Capping of Marblehead landfill may bring June override vote

MARBLEHEAD – The Board of Health is keeping a four-year-old promise to the neighbors of the town landfill and transfer station.”When this all started we promised the neighbors that the first meeting we held on our plans to cap the old landfill and build a new transfer station would be with them,” Director of Public Health Wayne Attridge said Thursday.”We’re putting our cards on the table.”As he spoke notices went into the mail to neighbors and abutters of the project, informing them that the board will hold an informational meeting Tuesday, Feb. 23 at 7 p.m. at the Abbot Public Library meeting room.The board will seek Town Meeting approval of its plans in May and seek voter approval of a debt exclusion override to cover the cost in June.Town Meeting and the voters could be faced with four debt exclusion items this year, including the Pleasant Street traffic upgrade, a sidewalk replacement plan and the Glover-Eveleth School construction.Since the 2007 Town Meeting followed the board’s recommendation and approved construction of a new transfer station, new recycling area and new yard waste operation at the site off Woodfin Terrace, the project has been sidelined while the health department dealt with $100,000 worth of contamination issues on Stonybrook Road, generated by the old landfill.With the Department of Environmental Protection looking over their shoulders, the Board of Health has now finalized a clean-up agreement with the affected homeowners and has until 2011 to clean up the contaminants.Attridge said the board may not announce a cost figure for the project until the end of March.Reminded of the other potential debt exclusion projects coming before the town, he said, “This (the landfill and transfer station) is an opportunity that’s long overdue. Ultimately it’s in the voters’ hands. I think there’s going to be some difficult choices.”