Ogunquit River Watershed Committee plans interpretive signs, weighs dog rules

[0:18] Chair/presiding officer: Okay. Good morning. It's Thursday, September 24th, 2026. This is the meeting of the Agunquit River Watershed Committee. Our mission is to restore the health of the Agunquit River for its aquatic ecosystems, for the safe recreation of residents and tourists, and for the local economy. As residents within the watershed, we collaborate to implement the actions outlined in the 2025 Agunquit River Watershed Base Plan to meet and maintain the water quality standards established by the main Department of Environmental Protection. We are Suzanne Williams, Avery Suter and I, Pam Suter is not here. We are with us on Zoom now. She just joined. Oh, that's wonderful. And we have we've been appointed but have not yet taken the oath of office. So we won't be voting on things, but we will be discussing. So does anybody have any questions about the minutes? Just questions in general about the minutes? Well, that was the meeting we had with Melanie Nash and Mandy. [1:37] Speaker B (unidentified): Looked good to me. [1:39] Chair/presiding officer: It looks pretty accurate. Voting to approve them, but I just wanted to know if anybody had any other questions. We good? All right. And so the main thing that I want to work on today is that second part of the grant report that Melanie Nash and Mandy need from us. We did get the website. I don't know if you took a look, but we got the website refreshed, and we put in an entire tab that has to do with the grant. Thank you, Eileen. We had fun doing it, so that was really nice. So, but the other side is creating kind of a mock-up. It doesn't have to be, we don't have the design plans, but just a mock-up of what a storyboard or two might look like. And I don't know whether you, I did some thinking about it. I'm happy to. [2:48] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah, this is, this is what I did. [2:53] Chair/presiding officer: And again, this is, this is a Word document, met but i just i was trying to get something that we might start to work with and i again it's not nothing about it is correct but i thought the title should have some strong theme or message some kind of a grab you title and then it should be the why and i and I thought, you know, to give it kind of a storytelling, if they're standing in the place, give them a sense of place, like what is, what's, what's happening to the river, what happened to the river, and how will this project help? And then some kind of diagram with text. Again, this is, this is something I pulled off that you just, to give you a sense, but where we might explain the use of oyster shells in the Gabbian basket, what exactly that is, how it helps filter the stormwater and then the native plantings the same way a qr code to get more information again my sense is concise simple language not super complicated and with a much more interesting layout than what i did i mean they can do i looked into a company called mark they make interpretive signs which is what this is called and they have just great i mean you give them the information and they do a wonderful job just making it look really interesting so this is super simple but i thought if we could start working maybe on that language the title the language of what we'll grab the people as they're to learn about what's going on with the river and how does this project help and then at the end of course acknowledgments you know who's come together to do this i love the idea of the restaurants contributing the oyster shells and i really want to follow up on that 's nothing with now but i think that's important does anybody have any thoughts about this [4:57] Speaker B (unidentified): so i had a i had a thought for one that was attention grabbing yeah and it could be one of the two and that is oysters clean our parking lot because that's where the pipe is coming from right yes and then you may know that oysters are you know efficient at filtering water and can clean water but did you also did you know that their shells are valuable also because of their chemical properties and so that was sort of the attention grabber and then you know a couple of photos or drawings and i was on the beach this morning i took some photos of where something like that might go yeah tell us well i mean the issue is trying to find an area with good foot traffic so people will see it but also a spot where they can stop and read it without holding up all the other foot traffic right the really the only point where you can actually see the pipe is coming across on the on the right hand side on the south side of the across the bridge and then there's a guardrail which actually might help Because there's an opportunity, maybe, to, you know, to take a fence post or whatever is needed for a signpost and attach it to that guardrail so that it's not just in the screen, the rock, you know, but that's a spot where you could see it, you could see what's going on down below, so there's some context to it, and it makes a little bit of sense. Tell me if I'm walking [6:47] Chair/presiding officer: towards the, I just want to get it in my head, if I'm walking towards the ocean and I'm on this side of the street, it's on the, it's on the right, so the [6:55] Speaker B (unidentified): south side, on the riverside, beach side, and how far, it's literally right as you cross the bridge start and where the guardrail starts, okay, and then you have just a few feet before you start to get cover with the shrubs, yeah, and then of course there's that walk that cut, with cut through pathway that they're going to eliminate, so really that's your only opportunity to see it all is right there, so yeah, I love that idea of, yeah, just make sure the sign doesn't block the outflow pipe to the view of it. Oh yeah, you have to make sure the sign is in a position, we don't want to be big, yeah, the thing, it can be set back a little bit, it doesn't have to be attached to that guardrail, but the guardrail is fixed and it's nice and it's, it's metal and it's an opportunity there if you wanted to attach something to it, can [7:50] Suzanne: you all hear me? I also wanted to say in regard to the oyster shells, it was just, yeah, good morning, sorry I'm not there, I'm not feeling a hundred percent, so, but I know the area that you're talking about, Suzanne, there's a little pathway that people have cut through there to go down to the beach area there. Is that an area that is, do you think people are actually going to stop there and look there? I mean, they don't look at the sign that's down just a little further on that area. They should go into the parking that says no dogs. They don't look at that at all. So and will they see the gabion basket? And the other question is, I'm sorry, I've not kept up with this recently, has, is, are we putting in one or two gabion baskets? [8:44] Chair/presiding officer: I think it's just one right now, we're not, we're not doing, we're not doing it, we don't have the, we don't have the funds to do the other one up river, which is what we were talking about, right in the [8:56] Suzanne: I was thinking about the one by the Levit stream coming down that way, we talked about that. [9:02] Chair/presiding officer: Yeah, and it's it's it's the cost is prohibitive to do both, so you know, costs have gone up. But Melanie is working on that new grant, which would help, I think, put in another gabion basket or another project upriver. And that's in the minutes. But I think for now, Pam, it's just that one. [9:24] Suzanne: Right off of river where the lower lot is, I mean, that area just traps all kinds of bacteria and garbage and trash and everything. [9:35] Chair/presiding officer: Thing, yeah, it's it's just going to have to be another, it can't be for this project. This project is just the pipe. Okay, so Eileen had something to say, go ahead. So recently I read [9:50] Speaker B (unidentified): something online about a community that uses oyster