All right. I've got, I've got everyone tonight. Welcome to the Amherst Conservation Commission meeting. April 27, 2022, 705 p.m. First item on the agenda is comments from the chair per usual. I'll just kind of give you guys a. Overview of what the meeting tonight will be like. We have only one hearing. So the Brian Waterman, the 730 hearing is going to be continued because we didn't get the revised materials until the end of the day. Yesterday, yesterday. And so I'm really trying to draw a line there because I find that these hearings, even if they seem simple, if we don't have the time, if Aaron and I don't have the time to digest them and kind of anticipate what's going on, it's hard to keep the meeting efficient and, you know, within bounds. So we asked him to, to request a continuance and he agreed. So that hearing will be continued. The ever source hearing we're on. So that's our one hearing for tonight. And then if you guys recall, we have the executive session at the end of this meeting. So we'll make at the end of our agenda, we'll make a motion for the executive session and then we'll stop the recording and we'll start a new recording. And that will be closed to the public to discuss the zero tuckerman lane enforcement. I think that's pretty much what I have. Oh, and as a reminder, we have our special meeting for the bylaws on next Wednesday, the 4th, May 4th, right? Yeah. So keep that, that's going to be, that's an unusual time. So we're going to have three meetings in a row here. So please keep that in mind. Aaron and I, you know, we're going to have three meetings in a row. So we're going to have three meetings in a row. So the Roy and Michelle have done a ton of work for that. And I know we have a lot to cover for that meeting. So Aaron and I are discussing like how, how what the most efficient way to do that is. But it's also really exciting because I think there's been a ton of progress and like feeling a bunch of holes that have made our jobs more difficult. So it's exciting. Thank you. Roy and Michelle and Aaron. Sounds like that's been a ton of time. So that's what I had. Yeah. So it's a primary purpose for that meeting outside input or us. Next week. So it's a public meeting. So it's outside input. Yeah, but it's the, you know, it's our chance, you know, all of our discussion of the bylaws really has to be in this public forum. So it's, it's really our chance to see where we are and discuss, give feedback and discuss what's gone on in the subcommittee. And as a reminder, all of those meetings are also on YouTube. So anytime Aaron and the Roy and Michelle met to talk about the bylaws, those are also on YouTube. So if people are interested or audio, you know, absorbers, and that's a good way for you to understand this information. That's a good place to look before that meeting next week. If that's what works best for you. Yeah. Can Aaron send us a link? I can send you a link to our channel. Yes. Awesome. Thanks Aaron. But that's really exciting. But that's what I have. Those are my updates. I think I went for a really nice walk at Podic. It looks so good. The trails out there. I can make time. It was, it's a great loop. That's, that's my update. Dave, do you have anything to report? Yeah, just a couple of quick, quick, quick updates. Yeah. Just while, while you mentioned Podic, we still have to complete.   And we're going to kind of repurpose some of there's, there's an old donated. Some old donated. Yeah. Materials out there that we need to kind of repurpose and, and we'll get going on that. So, but yeah, that was great. What's that? I thought it was great. Oh, good. Yeah. It's, it's a lot of ticks out there. So I'll be on the lookout. So I'll be with you most of the night. I'm on a deadline for the town on another project. So I may have my video off and just kind of working, but I will chime in as needed, if needed. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Number one, this Saturday, the 30th, we do have a townwide community cleanup. And some of the sites will be conservation areas. I think Amethyst Brook is on the list. Lower Mill River, Puffer's pond, Hickory Ridge. I am going to be at Hickory Ridge with a group. You can get more information. I don't have all the details, but there's information. I don't know if you can get that out. I think it's from 10 to noon on Saturday. And I think we have over a hundred people signed up already. So school groups and UMass groups, college groups. You name it. So that's being organized by the town. And there's various, um, way, various places where people can meet. I think Mill River rec is one area. Groff Park is another.  Um, We're Erin and I and Beth Wilson from DPW are keeping an eye on the faring Brook, um, work down at the Fort River farm conservation area. It's looking really good. Grass is growing. All the plantings are growing. I know that, um, There's an Amherst college group that is doing some, they did some pre, uh, they're doing pre and post. Water quality monitoring down there. Um, and we want to do some sort of a ribbon cutting or some sort of a acknowledgement of that project. So stay tuned on that. I think what we want to try to do is. Is get the community gardens down at Fort River farm going at the same time and maybe combine those two events. Um, so Stephanie, Gicarello and I and others are working on the community gardens. I think I've mentioned there's a great group from related to help healthy Hampshire that is helping down there. If you haven't been down there recently, there's raised beds going in. There's black plastic to kill some of the, the, um, the grass and, and a sod that's built up over the last couple of years where we're pairing the, the community farm fencing. We're doing a little work session out there with staff tomorrow afternoon. So, um, we'll have more on that in the coming weeks. Our goal is to have the community gardens open hopefully, or at least available first week in June, you know, Memorial Day or first week in June. So you'll hear more about that and we'll keep our fingers crossed that we can get everything done out there. Just other projects that are moving along the dog park. If you haven't been, you know, this is a project that was permitted through the commission, CPA funds and, um, uh, private funds from the Stanton foundation really moving along. This project got bogged down in COVID and, and, and supply chain issues, but, um, they're really making a lot of progress. Again, this will not likely open until fall, but it'll be complete. We need to let the grass grow. And for all the reasons, uh, we, we all work hard on like erosion control and, and, uh, safeguarding water and streams and, and the pond, uh, the, the kettle pond near the dog park, but they're paving the walkways tomorrow and, um, and parking area. We've got P stone up there and top soil going in. So take a look on Belcher, down road. It's pretty exciting to see that project that was permitted through the commission and funded in various ways across the street. The landfill project, which was also permitted through the commission apart, you know, and ZBA and other boards and committees. Um, they are very close to completing all of the installation of the panels. And so again, we'll probably be having some sort of a rimming cunning on that project. I think it's just over three megawatts. Stephanie Chikarello has worked really hard on that, on that project. Um, associated with that is an, is a fence that is going up around the south landfill near the dog park. That fence will do two things. It will safeguard the habitat there for grasshoppers, sparrows, which was a requirement of the natural heritage program. And it will also safeguard, of course, the cap for the, um, the, the, uh, the south landfill. So that project is, uh, that fence will be going up. I imagine in a month or so, uh, three to six weeks. So that'll get great protection for the small population of, of, uh, state listed grasshopper sparrows that we have had off and on using the landfills, both landfills through the years. Um, what else? Uh, Hickory solar. Uh, Erin and I were out there. We were kicking off, uh, doing a project kickoff with amp energy.  Uh, we're kind of firming up that timeline. As you can imagine, solar companies are dealing with supply chain issues as well. Um, labor issues, delivery, uh, uh, delays, et cetera, et cetera. So, um, we'll have more on that. There's no hard and fast start date on that, but they will be getting going. I just reached out to natural heritage today and said, we'd like to have some conversations with them about kind of our end of the bargain out there at Hickory Ridge. Um, of course the company has to work on the mitigation, the 17 plus or minus acres of mitigation out there, replanting of the floodplain, et cetera, et cetera. So lots of things kind of kicking off and getting going. Um, I think I'll stop there. Any questions? Aaron and I have a kind of a backlog of projects. Once some things are through, through you and through her, um, we've got a whole host of other projects and issues we want to bring to your attention, having to do with conservation land and trails and signage and you name it. But, um, Aaron has put the brakes on me, uh, you know, bringing too many things to her, uh, until you get some of these things completed. So that's just a joke. She's working hard as always. I do have a question about, um, with the community gardens, was there a sign up for those? Um, we have something about all that and. You can contact Angela Mills. Um, um, there is something on, on the town website, Angela Mills and Stephanie, and Stephanie Giccarello are now working on the sign up for that. We have healthy Hampshire representatives. Um, I remember we had a problem with issues with people not signing up. So that's what I'm trying to get at it. Are they going to beat the birds? Yeah, they'll be. So right now we really have two official community gardens. One is at Amethyst Brook and that one is pretty much full. There's 10 or 12 plots there. Um, and so we're channeling everybody else to, um, to Fort River Farm. Yeah. This will be, um, what's the terms kind of sweat equity? I mean, this is not going to be just arrive and, and plant your vegetables, you know, put your bees in the ground or something. You know, this is going to be, people are going to have to work these plots. It's going to take some time to, you know, the raised beds will be one thing, but there'll be also a number of just, uh, 10 by 10 and 10 by 20 plots, you know, in the ground. And those are going to take some time to really, you know, improve the soil and, and, um, you know, get them going. So, um, and all of those signups are going through, um, Angela Mills in the town manager's office and she, she does work closely with us in conservation. But we'll be offering a number of those to low and moderate income individuals and families and down, keeping the cost very low to, to, um, access those. And then we're also offering anyone who used to, um, have a, uh, uh, uh, plot at Mill, uh, Mill Lane. We're offering those people a place at Fort River Farm, kind of first in line. So if we have a member of, um, an attendee from the public with a hand raised, would you be willing to, um, if they have a question to remain to your update, would you be willing to take it? Sure. I would. Lastly. I just wanted to let you know that I met with DPW and the, uh, new sidewalk on Mill Lane, which again, part of the permitting came through you all. The funding came through the CDBG program. Um, that project is getting underway next week. So that's one of the platform looking at the Fort River. Okay. Yeah. Really exciting to get that project going. Um, I think I can say that it's a local contractor. It'll be Taylor Davis doing the work and, um, really excited to get that project going and, and have better access for