The Sunapee Area Watershed Coalition
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Steering Committee Minutes 1/11/07
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SAWC: The link between land use and water quality
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In attendance:
Peter Dzewaltowski, Upper Valley Lake Sunapee Regional Planning Commission; June
Fichter, Lake Sunapee Protective Association; Carol Foss, Little Lake Sunapee
Protective Association; Cynthia Hayes, Town of Springfield; Ken Lawson, Town of
Springfield & Kolelemook Lake Protective Association; Suzanne Levine, Newbury
Conservation Commission; Robert Wood, Lake Sunapee Protective Association.
June Fichter opened the meeting at 5:30 p.m., and the Steering Committee addressed
eight areas of business
1. Minutes-November 9, 2006—Ken Lawson amended the spelling of Kolelemook
both in the Steering Committee minutes, and those for the full Coalition meeting. He has
made the corrections on the web site. Cynthia Hayes moved to accept the minutes as
amended. Ken Lawson seconded. No further discussion. Motion unanimously
approved.
2. Watershed Plan Subcommittee-status update—June Fichter reported that the
Watershed Plan Subcommittee now has a complete roster, and has scheduled meetings
for January 23 and February 21, both at 6:30 p.m. in Newbury. Question was raised
about whether the official title of this subcommittee will be Watershed Advisory
Committee as in the past, or Watershed Plan Committee. Jen Palmiotto will be
consulted on this.
The committee:
Aimee Ayers Sunapee Lake Sunapee Protective Association
Anita Blakeman Sutton Forester
Peggy Chalmers Sunapee Planning Board
Terry Dancy New London Cons. Comm. and Lake Association
Peter Dzewaltowski Upper Valley Lake Sunapee Regional
Planning Commission
June Fichter Newbury Lake Sunapee Protective Association
Deane Geddes Newbury Realtor
Cynthia Hayes Springfield Zoning Board of Adjustment and liaison to
Ausbon Sargent Land Preservation Trust
Charlie Hirschberg Sunapee Environmental Engineer
Katheryn Holmes Newbury Zoning Board of Adjustment
Suzanne Levine Newbury Conservation Commission
Ken Lawson Springfield Lake Kolelemook Lake Protective Assoc.
Jennifer Palmiotto Granite State Rural Water Assoc.
Peter Stanley New London ZBA
Robert Wood Lake Sunapee Protective Assoc.
Richard Wright Newbury Selectman
Peter Dzewaltowski asked if this committee should be added to his SAWC mailing list.
Woody suggested it wouldn’t hurt to send information to them, as long as it is made
clear that much of the email information pertains to the Watershed Coalition itself, not
necessarily to this separate working committee. June will put the question to the
committee at its first meeting.
3. Review of the Public Outreach Meeting of December 13, 2006—Members noted
that there was a full room for this workshop; it was nicely done, and many in attendance
were from outside the regular membership of the Watershed Coalition. June Fichter
noted that one change occurred to the agenda for that meeting: Pierce Rigrod spoke in
place of Paul Sesca on drinking water source assessment.
Ken Lawson asked if there will be any follow up information for those who signed in at
that meeting. Members concurred that that might be a good idea, and Jen Palmiotto
who has that sign-in sheet will be consulted regarding the possibility of sending some
follow up information.
June Fichter reported that two of the Coalition’s objectives have been completed: the
land use regulation matrix and the updated build-out analysis.
4. Matrix of the Watershed Town’s Land use Regulations—This excel spread sheet
provides data including the current regulations in the six towns within the watershed,
some suggested objectives for each town’s master plan, and some sample standards
with references. The next step will be to ask each Town’s Planning Board to review
and confirm the accuracy of the current regulation data. June has already heard from
Peggy Chalmers of the Sunapee Planning Board who did confirm for that Town. (June
added that she has also received an invitation for SAWC to speak at some point in the
near future, to the Sunapee Master Plan update committee.) Cynthia Hayes said
Springfield has received its copy of the regulations matrix, and is in process of reviewing
that now. Peter Dzewaltowski will get a copy to the Goshen Planning Board. June
Fichter will convey a copy to Peter Blakeman of the Sutton Planning Board. It’s
understood that Deane Geddes will convey a copy to the Newbury Planning Board,
and Terry Dancy will distribute it to the Planning Board in New London.
Ken Lawson asked if this is part of the watershed plan, or will it run parallel to that.
June Fichter said it can run parallel to the Watershed Plan Subcommittee’s work. She
suggested that, though the ultimate goal may be to have all Towns’ regulations be
consistent, i.e. a Uniform Code of Regulations, it may be reasonable in the immediate
present, to aim for a more modest goal of having each town identify the gaps in its own
regulations, and work toward improvement there. Woody agreed with that objective:
getting all the towns to adopt the same regulations is really secondary. The primary goal
right now is to identify and fill in the gaps in each respective town’s regulations, and for
each town to make improvements to its regulations where those are most needed.
