The New England District (NAE) is responsible for managing the Corps' civil responsibilities in a 66,000 square-mile region encompassing the six New England states east of the Lake Champlain drainage basin. The region has:
6,100 miles of coastlineThe District and its leadership are headquartered in Concord, Massachusetts. It employs about 600 professional civilian employees with several military officers serving in key management positions. Seventy-five percent of the staff is stationed at the Concord headquarters while the others serve at Corps projects and area offices throughout the region.
11 deep water ports
102 recreational and small commercial harbors with Corps improvements
3 major river basins thousands of miles of rivers and streams
Regulation
The Corps of Engineers regulates construction and other work in navigable waterways under Section 10 of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899 and the discharge of dredged or fill material into "waters of the United States" under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act. "Waters of the United States" are navigable waters, tributaries to navigable waters, wetlands adjacent to those waters and/or isolated wetlands that have a demonstrated interstate commerce connection. The Corps also regulates certain discharges associated with the excavation and grading within those waters.
The "Section 404" program is the principal way by which the federal government protects wetlands and other aquatic environments. The program's goal is to ensure protection of the aquatic environment, while allowing for necessary economic development. The Corps also regulates dredged material in ocean waters under Section 103 of the Marine Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act of 1972 (MPRSA) (Public Law 92-532). New England's offshore disposal sites, covered by the Clean Water Act and MPRSA, are managed and monitored through our Disposal Area Monitoring System (DAMOS).
The permit evaluation process includes a public notice with a public comment period. Application for complex projects may also require a public hearing before the Corps makes a permit decision. In its evaluation of applications, the Corps is required by law to consider all factors involving the public interest. These may include economics, environmental concerns, historical values, fish and wildlife, aesthetics, flood damage prevention, land use classifications, navigation, recreation, water supply, water quality, energy needs, food production and the general welfare of the public.
The Corps of Engineers has issued a number of nationwide permits mostly for minor activities which have little or no environmental impact. Corps offices have also issued regional permits for certain types of minor work in specific areas and State Program General Permits in states with comprehensive wetland protection programs. These State General Permits allow applicants to do work for which a state permit has been issued thereby reducing delays and paperwork for applicants and allowing the Corps to devote its resources to the most significant cases while maintaining the environmental safeguards of the Clean Water Act.
The
move on Thursday came just two
days before a critical vote before the commission and was made so that
the developers can relocate two holes away from a sensitive trout
stream.
The commission will now have to consider the proposal in hearings
expected
to extend into the fall.
New York developer Roland W. Betts
has spent three years trying to persuade local, state and federal
agencies
to approve his plans for an 18-hole course on the grounds of a 780-acre
estate in Norfolk and North Canaan, in the face of growing local
opposition
to the project. But a court reversal of a local wetlands permit,
objections
by the federal Environmental Protection Agency and well-financed
opposition
by a neighbors' group, the Canaan Conservation Coalition, have so far
stymied
his plans.
The EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers, the final permitting authority for the project, have been especially concerned about holes 11 and 12. Even after one redesign, those two holes closely followed the steep contours of Hollow Brook, which federal officials have classified as a "Class A" stream with intermittent populations of trout.
Betts has insisted that he needs the challenging terrain around the brook to create a championship course that would attract members willing to pay $100,000 or more in membership fees, and he castigated experts provided by the opposition who said the course could be redesigned away from the brook.
But the Yale Farm development group was forced to reconsider after federal officials asked it to explore moving the holes in an area several hundred yards north of the brook.
Yale Farm Project Manager David Tewksbury, while refusing to discuss specific issues before federal authorities, confirmed that the application before the North Canaan wetlands commission was withdrawn because of anticipated changes to holes 11 and 12.
"We have made changes to the course at the suggestion of federal agencies and didn't want North Canaan to act on a plan that would require extensive modification later," Tewksbury said. "As a result, we'll have to resubmit our whole plan once this design work is done."
Bart Halloran, an attorney representing the Canaan Conservation Coalition, welcomed the withdrawal of the application as a vindication.
