Springfield takes new look at Superfund costs

Town Manager Tom Yennerell is working with a New Hampshire attorney to find some wiggle room in the town’s 1994 Superfund agreement with the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

www.rutlandherald.com    

Springfield takes new look at Superfund costs By SUSAN SMALLHEER Staff Writer | December 22,2016 SPRINGFIELD — Town Manager Tom Yennerell is working with a New Hampshire attorney to find some wiggle room in the town’s 1994 Superfund agreement with the federal Environmental Protection Agency. The town has to pay about $130,000 to $150,000 a year for the foreseeable future for monitoring the former Superfund site on Will Dean Road. The site was cleaned up and capped more than 20 years ago, and the monitoring follows the plume of contaminants still in the ground. “It was one of the very early Superfund sites, nationwide,” Yennerell said. “And the town didn’t do very well in negotiations and that’s why we’re paying.” The money is included every year in the town budget under fixed expenses. The town manager said he’s hoping to find some legal angle to save the town some money. While the town operated the landfill, it was not the source of the highly toxic industrial waste that was dumped there, he said. The town operated the landfill on Will Dean Road from 1947 to 1968, when it closed. Another landfill, this one built in Rockingham by Browning Ferris Industries, also eventually became contaminated and is another capped Superfund site. “The town is holding the bag for the monitoring for the polluters,” Yennerell said. The polluters were all the major machine tool companies in the Springfield area and virtually all have gone out of business, although in some cases their corporate parents haven’t. Yennerell said he sent the town’s Superfund agreement to an attorney in New Hampshire who specializes in such cases. “He’s yet to determine if we have a chance,” he said. He said the attorney so far discovered a stipulation to the original agreement that is missing from the documents Yennerell sent him. To fight the original agreement, Yennerell said, would result in a “very substantial legal bill.” The costs for additional monitoring went up by $60,000 this year, he said. “Basically, we’re held hostage by the agreement,” said Springfield Select Board Chairman Kristi Morris.