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In attendance:
Jane Howard, Elizabeth Karpati, Ann LeRoyer, Leslie Mayer.
The meeting was facilitated by Leslie Mayer. The minutes are by
Elizabeth Karpati.
Next meeting: to be scheduled
Report on COLAP meeting May 31:
· COLAP (Congress of Lake and Pond Associations) consists of associations of
abutters which manage many lakes and ponds. David White attended this meeting
and reported by e-mail.
· The featured speaker was David Clark, Chief of the Mass. DEM Office of Dam
Safety. This office has jurisdiction over any dam whose failure can
cause damage. Mass. has about 3000 such dams, including some 330 high
hazard dams; dam failures occur at a rate of about two a year.
· High hazard refers to a dam’s location, not its condition: it means
there is something downstream which is at serious risk if the dam fails
(Colonial Village in the case of the Res).
· Highlights of speech: DEM is absolutely opposed to trees on dams.
High hazard dams need an emergency action plan. There will be a dam
owners’ workshop on August 5 – of interest to DPW?
· A national website -- http://www.damsafety.org
-- has relevant information, including something about proposed
national legislation for funding dam repairs. There is also a state
website: http://www.state.ma.us/dem/programs/lakepond/
Current news from the Res:
· Leslie brought copies of the newly printed Res brochure.
· The Res is already full; on 6/10 some water was flowing through the
emergency spillway because of the recent rains. (When the metal plate
which replaced the broken outflow gate a couple of years ago is all the way
down so that no water flows out at the bottom, the top of the plate is a
little higher than the floor of the spillway, so excess water starts going
through the spillway rather than over the plate.)
· The swimming beach will already be open on 6/24, the day of the Vision 2020
tour of the Res, so participants will experience the problem of having to walk
out on Lowell Street when the beach is open and the gates around it are
closed. We can also show the erosion problems, and show off the wood
chips we spread on the path.
· The geese are back; two families with 3 and 4 goslings respectively have
been seen. The fence on the berm is up, and the contract for a dog to
chase the geese (from both Spy Pond and the Res) has just been signed.
· The bird paintings done by the fifth-graders who enjoyed the Res tour last
fall were exhibited in the Town Hall corridor during Town Meeting and
generated a lot of favorable comment.
· Leslie has copies of the memos that we drafted last year to Phil Farrington
and Rich Bento, but that went nowhere. She will provide them to John
Sanchez.
Next meetings: TBA.
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