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October 27, 2026 – Surface Water Quality Committee – Video & Transcript

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October 27, 2026 - Surface Water Quality Committee

 
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That's 7.01 p.m. And again, as always, because we're doing this remotely, if I could just have everyone state their presence for the recording and for the record. And I'll start. Tom Klem, present. Steve Garone, present. Barry Kiernan, present. Thank you. All right. Let's jump into it. So the first item, as always, are the minutes. Which I circulated over the weekend for our meeting of the 16th of September. And are there any comments? I didn't have any changes. I didn't either. Okay. Then I will make a motion to approve the minutes of September 16th. Do you have a second? Second? Steve Garone second? Right. Then let's go around the virtual room to approve the minutes. Tom, Clem, I. Steve Garone, aye. Larry Kiernan, aye. Very good. Thank you. All right. The next thing I had on here was sort of a catch-all, our usual two big water bodies, Dudley and Herd Pond. And actually, before we do that, Steve, I know you just sent me a couple invoices before the meeting. And one of those is one that you're going to have to pay for and get reimbursed by the town on. Yeah, let me just quickly explain. I would have had them to you sooner. The one that was sent by Pace Labs, which is part of our biannual testing, I received yesterday. So I got it to you as soon as I got it. Okay. But it looks like it was sent to several people in the town, which is what usually happens. So it may already be in the hands of the person who pays it. I don't know, but you probably have to authorize it, right? It still needs to be approved, and it wasn't included to me. Whose names were on there? Was it Jalen, by chance? No, it wasn't Jalen. It was somebody named, well, there was an A. Martin, and I'll look it up for you. I mean, did this A. Martin or whoever, somebody else in there have a Wayland town address? Yeah, hold on. Let's see. Here it is. It was sent to D. Millette. Oh, okay. That's Don Millette in DPW. And amartin at waylandupmass.us. I don't think that's Carol unless she uses a name at the beginning of her name. Okay. Well, that's fine. I mean, we can approve it and then I'll get it off to Jalen because she's the one who's going to pay this thing. The other one was for the meter that we needed that Ben Weatherill used to, we used to hire him to take the measurements. Right. I did them instead. And you may recall, we discussed that ultimately we'd like to be able to be in a position where they just directly charge the town like Pace does. And I sent you the form to get that done. But this time I would have to pay for it. With my credit card. And when I rented it, I gave them my credit card number. And I was in New York this weekend. And when I got back, I had an email from the guy I worked with saying, we need to talk because I don't have your credit card number. I know you gave it to me, but I don't remember what I did with it. So I gave you the invoice, but I haven't, you know, he's still waiting for a credit card. So, yeah. But that's a good reminder. We should approve that one, too, because the town's got to reimburse you, and they're going to need to know it was an official Surface Water Quality Committee expense. So, Larry, just for your understanding, we do water chemistry testing on Dudley Pond twice a year. And in recent years, it has been done by two entities. PACE Labs is one, and I'll call that invoice up in a minute. They do the phosphorus and the nitrogen. The chemical test, basically. And then there was the meter readings. And we had Ben Witherill when he was, well, I guess he still is independent, but he had his own company. The acronym was ACASAK, A-C-A-S-A-K. And he had this YSI meter that Steve was talking about. And he would go on the pond and do temperature readings. He'd do water depth, dissolved oxygen, a few other things. And so between the two of them, Ben Weatherill and ACASAC and Pace Labs, it was about $1,000 for each of those two things. And so for the two times a year water chemistry testing, it was about $2,000 from the two different contractors who would do testing for us. So we still have Pace Labs doing those chemical tests, but Ben Weatherill can't go on the pond anymore because the town wants to have certain... Insurance and there's liability concerns, which means that Steve is now doing it, but he has to rent the meter. To do those tests. So it's still going to cost around $2,000. And so Ben Weatherill will take Steve's data. And Ben can write the report. He's not going to be at risk on the water of drowning or something like that. So Ben will still write the report. So that'll be, I guess, what, 500 bucks or so. And then whatever this meter cost. So it's still going to be about $2,000 twice a year for Pace Labs to do their testing. And then a combination of meter rental and Ben Weatherill report writing. So we've got this sort of workaround since Ben, you know, the town is uncomfortable having Ben on the pond without insurance. Right. So let me just munch your numbers a little bit. Ben actually, as part of his package, used to rent the meter as well. So I was basically renting the same meter he was. And so his bill used to come to, I think, a little over $1,000. But now he's basically charging us $500 to do the analysis. The meter costs a couple hundred dollars, but I got a deal on it this time. And how did I do that? What am I doing? What happened was I reserved the meter two weeks in advance and they said everything was fine. And when it got there, All the long cables, which would allow us to measure all the way down to the bottom of the pond, had been rented out. And I looked at him and he said, I called you two weeks ago. You said it was fine. So they were all apologetic. They were calling all over the country. They were going to have something shipped to me from Illinois. And then later on that day, he leaves me a message and says, somebody brought one back. You know, I'll deliver it to your house tomorrow, which was Saturday, and we'll only charge you half price. So I got a deal this time. So generally, that side of the work, which is the meter rental and Ben's work, is going to be less than what it used to be. In addition, Ben did not charge us for the last report. And the reason he didn't was because this was my fault. I forgot to send him one of the files. So as soon as he said that to me, I sent it to him and he said, OK, well, then what I'll do is I'll put them together. And instead of charging you 500 apiece, I'll just do $900. So we have a bill coming down the line for $900, which would cover his work for the last two measurements. OK. Okay, good. All right. Question on the tests and results. And I read, it's been a while, but I read the previous reports. Is there a trend in the data that you could share kind of what's happening with whether it's phosphorus or oxygen or is there a trend we're seeing? Yeah, I think most of the attention. And we may see a big difference in these measurements, these last ones, you know, is with dissolved oxygen. And it seems to be some sort of an indication that there's stuff going on in the deepest part of the pond. I mean, we did not even see a thermocline in our measurements this last time. Which was really weird, you know, and I had the meter and I was testing it over and over and over again and we just couldn't find it. So it sounds like, you know, there may be something changing in terms of how high up the problem is getting in the pond. But I haven't gone through the data yet, so it's hard to answer your question in detail. So let me... Go ahead, Larry. I just meant from previous reports, because is there a trend we're seeing? So it sounds like dissolved oxygen. Yeah, I guess, you know, based on... The the the readings and the analysis that is done, you know, there may be some small trends, but we're not really seeing anything that indicates that the pond is heading quickly in the bad direction. All right. Yeah, that's what I thought. Yeah. So, Larry, so for the last two fiscal years, we have documents uploaded to the committee Web page and the you'll find Ben Weatherill's report. So when Ben gets, for example, the dissolved oxygen data. I forget all the terms of percent dissolved oxygen. Percent and the actual DL. Redox. Ben takes that data and he will plot not only the most recent data points, but historical data. So Larry, if you go onto the website for the past two years, you'll find that. And I was going to say what I'll share with the committee, because I'd done this last year for the Dudley Pond Association, just to give them a historical overview. I calculated. From the past 15 years of data, TSI using the Trophic State Index calculations for chlorophyll, Secchi depth, and is it phosphorus or nitrogen? It's phosphorus. I just made a simple PowerPoint thought of all these calculations, which doesn't show any big trend. So it's important to see that because any individual report that Steve does or that Norm had done prior, you might see kind of a wacky result for phosphorus, for example. And that can give one a really skewed impression of things. But that over the long term, we're not seeing any kind of trend where the pond is going from a healthy state to an unhealthy state. So let me take as an action. I have a note here for myself. To send that to everybody, this PowerPoint slide that I prepared for the DPA. And I'll point out the slide to look at, which again is the three TSI calculations over 10 or 15 years of data. And you can see how the trend goes. And there's no slow increase over time to an unhealthy state. It just bounces around. Yeah. And it stays within a range that like the pond is not moving in. Worst stage or better stage? It's kind of sitting where it is. Yeah, it's pretty much the same range of, I don't know what you want to call it, progression? Yeah, I didn't, there's no hard line between, for example, a eutrophic lake and an autobotrophic lake. It's kind of a great instance. There's broad categories as well. Yeah, right. And so all I did, I think when I plotted it, I have the average of all the data, although actually it's, you can't, I don't because it's three different TSI calculations. So there's no real range, but let me send the data to the committee. You guys can take a look at it. If you want it plotted differently, I can do that. But the short takeaway is we're not seeing any kind of increase in any of these metrics that would suggest the pond is getting away from us and entering some kind of a hype. Is it hypertrophic? I forgot the last time. Yeah. Hypertrophic, right? That doesn't speak to the issue of the proliferation