Citizens Pack BOS Meeting in Beals Auditorium Looking for Answers about W.L. French Landfill Capping on River Street
More than 50 people packed the Beals Memorial Library's second floor auditorium for the Board of Selectmen's meeting on Monday, February 26, which was moved to that venue due to set-up for early Primary election voting in the Town Hall auditorium this week. Because of the change in location, the meeting could not be live-broadcast, but it was recorded and is now available for viewing on Winchendon TV. Representatives from W.L. French and Civil & Environmental Consultants Inc. (CEC) were in attendance to give a presentation on the project at 580 River Street and answer questions from the public.
Complicating the discussion is the fact that there are two separate projects underway at the property. The first is the ongoing gravel mining and earth removal operation which has been running on the property for decades. The second is the much more recent operation to cap the landfill on the site, which has also been ongoing for decades and was ordered to be capped by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (Mass DEP) prior to 2020. It is the capping operation which has intensified activity at the site and created concerns and questions for residents.
While not a formal hearing, a group of citizens, some of whom identify themselves as the Committee for Conservative Action, had requested to speak to the Board of Selectmen (as any citizen may do) and had been placed on the agenda.
Board Chair Audrey LaBrie began the dicussion by asking Department of Public Works Director Brian Croteau to explain the background of the project.
Mr. Croteau said he had been looking into a lot of the past paperwork and history of the Mabardy landfill site and he "understood a lot better" what was going on. In 1976, he explained, the owners put in an application to Mass DEP to operate a landfill on the property, which had been used as a gravel and sand mining facility going back to before the 1950s. The Winchendon Board of Health permitted the site as a landfill in 1976, and installed groundwater monitors to test the groundwater and surface water twice a year. This is required for all landfills, including the town's former municipal landfill at the transfer station, Mr. Croteau explained.
Mr. Croteau also emphasized that the site had two different permits for two completely different operations: the sand and gravel mining part and the old landfill part. Because the sand and gravel pit was established before the area was zoned in 1958, it's grandfathered in now. Its permit is renewed every ten years. In 1994, the town tried to issue an injunction and stop the sand and gravel mining. The owners took the town to Worcester Superior Court, and the town's motion was denied because the operation was protected by the grandfather clause. Meanwhile, the material being brought to the landfill operation that began in 1976 was a wholly different matter.
Mr. Croteau went on, "The other factor is that the material that's being brought in, which W.L. French's engineers that oversee this project are going to explain exactly what the material is, because because I think that it's important for everyone to understand what's coming into this facility [now]. There's been site restrictions in place, that the material all comes comes from commercial sites from within Massachusetts. This material's piled on a job site and every 500 yards has to go to a certified laboratory which is conducted by a licensed LSP* to make sure that the material that is brought in is not above the thresholds allowed by Mass DEP."
(* LSP = Licensed Site Professional, "an environmental scientist or engineer experienced in the cleanup of oil and hazardous material contamination" (Mass.gov). See https://www.lspa.org/)
Mr. Croteau said that the materials brought in are only allowed to have half the levels of "what they call contaminants" that a lined landfill would have. The material is intended to shape the landfill in a way that moves water away from the existing landfill and into retention ponds. There is a bond to ensure that if the current companies can't finish the job for any reason, funding is there to pay another contractor to complete the capping. It's very important that this be done.
"What's important to understand is that the stuff that is being covered right now is a lot worse than the stuff that's been brought in," Mr. Croteau said. "Right now they're shaping, and then they put a membrane on top so the water can't penetrate and push the stuff out. Then there's a whole top."
Mr. Croteau said that the site was permitted for 75 trucks a day, counting both operations. The same trucks going in with fill are coming out hauling gravel and sand, he said. He explained that last November, he asked W.L. French to pave the access road into the interior of the site to reduce the amount of dirt being tracked onto River Street (which was considerable), and to start using the wheel washing station to clean earth and dirt off the truck tires before they left the site and got onto the roads. W.L. French also has to sweep the street twice a day, or more often if there is a call from a resident about dirt on the road.
Following Mr. Croteau's introduction, two representatives from CEC--civil engineer Kyle Hampton, project manager, and Jon Kitchen--came to the mic with a Powerpoint presentation about the landfill capping operation. Mr. Hampton showed slides with aerial views of the property, photos of the kind of material was deposited in the old landfill that now needed to be enclosed and capped, and a diagram of the different layers of the cap itself. These include a minimum of 8 inches of topsoil, with planted vegetation, 12 inches of sand, and 6 inches of bedding over the grading and shaping materials. An impermeable layer of 40 ml HDPE material is placed between the sand and bedding layers to prevent water reaching the capped landfill contents.
