WEBVTT

METADATA
Video-Count: 1
Video-1: https://videoplayer.telvue.com/player/994DtmGEsi0VDYK3jJI2BJ72GfgNIpU2/media/1021459?showtabssearch=true&fullscreen=false

NOTE
MEETING SECTIONS:

Part 1 (Video ID: https://videoplayer.telvue.com/player/994DtmGEsi0VDYK3jJI2BJ72GfgNIpU2/media/1021459?showtabssearch=true&fullscreen=false):
- 00:00:10: Meeting Opening, Agenda Overview, and Glenwood Street Discussion
- 00:04:58: Cottage Street Certificate of Compliance Approval
- 00:06:52: Bass Terrace Certificate of Compliance Approval
- 00:08:46: Memorial Beach Sewer Pump Station Applicability Discussion
- 00:14:49: West Central Street Notice of Intent Presentation
- 00:23:31: Discussion on Soil Contamination at West Central Street
- 00:32:50: Continued Discussion on West Central Street Project
- 00:41:31: Discussion and Approval of 33 Pine Street Project
- 00:48:40: South Natick Parks Improvement Project Overview
- 00:55:27: Grove Park and Multipurpose Court Improvement Project
- 01:04:37: South Natick Parks Order of Conditions Discussion and Approval
- 01:17:25: Jennings Pond Beaver Activity Management Discussion
- 01:25:32: Questions and Concerns about Beaver Management Strategy
- 01:35:38: Discussion on Ecological Benefits of Beaver Management Strategies
- 01:45:38: Continued Beaver Pond Discussion, Awaiting Further Analysis
- 01:54:36: Metal Detecting Proposal in Town Forest Discussion
- 02:03:22: Discussion on Limited Metal Detecting Permission
- 02:09:16: Minutes Approval, MWRA Letter, and Project Updates


Part: 1

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<v Speaker 1>All right, well, let's get started folks.</v> Welcome. This is the NA Conservation Commission. Appreciate everyone's willingness to meet on an off evening town meeting is must see. Must see tv and, you know, so we're, we're, we're pushed to, to Wednesdays. I think this is the last Wednesday that we have if town meeting wraps up on schedule. But yeah, this is an, <v Speaker 2>Oh, that town meeting already wrapped up.</v> They did it in two nights. We, we scheduled preemptively. <v Speaker 1>Oh wow. Okay. Great. Well, there we go.</v> So anyway, so welcome everybody. We're gonna go ahead and open the public part of the meeting here. All I ask is that if you could just keep yourselves on mute

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until your particular agenda item comes up. What I'm gonna do is exercise chairs prerogative here, and I'm gonna pull up this as a courtesy to our colleague, Dr. Wang. Pull five Glenwood Street up to the beginning of the, of the agenda so we can cover that. And then he has to split for another, for another meeting that he has to do. So I appreciate everyone accommodating that. So you, here's where we stand. This is an abbreviated notice of resource areas of lineation for, for, well, 1 15 5 <v Speaker 2>Glenwood.</v> <v Speaker 1>5 5 5 Glenwood, sorry for five Glenwood.</v>

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We did a site visit out there. The request that we have here is to approve the delineations on the, on the west side of the brook. We're not willing to do the delineation on the east side of the brook there. Those will be outta scope for this particular delineation. Looks like Duchenne, you've provided an updated map, which is good, which took out the 200 foot riverfront area and also made very clear as to what the, the approved flags would be.

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And put a, an outline of the stream channel that we reviewed there. So I'd like to open it up to the commission to see if there's any questions or clarifications that need before we, but before we go ahead and, and vote to issue the delineation that has requested any, <v Speaker 2>Any and back just a note that</v> David did just arrive as well. <v Speaker 1>Great. Excellent. Welcome David.</v> So, any, any questions on this? So are we comfortable with the depiction as we have it right now? And, and issuing, you know,

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approving the delineation as proposed here. Question from the commission on this, Chang, any other clarifications that you wanna provide on this here? <v Speaker 3>No, actually the plan to speak to self</v> as technically we added all the legend for pick the BVW and top of bank channel and then the lower flow channel and then we actually graded out of the flags. That is not going to be confirmed. And it may, and put a note there. So, so everybody will be clear forever.

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So on record, clear? <v Speaker 1>Yeah. For the time.</v> <v Speaker 3>I appreciate it.</v> You, you, you, you, yeah. You, you you put out. Let me go first. I, I have to Another hearings in Sher. All good. Right off this. Appreciate it. <v Speaker 1>All good. So commission any, any further questions,</v> comments on what we see in front of us? Would someone make a motion if it, if you're so inclined it someone make a motion to approve the, <v Speaker 2>Oh, Matt, we need to close the hearing. We</v> <v Speaker 1>Close it.</v> Close it. Someone make a motion to close it and then for us, and then make a motion to issue the, the delineation as requested. Motion to close. Thank you, Jim.

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Is that seconded by anybody? Second. Second. I'll take, I'll take Chris's second on that. Any further discussion? Commission All is in favor to close. Please, please respond when I, when I call your name Mike. Yes. Chris? Yes. Jim? Yes. Jeff? Yes. David? Yes. And Matt? Yes as well. So we're closed. Someone wanna make a motion to issue the delineation or to approve the delineation as requested <v Speaker 2>Or just to clarify for the record,</v> we're approving flags DA one through five

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and CLW four through seven. <v Speaker 1>Okay. So I'll make that motion. So moved.</v> Thank you Michael. Is that seconded? Second. I'll take Chris a second. Any further discussion on that? All in favor please indicate by saying yes. When I call your name Mike. Yes. Chris? Yes. Jim? Yes. Jeff? Yes. David? Yes. Matt's a yes as well. Alright, <v Speaker 3>Thank you so much Ang.</v> <v Speaker 1>Thank you.</v> <v Speaker 3>Appreciate it. Enjoy, enjoy the sprint.</v> I really appreciate it. Alright, <v Speaker 1>Excellent.</v>

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Thanks Chen for fixing that map. <v Speaker 3>No, thank you. Thank you though it make the map much</v> better and and easy to read. I appreciate it. Your thank you comments. Thank you so much. <v Speaker 1>Alright, next item of the agenda I've got,</v> I've got is a request, a certificate of compliance request for 1 72 Cottage Street. Do we have representatives of 1 72 Cottage Street here on the call here this evening? <v Speaker 2>Yeah, Mr. Bartlett is here on the call.</v> Folks will recall this was a, a small addition to a single family home in the project folder in the drive. You'll find all the required certificate of compliance materials. I made a site visit out to the property

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and everything is in substantial compliance. There was one additional landing added to the patio area to access the addition, but all with technically that would've been a minor exempt activity because of the distance from the wetland. So Dick is all set for A COC. <v Speaker 1>Great. So looking at the plan here,</v> it looks like everything seems to be in order there. Have the letter from the engineer. So Dennis O'Brien from D O'Brien Surveying says, certifies that the work of the above address has been completed in substantial compliance with the plan dated November 2nd, 2022.

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Looking at this, folks, any questions from the commission before we vote to issue a certificate of compliance? As requested? Hearing none. So we'll make a motion please. So moved. That was David. Yep. Thank you David. Is that seconded? Seconded. Thank you Jim. Any further discussion folks? All is in favor to issue the certificate of compliance for 1 72 Cottage Street. Please indicate by saying yes when I call your name Mike. Yes. Chris? Yes. Jim? Yes. Jeff? Yes. David? Yes. And Matt? Yes as well. Alright, Mr.

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Barlett. Thank you sir. Take care and let us know if you have any questions. Alright, good. Next item on the agenda I've got is a certificate of compliance for five bass terrorists. Do we have any representatives of five bass terrorists here, <v Speaker 2>Please?</v> Yes. I believe Brad is the representative for the project. Yes. <v Speaker 1>Hey Brad, thanks for joining. Appreciate it. Thank you.</v> Let's take a look at five bass terrorists. <v Speaker 2>Yes. So this was actually, I had a permit</v> that the commission issued bef just before I would've started with the town. But I did review the project folder. We received the required materials and I made a site visit out with Brad

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and everything appears to be in substantial compliance. <v Speaker 1>Great. And so I've got a letter from Lincoln Architects.</v> Please note this letter as our certification instruction of five Bass Terrace Natick Mass is in substantial compliance with our plans issued for permit and construction. Everything looks to be in order. Alright, any questions from the commission on this? I happy to entertain a motion to issue the certificate of compliance for five Bass Terrace and so we'll make that motion please. So moved. Thank you Chris. Is that seconded? Second. Thank you David. Any further discussion? All in favor, Mike? Yes. Chris? Yes. Jim? Yes. Jeff? Yes.

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David? Yes. Matty? Yes as well. Alright. You got, you got what you need there, Brad, thanks for joining. Let us know if you have any questions or need anything further from us on this. Thank you. So we've got 1 72 5 bass, five Glenwood Dunn. Next item on the agenda is the request for determination of applicability for Memorial Beach, a sewer pump station. Let me go ahead and open this up. So, in accordance to the Wetlands Protection Act and Natick local wetlands bylaw of 79, the NATA Conservation Commission hold a public meeting on a request for determination of applicability filed by

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Michael Sam Sanetti, town of Natick facilities division for property located at Memorial Beach, 1 24 Pond Street Map 50 lot 18, the proposals to remove and replace the existing sewer pump station with associated utility connections. Great. We have a representative. Oh, I see Mr. Sanetti here, sir. Welcome. <v Speaker 4>Thank you. How are you?</v> <v Speaker 1>Doing good. Doing good.</v> Thanks for all your efforts for the town. Do you wanna walk us through above and beyond what I just described, what the plan is here and and and and, and what's going on? <v Speaker 4>Yep. So it's the spring replacement</v> of the sewer pump that's there currently. I don't know how the, the existing one is,

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but it's, it's certainly nearing or at, it's it's end of useful life. So we're gonna be replacing it with a, it's called an EE one sewer injector pump that's used to propel sanitary material from a lower elevation up to where it is currently in the street. So we're replacing the station that's currently there. So what's, what's there existing is gonna be removed. What's replacing is something that's significantly smaller, lower profile. And we are, I think as, as far as Cocom is concerned or as as biggest concerned, of course outside of the wetlands buffer.

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So all of the work that's gonna be done is outside of that a hundred foot distance from the shoreline. They're not gonna be setting up, they're not gonna be excavating, not gonna be doing anything within a hundred feet of the shoreland. <v Speaker 2>Yeah, Mike, I think the only proposed work</v> that just tips into the buffer zone is the electrical trenching, but that is all behind the existing building <v Speaker 4>Behind the structure Yep.</v> <v Speaker 2>Between the building and the pond.</v> <v Speaker 4>Nice. Yep.</v> <v Speaker 1>So, so the trenching, everything is just</v> to reiterate is, is behind the building essentially. And then the, the new, the new system will be basically put in the same,

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in the same hole as the existing system to smaller form factor. Is that right? <v Speaker 4>Smaller form factor's gonna be a little bit closer</v> to the beach house currently, but still behind it. <v Speaker 2>So Matt, this smaller circle is the proposed new system.</v> <v Speaker 1>Ah, got it. Okay. Fair.</v> I was, I was thinking it was, yeah, it was, it was within that whole case. So that's the smaller new one. Got it. <v Speaker 4>So yeah, so, so the current one has a,</v> a big concrete form. It has a huge plastic cover. It's fenced in with a four foot chain link fence. All that's gonna go. It's gonna be beach now. <v Speaker 1>Got it. Nice. So yeah, a few more square feet for people</v>

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to lay out in the sun during the summer. <v Speaker 4>Exactly.</v> <v Speaker 1>Yeah. Good.</v> So it's in, so in, in terms of removal, so the existing pump station and concrete to be removed, disposed by concrete, but by the contractor backfilled with sand and grade, everything will be removed and disposed. So it is all new, all new piping coming in there. Yeah. Okay, cool. So <v Speaker 4>They're, yeah, exactly.</v> They're, they're gonna be able to sleeve the existing four inch main that's going out to the street with an inch and a half. H-P-H-P-D-E. Yeah. So not ideally you're not gonna have to do any more excavation at all with respect to

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reaching the, the street, they're able to just, just leave us currently there. It's about about 400 feet, but it's flexible, should be able to do <v Speaker 1>It.</v> And we've got a proposed silt sock that'll be kind of the limit of work as well as erosion. It's fairly flat as we all know, but just the same. That's a good, good, good practice there. <v Speaker 2>And there is a small area of silt fences on the other side</v> of the back house is an extra precaution as well. <v Speaker 1>Great. Commission. Any questions on this?</v> Looks pretty straightforward, technically, ecologically, all that stuff. Any, any questions on this for, for my, all right.

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This is a request for determination of applicability. So if there are no questions for the a for the applicant here, happy to entertain a motion to close and then to issue a determination. What's the pleasure of the board here? Motion to close. That was David. Thank you. David. Chris? Chris. Oh, Chris, sorry. Thanks Chris. Is that seconded? Seconded by David. Seconded by David. Thanks David. Any further discussion, further questions? <v Speaker 5>I, I had a quick question. Sorry I didn't hit my that</v> <v Speaker 1>That's alright Jim.</v> <v Speaker 5>Yeah, I, is there a, there's a fence around the,</v> the existing one, it looks like there won't be on the new one. It's not needed or something or

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<v Speaker 4>No, no fence.</v> Great. So it, it, it, it stands above grade about four to six inches. <v Speaker 5>Oh, that's it. Okay.</v> <v Speaker 4>If you want see one,</v> there's actually, there's one right outside of the, the maintenance shed that's across from the high school. Cool. It's the exact same system that we're putting in here. Again, the, the, the, the bowl itself I would say is probably 18 inches in diameter. And again, we're if if row over four inches above grade i'd, I'd be surprised. So it's, it's very low profile, very small. Everything is, is subgrade. <v Speaker 5>Super. Thanks.</v> <v Speaker 1>Further questions?</v> Alright, hearing none, we've got a motion and a second to close. If there's no further questions, please

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indicate your approval to your vote to close by responding. Yes. When I call your name Mike. Yes. Chris? Yes. Jeff? Yes. Jim? Yes. David? Yes. Matts yes. So close determination, presumably a negative three determination, it's barely jurisdictional <v Speaker 2>And there is flood zone on site,</v> but none of the work is occurring within the flood elevation. But they do have it identified on the plan <v Speaker 1>Sheet.</v> Yep. So it's, it's just, just on the, on the very edge of, of being jurisdictional. But let's go ahead and issue a negative three

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determination if that's the pleasure of the board. Would someone make that motion please? So move for negative three. All right. I'll take Jeff's, Jeff's motion there. And then David is a second on that. Any further discussion on that? Those in favor, Mike? Yes. Chris? Yes. Jeff? Yes. Jim? Yes. David? Yes. And Matt? Yes as well. Michael, thank you. Let us know if anything comes up. <v Speaker 4>Sincere. Thanks for the commission.</v> Clear. I appreciate the help. <v Speaker 2>Yep. Mike, I'll follow up with the paperwork,</v> but you guys are essentially all set. <v Speaker 4>Great. Thank you all. Have a good night. Thank</v> <v Speaker 1>You, you too.</v> Bye-bye. All right, next item on the agenda.