June reminded everyone that the idea of getting towns to look at the matrix now is to
plant the seeds for the 2008 Town warrants. Ken Lawson said the Coalition will really
have to sell the Planning Boards on the whole idea. Steering Committee members
agreed, and Cynthia Hayes pointed out that a first step has already been taken by
providing the Planning Boards with this spread sheet. The spread sheet will serve to
make towns aware—at a glance—where the gaps are in their own regulations.
Steering Committee members agreed that the follow up for distribution of the spread
sheets will include identification of the gaps in each town’s ordinance, coming up with
some recommendations for improvements, and assisting with drafting proposed
changes, and members also agreed that should fall under the purview of the Land Use
Subcommittee and Education/Outreach Subcommittee, with guidance from UVLSRPC,
and the SAWC Steering Committee.
Peter Dzewaltowski reported that, as discussed at the last meeting, UVLSRPC has
applied to the Fish & Game Department for a conservation (moose license plate) grant,
to enable that agency (UVLSRPC) to assist SAWC in its outreach and work with the
Towns on upgrading regulations—that would be the planning commission’s contribution
to the watershed plan. (Ref. Nov. 9 minutes, p. 2, under Uniform Code of
Regulations.) He mentioned that one of the difficulties in applying for the grant was that
they do not yet have a commitment from the communities. June pointed out that they do
have the matrix now, and suggested they could start from that. Peter agreed, and added
that the planning commission does have access to some other funds from the DES
Environmental Planning Program that could be directed to this purpose as well.
June referred to Bill Thomas’s comments at the last meeting regarding the seminar at
which guest speaker Michael Simpson of Antioch spoke on meteorologists’ studies of
upcoming storm events, and she suggested that a guest speaker program might be one
method of outreach that could be implemented by the Education Subcommittee.
5. Build Out Analysis—June Fichter reported that the “Update of the 1995 Lake
Sunapee Build-out Analysis” has been completed, and Peter Dzewaltowski will email
this to SAWC members. This study reviewed the amendments made to land use
regulations since 1994-1995, and evaluated them for their effects on watershed
development potential. June and Peter both pointed out that the numbers showing
potential housing units for build-out have gone down on the order of 10%. The study
also includes information regarding population. Peter added for consideration the fact
that the more acres that go into conservation easements, the lower the number of
potential housing units there will be in build-out.
Steering Committee members were unanimous in noting that despite the decreases
shown in the study for the growth that could potentially occur in the watershed towns as
they reach build-out, those numbers are still high, and merit some concern. Peter did
remind everyone, however, that build-out is an estimate of potential growth, not
necessarily what one would expect to happen. (It’s a worst-case scenario.)
6. State Shore-land Protection—Woody reported that the State’s Comprehensive
Shore Land Protection Act has been studied, and some recommendations for
expanding protections will be up for vote in the legislature this year. The
recommendations include requiring permits with fees for uses within the shore land
overlay district. Those fees would be applied to enforcement and education relative to
the Shore Land Protection Act. Also to be recommended is an expansion of
protections to third order streams; now they extend only to fourth order streams. Ken
Lawson asked how SAWC should be promoting these recommendations. Members
agreed that public awareness is crucial, and Woody will send Ken a package of
information to put on SAWC’s website. People can contact their own legislators, or
even better, the members of the legislative committee that will be addressing this.
People can also attend the hearings to comment and ask questions.
7. Geosyntec Phosphorus Modeling Project-status report—June Fichter reported that
the completed model is up and running. The input consists of land use regulations, land
cover, rain data from storms (they used rainfall analysis going back 70 years); and the
output is the phosphorus loading data. She said the company did receive the build out
analysis data, and Tara Banford sent them GIS zoning maps which can be used to
overlay the build out numbers. One drawback is that some of the imagery is dated
2005, with data from 2003, resulting in a tendency for the program to overestimate.
She told the company to proceed anyway, feeling that an overestimate is preferable to
an underestimate. The numbers should be available in two weeks, and the resulting
model will give a baseline to work with. A year from now, it may be reviewed with
updated imagery.
8. Next meeting—The Steering Committee agreed that the following should be included
on the agenda for the February 8 meeting:
o Review of Towns’ response to land use regulation matrix; specifically
confirmation of accuracy of their current status.
o Confer with the Land Use and Education/Outreach Subcommittees on
procedure for addressing gaps and needs for improvements in land use
regulations.
o Update on Shore Land Protection Act.
o Discussion of Geosyntec data.
o Update on Watershed Plan Subcommittee work.
Meeting adjourned at 6:35 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Sarah A. Denz
Recording Secretary
Steering Committee
January 11, 2007
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