Conservation Commission

CITY OF LACONIA CONSERVATION COMMISSION Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 6:00 PM, City Hall - Conference ROOM 200B I. Call to Order Chair, Dean Anson called the meeting to order at 6 p.m. Call to order: Deb Williams, Marnie Schulz, Dick Christopher and Chair Dean Anson Members absent: Lisa Morin, Michael Foote Staff present: Brandee Loughlin, Evan Rathburn Commission members present welcomed Evan Rathburn to the City of Laconia. Review of minutes: June 1, July 6, August 24th, and September 7, 2016 meetings, all minutes except the July 6 minutes will all be accepted at the October 5 meeting. June 1st minutes Marnie Schulz makes a motion to accept June 1st minutes. Dick seconds motion. All members say “Aye” in favor. June 1st minutes are accepted. June 1st minutes were approved at the July 6th meeting. July 6th These minutes were approved at the July 6th meeting Dean asked Scott for a compilation of projects that he has worked on at this meeting. August 24th Deb makes a motion to accept the minutes. Dick seconds the motion. Dean has a comment on item #2 that LWW has set up a Facebook page and Dean would like to change the acronym to the full name Lake Winnisquam Network with the LWN in parenthesis next to it. All members present say “Aye’ in favor. August 24th minutes are accepted.  CITY OF LACONIA CONSERVATION COMMISSION Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 6:00 PM, City Hall - Conference ROOM 200B September 21st Deb states that the conservation commission made comments to the planning board and that the comment to the planning board from the conservation commission was to create a 30 ft. buffer. Dean states that the Trails End lot is in Long Bay, not Southdown. Deb makes a motion to accept minutes with corrections. Dick seconds the motion. All members say “Aye” in favor. Sept 21st are accepted. II. New Business: 1. Lake Winnisquam Watershed meeting on Sept. 23 at 5-7 p.m. at the Winnisquam Marina a. Dean stated that the meeting went well and presented a map that shows different municipalities that are in the watershed and that a third to 40% of the area on the map is in Laconia and there are 7 water sampling locations in the area symbolized as dots. UNH is putting water quality data together. Marnie states that a strong group of people are working on the data. Dean states that Scott Myers suggested that multiple community groups should be sent a letter asking to make contributions to the analysis of laboratory samples. Deb states that a beach (Lakewood Beach Association) represents the whole neighborhood and Deb asks if the group would be open to discussion for contributions (Dick is part of group. Liz Merry who lives at the intersection of Shore Drive and Downing Street might still be president). Dean will call Amy Smagula and see if she has done an analysis. Deb says it will be a good idea to call and see what the state has in mind. Dean states LRPC started trying to compile reports for Winnisquam from different municipalities and LWN is trying to get a compilation of water quality data, milfoil location, etc. Dick states that Wild Wood beach assoc. is half a mile up the road from Lakewood and that they had a severe duck and goose problem because of grass so they may be interested. Dean states that the website for this is being handled by Erin at New Hampshire Lakes. Dean will get more info and report back. 2. Water Sampling – Lakes and Tributaries a. Dean states that water sampling has not been done since the prior Conservation Technician has left. Dick states that the last sampling was done in July. Dean has come up with an idea to approach Amanda Bridge to do water testing for the City and possibly contract her to do it every month and teach the current Cons. Technician Evan how to perform water sampling if there were the right funds. Dean states that the meters can be frustrating and Dick asks if they need to be recalibrated and Dean thinks they might be recalibrated once a year. Sampling would be done May through September. Tributaries can be done on foot and Deb has done  CITY OF LACONIA CONSERVATION COMMISSION Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 6:00 PM, City Hall - Conference ROOM 200B Deep Water testing using a city boat. Dean states that it would take 2 days to do Deep Water and Tributaries with each done twice a month. 