WEBVTT

METADATA
Video-Count: 1
Video-1: youtube.com/watch?v=jfRnYM6IHkw

NOTE
MEETING SECTIONS:

Part 1 (Video ID: jfRnYM6IHkw):
- 00:40:09: Meeting Opening, Roll Call, Hybrid Format Announcements
- 00:41:26: Seeking Conservation Commission Member and Action Items
- 00:42:09: Discussion: Applicability Request for 28 Rabbit Road
- 00:45:14: Continue Applicability Request to May 13th?
- 00:46:36: Motion to Continue 28 Rabbit Road to May 13th
- 00:47:13: Discussion: Updating Information Receipt Deadline
- 00:48:01: Enforcement Update: 44 Rabbit Road Compliance Check
- 00:49:24: Motion: Matt to Inspect 44 Rabbit Road Site
- 00:49:56: Enforcement Update: Clear Cutting at 19 Blair Drive
- 00:59:14: Issuing an Enforcement Order Mandating Site Stabilization
- 02:10:05: Trash Removal Restoration and Variance Request Discussion
- 02:14:04: Public Comment: Concerns about Grass and Microplastics
- 02:15:10: Matt responds: Evaluating Landscaping and Mitigation Options
- 02:21:17: Commission Seeks a Parallel Planting Mitigation Strategy
- 02:24:47: Posts Planned, Commission Discusses Special Conditions
- 02:31:33: Motion to Approve the Project with Variances
- 02:33:51: Discussion about Dumpster Placement Special Conditions
- 02:37:05: Opening Discussion on Kingston Wetland Regulation Updates
- 02:42:28: Proactive Protection and Work Time Restrictions on Projects
- 02:51:51: Regulation Improvements Needed: Septic, Flood Zones
- 03:00:27: Meeting Minutes Approval and 68 Evergreen Street Update
- 03:06:55: Oachchinsky, Kalista Farm and Senior Center Updates
- 03:17:22: Cleaning up Tree Farm Landing Property
- 03:18:57: Discussion with Brockton's New Mayor on Silver Lake


Part: 1

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Ready? >> Mic. >> Micros. >> The time is now 6:33. The date is Wednesday, April 8th, 2026. Commissioner Payne is absent tonight. We'll uh take a virtual roll call. Um,

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Jim Franklin's here. Megan Hickey >> here. >> Kina Vendetti here. >> Scott McFarland >> here. >> Marilyn Kazido >> here. >> All right. Nope. The meeting is now open. Please note that we are doing a hybrid meeting with an in-person and virtual attendance. A member of the

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virtual public would like to make comments during a public hearing. Please use the raise the hand function on Zoom and you'll be assigned a speaking time. If you're listening in via telephone dial in, press star 9 to raise your hand and then press star six to unmute

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yourself. This meeting is being recorded by the local scene and a record of this meeting will be posted on the local scenes website as soon as they are able. Anyone intending to make an audio or video recording of this meeting should notify the chair at this time. Hearing none, we'll move on. Uh

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announcement. The Kingston Conserv Conservation Commission is seeking a new member. Commissioners are responsible for protecting the town's natural resources, including through enforcement of state and local wetland protection laws. Those interested should reach out to conservation department by calling

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781-58537 or emailing Matt Paneller at m PN L kingston.gov. Action items. Um, looks like I will now continue a public meeting to discuss the request for a determination of applicability in RDA

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for 28 Rabbit Road submitted by Steinbeck and Taylor on behalf of property owner Frank Dico for proposed removal of hazard trees and treatment of invas uh invasive plants. Matt, do you have any comments?

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Yeah. Um, we received correspondence from N Subalowski uh on behalf of the applicant. There was a wetlands report that was submitted about the filing, but we're still waiting on a they were going to prepare

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a more detailed certified arborist's letter. Um, and apparently the arborist who did the initial assessment has since retired. So they they needed a little more time for that. Um, yeah. And I I guess when we get the rest

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of the information, it will go on the agenda, but I believe at the last time this was discussed by the commission, the commission was looking to do a site visit um with the arborist. So, I'm not sure if we'll be able to do that before the next uh before the next hearing. I

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will try to coordinate that with um their representative. If not, it'll just be discussed the next time this is open. May I ask a question? >> This is under enforcement. It's not act or is it did it start under enforcement? >> I mean start is a funny

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>> right. So >> it was enforcement a long time ago and we did let them know like okay you're all set the enforcement issue is put to bed and then when it came back for an RDA we realized that there was a big portion of area that had been mowed again. So there hasn't been enforcement action taken. We've sort of been letting

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this work itself out through the RDA process so far. Okay. Because there was things that were supposed to be done that weren't done that were still waiting to be done. It's last time they were I mean we can't really get into it very much I guess either. But can I ask that it not be

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continued after next time? Like can I make a request that we actually make motion on this next time because it's been continued and continued and continued and continued like >> Yeah. And I mean it's always up to the commission if somebody requests to continue. I

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mean, you don't have to. Um, it's just in most cases, >> I don't know if I need to make a motion that this will be the last time I would like to continue this. >> I can definitely let um let them know that >> the commission would like to discuss this on I don't know what was the date

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we put in for >> April 22nd. It was just a two week. Um, so I can definitely >> put in there that at minimum the commission wants to discuss this on the 22nd. that will be discussed on the 22nd because there are a few outstanding things that aren't getting addressed in the meantime that are still not getting

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addressed. Um, all right. Any other comments? All right. I I I just have a comment. You know, pushing it to the next meeting, you know, to set up a everything in in light of Megan's comments. I think that's I think that's

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overly optimistic. I think that if we're going to kind of draw our line that we should be giving them um to the first meeting in May, which I think is the 13th. Um what's everybody think about that >> and then call it

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>> or give them a month and then like we will be discussing it on the 13th. >> I will give them a month but that's fine. >> I have a question. >> Yeah. within that space. Are we still expecting to manage a sidewalk?

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>> Yeah, I think 30 days gives us gives us enough time that if if it doesn't happen, if they don't they can't >> pull the o aberous together in that time frame then um I think I think I know which way I'd be leaning on an RDA.

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Right. >> But part of the the feedback to them will be that we're still looking to schedule. >> Absolutely. Yeah. Nothing as far as I'm concerned. Nothing would change on >> how we were going to go. I I'm just saying let's kick it out another two weeks >> and let's let them know that one way or

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another. We'll be discussing it >> um during that and if if we decide that they haven't moved forward enough, then we can always kick it and they can refile. >> Okay. Thank you. >> All right. Do we have a motion perhaps?

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>> So you need a motion to continue it to No, you asked for the first meeting in May. >> I think it's May 13th, Matt. >> May 13th is the first meeting in May. >> May 13th. >> May 13th. >> Is that your motion? >> That's my motion. >> Okay. We have a motion to continue to May 13th. Um and to ask Matt to

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communicate that uh one way or another we're discussing this at that meeting. Do we have a second? >> Second. >> All right. We have a second. We'll take a all in favor uh say I vote >> I >> I >> um I am an Ipposed hearing none. Motion passes 5 to zero.

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All right. All right. I will now open a discussion on updates to the conservation department's information receipt deadline. Matt. >> Um I I guess um I know we put this on the

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agenda as a separate item, but my recommendation is going to be that we're already going to be discussing updates of KWPR and a hearing tonight and working on that whole process. as I was going through KWPR doing a red line. Um, our information receipt policies in

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KWPR. So, there's really no point in updating that now. We would have to reissue KWPR just with that one minor change. We might as well just wait until the rest

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of it is done. Um, it's similar to I'll get into it later, but yeah, I think we just um wrap it in with the KWPR update. >> Sounds good. >> Enforcement 44 Rabbit Road. Matt, please uh provide us your update.

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>> Um, I have not been on site, but I did speak with the property owner, asked um for some photo documentation. I did get a photo of the dumpster area. I did get confirmation from the property owner that they did everything that was supposed to be done by that point. Um,

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as far as the exterior of the property, um, if the commission specifically wants me to go out and look at it, I'm more than happy to do that. Otherwise, they are on notice that now if there is evidence of any violation of that standard that there were going to be fines issued based on

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the way the EO was written. So, as far as I'm concerned, it's in compliance now, but I haven't gone out specifically to check it with my own eyes. more than happy to go do that if the commission wants me to do that. >> Commissioners, >> I would like that.

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>> Uh, sounds like Megan would like it. Straw hole. I think I'd prefer you >> putting our eyes on it so that there's no >> um wiggle room, >> right? >> Either it's in compliance or it's not in compliance. and we can draw that line in

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the sand and if they're on the wrong side of it, then at least we'll know that they weren't when when we just kind of moved forward the issue. Okay. >> Um do we want to take a vote on that? >> Sure. >> You take a um motion to

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>> So the motion would be to have Matt go out and do the site site reconnaissance, so to speak. >> Yes. >> Okay. I'll make that motion. >> All right. We have a motion from Maryland, second by Megan. All those in favor say I. I. opposed. Uh that motion carries 5 to zero.

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Uh Matt 19 Blair Drive uh enforcement action. Could you bring us up to the >> Yep. Um let me see. I can pull up anything on the screen if the commission wants, but you're all here in person and probably saw everything. So on March

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26th, we received word that the lot at 19 Blair Drive had been clearcut and that machines were there working on site spreading dirt all the way to the edge of the coast. Um, and they had said it was at 14 Blair

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Drive, not 19, but you know, I was familiar with 19 Blair Drive already, um, from a few years ago. And so Georgiana and I went immediately out to check the site and it was accurate. Um

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we found a contractor there. The trees on the property had been clearcut. The stumps had been ripped out. All of the vegetation on the site. All you know the strong majority of the vegetation on the site had been ripped up. So all of the

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soil disturbed. Um, and there had been at least one triacal load of some sort of fill. Um, couldn't tell exactly what it was. It wasn't lom. Um, the lom was supposedly coming in the next day. So, we actually pulled up right behind a triacle that

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was full um and stopped them from dumping another load, talked to the um to the contractor who was familiar with conservation because he's currently doing another project in town. Um, and you know, I stopped work, gave him a

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stop work order. He had said that he told the property owner that he should file and property owner didn't want to, and that he told the property owner, "At least you should put in a silt fence." And so, he agreed to put the silt fence in. Uh, the silt fence was very inadequate. It did not span the entire

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width of the disturbed area. And I think you can see in that picture um that you can see the ocean directly underneath one side of the sill fence. So the s fence was not installed into the ground in the correct way. So um he told me the

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property owner um which is the same owner of 14 Blair next door was in Florida and had contracted him to clear the area for I believe a vegetable garden and turf. So I said no further work can happen at

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the site. You should really talk to the property owner about stabilization. This is not good. the site slopes from Blair Drive down towards the ocean. I said, "If we get a big rainstorm and dirt enters the bay, there's going to be fines every day that that happens." Um,

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and I he gave me the contact information for the property owner. We got back to the office and called the property owner, left him a detailed voicemail saying, "You need to take care of this. You need to stabilize the site. Fines will be issued and the commission will discuss this on April 8th." Um

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he called on Friday when our office was closed and left just a brief voicemail. We got back to him on Monday morning and spoke with him about the site. He didn't feel like it was an issue like he didn't feel like there

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was going to be any input into the bay. He said, "Oh, we left grass in front of the sil fence." Which sort of said, "No, not you didn't." Um, you can see a tiny tiny bit of grass on the right side of the silt fence, but primarily it's everything right up to the coastal bank was ripped

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out. Um, so I said, "You need to stabilize the site." I gave some advice, which I had also given the day before to the contractor about how the site could be properly stabilized. Um, ultimately the land owner, you know, agreed, I'll I'll do some hay bales. I said, "Okay,

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the hay bales should should help." Um, said, "Do some hay bales and get the silk fence situated." I said, "That may not be all you need to do. I would do as much as you need to do to make sure nothing gets in the bay." I said, "I'm going to be checking the site every time it rains to make sure that nothing gets into the bay. And if it is, I'll be

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issuing fines." Um, and we went to the site several times after that and didn't see any obvious issues. Um, you know, even from a distance, you can see when there's serious movement of sediment and it didn't appear to happen.

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And I think we just didn't get a big enough rain. And then I was out there, I believe it was yesterday, really quickly just to do a driveby while I was out and there were hay bales across in front of the sil fence. Sil fence did look like it extended further. It was a little more substantial. So there were steps

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taken, you know, your minimum protective steps now. Um the site still is not fully stabilized. There's still exposed dirt on the majority of the site, but you at least have, you know, a baseline protective erosion control there. Now, um,

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for background, there were orders of conditions issued on this property to the previous owner for inst. Um, that permit has expired. So there is no it expired actually March 10th. So it expired probably two weeks before this

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work maybe before I was there on site anyways. So there was no permit. The permit was never recorded. There was no pre-work check anyways. So that really nothing nothing about this is valid. The work is obviously jurisdictional. The area is obviously jurisdictional. Um,

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so pretty clear just from aerial imagery that the area was in a vegetated condition, you know, a natural condition likely from I've been on the site a few times over the years. I don't think I

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have photos from any other time I've been on site. Um, and this doesn't show up in Google Street View so that you can see the condition of everything underneath the trees that are there. Um but regardless, you can tell from photos we have some really bad

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photocopied photos from um I believe it was 2019 where you can see some of the vegetative makeup of the coastal bank and some of the understory. Um and you can see that in general the site is in a natural condition. So here you had a a

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vegetated lot in a natural condition on the bay on the coastal bank in the velocity zone. Uh about 40 ft of um the property landward of the coastal bank is

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in the velocity zone. Um so >> I had a question. >> We have a question. >> Uh we'll open it up to the commission. So I had a question that in your observations were you able to ascertain whether there had been any damage given

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all that work to the talk of the coastal bank itself? >> No. Um I've not been down to the coastal bank specifically to look at it. No, I don't have any indication that work went down that far.

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Um so I I don't expect that there was damage to that. Now one other what's that? Okay. So this this enforcement today for what I

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put on the agenda was specific to 19 Blair Drive. The owner of 19 Blair Drive owns other property adjacent. Um they own 14 Blair Drive which has had some permitting before. There is um a garage in Pervious driveway that was done

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during an RDA a couple of years ago at 14 Blair Drive, but as to whether and I I believe same person might own 15 Blair Drive. I I don't I can't confirm that. It's a corporation that owns the property and I don't see anything in the corporation's

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database that says what that corporation is. Um, but the the same sort of sort of anonymous person who emailed initially about the work there was making a claim that the person also owns 15 Blair Drive and has built something on the Coastal

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Bank there as well. Um, which Jim actually just pulled up on his fancy um, aerial imagery that I haven't been able to see on mine. Um, so it is possible that there are other enforcement issues either at 14 or 15 player drive. Um but

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for now I just brought forward 19 specifically for the clearing that just took place. Um obviously whenever you talk about Rocky Nook, you look left and you look right and you see turf all the way to the coastal bank. You know, there's a lot of that.

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There's a lot of that that was done before there were wetlands rags. There's some of that where people probably got away with doing that without being caught. Um but that doesn't mean that the commission would allow this to happen in this situation. then it's a pretty bad idea considering the amount of the property that's in velocity zone.

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So I um just before there are any more questions as far as recommendations um I just wrote that the commission would likely want to issue an enforcement order mandating complete site stabilization and we can talk about what

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that would mean. um the filing of a restoration plan and the filing of a permit for any work on the on the property that the owner may wish to do. Um the commission could issue per violation fines if it chooses to do so though in my opinion they wouldn't be

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daily fines because there hasn't been a specific you need to do this by this date or else. Um if an EO was issued and dates were not met then daily fines could be issued after that. Matt, can I ask? I I didn't see it, but

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clearly, you know, you can see that they cut down some mature trees, you know, based on the size of the logs in those images. >> Yeah. >> Uh and it looks like they did some some filling work adjacent to the the coastal bank.

