07.02.09 - Hey
Canton
Hey Canton – how are you liking your tax bill? I’m
loving mine. Up $327.50 per quarter - an increase of $1310.00 for the
year. Somehow I didn’t see that coming and I am a disabled vet who is
over 70 years old. I can only imagine what you regular folks got hit
with. Of course this means we will be able to pay our army of lawyers
and consultants so that is all that really counts. We have won a
tremendous victory over Westwood Station. We have justified staying in
court and paying our lawyers while the construction is going on. We have
just slowed CC&F down enough to change their thinking from “lifestyle
center” to big box retail megaplex. Now they have gone from serving
their “village within a town” customers to taking on Patriot Place and
South Shore Plaza head to head. That ought to reduce traffic. But let’s
see how else we can shoot ourselves in the foot so that we can keep our
lawyers gainfully employed.
Have you seen what is going on over at Legacy Place
in Dedham? You know – the place that is actually going to open without
any help from our lawyers. I have been working with them on trying to
get enough people to staff their stores and restaurants. I was speaking
yesterday with the executive chef at P.F.Chang’s China Bistro. He is
biased but he claims that his Legacy Place location is the most
beautiful of all the Chang’s he has seen. The Cinema Delux is going to
be world class. It is after all the new flagship of the Showcase Cinema
fleet. Whole Foods and L.L.Bean’s are partnered in a colossal venue that
promises to be a draw that will justify the Add-A-Lane on 128 all by
itself. Thank god we don’t have anything like that being considered for
Canton. Why mess with economic development when we have affluent
homeowners willing to pay any tax rate and still go for overrides -
while at the same time continually re-electing a leadership team that
really isn’t doing anything but obstructing. In Air Force leadership
school we had a saying – those who cannot lead and will not follow
invariably obstruct; so be a leader, a follower – or get the hell out of
the way. And folks I do not consider foisting an 11 million dollar
drinking water treatment plant on an uninformed populace as leadership.
Did you even look at the Drinking Water Report from
the MWRA before you threw it in the recycling with your pile of empty
plastic water bottles? If you did I hope you noticed that the last page
of the report was provided by the Canton Department of Public Works. It
states quite simply that the great water coming out of your tap is 100%
MWRA. It goes on to describe DPW efforts to provide the best and safest
water distribution system possible. And folks they are excellent at what
they do. But let us not go nuts over the fact that they can maintain and
upgrade our water infrastructure. The wait staff at P.F. Chang’s can
provide you with excellent service and a pleasant dining experience –
but they don’t cook. The Executive Chef runs the kitchen and the Maitre
d’ runs the dining room. When either oversteps there is chaos and
usually a fight. Okay – going a little too deeply into the analogy but
you know what I’m saying. Canton uses 2.4+ million gallons of water
every day. That is an average. More in summer less in winter. That is
over 100 gallons of water per day per person in a town of 24,000 –
commercial use is offset by the fact that our population is closer to
22,000. Think about it. Conserve water, eliminate the cost for building
and operating a drinking water plant and you might just save enough
money to pay your fool’s tax increase – they are making fools out of us
you know. Good luck to us all.
06.15.09 - With
apologies
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about my belief that there could be
funding for the wastewater treatment plant that I think is a better
idea than this drinking water merry-go-round that we are on. A
respected reader asked me what funding I was talking about. I
couldn't answer at the time. Here is the answer with apologies for
the delay.
Hello from bizjournals! (clavin@detma.org) thought
you might like the following article from the Boston Business
Journal:State to get $185M in wastewater stimulus
Published: June 15, 2009
Massachusetts will receive $185 million in federal stimulus
dollars to upgrade water and sewer systems across the state.
To continue reading, go to:
http://boston.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2009/06/15/daily8.html?surround=etf
06.14.09 - More foam
than beer
The beer is
out of the bottle. We are looking at a 10% increase in our water
bill. Not increasing our sewer rate somehow averages out to 4 – 4.5%
for combined. MWRA came out with their increases and we have
incorporated them into our water and sewer rates with the caveat
that we may have to look at them again later this year. (Adapted
from Mike Berger in the Canton Citizen)
But according
to what I am seeing, hearing and thinking – we have more foam than
beer.
We must go
back to a basic premise that no one has ever challenged – we can
never be wholly independent of MWRA water. In fact one of the
primary purposes of the drinking water treatment plant is to insure
compatibility with the MWRA water that will be blended with town
water to provide adequate water supply. I don’t think we will ever
be drinking 100% town water. Especially not during mandatory shut
downs of our wells triggered by low-flow situations during the
summer. In a moderately stressed watershed such as the Neponset it
is estimated that this could be as much as 41% of the time.
Here is what
MWRA has to say about the proposed increases -
http://www.mwra.com/annual/rates/fy2010/ratefacts/ratesfacts.htm.
A couple
of points - The biggest driver of MWRA's budget is debt service
(the share of its budget that is devoted to principal and interest
payments) on the bonds that financed major capital improvement
projects. Debt service represents 58.1% of MWRA’s total budget.
(Taken from MWRA web page). What this means is that as long as we
are part of the MWRA system – and we will always be part of the
system – we will always be liable for our share of those
expenditures because we benefited from them. Another point taken
from the web site is - MWRA's charges typically represent about
45% of the amount that communities bill their customers. The
proportion varies considerably among communities. Each city and town
has its own rate structure and accounting policies. Local system
maintenance practices also vary.
Based on the
February 2009 preliminary assessment MWRA is raising our water rate
by 2.4% and our sewer rate by 1.8% for a combined increase of 2.1%.
This is contingent upon $7 million of debt relief from revenue
generated by the proposed inclusion of bottled water into the Bottle
Bill, i.e. charging a bottle deposit. This has the secondary
benefits of reducing the impact on our land fills (not everyone
recycles every time) and providing a wakeup call that could
reintroduce people to the quality of our tap water which will
increase municipal water revenues and positively impact our water
bills. I started using bottled water during a period when we were
blending town and MWRA water.
The difference
in the 2.1% from MWRA and the 4 to 4.5% from DPW is for
infrastructure & equipment costs and maintenance of the water and
sewer reserve accounts that will pay for development, construction,
operations & maintenance and debt service for our own “little MWRA”.
I just love paying twice for the same thing so that somebody can say
that Canton is in the water business. Hah Hah – you say?
I surprised
myself while barking about our meddling with the Forge and Reservoir
Pond dams. We have or have had repaired the following dams:
Shepard’s Pond, Bolivar Pond, Ponkapoag Pond, the COE dam on
Neponset Street, Forge Pond and now Reservoir Pond. We even blew up
a zoning change for the former Plymouth Rubber property over water
rights. That feels like we are taking the first steps towards
upgrading to a true water reserve capacity while implementing
aquifer recharge controls. If we are going all out to get into the
water business what makes us think we can do it better and cheaper
than MWRA?
