NOTTINGHAM PLANNING BOARD MINUTES
SEPTEMBER 14, 2005
PUBLIC SESSION
APPROVED BY THE BOARD JANUARY 4, 2006
PRESENT: ABSENT:
Mr. Dave Smith, Chair
Mr. Peter Bock, Selectmen's Representative
Ms. Sandra Jones
Mr. Peter Gylfphe
Mr. Jon Caron
Mr. Scott Curry
Mr. Bill Booth
OTHERS PRESENT:
Representatives of USA Springs
Ms. Kelly Tivnan, Planning Board Secretary
USA SPRINGS WORKSHOP:
The Chair called the meeting to order at 7:00pm.
Mr. Smith said that lately there had been letters and articles saying that the Planning Board was biased. He asked if the applicant had any proof of that. Mr. Soltani said that he did not know about the claims. He said that there was nothing which needed to be supported by the applicant. Mr. Bock said that he was concerned the good faith of the Planning Board was being muddied by the statements. Mr. Soltani said that the applicant had been and would continue to be accommodating to the Planning Board. Ms. Jones said that some people might be being paranoid. Mr. Soltani said that he did not know about any press release going out. Mr. Smith asked if the applicant had anything substantial against any of the members of the Planning Board. Mr. Caron asked the applicant to please bring forward
any questions if they did not think that things were fair. Mr. Curry said that no one on the Planning Board had any particular bias and he was concerned about the letters going around. Mr. Soltani said that he could not control the public comment. He said that the applicant stood by their particular requests for certain people to recuse themselves and they stood by their general request for information. Mr. Gylfphe said that the Planning Board would give a non biased opinion and they would treat USA Springs as fairly as they treated any other applicant.
Mr. Curry noted that he had received some documents from Mr. Gilbert. He said that he was confused by the format of the documents and he noted that some things had been crossed out. Mr. Gilbert said that where there were evident edits the changes had been suggested by the applicant. He gave the Planning Board copies of draft conditions for approval, permit conditions to be used for tracking, and a memo of understanding he had drafted which would be between the town and the applicant. Ms. Copeland also gave the Planning Board a handout. Mr. Gilbert noted that he had a question about possible condition #10. Ms. Jones said that she did not think there should be any trucks on narrow, residential roads. Mr. Gylfphe said that Freeman Hall Road was the only one he could think of which might be ok for
trucks. Mr. Bock asked how the traffic would be monitored. Mr. Soltani said that if the Planning Board saw the benefit to saying there could be no trucks at all on certain roads than USA Springs would pay to put up signs specifying that but he said that they would not pay to put them up if they were simply going to ban trucks used by USA Springs. Mr. Caron said that he did not think the Planning Board could require signs. He said that he thought signs were the purview of the Board of Selectmen. Mr. Curry noted that the condition could just consist of the first sentence. Mr. Soltani said that the counting devices for traffic could not tell the difference between trucks and cars. He said that the applicant would install a counting device if necessary. Mr. Caron said that some traffic counters did have the capability of telling the difference between types of vehicles. Mr. Delucia noted that the applicant would have 24 hour
surveillance and they could keep a manual log of the number of trucks that came in and out of the facility. Ms. Copeland said that was a good idea. She said that a town could get a copy of the log each month. Mr. Booth said that traffic counters could not be tampered with. Ms. Copeland said that she was concerned about weather affecting the count. Mr. Smith said that he felt having the gate guard keep a manual traffic log would be more than adequate. Mr. Gilbert said that he would add that to proposed condition #8. Mr. Caron said that at the start the applicant could give the traffic information as a monthly report to the town but he said that the Board of Selectmen could request to change the frequency of the report if they wanted. Mr. Smith read out loud the draft conditions for site operations and he asked about oversized trucks. Mr. Gilbert said that oversized trucks had been described in a letter which had been sent on
November 23, 2004. Mr. Smith asked if the applicant would ever truck water. Mr. Soltani said that they did not plan to truck water. He said that they wanted to put the water in bottles and truck those. He said that they would truck water if necessary in an emergency. Mr. Caron asked about other deliveries. He said that the limit on number of trucks needed to include all trucks and not just USA Springs company trucks. Mr. Curry said that the Planning Board did not want to limit the applicant from getting something if an oversize truck was the only option for its delivery. Mr. Delucia said that he would look into the sizes of delivery trucks. He said that the Department of Transportation had a weight limit of up to 99,000 pounds. Mr. Gilbert noted that all trucks entering and leaving the facility needed to comply with the Department of Transportation regulations. Mr. Booth said that the conditions should include
something saying that trucks could not idle on the property after hours. Mr. Gilbert said that he could add that provision to condition #10. Mr. Delucia said that the ZBA decision had restricted the company to certain times when they could have trucks running. Mr. Caron said that it would solve the problem if they included in condition #11 that there could be no parking on the site except in designated spaces.