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>> Was it your opinion that that's the case? And then we would be inside the buffer zones to you know significantly inside the buffer zones even adjacent to the top of coastal bank. >> Yeah. So basically I think the entire

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I think the entire lot is within commission jurisdiction if not the strong majority of it um which is typical of these coastal properties on the nook. Um and the clearing went all the way to the coastal bank. Again, I haven't walked down there and

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specifically put eyes on the coastal bank, but the entire lot was cleared. And in fact, in the in the photos, you can see there's a tree that looks like it may have been on the lot of 15 or right on the property line or something that was

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limbmed up and cut that it's just a standing pole now. Um, and that's that's pretty much the only vegetation that's left around that lot. Yeah. It looks like there still is one tree that was left down. Maybe that's maybe

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that's the property line is where the the tree that's remaining that looks like it's been pruned up to have higher branches. Um but there is another tree, you know, that that was limmed up completely. So yeah, every every tree essentially on the lot has been cleared.

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I don't know what they were. Uh, some of them I think were oaks based on what I saw on the ground for lumber, but there were definitely eastern red cedars, which is a native typical coastal species. Um, for the record, uh, there is

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previous enforcement action on 14 Blair Drive under the same property owner for, um, I believe it was around 2010 maybe um, for uh, unpermitted modifications to the

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Coastal Bank. It was a creation of a bait pool, whatever that is. Um, but from my records, the property owner did everything the commission required of them to do within a month. Um, so between when the enforcement was issued and when the property was dealt with and

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the enforcement was was taken off the table was just about a month's time, which is which is good. And since then, the property owner did file an RDA for other work on 14 Blair Drive. So, I guess saying there has been a

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situation before where the property owner has shown compliance and understood the need for permitting. Um, in this case, they chose not to. Um, and the contractor as well. Um, very amendable to working with us and

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stopping work and all of that. there was no issue with any of that, but they did indicate like they they they knew >> that and I explained that sometimes the commission also looks to talk to contractors or issue fines to contractors over these issues. So, um

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yeah. >> Um we'll open it up to the commission for discussion. If I could I mean just looking at the images on this one, this is egregious. M >> um and we're hearing that there's a

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history of of them being in the purview of enforcement previously. Um so it's one thing for somebody not to know and it's another just to go out and do what they're going to do uh in my opinion. So when I look

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at something like this I I feel very strongly that this is an enforcement action. Um, and I don't think I don't think we treat this as, you know, this is the first time just because it's the first time on the property. If the uh if the owner has been in front of the

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board, they they should have known better at this point. And there's there's some actions that need to be done here. I would be very open to fines immediately. um if they did fill land then then we have you know filling of

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land um in a in a coastal zone which I correct me if I'm wrong is a daily fine um it's a daily violation you could you could issue fines for every day that

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that bill has been in place. In my opinion, it's unlikely to be upheld if it's appealed to the magistrate as opposed to if you say you have until X date to remove any fill brought onto the property

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and fully stabilize the site so that there's no exposed soil and file a restoration plan by exitate. If any of those aren't met, you're going to issue daily fines until they are. and that's spelled out in EO and that's

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defensible. It's hard for a magistrate to overturn that and say because what I've heard in the past from magistrates that have overturned the commission's fines has been the town didn't meet its burden of proof that the

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resident knowingly violated the law which is not a standard that wetlands law is held to. So they're incorrect in overturning in those situations but they still do. So, it's good for us to know that they do. And that doesn't mean that you have to avoid issuing fines in those

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situations. You just have to understand that if they're appealed, more than likely they're going to be overturned. And I've always cautioned against taking actions that we expect aren't going to be successful in the sense that that could give the

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commission a reputation for taking actions that aren't defensible. >> I don't disagree with you. Uh what I will say is that um perhaps it's start to it's time to push back on some of that from the legal side. If we get a majestate who

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misapplies the law, uh it's a town's bylaw. It's not our we're not just making it up as we go along. So we do have a job to do. The town voted in the bylaw. Okay, we're the board that board

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of volunteers who have who's responsible for making sure that those bylaws are upheld. So, if if we need to get legal counsel involved, we should get legal counsel involved. Um because if we if we

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allow a magistrate to to supersede what the bylaw is, then we're essentially letting them um a judicial member take take uh take precedence over the legislature to >> right in this case home rule applies. So

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just because he got it wrong doesn't mean we have to adopt that as a new normal is is is is my strong stance when we get into stuff like that. So, um, >> can I offer a >> Yeah. >> So, in

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situations like this, I think the way that these things could be handled to a similar effect is you can absolutely issue a one-time $300 violation,

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citation for every violation of KWPR, essentially KWPR that's here. Um so you have and that you can look at that different ways. You can say the clearing of trees from jurisdiction is $300. The um

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>> disturbance of substrate or soil, you know, in jurisdiction without a permit is $300. The importation of fill into jurisdiction is $300. other commissions in certain situations, and I don't know

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if this would be that the type of one that would lend well to that or not, would say you cut down 10 trees. Each tree is $300. I don't know if that would be defensible or not in this situation, but there are ways to get to I think the end that

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you're looking for, which is you're saying like typically a lot of people don't care about a $300 fine and it's better to just do this work and not care what the commission does about it. Um, you know, you do have the the

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enforcement process to get restoration. Um, you know, this this is a property that had a valid order of conditions for a time period anyways where somebody could have cleared most of the lot. I don't know

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exactly how close to the coastal bank the the the clearing went, but there was going to be a house put on the property pretty close to to Blair Drive. Um, so it is feasible that they could probably do some sort of work on this property and get a permit for it, but you

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wouldn't want it to happen in the velocity zone. You would want to make sure there was dense established vegetation up against the coastal bank. So, I think you'd probably be looking for some more substantial fines for this

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level of work being done, being that an entire lot was clearcut, a lot of soil was destabilized, >> multiple issues >> and Phil was brought in. And if we hadn't shown up, if somebody hadn't notified us on this, it would have been multiple triacs loads of fill. And then the next day, however many loads of lom

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were going to be coming there, and it was going to be spread out. My guess is they were probably going to do some sort of seeding or hydro seed or something. Um, but if you had a big storm at that point, >> you'd have a lot of lom washing out into the bay. So, you know, there was a lot

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>> there was potential for even greater damage. >> Yeah, I I think what you're saying makes sense. Um, I I like the idea of of multiple fines. um one-time fines at this point with some language uh and and

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some compulsion to bring this site back into compliance. Um let's what's the rest of the board think is proper. >> Do we know approximately how many trees were removed? >> I can get that number roughly at least

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the number of mature trees from aerial imagery. Um, >> talking over a dozen, >> I would say roughly a dozen. 10 10 to 12 mature trees is my guess based on my memory of the different aerials that

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I've that I've flipped through. You know, it it certainly wasn't a, you know, a forest. It was, but it was a natural site. Those trees may have been some of those may have been planted 100 years ago or so. I have no idea. But at

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this point, I would say from a wetlands protection standpoint, that was clearly natural vegetation or a naturalized buffer zone situation. So yeah, I would say roughly 10 trees and and a lot of smaller stuff, but yeah,

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>> that whole lot is our jurisdiction >> generally. Yes. Um I believe the entire lot is within Yes. because the flood zone goes 40 ft landward of the coastal bank. >> So you have another 100 foot off of

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that. So yeah. >> So it's all in our jurisdiction. >> Yeah. Jurisdiction goes out probably to the close to the middle of the street. >> My thought I would be inclined for separate, you know, itemized fines. One

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for the fill, one for the removal of trees, one for the soil disturbance. I am leaning towards what Matt said, more towards like atomizing 10 trees, 10 vines down the vine. I know

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it's extreme, but they know they know what they did. They know that they should have been in front of us. I don't know. So, Megan, are you saying you'd want a fine for each tree that came down >> or or one fine for trees removed?

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>> I guess it's how I don't know how I was going to read how it's stated in our bylaw. I don't want to cause issues either, but like it was egregious. So, I think we have the right to be egregious with that response.

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I think I think just on that term, I think that I think we're responding in like kind to to the actions that were taken, right? Um from just the communication that we received tonight, there's you said

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the parcel that we're looking at either side is owned by the same owner. >> At least >> one side is I don't know who owns 15 player drive. That may be hearsay. >> Okay. I'll I'll refrain from that.

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is definitely a history um and that that they should know better and having it clearcut without really doing anything uh when clearly uh they were advised by their professional that something needed to be done and um they should have known

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better and it's clear that the the slope is towards the bay um that I I think we're I think we're within all polite rules to issue the appropriate fines. Um, and I

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I'll say that the idea of daily fines is is in my head, but I think I think the mediated approach at this point give them one set of fines for for the actions that were committed and then >> timeines for

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>> X, Y, and Z. Uh, I think that that's that's appropriate. So, um, uh, Matt, we spoke about, um, there'll need to be stabilization.

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There'll need to be, um, filing for um, the reestablishment of of all the appropriate items and and then for actually doing whatever work they wanted to do um, on site. So, it sounds like there's three or four different action

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items in there that we should uh be discussing, but do you feel that just issuing the enforcement actions and calling them to meeting um the next meeting to to kind of come back with more solid um requirements for for dates

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and times for what else needs to be done on that site is appropriate? What what's the best path, do you think? Um I mean, I think if you want Phil removed and you want

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the site stabilized, you probably want it done as quickly as possible. I questioned whether I should issue an enforcement order immediately to mandate work, you know, some of that work. Um and chose not to do that. um little bit

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of complexity in the situation given that the property owner was not there um was in Florida and going to be in Florida. So we had limited ability to ensure that we could get a document to

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him. Um recommendation was to mail it to the 14 clear drive address and then text a picture of an EO to the property owner. And I don't have a workphone. Was absolutely not going to do that. Um

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thought maybe I could work through the town administrator for that. He was on vacation. So I just chose not to do that part of it. I did let the property owner know twice verbally about the meeting tonight. He understood that. Um

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doesn't appear to be here. Um, but I I'm not sure about if we want to kind of kick anything to the next meeting or just issue a yo and and go from there. We can do it we can do it either way. It's just in the mean there is like I said a baseline of protection

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there now with hay bales and sil fence behind it. And again, the sil fence behind it appeared to have been modified in a better way. But again, I have not walked down there.

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I We have on paper in our regulations the right to enter property. >> You do. >> And we have legal advice that is a little more tentative. So, I did

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not want to go walk down there. Um, and that was something that actually the property owner said to me the first time I spoke to him. He said, "You didn't even go down there and look at it. How do you know the condition? I I can didn't need to walk down there. I could tell from the street that it was insufficient." And

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>> well, you could observe what you could see, but you couldn't you didn't get the co specifically confirm that the sill fence is properly installed at the coastal bank. Now, it did look better than it was when I was there the first time, but that may have just been cuz there was straw bales in front of it

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now. So, but it did appear to extend further than than it did. Uh, so as far as the silt fence and the erosion control for the site, um, I'm going to want to see something from an engineer. I want I want I want a survey done. I I

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want um a professional that designs these these systems given the location. Uh I think it's important enough that that we compel that for um the very near future and that there's no wor being done before before

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everything's achieved. So I would like to build something like that into the enforcement um that compels them and gives them to the next meeting to get that done. And if and if there's something that you feel that I'm off

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base on, then then by all means tell me. But >> it just depends on what specifics cuz if you're looking for some sort of survey work or engineer review, it's likely short timeline for them to hire somebody on it. Um, I my advice to

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the contractor and to the property owner from day one was cover the entire site in three or four inches of wood chips. Drive a machine over it to work it into the soil and make sure you have at least one if not multiple layers of silt sock

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so that you can not have a continuous flow down the whole property to the water. So you'd have something slowing things down. Um, >> so stabilize it until we can figure the rest out. >> Correct. and I got I'll put down hay bales and that would be a a a good start but you may

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need to do more than that. Um so I think stabilization is most important from a wetlands protectance standpoint now um as to whether like like I said right now there is a baseline level of

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stabilization that's there at least protection not stabilization but there is some sort of backs stop there now at least in the form of of hay bales with some form of silt fence behind it which may or may not be adequate. um getting a more adequate stabilization of the

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entire site so that nothing moves while this is in limbo because the property owner told me, "I'm putting a lawn in. It's going to be stable." And I said, "You can't do any work there without a permit. You can't do anything. You're not putting anything in without a permit from the commission. So, you have to

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stabilize the site." So that I think you can put sort of anything you want in the EO, but I think having a requirement for you could have you could have it stepped in a way that you want the whole site stabilized through there being no exposed soil and

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um you know you may want an additional sort of a break so that you don't have an entire run of the whole hill for things to build up cuz if you get a big brainstorm, it doesn't really matter what you have at the bottom of the hill.

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It's not going to contain everything. But if you have multiple steps, generally speaking, that slows things down enough. Um, and then you could have, you know, I guess step one is you wanted to see the fill removed. So, you wanted to see the fill removed, you

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wanted to see the site stabilized, um, you wanted to see a restoration plan filed. You could also add something where you say you want a qualified person to review the erosion control to confirm that you know

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the stabilization methods are solid. You know similar to some similar filings we've had recently. You have, you know, site professionals or wetland scientists or people who are familiar with the erosion control process who can look at a site and say, "Yes, what you've done

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here is sufficient or this part is insufficient. Sediment is going to pass that. Here's what you need to do." So there could be a situation where you have a qualified person whether it's a an engineer, a wetland scientist, whatever the commission is comfortable

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with, review the site erosion control and stabilization and make recommendations for any necessary changes. >> My one problem or my one concern with that, Matt, is is we're basically allowing them to work in the area

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without a permit. um instead of saying and and without proper guidance, right? So, we've seen what they've done without guidance um might push to have compel them to bring in a professional to design the erosion control. I think um

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takes it out of the realm of they're just going to do what they want and maybe they'll they'll achieve the intent, maybe they will not. But I think that, you know, where we're at, we issue a stop order and we say stabilize it with with silt. Um, you

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know, we'll be looking for releases um during heavy rains and, you know, by the next meeting, we expect a plan of action by presented to to us um from a professional engineer. um get them to

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that point where it's professionally designed, stamps on the piece of paper, and we have it to review. And if that looks good, then we we allow it to move forward as part of the enforcement. But that's that's a subject to to another discussion, I think. But if if we just

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allow them to to go and and work, then I think we're we're doing the exact opposite of what we're supposed to be doing here. Okay. I think you were right to stop work. And I think um you know stop gap solution is in place right now

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and and I think we have two weeks you know until the next meeting to get them to get an engineer out there. It's going to cost them a little bit more money, I'm sure, for the rush nature, but you know, this is not a big lift um for anybody that they bring in. Um and and

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really what we want is the professional stamp behind it, knowing that whatever happened and led us to this point won't be continued deaf by a thousand cuts. >> So, are you saying you don't want to remove the fill until you have a professor? >> I don't want them doing that. I mean, my

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personal >> No, that's what I'm asking you. I don't want I don't want them doing any more work until they have proper oversight. >> What's everybody else feel? >> As long as we feel it's stabilized. >> Well, we can still require silt stock and right,

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>> you know, they they got the bales that that can stay. If Matt feels that, you know, there needs to be more silk stock, we say we want to see two more silt stocks put in along the slope parallel. Um, >> so in other words, adequate

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stabilization while we're waiting for a professional assessment and plan. >> Yes. But no machines working, right? So >> Oh, oh, yeah. Yeah, they can dig in some self stuff and put all the hay bales

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they want, but I'd rather not see them working that site in any capacity um in any way more than digging in a silk silt suck um while while they get to the next meeting.

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Thoughts, Matt? Yeah, I would say the removal of Phil is something that would likely be part of a restoration plan. And at the same time, the applicant has the right to come forward with whatever filing they want

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to do for the work they want to do here. So, it's to their benefit to not have to remove all of the dirt that they fill that they brought into the site if ultimately that fill might be in an area that is approvable or that ultimately

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gets a permit. So having them remove it when that's going to be a big cost for them that they might have to then bring it back. >> I it makes more sense to let that part of it play out after restoration plan and any filing that they bring forward.

