Vol. 1, No. 1
Headline
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New Ma law boosts protection of state's rivers BOSTON, Massachusetts -- Legislation passed here last summer expands protective measures for the state's rivers, helping to safeguard water quality in this part of the Gulf of Maine watershed. After years of discussion, the Rivers Protection Act became law on August 7 when Massachusetts Governor William Weld signed the legislation at a ceremony along the Charles River. "This law will preserve clean water, protect quality of life, and promote economic vitality along our state's rivers," he told onlookers. "This major environmental victory will protect nearly 9,000 miles [about 14,484 kilometers] of Massachusetts' riverbanks," noted Trudy Coxe, Secretary of the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs [EOEA]. The new measures revise the state's Wetlands Protection Act to control development within a designated "riverfront area" extending 200 feet [about 61 meters] from each side of a river or stream. "What it does is give advance notice to people to plan their projects around these watersheds and have an undisturbed riparian zone for the benefit of water quality and wildlife habitat, as well as other wetland interests," explained Richard Tomczyk, spokesman for Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection's [DEP] Wetlands Protection Program. The legislation applies to Massachusetts rivers, but, "Certainly the result will affect the Gulf of Maine," in terms of helping to protect water quality, said Tomczyk. Previously, "In circumstances where you had bordering vegetative wetlands along rivers, some protection was afforded, but upland, the level of protection was much less," said Russ Cohen, Rivers Advocate for the Massachusetts Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Environmental Law Enforcement. "The burden of proof was on the conservation commissions to show that the proposed activity on the uplands would alter the adjacent wetland. There was no recognition in the law that the riverfront land had intrinsic value: that it was worthy of protection per se," Cohen said. The Appalachian Mountain Club [AMC] was among the environmental organizations pushing for the increased protection of Massachusetts rivers. "There was a lot of compromise and negotiation when [the legislation] was first introduced, so we were trying to defend the bill through the years as it went through the legislature," said Peter Donahue, AMC's Rivers and Greenway Conservation Specialist. The measures were discussed for about six years -- a period Tomczyk described as typical for passage of "major environmental legislation." "We think there's better protection than there was in the original bill in many ways," Donahue said. The legislation's effectiveness will depend on the strength of regulations now being written by the Massachusetts DEP to guide conservation commissions in enforcing the new measures within their communities, Donahue asserted. An eight-member committee established by the DEP in December is helping to develop the regulations, Tomczyk said. The committee includes representatives of environmental, development, agriculture, and aquaculture concerns. Public hearings on a draft of the regulations are expected to take place in May. The regulations must be completed within a year of the legislation's passage. Municipalities can enact rivers protection measures that are more stringent than the state's, and some already have. Rivers protection varies throughout in the Gulf Among the jurisdictions within the Gulf of Maine watershed (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts), the degree and method of rivers protection varies. Citizens' groups are active in stewardship efforts in all five jurisdictions, however. At the federal level, Canada's Heritage Rivers Program offers protection similar to that afforded certain US rivers under federal Wild and Scenic River designation. In both cases, however, rivers must meet specific criteria to qualify for that federal protection. In the US, the federal Clean Water Act also provides protection to rivers. Canada's Federal Fisheries Act protects any river serving as habitat for anadromous fish (species that run from salt water to fresh water to spawn), noted Bill Ayer, Manager of Environmental Planning at New Brunswick's Department of Environment. The Canadian government also regulates discharge of pulp mill and mine effluents into rivers, he said. In the province of New Brunswick, the Clean Water Act empowers jurisdictions to regulate discharge of effluents into rivers from manufacturing or treatment processes, said Ayer. The act is being revised to include a Water Classification Regulation modeled on Maine's river water quality classifications, he said. The province's Watercourse Alteration Regulation and Clean Environment Act also help its rivers, Ayer said. Municipalities in New Brunswick do not usually play a role in rivers protection, although some communities along the St. Croix River (an international waterway that travels through Maine and New Brunswick) are enacting shore land zoning laws requiring buffers, setbacks, and other protective measures, he said. Nova Scotia is developing a method for managing rivers protection on a watershed basis, collaborating with federal agencies and local communities on stewardship efforts, according to Catriona Moir, Acting Manager, Ecosystem and Risk Assessment in that province's Department of Environment. Moir said her department is developing a water management strategy. The province also protects rivers with waste management and municipal and industrial discharge regulations, and by regulating alteration of water bodies, she said. Management guidelines for forestry and farming practices also help protect river water quality, and some municipalities have enacted limited provisions to protect rivers and shore land, Moir noted. According to a report released last October by Appalachian Mountain Club and the National Parks Service following a two-year-long assessment of rivers stewardship in the northeastern United States, "Maine has no formal river protection program." But the report notes that Maine's Department of Environmental Protection [DEP] is involved in some community-based stewardship projects; with recreational flows and boating access; and has enacted measures to protect shore land within 250 feet [about 76 meters] of rivers and 75 feet [about 23 meters] of streams. According to Maine officials, the state's shore land protection legislation, originally passed in 1971, was among the first of its kind. A river inventory by that state also led to legislation protecting some rivers from new dams, the report states. The report describes New Hampshire's Rivers Management and Protection Program as one that protects designated rivers though state and local government partnerships in which the state regulates in-stream values and local communities protect the shoreline and adjacent lands. New Hampshire also enacted statewide shore land protection measures in 1994. As is the case in Massachusetts, municipalities in Maine and New Hampshire are encouraged to adopt their own shore land protection regulations, which can be more restrictive than the state's. |
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Gulf of Maine Council on the Marine