Washington Conservation Commission

Minutes – July 18, 2018

 

Assembly time: 7:00 PM, Town Hall

 

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

Visitors: None

 

1.0    Approval of Minutes: June minutes – Arin commented that Jed’s comment on the solar array should read – “should consider”, all agreed, Jed made a motion to approve as corrected, Johanna seconded the motion and all voted in favor.

 

2.0    Permits Committee  - No new permits, Arin asked about a previous dock application and Nan said we looked at it about a year ago, she will look back and see if she can find the information.

 

3.0   Committee and Board reports:

3.1   Land Protection Committee – Nan got some the info on the Miller property and is having trouble finding the deed to the property. Jed will give him a call for more information. Jed contacted Whit again by email but didn’t hear back on the land assessment for Barker’s property, so he will try to call him. No news about the property owner from the west side of Ashuelot Pond that is in touch with the Forest Society.

3.2   Energy Committee – Johanna reported that the Energy Committee has not met again since last meeting. She said that the biomass bill that the Governor vetoed is being considered for an override vote. The forestry industry is unhappy about the veto.

3.3   Planning Board – Nan said the PB is working on the Town Center Visioning project.

3.4   Forestry Committee –Tom was not here to report and they haven’t been meeting. Jed will give Tom Taylor and Steve Hanssen a call.

3.5   Legislative update  - No news.

 

4.0   Public Presentations and workshops:       

4.1   Arin said there is not much to do right now on our Water project for the fall. Arin said she is reaching out to Fish & Game and Sullivan County Conservation District for materials we need. We are scheduled for August 29^th with the teachers.

4.2   Nan spoke about a possible workshop on Backyard Composting. She emailed with Emma Erler from UNH Cooperative Extension about presenters. She has a couple of master gardeners that do composting talks. Ed has some composters that we could offer for sale. Arin said we could check out some other composters because she has one and it can be difficult to turn. Nan will look around. We decided on Tuesday, August 21^st or Wednesday the 22^nd, or the next week, Tuesday August 28^th or Wednesday the 29^th. Nan will send the dates to Emma and see if anyone is available to do it. Arin said she has a pod cast from the Exchange about composting she will send to us.

        Arin thinks the Town should consider town wide composting at the transfer station. Jed said they already take lawn and tree debris and he will speak to Ed and the BoS about it. Nan said that 40% of the waste that gets thrown in the dumpster is compostable and it would save the town money for tipping fees.

 

5.0   New Business:

5.1   Facebook page – Arin said she is working on creating a Conservation Commission Facebook page. She showed us what she has done so far. The page is called Washington NH Conservation and it is a closed group so far. Jed will join it. Arin will make him a moderator for the page.

 

6.0   Other Business:

6.1   Hike – We are planning a hike to the Burns’ property on September 15^th to look at the environmental sculptures. Jed will contact the Burns’ and we will decide whether we want to hike from Ulrich Road or Ayers Pond Road. We will have a rain date for Sunday, more details to follow.

        We will do our Lovewell Mountain hike on Columbus Day weekend in October. We will pick the route next month.

6.2   Adopt-a-highway trash pickup –We received a renewal request from DOT for the next 2 years, Arin signed it and Nan will return to them. The next pickup is scheduled for this Saturday, July 21^st at 9AM, meet at the Library parking lot. The rain date will be Sunday. We will set a date for our next pickup at the August meeting.

6.3   Johanna has scheduled her annual swim for August 25^th, Saturday, at 10AM.        

6.4       Natural Resource Inventory Map updates –Arin had the draft co-occurence map from Chris, which he did two ways. We discussed what we liked and didn’t like about both of them. We decided to ask him to go back to red tones on the map and make the trails either light or dark to show up best. We would like the 4 layers broken out as insets (as Chris did last time).. Arin will ask if he can get the changes and big maps done by next month’s meeting.

6.4   Trails and Recreation Guide Booklet – Arin has been working on some maps and trying to make them look good in a grey scale for black and white printing. Nan is working on putting what we have in booklet form and Arin will continue working on maps.

6.5   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.

6.6   Barker easement – see 3.1

6.7   Tracking Invasive Plants project – The plants are emerging and the reporting sheets and guides are always available here: InvasiveProject.html

6.8 Jed mentioned that the town is changing email policy and only chairs will have an account, everyone else will have a forwarding account to their personal email.

6.9   We took a look at a printout of our Conservation Fund account.

 

7.0   What’s Happening in Nature?

        Johanna saw her beaver grooming itself, she has a male and female pair, she also has 2 muskrats in her wetland. She recently saw her wood ducks with their brood sitting on a rock. She the babies run across the water, which they do until they can fly. She saw a heron standing on the beaver dam.

Arin reported that someone hit a bear cub on Rt. 31 near Windsor but it ran into the woods. Fish and Game was called to try to find it.

Jed saw a young bear on the Washington/Hillsboro line run across the road one evening.

Johanna said that a lot of squirrels are being hit by cars.

Arin has lots of red squirrels at her house but no grey squirrels.

Jed said we are in a moderate drought but recently had ¾ of an inch of badly needed rain. Arin said she lost her power during the storm on Sunday and it was out intermittently on Monday.

Jed reports the garden is growing well (with watering) and the blueberry and raspberry crops are doing great.

Arin saw a bald eagle catch a fish on Ashuelot, but he dropped it! She said 2 eagles have been observed on Ashuelot Pond.

Johanna said she hasn’t seen the loons on Millen Pond when she is swimming there. Arin said she has heard them, though and she heard from someone there are loon chicks on Millen.

Johanna’s robins made another nest recently that is much higher up and should be safer for nesting and raising a brood.

We all have gardening and nature’s bounty on our minds right now to see information on what’s available locally click here: NewinNature.html

 

8.0   Correspondence:

            Letter from NH DOT, renewal of Adopt-a-highway route

 

9.0   Adjourned at 9:05PM, our next scheduled meeting will be August 15^th, at 7PM at TH.

 

Respectfully submitted,           

Nan Schwartz, Secretary