Science or Politics?

8/6/2019 Science or Politics?

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12 AUGUST 21, 2008 | The Valley Advocate

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On a balmy June day in 2006, the Massachu-setts Department of Environmental Protection(DEP), under Gov. Mitt Romneys Commis-

sioner Robert W. Golledge, did something new: it gavea small city in the western part of the state permission

to circumvent drinking water protection regulationsin the interest of expanding a landfill. The city? Smartand trendy Northampton, the arts-friendly Paradise

of America. The regulations? 310 CMR, which prohibitlandfill development over so-called Zone II recharge

areas for public drinking water supplies. The drink-ing water supply? Specifically, the Maloney Well, which

serves not Northampton but its neighbor to the south. Byissuing this waiver, the DEP for the first time in its his-tory let a landfill enterprise take precedence over drink-

ing water protection regulations.The Maloney Well provides a backup water supply

for the city of Easthampton, an historically working-class farm and factory town on the Manhan River,

which in recent years has attracted artists and musi-cians who can no longer afford to live in Noho. Notunexpectedly, the DEPs decision inspired a wave

of protest. The entire City Council of Easthamptonsent a letter to new DEP Commissioner Laurie Burt

(Governor Deval Patricks pickthe waiver had beengranted by Romneys Commissioner Golledge), re-questing that the waiver be reconsidered. Landfills

and Aquifers Do Not Mix, Council president J.P.Kwiecinski wrote. Intuitively and ecologically, this

combination is a recipe for disaster... We ask you tointervene to protect our water supply.

The Zone II aquifer recharge area of a public well isas much a bureaucratic designation as a hydrogeolog-ical one. While science, computer models, and field

studies may determine the capture zone for a well, aZone II is not a Zone II until the Massachusetts DEP

says it is. These DEP-approved wellhead protectionareas are covered by state statutecertain uses, such

as landfills, are absolutely forbidden within theirboundsand are eligible for a high level of land useregulation by local governments.

Maloney is an artesian well, pressurized by a thick,vertically impermeable layer of clay that extends for miles

over much of the Barnes Aquifer. Because of this confin-ing clay layer, the rainwater recharge area for the Ma-loney Well is geographically removed, existing in sandy

and gravelly uplands.In June of 2001, the Massachusetts DEP had East-

hampton map the outlines of Maloneys Zone II, andverified that the Northampton landfill fell within its

boundaries. This was an inconvenient determinationfor Northampton, which, in 1988, had purchased 20acres adjacent to the existing landfill on Glendale

Road for the purpose of building new landfill cells.A comprehensive site assignment application was

prepared by Stantec engineering consultants andsubmitted to the state. The DEP, satisfied, issued a

ANDREA BURNS PHOTO

Science orPolitics?Proponents say Northamptons plan to expand its landfill over the Barnes Aquifer poses nothreat to public safety. Opponents vehemently disagree. Whom should you believe?

By Mary Serreze


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The Valley Advocate | AUGUST 21, 2008 13

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positive determination to Northamptonofficials, complete with an unprece-dented waiver of state Zone II wellheadprotection provisions.

Why would the DEP be willing to waiveits rules for the Northampton landfillexpansion? I have posed this question toa range of opponents and proponents ofthe project: city officials, neighbors of thelandfill, scientists and engineers, and aDEP spokesperson. The responses havebeen diverseI have been reminded ofthe story of the blind men and the el-ephant, each touching only a part of theanimal, hence drawing quite di fferent

conclusions about the nature of the wholebeast. The problem with this landfi llissue, remarked a fellow journal ist as weconferred over coffee a few weeks back, isthat you dont know who to believe.

Proponents

The state balanced the costsand the benefits and de-cided to issue the waiver...

There is a feeling that Massachusettsshould deal with Massachusetts trash,and not ship it out of state... There is notmuch landfill capacity left in Massachu-setts... We are providing a regional publicservice. I was interviewing NorthamptonMayor Clare Higgins on Valley Free Radio,Northamptons low-power FM station.Yes, we get some financial benefit, prob-ably around $800,000 a year with the hostcommunity fee and other payments fromthe solid waste enterprise fund, but withinthe total 72-million-dollar municipal bud-get, that is a very small percentage. Werenot doing this for the money.

I was happy to give Mayor Higginsand Northampton Department of Works(DPW) director Ned Huntley a chance totalk about their support for this project onthe air. The opponents had been far moresuccessful in attracting media coverage,mustering plaid-shirted bluegrass musi-cians, monkey-wrench-throwing citizen

activists, and an aquifer-defending geolo-gist straight from central casting. Higginsand Huntley must have a case, I mused.Let them explain themselves.