3. Review and Comment on Weirs Beach zoning change a. Dean inquiries about the PB meeting. Brandee states that there is a referral for a proposed zoning change. Zoning task force was referred to and the mayor presented his proposal and discuss the main points behind it. The public spoke. Many people had concerns. Abutters, business owners, residents. A dozen or so people came to speak. The chair lady and others had multiple concerns about points of the project. Zero green space was a main concern. Zoning task force needed more guidance from planning board meeting. Clarified at 10/4/2016 PB meeting that PB needs to schedule a public hearing within 30 days and a recommendation to the council in 90 days after the referral. Nov 1st is the public hearing. PB needs to decide what they want to do with the document. Dick has a question about an expedited request. Brandee says the request was more of a request for the planning board to hold a hearing. Mayor stated that the items of the proposal was arbitrary. Dean met with Scott Myers and understands that there is 2 parts to the zoning change which are changes to the zoning in specific areas and that there will be a 400 ft. space on either side of the centerline with no green space. Once the proposal goes into Public Hearing, all development in the affected zoning areas shall be frozen. b. Public hearing is on Nov. 1st and that you can email comments to Planning@city.laconia.nh.us or mail to 45 Beacon Street East. 4. New England Storm Water Forum on Nov. 15 through Nov. 16 in New Durham a. Brandee commented that it would be useful for Technician Evan to go to the forum. 5. Deb states that New Hampshire Conservation Conference is Saturday, Nov 12th at Pembroke Academy a. Dean said that he would like for Technician Evan to send out an email about signing-up for the conference. III. Old Business 1. Milfoil subcommittee update: a. Dean stated that the chair person for the subcommittee is Susan Perley. Susan has applied for milfoil funding to Amy Smagula and Amy responded that as soon as she gets all the applica- tions for funds she will divide up the funds for each applicant. State contributes money and the City contributes money. The State tells us how to use the funding. ConsCom has a fund of 250,000 dollars and take 50,000 goes towards milfoil last year. City council has to approve it. Scott will bring the 50,000 to the council this year. Scott says that if we take the 50,000 then we can get money from the Current Use. Dick inquiries about activity of taking stuff out of cur- rent use. Langley Cove has had the most activity. 2. Update on 30-foot waterbody buffer research and presentation to City Council  CITY OF LACONIA CONSERVATION COMMISSION Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 6:00 PM, City Hall - Conference ROOM 200B a. 30 foot buffer on class 1 streams from the centerline of the class 1 streams. Planning Board ap- proved and it is going to the City Council on October 24th. When the planning board makes a recommendation to the Council they must act on it within 60 days. IV. Liaison & Sub-Committee Reports: 1. Permit Sub-Committee review and updates – No Permits 2. Agricultural Subcommittee – No activity V. Commissioners Comments 1. Scott Myers is communicating with the owners of the State School to buy it. Commission members had concerns about various things on the property. Dean stated that about 400,000 is being used to upkeep the property. Dean would like for Cons. Tech Evan to look into acquiring a Pictometery of the property. 2. Construction Site Monitoring – Dean has asked Luke if the ConsCom can do planting on the side of Frank Bean road. Luke says that they need to consult with a LPW engineer about the depth you can plant. Marnie has suggested that we do plants that are low bush blueberries and related plants were discussed that do not require much soil. 3. Discussion about Conservation Easement Site Walks was brought up. Planning will look up how to contact land owners and bring an update to the next ConsCom meeting. 4. Letter of support for Lake Host program – encouragement to spread out the program. Non-Public Session Commences with Roll Call of all members in attendance: With City Council with land acquisition per RSA 91:A:II (D) Come out of Non-Public Session – All members in attendance out. Next meeting is the 19th of October. Meeting with City Council on October 24th in a Non-Public Session at 6:30 p.m. VII. Adjournment Motion to adjourn made by Marnie, Deb seconded. The meeting adjourned at 8:00 p.m. Evan Rathburn, Conservation/Planning Technician The next meeting Oct. 19th, 2016 CITY OF LACONIA CONSERVATION COMMISSION Wednesday, October 5, 2016 - 6:00 PM, City Hall - Conference ROOM 200B