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arthur
Senior Member
212 Posts |
Posted - 06/08/2008 : 06:27:49 AM
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EVERETT, NEWBURYPORT
Waste site owner proposes development deal
Aims to move wood debris, build hotel or biotech center
By Kay Lazar, Globe Staff | June 8, 2008
A high-stakes development deal that links Everett's future to Newburyport's past now hinges on a mountain of trash that neither community wants.
At issue is a proposal by William Thibeault to double the number of daily truckloads of construction debris taken from his Everett Wood Waste facility to his landfill in Newburyport, called Crow Lane. But that would be just the first step in this pungent tale of two cities.
Thibeault's master plan, said his lead lawyer, is to clean up, expand, and redevelop the Everett site on Boston Street into a hotel or biotechnology center, moving the recycling operation to a 3.5-acre corner of another contaminated 32-acre parcel in Everett that Thibeault is negotiating to buy, clean, and develop into a "massive" office, retail, and residential center.
While sour smells from open-air mountains of recycled construction debris waft over Revere Beach Parkway from Thibeault's current Everett facility, his new construction recycling center would be enclosed to curtail odors, said lawyer Anthony Rossi. The request to increase the amount of waste trucked from Everett to Newburyport, he said, would alleviate neighborhood odor issues at both sites by removing debris that wasn't meant to be stored long-term in Everett, but could be disposed of properly in Newburyport. That portion of the deal depends on state and local authorities lifting stop-work orders in Newburyport because of repeated environmental violations.
"Right now, we have everything pretty much in place to help everybody," Rossi said.
State environmental officials, who are reviewing the proposal and must sign off on it, declined comment and referred questions to the state attorney general's office, which is overseeing a court-ordered capping and closing of Crow Lane landfill. Amie Breton, a spokeswoman for the attorney general, declined to comment.
The mayors of Newburyport and Everett said in separate interviews last week that they back the proposal, but residents of both communities, along with other local officials, are skeptical. After years of neighborhood complaints about the stench and leaks at each facility, and fines assessed at both for violating state environmental rules, they said the deal should be more carefully scrutinized.
"I am leaning toward saying no, but we need to hear much more," said Lawrence McCavitt, a Newburyport city councilor.
Newburyport's council, which must approve increased truckloads into the landfill, held a public hearing on the issue last week. Just before that meeting, councilors met in a closed session at which they were briefly shown, for the first time, a copy of a thick document that detailed Thibeault's proposal.
That deal, according to Thibeault's lawyer, includes an offer to release Newburyport from some, but not all, of its liability under state environmental law for waste dumped by the city at the landfill years ago. In exchange, Newburyport would have to agree to allow more waste to be brought from Thibeault's Everett facility.
"They are asking us for something and we are asking them for something," said Newburyport's mayor, John Moak, who sent a May 22 e-mail to councilors urging them to approve the increase.
In Everett, Mayor Carlo DeMaria said his office has reached agreement on a pivotal portion of Thibeault's proposal. The city, pending approval from its council and Board of Aldermen, will sell Thibeault a 5-acre parcel that used to house the city's public works garage, a site described by the mayor as an eyesore. The property borders Thibeault's Wood Waste facility and has been the focus of litigation between the city and Thibeault for several years over public access rights to an abutting street. The deal would maintain public access to the roadway.
The $3.5 million sale price is the same amount Thibeault offered in 2002, before litigation, and includes his proposal to clean up both properties and develop them into more desirable businesses that would complement the city's plan to upgrade that neighborhood near Revere Beach Parkway.
DeMaria said Thibeault's lawyers also confirmed that his client is negotiating to buy a 32-acre parcel on lower Broadway behind the Gateway Center, where Thibeault intends to move his Wood Waste facility and develop the rest of the contaminated property after a $30 million cleanup. The property is now owned by a bonding company that took possession from former owner Modern Continental Construction.
"Hopefully," DeMaria said, "he is a man of his word."
But since 2004, state officials have been in a legal tug-of-war with Thibeault over orders to enclose his Wood Waste facility, said Ed Coletta, spokesman for the state's Department of Environmental Protection.
Tomorrow, Everett's Board of Aldermen is slated to hear details of Thibeault's proposal at a 7 p.m. meeting.
Newburyport's council will probably schedule another session soon to debate the issue, said City Clerk Richard Jones.
