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Save Our Heritage |
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Protecting the Birthplace of the American Revolution, the cradle of the Environmental Movement, and the Home of the American Literary Renaissance |
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Residents continue to contest Jet Aviation environmental ruling The Jet Aviation expansion proposed for Hanscom Field was approved by the state earlier this month, but a group of residents immediately asked for a hearing in a further attempt to force the project to comply with local environmental regulations. Therefore, the status of the project remains uncertain. The Lincoln Conservation Commission approved the project under the state wetlands laws by a 5-2 vote, with conditions, in May. However, the commission was not able to review under the local wetlands bylaw because proponent failed to apply under the bylaw, which the commission members and residents felt was required. Jet Aviation, a commercial firm that leases land at Hanscom owned by
Massport, applied to the Lincoln Conservation Commission under the state
Wetlands Protection Act for permission to encroach on a wetlands buffer
zone for its project. The company declined to apply under the local
Lincoln wetlands bylaw, saying that Massport informed them that Massport
is exempt from non-zoning local regulations that might interfere with
their "essential government functions" and that this exemption extends
to anyone who leases land from Massport. In a June appeal to
the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), a group
of 12 residents filed an appeal that was underwritten by Save
Our Heritage and ShhAir (Safeguarding
the Historic Hanscom Area’s Irreplaceable Resources), local nonprofit
citizens’ groups concerned with the protection and preservation of
natural and historic resources in the Hanscom-area communities. On October 1, the DEP issued a superseding order of conditions that affirmed the Conservation Commission approval, saying that the commission acted correctly in making its ruling in light of the state Wetlands Protection Act rather than local wetlands bylaws. “Essentially the DEP is taking it out of our hands," said Conservation Planner Angela Kearney, "but it kept our conditions, which is a good thing,” . The approval’s conditions set requirements for making sure the
construction plan is followed and impacts to the environment are
minimized, as well as some post-construction conditions of operation and
maintenance to protect the nearby wetlands, such as guidelines on snow
removal. Despite the ruling of the DEP, the original appellants challenged the
DEP’s superseding order of conditions by filing a claim for an
adjudicatory hearing with the DEP on October 16. “The petitioners are in settlement talks with the applicant, but no agreement has been reached before the deadline for filing of an appeal, so petitioners are filing to preserve their rights,” says the request filed by McGregor and Associates, the law firm retained by the appellants. The DEP has scheduled a pre-hearing conference for December 10. The
purpose of that conference is to determine the appeal’s potential
amenability to settlement through alternative dispute resolution or
other means, to identify the issues to be adjudicated, and to establish
a schedule for resolution of the appeal, according to the DEP’s October
23 conference scheduling order.
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