I had a stack of letters in front of meletters of support written to the DEP onletterhead from a collection of regionalpoliticians and administ rators, includingSenator Stan Rosenberg, Mayor Higgins,Easthampton Mayor Tautznik, the direc-tors of the Franklin County Solid Waste

Management District and the HilltownResource Management Cooperative, for-mer Northampton public health directorErnest J. Mathieu, the Pioneer Valley

Planning Commissions Tim Brennan,and the administrator of the Town ofGranville. All cited the importance ofkeeping tipping and transportation costs,if not low, then at least predictable from

year to year. I asked Huntley if it couldbe said that the landfil ls existence inNorthampton has helped regional townsin the area of budgetary planning.

Yes, that would be accurate... Wehave been able to keep tipping fees rela-

tively stable over the years for towns inwestern Massachusetts... If there wasnta publicly-owned regional facility, thenall facilities would be run by private

waste hauling or private landfi ll compa-nies, which would create a kind of unfairmarket practice... We run the landfi ll asa municipal enterprise fund; were not init to make a huge profit.

I could see that cash-strapped cities andtowns in western Massachusetts wereeager to go to bat for the landfill expan-sion, and that a powerful state senator wasin their corner. That the landfil l broughtsome money into Northamptons coffers,and that the loss of the landfill wouldprobably mean higher costs for trash dis-posal for Northampton residents, for citygovernment, and for institutions and busi-nesses. I imagined that large private haul-ers would be unconcernedthey couldsimply pass costs along to their customers.Smaller trash haulers might not be ableto compete, and would probably go out ofbusiness. Small towns would need to findnew, potentially more expensive solutions.If Easthamptons Maloney Well were to nixthe landfill expansion with its pesky ZoneII recharge area, a fair amount of economicand institutional readjustment would benecessary in a ll of Western Massachusetts.

City Engineer

Irode my bike to DPW headquar-ters on Locust Street in late springof this year. City Engineer James

R. Laurila offered me a chair at a largebrown conference table and hauled outthe public documents that I had request-ed. He walked me through a taxonomy ofStantec monitoring reports. He answeredmy questions about wells and surface

water in the area of the landfill. The time

CONTINUES ON PAGE 15

ANDREA BURNS PHOTOS


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had come to pop the question. So, Mr. Laurila,

can you tell me why the Zone II waiver was

granted? I asked.

He stopped and almost smiled. Do you

know about the contaminant transportmodel?

An hour later, I left the DPW with my head

swimming: I had just been told that the city had

commissioned a piece of science that had pre-

dicted no contamination to the Maloney Well,

even under a con-

servatively-mod-

eled worst-case

scenario, by the

past, present, or

planned expansionof the Northamp-

ton regional land-

fill on Glendale

Road. This piece of

sciencethe Du-

fresne-Henry con-

taminant transport

modelpredicted

what would hap-

pen within the

Barnes Aquifer

if there were an

accidental leach-

ate release at the

landfill. It was, ac-

cording to Laurila,

a key piece of evi-

dence in the citys

waiver application

to the state.

The DEP

granted the Zone

II waiver largely

on the basis of the

contaminant trans-

port model, Lau-

rila told me. The

city paid to have

the model inde-

pendently reviewed

by consultants of

Easthamptons

choosing. It was amended to incorporate new infor-

mation about the aquifer. The model was reviewed

and approved by the DEP.

The model predicts near-total attenuation of

any chemical contaminant from landfill leach-

ate by the time groundwater reaches the Maloney

Well. All five chemicals used in the study returned

values below detectable limits. There is no poten-

tial contamination of the Maloney Well from the

landfill.

The model report, on consultants letterhead,

had been signed by Laurila. You used to

work for Dufresne-Henry? I asked. And you

worked on this project, on this contaminant

transport model?

Yes, he said. That was before Dufresne-

Henry was acquired by Stantec.Stantec. The company that had recently won the

bid to design the Phase 5/Phase 5B landfill expan-

sion. The company that has performed environmen-

tal monitoring at the landfill and generated many of

the reports that I had been looking at. That designed

the current leachate

collection system.

That had the con-

tract for capping

and closing the

current and pastareas of the landfill.

Laurila was from

Stantec.

I later learned,

while going

through docu-

ments at the DEP,

that Laurila had

been involved in

managing the

complicated per-

mitting process for

the Northampton

landfill expan-

sion since at least

2000, as a private

sector engineer.

He was hired full-

time by the city of

Northampton late

in 06, very soon

after he had suc-

cessfully handled

the DEP site as-

signment process

while on Stantec

payroll. The per-

suasive waiver

application from

the city to the DEP

had indeed been

written by Laurila,

while he was at Stantec. Now he was working for

the city, still shepherding the Northampton landfill

expansion.

