NORWAY — The Oxford County Agricultural Society may face fines for filling in wetlands at the Oxford Fairgrounds in preparation for the Nateva Festival last summer.

In October, Agricultural Society President Suzanne Grover received a partial rejection of an after-the-fact permit application for site work from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.

In May, the DEP visited the fairgrounds and found forested wetlands had been cut and some had been filled without a Natural Resources Protection Act permit, which is required for wetlands alteration. Festival organizers had also diverted storm water without a permit.

The Oxford County Agricultural Society applied for both permits after the fact. The stormwater permit was granted, but the DEP rejected the Natural Resources Protection Act permit.

Nearly 15,000 square feet of freshwater wetlands had been cut, stumped and filled for use by campers. Another 58,000 square feet of wetlands had been cut but not stumped. The Agricultural Society asked for a permit to fill in the 15,000 feet and submitted a plan to restore the land that had been cut.

The department ruled that organizers hadn’t completed the work in a way that minimized environmental impact and that other locations could have been used for camping.

“The proposed activity will unreasonably harm a significant wildlife habitat, freshwater wetland plant habitat, threatened or endangered plant habitat; aquatic or adjacent upland habitat,” according to the department’s letter to Grover.

DEP Project Manager Eric Ham said the Agricultural Society has agreed to restore the deforested site. He said DEP Enforcement Officer Colin Clark was drafting a consent agreement, a voluntary agreement that can involve fines. If the society doesn’t accept the terms, the DEP could take the case to court.

Fines depend on the level of cooperation by offenders, and can range into tens of thousands of dollars.

Lance Bean, Oxford Fair director and treasurer of the Oxford County Agricultural Society, said the society was cooperating with the DEP.

“We’re still moving forward,” he said. “It’s taking some time to get it all straightened out.”

About 8,200 people attended the Nateva Festival, according to an estimate by Oxford police Chief John Tibbetts in July. The three-day festival featured Further, which includes former members of the Grateful Dead, as well as George Clinton, the Flaming Lips and Jakob Dylan.

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