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Um restoration and yeah I think I think you could say you could ask them you can ask them for whatever you want. you could ask them to get a a PE uh plan for stabilization by

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the next meeting. It's just it it may not happen. Um no matter what kind of rush fees or anything they might pay, it just might not happen. Um, so I do think there's there's definitely a

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need still to spell out what's needed on the site to prevent any release because in the meantime, if they don't do it in the two weeks and then it's two more weeks and you know, we get some pretty big rains this time of year if we get one of those like really big rain events. There's going to be a big

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release. I don't know what was brought in for fill. I would assume it would be clean fill, >> but you don't know that. And you I don't know what it necessarily consisted of. I thought it looked black, didn't you? >> It had a little bit of a >> look like room. I mean, it >> No, I mean it to me it didn't look like

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>> and I don't think it was reprocessed, but it definitely had a some sort of a different look to it. >> Um, but yeah, it may have been not >> lawn grade loom. It may have just been junky, you know, whatever. >> Um, >> you certainly don't want it going in to

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the bay in large quantities. So I think the point step one is is stabilization. Um you could mandate you know two cross property silt socks be installed or you could allow them to do hay bales instead

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of silt sock if you want. Um, I think probably why somebody would say they want to do hay bales is because they're cheaper and you can do them yourself as opposed to silock is usually you hire a company to come blow it out of a truck directly into the tube and

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and lay it out and it's and it's pretty expensive. >> Um, >> two additional silt stocks, Matt, you think for now? So there's the existing down adjacent to the coastal bank. Yeah, there's there's silk fence of some

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unknown condition and there's >> straw bales or hay bales or whatever you would call them um in front, >> right? Which those are two remain and then two additional equidistant from you know split difference existing in the um

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the pavement area just slow downs. Sound right? All right. And that's um silk socks or hay bales. Yeah. Um, in addition to I guess we're working on a motion

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>> together here. So speak >> if you want to be heard >> and also do you need to stipulate no further work? We well you already have a >> the EO the EO has typically has that proportion in there where you check that off that says

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no further work can happen on the property until you have a permit and then you have the next step which is you are required to do A B C and D. >> Okay. >> So you check that require the stabilization define the stabilization you want.

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>> Yep. um in I'd like to see the the the fines included for each one of the actions that that we've discussed here. Um that's or or otherwise applicable. Um >> so a fine for the lack stabilization, a fine for the taking down of trees, a

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fine for the fill. >> Yeah. What else do we have, Matt? >> Let me just finish writing this one sentence. So I have uh no further work. I have two additional silt socks or hay bail lines parallel to the coastal bank

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equidistant between the coastal bank and a line x number of feet beneath Blair Drive. Essentially, what we're doing is splitting the difference between >> Yeah. >> Yeah. And we can probably actually just say Blair Drive. I think we want split

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distance between the coastal bank and Blair Drive in three three equal chunks. And we want the separating lines to be the silt sock or hay bale lines >> in and and we should put a date on that installed prior to the next meeting

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>> by two weeks. Right. >> Right. Give them two two weeks by the next meeting. Um whatever whatever is the most appropriate word in that. Um and then fines. Um so we have fill we have trees.

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>> Phil trees and erosion control. um >> disturbance. >> Phil Phil was going to be part of a restoration plan. So, you're going to

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have a requirement for a restoration plan be filed in order to restore >> in order to rem remove fill and restore natural. >> Let's hold off on that. Let's just talk about the fines right now. Okay. So,

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they did fill >> which means we're going to we're going to hit them with a onetime fine for filling that. We will discuss the work to remove that in conjunction with whatever >> other steps we get to in this process.

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But that's we're just going to check off the fines right now. What action. >> I thought we were doing I thought we were doing the steps on the EO right now. >> We are, but we're still on the fine step. You skip. >> We were talking about what the

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requirements were going to be for stabilization. >> Oh, I thought we I thought we cleared that. Did you not get them all >> for stabilization? This is just the primary till next week. We want we want it stabilized until we get the the

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engineer to come in and fill in the fill in the u professional advice with the plan. The third fine was for soil disturbance. >> Yes. >> You want before our April 22nd meeting.

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>> You want site stabilization >> site to include the the hay, >> right? The language I had >> which you got >> down there. >> Yeah. And we want a plan >> by a professional >> by a professional engineer with the

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aligning the the proper >> um erosion control methods to be installed um while we work on the project. I think that we could ask for a plan within two weeks, but I think to have

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things done in >> Well, that's what we're asking on this from the engineer. >> Just >> well, they can put in sil hay bales. They can put in silts up by hand, >> right? >> We we don't want them working on this. The first part was that >> okay, >> put put in hand work and the second part

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is engineers plan by the next meeting. >> Just a plan. >> Just a plan. Then they're going to come in and we're going to make it part of the enforcement action that they do that action whatever whatever the PE says, >> right? >> Could it be just for devil's advocate

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purposes? Right. We're you're already mandating that they add two lines of protection. They already have something along the back end. Instead of saying a plan by a PE, could you say to have a PE

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>> familiar with erosion control methods review the site and the erosion control methods that have been installed and write a letter confirming that the erosion control that's there is appropriate and installed correctly

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or making any recommendations for what is needed to stabilize the site until it can be restored and or developed legally. >> Y sounds >> but I I I do want >> that way it doesn't have to be >> No, I agree on >> an actual plan.

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>> But the the one one thing that I want to add to that is I want it stamped and sealed by the PU. >> All right. I don't want just a a letter. I want his his professional stamp stating that that we can trust that

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that's not going to release with all the stuff that you just said. Let me finish this and then read it back to you. So before the April 22nd meeting, we have site stabilization as we already went through the language there with the

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parallel silt sock and we have a PE that's familiar with erosion control methods writing a letter that is stamped and signed stating that the installed erosion sedimentation controls are adequate. quate and properly installed or making recommendations for

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any work necessary for proper sight stabilization and protection of the resource areas. >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> Yes. >> Then fine. Then I mean

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for purposes of ease of office paperwork, the easiest thing would be to also include the requirement for a restoration plan on here. You just would give obviously a longer

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>> time frame for that. The alternative is you just issue this and you say this is going to be discussed April 22nd. here's what you have to do by then. And then on April 22nd, you're taking this information and you're discussing

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whatever for restoration and issuing an updated EO for for that. Um, it doesn't really truthfully matter. um if there's going to be a requirement like let's say you know we get this letter but the letter has you know recommendations in

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there then you're going to say well you have to do that by this date or else fines will be issued daily so it really doesn't matter one way or another either way I think there's going to be multiple EO steps to this so if you want to

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I I think it's I think it's important to let the property owner know that the commission would require restoration of >> yeah at this point >> the site um but you don't necessarily have to include that timeline right now

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but there's no downside to to doing that >> I I agree 100% if we know that there's uh steps B C and D it doesn't hurt to outline generally that there will be additional steps however um we

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We don't have to solve everything. Tonight is going to be >> right. So take the first line of >> right and then >> and >> we have an additional two weeks for Matt to get a better rap on it and make >> come maybe come with the recommendations that since you've heard us

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>> in this discussion where we're going come with a you know something written out that you think will cover um the board um and make make sure that we bring this. >> So it sounds like that's a two-prong thing. And then are we also adding in the fines to go along with this?

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>> We are putting the fines on this one. Correct. Or you want us to hold off on the fines until >> um fines don't go with the enforcement order. They're just they're issued. So whatever you if you want to issue fines, you tell me and I >> Yeah. >> do that, >> right? Oh, we

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>> do. You not want to do the restoration plan requirement now. Do you want to push that? I I just need to say that this is leading to restoration >> essentially >> and I agree I agree with that. >> Do you think that it makes sense that we

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give them another month for the restoration plan? >> Right. Because we want to hear that professional response. >> Okay. So if we wait until next meeting and we give them a month that that's a month and a half, you know, if we wait, you know, longer than that, it's it's

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two months, it's three months, it's four months. Are we all confident that we want to say now that if we're giving you two weeks, we're going to give you an additional month beyond those two weeks to come up with the full plan and bring it and present it at the at the June.

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Yeah, let's say presented at the >> it would be the June 10th conservation commission meeting that >> to well let's say to have a restoration plan filed with the conservation office by May 28th.

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That would give our office that roughly two week period to review it before the June 10th meeting in order to give recommendations on it so that we're not like, "Okay, great. We have a restoration plan and I don't feel like I can speak to it and then we miss something."

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>> Okay. Is >> yes. >> Yeah. Okay. >> That that sounds good. So I will add that to the EO restoration plan to be filed by May >> 28th

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will be discussed at the June 10th meeting. >> Should you also complete necessary? can issue the complete date the next time we talk about it. I think right depending on what the engineer

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says. >> Um >> and I mean you can >> you can issue the complete by date on June 10th >> assuming that you get the restoration plan you can review it by June 10th and

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you can issue the the date by then. Um, yeah, I think that I think that makes the most sense. And again, that also gives him the time to put together a filing for >> Yeah, if that's >> any work because

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>> I'm open. >> We're not specifying as far as the restoration plan, like you're saying come up with a restoration plan to stabilize jurisdictional portions of the property. If that comes

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in tandem with a filing that says here's what I want to do here or I have a restoration plan I'm going to restore 50 feet from the coastal bank. I think that's something the commission would probably be okay with with the understanding that

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you need to file something for whatever you're going to do on this property and it needs to be permissible, you know, or else you're going to have to restore the whole site. I think one action presents the opportunity for him to move forward with the other action and it and it doesn't hurt us. So,

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>> right. And I can put language in here. You know, this restoration plan can also be filed with a filing for future work on the property. >> Okay. Any questions on that?

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>> Nope. I got that uh I got that portion. So we basically have three main sections of of the EO not including you know stop working which is already a separate separate thing. >> All right. And then are you clear on the fines? >> No.

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>> Okay. You want to discuss the fines? >> Yeah. I don't think there was a >> we didn't find come to consensus final decision um on fines. I I would I think so let's say on one hand you have um you

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know a scenario where you have fines for clearing of trees >> trees fill and lack of proper stabilization. >> Yeah. Um, that's $900. Um,

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if you did fill improper stabilization, that's $600 and then added, let's say, 10 trees at $300 a tree, now you're talking about $3,600. Um, if that gets brought

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to the magistrate and the magistrate says, >> "This is ridiculous. I've never heard of anything like this before." And he didn't know he did anything wrong. >> Yeah, but we do know. and waves it. I know. And waves it, then you know that is it

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is what it is. But, you know, I think what you're looking at here is as you're saying, there's a situation where somebody knew what they were doing and did it anyways and probably figured that, you know, it won't be that big of a deal. >> Um, it won't be that big of a deal if

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the fines get waved. On the other hand, there's obviously a cost involved um in having to stabilize the site and you know get a PE to review and then get a wetland professional to put together a restoration plan. Um so there's there's

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definitely already going to be a you know a cost to this on the property owner that is going to be something they understand you know >> needs to be done because they didn't file. The other thing I wonder is how do we go about really counting the trees accurately?

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I can get like a rough >> from aerial imagery, but it's like we're going to be looking at like, okay, what's which one's a tree, which one's a shrubble in that arbitrary >> over a certain DBH of what's actually a tree, and then you're talking, >> right?

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>> I mean, honestly, the >> I'd leave that >> removing all of the vegetation on the site is is >> is also pretty pretty damaging as well, right? >> Um, yeah. So, if if we're if we're concerned with

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defending breast tight at the tree discussions, um, and he's already destroyed all the evidence. I mean, >> what? Yeah. What are you going to predicate it on? >> Wait. Well, we have these pictures from 2019. >> Um,

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>> oh, is it good? I didn't see that one. Is there a good picture? >> They're not good. They're not great, but they're >> But you can see >> But you can see that they're fully developed trees >> on the site. So I mean >> see how many exact >> I mean you can guesstimate you can say

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>> estimate if you ask that. >> This thing you have up is probably the best and that you have. >> No, I understand. So that's why I'm like I understand we can't say there's 10, but there's one two three. >> Okay. If you split it out between vegetation and trees, that would give you another aspect to find it.

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>> Right. It's clearly more than 10. >> It's clearly more than 10. If we come in and say eight, >> well, that's >> But again, you're still going to have to defend it. And >> well, the imagery that we're looking at, >> it doesn't >> shows us that it's 10 canopies. It is 16

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canopies. So, you know, I do think that, you know, we could probably make a good faith estimate that we can see 16. We we said 10 just to be um conservative. >> Did you say the stumps were also

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removed? >> So, that that's where the soil damage comes in. >> So, that's another one. That's right. So that >> angle on this. >> I was sort of talking you said Marilyn said improper stabilization but really what I was getting at before was the

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destabilization of the site by >> the removal of stumps whatever other >> herbaceious and shrub vegetation was there. All of that looks to have been split it out. There's four you >> you clearcut the site you destabilized

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the site. You brought in phil. um would I think be the most defensible. What would the fourth one be? >> The improper stabil the lack of erosion control and stuff like that. >> Yeah, I mean lack of >> that's what I was saying. St. Yeah.

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>> You say something >> control is different than destabilizing action and then there's there was a protective action that they got there. >> Um >> they also didn't file >> that would give you four things. >> Yeah. Lack of filing. Um,

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but that's I think implied in each violation. It wouldn't be a violation if they had filed. So, I'm not sure. >> Yeah. I just don't know if that's as as defensible in this. Um, I think it's implied that they didn't file, otherwise

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there wouldn't be a violation. So, I I I think you have four defensible in that >> still get hit for something that they didn't get approval for. They could put in a filing and put in a rain garden and then they clear cut 47 trees and it's >> Yeah. But I don't think the two are

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separate in that way that for the violation itself, which is what you're issuing the fine for. It doesn't matter if they got a permit for something else. They didn't get a permit for that, right? >> So that's I think you have four >> you do >> defensible fines there. One being um the

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clearing of trees and vegetation. The second being site destabilization by removing of stumps and roots and top soil. And the third is importation of fill. And the

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fourth is improper stabilization. Um if you want to split trees down into individuals and go with a number like 10 or something like that, I just don't think that's going to be as defensible. >> No. somebody's going to look at those pictures and etc. and and say, "Well,

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are you sure?" >> So, I think the single fine for now. >> The other things you can defend clearly. >> Yeah. Yeah. it each tree is is you can see, but it's still something

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that it >> I think you want a stronger position that >> you want something to definitive >> or or um if it does go to court, you could say, "Well, we fined for one, but look, look at the picture. We assume there were 10. We could have fined a lot

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more." >> Yeah. >> That you know, leave it or >> the >> my one concern is this. You guys all remember may have >> Mhm. >> Right. >> Yeah. >> They just went in and clearcut everything because the the contractor

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said it's just easier for me to go clear cut everything and call it a day. So >> I I'm not afraid of of saying I counted 16, >> here's 10, >> just because of there's got to be a line

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that we hold people to. Or else it's just everybody thinks that it's okay to just, >> oh, prove it. Prove it. Well, you did it. You prove that it wasn't. There's there's that back and forth at some point. So the magistrate will do what

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the magistrate will do. um and whether or not we have our council appeal that decision and based on law. >> I guess I'm also thinking about how we want to spend our time and how do and how can we efficiently take care of this issue.

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>> Yeah. And I also think if he gets a slap on the rest he's going to say and our next issue he's going to be like well there's going to give me a slap on the rest. Oh well there's clearly more than five trees. There's clearly less than or around. So I think if we pick a number in between that's defensible. >> Yeah. But you can't pick a number. That's

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>> But the other factor to that, like from what you just said, is that if they do fight it and they win, then they have the same feeling about it, >> right? >> That get away with it. And you get to say, "Oh, look, they were being capricious. They were just trying to come after me for something."

