SOUTHWICK – On December 14, Dick Grannells of the Lake Management Committee, and Christopher Pratt of the Conservation Commission, sent a letter to the Select Board regarding the Local Permitting Program from Mass DEP. The LPP allows property owners to register water-based structures like docks, floats, moorings, and buoys on lakes. In Southwick, the property owners would register their structures with the Conservation Commission.
The reason for the lette is because they want to see more enforcement of the LPP, especially when individuals aren’t complying with the laws.
In the letter from Grannells and Pratt, they provide information pertaining to people not complying to the LPP, as it states, “Annual boat surveys and LPP statistics maintained by Lake Management and Conservation Commission, respectively, indicate that only about half of the waterfront properties with water-based structures comply with the licensing or permitting of water-based structures and about a third of the owners of vessels moored on Congamond have purchased and displayed said stickers on said vessels.”
Further into the letter, it is noted that the funds from the LPP go into a revolving lake fund that is meant for any additional patrols on Congamond Lake. In the letter, Grannells and Pratt added that they feel that the lake patrols “could and should” be used to enforce the permitting of the water-based structures on Congamond Lake. The two committee’s see this as a positive impact for the town as lake users would be paying their fair share of the costs that go along with the lake patrols.
Grannells and Pratt also indicated in the letter that both committees “voted unanimously” to make suggestions and hope that the Select Board would take those suggestions into consideration when selecting the next harbormaster.
The current harbormaster is Southwick Police Chief David Ricardi, but as he is set to retire in June 2018, the Lake Management Committee will have to find a new harbormaster. The Select Board is now in the process of selecting a new Chief of Police and the next opportunity for a decision on that matter will be at the next Select Board meeting on January 3 at 5:15 p.m. After that decision, the board would then be able to choose the next Chief of Police as the harbormaster or select another individual.
