Lenox Conservation Commission Continues Rattlesnake Mountain Road Culvert Review to June 23

LENOX — June 9, 2026 — Lenox Conservation Commission debates wetland mitigation fund over replication at Rattlesnake Mountain Road culvert project. The commission heard a preliminary Notice of Intent presentation from GZA GeoEnvironmental and the Housatonic Valley Association for a grant-funded replacement of a failing 24-inch culvert on Rattlesnake Mountain Road over Marsh Brook, a crossing within the Kampoosa Bog Area of Critical Environmental Concern. The proposed 9.9-foot elliptical aluminum culvert would restore aquatic passage and address chronic road erosion, but commissioners pushed back sharply on the plan's 677 square feet of bordering vegetated wetland replication, citing the commission's own bylaw Section 5.2, which "strongly discourages" replication, and Section 5.3's compensatory mitigation fund as a preferred alternative. A commission member who is the upstream landowner noted the replicated areas would almost certainly be overrun by Phragmites. The hearing was continued to June 23. The commission separately voted unanimously to approve an RDA for a septic upgrade at 42 Lake Drive and to extend an order of conditions for a stalled clearing project at 13 Rattlesnake Mountain Road, and continued a vegetation management RDA from the Housatonic Railroad pending a joint site visit tentatively set for June 19.