Update from Lara Stone
FEBRUARY 2015
Harbor
It's my first update of 2015 so I guess I still get to say, Happy New Year. We have logged some unprecedented snow accumulation and cold temperatures this winter. Let me acknowledge the hard-working town employees who keep our streets clear and our residents safe during these storms. In speaking with our Director of Public Works, David Hickox, last week, I learned that he and Paul Pacheco attended a snow removal conference six months ago. Kudos to them for planning for and purchasing new salt brine solution and plowing/distribution equipment. Our primary and secondary roads are cleared long before surrounding communities that did not plan in the same ways. We are considered a best practices community in the State.

It is moments like this that I realize why the last six years have been so rewarding-- I have never stopped learning in this leadership role. I'm grateful for the opportunity to have served our community and all of you. I think most of you receiving this email know I will not be continuing beyond April 7. My work over the next 6-7 weeks will be to wrap up important projects and to begin to hammer out the next budget priorities before the next Town Meeting.

A great friend and former work colleague Kate Fentress is running for my seat and has my support. If you would like more information about her check out her website: www.electkatefentress.org.. Join us at Rachel's Lakeside on Thursday, Feb. 26 from 5-7 PM to hear more about her ideas for Dartmouth!    

TOWN HALL RE-DESIGN
We have called a Special Town Meeting for Monday, March 2 to review (4) warrant articles. Three relate to utility or public works projects. The remaining article seeks funding for the renovation of the 3rd floor of Town Hall. The renovation project would allow for the co-location of land use/development service functions at Town Hall. For six years, I've hoped we would take a more progressive approach to customer service. This is our chance. I'm pleased that the Department Chairs have worked closely with one another and the consultant to come up with a creative approach to housing our Community Development efforts for a one-time expense of $350,000.

Why do this?

The reconfiguration of space allows for more coordination among departments and staff. The new layout has a common u-shaped counter that would provide a much more convenient way for the public to access  the Planning Department, Building Department, Zoning Board, Conservation, Health, Animal Control and the Development Departments. Long-term cost-savings through efficient use of staff and space makes sense. The cost of renovating town hall works out to be $48/sq foot. If we had to build a new building (unlikely given all other pressing priorities) would be $450/square foot. If you want to see the plans or review more information click here.

POLICE STATION
The more permanent temporary structures have been erected in the back parking lot behind the existing station. These buildings were up by mid-January and house operations for the Dartmouth Police Department. Final utility upgrades are not complete but should be shortly. The Police Station Review Committee analyzing possible long-term solutions continues to meet every Tuesday.

No recommendations have been made yet about keeping the existing building and renovating vs. selecting a new site and building a new building. This is an important priority for our community and needs careful deliberation. Either solution will require considerable resources and will likely require a debt-exclusion override for tax-payers.

CECIL SMITH LANDFILL UPDATE
The following outlines the Select Board's concerns WITH THE PROPOSED USE OF CONTAMINATED SOILS IN THE CLOSURE OF THE CECIL SMITH LANDFILL. We are in complete opposition to the proposed plan and have expressed this to the DEP and Governor Baker. More details can be found on the Town's website.

