In talks with the Director of the U. Mass Herbarium, Karen Searcy about a potential survey of the wildlife in and about our EHS Pond, I discovered that any action making changes to the Pond needed to be passed by the Amherst Conservation Commission. It was suggested that the procedure should include an informal meeting with the committee at one of their semimonthly meetings. I therefore contacted the Conservation Commission Secretary and had them put the Echo Hill Pond on the agenda as an informal informational contact for Wednesday April 8, 1998. I provided the committee with a copy of our Pond Report to prepare them. I had posted the upcoming meeting on our web site with an invitation to anyone interested to also attend. I had also told our VP, Bob Tuthill and Secretary, Chuck Gillies of the meeting verbally. Chuck expressed the desire to attend and he picked me up and we arrived a few minutes before our appointed meeting.

The informal meeting with the committee took place at 8:15 PM in the Town Hall Meeting Room. I had produced a copy of the map of the pond as an aid to orienting the committee about the pond. We talked about the general intentions of preserving the pond and preventing further deterioration. The committee responded that they had dealt with several similar requests over ponds in the area.

After a reasonable length of discussion the committee suggested that there were three stages of a future formal proposal that they envisioned. Not all of these stages needed to proceed simultaneously. Most importantly the first step needed to truly come first.

First, the nature of the pond needed to be certified. Seemingly the casual conversations that members of the Pond Committee have had with Pete Westover were not sufficiently precise or definitive in establishing the nature of the Echo Hill Ponds. Is it a vernal pond, a pond or a wetland? There are practical consequences to this designation. Some discussion ensued over whether there were any marsh marigolds in the Pond area proper. I suggested that I had not seen any other than in the marshy area between Cranberry and Harkness Rd. However, a designation of the ponds official status is yet to be made. The designation process could include as a first step, a visit of the commission members as a group to our pond. We should arrange such a visit in the near future.

Second, proposals to rectify the ponds condition to some former state needed to be made. This might include inexpensive actions such as reducing the influx of fertilizer draining from neighboring lawns which run down to the pond edge. This category could contain all the alternative proposals that have been set out in the Pond Report from dams to raise the pond level to dredging. On bringing up the idea of constructing a path to ring the pond there were immediate objections from Pete Westover that ringing of the pond is in general frowned upon since it thereby threatens the shy wildlife. The Wood Ducks and Herons need to be given a refuge area that is not threatened by close approach. Thus paths leading to the pond(s) and viewing locations could be constructed or re-established, if historically there, but refuges should be preserved. One committee member suggested that a yearly informal dredging by community members, who took a pail of dredge back to fertilize their gardens, would be a suitable way of allowing the community to participate in a gradual approach to the expensive dredging approach.

Third, a plan to maintain the state of the pond in its refurbished state would be expected since the commission hopes that its efforts need not be repeated if applicants are serious about maintaining their project.

After Joe Kunkel's discourse with the committee was over, the audience was invited to comment. Ann Tiberio of Laurel Ln., a pond abutter , asked if the pond could be designated a vernal pond. The committee responded that there was a formal process of proposing a site to be a vernal pond which she could pursue. It involves doing a survey of the pond biota which characterize the style of pond it is. Chuck Gillies brought up the issue that a pond committee member had been told by Pete Westover that our Pond was not a vernal pond. We stood corrected. The designation has not been certified by the commission.

4/8/98 by JGK