And the beat goes on

By TIMOTHY LAROCHE
[email protected]
CLAREMONT — In the past 27 years, four presidents have moved through the Oval Office, NASA scientists landed a rover on Mars and scientists discovered radiation from the first moments of the universe. But in that time the development of a 3.8-acre patch of brambles on the banks of Lake Sunapee has been forestalled.

Despite recent letters of support from the Claremont City Council, Newport Selectmen and the Sullivan County Commissioners, the proposed Wild Goose boat access encountered yet another hurdle after members of as task force created to decide the project’s fate nixed the proposal.

The Lake Sunapee Public Boat Access Development Commission said that after “27 years of division, strife and ongoing traffic safety concerns,” the Fish and Game Department should abandon plans to use the Wild Goose site.

The commission advised Thursday that fish and game officials search for a new site on the lake. 

Gov. Chris Sununu chartered the commission in September 2017 to hear arguments from opposing factions on the project, with the deadline to issue final recommendations lapsing this month.

The report released Thursday advised fish and game officials and representatives of the nearby communities to work in concert to find a new location for boat access. Several residents of the towns already expressed some desire to assist in the search for a site, the report said.

“It is very difficult to understand why … it has been so difficult to get this solved,” Mayor Charlene Lovett said of the recommendations. “In the State of New Hampshire, the people own the lakes. Not the people with property abutting the lakes, but all the people.”

The proposal to build a public boat ramp on Lake Sunapee traces as far back as 1992, when then-New Hampshire Fish and Game Director Greg Normandeau announced that the department would expand public access to the state’s 10 largest lakes. By area, Lake Sunapee is the fourth-largest lake in the state.

The 1994 announcement that the Wild Goose parcel was chosen as the top contender for the boat launch drew immediate criticism from residents abutting the property. The Lake Sunapee Protective Association, the primary opponents of the project, cited traffic and environmental concerns at the Wild Goose site.

Although Fish and Game announced plans in 2000 to move forward at Wild Goose, personnel changes in the department stalled work for several years thereafter. In 2008, Normandeau filed applications with the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services for Shoreland, Wetland and Alteration of Terrain Permits for the site, receiving a Shoreland permit in January 2009.

More resistance to the project came in February 2009 when the LSPA appealed DES permit approval. The town of Newbury also filed an appeal to the permit with the New Hampshire Wetlands Council. The council accepted the permit appeals in March 2009.

The DES issued amended permits for the project in July 2009, but the LSPA and town appealed the amended permits.

Throughout the following years, Fish and Game and the two appealing parties would wrestle over the permits, eventually going to Merrimack County Superior Court in January 2012. The court ruled that the group that approved the Wild Goose site — the Council on Resources and Development — did not balance public access and conservation.

CORD re-evaluated and approved the plans for the site, spurring another suit in Merrimack Superior Court from the town and LSPA. The court found that the project required legislative approval to fit under CORD’s statutory jurisdiction.

The New Hampshire Supreme Court heard an appeal to new Wetland permits for the site in 2013, ruling in favor of the state. And the project later gained new permit approval following the expiration of initial Shoreland Permits in May 2015.

In February 2016, Gov. Chris Sununu approved the $2.1 million bond for the project but later reversed his decision based on concerns about traffic its cost. Sununu pulled the permit extension for the project off the Governor and Executive Council’s agenda in July 2017.

 

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