shells, and they've actually seen the results over several years. I think it would be important just as a sub note to include that, so people don't think that this is some out of the box idea, and whatever we can have, we have proof that it works, and list that community, just maybe one statement, because sometimes you propose something and people go, what, maybe it's not going to do anything, how do we know, but we know, we know it's going to work, it works. Yeah, and I think I think that's important to have on the sign itself, that people see that this is, and I can get you where that, I read that article where the community is, it's I think it's in the south, but I think where the community is, and I think and it was an ocean, it was an ocean as well, and I just think that stuff like that showing people that we know what we're doing, it's proven, it's not something that we just came up with for this, for this project. Yeah, there's definitely one in Washington state, they're using it in east coast, basically like a rain barrel, so they're filtering water off of city roofs, yeah, I mean, the other, the other, the other thing that we could be focusing on is, runoff in general and how what we're collecting is runoff from the parking lot. That's not that much different than runoff from your driveway or runoff from the streets. And that, you know, what we could be pointing out is like all of our storm drains in Agunquit, they drain directly to the river. I think that's a point that we could make. Yes. And then these drain right into, you know, basically 100 feet away into Riverside Beach. And that's why we want to, that's why we want to keep that filter that water and keep it clean. I guess what I worry about is having too many things right on one side, yeah, rather than just focusing on something that people can understand and do. That, so I worry if we put all this stuff, the QR code could go to a place where it talks about all of that and more than just this and that people could do. I'm just worried about too much information on one side and I [12:13] Chair/presiding officer: agree with you. I just think that needs to be part of the why are we doing this, right? What has happened to the river? What is contributing to the pollution? It's not the storm water is not all of it, but it's a lot of it. So you know I was imagining that in that why section, if I'm looking at whatever it is, like wow, this project, why are we doing this, you know, here's the problem, here's [12:34] Speaker B (unidentified): how we think this will help. Well, but yeah, the why is the water from our parking lot goes directly into the river, exactly, in it. So we don't need to talk about, you know, any more of a, you know, sort of the global context of what's happening to the river. I think we just need to talk about the what's happening right here and this, and we're filtering what's coming up the parking lot right [12:54] Suzanne: here. And you can, you know, I have a question, Eileen, about QR codes. I know that they work in many instances very well, but how many people are heading down to the beach and are going to take, pull out their phone and look at the QR code? Well, a lot of them have their phones [13:14] Speaker B (unidentified): because they're going to the parking lot and they need to use their phone to pay for parking. So I do think there are, I don't know how many phones, but I do think people do have their phones long and people are talking on their phones all the time. If you're on the beach, if you walk by, there's a lot of bone. And even if we get a few, you know, I'm with the one or two or three is certainly more than we would have had. So and then people can talk about it, so I think it's, it's, you know, people use it fine. It's not going to be huge, it's not going to be a big, it's not going [13:44] Chair/presiding officer: to take up much space, but where is background information that should people want get more information, there it is, whether they do it at that moment or come back later or, but I think I'm just very keen on keeping this very concise, and so my question, my next question is, should we try to do both the native plantings and the gabion basket in one on one sign, I mean, is that, I don't know what people feel about that, they said it could be up to two interpretive signs, I was trying to do it in one just kind of explaining what's happening, but I don't know how [14:27] Speaker B (unidentified): people feel. If we wanted to do two, so we're talking about the native plantings, we're talking about just a small section of that riverside beach area, kind of behind where the pipe is, between that and the parking lot. So if we wanted to do two, one featuring the native plantings could go where I mentioned after seeing that. yeah and as we're just talking about the parking lot and the and the various you know meters and whatnot are there yeah a sign could possibly just go in the parking lot somewhere where people could see it talking about you know somewhere near one of the storm drains saying that you know oysters are filtering the water off of our parking lot this is why if we did a native plants stuff that was general about native plantings and what they do they could be used all over town i mean And it doesn't have to be in, if we designed it correctly, it could be placed in multiple locations, including where the town hall is for native plants, about the importance of that. And then the native plant sign could have a QR code through what you can do, how you can put native plants in your own thing. So it could go further on that. So a multi-purpose sign, really, not just for this particular one. [15:49] Chair/presiding officer: and for this one it's really about the filtering the stormwater but we could talk about i mean that [15:55] Speaker D (unidentified): would be good i'm grabbing my does marginal way have something because i know they have the geology they have something up on their native landscaping they don't have a permanent sign on [16:07] Speaker B (unidentified): that i don't think so we do not but it would be nice to have something that could be placed around the town as well and also what people could do and possibly list some resources so that they can follow up on their own if they want to i mean this is something obviously that's discussed at the conservation commission as well but just so you know i mean [16:30] Suzanne: They discussed this too. I just got a discussion. I just got a text from Chris, and Chris says his sense was a single QR code with clear division when you pull it up so folks can choose a path, choose a path of interest. So oh, it could go to the website and oh, that's nice. Okay. Yeah. [16:56] Chair/presiding officer: Yeah, it could go to the website. So we, I'm just trying to, we were thinking about having two signs. [17:01] Speaker B (unidentified): Then I mean, does that seem, if they'll allow two signs, I think that it keeps it cleaner, and then we can have, you know, I think that the signs should reference each other, so they should have the same basic layout, the same, you know, if we're going to have the Town of Agunquit logo or the Watershed Committee logo or whatever we're going to have there, everything, right? No, it's, they're similar if you put them side by side to be like, yeah, that's, these are, these are a set, right? [17:32] Chair/presiding officer: Right. So one thing we could do is work on the language of the why, the language of what the Gabbian basket is doing. We literally, by the beginning of October, so the first few days of October, she wants this. And it doesn't have to just be like, this is, you know, this is where the diagram would go, this is where that, this would go, but I don't know if we want to make it solidify it a little bit for her. I don't know how people are feeling about that, but [18:07] Speaker B (unidentified): Maybe we could like, in terms of the language, yeah, I mean, yeah, I think to me, I think the story is stormwater. Yeah, warm water carries