Subcommittee Wrestles With Separation Of River And Bogs

     How to separate the Coonamessett River from the town-owned cranberry bogs was one of the more contentious issues at a meeting last night of the Falmouth Conservation Commission’s farm plan subcommittee.
     The subcommittee is working to develop a set of goals and objectives that will be used as a guide when a detailed farm plan is created by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) division of the US Department of Agricultural and grower Fred C. Bottomley of North Attleborough. According to the lease the town entered into with Mr. Bottomley, the farm plan must be complete by January 1, 2009.
     The draft of that document will be presented to the full conservation commission for comment at its regular meeting tomorrow night.
     Last month, the subcommittee held a public meeting in which it sought comments from specific town agencies, such as the department of natural resources, the agricultural commission, and the selectmen.
     Following that meeting, subcommittee chairman Courtney F. Bird Jr. met with Mr. Bottomley and NRCS representative Donald Liptak to discuss the town’s goals for river restoration and what it means for the bogs.
     It was during those discussions that Mr. Bottomley expressed concern over allowing a natural buffer, or no-grow-zone, to separate the bogs and the river before physical buffers, like berms or dikes, are constructed.
     Mr. Bird agreed, calling it “a practical issue,” and saying that it is “putting the cart before the horse” because the natural buffer would ultimately be torn up when the physical buffer is installed.
     But many of those attending the subcommittee meeting last night thought otherwise.
     Camille M. Romano of River Hill Road, Hatchville, questioned why Mr. Bird had incorporated Mr. Bottomley’s concern into the document without further public comment, and subcommittee member Mary E. Schumacher said that while she could understand the grower’s resistance, “the idea is to get some buffer established now.”
     Christopher Neill, a member of the nonprofit Coonamessett River Trust, said the “fallback position” of the conservation commission, as stewards of the town’s bogs, should be river restoration, not cranberry farming.
     He said that while the town is spending time determining and implementing the next phase, there is no buffer at all for the river. “What’s going to come up is free, and it can happen now,” Mr. Neill said of the proposed natural buffer.
     Virginia Valiela, the Coonamessett River Working Group’s former chairman and the person often sought by the town for answers on the issue, suggested, as a compromise, that the town encourage the grower to not pull weeds from the area abutting the river to allow some natural buffer between the bogs and the river without additional work.
     She said that Mr. Bottomley has been aware of the situation since the very beginning because there were attachments to the original request for proposals referencing the berm project.
     She added that the existing lateral irrigation system would be problematic if the no-grow-zone is required because it would require Mr. Bottomley to cut it off and cap it.
     In April 2005, Town Meeting voted to accept a phased approach to restoring the river, and the November Town Meeting approved the first phase, which was to let Lower Bog return to a natural state and begin berming Middle Bog and Flax Bog, Ms. Valiela said.
     She recommended that they plan to revise the plan for the river after five years, and subcommittee members Ms. Schumacher and Michelle L. West agreed that the guidelines should make clear that the town has adopted a phased approach that will continue to develop.
     “I think that’s the best you’re going to do,” Ms. Valiela said.
     Moving into the next phase, however, brings up the question of funding the engineering required to move forward with the project, Mr. Bird said.
     Ms. Valiela said that Town Manager Robert L. Whritenour Jr. recently confirmed that $200,000 was set aside for the berming project. The state would then reimburse the town for 50 to 75 percent of that cost, and that money would be used to implement the next phase once it was voted by Town Meeting.
     Because they have “done the leg work,” Mr. Bird suggested that the Coonamessett River Working Group be charged with pursuing preliminary engineering work in order to determine the plan for the rest of the river. “They’ve been working on this thing for a long time and they understand the ins and outs of it,” he said. 
     Ms. Romano questioned whether the group has the time or authority to take on the project, and working group member Linda E. Davis added that they could only do so if charged by the selectmen.
     But ultimately, Mr. Bird said, “someone needs to pick up the ball and run with it.”