Pittsfield To Plot New Places To Pile Snow
 The dirty snow is still at Clapp Park and is melting into the Housatonic River. |
This year, the Highway Department and contractors hauled dump trucks work of snow removed from the roads to Clapp Park. However, they placed the snow right in the wetlands area for the Housatonic River. As the temperatures rose, all of the dirt-filled snow melted into the river.
"They put the snow a little too close to the river," said Conservation Commission Agent Robert Van Der Kar.
The commission issued an enforcement order to help protect the wetlands and the river. Van Der Kar said the Highway Department moved snow and then put in erosion controls for the melting so the commission on Thursday lifted the order.
"There has to be some initial planning before the winter or markers should be set up," said Conservation Commission member Jonathan Lothrop.
Van Der Kar said Clapp Park was a "last resort" for places to put snow from this winter's continual storms. While the state Department of Environmental Protection did lift some restrictions on where snow could be put, Clapp Park was still restricted.
"We will have a plan for next fall," Van Der Kar said.
The Conservation Commission also approved the DEP's request to install a new air-assessment monitoring station at Brattlebrook Park despite neighbors asking for it to be placed elsewhere. A monitor had already stood in the park but the new location is across the street from that location and neighbors said it would be an eyesore.
"Ideally the original site would be best," said Kathy Way resident Robert McCluskey, who was one of three residents to protest the location. "We bought the house four years ago because of the view."
The monitoring station will be surrounded by a fence with trees planted along of it. The commission added that it would ask the DEP to run electricity underground from the existing site to the new one.
Lothrop said he felt the location was a compromise with residents and the state and supported the plan.
Tags: conservation commission, DEP, snow removal, snowstorm, wetlands,
