A group of 12 Lexington residents appealed to the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP), asking it to reconsider whether the new high school should be built as currently designed due to wetland impacts.
MassDEP replied, stating it would walk through the Lexington High School property on Aug. 27.
The project team must halt all site work and construction on or near wetlands until MassDEP decides whether Lexington must modify its project design, the state department wrote in its response.
“Because of the work we’re not able to do over the summer, an additional at least $1 million is not avoidable,” Kathleen Lenihan, chair of the School Building Committee (SBC), told the Observer.
The appeal, led by Jim Williams, argues the SBC did not consider alternative plans that avoid building the new high school on wetlands. Williams argued that state law requires the town to demonstrate that no feasible alternative would avoid the impacts. The town must find a way to build a new school without altering wetlands or explain why no alternatives exist, he argued in the appeal he sent to the state department on July 12.
But the SBC did look into other locations and building designs. The group considered 299 vacant parcels in town, investigated 15 further, and decided most were inadequate for the project because they had even greater environmental drawbacks, like being in floodzones, or were too small, the project’s alternative analysis explains.
The project team considered 19 different building designs on the chosen Waltham Street parcel and preferred a design nicknamed, “Bloom,” because it minimizes disruption to students during construction, will take less time to build than other options, results in no net loss of recreational land, and adds almost an acre of playing field to the parcel.
Residents voted in support of a debt exclusion to finance Bloom in December 2025. The design also has the support of the SBC, Permanent Building Committee, Select Board, Town Meeting, state legislature, Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Massachusetts School Building Authority, and Lexington Conservation Commission — subject to its Order of Conditions. In the process of obtaining the Conservation Commission’s approval, the town hired an independent wetlands consultant, Apex, to evaluate Bloom.
Based on findings by Apex and the Conservation Commission, the Conservation Commission’s Order of Conditions requires the project team to protect wetlands on the property by: marking wetland boundaries, preventing sedimentation, replicating nearly 10,000 square feet of wetlands with native vegetation, supervising wetlands with a specialist across three growing seasons, submitting seasonal reports, managing invasive species, repairing any project-induced damage, and following restrictions against dumping, manicured landscaping, unauthorized vegetation removal, and the use of underground storage tanks, chemical fertilizers or pesticides within 100 feet of the wetlands.
But Williams’ appeal argues the Conservation Commission’s Order of Conditions “does not adequately protect either the town’s wetlands or the statutory interests of the Massachusetts Wetlands Protection Act” in his appeal.
He requested MassDEP issue a Superseding Order of Conditions, to replace the Conservation Commission’s Order of Conditions, that would make the SBC modify the design of the new high school so it does not affect the existing wetlands.
Jill Provencal from MassDEP replied on Aug. 7, stating it would visit the property for a “site visit” on Aug. 27 at 10:30 a.m. The purpose of the visit is to “determine if the area is significant to the interests of the [Wetlands Protection] Act and to informally discuss the relevant issues,” she wrote in her response to Williams.
Steve Bartha, Lexington’s town manager, noted that MassDEP’s response to Williams’ appeal is “standard for these appeals” and that “a very small minority of these appeals result in making changes to the local conservation commissions that render these decisions.”
Until MassDEP makes a decision, Lexington’s project team cannot conduct any site work or construction on the wetlands or within 100 feet of them, Jamie Meiser from Turner Construction said during the SBC’s meeting on Aug. 17. In a presentation made by Turner, Meiser noted that the project team can only work in the yellow highlighted area until MassDEP makes a decision.
“What the Jim Williams appeal is doing to the project…is having significant impacts at this point,” Meiser said.
LexObserver asked Williams for comment on how his group’s appeal affects the cost of the project, but he did not reply in time for publication. In the Lexington Discourse Google group, he blames Lexington’s Town Counsel for driving the cost of the project up.
“He is costing the town millions of dollars a week by delaying its resolution, and he has created the possibility that students will not be able to enter a new school in 2029,” Williams wrote. A few residents have replied to Williams, arguing his appeal is what will delay the project and increase its price tag.
If MassDEP gives Lexington a decision by Sept. 1, the pause on construction will cost the town (and therefore taxpayers) between $1 million and $2.5 million in escalation, resequencing, schedule compression, premium time, and shifting more work into winter months.
If MassDEP makes a decision by Oct. 1, between $2.5 million and $5 million will be added to the cost of the project.
And if MassDEP stretches its decision out until Nov. 1, the town will incur even more costs due to stalling, and it won’t be able to open the new high school in time for the 2029 to 2030 school year.
“Once you miss that Oct. 1 [deadline], that whole first semester is gone,” Lenihan told the Observer.
