[Denis MacDougall]: On March 29th, 2023, Governor Healey signed into law a supplemental budget bill which, among other things, extends the temporary provisions pertaining to the open meeting law to March 31st, 2025. Specifically, this further extension allows public bodies to continue holding meetings remotely without a quorum of the public body physically present at a meeting location and provide adequate alternative access to remote meetings. The language is not making substantive changes to the open meeting law other than extending the expiration date of the temporary provisions regarding remote meetings from March 31st, 2023 to March 31st, 2025. Welcome all to the City of Medford Conservation Commission meeting and we have our first item on the agenda tonight is We heard a notice of intent filed by the town of Winchester to conduct improvements in the South Reservoir Dam on South Dam Road in Medford, Mass., to bring it into compliance with the Office of Dam Safety regulations. The proposed work will impact the following inland resource areas, bordering vegetated wetlands, bank, land under water bodies, and waterways, bordering land subject to flooding, and the riverfront area, Sveltebrook. This project is being filed as a Dam Maintenance Limited Project Part 310CMR10.533I. And we have... Applicants or presenters on the call.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_08]: So Dennis, I have a PowerPoint we pulled together. Do you want me to go ahead and share that?
[Denis MacDougall]: Yeah, let me just make your calls and you'll be good to go.
[Christopher Bader]: I think we're all set.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_08]: All right, you guys, can you guys see that?
[Unidentified]: Yes.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_08]: So we're here today on behalf of the town of Winchester to present the South Reservoir Dam Improvement Project. I met with Dennis, Heather, Craig, and Caroline this morning out on site. So I might be repeating myself for you guys, Alexander, And Eric, if you guys want me to go into any more detail on any of the topics here, just let me know. But I might move through this somewhat quickly since we met out there this morning. So the project team, like I said, the town of Winchester, Mass., is filing this permit. And today we have Weston and Sampson here. Michael DePalma, I'm the project manager for the project. And Haley, if you want to introduce yourself.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_01]: Hello, my name is Haley Page. I am the environmental scientist who works to pull together this permit. I'll hand it back over to Mike now.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_08]: So a little bit about the project site. It's located in the Middlesex Fells Reservation. The land is owned by Medford, even though the dam is owned and operated by the town of Winchester. There's a reservoir system within the fells that Winchester operates. There's the North Reservoir, the Middle Reservoir, and the South Reservoir. Water is pumped from the North Reservoir to the middle, and then it's gravity flow from the middle to the South Reservoir, which ultimately ends up in the town's water treatment plant. The next slide here is just an aerial view of the site. You can see the dam on the right side of the screen and the water treatment plant in the middle. One thing to note on this slide is just the heavily wooded area downstream of the dam. So the dam was built in the 1880s in order to store water for treatment. A utility project was completed back in 2015 that I worked with Dennis on for the permitting and the construction. The purpose of that project was mainly to give the town of Winchester the ability to draw reservoir levels down in the event of emergency to prevent flooding in Medford. An inspection in 2020 determined the dam was structurally deficient and in poor condition. and as a follow-up to that, the Office of Dam Safety issued a non-compliance order to bring the dam into compliance. So since then, follow-up inspections and reporting have been completed quarterly monitoring the status of the dam. Here's another photo that I had. Again, the people on site today kind of saw this, but this is the vehicular access bridge leading out to the dam. The treatment plant is behind this photo. You can see the lower road that heads down to the town's pump station, which pumps water up to the treatment plant. These photos are in to show the riprap on the upstream slope of the dam. So as part of this project, kind of a big portion of this project is going to be placing additional riprap on the upstream slope here to flatten the slope to a 3-to-1 slope. Currently, it's at close to a 2-to-1 in areas. Some of the deficiencies that have brought the dam into poor condition are the steep slopes on the upstream and downstream side. And then there's the seepage area, which we've been monitoring for close to 20 years. The flow rate and the size of the seepage area has been growing over the years, kind of pushing that poor rating, pushing that poor rating. Trees and other vegetation, there's obviously a lot of trees on the dam on the downstream slope. And there's other depressions and erosions throughout the dam that'll be addressed during rehabilitation. So the proposed project, it's basically a, it's a, it's a large earth moving project. Uh, a lot of material is going to be brought in a lot of, a lot of rip rap for the upstream slope and a lot of, uh, gravel stone, sand, and other filter materials. Lowman seed will be brought in for the downstream side. Um, as, as part of all those materials, uh, a silpa, a seepage filter blanket will be constructed over the seepage area that was shown in the last photo there, and we got a good look at today out in the woods. And then some other miscellaneous structural improvements, some improvements being made to the vehicular access bridge, some improvements to the pedestrian bridge leading out to the gatehouse, and the spillway weir, which I'll show some photos of that on one of the next slides coming up. Here's just a plan view of the dam. It kind of shows the extent of the grading that's going to be happening out there. Like I said, a lot of material being brought in on the upstream and downstream slopes. Here's a water resource area mapping of the site. So we obviously have South Reservoir Dam, South Reservoir. We have bordering vegetated wetlands on the downstream side. shown in green, and then we have the Smeltbrook bank line, which is the spillway discharge, shown in purple. So here's a photo of the Smeltbrook. You can see the slide gate under the bridge here. That will remain. That was replaced during that 2015, well, that was installed during the 2015 project, but the town's experiencing some leaking in the concrete along the bridge abutments. So that will be replaced. And the left side is showing the upstream side with water up against the spillway, and the downstream side is showing the smelt brook in a dry condition, which it's in a dry condition for 95% of the time. So Haley's going to jump over and get into some of the impact areas and other permit notes.