I attended a community meeting on Tuesday evening, April 14, at
Harvey Wheeler Community Center in West Concord, where a proposed plan
for affordable housing on the state prison land in West Concord was
discussed. After reading the Concord Journal's April 16 front page
article on this meeting, I feel an extremely important issue -- the
possible prison land toxicity problems at the proposed building site
--was publicly discussed at the meeting but never made it into the
article.A panel facing the audience included Concord's Rep. Cory Atkins, Selectmen Howes and McIntyre, Walden Woods spokesperson Kathi Anderson, Mike Malouf of Concord Housing Development Corporation and three environmental consultants.
Residents in the audience, which included the residents who co-organized the meeting with CHDC as a "fact-finding" session, raised questions concerning the site's 120-year history as a sewage treatment facility and prison dump. Citing 120 years of remodeling and construction to the prison, memories of old radiators in the dump and other building materials, led the residents to question the panel whether the building site had been tested for asbestos. The answer was no. This led to follow-up questions as to whether the building site has been tested for any possible toxic contaminants.
Information from the panel ranged from 1. The proposed location for the housing is on the location of the prison's dump. 2. A variety of manufacturing operations were carried on at the prison at various times. 3. No chemical analyses have been preformed on the soil on which the housing units are to be located. 4. The consultants reported that low but amounts of concern "chromium" were found in the soil septic field area.
West Concord resident Ray Hanselman, an audience participant, asked the panel what was the chemical form of the chromium found: metallic (elemental), chromate (chromium III) or dichromate (chromium VI). The panel's consultant answered that he was unable to answer this, as he felt Mr. Hanselman was more knowledgeable with this topic than he was. In a follow-up phone conversation, Ray explained to me that these three forms of chromium are listed in order of increasing toxicity, and probably specifically in carcinogenicity. Chromium is the really bad guy. He went on to say that a picture presented at the meeting by the panel, showed two rusted drums on the proposed housing site. Ray explained that this is possibly an indication of inappropriate dumping of hazardous materials.
He went on to say, "During the prison dump site's long history, a wide variety of toxic materials may have been placed in the dump. For much of that history there was very little concern for the disposal of toxic material. Indeed many of the materials now known to be toxic were not even a concern a hundred years ago or even more recently. Love Canal, Woburn, and even Nuclear Metals are interesting examples of toxic sites that were not well recognized until after the fact."
The lack of any commitment to do so or any mention of the possible problem is my primary concern. They only took a quick look at the leach field, primarily to get percolation data. They didn't look at the dump which is where the housing is to be placed."
On Jan. 13, an "emergency" bill was filed at the State House for the transfer of the Prison Land Parcel by Concord's state Rep. Atkins and state Senator Fargo. Copies of the bill: House No. 2956, House Docket No. 1402 were made available for the audience at the meeting. A question from the audience was directed to Rep. Atkins as to the wording of this bill, which would authorize the commissioner of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance to convey this parcel to the town of Concord Housing Development Corporation for affordable housing and open space. The question was, what was the purpose of the word "emergency" in the wording of the bill's opening clause: "...therefore it is here declared to be an emergency law..." Rep. Atkins answered she didn't know the reason; and perhaps it is a technicality.
In summing up, it is the purpose of this commentary to state that before the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and all parties involved in the passage of this bill allowing this title transfer of state-owned land to take place, all parties involved have a responsibility to the citizens of the Commonwealth to research the toxicity issues thoroughly.
