The Somerville City Council’s Committee on Legislative Matters addressed a number of issues at its latest meeting, including revisions to the current stormwater ordinance.

By Anna Schaeffer

City councilors JT Scott, Mark Niedergang, Lance Davis, Ben Ewen-Campen and the Committee on Legislative Matters met on Thursday, February 20, to discuss concerns regarding stormwater treatment, surveillance technology and noise in the Somerville community.

The Committee collaborated with Director of Engineering Jess Fossbroo, and Director of Infrastructure and Asset Management Richard Raiche to craft a DEP required stormwater ordinance. “The need for a stormwater ordinance has been on the back burner for a while, but we now have some impetus to complete it,” said Raiche.

The new ordinance allows for more enforcement capability, particularly regarding the separation of stormwater with sanitary water. “One change being made in the ordinance will allow us to eliminate, enforce and penalize non-stormwater discharges that may be going to our separate systems.”

The goal of this change in the ordinance aims to protect separate systems such as the Alewife Brook and Mystic River from pollution by non-stormwater whereas sanitary water. Sanitary water is wastewater discharged from sinks, showers, and kitchens. For the city of Somerville, sanitary water is collected in separate pipes and goes to Deer Island for treatment. Another approved change allows the department of engineering to control erosion on construction sites larger than one acre.

Kushbu Webber from the Mayor’s Office, Ben Waldrip and Jill Lathan of the Parks and Recreation Department, Hannah Pappenheim with the Law Department, and Eric Weisman of the Department of Public Works gathered with the Legislative Committee to discuss revisions to the Somerville Noise Ordinance. The request to discuss changes to the ordinance with specific attention to gas-powered leaf-blowers was approved.

Kushbu Weber broached request to ban gas-powered leaf-blowers in the city works saying; “one of the questions posed to the administration was around the inventory of equipment that the administration utilizes relative to landscaping equipment and what are if any, impact would the addition of leaf blowers to the noise ordinance have on the administrations operations.”

Eric Weisman stated that a ban on gas-powered leaf blowers for public works would have a significant impact on productivity. “If a typical park using standard leaf blowers took three hours to leaf-blow a park, we can expect it to take around six to eight with the specialized, low noise, leaf blowers.” Another obstacle to banning gas-powered leaf blowers is the question of batteries which not only must be charged every thirty-to sixty minutes but also can be difficult to dispose of.

A request that the administration work with the committee of legislative matters to consider revisions to the Surveillance Technology ordinance was approved but the proposed general use policy was kept in the committee for further discussion. Councilor Ben Ewen-Campen stressed the importance of language in the ordinance that would ensure that surveillance technology is used solely for its specific purpose to prevent misuse.

“I wanted to have some kind of language that makes it clear that the surveillance technology can only be used for its specific purposes, for example, a license plate reader, a city iPad used for parking enforcement, clearly that is not to be used for any other purpose. Ewen-Campen elaborated stating that in any ordinance of surveillance moving forward, racial profiling must be strictly prohibited.”