2021 December Green Acton Meeting

Attendees: Danny Factor, Debra Simes, Mike Boss, Kim Kastens, Norm Strahle, Carolyn Platt, Jim Snyder-Grant, Debby Andell, Sue Jick, TF

Welcome + housekeeping tasks

• Check-in + Open Mic (i.e., briefly, what’s on your mind?)

• Committee progress reports on 2021 goals (Admin/Org, Fundraising, Acton Climate Coalition)

  • 2021 fundraising committee goals [Norm], email appeal sent. So far raised about ⅓ of the money in the appeal letter, it was so good, that we got the largest donation a week before the appeal letter went out. About $950, and a couple generous donors that give every month. About where we were last year. Trickle in over the next few days, send out follow up…probably close to where we expected to be
  • Admin: [Sue] a bunch of goals:
    • make website easier to access and design is largely done; the info implementation is stalled waiting for committees, cleaning things up, still working on that.
    • outstanding task list that we’re prioritizing, working on that and will continue to do so
    • create accurate list of committees and members; we’re mostly there
    • working on getting charters for every committee; some have been pinged to get us a charter in early 2022, to bring to Directors
    • policy creation, working on it; willrevisit social media policy
    • creating operations manual/document is a goal
    • trying to engage more people in the Admin Committee in case one of us wanted to get off the committee so someone can step in after going to a number of meetings, encouraging people to get involved. A lot of on-going stuff, making good progress toward goals
    • Kim: what is the difference between a charter and a mission?
    • Sue: can we take that off-line? We sent a format in the email blurb we sent out
  • ACC: [Jim] the Acton Climate Coalition — the group is a little over 1.5 years old, came together late 2019; 38 member groups; worked on petition and the clean energy bylaw and the Home Rule Petition. More recently, we have launched “EnergizeActon.org” to reduce individuals carbon footprint. Go sign up now and use it! Have advocated with the Town to earmark money in the FY21–22 budget at least to hire another person for Sustainability Office who can help implement the Climate Action Plan. Helped start committee on Climate and Housing; other groups in the climate coalition may be more active int the future. Maybe something for spring Town Meeting.
  • That last section is the second part of progress reports on 2021 progress for Committees. ACC ad-hoc committee that represents GA.
  • Plastics legislation progressing at the state level. 

• Water Committee draft statement/discussion on Open Space plan re: water protection

  • Goal: to get a statement for the Open Space Plan effort [see statement in email, provided below *]
  • Ranking slide [see sample below at the end of this document]
  • Concern is that “water protection” is not shown as a higher priority and the scoring system to be transparent. 
  • Request GA issue this proposed statement of concern
  • Q&A
    • Norm: I like this, looks good, succinct, clear, like the goals; another thing: Open Space helps with resilience, helps w/floods, any thoughts about that? 
      • Kim: this is one of my favorite topics, so anything that protects recharge into the aquifer helps w/resilience, this is the place for recharge/resilience per our work on CAP; climate modeling has increased awareness of the importance; worry about drought, but we know more about climate future
    • Danny: two comments. 1. Support this, thanks so much; also for your antenna out there, because I missed this as a member of Land Use, looking not just for transparency, but there’s an assumption that the rankings will change; with the increased importance of water, maybe that should be more explicit. We don’t want the rankings to stay the same once we increase the level of importance on water protection, would expect new ranking. 2. The Land Use Committee has not had a chance to assess if we want to make our own separate contribution, which would not focus on water. Not sure if we have time, but this might not be the only document that the town hears from GA, in regard to the OSP. Land Use might bring a statement, possibly next month, no concerns.
    • Jim: in support, suggest leaving room for other GA statements if they emerge
  • Statement approved with tweaks

• Update on Climate Action Plan (CAP): GA feedback + response; final CAP Blueprint; CAP Planning, Phase II (Jan–April)

