By Tom Glynn
Staff writer

The Walpole Conservancy has asked the planning board to throw out the Southridge Farm/S.M. Lorusso subdivision application, maintaining the filing omits an "endless" list of required information.

In a letter to the board, a lawyer for the Conservancy wrote that the planning board "has failed in its primary responsibility" by keeping such an incomplete application alive.

The conservancy was formed this winter by neighbors and other townspeople to oppose a now-abandoned proposal for a regional rail trash transfer facility at 400 South St., Southridge Farm.

Filed in March, the subdivision application grandfathers Southridge and the Lorusso property against a zoning change approved at a May Special Town Meeting that prohibits trash facilities in the aquifer protection district. If the planning board throws out the application as incomplete, as asked by the Conservancy, the site would not be grandfathered (unless a judge were to rule otherwise.)

Last week, the planning board for the second time postponed a public hearing session on the subdivision at the request of the applicants. Before they did so, board members expressed displeasure at what they felt were implications that they were showing favoritism toward the applicants.

In a letter to the board, William Wagner, representing the Conservancy, said the application on which the board is holding a hearing is incomplete on its face. Wagner noted that the town engineer, fire chief, sewer and water commission and the town planner all told the planning board that they were unable to comment on the submitted plan because of its lack of information.

The response to questions on the board’s application form about the subdivision’s impacts is repeatedly "unknown at this point – will be determined by users," Wagner wrote.

"These major areas of concern were traffic conditions, traffic impacts, air quality, surface and groundwater quality, all of which were addressed only with the language "unknown at this point – will be determined by users," he wrote.

"The position of the Walpole Conservancy is that the Application and Plan as submitted by the Applicants were incomplete in all necessary and required information," he wrote.

"To permit a plan to remain ‘on file’ and therefore grandfathered flies in the face of the action recently taken by the Special Town Meeting. The land in question and more importantly the area to be impacted, the aquifer, are far too important to remain subject to uses ‘to be determined,’" he wrote.

The planning board, he wrote, "is obligated to protect the safety, convenience and welfare of the Town of Walpole. By accepting the submittal of a plan so lacking in detail, this Board has failed in its primary responsibility."

In a brief discussion with board members after they granted the applicants an extension until July 31, Wagner told members there was "nothing personal" in the comments from the Conservancy. Emotions were raised after last month’s postponement, he said, and apologized if anyone he represents said something hurtful.

But he added that in his 27 years appearing before planning boards he "never, ever" has encountered a preliminary application that provided so little information. Residents are upset, he said, because they see the application process not being followed.

It’s 62 days after the application was filed "and there is still nothing," he told the board after it voted to postpone the hearing.

The postponement came at the request of the applicant’s engineer, who said he wanted more time to discuss suggestions by the town engineer and town planner with them. (The postponement of the May 15 session was also granted at the engineer’s request.)

In explaining the postponement for those "who do not understand the process," planning board member Ed Forsberg said that while a decision is called for within 45 days of receiving an application, an extension can be granted. He added that he does not know of any case in which the board has not granted an extension when requested by an applicant.

The 45 days are in state law to protect an applicant from being strung out indefinitely by a board, he said.

It would not be appropriate, he said, for the board to let interested parties know ahead of time that a hearing session was to be postponed.

Forsberg said there would be a question of liability if the board announced an impending postponement before voting at the scheduled time to grant it. What if the applicants were to show up and say they want the hearing after all, he asked.

Members of the Conservancy and others were vexed by the May 15 postponement, requested by the applicant three days before the scheduled session. One reason: the Conservancy still had to pay for its attorney’s time that night.

In response to a question this week, Joanne Muti of the Conservancy said that while she and other Conservancy supporters showed up for the May 15 hearing, none of the applicants or their representatives did.

Muti said that she was told by planning board members that the meeting was postponed when she arrived 15 minutes before the board voted the postponement.

Town Planner Norman Khumalo said that persons interested in a hearing session could call the planning office. They could find out whether a postponement was requested, but not whether the session actually would be cancelled, he said.

Forsberg was acting as chair because Chairman Edward Collins left the room, saying he was awaiting a decision from the state Ethics Commission whether he can participate in the Southridge/Lorusso hearing. His landscaping company has worked for one of the applicants in the past, he said.

