Plan to dredge a Shaw Street terminal basin for deeper-draft vessels returns to Fall River's Conservation Commission Monday

FALL RIVER A tugboat company's plan to rebuild a waterfront terminal on Shaw Street in Fall River and dredge its basin goes back before the city's Conservation Commission on Monday, Nov. 2. The commission has tabled the filing at each of its meetings since June 1, most recently on Sept. 14 and Oct. 5.

The commission meets at 5:30 p.m. in the first-floor hearing room at One Government Center. Its hearing notice, received by the city clerk Oct. 22, carries seven items held over from October, among them the terminal, a National Grid transmission line project that runs to the Somerset line over the Taunton River, a proposed fee structure for the commission and an update on Bell Rock Road.

What the terminal plan calls for

McAllister Towing and Transportation Co. Inc. filed the notice of intent, file SE-24-875, for land owned by One Shaw Street LLC (assessors map H-20, lot 1). The company proposes to repair and replace the sheet pile bulkhead, raise parts of the site behind the seawall, repair the existing piers and revetments, and install fendering and new and reinforced bollards "to support vessel berthing," the notice says.

It also proposes to dredge parts of the terminal's basin to an elevation the notice lists as minus 27.43 "to accommodate the deeper draft vessels anticipated to make use of the terminal." The notice says the dredging stays inside the footprint of earlier approvals, which covered dredging the basin to minus 24, measured at mean lower low water. The plan also upgrades site utilities, including shore power components "capable of supporting cold-ironing vessels at berth to reduce emissions and noise impacts."

McAllister, a family-owned company in business since 1864, runs tugboats, crew boats and barges and lists Providence among its ports.

Power lines, a gas main and a cleared lot

NEPC, doing business as National Grid, seeks approval (file SE-24-861) to separate its existing N12 and M13 transmission lines onto paired monopole structures inside its existing right of way. That stretch runs from the Sykes Road substation to the Somerset and Fall River line over the Taunton River, the notice says.

Liberty Utilities proposes to install 222 feet 5 inches of 4-inch carrier pipe with a 2-inch gas main at 994 Jefferson St. by horizontal directional drilling, with an entry pit and an exit pit (file SE-24-857). Separately, Weaver's Cove Industrial Park LLC proposes after-the-fact restoration of areas cleared of vegetation at its New Street property (file SE-24-855).

Fees and enforcement orders

The commission also lists a review of adopting a fee structure and a review of its outstanding enforcement orders, both tabled at the Sept. 14 and Oct. 5 meetings, as was the Bell Rock Road update. New business includes an amended order for a tower site on Augustus Street, where the applicant wants to move a 12-by-12-foot shed to 5 feet from the tower fence because the shed must sit within 25 feet of the tower, and approval of the commission's 2027 meeting dates.

What the commission does

The commission administers and enforces the state Wetlands Protection Act, Chapter 131, Section 40, and its regulations inside the city. Anyone planning work in a protected area, such as a bank, riverfront area, coastal wetland, land under water or land subject to flooding, or in the buffer zone around one, must file with the commission and the state Department of Environmental Protection before starting. The members are Christopher Boyle, John Brandt, James Cusick, Drew Carline, Luis Ferreira and Timothy McCoy. Daniel Aguiar is the conservation agent.

How to weigh in

Public input, three minutes per person, is on the agenda. The commission's office is in Room 534 on the fifth floor of One Government Center, 508-324-2340, and takes walk-ins.

Label: Reported by us, from the town's posted records.