Housatonic Rest of River — Bill Mathews, who serves on Lee’s Historical Commission, braved December 4’s frigid temperatures and snowfall to “defend the historic nature of Lee.”
“We’re not endowed the same way as Lenox or Stockbridge with venues you can go to [for] concerts and so forth,” he said. “But we’re struggling along to make sure that we have some semblance of the agrarian past that the town started with and the hardworking people of Lee.”
While attending the public meeting held at Taconic High School that addressed GE’s Revised On-Site and Off-Site Transportation and Disposal Plan, Mathews said he fears the Housatonic Rest of River remediation project—expected to last for 13 years—may change the feel and look of his hometown.
“It’s kind of a colossal monument impermanence to our failure to stop it,” he said of the Upland Disposal Facility (UDF), or toxic landfill, slated for a tract in Lee pursuant to a 2020 agreement between the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), General Electric Company (GE), and five towns affected by that corporation’s deposit of now-banned chemicals, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), into the Housatonic River. In addition to Lee, those towns include Great Barrington, Lenox, Sheffield, and Stockbridge, and the UDF is expected to house the least toxic dredged materials laden with PCBs while materials containing higher levels of the chemical are transported out of the area.
According to the remedy approved by the EPA, roughly 965,000 cubic yards will be deposited into the UDF during the project while 100,000 cubic yards are to be transported off site.
Since its first iteration introduced on October 31, 2023, the project’s transportation and disposal plan has brought blistering criticism from local, state, and national leaders regarding its ability to keep residents along the route safe by relying on trucking as the primary mode of moving the dredged materials. An October 15, 2024, revision of the plan marked a large shift in transportation methods away from trucking to using hydraulic pumping and a hybrid rail/truck mode.
Given the snowy weather predicted, the meeting was noticeably more sparsely attended as compared with other public information sessions, but a video of the event will be available on CTSB in the coming days. A copy of the program’s slides can be found here.
Revised transportation and disposal plan rests on hydraulic pumping, rail/truck travel
Led by GE Senior Project Manager Matthew Calacone, the presentation reflected an “about face” for the company from its initial plan, with the revision showing that 79 percent of the project’s dredged material will be transported hydraulically. This hydraulic pumping system removes the sediment, along with river water, creating a “slurry” that is then sent to a dewatering area via large pipes and pumps, obviating the need for trucks. About 74 percent of those dredged materials will be sent to the UDF, with the remaining five percent taken to a staging or rail siding area at Rising Pond to ultimately be transported out of the area by rail.
According to the new plan, 17 percent of the material will be transported by rail, along with truck use, with only four percent of the material transported by truck alone. The change is substantial as GE’s original plan transported 57 percent of the material hydraulically, with 43 percent by truck.
At the meeting, Calacone unveiled that a dewatering/treatment facility is planned to be constructed at the UDF and used in conjunction with hydraulic dredging.
The 13-plus-year Rest of River remediation project is expected to remove an estimated 1 million cubic yards of volume from the waterway and runs through eight reaches, or consecutive stages of work, beginning with the first five years of the plan in Reach 5A (Pittsfield) through Reach 8 (Rising Pond Dam).
The revised proposal also adds three rail sidings, or spurs, for loading and unloading: at Utility Drive, near the Pittsfield Wastewater Treatment Plant in Reach 5A; at Woods Pond, at the Berkshire Scenic Railway Museum property in Reach 6; and at Rising Pond, on property GE is transferring to the Town of Great Barrington in Reach 8. These rail sidings will serve materials going to the UDF as well as out of the area.
However, some soil (material that allows for plant growth) and sediment (no plant growth) from Reaches 5B, 5C, 6, and 7E can’t be hydraulically transported due to either the terrain or length of travel, leaving those materials to be trucked to the UDF.
Giving credence to community input “to reduce the number of local truck trips on public roads,” Calacone said the new proposal maximizes the use of rail transport for on- and off-site disposal and “results in the fewest truck-trip miles” out of the alternatives his team reviewed. Transportation by rail alone is not feasible, he said.
By relying heavily on the use of railroad, should rail schedules or other incidents allow the project to fall behind timewise, trucking will be used as a supplement to take up the slack, he said.
Where can residents expect to see transportation?
Reach 5A routes on-site and off-site disposal material to the Utility Drive rail loading area using East New Lenox Road, New Lenox Road, US-20, Holmes Road, and ending at Utility Drive. Material slated for on-site disposal will then travel by rail to the Woods Pond Spur for unloading and then to the UDF using Willow Creek Road, Crystal Street, across Schweitzer Bridge, Valley Street, and Woodland Road, with a secondary route to be used in an emergency such as a detour or major accident including Willow Creek Road, Crystal Street, Mill Street/Bridge, and Willow Hill and Woodland roads.
In years three to five of the plan, most of the material in Reach 6 will go to the UDF at the Woods Pond Spur, primarily using hydraulic transport and the same routes proposed for offloading Reach 5A material that is also bound for the UDF.
In year six and beyond, most of the material from Reach 5C will go to the UDF using hydraulic transport; however, soils from Reach 5C and all material from Reach 5B will be trucked directly to the UDF by way of East Street and New Lenox, Roaring Brook, and Woodland roads. Off-site disposal material will go to the Woods Pond Spur rail loading area via the UDF using the routes proposed for Reach 5A directly by way of East Street, New Lenox Road, and Roaring Brook Road.
Into the next decade, materials from Reaches 7B, 7C, and 7E will go to the UDF, with Reaches 7B and 7C using hydraulic transport while materials from Reach 7E is taken on MA-102, US-7, US-20, Walker Street, Mill Street, and Willow Hill and Woodland roads. Sediment in Reaches 7G and 8 will get to the Rising Pond rail loading area using hydraulic transport before going to the UDF or off site while soil in that reach will be transported using Glendale Middle Road, MA-183, Front Street, and Van Deusenville Road.