Mr. Hampton showed a slide with locations of test pits dug around the site, supervised by Mass DEP, to establish the limits of the old landfill dumping area so they could be sure they were capping it all. A series of pits were dug in 2018 and a further series of pits were dug in November, 2022. Another slide included photos of the waste found in the test pits that must be enclosed.
Mr. Hampton stated that as of this January, about 70 percent of the total fill material needed for the capping had been brought in, with completion estimated to be in summer, 2025.
Mr. Hampton then turned the mic over to his colleague Mr. Kitchen, an LSP for the Boston office of CEC, who is responsible for monitoring and oversight.
Mr. Kitchen began by assuring residents that the soil being brought in is definitely tested. "I think it's worth describing the process a little bit, so that folks can understand where it comes from." He explained that whenever a construction job is done, "a new town hall or a new school or something like that," foundations have to be dug and the project ends up with a lot of displaced excess soil that needs to be put someplace. So the project manager has to get in touch with a licensed company that can test the soil and determine where it needs to be placed for disposal. When it's cleared to go to a landfill, the town engineer then approves the material. When it gets to the site, the material is subject to routine environmental monitoring, including ground water, surface water, and soil gas monitoring. All this is reported to the town.
After Mr. Kitchen concluded, Ms. LaBrie opened the floor to questions from citizens. The Courier asked if the slides would be posted for the public on the town website, and was told yes, although they had not been posted by press time.
Resident David Watkins then rose to ask if all the property lines had been checked. He stated that there should be a complete survey done of every abuttor's property lines, with actual reference to the markers and so on. He felt that the site was likely to be encroaching on its neighbors. "You can't possibly know without a field survey, without stakes that go all the way along," he said. "So somebody has to pay for that." He also brought up the dirt being tracked out of the site and the tire washing that was promised. Trucks were driving in and driving across this "pit" and driving out with dirty tires. He also mentioned trees that had been taken down which appeared to be on neighboring property.
A resident named Judith who described herself as "one of the largest abuttors" to the site rose to ask about oversight of the project by the town, which was stipulated by the permit. There should have been daily inspections of the trucks, but citizens didn't have access to the reports. She stated that the tire washing station had not been connected, and that trees should have been replanted.
Mr. Croteau responded the initially the town wasn't licensed to do the inspections, and Tighe & Bond had handled that. As of last December, the town engineer had begun doing the inspections. The town is billing W.L. French $37,000 per year for site inspections. The town gets reports for every load saying where the material is coming from and what the testing results are.
Mr. Croteau also said that he had talked with Mass DEP that day and site inspections were going to be increased, as a result of the number of calls from citizens with concerns about this operation. He also stated that testing on the site would continue for at least 30 years after the capping was completed. "So it's protecting the residents, because at the end of the day, W.L. French or CEC or the Town of Winchendon doesn't want this stuff getting into the waters. The whole goal of this is to cap it so it can't get out." As far as the trees taken down within wetlands were concerned, W.L. French would have a deadline to replant trees and a fine per day for non-compliance.
Land Use and Planning Coordinator Nicole Roberts explained that trees could not be replanted last summer because it was so wet and rainy, the new trees would simply have died.
Ms. LaBrie asked Mr. Croteau if the reports could be made available and he said that he could "pull them together" and link them from the town Planning & Development web page.
Several residents raised serious concerns about the blasting that has been going on in recent months. This appears to be related to the sand and gravel operation and not the landfill capping project. Residents rose to tell stories of cracks in their foundations and other damage. A resident rose to say that he is a combat veteran and the blasting noise "messes him up." He would like advance notice so that he can be someplace else when the blasting takes place.
