The Hooksett Conservation Commission met on December 8, 2025, at 4:30 PM. The meeting included a detailed presentation on the Heads Pond trail access improvement project, approval of several routine items, and discussion of a wetland restoration case at 325 Hackett Hill Road.
Note: Bob Barker announced his resignation but later decided to remain on the commission.
Attendance. Sheena, we'll start with you. Oh, sorry. Sheena Gilbert, planning board represent. Bob Barker, member. Joe Carroll Woodburn, co-chair. Alan Stein, co-chair. Well, a better alternate. John Peroni, alternate. Not official. I'm gonna chair the meeting. Okay. Um, so this is the uh December 8th, 2025 meeting of the hoax of conservation commission. And uh we'll go ahead and start with the uh approval of the minutes of the November 10th, 2025 meeting. Can I please have a motion to approve those? I'll make that motion. I'll second it. Is there any discussion about the minutes? They are in the packet. I did review them. Our minutes editor is excused today, so I always think they are pretty fair representation of what was said. Minutes are not meant to be an exact transcription. They're meant to represent what was said. Any discussion? That's good. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay. Are there any abstaints? Okay, I'm gonna go a little bit out of order here. We have a special guest tonight, Dan Tatum from Stantec Engineering Design here to talk about the scope and fee for the heads pond access for all project. Can you just say your name and who you work for, Dan, and tell us what you got to say? Good evening. My name is Dan Tatum. Uh, for the record, work for Stantec Consulting. Uh we were hired by the Conservation Commission to evaluate uh a potential access modification to the Heads Pond trail access, uh which is located uh north of here on Route Three across from Greens Marine. Um project started, we met with Alan out at the site at least a year ago, I'm thinking, and we walked at the existing trail access, which connects the parking lot and that the there's a kiosk right there at the parking lot with a gate down to the railroad bed is approximately 16 percent. And most of the rail bed trail is nice and flat. It was an old railroad, so it's very accessible. Um there had been complaints and and frustrations with how steep that was for folks who uh were not as able as as others, and uh the the ask was that we could create a realignment of that access to uh to make it flatter so it's more accessible. So the first thing I'd like to call your attention to is the eight and a half by eleven that I handed out. There's one highlighted line, and this comes right out of the USDA publication for recommendations for trail construction. So it's a national publication, nationally accredited and accepted. And if you look at the highlighted line, this is a trail segment that is 200 feet or less. Um it would it can be between one and twenty and one in twelve, which is five percent with a maximum of eight point three three percent, and that doesn't require any resting spots. So if you go steeper than eight point three three percent longer than two hundred feet, you should incorporate a resting area and and a lot of the benches that are out on the riverwater project would be a good example of a resting area. You don't need a bench, but uh an area where you could basically move to the side, take a break, grab some water, catch your breath while other folks are walking back and forth, so you're not stopping on the trail. It's really just for for trail flow continuity. Um this corridor that we've created is is under 200 feet, so there are no resting areas, and we held the 8.33 right to the exact slope, actually.