Brunswick Conservation Commission reviews watershed work, McCoy Bay report

[0:03] Speaker A (unidentified): Hi, Rosemary. All [0:08] Chair: set? Good afternoon. It's October 7th, and this is the monthly meeting of the Conservation Commission, and it's called to order. First up, it's being called to order is the September meeting minutes. Kurt and I have reviewed those and found a couple of typos. And then I found one question that I wanted to check on. And is your mic on? [0:41] Speaker A (unidentified): You have to do over. [0:46] Chair: Apologies for those who were, oh, my God, it's loud. For those who were listening. We're looking at the minutes from last September's meeting. And Kurt and I have been over those and caught a couple of typos that we will correct and I had one question and That is in the meeting minutes Talks about our discussion of the Falmouth ordinance research and it says Abby Sewell reviewed the ordinance language that she and Adrienne Leahy had gathered, and I'm guessing that's Jan Mokros who was doing that. Adrian may have asked a question. [1:34] Speaker A (unidentified): Someone may have been sitting in front of the wrong nameplate. I'm not sure. We pay an external consultant to do minutes as needed, so it's okay if there are a couple mistakes. [1:47] Chair: Oh, yeah, no. Yeah, no, I just want to correct that. So I'm going to correct that. That will be Jan who's been working with Abby on that. Anybody else take a spin through there for entertainment and find anything that Kurt and I didn't catch? Abby's name was slightly misspelled. I mean, not Abby's name. I'll fix it. Sorry. Jan's. Yeah. And so we will correct those things. And there's nothing else you found, right, Kurt? Okay. All right. All right. So we'll correct those. So, given those corrections, we're looking for a motion to accept the minutes. So moved. Okay, and a second. John, thank you. All in favor? All opposed? All right. Minutes are approved with the corrections to be made. from that I just we don't have an update on the tree ordinance unless Ashley has something more to say but we simply keep this on here because we are tracking it and it's taken a long time to get on to the council docket in no small measure because the council has been entertaining an awful lot of work and the completion of the various studies in town have given them a lot of things to consider but I want to keep it and we want to keep it on here because we want this to arrive at town council. Do you have anything more you want to say? [3:25] Speaker A (unidentified): Yeah, so it's more than just going directly to council. I do check in with Jay Astle and Dennis Wilson, a week in advance of our meeting, just to make sure as we're putting the agenda together. And what I was told is that it's currently being, it still needs to be reviewed by the town manager's office. They've had a lot on their plate, understandably. And then it will go to, as all ordinances do, any changes to an ordinance goes through staff review committee as well and planning board and then to council. So if for some reason It was explained differently in the past. That's how it was explained to me now. So it's not just going to the town manager's office. But as soon as we do have whatever version of the draft they deem worthy, I don't know at what point it will come to us. I know that before it goes to council, that is when we will be writing a letter of support, I'd imagine, or hopefully. [4:22] Chair: Well, and because we have a couple of people who contributed to it here in the – [4:29] Speaker C (unidentified): And I do keep in touch with Dennis about it, and it's been stalled with language with the lawyers and things. It's minutiae, but it's enough to keep it from moving forward. But there's a tiny bit of momentum still propelling it. Okay. [4:46] Chair: Well, we'll try to continue to be small propellers then at the back of this seeming barge. One of the things, Ashley, and when you see this coming, if it's going to a planning board, for instance, I think that we would like to have at least one representative helping with that presentation so that we have at least one person from here there. [5:14] Speaker A (unidentified): Maybe I can coordinate with either you or Adrian, whoever you feel would be more appropriate or interested. Yeah. That's a good suggestion. Absolutely. Good. The microphones are so loud. I know they are. [5:25] Chair: Yeah. That makes me feel not powerful. We'll just switch that. So on to public lands, conservation easement inspections. We don't have any updates. We talked about that last week, and we're waiting for the cold weather. Field work initiatives, we've also talked some about that. And when we had our discussion of various bits of field work last time, we also said that we're going to wait for a hard freeze because we don't want to be out in the tick lands. Given the proliferation of ticks and the diseases that they're carrying. So we will be looking perhaps at December, assuming that we get a hard freeze before that, or by that time sometime in December, trying to complete the sawtooth parcel work where we're removing white pines from the pitch pine areas and from the sandplain area. And Kurt do you have anything more you want to say about that no okay I could [6:29] Speaker A (unidentified): add one really quick note so similarly with the conservation easements as you mentioned we want to refrain from going when the ticks and whatnot are still active I have found and I will reach out to those of you who have indicated interest in joining the conservation easement walks I'll start I will most likely have an update on the inspection walks for November because I will start scheduling a couple between then in December and then I start rescheduling them you know in February because they are really nice in the snow as well and similarly for sawtooth we should be good by December I don't really find any ticks in December when I do inspection walks okay we will [7:17] Chair: we will hold you to that I'll double check also there we have a request from town council and Ashley's going to outline it you have a handout