everyone trying to get to Groff Park safely with their family strollers, jogging, walking, running, whatever. That's great. I'm happy to take a quick question if it's something. Yeah. Related to the update. Yeah. Tom Hardy, I see you have your hand up. I'm going to allow you to talk. If you have any questions specifically about Dave's update, please go ahead. Hi. Sorry to drop in. I'm just a senior for me to ask. And I have to sit in on one of these for, uh, for a couple of my, my classes. I just had a quick question. I see that this meeting is recorded. Is that available later on the town site? Yes. Yeah. We have a YouTube channel. If you go to the town of Amherst conservation commission webpage. Um, and the right, right hand bar, um, at the bottom, there's a link to the, um, YouTube channel. And all of our. I'm sorry about that. Thanks so much. No problem. That's it for me. Okay. Thanks, Tom. Uh, okay. All right. Thanks for the update, Dave. Um, so. Let me get the agenda up in front of me. Um, So seven 20. So the next one we had is land management. And it sounds like we can meet and hear an update from the conservation intern. Is that still on the agenda, Aaron? Yes. Yeah. I put the land management in there just as a catch all in case of anything to talk about, but I'm going to promote Haley. Um, Kohler to a panelist. Haley, um, started as an intern in January. Um, And has been. Incredibly helpful to me. Um, This is Haley Haley. This is the commission. Um, And Haley put together a little PowerPoint presentation. Um, To share with you all and Haley, I don't know if you want to present that or if you want me to pull it up on my side. I can, I can get it up just so you don't have to like, um, Scroll through things. Let me just share my screen real quick. Well, you're pulling that up, Haley. I'm just going to announce for the benefit of the other people in the meeting. Um, And that's just an update that if you're here for the notice of intent by Brian Waterman of Waterman design group from Monague Road solar. Um, that this is 285 Central and road. That hearing is going to be continued till next. Our next meeting, our next regular meeting, which is on May 11. Um, so if you're here for the 285, Solar project that hearing we will not discuss that hearing tonight. So please keep an eye on our website check the agenda for the timing of that hearing on May 11. And we'll try to start the RDA for the ever source project as close to 735 as possible just wanted to let everyone know quickly. Okay, sorry Haley thank you. No worries. I'll just get this in the presentation mode. All right, is that showing up for everyone. Perfect. Okay, awesome. So kind of just to go through. I've been working with Aaron since January. Basically, trying to digitize the wetland file logs. So kind of start off to do that. Let me a bunch of these papers that had wetland file logs from 1980 to 2021. And the task with that was to make it into an Excel is like 1000 point Excel and organize them by year so if you can see here that's kind of like a little snippet of what the Excel looks like and how we were organizing the files. Basically, once we had the Excel ready, we went to the archives where there's all the wetland files, and there are about 37 boxes of all the files and basically Aaron would go through, pull up files and I would record the DEP numbers. And then we put in a certificate of compliance or completion, and put that in the Excel as well and there was also a few files we found that were not already recorded on different papers that we put I put into the Excel. And basically, as you can see, there's 37 boxes so it wasn't really. It was a lot of time to go through all of them we only ended up getting through 12 so with the next 12 boxes. What I did was we went through the boxes and found the first and last no eyes, and then I went back to the Excel and found where those would be and basically color coded them. So that way, if you were looking for this file that had an NOI within the range of box 18, you would know, because it would be color coded green. So yeah just a little bit of information regarding kind of organizing the wetland files and everything. And yeah. So thank you guys for listening to that and thank you Aaron for being so helpful the past few months. You know, Haley glazed over it really quickly it was a ton of work I mean just to just the data entry alone, these records went back to 1972. She entered in manual written logs. And that was like in the first couple weeks that she finished that so it was like okay let's start with project number two we're going to archive the boxes and get a little amount of work and just to put it in perspective, it's when you when you get a request a public records request it was like trying to find a needle in a haystack, because most of the time. I get a DEP file number and all of the boxes were by town file number and so I didn't know there was nothing to tell me what file number was tied with what DEP file number was tied with the town file number. So now we have a system. And anytime I get a public records request it's as simple as me doing a keyword search in that Excel document and I can pinpoint it. And all the boxes are numbered I can find the box pull the file and it's like what took me days to find a file now will be, you know, extremely quick and efficient so I just wanted to say thank you to Haley and since she did this all behind scenes and no one really knew about it or heard about it, I wanted to just make sure that you guys knew that she did this work because it was a huge help to me so thank you so much Haley and I really appreciate it. Nice work Haley. Haley I wish you knew you were doing this. Like giving you pep talks along the way. Thank you for your donuts. Yeah, or something. Thank you so much for doing this. Yeah, thank you. It was really in the weeds but it does mean a lot in terms of making Aaron's job easier and more efficient, which literally helps everyone in the town of Amherst so thank you very much. And let us know if you need a recommendation or anything from the Amherst. I've definitely been using Aaron for that. Haley is graduating. So, since she finished and accomplished so much more than I thought she would I, and we wrapped up. I just want to say congrats and awesome work and we're here. So, come visit us and, and use us for mentoring and recommendations as Jen said. Yeah, absolutely. So, thank you guys. Bye Haley. Have a good night. Wow. That's amazing. Okay. Anything else before I have 727 and I think I just opened the wrong file. So we have to look should we do you want to talk about anything for three minutes Aaron. Sure. Yeah. There's something that I think a couple things or maybe one or two things we could handle. I got a request for a certificate of compliance for 55 why lack lean. And I did go out and take photos. The site looks fine I was familiar with the site anyways. So the site, the site is totally stable everything is in compliance on the site and so I would recommend that we have a certificate of compliance for the site. Okay. We just need a motion questioners. I move to move that we issue a complete certificate of compliance for 55. Second. That's Leroy on the motion but you're on the second voice vote. Leroy. Hi. Fletcher. Hi. Larry. Hi, Michelle. Hi, Laura. Andre. Hi. And I'm an eye. Excellent. So the second is request for emergency certification for some tree removal removal of six trees at 37 Bay Road and this is related to the failed culvert that goes under the driveway at the Kestrel land trust and we've been working behind the scenes on that as well as far as getting all our ducks in a row to replace that culvert. But in advance of that culvert replacement taking place. We do have to have six trees removed around the driveway area and so this certification would just approve the removal of those trees for the culvert replacement. Okay. So we just need a motion. Yes, please. Motion to move to issue an emergency certification for removal of six trees from and failed culvert at 37 Bay Road. Second. That's Laura on the motion. Andre on the second. Leroy. Laura. Hi. Fletcher. Hi. Larry. Hi, Michelle. Hi. Andre, did I say Andre yet? Hi. Hi. Okay, and I'm an eye. Thank you. So Jen did touch on this about our hearing next Wednesday and I just wanted to sort of reiterate what Jen said that changes. Okay. So I'm going to start off by saying here, the markups on the bylaw regulations were about 800 edits, and since we've initiated the bylaw review committee, we've made a tremendous amount more to correct errors. All sorts of changes, improvements, clarity. As much as we can, we're not going to be the last three months we've spent going through that document with a fine tooth comb. So when it comes to the hearing, we're not going to be going through it with a fine tooth comb to explain every single change that is made. I'm going to work to set up a page on our web, the concom website that has the existing regulations, the updated regulations, and then hopefully a document which highlights the changes in the in the document so you can kind of see where the changes were made. And then what I'd like to do is move through section by section, sort of highlight bulleted points of where things change. And then provide, give the opportunity for commissioner comment and public comment during that review, and I'd like to try to get through the entire document again not going through fine tooth comb but more a broad overview of each section and what's changed. That's kind of my, my thought process and my thought of how we could approach that. So I just wanted to give you a quick update and let you know if you are interested in those fine details that it's all all those recordings are on our website. And I will, if anybody wants to link to it I can send it to you or if you want to go in and check it out yourself you're welcome to in advance of the hearings. I think you just answered my first question which was, can we read it before the meeting. My second question and this may this is more to the commissioner actually to the subcommittee. It occurred to me or right, you know, literally you're the vice chair. Would you want to or be interested in running that meeting. Just because you know the content of what we'll be talking about really well and can kind of speed us through where we need to speed through and slow down where we need to slow down. You probably don't have to answer that now but I wanted to throw that out there since you and Michelle have been doing the bulk of this work. Are you having any interest. I'm definitely open to that. I'm open to that believe we have a bylaw on Friday so you want to talk about that dinner. Sure.  