Beech Street Property Study and Potential Costs Due Any Day
A potential cleanup cost for the former Four C's Garage located at the corner of Beech and Spring Streets will be highlighted in a cost analysis report soon to be delivered to the town.
Photo by Keith Kent
A nearly ten foot section of the rear wall of the building is seen soaked in oil leaking into the ground.
Photo by Keith Kent
A long-ongoing neglected eyesore and hazardous property site visible to traffic entering Winchendon's business district, the former Four C's Garage located at 3 Beech Street, bordering both the Millers River and Spring Street Bridge, is nearing its study completion. The town will soon know what it could be on the hook for if it were to accept the property with any potential associated cleanup costs.
The study, which was funded with an End of Year $26,200 transfer from the Finance Committee's Special Reserve Fund Account on June 28 just before the beginning of the 2021-2022 fiscal year at the request of Town Manager Justin Sultzbach, freed up necessary funds for an Engineering and Hazmat study by BETA Group Inc, which to date has completed ground core drilling samples, Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), particulate contamination examinations and assessments, potential total of cleanup costs based on findings, and much more.
Under the same current ownership and undergoing a site study for possible contamination is 11 Beech Street, a heavily dilapidated duplex adjacent to the former 3 Beech Street garage, which has been condemned by the town. Both properties were formerly co-owned by Michael and Bonnie Therrien of Waterboro, Maine, who purchased them in 1989, and are now technically owned by Bonnie Therrien as her husband has since passed. Therrien, who reported to the Town of Wincendon she has insufficient funds to maintain any level of upkeep on either of the properties, previously offered the sites for a purchase price of $1.00 for transfer of ownership. The town declined due to lack of information as to what was in the ground and potentially leaking into the Millers River, until the BETA Group Inc study would potentially yield in its findings.
In its original Limited Subsurface Investigation (LSI), BETA Group Inc discovered the following at the 3 Beech Street 0.223 acre lot.
- The presence of hydraulic lifts with underground oil cylinders, one of which is inoperable and may be leaking;
- Numerous drums, tires, and other potentially hazardous materials, associated with the tenant's business;
- Floor drains which had been filled with concrete but may have been re-activated by the tenant;
- Observed oil emanating from the rear of the building's foundation near the pond. Extent of leakage/staining couldn't be determined due to heavy vegetation of the area;
- Tenant reported the Winchendon DPW encountered "Contamination" for the excavation of a drain line;
- Historic use as an auto repair shop;
- Age of the site buildings indicates possibilities of hazardous building materials;
- Possibility of underground storage tanks, though no evidence (fill or vent pipes) was observed and the tenant said he was not aware of any tanks;
- Tires forming the bank of the pond.
At this time, a small private company has been and continues to operate out of the former Four C's Garage site who, according Town Hall sources, has not paid rent to Therrian in quite some time and has been squatting at the premises. As Therrien informed the town she has not been paid rent and has no money for legal fees the party using the garage premises remains there at this time. The adjacent duplex Therrien also owns was legally condemned and its tenants evicted, and has since remained empty after being boarded up by the town.
In a meeting with the Courier, Sultzbach, as he has many times before, confirmed his belief that the revitalization of Winchendon's business district is extremely important to attract new business and long term tax revenue growth. On Tuesday, September 7, Sultzbach provided the Courier with a tour of the property, conducted with a special temporary license which grants the town permission to enter the premises.
During the tour of the property, it was easily seen just how dire the condition of the building truly is. Elongated stress cracks some twelve feet or more in length, fractures, a large rear section of wall bowed and separating over two inches out, holes in the roof, cement blocks holding down many sections of the old rubber roof, a rear wall drain illegal by today's standards and in decades past, and even a nearly ten foot long section of the back of building where the wall meets the floor slick with oil from many years of leakage.
Along the river bank, as anticipated, tires and large stones form the property edge along the water, hidden by tall grass and bushes where years of soil buildup provided the opportunity for overgrowth. Along all three sides of the building except for the sidewalk side abutting Spring Street, what appeared to be over 100 tires lying above ground lay on the property along with a long disabled ATV and much more. In several spots located to the building's rear, small diameter core test wells are drilled in to the ground to monitor any fluids leaching out to the river. Sultzbach said, "Thankfully BETA Group has informed us that to this point, oils and other chemicals do not seem to be reaching the river yet at this time."
Sultzbach clarified, "We were previously told by BETA Group Inc that report would ready for us in early September, so we are anticipating it any day now. Our goal is once we have the findings, to examine various financial methods and ways the properties could be cleaned up or torn down, and if purchased and cleaned up, the town would have the final say as to what goes in its place, such as a smaller 'pocket style' river front park both on the Lake Street side of Spring Street, and where the garage currently resides. We need to have people understand we need to re-frame the view of entering downtown. You can leave it like it is, or you can agree we need to finally make it better. You can't apply for any kind of project funding unless you know what is in the ground, so this upcoming report is a huge step."
