|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
NEW BEDFORD — The company behind a controversial waste transfer station proposal has filed an appeal after the Board of Health denied the site plan last month, potentially overriding the wishes of hundreds of residents who vehemently oppose the project.
Recycling company Parallel Products, doing business as South Coast Renewables, had proposed what would have been the largest waste transfer station in the state at the New Bedford Business Park at 100 Duchaine Boulevard. The facility would handle an estimated 1,500 tons of solid municipal waste per day and host up to 368 daily one-way truck trips less than half a mile from the residential neighborhood of Pine Hill Acres.
New Bedford has one of the highest concentrations of waste facilities in Massachusetts, tied with Fall River and Lowell. If the new transfer station goes through, the city would rank No. 1.
The City’s Board of Health, which includes Chair Dr. Elizabeth Blanchard, Alex Weiner, and Michele Tsaliagos, voted 2-1 in September to deny the plan, citing concerns over rodent control, air quality, traffic, and fire safety. The decision came after hundreds of New Bedford residents turned out to oppose the project.
Of the residents that signed up to speak at public comment last August, the vast majority doubted the company’s ability to mitigate rodents, noise, odor, and other environmental health hazards.
The Conservation Law Foundation represented nearly a dozen concerned residents during the Board of Health hearing process. In an Oct. 30 statement, the foundation’s Director of Communities and Toxics Alex St. Pierre said the appeal was further proof the company did not have the community’s interests and well-being at heart.
“South Coast Renewables had every opportunity to go back to the drawing board, change their plans, or pick a site that wouldn’t add to a neighborhood that already deals with an unfair number of burdens,” St. Pierre said. “Instead, they’re choosing to take the community — and the Board of Health — to court.”
Of the three board members, Alex Weiner, a registered nurse, was the most vocal critic during the board’s hearings and discussions in August and September.
“The biggest risks are either unfixable, unenforceable or outside the applicant’s control,” Weiner said before casting his vote against the project.
Blanchard was the sole vote in favor of the waste transfer station. Her concern, she said at the time, was that South Coast Renewables could appeal a flat-out denial and win, bypassing the Board of Health’s review altogether.
“We may have missed a major opportunity to condition this and make it safe in the neighborhood,” Blanchard said.
In an interview after the Sept. 15 vote, Weiner said he was confident the board’s reasoning would stand up to appeal.
“I think if we have a strong enough argument, which we do, and we make our case using the evidence, our decision will be upheld,” Weiner said.
Weiner declined to comment for this story.
Parallel Products filed the appeal on Oct. 23. Ward 1 Councilor Leo Choquette, who represents the area that would have hosted the transfer station, said he did not learn of the appeal until Oct. 30, when activist Wendy Morrill told him.
Choquette said he had anticipated that South Coast Renewables would appeal, which is why a week earlier he had moved to allocate $100,000 of the city’s budget to the board’s outside legal fees. The mayor returned the motion unsigned, so the City Council allocated the funds itself through a two-thirds vote on Oct. 23, Choquette said.
“We had a little power play going on there, so thank God I was right,” Choquette said.
The matter is made more complicated by a host community agreement that Mayor Jon Mitchell signed with Parallel Products three years ago, Choquette said. In exchange for the company dropping a proposed biosolids processing facility, Mitchell agreed not to publicly oppose the project.
Since then, the controversy around the waste transfer station has cast a sharp contrast between city councilors like Choquette who strongly oppose the project and Mitchell, who has remained relatively quiet.
Choquette said that the host community agreement also prevents the Board of Health from engaging the city solicitor against Parallel Products, since that would constitute a conflict of interest. The cost of maintaining outside counsel will ultimately fall on New Bedford taxpayers. Adam Brodsky, the board’s attorney during the hearing process, did not respond to a request for comment at the time of publication.
“In doing the host community agreement, in reality this has caused taxes to go up,” Choquette said. “If [the mayor] hadn’t signed that thing, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
The Board of Health and Parallel Products must next agree on a date to meet in Superior Court.
Jonathan Darling, the city’s public information officer, confirmed that the host community agreement is still in place, but did not directly answer questions about the tax burden to New Bedford residents or the stipulations around the host community agreement.
“The mayor anticipates that the Board of Health will propose a litigation budget for the Parallel Products appeal, which the Solicitor’s office will review and then make a funding recommendation to the mayor,” Darling said in a statement.
Mitchell told The Light Friday that the Board of Health would not typically engage the city solicitor, since it acts independently of the city.
“The Board [of Health] is appointed by the mayor, but it does not answer to the mayor,” Mitchell said.
Like Choquette, Mitchell said he first learned of the appeal on Oct. 30.
Wendy Morrill, president of the activist group South Coast Neighbors United, said she wasn’t surprised by South Coast Renewables’ decision to appeal.
“It just goes to show how disrespectful they really are and have been all along,” Morrill said. “They don’t care about what the community wants. They don’t care about the community’s concerns and feelings and fears. They just care about making money.”
Parallel Products did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.
Email Brooke Kushwaha at bkushwaha@newbedfordlight.org.
Certiorari is a civil action that may be filed in the Supreme Judicial Court, the Superior Court, or in limited cases, the Land Court. Such an action provides a remedy to correct errors in proceedings not otherwise subject to review by motion or appeal and must be commenced within sixty days after the complained of proceeding. G. L. c. 249, §4. Review by the Supreme Judicial Court “will correct only ‘substantial errors of law apparent on the record adversely affecting material rights’.” Murray v. Second District Court of Eastern Middlesex, 389 Mass. 508, 511 (1983)(quoting Commissioners of Civil Serv. v. Municipal Court of the City of Boston, 369 Mass. 84, 90 (1975)); see also State Board of Retirement v. Francis Woodward, 446 Mass. 698, 702 (2006).. The court will correct “only those errors which have resulted in manifest injustice to the plaintiff or which adversely affected the real interests of the general public.” Murray, 389 Mass. at 511.
