Washington Conservation Commission
Minutes – September 19, 2007
Assembly time: 7:00 PM.
Present: Carol Andrews, Jed Schwartz, Nan Schwartz, Johanna Young
Energy Committee: Lindley Rankine, Doug Cook, Jerry Close, Kitty West
Public visitors: Erin Mills, Don Garrity, Larry & Jane Armstrong
1.0 Approval of Minutes: not enough members to vote, will do this next month
2.0 Old Business:
2.1 Dredge and Fill Committee - None
2.2 Lake Host Program – Dan Garrity and the Armstrongs spoke to us about the Lake Host Program which is administered by the NH Lakes Association. The Selectmen are interested in having this program expanded to be town wide at all the lakes with public access at the boat launches. The program uses volunteer or paid people to watch for milfoil and other invasives brought in on boats or motor propellers and educate the boat owners. Dan Garrity lives near the boat ramp on Halfmoon Pond Road and is interested in helping out but wanted to know what was involved. Carol wasn't sure if the state would train volunteers for smaller lakes and ponds. The available grants are aimed at lakes with at least 50 ramp uses per summer. She mentioned "Weed Watchers" which is a NH Department of Environmental Services program. Information about it can be found here: http://www.des.state.nh.us/WMB/exoticspecies/survey.htm
We discussed doing public education on which species of plants and animals found in our lakes are good or bad. Dan mentioned finding mussels in a lake that were there naturally and doing their job of filtering the water but others were trying to remove them thinking they didn't belong there. We could also do a questionnaire for boaters to find out what water bodies they have visited recently and what lakes they use regularly.
2.3 Energy Committee - Johanna reported that the energy audit took place on Friday and was done on all the town buildings. Charlie Kothe of Atlantic Energy Solutions, Inc. did the audit and emailed Johanna with a few more questions about several locations. There was also a question about whether the library should be added to the list of town buildings. There are several spotlights around the Town Hall that are on timers(?) or sensors(?) and come on during daylight hours. We need to find out what is controlling them and get them readjusted. They also mentioned looking at all the streetlights in town to determine their necessity. We discussed light pollution and how important it is to keep our skies dark. The EC wants to get the school kids involved with the school audit and help them learn about energy. Johanna is looking for appropriate materials for this. Erin mentioned new LED light bulbs that are becoming available but wasn't sure what the cost differential was to CFLs. She thought they were pretty expensive right now. We discussed trying to get some donations of CFLs to give away to needy people to help cut their power bill. PSNH may have a program, we will look into it. If you are a PSNH customer you can get the bulbs from the NHSaves catalog. The website is: http://www.nhsaves.com. Johanna mentioned that the Carbon Coalition has cards with simple energy saving tips, she will try to get some to put out in the Town Hall for interested people. Jerry mentioned http://www.homepower.com as a website to visit for ideas about alternative ways to power your home. They also have a magazine with great articles on solar, wind, hydro and more. Doug was interested in trying to gauge whether the public would be interested in locally generated energy. He commented that the new wind farm in Lempster will be creating energy that will be sent to Boston or other distant places for profit, it isn't being built to benefit the local people. Every place has its resources that can be used to make energy. He will research to find out more about the subject. Jerry mentioned getting a kilowatt meter that you can plug in and check how much wattage an appliance uses. He also talked about hooking up a power inverter to his car and then using the stored energy to run his TV without costing him anything. We talked about how more people need to know the little things they can do to save energy and money, so education will to be a priority for the committee. The Energy Committee will decide on a separate meeting time and let us know their schedule. Johanna will report back to us on the committee's progress.
2.4 NRI and Conservation Plan - The public hearing went very well and the NRI and Conservation Plan were well received. The Planning Board has officially incorporated it into the Master Plan, although we can still update it as needed or as new information becomes available. We still need Chris to make changes to the maps, Carol will bring them to him to have the final maps done. We want to a little more work and add relevant pictures to the document. We need to market the NRI and Plan to the public so we discussed ways of doing this. Carol wants to do an executive type summary that would be easier to give to people so they don't have to go through the whole document to get the main ideas. The finished NRI (maps) and Conservation Plan will be available online. Erin asked about whether we would have all the map layers available so you could use them interactively. It is our intention to get all the data from Chris in a form we can use in this way. Erin is skilled in mapping and dealing with this kind of information, so maybe we can get some help from her in dealing with our all our data.
2.5 Highway Clean Up Day – We decided on Sunday, October 7th, at 9AM, meet at the Town Hall for our trash pick up day. Everyone is welcome to come help.
3.0 New Business – What's Happening in Nature? Carol saw a bear sitting in the middle of Halfmoon Pond Road for a really long time, she was starting to wonder what was going on when, finally, a cub came out of the woods. They moved on together soon after that. Doug mentioned how active the beavers were after the rain that fell recently. They made some channels into the woods to catch the water. Kitty mentioned a brilliant yellow and orange mushroom growing on her Black Cherry tree. Carol thought it might be a "Chicken of the Woods" mushroom, they are edible and very pretty to look at. Jerry saw 18 baby turkeys in Crane's hayfield recently. Someone mentioned seeing turkeys playing with a deer. Jed mentioned being visited by the Kestrel (maybe the same one that visited Mark not long ago). He has also seen lots of turkey vultures and hawks riding the high on the thermals lately. This is prime time for watching hawks overhead, click here for information about hawks and a great local place to go watch them: http://www.washingtonnh.org/WCC_Html/NewinNature.html
4.0 Other Business – None
5.0 Correspondence:
NH Association of Conservation Commissions Annual Dues notice $175
NH Cooperative Extension Landscaping at the Water's Edge Workshop Oct. 4 & 11 at the Meredith Community Center, cost $125
NH Cooperative Extension Community Environmental Outreach Program
DES Notice of Administrative completeness, Standard Dredge & Fill application for the Town of Washington file # 2007-01893 Map 12, Lots 10,11,44,186.
Clean Air Cool Planet Global Warming & Energy Solutions Conference, October 12-13 at the Radisson Hotel, in Manchester
Lakeside publication of the NH Lakes Association
The Source, DES Drinking Water Source Protection Program
Letter from Robert W. Thompson asking that the Board of Assessors be a party to the implementation plan for the Conservation Plan
6.0 Adjourned at 8:45 PM, our next scheduled meeting is October 17th at 7 PM at the Town Hall.
Respectfully submitted,
Nan Schwartz
Secretary