Start recording. >> There we go. I can see it. >> Awesome. >> I can see it, too. >> At least you can see the title screen. >> Yeah, that's a good start. >> Yeah, it's a good start. Now, we'll see if this uh animation thing works. We'll see.
Oh, you know what? It always giving me fits. Oh, I got to say okay to recording first probably. Oh, come on. There we go. All right. So, for riverfront on under 1058, I like to
look at it kind of as a decision tree. And one of the first things you have to look at the question is, is it is it really a stream? And then if it is a stream, is it perennial or intermittent? And we'll go through some of the different criteria for that. And then if
it is perennial, which is where you have riverfront area, where's the inner edge of the riverfront area, which isn't always very clear. And then once you figure all that out, you figure out, okay, how does the project that you're looking at fit within the regulations.
So I just like to go through this kind of flowchart and we'll go through it. So the first is, is it a stream? So here's a picture. This is Lake Shirley down here and this is um Katakumanog Brook going into H Hotton's Mill Pond. I live right here.
Um so I have the the the old dam and which is now a Beaver Dam also right behind my house. Um pretty far behind my house, but down in the woods down there. So this is a picture of H Hotton's Mill Pond and Katakumanog Brook and Lake
Shirley um in July. So, here's the same thing, but looking back into like May. So, now you can actually see the outline of the pond as opposed to before it it, you know, go back one. It looked like a stream
running into a stream uh going into the lake, but now it looks like a pond. So, is this a stream to here or is this a stream all the way through? And that's
this especially in cases like this, this is always a tough call. Um, and we'll we'll get into how to make that call as we go along. And here it is uh yet again in March. So, you can see it's even the pond is even bigger. You can see some of the ice
flows in the pond. >> Mike, I have a question for you. >> Yes. Do you want us to ask questions as they come up or wait to specific question Q&A kind of periods? >> Well, we can do either. What I'd like to do is to go through >> the fundamentals first
>> for each of the four um flowchart items. >> Okay. >> And then I can stop and we can ask questions about that particular flowchart item. So, is it a stream is the first one and then at the end, >> you know, we're just open for questions. I'm here for as long as you guys want.
>> Awesome. Thank you. >> Till I have to go to the dentist at 2:30. >> Oh, yeah. Hopefully, we're more fun than that. >> Yeah. You know, there's an old joke about that. What time is it to go see a dentist? >> I was going to ask if that was if that was a quip or not. I couldn't tell if you're
>> It wasn't it. Actually, it just turned out that way that the appointment is at 2:30. And that's exactly why I'm going because 2:30. >> That's funny. >> All right. So, here's another is it a stream. So, this one is um another item.
Culverts over 200 feet in length don't have riverfront area. So, the stream stops as the stream goes into the culvert and begins as it comes out. So, here's a project I was working on in Brockton. And here's Trout Brook, which always kind of cracks me up because it's a channelized stream. There's no trout
in that stream. Never been any trout in that stream. But here's Trout Here's Trout Brook. And you can see maybe you could see in this picture here's the end of the here's the beginning or end of the brook. This is the downstream direction this way. So from here up it's
in a culvert. So how do you draw a riverfront? So the reg say you draw a perpendicular line across the face of the culvert and then you have your 100 and 200 ft riverfront areas offset from that. So culverts don't don't have
streams. ponds, uh, lakes like Lake Shirley doesn't have a stream. So, there's no riverfront for Lake Shirley. There's no riverfront for for a culvert like this. So, I'm going to stop with that because then the next question is, is the stream
perennial or intermittent? So, any questions about, you know, is it a stream? Okay. Then maybe some after we go through this one because these these obviously tie together very closely. So here's um here's a USGS an image of the
USGS map for Hickory Hills. Um here's Mulpus Brook coming down into it and you can see it's a very dark heavy blue line. Okay. If you come over here, there's a tributary to Musbrook as Mulus Brookbrook comes out of Hickory Hills
Lake, which to my eyes is dark down here to about this contour level. And then as you go up, it becomes light. And that's the way the old USGS maps would map streams. They had two different um intensities of blue, two different
thicknesses of blue lines. uh one to indicate perennial streams, one to interate indicate intermittent streams. And that's what the regs say. The regs say if it's if it's shown as intermittent on the map on the USGS map, it's presumed as being intermittent. And
of course, the the opposite that it is, if it's shown as perennial, it's presumed as being perennial. Well, what I see a lot I've seen a lot of people do this is they go and they use mass mapper. and mass mapper. You have to read this caveat that's on the
side of the screen here. It's not for making jurisdictional determinations. It's it's um a tool a great GIS tool, but like you you would never use the wetlands that are shown on the mass
mapper wetland layer as being the actual edge of the wetland. Same thing here. You wouldn't use a determination from mass mapper as to whether something is intermittent or perennial to definitively say that that stream is intermittent or perennial. So here's the same image. Here's Mulpus brook coming
in. It's kind of a heavy blue line and then here's that little intermittent stream. And I don't know, but to me this line and this line look the same. So if you use mass mapper you might come up with the conclusion that this all the
way down is a perennial stream and there are other ways we can test that but according to the USGS it's not. So you have to be careful about using mass mapper. >> Um Mike when you say you use USGS do you mean stream stats or another application? >> Well we're going to get to stream stats
but US this is the USGS map. These are the actual topographic quadrangle maps. So I have >> I'm old school. I have boxes full of paper maps and you can pull a paper map out and they were made awesome. I mean, you think about it on the Mass Mapper
website, it's probably like 600 dpi, something like that. Um, and when they scan it and they over they overlay their their GIS images on it, it's, you know, the the resolution is nowhere near what the resolution is on um a USGS map. It's
like listening to a CD versus listening to an MP3. You know, MP3s are a lossy format, so you lose a lot of the intensity of the music. If you listen to it on a CD or old vinyl, um you actually can hear it much better.
