evening this is uh Tuesday March 25th 6:30 p.m this is the uh Chford Conservation Commission calling this meeting to order from the chair my name is Carl Bishoff we will be following the published and posted agenda the meeting is both in person and through Zoom if
well it if you're not in the room you don't have the Zoom link you wouldn't have the Zoom link never mind i was going to say uh the Zoom link's on the agenda it's not on the agenda anymore um we've had some uh some Zoom bomb issues in town so you have to contact David
ahead of time to get your Zoom link uh the meeting is being broadcast and recorded by Chancellor Teledia and will be available on their website and on YouTube um and we do clearly have a quorum here so we're good to ready to go the beginning of the meeting here we're
going to start out with a presentation from uh sponsored by the Chsford DPW but uh this is from Kleinfelder and Company um this is on the Chumsford watershed uh analysis three different uh uh areas and
I think we can just start right now yeah go right ahead and we have Courtney yep yep yep you need to kind of stay close although if you come over here and point um there is a microphone you can up up there in the ceiling so but for the most part stay there not here oh no that one
works that one works okay all right great um and I just want to make sure that my colleague is on seth can you hear us yep i can awesome okay all right so obviously I'm here in person i'm um
Courtney Eaton i'm a project manager um water resources engineer with Kleinfelder and joining me on Zoom is Seth Bryant who is also a water resources engineer uh we've been leading this effort for um about the past year
we started working on this back in February of 2024 um and we're you know at this point really substantially complete with the the study um and coming before you to present the um the results um kind of
where we're at um just wanted to check i know we have 30 minutes on the agenda um is there any wiggle room in that if we go a little bit over is that okay or are you I think if we go knocking me over couple minutes over we're fine yeah okay all right we'll try to be quick then
all right um if you want to go to the next slide just a quick agenda um so we'll just give a quick really quick review of the project background and then um we'll talk about the three areas um we'll
start out first with um the the flood model and the risk um results or the risk review um for each of the three areas and then we'll shift into the mitigation alternatives and some recommendations and next steps you can actually hit two slides down if you
want all right um just briefly the overarching project goals so we were studying three subwheds um within the the um town um Evergreen Street area the Blackbrook area and Deep
Brook and within those watersheds we actually had some even smaller subwheds that we were focused on um we created a hydraologic and hydraulic model for each of these to simulate what happens when
big storm events occur and um as a way to identify some of the sources of flooding in these different areas and some proposed solutions um just quickly the hydra hydraulic part of the model focuses on the buried infrastructure and
the hydraulic part hydraologic part of the model focuses on the surface flooding so that's how the two come together to help us to understand um what might be happening so if you want to go to the next slide um Seth's going to talk just briefly about some of the inputs to the
model and some of the field work that we did thanks Courtney so as part of the modeling process we wanted to look at both the risk that currently exists in each of the three wersheds as well as the projected risk under climate change
conditions um we know that extreme events are becoming more likely so we wanted to make sure that was well represented um as we assessed the flood risk in each area so we have here just an example of the the storms that we looked at as part of the study um so all
of these bars represent the total rainfall that we looked at over a 24-hour period so you can see it ranges from on the smaller end about 3 in all the way up to almost 10 in which is pretty extreme um for the criteria when
we looked at mitigation alternatives we generally focused on what we call the 10-year 2070 storm which is a 10% probability um annual occurrence that we expect to see under climate change conditions in
um some of the infrastructure owned by DOT specifically um we looked at a slightly higher design storm um to match their required criteria um and then for all all of these we kind of looked at a worst case scenario um which is a 1%
probability storm under both present day and future conditions uh next slide um so to create the model we did do quite a bit of field work to ground truth um the computer model that we put
together um so we were out in all three wersheds um collecting information for structures like catch basins and manholes to make sure that it matched what we were representing in our model um and then we did have a pretty robust field program um as you can see in both
of these pictures we put sensors out to monitor flow um and we used that to ground truth what we were projecting um so this graph you see here is showing in blue um what we measured and then orange is the output of our simulated computer
model um both of them showing flow rate um for one storm event and for each watershed we checked multiple different storm events to ensure that what we were simulating was actually representing what was happening out in the field uh next slide you can go too
forward um so we'll get into the results of the flood risk assessment um for all of these we're we'll be showing the um 2070 10ear storm so again 10% probability under climate change um but we did check
that full range of storms for all of them um so in all of these maps you'll see yellow lines which represent um pipes so the underground buried infrastructure uh the red dots are catch basins and manholes and then the blue
represents the flood risk that we're modeling um with the darker blue being the deeper flooding um the bluest areas being over 2 ft of flooding um and then the shallower flooding being the lighter blue um so in the Evergreen Street area
you can see everything kind of flows um from left to right in this picture through the Market Basket parking lot and eventually out into a wetland area um where it then passes through a covert under Route 3 um which is owned by Mass
owned by the state so that's kind of the end point of the area we were looking at um and really most of the flood risk that impacted properties here uh was right along Evergreen and Wildwood Street can go to the next slide um so key takeaways from this um
think I described most of them but one of the major ones was that that downstream cover really has significant impacts on how much flood risk there is um we know that historically maintenance there has been an issue um it's become clogged and been a restriction um and we
looked at how clogging downstream can affect flooding upstream um and I won't go into too much detail but we have the full results here and essentially what we're showing is that if you compare when that downstream culver is clear to when it's clogged with debris um the
amount of flooding that occurs under the design storm she looked at um over doubles um so really that downstream restriction which is flowing into low and owned by the state and really outside of the control of the town um is
the biggest factor in flood risk in the neighborhood um some of the upstream infrastructure was the pipes were slightly undersized um but that didn't play nearly as much as a role uh next slide so moving along to the Blackbrook
wershed uh specifically the area around Graniteville and Old Westford Street um in this area the flood risk was really concentrated around a wetland um that exists between those two roads is kind of that that dark blue area in the
middle that's been circled um this wetland drains through a culver under Davis Road and then eventually out through a culvert under Granite Villa Road um and we found a couple things here you can see at the everything here again is flowing left to right down to
Blackbrook um and that cover under Graniteville Road highlighted in the upper right side of the screen um that showed an undersized inlet so it's creating a pinch point which caused flooding upstream um so you can see waters kind of spilling over Granville
Road there rather than passing through the cover um and then further upstream in the wetland itself um the topography of the area is very it's kind of like a bowl with a lot of drainage area flowing directly into that wetland um and that
paired with high groundwater and kind of existing wet conditions um causes really flashy or like quick increases in water level within that wetland itself um and that's really where we saw the most risk was to properties bordering that
wetland uh next slide um so just kind of bulleted out those same takeaways um kind of what I covered already but there's there's a picture here of that inlet which you can see everything's flowing into a channel
um and then trying to get into that 30-in pipe right there um and that's one of the pinch points that's causing flooding next slide and then our last area um is Deepbrook um our focus here was
particularly around the Dunire Drive neighborhood um where we saw modeled a significant amount of flooding um so again here everything is flowing left to right kind of starting in Swain's ponds and then following Deep Brook down until
it outlets out into the Marramac River um so throughout this area it passes through a number of culverts um two under Dunshshire Drive one under Tinksburgh Road another under Butterfield and then a couple more under
the railroad um so there's there's a lot of points here where it can be kind of caught up if there's any restrictions um and the area is also relatively flat um and because of that we see a lot of
ponding during the largest events um kind of both in the middle of Dunard Drive and the surrounding wetland areas around it uh next slide so our key takeaways on this one um the the biggest hydraulic restriction
was the Tinsboro Road cover which we have a picture of here um you can see on the right that's the inlet it's um pretty undersized compared to the stream coming in and also takes a sharp bend which isn't ideal hydraulically um and
that presents flood risk um both for Tinksboro Road itself but then also kind of backing up into the Dunshshire Drive neighborhood um that paired with the the flat topography um and a bunch of water just flowing down from Swain's Pond it kind of gets
stuck there and that's what's contributing to the the flood risk um and because of that the the highest risk areas that we identified where properties were actually being impacted um was between Tinksboro Road and Swains
Pond uh next slide i think going to turn it back over to Courtney to talk about our mitigation options all right so um as we mentioned we looked at Can you still hear me it doesn't sound like it's on but I trust
that it is um so we looked at a number of mitigation um alternatives for the three different subwaterheds um and we uh just summarize some of the different factors that we considered so so we looked at both you know economic
considerations or the construction cost um including some of the items listed there um as well as the overall project cost which would include design engineering services and permitting um and then we also um took into account
some non-economic considerations thinking about you know the the flood benefit or impact um after the the mitigation alternative would be implemented constructibility permitting challenges um on&m considerations uh and community um acceptance of of the
different alternatives so it's a um bit of a rating that we uh came up with for each of the different you know alternatives being considered so we'll kind of follow the same um the same pattern we're going to focus on um Evergreen first if you want
to go to the next slide the Evergreen Street area so the potential solutions that we were um looking at here to really alleviate the um the residential flooding in that Evergreen Wildwood um
area um we looked at the potential of taking um the basically disconnecting the upstream storm um water infrastructure from the the market basket um infrastructure and um putting
a new outfall in the wetland there at the end of Evergreen Street um which would just drain the the neighborhood um drainage um and that that helps with the um the maintenance issue um at the the
downstream end of the masdot um culvert the second alternative we looked at subsurface storage in the market basket parking lot which would take all of the flow um across the subwaterhed um and then the third alternative was um the potential of daylighting a a vegetated
swale in that wooded area between Evergreen Street and Market Basket um so those were the three alternatives that we looked at um if you want to go to the next slide um we evaluated the um
the flood flood reduction volume um that we might see and Seth if you want to say a few words about that sure so all three of these were fairly effective um we have here the baseline existing conditions and then reductions per
alternative um and all of them reduce flooding by over 80% and when you look at the average flooding in areas that were flooding in the baseline conditions um you see a drop from over 2 ft to all of them are down to several inches so really significant improvements
um there were kind of key benefits outside of the the flood benefits for each of these um so as Courtney mentioned by disconnecting that upstream portion and rerouting it through a new drain line um it would avoid relying on
