good evening everyone I'd like to call to order this meeting of the Greenfield Conservation Commission at 6:31 PM February 25th 2025 this meeting is being recorded by the Conservation Commission if any other persons present are doing the same you
must notify the chairperson at this time a quick roll call Kristen I Erica hi Emily will be joining us in about 10 to 15 minutes maybe you need to turn off your speaker we
are dealing with some speaker issues here real quick so please bear with us a moment wait oh no it's WiFi dis recard um maybe on the zoom just do the audio mute oh
maybe okay that's the very least that seems to have done the thing okay see uh so our first order of business is I'm not in the I'm not in the zoom
room and I know I'm muted okay it's a learning curve it's the ghost in the machine um at any rate U approval of meeting minutes from February 11th 2025 uh if we could get a uh well first of
all if folks want to take a look at those before we get underway if they haven't already I don't know if it's my microphone that's giving the echo but I will motion to approve the meeting
minutes from our last hearing which was um 11th right okay I think that might be how are we sounding now Kristen good I I don't sometimes when
sometimes there's an echo and it it depends like a person may have to mute themselves so I wasn't sure if it was me or we just we just updated one of our various microphones so hopefully that works yeah it sounds it sounds good now
we have like six six or nine computers and so um sorry at any rate we we've got a um we've got a motion from Kristen to approve the minutes from February 11th um can we second excellent all righty um
borrowing any further comments on that um let's go ahead and vote C start with you I Erica hi I am also an I um the approved meeting minutes will become available to the public on our
website on the next business day following this meeting theoretically I don't know is that something that we are able to reasonably aish yeah right on yes I do it the following day awesome thank you I just noticed that statement for
the first time I was like it's new um every time I submit an agenda I get an update I need to make back from the city clerk I think slowly they're like getting it completely um to what's the
word code yeah gotcha uh so that's next no no public meetings or hearings today um but we do have some new business to attend to um and what I see here is the first thing up on um on the
agenda is property owner of 388 Co Rain Road is interested in selling a conservation restriction to their Farmland a parcel of 40.88 Acres uh this is in the exploratory phase and pricing has not been
determined yeah so Keith Ross is here tonight he reached out to me he's from landvest and um he's here to discuss this in more detail okay and I do have maps that he provided
that I can bring up at any point okay excellent well yeah why don't you pull up the map that shows the regional context where it's located against other APR land and I have it pulled up too if you want
me to share my screen here I can do it okay so uh Mark Cruz inherited this property from his family and um he lives in New Jersey and um he's interested in cons
serving as much of it as possible now there's a a narrow 50ft strip that goes back to his house there on the lower side of the property and then there's some Frontage above uh that accesses the land as well so um the property has been
rented you know to local farmers for a long time uh growing a variety of U farm products and um he lives in New Jersey so he just you know he comes up pretty often but um he'd like to see it
conserved as much as possible so uh we were thinking that it might be possible to uh put together a transaction with the APR program in the town and maybe Franklin land trust to conserve a lot of this Farmland if you go to the map that
shows the regional context it's it's um is that no no yeah we it pans out there you go so you can see where it is uh up on Co Rain Road and it abuts uh APR land already
and there's a lot of other conserved lands around it as well so um I know it's kind of early in the process I was just wanting to find out if if this is a priority for the Conservation Commission for this area of town to conserve
farmland and um you know we'll get in touch with Michelle padulla the APR person to set up site visits once the snow's gone and you can see the ground and um you know we've been doing
some uh initial planning uh that would help uh an appraiser come up with a value of the property it's either going to have a through Road whether that driveway is 50 foot wide whether it can be used as a through road to come out on the Frontage on the other side or
whether it's um just a uh a stub road that would come up off that front edge on the other side would determine how much development potential the property has so um I'm just interested to find out from the concom if this is the kind
of property that uh the town would be interested in seeing conserved I can uh I did an ark map screenshot that we could um see the resources on the property so the parcels outlined in
pink and you can see um there's the flooding is the gray hatch marks uh wetlands are outlined in blue the blue hatch polygons and then there's uh arms
Brook with the river front and the the green line buffer zone um to the Northeast that's getting it that's obviously not part of the property but that's getting
into I think that pretty large riparian Corridor River yeah Green River so it's just across the street you can see there's um a priority and estimated habitat uh just across the street um I
don't know if you could see let's look at some of those other um anyway just to get like kind of one last glance at this I I zoomed out a bit because there's such a network of wetland and um hydrologic connectors
between them uh in that kind of branched through this parcel which I thought was interesting is that a cold water Fisheries stream oh I'm not sure arms Brook [Music] um I mean further up I don't know if it
is this far down but I'm sure it is further up that's that's a mass GIS data layer you can just pull that up it's DFW cold water Fisheries um but I I think
that you know it's I think from our perspective it's really important to see whether or not a site has public access and if it's contiguous with other open space because it would form a larger protected
area um I mean personally I would like to scoop up every offering we can get but um I think that like our city agenda is to examine whether Parcels or yeah
yeah sorry go ahead Jessica oh well I didn't mean to cut you off I anyways the you can see across the street there's uh Murphy Park Green River Conservation Area Green River swimming area Nims tree farm so it is kind of you know connected
in that sense just across the street and then these other APR lands there's actually quite a bit all right here um and then we can zoom out so the other protected land you know is in green and
the Egg preservation restriction restrictions are in uh tan so I feel like you know personally when trying to come up with you know net benefit to rare species
stuff we always like to have conservation land that's contiguous with other conservation land and this seems ideally situated I don't know whether or not arms Brook is cold water Fisheries um
but that would be an extra thing to layer on and it seems like there are a lot of resource areas um but the contiguous uh you
know I I don't know I I just feel like that's that's huge and if there's potential for Public Access those are usually the two biggest things we look for right and just to throw it out there that
um land donation is like kind of diagonally across route two to the South uh from the other APR land you know down here this stuff which will be
hopefully that's what we voted on do you see where my cursor is that be nice it's right here I did does the owner have any um of what he would wants does he want it completely just just passive Recreation or is he open to Recreation
or what does he want he's interested in he's interested in in uh keeping it his Farmland as much as possible he has a house you know at the end of that uh you know you can see it on the map um there's a barn there which uh he's been
told is probably one of the oldest barns in Greenfield area it's an old post and beam building that he's done some work on and um it's really nice so that's the only area that he might be interested in in
keeping out is the area around the house and barn so he's willing to conserve the rest of it and you know if it's going to be farmed you know not every Farm farmer is interested in seeing the public hike over their property uh but perhaps the
aprs on the backside of it that are already protected maybe there's some Trails there that could be connected up with the frontage uh opposite the Green River area and you know maybe a trail that goes along the boundary there that would link up with something on the other
lands so we just have Emily boss or of uh commission member joining us right now she's really experienced with this so maybe she can chime in on on what this means but I I was under the impression that if it was like an you know uh Executive Office of
Environmental Affairs article 97 conservation restriction that's not the same as an APR but maybe Emily you can chime in more on that hi Keith good to see you hi nice to see you hope you guys can hear me all okay yeah okay great
yeah definitely a conserv restriction and an APR are different um typically the APR is held by the state but then also celd by the town um I'm sorry that I missed a little bit of the discussion is the is this property uh it looked
like from the agenda that the discussion was sale of a CR is that right Keith yeah yeah through the APR program uh Mark Mark Cruz uh inherited this property and um he wants to conserve it if he can um there's a house and barn
you can see down there a very old barn and house and he he lives in New Jersey he comes up and visits the property he enjoys it he's got it rented out to uh uh Farmers over the years to continue what his family did on it and um so
we're interested in pursuing that he also inherited a piece of Woodland up in shelburn that we have on the market right now and um you know there certainly is a possibility that sale of the wood lot might provide some income
tax opportunities for a bargain sale of the Farmland down here in Greenfield but we won't know that until we see how that goes but um in either case um you know you can see by the conservation context map if you could put that one back up
there is um a lot of protected land around this that um has been protected by the APR you know in brown and um it seems to fit in with conservation in the area we were just talking about whether there would
be Public Access and um Emily I know you're familiar with this but not every farmer likes public access on their farmlands uh but some do and so maybe uh there might be already existing Trails on the Farmland to the West that there
might be a way to connect up through this property well and the larger issue around whether or not Farmers like to to have traffic on their land is a matter of whether or not they can logistically handle it given pesticide applications and the regulations around that and the
buffer zones and notification of neighbors um as it relates to those applications that's right that's right a lot of complications and I think that and Emily correct me if I'm wrong but there there's a difference between an APR and
a CR so like yeah that's right the APR is um a much less flexible document in terms of the language that'll be used and the uses that are um specified there are some aprs I've seen that have some
kind of Public Access but you know one of them they got permission before it was uh placed to be able to have a license for snowmobilers for snowmobile trail um to provide um stable access it to a particularly important uh link um
