The Code of the Town of Wayland, MA (Chapter 194) calls for permits before work can be done within a 100-foot buffer zone around swamps, vernal pools, streams, and other specified resource areas. We have emphasized certain passages with bold type.
See also:
Breaking News: Conservation Commission Votes to Delay Vernal Pool Delineation on Kohl Property to Spring 2008
[Report of Wetlands Expert Molly Hale:] “In some of these unvegetated areas I found shells of fingernail clams (family Sphaeriidae, also known as Pisidiidae) and amphibious snails from two different families: Lymnaeidae and Planorbidae. All of these species are vernal pool indicators when found in a dry basin. Therefore these areas meet the definition of vernal pools.”
Report on Koh
l’s Property by Alec MacLeod, Environmental Scientist: Indications of Vernal Pool Habitat
“This site is particularly difficult to delineate, as the differences between areas meeting the technical definitions of hydrophylic plant communities and hydric soils are very slight over much of the site… Although there were indicators of hydric soil almost anywhere we looked, not all of them were present in all samples…
“…given the presence of vernal pool habitat, the buffer zone becomes quite important, since such vernal pool obligate species as Wood Frogs and Spotted Salamanders live in uplands during most of the year. It has been the case that the Northampton Conservation Commission has identified a no-build setback policy. The Commission should assure that as much buffer zone is protected as is reasonably possible, including placement of stormwater detention basins.”
Springfield Wetland Regulations: A minimum of a fifty (50) foot undisturbed buffer
Barnstable Wetland Ordinance: “An undisturbed buffer zone 50 ft. in width shall be provided”
Belchertown Wetlands Regulations
Intermittent Streams Merit a 100-Foot Buffer Zone in Hopkinton
The purpose of this chapter is to provide a greater degree of protection of wetlands, buffer zones, and related water resources, than the protection of these resource areas provided under MGL c. 131, § 40, and the Wetlands Regulations promulgated thereunder by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection. This greater degree of protection shall be by pre-construction review and control of activities deemed by the Conservation Commission likely to alter, degrade, or have an adverse cumulative effect upon wetland values and functions, including but not limited to the following: public or private water supply, groundwater, flood control, erosion and sedimentation control, storm damage prevention, water pollution prevention, stormwater quality, water quality, fisheries, unusual plants, wildlife, wildlife habitat, passive recreation and aquaculture values (collectively, the “wetland values protected by this chapter”).
Definitions
…LAND SUBJECT TO FLOODING OR INUNDATION — A protected water resource, except as noted in the definition of “stream,” means an area of depression in topography, isolated depression, low lying land, or closed basin which floods periodically and/or serves as a ponding area of ground or surface water. This area may also border a freshwater vegetated wetlands as a result of a hydrologic connection with a freshwater wetlands, marsh, bog, wet meadow, swamp, creek, river, stream, pond, or lake or other water body during any storm event up to and including the one-hundred-year storm event.
STREAM — A body of running water, and the land under the water, including brooks, creeks, and man-made watercourses, which moves in a definite channel in the ground due to hydraulic gradient in a definable path. A portion of a stream may flow through a culvert, pipe, or beneath a bridge. A stream may be intermittent (i.e., does not flow throughout the year).
- Such area shall be 500 square feet or greater in surface area and may include vernal pools.
- Land subject to flooding or inundation shall include the area shown on the Federal Emergency Management Agency Flood Profile, Town of Wayland one-hundred-year flood elevation, as most recently amended.
- This area may be characterized by evidence of standing or ponding water during any storm event (up to and including the one-hundred-year storm event based upon a twenty-four-hour seven-inch rainfall), hydrophilic vegetation (wetland indicator plants), and/or hydric soils. The lateral extent of flooding may be determined by: the most recent Federal Management Flood Profile one-hundred-year flood elevation for the Town of Wayland, the elevation that is reached by the amount of water from a one-hundred-year storm event determined either by visual observation, or by calculation using the Soil Conservation Service hydrologic model TR-20 computer program (Computer Program for Project Formulation – Hydrology, Soil Conservation Service Technical Release 20, Washington, D.C., 1983) for a twenty-four-hour, seven-inch rainfall event…
SWAMPS — An area where groundwater is at or near the surface of the ground for not less than two consecutive weeks of the growing season or where runoff water from surface drainage frequently collects above the soil surface and where at least 50% of the vegetational community is made up of, but is not limited to nor necessarily includes all of, the following plants or groups of plants: alders, ashes, azaleas, black alder, black spruce, buttonbush, American or white elm, highbush blueberry, larch, cowslip, poison sumac, red maple, skunk cabbage, sphagnum mosses, spicebush, black gum tupelo, sweet pepperbush, white cedar or willow.
VERNAL POOL — Includes, in addition to any vernal pool certified by the Massachusetts Division of Wildlife and Fisheries Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program, any confined basin or depression not occurring in existing lawns, gardens, landscaped areas, or driveways, which normally holds water for a minimum of two continuous months during the spring and/or summer, contains at least 200 cubic feet of water at some time during most years, is free of adult predatory fish populations, and provides essential breeding and rearing habitat functions for amphibian, reptile, or other vernal pool community species.
