driveway some I don't. I don't know. Does it got to be taken all the way back to the road and relay or how did that?
Have built in just in in just in phone conversations with Eversource. I do have a infield meeting with him on Thursday, but we have from Old Farm. We have the utility easement that goes across the doobies property. So we would then create another easement utility easement that connects connects from from the from our lot to connecting to the easement on the dubies property and then the power would come down the center of the driveway and there would be a transformer that would be located within 200 feet of the house. We would do the same thing coming from Pine Ridge, we would have to create an easement on the driveway, it would be on half the driveway because half the driveway would be from one property. And again, the easement would travel all the way through the property within 200 feet of the house where the transformer would be situated.
Okay, guess my point is there's construction that's involved that is not on this plan. Construction meaning the installation of utilities off-site. Right.
And I just want, I wanna make sure that the commission's aware of that and that it's, you know, if that it's part of this review process. So forgive me. So
once we have that meeting on Thursday, we'll know more definitely what we need to do Old Farms Road and can show that if need be. We'll know the extent of what we need to do from the property line to Old Farms. Okay, thank you.
We kind of really weren't weren't weren't ready for this meeting tonight. I never thought we were gonna have a special meeting for this project. So that's why that's kind of not not completed yet. Okay. We're just weeks ago, you know. So it's on our radar.
Okay. Let's see. The other additional item that we've received is the letter I'm trying to pull it up on my screen. Yeah, the letter dated 01/25/2021. Very good. Again, our consulting engineer, Hanfield, identified some technical concerns, which I would expect to be best addressed by Engineer Bushnell, who has just indicated that you might not be entirely quite ready, but that's Okay. If you want to say anything about it now, fine. If you'd rather defer until our regular meeting on February 1, that would certainly be understandable.
I just want to interject just a procedural comment. So putting it on the agenda tonight was not meant to rush your application in any way. It was in part to make sure that we were able to get Mr. Bushnell's comments on the record to potentially give you time to respond at next week's meeting. You're certainly welcome to provide any additional information on the application you want tonight, but don't if you're not prepared to add additional information, don't feel obligated to do so.
Okay, yeah. So let's touch on some things on the memo from training handfield. One, we have all that information will supply that to them all the watershed mapping design, folks, how it's all that that's that is not a problem. Number two is a little more vague. Are we under the jurisdiction of army corps engineers? I don't know. And I'm thinking about that one. Just getting this memo. I actually just got this memo today. So some of these things I think we meet now, you know, culvert soap no steeper than natural channel. We meet that, you know, do we need to set the pipes 25, you know, 12 inches or 25% into the ground? You know, the culvert and backfill inside of the culvert natural channel material. I don't know if that's a needed here or even a good idea. You know, I this is the type of crossing where if you backfill it with that stream material, it might wash it out of there. You know, inlets and outlet protections measured do not need the passage of fish or other aquatic organisms. I know you're not gonna have fish coming up this. It's a seasonal intermittent water course, you know. And then the structures allow for flow of flow of the fifty year frequency storm. And I talked to Brandon about this. This is understanding that the current interpretation of continuous of the culverts not under pressure flow. He's not 100% sure on that. So I need to investigate that a little bit more with some people. Yeah. So I don't know. I don't know if anybody's had any experience with the Army Corps with any of this.
We have you know anybody in the commission or anything has any input or or Joe has any input. You know, as far as as far as those comments have to do with with the army corps.
I would say that the key concern for the Commission might be that not necessarily exact adherence to those specifications, but certainly trying to minimize any impact on either downstream or you know, downstream erosion sedimentation and or passage of amphibians. You know, obviously, you're right. You're correct. Clearly, there aren't going to be any fishies trying to crawl through there, but basically minimizing the impact on the channel, both for water flow and for wildlife movement.
Right, right, I think as far as downstream erosion, sediment and things, know, as George mentioned in his report, you can see by that picture, it flattens right out there and the flow just spreads out really, really spreads out wide as soon as it soon. I think it would naturally take care of itself. And then we have the riprap at the end of the, you know, at the outlets to to help slow the velocity and spread the flow out. You know, we're running those pipes and thinking about 5%. So I mean, that's not a that's pretty much that's the natural slope that's there now. So we're not, you know, increasing the slope, which would increase the velocity of the channel. So you know, I'm not too worried about that. You know, it's just a question of, you know, do we need to provide for, you know, amphibious creature passage through there and how, you know, you know, I guess that's something we just need to all look into more and think about Okay. On that.
Commissioner Halsey or Commissioner Monroe, do you have any further questions or comments on the application? I do not at this time. I do have a question about the driveway itself. Is
that gonna be raised? Is that going to be raised up significantly
or you're going to have to build that up or is it going to just kind of go along with the topography that's there? No, no, it's going to be built up. It's going to be built up about six feet at the highest point. Know what we know where the where the where the culverts are. That's going be that you know that that'll be the most built up there. So some about six feet build up there. You were out there on the sidewalk, you know it's a pretty pretty big ravine there, you know? So, yeah. Just one more point I wanted to, you know, do in Brandon's memo here and I was talking about the Army Corps required openness ratio. You know, by meeting that makes the structure more likely to pass
riverine wildlife such as turtles underlying I think we kind of established that we're not anticipating turtles going through their mink, muskrat and otter. I don't see those. Going through there either. I think we we can talk with. We'll talk with George Logan, our environmental consultant about that, but. My engineering knowledge and just my knowledge of dealing with muskrats and minks before that I don't see them in that area there. But we'll we'll we'll get some more verification on that. Okay.
