Conservation Commission seeks avenue to issue fines

  The Conservation Commission is looking for an easier avenue to issue fines for violations of the Wetlands Protection Act.

  “If you look at the city for the wetlands protection, the Conservation Commission can impose fines on a daily basis of $300 for fines, but there is no process in place to do that,” said Commission Chair John Shue at Wednesday night’s meeting. “Sometimes I feel like we don’t have much in the way of teeth if we threaten to fine because it would take us weeks to figure out even how to do it.”

  Shue said he has sent out emails to several city officials to see if there is a way to give the commission more authority and ease to issue the fines. He said the commission should kick off the process by requesting to work with the City of Revere to come up with a process to issue the fines. “This is something we would not do very often,” said Shue. “I don’t know if it has ever been done.”

  Longtime Commission member Joe Lavalle said he could not remember a time when the commission had issued a wetlands protection fine. “So, because it would be rarely used, I wouldn’t recommend [the city] updating any computer systems or anything like that,” said Shue. “It would be so few and far between it should be able to be managed somewhat manually, I think.”

  The commission unanimously approved the request to work with the City of Revere to come up with a system for the commission to issue the fines.

  “One of my thoughts with this is that when we finalize the process, we would only ever approve fines if it came before the commission and the commission voted and approved to fine someone, much like we would do with an enforcement order,” said Shue. “Then, I’m sure there’s going to be some legal stuff we are going to have to comply with on the part of the city to be able to do this.”

  In other business, the Conservation Commission approved a notice of intent allowing Irving Oil on Lee Burbank Highway to complete improvements to its marine pier.