WESTFIELD – The Conservation Commission approved an order of conditions for the proposed 4,500-square-foot Cumberland Farms convenience store and gas stat ion at the intersection of North and Southampton roads.
The project cleared one of three regulatory hurdles when the commission took that action last week. The Planning Board will resume its review of the site plan, storm water management plan and the usage for a gas station.
The Conservation Commission issued conditions related to both the construction phase of the project and then operation of the convenience store/gas station. The conditions require the builder to submit erosion control plans to prevent damage to the wetlands located along North Road behind the store.
The conditions also require Cumberland Farms to submit incident reports in the event of a fuel spill at the pumps to the commission, annual outfall testing of the drainage system for hydrocarbons and maintenance for the fuel tanks, pumps and sumps , as well as for the drainage system which include facilities to prevent fuel products for being discharged into wetlands.
The store chain will also have to submit a storm water pollution prevention plan to the board for its review and approval.
“The special conditions of the order of conditions mostly pertain to the storm water and discharge into the wetlands,” Conservation Coordinator Karen Leigh said. “The commission is requiring them to post a $20,000 bond because of the sensitivity of the wetland area and because all of the storm water collected on the site is being discharged into those wetlands.”
The commission will also require Cumberland Farms to submit results of all of the state and federal required testing of the underground fuel storage tanks.
The Planning Board members have raised a number of concerns and issues pertaining to the site plan, traffic flow and underground storage tanks. That discussion will continue tomorrow night.
The petitioners said at the March 7, 2013 City Council meeting that a number of amendments have been made to the site -plan, including deletion of a one-way entrance near the intersection of Routes 10 and 202, one of the concerns raised by Planning Board members.
The City Council, during its public hearing for a fuel storage tank license, posed many of the same questions pertaining to installation of two fuel tanks at the proposed Cumberland Farms convenience store as the Planning Board and Conservation Commission.
Details of the project were presented by Attorney Thomas Murphy and Project Manager Patrick O’Leary, P.E. of Vanasse Hangen Brustlin (VHB) and on behalf of the developer, First Hartford Realty Corp., of Manchester, Conn., which will sell the land and building, when completed, to Cumberland Farms Corporation.
The application pending before the City Council is for the two underground fuel tanks that will store 32,000 gallons of gasoline and 8,000 gallons of diesel fuel.
William E. Baird of Web Engineering Associates, Inc. of Norwell, the engineer who preformed a peer review of the tank design and installation, presented the technical details of the proposed tank installation and answered questions raised by council members about the reliability of the double-hulled tanks.
The developer is seeking approval of a site plan and storm water management plan, permits needed to construct a 4,500 store with 26 parking spaces and five fuel islands with a total of 10 fueling positions, two for diesel and eight for gasoline dispensing. The facility will be constructed on 1.17 acres of land that is now a primarily wooded and undeveloped site.
O’Leary said the site is near the Arm Brook wetland, but not in the resource area of that wetland and that while it is in proximity to the Barnes Aquifer protection district, the property is not included in the district.
At-large Councilor John J. Beltrandi III, chairman of the License Committee which is reviewing the storage tank permit application, said his committee is seeking input from both the Conservation Commission and Planning Board.
“The permit for the tanks is our only part of this,” Beltrandi said, “so I’m waiting for those boards to complete their reviews so we can get guidance from their decisions. Those boards are dealing with the environmental issues, aquifer protection and other issues.”
“We’ll see what is going on with those boards,” he said, “then we may bring Cumberland Farms into the License Committee if we have more questions. I want to make sure we’re doing the right thing.”