So, this this is a continuation of the question, is the stream perennial or intermittent? So, this was a project that I worked on um in Rockland. And here's here's the USGS map. And this is this is the actual project site. Um it's
a there's a giant wetland system out here in some upland areas. That's a big Walmart up there. Um so, there are no streams shown until you get way down here by the reservoir. There are no streams shown on this map.
But if you go to Mass Mapper, there's little streams all over the place out here. And we had, in this case, the conservation commission was using Mass Mapper and their consultant was using Mass Mapper to say, "No, there are
intermittent perennial streams out on that site." And I ran Transex all the way across there and could never find a stream. We finally wound up having the D come out and run the transexs with us and with the agent for the conservation
commission. We never found a stream. So again, you got to be very careful about what's shown on Mass Mapper versus what's shown on the original USGS. And you can pull up the USGS on Mass Mapper. Again, it's a lower quality image, but you can pull them up.
So another thing that I hear from commissions a lot is well the stream has a name and so therefore if it has a name it must be perennial. So I often ask them well you ever heard of dry brook or spring creek or there's a lot of names that mean you know dry
gulch the streams are dry and so they are intermittent. So I just personally I just totally ignore namestream conventions to figure out whether something is intermittent or perennial. There's much more scientific ways of doing it.
So rivers shown on intermitt are shown as intermittent on the map are presumed intermittent unless and there are some criteria if their waterershed is over a square mile or if it's over a half square mile and has a lot of sand and gravel stratified drift underneath it or
has um a very um high low flow rate and this is the what they call a 7Q10. versus the real low flow. And you can get all these stats, Mary, from stream stats. So, we'll talk about stream stats. So,
here's we're back to uh my neighborhood. Here's Lake Shirley and here's here's the watershed for Katakumanog Brook. So, I ran stream stats as Katakumanog Brook comes into Lake Shirley and you can see some of the criteria. So, the drainage
area is way over a square mile. Once you do that, you don't have to worry about the stratified drift and some of the lowflow uh parameters. You know that this is a perennial stream. It's shown on the USGS as a perennial stream. It meets the area criteria for the
watershed. Um and so it is perennial. Then I went just upstream of where Katakumog Brook uh comes into the mill pond behind my house. And there's another little stream that runs up through here. This is shown as
intermittent on the USGS map, but I went ahead and ran stream stats for it. And it has a very small watershed. So, it's less than a square mile. And then remember, there's two criteria. One is less than a square mile. The second criteria is less than a half square mile
and either meets low flow criteria or meets stratified drift criteria. So, I I'm just showing the stratified drift criteria here. So, it's about 45% of stratified drift. So it doesn't meet the criteria uh for for either the area
or the stratified drift. So we can presume that this is an intermittent stream because it meets all of those criteria laid out in the regulations. So there's a caveat uh and the caveat is is that you can have something that is being called perennial, but if you go
out and do observations during a non- drought period on a stream that isn't having significant draw downs from water supply wells and and water supply wells really means public water supply wells, big wells. Um, I had a case in Sudbury a
number of years ago where we went out and we we did um it was a stream that was being contended as being perennial. Um, we went out and did observations during a non- drought period. Um, and the commission came back and said, "Well, some of the houses around there
have wells." Well, they were deep bedrock wells. They weren't water supply wells, and they were pulling up what, 10 gallons a minute, not 300 gallons a minute. So they weren't drawing the stream down. The other problem we had and this is is
in here is that it says competent source and it's a competent independent source and so they accepted me as a competent independent source but rather than go down you know four, five, six days in a row um the client
went out one day and took I couldn't go on a particular day. The client went out and took videos of the same areas that I was taking my observations and the commission decided that he was neither competent nor independent and so therefore it became a perennial
stream. So that was a loss on my part. All right, I'm going to stop for a second have a quick drink and this is the next section. So Mary or if you guys have any questions on the first two, we can take them now.
