COMMENTS FROM TOM WEISBECK

Neighbors,
below is a letter to the town board which has been shared with me. I have permission roll it out to the group. The author, TomWeisbeck of Alden, is an insurance professional with considerableexperience in the area of municipal liability. He spoke with me after thework session last night. In that conversation he stated the town should have an in-depth hydrological report detailing the direction of flow, etc, as he suspects drainage actually may move toward Cayuga Creek. And his letter below expresses grave concern about the ability of the developer's septic plan to treat the project without impacting the community, economically and environmentally
~eric chaffee

Mr. Smith, Mr. Witt:
As Town Supervisor and Planning Board Chairman, there are some issues raised by Mr. Russo at the Town Board Work session on Dec. 26 that warrant further investigation regarding rezoning and potential future development of the Martin Property on Broadway. Scaling back the rezoning request should indicate that there are unaddressed environmental technical issues that were not anticipated that may impact the economic viability of developing this property.

Remember that this proposal will not only affect the 21.4 acre parcel currently under review, but should address the 500 foot C-1 zone that is not currently under consideration for immediate development.

A) There was an issue of installing a retention basin on this property during site development for future use. I am assuming that this is to retain collected stormwater from roof and parking lot drains. Where will this water go after retention? Is it allowed to percolate through the soils? Will it be transmitted to the Alden Municipal Stormwater system (the one that will be built with whose $)? Will it be pumped to a tanker for transmission and release to a Publically Owned Treatment Works, POTW, (Which community has the additional capacity?)? Since stormwater from parking lots may be contaminated with petroleum based automotive fluids, will pretreatment be included as part of the stormwater collection system? Are site grading plans designed to prevent migration of surface stormwater in to the adjoining wetland areas? Also, please keep in mind that any stormwater discharge point (outfall) requires a State Pollution Discharge Elimination System (SPEDES) permit and identification.

B) This retention basin was also mentioned in conjunction with a Septic System. Septic Systems usually require a Septic Tank and a Leach Field. If the report of Mr. Owens (soil scientist and geologist) is correct, this area should be suitable for a leach field. But what septic wastewater handling capacity would be anticipated? Please keep in mind that any septic system from a commercial establishment which discharges over 1000 gallons per day requires a SPEDES permit and is viewed as an Underground Injection Control (UIC) Point (waste injection well). In my experience, NYSDEC is not too keen on issuing permits for UIC's at this time. It would also be prudent to identify who will be the lead agency for receipt of SPEDES permit monitoring data. However, if no septic system is installed, how will sanitary waste water be handled. If a POTW is involved, which one will it be? The Village of Alden system and plant or one of the mini-plants previously erected to service subdivisions? All are currently at capacity for processing sanitary wastewater. This would require a new plant of one type or another, who is planning on paying for this, the developer, Wal-Mart or the Alden Town Taxpayer?

C) The project was mentioned as having a second access point from the property under development to Sandridge Rd. eliminated early in the project scoping. This would be replaced with a single access point across from Four Rod Rd. Assuming this will be a 155,000 square foot store (initially) and a parking lot of appropriate size to handle customer vehicle traffic, this potentially would hinder access to emergency vehicles (Fire and EMS). I do not have the current NYS Building and Fire Codes in front of me, but this does not seem to be in accordance with current emergency planning practice for large commercial occupancies.

D) I would be cautious in accepting any statements that indicated that traffic would not be any heavier on Broadway that it is currently. Large retail stores of this type usually draw traffic most of the time they are open. Broadway is already nearing traffic capacity. Who will pay> to widen it? These issues are part of the site development phase of this project. My experience with a site developers is that they will grade property, install underground utilities (water, sewer and storm sewer - drainage) and possibly lighting and above ground utilities. This would be in some coordination with the builder of the final building; therefore the notion that this developer will just prep the site and sell off the parcel to the ultimate owner is not really a plausible explanation.

Thomas M. Weisbeck, CSP> >Senior Loss Control Specialist> >NYSIR/NYMIR/New York Municipal Worker's Compensation Alliance> >11452 Broadway> >Alden, NY 14004>