Ways to mitigate excessive loads of nitrogen spilling into Lagoon Pond from a new nursery in Oak Bluffs was top of mind for commissioners at a hearing last week, particularly with lingering questions of potential employee housing not yet built.
The Martha’s Vineyard Commission (MVC) continued its hearing for Jordan’s Nursery on Oct. 29, an almost 10-acre operation on 218 Edgartown-West Tisbury Road that’s been flagged by some Islanders as potentially damaging for the environment. The hearing will continue on Nov. 19.
Much of the year-round nursery has already been constructed, like the polyethylene hoophouses, or greenhouses, container plants on landscape fabric, and dirt roads throughout for work trucks. The plans in front of the MVC, however, that need approval include construction of retail sheds, workplace housing, an office or warehouse, parking spaces, hazardous-material storage, and a retention pond. Potted plants are planned to be sold on-site at the nursery with some public greenhouse access to customers.
The 17 acres of land that hold Jordan’s Nursery is owned by Jamie Norton of Bayes Norton Farm, Inc. and is leased to housing developer William Cumming of Atwood Farm, LLC. Donaroma’s Nursery and Landscaping Services, Inc, owned by former Edgartown Select Board chair Michael Donorama, subleases 9.62 acres of the land, where the proposed plans would take place. Rich Saltzberg, MVC coordinator for developments of regional impact, noted at the hearing that it is uncertain whether the wooded, hilly lot next to the nursery will see any development by Atwood Farm.
One of the latest updates to the project is a proposed four-bedroom building, located roughly at the southwestern portion of the lot. The idea is to move a building that is in Edgartown at Donaroma’s other property to the nursery parcel. The commission is seeking additional information regarding the building, including whether it is indeed for employee housing, and if so, whether it’s for year-round workers and if the house has been properly winterized as well as information like the size of the commercial units.
MVC staff noted that there’s gaps in the application, such as a stormwater plan, and the nursery applicants will need to develop a mitigation plan because of the excessive nutrient loads into the brackish Lagoon Pond and freshwater Upper Lagoon Pond, both of which are already impaired.
“Basically, containerized plants in the nursery can harbor both [nitrogen and phosphorus], and the irrigation has the potential to send those nutrients into the groundwater,” Saltzberg said. The project is also in the Oak Bluffs Water Resource Protection Overlay District, so there are stricter regulations to protect the aquifer that the town gets its potable water from, such as a ban of outdoor storage of fertilizers and pesticides.
Ed Eichner, the TMDL Solutions water scientist hired by the MVC to analyze Jordan’s Nursery, said even without the construction of workforce housing, the current activities, including the fertilizer used, will need mitigation because the nitrogen runoff into Lagoon Pond is over the watershed’s limit. According to a report by the Massachusetts Estuaries Project, the natural nitrogen load for Lagoon Pond is 1.8 kilograms per day. Other sources, like septic from nearby homes, already increases the amount that goes into the watershed, and Eichner said the nursery produces an estimated daily nitrogen output of 2 kilograms, as well as 2.55 kilograms more from fertilizer, a day. Eichner noted that overall, Lagoon Pond needs a 40 percent reduction in nitrogen before its water quality can be considered acceptable.
Meanwhile, according to Eichner, Upper Lagoon Pond has also has more than four times the phosphorus levels for healthy water quality.
The applicants will need to submit potential mitigation efforts as a part of the review, and Jannette Vanderhoop suggested a catch basin to collect fertilized water. But Vanderhoop also questioned how the project came before the MVC after so much of it had been constructed.
“It’s frustrating, and I don’t understand how it happens,” she said.
Donarama told commissioners that Matt Rossi, the former Oak Bluffs building inspector, had deemed it not necessary.
“The way he saw it, it was agricultural, and it didn’t trigger any permits,” Donorama said. The MVC is currently reviewing how Jordan’s Nursery works under the Dover Amendment, which provides some zoning exemptions for agricultural uses, and state definitions.
Adam Turner said the MVC made repeated inquiries to the town’s building inspector, who “refused to refer” the project. Doug Sederholm, West Tisbury commissioner, noted the current inspector, Adam Petkus, was the one who referred it to the MVC.
“On his first day,” Brian Smith, Oak Bluffs commissioner, added.
A concern briefly touched on by the commission was the storage of lithium batteries. At the hearing, a photo showed a charging and repair facility for robot mowers that were stored in a tractor trailer insulated with spray foam. Saltzberg said there were between 80 and 90 of them, and that a potential fire was a concern with the batteries aggregated in one area as well as contaminants entering the groundwater.
“This has been of no small concern to certain parts of town government in Oak Bluffs because of its fire hazard,” he said.
Meanwhile, a traffic study presented by Mike Mauro, the MVC transportation program manager, showed the combination of work trucks and employee vehicles is estimated to generate roughly 271 trips daily at its peak. Chilmark Commissioner Joan Malkin requested an estimation of average trips in July and August. Once the retail operation is in full operation, up to 20 employees are expected to be on-site, and there are 77 parking spaces proposed for the project. The proposal, however, is overall not expected to negatively impact the area in terms of traffic. Mauro noted nurseries have seasonal increases and decreases to traffic based on demand and plants grown.
Donorama said his landscapers will primarily run from his Edgartown location, and the facility he leases at the Airport Business Park, so traffic at the Oak Bluffs property would primarily be related to retail operations and deliveries.
“We all have a lot of homework to do,” Sederholm said.