This one has
the dog chasing his tail. Nothing seems to make sense. The current
bone that I am chewing on is “Privatization”. I have the DVDs – Blue
Gold, Flow and Liquid Assets and there doesn’t really seem to be an
exact fit. I am going to read up on
http://www.massglobalaction.org/home/pdf/GlobalActionReport.pdf
and see if it provides better insight. Check it out and tell me what
you think. Take care and good luck to all of us.
06.07.09 - Delayed
Reaction
My delayed
reaction to two articles in the May 28, 2009 issue of the Canton
Citizen was because of my perception of Canton’s adoption of the
Munich version of the Parisian exchange: “But the people have no
bread. Then let them eat cake.” The modern version is: “But the
people have no water. Then let them drink beer.” In fact if some
huge brewery (huger than the one we already have) was going to
relocate here because of our abundant supply of local water it
would explain things. It wouldn’t make any sense but it would be
something.
As it
stands Mike Berger’s article on repairs to the Reservoir Pond
dam is a puzzler. Mike got everything right as usual but what he
reported sets off a chain of “huh?”s. You know that a couple of
weeks ago the DPW decided to drain Forge Pond to do repairs on
the dam at Washington Street. They pulled the bottom board which
sucked the water from the bottom of the pond which included all
the silt and contaminants that had built up and sent it down the
river to the Fowl Meadow where our water well recharge zones are
located. The black mud and stench that came from that water, as
it poured out from under the dam was disgusting. A business
owner from the nearby condos called me to see if I knew what was
going on. I went over with my video camera to record what was
one of the most shocking sights in my “green sneakered” life.
All that was left of the pond was black, slimy looking, smelly
mud and the three brooks that had once been dammed to form the
pond and to create the Canton River. Massapoag, Pequit and Steep
Hill Brooks were easily identified in the rotting corpse that
had been Forge Pond. Several phone calls to town officials
netted nothing until someone called someone at DPW and was told
their story. No problem. We will fix the dam and everything will
be fine. The next day the boards were replaced and the pond was
filling up. Of course the sludge from the bottom of the pond
that had been sent downstream could not be tested or evaluated
and the rapidity with which the pond refilled is a damning
indictment of the reduced capacity of the pond for flood
control. It also creates questions about the understanding of
the ecosystem that the “experts” are going to rely upon to
recharge the wells in our well fields that are going to be
serviced by the Godzilla Water Treatment Plant. Every day I
watch the Canton River change color and flow in almost instant
reaction to the flows in and out of Forge Pond.
As I read
Mike’s article I wonder why the Forge Pond Dam is different from
the Reservoir Pond Dam with regard to accountability and
liability? And just where the hell do you think the water that
you draw down from The Rez is going to go? Re-read the previous
paragraph for a clue. Damming Pequit Brook formed the Rez and
the outlet from the Rez is still Pequit Brook, which flows to
Forge Pond. Do you think the Rez is going to fit in Forge? Or is
it just going to create flooding conditions downstream? Was the
bottom sucking drawdown just an under the table method of trying
to increase capacity in the Forge without an “official”
dredging. I just don’t get it.
Jay
Turner’s article
on the
reaction of the Riverview neighbors continues to expose a
muddying of the water (pun intended) with regard to the drinking
water treatment plant. The appointment of another expensive
consultant to do a peer review and be an honest broker in this
matter just pointed out that the real need is for an honest
butcher. One who doesn’t put their thumb on the scale while
claiming to provide an honest weight and price. This is not the
first time that a pre-determined site was groomed for selection
by a structured presentation to an honest and competent
consultant who thought they were being given the whole picture.
This just happens to be the most egregious.
Today’s
Globe article – Beth Daley
(click on the underlined)
points out clearly that those towns that are serviced by the
MWRA are going to be in a position of strength in the coming
Water Wars.
“With about 4 feet of rainfall a year,
Massachusetts has long escaped the water woes so visible in the
Western United States. The enormous Quabbin provides ample water
for drinking, showering, and lawn watering to dozens of
communities in Eastern and Central Massachusetts and has so much
left over its managers want to sell it. Yet suburban and rural
communities outside that system have to draw water from the
11,000 miles of rivers and streams that crisscross the state or
from aquifers and other reservoirs.Now, as climate change
threatens to bring more intense periods of drought and rain,
water scientists say residents, water suppliers, and state
officials are running out of time to balance the demands of
people with the needs of nature.”
Has anyone
recently told us that the MWRA is running out of water? Did you
believe them? Why are we messing with a system that works, is
safe and reliable, provides excellent water quality and really
doesn’t cost that much when we use it wisely. Why are we
spending at the very least 8 million dollars up front and an
unknown amount of money going into the future on something that
we don’t need. If that money is really burning a hole in
somebody’s pocket then build a waste water treatment plant.
Every story we have been told about the need for our own private
drinking water supply is actually correct if we apply it to
waste water treatment. Instead of sucking water out of our
acquifers and sending it off to the Atlantic – how about
treating the used Quabbin Water and putting it back into, say –
the Fowl Meadow to turn that ecological, archeological,
recreational wonderland into the garden spot of eastern
Massachusetts. And reduce our sewer bills at the same time.
Think about it. Which is costing you more? Water or sewer?
Sometimes you have to make your own luck. Take care and be
well.
05.02.09 - Buy the
Mona Lisa
Okay – at
Annual Town Meeting we were told that the consultant studying our
possible acquisition of the Ponkapoag Golf Course referred to it as
“Mona Lisa with mud on her face”. To me that translates to “a
priceless work of art in need of restoration”. If you do the
restoration you have a priceless work of art that has the potential
for attracting visitors, businesses and national attention to our
otherwise painfully limping town. Yes, it could cost as much as 8
million dollars but at the end you have a priceless work of art
Etc., etc. Where would we get that kind of money? Well we are
ponying up 8 to 11 million dollars for a water treatment plant that
we don’t need and we still don’t know how much it is going to cost
to run the darn thing. But our Board of Selectmen firmly and
unanimously affirms that we need this plant to reduce our dependency
on the evil and treacherous MWRA - the Metropolitan Water Resources
Authority.
However, the
same Board of Selectmen, who are also Commissioners of more things
than the almighty, at the same Town Meeting firmly and unanimously
proposed increasing the dependency of the northern part of Canton on
MWRA by taking them off town water from Milton and hooking them up
to the MWRA. Not just hooking them up but spending 3 million dollars
of your money plus unknown land taking costs and a ton of new water
department equipment to do it. A whole new water supply line from
the MRWA connection in Westwood to the north of Canton. I voted for
it because it is the right thing to do. What is freaking me out is
the blatant and arrogant duplicity involved in this special
treatment for this special part of town. If that phantasmagorical
Well # 9 ever does come on line and that monstrosity of a water
treatment plant gets built in the Fowl Meadow we will be forced to
drink that noxious blend of town and MWRA water that we have been
subjected to in the past while the folks in the north of Canton get
that sweet, clean MRWA water we have been getting for the past two
years and they will get it directly from the source through brand
new pipes. Something is wrong here. Buy the Mona Lisa! Good luck and
good taste to us all.
