The Conservation Commission met on Jan. 23 to hear a site plan from Brian Frost, Lead Gas Engineer from Liberty Utilities, who was at the meeting to give a presentation on the project.
“The basic project is a small site, less than one acre to construct a metering and regulating station, said Frost. “We’d like to install a facility that can reduce the pressure of the gas to something where it can serve our customers and tie back into the distribution system that already exists.”
Liberty supplies natural gas in town and is looking for ways to establish new supply points to account for population growth in the town.
“Is there a gas pipe on the site there now?” asked Conservation Chair, Marge Badois.
According to Frost, Liberty has a feeder pipe in the area going from Sanborn Road to the Granite Ridge power plant.
“This is not a manned site where Liberty employees would report to daily,” explained Frost. “The site would be monitored from what we call our gas control center, where we monitor all of the sites.”
He added that there were no wetlands in the area and that Liberty would mainly rely on sensors to warn them of any problems with an in-person inspection once
How close is that to the rail trail?” asked Vice Chair, Eugene Harrington.
The Engineer estimated that it was at least 200 feet away, and the plan would include a small fence to keep members of the public out. There’s also a hill in between the trail and the property.
“I don’t imagine it’ll even be visible from the rail trail. It shows a tree line on the map,” said Harrington.
They also got an update on the Village at Technology Mill from a local civil engineer who did not give his name to the Commission. As designed, the project will include an industrial use section, a residential zone with some low-income housing, and a community center. It’s also located near a “fairly large” and “artificial” wetland system.
“We do have one wetlands permit associated with the project. As currently constituted, it is categorized as a minimum impact expedited permit,” said the engineer. “We do have a wetlands impact of approximately 950 square feet.”
With the nearby wetland, the large amount of parking included in the complex and stormwater runoff was a central conservation concern.
“I noticed that you used a national association’s standard for stormwater management instead of the towns. Can you go into the reason for that and the differences?” asked alternate member, Michael Speltz.
According to the engineer, the one significant difference involves what impact stormwater infiltration might have on a large-scale project. He claimed that Londonderry ordinances did not account for the massive size of The Village project.
Badois requested that at least two members of the Commission be allowed to inspect the site to get a feel of where the wetlands are in relation to planned construction.