May 26, 2026 – Surface Water Quality Committee – Video & Transcript
May 26, 2026 - Surface Water Quality Committee
All right. Well, it's 7.02 p.m. Let's jump into it.
And as always, because we're remote, let's go around the room
and just announce our presence for the record.
And I'll start. Tom Klem, present.
Tom Largy, aye.
Larry Kiernan, present.
Steve Garone, present.
Great. Thank you. Thanks, everybody.
I will open the floor to any public comment.
There is nobody in the attendees section. Okay. Thanks so much. Then our first item of business, as usual, it will be to approve the minutes. I sent those around. If anybody has any comments, now is your opportunity to speak. If there are no comments, then I make a motion to approve the minutes from 21 April as submitted to the committee. All right. No comment. Second. Okay. Larry, jumping in for the second. All right. And then let's go around the room. Tom Largy, aye. Steve Garone, aye.
Tom Klem, aye.
Larry? Yes. Okay. It's not enough to second. And you've got to commit one way or the other. All right. Yes. I know. All right. Great. Thank you, everybody. All right. The two perennial topics, Herd Pond and Dudley Pond. And Steve, I've got Herd Pond first. So we're going to start there. So, sorry, the dog. I'm alone here with the dog downstairs. Hang on.
Sorry about that. Last time we met, I gave the committee an update on the two quotes that we have outstanding for Herd Pond. One is for the annual hand harvesting of the water chestnuts. The other was to go through an approval process, or excuse me, an RFP process for, let me back up, actually. It was to get a contract in place for the herbicide application on Herd Pond. We also had to get a contract in place for the hand pulling of water chestnuts. And when I'd spoken last year with Kelsey, assistant at town administrator on this, she said, and we've experienced this before, that any contract over $10,000 needs to go out for RFP. And we hadn't done one for a while on Herd Pond. So I had put together a draft request for proposals. And in the course of drafting that and submitting it to Kelsey and waiting for it to get posted out there, she said, is this going to be for multiple years? I said, yeah, let's do it for three years. That way we don't have to do this every three years. And I don't know if the Massachusetts general laws have changed or the conditions are different if it's a multi-year contract. But she said, well, if it's three years and it's under $50,000 and you don't need to go through an RFP. I said, great, let's do that. So, Steve, do you say, Steve, I can't hear you. So that's no RFP needed in the next couple of years. No RFP, but let me open the floor to Steve. Steve, you were going to make a comment? No, I just, I wasn't, I didn't hear what you said. Under what dollar value? So what I had been, what I had understood before when we had done this is if there's any contract for any activity that's over $10,000, it has to go through an RFP process. So whatever committee, in this case, us, we put together this RFP that describes the scope of work. The town posts it. I think it's got to be up for a week minimum, but they have to get, ideally, they'll get three bids and the town will choose strictly the lowest dollar cost contract. So that was my understanding. And we had done this once before for activities on Dudley Pond. So I had done that. And then Kelsey said, do you want this to be for multiple years? I said, yes, I'd rather do that every few years than every year. And she said in that case, if it's under, if it's three years and it's under $50,000, then there's no need for an RFP. And I said, great, that's a win all around. So we didn't have to do it after all. And again, I don't know if the Massachusetts general laws have changed or the criteria are different for multi-year contracts versus one-year contracts. I didn't want to poke the bear on that one. So I said, yes, three years. So we have that contract in place. That's what I sent to everybody. It hasn't been signed by Solitude yet that I know of. So I'll follow up with, or Tom, if you want to follow up with Jeff and have him sign that. I don't mind doing it, Tom, if you're kind of out of action. Well, I, you know, I'd prefer you do it. I have a lot on my plate this coming week. I have a hearing on MassHealth for a son, and I'm picking up a new outboard motor tomorrow, which I may not use fully for a while. But I looked over. It seemed to me that I saw a contract, and somebody had signed from Solitude. Maybe I was looking at the herbicide contract. I was just, you know, looking at a couple things in Outlook. Let me, I know I sent a couple of docs. Yeah, you sent a couple of attachments. That's what I looked at. Well, let me just check, because Kelsey did say that she had gotten the hand-pulling contract confused with the one for ClearCast. And so per her email, she said she got it straightened out. Let's see here.
Let me just bear with me while I do a preview on this thing.
Fully executed contract for hand removal. Okay. So we should be in good shape. And, yeah, I saw there was a signature. So, Tom, I'll just follow up and make sure that Solitude has signed off on it. Yeah. I did see a signature for a vendor, and several signatures on the Wayland side. So, anyway. Okay. And then the ClearCast one is still working its way through either the town side or the Solitude side. So, good news. Well, good news, certainly on the water, the hand-pulling. But I want to give the committee an update on this. So, I had also mentioned in prior meetings that when we did the ClearCast application last year, we weren't certain how effective it was. And, furthermore, at the very southern end, at the very end of the southern cove of Herd Pond, there was a large mass of water chestnuts that hadn't really been impacted at all by the application of the herbicide. And what Tom and I had mentioned amongst ourselves was we didn't think that the Solitude team had gone all the way to that boundary. To us, that boundary is where the water and the reeds kind of hit each other. And there was space between where the reeds began and into the pond where the water chestnuts hadn't been impacted at all. So, we felt that Solitude hadn't gone all the way to the perimeter that they could have to apply this herbicide. So, I had a Zoom call with Tanner Poole, who's our contact at Solitude for the herbicide application. And Stephanie Koch at Fish and Wildlife, who was the person we had to go, Larry, this is before you had joined the committee. But we, when we had to get the permit for this last year, we began with CONCOM. CONCOM said we had to go to the state. The state said, well, go check with the feds because you're close to the Minuteman Reserve. So, it was an escalating series of events. But we eventually met with Stephanie and she approved the work and then the state approved it and then CONCOM approved it. So, it all worked out in the end. But if our supposition was correct that the Solitude hadn't gone all the way to the boundary or, in fact, needed to go into Fish and Wildlife territory, we needed to talk to Stephanie and find out what that process would entail. And Tom had reached out to her by email a while ago and the stars aligned and the three of us, myself, Tanner, at Solitude and Stephanie were able to meet. And what I learned, what was my misunderstanding, was that the boundary between federal land and state land is a fixed boundary. But when you're talking about the water on the pond, depending on how high or low the water level is, that really dictates how close, in this case, Solitude can get to that boundary to apply the herbicide. And so, they weren't able to apply all the way to that boundary because the water was higher at that time. So, rather than the fact that Solitude neglected to apply herbicide to the fullest extent of their range, it was just the water was high enough and that was past that boundary for Fish and Wildlife. So, that's why they didn't go in there and Tanner had used his nav to carefully monitor where he was applying. So, it was really more of a misunderstanding on my part and not that Solitude didn't fulfill the full scope of their contract. It was simply the water was higher and they couldn't go past that boundary to apply herbicide that part. And the reason they can't go beyond that boundary is federal rules? It's right. And so, that requires, so part of that discussion that we had was if we wanted to go farther in, if the water remains high, to apply herbicide, you've got to go through a separate round of approval through the feds and Stephanie outlined this whole process for us. The short answer is it's nothing that's going to happen this year. I've got to go through my notes and sort of lay out all the steps, which I'll do. But Stephanie doesn't approve that. It's approved by some engineer somewhere. Yeah, let me see if I can. Get my notes here. To go beyond the boundary. So, we have to apply for a special use permit. And then that... And when you say boundary, you mean the state line versus federal line? Correct. Correct. So, Herd Pod fights up against the Minuteman Reserve. And so, the parcels there between federal and state are fixed boundaries. And so, if we want to go past that boundary from the state side into the federal side, there's a special permitting process and a form to complete a review process, which, you know, you've got to... It takes time to go through that. Yeah. So, I can initiate that. It won't happen this year. But we can still go ahead and do herbicide within the boundaries delineated under the conditions. And if I recall, they've approved use of this in the past, not here, but on other federal land. Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. They use it themselves on the Bunbury River. Right. Right. I think there are still issues there. My understanding is that, and I've said it before, that the Commonwealth land goes right up to the pond boundaries. And somehow, you know, maybe, you know, as surveyed, federal land goes under the pond. Probably should not have happened. But that's neither here nor there.