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Morning civilization. All right. Notice of intent for 1 0 4 West Central Street. Let me go ahead and get this opened up. So in accordance with the Wetlands Protection Act, kinetic local wetlands bylaw article 79, the Native Conservation Commission will the public hearing on a notice of intent, followed by Susan MacArthur of MacArthur Environmental Consulting on behalf of Matthew Carr. 97 Bacon Street, LLC for property, located at 1 0 4 West Central Street Map 42 27 B. The proposal is to demolish the existing single family home and construct a new single family home with associated site features. So Sue, how are you?

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<v Speaker 6>Hi there. Good.</v> Again, my name is Susan MacArthur from MacArthur Environmental Consulting. Also on the call is Matt Carr, who is the applicant. We have Fred Schobel from DGT Associates, who's the engineer for the project. And a shout out to Michael Carr. Hi Michael. So <v Speaker 2>Susan, did you wanna share the plans</v> or did you want me to pull them up? <v Speaker 6>Oh, could you do that for me?</v> <v Speaker 2>Absolutely.</v> <v Speaker 6>Okay, thank you. I'll, I'll wait a sec.</v> They might separately attached.

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But anyway, it's a one a nine a point 19 acre parcel consisting of a 1,400 square foot two story garage. It's like a garage building. There is a B two minutes driveway that runs along the east side of the building and wraps around the back and a stone retaining wall runs along the eastern property boundary. And there are two small retaining walls that run from the corner, the front corners of Claire.

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You might wanna zoom in a little bit on the <v Speaker 2>Yeah, it, it's hard.</v> I don't wanna cut anything off, but it's also definitely a small type set. <v Speaker 6>Yeah, yeah. Okay. Thank you.</v> So in gray there, there's those two small retaining walls that run from the front of the building toward the street. And there is a stockade fence that separates the subject property from the abutting property to the east. Topography is fairly level up at the front of the, the building. And then it steeply drops down toward the back

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elevations ranging at one 60 up near the road and 1 51 feet down at the back of the property. So there is a forested wetland. It's located west of the property offsite. It is a bordering vegetative wetlands. It, it's buffer zones do extend onto the property. They're kinda light, but you can kind of see them. I'm <v Speaker 2>In the 25 foot right now.</v> The 40 foot is right here. And then the a hundred foot buffer zone cuts through.

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<v Speaker 6>Yeah, it's hard to see. Sort</v> <v Speaker 2>Of like there it's this, yeah.</v> <v Speaker 6>Yeah. So the wetland was delineated back in</v> September of 2025. So the proposed project consists of demolishing that existing garage building and constructing a 2,223 square foot house with an 86 square foot raised back deck and a 220 square foot front porch. So the beum minutes driveway existing now will be removed

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and replaced with a new driveway to the east portions it, some of the new driveway will be within portions of the existing, A front walkway consisting of bluestone pavers is proposed that will go out toward the sidewalk out on the street there. And a small section of the existing stone retaining wall near the eastern property boundary will be removed. However, the majority of it will be maintained will remain. Two small sections of the retaining walls up by the front

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of the house will be removed. Those two little sections there and a large section of the pavement of the existing driveway is going to be taken out. It'll be removed. So portions of the project do lie within the a hundred foot buffer zone. No work is proposed within the locally regulated 40 foot buffer or no build zone I should say, except for just a little bit of receding the lawn. All work will occur within previously disturbed areas,

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either covered by existing pavement or the building or lawn. And, but overall the project will result in a decrease of 1,101 square feet of impervious area at the site. So, you know, you're probably wondering how, but I think it's mainly 'cause a lot of that pavement that's there now is gonna be taken up. So access to the work zone will be via the existing driveway and any soil stockpiling will be located

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outside the buffer zone, closer toward the roadway up where it's flat up, up above. And so for mitigation, as far as mitigation goes, we're proposing to install an erosion control barrier consisting of straw, waddles or equivalent at the down gradient limits of work prior to any ground disturbance. Yeah, it kind of just rings around there. And also, as I had said, we're removing pavement and that will be converted to their lawn or planting beds. And those areas will be located up at the front

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of the building and the rear of the building, native plantings are proposed in the planting beds throughout the property. Some of them will provide food and cover for small mammals. They are, and birds, they are all native to the area and an infiltration system is being proposed at the rear of the new house under the driveway. And I'm going to turn it over to Fred to just kind of briefly talk about that. Fred, if you're, you're on mute by the way.

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<v Speaker 7>I'm Fred Sch, I'm the civil engineer</v> for the project from DTT Associates. I did the site plan, you're, you're looking at and the stormwater report that got sent in with the notice of intent filing for, for stormwater mitigation, we're capturing 96% of the impervious area on the site, which includes the entire roof area and almost the entire driveway actually, all of the driveway flows back down to the, the catch basin at the rear

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and gets routed into the proposed infiltration basin, which provides greater than an inch, 370 cubic feet of volume. And the requirement was 332. So we're, we're a little bit over an inch on storage for the recharger static storage. So that's just volume. And then any, any overflow after that will be deposited at the, the rear corner of the site a little bit away from the, the property line. That pretty much sums up the, the stormwater system.

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So if anybody has any questions. <v Speaker 1>Okay. Yeah, thanks for the presentation. Quick question.</v> So with the historic use of this property as a garage and other things there, are there any USTs and or soil contamination that we need to worry about on site? <v Speaker 6>I'm gonna let Matt answer that one.</v> You did testing out there, <v Speaker 8>Matt.</v> Yeah, we did. Boring. Can you hear me by the way? Yeah, <v Speaker 1>Yeah.</v> <v Speaker 8>Okay. Yeah, we did three borings on the site.</v> There was a previous borings done. There was a, a hit of something.

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I don't, I couldn't tell you exactly what it is off the top of my head, but it, it was not in the water table and it was approximately five feet down, but it was mainly under the main house. So the thought would be possibly to when we actually tear the building down to remove the material. And it wasn't a lot. I think we maybe five feet by 10 by 10 area possibly. So that's what we found after the, after the initial borings.

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<v Speaker 1>Okay. Do we have, do we have copies of those findings</v> of those reports in the, in the file here? <v Speaker 8>I, I don't,</v> <v Speaker 1>I don't see them.</v> <v Speaker 8>Oh, then I, then I, no,</v> that I didn't, we you didn't get them. <v Speaker 1>Okay. Could you, could you provide those?</v> <v Speaker 8>Sure.</v> <v Speaker 1>Yeah. Yeah.</v> I mean, so, so what you're saying Matt, though, is that it's not a reportable level of any <v Speaker 8>Correct.</v> <v Speaker 1>Of any issues There was Yes.</v> Something found that of some, some material of some sort. Okay. We can take a look at that and Yeah.

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And, and and, and see what comes up there. And so what you're proposing though is to excavate out that material <v Speaker 8>Yes.</v> <v Speaker 1>And, and then replace it with clean fill</v> <v Speaker 8>Yes.</v> <v Speaker 1>And all that. Okay.</v> What I'd like to do or have us do would be to, you know, make sure that that process is, you know, once we see the, the, the, the testing results, just wanna make sure that that process is captured in the, in the narrative here. 'cause that'll be an important and important part of it. I mean, any opportunity we have to clean stuff up we wanna do and just make sure that it's taken care of properly.

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Yeah. So if you could just provide that, that, that, that documentation, that would be helpful. Okay. Okay. <v Speaker 8>Yep.</v> <v Speaker 1>Yes. Sue?</v> <v Speaker 6>No, no. I just said yes. Okay.</v> <v Speaker 1>Other, other questions from the commissioner.</v> I mean, on the west side of the property is immediately abuts to basement DCR property, you know, property around Fisk Pond. Yep. And then on the other, on the other side, there's the house on the corner and then the two, was it two houses? What was it, Christy Antonio who built those, or I forget who built those, but those were, those were done Windows property.

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This whole connected property started to be developed, this supply five years ago, or I say five years ago, it could be 10. So any, any other questions from the commission on this at this point, Michael, I see one brewing <v Speaker 8>Just thinking can I, can I just say add one thing?</v> Yeah. And there was a question about, someone had brought up a question about the wall, the existing wall that's there. Our, our failing is we don't want to an and it really comes down to not antagonizing the neighbor to the east because the, the, the property right now is actually

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in litigation with the town and other parties, the neighborhood. And so parts of the neighborhood and the, and the existing owner, not us, but so the whole, the whole point of leaving the wall there is really comes down to not antagonizing the neighbor. So, <v Speaker 1>So, so Matt, just to be clear, so, so the, so the,</v> the property that you're proposing here tonight, this is, there's kind of some litigation going on around the ultimate disposition, ultimate use of it. You know, I just want to kind of get a sense in terms of what we would be, what we're at,

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what we're being asked to approve here. I mean, is is there a chance that these plans may change based upon the outcome of the litigation? <v Speaker 8>Stuff like that? No, no, no, no, no.</v> We've actually brought in the neighbors, we've talked to them. We, during the, the, the architectural process and we had a, a meeting with them and they, they were on the last meeting, the planning board meeting and the historical society, which we've already gone through. They're on board a hundred percent. So with, with what we have, with the plans, a as as.

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<v Speaker 1>Okay. Okay.</v> <v Speaker 9>And can I ask you a quick question?</v> This is mostly just about the details. The stray waddle detail doesn't mention that you excavate six inches or you excavate any part of the straw waddle. Is that by design or is that just an omission? <v Speaker 1>Oh,</v> <v Speaker 7>Go ahead Fred.</v> Yeah, so the straw waddle, if, if it had the project had remained in with just straw waddle, then that, that gets laid across the ground and staked, staked down or weighted down.

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One of Claire's comments was that that might not be sufficient because of the slope of the site. So I've since added a silt fence behind the straw waddle, which will be dug six inches of the ground with a six inch overlap. So there'll be a, the straw waddle and the silt fence as a, as a barrier. <v Speaker 9>Perfect. Yeah, no, I,</v> I figured it was, that's pretty standard. I just didn't see on the detail. <v Speaker 1>Okay.</v> <v Speaker 7>Yeah, the updated plans will, will fix that.</v> <v Speaker 1>Okay. Other, other questions from the commission ones?</v> So this is a notice of intent.

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If there are no questions from the commission, we can certainly entertain motions. <v Speaker 2>Well, Matt, we do not have a DEP file number, so we Oh,</v> <v Speaker 1>There we go.</v> So can't close. Anyway. And I also, you know, I, I do wanna get the, the, the details around the, the soil testing and the plan to remediate that there. Jim, I saw your hand go off. Do you have a question as well? Yeah, <v Speaker 5>Yeah.</v> One question. Was I, is it a full basement for this property <v Speaker 2>That will be determined by the soil testing?</v> The health department does have a policy for a two foot separation to estimate seasonal high groundwater. So if that hasn't been completed yet,

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it's still technically up in the air. <v Speaker 5>Okay. And, and, and Claire, your, your staff, there were,</v> there were several questions there that, like for example, the, the burying of the, the wall gets buried, right? <v Speaker 2>Yes. I apologize. All I I,</v> thankfully the meeting did not end, but I got blue screen of death and my computer crashed, but I'm back and I'm in now. So I missed most of that discussion. But that was gonna be my primary question was, and I may just be misreading the plan note Fred, but the plan note for the retaining wall section to remain it, it reads remaining portion

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of existing retaining wall to be buried below finished grade. And I just wanted to clarify that you guys weren't gonna be burying the retaining wall and trying to grade out a slope, but that you guys were just gonna grade up to the retaining wall with the proposed fill. <v Speaker 7>That that's correct. Yeah.</v> So the retaining wall as it exists for most of it length, its length right now is about four feet tall. And that's pretty much what we're, we're bringing in about four, four and a half feet of fill on the downhill side of the wall so that it will be level with or slightly below the abutting property line and maintain existing drainage patterns and whatnot.

