[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[0:00] Good job, Secretary.
[1:08] 29, May 25,
[1:13] thank you all for coming.
[1:17] I'd like to call the meeting in two order.
[1:23] First order of business, I want to introduce our new secretary,
[1:28] Mike Liberty, has graciously agreed to come on as the LQC secretary, something we desperately need, so I'm very happy for that, so thank you, Mike, for stepping up.
[1:45] The second order of business is to review and act on the acceptance of the July and September
[1:51] 2025 meeting minutes, which we don't have here, so I don't have, I don't have, I don't have,
[1:57] I don't have, I don't have, I don't have, I don't have those for the November meeting, for
[2:00] sure, and we'll deal with it at that point.
[2:04] If you want to prove, the poor look bills and expenses, I have no no use of any bills or
[2:10] expenses.
[2:11] So, all right, moving quite a long public participation.
[2:16] Now, you're going here besides, to, nope, so on.
[2:22] And discuss, and number seven, discuss and act.
[2:26] Oh, commission's report, I'm sorry, number six.
[2:28] So Mr. Pike, would you like to lead us off?
[2:31] Sure.
[2:35] observations during the weekends, Saturday, this is Sunday, in September, and early October.
[2:45] It was a lot of use of the lake in the afternoon.
[2:51] Particularly, I got to save my jet ski, and I just have to share my thoughts, and that
[2:55] is that I have concerns,
[3:00] and this is not to be received by a large enforcement as any negative
[3:08] comment,
[3:11] but just the use and the volume of votes, particularly, and also disregard for
[3:19] private property.
[3:20] I know too islands on the lake that are posted no trust passing and there was eight to ten
[3:27] jet skis on each of them at a time.
[3:31] I know none of them were from the of owners who
[3:34] with them. So I have some concerns and I'm just one commission here when people hear this
[3:40] they're going to, you know, have feelings about it, but I, I stopped the question again whether
[3:47] in the future relative to safety, relative to respect for property,
[3:54] that, you know, maybe
[3:55] jet skis can't be used on right-wing signal on Saturdays and Sundays. During the months,
[4:03] the summer months from May to October, not just pressing my feelings right now about that.
[4:10] I'm not asking for a motion or a discussion, but an observation that
[4:20] I want to use of jet skis as I so described it as being concerned that the
[4:27] length of wake is set in suddenly afternoons are in a good weather once can be
[4:33] simply unsafe with the amount and the type of use of the water.
[4:38] Thank you, Mr. Chiff, I'd like for me to say that other than that, the boys going to
[4:45] start to go down following this weekend. It's been a pretty high, all things considered
[4:52] for the season.
[4:55] My visual observation to Lake is the turbidity with reduced to boat usage
[5:01] is better, the clarity of the water is better. Also, it was a lot of wildlife spreading
[5:07] out with less, both traffic on the lake, swans are swimming around.
[5:13] Herons are, you know, feel more comfortable waiting
[5:18] shorelines of the lake.
[5:23] And that's it at the moment, Mr. Chair.
[5:25] Thank you.
[5:26] OK, thank you.
[5:37] Thanks, the Conservation Commission has been in the process of monitoring
[5:44] some miles that are being constructed on the way. Some take-outs get completed,
[5:57] but then just
[5:58] a reminder with the
[6:10] drawing from
[6:14] that set. Okay. Thank you. Hey, quick question.
[6:21] Do it in
[6:21] Pond, we, you know, with the permits went through for the drawdown, overseas the actual physical
[6:29] taken a board's out. Is that conservation? Or is that, I can find out, I think. Do you
[6:37] I think they've done it in the past, I don't know if there's anybody on staff that is physically done it, but that's who managed it in the past.
[6:52] I forgot, I've been looking at a dock situation and sunset lane and she's very,
[7:00] I'll ask a few weeks. Notice there's a floating raft still out in the lake. That was there.
[7:12] There are most of the summer, and I think it's really navigational, has an umbrella before, but
[7:20] that individual needs to take it out and not put it back.
[7:25] It's weekly we can't allow for floating.
[7:31] A couple of reasons, one, navigational reasons, number two. And if there's a need, because it's shallow water for some kind of buoy to not have people hit the props, then that should be brought to the commission. We could so, then maybe put a buoy in the lake at that point, but it's not for the general public to make a decision that we're going to put a warp there or a dock there.
[8:00] And the link isn't that big to be able to afford that.
[8:03] And again, the navigation has it's a nice somewhat could hit them.
[8:07] But I'm concerned that that raft remain there and it should be out and it should not go back.
[8:14] And thank you, Mr. Chair.