Okay, and I don't I mean I can be prepared to run it or just let me know guys what you decide. What are the dates following next Wednesday. My idea would be that we'll spend an hour next Wednesday going through it, and then continue it to our first and second meeting. In May, and provide maybe 20 minutes to half an hour during this the second and third meetings to go through it review it. And then we'll allow commissioner comment around allow public comment, and it'll probably take that long, even just to glaze over the sections and the changes. All right. Thanks Aaron. So it's 733 so I think we can move to continue the 285 Sunderland Road hearing. Would you share that slide Aaron just so we can get an accurate motion. Sorry I hadn't switched around in the power. Go ahead. We continue the public hearing for 285 Sunderland Road to May 11, 2022 at 740 p.m. Second. Okay, that's Laura in the motion Larry in the second voice vote Larry. Hi. Leroy. Hi. Fletcher. Hi, Michelle. Hi, Andre. Hi, Laura. Okay. There we go. All right, I have 734 do we have a one minute item. Yeah. I think the town manager is seeking a volunteer to step up to the solar bylaw committee, and the Roy did expressed interest but we had a couple commissioners missing at the last meeting and I don't know if the commission wants to talk about that. Yeah, I think there, we had a particular commissioner in mind who works in solar directly we wanted to make sure if that commissioner had interest in this that she especially an opportunity we also acknowledge that that commissioner is doing CPA so I don't understand if that's not time you have but we just didn't want to make a decision without the fall commission since it's going to be a pretty high profile and not to mention very, very important bylaw so I mean if I want to do it I mean obviously like I have a ton of experience in solar and have been involved in similar committees before. I don't have a ton of time. And I think that if I was going to do this I probably would want to not do the other group, which I haven't even done anything for so if there's been readings I've totally missed them so that's, you know, that's, I'm not sure what the status is there but you know. Yeah, so I think that's my, I think that's my summary. Okay, sorry to put you on the spot Laura. Thanks for sorry to put you on the spot thank you for. Oh no I saw the agenda that was like, okay good. Okay. Dave, is it pop. I'm sure you have some input and guidance here. Was it possible for somebody else to be on CPA. Oh, yeah, very much so so just to answer Laura's question you have not missed any CPA meeting. It was like. They are considering meeting in May but you haven't missed anything. That committee typically the bulk of their work the intensity of their work typically happens from the fall, I would say, you know, October through January early February. And then they, they often don't meet so that's when proposals come in. You know they they come up with their goals and objectives kind of for the year they look at budget spending what they have available etc etc. And I think the solar bylaw that that group. And you know is is as as Jen mentioned going to be you know it's really a year, probably at least a year long commitment. And I think much more intense in terms of the meeting frequency than CPA see, I could see CPA see meeting once in May, and then maybe not until mid fall of 22. Whereas I think the other the other committee is, you know, getting, getting geared up and getting appointed and, you know, moving forward fairly quickly. Yeah, I think that's a pretty good assessment that the solar piece is going to be very, very loaded, you know, I mean it's a pretty controversial matter. So, I mean, listen, I'm willing to do it Leroy if you want to do I'm certainly not trying to step on your toes at all. I just, it's, I'd be willing to do it from a perspective of service. No, I wanted to make sure the position was filled, but I much prefer you to do with your parents background that said, I'm happy to take on CPA. And so I've been everybody of course but I'm much more willing to do that. Much more familiar with history than so to me. Who else is on the bylaw committee Dave right now. They're the appointments are being made now so I actually don't have them off the top of my head I know the ECAC Wayne breaker from the the ECAC is going to be on it but I don't have a list of names in front of me or in my head on that. But you know, listening to the conversation it might make good sense here to pivot a little bit and maybe if Laura is willing to be on that committee. And the Roy is willing to be on CPA saying maybe that's a good way to go. And the responsibility of the bylaw committee is going to be to draft the bylaws or to make recommendations to draft the bylaws. No, it is going to be to work with Stephanie Ciccarello and Christine breaststroke our planning director to to basically carry out the public process to get us to a bylaw and incorporate the findings of the solar setting study. And that solar setting study we're going to hire a consultant to work with the group work with staff to basically look at the entire town and say, where are the best locations for solar to happen. Okay. I think Aaron can can forward to you if it hasn't if it's not in your packet the charge of that committee. I'm looking at the email from Paul Backelman. I'm asking for a nominee and it says the working group will develop and present a draft on capitals zoning bylaw to the town council on or before May 31 2023. The working group will be supported by the sustainability Courtney Stephanie, Stephanie and the planning director Christine for her designate, or her designate the members of the working group will be asked to dedicate significant time to this work perhaps meeting as often as twice per month with the research and reading in between meetings. I think the advantage, you know, that you suggested earlier Laura is that you do work in the field.  Yeah, most. Okay, let's do it. And I think I'll do that. Laura, there's a required bookend so you need to have the moratorium lifted in a year so it's only a year at the maximum so I guess that's good. So I would recommend that we make a motion for both of these items and it could be one motion. So, basically we're moving that we nominate Laura as a member of the solar bylaw working group and we're nominating the Roy, as the representative from the concom to see back CPA CPA CPA committee. We have a motion from Larry looking for a second. Is that pleasure. Yeah, voice vote Larry. Hi, Larry. Hi, pleasure. Hi. Good job. Hi, Andre. Hi, Laura. And I'm an eye. Thank you, Laura and the Roy. Yeah, thank you very much. I'm really glad to know that you'll be participating in that Laura. Okay, so I have 742. I think our one hearing for the night was on 735 on the agenda so we can open that hearing. So that actually that hearing is a continuum so I don't have to actually open the RDA but we can get started. I want to say first that I think there's going to be a lot of interest in this hearing, which we always appreciate and we're glad we're right now we have nine attendees in the meeting. We're glad you guys are here if you're here for this hearing. It's a sticky situation because ever source is being required by the natural heritage program on the natural heritage and endangered species program of the state of Massachusetts to do habitat restoration is part of habitat restoration for and a threatened plant species and one of their projects. And the proposal is to control some invasive buckthorn species with glyphosate glyphosate, excuse me, I'll get that glyphosate, which is a herbicide. It's used often but also very controversial. We have to figure out it's tricky because ever source is being required to do this by the state but it's jurisdictional for us because it's application of an herbicide in a wetland and our job is to protect that that resource in the town. So possible outcomes here this is an RDA, a negative determination would mean that they don't have to move forward, you know that we approve the work and they don't have to move forward with any further permitting from this point forward, positive determination would mean that we're saying no you cannot move forward with this work that you're being required to do by the state. And that would probably result in an appeals process to DEP. So, they're both difficult roads for everything involved. I will say that the restoration plan that ever sources submitted, as approved by the natural heritage program is one of the most detailed and kind of well confined and well defined plans that I've seen come across the conservation commission kind of desk, real desk in a long time. So it's very detailed, very specific and according to natural heritage very necessary in order to control that buckthorn. So I'm just giving all this background to say that we understand that this is a very thorny issue. We want to be able to include as many voices as possible, but we're going to have to limit this hearing to about 20 minutes. But that usually means is that we do kind of, we ask the representative the applicant to give us an update on the project, we get an update from Aaron on what's happened since our last hearing. And then we accept public comment for about two minutes as long as it's relevant to our jurisdiction, which is the protection of the well and water resources. So that's my, those are kind of the rules of engagement here. And yeah, with that, I should bring in is it Simon. Aaron. Yes. Simon, I'm going to promote you to a panelist. And we're actually losing attendees. We now only have seven attendees, but so maybe we'll see. So I see Simon's here. There we go. Can you hear me? We can hear you. Excellent. Good evening, Simon Hilt with ever source energy here. Jen gave a pretty thorough description of the project, but just, just as a little bit further summary. As part of our transmission line replacement project that's running through the town of Amherst, we're passing through an area of priority habitat as mapped by natural heritage, containing some rare plants. One of the things that natural heritage has asked us to do because we, some of the timber mats that we're using for access are have been placed on some of the plants out there. So in order to mitigate those impacts there, they've asked us to control some of the invasive species that's growing out there, namely the buckthorn. It's growing in some patches now that it's extremely dense and it's starting to shade out or has the potential to shade out the stateless of rare plant. So they're working with natural heritage. They've directed us to use herbicide to control the species out there over a three year cycle. So, as we mentioned on the last call, the majority of the larger plants which get as tall as around 10 or 12 feet or so shrubs in wetlands particularly will be controlled using a cut and dab method or cut and spray method which is basically the stems are cut. And then a backpack sprayer at low volume spray carefully applies herbicide directly to the cut stem. Rare plants and non rare plants alike are shielded using a physical barrier during the spraying. We will restrict spraying so that we're not spraying within 10 feet of standing or flowing water. We will also not be spraying on days where there's high winds forecast or precipitation forecast. Aaron and I had a call with natural heritage representatives yesterday actually, and they provided some kind of backup as far as their feelings is why the herbicide application is necessary and why the methods that we've proposed are necessary, namely more than just the cut and dab foliar potentially basal spring will be necessary. They provided some some information by email earlier today. And part of the reason as I mentioned before with that some of the other methods are necessary aside from cutting dab. So when we have smaller diameter stems of the invasive shrubs out there. Essentially, the diameter of the stem can be so small that it doesn't effectively take up the chemical that's being used glyphosate in this case, that it would actually effectively kill the plant using the hormone additive active hormone that it does use and potentially could just cause the plant to actually sprout out even more. So we again we're not doing this for fun we're not doing it willy-nilly and spraying herbicide all over the place we're doing this to enhance the habitat of a state listed rare plant. And will it will be a very, very delicate and painstaking process that pretty much sums it up. And I can I have the figures if you'd like me to share my screen and again show that the areas where we're proposing treatment. So let's see if I'm thanks Simon that was a great update. Thank you. If you just stand by and whether we need to look at those, those figures, I feel like I have it. A pretty good picture in my mind, but if other commissioners want to look at that when we come to this discussion we can certainly pull it up. Do you want to give us