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But we'll be the, the, the existing driveway is almost 20% and the new driveway is 10, you know, a much better, 10%. So we had to fill that in and to, to circle back on the board of health question for the, the basement elevation, we, we did the witness testing for that as, as part of the storm water testing that we also did. Oh, okay. And we excavated at the front, under the existing driveway at the front of the site, we excavated 10 feet down

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and found, found no signs of an estimated season of high groundwater that was elevation 1 52 0.1 and our basement floor elevation is 1 55 0.9. So we have, we have more than the two foot deferential required. Okay. And that's at the worst case scenario, <v Speaker 2>Is it gonna be a walkout at the back, at the end</v> of the driveway from the basement level then? <v Speaker 7>Almost? Yeah. Yeah.</v> It's, it's gonna be a couple, a couple steps down or one step down into the basement. <v Speaker 1>A couple steps down into the basement from the driveway.</v> <v Speaker 7>Correct.</v> <v Speaker 1>Okay. Got it.</v>

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Okay. Other questions from the commission on this? <v Speaker 10>I just have a couple of comments.</v> I, I'd like some narrative around where this contamination is. It should also be mapped, you know, it, you know, I'm not gonna tell you how to do your job, obviously that's not my role, but at least it should be mentioned in the summary or some, it should be mentioned somewhere in the narrative of the NOI ideally that's <v Speaker 1>What I was asking for my</v> <v Speaker 10>Yeah,</v> and it should be mapped as well. <v Speaker 2>We can, since this will be an order of conditions,</v>

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if the commission is comfortable with it, we could have it mapped as a condition prior to the certificate of compliance issuance. But we do have to continue the hearing. I I don't know if they would be able to get it in two weeks mapped. But <v Speaker 8>If I could just make a point, I mean there's no way</v> to map it without, you know, taking up the foundation, the old foundation, we don't know the width and breadth of it. <v Speaker 2>So are you guys gonna be bringing on an LSP for</v> that excavation process? <v Speaker 8>Yeah. Which, which we have, we have currently.</v> Is that what you're saying? <v Speaker 1>We would have a, have a licensed site professional</v>

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who can come in and and oversee the excavation, the <v Speaker 2>License.</v> Am I getting the acronym wrong? <v Speaker 8>That's correct. The, the company</v> that did it would be would who did the borings they would be overseeing. So does that that answer your question? <v Speaker 1>I think what we, I mean why don't we do this?</v> I mean we, we gotta continue this anyway 'cause of the DEP file number issue no matter what. If you could, Matt, if you could get us all the documentation that you have currently in your possession around the, the psych testing the results of that, so we can see the levels, we can see, you know, how close it is or whatever to reportable levels,

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just all of that information. Then we can take a look at that and you know, and see are we comfortable with that or do we need more information before it, 'cause this is, you know, this is uphill of FIS pond, you know, we need to make sure that this is being handled, you know, really appropriately and by the book. And so, so if you could just get us whatever you have on that at this point, we'll take a look at it, we'll talk about it, we'll figure out if that's sufficient or if we need more. <v Speaker 9>Is there, are there, maybe to follow on a little bit about</v> what Mike said, but are there, are there any locations where the, the monitoring well was put in?

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Is that on the CAD drawing? Sorry if I missed it. <v Speaker 8>I don't think the, where</v> <v Speaker 9>The boring was</v> <v Speaker 8>There was, yeah. Right. I don't know</v> <v Speaker 7>The, the two monitor wells were off the back.</v> There were two off the back corner of the existing garage. Correct. <v Speaker 2>They are shown on the plan. Lemme get it pulled back.</v> <v Speaker 9>Yeah. The labeled mw. Yep. With it hard with</v> <v Speaker 2>Symbols.</v> It's because of the density of the plan chief. But there was one right here <v Speaker 9>And Okay.</v> Yeah, I saw that. That's correct. Alright. And there wasn't any preliminary like field assumptions about what the contaminant might have been. Did it have a sheen or <v Speaker 2>If it was a garage building, I would assume it's some kind</v>

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of vehicle or motor related. Yeah. <v Speaker 1>Yeah. And that's what we're looking</v> for is the documentation that just describes what it is. So we know what we're dealing with here. <v Speaker 8>Yeah, I can confirm there's,</v> <v Speaker 10>There's no borings near, you know, to the,</v> to the west side of that boundary. It's just by the garage. Do we know, do we know how far this contaminant has has moved in the soil? <v Speaker 8>I mean it was, it was an extensive,</v> I think they did four borings in and around the garage area. <v Speaker 10>Okay.</v> <v Speaker 1>So this shows two, two monitoring wells. Right.</v>

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The, and so there, there is one slightly Mike, right on the property line slightly to the west of the one directly behind the building if I'm getting this right. <v Speaker 8>Yep. Yeah.</v> <v Speaker 1>And so, and there was</v> <v Speaker 8>One right outside the door.</v> Which the existing door, the back that <v Speaker 1>Right.</v> That's the one right directly behind the building. <v Speaker 8>Okay. And there was another one</v> from the front of the garage. Let's see that one. <v Speaker 2>I'm not seeing any other of the monitoring. Well</v> <v Speaker 1>Let's, let's get the reports guys, you know.</v> Yeah, I mean let's, let's get the, <v Speaker 2>There's some additional information.</v> <v Speaker 1>Yeah, we gotta get that documentation</v> 'cause this is something we just need to really just make sure is buttoned up properly.

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<v Speaker 9>Can I, can I ask one more question?</v> <v Speaker 1>Of course. Chris,</v> <v Speaker 9>Do we know since it was zoned as a</v> business, do we know if it was ever phase one, phase two? Is there any documentation for that historically? <v Speaker 1>Let's find out.</v> <v Speaker 8>Yeah, that I'm aware of.</v> <v Speaker 1>I I kind of re I mean was it, wasn't it way back,</v> wasn't it a service station? I mean I could be <v Speaker 9>Like a, it was</v> <v Speaker 1>A repair</v> <v Speaker 9>Shop underground storage tanks.</v> Yeah. Air I think yeah. <v Speaker 8>Repair shop for as long as I can remember.</v> <v Speaker 2>I have a really quick search.</v> <v Speaker 10>Claire, can you pull that up on GIS It should show up</v>

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as a, it's a layer on mass GI <v Speaker 9>S Yeah, it should be a layer. I</v> <v Speaker 2>I would, I was gonna check that</v> and the, the DEP lookup as the other place that I always go for the waste site. <v Speaker 9>Yeah, that address would pop if it was, if it had a,</v> <v Speaker 8>You know, my father could answer that question.</v> 'cause he's been in Natick since 1955, so <v Speaker 1>He's not that old. Come on</v> <v Speaker 8>Dad.</v> <v Speaker 1>Mr. Cara, you're on, you're on on mute, sir. It was a</v> <v Speaker 11>Volkswagen dealership and it was a break relining</v> shop when I was a young, young boy in Natick. <v Speaker 1>Oh boy. Yeah. Interesting.</v>

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All right, let's, let's get, let, let's get this information that we're asking for and then we can kind of figure out what, you know, what, what other data we may need if, if any, to, <v Speaker 2>To, i, I did get it pulled up on mass mapper</v> and it's not showing up on the 21 e classification list. I was trying to get the other layers pulled up that would be applicable. But <v Speaker 9>That also get, I know the program's relatively new</v> for this site, but would that show any spill spill reporting? <v Speaker 2>The spill reporting would be in the lookup,</v> which I can do quickly.

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<v Speaker 9>Yeah. Sorry, I don't mean to get kind of in the</v> <v Speaker 1>No, no, this is, we need to, we need</v> to dot trustees on this. This is when <v Speaker 9>You want all this data so everyone knows</v> what they, we need <v Speaker 2>No rtns.</v> <v Speaker 9>Perfect. That's a good sign.</v> <v Speaker 1>Okay.</v> <v Speaker 2>So yeah, if you guys could send along those materials</v> and Fred, there were also just a couple of small edits for the long-term pollution prevention plans that could be submitted before the next meeting. Yep. And we'll go from there. <v Speaker 7>Yeah, those will, those will all be addressed.</v> <v Speaker 1>Great. Great. Yeah, send that along.</v> Any, any other questions or homework that we want these guys to do?

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Gotta get the DEP file number as well. <v Speaker 2>It is in the lineup.</v> It just hasn't been assigned the number yet. Yeah, yeah, <v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's fine. Hey, cash the</v> <v Speaker 2>Check. That's the important thing.</v> <v Speaker 1>Yeah. Oh, sign, sign number one of progress.</v> Alright, well here are none then. So why don't we go ahead and continue this to our first, I'm sorry to, do we, should we go to May 21st or do we wanna go to our first meeting in June? What do you guys think? Matt, I'll leave that, leave that option up to you. Do you want to continue this to, to May 21st? First? <v Speaker 8>Yeah, I'd like to go to 21st.</v> I think I, I mean it's all just really getting all the information. I I think I can get it pretty quickly. <v Speaker 1>Okay. So, so let's continue this to May 21st</v>

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and then we'll reconvene, see what the, in the meantime we'll get those documents from you. We'll take a look at 'em and then come back with any questions that we have at that point. All right. Any other questions from the commission on this? Any questions from Abutters, interested residents? All right. Hearing none, some make a motion to continue this to May 21st, please. Motion to continue. Thank you, Jim. Is that seconded? Seconded. Thank you Jeff. Any further discussion, further questions, further homework assignments, anything that we need? All right. Hearing none. All those in favor? If please indicate by saying yes. Mike? Yes. Chris? Yes. Jeff? Yes. David? Yes. Jim? Yes. Matt?

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Yes. Alright. We're continued to May 21st. Matt, thank you. Appreciate your time. And we will, we'll be in touch. Send us that stuff along and, and, and we'll pick it up at our next meeting. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks guys. Thank you. All right. Next item on the agenda here. It's wonderful. Four West Central. All right, let's continue. 33 Pine Street. This is a notice of intent under the local bylaw. So Claire, I don't see the pro homeowner on the call. <v Speaker 2>No. So Andy w is out of town this week. Oh, that's right.</v>

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He was gonna try to find somebody to attend, but he wasn't sure if his wife would be able to with childcare, so I did let him know that if he was comfortable with the commission issuing a decision based on the discussion at the last hearing. Because as I discussed with you Matt, and as I reported back to the homeowners, I did go out to the site and I pulled a couple of augers. There are some photos in the drive if folks wanna look. I tried to, my foot is right next to the auger hole in the second photo, or maybe the third photo. Trying to just demonstrate the like low area that I was pulling from so that folks could see any

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of the sort of surface hydrology features as well. And then there's, are you sharing, sorry. Oh no, sorry, I didn't, it's a little hard to share <v Speaker 1>The photos.</v> So remember on 33 Pine Street, there was a question like on on the wet, on the wetlands delineation that the applicant provided, there was a small pocket isolated wetlands that was close to the back of his property. However, on the, for the Ferndale property on, on the backside of it, there was a wetlands that was indicated that a different one. And so Claire was gonna go out and just take a look at this

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and just do some field observations as to whether there is in fact a wetlands where the applicant had indicated there was wetlands. And so, sorry Claire, what'd you find? <v Speaker 2>Yes, no, thank you for reminding me of the context.</v> And so it's, this is the sort of rough, I was trying to use this log and it did not necessarily work a hundred percent in my favor, but this is roughly the first 12 inches of the soil profile with the surface being at the bottom of the photo. And you're getting deeper as you go closer to the top of the soil pile. It's a little bit difficult to see in this photo,

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but I, I took some other photos. The material is pretty stock standard in terms of color profile and sort of consistency. Certainly not a high organic matter content. It was very dry and sandy in the sort of between the fingers. But it does have a relatively dark color. And more, as it's more prominently seen in this, has some pretty significant redox amorphic features within that first 10 inches to the surface. What I will note is that there was also quite a bit of fill material. There were some models that I thought were models,

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but turned out to be a little chunks of brick. So that is actually a, a chunk that I pulled out to confirm that it was actually soil material and then placed back where I had removed it from in the larger pile. So as I spoke with the homeowner, it, it's an area where it really could go both ways. And I think it is a very small pocket of isolated wetland. There is a very clear little dip in those ridges back there. And so I think what it is, is that this is about maybe 40 square feet of isolated vegetated wetland that is separate and distinct from the larger pocket

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that was identified on the 12 Ferndale property as part of that permitting process. In looking at the timing of the delineations that were done out there, the delineation for 12 Ferndale was done in full growth. And I do wonder if maybe it just wasn't as obvious that there was this small depression over in this corner because of the heavy, heavy presence of Japanese weed. Yeah. And a lot of green briar. So the Vegetational community and the surface hydrology don't really give super strong indicators, but the soil profile could certainly lean towards more hydro soil

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indicators than not. This is certainly not what I would call a clear cut delineation by any stretch of the imagination, the joy of, of disturbed wetland delineations. But I did recommend that the commission issue an order of conditions to be on the safe side. This area is showing some wetland indicators. Another wetland scientist flagged it as a wetland resource area. And the work that's proposed is very much in the very outer buffer zone area. So I don't necessarily think it would have any adverse impact because it is this small pocket of wetland is actually up

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and then down again from the proposed rear lawn area of 33 Pine Street. I'll just pull up the, that existing conditions plan. Again, I know the grading doesn't go offsite, but there's a sort of a low point in the corner here before it rises up to a small ridge along the edge of the property lines before it dips back down into this little bowl. There's a number of sort of evidence of prior disturbance, you know, clear areas that have been cut and spilled over the years with dumping. <v Speaker 1>So I think the important thing here is that what's,</v>

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you know, what, what, what Claire's proposing or which I think personally makes sense is that we just stick with the delineation that the applicant's on engineer came up with. There's no reason to dispute it. You know, there's some evidence of that being released, you know, isolated wetlands there. So then the question is now is, you know, are we comfortable with what the applicant has proposed for the but for the backyard in terms of bringing in, bringing in some fill and then moving the fence out further from, from where it's currently, it's,

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it's currently located. Yep. So, so this would be the proposed new fence line here. Do we, Claire, do we have a, a description of what the topography would be after the proposed fill is added? You know, how, how much? So <v Speaker 2>We did discuss it at the last meeting.</v> The intent is to grade it down to meet this existing 180 6, 180 7 grade just at a, a nicer slope that's more usable right now. You can see there's sort of this really steep drop off before this larger bowl area.

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So the intent is to, and there were some photos submitted by the applicant. The intent is to just create a more level slope down to the low point. The conditions that the commission had discussed at the last meeting that I took notes on a site visit with staff prior to any work with the owner and contractor to discuss protection of the existing sugar maple that will remain in the fenced area. Straw waddle along the edge of the proposed fence location just to ensure that there's no runoff concerns. A site visit to confirm stabilization before erosion control removal. And then the last one was to grade out at no,

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no more than a three to one slope or no less than a three to one slope. I'm trying to remember what, no more than a three to one slope. Okay. I'll figure out what that a gentler or equal to slope to three to one. Right. <v Speaker 1>Any questions from the commission on this?</v> Are we comfortable with the delineation? I mean the delineation is what it's, are we comfortable with what the applicant has proposed to personally you? The, the protection of the, of the tree within this area is important. It kind of limits to a certain extent how much fill can really be brought in reasonably, you know,

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even with a well there. And so I'd be, I'd be comfortable with what's being proposed here with the oversight, Claire, that you that that you just suggested. <v Speaker 2>Other, other, and this is an order of condition.</v> So you know, we will have the opportunity to get as-built plans after the fact to see the final grading and things like that. <v Speaker 1>Other questions, comments, concerns?</v> Are we good with it? All right. So with that, so make a motion to close and then someone make a motion to issue an order of conditions and clear. I'll just have you just run down those order of conditions one more time. Yep. That's the pleasure of the board.

