Okay, welcome to the September 27th meeting of the Amherst Conservation Commission. The time is seven or two, all members present except Jason and Laura, Laura will be joining us later. Do we have any information from Jason on his attendance? I have not heard from Jason. He may join later. Okay. First on the agenda is reports from me. I have nothing to say. So I'll hand it over to Dave or director's reports. There were things I'll be fairly brief. Just update the commission on a few things. I'm happy to report that we are close to filling the assistant land manager position. So that's very exciting. We've had some good interviews of late and hope to be I certainly should be able to let you know. If we get an accepted offer at your next meeting, so that'd be very nice to be back with two positions filled both the land manager and the assistant land manager and we can start to kind of chart a path forward with this new staff person. So I hope to have some good news for you in two weeks, but I think we're very close. The CPAC process has begun. Michelle is your representative to CPAC Community Preservation Act committee. This is an opportunity for town staff, community organizations, boards and committees to propose enhancements, land acquisition, historic preservation, affordable housing projects, etc. The deadline is Friday. It is a very odd deadline in my estimation because it comes so early in the fall after after a summer season. No surprise, I will be submitting a fairly very straightforward proposal to continue to fund our trail improvements across town. So I would estimate that I will be seeking between 100 excuse me between $50 and $100,000 for trail enhancements. This is bridge projects. Sometimes, you know, we might do a covert removal in concert with a with a bridge or or a boardwalk project, but there's certainly more needs. I mean if I had half a million dollars we could spend half a million dollars on trails. So I don't by the way I don't think the CPAC would fund half a million dollars in trail work. So this is why we each year asked for kind of incremental increases and frankly we couldn't spend half a million dollars in one year so we'll be asking for between $50 and $100,000. We submit a pretty basic proposal by this Friday, and then what happens is staff and community organizations that apply, then do a presentation to the CPAC, probably on or around the first weekend or somewhere somewhere in there. And then the committee takes November and December to kind of call all the proposals last year there was over 20 right Michelle 22 or something last year. The committee has about $1.5 million. These are tax dollars. So I think that is available to them, and they make decisions and then they recommend to the town council what projects to fund. So, I will be happy to share typically I work with Aaron, and we do a PowerPoint presentation to the CPAC later in the year and happy to share that PowerPoint presentation. I think it surprises it'll be focused on, you know, boardwalks, bridges, maybe some puffer spawn restoration things of that trail restoration things of that sort. So that is coming along this week. And then I did want to mention to the commission that I did notice that the movie that was partially filmed at Mount Pollux. Is it in my right Aaron it's Janet planet. Is that the name of the movie. Yeah, did come out and he is now being shown and features that featured at a number of film festivals around the country and getting pretty good reviews I guess so I could not find the trailer to it but I didn't look that hard but there may be a trailer to it and of course I was interested to see if there were shots of Mount Pollux if they made the final cut. So anyway, Janet planet by any baker who went to Amherst regional and grew up in Amherst so anyway for your, for your information. Thanks to my quick updates. There is a peer of Aaron and I at ARHS 99. So we're hoping I hope to see it at Amherst cinema at some point. You may check it out guys. That's a kid growing up in Amherst. Okay. Land management updates. I think is this about our subcommittee is. Yes, okay. I got a question Michelle for Dave. Sure. I'm here for funding. Housing is always a popular topic in town. And there are town employees who can't afford to live in Amherst. I wonder if the town might consider using some of its property to build housing, specifically for Amherst employees. And just put that on the table I don't know if the subject has ever come up. Be interested, you know, don't have to respond in length now but I just thought I'd take the opportunity to bring up the idea and get your initial reaction like worth considering or it's a non starter. Oh, absolutely. We are looking at a number of town properties right now for market rate and affordable housing and accommodation of market rate and affordable housing. And kind of the broad category of workforce housing, ie, you know, employees of the schools of the town of the colleges, you know, and folks who work in our service industry and those folks who, you know, really it is very hard to break into the Amherst market. And it's very hard, frankly, to break into the housing market in the valley. This is not an Amherst uniquely affordable housing or affording a house is not a uniquely Amherst challenge at all. It's it's a regional challenge. So there's a new project that is moving forward up in North Amherst on on pulpit Hill Road and with 63 that is being put forth by Valley CDC that will be a home ownership project deeply deeply affordable home home ownership project, which is very exciting, because many of the projects put forth in the valley are typically rentals. And we're trying to work with our partners like Valley CDC to get projects that where people can gain equity and achieve, you know, part of that that equity equation that, you know, can can open doors in so many ways for people in terms of of security and family, you know, success, etc. So, absolutely, we're looking at some land we own off of off of strong street. We are looking at the old South Amherst school down on the South Amherst Common. As you know, we are moving forward with a housing project at the East Street School and land we purchased off of. Down road we're also moving forward with housing at the VFW site, and the possibility exists at Hickory Ridge in the future as well to look at housing there. Although Hickory Ridge has been identified as a logical place for a South Amherst fire station that may that may be certainly a fire station might be in the mix on the frontage as well. So, so the answer is yes, we're looking at that for sure. I think that would be wonderful. Thank you. Okay, thanks. So back to land management updates, I don't think we have anything to report exactly except that we met last week. And we continue to address the land management policy. And hopefully we'll be addressing some of the higher priority policy items in the coming future, all of which will come to the commission prior to final approval. Okay, are we at 730? Not at all. Let's move on to other business. Aaron, if we may. Do you want to do sweet Alice first? Yeah, do we have any attendees? We have one attendee. Are you looking for someone specific? Yeah, I was looking for a person from Kestrel Land Trust. Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry. Oh, you can see attendees, right? Well, as long as I'm not sharing my screen, I can, but I don't, we're looking for, it's not, unless the person in the audience is from Kestrel Land Trust, please raise your hand. Yeah, if not, why don't we just move on to Leverett Road, set a update then? You know, I asked, I'm sorry, I didn't see what the Kestrel Trust ask was. I was the, the boardwalk down at Sweet Alice. Luke Beeson from Kestrel was going to come and present. Or at least more complex than I thought. Yeah, gotcha. Yeah, but Dave, do you want to hold on that until Luke is here? I think so. Yeah. Okay. Fair enough. Okay. Yeah, so I can give you some other updates and sorry I'm clicking around here, Trina. I'm switching between two screens, so bear with me. Okay, so 200 Leverett Road. I was out there this morning. They did ask for an extension because the 48 hours wasn't enough time to do the initial grading. So I did allow them a little extra time to finish the grading. The grading is completed in the buffer zone. They have some additional grading that they're doing outside of the 100 foot buffer on the site. But they're planning to do, they were planning to do the hydro seating yesterday, but it was raining so they couldn't. So it's now postponed till Friday. But the grading is completed. The silt fence is in fine condition. They're hydro seating on Friday. And then I'll have a follow-up inspection after that. So I did include some photos in the OneDrive folder, but I can pull those up and share those with folks if OneDrive cooperates. This is of the grading? Yes. So this is facing the back of the lot, or facing the side of the lot actually approaching. This is in the front coming around the side. There's some, some rutting there. That's outside of the buffer zone. The one kind of concern I did have is that their dirt is piled up onto the silt fence. There's about 25 feet of buffer there. So when they do the hydro seating before they pull that silt fence, I'll make sure the grass is well established and that they seed the area behind the silt fence once they remove it. But they are at that silt fence. They're about 75 feet from the wetland. So they're pretty good setback from the wetland boundary. I also have this stone here on this slope because there was some erosion happening there. They put some erosion control fabric under the stone. And then the loam pile, which is still there is outside of jurisdiction. That's outside of concom jurisdiction, but they are planning on spreading it on site or removing it in the very near future. So that's good. I was happy that that work. Erin, you said they're going to spread that stockpile on site. Yes. You know where? In the front yard. They finished the grading in the back already. So they're planning to do it sort of in the front yard, but it would be outside of concom jurisdiction. So we have the jurisdiction, right? But if the front yard flows to the backyard and the front yard flows into jurisdictional areas, is there any, is there any jurisdiction? But how does that work, right?  Like, how does that work? Yeah. So first off, I would never allow them to remove the controls with the front yard on stable. You are right on the money that in the event that there is a situation where there's instability outside of jurisdiction, which let's say we get a big rainstorm and the material washes into the resource area or even into the buffer zone. In those cases, we can take jurisdiction over areas that are outside of the buffer or outside of the resource area. So that's just a very common situation even under the Wetlands Protection Act. That's something that happens quite frequently. Not until there's impact though. Not until there's documented impact exactly. Okay. Yep. Thank you. Welcome. So the, we have received two forest cutting plans in the last few weeks. One is the poverty mountain farm. I did have some communication with Toby Carter of Bay State Forestry about the poverty mountain one just to clarify some questions about the invasive species controls and I put those correspondence in the correspondence folder. The other, oh, and by the way, that forest cutting plan was already approved by the state. It was sent to me today. The other forest cutting plan is was submitted by the Fred and Linda Hess. And on that one, because the area is in natural heritage and endangered species area. The NHSP staff are doing some surveying prior to the approval.  