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_01]: Great. All right, so I will jump right in. So this was summarized in the project description. We pulled this table in to make it a little bit easier to comprehend all the impacts associated with this project. So starting off, there is a total of 10,400 square feet of boring vegetated wetland impacts proposed 3,900 square feet of these impacts will be considered temporary due to the placement of erosion controls. Upon the completion of work, the temporarily impacted areas will be restored to pre-construction conditions and a seed mix will be spread back on top of these impacted areas. 6,500 square feet of permanent impacts will be associated with the seepage filter, which Mike was mentioning earlier. As a result of these bordering vegetated wetland impacts, we are also proposing a wetland replication area of 1,200 square feet, which we'll get into on the following slides a little bit more. As for bank, we are proposing a total of 976 linear feet of temporary impacts. This is due to the placement of erosion controls, the replacement of the existing concrete wear and slide gate in the current footprint, and due to the necessary regrading and placement of stabilizing riprap. And what is considered temporary, due to those images we showed previously, there is already riprap along this bank slope existing out on the south reservoir. Next, moving into land underwater impact. This project proposes a total of 74,500 square feet of impact to land underwater. Sorry, I missed my, there we go. 14,100 square feet of impact is considered permanent for this area that riprap will be placed where currently there is no riprap existing, whereas 60,400 square feet will be considered temporary associated with Riprap being placed within areas that currently are in existing conditions have riprap placed. Additionally, for the replacement of the concrete wear and slide gate within the existing footprint will also be falling under this temporary impacted area. Following bordering land subject to flooding, the project proposes a total of 7,605 square feet of impact. 325 square feet of impact are considered temporary due to the placement of erosion controls, which these areas will be restored to pre-construction conditions. 7,280 square feet of impact will be permanent due to the necessary regrading that needs to take place. For this project, approximately 144 cubic yards of flood storage will be lost due to the placement of the riprap. However, we are proposing to restore 41 cubic yards with our wetland replication that is proposed. Finally, riverfront area, we are proposing a total of 40,010 square feet of impact to this area. 8,170 square feet of impact is considered temporary due to the placement of erosion controls and due to the shift in the access path, which areas will be receded and create a new grassed edge. And 31,840 square feet of riverfront area impact are considered permanent due to the regrading and the shift of this path. So that was my blurb on the wetland impacts. If you could skip ahead to the next slide now, Mike. So this is the sheet that was found in the plan set and which called out these specific areas that will be impacted as a part of this project. The table up in the left-hand corner of this image is essentially what I just read off to you. And we can keep moving ahead and we can just use that slide for reference later if needed. So, as Dennis mentioned, we did file this project as a limited project in compliance with 310 CMR 10.533I under a dam maintenance project. So, if we could skip ahead to the next slide. So, this project seeks to improve the South Reservoir Dam to come into compliance with the Office of Dam Safety Requirements. Therefore, this is consistent with this sort of limited project. So, additionally, following our decision to file this as a limited project, we also had correspondence with the mass circuit writer in which discussing flexibility and meeting these performance standards. So they express that as long as we propose the project under this limited project, we did not have to speak to our compliance with land underwater and riverfront area performance standards. Therefore, we did not speak to these within our filing. Also due to filing as a limited project, we are also seeking some flexibility in meeting all performance standards. Moving ahead, the next big piece is our mitigation measures for this project. So as I mentioned a little bit earlier, we are proposing a wetland replication area. So this project site has very limited available space for wetland replication. Site constraints include steep hills adjacent to the wetlands, shallow bedrock, and the Office of Dam Safety requirement that no wetland can be located within 20 feet of the toe of the dam, which those of you who got out to the site today, you could definitely see these areas a bit better out on site in comparison to aerial imagery even. However, due to these limitations, we could not find a one-to-one replication site on site. But we did find an area where we can replicate a 1,200 square foot area located 20 feet off of the toe of the dam. So through this, as I also mentioned earlier, With the placement of the stabilizing riprap, we are losing 144 cubic yards of compensatory storage. However, with our wetland replication area, we will be able to replace approximately 41 cubic yards of compensatory storage. And then finally, our big piece is a tree removal. So for this project, the Office of Dam Safety does not allow trees to be located within 20 feet of the toe of the dam. Therefore, 147 trees will need to be removed in the project description. We pulled together a bit more descriptive section on the trees that are located out there and that need to be removed. And we are planning to look to get your input on what tree restoration will be required for it is not possible to look to replicate these trees on site. So we'll be looking to find places off site to look to restore some sort of level of trees for this project. And I believe our next slide we have is just our wetland replication plan, which was attached in our plan set just in case there was any questions on this. Otherwise, I think that's about it now and we can open it up to discussion now and any questions that the commission may have for us.