What's set is set this year, which I think is quite a problem because it leaves that strip with a thousand lines dropping seeds. Yeah. It's like leaving a seed bed. Yeah. Yeah. But so be it. We're, you know, I was not able to sit in on that meeting because that's the day I had my fall. and I was preoccupied otherwise. So anyway, we'll just leave it, go at that. And my, my, and I'm very glad that Tom is running with this. I have no, no, no taste whatsoever for doing any more permitting paperwork. I'm finished with it. I think it, I think it helps that I, in my day job, I work in a regulated industry. So I think I'm used to specifically this, but so I'm, I'm used to a bureaucratic slow moving process. So it was good to learn that. And so I'll initiate that process for, you know, see where it goes, right? There's nothing to lose on this when I fill out a form, it gets submitted somewhere, someone looks at it and says yay or nay. Fine. I can go ahead and do that. Now, also on the call, I forgot to mention was Emily Cuellar, who is the assistant to Linda Hansen in the Conservation Commission. And so two things came out of this that I was not anticipating. The first of these was when we got the permit to apply ClearCast last year, I had assumed that it was like with Procella Corps on Dudley Pond. It's just open-ended and you just go before ConCom and say, we're doing Procella Corps this year. Emily corrected me or made me aware, I should say, that that was not the case. That permit that we got last year was only for last year and we, doesn't mean we can use it just without informing the Conservation Commission. So, it seems like I just need to go and request it and fortuitously they are meeting tomorrow night. So I'm going to go before ConCom tomorrow and make them aware that we're going to apply, our intent is to apply ClearCast again on Herd Pond. Hopefully it won't be an issue. If it is an issue then this committee will be apprised and if it is an issue I'll find out what needs to be done to make this more like the Procella Corps permit where we just simply go and give ConCom notice and we, there are certain preparatory steps we take but we don't have to go through a permitting process every time. So that was news to me. I assumed it was sort of like you know these orders of conditions are good for five years or so. I thought we had five years to do for this window of herbicide amongst other things. So I'll go before ConCom tomorrow and make the request. One more thing that will open before any comment is Stephanie also made us aware and Tom had done this in the past that even for hand harvesting of water chestnuts on Herd Pond we don't have to get a permit per se but we, well Stephanie called it a permit but we have to make the feds aware that we're going to do hand harvesting of water chestnuts on Herd Pond. Stephanie said we just, she made a sound and Tom has done this in the past like I said you just write to them and say hey we're doing hand harvesting on the pond this year and they give an approval or in Tom's prior experience I'm not sure they even replied to you Tom we just went ahead and did it. You sent the emails. Yeah, yeah, I, you know, two former fish and wildlife you know, management directors Libby Hurland years ago and another woman with a Vietnamese name I, I took them both around the pond and I, and they merely asked for a notification but of course with the turmoil and the feds you know, it's pretty hard to even call them you call them and you don't hear for months so I had no idea who to apply to there is a new and nothing ever went to Stephanie it was always to the refuge manager but just a simple statement saying that and it turns out the pond itself is not fish and wildlife property it's the strip of land between the pond and Pelham Island Road that I've been told that that we're transporting the weeds across that strip that's that's what it amounts to the pond itself is none of their business you might say so that's as as it had been mentioned to me in the past the last refuge manager I talked to several years ago she said well yeah we should just know so that because there are fish and wildlife law enforcement who by the way I've interacted with two or three times one time I went out my small boat I left my wallet in the truck and I always carry my fishing license in the wallet he checked me I said well I've been pulling weeds but I always have a fishing rod in the boat so he excoriated me for that I thought that was pretty dumb but anyway so that's my understanding it's a simple notification so that's that's the the update so there's hold on I've got another call we've got a son who's hospitalized and I'm getting a call from him I'm going to step away from a minute for a minute okay well we I'll open the floor to Steve to you and Larry if you have any comments or questions on it that was the wrap up of the herd pond section so you know we have one contract going through it feels like there's a bit of spinning wheel I learned of a few more things that I have
might have about herd pond activities I have I have kind of a general question which I always wonder about is there any way for us to review the status of our budget at this point oh actually because we have that invoice for the deadly pond testing I was going to call that up because yeah right now the budget is something I maintain and I've called it up in prior meetings so I can bring it up after we go through deadly pond I'll bring the budget up and show you guys what's left we're going to squeak by with our last thousand dollars here the fiscal year ends at the end of June so Steve you made a comment about buying a piece of equipment for 250 bucks might wait until July 1st no not no not but and that's part of what I want to talk about okay let's we're gonna wait for Tom or well we we have a quorum and I'd like to you know I know that he's you know let's just press on I can get him caught up either afterwards or once his office called but yeah Steve I do have the budget and if we go through Dudley Pond we can we can review that Steve is there any to turn up
you know what that's that's yeah it sounds like you do I don't know this is the mic I wait maybe I'm on the wrong mic let's see no I have the
this is the mic I always use I don't understand why it's not earbuds earbuds do I have them handy I don't have them handy one second okay audio out Tom you're on mute I wonder if this will work hey Tom we can't hear you you're on mute can you hear me now you're still okay now I okay can you hear me now yeah Tom I can hear you and Steve I can hear you but you're still you're still faint yeah it's kind of weird okay hold on you can just yell the rest of the meeting Steve we won't mind well that would be a switch usually I'm being yelled at that was pretty good that was better I'm like leaning in here yeah this is turning into a bit of a clue okay all right hang on a second let me let me see if there's a volume adjustment here I'm not a you sound fine to me oh that speaker microphone turn up the volume so Tom you can hear Steve clearly how about absolutely how about this well that's that's that's good yeah I just went into my system and turn up the mic volume but I don't I don't know you're fine bye okay okay so what are we doing now okay well so now we we've concluded the herd pond part of the agenda and we're going to Dudley pond and I was looking at the agenda that I had sent and it's not quite up to date it just says we're looking for volunteers to do water chemistry testing on the pond and I guess we'll start there because Steve you want to give the the background to the committee on on Ben Wetherill and his ability to support chem testing because it sounds like we don't need to have a you do it or a volunteer from ORS but Ben can do it it sounds like no well yes and no and I'm a little surprised that we only have one invoice so I'm that I I'll I'll explain what that means in a minute so the last meeting we went through a discussion about the fact that Ben Wetherill who usually does the dissolved oxygen and some of the other measurements and analyzes them is no longer able to do it it has to do with I guess town insurance so Norm Marowitz who you know took the initiative to actually go and rent a meter the same one that that Ben used and it turned out that and we used it I actually used it and it turned out to be a little bit easier than we thought it was going to be so we we did that but we did give the numbers to Ben to analyze it okay which he doesn't need insurance for because he's in front of his computer so okay that's what it is so you know we've got we've I'm expecting as we did in the past two invoices one from Ben which should be less than what it used to be because he didn't go out on the boat with us and from the lab for the actual water sample measurements that we also did that day that's PACE name of the lab that's the invoice that we got and that we'll vote on later on right okay so there is going to be another one from Ben I you know I it could be don't quote me on this but it could be that norm committed to have the Dudley Pond Association pay for him but I'm not sure about that you're talking about the renting of the meter no the renting of the meter no the Dudley Pond Association paid for the renting of the meter I'm talking about Ben's time to analyze the results for us okay so he did part of his job but not all of his job okay and that's the part that's what you're questioning whether
I think we're paying for it but I would just keep it that way because we part of our routine for years has been Ben would do the water meter and he would plot the information up for us there was now pace labs the chemistry testing let's just keep with that and then if the DPA wants to rent the meter for Ben or for you or whoever well it's not for Ben if they're going to rent the meter that's fine that could be
so if DPA wants to handle that fine if Ben wants to crush the numbers then he can invoice for that and then that's really been part of again of our budget for year after year so let's just keep with that that I would I would actually prefer I don't really care who pays for it but I I would like I think we should be in charge of this but you know I feel very strongly about that yeah in fact so I'll get to the next part of what I wanted to say as you recall Tom and I think we may have mentioned it on at our last meeting we had an algae bloom on Dudley Pond this spring so Norm went a little AI crazy and started asking AI what the possible causes could be and what the solutions might be and he got this bug in his head about well we should do an alum treatment of a specific area in the pond specifically the deepest part claiming that dissolved oxygen is being released and it's causing this algae to do its thing now he started then giving information to Wendy Gendron who I think you know who is with ARC and yeah let me so Larry Wendy Gendron has worked with the committee and the deadly pond association in the past she has done plant surveys of the pond and the last one she had done one in 2020 or 2021 and we had her we contracted with her last year to do two surveys one before before the mechanical harvester goes on the pond and pulls all the tape grass and then a survey afterwards just to get a sense of how effective that harvesting has been and what the change in the plant distribution is so we had these two reports last from Wendy and she had some recommendations and some solutions in there but this Al J. Bloom that Steve is talking about so Wendy knows people in DPA Bob Smith and Norm so with this Al J. Bloom what Steve is alluding to is that Norm went to Wendy to get her feedback on stuff so that's kind of the backdrop for what Steve is filling us in on now well you know alum that that's that's been debated before years and years ago the issue of alum treatment has come up I think it's fairly expensive and I you know what it is you put the alum down and it essentially locks in things and it's going to be there forever in the bottom of the pond I