but yeah typically aprs wouldn't include um Public Access unless there's a very specific need for it and that it really fits with the management of the land and then conservation restrictions they're more um they're not as focused on it agricultural resources basically and so
are often more flexible so if it's an APR that'll be held by um by the state and maybe C- held by the city um that is a very standard operation typically the state St comes to or you know someone on behalf of the land owner comes to the
city to see if there can be funds donated as a local match there's uh 10 or you know 15 some it depends on the town's um policies uh how much is needed um but that's something that uh you know we could look into through the CPA or
that might be applied to through the CPA um so those are all pretty standard things and so you know whatever the document would be maybe you're a long way off from that key um but we could take a look at it and see um you know what the specifications
are and we can we can ALS there are also other Alternatives too so we could do a deed restriction or a conservation restriction um you know we don't I don't know if we have to necessarily go through article 97 but well the de
restriction goes away in 30 years so it's not Perpetual okay so that's a limitation of it no no no a lot of them do but there's other ways to do it so that doesn't happen it it it has to have a benefited parcel and an if there's a deed
restriction with no benefited parcel yeah it goes away in 30 years it's a a term limit restriction basically uh conservation restriction that meets the the standards of the state it lasts in perpetuity if it's held by a qualified organization like a City Conservation
Commission or a a land trust or a state agency but the aprs are in perpetuity and so are the conservation restrictions that that U Franklin Land Trust works with a lot and you're right we need to figure out what's the best one for this
property but uh we thought we'd try the APR first because they have that a buding property protected and uh the key is um you know I think we need to wait till the snow's gone so we can get them out there get Michelle out there to look at the land
absolutely and then conversations with the farmers you know that's an important component as well yeah we sent off a list of all the people they rent the land to now who continue to use the property and um and we can get in touch with them but uh first let's see if it
gets over the hurdle where APR says yeah that's something we ought to protect because they're the big money in this holding and it would help if they uh were on board for it but it's important for there to be support at the Town level that yes this is an important area for Greenfield to serve farmland and
we'd like to see this happen somehow so does that mean that you're looking for support from the concom so that you can go to nrcs you know it may be just a letter uh or it may be support within the town to help raise uh the 10% that might be
needed from the town to participate in the project um but initially uh it's important for Michelle to know that uh and the APR program to know that the town is in favor of something like this as opposed to being no no we want this to be Industrial Park land we do not
want to see farming take place on the property I see so you're looking for a letter of support from the Conservation Commission to further your support for APR not necessarily conservation restriction yes but not at this point you know I think that's a great idea but
let's wait until we know more about what's needed from the APR program they the APR program right now has quite a bit of money and and uh they've been able to do a lot of of projects that uh they haven't done in previous years so
um as soon as the snow's gone uh we'll set up a site visit so anybody on the concom who wants to come can join for a site visit to go walk the property and and learn from Michelle how it might fit in with h the farming that's going on on the abing lands that sounds just just an intro
tonight so I appreciate your time listening to me it's good for us to have a sense of it and so we can get all our ducks in a row uh obviously um the mdar will be looking at the soils that's one of the most important things and then the they also um you know like to hear that
there's viability and succession planning and all those good things on the farm y great well that's all I have thanks for coming hear about it very glad they're considering conservation yeah yeah thanks for your
time we'll be in touch again thank take care bye bye thank you so much you're welcome thank you Emily is yes Jessica that Martin's Farm
yes okay oh no no no I'm sorry I thought you were asking a question about Martin's Farm that's not that's that's not Martin's farm at least it didn't didn't look like it from what I caught of the maps Okay know would be like up this way
that's further it's north of Hinsdale Brook uh it's along the river this okay I don't think it was but no I didn't think so but um they in one of the emails with Keith he had mentioned that they had um like leas part of the land
Martin's farm for got a little yeah gotcha yeah so they want a letter whoops oh oh lord well they don't want a letter now that was really sorry go ahead go ahead Emily it
sounded like he wasn't asking for a letter at this time he was just bringing the project to us to make us aware of it and to get a sense of whether there's a general uh support for this type of project and this one in general but it's sounds like when the time is right they
would appreciate a letter and um he did invite us to go visit the land when a site Vis is set up with the mdar staff that oversees the aair acquisition would it be possible to have that site visit include one or more of the folks farming
that land I think probably will certainly the land owner would be involved and then presumably they would also have um a farmer um Keith mentioned that they had reached out to all the folks who they leased the land to so it sounds like
he's trying to bring them together for when they do have a site visit with um APR program staff um so I think we probably might want to talk about and Kristen I think he started to touch on this but
conservation interests versus um and so I think it might be worth taking a quick second to pull the the map that scen and just sort of be prepared with arguments as to why this should be in
conservation yeah so I I looked up cold water fisheries and arms Brook is not listed dang it can you see why is it a darker color though than the underlying that's why I thought maybe for a second that it was because it's like a
different font than yeah I know because so when I got hired um Eric had this streams layer and he had thought that the streams layer he had was all perennial streams but since
I've been working I've discovered that it's not necessarily all perennial there's some intermittent that are the dark blue what's what's the address again I'm just going to like 388 Co rain Road it's right behind Harper's store uh
across from Road I just drove by there earlier today so uh the things that I normally look at would be um for for environmental stuff you know like d watland hydrological connections cold
water Fisheries priority and estimated habitats potential vernal pools certified vernal pools maybe any natural hair AG natural Community mapping environmental justice is a new thing uh
historical points or areas AC's and orws which you don't really have a lot of in this area we do have orws but no AC's um ACDC not ACDC
ACDC areas of Environmental critical yeah concern AC's we don't really have any they're mostly in the birkar but we do have orws outstanding resource Waters um like like uh the Green River
um public water supply area is an orw it's mostly in like lien and North Greenfield um and then you know or uh cold water Fisheries habitats like anything that's a water stream um anything that's a cold water
Fisheries habitat that we would want to make sure like thermal loading is a critical issue where we would want to ensure that what are we seeing here on this parcel that falls into any of categories well just to just also to add on to what
Christian's saying all of those are absolutely stellar and if they're present are appropriate and good indicators for conservation restriction but then we go back to the difference that Christian was getting at between that and an APR so if you're looking at
an APR those may be of some significance but they are not primary the things that like it sort of begins and ends with the farm soils there's three three different categories there's Prime Farm soils which are important and can be found anywhere there's State significant Farm
soils which have been identified for massachusett specifically and then there's local and it local only pops up if your community has identified those and that might be something we want to go through it's not a difficult process but that's not in place to my knowledge presently so just knowing what the the
farm soils are on this property if it was going down the APR route that would be what was most important um and then all the other things that I was talking about about like Farm viability and access but there's access on the road and that kind of thing so and contigous
protected exactly yeah that's the other that's I'm sorry that that is another huge uh Ash the fact that it's you know the percentage of the surrounding uh area that is already is also conserved and particularly if it's with APR those
are the other elements for for an APR for for scoring um yeah so so I guess the things that I think would be interesting to know about this site is first of all of that of that list of things we've got the the the contiguous right um but the we don't
think that there's cold water Fisheries but we do have all of the the flood plane and the um the various streams and what have you in yeah up there is flood Wetland hydrologic connectors I don't know if that's a perennial stream or intermittent um I
can tell you I'll look at the area the Topo right now arms Brook um and then the river front right so all of those bits and pieces there isn't a lot there that appears arms Brook is perennial
but it is perennial it is yeah and then the I mean the estimated and priority habitat layer is on so there's none on that property it's just across the street the street okay um so the other piece the other thing too is how does the
egom um come into play with this because my natural inclination is to say it's Farmland don't touch it right um conservation commissions are the only entity that can hold a conservation interest in a city and that's by you know the mgls so although the a
commission can support it can advise can be involved We Are The Entity that they would come to along with the the Town Council the Town Council would vote to approve and then we would be voting to accept if the city wanted to hold an
interest that's not required with aprs but especially if we put money in then they always offer you us the opportunity gotcha I think the edcom would potentially be a good connection to make on this but I hear what you're saying Emily thank you yeah I also in the
folder just for educational I did screenshots of the Mac handbook information on um conservation restrictions if anybody I mean I needed to read this but I don't know if you guys answering this
yes I will for sure so it's in there just so you know okay basically for every conservation restriction you know Massachusetts is special we call them restrictions everybody else in the the country calls them easements and then we have a lot