[8:15] Okay, thank you.
[8:20] It's the Nelson.
[8:23] Well, with the end of the child
[8:31] days and rain and most of
[8:40] the
[8:40] the invitation,
[8:44] they're holding their
[8:47] end classic with
[9:23] the end of the
[9:37] sharing on the board.
[10:09] I love the FarMine. It's really all I have to talk about is
[10:18] a, well, I can, I do have one thing I want to talk about is there is a, there is a vessel, if you've seen it out there, just let everyone know we have, you have seen this thing. And it's, you know, it's submerged and should be removed from the lake by next week. So we're, we got that. We have to peep the proper people in place.
[10:40] I get to get the thing out, so,
[10:45] and I'm just going to move on to number seven, which is
[10:48] discussed in Act on the QRA Spring 2026, we've got a schedule on them.
[10:53] I apologize because I do not have a hard copy of it, of departments or the actual schedule.
[11:03] That would be helpful if you guys can help me out.
[11:05] I haven't had my phone, but I want to look like I just also sent you a call.
[11:10] be a secretary. I hope the permit. Okay. Yes. Yeah. It has the permit and it has the
[11:20] SKG one.
[11:31] We got the check.
[11:35] I believe they just dropped it off. They dropped it off
[11:39] to the dispatch. Oh, we're here. Thanks.
[11:47] You're still from that. So, my name is
[11:49] Thegmula. I'm working with Patrick at the QRA.
[11:57] We're just presenting the, uh, what
[11:59] we have 24 submittals for the spring raises,
[12:04] everything from March 28th all the way up to June
[12:07] 23th Memorial Day the Saturday before.
[12:13] It's all the typical spring races. There are 1, 2, 5
[12:18] larger regardless that we have in the schedule as well, but it's more of all the same that we do
[12:24] every spring. I don't know if you wanted to go individually.
[12:27] No, well, not necessarily the ones closer to a moral day. Those are, do we be on a moral day weekend?
[12:38] It's the Saturday of the moral day weekend.
[12:40] That is a moral day weekend.
[12:41] Yes, it's up to you, Ram close to us.
[12:46] Did I say June 23rd?
[12:49] No, no, May 23rd.
[12:52] Not June 23rd. I said that.
[12:54] I hope so.
[12:55] That's the lead.
[12:56] That'd be too long for us.
[13:12] I'll make sure I thought you guys were copied on that email.
[13:15] But I'll make sure you all get a copy of the,
[13:19] or send out a copy of the email to the rest of the commission.
[13:24] Mr. Secretary, can we send out a copy of the,
[13:28] So thank you, so it's got the copy, especially we're
[13:43] going to email you in one, two,
[13:52] and the
[13:52] ones in yellow, that's re-implosings correct,
[14:08] all those in favor?
[14:12] I'm a good season.
[14:13] Thank you.
[14:20] We'll do it on the management plan.
[14:26] The question I'm going to draw it on
[14:30] is schedule for on about November 1st, November 1st
[14:35] falls on the Saturday this year, so it's going to be probably the 3rd of 4th.
[14:40] And they're going to start dropping it down a couple inches every every time a couple inches increments every time
[14:46] As we have to maintain a flow both
[14:51] In this month this time of year. It's basically we can't we can't send too much over the dam at one time
[14:57] But we also have to make we have a minimum flow
[15:01] Whether permitting also, that we can't shut the thing off,
[15:09] because liquid segment is part of a larger watershed that needs to be maintained.
[15:16] So, that'll probably be
[15:23] into, you know, the towards the end of November, and the lake will be down, unnavigable at that point.
[15:31] So I would recommend anyone who has a power boat, especially if you're going to use the
[15:35] flimp on boat ramp, to get your boat out, because I can tell you from experience because
[15:41] some fool didn't get his boat out of time and had to basically pat it over to boat ramp
[15:50] and haul the thing out, they would have to drag the thing out, so my advice would be
[15:57] to get out there as soon as possible.
[16:00] On the Newton pond draw it down, we're part-mitted, we're approved.
[16:06] I will reach out to the town and get that because the town controls the dam, so we'll
[16:14] reach out to them to get someone down there to start that draw it out as well.
[16:19] But I suspect that'll be basically the same time frame, that that comes out.
[16:25] So, if you're on your pond and you're watching, you definitely want to get the boat out of the water as well.
[16:31] Because Newton's a lot shorter.
[16:34] I'm sorry.
[16:35] Shallower.
[16:35] Then, I think, when segment.
[16:38] So, you know, you're on the North side of when segment.