it's been rejected before I don't know if the LJ blooms are new seems to me there may have been blooms in years past I don't remember anyway so so the next so what happened was I shoved myself in the middle of that conversation I reached out to Wendy and said you know really you should be talking with surface water quality about this and she was going to send a sample bottle over in fact I missed I felt terrible about this she sent me an email one day a couple of weeks ago that she was going to be in the area and she
she went off so we connected by telephone and she sent me the bottle now the cost that you mentioned earlier I said so Wendy if and by the goal of this sample bottle is to find out what the algae actually is so I said well what is it going to cost to get this done by the way she is not on board with this Allen thing to your point Tom Largie okay and she doesn't think it's dangerous algae but you know it's worth testing for and so she sent me the bottle and it sounded like from what she said that testing the sample will cost on the order of about $250 so she is gone she's on vacation now she's going to be back next Wednesday and I'm not going to figure out a way to pay for it what does tell you hold on who had the floor Tom go ahead yeah I hope this is not an old bottle you know it's very important when you're testing that you have a bottle of whatever you're testing is a fresh bottle so I if you still have it in your possession right here well I don't know how effective that would be what I'm sorry what do you want to know he's just yeah I don't think it's effective to test a bottle that's been sitting around for some time unless it
it's empty right now Tom there's nothing in it yeah it's not full of LJ now it's just an empty bottle right now so he's not there's no sample in it is that what you're referring to Tom yeah yeah I got the
in the meantime I'm raising the issue because if we're going to go ahead and test to see what this algae is we need to be able to pay for it okay so help me so we test the algae it's some species of algae then what do we do with that information well it could give us from what I understand it could give us some information as to how we deal with the problem but you have to know what it is first to be quite honest you know Wendy is
like is the answer a $10 chemical spray or a $10,000 is there a range of what the answer is once it's tested so Steve this is just this test you're talking about this is just to identify these algae just identifying it I don't know what the response would be from an organization that deals with this stuff in terms of what it would cost and what work they would do that comes later you know when it comes to algae cyanobacteria it seems to me there's been lots of hysteria in recent years people see algae or they think they see it turns out Kachitua State Park is closed and they tested and it's okay and then something shows up and it's closed and might have been closed half the summer and I was looking a year or so ago I think it was the state of Maine website and their advice was if you're standing in the water and you can't see your toes then you have a problem but anyway not the problem in Dudley Pond I know this firsthand anyway yeah so this is to identify it Wendy by the way does not think that this is a dangerous algae too it really doesn't based on what she saw when she came to the pond I wasn't here that's her opinion so you know that's I don't think it should cause a lot of hysteria or concern although it definitely did with Norm Norm went you know a little crazy yeah Norm went down that rabbit hole of getting all that information so the question I'm not advocating for this definitely but would it be good to know what it was or what it is why not yeah let me let me just to Tom's point about let's not use the word hysteria but concern so I've been hearing from folks this weekend we did a cleanup on one NFW pond I was hearing from folks about this I wasn't around I apologize for that no no that's okay but I mean to
cyanobacteria but this is more algae and so identifying it as the first step to who knows what I think if you identify it as a harmless bacterium then people were talking about trapping nutrients so you don't have more of these blooms that's where the alum talk came in and so on so Steve is that algae still around I'm guessing this is
I was out in my boat just before this meeting and I'm not really sure I mean there may be some over near the shoreline but if you're out in the middle of the pond I haven't I don't see anything at this point okay so there's not the Board of Health as an example on the Town Beach and do some testing and
certainly on the Town Beach and Lake Kachitra there have been some concerns I believe they've tested in the past you know that's that's a good point because if this is just a benign algae then the question gets back to how do we prevent these larger growths of benign algae Board of Health or the Health Department does test
might be a pragmatic way to do it I can reach to Julia because if she can do her test and it comes out negative then that saves us time in the 250 and then again we just get back to okay the algae itself is benign how do we prevent these larger blooms so I can take that step 250 is not certainly a big deal and it should be done by this
yeah I mean you know the other originally she wanted to send this sample bottle to Allison and I kind of got in the way of that for that very reason because I think we should be doing this but we can I can give it to Allison and let the DPA pay for it if
quickly Julia can get down there if she does these tests I believe she does because they don't want to just close the beaches because there's cyanobacterial bloom they do their regular testing I can inquire of
another layer between the DPA and somebody doing something but we can't have the norms the Allison's whoever is pinging the town for various things that's that's my sensitivity that's why I keep jumping in the middle of these things well it's also it's not just that it's it's you know it's information it's knowing what's going on you know the ARC reports that you
you know if I feel like or maybe you did it I'm not sure whether you did it or I did it but we kind of jumped in the middle of that because she thought she was just sending the results to Allison and we would
really do a lot of good work it's just they don't share stuff they don't you know integrate with us very well well in this case I think Wendy and her partner were sending stuff to the DP folks because they
can understand how that happened we got it strained out so well if you want to reach out what was her name again Julia yeah I'll reach out to Julia that's fine yeah and let me know what happens and you know like I said Wendy isn't back for like another week so we got some time okay yeah let me do that but let's let's take a vote here so right so we're gonna we're gonna we have this invoice which is gonna basically clean out our budget for the year and we have there's a DPA fund because the DPA used to reimburse the town for some of
not can we can have the DPA these funds that the DPA had reimbursed the town it's sitting in a separate account that's distinct from our the service of our committee budget and the 250 could come out of that that way because I don't see the need to know what kind of benign algae it is what you want to know is it toxic or not and if it's not
more than anecdotally people are saying now it's worse than it ever has been makes sense so to let me make one motion first so the chair myself makes a motion to reach out to the board of health to inquire if they can perform cyanobacterial toxin testing on the algae on Dudley Pond second first motion if I get a second on that one Steve did you second that that was okay okay and then let's go around the room to approve or not the action for me to go to reach out to the board of health for testing this algae on Dudley Pond Tom Largie aye sorry Larry and Tom Clem aye all right so let me go ahead and do that if Julia can't is unwilling then I'll make a second motion which is to collect a sample of the algae on Dudley Pond submit that to ARC for testing but the cost will be paid for out of not out of the surface water quality committee budget but deadly deadly pond association gift fund I'm definitely in favor of that well I'm sorry second second jump the gun yes Larry yes Steve Tom Largie aye Tom Clem aye great thank you so I will follow up on that first action and then Steve if Julia can't or is unwilling then you've got the authority to reach out to collect that sample hand it off to Wendy and I'll work through channels to get that paid for out of that DPA fund so it's not because it's the kind
excitement about this stuff and so the DPA should pay for it and then the other questions about alum or other kinds of treatments to be determined Steve you've been writing to Wendy because I know that this weekend when I saw Norm he was telling me all this stuff and Wendy doesn't have a contract with anybody she's giving this free consulting advice if you want to write to her because I think she wants to act but she can't act she doesn't have any official contract to do anything no one's in a position to pay her for her time so if you could just send her a note copy me and just say hey we had a committee meeting we're working out a plan of action you know if we do want have you engage for any activities we'll be the body to reach out to her for whatever it may be surveys testing alum treatment but just let her know that anything like that would come through this committee so she doesn't have to and even consulting time as well so she shouldn't feel like she has to hold back because she doesn't have any official authority to do so that will come from this committee so if you could send her note and copy me just so she's aware that we've had the discussion and I've told Norm not to be reaching out to
talking and soon it's going to cross a line and I can't just spend all this time talking to people but she did grant me a phone call which lasted about 20 minutes and we talked about this and what you said I've already made clear to her but it doesn't hurt to do it again okay okay so when you had that phone call you said that we are the entity she'll be dealing with for any future actions that was the reason we had the phone call because I
reaches out to her she can feel free to to ignore and say talk to us will be the official channel okay norm's gonna love that tom largie have you ever met norm marowitz yes i've met him a few times even
okay um great thank you so that's that's all the actions for for deadly pond didn't we have to approve payment of the invoice yeah let me let me call it up on the screen here so this is the so as the committee recalls we do water chemistry testing twice a year and steve did it or collected the
okay norm did somebody did it it got to the lab somehow they did the testing right let me call it up on the screen by the way i just got the results about five minutes ago just so you know oh okay yeah i just saw the invoice so let me share my screen just to
