NORTHFIELD — Engineers responsible for designing the septic system for the D.L. Moody Center’s proposed campground are scheduled to reappear before the Board of Health to further detail the plans they have been asked to email the town.

Jon and Bill Sieruta, of Sieruta Engineering, presented the plans to the board at a meeting on Wednesday evening but board members wanted more time to review design before voting on it.

“It’s just a very complicated plan to put in front of a Board of Health in a single night and for us to process, so we just need to get more information. It’s not a septic plan for a house,” board member Ruth Potee told the Greenfield Recorder after the meeting adjourned. “It feels like a subdivision. It’s a septic plan for a subdivision. That doesn’t normally come in front of a small-town Board of Health, so we really want to make sure we do our due diligence to really understand the big picture.”

Jon Sieruta told the Recorder he will send the board PDFs of his plans and that of the project’s architect ahead of attending the board’s next meeting slated for 6 p.m. on March 9. He and Bill Sieruta, his father, are civil engineers living in Leverett.

“The site’s going to be used … part-time. It’s a religious retreat,” Jon Sieruta explained after the meeting. “It won’t be used in the winter. It’ll probably be used a few times a year. We’re accommodating for maximum occupancy for that time.”

He said the Moody Center’s proposed layout plan calls for 39 buildings on site — 27 temporary one-bedroom campsites and 12 one-bedroom permanent structures.

“The campsites have slightly smaller flow than the permanent structures, because they’re temporary sites. They’re basically like canvas tents that they can put up and take down,” he explained. “How we designed the septic system is, basically, it’s like 10 different septic systems.

“We have five of these structures grouped together to a system, it will flow to an individual septic tank and an individual pump tank, and that will flow to a master pump tank, which is 7,000 gallons,” Sieruta added.

The Planning Board held several meetings and a public hearing to discuss the campground between July and October 2019. According to presentations made during a public hearing process, the campground would be built on a 76-acre Moody Center property along Pierson Road. Nearby residents asserted the Planning Board exceeded its authority in October 2019 by granting the campground’s special permit and filed an appeal of the decision in Franklin County Superior Court. Judge Michael Callan dismissed the case in May 2021.

Potee said septic system installation is “one of the very early steps that would have to happen if (the campground) were to go forward,” She noted the March 9 meeting with Sieruta Engineering will be postponed if the Board of Health does not get all the information it needs in time.

Members of the public can request copies of the PDF of the plans by emailing the Board of Health at bdhealth@northfieldma.gov or visiting bit.ly/3k3CJQR.

Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-930-4120.

]]>