[Speaker 2] (1:07 - 3:49)
You're good, Tony. Okay, as it is 7.02, I believe, on March 17, 2022, the public hearing of the Swampscot Conservation Commission is now open. Special statement to make.

On February 15, 2022, Governor Baker signed into law a new session law extending certain COVID-19-related measures. The new law, Chapter 22 of the Acts of 2022, include an extension until July 15, 2022, of the remote meeting provisions of the Governor's earlier March 12, 2020, executive order. Tonight's public hearing of the Swampscot Conservation Commission will be conducted both in person and via remote means.

The specific information, including a copy of the agenda, as well as the general guidelines for remote participation by both members and the public with a right or requirement to attend this public hearing, had been distributed prior to the hearing. The general guidelines for remote participation by members of the public and or parties with a right and or requirement to attend this meeting or hearing can be found on the Conservation Commission's website at swampscotmass.gov slash conservation commission. An audio and or video recording transcript or other comprehensive recording record of proceeding will be posted on the town's website as soon as possible after this public hearing.

A general opening statement. The commission is the local permitting authority specifically charged with the protection of the town's natural resources. The primary role of the commission is the administration and enforcement of the Wetlands Protection Act.

Under the jurisdiction of the Wetlands Protection Act, the commission is responsible for reviewing wetland filings, holding public hearings on notices of intent, requests for determination, and notices of resource area delineation, as well as issuing other documents. I will verify that we have a quorum. The commission is currently operating with six members and one team.

We have a quorum here today. Do we know if Monica Camberini is trying to log in remotely?

[Speaker 3] (3:50 - 3:56)
I do not see her. It doesn't mean she might pop on later, but you have a quorum regardless.

[Speaker 2] (3:57 - 6:01)
We may have another commissioner attending remotely. If so, we'll make that known. Before the commission tonight, we have two procedural matters and then a notice of intent submitted by the town for the new elementary school.

As it was anticipated that there was the potential for the school project to take some time, so the commission will not be considering any non-filing matters tonight. We'll be putting those until our April meeting. Before we start, just a few ground rules, procedure and the ground rules.

The presentations will be made on each of the filings, and then comments and questions will be taken by the commission first, and then the public can have a chance to comment or ask questions. People should raise their hand. I don't see anybody here, so if they're on remotely, they should use the raise their hand feature.

You should state your name prior to speaking. Please be brief. Avoid repeating remarks that have already been made, and direct all comments and questions to the commission.

The other thing to keep in mind is that the commission's jurisdiction is limited to work in or within 100 feet of a protected resource and to issues that can be addressed by the Wetlands Protection Act. So any comments and questions should be limited to what's within our jurisdiction. Okay, number one on the agenda is a request for certificates of compliance for 2 Smith Lane.

This is a procedural matter, and I'm going to turn it over to the commission's agent, Melissa Meaney, to explain what the situation is.

[Speaker 3] (6:01 - 8:06)
Okay, so for this particular address, we actually have two certificates of compliance. Both are being requested by the current property owner, Charles Silva. Charlie was before us in December of 2020 with an NOI, and he was issued an order of conditions by the commission that work that was authorized in the OOC was never performed.

He was going to build an addition above the garage, and I can confirm via site visit that none of the work was actually performed, and therefore this would be deemed an invalid order of conditions as clarified by our circuit rider, Alicia Galen, at the Northeast Regional DEP office. The reason why this is needed is because Charlie is selling the property, so he needs to close out the order of conditions in order to transfer the deed. Likewise, the previous owners of the property, Dorothy Foley, from whom Charlie bought the property, had also an OOC issued by the commission on July 8, 2019.

The work, this was before my time, but I believe the work was to demolish and rebuild the entire house. That was never done because when Charlie purchased, the house was still standing as it was, and then he had the work to just build the addition above the garage. So these, because the property owner has since passed, they had never closed out the OOC before transferring, before selling the property to Charlie, so he is requesting the certificates of compliance for both himself and the previous owner who is since deceased.

So in the interim, the conservation issued two letters of support, one for Mr. Silva for the OOC that was issued to him, and one for Mr. Silva on behalf of Ms. Foley for the OOC issued in 2019. Again, can confirm via site visit that the work was, no work on the property was actually performed, so the OOCs are deemed invalid.

[Speaker 2] (8:08 - 8:44)
Yes, just to, the Wellands Protection Act regs require that all orders of conditions be closed out with a recorded certificate of compliance, regardless of whether the work was done or not. That's why, as Melissa pointed out, there's a little box on the form that says invalid order of conditions, which is used when work was never commenced. I don't know if any of the commissioners have any questions regarding this.

I don't know if members of the public have any questions, if there's anyone.

[Speaker 3] (8:44 - 9:01)
Yeah, if there are any members of the public, you may raise your hand using the raise your hand function via Zoom, and I can call on you. Nope, it does not appear we have anybody.

[Speaker 2] (9:02 - 9:08)
Okay, given the facts, I would entertain a motion to issue a certificate of, actually two certificates.

[Speaker 4] (9:08 - 9:14)
I was going to say, do we need two motions, or can we do both in a single motion? I would say keep it separate.

[Speaker 2] (9:15 - 9:23)
Yeah, let's do it separately. So, entertain a motion for a certificate of service for the earlier, what was the, I don't remember.

[Speaker 3] (9:24 - 9:37)
The DEP number, the DEP filing number is 071-0320. This is for the OOC issued to Ms. Foley in 2019.

[Speaker 4] (9:38 - 9:48)
So, I will make a motion to issue a certificate of compliance for the DEP file number 071-0320. Second.

[Speaker 2] (9:49 - 9:50)
All in favor?

[Speaker 3] (9:53 - 10:02)
Motion passed. And then, the DEP number issued to Mr. Silva in 2020 is 071-0338.

[Speaker 4] (10:03 - 10:10)
I will make a motion to issue a certificate of compliance for DEP file number 071-0338.

[Speaker 11] (10:11 - 10:11)
Second.

[Speaker 4] (10:12 - 10:13)
All in favor?

