The Fall River Conservation Commission convened a public hearing on Monday, June 6, 2022, at 5:30 PM. Commissioners Lewis Fire, Paul Elmo, James Winsby, and John Brandt were present, alongside Conservation Agent Dan Aggier and Recording Clerk Nina Pavo. The meeting addressed old business, specifically a request for a Certificate of Compliance for Juan Fernandez at 178 Lake Avenue, which was tabled until July 11th by a 3-1 vote, with Commissioner Fire abstaining due to proximity to the property. Under new business, a Notice of Intent for Blount Royalty LLC (Blount Fine Foods) at 630 Currant Road, proposing a 19,100 square foot manufacturing addition and a 4,065 square foot maintenance addition, was also tabled until July 11th with a 4-0 vote. The primary discussion revolved around a Notice of Intent from the Fall River Redevelopment Authority for 600 Davol Street, presented by Laura Kraus from Beta Group and Executive Director Sarah Page. This project involves constructing four public floating docks and three access gangways at the City Pier within the Taunton River. The docks are designed for transient use, prohibiting overnight stays or fishing, and will permanently alter 40.8 square feet of land under the ocean and 95 square feet of riverfront area. The commission approved this Notice of Intent by a 4-0 vote, acknowledging that further permitting through the Chapter 91 licensing process, Army Corps, and MEPA would address additional construction details and environmental considerations. Additionally, the commission unanimously accepted and placed on file National Grid's approved yearly operational plan, a MassDEP reports submittal for 353 Mariano Bishop Boulevard, and a notice of release of abatement measures for 851 Globe Street. The minutes from the May 2nd, 2022 meeting were approved unanimously. Conservation Agent Dan Aggier provided an update on the Terry Murray Way enforcement order, reporting that approximately 90% of the fill had been removed and restoration plans were actively underway. The meeting concluded with a unanimous vote to adjourn.
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City Officials
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uh welcome to the fall river conservation commission meeting being held at uh public hearing on monday june 6th 2022 5 30 in the first floor hearing room one government center fall river uh pursuant to the open meeting laws any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recording or transmissions are
0:23being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and deemed acknowledged and permissible can i start with roll call lewis fire paul elmo james winsby john brandt we also have tonight uh dan aggier conservation agent nina pavo recording clerk and gary lett from forward gtv missing tonight is chris boyle and jim cusick first on the agenda old business can i have a motion to bring this to the floor
1:00i'll make a motion to bring up the phone a second vocal vote hi all all right okay uh the request is for certificate of compliance sc-24-722 owner applicant is juan fernandez project location is 178 lake avenue assessor's map is d-21 d-21-006 filed by alexander gutski on behalf of the applicant the applicant requested a certificate of compliance this was tabled for may 2nd 2024 and mr aguiar said this is uh they're
1:40conducting a meeting tonight uh to decide on what they're going to be doing so i if i could ask for a motion to table to july 11th i'll make a motion a table to the next meeting i'll say okay we'll call vote abstain yes hi all right okay vote passes three to one because i live too close all righty uh new business first one is uh notice of intent owner applicant blanc
2:12royalty llc blunt uh fine foods project location 630 current road census map is z-03 a portion of lot 2 lot 66 and 65 filed by level design group on behalf of applicant the applicant process to construct an additional 19 100 square feet manufacturing edition and 4065 square feet of maintenance addition to an existing warehouse office facility uh blunt has asked us to table this until july 11.
