Anonymous, geotechnical engineer

Rules were bent or broken and fill was put in places it shouldn’t have been. At one site there were fifty acres of woods between two landfills. They placed Big Dig material in the middle without capping. This was the first time in Massachusetts that a landfill had been situated in an area that had not been damaged. There is now thirty feet of Big Dig fill adjacent to the Blue Hills. You can tell when a landfill has not been capped because it accumulates its own sort of soil around the edges. When rain percolates down through the material, a rusty iron buildup accumulates at the base. It’s bright orange. Capping prevents the percolation of rain through material and therefore its distribution of contaminants through that method but it doesn’t address subsurface interactions. Most of these landfills are not lined. A lot of clay in quarry hills, hard to stabilize. The water comes off and into Winding Brook greenish brown. Tom and several others pushed to have the source of contamination looked into. They found that the lead and arsenic in the water came from the nearby Orchard, upslope, from legacy land uses and not the landfill. Legacy land uses like this and old gas stations consistently pose challenges for water quality, not to mention current issues.

What about the Baker Dam nearby? Does it play a role in water quality?

Well, they looked into dredging the pcbs behind Baker dam. The sludge would go to Canada and be incinerated for $500/cubic yard. The NRWA would like to remove the two lowest dams but it’s hard to convince towns to accept federal funding by declaring the areas Superfund sites. Others like the look of the town. Norwood used to have a small pump station near Buckmaster Pond but they’re now on mwra water. They considered reopening the station but discovered that the cost of remediating the hydrocarbons from a nearby gas station was prohibitively high. (hydrocarbons were from one hundred years ago?) Route 120 sheds salt on a very sensitive area with high transmissivity (according to 1972 usgs groundwater map). Though I’ve been told by some geotechs that there’s a thin layer of clay over top of this area which would theoretically protect the groundwater from salt infiltration, salt in these soils has been steadily increasing overthe years. Solvents like __ are usually lighter than water and so they form a concentrated layer of pollution. The most common one you’ll see are oil films on parking lot puddles.

How does landscape play into the transmissivity of pollutants?

Willet Pond is located close to a highly transmissive piece of land but it is unlikely that it drains there due to the topography- increasing in slope- and so it flows to the southeast. This is a simple thing to point out but it brings up the ease with which a map can be misinterpreted. There isn’t a ton of sand and gravel in the area. You’ll typically see it in area of flat, low relief. Otherwise, it’s mainly till and bedrock. Traphole Brook has a lot sediment, might’ve been a part of glacial Lake Neponset. It was likely dammed and if it backed up, would’ve deposited sediment to the south (?), explaining the deposits ___.

**seen the landscape change over time- Herring Runs

Could access to mwra water influence development in towns?

Milton doesn’t want a lot more development but Quincy is comprised of mostly renters and would appreciate more development. Canton has an emergency connection to mwra water.

Are there conflicts among towns for water resources?

Towns can extend their Zone II into another town. The original town must uphold strict zoning but the neighbor does not. The dep could step in but they don’t. Neponset Greenway- old railroad herbicides. Most of the time they capped but they did remove some soil.

How are people allowed to build in wetlands?

Golf course filled in peat wetlands, cut down trees, laid them like rafters, and built on top. Started sinking and cattails started growing in. The golf course wanted ___ State Street was just barely permitted for development by the O’Connells around 1967. Peat sinking on either side of pipes is why you get bumpy areas like that of State Street in Quincy.