Termination

Atkins Corner trees on West Street

Two of the least surprising official decisions to emanate from Amherst Town Hall so far this week are--in chronological order--the Select Board's unanimous vote on Monday night to kill the Committee on Homelessness, age four, and this afternoon's decision by the tree warden to allow termination of 15 more trees around Atkins Corner, some of them age 40-something.

Although in this case the Shade Tree Committee voted unanimously not to vote on the permit application because they considered the process a charade. In a previous round their unanimous vote to deny the permit was overruled.

Hwei-Ling Greeney Committee on Homelessness Chair

Since Atkins Corner construction is a state project the town and its committees have no power. So why even bother voting?

Shade Tree Committee. Alan Snow, 2nd from left, Tree Warden

Ah, if only passion was the paramount factor in deciding these controversial cases--a stay of execution would be guaranteed.

Lorax wanted

Big Ol' Oak Tree on West Bay Road

"Yes, I am the Lorax who speaks for the trees, which you seem to be chopping as fast as you please. But I'm also in charge of the brown Bar-ba-loots, who played in the shade in their Bar-ba-loot suits and happily lived eating truffula fruits. Now, thanks to your hacking my trees to the ground, there's not enough truffula fruit to go 'round! "

Twin Oak on West Street

Red Maple on West Street looking up...not so much for this particular tree

Official subpoena leading to a death sentence

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Public Shade Tree Committee

September 13, 4:30 PM - 5:30 PM

First Floor Meeting Room, Town Hall.

PUBLIC HEARING: to review the proposed removal of the following public shade trees: one oak tree on West Bay Rd and one twin oak and one red maple on West St. Tree Warden will post signs on the trees during the weeks of 9/1/11. Trees: a. One oak tree, 28.3" DBH. b. One twin oak tree, 24" & 21" DBH. c. One red maple tree, 18" DBH. Tree locations: a. On the south side of West Bay Rd across from the new addition to Atkins Market. b. On the west side of West St across from Mountain View Cir. c. On the west side of West St across from Mountain View Cir.

I'll be the roundabout (test pilot)

Bad enough when one driver gets confused and tries to use a roundabout still under construction, even worse when the car behind him follows along for the ride.

According to Amherst Police (around 1:00 PM Saturday): "Two vehicles got onto the rotary that is under construction--most likely westbound off Bay Road--and as they exited they nearly caused an accident with the reporting party. One elderly gentleman in a Cadillac. No description of second vehicle."

Let's hope upon completion (sometime next year) the state installs a plethora of signage to mitigate confusion.

Straight line through a round circle

Looks like somebody forgot to go round the UMass roundabout intersection at Eastman Lane/North Pleasant Street. Could have been one of those late Friday/Saturday night kind of things. Let's hope that driver stays away from the two new roundabouts at Atkins Corner when they come on line two years down the road.

I'll be the roundabout...

The roundabout nearest Atkins Market will allow easy access to West Bay Road (and the Market)

Atkins Corner roundabouts are starting to take shape. Although Baltazar Contractors, the low bidder at $6 million, was nowhere to be seen this fine morning as no state jobs are worked the week of July 4th . I guess that is why the project requires two years for completion, although rumor has it they are a few months ahead of schedule.

A water truck is being used for dust mitigation--but not this week

Second Roundabout at Bay Road just below Atkins Market and above Hampshire College

"Call it morning driving thru the sound and in and out the valley."

Solar in South Amherst

Looking east towards new storage facility (in red)

While not nearly as ambitious as the controversial 4.75 megawatt Solar Farm proposed for the towns' old landfill, the solar facility west of the new storage shed at Atkins Farm Market will provide all the power needs of the bustling business and with state and federal governments falling all over themselves to provide tax breaks and grants, probably a cost effective installation as well.

Since no homeowners are within sitelines of the modest installation and it is being constructed on private land not currently used for jogging, dog walking or nesting by a threatened species of tweety bird chances are, unlike the town Solar Farm, it will fly through the permitting process.