pollutants into our river. You know, we capture these in, you know, if you want, we could say we capture these in storm drains and filter them. You know, this project filters them as they emerge from the pipe. I mean, to me, that's the story. You know, I love the idea of the bigger story, but I think it's also nice to basically put everything right in the context, like, right, but This bigger story is part of the context in terms of what people want to know, even if it's just a sentence saying this has been an ongoing problem for the past, I think, so and so years, and it could be one sentence, but I think people do like some kind of context in terms of that, and it doesn't have to be a long thing. It'd just be like a sentence or sentence and stuff, and some of it could probably be taken from the watershed plan. I'm assuming some of it can be taken from some work that has been Done on the river from some companies that have like FB Environmental, they have stuff like that already in there, so it's not stuff that we have to necessarily come up with ourselves to, per se, you know I'm saying. [19:33] Chair/presiding officer: I do, so the why would be this has been an ongoing problem since it's been really since 2002, you know, that's where it first was identified in that plan, so and then and then I think you're right, the grant is all about stormwater, I mean it's, you know, filtering the water, so this is this has been the quick sort of not that good language but chronic, the chronic problem on the river has been this and keep it simple and it's, you know, I like. [20:08] Speaker B (unidentified): Like your title, I think that could go on both of them, partnering with nature to restore the river story one is oysters clean our parking lot or something similar, yeah, story two is native plantings prevent erosion and filter, you know, filter runoff, okay. [20:27] Speaker D (unidentified): What are the, so I feel like we should, I do like the idea of including the concept that all the drains kind of lead to the, like could you start it like the first line of the subparagraph could be like in a gun quit most of the storm drains run into the ocean and then that could be like. [20:52] Speaker B (unidentified): The hook that could actually be the, yeah, that could actually be the title for the first one. [20:57] Speaker D (unidentified): It might be people don't really know it all runs to the ocean, I mean we could, the title could be. [21:03] Speaker B (unidentified): Something that deals with that, it all ends up in the ocean, you know, whatever, something that you might want to mention storm days but that could be because that's a catchy title that would, something that will get people to look at and want to, I might sub river but yeah, river, what. [21:19] Chair/presiding officer: Instead of ocean say river, okay, yeah, because we're, I mean I think that the reason I wanted to get nature in there is because it's nature-based solutions and I want to make sure that is, I think you're absolutely right though, I don't think people know, you know, they need that education, what if what if there was a subtitle like, what if you reversed it, reverse it. [21:44] Suzanne: Restore the Agonc with river by partnering with nature because that's what we wanted, that's what we're trying to do, we're trying to restore the river, right, I like that, I like that, what and. [22:07] Chair/presiding officer: Then the next thing would in the why would, because I think I think Eileen is right that the headline is stormwater, you know, like what you just said, well I should be at the top. [22:20] Speaker B (unidentified): To get people to look at it, all goes into the river, it all goes into the river, or something like that, and then partnering with nature again, or now restoring the Agunquit River by [22:32] Chair/presiding officer: partnering with nature because something that will catch some why because all the storm all [22:36] Suzanne: all water that drains down from anywhere, all the storm drain goes into the river [22:42] Speaker B (unidentified): right so that's what's the title, that's what the title would be, that's the why, the why is because [22:47] Suzanne: every bit of every storm drain in the town, you know, whether it's on, you know, any side, ends up in the river. [23:00] Speaker B (unidentified): Stormwater carries pollutants into the Agunquit River. Yeah. [23:04] Chair/presiding officer: Stormwater, yeah. And that would be the why, or that's the final answer? [23:09] Suzanne: Yeah, why do you want to restore the, by partnering with the river? You want to do this because all the stormwater carries pollutants into the river, and we're going to try to correct this by using natural, you know, by using nature as opposed to doing anything chemical or anything, you know, that might send off alarms in people, especially in that area because you got all little kids down there, right, I also think you have to tie it [23:36] Speaker B (unidentified): back to individual people, we all love the Agunquit River, yes, I think you need to give it a sense of connection right at the beginning in the why, yeah, well we all love the Agunquit River and that kind of thing, and then go back, but since 2002 the river has, you know, to just give up, to make the connection with the person instead of they're just reading a sign that they can say that has something to do with me, but bring them in right away, right, what you're looking at, yeah, right, I mean I think it's make it personal, I love that, rather than just a sign, and that [24:11] Chair/presiding officer: gives them a sense of play that I wanted people to have a sense of place, you're right, like look at the, you know, okay, that's good, this is so helpful, let's keep in mind we have five or ten [24:24] Speaker B (unidentified): seconds of their time, so we'll just try to organize it so that, right, but the connection I think is important, I really do, I think people want to know why they should care, you know, and to have a reason and [24:41] Chair/presiding officer: we would say something about since 2003 whenever, I mean, I mean is that it, is that [24:48] Speaker D (unidentified): that appropriate here, I don't know, I feel like the issue probably existed before 2000 because it like 2003 was when they first identified it, right, but I'm sure like in the 60s there was still water like pollutants probably are the worst day, well I remember that there was a report [25:07] Chair/presiding officer: That I shared with you, I think that Marianne sent me that she found from like the 60s, and it was a great, I mean, I wrote her back, I thought this is so awesome, but they were, they were worried about septic systems and, but they were, they, that was in that report, just could we leave it open and [25:24] Speaker D (unidentified): say just for years, no, or historically, it's great, yeah [25:33] Chair/presiding officer: Okay, well, I will, I'll, you know [25:38] Suzanne: I'm thinking about that, Avery, but at the same point I'm also thinking like, do we want to scare people that area has been polluted for all this time and we've not done anything and told them about it? Somebody could interpret it that way. Yeah, I'm serious, think about it. Somebody could interpret that and say I've had my kids swimming there forever and ever and blah, nobody told me, now I've got this and nobody, now somebody takes this is these, we live in the age of people suing everybody, you know that So that's, I know that's kind of far-fetched [26:12] Speaker D (unidentified): Question kind of out there, but well maybe you could say like if you want to keep it in the 2000, like in 2002 a gunk would identify the need to filter runoff like and begin the [26:30] Suzanne: Process of, I don't know, then somebody's going to turn around and say to you, Avi, this is 2006, what happened in those 24 years? Nothing, you did nothing. I don't know, I, that's a good, I'm just trying to think like somebody walking along the beach and reading that, you know [26:49] Chair/presiding officer: Yeah, well I don't want to get a weeds about [26:57] Suzanne: I mean I think the fact that right now this year we've had so little contamination in that area and why, the question is why, and that's something that we really need to focus on too, we've only had two main healthy beaches high counts there two [27:24] Speaker B (unidentified): That's something too, I think it all tied over, it's finally related, I was going to talk about [27:29] Chair/presiding officer: The numbers a little, I would love to talk about the numbers a little later, I would like to sort of get this so that I know, my sense is maybe not to say historically this has been a problem, but this is what we're doing, like the stormwater runs into, you know, carries pollutants into the river and this is what we're doing about it, keep it in the present, keep it in the present, I don't know what people feel about that. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I wouldn't go backwards, I agree, and you know there's there's Plenty of you can read the report, and there's plenty of references to all kinds of studies that were done if people want that. But I think for this sign, I think it just is, this is what we're doing right now. This is what the town, you know, the grant, that this is what we're doing, okay? And then make, so make cheap. Go ahead, go ahead, and I [28:18] Suzanne: was going to say you have people that are walking over with their kids and they see that tannic looking water and they say, oh, I'm not, my kids, and then you realize that water is safe to go in when they look at the sign and read the sign and what's happening there. So they need a comfort level, okay? It may be off base, but no [28:41] Chair/presiding officer: no, and then so I think the two signs should have the same, two signs can have the same title, and then one focuses on the gabion baskets filled with oysters, what oysters do, the other is native plantings and how they help filter out the [28:55] Speaker B (unidentified): pollutants. Does that sound right to everybody? Yes. Okay. I like the active. We're using oysters to clean our parking lot. Yeah. We're planning with natives to prevent erosion, and yes, to run on. Yes. Yeah, and then and then just a simple graphic that they could see. Okay. I think is, as you know, probably what we need. [29:22] Chair/presiding officer: I think she doesn't need, obviously she just says graphic it goes here, but she does want the wording, and I feel like we've, I can, I can take it from here. I mean, I feel like, I think I understand everybody's input is very good. Is there anybody I've left out of the acknowledgements? Will [29:45] Speaker D (unidentified): we know who the contributor? I don't know that we [29:48] Speaker B (unidentified): can list them all. Yeah, because that might change over the year. This is a forever kind of sign. Say it again. I don't know that we could list each restaurant, but we could just say like a gung-ho restaurants, or what could, yeah, you could just say yeah, restaurants, if you want to get, if people outside of a gung-ho participate, we could just say local restaurants, and maybe that [30:12] Chair/presiding officer: goes not in the acknowledgments, but maybe it goes after we're talking. I hope this, you know, I haven't [30:17] Speaker B (unidentified): heard anything back from Melanie, but I hope that they approved one using the oysters, right, and to give us an opportunity. I mean, you have to disinfect them, it's not, yes, it's not a simple thing, but I think it's worth us doing so that we can bring the community in and then give them each a sign that says we're helping to clean the river, and that's exactly what I'm thinking too. [30:41] Chair/presiding officer: No, I, and I will follow up with her. I think in that article that you talked about, and I can't remember the place, they had a whole logistics, you know, thing where who picks up the oysters and how they clean them, and it is a big deal. I think it's worth doing. I and I would [31:02] Speaker B (unidentified): be happy to help with logistics on it, but I well, and let's also remember that there's going to be turnover. This isn't set it and forget it. They're going to need to remove the shells, right, because, you know, they're trapping pollutants, they're holding pollutants, and so remove, discard, replace. So that, you know, we're going to need, you know, we're going to need a supply of clean shells. So it might be interesting to contact the town that has done this and has had some success and get some idea about what their process is to do this. I think, I think our, would our engineers will tell us, okay, yeah, that, you know, but I would still advocate for letting even on the sign just something letting that this is a practice that has been used and has been successful, because I do, again, I don't want people to think it's just something [32:02] Chair/presiding officer: that people came up with. And I remember having the conversations at the Anything That Floats, and a lot of people knew. Do you remember that, Susanna? We, I was talking to people and they mentioned too oyster shells being used right here and there. So you're gonna go ahead, are you gonna list the [32:17] Speaker B (unidentified): engineering group that's, that's designing this to be as an engagement? Yeah, sorry, and maybe put the [32:27] Chair/presiding officer: like Eileen said, under what the oysters are, you know, we're using oysters to hear, and then a little thing about it's, it this is also used in this place, this place, this place in projects, and then say there's something about the restaurants contributing that we don't have to list them, but just the idea of within the body of the tech, exactly, that would be this oysters [32:48] Speaker D (unidentified): provided, yeah, by our local, yes, or you could even put like if you want to acknowledge the actual restaurant when you do the change out, you could take like a laminated thing and zip tie it to the actual basket, be like these are oysters from this place. That's a great idea, and that way it's more, you can switch it out easier. Yeah, and obviously someone needs to talk to the restaurants before [33:15] Speaker B (unidentified): this is published yeah okay all right i would my other caveat i'd be careful about making the gabion basket the feature i mean it's just what it's called but it's literally just wire vessel it's a basket it could be okay wrapped it you know it could be anything it's just a way to hold the metals so just you know you can you can say gabion basket or you can say metal wire basket or whatever you want to say so that people understand that 's what they're in because i don't know how visible it'll be, but I would be careful not to refer to, you know, the treatment as a gabby mask. That's absolutely right. It's literally just the thing that holds, you know, what's really doing the work, doing the work. Okay, got it. Which could be stone, which could be, you know, shells, which could be biochar, which could be whatever, right? And I will, I will [34:11] Chair/presiding officer: I'll talk to Melanie about when I send her the mock-up and I'll send, you know, yeah. Is there anything else? This is very helpful. Everybody, is there anything else that you [34:25] Speaker D (unidentified): what scale are we, because the QR code probably should be a little bigger, but it's hard to imagine [34:32] Suzanne: Yeah, it's hard for me too. I don't need a little bigger and it'll, it'll have to be put in a place [34:38] Speaker B (unidentified): where we can fit it, yeah, and that'll determine some of what the size is as well. It won't be this [34:42] Speaker D (unidentified): small. The graphic designers can probably, yes, they probably know what size. 30, yes, it's supposed to [34:47] Chair/presiding officer: me. No, this is me trying to get something that looks right, but no, I agree. And I, from looking at that Lark Design, I think it's called Lark Design, with the stuff