04.20.09 - Route 138
and Legacy Place
As some of you may remember there was a recent
Planning Board "meeting" that became a "workshop" with and for a number
of residents who had concerns about the Route 138 Overlay District
article for town meeting. The gathering was inconclusive since there was
not a quorum of Planning Board members. At the time there was a
consensus among Route 138 committee members present that there would
probably be a meeting before the Annual Town Meeting on the first night
of the ATM to address changes and assure resident input. The Board of
Selectmen have scheduled a 6:30 pm meeting before the Monday, Apr 27 ATM
meeting which means that the Study Committee Chairman could not be
present at the Study Committee Meeting with his being re-elected to the
Board of Selectmen and all. So, I quote directly from Chairman
Salvatore’s email to the committee:
I have reserved the
Salah meeting room for Friday, April 24th at 7PM (and
requested the BOS secretary to notify the Town Clerk to publicly post
the meeting).
We will need to prepare
our committee report and our presentation for ATM. Additionally, as you
will recall, we had received considerable resident feedback all
requesting the exclusion of map/parcel 79-133 from our proposed map.
Accordingly, I will ask that we take a vote to amend the map’s warrant
article accordingly.
So far, so good. Back to the “before the ATM
meeting” for the BOS – it appears that the mixed use over 55 development
on 138 that has been proposed for this year’s ATM by a private developer
has the tacit approval of the BOS and a covenant will be presented to
the board at the meeting before the meeting. You remember this one – it
has all of the components shouted down by opponents of the planning
concept article including the residential provisions and has met with
nothing but smiles. It appears as though we are incapable of proactive
rather than reactive zoning. There is something about the smell of
diesel exhaust coming from a bulldozer that gets our juices flowing.
This MUOD is restricted to over 55 year olds, which will not impact the
schools except for the fact that it will target Canton residents who
will in turn sell their single family homes to younger families etc.
etc.
I really don’t know why we are harping on the
overcrowded schools thing. Over at the school committee there are some
folks that think “sponsorship” – the practice of having a non-resident
stay with a Canton “sponsor” other than a legal guardian for the sole
purpose of attending the Canton Public Schools – is being overstated as
an issue. However, at override time they can trot out hundreds of
families who bought their home in Canton just because of our wonderful
school system. Why then would Nana and Granddad or Auntie Em not use
that second bedroom in their condo for a dear child that was unhappy
with their school system to come and stay during the week to go to
school in Canton? Weekends, school vacations, etc allows plenty of time
to maintain their bond with the primary family unit if it is functional.
Not challenging the practice, just questioning the futility of debating
development at the front door while the school bus drops the kids off at
the back.
The good news is that the newest version of
Purgatory Place (Canton Center) will not interrupt the flow of traffic
to Legacy Place in Dedham. It appears that our latest punishment for the
sin of trusting “the committee” is to have the Dedham Street by-pass
lights (Neponset & Church at Washington, et al) torn up to put in new
sensor plates and to have cobble stone cross-walks installed at a number
of locations. You remember cross walks. The things that motorists seldom
honor because pedestrians seldom use. How much money is left in that
grant anyhow? At the rate we have been screwing up, digging up and
dragging things out that money should have been used up years ago but
the town is still finding ways to harass the daytime downtown merchants.
But as I said, commuters/shoppers will still be
able to get to Legacy Place by using most of the old Westwood Station
route down Dedham Street and either turning left instead of right on
University Road or going all the way to 128 to make the connection with
Route 1. Legacy Place is on the site where the old Dedham Cinema used to
be. That means that you can continue over 128 and down East Street then
up Rustcraft Road to go in the back way.
At my
day job I attended a meeting with the developers, one of the major
retailers (L.L. Bean) and the Town of Dedham to plan a Job Fair to staff
the stores that will be opening in June. Right now the plan is to hold
the Job Fair on May 30, 2009 at the Holiday Inn in Dedham. The June
opening will be a “soft opening” featuring about 12 employers. The Grand
Opening will be in September. I know that L.L.Bean is one and I believe
that Whole Foods is another June opener.
Those of
you who get my Job Opportunity Emails have seen the LLB postings. Legacy
Place is at 95% occupancy. Some great names – many expanding from
Burlington, Chestnut Hill and Boston. Check it out.
http://www.legacyplacededham.com/
But don’t worry, it will still be safe to cross
Washington Street between the cobble stone cross walks. Most of the
traffic will follow the Westwood Station plan and go down Neponset
Street and by-pass the Downtown Business District. This will take the
pressure off Dedham Street unless commuters are coming up Pleasant
Street or unless they really want to avoid as much Route 1 traffic as
possible to get to Legacy Place.
Good luck to us all.
04.12.09 - It isn't
over
The election may be over but the issues remain. I
fear that all we have done is to reinforce the Selectmen’s policy of
“firmly and unanimously” in their ruling of the town. As I have
quoted/paraphrased many times in the past “it ain’t what you don’t know
that gets you in trouble; it’s what you know that ain’t so”. The Town
Administration now has no reason to believe that the people of the town
are dissatisfied with their management and questionable methods – I
happen to think that this “ain’t so”. According to their way of thinking
the town just affirmed that the “core group” of three maintains their
majority rendering the “outside group” of two virtually powerless to
question the core authority because we again chose not to support
change. It remains to be seen whether or not the core group will allow a
“token term” of Chairman for either the fourth or fifth selectmen that
we added to the board with such bright hopes just a few years ago. I am
embarrassed that the prediction of “rule by clique” forwarded as an
argument against the five person board by Avril Elkort has come to pass.
Ironically, I believe that she is now the “fourth selectman”. At the
time I thought the voters of the town were too smart to allow that - I
still do. I just didn’t factor in this level of disenfranchisement. But
perhaps I am being too hard. After all, when it is clearly demonstrated
that a contested race will go to the candidate that spends the most
money there isn’t much motivation to get out and vote for an underdog
candidate, let alone actually run against a well-financed machine. Jim
Roache, Pat Johnson, John Friel, Tony Braconi and Jeremy Comeau can tell
you all about it. So once again the people of Canton have “voted with
their feet” by staying at home and once again no one is paying
attention. Well no one at Town Hall anyway.
What is being given some well-deserved attention is
the town’s opinions on the best uses for the former Indian Line Farm and
the Canton Airport. Jay Turner’s article in this week’s Canton Citizen
was quite good. But Jay doesn’t have the “dirty hands and wet feet”
perspective – yet.
I would not consider the two sites "apples and
oranges" but I could do "apples and pomegranates". There are
similarities but one bite explains the differences.
