Solar Shoot Out

Today's Amherst Bulletin half-page political ad

Monday's Amherst Town Meeting is shaping up to be an ultra-modern shootout at the OK corral where combatants carry Star Trek phasers instead of six shooters.

NIMBYs fire off a half-page ad selectively quoting from a NIMBY website that selectively cherry picks facts from oceans of Department of Environmental Protection required data, but still doesn't endorse the expensive sky-is-falling ad; and the town quickly (and cheaply) responds with a full spread of photon torpedoes via the main page of the official town website, normally a place where people go to figure out how to pay parking tickets.

While the old unlined landfill these folks bought expensive homes around certainly does produce lots of leachate--especially when it rains--that fluid is not exactly a toxic green goo oozing towards the town water supply. If you try to reuse a teabag for your fifth cup of tea, the results will be mighty disappointing.

All the groundwater monitor wells (28) around the old landfill fail to show contamination beyond a few chemicals and even then only in traces and it flows in the opposite direction from the municipal water supply over a mile away. Plus the methane/sulfur gas detectors (9) stationed around the perimeter all test completely negative.

In fact, the most recent DEP report to the town (2010) clearly states in bold letters: "Groundwater does not flow towards the Lawrence Swamp public water supply wells, which are located over one mile to the south/southeast." And if that is not clear enough, they boldly sum it up: "The qualitative risk assessment concluded that there were no significant risks to human health or public safety posed by the landfill."

The main reason the town is under orders from the DEP to regrade the cap is because the contents have settled, causing the cap to sag from a lack of support from down below allowing rain water to pool in places. Thus the regrading will help with water runoff and will most certainly aid in reducing leachate production.

But that is not what conflicted neighbors will unleash on Town Meeting Monday night. Instead, a doomsday scenario that could pass for a science fiction disaster movie trailer. YouTube here they come.

Old landfill (note gas detection pipes)

Good Luck UMass Grads

A double first: Friday evening graduation, on a Friday-the-13th.

Can you hear me now?

Yes folks Google Blogger has been down for 36 hours or so leaving millions of us busybodies, err, bloggers, in the lurch. But since they don't charge for their incredibly useful service I'm not going to complain. I liked the comment a few hours ago on a news website from an Anon saying "I was going to blog about it but then realized I'm on blogger."

After all, if a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to blog it then, indeed, it does not make a sound.

(And yes, I lost two posts and the saved drafts were early stage)

Dogs will be dogs

Ten years ago when horses escaped from Muddy Brook Farm and took to the streets, animal welfare officer Carol Hepburn safely rounded them up. Owner Barry Roberts sent her a $50 restaurant gift certificate as a thank you but police chief Charlie Sherpa suggested she return it to avoid the appearance of an ethics violation. A minor loss considering an idea was born.

Ms Hepburn set up a tax deductible account care of the town of Amherst with all monies put towards capital items that benefits animals. Last week she installed this year's purchase which makes life easier for dog owners and the general public who share green space with those dogs.

The compact commercial quality receptacles dispense biodegradable bags for convenient pick up and storage of dog waste. The units, costing $229 each, were installed last week at Groff Park, Puffers Pond, Wentworth Farm, Mill River recreation, and Amethyst Brook conservation area.

Amherst Animal Control officer Carol Hepburn

They have secrets (and want to keep them)

Supervisor of Records
Office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth
McCormack Building, Room 1719
One Ashburton Place
Boston, MA 02108
5/9/2011

Dear Mr. Cote,
I wish to appeal the recent decision by the Amherst public Schools denying my documents request for separation agreements with (now former) employees that cost local taxpayers tens (possibly hundreds) of thousands of dollars.

Months earlier I made the same request of the Town Manager and Amherst Select Board (town employees are legally separate from school employees) which town officials initially balked at providing, but town attorney Joel Bard ruled the request fell within the parameters of public documents law and I was reluctantly provided the material--some of it potentially embarrassing.

I also find it odd that the schools would turn over the settlement agreement of former Superintendent Alberto Rodriguez but none of the others (and at this point I have no idea how many others exist.) It only takes one white crow to disprove the theory all crows are black.

And if all of the other settlements agreements are the result of internal discipline regarding the performance of a school teacher and as such is "personnel . . . information" within the meaning of G. L. c. 4, s. 7, Twenty-sixth (c) [797-799], therefor exempt from disclosure under the public records law, G. L. c. 66, s. 10 [799-800] then why did the those employees receive hefty settlements paid for with tax dollars?

Larry Kelley


To: Gerykm@arps.org, mazurk@arps.org
Sent: Thu, Apr 7, 2011 12:15 pm
Subject: Public Documents Request

Could I please get any and all separation, severance, transition, or settlement agreements made since January 1, 2005 between the Schools (both Amherst elementary and Regional HS) employees that include compensation, benefits, or other payments worth more than $5,000.

Thanks.
LK


Sent: Thu, Apr 28, 2011 2:36 pm
Subject: Re: Public Documents Request
Dear Larry,

Based on advice by our school attorney and the districts' contact with the Massachusetts Office of Public Records, we are enclosing a copy of the Settlement Agreement of Alberto Rodriguez. However, as to the other documents you are seeking, it is the position of the districts that these documents are not public record per the Wakefield decision and the districts do not feel they can be released.

Sincerely,

Kath

Kathryn Mazur
Director of Human Resources
Amherst-Pelham Regional
School District

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

War Memorial Pool wins another battle

First opened in 1955 and beloved by generations of children, the centrally located War Memorial Pool closed two years ago but suddenly came back from the dead with an improbable combination of a seldom used town meeting "motion to reconsider" (the Community Services Budget) by Julia Rueschemeyer which passed 93/72, and then her follow-up motion to amend the budget by adding $65,250 to fund operations this summer.

The Select Board voted 4-1 against the motion to reconsider and the Grinch-like Finance Committee voiced their displeasure. Leisure Services Director Linda Chalfant had nothing positive to say. But recreation czar Stan Ziomek, who spearheaded the construction of the pool 55 years ago, spoke passionately in defense of renovating and reopening the aging facility.

The motion carried 92/75.