So that one will take a little bit longer for the state has to the NHSP has to sign off on it before DCR will. So that one is, is there but just for the record that that one does have cutting down close to Amethyst Brook. And we've been getting some, you know, reports from people of trees marked down there so that is a an area that's privately owned and the landowner is pursuing doing a forest cut there so just for the public's awareness of that. That that is a process underway for approval. Is that the one that says they own the property in the town of Ocomb. The, the forester is out of OCam, I believe. John Clark. Yeah, okay, maybe I read it incorrectly. Oh, I read the same thing. It was, I think it's a mistake in the document. Oh, like an administrative error. I think so, because it said that the forest was in Ocomb. It must have been. It must have been because the. Yeah. Something to say. Yeah, I was wondering where the forest cutting plans are I didn't see it in the. In the one drive at least not for today. They should be in the correspondence folder. Yeah. Well, she mailed them out independently prior. I think it was last week. Oh, okay. She mailed out one anyway. I did see that. I thought it was a. Okay. All right. Yeah. So. My poverty has been approved. So that's sort of outside our comment period. But the. And with this brook adjacent one is still being reviewed by NHSP. So if you can, yes. I mean, we have limited. Really jurisdiction and ability to comment on these things, but questions are welcome. So. I encourage everybody to look and review. I mean, as you can see the standards for submitting maps and details on the forest cutting plan is fairly minimal. So it's sometimes hard to review them. So, you know, ask questions as you see fit. So that's a particularly resource area impact questions. Right. For example, like there's a amount of poverty questions about where they were spraying because that's actually occurring in the resource area, but it's not included on the map. But it's sort of outside of our. Authority to regulate the forest cutting plan. So. Just for context. While you're reviewing them. So I might add, you know, we are, as Aaron said, getting quite a few increase about, you know, this is now public and some trees are marked there. It's also important for the commission to realize that, you know, down in that area north of. Amethyst Brook proper. You know, the Amethyst Brook conservation area is fairly small. It's about 30 acres.  So. People do who go there frequently have kind of a, you know, mis-mis-mis-conception that it's town land protected in perpetuity, et cetera, et cetera. So we're always kind of balancing that public, private land. Balance and, you know, there's been quite a bit of cutting north of north of the Amethyst Brook in the last five to seven years. So it's, it's certainly on a lot of people's minds. So yeah, I would encourage if, if the commission members have questions or, you know, they want to, you know, put into Aaron, I'm sure that Aaron could forward them on to natural heritage and, and, you know, we'll see where that all goes with natural heritage, the review of that cutting plan. Yeah. And I know in the north side, you know, over the Mount Orient of Amethyst Brook, it's signed pretty well that it's family forest land or working forest land. I'm not sure about the Amethyst Brook side, but it is, it is forest, you know, we're a working forest. So it's within all of their rights to be managing as such. Anyway, I think we've covered our other business except for sweet Alice and I still don't see any Kestrel members here. I mean, can we jump into the Amherst NOI or? No, unfortunately not. But I mean, I can talk about the other sort of items that there's no action required, but just to talk about them briefly while we have a few moments. Aaron, can I just give a one minute overview of that Kestrel. Sure. The commission. So we'll get. We'll get somebody from Kestrel to come to the next meeting, but just so the commission knows. We're working collaboratively with staff at Kestrel trust. As you know, their office is now adjacent to town land off of Bay Road. If you haven't been down to the Plum Brook pond, you know, and, and sweet Alice, you know, in the last couple of years, I would encourage you to do so. You know, we did pick up quite a bit of land there and collaboration with Kestrel and state grants. And we, we, we enhanced some of the trails that Mr. Epstein, who we bought the pond and the adjacent land from. Unfortunately, in the last year or so, some of the activities that we engaged in to remove an old culvert or two there activated the beavers and the beavers decided. They didn't necessarily love what we were doing. So they decided to build more dams and, and raise their dams. So the loop trail around the Plum Brook pond is now flooded. So there is no way to make it easily or semi-accessibly around the trail. So we've been talking with Kestrel for a couple of months. They are willing to kind of jump in is and collaborate with us to put together a plan to create design and, and fund a raised boardwalk through this rather shallow section that, that used to be a Woods road and the trail and create a raised boardwalk to connect the, the two loop, the loop again, so that people can make a full loop around the, the pond and enjoy the, the beaver pond from a raised boardwalk, if you will. So that's what Kestrel would like to come talk to us about. They are willing to fund it. They would be willing to work collaboratively with Aaron and, and staff and our building department to install it with minimal impact. So I think, and we were talking about bringing this forward as an amendment to an existing NOI that we submitted to the commission back in 2022, I guess, Aaron. 21, 21, sorry, 21. So that's the quick snapshot of that project. But again, we'll ask staff from Kestrel to come maybe in two weeks, Aaron or something. Yeah, he was, he was going to come tonight. I don't see him here. So maybe something came up, but, but yeah, it's, yeah, it's, I don't think it's urgent. So if we're going to hold on it, that's completely fine. Okay. Thanks Bruce.  So I went over there today and probably isn't our job, but there is a detour loop around the, the water. And even that there's a section of it that you basically have to walk through the bud to get through. So I don't know if there's any way they can change the detour or put something temporary for that short section where even on the detour, you have to walk your way through the bud. Yeah, I'll take a look at that this weekend. Yeah. We've come up with, with kind of a much longer detour. Yeah. Much longer loop that is not flat. Yeah. It worked. It just all of a sudden there's one more spot where you have to hide through the slot. Yeah. It's not ideal out there, but we're trying to work with our friends, the beavers and having their thing and us enjoy their work and all the wildlife they bring to it, but maybe do this, this little impact raise boardwalk. Okay. So Aaron, did you, did I mean, am I hearing that you want to go ahead with presentation on the suite Alice or? No, no, there was a couple other things. I'll just, I'll just pull up the slide to make this a little easier in the correspondence folder. There was a couple items and I thought I would just touch on them really quickly. We received a notification from ever source about some exempt activities and just for the newer members. There are many exemptions under the wetlands protection act and our local bylaw utilities is one of them. And so there are, there's a correspondence where there's some activities which are outlined as exempt maintenance activities that are, we received a correspondence. Usually they notify us they do use BMPs to make sure that there's no erosion or sediment traveling into wetlands when the work is being done, but the activity is not regulated. We also received some correspondence from the DPW and a form for DEP for a sewer overflow. Periodically those do happen where a, there's a clog in the sewer line and material breaches a manhole and will be discharged. And so periodically you'll see those notifications to us. They are a required sort of courtesy notification, but they're not, there's not anything really done other than they clean up the material and put some lime down when it happens. So that's just a note. There's also correspondence in there about the source to see cleanup, which Dave forwarded along. Dave, do you have anything you want to state about that for new members who might not be aware of it? No, other than it's just a wonderful event that happened to be one little piece of kind of good news about that event that wastewater treatment staff here in Amherst participated. They wanted to focus on the Amherst trails, but overall it's just a super event. I think Bruce and Brian Yellen and other organizers of the event, I think had between 70 and 100 volunteers cleaning up all along the Fort River tributaries puffers pond. I mean, we cleaned up all over town and it's just a wonderful event in a community building event. I'm sure Bruce can talk more about it, but just a terrific annual cleanup. The only thing I would say is that it's very typical that people find all sorts of stuff on the sidewalk and around. It's so successful. There's almost never anything actually in the river. Maybe we should expand the jurisdiction of that source to see the Connecticut River Conservancy because it's their event. We're just one of the many, many participants for from Vermont to Connecticut. I did the cleanup for many years in Montague and I will never forget one group found a some sort of a container.  You could pick it up with two hands. It was probably two feet long. It turned out to be some sort of insecticide or herbicide that somebody had done by the side of the road. And since ever source was the was the, the organizer of the event. It was $10,000 to properly dispose of that one small thing that you could hold. So I'm hoping that the source to see never finds, you know, anything like that. But anyway, it's, it's, it's a great community event. People smiling and just really engaged in, in taking care of our environment here in Amherst. Thank you. So I see Luke here. Do we have time to cover that? Or do you want to move on to our seven 30? Um, yeah. It's, it's totally up to you at your discretion, Michelle. If you want to jump into hearings and come back to that. Or if you want to just try to cover it before we get into hearings. Well, let's see. Why don't we jump into the hearings just to stay on time with our schedule. Okay. So I'm going to open this one before I do this for the general procedures. Each hearing has 20 minutes on the agenda, five minutes from staff, followed by five minutes from the applicant, then five minutes for public comment or two minutes per person. And then five minutes for commissioners or two minutes each. Um, revisions are required now by Wednesday, prior to the meeting. Um, just as a note to get into good habits, I'm going to start with the commissioners. I'm going to start with the commissioners. Like, let's stay muted and raise hands and wait for being called on. Uh, while we go into discussion from the commissioners. Okay. Wrecking into the notice. This hearing is. Oh, sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Can you note the thing in yellow. That we've changed. As of November 1st, I'm going to move on to the meeting. I'm going to move on to the meeting. I'm going to move on to the meeting. On Wednesday, at close of business. By Wednesday before the meeting. Yes. The Wednesday prior to the meat. Yes. Okay. Yeah. So maybe to clarify that prior. The week prior perhaps would be. Wednesday, the week prior. Of the week prior. Yes. Thank you. Thanks Bruce. Do you want to take your hand down? Oh yeah. I know I'm sorry. Yeah. Okay. I just didn't see it. Okay. Um, I'm going to just going to move on. This hearing has been held as required by the provisions of chapter 131 section 40 of the general laws of the Commonwealth and act relative to protection of the wetlands as most recently amended in article 3.31 wetlands protection under the town. Of Amherst bylaws. And this is a notice of intent for the town of Amherst for the construction of a handicap accessible trail system and trail bridges resource area mitigation and restoration