Under the subdivision plan the two properties, totaling about 50 acres, would remain separately owned. Tony Lorusso has said he filed in order to get better access into and through his land, where he plans a business park with several new buildings.

Michael Viano, part-owner of Southridge, did not specify a use to the board at an earlier hearing session. He has indicated a ban on trash could be part of the negotiations over the subdivision.

May 9, 2003

Trash transfer at 400 South St. ‘dead’  

By Tom Glynn
Staff writer

Backing up his position that there will be no trash transfer at 400 South St., property owner Michael Viano said last week that the two companies behind the plan have relinquished their option on the land.

Viano told the planning board Thursday night that Pond View Recycling, a Rhode Island construction debris disposal company, had waived its option. After the meeting, he added that Clyde Ames of Modal Resources also has waived the option on the 23-acre site.

Last Thursday’s planning board meeting was devoted to a public hearing on two Town Meeting articles aimed at heading off trash proposals. At the close of the session, the board voted 4-0-1 to recommend that Town Meeting approve the first article, which would ban solid waste facilities in the aquifer zone, but 3-2 to reject the second, which would require a special permit for a truck terminal.

A special Town Meeting is to vote on the articles Monday night.

Ever since townspeople and town officials made it clear in January that they would fight the proposed regional rail transfer station, Viano has maintained the trash plan is dead. State regulators would not approve a waste site over the objections of the board of health, he repeated Thursday.

Ames , however, had kept the possibility of a transfer station alive. Citing his option on the property, he said in a February interview that a general service rail freight station could be built there – unless the town agreed to back the trash plan. Because its operation would be limited and come with $300,000 annually in financial incentives to Walpole , Ames said the town could decide to support the trash plan as preferable to a freight yard operating around the clock.

With a background in intermodal freight, Ames had said he was not about to walk away from Walpole . Pond View and Intermodal invested time and money in the proposal, he said, because of what they perceived as initial encouragement by town officials. And he indicated they did not want to back down in the face of what they felt was rude and verbally threatening conduct by some of those who attended a selectmen’s discussion on their proposal.

In that interview, Ames said he expected that a subdivision plan would soon be filed for the South Street property, called Southridge Farm, owned by Viano and Al Lamperti. Filing a preliminary plan is a step toward grandfathering the property against a zoning change.

When the subdivision plan was submitted in March, it came as a joint filing by Viano and the owner of an adjacent 28-acre tract, S.M. Lorusso & Sons.

In a March interview, Tony Lorusso said the filing had nothing to do with trash transfer. In fact, he said, he would not want a trash facility next to his property, where he intends to build a business park similar to Merchants Way . He had been talking to Viano for years, he said, to do a joint subdivision to improve access from South Street and through their properties, which would remain separately owned.

In a letter to the planning board, Lorusso said he would withdraw the application if the subdivision plan makes a difference on whether a trash facility were built at Southridge. (The planning board is scheduled to continue its hearing on the Viano-Lorusso application May 15.)

Planning board hearing

At last week’s hearing, members of the planning board said the two articles appear to be aimed belatedly at heading off a South Street trash facility. “The incentive is to prevent something down on South Street ,” member Betty Nashawaty said. But, Chairman Edward Collins noted, the filing of the subdivision plan is likley to grandfather the South Street site from the proposed zoning changes for eight years.

The planning board will not ask Lorusso to withdraw the joint application, Collins said. While selectmen asked the board to make such a request, Collins pointed out that to do so would be inappropriate with a public hearing on the application already in progress.

Supporters of the zoning amendments said they understood grandfathering, but wanted the added protection for the future. Peter Baril, an hydrologist and former conservation commission member, said the articles are needed to close a zoning loophole that threatens the town’s drinking water. Selectman Michael Caron urged support for the articles to make it clear a trash transfer station is “a highly unwanted business” in Walpole .

Viano asked the planning board to recommend against the solid waste ban, noting it would block location of a transfer station just for Walpole residents in the aquifer district, which encompasses about half the town.

Supporters of the articles charged Viano with trying to have it both ways, saying that trash won’t happen on South Street but at the same time asking to keep it a permitted use.

