Ruling may clear way for road fix
Toolbox
By Peter Hirschfeld VERMONT PRESS BUREAU - Published: December 23, 2009
CABOT – Transportation officials say a recent ruling by environmental regulators could clear the way for the first phase of a long-planned upgrade of Route 2, Vermont's major east-west traffic corridor.
But opponents of the project say they'll continue to challenge a plan that they believe threatens wetlands and recreational areas in central Vermont.
A decade-old proposal to widen and improve three sections of Route 2 between Cabot and Danville was delayed earlier this year when the District 5 Environmental Commission – responsible for ensuring Act 250 compliance – said the Agency of Transportation's plan for wetlands mitigation didn't meet regulatory muster.
The same commission has now agreed to let the agency revise its original application – a decision that state officials say could clear the way for phase one of the project, which spans a 1.5-mile segment of pavement in Cabot.
"They've granted us the ability to submit a modified mitigation plan for the first phase of the project," says Ken Robie "We're hoping this will give us the ability to begin work on at least the first portion of the work."
The project will widen portions of Route 2 to offer truck-passing lanes and better bicycle access.
But the process will destroy class 2 wetlands abutting the roadway. Under state law, developers or state agencies seeking Act 250 permits are allowed to destroy wetlands only if they create new wetlands elsewhere.
More than a decade ago, the agency purchased a parcel of land in East Montpelier precisely for that purpose. The agency plan called for a major re-grading project on an old East Montpelier gravel pit – which had been filled by water when the old owners struck a groundwater supply – to create acres of new wetlands.
In the intervening years, however, much of the land has in fact become a flourishing wetland on its own. And the District 5 commission said the water-filled gravel pit is now a 6-acre pond teeming with its own aquatic ecosystem.
The agency's plan, according to the commission's initial ruling, would actually destroy an existing pond, its shorelines and wetlands — not create a new one.
Robie said the agency's revised proposal will focus only on the southernmost part of the East Montpelier property and will not affect the pond, a Coburn Road swimming area that has long been a popular summertime destination for local residents.
"That swimming hole was the focus of the denial for that section of the permit," Robie says. "This new plan doesn't affect the pond at all."
Robie, though, says the agency still plans to use that East Montpelier parcel as a mitigation site for phases two and three of the road project, a prospect that concerns East Montpelier resident Renee Carpenter.
Carpenter has invested significant amounts of time and money contesting the agency's plans and says the project is an unnecessary one that will exact a severe ecological toll not only on the wetlands abutting Route 2, but possibly the East Montpelier mitigation site as well.
"Our taxpayer money is going to a project that most citizens oppose," Carpenter says. "People have been trying to get the Agency of Transportation to redesign their plans so it addresses the safety concerns without becoming a major infrastructure expansion … The issue really is democracy."
Robie says the project is a high priority for the agency not only because of the importance of the corridor – Route 2 is the only east-west route through northern New England – but also because of the sub-par condition of the three 1.5-mile sections in question.
With barely acceptable lane widths and absolutely no shoulder, Robie says, the state has a responsibility not only to ensure the integrity of the subsurface but also to bring the roadway up to modern standards – a project that will require widening the road and affecting adjacent wetlands.
Carpenter, who became involved in the environmental deliberations because of her affinity for the Coburn Road pond, said the agency's latest plan for wetland mitigation on phase one of the project does appear to protect the pond from any direct encroachment. But she worries that work on the southern portion of the property will result in heavy truck traffic and diesel fumes as workers travel to and from the excavation site.
She says she additionally worries about having to contest the agency's future applications for mitigation plans for phases two and three of the project. As a regular citizen, she says, she lacks the resources needed for a fair fight against a large state agency.
"The thing that's so appalling … is that the Agency of Transportation continues to spend tens of thousands of dollars for a project that's being opposed when there are so many other pressing highway issues they should be spending that money on," she says.Carpenter says she's won a small grant to continue her fight, and that the Vermont Natural Resources Council has come to her aid. She says she wants the agency to negotiate with concerned citizens and affected towns to craft a revised plan than everyone can agree on.
"Rather than have the state continue to waste taxpayer dollars, we would encourage them to sit down a negotiate with us," she says.
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