The Ipswich Mills Dam (IMD) Removal project recently went through the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) Office review process. The purpose of this process is to address a project’s potential environmental impacts as well as provide an opportunity for both the public and state agencies to submit comments. The Secretary of the EEA then reviews those resources and uses them to issue a certificate. On October 16th, the IMD Removal project was issued a MEPA certificate. So, what does that mean?
To kick off the MEPA process, the IMD Removal project had to fill out and submit an Expanded Environmental Notification Form (EENF). The purpose of this form is to identify the MEPA review thresholds – such as addressing land use, species of concern, wetlands/waterways, and water conservation – that the project meets or exceeds, and subsequently any Agency Actions that it may require. The EENF must include a detailed project description, an alternatives analysis, evaluation of potential environmental impacts, and a description of mitigation measures.
The Secretary of the EEA then reviews the EENF in conjunction with the project’s feasibility studies and the comments from state agencies and the public. The certificate they ultimately issue serves to highlight next steps for the project as it begins the permitting process. In the case of IMD, the certificate stated that the project partners must submit a Single Environmental Impact Report (EIR) in order to address how sediment released from the project will be sampled and managed, so as to prevent the flow of potentially contaminated material into downstream areas. That begs the question, how does the ruling impact the project moving forward?
Originally, the IMD Removal project partners anticipated to address a plan for sediment sampling and monitoring as part of the DEP Chapter 401 Water Quality permit. The MEPA certificate now requires that the partners do it sooner with the submission of a Single EIR. An EIR filing must include a project description, an alternatives analysis, an analysis of the existing environment, an assessment of impacts, permitting requirements, mitigation measures, and responses to public comments from the MEPA filing. Although the EIR does have numerous requirements, the existing feasibility studies provide a strong basis for partners to build off of and aid them in filling out the EIR, so by no means is the project backtracked.
Ultimately, the MEPA certificate does not significantly change what the next steps are for the project. The sediment management plan was originally going to be created for the Chapter 401 permit, but now it will just be developed sooner for the EIR. The rest of the EIR will draw from existing feasibility studies and other resources, and will not significantly change the path forward for the Ipswich Mills Dam Removal project.