of weeds. Yeah, I was wondering if there was no pulling of weeds, I assume we would see a decline. In weeds? No, in the status of the health of the lake. You know, not yet. And, you know, in some sense, the health of the pond is maybe somewhat responsible for the amount of weeds we have because the health is so good that there's a lot of clarity in the water, which means the sun tends to go down pretty far. And, you know, plants love sun. Yeah. It'd be interesting, you know, so Steve, I don't know how long you've been on the pond. The data that we're collecting goes back, I think, 15-ish years. But the pond was swampy or worse off, at least by eye, was that back in the 90s, well before I got here. So I'd be curious, you know, Larry, to your point, if we had been taking data way back then, would we see a higher TSI value that has since gone down to some sustainable level of relative health of the pond? We don't have that historical data. I don't have the data. I've been on the pond for 46 years, actually, believe it or not. So do you recall just from visually, was it worse off? Because I've heard people, you know, maybe it's a long time now, people's memories exaggerate, but was it looking more swampy than it does? I don't recall that. No, I really don't. But, you know, I wasn't I wasn't watching as closely as I am now. Right. Anyways, let me let me send things like raising kids, you know. So let me, I'll send that PowerPoint slide deck around for the committee. And Larry, to your point, those other reports that Ben puts together, at least the last two years, you can find those on our landing page. There's the document library. And if you click on that, Jalen on the town side is, I just had her put together FY25, FY26, and there's herd pond reports, Dudley pond reports. But Ben Weatherill would take the data from his most recent survey. And he would just sort of plot it historically. So again, some of the parameters he measures around oxygen and whatever else, you can find it there. Anyways, we're getting off the topics. We have four invoices to approve. There's the two that I sent, excuse me, from Solitude. One was for the second ClearCast treatment, and then one for their post-treatment survey. Not the report they put together, but for their survey. And then the two that Steve sent for Pace Labs. And then the invoice for the rental. So let me just briefly, I know I sent the Solitude ones to everybody, but let me call up the two Solitude ones because I forget how much they're for. So let me call those guys up first. Bear with me. I thought this would be easier on, it's not giving me the ones I want. Hang on a second. Okay. This will be the first Solitude invoice. Okay. And let me know which one, okay, is this the Solitude Invoice? Solitude Lake Management, yep. $30,550. So this was a water chestnut treatment in July? Yeah. Well, this is, yeah, this is the second ClearCast treatment. So they put ClearCast on Herdpon, they do two treatments. So this is the second one, this is on July 30th. So this is the second treatment. It's $3,550. So this is the first of four invoices to approve. And what I'll do is we can have a blanket approval of all four of these, or we can go over any questions first. So this is the first of the four. So this is the second clear cast treatment for solitude, $3,550. And let me go back to my... And that's in your email attachment, so if you want to look that one up, you can. Yeah, I saw them both, actually. Okay, what is this one here? Okay, let me show you this one. This is a second solitude invoice, and this is $300. This is for the post-treatment survey. Okay. Okay, those are the two that I sent you, so that's $3,850. Now let me stop sharing this one and call up the two. That Steve had provided. Oops, not that. Okay, this first one here, this is from Pace Labs. This is the one that Steve just got today. Okay, and you should be seeing, I'll scroll a bit. This is for Pace Labs. This is $1,027. Is that the one you're seeing? That is it. Can you see it? Yeah. Okay, so this is the one that Steve received today. This is for, again, so they do the chlorophyll-A, nitrogen, nitrate, nitrogen, and total phosphorus. Other stuff there. So that's $1,027. This is a standard invoice we get from Pace twice a year. And let me stop sharing that one. And then the last one is for the rental. And Steve, I'm going to call this one up. It looks like they give you a day rate, a week rate, and a four-week rate. But let's say you had it for a day and you got that deal. One day. One day. Yeah. All right. I mean, technically I had it over the weekend, but they're not open over the weekend. Okay, U.S. Environmental Rentals. So this is for $106.82. Excuse me. So any questions on any of those four invoices? How often does what's covered by the first two invoices, how often is that done? The two Solitude invoices? The $3,500? Yeah. So those are specific to the ClearCast treatment this year. So we contracted the work. It was $9,000 to $10,000. So there were two ClearCast treatments. Those are $35.50 each. There is this post-treatment survey, which is $300. And then there's a report, $1,500. And that's not adding up to... $9,000 to $10,000. The first one might have been $5,000. I can't recall now. But these are specific to what they did this year for the herbicide application, separate from all the hand-pulling of water chestnut. Those are our second batch