Rail Facility Opposition Continues

Champion City Recovery’s plans for a solid waste transfer station in Brockton, Mass., is facing legislation designed to stop the building of the site. The facility has been opposed by nearby residents for some time, and now, according to the Brockton Enterprise, State Representative William Galvin, who represents neighboring Avon, has filed an amendment to the upcoming state budget that would ban any solid waste facility from being built within an expanded protective area of a public water supply well anywhere in the state. The proposed site is within a half a mile of wells that provide Avon residents with waster.

Champion City reportedly wants to bring 1,000 tons per day of municipal solid waste to the transfer station, process it to separate and sort recyclable materials, and then ship the waste by railroad cars to a landfill in Ohio. The company already operates a C&D transfer station that uses similar techniques, located adjacent to the proposed MSW facility.

The amendment would specifically prohibit putting any solid waste facility within the Zone II area of an existing public water supply. Zone II is a protective area of an aquifer that can contribute water to a well. Construction is already banned in Zone I, which is a 400-foot protective radius area immediately around a well. The Zone II prohibition would apply to any solid waste facility that had not received a site assignment on or before Jan. 1, 2004.