As officials grapple with Thibeault's proposed deal, one longtime Everett neighbor of his Wood Waste facility said she has doubts. "They want to be nice to him so whatever agenda they have goes through, and the heck with the people who live and work here," said Jeanne DiStefano, a 64-year-old woman who has asthma and lives a block from Wood Waste.
"He has never followed through on anything he has said, so why should I believe him now?"
Kay Lazar can be reached at klazar@globe.com.
© Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
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Tails
Administrator
2682 Posts |
 Posted - 06/08/2008 : 9:57:15 PM
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The Daily News Published: June 05, 2008 03:30 am
One can't help but feel sympathy for the Newburyport City Council as it weighs an ugly decision regarding the Crow Lane landfill.
This is truly a nightmare with no easy solution. But there is a morally right solution the council should send a clear message that it won't do favors for a company that has so blatantly abused the public trust and caused a health epidemic unlike anything Newburyport has seen in recent years.
The council must decide whether to allow the landfill operators, New Ventures of Chelsea, to dump many tons of additional waste onto the already mountainous landfill pile. New Ventures said if it gets this permission, it would be able to close and cap the landfill faster, and it will end its threats to sue Newburyport.
On the one hand, the councilors can't help but feel outrage as they listen to neighbor after neighbor describe sleepless nights, nausea and even nosebleeds caused by the noxious stench coming from the badly managed landfill capping operation. An entire neighborhood of the city has had to suffer this fate for five years. And there's the landfill operator's threats of lawsuits, the arrogance and the utter disregard for the suffering that this neighborhood has been forced to endure.
Councilor Tom O'Brien summed it up well Monday night, after listening to the suffering the neighborhood has endured: "That to me is disgusting. I'm ready to vote. I'm ready to vote no."
(good for him!!)
But then there's the threat of lawsuits that New Ventures dangles over the head of Newburyport. And unfortunately, it appears that grounds for it was created recently when the state in an effort to help Newburyport designated the site as a 21E contamination site. That designation puts some liability on Newburyport for trash that was dumped there years ago. Some councilors estimate the legal fight could cost Newburyport hundreds of thousands of dollars.
And so the council has to weigh whether defiance or dealmaking is the best solution.
The state, which has been highly critical of how New Ventures has been running its operation, is trying to broker a closure deal with the company behind closed doors, and the council's decision could play an important role in those secret talks. Strangely enough, if the council decides to reject New Ventures request, councilors say the state could overrule it.
On the surface, it seems like a good idea to deal with this company and take it on its word that it will close the landfill faster if it gets the council's permission to bring in a lot more fill.
But when one looks at the track record of New Ventures, it's hard to imagine that its word is good.
One need look no further than the transcript of a phone message New Ventures' owner left on the answering machine of Newburyport's health director earlier this year, after the city shut the operation down due to offensive smells. The message was this: "Jack Morris. You don't get it do you? The more you keep (expletive deleted)ing around, and the more you keep trying to bust my (expletive deleted)s, the more I go the other way. So, you wanna play I'll show you how to play, OK?"
Shortly afterward, the flare that burns off the noxious odors was shut off an act the state says was "manually and intentionally" done by New Ventures and the neighborhood underwent yet another round of misery.
( How long until something like this happens in Everett?)
What other company in Newburyport would have the gall to do this? How long would the public tolerate it?
It's astounding that a company that has so mistreated the public can now find itself in a position of negotiation. That is not right.
Newburyport knows who and what it is dealing with. There's a clear track record to examine. The council should send a strong message to New Ventures.
Our council should send him a strong message too! |
Edited by - Tails on 06/08/2008 10:01:10 PM |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 06/09/2008 : 12:41:32 AM
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I'm willing to listen to what Mr. Thibeault and/or his lawyers have to say later on this evening (I hate these late games).
However, the one thing that I don't want to hear is that Everett's and Newburyport's fates are tied together. Each of us should be able to decide what is right the course of action for the individual communities.
I'm afraid that it won't come down that way though. |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 06/09/2008 : 09:09:45 AM
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Since our fate with Wood Waste is probably being tied to Newburyport's, I wanted to make sure that really understood the Newburyport situation. The following is a link to an article that I believe is a fairly concise primer of their situation:
You must be logged in to see this link.
