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News from the Friends of the Blue
Hills February 4, 2006 The ongoing draining of the Blue Hills Reservoir on Chickatawbut Road in the Blue Hills Reservation in Quincy is illegal because state agencies are required by law to use all feasible measures to avoid, minimize, and mitigate damage to the environment. The MWRA's $30 million concrete tank project will permanently eliminate 8.7 acres of protected wetlands at the Reservoir. MWRA should have been required to explore costs and opportunities for replacing those wetlands, in order to mitigate damage to the environment. But the Dept. of Environmental Protection did not require MWRA to evaluate mitigation options. Instead, it awarded MWRA an unprecedented exemption from the Wetlands Protection Act and the state's long-standing "no net loss" of wetlands policy. And so the MWRA tanks, which are the largest construction proposed within the Blue Hills Reservation in fifty years, will also generate the largest net loss of wetlands approved anywhere in the commonwealth since at least 1990, when the no-net-loss policy was introduced by Governor Weld. Friends of the Blue Hills is challenging the MWRA's wetlands permit at Norfolk Superior Court with the help of attorneys from DLA Piper Rudnick. Here is a page from the MWRA response. MWRA began draining the Reservoir on September 22 and is nearly finished. The Reservoir and its surroundings, including Chickatawbut Road, are among the first lands ever acquired by the commonwealth for scenic purposes. They have been public parkland since 1896. The Reservoir was built by the MDC in 1951, and has not been used for 25 years. Over half will be lost to the concrete storage tanks. Here are annotated photos taken January 28 and February 2. More info at: http://www.friendsofthebluehills.org/BHreservoir.htm ___________________________________________________________________________ You have received this message because you are on the Friends of the Blue Hills email list of members and other interested parties. If you have any comments, corrections to this list, or would like to be removed from it, please click here. |