Washington Conservation Commission

Minutes – November 20, 2013

Assembly time: 7:00 PM.

Members present: Jed Schwartz, Nan Schwartz, Arin Mills and Ken Eastman.

Visitors: Kathy West and Phil Barker

1.0 Approval of Minutes: Minutes from October 2013 meeting, Arin made a motion to approve, Ken seconded, all voted in favor.

2.0 Permits Committee - No permits.

3.0 Committee and Board reports:

3.1 Land Protection Committee - Hasn’t met. Jed talked to Brian and he has 4 potential projects in Washington. He might want to come talk to the commission in December

3.2 Energy Committee – Johanna wasn’t able to attend the meeting but said the EC wants to do a display about energy savings for Town meeting with a question sheet that people can fill out.

3.3 Planning Board – Nan reported that the Planning Board’s Master Plan Community survey is complete and they received almost 350 of them back, which is about 25%. They are working on compiling the survey answers and will release a report in December. The prize winning numbers were picked on Tuesday and will be displayed on a poster and can be found on the town website.

3.4 Forestry Committee – Tom was not in attendance. We will plan to find a time to meet with the Forestry Committee soon.

3.5 Legislative update – Not in session. Arin mentioned that she got email about a proposed rule making Long-eared Bats protected (endangered). She saw in the NRI that there was a bat survey done in 2002 and there is possible habitat near Twin Bridges and possibly caves elsewhere in town. She thinks if we can find the survey/study we should sent it to the agency for inclusion. She will send Nan more information about the request for information that she received.

4.0 Public Presentations and workshops:

4.1 Tracking Invasive Plants project – Arin will send Nan the scans she made of the reporting sheets we have received so far and the pictures that go with them. Nan will make some pages that we can link to Arins map. Kathy West dropped by and gave us a CD with some invasive plant sightings she has done along Halfmoon Pond Road. We thanked her and Arin gave her a copy of the Invasive Plant Package we put together. We thanked her for the information and we will add it to our database.

The reporting sheets and guides are available on our web site here: InvasiveProject.html

5.0 New business

5.1 Phil Barker came in to talk to us about an issue he has. His neighbor on Valley Road wants to square off his lot by getting an annexation from Phil and he has been told he needs a survey of his entire lot and thinks it might be time to do a subdivision. He has a lot that is in a conservation priority area (CPA) with an active snowmobile trail and part of the Monadnock Sunapee Greenway traversing it. Jed said that keeping trails open is very important and he should consider an easement to protect the trails. Phil said the greenway followed old roads. In 1976 the Forest Society reactivated it and AMC built the trail, they relocated it to go over Oak Hill and it comes out on Faxon Hill Road. Phil offered to let them bring the trail through his woods to the village and volunteers came in and opened up and blazed the trail over a weekend. Later the Forest Society gave up the trail but a club took it over and now keeps it in good shape. He said that he has a shelter that sees about 100 person nights a year. Phil wants to know what the ramifications are of the conservation priority areas on what he wants to do. Jed explained that these are guidelines for us, he explained conservation easements and what can be done with those. Jed and Arin looked at the CPA map with him. His parcels are TM11-74 and 22-36. Nan said that they have no road frontage and Phil said his private road (Symonds Lane) goes into the lots. Jed said we will look at the maps and NRI and send Phil a letter to let him know what is on the land (trails, etc) We will also let him know why it is in CPA #13.

6.0 Other Business:

6.1 NRI update – Map discussion. We went through each maps and discussed what should be changed and updated on them. The wildlife map was considered needing the most updating, the Wildlife Action Plan has lots of new data. The Aerial map should be redone with the newest aerial imagery available. Conservation lands have been expanded and should be updated. Arin mentioned DOT has a new layer that could be used. She mentioned she went to a recent presentation about the new granit maps. You can go on the Granit website and check them out. We felt the Soils map didn’t require updating but Ken thought it looked too busy and wasn’t sure what we are trying to show with it. Arin explained that certain kinds of trees grow in certain soils and they are connected. The Water Resources map needs floodplains added. Arin thought we should include the WAP maps for habitat and highest ranked habitat should be included separately. The Historic and Cultural map seems OK but Ken would like Historical Society to look at it. He would like to get them to look at the chapter also and give input. He thinks a picture of the Meetinghouse should be included. Jed thought that it would be great to map old cellar holes, too. We need an updated Parcel map from the Assessors. Arin thought it might be good to shade the Parcel map for protected land and Town Forests. This could be a separate layer. The Watershed map we need to add lakes and USGS topography to. We might also include an overview of the HUC8 wateshed as an inset. Constraints to development map seem OK. We decided we could rerun the co-occurance map again. We thought we could add a few maps to the set such as a Topo map to show elevations, a Recreaction map, our Invasive map. Arin thought it might be interesting to map out large timber harvest and big tracts of land that have potential for harvesting, you could use the intent to cut forms to build a map of historic harvests. You could write a chapter discussing timber production in the town. We discussed contracting with someone to do the maps for us and Arin said we should make it a part of the contract to get a viewer. Jed mentioned the “New Hampshire Method” maps he has found helpful. Arin mentioned the “Granit View” new maps that are almost available, you can check them out at granitviewii. We talked about getting a price for updating the maps. We will discuss this with Sandy and Carol who both might have some ideas. Arin mentioned Antioch and UNH for possibilities. She also mentioned doing a viewshed map in reference to historic buildings. The existing maps are available online here: NRI Maps

Next we are going to look at the text and tables. We will look at page 1 through 12 for next meeting. We discussed possible ways to do edits on the document without too much confusion. We talked about doing it in Word and tracking changes. Arin mentioned Google Docs and we will look into that. We could use Dropbox to take the document down to work on it then put it back. We will discuss this further next meeting.

6.2 We got a bill for our yearly dues from NHACC. It is not due until April so we will hold it for payment until March. Ken motioned to pay the dues, Arin seconded the motion and all voted in favor.

7.0 What’s Happening in Nature?

Jed said it is very cold with a few snow squalls recently.

Arin said her Juncos are back visiting her bird feeder.

Jed said that hunting season is in full swing and Ed Thayer saw a 10-point buck on his land prior to hunting season but hasn’t seen it again.

Ken said that there is ice all around the edges of Millen Pond and the dam end is frozen. He said that “ice-in” is historically on December 15^th. Jed said that Mill Pond is frozen already.

Did you know that New Hampshire has a “Big Tree” program and that we are home to seven national champions? To learn more about it, click here: NewinNature.html

8.0 Correspondence:

DES - notice of Shoreland Application for TM 11-43, 521 Millen Pond Road, Lundquist, for an addition to existing dwelling

DES - copy of Shoreland Permit, TM 14-441, private way between Ashuelot and Mill Ponds, Britton, for construction of 2 bedroom camp with no water or septic

DES – copy of Shoreland Permit, TM 11-43, 521 Millen Pond Road, Lundquist, for an addition to existing dwelling

DES – copy of Shoreland Permit, TM 10-16, 973 Ashuelot Drive, Drew, for construction of a garage with 1 foot eaves.

DES – notice of septic application for 81 Sandy Knolls Road, TM 9-36

Copy of Forest Notes magazine

9.0 Adjourned at 8:45 PM, our next scheduled meeting is December 18^th at 7PM at the Town Hall.

Respectfully submitted,

Nan Schwartz, Secretary