The Environmental Protection Agency has extended the public input deadline from May 3 to May 20 for the following documents:
- Revised Final Pre-Design Investigation Summary Report for Upland Disposal Facility (UDF);
- Upland Disposal Facility Final Design Plan; and
- Upland Disposal Facility Operations, Monitoring, and Maintenance Plan.
An April 9 email from the agency’s Community Involvement Coordinator Ashlin Brooks cited the postponement of the April 3 upland disposal facility (UDF) meeting as the reason for the extension. Public comments should be sent to R1Housatonic@epa.gov.
“We are glad that the comment deadline was moved in relation to the public meeting,” Lee Select Board Chair Robert “Bob” Jones stated in an email response to a request by The Berkshire Edge. “It will give the residents additional time to express their discontent with this plan.”
Additionally, the April 3 UDF session has been rescheduled for April 18, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., at the Lee Middle High School auditorium, 300 Greylock Street, Lee. It will also be telecast live on Community Television for the Southern Berkshires.
A 2020 permit provided for the remediation of the Rest of River, the area stretching from the east and west confluences of the Housatonic River in Pittsfield to Connecticut, following decades of General Electric Company depositing polychlorinated biphenyls into the waterway. The plan includes the most toxic materials to be carried out of the area, while the less contaminated sediment would be deposited in a UDF to be constructed in Lee, with the town’s residents and officials long opposed to the local siting of the UDF.
