The Planning Board is hoping Town Meeting will OK proposals that, combined, will help to create a 550-acre resource area in South Plymouth, designed to protect drinking water as well as to provide a site for a future town well.
PLYMOUTH – The Planning Board is hoping Town Meeting will OK proposals that, combined, will help to create a 550-acre resource area in South Plymouth, designed to protect drinking water as well as to provide a site for a future town well.
Called Long Duck Groundwater Resource Area, the resource area would be set aside as a development-free zone where the town could sink another well.
Today, the population hovers around 60,000; that number increases to 80,000 during the summer.
Planning Board Chairman Malcolm MacGregor went before the Select Board Tuesday night with a proposal for the Long Duck Groundwater Resource Area, which would be a 550-acre swath between Halfway Pond and Long Pond roads.
Town Meeting will be asked to revise the boundaries of the Aquifer Protection District to include this 550-acre area for two reasons: to protect the groundwater and keep it clean, because over development can cause toxins to filter into the groundwater and, therefore, the drinking water.
The second reason is to that, in the future, when Plymouth’s population continues to increase, the town is prepared ahead of time with an area that could serve as a well head.
The Department of Environmental Protection also requires that the Redbrook development’s Zone II region, a designation to protect groundwater for wells, should be included in this overlay district.
The land is undeveloped, with much of it already owned by state conservation agencies.
Town Meeting will be asked to transfer 16.2 acres of tax title land off Long Pond Road, known as Bay View Terrace, to the care of the Conservation Commission, to transfer 49 acres of tax title land off Lunn’s Way to the Water Commission and to transfer 11.85 acres in South Plymouth to the custody of the Water Commission, as well.