Stockbridge Wetlands Protection: 100-Foot Buffers - North Street Neighborhood Association

The Berkshire County town of Stockbridge empowers its Conservation Commision to protect its water bodies and wetlands, including the power to require “strips of continuous, undisturbed vegetative cover within the 200-foot or 100-foot area” around these resources. Here is an excerpt from the Stockbridge Wetlands Protection bylaw, with certain passages emphasized:

Section 1. The purpose of this Article is to protect the wetlands of the Town of Stockbridge by controlling activities deemed to have a significant or cumulative effect upon resource area values. These resource areas include, but are not limited to, the following: public or private water supply, groundwater, flood control, erosion and sedimentation control, storm damage prevention including, water pollution, fisheries, wildlife habitat, rare species habitat, including rare plant species, agriculture, aquaculture, recreation and esthetics.

The purpose of this Article is also to control activities deemed to have a significant effect on watershed resources or the preservation of natural scenic qualities within the mapped Scenic Mountain region defined pursuant to the Berkshire Scenic Mountain Act, Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 131, Section 39A…

Section 2. The term “preservation of natural scenic qualities” as used in this Article, shall mean the protection of existing aesthetic and/or historic features of the environment, as determined by the Commission…

Section 4. The Conservation Commission is empowered to deny permission for any removal, dredging, filling, building upon, degrading, discharging into, or otherwise altering of subject lands within the Town if, in its judgment, such denial is necessary to preserve environmental quality of either or both the subject lands and contiguous lands. Due consideration should be given to possible effects of the proposal on all values to be protected under this Article and to any demonstrated hardship on the applicant by reason of denial, as brought forth at the public hearing…

Lands within 200 feet of rivers, ponds and lakes, and lands within 100 feet of other resource areas, are presumed important to the protection of these resources because activities undertaken in close proximity to resource areas have a high likelihood of adverse impact upon wetland or other resource, either immediately, as a consequence of construction, or over time, as a consequence of daily operation or existence of the activities. These adverse impacts from construction and use can include, without limitation, erosion, siltation, loss of groundwater recharge, poor water quality, and loss of wildlife habitat. The Commission may, therefore, establish performance standards for protection of such lands including, without limitation, strips of continuous, undisturbed vegetative cover within the 200-foot or 100-foot area. The Commission may also establish other forms of work limit or setback to buildings, roads, landscaping and other features, unless the applicant convinces the Commission that the area or part of it may be disturbed without harm to the values protected by this Article. The specific size and type of the protected area may be established by regulations of the Commission…

The Conservation Commission, its agents, officers, and employees shall have authority to enter upon privately owned land for the purpose of performing their duties under this Article and may make or cause to be made such examinations, surveys, or sampling as the Commission deems necessary, subject to the constitutions and laws of the United States and the Commonwealth…