Atkins (founded 1887) is one of those rare private sector, for profit, businesses that is Politically Correct enough to easily negotiate the deadly Amherst permitting process, having recently won a coveted beer and wine license from the Amherst Select Board and property tax breaks from Town Meeting.

After all, farms have relied on sunlight forever.



 

One year later it was completed (June, 2012)

Development Tornado

Lincoln Apartments Wednesday 6/8

In addition to the town allowing the clear cutting of trees in the Atkins Corner Road Reconstruction project, our neighbors to the north are also whacking some sizable timber around Lincoln Apartments.

UMass is of course exempt from local oversight, so the Amherst tree warden has no authority--not that he defensively chained himself to any of the trees in South Amherst, now gone like the wind .

Speaking of Atkins Corner, the dirt piles all around Atkins keep getting bigger. I'm told that the town sponsored project in front does have in the contract a "general dust control clause". Let's hope they institute it today, as the temperature once again soars into the high 90s.

Atkins Corner Wednesday 6/8

Before and After (Only the Good Die Young)

Thing One & Thing Two

Death Row Hearing

Thing 1

Thing 2

The Amherst Public Shade Tree Committee's postmortem report

What so proudly we hailed

The town remembered--having forgotten Patriots Day last month--to put up the flags this morning for Memorial Day, one of the six annual days the 29 commemorative flags are allowed to fly. This year, unlike last year, they will also be allowed to fly on 9/11, the tenth anniversary of the worst attack on American soil since the founding of our great nation.

Construction workers never need to be reminded to show respect for our flag

A very unfortunate "compromise"

Standing in the way of progress

A mighty oak stands tall (for now)

Two siblings not far away

Two Maples who will not be very merry

"You're in charge of the last of the Truffula Seeds.

And Truffula Trees are what everyone needs.

Plant a new Truffula. Treat it with care.

Give it clean water. And feed it fresh air.

Grow a forest. Protect it from axes that hack.

Then the Lorax and all of his friends may come back."

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Public Shade Tree Committee

MEETING TIME: May 19th 3:00 pm. LOCATION: First Floor Meeting Room, Town Hall. LIST OF TOPICS: Review April minutes; Tree Warden’s Report; Vote on Atkins Corner Tree Removal; Presentation of New APSTC website; Arbor Day and Faith Planting wrap-up; TreeCity USA Celebration Report. The meeting will be followed at 4:00 PM by a hearing on tree removal for the Atkins Corner project.

Get the lead out!

Contaminated pile looking towards Applewood Retirement Community

UPDATE 9:15 AM: Perhaps the only thing more scary than the following story is the fact that it's probably perfectly legal. My reliable town offical source wants readers to know the Department of Environmental Protection has different "handling requirements of this material from an agricultural by-product use vs. non agricultural."

Of course the way a human body reacts to the presence of the dangerous substances doesn't change depending on whether that exposure was caused by agricultural uses vs. an industrial smelting plant.
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In South Amherst lead and arsenic go together like smoke and fire.

Commercial apple orchards operated by Atkins farms (founded 1887) and original competitor Wentworth farms needed an effective insecticide, easy to apply in bulk, to protect their cash crop. They found it in lead arsenate and used many tons of it over a couple generations until the popular pesticide was banned by the EPA in 1988.

Today these old apple orchards still contain the hazardous chemical cocktail bonded to the soil. Recently controversy arose when the town cut a deal with Baltazar Contractors, who won the $6,060,220 bid to construct two Atkins corner roundabouts, to dispose of 6,000 tons of lead arsenic contaminated soil in the old landfill for a tidy six-figure sum in dump fees, which the town would then cover over with three feet of clean fill to satisfy a DEP order to regrade the sagging landfill cap.

Neighbors--already mobilized to fight a 4.75 megawatt solar array farm at the site (which requires a level terrain)--complained bitterly about the contaminated soil coming to their backyards, and even though the DEP deemed it safe (with many conditions attached), the town scuttled plans to accept it in the landfill, thus leaving the dirt in uncovered piles adjacent to one of the busiest businesses in Amherst.