The Indian Line is a green desert. The site has been cleaned and capped
and covered with a rather thin layer of soil and grass. It offers a
wonderful view of The Great Hill but not much more than that. All of its
historic significance has been stripped away and if you put a shovel in
the ground you hit containment cap almost immediately. Or so I am told.
I was not able to make it to the public meeting. A marker, some benches,
that is about it. The marker should honor the memory of the Ponkapoag
band of the Massachusett tribe and all of John Eliot's Praying Indians
who were forcibly relocated to Deer Island off the land granted to them
by The General Court of Dorchester and who died by the hundreds in that
hellhole during King Philip's War. The people we “Europeans” call the
Ponkapoags did not have any proprietary feelings about the land. They
believed that they had “permission” to use the land from a power much
greater than the two-faced bureaucrats that hung out over by what we now
call Codman Square – as long as they treated it and the life that shared
it with respect. But we still had to kill them to get it. They left no
“carbon footprints” and for that reason we choose to try and forget what
we did to them.
The "Canton Airport" property is closer to being ready for use than you
might think and it is so much more than just the olde airport - it is
the south section of the Great Fowl Meadow. It is over 300 acres of some
of the most fascinating real estate in the Commonwealth and possibly the
country. The DCR presentation is worth a look -
http://www.mass.gov/dcr/news/publicmeetings/materials/canton.pdf and
see Cable 8's broadcast through April 14th at 9AM and 5PM.
They see a primarily passive recreation use (hiking, some trail biking,
walking, environmental education, etc), which was reinforced by the
town's explicitly stated lack of interest in pursuing active recreation
on the site. The difference in hiking and walking being defined by me
as: walking is from one end of the site to the other; hiking is crafting
the site to provide the missing Canton Link for the
Warner Trail from Castle Island in South Boston to Diamond Hill in
Rhode Island. Now, the Friends of the Warner Trail see things as they
are but some of us see things as they could be.
***
Summary of Warner Trail Meeting in
Canton -5/26/94
Those present were: Ellen Anderson, Mead
Bradner, George Comeau, Ian Cooke, Avril Elkhort:, Andrew Gregg, Carl
Lavin &
Gregory Meister.
Knollwood to East Branch
Rerouting at Knollwood cemetery. Canton
R.R. a spur trail. Follow Walpole St. to Everendon Rd.to Palmer Drive
then Forest Ave onto public water supply rd. cross land of Frank Simoni.
NepRWA initiate meeting with George C. to talk with Bob MacDonald
&
family to explain land use. A bridge
will be constructed with help of Mead and crew over E. Branch between
Sunoco and abandoned station, trail present to Neponset St.
Neponset St. to Amtrak Tunnel
Cross Neponset St. then use MWRA relief
sewer road. Avril suggests temporary access with owners via attorney
used by MWRA. For future airport acquisition Ellen call attorney Rachel
Doret? Tax title assessed to Roselund Property Trust, present owner
Benjamin Levin. Trail leads to tracks.
MBTATunnel
Andy Backman pursuing MBT A for
incorporating path under I95. Talked with Cassandra Koutalidis doing EIS
for MEPA review process. Permission granted by MBTA already not Amtrak.
Response will be received. Comments may be directed to Glen Goulet, U.S.
DOTN olpe NTSC, 55 Broadway St., Cambridge, MA. 02142. Andy B. should
contact Avril about correspondence.
Bates Property
George Bates given verbal permission.
Agreed to grant further use if tunnel was obtained. Option of loop trail
over Signal Hill and along river. Andy G. follow up via Ken Beauregard.
Dedham St. to Greenlodge St.
West of 95. Cumberland Farms and
V.S.Haseotes may be difficult but need good press. Wishing Well Realty
is under Order of Taking by MWRA for sewer project. May be too wet
altogether. A. G. investigate all possible routes.
East of 95 through Crafts
&
Standish Way infringes on privacy.
Alt. rt. East on Dedham st. then North
on Elm with poss. of crossing Meadow and Lyman prop. If not Elm St.
whole way with narrow shoulder but scenic. Andy G. contact Lyman.
Greenlodge St. across 128 to Skyline
Trail
West on Greenlodge then on to unused
bridge over 128 or under by train station. Verbal permission already
obtained need intra-agency agreement signed by Darryl Settles, Bob Carr,
Elaine Brawley, Julia O'Brien and others? NepRW A contact O'Brien first
to see if MOD already exists.
NepRW A grant deadline for intern and
materials is June 30th.
Andy G. have presentable package with
maps, ownership and definitive route. available for introduction to
trail.
***
“MWRA relief sewer
road” is actually the Burma Road
that runs the length of the south Fowl Meadow. Since that meeting there
have been property changes that have made this plan even more feasible.
DCR and Trustee of Reservations have acquired most of the land that was
in private hands. There are a lot of new players that may be more
amenable to the concept. The abandoned station is now Dunkin’ Donuts,
etc., etc. I have the maps that are referenced in the text. The Skyline
Trail takes you from Little Blue to Big Blue to the Neponset Bikepath,
which takes you to Pope John Paul Park at the Neponset Estuary, which
puts you on a walking trail to Castle Island. We are on Square Two of
restoring the Canton Link.
The Meadow and environs were formed by the Glacial
Lake Neponset and its documented archeological history is impressive.
The potential for "Canton's Jewel" to become just that is now closer
than ever.
Lump them together if you will - just to get them on the radar screen -
but closer analysis will show one to be a "weather balloon" and the
other to be the manifestation of a temporal anomaly that will give
insight into Canton's
history, protohistory and prehistory. I will let you Google that one for
yourself – lol!
And if we must quote from “Canton Come of Age” I
humbly suggest the bottom of page 26. “And what of the river? Who will
care about rubble and pollution poisoning the stream? Mr. Carl Lavin of
Fuller Street has dared to guard it. His dream is to make the fowl
meadows Canton’s jewel. He knows that every weary river one day meets
the sea.”
Thank you Ed Bolster even though I think of it as
the Fowl Meadow. The “Raindrop Journey” from Forge Pond to the Atlantic
can be followed along the Warner Trail.
No my friend it isn’t over. The best is yet to come
– this is only the beginning.
Good luck to us all.
04.05.09 - Time for
a Change
For those of you who have been following the saga
of Lavin’s Cancer (6 years can you believe?) this is the last report. On
Thursday - at my annual - my doctor told me that my PSA was fine. And
that since it has been almost 6 years since my surgery, if my cancer
hasn’t come back – it probably won’t. Early detection my friends. Cancer
can be beaten if you catch it early enough.
This has added to my new lease on life and I want
what is best for our town and me. That will require some changes. I am
in a bit of a spot since all three of the people running for Selectman
are people that I personally like. But the BOS has become, in the words
of Simon Cowell, “indulgent and sloppy”. They have been in office so
long that they have begun to believe that they are supposed to be there
and that everything they say is right because they said it. That is
wrong. We are regularly admonished with Senator Joyce’s quote on the
town administration. But according to a recent manifestation the quote
comes out as “Canton appears to be the best governed town...”