Town Planner Norman Khumalo said that the solid waste article is written too broadly and could have unintended consequences. Master plan committee member Susan Maguire noted that the current master plan process is to lead to a thorough overhaul of the zoning bylaw next year and recommended against acting in haste. “Much of zoning, while well intended, is not well written,” she said.

But Ron Lichtenstein, a former zoning board member with a background in railroading, pointed to the uncertainty over CSX railroad’s big Beacon yards in Allston as a reason for quick approval of the two articles. The turnpike authority plans to sell the land to Harvard, the MBTA is contemplating an eminent domain taking to safeguard the railroad use of the property. CSX tracks run along South Street and other industrially zoned land in town.

As did selectmen earlier in the week, the planning board went around on the wording of the solid waste article, wondering whether it ruled out solid waste handling or solid waste handling facilities in the aquifer. If interpreted to mean waste handling, the amendment would spell trouble for small businesses and anybody with a dumpster, members said.

Lichtenstein asked the planning board members why they were coming up with so many objections. “You sound as if you’re afraid.”

If the articles do have problems, they can be rectified as part of the master plan review, he said.

Former Selectman Joanne Muti, who originated the idea for the articles, said they had been approved by Town Counsel. But planning board Chairman Collins said Town Counsel did not approve the final wording.

Planning board members expressed displeasure at receiving little advance information on the articles, especially since they were filed so late that they had to make an immediate recommendation. Member Nancy Mackenzie said she and her colleagues were surprised to learn from Muti at the hearing that Town Counsel had submitted a written opinion on the articles.

The article to ban solid waste facilities in the aquifer was filed by the sewer and water commission. The article to require a special permit for truck terminals was filed by selectmen.

Town Administrator Michael Boynton told the planning board members that he was getting the inference from them that they had not received enough information. If they felt that way, they should have asked, he said.

“It’s not up to us to ‘go fish’,” member Jack Conroy said.

The board ended up approving the solid waste article, with Conroy abstaining.

Truck terminals

If quick action is needed to ban solid waste facilities in the aquifer to protect the wells, what is the rush to require a special permit for a truck terminal, Mackenzie asked supporters of the rezoning articles.

Town Planner Khumalo said the existing site plan review by the planning board uses exactly the same criteria as the zoning board’s special permit process. The article to add the ZBA permit requirement for a freight station, truck terminal or intermodal facility in the industrial zone would be duplicative and frustratating to people going through the process, whether as supporters or opponents of a project, he said.

John DiSangro Jr., whose family owns Walpole Industrial Park, told the board that at least three businesses now there would not have located in Walpole if the proposed special permit requirement had been in effect.

As someone who spends his days trying to get businesses to lcoate in the park, DiSangro said he is positive companies would lose interest as soon as they understood Walpole’s application process had become even more difficult. “This is a step backward,” he said of the proposed article.

Amendment supporter Tom Driscoll responded that the town would be better off if a company that would be chilled by a special permit requirement decided to go elsewhere.

Other supporters said the requirement would provide an added layer of protection for residents.

Mackenzie said that desirable businesses – a furniture warehouse, for instance – would be turned away. Companies would have to ask themselves do they want to put themselves through the additional process, she said.

DiSangro said one big pros-pective tenant of the industrial park spend two days at Town Hall learning the existing requirments and said, “We’re not coming here.”

The proposed special permit requirement is an overreaction to the trash transfer proposal, he said. “I guarantee you’re going to lose an immense amount of new business” if the special permit amendment is enacted, he said.

Mackenzie and Collins said the zoning changes made through the master plan review will be precise enough to allow desirable uses and prevent the undesirable ones. “This is too broad,” Collins said of the truck terminal amendment.

Collins, Mackenzie and Conroy voted to recommend that Town Meeting reject the amendment. While expressing some reservation, Edward Forsberg and Nashawaty voted for it.  

Feb. 22, 2003

Rail transfer plan changed 

By Tom Glynn
Staff writer

The proposal for a rail site off South Street has been changed again, this time to a freight station.

Clyde Ames, president of Modal Resources, said in an interview that the facility would provide for the transfer of a broad range of cargo from trucks to trains and from trains to truck.

