Questions 2 and 3: Landfill Cap, Transfer Station Construction

The 60-year-old landfill must be monitored on an on-going basis and reports on its contamination provided to the state Department of Environmental Protection under an agreement between the town and the state regarding the landfill. The town is asking for $656,000 to pay for that monitoring.

The town, working with DEP, wants to cap the landfill and build a new transfer station as part of its agreement with the state regarding the old, leaky landfill. This item was defeated last year, which sent the Board of Health back to the drawing board.

The board appointed a special subcommittee to reduce the costs of the proposed station and capping project.

The question would approve spending $18 million to cap the landfill and replace the 54-year-old trash transfer station. It would include funds to buy or remediate several pieces of private property on Stonybrook Road that have been contaminated by the landfill.

The question, if approved, would add $128.33 to the property taxes of a median-price home.

The re-designed project has been described by Health Director Wayne Attridge as a “fully equipped pickup truck” as opposed to a Cadillac that had was defeated last year.

Proponents say the landfill has to be capped or the state Department of Environmental Protection may start to levy heavy fines against the town. The fines could be $600,000 the first year and $720,000 a year after that.

Opponents say the proponents are using the DEP fines as a reason to force the town to raise the money for the transfer station and landfill now. They dispute that DEP is poised to start levying fines against Marblehead.

At Town meeting last month, residents were given a PowerPoint presentation by Matthew Herring, a member of both the town's Finance Committee and Solid Waste Committee. Herring, who facetiously referred to the current transfer station as "a dump," went on to detail a project that would install a rubber and asphalt cap on the town's landfill and build a new, more accessible trash transfer station.

This year's proposal is about $7 million less than the $22 million project that was approved by the Finance Committee and Town Meeting last year, only to be .

Speakers in favor of the projects petitioned residents by reminding them that the state of the national economy has resulted in historically low interest rates and the town's high bond rating would help considerably with funding the project. They also argued that putting off the project and simply paying the cost of the fines levied by the Department of Environmental Protection would have a negative impact on the town's rating.

"There is no false sense of urgency, this just has to be done," said Health Director Wayne Attridge. "We had a very distinguished group of your fellow town residents study this project and they really brought it down to scope."

Those against the appropriation said they thought the town could show progress toward a cap without having to break ground and some even doubted that the state would actually fine the town if they were found to be out of compliance.

In spite of the limited resistance, the article was passed with a landslide vote of 668 to 52.