April 11, 2018 | Town Admin TOWN OF SUTTON Pillsbury Memorial Town Hall 93 Main Street Sutton Mills, NH Sutton Mills, NH 03221 Sutton Conservation Commission Draft Meeting Minutes Wednesday, April 11, 2018 Present: Dan Sundquist, Chair; Don Davis; Jane Williamson; Barbara Hoffman; Chuck Bolduc and Bonnie Hill, secretary. Absent: Henry Howell, Debbie Lang, and Chris Ashton. Barbara sat in for Henry. Members of the Public Present: Roger Wells. Appointments: 7:00 Ruth Edwards seeking expedited Wetlands Permit Application for a client on Keyser Lake. Call to order: Dan Sundquist called the meeting to order at 6:37 p.m. Previous Meeting’s Minutes: A motion was made by Barbara and seconded by Chuck to approve the minutes of March 21st, 2018. There were no issues found with the minutes, and they were approved. Financial Report: The town budget report as of March 30 shows about 83% of the money left in the town account. There is $2300 for special projects. Appointment Ruth Edwards, landscape contractor, representing Heather Wells re: wetlands permit – This minimum impact wetlands application is for replacing a set of unsafe concrete steps with new granite steps. The small lot has a perched beach between 2 stone retaining walls, and the steps lead down into the water, providing access to a floating dock. The stone embankment will be removed and reset 12 linear feet in order to place the steps and give a solid backdrop. No trees will be removed, no machinery will be operated in the water, and no earth disturbed. Erosion control measures at the site will include a silt fence, compost filter sok and/or sand bags. Geotextile and clean, non-compacted crushed stone will be installed, with six new granite steps laid on top, with a total footprint of about 40 square feet. All construction debris and erosion control materials will be removed and properly disposed of, and the beach will be mucked out and replenished with clean sand. The project will be overseen by Roger Wells and Dennis Murphy, and should take one week. Don made a motion to direct Dan to sign off on the application, and Chuck seconded. The vote was unanimous. Correspondence: Letter from the Sutton Board of Selectmen (see below). Review of Wetland Applications and Issues: Copy of a Complete Forestry Notification, File #2018-00639, G. Prime, T/L#3-273,167, Beaver Pond Rd. Review of Intents to Cut and Logging Issues: G. Prime, T/L# 3-273,167, Beaver Pond Rd, 55 of 313 acres. Adam Lunsford, logger. C. Phyllides, T/L# 2-883,177, Route 114, 2.5 of 3.8 acres. Nate Byfield, logger. S. Bobella, T/L# 8-574,166, Poor Farm Road, 25 of 35.6 acres. Eric Oxman, forester. Old business Kings Hill Road: Letter from the Select Board — A letter was received from the Board of Selectmen in reference to further grievances brought by some citizens to the BOS regarding the public info session of February 21st, 2018. Attached to the letter was a collection of emails from the concerned citizens. One of the citizens stated that she felt that the minutes for that meeting did not accurately reflect what had transpired. Dan asked the commissioners if there was any action that should be taken in response to the letter. Don asked if there had been any communication from the BOS other than through the letters, and Dan answered that they had never spoken with him in person. He offered, through Elly, to have the SCC meet with the BOS, but never heard back. Barb made a motion that the meeting minutes from February 21st be amended to remove the words “Diane would not yield the floor and” in the last sentence of the section describing the public info session, and Jane seconded. The vote was unanimously in favor, with Dan abstaining. Trail Mapping – Dan handed around printed maps of Webb/Crowell that he made using Henry’s data from Gaia. He urged people to use Gaia, or other programs that can create a kml file, while hiking the town trails. These kml files can then be used to create maps of the other town properties. Chuck expressed interest in doing so. New business Strategic Conservation Plan: Slide Show on Climate Change Resilience Data – Dan presented a slide show compiled by David Patrick of The Nature Conservancy of New Hampshire. It was based on data from over 8 years of work by Mark Anderson and his team of 75 scientists. For more information, go to www.conservationgateway.org and look for “Resilient and Connected Landscapes”. To survive climate change, plants and animals must adapt and/or relocate. At the same time, they are faced with habitat alteration and fragmentation. Factors influencing the success of this relocation are distance from an unoccupied habitat, and the permeability of the landscape between the source and destination. Different species face different kinds of barriers. A focal question is where should we focus land conservation efforts to maximize the likelihood that terrestrial biodiversity can persist? Climate Resilient Sites There are many microclimates necessary to landscape diversity, including landform, elevation range, wetlands density, and soil variety. But diversity is only useful if organisms can access better conditions. Less fragmented areas are more connected. The circuitscape concept imagines “current” passing through a landscape, with anthropogenic factors creating “resistance”. The flow of current is a measure of resilience. Mappings have been made showing large areas of concentrated flow, riparian corridors, and areas of diffuse flow. In the area studied, Eastern North America, about 23% of the land was declared to be resilient. Dan asked the group, at the level of our 65 square miles of territory (the Town of Sutton), should resiliency be incorporated into our management plan? If it turns out that the town scores high on measures of climate resiliency, this could help us get fund funding for conservation projects. Don asked if it should be a goal to try to improve resiliency in some of the areas in town using conservation methods. Dan said we will decide later whether to include these factors into our co-concurrency map. Miscellaneous Adjournment: There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 8:02 PM. The next meeting will be held on Wednesday, May 9th, 2018, at 6:30 PM. Respectfully submitted, Bonnie Hill, Secretary