that shows you four parcels of land and you can [7:34] Speaker A (unidentified): explain what's up yeah and I have them pulled up I wasn't going to spend too much time on these it's more so just kind of like a brief introduction I think we'll have more to discuss us come November's meeting. But in short, these are four properties that are, I forget the context of how it was described essentially, but they are under town control right now. And what I was requested in an email was for both myself and the Conservation Commission to evaluate these four parcels kind of in similar capacity that we do for proposed conservation easements or open space, but not in the same degree or level of scrutiny. It's not going to require as much detail, but essentially take your expertise and that of my office to kind of review in part the conservation value of these four properties. I'm not sure if folks watch this council meeting, but on the 21st, they considered disposition of four tax-acquired parcels, and then there was a public comment period concerning their environmental value. So the council has decided to table the item until such date when the manager's office has time to investigate the legal options with these properties and, if appropriate, send relevant staff and committee to provide their input. And essentially, once we kind of discuss our thoughts on the property after, I'm going to do a little bit of digging online to see what I can find from U.S. Fish and Wildlife maps, beginning with habitat maps, maybe do a super quick unofficial visit to the parcels if a couple folks are interested. But just essentially take a quick look, give our input, are they significant enough in environmental value for the town to consider paying the original owner, you know, what if so, would be the appraisal cost, is there, you know, appropriateness to put a conservation easement on it, etc. So just kind of looking for any aspect of, you know, our collective insight that we can provide. It's, again, not something that would require the level of depth and review that we would do for an open space proposal or easement, but we were requested to review them. [10:10] Chair: One quick question. Yeah. You have a question? Comment. Okay. The quick question I have is when next we look at this after we've had a look around, when somebody has taken a quick look, if we could see a larger map that has any conserved lands in the neighborhood or in the area, that'll be good. [10:33] Speaker A (unidentified): Yeah, so that's, again, I was just, this was a very recent request that came to my inbox, so I barely had time to get it on the agenda in time for this evening. So it's more so just like a super fun intro to what we are going to kind of assess over the next month. The request was to get this information to them before, I mean, obviously well before would be best, but no later than December 26th. I think that between now and our November meeting, taking a very quick look, again, you know, we don't need to assess the entire parcel, a combination of what Sandy suggested looking at maps. I might inquire with IFNW to maybe garner a letter of anything they might have on record for those properties, bring that information, share that with you via email, and perhaps have one or two of you go for a field trip of our own to take a look at the properties. But it's, it's again nothing that is in depth as to what we are otherwise requested for, you know, conservation easement proposals. But yes, I will get those maps. I will collect whatever information I can, and then if anyone feels brave enough to want to join me on a little site walk, super quick, maybe take some photos, share that all with you, and then by our next meeting, kind of collectively discuss our thoughts, and then I will get that to the manager's [12:00] Speaker C (unidentified): office. Okay, now my memory's not awesome, but this Greenwood Road property sticks out because I'm fairly certain that's one of the ones in town on open space report we did several years back, and I'm pretty sure that was one that we recommended we, the town, get rid of and perhaps give to an adjacent property owner. [12:26] Speaker A (unidentified): But if you want... You can find evidence of that. Please share it. [12:28] Speaker C (unidentified): Yeah, no, I'll go back and look because we did a worksheet on each property. And, you know, we can, if I can find all that... [12:37] Speaker A (unidentified): If you can save me from myself and the rabbit hole, I will go down. [12:40] Speaker C (unidentified): Yeah,, yeah. That would be good. I'll do that. And then, of course, we can take another look to see if what we noted 10 years ago is still true today. [12:46] Chair: Mark, you had a question? [12:48] Speaker D (unidentified): I do. I do. I just want to make sure I had it clear. So these are properties that the town has acquired because there was a tax issue? Yeah,. So they're now in the possession of the town. [12:57] Speaker A (unidentified): Yeah, sorry if I misspoke. I don't know the appropriate language. I forget how it was described, but I don't remember off the top of my head. Essentially, they're trying to figure out the value of the properties in addition to what they would just appraise it for at base value. Like, is there additional value beyond just the cost of, you know, what a regular appraisal would show? And if so, like, are they truly, say, for example, incredibly environmentally valuable? There might be reason or justification in that situation to possibly pursue acquiring one, all, or none. [13:40] Speaker D (unidentified): Again, depending on... So acquiring tells me they don't, because these aren't in the possession of the town, right? [13:45] Speaker A (unidentified): Yeah, no, they're not. We don't own them. [13:47] Speaker D (unidentified): I misspoke. I just wanted to make sure I understood where we were coming from. [13:50] Speaker A (unidentified): Yeah, apologies. We don't own them. [13:54] Chair: Any other questions on this? Okay, good, thanks. And so on to really the bulk of the meeting, which has to do with watersheds and runoff, and some of