Casella faces tough questions on Southbridge landfill, Charlton property
By Debbie LaPlaca
Correspondent
Posted Aug. 4, 2015 at 10:40 PM
Updated at 11:55 PM
CHARLTON – Whether Casella is operating illegally on Charlton land and polluting the town’s underground water supply was debated at a health board meeting Tuesday.
Matthew Gagner, Board of Health chairman, opened the meeting by asking landfill site manager Tracy Markham, “Are you operating in the town of Charlton?”
Her response, “I am not operating solid waste activities in the town of Charlton.”
Two of the Southbridge landfill’s storm-water retention ponds are in Charlton.
“We’re getting that these (two basins) are an integral part of the landfill operation and therefore, it could be construed the landfill is presently operating in Charlton,” he said.
To operate in Charlton, Casella would have needed a site assignment from the health board, which many have argued recently, should have been done before the ponds were installed.
Ms. Markham said Casella doesn’t consider storm-water basins as the solid waste activity that would deem a site assignment.
Seemingly satisfied with her answer, Mr. Gagner asked whether pollutants were pervading those ponds and the drinking water wells of nearby residents.
Ms. Markham said all basins are sampled for contaminants and inspected according to state and federal regulations.
Casella is also testing about 45 residential wells within a half mile, as ordered by the state Department of Environmental Protection.
Ms. Markham said there have been detections of various contaminates but all have been below the limits of drinking water standards.
Casella, she said, is supplying two residents with bottled water per their request, one on H Foot Road and the other on Berry Corner Road.
Casella Waste Systems Inc. began operating the landfill at 165 Barefoot Road in 2004, Ms. Markham said.
Casella met with Charlton officials in January about its plan to expand the footprint of waste operations beyond Southbridge town limits and into Charlton.
The multiphase plan aims to add years of capacity to the site. Without it, the landfill is expected to reach capacity in 2017.
Casella owns the land that straddles the town boundary. The plan calls for a landfill liner on 5.7 acres in Southbridge and 5.2 acres in Charlton.
“I think the expansion you’re requesting has stirred the pot and we’re hearing a lot of concerns,” Mr. Gagner said.
Kirstie Pecci, a staff attorney for MassPIRG and landfill abutter, met with the health board in June and urged members to demand a site assignment for the retention ponds. Since the site assignment process was not followed when the ponds were installed, she said, Casella was operating illegally in Charlton.
At the time, Ms. Pecci also asserted leachate runoff from the landfill is contaminating the ponds and encouraged the board to take action.
“There’s a big difference between storm water and contact water,” Ms. Markham said to the board Tuesday.
Runoff going into storm-water basins does not come in contact with waste, she said. Water that does make contact is captured in a closed leachate system and trucked off site.
Mr. Gagner thanked Ms. Markham for fielding the “tough questions” and for being a reliable source of general and technical information.
The health board query is part of a long process for the expansion that would undergo multijurisdictional permitting and oversight.
One obstacle to Casella’s plan is Charlton zoning.
Zoning Enforcement Officer Curtis J. Meskus ruled that town bylaw, as he interprets it, doesn’t allow the expansion into Charlton.
Casella recently met with the Planning Board regarding a plan to amend the zoning at the fall town meeting.
Planning Director Alan I. Gordon said Tuesday the land is zoned agricultural. The board, he said, was comfortable with the Casella’s overlay proposal with the proper site plan review.
Prior to the town meeting, the Planning Board would hold a public hearing and issue an advisory opinion.
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