The following link is to an article that was the most current status of the Newburyport situation that I could find:
You must be logged in to see this link. |
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n/a
deleted
11 Posts |
Posted - 06/09/2008 : 12:17:06 PM
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| What happen to respect no more respect. votes should be resident votes not leave it to a couple of people to make decison. They will make wrong decison as I read we live here this is home for us not him and he does not take care of people like he should with this kind of buisness. No good. |
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Tails
Administrator
2682 Posts |
Posted - 06/09/2008 : 2:31:12 PM
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Those who will be responsible for Wood Waste and voting on it are just as guilty as him. I urge anyone in city government to research this and not take anyones word for it. They should go through this and study it. This is one site of many articles/ websites/ violations against him. He truly is *not* a man of his word.
You must be logged in to see this link.
A lot of these issues are the same complaints from Wood Waste and New Ventures so it must be the owner. Go drive by Wood Waste right now
.today. I could not even breath, I was nauseated. All I wanted was some fruit from Stop & Shop and I have to risk throwing up to go there. I wont burden anyone else for that matter and the people that live on lower Broadway do not deserve this. They are not insignificant people, they are our neighbors. Since the land on Boston Street is already contaminated he should clean that up and leave lower Broadway alone. He has more of an agenda than meets the eye and unfortunately, I believe, the Mayor knows, and is keeping silent.
"Hopefully," DeMaria said, "he is a man of his word."
Is he crazy for this statement? Has Thibeault EVER kept his word?
Even talking about Wood Waste the Mayor is not keeping his word. The Mayor said he would enclose Boston Street and the hotel chain or office condos for lower Broadway.
These are your words, please stick to them. Never one mention of Wood Waste in this article when we now know that was the plan all along. You know all the legal heads got together today to try and fool the layman. How much longer are we going to be the fools and will the city council let us down too? Time will tell.
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Edited by - Tails on 06/09/2008 2:44:17 PM |
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massdee
Moderator
5299 Posts |
Posted - 06/09/2008 : 7:09:28 PM
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My outrage continues
Well, I just started reading the blogs of my colleagues and I have to say, I'm kind of shocked at how shocked they are that our mayor backs, or backed, a scheme to truck crap from Everett up here to Crow Lane.
It's all here, in the Boston Globe. And yeah, I noticed someone from the Globe crawling all over my landfill posts last week.
And yeah, I told you the mayor was up to something ...
Anyway, did I not say the same thing about crap being shipped up to us here, at the end of the post, and here? Did not at least 2 people say it at the special meeting? Is it not all over the Everett Average Citizen, to which I have posted links? Has it not already been in the Globe (see second link, above, where I re-printed the snippet on Everett, by Kay Lazar).
What the ... ! I guess I write in vain. Is anybody out there listening?
Posted by Gillian Swart at 11:34 AM 2 comments
Labels: landfill |
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massdee
Moderator
5299 Posts |
Posted - 06/10/2008 : 07:38:26 AM
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| Did I hear Attorney Rossi say that Newburyport was taking a vote last night on increasing the number of trucks being allowed to dump in their landfill? I checked with Newburyport and no such vote took place. Mr Rossi had erroneous information. I wonder exactly how much of the info he shared with the BOA was correct? I hope our City Council will not be taken in by this group. |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 06/10/2008 : 08:09:10 AM
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The link that I posted yesterday to the newspaper article that contained the most current status of the Newburyport issue stated the following:
"Yesterday morning, after a General Government Committee meeting, Moak posted a notice for a special City Council meeting on Wednesday to discuss the landfill. But by the afternoon, that meeting was canceled due to schedule conflicts, Moak said."
The newspaper article ran on Saturday so the yesterday it refers to had to be Friday. The article doesn't state when the meeting is going to be rescheduled; I'd hazard a guess that the issue would be pushed to the next regularly scheduled meeting which I believe will be next Monday.
Maybe just a misunderstanding on Mr. Rossi's part on which Monday, if you want to give him the benefit of the doubt. None the less, we are not off to a very good start. Let's see where the tarping issue goes. |
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Tails
Administrator
2682 Posts |
Posted - 06/10/2008 : 08:44:35 AM
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This question belongs in this thread:
There was misconception that " I feel" Mr. Rossi said was incorrect on saying, and that was the fact he said it was "Kay Lazar" who informed "him" that there are a lot of misconceptions concerning lower Broadway. She is a reporter......why would she be telling the experts about a misconception? I'm telling you this deal STINKS literally. They are going to find loopholes to do what they want. I hope people on the city council are smarter than this. |
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massdee
Moderator
5299 Posts |
Posted - 06/10/2008 : 10:53:06 AM
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Check out the landfill post on this link. Sound familiar?