any update commissioners you should know in the hearings folder in the folder for this hearing. There's a lot of information about this including letters from the natural heritage program folks summarizing kind of their response after our last hearing, we really asked Aaron to go on a fact binding mission about the trade offs here. So their take on why they're requiring this herbicide use in the resource area is very clearly summarized there. And then we also have several letters with more additional facts from residents of gamers so I encourage you to take a look at those. If you haven't already. Aaron do you want to give us any further updates. I would just echo the comments that Simon said with the exception that I know one of the discussion items that we had at the last hearing was whether in year one we could just just do the cut and dab method and see about the effectiveness of that before moving to year two. They were very concerned about that stating that they did not think that that was going to be an effective method and that the concern is really at this point about losing the endangered threatened species that is in the right of way that is being choked out invasive. And the reason that it is so detailed is to try to save the species that is growing in the right of way so they they didn't support that and for the same reasons that Simon outlined that there wasn't enough uptake of the chemical within the plant to actually knock it back. And so as far as we had also discussed an alternative chemical to glycosate glycos, oh my gosh, I've said it 100 times. They said that there are alternatives, but that those alternatives are a lot more harmful to human beings than that particular chemical. They said it's the it's the least damaging to human beings that particular one. And so that's why that particular chemical is recommended and for this purpose. So the call was not a very long call they were very direct and to the point. And then they did provide the back, the follow up correspondence. Thanks Aaron yeah and so just to highlight I mean we, I really have been turning my gears on this trying to think of, of some sort of adaptive compromise but that's difficult with this if with the goal of removing that buckthorn. So, you know, I think this could be the headline of any syllabus of either an ecology class or environmental policy class like it's difficult here because the regulations can't take into account the interconnectivity of the resource and the environment that we're trying to protect. So it's a, it's a sticky one. I guess commissioners do you have any specific clarifying questions for Simon or Aaron before we move to public comment. So it's only, it's only three years of treatment. Yep. Yeah, for three years they walk away. It's performance based so after each year we're going to be submitting reports to natural heritage to let them know how the treatments have, whether they've been successful or not so I mean we will need to assess, you know, year by year but that's that's hopefully what it'll be limited to. Okay. Yeah Michelle. I did some reading and I'm not necessarily more clear on where I stand on this but, and I also asked some conservation practitioners that I work with about the use of glyphosate which we do use for invasive species management endangered plant protection. And one thing that came up was the formulation of the glyphosate application and depending on the formulation. The glyphosate application can be safer or not safer for wetlands and more toxic or less toxic for wetlands species such as amphibians so I saw in the proposal or the RDA application that this was following state guidelines but maybe Simon just for clarification you could let us know if this is like roundup or rodeo I believe rodeo is the one that's safer for wetland applications. From what I understand rodeo is actually being taken off the market and essentially what what I believe commercial applicators do is they don't use a product that's off the shelf such as rodeo roundup I think they, they get straight up glyphosate and then they do that with other agents one is a surfactant which I think basically is something that you know allows the allows the material to better adhere to to the plants and basically something probably inert as far as water or something like that to just basically make it you know something that can be applied in liquid form. So, I don't have the exact level that it will be applied at but again just just stating that the goal here is to improve habitat and improve environmental conditions and is being directed by natural heritage again we are on the hook for protecting the replants that are out there and certainly don't want to harm those or or any other bystander plants. So the surfactants that can actually be more harmful than the glyphosate itself so I would just have to assume that natural heritage has reviewed the formulation that you're using for. Well, we could make it a condition that I wouldn't know what to ask for necessarily but I assume that these are standards used for sensitive resource areas and spring. So maybe a condition. Laura I see you a condition. If we were to issue a negative RDA would be review the formulation, including the specifically the surfactant to make sure it is the on the spectrum, it is the one that is the safest to use in wetlands. I saw a lot of research about kind of the impacts of soil moisture on the effectiveness of this and it was difficult to discern like. Exactly. Do you have like a specific product, because we could just stay. Yeah, well so many surfactants out there so yeah so I don't have the expertise to know that that's why I was suggesting rodeo but apparently that's off the shelf so. That was what what I was told so I mean I would refer to whatever is can like approved by natural heritage for use in wetlands me they even use glyphosate for aquatic weeds but it's a certain formulation of it that's safer than upland or dry land populations for aquatic birdwards and birdwards so I wouldn't be able to review it myself and you know chemical composition of it but I'm sure there's some guidelines. I don't know it wasn't in the application it wasn't mentioned by natural heritage but it does seem to be an important component of whether or not it's safe or less safe for use in aquatic areas. That's great Michelle yeah I mean I think a condition that natural heritage review that formulation, and that we're informed is a good condition, right I feel like you had a comment or some input a couple of people back. So those types of things are very hard to condition. I think the closest you could get would be to say something along the lines of we require the applicant to do it in the safest way possible given the conditions at the time. For instance, even if you had natural heritage review it and come up with a proposed situation and very well might not be the situation when the spring goes up. Obviously been a licensed best of science for and I know I have changed formulations on same properties, given different conditions. And I will say that is why I'm so nervous about this because I'm not entirely sure there's a great way to make the base chemical use safe. I'm comfortable, you know, once we speak more with SWCA who's going to be doing the work I'm not sure if they have the formula in mind right now or would be based on site conditions but a condition requiring us to come back to the commission and share with you what is proposed is completely reasonable and and again we are here for our goal is to protect not only the plants but also wetlands and and the population of Amherst so that's absolutely fine. I don't have you know the expertise on this commission to review that so how do we I mean can we still have natural heritage must be using this and approving these, you know, around the clock so I mean can we Aaron can we just have them review the formulation and sign off on it and just make sure that we're all on the same page with what is actually going to be used on the ground. Yeah, I mean what I would suggest is they have a ever source has a license applicator she was actually on the call with NHS P earlier. When we spoke and that we have her provide the formulation to natural heritage and that natural heritage response saying they're approving that formulation and then at that point, you know, present that information back to the commission that that process was followed. What do we do remember we had to do this with tan brook on by that Garcia's place for the paving and they treated they treated the buck, not the buck from the Japanese not Japanese knowledge. Yep. So what that process was pretty straightforward. That was a fuller spray. Yep, but in a wet like straight up in a wetland. Yeah, we didn't have any issues of that so the applicator provided exactly we're just we were just talking about right. So, right, I mean, and then we just approved the cutting plans with herbicide use in buffers areas for that farm. That was pretty straightforward so we knew the applicator there. Yeah, there was also on you drive south. There was an invasive plan. Right. Yeah, there's several projects. It's like what I'm trying to get as like they're all but they're all similar to there's only so many ways you can approach these situations and it is the chemical use so which chemical are using in that in this situation. Yeah, I'm trying to get I'm trying to figure out like what's the difference here than all those other ones. The difference here is that a butters were notified, and those are butters are taking issue with it and you want to demonstrate to those of butters that we are do diligence, taking every precaution possible to protect the wetlands. And I but I do think to your point, Fletcher got that context helps here, you know, in terms of a detailed, well confined, well thought out plan with the addition of this condition that that Michelle has suggested. I think this is one of the better setups for this kind of herbicide application that we have seen in town in a long time. Leroy does this. So I'm, I heard you say that this is very difficult to condition and having kind of done application work before and changing different formulations and different parts of the property. Do you think that this can help us saw address that problem and my, my follow up question would be, if approval with natural heritage wouldn't kind of do it. Is there any other state authority that would help. It sounds to me that it would help us given unprecedented. It gives us some standing. Yeah. Okay, I just wanted to make sure. You know, yeah. All right. Thanks, Michelle that is super helpful. Thank you for looking into that. All right, I want to, if it's okay with you guys, I, we've had a member of the public with her hand raised for quite some time now so I'm going to move into public comment and then we can come back to any discussion and move towards decision here after that. So I'm good. Again, just a reminder that we'd ask people to limit their comments to approximately two minutes and to keep your questions and comments to issues jurisdictional to this commission which is protection of the well and and water resources. So with that, and if you raise your hand I can bring you in allow you to talk kind of in the order that you raise your hands so I see Sarah, you have your hand up I'm going to allow you to talk. You could just thank you. Yeah, everybody hear me hi. So I just I've heard you all speak about how you feel pressure from the state and there's. This is sort of, you feel like you're caught stuck between a hard place. I just want to urge you to realize, you know, recognize that that Amherst wetlands bylaw is stronger than the state wetlands regulations. Okay, the town of Amherst cares very deeply about our wetlands, and it's the conservation commissions obligation to enforce that bylaw and quoting