so it says okay it's $1,027 i was thinking of an old i was doing budgeting right before this that was the previous bill so this is what they test for chlorophyll nitrogen nitrate nitrogen total nitrogen phosphorus and some incidentals so $1,027 this is typically what it costs this is twice a year for our chemistry testing on Dudley Pond and so this is the data that Steve has just mentioned that he got a moment ago this is the invoice this isn't the invoice it says do not pay i just do you want me to forward the email to you that because it
let let let let let let open what he sent okay yeah i have the actual invoice i'll i'll forward it you want me to forward it to you well if you open your screen you can share on your screen i'll stop sharing hold on i'm going to open it up okay um zoom uh let's see i oh i can share right yeah okay so make sure you're you're on that do you see it oh yeah i do see it okay so this is the actual invoice yeah oh okay perfect this is great timing okay uh well this is what i just showed you guys and now this is the real invoice and again this twice a year for the water chemistry testing on on dudley pond and then steve talked about ben weatherill's data plotting that we'll get but ben would do the on pond meter readings for temperature dissolved oxygen and so on and his bill would be about a thousand dollars so for the two water tests that we
right so 500 for the report and 500 for the meter readings right but now it'll be 500 right and as i said i think what i think what norm did is he put the meter rental on his credit card and the dpa is going to reimburse him okay that works for me all right so does anybody have any questions about this or are we in position to for me to make a motion to approve payment please do that okay so somebody wants to leave so let me make a motion to approve payment of this invoice to pace analytical for water chemistry testing on for
tom clem i great thank you and so we got the approval so when that goes through steve to that was that copied to somebody on the town side um let me check um here's the results let's see uh a martin the
water department uh i don't understand um i don't understand why or how but must have to do with dpa uh working through the water department steve can you can you just forward that to me i'll send it to to kelsey they may have to resend it i don't know but let's send it if you could send it to me forward it to me
okay that okay okay that's fine all right you got it all right thanks okay uh so those are uh oh i'm not done yet so uh two one thing so last time we were here um there's there's four of us here but there's a fifth seat on the committee steve i didn't reach out to melissa roberts and she so did i oh okay she said she said june time frame is what she said june time frame all right um when she wrote to me a week or so ago she just said what is the process so i'll write back to her and tell her i'll copy you steve just so it can
submit it but i'll write to her i'll write back so we do have somebody a fifth person who's interested melissa roberts so hopefully she'll be able to come aboard soon all
i think it only ever mattered when it was mike lowry because he was enough of a gadfly they wanted to find a way to bounce him so anyways so melissa will hopefully be our fifth member in june sometime all right the last thing is steve you had asked about the budget yeah and if you guys are interested i can call that up and give you an update like i said we with this invoice once i get paid we basically zeroed out our
so let me let me walk you through this again this is a pretty rough tool that i've made to track stuff so at the very
runs through to june 30th of this year we basically zeroed it out so you know for the usual expenses that we have are for water chemistry testing on the pond twice a year this only has the October thing on here excuse me last October on there i haven't yet taken into account the May testing that
between Ben Weather Rail his company was a KSAC which is why you see a KSAC here so that's about $4,000 $5,000 every year for two testings this fiscal year was unique because we had those two surveys by ARC that was $5,000 just about but the default expense on Dudley Pond is the $5,000 or so for water chemistry testing on
about $12,000 for the hand harvesting plus the report so we spent $10,800 on hand harvesting last year which is doing quick math that was nine days of saw to cruise on the pond at $1,200 a day and then the report is $1,500 so about $12,000 a year for that for that work last year because we had to get the permitting and the herbicide application on the pond that was an extra close to $10,000 for that and it'll be similar again this year minus the permitting if I get the approval from ConCom tomorrow so that and we just approved that invoice for $1,027 so that basically zeros out our budget for the year I don't know how
to spend so that is how it broke down for the year and what I do here on the right hand side is you can ignore if paid in fiscal year 25 I I've been trying to get better about tracking when we pay for certain things if you look down here at this table down below let me scroll down
about this in years past I'm trying to get more more disciplined about tracking where the money goes and when it goes but were there any questions anybody had in particular about the budget well I'm a little confused because what you have just ignoring the chart on the bottom for a minute what you have above does not include paying the invoice we just approved well right so right now as $1,201 remaining so we just used $1,027 of that right and it doesn't include what we would have to pay Ben right and what is probably going to happen is we can approve that next time we meet so he will be the first 500 taken out of next year's budget again we may even have money left over I
if there's money left over does it roll to the next year or do we lose it correct it rolls over it'll roll it'll roll forward yes yeah I you know looking at these at these figures you know clearly Heard Pond has exploded in expense over what it was a number of years ago I and you can't forecast weeds who knows what it's going to be like except already we've got a drought condition very low water and these water chestlets are just extremely difficult you know we went for years with declining harvest thought we had it licked 2017 just an explosion we didn't clear we were not able to fully harvest them and a number of years since just exploded 12 years ago 15 years ago the South Cove was not the problem it is now it's gotten worse so at some point or other we'll have a discussion on the pond I see this going on into the next century Tom to your point the herbicide treatment on herd pond is going to be I suspect a chronic thing or an ongoing thing and then next year we'll likely have to do porcelicor on Dudley Pond I was just going to mention that like how and what is the process for making that the process is going to be so that would be it might geez we might even if we do if I recall we did it before June 30th so it could be a situation where we're going to have
contribution we could tap that resource but in general though Steve to your point so what will happen is I will have to work with Carol Martin and when we do the budget for this would be FY let's see it would be FY 28 because this will be it will take the second application will be later in the summer of next year which will be FY 28 so I have to work with Carol and so the service for our quality committee budget for FY 28 instead of being 30,000 would be on the order of $100,000 or base 30 plus 70 or more and then Tom if we have to do herbicide on herd pond it could be it'll be over that so I'll find out my thoughts to Carol I'll be you know when this budget time starts end of summer I'll make her aware that these are expenses coming up and you know help craft a warrant article that will be not just for again our base budget of $30,000 but that plus hang on that it'll be our base plus what we need for Purcellicor and for any herbicide on herd pond but formally that will be the process yeah one I don't want to speak for her but one of the skills and knowledge bases that I think Melissa is going to bring to the committee is the ability and the knowledge of writing grants and getting grants and right now she really I don't think she really has a context for it you know she's dealing with the DPA and that's all she really is doing at this point and I think that once she gets on this committee she'll better I think I will have a better idea as to what we're trying
get a grant having to do with the Nyanza cleanup that was $50,000 we spent it on Herd Pond unfortunately in a negligible impact but anyway all right all right so that concludes the agenda did anybody have anything pressing that needed to be brought up now the town is we used to have on the agenda topics not unknown 40 hours in advance the town is clamping down that you can't just pop up with a last minute agenda item so unless it's minor you're going to have to hold your tongue until we meet next time so with that let's think about meeting later in the June time frame so that would be maybe mid June so the 16th is a Tuesday or the 17th or the 23rd or 24th of June I have to get my calendar up just a minute too many tabs open all of those dates have a zoom available oh thank you who is this on the town side oh this is Abby hey Abby how soon should I lock that down because I've been doing it a week in advance which has proven problematic if we set a date tonight should I reach out tomorrow and say hey we need zoom for whatever date we settle on yes
okay the dates the way Wednesdays don't work in June for me but Tuesday and Thursday should be good well Thursday we can't do because remember we tried to do that one so it's Tuesday the 16th or Tuesday the 23rd the run is fine yeah I should be able to do we could do the 30th let me email you back Tom okay 30th should be okay too okay so 30th I should be fine okay well let's so Tom Largie let's tentatively make it the 30th and then Larry if you find out that's the week you're actually gone on the 30th yeah let's go with the 30th okay fine Steve you said the 30th is fine for you looks that way I always get surprised afterwards though my wife tells me oh but but I don't think that's going to happen here all right let's let's let's back up so Steve you were saying the 16th and the 23rd were fine those Tuesdays were fine and the 30th is probably fine too yeah all right well I'm going to put us down for the 30th and then Larry if you find out that the 30th is a date you're not free but one of the other ones is then I'll just email everybody and
okay if there's nothing else I make a motion to adjourn at 8 11 p.m can I get a second see jumps in with a second all right let's go around the virtual room at Tom Largie I Steve Garone I Mary Kiernan yes Tom Flemm I great thanks everybody see you tentatively on June 30th and Abby thanks for your support
There is nobody in the attendees section. Okay. Thanks so much. Then our first item of business, as usual, it will be to approve the minutes. I sent those around. If anybody has any comments, now is your opportunity to speak. If there are no comments, then I make a motion to approve the minutes from 21 April as submitted to the committee. All right. No comment. Second. Okay. Larry, jumping in for the second. All right. And then let's go around the room. Tom Largy, aye. Steve Garone, aye.