um DOT the DOT covert to be maintained um it would completely disconnected from that problem so that was one key benefit um the only potential issue there from a permanent standpoint is we'd be adding a new MS4 outfall um but really we would not be adding any additional catchment
areas it would just be redirecting where that flow goes um having it enter the wetland slightly upstream but all in all the same amount of flow arriving at that wetland um so that's the only potential downside we saw um for the for the other
two um both of them kind of had a potential issue of uh the location where there was potential for storage was on property owned by market basket um so there need to be some coordination there and um coordination around and m specifically around the underground
storage in the parking lot um but they each had kind of their own benefits too uh the underground storage had the highest flood reduction and then the vegetated swale would add in a green solution for the town if you want to go to the next slide
we can look at kind of what it looks like on an overall um evaluation basis so combining the non-economic considerations with the um the cost estimates that we put together
um really alternative one ended up being the we'd say most cost effective um so you know we looked at it on a normalized dollar per um volume of flood reduction um and you can see the numbers there
between you know $86 per cubic foot um reduced to 226 um so you know based on that um the alternative one really became the preferred alternative for
this um Evergreen Street area um if you want to hit the down button I think it will highlight alternative one as our as our preferred um alternative cool if you go to the next slide then
this just shows you um the top map is the existing condition um under our 2070 10-year storm um we saw that earlier and then um the bottom map shows you the um predicted or modeled condition with the
proposed infrastructure so a new um you know installation of a new 24-in storm water drain that conveys um this the drainage from that Wildwood Evergreen Street area out um along Evergreen Street to the to the wetland in a new
location um so we can move move on from there so that's that kind of wraps up Evergreen Street um we can move to Blackbrook um and I know we're going through these fast but
hopefully we'll have enough time for questions um once we're done um so for the Blackbrook watershed um really what we were we were looking to do um is to consider alternatives that would help reduce that that wetland um area
flooding uh that we mentioned earlier um so the um the first alternative uh we looked at was um culvert upsizing and I just want to make a point that uh as Seth mentioned this a couple of times the culvert underneath Granite Road um
which is sort of in the u I guess upper right corner there um we looked at replacement um and upsizing of that culvert for all of these alternatives um we just we really found that that was going to be necessary regardless of u
what we were doing upstream of that so that's included in all of the alternatives alternative one also includes an upsizing of the Davis Road um culvert and then some regrading and dredging of the channel between the two to help with the um with the slope there
um alternate uh alternative two and three are redirecting flow out out of the wetland and into buried infrastructure that would be um installed either along the Graniteville Road or Pilgrim Road to Graniteville and
then um the alternative three is Old Westford Road um and then we looked at some combination alternatives as well um so we want to go to the next slide all right and Seth do you want to talk a little bit more about um the flow reduction we saw here sure um so for
this wershed in particular um because this wetland area is designated as a wetland by D we wanted to look at what impact we'd have to the wetland itself um by redirecting flow so just here real quick um we looked at for each of the
alternatives that did draw flow that usually would go through the wetland instead into buried infrastructure um what proportion of flow is being pulled away um so on the first column you can see the peak flow coming from each of the area areas that were redirected um
and then we have a percent of total uh so alternative two Pilgrim Road um that only represents about 8% of the total flow going through the wetland um for the 10-year design storm um for alternative three it's a little bit
higher um between the two areas that would be captured in the new Old Westford piped infrastructure um that represents about 60% of the flow so more substantial but also more likely to have a flood reduction impact um but in both
cases still significant amount of flow is allowed to go through the wetland and ensuring that it remains a wetland um and just as to note this is while it's marked as a wetland um it is not designated as a high priority um habitat location next
slide um so it's quite a bit going on in this one but I'll just show some highlights um it's the same type of non-economic analysis as we looked at before um when we're looking at the flood reduction for these we found that really the the only effective ones to
address that flooding um for properties along the wetland uh were those last three flow redirection ones um upsizing the culvert alone um because of limitations we had without being able to work in the wetland itself um we maxed
that out at only a 10% reduction in flow which really didn't change things too much um but for alternatives 3 four and five which all include parts of buried infrastructure on Old Westford Street and pulling flow out that way um those
saw significantly higher reductions in flow ranging from 69 to 82% um so just real quickly some potential for the key benefits for these um for the old westward ones in particular we'd be upgrading some
existing infrastructure that that kind of needs it already um and other than that the the benefits here are really around the flood risk being reduced um the potential issues here are mostly around permitting because it's a wetland
um so for alternative one replacing that cover um there would be work happening near the wetland to adjust inverts and do some dredging so um that could be difficult just because of the wetland designation um and then for the remainder of them where we're
redirecting as I mentioned before um just making sure that we're not redarking too much flow and that it maintains its wetland status uh next slide yeah so again um putting this together with the the cost considerations
um you know in this case alternative three um really showed uh to be the the most cost effective if you will in dollars per volume um of flood uh reduced or the flood volume reduction um
certainly you'll get a little bit more um if you know you're able to combine um uh redirection alternatives with alternative four and five um but it's it's nominally um you know it's a nominal increase in in flood reduction
with a fairly good size um capital expenditure so in this case um we we kind of landed on alternative three as the preferred alternative um within this within this watershed
um all right we can move past to deep Brooks so that we can get to I'm sure questions here shortly um oh I I apologize I forgot um so this is sort of the before and uh projected
before and after um so the top map represents the existing conditions um that we saw before remember the darker blue is the deeper deeper flood areas um and then um the bottom map represents
that preferred alternative which was alternative three so we're redirecting um only the flow on Old Graniteville uh oh sorry Old Westward i apologize um and um and so you can see that you know
there is still there is still blue showing up in the um the wetland area um but it's a much lighter color indicating a a much um shallower flooding that's occurring under this again under 2070 10-year conditions
um all right with that we'll push forward to to Deepbrook um so in this case um if you recall the the flood risk there were kind of two areas um one you probably well know the
Dunshshire neighborhood um as well as the um the wetland area between Dunshshire and Tingsboro Road there um it's kind of the two two main areas of concern related to flood risk um now and in the
future we looked at three different alternatives in this case um the first one um involved uh culvert upsizing uh the first culvert that that needs upsizing in this area is the the one uh
the masdot culvert under Kingsboro Road um but once we do that it then allows flow that is currently being backed up um on the um on the back side of Tingsboro Road it allows that to come
through and then impact the um the Butterfield uh Culvert crossing um or you know it would under future conditions so um so if we were to upsize Kingsboro Road only you'd want to look
at doing Butterfield Road as well um it's a smaller culvert but um but it would protect that that roadway and allow more of the flow to get um into the downstream wetland and then out to the Marramac um the second alternative
in this case is um different than what we've been talking about um so far in um that it focuses on Swain's Pond um there's uh a fair bit of um storage capacity in that upstream pond for this
area so we um we considered what would happen if you put um an we call it active control on that pond to be able to you know draw down the pond um in this case we we modeled um about a foot
of of draw down ahead of a storm event um then you could use that storage to capture some of the flow that's coming in upstream um even from the neighboring community and um you know hold it until
you can then kind of release it at a more timed um manner um so we looked at that one independently and then we looked at um we looked at both the culvert upsizing and the um active
control on Swain's Pond together um and in this case um if you're able to do both of those together you actually would avoid the need to um do the improvement on Butterfield Road um so those are the those are the three different alternatives we compared in
this case or in this in this subwaterershed area if you want to move to the next slide so we can go through the non-economic considerations seth if you want to yep so um when we looked at upsizing the
culvert by itself alternative one um there was there was a decrease about 20% in flooding um really localized around that culvert which um was important but not really addressing the entire watershed flooding um so that's
obviously a benefit for protecting that roadway itself um but the potential challenges we identified were that this would rely on coordination with DOT um there's a lot of utilities in the area that could make it a complicated design um and then as Courtney mentioned doing
this by itself would necessitate upsizing the Butterfield Street cover um directly downstream because now it would be letting through more flow um so alternative two just controlling storage in Swain's Pond upstream um because
there's really a significant amount of volume there to work with and hold back during the peak of storms um this saw a really significant reduction in flooding over 60% um the benefit here is it would just be a retrofit of the existing outlet structure to that pond which is a
small weird wall um so all in all it would be a should be a relatively simple construction process u potential issues is um permitting around allowing the pond to draw down but an important note here is that any draw down would be temporary and not a permanent change to
the pond it would just be directly preceding an anticipated storm event um then lastly alternative three um as expected because it's the combination saw the highest almost 90% reduction in flood volume um which is great um and
because we're holding back water um that combination reduces the need to also replace the downstream butterfield street cover um so has all of the the benefits and potential downsides otherwise of the two
before and next slide so with this one um we represented the cost just a little bit differently um you know because that Tinksboro Road culvert is owned by Masdot um there's you know we we made an assumption at this point of what the anticipated cost
would be to Chelmsford that's a the second line of alternative one and alternative three um and then the full cost is um on the top um that obviously still have to be you know worked through with with mas dot and then you know the
tricky part about replacing a a mass culvert is the timing and and being you know that that may be um largely out of the town's control um so you know looking at the dollar per
cubic foot of flood reduction in this case um that combined alternative of u alternative three um is actually shows to be the lowest um cost per cubic foot um slightly slightly
lower than alternative to alone um you know but if you're able to you know if you're able to do both um you could see a potential um flood reduction um increase of but you know from 60 to almost 90% potential obviously these are
all based on you know predicted values but um this gives you um you know a good I think a good estimate of of what the potential might be um so with that um we suggested that
alternative three was your pref was a preferred alternative here um if you want to go to the next slide we can just see the um the be the before the existing versus um the modeled um flood
benefit with uh the improvement in place doesn't want to go forward there we go there we go um so you can see on the the top um the existing conditions under that 2070
10-year storm um and then um the map on the bottom shows the proposed infrastructure so um you know replacing that Tingsboro Road culvert u with a larger um box culvert and then um you
know adding in um the ability at uh Swain's Pond to control um the level there a little bit more um actively than than what is happening currently and I think I mean the important thing to note here Seth mentioned that the