that they do, it was [34:59] Speaker B (unidentified): really, it was really, I assume they'll figure out the fonts, they'll figure out the size. Totally, [35:04] Chair/presiding officer: the tipping of like, they do things where they tip it a little bit so that it's very, you know, instead of having, you know, how I've got things on the side, like they tip it, they put it in a triangle, like, I mean, they have ways of doing it that looks, yeah, that's great, yeah, nice. And so all right, well, I will, I will work on that and I'll, I'll reach out to you guys if I [35:24] Speaker B (unidentified): need more help. I do have, I do have one question, the native planting. So they're going to remove some but not all of the invasives and replace them with natives. They're not, they're not going [35:37] Chair/presiding officer: you know, when you're standing by the ice slice out of it, yeah, you know where you're, I'm at the pipe and I'm facing the pipe, yeah, and then there's up here there's invasives and then there's the ramp. They're not going any further than the ramp. Oh, they're going all the way to the ramp, I think. [35:52] Speaker B (unidentified): They are, that would be helpful, because then you just see native plantings, right? I got the impression that it was a smaller slice, and I'm like, well, how are we gonna, how are you going to let people know that okay, it ends here? Because you can't, you know, there can't be gaps, obviously, right,. And, you know, there's going to be pressure with the native plantings pushing up against the invasive plantings. But I do hope it goes all the way to the ramp. I think we ought to push for that. [36:21] Chair/presiding officer: And that was what I, but I need to ask her that, too. That was my understanding when we were talking. [36:24] Speaker B (unidentified): We need to talk about real estate. Right. [36:27] Chair/presiding officer: That first ramp. Yeah. Because I asked her originally, it was supposed to be all along. It's going to be, there's going to be more. Yeah, right. But let me ask her about that. The other issue I want to, oh, go ahead. Sorry. No. The other issue I want to talk about, because I had a conversation with Lynn Pierce and also Chris Nobly about closing off that access. And I wasn't able to articulate to them exactly why it was, why we were doing that. And Len sent me some really good information about the history of that, and it was, it was built like literally stone stairs to go with when the bridge was made, and I sent it to, I sent it to Melanie and Mandy just asking, can you, because Melanie had originally, I had asked her why, and then she had sent me that it was in the grant that they wanted to close off access paths, and it was in the ground, and she sent me a lot of information, so then I shared that with Chris and Lynn, and Lynn sent me back some really good information about how it was different, it was a different, it wasn't just something that people made, right, to go through, it actually was intentional, so I did send that to, and I just want this on the record, I did send that to Melanie and asked her, I said, can you get, I sent the whole email, and because Lynn had sent me pictures and just his history of it was very helpful, so I have not heard from her, but I guess I would like to understand if this is different, I want to, let's look at it, you know, they know that it's different [38:04] Speaker B (unidentified): Right, or I have the same question. I don't really understand what closing that off does, because the stone steps prevent the erosion. There's nothing eroding there, right? And you know people are going to want to cut through. They're probably going to create their own walkthrough if we don't keep that open, because that is right, historically it's been there. It's it's the easiest way to get down there. And there are, you know, I think maybe when they did the study, there are other, you know, sort of illicit pathways, for instance one that's a little closer to where the lifeguard our chair is, right, the people just have created from the parking lot, and those are just sand. So those are the road erosion risk, but this stone staff, I mean, I asked that question early on and they were like, well, it's just in there. But I remember that, I'm glad that Blend provided that [38:58] Chair/presiding officer: because I didn't have that. Well, it was it was very helpful to understand that it was an intentional design, and I and I would I would probably think that, you know, they were they're looking at the site, GEI is looking at the site, you know, as of when I sent that email, like they're they're still making designs, and I would like to, I'd like that to be a conversation we have before we, because it is different, you know. So I just wanted to put that on the record. Thanks. All right, anything else about this and I feel really good about it. Thank you for putting this together. Oh, sure. Well, it's helpful. I'm not a designer, but it was helpful to me. Yeah. I wanted to. And again, we might not be able to. I have had many conversations with Suzanne about trying to understand the numbers. And I just think it's the numbers of Riverside Beach. So I printed this off. off. It goes all the way back to 2023. It's the whole thing. So this one stops, you know, stops right there. The first page, you can see that it stops 2026, 2025. It's way, you know, here. But I would like to just understand, maybe, me, Suzanne, you could just, it's complex. It's It's tides. It's when they take it, the day they take it. You know, when I look back, there have been years where there's been higher numbers than we're getting now. 2023 was high. I just, is there any, what do we know, Suzanne? [40:44] Speaker B (unidentified): I mean, I trust their numbers. I just think you're grabbing a data point that is so small, this, you know, five minute period at this particular tide on a Tuesday at eight o'clock or 8 30, and then we're extrapolating it's okay to swim. It was, it was good at this moment, but it's not always good at that moment, you know, it's not always that moment, and the tides fluctuate, and we get rain in between, and we get other things. So I think, I think we need to, you know, use it with a grain of salt. They're going to use this data because this is all they have. That's exactly right, provide regular data on what it looks like at low tide every day, which is something we did, but just for seven or eight days, and it was high every day at low tide over that seven or eight days that we measured it. [41:37] Chair/presiding officer: And where were you, where were you, where were you taking the water? We took it, we started next to [41:41] Speaker B (unidentified): the lifeguard on the day that they took it, and we took a sample too, and then you know they moved on with their week, and we went back every day at low tide and took a measurement. So it happened, you know, we chose a day where it was, it was a low tide measurement, so we did it next to the lifeguard, and then we did it all week long, and in the same spot, so it's the same [42:11] Chair/presiding officer: spot, that lifeguard channel on Riverside Beach, you just went right there. So it's kind of, it's [42:16] Speaker B (unidentified): it's by the, it's by the pipe, out in front of the pipe, and yeah, so I mean that was just, that's again, that's another just grabbing a, you know, a small sample of time, but it was enough to show us that okay, you know, these numbers are going to fluctuate based on the tide. Yeah, right, the main healthy beaches numbers, because the lifeguards aren't going at low tide, they're going at eight o'clock on a Tuesday, and that can be at any point in time, there could have been rain the day before, or have been rain raining for a week or so, all that fluctuates, but it's never low, that's what you're saying. I'm not a scientist, we never got anything that was lower than 100 in that week, and again it's just one random week, right, but we couldn't afford to like do it forever, but