of invoices that we get, and those have already been approved for the 12 or whatever days they did this year. So those are the ones we perennially approve for solitude, the hand-pulling of water chestnut. So it's clear-calf stuff. This is the second year we've done it, and we discussed it last week with Tom, and he'd like to keep doing it. It's certainly not as effective as when we do Procelica on Dudley Pond. That is, it doesn't just wipe out all the water chestnut. It maybe keeps them in check, but we see for the second year now, we'll see a lot of browning, you know, dead plants. But there are clusters of plants where there's some that are alive, some that are dead. So it's hard to really assess. How effective it is. Is it worth doing? Tom Largy thinks so, and we can keep doing it. But, you know, it's, again, it's not as obviously as effective as Procelacor is for milfoil. And we've got that whole self-cove part of herd pond, which is basically lost now. But anyways, Steve, getting back to your question, these two salted invoices are specific for the herbicide treatment. And as long as we keep doing that, these are the kinds of invoices we're going to see for the survey that they do at the end of the two treatments, and then separate invoices for the first and second treatments. Okay, but it's typically done once a year? Well, it's done twice. They do a treatment. Earlier in the season, then they allow for it to take effect, and then they'll do it again. So it's one contract that we have with them, but part of the activities are the two applications of the herbicide. Okay. This is 10682. All right, so I'm going to make... Stop sharing. I'm going to make one blanket motion to approve the foreign voices. Two for Solitude and their ClearCast herbicide work, one for the second application of herbicide, $3,550. The second one for the post-treatment survey, $300. And then the two new invoices for PACE and water chemistry testing, $1,027. And then for the meter rental from U.S. Environmental, $106.82. If there are no questions, I will ask for a second to approve payment of those. Second. Larry, second. And then let's go around the room. Tom Klem, aye. Steve Garone, aye. Larry Kiernan, aye. Great. Thank you. All right. Jump back to my agenda. Okay. So going back to starting with WP, I know we touched on some of the points there. So, two things. I sent to the committee the update from Allison on the mechanical harvesting. The season is now complete. They did nine weeks worth of work, which is two more than last year. Far fewer breakdowns. Steve, I was surprised to learn in talking with Allison this weekend that, you know, we have that blade that goes underneath. And that was meant to be a big aid in helping us scrape the bottom and really get the plant roots. Allison told me that they've just taken the thing off entirely. They don't even use it anymore. I know. It was just hanging up too much. So, I mean, they still had a great year of yield, but they had the additional weeks because they didn't have the downtime. But I was surprised to... To hear that. Yeah. And then furthermore, they tried the skimmer boat last year. And as I understand, there's Becky is her name. Somebody in a pontoon boat that just follows behind the harvester and they just basically net up all the loose. Yeah, Becky Leonard. She goes out there with a bunch of people, did that three or four times. And yeah, they work really hard, full day. I wasn't aware of that either. And furthermore, getting back to the blade, it sounds like what I heard from Allison too, that the blade, when it was working, it just ends up kicking up stuff that you could never pick up with the harvester because it disperses it. So the tape grass just sort of dissociates away. So, you know, they got more done without that blade in there and it was easier for the trailing crew to pick up any loose tape grass. Right. She also would tell you that the more they did, the more they had to do. Well, I thought they were doing it later in the year, because one of the findings from last year was you wait longer, and yes, that means there's less recreation. Correct. They would not have to go back over areas they previously treated. So did they start earlier this year, which is why they had to go back and redo areas? No, they started on the late side, but... One day I was out there and she was like, well, you know, we were trying to cut canals, essentially. Be able to show people, well, if you want to go through, this is a good way to go. And they come out the next day and, you know, it practically filled in again. So they're having a lot of trouble trying to keep up. So it's not a foolproof thing to just wait till later in the season. This stuff still grows back so quickly. It still does, yeah. It's a tough problem, you know? All right. Well, one thing I want to point out before I open the floor to any of your comments or questions is Tom Largy made a good comment last week that a more valuable metric than pounds of plants removed would be to know the areas treated. And I had overlooked in Allison's updates, and they are in the summary that I sent you all. She will talk about the areas treated using the colloquial terms, the turtle sea and all this stuff. So there's a map in that file I sent. So when you see Allison's report for any particular week, and she's talking about this area of the pond. You can refer to the map, which