[Marie Izzo]: Thanks, Hailey and Michael. I do appreciate the presentation and I'm sorry I couldn't have joined you on site this morning. Although I can say I'm quite familiar having hiked across the dam, a number of times, it's a great spot. And just curious on background, where are you with other threads of permitting, your water quality, CERT, so on and so forth, just curious.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_01]: Yep, so essentially we're working through our 401 and Army Corps permitting processes right now. We have closed out our MEPA process, so that one is done and dealt with. We are actually meeting, we have our kind of weekly meetings, check-ins or bi-weekly meeting check-ins with 401 and Army Corps, which is tomorrow. So the reviews are moving along. However, we have not closed at this point in time. And one thing to bring up is that there was, you know, we've been having some discussions with 401 on the wetland replication and compensatory storage areas. So that's something we are looking to get a little additional input on 401. We previously had a site walk with them out on site a few weeks ago. And following they had just a couple of questions they wanted to look to check in with some people above them. So, we're kind of that's the piece we're kind of waiting on right now, but we are moving through this process. Otherwise, this is kind of the last step other than those 2 permits.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_08]: Haley, there was one request from the 401 office for not to close out with the Medford Conservation Commission, because I think that's going to work. Haley, you can speak to that if you want, because it requires an amendment or something.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_01]: He just wanted to make sure that his office could Be okay with not meeting the 1 to 1 replication essentially, and he didn't want us to have to go through this project. This process with the commission, and then lead to something saying where we do need to go back and to the drawing board and have to go. Amend our order of conditions if things were to change, so we will look to continue this meeting from tonight. But we did want to come and present to everyone and see if there was any outstanding items prior to the next meeting we can look to pull together for the commission.
[Marie Izzo]: I appreciate that. Who's the staff person in the regional office?
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_01]: We are working with Kyle Lally. And for Army Corps, we're working with Paul Sneeringer.
[Marie Izzo]: Okay. I'm going to ask a question. And I suspect that it came up earlier today. I'm just curious, is it at all possible to reduce the amount of fill in BVW? So.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_01]: My understanding, at least Mike can chime in if you want. We've had our geotech team looking very deeply into this and looking in, you know, for the integrity of the dam. They've tried their best to reduce both riprap, you know, and fill within the wetlands to the best extent possible. But in order to come into compliance with the Office of Dam Safety requirements, this is the smallest footprint that we can look to move ahead with per se for the for this. seepage that's being caused from the dam.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, there is there is other ways of doing it. But we're in the opinion that it might be more impactful to do it that way. You could put a so we're the method we're using as a seepage blanket, which basically we're just going to cover it, filter the seepage, allow it to seep. It will stop any soil particles from moving through the dam and downstream of the dam. You want to keep anything structural inside the dam. Another method is a drain, a tow drain, but that requires a huge amount of excavation for a dam this size. And due to the fact we got to keep the water high in the reservoir during the work, that's not possible here.
[Marie Izzo]: Yeah, I certainly sympathize with the constraints for the site. It's a tricky, you know, it's a big ask to solve this problem and it's a tough site for sure. It just seems that it's certainly concerning that we can't meet a one-for-one replication and we are at the same time losing flood storage. So, you know, it seems like you're I trust that your team has put the hard work into thinking about how to make this happen. Certainly.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we've tried to look off-site within the Fells too, and it's just a very complicated area, especially with, you know, different municipalities owning different sections of the Fells and just in general kind of similar constraints throughout the site.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_08]: And it's just, you know, the Fells in general is pretty natural and, you know, we've driven the whole trail system that's accessible by pickup truck with town staff and we think that in order to replicate somewhere possible, it's going to require, you know, building up the roads better to get the equipment out there, taking down more trees, and kind of creating more impacts while we're trying to mitigate the impacts.
[Marie Izzo]: And I suspect I saw this somewhere in your notice of intent, but out of curiosity, what is the timeline for this repair?
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_08]: We're hoping to complete this next summer. So starting we want to bid it over the winter and get out there in the spring and get the project complete over the summer.
[Marie Izzo]: Okay. I guess with that and recognizing that we will be continuing this hearing, one thing I didn't see in the filing was a cut and fill table. Did I miss that or is it in there somewhere?
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_01]: I don't believe we had one of those prepared, Mike, right?
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_08]: Yeah. I mean, we can add that though to the submittal. We can get that pretty easily.
[Marie Izzo]: Yeah, I would like to see a standard cut and fill for each one foot contour where that volume is going. At the risk of dominating the conversation, I guess I will turn it over to my fellow commission members. Does anybody else want to add in?
[Christopher Bader]: If you've got stuff to ask, go ahead. No, don't start. We'll all get our piece in.
[Craig Drennan]: You go first.