[16:40] Also, don't
[16:45] take that as all I can just take my boat out of the pond.
[16:48] It's depending on where you are.
[16:50] There's a lot of shovel spots all over the pond.
[16:53] And I can also tell you from experience that.
[16:55] those all the hard way. So, fair warning. Other thing on the environmental side, we did treat
[17:03] the sacred lotus this week. I think yesterday they hit it. So, that is done and we will
[17:12] evaluate that comes springtime and there's a possibility that at that point we'll look at
[17:26] water that would help. I still think we're going to probably be treating this for a couple
[17:29] of years, often on. We hit it, oh, probably three or four years ago, I think, and
[17:37] it went away. And that kind of came back this year. And it came back way bigger than it was
[17:45] the first time, a few years ago. So, you know, the seeds can get down and it can be dormant
[17:50] inside on the bottom of the lake. So, that just happens. You know, it just got to keep going
[17:55] after it and hopefully we'll keep knocking it back
[18:07] for me on the upon thing.
[18:11] And now, the job in waiting for is an update from Katie Lyman, from Lake St. Ponds,
[18:17] Coordinator for the City of Worcester Department of Sustainability and Resilience,
[18:21] Lake St. Ponds Program.
[18:24] Thank you.
[18:25] Not too many updates from my end either, sorry about that.
[18:29] And today was our last sampling session for our sampling season, so we'll be ready to analyze
[18:41] data over the course of the winter, and we'll be presenting it publicly and publish them
[18:47] in reports online as well.
[18:50] So stay tuned for announcements about our annual state of the weeks event, which might
[18:55] combined with public meeting for another type of project. I'll get through in a second. We'll
[19:03] let everyone know when the event will take place. Hope to see you in many folks there.
[19:09] We haven't seen very much sign of bacteria at least that has been reported to us or found through
[19:15] our monitoring over over the course of the season. So that's certainly great for this time of year.
[19:22] I did have one resident reach out who showed some photos of some scums in the Flint Pond area.
[19:30] They didn't look super significant at that time, but we had sort of a larger conversation
[19:35] about access nutrients contributing to that as well.
[19:40] So this season, while we haven't had the resources to do a really really comprehensive
[19:46] monitoring of Santa Bacteria with our volunteer program and with some continuous
[19:51] monitoring equipment that we have in Flint Pond that area have seemed pretty good in general.
[19:58] And the last sort of update I have is on our watershed plan project.
[20:03] What we're terming project blue Worcester because it's focused on not just the
[20:16] finished up their last day of site assessments last week and so in the next phase
[20:23] they'll be analyzing some of the sites that they looked at to see where the best
[20:27] opportunities are to reduce nutrients that make their way into the lake and then
[20:33] from there we'll pick kind of a go through a bit of a prioritization exercise to see
[20:39] what makes the most sense to look at implementing in the long run as far as
[20:45] future reduction and cost for those part, as well as feasibility and maintenance and those kind of considerations.
[20:53] And then, once we have sort of a rough prioritization, we'll select probably about 10 sites to do conceptual designs for,
[21:01] which would allow us to seek grant funding to actually implement them going forward.
[21:07] So, excited that that project is going well as well.
[21:11] The public meeting for that project will be taking some place in the late winter or early spring.
[21:19] So there will be plenty more sequencing main commission meetings before that, but for free to stay in stay tuned for that meeting as well.
[21:29] That's all I have, thanks much.
[21:32] Again, what was the issue with the leak out recently at the Pompeii station with the
[21:39] Jersey barriers?
[21:42] I mean, was that a street drain overflow?
[21:46] Was it the Pompeii station again?
[21:48] I mean, it's buried off right now.
[21:52] It's good, sir.
[21:54] Yeah.
[21:55] There's been no break.
[21:57] I think they're just doing a little bit of preventive work.
[22:00] I don't know exactly what the work is, but I think that station is probably under going some kind of longer-term upgrades over a longer period of time.
[22:13] So I think it's just kind of the next phase in the implementation of that.
[22:16] Okay, could you know this here that
[22:20] fuck the station, in fact, some, unfortunately,
[22:24] because of decades, a few insults
[22:27] to the lake from that point of view.
[22:31] I've got concern. I saw in place in Jersey berries and lifted up manhole covers. And they put them around the pumping station, so I was concerned.
[22:42] Yeah, definitely I think everyone in this room will concern for the history of that station, but certainly not outside the ordinary to have kind of ongoing maintenance in this situation.
[22:58] Thank you, Mr. Chair.
[23:01] Okay.
[23:02] I also want to thank you for your help on the sacred loader's thing.
