Does a pile field exist if it's covered at high
tide?
MassDEP seems to think not.
Through the Commonwealth's
Chapter 91 program, MassDEP regulates what can be built over
tidelands. In last week's Environmental
Monitor, MassDEP announced a "
Proposed Interpretation" that would prescribe the way a
proponent seeking a Chapter 91 license to authorize development
should define a "Project Shoreline" in the context of a
historic pile field. Under the regulations, the Project Shoreline
essentially defines the outer boundaries of certain types of
allowed development, with restrictions on what can be built within
specific distances of that boundary.
According to MassDEP's new interpretation, if a historic
pile field is to form the basis for a Project Shoreline, the
historic piles must "physically be standing in place, and must
still possess some capability to perform [their] originally
intended function and use." Stating that the function
of such piles must
