Meeting transcript
Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Commission - Regular Meeting
July 12, 2022 · Watch on YouTube · All meetings
Chairman Rowe, and no alternates or anything to be seated. Anybody have any changes or additions to the agenda? So now we'll move to approval of minutes. We have the minutes for the meeting of June 6 and the preceding hearing. Does anyone note any changes, typos, anything that needs to be corrected or revised in the minutes? I did not.
Neither did I. Bill, are you okay with the minutes?
Yes, I did read them, and they were fine as far as I could tell. Okay, I'll move then to approve those minutes. I'll second. So, roll call vote, Commissioner Larson. Aye. Commissioner Monroe. Aye.
And I also vote aye, so the motion carries three-zero-zero. We have no public to comment, so and we have no business to take care of. So, we'll skip right down to item number seven, a report from the agent regarding actions or enforcements. Joe, I believe you have two on the agenda there. Yeah, one the first one, the
22 Dash 07, the 196 Lake Road. I'm still waiting for more information for that one. It's a yeah. Like a small addition and a new deck. But, yeah, he he still has to submit a site plan and stuff. And maybe depending on how big the addition is, it might need a nutrient worksheet. I'm gonna figure that out when when we get it in. And then the other one was I had it written as pending, but I actually approved it today. It was a 340 Lake Road steel septic tank that they're replacing with a with a new one with a effluent filter, pretty much in the same spot. So almost pretty straightforward.
Okay, well, I guess no other business. Then we have item eight, other business. As Judge just pointed out, I did draft an annual report to submit to the town. Hope that you've had a chance to review it, and I'm open to any comments, suggestions, Corrections. You thought it looked good George Okay. Bill, did you have any comments on the? I haven't seen it.
Okay, it was in the well, of course, if you don't have email, you wouldn't have seen it, but Yeah. It was included in the submission that Joe sent out for the when he sent out the notice for the meeting, he attached that. Okay, then if you haven't had a chance to look at it, we can hold off on requesting an approval until our next meeting. Okay. We are scheduled as usual for election of officers at the first meeting in July. I will say that I am willing to serve another year as Chairman of the Commission. I don't I haven't heard anything from Ed Smith regarding his nominal role as vice chairman, and of course, we are still lacking both regular and alternate members, so it's not like we have a big pool to draw from here, or for that matter, a lot of competition for the slot.
I know last year, Bill was concerned that he hadn't had enough, very much run time on the commission. Now that he's got an extra year. What do you think, Bill?
Oh, I would just like to be stay as a regular member for now, if that's okay.
It's not like the vice chairman has a vital role to play here since we, I think, agreed last year that if I wasn't going to be able to make the meeting, we just wouldn't have the meeting. And until we get more members, I don't see that actually changing since we're operating with a bare quorum as it is. So, how about we say Chairman Elliott is reelected by acclamation? I'll second that.
Okay. And if you want a formal vote, Commissioner Larson? Aye. Commissioner Monroe? Aye.
And what the heck? I'll vote aye also. So, the motion carries three-zero-zero. And I think we will just have to hold in abeyance an election of a vice chairman should it I mean, we call for it in the bylaws, but as you say, I don't think it's really a vital role to perform under the circumstances.
And we don't have one in Wyndham. Usually, if our chairman can't attend, then we usually just appoint somebody during the meeting
so to act as chairman. Acting chairman pro tem. Well, maybe we should revise that in the bylaws since bylaws are next, the review of the bylaws. I hadn't, I mean, our bylaws were last revised in 2021, so they are fairly fresh. I'm not aware of any statutory changes, you know, like FOI or ME we would have to address. But Section five, officers and their duties, Section 5.1 reads, The offices of the Commission will consist of a chairperson and a vice chairman vice chairperson, excuse me. We could amend that to remove the and a vice chairman.
You wouldn't feel good about voting Ed in as a vice chair again?
Well, given that he's not present at the meeting, I suppose we could go ahead and do that. But again, we'll take it as a suggestion without acting on it that maybe we don't really need a vice chairperson. And I will, again, I will renew my contact to Ed and see if, again, see how he feels about continuing to serve nominally as vice chairman, again, per bylaws? Or alternatively, do we want to just strike that office and further references to the vice chair that occur in Section five of the bylaws. You know, again, it just doesn't have an urgent feeling to it. We still have vacancies, as I previously mentioned. We did have one inquiry, but that person is, I guess, intending to build in Andor they're a property owner and intending to move here, but obviously not yet a registered voter, and so ineligible to serve on the Commission. But all we can do, I suppose, is to continue to advertise. And maybe if we resign en masse, that would prompt the Board of Selectmen to take more drastic action.
I have nine on the agenda. Oh, any other business? Questions, comments, whatever?
I guess I had two, well, maybe just one comment to, no, two. Okay, now I remember what it is. Two comments for Joe just to go out and take a look at. I know several months ago we were, I can't remember if was we or I think you approved, Joe, a driveway going in up, I'm going to say 13 West Street, right up the hill, because it was in proximity in an upland review area. And I noticed that they have done significant clearing on that lot. And I don't recall any discussion about clearing when when we talked about the driveway. So I would ask you to take a take a look at that and make sure it's all the way that you want it there. Yeah, looks like
Did drive by it. I probably should actually go up and walk the property. But it looked like it was pretty close to. I mean, they did all the clearing, but a lot of that clearing is. Outside the up Upland Review area. I think most of it is. Most of it is. Yep. Because there's just a little, like, a corner where that
Okay. I couldn't remember. I just remembered if the driveway was close by.