I, you know, I do have one question and I am thinking back to my review of the plan. It did not show that as I remember, it did not show the limits of pavement on that driveway.
Right, I think we're proposing gravel driveway the entire way. We've got slopes of let me look and see here. I think it was 10% or less. Okay, yeah, yeah. So we thought that we thought that you know keeping us keeping the slopes low, you know, obviously. You know in in avoiding the pavement I think is a better thing for the wetland. There's less impact having gravel and then pavement is my opinion. You know when you're doing these wetlands crossings. Right, I just thought the slope would trigger pavement.
Yeah yeah, no, we've got. We've kept it less than 10% so. Thank you. You know, have, you know, I included the swales on both sides. I had a cross pitch both ways. Swales on both sides and check dams and some riprap going down to the down to the wetlands so we could trap any, you know, sediment coming off the driveway. But I think if that you know they use a good quality process aggregate and compact it and maintain it, that shouldn't be really an erosion issue, You know, with slopes less than 10% with the gravel driveway in in the cross. Having those cross slopes also limits the velocity because it gets the water off the driveway. Doesn't let it start running down the driveway and start to gain, you know, speed, momentum and wash the aggregate surface off. Okay.
Seems that we're not going to be able to we won't want to take action on this agenda item tonight. We can expect to see that on our agenda for our regular meeting on February 1. So unless there are further questions or issues to be raised,
No, I think it was good to talk about some of these issues tonight before the next meeting so we can get them worked out.
Exactly. Good, then I'd like to move on to our agenda item number seven, report from Agent Wagner. Any updates on other actions or matters before the commission?
Before we go to that, just want to I don't want to hold up various parties associated with the last application. Do you have any questions of the commission before we move on?
I I think I was just you know, maybe this is a is a question, but I I don't know if anybody knows the answer. And and if if not, I just want to maybe go on the record saying this here that the Army Corps of Engineers, it's a recommendation to do the self verification permit. I don't know what the expense of that could be but if it came at a substantial expense, I think I would prefer knowing that it was really required, you know, rather than just a recommendation. If the expense isn't significant I don't think that's an issue but you know.
As far as the army corps stuff, usually it's up to the applicant to, you know, figure that out. And the reason why he might've brought it up is, you know, same as if you're have to go before zoning for the same permit. Just to be aware that if you know, you, you have to go before multiple people and they ask something different, just to kind of know what your requirements are going be from the various permitting parties. But typically wetlands, I don't, in the four years I've been on, we haven't done anything to look into whether, you know, a permit needs to go before army corps or not. So that would, that would be on you guys, if you wanted to look into it further.
And then I think, or, you know, any applicant, and if not, then we would just assume that it's not, you know, something that we need to factor into our decision. Okay. Thank you.
Again, any further questions, comments, demurals, or referrals? And again, thank you all. And we can, as I say, move on to agenda seven and see if there's anything to report there. I'd say Jo, I'll anything turn it back to you now.
Sure. Joe, anything that doesn't, that can't wait until next Monday?
No, nothing. I don't have anything that important. So I can save it.
Alright. Same holds true for other business. Is there anything urgent, commissioner's policy Monroe Elliott, that we need to cover tonight instead of next Monday? Yep. Okay.
Then we'll move on. Just noting agenda item nine that our next regular meeting is next Monday at seven. We haven't put out an agenda yet, Joe, but we should do so tomorrow if we can. Do have any questions regarding the agenda while we're on the line now?
I haven't heard haven't heard anything from engineer hand field about that one. So I don't know if we're gonna get an application for I think it's 344 Lake Road.
Yeah. I wouldn't I wouldn't put it on if we don't have an application. Just put whatever applications we do have. Yeah. And if we receive applications,
we can motion out if we so choose. I have a draft agenda written already. So if I don't get anything really soon, I'll just send that one out tomorrow.
We have other new applications that you anticipate coming on? Nothing
new for this month that I've that I've seen. Okay.
Anything from the other commissioners before we entertain a motion to adjourn? All set. All set.
All right, then I will entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Okay, second. Second.
All right, motion is made by Vice Chairman Elliott and seconded by Commissioner Halsey. All in favor? Aye. Aye. No roll call required?
No. I'd say hearing no opposition, I will adjourn the meeting at 08:02. Very good. Thank you, Chairman Molly. And thank you all.
Blessing Lee. Those that are on the call, do you anticipate not being able to make it on Monday? I plan to be on the call Monday. Same here.
Oh, and I will have reminds me, I will distribute a draft of bylaws for that meeting. So, Joe, you can include that on the agenda under committee Can you make Monday's meeting?
Yeah, we can receive it at Monday's meeting. The bylaws state that we have to receive it at a regular meeting, and we can't vote on it at the meeting which is received. So, vote on if we can receive them at the February meeting, we would be able to vote on them in March.
I don't want to talk business. Just want to know who can come on Monday. Can. Lloyd, can you come Monday? Yeah.
Yes. Okay. Alright. And Yes. Mindy, you're available to clerk? Alright. And Joe, you're available? Yep. Alright. Awesome. I got everybody on board. Okay. So we'll have a quorum. Alright. So I will see you on Monday then. Thank you. Good night. Take care. Bye.