17 replies to this topic

[eltron]

From: www.pads02860.org


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PAWTUCKET TRANSFER OPERATIONS (PTO) TRASH FACILITY PROPOSED FOR PINE STREET SITE


The following information was compiled by PADS 02860 (Pawtucket Alliance for Downtown Success) Steering Committee in July, 2006 from Providence Journal and Pawtucket Times newspaper articles and available legal documents.


THE SITE:
Pawtucket Transfer Operations, LLC (PTO), has proposed building a construction and demolition debris (C&D) truck/rail transfer facility at 280 Pine Street, an 8-acre Providence & Worcester Railroad (P&W) freight yard on the west edge of downtown Pawtucket. The site is bounded by Pine Street, residential Conant Street, Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor rail line, and the historic Mineral Spring Cemetery. The site is 600 feet west of Bayley Street Lofts residential mill condominiums, and immediately west of Union Wadding and 60 Dexter Street, two historic industrial properties under consideration for residential development. It is immediately adjacent to the buildings of the Church Hill National Register Historic District, which potentially stand to gain from the same Historic Preservation Tax Credits that enabled the rehabilitation of Bayley Street Lofts. The site is also one of two alternative locations being studied for a Boston–Providence commuter rail station. The site is zoned “Manufacturing Open.” The site, now leased by PTO from the P&W, is currently operated as a train-to-truck structural steel transfer facility by TransLoad America, Inc. (TLA), PTO’s parent company, and the P&W. TLA, incorporated in Delaware, operates a C&D facility in Newark, NJ, that is one-half the size of proposed Pawtucket facility. The P&W is a small regional freight railroad with connections to the Midwest and Canada via Worcester, MA.


DEVELOPMENT HISTORY:
PTO obtained a certificate of zoning compliance for a proposed trash processing and transfer facility from the City of Pawtucket (City) in 2003. When the Planning Director ruled that the certificate had essentially been issued in error and in contradiction of the zoning ordinance, PTO filed an appeal to the Zoning Board of Review. The City Council unanimously spoke in opposition to the plan, citing its negative effects on the reviving downtown. PTO withdrew its earlier request for a variance under the terms of the zoning code, and chose to appeal their right to develop the site under the existing certificates of compliance. This change in process resulted in cancellation of a hearing that would have provided opportunity for public comment. On November 9, 2004, the Zoning Board of Review voted 5-0 to deny the appeal. Later that month PTO filed a $10 million damages claim against the city for forbidding their zoning approval. In February 2005 the City rejected that claim. In February of 2005 PTO filed their zoning appeal in RI Superior Court. On June 22, 2006, the court ruled in PTO’s favor, sending them back to the City for the zoning compliance certificate. The City plans to file a “writ of certiorari,” asking the Superior Court to consider an appeal. The court is not required to honor the request.


City Council President Don Grebien and our District 6 Councilor David Clemente want to fight the proposed transfer station and agree that it could be catastrophic to development downtown. PTO has already offered to pay a “host fee” to the City to compensate for the negative effects of the site but the City has so far refused to entertain any compromises.


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THE PROPOSED FACILITY:
PTO has stated that the proposed facility could accept up to 2,000 tons per day (tpd) of construction and demolition debris (C&D) including wood products, masonry, metal, glass, and paper. The facility will serve a 45-mile radius, with 75 percent of the debris coming from Massachusetts, and the rest from Rhode Island. According to the company this material will arrive by truck, be dumped and processed, and loaded onto rail cars and sent to recyclers and landfills in the Midwest. All activity will take place inside a large building. The facility would operate from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., six days a week (Monday through Saturday). It would employ 30 people, working in two, 15-man shifts.

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Based on PTO’s figures, the facility could handle up to 624,000 tons of debris a year. By comparison, this is only 40,000 tons per year less than the C&D handled by Rhode Island Resource Recovery, Inc, at the Johnston Landfill. The City of Pawtucket collects 130 tons of household waste from its neighborhoods every weekday, for a total of 650 tons a week, or 33,800 tons a year. PTO’s facility is proposed to handle up to 18½ times the waste generated by the City. Only one other existing facility in New England–in North Haven, CT–is currently rated for a higher volume of trash transfer (2,300 tpd) than the proposed Pawtucket facility.

