Code of Massachusetts Regulations › 310 CMR - DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION › Title 310 CMR 10.00 - Wetlands Protection › Additional Regulations for Inland Wetlands › Section 10.58 - Riverfront Area

Current through Register 1525, July 5, 2024
(1)
Preamble
. Riverfront areas are likely to be
				significant to protect the private or public water supply; to protect
				groundwater; to provide flood control; to prevent storm damage; to prevent
				pollution; to protect land containing shellfish; to protect wildlife habitat;
				and to protect the fisheries. Land adjacent to rivers and streams can protect
				the natural integrity of these water bodies. The presence of natural vegetation
				within riverfront areas is critical to sustaining rivers as ecosystems and
				providing these public values. The riverfront area can prevent degradation of
				water quality by filtering sediments, toxic substances (such as heavy metals),
				and nutrients (such as phosphorus and nitrogen) from stormwater, nonpoint
				pollution sources, and the river itself. Sediments are trapped by vegetation
				before reaching the river. Nutrients and toxic substances may be detained in
				plant root systems or broken down by soil bacteria. Riverfront areas can trap
				and remove disease-causing bacteria that otherwise would reach rivers and
				coastal estuaries where they can contaminate shellfish beds and prohibit safe
				human consumption. Natural vegetation within the riverfront area also maintains
				water quality for fish and wildlife.
Where rivers serve as water supplies or provide induced
				  recharge to wells, the riverfront area can be important to the maintenance of
				  drinking water quality and quantity. Land along rivers in its natural state
				  with a high infiltration capacity increases the yield of a water supply well.
				  When riverfront areas lack the capacity to filter pollutants, contaminants can
				  reach human populations served by wells near rivers or by direct river intakes.
				  The capacity of riverfront areas to filter pollutants is equally critical to
				  surface water supplies, reducing or eliminating the need for additional
				  treatment. In the watershed, mature vegetation within riverfront areas provides
				  shade to moderate water temperatures and slow algal growth, which can produce
				  odors and taste problems in drinking water.
Within riverfront areas, surface water interaction with
				  groundwater significantly influences the stream ecosystem. The dynamic
				  relationship between surface and groundwater within the "hyporheic zone"
				  sustains communities of aquatic organisms which regulate the flux of nutrients,
				  biomass and the productivity of organisms including fish within the stream
				  itself. The hyporheic zone extends to greater distances horizontally from the
				  channel in large, higher order streams with alluvial floodplains, but the
				  interaction within this zone is important in smaller streams as well.
By providing recharge and retaining natural flood storage, as
				  well as by slowing surface water runoff, riverfront areas can mitigate flooding
				  and damage from storms. The root systems of riverfront vegetation keep soil
				  porous, increasing infiltration capacity. Vegetation also removes excess water
				  through evaporation and transpiration. This removal of water from the soil
				  allows for more infiltration when flooding occurs. Increases in storage of
				  floodwaters can decrease peak discharges and reduce storm damage. Vegetated
				  riverfronts also dissipate the energy of storm flows, reducing damage to public
				  and private property.
Riverfront areas are critical to maintaining thriving
				  fisheries. Maintaining vegetation along rivers promotes fish cover, increases
				  food and oxygen availability, decreases sedimentation, and provides spawning
				  habitat. Maintenance of water temperatures and depths is critical to many
				  important fish species. Where groundwater recharges surface water flows, loss
				  of recharge as a result of impervious surfaces within the riverfront area may
				  aggravate low flow conditions and increase water temperatures. In some cases,
				  summer stream flows are maintained almost exclusively from groundwater
				  recharge. Small streams are most readily impacted by removal of trees and other
				  vegetation along the shore.
Riverfront areas are important wildlife habitat, providing
				  food, shelter, breeding, migratory, and overwintering areas. Even some
				  predominantly upland species use and may be seasonally dependent on riverfront
				  areas. Riverfront areas promote biological diversity by providing habitats for
				  an unusually wide variety of upland and wetland species, including bald eagles,
				  osprey, and kingfishers. Large dead trees provide nesting sites for bird
				  species that typically use the same nest from year to year. Sandy areas along
				  rivers may serve as nesting sites for turtles and water snakes. Riverfront
				  areas provide food for species such as wood turtles which feed and nest in
				  uplands but use rivers as resting and overwintering areas. Riverfront areas
				  provide corridors for the migration of wildlife for feeding or breeding. Loss
				  of this connective function, from activities that create barriers to wildlife
				  movement within riverfront areas, results in habitat fragmentation and causes
				  declines in wildlife populations. Wildlife must also be able to move across
				  riverfront areas, between uplands and the river.
Vernal pools are frequently found within depressions in
				  riverfront areas. These pools are essential breeding sites for certain
				  amphibians which require isolated, seasonally wet areas without predator fish.
				  Most of these amphibians require areas of undisturbed woodlands as habitat
				  during the non-breeding seasons. Some species require continuous woody
				  vegetation between woodland habitat and the breeding pools. Depending on the
				  species, during non-breeding seasons these amphibians may remain near the pools
				  or travel ¼ mile or more from the pools. Reptiles, especially turtles,
				  often require areas along rivers to lay their eggs. Since amphibians and
				  reptiles are less mobile than mammals and birds, maintaining integrity of their
				  habitat is critical.
In those portions so extensively altered by human activity
				  that their important wildlife habitat functions have been effectively
				  eliminated, riverfront areas are not significant to the protection of important
				  wildlife habitat and vernal pool habitat.
(2)
Definitions, Critical
				Characteristics and Boundaries
.
(a) A Riverfront Area is the area of land
				between a river's mean annual high water line and a parallel line measured
				horizontally. The riverfront area may include or overlap other resource areas
				or their buffer zones. The riverfront area does not have a buffer zone.
