Williamstown Eyeing Flooding Issue, Railbed Erosion
 Town Manager Peter Fohlin points to some of the problem areas for flooding. |
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — It is beginning to look like Mother Nature is watching WilliNet.
Twice in the span of eight days, the weather has provided the perfect backdrop for discussions at one of the meetings carried live on the town's community access television station.
On May 21, a storm raged outside the Mount Greylock Regional High School gymnasium as residents of the Spruces Mobile Home Park told the annual town meeting about the life-changing events of August 2011 when Tropical Storm Irene devastated their home.
On Wednesday night, lightning crashed and thunder boomed as Town Manager Peter Fohlin told the Selectmen about a developing situation involving runoff from Broad Brook on the north side of town.
The stream, which normally runs across Route 7 near the intersection with Sand Springs Road, instead changed course during the May 21-22 deluge and sent water down beside the railroad tracks, paralleling Simonds Road to the Hoosic River.
The only building threatened by the flooding was Williams College's Library Shelving Facility, but the bigger problem is the effect that water is having on the railroad bed, Fohlin explained.
"The earth under the railroad tracks is being eroded by stormwater," Fohlin said. "It's not a good situation for the railroad."
The town has identified a solution, he said. A stream channel near Route 7 needs to be cleared of rocks that are causing a blockage. And Fohlin and Public Works Director Timothy Kaiser are working to get authorization to implement that measure.
"The regulatory agencies we're talking to are horrified at the thought of a bulldozer in the stream," Fohlin said. "But we've tried to impress upon them the horror of a train derailed into the river.
"Tim and I are willing to do it because someone's got to do something, but we have to get the regulatory agencies and other parties on board."
In other river-related news, Fohlin informed the board that the Hoosac Water Quality District is in the process of supporting the riverbank where a 48-inch sewer pipe runs alongside the Hoosic behind the Spruces park. The pipe carries effluent from the city of North Adams and the west end of Williamstown to the treatment facility down river.
In its first meeting since the annual town meeting, the Selectmen had a wide-ranging agenda that included signing a warrant for the June 25 special state election for U.S. Senate, approving a June 14 block party on Saulnier Drive and accepting a housing needs assessment funded jointly by the town's Affordable Housing Committee and Affordable Housing Trust.
As always, housing issues were never far from the conversation.
Selectwoman Jane Allen advised her colleagues on the activities of her newly formed Long-term Coordinating Committee, which is charged with fostering cooperation among the various town boards looking at subsidized housing and the potential of using town-owned land for its development.
 Selectwoman Jane Patton attended her first meeting since being sworn in last week. |
"This is a unique committee in that it involves representatives from all of the committees most currently involved in creating housing for residents of the Spruces," Allen said. "It's not the way we traditionally work. We don't traditionally work across boards.
"I think all of us agreed we had a good first meeting, and we're looking forward to moving forward and working together, supporting the work of one another's committees in a very coordinated kind of way to try to accelerate the process."
The LTCC will hold a listening session on Friday afternoon at the Spruces to ascertain the needs and desires of the residents who will be displaced when the town acquires and closes the park as part of an agreement with park owner Morgan Management.
Selectman David Rempell updated the board on the other committee it created this spring: the Spruces Land Use Committee. Rempell is serving on that panel, which is chaired by Dr. Thomas Hyde and will gather input from the community about how the town might use the land it stands to acquire.
Yet another committee was formed on Wednesday night when Selectman Ron Turbin submitted the names of six people he invited to serve on the town's Public Safety Building Study Committee. Finance Committee members Andrew Hogeland and Dan Gendron, Planning Board Chairwoman Ann McCallum, Prudential Committee Chairman John Notsley and Selectwoman Jane Patton will form the committee.
Patton participated in her first Selectmen's meeting since being confirmed in her office at last week's annual town meeting. She takes over the seat formerly held by Tom Costley and was elected secretary by her colleagues in a reorganization that also saw Allen take the gavel from Rempell and Turbin take over as vice chairman.
In other business on Wednesday, the Selectmen gave its blessing to an initiative spurred by Frances Lapidus to pursue a cultural district designation from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.
Lapidus envisions a walkable district that would run roughly from the Williams Inn to the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute then north and west to Water Street, encompassing arts venues and historic and archictecturally important structures on Williams' campus.
"We'd highlight all the wonderful things Williamstown provides year round, not just in the summer — the Clark, Williams College Museum of Art, Images, all the wonderful festivals throughout the year," Lapidus said.
"Even though it's obvious we're a cultural district, it would be nice to have that designation, she said."
Belonging to the Mass Cultural Council program also would open the possibility for state-funded signage and inclusion in statewide promotional materials, she said.
"I think this is a win-win for the community," Rempell said.
Tags: cultural district, flooding, railroad,
