September 14, 2016 | Town Admin Sutton Conservation Commission (SCC) Meeting Minutes Wednesday, September 14, 2016 Present: Betsy Forsham, Chair, Don Davis, Henry Howell, Dan Sundquist, Jean LaChance, and Bonnie Hill, secretary. Absent: Chris Ashton, Ben Dobrowski, Jane Williamson and Wally Baker. Members of the public attending: Rob O’Neil Call to order: Betsy Forsham called the meeting to order at 6:35 p.m. Previous Meeting’s Minutes: A motion was made by Don and seconded by Betsy to approve the minutes of August 3rd, 2016. There was one correction: Chris Ashton was present at the meeting, not absent as stated in the minutes, as was maybe Wally Baker. As there was not a quorum of members present who had attended the previous meeting, however, a vote could not be taken to accept the minutes. Financial Report: There is $1887.09 in the town account, which is 58.39% of the budget. The only expense for the month was for secretarial services. As of August 31, the Conservation Account contained $105,527.63 and the King Hill Reservation account contained $6578.39, for a total of $112,106.02 in the Conservation Fund. Correspondence: Email to Cindy Gray giving permission to place a cache at the No answer was received. NH Lakes Association quarterly publication, Lakeside, Summer 2016 SRK Greenway’s August 2016 newsletter Brochures for NH Sustainable Forestry Initiative forestry & sawmill field day at CSC, 23. Donation brochure from the KLPA. Betsy suggested and members agreed that individuals could join, but it is not appropriate for the SCC to do so with tax payer’s money. Email from Heidi Thoma asking SCC to participate in Strut in Sutton on 9/18. Don will be there for the SHS and he agreed to represent SCC as Betsy will give him trail maps of KHR. Email request from Board of Selectmen for 2017 budget worksheet by 9/26 Miscellaneous Review of Wetland Applications and Issues: none. Review of Intents to Cut and Logging Issues & M. Cloutier, T/L#5-698,411, Shadow Hill Rd., 10 of 50 acres. Annual cut by owner. Old Business Reminder: PK Brown walk with Dave Anderson- This rugged hike starts at 9:00 AM on Saturday, Oct 1st. If water levels allow it, Fish & Game biologists will demonstrate fish sampling beforehand at 8:30. Betsy emailed posters for the event to the SCC membership, and gave out hard copies for posting at the post offices and the Vernondale store. Info will also be put in the InterTown Record. Participants must pre-register. Meet at the KRHS parking lot. Update on possible invasive plant in Smiley Grove stream- Dan shared with the members an email he received today from Amy Smagula, replying to his email of 7/18 and apologizing for the delay. Amy said that the plant is not a state-listed invasive species, and therefore falls into a gray area. In answer to Dan’s questions about resources from the state, Amy said that the removal would be a joint effort between the DES and the locality, and that some reimbursement for materials was possible with prior authorization. The landowner is not responsible. Teams from DES have done some hand removal that has reduced the plant to a small area. Small grass-roots efforts, with hand-removal help from DES if needed, should be sufficient to keep the plant in check. Dan will respond with further questions as to whether the fence can be removed, and if we can be notified when DES people will be pulling plants, so we can help. Dan thinks it is a good idea for some of us to learn what the plant looks like and how to properly remove it. SCC’s mowing machines update –Betsy got the weed-whacker repaired at All & Awl and picked up its carrying strap from Gerry Putnum’s. The machine has a set of brush-cutting blades in addition to the string trimmer head. It requires a gas/oil mixture and cannot tolerate ethanol. Betsy will get some pre- mixed fuel for it, and the SCC folks will try it out at the next trail maintenance session. Whittemore bench placement update –Betty Whittemore has definitely chosen Muster Field Farm as the site for Charlie’s memorial bench, so this issue is resolved. New Business Management plan for Stevens Lot and name for sign- Since the official name for the Keith lot is “Town Wildlife Area”, the Stevens lot will tentatively be called “Kezar Lake Natural Area” to avoid redundancy (we will wait for more members to attended before making a final decision). Dan distributed an outline he wrote for a management plan. He started by asking if the SCC has done management plans in the past, and Betsy explained that yes, this was done quite some time ago. Dan’s idea was that the outline he wrote could serve as a template for management plans henceforth, so he wrote it to apply to a variety of types of lots. The members went over the outline together and there was some discussion concerning the “issues” section. Don said that Horse Beach has been heavily used by dog owners ever since the state park banned dogs from its beaches. Dan asked, “what do we do in order to manage the land as a ‘natural area’?”