May 18, 2026 – Board of Health – Video & Transcript
May 18, 2026 - Board of Health
Okay, let's call the meeting at 6.30.
Okay.
Location for in-person meetings is wheelchair accessible. Meeting may be recorded, and if recorded, will be made available to public on WACAM as soon as possible after the meeting. Public will be excluded from the executive session. Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 25, the meeting will be conducted in person and or by remote access in accordance with applicable law. In the meeting, it has only remote access. No in-person attendance by members or the public will be permitted.
Let's do a roll call. Dr. John Stoyer? Here. Dr. Genevieve Annan? Here. Sorry.
Dr. Brett Mordas? Here. Dr. Barty Francesco? Well, here. Okay, let's start off with public comment. Do we have anybody waiting or?
Yes. Can I speak to the issue of the dust on Hazelbrook Lane? Sure. Do you want to come up? Yeah, come on up. Sure. Please.
Should I say what I'm saying? Whatever I need. Yeah. Just sit.
My name is Connor Davis. I live at 17 Hazelbrook Lane. And, yes, I'm not sure if this is the only topic on the agenda tonight about the dust on Hazelbrook and Lincoln Roads. But, you know, I'm happy to speak to that. We've lived on the road now for going on about five years. And a lot of portions of that have been times with very little rain, you know, over the summer months specifically. And, yeah, I just for a long time now, probably over a year or two, you know, this topic has been on my mind. And I've spent a majority of my career working in landscape construction. I'm very aware of the hazards of dust and what you can do to protect yourself. But, you know, this is just a situation that, you know, you can't wear a mask walking your dog or hanging out in your yard. It's just part of life almost is the dust on the road. And I just, I don't know, I just think Kim behind me here, I just met her tonight. But, you know, she's done a lot of that almost digging to figure out, you know, what the surface is on the road. And I just think that's a huge part of the problem. And it just seems to have such little water retention. I mean, it rained a lot, you know, two days ago. And even starting yesterday, it's already back to being bone dry and producing, you know, crazy clouds of dust. I mean, we must have hundreds of cars that come down Hays of Rippling every day. And, you know, somebody who drives it a lot myself, I know how much the dust kicks up. And I just feel so bad for, you know, people when you pass them. People love to bike on that road, walk on that road. It's a very beautiful part of Wayland. But, I mean, you need to be going less than five miles an hour to not kick up dust on that road. And I'd say the average speed is, you know, 30 to 40 plus on that road. So, I'm just very thankful. Like I said, this has been on my mind for years now. And I just didn't really know what to do about it until, you know, Kim or whoever had taken the initiatives to bring this to light. And just one other thing, you know, I contacted the DPW a few weeks ago and just before I even knew that Kim was doing this in the background and just asked them, you know, I just was saying, I feel like it's a health hazard and something needs to be done about the dust. And, you know, their first comment was, well, you just got to hope for rain. And then, you know, a day or two went by and I got a call back saying, you know, maybe we can find a subcontractor to put calcium or magnesium chloride down on the road, which is, you know, popular dust suppression product that's used on construction sites. But I just feel like the road has a lot of issues from a DPW standpoint where, you know, the roads, we have a lot of pitch on Hazelbrook Lane and the road is not crowned in any way. So, we develop potholes very often. I'd probably say four times a year, plus the DPW comes and they lay down all this product on the road. So, I think it's just a hard road to maintain being the way it is. The DPW says they're greater that they use as archaic and not really able to get a good crown on the road. So, I just think it's a multifaceted issue that's complex. But I think, you know, the health stuff is certainly a big concern of mine and it's a good starting place. So, okay. Yep. Thank you very much. Yes, take everything. Thank you. Yep.
Thank you.
Hi. We have two minutes, okay. Okay. I'm Kim Cook. I live on Lincoln Road and I'm here on behalf of my wonderful neighbors, their beautiful children, all of our four-legged family members. And I'm here to really ask urgently for your help to address our concerns over the gravel dust clouds that our folks, people are pushing babies through on a daily basis on Lincoln Road and Hazelbrook Lane. I, you know, just as, you know, just as mentioned, the DPW for several years, people have been trying to get the DPW to do something about this. This is more than a nuisance. We have investigated and found out exactly what this material is. This material is known as sub-base, processed gravel for sub-base. This is not supposed to be on top of roads. This is supposed to be under asphalt and under, or concrete. It needs a topper or a cover. Um, and that will make it, make it safe. Um, you know, here, uh, uh, the, the town, um, sent Julia something they call the spec. This isn't a spec, and this wasn't even for the town of Weyland. This is actually, um, confirming the fact that there's concrete and asphalt in what is on the roadtop in, uh, Weyland on Lincoln and Hazelberg roads. Um, I know that also on, uh, May 5th, you guys were sent several videos. Have you had a chance to look at them? I did, yeah. Yeah, um, you know, my, uh, my neighbors, Carl and Nancy, 30 feet. You can't even identify them. This baby that was being pushed, uh, last Tuesday, the eight cars went by, and the baby was just caught with the baby's parents in a, uh, snowballing dust plume. Um, this is very hazardous material. If, uh, I know my neighbors have sent you, and, and some of my neighbors have serious, uh, subject matter expertise, uh, sent letters. Um, you know, I ran a couple of prompts through AI, and, um, you know, uh, does this process, process gravel for sub-base, um, uh, if it's put on top of a dirt road, the traffic traveling at 30 to 40 miles an hour, which is the average of what cars travel on our road. You know, is that safe for adults, children, and, um, pets walking and waiting for school buses? Absolutely not. This scenario is highly unsafe for adults, children, and pets. Leaving sub-base material containing recycled concrete aggregate exposed on a dirt road creates a severe public health hazard. So, this, we are hoping, will be your top priority over the next couple of weeks, a severe public health hazard, and a physical safety risk. Traffic traveling at 30 to 40 miles an hour acts as an industrial milling machine, grinding the concrete aggregate into fine airborne dust. And that's what you see in those video clips, especially the one at night, where it's like driving through a blizzard, um, not being able to see, see your neighbors. Um, I called the guy in charge of this. He says, that test wasn't, this was for the city of Boston. They regularly test the material that they put under their asphalt and under their concrete, which is, you know, can, contains this recycled aggregate. We get this material from a demolition, a place they, they demolish, uh, parking garages, and we find all kinds of things in this, uh, on our road. In fact. Can we sum that up, please? We have a big agenda tonight. We've got other people, too. Yeah, we've got other people, please. Okay. Well, here's, he explained to me how he does the test, because you're going to have this in your packet, and you're going to go, whoa, what does this mean? He said, he takes a five-gallon, they get a five-gallon, uh, bucket, a sample of rocks, and they just count which ones are concrete, aggregate, and which are other types of stone. And that's how they, they, they look at it. He said, there's very little regulation in this industry, very, all kinds of stuff. Here's asphalt. Here's, I took a five-by-five section, and I collected, at least 50% was concrete aggregate. I will leave one with you. Yeah. Yeah. Has this changed? Yeah. Has, has what? Has the dust changed in the last year, two years, three years? For the last two years, it's been a real problem. Yeah. And prior to that? It has absolutely changed. When Stubby was in charge of the DPW, he used to come with truckloads of dirt, and they used to grate the dirt and flatten it. And then it had a crown, like, when it was just being described. There are so many people, uh, who, who live on the road, who, uh, use the road, living on Concord Road, who will, uh, you know, explain this to you very clearly. Um, but, uh, your help is urgently needed. There's, these, this company that, this is all demolition stuff. You know, we find, I've got pictures of, and this is another health hazard for kids, steel pipes. They throw that in there to make the trucks heavier, so, you know, they, you know, they, that's how they pay, by the pound. Um, I've got some pictures that I'll share with you, um, of, like, two or three feet sections of concrete that are just being tossed on the side, side of the road. Um, do you like it being a dirt road? I do not like what it has now. What it's become, but you moved there. I moved, but it was a dirt road. Right now, it's got this processed, recycled gravel. Yeah. But I would be fine if it was paved. I would be fine if there, if it had permeable pavement, I would be fine with cobblestones. I would be fine with gravel that wasn't recycled, demolition stuff with probably asbestos mixed in with it. We found plastics, you know, we're, we're pulling this stuff out of our driveways, like big chunks of, there's a lot of these pieces of metal. Where'd they go? You know, where are they coming from? Every, every time they come to re resurface the road, you know, we're finding pieces like that. So here, this is not a sustainable situation. It is not safe. Um, you can see from the video and, um, and, uh, any type of, you know, if you want to, I know you guys are all medical experts. I'm not a civil engineer, I'm not a medical expert, um, but I was able to find out what this stuff is. I called Denim Recycled Bravel. I got the exact spec number. I talked to the DOT. I talked to DPW people in the city of Boston and Framingham. We need your help to immediately direct the DPW to stop using this stuff, to pick it, to pick it up, and to come up with another solution. And then in the meantime, shut down all traffic that's cut through and enforce some really low speed limits because even 10 miles an hour keeps up a lot of this dust. And, um, you know, here, when you go, I'll share these, uh, these prompts that we just have a lot of other, I know you do, but this, we, we can take people are breathing in very harmful. Also, we, we know where this is, what you're saying, we can put it on an agenda item, we can specifically talk about it, but we have a lot of. I, I appreciate, I appreciate your time and attention to this matter. And, um, you know, if, if this says, if, you know, you, you immediately call your DPW and your board of health and your DPW, if you don't get, call the DEP, you know, we don't want to keep escalating that. Then the town, you know, is really encumbered, this needs to be addressed, like, this week, immediately. Here's some examples of the copies, if you could pass that to them, of the prompts, the AI prompts that I ran. Um, here's some more. This stuff belongs under pavement, not on a dirt road. And thank you. Thank you. Thank you. If you could just sign your hand-guess cheese, please. Sure. And I'll leave all the samples there. You could take this stuff and see for yourself. Thank you.
So, yeah. In those. Yeah. Yeah. If you could just sign in. Anyone else who's here? We know who's here. We may have commented. Yeah. So everybody else wants to. Track. Thank you. Make public comment. Come on up. Then we've got people on. Yeah. So let's make it.
Whalen resident. I grew up on Hazelbrook Lane. It's been a dirt road, obviously, my entire life. The town has maintained it beautifully up until recently. And the process has changed in which they have cared for the road. And by adding this aggregate on the road and back dragging it, solving potholes, it's never been a resolution that has worked. Typically on a dirt road, and I have a dirt road up in New Hampshire as well, the road's graded and crowned. And it provides for drainage, the potholes stay away, and all. And it works. And it works great. But the town has changed its approach. And unfortunately, it's created this problem. But absolutely, I do not want to see that really paved. It would be more of a cut through, more disturbing for its real character and charm, which is what Whalen really is, certainly to me. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I didn't know whether I was supposed to talk or not. I'll just be very brief. I'm Judy Rose. I live at 95 Lincoln Road. I've lived there for almost 30 years. I'm in my 80s. I walk on Lincoln Road in Hazelbrook three miles, I would say five to six times a week. Since I've been aware of the dust when it's come up, but I was not aware of a potential health concern until the recent news. So today, I wore a medical mask. Should I be wearing a KN95 mask? That's my question, too. What should I be wearing to protect my health? Anybody else? We have anybody waiting.
Anyone remotely looking to make a public comment?
Yes, we do. Oh, we have someone in person, too. After this, Jen, please.
Hello? Can you hear me? Yes, please. Do you like the name, Paul? Yeah. I didn't know if you were accepting comment on the tobacco regulation at this point.
Why don't we finish up the other first? Okay. Yeah, yeah. We will. We'll finish up this first. Okay. Thank you. Yep. Anybody else waiting? We had a time. Okay. Thank you, Mark. Sorry.
I'm kind of asked Paul, 33 Hazelbrook Lane. I've lived there for 34 years. All I'd ask is, as part of DPH, an evaluation of the constituency of what's being used in the gravel. I've seen this subjectively over the years change quite significantly recently over the last period of time. And so my experience, it had been dirt in the past. That's why it would have been used. Now we're seeing this kind of constituency. And the product of these, I'm a physician, the products of these is a concern to a large extent of what is in the gravel, the asphalt, and what's kicked up for it. So certainly there have to be records from the past of what has been used and where that's been over the years of how the materials have been used to grade the road. And so I would ask you to look into those for those constituencies as well. Thank you.
Do you have anyone else? I don't think so. I'm just making sure.
Those folks over there, if you could just. I'll show them. Thank you.
Okay. So. So we're on. On to the next public comment is. Do we have somebody? Yeah, we do. Are we going to do this back right now? Well, the public comment probably. Right. Okay. You want to wait till later. But that might be. Okay, Jeff. Yeah, thanks. And I don't see a video option. I'm not hiding. I just don't see that. So thanks for the opportunity. Thanks for the opportunity to speak tonight. I'm speaking on behalf of the Progressive Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. Yeah, I personally have. Yes. Yes, please. Can you give us your address, please? We see you, man. Absolutely. I work for the Progressive Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. I live in Andover, Kansas. So the address is 1930 North Springbrook Street, and the zip is 67002. Okay. We have two minutes. Thanks. Okay. Well, obviously, we appreciate your commitment to protecting young people. Teens should never use nicotine. However, we oppose restricting pouch sales to adult-only retailers and the 6 milligram limit. I could say a lot about Congress and giving the FDA the authority to regulate tobacco products and the safety reviews that they do before they authorize any products. I'm going to skip that, though, for time and just make a couple points. So first, among teens, nicotine pouch use has remained low. About 2.5% of kids used a pouch at least once in the past month, and less than 2% of kids use them more regularly. Today, overall, youth nicotine use is at the lowest level that it's ever been recorded. And if youth use does increase, FDA can revoke a product's authorization and remove it from the market. But I think the most important thing for me is you should consider the negative public health cost of banning pouch sales from traditional retail establishments. Public health hasn't figured out smoking cessation. Our ability to help hasn't met the demand of millions of adults who want to quit. And for a smoker and for public health overall, ending smoking as quickly as possible is critical. Most adults want to quit. Most have tried to quit. They're likely curious about these new lower-risk nicotine products. This policy will banish pouches from the places where most smokers buy cigarettes, convenience stores and grocery stores. When an adult in Wayland goes to buy their next pack of cigarettes, wouldn't you want them to see a much lower alternative relative to cigarettes, a significantly lower-risk alternative? Would you want a 30-, 40-, or 50-year-old adult to be able to make a choice to try something else that might actually help them quit smoking? Do you want to pass a policy that implies to those adults that pouches are somehow so dangerous that they need to be banished to places where they don't even shop? Public health has a core principle to make the healthier choice the easier choice. Imposing this restriction may or may not have any impact on kids, but it will remove the healthier choice from the places that adults buy cigarettes. So, thank you for the opportunity to share our perspective. Thank you, Jeff. You bet. Thanks.
I don't know. Yeah. She's just the one.
Is there anyone else with a public comment that's on the remote side, zooming in?
So, I think this will look like it. Okay. All right. Let's move on to Maura, public health. Great. Hi. I'm Maura Carter, public health nurse. I have both between March and the April communicable disease reports and reviews, given the lack of our meeting last month. So, calcivirus, at least a virus, a norovirus, more commonly known, two cases, influenza 38, Lyme disease 5, COVID-19 or coronavirus 12, and latent tuberculosis infection 1. So, that was for March. And then for April, enterovirus, two cases, human granulocytic anaplasmosis, the tick-borne disease, one case, influenza 31, Lyme disease 4, coronavirus 5, somnolosis 3, tuberculosis, latent tuberculosis infection 1, and varicella 1. So, salmonellosis lights affect with that number of cases there, but multiple were related to travel or break, and so no concern to any significance for other communities at that time.