from the bylaw. The applicant. So in this case ever source it's their job to show by a preponderance of the evidence that the work proposed will not have an unacceptable significant or cumulative effect upon the resource area values protected by this bylaw that is your job. And I will also point out to you that the EPA itself, although it has not banned glyphosate, the EPA in 2021, their biological evaluation found that glyphosate will negatively affect most of the plants and animals that are protected by the Endangered Species Act. I do not see how that's reconcilable. I do not see how you can uphold the bylaw, and also allow glyphosate, when the federal government has found that it's so damaging to the resource that you're charged with protecting. Thank you. Okay. Thank you Sarah. Did anyone else have any questions or comments. Jeff sharp. I believe we've met you in the past hearing Jeff. Yeah, thank you. Yeah I was in the last hearing and back and I sent you a letter that you should have all been exposed to, which, which noted a bunch of research, and, and, you know, the topic and how Carson a genetic glyphosate is how dangerous it is, how it's, it's, it's being outlawed and in many communities in Massachusetts and across the country. You know, really, is it necessary. Is it really necessary have all avenues been looked at to, to protect this endangered plant that that, you know that we could move forward with and I just, I question that have you have you, you know, has ever source looked into every other possible avenue my neighbor, Chris riddle, who some of you may know, took care of some invasive species right, right where we are which is right next to the area that's in question, and, and he was told that he could use glyphosate and doing this. And the name of the person that did the work for him was Joan Dealey, if any of you are familiar with Joan Dealey. So, right next to where you're talking about. He was told that that was not allowed on his property to do some mitigation of invasive species. You know, that's it for my comments I hope that you look at the research that was submitted to you and take this very seriously. Thanks, Jeff. We are definitely taking this very seriously and I appreciate your input as well as the letter. The one thing I do want to I'm just going to read. So, again to clarify ever source is being required to do this as a condition of their permit with this, the state natural heritage endangered species program. So this is being reviewed as well by expertise within the state as to how to best protect this rare plant. So a lot of the technical guidance of this is coming from the state on how to best handle the situation so I want to just put this out there because it's public anyway. This is a follow up email from the natural heritage program employees. It says, I want to be clear that glossy buckthorn and European buckthorn have long to consider a problem at all three of these sites, it goes through the history, the history of kind of documenting the growth and kind of overtaking of the sites by buckthorn. It says it damages the climbing fern by shading the fern and not allowing sunlight on the ground through its dense dense growth climbing fern will thrive with filtered light not dense shade. Glossy and European buckthorn are problem and basic species because there are no native new England species that can eat it bees will visit it flowers but many of those will be European honey bees. Also not native bees mostly its presence is killing native species by shading out native plants that can be eaten by our native wildlife as well as shading this rare plant. There's no person be eating glass glassy buckthorn but no animals will be eating it either. And so then it goes into kind of the addressing our questions with both which both are specific questions one use of spot treatments potentially only doing cut and dab the first year no foliar and to use of a different more effective herbicide, which both Simon and Aaron have covered earlier in their sharing. So, I just wanted to make it clear that you know the buckthorn as is means that this rare plant will not be able to grow in this area. And that's why the focus on kind of removal of this of this dense invasive. So thank you Jeff for the research and your, your contributions here we we very appreciate much appreciate it. So, it looks like Simon, did you also have a response. Yeah I just wanted to clarify one thing, as far as the regulation this local regulations trumping state regulations. I just want to mention that this is under a different set of regulations this is Massachusetts endangered species act rather than one protection act. I want to respond to the commenter who asked if we had explored all options and yeah we really have I mean we're doing this at the direction of the state of rare plant restoration biologists. One, one possible method that was discussed at the last meeting was mechanical removal IE pulling out plants. And I mean for one thing. These thickets of shrubs are so dense that you would essentially be pulling up the entire right away. And then the other pieces, even pulling up small groups of plants is going to result in so much soil disturbance that you know what moves into those areas is generally invasive species so we're trying to do this in a way that is targeted is careful so that we're really just doing what we need to do and can then leave the site and and hope that it you know is in a much better place after that. And really just, yeah, that's that's basically what I've said thanks. Thanks Simon. Okay. So, last call, any members of the public who joined us tonight if you have any comments or questions relevant to this this hearing please raise your hand we're happy to hear, but you have to say and we appreciate you being here. Let's see in anyone. Okay. So, commissioners good Michelle did you have a comment. I just wanted to like point out another sticky piece of this is that this ultimately is restoration of a wetland area and glossy buckthorn I think I mean I know some species in that genius or allopathic meaning that they out, they have like basically a poison that will kill other animals around them and they monopolize areas so it's an invasive species that's already compromising a native wetland habitat and this does get at restoration of native wetlands. So that ultimately is the goal. I'm just bringing that up because it's another consideration in this decision. Thank you. Commissioners any other comments or questions on this. So where are we. Does anyone have any need any more information in order to make this decision again this is an RDA so a negative determination would mean they proceed with their work. Positive determination would mean that they don't, which likely results in a field process with the state. So that's kind of what we have on our plate, we can condition a negative determination, we've discussed potential condition there. So again, does anyone need any more information in order to have the information they need to make to vote on this. Okay. Um, so I think we should make a motion and vote. I think that's the best way to move forward. Aaron can Fletcher and Laura vote. Have you guys reviewed the last meeting proceedings. Yes. Yeah, I have to. Great. So if they viewed the proceedings from the last meeting then they can. Um, I, one recommendation might be to close the public hearing first so that the commission can deliberate internally to discuss this. Just an option to consider. Yeah, I mean, I think if we had additional information that we needed to deliberate or questions we needed to ask, then we could close the public hearing but I think that we should, I think I'm gathering that we're ready to vote. Okay. I think that's one. It's looking okay. Okay. All right. So if you would pull up the slide, Aaron. Yep. So I also added in, while you guys were discussing, I added in a condition that the monitoring reports should be shared with the commission regarding the success of the treatment. That's great. Assuming. Yeah, with the first condition there review with commission and advance of application. So that condition, our approval has to be met in order for this to work to proceed. So if we find that this surfactant for, I do not think this is going to happen. But if it's something where we're not happy with the surfactant and we're, we're do not approve that then it holds up to work. Is that correct. I think if natural heritage said no this comp, this formulation is not acceptable, then they would have to come up with another formulation. Okay. Okay. Is that are these conditions okay with everyone else. Any other conditions suggestions. Okay. We're looking for emotion. I'll make the motion. I'll make the motion to issue a negative determination of applicability checking box two and positive determination of applicability to the bylaw checking box five on the RDA forever source. Do you want to just read the conditions. Oh, sorry. Yeah, of course, and the conditions. We got to be working with the natural heritage orientation species program review the formulation of herbicide treatment specifically the surfactant for the commission advance the application. Number two, applicator uses the safest methods available. Number three, monitoring reports must be shared with the commission regardless. Regarding success of the treatment, which is the top concern. Second. So that's Fletcher with emotion Andre with a second, do a voice vote Andre. Hi. Fletcher. Hi. Roy. Michelle. Hi. Larry. Laura. And I'm also an eye. All right, Simon. Thank you for being here. We look forward to hearing how it goes. Sorry. Thank you very much and I'll be back in touch with you guys with the, with the, the, what we're going to be applying out there. Thank you very much. Great. Thank you. Okay. So that is the end of the wait, let me double check that Aaron was there more. I think we handled all of the other business items. Okay. Okay. So this is the end of our regular public meeting for tonight and now we're going to open an executive session to discuss the zero Tuckerman Broad. enforcement order. The reason that this is going into executive session is so that we can make sure we don't have a detrimental effect on the town's litigating position. Until the litigating about this enforcement order should it happen is over. Once it's over, this does then become public just to make that clear. With that, I think I need a motion to close the Amherst Conservation Commission meeting on this date. Then we need to vote on that. So emotion to adjourn, and then I will make a motion to open the executive session. Okay, I will make a motion to adjourn the Amherst Conservation Committee meeting on April 27, 819 PM. I had a second from Leroy motion by Laura second from Leroy. Voice vote Laura. Larry. Hi. Leroy. Hi. Fletcher. Hi. Michelle. Hi. Andre. Hi. Okay. So that meeting is adjourned. And now. So I need someone to make a motion to enter the executive session. I move that we enter into executive session on April 27 at 820 PM. Can you read the full slide Leroy. I'm sorry, I didn't even see it up here. I'm going to go back to our speaker. Thank you. Thank you. I move that we entered executive session pursuant MGLC 38 section 21, a three to discuss strategy with respect to litigation, if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect in a litigating position of the public body. And the chair so declare that having a discussion and open session would have a detrimental effect. On the town's litigating position, which you have declared. Okay. We have LaRoy with the motion. Andre in the second voice vote. Fletcher. Oh boy. Oh, Dave has his hand up. Dave was this a procedural. I know it's hands down. Continue voting LaRoy. Michelle. Hi. Andre. Hi. Larry. Hi. Laura. And I'm an eye. So Aaron. Yeah. So I'm going to stop the recording for this meeting.