"We've been saying for years that the developers didn't have to put the holes right along the brook," Halloran said. "But the applicant insisted that there was no other way. Finally our position has been accepted."
The withdrawal of the Yale Farm plans could delay the permitting process by up to six months, and it is unclear whether the relocated holes will ultimately satisfy federal authorities or withstand court appeals that are expected if permits are granted.
In a letter on July 30, 2004, recommending that the Army Corps deny the Yale Farm application, the EPA said that eight other holes, in addition to holes 11 and 12, resulted in "direct impacts to wetlands." The agency criticized the developer for not exploring off-site alternatives to the Yale Farm location.
Opponents of the course have also faulted Betts for refusing to submit a detailed plan for the housing lots he plans to sell once the course is built, and for his plans to use up to 300,000 gallons of water a day to irrigate the course, which neighbors fear could deplete the local water table.
"The
water diversion issue remains
a serious problem regardless of where the holes are, and I don't see
that
resolved by redesigning the fairways," said Scott Asen, an abutting
landowner
and a member of the coalition. "And this project clearly won't work
financially
without the sale of housing. Any agency that considers this project
without
a full housing plan is dealing with an incomplete application."
NORTH CANAAN -- Catherine Gevers is a former artistic director of Carnegie Hall in New York and now a classical music consultant who, 11 years ago, followed her dreams and moved full time into a gracious, 18th century house on a hilly, rural lane in this remote northwest corner of the state.
On evenings when the weather was good, Gevers enjoyed nothing more than rounding up her basset hounds, climbing the long, white-graveled drive up on neighboring Yale Farm, and taking in the spectacular views of Canaan Valley and the Berkshires to the north. The land is so named because the farm was formed about a century ago from lands that had been part of a grant from Yale University.
While up on Yale Farm, Gevers often visited with her friends Robin and Henny Mead, the proprietors of the estate's immaculately preserved 780 acres and large manor house on the top of the hill.
But Catherine Gevers doesn't walk her dogs on Yale Farm anymore.
Two years ago, after Robin and Henny Mead died suddenly, their three sons transferred control of Yale Farm to New York uber-developer and presidential friend Roland W. Betts, who wants to turn the property into a championship golf course. The proposed Yale Farm Golf Club has been mired in controversy since then, and this spring, Gevers and a group of abutting neighbors filed four lawsuits against Betts and local land-use commissions over the Yale Farm development.
In early May, after the fourth lawsuit was filed, Betts directed his lawyer to write a letter ordering Gevers and her dogs off the property.
Betts, who also owns a comfortable estate nearby and sometimes strolls the Yale Farm property when he's in town, insists that he was patient about it. When the first lawsuits against his golf course were announced, he wanted immediate retaliation against Gevers and her basset hounds, but he said his partners in the project talked him out of it. But the fourth lawsuit was just too much.
"I've got to look at this lady walking her dogs on our property and she's sued me four times? Forget it," Betts said. "I guess everyone knows the limits of Roland Betts now - you can sue me three times. But the fourth time? I'm going to tell you to get your dogs off the property."
Gevers' and her dogs' being ordered off Yale Farm symbolizes an epic land-use battle in Litchfield County estate country. The fight over the golf course has turned increasingly personal and nasty as the appeals process reaches state court and federal regulatory reviews.
Much more is at stake than an 18-hole golf course, a clubhouse and a planned housing development around the old Meade estate. In the Canaan Valley, where aggressive land conservation has always been prized over development, Betts' determination has put neighbor against neighbor, interrupted friendships and tested community values.
Over the winter and spring, Betts won approval from the wetlands and planning and zoning commissions in the towns where Yale Farm falls, North Canaan and Norfolk.
The nearly unanimous land-use votes seemed to indicate that Betts was well on his way toward building the course. However, Norfolk imposed many more restrictions than North Canaan on such issues as building on wetlands, traffic and the number of golfers allowed. Norfolk also insisted that the 535 acres of the development there be treated as "one lot," forcing Betts to reapply to the town whenever he wants to sell a house lot neighboring the course.