So, beyond the communicable disease numbers, our community outreach highlights included in this report that recent TB disease data released by DPH DPH, that outlines the number of cases in Massachusetts for 2025. So, you'll see a blurb about that here with a total of 252 residents with tuberculosis disease. So, that's not the same as what you see on the disease reports, which are latent tuberculosis infection, but those are incidents of actual disease. So, some of the community messaging from the Weyland newsletter spoke to accessing Narcan in Weyland. We also put out through each of the schools and their principals and school nurses immunization messaging, in addition to messaging through the town newsletter to residents about recommended vaccines, given some of the attempts at changes to the immunization requirements. And so, just outlining that there has been no change to the required and recommended vaccines in Massachusetts. So, there was a blurb, too, about the MRC, the Medical Reserve Corps, the local Metro West group, in seeking volunteers for this group and information on how to sign up as a volunteer. There is information about tick-borne disease prevention that went into the town newsletter as well, and into the all schools newsletter for parents and families, caregivers of students. And then, the vaccine message, like I said, again, that went out through school newsletters. In their most recent town newsletter for May, we spoke to accessing mental health resources. As May is Mental Health Awareness Month in an attempt to reduce stigma and increase connections to resources. And I worked with the library on having an app display there, which is pictured just a bit later on. And then, there were two community listening sessions that were advertised through the town newsletter for engaging residents in the entire public health collaborative. So, Wayland, along with six other towns in our collaborative, to engage residents in their thoughts on public health and trust. And so, two of those sessions happened recently. And then, there was an event called No Proof Required that was part of planning from Warren King, the community clinician, through the foods department and the opioid abatement fund group, along with Olivia DuPour, who's the regional substance use prevention coordinator for Great Meadows Public Health Collaborative. I attended the event, and it was pretty well attended, with about 24 non-public health or town representative attendees. And it was a success, and likely will be something that is done again in the future. So, this was an opportunity for folks to gather and participate in an activity that would normally be done around substance use, like alcohol, but with beverages that were non-alcoholic. And then lastly, for school health services, the first bullet point there about clinical disease and an uptick in seasonal influenza and viral illnesses during spring. So, that's partially representative of looking at March. You can see from the disease report, March and April will still pretty even in terms of influenza activity. But I've certainly seen now that fall in influenza activity more recently. And then the screening brief intervention and referral to treatment screenings were done at the middle school recently. And then, at this time of year, schools are busy doing different types of screenings of students in certain grades to keep up with the screening requirements for vision, hearing, posture, etc. And lastly, TCW, or the Children's Way preschool, was determined to move into Happy Hollow Elementary come this next school year. And so, with that, we've been working with the schools on that transition. A few reports ago, we talked about this current school nurse leader who we've had for the past several years, Heather Yates, stepping down as school nurse leader at the end of the school year. And so, she was just, her replacement was just named, and that person is a school nurse from within our community health nurse team that has been now promoted to school nurse leader starting July 1st. And that is Betsy Green, so we're excited to bring Betsy into that position and continue with the support of the Children's Way transition for the golf. Very nice. That's what I have for you. Does the board have any questions? No. Thank you. Thank you. Zoom on to Stone Ridge Condo Pool. I don't know if anyone is zooming in regarding Stone Ridge Condo Pool. If you are here for that, please raise your hand. It sounds like we're supposed to be hammering. Yeah. I tried reaching out today, so it's possible that they are not coming, so we probably can just move on. All right. All right. Let's talk about review and discussion. Revised draft of the Board of Health Regulations for sale of tobacco and nicotine delivery products. Yeah. So, I printed out some copies. This is a very, you know, it's a very initial discussion. We haven't talked about this yet. We did have folks reaching out asking questions about it. I assured them that there's no vote happening today. We're just at the very beginning stages of looking at our draft regulation. I have a copy of our current regulation. If anyone's interested in looking at how that looks now, I can hear that. Yeah. I see that. So, right now, we've got prohibiting smoking in workplace and public places. And also, a separate component of tobacco regulation that's restricting the sale of tobacco on the nicotine delivery products. So, it's really the same regulation but the two separate documents. And I'm not aware of any changes to the workplace and public place. So, are we going over each area? I mean, we don't have to do that. I think we can do whatever you'd like. We could sort of talk in general, see if there's any questions. I can bring in our regional tobacco control manager at a different meeting to answer any questions after you have a chance to look at things. Especially where we already have correspondence coming through from. I can share with you the email that came in at 6.05, although it's 50 page documents. So, you'll have to take a look at your email. I printed out one copy if anyone wants to flip through it while we're sitting here. But that wasn't really, you know, what the agenda item was about. But it's important. This is just, you know, the introduction email. And this draft copy has been reviewed by town council. We've gone back and forth a couple of times. What, the one you just, this one? Yes. The copy, but not the old copy. Right. That one that's redlined. Yep. That one has been reviewed by Carolyn Murray of KP Law. And Harry, who was our tobacco control manager, helped to craft some of the language. But it is a lot. So, you know, I just wanted to introduce it. Sort of, you know, find out if there's any questions initially. And then we can put it on another board meeting, potentially inviting, you know, maybe Perry to sort of talk through some of these things. And, um, answer any questions that you made. Is that the schools? No, no. Harry actually works. He's a regional, um, employee. Yeah. He works for the town of Framingham. But he covers a number of towns. He doesn't, don't we have an advisor that works at the schools for all? Tobacco control? Not so much for talking to the students. Well, we have youth and family services. I thought that was an issue brought up too. That they were. They do talk about tobacco. Sure. Um, and they do bring in, you know, different educational, um, presentations and things. So that's very possible. Yeah. Hi Julia. Sorry. Yes. Sorry. Um, I had a question. So we were, we talked briefly about flavored, um, nicotine products. Is this in the same, uh, area of, uh, investigation or area of, of, uh, decision making? Yes, it is. Okay. So because the guy today was talking about pouches. So it's, it's kind of covering all nicotine sales. It is. Okay. Thanks. And we would eventually will, you know, once we get to that point, we would have a public hearing. And so anyone who wants to speak on behalf of, you know, any businesses that could be impacted and things like that, they'll have that opportunity to do so in a public setting. And, you know, we would hear their comments, concerns, and then take them under advisement. And probably, you know, at a, at a future meeting, have a vote, you know, once we get to that point, it takes some time. Yeah. There's a lot, too. Yeah. There's a lot, um, of information there. And, um, once we read through this 55 page document, we might have some other questions regarding some of the points that are brought up. Um. One of, one of the discrepancies I think was that the company said that there was non-characteristic flavoring or something. And then. In this document? Or that was in the email. Yeah. Okay. I mean, I, I haven't had a chance to really read through everything yet. Cause I was getting ready for the board meeting, but. I don't know. I think, um, but this, this is just all tobacco sales. Mm-hmm. Not just. In Wayland's specifically. Cause the FDA, I guess, found that there was, the company said that there, it's, it, so the company said it's not characteristic flavored. And then the FDA said. You're talking about the Zen chill email. So that's, yeah, that was another piece of correspondence that came from Perry. Who, um, shared that in April and, um, we didn't have a meeting in April. So I had forwarded that along, but, um, that was exactly from the FDA. They provided, um, some information from a person who's at the public health advocacy Institute at Northeastern University School of Law. And, um, this person, uh, let's see, there was a call and. This person suggested that it might be helpful to provide your boards of health with the FDA's report, concluding that Zen chill in three milligram and six milligram has a characterizing flavor. This report was finalized in January of 25 when the FDA authorized Zen chill to be sold in the U.S. The relevant pages from the report are attached with some key conclusions. The FDA does not prohibit the use of characterizing flavors in vapes and pouches, but, of course, Massachusetts does. The report suggests that Zen's manufacturer took the position that Zen chill is unflavored, but the FDA disagreed and concluded Zen chill has a characterizing flavor. Um, according to the FDA, Zen chill contains enough sweeteners and a cooling agent so that the product tastes sweet and produces a cooling sensation for the user. And they provided a link to the full report. And they provided a link to the full report. I did not print that out, but you certainly could look at that if you'd like. And so that's basically what that was about. Um, along with an informational handout from 2024 on, um, implementation of 105 CMR 665 and restriction on the sale of flavored tobacco products. There is a lot. There is a lot. There's a lot here. It's a lot. I know. Um, so my suggestion is, you know, to, I think, take a look at some of the air and some of it's not easy to really absorb exactly what the content means or what the changes might mean. Um, and so, you know, I think read through it a couple of times. Um, and then I can probably have Perry, maybe zoom in at one of our next board meetings to go over any of the redlined areas. Yeah. I mean, combination of us. Yeah. And then we can go through, you know, sort of like a Q and a, but it's a pretty beefed up recent version of anything that. Um, is potentially something that he, as the tobacco control manager, regional control manager is suggesting and, um, hoping that Wayland might consider adopting. Have any other towns nearby adopted something? So there are a few other towns, but, um, it's pretty, uh, I think advanced, you know, as far as banning vapes and nicotine vouches. That is definitely, um, forward thinking. And that's something to think about. But, um, we do have currently 11 tobacco permits in town, which is a lot for a town of this size. How many liquor licenses do we have in town? Well, uh, we're expanding liquor licenses, actually. I think the select board just recently, um, discussed that. I don't know what the exact outcome is, but I remember hearing about it and seeing something in the paper. So I'm not sure where we're at with the numbers, but it's definitely, um, a larger number in Wayland of tobacco permits than some of our adjacent communities. I don't know those numbers offhand, but I can certainly get them so that we, you know, I know that I've been surprised that we have that many when I've heard about. So there are a couple that people hold on to because they're like, well, maybe I'll change my mind or, you know, because basically if you turn your permit in, you can't get it back or someone else might get it. Um, you know, although it's different, you know, the way it's written in these regulations. So, you know, we want to make sure we understand that pretty well, but there are a couple, like, for example, over at the pizza shop and where honey farms or family farms used to be, you know, they had a permit over there and that plate, but they still have, you know, kept it alive. But that business has been closed since the fire. And, you know, so there's been, it's sort of a, um, a thing that changes a little bit every year, but right now we have 11 and they're looking at trying to reduce that to like maybe seven or whatever the board decides. Um, Julia, the person that called in Jeff will it or something like that. Did he give you any references for his data saying that smoking the pouches, uh, as a way of quitting? I'm guessing he will. Um, I don't think that this information we received this afternoon is from a Peter Brennan. I don't know if they're connected or not, but, um, you know, there's a possibility that they might be. And so I'm guessing we will receive something. And, um, maybe one of the other folks that is still connected on zoom can, you know, reach out to that person and ask them to forward something along. With regard to differences. Yes. Right. Because there are drugs to help people quit. They're not great, but the goal is not to take them and transition them to another tobacco product product. The ultimate goal would be to quit completely, you know, because you're increasing the risk of mouth cancers when you have tobacco in the mouth. Exactly. So, you know, you can't, you can't say, yes, it's reduced lung cancer risk, but here it's opened up another whole pool of risk. That's what I was thinking personally. I know that just from, you know, people I know in general, there's a lot of people using those pouches. Right. Right. And they don't, they don't, I have a patient who did this and like, there's no count of what she's using really, because she's just popping them in and out. Right. We don't even know. Like, it's, it seems to me that like, she was more aware of how many cigarettes she smoked and how much or how many pouches she's like and how long she's chewing on them. You know, it might vary. So we don't even know what exposure that eventually that, I don't know what exposure she was getting even, you know. Sorry. And she's, was, is fairly addicted to the pouches now. So that's not, I don't feel like that was a good trade. Yeah. Cool. No, you're, you're seeing intraoral lesions, uh, in the mouth. I say it all the time. I mean, it's increased, especially in, you know, high school and college a lot. Yeah. So that, that's, I think that's horrible. And, and they also begin to think they, because of the way it's marketed that it's not as risky as smoking. So it's okay. Yeah. And probably it's not just people that are going from cigarettes too. It's like, it's probably, there's probably other people, but it's not just people going right from cigarettes there. It's the new people trying, trying it too. It could be the kids, right? Isn't it a baseball thing to like chew on tobacco and spit it out on the field. So it could be middle school boys just going straight to the tobacco chewing. I can simply get a high off it when they're using it. That's what they're saying. Is that new? Instead of vaping, they're doing this now? It's kind of, it's both. But we see, I'm seeing a lot of poaching. And it's easier to hide. Yes. You know, when you're not exposing people to smoke or vape, you know, so it could be. Right. You can see it, but you know, you're not. You can see the lesions very quick. Oh really? Yeah. It's all white. We asked them as, you know, are you using any poaches? Oh no. I'm not using it. But you see it. Yeah. You do see it though. Oh. So those are pre, that's leukoplakia pre-cancer. Mm-hmm. All right. So we'll put that on. Yeah. I mean, any other thoughts or questions yet? I can, um, does that sound like a good strategy? I think so. Going forward. I mean, it is a lot. Yeah. So, um, we can take step one and then, you know, you guys can do some homework, reading and... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Glad to, uh... Can we just ask a procedural question? Just, we discussed, uh, the road in Hazelbrook. Will there be any further discussion? There could possibly be, um, it just depends on how the agenda goes for the rest of the night. So there could be. Could be. We may speak. Yes, may. Yeah. Thank you. Yep. Okay. Let's do the update on... Yep. So, uh, we have been working with, um, a, uh, staff person from, um, Ty and Bond who's, um, I'm sorry. I'm trying to remember his name. I hope it's Trent. Anyway, regardless, we are working on going further with our permitting of building approvals and septic approvals and transitioning those into OpenGov, which is an online permitting program. Also, there's other departments working on this too. The building department is a little further ahead than us with that part, but, um, you know, we're really looking forward to being more, um, you know, accessible online. We're applying for building reviews and, you know, eventually septic reviews. And so, you know, the good news is we have some film that was hired by the IT department with the new IT director. And so, um, we're working with those in the contracted individuals to move forward. And there's some, um, you know, rigorous work that's been done by, you know, working with Patty and Darren and the contractor, as well as, you know, having some meetings and planning planning for doing some work in the test environment. So that's where we're at now where we've got some testing to be done on some of the work in, in the test region of OpenGov. So we're happy about that. Um, although Darren is, um, going to be out, he, um, had some time off for our medical procedure. So it's very busy right now and we're working on opening all the pools, beach, you know, there's a lot of, um, paperwork coming in for camp, um, permitting as well. So to say that we're busy is an understatement. It's pretty busy. And we do have some help from our regional inspector and Lori, she was in today, um, came in an extra day to help out and then she'll be in on Thursday. So, you know, once, if we can make it through this week, then, you know, things even out a little bit, you know, but everyone wants to get their pools open, which is understanding, you know, before Memorial Day. So that's, uh, one thing we'll be working on as well as all the camps. Um, but we do have some help through our regional collaborative. We have a, um, contracted person who was hired to either, you know, do whatever type of work that we're in need of. And, um, this person can do camp reviews. So she's been in a couple of times doing the reviews of all the paperwork. It's a lot of paperwork that's required to meet the state code. And so we usually have them submit a binder, we do the review, and then after that part is completed, more does a review for the medical part. And then we do an inspection on site. So it's a lot, you know, but at least we have some help with that. Um, and renewal permits just went out. Those are already in open gov. And so, um, those are already automated and that's been working smoothly. I think this is probably the third or fourth year that we've been doing this. That's good. Um, our new septic fees that we adopted a while back this winter, those have gone live. So everything's online. I'm sorry, non septic fees. The, um, we had done quite a bit of homework on that at one point. So those are all online now and we're using them. There's a new town website that, um, if you go on to the town's website, you'll notice it looks different. And so we're trying to learn how to modify and make changes to our site. So we did go to chain, uh, some training by Jalen, um, from the front office, which was very helpful. Although, you know, until I actually get in there and practice with it, uh, it's, you know, hard to just assume that you know how to do it. So, you know, we're in transition figuring out how do you use the new town's website, um, household hazardous waste day collection. Uh, we saw 121 people. Two were from out of town. We consider that a really good turnout. Um, uh, we do have and continue to see a lot of complaints coming in, not about us, but for us. Um, you know, we've got this, um, complaint regarding the, um, dust on the road. We've got some other, um, housing complaints. Um, I actually made a list of them. Here we go. We had, um, you know, one that was related to lead paint concerns. We had a housing violation that we did an inspection and sent a legal order on that was on Buckskin Drive, 157 Buckskin, 10 Haven, 18 Oak Street, 73 Oxbow, 84 Riverview, 50 Maiden Lane. So those are all things going on behind the scenes as well, managing to make sure that we're doing our role, you know, with any complaints that come in. So, um, out of all those, there's probably one, two, three, four of them that are still pending. So, you know, the, you take one step and then you wait for something to happen and then you might have to do another inspection after the legal letter goes out. Um, one of those pending is Tenshore. I haven't heard anything recently. So, um, I did reach out to our council who was advising us on that and I haven't heard back yet, but, um, you know, sort of waiting to hear what next steps are on that. And see, we also in the midst of all this completed a safe 2.0 performance standards survey that the state, um, had rolled out. It was pretty significant. It was online. Um, basically, you know, more and I had to go in and fill in all this information that they were looking for related to the town of Wayland and the Board of Health and our budget and all this stuff. So the types of work that we do, the types of work that we don't have the ability to do, different types of things like that. So, um, we think it's probably related to that grant not being extended any further. Um, we're not sure what's happening with that yet either, but that grant for our PHE that we've been talking about for a number of years now is not funded beyond June 30th of 27. So, um, stay tuned. If there's