more Hands-On by public entities and requirements of approval than in other places so here not only is the the town required to weigh in even they're if they're not holding any interest the
state is as well so those multiple votes basically um prove that there's public interest in the project and then are part of what locks it in for greater Protections in our state than you might have elsewhere and that's the article 97 that Kristen was talking about where it
takes a a legislative act to roll back or to release something that's been conserved so it's as good as we can do okay let's and this property is uh 11 Acres 40 oh right 40
40.88 okay and by the way so just based on my desktop assessment the parcel to the East and North is a mass historic commission inventory area that doesn't
necessarily mean that it's a mass historic culturally important site so it's just just been inventoried the North and the East yeah so that uh hang on can
I request control oh yeah let me let me stop mine oh all right I'll just do a quick screen share um how do I do that share here we go so this purple area is um the mass
historic inventoried property that doesn't mean that it's necessarily anything it's just there might be like a historic farm on those lands and then if I turn that off so there's yeah again there's no DFW cold
water fishery stream which is kind of a surprise um there are a lot of hydrological connections a lot of D wetlands and then if you turn on the mass G USGS topographic map because
there's a solid blue line that means this is a perennial Stream So then there is a state regulated 200 foot Riverfront and also a local ordinance 200 foot Riverfront is that how you always quickly find what's perennial and
intermittent CU you turn on that that layer is that yeah but I go to um let me just move this guy over here so I go to the most current USGS topographic map and I can send you a
link to this um that' be great I unlocked that code yet like how do we figure this out it's only happened to me once Jessica where the most current USGS topographic map was different than the
Massachusetts USGS quadrangle but it was significant because it made a huge difference in the jurisdiction of the stream so let me just like I'll just send this to everybody and
um can't find my my menu to stop sharing but I'll I'll send this to everybody so this so this website that I'm about to share is the most current USGS topographic map which is in my opinion
99.9% you can go with the USGS topographic quadrangle that we have in Mass but one time there was a difference and so I go to this one instead oops and we can get more into like the
definition of a perennial stream another time but it's kind of in depth but I seen it quick and dirty if it's a solid blue line on the most current USGS topographic quad it's perennial and then
there are steps you can follow after that all right cool well that's exciting um so any any further questions conversation around the new the um 388 cor Rain Road seems like we're ready
to Scurry on to Old business uh specifically uh lamp Black Road parcel r 08-11 a-0 a road was cut and excavated down the wooded Hillside to the flood plane and Riverfront River Front below in order to access the Fall River this was
not a permitted project Steven Pritchard was heading the project uh and is not in attendance this evening however has um been in contact with Jessica who will present on his behalf yeah so
um he has his communication is still A+ with everything that's uh going on on his end he hit a pretty major roadblock with the ice that happened between last meeting and this meeting um to the point
where it just wasn't even like safe to go down that Hill uh so not there hasn't been like progress necessarily since last time except um physical progress but he has been uh speaking with the kind of the
two companies he touched on last time um one was a company out of Gloucester where um he hired kind of a consultant and that person's coming out next week and they're going to look at the site
and come up with um help him come up with a more kind of formal written plan of what he wants to do uh to um restore the area um I'm just looking at my notes
so um yeah they're going to look at uh where you know he should install more physical barriers like the rols uh on top of the soil is um ex explore ideas with like installing some rock
understanding that you know they're in the 200 foot River Front that would be considered fill but maybe up top further uh detailed plan on uh tree and sapling plantings and
um with the goal of having all native trees and then ALS Al he spoke with the Hydro Seating company they said they won't do it until we have reached a point in the weather where there's no threat of frost because it will die uh
so that's having a temperature of 50 degrees or more for a stretch of time I don't know if it was like a week or something like that so he is kind of coming up against the the hard reality of like there's ice out there yeah
absolutely and he just can't like really make progress um until that goes away yeah uh so but he is he is laying the groundwork for um having think professionals weigh in on how to stabilize the soil like as soon as uh
the weather permits so that's where that's at right um wait you did actually say um yeah I mean he he did touch on this but the informal plan is outside of
hiring those is to get the trees in the ground plants grass and then put the water tanks at the top of the hill so that he they'll be to water if we have dry spells good great they have been wonderful to work
with yeah they seem very engaged in correcting yeah he's like booo almost over communicating like I think he's just like so he's just really worried about it I'm sure yeah well that's I you know regulations are complicated
Massachusetts is a very over regulated State um well and if you don't know that the regulation exists you know like I would imagine like like this type of work like agriculture if you don't know about the
rules then how can you follow them yeah you don't know you don't know right are they in are they in chapter 61 or chapter 61a or chapter 61b because that would make a pretty big difference did we talk about this I forget I don't think we talked about this what
difference does like it makes a big difference um I mean gosh Marcus Denson would have been a better person to pick his brain when he was here I mean normally if you have like a
like an agriculturally cleared area and you just square off your agriculturally cleared area you can bump into Riverfront or buffer zone without issue just to square off your already cleared
area this is different this is like a new Access Road um and it's not to access like a pump house or you know anything specifically related to a it's just like a recreational thing so maybe it's not
even exempt but just a thought there was a Hayfield at the top of yes yeah that's an actively farmed Hayfield but if the whole property is in
61 61a or 61b uh I mean it doesn't matter at this point because the state's not getting involved and it's just local so yeah and they're already engaged in doing mitigation it's all stuff like he wanted
to do I think I think we're just kind of like lighten the fire for the timeline to be faster right yeah yeah and I don't even think now that I I'm not I would have to dig really deep into the regs because they are really complicated when
it comes to a exemptions but I don't think that carving a new road with cut and fill in a resource area is necessarily exempt it's like if it was to access you know an a related function like a pump house or
something that's different but this isn't this is just a recreational thing so I don't I don't even think it is exempt I was just going on a tangent okay cool right on um let's see up next update on violation at 30 Adams
Road unpermitted clearing in the buffer zone to bordering Vita of wetland and bank I put this on the agenda in hopes that I would hear back because I have to have the agenda finalized two days prior
to which is Friday because I don't work Monday you know the weekend so um there's not really an update besides I sent the letter I did it certified mail I have not received the like the receipt got the re yeah that they've received it
um I sent another certified postal a day or two prior and I just got that back today so I feel like in the letter I asked them to be present this or the next meeting and to let me know you know RSVP orever okay um yeah so
that I'll let you know I'll keep it on the agenda for the next meeting hopefully they're present yep great thanks let's see next con conservation Property Maintenance Improvement and priorities discuss any need for maintenance and improvements of
conservation land in the city and additional conservation priorities so this was the open-ended [Music] um item that we added because we didn't have public meetings or hearings so that we could discuss uh any yeah maintenance or
Improvement needs so um this seems like a rather large body of information um and to move forward with this both effectively and efficiently it would be really helpful to have
um or to see bite-sized chunks of what we're going to tackle laid out like for example um discuss any need for maintenance and improvements of conservation land in the city that's a lot of land and I don't suspect that we're
going to discuss every parcel this evening um the the good news is um we had another deadline today for next week's meeting and I haven't received any additional applications so next meeting we also won't have any meetings
or hearings so we can you know split it up awesome so do we want to like outline an agenda or come up with the yeah I was kind of hoping yeah so let's let's that's that's sort of what I would like to see is I would like to see like um a
a clear path that we're going to take and very clear outcomes that we're looking for um yeah action items yes ex action items exactly um I uh I don't want us to find ourselves in a situation where we sort of talk about things and
then um don't end up with any any outputs from it I'm curious you know being new how do you how do you complete maintenance that's needed in conservation areas like
it I I saw some emails from um Mitch's day where there was like a rotting Bridge or something in Griswald and oh that's still there is it is still there I hike at Griswald all the time because it's so close and it's so short I can do
it on my lunch break and it's the perfect place to just take the dog for a walk for an hour on my lunch break and all of those maintenance items that we've talked about since I started in December of 2020 or whenever it was are
still on the agenda so how do like what is needed can we just like do I just know and then I hire someone and have them build a bridge that's we talked about that before and that's I think maybe we're I don't want to speak for you list but like maybe that's what our
problem is is we talk about these agenda items and then there is no action and they just sort of get like tumbled Into The Ether and really good to have some action items like actually assigned and
let me ask you this do do because do the more seasoned commission members know if we have a listing somewhere of things that have been assessed in the past and just determined that need to be done like for example
the bridge Erica well I Wason say the only thing I know about is is is griswell because Lincoln fish has the takes care of it and there's there's there's money set aside for that maintenance but but we haven't as far as I know we we haven't
done anything maintenance wise other than telling asking Lincoln to do who who takes care of it Lincoln fish re L Fish he's the Forester but he's retired now so we might want to like you know check on the status of that and see if
we want still taking care of this on not so it almost sounds to me like our first steps in this process are um sort of prioritizing like let's put together I'm sure this exists in some folder that I
