The following definitions shall apply in the interpretation
and implementation of this chapter:
ALTER
Includes, but is not limited to, one or more of the following
actions upon areas described in this chapter:
(1)
The removal, excavation or dredging of soil,
sand, gravel or aggregate material of any kind;
(2)
The changing of preexisting drainage characteristics,
flushing characteristics, salinity distribution, sedimentation patterns,
flow patterns and flood storage retention areas;
(3)
The drainage or disturbance of the water level
or water table, the dumping, discharging or filling with any material
or drainage which could degrade the water quality;
(4)
The driving of piles, erection of buildings
or structures of any kind;
(5)
The placing of obstructions, including docks
and piers, whether or not they interfere with the flow of water;
(6)
The destruction of plant life, including the
cutting of trees;
(7)
The changing of water temperature, biochemical
oxygen demand and other natural characteristics of the receiving water;
(8)
Any activity, change or work which pollutes
or degrades the quality of any stream, body of water, wetland, buffer
zone, or water resource area whether located in or out of the Town
of Wayland;
(9)
The flowage of water, piped or otherwise channelized,
through irrigation or other unnatural means into or onto any wetlands,
buffer zones, and related water resources.
APPLICANT
Any person who files a determination of applicability (RDA)
as to whether this chapter applies to any area or work thereon or
any person who files a notice of intent (NOI) to do work within such
area to build, remove, fill, dredge, discharge into, or alter a wetlands,
buffer zone and/or related water resource.
BANKS
Land adjoining any body of water which serves to confine
said water, the lower boundary being the mean annual low flow level,
and the upper boundary being the first observable break in the slope
or the mean annual flood level, whichever is higher.
BOG
An area where standing or slowly running water is near or
at the surface during a normal growing season and where a vegetational
community has a significant portion of the ground or water surface
covered with sphagnum moss and where the vegetational community is
made up of a significant portion of one or more of, but not limited
to nor necessarily including all of, the following plants or groups
of plants: aster, azaleas, black spruce, larch, laurels, leatherleaf,
orchids, pitcher plants, sedges, sundews, sweet gale, or white cedar.
BUFFER ZONE
Unless otherwise specified herein, any land whichever is
the greater distance of the following:
(1)
One hundred feet horizontally lateral from the
edge of any bog, marsh, wet meadow, swamp, pond, vernal pool, bank,
streambed, lake, stream or any other resource area specified in this
chapter; or
(2)
One hundred feet horizontally lateral from the
water elevation of the one-hundred-year storm, or land subject to
flooding or inundation.
BYLAW
Chapter
194 of the Code of the Town of Wayland.
LAND SUBJECT TO FLOODING OR INUNDATION
A protected water resource, except as noted in the definition
of "stream," means an area of depression in topography, isolated depression,
low lying land, or closed basin which floods periodically and/or serves
as a ponding area of ground or surface water. This area may also border
a freshwater vegetated wetlands as a result of a hydrologic connection
with a freshwater wetlands, marsh, bog, wet meadow, swamp, creek,
river, stream, pond, or lake or other water body during any storm
event up to and including the one-hundred-year storm event.
(1)
Such area shall be 500 square feet or greater
in surface area and may include vernal pools.
(2)
Land subject to flooding or inundation shall
include the area shown on the Federal Emergency Management Agency
Flood Profile, Town of Wayland one-hundred-year flood elevation, as
most recently amended.
(3)
TR-20 computer program (Computer Program for Project Formulationater during any storm event (up to and including the one-hundred-year storm event based upon a twenty-four-hour seven-inch rainfall), hydrophilic vegetation (wetland indicator plants), and/or hydric soils. The lateral extent of flooding may be determined by: the most recent Federal Management Flood Profile one-hundred-year flood elevation for the Town of Wayland, the elevation that is reached by the amount of water from a one-hundred-year storm event determined either by visual observation, or by calculation using the Soil Conservation Service hydrologic model TR-20 computer program (Computer Program for Project Formulation - Hydrology, Soil Conservation Service Technical Release 20, Washington, D.C., 1983) for a twenty-four-hour, seven-inch rainfall event.
