Thank you Kim Lewis for forwarding these approved minutes – Lil

Cold River Local Advisory Council

Next meeting: January 22th, 2014

Present: Kim Lewis, Debby Hinman, Fred Ernst, Cathy MacDonald, Sam Sutcliff, Mike Heidorn, Mitch Harrison, Gary Speed

Absent: Carol Wallace

Meeting called to order at 7:01 PM.

 

Minutes from October 30th, 2014 meeting were reviewed and approved.

Getting Our Minutes Out

Debby will get a draft of a cover letter for the chairs of planning boards, conservation commissions, DES, and town officials of Walpole, Langdon, Alstead, Acworth, and Lempster. Upon receipt of this cover letter, Kim will send approved minutes to the town offices and ask them to please post to the websites and outside the offices.

Treasurer’s Report

Balance, 2014 – $ 8875.81

Income Interest $0.73 in Oct and $0.73 in Nov

Expenditures None

Balance , 2014 $8877.29

Membership

No new information on membership. Two offices in DES had conflicting membership information. All has been updated.

Vilas Pond

The issue of maintenance of Vilas Pool is under discussion.

Warren Brook

Fred has been communicating with John McGee of NH Fish and Game, Steve Landry of DES, and Sean Sweeney of Headwaters Hydrology and funds appear to be in order to proceed with the 900 feet on-the-ground restoration of Warren Brook immediately upstream of the confluence with the Cold River. Working with a budget of 200,000 plus dollars, various aspects of the project have been assigned. We have to have completed $35,000 worth of work before the NH Fish and Game grant runs out June 15th.

Fred will clarify with Sean what materials will be needed and provide a contact person for Mitch at Cold River Materials. Mitch will contact Cold River Materials to confirm they will still honor their commitment to donate rock and inform them of the anticipated construction schedule. Cold River Materials pledged $1850.00 worth of stone. Fred will clarify what kind of rock and what time in the spring this will be needed.

Sam contacted the Town of Alstead road agent to confirm they will honor their commitment to provide trucking services. Sam will contact landowners affected by the project (Stan Kmiec and Michael Sweeney) to confirm they are still willing to allow the work on their properties.

Sean will coordinate contract negotiations with the original low bidder (KA Stevens,Inc). Sam and Fred will be involved in a meeting in Alstead with KA Stevens and Sean to review the work and KAS’s original bid. Rebidding may be necessary if KAS cannot do the work.

Sam, Mitch, and Mike (the Alstead contingency) will monitor contract timing in the spring to ensure the work is completed within the specified time period.

Sean will review the various grants to determine required submittals and prepare those submittals.

Wetland Permit in South Acworth

Debby has not heard any response after contacting Travis Royce by email about CRLAC’s concerns. Debby will email Travis to let him know that we have met tonight and inform him of our next meeting date and request a response from him

River Quality

No new news. Mike will be researching costs for new equipment.

Electrofishing Results of Warren Brook

Backpack electrofishing was conducted in Warren Brook on September 24th, 2014 by New Hampshire Fish and Game Inland Fisheries Division staff. A single pass was done at two sites, which have been previously surveyed following the October 2005 flood. Site 1 is immediately upstream of Griffin Hill Road and downstream of Route 123. It had been surveyed in October 2010 to evaluate the fish community one week after the restoration work was completed there. Site 2 is just downstream of Mad Brook and had been surveyed in 2006, 2007. 2008. and 2010 to evaluate the fish community after restoration work was completed there in 2007.

John McGee sent the electrofishing results. He was surprised that Blacknose Dace and Longnose Dace comprised 85% of the total number of fish caught. This was similar to the results found upstream of the DES site. DES also caught 7 white suckers while there were none on Warren Brook. John thought this might be because there are many white suckers in the Cold River which is just a few feet from the DES site.

John plans to do a more thorough analysis of the fish data comparing populations prior to the October 2005 flood and up to 2014. This will show any trends in the fish community data.

Fish Species Caught at the DES Site (at Rt. 123A) in Warren Brook:

Blacknose Dace (56)

Brook Trout (1)

Common Shiner (4)

Common White Sucker (7)

Creek Chub (4)

Longnose Dace (67)

Wlimy Sculpin (4)

Yellow Perch (1)

John also commented that the lack of riparian trees along the Warren Brook is not good for water temperature, stability of the floodplain or for the long-term instream habitat benefits of riparian trees. He recommends that someone (and he offered to help) plant native saplings where landowners provide permission. DOT may be one of the major landowners. Mitch thinks the trees are doing OK, just not yet maturing enough to provide shade. We will investigate.

DOT Guardrail Replacement: Cold River Sites in Acworth

NH DOT is planning a replacement/extension of guardrail runs at 75 locations. Four locations in the Town of Acworth are located within ¼ mile of the Cold River. All work will be completed within the existing state Right of Way. The Department’s Bureau of Environment is conducting an environmental study for the project and they have requested Cold Rivers LAC’s input. They provided a project location map and asked for an early response to the letter so they may prepare their environmental document.

Mike responded that this appears to be a project with the potential for only minor impacts to the Cold River corridor if completed with careful attention to the

·         Erosion prevention and monitoring in disturbed areas

·         Re-vegetation of disturbed areas with native plantings

·         No introduction of invasive species via the importation of contaminated fill

He noted that it is the opinion of the CRLAC, that the project area is still recovering from recent flood events such as the Flood of 2005 and, as a result, is extra sensitive to further erosion and the spread of invasive species such as knotweed.  He encouraged them to employ the best available BMPs to avoid further impacts.

Bower Brook Bridge

We have been notified that DOT plans to begin work on Bower Brook Bridge and CRLAC has been asked for input. We agreed that Debby would indicate how supportive we are of their initiative and call attention to the design and engineering work which Sean Sweeney has already done.

Meeting adjourned at 8:14 PM

Respectfully submitted,

Kim Lewis