it feeds into our working toward ordinances. But there are two town projects that are just pretty well. One is the McCoy Bay Water Quality Study. Ashley's going to talk about this a bit. And the Coffin Ice Pond Dam is there just as a reminder that the upcoming project we hope next spring to refurbish that dam and also put in the fishway beneath it comes up from Harpswell Road is still on track. I also have noted when I go across that bridge that the Trout Unlimited monitor for fish possibly migrating or possibly not being able to migrate up the dam is still in place. So that's all. What about McCoy Bay? [15:02] Speaker A (unidentified): Yeah, so I actually just yesterday received the updated draft of what will be the final report that we bring to council. So I've not yet actually had a chance to reach out to the committee, but I have discussed a date with FB Environmental, and we are going to bring this to council. Our plan is for November 2nd, so there will be a presentation to Council of participating. It will be myself, FBE, being a SCORTUS, and a member of the task force to be determined, whoever is available and interested. But essentially kind of give a real quick spiel of what was found, what the recommendations are. We also had them create essentially a one to two page executive summary of what the report shows, which I just want to make sure I send that to the members of the task force just to make sure that they don't have any additional information they want added to it. But I will post that on their page along with the final report, which is the draft that we will be bringing to council. So that will be publicly available as soon as I can get it uploaded, maybe by tomorrow, end of day. And the goal at some point, so I didn't want to put it on the agenda today because you obviously hadn't had a chance to review it yet. But I wanted to discuss the prospect of, once I do post it, if this committee has time to review it, if there is any interest in writing a letter of support based on the report. I don't necessarily foresee it being a big concern at council, but writing letters of support for causes that are akin to the values of this commission is something that I wanted to posit your way and see what everyone thought. [17:11] Speaker E (unidentified): Oops, Ashley. I think letters of support is a really good, important step, and so we keep us all informed. Do you want one letter from the commission, or do you want individual letters? [17:26] Speaker A (unidentified): So usually what we do when we get together, it's more I feel impactful when it comes from the whole commission. So the reason that I brought up kind of getting a temp check from everyone there is because November 2nd will fall just a couple days prior to our meeting, which is always, unfortunately, the issue we run into. So I wanted to maybe discuss the prospect of just having a quick Zoom meeting because, again, unfortunately, if we write anything letter of support-wise, it has to be done in a publicly noticed meeting, which means that I have to provide a room for members of the public to attend if they so choose. You would all be more than welcome to attend via Zoom if interested, so it doesn't inconvenience you. You don't have to be here physically. I just have to facilitate space for a room. We'd want to write a letter of support and have it ready and send it to the packet. [18:17] Chair: So it would be a question of a quorum of this group gathering and saying, yes, we want to have a letter of support as this group. And then one of us or two of us or a volunteer could craft the letter and then we could circulate it, but we wouldn't have to write the letter in the meeting, yes. [18:35] Speaker A (unidentified): No, yeah, I mean, I think we did so similar in the past where we kind of discussed the collective opinion of a letter and what the contents we would want to see or you would all want to see, rather, and then we, you know, agreed on it in person here and you drafted the letter after the fact. [18:53] Speaker E (unidentified): So the results of the FB Environmental of McCoy Bay is going to be given on November 2nd? Yes. Yep. And then you're saying that we should write the letter after that? No. [19:10] Speaker A (unidentified): So that would be the reason that we would do a special agenda meeting via Zoom would be because the letter of support would need to be shared prior to or by the meeting. [19:24] Speaker E (unidentified): You'll keep us on top of that? Yes. Okay. [19:28] Chair: Anybody else? Other thoughts, questions? [19:32] Speaker A (unidentified): Okay. So I'll reach out via email and we can discuss a possible date. But I can share the report with you all so that you can take a look at it prior. [19:44] Chair: That's available now, right? [19:45] Speaker A (unidentified): I will make it available by the end of this week, yeah. I'll post it online. But I will share it with you directly. Okay. [19:53] Chair: Anybody else? No? Good. Okay, on to the sort of centerpiece of the pesticides or the runoff and watersheds. Abby and Jan, is away this week, but Abby is here. And Abby and Jan have been working a lot on this over a long period of time and bringing us forward with it. But in particular, they've met recently with Friends of Casco Bay in talking about ordinances that are from various towns that actually ring the bay that we are a part of. And Abby has discovered an example of a supplier of pesticides and fertilizers who she has found worthy of notice on this. And then there also is ordinance research that's been going on with various towns that are in our general area, most of which are on Casco Bay. So as we continue to move forward and we're working toward recommendations to council for ordinance updates, These are critical understandings that we're going through, and so, Abby, you're prepared, if I understand, to talk some about the work that you and Jan have been doing particularly, and then Ashley and I will talk a little bit about a survey as well, and so we can go on. So why don't I turn to you first, Abby? [21:30] Speaker E (unidentified): Okay. Great. Thank you. I hope that