State Rep. Jessica Giannino has filed legislation seeking to exert local control in Revere and Saugus over the WIN Waste Innovations — formerly known as Wheelabrator Technologies — waste-to-energy facility on Route 107.
Giannino’s legislation includes a proposal to allow the Revere Board of Health to join its Saugus counterpart in controlling noise, emissions and odors related to the WIN facility.
“Although the incinerator and the landfill are physically located in Saugus, my constituents in Revere tend to be just as impacted,” Giannino told the State House News Service.
The problem with Giannino’s proposal is that it aims to take a parochial approach to regulating a regional facility. WIN Waste disposes up to 1,500 tons of garbage daily and, according to the company, generates 54 megawatts of “clean, reliable energy” for 55,770 homes.
Its regional service scope places WIN rightfully under state jurisdiction, with the state Department of Public Health and Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) best suited to oversee the facility.
DEP has a track record of monitoring the Saugus facility’s operations and ruling on its compliance with state law. Those compliance checks, including the 2018 DEP decision regarding Wheelabrator ash disposal in the facility’s landfill, have been subjected to court reviews with a Superior Court ruling in 2019 upholding DEP’s ash disposal decision.
The News Service, citing a WIN spokesperson, said that a 2016 Department of Public Health study evaluating cancer incidence rates and requested by WIN Waste Innovations, found there was not an “unusual pattern of cancer in the community of Saugus.”
Giannino’s legislative district encompasses parts of Revere and Saugus and her duty as a legislator includes serving as an advocate for constituents concerned about WIN operations.
But boards of health are all-volunteer entities typically working with a local health director who is assisted by one, maybe two coworkers. The scope, expertise, responsibility and capability of local health officials is limited and dependent on state and federal expertise.
Giannino, in our view, would better serve Saugus and Revere residents if she convened a study commission dedicated to examining the environmental, health, economic and waste disposal and energy generation challenges facilities like WIN face over the next 20 years.
Any conclusions and resulting legislation deriving from such a comprehensive study should be crafted to consider regional implications, not concerns limited to Revere and Saugus.
