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HomeMy Public PortalAboutComprehensive Water Planning -- 2010-11-22 Minutes \ocke Iwfs0T�'���� / Comprehensive Water ��DER . $ = Town Of Brewster Planning Committee O r>'o '9F�r ,,e zx 1fL34!_ ;` 2198 Main Street 3 � IG:� iF,1ily; D 0 _Ipj ;� f y Brewster, Massachusetts 02631-1898 (508) 896-3701 FCORPOA AZ O� `��\\� Fa � FAX (508) 896-8089 Date Approved: 2/14/11, 5-0-0, Lipman abstain TOWN OF BREWSTER MINUTES OF COMPREHENSIVE WATER PLANNING COMMITTEE REGULAR MEETING Monday, November 22, 2010 at 4:30 pm Brewster Town Office Building Pat Hughes convened the Comprehensive Water Planning Committee meeting at 4:37 pm in the Brewster Town Office Building with members, Lem Skidmore, Dave Bennett, Russell Schell, and Joanne Hughes. Absent: Jane Johnson, Elizabeth Taylor, Amy Usowski, John Lipman Also Present: Sue Leven, Jim Gallagher, Nancy Ellis Ice Recording or Taping Notification "As required by the Open Meeting Law we are informing you that the Town will be audio taping this public meeting. In addition, if anyone else intends to either video or audio tape this meeting they are required to inform the chair." AGENDA 1. Citizen Forum: no comments 2. Planning : Continued discussion of Next Steps: "Bridge" Projects Discussion of funding and priorities for next projects. Leven: Spoke with Chris Miller about best use of the funds available and how to proceed. It would be a good idea to have Ed Eichner meet with the Committee. Bennett: No numbers tonight for different scenarios? Leven: Met with Miller on the 9th to discuss funding and has notes from the meeting. Talked about the Harwich Project. There are seven or eight ponds within the Hinckley's water shed in Brewster. Sheep Pond is included. There are four category four, two category three, and one category one. There is a wide range of quality within that same water shed. Harwich did work with Cape Cod Cranberry Growers. Two large bogs either side of Hinckley's Pond. Hughes, J: How do we get information from the cranberry growers? CWPC 11-22-10.doc Minutes 1 Leven: I will follow up with them. (Try to find out who the Brewster members are.) Hughes, J: If not a member, how can we find out their best management practices? Leven: We would have to call them but not sure if they will tell us. Bennett: Continuation of the Pond Study would include outfall from Cranberry bogs to ponds? Recharge and discharge? Hughes, P: It depends on what we said is priority for the ponds. Follow up work on the six ponds, add ponds to the study, continuing monitoring ponds, high quality ponds? (CDM) Bennett: Narrow down through our consultant -- Potential influence investigating on ponds. Investigating cranberry bogs influence on ponds. Elbow Pond discussion. Hughes, P: Our group has not identified cranberry bogs as an issue/priority because of where we are with funding. There are a number of more questions answered and more discussion on priorities. Bennett: I disagree. Cranberry bogs were indentified in the Upper and Lower Mill area as driving impaired water quality. I think it is an issue. Simple tests are involved. Schell: I agree completely. Best management practices with cranberry bogs. What does the town have in place to deal with illicit discharge, storm water treatment? Enforcement capabilities per department. Planning and Board of Health need to step up on illicit discharge issue. Hughes, P: We should take this up when we discuss ponds. Take it up with Ed. Leven: There is a layer out there to be included on where they take their water and where their outfalls are. Storm water runoff into ponds is an issue. Hughes, P: I am not belittling cranberry bogs but we have a money limitation. Add cranberry issue to the next steps for the ponds work and bring it up at that meeting with Chris and Ed. Schell: I wasn't speaking to the budget. I am concerned about the overall program. Leven: If we can get the cranberry growers to do the research. We would like to know what they have and figure out what we don't have. Hughes, P: Add it to our list for the pond study. Tonight we can talk about the other bridge projects. Consider the top priorities and the budget. Next Meeting: 12/13/10 a Monday. We