COLCHESTER, Vt. (WCAX) – After 74 years in town, Jeffrey Lefebvre has seen Malletts Bay in Colchester change a number of times.
“Lived here, watched the interstate go through,” Lefebvre said.
But as the town continues to grow, longtime residents like Lefebvre and new ones like Lori Barg are uniting over their concerns about how development is impacting the water quality in Malletts Bay.
“There are days out there where we started diving, and you could see nice and clear on top, but you get down below and it’s all muddy,” Lefebvre said.
They say that’s all because of development, something the town says won’t be slowing down.
Voters approved the construction of a new rec center in Colchester on Town Meeting Day last March.
And it’s going up, right across the street from Malletts Bay, and citizens in groups like ‘We Love Malletts Bay’ say – that’s an issue.
“Build a recreation center but don’t build it on this rare and irreplaceable forest,” Barg said. “There used to 150,000 acres of this forest type and now there’s less than 500.”
The town hired geologist Craig Heindel, who suggested not building at Bayside-Hazelett without doing a geotechnical analysis of the area due to slope instability. There is a sand “cliff” about 40 ft. high almost directly adjacent to East Lakeshore Dr.
“It’s not the best place,” Lefebvre said. “Since they have all the land across the street.”
The geologist recommended to build at Bayside park – to avoid further risk.
But town officials say the plan is already set.
The Colchester Selectboard and Public Works would not speak to Channel 3 directly, but instead sent a letter.
Selectboard Chair Pam Loranger writes in the letter “the town has the appropriate permits for the construction of the recreation center. We have left most of the site undeveloped including the portion adjacent to the lake, West of East Lakeshore Dr.”
Channel 3 took video of the area last year, when the rec center was first announced, and then again after construction started – you can see a notable difference.
But it’s not just new construction that citizens believe is diminishing water quality, Barg and Lefebvre cite the several ports where untreated storm water goes directly into the bay as culprits as well.
“[I] looked at the water quality data. And I see that 38% of the problem in mallets Bay is coming from development,” Barg said.
Now the town has already voted to address the storm water issue in 2017 – but Lefebvre, Barg and others say nothing has been done.
In response to the issues – Loranger says there are direct discharges into the bay, because stormwater has to drain somewhere.
She says quote “there is no regulatory requirements that anything be done to those direct discharges, and the town is in full compliance with all state and federal stormwater permit requirements.”
But even though the town is in compliance, Barg and Lefebvre say going forward– they hope bettering the bay’s water quality becomes a higher priority for officials.
“What people in town care about, and what I moved here for too from Central Vermont is it’s beautiful,” Barg said. “But if we turn it into a toxic soup, I see this as an incredible opportunity for the town to really get on board with protecting the bay.”