Mr. Smith read out loud the proposed administrative conditions. Ms. Copeland said that changes in personnel should be included in condition #12. Mr. Smith said that the Building Inspector should be notified of any changes in who did the work. Mr. Bock asked if the Planning Board conditions had been approved by the Board of Selectmen. Mr. Seaverns said that the Board of Selectmen needed to agree with the Department of Environmental Services. Mr. Caron said that information could go to the Board of Selectmen and they could forward it to whomever needed it. Mr. Soltani suggested that the Planning Board add language in their conditions about a designee who would get and distribute information to the right people. Mr. Curry asked why the condition gave the applicant 5 days to report changes in ownership. Ms. Copeland said that it had been her understanding that the 5 days was agreed upon by the parties involved. Mr. Curry asked if the site plan was transferable if the owner
changed. Mr. Caron said yes. Mr. Curry said that condition #18 about the performance bond should state that it would be established by the Planning Board and held by the Board of Selectmen. He also said that Mr. Teague should look at the language of the condition. Mr. Smith said that the Planning Board should talk to the Rockingham County Conservation District about that as well. Mr. Hamill explained how the bond would work.
Mr. Smith read the water monitoring conditions out loud. Mr. Soltani said that there had been some discussion about condition #22. Mr. Delucia said that the company did not want to cause panic, anxiety and confusion if it was not necessary by notifying people of problems immediately after testing. He said that they would like the time to retest and see if they had experienced an anomaly before they got people excited. Mr. Caron said that he thought people should be notified within 72 hours but he agreed that the company should not have to immediately retest everyone if they found a small problem in one well. Mr. Gylfphe suggested that the applicant could do random tests of wells that they already had a baseline for. Mr. Delucia said that there were a lot of considerations in finding wells that might have a
problem. Mr. Gilbert agreed that anomaly results were a possibility. Mr. Curry said that the Department of Environmental Services did not regulate water quality. Mr. Soltani disagreed. He said that many of the conditions given to the applicant by the Department of Environmental Services had to do with water quality. Mr. Caron said that everyone agreed with a 72 hour notification time and that the applicant would do testing if there was a problem. Mr. Gilbert said that he would work with the Department of Environmental Services on the protocol. Mr. Smith asked if the company would notify the abutters. Mr. Delucia said that could cause problems. Mr. Soltani said that notifying abutters of test results before they were sure of what they were dealing with could be like "yelling fire in a crowded theater." Mr. Booth said that notification of abutters would be precautionary. Mr. Gilbert said that the town could
have discretion as to whether to notify abutters. Mr. Curry asked if they could change the timing of the testing. Mr. Gilbert said that further follow up testing might be appropriate in some situations before the notification of abutters. He said that was why the town might want to have discretion. Mr. Curry said that he thought 6 months in between tests was too long. Mr. Gilbert said that he would clarify the issue of the testing schedule. He said that a test which had unusual results would be a triggering event and the company would conduct more tests as soon as possible, not 6 months later. He said that there was also an issue with condition #23. He said that the applicant did not want to be responsible for interpreting data and they still had the outstanding issue with notification. Mr. Caron said that the focus was on contaminants. He said that the analysis would be useful when they had enough data points. He
said that the results would be much more important than analysis in the short term. He said that the data would be available to the public. Mr. Delucia noted that people would need to be experts or have expert help to translate the data. Mr. Bock said that it would be helpful to the community to have a baseline of the results over a period of years. Mr. Gilbert said that if there were concentrations of any substance then an analysis would be helpful but he said that more data points would make for a better analysis. Mr. Soltani said that there would be little utility in any analysis done within 5 years. He said that based on the cost-benefit ratio doing analysis would not be worth it. Mr. Curry said that analysis could be done if there was a triggering event. Mr. Seaverns suggested that the company could give out an annual report which was tailored towards the impact on the town. Mr. Soltani said that there would be retests if
anything was found and he said that all the information from all the tests should be in the packets which were sent to the homeowners. Mr. Caron asked if there would be legal liability for not telling the homeowners immediately about any test results. Mr. Soltani said that the company did not want liability. He said that it would be in their best interests to tell homeowners about anything serious. Mr. Gilbert asked who was responsible for notification. Mr. Soltani said that test results would be public information. Mr. Curry noted that if people allowed USA Springs to use their well for testing than they should not be the type of people who would panic about one result without more information. Mr. Gylfphe said that he thought since the town was requiring the testing than the town should do the notifications. Ms. Jones said that would give the town power over the situation and it would assure that the notification was done. Mr.
Curry asked if they were talking about transferring liability. Mr. Curry said that they should talk to a lawyer about this. Mr. Smith said that it was his opinion that notification should be the responsibility of the town.