>> Um yeah, so um you know I was thinking about the uh first um you know seasonal views that you had of Hton Pond. >> Yeah. And and you know, one of the things that I've seen come before the commission a lot of times is a
delineation that uh shows, you know, basically across a wetland. Um I if you look at the satellite it it shows like a kind of a stream corridor and the uh and the delineation is shown
like off of like a straight line on that that stream corridor. and and we've seen some situations where maybe that might be true in the inner channel, but the stream diverts next to a bank or whatnot as it, you know, continues, you
know, down gradient. Um, how how would we, you know, kind of look at those and address those? What data additional data would we ask for when dealing with, you know, a delineation like that? So delineation trying to figure out
where the bank is, >> where the where the riverine characteristics that are, right? >> Okay, let's get into the next couple sections because I'll talk about some of the riverine characteristics and bankful bankful discharges versus um go ahead
top of bank Teddy. >> Um you could you define uh stratified drift? Yeah, stratified drift gl I mean we're we're we're in the um the ranchian shield here. We're dominated by what the glaciers did
10,000 years ago. And so stratified drift is the area where the glaciers deposited large amounts of sand and gravel as opposed to till which has you know differentized cobbles and rocks and lots of silt in it. Stratified drift um
is very permeable because it's sand and gravel. So groundwater moves very readily through it. So the feeling is is that if the wershed is small like less than half, you know, over half an acre but less than an acre, excuse me, square mile, um if there's a
lot of sand and gravel, that could still contribute flow significantly um to a stream. And so therefore the you know a smaller watershed does not necessarily mean that it's not a perennial stream if there's stratified
drift in the area. >> I don't know whether that helps. >> Uh it it does. Um do you mind just going back a slide and no reiterating >> now that I have that definition?
>> You want to go back to this one? >> Yes, please. >> Okay. So 75% stratified drift is the is the criteria. So if the wershed is over a square mile um and it's shown as intermittent on the
stream, you can make a case that it's actually perennial because it's over a square mile. But if it's less than a square mile, it's definitely presumed as intermittent unless it has more than 75% stratified drift because that's contributing a lot of water to that to
that stream. There's a lot of breakout in stratified drift. So in this case, you know, we had something that was let's say it was a a half square mile. It's not. Let's say it was a half square mile, but it only
comes up with about 45% stratified drip, not 75%. And so the presumption is is that the groundwater flow is not significant enough to make this a perennial stream. >> Okay. It's not infiltrating into the ground. And so >> yeah, and stratified drift works both
ways. Um and that's that's why they they did the half square mile thing because um streams sitting in stratified drift which a lot of our streams are are sitting in some sort of stratified drift um that stratified drift can work two
ways. During low flow it can take water away from the stream and during higher groundwater it can contribute to the stream. There's a lot of there's a lot of permeability back and forth between the groundwater and the surface water in stratified drift. Not so much
until in bedrock. >> Okay. And watershed just means like a pond like just >> No, the watershed is defined topographically. So here's I'll go back up to this one. Here's here's the
watershed for Katakumanog Brook and you can see it goes way up. It almost goes into Fitsburg, goes over to the airport. So this is this is the area where if a drop of water fell here, where would it go and and what this model is saying
that drop of water would eventually find its way down to this point? A drop of water here is not going to find its way to this point. It's going to go to Hickory Hills Lake. It's going to be part of the Musbrook watershed. So, I could run, you know, I didn't, but I could run stream stats and show you
where the Musbrook wershed is versus where Katakumanog Brook is. Um, I could also pick up Katakumanog Brook way downstream and expand the waterershed. I just happen to pick it at the point where it discharges into Lake Shirley. >> Got it. Thank you very much.
>> Okay. So where where do you mark that inner edge of riverfront? Mary, this is the next several slides I think are going to start to get to your question and then we can explore that a little further. >> Yeah. Awesome. >> So the inner edge of riverfront area is
actually what's called bank full flow. And so that's that's different than top of bank. Um and you have to look at the the definition of bank um under the wallet protection act and then understand what bank full means. And bank full is generally more like a
two-year flow. And that's what forms the stream um corridor is the bank full flow. On a lot of straw streams, they're basically the same thing because you have a lot of, you know, topography in the stream itself and adjacent to the
stream. And so if you were to try to put two lines down, one where the bank is and one where the bank full discharge is, which is where you start riverfront, they'd basically be coincident. And so what you have to look at on streams is
where do you have changes in soil or vegetation? Where is it changing from predominantly aquatic to terrestrial? Um, are there are there other marks, water marks, uh, boulders, vegetation, scouring, um, leaf litter dispersal?