I asked Huntley if he had any thoughts on

Laurilas passage from Stantec to the DPW. While

I had absolutely no reason to believe that Laurila

was using the revolving door to benefit his

former colleagues or himself, I still considered

the situation to be curious. It looks funny, I told

him. Was he brought on for the express purpose

of promoting the landfill expansion? Might he be

biased toward his former colleagues? And if the

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13

Above (left to right): The DPWs Ned Huntley,James R. Laurila and B.J. NubileBelow: Dr. Peter Shanahan (left)

and Dr. Robert Newton debate the efficacyof expanding the landfill.

MARY SERREZE PHOTOS


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expansion goes through, wont Stantec be positioned to make a lot

of money?Theres no story here, replied Huntley. Jim, like all profes-

sional engineers, adheres to a strict code of ethics. There is no bias.

In 06, I put together an independent selection committee to finda city engineer. I stayed completely out of it. Laurilas resume roseto the top. I was surprised that he had even applied. I interviewedthree candidates, and hired him. There are qual ity-of-life issues

that prompt people to move into the public sector. Stantec com-petes for contracts in the same way that any other engineering firm

does. They won the Phase 5/Phase 5B design contract in an openbidding process. Theres no guarantee that they wil l win additionalcontracts if the landfill is expanded.

But if the expansion is quashed, nobody makes any money, Icountered.

Not true, Huntley responded. There would be plenty of clo-sure, compliance and monitoring work. Not as much work as there

would be with an expansion, but plenty of work nonetheless.It had become clear to me, after going through a stack of DEP-

related reports, that Laurila was frighteningly capable. The waiver

application itself was a wonder of exactitude. It artfully developedan argument that the landfill expansions benefits would be sig-

nificant, and that its risks would be low. From the perspective ofa city hall that might need help with a complicated permittingprocess, I could see how Laurila might be invaluable. But from the

perspective of a skeptical citizen, Laurilas movement from Stan-tec to the DPW might look different. At the very least, it presents

evidence that the decision about the landfill has already beenmade, and that the expansion is being carefully and aggressively

promoted from both sides of the public/private wall. In this view,there will be no meaningful public discussion about innovativeapproaches to waste management in western Massachusettsthe

landfill solution is the only solution, developed years ago.(Stantec wil l be delivering an options study to the city soon

consisting of cost/benefit analyses of several solutions to the solidwaste problem, one of which is the current expansion plan.)

Carts and Horses

Was the waiver pre-ordained by a state government eagerto preserve active landfill capacity in Massachusetts?

Was the contaminant transport model submitted by thecity as a formality merely to satisfy appearances?

Landfill opponents have speculated that an over-close relationship

exists between Northamptons DPW, the Massachusetts DEP, andStantec Engineering and its subcontractorsand that city-commis-

sioned science cannot be trusted. They all work together, landfillopponent Linda Heiseger has said. Stantec, HydroAnalysis, theDEP, and the Department of Public Works. The city council and the

mayor are all in favor. The Board of Public Works is pretending tobe neutral, but theyve made up their minds a long time ago. They

all know what the answer is going to be. The contaminant transportmodel just serves to justify their position. It got them the waiver.

Thats science that was bought and paid for.The DPWs Huntley bristles at this suggestion. We work with

some of the best scientists and engineers in the business... You

can be assured that the science used in developing the model is ofthe highest quality. The state would not have granted the waiver if

there were any doubt at all about the safety of the Maloney Well.But it is reasonable to ask, as a citizen, if public health-related


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science is neutral. Funding bias is a well-docu-mented phenomenon. While it does not neces-

sarily follow that science wil l be biased towardits funding source, the possibility cannot bedismissed out of hand. Best practices must be

adhered to. Independent peer review is neces-sary. Debate should be welcomed. Data sets and

methodologies should be available to the public.Finally, empirical field observations should lend

credence to a scientists assumptions.As of press time, I did not have complete figures

on how much the city has paid over the years to

develop and package the contaminant transportmodel. Suffice it to say that consulting engineers

do not work for free.Stantec subcontracted much of its work on the

model to HydroAnalysis, Inc., an Acton-based

consulting company run by one Dr. Peter Shana-han. Shanahan possesses multiple degrees from

Stanford and MIT (where he currently teaches),and a CV that includes work for the World

Bank, multinational corporations, municipali-ties, environmental organizations, and insurancecompanies. He provides services as a consultant

and expert witness in the areas of groundwaterhydrology, aquifer modeling, and contaminant

fate. While his academic background is in purescience and engineering, his bread and but-

ter comes from his role as a

hired consultant. Would hebe biased toward his funding

source, which in this case was

the city of Northampton?I sent Shanahan a series ofquestions, one of which raisedthe bias issue: If you had

been hired by the opposition,would you have constructed

your model differently? I do notmean to question your charac-ter; I am just curious.