Appearances can be deceiving, especially in light of recent events. I am
actually surprised that the Senator authorized use of that quote in this
campaign.
There is so much that is going wrong and the
incumbents are blindly defending it. The Water Treatment Plant is only
one example. Do you know who our State Senator was back in 1994 when
Well #9 was approved at Town Meeting? Marian Walsh. The irony in that
is unbearable. We have been happily drinking and paying for MWRA water
for over two years. Not one drop of town water has passed your lips. Not
one of the horror stories we have been told for almost 15 years has come
to pass. So just like the Marian Walsh controversy we have an old
proposal/job that hasn’t been filled in over a decade being resurrected
for an egregious amount of money for no good reason. We don’t need the
water so we don’t need the water treatment plant – it’s not that hard.
No one has ever said that this plant and that well will get us off MWRA
water and no honest person has ever said that there can be a financial
gain to the town by “reducing our dependence”. Any savings must go to
infrastructure. The primary purpose of the plant is to make our well
water compatible with MRWA water because we will always need MWRA water.
Have I said that often enough? We have been drinking 100% MWRA water for
years and are drinking it now. And it is some of the best drinking water
in the country. My god people “if it ain’t broke, don’t break it”. One
of the incumbents decreed the water treatment plant as “shovel ready” a
clear implication that there could be state/federal funding. This
project is far from shovel ready unless you are talking about finding a
spot at Canton Corner Cemetery. And even if it were, one of the criteria
for ARRA funding is that the projects will not increase operating costs.
We bloody well don’t know how much this great ugly monstrosity is going
to cost to run and our “selectmen for life” won’t tell us. To call this
a “pig in the poke” does a great injustice to the pig. None of it makes
any sense but we have the Board of Sopranos all singing the same song in
the same voice. It is time for a tenor.
Westwood Station. After spending hundreds of
thousands of your dollars and generating tremendous ill will from one
end of the region to the other we have achieved a tentative
understanding. What’s that? Don’t we also have a tentative understanding
with whatever Roseland Properties is calling itself around here these
days. That’s the humongous residential 40B wannabe project we have been
in court with for years. We will never know. This Board of Selectmen has
perfected the “travelling in pairs” technique that was designed as a
method of circumventing the Open Meeting law and conducting much of
their business in secret with no need to tell us anything. Probably
because they think we are too stupid to understand. “The Board of
Selectmen firmly and unanimously believes that the interests of the
citizens of the town of Canton are being protected and well served in
this effort.” So just shut up and re-elect us and we will tell you what
to think when we get good and ready – firmly and unanimously. Indulgent
and sloppy.
The Downtown – oh my god – the Downtown. What did
those good people ever do to you? Way back when Roger Nicholas was the
Town Planner we voted to put the overhead utility lines underground to
give the downtown a cleaner more uncluttered look. You are paying a
surcharge on your utility bills for that project. The execution of that
good plan was a nightmare because of our inability to administer and
oversee projects.
In the middle of that Roger Nicholas who was our
Town Planner (did I mention that?) teamed with our Town Administrator
Bill Friel to write a grant request to follow on to that and get some
funding to turn our downtown into a real Downtown. At the center of the
grant was a proposal to showcase the downtown’s most attractive feature
– Forge Pond – with a walkway along the Pond. We got the grant based on
the creative use of this wonderful natural resource. When the Village at
Forge Pond was designed the fencing around “The Waterfall” was
redesigned at great expense to the developer who also included some
pretty great amenities on his side of the pond. At one point he espoused
a bridge over the waterfall joining the walking path on his side to the
boardwalk on the town side. Have you seen it? After the “citizens
committee” filed their final report the BOS hired a consultant and gave
them their marching orders. This centerpiece became an add-on that they
would get to if they had enough money. Well, they spent the money on
traffic lights. Why? Here is Waterfield Design’s explanation.
One of the more noticeable components included
new traffic signals at Neponset and Church Streets. Based on studies by
our traffic sub consultant, we confirmed that a large volume of traffic
originates from towns south of the Village Shoppes. To address this
traffic, signals were installed at Church Street to encourage travel via
Neponset Street to I-95 and beyond, rather than to travel through Canton
Center to Dedham Street. Accordingly, signals were installed at Neponset
Street to discourage traffic from further overburdening Dedham Street.
Now if that
sounds familiar it is because it is part of a Westwood Station offer of
mitigation that they made way back when. Between this and the brilliant
scuttling of last year’s Plymouth Rubber rezoning plan we will soon have
a vibrant, revitalized downtown that can be used as a set for the new
Will Smith movie “The
World Without Us”. Genius.
Chances are the
traffic light project was part of a secret negotiation that broke down
when we decided to sue the Westwood Station people and the current
secret negotiation is to see if we can get the money back now that we
have already spent the Forge Pond Trail money on the Westwood Station
project. But that is just me – y’all know that I am just old and funny
and stupid. The BOS will report to us on their progress if they ever
have any.
By the way – the
Downtown Streetscape Project has
mysteriously disappeared from the Town Web Site but you can still find
it on
www.cantonbarkingdog.com or just click on the URL above. That is
the thingee that is in italics in the first sentence of this paragraph –
just in case the Selectmen are right.
Experience only
counts when it provides positive results. “We always did it that way”
doesn’t work any more. Ask the former CEO of General Motors and then
vote for Jeremy Comeau. You voted for change in November, vote
for change now. The Choir Director can arrange for him to be shouted
down but nobody is going to shut him up and that’s a good thing.
Good luck to us
all.
03.15.09 - Costs
Every time the subject of the need for a megalithic
multi-million dollar municipal water supply system for the Town of
Canton is raised the answer is always the same – the skyrocketing cost
of MWRA water. If you bring up the subject of water conservation and
better management of our current water system you are warned about the
massive projects they are considering. We have been buying that for
almost 15 years.
Joe Campo was the Superintendent of Public Works
back on May 31, 1994 when Motion 3 of Article 12 voted to appropriate
One Million dollars to construct or develop Well # 8 (we called it #8 in
the olden days) based on a report by SEA consultants.
At the time we were reeling from the hikes in our
sewer bills resulting from the construction of the MWRA’s sewer system
that fed the new (ca.1992) Deer Island waste water treatment plant. It
was short leap from sewerage to drinking water at the time and sure
enough there were big expensive plans for the MWRA drinking water
system.
But we had plans too. Article 46 of the 1996 Annual
Town Meeting Report expanded the use of the Million Dollars appropriated
for Well #8 (now #9) to any other well site recommendation contained in
the SEA report. What could that mean? Well, if you go to the MWRA
advisory board report in that year’s Annual Report you find that not
only have we updated the well number to 9 but added the development of
well #10. What the heck?