something new that comes up, they might be trying to think of ways to continue with the resources that we have, like Ann Lurie, our regional inspector who came in and helped me today, who was also coming in on Thursday. Um, you know, we also have help with other things like Maven coverage, you know, when, say, when Maura goes on vacation, someone's covering Mayden. There's a number of resources that we get through that grant that are very helpful. They recently, um, purchased some supplies that they shared with us. Um, pool test kit, some different types of thermometers for food inspections, a SECI disk, which we use to check the water clarity at beach. Um, and you can also use it at pools. So, um, to be continued, I guess the, the CTCI grant, which is the grant that we had in Wayland that we were the fiscal agent for that is concluding on June 30th. And so, you know, once June 30th, um, hits, I believe that there might be one week after that, that we have the grant manager will be tying up any loose ends and finishing any financial reporting. So that grant will be concluding as of, you know, that's, there's no plans that I'm aware of to continue with that grant. And so we'll be losing our regional public health nurse who's working for that fiscal grant and our epidemiologist. So, um, unfortunately that's what's happening with that. Um, let's see, does anyone have any questions so far about any of this? Okay. And we have, just regarding, um, the development that's been going over at terrain, which is, uh, going to be a wedding venue and also at, um, let's see, we don't get donuts and Jimmy John's, which is also open. Um, that was a couple of weeks ago or so that opened up. Um, anyway, the construction that they're doing over there to do works, you know, site prep did trigger some testing that, um, was initially from the, um, contamination over at the dry cleaners at 298 Boston Post. And so I did a little bit of research on that and I called the EP and what happened, I guess, is, um, I can, I mean, I can read my summary again, just to make it a public record. We've recently received a lot of notifications from mass DEP and LSPs triggered by construction being done at 289 Boston Post, Duncan's and Jimmy John's and 297 and 311 Boston Post terrain. Ties back to 298 Boston Post where the nail salon and dry cleaners are where historically the dry cleaners had released chemicals, PCE, TCE and VOCs that were impacting these properties. And we're going through the MCP process with DEP. In 2022, a notice of non-compliance was issued to the owners of 298 Boston Post by DEP. Based on my findings, nothing has been done to finalize the cleanup from 298 since 2022. Based on information from my contact person at Mass DEP, the owners of 298 applied for and continued to be approved for financial inability since 2022. Since there, there are active businesses at 298, Mass DEP is, was looking into it to determine what their next steps may be to try and push the owners to do more to comply with MCP, the mass contingency plan. Those reports can all be found on the state's trackable release site or reportable release tracking site. The aerial application of control to control mosquito larvae was completed by the East Middlesex mosquito control project. And, um, we're, I think we just ordered our briquettes for the catch basin. So that'll be the next step once they're cleaned out. I have to, um, coordinate that. Um, okay. And then usually maybe the end of June, somewhere around there, they'll start doing their, um, trapping of mosquitoes and having them tested at the state lab for different mosquito-borne illnesses. Mostly West Nile and Wayland, but they do look for other things as well. And they look at populations. Um, also we had seen the, uh, clinical advisory for health healthcare providers on alpha-gal syndrome and required reporting, which, um, is really for medical providers. That was, um, something that came through related to the, um, lone star ticks. And, um, some of these allergic reactions that are character, characterized by delayed onset immunoglobulin. I don't know if I can read all these things, but there is a, an allergic reaction that basically makes you, um, gives you a meat allergy, red meat allergy. I think you had mentioned before, John, that you were hoping you would never get that. Yeah. Um, so they're, you know, doing some surveillance on that. Um, it sounds like through clinical required clinical reporting. So, uh, uh, Biet Olum and green burials, we had heard from Jay Cam, um, specifically, uh, Jamie Cattell. And, um, she was looking to meet with me, but we still haven't received anything regarding, you know, exactly where they were planning on having potentially green burials or some kind of, um, information that we had asked from them in May of 25. Um, so, um, um, I reminded her about, you know, the memo that we had sent from the board based on, you know, the fact that it is in a zone two area and close to a zone one. And, um, there's certain laws that, you know, require, um, a process that potentially would, you know, they'd have to go through the DEP as well. So we, I haven't heard back from them since then, but I just figured I'd let you know that we've heard from them. The town also, the, well, town cemeteries are required to have those concrete vaults. So that's also, I think, um, another issue that potentially they were challenged with. Um, we also received a formal complaint and request for a septic inspection at six winter street. And, um, I don't know if any board members had any further insight into that. Um, Darren did quite a bit of, um, work on that to answer the questions that were brought up regarding the, um, veterinary, um, business there at six winter street. I did ask the, um, building department if they were planning on re addressing any of these concerns with the ZBA. And at this time they did not have any plans to do that. Um, so, um, unless the board has any further direction, I feel like Darren has, um, you know, explained the questions regarding the septic system and the flows and that, um, based on the design that was, that was installed. Um, he felt like that it was supporting the use that they have currently there for the business that they currently have there. I think he was pretty thorough. I think he was pretty thorough. It was very thorough. Yeah. Very. Um, and he used like the most conservative that possible in terms of. Yeah. It's, it sounds like, um, the concerns that were brought up. Um, the, the title five questions don't, they're not impacted by that, you know, based on the research that Darren did, I think, you know, as you mentioned, it's a pretty conservative. Flow that was used when it was redone. What is the concern? There was no breakout. There's no ponding. There's no. Yeah. Yeah. And they were asking for, I think, from the board to require a title five inspection to be done. And so, um, but that was, I think what Darren was asking. Is there a problem that we're not aware of? And I don't. I mean, odors, anything. Right. Was there any, I didn't. I don't believe that that was, um, brought up at all. I think the concern was, um, related to the, um, animal clinic operating with, you know, a number of staff that potentially were not necessarily, um, what was approved by the ZBA. So, but not necessarily as a problem with the septic system. Um, and they were concerned that more staff would impact the septic system, but based on how the design was, was reviewed and installed, approved and installed. It sounds like it was over. It's, you know, the size was probably larger than it needed to be, but we haven't heard of any problems either. So. Um, I do bring my pets there. My dogs go there. There is no, I'm trying to think. There is no toilet for like your, I mean, they probably have the staff toilet. They would let you use, but there's no toilet in the waiting room for like people waiting for their pets. Like you just go there, you go in the exam room and you leave. It's not, you know, it's not going to be the clients using the toilets the way I see it working. Okay. Like they wouldn't like they would in a medical clinic, right? In a medical clinic, right? In a medical clinic, we always have people asking to use the toilet, but like over there, you bring your animal, you're sitting out and then you leave. You don't, there's no, there's no access to a waiting, uh, to a toilet through the waiting room. Well, that probably helps for sure to eliminate any overuse of water. Right. Right. You'd have to ask them for, can I, may I please use the stuff? I mean, I'm sure in an emergency, they would let you, but it's not like there for use. Yeah. Right. Okay. Any questions about anything so far? Perfect. Okay. And, um, now we are down to the correspondence item from the concerned residents of Babelbrook and Lincoln Road regarding respirable silica dust from recycled gravel. And you wanted to read that letter first for the record. Yep. Okay. Wayland Board of Health concerning Wayland residents. May 5th, Wayland residents sent the health department videos of thick dust clouds breathed via the recycled gravel on his book and Lincoln Roads. The question was simple is to find us safe for adults, children, and pets to breathe daily while walking, running, biking, and walking, waiting for school buses. As you can see, the videos, these dust clouds now envelope families multiple times a day and blow into the homes. The dust is just part of the living on the dirt road. It's no longer acceptable answer. The Wayland DPW covers and rolls Halesbrook and Lincoln Roads with M103.1. Processed gravel for sub-basis purchased from Dedham's recycled gravel company, Inc. of the demolition scrapyard and aggregate recycling facility in Dedham Mass. These recycled aggregate materials contain up to 50% recycled crushed concrete and 5% recycled asphalt pavement. Both materials are high in crystalline silicate. When crushed and driven on, excuse me, this gravel releases respirable crystalline silicate and no human lung carcinogen and low to moderate exposure over time is hazardous to health. Excuse me. Concrete dust is highly hazardous in hail when ground concrete release respirable crystalline silica, a fine dust that can cause immediate throat irritation, long-term irreversible respiratory issues from silicosis. OSHA recycled asphalt pavement. Pavement dust is not considered safe and poses significant health risks when inhaled, primarily due to respirable crystalline silicate and eudemen fumes. It can cause respiratory irritation, chronic lung disease, and is a carcinogen. We are asking for the immediate guidance regarding this suspected health hazard is daily exposure to dust safe for our families. Is this fine dust safe for adults, children, and pets to breathe while walking, running, biking, and waiting for school buses? We also request that the town stop using this material on residential roads until the health risks are properly evaluated and mitigated. Your urgent attention and answer to our questions greatly appreciated. Thank you, concerned residents, Wayland residents from Hazelbook, Lincoln, Concord, Waltham, and Gleason Road. So obviously it raises a concern for us as Board of Health, but does the Board have any questions? I think there's some research to be done. I think there's some research to be done into some of these things and, you know, I think gather some more information and we've got some good information that have been provided, you know, from these residents. No, I agree. Yeah. Do you think, what is the new aggregate they put down? Is it, does it seem like it's larger chunks? Larger chunks for sure than it used to be. So that's what's called inch and a half gravel. It's not, it's, it's multiple issues. It's again, that's why I asked earlier, having been there for a very long time. It's a subjective sense, but there should be records for what has been used over the years. And when this change occurred, if there's not, then I have a bigger concern about that, but absolutely knowing what has been used over that timeframe. And this change that's become very obvious to those of us that live there is something that's now brought us to the forefront of this, this process. It's a combination of everything she brought in the box, but there's like all of a sudden at this time, there were pretty large sized rocks. And so it makes it really hard to walk on the road. And then underneath it is this very, almost like baby powder fine. And over the years, over the 30 years, we've had an array of things. It almost seems like whatever is available, they bring and they dump, but it's not what neighbors that have been there even longer than us have said is the road was never. And I think Connor brought this up. It was never graded properly. So the amount of effort and work that goes into maintaining this road is kind of, you know, there's got to be a better way. We're not the first dirt road in the history of this, this, you know, area. So what can we do to grade it properly? So this doesn't have to happen, you know, basically twice a month they come through and then it's just, and I've seen every kind of material you can imagine from sand to dirt, to small rocks, to big rocks, to weird things like, you know, that show up like that, that Kim's brought up. It's just interesting. Each time it's a little bit different. So I wonder what's the process of even ordering this? Is there a standard that they follow each time? So they get the same thing. This, this is really, you know, you can see it kind of coding everything. Our mailboxes are, are, you can't even really grow things next to the road. So just on my way, I literally, I arrived later and pulled out of the house. And just as I was pulling out a landscape truck with a trailer drove down the road too fast as a lot of trucks do. And the amount of dust that came off, like covered all of the houses and basically everything in sight was covered in dust. So it, and that's not what used to happen. A few years ago, there was actually the road was grading properly. There was some lime coating put down. The dust was reduced dramatically. So there are definitely different materials and techniques that can be used to do this properly. It just doesn't seem like at this point we were very unaware of exactly what they've been doing to cause this recent issue. And again, I, I'd focus on the cut, the components of the, of what the dust is. So you're absolutely right. You made the point on a dirt road. Absolutely. There's an expectation that there's going to kick up some material. It's that material and what's in that material. That's a greater concern on top. So the dust amounts, whatever that happens to be, but the constituents, given that we have chemical engineers that live on the street, we have physicians that live on the street, we have everybody that lives on the street, that that's not in and of itself an issue, but it's more a sense of these are concerns that over the long term, the exposure to this is, is hazardous. It wouldn't be accepted in any, uh, set of circumstances, but these are guesses. And that's another coming to you to have in your capacity to give us the data, look at this information and figure out what exactly is being done and what are the constituents. And come up with standards moving forward. Exactly. So we prevent this. What's going down. There is, there is some research done to how do we grade it? How do we make it? So that it has this, um, everybody was calling. So you think it's a two prong problem. It's the, it's the, the grading and the material. Exactly. But I, so I did a quick Google of, um, road bases made with crushed concrete versus granite gravel, which is the only kind of gravel that's available around here. Um, and the, the granite gravel actually has higher silica. No, but, but if you go to work, so I'm in the, that business, I'm not a doctor like the rest of the group. Um, so I understand that. Um, but the pits that I buy from, um, it's generally a granite quarry around New England. And so that's that dust. And then maybe the proportion of dust dust is higher in this versus the, you've got a lot of large rocks and dust and there isn't a lot of the middle size stones in it. And maybe that's part of the problem that it's not packing up. Um, I go back to 10 years ago, five years ago, three years ago. Yeah. What was being used? Cause it wasn't subjectively. It wasn't this kind of material. It was dirt, uh, and dirt with some gravel. It's always a surprise on the day. Right. That's funny. What are we getting today? And it's like, oh, like, oh, it's sand this time. Oh, it's dirt. Oh, it's. So again, given your description, granite wouldn't be an acceptable because of the components. So there have to be components that are acceptable, that are authorized or evaluated by equivalencies of DPH. To make a determination as to what's safe in a residential area. That's really the, the crux of it. How often is material put down on the road? It's, that's a variable situation as well. And over the years. Sometimes. Right. We've had people call in and then, you know, people will come out and grow and, and grade it. They've gone weeks, months, and then we've gone days where this is. It kind of, I don't know. That's actually a really good question. I don't know what triggers it. Like people will say, I haven't called. I haven't called because we realize that sometimes calling. Once word gets out that the roads smoother are cut through is just awful. Yeah. So sometimes a bad road is better for us environmentally. But at the same time, we have to drive down it. You know, they're, his wife has to go pick up their son on the corner. Like you can't, some of these craters are, you know, need deep almost. Yeah. Independent of the solution. We know for a fact that this consists of hazardous carcinogenic respirable silica. We need you guys to tell the DPW, don't put any more of this down. In fact, you should pull it all up. And you should, we should also minimize all the cut through. Connor talked about all the cars, you know, going through. Minimize all the cut through traffic and water it down until it is removed. It is supposed to go under roads, under asphalt, under concrete. The towns of Boston, the city of Boston and Framingham, they have a whole process behind it. They, this, our DPW superintendent sent this as a spec. This isn't a spec. This isn't the DOT spec. This is the, the city of Boston had an independent firm come and evaluate the materials that they put under the asphalt and under the concrete to make sure that it had the right set of components. We know for a fact that this material is coming from a scrap yard. In, in that 50%, you can see this box. I took, I asked this dude, I said, how do you guys really do, do an audit when somebody does have the due diligence to ask you to do an audit? How do you do it? Do you put it into some spectrometer or something? I said, oh no. We take a five gallon bucket and just pull a sample. And then by hand, we saw it sorted. Well, I did exactly that in a five by five section right after they dumped it. This is all. I want you guys to look at this. This is. Oh, we've already. I've already. This is. Yeah. A dirt road. There is. All gravel is not equivalent. This. So what we would like you to do is immediately tell the DPW cease and desist on this material. And immediately within the next five days, get some magnesium carbonate or calcium carbonate on that road every, every couple of days to make sure none of this is billowing up. And then figure out how to pull it all up because it's, it's, it's all over the place. It's on the side of the road. It's, it's, it's just a mess. And in fact, over time, over the last couple of few years, when cars go over it, and like I said, it's, it's, it's almost like, um, uh, it, it acts as an industrial milling machine, grinding the concrete aggregate into fine airborne dust. And then when it settles, it's almost like the concrete re the, um, re what is it called? Well, it becomes the road is no longer dirt. Fine. You feel like you've got crusty concrete and then a car will go by and they're there. You know, the other rocks rub against it. And you've hopefully all seen these videos and just imagine what I saw last Tuesday night, couple pushing their little one-year-old baby in a stroller and eight cars going by. And that it was just a snowball of dust cloud. And like this, what I have here, kids, kids are playing lacrosse like fiber, you know, five or six feet from the edge of this roadway. The people on the corner, um, kids' lungs are smaller. They breathe faster. Dogs, you know, pets are closer to the ground. Um, you know, this all details, you know, how important this is and how toxic and hazardous this is to help. How do we proceed? Like, what's the next step? Um, like, do we get on an agenda a month from it? Like, how do we, we think obviously this is kind of an emergency. It's a little scary for us. Um, and you've seen that the majority of the residents of Hazelbrook had either been online or have been present today. So it's clearly something that we are very concerned about. Yeah. I know that, um, Joe called me today and said that they were, um, planning on doing a treatment of calcium chloride. I think, um, next week he said, or sometime soon. Um, he didn't have an exact, he didn't have an exact date. He was waiting for, um, the formal process to, um, be determined on who was doing it and how much it would. He was waiting for another layer. Okay. Yeah. I'm just telling you what. No, no, no. It's like, what, what cycle are we in right now? Because the road probably in a week or two, someone's going to call and ask for a change. Yeah. I mean, this is a, a complicated situation, you know? So I think that if there's any thoughts or, um, suggestions from the board, I think that. Are we in the right place? Well, I think this is also a DPW board of public works, um, discussion as well. I mean. They don't appreciate the health, the health issue here. The health, that hazardous health emergency that this is. They don't, they, this is like not being appreciated. Well, they'll probably be listening to the public comment in this board meeting, which is being recorded, you know, because Tom Holder is, I'm sure going to be here, you know, interested in hearing what you're all saying. So what do we do as residents? What, what's our next steps? What do you, what would you advise us to do? Um, hold tight. Like what, again, because the road is this organic thing that keeps having to be addressed. Like, it's not like, well, I think that getting the road treated is, um, probably first and foremost, I would think to try and mitigate. And then that will happen after every, cause like I said, we're probably due in a week or so or two weeks from now for a whole