There's a lot of ways to find what's considered the bankful discharge, and I'll show you a few of those. So, here are some bankful indicators. This is actually two different images. Um, maybe you can see this is a head wall. The stream is going this way into the
head wall. You can see how dark it is on these stones. So that's an indicator that that is where the the the the bank um as far as riverfront area is concerned elevation is. And so we use that and projected
that out on both sides as being the inner edge of riverfront on this perennial stream. So there's your staining, you know, granite block, nice and clean up here, nice and stained down here. This is um these both happen to be in Ipsswitch. This is a different stream in
Ipswich. Um this is called Graly Brook. It's actually one of the few trout streams in eastern Massachusetts. It actually is a really good trout stream. And I had to flag, we were doing a culvert replacement project under Topsfield Road between Topsfield and
Nipswitch. And so I had to flag Riverfront um uh not flag but delineate the inner edge of riverfront so that we could project riverfront area out. And so you can see one of my pin flags here. So what I did was if you look at this, see this scour line? You can see the
scour line right along here >> where it's breaking off. And you can see it over here >> where it's all breaking off. >> You can see on this rock, you know, there's some there's some staining. not not right at the tip but pretty much all
the way up. So that elevation for this stream uh in this in this cross-section we had different cross-sections all the way up and down the stream became the inner edge of riverfront area. Were you going to ask something Mary? >> No I it was clear what you were adicting.
>> Okay so on on there upper perennial lower perennial stream. So think about that being uh a lower perennial stream is a low gradient stream. So it's a stream that has a lot of wetlands and flood plane off to the side. Um the upper ones
are are steeper streams that what I was talking about originally. This this is an upper perennial stream. Okay. So I could actually flag bank and inner edge of riverfront basically in the same place on this stream. Here it
was a little different. This is more lower perennial. So on lower perennial streams, which we have a few um here, and we'll talk about a couple of them. We have a few here in Lunenburgg. Uh the bankful on the top of
bank flags are not the same thing. Um, so often the inner edge of riverfront on a lower perennial stream actually extends out into the wetland system as opposed to the bank. If you looked at the bank on the stream, look for the
first observable break in slope. You're going to see that downs slope of the wetland system. So riverfront can actually start further out. And riverfront is one of those very interesting um resource areas. is the way flood plane
is is that it can overlay other other resource areas. So, here's a um a project I've been working on. I talked to Mary this morning. One of my one of my other passions is playing golf badly, but playing golf. Um and I still working for some I'm semi-retired, but I still work
for some clients and they happen to be a lot of golf course clients, which is great. Um so, this is the Nada Country Club in conquered. So this is the Sudbury River. Very large river. Um this is um Coldbrook. Much smaller river coming through. And
here's the the club. Here's a another ditched system that runs through to the Sbury River. So I'm going to show you a couple of images um sever a series of images from this. So this image is is taken in March. And so in March, you can see
this the edge of the Sunbury River is way up here, you know, next to the club and and Cold Brook is still pretty distinctive. So you have a large wetland system adjacent to Cold Brook, but you can still pretty
much see the brook running through here. You can't see the river over here because it's flooded. So here's another image. This one's from September, so drier season. Um, non- drought period still, but a drier season. You can clearly see where the
river is, where the Sudbury River is, and where the wetland is on the side. And Cold Brook, it's not a great image, but you can still kind of see cold brook running through here all the way down. Okay. So, if we looked at these two and I had to delineate riverfront area,
which I did out here. And why did it do that? >> Did your screen just go blank? >> No. >> No. >> I can still see your slide. >> You can still see the slide. >> Yeah. >> Yep.
>> I cannot see the slide on my screen for some reason. Hang on a second. I gota I'm going to stop and start again. I apologize. some reason my uh my directory structure came up instead of the screen. Let's try
>> been optimized by Zoom. >> Yeah, you know, this morning I think um Microsoft did something too because I was having a hard time with PowerPoint. I was practicing this morning and it was not working correctly. So, let's try this again. there. Now I can see it
>> and we can see it. >> Yay. >> Important we both see it. >> Yes. >> So we were asked to delineate the the uh edge of riverfront area um for this project. And so what we did was is based
upon this here's the bankful discharge. So, our riverfront area here was way up here in the wetland system because if you see between Whoops. Here's the big big wetland system. This is a lower perennial stream. It's a very
low gradient stream. So, here's a big wetland system. So, our our riverfront on this slide would be way up here. And that was based on the bankful indicators. Cold Brook, we still delineated, keep going the wrong way. We still delineated
Cold Brook down here. This is another interesting project because this is actually in two towns. It's in Conquered and Sudbury and so we had to go before both commissions and um Conquered kind of took the lead on it. I've known Dia
there for years. Took the lead on it and they decided that like the Sudbury River, Cold Brook should have the riverfront area way up here. I disagreed based upon the evidence that we have
here. Um again I lost but um I disagreed because these two slides I think clearly show that the river the the inner edge of riverfront area for Cold Brook should have been down here. We w up putting it up here. It didn't affect the project
which is why we gave in pretty easily. So here's we're back to we're back to the mill pond back behind my house. Holton's mill pond. So, what are we going to do here? Um, these are kind of the same two slides. Here's the bankful.