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So someone wanna make, wanna make a motion to close. So moved. Thank you Chris. Is that seconded? Second. Thank you David. Any further discussion, questions? Anything? All right. Hearing none, please indicate you're approval by saying yes. Wanna call your name? Mike? Yes. Chris? Yes. Jeff? Yes. Jim? Yes. David? Yes. Matt? Yes. So public hearing is closed order of conditions. Claire, if you just run down those one more time. <v Speaker 2>Absolutely. So a site visit with staff prior to work</v>

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to review tree protection precautions with the owner and the contractor for the remaining sugar maple within the fence area. Straw water installed along the edge of grading to the, and the language I specifically wrote down was to be set at the site visit with the contractor, sort of the limit of where that would be placed based on the tree protection as well. Stabilization site visit before erosion control removal and the, the slope will be graded out to a three to one ratio or less. I Googled it, it is less. <v Speaker 1>Okay. Anything to add to this?</v> All right, so we'll make a motion to issue that order of conditions as discussed.

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So moved. Thank you Jeff. Is that seconded? Second in. Thank you Jim. Any further discussion? All in favor? I Any get by saying yes, I'm call you Name Mike. Yes. Chris? Yes. Jeff? Yes. Jim? Yes. David? Yes. Matt? Yes. Alright, good. Claire, thank you for guiding us through that. That's good. And the applicant's not here, so I can't admonish you to let me know if any plans change or anything like that, but that sounds he's got what he needs at this point in time. Thanks Claire. All right.

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Next item on the agenda then is a continuation of Hang on one second. Go back. All right. South Native Parks. Miss Snell, I see you hanging around. How are you? Good, how are you doing? Good. Thanks for joining. <v Speaker 2>And we also have Jenny Moonen from we</v> and Samson on the call tonight. <v Speaker 1>Great. Thank you for joining us. All right.</v> So we went through a pretty comprehensive overview of the, of the proposed work in these three, three different locations. Last time. You know, Claire, if you could just call up the plans

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and Janet, if you wouldn't mind just kind of giving us a quick, you know, what I'd like to hear and what I'd like to hear, I don't care what everyone else wants to hear, what I'd like to hear is, you know, just kind of a construction sequencing, you know, as we're starting this project, you know, there are some places that have some fairly steep slopes down the water. Just kind of get your high level overview of, of that sequencing effort and, you know, protections and risk points, you know, where stuff could possibly go sideways that we just want to make sure we're, we're mitigating those risks.

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If you wouldn't mind just, just, just giving us that voiceover. <v Speaker 12>Sure, no problem. So as you guys were recall</v> for hopefully from Clara and Angela's presentation last time, we are permitting all three parks together through Conservation commission. But we intend right now to only obtain funding for Grove Park in the multipurpose courts park. So construction at Old Town Park will likely be a completely separate exercise with, you know, separate installation, et cetera. So the timeline, you know, for this area we're gonna be installing erosion control measures throughout this, a limit of work and those will go in first

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and there may be some, you know, ultimately depending on the contractor with some of these steeper slopes where we're moving the pathways sort of up the grade, we may end up installing sort of intermittent erosion controls. As you guys know, the slope is quite sweet, bright where Claire is showing her mouse. So, so that, you know, may be a possibility there. Depending on the, depending on the, the contractor's position as far as order of work, you know,

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we're going to be doing removal of asphalt after the origin and control installation. Well I'm also, I, I guess I've skipped over Claire, you know, the site walk that we would be doing with con com just for the tree protection and you know, those pieces. But as far as actual construction, right, we're gonna be removing existing pavement. We're gonna be first saving the benches that are on site as well as protecting the millstone that are on site, sort of relocating them so that they're not impacted by the construction 'cause they're historic. And then we will be working on grading.

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We do have some concerns around the corridor or you know, the middle of the site where the new, the existing walkway is from Mill Lane down to the proposed buyer retention. That's a, and and that area as well as Clara's pointing out. So those will be areas will be reviewing pretty carefully while we're out doing construction observation to see if there is any erosion that occurs. And maybe more controls will need to be added if we end up seeing sort of, you know, effectively gollies there as far as,

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so removal of existing asphalt and pavement. Oh, there you go, Claire. And, and then we'll be coming in and paving the pathways and doing some of the fine grading. We will be installing some stormwater measures as well as we build that in that area while we build this ramp that's gonna come down from mill as well. So there'll be a connectivity piece there in terms of the piping. And the final piece will be, you know, all the plantings and rere restoration of the,

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you know, the grass areas, et cetera. <v Speaker 1>Great. Is there any, is, is there any masonry work</v> that's being planned for the walls themselves? You know, where you, like <v Speaker 12>They're not touching the walls.</v> <v Speaker 1>Okay.</v> <v Speaker 12>That abut the river.</v> We made a, a firm decision based on their condition, based on on permitting requirements and based on coordination with GZA with the dam removal that those are not going to be touched at all. <v Speaker 2>Okay.</v> <v Speaker 12>There will be, oh, go ahead. Sorry Angela.</v> <v Speaker 2>I was just gonna say Matt, those are essentially,</v> once the river finds its phase and we have a better idea of the jurisdictional components along the walls, I think I,

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at least based on my recollection of the conversations with the larger town team, those would be considered as part of some of those additional waterfront activations that were concepted as part of the design <v Speaker 1>Work.</v> Okay. Were those for the future, were those, were those re were pointed or was there any kind of rehab work done in the last 10 years on those at all? Or am am I just <v Speaker 2>There was work done on these walls along the edges</v> of the park as part of the Pleasant Street Bridge project. Okay. That, that might be what you're recalling, Matt, that <v Speaker 1>That might be what I'm recalling.</v>

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Okay, great. Alright, cool. Thanks. Alright. All right. So let's go over to the, to the other two location. I mean, are there any questions from the commission on this, this site here? <v Speaker 12>I want, I wanted to note one</v> more thing too before the Oh yeah, please. The questions we will have to install a new railing be for fall protection and that will not go into the wall. It will be just offset of the wall and we're working with the Hor Historic District Commission to figure out the, the appropriate materials and accuracy of that. But it effectively will be small posts that are, you know, minimal disturbance

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and really are gonna match, you know, the disturbances there. Now I just wanted to point that out. <v Speaker 1>Great.</v> <v Speaker 5>I I was just curious about the,</v> there is a monument right by like by the stairs or something, right in the middle. Yeah. Does that just remain Right? <v Speaker 2>So this is the Millstone gym.</v> Those are gonna be removed from the site during construction and then re reset afterwards in a different, a slightly different location. Yeah, <v Speaker 5>I, I thought a little upwards of that though.</v> There was like a, a stone with a black on it, right? Yes. <v Speaker 2>I think that's, that's this one right here. Yeah.</v>

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<v Speaker 5>That's just gonna stay, there won't be</v> any movement of it or anything. Might be that circle might be that circle right there. <v Speaker 2>Oh, there's so many labels on this sheet. Yeah.</v> Zoom in and see them all. Oh, there it is. Nope. Stonebridge surfacing. <v Speaker 12>I apologize, I don't remember the monument. Sure.</v> <v Speaker 1>It's, it's a big stone</v> <v Speaker 2>That</v> <v Speaker 13>Has a plaque on it from like the night,</v> <v Speaker 2>I think it's one of three circles</v> because there's only two millstones. <v Speaker 12>There's only two milestones.</v> <v Speaker 5>Yeah,</v> I think it's that circle there. Okay. Yeah. So that circle just remains, it just stays right.

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<v Speaker 2>If it needs to be, it'll be removed offsite</v> with the millstones and then reset after construction. Okay. But the intention is for all the existing historic monument on site to remain after construction. <v Speaker 5>And, and just to clarify, the, the,</v> the walls will be looked at, you're saying like after the, you know, the, the dam is removed and whatever, because I feel like there's erosion on the walls down on the, the, you know, I'm looking at, this would be my left hand side here. Yeah. Way, way down at the edge of the, the property. Yeah. <v Speaker 1>They get a little punky up at that end of, yeah.</v>

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Up at that end of the park. And so that, you know, that'll be, that'll be what Claire's saying is that'll be looked at as part of, you know, once, once the spillways removed and the river kind of figures out exactly where it's gonna be, then they'll take a look at that down the road and see what has to happen. <v Speaker 2>'cause right now with the impoundment area, it's,</v> it's coffer dams and all that sort of stuff that we would have to be considering as part of the permitting plan. Okay. But once the river pulls back, we can have a better idea. <v Speaker 1>Okay. Alright.</v> So there's no further questions on this side. Let's go over to the other locations.

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<v Speaker 12>Sure. So these, so Grove Park</v> and the multipurpose courts will sort of be done together. So talk, it's, let's do our best to talk through the order of operations, but it's sort of gonna be between both sites. So cool. Again, we're gonna be doing, you know, installation of erosion and sediment controls, compost filter tubes where necessary. We are going to do a site walk of course with, you know, folks to make sure that we do the proper tree protection. There's a lot of trees, as you know, in Grove that do need to have protection

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<v Speaker 2>And some of them will have protection from the DAM</v> project, but a number of them are outside of that limit of work. And we'll, we'll need additional protection for the parks improvement. <v Speaker 12>All of the benches</v> that are in good condition will be removed offsite and stored. 'cause we agreed we're gonna reuse benches throughout this project and all the bench pads, handrails will be demolished and the earthwork will start mini. We're thinking minimal earthwork at Grove Park. The primary grading is really needed to accommodate the accessible pathways. So that's where that work will really focus on in Grove.

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And there'll be, you know, a restoration of any disturbed areas af basically like where we've sort of taken benches out and moved them around as well. So that'll kind of happen at the same time. So it's sort of minor grading adjustments in this park. The, I anticipate that the contractor at the same time will probably work on the, the multipurpose quarts and remove the pavement there and get that ready for, you know, all the pavement that's on site. After they do, again, the erosion controls

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and we look at the tree protection needed. We're not expecting a lot here 'cause the limit of work very much is that existing impervious area that exists on the site. So we anticipate they'll, they'll clear this as well. During that time. <v Speaker 1>How many on, on, on in Grove Park, how many trees, if any,</v> are we anticipating, needing to be removed as part of this is what, what's the count? <v Speaker 12>So we're not planning any trees for removal</v> for this project, but five trees will be removed for the spillway project for access. Okay. So we are not removing additional trees.

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<v Speaker 1>Okay. So it's already been</v> discussed for the spillway project? Yes, there's a few trees. <v Speaker 2>There's, and those trees</v> have actually already been removed. Okay. They were removed in the fall last year to <v Speaker 1>Accommodate, so there's no additional</v> trees restrictions. Okay. <v Speaker 12>No additional trees. Correct. Okay.</v> And then we will, I suspect you'll be doing this sort of in phases. I anticipate that they'll be doing the fine grading at this park as well at the same time as Grove Park and then basically putting in the surfacing pathways. So it's gonna be basically like a permeable surfacing,

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but it's a DA compliant. And for Grove Park it has steel edging and for multipurpose it has, I can't remember if there's edging, but it, they're both a DA <v Speaker 2>Compliant. Yes. Steel edging as well.</v> <v Speaker 12>Edging. Thanks Claire. And so</v> after that we're going to be doing the drainage improvements as well. So this site does have bio retention areas planned as well as there'll be some drainage in the Yeah. Along the side. So there's sort of like a whole drainage system that moves water away from the middle of the site

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and helps it flow to these corridors and then into the viral retention so it can infiltrate. <v Speaker 1>So commissioner questions, we had a good run,</v> a good rundown last week, a good rundown this week. Any, any questions on this at this point? <v Speaker 5>I, one, just one quick,</v> is there any fill needed at the multipurpose court that seems like it's down low and is, does fill have to be brought in to bring it up or <v Speaker 12>No, sir.</v> <v Speaker 2>Jenny, there is a tiny bit of fill needed right up,</v> not against Pleasant Street just to accommodate the accessible grading for this pathway here.

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<v Speaker 12>Right. I apologize.</v> <v Speaker 2>Yes.</v> But Jim, that is the only area where fill is needed and it is very minor. It is just to, 'cause this drops off quite quickly from the edge of the roadway. So in order to create the 5% grade path, some, a very small amount of fill needs to be brought in. <v Speaker 12>A big part of designing this was to keep,</v> because it's in flood zone, was keeping the elevation that it's at. We, we designed with the intent of you go down a ramp and you're in this park that's continues to be a bit lower than the road. Oh, okay. So it was always the design intent. <v Speaker 5>Okay. But it has all, all this design</v>

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to push the water into a, because that, that seems to really get heavily flooded. I mean, and after rains and stuff today, you know, <v Speaker 12>It, I mean we've created space for, you know,</v> it's a very large landscaped space and there's, you know, the bio retention areas. But in reality this will become an area that can flood and then can absorb the flood waters. Okay. So, I mean, we know that, we also know the river's gonna evolve though and we're not exactly sure how much flooding will happen here after the river pulls away a bit too.

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'cause there are is influence from the river and the flooding. Yeah, <v Speaker 5>I, I was just thinking from heavy rainstorms, you know,</v> that that's where I'm used to seeing those courts just be, you know. <v Speaker 12>Oh yeah,</v> <v Speaker 1>Yeah.</v> <v Speaker 12>Flood, we've designed the parking area, we've designed</v> and size the storm water features to over manage the parking area. So we're feeling good about the impervious cover management and the natural areas, like we said, have been sort of, will be graded just so there's this like little hump in the middle. And so water should flow off those, into those conveyance soils that work around the sides.

