Washington Conservation Commission

Minutes – March 21, 2018

 

Assembly time: 7:00 PM

 

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

Visitors: None

 

1.0    Approval of Minutes: February minutes - There were no comments, Jed made a motion to approve as written, Doug seconded the motion and all voted in favor.

 

2.0    Permits Committee  - Ayers Pond Road Bridge project, Arin stopped by the site before the snow so she was able to get a good look. Jed and Nan had visited the site earlier. Arin had a list of items she was concerned about and wants to draft a letter to send with the application. We looked at the plan maps. Nan mentioned the Northern Long Eared Bat reported and Arin pointed out it was not in the critical project area. Arin wants Ed to mark the trees he will be cutting, not cut during June or July and be selective of cutting the sugar maples. We thought the rocks from the stonewall that they are disturbing should stay on site and use the stones elsewhere on the project. Arin would like them to indicate the staging and stockpile areas for the project and use silt fence around those areas. Arin will draft a letter with our comments.

 

3.0   Committee and Board reports:

3.1   Land Protection Committee – Jed had an email from Whit about BarkerÕs appraisal. Whit said his appraiser had some health issues over the winter but he will get started soon.     Jed spoke with Mark Miller about his land donation and we will go out to look at the property when the snow is gone. We had one more small bill from Drummond/Woodsum that we will pay for $15.26. Jed sent email to Randy Porter asking for help in paying the lawyerÕs bills (in the form of a donation).

3.2   Energy Committee – Johanna said the EC hasnÕt met recently, there is an energy committee dinner in April that she hopes they will attend. Arin said she spoke with Al about the problems with the school heating system and whether they need to do a re-commissioning of the system to find the problems. She hopes EC can be involved.

3.3   Planning Board – Nan said the PB has three updates for the Land Use Ordinance on a special ballot for Town Meeting. One is on RVs, one on a parking setback and one on the building permit section. The Town Center Visioning project will be started in the spring after Town Meeting.

3.4   Forestry Committee –Tom was not here to report. They havenÕt been meeting.

3.5   Legislative update  - Nan spoke about several bills, the current use bills have been tabled and the bill concerning permit commenting is working its way through committee.

 

4.0   Public Presentations and workshops:       

4.1   Hike – We discussed a hike to the BurnÕs property in the spring or summer to look at the environmental sculptures.

4.2   Cottrell-Baldwin Lecture Series – March 20th- Wildflowers of NE, March 27th- Eastern Coyotes, April 3rd- Log Drives of Conn. River Valley, April 10th- Bogs and Fens, Fox State Forest, 7PM, Hillsboro.

4.3   Arin said she spoke with the teachers at WES and we are set for the Vernal Pool workshop, just before April vacation; Friday April 20th in the school and Saturday April 21st for the pool visit. She said that the teachers said that we could do either 2 groups or 3. There are 16 K-1st, 11 2 & 3 and 17 4 & 5. W decided we could do 2 groups and split the older kids into 2 groups for activities and critter observation. We will look at our past materials and Doug said he has a book and will look and see if he can find one other game or activity. Arin said she set a meeting with the teachers for May 8th to talk about the Water project for the fall. Nan had the latest issue of Forest Notes that had some information about educational resources that we can use for this. Jed will contact Judy Tumosa at Fish  & Game. Arin said that The place that Lionel works has some good resources. Arin will see what we could use. Arin said that there are 2 streams out by the rope swing that feed Millen Pond that could be good for testing for water quality. Doug mentioned the stream by the beach could be a good contrast to test, it is definitely lower water quality.

 

5.0   New Business:

5.1   Nan said she sent a letter to the Selectmen requesting the money we raised at Town Meeting 2015 for the map updates. She discovered that the money was never deposited in our account and we had already paid Chris Kane half of it. Deb said she would take care of it.

 

6.0   Other Business:

6.1   Natural Resource Inventory Map updates –Arin, Nan and Jed met to review the maps and came up with a list for Chris. She spoke with Chris last week and went over the comment list. He is working on the updates and Arin hopes we will have the new versions before our next meeting. Nan gave Arin the contract so she can be sure we get all the deliverables. We talked about the co-occurrence map and what would be included as layers. Arin thought WAP areas, Ag soils of importance, Water including perennial stream buffers, Forest soils including 1A, 1B and 1C, protected land and recreation buffers.

6.2   Trails and Recreation Guide Booklet –Arin said we are working on the guide and she needed permissions set for the Snowmobile chapter. She has done some work on it but couldnÕt edit the document. Nan will fix the permissions and send the chapters to Doug. Arin said she updated 2 of the maps. Doug asked about local scouts that might need a trail project. Arin said the High School kids need community service hours and maybe we could get some help with this. Arin needs a GPS of the Sabbath Trail, Jed said he will do it for her.

6.3   Master Plan goals for 2018 – We are working on the NRI update and map update as our goal. We will look at it again when we are done with this project.

6.4   Barker easement – see 3.1

6.5       Tracking Invasive Plants project – The reporting sheets and guides are always available here: InvasiveProject.html

 

7.0   WhatÕs Happening in Nature?

        Jed said there was a pair of Mallards in the pond earlier in the month. Nan said the ice was completely out on February 28th but with the snowstorms and cold weather it is frozen again.

Doug saw some male and female mergansers in the pond doing their mating. He thought they were common mergansers or maybe hooded mergansers (white with black on the head).

Johanna said her beaver came out of is den and ate some sticks, then went back in. Lindley fed him some lettuce and an apple.

Jed saw bobcat tracks up the hill and caught a fox and a coyote on his trail camera.

Johanna saw Cedar Waxwings in Concord.

Jed said he has a pair of Cardinals who come to the feeder only during a snowstorm.

Arin said a woodcock was heard recently (but not locally).

Jed said when the snow was gone the birds disappeared and now they are back with snow on the ground.

Arin said Shayne saw a flock of turkeys on Faxon Hill and she saw some near Crane Farm.

Arin has had Purple finches at her feeder.

Johanna said she saw a squirrel checking out a dead squirrel buy the side of the road.

Yesterday was the Vernal (Spring) equinox!, to find out more about this yearly event, click here: NewinNature.html

 

8.0   Correspondence:

            Forest Notes – Interesting article on education

            Cottrell-Baldwin Lecture Series brochure

            Letter from NH DOT re: Adopt-a-Highway pickups for 2018

            Invoice from Drummond/Woodsum for $15.26

            Letter from Friends Of Mount Sunapee, asking for a donation

 

9.0   Adjourned at 8:45PM, our next scheduled meeting will be April 18th, at 7PM at TH or CML.

 

Respectfully submitted,                       

Nan Schwartz, Secretary