Last night the Planning Board voted unanimously to begin the 81W process for Doeskin 2.
Much thanks to all those who were there to support the abutters. And thanks, also, to those who came down for 9:30 but were not able to stay until the later hour. As the chair, Helen Lemoine, said, it was not a hearing but an administrative item so they had to deal with the posted hearings first and they were running late. Thanks, also to the 2 members of the Board of Selectmen, Katie Murphy and Chris Ross, who attended. I believe future discussions will have a hearing time posted and I hope they will not be so late. Information was requested from the developer re: the NPDES permit and he was asked to post the permit on site as required by law. Other information that relates to the silting that has occurred was requested by Tom Mahoney. (can someone fill in that information?) The attorney for the developer, Peter Barbieri, said that CK was moving to correct the situation with improvements in grading and hydroseeding - he was willing to work with everyone to improve the situation. A letter from Betsy Swartz was read that would seem to address the effectiveness of that type of effort. Some of the other downstream abutters said they experienced no relief from previous efforts to correct their situation - in fact it has gotten progressively worse. They thanked the Planning Board for their current action to help correct a long-standing problem. Below I am posting the email correspondence from Betsy Swartz that was read at the meeting (with her permission) that outlined her ongoing saga relating to the plans for the Great Wall. I think this underscores the need for an 81W hearing to proceed. Kathy Vassar TMM Pct 1 ----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, June 30, 2003 10:44 PM Subject: Doeskin II > Hi Kathy, > I'm in Maine for the summer and didn't get a chance to call you before I left,but have been reading all the e-mails in ref. to the severe flooding on the other side of the hill.We are so lucky we aren't in the same perdicament as those on Carter Drive.Sorry I can't attend the meeting tom. evening. > Have you been up our driveway recently? You should drive up before the meeting tom. night. Chris planted the trees and hydroseeded the slope with wildflowers seeds. He came down to talk to us and said he was not going to build the architectural wall because "it was too expensive" and was it ok with us? He said he could get the same end results of erosion control with the trees and grading without the wall. We said we didn't see how he could possibly do that. He said he'd have "our engineer" come out and he'd explain it. We said fine, YOU pay him.He did have him out and they discussed hings -- we never were part of any of that. We also asked Chris how he could not do this when he had an agreement with the Town to build a wall: didn't he have to get an ok first? He said "no, I'll handle that later" > In the mean time,it rains very hard and silt pours down and I call Joe M. and someone came out and saw the huge, washed out gullies and the silt down into our prperty and ordered new silt fencing and more hay bales. Chris did put those in. > Then Chris plants the trees with little to no watering (he said there was a soaker hose behind them, but not seen) and it appeared that the burlap ball was not cut open at the base of each tree as they were planted. At the same time, he hydroseeded the embankment. > A big rain came 6/22 during the night and washed all the seeding away and, for a second time, caused erosion of the soil from the wall down the embankment, this time around the new trees. I was gone all day one day the week of 6/23 and when I came home, it was re-hydroseeded and the gullies were filled in with dirt. Clearly this erosion prevention method is not working. > Supposedly, the engineer is writing a letter to Joe M. or someone stating that this all will work. I don't know. We are not in on that loop at all. > > I called Joe M. 6/27 just as I was leaving for Maine and we > had a long discussion. He said Chris had been in to speak to him and said "The Swartzes didn't want the wall". I told Joe that was not the case at all, that we had told Chris we did not know how he could control the erosion without the wall and we were willing to "try" the trees without the wall, and that Chris told us he could do it without the wall. Clearly that has failed twice. > > So the saga goes on. When I read the info about NPES permit, I wondered if that had been issued for Doeskin?? Very interesting thought. > Keep us posted of the "Doeskin Happenings". > Sorry to bore you with all this, but wanted to catch you up with our side of the hill!! > > See you in September > > Betsy > > To unsubscribe, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with body "unsubscribe frambors" (the subject is ignored).