topography is pretty pretty um flat in this area um you know so we're not able to um or we're not showing uh you know complete elimination of flood conditions but um but I think dramatically improved
particularly in that Dunshshire neighborhood as well as that wetland um between Dunshshire and Tinksboro Road um really I think it it Whoops it um keeps it to the the channels that that already
exist all right with that I think we're got one slide left we're a little bit over um so some recommendations from this from this study some things to consider um you know we we kind of took an approach of
within the near term and you know then thinking longer term um so some things to get started with um in the Evergreen Street area um you know a next step might be to um start the permitting process um to consider that new um MS4
outfall and the flow redirection for Deepbrook um you know consider replacing that you know maybe a two-phaseed project consider replacing the Graniteville Road culvert um be you know while you figure out funding for the um
the larger um redirection and improvement project there and for Deep Brook um again you know starting the the permitting process um to to consider the active control at Swain Pond um while also starting to talk to Masdot about
what their you know potential um improvement timeline might be for Tingsboro Road if you haven't you know that hasn't already started Um I know it can take a while um and then of course you know I mean these are not inexpensive um improvements so uh
you know looking at um different funding possibilities in the report that we provided to to DPW we did pro provide some options for potential funding mechanisms that you might be able to consider outside of you know just um the town funding it directly um so I think
that's all we have i know we're a little bit over thank you very much is um Courtney Thompson on she she didn't okay maybe Tony or Christine could answer a question i'm curious what's the next step in town
what's What do we What's this process look like well so similar to how it's outlined here with the within two years and then longterm uh so with the report it's really trying to look at what funding options we have what funding we want to move going forward um a lot of
these costs are greater than $500,000 and so it's not like we have anything in the funds right now to move forward these projects we have already worked or reached out to the state rep uh for that Tinsboro they were waiting for this report it does show what we thought it was going to show all along that that um excuse me that stone
culvert is unders sized so we're going to be passing that information forward uh so that hopefully we can he the state rep can help us with mass DOT to get any movement on that project uh but as far as the outlining on NOIs and moving forward with permitting that's something that DPW we're going to take a look at in the next six months give or take and
we'll be reaching out to David uh for what we'll be wanting to do just moving forward with those okay but as far as like timelines or projects we don't have any of that right now understood okay so thank you thank you very much Tony um so um I I'm open to a couple of quick questions here we really are a little
bit over our time and we have a lot on our agenda in the regular meeting at a at a high level if if anyone has any kind of quick questions here from the commission and we can open up very briefly to the public if there's any comments i just want to say when that's a great presentation there's a lot of
information there that we've been looking for for a long time uh I think you did a great job so that's we've had a lot of applicants in those areas right right and and and more coming up soon
peter um hi uh just quickly um thank you for answering one question a lot of applicants don't our regs require or call for an alternatives analysis which you certainly have done all the engineering um but I' I'd suggest you also think about our regs that say your
NOI submitt besides alternative analysis is supposed to identify the environmental impacts and that's what's missing from the presentation because after all we are that's our job okay at the end of the day so give that a little bit of thought sure and then just a final comment and I
don't know how this affects your project i know you guys are deep at DPW and and with you guys into this planning um but our town bylaws do talk about green infrastructure so for example the market basket project
I understand your preferred alternative and why right but our town bylaws talk about favoring if possible green infrastructure so I as just an example my my thinking is okay if you want to change the outfalls at you know
evergreen um what is the environmental impact because maybe it doesn't matter right okay I mean maybe there is no benefit in looking at the green option you don't want to do it just because you can tick off a box I mean maybe there is no environmental impact right to that wetland so that's sort of my suggestion
okay to keep permitting moving forward is and I don't know how we want to do that Carl because that's kind of a big nut I actually threw out there right because it would change you know where you're going on the permitting right i mean could could so could I don't want to belver the point but there's a couple
of those comments that I Okay could offer later okay thanks anyone else okay go ahead John i think they should move Deep Brook to number one okay and I think you on the other two
you better think of where you're putting that water on other people you're talking about shipping it under Route Three to LOL okay you ship it to LOL what's going to happen when you ship your water to
LOL same with Blackbrook you got to think of where this water's going to end up when you oversize the pipes and everything starts flowing it's going to go somewhere and it's going to go to somebody else's land so I think that's going to be
looked at okay okay but I would move Deep Brook right to the top of the list is this is this in order these are each looked at separately right yeah not really in order of preference between talking evergreen first Blackbrook second Deep Brook yeah more just in the
order the mass dot first okay okay interesting okay um I will take if there's public comment um just for a few minutes um if anyone wants to comment just or not okay oh yeah could you uh
I'm sorry but you need to come to the microphone you need to give your name and address and hi Joe Crosser 150 Dunstable Road i'm one of the I'm one of the houses in the little red box on that map and we got flooded twice because of
the dam on the exit from uh the the outlet from Swain Pond um and so right now there's a 16 inch man-made two 2 by8s block dam in that uh in that cover right now and so I'm just curious to
know what the active measure is and how that would work would it essentially remove the dam so that the turtles can come up and then and then when there's a threat of a storm something's going to magically appear to hold the water back and then then go back then disappear
again or how does that work um so Courtney you need to come to the mic okay sorry we got a treat um so and Seth you can probably chime in as well i think there's a couple different ways you can do it um you know it could be um just trying to use uh the
structure that is there to the extent we can and um putting in some type of either stoplog system or or gate system we've also done it you know very simply with just a um even a valve um that is
at the the bottom of the structure um they can be pretty simple um but no no removal of the dam i don't that wouldn't um that wouldn't help us in this case uh we need that there to
why basically to provide the storage when we need it um but but the thing will always be full and so there's absolutely no benefit to having a dam because it'll always be full you've already filled part of the water you've already filled it the only benefit you get is if you
introduce the dam before a storm um maybe I didn't explain it well enough so the idea would be that we'd actually draw down the water below where it would naturally sit um during a or before I
should say before a storm event to provide more storage provide more place for the water coming you know at the watershed to go um so you would see the the level draw down and then it would fill in as the storm happens and hold
there until the flooding downstream releases a bit and then you can can drop it back um drop it back down as you need to and and who's responsible for that because what happens if it starts to flood my property there's a lot of
things that we need to to think about until you know if we get to that point um so you know it's part of the it would be part of the permitting process and part of the whole um design process as we think about that so I can't answer that specifically um so a lot of
questions still to be answered we're very much at the concept level right well but I hear you i hear you yeah absolutely with regard to environmental impact right there's a lot of dead turtles on Dunville Road at that culvert okay okay because the dam blocks their
access got it got it okay fair all right uh I'm gonna uh Oh you Okay another one please downstream sure oh okay john Kelly 38 John Kelly 38 Dunshshire Drive okay the one um I appreciate you
bringing Debbrook into a cons um one of the problems we have with and we spoke last week or two weeks ago if you damn swam pond okay you're basically retaining water already if you keep the dam open which is always has been and I
check with as many people as you want the only people that ever closed that dam up were Mo and Glattus Putnham who own the house at the corner they damned it other people released it all the time if you keep that dam open Swain Pond
would have a steady flow maintain a steady depth once you dam it up you stop the water sedimentation fills up that pond and then the water is going to flood all the properties around there and their insurance is outrageous then I
talked to everyone in that pond in the past week and they all said the same thing they don't want it damned up you keep it an open waterway it stays deep it maintains it lack of it keeps the sediment from providing taking up your water space and
there's always empty water space there we have plenty of water to keep it you keep the dam open the water flows it keeps a channel open the water continues past my house past Unshaya Drive and everything keeps moving along you dam it
up you're you're just literally filling in your own your storage unit and I can show you tons and tons of applications i said this to David asked him to pass it along about impact of small dams this is by
mass a lot of people have done studies universities and everything else i'm going to let you pass around images of gunshot drive this happens more than
just about every other pictures of what it looks like nearly every Right okay butterfield is actually the main concern if you can keep the water instead of storing in the dam and then open it up and causing that flood keep
it everything moving along and I am afraid I disagree with the co being the problem butterfield's the problem and that's chumps it it could be handled a lot sooner and in the past when I've been in contact with mass DOT we were
actually consider they were actually considering very strongly uh doing the co themselves but they felt that the impact would be negative because of butterfield thank you okay thank you very much big
thing is David please don't dam up so thanks thanks very much to the folks at Kleinfelter and the DPW uh Tony you have something to add yeah sorry i just want one point of clarification it's not daming up Swain Pond there's existing controls out there it would be maintaining that level lowering it for
1T of water to exit before a storm when we know there's a storm of a certain precipitation coming in then putting that block back in so it maintains then that storm would refill the area it's not damning or changing infrastructure to the level I think that people are thinking it is it would just be if we
know there's a major storm event coming drop it one foot then that storm would fill it back in that prevents it from flooding further not not changing or altering the total volume or changing the level of the pond at all there's an existing condition there that we'd want to maintain okay thank you we're um yeah
we're going to close the close the discussion now thanks thank you very much appreciate the presentation thanks to DPW for um sponsoring this and uh making this happen um we do need to move on though so we will continue with the regularly
scheduled portion of our agenda um we are at the part of open session with citizens concerns do we have any public input concerns relating to issues within the jurisdiction of the conservation commission that are not currently the subject of a pending
public hearing or elsewhere in our agenda anybody from the public comments no okay and um then we have uh Mr brian Mayor from the DCR Department of
Conservation and Recreation from Massachusetts and he looks like he's in the room yes I am all right so this is about trees up at the top i heard somebody talking about Robin Hill earlier so this is trees at the top of Robin Hill put my name and phone
number on here but if you ever get to reach me you can get it through Dave i'm the district fire warden for fire district 6 and that's the 32 towns in our district goes from Ashby to Stonem and we presently run two fire towers one is up on Jibet Hill in Grten and the
other one here is in Chsford and if you look back in the history of Chsford that's always had a fire tower there was a garrison up there I think in the 1637s there was a garrison up there that used signal fires so with 400 ft of elevation it's always worked as a fire
tower from that point on uh we've had a 30-foot wooden tower put up by the region by the area local towns actually uh fell over in a hurricane they built a new one it went up to about 45 ft um and still had a 360 degree panoramic view of
the area that got knocked over in the 1938 hurricane um so if my history says in ' 64 they rebuilt it to what you see now um and that is in the blue box that is a
postage stamp 50x50 size of the fire tower that was taken back when it was put up um you can still kind of see the the the outcropping of rocks for one of the stabilizers on so that gives you an idea if you look real quickly that is looking through the trees to try and
find a fire that's when you're working in a firetw basically have an allday table and it's a giant compass in the center of your room with a with a sight and as you go around you can panoramically view 360 degrees and triangulate with the
other fire towers this view is not allowing us to triangulate with several of our towers in the northeast and that would be Essex County and that would be where we had a lot of those big fires that we had last year uh Middleton Pond
uh North Andover Boxford Ipsswitch Salem Rockport we look into those areas with that view we're not able to really assist them till that smoke gets big enough to get above those trees also that tree that that view you're looking at right there looks in the lower drake
at Tsboro State Forest why is this an issue for us none of these fires are started naturally somebody's running around out there we want to get on these earlier the opportunity with tower spots confirmation of tower spots is huge we
can get people moving in the right direction at the right time u another thing about this tower it also runs the radio communications for the district the town state police microwaves are involved so every now and then we've had to work and take down a couple select
trees so they could get the beams through the trees um it's getting more difficult because the trees keep growing because they're about 80 years old not about 80 feet tall 70 years old I guess um and it just
from the west to the northeast it really blocks it out what I'm proposing is if you'd like to top the trees or cut them down um Dave do you have control can you bump ahead the next slide that's the posted
stamp so on the northern half that's where most of the trees the pine trees are in the in the blue or uh no the blue is the area where the um fire tower is the radio uh radio shacks which way is north is that north would be straight up
okay um that's typical view trying to look up into Essex County the presently there's probably 30 they're all been dotted with a blue dot on it so if we ever wanted to do a sitewalk I am open to show you that area um it's town owned so anybody can go up
there if you'd like to visit the fire tower at any time my number Dave has it i'll give it to you at the end we can speak over here i can bring you up there and see what we're dealing with and that's what it should look like when you look out the tower with the picture on the left it's good what you
see on the right that's what we're dealing with now and I believe that's all I have if you have any questions comments can I ask um a really simple question is it crazy to raise the tower that has been proposed i don't think you
can due to the fact it it's engineered and then when you put the radio antennas they have on there now because there's about six or seven dishes are up there i don't think they would do it they just rebuilt the cabin how high is it it's it's 70 ft 68 feet okay but the trees
when it was built they probably weren't even there was a field yeah all right questions from the commission peter you have a question yeah um yeah thanks for the presentation no no problem i've had a chance to be in the tower and watch your oh staff at
work and and it's it is pretty amazing nobody understands that's what's going on up there if you haven't been there how many trees are you getting there's there's about 30 and are they mostly you say mostly pine um and then one qu two questions one
is I'm not an expert but I'm I don't know if you can actually top a pine tree i don't trying to give you options i and secondly secondly if this were approved could is DCR in a position to plant something else there that maybe a
shorter tree but something so it's not just denuted I I know there I know I can't answer that that's above me um I think if we just kind of let it go and
maintain it as a smaller open area I'm sorry that that would be just a follow-up question yeah your intention is to leave it alone i mean it's town land but Yeah it's town land unless you want us to help so that's a question I would ask is what happens maybe it does repopulate with Yeah and
then we'll be doing this when I don't know somebody else's job 30 years from now 40 years but thanks Chris you have anything yeah I've been up in the tower too it's an amazing view when you get up to the top there yep um but it was 20 years ago and I was up
there so I'm sure you can't quite see what you did when I started here in 2010 I could see through there i mean we could go in between the the tops of the trees but now it's it's unusable to the north yeah so no I support this project
i support it uh it's you know public safety for people but also overall if we can get out there and stop these fires early it's going to protect the forest and the habitat and the animals that we're supposed to be protecting so I support this
Mark yeah I I was out there probably 40 50 years ago we're dating ourselves yeah I know it and that was I' I'd like to have a field trip out there were you supposed to be out there i think this requires a site visit to go out there again
but uh I I think it it's something that's needed be needs to be done thank you but I I'm I'm just want I don't want to know get a better remedy of what you're going to do when you do cut the trees down like Peter says I want something you want something return want to put another tree back right at least
one to one yes i mean I can let the next generation of W fire wardens present this again but um that that's a valid point we're here for conservation and understood uh something slow growing I guess we can
maintain uh that's the town's decision on that um okay uh Bill I support this yep yeah john I support it okay thank you would you you wouldn't be you you'd cut them off and you'd leave the stump right well we can't cut state can't work
on non-state because that would be and I should say this this is your choice to pay for you could have a tree company come in and take the lumber for the cost of the tree for the for the cut um and then you just say "Listen this is what
you're going to leave on the ground for regeneration and do it that way." And then you can repurpose the wood into anything you really want to it can be made in the park benches you know two by large two by timber lumber for the highway department for anything they
might need it so if I'm understanding this right you're asking the town to Yeah the town because we're not allowed to cut on non-state property so the town would have to fun way one way or another well but I think the way it worked when the state police recently uh took out
some trees you know to protect their communications they h they hired and paid the contractor that's something you can't do no because it's not it's not our property we're just asking for basically permission if you guys would do us a favor so simply
put so I think we want to review this a little more i' I'd like to get some Is our Did our tree warden leave our tree warden was in the room but I don't think she's here anymore she's gone i would like to get the tree warden uh involved in this a little bit and maybe the tree
committee the tree guys are from the tree committee yeah and um Oh perfect time heard a name i'm I'm wondering if our if you heard much of this or I heard it I didn't hear it but I heard tree warden where I'm wondering
so what the recommendation is is that the town would take down 30 trees near the top of Robin Hill at the top of Robin Hill to preserve the view for the fire uh tower for the state fire district and so it's kind of what would
we be looking for in the town in terms of tree uh protection uh what your thoughts are on this we don't have to make a decision tonight in fact I would recommend we don't make a decision tonight so we would review the request um I usually go out there look at the site so I guess first have the trees all
tagged we look at them um potentially also looking at the health of a tree because if they're all deteriorated and and healthy potent that's just we look at that when we make a consideration we look for I guess a onetoone replacement um typically as well um but here I guess
you you don't want to plant new trees so we also look at potentially offsetting it and we would plant 30 trees elsewhere in town so it's a process I guess first we would I can't make a decision tonight first we would look to see um the request and and if a tree hearing is needed too that's the thing so I I have
to look at the pro so it's a couple things so I can we can coordinate on that and um and go through cost of the town too the cost of the town so we Yes 30 trees us removing two we'd look at the cost of that as well
um and so it's I guess we have to go through that whole process okay um all right then I think um what we need to do is reach out to the DCR get some more details on this do a little review of this i I would um suggest anybody from
the commission get up there uh I think you said they were marked they're blue they're already uh painted with a blue dot painted with a blue dot okay all right so they're fairly easy to see and they're close to the towerish okay all right they're not down the hill or anything it's the ones No they're
just If you If you pull in we got the tower right in front of you you'll start seeing them okay all scattered and they mostly to the north mostly to the north and then some to the east east yeah okay by this photo that's looking just about due north okay all right i I think
that's probably our next steps yeah and Christine you know this but I'll just make a comment we could certainly get the forestry part of the tree committee to render some ideas sure so okay to help and um thank you Christine um and
um I'm gonna guess the sooner the better that would help uh timing is the sooner the better i Yes and I I want to thank you for having me i mean this is I'm proposing something that's kind of going to be tough for some neighbors i understand that uh but Okay maybe we can
work something out and just a comment it's been on my to-do list to contact your organization's forester which I understand comes to communities to offer suggestions for some of our forested lands yes so I don't know if we could you know
work together even beyond the fire tower but that would be another way to turn this into a Yes I will a bene beneficial project i'll let him know okay please thank you okay thanks very much Bri Brian yeah thank you very much
appreciate it y Okay next up we have 100 Pineh Hill Road a request for clarification on conservation commission policy for cleanup of storm damage in jurisdictional areas and we have Mr eric
Ketchan perfect yeah uh Eric Ketan uh 100 Pineh Hill Road um thanks to the commission for having me tonight so um it moved to uh 100 Pineh Hill Road about 9 months ago um and down so it's two tax
parcels 100 Pineh Hill Road which is the main structure of the house about an acre and then Pine Hill Road off which is about 2 acres behind it which goes all the way down to 495 um down the western side of both parcels um I have a
stream um uh that runs underneath Pineh Hill Road and then comes onto my property um so it is worth noting that we knew this when admittedly when we bought the property is technically at the highest risk for u uh FEMA flood
zoning and that's primarily due to the risk to the off-road um piece of the land that is behind the main structure but um when we moved in we noticed that uh and David has pictures i've been talking to Dave for the past couple
weeks um there's a pretty good amount of mother nature doing its thing and trees falling and starting to dam the stream pretty close within the 100 technical 100 Pinehill Road part of the property so pretty close to the street as you can
see um and it has gotten worse obviously with the winter uh cold weather more trees coming down um and it was exacerbated and you can see it's you know that's a pretty good size log right there the depth is thrown off a little
bit by how close and how zoomed in I was um so my main concern concern and then kind of um you know protocol or resolution I'm looking for from the committee is um you know I'm worried about um it's already a
high-risisk flood zone i'm worried about damning i'm this is only going to kind of continue into the future um and so I actually had brought out um a contractor to get a quote um to see to do some other work as well on the property away
from the stream to prune some broken limbs and whatnot um but also to clear this landscape and they had told me um luckily to reach out to you to figure out what the protocol is and that's kind of why I'm here today um so I have a
contractor ready i just my concern obviously there's an optics point of view without a doubt but also you know making sure that this is flowing as steadily as possible um the land around it obviously is already pretty uh damp
and moist um and is only going to continue as we get head into the spring and summer months so um you know I'm hoping to do this as soon as possible obviously we're pre-bloom as well so that makes life easier for the contractor so but also looking to kind
of get clarity around what kind of the path is you know more generally as this is going to continue to happen over time um this I think is an accumulation of something that's been disregarded by the previous owners who flipped the house and the previous owner who was the
original owner um so just trying to get clarity on what kind of to do immediate both immediately and then you know what is you know the conservation's opinion um or the committee's opinion like what is kind of appropriate steps to you know
uh take care of this like as soon as it kind of starts sprouting up in the future as well okay so my first comment is thank you very much to your contractor for suggesting you come here to the conservation commission that's great to hear doesn't
always get phone calls from neighbors who say some contractors cutting everything down so I'm really glad to hear that um why don't we just start with some questions chris you want to start you have a question uh no I mean I just in general um I think it's always um the best point to start with is our
agent um there's certain activities that are kind of minor activities under our regulations and you know uh people come talk to our agent kind of assess whether you know it's a minor matter that can be you know maybe a site visit for the agent to go out and take a look and and
see that there's no adverse impact on our wetlands or uh our wetlands values that's step one and then a lot of times the agent will take a look and it might be something that's okay with it an exception or not if it's not then you have you know the next step is to come
in here for a formal permit um hearing this the minor kind of approach is this request for determination and that's a filing and you know hearing and we kind of then take a vote and it's all done formally got it um but that's kind of what I've seen over the years is the
process those are my thoughts carl um actually David did you go to the site have you been i have not had a chance to yet but do you have any other comments you want to add um you know I think uh and and I've said this before from a general perspective I think the commission should have a a storm water
cleanup policy um it in my hometown of Boxboro uh there the policy is when storm damage is an imminent threat to human health safety or property then um you know the the the homeowner can just
go ahead and clear it out doesn't necessarily have to be the same one here um I I I think it could be taken on a case-byase basis um I I would say you know from a general perspective you know my my primary concerns would be you know
heavy machinery operating in or very close to the wetlands um if if if if I go out and take a look at a particular situation and and I'm and I'm comfortable that there is there is no u significant impact you know from
from in that regard then I think it's perfectly appropriate for the commission to give me the authority to go ahead and allow it or take and proceed okay Mark no I agree with everything was said i think it should be done with just
uh hand you know chainsaws and stuff nothing with equipment okay uh especially if it's going to be a problem with uh water back into somebody's basement property because of that cuz I I'm I'm going through the same thing at my house now too but uh No I have no problem with
this as long as David approves it or what you you have some kind of thought process how you gonna do it yeah yeah and and I've been pushing the contractor to get the quote and I actually got it earlier today but it's you know just the cost and the estimate i don't have
details on what it would entail um so that's something I can follow up with if the next steps are to have David do his site visit and we can have that conversation and I can give him further details on what Okay what they're thinking bill you have any comments i agree with Mark as far as equipment not
using equipment doing hand work but I would feel comfortable with David being able to do this on a case-byase basis and unless it was something really out there if you could handle it through
your office rather than come be for us I think that's the better option because I I hate to see people have to pay money to come to us when they can you could take a quick look at it it's not a big deal or you can tell them "Okay we
need to go to before the commission." Yeah and I would feel comfortable with you and I think that's the most effective way to operate from the commission's perspect perspective as well right okay john anything i agree 100% okay just have Dave take a look i'm sorry John no just have Dave take a look
and figure it out i I don't think people should clean a swamp anywhere like that up because it doesn't look nice right that's not what it should be done no it's habitat too that you're pulling out of there right there is there is a habitat factor here but um but when it's
going to flood your your your lawn or the street or your driveway that that becomes an issue peter do you have any any thoughts any comments well yeah I appreciate what you guys are saying but I don't know the scope of the project yeah i mean are you talking about taking out a couple of those logs that we
looked at in the first picture but then you talked about a contractor doing some other work so that other work is unrelated to the stream that that's on on the property it's basically pruning broken branches that are kind of behind the property on the off-road like away
from the this site excuse me what would you like to do with the logs in the stream uh clean the whole thing down yeah basically because as you can see I there's one picture where it's better than the others like you can see that on the other side i think it's one of the
earlier ones David sorry about that there was like four pictures or so that on the other side of the the Yeah this one like right there in that bottom right corner the water's more still and you could see that it's discolored and like it just doesn't flow as well ahead
of that so it's kind of already begun the process of damning and admittedly like there is still good enough flow past this but I just want to maximize it yeah here I mean here's the problem these streams are supposed to have logs in them okay but obviously we don't want
people's yards flooding so I'm looking at the contours this stream is 10 ft below your basement it's not going to flood your house that's right i I just worry about the the the quality of the soil too right and the water and like what that means structurally quality of the water quality of the soil
just meaning like water content and what that means over time and like well your your second property the one you described is official wetland right so it's supposed to be wet I understand and I I this is this part that I want to
clear out is on the front part of the property so this is the 100 Pineh Hill Road parcel yeah I guess my my only point is that clearing out that whole stream is right than taking out a couple of big
trees that you're worried about creating a dam so I'm just trying to understand what you're seeking um approval for is it is it just sort of clear out all the vegetation in the stream or take out two or three big trees that's that's the question basically what's been shown
here basically what's visible on the 100 Pineh Hill Road part that is causing you know the beginnings of visible daming okay um and then having kind of protocol as you guys have already discussed on
what the process would be when it inevitably happens again albeit like I'm not certain because I've only been there for 9 months i think this has accumulated over some time sure um so you know knock on wood it's not something that comes up and and the longer it's there the better habitat it
becomes yeah so it's always better to get rid of fallen stuff sooner rather than I know that's not always I know that's not always possible but you're not looking for approval tonight anyways this is just for guidance yeah D we're I think what I heard is let David give him give him the the you know on-site
guidance and and we're good to go uh that get David heard our our concerns he has a good idea of what our concerns are and we trust he'll uh he'll make the right call on on the site i think that's what I heard yep and and that would be a great chance David for you to explain what the
wetland protection act means because there's actually a 100 foot buffer from the wetlands and a 200 foot buffer from the stream that fall under the regulations of town i mean you can do stuff in there but you have to do exactly what you're doing tonight yeah no I mean obviously it's a it's a large
property too like the two acres behind it and so I would be lying if I said you know machinations of what can be done there from personal use you can't do anything because it's a regulated of course so but you but but you will learn you will learn to appreciate all the
critters yeah no for sure the frogs are honestly we love the property um there's a ton of wildlife um it's misty meadow feeding in there we uh Yeah part of why we moved here is because we wanted to be further away from the concrete jungle
that we moved from so we appreciate it and we just wanted to operate well and us to cohabitate well and welcome to town yeah thank you very much very good thanks very much if you could have your contractor send me uh a detailed work
description of what he wants to do then then we can schedule an appointment for me to go out and take a look awesome thank you very much appreciate it okay thank you thank you very much and thank your contractor so don't take this personally
uh we are now up to the uh report from the planning board liaison to the conservation commission Mr chris Valley hello Chris good evening good evening so last meeting we heard a revised uh lighting bylaw uh from Kelly Bey and we
revoted on the revised version uh and it it passed 6 to1 we also uh continued our discussion about Kate's Corner and uh potential uh improvements to the zoning there we also discussed uh looking into
one-stop grant program uh to help fund some comprehensive review of zoning maps and uses uh specifically around getting an updated market analysis for the Route 3495 area to see what the current market
is potentially like and maybe that'll help drive some uh changes in the zoning use tables and things like that for the future um we'll continue that discussion on the grant funding uh this week we'll also
continue the Kate's Corner discussion this week um we have uh an discussion on a property on Old Westward Road actually for an ANR uh the
old uh the old uh property that had the cow and the the horse uh we also notice of intent has been filed for two houses on that property really that's next week y next meeting um we also have a
discussion on 11 Cushing Place and that boardwalk that has never been built oh okay okay okay that's it the what the uh boardwalk down at
the Trevor's favorite place all right down in the center thank Thank you Chris all right we are speaking of Trevor we are now at the regulatory portion of our hearing we are doing an RDA request for determination of applicability town of
Chsford 717588 Garrison Road and two Pinewood Road um rightways and we have Trevor Collins and we have a notice to be read legal notice pursuant to the provisions of the Massachusetts Wetlands Protection Act master laws chapter 131 and section
40 and the Chumps Wetlands bylaw Chapter 187 the Chumps Conservation Commission will conduct a public hearing here at the town offices at 50 Bilica Road on Tuesday March 25th 2025 at 7 p.m to consider the request for determination of applicability filed by the town of
Chelmsford for proposed work within 100 ft buffer zone to bordering vegetated wetlands at the paved public road right away in the vicinity of 71 75 and 88 Garrison Road and to Pinewood Road the
project entails installation of three new catch basins two new drain manholes and associated trunk lines mr chairman thank you Chris um Trevor why don't you get up and tell us about this project
hello my name is Trevor um assistant town engineer uh for downtown Chelmsford uh what we got going on is uh we plan on reclaiming uh Garrison Road from Littleton Road to Pinewood Road um during the reclaim process we do full
pulverization of the asphalt um regrade the subbase and pave back new layers of asphalt um um to your surface course so in that uh I'm able to adjust grades as needed to get proper drainage throughout
the roadway um and in this area where I'm proposing uh a new drainage uh it's not a new drainage system in ent in its entirety because it's tying into an existing drain line into an existing
drain outfall um but I need to add some catch basins to tie into that to make sure we capture that water in the low spots on the roadway um like uh like the uh proposal read I plan on putting in
two new catch basins that will attach uh link in to two new manholes uh along a trunk line that will then later attach into the uh manhole that sends it out to the outfall behind 88 Garrison Road um
the other location is a little further west uh in front of uh 90 Garrison Road I believe it is uh and it all I propose to do is there's a catch basin on one side of the road and since I put a crown in the road I need to make sure I
capture the water on the other side of the road in that same low point so I'm dropping in a catch basin on the opposite side of the road and piping it into that catch basin which again out outlets into uh the existing uh drain
line location so um this work is all within the 100 ft buffer area um and that's why I'm here and uh you know all the new drainage systems are within the
current paved roadway uh area um other than that uh the only other thing I would like to say is uh we got a I got a sequence of work that's typical by a contractor that I sent to David you know typically with the reclaim process
what we do is uh the existing road stays in place we go in we install the the the drainage um system and then we'll temp pave back in the trench until we're ready to reclaim the road and then we'll
fully pulverize the roadway and repave it uh it's just easier to do it that way uh so that uh things aren't drawn out with having just a gravel base um yep that's the project thank you david do you have any comments you reviewed this
yep um met met on site with Trevor you know it's uh easily be a negative determination just installation of I think erosion control as necessary okay all right Peter questions um yeah just a couple um hi Trevor the total length of
the project I know you sent a lot of drawings and I was looking at them but I had trouble the total length along the road roughly uh was it couple hundred feet or a thousand in just the drainage area uh the amount of pavement that you need to to uh remove or to
in just the drainage area or or the whole reclaim area of the road i think for this road just for this project for this project this filing it's about 250 ft apart sure um so yeah
I it's the low spots about 250 ft away from that manhole that's existing and that's why I have to bring it all the way over there otherwise I'd have to install leeching basins and I don't really like those because they don't last as long as catch basins and trunk
lines right and does and my my ignorance I'm sorry um does this uh do the town storm water rigs or DPWs storm water rigs apply to this kind of a project do you know or is there an exemption
what specific regs are you i I mean I look I I install the truck trunk lines where possible um you know we put I think he's I think he's referring to MS4 ms4 um I I just I would I'm just trying to learn a little bit more i don't do
all those back calculations uh yeah so uh in this exercise okay well not to belver the point i'm just curious i mean is it our commission's role to judge whether this complies with the stormwater handbook or is there an waiver or exemption well in in my
opinion it does comply with the both both the state and town Okay good regulations i defer to your analysis thank you thank you okay Chris I'm good mark no I don't have any questions with
this this is fine bill you got anything no john I'm good okay good so no no no outfalls no new outfalls on this no new outfalls it's all tying into the existing system all right um I'll take a motion public uh good thank
you very much uh any public input on this anybody in the public have a concern or a comment or I move then we close this public hearing motion from Chris to close the hearing second second from Mark all in favor i i motion the hearing is closed
take a motion on negative i move uh that we approve this uh project with a negative uh determination number three second motion uh any special conditions no no okay motion from Chris second from
Mark all in favor i i kind of missed the uh meeting so I'll abstain you'll abstain okay all right so all except for Bill voted in favor bill abstained billines abstained okay thank you so what's your schedule again Trevor on this um so this this bid is
going uh out on April 2nd and then the bid date is April 17th um in the bid documents it says uh I have a line item that says they have to comply with all erosion controls that you guys set forth um so on April 17th we'll hopefully know
who our uh contractor will be we'll set a pre-construction meeting where we'll have David there uh to discuss what this determination entailed and uh we'll go from there and obviously as they give me a schedule I'll keep you guys updated but it's summer 2025 yes correct yep
summer whatever yeah thank you guys thank you okay okay very good next on our agenda we have is the closed hearing on 10 Hild Street the uh notice of intent that we approved last week we
David sent out the conditions i'll I'll get that on the way back uh the uh order of conditions to review i know David you were also going to discuss with town council i don't know if you were were able to do that no no I
was not able to do that um just just remind me what those questions were again i just remember that you said that you wanted to check with Tom C there were issues with the PAS the board of health process said this was similar to the
bill recorder road yeah so so I have put in uh I don't know whether I had a chance to read the draft or not but I did put in uh you know a condition which I I feel does uh address those concerns
um certainly open to you know editing them uh or editing this condition if commission members would like to see something additional um so I have that up on the screen right now the the four main or five main things I I had my notes were that the applicant complies
with all local state and federal environmental laws and regulations including chord of health the turtle protection plan would be filed and approved by the agent the restoration plan filed and approved by the agent perpetual restriction on lot four to protect the habitat habitat and there would be continuous monitoring of the
site to protect the turtle habitat yeah that's that's that's all in here those are um but with with regard to the concerns that were raised about um you know the the existing contamination um and you know potential impacts to the
drinking water supply um it's this I'm intending that this condition number 26 uh address those concerns that looks like what we were looking for chris is that what you were looking for in Yeah I know i read it over too it
looks good to me with one exception uh and this might be what you were going to check with council on but we've been down this road before the way this is written it simply it doesn't require the applicant to go
through the D cleanup program it simply says give us whatever information you have which is different than saying we don't want you digging up a contaminated site so close to our
wellfield those are so it doesn't say that it just says just tell us whatever it is you've done with the state and as we have learned before the state tends to be behind or has a very long cleanup period
so it's really Yeah I think I I think what you're you're suggesting Peter and I you know I it's perfectly legitimate that that but I I think you know the bottom line is that you know the commission does not
have that the legal authority to ensure clean up the site i mean you know by providing the information and the documentation the commission can verify that it's that it is going through the process um but you know that's really
all the commission can do yeah i mean we've been down this road before which is why we're looking at some bylaw changes because we're kind of hamstrung
I think in that regard yes agreed okay um we don't have to vote i mean unless somebody has a an issue with what's in here um I didn't look for typos or anything like that uh has Brian reviewed
this yes the applicant you're there Brian he was on earlier i am oh hello Brian uh so David was for the record Brian Gdok Associates sorry I wasn't able to attend
in person but David did share the draft order with me today i did not have any comments i forwarded off to the applicant as well as um our council and I have not heard back so okay so I think
all that is left for us honestly is to sign the u the document well to vote on it vote to vote we haven't voted yet they voted to close the hearing have not voted on didn't take a vote on the conditions okay
okay and I just note somebody's hands up out in the back I think but it's a closed hearing or is that just because of an injury that's an injury injury okay i noticed that much earlier she's been She's had her hand up the whole meeting
no no it's okay all right thanks for noticing Chris well just we didn't want to ignore that okay um so I I make a motion then that we um that we approve the order of conditions as drafted by our agent motion from Chris second
second from Bill all in favor i I and Peter has to abstain you were in favor i agree with what Peter has to say but we can't we can't enforce it so I'm going to vote
i'm not going to vote for You're going to you're going to vote against Nate so we have four in favor and one against and one abstain okay thanks okay i think we're done on this topic uh okay continual business no I'm
sorry we are now at the uh 61 Smith Street and David you said that that is not ready and they are asking for a request i received a request for a continuence yes to April 8th make a
motion to continue this to our next meeting on April 8th so so moved motion from Chris second second from Bill all in favor i i okay motion passes
unanimous now we are at discussion this is the three letters that Peter has provided to us one is on the rodenticides one is on the lighting warrant article peter when you walked out of the room Chris Lavali said that
they passed that last night 6 to1 at the planning board uh last week good um and then the third one is something else can can I make a suggestion it's uh the time critical letter is the one supporting
the Marramac watershed project because that is a proposal a grant application uh Courtney Thompson is working on with Megan uh Tenhof from Nimcog and it fits what we're trying to do here and they
have a deadline so I'm hoping um that we can get you if you're willing Carl mhm uh to sign this before you head off on vacation i can the other two um the rodentic side is not that urgent um and the support of the lighting bylaw I
think if we want to do that letter that would be important uh to get out now but not as time critical as the proposal letter why don't you walk through the letter on the watershed yeah it's it's pretty simple
um our regional planning agency is is trying to get some data do a study very similar to what you just heard from Kleinfelder but for the whole watershed you know all the eight NIMCOG towns and maybe a couple of others and the idea is
to do exactly what Kleinfelder did figure out what's going to be flooding as it rains harder so that would really help us because we're currently uh and we might have to change our regs if we want to
use it but we're currently looking at old data when we look at the flood zone on the town GIS so the purpose of this is to get a better analysis of what's likely to flood in the whole region including
Chsford so that that's the short version um um when I'm I'm looking at it and the wording says the Marramac wershed and I know that everything's relative that includes conquered river as well yes okay yes and it actually is additional towns than the just just the eight that
Nimco works under it includes Bedford and a few others okay so my attitude pure and simple is we're going to get a bunch of smart people to help us assess our wersheds is really the the bottom line here and and we don't have any uh further commitment uh no from our point
of view other than be informed be supportive and um correct there's none of those inind services or actual funding and I will say if the commission would like I'd be happy to be the one that you know works with them or does
whatever and report back okay with this I make a motion Carl that we approve um this letter as drafted and that you sign the Second motion from Chris second from Bill all in favor if you're willing i I
I I I We Sorry we all said yes so all right and then the second one if you want to dive into it and if you're tired we I guess we could not do it but my thought was um um David help me out here but we this commission has talked a number of times
about how light outdoor lights can mess up our uh goal of protecting habitat and that's part of why um is it Kelly Bey sorry Kelly if I got your name wrong gave us a presentation a while back and
and the whole idea is that uh I don't want to get into the lighting code because I don't understand it all the planning board did a lot of that work and I think Chris did but the bottom line is instead of shining a spotlight out here that blinds nighttime critters you you put them down on your property
is the simple version so what I tried to do Carl is is honor your request um to just say "Look one of our mission is to protect habitat and this would be good but we're not you know the lighting expert." So we defer to the the planning board's work
on the actual language because you know I don't understand all the language um then the only thing I will mention is in our in our uh bylaw you know there's about 13 of these so-called values you know the flooding the groundwater and the letter says
three of our values that we're here to protect are benefit from this thing wildlife habitat the rare species stuff David you remember the turtle we had a bit of discussion about lights and turtles and then we have a value in our town bylaw that is simply called aesthetics yeah you didn't spell it
right did I spell it I might have I did look it up because I'm looking at it now and it's got the the spell check thing it is a problem yeah oh is there really second paragraph last word no kidding uh well wait a
minute um I'm sorry i had somebody proofread it and change all that stuff in this version of the letter okay so I don't think that is correct though oh the one I wrote isn't correct that's not correct it's not No no I changed it i changed it i changed this is correct i I
I went through and did all this one's correct all right so and it appears twice okay so I'm Well I apologize if you sent a revised version i didn't No no I didn't send it because I just did it because I because I asked my wife to read it for me
all right so the suggestion is that we are sign it that that we sign it in that the the the gist of the p of the letter is that it's supportive of our values correct without being specific about the the details correct and honestly it's a
good point because I know like I think someone brought it up might have brought this up a year ago and actually I know personally I've actually made some changes to my own lighting at home kind of following up on this because I really don't need to have all those big lights out there for security purposes where
you know I keep them on certain hours but some of the you know I've gone to like motion detectors now with a lot of it because I don't need to have it all lit up and stuff like that it's honestly it's u you know it even keeps my neighbors happier too to be honest well there's that and and I might have told this story but I first thought about
this 10 20 years ago I had big flood lights and I'd hear about twice a year I'd hear a sound as loud as somebody throwing a softball against the side of the house and then that winter I in in a snowstorm I could see the it's called the tail drag from an owl or whatever
and then I realized that I did some homework and they do tend to get blinded and then slam into things i don't know so okay uh take another motion i'll move that uh we approve this letter as well carl you sign it on behalf of the commission okay motion from Chris second
second from Bill all in favor i I Okay motion passes i will and and Carl there I'm sorry there was one slight other piece um my vision and I could do this is to just send this to our town meeting reps and the select board which I'm
happy to do is that acceptable to you guys or would you rather do it a different way distribution i think send it to the I don't know if I'd get the town meeting Rob yeah I'm not sure well they're going
to be voting on the article is the point i mean do you want to maybe address it at town meeting when it comes up and just go up and uh and basically say the commission took a vote and we support this okay do you want me to send this or We have a suggestion I think oh thank you thank you thank you save me yeah
finance committee is meeting this Thursday um to talk about their recommendations and to put together their booklet so if you wanted it included in the booklet you could probably send it to Jim Clansancy probably in the next day or two yeah
that makes sense yeah that makes more sense great i like that and then I I think still you know town meeting you'll be there i'll be there you know we can get up there together we could do a tag team yeah tag team could you could you could make me do it yeah as a
citizen yeah okay thank you we could we could there night to do it and then how's your energy level yeah let's move on from there you want to just table the cuz it's not time let's move on cuz I um we have still a lot thank you yeah but um so thank you everybody that one the
next that one's important to the Escars one but um I don't want to say we're tableabling it for not being important we're tableabling it because I actually would like to talk about that some more and it's not time critical there's not a like a town meeting vote coming up that I'm aware of thanks for doing all that
yeah thank you yeah thank you for supporting it i think Yeah good stuff looked like a lot of work on a city we didn't have to do it next on our You can do the next one i ain't doing nothing go john is John is just right out there i know though i think Bill you wanted to write these
letters i know you fighting over it all right next on our update is the update on Freeman Lake and I know I have not had a chance to get out there and look at the plan against what's there uh I don't know if anyone else has yet i went up there did you anybody
else can we table this till the next meeting i I definitely would like to get out there but I just didn't get a chance out there that was kind of the next step was to look at the bound the the proposed boundary marking locations and and give me your feedback on those
maybe we can go out take a look i'll go up to North Johnson bill maybe we can get take a look together if you know exactly where you got get your shots my shots oh yeah we'll give you some shots passport if you're going to not bring your passport
all right um sorry that we don't have any more on that on Freeman Lake uh anything else on that though David or any other Okay there there I don't know if this is relevant um I had a chance to sit through part of the there was a good uh dialogue today a Zoom call on the the
herbicide that will be coming before us or I shouldn't say it that way the Freeman Lake treatment option NOI which will be coming to us in the near future so okay that's coming let the technical people they were hashing it out okay
next thing is our discussion and vote to designate the wetland bylaw and implementing regulations review subcommittee so um I think you know it was 2009 was the last time we had any changes implemented i as I understand it was mostly worked on in 2008 our friend
Mr mclaclin I think Ruth Luna I'm not sure who else i think Chris you were on Kennedy were you involved in that oh yeah okay oh oh yeah painfully painfully and you're painfully involved and it was a really there was a lot of time with it and some of the
members were really went down into every little every little nit so you suggest that I don't get involved right i don't know it's good to have the big picture too yeah that might help us John you know the big picture keep us out of the rabbit hole John my Montana plan i think what we've seen in the last year or so
with a lot of our hearings that we um it's time to take another look at some of these maybe the committee will come back and say we don't want to change anything and that's that's a possible outcome i think it's unlikely but it's a possible one and I think there'll be a
few changes yeah there's there's definitely some things to clean up and and change but also there is a MACC um template that they have that we can use as a standard and see if we're better not as good whatever and maybe some
other towns and maybe some other things from our learnings as well and even some simple things you we were talking about the trail work you know just some wording on some things so that it's easier to do trail things maybe even things like we heard earlier about the the storm water cleanup um you know the
storm uh damage cleanup maybe there's something there we can put in there so I know I think I heard Peter and Chris are interested is there anyone else who is interested i'm willing but I don't want to push anyone else off and I think three would be anything more than three we get into a quorum
what do you think John i'm I'm not seeing anybody jump okay well the idea is to do the work and bring it back to this commission for discussion right not to If you can limit it to one two or three meetings that's great well this can go on forever agree i mean honestly
the last time it it dragged I signed up for it last time and it it it dragged on for a much longer than I had anticipated and I was you know it was it was a pain and I was having to pull out of work like an hour i Well I had to pull out of work and I had to pull out of work like
an hour early chris was going to retire to do this you know i I pul I had to leave work i was way down to Marvel at the time i had to drive all the way out of there an hour early for these meetings and it it turned into like um you know at least a dozen meetings agree longer than I want so we don't want to like we don't want to have it turn into
that type of like agree but it's got to be effective i mean it's got Right and and the other thing you you can make anything work if you have the time to do it right you can stretch it out for weeks yeah yeah but if you I think if you put Do you agree Pete if you put a time on it absolutely and and and and my
my thought is it's remember when we all got together like a year ago for an off-site or session to just talk about things that we thought we could do differently i'm thinking is that kind of thing with with some of these the work that's already been done right i mean we'll start with what we have and then you've
got the MACC kind of standard and so you kind of kind of line those up we've got like a couple of the other towns you're familiar with too so we've got a couple of samples we kind of line it up and then I think at a bigger picture you want to say like what what are things we might want to consider start at the
bigger picture and then maybe drill down after we've kind of come in with a few issues and then present it to everybody here for consensus you know and keeping in mind that changes to the bylaw have to go to town meeting right changes to the regulations are only a public hearing exactly okay do is do
they have to go to the select board you check on that um I haven't had a chance to do that yet uh I I know that new regulations or you know when the when the commission first um implements them that the select board does have to also vote i don't think that's the case for just changes
but I will okay check on that we certainly didn't do that in the past doesn't necessarily mean that was the right way to do it but I know in the past we we took a vote on the regulations and and that was it and published them yeah okay all right so Peter and and Chris and I and David and
if we have members of the public and if there's anyone I mean we can certainly be open to input um we can figure out if we want to set up times or meetings I'll right I'm going to be gone for a little while so I'll let you guys figure well and I have to double check with the town clerk um just just to confirm that this
is subject to the open meeting law so has to be posted okay but but it's a subcommittee yeah do do it right yeah do we want to try to get a couple public members on the committee itself or just do it
through the open meeting law and anyone interested if we do no meeting anyone yeah i think I think it's just go crazy right it could go we we we know we know one citizen who is interested keep it small because there has to be a public hearing right so the public could get
involved well yes when when the commission finally decides what they want to vote on but you know just working up to that you know they just have to be public why don't we say right now we'll we'll keep it to our our group for now but we're open to any input from any any citizens
that want to sub submit any any suggestions and and well well if the meetings are public and a citizen shows up I mean can they provide input at the meeting or do you provide input when it comes
before our board as a whole in theory yes um in theor yeah I think the committee can manage the minutes of the meet of the meeting as opposed to asking at like 10 in the morning or something crazy like that i ain't going We're not going to be meeting at 10 in
the morning i I think we at your convenience like we did with the open space and recck plan we had we had we had a really good guy doing minutes but um we can probably make a really good No I meant I meant you know right um keep taking you got to
strike that comment put that in the minutes tonight but but I meant I I meant it in that in that he happened to be quite good as opposed to what what I'm going to see with our three if it's the three of us it may not be as
good but we can manage i just want to make sure I understand so so are you open to having a citizen actually be on the committee no I don't think so no no but we might be open for some public input at some point i think why don't you have the public input when it comes before the board i like it better then i
do i like it better like you said I agree with you yeah put together what you want have a meeting let them listen to it then right and bring it back here and we have a discussion and take it from there right okay let's do that's what I'm hearing so let's go be welcome to attend these meetings or not well
Dave is going to find out if Yeah I'm I'm pretty sure it does have to be a public you know meeting subject to the open meeting law but it doesn't mean we have to take public input we don't we don't have to i think you'll find No you don't have to you can if you want to
public meeting right it's not just a public meeting but but if if someone calls me and asks me I really like to know what to tell them right they can come and listen okay yeah yeah and then they can offer suggestions at when it comes before the whole board
yep is that that Can you do it that way yeah okay yeah sure you can then let's let's go with that okay that is it so we're we're good with that uh bylaws um land management update on Kulis Farm so um we have two
agricultural license agreements one for the um Hunt Road parcel for the pumpkin man mike Razbeck Mr mike Raybeck good night Mr schneeringer and um David um these are license
agreements for the year 2025 going forward yes and I and I was going to check on whether whether it statutoily has to be restricted to just a year or it can be more than that so um I haven't
had a chance to do that yet i'd like to make a comment i think it'd be better for a longer time span three to four years at minimum because of what it
takes for a farmer to build a field up okay and then somebody sees the field being they come in and say "Oh that field's growing good i'll bid against you well but see that's the thing if it's a license it doesn't have to go out to bid
if it's a lease it does what I'm not sure is whether whether a license can can't be for any more than a year that's what I have to check on if it if it can be then the wording can be changed to three years or four years or whatever three years at least minimum okay just
have to double check five would be better caroline's young mike's a little older he's going to get sick of feeding the deer he might need months he's going to get that i didn't say that but I but I think you I think you know I mean the commission can go ahead and take a vote
to authorize Carl to to sign just pending the final wording that's fine yeah that's right yeah could we put words to the effect of it being renewable or does Let's let's go let's go with what we've got now i'll sign it and if
David comes back and says it can be changed we'll just void the old one and start with and go with a new one at least they have for this year they'll have something signed and ready yes yes and and we'll we can we can modify it and change it and void out the existing
one if we have a new one in two weeks or four weeks or something like that that make sense right it gets it going but our intention is to have longer leases we want to go longer as long as it's legally permitted okay so so you think that would be good we can ask her good for Carolyn though to John's point the
farming yeah because if you had done it last year if you would said no she can't do it this year she's got money into it exactly you know fertilizer and a seed or whatever she's put already down exactly so it's we just need to know the details from Okay town council um I'll
I'll speak to Paul if he says we need to consult council say okay all right all right so say okay i I move that we uh vote to authorize our chairman to sign the two agricultural license agreements motion from Chris second for Bill all in
favor i all in favor all all voted pos uh supporting and I will sign that and um next thing on our list uh was there anything else on Cool David i don't think there was oh we went out we went out there and looked at that tree that was down the I
think that's all cleaned up did they clean it all up it's all in a pile to burn all that stuff they've been pulling up plus some uh just the whatever was left of that tree is piled up on that uh concrete pad on the right thing it's on the concrete
pad yeah the tree on the right half of it fell down yeah okay that's all been cleaned up so So is the tree that we looked at has that been taken down i don't think so which one do you look at straight out the one that was hanging over they cut some they cut off they did okay okay okay yeah that's been
cut not the whole tree though but No just the part that was not safe yeah that's cut off and and and could I make a comment um let's not get wrapped let's not talk about this tonight but when you go to the MACC training and you talk to a collegist you're kind of supposed to
leave the wood on the site for a whole bunch of reasons not take it off site that's that's our standard and not burn it now that's a bigger topic than tonight the stuff they mostly burn is the all the invasives that's what that big pile is
I know but there's other there's a stuff that the critters use and you know all that stuff we talk about that later um next thing on our list is the Norway tree removal and replacement planning so we met out there with Was that last
Friday seems like 100 years ago i know i forget what day it was was two Fridays ago monday when tuesday i don't know but we had a uh good representation from a handful of residents uh there were uh the DPW was there the land trust Dave
Sperry from the land trust was there Peter and and Bill and I were there um and um so there are something like 14 Norway maples that are on that property just to the left uh as you look at the towards the water from the parking area
and so the DPW will be out there to take them down i think I heard a week from today um in the morning they will take those down and they have a number of trees that they have targeted to acquire and can use um some of them to replace
the Norway maples along with probably get some more shrubs and some other things in that area so um just to let you guys know that's what's what's happening there and um someday there may be a um disability trail accessibility
trail that would go down to the water the the land trust is looking at possibly having a uh a dock like a sitting dock and a canoe launch out there um but this group is really motivated and and doing a really nice job of planning out a lot of work there
and um they're excited about it um they are looking to do a um around the the native planting pollinator planting to put some fencing and um got a quick quote from for $800 that they're looking to see if we can
support that i think in principle we can support that but I'm a little concerned David and I were talking about it and that the height of it for deer um has to be more than four feet i mean I don't know you know we worried about five feet for our little uh turtle friends don't get me going they they had a they had a
plan carl the we asked that question i You might have been off looking at the I I saw that the answer was we're picking deer resistant native plants was there Okay oh okay approach they like everything okay yeah right
well so trust me um so are we okay with supporting uh up to $1,000 spend on uh on materials for this we want to vote to approve that and then they can start buying fencing and Well I just think as long as as long as the money's well
spent no it's a uh it has to be a high enough is it if if it's not well they're talking about you put in concrete that won't do it reinforcement won't do it i know they're convinced of wire there's some square you know the sheets whatever that means i'm using that about deer i
mean whatever it means for deer peter let's have one you go ahead i'm sorry no you go ahead you going the fencing they were looking to do was uh the they were using the uh was a couple different types of fences put together mhm uh part of it was the the
uh the wire fencing that you put in a concrete slab that was part of it then they were adding another type of fence intertwined with that which reduced the
6x6 square hole down to a smaller area at the bottom and then it was bigger at the top it was kind of a combination of fencing together it was wire matting like for concrete yeah wire mat for the concrete oh that was a fence but there was that was part of the fence but there
was other fence that was incorporated in that oh it was a combination of fencing one of the guys there one of the guys that's part of the group the question is the height so so let's just say if we're okay with spending money but let's talk about exactly you know if the 8T is or 6
feet yes that's what we found in Boxboro it needs to be 8 ft really dear fencing is usually eight 8T but but the but the flip side if it's not deer if it's deer resistant plants it's going to be a wood
chuck the it's going to be something the the flip side is my yard is my yard is full of deer resistant perennials my yard is full of deer and woodchucks and they don't seem to eat my deer resistant native perennials that's all I know i don't know a lot
about it and they they said they had done homework and felt comfortable but I you've got different experience apparently i don't know that fence sounds a little hokey to me how about a sign that says no deer what's that are you going to join the group what do you mean join the group
well if if you're going to consult I'm not into hokey 6x6 concrete mesh for concrete i'm just trying to let let this group do their thing and you know if they learn about something if they make a mistake they'll they'll figure it out and they'll as
nobody gets hurt well that too that's a that's important to a kid climbs up a fence because it's there he gets hurt on it falls and hits his head this something we do fund these projects we can sure i
mean this is we we I don't know you tell me do you want to have them come in and show us the fence and maybe they can look into it and we could do that we could do that why don't we do that why don't we have them come in make a make a presentation on what the fence would be like and we can have some more discussion and we can all go off and do some homework on on 8 foot fences if I
could and if I could if I could just if I could just add though when you think about the funding right what strikes me is I guess you did it that you organized this thing or whatever but it was it was coming together of DPW Concom the local
residents to do something good for one of our pieces of conservation i remember you and I and Bill I think we were saying wow this could be a model if this takes root this kind of collaboration cuz the local neighborhood people are willing to maintain the thing remember we have that issue some stuff gets built
and not maintained so my thought was it's a good project to support either with money or just by talking about it here and with the idea that maybe another neighborhood group might adopt right another area where we could bring
the town resources DPW on the trees And you know and and by the way our uh Gian Carla Kalpus is involved our native plant person in town so there's like a Right it was a good thing going on maybe you could have them come in because they
were also wanted to cover the uh the water tank with a some kind of structure maybe they come and where that was going to go maybe they come up with a little little plan showing what they're looking for then we can appropriate if we want to donate
to it we can Okay well we'll have a better idea at the next meeting April 8th meeting you know what's going to happen okay dear a little deer is going to come up there get caught up in that fence die and somebody's going to be mortified over it
well it can happen or Oh it happens or we can start our deer management same as a turtle climbing the fence or hire the the bow hunters yeah or or John we could start our deer management program and use this as the first location all right
let's finish up here uh I'm going to say we're going to table that for the next meeting dave can we make a note to include this in the next meeting i'll reply to Mr boutton and so so what is what is what is the title of the of the item the agenda uh Thanksgiving forest
um plans uh Thanksgiving forest pollinator plan presentation and review yeah yeah and they can include that little water tank and how they're going to the location i think you I think you're on those emails with him yes okay
all right agents report anything else Mr agent uh no I do not nothing else and certificates of compliance we have 141 Littleton Road and 30 Russell
Road so so 141 Littleton Road is right next to the Lime Quarry right it is and there's I've been able to find absolutely no record whatsoever in the files about what the project was was that the garage on the house uh I don't think there is a garage there well I I
think I think it's I think it's Is it right before Lime Quarry on the right it's the house with the garage they built a garage on that house that's what that was yeah it was a twocar garage on the house okay that was a few years ago um for whatever reason it's another one
of those situations where the the file has just completely disappeared so but I went out and took a look at the property everything looks good um same thing with the 30 Russell Road okay recommend approval so I'll take a motion to for approval of May I ask a
question i'm sorry i know it's getting late david did you see this building that's on the town GIS right next to the wetlands when you went out there uh yes there was a shed way back there where's that about that's on 141 we built that me and Mark
it's in We did you built that shed it's a dog house it's a big dog house it's in the wetland that used to be where the police could keep their dogs the police The police dog was there policemen lived in that house boba right right right
really it was probably 50 years ago over 50 years ago yeah wow you guys built it 50 years ago i don't know who lived in that nice job it's a 50-y old shed that was a dog it's a big You found the Peter you know I I don't think the statute of
limitations has run yet well I'll just say I told Carl this but speaking of dogs uh since I had never been out to L the Lime Corey reservation before I decided to take this opportunity to go out and um just walk around the reservation and so uh so there's a
there's a ver you know there's a vernal pool there on the right when you go in i was I was looking at that listening to the wood frogs all of a sudden right in back of me woof woof woof woof you know some big dog right in back of me was was barking and I turned turned around and
you know the owner he was off leash the owner said "Oh don't worry he's friendly." So I I I was tempted to say you know dogs have to be leashed but I didn't say anything so then so you know I went for a little bit of a walk then when I was leaving someone else uh came
past me and they had two dogs weren't leashed uh I I I said then I did say you know dogs are supposed to be leashed and she said she said "Well it doesn't say anything you know are you going to arrest me?" Um little did she know so
I'll pull up my badge conservation agent well so so but I but it says that you know there's a sign that says um on the kiosk dogs are dogs are to be leashed so I went down there and looked at it with her sure enough the sign wasn't there
looks like looks like you had fallen off or something and someone else right at that time came went walking by with two big dogs who weren't leashed so I just kind of gave up at that point but so so that that sign needs to be replaced i
think the perception is is that dogs don't have to be leashed that's definitely the perception on our properties could be and Yeah and um Carile it's allowed uh and you heard what happened last month in Carile right yeah that was not good
okay um so we need to do a little work on our kiosks and get the signs up and um so I'll make a motion back on the certificates of compliance that we issue our certificates of compliance for 129-0467 141 Littleton Road as well as
129-0921 which is 30 Russell Road motion from Chris second from Mark all in favor i I abstain for a mentioned reasons okay no conflict of interest to see here okay sorry uh and we don't have any
meeting minutes uh to approve and our next meeting is April 8th in Is that two weeks it's two weeks yes two weeks we're not at a three-week cycle right now okay okay i'll take a motion to adjurnn i
know there's there's five Tuesdays in this month in April yes i think in April april it'll be it'll be a a gap okay gotcha move to adjourn motion with Chris second from Bill all in favor i I thank you we're
adjourned thank you very much chel media