[Speaker 2] (10:15 - 10:39)
All right, great. So, the next matter on the agenda is another procedural matter. It's a request for an extension of an order of conditions that was issued for 50 Carlson Terrace, and I believe the applicant is present to speak to this.

[Speaker 3] (10:39 - 10:58)
Yes, I have Rosemary DeJoy online via Zoom here to speak to her extension of an order of conditions. So, Ms. DeJoy, if you would like to speak to this, you're more than welcome to. I think you just have to unmute yourself.

[Speaker 4] (11:04 - 11:07)
It looks much nicer where she is.

[Speaker 3] (11:09 - 12:34)
We're not getting any sound coming from you. I'm not sure if your microphone is off. Rosemary, are you able to unmute yourself?

Oh, there's, oh, no, okay, try it now. Oh, no, still not working. It's, Rosemary, I'm sorry, the microphone doesn't seem to be working, but, um, oh, it says connect to audio.

I think she had AirPods and it might have been a Bluetooth connection. No, it's still not working. Oh, I was just checking to see.

While she's getting set up, um, can I address Gino's beach management plan really quickly? I attached it via email yesterday.

[Speaker 2] (12:34 - 12:39)
Yes, I did, and I have actually spoken to him, and I'll speak to him again about it.

[Speaker 3] (12:39 - 12:48)
Okay, is it, I just didn't, was it a matter that needed to come before a public meeting or? Probably, yes. Okay.

But not tonight. Okay, sounds good.

[Speaker 7] (12:49 - 12:50)
Okay, can you hear me now?

[Speaker 3] (12:50 - 12:50)
Yes.

[Speaker 7] (12:51 - 12:57)
Oh, boy, getting old is really tough when you can't work these things.

[Speaker 2] (12:59 - 13:03)
Is there a way to put the volume down just a tad? Okay.

[Speaker 7] (13:03 - 13:06)
Sure, I can barely hear you guys, but can you hear me now?

[Speaker 2] (13:06 - 13:11)
Yes, yes. Go ahead, you can proceed.

[Speaker 7] (13:11 - 13:51)
Okay, so do you, you want to know why I'm filing for the extension, I assume? Yes. Yeah, so I haven't been able to do any of the work to it.

Unfortunately, you know, when I was planning to do it, of course, COVID hit, and my company was going to go under, so we all had to take a huge cut in pay, and with the cost of materials and stuff, so everything hopefully is back on schedule, and I, my intention is to put the wall up, maybe by the fall, and then move on from there.

[Speaker 2] (13:59 - 14:07)
Do any of the, is that all, if, do you have anything else to say, or else I'll just open it up to the commissioners, if they have any questions.

[Speaker 7] (14:07 - 14:08)
Yeah, I don't have anything else, I'm sorry.

[Speaker 2] (14:09 - 14:44)
No, it's okay. Do any of the commissioners have any questions? No, no.

Under the Wetlands Protection Act regs, an unexpired and recorded order of conditions can be, thank you, can be extended through issuance of an extension permit for an order of conditions form seven that must be recorded with the registry, keep that in mind, for up to a three-year period. I'm not quite sure what period of time you are requesting.

[Speaker 7] (14:47 - 14:50)
Another three years, please. Three years, okay.

[Speaker 2] (14:53 - 14:58)
No questions from the commissions, anyone from the public?

[Speaker 3] (14:59 - 15:05)
If there is anyone from the public who would like to speak to this matter, you may do so by using the raise your hand function.

[Speaker 2] (15:12 - 15:22)
I think we are good. If not, I'll entertain a motion to issue a extension for order of conditions. Yes, extension of order.

[Speaker 4] (15:22 - 15:27)
I can make a motion for extension for order of conditions for DEP file number 0710283.

[Speaker 2] (15:30 - 16:01)
Second. All in favor? Motion passed.

Okay, that brings us to the third item on the agenda, which is a notice of intent for new elementary school at 10 Whitman Road. Did we receive a DEP number yet? We did not, no.

Okay, is there any indication as to when they will be doing it?

[Speaker 3] (16:01 - 16:22)
The last I spoke with Alicia, which was yesterday, she mentioned that her colleague James Freely might have it in his queue, but it has not yet been processed. So she said typically the turnaround time between filing and the issuance of a filing number is about three weeks. So should be coming up on one.

[Speaker 2] (16:24 - 19:15)
Okay, before we proceed with the applicant making a presentation, I see the applicant is here. The commission would just like to make a brief statement. As noted, the notice of intent was submitted.

It was submitted on February 23, 2022, and prepared by the town's consultant, Meech Engineering Incorporated. Given the interest in this project, the commission had decided to hire its own third-party consultant Linden Engineering Partners to do a peer review of the project. We felt doing so not only supplements the commission's expertise and experience, but ensures that there are no conflicts and that the review of the project is done in an objective manner.

Linden Engineering is in the process of reviewing the NOI, and as I understand it, on March 10th, representatives of Linden Engineering, as well as two members of the commission, walked the site with representatives of the town and its consultant. Once Linden prepares its final report, the town will need to respond to any issues raised by Linden, and if necessary, update and revise the NOI document. Tonight, the town, through its consultant, has asked to make a presentation on the proposed project.

However, since we have not yet received Linden's peer review report, which is necessary before we can make any decisions under the Wetlands Protection Act, the commission intends to continue the public hearing on this project, and I understand the town has agreed to this continuance. I see, yes, okay, until March 28th, is that the date? Okay, and I assume, Marissa, you will get a copy of the letter of continuance?

Yes. Okay, signed. So, the town's consultant is now, will now make its presentation.

If the commission, at this point, has any initial questions, it can ask them. If the public is attending, they can ask it. Again, at the next meeting, after the commission has had a chance to review the peer reviewer's report, we may have further questions.

So, I'll turn it over to the town. Yes?

[Speaker 5] (19:17 - 22:17)
Yes, please do. All right, so this is, this is, this is really brief. I know some of you, and I know, I know you've been following this project very closely.