In the interview, Ames said he was troubled by town officials’ “flip flop” on the original plan for the site. “We didn’t expect a lynch mob,” he said of the meeting last month at which townspeople prodded selectmen into a vote against the originally proposed rail trash transfer facility.

  The freight station will comply with local and state regulations and go through the town’s review process, he said. The facility can be built “by right” on the 23-acre industrial-zoned parcel, he said. It’s the third proposal for the site from Ames and his colleagues.

Last month, the second plan from Modal Resources and Pond View Recycling called for a flatbed truck to railroad flatcar transfer of containerized municipal trash and other material. That plan invoked the Surface Transportation Board, a federal panel that can pre-empt state and local authority in order to get rail transport facilities built. The second proposal came a week after selectmen voted against the original plan.

But Congressman Stephen Lynch stepped in on that one, noting the federal pre-emption is meant for railroads and not shippers. Town officials indicated they would ask the railroad, CSX, not to lend its support to any pre-emption attempt.

In the interview, Ames said the containerized plan would have been “financially constrained” by the need to buy containers. (The containers would be similar to those used in ocean shipping.)

The original plan, a facility for taking municipal trash from trucks, compacting it and loading it onto railroad boxcars, is still an option, Ames said. The opponents at last month’s selectmen’s meeting do not speak for the entire town, he said.

Ames agreed that in effect the two companies are offering Walpole a choice between the original and the new proposal.

He noted that the original plan – the trash transfer station – offers Walpole $300,000 or so a year in revenues and savings. The freight station alternative does not, at least in the early years, he said.

In the original plan, still an option, rubbish trucks would enter a building, of perhaps 25,000 square feet, where their cargo would be conveyed into enclosed rail cars, also inside the building. The operation would call for two freight cars a day, he said, adding that “at the end of the day everything goes out; nothing is left in the building.”

The “lucrative” original plan would enable the companies to build a grade crossing to get trucks in and out of the site via Route 1A.. The companies would consider a crossing under the freight station plan as well, rather than using South Street, he said.

There could be more truck trips under the freight station plan, he said, noting that there is a shortage of such facilities. And there would be construction of parallel tracks, he said.

Under the freight station plan, Ames said, some of the arriving cargo might be rubbish. The fact is, it costs less to ship rubbish to Ohio by rail and dispose it there than to dispose it here, he said.

Ames, a veteran in intermodal transportation, said he first heard about the availability in Walpole of industrial-zoned land alongside a freight line in a conversation with a CSX acquaintance.

Ames said he approached Michael Viano, an owner of the property, last year and presented his company and his idea for the site.

Viano sounded out “local leaders” on the original proposal several months ago and got a “positive” response, Ames said. He declined to say who those local leaders are.

Company representatives “went to the leaders… and it was never suggested that they were other than supportive,” he said.

The one big objection raised was to any access via South Street, he said.

The two companies were “very transparent and straight” in their approach to the town, he said. The companies would not have invested in a site assessment if they did not believe they’d get a fair reception, he said.

When he and Ken Foley, Pond View president, went to last month’s selectmen’s meeting to present their plan publicly, they offered to hold a later meeting to answer questions from townspeople. But the companies ended up getting the “rudest” reception they ever received, he said.

Mrs. Foley, who accompanied her husband to the meeting, felt physically threatened, he said.

There was a sharp contrast at that meeting, he said, between the way the selectmen blocked questions from the audience about a transfer of the Crossroads liquor license but allowed verbal assaults against Pond View and Modal Resources representatives.

 Ames took particular issue with two arguments raised by opponents – that a transfer station would take a big bite out of property values and that $300,000 is too small an amount to warrant consideration of the proposal.

He asked that townspeople check out home prices around Medfield’s transfer station. And he pointed to a newspaper headline that the town might have to cut 55 jobs.

The town’s zoning ordinance makes a motor freight station a matter of right in the industrial zone. A truck-train facility is to be treated the same as a truck-only station under state and federal law, Ames said.

The site is also entirely within an aquifer protection zone that imposes rules on what materials can be handled within it.

Stating that he is confident either option can pass environmental muster, Ames wondered why Walpole has industrial land in an aquifer protection zone.