nother dump, dumping of stuff. So that's why it's, it's just so like, we don't have a lot of time just because, or they can't do anything. They'll do this, but then the road falls apart. Someone calls, they come and they dump more material. But, but the board of health, you guys should see that this isn't appropriate. This isn't the application. It's, it's process gravel for sub base. That's what, but for some reason, Tom Holder and the DPW isn't understanding that this is the wrong application. Now that's not your job, but your job is if this is what this material and it's up to 50% recycled concrete and, um, 5% asphalt and it's grinding. And you've seen these videos and you see how it hangs in the air and it just, and, and, and, and everybody's telling you this, that it, that has to, it is, it is seems to me clear as can be that, that the DPW can't keep dumping this on the road and, and saying, Oh, next week, maybe in a couple of weeks, maybe in a couple of months. I was told we don't have enough money to, to, to do anything. And then the more you learn about this stuff, you know, I don't have time to be Aaron Brockovich here and neither do these other people, but this is a serious. It, the, the more we learn about this stuff and, and the more, the more people who tell us that this isn't appropriate for a dirt road, no way, shape or form is this is, this is, this should be the first thing that Tom Holder does tomorrow morning. He should, no other opening, opening people's pools before Memorial Day. And it should, for your board as well, it should be important. And, and Tom Holder should tomorrow get somebody in with calcium carbonate, magnesium carbonate, schedule them for every, every few days and just, just do it until you, you guys realize how bad this stuff is. And then they need to also probably take it up and figure out a better solution. Okay. Like studies to just dump truckloads of dirt. And then, you know, and it was brown dirt. And, and, and, you know, that's the way it was when we moved in and for the first decade or two. I, I don't know what else to say. Again, it's, it's, if it's, and it seems, seems again, it's a cost issue. So it seems like this may be the cheapest way to go. But from a cost point of view, now that this is part of the public record, healthcare issues that come forward lead to litigation against the town. They haven't done anything about this. So the cost associated with this today, maybe X tomorrow is going to be significantly higher. Yep. And so again, I'm, we're back to a lot of these issues, but the healthcare issues are the primary process. As a physician, I'm mandated. If I find a patient with a certain infection that we're talking about, then you must report it. And I've had scenarios in which I've had DPH come in and look at E. coli strains in Metro West versus at MGH. So we can find out if we had a true contaminant in, in daycare scenario. And you have the DPH as the authority to do that. Whereas the institutions couldn't talk to each other and found out they were different strains. So no, no harm, no foul. That was done instantaneously. That was done within 48 hours of a call in and I'm mandated to do. So again, that's where I think at least the focus initially, this is a healthcare potential major issue. So if you look into this and find out what has been said subjectively is true, then this needs to have been done yesterday. That's right. It needs to be a high. And if it's not, then please get back to us and say, Oh, we've looked into it. And here's the objective data. This is what this material has. And it is not a significant healthcare issue to folks. And then you'll put us all at ease and then we'll deal with living on a dirt road and having dust and knowing or having a better sense that it's not a healthcare issue. Yep. That's going to be a problem for us. Okay. So thank you. All right. Can I just ask one question. You mentioned they wanted to put calcium chloride on, is that healthy? I mean, is that something that is okay to put on? It's supposed to help dust. I don't know anything about calcium chloride. Yeah. I, I didn't have a chance to look into it this afternoon after, you know, mentioned that. Calcium chloride is going to be better than silica. So, and my one question, my, my question was, am I better off to wear a medical mask or do I have to go to a KN95 mask? Yeah. Should we find myself? I can, I can tell you that. Yes, you tell. No, the, the particulates are not that small that I, that an N95 is what's necessary. So a medical mask would be good. A medical mask will help you in for the most part. Okay. And make sure you cover your nose and mouth. Yeah, exactly. 2.5 micrometers in diameter. Respirable, uh, crystalline silica, RCS is 2.5 micrometers in diameter. They, they do call for N95. Um, well, if you're on N95, you have to be fit tested to that. Well, true. I mean, I think that, you know, potentially. We don't want to wear masks. Have you written a memo to the board of public works? We have caught, we have, um, all been calling them for the last two years. The board or the staff? The staff. The staff. Okay. So there is a board of public works. Yeah. And you can send something to Tom and copy the board and highlight your concerns. You have the authority very rapidly to make a determination for my health care. I'm just, we're just hearing about this today. You know. I understand. I'm gathering all the information. Yeah. Exactly. Now you've got this information on May 18th at eight o'clock at night. Right. Right. And you're not, I mean, you're not going to figure this out by 8-10. But I think we need to do that, what you're saying as well. We'll do both. That's important. You know, to find out that these are significant health care issues. Right. Your ability to step in will then force DPW to do something about it. Whereas they may do something by our input over time and whatnot. Um, you would be, you'd be in a much stronger position to have that happen much quicker. Sure. If everybody follows it, then great. No harm, no foul. But there's no reason for us not to be coming at both at multiple levels. But I think we're missing that piece of this. Yes. We'll, we'll need to. Certainly. That's helpful. And you have the data sheets. You know that this stuff is not intended to be on top of a road. Right. These are all. We know that. Okay. We've mentioned that. We know that. You know, I don't know who's going to go to the DPW and all this. This is, this is in the town of the Whale. And this is a health hazard that we need, you learn how to, um, to affect change immediately. And, and there's no reason why Tom Holder won't be at his desk contracting somebody to put down for it. Just to, for a quick stabilization and, and getting the Wevers in charge of traffic to stop, you know, only, you know, people who live there are no, not the hundreds of cars that Connor was telling you about that cut through from Weston. Um, you know, there, there are some real stopgap short things that could be done. And then that's, you know, that's definitely not. But the. You guys. Related to traffic and, and you know, how many cars are passing. Right, right, right. So do we start this process completely over again with DPW? Like what is, cause that, or can you guys let them know, look, we're dealing with sort of a hybrid situation here. We're definitely going to be in touch with them. I mean, I know I will. Okay. You know, the board will have to discuss it. We need to be in a public meeting to, you know, make communications or do things like that, you know, but we haven't had a chance to really just go into this. Yeah, it's the timeline. Yeah. We're, we're simple. I understand. We're not hearing about it tonight. We're there. We're in the position to. But even when you're just hearing about it, what you're saying is you're going to need another meeting in a month to talk about it more. There, you cannot tell the DPW, hey, we have a highly suspected issue here. Tom Walder, get that road for the next, make sure every three days, once a week, you do your magnesium calcium cart. You do something to stabilize the threat to the threat to the citizens of whaling. Tom's, you can probably know, like, what they used to dump before, I would think. That's the thing. Right. The industry. We have to find all that information. It's just, we have, we got a process too. We, what should we do next? What happens next? We brought this to you guys and we're very appreciated. Yeah. I mean, I think you should go to a board of public works meeting. That's what I would suggest because it's their, they do all this work. They order that material, they put it down the road, they do the treatments. They know, you know, there's history there that they probably can find at their fingertips. We can ask them for it, but they are, you know, in, in knowledge of what they've been doing. So you're going to work concurrently with that piece of it? I would say probably. Yeah. Yeah. So, so I think, so we don't feel like we're being fogged up, right? So to the DPW board of work. So we can go and have a conversation with them. But what are you guys going to do in the meantime? That's what we were just talking about. I mean, you know, I don't know, um, as far as what the board is going to do, but I certainly can talk to, um, Tom and, you know, discuss this tomorrow, you know, and then get back to something like, is it? No, I, I don't have, you know, we all in, in our whole neighborhood, we've got people online, we've got people who couldn't make it, who said, Oh, please, you know, go that way. We, this is, this is like, you know, we can't be Aaron Brockovich here. We shouldn't have to be. We know exactly what this shit is that they're putting on the road. We know exactly that this is not supposed to be on top of roads. We know exactly that this is a hazardous hazardous when it turns into the ground recycled gravel dust clouds that people are walking through breathing in, especially babies, especially dogs, especially little kids, especially Rowan and all the, you know, the, the little kids who are riding their bikes down the road and get into these dust clouds. This is a public health emergency. That's what you guys do. This is much more important than anybody having their fucking pool open for Memorial Day. I'm sorry. I'm upset. And I apologize. I appreciate everything you guys do. But I, I, I really, the DPW, when you say it's not healthy, they said it's, it's what we always, that's what, you know, we've been trying to get them to change it or to fix it or do something. I did the research and I said, magnesium carbonate or calcium carbonate. That's what I thought would be a good solution. When I, before I knew how toxic this shit is, I, this, I, all I wanted was to be reassured and my neighbors and their kids, the lady down the street or the grandmother, she says, I tasted every day. I'm waiting by the school bus, waiting for the school bus, everybody. And I'm like, Hey guys, I'll, I'll, you know, and we all work together. This is like, and the, and people on Concord road who walk, walk and ride their bikes and people on Pleasant. And you know, this is a lot of people in tech, Waltham road. I think people have been putting up their own signs, speed signs. I, I did a very quick look online before, and I, I didn't want to say much because it's sort of like, I didn't really, I didn't look that far into it, but, um, I don't think they have, they, they just don't have, it didn't look like they have that many studies for like kind of repeated, like short term. They have a lot of studies for silicosis exposure for like people who work in like, I think it's the equivalent of living on the street. Yeah. We're almost in that. It's that short term. Again, just a little stretch. So I pulled out, pulling out of my driveway, truck goes by, the amount of dust that comes up, it goes into us because you know, it's the summertime. So we have our doors open, back doors open, windows open, whatever it may be. The amount of dust that actually ends up in the house, right? So, okay. But we wearing masks down the street, fine. That may be a temporary solution. Are we supposed to be wearing masks in our house? Um, and this has been going on for a number of years. So how long, what's long term? No, I, I, I agree. So I, I think it is. It's just like no kind of dust is healthy. I mean, really even, even road dust is a good long term. I mean, it's, it is something we've chosen to kind of be on a dirt road. And there's, so we're just asking for something that we know is safer. Um, I don't think we're all getting long term exposure. There's no way after 30 years that we don't all have some kind of, and you know, some, some kind of exposure to. Well, there's no minimum or maximum dosing of carcinogens that lead to X amount of, of cancer. We were talking earlier about tobacco and some nicotine tobacco. And I just found it interesting as an aside. It sounds like the description for the pouches was exactly what the companies were saying about vaping. Vaping initially came out in order to allow people to stop smoking. And then the content of nicotine was significantly spiked. So now became more addictive, but nonetheless, as I said, my hope is you'll do, you'll do the evaluation of this. Take an under advisement and find out if what we're saying and what we're hearing has validity. And if it does, then your ability to do something about it is more rapid and more aggressive. While at the same time, we will approach this for DPW. So it doesn't need to become another agenda item, like in a month from now, does it? Like, is there, that's what we're not. I mean, for the board? Yeah. So for this part of it, I mean, what do we, again, I'm still lost on how we. You're going to do some evaluative process, whatever that happens to be. Hopefully. Homework. Homework. Homework. Yeah. Homework. Well, you gave us a lot of information. Yeah, there's a lot. Just have to digest that here. And it sounds like you've been talking about this and looking into this for a long time. We've been, and we get nothing. It's crazy. The DPW says, look, you guys live on a dirt road. There's dust on a dirt road. We have not been able to move that needle at all. Yeah. We didn't go to the board of public health, but I mean, the board of. Public works. But at this point that the biggest concern, the more we looked into it, it wasn't about a nuisance of just a benign dust. This is bad stuff. Not all, you know, this comes from a demolition yard. You know, who knows what else is in there besides the concrete and the asphalt. But you saw those videos. Could you imagine just trying to walk your dog or walk your kid to the school bus and having, you know, six or eight cars. Connor told you how many cars come through there and cut through there. So there's an immediate nature of like, we have to solve this right now for this, for what we have down on the road now. It's like the calcium carbonate is going to be one solution, but that'll say for another, you know, calcium. My museum's home. My museum's home. My museum's home. It's whatever. Whatever. Something like wine that goes down on the road. And we're not even sure if that's safe, but at least it'll prevent the dust. And so that's the joint. And back to, if you've got gravel that includes asphalt, that's got benzene likely. And benzene is a, about as carcinogenic as anything that we've been exposed to. So that's, that doesn't take a whole lot to know. If you've got benzene going up aerosolized, that's a problem. Sure. So, uh, I mean, we can urge the board of public works to treat the roads so that will help reduce the dust on the short term. Right. While you're, while you're evaluating. Yeah. I'm going to go drive it in the morning. Yeah. How do we need a plan? Which is probably. Don't do it in the morning. Don't do it now. It's nice and dry now. Well, in the morning, there's a little bit of dew on that. That's it. That's it. Go drive it now. I've seen the videos. I don't know this dust. I want to look at the aggregate and I want to look at the grading and I can't see that in the dark. So yeah. I have the advantage as a physician, I get up before everybody else. I get out before the road gets to dust. Not only works. So live on the first. Yeah. We're the first. Yeah. So to start with, I can personally convey that regarding the road treatment be done as soon as possible. Right. Okay. Yeah. And then we did that evaluation. Other. Like if someone says, you fill in the holes, we don't want anything else put on the road, obviously. Until we know. Until we get. With what was the appropriate material. Okay. I'm wearing this product. Okay. That was good. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for listening today. I appreciate it. Oh, just residents can protect themselves by masking as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Time is always better, but. Yeah. If you're walking down the road, I just want to secure it in the house. Try. It's understandable. Yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks. All right. Let's see. You guys can catalog this. Oh, yeah. No, please leave those. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much. Yep. All right. We had. General business. Thank you. Couple things that I meant to bring up. The conservation has denied the Coptic Orthodox Church project. You can't quite say that. Yeah. That's great. So we're not sure what's going to happen with that. Yep. We are still waiting for borings to be done for our part of the septic design. So that's probably why we haven't heard from anybody. So they'll move forward anyways? No. They can't. They need. I don't know what's going to happen with conservation. Right. As far as our part, the next step for us was to do some borings because they had done some initial work for the hydro geo study that I think we had talked about at a board meeting and they were going to be doing some borings. We had a consultant that we hired and he was looking into it. So that's still outstanding. There is a daycare being considered at 200 Commonwealth Road. I don't know if you all know where exactly that is. But let's see if I can find a bed. Here. Here we go. Next to Royal Whelan's. Next to Royal Whelan's. Oh, it's near the animal clinic. Yeah. So we're not sure how that's. You're not the same neighbor. Because the soils in that area are very variable. I noticed Darren did ask, ask her like what, what brought forth. Yes. Which was like. That's a good question because that usually complaint regarding a septic design or flow is related to odor, breakout, you know, something that happened, but no one has shared that. So, um, anyway, uh, Takara's new, um, relocation over where the bagel table used to be, um, was recently. Well, not April 20th. It was when it opened. So, um, everyone should be excited to go check it out. I heard it's really nice. Yes. I don't know what's going to be at the old Takara. Um, probably a similar, you know, maybe a food restaurant. I don't know for sure, but, um, so let's see. What else? Those were some of the, um, things that I had been aware of and different projects going on. Um, uh, we have October minutes. If anyone, has everyone had a chance to look at them? I'm guessing yes at this point. Yeah. So we just need to get those approved. And then there's two other sets that are ready to be looked at at our next board meet. I know we're a little behind, so we're working on trying to get caught up. Okay. I motion to approve the meeting minutes from October 25. Okay. Do we have a second? I'll second. Okay. Well, um, John Storm? Yes. Dr. Genevieve Annone? She's off. I think she's still. I think she's still. She's on mute. Yeah. She's not. Yes. I heard. Can you hear us? Sorry. I was not at that meeting. Okay, great. Yep. All right. So, Katherine Stubb? Yeah. Dr. Brett Mordas? Yes. And Dr. Bob DeFrancesco, those are approved for October 20th, 2025. Mm-hmm. Okay. All right. What else do you have? Then we've got our board, our future board meeting dates. Okay. So, if everyone can take a look and let me know if those work. And I can make any, you know, modifications if needed. Let's see. It's pretty good to me. Yeah. It works. Yeah. Who knows, right? I'm not sure about September, but the other three should work for me. I'm sorry. What date? I'm not sure about September. It's kind of. Yeah. I just like to get them on the calendar so that we're not squeezed out. If someone else decides to put a bunch of meetings up, you know, that's what can happen sometimes. So. So I'm fine with June, July, and August. Should be okay for me. I just have to probably attend remotely in June. Okay. Yeah. Very exciting. Let's just put that. Sorry. Those are copies of the reports and those are the other ones that just came together. Yep. So, yeah, just if we wanted to take a look at some of the work that's being done. Yeah. Yep. Okay. And, oh, I just had a note about staff coverage, you know, just because Darren's out. So it's just me, you know, for, well, Patty's in too. I'm not going to, you know, and Jenna's here. Patty's out inspecting something. No. No. She's in the office. But, so, you know, tomorrow, Wednesday, and Friday, it'll just be me. And then I'm not sure exactly when he'll be able to do, you know, like field work in the inspection department being, you know, on a job site. So we'll have to see how that goes. Yeah. I talked to him today. He thought he wouldn't be back quite as soon as he originally anticipated. He thought he would be back sooner or later? Later. Oh, really? Oh. Okay. Okay. But it's early. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Yes. So, you know, I can touch base with Tom Boulder tomorrow and make sure that he's aware of all this, you know, once the meeting is, and that's the good thing about having these meetings hybrid so that, you know, it's also on Wacom, you know, that way anyone can chime in and take a look at the, or, you know, listen to the meeting and watch. Sure. And so I'm sure he'll be interested in it as well. Sure. And then, you know, as far as other things, I think, you know, looking into some of the questions that were asked and making sure that they're aware. But, you know, as I mentioned, this is new to me, you know what I mean? And before we make any assumptions about it for two years. Right. Yeah. I don't really want to chime in. I mean, obviously I don't like dust, you know, and most people don't, but I don't know. I don't have a formal thought process yet at this time. Agreed. Okay. I need a motion to adjourn. I make a motion to adjourn the meeting. Do we have a second? We'll make a second. Second. Okay. All right. Let's do a roll call. Dr. Brett Morris? Yes. Catherine Stiff? Yes. Dr. Genevieve Annan? Yes. John Steyer? Yes. And Dr. Bobby. Meeting adjourned. Absolutely. Thank you.
