BETHEL – Following a nearly two-hour executive session Tuesday night, selectmen made no decision regarding a response to an alleged filling of a flood plain.
The meeting’s purpose was to discuss, by phone with the town attorney, the town’s rights and duties in a potential litigation involving violations of town code.
The matter involved filling in a small section of the Chandler Brook flood plain beside Walkers Mills Road by Wilton residents Richard Tibbetts and Dale Verrill.
The men had commenced a logging operation on their property off the road, which is also known as Route 26.
Town Manager Scott Cole said that town code was violated when gravel fill was dumped in the flood plain for a forest management entrance without necessary permits.
On Feb. 28, four days after the fact, Main-Land Development Inc. of Livermore Falls filed flood hazard development and shoreland zoning applications on behalf of clients Tibbetts and Verrill.
According to the flood hazard development permit application, 2,000 cubic yards of gravel fill and an 18-inch culvert is to be added to create the entrance and logging road in the limited residential zone.
Main-Land engineer Robert L. Berry III wrote in a Feb. 25 letter to Bethel Code Enforcement Officer Rich St. John that the project would have an insignificant effect on the area’s high-water elevation.
St. John estimated that only 400 cubic yards had been placed before a stop-work order was issued.
Cole said that selectmen are to discuss possible recourses again during another executive session at the board’s next meeting at 7 p.m. Monday, March 7, in the town office.
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