Last night DCAM held the continued technical meeting (continued from last week) by means of its newly enlarged (five LSP’s) collection of environmental clean up experts, and we still did not get through all the town’s issues. A second continued technical meeting will be held at 7 PM on 2/9/12, with a PIP meeting announced by DCAM for 3/8/12.
What I heard through all the lengthy presentations by DCAM was first and foremost that they are not budging one iota at this time on the town’s main request, that the hospital refuse that was dumped by DMH for decades into the Charles River be removed where it is below ground water levels – the town is concerned for the long run about having those waste materials located under water within the aquifer that serves town well #6.
If I were to bet, based on the trajectory of the current process, unless DCAM is willing to discuss with the town other resolutions, I would guess that DCAM will only agree to one of the town’s secondary requests, that being to re-build the river bank with a bio-engineered solution, instead of the with granite blocks.
However, if DCAM is willing to continue informal talks, I am hopeful that if we can both have real discussions, instead of what feel like these pre-litigation meetings we have been having, and also that the town and DCAM can come to an agreement that works for both sides. DCAM told me months ago that the costs of our removal solution ($5m) was not that different than their capping solution ($1.5m), once the cost of monitoring ($2.6m for the first 30 years) the capped site forever is added in – I am assuming that the cost to monitor from 30 years out to forever makes up the difference.
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