1. A river is any natural flowing body of
				water that empties to any ocean, lake, pond, or other river and which flows
				throughout the year. Rivers include streams (see
				310 CMR 10.04:
Stream
) that are perennial because surface water flows
				within them throughout the year. Intermittent streams are not rivers as defined
				herein because surface water does not flow within them throughout the year.
				When surface water is not flowing within an intermittent stream, it may remain
				in isolated pools or it may be absent. When surface water is present in
				contiguous and connected pool/riffle systems, it shall be determined to be
				flowing. Rivers begin at the point an intermittent stream becomes perennial or
				at the point a perennial stream flows from a spring, pond, or lake. Downstream
				of the first point of perennial flow, a stream normally remains a river except
				where interrupted by a lake or pond. Upstream of the first point of perennial
				flow, a stream is normally intermittent.
a. A
				river or stream shown as perennial on the current United States Geological
				Survey (USGS) or more recent map provided by the Department is
				perennial.
b. A river or stream
				shown as intermittent or not shown on the current USGS map or more recent map
				provided by the Department, that has a watershed size greater than or equal to
				one square mile, is perennial.
c. A
				stream shown as intermittent or not shown on the current USGS map or more
				recent map provided by the Department, that has a watershed size less than one
				square mile, is intermittent unless:
i. The
				stream has a watershed size of at least ½ (0.50) square mile and has a
				predicted flow rate greater than or equal to 0.01 cubic feet per second at the
				99% flow duration using the USGS Stream Stats method. The issuing authority
				shall find such streams to be perennial; or
ii. When the USGS StreamStats method cannot
				be used because the stream does not have a mapped and digitized centerline
				(including but not limited to streams located in the following basins: North
				Coastal Basin, Taunton Basin, Buzzards Bay Basin, Cape Cod and Islands Basin,
				and that portion of the South Coastal Basin that is south of the Jones River
				sub-basin), and the stream has a watershed size of at least ½ (0.50)
				square mile, and the surficial geology of the contributing drainage area to the
				stream at the project site contains 75% or more stratified drift, the issuing
				authority shall find such streams to be perennial. Stratified drift shall mean
				sand and gravel deposits that have been layered and sorted by glacial meltwater
				streams. Areal percentages of stratified drift may be determined using USGS
				surficial geologic maps, USGS Hydrological Atlases, Massachusetts Geographical
				Information System (MassGIS) surficial geology data layer, or other published
				or electronic surficial geological information from a credible
				source.
d.
				Notwithstanding 310 CMR 10.58(2)(a)1.a. through c., the issuing authority shall
				find that any stream is intermittent based upon a documented field observation
				that the stream is not flowing. A documented field observation shall be made by
				a competent source and shall be based upon an observation made at least once
				per day, over four days in any consecutive 12 month period, during a
				non-drought period on a stream not significantly affected by drawdown from
				withdrawals of water supply wells, direct withdrawals, impoundments, or other
				human-made flow reductions or diversions. Field observations made after
				December 20, 2002 shall be documented by field notes and by dated photographs
				or video. Field observations made prior to December 20, 2002 shall be
				documented by credible evidence. All field observations shall be submitted to
				the issuing authority with a statement signed under the penalties of perjury
				attesting to the authenticity and veracity of the field notes, photographs or
				video and other credible evidence. Department staff, conservation
				commissioners, and conservation commission staff are competent sources; issuing
				authorities may consider evidence from other sources that are determined to be
				competent.
e. Rivers include the
				entire length and width to the mean annual high-water line of the major rivers
				(Assabet, Blackstone, Charles, Chicopee, Concord, Connecticut, Deerfield,
				Farmington, French, Hoosic, Housatonic, Ipswich, Merrimack, Millers, Nashua,
				Neponset, Parker (Essex County), Quinebaug, Shawsheen, Sudbury, Taunton, Ten
				Mile, and Westfield).
f. Rivers
				include perennial streams that cease to flow during periods of extended
				drought. Periods of extended drought for purposes of
				310 CMR
				10.00 shall be those periods, in those specifically
				identified geographic locations, determined to be at the "Advisory" or more
				severe drought level by the Massachusetts Drought Managment Task Force, as
				established by the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs and the
				Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency in 2001, in accordance with the
				Massachusetts Drought Management Plan (MDMP). Rivers and streams that are
				perennial under natural conditions but are significantly affected by drawdown
				from withdrawals of water supply wells, direct withdrawals, impoundments, or
				other human-made flow reductions or diversions shall be considered
				perennial.
g. Human-made canals
				(e.g., the Cape Cod Canal and canals diverted from rivers in Lowell and
				Holyoke) and mosquito ditches associated with coastal rivers do not have
				riverfront areas.
h. Where rivers
				flow through lakes or ponds, the Riverfront Area stops at the inlet and begins
				again at the outlet. A water body identified as a lake, pond, or reservoir on
				the current USGS. map or more recent map provided by the Department, is a lake
				or pond, unless the issuing authority determines that the water body has
				primarily riverine characteristics. When a water body is not identified as a
				lake, pond, or reservoir on the current USGS. map or more recent map provided
				by the Department, the water body is a river if it has primarily riverine
				characteristics. Riverine characteristics may include, but are not limited to,
				unidirectional flow that can be visually observed or measured in the field. In
				addition, rivers are characterized by horizontal zonation as opposed to the
				vertical stratification that is typically associated with lakes and ponds.
				Great Ponds (i.e., any pond which contained more than ten acres in its natural
				state, as calculated based on the surface area of lands lying below the natural
				high water mark; a list is available from the Department) are never rivers.