Conservation Commission – Land Protection Committee

July 22, 2013 5:00PM Town Hall

Attending: Carol Andrews, Sandy Robinson, Jed Schwartz, Nan Schwartz

We discussed Jed’s conversation with Brian Hotz, about an easement inquiry had recently. We decided it was premature to do anything at this time. Brian also mentioned a few other pieces he is thinking about. We discussed the new LCHIP round that was announced and a few other possible projects that we know of and decided that the deadline for us was too tight and it wasn’t possible to put any projects on their list. There may be a Q2C round later this year and we have a possible project for that. We know we need to use our funds judiciously and not dump too much on any one project.

Carol mentioned the Ashuelot River hazard mitigation plan and possible ARM funds that could be used to conserve properties in the flood zone. We should consider sending a letter to landowners in the flood zone to gauge their interest.

We decided we will meet again in mid-September.

Jed mentioned he had talked to Jim Beard, the chair of the Lempster CC, who said they are actively working to permanently protect their town forests. Jed wanted to know if we should be working on that also? Carol felt that we didn’t need to do it right now but we should do a vulnerability assessment to figure out which are in the most danger. We discussed going to Town Meeting to ask for permission to protect the town forests through easements. This should come from the Selectmen and we will discuss it with them sometime. Lempster did this and it gave them access to grants and other funds that are available. We discussed a question to include in the Master Plan update survey about this issue.

Adjourned: 5:45PM