just haven't looked at yet but let's put together a full comprehensive list of all of the properties that are ours right and then um basically we're going to have to walk each of them in turn right well that
that was what that was what Mitch Mitch and Travis did Travis yeah yeah there's a lot of work that's been done on this I say as far as I know most of the only other work that's happened hasn't been really clean up work anything it's just been it's been the mapping um um also
Mitch was doing a boundary markers and I don't know how far that got but when I joined I guess a year ago or whatever it was um that was one of the things things that was in process maybe we need an update from Travis I guess not Mitch because he's gone but like Travis and
maybe Jessica if you can kind of find any kind of summary that Mitch was doing on the status of our conservation lands and any maintenance that's required and then maybe we can come up
with a prioritization of you know what's the most critical safety hazard or um that needs permitting like if you know like for Griswald for example and I don't know a lot of about the other conservation areas because I don't
frequent those as much um but with Griswald there's we we talked about punchin um which is basically like a a board walk kind of thing on two feet um over Wetland Crossings
and you know uh that would require permitting because it's in buffer zone or Riverfront under the ordinance that kind of stuff so we would have to permit that and then that would require funding and um and then we
talked to Mike fish about upgrading the there's a these kiosks at geswall that have Wildlife information and that's sort of outdated like there was like a drum log that's it used to be a hollow
log that was cool for you know um you know R gr or yeah for rough grous drumming and it's long deteriorated and there's a there's a snake basking pile of rocks that's no it's
shaded out now um you know but it's he he was really good at coming up with that kind of stuff and he was he seemed amenable to upgrading those kiosks and maybe we would do it all online instead
of you know with a pamphlet um various stuff like that talked about that was what we talked about with Mitch um one of the things that we should that I'm I'm glad we're talking about this now because it brings it to mind there is a a way I don't know what
the procedure is but for the the Conservation Commission to set aside $55,000 every year towards a like a fund that we have that can be used for conservation presumably or maintenance of properties and every year we could do
that I is it's possible it's out of CPA funds but um where does the money come from I'm I'm trying to remember it might be CPA funds but it's it's just this opportunity that we have we talked about it a little while ago but um but if we
can remember how we do that that'd be a great thing for us to do it's not a lot but if we did it every year it would just bring you know it would create this pool of funds for us to do little things and then we could write grants for bigger stuff and partner with maybe wck
or with lusts or you know something like that to to get some more that would be so cool because I feel like that was one of our biggest issues Jessica before is that we just didn't have enough funds and that we weren't even really clear as a commission how much we had and what we
had allocated to which fund so you know one is Eric that keeps track of that like who who who has access to that I think it's you I think it's you
okay I don't know I I mean Travis was really on top of that he was such a good chair like he was really on top of all that stuff but like he he would be an easy resource to just get all that information and then
you and Liz and me and Erica and Emily can all have that information going forward it's probably on the Google Drive um right yeah I think getting money is like top priority if there's deadlines like and every year it resets
yeah yeah that's my impression definitely be like hitting that every single I mean a lot of the because I went to one of the you know meetings or whatever a lot of the concom get like a like whatever 5,000 from Town Council
every year right just toine item yeah and when I talked to Mark Stinson on that on that note Erica he was saying you know because we were talking about how not to digress about your position Jessica but like we've had a lot of
agents and you know it's annoying that we can't hang on to an agent for very long and we've been talking with Mark Stinson for example about how we can maybe alter that and one of our thoughts was maybe we could combine that with another town like Deerfield for example
had a ton of emergency Sears in 2024 because of all the flooding and they don't have an agent and so that was a lot of work for just the chair to deal with yeah Mark brought that up to me as well so like we were talking about you
know combining you know two towns that you get benefits and then it's a more it's a full-time position and that's more beneficial to you and we have a more long-term agent who is more familiar with our city and our issues and our conservation lands benefit all
around um I agree there's so much to know with this like I feel like you know I'm just like learning what my responsibilities are still like four months later I'm like oh I do that you know and to have
to reinvent kind of the wheel every two years and we keep doing it over like every agent it's like yeah and it's yeah and you deserve benefits so oh why I do have
benefits well okay I think I might be the first one good yeah good so okay I'll um I'll kind of collect all those thoughts that we just spitballed into an email and then we'll
hone that in for next meeting okay so we can be like focused yes absolutely yeah I think that would good thank you there's a lot of work that could be done and it would just be given our
Collective um resource of time being that there's not much of it yeah I just remember Travis talking with you know I guess Mike fish is that what was that a Lincoln fish L than you
thank you link Lincoln fish about you know like revamping all of the kiosks and he was going to get grant money and like I just felt like that didn't go anywhere and there were action items assigned and it just sort of fizzled and
he was I you know I I don't know I just I don't want to like I I thought I thought he was working or was going to work or wanted to work whether with a bunch of kids who were going to help and he was gonna yeah and I don't so I don't know if it you know whatever didn't and I
can't remember this was also maybe around Co time so maybe so that might have been part of it it might have been around Co you're right quite a while ago so I I think maybe might have been that I'd be happy to reach out to Lincoln um I you know I
sort of have professional connections with him so I can see if he's still interested and and maybe he can remember some of the details um but I love the idea of us just knowing what the issues are at the properties and then you know just
keeping a couple of them um in our court to try and make progress on over time and then figure out how what what are ways that we can get funds um so that we can have them in our budget I wish I could remember what that Source was but I just remember that there was an annual
request we can make so yeah we did have a couple of people come before the commission like I can't remember how long ago it was but a couple of folks came before the commission to talk about issues that they found at uh Highland
Park um and I'm sure it's all documented on the Google drive but just having you know like a running tab when we do have um meetings where we don't have a lot of public hearings this this would be the kind of agenda that would be good
to read address um yeah and we have done some work well we haven't done it we've had like you said people came in they did the the signage around the Verna pool in high invasive dream so it's other volunteers
in town who come in and want to do stuff um not necessarily us going out or trying to find people it should it be I mean if we're managing those properties you know I mean we should be on top of that so yeah well it seems like a lot of the
properties are passive or basically not really used and there's a couple that have no access so that's true I think we just sort of let it I guess go which means like even it should be even more manageable
if there's only a few that have Trails right we could get the uh structures up that You' see feel like sorry go ahead Liz I I think what I would I would be interested in and I'm I'm not seeing anything um in the folders like popping
out at me would be a comprehensive list of all of those properties and which ones are accessible and which ones are not and that way I think we could probably prioritize the ones that are accessible in terms of dealing with them but I do think that um keeping oh my
[Music] gosh got to do some aerobics during the meeting or something yeah you gotta keep moving uh but just to to keep an eye on the um the the ones that are considered to be inaccessible because people find
ways to access stuff the other thing we should it maybe not being used for recreation they might being used to live on or yeah or some teenagers got a party camp or I would suggest reaching out to
Travis too because he did a lot of work on that when he was chair and that was sort of his like pet project so he may have you do that much work you might detailed there are detailed lists of the
properties that we own and then all the deed research that just got shared with the open space task force recently and then one of the members of the open space task force went further than that and now they have created a full list of all the properties of the Town not that that's our responsibility but um so that
stuffs there and it would be great to add to it just our understanding of what the needs are and you know people come to us have a repository for where we can keep track of that and you know all this stuff just doesn't happen because we don't have time but if we can create
some kind of institutional memory you know so the next group don't have to do the same thing we're doing right now and then have some kind of momentum where oh here's a little project we're working on over time it would make a big difference I think there is I mean there is there is a list and little FL whatever in the
um about all the properties in the open space and recation plan with the town so um yeah I just I just opened that yeah 350 page yeah oh my God that's
long but but stuff does not necessarily happen with that because I mean I worked on it when in 1999 I think uhhuh and the same initiatives and the same stuff is in the newest one oh so
embarrassing that's why we have the task force we're trying to pick a couple of things oh and that's a nice segue if we want to move on this is a nice segue criteria um do we need to officially announce it uh yeah let me do that real quick sorry I was looking digging and
digging um we are looking at conservation priority mapping project to discuss additional identification and waiting of priorities okay I just want to um kind of add to that segue when I was opening that plan and uh the
document that I found in our Drive had a letter addressed to Eric uh from whoever he submitted that plan to that said that we are now because of the plan we are now approved to apply for any all right
CPR or CPA maybe grants right you have you have to have that plan in place before Community preservation I know I have it course forget which one it is but I know you have to have [Music]
um I can look for it in a second but um when I went to the website there was like six different types of grants that qualified as whatever the grant type was um and they varied from environmental I