So, this is just quickly a tiny little brief intro to our commission, to our review here. On last Thursday, we had a community forum to update the community about this project, and I just want to give you a brief, you know, bird's eye view of where we're at right now. You guys are familiar with the site.

This is an aerial view of, of the property. That's the current Stanley School is north-south building, and the new school will be east-west along Ewing Woods. This is the site plan.

You can see the school is along Ewing Woods, and it's the entire, the entire project is within the existing Stanley School site. Quickly, this is a graphic of a rendering of the front of the building. Our design and architect team really was focused on our community, and as you know, there's two schools here, a lower school on one side and upper school on the other side.

So, the lower school is going to sort of be represented by sand and sun and yellow colors, and the upper school is going to be represented by some green colors for the forest. So, that's just a quick overview there, and the most important part here is our schedule. So, you know, we're, we're part of a partnership with the MSBA, and, you know, we're excited because they're going to be, be funding about 35% of this project.

So, so we're working in partnership with them, and, and you can see the first item's been checked off because we've submitted our design development to the MSBA, and we're working on schedule and, and like approving our plans and everything. So, in March, we're having this meeting and a meeting with the planning board. In April, the select board and the earth removal committee will be with us, and then the demolition and site work will start in the summer, and the construction should start in the fall, and we're really super excited about that because in the last couple weeks, we heard that we have signed a lease with St. John's and the YMCA to use the Blaney Street School for swing space. So, so, you know, the Stanley kids are going to be moving in there as soon as this school year is over. We're going to start moving furniture and, and programs into there. And so, it's just exciting that we're, that we're on our way, and we look forward to, to you listening to all the work our, our design team and engineers have been doing, and we have David Conway here from, from Niche and Nick.

I don't know Nick. Nick Botts. Nick Botts.

I should know it. I see it up on the screen. And Nick Botts, both here from Niche Engineering, and they've done tons of work on this, and I think you're going to appreciate this presentation.

[Speaker 1] (22:23 - 22:31)
I understand it's hybrid, so we have people at home watching, and so we're going to plug in, but as I speak to you, what would be the best way if I'm going to be looking at plans?

[Speaker 2] (22:32 - 22:33)
Well, we will see them here.

[Speaker 1] (22:33 - 22:34)
Okay.

[Speaker 2] (22:34 - 22:35)
So that, yeah.

[Speaker 1] (22:45 - 26:56)
All right. This is portable, so you can put that down. Thanks Nick.

So, can everyone hear me with the home audience as well? Okay, great. So, my name is David Conway.

I'm a Senior Project Manager, Professional Engineer at Niche Engineering in Boston. I've been there 29 years. We do lots of public school projects, each one of them more important than the next.

The, with me tonight is Nick Botts, who's a Professional Engineer, Project Engineer, who helped us put together the plans, and watching from home, but like if we kind of get into trouble, also helped us with the plans. I just want to call out is Jessica Walla. She grew up in Swampscott on Blaney Street and went through the public school system, and she did a lot of work putting together the plans and the notice of intent, and I just want to walk you through them quickly.

So, on the screen is the site plan, which is just a renderized version. Whitman Road's at the top. Ewing Woods is to the rear, to the south.

To the west, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Greater Lynn, and abutting properties to the west. Now, just in general site organization, the new school will run along the rear of the site, to the front and west will be play field and playgrounds, to the north and east will be a parking lot. Service area will be to the rear of the site.

There'll be additional play spaces in close proximity to the school. Those areas are more for the, I believe, the younger students, and then, you know, smaller, more age-appropriate play areas. And then, per owner planting around.

But this is really just a stylized version of the... Now, the existing site, just to walk you through it, is 6.1 acres of the school. The Unitarian Universalist Church property is 7 acres, but there's only a small portion of that site that is involved in the project itself.

As everyone knows, is that the existing school is located towards the west side of the site. There's an entrance drive along Whitman Road, and then the west side of the site is the existing play fields. The church is to the west of that.

On this plan in front of you, the buffer zones to the resource areas are shown in color. So this is kind of like just a locus on the actual work within the buffer zone areas. For resource areas, we have the wetlands associated with Ewing Woods to the south.

There's a larger wetlands on the church property to the west. And the buffer zone for that, some of it comes onto the Stanley School property, and then some of it is within the work area for the work that would be done on the church property. Now there has been discussion.

There's stormwater conveyances in the median of the parking of the church property. That church was built in the 80s, has an order of condition. Those stormwater conveyances, generally by the TEP, are not considered resource areas.

Even after 40 years, they start to exhibit hydric soils. There's a closed order of conditions and plans that show that area. If you saw Bill Jones's letter this evening, that's the area that they were talking about.

It's the median of the parking area, so we pulled out the old order of conditions and the plan from, order of conditions from 79, the plans from 79. That shows it originally as a stormwater conveyance. That's what was constructed.

It was originally upland area. It wasn't like they took a wetland and turned it into something. It was an upland that was just turned into a stormwater conveyance.

[Speaker 2] (26:57 - 27:05)
Is it exhibiting now, wetlands? There seems to be a disagreement.

[Speaker 1] (27:08 - 27:09)
You guys get to decide.

[Speaker 6] (27:10 - 27:23)
To that end, some of the species are certainly wetland species that are in that low area right around one of them. Some of them are also upland. Reviewing could be helpful.

[Speaker 1] (27:24 - 36:14)
It's the type of thing that at some point, it's going to need, because it is a stormwater conveyance, it's going to need to be cleaned or it will stop functioning. It also predates, because it was done in 1980, if we were to do it today, there'd be an operations and maintenance plan that would be part of it, and that would get approved as part of the order of condition. That kind of gives the owner the ability to go back and clean those areas, even if they stopped it.

But that wasn't happening in the early 80s, 79, actually. Actually, something just of interest, because it's a little deceiving when you're out there at the existing Stanley School site, is the actual property line on the south side of the Stanley School site is the Paper Street of Forest Ave extension. So there's a right-of-way there before you get to Ewing Woods.

