Town officials and residents, both inside and outside of meetings, have raised glaring and immediate concerns over the past few weeks about Jordan’s Nursery, an existing operation in Oak Bluffs that is currently under review by the Martha’s Vineyard Commission (MVC).
These worries, like others that have come up in the months since the project became more widely known to the public, are about the potential impact of the nursery on the environment, including the health and safety of neighbors and town residents.
Much of the nursery already exists because the former Oak Bluffs building inspector, Matthew Rossi, never referred the operation at its inception to the MVC. However, an expansion of its retail operations, and by default, the project as a whole, is now before commissioners.
The land, at 218 Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road, is owned by Jamie Norton of Norton Farm in Vineyard Haven. The entire acreage is leased to Falmouth-based housing developer William Cumming of Atwood LLC, and a portion of the parcel is subleased to and operated by former Edgartown Select Board chair Michael Donaroma of Donaroma’s Landscaping and Nursery in Edgartown.
While the MVC reviews the nursery and the public hearing continues, The Times looked into the storage of lithium-ion batteries at the nursery and an irrigation well drilled by hired contractors, which town officials said was done without the proper permits. Both were noted by town officials as of high concern and highly irregular for a project of this size.
Lithium-ion battery storage at Jordan’s Nursery
Island resident Susan Desmarais brought forward her concerns about lithium-ion batteries to The Times and said she immediately called the Oak Bluffs Fire Department after the public hearing on Jordan’s Nursery on Oct. 29 because of a photograph she saw during a presentation on the project.
What Desmarais saw was a photo of a charging and repair facility in a tractor trailer insulated with spray foam that contained robot mowers, which use lithium-ion batteries. According to commissioners, who did a walk-through on Oct. 8, there were between 80 and 90 batteries in the storage area.
Lithium-ion batteries, if they combust, can cause fires or explosions, according to the state. The fires are fast-moving, and batteries can even reignite days after they are extinguished. The smoke from lithium-ion battery fires can also be toxic.
“This has been of no small concern to certain parts of town government in Oak Bluffs because of its fire hazard,” Rich Saltzberg, development of regional impact (DRI) coordinator for the MVC, said at the hearing.
There is existing federal guidance about lithium-ion battery storage through the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA), but town enforcement isn’t so simple.
When The Times asked for more information about the risk of lithium-ion batteries at Jordan’s Nursery on Thursday, Oak Bluffs Fire Chief Stephen Foster said he had no comment at the time but would reach out once he knew more. Adam Petkus, Oak Bluffs building commissioner who referred the expansion project to the MVC, sent a similar statement to The Times last week, but clarified that he has “serious concerns” about the Jordan’s Nursery project as a whole.
Petkus told The Times Monday that he “is very concerned about the current use [of Jordan’s Nursery] and is investigating the town’s responsibility and the interest of the town in that area, and how [the nursery] affects not only the neighbors but everyone on the Island and in Oak Bluffs.”
“The town is drafting its response to address those concerns,” he said, and added that he’s working within the zoning bylaws and environmental protections to move forward with best practices.
Donaroma said in an interview with The Times that he’s working with the fire and building department, but Petkus said Monday that he hasn’t heard from Donaroma since he referred the project to the regional planning body.
Lithium-ion batteries are increasingly used on the Island as a part of an effort to transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. They are found in electric vehicles and bikes, household items like tablets and vacuums, and robotic or electric tools, like the mowers at Jordan’s Nursery.
According to reporting by the Boston Globe published Nov. 4, lithium-ion battery fires are on the rise across the state with 362 fires reported since 2023, resulting in at least 49 injuries and four deaths. The Globe found that 112 of those fires occurred this year.
“It is the world of batteries,” Donaroma told The Times in a phone call. “So I understand people’s fear, but how do you promote battery use and not diesel fuel or fuel motors … you can’t win.”
He said that the Island “doesn’t require a permit to store batteries anywhere, no matter where you look … We did it as safely as we possibly thought we could.”
‘Irrigation wells without a permit’
While Islanders and Donaroma await town decisions around lithium-ion batteries, other concerns about Jordan’s Nursery surround one or more private irrigation wells.
The nursery used a connection to town water for much of its operations at the beginning but has since switched over to almost entirely using the well for watering plants and other uses, and, according to town records, it was in use before it was properly permitted.
When Petkus referred Jordan’s Nursery as a DRI to the MVC, the project was already constructed, including the private irrigation well. The potential environmental impact on the area and Lagoon Pond watershed is of concern to the town, he said.
Private wells relieve the town from overuse of public water, but they aren’t subject to the same level of town, state, and federal testing and enforcement and so could have a larger impact on the environment and watershed. A property that uses both town water and private wells also hosts a greater risk of cross-contamination.
“The state does not like to see both on the same property for the simple fact of cross-contamination,” Michael Silvia, the superintendent of the Oak Bluffs Water District, told The Times on Monday. He added that it’s highly unusual that he would be hearing about a private well in a large commercial development after it was created.
