Washington Conservation Commission

Minutes – March 18, 2015

Assembly time: 7:00 PM.

Members present: Arin Mills, Jed Schwartz, Johanna Young and Nan Schwartz.

Visitors: None

1.0 Approval of Minutes: Approval of Minutes from February meeting, Arin motioned to approve the minutes, Johanna seconded the motion and all voted in favor.

2.0 Permits Committee - No new permits

3.0 Committee and Board reports:

3.1 Land Protection Committee - No recent meeting. Jed spoke with Phil Barker at Town Meeting and he is still interested in an easement on his property, we will continue to talk about it. Jed will speak to Pete Martin about the Greenway trail and Tom Marshall about the snowmobile trail. Arin suggested we invite them to our next LPC meeting to talk about trails.

3.2 Energy Committee – Johanna reported that the committee is meeting tomorrow night. The local Energy Conference in this weekend and Andrew and Al are attending. They spoke with a woman from Eversource to discuss the lighting in the Camp Morgan building and having an audit done. They use a third party to do the audit. She said that someone at Town Meeting said the lighting was bad in the Town Hall but the lights were replaced a while back and are good now. Mr. Rob from ReCover will be meeting with them soon. Andrew and Al will be attending the 8^th Annual Energy Roundtable in Vermont. Arin asked about the solar panels at the Town Garage and how the power generated is accounted for. Johanna said there is net metering; they don’t have batteries to store any excess power. Johanna said she was glad to hear people were concerned with energy issues at Town Meeting.

3.3 Planning Board – Nan reported that the Master Plan Committee is working on the chapter drafts, we will review the Natural Resources chapter later in the meeting.

3.4 Forestry Committee – Tom was not in attendance, but Jed reported that the Forestry Committee is still working with their forester on the Forestry Plan for the Town Forests. They are planning a cut on the Farnsworth Hill TF. Nan said she would pass on the information about the Q2C trail grant round to the FC members.

3.5 Legislative update - No news.

4.0 Public Presentations and workshops:

4.1 WoW visit – Arin emailed the WES principal and hasn’t heard back from him yet. The WoW coordinator had an early June date available and she will speak to her after she hears from the principal. Jed and Nan said the probable date was fine for them.

4.2 Saving Special Places conference – takes place on April 11, 2015 at John Stark HS from 8AM – 3:45PM. If you would like to attend sign up online here: http://savingspecialplaces.org

4.3 NHACC workshop – Nan mentioned an upcoming workshop, Mitigating Wetland Losses: What We Need to Know, on April 23rd, 2015, from 6-8:30 pm in Nashua, NH. The registration fee is $25.00 per commission member, if anyone is interested.

4.4 Arin attended an Emerald Ash Borer workshop at the Conservation Center in Concord, and brought us lots of information. She said that EAB is in the state, as close as Concord and Weare. They attack Ash trees and are expanding about a mile a year and will have a big impact on the ash trees in the state. She told us about identifying infected trees by looking for “blonding” (looks like the bark has been scrapped). The bugs emerge in the spring. They observed infected trees at the Audubon Center and at St. Paul’s School in Concord. It showed up first in Detroit in 2002 and now is in 22 states. More information is available at NHBugs.org She said they feed up high at first and it takes a year to complete its life cycle, in three years the tree will be dead. There is quarantine, a federal mandate, if the EAB is found in a county, now. Merrimack County is under such quarantine. She said they advised that you should look at where ash trees are found and have a plan in place if the trees are near buildings. They suggested you take out the trees now before they become infected and the Cooperative Extension has suggestions for replacement trees. Jed said he has seen a decline in the ash trees in the last few years. He suggested we meet with the Selectmen about the issue. Arin thought the workshop was good training and suggested that others attend if there is another chance. She said Cooperative Extension has a calendar on their website. The NHbugs website has good maps and information we can print out. Nan suggested we do a presentation on the issue when we do our Speaking for Wildlife presentation this summer.

4.5 Snowshoe Hike – We held the hike on March 7^th and had a good size crowd of adults and kids attending and excellent conditions for snowshoeing. Abby and Arin made a scavenger hunt enjoyed by all. Everyone enjoyed hot cocoa and trail mix after the hike, around the campfire.

4.6 Tracking Invasive Plants project – Arin is working on input for the sheets we have. The reporting sheets and guides are always available here: InvasiveProject.html

4.7 Speaking for Wildlife – We will incorporate a presentation on EAB. We will talk scheduling next month or May.

5.0 New business –

5.1 Q2C Trail Grant round – Nan will pass information to the Forestry Committee on this grant round.

Nan reported that the outcome of the map update discussion with the Planning Board resulted in a warrant article for $5000. None

6.0 Other Business:

6.1 Karen Bartlett - Jed spoke with the Selectmen about it and will contact her about giving her property to us. They spoke with the town Attorney who had some suggestions that Jed will pass on to her.

6.2 Master Plan Update – Natural Resources chapter – Everyone reviewed the document and Arin had a suggestion to include historic and cultural information. Nan checked and there is a separate chapter that will cover these subjects. Arin said we should include septic systems as a threat to water resources, Nan will add this.

6.3 Warrant article for funds to update the NRI maps – We received a favorable vote at Town Meeting and have $5000 to spend. We will look over our list of maps and discuss next month.

6.3 Trail Map issue – One more issue came up, through an email exchange between Ken Eastman and Don Damm concerning the interactive map on the CC website. We have removed the map and Arin will see if she can update it so we can post it again.

7.0 What’s Happening in Nature?

Nan said it has been very cold and windy and there has been quite a bit of melting of snow pack.

Johanna said she saw 12 Wild Turkeys on Rt. 93 going toward Concord. She also saw a Robin this week, eating old fruit in a tree.

Arin has seen a lot of road kill and animals on the move.

Jed saw Bobcat tracks in the woods and lots of Snowshoe Hare tracks and droppings. He has seen more predator tracks and saw a Skunk.

Johanna said that there are tons of pinecones around, on the ground.

Arin is hoping we won’t have a bad fire season because of all the snow.

Nan said sugaring is in full swing now. Arin said the sap was flowing but stopped because of the cold. It should start again as soon as we have a warm day. To learn about maple sugar season, click here: NewinNature.html

8.0 Correspondence:

Brochure for the Cottrell-Baldwin Lecture Series at Fox State Forest

Letter from Nik Coates, copy of invoice and article

Copies of Forest Notes magazine

DES notice Minimum impact Forestry notification, Wolfe, TM 4-3, North Main Street

Letter from DOT about our Adopt a Highway program; we will schedule our pickups next month.

Brochure from Comprehensive Trail Building Services

9.0 Adjourned at 8:30 PM, our next scheduled meeting is April 15^th at 7PM at the Town Hall.

Respectfully submitted,

Nan Schwartz, Secretary