there's not going to be redundancy, but there might be because on the agenda, you're talking about the algal bloom and the PFAS spill, and I have a little bit on that as well. That's okay. Basically, the Brunswick Watershed Group has been sort of working in this parallel track of taking the long view of what we're trying to accomplish. And one of the things that has happened in this process is I was fortunate enough to have a meeting with Ivy Frignoca of Friends of Casco Bay and she sort of speaks for Casco Bay and she serves on the Blue Carbon Network Seagrass Consortium, CMWG of Maine Climate Council, and she's the director of Facebook, I mean, of Friends of Casco Bay. So therefore, she's pretty qualified. And I wrote down just a few of the facts, the salient facts that I thought were basic things that we should all know. And please forgive me if you are all over this and you do know this. But Friends of Casco Bay has been around for since 1989 and they have 25 years of data on Casco Bay and Ivy reminded us that the Casco Bay watershed is not a closed system because it goes all the way up to Bethel and all the way over to Sebago Lake and she commented that, you know, you can't have a healthy ocean without healthy bays, and you can't have healthy bays without a healthy watershed. And when you think about, if you stop and think about the watershed, what that means is we also are connected to all the neighboring towns that are on that watershed. So not only are we connected by water, we're connected by land and by the activity that's happening all around us. So one of the things that she emphasized was the fact that everyone has to take part to protect a watershed. And she said, in terms of some of the facts, the temperature in the Gulf of Maine is increasing one degree per decade. Cundi's Harbor is the closest monitoring to us every 15 minutes. And when it's cold, the temperatures quickly resume warming. And she said calcium carbonate is less available in the sea for forming shells. And by 2050, there won't be enough calcium carbonate for shells to form. And that, you know, if you piggyback that on the key pollutants, obviously we're, we're going through right now the 80 percent shellfish die off on the Coit Bay, and as of yet the exact causes are not known, but and it could be a variety of causes, so I'm not going to say that this or that caused it, but obviously a healthy watershed would improve the ocean resiliency along the coastline, and low oxygen can continue to be a problem in an algae bloom even as the visible bloom begins to diminish because the decomposition of the enormous amounts of algal material itself consumes oxygen, meaning that there's declining cell count. The declining cell count does not necessarily mean the ecological crisis is immediately over. So that is one huge concern and possibly pollutant. And then, of course, we're at our two-year anniversary of the PFAS bill that was on August 19, 2024. So we have all these inputs that are affecting our coastline. And Ivy, Friends of Casco Bay, met recently with Jan and I and with the Yarmouth team, who is Debbie Landry, who's a biologist, and her team. And Debbie has been instrumental in opening up the dam in Yarmouth for the fishways. Excuse me. Excuse me. So, and as a result, the town of Yarmouth is in the process of working on a pesticides ordinance. And they plan to submit it before, well, in December, by December of this year. So we're meeting with Debbie and comparing our draft of an ordinance with theirs and going line by line to discuss and consider various elements compared to the other pesticides ordinances that do exist already in Maine. We have a graph that shows all the components and the variables, and so we're going to meet and discuss that. And in the meantime, for instance, here's one example, setback. You know, some ordinances have 75-foot setbacks, and other ordinances have greater setbacks. So where would it be best for Brunswick, or where would it be best for Yarmouth? We're going to suss that out as best we can before we present it further. And then also, it turns out that Ivy and her team at Friends of Casco Bay had been working on a decision tree, which is basically a foundation tool that any municipality in Maine could use as a base or foundation to do their own ordinance and have it be efficient. And you know because little towns all over Maine you know they're in the dark they may not know how to do it big towns don't either and so having something that has the Friends of Casco Bay on it that is a template of the beginning questions that one town or another could ask would be a [29:03] Chair: really great thing so we're can I interrupt and just ask did Ivy say that they're working on this and they hope to finish it in the near future or [29:13] Speaker E (unidentified): what would okay the next step is that they have the decision tree as a bullet list and we're they're putting together a panel for the Yarmouth people because they're right in the thick of it as we are and us and we are going to meet and work on that to try and get that done let's see so the other thing that Jan and I have done is look at mandates and the word mandate and that goes back to the climate action plan language and the comp plan language. And out of those two, there are at least ten references, three in the cap and seven references in the comp plan, that read as mandates giving us or asking us to regulate the fact that the majority of Brunswick residents from Ashley's past surveys want to live in a clean environment. So we are using those mandates as a springboard for going forward and guiding us on what kind of content is important in the ordinance draft. And Yarmouth has a cap plan as well. And they are, and to do their cap plan, of course they had to do surveys, and they are using those past surveys as their, as their method of gauging public support. So they are not, their town is not having them do a survey. They're working off the material from their cap plan from that. So can I, can I pause you for a minute [31:30] Chair: and see if anybody has questions or comments at this point, because that's