MARBLEHEAD ― Tucked behind an auto-repair shop and a liquor store that face busy Beacon Street is the town’s dirty secret.
The transfer station sits at the back of the lot and abuts a municipal-use complex of paved roads and grassy expanses of landfill. The station consists of a trailer and a compacting pit ― a one-story cube roughly the size of a shipping container. The sky can be seen through a massive hole in its upper left wall.
The current transfer station ― a structure where waste materials are stored and sorted ― was erected after the old building was demolished in 2016. A $5.75 million dose of municipal funds, earmarked from a larger and more expensive building and site maintenance initiative from 2011, was slated for the construction of a state-of-the-art transfer station. It never got built.
“The fiscal year 2018 financial report said (town) accomplishments for the year included completion of the landfill and transfer-station project, which was really very puzzling because, as you can see, the transfer-station building was never built,” said Jim Zisson, a resident advocating on behalf of the Marblehead Municipal Employees Union (MMEU), at the union’s Monday press conference. “No explanation was ever given at Town Meeting as to what happened to the $5.75 million or for why the building hasn’t been built.”
The structure’s flaws can be seen from a distance, with the hole in the compact pit’s ceiling taking up about a quarter of the upper portion of the wall; however, this is just the beginning, according to MMEU President Terri Tauro.
“It was discovered that the now six-year-old temporary trailer is rotting and rusted, allowing a rodent infestation, structural weakening to the point of employees falling through the floor and rainwater leaking from light fixtures,” she said. “The sheet-metal structure over the compactor was originally connected to the demolished building: It has one side with no siding that has been sheathed or tarped, if you will. The weather proofing on that thing flew off over a year ago and that’s now sheathed as well.”
As for the hole, “instead of repairing it, the ‘powers that be’ brought the Tree Department in to tear off what was left hanging, leaving portions of unsecured siding coming away from its studs,” she added.
Tauro also cited protruding rebar spikes and steep, slippery steps as other issues the two transfer-station employees face on a frequent basis.
“But perhaps the worst violation is the discovery of a rusted electrical box with exposed live wires,” Tauro said. “The voltage upon contact would result in instant death.”
Tauro said she had conducted two walkthroughs of the site starting in late December, filed a grievance with the Health Department, and requested maintenance logs of the site.
“I am still waiting for those maintenance logs,” she added.
At the press conference, Tauro and the MMEU called for the construction of an up-to-code, rodent-free building with no health or safety hazards apparent, as well as a safe and hygienic break area and restroom for workers.
“It is demeaning to give a portion of your life to a town and a job only to find that they don’t value you as an employee, never mind as a human being,” she said.
Representatives of the MMEU will appear at a Tuesday night Board of Health meeting, where a “transfer station update” is scheduled on the agenda. According to Zisson, MMEU and its concerned parties’ main order of business is to get a formal accounting of the $5.75 million approved in the 2015 Town Meeting.
“We’ve asked in writing and in public meeting for explanations from the Board of Health, ‘where did the money go and under what authorization?’ and we have not gotten answers,” he said.
The Marblehead Board of Health did not return a request for comment.
