Berkshire County — For Lenox Dale newcomer Phoenix Haynes, the area’s Montessori school off Walker Street was the impetus for her move from North Adams last year, along with the idyllic nature of the area. With two small children, she said she was “really excited to raise them here.” However, after learning Walker was on the route slated to carry trucks laden with toxic waste dredged from the Housatonic River to an Upland Disposal Facility (UDF) in Lee or beyond, the young mother is questioning her family’s decision.
“When you look at where the dump site is on the map, it’s across the river from our house,” Haynes said. “Woods Pond is a stone’s throw away from where we live.”
Along with two neighbors, she sought more information at a November 1 meeting of the TriTown Boards of Health, the regional health department overseeing Lee, Lenox, and Stockbridge. The meeting featured four Environmental Protection Agency staffers in a discussion of the waterway’s remediation plan, a permit that followed years of General Electric Company polluting the Housatonic River with now-banned polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).
Haynes and her friends recently formed “Millennials Against the PCB Dump,” a group that she said aims to keep the Berkshires “a safe place to live.”
“We would be forced to move,” Haynes said. “We wouldn’t be able to raise our families in good faith in this area. We’re not willing to risk our families getting sick because of the contaminants in the air and the water and the soil.”
The federal agency personnel were invited to the session following a Board vote in September by members wanting to know more about the cleanup program, specifically transportation methods and routes the PCB-laden materials would travel from the excavation site to the UDF or offsite and out-of-state. GE released its anticipated route and transportation plan on October 31, with that report touting trucking as the predominant mode of travel for the toxic waste as well as its anticipated routes, including Pittsfield’s Holmes and Pomeroy roads, New Lenox Road, and East New Lenox Road.
At the meeting, EPA Program Manager Dean Tagliaferro provided a synopsis of how the remediation plan was finalized before fielding questions and responding to concerns from Board members and residents.
Lenox representative Dianne Romeo said she was “hoping transport wouldn’t be on a lot of public roads.”
“My concern is, when I looked at all of the maps, one of [the truck routes] going up [Rte.]183 is going past two elementary schools and to the center of Lenox, then on to Tanglewood, then down to Rte. 7, then to the center of Lee,” Romeo said, adding she preferred rail transportation to be used as much as possible.
She said she’s not as worried about the time the remediation will take to complete but rather “the exposure to the people that live in all of our towns.” Citing the route down Holmes to Rte. 7, Romeo said terrible accidents have occurred there and GE may be taking the cheapest, most flexible route.
Tagliaferro said trucking was already used safely in areas of Pittsfield that were remediated and the challenge with rail is that rail sidings — used to place the railcar so materials can be offloaded — aren’t readily available of a sufficient and track. Additionally, he said trucks would still be needed to get to and from the rail siding.
“It’s still less exposure,” Romeo countered, with Tagliaferro responding the route might have more truck miles by being used with rail. He pointed out that the UDF is on the east side of the Housatonic but the existing rail is on the west side of the waterway, adding a greater challenge to the option.
Board member Robert Wespiser said he supported creating numerous rail sidings and, acknowledging the significant cost involved, asked EPA representatives to push for this transportation scenario with GE.
“If there were a lot of those [rail siding] spots, not just one, it would be expensive to build those,” he said. “My point would be, from our standpoint: tough. The issue becomes then, is there a ceiling of expense built into this [plan] given all of these unknown factors — the length of time, inflation, various equipment, fuel? All of those variables already are putting a huge uncertainty as to the final dollar figure. From our perspective, if more sidings — or onload, offload railroad interfaces — would make for fewer truck trips, for fewer lifestyle-affecting aspects of tens of thousands of tractor-trailers on our streets, then build them. Then we would need you to advocate for [as many] of those onload/offload sites as possible given the uncertainty of the bill anyway. We didn’t put the stuff there; we don’t want it there.”
Wespiser also noted certain roads were “excluded” from the transportation plan.
The omitted Pittsfield roads lead to the Housatonic River and were discussed during settlement negotiations for the 2020 permit, with Lee, Lenox, and other towns having the same opportunity to bargain for the exclusions, Tagliaferro said. He said he’s spoken with Lee and Lenox about small residential roads that officials may not want trucks to traverse and offered for the Board to let him know if members object to certain streets or roads to be used in the project.
Prompted by Board Member Elias Lefferman as to the impact on the neighborhood should an accident or spill of toxic materials occur, Tagliaferro said the materials being transported include “low-level PCBs and dirt.” He said he’d “get a shovel and scoop it up,” adding the toxic material is sitting in the floodplain now where people are walking and GE will have a contingency plan for spills.
“One truck accident, it’s not going to be an acute hazard, no worse than any other hazardous material being driven down the roads,” Tagliaferro said.
The most blistering questioning came from Charles Kenny about midway through the session. The Board Chair said the EPA previously performed specific, thorough comparative analyses of various options: the transportation by truck of high PCB-concentrated materials offsite, transportation by truck of low PCB-concentrated materials offsite, transportation by rail of high PCB-concentrated materials offsite, transportation by rail of low PCB-concentrated materials offsite and the transportation by truck of the low PCB-concentrated materials onsite. These analyses looked at injury rates, miles traveled, greenhouse gasses, and research Kenny called “phenomenal.”
However, he said he never saw an analysis of the lower concentration PCBs transported by rail to a local UDF, an integral part of the current remediation plan.
“I think this is the reason why we’ve had an inadequate discussion of the local transportation by rail,” Kenny said. He brought forth a petition that — with 1,400 signatures as of Nov. 1 — demands a public discussion of using rail to transport the PCB-laden soil and sediment.
“I want the EPA of Berkshire County leaving behind a legacy that we could all be proud of,” he said.
Kenny said the potential benefits of rail outweigh trucks for the project and, if additional rail sidings are established, those sidings could be used for future rail commuters or passengers “but this has not been studied.”
“You have not considered that transportation means at all,” he said, addressing the attending EPA representatives. “You didn’t, so please do it.”
Tagliaferro said the EPA hasn’t decided on rail as the agency received the GE transportation plan only the day before the TriTown meeting and that a practical limitation exists to using rail and locating adequate sites for rail sidings. He said his agency “will look at it.”
According to Wespiser, hiring consultants to review access to the railroad is a possibility for the towns but the action is something GE should take on since the towns lack the resources, tools, or expertise. Tagliaferro suggested the affected towns use some of the funds GE is providing under the 2020 agreement, such as $25 million payouts to Lee and Lenox, to investigate additional rail sidings and provide that resulting information as a comment to the GE transportation plan by the Feb. 1 comment deadline. He also said the reaches beyond 5A are years away and those anticipated plans could change.
James Wilusz, Executive Director of the Board, said the group should consider sending a letter to the three town managers encouraging them “to really take serious any resources made available to look at this possible study.”
With the meeting held in person, public comments at the session included requesting the Board vote immediately to involve the town managers and resources to fund a rail study; concern over the possible deafening sound and diminished air quality on Lee’s Main Street when numerous trucks travel the route; the cost of constructing the UDF may be more than the cost to add railroad sidings; and truck drivers may not follow the set route.
“We sell the Berkshires as health and wellness,” Lenox Dale resident Paula Dowling said. “It’s going to be a big lie. We have a dirty little secret. We’re going to have a big, old toxic waste dump.”
The board plans to meet again in early December.