Okay. Here's here's the stream. You can see the stream. So, I would say if the commission were going to determine that this had unidirectional flow through here and this this there was an actual
mill pond here. It's not a beaver dam, but because of that, if not for that Mil pond dam or the Beaver Dam, would this just be a stream system? And the answer is yes. And that's how a lot of mill ponds are developed. They're developed by pounding streams in a topographically
advantaged area so that you can develop a pond. Um, some commissions would say, maybe your commission would say that this catacumog brook all the way through here is actually a perennial stream and that there should be riverfront drawn off of
this. So now you go into the lower perennial and because it's lower perennial and it floods all the way out to the edge of wetland, riverfront might be way out here whereas your top of bank still might be way down here.
Interesting. >> So ask a question about that. >> Absolutely. Because now we're getting into the regs. >> Yeah. Could you go back to that diagram or those um those slides? So >> this one. >> Yeah. I think this is really a good and it's a good agnostic one. Um and I want
to stay agnostic, but we recently had something very similar to this come before the commission. Um and the challenge that I had is you know it was a big big wetland system. Uh there was very unidirectional flow going through
>> the majority of the center of it right which is probably you know 80 to 100 ft away from the uh dry land. Uh but uh there w had been an existing uh
beaver uh dam system there and there was unidirectional flow where the uh beaver dam had uh been compromised that was pushing the stream flow up to the the project um you know the dry land of the
project right and the wetland scientists had not accomodate ated for that. They basically drew from the center of the the center of the uh channel uh straight down to the cover
like the Beaver Dam had a uh breach right in the center of it. And I I just was it didn't seem right to me, right? It seemed like the riverine characteristics would have gone with the flow of you know where the
where there was actually a velocity flow of water. >> Is is that rational? I mean is that consistent with the regulations? >> Yeah. Unidirectional flow. I mean that's that's one of that's one of the characteristics of a stream. So the the tough part in all of these Mary is, you
know, if if a commission were to say, for example, that this is a river all the way through, because if not for the Beaver Dam, um it it would clearly show as a river. >> Mhm.
>> Then the question becomes, if not for the Beaver Dam, would this actually all be BPW up here? >> And right and maybe or maybe not. And so now if you draw if you draw a riverfront out here based on the edge of the
wetland, you know, it's like you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't because >> you've said take the take the beaver dam out of the equation and tell me where the river is, but still consider the effects of the beaver dam when doing your edge delineation. That's where it
becomes really tough. That's that's the hard part that we had in in the one prior to it. That's the hard part we have to do. >> You know, this wasn't this wasn't a this was a low a true lower perennial. This wasn't a dam situation. It was uh partially because there are bridges down here. This is near Emerson Hospital
where Route Two goes over. Um >> Mhm. >> And so there's some backwater, but it's not backwater like this. This is all lower perennial. These are tougher. Beaver dams are tougher. Um drawdowns are tougher. There was a there was a
famous one in Actton a number of years ago that I was consulting for the acting conservation commission on um where the stream was being drawn down by the act water supply
and so the question was if you turned off the water supply where would the edge of the stream be and there was a lot of jostling back and forth between the consultants for the proponent and the conservation commission and they came to a negotiated settlement, which
is what you wind up doing. I mean, there's there's no just straight answer on a lot of these. That's why these regulations, riverfront regulations are tough. They're tough on the commission and they're tough on the applicants. >> That makes me feel a little bit better. >> Um,
>> but you definitely, if you look at the historic aerial for the project you're talking about, you should be able to stream that. You should see what >> I'm going to throw another limological term out. The tall wig of the stream. That's that's the the area of the highest velocity of flow and that's what determines
>> and you definitely could yeah >> that determines the meandering pattern for the stream. >> Yeah. Yeah, you definitely could by there was >> tree cover where the beaver dam was and so it was less apparent from the available satellite images. So yeah, so
the center the center of the wetland system you could definitely see the um channelization that had happened. Uh it was but the place that was troubling me uh was the place where the beaver dam
had breached right next to the right next to the uh kind of project area and so the flow was over there but the riverfront delineation on the plan didn't align with that flow. >> Yeah. and and downstream from the Beaver
Dam, there was not, you know, as far as my observation being on site could see there wasn't a real obvious channel either. It was a whole bunch of um, you know, uh, wetland species growing all over the place and no real obvious
