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Home My Public Portal AboutComprehensive Water Planning -- 2010-06-03 Minutes\\~~~~~.~~RE W S ~~ ~~~i// .Z "'~ '"~ x` '` 3' ~ ~ ar D Town Of Brewster 2198 Main Street Brewster, Massachusetts 02631-1898 (508) 896-3701 ext. 133 FAX (508) 896-8089 I~ ~ ~` ^ ~' V ' r-1 .`.` i ~ Comprehensive ,'ter Planning Commitl~ ,:-'I Date Approved as written June 28, 2010: Vote 5-0-3 (Lipman, J. Hughes, Michneiwicz) TOWN OF BREWSTER MINUTES OF COMPREHENSIVE WATER PLANNING COMMITTEE 2nd COMMUNITY MEETING Monday, June 3, 2010 at 6:00 P.M. Brewster Town Office Building Pat Hughes convened the 2nd Comprehensive Water Planning Committee Community meeting at 6:05 pm in the Brewster Town Office Building with members Joanne Hughes, Dave Bennett, Amy Usowski, Elizabeth Taylor, Jane Johnson and Lem Skidmore. y:: a LLI ~~ ~~ ~. LLI Also Present: Sue Leven, Nancy Ice, Ed Lewis, Dan Rabold Attendance: approximately 30 citizens Community Meeting with Camp Dresser & McKee (CDM) -the second community meeting on the development of a town-wide Integrated Water Resource Management Plan (IWRMP) P. Hughes -Welcomed everyone to the Community meeting. She provided an overview of the goal of the meeting and the goal of the committee. Introduction of the Committee Members: All the members introduced themselves. Pat informed them that 2 members were absent: Dave Michniewicz and John Lipman. Hughes Introduced the CWPC support advisors: Sue Leven, Ed Lewis, Nancy Ice, Paul Anderson Hughes encouraged everyone to sign up on the email list in order to receive updated information. She then requested that if anyone had suggestions on how to outreach to the public to feel free to let the committee know. Introduction of the CDM staff: Dave Young, Project Manager Bernadette Kolb -Project Engineer Mary Barry -Public Outreach Rob Musci -Project Manager 6-3-t0 www.TOWN.BREWSTER.MA.US Page 1 of4 Overview: (David Young) provided an overview of why they are here: the purpose of the meeting and the presentation. Two handouts were distributed. Young mentioned that a good source of information is found on the Cape Keepers website - several slides from the presentation were taken from this source. A watershed map was presented. The Map showed the groundwater tables and how the water flows into these tables. 1. Goal of the Integrated Water Resource Management Plan (IWRMP) and why we are doing an IWRMP 2. Reminder of what is involved in the 1St phase: what is here today; develop and implement a water protection needs analysis; define existing and future water needs; prioritization; continuous public participation 3: Establish Water Quality Parameters of Concern: nitrogen; phosphorus; bacteria for fresh/saltwater bodies 4. Identify the Sources of Nitrogen: Controllable (septic, stormwater, fertilizer, animal); Uncontrollable (atmospheric deposition) 5. Identify the Sources of Phosphorus: Controllable (same as nitrogen but also dishwater detergents, regeneration from pond sediments) 6. Identify the Sources of Bacteria (failed septic, stormwater, animals, human activities, boat wastes) 7. Why Protection of Groundwater and Estuaries (public health, drinking water, MEP, environmental, economic impacts) 8. Define the Massachusetts Estuaries Project (MEP) and its goal. They provided an overview of the project and its impact on the Town of Brewster -There are 3 MEP reports that the Town is participating in: 1. Pleasant Bay (report issued 2006); 2. Namskaket Creek (report issued in 2008); 3. The Herring River (report due to be issued in the summer 2010) Pond Presentation: (Bernadette Kolb) 1. Kolb spoke about the state of the town's ponds: Town of Brewster has over 80 natural ponds; 29 of the ponds have been monitored; 14 are stocked with fish and 11 ponds are for public swimming. She also showed the size and physical settings of the ponds. 