IWA Makes First Set Of Changes To Groton Wetlands Regulations (WITH UPDATE)

GROTON — The Inland Wetlands Agency has made a series of amendments to the town Inland Wetlands and Watercourses regulations. The changes reflect significantly diminished state regulatory protection.

The amendments were adopted unanimously at the same IWA meeting June 10, 2009, at which a public hearing on the matter was held. Proposals for further local changes are in the wings.

The Office of Planning and Development Services (OPDS) told the Inland Wetlands Agency that the changes were necessary to align the town’s regulations with “legislative changes to the [state] Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Act and other applicable state statutes.”

The IWA’s action was the first of wide-ranging planned rewrites of Groton’s land-use regulations under a program that began to gather speed March 21, 2008, when the town signed a contract with a Midwest land-use firm, Kendig Keast Collaborative, to provide consulting services in the rewrite process.

KKC had no announced connection with the first set of amendments.

The IWA plans to consider a second set of wetlands regulation changes — thought to be more controversial than those dealt with June 10 — at a date still to be announced.

The amendments made at the latest IWA meeting include deletion of a broad provision in the Groton regulations intended to allow the IWA to consider potential impacts of a proposed construction project on fish and wildlife. The amendments added a provision that the IWA may not deny a permit for activities outside but near wetlands and watercourses “on the basis of an impact or effect on aquatic, plant, or animal life unless such activity will likely impact or affect the physical characteristics” of the areas.

Also deleted was a reference to inland wetlands and watercourses as “an indispensable, irreplaceable, and fragile natural resource.”

(UPDATE) When asked why this section was deleted, an OPDS official said that as far as is known, “The language you ask about was never in the state statute. The wetland agency, as with all land use commissions, is required to follow the state statutes. If there is a discrepancy between their regulations and the statutes, the statutes govern. The Agency is not required by law to amend their regulations when the statutes change, but I believe it is in the public interest to have the regulations reflect current statutes.”

The changes are expected to go formally onto the books Aug. 1, 2009.

The state Supreme Court in its Avalon Bay decision Oct. 14, 2003 sharply limited the power of state inland wetlands agencies to protect aquatic, plant and animal life, within wetlands and watercourses. Subsequent legislative action restored the ability of the agencies to consider such life inside wetlands and watercourses but maintained strict limits on protections near but not inside wetlands and watercourses. (See below.)

Edith Fairgrieve, a director of the Groton Open Space Association, told the commission at the hearing that wildlife can make water cleaner. The implication was that as protectors of water quality, the wildlife should be protected.

In another action June 10, the IWA approved a plan, presented by GOSA Director Marcia Young, for removing invasive plants from a meadow on The Merritt Family Forest near Fishtown Road. The work is to be financed by a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

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Following the Supreme Court’s controversial Avalon Bay decision in 2003, the legislature amended the language of the Act Concerning Jurisdiction Of Municipal Inland Wetlands Commissions. The amendment’s language reflected a compromise reached between wetlands advocates and the construction industry. The amendment, approved June 3, 2004, said:

(NEW) (c) For purposes of this section, (1) “wetlands or watercourses” includes aquatic, plant or animal life and habitats in wetlands and watercourses, and (2) “habitats” means areas or environments in which an organism or biological population normally lives or occurs.

(NEW) (d) A municipal inland wetlands agency shall not deny or condition an application for a regulated activity in an area outside wetlands or watercourses on the basis of an impact or effect on aquatic, plant, or animal life unless such activity will likely impact or affect the physical characteristics of such wetlands or watercourses.

Land Use Regulations | June 10, 2009