Conservation Commission 05/20/2026

(Episode Description is AI generated and may be errors in accuracy)

A small mistake in a buffer zone can turn into a big problem fast, and the fix is rarely glamorous. We open with the core mechanics of a Conservation Commission meeting: setting the July through December schedule, voting minutes with proper abstentions, and keeping the public record clean. That structure matters because wetlands permitting lives and dies on documented decisions, clear conditions, and follow through that holds up months or years later. 

Then we get into the field reality. We share a site visit update tied to the Brickstone restaurant where debris was placed in the buffer zone, talk through what “clean it up” really means, and set a firm deadline with the possibility of an enforcement order. If you’ve ever wondered how local wetlands protection intersects with construction schedules, opening dates, and contractor handoffs, you’ll hear the practical steps we use to keep erosion and sediment under control. 

We also walk through a procedural improvement: a clearer instruction sheet for Orders of Conditions, recording requirements, and certificate of compliance closeouts. Missing recordings create avoidable legal fights and hours of file digging, so we explain why we may hold inspections until proof is on record. Finally, we take up a Wilbur Street request to move a wetland replication area to save a stand of mature trees without reducing the required square footage, and we draw the line between a minor modification and a major redesign when culverts enter the picture. 

Subscribe for more real world conservation commission talk, share this with someone navigating wetlands permitting, and leave a review with your take: when should a project get flexibility, and when should enforcement come first?

Transcript

Call To Order And Notice

SPEAKER_02 0:03

All right, good evening. I'd like to call the May 20th meeting of the Radium Conservation Commission to order. Please be advised all these meetings are recorded.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Riley, you want to read it soon? Short. All public hearings and meeting covered by the Branium Conservation Commission on Wednesday, May 20, 2026, at 5 30 p.m. in the Radium Veterans Memorial Town Hall. Don L. McKinnon meeting room 558 South Main Street Radian master related to the filings and joint hearings. And during meetings under Mass General Law Chapter 131 and 40 as amended in town of Town Iranium Lutland Protection bylaw.

SPEAKER_02 0:39

Okay, you're still waiting for one person? Yeah. Okay.

Approving The Summer Meeting Schedule

SPEAKER_02 0:43

Alright, um, so we're gonna go with uh proposed meeting schedules for that. Um everyone see the meeting schedules for the summer and till December?

SPEAKER_01 1:09

So we know I'm meeting in July and August. Oh, you need it. That was for me, yep. 12th of August. I was gonna say that.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Why do you want to go to the 9th?

SPEAKER_02 1:31

Um let's do the 12th because September is right around the corner and that's two weeks away, so let's do the 12th. Motion. Depend on work. Right. Yeah, we'll set up with the two, the second and the 16th. And uh like I said, depending on what's going on in December, we can either all right.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

Uh so with that, let's have a motion to accept uh motion to approve the um proposed meeting schedule from from July to December of 2026.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

Second.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

Motion made second it. All in favor? Aye, opposed, unanimous.

Minutes Votes And Admin Updates

SPEAKER_02 2:26

All right, um still waiting, so let's move on to um everyone get a chance to read the minutes from April 15th and May 6th.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

Yes. Motion motion to approve the minutes of um well on the let's do let's do one at a time. Let's do April 15th. I have to abstain from April 15th because I wouldn't have that meeting. Or can I still I read the minutes?

SPEAKER_02 2:54

Yeah. Well, if you weren't you weren't at the meeting, no, you can still vote as substain. Okay. But you can vote. Okay. Okay. So motion to accept the meeting, minutes from the 15th. Motion to accept. Second it. I will abstain from that. Nope, second it. I need second. Okay, second. All in favor? Aye. Abstain. Okay. And the minutes from May 6th.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Motion to approve the minutes of May 6th.

SPEAKER_02 3:26

Seconded. Seconded. All in favor? Aye. Abstain. Abstain. So two abstains. One positive. No bills any? Huh? Yeah, I was in the meeting either. Right? That was last meeting, right? Yeah. No bills? Okay. No correspondence.

Brickstone Buffer Zone Cleanup Deadline

SPEAKER_02 3:55

I've been doing a couple site visits. One is the new Brickstone restaurant in 138. Okay. Form a gap. Yeah. Been a little bit of a runaround. They deposited stuff in the buffer zone. Yep. I've been after him to clean it up. Supposedly, long story, but they hired a new contractor. He's supposed to be starting tomorrow to uh clean it up. It's not a lot. You just got to get the debris out of the buffer zone, throw down some loam and seed.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Well, they open for business this week, right?

