The Town of Wayland Board of Health will soon hold a public hearing on proposed Floor Drain Regulations as required by the Mass DEP Wellhead Protection Regulations. Currently the town’s municipal controls do not comply with the state regulations. The public hearing is planned for Monday evening February 25, 2013 at 7:35 p.m., in the Wayland Town Building. The legal ad will appear in the Town Crier on February 7, 2013.

In Wayland ground water provides the sole source of the town’s drinking water. Adoption of the Floor Drain Regulations is a preventative measure for the purposes of preserving and protecting the town’s drinking water resources from discharges of pollutants to the ground via floor drains, reducing the risk to public health and the environment due to such discharges, and minimizing the threat of economic losses to the Town. The regulation will apply to all applicable facilities, existing and new, within the Town of Wayland.

The adoption of non-zoning floor drain controls is a condition of Wayland’s water withdrawal permit under the Water Management Act as well as a factor in eligibility for state grants. There are over 100 towns in the state that have already passed similar measures.

Once the regulations are approved, all the identified facilities will be notified by letter explaining the adoption of the regulations, timelines and inspection schedules. A process will be followed through a joint effort between the Health Department and the Plumbing Inspector to bring existing facilities into compliance and new facilities going forward.

A copy of the draft regulation can be found on the Health Department website: http://waylandma.virtualtownhall.net/Pages/WaylandMA_Health/regs.