Wetlands damage tied to Legacy Park ski trails

Friday, January 27, 2012

Peter Goedecke, vice president of the Cross-Country Ski Club, admitted to Town Councilors on Jan. 11 that his organization did “a little too much” when it widened trails and took down trees at Legacy Park to enhance the trails for skiers, but he assured them that the group always had good intentions in their actions.

“You know the old saying, ‘The road to hell is sometimes paved with good intentions,’ ” Councilor Norm Longval told Goedecke. “Unfortunately, right now, you’re at the gateway.”

Goedecke and the ski club took some heat from town officials and Bedford residents at the Jan. 11 council meeting for the grooming they’d done to Legacy Park trails starting in 1996, which has resulted in some destruction of park wetlands.

Bedford officials first looked into the town-owned property after resident reports that the trees, paths and wetlands had suffered too much destruction, acting Town Manager Crystal Dionne said.

An investigation by councilors Longval, Jim Scanlon and Ken Peterson; environmental engineers; and Public Works Director Jim Stanford discovered that some of the land had been excavated at Legacy Park, culverts had been installed, and almost a dozen trees had been marked for removal by the club without the town’s permission, in addition to the trees that already had been cleared.

The damage to the wetlands was bad enough for town officials to report it to the state Department of Environmental Services and to order the club to cease and desist their modifications to the park.

“DES could certainly issue a fine,” Stanford said. “We have no way of really estimating what the overall cost of this is.”

Dionne said it is difficult to determine where the club overstepped its boundaries in altering Legacy Park because there were never any written documents recording their rules for its use.

“We find no written agreements between the ski club and the town for exactly what it is they were authorized to do or exactly how long the trails could be,” Dionne said. “There’s nothing written we could look back at to determine whether or not they adhered to that.”

Stanford told councilors that in the past, the town knowingly allowed the club to conduct work there.

“It’s tough to say what all of the agreements from the past (were),” Stanford said. “There was certainly a lot of – I don’t want to say handshakes – but previous recreation directors would go out with them and they’d mark areas, they’d allow them to cut trees, and in discussing it with some of my staff that has been here a long time – and with the ski club, the town actually sent their bulldozers out and did a lot of this construction early on. The town probably supplied some of the culvert pipes that were put in. That’s just the way it came about.”

Parks and Recreation Commission Chairman Michelle Casale told councilors that the ski club had long owed the town a memorandum of understanding to state their plans for use of Legacy Park.

“This is obviously unacceptable,” Casale said. “There should’ve been something in place a long time ago.”

Bill Foote, who served on the Parks and Recreation Commission until 2009 and dealt with the club in the past, said the commission had instructed the club only to remove trees that had been downed across trails and told the club that they were not allowed to bring wheeled trucks or machinery into the park without town approval.

“You want to give them an MOU – I don’t know why,” Foote said. “The damage has been done. I don’t know how we’re going to try and make it whole again. It’s just a really unfortunate situation that didn’t really have to happen. This stuff should’ve been resolved two years ago.”

The club had met with the town in 2006 and 2009 to discuss their need for the memorandum of understanding, Foote said, but the club never delivered.

“This is a twofer,” Foote said. “There was no request. It was a requirement.”

Goedecke said the club has since drafted a memorandum of understanding and gave it to the town Jan. 5 for review.

Some town councilors agreed that the culpability for the park’s destruction was shared by both the ski club and the town.

“I think it’s kind of apparent they got here because nobody was paying attention to what they were doing,” council Chairman Bill Dermody said.

Stanford estimated that the town could face $1,500-$1,800 in damages to deal with the wetlands and another couple hundred dollars for hay bales that public works added to the area to prevent erosion in places that had been excavated by the club.

Ultimately, Stanford told councilors that he estimated repairs may cost anywhere from $4,000-$10,000.

Goedecke told councilors that the club wanted to work with the town to find a way to repair the damages and to cover its costs. The club also agreed to repair the ski club’s warming hut, which was found to be unsafe for users, within the seven-day time frame issued by the town.

“We’re very sorry,” Goedecke said. “We built these together with you, and we want to do what’s right.”

Councilors passed a motion that will allow the ski club to continue using the cross-country trails, as is, for the remainder of their season – contingent upon the club’s adherence to town rules and repairs to the warming hut.

At the end of the season, the club’s use of Legacy Park will cease until a formal and comprehensive agreement between the town and the club is approved by the council.

Maryalice Gill can be reached at 594-6490 or mgill@nashuatelegraph.com. Follow Gill on Twitter (@Telegraph_MAG).