When speakers rise to address the Board of Selectmen, it is customary that they identify themselves, as well as indicate their address.
When former Town Manager Jack Healey rose to speak, he did so.
When former Selectman Neil D. Rosenthal did so, he failed to provide an address.
How come the only Neil D. Rosenthal listed lives at:
3594 Acushnet Avenue
New Beford, MA 02745
Why the deception? And if Mr. Rosenthal no longer lives in Middleboro, what is his interest? Is Mr. Rosenthal voting in Middleboro if he no longer lives in Middleboro?
MIDDLEBOROUGH: Irony or Hypocrisy? This isn't what it seems!
Fears of contaminated wells raised at Middleboro selectmen’s meeting
Landowner wants use imported soil approved by state agency to fill excavated areas on his property but former selectman decries plan as “money-making scheme to take in Boston trash”.
MIDDLEBORO – Residents of Stone Street filled the selectmen’s meeting this week to made it clear they fear their shallow wells may be contaminated by plans to bring in construction fill to grade an abandoned cranberry bog which abuts their properties.
Selectmen on Monday held a public hearing requested by property owner Jeffrey Tardanico, Waterville Development, Raynham, MA, to determine whether the selectmen would support filling excavated areas on the property, located at 52 Stone Street, with imported, laboratory tested soil approved by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection.
In a letter to selectmen dated March 2, 2017, Tardanico said he bought the property which holds an Earth Removal Permit for a cranberry bog that was issued by the town to the prior owner in June 1999 but the project was abandoned and never completed. The prior owner removed 550,000 yards of natural soil from the site which Tardanico describes as “an unused gravel pit.”
“As the current property owner, there is a lien against the property that is preventing me from pursuing plans for gainful utilization of the property,” Tardanico, who plans on building a three-story greenhouse on the property, said in his letter.
“It is the intention of Waterville Development to achieve site closure in accordance with the site’s existing Earth Removal Permit,” said Tardanico, who plans on trucking in an estimated 200,000 yards of fill. The MassDEP issued a draft Administrative Consent Order to Waterville Development after approving their Site Soil Reuse Management Plan.
“The project sounds awesome. I love your project,” said Selectmen Chairman Allin Frawley, but he made it clear he objected to the “levels of acceptable contaminants” allowed by the MassDEP. “My level (of contaminants) is zero,” said Frawley.
Gerald Martin, Regional Director of the MassDEP, who attended the meeting at the request of selectmen, said the material that may come from construction sites meets the DEP’s “acceptable levels of contamination.”
“We have had a horrible track record with the DEP enforcing Administrative Consent Orders, your level of oversight is not assurance enough. We don’t have much time before contaminants get into the groundwater,” said Frawley.
“There won’t be any contaminants there, we have plenty of safeguards to watch it,” Tardanico told Frawley, noting, “We cannot take dirty material. We would not be able to build the farm.”
“There is no acceptable levels of contaminants. Middleboro is not a dumping ground,” said selectmen Leilani Dalpe. When Dalpe asked why they could not use local soil from a licensed facility, Tardanico said, “It’s monetary,” that at $15 a yard it’s “economically impossible to make it work.” Waterville Development would be paid to take in construction fill and the profit, according Tardanico, would be used to grade and prepare the site.
Selectman Steven McKinnon, who said his concern was the surface wells and acceptable limits of contamination, asked, “What would you do if the contaminants appear and people can’t use their wells?
“We are prepared to run waterlines up there if the wells are contaminated,” said Tardanico.
“We don’t want this under any condition,” said Neil Rosenthal, who noted that he served as a selectmen when the original earth removal permit was issued. Rosenthal said he would not object to taking in virgin local soil but “not some money-making scheme to take in Boston trash and put it in Middleboro.”
“I enjoy my neighborhood as it is now. I don’t want to lose that,” said John Nickerson, 18 Stone Street.
“Everybody here is getting elderly and we can’t afford to go 400 or 500 feet for a well,” Joseph Rosenfield, 44 Stone St., said in reference to the predominant surface wells in the area.
Conservation Agent Patricia Cassady recommended that the fill soil be tested by a third party at the point of origin and asked if the shallow wells will be tested. Cassady also noted that there were four potential vernal pools on the site.
Selectmen voted unanimously to continue the public hearing to October 30 at 8 p.m. Frawley asked residents to email their questions to the selectmen at clieb@middleborough.com, who will forward them to the applicant.
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