SPEAKER_02 4:37

Yeah, the 25th, they're open. And um I told I gave them a deadline. If they're not done by next Monday, we'll consider doing an enforcement order. Enforcement order. Okay. So they're on a deadline. Um I don't think I did any other site that this. So yeah, just this, yeah. Which we'll get into. Um so next last thing on the on the general business is did you pass this up everyone? Okay.

New Order Of Conditions Checklist

SPEAKER_02 5:18

If everybody wants to look at the paper there, town of Random Conservation Commission Order of Conditions uh instruction sheet. Um Amy's been trying to streamline everything in the office um to try to what's a good word to put, uh try to organize yeah, to make make sure things are done and done in the correct steps. Procedural guide. Procedural guide for everyone. So we'd be handing these out to people. Uh it would be on our website. Um the only thing we just talked about down in the office to add um number five uh erosion control certificate at notice to CONCOM. With that, there'll be no inspection until there's proof that they recorded the order of conditions. Uh we've run into this a couple times recently where the order of conditions never get filed. So now they're going after certificate of compliance, and the original order of conditions was never filed. So this is just kind of a way to um ensure all the steps are followed so we're not backtracking at the end.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

Yeah, because if they hadn't recorded, it'd be sure.

SPEAKER_02 7:02

Yeah, so it becomes you know it becomes a a lawyer fighting now. Uh and if we can kind of cut that off, it would just be a lot easier. Because every time that happens, Amy's got to spend a lot of time researching and pulling files, and it shouldn't happen that way. So um, does anybody have any questions or comments on that? Okay, good idea. Okay. Uh neither function. Okay. You here?

Wilbur Street Replication Area Relocation

SPEAKER_02 7:42

All right. Uh under informal. Um map one, lot 97-a, Wilbur Street, EEP number 269-1073. Uh discussion with the general contractor. The original plans have the replication area towards the back of the property. Um they say that there's a lot of mature trees that would have to come down in order to uh do the replication. They've come up with an alternative um placement of it. So I will let you take care. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

Name for the record? My name is Andres White, and I own AM Equipment LLC. Yeah, when I walked the site with the uh engineer, and we did basically a walk around to the replication area. In that furthest corner, there's actually a nice piece of high ground with a gorgeous stand of mature, healthy trees. And it just seemed wasteful to destroy that. Versus there's additional upland area uh to the right. We could just take the same footage and just move it to the right, and in that area there's some, you know, um half-alive trees, you know, stuff that is no huge deal to take out and then create a replication area. But it it just seemed a real shame to cut down the nicest standard trees in that whole section. So I was just trying to preserve a nice piece of forest.

SPEAKER_02 9:30

Yeah. So we're talking between flag number A5 and A10.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

A5 and A10, yes. And roughly that that should equal that triangle pie shaped piece. When I measure it like exactly in the in the in the woods, you know, to save the the good trees, we'll just make sure that we have at least that much footage moving to the right. If I have to add a little bit more, I will. I'm not asking for a reduction in the footage.

SPEAKER_02 9:59

No.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

Um I just want to move it, shift it.

SPEAKER_02 10:02

You gotta you gotta make sure that you maintain the 3,350 square feet of replication area. Yep. Um the only procedural, I don't have an issue with it. If you know, like I said, when we see these things, we don't know, we don't look at the actual trees are out there, and you know, if there's a big mis big mature standard trees, you know, it doesn't make sense. We've done it before that we've moved the replication areas. Uh we just have to make sure that we maintain the same square footage. And we could take it as a minor modification to the plan. The only thing I will have to ask you to do is have the engineer relocated on a plan and certify it that um it's the same square square, it's the same square footage, so it needs to be done by the engineer and autograph control drawing just by saying so it has a surveyor stamp and you can just do one sheet that shows the modification. Okay. Um but yeah, I don't have an issue with it. And one other request is um if you could just put just rough estimate of where it is, um, just put like whatever you have, with two flags together, green and blue, whatever, whatever you have, so that if I go out there and look at it, I'll know okay, I'm here.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

Right.

SPEAKER_02 11:41

Okay. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

Um, we'll flag it with different colors so it's real.