At open forum at Tuesday night’s board meeting, Selectman Michael Caron congratulated Brian Chase for the efforts by him and other concerned townspeople to block the two companies.

Feb. 14, 2002

Congressman questions container plan

By Tom Glynn
Staff writer

U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch told a Walpole Town Hall gathering last week that he has a “serious question” whether the companies proposing a rail trash transfer facility qualify as they claim for an exemption from state and town law.

The two companies announced earlier in the week that they would build the facility off South Street within a year under a federal statute that pre-empts state and local control. The announcement came within days of selectmen’s vote that they would not support the companies’ effort to build a transfer facility.

Lynch, a South Boston Democrat who represents Walpole in Congress, said the federal law is meant for railroads. The two companies “sound like a shipper instead of a company in railroad operation,” he said.

Lynch said a lawyer on the congressional staff would be assigned to the situation “for as many hours as it takes.” If the two companies succeed in claiming federal pre-emption, then all sorts of other enterprises will try to do the same, he said.

The Friday morning meeting was called to allow town staffers to discuss strategy against the proposal from the two companies, Pond View Recycling and Modal Resources.

At the session, Sen. Jo Ann Sprague, R-Walpole, said Lynch’s involvement is a big plus for the town. “He’s a great street fighter from South Boston.”

Town Administrator Michael Boynton said he and the staff have a mandate from the selectmen and a direction from the board of health to “utilize all resources” to block the facility.

In addition to legal help, Boynton was advised during the course of the meeting to hire an engineering firm and an environmental firm to buttress the town’s case.

“We’ll just have a big bake sale,” Boynton said, referring to the town’s cash shortage.

Lynch suggested the town begin by hiring a licensed site professional. Told later the cost for that initial step might be $10,000 to $15,000, Boynton said, “We can handle that.”

To claim federal pre-emption, a company files for an exemption from state and local control with the Surface Transportation Board in Washington. A notice is posted on the STB’s web site, a state or municipality then has seven days to object – or the exemption takes effect.

“The short window is troubling,” Lynch said.

The congressman’s office is checking with the STB daily to see  whether Pond View has filed. The STB knows of his interest, he said, adding he would be very disappointed if the federal agency did not notify him of a filing. Town Hall workers also said they are checking the STB website daily.

The federal law in question was part of the deregulation push of the 1990s. It eliminated the Interstate Commerce Commission and replaced it with the STB. “You’re dealing with an agency whose mission is to support railroad operations,” Town Counsel John Giorgio told the Friday meeting.

In the major federal court decision on the new law, a judge in Georgia ruled in favor of a railroad seeking to build a big freight yard in the face of the city’s opposition. In enacting the law, Congress explicitly intended to help the railroads by pre-empting state law, the judge ruled. That ruling is cited in state court decisions that also have found that the federal law pre-empts traditional state and local “police” powers, including environmental oversight.

While the courts have been inclined to pre-emption, at least one recent ruling by the STB emphasizes states’ rights when they do not clash head-on with the federal law.

Another plus for the town’s position: The Georgia decision does not offer an indication of how a court would respond in a case in which the company involved is not a railroad.

 Health Board Chairman Paul Millette told the Friday meeting that the town has found CSX, the railroad that controls the track serving the South Street site, to be responsive on other issues. CSX wants to maintain good relations with the town, Millette said.

CSX might even oppose the Pond View proposal, Boynton said.

CSX operates a facility in Boston that works the same way as the Pond View facility would.

Hauling compressed rubbish, flatbed trucks bring in containers similar to those used in ocean shipping. The containers are transferred to flatbed rail cars for shipment out of state.

The rubbish is not re-formed on site as it would have been in Pond View and Modal’s original proposal for a trash transfer station fed by packer trucks. Because it involved an activity beyond transportation, that original plan, it could be argued, would not qualify for an STB exemption.

The CSX operation is in the Beacon yards, owned by the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority and speculated to be worth some very big money to nearby Boston University and Harvard.

Town Counsel Giorgio said that Massachusetts now ships 30 percent of its rubbish out of state and that the figure is growing. The trend does not help Walpole’s case, he said.

