Commission Leans Toward Limiting Airport Work

CHATHAM – Members of the conservation commission are leaning toward approving a vegetation removal plan for the town’s airport with a smaller footprint than what has been requested by the airport commission.

Although the commission has yet to vote on the notice of intent and variances requested by the airport commission, members last week indicated that they favored more limited-scale tree and shrub removal than is being sought. A final vote is expected June 26.

While the commission is charged with upholding local and state wetlands regulations, it must also reconcile those concerns with other local bylaws, said chair Janet Williams. The official map of the airport approach zone in the town’s general bylaws controls the extent of the area where vegetation removal must take place. Its inner width is 250 feet, but the airport commission’s plan is based on an approach zone inner width of 400 feet, creating a larger area where trees and shrubs need to be cut.

Voters at last month’s annual town meeting turned down a new approach map at the wider width. Williams said she favored limiting the proposed work to the width of the approach zone map currently in the bylaw. That would cut back on the clearing that must be done around a vernal pool on the south side of the airport property by about 70 percent, she said.

That could leave the airport out of compliance with Federal Aviation Administration grant assurances, said Matthew Caron of Gale Associates, the airport commission’s consultants, endangering future and possibly even past funding.

Caron said the FAA now considers the 400-foot-width approach zone official. Airport officials began the update of the facility’s master plan not realizing that the FAA had changed the approach area map. Once that was discovered, aspects of the plan, including the environmental assessment, were adjusted to reflect the new approach zone. He said he wasn’t sure when the FAA made the change; he offered to find out and communicate the information to the conservation commission.

“There’s so much noise and confusion around this,” Williams noted. “I think some of that is due to the inherent complexity of the projects, some to the technical complexity of the airport design and operations, all of which is new to us.”

The tree and shrub removal and trimming subject to the commission’s jurisdiction is limited to the areas around the vernal pool and nearby ponds — about 2.6 acres — but the overall vegetation management plan encompasses a much larger area, around 45 to 50 acres.

Williams said became convinced of the need for some of the work for aircraft safety after watching an airplane land from the Job Lot parking lot, “and seeing that it was just skirting the tops of the trees. It became obvious at that point.”

The town’s airport bylaw was last updated in 1997, and that bylaw, which includes the approach zone map first adopted in 1958, has not yet been changed, even if the FAA adopted a different approach map.

“I’m not inclined to overreach what is an applicable law right here in this town and approach something that goes beyond this,” she said.

“Safety at the airport is priority one,” said commission member Elise Gordon. But the airport bears responsibility for failing to keep up with vegetation management. “Protecting the environment is equally as important as the safety issues.”

The commission needs to do everything it can to protect trees, plants and animals around the vernal pool, said member Robert Ralls.

“In my view, the cutting of trees in this area is too risky and will harm its fresh water and living creatures, causing a domino effect on the greater ecosystem,” he said.

“No matter how we vote on this we’re going to make people unhappy,” he added.

The commission will draft the order of conditions for the project to include the concern of members and to reflect the multi-year extent of the work, Williams said.

“Even though we would love to say we are done with this, that’s just not going to happen,” she commented.

A Cape Cod Commission subcommittee is scheduled to hold a virtual public meeting on modifications to the development of impact for the previous airport management plan on Tuesday, June 25. That’s a separate process with a separate timeline that is likely to take months, said Conservation Agent Paul Wightman.