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The Somerset Conservation Commission met on August 31, 2026, to address public hearings, compliance requests, and routine administrative business. The commission opened by approving the amended meeting minutes from June 29, 2026, adding a note that member Matthew K. Talbot had recused himself during the Flatiron hearing. The commission then reviewed a continued Notice of Intent for Kate Sear regarding proposed work at 394 Main Street, which included a dock and float reconfiguration transitioning to a 30-year Chapter 91 license, a patio addition, a pool, and an encircling retaining wall designed to avoid a 30-foot town sewer easement. The project was approved as presented. The commission also considered and unanimously approved a Request for a Certificate of Compliance submitted by Derek Revello for completed dock work at 2442 Riverside Avenue under DEP File #070-0530. Under general and new business, members discussed receiving forthcoming weekly dust mitigation reports from Greenpoint and confirmed completion of municipal training acknowledgments. Additionally, the commission scheduled its next regular meeting for September 21, 2026, and noted an upcoming Department of Environmental Protection site visit on September 22, 2026, regarding a superseding order appeal for Flatiron Energy.
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Public / Other
All right, so this is a meeting of the Thomas Emerson Conservation Commission's calling to order at 6 p.m. meeting rule.
0:16The meeting is being recorded and shown live on SATB. The first is to roll call from my left. John Costa. Renee Driscoll. Matt Tyler. The next order of business is to review and approve the minutes from the previous meeting. The minutes of the meeting of June 29, 2026 were emailed to us. And are there any questions about the minutes? Any comments? Oh, I have one change
0:50to make. I realized after I had sent it out. Last day after I had sent it out, I'll amend them and you can approve them as amended. So I will amend them and you can approve. When it came to the Flatiron hearing, I should have made mention that Matt Talbot had recused himself, but I didn't, but I'll put that in there. So I'll entertain a motion to waive the
1:09reading of the minutes and to approve as presented. Second. As amended.
1:15Second. As amended. I moved. And second? Yep. Matt Talbot. Okay. All right. So the next order of visits are the continuation. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Okay.
1:26The next order of visits, a continuation of notice of intent filed by Kate Sear for a dock located at 394 Main Street, Sunset Mass. Okay. All right, so the next order of visits are the continuation.
1:35Work being proposed is a 10 foot by 18 foot addition above existing patio, a 10 foot by 18 pervious patio, a 12 foot by 24 foot pool with a 3 foot pervious paid apron. 4 -foot pool with a 3 -foot pervious paid apron within a 100 -foot inner riparian, and a proposed two 1 -foot diameter piles, an 8 -foot by 24 -foot float, and to permit an
1:59existing 1 -foot by 100 -foot dock and 42 -square -foot floater not previously permitted. So first we'll hear from
2:12Can you just give them a little replay of how it was going from three feet to four feet and how all that came about? For three on the dock?
2:24Yeah. For three to four feet, what happened is we didn't permit the dock. So Jack Sear actually, under what they call a simplified license, did that, I believe, came to the commission. He did. So he had a design for three feet. He has to get someone out of the bed fit. He has to get someone out of Luke Bedford, I don't know his name, and he says to
2:45him, I don't know his name. well, I have aluminum, instead of planking, he has aluminum, almost like gangways for the dock, four feet wide. So now, he shows up, and I don't know if he did the math, I wasn't involved, so he might have done the math and said, okay, you should be fine. But then what happened is he went to the floaters, and then he gave him a
3:08bigger floater, too. Once you get Floaters, and then he gave them a bigger floater too. Once you get through the thresholds of square footage, it triggered it out of simplified license and into the 30 -year license that we're here for you guys to mind with. So that's the story that I was told.
3:26Jack came into our office today, what are we doing here? How do we clean this mess up? Because he was going to sue the contractor and then try to get him to... And then, you know, try to get him to, you know, get the damages, because if you guys say tear it out, you know, someone's going to be paying. At the end of the day, I think he's better off with a
3:4330 -year license anyway. Yeah. I agree. So the 30 -year license is what we're doing here. It's obviously certainly all allowed on the 30 -year license, so that other license is going to go away. He's going to pay all the new fees to DEP for a chapter 91 license for 30 years. That's pretty much it....the dock, because it's all alone, so it should hold up pretty good over there.
4:07And then while he's at it, because his dad, there's four boats in play. His dad wants their boat there, so they put a dock back in Swansea. His dad puts his dock boat there. They get a couple of boats, and they get lots of boats, and so they need more than just one floater. That's where you see the two floaters. All allowed under Chapter 91. All out under chapter 91. Yeah,
4:31this is a couple of weeks ago, right, a couple of weeks ago? Yeah. Yes.
4:34They were back the last day to do what he's doing now. Right. OK. So this is Kate, actually. Hi. Sorry I'm late. I thought you guys were in the building over there. So talking about. Was your husband that was here? Yeah. That was Jack that was here at the last minute. So that's the dark aspect. I don't know if folks have any questions on that. I'm fine.
4:58There were some questions about the typography. Yeah, if we're done with the doc, I'll move on to those. So two things we should brought up, which are certainly valid and we're glad you brought them up.
