Public Urged to Hear State Hospital Mediation Update on Thursday

To the Editor, Medfield Patch:

Since 2009, neighbors of the former State Hospital and other concerned residents have been working for a better cleanup than what the State’s Division of Capital Asset Management & Maintenance (DCAMM) had proposed for the Construction & Demolition Debris waste site alongside and in the Charles River. 

This legacy of more than 75 years of unregulated disposal had left the Town with a 3.2-acre site of contaminated fill up to 15-feet deep, beneath Groundwater in a potentially productive aquifer, and intersecting the Zone of the Town’s main well.

Residents’ votes at Town meetings to fund environmental consultants, their petitions and letters of concern to State permitting agencies and to our Legislators, and their public demonstrations all helped us eventually persuade DCAMM to begin Mediations seeking an adequate and more appropriate cleanup for this unique and critically- sensitive site.

On Thursday June 6, at The Center on Ice House Road at 7 p.m., the Medfield/DCAMM Mediation Teams will present a jointly-developed, new cleanup plan.

A short overview presentation is planned describing the proposed solution and providing a summary of why the Teams believe it finally addresses the Town's concerns. The majority of the night's program will be set aside to give residents the opportunity to meet at separate display stations with Team members who can provide more details of the plan, discuss any new or remaining concerns, and answer any additional questions.

In order to give residents sufficient time both for further Q&A with the Mediation Team and to convey to the Selectmen their concerns, support, or opposition, the proposed Remediation Agreement will not be submitted for Selectmen vote and signature until their regularly-scheduled meeting on June 18 at 7 p.m.

I urge all concerned residents to take advantage of these opportunities to first learn about the proposed resolution of our previous cleanup concerns, to ask questions about the new proposal,  and then, before their vote,  to advise the Selectmen of their support or opposition.

Bill Massaro

Medfield, MA