Wetlands connected to Spring Pond

"A toxic dump in the rear of commercial lots is typical", a local Conservation Commissioner once said.  If this is "typical", how come commercial businesses are allowed near important waterways?

A big Lowe's commercial development is proposed to be constructed uphill from Spring Pond.  How much of an impact on wetlands connecting to Spring Pond, will this project have?  

Studying the history of the waterways, the streams from the hills historically connect to Spring Pond.  A historical map, c1900 shows just this. Today the streams appear to of grown, creating more wetland areas in the hills, with the exception of an old marsh being eliminated where Walmart now stands.  The streams are low or dry now in these drought summer months, to be able to make a determination.  Comparing the stream from the old map to the current map conditions, this gives concern that the proposed Lowe's lot, access road and retention pond is too near uphill from important waterways that potentially connect to Spring Pond.  I hope this raises concern to not repeat the precedent costs from 1996, where the City of Peabody had to pay to clean the sludge from the Coolidge Avenue Water Treatment Plant that accumulated at the bottom of Spring Pond.  Here is a map of the existing wetlands and streams, overlain with the proposed Lowe's/ Super Wal-mart development.

(Map created using the software Vectorworks Designer: Architect/ Landmark/ Renderworks, using data extracted from Mass GIS Oliver, and an image file of proposed development.)

There are many precedent environmental crimes to be concerned about.  Is it safe to say, award winning systems that corporations tout about, will fail again as they have in the recent few months?

• Lowe's was fined a penalty by Mass DEP in April 2010 for polluting groundwater in Pembroke:  http://www.mass.gov/dep/public/press/0410lowe.htm
• Lowe's developer penalized by Mass DEP in May 2010 for violation of a wetland:  http://www.mass.gov/dep/public/press/0510lowe.htm
• Lowe's fined $137,500 by EPA for failure to adequately control storm water run-off at 4 Mass construction sites:  http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/8b770facf5edf6f185257359003fb69e/24d5823b8d610b6685257382000a0ce3!OpenDocument&Start=5&Count=5&Expand=5
• Lowe's fined for dumping a pesticide next to a wetland, where employees dumped 12 bottles of Ortho Diazinon concentrate behind the store.  Each bottle could make 12 gallons of pesticide spray, classified as a significant spill:  Ft. Wayne News-Sentinel, Oct 27 1998
• In winter months, typically the sludge in dirty snow from commercial parking lots is shoveled toward the rear of lots.  In this case, the sludge could be shoveled toward the downslopes.  To add, one Lowe's parking lot was found to have elevated levels of PAH-benzo(a)pyrene in the asphalt:   source- Austin American-Statesman, Feb. 4, 2003
• Someone polluted in the rear of Walmart's lot in Salem, right here.  Hope the store was informed:  http://www.springpondwoods.com/2010/06/polluter-watch-dump-on-wetlands.html

Thanks to a few friends for sharing some of this info.

Peace on