The Country Club of New Canaan has been cited for violations of regulations that are designed to protect some of the town’s most sensitive environmental habitat.
According to a citation issued Jan. 6 by the Inland Wetlands and Watercourses department staff, the Country Club without a required permit has conducted “a significant amount of earth disturbing activities around and over wetlands.”
Those activities include removing trees and vegetation from known wetlands and adjacent areas and creating silted water by disturbing a utility road with tree equipment trucks.
“These activities have disturbed the wetlands and watercourse that are protected under the regulations,” according to a citation notice obtained by NewCanaanite.com following a formal request. “Minimal soil and erosion controls were installed.”
Town officials learned of the violations from a third-party observer and inspected the site on Jan. 3 and 4, according to the citation letter.
Specifically, the club is cited for violating Section 5.4 of the Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Regulations, which read in part:
All activities in wetlands and watercourses involving filling, excavation, dredging, clear cutting, grading, or any other alteration or use of a wetland or watercourse not specifically permitted by this section and otherwise defined as a regulated activity by these regulations shall require a permit from the Commission … or for certain regulated activities located outside of wetlands and watercourses from the duly authorized Agent.
The Country Club faces a $1,000 fine and is required to file a mitigation plan to correct he violations. The Inland Wetlands Commission is scheduled to review the matter at its Jan. 23 meeting.
The citation comes as the New Canaan Building Department reviews after-the-fact applications for two structures that the Country Club installed without permits.
The club in November put in for permits for a $20,000 temporary 18-by-32-foot greenhouse that already had been installed. It’s used to grow annual flowers on the Country Club’s property, as well as mums, herbs for the kitchen, and poinsettias. The same month, the Country Club applied for a permit for an existing three-office trailer “to provide additional room for management.”
Officials from the Country Club of New Canaan could not immediately be reached for comment.
When it comes to money, the blinders go on ad any thing goes.
The fine is only a drop in the bucket. If they can spend $20,000 for a greenhouse before getting the OK, were does it end.
Money talks nobody walks.
N. Jensen