channel other than the breached area going around the dam and then back down to the culvert. Anyway, um while we're talking about this, uh lakes sometimes lakes have at their in at their uh you know, inlet
where the river flows into a uh lake, uh has a little bit of channelized flow and velocity until it definitely takes on the lake characteristics. Uh is that something that is riverfront or is it? I
typically go with the with the edge of the impoundment. And so you're right, though. You'll see >> Yeah. You'll see I mean, it's just >> physics, right? You're going to see the water flow going into the lake. you're going to see some bed scour in the lake,
>> but I I still and that's been held up pretty much universally throughout that you still look at where it discharges into the lake and you draw that perpendicular line across that discharge point as opposed to somewhere out. >> I'm happy with industry best practice
because it's also much simpler uh rule of thumb to go by as well. >> Yeah. Otherwise, where do you draw it? You go out in the lake somewhere and then you draw it and you have to draw it back because obviously on either side it's lake, >> right? >> Yeah. Yeah. >> It just becomes too problematic to do it that way. >> Okay, great. Thank you, Mike. That's all
my questions. >> All right, so we've got like 20 minutes and I'm going to go through the the last section. Um, and this is kind of the meat of it, but so I'll go through it kind of quickly and we're not going to go through all the regulations because
they're just, as you'll see in my last slides, it's a whole another workshop. But what we like to look at is where does the proposed project fit within the regulations. Is it 10584, which is undeveloped riverfront area, or is it
10585, which is previously developed riverfront area? And projects can be both. they can have elements of both. So for me, the easiest way is to first look at, you know, is it 10585?
Let's let's look at and eliminate redevelopment within previous previously developed riverfront area. And then if you have to go to 10584, that's where you get into a whole different level of analysis. So 10585 is previously developed riverfront area.
You have to carefully read what the D has said in the regulations as previously developed riverfront area and it's impervious services from existing structures or pavement absence of top soil, junkyards or abandoned dumping
grounds. Very specific. So I've seen >> this doesn't include yards is what I noticed. >> It does not include yards. It doesn't include somebody that's gone in and cut down trees in a particular area. Um, I had one of the very first riverfront um,
determinations in front of the DP back when the regs had just started. And actually this got added after that determination. Um, project I was working on, there was a there was a horse track, a training track, and they wanted to redevelop that
and and we said it's, you know, it's not natural. It's it's got it had some gravel on it, but it had dirt on it. And the D came back and said, "No, it has it has soil. It has top soil. So therefore, it is part of the riverfront.
It's not previously developed." So I've seen I've seen a number of of cases come before conservation commissions where the applicant's consultant claims that an area is previously developed, where
it's not previously developed. This is this is one I had down in Easton. This was an old foundry. So, go back to the rules. The rules say prior to August 7th, 1996. That's the effective date of the riverfront regulations. So, if you had a house
built after 1996, you can't go into previously developed anyway because it doesn't meet that criteria. But here's a here's a forge that was built in the 1800s or something and since demolished. This entire area
um had no top soil. It it was degraded for sure. Um there were patches of concrete. There were building foundations was all kind of stuff. So the commission agreed that this one classically meets that criteria of
previously developed. So then we had uh and this is a this is a project where we had both we had previously developed riverfront and we had undeveloped riverfront. So if you determine that it does meet this previously developed riverfront area criteria,
you don't have to do the alternatives analysis. You don't have to do the no significant adverse impact and the 10% rule analysis. There are other rules under 10585 that you have to abide by. You still have to meet protection of other resource areas and protection of
rare species, but this is this is a a common um quandry. I don't want to say mistake that commissions run into because they say, well, even if it's previously developed, you have to show me alternatives analysis and do the 10% rule. You don't because the first
sentence in 10585 says notwithstanding everything under 10584 here's what you have to do. Notwithstanding means forget about what was in 10584. Here's what you have to do. And so there are rules for 10585. And there are
criteria that are listed A through H. And it's up to the applicant to go through and do um everything up until um H. And then and then it's up to the commission
um to condition H. And H is um in areas where you're going to do mitigation or or restoration, you have to put a prohibition against any future development in those areas. So there are there's a whole set of criteria we're not going to get into in this workshop,
but there's a whole set of criteria under 10585 for how you have to approach projects. And it includes things like not getting any closer to the resource area, uh making sure you have protection of wildlife, and there's a whole bunch of other stuff.