Steven Davis, chairman of the sewer and water commissioners, said the site proposed by Pond View would be off limits under state law. It lies entirely within a heavily regulated zone intended to protect the town’s wells, he said.

Davis said he visited Pond View’s facility in East Providence and found it messy and noisy. Home prices near the facility, which recycles construction material, are down 30 to 40 percent, he said.

Walpole has three factors in its favor as it squares off against the proposal, Davis said.

The first is the law: The Pond View proposal is forcing the definition of railroad operations to the extreme, he said.

The second advantage, Davis said, is that the town is unified in its opposition.  “It’s heartening.”

And third, time is on Walpole’s side, he said, noting that there are a lot of veterans of the successful fight to block the MWRA’s sludge dump plan. To defeat the Pond View plan, he said, “we’re going to have to hang in for three or four years”

By Tom Glynn
Staff writer

In a meeting at which the audience rather than the board called the shots, selectmen voted 4-0 Tuesday night against a proposed rail trash transfer station.

There was no public statement from representatives of the companies following the vote. But according to their presentation earlier in the meeting, town sponsorship is necessary if the proposal for 23 acres off South Street is to win state approval.

The session began with an announcement by selectmen Chairman William Ryan that members of the audience would not be allowed to ask questions. The session, he said, was to be solely a presentation by the companies to the board.

With 50 or so townspeople in the audience that included several Town Meeting representatives and all three candidates in the Feb. 8 special election for selectman, Cliff Snuffer raised a point of order asking the board by what authority "you are denying us our right to speak" on "such a major piece of business."

Ryan then said he would allow Snuffer to be the spokesman for those in attendance. Mary Jane Brady, like Snuffer a Town Meeting representative, then said others should be allowed to speak as well.

When the companies’ presentation concluded, Ryan ended up allowing anyone who wished to speak and to ask questions.

Snuffer led off with a contention that "it is clear that this is not a hello meeting" between the companies and the board. Other speakers said they believed there were prior dealings between the companies and town officials to ease the way for a project its representatives said would be worth more than $300,000 a year in revenues and savings for the town.

Town Administrator Michael Boynton said the owner of the property approached the town with "an idea for a business" several months ago and that a meeting was held. Some town representatives at that meeting, he said, raised the same type of questions and objections that were being heard from the audience.

At that stage "we can’t throw anyone out and we can’t say we want it," Boynton said.

The companies were told they had to contact town boards and that decisions could not be made until those boards held public hearings and were able to judge the project’s impact, he said.

"It had to get to this level," he said, referring to the proposal being discussed in public at a health board informational meeting last week and at this week’s selectmen’s meeting.

But Snuffer said the selectmen’s intent not to allow townspeople to speak only reinforced his misgivings.

Former selectman Ron Mariani noted that the proposal was not questioned last week by health board members. Health Agent Robin Chapell had no reservations, he said. She gets her orders from Boynton and Boynton gets his from the selectmen, Mariani said.

"The red carpet was out," Mariani said, noting that townspeople found out about the health board meeting more or less by accident and only a day ahead of time.

As proposed by Pond View Recycling and Modal Resources, the rail transfer station would be built on a V-shaped parcel between South Street and the freight tracks. The companies could access the site from the other side of the tracks via Production Road.

The plan calls for 30 packer trucks (the type that makes curbside pickups) a day to enter a closed building where they would dump their trash into rail cars for out-of-state disposal. The trash, at least at first, would come from communities outside of Walpole.

The companies estimate they are a year away from filing formal applications with Walpole and four years away from opening the facility.

Townspeople from streets near the site said the proposal would create health and environmental problems, add to heavy truck traffic and knock down property values.

Selectman candidate James Paul Taylor, noting he used to work for a trash company, said smells, spills and vermin would be inevitable. Candidate John Spillane said the site is "right in the middle of the aquifer."

The $320,000 dangled before the town is not guaranteed, and besides, it is a pittance in comparison to the direct and indirect costs the project would inflict, speakers maintained.

One speaker said a big point against the facility was made in the companies’ own presentation. A similar Brockton facility, opened three years ago, is now being expanded because it has done so well.

One argument made by many speakers that in a town whose image has suffered from other projects, a regional trash transfer station would be no asset, especially when it comes to attracting more desirable businesses.