Now, the wetland resource area across is within a portion of that right-of-way, but it's just deceiving, because the actual conservation land is about 50 feet away from that. If you happen to be out there physically, there's two hydrants that are back there. Those are a lot, they're almost exactly on the property line, so if you mentally draw that line, that's the property line, and that is the beginning of the right-of-way, and then the Ewing Woods property line is instead of that.

Here's the work within the buffer zone, just again highlighted that's on the proposed plan. To the south, the buffer zone associated with Ewing Woods, we have portions of the service area, portions of the school, and portion of basically the hardscape area adjacent to the school that will be included in that area. On the site, we have the soccer field, portions of the soccer field.

You can't, if it's hard to see, and I will show you another plan later, but there's a little bit of a wall there to hold the grade up for the soccer field, so if you look at that dark corner, and I'll point out on another plan, we have a blow-up. There's a little bit of a wall to hold up the grade, make it more of a usable surface. Within the buffer zone on the church property, the work really consists of just some curb realignment to just rationalize the traffic as it moves through there, and also the creation of some new sidewalks to move pedestrians through the site, so you can see the sidewalk on the west side of the existing parking lot, there's a walkway through the island, a crosswalk, and then it picks up to a walkway that then brings the students into the school site itself. Now, this is really just to walk through what the site features and what the surface treatments are going to be. The grading plan is on this, too.

I could zoom in if there's a particular spot you want to look at, because I have control of it for grading, but if you want to see what an exact grade is or something like that, so if you want, we can zoom in. But essentially, similar to the stylized version of the site plan, the school's in the back of the service area. Hardscape and play area is immediately adjacent to the school.

On the east side, driveway, driveway, parking area, traffic will enter the existing Whitman Road, come up, depending on which entrance your child uses, you'll either take a left or a right and circle back around. On the west side is the children's play area, the playground, which will be hardscape, and then a soccer field. It's not a full-size soccer field.

I guess a U10 or a U12 field. It's a smaller field. Again, to get, this shows up a little bit better.

If you look around the field and along the play area on the front, there's a small wall. I think at its max, it's about four and a half feet, so it varies from like four and a half feet to about three feet. Just to hold the grade up as it moves along that side.

On the church, we're breaking through the small landscape buffer area between the school property and the church to get, so that traffic can go through. Basically follow the existing traffic pattern. There's not a lot of work other than the pedestrian improvements on the church property.

Then, again, we're taking out a little bit of pavement just to, again, rationalize the pavement, the traffic as it moves through there, and then also to put sidewalks along one side, on either side and through the site to have people safely navigate through. I know I'm kind of rambling on, but feel free to interrupt me with questions or if you want me to go back to something. Again, this is just a blow-up of the different jurisdictional areas with the proposed work.

On the drawing on the left, you can see that's all essentially existing pavement, and the little green foot is the additional landscape area that we'll go in. We take out a little bit of pavement to get a better curb radius. We just don't want people kind of cutting that corner.

We kind of, again, just want to bump it out. On the school side, up by the field, you can see that the portion of the field is within the buffer zone area and then some of the walls. And then we'll also, there's another one, we'll look at the underground structures as well.

And in the rear, we have a portion of the school, the service area, and the hardscape associated with the service area. Okay, this will be the point where I really put the people at home asleep. This is the underground portion of the site, which we spend a great deal of time on.

So in blue, what you can see is the new waterline. The school ends up, there's a waterline that runs through Whitman Road to the waterline and Forest Ave extension, the Paper Street portion of it. The new school would interrupt that, so we're going to run a new waterline around to keep that loop going.

The sanitary sewer, I believe, is the green, and that simply flows by gravity from the school and ties into the existing connection out in Whitman Road, so it would just be a new sewer system. Now, the magenta is the stormwater system, which I'll talk about probably for the most. So it's going to be a whole new stormwater system meeting today's standards to address quality, not just TSS removal, but phosphorous removal, and I'll talk about the different ways we do that.

When we did the analysis, we looked at four different design points. Design points at different areas we analyzed to make sure that we're not impacting our abutters adversely. The site in the proposed condition has more pavement, so the more pavement, the faster the water would run off of it.

So we have to have some sort of controls to address the rate that water leaves the site and also the quality that the water leaves the site. So the first design point is the Ewing Woods wetland resource. The second one is the northeast corner of the site where some water runs off to a drain that runs through to the east.

The third design point is the northwest corner of the school site, which is the water that runs off to the larger wetland on the church site. And the main design point, or where most of the water flows, is there's a drain line that comes from Virginia Circle onto the site. It picks up the existing school's drainage system, so it's roof drains, the pavement drains, drains in the driveway parking lot, and then flows through.

So that's the last design point.

[Speaker 2] (36:15 - 36:20)
Are there existing storm drains? Oh, we're going to get to that.

[Speaker 1] (36:20 - 36:33)
Yep, so the existing site has sketch basins, roof drains, existing system that comes into the site. I could pull up a plan and show you if you're interested.

[Speaker 2] (36:33 - 36:35)
No, no, I'm just...

[Speaker 1] (36:37 - 42:16)
It's underground, but if you go out to the site and you drive up Whitman Road to what becomes like the parking lot, you'll see a catch basin right outside the school. And there's other drain panels there too, but it's just the clearest evidence of it. That runs to the north, the body language helps, runs to the north to a pipe that leaves the site and then exits through Virginia Road, Virginia Circle.

Virginia Circle is a small street that is off of Cedar. I don't have a Google map of it, but it's there. Line runs through there, it was probably put back in when they built the original Stanley School and then ties into the town system.

That carries the majority of the existing water from the site. The new storm drain system consists of catch basins with deep sumps, and then the large systems that you see in the magenta, those are cul-de-sac systems, so those are underground systems that basically we're creating this large void space underground that the water can flow into quickly and that we can then hold back and let the water go slowly from the site. Those are essentially underground detention ponds.

The first row, so there's a little, the first row of each of those systems are a little darker magenta, those are called isolated rows. So those rows provide us our treatment, they're basically rows so that the water is forced into there and then it has to be filtered through there, at which point the phosphorus and the TSS gets removed, and that's also the access points for where you can clean them. And then the water just fills into the rest of the void space.