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>> Yeah. You love that. >> With four, you're looking at $1,200 worth of fines. and you have a you have requirements for >> pees and wetland scientists to put a plan together and there's nobody's going to take

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>> this enforcement order lightly. Um >> and again what's our end game? Our end game is just make this right. >> Our end game was to get the >> bring it compliance right. It's always to just bring it into compliance and make sure that um

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the rules are followed because that's the only one job we have here is just to make sure that whatever the town votes in is is what we apply. So, um I'm I'm okay. Did straw poll. Are we all okay with the four as they're listed? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yes. Yes.

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>> Megan? >> Yeah. >> Okay. Good. >> Yeah. I think I have um >> I have some writing to do. >> You want a mot to uh is that issue that as discussed? >> Sure. >> All right. Do we have a motion? >> So I move that we issue this enforcement

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order as discussed vigorously. >> All right. We have a motion. Do we have a second? >> Second. >> Second. I do. Uh all those in favor say I. I. I. >> Opposed. Hearing five to zero. Uh in favor.

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All right. Well, we blew past our >> only by an hour. >> Public hearings. I apologize. I did not know that that was going to take as long. So, let's see. Section A, public hearings. Baker

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Avenue, Map 58, Lot 92-6. Notice of intent. I will now continue a hearing for the notice of intent for the proposed construction of a single family home with a driveway, garage deck, roofwater infiltration system, drinking

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well water, uh drinking water, well utilities, grading, and landscaping within the 100 foot buffer zone to a BVW and the 200 riverfront area to an intermittent stream on Baker Avenue. Uh Matt, uh >> can you brief us?

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Yes. Um, this was a project where it went out to peer review and the peer reviewer said they couldn't review the information on the storm water uh, system that was proposed um, or that it

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it didn't there were they didn't have the information to where that would um, make sense somehow in their review. Um and the commission exted a continuence for the property owner to

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update the information in a way that the peer reviewer would be able to review for the commission. Um and we've we've continued it I believe once before and I reached out I believe about a week ago to say the information information receipt deadline has passed. We don't

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have anything. Um, and we got a letter today from the applicant with a request for a 60-day continuance. He said he has been able to uh hire a a wetland scientist to do the work that he needs to do and that there's just a time frame

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issue with them getting the work done. Um, there were various other portions of the letter that I don't think are necessarily worth discussing right now. I I did forward the letter um you know to the

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commission. I gave gave that in your information for the meeting so that you see that. But um essentially they want 60 more days. So, if the commission were interested in continuing that, that would be

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one, two, you'd be looking at the June 10th meeting. >> Anything further? >> Not unless you have questions. >> Do we have questions? Still going to have discussion. Um, is there anybody online? No.

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>> Okay. All right. >> Are we referring this to town council since there's a lot of case law here? >> I um I did earlier. I did basically as soon as I got it out, I did and I have heard back. Um yeah. >> Okay.

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>> I did. As far as as far as tonight, it's as always entirely up to the commission. Um the commission gave you know I think back when we were discussing this last time we actually discussed this in

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a substantive way. Um I don't know that I made a specific recommendation but I said at that time the commission can either deny it or continue it. Commission chose to continue it. There was discussion that he'd already spent the money on peer review. We may as well give him more time to see if that stuff can be wrapped

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up. um it hasn't happened to this point. There's certainly nothing wrong with the commission allowing this 60-day continuance and seeing um if the information gets provided. >> Okay. So, you want a motion to continue for 60 days.

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>> Do we feel strongly that we're in the mood to continue? I I am. >> Yes. >> Okay. Um perhaps we have a motion to continue to June 10th. >> I move that we continue to June 10th. >> All right. Do we have a second? Second, >> second by dot. Uh, all those in favor

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say I. I. >> And opposed. >> Hear none. Uh, we will, uh, be voted in favor. Five to zero. To continue the June 10. Moving on. Section B,

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135 Indian Pond Road, Map 86, lot 16, notice of intent. I will now continue a hearing for the notice of intent for the proposed construction of an addition to a single family home with associated septic system upgrades within the 200t riverfront area to a perennial stream

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and the 100 foot buffer zones to a BBW and bordering land subject to flooding at 135 Indian Pond Road. Um Matt, there's a note that says the applicant has withdrawn this filing. Do you have any comments? >> Nope. We just got email notifications

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saying the applicant has withdrawn the filing. Um I think in some situations that's up to the commission's discretion, particularly when somebody might request it during a hearing like in front of the commission and say, "Hey, I want to just withdraw it right now." You don't have to allow that. You

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can say, "No, we're going to close it and vote on it." Um I I don't think that would be appropriate in a situation like this. So I just put it in as they withdrew it. >> It's withdrawn. So, it's withdrawn now as long as the commission doesn't have any issue with that. >> Do I hear a motion to accept the

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withdrawal and close the hearing? >> So, moved. >> All right. Do I hear a second? >> Second. >> Second by Megan. Um, all those in favor say I. >> I. Opposed. >> Hearing none. Uh, we will uh we voted in favor 5 to zero to withdraw. Accept the

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withdrawal. All right. Now, Matt, we have section C. um this public hearing um for updates to Kingston wetland protection and regulation. Do we want to do this now? >> I was going to say, can we take this out of order cuz they already got stuck

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through an awful lot tonight. >> Okay, so we are going to hold off. I apologize. Let's go. Um >> 58 Shore Drive. >> All right, we're going to move to section D. 58 Shore Drive, map 39, lot

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five. Notice of intent. I'll now continue a hearing for the notice of intent for proposed construction of two permeable PA patios. One impervious stepping stone path and one retaining wall within the 100 foot buffer zone to the top of Coastal Bank and other

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coastal resource areas at 58 Shore Drive. Uh Matt, could you bring us up to uh up to date on this? >> Yeah, so this was discussed on March 22nd. Uh the commission uh gave some input on what they'd like to see. Uh we

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did receive an updated plan that shows a restoration planting area does show the area of proposed grass and removal of step uh stepping stones that were proposed have been removed from the plan. Um and we did receive a variance request letter. Um I'm just going to

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skip through and just go with updated things. We had said something about an O andM plan for the pvious papers not uh being provided. That has not been provided, but it could just be required to be submitted before a COC is issued. Um I don't see an issue with that.

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Uh like I said, a stepping stone path has been removed from the plan. Now the project proposes an increase in imperous cover of 40 square ft, increasing the percentage of imperous cover within jurisdiction from 22.7 to 23.4. So the amount of proposed increase has gone down.

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Uh the applicant has requested a variance to allow this increase. Uh they justify the increase because it is small compared to the size of the property and the retaining wall is not expected to generate pollutants that will run off into the bay. Uh they also cite the approximately 330 ft restoration area as

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mitigation for this increase explaining that the plantings will help slow and infiltrate any additional runoff from the wall. Uh those benefits may be minimal as only a portion of the downslope land from the proposed wall will contain native plantings. Uh the applicant has requested a variance for the retaining wall to be

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constructed as depicted on the plans 27.2 ft from the resource area. They state that it is in a portion of maintained lawn area so it can be legally permissible within the 30-foot buffer which is typically a no landscape buffer and will not be detrimental to wildlife and wood habitat. They again

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cite the approximately 330t restoration area as mitigation for the variance requested. The applicant has proposed a restoration plan with two areas of native plantings along the property line. The restoration area is approximately um Eric is there. Eric, do you mind throwing the plan up

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on the updated plan on the screen? >> Do we have this in the one drive? >> I see it. >> I can't I can't I'm looking. That's why I'm asking. >> Oh, well, he'll pull it up on the screen. It should have should have been in there. >> See my screen here? >> Yeah, we definitely don't have that.

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Yeah, you can zoom in a little more. That would be helpful. >> This is the landscaping plan. Um Matt did a great job of summing up what we want to do here. Uh we removed the stepping to stone path just to further

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reduce the impervious coverage in the jurisdictional area. Um we added 330 square ft of plantings along the side property lines. Um and those plantings will consist of switchgrass, bay berry,

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and beach plump. Um tree shrub species. Uh plan here is to remove invasive species. Um put the plantings as shown in the plan and uh lman seed the backyard. Um it's worth noting here that our retaining wall under your bylaw is

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landscaping uh a landscaping feature due to the height. um with that, you know, and when you do the math out, we're proposing um eight times uh the restoration area. Um when you compare it to the impervious coverage, um we have

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40 square ft of impervious now, uh being the retaining vault and 330 square ft of um >> Sorry, hold on one second. Eric, can we get a little more volume on Eric? It was a little loud at first and now he went down. >> Perfect. Yeah, mic is really high and and so it's a little distorted which is

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why he's turning it down. So, >> all right. Try again, Eric. >> Sorry, guys. Am I coming through? Okay. >> Is that any better? >> Yeah. Okay, I think that's good. >> Well, be quick. You know, Matt summed up pretty much what we want to do here. This is the landscape plan. We have um

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planting list down to the side here, as well as, you know, symbols delineating the planting shown. We have some notes that the homeowner and landscaper will follow um when doing these plantings. Um you know, our goal is to restore the

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vegetative marine time grassland cover on the property. Uh non-native and invasive species are going to be removed in accordance with their uh local bylaw. Um and we picked planting species um you know determined those species closely

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with the conservation commission. Uh we got recommended species directly from Matt. Um once restoration is complete, a report will be prepared and submitted to the Kingston Conservation Commission um just for some oversight on the process. Um so with that, you know, we uh

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submitted the variance request letter as uh previously requested by the commission. And um I think that's it. >> I can keep going if you want. >> Sorry. All right. So, the applicant has proposed a restoration plan with two

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areas of native plantings along the property line. I'll skip through things you already know from what we just said. Um, as you can see there, the plantings are proposed along the property lines next to the adjacent houses extending from the end of each patio to the resource area and about 5

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ft into the yard. Uh, these plantings do restore some of the reveated areas shown in figures 2 and three, but not all of them. um specifically most of the vegetated area parallel to the resource area is proposed to be converted to turf and you can see that on the on the plan. All the green stippling is where the

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proposed turf is that does go right to the top of coastal bank. Um it is not clear how much the proposed restoration areas will benefit the resource area as they are planned to be perpendicular to the top of coastal bank and won't do much to prevent storm water runoff, contaminants or trash from

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reaching the bay. Um the applicant requested a variance for landscaping within 30 ft of the resource area. Uh proposed landscaped areas are less than two feet from the top of coastal bank in some places. The applicant justifies this request as an improvement over existing conditions through removal of invasive species and reveation with

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native plantings. However, lom and grass seed non-native plantings will be added to most of the yard along the resource area. Um I added um you know figures on the staff report and I have shared the staff report with the property owner and the

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um representative getting back to that you know perennial garden area from the um from the older plans that had naturalized over the years that were cleared recently. Um, and I said the applicant proposes this

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restoration area both to restore some but not all of the reveated areas that were cut without a permit between 2023 and 2025 and as mitigation for the requested variances. Um, so that in itself I thought needed some

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discussion. The restoration plan states that the plants will be planted in clustered groups. Um however for the plan to effectively restore a vegetated buffer zone on this property the entire area must eventually be fully vegetated and maintained as such which we typically will u mandate through uh

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special conditions. The plan states that a report will be provided to the commission once restoration is completed. Um there was not discussion of monitoring. Typically restoration plantings, you have two years of monitoring with something sent to the commission just so that it's followed up

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on and you know that things are properly um establishing without staff having to do follow-up inspections, you know, over and over at these properties. So based on the proposed plantings and

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landscaped area, the applicant has extended the limit of work to include most of the yard uh almost up to the resource area boundary. Um the area behind the existing grass is considered naturalized under KWPR and the vegetation removal that already

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happened would constitute an enforcement issue. Um, the proposed restoration plan falls short of the benefits of a naturalized area to the bay. Even if there was a prevalence of invasive and non-native species there before, which there certainly were some, I can't speak to what the entire composition of it was

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because I was not on site before it was cut. Um, as I said, the restoration areas are perpendicular to the resource area and are likely to provide little protection from storm water contaminants or trash entering the bay across much of the property line. Um, while the applicant has every right to request any work they would like on the property, it

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does not appear they have given the commission good reason to approve turf planted all the way to the bank with ineffective mitigation. Um, as far as the variances, similar to what I just mentioned, um, it's unclear that the mitigation will

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have, you know, the effect that's intended in the variance request, um, that it would do much to mitigate runoff on the property. Um it really is only downs slope for five of the 30 ft of the length of the wall. Um the commission can decide whether to

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grant the variance, ask for additional mitigation steps or deny the permit. Um the applicant requested a variance to allow the larger patio and associated retaining wall to be built within 30 ft of the resource area. Again citing this restoration area as mitigation. Um and

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same same discussion the commission can decide whether to grant that variance, request additional changes or deny it. And then the commission should decide whether the proposed erosion control measures will be sufficient to stabilize the site. The applicant proposes a silt sock between the proposed work and the resource area. However, the applicant

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will need to do fairly extensive digging to remove all the buried trash, rugs, etc. from the property and thus needs to be sure that this work does not cause sedimentation in the resource area. The commission could ask the applicant about the proposed sequence of work and potentially include special conditions about additional stabilization measures

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to be taken during trash removal. So the applicant now proposes two restoration areas planted with native vegetation delineated by conservation posts along two sides of the property in the 30 and 50 foot buffer zones. The restoration covers some of the reveated areas observed on aerial imagery, but

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some of the reveated areas are proposed to be converted to turf with removal of any existing vegetation root systems and addition of lom. Commission should decide if the applicant has provided enough restoration to address the cutting that occurred between the 2023 and 2025 aerial images and to mitigate

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the requested variances. As part of the decision, they should decide whether to grant the requested variance for landscaping and especially the addition of LMAN turf within approximately 2 ft of the resource area. I'm not going to repeat everything that I already said. We sometimes do that on

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these. So, in total, applicants requested three variances in this project providing the proposed restoration area as mitigation for all three. However, the restoration area is also necessary to restore the naturalized areas that were cut between 23 and 25. So the commission should

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decide if that's sufficient to address both issues. The restoration area is smaller than the naturalized area present before 2023 and is not aligned in a way for the best protection of the bay. Bottom line, in way less words than what I just wrote and said, typically in

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these situations, you see restoration area along the coastal bank. In almost all of the situations where the commission has issued um mitigation or restoration plantings along the bay, they've wanted to see a strip on the coastal bank. You want to

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see that there to protect, you know, protect the bay. You're protecting it from everything. You get a nice wide dense established native vegetation there. you typically include some conditions on how they can be maintained so that they don't have to

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have trees pop up and grow there and block the view and and create all sorts of other shading issues and everything on the property. Um so it's not something that's you know intended to have to grow large but unfortunately that is the location where you get the

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best effect. So while you know we did coordinate on this as far as plant species, I shared some of the resources that we have for the right plant species and that's why I wanted to get this back to them as soon as possible cuz I know in this it sounds like I'm not very nice

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and I'm essentially saying that they again while this isn't a large scale development project that there's still the commission doesn't have in my opinion the information to be able to say yes to the project because you're essentially um converting the majority

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of that site to turf. Um you know it is good to have the pvious pavers instead of impervious. Obviously I mean if it was impervious that there would be something absolutely the commission um wouldn't be able to approve. And again, when you look at other properties there,

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you will see turf all the way to the coastal bank and you will see situations where impervious numbers are higher and you'll see all sorts of bad things that in I would say generally all of those cases the commission didn't approve because you didn't have the ability to. They already existed like that or they

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were done illegally over time without the conservation commission knowing about it. Um, but in this situation right now, the way this is laid out, I would say the commission doesn't have the information that you would want to say yes to the project. I don't know that it's far off. I And the commission can talk about all this and the

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commission can say, "Thanks, Matt. That's great. We don't care. We think this is fine. We don't think any of this is actually going to be problematic." But yeah, I'll stop talking now. >> At this time, we'll open the hearing to

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public comment. Please share any relevant concerns or information that should be taken into consideration. >> If you'd like to um >> uh before you do, did you sign in? >> Yes, we did. >> Okay. >> Paul Walker 58 shortcut. >> Uh a couple things I want to point out

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is it's already grass down to the border bank. It's already down there. The only reason why I want to rip it up is all these astral turf and rugs and things that are, in my opinion, microplastics that are going to be leeching into the into the waterway. So, and I did send

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Matt an email saying I'm okay leaving it from within like 15 ft from the water untouched with the existing shrubs and weeds and all the stuff that are there. If that's what it wants, I want to be able to lift up and get rid of all the astral turf and stuff that's under there

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cuz it's it's it's obviously degrading and going in and there's weeds and the stuff already going through it. So, so there is grass all the way down there. So, we're not changing anything. and we're just replacing the grass to get rid of the stuff that's underneath it. >> Can we hold up here just for >> sure for a moment, please?

