Appeals court hears dispute over forest-cutting plan, DEP determinations in Rodriguez property case

Chief Justice Vicki Henry heard oral argument March 10 in 2024P885, James M. Rodriguez v. Marianne L. Wall and others, over whether road‑maintenance and timber‑harvesting activity on Rodriguez’s property required wetland permitting.

Rodriguez, representing himself, told the panel the Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) OADR decision concluded the roadway area was non‑jurisdictional and that a forest‑cutting plan (FCP) and related letters (including a Rassman clarification) show the land was in agricultural use and exempt from the Wetlands Protection Act for the activities at issue. He said the DEP and the Division of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) had recognized that only one of the two forest stands contained wetlands and that work “was allowed, as an agricultural exemption by the OADR.”

The town’s lawyer, Robert Galvin, representing…