My recollection of conversations on Well #10 were
with Ernie Williams who became Superintendent of Public Works in the
96/97 time frame. Well # 10 was going to be sited over near the old Ward
Well (wardwell). It was sited above a large aquifer that straddled the
Canton Stoughton line so the water was partly Stoughton’s and Stoughton
badly needed water. That was way before we made it possible for them to
hook up to MWRA and start their growth spurt. The investigation there
found the water was heavily laced with iron and manganese and would
require extensive treatment. The treatment plant would have been a joint
effort between Canton and Stoughton with cost sharing but even at that
the cost was prohibitive. So Stoughton backed off and went with MWRA.
Stupid Stoughton. In fact we actually appropriated $400,00 additional
dollars for Well #10 in Motion 5 of Article 10 of the 1997 Annual Town
Meeting based on the SEA 1993 report. However, Motion 3 of Article 7 of
the 1998 ATM rescinded that appropriation. But at the 1998 ATM, Article
34 said that money appropriated for well # 9 could be used to acquire
land for well #9. Boring stuff? Hey, I was looking for one word that
indicated that a drinking water treatment plant was in the works and
couldn’t find one word.
In fact the first mention of the need for a
drinking water treatment facility appears in the report of the
Water/Sewer Rate & Policy Advisory Committee in the 2004 Annual Report.
It took us from 1997 to 1998 to find iron and manganese in well # 10 but
even though it has been under a microscope, well #9’s problems remained
undetected from 1994 to 2003. What is up with that?
The scary MWRA water tunnel was turned on in
November 2004 – we paid for that.
http://www.mwra.state.ma.us/osu/1003mwtfacts.html Tunnel
The state of the art drinking water treatment plant
was activated on July 27, 2005 – we paid for that.
http://www.mwra.state.ma.us/osu/whwtpfacts.htm Water Treatment
The asking price for our drinking water treatment
plant is 8 million dollars and the shovels haven’t been bought yet.
Given our record of public works projects what do you think are the
chances of cost overrides? What do the think are the chances of
screw-ups and do-overs? And no one is telling us about the cost of
operations.
Another thing that fries my green tomatoes are the
eco-friendly folks who arrive at Shaw’s with their reusable shopping
bags that they fill with little bottles of water that may or may not
make it to the recycling bin. Mountains of bottled water displays for
the chumps who are pouring some of the best drinking water in the
country down the drain. And I was one of them. I will save money on my
water bill through conservation and by drinking excellent tap water at a
fraction of the cost of bottled water. I will have the added assurance
of cooking and showering in safe, clean water. That is of course unless
the folks who brought you downtown revitalization don’t pull a
“downtown” on our drinking water supply. Hey – it takes more than luck.
03.11.09 - Here is a
question for you
This was asked of me but I
don’t have an answer. It is from Ian Cooke, the Executive Director
of the Neponset River Watershed Association. NepRWA posed the first
challenge to the methods used to get the ball rolling on Well #9 and
the results of that challenge are still directing water management
in our town/watershed. The notable exception is the failure of our
mandated Water Management Committee to hold it’s first meeting
leaving matters in the hands of the Water Commissioners (Board of
Selectmen) who established the challenged methods all those years
ago.
Here’s the question:
Thanks
Carl...here's a question, last time I checked (admittedly a long
time ago) Canton's water use was well over 80 gallons per person per
day. Once the wells are back on line, DEP is poised to begin
applying meaningful requirements that Canton (and the rest of the
state) get its water use down to 65 gallons per person per day, many
experts feel that it is possible to get substantially lower than
that. In my own home, we use about 30 gallons per day. We have
efficient appliances and we don't water our lawn, but we really
don't do anything radical to save water.
It would be interesting to do
an opportunity cost evaluation of the $8 million dollar treatment
plant expenditure. What if Canton were to spend $8 million on water
conservation? That would be a "radical" investment in water
conservation. At that level, you could retrofit every house in town
and reduce town wide water use by 50% (and town wide sewage
generation as well). The savings would be guaranteed. There would be
significant environmental benefits. How would those savings compare
with the savings expected from the treatment plant? Do the town's
savings estimates include the fact that the Water Resources
Commission estimated that well #9 would have to be shut down 44% of
the time on average in the summer to protect the wetlands? (I think
I'm remembering that right). What if you built the treatment plant
and then did water conservation? Would you discover that the
treatment plant had been built a lot bigger (and more expensively)
than needed?
What do you
think about that? To put this in size perspective – last night the
Riverview neighbors met with a sub-committee from the Board of
Selectmen. During the time that I was there it was mentioned to the
sub-committee that all of the houses in that neighborhood could fit
in the footprint of the drinking water treatment plant. Not each –
all. Nobody disputed that. How’s that for size? What is going on
over there? I am baffled but I wish good luck to us all.
03.08.09 - What set
me off
What set me off? Well it is actually several things
that seemed to converge this weekend. The smug, condescending letter
from the Selectmen to the Citizens in the Canton Citizen. And the
simultaneous rebuttal from Sherry Alpert. That was handled so well by
the editorial team that it would be smug and condescending of me to
compliment them on how well it was handled. I never would have gotten
away with this paragraph in the old days.
Followed on Friday night with the WBZ-TV piece on
MWRA drinking water (03.07.09).
The message to me was – if you want to save money on water expenditures
stop buying bottled water. I got it because I started doing it a couple
of months ago when I re-discovered the excellent water coming out of my
tap. It was reinforced when I saw how much Ellen’s bathroom re-model
saved on my water bill but did nothing for the sewer but that is another
story. Folks, we are and have been drinking and paying for MWRA water
for about two years now. All town wells are shut down or so I have been
told. Each year we get a drinking water quality report from MWRA, which
used to include an addendum from the town. Last year’s report did not
have anything from the town because we didn’t get any water from the
town – not Canton anyhow. I think the folks north of 128 still get water
from Milton.
That sent me back to a documentary I bought a
couple of months ago entitled
“Flow – For Love of Water”. A lot of third world stuff in there but
it puts the global water situation in context. Especially when our
Selectmen’s letter sounded like the issues they are having in India,
Somalia and Michigan. I have an extra copy to loan or present.
The bottled water issue from both WBZ-TV and Flow
struck the note that some of the most popular bottled waters are
re-filtered municipal water using a reverse osmosis process. A membrane
filter that traps microscopic particles of suspended solids in water.
One of the Michigan water activists commented that Ice Mountain bottlers
took local water, filtered it, bottled it and sold it back to the
townsfolk at an obscene profit plus the townsfolk had the
recycling/landfill costs of dealing with the plastic bottles. Boy are
they dumb. Nothing like that could happen around here.
