Vassalboro Conservation Commission minutes of 10/19/22
Present: Steve Jones, Peggy Horner (Zoom), David Jenney, Holly Weidner
Absent: Paul Mitnik
Old Business:
1) Update on Lake Smart/China Regional Lake Alliance: Erika Kerr and Jennifer Lacombe from Webber Pond Association have been trained in June and did some supervised assessments with Elaine Philbrook who is the CRLA LakeSmart Director. 3 Webber pond properties were assessed this fall. They are continuing to rev up advertising about the Lake Smart program to get more properties evaluated to have shovel ready projects for summer 2023. The Gravel Road program, which assesses private camp roads for run off risks, needs to have the WP roads inventoried and categorized by those at most risk. A meeting with CRLA, WPA and VCC did not happen in Sept and possibly will happen in October or November to coordinate the next steps. Holly plans to meet with Scott Pierz, CRLA director and WPA Lake smart workers in November.
2) Community Reliance Partnership (Chairwoman Barb Redmond said that the board will be occupied with hiring a new town manager , so they won’t be doing their usual annual visioning . Probably the select board review of the CRP program will have to wait for the new town manager.
3) Eagle Park update: Steve Jones and Holly Weidner met at Eagle Park last week to assess the grounds for a draft layout of parking lot, pavilion location, sanitation, paths and observation deck options. Steve had just bush hogged the property by permission and request of the town. Questions that arose were: Has the High Water Mark changed since the Masse Dam was removed? Can the present septic tank be used as a holding tank for an Outhouse latrine? Paul Mitnik will check out the water situation. We had decided that we didn’t want to get into having running water on the property at this point. A meeting with Gene Fields, public works is scheduled for next week.
4) Trout pond: The VCC had asked the town in May 2022 to review the contracts with the DEP to see what was designated for restoration of vegetation after the culvert work was done. The CEO looked at the property and contracts and said that everything was in order. If the landowners disagree, they would need to take it to the town appeals board.
New Business:
1) PFAs update from town; Mary says she isn’t aware that the DEP has a date yet for inspection of sites known to have had a permit to spread sludge.
2) Solid waste: Town website lists our solid waste ordinance is from 1988 and our Transfer Station info; both are out of date. What is our role? This was deferred to next meeting
3) Maine Associations of conservation Commissions: no one will be able to make it to the MEACC annual conference Oct. 22. We will discuss dues next month.
4) American Rescue Funds: As of today, the VCC has no recommendations to select board about the use of these funds.
5) Project Canopy funds: we may want to consider applying for funds for tree planting at Eagle Park and Monument Park. The application is due in March 2023 and a person from VCC needs to attend a grant workshop in Feb 2023. We will take this up in January.
6) We discussed some potential members to invite to join VCC.
Next meeting is November 9 at 630 pm at the town office.
Respectfully submitted Holly Weidner