Administrative meeting proceeds in calm but Lion's Den atmosphere

Silver Maple Forest Alliance did well with Councilor consultations with good marks from nearly all elected officials for agreeing to propose a Policy Order on maintaining the forest land as open space and asking that Cambridge land not be used for pollution dumping int the wetlands. Good Orders were passed from Councilors Cheung and Carlone and Mcgovern's Order was rescinded. However, the group was stymied when the city manager repeated earlier 'nay' statements that Cambridge cannot and will not proceed to interfere with Belmont for any reason, as he had said numerous times before. He noted that "Eminent Domain" was not possible as it was long term, too costly and unlikely to win. Several Leaders of the departments in these matters attended, while only the group of 3 who were not apprised of the longer history with the Belmont Coalition and FAR were welcomed and their comments fell on deaf ears. The 5 official reps. from the city overwhelmed the 3, two of whom were new to the subject matter, and basically squelched further action by allowing the dominant Administrative conversation to proceed.

The owner of the Uplands land had spoken to City Manager Healey in the past, and was able to get approval for a storm water pipe in 2009 from the Conservation Commission, a pipe which will discharge tens of thousands of polluted storm water into Cambridge wetlands when the building is built. The permit gave very short shrift to the large amount of discharge to flow from the pipe, although our calling attention to it, may make some design plan changes. We will never know this as the owner would need to return to the zoning board and get approval for changes. This will not happen we surmise. This meeting did much to harm both the present Belmont law suit and ability to get recognition for the poor WPA regulatory process and weak city storm water regulations in Cambridge which allow many sins and arbitrary interpretation. Most modern thinking cities have much better regs. and by-laws than Cambridge. Arlington and Belmont do at this juncture. A large city without tight water regulations is running with dynamite because of the location of Cambridge on the eastern seaboard and low sea elevation at Alewife. Our sparse natural resources have been kicked under the bus royally by the war against the silver maple forest by the owner without a building permit, our only Cambridge 'real time' forest shared with Belmont with great flood mitigation benefits for all 3 towns. Although putting wood planks against the trees during street paving seems to be our way of saying we understand the global warming benefits of trees, but in actuality we do not. Seventh grade science students do.

The great need is for oversight groups that will form a strong storm water Committee as Belmont had to do to improve their regulations and abide by 2011 precipitation figures as many states are doing, and not 2006 figures. We also need a Storm Water Committee in a municipality 10 times the size of Belmont.

Trees must not have been cut and grubbed for no purpose. Their ending must provide a beginning as concrete is now destined to go over their wide 7 acre stand.

Our Alliance has had a positive influence on the Fresh Pond Residents Alliance and we understand they are presently gathering a group to discuss the flooding situation at Alewife of how to protect residents that live in this sub-watershed of the greater Mystic River watershed from damaging floods to come.

Perhaps we will recover from the latest administrative blow, but this one could have been fatal for our efforts. Those wanting to work on a storm water committee for Cambridge, please be in touch with FAR and we'll try to gather like-minded souls on this important issue for Cambridge and the region. If others move forward, I'm sure this history from several organizations will help in galvanizing strong support for watershed permits and much tighter scrutiny in permitting developments.

Best,
Ellen Mass