Can Georgetown Limit Mello to 50-tons of Trash?

GEORGETOWN – The town learned from its lawyer last week that the new town’s bylaw prohibiting a trash transfer station from having the capacity to process more than 50 tons a day may not apply to J. Mello’s Disposal Corp.’ proposed 500-ton/per day trash transfer station near Interstate 95.
“It is not an easy question,” Jonathan Eichman told Bruce Fried, the vice chair of the planning board.
Eichman said it is his opinion that although the state Attorney General has approved the 50-ton/per day limit, approved by Town Meeting, state law may allow the larger transfer station.
The proposed Mello transfer station is back before the town’s planning board, which rejected it last year. On appeal of that rejection, the state Land Court Justice Kevin Smith reversed the Planning Board’s decision, but ruled that Mello must face a new review of its proposal under the town’s Major Development because it exceeds 30,000 square feet in size.
Smith found that the planning board could not deny Mello the right to build the trash station, but could impose “reasonable” limitations.
The town’s Board of Health has already imposed restrictions that limit the size of the station for the first four years.
The Health Board limited the new trash station to 150 tons per day for the first and second years of operation, 350 tons per day for the third, 450 tons per day in year four and 550 tons beginning in year five.
To begin its new review of the trash station, the Planning Board voted to have outside consultants review the Mello proposal on several aspects, including the noise and pollution it might cause. The board also is seeking an estimate on how much Mello will have to pay to reconstruct Carleton Road to handle the increase in 18-wheel trucks and other vehicles using the transfer station.
Meanwhile, the town’s Conservation Commission (ConComm), which also rejected Mello’s proposed trash station and is waiting on a decision by the Land Court, is back to full strength this week after almost a year with a vacancy the Board of Selectmen would not fill.
The two members, who were voted off the commission, had joined the unanimous decision by the commission not to approve the trash transfer station.
Rebecca Chane, who had served six years on the commission before being voted off, was reappointed for a two-year term. Ida Wye, a landscape designer, who was earlier rejected as a new appointment to fill a vacancy, was appointed to a three-year term.
Wye owns a landscape design firm, is a certified wetlands specialist and was an inspector and teacher at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, specializing in soil science and agronomy.
And she knows the town’s wetland regulations, which few other residents do.
The previous Board of Selectmen refused to seat Wye on the ConComm. But that was before two selectmen were replaced and a new chair of the Selectboard was voted in.
Wye’s application to be a member of the commission last week was approved unanimously.
The Health Board also restricted operations during rush hour traffic in the morning and evening and mandated a police detail at the intersection of Rte. 133 and Carleton Road for the first 60 days of operation. All tractor trailers leaving the station must turn east on Rte. 133 toward Interstate 95.
And it ordered Mello to reconstruct the narrow and deteriorating Carleton Drive, which would be the only access for the 18-wheeler trucks and smaller vehicles to the station.