TOWN OF SUTTON

Sutton Conservation Commission

Approved Meeting Minutes

Wednesday, April 13, 2022

Present: Henry Howell, Chair; Barbara Hoffman; Don Davis; Lynn Wittman; Wally Baker; Debbie Lang; and Bonnie Hill. Lynn sat in for Chuck.

Absent: Chuck Bolduc; Jim Morris.

Members of the public present: Alexander Simoneau, Michaela Korchinski, Mike McManus.

 

Call to order: Henry Howell called the meeting to order at 6:33 pm.

 

Previous Meeting’s Minutes:  Debbie moved that the minutes from March 16^th be approved, and Barb seconded. The motion passed unanimously.

Financial Report:

Debbie sent out a financial report before the meeting. We have spent $250 year-to-date for snow plowing, out of the Special Projects account. At the end of March the Conservation Fund had a balance of $166,800.80 and King Hill had a balance of $1,709.47.  The Capital Reserve is $57,581.34. Bonnie said that $100 each is being sent to ASLPT and NHLakes for membership renewal and will be in next month’s budget report, along with $60 reimbursement to Bonnie for 3 NHACC Conservation Commission handbooks.

Trail Maintenance and Development

Trails Advisory Committee Report

>Draft KHR Hiking Map review

Although Chuck was absent, he had emailed us a detailed report on his action items. He has been busy on the forest management maps and hasn’t made progress on the trail maps. The Colby-Sawyer GIS student ended up dropping the class, so he doesn’t have that resource anymore.

>KHR Donation System

Henry read Chuck’s email report aloud to us. Henry asked what exactly is a revolving fund.  Can it accept gifts without the approval of the BOS? Apparently, our town attorney does not consider the KHR fund a revolving fund. He would like to touch base with the attorney to find out more. Barb said he needs to ask her if we can legally denote the KHR as a revolving fund at town meeting. Once it is done we would have access to the money.  Henry asked Wally if the BOS would be OK with that. Wally said the cleanest way to do it would be through Town Meeting. Then we could take the BOS out of the loop. Barb suggested asking the attorney if the Conservation Commission has the authority to create a revolving fund. Henry said he will ask her. Don asked Barb if she knew whether there is a limit to the amount we can hold in a revolving fund. He used to run into such a limit when he worked for the State Parks. Henry said that Chuck told him on the phone that the company that processes the donations should have the ability to bunch together multiple donations and send them to the BOS for approval in a bundle. There will be a fee for this, and Henry said it would have to come out of Special Projects. Wally said the BOS would not have a problem with approving a bunch of donations once a month or so. Chuck’s email said Jim had an idea: Can we use KHR as the account for the payment processor so that we can set this up now and test it. We would not make it available for donations at this time, this would just be to test the system and make sure it works and prove it out before town meeting. Henry asked Barb if she would talk to the town attorney about the revolving fund issue.

 

Correspondence

• Letter from ASLPT with attached easement monitoring reports for the town owned properties Enroth-Lefferts, KHR, Maple Leaf Natural Area, Russell Pond, William Bean Quarry, and Webb/Crowell Forest. No issues with the properties were observed, though the report on Maple Leaf noted some debris over the property line.
• Letter from ASLPT with attached easement monitoring reports for the private properties for which the Town of Sutton is the back-up easement grantee: Emerson/Clark & Brand (lots 1 and 2), Putnam, Enroth, and O’Neil.
• Email from NHACC announcing the 2022 Drinking Water Source Protection Conference, 5/24 in person in Pembroke, 5/25 virtually.
• Email from KLPA announcing that the end of year presentation by the Colby Sawyer Environmental Class will be April 22^nd, and Fred Sladen will be leading a bird walk around the lake on May 15
• Email from NHACC with article about biodiversity from the Amherst CC in honor of Earth Day.
• Forest Notes, magazine of the SPNHF, Winter 2022 issue.
• NHACC March eNews with news about efforts by other ConComs, training opportunities, lots of grant info, info about taking meeting minutes, and more.