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>> Um to the first point, I'm not sure that's that's accurate. I don't have evidence that the entirety of the site across the property like you see right there is currently turf all the way to the Coastal Bank. you have a section of that and I think that shows up in some

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of the pictures that were um shared with the commission from the different uh aerial imagery and real estate photos that you did have an area if you're looking at the property with the ocean above you to the right where there was a little strip that looks like you had grass going straight down to the ocean

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and that I think is still there. Everything to the left of that, which I believe is to the north, was in some capacity in a naturalized condition when the property changed hands and had been for some years. If you go far enough back,

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you do see that there was this perennial garden. Even back then, I think there were some things uh seawward of there where there were more, you know, native vegetation in between. You certainly don't have a condition where you had turf all the way down to

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the coastal bank. Um, and to the other point, I don't think I got your email on that and I apologize if you sent an email that said something about >> you did send an email asking you specifically I'm willing to keep within 15 ft of the bank as is. But yeah,

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respectfully this grass on the left hand side all the way down here all the way down to the rocks. There's grass there. There's weeds and stuff that are growing through it, but that is grass. It's grass all the way from here down and here. There's a little bump out of where

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the weeds are really kind of overgrown the grass. But in here, I walk on it all the time down to the rocks. It's grass. I'll just I'll just as a point of order, I'm I'm looking at some aerial imagery from 2019 where from the inward most

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point of of where the the coastal rock starts popping out of the grass. >> Are you on Zoom? Can you share yours on that? >> I'm not on Zoom. No. >> There is 25 ft from that most inward rock face uh that was renaturalized and

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that's in 2019. So over time things do change. Um but in 2019 that was the conditions. The grass went up to 25 ft um within the area and then it looks like somebody cleared it to put maybe a

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perennial garden in there which is how it kind of exists. >> There was a perennial garden. I think it was before that. It was when you're looking at the 2019 imagery that's the area of the perennial garden and the area around it has all naturalized. Do you see the see see these lines? Yeah,

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this is 2025. >> See these lines? >> Yeah, those are that's like the remnants of of that. Yeah, there were I think probably timbers or something put in there. And it may be that once you cut everything there, there is grass mixed in with all that. So now you have what

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would seem like turf all the way to the coastal bank. It just it wasn't like that. Um, from the commission standpoint, you had a period of years where that site renaturalized and at that point it needs a permit to take it from a naturalized condition to a landscaped condition. Um, you know, the

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commission has the 30-foot no landscaping zone. You're not going to apply that on a property that's already has landscaping within that area, but if you have an area where it's naturalized, it's naturalized. It's the same thing with agricultural just in a different sort of timing capacity where if something's agricultural and you have

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exemptions. If you're not engaged in commercial agriculture for more than 5 years, then you lose all your exemptions. It's no longer agricultural. It's a similar thing here with with things like this. Um, but I I think a conversation towards having, you know, I

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think what the commission would want to see here, they want to see the bay protected as much as possible, right? Like we've talked about, you have other properties that have no protection. Every property that you review, you're going to want to see some form of protection there for the bay for the

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wetland resource areas. So, some sort of a strip there that's parallel to the bay goes a long way. Um, you can still have most people that have these still have an access through it. Um, if there's, you know, you have a a dock or a stairs

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down or something, a step down to the beach or whatever it is. Um but over the the rest of that you typically do see that as mitigation. >> The square footage on the mitigation is is relatively, you know, high for what the increase was. It's just not in a

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space that functionally does what the commission wants it to do. Unfortunately, >> the concern that I have with allowing turf up to the the coastal bank is that any anything that's put on that grass in perpetuity, once it once it rains, it's going to wash. It's going to go straight

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into the bay. it's going to contribute to all the things that we're not supposed to um promote uh and it and it is one of those things where there is a cumulative effect. So, as we go through these properties, I I think I think we kind of do a pretty decent job of of

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kind of taking the same approach on all the filings that come in front of us, which is parallel to the coastal bank. That's how we get the the growth that's with the >> roots that are going to hold everything together. And if we don't have that,

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then we just have some pretty landscaping that happens to be maybe natural speed to the area. Um so from that perspective, I I I my personal um stance on this is that we

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need to see more, but each and every one of us has has our own opinions. So that's mine. What what's everybody else think? >> No, I think I think you have to get more planting across uh that end and not just the two here. They're not really doing anything

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>> because you've got that big space in the tree. >> Anything anything that moves towards the ocean is just going to go right in. >> May I >> May I um try to I might be able to save everybody some time in this because I

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think every commissioner is probably going to have the same mindset on this. It's out of character for the commission to approve this where on other sites it was always you want to see things parallel. Would the commission so let's say same

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same square footage gets applied parallel >> from the coastal bank up would the commission be okay with the project in that capacity? What I'm thinking about is if the answer is yes, would you be willing to issue orders of conditions

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pending the submission of an updated plan for my review? >> I'll go first. It just I don't know that if we divide that area across the the width of the property. I don't know how there's no dimensions on it. So >> I' I'd want to see something substant

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substantial along that back edge. I don't know if it's 10 feet. I don't know if it's six feet, but it needs to be something that >> we think will have a good success. You know, if if it's 2 feet wide is not going to do much, right? So, I'd like to see something a little bit >> maybe Eric can quickly uh do that

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calculation out and see what does 330 look like across the property line maintaining the same small narrow access point to the bay that exists. Um, you know, what does that look like in terms of of distance and would that number need to increase in order to get a

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meaningful distance from the coastal bank? >> I'd say generally speaking, they're probably 50 feet wide. Eric, is that is that about right? I can speak to that and, you know, I can work through it with the commission right here on the computer. Um, so what what we have here, this is a 5-ft uh landscape bed. Um, the

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property itself is a rectangle and and we're about 50 ft wide, right? Um, so I I think a 6 foot, you know, walkway, something like that would be fair. Uh, and and Mr. Walker can speak to where

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access would be, but if we're 5 foot wide landscaping bed and we have a 50 foot wide area here, that's about 250 square ft. And if we carve out a, you know, 5 by 6 ft area, that's another 30

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square ft we'd be subtracting from that. So, you know, if we leave the sideline plantings and add another 200 square ft of plantings, I think we'll have something that um you know, will provide some planters in an L shape here, will

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provide access, uh will protect the um the resource area, and I think that could work for everyone. Um uh it'd be great if you let me know your thoughts on on that strategy. I think I think personally I think 10

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foot probably is is is what what I'd want to see there. I wouldn't want to see the grass go all the way up to the rock because even in that six foot walk path, there's something else we can put in there impervious. I'm I'm okay with. But I wouldn't want to see the grass go

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straight out because we want to keep something. And we want to create kind of an infiltration zone um to some extent of of the word um to stop, you know, the the lime and phosphorus and all everything

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else that's going to be on the grass um from just running straight down the rocks. So >> that's my take. >> That's kind of the email I had sent to Matt was, you know, I'm willing to do just tell us what you want to do. >> Okay. >> Yeah. And apologies if I missed that. I

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I do not recall that or I would have uh I would have definitely wrapped that into here. >> I just have a couple quick questions. Uh there are conservation posts because I can't find that plan in the >> the conservation posts are called out. Um they don't show up specifically. It has a the detail on the top left um

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coordinate with Kingston Conservation Commission. So it does specify they're going to be there. It just doesn't show exactly. >> And are the dimensions for the dock on there because those are asked for as well. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Dimensions for the dock is uh 10 by 12. That's labeled on the plan. I I

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showed the symbols for conservation posts. They're just a little small to see, but um generally they're every three plantings, but again, that will be coordinated with the commission. Um, and you know, I I think for the sake of of getting this wrapped up tonight, um, you

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know, if if the applicant is open to a 10, you know, a 10 foot wide planting strip at the rear of the property, um, we could definitely follow up with the plan that that shows that and um, you know, work closely with with Matt to to

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get something um to show that improvement. >> All right. And obviously we want to see the the post carried through the planting area so it's not just as we need it across from the back. >> Yes, the the post will be you know every

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planting >> every planting associated with this proposal um will will have a you know a post within a few feet of it just so you know that this area will never be disturbed or cut down in the future. I will um offer up that in similar

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situations in coastal mitigation plantings, people have asked, can I use a small uh post and rail fence or a fence with the posts with the little rope across it? And the commission has allowed that as long as they have the

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conservation placards on >> Yeah. >> the posts. It's like there's a requirement that it stays there in perpetuity either as conservation posts or if you like instead you could have something that you know might be appropriate for a coastal situation and have kind of the big rope

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>> Mr. Walker. They're just little >> be at the microphone. Sorry, it's for the people who are listening. >> I'm sorry. Yeah, my bad. >> Yeah, they're basically um you know typical conservation posts are a 4x4 post in the ground. They're 4 ft long. There's at least 2 ft in the ground, 2 ft above, and there's a little placard

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on it uh that says conservation area, no work beyond this point. Um we have them here for sale for as a courtesy that have a little black bird and a cattail on them. They don't look horrible, but in some cases, people have wanted to use a fence instead. Um, I don't think the

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commission would approve any sort of a big giant fence there or in nor would you really want one, but something decorative there as opposed to conservation post since it's right at the edge of your yard and your beach approach there. I think the commission would would be okay with that as long as they have to have the conservation post

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in perpetuity. So, if you ever replaced the little posts or the fence or whatever, you have to make sure the blackards are back on there in in that location. And the idea is to protect all the plantings behind it so that it's obvious to to you, the landscapers or anybody else that everything back there

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has to be natural. Um, and again, there are special conditions that always get included in permits for this that specify exactly how you can maintain those areas. Um, so that like I said, you don't have to let all of it grow up to be a giant tangled mess with invasives and trees and everything else.

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We want the tree, the species that are there. Um, and you're allowed to let any other native stuff grow in there. Um, but you are welcome to prune out non-natives and um, you know, occasionally prune down things other than what's been planted there. So,

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>> does all that make sense? >> Yeah. Yeah. But I can have low growing shrubs in the front line, right, that are acceptable >> in terms of like in that area >> in the 10ft strip there. >> Yeah. The 10 foot strip essentially would be pretty much the same as what um is proposed on the sides. you'd be

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welcome to switch out species if you want lower growing things there. The point is just that they need to be dense. Um it needs to become a barrier that will um help with storm water, with contaminants, with creating wildlife habitat, with catching any trash that

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might be blowing around from a contractor working next door or something like that. That just kind of stops everything from going to the bay. If switch grass is too tall for that spot for you, um we've had other people use um either beach grass or little blue

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stem. Uh there are some things that that don't get quite as tall as uh switchgrass in that situation. >> Okay. >> Do we have any other comments from commissioners? >> Oh, we of the opinion that we've heard

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enough on this and we can uh close the the discussion. All right. Do I hear a motion to close the >> uh before you before you get to there? Um do you if if that's the path that the commission is going down, do you want to talk about any special conditions?

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Right. I've already explained that the commission uses a typical coastal special condition for all these permits stating no outdoor uh chemical fertilizers, herbicides, things like that. uh within jurisdictional areas. Um you know, we typically have the whole if

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you use a dumpster on this, it stays closed. There's a lot of stuff that we like typically throw in as as special conditions that will likely end up in standard conditions going forward. Um I mentioned there was in here an update to the commission after the restoration work is done, but there's nothing in

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there about any followup on it. Um there's no 2-year, you know, monitoring and reporting. That's something that the commission can include as a special condition if you like. Um I'm trying to think there was the on and m plan. Uh you'd want to see an O and M plan for the

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>> for the pvious papers submitted before a COC is issued. Um yeah, I don't know if there's anything else the commission would consider on this particular project. I don't think there was anything else that I flagged as something that was absolutely necessary in this case. I just we

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weren't really prepared in that sense to discuss you know issuance of the permit >> and nothing more about the variance request. >> I mean you really would have to approve

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all three of the variances in order to issue the permit. So, I would say that should be in I would say that would be in your in your motion that you're issuing those three variances and then we do wrap that into the the permit as a special condition as well. >> We close the hearing.

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>> Yeah. Well, in the motion to if we're going to discuss approving, it would be in the motion to approve and accept accept the variances and approve the NOI as as discussed.

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>> I think that I think that covers it if if I'm wrong. >> Go ahead. >> Yeah, we typically do include those as a special condition. We usually do say as a special condition the commission has approved the following variances in the issuance of

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this permit but yeah as you said >> and we just for the record we have received the letters part of it's part of the record and if we approve it even if we don't specifically state it we approved it based on the fact that they applied for the variances and if we

402
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didn't didn't say ex specifically exclude it then I think it's it's inherent that we did approve it. Um >> did you um what is your feeling on restoration followup?

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>> You know, typically with a restoration plan, there is like I said that two-year monitoring reporting. It's usually you have to have some qualified person. You know, usually it's a wetland person that just reviews >> once and writes a report for the

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commission. and it's usually submitted to our office in December of each year. Starting the year following completion. So if you finish it in September of 26, you're not sending the first report to us until December of 27 and then you're sending one December of 28. And that

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allows the commission or at least our office to review and make sure that these restoration things are actually establishing the way they're supposed to. We >> in agreement two years. >> Two years is our typical, right, Matt? Okay.

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All right. >> All right. At this point, Matt, is there anything else we need to discuss before we close and vote? >> Do you have any >> one final run through? >> One one quick comment on the dumpster. It's going to be the the on the street side. It won't be anywhere near the backyard because they there's a very

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narrow gap to get any type of anything down the side of the house. It's very narrow. you know, the dumpster would be out front by the driveway. >> Yeah, it's pretty standard language. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, no contractors ever like this language. They hate it. >> Um, but I think it's super important cuz

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especially subcontractors, they just don't >> don't tend to care. Um, >> tell me about it. It's much easier for them for the dumpsters to be open, but then everything that's even the loose >> cellophanes and papers and everything else like

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>> we typically have been issuing the the dumpster language and also specific condition that says >> any any trash or construction debris entering Kingston Bay will be caused for immediate issue of fine issuance of a

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$300 fine. We've been including that pretty much every coastal one as a way to get the contractors to understand like there will be fines issued if this if this happens. >> Are we ready for a vote? >> You want to close? >> If we're ready for a vote, yes. Uh do we

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hear a motion to close the meeting? >> I'll make that motion. >> All right. Motion by Dodd. Do we have a second? >> Second. >> Second by Marilyn. All those in favor say I. I. >> Closed. All right. the 50 that we close the hearing. Um, do

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we have a motion to approve or issue the NO? Um, Matt, what is it? Approve the NOI. >> Yeah, you're going to approve the request, issue orders of conditions >> pending the receipt of the updated plan to the satisfaction of the conservation

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agent >> with the special conditions >> as mentioned, including the issuance of three variances. Okay. >> As discussed tonight. Uh, do we have a motion for that? >> I'll make that motion. >> All right. We have a motion. Dot. Do we have a second? >> Second.

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>> We have a second. Marilyn, all those in favor say I. I. >> I. >> Opposed. Say nay. >> Hearing none. Um, we have approved uh issuing the approving the NOI and issuing the OC's

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as discussed tonight and uh accepting the three variance requests. Um, thank you. >> I just zoned out. Did you vote? Yeah. >> Yeah, we voted. >> Perfect. Um, so just for for for clarification now, um, typically what

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happens is we prepare the permit and the permit is then signed at the following meeting, which would be April 22nd. Um, in this case, I need that updated plan from Eric and need to be able to review it and everything like that. So, the sooner that can get to me, the better. Um, and you can probably still meet that

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that timeline if if that works >> and just no work next week >> until you get the permit. >> Say again, Eric. >> I can work on getting you something next week um by Wednesday. That >> works. >> All right. Awesome. Thank you very much.