activities. Work is proposed in the bordering land subject to flooding bordering vegetated wetlands bank riverfront and buffer zone. At 191 West Pomeroy lane. Map 19D 20, 20 a lots 10 and 59. And this is Hickory Ridge. Okay. So we're waiting on comments from DEP and NH ESP for this one. And I'm therefore looking for a motion to continue the public hearing. Um, Michelle, we can still, I was hoping Dave could do. Uh, Just an introduction of the project. Um, and that we could potentially take public comment on it. It will eventually be continued because we can't act on it tonight. But I think it would be good for us to just. Uh, introduce it and start getting people's thoughts moving on it. If possible. All right. I don't see a day, but. Oh, I'm here. Yep. Yeah. So you'd like it just an introduction and then we'll continue it for two weeks. Is that the idea? Yeah. An introduction to the project. And then we could just take public comment briefly on it. Sure. Okay. Great. Thanks so much. And I'm going to move on to the delegation. Seeing as Nickary Ridge is a, is a good evening. Um, Um, generally what happens with town projects is someone be it me. Could be Jason skills, could be Nate Malloy, our senior planner or our town engineer come and present these projects. There are times when, of course, Aaron is often. Um, I'm not going to go through every element of the NOI because, you know, this is just an introductory introduction, but Fendo fundamentally this effort is about trail enhancement and providing more access. To this unique property off of West Pomeroy lane. Well, at the same time, we're going to be safeguarding and enhancing the natural resources. On the, on the parcel. The NOI outlines new trails while at the same time will be retiring a number of the existing cart paths that were used by the golf course for about 50 years. We've put together in the NOI what I think is a really robust package of mitigation and restoration. It includes the removal of bridges, the removal of culverts, habitat restoration for rare species. And then we're going to go through a couple of different highlights. As I said, there will be a north south trail connection. Connecting those people who live in the neighborhoods off of East Hadley road. To the property. First to the property. And then to the village center, which is down at the corner of Pomeroy lane. And. One 16. And that's a very important piece of this entire project. It's one of the principal reasons that the town purchased the property is to give those residents of, of the apartments at renew mill valley, the brook and neighborhoods to the north and neighborhoods to the south access to this 150 acre parcel. We're also proposing as part of this NOI to create an, an accessible loop trail. You've heard about this before. This is a project that the town got a $400,000 grant. From the Commonwealth. To create a loop trail. An accessible loop trail on the south side of. The Fort river. All of the trails are designed to be low impact. Take advantage of topography, existing topography, limit impacts to wetlands, buffer, riverfront, et cetera. And we're proposing to apply. For this project. Excuse me. Has a limited project. So I think in the NOI, we outline, it's a very long NOI. Aaron, I forgot how long it ended up to be. But with all of the supporting documentation, I think it's close to 200 pages. But we're going to do that. We're going to do that. We're going to do that. And we're going to do that. And we're going to do that. And we're going to do that. And we're going to do that. And we're going to do that. And we're going to do that. And with all of the supporting documentation, I think it's close to 200 pages. But we've outlined a very, what I think is a very robust. Restoration. A list of restoration efforts as well as mitigation efforts. And I'm happy to go in more detail on those at the next meeting, but. Removal of bridges. Removal of culverts. And I think I'm happy to go through those. And I'm happy to go through those. I'm happy to go through those as well as getting access for people. To enjoy the property as well as get to and from where they live. To where they might. You know, enjoy something in the village center. So I think I'll stop there. As I said, we're proposing this as a limited project. And I'm happy to go through. Although they're listed in the, the NOI, some of the. Restoration and mitigation numbers are in the NOI. And I think it's a very. It's a very. It's a very aggressive plan, if you will, we're proposing to restore a lot of resource area out there. Well, at the same time, I think our impacts are fairly small. So I think I'll stop there. And. You know, if, if, if there are questions from you or the public, happy to take them tonight. Erin may be able to provide any additional information as needed. Thanks, Dave. Any public comment, just please raise your hand. Okay. Well, we're waiting for any activity over there. Do any commissioners have any comments on this? Okay. I personally think it's fantastic. Reclamation of a. Land to public access and natural habitat. And I'm excited to see what becomes of it. And hopefully incorporate this into our land use and land. And I think we'll be able to, I think we'll be able to, you know, management plans for the natural heritage management recommendations. And anything. Yeah. A couple of things, Michelle. I think it is important, you know, in that almost 200 pages of supporting documentation. There's reference to a lot of planning that I've been working on with Erin with other staff in the planning department with the planning department. And the overall goal here beyond the notice of intent. Is to create a comprehensive plan for the entire property, which includes extensive habitat restoration. So this is one part of it. And in the NOI, there is a restoration plan. That we've included. It addresses some of the issues that, that I've referenced very briefly here tonight. It also references, you know, some of the issues that I've been working on. And I think it's a great opportunity for us to work with partners and Erin, again. There, there's a number of. Relationships that Erin and I have fostered over the last couple of years with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. With the Connecticut River Conservancy. With Mass Fish and Game, Mass Fish and Wildlife. And they are interested in partnering with us on, on this broader restoration project. I would be remiss if I didn't mention that as part of that comprehensive plan, there will be consideration of the upland area where the club house currently sits. So there's about, call it five, five and a half acres there of upland parking lot that is currently parking lot and the clubhouse that could be used for other uses. And I alluded to that earlier. There has been quite a bit of. Public input and public support for affordable housing. We talked about a potential fire station site. We also talked, I have. Discussed whether a community. Building could go there. IE a senior center, something like that. We think all of these uses can be compatible. As long as. The intensity or density of what we propose on that frontage. Is not too impactful on what happens on the rest of the property. As noted in the, the NOI also, there will be 25 acres, 26 acres of solar. And that was predetermined before the town acquired the land. So that will move forward. It's moving forward a little slower than we thought and pure sky thought, but it will happen. And we think that'll be a good compliment to the, to the, to the project. I will note also that the land is not under. The entire parcel is not under the care and control of the conservation commission. Right now it is town property. Some of the land will ultimately be preserved in perpetuity. And the comprehensive plan. Aaron myself working with the natural heritage program. Are kind of working toward what parts of the property will be preserved in perpetuity. And the other part of the plan is that the natural heritage program. Are kind of working toward what parts of the property will be permanently protected. And obviously riverfront and. All the resource areas will be protected, but what land will come under the jurisdiction of the conservation commission has yet to be finalized. And that'll be part of our, our process over the next 12 to 14 months. So that's probably more than you wanted to know, but that just kind of gives you a full picture of the whole process. Okay. Well, I see no public comment. So with that, I'm looking for a motion to continue. I'll make that. I'll make that motion. Michelle. Thank you, Laura. I'll second that motion. So just to be clear, the motion would be to continue the public hearing for 191. West Palm Ray lane to October 11th at seven 35 p.m. Okay. Yep. Just what Aaron said, I'd like to make that motion. Laura on the motion, Jason on the second. Bruce. Hi. Laura. Hi. Jason. Hi. Andre. Hi. Alex. Hi. And I'm an eye. Okay. So moving on to the D. Okay. I got to open this evening too. All right. So the public hearing is being held as required by the provisions of chapter one 31 section 40 of the general bylaws of the Commonwealth and act relative to the protection of the wetlands as most recently amended in article 3.31 wetlands protection under the town of Amherst general bylaws. Notice of intent for the town of Amherst department of public works for the repaving out of an existing mill hollow apartments parking lot and associated drainage improvements. Work is proposed to be located within the riverfront area of the town of Amherst. So I'm going to go ahead and do that. So I'm going to go ahead and do that one 49 to one 79 summer street. Matt five B lot 17. And I see Beth here. If we want to bring her in. Can I do that? Yes. I'm bringing her in. Can you guys hear me? We can. Hi, Beth. Hi. Oh, I guess it's because Aaron screens up. I can't see my face, but. We can't see you, but we can hear you. Oh. Okay. Great. Aaron, do you want to start with comments? I know you had some questions and then we'll let. Yeah. So just. In general, the project's proposing some pretty significant stormwater improvements. Right now. All of the drainage off of the parking lot is. Sheet flow, which is conveyed to a paved. Conveyance, which goes directly into the mill river. So, um, the, um, I was out there with Bruce on Monday and it was a light rain and water was flowing through this conveyance, like a little stream into the, into the river. And I did see sheen on the water. So that untreated stormwater, um, is currently getting dumped directly into mill river. So this will, you know, provide some improvements there. Um, I did have some questions, which are on the screen. I don't want to sort of belabor those because Beth, um, I'm not sure if she could address them to Beth early in hopes that she could address them. I did also draft an order of conditions on this, which is in the one drive folder. I did that today. Um, my hope is that the commission will consider issuing this permit tonight, but obviously I know you want to hear from Beth with the details. So, um, that's kind of where I stand on it. Thanks, Aaron. That's you and I take five minutes to respond to the questions, hopefully.  Am I going to be able to share? Let me see if I can. All right. So Aaron, I only have permission to talk. So. Beth, are you not seeing permission to share on your. No, I see. I can either raise my hand or, and then it says show captions. It doesn't say share.  Okay. Beth, I'm promoting your panelists. So hopefully you'll just get a. Are you seeing an invite for that? Yep. Okay. All right. Oh, hello. I think I still can't see myself, but we can see you now. Okay. So you should be able to share a screen. Yeah. And I can share my screen. So. All right. Great. Um, I'm Beth Wilson. I'm the environmental scientist with the Amherst department of public works. Um, and as you guys were just saying, I'm here to present the notice of intent for the repaving of the parking area and driveways at Mill Hollow apartments at 149 to 179. Summer street. Um, then the property is actually owned by Jones properties LP. And they will be hiring a contractor to do this work. The town is just doing the design and permitting under an agreement that goes way back to when the middle street bridge was put in. And we made, we use some of their property for storage of materials and whatnot. So there was just an agreement that eventually we would help them with the repaving.  