Sovereign Builders is concurrently constructing a spacious warehouse for Atkins immediately behind the popular store, which is of course located in an old orchard. I took a soil sample (one of three) from the large uncovered pile of dirt that this private sector project has generated off West Bay Road currently towering over the landscape only a couple yards from Atkins Market and Applewood Retirement Community (built on 10 acres of former apple orchard.)

The UMass Soil and Plant Tissue Testing Lab found 427 ppm lead in the pile; unfortunately they do not not screen for arsenic. Lead arsenate contains one atom of aresenic for every atom of lead, and as an atom of lead is 2.8 times as heavy as an atom of arsenic, if only lead arsenate is present, a soil containing 427 ppm of lead will contain 153 ppm of arsenic. Arsenic levels above 20 ppm are a cause for concern.

According to the town the known contaminated soil from the road roundabout reconstruction project tested at 46 milligrams/kilogram for arsenic, and if my sample is from the same batch, 273 ppm for lead.

Twenty years ago when Applewood was constructed on a former Atkins orchard the excavated soil was taken to an expensive special handling facility, as was soil from the Eric Carle Museum construction project ten years ago.

Even if no arsenic is present (and that seems unlikely) the lead content alone requires special attention and handling. According to the UMass soil lab "If estimated total lead levels are above 300 ppm, young children and pregnant woman should avoid soil contact."

And with hot, dry, windy summer weather fast approaching, one large pile of bare dirt could send contaminated dust blowing in the wind.

Contaminated pile looking toward Atkins Country Market

UMass Soil Lab analysis ( see "Atkins Hill" sample)

Roundabout construction in front of Atkins Market
lead tested at 273 ppm (low)

UPDATED Friday the 13th: the hill is getting B-I-G-G-E-R

DEP guidance on landfill regrading

Amherst Solar Farm meets Jerry Springer show!

The only thing missing among the crowd who jammed the town's solar farm public forum Wednesday night was bullhorns, pitchforks and torches. Perhaps a better headline would be: "When NIMBYs attack."

Yes amazingly enough these restless natives who purchases expensive homes next to an old unlined landfill are worried a commercial solar array will ruin their property values. After all, real estate agents promised them the landfill would remain open space for 99 years. And if you can't trust real estate agents who can you trust? Used car salesmen perhaps?

The complaints aired ran the typical gambit: noise, visual pollution, losing open space to walk the dog and go sledding, turning the neighborhood into another "Love Canal" and--my favorite--Russia dealing with Chernobyl compared to the way Amherst town government is now going about the process. Yikes!

Kind of far fetched to claim the solar array will cause damage to the landfill cap when DEP will have to approved it after exhaustive study and the expert the town is partnering with, John DeVillars is a former New England Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

A couple years ago Town Meeting was going to award Guilford Mooring "Mr. Congeniality" for his patient, good natured, humorous way of presenting DPW issues to that legislative body. So for him going Postal, says a lot...

Voter poll on Localocracy (looking like a landslide)

The Daily Collegian reports

Dark clouds on the Solar Farm horizon?

DEP requires Amherst to regrade undulations at old landfill

Dave Keenan, a long-time thorn in town officials side, although once a town official himself, is baaaaaack.

Now he's lobbing a stink bomb into the middle of Amherst public officials picnic over turning our old abandoned landfill into a cash cow solar array farm that will produce enough renewable energy to supply all municipal needs, saving the town almost $1 million per year in electricity costs, and pay up to a couple hundred thousand dollars annually in property taxes.

Government tax incentives have stimulated these sunny public/private partnerships springing up nationwide like weeds after a summer rain. And it's not as though old landfills are good for much else.

Mr Keenan blew the whistle to his old acquaintances at the Department of Environmental Protection claiming three retired DPW workers told him about 20-30 barrels of hazardous wastes--allegedly lead based paint from UMass-- they were ordered to bury back in the 1980s.

While I cannot corroborate that particular story, I can verify first hand that hazardous materials were indeed tossed into the smelly pit. Yes, I admit it; 50 years ago my dad and I threw old paint, solvents, dirty motor oil, leftover cleaning products, insecticides, fertilizers, outdated medicines, etc. As did most of the citizens of bucolic Amherst.

