MELROSE CONSERVATION COMMISSION

MINUTES OF MAY 18, 2000

[Approved June 1, 2000]

Present: Robert Boisselle, Bill Dailey, Nancy Naslas, Paul Locke, Peter Mortimer, Bruce Rider, David Valade

Voted: to accept the minutes of 5-4-00 with editorial comments.

Hemenway Ave./Rose/Petrella

A letter dated May 16, 2000 was received from William Rose: "As of this date I have not received response to my request of May 1, 2000 (attached). We are experiencing more flooding caused by this berm. Please contact me with an explanation as to why this issue appears to be lingering." Bob called Mr. Petrella and he was going to have the berm removed last Friday, but the contractor cancelled at the last minute and he is hoping to reschedule later this week or early next week. Mr. Petrella said if he doesn't arrive, he will personally take it out by Friday of next week. Bill Dailey will respond to Mr. Rose's letter to update him.

Amtrak 2000

Correspondence was read from Tech Associates with reference to Amtrak 2000 Vegetation Control Plant Program. "The enclosed Amtrak's 2000 Yearly Operational Plan prepared in accordance with the Massachusetts Right of Way Management Regulation (333CMR11) now provided with this plan remains in effect for the period 2000 through 2004 and it is modified and should be retained in your files. The indication of the maps of private drinking water supply wells remain as ongoing process. Please notify Tech Associates and the Department of Agriculture of any omission. Please also review your mailing address and the ten digit Police Dept. emergency telephone nos. listed in the plan and notify us of any revision. The herbicide application is proposed and a 2000 Yearly Optional Plan is scheduled as follows: No application will take place, however, until Amtrak's Request for Determination now before you is approved." That determination has not arrived or has been misplaced and Bob called Mr. Dussett and requested another copy be sent to us. He said it would be out within the next couples of days. "The location of signs marking the limited and no spray zones will be verified prior to the application. Please call Tech Associates with any questions about this plan." Bob passed the information around which showed the right of ways from Wakefield to Malden, and the areas to be hit with the sprays. We have no jurisdiction here, but there is still the legality of concern of the Determination's Applicability and Amtrak would like to have one on file from the communities that they are going to.

Mayor Guerriero: I am making a visit to each of the Boards and Commissions prior to the summer to offer my thanks to each of the board members who have been reappointed and also to thank the Commission. I often get credit or blame, but frankly after all of the exciting things going on in Melrose, there is probably in our recent history at least an unprecedented amount of very significant projects going on and a burden on the boards and commissions to be part of that process. We don't give you overtime - 0 x 0 = 0. I wanted to come by and thank you for that first of all.

Second, I wanted to let you know that we are going to be hosting an all board meeting in the fall, probably the 2^nd week in October, but I will get that date for Bob so we can all sit in a room one night and talk about the amazing amount of things that has been on everyone's agenda as far as these meetings.

The third reason for me visiting is to make some very brief comments about four projects that are before the Commission. Currently, first is the Roosevelt School project, which is a real exciting one. I thank the members of the Commission who were able to visit both the Roosevelt and Mt. Hood sites for us as well. I am a graduate of the school and it is grand to be a mayor of a city and to be able to look at rebuilding the school that you went to. The issues there are fairly black and white. I know you have walked through them. I apologize again for the time sensitive nature of this because we were concerned with the state reimbursement coming to an end. Potentially we targeted this June 1 to get the proposal into the state so we could make sure we got $2 for every single dollar of the Melrose taxpayer's money for the project. The second project which I think is a really exciting one is the project up at Mt. Hood, looking at recreation fields up there. It certainly is a dramatic proposal by anyone's estimation and our approach from the day that we started understanding that we were given a possibility was to take every extra precaution to make sure we are communicating with every single person who would have any issue. Any resident who has issues up there I have invited to hop on a golf cart with me and go up and walk through the site and find out exactly what we are doing. With a project of that scope, magnitude and sensitivity to our park and open space, we want to take every effort to make sure we do the right thing and that is why we are taking the extra effort to communicate so directly with every member of this Commission and we appreciate your support on that.

The fourth effort is the effort around the Crystal Street tennis courts. I will hold back my comments. I am not going to be at this group. I am not particularly thrilled with the way that process worked in terms of communication from day one. I think we have learned some lessons there. I hope as the board reviews the status of that project this evening it recognizes the city's efforts in that area. I have taken a lot of flack for not figuring out a way to build a 5^th tennis court. They said you have stolen a tennis court from the community that was there years ago. We worked very hard with the DeForge family to work a reasonable feel with them on their site and to make commitments to them about not having a skateboard park there that I think would have impacted environmentally and conservation wise the division where we want to be as community, not only today but in decades. I hope as you reviewed that, you will kind of balance what our overall goal and objectives were there and understand that we are trying to do the right thing and need your support to do that. The fifth project is the Pine Banks project, the hope of building a huge field with lights, where we used to have a former dump, and Mayor Howard and I will be announcing we think within in the next week or two that we have secured over $400,000 in private contributions for that project which is just an incredible amount of generosity from the two communities and private citizens and organizations. We are approaching our ½ million dollar fund raising efforts and it should be closed within the next week. Then I will be working with you not only on the issue around the fields, but I think there is terrific potential for wetlands restoration and for enhancement for some passive environmental states around there, and we think the State, which is looking very favorable on this project, is going to look at significant grant dollars to help do that, and obviously we need your support. As you know, that property is predominantly, if not all, in Melrose and so it is the jurisdiction of this Conservation Commission, not Malden, to make sure that project moves forward. I am going to have the architects and engineers, who we have put on hold until we got the funding, to hopefully speak to this Commission potentially over the summer, to update you on the process there. There is a whole lot of activity for a volunteer Commission and I just wanted to come by to say thank you again, and to thank you for your consideration of these important projects.

Public Meeting - 254 Vinton Street

In accordance with the provisions of Mass General Law Chapter 39, Section 23B, the Melrose Conservation Commission will hold a public meeting Thursday, May 18, 2000 at 7:45 p.m. in the Mayor's Conference Room, 2^nd Floor, City Hall. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss the request Determination's Applicability submitted by the City of Melrose seeking determination of whether the location is subject to jurisdiction of Wetlands Protection Act. Any interested person should appear at the time and place said it is. Melrose Conservation Commission, Melrose Free Press 5-11-2000.

Memorandum from the City of Melrose, Office of Planning and Community Development, Cheryl Potter, Project Manager, request for a Determination of Applicability: "Attached are one original and eight copies of the RDA application and 9 plans showing the existing conditions for the Roosevelt School for you to submit to the Melrose Conservation Commission for the May 18, 2000 meeting. An ad for notification of the meeting was placed in the Melrose Free Press on May 8, 2000 to run in the May 11, 2000 edition. If you have any further questions regarding this submittal, please do not hesitate to contact me."

Mr. Lynch: The Roosevelt School is the next school project this community is working on. As part of this school project the city is seeking a School Building Assistance (SBAP) Program Funding, and as part of that underwriting requirement from the State for reimbursement, it requires that the city pre-emptively obtain affirmative positions from all boards and commissions locally, the Zoning Board, the Planning Board, Conservation Commission, Historic District Commission, Traffic Commission, and the like. The method would typically be obtaining a letter from those various boards and commissions. The Conservation Commission though does have a vehicle by which to render that determination and it is the ideal process that we are in at this point. We are asking for Negative Determination. The area that we are specifically concerned with is the culvert that runs beneath the site, starts up in Stoneham, runs down through collecting all this neighborhood drainage from Franklin St., southerly in a valley, picks up all the street drainage, getting bigger until it hits Melrose Street where it becomes a brick arch pipe, some 4 ft. in diameter. That brick pipe meanders its way down Melrose St. to Vinton Street to Brunswick Park, where it then comes out on the bias, staying a brick arch until it hits the building where it becomes a steel pipe, the steel pipe one way back out from beneath the building, back under the other building, and then out beneath the railroad tracks, underneath the stone polishing company by the YMCA Annex Building to Tremont St., runs out Tremont Street, across the ball field, tennis courts, and into Ell Pond. The area in this location acts as an overflow during severe storm events and there is no denying that the site acts as a detention basin, not by design, but by accident, but nonetheless it functions as such. To prevent a flooding here, there is no question the city could make the culvert beneath the railroad tracks just that much bigger, and the pipes down on Tremont Street just that much bigger to service the only purpose or providing a great impact of flood elevation in Ell Pond. Why wouldn't we want to do that? Though its confined to the site, none of the houses themselves, with the exception of the back yards of a couple of houses on Vinton Street, are impacted by this. It is all confined within the school site itself, and historically this basement floor we're building gets flooded. So the intention of this design as moving forward is to not move that floodwater but to allow the site to continue to function as a detention area. In doing that, there is a number of ways to achieve it. First of all the entire building that is there now is going to be demolished. The footprint being consolidated more up into this quadrant and we have been at the various public meetings with the neighbors and the School Committee, the PTO organizations and everybody involved with the Roosevelt where these issues have been described and discussed. Bob has been to a couple of the meetings. Consolidating the site, is the building to this quadrant of the site, allowing the brook to move through, but not beneath the building, but pass the building without all these meanders. To have it more deliberately go beneath that track in a more straight fashion is going to improve hydraulic capacity of that culvert during normal storms. During the excessive storms, we are going to allow overflow. We need to show you the sheet that shows the cistern system and the fact that the ball field is low and open. The issue itself is maintaining the volume of detention that the site currently retains at least. There is an opportunity somewhat to provide a little bit more storage on the extraordinary storms and for the smaller storms move the water through this culvert no more readily without affecting the velocity of the rate of discharge, but not having it spill automatically onto the ball fields. There is a combination of cisterns that when the area begins to back up, it backs up beneath those first, the parking area and proposed area.