  • Sue: Andrea back and forth, Jim prepared a summary of the differences in the original draft and the final draft after GA comments
  • Jim: we had sent a cover note and a bunch of edits, some were accepted some were not. The key ones that were not accepted had to do with changes we made to clarify and strengthen the notion that new buildings even if they are wonderful are not climate-positive, so in a climate plan new buildings should be few in number and rehab should be considered first
  • Stuff that did get added were things that could be implemented rapidly; added a goal that was a resilience goal and we did make another attempt in a strategy to split out the notion that dense affordable housing near public transit, try to make bike access and make them their own strategies, the bike access strategy was beefed up, the zoning one was beefed up but not how we suggested, because we were talking about limit land clearing as a goal of zoning changes, instead, they put ensure zoning aligns with conservation goals, which is more wishy washy…changed “new” to develop a plan for affordable, which leaves more room to prefer rehab over new. The original strategy had language in the new housing choice bill, dense housing not necessarily affordable within ¼ mile and we proposed changing that to ¼ mile to anywhere in town and that didn’t get in. composting got in there as a study not a mandate and we wrote a bunch of stuff that would be in a preface and we’re not in a stage where that could go there, and maybe it will, there has to be words said before the blueprint so some of those words may show up.
  • Debra: I just want to say quickly that the other piece I want to lay out is the sort of timeline, the blueprint presented on the 20th and from January to April. Phase 2 is when strategies will acquire cost estimates, emissions reductions will get attached to strategies, and then strategies prioritized.
  • Kim: I saw a comment in the margin of the document to give credit to people making cAP that they did actually, although preface not there yet, they did put in new strategy, to incorporate climate change risk, the idea of yoking together resilience strategies scattered around in all these plans, there is some progress on that.
  • TF: a climate action plan which doesn’t address growth, refuses to include “limit land clearing significantly” makes the plan as “business as usual.” Growth is at the core of problems with gas, water, etc.
  • Danny: transparency is still an issue. On many other issues this would be something that I would look at glass half full and take a good amount of our suggestions, but I don’t think this is nearly adequate in a time of emergency, which is what this is. This is not a house is on fire plan and that I think is what GA should be looking for. If every town would just do this, it would not put out the fire, in my opinion, which is sad, because most towns aren’t doing nearly this good, but still this is not enough. Do we want to stay monitoring CAP? I’ll reserve my comments til then.
  • Jim: certainly attending the meeting on the 20th or writing individual notes with concerns addressed could be powerful next steps.

• CAP “temperature taking”: does GA want an ad hoc group to “track” and report on Phase II (and perhaps beyond) of the CAP process?

  • Danny: it should be said that being a watchdog isn’t the only thing that we should be doing; we should be doing education, the swap shop, but we do have a role in terms of being a watchdog in terms of being sustainable. This is the town’s climate action plan. If it’s not us, who? Jim did a very good explanation of areas that we won and areas we lost, and areas where it’s wishy washy. And in the areas of wishy washy is there room for more bolder gains, depending on where that language is actualized. The other thing is that there is the stuff in the preface which may come out later. And I’m specifically interested in the sunrise date for the plan, not just the enforcing but the future opportunity for more input, we may have the need for a whole new plan in a year and a half depending on how fast developments move and think it would be a tremendous omission if we don’t do this, and I would be willing to be part of that.
  • Debra: I think that having a group of 2–3 people who pay consistent attention to what happens that’s a good idea, I would probably prefer that it be a reperatorial group that pays attention and as a Board we can decide if we want to make a response
  • Kim: the bus has left, hard to make more changes, but see important place for watchdog role, but what this plan promises and what actually gets delivered. The incentive as a town to write the plan and become eligible for funding sources, but you don’t have to do the stuff in the place, so our leverage could be to hold them to it. Rather than trying to make the plan better or different
  • T: Unless Green Acton starts to be Green-est as opposed to Green”-er” and acting like there’s no land use emergency there’s no point in expecting the town to
  • Debra: a role for our voice in prioritizing, this is more important than xyz, but I also think that by the end of April we have a role in holding feet to fire
  • Sue: we need to move on
  • Norm: federal level watchdog groups threaten to sue
  • Danny: relative to these permitting boards and committees they are clearly rubber stamp organizations, we saw a line of 10-12 people objecting to clearly unlawful things done in the process and time and time again, the Planning Board rubber stamps. Head of Land Use began his term by referring to applicants as “clients.” That is what we’re dealing with. I do think that when it comes to permits…and the word “permit” you can say yes or no and when it comes to permits, our Town is a permitting authority… there is a record. 
  • Sue: and we can find other avenues to address that as part of the conversation, want to keep track, but what does that look like? Need more conversation.

• Event/action announcements

• TRANSITION (checkout for those leaving)

[ADMINISTRATIVE/INTERNAL SECTION OF MEETING]

• Committee reminder: please create draft charters to present (starting in Jan.), and be ready to share draft 2022 goals (starting in Feb.)

• Small Admin item: Goodbye to Mike Boss as a GA director; appreciations and thanks!