2:46second second okay did you make them i'll make promotion okay second roll call vote hi all right hi well pat says 4-0 uh next is a notice of intent is uh owner applicant forward development authority project location 600 of all street assessments map is 0-22-012 filed by beta on behalf of applicants applicant processors to constructive floating public floating dock alongside city pier within the taunton river
3:21thank you for the record my name is laura kraus from beta group i'm a scientist with beta and i do a lot of permitting um and i'm here on behalf of fall river redevelopment authority here tonight from the authority is sarah page she's the um executive director uh so i don't know how familiar you are with the uh i also gave nina these um all of the mailing and the um the
3:44tear sheet for the legal ad so how familiar you are with the city pier property but last summer we came before you to complete the on-site work and there's an existing order of conditions and that work is underway right now here tonight we are requesting approval for four floating docks located on these legs of the pier we have four floating docks um and three access gangways because there's a connecting dock here um
4:19so there's one dock one one gangway down to access this like u-shape uh from a resource area standpoint we've got three in-water overlapping resource areas and three and two land overlapping resource areas we've got land under the ocean which is land under the taunton river land containing shellfish and land under an anadromous fish run the project will permanently alter 40 point what was submitted was 40.1
4:48square feet of land under the ocean and that's just from the pile that's being driven into the bottom of the taunton river and then we are proposing 95 square feet of permanent alteration to riverfront area associated with a small leg of concrete sidewalk to access the gangway right now there's an existing asphalt pathway that runs along the river here so it's just a small piece of
5:13concrete just so you can get to the gang we don't have to walk over grass and that's for accessibility purposes we are also proposing 120 square feet of temporary alteration and that's just in order to install the uh the concrete walkway we need to remove some of the grass install the concrete and then we'll you know re-establish grass around that area so pretty simple project we did receive
5:43some comments from dan related to the ada compliance so we did take a closer look and we had to extend these two floating walkways that are in the interior in order to meet the ada requirement so we did make an update to the plan and i have those i don't know if you can accept them tonight but um what um so we've extended this floating walkway here and floating walkway here
6:09and in order to make this extension we had to add a pier so that increases our imp impacts to land under the ocean to 40.8 square feet so it's 0.7 feet square feet so it's really a minor a revision um but you know we did we also added the notes to the plans as required for ada requirements and i have hard copies of those um and we'll send these to master ep as well
6:42so are there any questions no you'll be doing the work from in the water um we'd like to reserve the right to do from either the water or the um or the pier itself it's probably going to be from the water but uh but they may decide to drive some from the pier so like when you start your timeless with i guess uh what uh the seasons with uh the local uh
7:06seafood the fishing and all that time of year so they actually division of marine fisheries didn't request any time of year restrictions um i actually reached out to them because i was surprised by that um and they said that they only request time of year restrictions when you're installing greater than 100 piles or if you're dredging or you're doing more intensive in water work the only turbidity causing
7:29activity is driving the piles and it's really short-lived so they didn't feel like time of year restriction was necessary and we did receive that correspondence from them okay what the piles are you using what kind of material um it's it might be a mix i think right now it's probably going to be wood on the interior the ones that are more protected so there's interior uh here for doc a we've labeled them doc a and
7:54doc c those will likely be wood and then the um the ones that are more exposed will likely be either fiberglass or steel okay now the floating docks are you going to have something in case the tie goes down where it won't yes so the the floating docks have been designed and shifted away from the pier enough that they will be above the um there will be a separation of four feet
8:17at low at mean low water so there will be a separation from the dock to the stream bed of four feet at mean low water does the board have any questions and that's why you need this the path of the stair stairway to for the four feet drop for the difference how far away is the yeah how far away are the docks from the floating docks from the pier they're
8:42at least five feet so that there's no disturbance of the actual sheet piling that that's holding up the pier itself the reason why we have these interior floating docks here is for the gangway access so the gangways are each individually 80 feet so they're going to be 80 feet long aluminum gangways that will then um land on these interior docks here and here um and then then you'll just walk across into them
9:08when they're all in assuming we vote in favor what is what do i will i be able to walk on these what's what do you do with them people will be able to tie both so if they wanted to access city pier from the water they could come there'll be cleats that you can tie up like slips they're transient they're they're intended uses for transient docking no overnight docking