Okay.
Location for in-person meetings is wheelchair accessible. Meeting may be recorded, and if recorded, will be made available to public on WACAM as soon as possible after the meeting. Public will be excluded from the executive session. Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 25, the meeting will be conducted in person and or by remote access in accordance with applicable law. In the meeting, it has only remote access. No in-person attendance by members or the public will be permitted.
Let's do a roll call. Dr. John Stoyer? Here. Dr. Genevieve Annan? Here. Sorry.
Dr. Brett Mordas? Here. Dr. Barty Francesco? Well, here. Okay, let's start off with public comment. Do we have anybody waiting or?
Yes. Can I speak to the issue of the dust on Hazelbrook Lane? Sure. Do you want to come up? Yeah, come on up. Sure. Please.
Should I say what I'm saying? Whatever I need. Yeah. Just sit.
My name is Connor Davis. I live at 17 Hazelbrook Lane. And, yes, I'm not sure if this is the only topic on the agenda tonight about the dust on Hazelbrook and Lincoln Roads. But, you know, I'm happy to speak to that. We've lived on the road now for going on about five years. And a lot of portions of that have been times with very little rain, you know, over the summer months specifically. And, yeah, I just for a long time now, probably over a year or two, you know, this topic has been on my mind. And I've spent a majority of my career working in landscape construction. I'm very aware of the hazards of dust and what you can do to protect yourself. But, you know, this is just a situation that, you know, you can't wear a mask walking your dog or hanging out in your yard. It's just part of life almost is the dust on the road. And I just, I don't know, I just think Kim behind me here, I just met her tonight. But, you know, she's done a lot of that almost digging to figure out, you know, what the surface is on the road. And I just think that's a huge part of the problem. And it just seems to have such little water retention. I mean, it rained a lot, you know, two days ago. And even starting yesterday, it's already back to being bone dry and producing, you know, crazy clouds of dust. I mean, we must have hundreds of cars that come down Hays of Rippling every day. And, you know, somebody who drives it a lot myself, I know how much the dust kicks up. And I just feel so bad for, you know, people when you pass them. People love to bike on that road, walk on that road. It's a very beautiful part of Wayland. But, I mean, you need to be going less than five miles an hour to not kick up dust on that road. And I'd say the average speed is, you know, 30 to 40 plus on that road. So, I'm just very thankful. Like I said, this has been on my mind for years now. And I just didn't really know what to do about it until, you know, Kim or whoever had taken the initiatives to bring this to light. And just one other thing, you know, I contacted the DPW a few weeks ago and just before I even knew that Kim was doing this in the background and just asked them, you know, I just was saying, I feel like it's a health hazard and something needs to be done about the dust. And, you know, their first comment was, well, you just got to hope for rain. And then, you know, a day or two went by and I got a call back saying, you know, maybe we can find a subcontractor to put calcium or magnesium chloride down on the road, which is, you know, popular dust suppression product that's used on construction sites. But I just feel like the road has a lot of issues from a DPW standpoint where, you know, the roads, we have a lot of pitch on Hazelbrook Lane and the road is not crowned in any way. So, we develop potholes very often. I'd probably say four times a year, plus the DPW comes and they lay down all this product on the road. So, I think it's just a hard road to maintain being the way it is. The DPW says they're greater that they use as archaic and not really able to get a good crown on the road. So, I just think it's a multifaceted issue that's complex. But I think, you know, the health stuff is certainly a big concern of mine and it's a good starting place. So, okay. Yep. Thank you very much. Yes, take everything. Thank you. Yep.
Thank you.
Hi. We have two minutes, okay. Okay. I'm Kim Cook. I live on Lincoln Road and I'm here on behalf of my wonderful neighbors, their beautiful children, all of our four-legged family members. And I'm here to really ask urgently for your help to address our concerns over the gravel dust clouds that our folks, people are pushing babies through on a daily basis on Lincoln Road and Hazelbrook Lane. I, you know, just as, you know, just as mentioned, the DPW for several years, people have been trying to get the DPW to do something about this. This is more than a nuisance. We have investigated and found out exactly what this material is. This material is known as sub-base, processed gravel for sub-base. This is not supposed to be on top of roads. This is supposed to be under asphalt and under, or concrete. It needs a topper or a cover. Um, and that will make it, make it safe. Um, you know, here, uh, uh, the, the town, um, sent Julia something they call the spec. This isn't a spec, and this wasn't even for the town of Weyland. This is actually, um, confirming the fact that there's concrete and asphalt in what is on the roadtop in, uh, Weyland on Lincoln and Hazelberg roads. Um, I know that also on, uh, May 5th, you guys were sent several videos. Have you had a chance to look at them? I did, yeah. Yeah, um, you know, my, uh, my neighbors, Carl and Nancy, 30 feet. You can't even identify them. This baby that was being pushed, uh, last Tuesday, the eight cars went by, and the baby was just caught with the baby's parents in a, uh, snowballing dust plume. Um, this is very hazardous material. If, uh, I know my neighbors have sent you, and, and some of my neighbors have serious, uh, subject matter expertise, uh, sent letters. Um, you know, I ran a couple of prompts through AI, and, um, you know, uh, does this process, process gravel for sub-base, um, uh, if it's put on top of a dirt road, the traffic traveling at 30 to 40 miles an hour, which is the average of what cars travel on our road. You know, is that safe for adults, children, and, um, pets walking and waiting for school buses? Absolutely not. This scenario is highly unsafe for adults, children, and pets. Leaving sub-base material containing recycled concrete aggregate exposed on a dirt road creates a severe public health hazard. So, this, we are hoping, will be your top priority over the next couple of weeks, a severe public health hazard, and a physical safety risk. Traffic traveling at 30 to 40 miles an hour acts as an industrial milling machine, grinding the concrete aggregate into fine airborne dust. And that's what you see in those video clips, especially the one at night, where it's like driving through a blizzard, um, not being able to see, see your neighbors. Um, I called the guy in charge of this. He says, that test wasn't, this was for the city of Boston. They regularly test the material that they put under their asphalt and under their concrete, which is, you know, can, contains this recycled aggregate. We get this material from a demolition, a place they, they demolish, uh, parking garages, and we find all kinds of things in this, uh, on our road. In fact. Can we sum that up, please? We have a big agenda tonight. We've got other people, too. Yeah, we've got other people, please. Okay. Well, here's, he explained to me how he does the test, because you're going to have this in your packet, and you're going to go, whoa, what does this mean? He said, he takes a five-gallon, they get a five-gallon, uh, bucket, a sample of rocks, and they just count which ones are concrete, aggregate, and which are other types of stone. And that's how they, they, they look at it. He said, there's very little regulation in this industry, very, all kinds of stuff. Here's asphalt. Here's, I took a five-by-five section, and I collected, at least 50% was concrete aggregate. I will leave one with you. Yeah. Yeah. Has this changed? Yeah. Has, has what? Has the dust changed in the last year, two years, three years? For the last two years, it's been a real problem. Yeah. And prior to that? It has absolutely changed. When Stubby was in charge of the DPW, he used to come with truckloads of dirt, and they used to grate the dirt and flatten it. And then it had a crown, like, when it was just being described. There are so many people, uh, who, who live on the road, who, uh, use the road, living on Concord Road, who will, uh, you know, explain this to you very clearly. Um, but, uh, your help is urgently needed. There's, these, this company that, this is all demolition stuff. You know, we find, I've got pictures of, and this is another health hazard for kids, steel pipes. They throw that in there to make the trucks heavier, so, you know, they, you know, they, that's how they pay, by the pound. Um, I've got some pictures that I'll share with you, um, of, like, two or three feet sections of concrete that are just being tossed on the side, side of the road. Um, do you like it being a dirt road? I do not like what it has now. What it's become, but you moved there. I moved, but it was a dirt road. Right now, it's got this processed, recycled gravel. Yeah. But I would be fine if it was paved. I would be fine if there, if it had permeable pavement, I would be fine with cobblestones. I would be fine with gravel that wasn't recycled, demolition stuff with probably asbestos mixed in with it. We found plastics, you know, we're, we're pulling this stuff out of our driveways, like big chunks of, there's a lot of these pieces of metal. Where'd they go? You know, where are they coming from? Every, every time they come to re resurface the road, you know, we're finding pieces like that. So here, this is not a sustainable situation. It is not safe. Um, you can see from the video and, um, and, uh, any type of, you know, if you want to, I know you guys are all medical experts. I'm not a civil engineer, I'm not a medical expert, um, but I was able to find out what this stuff is. I called Denim Recycled Bravel. I got the exact spec number. I talked to the DOT. I talked to DPW people in the city of Boston and Framingham. We need your help to immediately direct the DPW to stop using this stuff, to pick it, to pick it up, and to come up with another solution. And then in the meantime, shut down all traffic that's cut through and enforce some really low speed limits because even 10 miles an hour keeps up a lot of this dust. And, um, you know, here, when you go, I'll share these, uh, these prompts that we just have a lot of other, I know you do, but this, we, we can take people are breathing in very harmful. Also, we, we know where this is, what you're saying, we can put it on an agenda item, we can specifically talk about it, but we have a lot of. I, I appreciate, I appreciate your time and attention to this matter. And, um, you know, if, if this says, if, you know, you, you immediately call your DPW and your board of health and your DPW, if you don't get, call the DEP, you know, we don't want to keep escalating that. Then the town, you know, is really encumbered, this needs to be addressed, like, this week, immediately. Here's some examples of the copies, if you could pass that to them, of the prompts, the AI prompts that I ran. Um, here's some more. This stuff belongs under pavement, not on a dirt road. And thank you. Thank you. Thank you. If you could just sign your hand-guess cheese, please. Sure. And I'll leave all the samples there. You could take this stuff and see for yourself. Thank you.
So, yeah. In those. Yeah. Yeah. If you could just sign in. Anyone else who's here? We know who's here. We may have commented. Yeah. So everybody else wants to. Track. Thank you. Make public comment. Come on up. Then we've got people on. Yeah. So let's make it.
Whalen resident. I grew up on Hazelbrook Lane. It's been a dirt road, obviously, my entire life. The town has maintained it beautifully up until recently. And the process has changed in which they have cared for the road. And by adding this aggregate on the road and back dragging it, solving potholes, it's never been a resolution that has worked. Typically on a dirt road, and I have a dirt road up in New Hampshire as well, the road's graded and crowned. And it provides for drainage, the potholes stay away, and all. And it works. And it works great. But the town has changed its approach. And unfortunately, it's created this problem. But absolutely, I do not want to see that really paved. It would be more of a cut through, more disturbing for its real character and charm, which is what Whalen really is, certainly to me. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I didn't know whether I was supposed to talk or not. I'll just be very brief. I'm Judy Rose. I live at 95 Lincoln Road. I've lived there for almost 30 years. I'm in my 80s. I walk on Lincoln Road in Hazelbrook three miles, I would say five to six times a week. Since I've been aware of the dust when it's come up, but I was not aware of a potential health concern until the recent news. So today, I wore a medical mask. Should I be wearing a KN95 mask? That's my question, too. What should I be wearing to protect my health? Anybody else? We have anybody waiting.
Anyone remotely looking to make a public comment?
Yes, we do. Oh, we have someone in person, too. After this, Jen, please.
Hello? Can you hear me? Yes, please. Do you like the name, Paul? Yeah. I didn't know if you were accepting comment on the tobacco regulation at this point.
Why don't we finish up the other first? Okay. Yeah, yeah. We will. We'll finish up this first. Okay. Thank you. Yep. Anybody else waiting? We had a time. Okay. Thank you, Mark. Sorry.
I'm kind of asked Paul, 33 Hazelbrook Lane. I've lived there for 34 years. All I'd ask is, as part of DPH, an evaluation of the constituency of what's being used in the gravel. I've seen this subjectively over the years change quite significantly recently over the last period of time. And so my experience, it had been dirt in the past. That's why it would have been used. Now we're seeing this kind of constituency. And the product of these, I'm a physician, the products of these is a concern to a large extent of what is in the gravel, the asphalt, and what's kicked up for it. So certainly there have to be records from the past of what has been used and where that's been over the years of how the materials have been used to grade the road. And so I would ask you to look into those for those constituencies as well. Thank you.
Do you have anyone else? I don't think so. I'm just making sure.
Those folks over there, if you could just. I'll show them. Thank you.
Okay. So. So we're on. On to the next public comment is. Do we have somebody? Yeah, we do. Are we going to do this back right now? Well, the public comment probably. Right. Okay. You want to wait till later. But that might be. Okay, Jeff. Yeah, thanks. And I don't see a video option. I'm not hiding. I just don't see that. So thanks for the opportunity. Thanks for the opportunity to speak tonight. I'm speaking on behalf of the Progressive Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. Yeah, I personally have. Yes. Yes, please. Can you give us your address, please? We see you, man. Absolutely. I work for the Progressive Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. I live in Andover, Kansas. So the address is 1930 North Springbrook Street, and the zip is 67002. Okay. We have two minutes. Thanks. Okay. Well, obviously, we appreciate your commitment to protecting young people. Teens should never use nicotine. However, we oppose restricting pouch sales to adult-only retailers and the 6 milligram limit. I could say a lot about Congress and giving the FDA the authority to regulate tobacco products and the safety reviews that they do before they authorize any products. I'm going to skip that, though, for time and just make a couple points. So first, among teens, nicotine pouch use has remained low. About 2.5% of kids used a pouch at least once in the past month, and less than 2% of kids use them more regularly. Today, overall, youth nicotine use is at the lowest level that it's ever been recorded. And if youth use does increase, FDA can revoke a product's authorization and remove it from the market. But I think the most important thing for me is you should consider the negative public health cost of banning pouch sales from traditional retail establishments. Public health hasn't figured out smoking cessation. Our ability to help hasn't met the demand of millions of adults who want to quit. And for a smoker and for public health overall, ending smoking as quickly as possible is critical. Most adults want to quit. Most have tried to quit. They're likely curious about these new lower-risk nicotine products. This policy will banish pouches from the places where most smokers buy cigarettes, convenience stores and grocery stores. When an adult in Wayland goes to buy their next pack of cigarettes, wouldn't you want them to see a much lower alternative relative to cigarettes, a significantly lower-risk alternative? Would you want a 30-, 40-, or 50-year-old adult to be able to make a choice to try something else that might actually help them quit smoking? Do you want to pass a policy that implies to those adults that pouches are somehow so dangerous that they need to be banished to places where they don't even shop? Public health has a core principle to make the healthier choice the easier choice. Imposing this restriction may or may not have any impact on kids, but it will remove the healthier choice from the places that adults buy cigarettes. So, thank you for the opportunity to share our perspective. Thank you, Jeff. You bet. Thanks.
I don't know. Yeah. She's just the one.
Is there anyone else with a public comment that's on the remote side, zooming in?
So, I think this will look like it. Okay. All right. Let's move on to Maura, public health. Great. Hi. I'm Maura Carter, public health nurse. I have both between March and the April communicable disease reports and reviews, given the lack of our meeting last month. So, calcivirus, at least a virus, a norovirus, more commonly known, two cases, influenza 38, Lyme disease 5, COVID-19 or coronavirus 12, and latent tuberculosis infection 1. So, that was for March. And then for April, enterovirus, two cases, human granulocytic anaplasmosis, the tick-borne disease, one case, influenza 31, Lyme disease 4, coronavirus 5, somnolosis 3, tuberculosis, latent tuberculosis infection 1, and varicella 1. So, salmonellosis lights affect with that number of cases there, but multiple were related to travel or break, and so no concern to any significance for other communities at that time.