a lot of information. Yeah, you were on a roll. [31:39] Speaker E (unidentified): Well, I've been looking forward to this meeting. [31:43] Chair: Does anybody have either questions or things that they want clarification on? This is all meant to feed into our effort as a town, and as Abby said, there are various mandates from prior reports in the town that are asking for direction here, and ideally the direction is going to come from the ordinance requirements that we would like to put forward. So we want to make sure we understand what we're working on. Okay? We're good? All right. [32:17] Speaker E (unidentified): So, and for instance, I'll just cite one item. Page 52 of the comp plan mandates that the health and sustainability of Brunswick's environmental resources registered high on the priority list of residents' critical concerns. So it doesn't get more clear than that. And so then we compared the other towns in terms of what their status is, because again, if we can all kind of be aware of each other and work together and piggyback on work that's already been done, that would be great. So just as an update to you, I've mentioned the, what is it, eight, I've even forgotten, pesticides ordinances that have existed for a while. So Freeport does not have a pesticides ordinance, but they have formally identified pesticides and fertilizer regulation as a town goal. So, and they, quote, want to expand fertilizer and pesticides ordinances to reduce runoff pollution. So they're in motion. Cumberland, actively evaluating the regulation of pesticides and fertilizers as part of its ongoing comprehensive plan update. Yarmouth, which I've mentioned, has a committee called the Healthy Soils and Water Committee. and they are, they have concluded that they're going to ask for 170 foot setbacks, for instance, and quote, pesticides are everywhere in stormwater and are affecting aquatic systems. If we agree that our aquatic, for either economic or whatever reasons, is worth protection, then this is the next step. So they are, speaking of on a roll, they are on a roll of trying to get their ordinance in for town council to vote on by December. And let's see, what other towns? Harpswell is in the process of making their ordinance stricter. And so out of the out of the towns that have ordinances, four towns have pesticides ordinances. One is being submitted by December, and one is making their ordinance more restrictive. And so you know, we are interested in continuing this work as quickly as we can so that we are supporting the other towns and working together to make our coastline safe. So that's that part. And then in conclusion, we feel that there's clear ecological evidence to act and the Brunswick Watershed Group We'll continue ordinance design and review with Yarmouth and Friends of Casco Bay. And we are interested in, when the time is right, involving town committees and Brunswick citizens. As far as Sandy had mentioned the part about the business stakeholders, how do we, for instance, how do we handle the sale of harmful lawn care products versus safe ones? And I don't know one, two, three years ago I mentioned that I had spoken with Eldridge Lumber and I circled back with them and it turns out that it's now been almost 15 years in which they pulled the not approved harmful products from their shelves and replaced them with Osborne Organics PJC Organics in Massachusetts, the OMRI-labeled reliable organic products. They have a whole list of what they will put on their shelves. And I said, so, it's been 10, 15 years now. How's your bottom line been affected? And it's been great. Their bottom line actually went up when they removed those harmful products. And now they have built a loyal base of customers, and as they sell the good products, they are educating. So they have worked together with South Portland and Portland. They have four locations of Eldridge Lumber all together, and in all of the stores they are doing that, and their bottom line is just fine. Can I ask a question? [37:40] Chair: So, as you're gathering this material, if at any point, for instance, Eldridge Lumber, they've given you verbal understanding of what's going on, but if they have any kind of summary of, okay, we've done this for 10 years, we've done this for 15 years, if there's a summary, particularly a summary that's a page or something like that. [38:03] Speaker A (unidentified): That we can also share with businesses. [38:04] Chair: That we can then begin to share with people. [38:06] Speaker E (unidentified): Yeah, I didn't know whether on these addendums to the one-page executive summary whether I should include all the detail. But I do have that. I do have as close as I could get on the phone with Eldridge Lumber. Okay. And they sent me the list of qualified products. So we could just duplicate that or we could. [38:27] Speaker A (unidentified): Right. Yeah, when it's time. When it's time. [38:29] Chair: Yeah, when it's time. Because the more we can compress this. Because, I mean, as you're well aware, you've gone through in the last 20 minutes a cartload of information. And when we are working with people outside this committee or even working within the committee, we need to be able to make it very concise and bring evidence. Evidence and the Eldridge Lumber one is convincing. If they've done this for 15 years and that's not harmed their business and they've been doing a good job. [39:05] Speaker E (unidentified): Not only not harmed, they believe it's improved. Right. [39:08] Speaker A (unidentified): If you also come across not only businesses selling products, but if actually Eldridge Lumber might have recommendations because I'm sure that they sell to a lot of lawn care, you know, companies doing landscaping. So if you can also perhaps obtain some recommendations of companies, lawn care, landscaping, that lean more towards utilizing those products and getting, you know, their statements as well. Because it's not only the retailers we need to address and work with the businesses locally as well. So that would be great if you don't already have that. [39:46] Speaker E (unidentified): Yeah, I