[Marie Izzo]: All right. The other thing that I saw that I'm struggling with is, again, for BLSF, because you're exceeding this 5,000 square foot threshold, I believe we really need to see a wildlife habitat evaluation.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_01]: That was something that we previously discussed with Dennis. We actually went out to site preliminary to even filing this and just generally seeing, you know, with filing as a limited project, and I mean, the impacts of 5000 square feet is to the reservoir. And the reservoir wouldn't be considered, you know, a pristine habitat. You know, it's a rip-wrapped armored bank. There's not much vegetation on there. So, I mean, at the time, we agreed, you know, this wasn't necessarily something that would be required and also filing as a limited project that we can seek the flexibility in this requirement. You know, if you feel it's absolutely required, we can look to get this, you know, on the table. But just that was something that was previously discussed, so I wanted to add that into this discussion as well.
[Denis MacDougall]: Thank you. Sorry, Eric, that came up like, between when we went out with that back in the spring, maybe, I think, um, it was around March, April or so, you know, there, and just with the wind project, and given the nature of the actual, what was being impacted, I kind of agree with them. So sorry about that. I think, I think I saw you mentioned that in an email earlier today, that I was looking through, but I had a good chance to respond to you.
[Marie Izzo]: I'm happy to chime in with some thoughts.
[Craig Drennan]: 6,800 square feet of BVW as permanent impact and another 3,800 square feet as temporary impact. And it looks like that 3,800 square feet is the portion of the existing BVW that will not be under a seepage blanket. Wait for you to bring this up before I keep going too far.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, I clicked through it, sorry.
[Craig Drennan]: Nah, you're good.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_01]: and the full plan set open too if you might want to zoom into anything.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_08]: That works. Yeah, I'm not sure if this will let me zoom, but can you just repeat the question for me?
[Craig Drennan]: Yeah. It looks like in your bordering vegetated wetland impacts, what you have listed as permanent impact is the square hatched area beneath the filter layer or the filter blanket. The temporary impacts are the area just below that, if that makes sense.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_01]: So clarifying that those arrows aren't specifically just in that little area. So that's essentially associated with all of the erosion controls that will be placed around the BBW. And also on the, I guess, eastern side, there's also a small amount of BBW impact. So some of those temporary impacts will take place over there as well due to the placement of erosion controls. But all of the temporary impacts are just due to the placement of the roads.
[Craig Drennan]: And the spillway work too. So I think where I'm going with this is one of the slides that you had up there said that there were not allowed to be wetlands within 20 feet. And you're also clearing trees permanently within that area. And so given that, especially the area below that filter blanket, I don't necessarily buy that those impacts are temporary. If you can't have wetlands there long term, then they wouldn't be able to be replaced in kind. And so I'm not convinced that what you have hatched there, especially within the 20 foot buffer, which might not be a bad thing to add to these plans. I'm not convinced those are all temporary.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_08]: So there probably will be some water moving through that seepage blanket. Like I think I mentioned, the idea is to stop any particle, you know, solid soil particles from coming through. So there will be water there. There will be water coming through that area. It will be clean water. And your statement about taking the trees down in that area is true. So it won't be exactly exactly the same as it is now but we were going to seed with wetland mix and there will be water moving through that area. Okay.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_01]: I also believe that the temporary impact actually did was measure around the perimeter of that existing wetland and counted that as temporary impacts. So essentially just saying wrapped around you know that will be placed there. I'm not sure how you might consider erosion controls as well. Some commissions might say you know You don't need this to be is counted for as a temporary impact. And maybe it's we're double counting instead of over, you know, under counting and not something we can look to double check on our.
[Craig Drennan]: Okay, I, I think the, the only thing that I'm getting at is, if the off the Dan safety is reg is that. You can't have on less than 20 feet, then I, and I'd be interested to hear the take of other folks in the commission, but I would. be inclined to call those permanent impacts because I would expect that to be kind of within the footprint that Winchester would be maintaining to keep trees out of, keep impacts out of in the long term. So I think seeing that 20 foot setback on these plans might be useful. And I think what I'm getting at here is I think the permanent impacts in that table is an underestimate given that setback.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_01]: We could definitely look to double check that. But as I was saying, I think it might be more of a double counting instead of an undercounting. But let us get back to that and check before we get too deep into that. No problem at all.
[Craig Drennan]: Yeah, thank you. The only a couple other comments I had when it comes to the one-to-one wetland replication, I brought this up with Michael in the field today. On the drive into the site, there is a kind of relatively small pond that's kind of an offshoot of the main reservoir. It looked like that, the banks of that pond and the surrounding wetlands, you know, had knotweed and a bunch of other invasives in there. One idea in terms of kind of managing impacts that I had, I don't know if it's kosher, just a thought, could be wetland restoration of existing areas that are impacted by invasive species to make up for the fact that if we have wetlands out there that are cluttered with invasive sap and habitat benefit of it, maybe that could be one way to approach impact mitigation. The other comment that I had was in the construction phase ENF plan, It didn't include any real, like, maintenance triggers. So it just had things like perimeter controls will be maintained as needed rather than not typical triggers would be like when accumulated silt reaches half the height of practice or things of that nature. And it didn't mention any inspection or maintenance of the curb curtains proposed around the riprap installation area. Those are everything that I had been done. So I will also stop talking.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_01]: No worries. We want all of your comments.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_08]: Thank you, Craig. And I did mention to Haley about the invasive species removal. And one thing I'm wondering is where we end up going with DEP and Army Corps and how we address the impacts with them. But I think You know, the species could could be an option if if all parties were agreeable to that. And then your third comment. So basically just looking on more details on erosion control maintenance.