MARSH
An area where a vegetational community exists in standing
or running water during the growing season and where at least 50%
of the vegetational community is composed of, but not limited to nor
necessarily including all of, the following plants or groups of plants:
arums, bladderworts, bur-reeds, buttonbush, cattails, duckweeds, eelgrass,
frog bits, horsetails, hydrophilic grasses, leatherleaf, pickerel
weeds, pipeworts, pond weeds, rushes, sedges, smartweeds, sweet gale,
water milfoil, water lilies, water starworts or water willow.
PERSON
Includes any individual, group of individuals, associations,
partnerships, corporations, business organizations, trust, estate,
Commonwealth of Massachusetts when subject to Town bylaws; any public
or quasi-public corporation or body when subject to town bylaws; any
other legal entity, including the Town of Wayland or its legal representatives,
agents or assigns.
POND
Any open body of freshwater, either naturally occurring or
manmade by impoundment, with a surface area observed or recorded within
the last 10 years of at least 10,000 square feet and which is never
without standing water due to natural causes, except during periods
of extended drought. For purposes of this definition, "extended drought"
shall mean any period of four or more months during which the average
rainfall for each month is 50% or less of the ten-year average for
that same month. Basins or lagoons, which are part of wastewater treatment
plants, shall not be considered "ponds," nor shall swimming pools
or other impervious man-made retention basins.
RIVERFRONT AREA
That area of land situated between a perennial stream's mean
annual high-water line and a parallel line located a maximum of 200
feet away, measured outward horizontally from the stream's mean annual
high-water line. The Commission may, after a public hearing, designate
a riverfront area of less than 200 feet for a densely developed area.
This definition shall not create a buffer zone, so-called, beyond
such riverfront area. The riverfront area shall not apply to any mosquito
control work for the improvement of low lands and swamps and the eradication
of mosquitoes under MGL c. 252.
STREAM
A body of running water, and the land under the water, including
brooks, creeks, and man-made watercourses, which moves in a definite
channel in the ground due to hydraulic gradient in a definable path.
A portion of a stream may flow through a culvert, pipe, or beneath
a bridge. A stream may be intermittent (i.e., does not flow throughout
the year).
SWAMPS
An area where groundwater is at or near the surface of the
ground for not less than two consecutive weeks of the growing season
or where runoff water from surface drainage frequently collects above
the soil surface and where at least 50% of the vegetational community
is made up of, but is not limited to nor necessarily includes all
of, the following plants or groups of plants: alders, ashes, azaleas,
black alder, black spruce, buttonbush, American or white elm, highbush
blueberry, larch, cowslip, poison sumac, red maple, skunk cabbage,
sphagnum mosses, spicebush, black gum tupelo, sweet pepperbush, white
cedar or willow.
VERNAL POOL
Includes, in addition to any vernal pool certified by the
Massachusetts Division of Wildlife and Fisheries Natural Heritage
and Endangered Species Program, any confined basin or depression not
occurring in existing lawns, gardens, landscaped areas, or driveways,
which normally holds water for a minimum of two continuous months
during the spring and/or summer, contains at least 200 cubic feet
of water at some time during most years, is free of adult predatory
fish populations, and provides essential breeding and rearing habitat
functions for amphibian, reptile, or other vernal pool community species.
WETLAND
Wet meadows, marshes, swamps, bogs, and other areas where
groundwater, flowing or standing surface water or ice provide a significant
part of the supporting substrate for a hydrophilic plant community,
or emergent and submergent plant communities in inland waters.
WET MEADOW
An area where groundwater is at or near the surface of the
ground for not less than two consecutive weeks of the growing season
or where runoff water from surface drainage frequently collects above
the soil surface and where at least 50% of the vegetational community
is composed of various grasses, sedges and rushes; made up of, but
not limited to nor necessarily including all of, the following plants
or groups of plants: blue flag, vervain, thoroughwort, dock, false
loosestrife, hydrophilic grasses, loosestrife, marsh fern, sensitive
fern or smartweed.