Closing landfill will not mean more fields

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December 12, 2007

Brian Messenger

The town manager wants residents to approve $7.4 million this year to re-cap all 25.8 acres of the former Ledge Road landfill, although the town no longer plans to turn it into a Little League complex. The money also will be used to acquire land around the site that might also need to be closed off.

Selectmen will decide Monday whether to adopt the manager's capital improvement plan.

The $7.4 million in general fund borrowing is by far the largest request in the town's capital improvement plan for fiscal year 2009. At $1.5 million, a request for school building roof replacement is the only other project over $1 million.

"This is the next step. I know it's a tough budget year, but the risk we have is that if we don't show some sense of progress, (the state could step in)," said Stapczynski. "We're showing good progress."

The landfill, closed for dumping in 1973, is also the home of Deyermond Field, where the town built two baseball diamonds and a soccer field in the 1980s. A total of 18 acres are also used as a public works dump site. Up until the beginning of this year, the plan was to cap the DPW half of the landfill and put fields on some of that area. Once those fields were online, the town planned to recap the Deyermond Field area and reinstall fields on that side. That is no longer the plan, said Stapczynski, although this week that plan was still posted on the town Web site.

"This site won't meet any long-term plan of having a Little League field complex. We were looking for four fields. This won't be that," said Stapczynski. "The more studies we did about using it as a ball field just led us to believe that the cost of ball fields would just be out of sight."

The town must also perform remediation work on arsenic found at the dump and in surrounding areas. At 1999 Town Meeting, $2.2 million was approved to cap the side of the landfill that does not have fields. This 1999 money would now be used for design, engineering, permitting and arsenic remediation at the existing landfill, according to the plan.

"We certainly don't want an environmental problem to get any worse," said Selectman Alex Vispoli. "We've got the estimate. It's one of those things that has to be done. I don't think the timing is good for any expenditure like this."

Selectman Mary Lyman, who toured the landfill site in mid November, agreed that the amount of $7.4 million was high.

"It's a toughie," said Lyman. "I agree that it's a phenomenal amount of money. I don't think there's a choice. It's an environmental decision. People who live there are concerned. It's got to be done and the price doesn't go down in the future."

"This has been a project that has been on our radar screen and on capital improvement plans for the last 10 years," said Stapczynski. "The reason it's come to a head now is that all the work that's been done over the last 10 years is heading toward the final closure."

Stapczynski said appropriating the money now would make the long-awaited project available for a low-interest loan provided by the state.

Up until March, the plan going forward to re-cap the former town dump site called for the project to be carried out in separate phases. But under a new effort to receive a State Revolving Fund low-interest loan, Town Manager Buzz Stapczynski said the town could save between $100,000 to $200,000 by appropriating the money all at once.