Tom Klem, aye.
Larry? Yes. Okay. It's not enough to second. And you've got to commit one way or the other. All right. Yes. I know. All right. Great. Thank you, everybody. All right. The two perennial topics, Herd Pond and Dudley Pond. And Steve, I've got Herd Pond first. So we're going to start there. So, sorry, the dog. I'm alone here with the dog downstairs. Hang on.
Sorry about that. Last time we met, I gave the committee an update on the two quotes that we have outstanding for Herd Pond. One is for the annual hand harvesting of the water chestnuts. The other was to go through an approval process, or excuse me, an RFP process for, let me back up, actually. It was to get a contract in place for the herbicide application on Herd Pond. We also had to get a contract in place for the hand pulling of water chestnuts. And when I'd spoken last year with Kelsey, assistant at town administrator on this, she said, and we've experienced this before, that any contract over $10,000 needs to go out for RFP. And we hadn't done one for a while on Herd Pond. So I had put together a draft request for proposals. And in the course of drafting that and submitting it to Kelsey and waiting for it to get posted out there, she said, is this going to be for multiple years? I said, yeah, let's do it for three years. That way we don't have to do this every three years. And I don't know if the Massachusetts general laws have changed or the conditions are different if it's a multi-year contract. But she said, well, if it's three years and it's under $50,000 and you don't need to go through an RFP. I said, great, let's do that. So, Steve, do you say, Steve, I can't hear you. So that's no RFP needed in the next couple of years. No RFP, but let me open the floor to Steve. Steve, you were going to make a comment? No, I just, I wasn't, I didn't hear what you said. Under what dollar value? So what I had been, what I had understood before when we had done this is if there's any contract for any activity that's over $10,000, it has to go through an RFP process. So whatever committee, in this case, us, we put together this RFP that describes the scope of work. The town posts it. I think it's got to be up for a week minimum, but they have to get, ideally, they'll get three bids and the town will choose strictly the lowest dollar cost contract. So that was my understanding. And we had done this once before for activities on Dudley Pond. So I had done that. And then Kelsey said, do you want this to be for multiple years? I said, yes, I'd rather do that every few years than every year. And she said in that case, if it's under, if it's three years and it's under $50,000, then there's no need for an RFP. And I said, great, that's a win all around. So we didn't have to do it after all. And again, I don't know if the Massachusetts general laws have changed or the criteria are different for multi-year contracts versus one-year contracts. I didn't want to poke the bear on that one. So I said, yes, three years. So we have that contract in place. That's what I sent to everybody. It hasn't been signed by Solitude yet that I know of. So I'll follow up with, or Tom, if you want to follow up with Jeff and have him sign that. I don't mind doing it, Tom, if you're kind of out of action. Well, I, you know, I'd prefer you do it. I have a lot on my plate this coming week. I have a hearing on MassHealth for a son, and I'm picking up a new outboard motor tomorrow, which I may not use fully for a while. But I looked over. It seemed to me that I saw a contract, and somebody had signed from Solitude. Maybe I was looking at the herbicide contract. I was just, you know, looking at a couple things in Outlook. Let me, I know I sent a couple of docs. Yeah, you sent a couple of attachments. That's what I looked at. Well, let me just check, because Kelsey did say that she had gotten the hand-pulling contract confused with the one for ClearCast. And so per her email, she said she got it straightened out. Let's see here.
Let me just bear with me while I do a preview on this thing.
Fully executed contract for hand removal. Okay. So we should be in good shape. And, yeah, I saw there was a signature. So, Tom, I'll just follow up and make sure that Solitude has signed off on it. Yeah. I did see a signature for a vendor, and several signatures on the Wayland side. So, anyway. Okay. And then the ClearCast one is still working its way through either the town side or the Solitude side. So, good news. Well, good news, certainly on the water, the hand-pulling. But I want to give the committee an update on this. So, I had also mentioned in prior meetings that when we did the ClearCast application last year, we weren't certain how effective it was. And, furthermore, at the very southern end, at the very end of the southern cove of Herd Pond, there was a large mass of water chestnuts that hadn't really been impacted at all by the application of the herbicide. And what Tom and I had mentioned amongst ourselves was we didn't think that the Solitude team had gone all the way to that boundary. To us, that boundary is where the water and the reeds kind of hit each other. And there was space between where the reeds began and into the pond where the water chestnuts hadn't been impacted at all. So, we felt that Solitude hadn't gone all the way to the perimeter that they could have to apply this herbicide. So, I had a Zoom call with Tanner Poole, who's our contact at Solitude for the herbicide application. And Stephanie Koch at Fish and Wildlife, who was the person we had to go, Larry, this is before you had joined the committee. But we, when we had to get the permit for this last year, we began with CONCOM. CONCOM said we had to go to the state. The state said, well, go check with the feds because you're close to the Minuteman Reserve. So, it was an escalating series of events. But we eventually met with Stephanie and she approved the work and then the state approved it and then CONCOM approved it. So, it all worked out in the end. But if our supposition was correct that the Solitude hadn't gone all the way to the boundary or, in fact, needed to go into Fish and Wildlife territory, we needed to talk to Stephanie and find out what that process would entail. And Tom had reached out to her by email a while ago and the stars aligned and the three of us, myself, Tanner, at Solitude and Stephanie were able to meet. And what I learned, what was my misunderstanding, was that the boundary between federal land and state land is a fixed boundary. But when you're talking about the water on the pond, depending on how high or low the water level is, that really dictates how close, in this case, Solitude can get to that boundary to apply the herbicide. And so, they weren't able to apply all the way to that boundary because the water was higher at that time. So, rather than the fact that Solitude neglected to apply herbicide to the fullest extent of their range, it was just the water was high enough and that was past that boundary for Fish and Wildlife. So, that's why they didn't go in there and Tanner had used his nav to carefully monitor where he was applying. So, it was really more of a misunderstanding on my part and not that Solitude didn't fulfill the full scope of their contract. It was simply the water was higher and they couldn't go past that boundary to apply herbicide that part. And the reason they can't go beyond that boundary is federal rules? It's right. And so, that requires, so part of that discussion that we had was if we wanted to go farther in, if the water remains high, to apply herbicide, you've got to go through a separate round of approval through the feds and Stephanie outlined this whole process for us. The short answer is it's nothing that's going to happen this year. I've got to go through my notes and sort of lay out all the steps, which I'll do. But Stephanie doesn't approve that. It's approved by some engineer somewhere. Yeah, let me see if I can. Get my notes here. To go beyond the boundary. So, we have to apply for a special use permit. And then that... And when you say boundary, you mean the state line versus federal line? Correct. Correct. So, Herd Pod fights up against the Minuteman Reserve. And so, the parcels there between federal and state are fixed boundaries. And so, if we want to go past that boundary from the state side into the federal side, there's a special permitting process and a form to complete a review process, which, you know, you've got to... It takes time to go through that. Yeah. So, I can initiate that. It won't happen this year. But we can still go ahead and do herbicide within the boundaries delineated under the conditions. And if I recall, they've approved use of this in the past, not here, but on other federal land. Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. They use it themselves on the Bunbury River. Right. Right. I think there are still issues there. My understanding is that, and I've said it before, that the Commonwealth land goes right up to the pond boundaries. And somehow, you know, maybe, you know, as surveyed, federal land goes under the pond. Probably should not have happened. But that's neither here nor there.