Within his long and detailedresponse, he remarked, As a

general matter, developing aground-water model is a techni-

cally unforgiving exercise: if it isnot developed correctly, it willnot match the field data. It re-

ally is not possible to construct amodel differently and still hope

to have a model that passes thetest of matching field data.

Back to your original ques-

tion, note that to some extentwe were hired by the opposi-

tion. Our original model, al-though contracted by the city of

Northampton, was prepared todetermine a Zone II for the cityof Easthampton and subject to

review by DEP. As such, it needed to be satisfactoryto those two parties and Easthampton would need

to endorse the report to use the Zone II. We ap-proached the model no differently than we had anyother of our prior Zone II models.

DEP spokeswoman Eva Tor sent me a copy ofthe full waiver report, and added more. There

are two parts to the modelthe groundwaterflow model, which determined the Zone II, and

the contaminant transport element. The assump-tions used in modeling contaminant transport

were extremely conservative, assuming cata-

strophic failure and chemical concentrations thatfar exceed typical values for leachate.

The DEP actually rejected the original ground-water flow model, issuing a technical deficiencyreport. We made the consultants address a num-

ber of issues. We reviewed and really scrutinizedtheir work. We would never approve a waiver for

something that would compromise public health.Thats the bottom line.

We dont encourage waivers from our regula-tions. I can tell you that the impetus did not comefrom us. There is, however, an outlined process.

The city informed us that they wanted to go theroute of the waiver process, and submitted an ap-

plication. The contaminant transport model waspart of that application.

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The model was an important consideration, but not the only one.

We required that the city develop a contingency plan to address fore-

seeable problems, that enhanced environmental monitoring be put in

place, and that a financial assurance mechanism be established. These

requirements, and several others, introduce new safeguards frompotential problems related to the old unlined landfill area, so add en-

hanced levels of environmental protection that were not there before.

The permitting process is far from over. The city must yet ob-

tain from the DEP an Authorization to Construct (ATC) and an

Authorization to Operate (ATO). They have yet to address all the

requirements of the waiverfor instance, they have not yet sub-

mitted the required contingency plan. The Zone II waiver simply

gives them permission to begin an extensive process.

David to Goliath

Geologist Dr. Robert Newton represents the Barnes Aqui-

fer Protection Advisory Committee (BAPAC). He and a

former student, Nick Newcomb, have produced their own

model, without the benefit of consultants fees, that represents the

interaction of the landfill and the Barnes Aquifer. While there are

striking similarities between the BAPAC and Stantec/Shanahan

models, there are some important differences. For instance, while

Shanahan believes that BOD, or biological oxygen demand, is not

much of a factor, Newton and Newcomb suspect that the confining

clay layer over much of the aquifer could prevent critical oxygen

recharge over the course of transport, potentially mobilizing natu-

rally-occurring arsenic into the Maloney Well.

Newton points out that there are two other decommissioned

landfills within the same Zone II area. He criticizes the citys

research for its failure to take the cumulative effect of all poten-

tial contaminant sources into consideration in calculating the

threat to the Maloney Well. Unlike Shanahan, he believes that

evidence of contamination from the current landfill is relevant

in thinking about the impact of the expansion. He points to a

steady climb in iron and manganese levels at a monitoring well

near the landfill, and remarks that nobody knows why this is

occurring. If, for instance, there is already a leachate plume trav-

eling from the site, shouldnt this be acknowledged as an addi-

tional source of potential contamination to the aquifer?

Newton is skeptical about the value of models to serve as a basis

for key decision-making. Different models can produce different re-

sults, he cautioned. If youre making a decision based on a model,

you are going to be making potentially the wrong decision. Models

are tools, and can direct us in our learning about the aquifer. But the

aquifer is a complex, heterogeneous system that, for a number of rea-

sons, cannot be fully and accurately understood by building a model.

The landfill represents a liability. Clean water is our most pre-

cious resource, and we can no longer take it for granted... I believe

that because of where the landfill is located, in a primary rechargearea, you can never let contaminants escape. As you build up the

waste in the landfill, its got to be preserved forever. Not 50 years,

not a hundred years, but forever. We al l know thats not going to

happen. Remediation will be needed, which will be very expensive.

What I fear is that the cost of expanding the landfill will ultimately

be borne by our children.

I couldnt let him off the hook. Dr. Newton, I asked. Why do

you think the DEP granted Northampton the Zone II site assign-

ment waiver?

I have no idea, he said. I have absolutely no idea.

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