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Hello everybody, HoodedCobraCommander788 here and I'm back with another vintage GI Joe Toy review. And this time by special request we are looking at the 1982 GI Joe Flak. Flak was an acronym that stood for Field Light Attack Cannon. It was worth two flag points and it did not come with an action figure. It was sold in 1982. It was also sold in 1983. It was discontinued in 1984, but it was available as a mail away from 1985 to 1990. So this was available for a really long time, so there should be a lot of these floating around out there. Despite the fact that the Flak was still on the shelves in 1983, its role was somewhat replaced by the 1983 whirlwind twin battle gun, which was another gun, an anti-aircraft gun like the Flak that did not come with an action figure. In 1984, we got the Cobra ASP, which was an anti-aircraft gun that fit the role of both the whirlwind and the Flak, but this time for Cobra. The blueprints called this gun a 105mm howitzer, which is definitely what this gun is not. A howitzer is a relatively short barreled gun that is intended to fire shells at high trajectories for a steep angle of descent, so it's designed to lob shells down on the heads of the enemy. This is an anti-aircraft gun, and in case there was any doubt as to whether or not this was an anti-aircraft gun, there's a sticker here indicating the number of kills that this gun has had, and of course it's all aircraft. Also on the sticker for the control panel, we see the gun targeting an aircraft. The Flak borrows design cues and its name from a series of German anti-aircraft guns from World War II. This I think most closely fits the German Flak 39. Main differences really, the Flak 39 did not have the seat like this. The Flak 39 was a 105mm gun, so the blueprints did have that part right. Let's look at the parts of the Flak, and it's a short list. It has three support legs and they all fold it in like this, you fold them out to place it on the ground for support. It had a seat in the back which came out really easily, just very easily pop it out like that, and for that reason these Flaks are often missing the seat. Also, the bar that supports the seat is pretty thin and these break off very easily, so you see a lot of Flaks out there without the seat and sometimes without this entire bar. The seat just kind of snaps in there like that, and you can tell when you snap it in that it's not going to stay in very firmly. The Flak did not come with an action figure, but the box art featured rock and roll in the gunner seat, and I think he's appropriate as the GI Joe machine gunner, and this is how I always display my Flak. There are two control joysticks here that the figures can kind of put their hands on. They're a bit thick, so I wouldn't try to force the figures' hands all the way on them, but they can just kind of hold onto the edge there, and that's really the only means of support for keeping the action figure in. There's no back peg on the seat, so that would go in the back of the action figure, and there is no foot peg here on the foot supports, which would have gone into the holes in the bottom of the feet of the action figure to help hold them in. And I think that that's a missed opportunity. Honestly, I mean he does stay in there fairly well, but I would have preferred something more for support, something else to try to keep the action figure in, just keep him from falling out. Let's look at the features of the Flak, and again it's a short list. It will rotate all the way around on its base, and it can move, it can move down, it can elevate. It elevates up to the point where the foot rests hit against the supporting bar here, so that's about as high up as it goes, and that's about it as far as features go, but I think one of the main features really is not what the Flak does, but how it looks. I mean it has a ton of really impressive details. It looks kind of hyper realistic. The control panel there has some stickers with some gauges, the sides of the gun just have a lot of detail. The stickers have a very nice military look to them. It's really an impressive looking gun. The 1983 GI Joe Headquarters Command Center had a special emplacement just for the Flak that had these indentions here, one right there, and another one up here and here, and those exactly fit the footprint of the Flak. They're not very deep, so they don't hold the Flak in very well, but they were designed for the Flak, and they fit perfectly. The Flak as a standalone toy is fine, but it's not one of my favorites, mainly because there are some missed opportunities with this toy, and I think the main one, the most obvious one, is wheels. Just give the thing some wheels. Giving this some wheels and making it a towed vehicle like the whirlwind, I think would have made a huge difference. There's actually no way to pull this thing and get it on the battlefield. It's actually a pretty static stationary toy, but if you had slapped some wheels on it and put a tow hook on it, it could have been towed by another GI Joe vehicle, and that I think would have made it look really cool. Alternatively, if there were at least some kind of loop or cleat on here that would have fit the 1983 Dragonfly's winch, then it could have been airlifted into position, but there's not really anything like that on there either. Now, to be fair, this came out in 1982, and the 1983 Dragonfly didn't exist at the time. Maybe if this were designed in 1983, they would have thought of that, but unfortunately, it just doesn't have anything to hook onto, really. Now, you can still airlift this thing in here by just playing out the Dragonfly's winch and looping it around the body there and then hooking the hook there to the rope, and then it can be carried that way, which I guess is fine. The fact that the flak did not have wheels means that it didn't have a way to move it onto the battlefield, unless you just picked it up and carried it and who would do something crazy like that? If the flak had wheels, it would have been a nice, less expensive alternative to the 1982 and 1983 HAL laser cannon, which, as you can see, was bigger. It came with an action figure, Grand Slam, and it had wheels, so it was a towed weapon, and so if you're a kid and you only have so much allowance money to spend, and you have the more expensive HAL in the store, and on the same shelf you have the flak, and the flak could do everything that the HAL could do. It could be towed and it could shoot, it just didn't have an action figure. You might pick up the flak just because it's cheaper and your allowance money would go farther. That was my review of the 1982 G.I. Joe Flak. I hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, go ahead and give this video a thumbs up.  That's what it's there for. But whatever you do, make sure you subscribe to the hooded Cobra Commander 788 YouTube channel, because I've got a lot of great new G.I. Joe action figure, vehicle, and comic book reviews coming up, you do not want to miss them. In fact, the next review is kind of special. It's one that I've been working on for quite a while, and I'm really psyched to actually be able to do it. So you do not want to miss it, so make sure you're subscribed. I'll talk to you all later.