can send, I'll send all this to you. Perfect. So, let's see. So, yes, so we just continue our work, and again, we're trying to make sure that we have compelling reasons to do this work, as I've mentioned what they are, and also trying to draft an ordinance that a lawyer could then put to good use. [40:23] Chair: So first of all, thank you. And you can send that on to Jan too when you see her when she gets back because you all have done an awful lot of work and you've met with a lot of people. And in doing so you're bringing us into contact with the towns around us and we'll be a better bay or a better large watershed for it. I don't know if anybody has any questions or anything that you would like to follow up on at this point. I'm going to share we share that you know the list of pesticides with the group rather than [41:07] Speaker E (unidentified): just with Ashley. Yep, I'd like to see that. Yep, and not voting on anything via [41:15] Speaker A (unidentified): mail. You can share whatever you'd like as long as we're not voting or discussing anything via email that is committee business, sharing information. [41:23] Speaker E (unidentified): Is permissible. One of the next steps for us is to build momentum with any supporters that we can find through different town committees. We would love to collaborate with more town committees and individuals in the town. So if any of you have, you know, people that you think have the time and the energy to write a letter or be, you know, participate in the work, that would be great. Yeah, good, thank you. [42:02] Chair: We're going to stay on the same theme anyway, and Ashley and I spent some time, and obviously Jan and Abby have spent time too, Ashley and I spent some time looking at the community survey development, and you just want to bring us up to date a [42:21] Speaker A (unidentified): little bit on. Yeah, so I want to be clear, the survey itself, I want to say again, I appreciate how much work you put into and are continuing to do drafting the ordinance, because I think I maybe explained this briefly before, the survey itself is not necessarily going to change the path of the ordinance that we create. It will provide some context and as well as general support, which as you pointed out, is also evident in the comp plan, in the climate action plan. So a lot of that will be really helpful as supporting evidence to justify what we are pursuing, which is more so the crux of the purpose of this survey. So the fact that we've not yet distributed it doesn't mean that the work that you're doing on the ordinance drafting itself is useless. It's still, it's essentially, if anything, going to coincide with perfectly, you know, once there are town staff edits made to the ordinance, it'll essentially be more so support just to show like, okay, here's more specific support towards this particular ordinance. But a lot of the questions, maybe Sandy can speak to this, the, a lot of the questions that we are wanting to craft are essentially trying to identify not whether or not people solely support it versus don't support it, but trying to understand the kind of problems that they're dealing with, what kind of education or questions they might see, what kind of business perspective questions or concerns the businesses might have. So not necessarily to hinder or change what kind of ordinance we create, but to make it easier or offer assistance where possible to help folks with the problems they're experiencing or to bring in certain types of education, that's more so the purpose of the survey. So I just wanted to clarify. And something that I wanted to maybe discuss with Abby somewhat, and the rest of the committee as well, but somewhat related to the McCoy Bay water quality study, I have spoken with my director, and I would imagine the town manager's office will be supportive of this as well, but I imagine that there will be quite a lot of focus and support for folks interested in seeing the results of the November 2nd council meeting when we bring up the water quality study. So I've gotten approval from my director. We're thinking that it would be a really good idea to use November 2nd as a kind of launch pad for kind of more publicly notifying the community of all of this work. We'll have all the outreach posters for this survey done. Done. And I would like to discuss, you know, maybe talking points with you, because what I would like to do is publicly notice everyone in the manager's report, which is about a half hour or so before they get into the meat of the agenda. But to have perhaps you and Jan there with me, essentially, officially publicly promoting the survey and the efforts that we're going to engage in. You all can provide some talking points based on the research that you've done and kind of really use that as a jumping point to get the public more involved with these efforts and that's kind of the guidance and direction that I've received but it'll all coincide perfectly with the water quality study being promoted essentially a very water quality watershed supportive leaning meeting and with the amount of focus this study has garnered I imagine that it'll be a [46:16] Speaker E (unidentified): Very well watched meeting. Yeah, I think so. The, so therefore, the water quality results will be given at that town council and I mean they'll be [46:34] Speaker A (unidentified): Available, but we will publicly present them at that meeting. Yeah, and then what [46:38] Speaker E (unidentified): What is the, when, in terms of timing, the survey, when is that going to, where are we on that? [46:48] Speaker A (unidentified): So I will, there are a few more edits that are being made, but I have both in the format online and I have, my director wants to take a first run through, and I think the town manager's office does as well. They just want to make sure that there aren't any reductions that need to happen. And then with our office, the manager, the town manager's office, their admin runs the social media, and they do all the crafting of promotional materials, and they're very adamant about maintaining that, so it all comes from an