5:13One was the foster invention of the sewer. So we went and got the plan from 1969. And on the plan now, you see the 30 foot wide easement See the 30 -foot -wide easement for the sewer? we did change the pool a little bit, pushed it slightly back to... Oh, okay, and I remember this. This is where the blocks were going to roll. Correct. And then one
5:33of your members said because of the slope coming off the pool, the retaining wall would be... That was my sense. Yeah. So, you know what? Jack agreed, so we agreed that. I think the best thing is retaining wall here, basically encases the pool. Yeah, basically encases the pool, we stay out of the easement, sewer lines actually over here. So, you know, those are the two main topics that
5:59were brought up, so we've satisfied that. Yeah, it makes sense to retain them all the way around, however he wants to do it with the forms, the blocks. Yep, and it's about a two or three foot drop from one edge of the pool to the other. Right, right, yeah. I mean, it's probably going to come up anyways.
6:15Yeah, rather than sloping the ground. yeah that looks too good yeah that's it that must have anything else that's it those are the two major changes does that satisfy the questions that i had yeah anybody else have any concerns or questions no it makes sense so then i'll entertain a motion to approve the project as presented um
6:42all right thank you thank you have a good night do you have any questions I'm sorry did you have any no I'm all set sorry I was late all good all right good luck thank you very much
7:13the next is a request for us to begin a compliance made by Derek Revello of 2442 Riverside Ave, Somerset, Mass. For Department of Environmental Protection, file number 070 -0530 for the completion of the doc.
7:30Okay, so Jim, I'm going to let you correct me if I'm wrong. So they came in in 2021 and filed for a notice of pen. And it filed for a notice of intent for a new home and a dock. Correct. So they had until 2024 to finish it, and they did, but they never came back to the certificate of compliance, so that's what they're doing now. What's your reason? Riverside Avenue, 2442
7:54Riverside Avenue. Because we have to get notified when they're done, and folks don't notify us when they're done. No, they don't. So things, sometimes we mop them up,
8:07It would really matter if they wanted to re -mortgage the house or sell it or trust and somebody went and did a record search.
8:17I've had banks ask me for a certificate of compliance of projects that are four years old. DEP says, well, it must be done. Go take a look at it and decide on. On the eyes, you can see it's pretty much centered.
8:32That's the On the eyes, but you can see it's pretty much centered. That's the key what the DEP is going to be looking at, is when you go out into the water, you take the property lines and project them out into the water.
8:39And Somerset setbacks are 15, typically. So we've got 15. You can see it on there, out here. So you project your property line out, and then you've got 15 and 1⁄2 and 16 and 1⁄2 for the floaters, which puts it into components.
9:01Right. Exactly. A little bit. I'll survey them a little bit off by a template, too. Three minutes. Is there any compliance? So anything is.
9:19You guys want to look at that? No, we saw it. We saw that one.
9:24So does any of the commissions have any questions?
9:30I do. Yeah, I've done it hard. All right, so I'll entertain a motion to issue a certificate of compliance. Some of the school.
9:42All in favor? So any new business? In the old days? Any old business?
9:55All right. After tomorrow, there's going to be a weekly report generated from, I guess we can call this new business then. After tomorrow, there's going to be a weekly report generated from Greenpoint on dust mitigation, and I'll make sure that everybody gets a copy of it each week, okay? And it'll be in the public repository? it was rude, so I've never had to use that one, so
10:22I don't know all how it works, but I mean, I can find out in...
10:20So I've never had to use that one.
10:26Are you going to email us that? I'll email it to you, yeah. Okay.
10:32Anything else? That formerly signed, that took care of the sexual harassment and the other trans? The packet I gave you, and you signed off on it, yeah. And then the video links that you told us through you. Does that cover that? Yes. That signature we just signed? Yeah. Okay. OK. Have you already done it with something else?
10:51No, no. Not that one. It's the civil rights, I think, that overlaps.
11:01We have to do it both times. Yeah. You used to be able to change the signature, but now... Electronic? Yeah. But now you can't. Thank you, Jim. All right, anything else?
11:19It's not being signed up. So if there's nothing else, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. Oh, wait a minute. We should set a date.
11:29We do need to set a date. No, three weeks from tonight.
11:40So, we've got, can't do it the same?
11:46I'll be gone the 14th. How about the 21st? It's a holiday.
11:54I'll be available. For Yom Kippur, you'll be available? All right, then I would recommend that we schedule the next meeting for September 21st. Is it here or the old town hall? All right. It'll be here. September 21st. Well, it'll be it'll be here as we speak It'll be here. September 21st? That's it. right now. As we get closer, if something changes, I'll let everybody know.
12:19Okay. Just for the record, anything to do with the flat -iron energy is no longer a problem. Oh, okay.
12:32Okay. I don't know that we're gonna need anything else. I don't know that we're going to need anything else. I'm sorry. So we did get an email from them, from DEP. We're talking riboside? We're talking about riboside, flat iron. For the ORAD, that was denied. So they're going to be coming down to do a site visit in regards to a superseding order on September 22nd. I will be there. Nobody else has to be there. but if
13:02you want to attend, then let me know. We won't be able to discuss anything about it, but we can just go and watch. When does that got to be? September 22nd. And I can email everybody with the time. 10.30. I think I sent that to everybody. 10.30. Is that the one I sent out? Well, I put it on my calendar for 10.30. I think I can go. Give
13:23me a call. All right. You're going to go? I think I can go. Okay, so once again, I entertain a motion to adjourn the meeting. Okay. So moved.
13:36Second. All right. All in favor? All right. All right. Meeting is adjourned at 6.17.