WESTFIELD – The Conservation Commission voted last night to allow the city to withdraw its application to open a piped drainage system running under the fairway of the sixth hole at Shaker Farms Country Club.
The drainage pipe, according to club owner Dan Kotowitz, carries “a huge amount of runoff” that is being collected by the drainage system from the Falley Drive neighborhood and is flooding the course near the sixth green.
The drainage pipe under the fairway, installed at some time in the past, either by the city or the country club owners at that time, has collapsed and is causing water to back up, flooding the fairway.
The city proposed daylighting the drainage pipe, creating a free-flowing stream and applied to the Conservation Commission for the necessary permits. The state Department of Environmental Protection and the Army Corps of Engineers were also notified of the project because it also falls under the jurisdiction of those agencies
The city hired R. Levesque Associates to design and obtain the necessary environmental permits to allow the “daylighting” project to proceed. The review by those agencies has been underway for nearly two years.
The DEP determined that “daylighting” the drainage system would create a stream and would be subject to the riverfront protection laws which prohibit disturbance of the buffer zone by activity such as mowing and other maintenance.
Rob Levesque said that being unable to mow more than 400 feet of the fairway was unacceptable to Kotowitz and that the city was considering other options to correct the drainage problem.
Levesque requested the Conservation Commission last night to allow the city to withdraw its application “without prejudice” to allow the city to resubmit a revised plan.
”When the project is ready, we will come back and begin the review process,” Levesque said.
The commission voted 6-0 to allow the city to withdraw the application without prejudice.
