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Dighton selectmen weigh moving stormwater oversight as regulators, consultants and residents urge clarity
Summary
Selectmen heard hours of public comment and staff briefing on whether the town's stormwater committee should move from the Board of Health to the Board of Selectmen; the committee reported $45,000 in ARPA/APA-funded mapping and urged the board to decide reporting authority so bylaw drafts can be finalized.
The Dighton Board of Selectmen spent the bulk of one meeting hearing a lengthy staff briefing and public comment about how the town administers stormwater regulations and who should hold enforcement authority.
"We need the board to determine if they would grant that request," the stormwater committee chair told the board, arguing that once the reporting authority is decided the consulting engineer's draft bylaws and regulations can be updated and circulated for public review. The chair described a $45,000 ARPA/APA-funded mapping and testing project that consultants are completing and said that work must be finalized before the September spending deadline for the grant.
Why it matters: town staff and multiple boards currently share stormwater responsibilities, and recent procedural questions plus a change in available in-house engineering prompted a request to move the stormwater committee out from under the Board of Health and into the Board of Selectmen. The planning board representative said state changes set to take effect Oct. 1 will require the town to present a unified organizational review process for solar-farm applications and other large developments, increasing the urgency for a clear assignment of authority.
Residents and volunteer committee members urged caution. One participant described years in which the town had an in-house professional engineer (PE) who inspected projects and handled MS4 reporting, and warned that breaking up duties risks losing institutional knowledge. The stormwater committee's consultant, Weston & Sampson, has prepared draft bylaws and regulations with tracked changes that currently list the Board of Health as reporting authority; the stormwater chair said that text would be revised if the board formally shifts oversight.
The board took no immediate motion on the governance change. Instead, members voted to keep the matter under advisement, asked staff for any outstanding memos and documentation (including any vote by the Board of Health), and agreed to place the issue back on the agenda within 30 days for further discussion.
Next steps: the selectmen asked for written questions to staff over the coming week and set a 30-day follow-up; the consultant's drafts will be edited once the board signals its preferred reporting authority.