Okay. So here's the site as it exists right now. Um, the property line is this yellow line, which then goes right through the middle of the mill river. It comes down. Can you guys see my cursor? Yes. Okay. So that's, that's the property. Um, so the resource areas that are on the parcel include bank and land underwater. Simply cause the property line actually goes through the middle of the river, um, bordering land subject to flooding and river front. Um, this is the 200 foot river front line over here. So the whole parcel and all the work proposed will be, um, within river front. So the project, um, is basically to repave about 2,620 cubic yards. Of parking lot and driveway as the shaded area includes the smaller parking lot down here. There's a large parking lot and a small parking lot. Um, and the project basically is to remove all the asphalt. It'll be taken off site, um, to regrade the gravel base that's, that's existing, um, to compact the base and then to, to repay with about four inches of new asphalt. Um, The improvements that will be included in the project are installation of a new, um, gutter inlet right here. That's going to be piped to a catch basin here. There's going to be a deep sump catch basin. And there'll be new piping. Going out to the summer street drainage system. And so there'll be a new manhole here to connect that line to the, um, summer street system. Um, in terms of curbing, most of the curbing. Uh, is, it's all, we're not removing any curbing. There's a lot of damage curbing. This orange piece right here. Is very damaged. So that's going to just be replaced. That we are going to put new curving along the southern edge of the parking lot in order to. Catch all the drainage. And direct it to the new gutter inlet. Um, and as Aaron was describing currently. All the drainage, um, from the parking lot. Goes out a paved swale. That's about right here ish. I'm up here. Um, and it. As Aaron says, untreated. That's going directly into the low river. So. This new curbing is going to block that swale off. We're just basically going to curb it off. Um, and the drainage. We'll go to our new. Um, our new drainage system. Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, All the work that's included in the project is. Currently there is an utility pole right here. Right in the middle of the parking lot. That's very unsafe. Um, it's cars have to park around it. I'm sure there's been many instances where cars have run into it. the homeowner, the property owner has proposed to move it over to here. He's talked with that resource and they would require another pool, a new pool, be installed here to connect up with existing pools that are right here and right here. So that's another aspect to the project and with the new wiring that would go in, we would need to remove a few trees. So this is one, it's a two-liter tree here and another two-liter tree here that would need to come out for the new wires and then the property owner is requesting if somebody's going to be out there taking those trees. He was hoping that there's two very dead trees, these little green dots, two very dead trees that he'd also like taken out while that's all happening. Green line is erosion control, wrapping around the project between the resource area and where the paving's going to happen. Here's some more erosion control down here. This little parking lot is also going to get repaved in the same fashion. We're not changing the drainage, we're leaving it as sheet flow, it basically, it sheet flows into, this is a wooded area here and it just sheet flows in that direction. It doesn't head towards the river, kind of flows this way. Yeah, I think that is, that's it. The project is redevelopment, so it's riverfront redevelopment and it meets all the standards of riverfront redevelopment. It meets the stormwater standards, because it's redevelopment it's only required to meet the stormwater standards, what is it, to the best of our ability, but it meets all of them except the creating of an O&M plan. So that is all I think I was going to say. Okay, so Erin you had some questions, have they been addressed in the presentation? I see you Jason, but we'll wait for Beth to get the questions first. Yeah, I looked through Erin's question. Her first question was about bordering land subject to flooding and she's just asking if there's any impact to bordering land subject to flooding or if there's any fill, but we're not impacting any resource area except riverfront. So bordering land subject to flooding is, you can see it's this blue is our new floodplain maps and you know this is the parking lot here, the parking lot ends right there and then the little parking lot is over here. So none of the work that we're proposing will be in bordering land subject to flooding. Then she asked about material storage during the project and the way this project is going to work is the asphalt is going to get removed, the top is probably down to like two inches at this point, it's so beat up. Well all the asphalt will be removed from the site, so that'll be the beginning of the project. It'll be torn up and it'll just go immediately into trucks and be removed from the site and then we're really just going to be re-grading existing gravel. I think at this point it's if we're grading and we feel like we need additional gravel it will get brought to the site as needed. So again really no material storage besides piping and potentially the basin themselves, which again when we're working on this section can be stored down on this little parking lot equipment and piping I guess on the catch basin. So I'm not really, we're not expecting basically to have a real material storage area needed. Now and then a few of our questions have to do with whether or not the gutter inlet can manage the volume of drainage that will come from the parking lot. I guess I didn't mention we're not expanding impervious at all, same square footage of impervious that's out there now. And I guess the way your question came it seemed like the whole parking lot was meant to go to the one gutter inlet, but it's only really half. I mean I think the line's kind of is about right in half where the eastern side will be graded to go into the gutter inlet and the western half of the large parking lot is really going to be graded to go into the sump catch basin. So there's really two openings that are going to be added to the site. And you know I talked with Jason, skills town engineer earlier today about it and you know he feels like that's more than sufficient for the square footage of this parking area. What were some more questions? Dewatering at the site I think the deepest we would have to dig would be for the deep sump catch basin and that would be digging down about five feet. And I guess I would like to answer that by just saying we're not expecting to hit groundwater, but if you'd like to add a condition you know that we basically we can definitely provide a dewatering plan in response to the concoms question that's that's fine we can do that. I think that answers all your questions Erin. Great thanks Beth. Erin I saw your hand up do you want to quickly respond to that? Well I I guess just wanted to clarify the the gutter drain goes to the deep sump so Jason was comfortable that the entire that that one deep sump catch basin would be sufficient to handle the flow from the entire parking lot. Yep okay yeah he feels like it's plenty. Okay and then we had talked about and I did draft in the order of conditions a couple conditions around the stock piling and the dewatering just to cover those just in case. But we had talked about the stormwater checklist did I know DEP didn't really mention anything about that and also you touched briefly on the operation maintenance plan because it's it's not required but I think it would be a good idea to for us to condition that the the deep sump will need to have regular maintenance as you know required under the DEP best management practices just to make sure that they don't neglect maintenance and then it stops functioning in which case the parking lot will flood and kind of have the same issue they're having now but I think those are easily incorporated into the existing order. Yep nope that's that's something that's definitely doable too. Okay I saw Jason's hand up he's still a question. Yeah actually I think my question mostly got answered. Okay thank you. Alex? Yeah I have a question about could you put the drawing back up please? Oh sure sorry. My question was what happens where does the water go if the rain event is too large for the drainage the new drainage system where does where would the water go? Well just like any drainage system that gets overwhelmed it would it would come back out of the catch basins and if this is all curbed you know I think it may actually would probably flow down to Summer Street. Okay rather than the brook. I would think it's going to be graded to flow to the to the west anyway. Okay and so I got a little confused I got two other items I got a little confused when you said the water drains to the forest and was was that the smaller gray block that you were talking about? Right yeah this is also a parking lot it's just a small little individual parking lot but it's part of the property and so stormwater in this area drains sheet flows to the west it always has and we're not going to change that. It doesn't seem to have a problem. It's part of the project. We are going to yeah we are going to repave this little parking lot but basically make no no changes to the grade so that it continues to to sheet flow. So any water that's contaminated in that parking lot that comes off that parking lot goes into the forest and does that wind up going into the river? I've never I haven't seen I've been on the site a lot there's no evidence of that at all again it's a small area so it doesn't get a whole lot of flow and it infiltrates you know pretty quickly in this area I didn't see any erosion for example over here on this bank. Last question has to do with what how do you calculate how much water would land on the parking lot to in order to size the drainage system and the reason I asked me because the severity and frequency of rain events is increasing and I'm curious what's the standard that you use to predict rain events? Well typically you know for a larger project you'd be you can do hydrocard calculations and just basically do some stormwater calculations that tell you based on the square footage you know what volumes of water are predicted for a 10-year storm or a 25-year storm or a 100-year storm covering sort of that square footage of impervious and then all catch basins and things are you know they have specs and they say what they can handle. So if you've got six inches of rain in a night it would handle it? You know like I said I've talked with Jason briefly we we did not do hydrocard calculations for this parking lot or for this project partly because it's redevelopment and you're not necessarily required to so this is really based on Jason's expertise as town engineer you know he came he's seen we've walked the site together a couple of times he put this drawing together so it's based on his expertise of evaluating the size of the parking lot and the specs and everything for a gutter drain and a deep sump sump catch basin that he feels like it's adequate. Again if the commission wants additional information on that you know I think the engineering department can provide some. Thanks guys. Thank you Dave. Yeah hi Beth. Hi Dave. A couple quick questions just to clarify you said um so DPW is doing the design and permitting for the project but some a