http://www.nae.usace.army.mil/projects/ma/assabetriver/feasibilitystudy.pdf "* MADEP classified a significant portion of the Ben Smith Impoundment area as Deep Marsh ~100 acres. However if this classification were changed to open water then the change in wetlands would be as shown in parentheses in the above Table."
Why would the Corps want to change the classification of these wetlands?
Wouldn't it be nice if every time we ran across a problem in life we could just change the rules and make that problem go away?
"The term “freshwater wetlands”, as used in this section, shall mean wet meadows, marshes, swamps, bogs, areas where groundwater, flowing or standing surface water or ice provide a significant part of the supporting substrate for a plant community for at least five months of the year; emergent and submergent plant communities in inland waters; that portion of any bank which touches any inland waters. "
"The term “marshes”, as used in this section, shall mean areas where a vegetational community exists in standing or running water during the growing season and where a significant part of the vegetational community is composed of, but not limited to nor necessarily including all, of the following plants or groups of plants: arums (Araceae), bladder worts (Utricularia), bur reeds (Sparganiaceae), button bush (Cephalanthus occidentalis), cattails (Typha), duck weeds (Lemnaceae), eelgrass (Vallisneria), frog bits (Hydrocharitaceae), horsetails (Equisetaceae), hydrophilic grasses (Gramineae), leatherleaf (Chamaedaphne calyculata), pickerel weeds (Pontederiaceae), pipeworts (Eriocaulon), pond weeds (Potamogeton), rushes (Juncaceae), sedges (Cyperaceae), smartweeds (Polygonum), sweet gale (Myrica gale) water milfoil (Halcragaceae), water lilies (Nymphaeaceae), water starworts (Callitrichaceae), water willow (Decodon verticillatus). "
http://www.mass.gov/legis/laws/mgl/131-40.htm
"The term "marshes," as used in this section, shall mean areas where an emergent vegetative community exists in standing or running water during most of a normal growing season and where a significant part of the vegetative community is tolerant of sustained partial submergence. Deep marshes have near continuous standing water and are dominated by aquatic plants with floating leaves."
"The term "wetland succession," as used in this section, shall mean the following generalized sequence in wetland evolution. For freshwater wetlands the sequence is pond, to deep marsh, to shallow marsh, to shrub swamp, to forested swamp, to bog."
http://www.mass.gov/legis/bills/senate/st00/st00515.htm
That sure sounds a lot like the Ben Smith Impoundment.
Don't let the DEP reclassify your wetlands out of existence.
So if they do take down the dam, who owns the new exposed land?
ReplyDeleteMy limited understanding is it will depend upon your deed. If your property is bounded by the river and the river moves your property line moves. As an abutter you might gain some land but as land within 200 ft of the river don't expect to be allowed to do anything with it. I guess the real question would be will the zonning maps be revised to allow the now dry upland to be reclassified as such, and then become a target for development. I'd like to know, who will own the contaminated sediment?
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