Citizens applaud revision changes but renew concerns over length of project, safety
For Tri-Town Board of Health Chair Dr. Charles Kenny, the revised plan “is much improved” compared to the first draft. He commended EPA representatives for recognizing the inadequacy of the original project by expanding the use of hydraulic pumping and decreasing the use of trucking as the program’s predominant transportation mode.
However, Kenny objected to the long duration of the project, touting public safety as needing to be the plan’s priority. “Delaying the excavations and removal is a promulgation of the risk to the communities downstream,” he said. “This transportation disposal plan does not seem to be driven by the idea that the most expeditious transportation and disposal plan should be undertaken, but rather it seems to be driven by the idea that the most waste possible should go to the UDF.”
According to Kenny, the 2020 agreement and permit don’t mandate that a local UDF is required to be used in the project at all as the intent within those documents is to maximize the off-site disposal of materials. He advocated that remediation should begin immediately and also offered that cleanup of multiple reaches of the project could be conducted concurrently. “There’s nothing in any of the documents that I’ve read that says that all of the materials, or a minimum limit, must go to the UDF,” he said. “Since we really want to expedite this, why are we doing this sequentially and not using multiple sites at once?”
Following applause for Kenny’s statements, EPA Project Manager Dean Tagliaferro responded that there is no material ready to be pumped out now as the plans for Pittsfield’s Reach 5A “will take two to three years to design, get approved, bid out, and be ready to go.”
Secondly, he objected to remediating both downstream and upstream reaches because the contamination will continuously flow downstream. “That’s why we’re starting upstream in Pittsfield,” Tagliaferro said. “You’re working in a river, you’re working in a flowing river in very difficult conditions, upstream to downstream, backfilling behind you. There’s only so fast you can go in a coherent and logical way that gets it done safely … You don’t hopscotch around the reaches because the contamination is just going to flow into an area you’ve already excavated.”
During the public comment period, Great Barrington Selectboard Vice Chair Leigh Davis, who recently won the 3rd Berkshire District seat in the State House of Representatives, pushed Calacone for a more “detailed look” at the specific roads being used in the project and the reasoning behind the downtown main thoroughfares of Lenox and Stockbridge “escaping” GE’s list of selected routes for truck/rail transport. “I’m specifically thinking about the folks in Housatonic,” she said. “I see, with the addition of the rail spur there, that we seem to still have trucks going down Front Street in Housatonic. I just want to focus on where the trucks are going.”
The roads presented in the revised plan must still be approved by the EPA, Calacone responded, with the agency able to require modifications and establish the “actual roads” to be used.
Lee Planning Board member Peter Bluhm asked about the turbidity of the river as dewatering is undertaken and was told by Tagliaferro to expect some turbidity in Reach 5A due to the sediment migration.
Regarding a question posed by Pittsfield’s Valerie Anderson about harm from the volatilization of PCBs as piles of dredged materials lay drying, EPA Project Manager Josh Fontaine said the agency issued its conditional approval letter on December 4 covering Reach 5A, including air-monitoring provisions. That letter, he said, specified 168 conditions that GE must revise, leaving the specifics of air monitoring still to be determined. Anderson also asked about securing the transport trucks. Calacone responded that the trucks would be fitted with a preformed plastic liner which, along with their contaminated cargo, would be disposed of at their final landing site before being replaced each time by fresh, clean liners.
Denny Alsop of Stockbridge urged GE and EPA officials to consider climate change and independently assess the vulnerability of each reach to the phenomenon while Pittsfield’s Michele Lydon voiced concern over the possibility for the hydraulic pumping pipes to leak.
The most heated address of the session came from Housatonic resident Maureen Quigley who grilled Calacone as to why no epidemiologists were on his team, or even on the project. His response didn’t offer an answer, instead passing the buck to the EPA. “As someone in the medical field, I find that appalling, absolutely appalling” Quigley said, adding that the specialty includes public health workers who investigate patterns and causes of disease and injury to reduce the risk of negative outcomes. “You are removing PCBs from a river and placing them in a concealed container in very close proximity to the river. I can’t comprehend how that’s even a possible plan, to put contaminants right next to where you’re removing them.”
She then questioned what backup protocol exists if the area’s drinking water becomes contaminated considering the aquifer lies below the UDF construction site. “Right now, in Housatonic, we’ve dealt with years and years and years of contaminated water without any positive results from town officials or anyone,” Quigley said. “I strongly urge you to have an epidemiologist on your team. And, if you do not, I have no faith in the EPA and what you are doing with this project.”
Following the presentation, Lee Select Board member Robert “Bob” Jones told The Berkshire Edge that the EPA and GE have again “absolutely dug in on this plan.” He reflected on statements made by agency representatives, including Tagliaferro, that although only 20 to 30 percent of the Housatonic River is expected to be cleared of PCBs, the waterway will be safe for swimming and recreation. “So, why, why are they creating this monster, this dump, if it’s not really a danger to you unless you’re in contact with the soil?” Jones said. “Why not take that money you could have used to build a dump and transportation of trucks, why not take that money and put it into research for remediation, much of which has already been established all around the world and even in this country, except for Region 1 [of the EPA that includes the Housatonic Rest of River remediation plan].”
Speaking with The Berkshire Edge, Kenny urged residents to file written comments with the EPA regarding the Revised On-Site and Off-Site Transportation and Disposal Plan. Those comments can be submitted to R1Housatonic@epa.gov no later than January 15. “In order for us to make the EPA really aware about what we feel, in order to make them really hear us, we have to submit public comment in writing,” Kenny said. “I don’t believe that they have the basis to act on what we say here unless we submit it in writing.”