2. Features of Ponds -there are essentially 3 types of ponds: 1. Flow-through ponds (sources of water from groundwater, precipitation and runoff; 2. Groundwater recharge pond (similar to the flow through but they have an outlet -examples of this type; Walkers; Seymour Pond); 3. Drainage pond (stream drained ponds only a few in town -example Lower Mill Pond) 3. Pond Depth -and the impact of deep ponds vs. shallow ponds (only 9 deep ponds were identified in Brewster); Shallow ponds (example: Walkers Pond and Little Cliff Pond) 4. Importance of protecting pond designated uses (fishing, swimming, aesthetics) 5. Trophic Status -man's actions tend to make a lake eutrohpic Phase 1 Evaluation Process (Dave Young) 1. Divide the Town of Brewster into individual watersheds (Ponds, MEP); evaluate the parameters (Zone II, town zoning, soils/drainage, depth to groundwater, impervious cover, development density) -maps showing these areas in town were presented Pond Classification Process (Bernadette Kolb) CDM broke out the ponds on several areas: 6-3-10 www.TOWN.BREWSTER.MA.US Page 2 of4 1. Identified the impaired ponds; 2. Identified ponds with some water quality impairment; 3. Identified deep ponds that have high water quality; 4. Remainder ponds that meet uses or do not have water quality data 2. Sources of where the data came from was presented (samples collected by PALS, laboratory analyses performed by SMAST or the CCNS, MA division of fisheries & wildlife, CCC and Mass GIS data; MA Department of Public Health and Bureau of Environmental Health; discussion with DEP 3. Primary indicators of impaired pond health (Low DO; < 6 mg in deep pond; < 5 mg in a shallow pond); High chlorophyll (>16 µg/I more that I time per growing season; trophic status index 4. Other Pond Health Factors: shallow or deep ponds with no oxygen, harmful algae bloom; fish kill, increasing phosphorus; bacteria > state standard; secchi depth for swimming standard; adjacent cranberry bog 5. Impaired Ponds: Stony Brook Watershed ponds -have found factors that rank these as ponds of concern 6. Impaired ponds with special factors: Cliff Pond; Long Pond; Seymour Pond, Elbow Pond 7. Some Impairment but of not great concern: ponds up from Long Pond and a few in the center of Town of Brewster 8. High Quality Deep Pond: Little Cliff Pond, Sheep Pond, Slough Pond 9. Ponds that Meet Uses; Bakers Pond, Cobbs Pond, 10. No data Ponds Summary: (Dave Young) 1. Recognized that they had presented a large amount of data and it may take some time to understand. 2. Noted that CDM is working closely with CWPC committee 3. He/CDM would welcome input from the citizens 4. They hope to have more information to share at the next community meeting. Pat Hughes thanked everyone again for attending and then opened up to the public: Carroll Johnson: Our industrial zone area is very close to our wells; is that a concern? P. Hughes: It is a concern and the town has taken steps to protect. For example the Sand & Gravel by-law was presented; the Health Department has additional regulations. Sue Leven: mentioned the new Natural Resource Protection by-law that was recently adopted will also help to protect the water. Citizen: noted that the water table seemed higher - is that a factor and how does that impact the water quality? Kolb: the water table is affected by rain - it will go up and down; more when there is heavy rain. Further they may have seen that based on the data the pond look more impaired but that may not always be the case. But she noted that the rain moves the water to the water table. Carroll Johnson: You mention a lot of impact relating to fish - he lives near Sheep Pond and it is clear but has no fish - he would rather see the bottom than the fish! Kolb: the Town of Brewster will have to look at the needs across the board and see if/when a modification needs to occur Jane Johnson: it appears that over 25% of our ponds have not been tested and how can we apply that across all the ponds accurately? 6-3-10 www.TOWN.BREWSTER.MA.US Page 3 of4 Kolb: Actually, they have found that 50% do not have data; felt the Board can address the ponds that we have data on and perhaps one of the action items from this analysis is that we go a collect the data on the other ponds. Citizen: The data shown is a point in time - is there any other data that shows a trend of what is happening? The pond study providing ranges in data -have you found any more definitive contributions to the impact. Kolb: they have not looked at data over a period of time; the contributions will be looked at and considered. Citizen: Mentioned bacteria; did you look at the ponds with bacteria? Kolb: this is only available for the ponds with swimming - 4 ponds. What they have found is that there are no bacteria violations. D. Keeran: Good news, there is a state regulation that is being passed in July of this year, that will be a ban on dishwashing detergents`with phosphorus. P. Hughes: Thanked everyone for coming and mentioned the handouts in the back of the room and that anyone interested in getting on the email list should sign up in the back. an a Sci/Senior Dep rtment Assistant 6-3-10 www.TOWN.BREWSTER.MA.US Page 4 of4