[23:07] And, you know, coordinate the cutting out with solitude and whatnot.
[23:11] So, I appreciate it.
[23:17] You describe what you give us an example of what nutrients kind of nutrients are, you know,
[23:29] I mean, nutrients of broad brush, I guess, of stuff that could be, you know, the fall
[23:36] under that category, yes.
[23:38] Yes.
[23:39] So the main nutrient that we're concerned about is phosphorus, because that is the limiting
[23:45] nutrient for the leak, and so that is the main factor that will lead to kind of overgrowth
[23:52] of biological organisms and general filling in nutrition over the years.
[23:58] There's lots of different sources of phosphorus, so even atmospheric deposition, you know,
[24:05] particle falling out of the sky is a source of phosphorus, but some of the heaviest
[24:10] hitters that we're looking for are kind of erosion in areas where there's, like, significant
[24:17] wildlife, people deposit, so like, pop in that scoop, but it could be, you know, dog parks as well,
[24:23] for example, leaky septic systems.
[24:27] So, in addition to that, kind of just general organic decomposition is another big source of phosphorus as well.
[24:37] So, phosphorus can move over the landscape in lots of different ways.
[24:43] So, transport through the storm water system is one of the main ways that it would enter the lake.
[24:49] So making alterations to the storm order system either through, you know,
[24:56] making sure every catch basin has a deep sum so that any organic
[24:59] metapin material gets trapped and preferably not washed into the lake is
[25:05] one strategy. There are types of filters that you can put into the storm order system
[25:10] to actually filter out phosphorus. Those are incredibly expensive, so I don't know.
[25:16] So, as far as I'm aware, there's no communities close to us that actually have those implemented.
[25:25] And then erosion and kind of just general sedimentation is another,
[25:31] is one of the most visual aspects that we look for, because phosphorus attaches onto sediment particles pretty tightly.
[25:40] and so kind of wherever you see sand or dirt getting washed of the lake where you see
[25:44] bank erosion, and that's going to be sources of nutrients as well. So when we go out and do the
[25:50] side assessments, that's often what we're looking for.
[25:56] But there's the modeling exercise that
[25:59] the consultants are doing, do include kind of a land cover analysis and to estimate how much
[26:07] surface there is because for example this time of year we see all of the leaves on the trees
[26:13] are falling down onto hard surfaces and so they're not decomposing right at the base of
[26:20] the tree because a lot of our watershed is covered over with pavement for example so leaves
[26:26] a fallen to pavement with often gets kind of ground up but decomposed but then they would
[26:34] to catch face in through the storm water system and into the leak.
[26:38] So that's another example.
[26:40] So one outcome or one recommendation of the plan, for example,
[26:44] could be increasing street sweeping,
[26:46] increasing leaf pickup.
[26:48] Obviously there's a lot of implementation nuances
[26:52] that may dictate what's possible or what's not as far as expanding that.
[26:57] But that would be one example.
[26:59] Okay, fascinating.
[27:00] I'm excited about the program, I have to kick out on it, but it should be very helpful thing
[27:07] for the league.
[27:08] It's something that's been kind of on our minds, it was a target to get things to find out
[27:16] what's coming in and the harmful stuff and where it's coming from and to deal with it
[27:21] as best we can.
[27:22] That's not a thing.
[27:23] Great.
[27:23] Thank you.
[27:28] Great.
[27:28] So
[27:33] you update from the representative of the Lake One Sigma and water source association who's you don't do that
[28:05] Okay,
[28:08] that's the mown night
[28:10] Okay,
[28:27] because positive they don't have any front of me so as an easy one and the set the date of the next meeting
[28:34] I think we're talking November 19th
[28:39] at that point we will also have a hearing versus the
[28:44] It's the best way to describe it is the fair use of a liquid segment for recreational and
[28:50] competitive activities.
[28:53] So, not to be done there,
[28:57] it's seven-tenth, so that's the big news on that particular agenda.
[29:02] And that's about it.
[29:05] So, November 19th, Marquis Gallauders, I think it's going to be in this room, but I'm not sure.
[29:11] So, thank you, Lieutenant.
[29:14] Oh, by the way, thank you
[29:18] for, I guess we're scheduled next door.
[29:20] I think we'll just here to put it on the agenda.
[29:23] You guys had a schedule plan.
[29:26] Thank you very much.
[29:30] And then, that's all done.
[29:33] And with that, we have another 32 minutes.
[29:38] I'd just like to say a few things for the next 32 minutes.
[29:41] I'm all okay.
[29:44] We'll check in.
[29:46] All those of everybody in the discussion.
[29:47] Bye.