we wanted to show that no, it's really not coming up. So you know they retested, lifeguards came and retested the next day, but it was a different tide because they do it when they get the call, hey it was, it was the numbers were high, can you go [43:22] Chair/presiding officer: take another sample when they take it, and again this is just for people that don't like me that don't understand, do they take it from the top of it, do they go down about, you know, a foot, okay. [43:34] Speaker B (unidentified): You can watch my video with Ben. We did a video on that, take the water, and you can go look it up. [43:41] Suzanne: Oh great, yeah, you can see what they do and made Healthy Beaches gave us all packets at one time on how to do it, and a group of us got trained when I was on conservation, we all got trained how. [43:52] Chair/presiding officer: How to do it. Oh great, okay, this is this is why I need you all. There's nothing wrong with the [43:58] Speaker B (unidentified): numbers, nothing wrong with the numbers, it's just taken at a at a random time, and I'm saying that it's possible that if you were to take it every day at low tide you would see a completely different picture. Yeah, we just don't, right, we don't have the funds right now to do that all [44:15] Chair/presiding officer: summer long, and is that because from my understanding, because I remember when Jake, who used to be on Healthy Rivers of Guam, but I remember when we were talking about this after that eight-day sprint or whatever it was, I remember him saying, I remember asking him, does that mean that the pollution is always there? And he said, yes. So that's what I always thought, the pollution somehow is there. There and if we if we work on all these things and have less pollutants go in there eventually the river will wash right it out. Yeah, but there comes that source that's incoming, there's some [44:53] Speaker B (unidentified): that's outgoing, but we haven't we haven't stopped the incoming pollution. It's also possible that it's in the sand, it's in the bedrock, it's in the, you know, that it's being held, that is being captured, just like oyster shells hold it, right, possible that it's being held, it could be in the sand, riverside beach, and it's it's just washed with that in and out, so we don't know exactly, but we do know that, you know, I trust the numbers for getting Healthy Beaches, it's just not it's not a complete picture. And so right, we need to think in a different way, and not necessarily, I mean yeah, not necessarily just go by that, and eventually maybe we decide to do our own tests and to get some funds to, you know, do our own measurements, something that we [45:39] Suzanne: could publish, right, you know, we're just we're just have so that Suzanne, how does though, how do those numbers compare with FBE did testing all the way up the river, phase one, two, three, and I don't know, Eileen, if not we did all of four, but we did testing and I know that Phil Pickering did testing, more on the ocean side than on the beach side. So have we compared all those numbers to the numbers Maine Healthy Beaches did? [46:16] Speaker B (unidentified): So it sort of depends on what lab is running the tests. I think we try to make sure it's the same lab. We had a different lab. The reason why I'm not super comfortable like publishing our numbers or showing our numbers is we weren't using the main Healthy Beaches lab. We were using the closest lab, the one in Kennebunk, that we could use. And also Phil, they would have done their own testing, you know, produce their own results. So yeah, so you know, it matters a little bit. I would say not probably not a whole lot like [46:56] Chair/presiding officer: but they did use this. You did use the same calculation, right? Oh yeah, 100, okay. And I know that from FBE's work, which stopped 2023. We didn't have number, I'm trying to remember, I think that's when they stopped, but anyway, that's how they identified the hot the hot spots, because there were there were spots up river that were chronically had high numbers. And I know so that's how that we could compare the numbers with Maine Healthy Beaches and FBE and environmental is going or fb environmental was going way up, which i you know i'm hoping that we can resurrect [47:34] Speaker B (unidentified): that and i can share our data at some point in this group if you'd like. Healthy Rivers of Gunwood, Jake and i, we went we went up and we took samples from every outfall during rain, during a storm, and they were all sky-high. So you know again, just a small sample doesn't really prove anything, but gives us some ideas about where we should be looking, you know, to try to mitigate the pollutants coming into the river. So and numbers seem to be higher after a rainstorm. [48:09] Chair/presiding officer: Rain or also when they're when it's when it's low tide and they're you know it's right. Yeah. [48:16] Speaker B (unidentified): We talked about the last time, i think we talked, or maybe two meetings ago, we talked about Phil Pick rings work, right, and how he's looking at, or he was looking at pollution levels in the salt pools, which are semi-permanent pools that only get washed out of the highest tides. And you know, so there's a lot of there's a lot of factors in here. And yeah, it just, i guess we're going back to the main Healthy Beaches data. Let's just let's let's use it, let's consume it, but then let's also understand that There's another picture, right, you know, that you could kind of overlay on that, right? So I looked, I did some percentage work on these numbers, yeah, to see what it looked like. Yeah, there's a total of 75 for three years here of collection items, and of those 75, 24 were red, which is 32 percent of the time it was over. The past, however, I will say that 2023 was really bad. 51 were over, right? Okay, 24 about 30 percent were over, 25 about 32 percent were over, and 26 only 25 percent were over. So I think the overall thing is it's, you can, I don't know if this is every data point that they collected during those three years, 23, 24, it's four years, but in general it's a 32 percent of the time over the last four years the bacteria has been over the limit, and that's pretty high. Yeah, I think that's just my impression. Yes, so that's pretty well with what we saw, and given the fact that it's over four years, it was various conditions, I mean, so we can't really say it was every time they did it at eight o'clock it was low, the high, whatever, but it was over, were various conditions, and except list year it was lower, but if you look at these subs and it was extremely high in 23, I don't know, yeah, I don't even, and but generally it's ranging around 25, 30, and the overall average is 32, so it's pretty consistent. Yeah, we're not getting some years at 75 and some years at two or three or five percent, so there is some that's just rough, I could go over, that's just rough to look at the percentages, and especially looking at them over time, because that's eventually what we're going to have to do, definitely just look at it over time, and it is various conditions, various times of day, and I'm some and what we, yeah, so we don't know [50:50] Chair/presiding officer: yeah, we don't, and you know, for me it being a non-scientist, I'm looking at 2026 and I go what happened on, you know, the 24th of June where it was, you know, 1130 and like a whoa [51:03] Speaker B (unidentified): you know well and jake you know jake got us started and we measured this jake lawler who was our intern we compared every we correlated everything with tides so we have we have something like this but there's another column and it shows what the tide was and that 's important and then Jake had yet another column that showed the NOAA, you know, measurement of rainfall. There's not one exactly for a banquet, but there's one for the closest station. Yeah. And so, you know, he did an analysis of that to show that. [51:43] Chair/presiding officer: And that did