Lakes and Waterways Commission

RECEIVED By Ellie at 2:45 pm, 5/18/21 City of Amesbury Lakes and Waterways Commission Meeting Minutes for 2-18-2021 7:00 PM This meeting will be conducted under the ‘Executive Order Suspending Certain Provisions of the Open Meeting Law G.L. c.30A, §20’, signed on March 12, 2020. Location: Virtual Zoom Meeting Attendees: Tom Murphy, Cindy Roberts, Meghan O’Neill, Thomas Volper, Bernadette Lucas, Kate Mallory, Art O’Dea and Peter Manor- City Engineer. Completing Minutes: Meghan O’Neill, Secretary I. Administrative Business A. Call to Order Completed by Tom Murphy, acting chair at 7:08 PM. Tom murphy read the following to the committee in regard to meetings held in person: “Pursuant to Governor Baker’s March 12, 2020 Order Suspending Certain Provisions of the Open Meeting Law, G.L. c. 30A, §18, and the Governor’s March 15, 2020 Order imposing strict limitations on the number of people that may gather in one place, this meeting of the Lakes & Waterways Committee on 2/18/21 is being conducted via remote participation. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort is being made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings as provided for in the Order.” B. Review of Past Minutes (January) Minor spelling changes requested. Cindy made motion and Meghan seconded approval in minutes, all approved. II. Engineer’s update A. Engineer’s report Peter provided the Engineers report to the group. All water bodies look good. Have put more boards in Archbrook culvert at Attitash and Meadowbrook, trying to fill up water level. We have until May to get the elevation back up. Attitash and MB are the easiest to control. Allows for extra capacity for spring storms. Last event 2009 where flooding occurred across road on Kimball. - B. Stormwater Management Plan - Questions about next steps for committee members on the Stormwater Management Plan. Looking for Rob to provide feedback, Peter will follow-up with him. - Michael spoke about excessive salt being used near Lake Attitash. Discussion about salt used all throughout city. Should salt be included in the Stormwater Management Plan? 1  - Peter shared that DPW has looked into monitoring how much salt is spread but the machines for the trucks are very expensive, and they have not had budget dollars for this yet. - Public safety is a priority so if people call and complain they have to address it. - Feedback that DPW has heard is that salt distribution seems uneven throughout the city. - He will speak with Rob about putting more focus on this and addressing some issues. Much of this work is contracted out so there is limited oversight possible. III. Current Business A. Membership status - Everyone needs to complete annual conflict of interest class and the link was sent out to committee members via email. Please complete and email Tom with your signed form to be sent to city hall. - Art O’Dea needs to attend City Council for formal committee appointment. Still has not heard from anyone about joining an upcoming meeting. B. Meeting with Open Space Committee - Still waiting on Open Space Committee meeting details. - Discussion about having a gate guard full time and watching who is coming in and out to determine volume. Once decisions are made the APD will enforce this. - Mayor’s office is receptive to having residents with sticker or using kiosk to check-in in order to control crowds. - Tom will reach out to group with options to coordinate a meeting between the two groups as next steps. C. Additional Discussion - Discussion about enforcing city rules and ordinances. There were previously issues with tree cutting in the city forest but there were no signs posted and it’s complicated to enforce with residents reporting incidents. - Craig shared that you need pictures of license plates in order to enforce unauthorized vehicles on lakes and water bodies, as well as in the public woods. - Environmental police are utilized for these cases because they have the resources and equipment to best handle these situations. They are a branch of Massachusetts State Police. Regulatory force for boating, fishery, recreational craft and hunting. Possibly 100- 142 officers. They do show up when called. Police also have a jet ski to go out when needed. - The Amesbury Harbormaster enforces dock permits. - Questions about resident education as most offenders are Amesbury residents. Need to make sure we are partnered with Merrimac on rules and enforcement of Lake Attitash – “no motorized vehicles” on public lakes and waterways to ensure continuity of messaging to residents. D. Stormwater Management Plan Revision Review - Peter will speak with Rob about next steps and have Rob attend next meeting to discuss. IV. Conservation Commission Activity Update - Michael provided an update on Con Com activities: - South Hunt road widening has been approved with conditions to put into registry of deeds. 