Lexington will have to wait until winter break at the end of 2029 to move into the new building. That means the town will have to maintain and heat both the new and old buildings through the cold months at the end of 2029, Mike Cronin, Lexington’s director of public facilities, added during the SBC.
If the old school has to remain open, it won’t get knocked down on schedule. Therefore, the new fields won’t be built on time, which means the town will have to pay to bus students to off-site fields for sports for longer than originally anticipated.
“[Delaying the opening] would require costs that would not have incurred if we were able to move in,” Cronin said. He spit-balled that those costs could add up to over $12 million.
The town is working with MassDEP to work through this “expeditiously,” Bartha said during this week’s SBC meeting.
“There are serious ramifications down the road, if not immediately, for this,” he said. “DEP has jurisdiction here but time is money.”
Why does it take 3 weeks for MassDEP to visit?
Director of Public Facilities Mike Cronin and the SBC do a lot of “spit-balling” about why a new LHS cannot be built on-site, and as a result has, notwithstanding what the gullible and misinformed LexObserver writes in this story, never been evaluated.
The 9/18/25 SBC public meeting is at https://us06web.zoom.us/rec/play/lT9q4t2Fh-iPhyEqrVWVa7n5GXPREPJZpGinQ-RNCtxnlv8whvVv6j6nmTs5iN_-1j7DO2g00IpHLnf9.Rlh3ZrmQmj5QXwt6?eagerLoadZvaPages=sidemenu.billing.plan_management&accessLevel=meeting&canPlayFromShare=true&from=share_recording_detail&continueMode=true&componentName=rec-play&originRequestUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fus06web.zoom.us%2Frec%2Fshare%2FKI7EcabGaCYvq9LUStkcVMuROag-CATefLG4dzhVrwjrpfj-vo5xsb18QMC7t1Wx.K6AHMwlMQHoO2oQ8.
Listen to 1:05:18 to 1:09:00 (some 4 minutes on how “disruptions kill any on-site design): At 1:05:18 Mike Burton of SMMA shows the slide where “disruptions” were the main reason why phased on-site designs were simply not pursued. When Jim Williams talks, Lorraine (the chief architect) reminds him how the “Bloom train” is down the tracks, unstoppable now. At 1:08:19, Kathleen Lenihan, Chair of the SBC, emphasizes how terrible the “disruptions” would be, so awful that the SBC dismissed any phased project.
Then listen to 1:27:50 to 1:30:00 (“we know how to mitigate”): At 1:27:50 a Turner Construction representative explains how “disruptions” can be handled. At 1:29:41, Mike Cronin explains how at Hastings, “disruptions” were mitigated within just 8 feet from construction and says “we know how to mitigate”.
The LexObserver should not fall for crude “spit-balling” by the SBC, and should never print a headline like the one for this story suggesting that in the interest of saving money, the Town should break the (wetlands) law.
If a resident’s construction project destroyed a wetland, would the LexObserver also suggest that to save the resident money on her project, the resident should be allowed to break the law? That’s that’s the philosophy of Trump and his friends…
Surely the law should require appellants to show at least some likelihood that their appeal has merit before automatically stopping work. People should of course have the right to appeal, but filing an appeal shouldn’t by itself function as an injunction. And if you can’t make a minimal showing of success then let the work continue while the appeal is resolved. Other states do it this way, and I can see why.
And totally agree with the earlier comment wondering why this process is so slow? Just do the visit today! It’s a priority!
I have cosigned the appeal because I strongly believe that “law is the law, and must be applied equally to all.” Allowing the Town to break existing law will establish a very bad precedent – one that everyone should be concerned about. Based on what I understand the law to be, our town is breaking it. Appealing ConCom decisions is our legal right, and the appeal could have been resolved in a timely fashion during the design process.
Jim has kept the Town informed about his concern over the wetlands throughout the process, so an appeal of the ConCom decisions should not have been a surprise. I have been asking from early in 2024 for SBC to clear all obstacles to being able to build in the fields (I was concerned both about ownership, and about disturbing a sensitive water basin with history of serious flooding and many wetlands). I continue to be very concerned about building in a now-expanded FEMA flood zone, altering the wetlands that are currently functioning as designed.
Jim and those who cosigned do not hold the blame for the fact that the legal appeal had to be filed a couple of weeks prior to the planned start of construction. SBC purposefully delayed getting all permits and approvals till ConCom (and opponents) were put in a position of appealing a project that is “too big to fail.” I am not happy that our appeal is costing us all money but please assign blame where it belongs. SBC played politics in making it very unpleasant for anyone to follow a legal process counting on help of public pressure which is currently being applied to us.
Jim spoke at a SB meeting in the fall 2025 (for details see Patrick Merh’s comment) urging them to initiate applications for EEA approvals immediately but, on advice of town counsel, the SB chose to delay the application till the spring.
