Harvard’s Transfer Station and Department of Public Works facilities will remain on Depot Road, according to the options Town Administrator Dawn Dunbar laid out for the Select Board at their meeting on Tuesday evening, Sept. 1. Additionally, retaining the Transfer Station, as opposed to town-wide trash collection, remained a priority for Dunbar as an option for dealing with the state requirements to officially cap and close the landfill. All plans remain subject to Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection mandates.
Dunbar and DPW Director Eric Ryder are tasked with guiding the town through the process of closing the old landfill that lies beneath the Transfer Station and the DPW facilities on Depot Road. Select Board Chair SusanMary Redinger opened Tuesday’s meeting by informing participants the board intends to hold a public information session in the coming weeks to convey information to residents and get their feedback on how to deal with state regulations.
Dunbar anticipates the Transfer Station and DPW facilities will require relocation during the capping process, and possibly permanently. She presented five potential sites, four involving different configurations on the Depot Road property and adjacent athletic fields. None of the site options resulted in the loss of a field, and one added a smaller field to the three already on the upper and lower sections of Depot fields.
A fifth option would move the Transfer Station to town-owned land on Stow Road—the former gravel pit—but Dunbar outlined significant drawbacks, including its distance from the town center and DPW facility, lack of water and sewer, land-clearing costs, greater distance for municipal vehicles needing fuel or repairs, competing potential uses for the property, and uncertainty over whether the town would be able to acquire the permits necessary to put a transfer station on the land.
Of the five options Dunbar presented, labeled A through E, she said her preferred concept is option D, which would rebuild the DPW facility approximately on its existing footprint while preserving all three athletic fields. In that scenario, the town would work with the state to temporarily shift the Transfer Station while the landfill is capped in stages, allowing it to remain operational during construction before ultimately moving it back. Dunbar said in the meeting she will add the presentation to the town’s website for public viewing.
MassDEP review underway
Dunbar’s presentation included a list of pros and cons for each option. However, until the MassDEP completes its comprehensive site assessment, and subsequent “Corrective Action Alternatives Analysis,” it is unknown whether any of the plans are even feasible under state regulations. The town submitted the permit for the site assessment on July 30, and MassDEP is currently conducting a technical review of the landfill.
Ryder said the state has 45 days to complete the review, with approximately 36 days remaining as of Tuesday. He talked briefly about the process, and how MassDEP could request additional information or testing, including more investigation into how much cover was placed over the landfill when it was originally closed in 1985.
That information could significantly affect the scope of the eventual capping. Dunbar’s presentation showed a potential multilayer cap requiring grading material, drainage and gas-venting layers, topsoil and vegetation, but emphasized that those remain assumptions until MassDEP completes its technical review.
Questions remain about what the approximately four-acre landfill footprint will look like after closure and how much of it could be usable. Ryder said that will depend on required slopes, grading and other state requirements.
The town must determine the cost of capping; whether to use clean fill, COMM-97 soils, or a combination; the cost of reconstructing the Transfer Station and DPW; the uses MassDEP will allow on the capped landfill; and the timeline.
Redinger said she hopes to hold the public information hearing sometime between Sept. 29 and the first week of October.