There’s a recurring theme in the day to day happenings of American politics and governance: THE PEOPLE are not represented. In my opinion, New Bedford is being failed by the entities and individuals that are meant to protect them. I’ll name three: MassDEP, Mayor Mitchell, and BOH member Blanchard.
The MassDEP fails to uphold its mission and has become an expensive rubber-stamp for Big Business. Mayor Mitchell conveniently gets himself silenced and abuses the alleged ambiguity of the HCA’s constraints. Yet, he’s still in a position to affect funds allocation? Why? We cannot assume objectivity or neutrality. On the contrary, an ELECTED official UNILATERALLY decided to SILENCE the PEOPLE’S VOICE. And Blanchard should not be on the BOH. My kindest interpretation is that she is driven by fear.
Put together, all three of these “leaders” would have US believe that this is the way it is. The MassDEP “can’t” disapprove of the project. The mayor “can’t” talk. And Blanchard feared that all we could do was approve SCR’s trashy money scheme. Put another way, Blanchard was saying that the BOH “can’t” say “no.”
Americans don’t want spineless leadership. We’ve made and continue to make that very clear. I have no intention of walking in the footsteps of the MassDEP, Mayor Mitchell, or Blanchard.
I’ve taken a peek at that appeal. It’s offensive. It’s as if PP/SCR look upon the people of New Bedford and say, “How dare they deny us?” That is the equivalent of saying that the people of New Bedford should not speak their piece.
PP/SCR gagged New Bedford’s mayor, and they thought that meant that they had successfully silenced the people. They didn’t.
This fight is not over.
And, as far as I’m concerned, we need to look into how to get Mitchell out of office before the next election. Any mayor that tries to silence the people by willingly silencing himself has broken the bond of trust. Get Mitchell out!
Let’s stay strong and continue the good fight to stop Parallel Products. The message at the Pulaski School Meetings was clear Parallel Products is not wanted in our community and let’s never forget that the Mayor of New Bedford, the leader of our city did not come forward after the Health Board’s decision and stand with and support our community. It’s time for new leadership in the Mayor’s Office.
Well stated, Christina.
My first thought was a quote from Carl Sandburg .
Carl Sandburg’s quote, “If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and yell like hell.” Somebody get SCR a table to pound!
After reading the appeal, SCR’s lawyers argued the law because they couldn’t realistically deny that that this 1500 Tons/Day waste transfer project wouldn’t constitute danger to the health, safety and environment in regards to traffic, air quality, fire risk, and vermin. The Board of Health decision was well crafted and documented and cited numerous nuisance conditions with substantiation of their concerns. The DEP lists traffic, air quality, noise, and fire under the general category of nuisances. Mass DEP makes general rules for site suitability. The Board of Health considered local conditions like New Bedford already has two superfund sites, a closed landfill, shares a regional landfill with Dartmouth in the same Business Park as this proposed facility and 1.5 miles away. The address listed for the Greater New Bedford Regional Management Refuse District is 300 Samuel Barnet Blvd NEW BEDFORD. Add to that the Parker St Dump, EL Harvey and Waste Services on Church. All of this is a 24 sq mile City that has certainly reached its saturation point. And there are the Brownfields from previous industries in the past. A neighbor in Pine Hill had a video of live rats running on his property and he lives across from Parallel Products and their current beverage recycling facility. That video was played during testimony at the hearing admitted into evidence. SCR’s lawyers saw it, it’s not theoretical.
I stood at the intersection of Braley Rd and Phillips Rd on numerous occasions holding a sign notifying the public of the Board of Health meetings. One Friday, I counted 560 vehicles that crossed that intersection in a 25 minute span from 5:00 – 5:25 pm and I could have missed some. On another occasion, a fellow sign holder counted 1200 vehicles crossing that same intersection from 3-4 pm. We didn’t count the vehicles that exited the Business Park farther south onto Phillips Rd. I use the word vehicles because I witnessed numerous trash trucks, 18 wheelers, as well as passenger trucks and cars. Vehicles that approached from Acushnet Ave and turned onto Rt 140 were not counted. If this appeal is overturned, add another 368 trucks to that count.
The decision rests with the Suffolk Superior Court to decide the evidence in the appeal and I hope they decide wisely.
The judicial review is brought under the following statutes, not the previous one cited, here are the amended ones taken from the appeal.
This Court has jurisdiction over this matter pursuant to G.L. c. 111, § 150A, and
G.L. c. 30A, § 14.
4. Venue in this Court is proper pursuant to G.L. c. 30A, § 14(1)(c).
The exact case number is 2584CV02929. If you search the Mass Courts, search for Superior Court, Suffolk County Civil
drop down box, then enter the above referenced number.
A lot of city and state leaders have failed us and now the decision lies in the hands of a judge and hopefully this judge will not make the mistake of creating another future environmental disaster and Superfund cleanup site.
Our area has suffered from many past contaminated sites all listed on line (the Aerovox, Parker Street, the Industrial Park, Sullivan’s Ledge, the Re-Solve Superfund Site in Dartmouth,18,000 acres in New Bedford Harbor, the Atlas Tack in Fairhaven, and the Cornell Dubilier site that sits in the South End and to this day has never been treated (playgrounds and ball fields shut down and land fenced off).
Hopefully this judge will rule in favor of the health and safety of city residents and our neighborhoods and not give Parallel Products the chance to create another environmental disaster.