all right well the first item of business on our agenda is just an informal conversation with with Cody and Alex about the White Birch Campground and um uh Cody and Alex I don't know if you're familiar with the Wetlands
Protection Act or the role of conservation commissions um I'm not super familiar with the act itself but I I think I have a basic understanding that you know there are buffer zones that are ideally enforced
and you know the overall goal is not to you know destroy wetlands or wreck those ecosystems and that you have a little bit of ability to flex the rules in special circumstances but in general
your role is to try and make sure that they're protected and respected yeah so we can um we can uh hear what you have to say and what you're what you're proposing what your questions are and then we can respond to that and along the way you
may learn a little more about our role or at least you'll know what the procedures are so that if you end up coming before us with a proposal you know you'll have some sense of what to expect definitely um so I don't know if Cody if
you're able to screen share um I put together like a little file um just showing like we we went around the campground and we geollocated every single site um and I got the wetlands map that's available online i don't remember if it's through FEMA or the GIS
but I I got what I could to try and show like our understanding of the site at least to get a rough concept together for you guys um um I don't know if it's possible for uh for Cody to share his screen or for you guys to see that um I think I just
permission Cody so go ahead all righty um we have we have two files here uh but what Alex had shared was should be so this is the overlay with the site map and the wetlands right
so right you have your wetlands you have the campground and I've got a list of goals for the campground right so this is the overlay um you can kind of see like from my best guess trying to kind of compare those side by side i think we've definitely got sites that are um
you know within the buffer zones um and we certainly have sites that are on the border of the brook itself um but I don't believe we have sites that are explicitly in wetlands although I understand that that's like an organic moving target um you know very happy to
you know go over there with you guys it's our goal to you know restore this campground and operate it as it was so you know we would we would prefer not to change the location of anything you know and to maintain and repair the existing sites um but I believe on the board of
health meeting or maybe the ZBA meeting um there was mention that maybe some of the tent sites might be in wetlands so what I wanted to see is with that if that's the case could we walk that together try and get a rough idea of if
that's true and if so like say okay well we're probably not going to be able to get them out of the wetlands completely but or out of the buffer zone but can we you know move them out of the wetlands into an area that's as distant as we can get it without you know rebuilding the world and doing a ton of site work um
and try to maintain the operational capacity of the campground so when you're looking at the map uh that we did the the yellow pins are the tent sites and then red red and other color pins are um RV sites basically i don't know
if you are still my screen folks I can also email this to you guys um but the like the yellow dots towards the back of the lot are the ones that I think are like more questionable um I think everything else is we're
definitely close but I don't think there's too much besides those that might be in wetlands um like I think everything else is going to be you know probably some stuff is pretty close to the buffer zones but I don't think we're going to be directly in wetlands anywhere else where there might be one
or two sites in the tent area that that could be um let me just interrupt you for a minute to uh if just to let you know since you're on the phone you you wouldn't know otherwise but Deb Carney from the zoning board of appeals is on here at the meeting and so is uh Brent
Jerks uh from the from the planning board so you have representatives from the planning board and the zoning board here i'm happy to to open up the discussion it doesn't have to be confined just to conservation commission issues so uh you know just wanted you to
know who's there so there's the the five of us on the commission there's the conservation agent Kelly and then there's Deborah and Brent i just I had a question on the Well hey guys the further I guess I'm looking at the yellow X's the further ones that are closest to the I guess it's the brook
there is there like a dirt road or a pathway there or are they just like previously marked sites or they like newer sites that you're trying to rehab oh there's so there there are definitely sites there so there is a gravel road i believe there's a culvert with part of
it like over part of the brook or or the brook goes through a culvert i don't 100% remember um because I spent you know half a day on the campground so far um you know inspecting everything but um there's water hookups and there's like flattened out areas the sites are not
super built out um but they're they're pretty clearly sightes um and the road is pretty clear it all needs cleanup um that's I mean that's the biggest thing with this campground is there's a lot of cleanup that needs to be done i'm just trying to just interpret the map i just that just gives me a mental image
yeah for sure um so those those yellow dots um there's a couple of sites indicated on like the the park map that the seller has that I didn't find as I was there like I think there's a couple spots where there might be sites that the um that just no longer have water
hookups and I only marked where there were hookups um so it could be stuff that the seller removed um because she wasn't filling it or something um but I I pinned everywhere that there was some kind of hookup um and like very clearly a site and then there's a couple spots
where like she has a couple junk trailers and a pile of trash that we would intend to get rid of and um we hope to find water hookups we'd like to bring them back if we can and use those as sites um like our number one objective especially in the first you know however many months of operation if
we're able to do some part of the season this year is going to be about you know removing the junk trailers removing trash from the campground um removing any hazardous trees um I know there's some concern about the bridge out front
which um is definitely in like a wet area um what I wanted to find out if it would be possible is you know there's concern on whether that bridge is strong enough for a firet truck to go over it and um my thought was that a very simple
solution would be to replace it with a large concrete culvert which would still allow the river to flow but we could widen the road a little bit and get rid of this concrete bridge spanning 20 ft um and make something that's very obviously you know going to be
structurally sound um but I know that that is like definitely in an area that's either in or very adjacent to wetlands so I don't know what the process might look like to to propose and and try to get that approved but that's something that I was hoping to explore because I think it would be a
very simple solution um for that question of the of the bridges structural integrity so for for the conservation commission issues and jurisdiction I guess the first thing I would say is that the maps of wetlands that you can find on on Mass
Mapper and others are not official and they're based on aerial photo interpretation rather than field delineation and generally under reppresent the amount of wetlands that are likely to be there um so the one of
the first things that you'd need to do if you acquire the property is hire somebody to delineate all of the wetlands on the property so that we have a good solid map we would come out and review the delineation once we've agreed on the the boundaries of the wetlands
then you have a better sense of what you have to work with um you know there's there's clearly upland areas that can be utilized on the site they're currently being utilized but it's hard for us to be able to say you know what you can and can't do right now without a firmer idea
of where the wetlands are uh the Culver crossing that you talked about you know people replace crossings uh that isn't an area that floods extensively there it's very wet it's the wetlands are much more much larger than
what are shown on that map now and so uh generally covert replacements need to meet stream crossing standards which means that a a concrete box culvert could potentially work but it would have to be embedded it have to be counter sunk into the ground and a uh a stream
channel constructed inside it uh sometimes we you recommend that people go with an open bottom structure like an open bottom box that retains the the stream channel in a more natural state but because it's a it's going to flood there it's you're dealing with flood
plane too so you know having an extra wide crossing would help pass the water and prevent it from daming up on on the upstream side those are just thoughts those are not like anything hard and fast that you can take to the bank it's just that those are issues that we would
consider those are questions we would likely ask about if you came before us with a design to replace that that crossing got it okay i have a question scott is it is there different standards like if saying a lot of them are like tent site
is that like a more minimal disturbance than having like a motor vehicle is there like different standards for that yeah I mean that's for us to consider what the likely impacts would be so you know the the way the wetlands regulations are set up is there are what
are called resource areas which are areas that are protected by the wetlands act those would include streams ponds wetlands flood planes and land within 200 feet of perennial streams so whether they're actually wet or not the areas
within 200 feet of that stream that's out front are protected areas and then adjacent to uh intermittent streams and and ponds and wetlands there's a 100 foot buffer zone and we re we can
regulate activity within that 100 ft but it's with the intention of protecting the resource areas the wetlands and the streams so activities can occur within that 100 ft we generally like to see some buffer from the the edge of the stream or the wetlands but it's not
prohibited it's just that it's often misunderstood what that 200 foot zone is that's going to be along the uh running uh the uh bloody brook that runs uh near the near the road um you know that's a protected area so we would want to limit
the amount of work that occurs within that 200 foot zone uh where there's already disturbed areas there's more flexibility to sort of upgrade and reuse areas that are already developed so previously developed areas
uh you know can be reused and areas that like those tent sites if they're in the buffer zone of of that smaller stream or wetlands that are there you know there is some flexibility to allow some use in the buffer zone
that makes sense um a question on that note so you know in general our intention here is to you know repair and maintain a pre-existing campground my understanding of the code would be that there's like that can be done by right
what is it that you guys would want to see like wetland delineation and full applications for like what type of work is going to is going to you know uh require that so the way it's set up is like if you're maintaining a structure you know like if
you're you know repairing a roof on a structure or you know painting it or you know repaving a driveway that was pave you know that stuff is maintenance of existing structures but if you're going to do a tear down and a rebuild that's something that would fall in our
jurisdiction if you're within a resource area in most cases you'll have to file what's called a notice of intent which is essentially a full application for a permit uh if you're in the buffer zone there's another uh filing that you can
put forward called a request for determination of applicability where that's an official request to the commission to determine whether a permit is necessary and if you're very close to the boundary of a of a wetland or or a stream you're more
likely to get a yes you are subject to the wetlands act and you do need to file a notice of intent if you're like more than 50 ft away and the ground is level we generally issue negative determinations at sometimes with the condition that if certain work concerns
us that you have silt fence or other uh erosion control in place when you do the work uh so it's it depends on where you whether you're in the buffer zone or whether you're in uh one of those resource areas which includes flood
plane and also that 200 foot riverfront area along this the perennial stream yeah okay so I guess as far as like all the existing sites um if we're not making any changes to them and all we're doing is like cleaning them up getting
rid of any dead trees that are a hazard to campers is there any reason why we would not be able to just you know use the campground as it was previously used i don't imagine that there's going to be a problem unless they were there's worked in wetlands that shouldn't have
ever been allowed uh but um there are also sort of trade-offs can that can be made like if you need a little bit of room here and you're willing to give up something somewhere else so that on balance it's a it's a it's a wash or it's an improvement for the environment
we have some flexibility around that but you know reusing the same areas for the same purpose without you know expanding it or uh significantly changing the the nature of the land and the land use there's probably you have an expectation
that that would be allowed okay so I guess my question there something that you said does uh alarm me a little bit the because you said if something was improved that never should have been allowed and we're you know we're purchasing the campground with the
intent to use what's there and if if we were told you know after buying the campground oh those 30 sites are too close to the wetlands you can't operate that would destroy our business model you know um so this is like something that I want to understand because you
know we went there and and walked it and you know it's mud season so there are some wet areas um but overall I mean to me logically looking at it everything seemed reasonable to operate as is but like if we bought the campground
tomorrow and then we're told that we could only operate half the sites because they're too close to wetlands um I mean that would be very much not okay for us you know for our business like if we were if if if that's the line uh like
this just like kind of makes it impossible for us to invest into this park you know what I mean yeah no I understand it's um like we do want to improve it but we we can't afford to go into a situation where we're going to be told after spending a bunch of money oh
well you just can't actually operate that right so we can't we can't really say much about things we haven't seen you know so like if there are campgrounds in the wetlands
you know we can't ignore that that not supposed to be you shouldn't be camping in a wetland if you're talking about next to a wetland then we have to look at you know whether there's some adverse impact happening because those campsites are where they are um Okay but if you're
not in the wetland there's probably some something that could be arranged but whether it's all that you want to do or art or most of what you want to do hard for us to say so normally what you what we would re you know what we would recommend is is that you hire uh a
wetlands consultant somebody like Ward Smith who comes out and he can tell you where the wetland boundaries are he can look at how close the campsites are he's come before us multiple times he could probably give you some good advice and say "Yeah I think they'll probably let
you do this but this over here this is the one that worries me." You know get some professional advice because we can't really say a lot to you informally we can go and look at the site but we can't get we can't discuss with you how
we would possibly decide that has to happen at a public meeting so we can't give you the same level of advice that somebody like Ward could give you that makes sense i mean I would honestly if you're willing I would really appreciate if we could you know set up a
time to meet there just because you know obviously we're right now we're we're sort of locked up in contract in like a gridlock position and we don't want to like string Mrs read and her husband along but we also don't want to you know spend a bunch of money on the campground
or spend you know a bunch of money on engineering without really having like a fairly good idea of what we're getting into um you know I definitely um you know appreciate the suggestion we'll definitely uh reach out to Ward Smith but if you'd be willing you know you
were somebody on on the commission to take a look um just to give us like a rough idea you know like sacrificing a couple of tent sites is not such a big deal but the RV sites with their infrastructure is that's pretty expensive and hard to rebuild and hard
to relocate so that to me is more concerning of you know just eliminating that as something that we might get hit on um you know cuz like you can squeeze tents in kind of anywhere but the you know the real RV sites are are a little bit tougher um and we definitely want to
try to you know use what's there because the cost to redevelop it uh you know depending on the scope of that could end up being you know more than the park is currently worth um you know in some situations and and we do want to be able to improve the park um and so that it
would be super helpful if we could try to get at least a rough idea of what we're walking into i I've done a lot of the talking because I can give you what the regulations say and what the procedures are but in terms of a question like that let me open it
up to other commissioners and ask what you think yeah like I said we usually just go by like what we know if we can see the wetland we're like "Yeah that's what we do." Like I said even if we look at it we're usually waiting for like you said like Warsmith to give us like a general
idea what is the wetland you know the lines are and then we can just go from there because we have no idea what this you know what the site is like other commissioners have anything you want to say i think any questions you have based on what Scott said about we
can't have a discussion with you outside of a open meeting so I think your best bet is to do you know get get somebody like Ward Smith to you know do the do the survey well the other question that I have to
that is um you know I'm sure you can understand a large parcel like this that's a very substantial you know cost um and we're not even really looking to make any changes to it so that's what I'm trying to understand is like you know what like in order for us to do
that like in order for us to like at this point to buy the property we have to spend a bunch of money engage someone who's going to take a while to get this done you know string the reads along have no idea where we're really at and then uh you know whereas like if you
guys would be willing I think there's definitely some amount of like ability here to to look at and say oh yeah I see what you that looks reasonable um you know like we are really trying to make a plan to
improve this park but it doesn't make a lot of sense to us to spend a bunch of money on something that's totally like uncertain um especially when our intention is not to change it you know and and my
understanding of of the law is that if we're not changing it we should be able to operate as is um and you know we we really are not in a position to outlay a bunch of cash um you know
unnecessarily and like I would really just appreciate if you guys would be willing to take a look at this with us because we're really trying to make this park better but it doesn't make sense to us to to spend a bunch of money at this stage and
and like we you know we're just kind of in a really bad situation here well I think there's a a certain Oh go ahead George this is George Owens another one of the commissioners i I think there's a certain amount of due diligence you need to do in any commercial transaction like this where
you need to get um some professional advice on the uh on the conditions of the property so you know exactly what you're getting into that's not really something we can do informally um and and we do rely on uh on experts um in in
wetland science to uh delineate to uh to take a look at things and to provide that input impartially brand go ahead thank you Scott um so my name is Branch Chikis i'm the chair of the planning
board i'm not here representing the planning board um so but I'll just make some comments based on some knowledge of zoning um if if Cody could stop sharing and then if I could be allowed to share
my screen I really want to make sure that Alex and Cody are aware of um how state law related to the flood plane uh from FEMA affects this particular property and in particular any efforts
to um rebuild that bridge so just let me share this uh let me share this map which is a little out of date i know Alex you can't see it because you're just on the phone so Cody's going to have to be your eyes
cody you can see what I'm sharing and I'll explain it cody it's up now couldn't find my unmute button yes I can see what you're sharing okay very good so um this little area you sort of see
my mouse this is around where your campground is and these blue areas as you can see the roadway that connects uh the campground to North Road and where that bridge is falls within
the regulatory flood plan the 100year the 1% flood zone designated by FEMA this is somewhat old data and it is indeed being updated by FEMA but weightly zoning by state law
and basically by driven by federal law uh tends to strictly limit development taking place within these regulated floodways these blue areas that you're seeing here and I just want first so a I
want you to be aware of this and say this is yet another thing you may need to consider when it comes to um rebuilding that bridge because I'll point out that in weight's current
zoning we have a bylaw uh the flood hazard overlay district regulations bylaw so this your bridge and that the the roadway and the bridge are in the floodway in our flood hazard
overlay district and thus flood hazard overlay district regulations apply uh we have a clause in that bylaw and I'll just read this just so you're aware and this may or may this
is just another thing for you to consider and maybe seek professional assistance about here's the clause within the floodway designated on the flood boundary floodway map that blue area no encroachments including fill new
construction substantial potential improvements to existing structures or other development shall be allowed so none of that shall be allowed unless it is certified by a registered professional
engineer that the proposed development as a result of compensating actions will not result in any increase in flood levels within the town during the occurrence of a 100year flood
and so this minimally suggests that whatever engineering work is going to be done to rebuild that bridge so RVs and so forth and emergency vehicles can get back and forth
there's going to be some engineering work and certification that however it's done will not affect flood levels and given everything that's been going on with climate change
um I can tell you that the town is quite concerned about flood the the risks of floods and in fact at this coming town meeting what I've read to you is a a clause in the existing flood hazard overlay district
bylaw uh but come our upcoming annual town meeting on uh June something this month right june of this year I should say the we are bringing a brand new flood plane overlay district bylaw
before the town for a vote um so right now this whole conversation about the campground and redoing the bridge and so forth is happening at this awkward time when an outdated bylaw
still applies by law but a new one that will probably be even more restrictive is in my estimation very likely to be strongly supported and voted by town meeting this coming June so things to be
aware of i'm not trying to I mean I'm not coming into this with guns ablazing to say you know let's add insult to injury i don't have a particular opinion one way or the other on this campground i'm not representing anybody but myself
i'm simply making you aware from a planning board perspective uh that there is a zoning provision that currently applies and that will be another thing you'll have to address if you're going to rebuild that bridge