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A great letter to the editor by a Newburyport resident. Much of the letter could have been written by an Everett resident. The two communities have much in common at this point.
You must be logged in to see this link. |
Edited by - massdee on 06/10/2008 11:53:54 AM |
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tetris
Moderator
2040 Posts |
Posted - 06/10/2008 : 11:53:44 AM
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| Guess I was wrong. Newburyport did have a meeting last night but the landfill wasn't on the agenda. Who knows when their next meeting will take place? |
Edited by - tetris on 06/10/2008 11:59:41 AM |
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massdee
Moderator
5299 Posts |
Posted - 06/10/2008 : 10:13:39 PM
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Tetris posted this link the other day. After last night's BOA meeting and listening to Attorney Rossi tell us that Newburyport was taking a vote last night on Mr Thibeault,(which by the way they did not) and would probably pass it, I thought I would repost this for those who might have missed it.
You must be logged in to see this link.
Published: June 07, 2008 03:56 am
Mayor: Landfill fix not 'gelling' Council likely to reject deal to bring in more debris
By Stephen Tait
Staff Writer
NEWBURYPORT Mayor John Moak said a solution to the recent proposals and negotiations regarding the embattled Crow Lane landfill does not look promising.
New Ventures, which owns the often stench-plagued landfill, is in negotiations with the state attorney general's office and the Department of Environmental Protection to develop a plan to cap the landfill by the end of the year. Those plans are secret and do not involve city officials.
At the same time, New Ventures has put forth a proposal to the city to allow more trucks to dump material the same type of building demolition waste that has been the root of the problems for the city and neighbors for nearly a half decade at the dump in order to cap the landfill by year's end.
Moak said New Ventures will likely not sign the deal with the state unless the City Council accepts the company's proposal to allow in more volume to the landfill, which would require the city to reopen its 2002 Host Community Agreement. As part of the agreement, the city is negotiating to free itself of liability associated with Crow Lane.
The mayor said that on Thursday the attorney general's office, which will not comment on the deal in the works with New Ventures, was given a two-week extension by the courts to get the deal signed.
But Moak said he just doesn't see the two things working out.
"I don't see us getting anything done in that time frame," the mayor said, adding later that, "I just don't see them gelling right now."
Yesterday morning, after a General Government Committee meeting, Moak posted a notice for a special City Council meeting on Wednesday to discuss the landfill. But by the afternoon, that meeting was canceled due to schedule conflicts, Moak said.
Moak said if the council does not approve the proposal, it is unclear what may happen.
"I don't what that means," he said. "I have to tell you: I don't know."
A possible scenario is "that New Ventures won't sign the agreement with the state," Moak said.
"They can't sign that agreement because (without it) there is no way to increase the volume" at the landfill, he said.
City officials say rejecting or accepting New Ventures' proposal is a difficult decision.
On one hand is the testimony of landfill neighbors, who for more than four years have been subjected to smells of rotten eggs and burnt matches that come from the decomposing gypsum at the dump. That alone is a compelling reason to reject New Ventures plan, they say.
However, New Ventures has also threatened lawsuits based on the DEP's ruling that the site is a 21E site, a contaminated site, which could make the city liable for shutting it down, which comes with an expensive, yet unknown, price tag.
Councilor Brian Derrivan, who is the councilor for Ward 5, where the landfill is located, said he doesn't think the proposal would pass if the council took a vote right now. Derrivan said the council will likely need more time to discuss the situation.
"My gut would say ... if we were to vote now, that it would not pass," he said. "That being said, we need to do our due diligence. ... (I)t is irresponsible for us not to do that."
Derrivan said there is also a "trust issue" with William Thibeault, owner of New Ventures.
"Why are we to believe that all of a sudden he is going to do everything right?" Derrivan said. "It is a trust issue. We don't trust him. We don't trust that he is going to do what he says he is going to do."
Thibeault refuses to talk to The Daily News about the situation.
New Ventures wants to bring in more volume to the landfill in order to make the site "financially viable," Moak said. He said that stems mostly from the change in policy a few years ago that required that gypsum get mixed with soil before getting put on a landfill.