Mr. Lynch shows the proposed footprint of the new building.

Beneath the parking lot, is this battery of cisterns, 9 ft. high, 24 ft. wide, running a full length. Here is the proposed basketball court proposed play area. The ball field itself is down at the grade where it is at. The culvert itself is going to be realigned, picking up over the old area, coming out. Though this has an abrupt change, this is a dynamic design, things are changing as we evolve. That is probably going to be flattened out a little more just to make a flood more ready. Water hates making right hand turns. The body in this scenario holds gallon for gallon the same amount of storage and a little bit more than what is currently there at this point. All the while holding the building up in this area, getting it up higher in elevation to prevent any impacts into the building itself from the floods when this area is asked to kick into gear. When I say it is an evolving design, I say that in this sense that this is an extraordinarily expensive site design. The design criteria is maintenance of the storage volume as mechanism for holding in the cost of this project. Right on the table at this moment is the context and the probability that this basketball court will be down at the same grade as the ball field, and the play area will be down at the same grade as the ball field, thus eliminating the need of the cisterns, eliminating the need for the perimeter grading, thus returning that storage volume back. Will the final configuration look exactly like this? You can bet it won't, but the design criteria of maintaining the same storage volume will be maintained. What we are asking for is a Negative Determination that requires maintaining the storage volume and provides some erosion control during construction down in that undisturbed corner of the site, and it is really more for the reasons of the neighbors. You have been to the site before, this is a very flat site. Erosion control on flat sites is not a big issue, but nonetheless for the sake of 50 hay bales on that corner, I think it's a reasonable part of the conditions in making a determination. That's the complexity of it. The haste of which we are asking for the determination as I started out by saying, is that the SBAP requires a determination from all of the boards of Commissions, that is due to the State on June 1. Once we have the approved funding for the project from the State, the project is going to continue to move forward through the summer time. It is beyond where things are being finalized and it has to be finalized. We would have no problem coming back before this Commission as a courtesy in describing to you how it is we were able to achieve the same storage volume.

Nancy: Is someone else on the investigation?

Mr. Lynch: I don't think so. Jeff Luxenberg is the Planner, and Cheryl Potter is the Project Manager working for the Office of Community Development and Planning, Jim Develles is the Site Engineer for this project, and Mike Radner from Giller Associates is the Landscape Architect for the project. The Site Engineer and Landscape Architect are working hand in hand.

Bob: Is the school in the floodplain?

Mr. Lynch: It is not in a scheme of floodplain. It is not any sort of floodplain. It is a C Zone. Nobody is foolish enough in this administration, the engineer's office and in the mayor's opinion to look at the map and say no problem. We have all seen it flood. You have seen it flood during the 100 year event in my truck with me.

Bob: Any streams or brooks on the property?

Mr. Lynch: No, everything is compliant within this culvert, where the culvert goes beneath the railroad trestle itself, the railroad embankment itself. There is a cement channel with two series of trash racks to act as a precaution, then they catch the debris when they come down through this before going underneath the train tracks, and that is a precaution that the MBTA required as a mechanism of maintaining their railroad easement over time.

Bob: Will the final plans show hay bales and silt fences?

Mr. Lynch: I don't think you need it. If you were to say in the Conditions of this Determination that the radius of hay bales be included in the southwest quadrant of the site at the limit of construction, then the final plan would show that.

Bob: That goes under the railroad at that point, doesn't it?

Mr. Lynch: We are not doing much work there.

Nancy: It's an open channel there though, part of it.

Mr. Lynch: Off site though, and actually in a neighbor's backyard confined with an easement.

Nancy: Ultimately, the purpose of the hay bales would be to protect those neighbor's yards from any surface runoff and to protect an open channel.

Mr. Lynch: Correct, even though it is not jurisdictional as it being an armored channel, nonetheless if soil got into, that's on its way to Ell Pond.

Paul: Which would make it jurisdictional.

Mr. Lynch: Which is why we would want to protect it. I think making that request on your Condition of Determination, is perfectly fine and is something we wouldn't be concerned with doing.

David: How close is the nearest wetland, or are there any close enough for you to know it?

Mr. Lynch: Ell Pond

David: I know the answer to that, and I think Bob also asked you if it was in a floodplain because we want the answers on the record.

David: I am going to ask you a question as an engineer and as also someone who is on I believe the No. Andover Conservation Commission. I know if you were in a floodplain, it is not jurisdictional or the work is not enough for us, in the case of the project, if it were, we could put conditions on it. But it is not a wetland, not in a buffer zone, it is not in a floodplain, how can we condition that? It sounds like you are asking us to put conditions on it and I am just asking you for the basis so that we can legally do it.

Mr. Lynch: On a Negative Determination, given the fact that it is absolutely not jurisdictional, we recognize that it floods, we are asking that the flood be confined in the same way that it currently does.

Nancy: I think that for the same reason where we have had cases where a FEMA map showed the floodplain at a certain elevation, however we have observed the floodplain at a higher elevation, this is because we have observations that there is a FEMA flood there, they just don't have it on their map.

Paul: The immediate affect would be to have an affect on the neighbors, which one alternative that you talked about was to widen, obviously you wouldn't want to have that affect. One alternative would be to widen the culverts, in fact to let loose that water faster. It is true that you wouldn't get that flooding, which would have an affect downstream.

Mr. Lynch: What I didn't say at the beginning of my presentation and probably should have, is there was an alternative analysis done by Jim, I believe, that looked at the feasibility and the viability of 1) passing the waters through, 2) simply lowering the whole site or raising the ball field and allowing it to flood beneath the cisterns underneath the ball field, and 3) the fact that we are not going to be able to prevent the flooding upon the field itself makes this thing seasonably wet for play and resulted in and the only linkage to the Mt. Hood project, the displacement of the playing fields that needed to be accommodated elsewhere in the community.

Paul: What is the volume you are trying to maintain.

Mr. Lynch: Huge. I don't know. You asked a fair question, I don't have the number with me.

Nancy: Is there an increase in the impervious surface. That would be my first question. My second would be do you think there would be better drainage on the site with the cisterns in dealing with the water when we do have the rare floods?

Mr. Lynch: First question, increasing the impervious surface, the answer is yes. The impacts of how that is retained or detained or on site for storm management, does it go through the Planning Board:

Mr. Luxenberg: It is sent to the Planning Board, then make recommendations to the Board of Appeals.

Mr. Lynch: I am talking about the finite things, the building, the parking area, and the parking area being a former cistern and the park near the building to those. I suspect that one of these cistern areas probably become ground water recharge area to control that runoff and into control the net increase. I think also when you look at the overall side of the watershed that contributes down to this area, and the fact that it is a shallow overburden to the depth of bedrock, this whole area is from here all the way up to Stoneham, and to Stoneham is just solid rock right below the surface so it looks green, it isn't green, it is already impervious when you get right down to it. With the exception of right into this meadow area here, and then from here all the way down to the ballfield beneath the football area, the ground beneath the football field area and all the way to Ell Pond is the old body area, and the water table is right there and there is no water.

Nancy: I guess what you are saying is we might not be able to measure the difference, but perhaps there will be better drainage to the cistern vs. just sending the water up past Ell Pond which is what happens now, there are no cisterns now.

Mr. Lynch: The reality is there is more impervious area here and that will be controlled on site within the cisterns. You asked me how we are doing the drainage? We are not at that level of design.

Nancy: So part of the level of design and one of the conditions you recommended is to maintain the storage capacity, and that would factor in impervious coverage?

Mr. Lynch: Yes

Nancy: We keep saying flood over and over again, but these fields are playable almost all of the time, unless you get the big October of 1997.

Mr. Lynch: This was a subdivision being proposed and under Storm Water Management we wanted detention. This area acts like a detention area. When the big one comes, these back areas fill up and within a day or two the waters received are passed down through gradual like it is supposed to do, the area remains muddy, but the standing water is gone.

Nancy: I just think it is an elementary school and you don't want to be talking about that it is going to be full of water because when you see the design like that it looks almost like a tub, and that is not going to be the case, it is the rare storm that will flood that whole area.

Mr. Lynch: If we have a storm of that magnitude, school is closed, not just here, the school is closed because the high school and middle school is closed too.

David: What level of storm event causes the flooding? Are we talking a 100 yr. storm?