feel like there was some um you know social environmental grants that fell under that umbrella but it just seemed like we're eligible through 2020 8 I think we you know we missed 2025 so it's you know which I mean that gives us
three more years so 678 um that we can maybe get our ducks in a row and get some more money for conservation purposes um on top of whatever that 5,000 you know maybe that's a totally
separate pool yeah yep so awesome yeah I'll look that actually so well I guess I should keep talking um so the the uh the mapping projects I
touched on it I think last meeting I haven't like worked on it since the meeting like I've my suggestion um was because again this is huge was just there's a list of criteria that's being formed and I thought since
we had extra time that focusing on that list might be helpful just for us to familiarize ourselves with it and then also since waiting is something that the task force is encouraging us to do we could say hey those are the ones that are important to us and that that's pretty straightforward but the you know
and also Allison Gage did send that map and you've been working on a map with with um Patty and Allison but I thought that the list of criteria might be just sort of a fairly concrete thing that we could at least talk about and if there's things we notice that are missing that we would want we could suggest that
those be added okay are you talking about the list that had or was it Allison um G just sent today or was it yeah today um that and the pre-existing
document that you and me sent around when I sent the link the ideas yeah um yes so that the ideas here I'll share my my screen um am I sharing no back sorry not being priv I got to find
the link that I cuz it was a Google Drive I didn't save it in our Google Drive so it was like a Emily you don't happen to have it I I'll find it I'm pretty sure I've got it here I'll share it oh I found it oh
good and I've got Allison's email ready if you want me to share that after we look at this okay so this was kind of their brainstorm of uh it's it's really broad it's just the
ideas so uh it starts with the objective to ID map and work with different parts of the city government to acquire new conservation L considering factors like biomap adjacency to existing conservation land serving environmental
justice communities climate resil resiliency uh like connectivity flood storage and sustenance bring together partners and funding sources to facilitate the process and reduce the burden on City
staff um so I don't know what this is District rural residential forested residential Urban zoning districts those like uh planning board districts or zoning districts and we were talking about different types of conservation that
would be appropriate for different areas like a pocket park you wouldn't make out in the like north um Meadows where there's lots of Farmland but might be really valuable in the center of town okay um
so this is this next section conservation elements so there's sort of different sections undeveloped parcels uh Greenfield residential zones map and then environmental justice communities map funding check open space plan for
State programs oh look CPA under funding I think you're right Emily I think it is CPA that you're talking about um conserved lands map and that's it for the um the con ation
Element Section why we look at the E what I don't know someone was saying something and then um it jumps down to qualifiers one through five um this is
this is where we're getting into a little bit more of like the idea of waiting uh waiting the priorities so Threat Level of development lot size more than 5 acres adjacency to conserved or or cluster of uh conserved Sligh
value uh within a wildlife Corridor within an aquifer proximity to water supply Wetland River flood zone proximity to environmental justice communities and stewardship opportunities
um example from doer technical potential SAR City I haven't looked at that I don't know what that is um so they've added to this a little bit stewardship opportunities qgis questions to consider that's the
end um so it's not really necessarily like a straightup list it's kind of a brain dump um but the conservation elements I think is where it gets more into the layers right
maybe it would be helpful then to look at the the information that Allison sent along because it is a little bit more digested than this list okay pretty spaghetti on the wall all right so so she gave us this
map trying to open it okay of course you don't see the map here I'll do that again there we go okay is this a map you've seen before Jessica yes I just saw it today okay for
the first so it's probably it's pretty different from the one that that um we had done before in the past yeah that Mitch made yeah then that sort of just took a few criteria and then made them
darker if there was more that sort of were relevant to it yeah this one doesn't appear to necessarily like show parcel specifically I mean I guess it kind of does in that central part
where it's like more but it doesn't show like Rocky and it's showing Parcels that are enrolled in one of the chapter 61 programs those are outlined oh yeah sorry I meant like priority Parcels where they're weighted
a darker color because I think the dark green is the I don't know that looks like it might be a little more biomap than um just for the Green River riparian area but then there is also
like a darker Green in that urban area do you know what I mean the urb like for the EJ you mean because EJ seems to be south of the route to 91 connection
and east of 91 I don't think the Legend's very descriptive on this no it isn't that's what I'm getting I'm getting her email out too because I think she talked about more what was going on all right so sounds like they were looking for
feedback um the layers are the same color set at a high transparency so they're overlapping so the darker areas where there's more things that are in in common oh okay so it's like a roster analysis where like
the darker it's like a biological Hotpot yeah okay um and then she gave a list um to wait from 1 to 5 on presence or absence and so this list were the the prime ones and it seems like these are
most of the ones that are marked on the map [Music] um and then there's other things that we could consider like Threat Level lot size can you guys read the email yeah it okay good on our end okay good you've
got that giant screen yeah um I love weighted rasar analyses too with like B like with darker hot spots I think that that makes perfect sense so that looks that looks great can you is that
on the Google drive or is that shared yeah yeah both these um let me just double check before I say yes but yeah so yeah in the folder there's Mitch's old one their draft
map and then the email that Emily's reading from okay that's great um do we do we need to do anything on this tonight or I think it'd be great if we just at least said which are the ones that are
of the most importance when we're looking at land for conservation purposes so that's like a task for a longer projection um I guess if I I was thinking it's sort of like what we did earlier where we talked about what the criteria are
there's these listed here Prime Farmland soil environmental justice Area biomap Regional connectivity Regional RAR species local Landscapes cor habitat critical natural landscape 100-year flood plane and mapped River to Green River mapped River Corridor for the
Green River um if we were just looking at those as criteria are there ones that would stand out as being the highest priority when we are looking at properties for being conser conserved I would disagree with some of those okay just throwing throwing a number from one
to five on each of them we could yeah like or or we you could say zero if you wanted to yeah like I would I would even add different ones that aren't included yeah biap is great you
know it includes you know um core natural landscapes and connectivity but also like there's I mean personally I like to look at you know cold water Fisheries habitats um I don't know if environmental justice is really kind of
a conservation value that's more of a social justice value but that can be something we can discuss as a group um potential vernal pools certified vernal pools does go into the biomap
because there the connectivity on a metap population scale but that's just one part of biomap you know priority and estimated habitat re are plant communities re are Wildlife communities Wildlife corridors um 100-year flood
plane um you know be bordering land subject to flood is a jurisdictional resource area that we are currently overseeing regulation for but also bordering vegetated wetlands isolated vegetated Wetlands Riverfront
area Riverfront area under the ordinance and also under the state so intermittent streams perennial streams like there's a lot in there that I don't think is necessarily really covered so one of the things we were talking about with biomap
is that some of those biomap layers consider a lot of a lot of what I think they consider a lot of they do but it's very it's a it's a it I guess what I'm kind of trying to
get at is for our jurisdiction like we are a Conservation Commission who are supposed to be regulating aquatic resource areas um I mean some of this criteria is obviously important for us in
consideration for conservation land like whether it's contiguous with other conservation land whether it provides important Wildlife corridors but like as a Conservation Commission should we be prioritizing aquatic resource areas that's a really good point yeah we
should definitely be focusing on the stuff that's specifically within our purview I mean I just feel like the no-brainer is like aquatic corridors right like that's just it's kind of like you're getting a a big bang
for your buck if you're just going like anything in that Green River Corridor I'm just raster analysis is awesome but I'm not sure that that's exactly the same application that we would apply for for
I don't know I don't just just floating that out there I think one thing I want to make sure that we we keep in mind too is that the conservation restrict the Conservation Commission has jurisdictional responsibilities and then also beyond
that our responsible are the responsible entity for conservation of land which does go beyond waterways so I think this is a thing that's very unclear actually and is a real problem for the functioning of conservation commissions
across the state is that almost like 90% of the time for anybody is spent on water issues because somebody has to do it and then also we are the entity that holds the conservation restriction which all like you know will always have
things Beyond Water Resources so I would just make sure or I would want to offer um that to us as a group to remember when we're thinking about conservation as a broader com topic absolutely it makes sense for us to think about the things that are of highest importance to
us and that's why they're asking us to weigh in but conservation writ large is also our job it's just we don't get that much time to spend on it really and very few I would agree with that and I think that a lot of times whenever I'm
reaching out to a Conservation Commission as a consultant trying to offer them land on behalf of an applicant for you know some kind of a CR issue um they're usually only interested in the land if one there are a lot of
wetlands and two if there's Public Access those are the two primary reasons I see commissions I've actually had commissions turn a beautiful parcel down beautiful like net benefit to rare
species gorgeous conservation package down because it is not contiguous with other conservation Parcels um which really stinks so I've I've seen those being big issues conserving land
