08/19/2014

Grant approved to update town center stormwater management plan

The state Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry has approved a $16,500 grant for the town to update its stormwater management plan for the town center.

Town Manager Michael McGovern announced the funding in an email to town councilors. The Coastal Community Grant for $22,000, matched by $5,500 in town funds and staff time, will continue the work of the 1995 town center stormwater management program.

"The town center stormwater management program has actually done a lot of good things," McGovern said at the July 2014 meeting of the Town Council. "It improved a lot of the drainage along this (Route 77) corridor here, it took and developed a stormwater management plan for the schoolgrounds and including some detention basins, and some other work," he said.

The update, one of seven recommendations of the recently completed Town Center Plan, will prepare a blueprint for build-out of the stormwater infrastructure in the town center, employing "low impact development" techniques - preserving natural vegetation and minimizing impervious surface - as appropriate.

The grant application focuses on the town center's location as a trail head to the Spurwink Marsh, and its proximity to the Atlantic Ocean.

DEP commissioner approves new shoreland zone boundary definition

In a related matter, McGovern also announced that the commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Protection has approved the town's new definition of "normal high water line" of coastal waters. The line is used to delineate the boundary of the shoreland protection zone, where development is regulated. The new definition, approved by the Town Council Aug. 11, 2014, uses the federal astronomical tide measurement to determine the high water line. [news article]

On his email, McGovern said the amendment to the shoreland zoning text, which needs approval by the DEP commissioner, was approved "in what must be record speed."