get Ed Eichner here to make decisions on pond study. Hughes, J: Town IT person to attend a meeting? I expected her to come to the meeting. Skidmore: 12/27 meeting? Bennett: We identified the ponds. Waiting for Ed Eichner to hear his recommendations? Is he going to generate the costs? Ed should have this list. Prioritize. Narrow it down. Hughes, P: Chris Miller has included some costs. PALS program, detailed review of other ponds, etc. There are some costs we don't have. Hughes, J: Where do the CDM recommendations come in? CWPC 11-22-10.doc Minutes 2 Schell: Ed said in last presentation that the next steps were sediment core samples and also to check contribution of birds. He did not place emphasis on storm water input. Bennett: Frame budget amount for him. Hughes P: Sue Leven will send Ed Eichner the pond recommendation and find out if he can come on the 13th. If everyone agrees we should add the impact of cranberry bogs to this list. Where they and what are their practices. Ice: Originally the town hired a Natural Resource Officer to obtain this information. Leven: Some of it is mapped, some is not Some general discussion continued within the group re: availability of cranberry bogs information. Active vs. non active. Bennett: Hughes, J: We should get data together, IT person involved. Leven and Gallagher commented on cranberry growers data, location, etc. Gallagher: Last Natural Resource Officer was figuring out where the Cranberry growers are and discharge... Ice: Chris Miller may have this info. Hughes, J: Integration of informational systems: Nancy can you comment, budget, timeframe? Ice: I don't have that information. Leven: I want to talk to Tammi to see how their systems are setup. It may be easier or harder to add into a parcel base. What exists and how does it exist? GeoTMS? Hughes, J: Can you delegate this to the IT person? Leven: I can review and then talk to the IT person. It might not be done in-house. Skidmore: Would it be helpful to have someone volunteer who knows about information systems and health departments? Leven: First I would like to have the conversation with Tammi. There may be pieces for a volunteer and or AmeriCorps people. Bennett: I agree with Sue. We look to internalize. Private sector resources might be more applicable here. vs. county resources. Hughes, P: Sue will have preliminary discussion with Tammi. Lem might be able to assist as a volunteer. It is something that is on the health department list. Ice: Agrees. Bennett: Pumping records, septic locations? Comments from Nancy? Some discussion continued with Joanne, Nancy, and Dave. CWPC 11-22-10.doc Minutes 3 Ice: The records come from the treatment plants. Hughes, P: Paper? Ice: Entered into the computer. Hughes, J: A flag pops up if in-between 18 mos. Ice: Address and Map and Lot number. Hughes, P: New systems, upgrade, repair—give you GPS point? General discussion, 300 feet from a pond. Hughes, P: We have this data for the six ponds but not all the ponds. Schell: I participated in this. I had to go to the assessor's dept. to fill in the blanks. Adjacent lots, you don't have a record for each lot that borders the pond. There were gaps. i.e. , # of bed rooms. Leven commented about the process. Ice: Our records are by map and lot. Some general discussion of process from dept. to dept. Bennett: Identify systems that are still cesspools? Ice: Not computerized. If you know map and lot, we do have files. Everyone who had a single cesspool received an order to upgrade. Brewster was way ahead of the other towns. Then the real estate transfer went into effect. Upon purchase, upgrade. Bennett: Town of Orleans, manage nitrate control?? Ice: Not sure they have adopted this. Hughes, J: We have a copy of Orleans 4040. The BOH decided to wait unit the Namskaket study was done. They did not want to act on it. Skidmore: Nancy— Isn't their a tick box on the slip and then this information is entered into the computer? Ice: I don't remember, they go directly into the computer. Tammi enters this info. Not sure if this is on the slip. Overflow, maintenance, included. Brewster was aggressively upgrading cesspools. Bennett: This is important to remember when considering equity of the