. Don brought up the possibility of a “friends” group to get the people involved who use the beach frequently. Perhaps they could take care of tasks like raking the beach. Don suggested providing a place for people to view waterfowl. Henry asked about providing boardwalks, but this was not considered feasible. Betsy said the land is always changing, because of beaver activity. Dan thinks it would be a good idea to have a public information session in October or November concerning the Stevens lot. He would deliver a Powerpoint presentation, and the SCC would listen and take notes on what the public has to say. Betsy will give Dan a copy of the boundary survey with meets and bounds. Don said it might be possible to get a drone photograph of the area from a relative of his. Jean said Jane probably has taken some pictures of the area that could be included. Review of visit to former Town tree farm property on Wadleigh Hill Road- Several SCC members accompanied Tim Fleury and Steve Lord on this site visit on 8/31. Betsy concluded from the visit that it isn’t really worth doing anything to the property at this point, though this can be re-visited in the future. It would cost money to have a forest management plan written up, and there would be no return on the investment, as the trees are of very low value. Thinning would not improve the quality of the trees enough to make it worthwhile, and we would need to pay someone to cut the trees down. She did find the management plan from 30 years ago, which divided up the site into sections. Dan checked the wood markets, and verified that there is no market for pulp at this time. The SCC members present agreed to leave the site as it is for now. Resurrection of 10 year offer of donation of land: In 2006, SCC received an offer of a donation of a 1.9 acre piece of land (tax map T/L 10-271,401) from Douglas Morton. SCC spent some money on the preparation, but then the offer was rescinded, as Mr. Morton was unable to transfer property at that time. Betsy recently received in the mail a map and different deed to the land from Mr. Morton. On advice of town counsel, she will go to the BOS to get their approval (again) to accept the donation. She will then mail the proper documents to Mr. Morton for his signature. He will hopefully return them to us for our signatures, recording, completion of DRA forms, etc. Whereas it is inaccessible and surrounded by KHR and I-89, Betsy suggests a voluntary merger with KHR at some point. Dan made a motion, and Jean seconded, that SCC accept (again) the donation of this lot from Douglas Morton, and the motion passed unanimously. 2017 Budget: Elly Phillips sent out a request that department budgets be submitted by September 26th, which is a bit earlier than usual. Betsy distributed a proposed budget using 2016 figures for expenditures, for a total of $3232, and requesting $10,000 for the Capital Reserve Fund. The members agreed to keep our budget at the same level as 2016. Jean made a motion, and Don seconded, to accept the 2017 proposed budget, and the motion passed unanimously. SCC Properties Bean Quarry – Several SCC members accompanied Brooks McCandlish on a post-harvest walk on 9/13. There was vigorous fern growth in the cut areas. An old house foundation was seen, with a beautiful well all lined with fieldstones. Jean expressed concern about town liability if someone falls in the well. Betsy suggested a mesh cover, and Dan said he had something that would do the job. Betsy wrote a thank-you email to Brooks and said if he is in the neighborhood, some of the SCC folks would be interested in another walk to see other areas which were cut as well as the little pine trees that were planted in the aborted log landing. King Hill Reservation- Henry will be putting up a mailbox at the Penacook Path entrance. Betsy gave him some trail maps to put in the box. Trail work dates – Betsy will be sending out some potential dates for trail work at Webb/Crowell. We will try out the weed-whacker and also blaze the trail. Don said something needs to be done about the wet areas on the main logging road, such as a bog bridge. Miscellaneous – Don had an idea for a future program, which is to teach people how to use smart phones for making maps while hiking. The Forest Society presented on this a little while ago. A discussion followed on digital map-making in general. Betsy said Bristol, Sweet has CAD files from surveying KHR. If Dan could get these, he could put them into GIS and make a digitized map of KHR. Betsy said eventually we should have a map that includes our lands abutting KHR, i.e. Maple Leaf and the Bean Quarry. Adjournment: There being no further business, a Motion was made by Dan and seconded by Jean to adjourn the meeting at 8:25 p.m. The Motion was unanimously approved. Respectfully submitted, Bonnie Hill, Secretary The next meeting will be held on Wednesday, October 12th, 2016 @ 6:30 p.m.