12/11/2003: 
Urban Archaeology
Big Brother Helps Sawin's Pond?
from Boston Globe
Using a first-in-the-nation aerial surveillance program, state regulators say they have discovered at least 1,500 illegally filled marshes, swamps, and other wetlands in eastern Massachusetts and have begun levying stiff fines against violators.
Yesterday, Department of Environmental Protection officials announced penalties totaling $280,000 against two companies that had destroyed ecologically fragile wetlands that could be seen from the air, but not from the nearest public road. In both cases, involving an Amesbury concrete company and a Billerica used parts dealer, local conservation officials didn't know about the violations until the state analyzed aerial photos, part of a program that allows them to detect development on virtually every acre of the commonwealth.
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Wetlands violators caught from airBy Scott Allen, Globe Staff, 12/11/2003
Using a first-in-the-nation aerial surveillance program, state regulators say they have discovered at least 1,500 illegally filled marshes, swamps, and other wetlands in eastern Massachusetts and have begun levying stiff fines against violators.
Yesterday, Department of Environmental Protection officials announced penalties totaling $280,000 against two companies that had destroyed ecologically fragile wetlands that could be seen from the air, but not from the nearest public road. In both cases, involving an Amesbury concrete company and a Billerica used parts dealer, local conservation officials didn't know about the violations until the state analyzed aerial photos, part of a program that allows them to detect development on virtually every acre of the commonwealth.
DEP officials said that many more alleged violations are under investigation, including several larger wetland cases that have been referred to the attorney general's office for enforcement.
"We can find you where maybe in the past we couldn't have," said the DEP's assistant commissioner, Cynthia Giles, in announcing the stepped-up enforcement. "People shouldn't think that just because it was done seven to eight years ago, they're not going to get caught. Guess again."
Wetlands are among the most ecologically valuable landscapes, serving as both a nursery to wildlife and as a purifying sponge that absorbs stormwater runoff. Since colonial times, half the country's wetlands have been filled for farmland, towns, and other development, prompting tough state and federal laws that prohibit most filling of swamps and marshes.
But enforcement of wetland laws has always been spotty, relying mainly on local volunteer conservation commissions with few resources to detect violations. As a result, the nation continues to lose wetlands. In Massachusetts, aerial mapping of the eastern third of the state shows that 700 to 800 acres of wetland in 3,000 locations were filled from 1991 to 2001, at least half of that illegally, according to Giles.
"A lot of these things happen deep in the woods," said Kenneth Pruitt, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of Conservation Commissioners. "The more secluded a spot, the more a landowner can believe that he can fill a wetland and not get caught."
To tighten enforcement, state environmental and transportation officials jointly funded overflights of the state in April 2001, a $500,000 initiative that produced infrared images in which wet areas showed up darker. Since then, DEP analysts have used a computer program to compare the 2001 images against previous aerial photos from as early as 1990. By the end of 2004, they expect to complete a survey showing changes across the entire state.
John Kusler, director of the Association of State Wetland Managers, said he knows of no other state that is systematically looking for wetland violations from the sky, though environmental officials in states such as Georgia patrol remote coastal marshes by plane.
"It seems to be working for [Massachusetts] as a targeting tool," said Ralph Tiner, regional wetland coordinator for the US Fish & Wildlife Service in Hadley, Mass. "My hat's off to them."
DEP officials said the aerial photos are so detailed that even violators are impressed. Charles Costello, head of the DEP wetland mapping project, said officials at Holland Used Auto Parts in Billerica "got very quiet" when he first showed them photos of nearly two acres of wetland they allegedly had filled. The company agreed to pay $180,000 and to restore the wetland, which is home to a rare salamander. Company officials did not return a call. In the other enforcement action announced yesterday, aerial photos showed that New England Concrete in Amesbury had buried nearly an acre of wetland under 8 to 10 feet of fill and used the newly created dry land in part to store concrete jersey barriers. Under a settlement with the state, the company agreed to restore the marsh and pay a $100,000 fine, with the possibility that half the fine will be suspended if the company carries out several environmental projects. Company officials did not return a phone call.
DEP Commissioner Robert W. Golledge, Jr., said the state will be a tougher wetland enforcer in years to come, levying more and bigger fines than in the past. "We intend to put a stop to these illegal activities," he said.