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So it has a system of movement for water, but there may be times under incredible rainfall that you would see standing water here. It's possible. <v Speaker 5>Okay. Thank you.</v> <v Speaker 1>Angela, what's the,</v> what's the intended programming for, for this space? How do you see this space being used once it's, once it's renovated and then made beautiful and good stormwater handling and what do you think it, you know, people are gonna do with it? <v Speaker 13>So I think people are gonna, they can just walk this area</v>

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or they can park their car and then walk back over to Grove Park. There'll be picnic areas. They can have a picnic on the lawn over here. And then we could do actually programs there. So it's kind of designed to be a flexible space for now. Yeah. <v Speaker 1>Cool. And then in terms of maintenance, you know,</v> this would just be part of parks and rec. Yeah. You know, maintenance programs. So this, this area in the middle here, would that be, would that be mode, is that, is that the intention? Yes. Okay. <v Speaker 13>Yes.</v> <v Speaker 2>Anywhere on the landscaping sheets</v>

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that's identified as Ls. Yeah. Is intended to be a, a, a more turf style lawn. <v Speaker 1>Yeah. Okay. Alright.</v> Other questions from the commission on this. Any questions from the public on this? So this is a notice of intent, so we need to close and then issue an order of conditions on this. Claire, I believe you've got a draft order of condition ready to go on this guys, or you know, folks, are we ready to, to close and then talk about an order of conditions here? All right, well if that's the intention, happy to entertain a motion to close the public hearing on this,

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if that's the pleasure of the board. <v Speaker 5>Motion to close.</v> <v Speaker 1>I'll take that. Jim, is that seconded?</v> Seconded. Second. Thank you David. Alright, any further discussion. Let's go ahead and close this. Any further discussion on that? All those in favor can indicate by saying yes. When I call your name Mike. Yes. Chris? Yes. Jeff? Yes. Jim? Yes. David? Yes. Matt? A Yes. Alright. Public hearings closed on this. Claire, let's talk about an order conditions here. <v Speaker 2>Yeah, of course. So we do start off with our standard</v> administrative information. Date of issuance will get filled in following the vote

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of the commission approved project summary, established necessary erosion control limits and or amend existing erosion control barriers at Grove Park because there will be some ex, if the timing works out as we hope, there will be some existing erosion controls still in place from the spillway removal. Construction fencing will also be installed. There is one stump that has to be ground at the multipurpose court if folks have driven by is that big. Used to be a big honk and dead tree and now is a big honk and dead stump right up at the front and remove the necessary trees at Old Town Park. Again, there's about four trees that need to come out on the north side of the river.

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Construct construction, a access entrance hold benches for reinstallation following construction demo site features including pathways and court surface grades sites that should have no, no, no, thank you. And install drainage infrastructure. My mother would be ashamed. Construct pathways and site amenities including parking, fencing, shade structure at old town install benches, picnic tables and natural path surfacing. So construct pathways that's for the asphalt laid pathways and the ramps. And then finalized grading and stabilizing vegetation

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and monitor planting areas. We've got several approved documents. The plan set that we were just looking at, the project narrative that was developed. The stormwater report from Westman Sampson and the cut and fill tables and diagrams from Westman Sampson. Findings of fact. I did write the narrative for this project. So I am gonna just tell the commission pretty much all of this is straight from, from the narrative with the small corrections for the cubic changing from cubic yards to cubic feet for the flood compensatory storage, as well as updating with

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that minor grading change that was done for the 1 0 7 1 0 8 elevation at Grove Park to ensure that we were meeting our pet storage requirement. I do summarize all of the existing degraded and proposed degraded as well as the mitigation and restoration areas for each of the sites. I do note how the project meets our storm water standards. And then just a quick summary about the work in the buffer zone and that it will, that we are permitting work within the 25 foot no disturb zone under our local bylaw. But given the proposed public benefit,

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the commission has found it appropriate along with the restoration of mitigation proposed. This is the one thing, and Jenny, I think I'm springing this one on you too, is I, I I am recommending the commission issue a five year order of conditions just with the split in the construction phasing as well as any, you know, appropriate planting survival requirements and things like that. I did just wanna make sure that there was enough time for this project to be completed without necessarily having to come back in for an extension on a town project. But if the commission would prefer three years, I can just delete this phrase.

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<v Speaker 1>I'm, I'm comfortable with five years.</v> Anybody, anybody object to that. Okay. <v Speaker 2>Okay. I'm not gonna read through our standard conditions,</v> but I will jump down to any special conditions that have been drafted. So the selected contractor shall schedule a meeting with appropriate representatives from the town of Natick with the conservation agent prior to any site work, including installation of erosion controls or, oh sorry, that was a copy and paste from the dam to review methods and means and ensure understanding of the order of condition requirements. So again, that's the, the tree protection finalization, any,

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you know, intermediate erosion controls that might be necessary after pathway removal. Tree protection shall be installed per the approved plans and the tree protection shall be reviewed at preconstruction visit noted in condition 11. So then we have the pre-construction site visit to review set erosion controls standard conditions moving through to condition 23, which is just a sort of a belt and suspenders condition, which is that the project shall provide the compensatory storage as approved on the plans and the cut and fill table. Any changes to compensatory storage provided shall be

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provided to the conservation agent for review and approval to ensure compliance with the bordering land subject to flooding performance standards. Not that we anticipate any, but always just good to have that extra language. I had mentioned this in our last hearing, but that the final landscaping plan shall be submitted for review and approval prior to installation. Right now we have sort of those generalized areas with the intended lists of species, but the plan is to finalize some of the landscaping species with the indigenous groups that we're working with as part of the construction phase. This is a condition that I did copy

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and paste from the dam removal permit because I thought it was very applicable. We, this is one of the first permits that we are issuing that impact a town park property. And so this is just the modification that we made to our standard condition about herbicide, pesticide or pesticide and fertilizer Use that it can occur in compliance with the town's vegetation management plan and yearly operating plans versus the straight prohibition that we normally do conditions for after construction.

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So following the installation of landscape plantings, a letter confirming installation of plantings and compliance with the approved plans for each parcel from the project registered landscape architect or other qualified professional shall be submitted. This letter shall be received within four weeks of plant installation. All shall shrubs and tree plantings installed shall survive to 85% of the approved number of plantings for one year following installation. Ground cover installed shall establish 100% cover within one year following installation.

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Plants that die within the first six months shall be replaced without impact on the survival timeline. Plants that are replaced between six months and one year following installation shall add an additional six months for the survival requirement following the first 12 months of monitoring and management. Oh yeah, I apologies all I did copy and paste a lot of these from the dam because it's very similar project and that one also goes. And then I did include an, an additional certificate of compliance requirement regarding a final compliance statement from the RLA on the landscape plantings. Obviously there will be a site visit that requires us

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to go out and confirm compliance, but there is a, a lot of dense landscaping proposed for this site and I think my usual tactic of going out and counting the shrubs is gonna be a little bit more difficult. So this helps cover that basis. And then finally, this is the condition that we actually developed as part of the five Auburn Street discussions that I do think should become a part of our standard conditions when it comes to riverfront area projects with mitigation and restoration, which is just the perpetual condition language per 10.585 H regarding no further

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alteration of these areas except as needed to restore or mitigate, maintain them in the restored or mitigated states. And that is the order of conditions. <v Speaker 1>Great. Questions, comments? Any additions?</v> <v Speaker 2>Jenny? Any concerns?</v> <v Speaker 1>Okay. Nope.</v> Alright. Hearing, hearing none. Happy to entertain a motion to issue this order of condition as Claire just just described. So moved I'll Okay, Chris, as a, made a motion. And Jeff, I'll take that as a second if that works for you. Sure. Alright. Any further discussion on this? Folks? All in favor indicate by saying yes. Wanna call your name?

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Mike? Yes. Chris? Yes. Jeff? Yes. Jim? Yes. David? Yes. Matt? Yes. Alright, Janet, Angela, thank you very much. You know, look forward to seeing the, the work product. Here's gonna be great. Everyone crossed their fingers for funding? Yeah, there you go. Thanks everybody. All right, thank you all. Okay. Appreciate your time. All right, so here we are. It's the end of the public hearings here. Let's push minutes to the end of the discussion. I'd like to jump over to Town Forest and Beaver activity over there.

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So Claire, why don't you tee this up. We've got a bunch of Jennings Pond folks on the, on the call here. Love to hear their input as well. But, but Claire, why don't you take it away. <v Speaker 2>Of course. So folks in, in the general business discussion</v> folder is the, the recent email request from Simone and the JPPI group. They have some concerns about the drops in water levels that they've been seeing in the big Jennings pond and are hoping to regain the commission's approval to institute the volunteer breaching of the upstream Beaver Dam location in Town Forest.

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So not the one at the Oak Street Flow levelers, but the one further into the wetland resource area. There's some photos that were also provided of the, of the rebuilt Beaver Dam in that upstream location from the volunteers. And so I know that Simone is hoping to say a few words as well, but I did just wanna note that I did request Brian Casey at Public Works install an additional weir board at the outlet of Big Jennings Pond to help reduce outflow into the Morse's pond system.

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Since that water is still moving through the flow leveler device from little Jennings Pond into Big Jennings Pond. And there are also a, per the map in the folder, there are four stormwater outfalls that contribute runoff to the little big Jennings pond water body. And I do just wanna make sure that I have an appropriate understanding of the commissions, you know, goals and intentions in this area. In regard to the Beaver management, it had been my understanding that the intention was to ensure that water is moving in a way that supports healthy ecosystems, which at this point I don't have any major concerns

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given the time of year that we are still in, you know, minor drought conditions. I, I don't have any strong concerns about the water levels at this time, but I definitely want to hear the commission's thoughts, make sure I have those intentions correct and also hear from the, the JPPI group as well. <v Speaker 1>Yeah, great. So Simone, why don't you kind of, you know,</v> let's hear from you as to what's going on and what the request is here. Thanks for being here. <v Speaker 14>Okay, thank you. Can you hear</v> <v Speaker 1>Me? Yep.</v> <v Speaker 14>Okay. Good evening everybody.</v> It's good to see everybody and see some G-G-P-P-I folks in the, in the call, and I appreciate their waiting.

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So I require, you know, after notice in the b activity in the, in the fourth I request, as Claire said, that we start, you know, earlier this season. As you, as you remember, you may remember last season we started in the fall, early October. We, we kind of agreed on a co-management protocol, you know, with the, with the group so that we could go out and not only only assess whether it was we needed to breach, and we formed a group, five people in, one of the members is in the call. And we went and, and pretty much every week in October.

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And then as the beer activity slowed down, we tapered down our visit to two weeks. And every time I report, I, I sent a report to Claire with like a date and the time who was there, which of the five members, and a photo before and after. And, and eventually we stopped after Beaver activity stop. And that was successful, of course, you know, that was after the, the, the war level dropped, you know, during the summer this year. So I took photos and I have, I sent some photos to Claire, but I also have other photos. I took photos on April 11, April 24,

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and yesterday, so roughly two weeks apart. And the, the Beaver Dam is completely up and run. It's up. And actually it has changed over these, over this month is now yesterday actually, I, I took the liberty to do a small test now going the water just from the shore, removing a couple of sticks to see what the consistency of the, of the dam was. And it's still, it is consistent already. The beavers build the wooden structure and then they fill it up with mud. And that mud is pretty much compact now.

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In fact, the, there's little water that is going through what Claire was mentioning about the, the water level. It is true that the, the water levels in general big have been pretty good. They, they slightly dropped. And I, I have like tels on my shore, like rocks and, and other tels that that can tell by the, almost by the inch, but not as significantly. The, the way it works is that we will see that much later because first, you know, from the dam to that marshland to that rivers, let's call it, that, connects the, the air, the dam to little Jennings pond.

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Then there's little Jennings pond that is connected to Big Jennings pond to the culvert on the Oak Street. And then Big Jennings pond is connected to Cy Pond at the end. So first the water will empty out from that first part right below the, the downstream from the dam into little Jennings pond. So we'll see, we don't see little Jennings pond going down yet. It has gone down a little bit. But the area before, from the dent to little Jennings pond has significantly gone down. I photograph it took yesterday. There is already the, the, the part of it, you know,

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near the shore is already mudflat. Usually the water kind of converges to the center before it, and it's already started. And eventually we'll see in a few weeks that little Jenny pond starts to empty out into big Jenny Pond where, you know, the input and output no longer balanced. And eventually then there was a cascade. So we're asking that we, we like to start, we have the green light to start doing some breaching. And again, as last year we, we demonstrated that we can assess. We're not gonna aggressively, you know, do that.

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And the idea again is, I want to reiterate, is to keep a co pacific coexistence with the beavers. So, you know, they, they build some and then we will, we'll, we'll take down some, and then they rebuild and they, we take down some this game, they will keep the flow always open. And so the beavers are there, but the flow is open and all the systems are equally have water instead of, instead of emptying everything out and then doing a catch up remedy work at the end of the season. Also, as you can see, probably, and I can send you the, the, the sequence of photos, Claire,

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the, the, the dam has grown in height and so they'll keep piling up, so it'll become more difficult to remove. And so the idea is to keep it at a dimension or at a level thinness that is still in place, but manageable at and let some water go through so that the flow will remain consistent. So again, we have, we again, and Matt was there when we opened the operations in the, in the fall, we have gained some experience. The, the, the, the roster of the group has not changed.

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It's still, you know, me, Lynn, ed, Steve and Doug who were trained last year. And so all that remains the same. And we gained some experience doing that by going heavy in terms of how to also dispose of the materials when we remove them and to keep the air clean. In fact, if you go to the, to the forest now, you'll see upstream of, we cleaned up a little bit of the, we took the, the liberty to clean up from the debris and some of the stuff that was on the shore and, and put it on the other side of the pad.

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So it's much cleaner. So we get some experience doing that. So we like to have sort of the green light to do that. And again, we, we will assess whether it's needed, when it's, when and how often it's needed as we go through the season. But we'll this, this year will like to start from the beginning of the season, sort our full season of management. <v Speaker 1>Great. Thanks Simone. So folks question, you know,</v> questions, comments, concerns. I mean, you know, we've, in the last, as Simone said, you know, last fall we gave them, you know, permission and training to do, to do this activity.