Yeah, it must be a lot. First I was kind of surprised too. I was like, oh man, and then I brought the plan up and you know, at it from the road and it looked like it was kind of lining up. Approximately the way it was designed. It just looked bigger than it than I thought. Okay,
yep, very good. I guess the second one, as I was looking through, I don't know what made me go look at 344 Lake Road, and that's the big addition going on. And in the file I saw, Joe, where you had taken a bunch of pictures within the last week or so of the erosion and sediment control in there. And this is just, you know, for, I guess, Commission members knowledge. I went back and as I walked by there, it looks to me like there's wetlands down in that area on the property. And I didn't go back and look today, I'll look tomorrow morning, but I was surprised extent of loading dirt, you know, the number of truckloads of dirt that they hauled in to spread around that. And as I looked at the site plan that was previously approved and we did it in addition to it, it didn't show any wetlands on that piece of property. And so then I went back to the GIS map on the wetlands and it shows wetlands through there where at least I see the skunk cabbage and that kind of stuff, I think. Good indicator. Yep, going down there. And so, you know, I know I have been fussing a little bit about not having wetlands delineated on site maps. And going back to this one, it appears that there should have been wetlands delineated on the map. I don't know if we've filled it in or not. I was surprised how far down the hill there that they spread that 10 loads of dirt around that they had brought in. So anyhow, that's, you know, when we say we should have the wetlands at least delineated on site plan, that's one of the reasons,
you know, I think there are wetlands there and I think we probably, I don't know if we filled it in or not. Joe, you might take a look at it. Think they're a little further.
Okay, yep. Down because I remember looking at that and I had to look at the plan. That one was a little weird because we had the original permit that was before I was around. Yep. And it had more. The the limit of clearing was about where it is right now. But then so that was approved, and that's technically still valid. And then we approved modification that had less clearing. So Yeah. Okay. I didn't look at the original. I just I think they might have modification, they said. Doesn't look like find the two, and I wasn't really sure if we really had much to go off of because both, you know, it was approved. Yep.
So that's just for us as commission members that, you know, we we need to do our due diligence to make sure that we know where the wetlands are Yeah, and specifically in the approval state, you know,
maybe a little more bluntly, I guess. Don't know. We'll just have to look out for that in the future. Okay, that was all I had, George.
Well, point well taken, and glad you made that observation. I think often the presumption that for things around the lake, the 200 foot review area is from the lake, but in fact, there are plenty of wetlands in addition to the lake per se. As you said, Skunk Cow Beach is a recognized indicator for poorly drained soils. Okay, if that's all of the other business we have to take care of, item number nine, our next regular meeting will be on Monday, August 1. Again, same time, same place. I know that one item on the agenda will be a report from Hank Gruner summarizing the wetlands survey that we conducted, that the well, it was commissioned, co sponsored, and the vernal pools, I went out and visited a few vernal pools. It was an interesting exercise, and it should be a good report and a valuable addition to our knowledge about the
wetlands that we are trying to protect here in Andover. George,
I do have two other Yeah. Two other things, if I And, you know, one, I can't remember if I mentioned it last time, but the, the subdivision in two house two house lots up at 26 Old Farms Road or 26 Pine Ridge, you know, from both. I know that there's discussion going on that they want to redo the house off of Old Farms Road to have the driveway come in from Pine Ridge. There's some reason that they couldn't come in from the top like they originally planned, And I don't recall where that driveway is going to go with respect to the wetlands or not. But we, I think Joe, you should at least be seeing something from Jim on that at some point going forward till you get a cut on it. The other one just to share is that we're wrapping up the gravel pit operation over there by the gas station on Route 6. In our meeting next Monday, we should be getting the restoration plan for that. I don't know if Joe you've got any interest in that or not. I think the Commission will end up doing a sidewalk out there just because we have a hard time seeing what it is Chris Bell's talking about on that busy drawing and we'll go out there just to have him walk us through it. But if you've got interest in that, you're certainly welcome to join us on that one coming up. And that's it. Normally I take information from wetlands and go back to planning and zoning, but here's a couple that we can actually have it go back, share it with you guys.
Okay. Yeah, presumably, old farms Pine Ridge would be simply using the driveway that we've already permitted and extending it in the other direction.
Right. And it will be in an upland review area. Yeah. I don't think it'll be through any wetlands, but I haven't seen the drawing yet. Right. When I talked to Jim about it, he said, Well, it's got to go through wetlands review before we do anything with it. Okay.
Well, we'll look forward to seeing that then, and thanks for that input. Okay, so absent any further comments, we are poised to item 10 on the agenda, which would be adjournment. Do we have a motion? I move we adjourn.
I'll second it. I second it. Okay, seconded by Mr. Monroe. All right, then by unanimous consent, I think we may stand adjourned. Thanks for popping in tonight. I'm glad we were able to keep it short. It's an awfully hot and muggy evening, and brings out a certain lassitude, if you will. Namely, I want to go out to the hammock and rock gently and enjoy the breeze.
So Well, thank you, Abby, for all your work Thank you, for Abby, and thank you. We'll send you out with a very easy set of minutes for this meeting. Know. Know. Planning and zoning will be quite too easy next week.
But thank you for this parting gift and thank you all for teaching me a lot and being patient with me and my learning curve. So I've had a really great time and y'all are really great people to learn from. Good luck to you, Abby. Thank you. Thank you so much. And have you harvested the garlic? Oh, yes. Oh, yes. It's gonna be donated soon.
Yeah. Saw a piece on Eric's desk the other day. He was Oh, yeah. A vampire's warrior or something. Yep. Yep. The garlic family, ferry came to town hall. Yep. Goodnight. Goodnight everyone. Goodnight all. Alright.