understood okay um well I guess I don't have uh any other questions at this point um I'll definitely reach out to Ward Smith um you know I uh I I I do just have to reiterate like
you know I've I've come in front of at this point I think every board meeting in the last couple of weeks except maybe the planning board i've been in front of board of health um you know you guys here in conservation zoning board trying to understand the standing of this
campground and the impression that I've gotten is that it's been horribly mismanaged it's in disrepair and that overall you know folks might like to see it improved but um these hurdles to determine if we would even be allowed to
operate it or to you know resume the operations of the existing structures there uh make this like a really unsafe investment for us um and I I will certainly reach out to Word Smith but um the inability to get clarity on this
means that we really have like we can only you know talk to Mrs reid about you know this being like six more months to close or maybe three if we're lucky um or walking away because the the
difficulty to to like prove that we can operate the business as it was represented to us makes this a very unsafe investment at at this current stage like if I was asked what we were going to do tomorrow we would unfortunately have to say that we couldn't you know we couldn't pursue this and and try to improve this
campground which um you know I was I was really hoping to get like a little bit more like reassurance at this meeting that that that you know overall sentiment would be amendable to us improving the park but um you know it seems like we just have to invest a lot
more time and energy to know whether or not this is even worth proceeding with um but we will uh we'll certainly attempt to do so yeah I appreciate your time thank you guys for uh you guys for uh letting us come in today i appreciate it yeah Alex just understand that this
is a really difficult site we're not just hanging you out just to just because we don't want to be helpful this site is is right up against the Great Swamp on one side and it's right up against the bloody brook and its associated wetlands on the others it a lot of this stuff probably shouldn't be
where it is now and so it's hard to give you reassurance it's also a site where there's a lot of like it's a mosaic of wet and dry spots until it gets to the real solid wetland area and it's mostly hemlock swamp back there which makes the
soils and the vegetation very difficult to interpret so if I went out there with you to try to answer your questions I'd be digging holes all over the place i can't just look at it and tell you what to expect yeah and so you could potentially ask Ward say "I don't want a delineation i just want your opinion
about what you think the commission will let me do." And let him bring his shovel and let him bring his augur where he needs to do spot checks and then you might get you know what somewhat what you're looking for you know is this a good risk or is it not but to ask us to
spend that kind of time out there to try to help answer your questions it's a commercial endeavor that you're proposing there's certain costs to doing that especially when you have a complicated difficult site like you're looking at so I don't want you to just go away thinking that we're
uncooperative this is just ordinary business and and we're giving you an opportunity now to ask us questions that you want it's just that we're limited in what we can do in the field in terms of reassuring you yeah i was really operating on the assumption that it would be more
feasible to to get a look at it and say "Oh that all seems reasonable." But it doesn't sound like that's your understanding of the situation so I can appreciate where you're coming from um you know this is a unique one we we've purchased several campgrounds and and never had anything like the the level of
scrutiny um you know that this one has so it's it's a new experience and um not in not in line with our our past endeavors which is why I'm you know a little surprised with this and and a little uh hesitant to to uh to pursue it
because it is much more uh fraught of a situation than than we've dealt with in any previous transaction but um I definitely understand like you know you guys can't uh you can't overcommit either um so I understand that um so
we'll definitely have that conversation with Ward Smith and and hopefully he's willing to give us you know the the five minute assessment before we go further with it okay does anybody else have any comments
or questions all right well I think still useful that you came in and aired this out um you know the I do appreciate it i would I'm grateful to know this now and not after closing you know I'd much rather know where the park stands now so thank you
guys for your time okay much appreciated all right um Okay so we'll move on uh the next item in our agenda it's a little off pastime but nobody news has jumped in so um we need to uh continue
the hearing for the Haydenville Road project because they're making progress but they're not quite ready yet so um at this point all it takes is a quick vote here our next meeting is scheduled for the
21st and so all in favor of extending the public hearing for the Haydenville Road project until May 21st I raise your hand say I i okay sorry John we had to hold you up for that extra 30 seconds to get this piece
of business out of the way but um now John I want to welcome you to the meeting um I forwarded to the rest of the commission and to Kelly the um the materials that Michael uh sent us so
they know the description of the situation and they know the the sort of illustrations of the plans that you're intending to use but if you'd like to for the record give us a quick overview of what the situation is and what it is you're proposed to do that would be a good start
okay yeah sure so we first got a call from a property owner Margaret Ryan at 242 State Road and what was going on there as apparently what's happened before there was the beavers had blocked
a covert that was going underneath an access road from her house to some old farm fields by the solar fields now so the water was in her basement um I believe she has town water but it was causing flooding her she's currently