 

 

Review of Wetland Applications and Issues:

• Copy of Forest Statutory Permit-By-Notification from NHDES for NH Public Golf Course, Inc, T/L#s 7-541-036 and 7-455-213 . NHDES File #2022-00519.

 

 

Review of Intents to Cut and Logging Issues:

• Corrected acreage: NH Public Golf Course, Shaker Rd (T/L# 7-455-213), North Rd (T/L#s 7-660-060, 7-698-078), and Kearsarge Valley Rd (T/L# 7-490-070), for a total of 177 acres out of 233. John Whyte, logger. Don said the logging on the golf course is in full swing.
• Steve Lord for Granite Forest Trust, Bum Carter Rd (T/L# 2-190-373), 25 acres out of 167, Tim Wallace, forester. There are wetlands on the parcel, but Steve is a forester and we trust he will do the right thing.

 

Old business

 

Review of Leo Maslan’s KHR Forest Management Plan – Chuck emailed the final draft to us, and we are to read it and send him edits before the May meeting, when Leo will discuss the plan with us.

Logging access routes update – Chuck sent a detailed report on this, which Debbie read aloud:

• Glenn Pogust has contacted Osa Fitch, the Sutton property owner north of Segment 5. We would need his permission if we wanted to cross his property to Rte 11 (King Hill Road). According to Glenn, Osa was open to the idea.

• Glenn also reached out to the New London Outing Club president, Pete Smith. Pete knows the owner of the New London property that we would also have to cross and thinks they would be open to it as well. NLOC is also managing the Mountainside Racquet Club.
• Although this route is looking promising, Leo cautions that crossing other properties is a last resort because you end up spending money to improve the logging infrastructure on someone else’s land without a guarantee of future use. If we use Nichols trail we’d need to improve the drainage and reroute around the neighbor’s properties. However, we would end up with a developed access that could be used in the future for forestry and maintenance equipment access.
• Another thought Chuck had regarding access is using the Bean Quarry. This was previously logged and the access could be used to get to the more remote areas of the KHR without crossing ski trails. It also provides the opportunity to develop a trial through Bean Quarry.

Other development regarding Osa Fitch and NLOC

• NLOC is interested in acquiring some or all of Osa’s property to expand the racquet club facility. They don’t need all of the land and would be interested in it becoming conservation land. They also want to expand their programs to include hiking, skiing, etc. and are very interested in developing trail access to the KHR. This would give us another trailhead location. Glenn let Osa know about this interest and he was open to it. Chuck is reaching out to Pete to discuss all of the above issues.

In response to this, Henry said that the Bean Quarry route was something to consider in the future, since that would access the southern sections. Our current interest is in the northern sections. He said it is very good news to have these contacts established. Working with the Outing Club opens up new possibilities.

Update on Low Salt Road issue – Debbie reported that she, Henry and Bruce Ellsworth of the Blaisdell Lake Protective Association (BLPA) went before the BOS to talk about designating a one and one half mile stretch of Rt, 114 (encompassing Russell Pond and Blaisdell Lake) as a low salt road, with the road agent and police chief in attendance. The conductivity of the lake (a measure of salinity) has been increasing, and although it is not a crisis yet, it is of concern. The BOS was very supportive, but the road agent and police expressed some concern about a curvy section of road.  Elly suggested talking to the state. Debbie said Jen McCourt had had a preliminary discussion with the state, and no red flags were raised. Jen also drove on some of the local low-salt roads back in February, and said they were in great shape. Henry said that even if a road is designated as a low-salt road, it is still left up to the driver’s discretion how much salt to use. For example, they may use more salt during a serious ice storm if they feel it is dangerous not to. The trucks are computerized, with the amount of salt to dispense automatically dialed in. Mike McManus explained this further. He said all state trucks are computerized and they only use salt, not sand. The same tonnage of salt is dispensed per mile regardless of the speed of the truck, and the amount to dispense is 100% up to the driver. Barb asked who puts up the “low salt road” signs, and Mike said the state. He said once the school board, police, and fire department are on board, the state can be petitioned to designate the road. Debbie said Elly said that a public hearing would be appropriate. Wally asked if some kind of barrier could be placed along the road to protect the lakes from salt, such as what is used when there is oil spill. Henry said this is something well worth pursuing. He cited an annual report on the water quality of Blaisdell Lake, which showed that over the years the pH, chlorophyll content, turbidity and phosphorus have all been either stable or improving, while conductivity (which correlates to salt) has been increasing. Since 1986 it has gone progressively up from 57 to 72. It’s not an emergency, but the increase should be nipped in the bud. He said this proposal does not include the corridor that goes through our town wetlands, and we should consider protecting that section as well, as protecting town wetlands is part of our charter.