Jim Devellis - Civil Engineer - The areas where we call the cisterns, the bottom of that is at a lower elevation than the ball field. They will actually get a positive flow away from the ball field. When the cistern starts to fill up, a couple of feet then will start backing up into the ball field, probably about a five year storm you are going to see substantial ponding of the field. There is no doubt of a 100 year storm. It is going to look like what it does today, but 5 to 10 years is the frequency that the storm is going to come up there.

David: What level causes the flooding now under current conditions?

Mr. Devellis: It is hard to say, probably about between a 2 and 5 year, take that as two 100 year storms.

Mr. Lynch: Jim, to clarify this, the Commission probably remembers when we say flooding, we are from Melrose, when we say flooding, we mean flooding.

Mr. Devellis: From the pictures I saw the fields are not usable, you have standing water in it, but it will go down at the end of the storm.

Bob: We are talking boat launching.

Mr. Devellis: I have seen the pictures and I wouldn't have believed it until I saw the top of the back boards, so it does get up there and will it get up there in a 100 year storm.

Mr. Lynch: No pun intended, that is when you most prime abandon ship and will say what the heck am I doing in this project, facing the challenge this works.

Bob: Is there any access to the cisterns by animal life or children in the area?

Mr. Lynch: There can't be. The animals have been a concern of mine, having my kids all in high school now, I guess I never thought of little kids crawling in. They need to have an ability to be inaccessible unless when a storm is predicted and they be able to be opened up at that point for the overflow. There is a whole bunch of automated devices that float, checked out, that can be used in there. I think manual ones are far more reliable. That is a provision that has to be a concern of ours, but we are not at that level of design yet.

David: As far as access, will the Dept. of Public Works access frequently across the top for maintenance and structure and cleanse it.

Mr. Lynch: That is a given too, but we don't show those yet.

Bob: How long will the water stay in the cisterns? Will these become breeding grounds for mosquitoes, etc.?

Mr. Lynch: Not inside. How long? It depends on the magnitude of the storm.

Mr. Lynch: You are actually asking questions that we have asked and raised at the MACC Annual Meeting. They advocate the groundwater recharge and they advocate detention, but they concern themselves with the safety involved with open detention, so they are now into the cistern area, and we raised all these questions there and I am not sure MACC is clear on that or the impacts of them.

David: Based on what we discussed at the site the answer to that depends on what time of year it is, where the level of ground water is, there is a lot of factors and it sounds like it could be a couple of days or it could be weeks if the ground water was real high.

Mr. Lynch: For example, in a frozen ground condition heavy rain that comes in January and you have a frost layer in there. This proposal is more advantageous than the existing condition because this 9 ft. cistern in the parking lot over it and that open ground that is now not frozen, we are introducing water into it and it does find its way into the water table. In a frozen rainfall in January, right now it's all impervious and all just stays there. So this is actually providing a much better benefit during those types of storms.

Bob: Right now I would like to open this up to the public. Is there anyone in favor of this project? Is there anyone with a general question that they would like to ask at this time?

Linda Benezra, 340 Porter Street: My question relates to the cistern system. What kind of maintenance is necessitated by this system?

Mr. Lynch: It would need periodic inspection once a year at a minimum at the manned entry. We've been looking for corrosion, cracking in the concrete and making sure that the rock sub-strata or the crushed stone sub-strata is relatively clean, free of debris and rodent control, if that does become a problem.

Linda Benezra: Is that the type of maintenance that can be done by our water sewer department or does this call for an outside contractor?

Mr. Lynch: This is a school project. This would be something I would expect to be, according to form, the school maintenance department and there is nobody in that department who can do that on their own.

Nancy: It is a confined space entry, isn't it?

Mr. Lynch: It is a confined space entry, and we would work with Cubby to get the right sort of vendors in.Cubby, very soon who wants to do a catch basin cleaning with the vacuum trucks, will be able to get in there and just go back out with debris that accumulates in a year's time. But it would need to be done on an annual basis.

Priscilla Hook, 10 Elmcrest Circle: You said you are going to raise the height of the new building. How do you propose to do that? Are you going to fill in ground area?

Mr. Lynch: This is already at a certain height. So by pulling the building up into that sector.

Priscilla Hook: Oh, it's higher naturally in that sector?

The meeting is closed to the public at this time.

Nancy: Paul and I visited the site with Joe Lynch yesterday morning and we had the opportunity to look at the plans at the same time as we were looking at the site.

David: I was there with Bill and Bruce tonight at 6:15 p.m.

Bob: Do we feel we have enough information to make that determination this evening?

Nancy: I do

Voted: There are two options on this Determination of Applicability. There is a Positive Determination and a Negative Determination. A Positive Determination indicates that there observes jurisdiction of wetlands and protection that is issued, and a Negative Determination there is no further action under the Wetlands Protection Act as required by the applicant. Do I hear a motion for a Positive or a Negative Determination?

It was moved that we file a Negative Determination.

Nancy: I believe that since it is not in a resource area, nor is it an abut resource area, nor is it even officially on paper within our jurisdiction, however based on this fact that we have seen the flooding there, I do feel it comes under our jurisdiction with the two conditions that Joe Lynch recommended as part of our Negative Determination, that is my motion.

David: Is this based on the form with those conditions?

Bob: We can attach it to the document.

Nancy: The conditions are that the project will maintain the storage volume of flood water that the site currently is capable of holding. In other words the project will result in the same or greater flood storage capacity and the second condition would be that the project install and maintain erosion control best management practices at the southeastern limit of construction.

Bill: Why don't we take one of the plans and ink it in for our records and give them a copy?

Bob: Okay, we will get a yellow marker on that and highlight that. One will go to the engineer and one is for us.

Voted: That we file a Negative Determination on 254 Vinton Street.

Mt. Hood Ball Field

Correspondence dated 5/18/00 was read from Rick Amirault, Supt. Of Parks:

Dear Mr. Boissselle,

Please accept this application for a Negative Determination of Applicability addressing land upon a small portion of Mr. Hood Memorial Park and Golf Course (see plan). Based on information contained in the comprehensive Wetland Resource Area Delineation Study prepared by Michael D. Howard, Wetland Biologist (see study), dated June 5, 1996, there are no resource areas located within the work area. This report, made under the auspice of the Mount Hood Master Plan, was presented and submitted to the Melrose Conservation Commission in June of 1996. In fact, the Conservation Commission will recall that the results of the Howard Report were used in making application to, and receiving certification from the Natural Heritage Program for two vernal pools located in another area of the Mount Hood Park. We are certain that the two locations that are the subject of this determination request are non-jurisdictional under the Wetlands Protection Action. However, as construction activities have commenced in the vicinity of these areas we have avoided and protected them and will continue to avoid and protect them until such time as the Conservation Commission renders its official determination. We ask that the Conservation Commission render a Negative Determination for the record. A timely vote of determination by the Conservation Commission would greatly benefit this project. Although we believe your determination will indicate no jurisdiction under "The Act", the Park Department will gladly agree to make an informational presentation to the Commission as the design plans for the recreation ball fields are developed and finalized. Thank you in advance for your cooperation with this matter.

Bob: We have the Request for Determination application.

We have a letter dated 6/5/96 which was the original report that was sent to Joe Lynch, Melrose Dept. of Public Works from Michael D. Howard, Wetland Biologist. Regarding Letter Report - Wetland Resource Area Delineation at Mt. Hood Golf Course.

Dear Mr. Lynch: As outlined in my proposal to the City of Melrose Dept. of Public Works, I have implemented and completed Tasks A and C; the enclosed report will satisfy Task B. Task D remains outstanding but it is my understanding that a site walk will be scheduled with the Melrose Conservation Commission prior to the public hearing in June (please refer to the proposal dated February 9,1996 for additional information). The enclosed report achieves the following:

a) potential impacts of proposed future work have been assessed;

b) appropriate mitigation measures are proposed;

c) isolated depressions with potential vernal pool characteristics (310 MCR 10.02(1) have been documented;

d) wetland resource areas as defined under the Massachusetts Wetland Protection Act (310 CMR 10.04) have been identified and, where applicable, delineated in the field.

It is my belief that the report as drafted will provide a necessary and useful planning tool in analyzing the overall master plan. Furthermore, sensitive areas requiring a detailed delineation and evaluation have been noted and should a formal Notice of Intent submittal be required with the Melrose Conservation Commission, we can respond in a timely fashion. It is my anticipation that this report satisfies the intended purpose, however, if there are any questions or concerns please do not hesitate to contact me at the number listed above. It has been a pleasure working with the City of Melrose and I look forward to future endeavors.

Bob: In this report about Section 3.2 Land Subject to Flooding, there is a paragraph indicating that nine pools were noted on the field plan, inspected and evaluated for the presence of vernal pool indicator species. Of these nine identified pools, it was determined that the following seven isolated depressions did not qualify: isolation depressions parallel to the first pond; isolated depressions parallel to any road and to the rear of the 14^th green; upgrading and isolated depression of the above referenced school and parallel to the 14^th and 15^th hold cart trap; depressions located to east of the old municipal land fill; isolated depressions to west of the 17^th fairway and also behind the old municipal land fill; and now the isolated depression south of the 11^th green and the isolated depression parallel to the technical gas pipeline easement. Two vernal pools in the vicinity of the old municipal land fill has been forwarded to the state and these have been certified by the way since then. I am assuming that these two highlighted pools are the ones we are talking about this evening.

