WESTFIELD – The Conservation Commission Tuesday night approved orders of conditions for two projects that will transform the former Northampton-New Haven rail line into the city’s Columbia Greenway rail trail.
The Westfield Gas & Electric Department, represented by Northeast Land & Water LLC of Orange, is seeking to extend the Southwick gas lateral from Shaker Road to South Meadow Road.
Alex MacLeod of Northeast Land & Water said the 12-inch gas line will be installed under Little River through directional drilling. The line will be installed 23 1/2 feet below the river bed through that drilling process to reduce the environmental impacts.
Originally the municipal utility considered a coffer dam and trenching method, but that was determined to have a much greater environmental impact on the river and the bordering wetlands.
MacLeod said that the project will impact more than an acre of the Little River resource area and required the utility to submit a notice of intent to the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of Environmental Protection as well as the local Conservation Commission.
The federal agency requires that projects in a resource area include improvements to the riverfront area and that the project include a stormwater management plan.
MacLeod said that the improvement and stormwater management plan overlap in this project. There is a long slope toward the river that collects storm water. The volume and velocity of that collected storm water carved a deep ravine into the side of the embankment of the rail bed.
MacLeod said the plan is to install the gas pipeline, then back fill the trench and create a compacted crown that will sheet shed water rather than collect it as is now occurring.
The directional drilling will require two trenches, on either side of the river, for the drilling equipment, and to weld sections of the steel pipe together as it is pulled through the drilled tunnel, but that the trenches need to be sufficiently back from the resource area for the drilling and pipe assembly process to eliminate extensive environmental impact.
The second project, presented by the Engineering Department and Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc. (VHB), the city’s Columbia Greenway consultant, involves a notice of intent for a limited section of the construction area which will extend the rail trail from the Southwick line to an area just south of Little River, about 4,000 linear feet.
“This is an important and exciting project for the city,” City Engineer Mark Cressotti said. “The city is pleased to be seeking these permits to improve the bike trail. We have a tight timeline and asked the commission to be expeditious in its consideration of this permit.”
VHB Senior Project Manager Douglas Vigneau said the Conservation Commission’s jurisdictional area is the section of the trail between the Southwick line and Shaker Road.
“The project is the placement of pavement, 12-feet wide and construction of 60 parking spaces,” Vigneau said.
The parking area, which will have a “pervious” surface to allow absorption of ground water, will have an access through the Shaker Road Country Club parking lot where the city will make improvements as part of the access agreement with the property owners.
Those improvements will include repaving a section of the existing parking lot and installation of a system to filter storm water before it is discharged into a resource area next to the parking lot.
The project also includes construction of vegetated swale to collect stormwater shed by the pavement of the trail.
“This will be a vast improvement to the resource areas” along that section of the trail, Vigneau said.
The two projects will address the erosion situation, which is dumping material off the rail created when the rail ties and gravel were removed for installation of the Southwick sewer lateral installed seven years ago. The paved surface and swales will collect storm water and allow natural discharge to the bordering wetlands.
Jeffrey LaValley, president of the Friends of the Columbia Greenway, a non-profit group raising funds for the project, said the rail trail will provide a number of benefits to the include economic development along the trail, improve air quality, promote a healthy lifestyle option and enhance the sense of community.
The Friends of the Columbia Greenway is an extension of the downtown visioning and strategic process conducted in 2009 and will assist the city in maintenance of the facility as it is eventually extended north to the Westfield River.