private contractor is going to build the redo the parking lot correct right and will DPW kind of clerk the project during it or who if there are issues who who does Erin go to is it will it be you yeah yeah Jason or I yeah okay and then the last question or the comment um I wondered you know I'm very familiar with that bank it's a pretty so I noticed you know a number of trees are coming down on that bank there's not much room I know but between the existing parking lot and the river but I wondered if the applicant might be willing to do some replanting there are there any opportunities there to to add some trees to that bank um or not it's it's very steep that's for sure um well I meant closer to the parking lot or I don't know I just I'll take a look at it this weekend but I was just like you know a number of trees are coming down there or are dead there so you've lost some canopy you know any chance you get to stabilize bank add add shade to uh um you know a river system you know why not so just putting it out there yeah I could see some opportunities more in the flat top of it yeah that's what I meant that's what I meant on the top it might also be for you know people use it to picnic there I think there are a couple picnic tables or benches there just aesthetically and you know for shade might be kind of nice it's pretty um you know a lot of people use it a lot of people live in those apartments so I just thought perhaps adding some trees on the flat top might be nice yep I'll second that request um all right Laura yeah hi bas good to see you hi Laura um and I'm driving so let's hope I don't lose connection but a couple questions first of all I definitely second um Dave's suggestion if that's possible and incorporate that into the approval um I obviously have you know Jason's been the tenant engineer for a long time and you clearly held Aaron's role before so if Jason used the word plenty when it came to water catchment I'm comfortable with it um but it sounds like you guys are counting for in general you know in as a general comment um I think that it's correct that we're you know predicted to get more rainfall so just you know I'm assuming that's faked into calculations but my question was on um Aaron's suggestion suggestion for maintenance so I know you're doing this as part of um uh Jones um but is Jones responsible for the unboyed maintenance or is that the time like who's paying for that just curious no yeah that would be the homeowner Jones property owner got it would be responsible for that in fact I don't know Pat Kamens yours was going to come to this meeting if if you're out there and you want to respond to any of these things uh for example the idea of replanting some of the trees um feel free to raise your hand yep I see a Patrick Kamens so please raise your hand if you want to respond to it um right is that it for you Laura okay he's raising his hand okay I'm going to get to you Jason yeah that's that's it for me yeah okay thanks okay um you've got the ability to talk Patrick if you'd like to respond to those two things hello folks um thank you I don't know if you can see me or not I can't see myself but um so where the dead trees are is pretty treed I think you'll see that this weekend Dave um where the picnic area is is some larger trees um we'd be happy to consider putting some ornamental trees in there potentially but that's where the electric lines go so if we get anything too big it's going to interfere with the power lines um so that should be considered as far as the trees um I guess if we put them closer to the river it's pretty wooded there already um but we would certainly consider it but I'm just concerned about the uh the power lines that run right through there so that that would be the concern about adding any trees um the question of the maintenance of it I think was the second question yes we would we would maintain that um as required of course we don't want our parking lot to flood either thanks Patrick ever source has a list of um power line friendly trees and shrubs so I think that's you know not of the question do some picnic and power line friendly um edging there that won't get too tall so that's definitely within the realm of possibility so far okay Jason um yeah I just want to kind of second what we said earlier about you you know Beth you said this is a redevelopment but you are putting in a new pipe right currently all the drainage goes out of that paved swale into the river but now you're piping all the drainage correct so if you're adding new pipe one does that count as redeveloping you're not adding pervious surface but now you're changing the hydrology like the hydraulics of the site yeah I mean I I guess I consider it so it's redevelopment definitely under riverfront um and under the stormwater rags um yeah I mean it's redevelopment in that it's there has always been drainage on this parking lot um and we're changing it from a paved swale to um to a gutter inlet and a deep sump I guess is what I was how I was looking at it yeah so you know moving that water from going into the river to going into you know you're connecting into the storm drain on somerich street there right and you didn't run any hydrocat or any kind of hydraulic calculations no we did not is there any concern from anyone that that might you know that you know are we sure that we're I'm just a little bit questioning that that you know as was mentioned earlier if you get six inches of rain or three inches of rain is that going to be uh have any kind of negative effects on those pipes there and that connection there with the main in somerich street yeah again I mean I chase I relied on Jason to kind of you know he knows the history a little bit more I know that since I've been with dpw we haven't had any problems with this main um showing it as a 12 inch main that comes down here um in terms of treatment before going in there we do have the deep sump which is takes 25 percent of tss out before heading here but just in terms of volume I hear what you're saying this this main is going to be going to be taking a larger volume of water and then do you have a detail or something for the deep sump that's not something I'm familiar with uh specifically um we can definitely provide one I yeah we didn't provide it with the application um I mean I thought I was looking at one a minute ago let me just see so I'm I'm hearing that there may be additional questions related to um can you guys see my screen yeah but I just want to be mindful of time and the other um hearings that we have going on so if there are some larger questions we have about um this drainage the redevelopment and possibly the stormwater criteria like do we need more questions and Erin I see your hand up Laura your hands up I don't know if that's because you're on your phone you don't you haven't taken it down but um I also see Patrick's hands still up Erin do you want to just respond quickly maybe to sort of the town position and yeah I would just to Jason so as far as redevelopment under the regulations um if there's a project like this basically what the state and local requirements um expect are that there's going to be an improvement over existing conditions relative to drainage and water quality so in this case I would see you know where we have untreated water going directly into the river that it's an improvement to have it going into a system that's going to treat it and separate out the total suspended solids and any potential contaminants before it goes into the system um I also have the same questions relative to volume but I guess my position on that is that if they undersize this and that single deep sump catch basin for the whole parking lot is not enough what's going to happen is that parking lots going to be flooded which is going to create a hardship for the residents who live there and they're ultimately going to have to come back and address it is that the best option it's kind of the worst case scenario um and if it does flood you know the drainage is getting redirected so it goes towards summer street so I'm not saying it wouldn't create a problem that would need to be fixed but I think that would be the ultimate result I guess ultimately I think it's a matter of comfort of the commission where they're at right now if commissioners are uncomfortable with it and want more information or if they're you know feeling comfortable with what's proposed and want to move forward with it um it might be good to get a read from folks to kind of get a sense of where people are at with what's being proposed and determine if we need a continuation or if we're considering issuing an order tonight okay well let's do that I'm just gonna I'm gonna go to each commissioner and just check in with you about whether or not you need more information are you ready to move forward with this one so Alex do you want to check in with that okay could you unshare Beth so we can see people for a second sure I just this is the schematic for a deep sump catch base and just Jason was wondering we can't see it I can see Beth schematic and I can see people's names so we can leave it up if need be okay I'm just gonna move on to Andre Andre want to check in on this one I was on I was on mute when I was talking okay sorry go ahead Alex um two issues I would like to not say if we have a big rain event it's a matter of when nowadays we've recently had towns experiencing large downfalls spotting road damage and all that I would like to know that this drainage system and the new sump is going to handle like three and six inches of rain in a day um without failing and with regard to shade considering increasing temperatures I'd like to um make sure that there's no loss of shade on the river and if we can increase it great thanks Alex Bruce I deferred to the others okay Jason yeah I guess my only other question is is that main that the the new pipes are going to is that strictly storm or is that a combined storm sewer now that yeah that's definitely strictly storm we don't have any combined sewers in in the town of Amherst oh okay all right then I uh I'm I'm fine with it okay thanks Andre yeah I'm ready for a motion okay Laura yeah I uh I viewed this as an improvement um from the existing system um and you know I I think it's an improvement also to you know redirect it from the river so I am absolutely ready for motion okay great well in that case um I'm ready for a motion given um the conditions Aaron do you want to throw your slide up or do we have a draft of that yes um so I I do have the conditions drafted that I drafted do you want me to share those Michelle um pull them up on the screen and and I assume maybe you've edited them based on our current conversation I I have not had a chance to actually go in and edit them but I do have the additional conditions that we've been discussing in my notes here so I can tack those on so let me just get to the document there was let me just get to the screen um okay so these are the um the special conditions um do you want me to run through them do you want me to just put them up so people can read them briefly um I can't I can't see yeah I can you maximize that and and also everybody you can make it bigger on your own screen by pulling the screen bigger these are in the one drive um would it be easier if I read them so do we have to go through all of them or can we I would address them let's just read them all in our packet yeah okay and the additional ones of um some replanting I'd like to suggest and we talked about um not an omp but some kind of management plan for the catch basin correct yeah I have four conditions that I've noted since you guys were talking maybe you could maybe you could just read the noted conditions in addition to the ones that we can see up screen okay so the in addition to the ones that I've noted here I have um special conditions for one well this was just based on Beth's presentation but that there'll be no net increase in fill on the site um two that the um installation of the deep sump catch basin would be conditional on