Bellingham Conservation Commission Seeks Broader Stormwater Peer Review for Route 126 Project

BELLINGHAM -- October 9, 2024, Bellingham Conservation Commission continues three wetland hearings and flags a gap in a stormwater peer review scope for the Route 126 and Hartford Avenue roadway project. At the October 9 meeting, commissioners told Conservation Administrator Hannah to seek a revised proposal from BSC Group after finding that the firm's October 2 scope would limit review to engineering drainage questions and appeared to exclude any assessment of whether dissolved road salts and oils discharged into a sensitive white pine resource area would meet environmental performance standards. The commission also continued the Prospect Hill Village 156-unit townhouse hearing to November 13 after the applicant reported a site walk found the previously mapped perennial stream to be dry under non-drought conditions, removing a significant riverfront area designation. The board unanimously approved a three-year extension of orders of conditions 105-900 and 105-910 for the Red Mill Village subdivision, where representative Peter Lavoy of DNL Design Group confirmed that roughly three-quarters of the material to be excavated from the site has already been removed. An unscheduled appearance by Michael Fabian, owner of Rosewood and Scoops at 445 Hartford Avenue, ended with the commission directing him to file a Request for Determination of Applicability by week's end after he began spreading trap rock within a wetland buffer zone without a permit on the advice of a pest control company.