correlate, right? Yeah. [51:46] Speaker B (unidentified): It showed a very strong correlation. But if you do take out, if you look at this and you do take out when they did it, when they didn't do it, there's not a whole lot of, except for 23, there's not a whole lot of fluctuation even given those changing conditions. And think about it, like what percentage of the day is within two hours of low time? Correct, quarter, right? So there you go. Yeah, well, it would be, you know, if you would [52:13] Chair/presiding officer: be willing to share that data, that would be interesting. I have it too, but I just didn't pull it up, but I, yeah, I, that would be interesting. And I remember when I was trying to understand at that meeting long ago with Jake and you, and I was trying to understand, put my head around what it meant, but he did say it confirmed what you, what you thought about low tide and about [52:36] Speaker B (unidentified): yeah, it's not perfect, but it, right, it did show us there's, you know, there's an underlying issue that if Maine Healthy Beach is measured every day at low tide, we might never have a, you know, a green day safe to swim, right? So is there anything else on that? And I think we need [52:56] Chair/presiding officer: to keep looking at it and keep trying to understand it, because I think it's, it's, some people say, well, it was, you know, high and then the next day it was low, so they don't understand, and that is confusing. So Pam, are you 're still there, right, Pam? I, on 5.2, you were talking about the dog issue upstream in the river, and I wanted you to kind of remember, you said it was an issue with [53:19] Suzanne: dogs being let loose on the on the street where you are, on the dune side, on the estuary side. My house sits facing the estuary, so on the river side, and it, there's, there's a lot of dogs that, you know, are there, not so much in the summer, but definitely now that quote dogs are allowed on the beach, people consider that the estuary, and you know, you know, I don't, I stopped calling, I mean, I used to call all the time to the police department, say you've got a big white dog, there was somebody with two dogs on a leash, and they're between bridge, you know, or between marker three and seven or something like that, so, and they're on the other side, so they're on the estuary side. Oh, they're on the estuary side. Okay, so they're never, they're never allowed there, so [54:18] Chair/presiding officer: that's, I'm just wondering what we can do. I'm assuming people are, I'm always assuming positive intentions. I don't think people are, I don't know, I'm just saying if they're people, there's no [54:31] Suzanne: No positive attentions there. I've been on there where I've watched people go past three signs that say no dogs this way, and then they say, oh, I didn't see the sign. And but well, what's that and what's that and what's that? So I mean, they do see the side, they do know, and they just don't, they don't care. Unfortunately, I don't think they understand what adverse effect dogs and dog the matter is on the beach. And that's the same way on where we're talking about with the gabion basket and going down. There on that side of the river going down to the point, you see a lot of lots of dogs, lots of dogs. People go right from the main ramp at the main beach and they take right, and the sign, I think the signs are confusing, I really do. They say no dogs this way or no dogs here, but they're still going to the right, and that's considered part of the estuary, and go all the way all the way around, and they go way out way out to the ocean there. So [55:39] Chair/presiding officer: Yeah, I think you know, and that sign in particular is very confusing. I think a lot of people don't see, don't go to the right. I'm I'm more I'm concerned about signage where you live [55:51] Suzanne: like on every bridge there's a sign on every bridge going over it says no dogs over here on both sides so you know and when you come over footbridge there's a fence there and there's a sign that says no dogs too at any time what would help what i mean i'm thinking i actually think if you put a fine up to five hundred dollars you enforce it would stop it chatham did that i think they put their fine up to somebody said a thousand and i don't know if that's true or not but i do know that they Increased their fines, and they started actually finding people, and all of a sudden those dogs weren't there anymore. Yeah, you know, people got into the fact that you know, you know, Bill calls me the dog police, and you know, I see I see dogs over there, and I tell people, you know, you're not supposed to do that, and he says, oh, there she goes again, and you know, but right, this is a problem unfortunately that has been around for a very long time. This is nothing new. You have the same problem on the marginal way. You have different times of the year they're allowed. Then the beach, different fines on the beach. At a minimum, we should standardize that. We should talk to the code enforcement officer or the select board or whoever the appropriate body is to say, if you're not going to have dogs at certain times of the year, they should be at these times and this should be the fine, you know, and a discussion. But I've been, I've been singing that song for at least five or six years. [57:39] Chair/presiding officer: Yeah, I, for me it's, you know, I agree with Marginal Way, that's a whole different other thing, but for me, dogs pooping in the estuary, that's where my head is right now, like that. [57:49] Suzanne: That's a direct and, you know, some people you'll see have a little bag, some people you won't see a little bag and, you know, unless you're going to have, we don't have CSOs on off season, you know, even though in season you get people, but you don't have CSOs down there. I'm [58:10] Speaker B (unidentified): happy to look at what measures could be put in. I'm happy to look at what other communities are doing and what measures they have in place and what their success rate has been, report back. If you would like, I would look at what has been successful in some communities and see if that would actually, this committee could discuss whether that would work in a Gunwit. That would be great. I just want to, I see, this is not, this is, as Pam said, this is not anything new, and it's not just for a Gunwit. It's all over. Does our police department have a drone? The fire department has a drone. I'd just love to see some surveillance once in a while. The fire department has a drone. Yeah. [58:50] Speaker D (unidentified): Well, you want to be careful about the drones on the beach because of the plovers. You don't want to scare them. [58:56] Suzanne: Yeah, and they also from the, footbridge bathrooms to this, there's a dirt road that goes to the sewer treatment plant and there's supposed to be no dogs there and there are dogs there all the time. They just think that's a path through. No, I mean, we had people planting cherry trees there or some kind of tree there, you know, some, I have no idea, I've never even heard of the organization before, Community Gardens of a Gunkwood planting trees there. I mean, it's town property is planted in the sand dunes back there so they had to come out and dig them all up. That was this year. [59:43] Chair/presiding officer: Well, it feels like a intractable problem that I think if we just need to, we need to keep on it. [59:50] Suzanne: Because that's, I think, the stuff that Suzanne does, and when she's down on the beach when it opens, the beach, and the attention that she brings to it, you know, is excellent. Yeah, and I think maybe we go up, maybe we go up to the bridge, maybe you go up to the bridge and do it there too. [1:00:13] Speaker B (unidentified): Oh yeah, we had the bath on that, so Pam's talking about canines for clean water. Yeah, we are out there on September 9, we'll be on the Marginal Way October 1, and we ask people to sign a pledge. The pledge is that we human