BEAT’s Blog

Last week I wrote about a Pittsfield official telling the City Council that the City of Pittsfield had “elected” not to comply with state-mandated environmental monitoring regulations in an effort to save money.  In case you think this is an isolated incident, let me tell you about a few things that happened over the course of the last couple weeks and are still going on. Read more…

A recent Pittsfield Gazette story highlighted the controversy surrounding flooding in the area around Deming Park in Pittsfield. Local residents are angry over mistakes made by the Pittsfield Parks Commission and the Pittsfield Conservation Commission. A second, seemingly unrelated story has me concerned.

According to the Gazette, “Ontario Street homeowners led by Dan Miraglia have challenged the city’s activities at the park, which they feel have violated the law and contributed to an ever-worsening flood problem impacting their residential properties. ‘There is a constant flooding problem in that particular area,’ he said.” (1)

Part of the controversy centers on a new batting cage that was built for the Babe Ruth baseball league in Deming Park. There was no permit issued for this work by the Conservation Commission even though the work was in the floodplain.

According to the Gazette, “The parks commission approved the batting cage — paid for by the Babe Ruth league — in February, during a meeting when all votes were illegal because a quorum was not present. The cage was then installed and in March, the commission ‘corrected’ the votes by voting as a package to reaffirm all February actions, without any deliberation. (1)
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Pittsfield has suffered from an unusual amount of flooding over the course of the past year. Of course nobody is blaming the City for the recent heavy rainfall. But the kind of extreme storms we have been experiencing lately may become more common in the future. Global climate-change models have been saying for years now that climate change in our area will mean more rainfall and more extreme and intense rain storms. (1)

Although nobody is saying that Pittsfield caused all the recent flooding, I believe that the decisions made by the Pittsfield Conservation Commission have made the flooding worse than it otherwise would have been. For example, take their decisions regarding the reconstruction of Wahconah Park. Read more…

If you have been following BEAT’s Blog, you know that we have a few themes.

1. All BEAT asks is that the City of Pittsfield follow existing laws and regulations.

2. The Pittsfield Conservation Commission does a poor job of protecting Pittsfield’s lakes, rivers, streams, and other wetlands.

3. The purpose of Pittsfield City Government seems to be to take in tax money and grant money and control its distribution.

All three points came into focus for me recently as I looked at two engineering plans related to the work being done at Pittsfield’s own water theme park; Wahconah Park. Read more…

To say Wahconah Park was flooded last week would be an understatement. People were actually kayaking and swimming in the parking lot. I guess even pumping the overflow into nearby wetlands (which the City of Pittsfield has done) couldn’t help. Of course, it wasn’t just Wahconah Park that was flooded. Pittsfield is seeing an unprecedented amount of flooding. Can anything be done? BEAT has been saying for some time now that the Pittsfield Conservation Commission does a poor job of protecting the city from flooding. Read more…

In my last post, I told the story of how the City of Pittsfield decided that instead of having Jim Bouton and Chip Elitzer fund the reconstruction of a renovated Wahconah Park, the City should do it themselves with taxpayer money. My impression is that this allows the money involved in the project to go to the “right” people. The City waited for Jim and Chip to spend lots of money on plans and designs, waited for them to get the necessary permits, and then usurped the project without so much as removing the name of Jim’s and Chip’s business from the plans. When Chip sent the City a cease-and-desist notice forbidding them from using the plans that had been funded privately, Pittsfield said it wasn’t using the plans or permits. But the City had just filed for an amendment to the permit (Jim’s and Chip’s permit) which uses Jim’s and Chip’s plans and designs as its basis.

One of BEAT’s environmental complaints regarding this project began when we noticed piles of fill in Wahconah Park’s parking lot, right near the stadium’s chain link fence. Anyone who knows the area knows that this parking lot floods every year, because the parking lot is actually part of the Housatonic River from time to time. In fact, the piles of fill were soon under water. This is a violation of wetlands laws. The City was required to obtain a wetlands permit to put those piles there, because at least some of the fill could easily end up in the Housatonic River. Did the City get a permit that allowed them to put piles of fill in the river? Well, it depends on when you ask them and which answer they think the situation calls for. Read more…

Everyone agrees that wetlands are valuable, and most people agree that we should take all reasonable steps to preserve our remaining wetlands. But sometimes, a wetland seems to be in just the wrong place; right in the path of a proposed development project. Often in this type of situation, “wetland replication” or “wetland mitigation” is proposed as the solution. This is an interesting concept that we can actually watch work (or not) right here in our own backyard.

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