the maintenance ongoing maintenance be required um per the DEP best management practices handbook um that power line friendly native plantings be installed to replace the trees that are being removed along the river and that detail of the deep sump catch basin be provided to the conservation commission to include in the application package thanks Aaron all right with that I'm looking for a motion to approve the town of Amherst public works for the repaving of existing mill hollow apartments parking lot and associated drainage improvements for conditions one through I think is there more than 13 plus the four that Aaron just went through 14 plus the boilerplate the boilerplate plus the four mentioned by Aaron so moat that was Andre on the motion I'll second that Jason on the second Laura I Bruce you need abuse Bruce no I'm thinking okay hi hi Bruce is an eye Andre hi Jason hi on Alex day night I'm an eye okay um moving to the NOI for Goddard consulting LLC for 52 fairing street LLC for the construction of a single family house and garage with associated site work and preparation in the 100 foot buffer zone to bordering vegetated wetland at 46 fairing street 11c lot 123 okay um this has been a long time coming I see the project proponent is in the attendees do you want to bring him in yeah I'm going to promote you to a panelist I see Andre hand up yeah Laura your hand is still up if you yeah Laura's on the phone I think bring it down but if you can't don't endanger yourself right okay she's it's fine we'll just we'll around robbing you Laura got it totally on my phone yeah no problems no problem um okay so Aaron do you want to give us their the update it's been a while yes I do um so where we are at with this is that I have we have exercised basically all DEP town council guidance on this I've read the regulations inside and out basically my determination at this point is that this is a buffer zone only project there's no other resource area alteration proposed the general performance standards for buffer zone would apply and this is per the 2014 regulations because this application was submitted just prior to our approval of the 2022 regular regulatory revisions we've been unable to classify the lawn area at the front of the lot under the wetland protection act or the local wetland bylaw regulations as a resource area or anything more than surface water or storm flowage as it's defined in our bylaw definition the I'm going to put up the 2014 bylaw regulation general performance standards which I believe that this project meets I'm not going to read these through you guys are welcome to but I don't believe there's any resource alteration proposed as part of this project we've been provided with post-runoff calculations that were provided by an engineer who stamped the plan and these calculations show that there's a reduction in peak flows the initial hydro CAD calculations that were provided to us had been revised based on the impervious percentages that were in the calculation those were revised based on the direction of the town engineer and he was satisfied with the with the revised hydro CAD calculations this is a small single family house lot so it's not defined as a large project I guess my only other guidance to the commission on this is I'm hopeful that the conservation will approve this and issue this with the conditions that I've drafted and with the finding of fact that I've attached to this order in the one drive our town council has reviewed and edited those documents we we fully expect an appeal on this one again if there if there isn't great but I just want to make sure we only have four members who can vote on this Michelle Andre Alex and Laura and and the reason I'm going to urge the commissioners to approve this is for a very important reason which is if we don't vote unanimously to approve this there it will go to DEP and DEP is going to issue a superseding order of conditions if DEP issues a superseding order of conditions that means the town of Amherst loses local control of this permit I have um conditioned this permit to be very strong very strict and basically there while it's being developed there's going to be some strong protections to the surrounding resource areas during construction and also after construction if this goes to DEP all bets are off so I don't know what they're going to include in a superseding order of conditions and I have no guarantee to the commission that on a buffer zone project they're going to provide the same level of protections that I can offer in the documents that I can draft for you today if this project is appealed it will be the same thing if DEP ends up issuing a superseding order we will lose local control of the project so my hope is that that won't happen that's the best advice that I can offer you tonight thanks Erin um Tom or Stephen do you want to provide some comments for the record Tom Reedy attorney with Bacon Wilson out of Amherst here on behalf of the applicant well I'm happy to answer any questions that you have I think Erin did a good job summarizing not only the kind of procedural posture of it but I think you know substantively um you know we did have an engineer take a look at it determine existing conditions and then once the the restrictive layer is stripped and replaced with a better soil what the site how the site will act and in each of those cases the peak flow rate goes down pretty significantly so you know with and that's in addition to everything else that we have proposed before you know not only the buffer zone restoration area the wetland enhancement area um those pipes that we have leading towards the wetlands and then on top of that we have this especially you know the data showing you strip that restrictive layer you put in a better layer it should function appropriately so you know we're happy to answer questions but it's a single family home project thanks Tom all right commissioners um so I'm looking at Alex Andre and Laura for questions on this project specifically I'm just going to go around Robin again Alex do you want to comment questions yeah Tom could you live with this permit that we're about to move on I have not seen it um but I would suspect that we could I mean I think the intent is not to endanger any of the resource areas uh and so I would expect you know erosion sedimentation control etc um you know I think we'd be okay thank you Andre nothing Laura no he's on you I am I took the time to review sorry sorry I'm okay Andre you want to go yeah yeah I uh just that I don't have any questions I've seen the um I've seen the conditions uh for state and town bylaws as well and I I think they're uh I think there's there's plenty there thanks Andre all right Laura yeah I reviewed it I think it's you know this is an old project and I hear Erin nodding clear um so um yeah I'm ready to move forward and approve okay um my only comment Erin did you mention there's intent to preserve the adjacent lot and it is part of this project okay all right I don't have any questions I've reviewed the hydrocrate I think this is you know an improvement on it's obviously demonstrated not obviously but intent to demonstrate improvement on stormwater on our jurisdictional areas there's no other resource areas that we've identified we've already um decided not to go for a third party review so I'm ready to move forward with this uh permit and um there's no public comment that I can see it's just Luke out there so I'm looking for a motion I move to issue no no go ahead you got it I move to issue an order of conditions for DEP number 089-0703 with special conditions under the wetlands protection act and Amherst wetlands protection bylaws with associated finding of fact to be attached to the order I second that all right I think I had Andre on the motion Laura on the second Alex hi Laura hi Andre hi and I'm an I all right glad to have that one off our thank you very much thank you Tom Bruce has his hand up yep Bruce it says uh going forward who who would plausibly appeal the neighbors um okay uh butters or 10 citizen group could appeal okay there's been significant concern about stormwater on this project which is you know why very detailed hydrocats were helpful in reviewing this permit okay well thank you guys look okay moving on um all right do I need to open SWCA again is that what I thought no no we just need to continue SWCA is requested a continuation all right um unless there's any comments on this one I guess I'm just looking for a motion to continue here I motion to move to continue the public hearing for a lot 13 Olympia drive notice of intent to 10 11 23 at 7 40 p.m second Alex on the motion Jason on the second Bruce hi Alex hi Jason hi Andre hi Laura Laura you're in mute looking for a vote is it okay if we just yeah it's fine we've got a quorum if she doesn't come all right all right Barry's gonna vote for her yeah I'm trying to remove okay there you go bye Barry thanks for joining okay um I think we gotta we've gotta vote on that right without Laura yes all right all right great so I think I see Luke in the audience so we can circle back to Kestrel yes hi Luke I'm gonna bring you in as a panelist hello can you hear me yep we can hear you into you okay great yeah sorry I thought that the other business went after the other notices of intent so sorry if I missed the original no worries uh yeah so I mean I don't know if you want to yeah so Dave gave us sort of the history and the beaver you know activity and so I guess maybe if you just want to I don't know Erin are there any questions specifically are we looking for sort of a presentation without I I will pull up the photos and the so I'll just I'll just pull the photos up first so that everybody can see them I think it speaks pictures worth a thousand words so this is this is the the bridge that we installed after the culvert was removed the culvert that was removed here was was under this bridge there was a berm here of earth with very small undersized culverts this is the plum brook that flows through here so we removed the culverts removed a great deal of material and put this beautiful little footbridge across here and as you can see as soon as we did that the beavers got really excited and they put in this dam and created this so this is where the the boardwalk is proposed to go for reference this is also a hazard tree that's located in the area that they were hoping to remove another picture of the flooding and then I will pull up the plan so that Luke can explain what the project is yeah so it's um essentially similar in construction to that footbridge it was already there but sort of at a with a different footing so we use inch and a half galvanized steel pipes with some fifth brackets normally used on docks so the post will be driven four foot under the ground and the dock or the boardwalk will be about six inches off the high water mark the water's been fluctuating with the seasons lately but we're basing it off of where the water has been the highest which is about at the top of where the current footbridge is it will be four foot across with these bull rails using the same framing plan that the carpenter's union made and installed at the great middows national wildlife refuge in Sudbury massachusetts it would be with the ramps to make it ADA accessible at a 112 slope just about 150 feet long with 50 15 feet of ramp on either side getting up to the level of the deck itself I don't know if you all need any what other information you might need from me see your Bruce your hand is up yeah um so it's driven down four feet is that because there's bedrock or totally consolidated play or it's just that's the length that you typically use four foot just for the frost line is what our best practices have always um what we've been going off of for all of our installations that we do drive try to drive below the frost line at least thanks Luke that was what I was curious about was the frost heave um anyone else okay Bruce another one it's in the side but I mentioned it earlier so look I was out there today I