If getting all permits and approvals for building in the fields was straight forward, than surely the architects would have done it first – they are very smart and good at their job. I have my thought about why they did not do it, but they should be asked directly.
In the meantime, please refrain from assigning me and other Bloom opponents evil intentions. I care deeply about Lexington and want to get the best project for not only Lexington’s students but for the entire community.
Thanks for continuing to stay informed,
Olga Guttag
We know a local media outlet like the Observer operates on a shoestring budget with minimal staffing. But that shouldn’t prevent you from following basic journalism standards. In the above article, everything Jim says is portrayed as his opinion, while everything from the Town’s side is presented as fact.
I was excited when the Observer appeared on the scene. We need an independent media outlet like you here. Please do better than this.
Maggie Scales is an award-winning journalist.
The negative comments about her reporting here – predominantly from those who co-signed the MassDEP appeal – call to mind the saying, “If you can’t attack the argument, attack the person.”
This is not the first time many of these residents have gone directly to state authorities to circumvent the decisions of town officials or voters when they don’t agree with the outcome.
Now, these same residents are costing the town millions of dollars through their appeal. Public sentiment doesn’t seem to regard the claim of environmental concerns as anything more than a flimsy pretext.
I hope that they will discontinue this pattern of personal attacks when others disagree and live with the consequences of this particular appeal.
After all, Lexingtonians – particularly high school students – have had to live with the failure of these same residents to devise an acceptable plan for a new high school in the 30 years since they voted down the 1996 high school debt exclusion.
Elizabeth Warren,
Please do not lump all opponents of Bloom into the same bucket – as you state no need to “attack the person.”
I now speak only for myself. As a consistent opponent of building in the fields from early 2024, I have only participated in processes which gave me the legal recourse to object to SBC’s decisions with which I disagreed. Communicating directly with “state authorities” is not “to circumvent the decisions of town officials or voters.” It is the legal process to follow if a disagreement needed to be resolved. This process is available to every resident and is often utilized by many others in town.
Public sentiment is irrelevant. The fact is that, as per my understanding of the law, the town is behaving illegally. If we allow the government to choose which laws to obey, and which to break for whatever reason, it will greatly undermine our democracy. To me the point of this appeal is to force equal application of existing law.
The criticism that “an acceptable plan for a new high school in the 30 years” has not been developed falls on the shoulders of our elected Town officials (SB, SC) and the committees that advise them (CEC, AC, PBC).
Our appeal regarding the wetlands could have been resolved months ago if PBC, on advice of counsel, did not delay filing for the required permits and approvals until the construction was ready to start. Majority of the quoted costs are related to construction delays – something that could have been avoided if SBC filed for permits and determinations in a timely manner. Their decision to play politics is what is driving up the cost so drastically.
Finally, I have supported all but one debt exclusion since we moved to town in 1984. My one NO vote was against the Bridge remodel since I felt that funding such remodeling was going to deliver an inferior product, when spending $10M more would have given us a far better facility. I felt we should have spend more …
I hope that you do more research on our appeal before you keep attacking us personally.
Thank you,
Olga Guttag
The millions were lost before the appeal was filed.
By choosing to build a new high school on the playing fields the town was required to clear two completely different regulatory hurdles:
1. To build on the fields themselves required convincing the EEA under Article 97 that there was no feasible alternative to doing so.
2. To build in the buffer zone of wetlands required convincing the Lexington Conservation Commission under state wetland law that there was no feasible alternative to doing so.
One can build on the fields or not while avoiding the wetlands, and there are many ways to do so.
Town Counsel Mina Makarious and the Mass Department of Environmental Protection know the difference between these requirements.
The description by the Observer of work done to explore alternatives, keep the public informed, etc., refer to the alternatives analysis for Article 97. The town performed no alternatives analysis whatsoever for the Conservation Commission.
Instead, the town—represented by the project architects SMMA—submitted the irrelevant Article 97 analysis to the commission in its Notice of Intent—under instruction from counsel. The commissioners accepted it without comment because it did not speak to wetland law at all.
When the commission was informed that a wetland alternatives analysis was required, counsel advised the architects that they were not obliged to consider alternatives at all, and told the commissioners the same. Hence the faulty Order of Conditions, and the appeal.
The town will be required to seek alternatives to building in the wetlands.
The EEA’s MEPA office warned the town last October that it needed to protect wetlands. The town has lost nearly a year during which time the Select Board would have required the architects to meet the law. But the board was not informed of the law by town counsel, and so did nothing.
At MassDEP’s site visit on Thursday, August 27, the town, the Conservation Commission, and the appellants will each discuss the law and then informally discuss relevant issues. The appellants have already provided the public with nearly all they will contribute to the discussion—in my letter to the Observer of August 13 and in this comment.