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HomeMy Public PortalAboutWQRC Packet 3-26-21Town of Brewster Water Quality Review Committee 2198 Main St., Brewster, MA 02631 wqrcmeeting@brewster-ma.gov (508) 896-3701 MEETING AGENDA Remote Participation Only March 26, 2021 at 9 a.m. This meeting will be conducted by remote participation pursuant to Gov. Baker’s March 2020 orders suspending certain Open Meeting Law provisions and imposing limits on public gatherings. No in-person meeting attendance will be permitted. If the Town is unable to live broadcast this meeting, a record of the proceedings will be provided on the Town website as soon as possible. The meeting may be viewed by: Live broadcast (Brewster Government TV Channel 18), Livestream (livestream.brewster- ma.gov), or Video recording (tv.brewster-ma.gov). Meetings may be joined by: 1.Phone: Call (929) 436-2866 or (301) 715-8592. Webinar ID: 869 1743 3374 Passcode: 443208 To request to speak: Press *9 and wait to be recognized. 2.Zoom Webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86917433374?pwd=WFNNWktuKzROempqU1FjWDNlazhXUT09 Passcode: 443208 To request to speak: Tap Zoom “Raise Hand”, then wait to be recognized Water Quality Review Committee Cyndi Baran Chair Amy von Hone Vice Chair Roberta Barrett Ned Chatelain Penny Holeman Chris Miller Victor Staley CPC Assistant Beth Devine 1.Call to Order 2.Declaration of a Quorum 3.Meeting Participation Statement 4.Discussion and Vote on Brewster Solar Garden Renewal 5.Discussion and Vote on Harris Custom Builders Renewal 6.Discussion and Vote on Pleasant Bay Community Boating Renewal 7.Discussion and Vote on Realty Executives Renewal 8.Discussion and Vote on Brewster Water Department Renewals 9.Approval of Minutes from 1/29/21 10.For Your Information 11.Matters Not Reasonably Anticipated by the Chair 12.Next Meeting: TBD 13.Adjournment Date Posted:Date Revised:Received by Town Clerk: 2018 WQRC Meeting Minutes 1-29-2021 1 Date Approved: Vote: TOWN OF BREWSTER MINUTES of WATER QUALITY REVIEW COMMITTEE Friday, January 29, 2021 at 9:00 AM VIRTUAL MEETING Attending Committee Members: Chair Cyndi Baron convened the Water Quality Review Committee meeting at 9:00 AM with members Vice Chair Amy von Hone, Victor Staley, Chris Miller, Ned Chatelain, and Roberta Barrett Members Absent: Penny Holeman Guests: Dave Bennett, Bennett Environmental Item 1: Discussion and Vote on Site Assignment Closing and Reduction of Monitoring Dave Bennett wanted to give the Committee an update. Next Grid had received some approvals with contingencies for the re-use of the former stump dump for the solar array and has gone through local permitting for some issues. The next step will be to remove the remaining amount of wood waste from the property, do soil testing, and submitting a land fill closure report. The client, the prospective buyer, has agreed and went back in and felt we needed to do some groundwater monitoring since they hadn’t been doing testing for some time. Dave Bennett felt we needed 4 quarters of analytical data, and there is no substantive changes to water quality or risks found in the water. He is now requesting a decrease in frequency in monitoring as each round is quite costly, approx. $5,000 each. We would like to do this annually not quarterly. Next Grid is still waiting for Com Electric approval, and with COVID, responsiveness is slow. We thought the permitting would be the impasse; not this. We think we should see approval by end of February/beginning of March. Antinorelli and Merchant are working to take the wood waste off site. We will be going in front of the Board of Health (BOH) for the change/removal of the site assignment. Chris said thanks for the report. Once the site assignment is gone, they no longer consider this a landfill, and as long as we get a report on the removal of the wood waste and the location of any of the remaining wells, we should just treat it as any other mostly vacant commercial property in this area. The landfill part of it will be behind us. Dave Bennett said we are going to want to license through this committee regarding the solar array. Chris asked if they are moving forward with removal of the site assignment through the BOH. Dave said no, not until we remove the wood waste and file the permits as we can’t remove the site assignment when there is a noncompliance. TOWN OF BREWSTER Water Quality Review Committee 2198 Main Street Brewster, Massachusetts 02631-1898 (508) 896-3701 x1121 FAX (508) 896-8089 WQRC Meeting Minutes 1-29-2021 2 Victor said this Committee already made its recommendations to the Planning Board for the special permit site plan review for the solar array. The Planning Board is the first body to issue the certificate of water quality compliance, then they will come back to WQRC for renewal review every three years after that. Amy asked the approximate time to remove material on site. Dave Bennett said this has been well discussed, as there is an outstanding ACO on previous owners, there has been little enforcement. Bottom line, we had originally said we will get this done in a year, but COVID hit and everything slowed down. This was all supposed to take place in 3-4 weeks. He is asking to see if the WQRC would accept annual monitoring in May when all wood waste is out and continue annually based on what you want to do under the registration. The wells will be damaged under construction, we will do what we can to protect them, but we are hoping to keep them available for any such purpose. Roberta said it looks like Well MW1R showed trending up