tells you where she and Tree were pulling up weeds. So it's all there. The pounds was an easy metric for me to talk about and compare to priors. But all the information is in that report that Allison sent individually. I just compiled it all for ease of referral. Now, did you go to Sunday's meeting? Yes. Okay. Because I mentioned to you I couldn't make it. What was presented that is relevant to us? Because I haven't talked to anybody yet. The only thing we'll talk about, so one thing to talk about is last time we met, there was this grant application that was going to be put together by the Dudley Pond Association. And between then... And that time in September and when the grant was submitted in October, they had enlisted through Abigail Charest, the town engineer, the assistance of Jack Troidel at ECT, which is Environmental Consultants, and I don't know what the T stands for, testing perhaps. Jack has done this. This is his job. He's done this a lot. He's worked with many communities. So he primarily put together this grant proposal, this wastewater, excuse me, this nutrient management study for Dudley Pond. So right now there's no action for us. It's been submitted and Anne talked about that whole process at the dinner on Sunday. But there's no action for us. Until we win this. But even if it gets won, there may not be any immediate action for us. Because as I understand, even though Jack and his team helped put this together, if we are awarded the money, there still has to be an RFP process. So it could be Wendy Gendron, for example. It could be Jack. And so those entities, whoever wins that. They're going to be conducting the work. So my name as a representative of this committee is on there. So maybe I'll be in some advisor or this committee will in some advisory way be collating information, but we're not going to be. Well, actually, let me take a go back a step. So if we win this thing, there will be an RFP process, which would be mediated through this committee because we are the town representative. So just as we have done this before with. On W Pond, trying to look for contractors to do weed harvesting or for clear cast on herd pond. We would be overseeing the RFP process. So we would be responsible working with the town to put together what that RFP would look like. We would put it out for bid. Companies would bid. So we will be managing that. We won't be doing the work. So it'll be analogous in some ways to what we do now with solitude. On Herd Pond or for Dudley Pond with the chemical treatments. Okay. Good. Yeah, that was great. Larry, just, I think we talked about this at a previous meeting, but this grant that was being applied for was a 604B grant, which is something that a municipality has to submit. So the Delta Pond Association, which is not a municipality, it's a neighborhood organization, they, and I was on the committee that did it, wrote the proposal or put it together or got it done. But ultimately, the select board had a vote to say, yes, we're going to submit this. So it's in the state's hands now. And what Tom was referring to was, hey, if we get it, We're going to be playing a role in figuring out who actually does the work. And I will share, and Steve, I think you know this too, there was a bit of late stage confusion because the select board, you know, we are an advisory body, technically, even though we do more than advise, we oversee activities on herd pond and deadly pond. The select board said, well, if the Surface Water Quality Committee is an advisory, it should be a more... So in the end, it was us and it was my name on there. So it worked out in the end. Well, good for you, Tom. You're famous. I feel like I'm on the hook, you know, if this turns into like... That's the bad way of putting it. One of the things I, you know, I'm just going to say this, although I'm not sure we're going to deal with it in any significant way tonight. And Tom, I think I told you this, the day of that select board meeting, Carol Martin called me. And she thought, first of all, she thought the whole world was mad at her. It was, you know, just cross connections, things being said that, you know. So, but, you know, I was talking to her and I said, you know, I mean, and she's like, well, who's in charge here? And, you know, I've. I think we should be. I've said that many, many times. But the Dudley Pond Association, and in particular, some people who are associated with it, they really do a lot of great work around the pond and people listen to them, but they don't have any power. They're not part of the town. So she's like trying to figure out, well, I'm dealing with these people, but what's going on here? And I said, you know, Carol, the only way for that to straighten out is when you're dealing with this stuff, talk to Service Water Quality and work with us. And she goes, well, that's great, but, you know, I serve the town. So when somebody in the neighborhood says, I want your attention, I have to respond to that. So it's like, you know, we don't always have a direct channel to who the select board's working with. But then we were talking about money because, you know, if we get this grant, there have to be some funds that are put up to kind of, not matching, but, you know, you have to pay for some of it. And it's not going to be us. It's going to be the Dudley Pond Association because they have money. And I said, well, you