walked around the the detour it goes up and around and there is towards the end there's another place where you have to basically go through the mud to get to the other dry part and I just wonder if there's any way to I don't know how long it's going to be before this is ready but for people who are taking the detour they're still ending up in the spot in a way so yeah I know I mean I don't know which section you're specifically talking about but we have um some broader plans for the backside of the the trail and then I know you all the town of Amherst has plans for a boardwalk into a bridge just crossing the Plumb Brook further up from here as you go up and toward the range um but it was just where you have a sign that says detour and it took me around and it got me there almost until the very end um I could see that the you know the the place where their flooding was and where the project is going to be but I was still in the mud so yeah I would assume that if you were up up up where you could see the flooding I would assume that's where the the future bridge is is by the time anyway you might go out there and look yeah yeah so I I mean the time wise that you mentioned that I mean after approval we would start I have it this be built by the end of or beginning of November yeah it may not be worth trying to do anything now if you're gonna make this quickly so yeah I'd be curious to see what you're talking about I mean I know there's a few muddy sections further back but yeah thanks Dave yeah thanks thanks Luke for coming tonight um and thanks for that question Bruce I did just want to just clarify though that you know we're collaborating with Kestrel on this you know project but the trail system itself wherever it goes out there is on town land so it's not really Kestrel you know making a reroute and and that wet area I just want to be sensitive also Bruce to the fact that that wet area is probably a wetland resource area so you know I just don't want to get into kind of cascading cascading bog bridging out there so no fair enough we should take a look out there and just see my hope is that we can you know get potentially get this built before the snow flies and not need that not need that that reroute anymore all right Luke you mentioned other plans I don't know what they are uh did you you said something we have we collectively I think collaboratively we have plans to improve the crossing which is upstream yeah that's all right that's what I was referring to yeah so we're not going to bring that before the commission now but probably in 24 um Aaron I just wondered could you just briefly outline how does this fall under an amended order of conditions that maybe you stated that already and I missed it but I just want to be clear that how does how would this fall under that amended order of conditions yeah so we have an existing order of conditions which covered the stream crossing over the plumb brook in this location um obviously this is a change to the order of conditions and so it's really at the commission's discretion whether you're comfortable approving it as a minor administrative change to the plan or whether you think that it needs to have a a an amended order of conditions and usually the trigger for the amended order of conditions would be if you feel there's going to be additional resource area alteration as a result of the work that's proposed that wasn't approved in the original order of conditions um from from a staffing standpoint the reason that I recommended this as a minor administrative change is because the specific design that's proposed here with the um driven um uh supports is very much um like a like a helical pier which DEP considers to be a zero impact footing versus um a footing where you actually have to dig a post hole and the current bridge actually has pretty significant footings on either side which the footings for the footbridge are the most impactful in this case you can see from the from the rendering here that there's very few of these sort of rebar posts or steel posts that are put in the ground so it's it's constructed with a little distance between the the ground surface and the the decking surface which allows a little bit of light and airflow to get underneath DEP typically considers these types of boardwalks to be zero impact so that coupled with the fact that the existing trail people can walk through it and damage the wetland um trying to cross it um is basically why I recommended it as a minor administrative change but it's really at your discretion if you think that it's you know going to have an impact if I could just jump in there thank you Erin that that was really important for I think everybody to hear because you know obviously the town this is a this is townland a town collaborative project with Kestrel and we want to be held to the same standard we would anybody coming before the commission so I think it's really important to outline you know the low impact nature of this project the other thing I just wanted to note Erin for Erin and Luke is that um you know the project is currently being reviewed by our building commissioner I don't know Erin if you may not want to go into detail tonight but I would just add that Rob Morar building commissioner did you know has some suggestions as to you know um you know how to make this project um as good as it can possibly be so maybe that I don't know if that could be a condition that it does you know meet with approval of the building building commissioner to the level that he is comfortable um at and and I wondered the forefoot is do you know have you discussed forefoot width with Rob Morar Erin is he comfortable with a forefoot width um so I sent the plan and the um dimension description um to Rob and then I saw his response back um so I um presumably he's he's seen the dimensions I'm not sure you know if he specifically called those out and just I just wanted to put that out there for the commission you know in certain cases we have the town engineer in certain cases we have the building commissioner because this is a structure array structure it'll be over water not that high um you know it's important to have the building commissioner just look at how it's constructed and I'm in informal conversations with Rob I think I think he's comfortable with us moving forward there may be a few tweaks to work with Luke if you approve this there may be a few uh adjustments that the building commissioner once uh made to the project ultimately you know the town would then assume ownership of this boardwalk so long-term maintenance would be on us obviously we're in a long-term partnership with Kestrel they're on that land and if there was maintenance in the future we always appreciate support from our our partners so it's great to have Kestrel there thanks yeah so there's no like long-term agreement on maintenance of this it's basically Kestrel pays for upfront materials and then long-term perpetual management is on the town we're actually working on an MOU that would likely come before the commission at some point in 24 um that would include um we have a number of um you know parts of our relationship out there we're sharing the trails and parking that Kristen DeBoer the executive director of Kestrel and I would like to bring before the commission and it you know has to do with parking the dyke uh mowing trail maintenance things of that sort because I think you know Kestrel has invested long-term there and in that property and they want to um you know be a good steward of the of the land and they you know it's it's a signature place for them now that they uh their home is there so yeah I think that would be coming to you in 24 great sounds good all right um I'm just going to do round Robin on this one Bruce any questions about it I'm fine okay Andre uh no questions just the comment I think uh I I find that design is uh I would call it brilliant or it's a really nice design that uh has uh low or no impact and it's gonna save uh save the ground from uh getting uh trampled and uh and and ruined so I'm I find that it's a minor minor change thanks Andre Jason no comments Alex no comment okay I'm good um are we making a motion on this one we should make a motion to approve as a minor administrative change and I did like the uh suggestion that Dave made to can condition the approval that um adjustments can be made at the recommendation of the building inspector I'll move to uh issue uh or to approve uh minor administrative change for the order of conditions uh on DEP 089 0689 with uh the condition that uh any um that uh you take into account uh suggestions from the building inspector right Andre the motion second Alex for the second Bruce hi Andre hi Jason hi Alex hi and I'm an I great thanks Luke great thank you so much oh for this question I do want to register a concern and dismay that the senior representative of the group that caused this in the first place was not here to explain themselves why there was not a senior beaver at our meeting is I don't understand it they're very busy they are busy all right thank you very good night mr caster that's it exactly okay well I am looking forward to an MOU because lots going on out there that's it lots of infrastructure lots of partnerships okay are we through our business are we through our NOIs are we all good okay great look at that under the nine o'clock hour there was a note a UMass notice yes under other new business oh yeah thank you for that um that was a um under the um bundled notice of intent uh there's a proposal to do some repairs to the um area around the inlet to the tan brook on UMass property um that came in two days ago so I haven't had a chance to review that and so I just recommend that the commission table that to the next meeting to have a chance to take a look at it sorry yeah um came in late so I don't think we need a motion to table I think we agreed to table is that correct okay I think that's fine I went and tried to find it and I couldn't find it if you want to go see it Bruce I can take you out to look at it not really I just happened to be in the area where's lot 34 and I honestly could not find it so it's it's the um there's a parking lot off of mass av and there's also a very large student housing development that just went in right along it and if you sort of go to the corner where the housing development and the parking lot meet it's right there hey well I'm not sure I'll go again but I did try yeah it's everybody should look at it if you're in that area it's a really interesting and semi-scary looking structure good to good to see and also really telling to see the material and the volume of water and the material that the tan brook carries I've seen cones I've seen you know those massive um uh things that they put in the road they're like cans like those orange cans washed down there trash yard waste I mean the volume of material that and debris that gets down there is is astounding tan brook okay well impressive um all right well to till next time I guess and um unless there's any last comments and looking for a motion to adjourn really guys I'll make the motion adjourn thanks facing second just on the motion andre on the second Bruce hi tason hi andre hi alex hi and i'm nine take it as a as a you know um a compliment everybody wants to stay in the meeting longer enjoying it so much yeah all right have a good night guys enjoy the beautiful all right


Everything that we're doing is for a present goal of joy. It is not for a future outcome because sometimes we say we desire happiness, but really I had to come to this point to realize I don't really know what joy is and what happiness is. It's like when you light a firecracker and the firecracker goes up and explodes in the sky.  There's nothing left behind. It's all gone up in smoke and lights. And you're left with nothing and that's the way actually the spiritual journey goes. You don't get a statue. You get nothing. You're left with nothing, no thing. And you're just happy. You're happy in the moment and that's all there is.