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>> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Have a good night. >> You have a good one. >> Thank you. >> Who Who is Mr. Shoemaker with? >> No. >> Um, >> no. What company? >> Um, Mackenzie. Oh, McKenzie. Yeah. >> Okay. >> Going back to KWPR. >> Uh, hang on a sec.

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>> Excuse me. >> Sure do. >> Section D, section C. All right. So, we're going to go back to section C now. Updates to the Kingston wetland protection regulations. I will now open a discussion on updates to the Kingston wetland protection regulations. Uh,

420
02:37:27.600 --> 02:37:43.120
Matt, uh, can you bring us up to speed? >> Sure. I just have to do my two-factor authentication for the 10th time tonight. >> I'm going to put that in a minute. >> Um, just sort of backing up a little bit the

421
02:37:43.120 --> 02:38:00.319
way this the way this works and the genesis of it. So the commission two years ago at this point I think rewrote KWPR put it in front of town meeting. It was approved. It was then appealed to the

422
02:38:00.319 --> 02:38:16.560
attorney general's office which took a long time and then it was approved by the attorney general's office and we didn't find out about it for a long time. So we've had our updated KW uh our updated bylaw. >> I think I just said KWPR. >> Yeah. >> Bylaw. the bylaw was updated and is

423
02:38:16.560 --> 02:38:34.399
official. We have not necessarily been using it because the idea was once the bylaw was updated, we're going to update the regulations, what we call KWPR. Um, in order to do the regulations, you have to hold a public hearing, put out public

424
02:38:34.399 --> 02:38:51.439
notice, which we've done for this. Um, it's something that I thought I would just kind of do and we'd get it done and that was very clear that was never going to happen. So my concept for this was we put the public hearing notice out so that if any member of the public wanted to discuss this with the commission tonight, you could do that. I provided

425
02:38:51.439 --> 02:39:06.640
information to all of you just to have some form of a directional conversation with any specifics that you would want to see or things you'd want to discuss. And my plan is to come out of this meeting or a successive meeting with

426
02:39:06.640 --> 02:39:23.680
marching orders from the commission and then we get a consultant to give us a quote. I'm already working on getting a quote from a company that we've worked with before on this sort of thing and have them do the leg work because I consistently find typos and sections of

427
02:39:23.680 --> 02:39:39.920
KWPR that connect to a section that's wrong and I don't want to be responsible for that and I don't feel like I can really tackle all of that and like make sure that I've done everything I should do with that. And I think there are things that a consultant can really help us with if we have some conceptual ideas

428
02:39:39.920 --> 02:39:56.640
and want to really hammer down on what the best application of that would be. Ultimately, then you have town council that will review it and they will give us advice and they'll say this part, you know, isn't something that's legally defensible. Um, and you're welcome to still keep it in there if you'd like, but you know, there will be discussions

429
02:39:56.640 --> 02:40:12.160
about those sort of things before it is official. So, you've just opened a public hearing. Like any other public hearing, it can be continued until it's closed. Um, so I think the opening of this allows the commission to discuss it. It doesn't

430
02:40:12.160 --> 02:40:27.840
have to happen tonight. You don't have to come out of tonight with everything. You can ask me questions and have me go do work in between now and the next meeting. Um, whenever we're ready to take this to a consultant, I'll have the quote already ready to go and I believe

431
02:40:27.840 --> 02:40:43.359
we'll already have enough money set aside to do this. I don't think it will be expensive. Um, but the idea out of this is to have it match the bylaw so that there's no disagreement and clarify anything that

432
02:40:43.359 --> 02:41:00.560
needed clarification, fix all the typos, fix all the essentially broken links, um, change language that's confusing or allows for improper interpretations. Um, and it gives the commission the ability to fix

433
02:41:00.560 --> 02:41:15.920
some things that aren't protective enough, um, or fix some problems that we've seen over the years in some of the language or some of the things we're seeing that weren't around at a certain point. Things like alternative technology, septic is something that

434
02:41:15.920 --> 02:41:32.880
doesn't really show up in our regs at all and probably would be beneficial if it did. Um, so I've outlined some things. Um, you know, one example of the the bylaw and the regulations not matching was one of the things that the commission wanted with the updated bylaw

435
02:41:32.880 --> 02:41:49.040
was for a butter notification distances to go from 100 to 300 ft. And that is in the new bylaw, but our regulations say 100 ft. We've never changed that. You know, it hasn't been terribly long since I found out that the bylaw was actually in effect. Um, at any point we could

436
02:41:49.040 --> 02:42:05.359
have, similar to the information receipt deadline, updated KWPR specific with that one thing and reposted it and had that be official, but we didn't. So, now is the opportunity to get all of these things connected to be just one thing.

437
02:42:05.359 --> 02:42:21.680
Um, 300 ft on about notifications, two weeks for uh, continuence information receipt deadline and all sorts of other things that can be added together on this. So, I don't know how you what the best method for you to go through some

438
02:42:21.680 --> 02:42:38.319
of the stuff tonight would be. Um, I did go through and do just kind of a cursory red line of um things that and it wasn't changing language to be it was more like me adding comments here and there like it would be good to talk about this, it'd be good to talk about

439
02:42:38.319 --> 02:42:54.000
that. One of the things I think is important we should do is we've had a lot of things we've wanted to add to the standard conditions that we've discussed over the years. I have some of those things on a list, some of the things I don't. Um, I think it would be good for us to update all the standard conditions and have that be attached to the

440
02:42:54.000 --> 02:43:11.359
document of KWPR because I think it's more defensible that way. And that way, if we ever want to update the standard conditions going forward, we would just do the same thing we would do to update KWPR. Um, yeah. Do you want me to start going through some of the comments like on the red line that I had and we'll just start

441
02:43:11.359 --> 02:43:28.560
having some of those conversations or do you want to just talk for starters about I would like it if we could do X Y or Z and I can take notes on that and maybe that's a good way to start. >> Yeah, I have something if that's acceptable.

442
02:43:28.560 --> 02:43:45.680
So, I've been thinking again, I've spent some time on this commission and I I see how we go through enforcement and and oftentimes we have people that are repeat offenders, for lack of a better definition. And I'm thinking how what's

443
02:43:45.680 --> 02:44:01.279
a way that we can be more proactive instead of waiting for something bad to happen and then we have to get into the whole enforcement thing. One of the things I mean like we were talking about the coastal bank I mean there were some highly sensitive areas within the ones that we protect and looking through this

444
02:44:01.279 --> 02:44:19.520
document um on page 65 when they're talking about certain resource areas and they say such as vertal pools streams with native eastern brook trout on and on and on. So, I'm thinking there are some of these areas that need to be particularly focused upon

445
02:44:19.520 --> 02:44:36.399
like spring, migration, vernal pools, breeding, things like that. And I had an un unhappy experience recently through I want I don't want to lay

446
02:44:36.399 --> 02:44:51.600
blame. I'm not accusing. I'm just saying it it was something that happened where landscapers using leaf blowers basically decimated woodf frog areas and wiped out woodf frogs. I'm thinking if we put some parameters

447
02:44:51.600 --> 02:45:07.920
on work times, if we don't allow and again this might be pie in the sky, but I'm thinking if we somehow include not allowing work in certain areas, you know, like a vernal pool area from X date to X date, like I mean

448
02:45:07.920 --> 02:45:25.120
start, you know, start of spring, give it a month, and then go rake and do whatever you need to do if if you're contiguous with the vernal pool or if you're with in vernal equal jurisdiction. I'm I'm looking for a way to protect

449
02:45:25.120 --> 02:45:40.560
and apprise people of that and and whether it's goes into the conditions or into this document or whatever. But I want to call attention to the possibility of being able to protect it in a in a better way by disallowing say

450
02:45:40.560 --> 02:45:57.359
landscaping action during that short spring period. And that might be just too crazy, but it occurred to me because then we end up doing lots of enforcement. So >> my question on just on that just >> sure

451
02:45:57.359 --> 02:46:12.880
>> is aren't we already requiring them not to be doing work unless they come >> you know approval >> but again if they're approved to do it it's a timing thing. Can I clarify

452
02:46:12.880 --> 02:46:29.840
something on this that I think I think in what I just wrote down what you're getting at is can we prohibit work during key time periods in landscaped areas adjacent to vernal pools. >> You can't work in vernal pool habitat. You can't work in any area that's within

453
02:46:29.840 --> 02:46:45.120
200 ft of vernal pool that's in a natural condition. But the vernal pool envelope as defined doesn't include landscaped areas. So you'd have the right to go into that landscaped area and do whatever it is that you do. You're not allowed to

454
02:46:45.120 --> 02:47:00.240
put things, blow things, whatever into the habitat associated with vernal pools. But I think what question is is when you have areas where your vernal pool envelope overlaps landscaped area that is assumed to be of

455
02:47:00.240 --> 02:47:16.800
a legal origin, do you have the ability to prevent people from doing work within a time period that would be damaging to vernal poolool species? And I don't know the answer to that, but we could certainly ask and see if there's other towns that have done anything like that.

456
02:47:16.800 --> 02:47:33.439
And what made me think about it is I know when we're dealing with fish and things like that or oyster beds. I mean there are certain time parameters that we have established. Have we not? >> Yeah. There are things where >> So I'm I'm following that lead >> diagramous fish for certain time periods

457
02:47:33.439 --> 02:47:47.680
or Right. >> Yeah. >> Because I was thinking of the um forge pond working and and hearing that. >> Yeah. Yeah. Right. Um, anything else at this moment that we want to discuss? I mean, obviously,

458
02:47:47.680 --> 02:48:03.920
we've opened the hearing and we all have Matt's contact and >> this is something that I usually just sit at a computer and and type some things up. Um, we can all move forward with that, but we've opened the hearing. We can continue or we can continue to

459
02:48:03.920 --> 02:48:22.640
discuss. Yeah, I think um like I said, there's nothing wrong with continuing. This this process can take as long as as as you want. Um I would just say I think if we're going to continue and just have the commission kind of work on on thoughts in advance

460
02:48:22.640 --> 02:48:39.600
of a meeting that that we we try to keep it on a short timeline of of doing it so that because we've we've had some other things before where I've been like, "Oh yeah, we're going to do this." And then like it kind of >> kind of peters out. usually on my end like me not bringing it back enough. So,

461
02:48:39.600 --> 02:48:54.080
I just don't want to I don't want to forget about this one. It is important. Um, anything else the commission wants me to look into? I I said I would look at other towns. Um, typically my

462
02:48:54.080 --> 02:49:10.240
understanding is ours are are pretty solid in terms of protection, but there may be some other towns that have some things that um that might be good ideas that I can that I can look through. And it is something we could ask a consultant to do, but I don't want to get involved in having a consultant do

463
02:49:10.240 --> 02:49:25.279
like a sweeping review of >> X number of towns because it's going to cost us a fortune. I can just kind of flip through and see if there's anything in particular. And I will say and probably say it again and again that that the commission should make sure

464
02:49:25.279 --> 02:49:42.720
that they always consider reason in these regulations that if the regulations get too strong and people >> start complaining too much to the selectman or something then we'll probably be in a bad way at some point.

465
02:49:42.720 --> 02:49:59.040
Um, so I I think I don't think that's going to happen with this with this board, you know, but I think everything should always be um backed in science as as typically we we have a lot >> um and just make sure that

466
02:49:59.040 --> 02:50:14.560
>> um >> you know, I think one area that I that I put into the notes was there are some things that I think should be a little stronger as far as septic systems. Um, you know, the commission and rightfully

467
02:50:14.560 --> 02:50:29.359
so right now with the regulations does not allow septic systems or any component of them to be within 100 feet of a wetland, but it doesn't say anything about the outer 100 ft of the riverfront area. Technically, veral pools are fully protected because of the language in

468
02:50:29.359 --> 02:50:46.399
there now that the outer 100 is the buffer zone and you can't have that in the buffer zone. Um, so I think there's opportunity to improve that. I think there's other towns that have even increased distances beyond that. Um, so I have some notes on some of that and I

469
02:50:46.399 --> 02:51:03.600
will try to look for more language on that if that's something the commission would be interested in. Um, obviously we've been seeing a lot of septic issues. There's going to be a lot of ADU things. Um, again, you don't want to be just restrictive for no reason, but it's very obvious that septic systems are a

470
02:51:03.600 --> 02:51:18.800
problem for water quality and wetland health. Um, so I think having more prohibition in there while also detailing where and how alternative technology can be used to overcome that.

471
02:51:18.800 --> 02:51:35.120
>> Um, just puts it right in there instead of having to get to these situations where the commission has to say we're probably going to say no to this. >> Yeah. Do it better >> and we suggest that you come back with a better plan. And I mean there can be things right in there that says the commission may approve you know a septic system within certain

472
02:51:35.120 --> 02:51:51.040
distances provided that it is a proven design shown to decrease nitrogen phosphorus or any of the >> chemicals or contaminants of concern for >> downstream wetlands. Um so there's that and then there was the whole conversation about impervious surface.

473
02:51:51.040 --> 02:52:05.680
We have to figure that out. It's really kind of wacky. Um and then whether the commission wants to keep upholding the same um buffer zone protections for flood zone and then maybe yes. The

474
02:52:05.680 --> 02:52:21.600
answer might be yes. Um, but I don't know that that a lot of towns have things like no structure setbacks off of um, flood zone. Which gets me to another conversation where you had wanted in the past, the last

475
02:52:21.600 --> 02:52:36.479
time we talked about updating KWPR, to include something in there that just states right off the bat that the commission will review sea level rise information, climate change information in order to review

476
02:52:36.479 --> 02:52:53.600
projects. And if you're doing that, you probably do want to have additional setback areas off something like flood zone because flood zone is likely to increase over time, >> right? >> So, it's just something that I think is going to have to be discussed with the commission to make sure. I think some of

477
02:52:53.600 --> 02:53:10.080
the things that are in there now were just oversightes that have added to protection but don't always make sense. some cases I think it does make sense to prevent development in a certain area that you know is going to flood and flood worse but in some other areas

478
02:53:10.080 --> 02:53:27.279
it may not. So it's it's a little bit of a nuance that I think could be discussed and maybe not changed at all but maybe maybe changed. I don't know. I come come at some of this stuff from a slightly different perspective um than just the conservation side of it, right? It's because what I do is I set up projects

479
02:53:27.279 --> 02:53:44.000
and so everybody who designs a project starts someplace and they start with the regulations. So there's the mass regulations and then there's the town regulations, right? If we think along the lines of that, we're essentially telling every engineer or wetland

480
02:53:44.000 --> 02:53:58.800
scientist or whoever is running a project or designing a project upfront what they can and can't do >> so that we have, you know, kind of a a starting point and then they talk about what they can do and they can't do and

481
02:53:58.800 --> 02:54:15.439
um the better we do in our regulations. And I don't mean that from a strict, you know, no you can't do anything perspective, but uh if we communicate well, we can raise the bar to achieve what the town already asked for. Right?