There's outlet controls, again nothing mechanical, just like a larger pipe running in and smaller holes leaving the water run out, so that we can restrict the flow leaving those sites, leaving those two structures. There's a little bit of drainage on Whitman Road that we couldn't get into the, because of elevations, into the underground detention, so what we're using for those is a water quality inlet to address that last little bit. It's really, if you can imagine, if you know the site, you come in and it goes up in front of you, the right where Whitman, the school site starts and the Whitman Road begins will be that last little catch phase, and we want to be able to capture that and make sure that that water's treated before it's discharged into the town system.

Something else we considered as part of the analysis is also the wetlands themselves. You know, you don't want to impact the wetlands either with too much water or too little water. It's important that we kind of like try to balance that, especially if there's potential wildlife concerns.

And actually your consultant back in January, it might have been December, flagged that as a concern, and it would help us, guide us as we were developing the plans. So almost all the site, or a large amount of the site kind of runs into the storm drain system, which then goes into the detention or the catch basins, and then off into the Virginia Road. There's obviously, where we meet, there's small little areas that flow off site, but they're much smaller than they are now, so that like areas to the, you know, the flows to the neighbors, the people who live there will be reduced.

But to Ewing Woods, what we're going to do for the site, there's an existing catchment that flows to Ewing Woods. We want to kind of maintain that. So we're going to take the cleanest runoff that we have on the site, which is the roof runoff, and then we're still going to treat it.

So even though generally roof rot is considered clean, we're still going to run it through a treatment system, again, isolated row type of system, nothing mechanical, just to make sure there's nothing in it. And then direct that through a level spreader to Ewing Woods, just to, you know, kind of keep the mass balance of water heading to that wetland about what it is in today's, today. Basically try to mitigate any impacts to that.

The interventions on the church side are fairly small, where we're kind of breaking through for the vehicles and the pedestrians to cross from one side to the other. And because we also have the walkways, there's a small increase in the previous area on the church site. The church site is kind of special.

Like it definitely was designed in a certain way, and we kind of don't want to interrupt that if we can. It's a very passive, I mean, it was great the way they do it. It's kind of like full circles.

If they did that in 79, they wouldn't have done that in the 80s. You know, it was, that's a very like kind of, a system that we would kind of do now. With the swales and the no curbs, and basically getting your treatment by just running it over the vegetation.

So we have a very small intervention on that site, and we didn't want to, we don't want to have to start introducing water quality inlets or detention basins or anything like that, even though there's a small increase in the previous area over there. So what we're doing to mitigate the impacts over there, is we have a catch basin that's picking up a small sub-portion of the pavement in the parking lot. You can see it, it's in the, you can see it in the corner, I can't really, of the church parking lot.

Just the square little dot. And then you can actually see the pipe a little bit easier, leaving it.

[Speaker 4] (42:16 - 42:19)
Go to the next slide. Are we looking here? Is that what I'm looking at?

[Speaker 1] (42:19 - 42:21)
Oh, is the next slide below it, Nick? Yes. All right, sorry.

[Speaker 4] (42:21 - 42:26)
That's correct, by the way. Okay. Just making sure that that's where we were all supposed to be staring.

[Speaker 1] (42:27 - 42:51)
There you go. My bad, sorry about that. You can see the, you can see the catch basin on the Unitarian, on the church site here.

So we're picking up some of their, the runoff from their pavement areas, and then we're bringing it, bringing it over to our site and treating it. Again, just to, because we are increasingly impervious over there, we want to, we want, we don't want to, we want to provide mitigation, but we also want to do it in a sensitive way that we're not, like.

[Speaker 2] (42:52 - 42:58)
What's the increase in impervious? Is it just the path, or is there also some of the cars?

[Speaker 9] (43:01 - 43:08)
It's primarily, there's an added amount of traffic there.

[Speaker 1] (43:25 - 43:55)
But the increase in impervious is essentially from the walkways, because we're actually, even though we're bursting, we, and it's, it's kind of moving the deck chairs around at that point. We're really talking like very small amounts, but there's a, there's a small piece of vehicular and, okay, there's a, and also I have bad eyesight to begin with, so I don't even know what that's hitting.

[Speaker 4] (43:56 - 43:59)
I'm not sure that's hitting that screen. You might be better off.

[Speaker 1] (43:59 - 45:26)
Yeah, I probably would blind, I'd blind someone walking by in the hall. So it's probably best if I put that down. We're adding a small piece of pavement, of vehicular pavement where we're, where we're cutting through the property line for the cars.

We're taking out a small piece of vehicular pavement on the other side of the parking lot, and we're kind of rationalizing the, the, the curb line there a little bit. So the increase is really ends up being the, the walkway itself. And we investigated different ways of doing that.

Your town's like one big piece of rock. The, ideally, I, we, I, and I have some like great, like I wanted to try to make that porous pavement walkway or something like that, which I've done on DCR walkways along like the Mystic River and the trials and stuff, and they work great, but we just don't have the soil conditions to do that. That was my hope, you know, is you guys have a quarry for a reason.

I mean, I have, you know, I can start to even, you know, buffer zones, design points, surface detention. I can walk through if it's of interest, but I know Mr. Jones will be doing a thorough review, and we're going to be meeting on Monday to kind of go over it, where it begins of it. We can talk about the summary of the stormwater regs if you want, if people are interested, or we can start to kind of flesh out if you have questions or if there's a particular piece of this you'd like us to focus on.

[Speaker 2] (45:26 - 45:32)
Was there, I didn't see a stormwater plan in the submission I had. Have you done the stormwater plan?

[Speaker 1] (45:32 - 45:37)
Yes, there's a drainage and graded drainage plan. It's in the.

[Speaker 2] (45:38 - 45:39)
You did? Okay.

[Speaker 1] (45:40 - 46:02)
So there's actually two sheets. So one is a utility plan. That has all the utilities.

That's a little bit busy. And then, like, two sheets later is the drainage plan, where the drainage piece is brought out a little bit brighter. You know, as you put the plans today, we can, like, put stuff in the background and bring other stuff forward.