know, Carol, that's, you know, we've always, we sit around at our meetings and we know we have this much money in our budget, but, you know, it always seems to be the same every year. And we're kind of, at least I'm used to the fact that this is how much money we're going to have. And she said, well, you know, who knows, but, you know, you don't get what you don't ask for. And that really struck a chord with me because I'm like, well, wait a minute. Maybe we should be coming up with our own plans. And if we don't think we have money to cover it, let's ask for it. Let's go to the town. Well, that's a... Go ahead, Steve. Sorry. Finish. Yeah, I'm done. Okay. Well, I was going to say that's a great segue because... What I have on the agenda for Dudley Pond is we need to think about next year. And typically, Larry, we have done, speaking of herbicides, we've done Procellicor treatments on Dudley Pond twice now, 2019, 2023, to treat the milfoil every four years. Next year would be the next year in the four-year cycle. So do we need to prepare for Procellicor? I was talking Steve to Allison to get her assessment. And she didn't think, Milfoil was so bad necessarily, but there are other plants coming up, and maybe we, and so there are two things that she sort of tied together. Maybe we don't want to do Prisilacor because we don't want to encourage resistance to Prisilacor in the Milfoil, and if we need to treat more, and if Milfoil is kind of a bit of a, not as prevalent as it was, but other plants are coming up, maybe we use Sonar, for example, that can knock back other stuff. Again, it doesn't give Milfoil a year to build up resistance to Prisilacor. But she wasn't clear on what would be the best approach to take. And so if it was Procelacor, it's pretty straightforward for me to go to the select board. And Steve, to your point, go before them and say, hey, select board, we need to do a Procelacor treatment next year. It's going to be probably 70,000, 75,000 next year compared to what it was four years ago. Please give us $75,000 more in our budget. $75,000? Well, I just threw a number out there. Last time we did this, it cost us a little over $60,000 to do Priscilla Corp. That was four years ago. So now, you know, who knows how much more expensive. Maybe it's $70,000. It'll be more than $60,000. So I understand. Is that the whole pond? Well, so this is part of it too, right? So part of the thing, one of the points Allison raised was, do we treat the whole pond like we've done in years past? Sorry, let me back up. We did not treat the whole pond. We treated certain areas of the pond where the milfoil was densest. So it was not a whole pond treatment. It was, I think, 13 acres, I want to say. It wasn't the whole pond anyways, Larry. It was areas where milfoil was the densest. That could be the approach we take, but what we don't have right now, and we're going to be entering into budgeting season, is what do we want to plan for for next year? It looks like it would not be solely milfoil. It's probably going to be a mix of things. If it's a mix of things, we wouldn't want Priscillacore, because Priscillacore targets specifically milfoil. There may be, you know, Steve, you've been talking about Olodia. There's the Clatton. Clasping and the curling ones. Those two. And of course, tape grass which we can't treat. Yeah, one is clasping and one is curly leaf. Anyways, but there are other ones that sonar might be an effective herbicide against. So do we want to do sonar next year to treat plants? So we don't have a plan. The three of us are not going to have that plan tonight. It's going to take more. But next time we meet, it's going to be... Probably after budget season. So what I'm going to do is I owe Carol, Steve, a call. I've been delinquent in doing that because I want to put her mind at ease that people aren't mad at her. If anything, it's people causing confusion because she talks to me and you. She talks to Norm. So she's getting different. She's feeling different parts of the elephant kind of thing. I need to go before the select board to have money set aside. I don't know how much they would hold my feet to the fire for specifics, but I'll reach out to Carol and say, look, Carol, I need to go before the select board and make a case for more budget for herbicide. We don't have a plan yet. So I'm really raising that for awareness to the two of you that I'm going to go before them to make a play for more budget. It's undefined at this point, so I don't know what kind of pushback I got from the select board. Maybe raising awareness is enough, and as a plan takes shape, I can go back before them and say, okay, it's going to be sonar for these plans, or it's going to be proselicor for milfoil, so that by the time we put together an article for town meeting, it can take shape as to the specifics of it. So just for the two of your awareness, I'm going to reach out to Carol. Excuse me, ask to be asked to go before Select Board to make a case for more a larger budget specifically for herbicide on Dudley Pond and to be determined what it's going to be targeting or what kind of herbicide. And would sonar be similar expensive as? Priscilla Corp? Yeah. Good, good question. I don't know the answer to that. And what I also don't know, and Allison mentioned this, Steve, is I have to check our orders of conditions. I think we're okay to use sonar because I think that's been