Groton Open Space Association

Conservation Commission Recommends Denial of Wal-Mart Application

GROTON — The Conservation Commission voted Feb. 5, 2007, to recommend that the Planning Commission deny a developer’s application to build a Wal-Mart superstore until it’s shown definitively that water from the store’s planned driveway won’t pollute the Groton Utilities reservoir system.

The Conservation Commission’s unanimous vote probably carries only moral force but certainly will have to be considered seriously when the Planning Commission holds a second meeting on the Wal-Mart site plan Feb. 13. The Planning Commission needs to decide at that meeting or shortly thereafter whether to approve the project.

At the last Planning Commission public discussion of the project Jan. 9, Planning Commission member Ray Munn had requested that the matter be referred to the Conservation Commission, but the request was not acted upon.

The Conservation Commission vote came after a presentation by GOSA Director Sidney Van Zandt during the portion of the meeting devoted to citizens’ concerns. The presentation resulted in the issue being placed on the commission’s agenda for consideration later in the evening. Ms. Van Zandt argued — using many documents and recent photos — that the wetlands that ultimately will receive partially treated runoff from the project are not robust enough to filter it sufficiently under all circumstances before it flows into nearby Hempstead Brook and thence to the reservoir.

Questions were raised about the at least 20% of suspended solids that would escape detention basins and about dissolved material that would be unaffected by detention basins. GOSA Director Joan Smith noted that UConn Prof. James N. Kremer had said in the earlier Planning Commission session that monitoring of storm runoff may not catch a looming crisis in which natural buffers suddenly become overburdened and cease functioning to filter runoff. Mr. Kremer also said that so-called best management practices for handling storm water have serious limitations and he urged town not to take chances with the drinking water supply by allowing the development.

Conservation Commission Chairman Brae Rafferty, after earlier asking many pointed questions of Ms. Van Zandt, said, “It sounds as if there’s not enough buffer” for the driveway runoff.

A motion quickly followed, with all seven Conservation Commission members recommending that the project be denied until such time as treatment of storm water runoff from the driveway is designed to “definitively protect the water quality of Hempstead Brook and the reservoir.” A copy of the motion will be sent to Groton Utilities, which runs the reservoir system. The panel made it clear that its concerns about the Wal-Mart project would apply to any other major commercial undertaking that might be proposed for the same site.