So there's a stormwater plan.

[Speaker 2] (46:02 - 46:08)
Okay. No, that's okay. I just want to make sure, because I'll take a look at it.

[Speaker 1] (46:08 - 46:09)
I did.

[Speaker 2] (46:09 - 46:10)
Okay.

[Speaker 1] (46:10 - 46:58)
I did actually blow by the stop sign on one piece of the underground infrastructure, which everyone should be pretty excited about. And if we look at this screen, if you guys see the little circles that are all along the north side of the site, they're faint. But there's just, it looks like a hundred little trees, symbols.

There's little circles. Those are the geothermal wells. So the intention is the school gets a very high LEED certification.

I think we're going for platinum, or? Max, what LEED are we going for? Do you know offhand?

[Speaker 11] (46:58 - 46:59)
LEED Silver.

[Speaker 1] (46:59 - 48:12)
LEED Silver. So we're going for LEED Silver. Outside of it, we've been just going for LEED Silver.

Just the goals of the building committee and the town was to make it as energy efficient and sustainable as possible. So the geothermal wells locations are shown along the north side of the site. Now those wells, there's no visual evidence of them at all.

The wellheads themselves are down at least four feet below grade, if not more. And then they go down from there. And they're all wired, they're plumbed together, and they basically use the heat, the constant temperature at the depth of the bottom of the wells to either gain an advantage in cooling or heating for the school itself.

Reducing operating costs and also the kind of the carbon footprint of the project itself start at the beginning and also as it moves through its project life. Now, I've been talking for quite a bit and almost in a stream of consciousness way. So if you want, we can pull back to something else if you have questions or want us to explore something deeper.

[Speaker 2] (48:13 - 48:28)
I think it would be good for the commission to get our consultants' report and then do a comparison and have a better idea of what kind of questions we're going to be looking at.

[Speaker 1] (48:28 - 48:29)
Sure.

[Speaker 2] (48:29 - 48:33)
One thing on the stormwater, you are applying for a construction stormwater permit, right?

[Speaker 1] (48:33 - 49:49)
Oh, NFTEs? Yeah. Yeah.

So we've already proposed the draft SWIP, right? It's actually in the NOI. It will be assigned to the contractor.

So that is, you know, over and you get disturbed. That's just like a matter of course. The erosion control, sedimentation erosion control plans are also part of the notice of intent package too.

Those would be like the first couple sheets would be my guess. But then the SWIP itself is like 250 pages and is part of the stormwater report, correct? Yeah.

So there's three, if you're doing it electronically, there's three documents. One's the plan set. Then there's two reports.

One's the NOI report, which is really like all the forms. And the second one is the stormwater report supporting materials. If there's a particular piece of that that you want, we actually have pretty good software.

We can pull out pages and send them to you individually. Like I understand like the bigger one might be kind of hard to chew through. Or come through on your computer.

Or if you want a hard copy, just let us know.

[Speaker 2] (49:52 - 49:56)
I don't want to waste the paper. You know you love your paper.

[Speaker 4] (49:56 - 50:32)
Even though I am a paper lover, yes. I have a question. In terms of the wetland that is Ewing Woods and where the new building is going, I know most of the plan is basically dealing with what is the school property.

But that area that really abuts the wetland for Ewing Woods, that soil is quite compacted. There's like a, you know, it's the fire road or whatever we call this thing here. Is there going to be any type of mitigation to improve the quality of that soil and the quality of that habitat so that it actually filters and doesn't just become a runoff area?

[Speaker 1] (50:33 - 50:54)
We weren't proposing it. Basically our rule of thumb in trying it was just not to go there. I don't know if it's something we'd be willing to...

I mean basically it would be to go in and to rough up the area. I think it's what the request is to make it like just more likely to take seed and to...

[Speaker 4] (50:56 - 51:13)
Be something other than just a muddy runoff directly into the wetland. Something to actually mitigate the... Like to create a buffer between where the new school building is and that wetland.

I know a lot of... You're putting in the infrastructure to protect that wetland. But it also seems like there potentially needs to be something to...

[Speaker 1] (51:14 - 51:14)
Improve it?

[Speaker 4] (51:15 - 51:31)
Yes. So that it's filtering in a natural way in addition to the restoration model. Yeah.

Thank you. It's late. It's really not that late, but it feels that late.

And this may be something that our consultant brings up as well. But I was just kind of curious what...

[Speaker 1] (51:31 - 52:06)
We're open to suggestions. Again, it wasn't for any other reason. And then sometimes my general approach is just to try to not go there.

Now, if it was... Say that it was all invasives. I might come in and start to...

Japanese knotweed or something like that. I might start to talk to you about obviously what you... But where it's more of a state, let's just stay to our area and not get into trouble.

But again, we're open to suggestions.

[Speaker 4] (52:07 - 52:10)
And I have another question just about the soccer field.

[Speaker 1] (52:10 - 52:10)
Yeah.

[Speaker 4] (52:10 - 52:22)
Right. So you say that this upper corner here is a wall. There'll be a fence to prevent the ball from rolling into the land that I'm assuming and children from running directly off of.

[Speaker 1] (52:22 - 52:22)
Yes.

[Speaker 4] (52:23 - 52:24)
But I was just curious...

[Speaker 1] (52:24 - 52:33)
I think it's a fence and a net. So the net would... Because we have the neighbors there too.

So it's desires not to have the balls fly over the fence and into the neighbors.

[Speaker 4] (52:33 - 52:36)
Oh, so what's the mitigation going to be for the net and ferns?

[Speaker 1] (52:36 - 52:40)
It's not particularly high. It's like... I think it's 12 maybe.

[Speaker 4] (52:44 - 53:00)
But still, I mean, that is a migratory... It is one of the few kind of underscoring migratory spots in town where we do get a decent warbler presentation each spring and fall. So I think any type of netting...

The baseball... Like the netting at the baseball field...

[Speaker 1] (53:00 - 53:03)
That's not here. We can talk to... So we're still developing the plans.

[Speaker 4] (53:04 - 53:04)
Okay.