9:31and people can you know spend the day at city pier they might walk you know the path or something like that and then you know they'd have to leave the pier by the end of the day by um dusk so i could walk out on them yes you could thank you i think that not past dusk though right there'll be a gates at the entrances to each of the gangway so
9:49you wouldn't be able to access them after dusk i wouldn't be able to access the access the docks after dusk so after after sunset nobody wants to be out there anyways so but not fishing i don't believe that i'm not allowing fishing on the pier i think that extends to the docks as well yeah okay yeah is that disappointing um i had several folks talk to me about fishing from the pier yes
10:20they're fishermen and they like to fish and they're you know they think scuppies and stuff like this they're not you know a few fish for supper and we need a fishing pier someplace um down someplace along there i'm not i'm not planning your your shore for you but i'm just saying you need one or two places that people people can go safely one question that i had was with regards to
10:55the bottom material now that you want to be driving into has there been any environmental testing on that soil i mean i know the story passed at the pier itself but would we potentially be disturbing any type of you know riverbed bottom that may have some level of contamination we haven't done any testing so so i don't know it hasn't been requested by any of the review agencies either
11:20so there's going to be what 50 piles being driven down about 30 feet 52 but yes yeah and has there been any kind of uh impact as far as the studies the water circulation is this gonna impact anything like that because i know there's some fish runs there like dan was saying uh some self shellfish so has there been any studies there haven't been any studies but we do plan to use so that
11:45under the army corps requirements they require that you use a soft start so what it does is you basically start driving the pile and then you stop and it allows for like any shellfish that are in the area to move and then you you'll keep you know driving so each pile will be driven that way there'll be no change in the circulation of water in that area either something to note that and i know
12:08this commission doesn't normally deal with docs or peers and things of that nature there's just not that many of them there's another level of permitting beyond this called a chapter 91 licensing process where a lot of these questions get scrutinized even greater um when they submit the actual dot construction plans to them because they actually get a license from from the state from the governor issues a license
12:32for them to have these floats because no one owned the state owns this land that's in the water so you have to get a license from the state to have these floats in the water so they first have to come to us to deal with the environmental issues and the jurisdictional areas but there is another level of permitting prior to construction that deals with the actual construction of the docks
12:54and all of the components that you have to meet um which i believe these alter that's correct and we also need to go to army corps for this as as well as meepa so we have a there's a lot of people looking at this um but yes that's thank you that that's very helpful and you'll also um the conservation commission receives a copy of that application when we go through the chapter 91 process
13:14that concum is required to be looped in and it's important also to note that so if you're familiar with how the cove restaurant sits for instance if you look at the southerly end of the cove you'll see that they have this parallel float system along that wall to the northward side you'll see where they have the finger piers that come out where all of the the boat dockage happens this is similar to the southerly
13:40portion where it's just parallel i think six i think one of them is eight feet wide right yeah the interior one up here is eight feet the rest are six so that just allows people to come up again dock for the day tie up i'm excited to see it you know it isn't me i mean we talked about it for a long time having some transient dockage like that because
14:01you know if you if you have voted at all um when you get somewhere and you want to get off the boat to go out for ice cream or out for dinner it's very difficult to find places to tie up in these private mourinho marinas so this will be uh you know a great asset for the for the city to promote what's happening you have to stop by dr votes spend money
14:22here absolutely and what's gonna happen i can guarantee you as events happen more and more on this pier and i know sarah could you know elaborate for that i i can't imagine that there will be an empty spot no i think it's going to be a success even now even now just at borden light marina for instance and believe it or not boaters will take their boat from the border light marina
14:47drive it to the cove to eat dinner and eat up a spot to do so it's crazy you would think you could have driven short distance but people that are on boats like to use their boats so they're going a short distance you know um so they'll they'll be playing it's just great to see that site you know there's a plan being developed and put in place and i i personally think it's uh you
15:12know i i like the idea i like everything about it i'm excited about it yeah we are too yeah so if we make the uh motionless we could just tie the conditions to chapter 91 you don't even have to no this is you just move it because all you're really dealing with is the impact of the resource areas okay um we we viewed it and we looked at it and raised concerns about items that would
15:37have been addressed just so that the need to come back to us if there was a modification through chapter 91 they would have to get an amendment so we made sure that those items were were taken uh taken into account prior because not everybody deals with uh public dockage and the ada requirements that go along with it but i'm pretty sure we'll be okay with this and uh chapter 91 we'll
