|
Archives |
|
|
|
|
Previously on Page Two |
|
|
|
Page Two items will be entered chronologically with the most recent first. If you don’t visit regularly you have to go to the bottom and work up. Always thought that is the way it should be. Thanks for visiting. 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 stimulusPublished: June 15, 2009Massachusetts 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. *** 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. 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.
|
|
The headwaters of the Canton River
Don't just be "from Canton" -
be "of Canton".
Flaitheamhain