Topic: Town_Meeting

items of interest at tonights ConCom meeting. 7:00 Room 205 Business. Re-Tree-It Project:Town-wide Scout Project Presentation by Elmer Lyons and Chelmsford Scouts Turtle Crossing:Smith Street Discussion

Here are pictures from just some of the tings we where at this weekend.

Click here for Photos of Cabin Painting at Camp Paul
Click here for Photos of Swan at Heart Poind Beach
Click here for Photos of closing for the winter of the Garden
Click here for Photos of the first full year at the garden
Click here for Photos of ribbon cutting at Chelmsfordmassnew
Click here for Photos of pump track at Russell Mill

So come on and join us and have some fun.

Just a reminder that Dan Lenthall and Elizabeth McGuire of the US Department of Agriculture are planning a site walk of the Lewis Farm at 9 am on Tuesday, March 31, 2009. We have asked them to assess, evaluate and make recommendations concerning the property. We will meet at the Robin hill Road entrance to the farm. Feel free to ask anyone else interested.

For those of you who read this site from Wesford it looks like I will be the speaker at one of the Rotary lunchs in the month of October. I am allways willing to go to any meeting and tell the story of the Stewardship and make new friends and connections. If you have a group and would like me to speak I am happy to do so .. just drop me a line.

We will be at the ConCom meeting tonight to talk about all the projects for 08. Time is 7pm at the town hall.

Hi Tom,

Deanna and I can't thank you enough for your part putting the thanksgiving walk together. The twins have not stopped talking about it. We hosted turkey day at our house and the family members, who are not fortunate enough to come from, or live in, this wonderful community were impressed with the walk and other happenings in town.

We are blessed to live here and mostly due to great people like yourself for taking the time to make Chelmsford better each day. I hope you had a restful holiday and hope to see you soon.

Jim

Chelmsford - While at Westfield State, Chelmsford’s newly hired conservation agent majored in all the right fields to make him a perfect fit for the job, said Community Development Director Evan Belansky.

Darren Guertin received a bachelor of science in urban regional planning and another in environmental science, and he minored in GIS (Geographic Information System) mapping, said Belansky.

“He has the educational background in the three areas that we were looking for,” Belansky said.

Guertin, who lives in Gardner, will leave his job at the Blitzer fish hatchery, in Montague, Belansky said.

At the hatchery, Guertin learned how to perform water quality analysis, which will come in handy in Chelmsford, because of the many aquifers around town, Belansky said.

The new hires’ experience as a camper, hiker and environmental volunteer also caught the attention of Belansky.

Guertin has helped to clean up the Westfield River, Belansky said.
“He’s an outdoors man,” said Belansky.

Out of 30 applicants, six individuals were interviewed for the position, said Town Manager Paul Cohen.

In his new job, Guertin will serve the Conservation Commission and maintain the GIS maps of town, Cohen said.

“I’m very excited, and looking forward to working in the town of Chelmsford,” Guertin said.

Guertin is scheduled to begin on Thursday, Oct. 25.

The first Chelmsford Open Space Stewardship public meeting will be held Tuesday Sept 4th at 7:00 at Town Hall. This is open to the public and we will be talking about the ongoing plans at sites around town. ConCom meeting starts at 7:30 so we can not run longer than that but we will stick around and answer all questions informally after the meeting.

Three new Stewards have been added to the contacts lists. We Have Bob M over at Red Wing, Laura at Deep Brook and Larry … well he is everywhere! If you have questions or want to help you can contact the site steward or me (Phil) and we can set you up.

The Great Marsh Symposium: Discover a Coastal Treasure in Our Backyard
In Massachusetts, the North Shore's Great Marsh is the largest continuous stretch of Salt Marsh in New England, extending from Cape Ann to New Hampshire. The unique complex of natural systems add ecological, economic, recreational, and cultural value to our daily lives both on the coast and inland where land is connected by river and stream networks. Here’s an opportunity for all who love the Great Marsh to jump-start their own fair weather explorations of the area. Join an outstanding roster of experts for short presentations on a variety of Great Marsh topics ranging from Sea Level Rise to Bird Banding on Plum Island to Poets and Painters of the Marsh, circa 1900. Hosted by the Great Marsh Coalition with support from EBSCO; $12 registration fee; pre-registration required.