16:00deal with some of the other items okay sounds good so can i have a motion of notice intent to pass yeah i make that motion second second roll call vote all right aye vote passes 4-0 thanks excellent thank you so much thank you all very much the question that doesn't uh is the estate pier do they have sprinklers for the uh landscaping yeah landscape do they have sprinkling systems city pier city fair
16:34for the new landscaping that's going in i think is the question yeah we are putting in an irrigation system oh okay yeah this is actually happening now isn't it oh yeah i mean landscaping now i saw the landscaping going in it looks nice and i was like wondering i didn't know if it was in the plans or not so it is the frustration of the week is that the national grid is not going to hook up
16:57the electricity until june 14th and in the meantime all this plant material is going in well that's just watercolor yeah watering it but it's not added in my mind yeah i just got happy with uh you know things are not being watered enough and it will all get resolved and the system will work they're going to hand hand operate it while they wait for the electricity so again not that it matters for the
17:35permitting with this commission but will there be any utilities on these docks no no electric no water no no there's no no utilities because you know that's intended to be transient they don't want people to set up shop there although when we put the utilities in we foresaw that you could want to add them if you created more permanent dockage so the utilities are run in such a way that it
18:01won't be hard to pull the utilities over to the docks if we decide at some point we want to do that okay you might find out that the more people come they may request for these like lacrosse neck beach for instance everybody went camping there for so many years and everybody knew you were going bare bones it's just you're going there with what you came in with but over time it's become full-fledged
18:25i like the fact that with the transient system and see where it takes us instead of going you know full speed ahead so i think it's for me i think that works a little bit better let's see what happens and then if it becomes that much of a success then you have the conduit you want to put electricity you want to make it more than it is then the other thing we might say related to
18:46that is that we're just going to start we think by putting it in on the north side which is the most protected protected inside and see how that goes and then we're getting it all permitted now but we're not assuming that we're going to build it all right away we'll see how one side works kind of interest you get yeah okay all things considered and permitting processes how quickly do you think you would
19:18get that process started putting that side in wish list your christmas list why would you when would you hope to put we're hoping to get it in by december because we have funding that has to be spent by the end of june and if there's a time time of year restriction where we as we have to go through army corps that national marine fisheries will have to review it and we are in atlantic
19:44sturgeon habitat which is an endangered species so they may require time of year restrictions that division of marine fisheries from massachusetts did not so where we built that into our you know plan and then if they don't require it then we're golden but yeah great yep very good thank you for coming in yeah thank you so much thank you next on the item could i have a motion to take three four and five together
20:09i'll make a motion since you're gonna take three uh four or five together a seconded okay any discussion on the uh we have uh number three is a uh national grid's approved yearly operational plan four is a notification of massdep reports submittal on 353 mariano bishop boulevard and five is notice the release of abatement measures on 851 globe street for taking them can we have a roll call to take it together sure
20:44no so hi did we have a motion we motioned to take all three together we have to do a rope that's what i think we're voting on yeah that's what we're working on right okay all right all right okay and uh i'll make a motion to take a three four and five um and uh accept and place it on fine second seconded okay roll call vote all right all right hi okay
21:14uh motion for approval of minutes uh from may 2nd 2022 motion to approve second we'll call vote all right i passes no citizen input can i have a motion to adjourn actually before you close i just wanted to give you a quick update uh terry murray way when we're given the enforcement honor yeah um all the work is underway um about 90 of the fill has been removed they ordered the plants they had
21:45submitted the restoration plan like we had told them to so they're they're full into that so if you ever get a chance you want to take a drive by i was there this morning and i'll go by again to them tomorrow and check on it again but i would anticipate the square that's where that wetland alteration was on that terry marie way oh yeah um so that's that that's underway of getting
22:05resolved and um they've been very good to deal with so far so that's right just just so you know i will be in oregon on the date of the july meeting which i think is 11. feel it i should be unless the something changes already okay i see why nina was uh anxious that i get here i almost didn't come i can tell you that all right thank you for coming out yeah
22:37thanks because we wouldn't have had a meeting without you i know i guess i didn't know that but i'm glad i came excellent all right can i have a motion to adjourn i'll make motions here jeremy seconded roll call vote all right yes don't worry all right okay excellent thank you all very much thank you