[Craig Drennan]: Yeah, just kind of spelling out, specifying when things need to be repaired or replaced or maintained. OK.
[Christopher Bader]: I have I would like to just kind of chime in if I could. I want to agree with Craig on both of those things. The wetland restoration could be seen as part of that other 147 square feet of restoration that was needed. We're only going to do like 47, something like that? Right, 144, I believe it is, and then we're restoring 41 cubic yards.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I should have written it down. No worries.
[Christopher Bader]: So that would be, I think something toward that because that that's, that's a big reduction.
[Unidentified]: Right.
[Christopher Bader]: And I understand that the situation doesn't lend itself. And also, the permanent impact. I agree with that, too. Let me just see, are you you're considering the riprap that you're putting on top of the existing riprap on the reservoir side as temporary. Is that is that how you're counting it?
[Unidentified]: Yeah.
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah. So I'm not sure that that's really temporary, but I understand what you're getting at.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_08]: So we've this has been a big, big discussion with Army Corps on that topic. And They're looking at it currently as maintenance to that. It says it's already impacted land. It was impacted when the dam was constructed, that it's maintenance to those previous impacts. But yeah, Army Corps had a similar comment.
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah, so it's a maintenance. I mean, I would consider it maintenance more than I would consider it a temporary impact. That's not going in. But that's splitting hairs. I think that I agree that it needs to be done. And you're probably, and I'm pretty sure you took a look at a lot of the options available before you decided on this one. And this is probably the best of all of them, or a couple of them that really work here. I'm not so concerned. with the compensatory flood storage as much as I would be on another project, because it is a dam, and it has a spillway. And so if flood storage is needed in a dam because of a potential rainstorm or large events is coming, the dam can be lowered. So that, I think, takes care of that.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_08]: We also have a low-level outlet that was installed as part of that 2015 project, and I spoke a little to that on site today, but just so you know as well. There's a 30-inch pipe going through the dam for emergency situations, emergency lowering.
[Christopher Bader]: And I would like to see a little bit more about this constructed wetland. I saw the plan, But I was wondering if you could kind of, because I missed, I'm sorry, I missed our walk today. I couldn't make it. But I was wondering if you could go over that a little more about exactly how this constructed wetland is going to be and how it's going to operate.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_08]: Dennis, did I lose sharing capability?
[Denis MacDougall]: No, you're still co-host.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_08]: Sorry, I got it. So here's the plan Haley if you want to if you want to speak to what we're proposing here.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so. Technically, not technically, what we're proposing here is we're looking to tie in this area into the existing wetland. Essentially, you can see on this. Oh, I'm pointing and no one can see my mouse. So essentially on the, you can see the toe of the dam is the area with the rocks located on kind of the northern section of the plans up here. So, slightly below that, and without outside of that 20 feet, we found this area that was generally found at a lower elevation compared to the rest of the site. Where we are planning to excavate down to the elevation in which a water table is present. And looking to fill in with wetland. like a wetland soil and looking to pull in these plants. This is definitely a smaller area, but if out on site, there's not many other options. This area is the only flat area that's not completely made up of bedrock. I don't know, Mike, if you can flip back to that other plan view to point out kind of generally, like an overall view of where it is in comparison to the dam.
[Christopher Bader]: How many, now you're gonna remove about 140 trees, right? How many of those trees are in this wetland? Let me, I'm going to open up a little bit bigger.
[Unidentified]: Other fans are open here.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_08]: I think we're taking, I think, so how many trees are we adding as part of this?
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_01]: In the replication area.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_08]: I think there's two or three trees, I believe, in the replication area. Yeah.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_01]: Eight. Eight trees.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_08]: No, eight.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_01]: Eight trees.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_08]: You're saying proposed, Haley?
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_08]: I think he's looking for how many will be taken down. This is a relatively small area compared to the whole site of where the trees are being taken down.
[Christopher Bader]: No, it looks like you're considering the bottom to be flat. You're not going to sort of make little pockets and pools.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_01]: I think essentially the plan is to bring it down to where the water elevation is located and then gradually slope it up towards the edge of the upland side of it. We're not planning to necessarily make it a pool, but a continuous, able to have that flow of groundwater throughout the system.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_08]: We have the top of bank for Smelt Brook in close proximity, as well as the BBW area.
[Christopher Bader]: But where's Smeltbrook in relation to this?
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_08]: It's running to the south of this area.
[Christopher Bader]: Right, so it's about how many yards from this? I'm just trying to get a sense of where this wetland is.
