Wetlands Enforcement Officer Applies Environmental Training

By Andrew Gorosko

For the past several months, Steve Maguire has been putting to use his scientific training aimed at making the planet an environmentally sounder place to live.

As the town’s wetlands enforcement officer, Mr Maguire works out of the town Land Use Agency office at Newtown Municipal Center, either reviewing environmental permit requests there, or studying the effectiveness of erosion and sedimentation control devices installed at various development sites across town.

In a recent interview, Mr Maguire explained that since starting work as the enforcement officer last September, he has taken on eight new environmental protection cases. There currently are about 45 pending cases concerning wetlands/watercourses violations, he noted.

Often, people who make some physical changes to their properties simply do not realize that the work they are doing amounts to a “regulated activity” and thus requires an environmental permit to be performed, he said.

Besides actual wetlands and watercourses, the Inland Wetlands Commission (IWC), a seven-member appointive town agency, oversees the physical disturbances, including filling and excavation, that occur in the so-called “regulated area,” a zone that extends outward up to 100 feet away from wetlands and watercourses.

Mr Maguire estimates that about 80 percent of his enforcement involves residential properties.

The large majority of applications for wetlands/watercourses protection permits are handled on an administrative level in the Land Use Agency office, with the more complex matters going to the IWC for review, he explained.

Mr Maguire explains that he has a special interest in water quality as an environmental subject.

Mr Maguire, 22, of Shelton is a 2011 graduate of Keene State College, in Keene, N.H, where he majored in environmental studies, with a minor in workplace safety studies. He formerly worked at United Technologies Corporation in the field of workplace safety.

So far, his enforcement work has ranged from a small scale project of placing a bridge over a creek to the large scale of the Rollingwood residential subdivision, a 200-plus -acre development that has been built during the last 20-plus years in the area near Marlin Road.

Mr Maguire noted that besides enforcing the town’s regulations on known wetlands/watercourses violations, he travels through town seeking out such problems which are yet unknown.

Most people with whom he has done enforcement have been responsive to his concerns, he said.

Mr Maguire explains that he seeks to strike a balance with the people whose activities he regulates, so that a sense of mutual respect and compliance with the regulations is attained.

Among his favorite activities are mountain biking, as well as freshwater fishing within lakes, rivers, and streams.