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You know, are we, are we okay with them picking back up and just playing cat and mouse or whatever the appropriate metaphor is with the beaver activity kind of throughout the spring and summer here. Do we want, you know, before we give that green light, do we want there to be kind of a demonstration of, of real, you know, kind of significant impact in little in in in Jennings pond or little Jennings Pond? What's, what's, what's the, the sense of the board here? <v Speaker 15>I, I guess I have some maybe stupid background questions.</v>

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First of all, is there, is there any cost associated with, with, you know, breaking the dam down? <v Speaker 1>This is all done by volunteers. So that's what</v> <v Speaker 15>I would say. That's what I thought. I just wanted,</v> <v Speaker 1>You know, we're not asking DPW</v> to come out, these guys go and <v Speaker 15>Good, and second of all, where is, where is,</v> I'm, I'm a little bit confused as to whether we're just trying to not let the dam get crazy outta control solid and too big, or if there's actually a water level differential, if any material amount right now. <v Speaker 2>So David,</v> this is the water level difference right now it's about a foot and a half, okay. Between the sort of little Jennings area

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and the larger wetland. And so there, there is definitely a water level shift. The water levels are not, I I don't know if folks recall last spring when I was constantly driving by route nine to monitor the water levels 'cause they were so high that it was threatening to flood. Potentially the water levels are not nearly as high as they were last spring. And that is part of the reason why, just to clarify, the beavers won't continue to build up this dam unnecessarily. They will continue to build up the dam as water starts

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to spill over it and or they hear the flow coming through it because their, their intention is not to build higher and higher and higher until they have, you know, a 20 foot deep pond. Their intention is to maintain the water levels where they have safe access in and out of their lodge, especially during freezing conditions and, and during breeding season, which is what we're sort of in right now. And so I, I do, I am absolutely here for ensuring that we have the flow of water that we're not, you know, raising up water levels so much that there's a, you know,

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four foot difference between the two. But part of what beavers do is they create and hold water-filled wetlands that are sustainable to drought conditions. And I do have concerns about over management of this area potentially impacting I, and we are on our way out of a drought, and I, with every fiber of my being, continue to hope that we are moving out of a drought as of as of this month. But my concern is that if we are continually ensuring

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that this flow is, is moving, that we may end up seeing environmental impacts that we couldn't anticipate. I don't know what those are or what those could be, or even if they will happen, I do just have a little bit of hesitation of starting to perform management activities in a time when we are heading into potentially the drier part of the year when this sort of reserved water might be more beneficial to be released later in the season if we're seeing a worsening of those drought conditions. So I I'm absolutely here

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to help facilitate whatever the commission's guidance is. Well, <v Speaker 1>I guess that, you know, the, the question from my side is</v> from an, you know, from a water, there's the water storage question that if we're in a, you know, something of a drought situation now allowing it to build up, but if we have an agreement with the abutters that that can then be relieved or released, then we would, you know, all of that water would then, you know, kind

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of really whatever time of year all of that water would then flow out. And I'm just wondering kind of ecologically, if, you know, smaller more frequent releases versus larger, you know, more dramatic releases, which one provides the kind of the best ecological benefit to, you know, I mean we are, we are in the beaver farming business, you know, I mean the beaver, we're not gonna, you know, unless we do something really dramatic, we're not gonna win this race. You know, it's really just a coexist, a peaceful coexistence kind of proposition.

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And so the question, you know, the question I'd like for us to discuss again is, is, you know, infrequent larger releases of, of water or more frequent smaller releases of water, which one accomplishes our goal of maintaining, helping ecosystems better? <v Speaker 14>Can I add something? Oh, can I add a a point to that?</v> Sure. So first of all, as you know, the bridges that we operate are done by hand and by r by, so we don't use any machinery. So it's not like, it's not like DPW comes with, you know,

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a bulldozer and removes the entire dam. So the beavers rebuild it fairly quickly or at least a few days. So the amount of water that's released does not empty out what's upstream. Of course it just allows some, like, it's, it's a small, you know, release as you said before, there is some impact that that will happen. It's just a matter, it's not a matter of if mad is a matter of when in fact it has already started to happen. And again, I can, if you even, for example, the, the ability to share the screen, I can show you a photo I took yesterday

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of the downstream part of the, of that stream that it's already a mud flood. So that will, there's an environmental impact there. There's some last year, I can give you an example. When we operated the bridge in, you know, in October November, it was the first time to date I think, I don't know when, when it was before that the swans were able actually to swim all the way up above the, above the dam. And I remember we, we were there when we saw them. So again, there is a, there is a,

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<v Speaker 2>I do just wanna note that it's the,</v> the swans do ac have access, they, you know, are very capable of walking and flying over the beaver dam. I don't necessarily think that the wildlife is a, is a hugely impacted by the beaver dam. But I, I again just wanna note that there are a lot of benefits that come from the ponds that the beavers create with those higher water levels. And I, I don't wanna discount the benefits of that. And, and so I did make you give you the ability to share your screen. So you should be able to do that if you'd like. <v Speaker 14>And again, yeah, the idea is not to completely, to remove,</v>

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I mean the, the water will remain, it will be more instead of just emptying everything out and then rebuilding up, the idea is to keep it more, well <v Speaker 2>That is, I think a, a the point is</v> that natural wetland systems don't necessarily have consistent water levels. There is a process of drying and saturation and inundation that wetlands experience as, as a natural ecological cycle. So again, it's just this balance of human intervention in a natural system. Where is it having the benefits and where is it potentially having impacts?

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<v Speaker 1>Right. And back to back to my question that I'd like</v> to hear other's thoughts on is, you know, in terms of our, our charge is less frequent, larger releases. Is there an advantage to that versus more frequent smaller releases recognizing that, you know, they're a, a fair bit of water will con, you know, by the time the beavers get back in action, you know, these, these beavers are getting a good workout, they're gonna be healthy and well exercised. You know, they will be replacing whatever it is in

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fairly short order. So which, which one do we as a commission? And if there's data out there that could support this from a scientific perspective, I'd love to hear that. Which one would be, you know, is is more consistent with our charge as a commission to maintain the health and ecosystem. I don't know the answer to it personally. I'd like to, if anyone else has an answer to that, because I think that's fundamentally the question here. When we boil it all down, you know, our charge, I think we all agree our charge is to maintain a health ecosystem. Which one's better?

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<v Speaker 14>Let me show the, the picture that I mentioned.</v> So this is the, can you see this? So this is the, the photo that I took yesterday of the dam, this was two weeks before, and this was two weeks prior. So you can see how, yeah, it's grown and, and, and this is actually yesterday as I said, I would say 30, 40 yards downstream from the dam. As you can see, this is the shore right here. The, the, the past this tree,

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it's already empty. So the water is, it's more to the center where this part which had water two, three weeks ago now has not water. And if you go in a week or two, unless we have some rain, you will see all these will be pretty much mud flat and there'll be little water. So there's an impact on that as well. Right. <v Speaker 1>Great. Thank you Simone. So folks, what do you think?</v> I mean, you know, and, and if it's a wash, you know, if there's no demonstrable ecological benefit, then we can have a conversation

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around what makes the most sense. And because if people are gonna be going out there and removing the dam anyway, is it, it's probably safer for them if they're doing it more frequently with smaller releases. I mean this is just the, you know, the trade offs that we need to think about. So. <v Speaker 9>Well, I mean, you know,</v> <v Speaker 1>Chris, go</v> <v Speaker 9>Ahead.</v> It's interesting because I, I what you're encapsulating is kind of the paradox that we have to kind of in that thin line that we have to run being onerous, but still safeguarding nature, you know, and still allowing our community to, to thrive around wetlands.

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But yeah, I mean our, our, our mandate is to protect them and get them to normal function as possible and I think <v Speaker 1>Protect them, meaning the resource areas.</v> <v Speaker 9>Yeah, yeah, yeah.</v> I mean, I, and I know that's not always popular and I, I I think that's where we have to run that fine line of trying to balance community need and, and the protection of the wetlands. But I think I, I would champion what Claire's saying is that I think that there's a normalcy to their, to the system and to the way, you know, they, they maintain

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ponding for, you know, drought regions or drought periods and I, I, I would wanna be sensitive to that. <v Speaker 1>Good. Other thought?</v> <v Speaker 9>You're muted, Claire.</v> <v Speaker 2>I did just find a resource that I'm gonna put in the chat.</v> I have not had an opportunity to look at this at all. Obviously I just did a quick Google search, but I, I am also happy to, maybe if we pause this conversation till our next meeting, I can take a look at this and do a little bit more research about the science behind it all. I, I'm happy to do that. This is the Fish and Wildlife Service.

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They've produ produced the updated Beaver Restoration guidebook in 2023 that talks about working with beavers in these sort of wetland areas where there's conflicts. So I, it definitely an opportunity for me to learn some more as well. <v Speaker 1>That could be the data data set that</v> and really informs the conversation. Micah. Yeah, I see you came off on mute. <v Speaker 10>Yeah, I I would just, I would support Chris's approach</v> and Claire, what they've said so far, you know, know, I, I'm familiar with Pollock in, in that edition of, of the Beaver Restoration Guide.

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He's, Pollock has written extensively on that subject that goes back, you know, you know, back to the early two thousands honestly. So, you know, I, my understanding of it is, you know, I I guess I come from it maybe just from a little bit different perspective professionally is, you know, it's, it's really around wetland function. That's what I feel is, is if what my responsibility is here in, in the community and,

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and that I would, I would say that infrequent breaches would be likely better. And I, I, I can't say this without, you know, finding a citation, but I, I would say that Pollock would agree with that, that would just be my guess than, than doing more frequent breaches is that infrequent breaches would be better for wetland function. And, and, and you know, the beavers have not really, I know that everybody focuses on the beaver, but the beaver isn't the conversation here. It's about the functioning of this wetland system.

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And, and I know that's difficult for folks to, to understand because my backyard isn't being flooded by this, you know, I I, I do get that. I, I've lived by Jennings Pond for most of my 56 years. I've used that pond quite frequently as a youth and into my adult years. I re I recognize the importance of that system and I rec, I recognize the importance of the aesthetics as well as the other things that we benefit from that functioning system, which is stormwater capacity. So, you know, I, I do, I do see it, it's,

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I don't necessarily maybe see it as a fine line. I just see it as a, a way to, you know, balance what we, what we can here and balance the human need, which in some cases this is gonna fall outside of our jurisdiction. It's a public health and decision on some of this. And then there's some of this that falls within our purview, which is what we're talking about today, which is about, you know, breaching dams and so forth. But eventually, you know, there's a potential

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that this may come out of our responsibility and it has to go to a higher, you know, a maybe not a higher level, but a different level of government here in the sense if there's public health related issues, Mike, correct. Safety. Yeah. Flooding public, yeah. Public health, safety, et cetera. And, you know, and that, and I think that, you know, that should be something to, to think, you know, hard and long on, not, not here, not us, but you know, the community and, and the folks that are directly impacted by this situation, you know, anyways, that,

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that's, that's kind of where I am mentally is is that in infrequent would seem to be the, you know, my perspective and at least my understanding of at least some of the science I have read, I haven't read the, the 2023 or 24 version of that document. But the one from 2017 would indicate breaching and would infrequent breaching would, would lend itself to better wetland function. <v Speaker 1>Okay. Other, other questions</v> or thoughts on this? Yeah, Jim? <v Speaker 5>Yeah, I, I I'm just curious about the,</v>

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the safety aspect when we're talking about it. It sounds like the volunteers have a concern that the, the dam will get more, I don't want put the term is robust over time, and that a quote, an infrequent breach maybe, you know, is, is a much more difficult thing for this volunteer group to do versus, you know, I, I, I don't know, a, a smaller f frequent thing of just breaking a little bit of the dam. So I'm just curious about that.

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Like, is that, that seems to, I thought that was the main crux of the issue. I, I know there's, you know, you're worried about the marsh turning to all mud or whatever, but it sounds like there was a safety concern here about the, the volunteers. <v Speaker 1>I think I, I think I was the one who brought that up,</v> you know, around the, I I think I was the one who mentioned that, but that's, you know, okay, that's a, that's <v Speaker 2>The public health and safety</v> that Mike was mentioning is the, essentially the qualifications for an emergency certification where there is a, a threat to public health and safety, either from, so previously we permitted DPW to breach that dam

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because the water levels were so high, they threatened to flood route nine, which is a public safety emergency. And I think another example from a health perspective was if there was a positive mosquito test in the little Jennings pond area for something like EE or West Nile, Lord forbid nothing has happened currently. But if that would happen, that would be something that would, you know, pate a, a dam breach to help move water through and flush that system. But those are something that has to be essentially determined and requested by another governmental agency

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is who determines that. <v Speaker 1>So here's here, here's my,</v> sorry, Jim, please finish. Well, <v Speaker 5>I was just saying, I thought the email talked about the,</v> the, the JPPI folks were concerned about, okay, you know, hey, that, how, how hard is it gonna be the longer we wait, how hard is it gonna be to, you know, do any type of breach? <v Speaker 2>Well, so we can always organize a larger volunteer workday</v> if there's additional volunteers needed, or we can always have DP W'S assistance as well through either mechanical or, or just extra hands if they're available

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<v Speaker 1>Here.</v> Here's my suggestion, and that is that why don't we, why don't we take this resource, Claire, that you just provided? Yes. And all of us go, this is our bedside reading for the next two weeks, okay. Until the 21st is to sit and go through that and familiarize ourselves. And this isn't the only place in town where, where we have issues like this. And so I think to really, you know, maybe answer directly some of the questions we have around, you know, less frequent, more frequent features and all that. I think the other thing that we should spend some time thinking about is, you know, if, if we feel like we want to manage kind

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of the frequency of the breaches, maybe it would be to come up with some guidelines around when is a breach appropriate? You know, for example, if the water level's on Jennings Pond drop to a certain level, they're a foot below or what whatever we come up with whatever the, the metric is. But we come up with a, some real clear guidance so that, you know, the JPPI folks kind of know what the deal is and, and, and, you know, we can just lay out the parameters of this relationship here. You know, I think we're all in agreement that there are circumstances where a breach is appropriate.