>> So, is this a segue to uh another seminar? >> It could be because uh there's just >> the regular I wanted to get through the basics. Um you know, what's a river? How do you determine where it is? How do you figure out where the inner edge is? And then where does it fit under the regs,
>> right? talking about the regs could be a whole another discussion. >> Yeah. Yeah. That that uh Jenny I think something we'll follow up with Mike offline about because I'm if there's an obligation to condition certain things I mean that's would be really important for us as a commission to understand
>> there is under 10585 and actually under all of the resource areas there are obligations for the conservation commission to condition certain things. You have to, you know, applicants, I often see applicants, Mary, come in with um applications that don't address the performance
standards for any of the any of the resource areas that they're affecting. Every resource area has performance standards. The critical thing when putting an application together is how does your project affect the performance standards?
And I rarely honestly see represent >> I have to say we we rarely see that as well >> but but that's the whole point the whole point of the regulations is to say I have a bank what can I you know what are the performance standards for a bank what are the performance standards for a
BBW riverfront area whatever um you have to address that and it can be a whole discussion about the project and then very short segment I do a very short um synopsis at the end of of my notice of intent that says here's the performance
standards for bank here's how we're addressing these performance standards and you don't have to go into gory detail because a lot of it's in what you already presented for the project but you have to say that you you know addressed the performance standards or didn't and if you didn't how are you mitigating for them
>> can you give an example of a performance standard like what is that metric >> so for um bank for example um Well, let's let's do another one. Let's do flood plane. Floodplane, one of the basic performance standards is is that you can't change the storage value of
the flood plane. So, your project has to provide what's called compensatory storage. So, if you fill part of a flood plane in that same area, you have to take out at the same elevation ground
so that you mitigate for the fill. The other part of that performance standard for flood plane is that you can't do something that's going to impede flow. So the project should address that. How did we how did we meet those those two performance standards? >> Yes,
>> there are performance standards but every resource area and if you look in the wetland protection act under every resource area one of the first sections is performance standards. >> Okay. You said that you can't change uh
the compensatory storage. Can you uh does that mean you can't make it greater than what it was? >> Oh, no. I didn't say you can't change it. I say you have to provide it. >> Okay. >> If you if you fill um again back to Nishodic, we'll get back to Riverfront in a second, but back to Nishodic. We're
doing a project out there right now where we want to put in uh a new irrigation pump station, and everything out there is flood plane. So the flood plane elevation is 121. The ground surface elevation is 118. So we have this structure that's about 500 square
ft that's going to fill from 118 to 121 because we're going from the ground up. So at every foot 118 to 119 19 to 20 20 21 you have to calculate what the volume lost due to that structure is. And then
somewhere in that same same vicinity, same part of the flood plane, you have to provide that volume or more. In the case of conquered, it has to be 1.5 times. So it has to be more. But the regulation, wetland protection act regulations say equal.
So you have to provide that 500 cubic feet for every foot because it's a structure. It's a it's a box, right? >> Understood. Yeah, that's that's come before us a few times in recent memory. >> Yeah, having, you know, putting more
competitor storage in is fine. Um >> that that's what I figured. I just um I made >> Yeah. No, and I'll often see applicants, they they go dig a hole over here and say, "Well, that's the compensatory storage." And say, "What's the elevation of that hole?" Okay. If you're if you're
filling in this part of the bathtub over here and you're you're building a spa over there, you know, that's at a different elevation, you're not compensating. And it has to be connected. It has to be in that connected flood plane. So, you can't go just dig it somewhere else and say,
"Well, it's a hole in the ground over here." That's not compensatory storage. There's a whole section in BLSF that talks about how you have to calculate compensatory storage. So, let's get back to riverfront for a
second. So, um, one thing about undeveloped riverfront areas, undeveloped and undisturbed are two different things. We talked about this briefly. Somebody can have a yard and they can say, "Well, this is previously developed." Well, it's not because it has soil, it has grass, it
has shrubs that might be disturbed and and the commission has a lot of leeway in looking at how, you know, disturbances can be dealt with under the regulations, but that's not undeveloped. They still need to go back to 10584
and use previously undeveloped riverfront area. Do the alternatives analysis, do the 10% rule, take a look at it under those regulations as opposed to under 10585. This is the other side of that a number
of slides ago. Um, I showed you the um the forge area which was all previously developed. This was a project that was on both sides. We actually had two rivers. So, we had riverfront area all over the place out here um among and vernal pools and wetlands and all kinds
of great stuff. Um, this was the this is the west side. The other one was the east side of the project where the forge wedge was way over here on the other side of this river. Here's the river that goes down through here with a big wetland system. Um, when we did our survey, we found a bunch of trails, you
know, through the stone walls. You can see them little little roads and trails going through the stone walls out here. Forested. Okay, this is not previously developed riverfront area. I mean, disturbed for sure, but not previously developed.
