On tonight’s Northampton city council agenda is the resolution for holding public forums on the proposed landfill expansion, as well as the amendment as put forth by Councilors Carney and Reckman, to hold public hearings with as of now undetermined rules. In my view it would be interesting to know what those rules are before voting yay or nay on such an amendment.
Mary Serreze, of the Community Radio Hour, has posted a 40 minute audio file of Mayor Mary Clare Higgins’ recent Ward 2 budget briefing as sponsored by mayoral supporter, Ward 2 City Councilor Paul Spector. During her oratory, Higgins stated briefly that the proposed expansion was not about feeding money into the city budget.
If expanding the landfill is not about fiscal issues, what is the moral justification for forcing residents of Northampton to continue stockpiling waste and refuse from 40+ other communities, over the Barnes Aquifer recharge area no less, a water supply for thousands? Clearly if Northampton expeditiously ceased accepting waste from other communities, the existing landfill cell would fill up more slowly, allowing Northampton more time to deliberate its waste disposal needs. This would also force heightened garbage mitigation awareness on the part of thousands of other Pioneer Valley residents with regards to the waste they create, and what should be done with it. Today, dumpster trucks roll into the landfill from the surrounding area depositing who-knows-what onto Northampton property. As well, recycle rates are low according to previous public statements made by Higgins, indicating that material is deposited at the Glendale Road site that could otherwise be re-used. I believe Higgins indicated that Northampton’s recycle rate hovers around 40%. Clearly there is room for improvement by all of us in this regard.
It really remains a bit of a mystery to me as to why Northampton has committed untold resources toward research committed to landfill expansion, but not toward waste removal alternatives. At the very least I think one avenue the city could explore is assembling a landfill citizens advisory committee, comprised of a cross section of city residents and stakeholders. As well, it remains a bit disconcerting to me that many community stakeholders who are generally outspoken about smart growth issues, sustainability, environmental and water preservation, as well as energy conservation and our dependence on foreign oil, remain more or less silent on this matter. Your silence will not protect our water. If you were concerned about Nestle and Montague Plains water or the Russell Biomass power plant, this should concern you too. I argue that this is a neighborhood issue, a city-wide issue, as well as a regional issue.
In the April 24-30, 2008 edition of the Valley Advocate, Northampton landfill engineer Jim Laurila bickers with me in a letter to the editor, over precisely what he meant when he defended a Stantec water assessment report at a state level meeting with the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). Apparently his former employer, Stantec, provided an inaccurate assessment report in 2007 regarding the conditions of the Hannum Brook, which runs adjacent to the existing landfill. Admittedly my quote of his apparent description of part of the Stantec report as, "sloppy" was acquired via a secondary source, from another who attended the state level meeting of the DEP on March 11, 2008. I should have contacted Mr. Laurila for his clarification, and that is my bad. I tender my apologies to Mr. Laurila and Advocate readers for this faux pas.
However, view the video as posted below of Dr. Robert Newton’s assessment of the Stantec Report as delivered to the Easthampton city council recently. While doing so ask yourself why an addendum to their report dated March 10, the day before the DEP meeting, was necessary, also as shown below. Clearly for Stantec to assert that the conditions of the water in the Hannum Brook are improving when in fact they are deteriorating is dubious, if not sloppy.
As transcribed from the addendum below as addressed to Mr. Ned Huntley, Northampton Director Department of Public Works:
"At your request, we are writing this letter to add some clarification to our Decmber 21, 2007 Hannum Brook Evaluation Update report. In our report we stated that the water quality at groundwater monitoring location MW-B has shown gradual improvement since capping of the unlined landfill in 1995. In previous reports we had included this statement as water quality indicator levels had shown some historical improvement. Based on a reexamination of the data, particularly the most recent two sampling dates during 2007, this historical trend has not continued. While the trend for iron concentration until the most recent two sampling rounds had been generally downward, the two most recent sampling events are the two highest recorded since 1995.
For manganese while the highest measured value was in April of 2000, the general trend since the October 2002 sampling round has been slightly upward with a relatively high standard deviation. No trend is discernible from the data set for Total Dissolved Solids: although, as state in the report, the TDS values were measured at concentrations exceeding 200 mg/l prior to the unlined landfill capping. These concentrations over 200 mg/l for TDS have not been reached since the landfill capping. TDS values are well-below the applicable drinking water standard."
Geology Professor Dr. Robert Newton debunks Stantec report before the Easthampton City Council. (I suggest visiting Google Video by clicking the link in the lower right corner of the screen below, for a larger screen when viewing.)