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The question is how often is that, you know, do, I mean the other end of the spectrum is that we get really aggressive and take out the beavers, you know, and have the hunters in there all the time and just eliminate 'em completely from the equation. I don't think that's, that's not what we're talking about, you know, so then the question is what's the appropriate beaver farming methodology that we have, you know, so that we can, we all know what the, what the, what the ground rules are, you know, I think it would just benefit us to have some clarity around that. <v Speaker 10>Can I ask you a question? I'm sorry. You, please go ahead.</v> Oh, go ahead, Claire.

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The one question I have is, is there a way that we could get drought data in advance of its public release? Is there any, you know, with with, <v Speaker 2>I can reach out the,</v> <v Speaker 10>I'm not trying to stir up trouble</v> or anything, but, you know, obviously breaches during a, during extensive droughts probably wouldn't be a, a really advisable process, I'm guessing. I, yeah, I haven't seen the, again, the science has to drive that answer, but, you know, I'm just thinking through like the guardrails, you know, I, I'm not against the damn breach at this point, and I,

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and I don't think I'd ever approach it as being anti dam breaching. It's, I think, you know, can we, can we approach it in a way that's more aligned with, with the balance, I guess, that we're trying to reach here? Thanks, <v Speaker 2>Mike.</v> I don't know if I can get it before release, but at the very least, the drought advisory committee will have met again before our meeting on the 21st. So we will have at least an additional month of data and consideration to inform the <v Speaker 1>Discussion at the next meeting.</v>

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And that could be part of the parameters that we discuss, you know, that under, you know, when we're under drought condition X, you know, then we don't breach, you know, and then once we leave that, you know, I would like for us, just for the purposes of clarity, so we've got some, some rigor and methodology behind this that we've got clarity around, around when our, when our breach is appropriate, at what point, and again, it could be water levels in the downstream at Little Jennings, it could be square footage of exposed soil in little Jennings or whatever. It's, it just gives us some metrics and some information.

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Certainly drought conditions would inform that as well, you know, so <v Speaker 14>Yeah, if I can thing like, first of all, in response</v> to Mike to, well, having lived nearby Jen Bond, you're probably aware that this is a new situation from 2022. So gen, the gens bond ecosystem has changed already because of this, of the beavers. It has always been in balance. Now it has it, it goes off balance and, and on and off. So this has created a disruption. And, and I find that actually the, okay, you know, the,

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the, the breaching has helped. There was also the, the beaver deceiver that was installed in Little Jennings bond that's working very well. So there has been already some intervention made. And so that has helped, as Matt said before, one of the benefits of having the group doing that has been, you know, I and others, we have been adamant to ask the neighbors, please don't go out there and, and, and, and do the re you know, remove, you know, the do your own breaching. And, but people do.

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And, and so one of the benefits has been that having this, people have stopped doing whoever it was, stopped doing that because now there's a, there's a authorized group that does that. So that's kind of an unintended benefit from, in terms of the public safety that g that Jim was referring to as fact, you know, you, as I said before, this is the fact that the, the water levels will drop and it will expose the, the bottom with, with the increase in mosquitoes, it is going to happen. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. So again, we're not talking about going there

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and aggressively starting to breach every day, and this is not what we're talking about. Absolutely. And the, you know, and the amount of work that is done is, you know, at a scale that is, you know, small enough that it's not a great impact, right? So not not releasing the entire amount of water that's above the, the, the dam, but just creating, you know, some flow, again, like Mike was saying, keeping that balance instead of allowing to go way off balance and then having to catch up kind of this up and down. <v Speaker 1>So let's, you know, I think</v>

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<v Speaker 14>What, I'm sorry.</v> So one last point that from Matt, in terms of metrics, that's an interesting discussion. I mean, there's so many parameters that, that affect that, so I don't know what could be, plus things are syncing, so it's changing. I mean, from experience from last year, I have to say that we, as we're seeing, you know, we're looking at the PE people take their, their dogs and go every day. So we're having visual assessment of what's, what's going on. And so we decided based it, based on what it looked like, and again, we ended up going about once a week,

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and then as things started to slow down, we tapered it down to every two weeks at some point said, we don't need to go this week. And so it's like, it's still going. And so it is naturally, so we found a way to assess it, you know, in a way that it will not be too disruptive, but not ineffective, if that makes sense. And so, okay, that's what we're looking for. Again, we don't know. <v Speaker 1>Yeah, so I think that, you know, what,</v> where we're coming out right now is to have, you know, I'd, I'd suggest that we all take this beaver, this, this manual,

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you know, the Beaver manual and kind of go through it, think about the questions that we've got on all this, and then let's reconvene in two weeks time and have this as an agenda item and pick this conversation back up so that we all, we all have clarity in terms of what our, you know, what our collective relationship is with the beaver population in this part of n and also what our relationship, you know, between the ComCom and, and the JPPI folks are. And so it just, everyone knows what to expect there. So I don't, I don't think we're prepared to come

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to an answer, a DA definitive answer here this evening, but I'd like for us to do a little bit of homework, do some discussions. I'd be, I would certainly invite you guys, you know, Simone, you and your, and your, your, your colleagues to, to come back and, and absolutely participate in that conversation. You know, I think we've all got some questions that we need to address. So let's, let's yes, punt this for two weeks, but I think we can, we can get some information that'll really help inform the conversation between now and then. Okay, sure. <v Speaker 16>I might just add one thing. Of course, yeah.</v> My name is Tim Lof. I, I own the house on 57 Oak Street,

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which is overlooking basically the Oak Street and, and where and where the, where the particular column goes and where the water comes through. Yeah. So I, I can actually, I can actually judge day by day how, which water's going through there, which is interesting. But I just wanted to mention that there is also a beaver dam in Big Jennings pond and not a big dam, I'm sorry, not a beaver dam. A a beaver lodge in big Jens pond. And I think that was somewhat disadvantaged last year, you know, when the water level got so low, I don't know what was going on with the beaver

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that I wasn't pay able to pay attention, but I was able to basically canoe over to where it is. It's, it's basically on the north, northwestern, northeastern side of the pond, small beaver dam there as well. And I know it was active as of last year, I don't know, but it just, it just throw sort, sort of throw something else into the picture, which is, you know, thinking about, you know, okay, wait, right. It's fine. The, you know, the, the, the upstream part of it, but we also have a downstream potential of, of affecting some wildlife here.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Thanks for complicating things. No,</v> <v Speaker 16>Yeah, I know. I'm sorry.</v> <v Speaker 1>No, all good. So let's, you know,</v> let's pick this up in two weeks. You know, really appreciate the constructive engagement on all parts here. Let's, you know, and I think we're all, we all, you know, we're all coming at this with, with good intentions, you know, and, and, and, and commitment to the community there. So let's, let's pick this up in two weeks time and, you know, continue the conversation commission our homework is to be clear link there. It's only, it's only 200 pages, it hundred 28 pages. So <v Speaker 2>I will send it out by email</v>

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and I will also prepare a summary for the May 21st agenda. <v Speaker 1>That's what I did. I</v> <v Speaker 17>Just, I just ran it to chat.</v> <v Speaker 1>Oh, I was just gonna say that on it.</v> One of the, one of the, one of the beauties of ai, right? Anyway, so, you know, no ai, this is a no AI commission. We all have to read things completely and I tell my students that all the time anyway, so let's do that. So, you know, if that's okay with you guys, you know, thanks for coming. Let's, let's pick this back up in two weeks time and we'll, we'll continue the conversation then. Alright. Thank you. All right, thank you guys. Appreciate you. Thanks. Alright,

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max, gimme one second. I think the next thing we have here is the, I mean, let's just jump to metal detecting in Town Forest. I'm looking forward to this one all night and I, and I see Mr. Burke on the call. Welcome Kevin. <v Speaker 2>Feel free to unmute yourself.</v> <v Speaker 17>Okay. Hello guys.</v> <v Speaker 1>Hey guys. So, so what's going on?</v> <v Speaker 17>So I'm a local metal detector, not very, I guess local.</v> I'm from Dham, so, you know, it's been a hobby. So I don't know how familiar you guys are with metal detecting,

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but, you know, so Yeah, yeah, we'll, we'll get it. Go for it. Do you, do you want me to just go right into it? Yeah, all, yeah, so basically that's how I'm gonna look like, you know, what I'm basically looking for is objects that are dropped by human beings on the ground in the, in the history present, you know, whatever. So it's obviously mostly gonna be trash that I'm gonna be finding. It's usually how it goes with metal teching. It's kind of like treasure hunt thing. But yeah, so, so what I guess I'll, I'll be looking

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for is it's gonna be mostly trash. So I guess we'll be cleaning up. This is obviously in the ground so you can't see it. It's not visible trash, so it's not something that, you know, you're gonna see. So I'm cleaning up kind of the invisible stuff in the ground, and what I'm hoping for is buttons, buckles, coins, things that have some history in 'em that could show the history of the, the, the, the site, the property. So kind of a history with me, I I, I like to do this in, in private property, so I would ask the homeowner

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for permission to metal detect on their old home, historic home, et cetera. And, you know, yeah. So kind of moving on to, to some parks, and I've been asking towns here and there for permissions on kind of more historic areas. This is, we'll, we'll talk about this, this park, but it's not, it's kind of a, a gamble for me in terms of finding things, but we can move on to, to what exactly I'll be doing. So, you know, you use a metal detector

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and you can't, you, you detect and find the object in the ground, but you can't really see it until obviously you dig for it, you get a sense of, of basically, you know, a piece of aluminum will, will, will ring up differently. So there's numbers that kind of indicate what you could find in the ground. And I, I, I like to dig it all so, you know, we'll, we'll I'll, I'll, I'll kind of, everything that brings up except iron, there is a lot of iron in the ground from past buildings, so I won't be detecting for iron.

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Basically my metal detector kind of cancels that out and looks for all the aluminum, you know, brass and, you know, silver for coins and, and gold for rings, which, you know, won't happen. But yeah. So what, what is it, once I've, I've pinpointed directly what the, where the object is. What I'll be doing is I'll be, you know, digging it in the ground and there's a method for this to, to kind of keep it, you know, aesthetically appealing

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and also safe for the grass. You know, I won't be, you know, digging in the ground kind of aimlessly. So you, you pinpoint it, you dig a plug, it's kind of, it's like golf, golf holes. So you'd, you'd kind of plug the, the hole, take the small object. Obviously there's no big objects that I'll be detecting for. Usually the detector just ignores those. So, you know, you, you, you get this object off the ground, which my detector also has a max depth of, of detection

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of seven inches down. So this plug will be about seven maximum. It could be an inch deep, it could be a lot smaller of a plug depending on how, how I know how well I know where, where this object is and how deep it is in the ground. And this pug would just be covered back up once this object is found and then where exactly I will be detecting. So with metal detecting, you can't, you can't go in overgrown areas. So what I'll be doing is I'll be keeping on the paths and,

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and hoping that there's some history in the, in these paths that I'm detecting on. So you just go on the paths and, and grassy areas is basically what I, what, you know, the best place to look for. So you, you can't really go in the wooded areas. You can't, you can't swing your, your detector in these, in these areas. And yeah. And then the last slide is just some things I've found. Some things were in Cape Cod, a lot of colonial things, which I doubt based off the history of this area, I will find. But, you know, some historical houses is, is cool stuff,

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you know, in terms of me, it's a nice hobby. It's not like I'm looking for expensive treasure or treasure chest, you know? And the other thing is, if you guys want, if the Historical Society of Natick wants it or, or you guys want it, I am happy to donate anything of any of my findings that have like some significance, you know, I just appear to do this to find the history in the ground, you know. So yeah, if you guys have any questions, let me know.

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'cause that is a short, you know, a short kind of description of what I'm trying to do. <v Speaker 1>I appreciate that, Kevin. Thank you. Yeah.</v> Questions, questions for Kevin on this? What he's, what he's asking to do? <v Speaker 9>I, I have a question.</v> So I, I have a lot of experience with electrical magnetic tools used for geophysics, but I, I have zero experience with handheld consumer products. When you say it's only detecting to seven inches, the larger the object is, the higher the return. And so sometimes a deeper object would be detectable

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at a higher level. Yeah. Or at a lower level detection. Yeah, absolutely. So are you saying that you wouldn't dig below say, seven inches? Yeah, <v Speaker 17>Exactly. Yeah. You know,</v> <v Speaker 9>Even if you got a detection,</v> it would stop at seven inches. <v Speaker 17>Yeah. Yeah. So a lot</v> of the times those, those deeper signals are, are in false. So once I dig this plug, and I realize this is a, a very, and I use this other, I should have shown it a pin pointer. So it's a, a mini metal detector that will pinpoint kind

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of generally where in this hole this object is because, you know, you can't, it'll be dirty, you know, so usually the, it's, it's kind of a false thing where large, very large pieces of iron I've had issues with where it's like, you, you know, you, you, you realize as you're, you've dug, you've dug this plug that it's too deep and, and it's not something you're looking for. It's this big piece of iron that you, if you take out, you know, it'll cause a mess. So, yeah. So, but, but yes, that is correct.

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It'll, it does depend on the size of the object, but a lot of the times with the detector, you can determine basically the area that this object is being detected at. So if it's a large area, you know, you're gonna know it's deeper based on, <v Speaker 9>You know.</v> Yeah. Does it give you a dipole where you Yeah. You, you see the absence of the magnetic field? Yep, <v Speaker 17>Yep, yep.</v> <v Speaker 9>That's cool. I love physics. Yeah.</v> I mean, I, I would champion some, some opportunity since it's on public land to at least get a take with the historical society.

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You know, I think that that would be just our community minded goal. <v Speaker 2>Yeah. I can absolutely connect Kevin with Nikki,</v> do the historical society. <v Speaker 1>Why don't we do this? I mean, Claire, you know,</v> 'cause that would be my concern as well, is just, I mean, you know, it, it, it's two things. I mean, one Kevin is you've addressed somewhat, and that's around, you know, what we don't want is to, like, in the meadow where there's been the town forest meadow, where there's been a lot of plant restoration work going on, if all of a sudden a whole bunch of divots are appearing and all that, that would cause some consternation.