What's set is set this year, which I think is quite a problem because it leaves that strip with a thousand lines dropping seeds. Yeah. It's like leaving a seed bed. Yeah. Yeah. But so be it. We're, you know, I was not able to sit in on that meeting because that's the day I had my fall. and I was preoccupied otherwise. So anyway, we'll just leave it, go at that. And my, my, and I'm very glad that Tom is running with this. I have no, no, no taste whatsoever for doing any more permitting paperwork. I'm finished with it. I think it, I think it helps that I, in my day job, I work in a regulated industry. So I think I'm used to specifically this, but so I'm, I'm used to a bureaucratic slow moving process. So it was good to learn that. And so I'll initiate that process for, you know, see where it goes, right? There's nothing to lose on this when I fill out a form, it gets submitted somewhere, someone looks at it and says yay or nay. Fine. I can go ahead and do that. Now, also on the call, I forgot to mention was Emily Cuellar, who is the assistant to Linda Hansen in the Conservation Commission. And so two things came out of this that I was not anticipating. The first of these was when we got the permit to apply ClearCast last year, I had assumed that it was like with Procella Corps on Dudley Pond. It's just open-ended and you just go before ConCom and say, we're doing Procella Corps this year. Emily corrected me or made me aware, I should say, that that was not the case. That permit that we got last year was only for last year and we, doesn't mean we can use it just without informing the Conservation Commission. So, it seems like I just need to go and request it and fortuitously they are meeting tomorrow night. So I'm going to go before ConCom tomorrow and make them aware that we're going to apply, our intent is to apply ClearCast again on Herd Pond. Hopefully it won't be an issue. If it is an issue then this committee will be apprised and if it is an issue I'll find out what needs to be done to make this more like the Procella Corps permit where we just simply go and give ConCom notice and we, there are certain preparatory steps we take but we don't have to go through a permitting process every time. So that was news to me. I assumed it was sort of like you know these orders of conditions are good for five years or so. I thought we had five years to do for this window of herbicide amongst other things. So I'll go before ConCom tomorrow and make the request. One more thing that will open before any comment is Stephanie also made us aware and Tom had done this in the past that even for hand harvesting of water chestnuts on Herd Pond we don't have to get a permit per se but we, well Stephanie called it a permit but we have to make the feds aware that we're going to do hand harvesting of water chestnuts on Herd Pond. Stephanie said we just, she made a sound and Tom has done this in the past like I said you just write to them and say hey we're doing hand harvesting on the pond this year and they give an approval or in Tom's prior experience I'm not sure they even replied to you Tom we just went ahead and did it. You sent the emails. Yeah, yeah, I, you know, two former fish and wildlife you know, management directors Libby Hurland years ago and another woman with a Vietnamese name I, I took them both around the pond and I, and they merely asked for a notification but of course with the turmoil and the feds you know, it's pretty hard to even call them you call them and you don't hear for months so I had no idea who to apply to there is a new and nothing ever went to Stephanie it was always to the refuge manager but just a simple statement saying that and it turns out the pond itself is not fish and wildlife property it's the strip of land between the pond and Pelham Island Road that I've been told that that we're transporting the weeds across that strip that's that's what it amounts to the pond itself is none of their business you might say so that's as as it had been mentioned to me in the past the last refuge manager I talked to several years ago she said well yeah we should just know so that because there are fish and wildlife law enforcement who by the way I've interacted with two or three times one time I went out my small boat I left my wallet in the truck and I always carry my fishing license in the wallet he checked me I said well I've been pulling weeds but I always have a fishing rod in the boat so he excoriated me for that I thought that was pretty dumb but anyway so that's my understanding it's a simple notification so that's that's the the update so there's hold on I've got another call we've got a son who's hospitalized and I'm getting a call from him I'm going to step away from a minute for a minute okay well we I'll open the floor to Steve to you and Larry if you have any comments or questions on it that was the wrap up of the herd pond section so you know we have one contract going through it feels like there's a bit of spinning wheel I learned of a few more things that I have
might have about herd pond activities I have I have kind of a general question which I always wonder about is there any way for us to review the status of our budget at this point oh actually because we have that invoice for the deadly pond testing I was going to call that up because yeah right now the budget is something I maintain and I've called it up in prior meetings so I can bring it up after we go through deadly pond I'll bring the budget up and show you guys what's left we're going to squeak by with our last thousand dollars here the fiscal year ends at the end of June so Steve you made a comment about buying a piece of equipment for 250 bucks might wait until July 1st no not no not but and that's part of what I want to talk about okay let's we're gonna wait for Tom or well we we have a quorum and I'd like to you know I know that he's you know let's just press on I can get him caught up either afterwards or once his office called but yeah Steve I do have the budget and if we go through Dudley Pond we can we can review that Steve is there any to turn up
you know what that's that's yeah it sounds like you do I don't know this is the mic I wait maybe I'm on the wrong mic let's see no I have the
this is the mic I always use I don't understand why it's not earbuds earbuds do I have them handy I don't have them handy one second okay audio out Tom you're on mute I wonder if this will work hey Tom we can't hear you you're on mute can you hear me now you're still okay now I okay can you hear me now yeah Tom I can hear you and Steve I can hear you but you're still you're still faint yeah it's kind of weird okay hold on you can just yell the rest of the meeting Steve we won't mind well that would be a switch usually I'm being yelled at that was pretty good that was better I'm like leaning in here yeah this is turning into a bit of a clue okay all right hang on a second let me let me see if there's a volume adjustment here I'm not a you sound fine to me oh that speaker microphone turn up the volume so Tom you can hear Steve clearly how about absolutely how about this well that's that's that's good yeah I just went into my system and turn up the mic volume but I don't I don't know you're fine bye okay okay so what are we doing now okay well so now we we've concluded the herd pond part of the agenda and we're going to Dudley pond and I was looking at the agenda that I had sent and it's not quite up to date it just says we're looking for volunteers to do water chemistry testing on the pond and I guess we'll start there because Steve you want to give the the background to the committee on on Ben Wetherill and his ability to support chem testing because it sounds like we don't need to have a you do it or a volunteer from ORS but Ben can do it it sounds like no well yes and no and I'm a little surprised that we only have one invoice so I'm that I I'll I'll explain what that means in a minute so the last meeting we went through a discussion about the fact that Ben Wetherill who usually does the dissolved oxygen and some of the other measurements and analyzes them is no longer able to do it it has to do with I guess town insurance so Norm Marowitz who you know took the initiative to actually go and rent a meter the same one that that Ben used and it turned out that and we used it I actually used it and it turned out to be a little bit easier than we thought it was going to be so we we did that but we did give the numbers to Ben to analyze it okay which he doesn't need insurance for because he's in front of his computer so okay that's what it is so you know we've got we've I'm expecting as we did in the past two invoices one from Ben which should be less than what it used to be because he didn't go out on the boat with us and from the lab for the actual water sample measurements that we also did that day that's PACE name of the lab that's the invoice that we got and that we'll vote on later on right okay so there is going to be another one from Ben I you know I it could be don't quote me on this but it could be that norm committed to have the Dudley Pond Association pay for him but I'm not sure about that you're talking about the renting of the meter no the renting of the meter no the Dudley Pond Association paid for the renting of the meter I'm talking about Ben's time to analyze the results for us okay so he did part of his job but not all of his job okay and that's the part that's what you're questioning whether
I think we're paying for it but I would just keep it that way because we part of our routine for years has been Ben would do the water meter and he would plot the information up for us there was now pace labs the chemistry testing let's just keep with that and then if the DPA wants to rent the meter for Ben or for you or whoever well it's not for Ben if they're going to rent the meter that's fine that could be
so if DPA wants to handle that fine if Ben wants to crush the numbers then he can invoice for that and then that's really been part of again of our budget for year after year so let's just keep with that that I would I would actually prefer I don't really care who pays for it but I I would like I think we should be in charge of this but you know I feel very strongly about that yeah in fact so I'll get to the next part of what I wanted to say as you recall Tom and I think we may have mentioned it on at our last meeting we had an algae bloom on Dudley Pond this spring so Norm went a little AI crazy and started asking AI what the possible causes could be and what the solutions might be and he got this bug in his head about well we should do an alum treatment of a specific area in the pond specifically the deepest part claiming that dissolved oxygen is being released and it's causing this algae to do its thing now he started then giving information to Wendy Gendron who I think you know who is with ARC and yeah let me so Larry Wendy Gendron has worked with the committee and the deadly pond association in the past she has done plant surveys of the pond and the last one she had done one in 2020 or 2021 and we had her we contracted with her last year to do two surveys one before before the mechanical harvester goes on the pond and pulls all the tape grass and then a survey afterwards just to get a sense of how effective that harvesting has been and what the change in the plant distribution is so we had these two reports last from Wendy and she had some recommendations and some solutions in there but this Al J. Bloom that Steve is talking about so Wendy knows people in DPA Bob Smith and Norm so with this Al J. Bloom what Steve is alluding to is that Norm went to Wendy to get her feedback on stuff so that's kind of the backdrop for what Steve is filling us in on now well you know alum that that's that's been debated before years and years ago the issue of alum treatment has come up I think it's fairly expensive and I you know what it is you put the alum down and it essentially locks in things and it's going to be there forever in the bottom of the pond I