WHEN & WHERE: Saturday, March 10, 8:30 am-2:30 pm; Parker River National Wildlife Refuge Headquarters, Newbury, MA
FOR MORE INFO: www.greatmarsh.org; Kathy Leahy, 978.927.1122 x2700, kleahy@massaudubon.org


Massachusetts Land Conservation Conference
Come to a full day of informative workshops and inspiring conversations with conservationists from across the Commonwealth. Some of the 32 workshops offered include include: Land Conservation 101: The Tools, Programs & Jargon Demystified… Insights from Foundation Funders…Building Relationships with Landowners…Land Conservation, Agriculture & Massachusetts’ Immigrant & Refuge Communities… Protecting Trail Lands…Effective Citizen Participation in Issues Related to ATV Use on Conservation Lands. Co-sponsored by The Trustees of Reservation-Putnam Conservation Institute & the Massachusetts Land Trust Coalition. Pre-registration is required; $35 registration fee if you sign up by March 9, $50 afterwards.
WHEN & WHERE: Saturday, March 24, Bancroft School, Worcester, MA
FOR MORE INFO: www.thetrustees.org/PutnamConservationInstitute.cfm; Angel Vega; 978.840.4446 x1934; avega@ttor.org

The new maps Tim has been working on are now on line. I converted them to JPG so you can see them. Check out the tow new trails added.

Maps of The Lime Quarry and BB Wright

Click here for new EPA Maps in Jpg format

Where to start…

The event for my farther-in-law Commissioner Elmer C Bartels has a huge success Friday night and raised over 40K so send kids with disabilities to camp. With this event behind us I am once again able to focus full attention on the Open Space program.

The program its self is zooming ahead and the addition of Bob G has been a god send to us. Bob it seems is all over town talking and walking with all the Stewards and giving them in depth advice and explaining the history of each open space. Here is a quick rundown on the sites and what I know is going on:

BB Wright. Bob will be walking with Trill to look at the “closing the loop”. Once approved we will take Brian up on the wood chips (excellent) idea and use these up to the area of the board walk. This will reduce the length of the board walk drastically. Scot and Amy are looking at the trails going up to the power lines and to the conservation land they connect too. Once they fully understand area we will be hearing from them.

Thanksgiving Forest: Bob and Paul have met and walked and Bob knows everyone at Great Brook and will work to get Paul and them closer.

The Quarry: New tail plans are great and George, Jim, Bob G and I have all walked the trail and it is wonderful. The reduction of the steep hill on the Blue Jay trail this green extension highlight some nice rock formations and the stream. It also gives great overlook of the wetlands and the bike trail from the hill atop the main road. George and I yesterday cleaned up the old apple tree and removed the dead branches and vines. Check out the parking lot as you go by as the tree is located at the end closest to town and behind the small trees. We also removed some of the small brush along the entrance side to make it more open and thus easier to police. The old structure on the hill will be removed and some of the wood might be recycled for the boardwalk the rest will be removed to the road for pickup along with the tires from the tire fort.

Crooked spring: DPW has dropped off rock for the switchback and we will start once it warms up a little. Jim, George and I started clearing the vines in the trees to on the left and side of the parking lot. The two small bunches of birch trees where rotted and killed by the vines so we removed them. Most of the other trees are now in better shape and no vines climb them. To make it easer we removed all the branches up to 6 feet on the trees and now the vines will not be able to jump on the branches this summer. An added bonus is you now have a full view of the pond and it looks a lot larger. We will continue vine control in this area but it will take a few years to get it under control.

Land Trust: I spent yesterday morning with Cathy from the Land Trust and we looked at downtown lots. The back up of water on the lot is bad; it is now a lake and growing. The upper meadow needs a lot of work with vine control and removing dead brush and invasive plants. Most likely we will start next sat depending on weather and what Trill approves at other locations. We looked at the trail the “mystery person” had added to the Wood Lot to the bike trail and both Cathy and where slogging through mud and water. Bob will have to look at this to see if can be salvaged but most likely the project will be a “no go”. Something will have to be done once the trail is in because the area is a magnet and people will try crossing the stream to get to the benches on the hill. Cathy and I did find a structure out in the swamp and it is on the list to be removed ASAP.

