MIDDLEBOROUGH — A warehouse that would put 928,000 square feet under one roof off Wareham Street returns to the Conservation Commission tonight, and the state’s own review of the project has left several environmental questions open for more than a year. The entire site is mapped habitat for the eastern box turtle, a protected species. A wetland the commission has never signed off on appears to lie in the middle of the building’s footprint, according to state regulators. And the state has yet to finish its environmental review.

The commission meets at 6:45 p.m. in the Select Board meeting room at Town Hall, 10 Nickerson Ave., and on Zoom (meeting ID 899 0058 3193), according to its agenda. As on Oct. 1, the Zoom listing on the same posting gives a 6:30 p.m. start. The warehouse is the eighth item on the agenda and has no set time.

The commission’s role is specific. Under the state Wetlands Protection Act, it decides whether and how work may happen in wetlands, in the buffer zones around them and in the 200-foot riverfront area along streams. It can approve the work with conditions or deny it. Zoning, traffic and whether Middleborough wants a warehouse belong to other boards. Tonight continues the hearing that opened Oct. 1. Minutes of that meeting have not been posted; they are up for approval tonight.

What is proposed

The notice of intent was filed by Peter Gerrity for South Coast Logistics Park, LLC, of Cumberland Center, Maine, with Beals Associates as engineer, under state file number SE220-1741. It covers 678 Wareham St. and eight parcels on Assessors’ Maps 109 and 110. The agenda describes a warehouse “with a total area of 928,000 square feet,” trailer and car parking and loading docks, with access from a widened stretch of Wareham Street inside the riverfront area. Part of the plan would fill “a small area” of bordering vegetated wetland and recreate it just to the north.

The fullest description is in state records. The project has been under review by the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act office as the Middleborough Logistics Park. In a March 17, 2025, certificate, state Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Rebecca L. Tepper described the first phase as a 928,000-square-foot warehouse on a 74.2-acre lot, with 930 employee parking spaces, 165 loading docks, 131 trailer spaces, a rail spur from the tracks along the site’s eastern edge, a septic system and a connection to the town water main in Wareham Street. Phase 1 would alter 53.1 acres, add 43.8 acres of pavement and rooftop, and generate 1,586 vehicle trips a day, including 556 truck trips.

A second phase on the 78.7-acre western half of the 153-acre site is only conceptual. The certificate says it would likely hold commercial and industrial uses and would alter another 32.4 acres, including about 33,000 square feet of bordering wetland for a driveway extension and a rail spur. The site runs south to the Rochester town line.

The land has been proposed for development before. A 392,000-square-foot, 10-lot business park called Sippican Commerce Park finished state review in 2008, the certificate says, and was never built. The plans filed in 2024 show the site in the town’s General Use “A” zoning district and its adult entertainment overlay district.

One number in the plan comes from Middleborough’s own rules. The town’s zoning bylaw requires one parking space for every 1,000 square feet of floor area, or 928 spaces. Industry guidelines cited in the certificate recommend 366 for a warehouse this size. The certificate called it an “excessive parking supply” and asked the developer to commit to “land banking,” leaving some spaces unpaved unless they are needed.

The wetland in the middle of the building

The biggest open wetlands question predates this hearing. In 2024 the developer asked the commission to confirm where the wetlands on the site are. The commission’s June 26, 2024, decision approved most of the lines but not an area the developer calls the “E-Series,” according to a March 7, 2025, letter from the state Department of Environmental Protection. The developer says it is an isolated wetland that does not meet the state’s test for “isolated land subject to flooding,” and the certificate notes the developer acknowledged that more mitigation would be required if the commission found otherwise. The department wrote that it “appears to be located in the middle of the proposed warehouse,” covering 29,400 square feet.

The commission disagreed with the developer in writing. In a Feb. 10, 2025, letter to the state, signed by Conservation Agent Patricia Cassady on the commission’s behalf, it said that “the MCC and their peer reviewer believe it is ILSF,” the abbreviation for isolated land subject to flooding, a resource area the state law protects. The letter added that the area “is shown as a potential vernal pool” on the state’s data layer of potential and certified vernal pools, and that it would “need to be re-evaluated during the Notice of Intent process.” That process is the hearing now underway.

