By Journal Staff
The Revere Conservation Commission (ConsComm) held its regular monthly meeting last Wednesday evening, September 3, in the City Council Chambers. Chair Nicholas Rudolph and fellow members Brian Averback, Joseph LaValle, Bernardo Sepulveda, Wilson Correa, Thomas Carleton, and Amelia Viscay were on hand for the session.
The evening’s business pertained to the third continued hearing of the Notice of Intent (NOI) filed by the city for the new Revere High School project at the former Wonderland Dog Track at 190 VFW Parkway.
State law requires that all projects in a wetlands area must file an NOI and then receive an Order of Conditions from a local conservation commission before work can begin in the wetlands area. The city initially came before the ConsComm in July, but after that hearing, the matter was continued until the August meeting because the ConsComm members said they wanted more information in response to questions they had raised.
Then at the August 6 meeting, despite hearing a detailed explanation from the engineers about various aspects of the project, the members decided they wanted to wait for the Mass. Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) to issue its Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR) before taking a vote, further delaying the project for another month.
That decision was highly-unusual because a local conservation commission does not have to wait for an FEIR before issuing an Order of Conditions. Ordinarily, the commission must issue its decision (the Order of Conditions) within 21 days of the close of the public hearing for a Notice of Intent. An FEIR is a separate, more comprehensive document typically required for projects with significant environmental impacts that fall under the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act (MEPA), and while it can inform the commission’s decision, it is not a prerequisite for issuing an Order of Conditions under the Wetlands Protection Act.
However, in light of the commissioners’ desire to await the FEIR (which was not scheduled to be released by the state until the end of August), the city agreed to the continuance of its NOI hearing until September.
Claire Hoogeboom, a Wetlands Scientist with LEC Environmental Consultants who has appeared before the ConsComm on numerous occasions over the past 18 months, once again was on hand for the session, and informed the members that the state had issued the FEIR with no conditions.
“I want to thank you for your patience in letting this come through,” said Rudolph. “It was a relief to see that it (the project) does comply and that no further review is needed.”
Rudolph did raise a question about why the project does not include replacing the culverts that flow into the Eastern County Ditch that will provide the drainage for the site (an issue that commissioner Lavalle also has raised), but Hoogeboom noted that the FEIR indicated that the cost to do so will be prohibitive and that replacing the culverts will disturb the bordering vegetative wetlands. She also noted that the engineers had calculated that the existing culverts will support the capacity for stormwater runoff post-construction.
The commissioners then heard from a number of city officials. City Engineer Nick Rystrom, School. Supt. Diane Kelly, and Mayor Patrick Keefe all spoke in favor of the project.
“I’ve been working with the engineers and project manager and what they’re doing from an engineering standpoint is sound and appropriate,” said Rystrom.
“Thank you for the time you’ve been dedicating to this project,” said Kelly. “We’ve put nine years of effort into this project and we’re very excited to be at the cusp of making this a reality.”
“I want to remind everyone that we appreciate the time and effort that this board has put into this,” said the mayor. “You have shown the competency of your board with how long you have labored over what you believe and making sure that you obtained fact-based information. We know that it has taken some time and that you have done your due diligence. It makes me proud to have boards like yours that have competency and has not rubber-stamped its approval.”
City Solicitor Paul Capizzi briefly raised some technical issues with the proposed Order of Conditions. After a brief discussion on that matter, in which Rudolph said the two orders in question will be omitted, the members voted unanimously (with Viscay recusing herself because of her status as a city employee) to approve the NOI and to issue the Order of Conditions.