The disparate conditions imposed by the two towns left plenty of room for Gevers' group, the Canaan Conservation Coalition, to appeal in Litchfield Superior Court on a variety of procedural and environmental issues. The group also contests Betts' right to win construction permits because he has submitted plans only for the golf course and not the housing portion of his project.
Legal appeals on development projects the size of Yale Farm Golf Club are common, and Betts was generally expected to be able to meet any new conditions imposed by the courts. But, beginning this spring, under the pressure of the multiple lawsuits now swirling around his development, Betts' behavior brewed more controversy.
On April 21, Betts wrote a personal letter to his opponents on the Canaan Conservation Coalition, encouraging them to drop their lawsuits. Betts wrote of the suits, "They constitute a considerable waste of time, money and goodwill, strain already strained relationships, and benefit only the lawyers who bring them."
To relieve the towns of North Canaan and Norfolk "of high litigation costs that neither town can afford," Betts continued, he proposed that both sides contribute the expected costs of their legal appeals to a $250,000 "hope chest" that could be used to fund worthy town charities.
Ten days later, after the Canaan opposition group refused to drop its lawsuits, Betts sued the Norfolk Planning and Zoning Commission, bringing the total number of suits surrounding the case to five. Betts' appeal seeks relief from a number of conditions imposed by the town, including the "one lot" provision potentially restricting his housing plans.
"The tide has really turned now," said Rebecca Eaton, president of the Coalition for Sound Growth, a Norfolk citizens' group that also opposes the golf course. "We were originally scapegoated in town as a group who delayed the decisions and dragged out the hearings. Now, with Betts suing the town commission, some perceive him as dragging things out and costing money."
Matters have been just as controversial at the state and federal level. A variety of agencies - including the Army Corps of Engineers, the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection - must all approve Betts' plans for disturbing wetlands and issue permits for water quality and water diversion. So far, two government agencies - the State Historic Preservation Office and the federal Fish and Wildlife Service - have recommended that permits for the golf course be delayed or denied pending further review.
Internal
EPA and Army Corps documents
obtained by the local opposition groups make it clear that federal
regulators
have many reservations about Betts' plans and may request more
information
and revisions before his course can be approved.
On July 6, the Waterbury Republican
published an article quoting Stephen
D. DiLorenzo, the senior project manager who is reviewing the
Yale
Farm Golf Club file for the Army Corps.
"Based on our meetings with the applicant and the revisions he has submitted, EPA and Fish and Wildlife have all along been telling him he needs to change the design and they haven't backed down yet," DiLorenzo said. Both agencies, DiLorenzo indicated in the article, were "leaning toward a denial" of permits for the project.
The same day, Betts instructed his environmental lawyer, Gregory A. Sharp of Hartford, to write a five-page letter excoriating DiLorenzo's behavior. The letter accused DiLorenzo of becoming a "coach for the opposition," making "ill-considered and prejudicial comments to the media," and allowing other environmental agencies to request extensions of time without notifying Betts and his partners. In the letter, Betts asked that DiLorenzo be relieved from reviewing the project and that the file be assigned to another project manager.
Lawyers representing Betts' opposition were delighted by what they considered a miscalculation that overplayed his hand. State and federal environmental regulators also agreed that trying to get a project manager removed was a highly unusual step. On July 27, the Army Corps replied to Betts by letter, agreeing to meet to discuss his complaints but pointedly insisting that DiLorenzo will remain as the project manager.
"It's not unusual for projects like this to become controversial," said Tim Dugan, spokesman for the Army Corps New England District. "But it is unusual for someone to ask that the project manager be removed."
"It's the first time I've ever seen a letter like that," said Bob Gilmore, the supervising environmental analyst at Connecticut's DEP who shares responsibility for reviewing the Yale Farm Golf Club plans. "The state and the feds talk back and forth all the time on a project like this. It's part of the process."
Among members of the opposition groups and their lawyers, Betts' effort to remove a project manager raised the possibility that he was using his status as a close friend and golfing partner of the president to influence a federal agency, which Betts denies.
