Salem Conservation Commission
Minutes of Meeting
Date and Time: Thursday, November 18, 2010, 6:00 p.m.
Meeting Location: Third Floor Conference Room, City Hall Annex, 120 Washington Street
Members Present: Chairman David Pabich, Rebecca Christie, Carole McCauley, Julia Knisel, Amy Hamilton
Members Absent: Michael Blier, Dan Ricciarelli
Others Present: Tom Devine, Conservation Agent
Recorder: Stacy Kilb
Chairman Pabich calls the meeting to order at 6:10PM.
Meeting Minutes—October 28, 2010 Meeting
Minor revisions were made by Chairman Pabich.
A motion to approve the minutes is made by Christie and seconded by McCauley; it passes unanimously.
Barbara Warren of Salem Sound Coast Watch presents an update on the "Adopt a Beach" program under "Old/New Business, first, as she has a previous commitment (see below).
Continuation of Public Hearing – Notice of Intent-Barbara Bowman, 8 Dearborn Lane, Salem, MA. The purpose of this hearing is to discuss the proposed removal of a concrete seawall and replacement with riprap within a portion of Coastal Beach, Coastal Bank, and Land Subject to Coastal Storm Flowage at 8 Dearborn Lane.
Julia Knisel arrives at 6:25PM.
Carole McCauley departs at 6:35PM.
Here for Mrs. Bowman is Rich Brennan. He has not spoken with the applicant but recalls the site visit and is wondering if he and the Commission can compromise between no riprap on the beach and something in the middle. The Division of Marine Fisheries has weighed in and said it must not come out onto the beach at all, in line with the Conservation Commission. Mr. Brennan argues that it won’t look natural if he has to go back too far, but the intent is to not go onto the beach, not to make it look “natural” since it won’t in any case. The Chairman discusses techniques and options. The owner may not be able to keep that flat part of her yard, mentioned in the previous meeting. The applicant asks if the option is to replace in kind, could it be a poured wall? The Chairman opines that it would just have to be the same size. Knisel says that replacing in kind means keeping the footprint, but the actual wall could be higher to maintain the slope on the property. Mr. Brennan
will go over this with the property owner and an engineer.
Knisel asks about the setup of the property and offers another option for building the wall. Mr. Brennan would like to present at the next meeting and will speak to the applicant in the meantime. He does not believe the wall will fail over the winter, but wants to come to an agreeable solution. The Chairman asks about a Chapter 91 license. Mr. Brennan believes the applicant does not have one. There is some discussion of a past seawall repair and the statutes regarding Chapter 91 licenses. Mr. Brennan will answer that question – whether or not a Chapter 91 is needed.
Christie moves to continue the issue to the next meeting, is seconded by Hamilton, and the motion passes 4-0.
Old/New Business
Update on Adopt a Beach Program
This is presented by Barbara Warren of Salem Sound Coastwatch. She shows a map; the purple areas are the watersheds of the beaches and many have been adopted. 140 people were trained in various training sessions last spring. They expected 10 beaches to be adopted but 38 have been thus far. During the summer regular maintenance occurs at City beaches, so they backed off but will be picking up again now that the off season is here. The website is also being updated and a beach keeper page will also be there.
Salem has Forest River Park, Derby Wharf Beach, Collins Cove, Winter Island, Dead Horse Beach and Salem Willows as adopted beaches. Furlong Park is on hold but will have a team. Coney Island also has a team that has been very active.
She passes around a survey which is what they do with each team to get started. At the end they go over assets, problems and actions needed. She reviews these for Derby Wharf and Palmer Cove. This winter they plan to work on beach profiling; Derby Wharf will be one that gets profiled so they can see how the land is changing due to storms and sea level rise.
Chairman Pabich asks about outfalls; they check them during dry weather and Ms. Warren has data going back 7 years. Derby Wharf is very high but is being improved. It used to be over 2 million; now it is down to 1800 from 9,000 previously. (Numbers indicate raw sewage outfall). The Chairman is also concerned about Collins Cove and near Shetland Park. Ms. Warren says that that one is better as it was worked on five years ago. One of the problems at Collins Cove was that a pile of manure-based compost was placed near the storm drain, which was making the numbers go up.
The Chairman has some other issues he would like to discuss later. Ms. Warren describes what the beach keepers do, which includes weekly cleanups, beach profiling, and reporting to CZM’s StormSmart whether there has been washover, damage or erosion at the beach or its infrastructure. They want reports even if there hasn’t been damage.
She asks if they looked at the erosion at Forest River Park; They have seen the hole behind the wall and Ms. Warren wonders what she should do if they see problems. Chairman Pabich suggests sending the information to the Conservation Agent and the City Engineer should also be notified.
Ms. Warren wants to discuss the issues at Coney Island. Three volunteers speak. They wanted to adopt an offshore beach and chose Coney, which used to be a YMCA camp up until 1969; originally they wondered if the YMCA still had any ties there.
Julia Knisel arrives at 6:25PM.