Other speakers, notably Steve Davis, raised another set of arguments: that legal and environmental obstacles would prevent the project from being built, but only after the companies and the town had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Davis, chairman of the sewer and water commission but speaking as a Town Meeting representative, brought up recent history in Abington, where the health board approved a project three times bigger than the Walpole proposal. Townspeople rose up and recalled all five health board members; the new board revoked the project’s approval.

The episode cost Abington $240,000, Davis said.

Brady told the companies: "Our townspeople have majored in opposing unwanted sitings. We are well prepared and well schooled."

Davis urged the companies to drop the plan now to save themselves a lot of money. "Cut it off tonight. Cut it off cleanly," he asked the companies and the board.

As the session was about to wind down at 11 p.m., Town Meeting Rep. Tom Driscoll called for selectmen to give the audience "the mood of the board."

After brief hesitation, Selectman Alan Rockwood went first. "Take a vote this evening and stop it right here. There is no way this will be built in this community."

By Brian Burns
Staff writer

Board of Health members and abutting residents received their first look Tuesday night at a proposal to build a solid waste rail transfer station in South Walpole.

Speaking on behalf of Pond View Recycling and Modal Resources, consultant John Blaisdell presented a preliminary proposal for an approximately 25,000 square foot facility that would be housed within a 23-acre industrial site at 400 South St.

The site is presently a compost facility, with some provisions for wood, brick and concrete waste.

If approved, the new facility would be limited to handling 500 tons of municipal solid waste per day. Municipal waste is essentially what Walpole residents throw away after separating out their recyclables, Blaisdell explained.

In the plan outlined Tuesday night, waste would be brought into the facility by rubbish trucks (the same type that pick up the town’s rubbish now) and then transferred to rail cars within an enclosed area inside the building.

The cars would then be shipped out on CSX tracks at a maximum of five cars a day. The trash would most likely end up in landfills and incinerators in Ohio and western New York.

CSX regulations require the rail cars to be both water and air tight, Blaisdell said, which should eliminate any odor problems.

With a processing limit of 500 tons per day, there would be about 30 trucks unloading at the facility each day, which would make for a total of 60 trips in and out of the station.

The trash would be brought into the facility via designated truck routes, though the specific routes have yet to be worked out.

Adding in the cars of employees, there would be about 100 vehicles coming in and out of the property each day, Blaisdell said.

The preliminary plan is for the facility is to operate it from 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with the rail cars to be taken out once a day.

Pond View and Modal are interested in the South Street site because it has excellent rail access. A hub connecting to existing CSX freight line would be brought right inside the facility.

Walpole is also attractive because the town’s solid waste contract expires in 2007, Blaisdell said.

Having a transfer station in town would provide the town with an excellent opportunity to save money, he said.

The town now pays about $80 a ton for solid waste removal and transport. With the transfer station operational, waste removal costs could be as low as $50-60 a ton, which could mean about $150,000 in annual savings, Blaisdell said.

There is also the potential for additional savings if the use of the station is contracted out to other municipalities such as Milford, Franklin and Shrewsbury that have their contracts set to run out in 2007.

Tuesday’s meeting was only a preliminary step to inform the health board about the process and ask for sponsorship, Blaisdell said. It will be another four to six months before they are back looking for a more formalized approval, Blaisdell said.

The permitting and approval process for a facility of this kind at the state and local levels is extensive. In the best-case scenario, it would take until 2005 to complete, he said.

Health Board Chairman Paul Millette told Blaisdell that since he was learning about the project for the first time, he was not prepared to make a decision on sponsorship that night.

Follow-up questions from Millette and other board members were mostly informational ones about the size and scope of the proposed operation.

A group of 25 or so residents from nearby homes also attended the meeting.

Given a chance to speak, they expressed their concerns about the potential for odor and rodent problems at the site. They also worried about the increase in truck traffic.

"I don’t know how you get up there without going through a residential area," Audubon Drive resident Kevin McDonald said.

Other residents pointed out that there was already a problem with CSX trains idling for long periods of time on the tracks behind the site.

McDonald said that if the health board decided for some reason not to use the transfer station, all that the project would bring to Walpole would be more truck trips and more action on the CSX rails.