Live from San Francisco, it's theCUBE, covering Samsung Developer Conference 2017. Brought to you by Samsung. Okay, welcome back, everyone. Live here in San Francisco, this is theCUBE's exclusive coverage of Samsung Developer Conference, hashtag SDC 2017. I'm John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE Media Coast theCUBE. My next guest is Ken Young, tech reporter here inside theCUBE. I've known Ken for almost 10 years now, plus been in the Silicon Valley beat scene, covering technology, communities, and all the cutting edge tech, but also some of the old established companies. Great to see you. Likewise, thanks for having me. So, you tech reporter, let's just have a little reporter session here, because reporting here at Samsung, to me, it's my first Developer Conference for Samsung. I stopped going on the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference when it became too much of a circus around close to just a couple of years before Steve Jobs died. Now it's a whole scene. We'll have to talk to Steve Dowling and get down there, but here, my first one, my report's an awakening. Okay, I get the TV thing, but I mean, I'm like IOT, that's my world. I want to see more IOT, so it's good to see Samsung coming into the cloud and owning that, so that's exciting for me. What do you see as a report that you could file? You know, so that's funny, because I actually did write a post this morning after watching the keynote yesterday, while I was at VentureBeat a few months ago, I reported on Bixby's launch when it came out with the Galaxy S8. And when I heard about what that was, it was kind of interesting. That was one of the biggest selling points for me to switch over from my iPhone. And when I tried it out, it was interesting. I was kind of wondering how it would stand up against Google Assistant, because both of them are installed on the same device. But now, as you see with Bixby 2.0 and now with the smart things, you start to see Samsung's vision, because right now on a mobile, it's just very piecemeal. But now when you tackle it on with the TVs, with the fridges and the monitors, smart with the ovens and everything like that, it becomes your entire home. It becomes your Jarvis. You don't actually have to spend 150 bucks or 200 bucks on a Alexa-enabled device or Google Home that most people may not be totally familiar with. But if you have a TV, you're familiar with it. Also, you mentioned Jarvis, that's reference to the old sitcom. But, and when Mark Zuckerberg tried his Jarvis project, which was, you know, wire his home from scratch. Although, science project, you talk about real utility. I mean, so we're getting down to the consumerization. So let's take that to the next level. If you look at the trends in Silicon Valley and certainly in the tech industry, blockchain and ICOs are really hot, initial coin offerings. That's based on utility, right? So utility-based ICOs, communities using gamification, game apps, utility, Samsung, smart things, using their intelligence not to try to be the next Amazon, e-commerce, cloud company. They're just trying to be the better Samsung. Which they've had some problems in the past. And we've heard from analysts here, Patrick Moorehead, who was on, pointed out, illustrated the point. They were stove-piped company. And with Dixby 2.0, they're like breaking down the silos. We had the execs on here saying, that's their goal. Exactly. Yeah, this is the, everything has been siloed. You look at a lot of tech companies now and you don't get to see their grand vision. Everyone has this product roadmap when they start these companies and when they expand, then you start to see everything come together. Like for example, whether it's Square, whether it's Apple, whether it's Google or Facebook, right? And Samsung, a storied history, right? They've been around for ages with a lot of great technology. And they've got their hands in different parts. But from a consumer standpoint, likelihood of you having a Samsung device in your home is probably pretty good. And so why not just expand that, leverage that technology? Right now, tech is all about AI. You start to see a lot of the AI serves get acquired and or heavily funded and heavily invested. And it's all about- Really, theCUBE is an AI. We're AI machine right here. Right here is the bot that wants to report. People are AI washing.  AI is machine learning. It's all about data. Using software and data. Data collection, data collection. Nailed it, nailed it. And personalization. And you look at, I interviewed a Samsung executive at CES last year, this January. And he was telling me about the three parts. It has to be personal, it has to be contextual, it has to be conversational in terms of AI. And what you saw yesterday, during the keynote and whatever they've been executives and the company's been repeatedly saying is that's what Bixby is. And you could kind of say that's similar to what Google has with Google Assistant. You can see that with Alexa, but it's not, it's still very, those technologies are very silent. All those three things again, personal? Personal, contextual, and conversational. That is awesome. In fact, that connects what Amy Jo Kim was talking about, the CEO of Shufflebrain. She took it from a different angle. She's building these game apps, but she's becoming more of a product development because it's not just build a game like a Zynga game or something on the mobile phone. She's bringing gaming systems. Her thesis was that people are now part of the game. Those are my words, but she's actually saying the game system includes data from your friends. The game might suck, but my friends are still there. So when it's still, there's still some social equity in there. You're bringing it over to the contextual personal. This is the new magic for app developers. Is this leading to AR? I mean, this, I mean, we're talking about series. This is, these are the new convergence of the new formulas for successful app development. I mean, we're talking about earlier like what is AI? And I mentioned, you know, it's all about data. And it's absolutely true. Like your home is collecting so much data about you that it's going to offer that personal response. So you're talking about what is, you know, is this going to lead to AR? Absolutely. So whatever data it has about your home, you might bring your phone out to, as you go shopping or whatnot, you might be out sightseeing and it might, and have your camera out and it may bring back some memories, right? Or you might display a photo from your photo album or something. So there's a lot of interesting times that could come into it. And obviously Samsung's camera on their phones are one of the top ones on the market. So there's potential for AR. So I got to ask you, Ken. So looking at the bigger picture now, let's look outside of Samsung. We can look at some tell signs here. Google on stage. Clearly not grandstanding, but doing their thing. Android, you know, AR core. Starting to see that Google DNA. Now they got TensorFlow and a lot of goodness happening in the cloud with Sam Ramje over there.  Okay, they're in the big three. Some people call it the big seven.  It's Amazon, Microsoft, Google. Everyone else is fighting for four or five, six, depending on who you want to talk to.  One is they're going to be wholesaling resource. Amazon is not Google. Amazon has no Android. They dropped their phones. Microsoft, Joe Belfure said, hey, I'm done with phones, they tapped out. So essentially Microsoft taps out the device. They stick up the Xbox. Amazon tapping out of phones. They got commerce, they got web service, they got entertainment. This is going to be interesting. What's your take? Well, your interesting, an understatement there. I mean, you look at what the, Amazon's right now is basically running the show and as it comes to virtual assistance or voice powered assistance.  And then soon after, I believe it was last month, Google launches a whole bunch of Google home devices as well. But it's interesting, both of those companies are targeting, have a different approach to what Samsung is, right? Remember, Samsung's with Bixby 2.0 is all about consolidating the home, right? And in my post, I coined it, it was basically, it was their fight to unite the internet of things kind of thing. So, but when it comes to Alexa with Amazon and Google, they're targeting not only the smaller integrations with maybe like August or smart logs or maybe thermostats and whatnot, but they're also going after retailers and businesses, right? So, how many skills can you have on Alexa? How many, what are they called? Actions can you have on Google Home? I mean, they're going after, you're going to see businesses, they're going after businesses. Well, this is the edge of the network. So, the reason why, again, coming back full circle, I was very critical on day one yesterday. I was kind of like, data, IOT, that's our wheelhouse on the queue. Not a lot of messaging around that because I don't think Samsung's ready yet and nor should they be given their evolution. But in Amazon's world. I think the way they played it yesterday was pretty good. A little humble, like they didn't set that expectation, like, oh my God, this is going to, like, we, like. They didn't dismiss it, but they were basically not highlighting it, right? They did enough, they did enough to entice you to tease it. But like, look, they have a long way to go to kind of unite it. I mean, look, SmartThings has been around for a while. So, they've been kind of building it behind the scenes. Now this is like, hey, now we're going to slap on AI. It's similar to. What do you hear from developers? I've been hearing some chirping here about the APIs, got to be standardized and not sure. Oh, absolutely. I think a lot of developers will probably want to see, like, hey, if I'm going to build, if I want to leverage AI and kind of have it consolidate, I want to be able to have it, to leverage, maximize my input, maximize my reach. Like, I don't want to have to build one action here, one skill here, whatever Samsung's going to call it for Bixby, you know? I want to make it that one thing. But Samsung's whole monetization, that's going to be interesting in terms of your marketplace. How does that play out? Amazon has recently started to monetize or start to incentivize, as it were, developers. And Google will probably likely, if they're not already doing that, will has plenty of experience in doing that with Android and now, and they can do that with Google. So I got to ask you about Facebook. Facebook has been rumored to have a phone coming, but I mean, Facebook's- They tried that once. They're licking their wounds right now. The love on Facebook is not high.  You know, move fast, break stuff. Zuck is hurting, it's hurting Zuck. I know, and certainly the Russian stuff, I mean, I think first of all, it's really not Facebook's fault. They never claimed to be some original content machine. They just got taken advantage of through bad arbitrage points. But there's no lost love there. People are not happy with Facebook right now, so it'd be hard for them to introduce a phone. Well, you're right. There are rumors that they were going to introduce a phone again after we all remember Facebook Home, which was, you know, we won't talk about that anymore. R.I.P. You know? But I think there's talk about them doing a speaker, like of some sort of a video thing. I think they're calling, I believe it's called Project Aloha. I believe Business Insider and TechCrunch also have reported on that extensively. So that is going to compete with what Amazon's going. So everyone is going after Amazon, right? So I think don't discount Samsung on this part. I think they're going to be, you know, I don't want to comment dark horse, but they, you know, people are kind of ignoring them right now. Well, if Samsung actually aligned with Amazon, that would be very interesting because they'd have their foot in both camps, Google and Amazon, and just play Switzerland and win on both sides. Samsung, I think that might be a viable strategy. I think Samsung has, yeah. And Redshift, Kinesis, if customers want to do that, Google complied some cloud for them, don't know how they feel about that. Yeah, I mean, Samsung will definitely be, I think has the appeal with their story history. They can go after the bigger retailers, the bigger manufacturers to leverage them because there's some stability as opposed to why I'm not going to give access to my data to Amazon. You look at Amazon now, as Amazon's now the, one of the, probably the de facto leader in that space, like you see people teaming up with Google to compete against them.  True, true. But a lot of the fud going out there, I saw Matt Assay's article on Info World and it was over the top, basically saying that Amazon's not giving back an open source. I challenged Andy Jassy two years ago on that and Matt's behind the times. Matt, you got to get with the program. You're a little bit hardcore pushed here, but I think he's echoing the fear of the community. Amazon's definitely doing open source to be involved, but the same thing goes for Alibaba. Gaiasty, founder of Alibaba Cloud last week in China. You guys are taking from open source, are you giving back? And it was off the record comment and he was like, you know, they want to give back, right? So there's all kinds of political and or incumbent positions on open source. That to me is going to be the game changer. Linux Foundation, Apache that's growing, exponential growth in open source over the next five to 10 years. Just in terms of lines of code shipped. Linux Foundation's showing those numbers and 10% of that code is going to be new. 90% of the code is going to be reused software. Absolutely. I mean, you're going to need to have a lot of open source in order for this ecosystem to really flourish. I mean, to build it on your own and do it proprietary. I mean, it basically locks it down. And didn't Sony have that deal with that? Like when they were doing their own memory cars for cameras and stuff. And, you know, now they've, now their cameras are using micro or using SD cards now. I mean, so you're starting to see, I think a lot of companies will need to be supportive of open source and in tech, you start to see people boasting that, you know, we are doing this in open source or like Facebook is constantly announces, hey, we are releasing this into open source. LinkedIn will do that. And any company that you talk to will. Except Apple. Apple does some open source. Apple does some open source in a ton though, but they're a closed system. And they're cool about it. They're up front about it. Okay, final question. Bottom line, Samsung developer conference 2017. What should people know that didn't make it or watching this? What should they know about what they missed and what Samsung's doing? What they need to do better? You know, I think what really took the two-day conference is basically Bixby. You look at all the sessions that it's all about Bixby. SmartThings, like sure, they consolidated everything into the SmartThings cloud. Great. But you know, SmartThings has been around for a while and I'm interested to see how well they've been doing. I wish they released a little bit more numbers on those. But Bixby, it was kind of interesting. 10 million users on them after three months launching in the US, which is a pretty good number. But they still have a bit of ways to go. And they're constantly making improvements, which is a very good thing as well. Ken Young, afraid of the cube, tech reporter formerly with Venture Beat now onto his next thing. What are you going to do?  I'm going to continue writing about what I see and who knows where that takes me. Yeah, it's good to get decompressed, log off for a week or so. I went to China and I was kind of off Facebook for a week. It felt great. It's like no more political posts. Like one more Colin Kaepernick kneeling down, National Anthem or anti-Trump post. I was going to, yeah, it's just disaster. And then the whole me too thing hit.  A lot of good things happening though in the world and good to see you're writing out there. It's theCUBE. I'm John Furrier, live in San Francisco, Samsung Developer Conference, exclusive CUBE coverage. Live here, we'll be right back with more. Day two coverage of two days, we'll be right back.