WETLAND — Wet meadows, marshes, swamps, bogs, and other areas where groundwater, flowing or standing surface water or ice provide a significant part of the supporting substrate for a hydrophilic plant community, or emergent and submergent plant communities in inland waters.
WET MEADOW — An area where groundwater is at or near the surface of the ground for not less than two consecutive weeks of the growing season or where runoff water from surface drainage frequently collects above the soil surface and where at least 50% of the vegetational community is composed of various grasses, sedges and rushes; made up of, but not limited to nor necessarily including all of, the following plants or groups of plants: blue flag, vervain, thoroughwort, dock, false loosestrife, hydrophilic grasses, loosestrife, marsh fern, sensitive fern or smartweed…
Procedure
No person shall remove, fill, dredge, build upon, discharge onto or otherwise or alter any bank, freshwater wetland, marsh, bog, wet meadow, swamp, vernal pool, creek, river, stream, pond or lake or any land under said waters, or any buffer zone, or any land subject to flooding or inundation, or riverfront area other than in the course of maintaining, repairing or replacing, but not substantially changing or enlarging, an existing and lawfully located structure or facility used in the service of the public and used to provide electric, gas, water, telephone, telegraph and other telecommunication services without first filing either a request for a determination (RDA) of applicability or a notice of intent (NOI) to so remove, fill, dredge, build upon, discharge, or otherwise alter, including such plans as may be necessary to fully describe such proposed activity and its effect on the environment and without receiving and complying with a permit issued by the Conservation Commission…
If, after said hearing, the Conservation Commission determines that the wetland, related water resource area, vernal pool, pond, or buffer zone on which the proposed work is to be done is likely to be significant to the protection of the values and functions of the wetlands, related water resource area, and buffer zone by impacting the public or private water supply, groundwater, flood control, erosion and sedimentation control, storm damage prevention, water pollution prevention, stormwater quality, water quality, fisheries, shellfish, unusual plants, wildlife, wildlife habitat, passive recreation and aquaculture values the Commission shall, by written order, within 21 days or such time as the Commission and the applicant agree on, impose such conditions as are reasonably necessary for the protection of the interests described herein, and all work shall be done in accordance therewith. Said order shall be known as a “wetlands and water resources permit” and may be issued in conjunction with an order of conditions issued pursuant to MGL c. 131, § 40. The conditions may include a condition that certain land or portions thereof not be built upon or altered, filled or dredged; that streams not be diverted, dammed or otherwise disturbed…
Responsibility
Any person who purchases, inherits or otherwise acquires real estate upon which work has been done in violation of the provisions of this chapter, or in violation of any determination or permit issued under this chapter, shall forthwith comply with any such order or restore such land to its condition prior to any such violation; provided, however, that no action, civil or criminal, shall be brought against such person unless such action is commenced within three years following the recording or registration of the deed or vesting of title through death showing the date or the death by which such real estate was acquired by such person…
Burden of proof.
A. The applicant shall have the burden of proving by a preponderance of the credible evidence that the work proposed in the notice of intent will not cause harm to the functions and values sought to be protected by this chapter.
B. Failure to provide to the Conservation Commission adequate evidence to determine that the proposed work will not cause harm to the functions and values sought to be protected by this chapter shall be sufficient cause to deny such wetlands and water resources permit or to grant such a wetlands and water resources permit with such conditions as the Commission deems reasonably necessary or desirable to carry out the purposes of this chapter or to postpone or continue the hearing to another date certain to enable the applicant and others to present additional evidence.
See also:
Breaking News: Conservation Commission Votes to Delay Vernal Pool Delineation on Kohl Property to Spring 2008
[Report of Wetlands Expert Molly Hale:] “In some of these unvegetated areas I found shells of fingernail clams (family Sphaeriidae, also known as Pisidiidae) and amphibious snails from two different families: Lymnaeidae and Planorbidae. All of these species are vernal pool indicators when found in a dry basin. Therefore these areas meet the definition of vernal pools.”
Report on Koh
l’s Property by Alec MacLeod, Environmental Scientist: Indications of Vernal Pool Habitat
“This site is particularly difficult to delineate, as the differences between areas meeting the technical definitions of hydrophylic plant communities and hydric soils are very slight over much of the site… Although there were indicators of hydric soil almost anywhere we looked, not all of them were present in all samples…
“…given the presence of vernal pool habitat, the buffer zone becomes quite important, since such vernal pool obligate species as Wood Frogs and Spotted Salamanders live in uplands during most of the year. It has been the case that the Northampton Conservation Commission has identified a no-build setback policy. The Commission should assure that as much buffer zone is protected as is reasonably possible, including placement of stormwater detention basins.”
Springfield Wetland Regulations: A minimum of a fifty (50) foot undisturbed buffer
Barnstable Wetland Ordinance: “An undisturbed buffer zone 50 ft. in width shall be provided”
Belchertown Wetlands Regulations
Intermittent Streams Merit a 100-Foot Buffer Zone in Hopkinton