Selectman States Resistance to Boston Mayor Menino's Plan of Re-Routing Hazardous Material

Selectmen Ralph Patuto, who is the Burlington Board of Selectmen's liaison to the Route 128 3C Committee, updated the board on a proposed plan by Boston Mayor Thomas Menino to reroute trucks carrying hazardous material from the city and instead have them travel through outlying communities. 

Patuto said the member towns of a subgroup of the Route 128 3C Committee that represent area communities, including Burlington, Lexington, Waltham, Weston, Lincoln and, recently added, Woburn, have all expressed resistance to the plan. During the discussion among board members, they too said they were in opposition. 

According to a July 25 release from Mayor Menino's office, On May 13 of this year, the City of Boston released the results of a Hazardous Transport Study conducted by a private contractor that determined that haz-mat trucks traveling through Boston at any time present an unacceptable level of risk in accordance with federal government standards. The report strongly recommends that only haz-mat vehicles with drop-off or pick-up locations within Boston should be permitted to travel through the core of the City.

“These vehicles simply do not belong on busy roadways in densely populated areas,” Menino said. “The City of Boston has worked hard over the past year to implement changes to the routing of hazardous cargo through the North End and Charlestown residential neighborhoods, as well as through the Financial District."

The potential problem for Burlington and the other communities in the subgroup is that instead of going through Boston, the majority of the hazardous material will travel down Route 128 (I-95) and pass close to residential neighborhoods in the outlying communities and sources of drinking water, Patuto said. 

"We all have hazardous material coming through already and we don’t want anymore," Patuto said. "Our water supply is near highway. I can’t think one city or town on Route 128 that wants to see more hazardous material coming through." 

Selectman Robert Hogan said he felt that having more hazardous material transported down the highway rather than through the city would increase the risk of a dangerous incident not only for the area communities but overall. 

"If takes vehicles that normally go 10 miles-per-hour through Boston to moving 70 mph on highway, that creates it a larger risk." 

Patuto said the plan will be coming before the state legislature sometime in the near future. He said the Route 128 committee has sent a letter expressing its opposition. The board discussed sending a letter itself and Chairman Walter Zenkin recommended that concerned residents send their thoughts to State Rep. Charles Murphy and State Sen. Kenneth Donnelly.