Russia's death toll in war exceeds 93,000. Russia has lost over 93,000 of its soldiers since the start of the invasion. The headquarters of the Ukrainian Armed Forces announced on Tuesday. Some 93,000 and 80 Russian soldiers have been killed as of today, with 340 of them being killed on December 8, the source said. Russia has also suffered large-scale losses in terms of military equipment. The Russian Army's losses include 2,937 tanks, 5,911 armored fighting vehicles, 1,925 artillery systems, 395 rocket launchers, 211 air defense systems, 281 aircraft, 264 helicopters, 1,603 unmanned aerial vehicles, 592 cruise missiles, 16 ships and boats, 4,528 vehicles and fuel tanks, 164 special vehicles. In the past two days, Ukrainian troops also destroyed two Russian tanks, two armored combat vehicles, two artillery systems, two unmanned aerial vehicles, two fuel tanks and one special equipment.


This review presents a comprehensive overview on selected synthetic roots towards commercial drug compounds as published in both journal and patent literature. Owing to the vast number of potential structures, we have concentrated only on those drugs containing five-membered heterocycles and focused principally on the assembly of the heterocyclic core. In order to target the most representative chemical entities, the examples discussed have been selected from the top 200 best-selling drugs of recent years. This article was authored by Marcus Bauman, Ian R. Baxendale, Stephen D. Lay, and others.


Hey everyone, I'm Lily Ray and today I'm going to be talking about a few different types of Google updates So we're going to start with the helpful content update, which was announced and rolled out in August of 2022 and the helpful content update introduced a new concept in the SEO space, which is a site-wide classifier that will be identifying unhelpful content and this is content that Google decided or determined is Primarily written for search engines and is not exactly helpful for users This new site-wide classifier that they're using with the helpful content update will be applied to sites that Google believes is doing this type Of thing at scale so if the majority of the content on the website is considered unhelpful It's written primarily for search engines and not for users The helpful content update classifier can be applied to those sites Which can have the impact of affecting the rankings for the whole site, so it's not just one or two pages It's potentially the entire site Including even if the website has some content that's actually helpful so this was introduced in about mid 2022 and Google has explained that it's going to be using machine learning with the helpful content update classifier Which means that the classifier is learning and growing and evolving over time as it begins to understand Different patterns and different signals about sites that do provide unhelpful content It can continue to impact those sites over time So while they told us the update rolled out in August and it lasted about two weeks and it concluded We also know that Google will likely be leveraging the helpful content update classifier all the time or in future updates They told us if it's a big significant change to how they use this update They'll let us know but otherwise we should assume that it's kind of their operating in the background So this was a new development for 2022 The product reviews update there have been a variety of them They started in 2021 and this was also a new type of update from Google in which Google is telling us that if you're a website That provides product review content You need to meet a certain criteria for content quality that they're looking for The backstory behind this and the reason that I believe Google rolled out these product review updates is because there's many many Websites that have reviews of products that have affiliate links that are making money through SEO Through having these affiliate websites, but they don't add a lot of value They don't tell you a lot of insights about the product that's different than what Google has already seen before and Google has received a lot of feedback from users that it's not particularly helpful when they read a product review That's just saying the same thing the manufacturer said about the products or that other sites have already said about the products So there's been a variety of different product review updates because I believe that they're refining this set of algorithms To basically elevate the best product reviews on the internet Google has told us that they should be written by experts or enthusiasts that know the products very well So people that are obsessed with tech devices, you know, like smartwatches or TVs or whatever They need to prove that they've spent a lot of time Analyzing these products that they're they have an obsession with it. Maybe they studied it Maybe they they have pictures of themselves using it Anything that gives the user and search engines evidence that they've actually spent a lot of time with the product This is another very important concept from these updates Google has Specifically said if you're providing product reviews, we need evidence. We need photos of you using the product We need videos of you using it We need anything that shows us that you're not just rehashing what everybody else has already said online We need proof that you've actually spent the time doing it So a lot of sites are starting to adapt their product review strategy To meet Google's expectations of what makes a good product review as a result of this Almost every product review update that rolls out You'll see a lot of volatility in the search results because some product review sites are winning from these updates Some are losing and then there's other sites that are being impacted by these ranking changes such as e-commerce websites who might see Gains or losses in rankings because maybe the product review site that Google was previously ranking was affected by the updates So the e-commerce site wins out a little bit more. This has been a big Change for a lot of sites in this category. We've seen a lot of ranking volatility with product review sites The third type of update that we're all probably very familiar with and has existed for a very long time Are Google's core updates? These are nothing new but the nature of them changes over time So they pretty much happen quarterly. That's that's not like a hundred percent true for every year But it's pretty much every few months that Google will roll out a big core update they started to basically just name them after the months so you might have like the September 22 core update for example and What makes these tricky is that Google doesn't give us a lot of specificity each time they're rolled out about what changed They almost always reference back to the same article that says what site owners should know about Google core updates That article gives 25 questions or so that the the the reader or the content creator should read with regard to what makes a good Page a good website. Does the website demonstrate EAT? Does the website have good quality content? And these are all the questions that you should consider if you've been affected by core updates Even if you haven't been affected you should read them because it positions you well to to do well when the next core update is rolled out another concept that a lot of people don't understand about core updates is that they Often operate on a site-wide level Similar to the helpful content update which means if Google has determined a large-scale pattern of either great quality content Or not good quality content or perhaps a lack of the EAT Expertise authority and trust in certain areas a core update can impact the rankings of almost all your content at scale So that's not necessarily to say that there's one individual article that drop dropped in rankings because that article is bad You could actually just be impacted by the core update as a whole because Google decided that your site in general Shouldn't be ranking as well as it is so people don't always understand that core updates operate in a site-wide fashion Content quality is extremely important during core updates. So if you read Google's questions about the core update almost all of them tie back to How much is this website meeting the expectations of users? How much does the content offer something unique that I couldn't get from other people's websites? Is the spelling good as the grammar good as the usability good all of this points back to quality? Technical SEO is also part of content quality if your website is easy for users and search engines to crawl through and to navigate Without, you know, terrible page speeds or a bad user interface or things like that. This all factors into their quality evaluations So it's not just content. It's also technical SEO. It's also performance usability website navigation all these things factor into content quality and then intent is the last point I want to make because One thing that I've noticed with my core update analysis is that Google tends to be getting better at understanding user intent And that's not always to say, you know, somebody typed I want to go to this store like that's a pretty clear intent when you type a keyword like dogs There's a lot of different intents that the user might be looking for they might be looking to adopt a dog They might be looking to feed a dog. They might be looking to take a dog on a walk There's so many different things Google has so much data that they understand the intent better behind every keyword When they launch a core update, you often see that the types of results that are ranking will change So you might see a dictionary website start to rank during a core update So let's say the example is dogs after a core update happens, perhaps a dictionary He takes the number one position. That's because Google determined most users want to define what the word dog means If that happens, it's very hard to say that your site did something right or wrong It's just that Google got better at understanding intent. So that's very important to understand with core updates It doesn't always mean your site did anything wrong. It could just be that Google is getting smarter So with all of that these updates will probably continue to happen going forward So you should get a good understanding of how they work and best of luck to you in your rankings