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And so, you know, I'd wanna keep an eye on that. And, you know, if, if we, if we agree to this, you know, to have that be your charge is that, you know, kind of no trace detecting as you've described, but to really make sure that happens in, in practice, but also to Claire, I think, I mean, if, if you could, in all of your spare time, if you could reach out to the historical society and just float this and just, you know, get their gut reaction to this so that we can just make sure that we're, we're staying that, you know, any permission we grant would be

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consistent with their objectives. I don't wanna undermine any of their goals here. <v Speaker 9>We should. I, I, I hate, I hate to go there, here,</v> but this is what I have to deal with sometimes in my work is tribal claims as well. And those sites are often secret. They're not, they're ma not made public, and only the tribes are privy to the exact location of some of the historical locations for settlements. <v Speaker 2>I can certainly reach out to my contacts with the,</v> the Natick and the has misco nim to confirm. Not that they would tell me, but just to get their, you know, two sentence

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<v Speaker 9>Yeah. They</v> <v Speaker 2>Would give this particular situation</v> <v Speaker 9>Yeah. You's proposing. Yeah.</v> <v Speaker 1>Yeah. Just, I, I, I think that's a great idea.</v> You know, that's, you know, no, no offense, Kevin, but if you're digging up native grave sites, that would be a real bummer. <v Speaker 2>I actually know an archeologist who's a member</v> of the Hasan and Meco tribe, so he should have a pretty good idea of, of where those areas are located. <v Speaker 1>So if you could talk to</v> <v Speaker 9>Tribe's got one,</v> <v Speaker 1>Right?</v> If you could talk to them, talk to the Historical Society and just do that. And Kevin, if you could hold, you know, hold off, you know, we can report back in a couple weeks at our next meeting as

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to what's being found, you know, and then we go from there. If that's all <v Speaker 2>Rightly. I was gonna say if</v> <v Speaker 9>Absolutely.</v> <v Speaker 2>Yeah. If both of those organizations are totally on board</v> with Kevin's activity, is the commission comfortable with me giving him approval prior to our next meeting and reporting back to you all? Or do we definitely wanna have a conversation at the next meeting? <v Speaker 1>I'm open to the collective mindset here.</v> <v Speaker 10>Yeah. I'd like a little bit more details about, you know,</v> what are we authorizing, is it gonna be a specific day? How many days a year? Is it specific, specific hours? Is this a permit?

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<v Speaker 2>Certainly be</v> <v Speaker 9>Where,</v> and do we have to give him paperwork, permission paperwork? And he's definitely gonna be challenged by some people in the community. So <v Speaker 1>Some, someone would say something to him.</v> <v Speaker 2>So I also check in with town council.</v> <v Speaker 9>Yeah.</v> <v Speaker 1>Okay. Well, well, let's,</v> <v Speaker 10>Yeah, yeah, I just, I, that's my, that's</v> where my brain goes is, you know, we, we say yes to, not that we say yes, but you know what I mean? We, we issue auth authorization and then there's, you know, somebody posts something on their Instagram and next thing you know, there's 800 metal detectors

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out in the town Forest. So, you know, I'd like some guardrails. I'd like to know, you know, what we're authorizing with this conversation if, if we are authorizing anything and, and then move forward in a very, I think deliberate and thoughtful way. <v Speaker 1>Yeah. Good, good.</v> <v Speaker 9>Yeah. You definitely don't want it</v> to become a carp blanc to the community. Yeah. <v Speaker 2>Yeah. I, I think what actually maybe makes the most sense</v> if, if the Historical society is on board with that is Kevin, maybe it's almost a project in partnership

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with the na Historical Society that's being approved at this specific location. So it's not a carte blanche to every metal detector who's hoping to go out there. It's, you know, this is a specific project that's being done, and obviously maybe there's, there's no specific, you know, destination or, or thing that we're looking to find, but it's an, an ongoing investigation of potential historical resources at Town Forest. <v Speaker 17>Yeah. And I think, yeah, I, I, sorry, go ahead.</v> <v Speaker 15>I think, Mike, your, your point is a good one.</v> If so, Kevin, first of all, I, I respect, I think we respect the fact

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that you've come in and asked, right? Because other people won't do that. So Yeah, we may want to limit it. 'cause if you're out there, you know, every week for months on end, other people are just gonna do the same thing. And that we don't want that. <v Speaker 1>So, so Claire's got some, some</v> con some conversations to have. Let's, you know, and Claire, I, I think what we're also hearing is that based on what you learn Yep. Let's come back and talk about it one more time. Sounds like it. Just to make, you know, just to make sure we're all on board with whatever direction this goes. And Kevin, you're welcome to join us in a couple weeks time, Claire, share, share what you know as you get it, just

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so we can kind of ingest it and process it. Absolutely. Show, show up with that and, and let's get back together in a couple weeks, Kevin, and we'll continue the conversation if that works for you. <v Speaker 17>Okay. Yeah, that works. Perfect.</v> Just one last, one last thing. This, this most likely will de be a one day thing. If you wanna let the, the historical society or you guys know, I'm not looking to, to search there, you know, usually how every square inch Yeah. You know, you're not looking for every square inch. You kind of get a, an idea of the things you find how modern they are. Even pull tabs, you know, from, from cans you will,

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you'll realize like, this is like a, a like a new area, relatively, or you know, old. So <v Speaker 1>That's fair.</v> Okay. Alright, well let's pick this up in two weeks. Kevin, thank you. Appreciate your time and thanks Matt. We'll, we'll circle back. Alright. Alright. We've got some minutes to approve from the 20th and then we Good. Great. Got that from, from Jeff. Any, someone wanna make a motion to approve the minutes from November 20th? So moved. That was you, Jeff? Yes, it was great. All right.

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Is that seconded? <v Speaker 15>Second.</v> <v Speaker 1>Thank you Chris.</v> Any further discussion on that? All is in favor, Mike? Yes. Chris? Yes. Jeff? Yes. Jim? Yes. David? Yes. Matt? Yes. All right. That's done. And then last thing on the agenda is the MWRA letter. So Claire, where are we going with this? I mean, this is another Yes, it, another iteration. MWRA came back with a weaker than ideal desired plan for CSO. Why don't you talk us through this?

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<v Speaker 2>Oh, of course. So the commission might have seen CRWA sent</v> it to the General ComCom email as well. But CRWA is reaching out to a number of organizations and, and municipal boards throughout the state or throughout the Charlie River Watershed who could potentially provide a, a letter to specifically Governor Healy regarding the recently voted MWRA proposal regarding combined sewer overflow management in the sort of Charles River Boston Harbor area. And so MWRA, if folks recall,

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we had submitted a letter of support for the sort of rejection of the proposed plan to, and, you know, support for the elimination of CSOs within the Charles River watershed. MWRA voted to approve something that was less stringent, and while it may not result in increased combined sewer overflows, it, it will certainly result in a slowing of the removal of combined sewer overflows from this area. And that plan does need to be approved through a public NEPA process as well as at, at the state level.

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And so the CRWA has provided this template letter. If the commission feels they would like to sign on and send it to Governor Healy and, and the CC'd representatives, the lieutenant governor and the governor, and the DEP commissioner, the, the letter is fairly standard. I have no, you know, strong concerns about the language that's being proposed because the commission already signed on to the original CRWA proposal. I don't think it's in conflict with some

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of the statements we've made in the past, but if the commission has any edits they would like to make with the letter, any concerns about the letter, they don't wanna submit the letter. It, it is just an opportunity for the commission to be again, involved in, in advocacy at the state level regarding wetlands and, and wetlands protection. <v Speaker 1>Would this, would this letter go out under,</v> under my signature or the, would it be n Conservation Commission? How would we frame this? <v Speaker 2>I I would imagine this would be a combined signature from</v> the Natick Conservation Commission. So, which would essentially result in me putting each of your individual signatures on this letter.

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So all the folks who are here tonight voting, I would put your signatures underneath. It'd say sincerely the Nat Conservation Commission with the six signatures. <v Speaker 1>Okay.</v> <v Speaker 9>Does this remove the grandfather clause</v> for C-S-O-I-I, <v Speaker 2>I would have to go back.</v> It's been a moment, moment since I reviewed the actual proposal that they voted to approve. 'cause they voted to approve it at the, I wanna say like mid-March. So I'd have to go back and double check the language. But I believe that it, it doesn't remove the grandfather, but it also doesn't require the folks who are grandfathered

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to take any additional actions. If I'm remembering correctly. I don't know if there's any of the other commissioners who have been following this. Chris, I can also follow up by email with some I have notes in my office. Yeah, yeah. Sorry, <v Speaker 1>I, yeah, the only question I had was whether it's,</v> if you scroll up just a little bit. Yes. There, right here. So it allows permanent sewage dumping and I'd, I'd have to go back and review it myself as to whether what MWRA approved was in perpetuity. Also up in the first bullet point where it says permanent is, is that what MWRA approved was in perpetuity? They could. So this

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<v Speaker 2>Permanently in the last one is, is advocating</v> for a remote more robust, so <v Speaker 1>Leave, leave that.</v> Leave that one leave end. Yeah, that's, yeah. Leave, leave that one. It's more the first one. I just wanna make sure that we're factual. <v Speaker 2>Correct. Correct. And that's what I also can't</v> recall off the top of my head. So I'm happy to confirm with the commission, this doesn't have any specific timeline to be submitted. 'cause it's still making its way up to the offices. But if the commission would like, I can confirm that and either, you know, edit this sentence as is appropriate or we can discuss it again at the next meeting as well.

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I can make some appropriate edits for the commission to review. <v Speaker 1>Yeah. The only other thing I, you know, and,</v> and if this is a template letter, the only other thing I'd question is, and again, in the first bullet point is where you say denounce. Yes. Yeah. You <v Speaker 2>Could certainly soften that language.</v> <v Speaker 1>I would just say reject, reject,</v> oppose, oppose, you know, <v Speaker 2>Oppose is the proper word. This</v> <v Speaker 1>Ev v Yeah.</v> <v Speaker 2>Disavow. Oh, that's,</v> that's might be harsher than denounce. I think <v Speaker 1>I'm, I'm not very tactful.</v> Yeah, right. Exactly. You've earned it, Chris. Okay. So are are our folks, I mean, with, with the,

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just the, the, the check on that permanent language or is, are people okay with Claire sending this out as a letter from the Native Conservation Commission with us as, as human beings on that commission to, to put that in there? Is that okay? Sure. Yes, sure. All right. Good. Do it Claire. <v Speaker 2>Great. And just two quick other update three actually we</v> had the pre-bid meeting for the pick pond, connector boardwalk on Tuesday this week. We did only have one firm in attendance, but the other firm that I am most hoping will

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submit a quote has already been to the site. 'cause they're the ones who helped with the price quoting for construction. But we do have 15 bid spec requests, so I don't think that we are gonna have any issues with getting bids on the project. The bid closes on the 15th, so I will have an update for the commission at the meeting on the 21st. That was one thing that I did wanna check in with the commission about is would you guys like a final say in the contractor selected, or are you comfortable with Kyle and I and the various procurement laws surrounding lowest

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qualified bidder making a selection? I would say I would review all the bids with folks, but just in terms of timeline of, of selection and, and sending notice to contractors, <v Speaker 9>Yeah, that's kind of standard practice. Right.</v> <v Speaker 1>Yeah. I'm okay with you making the call on that.</v> <v Speaker 2>I just wanted to confirm 'cause it,</v> you guys aren't the landowners. That's, and the second thing is the veterans housing proposal. I had meant to have an actual discussion item about this, but I, I had sent out the call at the last meeting that if folks had any major concerns or comments or questions about that Veterans housing proposal

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for the Henry Wilson parcel, please send them my way so I can compile some notes to get back to Ganesh. In general, it seems like the commission is open to Veterans housing in this area with obviously a strong consideration to the article 97 requirements and the project's ability to comply with those. <v Speaker 1>I think there's a lot of, you know, there, there's a lot</v> of devil in the details here. I mean, for me personally, in principle, I am in favor of the project if the details can be worked out. I mean, if, if we can preserve, for me personally, if we can preserve a large chunk

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of the Johnson School property in exchange for the land that is being proposed at the Henry Wilson site. That's something I'm really open to that conversation. Jeff, I'm certainly sensitive to your concerns that you stated last time around. You know, do we want to, you know, kind of hog tie folks will hog try the discussion around Johnson School? I mean, personally I want to see all of, i I, you know, I'd like to see no additional coverage of the Johnson School site and to have the entire site be protected. You know, that, you know, outside of what's currently a building, and we may have different opinions

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about that and that's okay. My personal opinion is that if we could, I, I'd go even a little further in the, in the sense that if we could kind of present an option with the veterans housing, have that be so appealing and in exchange we do prevent any further development on Johnson School. I'd take that personally. I I, I like that outcome. <v Speaker 15>I, I think, I think there may be leverage</v> there. I think we could, <v Speaker 1>I think there is leverage there</v> and I'm, I'm in favor of using that <v Speaker 15>Leverage and, and, and I'm actually very supportive</v> of this veteran's housing idea. I just like the concept. I've taken a look at the, you know,

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the Wilson site and I'd love it if we could use this as leverage Jeff to make the most out of the Johnson school site. <v Speaker 2>Okay. So I will, what I will do is I will compile my</v> notes from last week's discussion and, and tonight send them around to the commission by the end of this week. And that way if folks have any additional thoughts that they wanna add on, you can respond to the email and I will get those over to ESH at the end of next week. And the last thing that I need to remind you all of is I sent this out by email.

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We are confirmed for a site visit at 43 Cyprus on Monday the 11th at 5:30 PM <v Speaker 1>That's this Monday the 11th.</v> Exactly. At 5:30 PM <v Speaker 2>Yes, please wear appropriate clothing.</v> It is, you know, a pretty overgrown site. And so, you know, I imagine there will be ticks and the project team will be there. The project engineer, I have submitted the request to have those items staked out. And so ideally they will be all staked out.

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<v Speaker 1>That's great. Anything else?</v> What's the, what, what's the address again? Claire 43 <v Speaker 2>Cypress.</v> <v Speaker 1>Thank you. All right. Anything else?</v> Happy to entertain a motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn. Thank you, Jim. Is that seconded? Second. Second. Thank you David. All right guys, wave goodbye as your vote. <v Speaker 2>Good night everyone. See</v> <v Speaker 1>You all next time.</v> Take care everyone. Take care.