[Heather]: Alex? Yeah. Just out of curiosity, I can't remember, were you with us on the 215 project? Yeah. Okay. I'm just curious. Go ahead. I'm sorry.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_08]: I don't know if it's probably less than 10 yards, maybe five yards from the Spillway Brook.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_01]: You can see from standing at this site, you can step on to the Brook basically.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_08]: That Brook, it's a somewhat narrow channel as it starts coming from Spillway and then it starts to get a little wider and this would be kind of right in that area where it starts to expand.
[Christopher Bader]: Okay, I get it. All right, thank you. Thank you so much.
[Heather]: Heather, you want to go? Excuse me. I basically Greg basically covered the two things that I had. I was curious about the wildlife habitat, partly because I was cued today when I was out there and didn't recognize everything that I heard and saw. But other than that, I don't think I really have anything new to add. It was very helpful doing the site walk today. And I really appreciate the time that you took with us, Mike.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, my pleasure.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_18]: Okay, I will back clean up and I think this will be quick. I get one question. Does DCR have any jurisdiction over this?
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_08]: So DCR is a butter and we will be getting a construction access permit through them. just for access to the site. I believe we even need one to drive heavy trucks on South, what is the road there, South Border Road?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_18]: Yeah. Okay. Got it.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_08]: Army Corps is also, they're on their notification list as well. DCR is on their notification list.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_18]: Okay. Uh, 1 question I have is there if there was any protocol for lowering of the reservoir. I'd personally be interested in seeing 1, but.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_08]: I'll leave that as far as downstream construction work or.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_18]: Just the draw down of the water level in general. I know you said it was pretty high given the rain water we've had this summer.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, so we have a we have a. hydraulic model of the entire reservoir, which, which has tables, um, you know, when reservoir is full, you open up the spillway where you open up that 30 inch low level outlet, then lower the reservoir couldn't be lowered two feet in 20 hours or, or, you know, we have tables like that. Um, and there's a operation and maintenance, um, manual for, reservoir level at the dam and it relates to wet weather events prior to wet weather events.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_18]: Okay I just wanted to make sure that there was one and it was being followed.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_08]: We have emergency management plans for the dams to also need to be updated. I don't know if it's every five years it might be three or something and Medford gets a copy of that emergency management plan every time it gets updated. I think we're currently in the process actually of If not just just completed, I think the update to that plan.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_18]: Okay, let me see. Hold on. I'll just mention what we talked about on the site. Potentially Heather had mentioned the trees being talking to our tree warden potentially and seeing what we could do with that. So I'll just put that out there as well.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_08]: And so we will be looking for, I'm kind of putting that in your court if I can, for some type of guidance or who to talk to on that, so.
[Heather]: Yeah, Heather, do you get to speak to anyone? I've already emailed a couple of folks and I can't believe a copy of that email went into Dennis today, suggesting some names, both at City Hall and some nonprofit actors as well.
[Denis MacDougall]: And I actually ran into the tree warden this afternoon, just briefly, and I kind of gave her a bit of a heads up and just asked her to swing by when she gets a chance to go over a little more. And then I can bring your contact info as well.
[Heather]: I've already heard back from Amanda. So that's the nonprofit.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_01]: I guess, essentially, too, following that. Is it something that we would coordinate outside, essentially, or would it be the Conservation Commission, say, and, like, the amount of trees, the areas, or that kind of follow our discussions with the tree warden and the non-profit and so on and so forth?
[Marie Izzo]: I think we would want a condition speaking to whatever is determined best between the proponent and whoever ends up being the tree warden or some other third party. Um, I think we could reference in that order, um, perhaps, um, a memorandum of understanding or some replication, restoration, or some other, um, tree planting program, however we want to word it. But, yeah, I think we can have that as a standalone document that's referenced in the order.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_01]: Okay, great. That's what I was figuring, but I just wanted to check in with each commission, you know, could be slightly different. So, I just wanted generally your input on that.
[Heather]: I believe there are already some studies that are underway, and I think there's already some potential plans that may be in existence that may push this more quickly. Can I ask one other question, Dennis? Who gets the copy of the emergency? information that comes out on a regular basis?
[Denis MacDougall]: I hazard a guess it would probably be DPW. I can check with a DPW commissioner or the city's engineer and just ask who gets them.
[Heather]: If you wouldn't mind checking. Thank you.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_08]: I can also check. Dennis, I think I have the distribution list, so I can also send that over to you. I mean, I'm not going to lie to you.
[Denis MacDougall]: It's entirely possible that I'm on it too, but if it comes out once every five years.
[Heather]: Who knows?
[Denis MacDougall]: I know I get it for our dam for the pond, but that's because it's our city's pond. So I'm not sure if I get it because of my position or because of it's just here.