that's tot well and but like what is the main goal to conserve what is like the main goal is it for ecosystems to conservations let's see it depends on what perspective you're taking so the
IRS has established um a a list basically of accepted conservation goals some of those have to do with agriculture some of those have to do with Wildlife air Clear Water you know all these things are the things that
they look for other things they look for are um supporting um state and local priorities so that's where making sure that it's close to other conserved land comes in um and then you know if it is has been mapped as an identified area by
bi biomap or some other possibility you know other um you know sometimes the state um agencies have action plans about forests or Farmland that kind of thing so um in any restriction whether it's an APR or conservation restriction
they'll actually list the purposes of it being conserved so we'll always and that's actually one of the processes that you go through when you conserve land is that you bring that list of purposes to the Conservation Commission to verify it um so we are the people who would just say oh yeah we looked at the
map there are wetlands there yes that's one of the purposes so e the the the the goal for conservation for each property will be unique to the property and then looking at the entity that's being asked to either approve or fund it then you
want to say how does this stand in terms of what we're looking to conserve you know we might be um a planning board and we're really interested in having lots of Housing and so we wouldn't be prioritizing conservation you know but
then probably that property wouldn't come to them they'd come to us and we'd look at it and go is there go Wildlife is there other Cold Water Resources you know are you um connecting this with other conserved land so um the process that the task force is going through
is you know we're trying to like figure our way towards being able to find ways to um uh get closer to accomplishing some of the goals in the open space plan so this is to make this list of priorities and to create maps that
reflect that and then to gather some information from the Committees you know the commissions so that when um whoever is getting in in front you know getting behind a project we can say well the Conservation Commission really is very
focused on making sure that there's um healthy riparian areas and then maybe beyond that wildlife and connectivity and you know supporting Public Access that kind of thing yeah because my thought process was if we had a clear
goal it'd be easier to to have clear priorities and then wait those priorities so if we're you know if our clear goal is ecosystem stability and function then I feel like it's easier to be like well
what do we need to look for to achieve that right but if it's um sorry people are walking by yeah I know I'm keeping an eye I feel like that's a bigger question Jessica and we should table that and maybe not answer
that this evening because when when as a consultant I do a lot of Permitting where we offer conservation commissions conservation land and sometimes they take it and sometimes they don't and sometimes we have to shop around to other land trusts to see if they want it and often this is associated with rare
species issues not just Wetlands issues but um there has to be like incentives involved and or the contribution commission W want it and so like maybe this is a global question that we should come up with a mission statement as a
commission maybe not just tonight because it is a bigger question yeah it doesn't have to be tonight I mean this is like it's a big project I think and um I don't yeah we don't necessarily need to come up with it tonight but I think one of one of the big questions
that have come to in my brain is like well what's our goal because if we're trying to identify priority part parcel so that we can be more proactive about reaching out to the community to see if people are interested you know in potentially selling their land selling a
conservation restriction or whatever are is there is a it will just help us better identify who to reach out to because right now it just seems really abstract and so there is I
thought gosh Travis was so invested in this and I I can't remember everything but there was I thought a a Citywide priority parcel parcel prioritization plan that was identified and that's why we got so
up in arms about the um the poet seat thing the Mountain Ridge issue because that was specifically identified in the city's uh Erica I think it's in the open SP open
space plan thank you yeah I knew you'd know what it was yeah one of the major priorities was the ridg line and that came up and she wanted to sell it immediately it's like right and we were like but that was already identified as a priority parcel why there is some kind
ofion I feel like this has come up a lot and I don't know what you're talking about so there's a parcel that you guys talked the mayor into not selling right and and and now it's been in limbo though still in limbo yeah and how long
has that been going on three years and what's it called does it have a name Mountain Ridge Mountain rer rer what's the name what's the name of that and what is it g to take get it out of limbo the
mayor but is this did this get passed from another mayor though the whole there was there was two properties and they were taken by for taxes and there was a house on one of them they sold that yeah and then the other one we made her she wanted to sell both but yeah we got her to save one of
them okay and so we just need the current mayor to yeah sign something or like to determine that it's don't need it which oh so I thought so it didn't like even though the previous mayor agreed they didn't
like she kept saying that she needed to wait until she need needed to see if the police station needed the property which they couldn't use it because it's on a cliff I mean right okay and then the current mayor is aware that that needs
to be completed or yeah I think Travis talked to her I think at least yeah she came she came to join us when she was first elected and we talked about that issue and she was very ambiguous about it and I to as far as I know
it's just been ignored and I think she has you know other issues that she's dealing with as new mayor and right you know she kind of has maybe because that was like right off the bat and she was
swamped with all the like new things but I I don't think we have forgotten about it it is still fresh on our minds because like Erica said it has been identified as a priority parcel in the open space plan and there is you know just kind of like Circle back Jessica go
like there is a priority list of parcels that have been identified as priori I'm gonna dig into that open space plan because uh that is what this yeah the project is to to implement
the plan so I just need to read it yeah like somebody already went through all of that raster yeah I thought it was 350 sorry just some light nighttime reading true go back to that later but because like also I don't know
we could get grants from it I it seems like much work went into that and to not leverage that and get yeah I do know that Travis did a lot of work on that I would definitely touch base with him and to see like where he left off because he
that was his like Pet Project he was really invested in that um we were all really invested in that parcel on the ridge you know I live right at the bottom of it so obviously like and if you Google the city of Greenfield that's the picture that comes up on our City
website I mean oh yeah you know it's Hallmark of our city it's just Unthinkable that that would be sold to Industrial Development but um just like the open space plan in general was something Travis spent a lot
of time on weeks ago now it just isn't logistically does not make sense oh for development this kind of was like Oh you mean like blasting the back of the ridge to expand the police department no I course
sorry because they have drainage problems because that will help yeah okay so I'm thinking oh go talk I've got a suggestion uh or I just want to read back something I'm I'm taking notes to bring back to the task force so some of
the feedback that I have to that I want to bring to them is just our question is how does this mapping process compare to what's already in the open space plan since there are areas that are and maybe even Parcels that are prioritized is even maybe if it's been identified in
the open space plan one of the criteria that that could be used right like we did with the ridge the Mountain Ridge property um what of our jurisdictional area types are incorporated into biomap layers so that we don't have to be you
know should we be calling out like what are the specifics or are there things that really capture those those values um and then also to let them know that something that this has prompted for us is to spend some time to consider what
our specific goal or Mission or point of view is in terms of conservation to help us weigh in on the final list of criteria anything else I should add to that and I did Mark down the various
resources that you mentioned Kristen so I can give those as examples of things they might be in the biom map I'm not I don't normally pull that up because it's so dense I usually pull up individual layers when I'm doing my desktop analyses but um they might already be in there so as long as somebody's Savvy
enough to like weed through all of the B layers A lot of that stuff is called out in the descriptions of those layers as well yeah so it might it might give some of that information um and I can give them General feedback that um the weighted raster approach seems like a
good one I'd love that I'd love that it's so clean too when you give a map you know and like weight you know zeros and ones and stack them up on top of each other and give that nice bio hot spot I love that it's just it's a really clean map so yeah tells a story easily
so Emily I'm not sure if you've seen this or if this might be of use to you but this seems like it might be getting at some of these things and it's the open space Recreation planners workbook which is only 94 Pages as opposed to that's it but it's in the um
it's in the open space folder and that seems like it might be I barely just sort of like scrolled through it real quick but it seems like it might be of some some utility if if you haven't already found it of course which you may know all about it but I think one of the
things is that we're starting taking as our starting place the open space plan and then sort of trying to feed in a few other sources of information like the municipal vulnerability plan and the master plan and then just come back to okay so what are a couple things we can
do and so the one of the things that we chose was to go from okay here are the general areas and maybe a couple of priority properties to what can our um systematic approach be to getting
conservation projects going in Greenfield by saying what are our community priorities and so the Conservation Commission has a really important role in that and I think it is really great for us to just take a little bit of time and think about it
you know um and then ask for more information like you know what kinds of maps are available or um if they are going to be looking at it in terms of zones in the town then that be might be an interesting lens for us to look at too because in the center of the city
flooding and storm water issues be of more in importance than you know around the rivers out in the more rural areas of the town so that might be a place where we could say okay we're clear that you know uh infrastructure safety and