So this one project we had to calculate both under 10584 and 10585 and comply with both standards for one project and that's not that uncommon and this may this is what I was saying
um you know looking at 10584 C the alternatives analysis what's required there looking at 10584 uh D which is no significant adverse impact that's a whole another workshop for you guys. So, this side slide is supposed to say
thank you. Um, it doesn't say anything at the moment. Well, I uh I appreciate the uh the invitation, Mike, uh for you to or offer for you to come back and uh go into more gory details as you say because um this
is I think one of the more complicated parts of the uh well and protection act for and it's a lot for us as volunteers that you know come in and do this a couple of times you know a month uh to take on. >> Yeah. Um, you know, bank bank is much
easier to deal with. BVW is much easier to deal with. Um, >> land subject to flooding, both BLSF and ILSF is is tougher. I mean, because it's engineering, >> you know, so it's it's tougher than what we what we look at as volunteers and as scientists.
>> Yeah. Yeah. This has been absolutely amazing and and super helpful. And it's it's nice to be able to do it kind of in this um smaller forum as well versus you know I think everybody here is um taken the math classes and whatnot but you know those are larger classes you can't
ask as many questions and then of course the um you know they're kind of limited in the number of um you know real real examples and your examples are examples of things that you know might be in the next project that we're going to you know be presented with right or two
projects ago where the context effects is really alive and vivid in our brains and and yet you know everybody wants to do the right thing. So we are always kind of questioning after the fact did I do the right thing? What did I learn from this? What can I do better? And so having this extra context um and
training that you gave us I think is really wonderful and I really appreciate it. >> Yeah. Good. No, I I I love being here. I one of the things Mary didn't tell you that back in the in the old days and Mary you asked me did Sigma Zai get me anything? One thing Sigma Zai did get me is it got me an appointment as a
lecturer at TUS. And so, >> no kidding. >> Oh, wow. >> And so I taught environmental impact assessment methods for seven years >> to civil environmental engineering and urban environmental policy students, ma master students at
>> Okay. Wow. Well, I'll tell I'll tell my son that he needs to start like sharpening that pencil right now. >> Yeah. I've always loved the teaching aspect of this business. I mean, people say, "What do you do?" And my my main job is as an educator. I have to educate my clients. I often have to educate conservation commissions,
>> right? >> You know, because the rags are complicated. >> Yeah. Yeah, they are. And uh I do appreciate when we come come into a meeting and the um consultants take the time to actually educate us and educate us in the framework of the regulations
versus just like, you know, well, I said, right? That's not really that's an opinion. That's not, you know, a regulatory reference. Um, >> yeah. >> So, anyway, yeah, this is this is awesome. I I wouldn't mind and you know, if Mike's schedule can support it, doing something like this once a quarter or
something, this this would be really really amazing. >> Agreed. This has been super super helpful for me. This is a area where I'm definitely lacking. >> Yeah. And if you want to do, you know, you want to do a separate one on like
bank, I mean, when the old your former agent Khloe, was it >> Sophie? >> Sophie. >> Sophie, I'm sorry. I was I was kind of mentoring Sophie a bit because she was new to this and you know, we we'd have a session on on bank on land underwater,
you know. >> Yeah. I mean, this is this is amazing. I think anything that you would love to show would like to show us, I would definitely make myself available for. >> Okay,
I've been doing it for a while, so I got lots of examples. >> Yeah. >> Samples were almost >> and I really liked the way that you presented it, too. I thought that that was really um it was the way that things segueed into each other and I thought >> if you look at things in a very you know
I I just I can't emphasize enough look at stuff and and not just for riverfront but for any of these look at it in a step-wise fashion simplify it >> right >> you know start with the basic question move to the next one to the next one to the next one and eventually you get down to the the tough part which is the
regulations >> right >> I'm excited to now and something Riverfront comes in front of me, I feel like I'll understand it a little bit more and then if you end up educating us more, then things will even make more
sense as we keep going. So, this has been really great. >> Good. Yeah. And let me know so eventually what you think about H Hotton's Snow Pond, Mary, because it's that one's a head scratcher. >> Yeah. Yeah, it is. It is. Uh but uh you
know, right next door. So, and and as you know, has come up often before our commission. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Well, very good. I think I'm going to have to drop Jenny uh Mike once again. Thanks. I really appreciate it.
>> No, thank you guys. It was great. >> I really appreciate this. This has been amazing. Thank you so much for doing this. >> Yep. I got to head off to my 2:30 now. >> Okay. Well, hopefully this is more enjoyable than that. >> I think it is. Thank you, Mick. >> Thank you. >> Thank you so much.
>> Enjoyed it. >> All right. Have a great day. All right. Bye. Bye.