it's been rejected before I don't know if the LJ blooms are new seems to me there may have been blooms in years past I don't remember anyway so so the next so what happened was I shoved myself in the middle of that conversation I reached out to Wendy and said you know really you should be talking with surface water quality about this and she was going to send a sample bottle over in fact I missed I felt terrible about this she sent me an email one day a couple of weeks ago that she was going to be in the area and she
she went off so we connected by telephone and she sent me the bottle now the cost that you mentioned earlier I said so Wendy if and by the goal of this sample bottle is to find out what the algae actually is so I said well what is it going to cost to get this done by the way she is not on board with this Allen thing to your point Tom Largie okay and she doesn't think it's dangerous algae but you know it's worth testing for and so she sent me the bottle and it sounded like from what she said that testing the sample will cost on the order of about $250 so she is gone she's on vacation now she's going to be back next Wednesday and I'm not going to figure out a way to pay for it what does tell you hold on who had the floor Tom go ahead yeah I hope this is not an old bottle you know it's very important when you're testing that you have a bottle of whatever you're testing is a fresh bottle so I if you still have it in your possession right here well I don't know how effective that would be what I'm sorry what do you want to know he's just yeah I don't think it's effective to test a bottle that's been sitting around for some time unless it
it's empty right now Tom there's nothing in it yeah it's not full of LJ now it's just an empty bottle right now so he's not there's no sample in it is that what you're referring to Tom yeah yeah I got the
in the meantime I'm raising the issue because if we're going to go ahead and test to see what this algae is we need to be able to pay for it okay so help me so we test the algae it's some species of algae then what do we do with that information well it could give us from what I understand it could give us some information as to how we deal with the problem but you have to know what it is first to be quite honest you know Wendy is
like is the answer a $10 chemical spray or a $10,000 is there a range of what the answer is once it's tested so Steve this is just this test you're talking about this is just to identify these algae just identifying it I don't know what the response would be from an organization that deals with this stuff in terms of what it would cost and what work they would do that comes later you know when it comes to algae cyanobacteria it seems to me there's been lots of hysteria in recent years people see algae or they think they see it turns out Kachitua State Park is closed and they tested and it's okay and then something shows up and it's closed and might have been closed half the summer and I was looking a year or so ago I think it was the state of Maine website and their advice was if you're standing in the water and you can't see your toes then you have a problem but anyway not the problem in Dudley Pond I know this firsthand anyway yeah so this is to identify it Wendy by the way does not think that this is a dangerous algae too it really doesn't based on what she saw when she came to the pond I wasn't here that's her opinion so you know that's I don't think it should cause a lot of hysteria or concern although it definitely did with Norm Norm went you know a little crazy yeah Norm went down that rabbit hole of getting all that information so the question I'm not advocating for this definitely but would it be good to know what it was or what it is why not yeah let me let me just to Tom's point about let's not use the word hysteria but concern so I've been hearing from folks this weekend we did a cleanup on one NFW pond I was hearing from folks about this I wasn't around I apologize for that no no that's okay but I mean to
cyanobacteria but this is more algae and so identifying it as the first step to who knows what I think if you identify it as a harmless bacterium then people were talking about trapping nutrients so you don't have more of these blooms that's where the alum talk came in and so on so Steve is that algae still around I'm guessing this is
I was out in my boat just before this meeting and I'm not really sure I mean there may be some over near the shoreline but if you're out in the middle of the pond I haven't I don't see anything at this point okay so there's not the Board of Health as an example on the Town Beach and do some testing and
certainly on the Town Beach and Lake Kachitra there have been some concerns I believe they've tested in the past you know that's that's a good point because if this is just a benign algae then the question gets back to how do we prevent these larger growths of benign algae Board of Health or the Health Department does test
might be a pragmatic way to do it I can reach to Julia because if she can do her test and it comes out negative then that saves us time in the 250 and then again we just get back to okay the algae itself is benign how do we prevent these larger blooms so I can take that step 250 is not certainly a big deal and it should be done by this
yeah I mean you know the other originally she wanted to send this sample bottle to Allison and I kind of got in the way of that for that very reason because I think we should be doing this but we can I can give it to Allison and let the DPA pay for it if
quickly Julia can get down there if she does these tests I believe she does because they don't want to just close the beaches because there's cyanobacterial bloom they do their regular testing I can inquire of
another layer between the DPA and somebody doing something but we can't have the norms the Allison's whoever is pinging the town for various things that's that's my sensitivity that's why I keep jumping in the middle of these things well it's also it's not just that it's it's you know it's information it's knowing what's going on you know the ARC reports that you
you know if I feel like or maybe you did it I'm not sure whether you did it or I did it but we kind of jumped in the middle of that because she thought she was just sending the results to Allison and we would
really do a lot of good work it's just they don't share stuff they don't you know integrate with us very well well in this case I think Wendy and her partner were sending stuff to the DP folks because they
can understand how that happened we got it strained out so well if you want to reach out what was her name again Julia yeah I'll reach out to Julia that's fine yeah and let me know what happens and you know like I said Wendy isn't back for like another week so we got some time okay yeah let me do that but let's let's take a vote here so right so we're gonna we're gonna we have this invoice which is gonna basically clean out our budget for the year and we have there's a DPA fund because the DPA used to reimburse the town for some of
not can we can have the DPA these funds that the DPA had reimbursed the town it's sitting in a separate account that's distinct from our the service of our committee budget and the 250 could come out of that that way because I don't see the need to know what kind of benign algae it is what you want to know is it toxic or not and if it's not
more than anecdotally people are saying now it's worse than it ever has been makes sense so to let me make one motion first so the chair myself makes a motion to reach out to the board of health to inquire if they can perform cyanobacterial toxin testing on the algae on Dudley Pond second first motion if I get a second on that one Steve did you second that that was okay okay and then let's go around the room to approve or not the action for me to go to reach out to the board of health for testing this algae on Dudley Pond Tom Largie aye sorry Larry and Tom Clem aye all right so let me go ahead and do that if Julia can't is unwilling then I'll make a second motion which is to collect a sample of the algae on Dudley Pond submit that to ARC for testing but the cost will be paid for out of not out of the surface water quality committee budget but deadly deadly pond association gift fund I'm definitely in favor of that well I'm sorry second second jump the gun yes Larry yes Steve Tom Largie aye Tom Clem aye great thank you so I will follow up on that first action and then Steve if Julia can't or is unwilling then you've got the authority to reach out to collect that sample hand it off to Wendy and I'll work through channels to get that paid for out of that DPA fund so it's not because it's the kind
excitement about this stuff and so the DPA should pay for it and then the other questions about alum or other kinds of treatments to be determined Steve you've been writing to Wendy because I know that this weekend when I saw Norm he was telling me all this stuff and Wendy doesn't have a contract with anybody she's giving this free consulting advice if you want to write to her because I think she wants to act but she can't act she doesn't have any official contract to do anything no one's in a position to pay her for her time so if you could just send her a note copy me and just say hey we had a committee meeting we're working out a plan of action you know if we do want have you engage for any activities we'll be the body to reach out to her for whatever it may be surveys testing alum treatment but just let her know that anything like that would come through this committee so she doesn't have to and even consulting time as well so she shouldn't feel like she has to hold back because she doesn't have any official authority to do so that will come from this committee so if you could send her note and copy me just so she's aware that we've had the discussion and I've told Norm not to be reaching out to
talking and soon it's going to cross a line and I can't just spend all this time talking to people but she did grant me a phone call which lasted about 20 minutes and we talked about this and what you said I've already made clear to her but it doesn't hurt to do it again okay okay so when you had that phone call you said that we are the entity she'll be dealing with for any future actions that was the reason we had the phone call because I
reaches out to her she can feel free to to ignore and say talk to us will be the official channel okay norm's gonna love that tom largie have you ever met norm marowitz yes i've met him a few times even
okay um great thank you so that's that's all the actions for for deadly pond didn't we have to approve payment of the invoice yeah let me let me call it up on the screen here so this is the so as the committee recalls we do water chemistry testing twice a year and steve did it or collected the