Federal rules may matter too. The developer asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Aug. 9, 2024, to decide whether the area falls under the federal Clean Water Act, the environmental department’s letter says. The state records do not show a decision. The department wrote that because the two phases together would fill more than 5,000 square feet of wetland, “no work within BVW and IVW on either phase of the Project can proceed until the Department issues a 401 WQC for the single and complete Project,” meaning a state water quality certificate. It also said it “still remains concerned that the Proponents may be segmenting the Project,” splitting it into phases that each look smaller than the whole.

The wetland fill described on tonight’s agenda is smaller. According to the certificate, Phase 1 would fill 4,430 square feet of bordering wetland, about 1,555 square feet for the driveway and 2,875 square feet for a loading apron and trailer parking, and replace it with 8,860 square feet of new wetland, a 2-to-1 ratio. The environmental department added that the developer’s filing counted wetland and an existing cranberry bog separately. “Cranberry bogs are a type of Bordering Vegetated Wetland, so the impacts should not be separated,” it wrote.

The stream and the riverfront

An unnamed perennial stream splits into two channels next to the existing driveway off Wareham Street, according to a comment letter filed with the state by Goddard Consulting for the Grafton and Upton Railroad Company. Under the state’s riverfront rules, the land within 200 feet of a perennial stream is itself a protected resource area. New work there is generally limited to the greater of 5,000 square feet or 10 percent of the riverfront area on the lot. A separate provision allows more work on land that was already developed if the project “improves existing conditions,” with restoration at a 1-to-1 ratio or mitigation at 2-to-1.

The certificate puts Phase 1’s riverfront alteration at about 24,940 square feet, for the new driveway. In its 2025 letter the commission wrote that “the proposed riverfront area impacts are 38%, over the 10% allowed for new construction,” and that the project “should not be considered redevelopment.” It also said the restoration offered fell short of 1-to-1. The two documents give different figures for that restoration: 8,927 square feet of asphalt removal and replanting in the certificate, and 8,260 square feet in the commission’s letter. Either is about a third of the area to be altered. The plans before the commission now may differ from those reviewed in 2025.

Turtles, trees and the Sippican headwaters

The whole 153-acre site is mapped as priority habitat for the eastern box turtle, a species of special concern under the Massachusetts Endangered Species Act. In a March 4, 2025, letter, the state’s Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program said it expects the project to cause a prohibited “Take” of the species through habitat loss and fragmentation. That means the developer needs a conservation and management permit, which requires a “long-term net benefit” to the species. By the program’s formula, the two phases would require about 138 acres of permanently protected habitat.

The developer had argued that 56.2 acres of Phase 1 were exempt because the land was not mapped as turtle habitat when the earlier park was reviewed. The commission’s letter answered: “We don’t agree.” The Buzzards Bay Coalition, in its own comment, wrote that approvals for the older project “must not apply to the current Project.” The certificate says the developer later acknowledged that the entire project is subject to review. The program’s letter set a firm sequence: it “will not render a final decision until the MEPA review process” is complete, and “no alteration to the soil, surface, or vegetation” may occur until it decides.

The western half of the site abuts the state’s Sippican Headwaters Wildlife Management Area, and the state’s BioMap conservation atlas shows the entire site as core habitat for rare species, the certificate says. Phase 1 would clear 33.3 acres of forest. The developer’s own estimate, cited in the certificate, puts the climate cost of that clearing at 19,243 metric tons of carbon dioxide over 50 years, which the state said the proposed mitigation did not fully offset. About 13 acres in the southern part of the Phase 1 site have already been cleared by logging. The commission’s 2025 letter said that “cutting was conducted without any permits” and that some “may have occurred” in the 100-foot buffer zone.

The Buzzards Bay Coalition describes the site as the headwaters of the Sippican River, which feeds the Weweantic River and, in turn, Buzzards Bay. Its February 2025 letter said the two phases together would produce more than 10,000 gallons of wastewater a day, enough to require a state groundwater discharge permit with “enhanced nitrogen removal and nitrogen offsets,” because the Weweantic is nitrogen-impaired. Phase 1 alone would rely on a Title 5 septic system, and the certificate says a treatment plant would be needed in Phase 2.

Trucks, water and the other permits

All of the warehouse’s trucks would travel south on Wareham Street, which is Route 28, to Route 58 in Wareham and the Interstate 495 interchange, the certificate says. That intersection is inside a state-designated environmental justice neighborhood in Wareham, and the state asked the developer to analyze diesel pollution there and consider mitigation such as tree planting and public health contributions. The developer has proposed a new turning lane and signal changes at that intersection.