The island has a modest cove where some structures used to be, and they bring their boats there. One of the volunteers describes the landscape of the island. Kayakers and small boat users use the island now. It is also a good spot for birding, especially during the nesting season. Black backed and herring gulls and a pair of oystercatchers were observed this season. He passes around a photo of the oystercatchers. He would like help identifying the fauna that is there. The invasive Asian Shore crab is there; there are only a few green crabs. Ms. Warren says that the team has respected that this is a nesting island and they work around the birds, which are there from March through August. They did not cover other portions of the island that were off-limits or inaccessible.
Barrels, tires, and lobster traps were removed from the island. No tally of loads was taken but they estimate 7 bushel bags of refuse were removed. The island is a little more than one acre square.
Ms. Warren points out that in August they noticed many invasives – about 75% of trees have Bittersweet on them; seeds were also removed from burdock but there is still a lot there. Getting rid of the burdock is a priority and they would like to do something, though it is an all-or-nothing proposition. They are at the end of the season this year but would like to make a plan for next summer. They would also like to plant some native species. Ms. Warren wonders if a Notice of Intent is needed. The Chairman says it would depend upon the scope of the activity, but they would need either an RDA or an NOI, but the City would be the applicant since it’s public land; that means that someone from the City must sign off on the form. Tom Devine will figure out who needs to sign the
application.
Ms. Warren should come up with an idea and plan for next year, to run it through the Conservation Agent, then file an RDA (the fee can be waived since it’s a public project done by volunteers).
Other invasives and plants on the island include cocklebur, burdock, a small patch of trees (as yet unidentified, possibly not native, maybe buckthorn) on the north end, and oriental bittersweet. The burdock is making the area it’s in impassable to birds who can’t get through it. They would like to remove it and put something salt-tolerant in its place. There are areas of beach grass and beach pea.
The Chairman is in favor of eliminating the invasives and encourages the team to work with the Conservation Commission. The DEP also looks favorably on removing invasives and replacing them with natives; Ms. Warren says they will do small trials of plants first and see how they do. For now, the island is at least clean of man-made debris and that effort will be maintained.
Ms. Warren will be in touch about all of the above as well as adopting another island. She is the contact for adopting beaches. She mentions that the bittersweet on Winter Island was managed well in the 1980’s by residents who would use it as decoration in the winter, but lately it has been out of control. It has to be taken care of now.
8 and 10 Franklin Street – Ratification of enforcement order
The Commission issued a positive RDA with a Cease and Desist which was sent out in the form of an enforcement order, but requires ratification by the Commission; The Chairman passes around the letter for them to sign. The applicant cannot do anything until he gets a valid Order of Conditions. The Building Department was aware of what was going on there; using the area there for Halloween parking was possibly an issue.
Other updates
The City Solicitor and the developers of the Salem Suede site came to an agreement of paying the full fine of $12,200 in 6 months; they had wanted to come back and ask to waive it or wanted to go to city solicitor but ultimately settled to pay the fine.
They still have not done anything about the slab. The Chairman goes over again how the Commission only fined them $200 per day for all the violations, when they could have fined that much per violation per day. There is further discussion of the issue, reviewing past discussion with regards to slab. The Chairman suggests writing them a letter saying for them to confirm that they have addressed defects in the slab; if they have not done it there may be further fines. (up to $24K for these new violations). Christie points out that it appears that nothing is going on at the site.
The Chairman says the same company is also doing sewer work at the hospital and asks Devine if they contacted him about it. They are working near the helipad now and re-routing the sewer from the Spaulding hospital that runs through the wetland. Devine says when he last went out there were new manholes and the parking lot had been dug up; Christie confirms that work is continuing next to the helipad; there is a DEP sign and a backhoe there along with other trench boxes sitting in the wetland. The Chairman says it’s actually in the buffer zone leading to the wetland. Devine thinks Taormina had a pre-construction meeting and Devine asks if someone should take another look; he will drop by.
Also a couple of meetings ago the Camp Lion site/Lowe’s got appealed by an abutter over the Lynn line. The DEP has taken it and the abutter hired a consultant to go out with the DEP along with the developers’ engineers and they argued about the boundaries and wetlands; they also discussed perennial vs. intermittent streams. The DEP must now make a decision on the delineation and the Chairman says they will issue a Superseding Order of Resource Area Delineation.
Devine says that the Chairman had asked for an update on the encroachment from 1 McKinley Road onto Conservation Commission land. The issue has been resolved with relocation and proper permitting of the shed in question.
The volunteer footbridge repair at Forest River will happen in next couple of weeks; Tom Devine will inform the Commission of the date as they will need volunteers. It may be the Saturday after Thanksgiving but the volunteer contractor can do it with or without volunteers.
A motion to adjourn is made by Christie, seconded by Hamilton and passes unanimously. The meeting ends at 7PM.
Respectfully Submitted,
Stacy Kilb
Clerk
Salem Conservation Commission
Approved by the Conservation Commission on December 9, 2010.
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