482
02:54:15.439 --> 02:54:31.359
We have bylaws >> without even asking for any additional areas. We can just better discuss the path to approval because ultimately we're trying to balance growth with conservation. Um,

483
02:54:31.359 --> 02:54:46.800
>> yeah. >> And and and the way that we do that is by having a definitive document that clearly states these are issues and part of that is the regulation. Like for example, septic systems. A lot of the times there's there's this

484
02:54:46.800 --> 02:55:03.600
guy talking here, they're talking this and they're using different definitions when really there's only one set of definitions that are going to be used because we're looking through one one one side of it. So I think that if we can dig in a little bit on that and

485
02:55:03.600 --> 02:55:20.479
provide a little bit more clarity like every specification in the construction industry starts with a section that includes references. So if we reference a certain document we're telling the engineer that no you have to think about this from title five

486
02:55:20.479 --> 02:55:36.080
perspective and KPR um KWPR >> I can see the train from here. I don't think that's ever happened. >> They cleared a bunch of trees um along the power line. >> Yeah. What was all that? >> Yeah, it's Ever Eversource doing their

487
02:55:36.080 --> 02:55:51.520
they had some long overdue rightway clearing through the property. I don't I think I don't think you used to be able to see the train from here. >> Yeah. Um so so from that perspective that's I would like to try to check off a little bit on that because we can get better

488
02:55:51.520 --> 02:56:09.359
>> um projects at the start just by being a little bit um better within the documents that that >> we've actually issued >> to those people to review. So, >> I think that's a huge thing with this and that that there may be a way to even do some more sweeping reorganization of

489
02:56:09.359 --> 02:56:23.120
it in a way. Maybe they'll have some advice on that because I do think there's there's been some sections of it that just kind of at least when I first started there were some things that contradicted even within the document that we've fixed since then. But I I do

490
02:56:23.120 --> 02:56:39.600
think having a very clear outline um and I even put a note in there that I wasn't sure if it would be beneficial or ill advised, but even having like a not like a mission statement, but like right in the beginning of the document that

491
02:56:39.600 --> 02:56:57.520
this isn't intended as a here are your minimum setbacks. The idea is you have to show a project that isn't detrimental to the resource areas >> at all. >> Yeah. and just, you know, here are the guidelines that can help you get there, but you see a lot of this like, but it

492
02:56:57.520 --> 02:57:12.560
meets the minimum setbacks. And it's like, but that does that doesn't mean that that's a good project. That it's not still detrimental. It's it's >> like a veral pool at the bottom of a hill. >> Yes. So, it's not, >> you know, you can just go through and say you've checked all these boxes off.

493
02:57:12.560 --> 02:57:28.800
I think having a more holistic look at that of like you have to show overall that this project isn't beneficial isn't damaging and >> do no harm thing. Yeah. >> Well, it's specifically stated. It's it's cumulative impacts. We're supposed to review it. That doesn't mean that

494
02:57:28.800 --> 02:57:45.680
>> that one plant is is is in itself going to change the world. But if there's 47 of those plants and they're not supposed to be there, did that impact or if there that goes to 470 plants, what's what's the impact at that point? So from that

495
02:57:45.680 --> 02:58:01.680
perspective, if we have, you know, a some type of purpose statement um for the understanding that then that focuses, I think, the direction that the intent here is to do no harm

496
02:58:01.680 --> 02:58:18.319
>> and we have bylaws that we have to >> right >> answer to >> and and focus on the elements that we're protecting whether it's >> water quality, you know, sea, oyster bed, It's all and definitive in that way. It takes some of

497
02:58:18.319 --> 02:58:34.160
the mystery out of it. >> I feel pretty strongly that almost every project with enough work could could theoretically get get to the the point where it could be done. It's just >> get to Yes. >> there's a money concern that >> sure >> diminishing returns. So I if we lay it

498
02:58:34.160 --> 02:58:49.840
out well, I just think that we're we're at least in a starting point where when that engineer says to the client before he shells out, you know, $12,000 on on a on a full project where he says, "Hey, there's some things here that I don't

499
02:58:49.840 --> 02:59:05.040
know we can check off and they're pretty big and they're laid out pretty clear. So maybe I'm telling you that maybe that's not something that's going to work. It'll probably still come in as long but then then it's a you know it's on them.

500
02:59:05.040 --> 02:59:22.000
>> They chose to take a whack at it. Sure. >> It's all I had Matt. I mean I I will have more but I will email you. >> I know you will. the the mosquito discussion we had last week, right? You know, >> that would be that would be I think

501
02:59:22.000 --> 02:59:40.399
something >> if we could find something in there and and use that to the bene benefit of the community. I think that would be that would be a worthwhile. >> Okay. Um then I would say do you want to

502
02:59:40.399 --> 02:59:56.160
continue just the two weeks >> and have a Yeah. gives us a chance for our first really solid read through. >> Okay. >> All right. Do I have a motion to continue for two weeks? >> So, I'll move that we continue it for till the next meeting. >> Next meeting which is 42

503
02:59:56.160 --> 03:00:11.359
22 >> 22 >> 22 right >> 22 >> 22 >> April 22nd >> that's okay. >> Okay, >> I can send in my notes. >> So, we have a motion from Maryland. Do I have a second? >> Second. >> Second by Megan. All those in favor say I. >> I opposed.

504
03:00:11.359 --> 03:00:27.279
>> All right. So, uh, that's five there. In favor, continue to April 22nd. >> All right. >> I think we're just going back to minutes and updates. >> All right. So, we have meeting minutes from March 11th, 2026, which was like

505
03:00:27.279 --> 03:00:42.720
last week. >> We're doing really good there. Good job. >> Um, do we have any edits? >> They're all set. George, you took care of it. >> Okay, perfect. >> She's good. Um I believe we were all Is

506
03:00:42.720 --> 03:01:00.279
there anybody who was in here for that meeting that we need to read >> that one? >> Probably. >> No, it said absent. Not >> just let me just check the the first page. I know I was here

507
03:01:02.160 --> 03:01:18.080
absent. None. All right. So, um, if there's no additional edits, do we have a motion to approve? >> I move that we approve the minutes of March 11th, 2026. >> All right, we have a motion by Marilyn. Do we have a second? >> Second. >> Second by Megan. All those in favor say I. I.

508
03:01:18.080 --> 03:01:33.359
>> Opposed. All right. Motion carries. Five to zero. To approve. >> Update. 68 Evergreen Street. Admin review, please. Matt. >> Yep. Um, right down the street here. uh

509
03:01:33.359 --> 03:01:48.720
right across the street from uh Grady Consulting. Um I was driving by and saw some tree work being done there and I >> the office building >> the office building. We did a RCOC we did a COC issuance a couple years ago on

510
03:01:48.720 --> 03:02:04.000
that uh before the property was sold. So it's under a new owner now. I thought like I should pull over and go check on that which I did. And I just got you know asked the tree person to come down and asked them I said what are you what are you planning on doing here? here. I didn't have a permit on any of this. Are you actually going to be cutting any

511
03:02:04.000 --> 03:02:20.000
trees? And he said, "Well, we're going to cut a couple of small ones near the street that are right under the power lines." And I said, "Well, this this needs some form of permitting." He got on the phone with um there's a landscaper that takes care of the whole property. I spoke with him on the phone.

512
03:02:20.000 --> 03:02:37.040
Um he was working for the new owner of the property who has an office inside, but he wasn't able to come out. Um I explained the need for permitting. We talked a little bit. I said, "If you can get an admin review to me right now, I will approve it because I believe the

513
03:02:37.040 --> 03:02:54.000
work is easily approved under an admin review form, and that way I don't have to take enforcement action on this." Um, so we did. I received an admin review about right away. Um, four small trees were cut down right up against uh Evergreen Street. It's by I thought it

514
03:02:54.000 --> 03:03:09.680
was a stream. I think on the COC plan, I think it's a called a ditch. Um I don't know if it's a ditch or a stream. It was flowing when I was there, but it was it had recently rained and everything like that. So, I don't know if it's a stream or a ditch. Either way, it was jurisdictional. Um and work shouldn't

515
03:03:09.680 --> 03:03:25.439
have happened. I have had correspondence with the new property owner and we talked a little bit about this. And I also talked about the rain garden at the site. Um, I could tell from being on site that vegetation had been cut that shouldn't

516
03:03:25.439 --> 03:03:42.319
have been cut. Um, and I said that they would have to get their landscape person in contact with me, walk the site a little bit later in the spring once things have started to pop up so we can really tell what was cut, what wasn't, like where there are deficiencies there

517
03:03:42.319 --> 03:03:58.240
that they'll have to fix. Um, so there is a potential enforcement issue there if they don't reach back out on this, but I expect they're going to reach back out. I think all in all it will be a good proper new property owner interaction towards them getting the property into full compliance. He said

518
03:03:58.240 --> 03:04:14.160
that the cutting of that rain garden area would have happened before he bought the property. Um, there was a situation with the COC where the commission did want them to clean the rain garden out and do some vegetative

519
03:04:14.160 --> 03:04:29.680
maintenance, but it's just I I can tell there was n the native vegetation is supposed to be in there. Some of that was cut. Um, so we want to make sure that doesn't just become the new lawn area. And I made it very clear for the other cutting of the trees under the power lines that this is just cutting of

520
03:04:29.680 --> 03:04:45.760
trees to alleviate that hazard. It's not an invite to then start maintaining a little bit further and a little bit further and create a lawn area. That's to stay a natural area. The leaf litter is to stay there. All of that. And I think that was understood. So that's that.

521
03:04:45.760 --> 03:05:03.200
>> Um years ago across the street there's a ditch that runs between the Grady building and the first house. And years ago it actually was wet most of the time. I assume it went under the road. But I didn't know there was a ditch on

522
03:05:03.200 --> 03:05:19.359
the other side. I've never noticed that. >> Yeah, it pops out of a culvert. >> You're talking about between the big gray building and and the office building. Is that where it is? >> I'm not sure about the big gray building. Is that where the cover company is? >> Oh, yeah. Maybe. >> Yeah, it's in between

523
03:05:19.359 --> 03:05:35.200
>> in between those two. >> It's closer to the office building at 68. And there is a little culvert that pops out there. >> Where does that water come from? Because there's no more ditch. There's yards behind up street.

524
03:05:35.200 --> 03:05:50.240
>> Oh, it may come from the cemetery somehow. I don't know. >> How could it come from the cemetery? >> From the pond or the area that's >> I don't know. >> I don't know because there's no >> Yeah, but there's a neighborhood that's

525
03:05:50.240 --> 03:06:06.800
uh on the Oh, God. I mean, I'm going to say Main Street because I'm bad with the streets. Um where the churches are >> and that's higher than the cemetery. So, I could see it. >> It It is higher, but I don't know if that's >> that's the source or is the spring or

526
03:06:06.800 --> 03:06:23.760
what? >> I'm sure it's a perfectly clean natural spring that you could just drink right out of the ground. >> I've often I've often thought that it runs underground >> on the road there. the the up to the club and all the g the recreation area

527
03:06:23.760 --> 03:06:40.560
and it must go under the liquor store and dump into the little brook but I don't know >> sure >> it has to go someplace I'm not sure >> I don't I I I've never figured it out >> I'm sure the end result is it goes into

528
03:06:40.560 --> 03:06:55.680
Stony Brook right >> but I don't know where it comes from >> I don't know where it comes from never never thought about just now actually. >> Um and just the last um very brief updates were after a long winter of

529
03:06:55.680 --> 03:07:12.479
frozen ground and snow and not being able to get anything installed, the facilities department this week installed the permanent sign at Oachchinsky where the uh Eagle Scout swift Jimny Swift tower is. >> Um so that's got a permanent sign on it now. You can check that out. And at

530
03:07:12.479 --> 03:07:27.840
Kalista Farm, uh, the Wayside exhibit that was funded through CPC, I think FY23, um, is finally installed. It looks great. Um, so there's that. And then we're going to have the plaque uh, for

531
03:07:27.840 --> 03:07:45.359
the Audison family uh, for the donation of the parking area for Winthre Street installed shortly as well. Um, >> four years. >> Yeah. No, we we move we move quick. Um, and just the last thing, if you do go to Kalista, you're going to see a giant

532
03:07:45.359 --> 03:08:01.279
branch hanging out of a black cherry tree under the onto the ground, uh, with a down branch from last year that was never cleaned up. And the high school horiculture program said they're going to take care of those shortly. So, >> and there are new signs at the senior

533
03:08:01.279 --> 03:08:16.399
center as well. >> Oh, the posts. >> Yeah. >> Yes. our intern Levonne um remember we had the issue with the senior center you know with the OC's not being followed um and I had been coordinating with the facilities department on you know the

534
03:08:16.399 --> 03:08:32.240
the area across the street from the senior center was only supposed to be 2 ft of grass and the rest of it was supposed to be natural but they put the conservation posts at the woods line and they had been mowing the whole time so for the last I would say year or so ago they they've stopped mowing that area we

535
03:08:32.240 --> 03:08:47.520
had uh sort of like snow not snow stakes but you know, one by one stakes in there. Um, and just a couple weeks ago, um, Levon sewer uh, gave us their extra uh, posts from the Davis property from

536
03:08:47.520 --> 03:09:02.960
the Leeing Field site. Um, and so I had Levon actually go to pick them up at the sewer plant in his uh, mother's van thinking they were going to be like 4 foot long 4x4s. They were 6x six's and they were I think they were 10 ft long.

537
03:09:02.960 --> 03:09:19.040
and he was able to get all of them over this van and then we had to cut them in half and he did a great job. Uh we had the gas powered augur and he got them now all along the line there. So now we have substantial posts with conservation placards. Um he's just going to remove

538
03:09:19.040 --> 03:09:35.920
the old ones that are at the woods line still. Um and we've started to move into vernal poolool certification season. We do have a focus on that this year. Um, and now that I heard from you all that these pools were never certified, which I had always thought they were, um, you

539
03:09:35.920 --> 03:09:52.399
we were out there today in the pool across from the senior center. Um, we only had two egg masses in that pool and we could tell. So, I'm going to follow up >> because that's the one that was certified. >> There is one of them that was certified. I thought you said none of them were certified. >> No, no, no. I certified one.

540
03:09:52.399 --> 03:10:07.520
>> You did. >> You did the long one. That's right. as you drive in the driveway. >> Mhm. >> Where the posts were that vertal pool, >> the first one? All right. Yeah, there was only there were only two in there today. >> So, I'm going to follow up. I I suspect

541
03:10:07.520 --> 03:10:22.640
that the bulk of obligate spring breeding is done, but it may not be. We may have another really warm rain that triggers more spotted salamanders or maybe even some wood frogs. Um, I'm also going to be surveying the other areas

542
03:10:22.640 --> 03:10:38.560
here again. Um, and I know I have >> Where did you see the egg masses in that? >> In this probably dead center of the pool, and we actually didn't get in the pool today. We just did a perimeter visual survey. >> Um, I don't like to get in the pool if you don't have to because you muck it up

543
03:10:38.560 --> 03:10:54.640
and make things worse. >> Um, and they were pretty far away from where we could access, but you could you could see them pretty clearly. >> Um, so again, that that itself is not enough. I assuming that it wasn't certified, that alone is not enough to certify it. But if it's already certified, >> it was certified.