[Speaker 1] (53:04 - 53:12)
So we can talk to landscape architect. I know the desire, I think, is to have a fence there for the kids always. Even though it's not that...

[Speaker 4] (53:12 - 53:15)
Yeah, the fence is low enough that I'm not concerned with birds flying through.

[Speaker 1] (53:15 - 53:24)
And then for the netting, we can talk... Maybe it can be like the sales system. Yeah, they raise...

[Speaker 4] (53:24 - 53:37)
The sales system that'll go up and never come down, but okay. Not to be a total pessimist in terms of the process or the procedure. Okay.

That wasn't even gonna be my question though, but that's a good one to kind of file away. So...

[Speaker 1] (53:37 - 53:46)
And that's also the lowest part of the site. Okay. So we could actually look to see too where it is in relation to the adjacent trees.

[Speaker 4] (53:46 - 53:46)
Okay.

[Speaker 1] (53:47 - 53:49)
Which I don't think they're above... It wouldn't be above.

[Speaker 4] (53:49 - 54:02)
My general question was just gonna be about water flow. I'm assuming since the cashman is going here that this is all gonna flow this way and not necessarily kind of create a waterfall going over into the wetland. Correct.

Okay.

[Speaker 1] (54:03 - 54:26)
And then also too is at that point, it's a new turf field that even if they weren't controlled, that's not the problem. The new turf field, the water would generally want to be drawn down. They're well-drained.

For most of the grass growth, it makes them last longer.

[Speaker 4] (54:27 - 54:34)
Okay. And when you say turf, you mean grass, not actual asphalt turf. I mean grass.

Yeah, yeah. Just making sure again that I was still understanding what we were doing.

[Speaker 10] (54:40 - 54:56)
And just to add to that, this is Jess Waller from NICH. We created a swale around the low points of the site that will have area drains. So anything that does flow off of that new field will be collected by those area drains and sent into the detention system below the field.

[Speaker 1] (54:57 - 55:08)
So Jess is the engineer. And so she went to the Stanley School. And she's not old, but she's not young.

She didn't go to this high school. She went to the Swampyard High School.

[Speaker 8] (55:16 - 55:50)
So John and I were on a site visit the other day. And the wetlands near the church, and I know you kind of went over this, is what type of treatment will there be? Or will there be any before?

I mean, I know there's, we don't know that pond or Vernal Pool. I'm guessing there's going to be a lot more traffic in that parking lot. Right near, isn't that one where like there's going to be a roadway there?

[Speaker 1] (55:50 - 55:56)
Yeah, so they're going to, the school's going to utilize the existing pavement. There'll be no parking. There'll just be cars.

[Speaker 8] (55:56 - 56:11)
Like a roadway. So there'll be more sanding and salting in the winter, which could potentially be a condition. Right.

So I'm wondering if there'll be any type of treatment for that.

[Speaker 1] (56:13 - 56:44)
So a portion of that site, kind of like the northwest corner of the site, we're capturing and bringing back into our treatment train. And then the existing treatment train for the church, we're just going to leave as is. Which is, the existing conveyance swells, and maybe that could become part of like an O&M plan or something like that.

Because it was in 1979, there's no, nothing compelling it.

[Speaker 6] (56:49 - 56:51)
In the northeast corner?

[Speaker 1] (56:51 - 56:54)
The northeast corner of the church parking lot.

[Speaker 6] (56:54 - 56:59)
Yeah, right. Okay. But not, yeah, sorry.

Yeah, so that's why, making sure we're on the same page.

[Speaker 4] (56:59 - 57:02)
Yeah, sorry. Yeah, like this is coming back in.

[Speaker 6] (57:02 - 57:02)
Yes.

[Speaker 4] (57:02 - 57:04)
And that is staying here.

[Speaker 6] (57:04 - 57:17)
Yes, but that's what we were worried about. I think when we did a site there that, you know, I think Monica handled it well. If the treatment of the road, of the parking lot increases, the wetland could suffer.

[Speaker 1] (57:17 - 57:41)
Right. So, I mean, we could just, I mean, again, a condition on like how that's, what's used for snow removal and the maintenance standards could be something we could look at. I think there's, I don't think there's an operations maintenance plan, but we could actually call out specifically and tighten it up.

[Speaker 6] (57:42 - 58:08)
But that was one suggestion that the southern most people, that was one suggestion. Another was a condition that essentially, so one would be okay, or the treatment, how the treatment is applied. And I think that's your suggestion.

The other was like, what are we going to put in, you know, that basically tries to capture that runoff in between the wetland and, you know, filters it in the same way that, you know, we try to do on the other side.

[Speaker 2] (58:08 - 58:22)
Is there a possibility for like a rain garden strip or something? Or I'm not quite sure UU Church still owns the wetlands, correct? Yes.

So.

[Speaker 1] (58:23 - 1:00:21)
So, again, the UU Church is a, we're really trying to have, it sounds harsh because it's, you know, it's involved in the town of UU Church on the property, but we're really trying to have a light touch over there, right? So where we were looking at, we're not going to be parking better cars, we'll just be moving through. We can do a better job of removing snow and treating and cleaning the surfaces where things might accumulate.

We're looking at anything else, it's got to be like a larger intervention, like cutting down more trees. Like a rain garden would be more work in the buffer zone, but it would also require cutting down more trees. And they have a system that was thoughtfully designed.

I mean, that was, it was 40 years ago, but it would be something, it's actually not unlike something that I've done recently. It, you know, meets the goals of the stormwater standards. So it was trying, we're trying to balance that, right?

The steel of that place and not, you know, filling up a lot of the sludge. Mr. Engineer would be like, more infrastructure, more infrastructure. You know, we can look at it again, but it was really kind of the town's design.

So, you know, the fever dream of the walk that I have going through the island, yes, thank you. That was done to try to, like, maintain the largest specimen trees out there. I mean, that wasn't, you know, as an engineer, that probably would be my first pass at the walk through there.

So we're, you know, we're trying to be sensitive to that. And we're open to suggestion, but again, we're just trying to balance all those issues.