There is presently in Dartmouth an inactive, unlined landfill that is owned by Mary Robinson, and that is commonly known as the Cecil Smith Landfill.
  1. Pursuant to Section 23 of Chapter 153 of the Acts of 1992, unlined landfills are no longer allowed to accept solid waste.
  2. The Landfill is located in a residential neighborhood and abuts wetland resource areas that feed an important drinking-water aquifer
  3. The Landfill is an old site that has not been in operation in decades.
  4. Recent testing of the Landfill shows negligible, if any, ongoing contamination due to the prior unlined landfilling activity.
  5. There is no public health or environmental need for the closure of this old site.
  6. The sole reason that the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection intends to oversee the closure of this site at this late juncture is because it provides a convenient outlet for the relocation of huge quantities of unsafe contaminated soil from Boston and other urban redevelopment areas.
DEP intends to allow Boston Environmental Corporation to dump over a million cubic yards of this contaminated soil at the Landfill, as part of the alleged closure of that site.
  1. This "closure" would increase the height of this supposedly inactive Landfill by at least 65 feet.
  2. This "closure" would require the active operation of the Landfill for at least 3 years, with dozens of trucks full of contaminated soil arriving daily.
DEP's COMM-97 Policy allows "reused" soil at inactive, unlined landfills to have contaminant levels that greatly exceed the maximum levels that its own Office of Research and Standards concluded were safe for public health and the environment.
  1. Arsenic is allowed at over three times the concentration that would cause an unacceptable cancer risk. In fact, arsenic is allowed at twice the concentration at which DEP normally requires arsenic-contaminated soil to be removed from residential and aquifer areas.
  2. Lead is allowed at five times the concentration at which DEP normally requires lead-contaminated soil to be removed from residential and aquifer areas.
  3. Hexavalent Chromium (of Erin Brockovich fame) is allowed at over ten times the concentration that would cause unacceptable cancer risk. It is also allowed at ten times the concentration at which DEP normally requires hexavalent chromium-contaminated soil to be removed from residential and aquifer areas.
  4. In applying the same arsenic and hexavalent chromium concentration standards for the "reuse" of contaminated soil at unlined landfills that it originally had allowed only at lined landfills, DEP explicitly and purposefully ignored issues of metals solubility that would only effect unlined landfills.
  5. DEP specifically has admitted that health and environmental safety concerns were not the only factors in determining the contaminant concentration standards in the COMM-97 policy.
  6. While DEP regularly updates the maximum allowed concentrations for soil contamination in residential and aquifer areas (called the RCS-1 standard), it has not updated the COMM-97 Policy since its creation over 17 years ago.
Ironically and disturbingly, if native soil in the neighborhood of the Landfill is contaminated to the level that is permitted under the COMM-97 for "reuse" at the Landfill, DEP would require the removal of that soil.

In 2001, DEP created an inactive, unlined landfill closure policy that directly contravened its own regulations.
  1. DEP needed to find a solution to the contaminated soils problem that rapid urban redevelopment was creating. That solution was to allow the closure of inactive, unlined landfills regardless of whether such closure was needed from a health and environmental perspective.
  2. DEP regulations state that the extent of landfill closure activities should be based upon site-specific conditions and testing.However, while DEP has admitted that not all old, inactive, unlined landfills need a formal closure, it still requires them to undergo such closures anyway as a means of disposing of contaminated soils.
  3. In fact, DEP allows the dumping of the contaminated soils to begin even before final testing of the inactive, unlined landfill has been completed, reiterating that the actual health and environmental risk from the site is irrelevant to the true purpose of its closure.
  4. Moreover, the contaminated soils solution was to allow the scope of inactive, unlined landfill closures to greatly exceed any engineering safety requirements. DEP allows the landfill owner's contractor to bring in enough contaminated soil to pay for the cost of the closure and allow itself a profit. This contractor accepts a fee from development sites for the disposal of these contaminated soils.
  5. The excess, revenue- and profit-generating soils that are not needed in order to ensure proper minimum-safe grade for the site actually constitute an illegal expansion and reactivation of the inactive, unlined landfill.
  6. In crafting this 2001 unlined landfill closure policy, DEP explicitly ignored the repeated concerns of its own staff that the policy violated DEP's own regulations.
PADANARAM VILLAGE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

I'm pleased to report that three separate parcels have sold in Padanaram Village. Will Millbury (current location), Per Lofberg (former Santos property) and Jordan Hicks (former Bridge Street Cafe) have all purchased properties and intend to maintain or improve them if they have been vacant.  

 

The Town of Dartmouth has been selected by Northeastern University as a Senior Capstone Design project through their Engineering College. Ironically, in my role as the Director of Development for UMass Dartmouth, I secure capstone projects for our engineering students. Many sponsored projects at UMass Dartmouth have a $5,000 per project cost (in some cases such as Brigham Young University clients pay $20,000 a project to be chosen and there is a several year wait list). We are lucky to be selected! UMass Dartmouth students have, for example, developed patent-application worthy solutions for NASA. The Northeastern professor and teams of students have worked with other communities such as Mansfield and Nantucket.

 

Town staff will be coordinating work with the Northeastern team and their Doctorate Professor, who worked in industry for many years, will be professionally advising the team. As private development is commencing the Town will work closely to coordinate the infrastructure roadways, sidewalks, utilities and planning side of things. If you have ideas, please be sure to share them with me and I will forward to the Padanaram Business Association.. Last year the Town convened a public charrette with the help of a hired consultant. We will be sure that that this important information is not lost and is shared with the Northeastern Team.