So, beyond the communicable disease numbers, our community outreach highlights included in this report that recent TB disease data released by DPH DPH, that outlines the number of cases in Massachusetts for 2025. So, you'll see a blurb about that here with a total of 252 residents with tuberculosis disease. So, that's not the same as what you see on the disease reports, which are latent tuberculosis infection, but those are incidents of actual disease. So, some of the community messaging from the Weyland newsletter spoke to accessing Narcan in Weyland. We also put out through each of the schools and their principals and school nurses immunization messaging, in addition to messaging through the town newsletter to residents about recommended vaccines, given some of the attempts at changes to the immunization requirements. And so, just outlining that there has been no change to the required and recommended vaccines in Massachusetts. So, there was a blurb, too, about the MRC, the Medical Reserve Corps, the local Metro West group, in seeking volunteers for this group and information on how to sign up as a volunteer. There is information about tick-borne disease prevention that went into the town newsletter as well, and into the all schools newsletter for parents and families, caregivers of students. And then, the vaccine message, like I said, again, that went out through school newsletters. In their most recent town newsletter for May, we spoke to accessing mental health resources. As May is Mental Health Awareness Month in an attempt to reduce stigma and increase connections to resources. And I worked with the library on having an app display there, which is pictured just a bit later on. And then, there were two community listening sessions that were advertised through the town newsletter for engaging residents in the entire public health collaborative. So, Wayland, along with six other towns in our collaborative, to engage residents in their thoughts on public health and trust. And so, two of those sessions happened recently. And then, there was an event called No Proof Required that was part of planning from Warren King, the community clinician, through the foods department and the opioid abatement fund group, along with Olivia DuPour, who's the regional substance use prevention coordinator for Great Meadows Public Health Collaborative. I attended the event, and it was pretty well attended, with about 24 non-public health or town representative attendees. And it was a success, and likely will be something that is done again in the future. So, this was an opportunity for folks to gather and participate in an activity that would normally be done around substance use, like alcohol, but with beverages that were non-alcoholic. And then lastly, for school health services, the first bullet point there about clinical disease and an uptick in seasonal influenza and viral illnesses during spring. So, that's partially representative of looking at March. You can see from the disease report, March and April will still pretty even in terms of influenza activity. But I've certainly seen now that fall in influenza activity more recently. And then the screening brief intervention and referral to treatment screenings were done at the middle school recently. And then, at this time of year, schools are busy doing different types of screenings of students in certain grades to keep up with the screening requirements for vision, hearing, posture, etc. And lastly, TCW, or the Children's Way preschool, was determined to move into Happy Hollow Elementary come this next school year. And so, with that, we've been working with the schools on that transition. A few reports ago, we talked about this current school nurse leader who we've had for the past several years, Heather Yates, stepping down as school nurse leader at the end of the school year. And so, she was just, her replacement was just named, and that person is a school nurse from within our community health nurse team that has been now promoted to school nurse leader starting July 1st. And that is Betsy Green, so we're excited to bring Betsy into that position and continue with the support of the Children's Way transition for the golf. Very nice. That's what I have for you. Does the board have any questions? No. Thank you. Thank you. Zoom on to Stone Ridge Condo Pool. I don't know if anyone is zooming in regarding Stone Ridge Condo Pool. If you are here for that, please raise your hand. It sounds like we're supposed to be hammering. Yeah. I tried reaching out today, so it's possible that they are not coming, so we probably can just move on. All right. All right. Let's talk about review and discussion. Revised draft of the Board of Health Regulations for sale of tobacco and nicotine delivery products. Yeah. So, I printed out some copies. This is a very, you know, it's a very initial discussion. We haven't talked about this yet. We did have folks reaching out asking questions about it. I assured them that there's no vote happening today. We're just at the very beginning stages of looking at our draft regulation. I have a copy of our current regulation. If anyone's interested in looking at how that looks now, I can hear that. Yeah. I see that. So, right now, we've got prohibiting smoking in workplace and public places. And also, a separate component of tobacco regulation that's restricting the sale of tobacco on the nicotine delivery products. So, it's really the same regulation but the two separate documents. And I'm not aware of any changes to the workplace and public place. So, are we going over each area? I mean, we don't have to do that. I think we can do whatever you'd like. We could sort of talk in general, see if there's any questions. I can bring in our regional tobacco control manager at a different meeting to answer any questions after you have a chance to look at things. Especially where we already have correspondence coming through from. I can share with you the email that came in at 6.05, although it's 50 page documents. So, you'll have to take a look at your email. I printed out one copy if anyone wants to flip through it while we're sitting here. But that wasn't really, you know, what the agenda item was about. But it's important. This is just, you know, the introduction email. And this draft copy has been reviewed by town council. We've gone back and forth a couple of times. What, the one you just, this one? Yes. The copy, but not the old copy. Right. That one that's redlined. Yep. That one has been reviewed by Carolyn Murray of KP Law. And Harry, who was our tobacco control manager, helped to craft some of the language. But it is a lot. So, you know, I just wanted to introduce it. Sort of, you know, find out if there's any questions initially. And then we can put it on another board meeting, potentially inviting, you know, maybe Perry to sort of talk through some of these things. And, um, answer any questions that you made. Is that the schools? No, no. Harry actually works. He's a regional, um, employee. Yeah. He works for the town of Framingham. But he covers a number of towns. He doesn't, don't we have an advisor that works at the schools for all? Tobacco control? Not so much for talking to the students. Well, we have youth and family services. I thought that was an issue brought up too. That they were. They do talk about tobacco. Sure. Um, and they do bring in, you know, different educational, um, presentations and things. So that's very possible. Yeah. Hi Julia. Sorry. Yes. Sorry. Um, I had a question. So we were, we talked briefly about flavored, um, nicotine products. Is this in the same, uh, area of, uh, investigation or area of, of, uh, decision making? Yes, it is. Okay. So because the guy today was talking about pouches. So it's, it's kind of covering all nicotine sales. It is. Okay. Thanks. And we would eventually will, you know, once we get to that point, we would have a public hearing. And so anyone who wants to speak on behalf of, you know, any businesses that could be impacted and things like that, they'll have that opportunity to do so in a public setting. And, you know, we would hear their comments, concerns, and then take them under advisement. And probably, you know, at a, at a future meeting, have a vote, you know, once we get to that point, it takes some time. Yeah. There's a lot, too. Yeah. There's a lot, um, of information there. And, um, once we read through this 55 page document, we might have some other questions regarding some of the points that are brought up. Um. One of, one of the discrepancies I think was that the company said that there was non-characteristic flavoring or something. And then. In this document? Or that was in the email. Yeah. Okay. I mean, I, I haven't had a chance to really read through everything yet. Cause I was getting ready for the board meeting, but. I don't know. I think, um, but this, this is just all tobacco sales. Mm-hmm. Not just. In Wayland's specifically. Cause the FDA, I guess, found that there was, the company said that there, it's, it, so the company said it's not characteristic flavored. And then the FDA said. You're talking about the Zen chill email. So that's, yeah, that was another piece of correspondence that came from Perry. Who, um, shared that in April and, um, we didn't have a meeting in April. So I had forwarded that along, but, um, that was exactly from the FDA. They provided, um, some information from a person who's at the public health advocacy Institute at Northeastern University School of Law. And, um, this person, uh, let's see, there was a call and. This person suggested that it might be helpful to provide your boards of health with the FDA's report, concluding that Zen chill in three milligram and six milligram has a characterizing flavor. This report was finalized in January of 25 when the FDA authorized Zen chill to be sold in the U.S. The relevant pages from the report are attached with some key conclusions. The FDA does not prohibit the use of characterizing flavors in vapes and pouches, but, of course, Massachusetts does. The report suggests that Zen's manufacturer took the position that Zen chill is unflavored, but the FDA disagreed and concluded Zen chill has a characterizing flavor. Um, according to the FDA, Zen chill contains enough sweeteners and a cooling agent so that the product tastes sweet and produces a cooling sensation for the user. And they provided a link to the full report. And they provided a link to the full report. I did not print that out, but you certainly could look at that if you'd like. And so that's basically what that was about. Um, along with an informational handout from 2024 on, um, implementation of 105 CMR 665 and restriction on the sale of flavored tobacco products. There is a lot. There is a lot. There's a lot here. It's a lot. I know. Um, so my suggestion is, you know, to, I think, take a look at some of the air and some of it's not easy to really absorb exactly what the content means or what the changes might mean. Um, and so, you know, I think read through it a couple of times. Um, and then I can probably have Perry, maybe zoom in at one of our next board meetings to go over any of the redlined areas. Yeah. I mean, combination of us. Yeah. And then we can go through, you know, sort of like a Q and a, but it's a pretty beefed up recent version of anything that. Um, is potentially something that he, as the tobacco control manager, regional control manager is suggesting and, um, hoping that Wayland might consider adopting. Have any other towns nearby adopted something? So there are a few other towns, but, um, it's pretty, uh, I think advanced, you know, as far as banning vapes and nicotine vouches. That is definitely, um, forward thinking. And that's something to think about. But, um, we do have currently 11 tobacco permits in town, which is a lot for a town of this size. How many liquor licenses do we have in town? Well, uh, we're expanding liquor licenses, actually. I think the select board just recently, um, discussed that. I don't know what the exact outcome is, but I remember hearing about it and seeing something in the paper. So I'm not sure where we're at with the numbers, but it's definitely, um, a larger number in Wayland of tobacco permits than some of our adjacent communities. I don't know those numbers offhand, but I can certainly get them so that we, you know, I know that I've been surprised that we have that many when I've heard about. So there are a couple that people hold on to because they're like, well, maybe I'll change my mind or, you know, because basically if you turn your permit in, you can't get it back or someone else might get it. Um, you know, although it's different, you know, the way it's written in these regulations. So, you know, we want to make sure we understand that pretty well, but there are a couple, like, for example, over at the pizza shop and where honey farms or family farms used to be, you know, they had a permit over there and that plate, but they still have, you know, kept it alive. But that business has been closed since the fire. And, you know, so there's been, it's sort of a, um, a thing that changes a little bit every year, but right now we have 11 and they're looking at trying to reduce that to like maybe seven or whatever the board decides. Um, Julia, the person that called in Jeff will it or something like that. Did he give you any references for his data saying that smoking the pouches, uh, as a way of quitting? I'm guessing he will. Um, I don't think that this information we received this afternoon is from a Peter Brennan. I don't know if they're connected or not, but, um, you know, there's a possibility that they might be. And so I'm guessing we will receive something. And, um, maybe one of the other folks that is still connected on zoom can, you know, reach out to that person and ask them to forward something along. With regard to differences. Yes. Right. Because there are drugs to help people quit. They're not great, but the goal is not to take them and transition them to another tobacco product product. The ultimate goal would be to quit completely, you know, because you're increasing the risk of mouth cancers when you have tobacco in the mouth. Exactly. So, you know, you can't, you can't say, yes, it's reduced lung cancer risk, but here it's opened up another whole pool of risk. That's what I was thinking personally. I know that just from, you know, people I know in general, there's a lot of people using those pouches. Right. Right. And they don't, they don't, I have a patient who did this and like, there's no count of what she's using really, because she's just popping them in and out. Right. We don't even know. Like, it's, it seems to me that like, she was more aware of how many cigarettes she smoked and how much or how many pouches she's like and how long she's chewing on them. You know, it might vary. So we don't even know what exposure that eventually that, I don't know what exposure she was getting even, you know. Sorry. And she's, was, is fairly addicted to the pouches now. So that's not, I don't feel like that was a good trade. Yeah. Cool. No, you're, you're seeing intraoral lesions, uh, in the mouth. I say it all the time. I mean, it's increased, especially in, you know, high school and college a lot. Yeah. So that, that's, I think that's horrible. And, and they also begin to think they, because of the way it's marketed that it's not as risky as smoking. So it's okay. Yeah. And probably it's not just people that are going from cigarettes too. It's like, it's probably, there's probably other people, but it's not just people going right from cigarettes there. It's the new people trying, trying it too. It could be the kids, right? Isn't it a baseball thing to like chew on tobacco and spit it out on the field. So it could be middle school boys just going straight to the tobacco chewing. I can simply get a high off it when they're using it. That's what they're saying. Is that new? Instead of vaping, they're doing this now? It's kind of, it's both. But we see, I'm seeing a lot of poaching. And it's easier to hide. Yes. You know, when you're not exposing people to smoke or vape, you know, so it could be. Right. You can see it, but you know, you're not. You can see the lesions very quick. Oh really? Yeah. It's all white. We asked them as, you know, are you using any poaches? Oh no. I'm not using it. But you see it. Yeah. You do see it though. Oh. So those are pre, that's leukoplakia pre-cancer. Mm-hmm. All right. So we'll put that on. Yeah. I mean, any other thoughts or questions yet? I can, um, does that sound like a good strategy? I think so. Going forward. I mean, it is a lot. Yeah. So, um, we can take step one and then, you know, you guys can do some homework, reading and... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Glad to, uh... Can we just ask a procedural question? Just, we discussed, uh, the road in Hazelbrook. Will there be any further discussion? There could possibly be, um, it just depends on how the agenda goes for the rest of the night. So there could be. Could be. We may speak. Yes, may. Yeah. Thank you. Yep. Okay. Let's do the update on... Yep. So, uh, we have been working with, um, a, uh, staff person from, um, Ty and Bond who's, um, I'm sorry. I'm trying to remember his name. I hope it's Trent. Anyway, regardless, we are working on going further with our permitting of building approvals and septic approvals and transitioning those into OpenGov, which is an online permitting program. Also, there's other departments working on this too. The building department is a little further ahead than us with that part, but, um, you know, we're really looking forward to being more, um, you know, accessible online. We're applying for building reviews and, you know, eventually septic reviews. And so, you know, the good news is we have some film that was hired by the IT department with the new IT director. And so, um, we're working with those in the contracted individuals to move forward. And there's some, um, you know, rigorous work that's been done by, you know, working with Patty and Darren and the contractor, as well as, you know, having some meetings and planning planning for doing some work in the test environment. So that's where we're at now where we've got some testing to be done on some of the work in, in the test region of OpenGov. So we're happy about that. Um, although Darren is, um, going to be out, he, um, had some time off for our medical procedure. So it's very busy right now and we're working on opening all the pools, beach, you know, there's a lot of, um, paperwork coming in for camp, um, permitting as well. So to say that we're busy is an understatement. It's pretty busy. And we do have some help from our regional inspector and Lori, she was in today, um, came in an extra day to help out and then she'll be in on Thursday. So, you know, once, if we can make it through this week, then, you know, things even out a little bit, you know, but everyone wants to get their pools open, which is understanding, you know, before Memorial Day. So that's, uh, one thing we'll be working on as well as all the camps. Um, but we do have some help through our regional collaborative. We have a, um, contracted person who was hired to either, you know, do whatever type of work that we're in need of. And, um, this person can do camp reviews. So she's been in a couple of times doing the reviews of all the paperwork. It's a lot of paperwork that's required to meet the state code. And so we usually have them submit a binder, we do the review, and then after that part is completed, more does a review for the medical part. And then we do an inspection on site. So it's a lot, you know, but at least we have some help with that. Um, and renewal permits just went out. Those are already in open gov. And so, um, those are already automated and that's been working smoothly. I think this is probably the third or fourth year that we've been doing this. That's good. Um, our new septic fees that we adopted a while back this winter, those have gone live. So everything's online. I'm sorry, non septic fees. The, um, we had done quite a bit of homework on that at one point. So those are all online now and we're using them. There's a new town website that, um, if you go on to the town's website, you'll notice it looks different. And so we're trying to learn how to modify and make changes to our site. So we did go to chain, uh, some training by Jalen, um, from the front office, which was very helpful. Although, you know, until I actually get in there and practice with it, uh, it's, you know, hard to just assume that you know how to do it. So, you know, we're in transition figuring out how do you use the new town's website, um, household hazardous waste day collection. Uh, we saw 121 people. Two were from out of town. We consider that a really good turnout. Um, uh, we do have and continue to see a lot of complaints coming in, not about us, but for us. Um, you know, we've got this, um, complaint regarding the, um, dust on the road. We've got some other, um, housing complaints. Um, I actually made a list of them. Here we go. We had, um, you know, one that was related to lead paint concerns. We had a housing violation that we did an inspection and sent a legal order on that was on Buckskin Drive, 157 Buckskin, 10 Haven, 18 Oak Street, 73 Oxbow, 84 Riverview, 50 Maiden Lane. So those are all things going on behind the scenes as well, managing to make sure that we're doing our role, you know, with any complaints that come in. So, um, out of all those, there's probably one, two, three, four of them that are still pending. So, you know, the, you take one step and then you wait for something to happen and then you might have to do another inspection after the legal letter goes out. Um, one of those pending is Tenshore. I haven't heard anything recently. So, um, I did reach out to our council who was advising us on that and I haven't heard back yet, but, um, you know, sort of waiting to hear what next steps are on that. And see, we also in the midst of all this completed a safe 2.0 performance standards survey that the state, um, had rolled out. It was pretty significant. It was online. Um, basically, you know, more and I had to go in and fill in all this information that they were looking for related to the town of Wayland and the Board of Health and our budget and all this stuff. So the types of work that we do, the types of work that we don't have the ability to do, different types of things like that. So, um, we think it's probably related to that grant not being extended any further. Um, we're not sure what's happening with that yet either, but that grant for our PHE that we've been talking about for a number of years now is not funded beyond June 30th of 27. So, um, stay tuned. If there's