THE POTENTIAL EFFECTS:
The proposed PTO C&D transfer facility has the potential to have significant cumulative adverse direct and indirect environmental and economic effects on downtown Pawtucket’s image, future, health, residents and businesses. Many of these effects would be practically difficult for PTO to mitigate:


Visual Impacts: Introduction of a large, modern industrial building and associated operations into a historic landscape of mostly vacant or light industrial-use nineteenth-century mill lofts, dense residential neighborhoods, and a historic park and cemetery. Nighttime light pollution from industrial floodlamps at night and in inclement weather, and in winter for as long as 14 hours a day in adjacent neighborhoods


Noise Impacts: Truck engine acceleration, deceleration, conventional and “jake” braking; train locomotive exhaust, braking; freight car switching, coupling and uncoupling; debris handling, including noise from a grinder if one is included in operations
Fume/Dust/Odor Impacts: Large quantities of carcinogenic truck, loader, and railroad locomotive diesel exhaust emitted on city streets and vented from the facility


Traffic Impacts: Truck traffic on the shortest route to/from I-95 (Exit 27 inbound via Pine Street (9 residences) and outbound via Garden Street (16 residences)). Trucks could also use Roosevelt Avenue, Exchange Street, Mineral Spring Avenue, etc. to access the site, traversing downtown Pawtucket and/or residential areas


Vibration Impacts: Impact of heavily-laden tractor trailers and other trucks on street pavement structure and adjacent buildings over time
Economic and Social Impacts: The overwhelming combined impact of the above environmental effects could lower property values, raise insurance rates, and affect our health, the quality of life, and the long-term viability of new residential and commercial investment in downtown Pawtucket. It would reverse the progress that is just now beginning to turn downtown Pawtucket around. The loss of residential conversion projects like Union Wadding and 60 Dexter Street would discourage further investment and deny a potential new urban neighborhood the critical mass of people it needs to support new restaurants and businesses. The PTO transfer station has the potential to prevent the goal of a sustainable, walkable, enjoyable, beautiful downtown Pawtucket.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR RESPONSE:
Construction of the PTO transfer station will not begin immediately. The City of Pawtucket is currently investigating appropriate legal options. The next opportunities for public comment will likely be hearings before the RI Department of Environmental Management (DEM) and the Pawtucket City Planning Commission. Pawtucket residents do need to be prepared for these hearings, which PADS will announce. In the meantime, PADS is drafting a statement opposing the transfer station and offering its support to the City of Pawtucket, with a petition and press releases to follow. PADS is generating a list of addresses for federal, state and local politicians and agencies for distribution of the PADS statement. The contact list will be made available to PADS members for a personal letter writing campaign.

[Recchia]

Where would something like this normally go? It seems like a good location for it since it has rail and highway access. And why would it be detrimental to development downtown, is it that much of a LULU? I'm not saying I'm in favor of it or anything, but I need to see more pros and cons.

[eltron]

A. This is the alternate location for the train station. In many ways, it might be the preferred location.

B. It doesn't have easy highway access. Most of the truck traffic would be traveling on the already screwed up downtown streets.

C. Its directly adjacent to both a residential neighborhood and the area where several of the redevelopment proposals are. Its like saying it would be a good fit at Station Park or Capitol Cove because it has easy rail and highway access, or ALCO. This is a BIG operation.

It probably belongs at Quonset, or Johnston near the existing central landfill.

[Recchia]

Ahh okay. I looked it up on a map after and realized this is the option 2 spot for the commuter rail station.

Quonset would be a good place for it given its so isolated and it now has excellent rail and highway access, but NK residents would NEVER EVER let it be built. Wayy to much NIMBYism and elitism in that neck of the woods....

[Cotuit]

Recchia, on Jul 31 2006, 06:09 PM, said:

but NK residents would NEVER EVER let it be built. Wayy to much NIMBYism and elitism in that neck of the woods...

I know this is crazy and would never happen, but couldn't the state make Quonset its own town, or state administered district (like the District of Columbia)? The cities and towns exist only with the blessing of the state, the state could dissolve them all. There's probably something in the Constitution about he residents needing to approve of a division, but if we can give sweetheart deals to the Harragansetts within the Constitution, we can really do anything we want with it right?

[Lone Ranger]

Cotuit, on Jul 31 2006, 11:02 PM, said:

I know this is crazy and would never happen, but couldn't the state make Quonset its own town, or state administered district (like the District of Columbia)? The cities and towns exist only with the blessing of the state, the state could dissolve them all. There's probably something in the Constitution about he residents needing to approve of a division, but if we can give sweetheart deals to the Harragansetts within the Constitution, we can really do anything we want with it right?

Thinking outside the box.

Quonset would be perfect for this. Um, speaking of NIMBYism, I assume Pawtucket residents would also be up-in-arms about a noisy, dirty, ugly, traffic-plaguing, obtrusive proposal like this in the heart of their city, lessening their property values, would they not?

[Recchia]

Lone Ranger, on Aug 1 2006, 11:01 PM, said:

Thinking outside the box.

Quonset would be perfect for this. Um, speaking of NIMBYism, I assume Pawtucket residents would also be up-in-arms about a noisy, dirty, ugly, traffic-plaguing, obtrusive proposal like this in the heart of their city, lessening their property values, would they not?

