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SPENCER – At its September 17 meeting, the Planning Board approved an amendment to the stormwater permit for the David Prouty High School project to include additional measures to help control runoff.
Kevin McGarry, licensed engineer/senior project manager at Fuss & O’Neill, said in response to severe rain last summer and fall, the design team plans to install two new detention basins, one to the west of the proposed tennis courts and the second to the south of the proposed baseball field.
McGarry described other measures such as installation of a riprap stilling basin with a pipe that conveys stormwater to an existing pipe on Greenville Street. The basin would be located near the property corner of the school near Dippin Donuts.
It was originally intended to go to route 9.
“The goal is to eliminate as much over land sheet flow from our project to abutting neighborhood properties,” McGarry said.
He said it was previously unknown during design but came to light during construction that there are a series of storm pipes on the property to 15 ½ Greenville Street. McGarry said a catch basin was found in the backyard of an abutter’s property.
He said he is coordinating with Superintendent of Utilities & Facilities Peter Boria and abutters on a lot of these issues. McGarry said the idea is to utilize some of the existing piping and provide another direct connection into the stormwater system at Greenville Street, “which is where the water is draining to anyways,” he said.
McGarry said the additional stormwater controls would reduce the peak flow rates when compared to existing conditions as well as when compared to the previously proposed conditions, which received a waiver by the Planning Board.
“The school district is really passionate in directing us to try and solve and do more in this area to be the best neighbor possible,” he said.
Planning Board Chair Robert Ceppi asked why these measures were not incorporated into the original design. McGarry replied it was not a state requirement. They must demonstrate only that peak water flows will not increase from existing conditions.
Also, there were six storms last year over the span of a few months featuring three to four inches per hour.
“The industry is grappling with seeing development occur parallel with increased frequency of these rainfall events,” he said.
“If this project did not happen, a lot of these issues would become apparent just because of the amount of rain,” McGarry added.
Dominic Rinaldi, represented BSC Group, the peer reviewer of the stormwater portion of the project. He noted in addition to state requirements regarding peak flow, the town has requirements regarding total volume reduction.
The plan was previously given approval and a waiver of local requirements. (The vote on Sept. 19 included re-approving this waiver).
McGarry said they expected a “slight increase” in total runoff volume at two design points but “this project will not make conditions any worse on Greenville Street than they are today.”
Volume reduction in those spots is not possible because of the poorly draining characteristics of the existing on-site soils, he said.
Ceppi questioned whether the pipe size could handle additional flow.
“If it is undersized, this is the time to fix it and not two years from now with a problem,” he said.
Town Administrator Jeff Bridges said the pipe was not going to get any greater volume of water at a faster rate than it did before construction started.
“If the pipe is undersized, it is not this project’s responsibility. They are not adding to its volume capacity issue,” Bridges said.
Boria agreed, saying he is in favor of the proposed improvements and that a lot of issues with stormwater flow “are not part of this project.”
During a public hearing, Greenville Street resident Ed Sutherland said every time it rains, there is a pond in his backyard. He said it takes weeks to drain out and his pumps run six months per year. He described conditions including “two-feet wide, three inches deep,” water going down by his house.
Stephanie Underwood, another Greenville Street resident, said the water is “going to come under the road and onto the property,” which is “wet all the time.”
She said she had a “big thing,” about accountability and that engineers in their research should have studied older piping.
“How long is that older piping going to be healthy and standing up to withstand new disruption?” she asked.
Underwood continued, “How much of this plan is to deal with climate change in case we get ugly storms?”
She said disrupting the conditions at the high school “doesn’t look conducive to happily ever after.”
Resident Matt Defosse asked why plans did not include worst case scenarios rather than stretching out the project and requiring more meetings.
He talked about basing stormwater calculations on computer programs, saying if a project exceeds the calculations, “they should pay for damages the project creates.” He said he was talking about development projects in general and not specifically this one.
Ceppi noted that collecting water into a detention pond and allowing less of it out over a longer period of time is “definitely an improvement.”
He said it is likely the first time a developer came back and revised the stormwater plan based on the current rain situation.
Selectman Gary Woodbury noted the $60 million school project means the infrastructure in the whole area may need to be redone.
While appreciating what the schools are doing, he said it is not enough to only talk about 15 ½ Greenville Street.
“We really didn’t look at the whole side of those streets and that’s my disappointment,” Woodbury said. “We’ll handle a problem that pops up, but then once that continues to pop up, we kind of ignore it and that’s a shame.”
Earlier in his presentation, McGarry pointed out changes to the school project such as consolidating to a single driveway, adjustments to the layout of sidewalk, having natural instead of synthetic turf, addition of a second triple long jump, changing the pole vault location and re-orienting the baseball field.
The shift in the baseball field was done to accommodate the changes to the stormwater plan.
