Press Release
Conservation Commission
The article in the Sept. 10, 2009 issue of The Wayland Town Crier ("Town Center project on life support") gave Wayland citizens the incorrect impression that the Conservation Commission has either been responsible for delaying the approval or has denied the Town Center project. In fact, the Conservation Commission issued an approval of the Town Center project in May 2009 with the issuance of an Order of Conditions under the Wetlands Protection Act and a permit under Wayland’s Wetlands and Water Resources Bylaw, Chapter 194. The applicant has subsequently appealed to the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) for a review of the Order of Conditions. The applicant is now awaiting the DEP’s decision regarding its appeal, a process that is not under the commission’s control. Also, the applicant has appealed the Conservation Commission’s Wetlands Bylaw (Chapter 194) decision approving the project which is pending in the Middlesex County Superior Court as a civil action.
Wayland citizens should be aware that the original application, submitted by the applicant for the Town Center project in June 2008, contained technical errors and in the opinion of the commission did not meet the standards of the Wetlands Protection Act or Wayland’s bylaw (Chapter 194). These concerns were documented in a lengthy report by the commission’s consultant in the fall of 2008. The applicant submitted numerous lengthy documents and plan revisions in a piecemeal fashion to the commission starting in October 2008 and continuing through April 2009, despite the request of the commission for the submission of a consolidated final submittal by January 2009. The applicant pushed for a decision while the commission struggled with open, unaddressed issues and inconsistencies in the submission of data. The commission held many additional hearings for the project from November 2008 to May 2009. Some meetings were delayed at the applicant’s request. The purpose of the public hearings was to work with the applicant to review and address the commission’s consultant’s findings of issues with the applicant’s proposed changes and to prompt a response on issues not fully resolved in the original submittal. The public hearing was closed on April 6, 2009, and the final decision was issued on May 29, 2009.
The primary concerns for the Conservation Commission associated with review of this project centered on managing potential adverse impacts to wetlands and the Sudbury River from the discharge of contaminated stormwater into these resources. The applicant proposed using technology for the treatment of stormwater that did not conform with DEP’s specifications for the design and operation of stormwater treatment systems. Rather than rejecting the non-conforming designs, the commission sought instead to require the DEP-specified effectiveness of the alternate systems to be monitored after installation and to fix the systems if they didn’t work as required. The commission also sought a requirement for monitoring the abutting wetlands for signs of negative impacts due to hydrology changes. Further, the commission required the implementation of good practices for limited use of chemicals and cleaning of parking lots for source control of pollutants in a drinking water supply zone.
The size and impact of this project has required the commission to invest more effort and resources into the evaluation than any other project. The commission has shown as much flexibility as possible within its authority for administration of the Wetlands Protection Act and the town’s bylaw (Chapter 194) for protection of wetland resources, including the Sudbury River, that are critical for a sustainable environment and for the protection of the town’s drinking water supply.
Roger Backman (chairman), Robert Goldsmith, Andy Irwin, Barbara Howell, Joy Viola and John Sullivan
Conservation Commission
