[N]eighbors of a planned Hannaford supermarket in Hinesburg say it should be denied a permit because runoff from the parking lot would sometimes contribute to flooding on their property.
Hannaford says that would happen only in the most severe storms.
The neighbors, represented by Bristol-based attorney Jim Dumont, sent a letter dated Nov. 14 to the Agency of Natural Resources seeking to have the 36,000-square-foot store’s provisional stormwater permit pulled. The opponents want Hannaford to be required to apply for a new permit.
The permit as it was provisionally approved would have disposed of stormwater during heavy rain by sending it into a depression in the earth, hundreds of feet across, on an adjacent property.
Dumont said he discovered this a year ago while deposing a Hannaford engineer in a separate challenge to the plans. That case is now before the Vermont Supreme Court, Dumont said.
But even under the new plans, the complex would still send water onto the neighboring property of the lighting and production company Dark Star, Dumont said.
That will occur only very infrequently, said the Hannaford project’s attorney, Chris Roy, of Burlington-based Downs Rachlin Martin.
The property design now includes catchment systems beneath the parking lot, as well as terrain features meant to slow runoff, Roy said. Only in the most extreme storms — those statistically likely to occur at 20-, 50- or 100-year intervals — will rain overwhelm the drainage system on the Hannaford property, he said.
“You’re only going to get that level of flooding when the capacity of the diversion system … is completely maxed out by the volume of water, and it essentially backs up,” Roy said.
That’s likely to happen, Dumont said.
“This is a project that has a lifespan of 50 years,” he said. “More likely than not, these storms will occur during the life of the project, and there’s a 50-50 chance a 100-year (storm) will.”
The agency’s Department of Environmental Conservation shouldn’t permit a stormwater management plan if it will flood an unwilling neighbor’s property at any time, Dumont said.
Roy said the Hannaford stormwater management system will actually diminish the stormwater runoff flowing through Dark Star’s property during all but the most severe storms.
The DEC issued the permit on a provisional basis — saying, essentially, that it is likely to issue the permit after a public review. That process that hasn’t yet concluded.
Dumont and Roy both said their clients likely would appeal an unfavorable decision to the Vermont Environmental Court.
“Hannaford fully intends to build this project, and to the extent they need to file an appeal to do that, as opposed to Mr. Dumont doing that, we will do that,” Roy said.
Stormwater regulators at the Department of Environmental Conservation didn’t return calls for comment Wednesday afternoon.
The Hannaford project’s principals have already secured a similar stormwater permit through the process required under the Act 250 land use law.