So that’s what up so far.

-Phil

Bob has been looking at the Chelmsford Land Trust lot of land that connects to the Freeman Bike Trail. He is looking at possible options to make the trail safer and easier. Non of this is final until the Land Trust approves it. We are moving forward in supporting them on several sites. this one and the one downtown will be the most obvious. Downtown is in great shape and we will just add weekly clean up crews.

Click here for maps

P.S. to all Stewards: this is a look but do not touch until we get the Ok from Land Trust. We can pick up trash and mark the trail with tape but that is all we are allowed to do for now.

Some of you who have been using the Chelmsford Open Spaces over this last year will have noticed a huge change in the upkeep of the land. About one year ago the Chelmsford Open Space Stewardship was born and in less than one year we have gone form one site to over 400 aches in town. Most of us have maintained trails in the Whites and brought that skill back to Chelmsford. You can see the work at www.thechelmsfordian.com We want to promote the use of the land and Geocaching is one of the sports we want to promote. As part of our regular trail clearing and checking (happens three or four times a week) we want to start checking on caches to make sure they are still there and accessible. We also want to help people place them in interesting area’s that a lot of people do not see as a way to draw them to this area. If you are interested in working with us please e-mail me at Phil@morgansci.com. We will have GPS maps posted soon of the Lime Quarry so this seems like a natural direction to move. I feel we need someone to help guide us in this area who knows and loves the sport. Interested?

First off the storm that hit Friday and dumped all the water made a mess of a few areas. The new gravel placed at Crooked Spring was hammered hard and a lot of washout. I stopped by Sat and had to build a water break across the trail to avoid more damage. Looks like we might have to increase the height of the Scout burm and maybe deepen the run off trench a few inches. Hopefully with this done and the new water break the trail will not wash out again. Once I finished this I cleared the blockage on the upstream side of the bridge and then cleared the over hangs and vines from the drown stream side. The water can now freely flow under the bridge and should eliminate any ice dams that would have formed in the winter. The down stream clearing just improved the view form the bridge so you can now see 30 feet down the stream. Most of the blockage was vines growing up into the trees and needed to be removed before they strangled the trees anyway.

Later Saturday I popped over the BB Wright and caught up with Scott who has started clearing the vines from the trees in the “Vine Forest” out hope is the trees will not die but with the amount of vines in them most likely they will all be lost. We can at least slow the spread to the rest of the area until something can be sorted out as a long term solution. It was nice to see a new steward out doing work and excited about making a difference.

Sunday I was over at Thanksgiving and that was interesting. First off the canoe ramp is well underway and looks great. The pond has been lowered so construction on the wall will most likely start soon. (I have pictures off this and other items I will post this week). What was interesting was I could see the base of an old wall in the mud so at one time there must have been one here. The new kiosk Jim updated looks fantastic and the information the Morse’s added is excellent. Now the bad part, the place needs a good clean up once again as it seems that the can and bottles are tossed around in quiet a few places. I picked up a lot but hopefully Cathy will make a pass and get the rest.

The moving of the trail at Thanksgiving forest is amazing (see photos posted this week). We had an issue with First Day Farm mostly because the trail ran up to and over the boundary marker of their land. This was most likely because they trail was created years before they built the farm corral. The new trail is about 4 feet from the old one and runs only 15 feet in total length. The sod and fill from the new trail was placed over the old one so if did not know about the old trail you would think it never existed. Thanks again to Jim for doing all the work on this. First Day Farm is happy, the runners are happy, the bikers are happy so this issue should not come up again.

This morning I was at the Quarry and that’s in pretty good shape except the poison ivy is starting to move back into the trails a little but they are still very usable. The washout on the second bridge is an on going problem and looks like we need a water break added and maybe some rock added around the bridge to stabilize erosion. We have the sign moving and renaming coming up soon but once I know more I will let everyone know.

We are having a article about the program in the Independent this week so everyone should give their locations a quick once over so when residents check out the area’s they see them all at their best. From walking all the trails over the last 3 days they all are in the best shape they have been in years and all you guys are doing a kick ass job and I truly think we have the best outdoor trail system of any local town and even better than most of the state forests.