something new that comes up, they might be trying to think of ways to continue with the resources that we have, like Ann Lurie, our regional inspector who came in and helped me today, who was also coming in on Thursday. Um, you know, we also have help with other things like Maven coverage, you know, when, say, when Maura goes on vacation, someone's covering Mayden. There's a number of resources that we get through that grant that are very helpful. They recently, um, purchased some supplies that they shared with us. Um, pool test kit, some different types of thermometers for food inspections, a SECI disk, which we use to check the water clarity at beach. Um, and you can also use it at pools. So, um, to be continued, I guess the, the CTCI grant, which is the grant that we had in Wayland that we were the fiscal agent for that is concluding on June 30th. And so, you know, once June 30th, um, hits, I believe that there might be one week after that, that we have the grant manager will be tying up any loose ends and finishing any financial reporting. So that grant will be concluding as of, you know, that's, there's no plans that I'm aware of to continue with that grant. And so we'll be losing our regional public health nurse who's working for that fiscal grant and our epidemiologist. So, um, unfortunately that's what's happening with that. Um, let's see, does anyone have any questions so far about any of this? Okay. And we have, just regarding, um, the development that's been going over at terrain, which is, uh, going to be a wedding venue and also at, um, let's see, we don't get donuts and Jimmy John's, which is also open. Um, that was a couple of weeks ago or so that opened up. Um, anyway, the construction that they're doing over there to do works, you know, site prep did trigger some testing that, um, was initially from the, um, contamination over at the dry cleaners at 298 Boston Post. And so I did a little bit of research on that and I called the EP and what happened, I guess, is, um, I can, I mean, I can read my summary again, just to make it a public record. We've recently received a lot of notifications from mass DEP and LSPs triggered by construction being done at 289 Boston Post, Duncan's and Jimmy John's and 297 and 311 Boston Post terrain. Ties back to 298 Boston Post where the nail salon and dry cleaners are where historically the dry cleaners had released chemicals, PCE, TCE and VOCs that were impacting these properties. And we're going through the MCP process with DEP. In 2022, a notice of non-compliance was issued to the owners of 298 Boston Post by DEP. Based on my findings, nothing has been done to finalize the cleanup from 298 since 2022. Based on information from my contact person at Mass DEP, the owners of 298 applied for and continued to be approved for financial inability since 2022. Since there, there are active businesses at 298, Mass DEP is, was looking into it to determine what their next steps may be to try and push the owners to do more to comply with MCP, the mass contingency plan. Those reports can all be found on the state's trackable release site or reportable release tracking site. The aerial application of control to control mosquito larvae was completed by the East Middlesex mosquito control project. And, um, we're, I think we just ordered our briquettes for the catch basin. So that'll be the next step once they're cleaned out. I have to, um, coordinate that. Um, okay. And then usually maybe the end of June, somewhere around there, they'll start doing their, um, trapping of mosquitoes and having them tested at the state lab for different mosquito-borne illnesses. Mostly West Nile and Wayland, but they do look for other things as well. And they look at populations. Um, also we had seen the, uh, clinical advisory for health healthcare providers on alpha-gal syndrome and required reporting, which, um, is really for medical providers. That was, um, something that came through related to the, um, lone star ticks. And, um, some of these allergic reactions that are character, characterized by delayed onset immunoglobulin. I don't know if I can read all these things, but there is a, an allergic reaction that basically makes you, um, gives you a meat allergy, red meat allergy. I think you had mentioned before, John, that you were hoping you would never get that. Yeah. Um, so they're, you know, doing some surveillance on that. Um, it sounds like through clinical required clinical reporting. So, uh, uh, Biet Olum and green burials, we had heard from Jay Cam, um, specifically, uh, Jamie Cattell. And, um, she was looking to meet with me, but we still haven't received anything regarding, you know, exactly where they were planning on having potentially green burials or some kind of, um, information that we had asked from them in May of 25. Um, so, um, um, I reminded her about, you know, the memo that we had sent from the board based on, you know, the fact that it is in a zone two area and close to a zone one. And, um, there's certain laws that, you know, require, um, a process that potentially would, you know, they'd have to go through the DEP as well. So we, I haven't heard back from them since then, but I just figured I'd let you know that we've heard from them. The town also, the, well, town cemeteries are required to have those concrete vaults. So that's also, I think, um, another issue that potentially they were challenged with. Um, we also received a formal complaint and request for a septic inspection at six winter street. And, um, I don't know if any board members had any further insight into that. Um, Darren did quite a bit of, um, work on that to answer the questions that were brought up regarding the, um, veterinary, um, business there at six winter street. I did ask the, um, building department if they were planning on re addressing any of these concerns with the ZBA. And at this time they did not have any plans to do that. Um, so, um, unless the board has any further direction, I feel like Darren has, um, you know, explained the questions regarding the septic system and the flows and that, um, based on the design that was, that was installed. Um, he felt like that it was supporting the use that they have currently there for the business that they currently have there. I think he was pretty thorough. I think he was pretty thorough. It was very thorough. Yeah. Very. Um, and he used like the most conservative that possible in terms of. Yeah. It's, it sounds like, um, the concerns that were brought up. Um, the, the title five questions don't, they're not impacted by that, you know, based on the research that Darren did, I think, you know, as you mentioned, it's a pretty conservative. Flow that was used when it was redone. What is the concern? There was no breakout. There's no ponding. There's no. Yeah. Yeah. And they were asking for, I think, from the board to require a title five inspection to be done. And so, um, but that was, I think what Darren was asking. Is there a problem that we're not aware of? And I don't. I mean, odors, anything. Right. Was there any, I didn't. I don't believe that that was, um, brought up at all. I think the concern was, um, related to the, um, animal clinic operating with, you know, a number of staff that potentially were not necessarily, um, what was approved by the ZBA. So, but not necessarily as a problem with the septic system. Um, and they were concerned that more staff would impact the septic system, but based on how the design was, was reviewed and installed, approved and installed. It sounds like it was over. It's, you know, the size was probably larger than it needed to be, but we haven't heard of any problems either. So. Um, I do bring my pets there. My dogs go there. There is no, I'm trying to think. There is no toilet for like your, I mean, they probably have the staff toilet. They would let you use, but there's no toilet in the waiting room for like people waiting for their pets. Like you just go there, you go in the exam room and you leave. It's not, you know, it's not going to be the clients using the toilets the way I see it working. Okay. Like they wouldn't like they would in a medical clinic, right? In a medical clinic, right? In a medical clinic, we always have people asking to use the toilet, but like over there, you bring your animal, you're sitting out and then you leave. You don't, there's no, there's no access to a waiting, uh, to a toilet through the waiting room. Well, that probably helps for sure to eliminate any overuse of water. Right. Right. You'd have to ask them for, can I, may I please use the stuff? I mean, I'm sure in an emergency, they would let you, but it's not like there for use. Yeah. Right. Okay. Any questions about anything so far? Perfect. Okay. And, um, now we are down to the correspondence item from the concerned residents of Babelbrook and Lincoln Road regarding respirable silica dust from recycled gravel. And you wanted to read that letter first for the record. Yep. Okay. Wayland Board of Health concerning Wayland residents. May 5th, Wayland residents sent the health department videos of thick dust clouds breathed via the recycled gravel on his book and Lincoln Roads. The question was simple is to find us safe for adults, children, and pets to breathe daily while walking, running, biking, and walking, waiting for school buses. As you can see, the videos, these dust clouds now envelope families multiple times a day and blow into the homes. The dust is just part of the living on the dirt road. It's no longer acceptable answer. The Wayland DPW covers and rolls Halesbrook and Lincoln Roads with M103.1. Processed gravel for sub-basis purchased from Dedham's recycled gravel company, Inc. of the demolition scrapyard and aggregate recycling facility in Dedham Mass. These recycled aggregate materials contain up to 50% recycled crushed concrete and 5% recycled asphalt pavement. Both materials are high in crystalline silicate. When crushed and driven on, excuse me, this gravel releases respirable crystalline silicate and no human lung carcinogen and low to moderate exposure over time is hazardous to health. Excuse me. Concrete dust is highly hazardous in hail when ground concrete release respirable crystalline silica, a fine dust that can cause immediate throat irritation, long-term irreversible respiratory issues from silicosis. OSHA recycled asphalt pavement. Pavement dust is not considered safe and poses significant health risks when inhaled, primarily due to respirable crystalline silicate and eudemen fumes. It can cause respiratory irritation, chronic lung disease, and is a carcinogen. We are asking for the immediate guidance regarding this suspected health hazard is daily exposure to dust safe for our families. Is this fine dust safe for adults, children, and pets to breathe while walking, running, biking, and waiting for school buses? We also request that the town stop using this material on residential roads until the health risks are properly evaluated and mitigated. Your urgent attention and answer to our questions greatly appreciated. Thank you, concerned residents, Wayland residents from Hazelbook, Lincoln, Concord, Waltham, and Gleason Road. So obviously it raises a concern for us as Board of Health, but does the Board have any questions? I think there's some research to be done. I think there's some research to be done into some of these things and, you know, I think gather some more information and we've got some good information that have been provided, you know, from these residents. No, I agree. Yeah. Do you think, what is the new aggregate they put down? Is it, does it seem like it's larger chunks? Larger chunks for sure than it used to be. So that's what's called inch and a half gravel. It's not, it's, it's multiple issues. It's again, that's why I asked earlier, having been there for a very long time. It's a subjective sense, but there should be records for what has been used over the years. And when this change occurred, if there's not, then I have a bigger concern about that, but absolutely knowing what has been used over that timeframe. And this change that's become very obvious to those of us that live there is something that's now brought us to the forefront of this, this process. It's a combination of everything she brought in the box, but there's like all of a sudden at this time, there were pretty large sized rocks. And so it makes it really hard to walk on the road. And then underneath it is this very, almost like baby powder fine. And over the years, over the 30 years, we've had an array of things. It almost seems like whatever is available, they bring and they dump, but it's not what neighbors that have been there even longer than us have said is the road was never. And I think Connor brought this up. It was never graded properly. So the amount of effort and work that goes into maintaining this road is kind of, you know, there's got to be a better way. We're not the first dirt road in the history of this, this, you know, area. So what can we do to grade it properly? So this doesn't have to happen, you know, basically twice a month they come through and then it's just, and I've seen every kind of material you can imagine from sand to dirt, to small rocks, to big rocks, to weird things like, you know, that show up like that, that Kim's brought up. It's just interesting. Each time it's a little bit different. So I wonder what's the process of even ordering this? Is there a standard that they follow each time? So they get the same thing. This, this is really, you know, you can see it kind of coding everything. Our mailboxes are, are, you can't even really grow things next to the road. So just on my way, I literally, I arrived later and pulled out of the house. And just as I was pulling out a landscape truck with a trailer drove down the road too fast as a lot of trucks do. And the amount of dust that came off, like covered all of the houses and basically everything in sight was covered in dust. So it, and that's not what used to happen. A few years ago, there was actually the road was grading properly. There was some lime coating put down. The dust was reduced dramatically. So there are definitely different materials and techniques that can be used to do this properly. It just doesn't seem like at this point we were very unaware of exactly what they've been doing to cause this recent issue. And again, I, I'd focus on the cut, the components of the, of what the dust is. So you're absolutely right. You made the point on a dirt road. Absolutely. There's an expectation that there's going to kick up some material. It's that material and what's in that material. That's a greater concern on top. So the dust amounts, whatever that happens to be, but the constituents, given that we have chemical engineers that live on the street, we have physicians that live on the street, we have everybody that lives on the street, that that's not in and of itself an issue, but it's more a sense of these are concerns that over the long term, the exposure to this is, is hazardous. It wouldn't be accepted in any, uh, set of circumstances, but these are guesses. And that's another coming to you to have in your capacity to give us the data, look at this information and figure out what exactly is being done and what are the constituents. And come up with standards moving forward. Exactly. So we prevent this. What's going down. There is, there is some research done to how do we grade it? How do we make it? So that it has this, um, everybody was calling. So you think it's a two prong problem. It's the, it's the, the grading and the material. Exactly. But I, so I did a quick Google of, um, road bases made with crushed concrete versus granite gravel, which is the only kind of gravel that's available around here. Um, and the, the granite gravel actually has higher silica. No, but, but if you go to work, so I'm in the, that business, I'm not a doctor like the rest of the group. Um, so I understand that. Um, but the pits that I buy from, um, it's generally a granite quarry around New England. And so that's that dust. And then maybe the proportion of dust dust is higher in this versus the, you've got a lot of large rocks and dust and there isn't a lot of the middle size stones in it. And maybe that's part of the problem that it's not packing up. Um, I go back to 10 years ago, five years ago, three years ago. Yeah. What was being used? Cause it wasn't subjectively. It wasn't this kind of material. It was dirt, uh, and dirt with some gravel. It's always a surprise on the day. Right. That's funny. What are we getting today? And it's like, oh, like, oh, it's sand this time. Oh, it's dirt. Oh, it's. So again, given your description, granite wouldn't be an acceptable because of the components. So there have to be components that are acceptable, that are authorized or evaluated by equivalencies of DPH. To make a determination as to what's safe in a residential area. That's really the, the crux of it. How often is material put down on the road? It's, that's a variable situation as well. And over the years. Sometimes. Right. We've had people call in and then, you know, people will come out and grow and, and grade it. They've gone weeks, months, and then we've gone days where this is. It kind of, I don't know. That's actually a really good question. I don't know what triggers it. Like people will say, I haven't called. I haven't called because we realize that sometimes calling. Once word gets out that the roads smoother are cut through is just awful. Yeah. So sometimes a bad road is better for us environmentally. But at the same time, we have to drive down it. You know, they're, his wife has to go pick up their son on the corner. Like you can't, some of these craters are, you know, need deep almost. Yeah. Independent of the solution. We know for a fact that this consists of hazardous carcinogenic respirable silica. We need you guys to tell the DPW, don't put any more of this down. In fact, you should pull it all up. And you should, we should also minimize all the cut through. Connor talked about all the cars, you know, going through. Minimize all the cut through traffic and water it down until it is removed. It is supposed to go under roads, under asphalt, under concrete. The towns of Boston, the city of Boston and Framingham, they have a whole process behind it. They, this, our DPW superintendent sent this as a spec. This isn't a spec. This isn't the DOT spec. This is the, the city of Boston had an independent firm come and evaluate the materials that they put under the asphalt and under the concrete to make sure that it had the right set of components. We know for a fact that this material is coming from a scrap yard. In, in that 50%, you can see this box. I took, I asked this dude, I said, how do you guys really do, do an audit when somebody does have the due diligence to ask you to do an audit? How do you do it? Do you put it into some spectrometer or something? I said, oh no. We take a five gallon bucket and just pull a sample. And then by hand, we saw it sorted. Well, I did exactly that in a five by five section right after they dumped it. This is all. I want you guys to look at this. This is. Oh, we've already. I've already. This is. Yeah. A dirt road. There is. All gravel is not equivalent. This. So what we would like you to do is immediately tell the DPW cease and desist on this material. And immediately within the next five days, get some magnesium carbonate or calcium carbonate on that road every, every couple of days to make sure none of this is billowing up. And then figure out how to pull it all up because it's, it's, it's all over the place. It's on the side of the road. It's, it's, it's just a mess. And in fact, over time, over the last couple of few years, when cars go over it, and like I said, it's, it's, it's almost like, um, uh, it, it acts as an industrial milling machine, grinding the concrete aggregate into fine airborne dust. And then when it settles, it's almost like the concrete re the, um, re what is it called? Well, it becomes the road is no longer dirt. Fine. You feel like you've got crusty concrete and then a car will go by and they're there. You know, the other rocks rub against it. And you've hopefully all seen these videos and just imagine what I saw last Tuesday night, couple pushing their little one-year-old baby in a stroller and eight cars going by. And that it was just a snowball of dust cloud. And like this, what I have here, kids, kids are playing lacrosse like fiber, you know, five or six feet from the edge of this roadway. The people on the corner, um, kids' lungs are smaller. They breathe faster. Dogs, you know, pets are closer to the ground. Um, you know, this all details, you know, how important this is and how toxic and hazardous this is to help. How do we proceed? Like, what's the next step? Um, like, do we get on an agenda a month from it? Like, how do we, we think obviously this is kind of an emergency. It's a little scary for us. Um, and you've seen that the majority of the residents of Hazelbrook had either been online or have been present today. So it's clearly something that we are very concerned about. Yeah. I know that, um, Joe called me today and said that they were, um, planning on doing a treatment of calcium chloride. I think, um, next week he said, or sometime soon. Um, he didn't have an exact, he didn't have an exact date. He was waiting for, um, the formal process to, um, be determined on who was doing it and how much it would. He was waiting for another layer. Okay. Yeah. I'm just telling you what. No, no, no. It's like, what, what cycle are we in right now? Because the road probably in a week or two, someone's going to call and ask for a change. Yeah. I mean, this is a, a complicated situation, you know? So I think that if there's any thoughts or, um, suggestions from the board, I think that. Are we in the right place? Well, I think this is also a DPW board of public works, um, discussion as well. I mean. They don't appreciate the health, the health issue here. The health, that hazardous health emergency that this is. They don't, they, this is like not being appreciated. Well, they'll probably be listening to the public comment in this board meeting, which is being recorded, you know, because Tom Holder is, I'm sure going to be here, you know, interested in hearing what you're all saying. So what do we do as residents? What, what's our next steps? What do you, what would you advise us to do? Um, hold tight. Like what, again, because the road is this organic thing that keeps having to be addressed. Like, it's not like, well, I think that getting the road treated is, um, probably first and foremost, I would think to try and mitigate. And then that will happen after every, cause like I said, we're probably due in a week or so or two weeks from now for a whole