By Danae Bucci
At their meeting on June 28, the Conservation Commission decided to up the ante for one Bedford resident who has filled in the wetlands area behind their house.
Commission member Joseph Guardino brought this matter to the attention of the five other members of the commission, reporting that he has noticed that one of his neighbors has seven large piles of landfill in the lowlands of their backyard. As soon as he noticed it, Guardino notified the neighbor that they would have to remove the fill because the land is in the floodplain. Although multiple notifications have been sent via both email and letter, the fill still has not been removed.
Recounting how he instructed the Bedford resident to remove the fill, Commissioner Guardino reported: “I said ‘it’s got to come out’.”
According to the Town of Bedford’s Wetlands Protection bylaw, all projects that are within 100 feet of wetland areas must be reviewed by the Commission. Per the town of Bedford’s Conservation Commission’s web page, wetlands are characterized as “resource areas [that] include bank[s], land under [a] water body or waterway and/or bordering vegetated wetland, and land subject to flooding. ”Wetlands can be found all over the town, including along Davis Road and in the Hartwell town forest. The commission is charged with protecting these and all other wetlands in Bedford to prevent contamination and destruction of the flood plains.
Commission members agreed that the DEP (Department of Environmental Protection) should be contacted if noncompliance continues. Many of the commission members agreed that while this issue may not be “time sensitive” right now, it could grow into a bigger problem in the future.
Commission members also considered a number of other requests brought to the meeting, granting approval to a resident for building a fence parallel to North Road on their property. Another attendee was looking to create a trail that goes around a copse of yellow birch trees in a Bedford forest and to put a new bench in a Bedford wetlands area.
(Editor’s Note: This article was revised 7/14/2017 to correct errors.)
Other topics covered included consideration on whether to create a sediment erosion control plan and whether to organize a subcommittee to handle Carlton Willard matters.
The next Conservation Commission meeting will be held on July 12 in the Selectmen’s room in Town Hall.
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