on iron and arsenic. Is it that particular Well or is it subservice? Dave said there was no arsenic, one test showed a false positive. We have pits of arsenic attributed to naturally occurring conditions and provisions to do retesting to determine nature. Roberta thought we might want to note during construction any particular wells for protection – to be careful around wells that might need more attention. Ned asked if that was a list in our recommendations to the Planning Board. Victor said he could pull up the Special Permit to see if there was mention of it. Cyndi asked how many quarterly rounds have been conducted since they started sampling. Dave Bennett answered 4. He showed the map of the Wells and the Committee discussed. Chris asked when the most recent round of testing happened. Dave Bennett said December. Chris wants to see a sampling after all is said and done and usually allows a year to do that. Victor said he looked in the files and doesn’t have the site plan review from the Planning Board. Dave Bennett has the recorded approvals from the Planning Board and the ZBA. Victor still has a Cease and Desist Order on the property. If BOH releases the site assignment, then Victor should release his Cease and Desist. Chris wondered if we have an order from DEP, can we stop the Cease and Desist based on that? Dave Bennett said we would need the release of the Cease and Desist in order to remove the wood waste. Victor said he will amend the Cease and Desist Order to recognize the removal of the stump dump, but not allow other processing to occur. Cyndi said it appears it doesn’t address any kind of ongoing ground water monitoring with the current conditions. Ned asked about possibly putting a pin in this until some of the other regulatory dominos to fall and then we can circle back when they come before the committee for the next permitting round. Chris said we’ve identified that the wells exist and will remain, we don’t need monitoring until the wood waste is gone and the site assignment is removed. He thinks we should look at annual monitoring for a while and then after a time come back and request less monitoring. Dave Bennett said the removal of the site assignment has to go in front of the BOH and could have conditions to come back to the WQRC. He said the cost of the recovery is almost $250K. For the landfill closure, we need to present this data. Next Grid needs this permit approval for this use in order to get the connection through the utility, so this happened a little backwards. He is looking to do the sampling afterwards. MOTION to ask the Board of Health, as part of removal of site assignment, to require annual monitoring of the wells that will be retained under the special permit, and that the WQRC will review the need for continued monitoring at renewal of their permit. MOVED by Chris Miller. Seconded by Ned Chatelain. Roll Call Vote: Ned Chatelain – yes, Roberta Barrett – yes, Victor Staley – yes, Chris Miller – yes, Vice Chair Amy von Hone – yes, Chair Cyndi Baron - yes WQRC Meeting Minutes 1-29-2021 3 VOTE: 6-yes 0-no Item 2: Discussion and Possible Vote on Committee Signatures for Certificates Amy brought up that with Town Hall closure, the certificate signature process has become an issue. The Bylaw doesn’t say we specifically need signatures on the Certificates. Maybe we could type the names on the Certificates, or have no signatures at all. Chris said we could have a minimum of signatures as he, Victor, and Amy are in Town Hall, or attach a copy of the Minutes to the Certificates to show the vote. Ned suggested we could possibly use e-signature. Roberta suggested we attach the Minutes in lieu of signatures until Town Hall opens again. MOTION to adopt a policy during the COVID Emergency to attach the Minutes in lieu of signatures. MOVED by Ned Chatelain. Seconded by Roberta Barrett. Roll Call Vote: Ned Chatelain – yes, Roberta Barrett – yes, Victor Staley – yes, Chris Miller – yes, Vice Chair Amy von Hone – yes, Chair Cyndi Baron - yes VOTE: 6-yes 0-no Item 4: Minutes from December 18, 2020 MOTION to approve the December 18, 2020 meeting Minutes. MOVED by Roberta Barrett. Seconded by Ned Chatelain. Roll Call Vote: Roberta Barrett – yes, Ned Chatelain – yes, Victor Staley – yes, Chris Miller – yes, Vice Chair Amy von Hone – yes, Chair Cyndi Baron - abstain VOTE: 5-yes 0-no 1-abstain Cyndi abstained because she was not at the meeting. Item 5: Informational Items • Cape Sand & Recycling Update 12 20 • CS&R GW Monitoring and TPI Report (Nov 2020) Dave Bennett said the report is self-explanatory. We will continue to monitor. If there are any further questions, please let him know. Item 6: Matters Not Reasonably Anticipated by the Chair Amy mentioned Beth is in process of going through renewal letters for this year. As soon as we have contact back, we will get those renewals scheduled. Next Meeting: TBD – right now, it is on the schedule for Friday, February 26th at 9AM. MOTION to adjourn the meeting at 9:54 AM. MOVED by Victor Staley. Seconded by Roberta Barrett Roll Call Vote: Roberta Barrett – yes, Ned Chatelain – yes, Victor Staley – yes, Chris Miller – yes, Vice Chair Amy von Hone – yes, Chair Cyndi Baron - yes VOTE: 6-yes 0-no Respectfully Submitted by: Beth Devine WQRC Meeting Minutes 1-29-2021 4 Action items: Re-issue renewal letters to those past due that have not yet responded- Beth made 2nd contact (third overall), will follow-up again if we haven’t heard back. Send letters to this year’s renewals due – Beth Packet of additional documents available on the website for review