nother dump, dumping of stuff. So that's why it's, it's just so like, we don't have a lot of time just because, or they can't do anything. They'll do this, but then the road falls apart. Someone calls, they come and they dump more material. But, but the board of health, you guys should see that this isn't appropriate. This isn't the application. It's, it's process gravel for sub base. That's what, but for some reason, Tom Holder and the DPW isn't understanding that this is the wrong application. Now that's not your job, but your job is if this is what this material and it's up to 50% recycled concrete and, um, 5% asphalt and it's grinding. And you've seen these videos and you see how it hangs in the air and it just, and, and, and, and everybody's telling you this, that it, that has to, it is, it is seems to me clear as can be that, that the DPW can't keep dumping this on the road and, and saying, Oh, next week, maybe in a couple of weeks, maybe in a couple of months. I was told we don't have enough money to, to, to do anything. And then the more you learn about this stuff, you know, I don't have time to be Aaron Brockovich here and neither do these other people, but this is a serious. It, the, the more we learn about this stuff and, and the more, the more people who tell us that this isn't appropriate for a dirt road, no way, shape or form is this is, this is, this should be the first thing that Tom Holder does tomorrow morning. He should, no other opening, opening people's pools before Memorial Day. And it should, for your board as well, it should be important. And, and Tom Holder should tomorrow get somebody in with calcium carbonate, magnesium carbonate, schedule them for every, every few days and just, just do it until you, you guys realize how bad this stuff is. And then they need to also probably take it up and figure out a better solution. Okay. Like studies to just dump truckloads of dirt. And then, you know, and it was brown dirt. And, and, and, you know, that's the way it was when we moved in and for the first decade or two. I, I don't know what else to say. Again, it's, it's, if it's, and it seems, seems again, it's a cost issue. So it seems like this may be the cheapest way to go. But from a cost point of view, now that this is part of the public record, healthcare issues that come forward lead to litigation against the town. They haven't done anything about this. So the cost associated with this today, maybe X tomorrow is going to be significantly higher. Yep. And so again, I'm, we're back to a lot of these issues, but the healthcare issues are the primary process. As a physician, I'm mandated. If I find a patient with a certain infection that we're talking about, then you must report it. And I've had scenarios in which I've had DPH come in and look at E. coli strains in Metro West versus at MGH. So we can find out if we had a true contaminant in, in daycare scenario. And you have the DPH as the authority to do that. Whereas the institutions couldn't talk to each other and found out they were different strains. So no, no harm, no foul. That was done instantaneously. That was done within 48 hours of a call in and I'm mandated to do. So again, that's where I think at least the focus initially, this is a healthcare potential major issue. So if you look into this and find out what has been said subjectively is true, then this needs to have been done yesterday. That's right. It needs to be a high. And if it's not, then please get back to us and say, Oh, we've looked into it. And here's the objective data. This is what this material has. And it is not a significant healthcare issue to folks. And then you'll put us all at ease and then we'll deal with living on a dirt road and having dust and knowing or having a better sense that it's not a healthcare issue. Yep. That's going to be a problem for us. Okay. So thank you. All right. Can I just ask one question. You mentioned they wanted to put calcium chloride on, is that healthy? I mean, is that something that is okay to put on? It's supposed to help dust. I don't know anything about calcium chloride. Yeah. I, I didn't have a chance to look into it this afternoon after, you know, mentioned that. Calcium chloride is going to be better than silica. So, and my one question, my, my question was, am I better off to wear a medical mask or do I have to go to a KN95 mask? Yeah. Should we find myself? I can, I can tell you that. Yes, you tell. No, the, the particulates are not that small that I, that an N95 is what's necessary. So a medical mask would be good. A medical mask will help you in for the most part. Okay. And make sure you cover your nose and mouth. Yeah, exactly. 2.5 micrometers in diameter. Respirable, uh, crystalline silica, RCS is 2.5 micrometers in diameter. They, they do call for N95. Um, well, if you're on N95, you have to be fit tested to that. Well, true. I mean, I think that, you know, potentially. We don't want to wear masks. Have you written a memo to the board of public works? We have caught, we have, um, all been calling them for the last two years. The board or the staff? The staff. The staff. Okay. So there is a board of public works. Yeah. And you can send something to Tom and copy the board and highlight your concerns. You have the authority very rapidly to make a determination for my health care. I'm just, we're just hearing about this today. You know. I understand. I'm gathering all the information. Yeah. Exactly. Now you've got this information on May 18th at eight o'clock at night. Right. Right. And you're not, I mean, you're not going to figure this out by 8-10. But I think we need to do that, what you're saying as well. We'll do both. That's important. You know, to find out that these are significant health care issues. Right. Your ability to step in will then force DPW to do something about it. Whereas they may do something by our input over time and whatnot. Um, you would be, you'd be in a much stronger position to have that happen much quicker. Sure. If everybody follows it, then great. No harm, no foul. But there's no reason for us not to be coming at both at multiple levels. But I think we're missing that piece of this. Yes. We'll, we'll need to. Certainly. That's helpful. And you have the data sheets. You know that this stuff is not intended to be on top of a road. Right. These are all. We know that. Okay. We've mentioned that. We know that. You know, I don't know who's going to go to the DPW and all this. This is, this is in the town of the Whale. And this is a health hazard that we need, you learn how to, um, to affect change immediately. And, and there's no reason why Tom Holder won't be at his desk contracting somebody to put down for it. Just to, for a quick stabilization and, and getting the Wevers in charge of traffic to stop, you know, only, you know, people who live there are no, not the hundreds of cars that Connor was telling you about that cut through from Weston. Um, you know, there, there are some real stopgap short things that could be done. And then that's, you know, that's definitely not. But the. You guys. Related to traffic and, and you know, how many cars are passing. Right, right, right. So do we start this process completely over again with DPW? Like what is, cause that, or can you guys let them know, look, we're dealing with sort of a hybrid situation here. We're definitely going to be in touch with them. I mean, I know I will. Okay. You know, the board will have to discuss it. We need to be in a public meeting to, you know, make communications or do things like that, you know, but we haven't had a chance to really just go into this. Yeah, it's the timeline. Yeah. We're, we're simple. I understand. We're not hearing about it tonight. We're there. We're in the position to. But even when you're just hearing about it, what you're saying is you're going to need another meeting in a month to talk about it more. There, you cannot tell the DPW, hey, we have a highly suspected issue here. Tom Walder, get that road for the next, make sure every three days, once a week, you do your magnesium calcium cart. You do something to stabilize the threat to the threat to the citizens of whaling. Tom's, you can probably know, like, what they used to dump before, I would think. That's the thing. Right. The industry. We have to find all that information. It's just, we have, we got a process too. We, what should we do next? What happens next? We brought this to you guys and we're very appreciated. Yeah. I mean, I think you should go to a board of public works meeting. That's what I would suggest because it's their, they do all this work. They order that material, they put it down the road, they do the treatments. They know, you know, there's history there that they probably can find at their fingertips. We can ask them for it, but they are, you know, in, in knowledge of what they've been doing. So you're going to work concurrently with that piece of it? I would say probably. Yeah. Yeah. So, so I think, so we don't feel like we're being fogged up, right? So to the DPW board of work. So we can go and have a conversation with them. But what are you guys going to do in the meantime? That's what we were just talking about. I mean, you know, I don't know, um, as far as what the board is going to do, but I certainly can talk to, um, Tom and, you know, discuss this tomorrow, you know, and then get back to something like, is it? No, I, I don't have, you know, we all in, in our whole neighborhood, we've got people online, we've got people who couldn't make it, who said, Oh, please, you know, go that way. We, this is, this is like, you know, we can't be Aaron Brockovich here. We shouldn't have to be. We know exactly what this shit is that they're putting on the road. We know exactly that this is not supposed to be on top of roads. We know exactly that this is a hazardous hazardous when it turns into the ground recycled gravel dust clouds that people are walking through breathing in, especially babies, especially dogs, especially little kids, especially Rowan and all the, you know, the, the little kids who are riding their bikes down the road and get into these dust clouds. This is a public health emergency. That's what you guys do. This is much more important than anybody having their fucking pool open for Memorial Day. I'm sorry. I'm upset. And I apologize. I appreciate everything you guys do. But I, I, I really, the DPW, when you say it's not healthy, they said it's, it's what we always, that's what, you know, we've been trying to get them to change it or to fix it or do something. I did the research and I said, magnesium carbonate or calcium carbonate. That's what I thought would be a good solution. When I, before I knew how toxic this shit is, I, this, I, all I wanted was to be reassured and my neighbors and their kids, the lady down the street or the grandmother, she says, I tasted every day. I'm waiting by the school bus, waiting for the school bus, everybody. And I'm like, Hey guys, I'll, I'll, you know, and we all work together. This is like, and the, and people on Concord road who walk, walk and ride their bikes and people on Pleasant. And you know, this is a lot of people in tech, Waltham road. I think people have been putting up their own signs, speed signs. I, I did a very quick look online before, and I, I didn't want to say much because it's sort of like, I didn't really, I didn't look that far into it, but, um, I don't think they have, they, they just don't have, it didn't look like they have that many studies for like kind of repeated, like short term. They have a lot of studies for silicosis exposure for like people who work in like, I think it's the equivalent of living on the street. Yeah. We're almost in that. It's that short term. Again, just a little stretch. So I pulled out, pulling out of my driveway, truck goes by, the amount of dust that comes up, it goes into us because you know, it's the summertime. So we have our doors open, back doors open, windows open, whatever it may be. The amount of dust that actually ends up in the house, right? So, okay. But we wearing masks down the street, fine. That may be a temporary solution. Are we supposed to be wearing masks in our house? Um, and this has been going on for a number of years. So how long, what's long term? No, I, I, I agree. So I, I think it is. It's just like no kind of dust is healthy. I mean, really even, even road dust is a good long term. I mean, it's, it is something we've chosen to kind of be on a dirt road. And there's, so we're just asking for something that we know is safer. Um, I don't think we're all getting long term exposure. There's no way after 30 years that we don't all have some kind of, and you know, some, some kind of exposure to. Well, there's no minimum or maximum dosing of carcinogens that lead to X amount of, of cancer. We were talking earlier about tobacco and some nicotine tobacco. And I just found it interesting as an aside. It sounds like the description for the pouches was exactly what the companies were saying about vaping. Vaping initially came out in order to allow people to stop smoking. And then the content of nicotine was significantly spiked. So now became more addictive, but nonetheless, as I said, my hope is you'll do, you'll do the evaluation of this. Take an under advisement and find out if what we're saying and what we're hearing has validity. And if it does, then your ability to do something about it is more rapid and more aggressive. While at the same time, we will approach this for DPW. So it doesn't need to become another agenda item, like in a month from now, does it? Like, is there, that's what we're not. I mean, for the board? Yeah. So for this part of it, I mean, what do we, again, I'm still lost on how we. You're going to do some evaluative process, whatever that happens to be. Hopefully. Homework. Homework. Homework. Yeah. Homework. Well, you gave us a lot of information. Yeah, there's a lot. Just have to digest that here. And it sounds like you've been talking about this and looking into this for a long time. We've been, and we get nothing. It's crazy. The DPW says, look, you guys live on a dirt road. There's dust on a dirt road. We have not been able to move that needle at all. Yeah. We didn't go to the board of public health, but I mean, the board of. Public works. But at this point that the biggest concern, the more we looked into it, it wasn't about a nuisance of just a benign dust. This is bad stuff. Not all, you know, this comes from a demolition yard. You know, who knows what else is in there besides the concrete and the asphalt. But you saw those videos. Could you imagine just trying to walk your dog or walk your kid to the school bus and having, you know, six or eight cars. Connor told you how many cars come through there and cut through there. So there's an immediate nature of like, we have to solve this right now for this, for what we have down on the road now. It's like the calcium carbonate is going to be one solution, but that'll say for another, you know, calcium. My museum's home. My museum's home. My museum's home. It's whatever. Whatever. Something like wine that goes down on the road. And we're not even sure if that's safe, but at least it'll prevent the dust. And so that's the joint. And back to, if you've got gravel that includes asphalt, that's got benzene likely. And benzene is a, about as carcinogenic as anything that we've been exposed to. So that's, that doesn't take a whole lot to know. If you've got benzene going up aerosolized, that's a problem. Sure. So, uh, I mean, we can urge the board of public works to treat the roads so that will help reduce the dust on the short term. Right. While you're, while you're evaluating. Yeah. I'm going to go drive it in the morning. Yeah. How do we need a plan? Which is probably. Don't do it in the morning. Don't do it now. It's nice and dry now. Well, in the morning, there's a little bit of dew on that. That's it. That's it. Go drive it now. I've seen the videos. I don't know this dust. I want to look at the aggregate and I want to look at the grading and I can't see that in the dark. So yeah. I have the advantage as a physician, I get up before everybody else. I get out before the road gets to dust. Not only works. So live on the first. Yeah. We're the first. Yeah. So to start with, I can personally convey that regarding the road treatment be done as soon as possible. Right. Okay. Yeah. And then we did that evaluation. Other. Like if someone says, you fill in the holes, we don't want anything else put on the road, obviously. Until we know. Until we get. With what was the appropriate material. Okay. I'm wearing this product. Okay. That was good. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for listening today. I appreciate it. Oh, just residents can protect themselves by masking as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Time is always better, but. Yeah. If you're walking down the road, I just want to secure it in the house. Try. It's understandable. Yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks. All right. Let's see. You guys can catalog this. Oh, yeah. No, please leave those. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much. Yep. All right. We had. General business. Thank you. Couple things that I meant to bring up. The conservation has denied the Coptic Orthodox Church project. You can't quite say that. Yeah. That's great. So we're not sure what's going to happen with that. Yep. We are still waiting for borings to be done for our part of the septic design. So that's probably why we haven't heard from anybody. So they'll move forward anyways? No. They can't. They need. I don't know what's going to happen with conservation. Right. As far as our part, the next step for us was to do some borings because they had done some initial work for the hydro geo study that I think we had talked about at a board meeting and they were going to be doing some borings. We had a consultant that we hired and he was looking into it. So that's still outstanding. There is a daycare being considered at 200 Commonwealth Road. I don't know if you all know where exactly that is. But let's see if I can find a bed. Here. Here we go. Next to Royal Whelan's. Next to Royal Whelan's. Oh, it's near the animal clinic. Yeah. So we're not sure how that's. You're not the same neighbor. Because the soils in that area are very variable. I noticed Darren did ask, ask her like what, what brought forth. Yes. Which was like. That's a good question because that usually complaint regarding a septic design or flow is related to odor, breakout, you know, something that happened, but no one has shared that. So, um, anyway, uh, Takara's new, um, relocation over where the bagel table used to be, um, was recently. Well, not April 20th. It was when it opened. So, um, everyone should be excited to go check it out. I heard it's really nice. Yes. I don't know what's going to be at the old Takara. Um, probably a similar, you know, maybe a food restaurant. I don't know for sure, but, um, so let's see. What else? Those were some of the, um, things that I had been aware of and different projects going on. Um, uh, we have October minutes. If anyone, has everyone had a chance to look at them? I'm guessing yes at this point. Yeah. So we just need to get those approved. And then there's two other sets that are ready to be looked at at our next board meet. I know we're a little behind, so we're working on trying to get caught up. Okay. I motion to approve the meeting minutes from October 25. Okay. Do we have a second? I'll second. Okay. Well, um, John Storm? Yes. Dr. Genevieve Annone? She's off. I think she's still. I think she's still. She's on mute. Yeah. She's not. Yes. I heard. Can you hear us? Sorry. I was not at that meeting. Okay, great. Yep. All right. So, Katherine Stubb? Yeah. Dr. Brett Mordas? Yes. And Dr. Bob DeFrancesco, those are approved for October 20th, 2025. Mm-hmm. Okay. All right. What else do you have? Then we've got our board, our future board meeting dates. Okay. So, if everyone can take a look and let me know if those work. And I can make any, you know, modifications if needed. Let's see. It's pretty good to me. Yeah. It works. Yeah. Who knows, right? I'm not sure about September, but the other three should work for me. I'm sorry. What date? I'm not sure about September. It's kind of. Yeah. I just like to get them on the calendar so that we're not squeezed out. If someone else decides to put a bunch of meetings up, you know, that's what can happen sometimes. So. So I'm fine with June, July, and August. Should be okay for me. I just have to probably attend remotely in June. Okay. Yeah. Very exciting. Let's just put that. Sorry. Those are copies of the reports and those are the other ones that just came together. Yep. So, yeah, just if we wanted to take a look at some of the work that's being done. Yeah. Yep. Okay. And, oh, I just had a note about staff coverage, you know, just because Darren's out. So it's just me, you know, for, well, Patty's in too. I'm not going to, you know, and Jenna's here. Patty's out inspecting something. No. No. She's in the office. But, so, you know, tomorrow, Wednesday, and Friday, it'll just be me. And then I'm not sure exactly when he'll be able to do, you know, like field work in the inspection department being, you know, on a job site. So we'll have to see how that goes. Yeah. I talked to him today. He thought he wouldn't be back quite as soon as he originally anticipated. He thought he would be back sooner or later? Later. Oh, really? Oh. Okay. Okay. But it's early. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Yes. So, you know, I can touch base with Tom Boulder tomorrow and make sure that he's aware of all this, you know, once the meeting is, and that's the good thing about having these meetings hybrid so that, you know, it's also on Wacom, you know, that way anyone can chime in and take a look at the, or, you know, listen to the meeting and watch. Sure. And so I'm sure he'll be interested in it as well. Sure. And then, you know, as far as other things, I think, you know, looking into some of the questions that were asked and making sure that they're aware. But, you know, as I mentioned, this is new to me, you know what I mean? And before we make any assumptions about it for two years. Right. Yeah. I don't really want to chime in. I mean, obviously I don't like dust, you know, and most people don't, but I don't know. I don't have a formal thought process yet at this time. Agreed. Okay. I need a motion to adjourn. I make a motion to adjourn the meeting. Do we have a second? We'll make a second. Second. Okay. All right. Let's do a roll call. Dr. Brett Morris? Yes. Catherine Stiff? Yes. Dr. Genevieve Annan? Yes. John Steyer? Yes. And Dr. Bobby. Meeting adjourned. Absolutely. Thank you.