[Speaker 6] (1:00:23 - 1:01:02)
So that western edge of the area there that, you know, you talked about the parking lot, you know, where the western edge of the walkway. So where there's what looks like evidence that something is becoming a wetland. So that, so you're saying there's already drainage set up, but it's clearly not operating correctly if the plants in those areas on the western edge of that kind of median are like looking more and more like wetlands.

And that to me suggests that water is not flowing through the drainage system. And it basically pulls it towards the wetland and then goes into some underground system that we could not find.

[Speaker 1] (1:01:02 - 1:01:03)
Oh, you didn't see the...

[Speaker 6] (1:01:03 - 1:01:06)
We saw the pipe that ends on the north end of that.

[Speaker 1] (1:01:06 - 1:01:08)
Oh, you didn't find it, but you go to the other end?

[Speaker 6] (1:01:08 - 1:01:10)
It doesn't go anywhere. It's a pool, you can see.

[Speaker 1] (1:01:10 - 1:01:23)
Oh, there's an outlet that shows up on the survey. Can I zoom in on this? Yeah, can you do it?

I'm not, sorry, this is not my laptop.

[Speaker 2] (1:01:24 - 1:01:25)
You can just point.

[Speaker 1] (1:01:26 - 1:01:30)
Oh, we can actually zoom in and show you, so we can make sure I'm not lying.

[Speaker 6] (1:01:33 - 1:01:48)
Yeah, we looked for a while, but I'm sure we did not look long enough. There might be an end to that pipe, but... I think it's in the wetland.

Okay, that's why we didn't see it.

[Speaker 11] (1:01:50 - 1:01:50)
Yep.

[Speaker 9] (1:01:53 - 1:02:02)
Speaking of, there's an existing drainage structure that connects here. It falls here, and there's a gap, where it reconnects to a new pipe that drains to the wetland.

[Speaker 6] (1:02:02 - 1:02:04)
That's why we didn't see the end of it, because that one goes all the way into it.

[Speaker 9] (1:02:04 - 1:02:04)
Yes, sir.

[Speaker 6] (1:02:05 - 1:02:05)
Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (1:02:08 - 1:02:09)
That's what that line is?

[Speaker 9] (1:02:09 - 1:02:10)
Yes, sir.

[Speaker 1] (1:02:13 - 1:02:14)
I'll never get that back.

[Speaker 4] (1:02:15 - 1:02:38)
I have just a... This is not a wetland question, I'm just kind of curious. So, the traffic flows from Whitman Ave, right?

It comes in through the school, and then it goes out through here, right? And buses can make this turn? So, we're not even having a single bus?

[Speaker 5] (1:02:38 - 1:02:39)
Sorry, buses aren't going through there.

[Speaker 4] (1:02:40 - 1:02:45)
Oh, buses don't go through there. Okay, that's what I was trying to figure out, because I'm like, how are they making that turn?

[Speaker 1] (1:02:47 - 1:02:48)
Yukon XLs.

[Speaker 11] (1:02:49 - 1:02:50)
Oh, come on.

[Speaker 6] (1:02:58 - 1:03:04)
The pink pipe on the southern edge of the building, was it correct you were saying that that's not treated, it's just...

[Speaker 1] (1:03:04 - 1:03:14)
No, it is treated. So, it's picking up a portion of the roof, and then you see a pink blob right adjacent to the school itself. That's the treatment for the roof runoff.

[Speaker 4] (1:03:15 - 1:03:17)
This thing here? No, well, right there, that one.

[Speaker 1] (1:03:17 - 1:03:40)
Oh, okay. That's the treatment for the... So, just while I was working at home, I was even thinking that roof runoff was clean, but the rugs are constantly evolving, and so there was a need to treat it with phosphorus.

So, we have a treatment for that portion of the roof before it goes to a level spreader along that edge, right along the property edge, adjacent to the wells.

[Speaker 6] (1:03:46 - 1:03:55)
So, with enough of a rain event, would those systems be overwhelmed? The... Both the filtration system and the spreader?

So, you would see...

[Speaker 1] (1:03:56 - 1:04:26)
No, their size for the storms. And we use a conservative projection for the rainfall amount, so it's not like we're... I think when I started this many, many years ago, I think a 100-year storm was 6.5. I think we're at the...

8.8 or something. 8.8 now, which is what you should do, because it's basically what we're seeing, but also planning for the future.

[Speaker 4] (1:04:28 - 1:04:34)
And then, in terms of the field, there's no irrigation system going in, is there?

[Speaker 1] (1:04:35 - 1:04:35)
No.

[Speaker 2] (1:04:45 - 1:04:56)
Yeah. If there are no more questions at this time from the commission, we can see if the public has any questions or comments.

[Speaker 3] (1:04:56 - 1:05:27)
Sure. So, if there are any members from the public who would like to voice a question or comment, you may do so by using the raise your hand function. We currently have no members of the public here in attendance in B129, so if there is anybody...

This is directed to anybody on Zoom, you may use the raise your hand function. I'm not seeing any.

[Speaker 2] (1:05:32 - 1:06:03)
Okay. So, at this point, with no more questions from the commission and none from the public, we're not going to close the hearing. We're continuing the hearing.

And I think we should take a vote, because I can't remember whether or not we should. I've known the town has signed, but we might as well take a vote whether we are continuing this to March 28th.

[Speaker 3] (1:06:03 - 1:06:06)
Monday, the 28th.

[Speaker 2] (1:06:06 - 1:06:33)
Okay. If I can... Someone can entertain a motion.

All in favor? Okay, we've covered that base just in case. We're not going to have any other issues tonight, as I mentioned.

So, I can have a motion to adjourn.

[Speaker 6] (1:06:33 - 1:06:34)
Motion to adjourn.

[Speaker 2] (1:06:35 - 1:06:36)
Second.

[Speaker 6] (1:06:37 - 1:06:37)
Go back, please.

[Speaker 2] (1:06:37 - 1:06:41)
Okay. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (1:06:41 - 1:06:43)
Thank you. Thanks.