official place. So they, I'm going to have them draft that poster. They've just been a little busy as of lately, which is why it was kind of framed to me that the launch point of having November 2nd be given the high focus on the meeting would be the most ideal option. But again, you know, us waiting to publicly launch the survey, I'm essentially planning to try and launch it as soon as I have the promotional materials that I can start distributing. But that'll be essentially the main focus on that meeting, if that answers your question. But again, it doesn't hinder the work that you're doing right now. If anything, it'll coincide with having the information we need hopefully close to a point at which the drafts will be, you know, [48:17] Chair: farther along. Are there other questions, or I just want to make sure I understood that, so it's [48:22] Speaker A (unidentified): November 2nd, November 2nd is, yes, because we want to, you know, it's been a long time coming. We're, we're excited to officially adopt this and give the task force their much-needed retirement from being on the task force. [48:39] Chair: No, and I sat in on, I guess it was the last task force meeting that we're being with. It would have been September 2nd. Yeah, and this, I think, is an ideal platform to launch the concerns about watershed and about runoff as well. So being given this opportunity of that study being presented, but then pointing to the larger questions that are attendant to it, is terrific. That's great. Because council's very busy, and you don't get a lot of council time in front. [49:16] Speaker A (unidentified): Yeah, so it's good to get all of those. It's useful. Good. Good. [49:21] Chair: Just very briefly, because we're going to conclude at 6 tonight, the Brunswick watershed is down a little bit lower, coastal ecosystem stressors. Dan Devereaux, who is the coastal resources manager, has put out three newsletters about the algal bloom that happened actually from Massachusetts as it's all the way up into the Gulf of Maine, but particularly has affected McCoy Bay and has affected Middle Bay in varying ways. And I happened to bump into him on my way back in here. But the first thing I wanted to do, I've got all three of those newsletters. If anybody doesn't have them and you would like them, I will... What I'll do is I'll send it out to the commission mission, they're very detailed. As Dan said, when he was walking in tonight, he said, yeah, I've been in school for the last two months learning about this. So those are really useful if you want to think about what's been going on in the bay. The effect on the shellfish in the bay is still being tabulated and still being considered, but it's been significant. And this is a naturally occurring organism, but when it is blooming and it's together, as Abby said, that even the die-off of the algal bloom consumes the oxygen and it takes the oxygen out of the water and it begins to kill whatever's in there. What Dan told me also is that this particular pest is naturally occurring, and it has an unusual quality in that it can take nitrogen from inanimate objects like rocks and mud, which is very different from the algal blooms that have often plagued McCoy Bay, which have been runoff or nitrate running into the water related. So the nitrates run into the water, the algae pick it up, and then they grow. grow, this one seems to be able to bring stuff up off the bottom, which is much more daunting. But it also is not something that has been launched by runoff. It's something that is hard to parse right now. So anyway, I'll send that on to you, and there's a lot of information in there, and certainly Dan is happy to answer questions on that. But right now it's waning, but the assessment of the damage it's done is still being done, and so there's a lot still to be learned from it. And the PFAS spill, we all know enough about that so that I'm not going to rehash that. I do want to take just a minute to say that a number of us, Abby was there, Ashley was there, Kurt was there, Kevin was there, I was there, visited the salt shed to talk about salt use and roads today. And Kurt, do you want to talk a little bit about what we saw and heard? [52:40] Speaker C (unidentified): Yeah, we had the director of public works, Ryan Leighton, give us a tour. We saw the shed where the piles of salt, the piles of sand, the piles of sand and salt mixed together, so we're held and got some information on the quantity that the town plans for and uses each year. Of course, we wanted to find out a little bit more about how it's used and what the equipment looks like, and we were shown that, so that was interesting. My impression was there's a little tweaking that can be done with usage on the ratios. The state sets what the standards are, and maybe some training of drivers to understand how the equipment works. But basically there's not a lot of wiggle room for the amount of salt that gets put down on the roads in Brunswick. But it seemed like they were, you know, if there's anything that was, they're able to reduce the usage, they were certainly open to that. [53:51] Chair: Yeah, and it was, they, Ryan Layton, who took us around, was very generous with his time, showed us there are enough factors that are part of salting the roads and enough pressure that comes from a variety, you can imagine what it is, to aim for the midpoint of this distribution. But I did, I did come out of a feeling that they are paying attention and they're working at it. Kevin and I live in a neighborhood where we had a reduced salt use as an experiment last year. We contacted the Ryan and he agreed, so they put down less salt in our area. And I think we had a reasonably successful year, even though it was a very snowy winter. And so I think we're going to try to do that again, but I need to confirm that with him. So we'll have more to say about that, and certainly you should feel free to ask any of us who were there. But I think we also, by being there registered, are ongoing interest in this. Adrienne? [54:59] Speaker E (unidentified): Does he give you a sense at all of, you know, what they might