Sedgwick-Brooksville Town Landing Committee minutes, December 2021

Sedgwick-Brooksville Town Landing Committee minutes for December 8, 2021

Meeting opened at 9:15 a.m. Adjourned at 9:40 a.m.

Members present: Michael Sheahan, Ben Astbury, Bob Publicover, John Gray, Hal Snow, Richard Bakeman, Guests: John Kimball, Don Hill, Mike Thalhauser

Actions taken:

Motion to accept minutes of the November 10, 2021 meeting. All in favor.

Motion to move the next meeting to April. All in favor.

Motion for each town to make a $15,000 contribution to their respective budgets for next year. All in favor.

Motion to adjourn at 9:55. All in favor.

Discussion:

Hal looked for beaver activity under the bridge and didn’t see any.

Mike Thalhauser has received permission to notch the beaver dam under the bridge, but the letter from the DOT isn’t specific and there are concerns over liability.   Trapping should be part of the town’s plan to manage beavers, and there may be state support for this in the future.

Mike: Stream gauge to manage water level based on the needs of the alewife movement as they come and go.   Record keeping at the landing might be the best solution.

John Kimball: Measurement should be taken in the mill pond and there should be tracking of what action taken and the impact it has. There are remote monitors that can be linked to an application to better keep track of changes.

Mike: The engineer has a couple years of data of water levels and may be linked to rain events.

JK: There has to be one person responsible for operating the dam to meet the various needs of both fish and landowners.

Ben: It’s going to be a work in progress until we have the data to act.

JK: An in-land harbor master could be the person to coordinate all these activities. The hard part would be to find the right person.

JK: Will do the research on the cost of a remote monitoring system.

Mike: IF&W has a permit process to trap beavers.

Ben: Will find out what the IF&W process is for permitting beaver removal.

Don Hill: Have you been monitoring the number a fish?

Mike: Roughly 325,000 have been counted each year. Will send fish counting data. After 10 years of data collection there could be a commercial harvest.