To say there are hazardous wastes buried in the old landfill is like declaring there's bear dung in the woods of Maine. That's why the town spent a considerable amount to cap the site with an impermeable protective cover: to keep water from mixing with the dangerous contents and forming a hazardous cocktail that could could migrate downstream. Monitoring sites were also installed to test for that scenario and a system to handle methane gas.

But after 20 Years of fermentation the contents down under have settled causing the cap to sag in spots, allowing pools of water to form on the surface. The DEP ordered the town to fill in the depressions and regrade the site to its original aircraft carrier flatness--all without disturbing the cap of course. As you can imagine, that is a tad expensive.

Fortunately the town is in the middle of a road construction boom. The Atkins corner project, with two roundabouts coming soon, has already generated massive amounts of dirt. Only one slight problem: 6,000 tons of it is contaminated with lead arsenate, a common insecticide used on apples orchards between 1892 and the early 1970s when it was banned by the EPA.



The contractor can either spend a fortune hauling the contaminated soil to a special handling facility or bring it to the old landfill to use as fill for DEP required site remediation. Everybody saves a ton of money. The DEP approved the idea, but will require a three foot layer of non-polluted soil to cover the contaminated soil and numerous other safety precautions.

But every cloud does indeed have a silver lining. If a project--like the Bluewave Captital Solar panel farm on the old landfill--is "part of a site remediation or restoration under a Mass/DEP enforcement action/order" it is eligible for "fast track status" when negotiating the local permitting process.

And while the long-term contract with Bluewave will have to be approved by town meeting it will only require a simple majority vote, unlike a zoning change that requires two thirds.

Who says money doesn't fall from the sky? Now it will--whenever the sun is shining.



Christmas '07: After the town took Dave Keenan's humble abode for $50,000 in back taxes he camped out in his former front yard. DEP fines for ten years procrastination cleaning up an oil spill also amounted to $30,000. Mr. Keenan eventually repaid Amherst over $63,000 in back taxes and legal fees.

Business West profiles the Amherst Solar farm

Atkins Corner road project inches forward

Baltazar Contractors Inc. out of Ludlow, Mass is the low bidder at $6,006,220. The Town has $7 million in Other People's Money to get the job done. And the state--who is overseeing the project--will accept or reject the bid over the next 30 days.

Since the highway realignment project has been talked about since World War 2 ended, what's another 30 days?

If the bid is accepted the project--that includes two roundabouts--will take two years to complete.

Not to mention that other $275,000

So if you watch our illustrious town leaders, otherwise known as the Chair of the Select Board and the Town Manager you would think the only thing given Atkins Country Market (a perennial top-ten employer in town) for a little bit of land required to complete a huge, expensive infrastructure improvement project in their front yard was this modest property tax break: $79,000 over the next ten years.

Of course the Select Board just a few months back approved the last beer-and-wine license in town to Atkins (a somewhat low-cost license to mint money.) And the town is also currently in the process of giving them another $275,000: $258,000 worth of paving to their private parking lot courtesy of the DPW, plus $17,000 in cash.

Umm, must have just slipped their minds.

Long overdue makeover

So after 20 years of discussion the Atkins Corner $4.6 million roadway project has actually begun. Just in time too, as the Amherst Select Board recently granted Atkins Farms Country Market a beer/wine permit.

Show me the money!

Click to enlarge/read but not if you are the PVPC guy.

So I often wonder about how effective orchestrated letter writing or mass email campaigns are when the target of such stunts may actually see the media story encouraging folks to complain.

After Town Meeting gave Atkins Farm Market a tax break for new construction and over $200,000 in paving via the DPW for a land swap it now looks like the Federal money may not be forthcoming. Seems like Amherst is certainly not getting its share of stimulus.

And in North Amherst business mogul Paul Jones is asking folks to write to the Amherst Postmaster to complain about the North Amherst Post Office closing even though it is not scheduled to close (considering Mr. Jones has rented to them for a generation or two apparently he's not taking chances.)

Although I'm sure the Postmaster will appreciate the use of first class stamps.

The Bully reports: