Engineer Tests and Hillside Lane Site Visit

During the week of November 14th, additional engineering investigations were conducted on the north-east section of Maple Shade Forest. Previous investigations used an excavator that can only reach approximately 14 feet deep. The new work included installing four new soil borings to further refine subsurface properties such as depth to bedrock and groundwater elevation.  New monitoring wells were installed in the borings and further assessment of ground water will be conducted.   This investigation work is 100% grant funded.

We asked the Consulting Engineer, Amy Macrellis of Stone Environmental, what she finds interesting about working in this section of Westford.  This was her response: “What I love about the Maple Shade site is that it was once lakeshore property! Unfortunately for the Westford Town Common, it was under the lake…~13,500 years ago. The departing glaciers first gave Westford Glacial Lake Vermont, then took it away in stages as the ice sheets retreated north.
The Lake Vermont shores were relatively high-energy - think about the waves you might see on the modern Lake Champlain shoreline on a blustery day. Today, where those shores were, we see sands, gravels, and lots of nice bedding structures, all found during last week’s boring.  On the map below, I marked where Westford was relative to the full extents of Lake Vermont, so you can maybe get some sense of how big Lake Vermont was… and for a cool (to me) animation created by Vermont DEC of how the glacial lakes formed and retreated, check out https//www.facebook.com/watch/?v=492996508035516"

On Sunday, November 21st, Westford residents were able to visit an existing in-ground leach field near Hillside Lane, off of North Road in Westford.  This system has a similar capacity as the one proposed on Maple Shade.  We want to thank the residents of Hillside Lane for allowing us to visit. We also want to thank Marty Scanlon and Terry Bosworth for taking time to share their perspectives of their community system and especially R.J. Moore for providing technical background and expertise to help answer questions from those present.  More information about their community system can be found at https://www.wfd1.org/.

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