by John Osborn ·
Friday, July 3, 2026
The town must cap the former Harvard landfill, and the work will force the Department of Public Works headquarters and the Transfer Station off their current site, Town Administrator Dawn Dunbar told the Select Board Tuesday night.
The state could hand Harvard an administrative consent order at any time, Dunbar said, because of PFAS contamination on nearby properties. Such an order would set a fixed deadline for the capping, forcing the town to act quickly. Capping will likely wipe out most or all of the current Transfer Station, along with the DPW salt shed, fuel island, and storage shed.
Dunbar proposed relocating the DPW to Upper Depot field, an athletic field next to the former landfill, then shifting the Transfer Station into the space currently occupied by the DPW buildings, avoiding the lengthy process of repermitting a transfer station on a new site. “There’s a lot of moving parts right now,” Dunbar told the board, “but I think the next step in this process … is to have [DPW Director] Eric Ryder into the next meeting to discuss what recapping the landfill looks like.”
The plan would also cost the town Upper Depot field, and possibly Lower Depot field, both on Depot Road and key to the town’s youth sports programs.
That potential loss weighed on Select Board member Eve Wittenberg. The town has worked hard to add fields for sports and recreational use, she said, and losing one now, when Harvard is already short of what it needs, felt like a step backward.
A possible fix has emerged. A parcel at 57 Old Mill Road, next to land the town already owns, has come on the market. Board members said the site, if wetlands there prove suitable for development, could replace Upper Depot field.
The board voted 4-0, with member Kara Minar absent, to authorize up to $2,500 to map wetlands on the Old Mill Road property, then voted 4-0 again to direct Dunbar to negotiate a memorandum of understanding with the landowner and bring it back for approval. The memorandum would buy time for the board to negotiate a purchase and present it to Town Meeting this fall.
Ryder will recommend a plan for capping the former landfill, with cost estimates, at the Select Board’s July 21 meeting.