He went on to say, "The important piece from an economic development standpoint, if you want to invest in bringing a business downtown, would you want to see this, or new street lights, granite curbing, hedges and benches, and have a beautiful piece of land people can enjoy and say oh wow, that's downtown Winchendon!, instead of seeing what you see here now and saying, Oh. I guess that's downtown Winchendon."
In closing, Sultzbach said, "The town has heard the call for improvements in the downtown gateways in their Master Plan. As part of that initiative we are looking to partner with the current owner of this parcel to greatly improve the appearance of Winchendon, with the longer term hope and goal that it will provide a path for necessary economic development downtown. There are two important pieces here we are nearing actual numbers on. BETA Group will be telling us the cost of the potential cleanup, and our DPW Director is pricing out what it would cost to raze the current structure and remove it. We are hoping to take these properties by either a gift or PILOT 'Payment in Lieu of Taxes' program, because it would be far more timely than taking the properties by Tax Title which can take years in housing court. If we receive numbers we can potentially work with in the upcoming report, than we could as a town accept the properties in the upcoming November Special Town Meeting by a vote and take a big step forward for the appearance of our town!"
Seen in this photo, one of several test core drill monitor stations allows BETA Group engineers to keep an eye on any fluids which could potentially making their way into the Millers River.
Photo by Keith Kent
In this rear storage room of the garage, both empty and partially filled used waste oil drums are exposed under a leaking section of a partially collapsed roof.
Photo by Keith Kent
Piles and piles of used tires and more, can be seen around three of the four walls of the former garage, and some can even be seen forming a wall in the edge of the ground along the banks of the Millers River and Whitney Pond creating yet another hazmat issue.
Photo by Keith Kent
Winchendon Realizes Significant COVID Viral Increase, Spike to 6.4 Percent Positivity Rate
In what has been significant two-week COVID-19 roller coaster ride which quite possibly has not yet reached its summit, our Town of Winchendon has skyrocketed from 3.89 percent, to 5.23 percent, and now as of the newest Massachusetts Department of Public Health data available as of 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, September 9, reached a 14-day positivity rate of 6.4 percent, calculated from an 860 person testing pool.
With Winchendon hovering at a consistent 50 percent vaccination rate, the number of the unvaccinated persons becoming infected is likely going to trend higher, as upcoming colder fall and winter months will yield less family gatherings outdoors, and more moving inside to close proximity in small quarters.
Locally, the largest north Worcester County Town of Athol, a comparable measuring stick versus Winchendon in population, which had dropped from 3.45 to 2.86 percent last week, this week has risen to 4.4 percent. Percentage-wise this is a large spike for Athol though still comparably lower than Winchendon.
Surrounding the Town of Winchendon to its south and southwest, Templeton rose from 3.26 to 4.27 percent, with its fellow Narragansett School District town of Phillipston dropping from 2.91 to 2.40 percent. To Winchendon's west, the Town of Royalston, which shares public schooling with Athol, also dropped from 1.39 to 1.06 percent. To Winchendon's east, the town of Ashburnham rise slightly from 2.82 to 3.11 percent, with its neighboring and fellow school district member town of Westminster realizing yet another heavy increase, jumping from 6.27 to 7.07 percent, the highest around the area. Finally, the City of Gardner rose from 4.80 to 5.28 percent. The highest positivity test rate of any current municipality within a six town radius is Lunenburg, MA with a 7.15 percent positivity rate, just slightly higher than Westminster.
As of September 4, 2021, Mass DPH documented 4,522,279 persons fully vaccinated in Massachusetts out of its 6.9 million residents. The Mass DPH records 23,858 positive cases to date among those vaccinated people, with 762 cases resulting in hospitalizations, and 162 resulting in deaths. This means, of all who are currently vaccinated, only .005 percent became ill, proving you are far better off being vaccinated. To date, well over 95 percent of all new cases are among those not vaccinated, filling up both hospital beds and emergency room units, as hospitalizations among the fully vaccinated are listed at .002 percent, and cases resulting in deaths among the fully vaccinated are even far lower at 0.004 percent.
The numbers don't lie. Those who are vaccinated are not the ones filling up doctors' offices, hospital beds, and extremely important emergency room beds. There is almost no legitimate excuse at this point not to get vaccinated, if you are not immunocomprimised due to a preexisting condition. Public Health should not be political. This should not be a Republican vs Democrat, or Democrat vs Republican issue. I continue to see nearly endless amounts of false information on multiple social media platforms which all too many sadly find so easy to believe. If vaccinations were responsible for killing hundreds of thousands of people as some smothered in ignorance would have you believe, please get real as there would be no way to hide it. This is not being theatrical, it's telling the numerical cold hard truth, and Winchendon's numbers are unacceptable.
In closing, speaking as the Chair of the Board of Health and not for the board, I ask if you are healthy enough to help break this vicious cycle of ignorance, falsehoods, and fake facts, that you please get vaccinated. Nobody wants to have to go back to wearing masks, especially those of us who stepped up and did what needed to be done. We as a community can't keep throwing gas on the fire, and expect it to burn out. The current vaccinations are our public health emergency extinguishers, and if you already haven't, it's time to get up and pick one up.
Keith Kent
Chair
Board of Health
Town of Winchedon