The mayor said New Ventures went to the state to say they needed more volume to make up that cost. New Ventures makes money by trucking in material.
"This volume issue has always been lingering, but nobody has brought it to the City Council until now," Moak said. "We can say no, we don't want New Ventures to make one dime on this, and that is fine with me.
"But at sometime, I'd like to see some kind of agreement that allows for this project to get done. That is why I'm looking at this," Moak said.
In a May 22 e-mail to the City Council regarding scheduling a special meeting which took place this week Moak said that he was asking the council "to agree to the volume issue, in exchange for some release from 21E."
Later, in an interview, he said those may not have been the best words to use and that what he was trying to say is that he wanted the council to consider the proposal since it takes council and his approval to reopen the Host Community Agreement.
"I'm saying I want the City Council to get involved in this," he said of the e-mail. "I'm asking them to look at it and consider that."
But Ward 1 Councilor Larry McCavitt, who said he also thinks the council would vote down the proposal if it went to a vote right now, said that encouragement from the mayor to accept the deal is "brutal."
"And he hadn't even seen the information himself, and he is urging us to go for it," he said, referring to the information about the agreement with New Ventures and the state. "Where is the leadership everyone is talking about?"
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Tails
Administrator
2682 Posts |
Posted - 06/11/2008 : 4:23:59 PM
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Interesting reading from Newburyport today, doesn't sound to me that their relationship with Newburyport has been any better, as Alderman Matewsky would lead you to believe.
June 11, 2008: The city cannot trust New Ventures
Although I did agree with the basic conclusion of your recent editorial that the city should not simply roll over and allow New Ventures everything it is asking for in the hope that they will in fact finally close the landfill in a timely and competent manner I am dismayed with parts of that editorial (June 5). Although The Daily News acknowledges that New Ventures "blatantly abused the public trust and caused a health epidemic unlike anything Newburyport has seen in recent years," it fails to accurately portray New Ventures' claims, saying that "if it gets this permission, it would be able to close and cap the landfill faster." In fact, New Ventures' actual claim as stated in its May 27 letter to the city is more extreme. It states that "the landfill cannot be closed without this approval."
This claim is unsupported by fact and furthermore seems completely illogical how could it possibly be true that it is faster or easier to bring in huge volumes of addtional material than to simply re-grade existing material? Although thoughtful people must always be open to possibilities that are not obvious, the most obvious answer here is that New Ventures, quite simply, lied. Logic suggests that New Ventures' motives have to do with taking additional profit for dumping additional toxic material (currently stored in Chelsea), and cleaning up the mess it has created for its neighbors there, who are reporting the same problems that people in Newburyport report.
The other point that The Daily News missed is New Ventures' intentions regarding its threatened lawsuit against the city. The Daily News stated that "it will end its threats to sue Newburyport" (if the city acceeds to its "request"). This is untrue. What the May 27 letter actually says is that it will release the city from its claims for any materials it brings in between now and closure, and for other claims "except those attributable to in a Feb. 22, 2007 preliminary injunction, setting forth a plan and schedule for closing and capping the landfill under the solid waste laws." Unfortunately for Newburyport, New Ventures claims that the city is responsible for 95 percent of the costs of capping the landfill based on exactly those exceptions. Based on these facts, its offer seems next to worthless.
The Daily News would serve the city better if it were more cautious when representing the positions of New Ventures. When we can't even trust the commitments that New Ventures actually does make, it is certainly a mistake to overstate them.
Although the course forward is not easy, it is clear. We cannot trust New Ventures and we cannot trust the Department of Environmental Protection. The city must enforce existing agreements, and do so aggressively. When the terms of the existing agreements are met and the huge liabilities owed by New Ventures to the city are paid in full, the city might then consider changes to the Host Community Agreement that, among other things, will give the city the kinds of controls that it should have insisted on from the beginning. Yes, the landfill should be capped, but it should not be done in a way that further endangers the health and well-being of the people of Newburyport.
JIM STILES
Newburyport |
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Tails
Administrator
2682 Posts |
Posted - 06/12/2008 : 11:35:31 AM
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| It's been three days since the BOA meeting, does anyone know if Woodwaste has been tarped yet? I know it's soon but Attorney Rossi said if he could he will tarp it tomorrow... I cant see why not and if it's not tarped, I'd like to know why. Tarping it will alleviate some of the problems. |
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Wood Waste
