By Chris Frost
Eagle Times News Editor
CLAREMONT, NH — The Claremont Conservation Commission received an update on the area’s Natural Resources Inventory (NRI) during its Thursday, Sept. 21, meeting.
The updated NRI will be the basis for the city’s Conservation Plan.
Principal Ecologist, Jeff Littleton from Moosewood Ecological, reported on the NRI and cathole (used by hikers to eliminate waste) assessment and is excited to update the NRI they completed in 2013.
“Based on the recommendations from the current NRI, we’ll be expanding upon several of those recommendations,” said Littleton.
He added that includes the partial-based ecological assessment and conducting an audit of the current zoning regulations.
“We’ll move forward into a conservation plan,” Littleton said, adding that both plans are just starting to get underway. “We provided a little background, and it’s taken a little more time than we thought to get this off the ground. It’s perfect timing for us, and then there were negotiations about the insurance we had to work through.”
They’ve been looking at information and getting project designs together, he said.
“By the time these projects came online, we were already in the middle of the field season, so I thought we should put this off so we have one field season for all this, a complete field season, that incorporates March, April, May, and June into the process, some of the most advantageous times of the year,” Littleton said.
He said they’ll tap into the area land trust for any information they have and conservation easements, as well as the 2017 master plan and any other regulatory documents. Additionally, he requested any and all information the Commission has on natural resources that his group may not have access to.
Catholes are a big priority they’ll look into through the fall and winter.
“Back in 2012, there was a recent Forest Management Plan, and maybe there have been some updates to that plan,” he said. “There have been other plans that have been created since then, and we’d love to get our hands on this information.”
Chair Gary Dickerman said he’d follow up with planning department members for information they may have.
“Your Master Plan was last updated in 2017, and typically, they’re done every 10 years,” Littleton said. “It’s not necessarily in every community; sometimes it takes 20 years. By the time this is completed, it will be the winter of 2025, two years out.”
With field surveys, he said Natural Heritage would use the information in the surrounding areas and identify areas he’d like to visit.
“We’re looking at Claremont and its natural resources, that say these are some really special areas,” he said. “Then it comes down to identifying the individual landowners in there, and we have a property access form we’ll send.”
Dickerman said the other ecologically significant area is on Grissom Lane.
“The potential problem is that there is development that may want to go in that direction,” he said. “The more we know about that, the better.”
Littleton said they plan to survey many different places and get a good survey of Claremont and the surrounding areas. A draft of the report will be presented to the Commission in December 2024, with the final report coming in early 2025.
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