Mr. Smith read out loud the proposed Fire Department Conditions and the proposed Town Wetlands Conditions. Ms. Barker clarified that the applicant would provide as built plans of the wetland mitigation area. Mr. Smith asked how high the fence would be. Mr. Delucia said that it would be 6 feet. Mr. Curry asked if the Conservation Commission needed to be notified of a change of owner. Mr. Caron said no. Mr. Curry said that change should be made to the administrative conditions and the Board of Selectmen should notify the Conservation Commission. Mr. Netishen asked if the documents received by the Planning Board would be provided to the Board of Selectmen. Mr. Smith said yes.
Mr. Smith read out loud the proposed memo of understanding between the town and the applicant. Mr. Caron said that the language should say utility failures and not just power failures. Mr. Curry said that they should define some of the terms in the document. Mr. Soltani said that the memo of understanding addressed money, the use of money, and the conditions which would trigger that use. Mr. Smith said that he was looking for a list of acronyms. Ms. Copeland said that she would put one together. Mr. Bock asked when the payments from the applicant to the town would start. Mr. Soltani said that they would start prior to the operation of the plant. Mr. Bock asked how the memorandum would work if someone else bought the plant. Mr. Soltani said that it would still be binding. Mr. Bock
noted that the money would accrue over 10 years. Mr. Soltani said that the money would grow and the Board of Selectmen would get to decide what to do with it. He said that it would be over $100,000. Mr. Bock asked if the payments would come every 30 days. Mr. Soltani said that the payments would be made every 30 days when the plant was operational. Mr. Bock asked if the amount would be adequate in the event of a natural disaster. Mr. Caron said that the money would be used for conservation needs and activities. Mr. Soltani said that he did not anticipate that the Board of Selectmen would abuse their power or misuse the money. Mr. Hyatt asked if Mr. Bock anticipated a catastrophic event. Mr. Bock said no. He said that he was just making sure the amount of money was appropriate. Mr. Curry asked where the initial $25,000 came from. Mr. Gilbert said that the amount was based on the conditions and how much things
cost. Mr. Booth asked about "what if" scenarios. Mr. Soltani said that the ones Mr. Booth was talking about were not plausible. Mr. Caron said that the company would be likely to recover from most short term problems. He said that any wholesale problem would most likely be long term. Mr. Gilbert said that wells would not just go dry without warning. He said that if there were problems with the plant the town had the authority to shut the plant down. Mr. Caron said that they could add to the memo that the town had the authority to spend the money in the case of a permanent problem. Mr. Gilbert said that the state also had enforcement power in this case.
Mr. Gylfphe made a motion to recess the application to October 5, 2005 at 7:00pm. Ms. Jones seconded the motion. The present members of the Planning Board voted unanimously in favor of the motion. The motion passed 7-0.
Mr. Soltani said that the applicant would like to get a date for a final vote. Mr. Smith said that the Planning Board would not set a date at this point but they could potentially set one at the next meeting. Mr. Delucia noted that the applicant wanted a verbal agreement from the Planning Board saying that if they worked out remaining issues at their next meeting they could try to set a date for a final vote. Mr. Bock said that the Board of Selectmen needed to review the information from the meeting. Mr. Soltani said that the Board of Selectmen should be able to complete that review before the next meeting between the Planning Board and USA Springs. Mr. Caron noted that Mr. Teague, the attorney for the Planning Board was ill that night and he said that there might be some things he needed to review. Mr.
Curry said that the applicant and the Planning Board had come a long way quickly. Mr. Bock said that everyone was working towards the same goal. Mr. Hamill explained the final submittal data document. Mr. Gylfphe thanked the USA Springs engineer for a good building plan. Mr. Soltani said that the applicant was not in the business of picking battles with their neighbors and he said that Nottingham was their neighbor.
OTHER BUSINESS:
At 10:30pm the Board briefly discussed planning regulations. Mr. Curry showed the Board an article about a study which had been done in Lee and he said that there had been a report for the town based on the study. Ms. Copeland said that she had been involved in the study and she would send the Board members more information. Mr. Curry asked how long such a study would take. Ms. Copeland said that it would be about 2 weeks. She said that it was easier than the Board would think. Mr. Smith said that he was hoping Ms. Copeland would help the Board group together like information in their Zoning Ordinance.
Mr. Smith said that the Planning Board would hold meetings on October 5, 2005 and October 12, 2005 as well as on November 9, 2005 and November 23, 2005.
Mr. Gylfphe made a motion to adjourn the meeting at 10:45pm. Ms. Jones seconded the motion. The present members of the Planning Board voted unanimously in favor of the motion. The motion passed 7-0.
Respectfully submitted,
Kelly Tivnan
Planning Board Secretary
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