Marblehead FinCom recommends $15M transfer station project

MARBLEHEAD – A proposed $15.102 million transfer station and landfill cap got a favorable recommendation from the Marblehead Finance Committee Monday night.Committee members spent 40 minutes grilling one of their own, FinCom member Matthew Herring, who chaired the Solid Waste Facility Committee for the past eight months.The committee, which included experts in engineering, construction and other related fields, trimmed $7 million off last year?s unsuccessful $22 million proposal.FinCom Vice Chairman Patricia Moore, who delayed approval a week ago for more details on the project, made the motion for a favorable recommendation.The project will go before Town Meeting. Because it will be financed by borrowing money it will also go before the voters in June in a debt exclusion override election.Herring said his committee looked at the project “from a microscopic level” and he told the FinCom the plan is to maintain services during the 18- to 24-month construction, and keep any closing as short as possible. The new plan reduced the size of the transfer station and according to Public Health Director Wayne Attridge, “That gives us a lot of options.”If the town fails to cap its 60-year-old landfill, the subject of a 2004 state order, the town will face fines of $625,000 the first year and $730,000 after that until the state takes Marblehead to court and forces the town to cap the landfill.Herring called the seven-year planning period the town has gone through since the order was signed “a grace period.” He also said not replacing the 54-year-old transfer station could be done but “It?s complicated.”Board of Health member Todd Belf-Becker said trying to renovate or build a new station after the landfill is capped would be costly. Attridge said the building contains asbestos and its chimney is “falling down.”?We can?t keep operating it as it is,” he said.