[Ed note: My Southborough accepts signed letters to the editor submitted by Southborough residents. Letters may be emailed to mysouthborough@gmail.com.
The following letter is from Carl Guyer.]
To the Editor:
Article 15 of the upcoming Town Meeting asks for approval of $2,127,960 in additional funds to remediate the illegal dump located on the Conservation Land at Breakneck Hill. This is in addition to the $2,200,000 approved previously by Town Meeting for the project. A $4.3 million dollar expense that is both a hard pill to swallow and a harbinger.
The tale of the mess on Breakneck Hill is long and painful. How it was created, how the town came to be responsible for it and the decades of denial is a saga only matched by the effort necessary to finally the end this environmental hazard. Try to image knowing there is an illegal dump sitting on the side of hill, next to a stream flowing to the water supply for greater Boston if you can. Now try to ignore it for decades as has been the case. If you are having trouble with this concept, mix in Southborough’s Conservation Commission voting not to inform the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) this mess existed while also withholding notes from an Executive Meeting back in 2006 related to the need to clean up of the site. Land the Conservation Commission is charged to protect while enforcing federal, state and town laws related to protection of the environment. A classic do what I say not as I do.
Unfortunately this saga should serve as a harbinger of what could await Southborough if it builds a $100+ million dollar school next to and down hill from the now capped town dump. As you drive into the Neary school complex from Parkerville Road you see a hill to the left, that is the capped town dump. A nasty old trash and garbage landfill closed decades ago. In response to this real threat, the grounds of the proposed school includes both monitoring wells and a special air handling system to protect the facility. Unfortunately monitoring wells are like smoke detectors. Smoke detectors don’t put out fires and monitoring wells do not eliminate the effect from toxic chemicals. If in 5, 10 or 20 years from now these monitoring systems announce the presence of unwanted chemicals, remediation to protect the school could be very costly. The special air handling system is to vent any toxic chemical seeping up from the ground below. Heaven help us if constant operation of the air handling system is needed to prevent infiltration of toxic gases into classrooms. The proposed building plan calls for installation of these measures should they be needed in the future, a very undesirable future.
So why build a new school where such extraordinary measures have to be taken and the future impact is uncertain? Consider the parent of a child developing a serious health issue who learns their student attends a school knowingly constructed next to an environmental hazard. Why build such a target for trouble.
So if your are up for playing Russian Roulette with a loaded dump, you can support the proposed site, but know you have no idea how many loaded chambers lie under that hill of dirt.
Carl Guyer,
146 Middle Road
Thank you Carl. I feel the same way you do about this.
Thank you Carl. As a parent of two daughters who attended Neary school it was painful to read your message.
I would like to know if the herbicide glyphosate is included in the additional testing. Glyphosate is a hormone disruptor associated with cancer, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), among other conditions.
No parent should have to worry about the safety of our schools.
I beg our town administrators to include glyphosate in the new testing and testing be performed by a company that can detect it in parts per billion (ppb), which are the levels of our hormone receptors. It should not be tested by a laboratory that can only detect chemicals in parts per million (ppm) levels as recommended by the EPA.
I suggest that our town administrators invite Professor Laura Vandenberg, Associate Vice Chancellor at UMass Amherst, to give a talk about the effects of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) on children’s health. She is a brilliant endocrinologist, a world expert on EDCs.
I would be happy to provide names of laboratories performing glyphosate testing in children.
Acacia Warren, DVM, MSc, PhD
Doctor degrees in Veterinary Medicine and Immunobiology
6 Sunrise Drive, Southborough, MA 01772
environmentalgenomics.warren@gmail.com, 1-508-344-8106
Acacia
The Parkerville landfill was active from 1938 to 1975. Glyphosate was developed in the early 70’s and marketed as Roundup starting in 1973. I am not trying to dismiss your concerns, they are valid, just bringing data to bear on the discussion.
Carl brings up an important issue. One of many with respect to this project. The building committees have been working for about 18 months on this project and their efforts are to be appreciated. But, they have done the easy part. The hard work is ahead of them; convincing the community that this is the best plan available.
The building committee needs to develop a communications plan that addresses multiple concerns. Among these are:
Concerns of prospective parents about the proximity to the landfill.
Concerns of seniors who account for a large part of our voting population about the financial impact of the project.
Concerns about the plan for housing students in the transition period.
This project requires a 2/3 vote at town meeting and a majority vote at the polls. This is a heavy lift in the best of times.
Without an active program to inform the community and address concerns this project has little hope of success. We have spent close to $1,000,000 to get to this point. If we are not to have wasted this money, the committees need to not focus on the building but focus on a communications plan (the current website is close to useless) that informs the community of why this is the best available plan for Southborough.