544
03:10:54.640 --> 03:11:10.720
>> I want to be following up on >> use patterns over the years. Um, I've tried to work with Highway on kind of squeezing the salt use over there. Obviously, they're going to use salt over there with the senior center and everything, but like trying to make sure it stays in the road and it's not like

545
03:11:10.720 --> 03:11:26.319
on full blast whipping it around like it was a few years ago. Um, so trying to do what we can to make sure that um, conditions are as good as they can be for the vernable critters there that um, hopefully there haven't been any

546
03:11:26.319 --> 03:11:42.240
catastrophic issues with water quality or habitat time. >> Sure. >> Um, and if there have been to make things as better as best we can now so that they have the chance to >> Yeah. Because somebody's still around. So >> yeah. So yeah. um that and we're going

547
03:11:42.240 --> 03:11:59.200
to be just like I said we're working with community biodiversity initiative um and their thing is trying to get uh some of the higher value PVPs looked at to see whether they're certifiable um we already had one that we certif we didn't certify it but we

548
03:11:59.200 --> 03:12:15.680
got documentation of uh Levon and I last week at Camp Nikon uh there was one pool that was right near the trail where there was just a deafening woodf frog chorus and so we just stopped and recorded it and that's enough. That's it. So sometimes as long as it's very

549
03:12:15.680 --> 03:12:31.359
clear that they're in that pool, that's and we actually did see a ton of egg masses in that one. >> Um nice. >> Yeah, there's a lot of Nikon that's still in great shape. Um >> there were pools that were very heavily impacted by off-road vehicle use over the years. And I think some of that, you

550
03:12:31.359 --> 03:12:47.040
know, obviously a lot of the use there has gone down. Um and I think a lot of the pools haven't been impacted. There's plenty of pools there that are far enough away from the roads, but we did still see spotted salamander egg masses in the road puddles because we weren't able to

551
03:12:47.040 --> 03:13:04.240
fix the whole main trail there. Like the trail between Rabbath Road and Pratt's Pond um is still pretty rutdded here and there. And I saw probably 15 to 20 spotted salamander egg masses in pools that will very clearly dry up

552
03:13:04.240 --> 03:13:21.439
if they don't just get destroyed by the, you know, ATVs and things that are still around. >> Um, so yeah, there is plenty of intact habitat around vernal pools there, but then there's plenty of amphibians that will take the easy way out and use lesser quality habitat still. So, not a

553
03:13:21.439 --> 03:13:36.160
ton we can do about that short of continuing to work on fixing those trails. The downside is that's very expensive work that we have no funding for. The only way we fixed the main trail in Nikon was we were able to divert the whatever I think it was

554
03:13:36.160 --> 03:13:52.640
$9,000 of NRCS money that was intended for the Cranberry Wershed Reserve restoration that never happened. That NRCS said we don't do these projects anymore, but you don't have to give us the money back. the first little bit of money they had given and we had to I think go to town meeting to have that

555
03:13:52.640 --> 03:14:09.680
money diverted for Nikon and that was what funded filling all of those giant puddles along uh the main trail which I think was really beneficial. I just don't think we can afford to do that anymore. And it was really difficult work for the contractor to do. And short of that, I think we'd have to try to get

556
03:14:09.680 --> 03:14:26.479
some of us out there with like rake the iron rakes and just try to like shovels and iron rakes and try to fill some of these things and see what we could do um to try to discourage them from breeding in there and to make it so that it's easier to walk through there. um at the

557
03:14:26.479 --> 03:14:43.760
same rate the next weekend people are going to rip through there when we're not looking and and probably turn it back into a puddle again. So it's it's a lot of effort to try to get some of that stuff done, but hopefully we can over time uh do that. I think I told all the

558
03:14:43.760 --> 03:14:59.520
commission about the cleanup day April 25th in conjunction with the brewery. >> So that's happening. Um >> is that behind the brewery? Yep. Yeah. Basically, people are meeting more or less at the brewery. Like, there's

559
03:14:59.520 --> 03:15:14.800
various places around there you could park. Um, and if enough people show up, I think we're going to split a bunch of people down to the fire station property on Maple Street. >> Oh, wow. >> Um, and clean Stony Brook. Uh, we got some of the Southeastern Mass chapter Trout Unlimited people hopefully showing

560
03:15:14.800 --> 03:15:31.439
up. Um, it's nice to finally tie in with them. The idea is to have some people show up with waiters that can actually get down, get in the water or get into the the wetland areas adjacent to the to the brook and then have people to run stuff, you know, back from them up to to drier

561
03:15:31.439 --> 03:15:46.640
areas with bags. I got a bunch of bags and I got some extra gloves and a couple little grabby things that are strangely expensive. Um, and I contacted the Carols who own the Maple Street property that were trying to, you know, purchase or be involved in some sort of a

562
03:15:46.640 --> 03:16:02.960
purchase of, you know, the dam and wetland portion just to ask if it was okay with them if we included the wet and brook portions of their property that day. And they said that's fine. >> And don't they the dam that's in the middle of it? Yeah. >> Yeah. So, it's good. We can get Stony Brook cleaned essentially from Summer

563
03:16:02.960 --> 03:16:19.120
Street down to to the Salt Marsh. Um, and even in some capacity, we could probably go upstream a little bit if we needed to, but I didn't really speak to the property owners up there about >> check the poison ivy. >> Always an issue. Um, the other quick

564
03:16:19.120 --> 03:16:34.960
update, we met with Eversource out at Tree Farm Landing. Um Brian's not here, but that's that's the property over near his house where for years there's been a lot of problems out there with shooting and burning and offro vehicle use and all sorts of great fun that was going on

565
03:16:34.960 --> 03:16:50.319
before the property was taken in as conservation property. Um and it's been a real hassle to try to get anything done there um and to get Eversource buy in on it. But we did get um Eversource to agree that um a that they would look

566
03:16:50.319 --> 03:17:05.760
into the possibility of trying to sort of squeeze the access there um but more importantly that if we do a cleanup there and we can pile up all the stuff, they'll truck it out of there for us. >> Um because it is a difficult site to access and there is a ton of stuff out

567
03:17:05.760 --> 03:17:22.640
there. Um, so we're working on a date for that, probably sometime in May. And I confirmed with the fire department we can get uh one of those six wheel gator things that we used at the Nikon cleanup years ago so that we can run stuff back and forth and not have to be hauling. Some of it's like

568
03:17:22.640 --> 03:17:37.520
big appliances, >> a shot up dishwasher, shot up air conditioner, >> rims, and >> 457 shotgun shells >> per square foot. Yep. >> Yeah. >> Um, it's insane. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. So, baby steps on, you know, just

569
03:17:37.520 --> 03:17:52.800
kind of probably start with the the biggest stuff and try to get as much as we can. And I don't know if any of the shells there would be magnetic at all, but if so, we have the sweepy thing that might be helpful for trying to get some of that stuff up. If not, >> lead shots.

570
03:17:52.800 --> 03:18:09.040
>> Might be able to sieve, >> you know. >> Do they still allow lead shots? Whether or not they allow it, >> yeah, >> I'm sure that's the majority of what people are shooting there because >> most of the shot there is not um >> you know specific like hunting or anything. It's just it's target

571
03:18:09.040 --> 03:18:24.399
shooting. >> Yeah, we see just crates and crates of ammunition out there. >> So the idea is to get the site a base baseline level of cleaned up. Open Space Committee has already started to work uh towards and and our office will be doing some of the leg work towards getting

572
03:18:24.399 --> 03:18:40.479
some signage installed over on Christmas Tree Lane where the main trail access is and trying to get the trails marked and have a trail map on a sign and trying to make it a more appealing >> feature and hopefully getting people in the neighborhood to see it and use it.

573
03:18:40.479 --> 03:18:57.200
And again, just like Nikon, I think the more people you get out there to use it, the less people probably want to be out there shooting things and burning things and driving around in circles while you're shooting and burning things. >> So, >> any other updates, Matt?

574
03:18:57.200 --> 03:19:14.720
>> Pretty much. Um, I had a meeting >> last week with the new Brockton mayor, >> um, with uh, Representative Linatra and Representative Plof who represents the Brockton district. Um, and representatives from Plymouth County and

575
03:19:14.720 --> 03:19:32.800
the Brockton City Council. Um, just to talk about Silver Lake and water, you know, water quantity more and quality issues. Um, it went really well. Um the new mayor shows a desire to want to, you

576
03:19:32.800 --> 03:19:49.920
know, not have detrimental ecological effects of uh their water use of Silver Lake. Um obviously they they started just by saying like Brockton has the rights to Silver Lake. So right off the bat like you know we just want to say

577
03:19:49.920 --> 03:20:05.920
like you know Brockton has the clear legal right to the water in Silver Lake. So that's you know and that we know that. Um, but that's that's obviously the baseline starting point. But, um, you know, I I just sort of talked about where I saw some potential issues and

578
03:20:05.920 --> 03:20:21.279
things that I thought could be beneficial for Brockton to work on and that hopefully there would be some state funding towards that and anything that we could do to help Brockton get state or federal funding to not be shy. and whether it's support letters or annoying

579
03:20:21.279 --> 03:20:37.920
phone calls to people, I said, I'll do whatever it takes to advocate for this resource. And um it was it was a good sort of thing where they are working on some things that should be beneficial while also positioning themselves to be

580
03:20:37.920 --> 03:20:51.760
sort of the regional water authority for smaller communities that need more water. Um so that is in some ways concerning you know from a strictly ecological standpoint it can all still work out if done

581
03:20:51.760 --> 03:21:09.439
correctly. Um so it's uh we'll see what happens but for starters it was a good meeting and it's nice to at least have a good rapport um with a new mayor there >> um and see how it how it >> Thank you for doing that going forward. They're still not going to use the

582
03:21:09.439 --> 03:21:27.840
desalination plant water. >> They're currently not using any desalination plant water. Um, so the way it works is they pay I forget if it's eight or $9 million a year. Um, for the rights to the water, but that that's not

583
03:21:27.840 --> 03:21:43.120
that doesn't get you any water. You still have to pay per gallon. Um, and it's it's actually quite a lot. Um, and So, I think there's been sort of competing ideas there over time about whether you would want to buy Aquaria or

584
03:21:43.120 --> 03:21:59.600
not buy Aquaria. Um, this mayor has he has as when he was a city councelor always been in favor of buying Aquaria. >> Um, there was a a mayoral there two mayoral candidates who who did not want Brockton to buy Aquaria. Um, and it was

585
03:21:59.600 --> 03:22:16.560
it was a close close race. Um, so I I think it's good. I think Brockton buying Aquaria would be a step in the right direction. It's not the end all answer um without some form of,

586
03:22:16.560 --> 03:22:33.600
you know, guidelines for Silver Lake essentially. Like if everything works out correctly, they could buy the Aquaria plant, maximize its production, and take way less out of Silverlake. They could maximize production, sell

587
03:22:33.600 --> 03:22:50.640
water to four other towns, maybe five, add a clip of probably two to 300 thou,000 gallons per day and still take way less water out of Silver Lake. So that's the hope. The hope is that at a

588
03:22:50.640 --> 03:23:06.640
minimum that's what happens. And instead of having roughly 10 million gallons a day taken out of Silver Lake, you're seeing like six. You know, >> must be a hell of a spring under there in order for it to stay at least at the levels it does. Considering how

589
03:23:06.640 --> 03:23:23.359
>> at the levels it does is is in my opinion mainly from Mont Ponet Pond. I mean at this time of year right now it's 25 million gallons a day just to keep the houses around M Ponet from flooding. around M Pontet, they allow development

590
03:23:23.359 --> 03:23:39.600
essentially right up to the water all the way around. >> So when you get a ton of rain, >> if people that live around there start to scream at Brockton, but you need to get rid of this water. Um, so they they divert, like I said, about 25 million

591
03:23:39.600 --> 03:23:55.520
gallons a day at this time of year just to try to keep one ponet from >> getting so high that it floods people out. So, and even throughout, you know, I would say a lot of the year whenever they're able to do it because they also can't let Mont Ponet get too low without

592
03:23:55.520 --> 03:24:11.920
causing issues on that side, they are diverting into Silver Lake in order to keep the level up. The way the Water Management Act permit is written is really unfortunate. Um, and it if you read certain documents about the Brockton water system, it will

593
03:24:11.920 --> 03:24:28.960
say the safe yield of of Silver Lake is 9 and a half million gallons a day, which is just absolutely comical. Um, what it is is the Water Management Act permit says that the safe yield is 9 and a half million gallons a day because it's Silver Lake, Furnace Pond, and

594
03:24:28.960 --> 03:24:44.479
Montpona Pond altogether. >> That was put in in the beginning. the water management act permit in 19 I want to say it was I can't come up with it off the top of my head I think it was 94 maybe that the water management act >> oh the go original goes back to like 03

595
03:24:44.479 --> 03:24:59.600
or something >> was the early 1900s when they >> well that was when they were given the rights to >> when they gave the rights yeah >> but the actual you know >> the permit from the state that allows Brockton to be aligned with the water management act says the safe yield is 9

596
03:24:59.600 --> 03:25:15.200
and a half million gallons a day >> okay >> and that's based on water being taken from three different sources. >> Yeah, >> Silver Lake itself, the safe yield is debatable, but different references say 4.3 and other ones say like 2 million

597
03:25:15.200 --> 03:25:32.160
gallons in the summer and and a little bit more in the winter. >> Um, so it's very clear that that it itself can't supply that much water, but there are a lot of diversions from Montons throughout the year to try to to keep those levels up. Um, ideally you

598
03:25:32.160 --> 03:25:48.399
also have aquaria. It's just it hasn't been there. I assume it's a budgetary thing. Um, Brockton, like every other community's had its budgetary issues and one way they can deal with it is just to not buy water from Aquaria and take the free water free in parenthesis. Obviously, they still have a whole system there that they do, but they

599
03:25:48.399 --> 03:26:03.359
don't have to pay per gallon the way they do from >> from Aquaria. So, >> um, >> yeah, hopefully that is something that goes forward and I think if it does, it could happen pretty quickly. um and and start to see a meaningful

600
03:26:03.359 --> 03:26:20.479
help to the water supply there over the short term. I've pushed for some other things that I think could help also um that I think the state should support because the state should want any of these community large communities that have obvious water management act issues

601
03:26:20.479 --> 03:26:36.640
to help deal with those in a practical way. >> Um because DP doesn't want to do anything about it. They don't want to go have legal battles with communities over what I would consider faulty registrations or even if they think there's like a real issue with it, they

602
03:26:36.640 --> 03:26:53.120
just don't see success with things like that. So instead, if the state can just prioritize grant funding towards largecale issues like that that are both human health related resiliency and ecological >> Yeah.

603
03:26:53.120 --> 03:27:09.520
>> improvements, why not? um it'll be expensive, but it's better to do that than to sort of parse money out to smaller projects elsewhere. So, that's where I'm pushing and hopefully we can make some some headway with with some of that stuff because there are other ways they could implement their water supply

604
03:27:09.520 --> 03:27:25.760
than just Aquaria and just Silver Lake. >> So, >> and button up the system. >> Yeah, >> I understand this leaks again. >> Yeah. Um >> parts of the system, >> you know, I I don't have good numbers on water loss. We had heard that their water loss was quite high a couple of

605
03:27:25.760 --> 03:27:43.520
years ago. Um we talked a lot during the meeting about they have been replacing infrastructure. A lot of their infrastructure is 100 years old or you know decades old. There was talk about wooden pipes and things like that that obviously aren't still in use today. But

606
03:27:43.520 --> 03:28:01.040
um there are a lot of the is a lot of old infrastructure that they're chipping away at and hopefully that has a you know cumulative effect over time of lowering the the water loss >> because I would assume that's a big reason for it if there may be other issues. Um they were supposedly hiring a

607
03:28:01.040 --> 03:28:16.080
person to specifically look at at water loss a year or two ago and I don't know that it ever came to any fruition. Um, but give, you know, obviously the new administration the benefit of the doubt that they seem to want to do the right thing and they want to move towards a

608
03:28:16.080 --> 03:28:33.439
sustainable water source that isn't, you know, it's the same thing. It's you can't have an ecologically damaging water source and have it be sustainable for your own constituents. So, I think they want to move towards the right direction and hopefully that's that's what happens. Um, in the meantime, um,

609
03:28:33.439 --> 03:28:50.160
herring around. Uh just got a text message earlier tonight. The first eel had >> shown up. Um herring numbers so far this year I don't think seem great at Forge Pond. It might still be early. It's watered in pretty cold, >> but other herring runs are like already

610
03:28:50.160 --> 03:29:06.800
well well established. Um >> so what happened two years ago was really unfortunate. It might have >> a long-term effect on the run here. That was the year that really could have ramped up the run right away. and it, you know, it doesn't appear that's that's going to be the result of it. So

611
03:29:06.800 --> 03:29:24.080
hopefully we get another another crack at this with better flow over the long term. So >> all right. Is there any other comments or >> So the next meeting is held April 22nd,

612
03:29:24.080 --> 03:29:39.840
2026 starting at 6:30 a.m. The time is now 9:23. Do I hear a motion to adjurnn? So moved. >> Do we hear a second? >> Second. >> All right, we have a motion and a second. All those in say I.

613
03:29:39.840 --> 03:29:45.000
>> Opposed. Motion carries. We are