In an effort to understand more about the well on Donaroma’s nursery operations, The Times looked at town records from Oak Bluffs and interviewed Donaroma to produce a timeline of events.
In 2022, Donaroma hired Walter Smith Plumbing to drill a well at Jordan’s Nursery. The plumbing company filed a permit application with the Oak Bluffs board of health, which was approved by the town initially with a request by Garrett Albiston, the health agent at the time, for the applicant to file additional materials to the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).
According to Donaroma, Walter Smith Plumbing hit rocks while drilling, and progress was stalled. Donaroma said the company told him to hire someone with equipment that could get through those rocks, so Donaroma picked Island Water Source to finish drilling the well.
Albiston reached out to Island Water Source in 2023 requesting a site plan for the nursery and a second permit for the well. There are no records indicating that the request was filled by Donaroma or Island Water Source. Silvia said this is irregular, and that he typically sees the site plan for a large project prior to construction.
Town records show the well was drilled and used before permits were approved, which Donaroma said he wasn’t unaware of and acknowledged as a “fiasco.” He also said that under the agricultural exemption he believed the property was granted through the Dover Amendment, that he shouldn’t have to go through so many hoops for each aspect of the nursery. “I grow flowers in a pot,” he said. “It’s agricultural use.”
But through the MVC review, it’s less clear whether or not the Dover Amendment, which includes some zoning exemptions for agricultural, religious, and educational uses of property or land, applies to Jordan’s Nursery. Commissioners are reviewing the nursery whether the amendment applies or not.
“The town well guy, whoever had to inspect it, inspected it, approved it. I paid for it; it was done,” Donaroma said in a phone interview on Thursday. But no town officials approved the project on record, and according to Silvia, a private well on a property with public water access is not allowed.
In an email to the MVC responding to questions about the irrigation well, Silvia stated that “under district policy, a property connected to the Oak Bluffs Water District public water system is not permitted to maintain a private or agricultural well as an additional water source on the same property. The property must utilize one source or the other.”
Three years after it was drilled, the issue arose in emails between town officials, which were obtained by The Times.
Alexa Arieta, current health agent in Oak Bluffs, emailed Silvia on June 2 about the irrigation well. She said the owners and operators of Jordan’s Nursery had “apparently dug irrigation wells without a permit. They had applied previously and [had] been denied for lack of information.”
“Given the proximity to the Lagoon Pond Wellhead and the Alwardt Wells, I figured this was something you might need to weigh in on,” Arieta wrote to Silvia. There are five total public water wells in the town, including the Alwardt and Lagoon Pond wells.
About two weeks later, Island Water Source submitted a new permit application to the town of Oak Bluffs for the well. Arieta responded stating that more information was needed to approve the permit, much like three years prior.
“As this is presumed to be commercial/agricultural operation, this is more than typical household use,” Arieta wrote in the email. She requested a water needs assessment, well drilling report, water quality report, and an as-built plan of the well with all water lines shown.
Chris Alley of Schofield, Barbini, and Hoehn Inc. Civil Engineering Land Surveyors, who works for Donaroma on Jordan’s Nursery, emailed information back to Arieta. He wrote that he left voicemails about the well yield report and water quality report, which The Times hasn’t heard. He also attached water bills from when the nursery used town water to show approximate water usage from the new well.
The nursery used 430,000 gallons of water in one year, according to the records Alley submitted. He wrote that there’s a future potential 10 percent increase in use, according to Donaroma. In a peer-reviewed study by Ed Eichner, a water scientist with TMDL, he found that the current use and subsequent nitrogen loads were already over the limits for the area.
A few months later, in August 2026, local hydrogeologist and abutter to the nursery, Craig Saunders, wrote an email to Arieta with his worries about the well and the Jordan’s Nursery operation as a whole. He attached a letter he submitted to the MVC to the email as well.
“The well is too near the retention pond that will receive a lot of the runoff from the project,” he stated in the email.
He wrote: ”The principal issue, in my view, is not whether Jordan’s Nursery can ultimately be operated responsibly. It is whether the current DRI submission contains sufficient information to demonstrate that it can be operated in a manner that protects Lagoon Pond, the public-water-supply well, and the underlying groundwater.”
The MVC review of Jordan’s Nursery includes water usage and environmental issues, but commissioners have said that doing so after the project was constructed almost in its entirety has complicated the task. And because of the presumed agricultural exemption by Donaroma and the former Oak Bluffs building commissioner, several of the permits and information on Jordan’s Nursery are in limbo.
Donaroma maintained to The Times over the phone that he submitted the proper applications and said that many of these concerns stoked fear, while support for the project isn’t highlighted.
“The problem is because of the press and because of the Island talk and all this stuff nobody in favor of anything would dare to say anything, because you just get crucified for it. So all you hear is concerns,” Donaroma said.
