Someone in the Back Country has a problem

here today, gone in some future tomorrow

Dr. Michael Goldstein has been ordered to remove 16,000 cubic yards of fill (as much as 17’ deep) that he dumped on his property at 10 Sandy Lane without benefit of clergy or Inland Wetlands permission. At ten-to-16 yards per load, that will require as many as 1,600 dump truck loads to haul it away, and that’s a lot.

Goldstein and his wife, residents of back country, received an Order to Correct after their application was denied in December by the town’s Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Agency. The application had stemming from a Stop Work Order in Jan 2023 and Cease & Correct Order in Feb 2023, both actions in response to the unauthorized use of 16,000 cubic yards of fill on a slope at their property at 10 Sandy Lane,  adjacent to a wetland area and stream.

Sandy Lane, near the eastern terminus of Porchuck, comprises a somewhat motley unprepossessing collection of homes with Merritt exposure, and I don’t see how Dr. Goldstein will be able to dump a million dollars or so into unburying his yard and still have the project make economic sense.

That’s an owie.

Goldstein might yet reach a compromise with the agency, but this sounds ominous:

“Here’s my problem,” vice chair Elliot Benton said. “Here we have an egregious violation and we’re not just going to say just leave it there and the violator winds up with a nice flat yard.”