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_18]: And I just have one final question. For the Office of Dam Safety, they had said this must be brought to compliance in January 2023. What is the status of that? I know it's not going to happen by then. Have they given their consent to that? Just kind of curious of how that stands.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_08]: So the Office of Dam Safety understands that dam rehabilitation work is expensive. It takes a long time, the permitting efforts, not conservation commissions. Some of the other agencies that we have to go through could have a 10-month review period. So we will have to get a permit through the Office of Dam Safety. Those go through pretty easily when it's a dam rehabilitation project. Um, but they will, I'll have to issue a memo to them, uh, probably in, in a month, in two months, um, just requesting extension. And, um, I don't anticipate having a problem there when we say, Hey, we're, you know, we have, we have 90% plans. We have, um, we're in the permitting phase and we're planning to do this shortly. So, um, that's basically how that I anticipate that working out. Thanks.
[Marie Izzo]: Uh, going back to coordination with, um, the regional office and the Army Corps, if I understand you correctly, there are ongoing conversations with those two entities that may impact the replication or the extent of that work or scale, however you want to put it. When do you anticipate having some level of conclusion that it makes sense for us to coordinate an order of conditions with what work they expect you to complete under their permits?
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_01]: So, our hope is with our check in tomorrow, we can get a little bit more clarity on this. We previously on the site walk. They were saying they were speaking specifically on that one manner. So I'm hoping tomorrow we can have some further input and guidance on that. And we can look to follow up with Dennis on, you know, the outcomes that might've come out being, you know, either this seems to be the way we're going down and there's, we are gonna go ahead with what we have proposed currently, or if we need to go back to the drawing boards. I'm hoping tomorrow we can have some sort of update so we could look to provide you one way or another tomorrow with what that outcome is.
[Marie Izzo]: Okay, and just because it's at the top of my mind, something that Craig brought up in terms of restoration work and nearby wetlands, I think I'd like to hear more from DEP or Army Corps, whoever seems to want to carry that water, whether they're interested in having that work done. Because I think that in this context where we can't have a one-to-one replication, it does make sense to look at other ways of preserving, enhancing resource areas nearby. And I think that's a fairly reasonable lift for something of this nature.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_01]: I know that for the Army Corps, they're looking into the in-lieu fee program for us to pay into. And I think that's kind of a big factor as well. You know, if the city or town, I guess, is paying into this in-lieu fee, you know, if they're going to have to pay this fee on top of doing invasive species management, on top of doing a smaller replication area, that might not necessarily be feasible. But at the end of the day, that's something I can look to bring up when we connect with them tomorrow, this general idea to see if, you know, they might be able to weigh in on this a little bit and see if they can think this might be beneficial and maybe help out their matter as well. So I can look to check in and then that updated email I send along to Dennis look to let you guys know the input that they had on the invasive species management.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_08]: And Eric, that's also a reason why we're meeting with DEP and Army Corps together, and they're kind of putting their heads together on this one. DEP does not have an in lieu fee mitigation fee program. Army Corps does. And the last discussions we had with them, they're trying to come together on what the plan is, because DEP wants to see replication, Army Corps wants the mitigation fee. DEP does not want to see us cut down more trees in order to do more mitigation. So we're looking for them to give us some guidance on which way we're going with that.
[Marie Izzo]: Well, speaking for myself and not necessarily my fellow commissioners, I think it makes sense to provide some level of restoration work nearby rather than paying into the Army Corps in lieu fee program personally, but I agree with you.
[Craig Drennan]: And I'm also looking forward to kind of hearing where you guys land in terms of balancing what defines a temporary impact versus the ODS's rule of no wetlands within 20 feet because I don't buy that you can do wetland restoration mix where you're not allowed to have wetlands and call that a temporary impact. But I look forward to hearing what you guys come up with on that.
[Unidentified]: Great. Definitely.
[Marie Izzo]: Anybody else have anything? With that, I will entertain a motion to continue the hearing. for our next regularly scheduled hearing. I second the motion. With that date being November 1st.
[Christopher Bader]: With that date being November 1st, yeah.
[Marie Izzo]: I got to say, I don't think I got a motion. I'll make some motion to thank you.
[Christopher Bader]: I thought you just made a motion, no?
[Marie Izzo]: No.
[Christopher Bader]: And then you seconded it? I seconded your motion that you're going to make, okay.
[Marie Izzo]: Thank you. Heather?
[Heather]: We're talking about continuing on November 1st?
[Christopher Bader]: Yeah.
[Heather]: I may have a conflict. I just want to make sure that I'm not going to be causing any difficulties. I agree. I mean, I agree we have to continue.
[Marie Izzo]: Let me put this on pause. I should have asked Haley and Michael, does that date seem reasonable to you? Does it make sense to come back?
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think that I won't be available to attend, but I can, Mike can attend and I can have someone on my behalf. In that case, I think it comes down to just making sure we can get the next couple requested items you have by that date. So, I think we could look to request this November 1st date. And if something is to change with our following meetings, we could look to follow up with all of Dennis to figure out what makes the most sense for all of us.
[Denis MacDougall]: that work for you? Yeah, no, that's that's that actually makes sense. So I mean, we can just because if we we basically announced the date that we're continuing to during the course of this meeting, if you know something happens, and there's actually not going to be anything to be continued on the first, what happens is I basically just open it up. And I just asked one member to sort of come on and sort of make a motion. They basically say, you know, we're going to continue until the next day, which is probably the 15th. So you know, I think that that at least gives us some leeway instead of like, you know, that we would have to re-advertise and re-send out notices and things like that.