"If I were going to throw my weight around, I'd do it in phone calls," Betts said. "This guy [DiLorenzo] is supposed to be an impartial observer as a hearing officer, and he's talked to the newspapers and assisted the other side. I think it's embarrassing to a federal agency to have an officer conducting himself like that."
As the review process winds its way through federal agencies and local courts, Betts has endured other, more personal losses. Though few chose to be quoted on the record, many of his friends and acquaintances in the neighboring Litchfield hills are disenchanted. Poet and playwright Jon Swan, a Betts neighbor since 1981, originally introduced him to the woman from whom he bought his house. Lately, he's been organizing letter-campaigns against the proposed golf course...
Corps issues Cross Sound permit to place underground cable in Long Island Sound
CONCORD, Mass. – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has made a
determination
to
issue a Section 10/404 permit to Cross Sound Cable Company to place a
cable
system
in the Long Island Sound, a portion of which will be located in the
Federal
navigation
channel in New Haven Harbor, New Haven, Conn.
Cross Sound Cable Company, LLC of Westborough, Mass., applied for a
Corps
permit in
July 2000 to install and maintain an approximately 24-linear mile, high
voltage direct
current (HVDC) and fiber optic cable system within the seabed of New
Haven
Harbor and
Long Island Sound using the jet plow and directional drill method.
The District Engineer signed the permit on March 19. "After careful
review
by the Army
Corps of Engineers and other state and federal agencies, we have
determined
that this
activity is permittable under our jurisdiction of Section 10 of the
Rivers
and Harbors Act
and Section 404 of the Clean Water Act," said Col. Brian Osterndorf,
District
Engineer of
the New England District. "Through review by Corps engineers and
biologists
in
consultation with other Federal, State and local agency
representatives,
we have
concluded that the proposed project will not impact the operation and
maintenance
of the
federal navigation channel in New Haven Harbor, and have minimal impact
on the marine
environment. The permit is issued with 23 special conditions that must
be closely
adhered to by the applicant. We thoroughly investigated navigation,
environmental,
economic and other issues and impacts of the project in our evaluation."
The route of the cable will be from the New Haven Harbor Station, New
Haven,
Conn.,to
the decommissioned Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant at Brookhaven, N.Y.
The cable must be installed no less than six feet below the seabed or
to
an elevation of
minus 48 feet mean lower low water, whichever is greater, within the
boundaries
of the
Federal Navigation Channel in New Haven Harbor and to a minimum of four
feet below
the seabed of Long Island Sound outside of the New Haven Navigation
Channel.
"Placing the cable under the Long Island Sound has been found to meet
Federal
permitting standards," Osterndorf said. "As part of the permit
authorization
we are
requiring the proponent to place the cables at a minimum depth of 48
feet.
This will be 13
feet under the authorized depth of the existing Federal channel. This
will
ensure that the
cables do not impede navigation in the channel, nor will they impede
any
needed
maintenance dredging to keep the channel open to navigation. We are
requiring
a depth
that will include enough room for a possible future deepening of the
channel
if that were
to be authorized and funded."
The project purpose is to interconnect the electric system power market
control areas
presently managed by the independent systems operators of both New
England
and New
York. This will enhance the existing power grids of the electric
systems
serving both
states by adding a new bi-directional path for bulk power sales and
transfers
in and out of
Connecticut and New York. The cable will be located mainly within the
Federal
navigation
channel in New Haven Harbor. The landfall at the Shoreham is made
through
an existing
intake canal.
The cable will be buried using the jet plow method and/or directional
drill
method as
determined by the contractor. The applicant applied for a Corps permit
in July 2000. The
Corps issued a public notice for this project on June 24, 2001, with an
expiration date
Aug. 23, 2001.
"We extended the public notice comment period in response to a request
from National
Marine Fisheries Service," said Christine Godfrey, the Corps’ New
England
District
Regulatory Division chief. "We also held a public information meeting
in
New Haven to
fully understand local concerns and issues. The first proposal was to
run
the cable about
100 feet east of the channel. But due to potential impacts to shellfish
beds the
Connecticut Siting Council denied the request."