The warehouse would use about 10,230 gallons of town water a day in Phase 1. In January the commission cleared the town Department of Public Works’ plan to run about a mile of new water main within Route 28, between 670 and 703 Wareham St. to the Rochester line, according to its Jan. 15 minutes. The minutes do not mention the warehouse. The environmental department’s 2025 letter refers to “the extension of the new water line to Logistics Park” and said information on the hookups it could serve should go to the town Water Department so it can plan for the demand.

The list of other approvals is long. The certificate names a state Department of Transportation access permit and a railroad crossing easement, the turtle permit, the state water quality certificate, a federal construction stormwater permit, review by the Massachusetts Historical Commission and, for Phase 2 and possibly Phase 1, a federal wetlands permit from the Army Corps. Because the project is to receive state money through the transportation department’s Industrial Rail Access Program, the certificate says, the state’s review covers every part of the project likely to damage the environment. The commission’s letter added that any earth carted off the site would need an earth removal permit from the Select Board. The certificate says the developer plans to dig out 168,318 cubic yards and reuse it on site.

State review is not finished. The 2025 certificate requires a supplemental final environmental impact report. As of this morning, the state’s MEPA database lists none. In February 2025 the commission called the state filing “pre-mature” without the turtle permit in hand.

The G.O.A.T. News previewed the Oct. 1 opening on Sept. 28. The cancelled Sept. 17 posting listed the applicant as “South Shore Logistics Park, LLC.” State records and the last two agendas use South Coast Logistics Park, LLC.

The rest of the agenda, and where each case left off

Pratt Farm footbridge. Eagle Scout candidate Sebastian Glaspey will discuss building a footbridge at the town’s Pratt Farm conservation land at 6:45 p.m.

114 Purchade St. Scott Steele, with Foresight Engineering, opens a hearing at 7 p.m. on a single-family home with a septic system and grading within 100 feet of a wetland (file SE220-1743).

Three enforcement orders. The commission will discuss and may vote on a “breach of an earth removal site” off Harper Lane, Marion Road and Cherry Street, at Willis Hill/Fitch Farm (SE220-1648); land disturbance at 246 Everett St. that requires wetland restoration; and the filling of cranberry bogs at 64 Benson St. The Benson Street owner’s hearing on an indoor riding arena, open since March 5, is not on tonight’s agenda.

Continued hearings. The wetland-line review off Tispaquin Street for Marcus Baptiste of Southbrook Development (SE220-1742) and the request to amend the 2021 permit at 7 Winter St. both return after opening Oct. 1. The single-family home at 0 Cedar St. (SE220-1740) has been open since Aug. 20. The surf park at 0 East Grove St. (SE220-1739) has been open since Aug. 6. The wetland-line review for 10 parcels around the Route 44, Route 18 and Interstate 495 rotary for Middleborough Property Group (SE220-1737) has been open since July 16.

Sign-off. The owner of the 10-building duplex development at 480 Wareham St. is asking for a certificate of compliance, the commission’s confirmation that finished work met its permit.

The board itself

The commission’s members, according to its Sept. 3 minutes, are Chair Nancy Ockers, First Co-Vice Chair Diane Stewart, Second Co-Vice Chair Keri Gallagher, Bart Devine, Adam Guaraldi and Gerard Boissonneault. The Oct. 1 agenda listed accepting Boissonneault’s resignation, a letter of interest from Philip McNamara and the election of officers. The results will appear in the Oct. 1 minutes once they are approved.

At a Sept. 23 special meeting, the commission reviewed a response drafted by the law firm KP Law to an Open Meeting Law complaint from Patrick and Pamela Caffrey over how a Sept. 3 discussion item was listed on the agenda, according to the minutes.

The agent’s report, which carries no votes, lists 18 sites. They include the Chapter 61A land at Thompson and Precinct streets that the commission is buying with a box turtle mitigation grant, according to its March 5 and April 16 minutes, which show the commission working with The Nature Conservancy on that funding. Every hearing on tonight’s agenda cites only the state Wetlands Protection Act. The commission’s June 18 minutes noted that neighboring Lakeville passed its own wetlands bylaw by citizens petition.

Barrella serves on the Middleborough Finance Committee and the Town Manager Search Committee. Neither body has a role in wetlands permitting, state environmental review or the warehouse proposal.