Lanesborough Con Comm Calls for Wetlands Remediation at 550 North Main
LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — The Conservation Commission recommended an enforcement order to remediate wetlands at 550 North Main St. after workers placed a utility vault in the wetlands area.
"I'm not comfortable with how any of this went down, I'll be really honest ... This vault could have been placed outside of a wetland area and was not, and I want to know why that wasn't done, and I want an alternative analysis around moving it. It's not OK that this happened," said Commission Chair Stacy Parsons.
Engie, the utility company working on the project, must refile the notice of intent to show impacted areas and how they will remediate as part of the enforcement order. Pierre Journel, a project developer at Engie, said this error should have never happened.
"This was a massive oversight that happened," he said. "This was a decision that was taken quickly, without consulting the broader team."
Parsons clarified that this is not the first time the wetlands have been disturbed during this project.
"This is the second time on this project site that contractors have oops'ed on a wetland line. We had a cutting that happened earlier," she said. "I'm concerned about what's happening at Saddleback and how things are being communicated to the onsite team."
Parsons asked how workers did not notice they were in a flagged wetland area. Mark Arnold of Goddard Consulting, the environmental monitor on the project, explained there may have been some confusion with the flags marking it.
"There's some flags that appear to have fallen down, possibly in the winter ... I'm not sure if they were even hung on woody vegetation, so it seems like they fell down. And so that was the first visual catch that wasn't there," he said.
Additional confusion, according to Arnold, came from a utility pole that is being put up nearby by Eversource. The enforcement order stipulates all work outside of approved work must cease, and Project Manager Tyler Gibson said work has stopped on the site for the time being.
"I have ceased any further work on this until we get a resolution," he said. "That Eversource pole, to my knowledge; and it's right off the driveway there, is not in any kind of wetland area. The only further work would be to run some conduit underground to that pole. But that, we are not doing until we resolve this issue."
In other business, the commission heard from Amer Raza, a design engineer at state Department of Transportation, approving plans for resurfacing and other work on 4.25 miles Route 7. The roadwork will be between mile markers 37.25 and 41.50, and improvements include repairing defects, upgrading guardrails, adding rumble strips and resurfacing.
"The department is proposing micro-milling the entire existing roadway surface to an average depth of two inches and resurfacing the roadway with a two-inch overlay ... All of the work will be performed within the existing layout," Raza said.
Tags: conservation commission, utility pole,
