Cemetery Association Considering Ram Pasture Environmental Issues

By Andrew Gorosko

Board members of the Newtown Village Cemetery Association, Inc, met recently to discuss town wetlands officials’ urgings that the association modify its turf maintenance practices at the association’s Ram Pasture property, with an eye toward protecting the water quality in Country Club Brook, which runs through the 13-acre site.

Association President Maureen Crick Owen said this week that board members met recently to discuss the environmental protection issues that were raised at a November meeting among association representatives and town wetlands officials.

Town Conservation Official Rob Sibley has said that the association’s care and maintenance of its Ram Pasture property has raised issues of water quality degradation in the brook. Town environmental officials are urging that the association allow a vegetative buffer zone to grow along both sides of the brook to protect the stream from physical degradation.

Mr Sibley said this week that the town is seeking to have the association leave a vegetative buffer zone of varying width alongside the stream for its environmental protection. That buffer zone would vary from 10 to 20 feet in width on each side of the stream, in effect, being 20 to 40 feet wide overall, depending upon where alongside the stream it is located, he said.

The town is not seeking to limit public access to the Ram Pasture, Mr Sibley stressed.

The association typically has cut the vegetation away from the brook in areas where it is dry enough to do so. The association recently made its last vegetation cut of the year alongside the stream. Ms Owen said the association does such a vegetation cut late each year.

“We’re still discussing it and working on it…We still need to discuss it,” Ms Owen said of the environmental issues raised by town wetlands officials. It is unclear when the association would again talk to wetlands officials about the situation, she said.

Country Club Brook enters the Ram Pasture near the intersection of Elm Drive and Sugar Street. The stream runs north-to-south on the property, which parallels South Main Street and Elm Drive.

The town has issued the association a wetlands violation warning letter stating that its maintenance practices on the Ram Pasture must be reviewed because those practices are apparently contributing to stream bank degradation and water quality degradation on the site. The stream bank there has experienced “extreme erosion,” according to Mr Sibley.

Attorney Gregg A. Brauneisen represents the association in the matter. Mr Brauneisen has advised wetlands officials that mowing that lawn at the Ram Pasture is permitted under the provisions of state law pertaining to wetlands and watercourses.