MassDEP Fines Developer of Lodge at Ames Pond $150K

The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) has announced it has fined the developers of The Lodge at Ames Pond $149,010 for wetlands violations at that location.

The Lodge at Ames Pond is a 364-unit residential apartment development on a 53-acre site in Tewksbury just off Route 133.

Inspections of the development site determined that work done by the Houston-based Hanover Company led to repeated discharges of silt and sediment into Ames Pond, as well as bordering vegetated wetlands, according to a release issued by MassDEP.

According to MassDEP, Hanover is responsible for damaging or altering more than 4,000 square feet of Ames Pond and 1,500 feet of bordering wetland.

Under a settlement agreement announced Friday, both the Hanover Company and MassDEP have agreed that the company will stabilize the site, submit a plan to restore the damaged area, and pay $112,005 of the penalty. MassDEP has agreed to suspend the remaining $37,005 if the site is in compliance after five years.

Back in early 2009, a third-party environmental monitor had been hired to inspect the Lodge at Ames Pond project on behalf of the Tewksbury Conservation Commission. According to MassDEP, beginning on July 27, 2009, that inspector and other inspectors first noted a breach from one of two stormwater detention basins specifically constructed to control runoff from the site.

In its release, MassDEP stated that "over the next eight months, despite repeated attempts by the monitors and Conservation Commission asking the developer to address these runoff problems at the site, there were 14 reported discharge violations to nearby resource areas that were the result of inadequate site stabilization and stormwater control."

"There was a clear pattern of noncompliance by the Hanover Company by first ignoring the state wetlands laws and regulations, then ignoring the Order of Conditions that the  Conservation Commission issued to approve the project," said Richard Chalpin, director of MassDEP's Northeast Regional Office in Wilmington. "And then ultimately even ignoring the reports from an environmental monitor who was hired specifically by the company to inspect the site."

The Concom, in response to the violations, then asked MassDEP to inspect the site, which was done on March 16, 19 and 29. MassDEP, at that time, observed persistent problems in the ability to control runoff and discharge from the project site, and that it had resulted in sedimentation from the site filling and altering approximately 4,000 square feet of Ames Pond and 1,500 square feet of bordering vegetated wetland.

MassDEP then issued, on April 9, 2010, a unilateral cease-and-desist order to Hanover, which the company appealed, leading to the settlement agreement.

Members of the Tewksbury Conservation Commission could not be reached for comment Friday. Messages left with Hanover Company seeking comment were not returned.