Washington Conservation Commission
Minutes – October 17, 2007
Assembly time: 7:00 PM.
Present: Carol Andrews, Jed Schwartz, Nan Schwartz, Johanna Young, Don Richards, Tom Taylor, Lindley Rankine, Kitty West
1.0 Approval of Minutes: August minutes, Jed motioned to accept as written, Johanna seconded, and the vote was unanimous to accept. September minutes, Tom motioned to accept as written, Jed seconded, and the vote was unanimous to accept.
2.0 Old Business:
2.1 Dredge and Fill Committee – The Voas permit for Beaver Brook Road property was inspected by a group of five CC members and signed at a special meeting of the CC on October 7th after our Adopt-a-Highway trash pickup.
2.2 Welcome to Lindley Rankine as our newest Alternate Member.
2.3 NHACC Membership and dues – Carol explained the benefits of membership in the NHACC. She then left the meeting and Nan took over temporarily to discuss our continued membership in the organization. After the discussion, Jed made a motion to continue our membership and pay the annual dues, Tom seconded this, and the vote was unanimous in favor.
2.4 Energy Committee – Doug has the minutes and will send them to Johanna, who will forward them to Nan. (NOTE: They are now posted on the WCC website on the Minutes page here: http://www.washingtonnh.org/ECMinutes10707.htm ) Johanna reported that they wrote by-laws for the Energy Committee and they elected officers for the year. They are waiting for the results of the energy audit, which should arrive in a week or so. They think that one of the external town hall spotlights needs to be moved because the sensor is in a dark area causing the light to be on during the day. The other lights are on timers that may need resetting. They would like to give away CFL light bulbs or sell them at a discount at an event such as the Christmas Fair. They would like to get a subscription ($14) to Home Power magazine to make it available to the townÕs people. We need to ask Jackie Weldon about how the Energy Committee can have their own separate funds to spend on their own projects. Carol mentioned that Johanna should give the Selectmen a list of their members and terms for the record. Johanna spoke about how they would like to do demonstrations (maybe of solar ovens) for the school kids. The had picked a monthly meeting date but the Town Hall has a conflict that day, they were advised to talk to Michelle about picking a new day.
2.5 Lake Host Program – Lionel did the training and was hoping to take the position as volunteer coordinator of the program but is now unable to do it. Ken Eastman is looking for someone else to take the position for next year and they are hoping to take it town wide to cover all the lakes in town. Anyone interested should call Ken Eastman for more details.
2.6 Planning Board update – A comprehensive Ordinance Review is being done with the UVLSRPC. This encompasses the Master Plan and Conservation Plan, the Subdivision Regulations, the Land Use Ordinance, Site Plan Review Ordinance and the Recycling Ordinance. We discussed areas we feel need looking at, such as storm water, grandfathered nonconforming lots and looking at how much of a lot can be taken up by impervious surface.
2.7 NRI and Conservation Plan - We want to a Conservation Plan booklet that is an executive type summary of the full document. We can use this to market the NRI and Conservation Plan to the public and also use it as a fund raising tool to raise money for land conservation. Johanna put in a grant application to North East Utilities to cover the printing costs. The booklet would need to be completed in February to be ready in time for Town Meeting. The production needs to be done six weeks before our deadline. Sandy, Carol, Nan, and Don will do the editorial work. Nan will do the production on the booklet. We will include an edited summary, pictures, the maps and a donation appeal. For the summary we should decide what is important and pluck out what is pertinent to that. We should highlight the Conservation areas and inform people what they should do if they want to conserve their land. Johanna volunteered to take pictures if needed. Carol has returned the maps to Chris Kane for updating and she will speak with him about finishing everything up.
2.8 NHACC Annual Meeting – Carol spoke about the annual meeting taking place on November 3rd in Concord. All members were invited to attend, there are many interesting programs and speakers scheduled to present there including Lionel Chute and Chris Kane.
2.9 Lake Host Program – Lionel did the training and was hoping to take the position as volunteer coordinator of the program but is now unable to do it. Ken Eastman is looking for someone else to take the position for next year and they are hoping to take it town wide to cover all the lakes in town. Anyone interested should call Ken Eastman for more details.
2.10 Highway Clean Up – We did 3 trash pick up days this year on our Adopt-a-Highway route.
3.0 New Business:
3.1 Jed spoke about the farm visits in East Washington which took place, done by Eric Williams of NHDES, Richard Uncles of the Agriculture Department and Deb Weymouth from NRCS. There is a grant available through DES that is a 60/40 match to help do projects to make improvements in the watershed of impaired waters. The Mill Pond in East Washington is qualified for the grant money. Jed is working on writing a grant with Ed Thayer to build a settling pond to stop the sedimentation in the pond caused by the road drainage system now in place. Don mentioned that NRCS also has funds that might be available for these kinds of projects.
3.2 What's Happening in Nature?
Jed told about hearing a strange noise outside the other day and going out to see what it was and there he saw a huge group of black crows cackling and flying around in circles and landing in the trees near the house. He listened and watched while they made a tremendous amount of noise for several minutes, gathered in a roost of several thousand and then suddenly they all took off in smaller groups and went their separate ways. It was quite a sight. Don asked if there was still a crow-hunting season.
Don was walking on a path, in the woods near his house when he looked down and picked up something that looked like a green sea urchin (spines and all), he looked around the ground and saw another. Puzzled about what these were, he looked up and realized that the tree he was standing near was an American Chestnut! It appeared to be very healthy and was making chestnuts. Almost all of the American Chestnuts were killed by a blight that began attacking the trees early in the 1900s. Let's hope Don's tree continues to thrive.
Tom reported that the trail in the town forest at Camp Morgan is in great shape and lots of people are using it regularly. He suggested that maybe it could be expanded in the future. He suggested that maybe we could come up with a greenway map.
Carol reported that the late season mushrooms are starting to show up. She said the "Chicken of the Woods" mushrooms have gone by and the "Hen of the Woods" are a little late and are showing up now. They are a tasty treat for mushroom aficionados.
For some more information about those pesky crows click here: http://www.washingtonnh.org/WCC_Html/NewinNature.html
4.0 Other Business:
4.1 The Ashuelot River Advisory Committee is looking for 2 volunteer committee members from Washington. They meet monthly in Keene and the meetings are river, watershed, wetlands, and shore land issue oriented. The Corridor Management Plan that they did was adopted by the town. Anyone interested in participating should contact the Selectmen for more information.
4.2 Carol was approached by another Ashuelot Estates property owner wishing to donate their parcel to the town. The LAE board so far refuses to waive the fees associated with donated land. Carol is going to put the issue before the Selectmen and maybe they can come to an agreement with the board about these wet, unbuildable lots.
5.0 Correspondence:
Urban Forestry Center
6.0 Adjourned at 8:55 PM, our next scheduled meeting is November 21st at 7 PM at the Town Hall.
Respectfully submitted,
Nan Schwartz
Secretary