something we've had in there for years. I know our order of conditions is good for five more years, but I'll need to check on the sonar part because if we have to get a permit for sonar, I can do that, but that's just more background stuff that has to take place. So I'll check on that. Yeah, let me know what happens with that. Okay. So that's just a point. You can work on that together. What's that? You don't have to do it all. Okay. Yeah. Let me see. I think I suspect you're okay because sonar is probably already on the order of conditions. And I think a lot of stuff gets carried forward every time we renew it. But I'll have to double check that. And thank you, Steve. Yeah, I'll get you involved. And Larry, if you want to as well, you'll certainly be kept informed as to what's going on with this stuff. So right now. And when would that be? Sorry? When I go before the select board? Yeah. I don't know. I'll reach out to Carol first because I owe her a conversation just to talk about stuff Steve mentioned. But then I'll ask her, I'll request, can I come before select board to talk about a larger budget for herbicide on Dudley Pond? And then she'll tell me when that is. Do they meet every week, Steve? I assume it's every week, but she's telling me it's every other week, so I don't know how often they are with Thanksgiving coming up. I think it's every other week. Okay. So, you know, if I call Carol this week, let me find out. Who knows? For me to be on there, it's not a big discussion. She could probably fit me in there, but I need to find out when that could be. It might not be until after Thanksgiving. I don't know, but let me talk to Carol first. So I'm just raising it to the both of you so you're aware that these are next steps I'm going to take. But I can fill you in next time we meet. Anything else on Dudley Pond? Those are the three, just the mechanical harvesting update, budgeting. I put in the agenda for Purcellacore. It may not be Purcellacore, but it'll be some herbicide next year on Dudley Pond. And then we talked about the grant submission. If there's nothing else, we can move on to... Oops. Okay, Larry, I thought Larry dropped off. If there's nothing else on Dudley Pond, we can go to Herd Pond. Tom couldn't make it today, but I can speak to the Herd Pond updates if we're done with Dudley Pond. I think we are. Okay. The updates on Herd Pond, pretty brief for me. So, as you saw, they did the second treatment. I have not seen the survey yet. So I don't know what the upshot is. Tom Largy, last time we met, talked about what he had seen on the pond. Like I said, it's what we had seen last year where it's not so obviously effective that we're just seeing dead plants, dead water chestnuts on herd pond. It's a mix of some dead plants, some live plants. So again, the effectiveness of doing this is hard to see. I know Tom is in favor of doing it next year. One thing we had talked about... And I don't know if it makes sense, is do we want to extend the area of treatment? So right now, sawtube, when they put clear cast down in the pond, it's only within the parcels of the pond that are on the wayland side. The adjacent parcels are U.S. Fish and Wildlife. So we could get approval to apply herbicide there, but we have to get approval from U.S. Fish and Wildlife, which is a process I would need to start now. So I'll talk to Tom Largy. I may just go ahead and do that because, again, it's just a bureaucratic process. I think he was pretty clear that it'd be helpful. I think Tom wasn't up for... The getting the permission from Fish and Wildlife, but that he thought it was necessary. And when we went out there, obviously, it's a core of the weeds are there in that little corner that's U.S. Fish and Wildlife. Okay. So, Larry, I missed the first part. So, Tom does think it's worthwhile? Yes. Okay. So, I'll take lead on that. I know Tom is not one for the bureaucratic process, but I can initiate that. Again, it's low-key effort. I know it's going to take a lot of time, but we might as well get the ball rolling on that. So, if we decide to keep doing clear cast, if we want to extend the area of treatment, we'll at least have the proper... Permits in place. So I will take that as an action. This is a long shot, but could we get money from U.S. Fish and Wildlife? Good question. I don't know the answer to that. I would imagine, you mean like through a grant or like through their regular budget? Well, it's their section of land and I'm sure they... Probably treat things. I would not assume that. I would imagine they would probably prefer not to treat anything. But when I, as part of this process, I'll be engaging with Stephanie Koch, who's our contact there. So I can find out. Yes, a long shot, I think, but possible. Because Larry, I would think if they were doing that, then we wouldn't even need to go through this effort. It's something they routinely do. But as part of all this, Stephanie's willing to help, but I can inquire if this is something they, you know, if they would, I don't know, let me, I don't know enough to answer clearly the question. All I know is it's going to be a bureaucratic process and it's got to start sooner rather than later. So I'll do that. And in the course of doing that, I'll be reaching out to Stephanie and I can find out from her, to your point, if it's something they do or is there funding we can tap into for the work? I just don't know.