towns. Hughes, P: Pleasant Bay information etc. It will be interesting to see what Brewster will have to do. Issues, water shed, regulating septic waste, assumptions, etc. Bennett and Ice— Discussion about regulations. Enforcing Title 5. Hughes, P: Questions for Nancy re: ground water, well water analysis?Work done in Eastham? CWPC 11-22-10.doc Minutes 4 Bennett: Most of those records reside with the BOH. Natural Resources monitors ballpark and golf course. Hughes, P: Any other questions for Nancy? BOH database? Skidmore: I got data from the county and put into a database. Private lab testing. Bennett: What % is county doing, 90% Ice: 99% Bennett: Identification of private wells? Skidmore: We know wells tested in the last ten years. Hughes, J: We will know more once the Water Department puts records in a database. Private wells location discussion with group. We have paper records— P. Hughes and Ice Hughes, P: Any monitoring with a project associated with WQRC are paper reports?WQRC and BOH — Think about the way they received standard information. Spreadsheets, other data format, etc. Hughes, J: Something to think about in relation to your goal. Ice: Correct. This has been discussed before. I have talked to Kathy about my goal. Bennett: The town needs to go ahead with a database project. We need to talk to IT person. This committee may give some legs to funding this initiative. Hughes, P: How is the Planning Board acknowledging this? Leven: PB moving along. ZBA, Access. Board of Appeals is done. Planning Board is getting started. Bennett: and Leven: Discussion on GIS, Assessor's, shared GIS map for turbines. We may have more technology than we think. Integration with departments is not happening. Not sure why it is not happening? (Time and money.) Gallagher: We have paid for software. No one is using it. General discussion about records, how used, SW, etc. All departments are on same server. Hughes, P: Is assessment? Before Kathy? Bennett: Identify areas that need help. Gallagher: Software is there. I am not identified as Conservation. I am identified as other. No one is using the software. Leven: Include Training on new systems. This area is only one part of the IT professional's job. CWPC I1-22-10.doc Minutes 5 Hughes, P: Septic, water questions for Nancy? Gallagher: Resources issue. Time. Lack of. The hard part is putting in the old data. Bennett: Integrated information infrastructure is an impediment to moving forward. Hughes, P: Talking with the boards, Paul Anderson, Bob Bersin. Priorities: Water Records Storm water(issue for ponds) Build out Analysis Ground water quality information Pond work Board of Health needs to get more information. Non conforming Uses: Planning Dept. might be able to get us started internally. We need to get ballpark figures for some of this work. Bennett: We have identified 5 or 6 things. Don't we as a committee, have to decide which the highest priority is? General discussion about priorities. Is it practical at this time to spend money on this? Hughes, P: Priorities: Water Records, Build Out, Storm Water Work. Schell: Planning by-law or amendment to BOH regulations? To cover the enforcement aspects of illegitimate storm water connection? Leaky cesspool, septic? Change in the by-law for enforcement portion. Pond and Cranberry problems. Leven — Ice: What does this mean exactly? Discussion —we don't have storm sewers... Leven, Schell, Ice- General discussion about what we have and what we should be looking at Ice: Previous Natural Resources person was doing this. Hughes, P: What our storm water system looks like? Probably a short term priority. Bennett: Culverts were included in our motion?