living in New Jersey the property owner but her daughter is living there now so they're trying to figure it out so they previously hired a trapper who then uh opened up the covert for her but then the beavers just kept blocking it again
and again so he referred her to us so what we do is we install flow devices so if you saw theformational sheet what we were proposing there was we were going to install a small covert fence in front of
the covert that allows the beavers to dam on the fence but keep the covert open and then upstream of there we have a pipe that runs about 40 ft upstream the way that works is the beavers don't detect the water going into into the
pipe um they don't expect it to be running uh to be escaping their pond 40 feet upstream of the covert so they keep damning on the covert fence the problem is is if you leave that pipe unprotected they'd eventually hear or feel the water going into that pipe so we build a cage
around it and that keeps the beavers far enough away so we install well over a hundred of these a year we were ready to go with that but then we got a call from Mass DOT that uh the road was getting
flooded so we went upstream and what we saw previously was a beaver dam and again we saw that the water had risen even higher so the upstream property owner and another similar road situation had their his covert blocked as well so
we were able to open up both coverts and allow the water level to go down so there were no flooding concerns so now we just want to install that type of device for both um both coverts so
usually in all honesty all honesty I'm usually not the one that deals with the permitting but usually the way we go about this is there's a special um permitting process where you can go to the board of health apply for an emergency permit or the conservation
department to get an emergency permit and once we get that permit we're able to go in and install those devices so that's my quick summary kind of going through it as quickly as possible and to fill out the history a little bit
um Kelly got contacted first about this issue she wrote to me we conferred via email and she went out to the site and took photographs and sent me photographs of the site i went out to this site as well and saw you know what the situation
was and you the the water was just rising you basically you've got um the it's the the old Russen Farm uh house at 242 State Road there's a road behind that house that crosses the
wetland and the stream and and there's a field on the other side my understanding is that one was blocked and the the road that's north of that at Russ Sinowitz's access road that one was blocked and it the water was getting up
high enough relative to the elevation of Route 5 and 10 that DOT wanted something done about it so uh Kelly talked to to John and I talked to DOT kelly talked to DOT we had lots of conversations about
it and we basically authorized the cleaning out of the culverts in order to lower the water level and to avert the immediate issue besides it was all just maintenance of a of a structure anyway but now they want to take it a step further and put in water flow devices to
try to make sure that that those culberts stay open and then in addition you're going to be notching uh or partial breach on a dam to try to regulate the water levels as well right can you give a little more detail about the the partial breach
yeah so that is another access road to the solar panels downstream the only reason why we were including that is because we were concerned that once we release a whole lot of water upstream and that goes rushing downstream we didn't want it to affect that access
road to the solar uh farms so the way that covert is sent is set is there's really not much air space it's set really low it might have sunken over time so if strong currents go up against that it could easily erode the roaded so
the point of notching that dam downstream is that dam was downstream of that covert so we wanted to get a little airspace in there to let the water flow clearly um freely through there I should say excuse me this where the where they
built a dam on a on a fallen log behind the castway so I haven't gotten back there in a while there wasn't much of a dam it was only about 6 in of damning over the top of the log so between the log and the six inches of damning there
was about a foot of water being held back there so it's not a whole lot of water it's not a significant breach but just that little bit we thought could help uh to be honest Tom Kix with the Mass DOT is the one that was suggesting
that we do that um he was concerned about the road so they surveyed the whole area and that was their suggestion trying to remember two would this would this affect the others there's a covert on Christian Lane would that affect would this breach affect that way or is
that covert pretty big that covert was pretty big with a lot of airspace and there was no damning and what we had was last year the beavers were damning on the covert on uh State Road as well so Mass DOT cleared out that covert and
they hired us to put in what we call a decoy fence or decoy dam and that was just essentially a semic-ircular fence in front of there to have the beavers dam in front of the covert instead of inside of it after we installed that the beavers ended up not damning there
so it's hard to imagine that we would want to see a dam behind the castaway between the uh solar access road and Christian Lane so it it's really an improbable place for beavers to be setting up shop anyway
so yeah so this is the the basic layout is is that the it's going to be two areas with the with the water leveling uh devices one is the farm road access road behind 242 and the other is Russ
Sinitz's access road is that correct yeah that's correct the only thing I would add is usually when beavers create a flooding issue you have about two you have two options uh for solutions it um you could either trap beavers and when
you trap beavers you legally have to euthanize them so you can't relocate them to become another issue in town um the problem with that is they often come back within 2 years each location is different so I can't guarantee that here it sounds like they haven't been living