• checkout

___________________

Back ground information for Open Space Plan agenda item for 11 December 2021

Green Acton Water Committee

Summary

Every five years, Acton has to renew its Open Space & Recreation Plan in order to be eligible to apply for certain kinds of state funding. The existing plan spanning 2014-2021 is at: http://doc.acton-ma.gov/dsweb/Get/Document-50377/2015%20Acton%20OpenSpace.pdf. Open Space planning overlaps with water issues insofar as preservation of certain open spaces can protect water quality and preserve areas important for groundwater recharge. The revision process is happening now and public comments are being accepted. The question before the Water Committee is do we want to advocate with respect to any water-relevant issues.

What water-relevant goal and actions are in the existing document? (summary by Carolyn)

  • Protection of water resources is mentioned repeatedly in the Summary.
  • “acquire parcels necessary to preserve and protect Acton’s water supplies” is mentioned repeatedly (p 6-3 item 6.B.2, p 7-3 item 7.A.5, page 8-3 item 8.B.1, page 9-3 item 9.B.1).
  • Section 8: Goals and Objectives, under Goal #2: Protect Critical Environmental Resources, includes Goal 8.B.1: Preserve and protect Acton’s water supplies and conservation values.
  • Section 9: the Five Year Action Plan, under Goal #2: Protect Critical Environmental Resources, includes Goal 9.B.1: Preserve and protect Acton’s water supplies and conservation values. See also Table at the end of this doc.

What is missing

  • Climate change is not mentioned, especially the increased likelihood of droughts and flooding. p4-20 says that Acton does not have chronic flooding.
  • Ground and surface water pollution (4-21); it says that contamination could impact local streams, ponds and rivers. They should add “current and potential water supply sources.” Contamination of water supply sources is huge, but the OS&R is silent in this section about that.
  • New development (4-21). The current section discusses the impact of development on water quality. However, it should also say that new development around water supplies should be discouraged/prevented.
  • The key part about how this plan influences action lies in the prioritizations contained in Table E1 (pages 12-72 to 12-75) “Ranking of Open Space Parcels.” The document does not specify the methodology by which these rankings were created, and is completely opaque about how these rankings incorporated water protection. Looking down through the rankings, it seems as though protecting Concord’s water supply (Nagog Pond) got high ranking, but none of the parcels where protecting Acton’s water supply was mentioned got high rankings.

DRAFT: Possible Green Acton resolution

Green Acton advocates that for the 2022 revision of the Open Space & Recreation Plan, the town be more proactive and more transparent in working towards its stated goal to “Preserve and protect Acton’s water supplies and conservation values.” Although this goal is mentioned in the 2014 plan, its urgency has increased in the intervening years, as climate modeling has increased understanding Acton’s drought risk, and the PFAS problem has increased awareness of the importance of groundwater source protection.

When it comes to guiding Town decisions and actions, a highly influential part of the Open Space & Recreation Plan seems to be the Ranking of Open Space Parcels in the Five year plan (Appendix E-1 in the current Plan). Green Acton advocates that in the next iteration of the plan, the Town should:

1. Make ground water protection needs more salient: In creating the next iteration of the table of Ranking of Open Space Parcels, include a column indicating which Ground Water Protection Zone* each parcel is within.

2. Make consideration of ground water protection more transparent: The methodology for scoring the parcels should be explicitly detailed, including who contributed to the scoring, what factors were taken into account in creating scores for Recreation Value, Open Space, and Environmental Significance, and in particular how ground water protection was weighted.

3. Prioritize Acton: While considering public water supply protection, higher priority should be given to protecting Acton’s public water supplies, with neighboring town’s needs given lower priority.

———-

* Zone I means the protective radius required around a public water supply well or Wellfield. For Public Water System wells with approved yields of 100,000 gpd or greater, the protective radius is 400 feet. Zone II means that area of an aquifer that contributes water to a well under the most severe pumping and recharge conditions that can be realistically anticipated (180 days of pumping at approved yield, with no recharge from precipitation). Zone III means that land area beyond the area of Zone II from which Surface Water and groundwater drain into Zone II. Zone IV is everything else. from https://www.mass.gov/doc/310-cmr-2200-the-massachusetts-drinking-water-regulations/download. Map of groundwater protection zones in Acton is at: https://www.acton-ma.gov/DocumentCenter/View/122/Groundwater-Protection-map-with-ammendment?bidId=

GA Minutes: 2021-12-14