— Hughes, P: Yes. Schell: I looked at the Health Department records. Existing storm water issues in requirements that are not adequately taken care of by either zoning or BOH regulations. A regulation that any one who is working as an agent of Health Department has access to private property to obtain samples. Leven: That will not happen from a zoning standpoint. Bennett: This exists. I disagree regarding a by-law. There are plenty of regulations that are still regulated on state authority. The town government has the option to make it more restrictive. Mentioned NPD (National Pollution Discharge) federal law requirements Hughes, P: Focus: We have money and a storm water issue. Is it the sense of committee that looking into developing a by-law is a higher priority than or geo locating our outfalls and having a picture of our CWPC I1-22-10.doc Minutes 6 storm water system. What will further our efforts and give us the additional information we need to develop our plan? Hughes, J: Priorities: Water Department records electronically, BOH same format, Storm water identified, DPW, and Build Out. The Ponds needs to fit in somewhere. Bennett: Priorities. 1) Ponds, Water quality testing, 2) Storm Water, 3) Databases are important. Water use by lot and parcel if assessor's db was linked to water department db Skidmore: Agrees with Joanne. Water Department records electronically, BOH same format, Storm water identified, DPW and Build Out. Ponds in the priority list somewhere. Hughes, P: Water, Storm Water, Build Out, Ponds. Bennett: IT question? Cost for the water records into a database, technology question? How does the Build Out go? Leven: What is out there now? Is it built out, maximum allowable under zoning, regulations. Then they figure out how much is left to be built. Bennett: Identify all undeveloped properties. A general discussion followed with the group about what build out includes. Future roads, acreage. Schell: What would approach be for 6A? Mentioned Cape Cod Commission pushing for denser use in commercial areas like that. Leven: Village business district. Maximum allowed under zoning. 6A is historic district. Hughes, P: They would look at zoning and Title 5? Leven: Yes, they consider regulations. Schell: I agree with the priorities. There are other areas not being given attention. I am accustomed to looking at Gant charts to outline what is priority. What has a long lead time? Direction, etc. Hughes, P: Agrees. Re stated priorities: Water Records (#1), Storm Water (#3), Ponds (#7), Build-Out, BOH records. Hughes, J: It would be nice to review this with CDM. Bennett: When are we going to see this from CDM? Leven: I will check and see where they are on it. Bennett: Ed is going to come in, Sue will talk to Kathy Lambert, What about Storm Water? Bob Bersin getting a budget together to see what it would look like? Leven: Chris and I will talk to Tom Cambareri, Bob Bersin, what projects he has? Maps and paper vs. what is on computer? Berms? Storm water?Working vs. non working catch basins, Discharge to the ponds? Questions to appropriate people and has any of this been budgeted? CWPC I1-22-10.doe Minutes 7 Bennett: Huge task. Minutes: September 27, 2010 Minutes Hughes, J: Motion to accept as written Skidmore Second All Aye. Abstain: Pat Hughes, Russell Schell October 4, 2010 Minutes Skidmore: Motion to accept as amended Bennett, Second All Aye. Abstain: Joanne Hughes Next meeting: December 13, 2010 at 4:30 pm Meeting with Ed Eichner on 13th, Sue and Chris have a lot of information to gather, please look at the pond study recommendation section. Read through the summary of 6 ponds. Sue will send CDM draft of recommendations, anything that might be helpful for Hinckley Pond. Organize notes from Chris and Sue and send to the committee. Lem will review the invoices from CDM and will report back at the next meeting. Sue authorizes payment of invoices. General discussion re: CDM process, invoices, etc. Motion to adjourn: Joanne Hughes Bennett: Second All Aye Meeting ended 6:26 pm Re •ectfully sup pitted, 1041120L A rtgiti ;NW erk iat. K-Ily Moor:r. Dept_ A ssistant/Planning CWPC 11-22-10.doc Minutes 8 Action Items: Topic/Owner: Comments: Distribute notes to group from meeting with Chris Leven Miller Meet with Tammi in Health Dept. Regarding computer records& data files. Follow up with the Cranberry Growers Association. Who are the Brewster Members? 12/13/10 Meeting: Ask Ed Eichner to come to the meeting. Send Ed the pond recommendation Talk with Kathy Lambert re DB integration with departments Talk to Tom Cambeari, Bob Bersin (Chris Miller) Maps and paper vs. what is on computer? Berms? Storm water?Working vs. non working catch basins, Discharge to the ponds? Other budgets. Leven • CWPC 11-22-10.doc Minutes 9