be piloting or what other communities are doing to sort of advance this? [55:09] Chair: They work with regulation, not regulations, but they work with formulas that are distributed by Maine DOT, Department of Transportation. And they are in contact with other municipalities. Municipalities, probably the experimental part of what they're doing is they're working with a mix that they're mixing molasses, and I can't remember what was the other thing they were mixing in with the molasses. Magnesium chloride. Magnesium chloride to make the salt that they spread bind more so that it is effective right where it's dropped, but it doesn't spread and it doesn't spray off of the road. And I think a number of towns are working with that, and so I think that's the experimental part, along with the neighborhood where they worked last winter with a plow and then at the end of clearing they would put down a light coat of salt and that was all that they were doing. But this is also a neighborhood where there's not a through street and so they were willing to do that. I think that worked out pretty well, and so that was reduced use. [56:27] Speaker A (unidentified): If I could add on, I did also inquire as to if there are other interested kind of closed-loop communities like that you and Kevin live in similarly, that if there are other areas that are interested in also possibly serving as a pilot, it to feel free to contact me in my office and I can put you in contact with Sandy. But anyone interested around this time of year is the kind of the cutoff as they're planning their routes for plowing. But I think it would be an interesting thing to possibly get a couple other communities on board if there's a proposal to enact change. [57:16] Chair: Yeah, and if people get in touch with Ashley about that, because she'll, unless she expires right now, she'll be in her office all week. I'm ready. But I can then outline materials to people who are interested in this, because I can tell you what we did last year. [57:36] Speaker C (unidentified): And a quick reminder for a massive viewing audience that Jim Nealon, town videographer, went along with us. Yes, so he's going to try. Timothy Nealon. He's got some footage on that, and he's going to edit it, and it'll be broadcast on the local cable access channel. [57:55] Chair: And if you ever wondered what it looked like to see Ashley climb into a plow. [58:01] Speaker A (unidentified): It was as exciting as you can guess. This was exciting. I was told I couldn't climb the salt piles, though. I did ask. [58:09] Chair: We're getting close to wrap up, and I'm going to leave the free Leandro. There was a panel discussion on September 15th of the Free Leandro group and anybody who wanted to come, and it was useful. Free Leandro has also filed for a grant from the Davis Foundation to begin to fund some of its inquiries and also filed a series of questions in response to Brookfield Power's first take on what might happen with fish passage with the dam down there. And so both those things were filed on October 1st, and there'll be more stuff coming. And Vlad couldn't be here tonight, so I'm going to make that suffice. I should check and see. We have one attendee. I don't know if we have anybody who wants to make comment, and I'm going to move to public comment for a moment and then come back. [59:15] Speaker A (unidentified): Rosemary, if you're interested in publicly commenting, please use the raise the hand function, and we will promote you to speaker. Or if you're not interested, I apologize for calling you out by name. Yeah, that's right. Okay. Bowdoin's a Bowdoin employee, so. [59:31] Chair: Anything else up on the screen? No? Okay. All right. Nearing the end here, Jamie is at a finance committee meeting, and clearly because finance is popular in town, he's not going to get here. So, Marco, do you have anything you want to bring in? [59:54] Speaker A (unidentified): There's never any pressure. [59:55] Speaker D (unidentified): Well, I actually had quite a lot, but since it's 6.01... [59:59] Speaker A (unidentified): You can please take a minute or two. Go right ahead. [1:00:02] Speaker D (unidentified): Just in a nutshell, with the Rivers and Coastal Waters Commission, we've been talking a lot about the harmful algal bloom that's been happening, and so you've covered that pretty well. But the thing that I would have gone over more is, you know, some of the species in Carinia produce brevitocins and are harmful to humans in this particular species. Mickey Motowai was not, and so we were trying to let folks know that it's not the worst of the possibilities that we had. But in terms of all the biomass breaking down, you know, there can be secondary negative effects like sulfur hydroxide and stuff like that. And so, you know, be careful when going out and take all your health and safety tips from, you know, the state and not us. Yes. But things like that. I do hear that the oxygen levels are recovering with the declining population of the Carinia. So that's good. It seems from 30s to up into the 80s now in terms of saturation state. So things are not over yet, but they are greatly, improved. Some of the things we talked about at the Shellfish Marine Resource Committee meeting, Preliminary estimates show maybe 4 to 6 million in livestock loss in terms of the shellfish. So those numbers are still being looked at, but that was sort of the range that we discussed last night. So significant losses. And I think that might have only been from Makwot, McQuite Bay. So if you want to learn more about that, you can watch those meetings. Yeah. [1:01:51] Chair: Does anybody else have? [1:01:54] Speaker A (unidentified): Adrienne, I'd... Yeah, you had a fun idea. Maybe... We'll save the fun idea for next time, then. [1:01:58] Chair: Yeah, I think we'll save that because it's not until spring, but it's a great idea. So, just as a teaser to come to the next meeting. [1:02:08] Speaker A (unidentified): And no pressure, now we... [1:02:12] Chair: No other comments, then I take a motion to adjourn. Good, second? All right. All in favor? Good. Thank you very much, everybody.