biological functioning are are the two like Hallmarks of what we're interested in having our conservation restrictions accomplish and then we could say in this part of the town this is the kind of project that we would like to see so that it can do those things you know
just as an example yeah I love that that's awesome cool all right well I feel satisfied that I've got some feedback to bring back we definitely we're not going to cover it all tonight but but it it yeah you know it just picking away at this stuff can make a big difference absolutely I agree um and
so the other thing that we had talked about earlier just to sort of like put a bow on everything um we were going to maybe I think that the next step for that first piece of the conversation around the um Property Maintenance and what have you would be
for um for me to like maybe pick Travis's brain about what he and Mitch had already done uh so that we don't end up as as I think Kristen mentioned like just recreating the wheel uh and maybe we even have like a nice solid
foundation to move forward from well if you email him if that's how you're picking his brain you could copy me and then I'll have because I'll be able to access all the stuff that Mitch has in in the files and yeah absolutely I feel like they did so much and I just I feel like there's got to be a lot of
information on the Google Drive that they compiled I Eric you must remember he he brought this up at meetings over the years like oh I've I've created a folder blah blah here with all this information or something you know I mean
he's he's he's got to have a lot of stuff on there but like like you were saying I think it's sometimes it's hard to sitp through where yeah it is dense but I feel like yeah definitely reach out to Travis I feel like he's
got that was his pet that was his pet project he spent a lot of time on that so great well I feel like that was very valuable and um and I'm sure that this will become more clear so we can keep checking in and I'll I'll try and bring
information from the task force and to you guys and back to them and hopefully we'll we'll get somewhere conserve some land we've already done our part right we voted in favor of the the uh shurn summer parcel and that's right yeah that was awesome
yeah still is awesome it's still in progress continues to be awesome all right um cool well thank you everybody for being super efficient and forward thinking about all of that stuff that's all um really important work to
get done um it looks like these enforcement updates anything here uh no but I do have some updates for the project monitoring section okay cool okay so on the project monitoring correspondence site visiting scheduling
list um I just wanted to update you guys like I told you I'm like going back through and orienting myself with where everything is at so um the one at the top has an expired um uh
order conditions and that person Mitch was trying to get in touch with and he's completely Mia I've tried to get in touch with him Mark Stinson has tried to get in touch with him um it's just like an empty void so I I reached out to the
um the engineer for the project and he's uh retired I talked to the people he worked with there's no as buil plans to just close it out so now I'm at the stage where I am probably going to I guess reach out to the property owner
it's the big why sorry just to yeah it's the big why there was um tree cutting and slope restoration work there I guess I think it was right on route two right there the front is there a
consultant or who is the applicant Big Y and Big Y is Mia yeah ah this guy Dwight has oh yeah Dwight Dwight used to come to our meetings yeah Dwight is not getting back to here's Here's a thought
so maybe we could send him an email letting him know that if he has any plans to do any work in jurisdiction again and there are jurisdictional areas on the Big Y property he cannot do any work until he closes out that order of conditions well I I did say that to
Dwight but he's the manager and so it the next person the owner is not Big Y it's like Ro robar Inc and so I was going to reach out to them and say same thing yeah I mean it should be aouch to the
deed like yeah I think that I mean they're the owner they're the ones that are going to face the repercussions they should be the ones who have signed like who signed the actual noi application as a property owner they yeah and yeah and the end white I think
they both did um but uh anyway so that's that that's where that's at it's the only one on there that's expired so just so you know I am addressing it well they'll have to close it out eventually if they want to do any more work and I I feel like they did come before us right
Erica like yeah years ago projects I think this was on this was they've already done the one that was lower um closer to the gas station I think they were going to do some on the upper part so should we have not were we not supposed to issue a new
order of conditions if they still had an open order of conditions or is this the open order of conditions might be all the same project okay because you're not supposed to have War you're not supposed to have an open order and then issue a new order you're supposed to close that out before you issue a new order I
didn't see any record from Mark say like usually I've seen him say that a bunch of times like yeah he's good about that yeah the first part was was closed out when they did made the rain garden and all that stuff remember yeah yeah I thought that was closed out then they
then they opened this new one because they wanted to do some work on the upper part the other side yeah maybe I'm wrong about the the location on the proper I thought I thought when I was on the commission they came before us to do some like tree trimming along that
stream that goes right along Route two along the rout two the west side of Route two I guess I know I'm like where that's North
yeah like the west side of Route two um like Northwest side of Route two like right on like the Big Y side not the Home Depot side well when I reached out to the engineering company they they well even the guy who retired he's like it's done
it's ready to be closed out so I just need to reach out to the owner oh okay okay maybe on them yeah I I don't I'm not sure they did because they did put a retain a wall remember that that was down you know they did retain I don't
remember that that was maybe that's kind where my knowledge on this project ends um and they found it was flooding down there so they didn't make a curb cut anding if you do get in touch with them Jessica just remind them that they need to also have
recorded the registry of deeds got yeah got it um so the next project I wanted to discuss just 208 Mohawk Trail I just you know I was like I'm gonna go by and take a picture Aldi um so I just
yes it's Aldi I'll um share my [Music] screen these are just photos I just figured you know we'd look at them so I went by last Friday so before
the warmth um so the snow banks are high there's McDonald's um this you can see the um yeah Sil fence looks pretty Sil fence is disappearing this was where they had like driven over it I don't it does kind
of look like maybe they put it back up here because I don't think a car can fit through that but um it's still disappearing maybe they just put the steak back I don't know um yeah need to repair that Soul
fence yep it looks like snow damage so yeah just giant snow piles uh was that was that one of our things CH when we or when we pered it about where they were going to put Snow I can't remember you're so good at
remembering that stuff Erica I can't remember we should look at the plans though because they we were specific about snow storage I do remember talking about that so this is like an exposed
stockpile see that like that's soil yep yeah a constant issue with this particular site and they keep telling us that they've dealt with it and lo and behold well you know we can issue an we can we can issue an enforcement order a
ceas and assist if they're continuing to disregard our comments and by the way in hindsight and I just want to say this again when we have a complicated project that's this close to Resource areas we
should ask for a thirdparty review and it is on the applicant's expense and they can make recommendations things like we should have maybe asked for you know weekly or
storm Swip inspection reports um we we kind of messed up I think with this application we could have asked for a lot more that was within our rights and we didn't and they're really taking advantage of
that yeah I agree we are since I've joined the commission we've never asked for a third-party review and you have them where you want them you know when they're asking for a permit and we it's very common to ask for a third party
review for a very complicated project in resource areas or in jurisdiction and this would have been the perfect example at the very least we should have been getting Swip inspections I don't know what I was thinking because I think I was on the commission and I just
didn't think of it but this this is on us I feel like we that this was on us but we could we if we have repeatedly reached out to them and asked for you know compliance and they're consistently ignoring our requests we could issue an
enforcement order or assist and get them into compliance with our orders of conditions because they it looks like they're out of they're out of compliance but I I do like even though this is exposed is it in
buffer I yeah this is the stream right here and this is the thing but this silt fence as much as it looks tattered nothing is going to go over that it like i' I went there before snow it was really dug
in um so but the S but the but the soil pile is so high so usually and I H I know you just sent me the boiler plate I haven't read it yet but um and I have to get familiar with their boiler plate put it on your bookmark toolbar I know I'm
sorry usually there's something in there that says like you know if the soil gets halfway or a quarter of the way up the silt fence you know you that you have to manually EX AV at it out um that soil pile is really high next to a really
short Sil fence and it's we're about to get into the freeze thaw season it's really close to that Sil fence and that Sil fence is super janky I'm not confident in that erosion control measure yeah so what do you think will happen it will just spill and spill until it like knocks it
over yeah it's going to either blow it out or it's going to build all the way up to about 3/4 of the way up and then just fold it over and it's going to you know I don't know I mean are we given the level of preventative maintenance that their contractors have been
exhibiting so far are we confident that they're going to be on top of things in the spring thaw no not at all not even remotely so I'm not even confident if I go over there and like reiterate that they'll do we want to issue another letter saying you know we have been
paying attention to you and these are the conditions that you're not meeting you're out of compliance um we're very concerned about the spring I don't know how we would want to word that but um and then if you don't comply within X date there will be a ceas and assist do
we have documentation of our previous um polite requests for them to conform to the agreement that they made with us I'm sure I brought like a site visit um
kind of like summary because I did the site visit with Mark and then and we like verbally talked about it we also have it on recording um when they came into the call yeah and then I brought the summary so that that's probably the
only paper trail because everything else has been verbal like me going over there and being like Oh you need to like do this okay do you feel like what we have is sufficient to shut them stop them down I don't know so
two things I would say one after every site visit if you notice something that's not in compliance F follow up with an email saying hey I visited your site this was not in compliance you know button that up ASAP and if I come by again and that's not addressed we're
gonna have an issue just to like document your your observations yeah absolutely and then two like just let's just like revisit the order of conditions and the special conditions and the general conditions and if there's anything that's out of compliance right now we don't there's
nothing that we have to worry about they're out of compliance or out of compliance so if they have a 40 foot high or a 20 foot high or whatever soil stock pile and it says in our orders that if that's going to be exposed for more than 14 days it has to be covered with some kind of like a material and
it's not it's like you know that is for sure in there so I can go back through my notes and figure out what the timeline was with you know all my site visits are dated on these photos but um I feel like
the only time I actually handed them like a paper like this is what needs to be done I only did that once every other time we went there it was just a verbal like oh you need to address this you need to address this um so this is a good learning experience for me of just creating you know if even if I have a
verbal exchange following up with an email um all of us we should have done a third party review I think on this absolutely all of us I mean that's the main takeaway I think is the third party but also just I this is a learning
experience for me of had to have a paper trial and they should be doing they should be giving us Swip inspections I don't I honestly don't remember what happened during this permit review process where I was at with this but um you know we should be getting Swip inspection
special condition special conditions this is their their order of conditions special conditions under the Greenfield Wetlands protection ordinance Wetlands protection act one a Swip shall be submitted to the Conservation Commission prior to construction uh BMP operations and maintenance log book shall be kept and
maintained throughout the project a report on the restoration plan progress shall be submitted to the commission once a year for the first two years I was thinking like if we if we required the applicant to submit so they have to do a Swip because there's more than one acre of soil disturbance but if
we required them we should be doing this with all applicants to do um like a Swip inspection from a third-party inspector not their contractor hey Kristen yeah that's oh that's right my camera's not on you can't see
me she's like waving our arms like so so so um here this is their General conditions under the Wetland protection act over all conditions I'm going to skip to number two because it's in bold violation of any condition May results in enforcement action number three work
shall be halted on the site if an agent of the commission or DP determines that any of the work is not in compliance with this order of conditions we have already just determined that they are not in compliance and Jessica is an agent of the commission of our
commission yes well you determined that before and you were nice enough not to shut them down that time gave them you know you gave them verbal warnings and they didn't so should I send a certified letter and that well here's the thing so
no soil is actually migrated to a resource area yet yeah it's just that they're being sloppy right or or am I wrong no their pile is required to be covered okay and I don't believe that
snow counts yeah okay sorry not to be actually I was actually serious like I don't think that counts but gotcha no I I agree with that I agree and that yeah so they're out of compliance but just to go back to what I
was saying is we could require in the future that an applicant or their contractor hire a third-party inspector to to supply the Conservation Commission with a storm water report every time it
rains a quarter inch or a weekly General inspection report during construction as part of their Swip inspections and to as far as I know we we haven't really been doing that but we are totally within our rights to ask
that all right so what should I do at this point I feel like Liz is right they're out of compliance at least for covering that soil pile should I just send an email saying you're out of compliance like this needs to happen and you know the next step is a is a stop
order so I I guess I might lean on Eric because I don't know the protocol for enforcement okay okay alen on Eric well and and maybe ask Ian we should have gotten some of those reports right so I think you could in that email
say you were supposed to provide I want it now because I they Haven the only reports they're just supposed to keep a log on site so that's not to us could ask for a copy of it we have the
Swip the the pre- Swip the pr Swip was the and then the other one was once a year they need to yeah update us on the restoration plan which I don't even know if that started well but the but like Kristen said log book you could ask them I want a copy of it yeah yeah because I
bet they haven't been keeping it I bet they haven't been doing it either the super should be doing a daily inspection of the erosion controls fixing things as need needed managing snow so that you know during freeze Tha it's not just all like you know they should never be
plowing snow over the erosion controls and I don't know if that's anything that's happened I'm not accusing them of that like it didn't look like any snow piles were over the okay yeah I mean we could ask them for
you know give them a timeline to come into compliance and if they don't come into compliance by that timeline and I don't know if that's a week or 5 days or two days but then there'll be an enforcement order and a season assist this isn't the first time you've
talked to them right yeah this might be the only one need to I mean that would hit them MoneyWise right they would stopping work would have been cost forced all the opening so we can we can stop them weely
absolutely they losing money because cents with their permit yeah chaps my backside is that man came in here and told us to our faces that he was taken care of yeah yes yeah he he didn't know what he was talking about
well and so I'll report back on that um the next one I wanted to talk on was um uh the last one I'm going to talk on tonight is the trail maintenance Highland
Park uh that was over the summer it it was a local um noi I believe and um they needed to get a you guys approved it but the city needed to get a letter from the
NH ESP or whatever yeah Bunch ofare plant for because it is in priority habitat and they've been struggling ever since and um um so I just had a meeting with Christie Moore
and Kelly uh Jenkins and I have been playing phone tag with uh this guy Tim Maguire from the Department of fishery and W Wildlife so he's going to help me understand what we need because basically he doesn't have enough
specifics the um Appalachian Mountain club person that came and spoke she didn't have any like drawings and um that was brought up in the meeting like uh what exactly do you want to do to restore the trails and she said there'd
be some handd dug uh channels to help direct the water water bars and then even like routing the trail in certain areas but there was no there was no like plans or even
specific mapping you know there was some there was a lot of photos but even the the photo the photos that were provided had titles that didn't match the locations on the map right
so that is a clear place where we could like communicate better with the um Tim Maguire about what the project is but I think he wants even more specific since like well we're not working with an engineer so I asked him for an example of what he's gotten from other Trail
maintenance projects it's like simple Trail maintenance it's not I mean the rerouting the trail I think is um probably more worrisome for him because it's priority habitat but um the water bars and like the simple
like little water channels shouldn't be as crazy I'm sure they get that a lot but one thing that came up for chrisy is that they want to do other things on the trails like put up posts saying you know this way to like this Trail you you know
this distance that way and then some um maybe markers and stuff and how because it's priority habitat you know how do they just do simple stuff to um improve the trails and have to go through this
process every time you know I guess the Appalachian Mountain CL person is a little like um frustrated with how like far how long it's taken to get nowhere and the citizen that acquired funding
for the project is also frustrated about how it's just like hit a wall um because I guess it's been going on since 2022 I don't green and greenfields they dealt with or who was it Erica the U
Nancy and they were dealing with Carol Frost from natural heritage who's a botanist because if it's in priority habitat not estimated habitat it's for rare plants um that was that this project or I thought that was
the Green River area they wanted to like manage knotweed and stuff remember that yeah that's not so it's a different project but like this the young woman and some other person who came in and they were talking about the I remember
the water bars because it was the first time I had ever heard of such yeah yeah and so I'm I because we've been playing pone Tha we're we're do to have an actual conversation over the phone because I just like this can't be a new request for them right just at
hiking trails you know but I get it because he needs more specifics so we're not like digging around in like endangered species you know the rerouting of the trail part like if if that was just P
from the plans would it help move the project forward so anyway that's where about that I'll I'll keep you guys updated about like how that conversation goes and if we can get this moving forward y oh thank
you indeed so yeah I just no that's okay um cool you've been busy I've been busy uh all right do we have
any final comments questions concerns not hearing any fun fact I was reading through the Mac stuff and I am not permitted actually to um the thing that we need to do to end
the meeting AJ yeah no um make make a motion that's the one wait no you can motion you can motion though I I not allowed to motion as the chair I I thought there was something about that I don't know why I think it's weird but I feel like I because I join a
lot of concom meetings because you know that's my job and I feel like the chair of motions all the time the agent can't motion but the chair can motion I wouldn't be able to find it right now to save my life but I I know for sure I was like reading I was
looking for something else and um I came across that and I was like oh got remember that because we had had this conversation a couple times so I cannot actually oh my gosh let's I I like don't well either I don't believe it or I've
been misled for a long time by other people who don't know the rules are some of us going to the Mac the the um the conference on the 1 because we can ask probably yeah thatw I I can't because I have another
work thing I'm doing yeah me too there I I'm gonna try and make it I'm going excellent good we can ask yeah yes please so all that having been said at this point I'm not going to make the motion I will happily motion to adjourn
because that is my move great I'll second oh I didn't know I I'm so fast Erica all right uh so vote Emily I
Kristen I Eric I I am also an I that concludes this meeting of the Greenfield Conservation Commission on February 25th 2025 at 8:34 PM our next meeting will be
on the 11th of March [Music]