okay norm did somebody did it it got to the lab somehow they did the testing right let me call it up on the screen by the way i just got the results about five minutes ago just so you know oh okay yeah i just saw the invoice so let me share my screen just to
so it says okay it's $1,027 i was thinking of an old i was doing budgeting right before this that was the previous bill so this is what they test for chlorophyll nitrogen nitrate nitrogen total nitrogen phosphorus and some incidentals so $1,027 this is typically what it costs this is twice a year for our chemistry testing on Dudley Pond and so this is the data that Steve has just mentioned that he got a moment ago this is the invoice this isn't the invoice it says do not pay i just do you want me to forward the email to you that because it
let let let let let let open what he sent okay yeah i have the actual invoice i'll i'll forward it you want me to forward it to you well if you open your screen you can share on your screen i'll stop sharing hold on i'm going to open it up okay um zoom uh let's see i oh i can share right yeah okay so make sure you're you're on that do you see it oh yeah i do see it okay so this is the actual invoice yeah oh okay perfect this is great timing okay uh well this is what i just showed you guys and now this is the real invoice and again this twice a year for the water chemistry testing on on dudley pond and then steve talked about ben weatherill's data plotting that we'll get but ben would do the on pond meter readings for temperature dissolved oxygen and so on and his bill would be about a thousand dollars so for the two water tests that we
right so 500 for the report and 500 for the meter readings right but now it'll be 500 right and as i said i think what i think what norm did is he put the meter rental on his credit card and the dpa is going to reimburse him okay that works for me all right so does anybody have any questions about this or are we in position to for me to make a motion to approve payment please do that okay so somebody wants to leave so let me make a motion to approve payment of this invoice to pace analytical for water chemistry testing on for
tom clem i great thank you and so we got the approval so when that goes through steve to that was that copied to somebody on the town side um let me check um here's the results let's see uh a martin the
water department uh i don't understand um i don't understand why or how but must have to do with dpa uh working through the water department steve can you can you just forward that to me i'll send it to to kelsey they may have to resend it i don't know but let's send it if you could send it to me forward it to me
okay that okay okay that's fine all right you got it all right thanks okay uh so those are uh oh i'm not done yet so uh two one thing so last time we were here um there's there's four of us here but there's a fifth seat on the committee steve i didn't reach out to melissa roberts and she so did i oh okay she said she said june time frame is what she said june time frame all right um when she wrote to me a week or so ago she just said what is the process so i'll write back to her and tell her i'll copy you steve just so it can
submit it but i'll write to her i'll write back so we do have somebody a fifth person who's interested melissa roberts so hopefully she'll be able to come aboard soon all
i think it only ever mattered when it was mike lowry because he was enough of a gadfly they wanted to find a way to bounce him so anyways so melissa will hopefully be our fifth member in june sometime all right the last thing is steve you had asked about the budget yeah and if you guys are interested i can call that up and give you an update like i said we with this invoice once i get paid we basically zeroed out our
so let me let me walk you through this again this is a pretty rough tool that i've made to track stuff so at the very
runs through to june 30th of this year we basically zeroed it out so you know for the usual expenses that we have are for water chemistry testing on the pond twice a year this only has the October thing on here excuse me last October on there i haven't yet taken into account the May testing that
between Ben Weather Rail his company was a KSAC which is why you see a KSAC here so that's about $4,000 $5,000 every year for two testings this fiscal year was unique because we had those two surveys by ARC that was $5,000 just about but the default expense on Dudley Pond is the $5,000 or so for water chemistry testing on
about $12,000 for the hand harvesting plus the report so we spent $10,800 on hand harvesting last year which is doing quick math that was nine days of saw to cruise on the pond at $1,200 a day and then the report is $1,500 so about $12,000 a year for that for that work last year because we had to get the permitting and the herbicide application on the pond that was an extra close to $10,000 for that and it'll be similar again this year minus the permitting if I get the approval from ConCom tomorrow so that and we just approved that invoice for $1,027 so that basically zeros out our budget for the year I don't know how
to spend so that is how it broke down for the year and what I do here on the right hand side is you can ignore if paid in fiscal year 25 I I've been trying to get better about tracking when we pay for certain things if you look down here at this table down below let me scroll down
about this in years past I'm trying to get more more disciplined about tracking where the money goes and when it goes but were there any questions anybody had in particular about the budget well I'm a little confused because what you have just ignoring the chart on the bottom for a minute what you have above does not include paying the invoice we just approved well right so right now as $1,201 remaining so we just used $1,027 of that right and it doesn't include what we would have to pay Ben right and what is probably going to happen is we can approve that next time we meet so he will be the first 500 taken out of next year's budget again we may even have money left over I
if there's money left over does it roll to the next year or do we lose it correct it rolls over it'll roll it'll roll forward yes yeah I you know looking at these at these figures you know clearly Heard Pond has exploded in expense over what it was a number of years ago I and you can't forecast weeds who knows what it's going to be like except already we've got a drought condition very low water and these water chestlets are just extremely difficult you know we went for years with declining harvest thought we had it licked 2017 just an explosion we didn't clear we were not able to fully harvest them and a number of years since just exploded 12 years ago 15 years ago the South Cove was not the problem it is now it's gotten worse so at some point or other we'll have a discussion on the pond I see this going on into the next century Tom to your point the herbicide treatment on herd pond is going to be I suspect a chronic thing or an ongoing thing and then next year we'll likely have to do porcelicor on Dudley Pond I was just going to mention that like how and what is the process for making that the process is going to be so that would be it might geez we might even if we do if I recall we did it before June 30th so it could be a situation where we're going to have
contribution we could tap that resource but in general though Steve to your point so what will happen is I will have to work with Carol Martin and when we do the budget for this would be FY let's see it would be FY 28 because this will be it will take the second application will be later in the summer of next year which will be FY 28 so I have to work with Carol and so the service for our quality committee budget for FY 28 instead of being 30,000 would be on the order of $100,000 or base 30 plus 70 or more and then Tom if we have to do herbicide on herd pond it could be it'll be over that so I'll find out my thoughts to Carol I'll be you know when this budget time starts end of summer I'll make her aware that these are expenses coming up and you know help craft a warrant article that will be not just for again our base budget of $30,000 but that plus hang on that it'll be our base plus what we need for Purcellicor and for any herbicide on herd pond but formally that will be the process yeah one I don't want to speak for her but one of the skills and knowledge bases that I think Melissa is going to bring to the committee is the ability and the knowledge of writing grants and getting grants and right now she really I don't think she really has a context for it you know she's dealing with the DPA and that's all she really is doing at this point and I think that once she gets on this committee she'll better I think I will have a better idea as to what we're trying
get a grant having to do with the Nyanza cleanup that was $50,000 we spent it on Herd Pond unfortunately in a negligible impact but anyway all right all right so that concludes the agenda did anybody have anything pressing that needed to be brought up now the town is we used to have on the agenda topics not unknown 40 hours in advance the town is clamping down that you can't just pop up with a last minute agenda item so unless it's minor you're going to have to hold your tongue until we meet next time so with that let's think about meeting later in the June time frame so that would be maybe mid June so the 16th is a Tuesday or the 17th or the 23rd or 24th of June I have to get my calendar up just a minute too many tabs open all of those dates have a zoom available oh thank you who is this on the town side oh this is Abby hey Abby how soon should I lock that down because I've been doing it a week in advance which has proven problematic if we set a date tonight should I reach out tomorrow and say hey we need zoom for whatever date we settle on yes
okay the dates the way Wednesdays don't work in June for me but Tuesday and Thursday should be good well Thursday we can't do because remember we tried to do that one so it's Tuesday the 16th or Tuesday the 23rd the run is fine yeah I should be able to do we could do the 30th let me email you back Tom okay 30th should be okay too okay so 30th I should be fine okay well let's so Tom Largie let's tentatively make it the 30th and then Larry if you find out that's the week you're actually gone on the 30th yeah let's go with the 30th okay fine Steve you said the 30th is fine for you looks that way I always get surprised afterwards though my wife tells me oh but but I don't think that's going to happen here all right let's let's let's back up so Steve you were saying the 16th and the 23rd were fine those Tuesdays were fine and the 30th is probably fine too yeah all right well I'm going to put us down for the 30th and then Larry if you find out that the 30th is a date you're not free but one of the other ones is then I'll just email everybody and
okay if there's nothing else I make a motion to adjourn at 8 11 p.m can I get a second see jumps in with a second all right let's go around the virtual room at Tom Largie I Steve Garone I Mary Kiernan yes Tom Flemm I great thanks everybody see you tentatively on June 30th and Abby thanks for your support