A former Conservation Commissioner who drew public attention to a toxic farm dump on Town owned Conservation Land has filed a Citizen’s Petition Article that is sure to spark debate at Annual Town Meeting.
The Annual Town Meeting Article will ask voters to approve spending up to $165K to hire independent counsel:
for the purpose of discovering the existence of any criminal, civil or unethical activity responsible for creation, purchase, delay or denial of the illegal dump on the Town of Southborough’s Breakneck Hill Conservation property.
The petition Article was submitted by Carl Guyer, who formerly served on the Conservation Commission. He is scheduled to discuss the Article at tonight’s Select Board meeting. (That’s on Tuesday, March 4th at 6:30 in the Town House Hearing Room and over zoom. You can find the agenda here.)
Guyer’s Article also calls for the counsel to publish a report of their findings by the start of next year. That report should include:
recommendations for prosecution of criminal activity, potential recovery of the all or part of $4,400,000 remediation cost paid for by the tax payers of Southborough and/or dismissal of individuals failing to uphold their oath of office.
Getting support from the Select Board would be surprising. The board planned to use tonight’s meeting to discuss potential cuts to a challenging Town budget for FY26.1
The most recent budget draft projected an over 8% property tax increase for residential homeowners next year. (Stay tuned for coverage of the budget situation later this week.) The budget will be on the same Annual Town Meeting Warrant.
Based on Select Board reactions to other public proposals, most members pitch focusing on moving ahead rather than spending energy and resources on looking back.
But Guyer’s stated rationale for investing in an investigation is to avoid future repeats of what he describes as past town failures. He shared his “Overview” of the Article that sums up:
With environmental threats stocking us like a hungry leopard, dismissal or denial of these threats is no longer acceptable. Passage of this warrant article is necessary to prove those doing so will be held accountable.
The Select Board’s opinions on the Article may matter more than usual in this case. Ultimately the choice to support or not will be up to the voters. But this may be determined a “non-binding” Article that the board can choose to disregard.2
You can read the petition Article language here and the Overview here.
At the Conservation Commission’s February meeting, Conservation Agent Melissa Danza informed the commission about Guyer’s Article. She noted the statute of limitations have long since passed for recouping losses. She reminded that the prior landowner died years ago and in a past review Town Counsel determined that they didn’t have enough of a case to go after money from the estate.
Danza said she planned to create an FAQ to distribute at Town Meeting.
Annual Town Meeting is scheduled for Monday, April 7th. (Look for the Town’s official info here and my coverage of the meeting here.)
More Background and Context on the Farm Dump
In 1980, the Town bought a parcel of old orchard and farm land alongside Breakneck Hill Road. According to public statements by Town officials, the Town was unaware of the old farm dump on the site at the time. Tests conducted in 1992 and 2006 purportedly showed results benign enough that officials believed it was unnecessary to take actions. Over time, standards for what is allowed and the remediation steps required for any cleanup have changed.
October 2019, Guyer began drawing public attention to the old farm dump at Breakneck Hill.
He first issued a tongue in cheek public invitation to “Meet the Monster”. When he was forced to cancel that due to liability issues raised, he posted a public video spotlighting the dump and his concerns about “Old tires, rusting machine parts, rotting 55 gallon drums, asphalt singles, sinks and tanks, street sweepers, heavy equipment, broken ceramics, plastic objects” overgrown by vegetation.
In multiple Conservation Commission meetings and other public forums he urged the Town to take action. Guyer also advocated for making unredacted minutes and documents available to the public from closed Executive Sessions dating back to 2005.
In portions of minutes that weren’t redacted and in public meetings around 2019-2021, Town officials had justified taking a slow, financially cautious approach. Guyer publicly prodded that the Conservation Commission and Select Board weren’t taking enough actions to address what he viewed as a hazard.
Guyer pushed the Town’s Health Director to take action. That resulted in a 2020 report recommending the dump be cleaned up. When Guyer believed the Town wasn’t responding to appropriately, he flagged the issues to MassDEP (Dept of Environmental Protection). MassDEP’s involvement resulted in a Town cleanup effort required under a Consent Order the Town entered into with the state.
In 2023 Annual Town Meeting agreed to borrow $2.2M to remediate the site per MassDEP’s instructions. That turned out to not be enough money. Asbestos “friables” were discovered in the dump, which require special handling. (You can read more about that here.) Last fall, voters agreed to add up to another $2.13M to cover the required cleanup.
Prior to the Special Town Meeting vote, Guyer issued a letter to the editor to this blog blaming the high cost of the cleanup on the town’s “decades of denial”. He pointed to it as a “harbinger” of what could happen if Town officials don’t learn a lesson from it.
The cleanup project was initiated last year. At Conservation’s January meeting, Danza updated that all waste had been removed and the groundwater sampling completed. The next step was the remediation plan to fix the areas that were impacted to create pathways for the heavy equipment used to clear the dump. At that time, the project was reported to still be under budget.
Why is Guyer pursuing this now?
On Tuesday and at Town Meeting, I expect Guyer to raise issues related to the Neary School building project in his public presentations.
In multiple letters to the editor and blog comments, he has expressed strongly worded worries about the proposal to build on the same spot the current school sits. He objects to investing in a new school downhill from the old Town landfill under Lundblad field.
The landfill was capped before the field was built over it and regular testing is conducted. The Town’s consultant that inspects the the gas vapors, groundwater, and field conditions at and around the field has answered questions at public meetings. Pare Engineering’s rep stated that they haven’t found any concerning issues. But they did offer advice that was integrated into the school building project. That included more testing wells closer to the school and a sub-slab depressurization system under a new school foundation.
Guyer has publicly expressed skepticism about the measures being sufficient.
The Neary project won’t be on the Annual Town Meeting Warrant. That will wait for a dedicated Special Town Meeting on Saturday, May 10th at 9:00 am.
- FY26 is Financial Year July 1, 2025 – June 30, 2026
- There have been past legal discussions about the authority for hiring counsel for the Town belonging exclusively with the Executive branch, which is the Select Board. And the Article language states that the money should be “expended with the approval of the Select Board”. That may mean that a yes vote can’t compel the board to act. If this is “non-binding” it would be treated as an advisory from voters urging the board to take an optional action.
