The Wyatt Violation - The Wyatt's agent's first act in building out the construction of the Wyatt house, was to construct a road through the wetlands from the back of the Wyatt lots. This was done by using the existing driveway of the Smart property. The town of Phippsburg CEO was, I was told by the agent, brought in on this to approve of tree cutting in what was perhaps a restricted resource protection zone, due to the proximity to the lake, or the fact that there was a resource identified by the DEP on the Tier 1 permit nearby. The trees cut to accommodate this activity had at least 47 rings (by my count) and so indicated that there had been no vehicular access through this area for almost fifty years. The violation was first brought to the attention of the DEP when it was installed, on March 17, 2004, at the commencement of the work at the site. Other work was done away from the site, in the middle of the wetlands, and this too was brought to the attention of DEP enforcement officials. Please see the e-mail correspondence(*soon) which, after 6 months finally led to a site inspection by DEP only once there was enough work to be done in Phippsburg to warrant a visit by them to this area as part of their other duties. This was not a matter of any priority by DEP, and they did not even respond until I protested to a supervisor that I had received NO reply for over a month to my inquiries on the matter.This was a case of a citizen notifying the DEP of a possible violation by an applicant who had already been shown to have submitted an incomplete catalog of the natural resources present on this property. No action was felt necessary on the part of the DEP for six months.

It should be noted that the approximate area of the road cut by the Wyatt's agent had at one point been used to access cottages along the beach. The previous access was shut of by construction by Rubin or Markham to the east in 49 or 1950. The access which was used for about two seasons to access these houses did not follow any rights of ways or "paper streets" and was not over the property of any of the owners of the cottages that were being accessed. This access proved unusable because of the same wetland inundation which formed the wetlands on the wetland alteration permit issued for this site, and it was that seasonal inundation which precipitated the purchase by some of the owners of the cottages along Sabino Avenue of the so-called "road lots" (see map, lots 186-208). Because they could not get to or from their cottages through this swamp, some owners were trapped by spring/summer flooding and could not get their cars through any of the area, much like the area is as I write this. When this access across the wetlands was used when it was dry enough, it followed whatever route seemed least hazardous and most passable. It was short lived and abandoned as unfeasible as it would be today.

Regardless of these facts, the town CEO stated in the presence of DEP officials on September 9th, 2004 after a site inspection of the area, that some had said that there were roads used throughout this area well into the 1960s. Please see the aerial photo from April 17, 1966 which shows no such roads in use. Also see the letters to the CEO from our lawyers, which ask about these statements about roads in the area, together with his response.