Mr. Amirault: Yes

Nancy: Do we have a map that goes along Mike Howard's report?

Bob: Yes

Mr. Amirault: I will give an overview of the project and locus of where we are according to this plan. Joe Lynch is here for more of the technical questions about the study itself. This is a conceptual rendering of what the Park Commission has in mind for the area. Just so you can be oriented, this is the tower, this is the very highest point in Mt. Hood. This is the existing access road that comes up to Mt. Hood. This is the parking lot that accesses the tower of Mt. Hood. Conceptually, this entire area is what we are looking to develop for some configuration of ball fields. Right now this is a configuration that makes sense. When we get closer to the design by Camp Dresser McKee, the Park Commission will have hearings and meetings on exactly what will go in, but basically the footprint is right here. This is the 11^th fairway and green, and we are looking to reroute the road to come in around the back of that in order that we weren't bringing people across the fairway where it does go across the fairway now. What you are looking at over here and it corresponds to that map, is the very far westerly border of Mt. Hood. TENNECO gas line runs right down here. On this side over here is the City of Melrose Leaf Compost site. Of this way across is Saugus and Melrose Trimount Quarry. This is downgrade from the tower parking lot. It is a height elevation 242 ft. and we are looking to construct the ball fields somewhere in between 220 and 230 ft. above sea level. In order to make this project work, an agreement has been reached to bring in a certain amount of fill, to make this work it is quite a large amount of fill. The only way to get the fill to the site was to come in the rear of the site from Route 99. What we have committed to is none of the fill will be trucked into Melrose through any other route but Route 1 to 99 and out that way, so none of the trucks will be coming around and going through the neighborhoods. In order to get the fill from Route 99 up onto the site, we had to create the haul road. If you look on this map you will see in black approximately where that haul road is. You will see the first depression, which is highlighted and marked, that is the depression mark in the study called The Depression South of the 11^th Fairway. That, as it corresponds to this plan, is right over here. So you can see the road, it was constructed simply as haul road and not a public access road. It goes around that area as described. The second area is described as the depression adjacent to the TENNECO gas line, and according to the study, is right up in here. I think everyone in this room had an opportunity to go up there and walk those two sites. This arrangement to receive the fill has been extremely quick, we have proceeded quickly and cautiously. We had the study in hand, we knew that both of those areas had been identified as non-jurisdictional. We were very comfortable with going by those. A couple of the plans that the company that is supplying the fill had is to go through that area. We opted not to do that, even though we had the plan at hand that says it was non-jurisdictional. We opted to protect that as much as possible and reroute the road around that and protect that with hay bales for the moment. Right now we are not close enough to impact the other depression up here because the road is going to turn and enter the site here and stay away from that for the time being. We felt it was much safer and up front and above board to come in for a Negative Determination rather than to plow through something that somebody might consider to being a resource even though we had our plan that said it wasn't. So in the end this road will not be a public road. It is just now to be used as a haul road. Access will be at some configuration over this way, but the fill will take place at about a height of 220 to 230 ft. down in this area. The final configuration as to parking areas, actual ball fields, their orientation, and the amount of land actually used will be determined by the Park Commission based on the plan designed by Camp Dresser McKee. So we are here this evening asking for the Negative Determination on these two areas as defined in that step. Right now we don't have any plans to fill those, but we are close to them. Whenever the plan proceeds and is before the Park Commission in whatever configuration I will come back before the Conservation Commission and talk about some of the issues. Even though they may not be jurisdictional we'd be glad to come in and talk about drainage, runoff at green space, whatever the Commission would like to ask when the plan gets finalized.

Bob: What is this green area?

Mr. Amirault: It is the existing golf course. This is the other half of the 11^th fairway and this is the 11^th green. I just put it there so people could get an idea of where you were and it does demonstrate that this road goes right through the fairway. It makes sense to come around that and try to keep the traffic away from the golf. Right now this is directly in line with the golf course. This is a project that has been in this conceptual stage with Park Commissions probably back twenty years. This is the first time it could actually become a reality for many reasons, mainly with the deal on the fill because of the expense of getting it here and that is all being borne by the provider it which makes it possible that we can build these. Some plans back called for the ball fields to be created way down on this part of the course which was actually touching a vernal pool, plus it was way up in the rocks, it wasn't a very good site. This, by the determination of the Parks Commission, is the best site at Mt. Hood to do this. The closest resource area is way down here identified at the bottom of the 12^th. The watershed is this way, away from the resource area.

Nancy: Is that on the plan that we are looking at right now?

Mr. Amirault: Yes

Mr. Amirault: When I first came in a few weeks ago and discussed a possible Notice of Intent, then the consideration was to do this 12^th fairway, and the Notice of Intent would have been because of the resource area located here. What we would have been proposing was a reconstruction of the 12^th fairway in the same way we reconstructed the 4^th with the definite protection of the wetland and a filling of this area here, but it quickly became apparent that the best thing for us to do with this fill for the master plan of the long term goals of the Park Commission was to create a project like this which they had dreamed about for years. We still may come back and do the 12^th in the fall, but it will be proceeded long before we start with the Notice of Intent because of the identified resource right here.

Nancy: But with the respect of what we are talking about today, I just point out you are well over the 100 ft. buffer, you are actually over 200 ft.

David: In terms of the isolated depression, it does indicate in here that in Mr. Howard's opinion this was not a vernal pool. I don't see any indication that is an isolated land subject to flooding. He said that no work was planned to be down in the area designated isolated land subject to flooding, but he didn't particularly exclude it. Have any calculations been down to determine the size and capacity of the water that is currently there in the area it filled up to?

Mr. Amirault: No, I will let Joe address that.

Mr. Lynch: No, there has been no one else who has done calculations. The only ability to hold any volume of water of any source is this area here, the one that they are wrapping around to avoid. This other area up in here, I think during the site walk we walked the small one further up the line. If you look at the topographic relief there, by the time the water achieves a certain height, it goes right down the TENNECO gas line that flows down to this area, and actually its feed is stopped to a huge vegetated wetland down in this area, but the area itself builds up to that height and then it just starts flowing down over the gas pipe.

David: This area in particular that I am questioning is the one that is listed as isolated depression south of the 11^th tee. The reason I am asking is that we walked down there, but when we walked by there seemed to be a substantial quantity of water there in terms of sq. ft. It looks about as big as my yard, maybe a little smaller that is 6600 sq. ft. and if it is a 1 ½ ft. deep that probably gets to a ¼ acre. That is why I am asking that would be jurisdictional then because that would qualify as isolated land subject to flooding. The reason I am asking is because there is nothing specifically in this report that says that it isn't, it only says in the report that there is no isolated land with the work that was intended to be done at this point and time in the area.

Mr. Lynch: In the report you are holding the only intensive work on both of those locations were trying to certify them as vernal pools, trying to find all the significant signs for it and we were unable to do that.

David: But my point is to determinate whether or not that is isolated land subject to flooding. We need calculations about the capacity of it and we don't have that before us right now.

Bruce: You have your proposed ball field as going to possibly fill in the isolated depression parallel to the TENNECO gas pipe line easement?

Mr. Amirault: Possibly, this is only conceptual. The actual engineering will be done by Camp Dresser McKee, so this is not a definite right here, not at all.

Bruce: But there are plans for two soccer fields and a baseball field?

Mr. Amirault: Still conceptual, probably the most definite is this baseball field because this is a major league field. As Joe mentioned earlier, if this gets approved and this gets filled and we hope it will, this will serve as the replacement for the field that is going to be lost at Roosevelt.

Bruce: And will it be possible to make a league field to be further south where the soccer fields are?

Mr. Amirault: Sure, there are many configurations. This parking lot could come more this way, this field could come more this way and this field could come more this way. In terms, this could be one field, this could be a little league field over here. I think in the end what we are going to ask Camp Dresser McKee to engineer will be the results of public hearing that the Park Commission will have to determine what is the biggest need. Right now, they understand that this is going to be a big need, whether two soccer fields or whether a soccer field and a little league field, whether two opposing little fields and no soccer field, as to what we want in the end that will be up to the Park Commission. Pretty much the footprint here is where it is going to be. Any elevation has to be where it is.

David: This side is not really relevant to discussion here, but I suggest putting behind it the green fence or netting because I have seen enough golfers that probably would hit somebody on the fields you are planning, never mind the cars and spectators.

Mr. Amirault: That would definitely be part of the plan.

Bob: Let's get back to the calculation, Dave. Do we know the approximate size of this area that we are talking about here?

Dave: It looked like as big as my yard and my yard is 6600 sq. ft. Based on the way Mr. Howard describes it in here, you look at where it gets wet on a regular basis based on how the soil looks and the vegetation, figure out the elevation and calculate that based on its topography here.....