Prices out of control. Investors on the run. Twenty dollar bills being ripped to shreds. And a farmer in the American Midwest. They're all connected to one American institution. Hello, I'm Marsha Loeb, editor-in-chief of Fortune magazine. Financial journalists always want to know the answer to one question. The same question asked every day here on Wall Street and on Main Street. What's the Fed going to do next? Will it tighten, which usually leads to higher interest rates, or loosen, meaning interest rates may go down? Well, I'm not here to tell you the Fed's next move because no one outside of the Fed itself really knows. I am here to explain just why the Federal Reserve system plays such a large role in our everyday lives. The easiest way is to look back in time. But not long ago, the biggest concern of most Americans wasn't crime or healthcare or education. It was runaway inflation. If you've forgotten what those days were like, here's a reminder. It's March 1979. Magic Johnson and Larry Bird meet in the finals of the NCAA basketball tournament. The latest fad, pet rocks, which do absolutely nothing. Meanwhile, gas prices are climbing. So are nearly all prices. Everyone's talking about inflation, even the comedians on Saturday Night Live. Inflation is our friend. For example, consider this. In the year 2000, if current trends continue, the average blue-color annual wage in this country will be $568,000. But inflation is no joke. In one way or another, almost everyone is affected. This is NBC Nightly News. Rising prices are considered the country's single biggest problem. Good evening. Prices in the United States during the first three months of 1979 went up at an annual rate of 13%. So while Magic Johnson was winning a national championship, the Fed was worried about rising prices. Al Broadus is president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. Back in 1979, he was a Fed economist, monitoring the effects of inflation. It discouraged people from saving and investing and building new plants and buying the equipment that we need to grow, investing in technology, doing research and development. It had all of those negative consequences. It was a scary period. October 1979. The Federal Open Market Committee declares war against inflation. The committee includes the seven governors of the Federal Reserve Board and presidents of the Federal Reserve Banks around the country. They regulate the growth of the money supply. And in 1979, they had to do something. Paul Volcker was chairman of the Fed Board of Governors. Inflation can only persist with big growth in the money supply that feeds and supports the inflationary process. So what the Federal Reserve does fundamentally is control the money supply. And we finally reached a point where we said, look, we're just not going to permit and increase the money supply to support this inflation. There is a definite correlation between growth in the money supply and inflation. It's been demonstrated in many countries at many times. Argentina is a case in point. At one time, the government kept printing more and more money, and inflation turned into hyperinflation. Prices were going up by 100% every month. Runaway inflation devastated the national economy. Consumers eventually rioted in the streets. Here at home, the Fed tries to avoid inflation by increasing or decreasing the national money supply. And when it does, the effects are felt throughout the economy. For example, if the money supply is growing rapidly, interest rates tend to go down, at least in the short run. It's a simple matter of supply and demand. When banks have more money available to lend, they don't charge as much interest. In turn, lower interest rates encourage consumers to borrow money. And when people have more money, they're usually willing to spend more for products. Prices tend to go up. That means inflation and all the problems that come with it. Now look at the other side of it. When there's too little money around, the scarcity of money means people will have to pay more to borrow it. Interest rates tend to go up. Because borrowing is more expensive, consumers are less likely to take out loans. In general, people have fewer dollars to buy things with, and businesses cannot raise their prices. Over time, inflation tends to slow down or stop altogether. That's a sheer power of monetary policy. So when prices start going up, the Fed tries to slow the growth of the money supply, which brings us back to our story. It's December, 1980. There's the launching of a new cable channel, MTV. Meanwhile, the U.S. economy is still in trouble. The prime lending rate went to 21.5% today before this week it had never in American history been above 20. Interest rates are rising because the Fed has restricted the growth of the money supply. But no one knows when or if inflation will slow down. The delay, or as we sometimes term it, lag between the time we take an action with monetary policy and the time it has its effect on the economy can be quite long. And we can't predict in advance how long it'll be or exactly how strong the effect will be in a particular instance. One effect in 1980, fewer people can afford to borrow money to buy a new car. The price of the car is bad enough, but the interest rate is ridiculous. High interest rates also create havoc in the housing industry. Throughout the country, people are blaming the Federal Reserve. Thirty years with my wife and three kids, and I've got to worry about what folks are going to do. I'd like the Reserve part to resign themselves. The Fed governors receive hundreds of 2x4s as a symbol of protest and demonstrators gather outside the Federal Reserve building in Washington. I do think there was a feeling in the country then that there was something of an emergency that had to be dealt with. There had to be dealt with by forceful action and a kind of common sense reaction that there would be a little pain in the process. It's October, 1983. Inflation and high interest rates have taken their toll. Companies are borrowing and investing less, and unemployment is rising. But there is one bit of good news. Because people have less money to spend, businesses can't raise prices as quickly. An eventual result? Lower inflation. The inflation numbers for 1983 came out, and they were the lowest that they have been since 1971-72. 3.8%. That's down for more than 12% in 1980. It's July, 1984. The new fashion torn sweatshirts inspired by the movie Flash Dance. Meanwhile, Americans are going back to work, and the unemployment rate is falling fast. At the same time, inflation seems under control. Prices which were going up at more than 13% a year are rising at 4%, which leads to a healthier overall economy. Once we got the inflation rate down, we had the longest expansion in peacetime and recorded American history. We're trying to control inflation and produce a stable monetary system and a stable price level because that will contribute to strong growth and confidence in jobs and income and a high quality of life. That's what we're about, and that's what we're trying to do. There's one significant side effect of monetary policy. The Fed initially raised interest rates, but when Americans grew confident that inflation was under control, interest rates ultimately came way down. The value of savings accounts and investments was no longer being eaten away by prices, so people were willing to save and invest at lower rates than before. It's evident why the Fed's most important job is fighting inflation. Newspapers and magazines sometimes give the impression that it's the Fed's only job, but in fact, there are others, especially involving the country's system of payments, the way we exchange money. The Fed tries to ensure a smooth flow of payments, either made in cash or by check or electronically. Every day, for example, the 12 Federal Reserve banks receive truckloads of currency from local commercial banks which have more cash than they need. The coins are weighed by the bag full and the currency is countered by computerized machines at the rate of 80,000 bills every hour. Bills that maybe counterfeit are rejected and sent to the Secret Service for their investigation. As for currency that's worn out, it's shredded. Every day, nearly $400 million worth of cash is shredded into tiny pieces and then compressed into bricks. Most bills make it through the process. They're wrapped and sent back out to banks that need currency, but most of our day-to-day transactions are made by check and each day, the Federal Reserve system has something like 75 million checks. Then there are electronic transfers of money. Say a company in Boston owes $10 million to another firm in San Francisco. The money can be sent through the Fed's electronic network called Fedwire. The transaction is done by electronic impulses sent across the country. Billions of dollars are transferred daily through a vast network of computers and telephone lines. But the most important element in our overall banking system isn't cash or checks or electronic payments. It's confidence, intangible but indispensable. You're confident your bank will be there when you need to cash a check or use an automatic teller, which wasn't always the case. At one time, the mere rumor that a bank was in trouble could set off a run. You've probably seen the movie, It's a Wonderful Life. A pretty accurate depiction of what a run looked like. Don't look now, but there's something funny going on over there at the bank, George. I've never really seen one, but that's got all the earmarks of being a run. Hey, Eddie, you got any money in the bank at Federal, hurry! Bank failures are still something everyone wants to prevent, even though these days, small depositors are insured by the federal government. One way to prevent failures is to examine banks on a regular basis. Now, in the movies, a visit from the bank examiner is about as welcome as a root canal. Good morning, sir. Carter, bank examiner. Mr. Carter, Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. We're all excited around here. My brother just got the Congressional Medal of Honor, a present just decorated. Yeah, well, I guess they do those things. I trust you had a good year. Good year? Well, between you and me, Mr. Carter, we're broke. Yeah, very funny. In real life, things don't work quite that way. Bank examinations are conducted by various government agencies, including the Fed, and the examiners have little in common with Mr. Carter. The team has arrived. Five bank examiners from the Fed. Their home base is the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, which is responsible for examining state-chartered member banks in its district. On this day, they're in Jacksonville, Illinois. All right, a beautiful day here in Jacksonville in our great state of Illinois. We have 58 degrees. The relative humidity stands at 80%. 19 minutes past eight. It's 8.19, and the team is checking the books. The company made pretty good profits for this year. $100,000 in income. Unlike the movies, this visit is scheduled in advance, and it's done in a spirit of cooperation. The bank being examined is Elliott State Bank. It's been in business in the same location for more than 125 years. The bank has lent money to the local radio station, to a small college in Jacksonville, and to farmer Donny Headon. I needed a combine, and it was going to take $20,000 at that particular time. I wasn't liquid, so I went to the bank, to Elliott Bank, and they loaned me the money. Of course, all the loans have to be paid back. Because if enough loans aren't paid back, Elliott State Bank could go out of business. So the examiners try to make sure that the loans are safe. It's helpful to have an outside party come in and look at the books. We can help them spot difficulties before they arise and maybe give some advice and some information that may prevent a problem from arising. And that's helpful, I think. I think many bankers see it that way. It's clear that the Fed has a major influence on the banking system and the overall economy on things like jobs and prices and interest rates. Over time, the Fed's methods have changed to take advantage of the latest technology, but its mission remains the same as it was back in 1913 when the Fed was created to aim for stable prices, for a sound banking system, and for a growing economy. Now, if I only knew what they were going to do next, I'm Marshall Loeb, and thanks for watching.


American ruggedness was not just what created America. America taking from other people to create that. So how do you reconcile that? Wealth is not an issue of redistribution. Wealth is something to be created, at least under freedom.  I don't know if you've ever seen these wonderful income and wealth graphs that go back 10,000 years. And they measure human wealth, human income, 10,000 years today. And the graph is basically flat. It goes up a little bit, down a little bit. And then it's 17-something. It goes like that. It goes suddenly through the roof. And in Asia, that doesn't happen. In Asia, it stays flat. And somewhere like 1970-something, it goes like that.  Not because it's taken from somebody, but because it's created.