But what if........... Take a look at
Aquafina. They have a 7-step purification process including good old
reverse osmosis. What if the public water supply did some of the
purifying before it hit the Aquafina plant? It would still be a 7-step
process but Aquafina’s cost would be way down and profits way up. That
would work for me if I were the brand manager. If you have already
clicked on Aquafina you know it is a Pepsi Cola company. I have no idea
if they bottle water at their plant on Dan Road or if they actually
bottle anything over there. But if they have toilets they are on the
town water system with no control over the MWRA filtration methods. I
don’t know the size of their supply pipes but even if their pipes are
normal you can move a lot of water when you pump 24/7 and we would have
no right to restrict their pumping. How could we not know about
something like this? Well if only two of the selectmen are gathered in
our name they don’t have to tell us anything. It’s like being told that
we don’t have access to Town Counsel’s correspondence with the BOS
because of “attorney – client” privilege. Hey – who is the client? Is
Town Counsel being retained out of Selectmen’s personal funds? I know
that we will never know how many hundreds of thousands of dollars we
spent on Chicken Little’s adventure at Westwood Station but they could
at least give the impression that we haven’t gone to a new form of
government without the benefit of a Charter Commission or does the town
have an exception for that too. You know – we are actually looking more
like a third world country all the time. That’s what set me off. But
this is all guesswork and speculation put together from unrelated
sources. But the idea of spending eight million dollars and ruining a
neighborhood and wetlands just to possibly save a couple of bucks on a
water bill and then spending ten times the savings on bottled water from
the plant we paid for to start with when we didn’t need one, well I have
to ask – what do you think? We need more than luck.
03.07.09 - The No
Build Option
The trouble is not that the people do not know. It
is that so much of what the people know just isn’t so. That quote in all
it’s forms has been attributed to everyone from Mark Twain and Will
Rogers to Josh Billings. We are having our noses rubbed in it almost
every day. The recent letter to the citizens on the subject of the
drinking water treatment plant makes it sound as though we are in some
third world country fighting for our right to water. In truth we are
part of a drinking water system that is one of the best in the nation.
Did you see the report on WBZ-TV last night? Check it out. When you get
to the page look for the link to Why is Boston’s Tap Water So Tasty?
It’s on page two of the news reports.
http://wbztv.com/video/?cid=64.
There is nothing wrong with our tap water. I have
started putting a bottle of tap water in the refrigerator to replace the
hundreds of bottles of Poland Springs that I have purchased over the
years since the last time we were “blending” town and MWRA water. We
talk about reducing our reliance on MWRA as if we didn’t own it. I have
heard the Chicken Little stories about skyrocketing MWRA water costs for
over ten years and am still waiting for them to arrive. With
conservation and common sense I have reduced my water bill to a
manageable amount. My last water and sewer bill showed my sewer costs to
be double my water costs but I haven’t heard a word about doing
something about that other than reducing I&I. (Inflow and Infiltration).
We are building a drinking water treatment plant when we have done
nothing about aquifer protection or any of the other ways our water
supply can be contaminated. MWRA has that covered. Our covenant on Well
9 clearly states that should the water levels in the East Branch (Canton
River) fall below an acceptable level (drought, whatever) we will have
to shut our wells down. We are going to defile a water supply area that
the town designated for parks, recreation and open space in the name of
protecting the water supply by building a factory – ridiculous. We are
spending all this money and calculating the payback on a speculative
investment. At least in the sales pitch no one has had the gall to use
the term “reliable”. For the 27 years I have been following water issues
in this town the well system has always been a crap- shoot and snake
eyes came up more often than not. But this time we think we got it right
so we are going to give it an 8 million dollar try – for the fun of it.
Because there is nothing wrong with the water supply system that we
presently have. It is one of the best in the nation. If we really,
really need to spend the money on something how about a wastewater
treatment plant. I couldn’t answer the question about where the money
would come from a couple of weeks ago but I think you may be figuring it
out now. Or maybe a fourth elementary school located where the students
are instead of ramping up the busing budget to bring them in from East
Canton. Or a third fire station to reduce critical response times.
Folks, the PROSD issue has just picked the scab off a sore that has been
festering for a decade. The unnamed independent water consultants that
gave us this plant debacle may well be the same people that convinced us
that Well #9 would have “drinking water quality” out put coming out of
the ground when then were selling us on the first million that we
invested. Or reassured us that there was no problem when the Board of
Health questioned the proximity of the well to the contaminated Canton
Airport site. Their bombshell that manganese and iron were going to be
coming out of the ground on Major’s Island along with a million gallons
of water per day does nothing to reassure me that their selection of a
site for the treatment plant is infallible. I think their logic is as
faulty on day 3,650 as it was on day one. This is a mess.
We are going to need all the luck we can get.
03.02.09 - A
Cautionary Tale
I’m getting
old – or so I thought. For the past three or four months I have been
depressed, low energy, it was just about all I could do to go to
work and give my all at a critical time in the life of our
Commonwealth. A little light headed and unsteady on my feet at
times. You know – getting old. Add to that this was my first holiday
season without Ellen and everything made sense. Just something I had
to get used too. But then I started getting recurring heartburn.
Wanted to take one of those one-a-days but wanted to be sure it
didn’t counteract with my blood pressure medication. Two weeks ago I
went to see my doctor. He told me that it was probably a good idea
and suggested a stronger over the counter medication. I mentioned
the light-headedness and he perked right up. “That’s not you” he
said. In came the EKG cart pushed by a technician that was covering
for the day. “Nice low heart rate” she said. In came the doctor –
“that’s interesting” he said. Your heart beat rate is 44 bpm and you
usually come in between 55 and 60. Pause – how much weight have you
lost in the past 6 months? About 25 pounds – comes from eating my
own cooking. Your Atenolol dose is for the old weight, it is
affecting your heart rate. Cut them in half and fill a new scrip for
just 50 mg instead of a 100. Just to be sure let’s do some tests.
Blood, ultrasound on abdomen, fluoroscopy, echocardiogram,
ultrasound on carotid artery, CT scan on abdomen. Turns out I did
have a bacterial infection in my stomach which accounted for some
stuff I didn’t tell him about and which was easily treated.
Everything else was fine. The medication change was miraculous. I
dropped 50 mg of Atenolol, 25 pounds of extra weight and about 20
years of age baggage. Moral of the story is that if something
doesn’t feel right – check it out. Getting older is not the same as
getting old – unless you allow it. Good luck sometimes takes effort
on your part.
03.01.09 - Time to
Push Back
You have all probably
heard the brouhaha over behind Riverview Road where the residents are
objecting to the construction of a large drinking water treatment
plant. The residents claim – in their own best interests – that this is
in violation of PROSD zoning and in contradiction to Article 97 of the
Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The town maintains
the use of the term “water supply” makes the treatment plant a permitted
use. Out of context one might think so – but lets put it back into
context.
2.17.1 Purpose
The purpose of the
Parkland, Recreation and Open Space District (PROSD) is to provide areas
of low intensity public and semipublic uses, which serve to protect and
preserve the water supply, ground water quality and natural features,
and /or features, which have a regional purpose, or to provide a
valuable outdoor recreational resource.
In the Parkland,
Recreation and Open Space District the following uses are permitted as
of right:
A. Conservation
areas for water, water supply, plants, and wildlife.