Mr. Amirault: It is very variable. I have seen that dry up within a week after a rainstorm. At the end of the summer that is absolutely dry and even in a downpour, it doesn't hold water. This time of year it tends to hold more water.

David: Right, that is the nature of isolated land.

Mr. Lynch: I am not sure it has been said, beneath this area we are talking about is the pipeline itself and TENNECO, that through their maintenance in the year can come in and work on it out of hand.

Mr. Amirault: Just last year TENNECO came right in and took all the vegetation right out down the middle of that. That's what they do. It is part of their right of way.

David: Are they like railroads?

Mr. Amirault: Yes.

Paul: We don't have jurisdiction over them.

David: On the other hand, if you want TENNECO in you do have to go through the jurisdictional process.

Bob: What you are looking at here, these two depressions, they were probably caused by TENNECO, the gas line construction, because the 2^nd one above that I visited actually has a white pipe sticking out of it and it looks as though the construction has actually collapsed which sets all the water into the area.

Mr. Amirault: One thing I should add about us going into here. We cannot fill more than 7 ft. over the TENNECO line anyway. So the TENNECO line goes dead through the middle of this first one and through the side of the second one, so we can only fill the 7 ft. there anyway. That is a definite barrier to us doing any development that close. So this is probably sited too close anyway just because of the TENNECO pipe. It is going to have to come back. I requested the determination of our moving the TENNECO pipe and the cost is way prohibitive. There is no chance that we could even have it raised. That is a definite barrier to us doing any development that close. I requested the determination about moving the TENNECO pipe and it is so costly.

David: At the same time whether or not you can get close to the TENNECO line, and it may have been caused by the construction of the TENNECO line, but as it exists right now it is possibly isolated land subject to flooding which is jurisdictional and at this point and time you have hay baled it. I don't know what it looked like before, but it appears in building the access road that it goes right up to the line of the hay bale on the edge of or even below, I don't know - we didn't crawl down there and look, of land it could be jurisdictional and we need to determine whether it is or not and need the calculations to tell us what is there. I could be wrong, I am just one voice on the commission. I have been the sole vote on things before.

Mr. Amirault: And we are here asking that you find it non-jurisdictional.

David: We may find that. We just need another piece of information before we can do that.

Nancy: And I think we should remember there are two things we do know about though. That it is not a wetland. It doesn't have the wetland species from a resource from that point of view. Surely from the point of the view that it holds water it could become jurisdictional.

David: And that is the only question I have. I agree that it is not a wetland. I agree that there is no way that this could be a vernal pool. The question is, is it isolated land subject to flooding. We need another piece of information to determine that.

Public hearing:

Bob: Is anyone interested in saying anything about this particular project?

Linda Benezra - 340 Porter St.: I too have had an interest in ball fields, but many years ago we came to the conclusion that access was a serious issue for Mount Hood. I think this site continues to have an access problem. But worse than that, this area that you are discounting as a wet area, I was up there at night and heard peepers. I am not a specialist to know all of the criteria for wetlands, but I think you need to take a hard look at this site because it does appear to me to be in your jurisdiction. Again, I don't know how your Commission functions, but I would like to have you ask Mr. Amirault how many trees have been taken down on this site already and to get a little more information about this plan. I see it as a major travesty when you see what has been done up there. It looks like a movie. And for a plan that is just in the formation stages, it just appalls me that this construction could take place in the name of fields for our children.

Jerry Benezra, Attorney in Melrose: I have an office at 20 West Emerson Street. I am here on behalf of myself, my family and a significant number of Melrose citizens, more than 10 tax payers. First of all I would like to ask, Mr. Chairman, if the tape recording of the last meeting and the tape recording of this meeting could be preserved and I would like to know whether the tape recording of the last meeting when Mr. Amirault was present, is still in existence. I would ask if that would be made available so we have a copy made.

Bob: All of the minutes are on the Internet.

Mr. Benezra: I would like to be able to duplicate the tape recording which I think we are entitled to. I just want to make sure they are preserved.

Bill Dailey: If I could just ask for identification of the names of the taxpayers you represent.

Mr. Benezra: When it is ready, I will be very happy to disclose them.

Bill: I mean right now if you have them, if you are here for them. Who are they?

Mr. Benezra: I will be very happy to disclose them when I am required to do so.

Bill: But you can't do it now?

Mr. Benezra: No, I choose not to do it now. It will be many more than ten I can assure you of that. Ten is just a magic number. I would like to ask you, Mr. Chairman, if you have had any discussions with anybody from the DEP at this site?

Bob: There has been a DEP official at the site looking at the soil.

Mr. Benezra: From the strike force?

Bob: I have not spoken to anyone from DEP.

Mr. Benezra: I will represent to you that we were up there with a few other people this past week with people from the DEP task force.

Bob: Could you identify the strike force individual?

Mr. Benezra: Yes, I can. Steven Spencer. I spoke with Mr. Durand, who I am sure you know. I would just like to represent to you people that his feeling about whether or not this was a wetland, and in fact whether or not there were other areas where they were going to tree cut, I would be happy to show you some photographs taken last week. He had a feeling that perhaps this was in fact a wetland, the area you are talking about. At least at the time I will admit it was his off the cuff, and he indicated he does have some people up there. He also indicated to us he thought that there may have already been work done in other areas that may be wetlands, and the way that you choose to resolve that now since there has been destruction in the area would be to have some more testing done. I would suggest you might want to speak with these people before you move too quickly, especially since I think that this gentleman who I don't know has raised some very interesting questions like it would be nice to have some calculations and I think that one of the issues here is and the reason we called the man because it looks like if this system really needs to work, then I would hope that you people would make it work, and if you normally have calculations that you wouldn't make a decision based upon the fact that it looks like about 6600 sq.ft., or you wouldn't make it on one person's representation that this is not wet for over five months. I wouldn't rely on a report that was done in 1996, which if you look at it carefully and I just had an opportunity to scan it as I was trying to listen at the same time, but if you look at this you will notice that he was talking about what we have done in the master plan. Missing from the submission to you is the master plan. So you have a document which tells you that I am doing a study based upon a master plan and yet you are not given the master plan. It seems to me that he was going in there for a specific purpose, that purpose was not for ball fields there, there was no master plan that I am aware of that shows ball fields there. There is not even a plan other than what you are being told is conceptual that is in existence yet, so you have somebody saying to you when you are relying on something that is four or five years old, if this is so important, we are going to be cautious and I have seen this now twice and I have heard it again tonight, that I wonder why somebody hasn't gone up there in the last two or three weeks or a month or as long as you know it to make sure whether or not there has been any change in there, to know whether or not it is now a vernal pool, whether or not anybody has seriously looked at this particular area. I have photographs that show you that, in fact, probably dumping that soil has already been disturbed. No I would like to ask Mr. Chairman, when your walk was. Was it before they started dumping over there or after?

Bob: It was Sunday before they were dumping.

