A Call to Action

Dear Dedham Families,

Come this spring when our children are all running around on Gonzalez Field playing spring soccer, we can all as a community pretend! We can collectively as a community look the other way. We can smile and all pretend that our children are safe as can be.

We can pretend that there is not a high pressured natural gas pipeline directly under their feet. We can all pretend that the soil was not disturbed this fall by its installation. We can pretend that there are not potential toxins under the ground from the many years the area served as a railroad bed before being repurposed. We can pretend that the potential toxic materials were not unearthed as the pipeline was buried this fall. We can pretend that our elected officials both the Board of Selectmen and Board of Health did not refuse to test the soil to insure the safety of our children. What we don’t know can’t hurt us! Right?

I implore anyone with children, grandchildren, nieces, or nephews who have played or will play on that field to ask the Board of Selectmen to not pretend. What we don’t know can hurt our children. Ask the Board of Selectmen to insure the safety of our children by testing the soil at Gonzalez Field or a t a minimum requiring Spectra to do so. Email them at freshideas@dedham-ma.gov.

Margaret Whitfield

Michael L. Butler, Chairman-EMAIL: mbutler@dedham-ma.gov

Dennis J. Guilfoyle, Vice Chairman-EMAIL: dguilfoyle@dedham-ma.gov

James A. MacDonald-EMAIL: jmacdonald@dedham-ma.gov

Dennis J. Teehan, Jr.-EMAIL: dteehan@dedham-ma.gov

Brendan G. Keogh-EMAIL: Brendan.keogh@verizon.net