 

Horse Beach parking plan update – Wally said he is going to get together with Peter Blakeman and come up with a parking lot plan. He would rather have Peter draw up the plan than do it himself, as it will be more official. He’s hoping to have it for the next meeting.

 

Snowmobiles on KHR trails 1 and 2 – Henry made a motion that we go into a nonpublic session per RSA 91-A:3,II to discuss the Sutton Ridgerunners’ request to have snowmobile access to trails 1 and 2 at KHR.   The motion was seconded by Barb Hoffman.  A roll call vote was taken, with the following commission members voting Aye:  Don Davis, Lynn Wittman, Barbara Hoffman, Debbie Lang, Henry Howell, Wally Baker and Bonnie Hill.  There was no one opposed.   A discussion was then held.

 

New Business

 

Report on Saving Special Places – Bonnie attended and said she was in some interesting sessions. One was on the power of birds for conservation, and discussed how birding is extremely popular and there are funds available for bird-related conservation. Reaching out to the birding community is one way to broaden support for land conservation projects. Henry held up a wood duck nesting box that was built by his class at KRHS and asked if anyone had a place for it. Alex Simoneau took it. Another session was on wildlife corridors, presented by Katie Callahan of Fish & Game. The wildlife corridor maps can be seen on their website, and were generated by the crunching of all kinds of data from a wide variety of sources. Bonnie said she was wondering if the SCC should consider putting up “Turtle Crossing” signs during the turtle nesting season, which is from May to early July. Henry said wildlife corridor data is very helpful to have when we go to buy land and need supporting data for getting grants. Alex’s friend Michaela, who is also a Colby-Sawyer student, asked if anyone in NH is keeping track of road kill data. Don said there is a science teacher named Brewster Bartlett who does this with his students. Bonnie said she thought that Fish & Game was also collecting this info from the state DOT, as this is useful data for determining wildlife corridors.

 

Deterioration of road near Webb/Crowell Forest – Wally said the Class VI portion of Meetinghouse Hill Road is in very bad shape. A private individual is going to do some work on it and the SCC should donate some gravel to the project. Henry asked about a cost estimate, and Wally said it would be a couple of truckloads of gravel at the town’s price. The town itself can’t put any money into it. Mike McManus put a lot of money into fixing the road last year, as he had to replace a culvert. Mike said 5 years of logging have taken a toll, and the road has had to be repeatedly re-ditched. Henry asked if putting down gravel would fix the road, and Mike said no, that would just be a bandaid. Another development is that the lot just above Webb/Crowell has been sold, and the owner is going to put in a driveway.

 

ASLPT quarterly round table for Conservation Commissions – Debbie said this will be next Thursday at the ASLPT office from 6 to 8 PM. Wally said he would go.

 

Possible forestry project on SCC property – A young woman Don knows is doing a forestry masters program at UNH and is interested in possibly doing her master’s project on one of our properties.

 

Colby-Sawyer summer internships – Lynn said if we are interested in having a student do some work on a project for us, the cost would be $13/hour or $2,000 total.  Don said LWCF grants can cover this kind of thing.

 

Property Committee Report

Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 8:36 PM.

Next Meeting:  Wednesday, May 11th, 2022, at 6:30 PM, at Sutton Town Hall.

Respectfully submitted,

Bonnie Hill, Secretary