SPEAKER_02 11:45

Yeah, a couple, you know, double flag or whatever, so we know what we're looking at. Um I don't have an issue with that. Anybody? I think that's a good idea.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:58

Okay. All right. Um anybody else like to make a comment? No? Okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 12:08

Alright, so uh, like I said, I'll go all if you when can you flag it, do you think? Oh.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

Can you flag it tomorrow?

unknown 12:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:19

Can you flag it by the weekend?

SPEAKER_01 12:21

Yeah, that'll get by the weekend.

SPEAKER_02 12:22

Yeah. Okay. You can flag it. I look just down the street. Oh, okay. So I can just pop over. So if you get it flagged by the weekend, I'll stop over Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and take a quick peek, and we'll get back to you and give you an A okay, or we gotta tweak things a little more.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

Appreciate it. And I know we'd also gotten a notice about some of our hay bales having been damaged during the clearing. We had people out there this morning fixing them up, and we'll have them all fixed up. Give me another day or so. Sure. I got the first 150 people taken care of. Okay. Yep. No, they're talking about hay bales.

SPEAKER_02 12:59

And how'd they get damaged?

SPEAKER_00 13:00

Uh when the trees would fall, you know, a limb would hit them, stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 13:05

Some of the trees were right against the hay. Yeah, all right. Just look sure they're in same locations. Yep. Okay. I would just say that if you don't have any family written the platform on the modulation, you have a bug. Okay. And with that. Okay, yeah, that that makes sense. Yeah. Oh, just a letter saying that we're gonna move, you know, we we request to move the replication area to flag area, da da da. Appreciate it. Okay. Yeah. Now procedural, that'll cover all the the um requirements. Okay. Okay, good.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

So do we need a minor modification? Um we can vote on that? I can ask. Yeah. All right. Or do we want to wait till we get the letter and then wait till we get the letter. I don't want to wait to get until we get the letter.

SPEAKER_02 13:58

But what I'm saying is we could take it as a minor modification.

unknown 14:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

Okay. And this is the property that Will and I want.

SPEAKER_02 14:07

Yes, yep. On Wilver Street? Yeah. Yeah.

unknown 14:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:11

Okay. I know where that is.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

All right. And then I had one more, and I don't think this one will be a minor, but I I have to ask, you know, from my c my customer. So there's two culverts drawn there. No, that's not minor.

SPEAKER_02 14:25

That's not minor. That's re-engineering, that's major modification.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

I had to ask.

SPEAKER_02 14:31

If you want it, it's a choice.

SPEAKER_00 14:33

It's time consuming, but I it's a major modification.

SPEAKER_02 14:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

Yep. And it's just a shame. The one arrive. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:42

So it it was during all the discussions of the meetings, it was put in there for a reason. Yeah. So okay.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

Well, thank you very much. At least we get to save those trees. That'll be nice. All right. Thank you. Thanks.

SPEAKER_02 15:01

All right. Umber streets done. Means done.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

All right. Anyone have anything else? You guys done?

SPEAKER_02 15:17

We're good. Okay.

unknown 15:18

All right.

SPEAKER_02 15:20

All right. Uh Amy, do you have anything?

SPEAKER_00 15:24

We'll get that later here then.

SPEAKER_02 15:26

Do you have anything?

SPEAKER_01 15:29

No? You know the boss, so. She runs the show.

SPEAKER_02 15:36

Oh, yes.

Street Acceptances And Old Conditions

SPEAKER_02 15:39

At town meeting, they accepted some of the streets, Sparrowway, the ones off, I can't even think of them all. Off of Rammedhead, Raynam Beserve. Yeah. And I had said something to the attorney, Lee Cassinetti, that they still have a lot of outstanding order conditions on those properties. So he needs to get those into us and get that all cleaned up. Because we had the sewer easement. We had a rep so it's it's order conditions on the roadways on the roadways. Well, some properties there were. So some of the individual lots, some of the roadways, we might have had some drainage and stuff like that. You know, I can't remember it all at the top of my head, but they're gonna have to go into their files and uh clean all that up because there is quite a lot. Like I said, the replication for the sewer crossing, uh, which is the exact same thing we did for them for here. Um so that's in the pipeline too. Okay. So we're gonna get a large probably, yeah. We're probably gonna get a bunch of them.

unknown 17:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 17:04

So be advised. All right. Okay. That's all. Next motion.

Motion To Adjourn

SPEAKER_02 17:10

Motion to adjourn. Second. May and second of it. All in favor? Aye, opposed, unanimous.