Mr. Benezra: If you would like I will show you pictures. I have pictures after their dumping. I would suggest to you that before you act on this and before you define representation so that we are moving cautiously, then what you may want to do is to go up there and I would be glad to show you these photographs with you this evening to show there has actually been dumping and it wasn't careful and maybe hay bales, that there are areas we can show there has already been fill dumped into that area you are talking about. So I would suggest to you that if you want to have up to date information, maybe the up to date information means going up and seeing what is done and weighing that against what you are being told repeatedly about how cautiously we are and how careful we are. When you are dealing with old reports you are dealing with concepts, and what you are dealing with here roughly is quickly that you have a contractor with a need to get rid of fill from the Big Dig and he is locating it up here, and you can call this if you want building ball fields, but you have no appropriation, you have no vote, you have no master plan, you only have conceptual drawings and what you have right now ladies and gentleman, you have dumping. The operation you have up there is dumping for the dig fill and you can make it as long as you want. You can stop it today or tomorrow. I tell you if it isn't here, it is going to be somewhere else in another forum. What is happening right now there is not building ball fields, it is very nice politically, but what is happening here legally and that is what you should be concerned about, is dumping. That is the process of going up there. I would be glad to show you how much dumping there has been. I would be glad to show you clear cutting of an entire area of what is necessary for this, because if it was done quickly before it could be stopped. So I would suggest to you if you are here to represent the citizens, you are here representing your children, and in order to do that I would suggest that you listen to this gentleman and if, in fact, what you need is calculations, then get those calculations, ask for the master plan, ask for the back-ups so you know exactly what this gentleman was looking for when he was doing it, ask how long it will take to get another study up there and wait until you hear from the DEP as to whether or not they think this is a wetland or whether or not there have been other wetlands up there that has been disturbed already. Now, I don't claim to be a wetlands expert, unfortunately the man who was up there with us could not be here tonight. I am telling you they were up there, they have got a concern. They are going to study it and it strikes me as odd that the strike force is going to go up and study this issue and our own people who are here, who are selected to protect us are being pushed to move quicker than perhaps you should because we are talking about a very, very serious aspect here. I think if you'd look at these pictures, if you have been up there, and then you been up there since then it looks like a movie, like pictures you'd see after it has been bombed. If you look at these pictures here you are going to see this area they tell me is not wet for five months. Is there somebody who has told you it hasn't been wet for five months? Has anybody told you where they are going to park? Do you see anywhere on that drawing where the parking is going to be? Do you see anywhere if those of you who walked up there, when you walked up all the way from where you have to walk down by the low pond, did you see golf balls coming by? How many times did you stop because you wanted to make sure you didn't get by a golf ball, because over there is a hill you can't even see the tee, the golfers can't see you, and you are going to have children walking up and down there? So if you want to talk about this being well thought out, if that is what they want to put on the table, I could spend a lot of time telling you that there has been master plans drawn by people who thought this out and Mr. Amirault can get up here and make a representation to you that this has been thought out and this has been dreamed of, but you ask him where the ball fields are in the dreams that was put to paper after you have citizens like you who have gotten involved in master plans. Those master plans never dreamed for a ball field up there. What you are doing is you are being bombarded with these political issues which I would be really happy to debate with them because there is no master plan, there is no back-up. Everything you are seeing here is a rush to judgment. I want to talk about what you are here for, which is not genius of great ball fields, because those ball fields, as I just told you, may never take place. Well, think about how cautious we are being if we are dumping clear cutting trees in an area we don't even know yet whether or not we are going to have a plan, or what the plan is, or what we are going to be welcomed into to give us money we may need. We have heard about this contract, and haven't seen that one yet either. We have heard about the votes of the Park Commission and haven't seen that. I don't see any date on that plan. I look at your minutes and I see Camp Dresser McKee being mentioned. I don't see a representative here from CDM. I don't see anybody here except a report that you really can't ask anybody about, that fortified years ago, which references that are in relationship to a master plan that isn't being given to you, and I suggest to you that it would be, and I am sorry, but it would be an embarrassment for somebody to raise a realistic issue of that fact that you should have some calculation, and for you to make a determination without having somebody who is an engineer take a look at that or putting the Mayor and the Park Commission to the task of getting you that information because what you are doing here is you are being railroaded. You are one of the lines of defense and it will be a shame if we have to move up the line to defend those issues which you people have been selected and ratified by the Board of Alderman to protect us against. What I am telling you now is ask for documents, ask for the back-up, because what you are being told here I will tell you I will prove when I have to a lot of this is untrue, and please don't fall into the trap of thinking that what you are doing if you vote against and refuse this today that is going to stop them because it hasn't stopped them yet. That will be another day. There will be for another forum unfortunately. But please don't lend yourselves to this travesty when nobody is giving you what you would throw private citizens at. I can see coming in here with a developer and telling you about concepts and giving you four or five year old plan, and I can see somebody like this getting up and saying where are your calculations and being really embarrassed, and I am surprised there hasn't been a motion on the table yet. So that is what's happening here and if you look at it I think your intelligence and our intelligence is being insulted both by this and by the presentations that are being made to you, and I would also like to add, Mr. Chairman, that I would hope that this now has been presented to you that document that plan would be made available and we would figure out some way since you don't have an office here, where members of the public and if anybody else wants to see it, would have the ability to see it. I think maybe you would want to see the master plan and master map that is referred to in this document. Maybe you would like to see some of the backups on the vote that you have been told about, about these drawings and who did these drawings. I would be surprised that they really have the same ones. I am sorry that I didn't have the chance to go through these in a great deal of detail, but the Park Dept. will file a plan and study with our application for this determination at the next meeting of the Conservation Commission. That is the plan, where is the study? Whoever did this planning didn't know they needed calculations? Then what kind of study is it on its face? I would suggest to you again I think that you need to go up there before you do anything and take a look at what has occurred. It is very interesting that your site visit was the first note I made to myself, when your site visit was. I will show you pictures here that you haven't seen, and I will show you pictures that if they were private individuals you would need to have a Cease and Desist Order so quick it would make my head spin if I was representing that developer.

Terry Waugh, 357 Porter Street: I just have four little questions. 1) do you qualify under the Wetland Protection Act; 2) who is checking this fill that is coming in here; is it being tested, is it contaminated as some of the stuff from the big dig has been which made the newspaper; 3) I understand these trucks are supposed to be washed after each dumping, is that being done; and 4) the haul road, is that a permanent road. It looks like it has created a very wet area. I see nothing but water and mush.

Mr. Amirault: The Wetlands Protection Act is why we are here tonight, to make sure that it doesn't apply. As far as the testing of the fill, we are going on a State standard in the Modern Continental contract. We have the certifications already, I forget the exact number, but every so many cubic yds. are excavated for environmental testing and all those test results are forwarded to Melrose immediately. We operate on the Modern Continental's bond in case there is any materials brought to the site that does happen to be contaminated, we will act on their bond to have it removed, but right now we are on the strength of the test. Every truck that comes up has to be certified coming from the Big Dig and is coming from the Central Artery Tunnel Project.

Terri Waugh: Every truck that comes is not tested?

Mr. Amirault: No, there is a certain frequency of tests based on the quantity of excavated soil, but Modern Continental is held to a very high standard about trucking that material across Massachusetts roads, but we act under that same contract under those same standards.

Terri Waugh: There was just an article in the paper about it. What about washing the trucks?

Mr. Amirault: Modern has a hauling specification in their contract with the Central Artery which they have to adhere to. Modern Continental is doing all the trucking. They will adhere to that, it is up to the Central Artery Tunnel to make them adhere to that. We have committed things such as sending the sweeper up. Waste Management uses the sweeper up there on Route 99, but the hauling activity is governed under the Modern Continental Central Artery Tunnel Project Contract.

Terri Waugh: How about the haul road? Is that a permanent thing?

Mr. Amirault: No, and it won't be a public road either. It is just for all the dumping.

Linda Benezra: The word that I have heard on the street or city gossip is that the intention is that there will be a million cubic yds. of gray clay put on the site. So I don't know if that is true or not, but assuming that is and it is the gray clay that is the material that I have seen up there that I have to once it dries have to chop it off my shoes, I just can't envision that basin being filled with this and not changing the whole drainage that would effect the rest of the golf course. So as a practical matter, it would appear to me and I could be wrong, it covers wonderful area of beautiful fields and the rest of the golf course would have drainage coming down on it or whatever it would take. I don't know if that is an area of concern for the Conservation Commission or if that is another body, but I just have to ask the question and hope somebody can answer it along the way.

Mr. Benezra: Is there any prohibition against refueling the trucks up there?

Mr. Amirault: No. The hauling trucks don't refuel up there. The machinery that operates up there which is presently a D6 and a D8 refuels up there.

Mr. Benezra: Do you know how far from this area where that equipment is being refueled is from the area that you asked for the determination about?

Mr. Amirault: No

Mr. Benezra: Mr. Chairman, if you decide to go up there on your own hopefully where the site is, that you take a look at some of the rock cropping which you can now see there is no trees or shrubbery anymore, and consider how this is going to effect when you see how high these are and if they are considering the fact they may have to blast them, as to the effect that will have on the wet courses in the area and whether or not that is a concern you may want to look at. I still haven't got an answer to the question as to how we might be able to get the Mayor's documents and the file reviews, where they will be located so they are accessible to the public. Also, I think that this issue of the alteration of terrain and the effect that they had in other areas is something we need to consider. We have some maps. As you know if you look at the maps, the particular site I am talking about is between two water bodies.

Nancy: Which water bodies are you talking bout? Are they ponds, do they have names?

Mr. Benezra: When we looked at this I was with somebody who was aware of them and when we talked to DEP, the DEP people had pull a scenario and what the DEP person pointed out to us if you look at the straight line by the tower, there is a water body each side which is shown on the CDM plan. In between those two is this one and so the question was raised to me that one of the things that we should look at as concerned citizens and therefore you should look at, you know more about this than I do, is whether or not this water moves one place to the other, and whether or not moves to the same area, and whether or not that is going to disturb those water courses and what effect they may have on other existing issues, or somebody who is drinking water in the area. I would say that as Mr. Amirault knows, and as you folks know, those of you who have been on this board before, there has been illegal dumping up on Mt. Hood before and it has been the situation where hopefully we had a forum that didn't react as quickly as you reacted and hopefully will react to try to look at this, but this is something that before was done with contaminated soil because you didn't have a Conservation Commission that moved as quickly as it should have and really took a good look at what was being done and looked the other way because municipal officials were telling them to look the other way. I hope that is not going to happen again. I'm not saying this is dirty, I am just saying that there is some serious questions that must be looked at here and I would hope that at a least a minimum of calculations would be there because I know you probably have to do that anyway unless you wanted to move forward without the study that was promised you.

I also wonder if we could find out where the progress is with CDM and whether or not at some point if you decide for this build you must be covered by CDM. Maybe it has some material available to you that wasn't from 1996.

Priscilla Hook, 10 Elmcrest Circle: I am surprised, although this happens a lot in this city, that a project of this size isn't put to a vote by everybody in town and wonder if for some reason this project doesn't happen, who is going to replace all the damage?