Yeah, and technically they'd be NIMBY's as well. The difference is, a location at Quonset would have far less impacts on any residential neighborhood than it would going where they want it in Pawtucket. In Quonset it could be isolated away from residences yet still have excellent sea, rail and highway access. In Pawtucket it'd be right up against an already struggling downtown and a dense residential area. I can see the claims of environmental racism already if it were to built in the Bucket, and am not disagreeing with them.

[Lone Ranger]

Recchia, on Aug 2 2006, 10:38 AM, said:

Yeah, and technically they'd be NIMBY's as well. The difference is, a location at Quonset would have far less impacts on any residential neighborhood than it would going where they want it in Pawtucket. In Quonset it could be isolated away from residences yet still have excellent sea, rail and highway access. In Pawtucket it'd be right up against an already struggling downtown and a dense residential area. I can see the claims of environmental racism already if it were to built in the Bucket, and am not disagreeing with them.

Exactly. They'd both be NIMBY's, except with the key difference that Pawtucket's residents (IMHO) would have a legitimate beef with a project like this, whereas NK's residents wouldn't. But my point is, if NK residents can kill a project like this in their town, can't Pawtucket's residents do the same? They can certainly put up a fight.

[JimmyGreaves]

Not sure if this is related......
Debris recycling facility scrapped

[Dan]

I used to live on Beech St and truly feel like this neighborhood, thought blighted, has a chance... it sounds like the special interests from the Mass side of the MBTA comm rail partnership are hard at work trying to keep this undesirable operation in RI when 3/4 of the stuff is coming from the Commonwealth.

Not in my bucket! I'm opposed.

[frymasterspeck]

PADS Meeting Tonight
Major Topic: Proposed Dump, errrrr, Transfer Station
6:30 Social, 7 pm meeting
Mixed Magic Theater, in the Visitors Center

[ellenmr]

We are experiencing a similar situation in Lockport, IL. Although, this will be a transmodal for plastic, steel & lumber - to start! The Mayor & property owner is totally in favor of this. Neither is concerned for our historic downtown area, the pollution, noise, increase truck traffic, endangered species & wetland areas etc. What was the outcome of your situation? We need all the information possible in order to defeat this & the developer will be back 10/17 to present a new plan to the city. please email directly to carelockport@usa.com or be14400@bigfoot.com - Thanks

[BigUglyCat]

JimmyGreaves, on Aug 16 2006, 12:58 PM, said:

Not sure if this is related......
Debris recycling facility scrapped

Jimmy, that's not it. I know where they mean. I used to bicycle around there in the '60's. I'm in agreement with several above posts. This is absolutely insane. The incinerator that used to be five minutes from my house near the Smithfield Ave. bridge over the railroad tracks, which at some point moved to Grotto Ave not far from Nathanael Greene Grammar School, was bad enough. It's not my back yard anymore, but I hope this goes the way of all ridiculous ideas.

[Frankie811]

In what has been a long and contentious battle, the city recently won a favorable ruling from a federal court judge in a lawsuit that was brought by the owners of company who want to create a trash transfer station on railroad property located off Pine Street near downtown.

[BigUglyCat]

Frankie811, on Apr 9 2008, 07:58 AM, said:

In what has been a long and contentious battle, the city recently won a favorable ruling from a federal court judge in a lawsuit that was brought by the owners of company who want to create a trash transfer station on railroad property located off Pine Street near downtown.

If any of you are still confused, the site is west of the intersection of Goff Avenue and Pine Street, bounded on the northwest by railroad tracks. I wanted to give you a Google map, but I'm still a feeb at that sort of thing.

[mental757]

PBN: "Judge dismisses Pawtucket Transfer claims against city"

http://www.pbn.com/stories/30657.html

[BigUglyCat]

mental757, on Apr 10 2008, 09:50 AM, said:

PBN: "Judge dismisses Pawtucket Transfer claims against city"

http://www.pbn.com/stories/30657.html

From that Providence Business News article: "...a downtown site also under consideration as a commuter-rail stop."

How do you folks feel about that other possibility?

[frymasterspeck]

BigUglyCat, on Apr 11 2008, 03:56 PM, said:

From that Providence Business News article: "...a downtown site also under consideration as a commuter-rail stop."

How do you folks feel about that other possibility?

Has it been so long that my cookie timed out? I just had to log in. BY HAND!

I'll say it now and you can all jump up and down on my worthless carcass: I like this site better than the Broad St site.

1 - Closer to the concentrated populations in the converted mills. That Slater Cotton one is BIG. Plus Hope Webbing and Bailey. Probably a wash from Riverfront.

2 - Closer to downtown. (Yes, it's possible that people will get OFF the train, too.)

3 - Easier highway access does not require going through the Goff/Exchange/Broad silliness.

4 - Easier to site multi-level parking

5 - Easier to site additional track to satisfy Amtrak

6 - Closer to my house.

Mostly, it's that last one.

Edited by frymasterspeck, 17 April 2008 - 10:50 AM.