here as often um the other option is to install a flow control device such as this the benefit of this is you won't have to deal with having to open up the covers and risk downstream flooding in the future if the beavers move back in
so you know Kelly and I have been involved in this and we've seen it we uh talked to people uh any of you have questions for John or for Kelly and me i see that the water is almost
gone behind 242 yeah that was because we opened up the coverts so the coverts were completely blocked and then the beavers started building dams on top of the roadways as well so Russ Sinowitz's property has actually gotten a decent amount of
erosion on his road because the water was flowing up and over it for a while and they have a lodge in there somewhere yeah I believe it it's it's very difficult to access up that way um to go
upstream to try to find it but I believe it's upstream of Russit's property i don't think it's very well established though um I walked in there before the water got high because I was trying to get uh some measurements for bankful
width um in that area because the Christian Lane culvert needs to be replaced and I I didn't run into it and so I saw where there was a little bit of water backed up from above the Sinowitz driveway but
it was nowhere near as wet as it got and my guess is that they had not gotten well established the beavers just moved in plugged everything all up and uh you know got people's attention pretty quickly well we have we have two beaver
deceivers um they've they did the trick stop the flooding so yeah and that's the the good thing about it is is that you can tolerate a certain amount of water level the beaver deceivers just make sure it doesn't get
above that um and you don't have to then you know exterminate the beavers you can you know they'll eventually move out on their own if they can't set up a reasonable pond to live in and some of them might stay in that pond that's already there but
who knows um so the you the yesterday I received the request for an emergency certificate for this so that the work could proceed right away you know if we were to require a notice of intent for this we
would have to you know they would have to prepare the notice of intent and then we would have to have it um we'd have to post it in the newspaper it would have to be we'd have to have a meeting make a decision then there's two weeks for the appeal period afterwards and it just
seemed not prudent to let this go that long so uh but since it came in yesterday and we were meeting today I asked them if they could wait one more day so that the full commission could weigh in and so this is your opportunity to ask questions or to
make known your uh your opinion about this yeah see no problem with the emergency certification that's fine yeah fine i mean the materials materials you sent out were good and we've certainly had trouble there before so
I'm good with that too it makes sense okay so officially all in favor I I I Okay so an emergency can be official with one signature so I can print it out
sign it and and uh send it electronically to to you John and Mike uh I'll send it to you both and uh what it says is it can be one signature as long as the commission then ratifies that decision so you've just ratified
that decision so there's no need to circulate it for further signatures we can just let it stand with with with mine and uh I guess that's it for this uh thanks for coming in John and and and being available to answer questions and
uh I'll get that out tonight so that you can get to work tomorrow supposed to be a nice day tomorrow so I guess that would be a good day to do the work yeah yeah it'll be great finally and thank you Scott and Kelly i saw you uh enter as well on the top of my screen you two
are great and really responsive so thank you again for that kelly anything you want to say about this project this situation i think everything's pretty much been covered um I was happy to go down there and you know take a look at
it when the flooding was really bad yeah it is great to have an agent because you know I had driven by there on my way to work and went "Wow that water looks high." But I didn't have time to stop and then when the call came in Kelly was able to respond right away she got out there she could send me
photographs i I then stopped by on my way home but it was great to have somebody who could you know assess this situation the urgency the need of what what needs to happen right away versus what can wait a little bit so um it's
working out really well thanks Kelly no problem happy to help all right let's move on um next is the uh approving minutes from our last meeting uh Monty emailed me saying "I'm
not sure I actually gave an update on the housing committee but I couldn't remember either." So one key question is did at that March meeting did Monty give an update about housing i don't think so i think she said that
they're looking for new members looking for it all right i wouldn't say that qualifies as an update so I'll remove that from the minutes uh but in the meantime you did give me an update via email do you want to give that update to the rest of
the board oh sure i can So I said Scott this this would have been the update do you remember any of these things so the the update is um we actually the housing committee has not met since last summer when Katherine Walawit stepped down as the chair none of us wanted to
be the chair and we were done with our big job of of um developing the um uh what was it called the you know the affordable housing plan um so we hadn't met since then but then
um and and we used to meet um we used to have housing committee and then four times a year we also met as the housing trust all the same people um because we um legally we needed to have somebody overseeing the housing trust um and then
Peter Kaine reached out to um the uh members of the housing committee and said um could you meet because we need to we're required to for the housing trust so we did meet and we decided to try to revive the housing committee um
and around that same time somebody else volunteered to be on the housing committee paula I can't remember her last name um Jenkins paula Jenkins oh that you're still there Brandt still working i thought that was just a picture of