B. Conservation
areas for flood protection and dams necessary for achieving flood
protection.
C. Active or
passive recreational use, cultural, civic and not for profit
expositions.
D. Land
providing public access to recreational or conservation land or bodies
of water.
E. Day camps,
picnic areas, public gardens and nature study areas.
F. Golf
courses, hockey rinks, and accessory uses, including snack bars, pro
shops, and retail sales in connection with and incidental to a golf
course or hockey rink.
G. Historic
Structures.
H. Cemeteries.
I. Hospitals.
**************************************************************************************************
The use of the terms “low intensity” and “which
serve to protect and preserve the water supply” do not lend themselves
to the “permitted use” interpretation. I sat in on the meetings that
crafted this article. Water supply discussions centered on wellhead and
watershed protection. I assure you that no one spoke about creating a
parallel water supply system in order to save a couple of bucks on the
excellent water supply system that is in place. In fact the only other
discussion was around if this was sufficient to “grandfather” the water
storage tank over on Randolph Street. They had grandfathered all current
uses in effect at the time of the drafting in order to do no harm.
Things have changed in the past five years. Now we have to deal with a
town administration that has taken on the mantle of a 40B developer.
I am told that the town has an exception to the
Article 97 land disposition policy. It does.
Disposition of Article 97 Land Policy and Exceptions Thereto: This
link takes you to the policy, which includes this paragraph.
“IV.
Applicability of This Policy To Municipalities To comply with this
policy, municipalities that seek to dispose of any Article 97 land must:
obtain a unanimous vote of the municipal Conservation Commission that
the Article 97 land is surplus to municipal, conservation, and open
space needs; obtain a unanimous vote of the municipal Park Commission if
the land proposed for disposition is park land; obtain a two-thirds Town
Meeting or City Council vote in support of the disposition; obtain
two-thirds vote of the legislature in support of the disposition, as
required under the state constitution; comply with all requirements of
the Self-Help, Urban Self-Help, Land and Water Conservation Fund, and
any other applicable funding sources; and comply with the EOEA Article
97 Land Disposition Policy. After the effective date of this policy, any
municipality that proposes, advocates, supports or completes a
disposition of Article 97 land without also following the terms of this
policy, regardless of whether or not state funds were used in the
acquisition of the Article 97 land, shall not be eligible for grants
offered by EOEA or its agencies until the municipality has complied with
this policy. Compliance with this policy by municipalities shall be
determined by the EOEA Secretary, based on recommendations by the EOEA
Interagency Lands Committee.”
***************************************************************************************************
Can anyone remember any of these steps being taken?
Does this sound as though EOEA is going to grant an exception to this
policy to a water rich town that is only seeking to derive a financial
benefit from the exception? The town put itself at odds with the EOEA in
the early stages of the Well 9 project with it’s careless attitude
towards the state’s Interbasin Transfer Act. I doubt that the state will
lend itself to furthering the adverse effects of the interbasin transfer
of water that this plant will exacerbate.
Folks this is wrong for more reasons than you have
time to read. The neighbors from Riverview are trying to protect their
backyard but in doing so they are protecting yours as well. They meet
with the Board of Selectmen on March 4th at 4 pm and again
with the Zoning Board of Appeals on March 5th. I am tired of
being pushed around. It is time to push back. We need more than luck.
For example the Westwood Station debacle. No one on
this planet with a grain of forward thinking believed that our
sophomoric obstruction of this “shovel ready” project was going to
succeed. It was an embarrassingly self-serving and groundless attempt to
extort mitigation from this developer at the expense of our town
coffers. We were warned about this via a “postcard from the edge” before
the last town election. No one ever said that the content of the card
was erroneous – no. We were too busy being outraged at the “poor
sportsmanship” and “sleaze”. Meanwhile, that tactic made the difference
in the election. In retrospect – preparing, printing and mailing that
postcard was very expensive. Who could afford that kind of tactic? Hey -
it was worth it – it swung the election. It makes you wonder.
The traffic reducing fervor evidently didn’t extend
to the Downtown. It looks good – except that there are now 3 traffic
sign poles for every utility pole removed. Sort of a Black Forest effect
that was so prevalent in the Victorian Era that we tried to capture. The
new traffic lights alone make it a truly pedestrian friendly downtown.
However, the green element that seems to be missing is the walking trail
along the pond that was the centerpiece of the grant that funded the
whole project. You know, where people could walk (i.e. pedestrians)
without the carbon monoxide cloud generated by the traffic crawling
through to Westwood Station. Maybe that is in Phase XXX.
The pond – Forge Pond – is the headwater of my
beloved Canton River. It feeds the watercourse that feeds our wells –
real and imagined – and irrigates the Fowl Meadow, which, if the cleanup
is ever finished, will be one of the truly magnificent natural
recreation destinations in our region – which includes our town. Of
course it picks up every bit of contamination along its course and
delivers it directly to those wells and that Meadow. No amount of money
is too great to spend on providing water that we don’t need. Especially
in these tough economic times. We get all the water we need from the
MWRA - at no risk to the health of our children - as do Norwood and
Stoughton. Two towns that are on the brink of economic disaster
(sarcasm). We are told not to worry about the health risk because the
town cannot be held legally liable. Whew, that’s a relief.
We are told that we need independence from MWRA
water because our water rates will be going up. The fact that the wells
cannot generate rate relief because of a court ruling on the legal
screw-up that we perpetrated at the get go is seldom mentioned. I’ll dig
up an old article I wrote on inter-basin transfers and you will
remember. No you won’t –
Inter-Basin Transfer. Then why are we doing this? No one knows.
Don’t ask the BOS – they will just yell at you. Don’t send the Planning
Board a letter – some PB members consider letters from citizens
presumptuous. If you want to keep your water bill under control keep
your water use under control. People – have you noticed the price of
gasoline? When the slack-jawed over-consumers got demand under control
prices went down – duh. Besides, those of us who just paid our Water AND
Sewer Bill may have noticed that we (I) are/am paying twice as much for
MWRA sewer as for MWRA water. Despite the excellent (not sarcasm)
efforts of our DPW on Inflow and Infiltration to our sewer system that
sewer bill keeps going up. Why aren’t we addressing the item that costs
the most? A waste water treatment plant situated on the previously
disturbed portion of the Old Canton Airport is worth getting a PROSD
zoning change for a couple of acres. A 21st century plant
that returns treated water to the Meadow for additional natural
treatment associated with the aquifer would get some favorable attention
– and funding. That is a good idea in so many ways I am going to have to
make it a separate article. I am way over my limit.
Folks green is in because it makes economic and
moral sense. (Another article.) I am just worried that the folks that
created a pedestrian friendly downtown and then stood in the way of
getting pedestrians for the downtown will prevail in Canton. “Going
Green” doesn’t mean spray-painting Town Hall. Trust me. Good luck and
love to us all.