Bob: Could you tell us what the Park Department is going to be doing with "trees".

Mr. Amirault: The Park Commission is going to go forward with this project. They are going to now.

Jerry Benezra: Is there a vote there?

Mr. Amirault: Yes, there has been a vote of the Park Commission to move forward with this proposal.

Mr. Amirault: The Park Commission has autonomy over their land. They do want to make the commitment that the significant trees that were removed will be replaced through landscaping on the forest and periphery around. They are very sensitive to the green space that they have. They don't feel that are ruining green space, what they feel is they are doing is they are transforming green space. It is not like they are building one big parking lot. They are sensitive to the fact that there were trees there, but they are also cognizant of the fact that they are stewards over this park. They understand the needs of the citizens in Melrose and they chose and voted to proceed with this plan in some configuration, but it will be here and it has been voted by the Park Commission for ball fields of some form or another.

Priscilla Hook: Will there be electrical and water lines put in?

Mr. Amirault: Yes, there will. Presently we have a brand new irrigation system that runs right down the 11^th which will feed this which goes all the way down to our well at the bottom of the hill.

Mr. Benezra: I would like to show you folks my concern that your Park Commission has for the green space. I will make copies available for you, this shows you some of the public gardens and I will have copies for your hands tomorrow. The reason for this is because of the subject before. The other test will be told. It is really nice to be told and you will have your minutes reflect that the Park Commission preserves its green space. You will have to ask yourself when you go up there why all these trees had to be taken down now before the chances of determination because that is a key area for them to be able to do this project and take a look at the configurations if that wet place is big enough. So this is their concern. As you look at some of the slides you will see what it used to look like. This is the view they now have and your children are going to have of Trimount which they didn't have before. So perhaps those of you who are interested may want to take a look at those photographs and have them here for what you've been told and what your minutes will reflect concerning the Park Commission for its green space.

Public Discussion closed

Dave: To address a couple of your concerns, the master plan is referred to talk about improvements to the golf course in an awkward area. This wasn't something that was originally on it and it was submitted to us four or five years ago and we did look at it in context of the golf course. As a result of that is my concern about where the depression in the 11^th green comes from. That was outside of the context where we were looking at. In terms of our ability to act and how we are doing, the state law requires us on a request of determination after the 21 days of filing unless the applicant agrees to extend it. So whether someone is in a hurry coming in, whether Mr. Amirault is or not, it is beyond our capability to say we want to go outside of that term. I agree that this should be public discussion and a whole more that I feel was going into that, but at least at this point and time we only have a 21 day window to act on. I was actually there with some of the Conservation Commissioners today at about 6:30 p.m. and quite frankly I was shocked to see what had been done in this period when we are supposed to be determining whether or not we have jurisdiction, I was shocked to see the work that was done there, and quite frankly I am offended that just two weeks ago this Commission had to with the City of Melrose do a Cease and Desist Order on another project that was done because it wasn't done properly to have this done before we determine whether it is jurisdictional or not shocked me and I think it is reprehensible and I think it really needs to be addressed because Mr. Benezra is right, if it had been a private citizen that had come and done this it wouldn't be acceptable and it is not acceptable that the city has repeatedly done things that are not consistent with what this Commission is supposed to have jurisdiction over.

Mr. Amirault: When I said green space, the Park Commission considers green ball fields, landscape has green space also, but I think maybe Mr. Lynch would like to comment on that.

Mr. Lynch: I am going to speak to the issue of drainage because from the outgo I have been concerned with drainage. The pictures that Attorney Benezra just passed out I think speak to the point I am trying to make is that if you look at the topography that as shown on the map, you look at the photographs even instead of stated tree clearing, you look at the rock outcroppings, and what you have is the topology. You have an impervious surface. You have mud that is only not more than 8 inches over burden, over rock outcroppings over solid ledge, and with the topography shown in the plan, the water force is the funnel down to what the natural water force was down where Trimount is and the Attorney General's ruling back in the 80's to Trimount to build this perimeter road around the edge created this berm. Again I am not saying that trapping water isn't jurisdictional, trapping water certainly is, but trap the water what was the normal outfall of this valley down towards Trimount, down towards 17 where the brook is and then all the way out towards Revere and the marsh. Looking at the impervious surface, and again this is all gut feeling, the impervious of the ledge outcroppings and the terrain confining in the funnel in the rock formations that Attorney Benezra spoke of can show up on the plan on the short term needs to be contained during the fill operation, and the longer term filled with gravel air, with sand, with loam on top of it and up take from lawn provide the longer term benefit of holding that water from runoff onto the site. So that concern I think can be addressed with Camp Dresser McKee. The irony is that I can't help but notice that the area we are talking about, even this plan which is grandiose, doesn't even show it as being disturbed. The access road around it, and even this Commission can allow temporary alterations up to a limit though they are avoiding it and protecting the hay bales to go around it, and this other one up here hasn't even been disturbed yet other than tree clearing within 50 ft. of it which they held back from until their determination.

Mr. Benezra: The second area is about 50 ft. there?

Mr. Lynch: The second area up here, the tree clearing that has occurred is held back approximately 50 ft. from that area that we are talking about.

Mr. Benezra: What about the dumping?

Mr. Lynch: That is not up in this area, sir. That is down in this area I think. Let me see the photograph you are looking at. Go up there today and you can see there is no fill there. It is as simple as that. Go there tomorrow there is no fill there. If you show me a photograph here, but will stay on the field which you have been to. I appreciate your respect what you have said, but don't show me that picture and say that is this area because it is not.

Mr. Benezra: No, the area they are talking about is this area.

Mr. Lynch: I know the area I am talking about and it is not that photograph.

Bob: Gentleman, Joe continue on with the drainage effects.

Mr. Lynch: This area up here has not been disturbed. The tree clearing has in effect held back and the fill is not up in this area. This area, there is no doubt about the hay bales all around it and in this plan is showing avoidance from it, and if you make a Positive Determination I would expect that area to be preserved if that is what you look for in a Notice of Intent to come forward with design plans. But I think that this area, ironically enough acts as the receiver area.and the detention, that in the longer term that the runoff is controlled by virtue of these fields in the state that is now currently impervious by virtue of the ledge, and I think it is enough to be said as far as the concern, absolutely we are concerned. Why? For my own selfish reasons. The municipal composting site, the one that we benefit from, came up here on this right of way and I have been concerned with that from the very beginning, and the reason why I have been involved is to make sure I have my access maintained for the compost area and that this project does not derogatorily impact us. Runoff to me is my biggest concern because if we have a breach of order down this area, or an increase of water, the function alley of that area is compromised. I know you people have been to the site. I caution photographs being shown when I am indicating a particular area of representation where I know that I stood today myself, not an hour before we began, not filled and I just saw a photograph with a dump truck there reported to be that location.

Nancy: Joe, based on your knowledge of the area, could you show us just roughly pointing from high to low which way the water runs off the site in its existing condition and then show us which way the water would go after the fields are put in based on that conceptual design.

Mr. Amirault: I can tell you right off the bat. It will be configured, the drainage will go in the same area.

Mr. Lynch: You have a ridge line where the tower lot is formed out to this knob ridge. You have ridge along this whole ridge here. All that water finds its way down to this location where the topography peters out.

Nancy: And it sort of is dammed up here a little bit by the road that goes along the side of the quarry.

Mr. Lynch: Correct, and if you look at this temporary haul road, if you look at the topography of the burr through the attorney's general order you can see through the dam it is a historical dam.

Nancy: So right now. This is like a little wall here and the water comes through here. Are there going to be the fields extending over this ridge? Will there be some water from this side that would go this way that would be diverted?

Mr. Amirault: No, there are three water sheds in the area. One water shed goes to the Saugus River water shed which is from the point of the tower northward, there is another water shed that goes out the Malden Riverway which is from that ridge over that way through the 12th down 13^th, 14^th, and then the other one around that goes 3^rd pond, 2^nd pond, 1^st pond, Towners Pond, Swains Pond. This is a separate water shed that all from that ridges goes this way. Everything will be constructable, keep that drainage pattern this way. Nothing that will be constructed will drain back over the other way to change that tradition of flow pattern.

David: If anything, from what I am looking at here if they cause a problem with this it is going to be on the 12th fairway where there is already a flooding problem and it could make it worse.

Mr. Amirault: But we don't intend that anything drain that way.

David: The two soccer fields that you have here drawn where the water would drain off is down to the lower part.

Mr. Amirault: Everything flows this way now and this will be designed that everything will still flow that way. The last thing we want to do is come over this ridge and impact this separate water shed.

David: As you have drawn the fields on this, you have.

Mr. Amirault: No, if you look at the elevation lines.

David: Those are the elevation lines dropping into the 12th fairway. The bottom corner drops this way and you may do something to mitigate it, but...

Mr. Amirault: It would be configured that way in the end. That is a criteria what we are going to give Camp Dresser McKee.