and dog pledge to keep our water clean by staying on leash and out of a gunk with streams, wetlands, estuary, and other sensitive areas, and the second is scooping, bagging, and disposing of dog waste in a trash can. [1:00:43] Suzanne: Everywhere, and don't hide it behind a bush, don't hide a little green bag behind a bush. [1:00:50] Speaker B (unidentified): Love that, but yeah, so we're out there, we're out there several times a year, we're hoping to get also this information is well, historically it's been in the in the done away, but we, you know, we'll post it, we posted at the dog park, we posted other places, so we try to get out, meet people where they are. I'm not sure about meeting people on the estuary side, that might send the wrong. [1:01:13] Suzanne: Message, like it's okay, but if you do it like where the bathroom is on the estuary side, you know, it's going over, you know, you can talk about, you know, I mean, still dogs going out on the beach and need to be. Yeah, I don't like voice command, I really don't, eventually somebody's going to be bit on voice command. My feeling is, you know, you mean dogs, they really are, you see some dog run up to somebody and somebody who's scared, especially a little child, could get bit, so, you know, well, but that's another. Confusing area where people get on to the estuary from that area, right? [1:01:53] Chair/presiding officer: There, Pam, are there two different spots, two different places, one is dogs should be on a leash, which I see on the town website, and the other one somewhere else, an ordinance that it's also call command, so that's confusing for people. I mean, I remember looking on the website, on the town website, and it said all on leash, and then but when you look at the ordinance it says voice control. I'll look into that. I'm with you, that would be great, Kim, and I just, you know, I, we could do something, I feel like. Just information about the bacteria levels in dog feces and how we don't want it, and that's, that's what Intercock is, the town of Agonkwit's life by. [1:02:39] Suzanne: Having them on the same date so that the police and CSO's and everybody else know we're on the same page. You know, if it's the ninth on the beach, it should be the ninth of the Marginal Way. If you're going to change the date on the beach to the 15th, it should be the 15th on the Marginal [1:02:54] Speaker D (unidentified): Way, but the same date. Yeah, I feel like I remember at the meeting that I went to go interview at, I think they meant Chris would probably know more than I do, but I think she mentioned he brought it [1:03:07] Suzanne: up. Yeah, about not having dogs in the Marginal Way. I think that's his. Yeah, he brought up that he did not want dogs on the Marginal Way at all. I don't know if that'll fly or not. There are too many people who abut the Marginal Way that live on that take their dogs out there too, so you know, I don't know. [1:03:25] Speaker D (unidentified): Well, to at least standardize the date, I think they talked about as well. [1:03:30] Suzanne: Yeah, standardizing the date. Talking about that, Avery, unfortunately, I hate to say this, when I was back on the conservation committee, like, I don't know how many years ago. So it's been a long time. This is nothing new. [1:03:44] Chair/presiding officer: Yeah, but it keeps being brought up and then dropped and brought up. Because they were talking about it when I first came to Ogunquit and was on some committee. And I remember people were talking about it then back in 21 or something. I thought it was a citizen [1:03:58] Suzanne: it would be nice to have it on the website but I don't know how many people go on the website and if it popped up it's the hero stuff that Suzanne has done it just pops up that would be great but not that many people just go on to the Agonquit website to find that out that's right Eileen might know how many people how many hits you get [1:04:25] Chair/presiding officer: Do we know? I don't know. No, I don't know what the reason, and again, we're getting, you know, short on time here, but I don't know what the reason was that there was two different dates. I'm not, somebody explained to me one time and I don't really know why, but anyway, I think we should keep looking at that and figuring out if there's something. What I heard is that nobody [1:04:47] Suzanne: wanted to change the signs because they cost money now if you believe that you can believe that there's a polar bear in my backyard too so i don't know i really don't know [1:05:00] Chair/presiding officer: Brown bear maybe. Well, the black bear anyway. We're about to wrap up here. Anything else about [1:05:08] Speaker B (unidentified): Let me just update folks that the public outreach flyers are now in all the restrooms [1:05:13] Chair/presiding officer: Yes, I noticed those. They're in all the restrooms and the tabletops are at my house. I did share it with Louisa Gillespie, who said she took one and said that she would talk to Sarah, who's the one that, so I need to, that was right before I left for my trip, so I'm going to have to follow up with her. But I think that's, that's something that we need to, now that the public outreach thing is completed, we need to work on the hotel outreach this fall. And I know you have them. I have things I can, I can go. And as long as I have a contact person, yeah, I can go. And we have contact people and I have contact people. [1:05:52] Speaker B (unidentified): certainly with the hotels especially the norseman okay who would it would be good to put it in there as well and scott we decided to do something or we this was a decision we made a while ago so i'm deciding anything now but right we would talk to scott bobo about the trident and something a little bit away and we talked about the gary botula at his hotel and i think he probably knew [1:06:18] Suzanne: It at all his ends too, yeah man, we should, you know, that'd be great in his, we have a bunch, okay. [1:06:25] Chair/presiding officer: So as long as I will, I will definitely follow up with my, you know, now that I'm back in town and can kind of meet with people, that would be awesome. [1:06:35] Speaker B (unidentified): Yes, go ahead. Scoropterian stenciling is underway. Yes. We have a couple to show off very soon. The weather has not been cooperating, but we were able to redo at least one that we had done in 2021. So, you know, we can show that off. I'll share that. Can you send me some pictures because we can also put that on Facebook book, yeah, and let people know and give them a contact for signing up if they want to participate too. That could be a way to get people to participate, so if you could send me photos and who they should contact, that would be helpful. And would you have permission to do the parking lot? Yes, so the storm drains in there and we're doing, we're doing some this afternoon, right, you and me, weather permitting, it's a little windy, okay, we. Don't want to spread the world, we just want to spread it, yeah, I just have to say a shout out to their volunteers that showed up. [1:07:34] Chair/presiding officer: And then we're, it was rained out, but you know, volunteers that you had on Healthy Rivers of Gunquit, if people came, would show up ready to go, and then it would start. Really happy, you know, people were really wonderful and very patient, and so I just want a little shout out to Healthy Rivers like Aqua. So anyway, I think that's all. Is there anything else we need to take the oath of office? That's really important, which we can do that now. Otherwise, is there [1:08:04] Suzanne: anything else? And no, I have to be, I have to go to Chris to take the oath of office, correct? [1:08:14] Chair/presiding officer: Yes, okay, we can, we'll get kind of planned that all of us for the October meeting that it'll be, I mean, I literally should have done it when I got back, but we'll do it. So thank you everyone. I think we're, we're about ready to wrap up, correct? We good? Thank you everybody, thank you.