2  - The school project has been continued until March 1 meeting; planning board did approve this. - Marina project moving forward. - The order of conditions for the access road for Maples Crossing is requiring peer reviews. The major item here is that the road will have to cross through wetlands and there is a need to review and understand ordinances. - Additional discussion about the lack of knowledge of ordinances, especially residents living on waterbodies. For instance, pulling up and storing their dock on shoreline, this is not compliant with the Mass. Wetlands Act. There needs to be a mass mailing to residents, but no funding for this. - Trying to find a way to communicate with Real Estate agents about educating when they sell a house on water. - Cindy previously shared materials that were funded by a grant and targeted to real estate agents selling property on Lake Attitash. - Cindy shared that the steps to go through the process of approval is shockingly onerous and there is so much work entailed in following all the rules so residents may avoid this to save time energy. V. Website update efforts A. By laws - Bylaws being reviewed by mayor’s office. Once we get approval, we can post these on website. Keep old bylaws as an appendix. Helpful if we need to reference historical info. B. Waterway Assessment - Need to review 2015 Waterbody Plan and revise it to be more current. We can divide the waterbodies up and provide our own observations to the document. - Arch brook culvert has been on the list for a long time as a top priority repair and the cost is increasing every year it is not repaired. It is now at 1.2 million for total project costs. - Pete has to handle updating information on structures. - Cindy to work on Lake Attitash - Cindy to work on Lake Gardner with help from Bruce McBryan - Tom to complete Clarks Pond and Back River - Matt- Powwow and Merrimack River - Meghan to complete Meadowbrook and email Pete with any questions - Peter to complete Tuxbury - Tom V. will work on Bailey’s pond, which is currently private and part of a development - Art will work on Patton and Parks Ponds - Cindy to send unformatted version to all via email to work on and we can review and discuss next meeting. VI. New Business A. Status of Harbor Management Plan - Craig knows this exists but is still trying to locate it. - Working with Mayor’s office to rebuild harbormaster program. This has been a volunteer position for 70+ years. A lot of work needs to occur to revamp. - Looking into creating a fee program, harbor use fees, etc. that can go back into program to fund staff and resources. 3  - Harbor management plan, still working to find this. We will post whatever we find. May need to use one from another community if we cannot find the Amesbury copy. - No timeline on this and will pull in consultant to help into next year. VII. Goals/Mission Discussion Follow-up A. Lawn Care Companies and Fertilizer Usage - Cindy spoke about fertilizer usage near Attitash. There are no documented rules around fertilizer usage, most concerned about the 110 developments in Merrimack. Merrimack DPW doesn’t feel this is an issue as it is too far away from the lake. - The nitrogen and potassium in fertilizer encourages growth in lake. Comes down to what people should do and what the rules dictate. Doesn’t seem to be enforcement options at this time. - Will need to look into grants around education. - Questions about a Facebook page? Would this be appropriate? Could this be an option for public education? B. Rotary Project Update - Tom and Matt connected with rotary about a notification application or another way to push out notifications. Connecting Matt with a former member of rotary. - May be options of adding link or info on notifications on our website page. VIII. Waterbodies Did not provide updates on waterbodies during this meeting. IX. Review Action Items - Pete to ask Rob to provide update on Stormwater Management Plan next steps. - Everyone to work on waterbody assessment assigned by water body, Cindy will send out older unformatted version to work off of. - Tom M. to provide options for meeting with Open Space Committee. - Group to complete their annual conflict of interest training and send signed form to Tom. - Meghan to add link on website to Watershed Management Plan. This came from Pete or Rob back in October. X. Meeting Adjourned: 8:38 PM meeting was concluded. Cindy motions and Meghan seconds. Next meeting: March 18, 2021 at 7:00 PM 4