Abuttor Frank Allen rose to say that he understands the capping needs to be done, but "We have some trust issues. The trust issues unfortunately are with branches in the town. I believe really right now it's my biggest concern is with the town and how this actually even came about and what we should do about it tonight. You need to know some of the details, which are about first of all, when this came about we were informed but after the decisions were made by the Town Manager and the Board of Selectmen...the DEP has an interest to bring their dirt here, okay. They're not our friend. The DEP is not our friend. They need to get rid of this material that's all over the state. There are other towns that have said 'hit the road.' Has anybody done the case study with the other towns before this was decided to bring in here? Anybody look into South Hadley, Chelmsford, the town of Dartmouth, and the lawsuits that are going on there with the town of Dartmouth saying, you're not even gonna drive these trucks through our town. There were studies done by the Boston University School of Health. I have these studies, they are horrible." He questioned whether the testing being done on large trailers would effectively find all the contaminants that might be in the soil.
Mr. Allen went on to say that they can't trust the state and the town needs to take on testing. The soil is being dumped in a mound so high it's above the treeline, and "is blowing through our back yards and it is airborne." The town needs to be doing more to protect its citizens because they can't trust the state or the contractors paying for the testing.
There were nearly two full hours of comments, most of which stressed the same concerns repeatedly: just how toxic the soil being used for the capping, defined as "COMM 97" material, really is and what its effect could be, the quality of life issues for abuttors and the rest of town as trucks traveled down main roads to reach the site, and accountability. A couple of residents rose to scold two representatives of W.L. French who were there, Jarrett Everton and Joe McManus. They are both local residents, and as Mr. Allen said, "they're just doing their jobs." When a commentor started to talk about cases against W.L. French, Ms. LaBrie broke in and stopped them.
Other close abuttors to the site described not being able to open their windows, use their air conditioners or use their back patios and yards since the capping operation went into full swing. Their houses were always full of dust. "What happened to our buffer?" one resident asked--the required stretch of treed land dividing residences from the cleared and active work space. They stated they can see the whole work area from their windows because the trees have been cut down. It was also noted that 580 River Street LLC has purchased more large parcels of land around the current site.
A resident offered a flash drive with photos taken by GPS satellite showing the change in the site from 2018 to the present, but was not able to display them to the audience due to uncooperative technology. He had printouts for the Board. He described the photos as showing the expansion of the work zone and the amount of trees that were taken down in that space of time.
There was some discussion of problems with the truck drivers. One resident stated that a specific W.L. French driver honks his horn at 7:30 a.m. every morning, apparently saluting someone he knows. Other speakers described near-collisions with trucks that weren't taking care with turns. The W.L. French representatives promised to talk to their drivers.
In response to Mr. Allen, Board member Barbara Anderson urged concerned citizens to watch the video of the October 7, 2019 BOS meeting in which the capping project was approved. There was not a single resident present at that meeting to voice any concerns, she said. That video may be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgsuEtjw9EA. The minutes of that meeting may be found at https://www.townofwinchendon.com/sites/g/files/vyhlif8401/f/minutes/bos_minutes_10.7.19_-_approved.pdf (the Mabardy landfill discussion begins on page 2, at the bottom).
Treasurer Goldberg Announces Latest Release of Unclaimed Property Listings
Over 50,000 Names Added to Unclaimed Property List since August
BOSTON - Massachusetts State Treasurer Deborah B. Goldberg has announced the latest grouping of names added to the state's list of unclaimed property owners. Over 50,000 new properties worth millions of dollars are owed to individuals and businesses throughout the Commonwealth.
"Did you know there is $3.4 billion in unclaimed property here in Massachusetts? 1 in 10 people in this state are owed money and one of them could be you," said Treasurer Deborah B. Goldberg. "So check the list, go online, or call our office to search for your name and begin the process today."
Unclaimed property includes forgotten savings and checking accounts, un-cashed checks, insurance policy proceeds, stocks, dividends, and the contents of unattended safe deposit boxes. Most accounts are considered abandoned and are turned over to the state after three years of inactivity. Last year, Treasury processed over 145,000 claims and returned $185 million in property to its rightful owners.
This newly released list includes only individuals and businesses with unclaimed property over $100. Treasurer Goldberg urges all citizens to check the comprehensive list for all amounts at www.findmassmoney.gov or call our live call center at 1-888-344-MASS (6277).
The full list of the new individuals and businesses added to the unclaimed property list will be published in the Boston Globe on March 3 and in the Boston Herald on March 10. In addition, the list of names will be published in over 30 regional and local papers in following weeks.
The Treasury releases an updated list of unclaimed property assets every six months as the new accounts are turned over to the Commonwealth. There is no time limit for a person to claim this property and, in many cases, claimants will receive interest.
