Wallingford
Conservation Commission Minutes*
*These are
unofficial Minutes subject to the approval at the next regular meeting.
January 22, 2007
Attendees: Debbie
Scranton, Tim Chila, Peter Upton, David Klock, Ralph Nimtz
The meeting was called to order at
7:10 PM
. Minutes of the previous meeting on
November 26, 2006
had been approved by email, forwarded to Julie Sharon.
Old Business
1)
The minutes of the last meeting were forwarded to Rob Barker, town
Tree Warden, who was a guest at our last meeting in November. When appropriate,
Rob will enlist our help in completing a tree inventory for the town, activities
in coordination with Green Up Day, such as mulching and planting trees and
shrubs, and developing an Urban Forest Plan.
Rob will develop a list of projects and the WCC will determine which ones
we can take on and recruit volunteers. Peter
has attended a recent VNRC Forest Roundtable to come up with recommendations to
the state.
2)
Walking Paths Brochure – Tim Chila had created an excellent
brochure on Walking Paths in
Wallingford
developed by Dave Klock. Tim lost
the program on his computer, and will re-do the larger format brochure in color.
We could use our money allotted by the town for color printing.
Also, Joyce Barbieri has offered the town printer to make copies.
3)
Association of
Vermont
Conservation Commissions (AVCC) Debbie,
as the sole member, duplicated copies of the quarterly publication, The
Seedling, to commission members. Now
that we have town funding, Debbie will apply to AVCC as a conservation
commission, and all members of our commission will be members and receive the
publication.
4)
The AVCC has started a Group List Server for all
Vermont
conservation commissions, at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/avcct.
Tim will get our commission on this group, and we can communicate readily
with other town commissions.
5)
WCC members Debbie, Ralph, Dave, and Peter all attended the Act
250 hearings on the gravel extraction operation in the former Park Association
now town lands, in the so-called Pit. The
hearing was held December 13 at the
Masonic
Temple
in town. All gave testimony.
We as a commission who is supposed to help with the recreation planning
of this area were concerned about the reclamation, impacts to the beach and
forested southerly areas where we are planning to improve existing trails. Also,
a performance bond was suggested to insure the project is completed as
expected and the town not left with a partially finished project.
The Act 250 Commission’s preliminary findings only stated Debbie and
Ralph as voices duly appointed to speak for our group, and although not correct
from our viewpoint, we did sign a form to be returned to the Act 250 commission
that Debbie and Ralph were approved officially by our commission to represent
the group. All present at the
meeting signed this, left for Julie Sharon to mail to the Act 250 Board.
6)
Funding for the commission. The
Selectboard granted our request for funding in the amount of $500 per year.
In that this is halfway through the fiscal year, we will have funding for
$500 for the fiscal year ending
June 30, 2007
, and will be in the budget for 2007-8 for $500.
This money will be taken from the $5000 voted on at Town Meeting 2004 for
developing a recreation area at the former Pit.
7)
Water Quality. Ralph
will ask Mike Byrd, our Health Officer, about
water testing on
Elfin
Lake
. Tim spoke to the state, with the
response that e.coli was not tested in
Elfin
Lake
. We think that it might be even
more important than ever to test for a variety of things at the
Lake
for public safety, especially due to the influx of
Canada
geese, nearby cows that we assume are fenced off from directly drinking from
the lake, and excavation commencing this summer.
Don Carlson collected water samples from Otter Creek last summer.
Debbie will look in her box of materials from Don for this, and we’ll
determine if we want to continue Don’s work.
8)
Events. Our next
activity will be Wednesday, January 24, at the library where Forrest Hammond
will give a talk on the Deer Yard. Weather
permitting, we’ll try again for Moonlight
Snow Shoe / Cross Country skiing in
East Wallingford
, or a snowshoe/walk with biologists (Blodgetts).
Weather has been too warm the past two years.
Also, before Spring, we would like to have someone present the WHIP
program to landowners (Kim in charge).
New Business
9)
Next meeting. We would
like to communicate with other CC’s. Tim
will ask Kathy Doyle from Middletown Springs to our next meeting.
10)
There is a Grant Writing Workshop, March 28-29 in
Rutland
for towns with National Forest. Debbie will call to find out details.
A two-day workshop is too long to take off work, but perhaps Debbie and Ralph
can do one day each, or only attend one day as we do not have a specific grant
project in mind yet.
11)
In July, Peter and Kim attended a 3-day VT Fish and Wildlife workshop on the
future of hunting, and last week Peter attended a public hearing of the
Governor’s task force to create a means of more secure permanent funding,
and made comments about the eight options that the task force had come up with.
Adjourned
8:20
PM
,
Next Meeting Monday, February 26,
7
PM
Town Hall
Respectfully submitted,
Debbie Scranton (Chair) |