Conservation panel requests wider powers

The Westborough Conservation Commission is asking Town Meeting voters to give it more control over projects involving wetlands, including the EMC Corp.'s plans for a new campus. (Bill Polo/Globe Staff/file)

Members of the Westborough Conservation Commission are seeking to expand its powers, a move that could allow the commission greater control over the massive new headquarters that the EMC Corp. has proposed on the town's border with Southborough.

The 15-article warrant for tomorrow night's Special Town Meeting includes two articles that would beef up the commission, whose basic charge is to protect wetlands and other environmental resources. The first would allow it to promulgate bylaws in addition to the state's environmental protection laws. The other would allow fines as high as $300 a day for projects that damage wetlands. Town Meeting is to convene at 7 p.m. in Westborough High School's auditorium.

Commission chairman Edward Brady said the articles were not proposed in response to Hopkinton-based EMC's plans for its 445-acre property in Westborough and Southborough. Rather, he said, Westborough has grown substantially in recent years, and his board decided it is time to set up new rules to deal with future growth.

"It gives us a little bit more control of our own local problems," said Brady. "This has nothing to do with EMC. This is something we've been working on for four years. It has nothing to do with any particular interest."

EMC spokesman Patrick Cooley declined to comment on the Conservation Commission proposals.

While the new fines would take effect if approved, Brady said, the other article would not create any new bylaws, but simply give the commission the authority to create them.

Brady acknowledged that EMC's project could be affected by new bylaws being considered by his board, depending on when the Fortune 500 company applies for approval of its project.

If the company files an application with the commission before new rules are adopted, its project would be grandfathered, said Brady. If it applies after new rules are adopted, the company would have to abide by them, he said.

EMC submitted an application for the project last year, but it was rejected after commission members said the company did not offer alternatives to a road it wanted to build through wetlands on the property. Last month, however, an administrative judge in the Department of Environmental Protection overturned the commission's decision and gave EMC permission to build the road.

Under an agreement reached between EMC and Westborough, the company is now going to start over and resubmit its application, while providing more information about how it intends to handle storm-water runoff, according to the town counsel, Gregory Franks.

Westborough's assistant conservation officer, Derek Saari, said he did not know when EMC might resubmit its plans. Even if the article is approved tomorrow, a few months would likely pass before it could take effect, since the state attorney general's office must OK any change to the town's bylaws, he said.

If Town Meeting voters approve its new powers, the commission would consider a bylaw restricting most construction within 25 feet of wetlands, Saari said, as well as regulations governing development within 100 feet of wetlands in general. Parts of EMC's project would fall under those possible new rules, he said.

Saari said Westborough experienced more flooding than usual this summer, a sign that runoff from development was overwhelming the town's water-control systems, in which wetlands play a key role. The bylaw article would allow the commission to take steps to avoid even worse flooding in the future, he said.

"It would absolutely help," he said. "It would guide and protect the town's infrastructure. It would protect downstream abutters. It would protect our aging culverts. We would have a setback for erosion into our wetlands."

Hopkinton, Milford, Northborough, and Southborough are among the communities that have adopted bylaws to expand the powers of their conservation boards, he said.

As described in Article 13 of tomorrow's Special Town Meeting warrant, the proposed daily fines for damaging wetlands would be $100 for a first violation, $200 for a second violation, and $300 for subsequent violations. Currently, commission chairman Brady said, the town has no authority to levy fines to protect wetlands.

The full warrant is available on the town's website, www.town.westborough.ma.us.