Wallingford
Conservation Commission Minutes*
*These are
unofficial Minutes subject to the approval at the next regular meeting.
November 23, 2009
Attendees:
Ralph Nimtz, Carol Macleod, Debbie Scranton, Tim Chili, Kim Blodgett
Guests: Elsie
Badamo, Bill Baker, Kathy Upton
Guest presentation:
Kathy Upton attended as a representative of the senior community group of which
Elsie and Bill are members. In the
past year, Elsie and Bill have set up a recycling program for the Wallingford
House and have been sorting and transferring all of the materials to the
transfer station (and newsprint to the farm for bedding) two to three times per
week. Elsie has visited each member
of the
Wallingford
individually to educate members, but there are still issues with sorting. Both
Elsie and Bill have put in a tremendous effort but are growing weary of the
responsibility. They have tried to
recruit other volunteers but have not had any luck. Hubbard
is the contractor that takes the Wallingford House garbage, but to date will not
do the recycling. Mr. Williams is
the manager of the WH but has not been interested in participating.
·
Ralph will check again with Hubbard (Jack Heaton) to see if they
will take over the recycling and if so, what the costs will be (Hubbards
supposedly recycles the products at his office).
He will report back to Elsie once he finds out (259-3130).
·
Tim thinks that Casella will collect all recyclables (single
stream) and sort at the facility. He
will call them and check on cost.
·
Once we collect all the necessary information, we will consider
writing a letter for the Selectboard’s signature, requesting the Mr. Williams
support the recycling efforts at the
Wallingford House.
Other related issues:
·
We will put the seniors on our email list so we can advertise
programs/activities they might be interested in.
·
Consider coordinating our presentations with other town
organizations (seniors, Fred Thurlow's group, WCC etc).
We will pick one night each month and rotate the responsibility of
programming from one group to another.
·
The WCC will consider taking on recycling issues:
Why doesn’t the town transfer station take more plastics, pellet bags,
alkaline batteries, latex paint etc. Can
we help figure out ways to increase recycling among town residents?
Old Business
(1) Walking brochures:
Thirty copies of the brochures will be stored at the town hall so any one
of us can come in anytime and make additional copies for distribution around the
community.
(2) Town Plan:
Our offer still stands to help with the Natural Resources section of the town
plan but to date we have not heard back.
(3) Strategic Plan:
We will dedicate the whole meeting in January to the strategic plan
(4) Library kiosk:
David drew a draft sketch of a kiosk and passed it on to Ralph for a more
formal drawing. Eventually we will
probably need three kiosks.
(5) Energy Committee:
The committee has been formalized and had their first meeting.
They have four charges: (1) They will be conducting an energy inventory
by looking at the energy costs/square foot of all the public buildings in town.
(2) They will participate in the VT Community Energy Mobilization project which
commits the Wallingford energy committee (as trained volunteers) to conduct 20
home energy “walk throughs” to change out light bulbs, shower heads, etc in
an attempt to lower energy use and save the homeowner money.
They also intend to get high school kids involved as an educational
component. Target date is April for
completion of the 20 homes, (3) Develop an energy plan for both the energy
committee and an energy chapter for the town plan. (4) Consider and investigate
alternative energy sources (biomass, river turbines, solar etc.).
(6) Community
Composting: Tim researched the
logistics. People are doing
community composting all over the world and selling the resulting soil.
Tim talked to the managers of the transfer station and they were
generally supportive. We could put a
bin inside the fence as you pull in and allow contributors to take away soil for
garden compost. Apparently
Shrewsbury
tried something similar and found it difficult to police.
They also had problems with odor and rats.
We will investigate further before pursuing.
(7) Pot Luck: The
holiday pot luck will be hosted by the Blodgett’s on December 6th
at
6:30
. Bring warm clothes and boots if
you want to take a short hike in the moonlight.
Kim will provide ham and ice cream, Carol macaroni and cheese, Tim an
Italian dish, Debbie: salad, Ralph:
pie. Let Kim know if you can not
come.
(8) Budget:
Tim talked to Julie and told her we would use this year’s fund for the
purchase of kiosk materials and that next year’s fund will go towards trails
and infrastructure for the pit.
(9) Recreation
development committee:
Shannon
wrote a grant and planned to meet with the Selectboard at last week’s meeting
to get permission to submit. The grant is due December 4th
Josh said we need to come with a master plan for
on-the-ground work at the next meeting on the 10th.
There are two additional grant proposals due in January:
Trails and Greenways and tree planting. Carol will add both to the
December 10th meeting agenda.
Tim will be attending the Statewide energy meeting on
December 5th. Ralph will
look into attending the AVCC meeting on the same day.
(10) Content for the
January newsletter: Ralph
suggested a ”Kudos Corner”: We will feature Elsie and Bill for setting up
the recycling program at the Wallingford House.
Each month we will focus on someone new who has contributed to town
conservation efforts. Kim will put together a draft for review and additions by
the committee.
(11) Winter
presentations: At the January
meeting we will develop a calendar of monthly meeting dates, pick the dates that
we will take responsibility for (in terms of developing programs) and then
contact Fred and Kathy to see if their groups are interested.
Presently, Fred’s group meets the 3rd Monday of every month.
The WCC has been scheduling their presentations on Thursdays.
Adjourn meeting
8:40.
Next meeting January 26th –strategic plan.
We will meet at
6:30
.
Respectfully submitted,
Kim Blodgett |