David: As someone who has played golf at Mt. Hood, I know you don't want to make the 12^th fairway worse because you can skate there during the winter. Before you sit down can I ask a question, because you said something earlier that looking at this I may have misunderstood, but what I thought you said was when this fills up and backs up it will cross and flow over to a wetland there, but looking at the elevations here, this is 197, it won't back up. It is going to cross the 196. 4 here, and slow down to this depression.

Mr. Lynch: This is the creast right here, and this is 196.4, so without the road here if this filled, and I don't know that there would be enough water, if it filled to 197 ft., it would have flowed into the depression here. I don't know if it has ever happened, I just want to...

Mr. Lynch: The spot grades, we are talking about 6/10 in height of the break.

Bob: Water won't flow, Joe. I walked it. You are walking straight up and then over again. It will not flow.

David: 197.9 is the peak before it starts to go back down so it would have to go 1 ½ ft. above here before it flowed on that side. In theory, if we had a huge storm we could get 2 ft. above that.

Mr. Lynch: And I have never, even in the most severe storm, seen that.

David: I haven't seen that happen and I don't know it would happen, I just wanted to see how the flow is.

Nancy: My concern was just drainage before and after a project of this scale. Also, keep in your mind that water being drained off these scales would be of a different character.

Bob: So we all agree that you are looking for the calculation that David is talking about.

David: I would like to ask about this picture as well. I could be wrong, but based on the fact that this is the road, it appears to me that this picture was taken somewhere from this area over the water that we saw here.

Mr. Lynch: I can't tell. The photographer is in the room if he could show us where.

Mr. Benezra: Yes, the water is next to the road.

Mr. Lynch: Over the water or the road beyond that?

Mr. Benezra: I don't want to be accused of misrepresenting this, it was my find that area is permanent. I think this area, which I thought was what you were talking about is that water, if I am incorrect I apologize. If you look at the road you'll see that this here has been probably a good shot that will help you. I am not an expert photographer, but you can see the dumping from the road.

Mr. Lynch: All of these are in fact this lower one down there. When I was speaking up top there is when you presented these pictures.

Mr. Benezra: I was not trying to figure out whether or not you were making a determination...I thought and I may be mistaken so I just want to correct it if I was wrong in this ledger that I thought there was a question of whether or not this water that I am showing here....

Mr. Lynch: If you wish for the record is clear, when I was plugging that area I was talking about the maintaining of the 50 ft. no clear zone.

Bob: Where you have the pencil at this point, we will call that water hole 1, water hole 2 will be the second one, water hole 3 is beyond this area that we are looking at. We are now looking at water hole 1.

Mr. Lynch: In the pictures that Attorney Benezra presented earlier, and again now, is in fact water hole 1.

David: Here is my concern that these pictures show me. First, is that when we walked there today there was hay bales. Well, apparently those weren't in place when the road was first constructed because we can see from that picture two things, first is that the color of the water indicates that silt from this fill was into the water, the second is that it appears to me that a portion of this potential resource area has already been filled.

Mr. Lynch: It depends on the prospect, I see a hay bale in that picture.

David: But if we look at this right here, you can see the edge of the dirt coming down the hill, you can see the edge of the dirt here and here. The dirt comes in to and up against the water. The color of the water is very similar to the color of the silt that would have come out of the soil that was filled there. So it looks like this was done afterwards and it looks like we have already encroachments to what may be a resource area.

Mr. Lynch: Only photographs in that area are the ones that we are looking at, and out of all them I see but one hay bale that is remotely visible.

David: That you can see clearly coming down the slope here. This is where the road is, this is the slope of the fill, that is the water, there is nothing on that slope, and I can't tell from that picture where the bank of that body of water was at the time the fill was done, but it appears from that picture that part of this potential resource area has already been filled.

Mr. Lynch: I can't deny that and I cannot know either.

David: I know that and the only way we could know for sure is to have surveyor go out and put a topo over there of what is existing based on this plan.

Paul: For the record, when were the hay bales put out before the road was put in place, or was fill put there before the hay bales were established?

Mr. Amirault: The hay bales were put there early. I think the hay bales might have been moved, might have been disturbed and replaced. At all times we did our best to protect the resource.. Did we do a perfect job? No, Were the trucks coming in as fast as they could ? Yes. Did we re-establish the line? Yes, we did re-establish the line. We absolutely could have done a better job of protecting the beginning of that resource.

David: Do you understand my anger? This should not have happened. We should not be having this discussion now, and my inclination, Mr. Chairman, is:

I make a Motion we recommend a Positive Determination. Unless the applicant agrees to stop work in the area and agrees to give us a continuance, my recommendation is that we issue a Positive Determination. If there are calculations that could show that this is not a resource area, they are welcome to come back and ask us to reverse that decision or even welcome to appeal it to DEP. Based on what we have right now, we have two situations, the first we are unable to act beyond our visual inspection in this area and my indication is that it may be a resource area; my second recommendation is that we issue a Cease and Desist Order until we have full Notice of Intent before us and determine what the work is and the impact on these prospective the isolated land subject to flooding.

Discussion

Dave I think your direct quote was "that looks like a lot of water to me".

Bob: Are you talking about water hole 1?

Bruce: Water hole 1, and it was also obvious from what we were looking at there was sediment floating in the water so it has been recently disturbed. I think that we need to find out what the acreage is to determine whether or not it is isolated land subject to flooding.

Bill: This is general census that water hole 1 may not be isolated land subject to. Flooding. You haven't given us enough to say yes or no. Right now you are at the request stage. In my view it might be simpler to continue to come back on that basis and attempt to show us with up to date calculations and anything else the Engineering Department may wish to show to prove that it is or is not, in your case it is not. That's all a likely concern. Some of the other issues tonight are beyond our purview, well spoken and well aired, but we wouldn't have any right to speak them in any event, but that issue that David raised is on the table and we don't have enough to say yes or no. If that is the case, our job is to say no, an issue of Positive Determination and make you prove it formally. You may want to come back and try to prove it before you get that straight.

David: What I would have to say to you I guess is two fold: 1) part of my motion, if it is agreed that we continue you is that the work doesn't continue until we determine it. I personally could not in good conscience withdraw my motion if it is based and predicated on the fact the work will continue until we determine what needs to be done. The second is under the rules of parliamentary procedure the normal meeting will not poll its members there with help and debate, but it would be a violation of rules, parliamentary procedure and a process that this board should follow to poll prior to a vote, so to a certain extent you would be playing roulette, you wouldn't know how this board felt until afterwards unless you could tell through the course of our debate tell how other members felt.

Mr. Amiraut: Can you define what you mean by work stoppage? There is no more road construction adjacent to that area. We are beyond that area. All that I would propose would happen there at the moment would be trucks going by.

David: There is a potential and I can highlight it telling you that it happened on a construction site where this truck going by fell down a hill similar to this one, so there is a potential that the resource area could further be damaged as a result of continuing activity in the area. One of the things that could come out of this is this determines to be a resource area, could we require you to remove that and restore the conditions which creates a second problem in that it may be difficult , not impossible, to do your haul road to this particular route which creates a whole other set of issues from a political standpoint that I know you are trying to avoid, meaning coming up through the other side of the golf course.

Bruce: There is the outflow from water hole 2. It is obviously falling into possibly the resource area and the isolated land subject to flooding the water area 1. If the road was to cross that area between there it would cut off the flow of water from 1 to 2.

David: It already has crossed that area and filled it high enough that it would back up considerably on the other side because when we came through this was filled up into here.

Bob: Was there any water on the other side?

David: There was here and there was water here.

Bob: Besides those water holes 1 and 2, were there any pools of water on either side of the roadway.

David: None that we observed.

Bob: So there is no flowing between.the waterholes at this time.

David: There is water here, but still in Mr. Benezra's pictures....

Bob: The way the ground is ripped up and so forth there will be water everywhere. If you go there tomorrow you will probably see more puddles after this rainstorm.

David: And that was my point. The pictures here are just depressions from the construction, as a result of it.

Bob: That is correct. You are looking at two water holes at this point, water hole 1 and water hole 2. Any other water on the property or on this particular area we are looking at is basically depression by the construction equipment and it will be filled with water with the rainstorms we have been having. We are not looking at anything else besides those two water holes.

Bob: Okay, so the biggest problem we have is the size of water hole 1 and the drainage calculations going to that water hole 1. I will ask Rick do you wish to continue the session until the next meeting when you can generate some calculations and size of this water hole 1, or do you wish to go with a Positive Determination at this time.

Mr. Amirault: I don't want to go with the Positive Determination and I would like to ask some of the other commissioners this evening to see where they are all going to go. In lieu of going for the Positive Determination, let us go back to the calculations and I would like to see what the rest of the Commissioners think.

Peter: My comment is a little more procedural. We have a compound motion. Either you are looking for a Positive Determination or if you don't have a Positive Determination, we would ask that the petitioner allow an extension. I think under Roberts Parliamentary Procedure we have to make singularly stated motions. If your first motion is I want a Positive Determination then we can vote on that forthwith.

David: I think I can make a complex moti