[Marie Izzo]: With that, I think we can continue that roll call on that motion. Heather?
[Denis MacDougall]: Aye.
[Marie Izzo]: Alex? Yes, aye. Caroline?
[EO-vAhUJAKo_SPEAKER_18]: Aye.
[Marie Izzo]: Greg? Aye. Ayes have it. Thank you very much.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_01]: Great. Thank you so much, everyone. And if you guys could just get back to us on that wildlife habitat assessment on, you know, the snow is coming. So if that is something that we need to do, we got to get out there. So if you can let us know as soon as possible, your final thoughts on that, that would be great.
[Marie Izzo]: We shall do that. Thank you very much.
[MCM00001336_SPEAKER_08]: All right. Thank you all. Have a nice night. Have a good night.
[Denis MacDougall]: I can also tell you, actually I did just get a filing. I don't think we're going to probably have it for the next hearing, but it's for basically a dugout replacement at the ball fields at Veterans Memorial Park, which is the park. between Winthrop and Misty Valley Parkway, right opposite from the community gardens on the other side. So DCR has submitted that to us. I just sort of got it, so I've been reviewing it. So we didn't have time really to get it on the next agenda, but it'll be on the November 15th. So we're going to have that on that. So, and I realized maybe about five minutes before the meeting started that I never actually got back to finishing the minutes. So, I will do that as well as tonight's minutes tomorrow because tomorrow is actually a pretty, pretty light day for me. So, I'm just going to come in and work on minutes all morning and then I think I'll take the afternoon off. It'll give me a good incentive to get the minutes done in the morning and then I can bug out in the afternoon and do some stuff.
[Craig Drennan]: What firm is that TCR project coming in through? AECOM. Okay. Then I'll recuse myself from that one. Okay.
[Denis MacDougall]: That's fine. Yeah.
[Marie Izzo]: That's perfectly fine. Out of curiosity, Dennis, did we ever get a request for a certificate of compliance for the MWRA project south of the shell, where they had that.
[Denis MacDougall]: Oh, where they did all the work last night. Yeah, they're still finalizing things there. So it's not done yet. So they're going to be You mean the work like right at the shell parking lot? Yeah, in the parking lot there. Yeah, that's still ongoing. So that's, it's, the work is done physically, but they're still working on some things because one of the things that they had to do was like plant some trees to replace some of the trees they took down. And so they've been, they went down there with the tree warden the other day to kind of discuss some locations and types of trees.
[Christopher Bader]: Well, what have you speaking to this? Like, what about the gas company that tunneling under the Mystic River? I don't think we've got a, is that still ongoing? I don't. I don't think they started that yet.
[Denis MacDougall]: They haven't even started it.
[Heather]: You're talking about the previous one.
[Denis MacDougall]: No, the secondary one, because remember we had the second one that came through, because Eversource was the first one. And then this was basically the same type of project.
[Heather]: And Eversource closed, right? Well, they came back.
[Denis MacDougall]: At the last meeting to do a few minutes ago to do the, uh, the pathway, the mitigation pathway. So there's, which is, which is happening. Um, so that one from talking to DCR, I mean, talking to our city's engineering and that project is still being looked at because they may actually remember that the same before they weren't going to go under the bridge. They may have decided that that might actually be a better method. So the going, the,
[Heather]: Stalling under the bridge.
[Denis MacDougall]: Yeah, so that's, I think there's sort of, there's probably like discussions on which is going to be the. least intrusive or least impactful on everyone. Because if they do that, they're going to probably close the bridge, which I don't think they really want to do. But there's probably repairs that need to be done to that bridge. So maybe shutting it down for a little bit of time, if they can combine the two parts, it might not be a bad idea. But that's just me vaguely spitballing.
[Craig Drennan]: I used that bridge to get home. I don't know.
[Heather]: This assumes that they have the capability of coordination, but anyway.
[Denis MacDougall]: Sometimes it happens. It's amazing. It's not super common, but when it does, it's great.
[Marie Izzo]: If I understood you correctly, Dennis, we'll be approving the minutes from several meetings at our next meeting. Yes, exactly. Anybody have anything else? I don't think so. Motion to adjourn? I would entertain said motion.
[Heather]: Second. I'll make a motion.
[Marie Izzo]: I'll second it. And roll call, Caroline.
[Heather]: Aye.
[Marie Izzo]: Alex. Aye. Greg. Aye. Heather.
[Heather]: Aye.
[Marie Izzo]: And I'm an aye. Thank you all. Appreciate your help.
[Heather]: So Greg, what's happening on that stove? And making tortilla soup.
[Unidentified]: Ah, sounds good. We'll be over.
[Denis MacDougall]: Well then, enjoy and have a good night, y'all, and I'll talk to you soon.
[Unidentified]: Take care, Charles.
[Denis MacDougall]: Bye. Take care.