Hartford
Town leaders say they needed to file the conservation plan, which was approved by the Selectboard earlier this year, to comply with a wetlands permit requirement from the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation.
The permit was needed in order to develop the Maxfield Sports Complex, which included a small amount of wetlands. Parks and Recreation Director Tad Nunez said Act 250 required the town to mitigate the loss of about a half-acre of wetlands by setting aside off-site wetlands for permanent conservation.
To meet that requirement, Nunez said, the town identified 15 acres on two different locations inside the 400-plus acre Town Forest, which has roughly 4 miles of walking trails looping through its interior.
The forest and the sports complex are located near each other, on opposite sides of Route 5.
The Hartford Conservation Commission is working to identify which trails within the forest violate the terms of the conservation plan, which specifies that “at any place where recreational trails may now exist or be established in the future, all crossing of wetland areas shall be bridged in a fashion that will allow crossing of wetland areas with minimal disturbance in the course of construction and maintenance.”
The plan has raised questions about whether it will require changes to the town’s existing trail system in the forest.
“The Conservation Commission is primarily concerned with making sure we follow that agreement,” said Matt Osborn, a town planner who works with the commission.
Laura Lapierre, a program manager with the DEC who worked on the state permit and supervises the state wetlands program, said the state didn’t require the town’s conservation plan to adjust existing trails.
“The existing trails are what they are,” she said, “and that easement doesn’t mean anything different needs to happen with those trails.”
The state’s interest lay primarily in ensuring that future trails wouldn’t threaten the wetlands, she said.
“If there’s a clause in there that they have to bridge existing trails, then that’s above and beyond what the permit requires,” said Lapierre.
Lapierre said that it might be difficult for the town to eliminate the higher standard from its conservation plan, because it’s already been approved by the state.
“We might have to relocate trails if they go over wetlands,” Osborn said. “But there aren’t any plans at this point to relocate trails. They’ll investigate options.”
Selectboard Chairman Dick Grassi said that the Selectboard approved the wetlands conservation plan, but had not heard of any potential problems with the trails.
If there is a confirmed issue, he said, it would likely be presented to the Selectboard by town staff at a later date.
Nunez said he purposefully crafted the conservation plan with the more stringent requirement because he believes that little, if any, of the town’s sanctioned trails violate the plan.
“All of the trails that we designed, that I put in, we knew when we were going over a wetland stream or around a vernal pool, and built it appropriately,” he said.
The purpose of the requirement, he said, is to rein in the unofficial trails that have sprung up over the years to accommodate traffic from hikers and riders of bikes and ATVs.
“I wanted to be able to say that folks with those rogue trails, that they need to come work with the Conservation Commission,” he said. “That gave some bite to it.”
Osborn said the Conservation Commission has overlaid a map that delineates the wetlands with a map of the trails, and that there appears to be some overlap between the two, but that the quality of the map left some uncertainty.
Conservation Commission members are planning to walk the trails and see for themselves whether there are any violations, he said.
“This isn’t going to happen this week or next week,” Osborn said. “It will hopefully happen in the next month or so.”
Matt Hongoltz-Hetling can be reached at mhonghet@vnews.com or 603-727-3211.