The federal channel was suggested so as to minimize any impact to marine life.
"There are 23 special conditions that are part of the Corps permit,"
said
Project Manager
Diane Ray, of the Corps’ New England District Regulatory Division.
"If future operations by the United States require the removal,
relocation,
or other
alteration, of the structures or work authorized, or if, in the opinion
of the Secretary of the
Army or his authorized representative, the structures or work could
cause
unreasonable
obstruction to the free navigation of the navigable waters, the
permittee
will be required to
remove, relocate, or alter the structural work or obstructions," Ray
said.
Cable installation is restricted to occur only between Oct. 1 and Jan.
15 or between April
1 and May 31 to protect winter flounder and summer flounder as well as
shellfish
resources. Directional drilling operations as well as dredging of the
Intake
Canal at
Shoreham, N.Y. are not subject to this condition.
"The permittee must revisit the cable route on three occasions, at
six-month
intervals,
beginning approximately six months following the installation of the
cable
to conduct a
reverification of the burial depth of the cable," Ray said. Each survey
will be recorded and
the results submitted to the Corps and Connecticut Department of
Environmental
Protection (CT DEP). The permittee must contact CT DEP Marine Fisheries
Division
(MFD) concerning the locations and date of MFD sampling programs and
for
a list of
potentially affected fishermen. The permittee must notify the affected
parties of the time
and location of cable installation.
The permittee must undertake three benthic-monitoring inspections of
shellfish
bed
L-593, the first beginning no later than six months after installation
of the cable, with the
second and third at six-month intervals thereafter. "The intent of the
monitoring will be to
determine the rate of sediment reconsolidation and biological
recolonization
of the
disturbed substrate," Ray said. Prior to installation and no later than
six months following
the charging of the cable, the permittee must conduct monitoring to
measure
electric and
magnetic fields, temperature and habitat disturbance within four,
1,000-foot
long reaches
of the cable.
Also, the permittee or his agents may not formally pursue additional
cable
installations in
this area for a five-year period pending evaluation of the cable
monitoring
and verification
of the modeling of benthic recovery rates upon which this permit
decision
is based.
"The permittee must develop a response plan that will address any
emergencies
that
might arise during the installation of the cable," Ray said.
Also, there is a special condition to protect navigation interests. "No
person, firm, or
corporation will be held liable for damage to the cable system caused
by
the person, firm
or corporation unless the damage is caused by gross negligence or
willful
or intentional
actions," Ray said.
The permittee will place no restrictions on commercial aquaculture
and/or
shellfishing
operations in the area of the cable system other than during the cable
installation and
maintenance operations. And the permittee must post a bond for $1
million
for
emergency repairs or removal of the cable as determined necessary by
the
Corps of
Engineers.
More information on the 23 special conditions are listed in the final
permit.
The application
for the federal permit was filed with the Corps of Engineers in
compliance
with Section 10
of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899 which provides for the federal
regulation
of any
work in or affecting navigable waters of the United States, and Section
404 of the Clean
Water Act which regulates the discharge of dredged or fill material in
U.S. waters,
including wetlands.
"The Corps regulates activities in waterways and wetlands under the
authority
of several
laws," Godfrey said. "The permit program is designed to ensure that our
nation’s water
resources are safeguarded, that the nation’s water resources are used
in
the best
interest of the public and that environmental, social and economic
concerns
of the public
are considered."
"The decision to issue a permit was based on an evaluation of the
probable
impacts of
the proposed activity in the public interest," Godfrey said. "That
decision
reflects the
national concern for both protection and use of important resources.
All
factors relevant
to the proposal were considered. Placing the cable in the federal
channel
does not set a
precedent. We look at each permit application on a case-by-case basis.
In this case, it
was found to meet the Federal permitting standards. It will have
minimal
impact to the
marine environment and no significant impact on navigation or channel
maintenance
or
future channel deepening."
-- 30 --