And let me just check on the agenda here. So, yeah, those are the two things. So the ClearCast treatment is done for the year. The hand-pulling activities are done. Tom Largy sent Jeff Castellani a note about getting on that report that they provide us every year, a summary of all the activities. So we'll get that. That typically comes later in the year anyway. So he sent a reminder to Jeff Castellani to do that. So I'll keep the team updated there.
And yeah, I'll begin looking into permitting to treat the fish and wildlife parcels. The last thing I have on here is just a note. Thanks to you for the committee members for reviewing our annual town report contribution. I sent it off to Jalen at the end of September. So that's been submitted for the year. Other than that, that is it. Are there any topics? Of immediate import that anybody wanted to bring up? Because other than planning for Dudley Pond, herbicide treatment, permitting for Herd Pond, activities are kind of winding down for the year for the surface oil quality committee. Well, I just wanted to mention that when I was talking earlier about my conversation with Carol, What popped into my mind when she used those words, well, if you don't ask for it, you don't get it, or whatever the words were. I was like, well, maybe if this grant doesn't come through and the DPA doesn't feel like it wants to fund it on its own, maybe we go to the town and say, look, this is really important. Tell them why. Maybe we ought to go to town meeting and see if we can get money to do this. Okay. Just a statement. I'm not suggesting we act on it right now, but we've got to see what happens. And Abby Charest, when she was giving the summation, there is apparently some money that had been awarded to the town recently for related work. So I forgot what those grants are. So there may be some money already that can go towards this project. Maybe. But I can summarize that later. Okay. So let me just check the agenda again. All right. So that is the agenda. So we need a date for the next meeting. We've got Thanksgiving coming up and Christmas. Does anyone have a calendar open? I'm trying to think off the top of my head. Christmas is on a Friday. I know that. The 25th. So going backwards, 18th, 11th. So let's see. We have the weeks of, what would that be for? December 7th. So we have December 7th or 8th or 9th. I suppose if people want to include a Wednesday to meet. Or we could do it. Oh, we could actually do it. So 7th, 8th, or 9th. Or we could do 14th, 15th, 16th. Which of those weeks or days look good for folks? Would you prefer one closer to Christmas or do you want to do the 7th, 8th, and 9th? Let's do the earlier date. I could do the 7th, the 14th, or the 15th. The 15th might be a candidate then because I know with the select board meeting on Monday, it can be tough to get Zoom meetings. So the 15th is good. Larry, how does the 15th look for you? That's a Tuesday. You're on mute. Good. Good? Do you want to just do the 15th Tuesday? Sure. You know what's funny? I already have. An SWQC meeting at 7 p.m. on the 15th. Might just have been a remnant of when I said, let's do this monthly in my calendar. Okay, well, that's prescient. We'll take that as a cue then. Okay, so we'll do December 15th, Tuesday, for our last meeting of the year. Very good. All right, if there's nothing else, I'm going to make a motion to adjourn at 7.52 p.m. Is there a second on that? I second. Then let's go around the room. Tom Klem, aye. Steve Garone, aye. Larry Kiernan, aye. Excellent. Gentlemen, thank you. Have a great Thanksgiving, and we'll talk to you in December. You too. Bye. Thanks, guys.