The DEP staff has recommended that the board accept the proposal.
AUGUSTA – A state environmental board will consider consent agreements Thursday for violations of several resource protection acts.
Consent agreements for violations in New Portland and Rangeley carry fines that total $11,300.
The Board of Environmental Protection meets at 9 a.m. in a conference room at the Holiday Inn/Ground Round in Augusta.
Department of Environmental Protection staff has recommended that the board and state Assistant Attorney General Margaret McCloskey accept consent agreements with Thomas and Charles Davis, both of Massachusetts, who own property in New Portland, and Michael Koob of Oquossoc.
The Davises have paid a $10,000 fine and have done a “very good job” of remediating the New Portland site after dredging about 800 feet of Newell Brook and two unnamed tributary streams and disturbing about 3.7 acres of a freshwater wetland by filling and bulldozing, said Becky Maddox of the Bureau of Land and Water Quality.
The Davises, who own a parcel of land on Millay Road, were trying to make the site better, Maddox said, but ended up violating the Natural Resources Protection Act, the Protection and improvement of Waters Act and the Erosion and Sedimentation Control Law.
The stream and about 42,100 square feet of the freshwater wetland were dredged to a depth ranging from 1 to 9 feet below the natural grade, according to a state memorandum.
The pair had also removed a beaver dam, which was located in Newell Brook where it exited the wetland complex. The dam had been piled adjacent to the brook.
The material dredged out of the brook, two tributary streams and freshwater wetland had been deposited in the freshwater wetland, covering an additional area of about 42,100 square feet.
Tracked equipment had been operated within other areas resulting in damage to about 75,800 feet of additional wetland.
A total of about 3.7 acres of wet meadow, open water and scrub-shrub wetland was altered during the project, the memorandum stated.
Besides the $10,000 penalty, which was initially more, Maddox said, the consent agreement requires the Davises to submit two wetland restoration monitoring reports next year.
The penalty amount is based on the department’s penalty policy and reflects the size and quality of the habitat impacted, as well as the quality and speed of the restoration work, and the “excellent cooperation of the property owner,” Maddox stated.
“It’s still a significant fine,” she said.
A consent agreement with Michael Koob, regarding his property on Mooselookmeguntic Lake in Rangeley, calls for Koob to pay a $1,300 fine, which he has already paid, and to remove a stone patio and restore the disturbed area back to its original grade, which has been done.
Koob had a permit by rule to fix his pier on the lake, Maddox said, but not to build a patio.
An inspection revealed Koob had constructed a 750-square-foot stone patio within 25 feet of the lake that extends along about 50 feet of the shoreline, and placed riprap along about 40 feet of the edge of the shoreline. Koob obtained an after-the-fact permit by rule for the riprap.
Koob violated the Natural Resources Protection Act by not obtaining a permit first before disturbing soil, removing vegetation and constructing a permanent structure within 75 feet of Mooselookmeguntic Lake, which is considered a great pond under the act, a state memorandum stated.
Maddox said she doesn’t believe Koob knew he was violating the act when he built the patio.
Neither Koob or Thomas Davis were available for comment Wednesday.
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