your wife um it is it's my alter ego thank you um and so we um so we did have that meeting judy Marklin was there representing the um CPC um and we are
planning to meet soon as the newly reconfigured housing committee though I don't think Brandt has I don't think Brandt has gotten a response from Paul yet have you uh I did actually yesterday and there's a doodle poll out which you
can respond to we're picking dates for a meeting in May okay so I haven't seen that email yet it must have come in the last 12 hours yes absolutely yeah like this afternoon when I got back to my town business but great and the only
other thing is that um none of us want to be the chair but um Brandt Brandt is the acting interim chair at the moment we're hoping that somebody volunteers who has some knowledge about housing that is the update all
right great uh so I guess we have to vote to to uh to approve the minutes with that change as I described to take out any reference to an update well I'll just cut and
paste it into today's minutes uh so all in favor of accepting the minutes from last month i All right George do you have any updates about the battery storage committee that has all been handed off
to Brandt Capable Hands and uh and the select board so that uh committee um finished its work uh unless we uh need to come back for any further um kind of
ad hoc meetings and input but that's with the planning board the uh two bylaws the zoning bylaw is with the planning board now the general bylaw is with the select board so it does not appear that either e either one of those will uh come to town
regular town meeting that's not in the plan so they'll be up for special town meeting later in the year at some point am I correct on all that Brandt absolutely um the
uh so the the zoning bylaw is going to come before the planning board for our first real dig into it at our meeting at the end of this month on April 30th uh and I have in fact today at Jim McGovern's thing Deborah and I were able
to sync up because there was a consensus on this committee that the planning board and the zoning board both really ought to have at least one joint meeting on this bylaw because by golly the ZBA is going to
have to be on the front lines of doing the special permits for any any of these things and you know it's all it it's well beyond evaluating the things that the bylaw sets us up to have to evaluate
both zoning and planning you know well beyond the anything that a a resident in town would be able to do so we'd have to grapple with the idea of being able to hire outside expertise and potentially do that at short notice i mean there's
so there are a lot of devils in the details that we're going to be looking into but I think it's I think George was right that this the committee basically has taken things as far as they can and it's now over to the select board for the general bylaw and to the planning
board and the ZBA for the zoning bylaw great thanks thanks George thanks Brent uh Brent is there anything else from the planning board perspective that you want to bring up with the conservation commission update us on
Well I mean um not specifically about the the battery piece i mean I'll simply say that as far as I know i mean again thanks to all of you for your support for the flood plan overlay district bylaw i fully expect that that is going
into the annual town meeting warrant and coming to this town meeting in June and I you know hope that I mean I'll make some remarks and of course you know maybe if anybody on the conservation
commission wants to just or I'm you know we'll certainly say that the it's been endorsed by the conservation commission as well i can't believe it will get voted down at town meeting but who knows um I can't
imagine it either yeah not with everybody's concerns about flooding and now wildfires and all that kind of stuff so yeah right great but I think um I don't think there's anything else that pops into my head that's really at
the nexus of planning board and conservation commission interests aside from those two matters right great kelly how about you do you have anything you want to bring up or you want to update people about what
you've been up to or or questions you have for the commission um the only small update I have for this month um is that I've been in contact with the owners of the Rainbow Motel on State Road um they want to they or they need
to demolish the building since they had a fire um and they just had questions about how to do their due diligence with the wetlands that are behind it um and so I've been talking to them about the RDA process and so I think we should be expecting an RDA from them for next
month another situation where she was able to field the call and pretty much handle it without me having a lot to do with it except just she asked me what I thought i told her and it's wonderful hooray
earning that paycheck for sure so um any other business from the commissioners any anything else happening in town that we don't don't know about all right well it just turned 8:00 so I guess we can use that as our shut
off point for for tonight uh if there's no other business shall we adjourn sure all right thank you everybody for showing up it was a longer meeting than I expected but um we spent a lot more time on the White
Birch campground than I thought we would uh but uh we'll see what happens i frankly I don't feel like we need to be in a position of trying to make it happen because even though that might be an improvement it is still not an ideal site for a campground uh and and Brent
you know you bringing up about the the flood plane bylaw was was a good save there you know that's that's good that's a really difficult entrance way too it's they're probably going to have to elevate maybe put some kind of a wider elevated bridge in order to pass the
water necessary to not end up with fill in the flood plane i appreciate Scott and Brandt both of you communicating those things so clearly yes yeah okay well thanks everybody for coming out and we'll see you next month or
probably we'll have a site visit between now and then it sounds like so we'll probably see you sooner than that